第87章

Silence and gloom and the dust of centuries lay heavy upon the chamber.From his warriors he knew the route that he must take to the horrid chamber of O-Mai and so he forced his unwilling feet across the room before him, across the room where the jetan players sat at their eternal game, and came to the short corridor that led into the room of O-Mai.His naked sword trembled in his grasp.He paused after each forward step to listen and when he was almost at the door of the ghost-haunted chamber, his heart stood still within his breast and the cold sweat broke from the clammy skin of his forehead, for from within there came to his affrighted ears the sound of muffled breathing.Then it was that O-Tar of Manator came near to fleeing from the nameless horror that he could not see, but that he knew lay waiting for him in that chamber just ahead.But again came the fear of the wrath and contempt of his warriors and his chiefs.They would degrade him and they would slay him into the bargain.There was no doubt of what his fate would be should he flee the apartments of O-Mai in terror.His only hope, therefore, lay in daring the unknown in preference to the known.

He moved forward.A few steps took him to the doorway.The chamber before him was darker than the corridor, so that he could just indistinctly make out the objects in the room.He saw a sleeping dais near the center, with a darker blotch of something lying on the marble floor beside it.He moved a step farther into the doorway and the scabbard of his sword scraped against the stone frame.To his horror he saw the sleeping silks and furs upon the central dais move.He saw a figure slowly arising to a sitting posture from the death bed of O-Mai the Cruel.His knees shook, but he gathered all his moral forces, and gripping his sword more tightly in his trembling fingers prepared to leap across the chamber upon the horrid apparition.He hesitated just a moment.He felt eyes upon him--ghoulish eyes that bored through the darkness into his withering heart--eyes that he could not see.He gathered himself for the rush--and then there broke from the thing upon the couch an awful shriek, and O-Tar sank senseless to the floor.

Gahan rose from the couch of O-Mai, smiling, only to swing quickly about with drawn sword as the shadow of a noise impinged upon his keen ears from the shadows behind him.Between the parted hangings he saw a bent and wrinkled figure.It was I-Gos.

"Sheathe your sword, Turan," said the old man."You have naught to fear from I-Gos.""What do you here?" demanded Gahan.

"I came to make sure that the great coward did not cheat us.Ey, and he called me 'doddering fool;' but look at him now! Stricken insensible by terror, but, ey, one might forgive him that who had heard your uncanny scream.It all but blasted my own courage.And it was you, then, who moaned and screamed when the chiefs came the day that I stole Tara from you?""It was you, then, old scoundrel?" demanded Gahan, moving threateningly toward I-Gos.

"Come, come!" expostulated the old man; "it was I, but then I was your enemy.I would not do it now.Conditions have changed.""How have they changed? What has changed them?" asked Gahan.

"Then I did not fully realize the cowardice of my jeddak, or the bravery of you and the girl.I am an old man from another age and I love courage.At first I resented the girl's attack upon me, but later I came to see the bravery of it and it won my admiration, as have all her acts.She feared not O-tar, she feared not me, she feared not all the warriors of Manator.And you! Blood of a million sires! how you fight! I am sorry that Iexposed you at The Fields of Jetan.I am sorry that I dragged the girl Tara back to O-Tar.I would make amends.I would be your friend.Here is my sword at your feet," and drawing his weapon I-Gos cast it to the floor in front of Gahan.

The Gatholian knew that scarce the most abandoned of knaves would repudiate this solemn pledge, and so he stooped, and picking up the old man's sword returned it to him, hilt first, in acceptance of his friendship.

"Where is the Princess Tara of Helium?" asked Gahan."Is she safe?""She is confined in the tower of the women's quarters awaiting the ceremony that is to make her Jeddara of Manator," replied I-Gos.

"This thing dared think that Tara of Helium would mate with him?"growled Gahan."I will make short work of him if he is not already dead from fright," and he stepped toward the fallen O-Tar to run his sword through the jeddak's heart.

"No!" cried I-Gos."Slay him not and pray that he be not dead if you would save your princess.""How is that?" asked Gahan.

"If word of O-Tar's death reached the quarters of the women the Princess Tara would be lost.They know O-Tar's intention of taking her to wife and making her Jeddara of Manator, so you may rest assured that they all hate her with the hate of jealous women.Only O-Tar's power protects her now from harm.Should O-Tar die they would turn her over to the warriors and the male slaves, for there would be none to avenge her."Gahan sheathed his sword."Your point is well taken; but what shall we do with him?""Leave him where he lies," counseled I-Gos."He is not dead.When he revives he will return to his quarters with a fine tale of his bravery and there will be none to impugn his boasts--none but I-Gos.Come! he may revive at any moment and he must not find us here."I-Gos crossed to the body of his jeddak, knelt beside it for an instant, and then returned past the couch to Gahan.The two quit the chamber of O-Mai and took their way toward the spiral runway.

Here I-Gos led Gahan to a higher level and out upon the roof of that portion of the palace from where he pointed to a high tower quite close by."There," he said, "lies the Princess of Helium, and quite safe she will be until the time of the ceremony.""Safe, possibly, from other hands, but not from her own," said Gahan."She will never become Jeddara of Manator--first will she destroy herself.""She would do that?" asked I-Gos.