The Judging of the Priestess

Behind them the sun sank lazily, a huge, lop-sided ball of fire too-bright-to-be-looked-at, and the gathering fingers of dusk stole softly through the trees, casting wan shadows where they touched. The air was thin and cold with the breath of approaching night; imps of darkness lurked in the tree-roots and hollows.

But Meg felt no fear. She was alive with warmth, light, happiness. The hills about her were soft-bosomed and gay with autumn's garments; no longer was the landscape salt and drear as it had been back there in the 'Kota territory, in the Place of the Gods. This was her homeland, her native Jinnia. Beyond that turn was a rill, a half day's march beyond the rill lay the village of her own tribeswomen....

From her seat astride Nessa, she looked down upon Daiv, her Man, and her voice was vibrant with happiness.

"We are almost there, Daiv! Soon you will meet my people, talk with them, learn to love them as I do."

Daiv smiled at her dubiously.

"That I am prepared to do, Golden One. I can't help wondering, though, how they will accept me. After what you've told me about the Men of your tribe—" He shook his head.

Meg made a happy-sound deep in her throat; slipped from Nessa's back and covered Daiv's lips with her hands.

"There is nothing to fear, Daiv. The Men of my Clan— pah! —they are not like you. They are weak things, meant only for breeding. The Mother will know, the moment she sees you, that you are one like the Gods. She too made the pilgrimage. She will rejoice and be glad. And—" Meg moved closer into the circle of his arms. "She will be gladder still when she sees our happiness."

"I hope so," said Daiv soberly. His lips met hers in the touching-of-mouths that he had taught her. Then, "But it is too late for us to finish our journey today," he said. "We must find a place to make camp."

"Just beyond the turn," Meg told him excitedly. "I know every inch of this country, Daiv. When I was young, and studying under the Mother to become a Priestess of the Clan, I used to ride out here to seek solitude and the guidance of the Gods. Just beyond the turn there is forest and a small stream. This is an ancient land, my lover; the trees are mighty and strong. But—" Her eyes found his adoringly. "But not so mighty and strong as you."

Daiv said, "Now, Golden One!" reprovingly, but Meg felt happy-crinkles in her heart as she saw the way he drew back his shoulders to lead the way into the forest. She did not mount Nessa again, but walked behind Daiv, leading the tamed and captive doe by its bridle.

Nessa had been Daiv's gift to her, a mount to take the place of the horse Meg had lost on her way to the Place of the Gods when the Wild One had attacked her. "A wedding gift," Daiv had called it—which did not make sense. But, then, Daiv was always saying strange things. That was, Meg thought, a trifle awefully, because he came from Kirki, which was a holy place far to the southland, near the Land of the Escape. His tribespeople were direct descendants of those Ancient Ones who, long ages ago, had fled from Earth to the evening star in the bowels of a metal bird that spat fire. [1]

Daiv's skill had captured Nessa, wild woodland doe, but Meg's gentleness had tamed her. She had borne Meg across all these foreign territories; through Braska and Zurrie, to the blue-shining fields of Tucky; now, at last, back to Meg's beloved Jinnia.

It had been a long journey and a strange one. Many things had Meg seen; curiosities that would thrill the Women of her Clan to startled, "Aiees!" of astonishment when she told of them. She had seen the long, straight roads built by the Ancient Ones; their smooth creet now cracked and worn but still easier to travel than the tortuous woodland paths. She had seen the remnants of a gigantic hoam called Sinnaty, where once had lived a great folk called "the Reds." She and Daiv had lingered for three days with the tribeswomen of Loovil (whose Mother knew the Mother of Meg's Clan, and had sent greetings and gifts of ripe, fragrant bacca); there had they seen an antique statue of a horse-god named Manowah.

They had even—Meg thrilled at the recollection—slept in one of the traditional oaken hoams peculiar to the Tucky folk; dwellings immortalized in the Tucky tribal song, "—sing one song of my oaken Tucky hoam —"

And, "It is such a great land, Daiv!" Meg had said one night, lying sleepless and excited over the wonders she had seen that day. "Such a great land, this Tizathy! How I wish I had lived in it when the Ancient Ones had welded it all together."

"A great land, indeed," was Daiv's answer. "But what did you call it? Tizathy?"

"Yes," explained Meg. "That was its name. One of the ancient songs tells of it. 'My country, Tizathy; sweet land of liberty—'"

Daiv looked at her with vast respect. "Someday we must visit my people, Golden One. The elders of my tribe will want to talk to you. You have such great learning...."

But now, at last, their journey was over. Jinnia's sweet green hills cradled them; tomorrow they would join and touch hands with Meg's sisters. Tonight they would sleep in the little forest Meg knew so well....

Daiv turned, an unfamiliar wrinkle-look on his forehead. "Golden One, didn't you say we were coming to forest land?"

"Yes, Daiv. Right before you. There—"

Then Meg was at his side, and her eyes were round with wonderment. "But—but this is not right!" she cried.

It was no forest that confronted them. Where Meg's memory had told her would be a riotous jungle of intertwining green, great trees that brushed the heavens, high archways of leaves and thick-boled woodland monarchs, there was nothing but a vast and desolate plain, strewn with bristling twigs!

Stark and severe was that glade, swept bare of all vegetation save these thousands upon countless thousands of twigs. No grass, no shrubs, no flowers. Rough, bare hillside, and ankle-deep—the host of stunted branches.

"I—I don't understand!" said Meg bewilderedly. She looked at Daiv, fear suddenly cold in her heart, and she made a magic sign over her breast to ward away the evil wood ghosts. "This is not as it should be, Daiv! Something—"

The plain echoed Daiv's boisterous happy-sound.

"Something tells me," he chuckled, "you've made a mistake, Golden One. So you know every inch of this country, eh? Well—" He shrugged. "It is a cloudless night. And plain or forest, this is as good a place as any to make camp. Get water, Meg, for the cawfee, and I will build a fire."

Silently, with a sun-heat burning her cheeks, Meg moved to the rill and got water. Then, as silently again, she returned to the spot Daiv had designated. By this time she expected he would have made fire-sparks with a rock and the bit of flame-metal he carried in his pouch—but to her great surprise, no crackling blaze awaited her.

Instead, Daiv was standing upright beside one of the branched twigs that festooned the plain. There was an angry-look on his face; perspiration dripped from his forehead and his throat. The look he turned to her was red with shame.

"Meg," he began, "Meg—a magic is upon me. I am weak. I have no strength!"

"Strength, Daiv?"

"Yes. Look!" He bent to the broken branch before him. His strong thighs tensed; the muscles of his back and shoulders corded with strain. Fresh perspiration broke from his pores as he strained to lift the tiny twig. Then his hands, white-knuckled and trembling, lifted clear; he looked at her again.

"It is so small," he said in a faint, hurt voice. "Yet I cannot lift it!"

Meg sprang to his side; bent to the twig. She was slim, a pale, golden shadow beside Daiv, but she was strong. Her hands grasped the rough bark; she lifted—

And fell forward, thrown completely off balance by that weight imponderable. Coarse soil rasped her knees, but she did not feel the pain. All lesser emotions were lost in the swift, superstitious fear that engulfed her.

"The forest is accursed, Daiv! We must flee!"

Hand in hand they raced wildly across the plain to the shelter of the woodland at its farther rim. The rays of the dying sun cast their shadows long before them, and a dry rattle of mirth seemed to rise from the tangle of unyielding twigs that bruised their feet....

Meg dreamed fear-dreams that night. She was lost in a jungle of trees hard as bone; as she fled beneath them, these trees groaned and toppled toward her, their motionless branches clutching like skeletal fingers. She moaned, cried Daiv's name—then wakened to find him leaning over her anxiously.

"Meg! Listen!"

In the cool morning the sound carried clearly to Meg's ears. A human voice, high-pitched in hideous screaming. A hoarse, grating voice. Meg shuddered.

"A Wild One, Daiv! He has fallen into one of our traps."

"Wild One? Trap?" [2]

"I'll show you." Meg rose swiftly, instantly awake as any forest animal. Bright morning sun cascaded down upon her, wakening a sister gleam of gold on her arms and thighs, touching to warm life the tawny down between her high, proud breasts. Save for the white girdle of flesh beneath her fur breech-clout, Meg was all gold; her hair, piled in a loose knot upon her head, was like a shining crown. It was not all Women, Daiv thought briefly, whose charm withstood the early morning sun. He was lucky to have found as a mate this slim lance of loveliness.

He hungered for her lips. But he was Daiv—"He-who-would-learn"—and here was a new mystery. He followed Meg. Meg followed the plaintive cries.

They stopped, at length, at the lip of a cleft in the earth. It had formerly been covered over with a webbing of boughs and ferns, but now that cover was broken, and from the bottom of the pit came the howls of pain that had drawn them.

Meg's lips were grim, white lines.

"He is in there," she said—and as she spoke she unslung her hunting bow, slipped a bone-tipped arrow from her quiver. She stepped to the mouth of the crevice, drew aim. Then—

"Wait, Golden One!"

Daiv swept the weapon from her hands. He looked down into the pit, cried out sharply, then, ignoring Meg's warning, lowered himself into it. A moment later he was back again, slipping his burden from his shoulder. His burden was, as Meg had guessed, a brutish, hairy Man-thing; foul with the stench of unwashed sweat and grease, grimy with blood and dirt.

"You were going to kill him!" Daiv accused sternly. "He is a Man, wounded, and you were going to kill him!"

The priestess said haughtily, "He is not a Man, he is one of the Wild Ones. Of course I was going to kill him. That is the Law."

"It is a poor Law," grunted Daiv. He was bending over the Wild One now, cleaning his wounds with handfuls of clean, dried grass. "If the Women of your tribe build traps like these for Men, I'm not sure I want to meet them. Aagh! False tops, and sharpened sticks beneath!"

Meg the Priestess disappeared, and in her place stood Meg the wife, a look of bafflement in her eyes.

"But, Daiv—" Faintly. "You killed one of the Wild Ones yourself. The first time we met."

"That," said Daiv curtly, "was because he tried to linber you. I wanted you for myself. There—he's coming around now. How do you feel, Man? Are you all right?"

The Wild One's eyes were uncomprehending as they saw the golden-limbed priestess and this strange, hairless Man before him. His bearded lips parted in a strangled fragment of speech.

"I am ... all right." Then, to Daiv alone, "You ... saved my life!"

Daiv nodded. Thoughts crawled slowly behind the Wild One's eyes; he reached a decision. From his filthy loin cloth he drew a chipped and rusted blade; this he offered to Daiv. With the other hand he smoothed flat the verminous tangle of hair above his heart.

"My life is yours, stranger," he said humbly.

Meg's eyes were wide with astonishment. From infancy she had been taught that the Wild Ones were mad creatures without mercy, without human sentiments; beasts that prowled the forests with but two thoughts in their minds: to satisfy the hungers of their bellies and to kill. Yet here was a Wild One displaying the civilized emotion of gratitude. To Daiv she said querulously,

"He must be crazed, Daiv! Let us take him with us to the village. The tribe Mother will want to see this marvel—a Wild One with a Woman's instincts."

"He goes free!" said Daiv. He was still curt. He lifted the Wild One to his feet. "Can you find your fellows, Wild One?" he asked.

The Wild One nodded mutely.

"Then, go!" ordered Daiv. "And be more careful of traps in the future. Begone!"

But the Wild One hesitated an instant longer. The words came haltingly from his lips—but they sprang from his heart. "My life is still yours, Hairless One. Should ever you decide to claim it, you will find me north of this spot. In a hillside cave by the waterfall...."

Then he was gone; a brutish, gnarled, hairy shadow sliding through the matted jungle. And to Meg, "Come. Let us find your people," said Daiv. "I am minded to see what folk would harm poor brutes like that one."

Meg pondered for hours, as they marched those last few miles to her native village, but she could not quite discover why it was that her cheeks and throat felt so hot. It was as though the fever-god was within her, but she knew she was not ill....

And so, finally, she riding upon Nessa's back, Daiv striding before her on swift, sure feet, they came to Meg's home. To the village of the Jinnia Clan that was her own.

And again the remembrance of the massive twig and the strange forest returned, bringing with it a half-fear. It lay uneasily in their minds like the brooding residue of a dream....

CHAPTER II

The Invaders

The glad word sprang first from the lips of the Warriors who guarded the gates of the village. "It is Meg! Meg has returned from her pilgrimage. Tell all!"

It spread to the Workers in the fields; they rose from their labors, wiping grit-coarsened hands upon their thighs; their eyes brightened. "Meg has returned!" And the breeding-mothers heard, they lolling their plump, lush bodies in the sunlit doorways. They heard, and their soft eyes filled with ready tears; they waddled forward, their bulging hips swaying like ripened corn. "It is Meg, come back from the Place of the Gods!" [3]

The Men, too, heard. They simpered foolishly and rolled their great, soft eyes and primped their oiled hair. And word reached the tribal Mother who came from her hoam to meet the Priestess. They met within the confines of Meg's village; the aged Mother moved to greet Meg with arms outstretched.

"You are returned safely, my child. May the Gods live forever!"

Meg could not speak for the little happy-imp who clutched her throat and made water in her eyes. Her hands, tight and hot on the withered hands of the old Mother, were speech enough. The Mother bent forward and made a sign upon Meg's forehead.

"You have learned the Great Secret, my daughter; I can tell that by the look in your eyes. Now you have passed the last barrier between you and the Motherhood of our Clan. Tonight we will have a great feast; at its conclusion I will invest you in the ultimate mysteries of your task—"

There was a stir in the crowd surrounding Meg and the Mother; Daiv, chafing with impatience at being thus ignored, had thrust himself forward to his wife's side.

"What is this, Meg!" cried the Mother. "Have you turned Warrior as well as Priestess? Where did you capture this hairless Man-thing?"

Now was the moment Meg had been at once dreading and looking forward to. She placed her hand proudly within Daiv's, and her voice was the clarion call of trumpets.

"It is no Man- thing , Mother. It is a Man; a real Man such as were the Gods! Not a scrimping parody like our breeders, nor a foul brute like the Wild Ones—but a Man. He is Daiv, my mate!"

" Mate! " The word leaped not only from the mouth of the Mother; it was rasped by the Workers and the Warriors, it was piped in the shrill, frightened quaver of the breeding-mothers. The Mother's eyes clouded.

"Mate, Meg? What madness is this? Surely you know a priestess who would be a Mother may not mate with a Man!"

Daiv said humbly, yet at the same time pridefully, "So Meg believed, O Mother, until I taught her differently—and until she learned the Great Secret at the feet of the Gods. I am Daiv, known as 'He-who-would-learn'; I come from the place of the Escape. My people live by the Laws of the Ancient Ones. In our land Man and Woman are equal; we give and take love in the sacred customs of marriage."

Meg wished desperately that Daiv had said nothing. Given time to lead up to these revelations, she felt she might have presented the argument more convincingly. But in Daiv's deep voice these truths—which she now recognized to be truths—sounded like rankest heresies.

And they drew from the assembled listeners the response Meg had feared. There was the snicking of metal upon metal as the Warriors half-drew their swords from their scabbards; a low rumble of dissent growled from the throats of the Workers. The breeding-mothers squealed like stricken animals, fled with hands covering their ears lest the Gods destroy them for having heard this impious outburst.

Lora, Chieftain of the Warriors, stepped forward, her lean jaw grim. "Blasphemy, O Mother! By Tedhi, She-who-laughs, this Man-thing befouls us with his lies. Shall I strike him down?"

She took a step toward Daiv. Meg cried out, moved between them, turned beseeching eyes to the Mother. "No! I beg of you, O Mother, no! Look upon Daiv! Look—and remember that which you saw, many winters ago, in the Place of the Gods! You know I speak the truth, Mother, and that Daiv, too, tells that which is so.

"Tell my sisters that this is well; that this is as it should be. You know—"

Jain, Captain of the Workers, shook her head sorrowfully. In a gentle voice she said, "Our priestess has gone mad, O Mother. The rigors of the pilgrimage have been too much for her. What is the law? Death for her, as well as for this hairless Man-thing? Or, having taken herself a Man, must she become a breeding-mother?"

But the Mother stayed her. There was a faraway look in her eyes; Meg knew that the aged leader of the Clan was remembering a pilgrimage made many, many years ago to the Place of the Gods. The Mother, Meg knew, had once looked upon the majestic figures of Jarg, Ibrim, Taamuz and Tedhi on their great, rocky promontory at Mount Rushmore and had seen, as Meg had seen, that the Gods were, in truth, Men like Daiv. A word from the Mother now....

The Mother spoke. There was infinite sadness in her voice.

"It is the Law," she said, "that none shall strive to change the ways of the Clan. You, Meg, have ignored the Law. You and your mate will be given justice."

And she turned away.

A gasp spun Meg's gaze to Daiv. His face was crimson with an anger-look; great veins throbbed in his forehead. He roared, "Here, then, is the joyous welcome your Clan offers us, Golden One! Justice? What kind of justice may we expect from a doddering, thwarted old harridan—"

" Daiv! " screamed Meg.

But her cry broke too late. With one swift gesture Daiv had wrenched the sword from the hands of Lora. Now he tested its blade, swept Meg into the circle of his arms, and laughed at the startled clanswomen defiantly.

"So you would judge a Man?" he taunted. "A Man of the Kirki tribe? Come, then, you filthy diggers of dirt and loveless scarecrows. Let your judgment be the matching of my steel against yours!"

There was a tense moment of silence. Then anger, bitter as the fruit of the simmon tree, flamed in the voices of Meg's sisters. A score of Warriors sprang forward, swords drawn. At their flank advanced the Workers, hoes and adzes uplifted. Meg smiled piteously at Daiv and murmured a swift prayer to the Gods. It was grievous to die thus, before the blades of loved ones....

And a faint, thin cry stayed them all! They turned to see, at the deserted southward gate, the torn and bleeding figure of a Warrior who, hair disheveled, face scarred and raw, hands and arms deep-scored with gory cicatrices, pulled herself within the Jinnia camp dragging behind her one sturdy leg and one blackened, withered stump.

In that moment of dread wonder it did not even seem strange to the clanswomen that the first to reach the wounded Warrior's side should be the stranger, Daiv. But Daiv it was who raised her in his arms.

The visitor's eyes were filmed with pain, horror, fatigue. They unveiled now, and an indomitable purpose shone through. In a husky voice she faltered, "It is too late ... to save me. Soon I will join ... my Clanswomen ... and the Gods. Save ... yourselves!"

There was unbelievable gentleness in Daiv's voice.

"What is it, Warrior?" he asked. "What enemy thus cruelly destroyed you? Of what would you warn us?"

From some deep-hidden well the messenger drew new strength. Her eyes blazed as she answered, "I bid you flee to the secret spots of the mountains. An evil foe even now marches upon your camp. Stunted and vicious little yellow-skinned Men-things who linber [4] our Clans, destroy our fighters with tubes that maim and stun."

The aged Mother was beside her now.

"Who are you, daughter?" she begged. "Whence come you?"

"I am Vivyun," labored the refugee, "of the Durm Clan. Short days ago came strange lightings in the heavens; mad thunders burst in the forests about our village—"

Jain interrupted, startled, "Mother! The omens we heard night before last in the forest to our west!" and Meg looked swiftly at Daiv. She cried,

"The forest through which we fled, Daiv! The wood of heavy twigs!"

Daiv silenced her with a thoughtful nod. Vivyun's halting speech continued.

"—then came the onslaught. Armored demons, the color of mustard seed, burst upon us. Our Warriors went to meet them but the dwarfs loosed lights from sticks and where the soldiers had stood, now were but inch-long, stony parodies of Women. One of the lights played for an instant upon my leg—"

Meg looked and shuddered. The dying Warrior's leg was firm and round from hip to thigh; ten inches above the knee it ended abruptly in a scoriated stump from which depended an ugly, wartlike excrescence which—Meg saw with sickening horror—was the perfectly formed simulacrum of a human limb.

Daiv was muttering savagely, "Speak on, Warrior!"

"They come," persisted Vivyun, "to capture Women. Like the Wild Ones, they die out for lack of Mates. Out of the far southland they come, from a land called Mayco. They bear other strange weapons. A stick that shoots lights of insanity ... a wall they build of invisible bricks...."

"More!" pleaded Daiv and the Mother in one breath as Vivyun faltered. "More!"

But a strange, foolish look glazed the dying one's eyes. Her lips moved whitely and her breath was a whisper. "You are a strange ... creature," she said to Daiv. "Somehow you ... make it easy to die ... Man-thing...."

Then she was still.

Lora, Chieftain of the Warriors, broke the spell that bound them all with a thunderous cry.

"Invaders? No invaders can take the village of the Jinnia tribe! To arms, Warriors! To your posts. Let these yellow dwarfs attack us , and—" She laughed evilly.

Daiv sprang to his feet; his voice a peremptory challenge. "Hold, Warrior! Did you not hear what Vivyun said? These invaders have magic weapons; sticks that spit insanity and crumpling death. It is best we should flee to the hills. Maybe there we can devise some way—"

Meg's cheeks were hot with sorrow for Daiv as the Warrior Chieftain scorned him with her eyes.

"It is a Man-thing after all!" she spat. "A hairless Wild One with the cowardly instincts of all Men. Fool! Know you not the dying one babbled foolishness in her delirium? Sticks that dwarf Warriors! Walls without bricks!"

Daiv gritted, "I have no time for argument, Warrior." To the Mother he cried beseechingly, "There is little love lost between me and thy Clan, O Mother. But because you are Meg's sisters, I would see you live. Believe me, there was truth in Vivyun's warning. I myself have heard elders speak of a sunlit land called 'Mayco,' peopled by savage demons—"

The Mother pressed her hands together in an agony of indecision. To Meg, in her desperation, she turned, crying, "See now, O my daughter, how heavy is the task of being a Mother?" And she muttered, half to herself, "If this be true, then all are doomed unless we flee. But if it be lies—"

Daiv, man of action, tired swiftly of this maundering. For the second time that afternoon he reached for Meg's hand.

"Come, Golden One! Let these fools die; let them become stiffened twigs of humans as the branches we saw in the forest were stiffened and dwarfed trees! I will take you to safety—"

Meg took a step forward. And then—one of the Women laughed. A sneering laugh. Meg's cheeks flamed, and her outstretched hand dropped to her side. She shook her head.

"No, Daiv." Sadly. "I had not dreamed you were—"

"A coward?" Daiv supplied the word wrathfully. "I am a coward to wisely flee from the magic of men who know the secrets of the Ancient Ones? By the Gods, Golden One, it is you who have lost your senses. If you will not come willingly, I'll save you in spite of yourself. Come!"

And he sprang toward her. Meg stumbled backward, torn by a thousand conflicting emotions. Then, of a sudden, came that which coalesced all her emotions into one indistinguishable chaos. There came a mighty roaring sough from the woodlands south of the village; a portion of the walls caved inward with a mighty crash; spent air howled like the breath of the flood-time gods, and—

In the opening, golden sunlight gleamed on glinting armor! A horde of dwarfed and evil yellow men, shining sticks in their hands, stormed in through the rent!

CHAPTER III

The Mate of Grensu

What happened then was never afterward to be clear in Meg's mind. She realized that the air was alive with the cries of the attacking dwarfs; that these cries found echoes in the shouts of her Warrior sisters who sprang forward to meet them.

She was conscious that a Warrior at her side, with a half-uttered choke of fear, had suddenly met breast-high a streaming light expelled from one of the invaders' sticks; she heard the clatter of metal upon rock as the Warrior's sword fell. She did not realize she had stooped instinctively to retrieve the fallen weapon until she found herself charging forward, cries ripping her throat, the sword waving above her head.

There seemed to be two Megs; one who raced futilely, vaingloriously, toward that crouching, smirking band of attackers; the other who stood somewhere apart from the mad press, watching the battle with impartial judgment. It was the first Meg who flashed down upon a stunted yellow man unnoticed, swung her heavy sword in a flailing motion that split his hauberk and sent his headless body toppling to earth.

It was the second Meg who noticed, with incredibly cool appraisal, that from the sticks of the invaders emerged two different types of light. One, a pale, greenish light, caused those bathed in it to drop their swords, cease their shouting, wander aimlessly off across the blood-drenched field. The other, a cherry-flamed light, was the horror of which the Durm Warrior, Vivyun, had warned.

The attackers seemed only to use it when dire necessity pressed. Its results were ghastly. Meg's brain reeled before the shock of seeing a Worker on her right run full-tilt into that cherry beam. One instant the Worker was there; the next she was gone. A sharpened hoe lay beside a blasted doll-like thing from which, momentarily, rose a steamy mist and a nauseating stench.

Given weapons to match those of the yellow dwarfs the Jinnians might have won through. Their numbers were as great as those of the invaders; their spirit was that of Women fighting for their native homeland. Gallantly they pressed onward, forward—and as gallantly they died. Save for that greater portion of them who assumed the "life-in-death" Meg had marked; the stupid insanity that sent them staggering, weaponless, upon mindless errands.

For conquerors, the yellow men waged stupid war. They seemed more intent on capturing prisoners than on destroying—or perhaps they had not anticipated such a stubborn resistance. Howsoever that may have been, time and again a member of the Jinnia Clan, evading the sticks-that-flamed, would pierce the enemy lines. There, ere the cherry light steamed her body into brittle stone, her sword would draw the life-blood of a yellow invader.

Meg had learned much in her long pilgrimage to and from the Place of the Gods. Daiv had taught her how to take advantage of all natural protections when warring against a superior force. These guerilla tactics served her well now. With the first conflict of forces she had sprung to a place of concealment behind the ruptured wall; from this vantage point she could see straggling invaders as they entered the village; could not be seen by them until their eyes widened at the sight of a dripping sword thirsting for their throats.

Four died thus beneath her blade. Cautiously, now, she ventured a glance into the yellow men's defense line.

There she saw what her quick intelligence told her must be the object of her attack. Outside the village stood a tiny knot of dwarfs garbed in armor more glittering, more ornate, than that of those who made the attack.

These, Meg recognized, were the leaders. The commander-in-chief must be that overripe, ochre plum in golden greaves and casque; he who stood impatiently fingering the handle of his light-stick as he watched his warriors' progress.

To think was to act. It never occurred to Meg that her solo foray was suicidal. Hurdling the bodies of those before her, she leaped through the broken wall; raced, bobbing and weaving, shifting her course to make herself an impossible target, down upon the commander's party.

As she ran, her hair broke loose from its handknit snood; lithe muscles snapped the sinews that held her cloak. She was like some magnificent golden panther as, hair flowing behind her in a liquid honey stream, high, firm breasts rising with the quickening of her breath, she charged down on her tribe's enemies.

Thoughts flashed dizzily through her mind. A great burst of exultation; she was too near, now, for them to stop her! Then a soul-shaking disappointment. She had been seen! One of the officers' eyes bugged; he raised a light-stick—

Then most incredible thing of all—the commander-in-chief had seen her, and his porcine eyes, slanted and deep-sunk in rolls of saffron flesh, were glittering with delight. His left hand was beating down the cherry-flame of the lieutenant as his right was pointing at her breast his own stick. Light flashed—pale green. Something within Meg seemed to snap; suddenly she was suffused with a sense of coolness, a bewildering drainage of the fever that had coursed through her veins.

So funny. So funny to have thought this battle important. It wasn't, really. It was all a mistake. And the sword in her hand? Meg glanced at it idly, her charge slowing to a walk. She cast the sword away.

The din of conflict was a thin and distant sound. The world about her was sweet and green ... the clouds billowed on an endless blue like boat-sails scudding before the wind. There was something she should remember. There was a dancing haze before her eyes ... flowers about her feet. Were she to wander gently, now, to that farthest field— what was it she could not remember? —there would be golden buttercups and the prim, starch cornflower ripe for plucking.

Her body was numbed and drowsy with a sense of comfort. Only— there was a Man; a Man named Daiv —only she could not be happy here. Not unless she forgot her troubles, forgot the man named Daiv, forgot the world was spinning and reeling and swirling before her eyes like a gigantic wheel going faster and faster and faster....

Then there was blackness.

Her first thought was that she had fallen, momentarily stunned, on the field of battle. She woke with a start, groping for the sword that should be by her side.

It wasn't there. She touched the flabby flesh of a breeding-mother who, flaccid-breasted and aquiver, shook beside her in an ecstasy of fear. Meg gagged as she stumbled to her feet. Her limbs were still weak beneath her, as if the veins that fed them had been fouled; her head was filled with tiny imps who danced and shrieked unmercifully. But—she was alive! And the mists were clearing from her brain.

Now she knew there was sobbing beside her. Strange sobbing. Not the soft, easy gulping of a breeding-mother; a harsh sound like the rasp of an adze on creet . It was Lora, Chieftain of the Warriors. Her armor crusted with blood, her great hands twisting with grief, she was rocking backward and forward, alternately weeping and cursing the Gods.

"Now accursed be the breeding-mother that gave me birth!" was her plaint. "This night shall my stars burn as cinders—"

Meg shook her shoulder roughly.

"Lora!"

The Warrior Chieftain's eyes recognized her. Lora cried prayerfully, "Search well your girdle, Meg! Have you a dagger upon you?"

"No. But, why—?"

Lora beat her tiny, thwarted breasts with clenched fists. "I live!" she choked. "I, their leader, continue to live, while they lie there, in peace and glory—"

Meg saw, then, that she was part of a group huddled in the center of that which had been the fortress of their Clan. They numbered more than three score; a mixed group of battle-grimed Warriors, Workers, breeding-mothers, even one or two pale-faced, weeping Men. The studs of the Jinnia Clan.

But there was another group at the far end of the court. These would never again either laugh or mourn. They were the dead. Workers and Warriors for the most part, although a few plump, bulbous bodies fed the mound. In still another place lay the bodies of the slain invaders; these had been accorded more dignity. All about the arena lay curiously shaped pebbles which—Meg knew, shivering clammily—were not pebbles. Two stunted yellow men, grinning callously, now busied themselves raking up these grisly objects.

Meg said, "The—the Mother?" and as if in answer to her thought, a gentle voice reached her ears.

"I am here, Meg, my daughter."

Meg turned swiftly. The Mother of the Clan lay behind her, motionless, head lifted upon a bolt of cloth someone had provided. There was an image of dreadful pain in the Mother's eyes. Meg sprang to her side, heart bursting with sorrow.

"Mother—you are hurt!"

"Nay, daughter, I am slain." The Mother sighed; a wan breath of regret. "They had no intent to kill me. But the rays were too potent for my aged body. I will linger yet a little while, then I must go. It is sad that I must leave my Clan captive to a race of beasts like these."

Meg said, "Rays, Mother?"

"Yes, my child. Those weapons which our Warriors could not comprehend are similar to those which, in the old legends, it is told the Ancient Ones used to destroy each other. Vibrations that cause, in one case horrible death; in the other case, stupefaction."

"But—but how?"

"I am not sure. But I think the cherry-light has the power of absorbing all water from the human body, thus dwindling it instantly to a husk. The green ray interrupts the nerve-centers, breaking the brain's contacts with other organs." The Mother's face was resigned. "All these things and many others you would have learned, Meg, had not this catastrophe come upon us. And had not you returned from the Place of the Gods with—a mate."

Her last word reminded Meg of that latent question which the green ray had driven from her mind. Instantly her heart was cold with dread.

"Daiv! Oh, Mother—Daiv! I do not see him. Is he one of—of those?"

Her eyes stared with horrid fascination at the tiny pile of simulacra the invading warriors were raking together. But it was not the Mother who answered. It was Lora, now come to their side. The Warrior Chieftain's lean face was etched with scorn.

"No, Meg, your Man-thing is not there! That would be an honorable death for him."

Meg faltered, "Then—then where—?"

The Mother's eyes, in pity, would not meet Meg's. "He fled, Meg."

"Fled! Daiv fled!" Meg stared, every fibre of her body taut as the gut of a bow. "I—I do not believe it!"

Even Lora's harsh voice was more gentle as she said, "It is true. He was but a Man, Meg; a Man, weak and cowardly. With the first breath of fighting he turned and fled the camp. Into the hills beyond."

The Mother intervened, "Perhaps it is better so, my daughter. Perhaps your own madness escaped on his limbs? If ever we win free of this host—"

Meg's new-found world of love and happiness crumpled into shards about her feet. There was a redness on her cheeks, for Daiv and for herself who had let his mouth touch hers. The rains of weakness filled her eyes, and she said, "So be it, Mother—"

It was at that moment a coarse, guttural voice interrupted her.

"Ah—there she is! That's the one, Leekno. Step forth, ivory one!"

Meg turned. Staring at her, his lips red and moist as the pepper-fruit, was the golden-greaved and helmeted commander whose actions had at once saved her life and broken her will for battle. A fungoid puff-ball of a man with twisting mouth, his eyes upon her made Meg feel suddenly naked and unclean. She shuddered.

"Step forth, I say!" repeated the leader. A yellow soldier moved to enforce his command. Meg shook free of the underling's touch, moved a step forward with a proud freedom of motion that wakened a dancing light in her accoster's eyes.

His voice was a purr of satisfaction.

"I was right. Very well, Leekno, you may distribute the other captives to our men by lot. And mind there be no wrangling amongst them. This barbarian I will take to my tent."

Meg demanded, "What is the meaning of this, little monster? Who are you to thus address a Priestess of the Jinnia Clan, and what would you of me?"

The commander's slant eyes blinked in appreciative delight. "A spirited filly, this!" he murmured. "Know, then, Woman, that you are greatly honored. I am Grensu, captain of this band. We are a legion of the mighty race of Japcans who rule in the sunny land of Mayco, many days' march to the south of here."

From behind Meg the aged Mother's voice stirred in sighing wonder. "Mayco? In the books of the Ancient Ones it is written of a land by that name. But its rulers were white men—"

Grensu made mirthless happy-sounds in his throat.

"The old one surprises me. Aye, withered crone, in the early days it was as you say. But that was before the great wars, and before the rebellion of the Women. Even then there were in Mayco many of our race, children of the Sun.

"But when mankind destroyed itself and the Ancient Ones died out, battling first each other, then between their sexes, we stayed aloof; we waited and planned and bred. Our Japni blood mixed well with that of the Maycans, giving rise to the mighty stock we now represent—the Japcans." Grensu glanced down his own obese frame pridefully. "Now, not only are we the possessors of the secrets of the Ancient Ones' war-weapons, but we are become perfect in body and brain."

Meg laughed scornfully, "Little fat-bellied lemon, I could squeeze between my fingers— so !" And she took a step toward Grensu. For a second he looked startled; then an expression of mingled pique and admiration mottled his pudgy features.

"You will make a haughty doe to tame, ivory one," he smirked, "but tame you I will. Come!"

Still Meg did not move.

"Come where?"

"Have I not said," Grensu informed her, "that you are to be favored? Like the Wild Ones who infest the forests of your land, we of Mayco find need of new and sturdy mates. That is the purpose of our expedition. But you, white-limbs, I have chosen for myself!"

The high color rushed to Meg's cheeks.

"Me, little toadstool! Know you not I am a priestess and inviolate?"

Grensu's waning patience snapped. He turned to his lieutenant. "Leekno—!" he said.

CHAPTER IV

Meg's Daring

But not at that moment was Meg to be forced to make the choice between submission and death. For there came an interruption. One of the Japcan lieutenants approached the group, hailed his leader.

"The wall is set up, O Grensu! The men await your inspection before setting its field into operation."

Grensu snarled, "Away, sluggard. Cannot the men do the least thing without—Very well. I will come immediately. Leekno, stay you here and keep a watchful eye on my reluctant priestess. I will return soon."

He waddled away, a lecherous ball of dough in gold armor. He joined at a little distance a group of invaders huddled over a strange, shining box. From this emanated fine bars of soft god-metal. There was brief conversation between Grensu and the workers, then one of the yellow dwarfs nodded and pressed down a standing lever.

There rose a startled cry from the captive Jinnia tribeswomen. For a crackling wave of thunder rolled about the camp; arcing out from the two arms of the magic box came an invisible something that sent dust flying as it scratched a mysterious circle about the entire village.

At the opposite end of this circle the two racing walls of invisibility met; there was a concussive echo and a blinding flash. Somewhere high above came the rare pain-cry of a buzzard; as the Women watched, the sheered hinder half of a bird-of-prey plummeted to the ground, fell with a thud, lay there flopping and bleeding—already dead!

Lora cried, "Walls without bricks!" and Meg looked at the guard incredulously.

"What marvel is this, ochre toad?" she asked. "I see no beam, no ray, yet a bird is slain."

Leekno growled, "Mind your tongue, Woman!" but he grinned. "The bird must have been right above the circle when Togi switched on the force-field."

"Force-field?" repeated Meg dazedly. She was not sure, now, but that the Clan had erred in opposing these invaders. Surely men—howsoever ugly and miscolored—who possessed magics like this must be Gods in themselves. It might be wise to submit to them without further ado. Then she thought of her own tribal Gods. Of stern, judicial Jarg and smiling Tedhi. Of the ringletted Taamuz and the sorrow-eyed Ibrim carven in eternal rock in the salt wastes so many marches from here. No, her Gods were the true Gods....

"You don't know what a force-field is, eh, Woman? Well, I suppose not. Come along, then; I'll show you. It will teach you that you can't escape."

Leekno led the way to the spot where armed guards huddled ever the god-box. Grensu had left; with his engineers he had gone off to some privy conference. Beside the scratched soil which marked the barrier, Leekno paused. His grin was mocking deviltry.

"I think, Woman," he said, "I shall let you escape. Flee now, while no one is looking."

Meg's heart leaped in her breast as a startled fawn at the voice of a hunter. Swiftly she breathed, "My undying thanks, yellow friend. Meg the Priestess will never forget this—"

She sprang forward. The surrounding forest was but a few yards distant; let her reach that leafy fastness no dwarfed invader could ever recapture her. She would flee to a neighboring tribe, there find help for her captured Clanswomen....

These thoughts spun dizzily through her brain as she took three ... four ... five leaping strides to freedom. And then there came a violent, staggering shock! Pain trembled through her body, flooding her with torment; it was as though a mighty hand had struck her across the face, bruised her straining breast, flung her backward.

She lay in a crumpled heap, dazed, shaken, upon the ground. And in her ears was the belly-deep, taunting laughter of the yellow-skinned guards—and Leekno! Leekno's bulbous body quivered with jelly-like mirth; fun-waters streamed from his eyes.

"'Meg the Priestess,'" he howled, "'will never forget this'! How right you were, white-legs. Tell me, is it your bruises that will keep the memory fresh in your mind?"

Meg said nothing. But she reached out, cautiously, before her. This time it was a hesitant finger, rather than the reckless force of a headlong plunge, that touched the invisible wall. Even so, her finger jerked like a slain snake as jolting current grounded through her. Her jaw set, Meg endured the pain, pressing.

Nothing happened. With every ounce of her whiplash strength behind that finger, she could not make it penetrate that barrier.

She rose, a great anger cold in the pit of her stomach. To the still-laughing guards she said, "This is a coward's weapon, O dwarfs the color of slime! Yet it will take more than this wall-without-bricks to save you when my neighboring Clanswomen come to rescue us. Their swords and arrows will hack this fanged barrier to bits—"

"So?" mocked Leekno. "Move aside, Togi." And he stepped over the god-box, moved to his right, and was facing Meg. "Togi will lend you his dagger, Woman. Hurl it at my breast and learn the truth."

Meg snatched the proffered weapon eagerly. And in the same movement spun and whipped it squarely at Leekno's bulky frame. There was a brief, scintillant prick of light. The dagger dropped harmlessly to earth at the circle's rim. Leekno's thick lips continued to grin as he returned through the portal which stretched above the box.

"Thus you have learned, Woman, that there is no escape. And now—back to your companions!"

The Mother said, "Meg!" Her voice was a whisper, so low that Meg could scarcely hear it.

The priestess bent beside her. "Yes, Mother?"

"The force-wall. You have seen it?"

Meg said despairingly, "I have seen it, Mother. No Woman can pass through it. Nor can a weapon."

"Yet," whispered the older woman weakly, "there is an avenue of escape. I watched while the yellow one taunted you. As all who mock, he revealed his own weakness. Did you not notice that twice he passed unharmed through the wall?"

Meg said sadly, "Not through, O Mother. But at the point of meeting where lies the god-box. I—" Then quick excitement touched her fingertips with fire. "Mother! That which he did, so can I do also!"

"Hush, my daughter! Yes, from that point only may you hope to escape. And escape you must, Meg. Flee to the Clan at Loovil, tell them of our plight. Once we aided them when the Wild Ones laid siege to their village. Their Mother will lend you Warriors; perhaps other Clans will also help."

Meg begged, "But, Mother, how ? I cannot—"

"I have shown you the way, Meg. You must take care of the rest."

The Mother fell back, breathing heavily. The crisp rasp of footsteps raised Meg's head. Grensu, his investigations ended, had returned to claim his linbered mate. There was triumph in his eyes as Meg rose, obedient to his command.

"So, ivory one, you have decided to accept my favors? That is well. Come with me!"

Only Meg knew that her meekness was the blind obedience of a body reacting without the counsel of a mind. Meg was thinking, thinking desperately. Seeking some ruse which would give her the time, the opportunity, the speed and the weapon she needed.

Grensu, warfare forgotten now, was anticipating a pleasant interlude. "You will not find me a bad companion," he boasted. "I am a mighty leader and a strong man, my wild doe—"

Doe! Suddenly it was all clear in Meg's mind. The Japcans had, upon seizing the village, immediately taken into custody the few horses owned by the Jinnia Clanswomen. But there was Nessa! Surely no one could suspect that soft-eyed creature of being anything but a camp pet; of being a steed broken to the rein and spur....

She turned to Grensu with an exclamation of dismay.

"My doe! My lovely pet! You destroyed her?"

Grensu said placatingly, "Was the doe thine, white one? No, she has not been killed—yet. Though her meat—"

Meg prayed that the Japcan leader would read the actions of her body rather than the purpose that stood printed in her burning eyes.

"You are going to kill my Nessa? My lovely doe; my pet from childhood? You must let me see her once again, bid her farewell—"

"Now, Woman," snapped Grensu crossly, "there is no time for that!"

"I beg it of you—" Meg drew a deep breath, hating the word that must defile her lips, "—my Master!"

"Well, if you must, then." Grensu looked pleased. It was a small price to pay for willing compliance. His face still bore the nail-marks of that screaming harridan he had captured in Lanta, and she had been a much less tempting morsel than this Woman. "Well, if you must—"

He turned aside, led Meg to the small grassy patch in which Nessa, untethered, was wont to graze. With a cry of gladness Meg threw her arms about the doe's neck. She sobbed openly, startling even the well-trained Nessa with the fervor of her caresses. And purposely she took a long time; so long that Grensu's impatience rose.

"That will do now, Woman. Let us go!"

"Not yet! Not yet!" pleaded Meg. "Later—"

"Now!" insisted Grensu. He stepped forward to disengage Meg's arms. For the barest fraction of a second his both hands were free and weaponless.

And in that split second Meg moved. "About!" she cried to Nessa. The doe wheeled, throwing Grensu off balance. As he tottered, vain ball of yellow fat, Meg's left arm found his throat, choked him into crimson breathlessness. Her free hand whipped the golden sword from his scabbard; then, as he fell limply to the ground, she sprang to Nessa's back.

"On, Nessa!" she screamed—and her heels bit the doe's flanks.

Meg leaped astride the doe, and kicked her heels into its flanks. With a wild leap it sprang into motion through the ranks of the little men.

She was halfway across the open walk-avenue of the village before the first startled cry of warning seared an invader's throat. She was flaming down upon the god-box, the narrow gateway of the magic wall, by the time that shout had spun its guardians' heads about.

Then there was mad confusion. Meg cried, "Nessa! Leap, Nessa!" even as Togi and his companion guards fumbled for their ray-sticks. The foremost was the first to lift his weapon to her breast—but even as he would have released its charge Meg's sword was biting through the thin plate of his shoulder-harness.

The Japcan screamed horribly and clutched with his free hand at a grisly stump from which spurted a scarlet ribbon of blood. The fingers of his severed arm contracted in an insensate reflex; cherry flame spewed from a stick rolling aimlessly upon the ground—and another of the guards crisped into steaming filth before it.

Now a jolt shook Meg as Nessa's cloven hooves met solid earth, and a brazen cry of gladness split the air.

"On, Nessa!"

It was like part of some nightmarish dream to see that beneath and behind her lay groveling bodies of those who would have stayed her passage; that the blade of her once gleaming sword now glinted with the bright crimson of death. But it was a joyous dream—for she was over the portal, through the barrier. Just a few more strides of the frightened doe, now, and she would be safe within the forest.

If—she glanced back over her shoulder. If one of those now springing from the camp did not succeed in snaring her brain once again with that green ray. Or if—but Meg did not want to think about that other more ruthless weapon.

Her deft hands guided Nessa right ... then left ... a zigzag path to spoil the dwarfling's aim. Once air hissed and crackled beside her head as a burst of cherry-flame just missed her, flashed by to cinder a huge tree instantly into a withered, massive twig. Her nostrils caught the stench of scorched hair, and Nessa whimpered piteously—but the doe's hoofbeats never faltered.

Once again Meg's brain spun with a brief moment of dizziness; she found herself thinking how pale and lovely was the sunset—and knew, instantly, that the green ray had found her. She ducked her head with a last conscious gesture, and was rewarded by feeling sense flood back like a cleansing tide.

And then green branches were whipping across her face, her fair skin was slashed with the hungry clutch of forest brambles—but she did not feel their hurt. Joy rose in her heart, joy like the glory of the newborn moon. Free! Free to find aid for her Clanswomen!

Free to—

At the last moment she saw it! Saw it and screamed a sharp cry to Nessa. The trained doe obeyed that cry, but both Meg and the deer were powerless before the eternal force that bore them onward—the force of gravitation.

For that which Meg, too late, had seen, was a patch of green soil too fresh, too even, to match the surrounding earth. Even as Nessa's scrambling feet struggled vainly for security, even as Meg felt herself pitching headlong and helpless from the doe's back, she knew that Daiv—gone, now, forever—had been right in cursing the traps with which her Clan destroyed the Wild Ones.

It was one of these traps that now, in her moment of triumph, had destroyed her!

Then Nessa's querulous bleat was in her ears; her loins quivered with the fall-feeling; the sunlight fled, and darkness engulfed all. Darkness and great, dizzying circles of pain that drove the breath from her body. She tried to cry out. The cry died in her throat. Fiery needles scored her arm, and breath deserted her. Dull silence....

CHAPTER V

Wrath and Uprising

It was a strange heaven and hell in which she stirred feebly. Heaven because she rested on a soft, warm couch of fur; hell because a horde of flaming pain-imps wrenched and tugged and twisted at her sword-arm. Heaven because a thick, earthy fragrance was about her; hell because dinning in her ears was a babble of coarse and indistinguishable chatter.

Meg opened her eyes—then closed them, shuddering violently—knowing, now, that this was neither heaven nor hell, but life. Life futile and unwanted.

She was lying at the bottom of the Wild One trap, her right arm bent crookedly beneath her, her body aching with a hundred bruises. But alive. Alive because the warm, furry bed on which she lay was the body of Nessa, cruelly pierced and broken by the sharp-pointed sticks from which the doe's bulk had saved Meg.

Meg's eyes filled with waters of sorrow and pain. Sweet Nessa, gallant Nessa, was gone. And now—

And now above her, squat silhouettes against the blue sky, were the Japcans from whom she had almost escaped. Even now one of their number was being lowered into the pit; was reaching for her warily, one hand clutching a ray-stick. Meg groped, with her good left hand, for the sword she had dropped, but the yellow dwarf's finger tightened, green radiation expunged all thought from her brain. As in a dream she felt herself being lifted and borne, surrounded by fat figures whose voices were raised in angry condemnation.

Then she was again within the confines of the camp and Grensu was before her, his tiny, slant eyes aflame with bitterness.

"You have animal cunning, priestess of a barbarian race," spat the Japcan commander. "I erred in believing you docile. Henceforth your taming will be that of the scourge and the chain."

Meg said nothing. But she noticed, her head lifting proudly, that some of the little man's confidence had deserted him, and that as he spoke he moved his stiff neck gingerly from side to side. There was throttling strength in the crook of Meg's elbow.

Leekno, his sallow face rebellious, was at Grensu's side.

"What is your command, O Grensu? Shall we destroy the white-limbed one?"

Leadership and desire met in conflict on Grensu's swart features. "The woman pleases me—" he growled.

"She slew," reminded the lesser officer, "Togi, Ras and Yinga. Two others lie wounded. It is written in the Law 'Death shall be punished with death—'"

"I know the Law!" snapped Grensu. "But now we are not in Mayco. Here, I am the Law. And I am minded to—" A hesitation halted his words. Of Meg he demanded, "Make your plea, Woman. Grensu listens."

There was a coursing pain in Meg's arm that began at her fingertips, sped through forearm and upper arm, spread even to the rest of her body, turning her stomach with nausea. Her heart was sick with disappointment. Almost had she succeeded. But "almost" was a bitter draught from the waters of might-have-been.

This day, which had dawned so fair and with such great hopes, had become a leaden weight to her heart. There was nothing, now, worth living for. Daiv, her mate, in combat had proven a coward. The beloved Mother of her Clan lay dying. A score of her sisters were pellets of death, heaped in a pile of rubble. Her last, desperate attempt at freedom had failed.

"I make no plea, yellow man," she said haughtily.

The Japcan warriors muttered amongst themselves. Grensu's ripe lips pursed irately.

"You do not understand, ivory one. I offer you one last opportunity. Pledge fealty to me at even this late moment and your life will be spared. Your wounds will be soothed by our healers, and, yes, even now Grensu will permit you the great honor of becoming his mate." His slant eyes probed hers. "Well, Woman? What is your answer?"

A laugh of sheer hysteria; a laugh that was half a sob, broke from Meg's throat. She stepped toward the little yellow commander.

"This is my answer!"

And she spat squarely in the dwarfling's face!

Grensu turned livid. Beneath his yellow skin the blood surged unhealthily, turning him to a sallow parody of a man. Fat fingers shook as he wiped his face, screamed viciously, "Seize her! Put her to the sword, Leekno! No—wait!"

Flames of pure hatred danced from his eyes. "Who defiles the haughty blood of Japcan shall not die thus painlessly. Her death shall be a slow one; one in which, shrieking for mercy, she shall have time to remember this moment!"

He stood quivering, shaken, searching the dregs of his mind for a fitting torment. Meg, waiting, saw from the corner of her eye a faint movement to her right. The Warrior Chieftain, Lora, had stolen close to one of the stunted invaders; her hand was even now reaching for his sword. Meg knew the meaning of that trial. Lora well knew she had no chance to fight or escape; her sole purpose was to clutch that sword and plunge it through Meg's heart to spare the priestess worse horrors. Then, though both of them died, their deaths would be clean and welcome....

Meg wrenched her eyes away; tensed her body for the moment of cold fire. And then—

There came a shout from the portal. The voice of a Japcan guard crying amusedly, "By the Serpent, O Grensu—we are attacked by a band of naked apes! Come you and view this wonder!"

All wheeled. And a swift hope flamed in Meg as she saw that the new besiegers were—a host of the Wild Ones!

Lora, at Meg's side in one swift bound, cried out hoarsely, "What other marvels shall the Gods send us this day, my priestess? Behold, even the skulking rats of the forest have this day turned against us! Are we, then, accursed?"

But Meg, forgetting her pain as for the moment she had been forgotten, gasped as the full import of this raid broke upon her.

"It is not us they attack, Lora! See who commands the Wild Ones!"

The leader was not hard to discern. His supple, hairless body stood out like a living white flame against the background of gnarled, hairy ones. His chestnut mane towered a full head above the tallest of the Wild Ones, and he bore a great, rusted, two-handed sword in one hand, waving it as a child a shaking-gourd. It was Daiv!

Then Grensu's hand was upon Meg's shoulder, spinning her about. To a brace of yellow warriors he was howling, "To the hoams with this prisoner. We will attend to her when we have broken these foolish Man-things from the forests. Come!"

He moved away with his lieutenants as Meg was taken to the hoam wherein her sisters had been confined. Brutally she was shoved inside; the two guards took their posts at the doorway. Meg pushed her way to a window to better watch the battle.

There was little—pitifully little—to watch. By the time she reached her vantage point, the horde of Wild Ones had deployed in a great circle about the Jinnia village; now, at a signal from Daiv, they rose like a great, swarthy tide and rushed down upon their enemy.

With their advance, a groan of despair rose from the imprisoned women. Daiv had made his escape too soon. He had not seen, had not suspected, the existence of a weapon such as the Japcans' force-wall. At one moment a throng of roaring Wild Ones was racing upon the village; at the next, scores were piled, shaken and bruised, before that invisible barrier, unharmed, but—futile!

How futile, they did not at first realize. There was courage in the hearts of the Wild Ones. Courage the existence of which the Clanswomen had not dreamed. Despite their bruises and the racking pain which—Meg knew from experience—was throbbing through their veins, they rose from the ground; they hurled themselves once again and viciously at the wall they could not see.

Lances shattered against that impenetrable force-field; swords were hammered into blunt grips—but the Wild Ones could not effect entry.

Daiv was everywhere at once; begging, pleading, cajoling his new-found army into greater effort. Twice Meg trembled as he threw himself vainly against that force; she matched, with her own cheeks, the whiteness in his as the second time he picked himself up weak, pain-racked, exhausted. She gripped the arm of the Woman nearest her; it was Lora.

An invisible wall seemed to rear itself before him as Daiv hurled his body forward.

"They outnumber the Japcans. That is what my mate counted on; that though many might fall before the rays of the yellow ones, enough would break through to free us! We must help them!"

Lora shook her head grimly.

"The Gods know we want to. But we cannot."

"We can! If we can turn off that god-box before it is too late—!"

Meg screamed the final words. For she had seen, now, that which must ultimately destroy the attackers. The Japcans, having had their fill of mirth at the sight of this impossible attack, were now preparing to go into action. In full view of the Wild Ones they were spreading out, taking positions behind the invisible wall. Their ray-sticks were poised and ready. A signal came from Grensu, grinning evilly in the center of the walk-avenue.

"Drop screen! Fire! Up screen!"

As swiftly as he spoke, the events occurred. The engineer at the god-box threw up his lever; instantly sticks in two score hands spewed cherry flame into the ranks of the Wild Ones. Steam rose; bodies disappeared; weapons dropped from hands now dwindled into cinders. Then the force-field was replaced. By sheer chance, one or two hurled weapons flashed through in the brief instant the barrier was down. One dwarf clutched, screaming miserably, at a pronged lance that split his throat in twain, bore him backward and pinned him to the ground to writhe out his life. Another collapsed, moaning, his thigh-bone shattered by a huge, hurled stone.

Meg's eyes sought Daiv frantically; found him. He still lived, but even at that distance she could read the sickness in his eyes as he stared dazedly at the dead about him.

Even as she watched, Grensu gave the triple order again. "Drop screen! Fire! Up screen!"

And once more death stalked amongst the attackers, choosing his victims with fingers of cherry-flame....

Lora's grasp shook the dread from Meg's eyes.

"You are the swiftest among us, priestess," cried the Warrior Chieftain. " You must reach the god-box."

Then Meg saw that Lora had not been inactive. She had gathered about her all those of the Clan who were not disabled. A motley crew they were. Hard-lipped Warriors, coarse-skinned Workers. There were even—amazingly—three breeding-mothers in that little band! Their billowing hips and pale, soft faces were strange attributes for a fighting woman, but their eyes were lighted with the same fire that suffused the eyes of Meg and Lora.

One of these, a woman named 'Ana, said now to Meg, "Once long ago, Priestess, I too aspired to be a Mother. It was not so fated, and this more humble lot became mine. But I will do my little part for you, for the Mother, and for the Clan—"

Lora interrupted crisply, "You're slim, Meg, and you're fast. We will create a disturbance at the door—" A tight and humorless smile played upon her lips. "Then must you break through the window, somehow reach the god-box."

Meg nodded. Her right arm dangled loosely at her side, but the pain that had seared it was devoured now in a greater intensity, a more vital urge. "So be it, Lora!"

"Then strike, Women!" cried the chieftain. Strong shoulders struck the door with ravaging force; wood splintered, and the door burst from its hinges like a splitting pod. Outside, the two yellow guards wheeled, their eyes wide, their hands streaking for the ray-sticks in their harnesses. One raised a shout.

Meg had only time to see that her Clanswomen were pounding through the doorway, that both guards had fallen before them, that the tumult had drawn the attention of the yellow men assembled in their tactical circle. All eyes were focused on the escaping prisoners spilling from the door; no one noticed as she clambered awkwardly from the window on the farther side of the hoam .

It was Meg's village; she knew its every twist and turn. She did not take at all times to the shortest route; she chose that which would disclose her least as she moved toward the vulnerable spot of the Japcan defense; the god-box.

But if the dwarfs could not see her, neither could she see them. She marked the progress of the split battle by those few sounds she could identify. Most important was the fact that she did not again hear Grensu's voice raised in the commands to drop and raise the force-wall. Destruction was, then, not presently breathing through the ranks of the Wild Ones....

But her own folk? Meg could only pray silently to the gods that their bravery might not be in vain—and continue running.

It was a short journey, but the torment within her brain made it endless. It seemed hours later that Meg found herself finally slipping through the last shaded alley, facing the spot which was her destination—the spot on the invisible circle's perimeter where lay the god-box.

Now confronted her but a few scant yards, and these the most dangerous of all. Could she cross these without drawing the fire of the guards about the box, she could lift that lever, if only for a moment, and let in the battering host of Wild Ones. Once she had raised it, Meg vowed, the lever would remain upright so long as she had a hand to hold it.

The Gods favored her in two ways. The guards about the box were looking the other way, gaping at this astonishing counter-attack being made by the supposedly vanquished Women. And—at Meg's feet lay something that had been overlooked by the detail of yellow soldiery assigned to cleaning up evidence of the first battle! One of the yellow invaders' ray-sticks!

With difficulty Meg stifled the cry that leaped to her lips. From force of habit, she stopped to lift the stick with her right hand; winced with pain when those benumbed fingers touched the ground and refused to grasp the object. Her left hand gripped it, held it; her questing fingers found the button that activated its ray.

Which ray, Meg had no way of knowing. Nor could she take time to experiment. Like a swift, golden ghost she sprang from the shelter of her alley into the cleared space. She was halfway across that space when one of the guardians of the god-box, by sheer chance, happened to turn and see her.

His mouth opened in a shout of warning that never emerged. For Meg lifted the stick—pressed the button! A spurt of cherry-flame engulfed the dwarf, and he sank lifeless to the ground.

But his death was warning enough. Shock slowed the turn of the other guardians, and in their slowness lay their doom. Meg's finger remained rigid on the button; her ray swept clear the defenders of the force-field—and she had reached her goal!

With a great shout of triumph she stumbled through that foul, steamy mist, feeling scorched cinders beneath her feet, and found the lever. With a mighty heave of her shoulders she forced it upward—

Then all was Bedlam!

CHAPTER VI

"The Old Order Changeth—"

A new note rose suddenly in the din of battle. It had been a howling note of despair before; the outraged cries of impotent Wild Ones mingling with the dying screams of the gallant Women. Now there rose to the skies a paean of joyous triumph. Hoarse masculine voices cheered madly as the horde of hairy Wild Ones found the barrier before them gone. Daiv foremost, their avenging circle closed in upon the village.

Where but a few moments before this engagement had been a slaughter of the Jinnians upon which the Wild Ones had been forced to look helplessly, now the battle became a free-for-all, split into a half-hundred tiny sectors.

Here a cherry-flame, wielded by a retreating dwarf in tarnished armor, winked its ruddy eye amongst Men who cried out, steamed, and fell. There a dozen Wild Ones hurled themselves upon a tiny knot of Japcans, literally ripped the yellow men into bloody shreds, and raced on—with one of the Wild Ones now brandishing a lethal ray-stick!

Still another place a handful of Mayco invaders fought vainly to fight a diverse foe—the Women before them and the Wild Ones who charged upon their flank. Up to now the Japcans had been content to subdue this Jinnia uprising with the green, stupefying ray; now they broke out their red weapon. Meg curdled with agony to see Women die beneath that cherry-flame.

But—Daiv?

Even as her mind asked the question, she found him. He had been at the farthermost perimeter of the circle; now he was racing recklessly across the central arena toward her. In haste or sheer bravado he had picked up no ray-weapon, but still brandished the huge, two-handed sword with which he had stormed the citadel.

But it was not this that miraculously saved his life from the lightning of crimson that flashed about him. It was his instinctive grace and agility, his perfect sense of timing. More than once Meg's lips formed a wordless shout as it seemed one of those flaming tubes must surely spend its charge on his smooth, gallant body. Each time Daiv saw the new danger, swerved to avoid the ray. And more than once his mighty sword accounted for the dwarf who would have been his destroyer.

Then, from another angle of the courtyard, burst a fat, bustling figure. Grensu. His golden armor, once so proud, was now dented in a score of places; there was a red stain upon his forehead, his ripe lips were working with a fearsome rage.

His objective was Meg, and upon her he was advancing, mouthing vile threats.

"So, ivory one, you think to triumph at last? Know, then, that Grensu takes with him in defeat his adversaries!"

And he raised his ray-weapon to cover Meg. For the first time in all those hectic moments, a sense of personal fear weakened the Priestess' knees. It had not seemed ill to die for a worthy cause. But now—when the cause was almost won, and when, in moments, her lover's arms would have been about her—But, as ever, Grensu's vaingloriousness was his own undoing. Once too often had he stayed his vengeance for a speech. Now as his finger tightened on the button that would blast Meg into rancid oblivion a tremendous object came hurtling through the air.

It was Daiv's claymore. Seeing there was no other way to halt Grensu's move, Daiv had heaved it squarely at the dwarfling commander with all the strength his mighty arms possessed. It was like a whistling flail of the Gods as it cleft the air; ripped the ray-tube from Grensu's hand, and with the spitting stick sheared yellow fingers.

Then, even as Grensu howled his pain and turned to flee, Daiv was upon him. He lifted the squat, heavy dwarf, massive armor and all, above his head; shook him as a dog might shake a ground-rat. Grensu's thick lips blubbered incoherent pleas, his eyes bulged wildly. But there was stone in Daiv's breast.

By the head and the calves he grasped the screaming commander; his arms made one sweeping motion. Grensu's fearful bleat ended in a choked wail of agony ... something snapped like a forest twig....

Grensu lay still.

Afterward, one of the Wild Ones came to Daiv where he stood with Meg beside a god-box that now lay quiescent on the ground.

"They call for the Priestess, Master," he grinned. "The Old One lies dying. Will you bring the lovely one to the hoam ?"

Daiv said, "I have told you, Wilm, that it is not necessary to call me 'Master.' I am a Man, like yourself; we are all Men, proud and noble. Do not forget." To Meg he said, "You remember Wilm; don't you, Golden One?"

Meg did, though it was difficult to see behind the grinning, confident features of this hairy one the same terrified creature whom Daiv had rescued from the pit just the day—could it be so short a time?—before. She nodded.

"I remembered Wilm," Daiv told her with a happy-look, "when the lemon-skinned dwarf band attacked us. From the first I knew our defense was futile. We were too few. We needed more, and stronger fighters. So I went for the aid of the Wild Ones—aid which Wilm had pledged me should I need it.

"Though," he shook his head ruefully, "I did not know they would have this other weapon, the wall-that-cannot-be-seen, when we returned. Without your help, Golden One, all would have been lost."

"And without his," mused Meg, "I should be the pale bride of death." It was an unprecedented gesture for a Woman and a Priestess of the Jinnia Clan to make, but Meg made it. She stretched forth her hand. "I would grip your hand in my own, Man of the forests. Henceforth let there be peace between us."

She winced at Wilm's enthusiastic grip. Then, "But let us make haste, O Daiv, my love. The Mother sends for me; I fear she will soon go to join the Gods."

There was already the God-look in the Mother's eyes when they reached the hoam . A look of strange peace, mingled with one of happiness, as she looked fondly upon Meg.

"I am to be with you but a little while longer, my daughter," she breathed quietly. "The Gods have called me, their voices stirred in my ears like the whisper of night-winds in the trees. Soon I shall go."

Meg's happiness was suddenly gray with the cloud of heart-hunger. She dropped to her knees beside the older woman's side.

"You must not go, O Mother!" she sobbed. "There is much to be done, and only thy wisdom can achieve it."

The pale hand of the tribal guardian sought, found, Meg's golden head.

"You speak the truth, daughter mine. There is so much to be done. But already you know how to lead our Clan upward to the stature of the Ancient Ones. With your mate at your side—"

There was a concerted gasp from the assembled Women of the Clan. The Mother, hearing, smiled wanly.

"Yes, thus openly do I approve that of which, from the beginning, my heart approved. Listen, my children—Meg was right. In her pilgrimage she learned, as did I many winters ago, that the Gods were Men. Men like Daiv. She rebelled against the Law that said a Priestess might not mate—but she was right in her rebellion.

"List, now, for with the all-seeing eyes of one on the threshold of death I tell you truth. It is right that Women should mate with Men. There should be no Workers, no Warriors, no breeding-mothers. Our Clan should own no stud-males, pale chattels like our kine and horses. All this is wrong."

Lora, her harsh-lined face sagging with confusion, cried, "But, Mother—the Wild Ones!"

"Never again must we prey upon the Wild Ones. Do you not see that the Gods avenged our doing so when they permitted Meg to be captured in one of the pits we dug?

"Henceforth—" The Mother's voice grew weaker, and a hurt-devil pierced Meg's heart. "There will be peace and amity between Women and the Wild Ones. I see a day—a day in the future to come—when mankind may again attain to the heights of the Ancient Ones. In that day the children of the Ancient Ones may return from the evening star to find a new world happier than that from which they fled—"

Daiv whispered to Meg, "Her holiness is one with the Gods. Hear now her sacred vision!" and Meg saw that his eyes were wet with heart-rains.

Then said the Mother to Meg, "Once I deferred judgment upon you, my child. Now I give my approval of you ... and of this Man who is thy mate ... and of all you have done. Lead well thy people...." And she was gone.

A soft murmur stirred through the room, a murmur that was the sobbing of a bereaved Clan. One by one the Women left the presence of death for the sunshine and life of the world outside.

Only a huddled group of Japcan captives, over whom grim-jawed Warriors stood guard, the bodies of those who had fallen in the battle, the scarred and blasted hoams , told of that which had been. Soon all this would be changed; a new and better existence would rise out of the mistakes of yesterday.

Wilm was capering at Daiv's side, plucking at his elbow feverishly. "Daiv, Master—"

"Not 'Master,' Wilm!" reminded Daiv sternly.

"Daiv, friend," corrected the Wild One. "Will the Women do as the aged one told them? Will they now, perhaps, become our mates?"

There was a pathetic eagerness in his voice. Meg was strangely stirred by it. Not so the angular Lora, who sniffed aloud.

"The Mother's word is the Law, O hairy thing that smells." Her voice was derisive. "What Woman of our Clan so excites your fancy? One of those, I suppose?" She nodded toward a young and buxom breeding-mother, white-fleshed and not yet plump from over-bearing, who strolled down the walk-avenue with hips swaying enticingly.

But Wilm shook his head.

"That?" he exclaimed. "Pah! What Man would want such a wobbly thing? I like a strong Woman; a Woman with arms like a weathered oak. A fighting Woman. A Woman like—" He paused breathlessly. Then, "A Woman like— you !"

" Me! "

The Warrior Chieftain gasped. Then the slow crimson started at her throat, spread slowly upward until it mantled her cheeks. And her voice was choked. "Like me , Man?"

"Not just like you," said Wilm staunchly. " You! "

Meg waited for the Chieftain's reply, atingle inside with wonderment and tickling little fun-bubbles. Then Lora spoke, and her answer was the answer of all womankind to the new regime....

"You must be mad, Man!" she declared. "But—but I think I like your madness. We'll discuss it further if you'll go bathe the smell from your body. And shave off that awful beard...."

Meg looked at Daiv; he looked back at her, and a happy-look was on his lips. He whispered, "The change has begun, Golden One. The change for which I hoped. We will live in a new world soon. Surely the poet of the Ancient Ones wrote truth."

"Poet?" asked Meg. "I do not understand, Daiv."

"His name," said Daiv softly, "was Tensun. Long ages ago he wrote, 'The old order changeth, giving way to new ... and the Gods fulfill themselves in many ways....'"