Sojan the Swordsman Read online

  “A century or more ago the people rose against their oppressors, country by country, until the evil Priesthood was driven back, further and further, to seek refuge on this island, the original capital of the old Imperial Theocracy. It was here that the cult, based on worship of us, was spawned and, if you can help us, it is here that it will die. Otherwise a new Age of Winter shall cover the world in a cloak of death! They know how to torture us. They will make us do these things, even though now we think we can resist. And this time, too, will bring that false promise of freedom. And this time, too, will come our grasping for false hope, and this time, too, will come betrayal. Then will come a short period of rest until we are ready to be tortured again. Until, eventually, we succumb and do their work without the threat of torture or the promise of freedom but only so that we shall not have to fear either!

  “This time they have sworn to keep their promise to us of freedom, O, Man! Freedom after thousands of decades. Freedom after aeons of despair. We would follow our brothers, we would travel the infinite depths of Space and Time were we once released. We would see Suns and Planets, green things. Seas and Plains. For us these things are worth more than life. We are of them more than Man — for we, like the planets and stars, and the grass that grows for ever, are almost immortal. We have no bodies, as Man knows bodies, no senses as Man interprets senses — we are Minds. You can see that the temptation is great! We were not strong-willed to begin with. We were flattered by Man’s petty ceremonies. Now that he offers us Light and Freedom again. He lies and we all know we have no real choice but we must accept.” A long pause and then, tinged with just a little real hope:

  “Unless there is another way.”

  “There may be another way,” Sojan said. “If you will but tell me how you are imprisoned, perhaps I can release you!”

  “There are certain minerals, rare and almost unknown, which have the properties of lead compared to radium. Radium cannot harm or pass through lead. Similarly, although we can pass through most minerals and life forms, we are imprisoned if we enter a certain precious stone. We can enter it, but by some strange trick of nature, our beings cannot pass back through it. Thus we were enticed centuries ago, into these blocks of ermtri stone. The only way in which we can escape is by someone outside boring shafts into the blocks and thus cutting channels through which we can pass.

  “Do you understand?”

  Dimly Sojan did understand, though his brain was shaken by the effort of trying to imagine beings so utterly alien to Man, yet in some ways akin to him. For the first time in his adult life his hand trembled as he picked up the torch and cast its light towards the centre of the hall.

  There on an altar, covered by a crimson cloth, rested five large blocks of some dark, cloudy blue substance.

  The substance was not hard in the way a diamond is hard. It had a softness to it and resembled blue jade of the purest quality. Yet it was not jade. It sparkled like diamonds. Even in legends, it was a stone of which Sojan, who had travelled across almost the whole of his planet, had never seen nor heard.

  “I understand,” he said, “but what tool will cut it?”

  “Steel, sharp steel will bore into it. Have you steel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Indeed?”

  “You seem surprised.”

  “Only that so much time has passed since the time your people knew only stone and bone for tools…”

  “Will it hurt you?”

  “No, it will leave no impression.”

  “If I succeed in freeing you will you promise to help us?”

  “We give you our word. Our word cannot easily be broken.”

  “Then I will do what I can.”

  Wiping sweat from his forehead and hands, Sojan moved towards the blocks. He drew his sword and clambered up onto the altar. If the sword broke and the guards came in he would be left with his favoured weapon snapped into slivers!

  Placing the sharp point of his blade on top of the first block, he turned it round and round. Feeling it suddenly bite deeper into the strange substance. He became aware of a weird tingling which seemed to flow up his sword and into his body. He could not define it but it was not unpleasant. Suddenly there was a dazzling burst of green-and-orange brightness and something seemed to flow from the hole that he had bored, flow out and upwards, lighting the room. He heard no words, but in his mind there was a great sense of joy — of thanks. Then, one by one he took the point of his sword to the other blocks and watched as they broke under the influence of the same strange power. And then came a crackling force of incandescence as the green-and-orange brightness flowed from them.

  Slowly these flames took on a slightly more solid shape, until Sojan could make out eyes and circular bodies. It came to him that by effort of will alone these creatures could form themselves into any shape they desired. These, then, were the Old Ones. Perhaps in a million, million years, Man too would have succeeded in being able to form the atoms of his body into whatever shape he chose. Perhaps, with the goal defined, sooner. Perhaps, these beings once were Men? That would explain the strange kinship Sojan felt for them. A kinship which his Lemurian ancestors no doubt felt also, before their witnessing of such alien powers changed their finer feelings into those of fear and hate and they learned how to imprison these advanced beings in that strange blue stone.

  “Before you leave,” Sojan begged, “I crave one request as a price for your release.”

  “Anything! But you must instruct us. We cannot act without your directions.”

  “Then when I have left this building and my friends and I are safely at sea, destroy this terrible place so that the power of the priests will be shattered for all time and such an evil can never rise again!”

  “Gladly we grant you this. We will wait here until you are at sea. But tread carefully, we cannot help you to escape and the priests have power we cannot control any more than can you.”

  Thanking them, Sojan turned about and left, sword in hand. But in his exultation he had forgotten the soldiers outside and they stared in amazement at his naked blade and the sweat on his face. This did not seem to them to be any kind of High Priest with whom they were familiar!”

  Taking quick stock of the situation, Sojan spoke to them.

  “I — I had a little difficulty with one of the bolts on the interior,” he lied, “I had to use this sword to loosen it…”

  With a puzzled look, the men bowed and saluted, but there was doubt in their eyes.

  “A priest would not go unveiled for anything,” he heard one of them murmur as he entered the room which he had left previously. “He doesn’t seem a priest to me! Here you, stop a minute!”

  But Sojan had quickly drawn the bolt to give him at least a little time and was hastily donning his weapons again. The men began to bang on the door and more men came to see what the noise was about.

  “That’s no priest,” he heard someone say. “The High Priest Thoro is conducting the Ceremony of Death in the Outer Temple! He won’t be back for hours!”

  “Batter down the door you fools,” came a voice that was obviously that of one in authority, probably another High Priest.

  Anxiously, Sojan looked for a second exit. There was only a curtained window.

  He parted the curtain, and looked outside. It was still dark. He looked down. A courtyard scarcely ten feet below. With luck, he thought, I can jump down there and escape as best I can. He put a foot on the ledge and swung himself over, dropping lightly to the grass of the courtyard. In the centre of the courtyard a fountain splashed quietly — a scene of peace and solitude. But not for long. He saw a face at the window he had so recently quit.

  “He’s down there,” one of the soldiers shouted.

  Sojan ducked into the nearest doorway, opposite the room he had left. He ran down a short, dark corridor and up a flight of steps. No sign of pursuit yet. Panting heavily he ran in the direction he knew an exit to be. It would be guarded now, he knew, for the whole temple was by this time
alert. And so it was. With his usual good luck, Sojan had succeeded in making the exit unchallenged. But there would be no such luck here, with five huge soldiers coming at him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Unlucky Ones

  AGAIN SOJAN HAD no time for heroics. His pistol came up and two of his would-be killers went down. The other three were on him now and his sword cut a gleaming arc about his head. His battle-axe shrieked as if for blood as he carried the attack towards his foes instead of they to him. Nonplussed for a second, they fell back.

  That falling back was for them death! Now Sojan had some kind of advantage and he made full use of it as he drove blow after blow, thrust after thrust into the men.

  Bleeding himself from several wounds, Sojan came on, down went one man, then another. Now the last warrior, fighting with desperation, hacked and parried, and sought an opening in Sojan’s amazing guard.

  None came, the man sought advantage too often, became desperate and lunged forward — and almost pinioned himself on Sojan’s blade. Back he tried to leap, clumsily. A perfect target for a whistling, battered axe to bury itself in helmet and brain.

  Leaving his axe where it had come to rest, Sojan fled the Temple. His heart pounding, he finally reached the house where his friends waited.

  “Come,” he cried, “I’m successful — but we must make the ship immediately, all of us, else we all die. I don’t know what they intend to do.”

  His companions realised that there was no time for an explanation and followed him wordlessly.

  A frantic race for the docks. One brief skirmish with a City Patrol. And then they were on board. Up anchor, out oars, cast-off.

  And as the ship sped from the harbour they looked back.

  There came a blinding flash and then a deep, rolling roar as the great temple erupted in a sudden burst of flame. Then, as they peered at the city there was blackness again. The Temple was not burning — there was no temple now to burn. It was being dissolved! Its substance dissipated like some kind of miasma, keeping its shape but growing larger and larger!

  Then, as they watched, Sojan and his friends saw five streaks of green-and-orange flame rise out of the heaving miasma which seemed to strive with its own intelligence to keep its shape. The five blazing streaks shot skyward and rocketed upwards and outwards — towards the stars! As they left the miasma began to lose any semblance of shape. Whatever mind had controlled it now failed. And Sojan knew that the priest-kings of Zylor no longer ruled Rhan — or any other place on the planet. With one last convulsion, the miasma roared, was silent and then vanished. For a moment it seemed the sea boiled before it, too, grew still.

  And Sojan sighed, sheathing his battered blade, certain now that the Old Ones had kept their word.

  “What was that?” gasped Nornos Rique rubbing his eyes on his sleeve and staring again at a scene which had grown suddenly peaceful.

  “The Old Ones,” smiled Sojan. “I’ll tell you a tale which you may not believe. But it is a tale which has taught me much — as well as giving me a valuable history lesson!”

  The voyage back was not a boring one for Sojan’s companions as they listened to his strange story.

  But what of the Purple Galley you ask, what of Orfil and the princess who betrayed Rique? That, readers, is a story which is short and sad. They, too, attempted to sail their repaired ship through the Sea of Demons in pursuit of Sojan and his companions.

  But they were not so lucky.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Plain of Mystery

  THE WIND TORE at the rigging of the tiny air-cruiser as it pushed bravely into the howling storm.

  Four men clung to the deck rails whilst a fifth strove to steer the tossing gondola.

  “Keep her headed north!” yelled Nornos Rique to Sojan.

  “At this rate we’ll be tossed on to Shortani unless the wind shifts!” Sojan yelled back.

  Parijh the Shortanian grimaced.

  “I’ve been meaning to go home for some time!” he called.

  “You’ll be home for your own funeral unless someone gives me a hand with this wheel!” cried Sojan.

  Sojan, Nornos Rique, Parijh, Andel and Red, the five men who had saved their planet of Zylor from the evil Priest Rulers of Rhan some months ago, were returning to Hatnor after being the guests of honour at several banquets held to celebrate their triumph. Sojan, Rique, Andel and Red had been uncomfortable about the whole thing, only Parijh, always glad of the limelight, had enjoyed himself thoroughly.

  The storm had sprung up quickly and they were now battling to keep the little dirigible into the wind which drove them steadily southwards.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to land, Sojan?” Andel shouted.

  “It would be, my friend, if we knew where we were. There’s every likelihood of getting out of this trouble into something worse.”

  Suddenly there was a loud snapping sound and the wheel spun throwing Sojan off balance and onto the deck.

  “What was that?” yelled Parijh.

  “Steering’s gone! We can’t attempt to repair it in this weather. We’ll just have to drift now!”

  The five trooped down into the tiny cabin. Even there it was not warm and they were all depressed as they shivered in their cloaks and attempted to get some sleep.

  Morning came and the storm had not abated. It lasted all through that day, the wind ripping into the ship and sending it further and further south.

  “There’s never been a storm like this in my memory!” Nornos Rique said.

  The others agreed.

  “Further north,” said Andel, “they’re quite frequent. Lasting for days, so they say.”

  “That’s true,” said Sojan.

  By midnight of the next night the storm finished and the sky cleared of the clinging cloud. The stars, their constellations unfamiliar to Earth eyes, shone brightly and Sojan took a quick bearing.

  “We’re over Shortani all right,” he muttered. “Well over. In fact, I believe we’re near the interior of the continent.”

  Beneath them the scene was one of peace rather than that of death and mystery. Great plains, watered by winding rivers, lush forests, rearing mountains. The mountains seemed almost to take organic shape and loomed proudly over the landscape like gods looking down upon all they had created. Here and there herds of strange animals could be detected for the moons were very bright. They were drinking and did not look up as the airship glided silently above them.

  In the morning Sojan and Andel set to work on repairing the broken steering-lines whilst the others looked down at the peaceful-seeming country beneath them.

  All the time they worked they drifted further and further into the interior.

  “If we drift much further, Sojan, we won’t have sufficient fuel to get us out again. Remember, we only had enough for a short journey!” Parijh called up to him where he was working on the steering gear.

  “Vit take us! I hadn’t thought of that,” cried Sojan. “But there’s nothing we can do until this steering is fixed. Work as fast as possible Andel or we’ll be stranded here!”

  But repairing the steering wires and readjusting the rudder, especially sitting in the rigging with only a flimsy safety line between you and oblivion, isn’t easy and it took Sojan and Andel several hours before the motors could be started up again.

  “There’s not enough fuel to make it back to Hatnor,” Sojan said. “But if we’re lucky we’ll be able to get to civilised country on the Shortani coast!”

  Now there was nothing they could do but hope and the men relaxed, watching the wonderful scenery beneath them and speculating on what kind of people, if any, lived there.

  Red, who played a Zylorian instrument called a rinfrit — a kind of eight-stringed guitar, sang them a song, based on an old legend about these parts. The first verse went something like this:

  There’s many a tale that has been told

  Of Phek the traveller, strong and bold!

  But the strangest one I’v
e ever heard —

  Is when he caught a shifla bird.

  “What’s a shifla bird?” enquired Andel curiously.

  “Oh, it’s supposed to be as big as an airship and looks like a great flying lizard.”

  His companions were amused at this story, and all but Sojan, who was looking over towards the west, laughed.

  “Don’t worry too much,” said Sojan calmly, “but is that anything like your shifla bird?”

  And there, rising slowly from the forest, was the largest animal any of the adventurers had ever seen. Earth men would call it a dragon if they saw it. Its great reptilian jaws were agape and its huge bat-wings drove it along at incredible speed.

  “It seems there was some truth in the legend,” muttered Red, licking dry lips and automatically fingering the pistol at his belt.

  “There’s always some truth in legends,” said Sojan, “however incredible.”

  The thing was nearly upon them now, obviously taking their cruiser for some kind of rival. It was as big as their ship although its body was about half the size whilst its wings made up the rest of its bulk. It was a kind of bluish grey, its great mouth a gash of crimson whilst wicked eyes gleamed from their sockets making it look like some dark angel from the Zylorian ‘Halls of the Dead’.

  “Drop, Sojan, drop!” cried Nornos Rique as the men stood for a moment paralysed at the sight of something which they attributed only to the story scrolls of children.

  Sojan whirled, rushed over to the controls and pushed several levers which opened valves in their gasbag and caused the ship to lose height quickly.

  The shifla swooped low overhead, barely missing them and causing them to duck automatically. Suddenly there came a cracking of branches, the ripping of fabric and the harsh snap of breaking wood. The ship had crashed into the forest. The men had been so busy trying to escape from the danger above them that they had forgotten the forest beneath them.