Quest of the Golden Ape Page 15

  CHAPTER XV

  _The Golden Ape_

  Hultax the Abarian shook himself. He had lost consciousness as everynerve-ending in his body had screamed with pain. Did this havesomething to do with the warp--warping?--Bram Forest had mentioned.Hultax the Abarian did not know. But he did know that he was alive, asalive as anyone could be or had a right to be in the Place of theDead. And he did know, gratefully, that the intense cold of the Riverof Ice was gone.

  He wondered how long he had been unconscious. He blinked his eyes. Abalmy, pink-tinted sky. A pink sun, not on the horizon, when indeedthe sun might be pink, but overhead. On the horizon--Hultax blinkedagain and thought he was mad--a second sun, smaller, paler, the ghostof green in color.

  The royal barge was in ruins. It had piled up on some rocks. The bierof Jlomec, Prince of Nadia, had been thrown clear. He could see it onthe bank, also in ruins. He stood up unsteadily, then waded throughthe shallow water in which he'd regained consciousness, over to thewreck of the royal barge. The fingers of his right hand were poisedinches from the hilt of his whip-sword. Slay Bram Forest and the girlif the wreck hadn't already killed them? He shook his head. BramForest knew more about this strange place, this world of the pink sunand the green sun, than he did.

  * * * * *

  He climbed over the wreckage, and finally came upon the two bodies. Hewent down on his knees beside them. They were covered with blood. Theywere broken--broken being the only word that could describe them. Theyhad been crushed, perhaps by falling timber, perhaps by the bier ofJlomec as it hurtled over the side. There probably was not a bone ineither of their bodies, at least a major bone, which had not beencrushed.

  They were dead.

  With a craftiness which surprised even himself, Hultax remembered thedead Bram Forest's words. It was the bracelet with the shining discwhich gave Bram Forest the power to appear and disappear at will, asRetoc had described. Or, as Bram Forest had put it, to journey betweenthe worlds. Carefully, Hultax took the bracelet--it was miraculouslyintact--from the crushed, broken arm of Bram Forest's corpse. Hecircled his own arm with it and felt, or imagined he felt, aninstantaneous source of power surge through his body. Without lookingback at the broken bodies of the man and woman who had found love and,finding it, died in each other's arms, he made his way from the riverbank across a pleasant green meadow. Far in the distance he saw a darkblur which looked like a forest. It was many miles away, almost at thelimit of vision.

  Yet, incredibly, it seemed to rush up at him. It was not merely thatHultax the Abarian walked with a warrior's long stride toward theforest. It was as if the forest rushed toward him. A different world.He remembered Bram Forest's words vaguely. A warped world? Somethinglike that. Naturally, Hultax was afraid. This was the Place of theDead, wasn't it? But still, Bram Forest's cool if little-understoodscientific explanation quieted his fear. Besides, didn't he have thebracelet-disc-amulet? What could happen to him now?

  Bylanus the Golden Ape, only two-thousand seven hundred years old,quite young as Golden Apes went, saw the wreck of the barge from agreat distance. He extended his vision through warp-space and spottedthe tiny figure of a man trudging away from the wreckage. Bylanussquinted, and shifted his buttocks on the saddle. Bylanus was fifteenfeet tall and weighed eight-hundred pounds. The steed he rode, abouttwice the size of an Earth elephant, looked like a blown-up crossbetween a Tarthian stad and an Earth horse.

  Bylanus stared, then sat up very straight in his stirrups. Somethinggleamed on the man's arm. Bylanus gaped.

  It was the bracelet of Portox-saviour.

  Bylanus used his will to psychokinesthize the man. The man, stillapparently trudging along, sped toward him.

  Bylanus climbed down from his stallion and prepared to bow, allfifteen feet and eight hundred pounds of him, before the man.

  At first Hultax could think only of fleeing. Abruptly before him stooda monster-stad and a man. No, not a man. A man-like figure pelted withsoft, smooth, lusterous, golden fur. The stad--the not-quite-stad--wasfive times bigger than a stad had a right to be. The man, even as heunexpectedly bent before Hultax, was almost three times Hultax'sheight. Man? No, not a man. Hultax, rooted with fear to the spot,unable to run, opened his mouth to cry out. But his vocal chords wereparalyzed.

  * * * * *

  This was no man. It was the Golden Ape of legend, the Golden Ape ofthe Place of the Dead....

  "Portox-saviour," said the Golden Ape quite distinctly. Then hepointed a forefinger almost the size of Hultax' forearm at thebracelet Hultax wore.

  Hultax took a deep breath and could feel the strength returning to hislegs. Like all military officers, he was an opportunist. He had to be,for in battle one had to seize upon opportunity as soon as itappeared, if one were to win at all....

  Hultax said, his voice surprisingly steady: "You may rise."

  The Ape did so. The stallion pawed the ground, and great clods flew.Hultax was trembling, but the Ape, speaking in Hultax' own language,in the language of all Tarth, said: "Are you really from Portox? Itseems like only yesterday he was here although, of course, your peopleand mine measure time differently."

  "I am from Portox," Hultax said. He wished he could keep his kneesfrom trembling.

  "Portox-saviour said that one day a man would come, to ask us for helpeven as Portox helped us in our time of troubles," the Ape proclaimed.

  "Yes," Hultax muttered.

  "What kind of help do you wish?"

  Hultax stared, saying nothing. He did not know what to say. He lackedthe imagination to make something up. Somehow, he knew it was terriblyimportant. He knew without knowing how he knew that his life mightdepend on his answer.

  "Well?" the Golden Ape asked gently.

  "I ... that is...."

  The Ape's eyes narrowed as he looked down at Hultax. "You _are_ fromPortox?"

  "Yes, yes. Of course."

  "I see you have the bracelet."

  "Yes, here is the bracelet."

  "And the cloak of Portox?" demanded the Ape. "The cloak Portoxforetold you would wear?"

  "I--I lost the cloak in my journey," lied Hultax, not knowing aboutany cloak. There, he thought, that ought to satisfy him.

  But the Ape said: "There was no cloak."

  "No cloak? No cloak!"

  "I made that up, to test you. You're not from Portox."

  The stallion pawed the ground and looked up and then down at Hultax,snorting. Hultax, trembling, wished he could melt into the ground.

  * * * * *

  "Still," Hultax said, shaking, "I am from Portox. You tried to trickme. You...."

  "We shall see," the Ape said, still pleasantly. "Come."

  The ground rolled, or so it seemed to Hultax. The forest loomed aheadof him, then trees were all around him, then they stood on a rollingplain again.

  "Where--did you take me?"

  The Ape smiled. He seemed quite human despite his size, despite hisfur. The stallion pawed the ground impatiently.

  "Behold," said the Ape.

  Something on the fringe of the forest screamed. It was an awful soundand it made the hackles stand upright on Hultax's bull-neck. He drewhis whip-sword and faced the forest.

  "Well, man," chided the Golden Ape, "and do you need a weapon? Portoxtold us we would know his man because his man, unarmed, would be ableto conquer the wild boar of the Kranuian Wood. And you?"

  The screaming came again. Terrified, Hultax did not fling his weaponaside. Wild boar? What wild boar ... time enough later ... to convincethe Ape....

  The boar emerged. It was almost as big as a man and covered with dirtygray hair. Its tusks were two feet long. The stallion whinnied butremained perfectly still. The Golden Ape waited and watched. The boarcharged.

  Hultax's right arm blurred and the mobile blade of the whip-swordwhizzed through air and struck the boar's meaty shoulder. The boarscreamed, and came on.

  It was, Hultax realized in desp
air, only a superficial wound. The boarcame on, bleeding, furious. He tried to lunge aside. He yanked at thewhip-sword and it came loose, making him lose his balance. The boarreached him, screaming.

  Never slackening its pace, the boar gored him, and wheeled about,clods flying, to gore again. Hultax' voice bubbled in his throat. Theboar was on him again, its tusks sharp as razors....

  Finally it stood clear, nervously eyeing Bylanus and the stallion.Then it turned and, slowly, with great dignity, retreated into theKranuian Wood, which was its home.

  The man, Bylanus saw at a glance, was dead. As an imposter, he haddeserved to die. Bylanus quickly dug a shallow grave with a large,sharp-edged stone, and rolled the body in. As he did so he noticedthat the bracelet--the bracelet of Portox-saviour, or, more probably,a copy of that bracelet intended to trick him--had been battered,punctured, and broken by the boar. Even if it had been the realbracelet, the amazing steel-silver disc of Portox-saviour, it wouldnow be useless. Sighing, Bylanus buried it with Hultax' body.

  * * * * *

  Bylanus mounted his steed and galloped toward the river. He could havepsychokinesthized himself there, but the day was brilliant and clear,and he was in no great hurry. At last he reached the wreck of theroyal barge of Nadia. He did not pause to examine Jlomec's bier, hehad seen such funerary devices before.

  Something in the wreck itself confused him. There was a man. There wasa woman. That fit the ritual--two servants to accompany dead royaltyon its way. This was the custom of the Nadians. But the man....

  On the man's crushed arm, the arm completely covered with blood, was amark. It was as if something--say, a band of metal--had protected thearm at one point. For circling the upper arm was a band of skin notbloody like the rest, wide in the shape of a disc, then narrow allaround.

  The bracelet of Portox-saviour! thought Bylanus. Had this dead manworn it? Had the imposter, now slain by the wild boar, taken it fromhim?

  _Oh Portox-saviour, Portox-saviour, how long dead? Am I too late, isit too late for this man, your heir...?_

  As gently as he could, the huge Bylanus lifted the two bodies and putthem in his saddle-bags. He faced the Kranuian Wood astride. Thestallion held its head up, alert, ready. They psychokinesthized.

  And disappeared in a twinkling with Bram Forest and Ylia, both of whomwere dead.