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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Bride Of The Dark One, by Florence Verbell Brown
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Bride of the Dark One, by Florence Verbell Brown
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Bride of the Dark One
+
+Author: Florence Verbell Brown
+
+Release Date: February 17, 2010 [EBook #31306]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRIDE OF THE DARK ONE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<p class="center">This etext was produced from Planet Stories July 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_001.jpg" width="450" height="740" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_002.jpg" width="450" height="505" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>BRIDE OF THE DARK ONE</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>By FLORENCE VERBELL BROWN</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The outcasts; the hunted of all the brighter worlds, crowded onto
+Yaroto. But even here was there salvation for Ransome, the jinx-scarred
+acolyte, when tonight was the night of Bani-tai ... the
+night of expiation by the photo-memoried priests of dark Darion?</i></p></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="31" height="40" /></div>
+
+<p>he last light in the Galaxy was a
+torch. High in the rafters of Mytor's
+Cafe Yaroto it burned, and its red
+glare illuminated a gallery of the damned.
+Hands that were never far from blaster or
+knife; eyes that picked a hundred private
+hells out of the swirling smoke where a
+woman danced.</p>
+
+<p>She was good to look at, moving in time
+to the savage rhythm of the music. The
+single garment she wore bared her supple
+body, and thighs and breasts and a cloud of
+dark hair wove a pattern of desire in the
+close room.</p>
+
+<p>Fat Mytor watched, and his little crafty
+eyes gleamed. The Earth-girl danced like a
+she-devil tonight. The tables were crowded
+with the outcast and the hunted of all the
+brighter worlds. The woman's warm body,
+moving in the torchlight, would stir memories
+that men had thought they left light
+years behind. Gold coins would shower into
+Mytor's palm for bad wine, for stupor and
+forgetfulness.</p>
+
+<p>Mytor sipped his imported amber kali,
+and the black eyes moved with seeming
+casualness, penetrating the deep shadows
+where the tables were, resting briefly on
+each drunken, greedy or fear-ridden face.</p>
+
+<p>It was an old process with Mytor, nearly
+automatic. A glance told him enough, the
+state of a man's mind and senses and wallet.
+This trembling wreck, staring at the woman
+and nursing a glass of the cheapest green
+Yarotian wine, had spent his last silver.
+Mytor would have him thrown out. Another,
+head down and muttering over a
+tumbler of raw whiskey, would pass out
+before the night was over, and wake in an
+alley blocks away, with his gold in Mytor's
+pocket. A third wanted a woman, and
+Mytor knew what kind of a woman.</p>
+
+<p>When the dance was nearly over Mytor
+heaved out of his chair, drew the rich
+folds of his native Venusian tarab about his
+bulk, and padded softly to a corner of the
+room, where the shadows lay deepest.
+Smiling, he rested a moist, jeweled paw on
+the table at which Ransome, the Earthman,
+sat alone.</p>
+
+<p>Blue eyes looked up coldly out of a weary,
+lean face. The voice was bored.</p>
+
+<p>"I've paid for my bottle and I have nothing
+left for you to steal. We have nothing
+in common, no business together. Now, if
+you don't mind, you're in my line of vision,
+and I'd like to watch the finish of the
+dance."</p>
+
+<p>The fat Venusian's smile only broadened.</p>
+
+<p>"May I sit down, Mr. Ransome?" he persisted.
+"Here, out of your line of vision?"</p>
+
+<p>"The chair belongs to you," Ransome observed
+flatly.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>Covertly, as he had done for hours now,
+Mytor studied the gaunt, pale Earthman in
+the worn space harness. Ransome had apparently
+dismissed the Venusian renegade
+already, and his cold blue eyes followed the
+woman's every movement with fixed intensity.</p>
+
+<p>The music swept on toward its climax and
+the woman's body was a storm of golden
+flesh and tossing black hair. Mytor saw the
+Earthman's pale lips twist in the faint suggestion
+of a bitter smile, saw the long
+fingers tighten around the glass.</p>
+
+<p>Every man had his price on Yaroto, and
+Ransome would not be the first Mytor had
+bought with a woman. For a moment, Mytor
+watched the desire brighten in Ransome's
+eyes, studied the smile that some men wear
+on the way to death, in the last moment
+when life is most precious.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="16" height="40" /></div>
+<p>n this moment Ransome was for sale.
+And Mytor had a proposition.</p>
+
+<p>"You were not surprised that I knew your
+name, Mr. Ransome?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let's say that I wasn't interested."</p>
+
+<p>Mytor flushed but Ransome was looking
+past him at the woman. The Venusian wiped
+his forehead with a soiled handkerchief,
+drummed fat fingers on the table for a moment,
+tried a different tack.</p>
+
+<p>"Her name is Irene. She's lovely, isn't
+she, Mr. Ransome? Surely the inner worlds
+showed you nothing like her. The eyes,
+the red mouth, the breasts like&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up," Ransome grated, and the glass
+shattered between his clenched fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, Mr. Ransome." Whiskey
+trickled from the edge of the table in slow,
+thick drops, staining Mytor's white tarab.
+Ice was in the Venusian's voice. "Get out
+of my place&mdash;now. Leave the whiskey, and
+the woman. I have no traffic with fools."</p>
+
+<p>Ransome sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"I've told you, Mytor that you're wasting
+your time. But make your pitch, if you
+must."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Mr. Ransome, you do not care to
+go out into the starless night. Perhaps there
+are those who wait for you, eh? With very
+long knives?"</p>
+
+<p>Reflex brought Ransome's hand up in a
+lightning arc to the blaster bolstered under
+his arm, but Mytor's damp hand was on his
+wrist, and Mytor's purr was in his ear, the
+words coming quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"You would die where you sit, you
+fool. You would not live even to know the
+sharpness of the long knives, the sacred
+knives of Darion, with the incantations inscribed
+upon their blades against blasphemers
+of the Temple."</p>
+
+<p>Ransome shuddered and was silent. He
+saw Mytor's guards, vigilant in the shadows,
+and his hand fell away from the blaster.</p>
+
+<p>When the dance was ended, and the
+blood was running hot and strong in him,
+he turned to face Mytor. His voice was
+impatient now, but his meaning was
+shrouded in irony.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you trying to sell me a lucky charm,
+Mytor?"</p>
+
+<p>The Venusian laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you call a space ship a lucky
+charm, Mr. Ransome?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," Ransome said grimly. "If it were
+berthed across the street I'd be dead before
+I got halfway to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Not if I provided you with a guard of
+my men."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe not. But I wouldn't have picked
+you for a philanthropist, Mytor."</p>
+
+<p>"There are no philanthropists on Yaroto,
+Mr. Ransome. I offer you escape, it is true;
+you will have guessed that I expect some
+service in return."</p>
+
+<p>"Get to the point." Ransome's eyes were
+weary now that the woman's dancing no
+longer held them. And there was little hope
+in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>A man can put off a date across ten years,
+and across a hundred worlds, and there can
+be whiskey and women to dance for him.
+But there was a ship with burned-out jets
+lying in the desert outside this crumbling
+city, and it was the night of Bani-tai, the
+night of expiation in distant Darion, and
+Ransome knew that for him, this was the
+last world.</p>
+
+<p>After tonight the priests would proclaim
+the start of a new Cycle, and the old debts,
+if still unpaid, would be canceled forever.</p>
+
+<p>Ransome shrugged, a hopeless gesture.
+Enough of the cult of the Dark One
+lingered in the very stuff of his nerves and
+brain to tell him that the will of the Temple
+would be done.</p>
+
+<p>But Mytor was speaking again, and Ransome
+listened in spite of himself.</p>
+
+<p>"All the scum of the Galaxy wash up on
+Yaroto at last," the fat Venusian said.
+"That is why you and I are here, Mr. Ransome.
+It is also why a certain pirate landed
+his ship on the desert out there three days
+ago. <i>Callisto Queen</i>, the ship's name is,
+though it has borne a dozen others. Cargo&mdash;Jovian
+silks and dyestuffs from the moons
+of Mars, narco-vin from the system of
+Alpha Centauri."</p>
+
+<p>Mytor paused, put the tips of fat fingers
+together, and looked hard at Ransome.</p>
+
+<p>"Is all of that supposed to mean something
+to me?" Ransome asked. A waiter
+had brought over a glass to replace the
+broken one, and he poured a drink for
+himself, not inviting Mytor. "It doesn't."</p>
+
+<p>"It suggests a course, nothing more. In
+toward Sol, out to Yaroto by way of Alpha
+Centauri. Do you follow the courses of
+pirate ships, Mr. Ransome?"</p>
+
+<p>"One," Ransome said savagely. "I've lost
+track of her."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you know the <i>Callisto Queen</i>
+better under her former name, then."</p>
+
+<p>Again Ransome's hand moved toward
+the blaster, and this time Mytor made no
+attempt to stop him. Ransome's thin lips
+tightened with some powerful emotion, and
+he half rose to look hard at Mytor.</p>
+
+<p>"The name of the ship?"</p>
+
+<p>"Her captain used to call her <i>Hawk of
+Darion</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Ransome understood. <i>Hawk of Darion</i>,
+hell ship driving through black space under
+the command of a man he had once
+sworn to kill. Eight years rolled back and
+he saw them together, laughing at him: the
+Earthman-captain and the woman who had
+been Ransome's.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Jareth," Ransome said slowly.
+"Here&mdash;on Yaroto."</p>
+
+<p>The Venusian nodded, pushing the bottle
+toward Ransome. The Earthman ignored the
+gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the woman with him?"</p>
+
+<p>Mytor smiled his feline smile. "You
+would like to see her blood run under the
+knives of the priests, no?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>Ransome meant it. Somewhere, in the
+years of flight, he had lost his love for the
+blonde, red-lipped Dura-ki, and with it
+had gone his bitter hatred and his desire for
+revenge.</p>
+
+<p>He jerked his mind back to the present,
+to Mytor.</p>
+
+<p>"And if I told you that it must be her
+life or yours?" Mytor was asking him.</p>
+
+<p>Ransome's eyes widened. He sensed that
+Mytor's last question was not, an idle one.
+He leaned forward and asked:</p>
+
+<p>"How do you fit into this at all, Mytor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Easily. Once, ten years ago, you and the
+woman now aboard the <i>Hawk of Darion</i>
+blasphemed together against the Temple of
+the Dark One, in Darion."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," Ransome said.</p>
+
+<p>"When you landed here this afternoon
+the avenging priests were not far behind
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I have many contacts," Mytor purred. "I
+find them invaluable. But you are growing
+impatient, Mr. Ransome. I will be brief. I
+have contracted with the priests of Darion
+to deliver you to them tonight for a considerable
+sum."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know you would find me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was given your description." He made
+a gesture that took in all the occupants of
+the torch-lit room. "So many of the hunted,
+and the haunted, come here to forget for
+an hour the things that pursue them. I was
+expecting you, Mr. Ransome."</p>
+
+<p>"If there is a large sum of money involved,
+I'm sure you'll make every effort to
+carry out your part of the bargain," Ransome
+observed ironically.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a businessman, it is true. But in
+my dealings with the master of the <i>Hawk
+of Darion</i> I have seen the woman and I
+have heard stories. It occurred to me that the
+priests would pay much more for the woman
+than they would for you, and it seemed to
+me that a message from you might coax
+her off the ship. After all, when one has
+been in love&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's enough." Ransome had risen to
+his feet. "I wonder if I could kill you before
+your guards got to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you then so in love with death,
+Ransome?" The Venusian spoke quickly.
+"Don't be a fool. It is a small thing, a
+woman's life&mdash;a woman who has betrayed
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Ransome stood silent, his arm halfway
+to his blaster. The woman had begun to
+dance again in the red glare of the torch.</p>
+
+<p>"There will be other women," the
+Venusian was murmuring. "The woman
+who dances now, I will give her to you,
+to take with you in your new ship."</p>
+
+<p>Ransome looked slowly from the glowing
+body of the woman to the guards
+around the walls, down into Mytor's confident
+face. His arm dropped away from the
+blaster.</p>
+
+<p>"Any man&mdash;for a price." The Venusian's
+murmur was lost in the blare of the music.
+Ransome had eased his lean body back into
+the chair.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="31" height="40" /></div>
+<p>he night air was cold against Ransome's
+cheek when he went out an hour
+later, surrounded by Mytor's men. Yaroto's
+greenish moon was overhead now, but its
+pale light did not help him to see more
+clearly. It only made shadows in every
+doorway and twisting alley.</p>
+
+<p>Mytor's car was only a few feet away but
+before he could reach it he was shoved aside
+by one of the Venusian's guards. At the
+same moment the night flamed with the
+blue-yellow glare from a dozen blasters.
+Ransome raised his own weapon, staring
+into the shadows, seeking his attackers.</p>
+
+<p>"That's our job. Get in," said one of
+the guards, wrenching open the car door.</p>
+
+<p>Then the firing was over as suddenly as
+it had begun. The guards clustered at the
+opening of an alley down the street. Mytor's
+driver sat impassively in the front seat.</p>
+
+<p>When the guards returned one of them
+thrust something at Ransome, something
+hard and cold. He glanced at it. A long
+knife.</p>
+
+<p>There was no need to read the inscription
+on the hilt. He knew it by heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Death to him who defileth the Bed of
+the Dark One. Life to the Temple and City
+of Darion."</p>
+
+<p>Once Ransome would have pocketed the
+knife as a kind of grim keepsake. Now he
+only let it fall to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>In the brief, ghostly duel just over he had
+neither seen nor heard his attackers. That
+added, somehow, to the horror of the thing.</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged off the thought, turning
+his mind to the details of the plan by which
+he would save his life.</p>
+
+<p>It was quite simple. Ransome had been
+in space long enough to know where the
+crewmen went on a strange world. Half an
+hour later he sat with a gunner from the
+<i>Hawk of Darion</i>, in one of the gaudy
+pleasure houses clustered on the fringe of
+the city near the spaceport and the desert
+beyond.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you take the note to the Captain's
+woman?"</p>
+
+<p>The man squirmed, avoiding Ransome's
+ice-blue stare.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain killed the last man who looked
+at his woman," the gunner muttered sullenly.
+"Flogged him to death."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not asking you to look at her,"
+Ransome reminded him.</p>
+
+<p>The gunner sat looking at the stack of
+Mytor's money piled on the table before
+him. A woman drifted over.</p>
+
+<p>"Go away," Ransome said, without raising
+his eyes. He added another bill to the stack.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see the note before I take it,"
+the gunner demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"It would mean nothing to you." Ransome
+pushed a half-empty bottle toward the
+man, poured him out another drink.</p>
+
+<p>The man's hands were trembling with
+inner conflict as he measured the killing
+lash against the stack of yellow Yarotian
+kiroons, and the pleasures it would buy
+him. He drank, dribbling a little of the
+wine down his grimy chin, and then returned
+to the subject of seeing the note, with
+drunken persistence.</p>
+
+<p>"I got to see it first."</p>
+
+<p>"It's in a language you wouldn't&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Let him see it," a new voice cut in.
+"Translate it for him, Mr. Ransome."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="16" height="40" /></div>
+
+<p>t was a woman's voice, cold and contemptuous.
+Ransome looked up quickly,
+and at first he didn't recognize her. The
+gunner never took his eyes from the stack
+of kiroons on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Let him see how a man murders a
+woman to save his own neck."</p>
+
+<p>"You're supposed to be dancing at
+Mytor's place," Ransome said. "That's your
+business; this is mine."</p>
+
+<p>He closed his hand over the gunner's
+wrist as the man reached convulsively for
+the money, menaced now by the angry
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Half now, the rest later." Ransome's
+eyes burned into the crewman's. The latter
+looked away. Ransome tightened his grip,
+and pain contorted the gunner's features.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at me," Ransome said. "If you
+cross me you'll wish you could die by flogging."</p>
+
+<p>The woman Mytor had called Irene was
+still standing by the table when the gunner
+had left with the note and his money.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you going to ask me to sit down?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. Sit down."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like a drink."</p>
+
+<p>She sipped her wine in silence and Ransome
+studied her by the flickering light of
+the candle burning on the table between
+them.</p>
+
+<p>She wore a simple street dress now, in
+contrast to the gaudy, revealing garments
+of the pleasure house women. The beauty of
+her soft, unpainted lips, her golden skin
+and wide-set green eyes was more striking
+now, seen at close range, than it had been
+in the smoky cavern of Mytor's place.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you thinking now, Ransome?"</p>
+
+<p>The question was unexpected, and Ransome
+answered without forethought: "The
+Temple."</p>
+
+<p>"You studied for the priesthood of the
+Dark One yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Did Mytor tell you that?"</p>
+
+<p>Irene nodded. The candlelight gave luster
+to her dark hair and revealed the contours
+of her high, firm breasts.</p>
+
+<p>Ransome's pulse speeded up just looking
+at her. Then he saw that she was regarding
+him as if he were something crawling
+in damp stone, and there was bitterness
+in him.</p>
+
+<p>"There are things that even Mytor doesn't
+know, even omniscient Mytor&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He checked himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"You were going to tell me about how
+you are really a very honorable man. Why
+don't you? You have an hour before it will
+be time to betray the woman from the
+<i>Hawk of Darion</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Ransome shrugged, and his voice returned
+her mockery.</p>
+
+<p>"If I told you that I had been an acolyte
+in the Temple of the Dark One, and
+that I was condemned to death for blasphemy,
+committed for love of a woman,
+would you like me better?"</p>
+
+<p>"I might."</p>
+
+<p>"Ten years ago," Ransome said. He
+talked, and the mighty walls of the Temple
+reared themselves around his mind, and the
+music of the pleasure house became the
+chanting of the priests at the high altar.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="37" height="40" /></div>
+
+<p>e stood at the rear of the great
+Temple, and he had the tonsure and
+the black robes, and his name was not
+Ransome, but Ra-sed.</p>
+
+<p>He had almost forgotten his Terran name.
+Forgotten, too, were his parents, and the
+laboratory ship that had been his home
+until the crash landing that had left him an
+orphan and Ward of the Temple.</p>
+
+<p>Red candles burned before the high
+altar, but terror began just beyond their
+flickering light. It was dark where Ra-sed
+stood, and he could hear the cries of the
+people in the courtyard outside, and feel
+the trembling of the pillars, the very pillars
+of the Temple, and the groaning of stone on
+massive stone in the great, shadowed arches
+overhead. Above all, the chanting before
+the altar of the Dark One, rising, rising toward
+hysteria.</p>
+
+<p>And then, like a knife in the darkness, the
+scream, and the straining to see which of
+the maidens the sacred lots cast before the
+altar had chosen; and the sudden, sick
+knowledge that it was Dura-ki. Dura-ki, of
+the soft golden hair and bright lips.</p>
+
+<p>In stunned silence, Ra-sed, acolyte, listened
+to the bridal chant of the priests; the
+ancient words of the Dedication to the Dark
+One.</p>
+
+<p>The chant told of the forty times forty
+flights of onyx steps leading downward behind
+the great altar to the dwelling place of
+the Dark One and of the forty terrible beasts
+couched in the pit to guard His slumber.</p>
+
+<p>In the beginning, Dalir, the Sire, God of
+the Mists, had gone down wrapped in a sea
+fog, and had stolen the Sacred Fire while
+the Dark One slept. All life in Darion had
+come from Dalir's mystic union with the
+Sacred Fire.</p>
+
+<p>Centuries passed before a winter of bitter
+frosts came, and the Dark One awakened
+cold in His dwelling place and found the
+Sacred Fire stolen. His wrath moved beneath
+the city then, and Darion crashed in
+shattered ruin and death.</p>
+
+<p>Those who were left had hurled a maiden
+screaming into the greatest of the clefts in
+the earth, that the bed of the Idol might be
+warmed by an ember of the stolen Fire.
+Later, they had raised His awful Temple
+on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>So it had been, almost from the beginning.
+When the pillars of the Temple
+shook, a maiden was chosen by the Sacred
+Lots to go down as a bride to the Dark
+One, lest He destroy the city and the
+people.</p>
+
+<p>The chant had come to an end. The legend
+had been told once more.</p>
+
+<p>They led her forth then&mdash;Dura-ki, the
+chosen one. Shod in golden sandals, and
+wearing the crimson robe of the ritual, she
+moved out of Ra-sed's sight, behind the high
+altar. No acolyte was permitted to approach
+that place.</p>
+
+<p>The chanting was a thing of wild delirium
+now, and Ra-set placed a cold hand to steady
+himself against a trembling pillar. He heard
+the drawing of the ancient bolts, the booming
+echo as the great stone was drawn aside,
+and he closed his eyes, as though that could
+shut out the vision of the monstrous pit.</p>
+
+<p>But his ears he could not close, and he
+heard the scream of Dura-ki, his own betrothed,
+as they threw her to the Idol.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_a.jpg" alt="A" width="36" height="40" /></div>
+<p>t the table in the Yarotian pleasure
+house, Ransome's thin lips were pale.
+He swallowed his drink.</p>
+
+<p>The woman opposite him was nearly forgotten
+now, and when he went on, it was
+for himself, to rid himself of things that
+had haunted him down all the bleak worlds
+to his final night of betrayal and death.
+His eyes were empty, fixed on another life.
+He did not see the change that crossed
+Irene's face, did not see the cold contempt
+fade away, to be replaced slowly with understanding.
+She leaned forward, lips slightly
+parted, to hear the end of his story.</p>
+
+<p>For the love of golden-haired Dura-ki, the
+acolyte, Ra-sed, had gone down into the
+pit of the Dark one, where no mortal had
+gone before, except as a sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>He had hidden himself in the gloom of
+the pillars when the others left in chanting
+procession after the ceremony. Now he was
+wrenching at the rusted bolts that held the
+stone in place. It seemed to him that the
+rumbling grew in the earth beneath his feet
+and in the blackness of the vaulting overhead.
+Terror was in him, for his blasphemy
+would bring death to Darion. But the vision
+of Dura-ki was in him too, giving strength
+to tortured muscles. The bolts came away
+with a metallic screech, piercing against the
+mutter of shifting stone.</p>
+
+<p>He was turning to the heavy ring set in
+the stone when he caught a glimmer of reflected
+light in an idol's eye. Swiftly he
+crouched behind the great stone, waiting.</p>
+
+<p>The priests came, two of them, bearing
+torches. Knives flashed as Ra-sed sprang, but
+he wrenched the blade from the hand of the
+first, buried it in the throat of the second.
+The man fell with a cry, but a stunning
+blow from behind sent Ra-sed sprawling
+across the fallen body. The other priest was
+on him, choking out his life.</p>
+
+<p>The last torch fell; and Ra-sed twisted
+savagely, lashed out blindly with the long
+knife. There was a sound of rending cloth,
+a muttered curse in the darkness, and the
+fingers ground harder into Ra-sed's throat.
+Black tides washed over his mind, and he
+never remembered the second and last convulsive
+thrust of the knife that let out the
+life of the priest.</p>
+
+<p>He did remember straining against the
+ring of the great stone. The echo boomed
+out for the second time that night, as the
+stone moved away at last, to lay bare the
+realm of the Dark One.</p>
+
+<p>Bitterness touched Ransome's eyes as he
+spoke now, the bitterness of a man who
+has lost his God.</p>
+
+<p>"There were no onyx steps, no monsters
+waiting beneath the stone. The legends were
+false."</p>
+
+<p>Ransome turned his glass slowly, staring
+into its amber depths. Then he became aware
+of Irene, waiting for him to go on.</p>
+
+<p>"I got her out," Ransome said shortly.
+"I went down into that stinking pit and I
+got Dura-ki out. The air was nearly unbreathable
+where I found her. She was unconscious
+on a ledge at the end of a long
+slope. Hell itself might have been in the
+pit that opened beneath it. A geologist
+would have called it a major fault, but it
+was hell enough. When I picked her up, I
+found the bones of all those others...."</p>
+
+<p>Irene's green eyes had lost their coldness.
+She let her hand rest on his for a
+moment. But her voice was puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"This Dura-ki&mdash;she is the woman on the
+<i>Hawk of Darion</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Ransome nodded. He stood up. His lips
+were a hard, thin line.</p>
+
+<p>"My little story has an epilogue. Something
+not quite so romantic. I lived with
+Dura-ki in hiding near Darion for a year,
+until a ship came in from space. A pirate
+ship, with a tall, good-looking Earthman for
+a master. I took passage for Dura-ki, and
+signed on myself as a crewman. A fresh start
+in a bright, new world." Ransome laughed
+shortly. "I'll spare you the details of that
+happy voyage. At the first port of call, on
+Jupiter, Dura-ki stood at the top of the
+gangway and laughed when her Captain
+Jareth had me thrown off the ship."</p>
+
+<p>"She betrayed you for the master of the
+<i>Hawk of Darion</i>," Irene said softly.</p>
+
+<p>"And tonight she'll pay," Ransome finished
+coldly. He threw down a few coins
+to pay for their drinks. "It's been pleasant
+telling you my pretty little story."</p>
+
+<p>"Ransome, wait. I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Forget it," Ransome said.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_m.jpg" alt="M" width="42" height="40" /></div>
+<p>ytor's car was waiting, and Ransome
+could sense the presence of the guards
+lurking in the dark, empty street.</p>
+
+<p>"The spaceport," Ransome told his
+driver. "Fast."</p>
+
+<p>He thought of the note he had given the
+crewman to deliver:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Ra-sed would see his beloved a last time
+before he dies."</p></div>
+
+<p>"Faster," Ransome grated, and the powerful
+car leapt forward into the night.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_s.jpg" alt="S" width="26" height="40" /></div>
+<p>hips, like the men who drove them,
+came to Yaroto to die. Three quarters
+of the spaceport was a vast jungle of looming
+black shapes, most of them awaiting the
+breaker's hammer. Ransome dismissed the
+car and threaded his way through the deserted
+yards with the certainty of a man
+used to the ugly places of a hundred
+worlds.</p>
+
+<p>Mytor had suggested the meeting place,
+a hulk larger than most, a cruiser once in
+the fleet of some forgotten power.</p>
+
+<p>Ransome had fought in the ships of half
+a dozen worlds. Now the ancient cruiser
+claimed his attention. Martian, by the cut of
+her rusted braking fins. Ransome tensed, remembering
+the charge of the Martian
+cruisers in the Battle of Phoebus. Since then
+he had called himself an Earthman, because,
+even if his parentage had not given him
+claim to that title already, a man who had
+been in the Earth ships at Phoebus had a
+right to it.</p>
+
+<p>He was running a hand over the battered
+plate of a blast tube when Dura-ki found
+him. She was a smaller shadow moving
+among the vast, dark hulls. With a curious,
+dead feeling in him, Ransome stepped away
+from the side of the cruiser to meet her.</p>
+
+<p>"Ra-sed, I could not let you die alone&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Because her voice was a ghost from the
+past, because it stirred things in him that
+had no right to live after all the long
+years that had passed, Ransome acted before
+Dura-ki could finish speaking. He hit
+her once, hard; caught the crumpling body
+in his arms, and started back toward Mytor's
+car. If he remembered another journey in
+the blackness with this woman in his arms,
+he drove the memory back with the savage
+blasphemies of a hundred worlds.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_o.jpg" alt="O" width="35" height="40" /></div>
+<p>n the rough floor of Mytor's place,
+Dura-ki stirred and groaned.</p>
+
+<p>Ransome didn't like the way things were
+going. He hadn't planned to return to the
+Cafe Yaroto, to wait with Mytor for the
+arrival of the priests.</p>
+
+<p>"There are a couple of my men outside,"
+Mytor told him. "When the priests are
+spotted you can slip out through the rear
+exit."</p>
+
+<p>"Why the devil do I have to be here
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>"As I have told you, I am a businessman.
+Until I have turned the girl over to the
+priests I cannot be sure of my payment.
+This girl, as you know, is not without
+friends. If Captain Jareth knew that she was
+here he would tear this place apart, he and
+his crew. Those men have rather an impressive
+reputation as fighters, and while
+my guard here&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You've been drinking too much of your
+own rotten liquor, Mytor. Why should I
+try to save her at the eleventh hour? To hand
+her back to her lover?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never drink my own liquor, Mr. Ransome."
+He took a sip of his kali in confirmation.
+"I have seen love take many
+curious shapes."</p>
+
+<p>Ransome stood up. "Save your memoirs.
+I want a guard to get me to the ship you
+promised me. And I want it now."</p>
+
+<p>Mytor did not move. The guards, ranged
+around the walls, stood silent but alert.</p>
+
+<p>"Mytor."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Ransome?"</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't any ship. There never was."</p>
+
+<p>The Venusian shrugged. "It would have
+been easier for you if you hadn't guessed.
+I'm really sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"So you'll make a double profit on this
+deal. I was the bait for Dura-ki, and Irene
+was bait for me. You are a good businessman,
+Mytor."</p>
+
+<p>"You are taking this rather better than
+I had expected, Mr. Ransome."</p>
+
+<p>Ransome slumped down into his chair
+again. He felt no fear, no emotion at all.
+Somewhere, deep inside, he had known
+from the beginning that there would be no
+more running away after tonight, that the
+priests would have their will with him. Perhaps
+he had been too tired to care. And there
+had been Irene, planted by Mytor to fill
+his eyes, to make him careless and distracted.</p>
+
+<p>He wondered if Irene had known of her
+role, or had been an unconscious tool, like
+himself. With faint surprise, he found
+himself hoping that she had not acted
+against him intentionally.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_d.jpg" alt="D" width="37" height="40" /></div>
+<p>ura-ki was unconscious when the
+priests came. She had looked at Ransome
+only once, and he had stared down
+at his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Now she stood quietly between two of the
+black-robed figures, watching as others
+counted out gold coins into Mytor's grasping
+palm. Her eyes betrayed neither hope nor
+fear, and she did not shrink from the
+burning, fanatical stares of the priests, nor
+from their long knives. The pirate's consort
+was not the girl who had screamed in
+the dimness of the Temple when the Sacred
+Lots were cast.</p>
+
+<p>A priest touched Ransome's shoulder and
+he started in spite of himself. He tried to
+steady himself against the sudden chill that
+seized him.</p>
+
+<p>And then Dura-ki, who had called him
+once to blasphemy, now called him to something
+else.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand up, Ra-sed. It is the end. The game
+is played out and we lose at last. It will not
+be worse than the pit of the Dark One."</p>
+
+<p>Ransome got to his feet and looked at
+her. He no longer loved this woman but
+her quiet courage stirred him.</p>
+
+<p>With an incredibly swift lunge he was
+on the priest who stood nearest Dura-ki.
+The man reeled backward and struck his
+skull against the wall. It was a satisfying
+sound, and Ransome smiled tightly, a half-forgotten
+oath of Darion on his lips.</p>
+
+<p>He grabbed the man by the throat, spun
+him around, and sent him crashing into another.</p>
+
+<p>A knife slashed at him, and he broke the
+arm that held it, then sprang for the door
+while the world exploded in blaster fire.</p>
+
+<p>Dura-ki moved toward him. He wrenched
+at the door, felt the cold night air rash in.
+A hand clawed at the girl's shoulder, but
+Ransome freed her with a hard, well-aimed
+blow.</p>
+
+<p>When she was outside, Ransome fought
+to give her time to get back to the <i>Hawk
+of Darion</i>. Also, he fought for the sheer
+joy of it. The air in his lungs was fresh
+again, and the taste of treachery was out of
+his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>It took all of Mytor's guards and the
+priests to overpower him, but they were too
+late to save Mytor from the knife that left
+him gasping out his life on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Ransome did not struggle in the grip of
+the guards. He stood quietly, waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"Your death will not be made prettier by
+what you have done," a priest told him. The
+knife was poised.</p>
+
+<p>"That depends on how you look at it,"
+Ransome answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Does it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely," a hard, dry voice answered
+from the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>Ransome turned his head and had a
+glimpse of Irene. With her, a blaster level
+in his hand, and his crew at his back, was
+Captain Jareth. It was he who had answered
+the priest's last question.</p>
+
+<p>Mytor had said that Jareth's crew had
+an impressive reputation as fighters, and he
+lived just long enough to see the truth of
+his words. The priests and the guards went
+down before the furious attack of the men
+from the <i>Hawk of Darion</i>. Ransome fought
+as one of them.</p>
+
+<p>When it was over, it was not to Captain
+Jareth that he spoke, but to Irene.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you do this? You didn't know
+Dura-ki, and you despised me."</p>
+
+<p>"At first I did. That's why I agreed to
+Mytor's plan. But when I had spoken to
+you, I felt differently. I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Jareth came over then, holstering his
+blaster. Irene fell silent.</p>
+
+<p>The big spaceman shifted uneasily, then
+spoke to Ransome.</p>
+
+<p>"I found Dura-ki near here. She told me
+what you did."</p>
+
+<p>Ransome shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"I sent her back to the ship with a couple
+of my men."</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly, Jareth turned and stooped over
+the still form of Mytor. From the folds of
+the Venusian's stained tarab he drew a ring
+of keys. He tossed them to Ransome.</p>
+
+<p>"This will be the first promise that Mytor
+ever kept."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Those are the keys to his private ship.
+I'll see that you get to it."</p>
+
+<p>It was Irene who spoke then. "That wasn't
+all that Mytor promised him."</p>
+
+<p>The two men looked at her in surprise.
+Then Ransome understood.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come with me, Irene?" he asked
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Where?" Her eyes were shining, and
+she looked very young.</p>
+
+<p>Ransome smiled at her. "The Galaxy is
+full of worlds. And even the Dark One
+cancels his debts when the night of Bani-tai
+is over."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go and look at some of those
+worlds," Irene said.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Bride of the Dark One, by Florence Verbell Brown
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-14 19:55:33 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-14 19:55:33 -0700
commit	7188ac16f1b0c6607114bbd6b7071ce8734540dd (patch)
tree	47485c0d9d30284163183c76d84360263a92db7e /31306-h