,d they did not. But their voices carried easily, by some trick of the echoing rocks. A single word aroused the American to strict attention.
“-Ba-Al’s temple on the night of the midyear feast. Risk our necks for Mu? If they believe that, they are fools. I say-free ourselves as Atlantis did. Expel the Sunborn. If they won’t go-why, then let them meet Ba-Al. He has a use for such, I understand.” The speaker laughed.
“Then you sail east?” asked another voice.
“On the third day from this, or sooner if we can clear. These Murian fools did not question my sailing authority-why should they? I am only a grain trader from Uighur, bound for the outposts of Mayax, and have taken the same route two years now. They know me when I wear that cloak. There is but one small thing. There is one of those accursed Sunborn-the Lady Ayna-in this city now, and she knows my face. I visited her courtyard before the matter of the hide ships, when I was proclaimed a five-year outlaw. If she sees me here in forbidden territory, she will report it. The Sunborn to Ba-Al, that is what I say!”
“How will you pass the eastern guards to reach our friends?”
“That is my secret. Give me what knowledge you have gained, and I shall take it safely, never fear. This is not my first trip to carry such. And your brothers in the Shadow will welcome me.”
“I dare not seek too much. There are sections of the temple that are forbidden and protected. They have ways of reading more than a man’s surface thoughts, these Flame-tutored priests. It is much that I have been accepted, even as a novice.”
“You will get what is asked of us.” There was a threat in the first voice now. “We know that in some way, recently, they have been able to penetrate the curtain of darkness. And they discovered the Loving One; so much have linked minds relayed. You must discover how they did this thing and any defense they
plan-that is vital. Now, get you back before they question why one who goes to the bedside of an ailing father is seen at the seashore in talk with a merchant captain from Uighur.”
“Seen?” There was sharp panic in that cry. “But you said that this was a place of safety, where we could meet without any fear of discovery.”
“There is no place that is completely safe, you fool! The element of risk is always present in our business. If you do not believe that, then you are worse than a fool. Never cease to be aware that you walk a cord over a pit of fire in spite of your safeguard talisman. Now-go!”
Ray crept across the sand to the rock at the end of the cove. But he was too late to see more than that one wore the white robe of a Naacal, the other a leather tunic once stained blue, now faded and bleached by salt spray. A plain, crestless helmet hid the latter’s hair, and from the rear he might be any captain of a small trader.
As they vanished up a path on the cliff wall, Ray god to his feet, brushing sand from his tunic. He tried to remember where lay the. nearest guard station along` the road. Surely he had passed one coming here.
When he had scrambled up to the road, there was no’ one in sight resembling the two he wanted to trail. A: couple of elephants rocked by, throwing up a cloud of dust, their back burdens tightly lashed. And a horseman with the royal couriers’ horn slung from his shoulder spurred to overtake the ponderous march of the beasts.
All travelers halted at the outer gate of the city, to be passed by a guard. An ancient custom, long abandoned,,
: had been recently revived and was now a source of much complaint and grumbling by those who could see no reason for such delays.
“Name and rank?” a soldier asked Ray with a weary , voice of one who had done this fifty times before this.. hour and would do it doubtlessly fifty times again the
next. “The Sunborn Ray, of the courtyard of the Lady Aiee.”
“Pass.” But the soldier stared in open surprise. To see one of the Sunborn on foot and alone was so out of the ordinary as to alert suspicion.
Ray hurried into the street beyond, unaware that he was already a matter of report between the sentry and his superior. The citadel-he must get there as soon as he could. Again he named himself to a sentry at the outer wall of the palace.
“The Sunborn Ray, with a message of importance for the Re Mu!”
He came into the courtyard of the fountain and, after a wait, was brought into the audience chamber of the Emperor. The Re Mu was attended now not only by the Naacals, but also by warriors who looked at the American in surprise. But the Re Mu beckoned him forward.
“One who comes in such haste must bear a matter of some import.”
Ray glanced at the officers, and the Murian ruler raised his hand so those others fell back some distance.. “You may speak-”
Swiftly the American told-his story, and as he spoke, the Re Mu’s face became a mask of authority.
“You have done well to seek us quickly with this. Can you describe these men-their faces-?”
“No, Great One. Beyond the fact that one wore a Naacal’s robe and the other was a sea officer from Uighur, I have no other identification. I think that I would know their voices were I to hear them again.”
“According to his own words the Lady Ayna knows the seaman. That is one aid. But the novice-”
One of the Naacals beside the Re Mu stirred, and there was cold fury in his voice.
“Be sure we shall find the traitor and also what arts he has employed that the safeguards of the Flame did not uncover him. What we learn from his lips shall be speedily yours, Lord of the Flame.”
“Which leaves the seaman for us. Hold yourself in
readiness, Sunborn, to return hither and help to identify him. You have our leave to go-”
Ray returned to the courtyard of the Lady Aiee. He was tempted to visit the docks and look there for a Uighur seaman in a stained blue jerkin. But it was close to twilight, and his common sense told him that the forces the law would set in motion would be far more effective than any amateur effort on his part.
“Ray! Where have you been?” Cho strode along the garden path. “We have been seeking you-”
“I went to the seashore.” Ray hesitated. Should he tell Cho the rest? Why not? There had been no promise extracted from him not to. He mounted to the terrace and found the mistress of the household already seated at the table.
“I am sorry,” he said hurriedly. “I had not thought the hour so late.”
“But, I think”-her expression changed-“You have a better excuse for us than mere lapse of memory. Is that not so?”
“This-” For the second time he told his story. “Then I reported it to the Re Mu.”
“By the Flame! Traitors within the city!” Cho exclaimed.
“Within the temple! But how could evil cloak itself so well as to enter there undetected?” The Lady Aiee sounded shaken, uncertain, as Ray had never heard her before.
‘ “The Naacal said they would search him out.” Her distress was such that Ray was uneasy in turn. Somehow during the past days he had come to look upon her as one so sure of herself that she remained a secure support in all difficulties.
“Those who cross the Naacals,” Cho replied, “do not find life so pleasant that they desire to cling to it long. One could almost pity such a one.”
“No!” His mother’s voice was sharp. “There is no pity for one who deliberately twists the things of light to serve the Dark. For this one knows good and, of his own will, serves evil. He is a chooser of the Shadow even as those of Atlantis. Pity is for the weak of spirit, not – the weak of heart-”
“I think now we move one, perhaps two, steps closer to the day when the fleet goes forth to the east.” Cho sounded as if he found that a satisfying thought.
Ray remembered his dream journey, or had it been a dream? To Cho, battle might be a matter of black and white, evil vanquished by good. So had the Murian always spoken of this struggle, in the rare times he mentioned the. future. But there was that laboratory in the Atlantean tower and what had been blanked from Ray’s memory. Now he wished’ he could recall it, for what might be fact can be worsened by imagination, and when he allowed himself to remember, more than one horror vividly came to life for him.