Read Ebook: Sword of the Seven Suns by Fox Gardner F Gardner Francis

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Ebook has 444 lines and 20234 words, and 9 pages

"The Dragon Gate," Flane whispered, and ran.

Their leader had been Norda, a thin genius with a mind as curious as a question. It was Norda who put the machine together, who directed that the people should live in walled city-states against the inroads of the vast numbers of barbaric Darksiders. In the machine Norda had stored power, endless quanta of it. That power gave the Klarnva their lights, their heat, their luxuries. They grew used to it. The Machine even furnished them with weapons, so far superior to those of the Darksiders that the latter looked on them with awe.

When the Machine went dead twenty-five years ago, the city-states of the Klarnva went dead, too. There was no light, no heat. Gone were the power-driven vehicles, the entertaining-screens. People groped upward as from a fog, seeking the source of that power. They recalled that the Keeper of the Machine had disappeared around the same time as the Machine stopped. Moreover, the vast prism in the desert was smashed. Something from outer space had crushed it.

All knew that there was a key to the Machine that would start it into motion. Many of them had tried to move it, from the Princess Gleya down to Flane. None of them were successful.

"Neither was Vawdar," grated Flane, racing beneath a balcony, skidding on restless feet around a corner.

There was clamour ahead of him. Hearing the hoarse cries of men fighting, the rasp of blades meeting and falling away, Flane went forward like the arrow from the bow. His blade was naked in the night, a length of glittering steel. He could see the Dragon Gates now: tall red blocks of stone hewn into the royal emblem of Klarn, red dragons, with real flame spurting from between their teeth to light the gateway below.

In the crimson glare, men struggled. As Flane shot into the mass of men, he saw Vawdar, bound at wrist and ankle, leaning against the wall of a building.

Flane sliced a dagger across Vawdar's bonds, heard his swift, "They fight with strangers whom I do not know. Be swift, Flane, that we may escape!"

For the first time, the swordsman beheld his allies. They were Klarnva, all of them; muffled in long black cloaks from which only their arms that held their blades appeared. Klarnva, but unfamiliar to him.

The black-cloaked men reformed their ranks, swept around them as a shield. There was one of them who did not fight, who stood, still and silent, looking on. Flane went for him, crying, "Who are you? Why do you make our fight your fight?"

The arm he held in his powerful hand was soft and slender. The hood fell back, and in the moonlight Flane gazed into a white face in which red-brown eyes stared back at him. Massy coils of red hair that blew in the breeze came loose, and flicked across his face. He breathed in the faint perfume of the girl, and looked at her full, red mouth.

All red, she seemed, and the smooth sheen of her skin was like the satin-stuffs that came from distant Yeelya. Flane grinned at her.

"Girl," he whispered, "you walk with death tonight!" and drew her with him out of the path of a thrown knife that clanked against a brick wall behind where they stood.

"Fall back!" a tall stranger cried to him, and Flane drew the girl and Vawdar with him into an alleyway.

"We have mounts beyond the Dragon Gate," she said hurriedly, stumbling along. "We came for Vawdar, knowing the rebellion that threatens his life."

Flane turned to Vawdar, seeing his face redden in the crimson light of the flambeau inset in the wall overhead.

"The key you gave me," he said hurriedly. "It didn't work."

"I know. I've learned the real key in the meantime--"

The girl whispered swiftly, "Can you use it? Turn the machine on tonight? That's why we came, knowing that any hope of using the machine depends on you, Vawdar!"

The man shook his head. A laugh sat in his throat, almost evil in his bitterness. Against the background of clashing blades and grated oaths, and the rasping breathing of men fighting in the street, it was hollow in despair.

"Tonight? No. And not for many nights after this, and perhaps never. Because, you see--"

A shout hurtled upwards from the throat of a man who was turning into their alley. Men raced behind him, shouting. With his naked left arm, Flane swept the girl behind him, grinning, whispering, "Now they've caught us. Between two gangs, in this alley."

There was only one city-state of the Klarnva in the south: Moornal. Yet Moornal was remote from Klarn; so remote that, since the Machine went dead, it was looked upon almost as a myth.

"Yes," said the girl in answer to Flane's quick questions. "From Moornal. We, too, have felt the bite of want without the Machine to feed us. We are desperate."

The last man fell in front of Flane. He whirled and raced toward the blue-coated men who were fighting at the alley's entrance.

The girl was staring at Flane with dark moons for eyes, standing solitary under the stone lintel of the gate. He shot toward her, put out an arm and swept her up against him, racing beyond the gate.

But Flane only saw and heard these things dimly. For the girl that was in the crook of his arm, pressed soft against him, was working a strange magic on him. He saw her face framed by the wild red hair, and the dark, mysterious eyes, and the generous mouth. Under moonlight she was enchantment come to life.

He bent and kissed her.

Dimly, he realized that he was mad to stand kissing this girl while men shouted and horses whinnied, but he put the thought from him.

The storm broke, then.

There were men with swords all around them, shouting triumph. Shoulders bumped them, drove them against a horse. Flane heard Vawdar yell, saw him bend from the saddle and stretch an arm toward them.

They were going away from the Moornalians now. Flane saw them, bobbing shadows moving into the night. He flung up an arm, and waved. There was red hair blowing free in the wind, over there, and Flane felt as though he watched his life ebbing from him, staring across at her.

After many hours, Flane became aware that Vawdar rode too silently. He himself was full of the flame of the red-haired girl, but Vawdar should be talking, revealing the secret of the key to the Machine.

He turned--and then cursed softly.

Vawdar lay across the neck of his mount. In the moons' light, Flane could see the haft of a dagger distending from the middle of his back. Up and down he bobbed, arms interwoven with the reins to prevent his falling.

With gentle hands Flane drew him down; made him easy on the sands, with cloak at his neck, and a flagon of wine at his lips.

Vawdar whispered, "They got me in front of the gate, just as we were clearing them. Someone threw a dagger."

Flane was bitter. "My fault. Fool, fool! Forgive me, Vawdar!"

The older man chuckled softly, "It is good for Klarn that there is one man who can stop to kiss a wench when men are dying all around him. It bodes high hope for the future, Flane."

But the dark-haired youth would not be soothed. He said things about himself until Vawdar writhed suddenly on the ground, back arched.

"I haven't--much time," the man on the sand whispered.

Flane bent, ear to his mouth.

"The key of the Machine, it--it isn't what--we think. It--"

He moved Vawdar with an arm under his shoulder, staring at the pallid face. "Vawdar! Speak to me!"

The man moved his head from side to side. His eyes opened, staring. They focused, after a moment. "The prophecy, Flane. The prophecy--"

Flane scowled. Prophecy? He knew no prophecy. Yet wait--

There came to Vawdar that false strength that some experience before death. He said strongly, "The key is lost, Flane. It may never be found. In certain records that your moth--the Princess Gleya, rather--kept, there was mention of it. She never knew, apparently. When the Keeper disappeared so long ago, he had the key with him.

"If you can find the Keeper, he will have the key. Search, Flane, Search!"

The man stiffened, opened his mouth wide for air.

Flane said softly, "But what is the key like? Is it big? Small? Is--"

Flane opened his eyes wide and put out a hand. The flesh he touched was yet warm, but--

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