The Complete Margaret of Urbs Read online

  THE luxurious room of the Princess was in chaotic disorder, but only lazy wisps of steam drifted there, and the bellow of the blast was muffled. But even now the wall was cracking.

  “Margaret!” he cried.”

  “Margaret of Urbs!”

  Her voice answered him. She was in a corner, crouching. Injured? No, she was searching earnestly through a pile of debris that had been swept across the room by the first concussion. He rushed toward her.

  “Come on!” he shouted. “We’ll break a window and get out.”

  She glanced coolly up.

  “A window? Try it. A bullet might, but nothing less.”

  He snatched up a chair, spun it fiercely against the pane. The chair shattered; two tiny dents showed in the crystal, and that was all. And in the Palace, ventilated by washed air from the topmost pinnacles of the Twin Towers, no windows opened. He whirled on her.

  “Then it will have to be back through the blast!” he roared. “Come on!

  She stood up, facing him. She had slipped off the gold-black robe in the steaming heat, wore now the typical revealing garb of Urbs save that the material was of black velvet instead of metallic scales.

  “You can’t go through in clothes like that!” he shouted.

  “My Venus,” she said. “It was blown somewhere here. I want it.”

  “You’ll come now!”

  “I want my ivory Venus.”

  The pale flash of ivory caught his eye.

  “Here it is, then,” he snapped, thrusting the statuette into his belt. “Now come.”

  Faint mockery flashed in her eyes. “What if I don’t?”

  He shook a rugged fist. “You will or I’ll take you.”

  She was motionless.

  “Why,” she asked, “do you risk your life to reach me?”

  “Because,” he snarled in exasperation, “I was unwittingly responsible for this. I was tricked into breaking my word. Do you think I can let the Master—or you—suffer for my stupidity?”

  “Oh,” she said, her eyes dropping. “Well—I won’t go.”

  “By God, you will!” He sprang to seize her but she evaded him.

  But only for a moment, as again he saw the gleam of mockery in her eyes.

  “Very well,” she said, suddenly submissive.

  He snatched the flowing robe from the floor as she turned and walked steadily toward the wall that now heaved and cracked and groaned. Before he could reach her she had flung open the door—and hell roared in upon them.

  Martin Sair’s laboratory was a mass of smoke and steam like the crater of Erebus that flames in the eternal ice of Antarctica. Flinging the robe over the Princess like an enshrouding blanket, Connor propelled her, muffled and stumbling, toward the evil effulgence of the screaming blast.

  At the break in the wall he put his weight into a mighty thrust that sent her sliding, staggering, sprawling into the room where the fiery cloud closed, billowing, about her. Then he leaped through, his flesh writhing in the torment of the stinging rays, and blistering at the touch of scalding steam.

  MARGARET of Urbs was clambering to her feet, stumbling in the entangling robe, in the all but unbearable shelter of the thrones. She choked as the searing air reached her lungs.

  “You hurt!” she cried.

  “Come on!”

  Again the taunting gleam, even with blistering death staring them in the face. But she followed unresisting as he seized her arm and plunged through the blinding fog of steam and smoke that now filled the mighty room to the distant ceiling. Blind chance was their guide as they rushed ahead, staggering, coughing, teary-eyed. It seemed a long way. Were they circling in the gloom of the monstrous chamber?

  The Princess dragged against Connor’s arm.

  “No,” she gasped. “This way—this way.”

  He let her lead. They struggled through billowing masses that began to take fantastic shapes—charging monsters; heaving mountains. She staggered, stumbled, but shook off the arm he raised to support her.

  “I’ve never needed help,” she muttered proudly. “I never will.”

  It seemed to him that the blast roared closer.

  “Are we—right?” he choked.

  Then, through a momentary rift he saw something that sickened him—the row of thrones, smoking and blackened in the blaze. They had circled!

  Through some vagary of draught or ventilation there was a little area of almost clear air beside the throne of the Princess. Coughing and choking, they faced each other in it. He was astounded to see a flickering, taunting smile play for a single instant on her lips. Her hair singed and plastered flat by the steamy condensation, her face soot-streaked and reddened, she was yet so incredibly lovely that he forgot even their peril as her smile turned suddenly earnest, wistful.

  “Dearest,” she whispered, inaudibly, but he read her lips. “I’ll confess now. We were safe in my room. We must have been watched in the vision screens, and men would have come to cut through the window.”

  He was appalled.

  “Then why—”

  “Listen to me, Tom. Even here I misled you, for I knew which way the door lies by the pattern on the floor. But if you will not love me, I must kill you as I promised, then let both of us die! For I cannot watch you age year by year—and then perish. I cannot!”

  “Flame!” he roared, his voice impassioned. “But I love you! Did you think—I love you, Flame!”

  Her streaming eyes widened.

  “Oh, God!” she choked. “Now it’s too late!” She covered her face, then abruptly glanced up again, with a dawning hope in her eyes. “Perhaps not!” she cried. “Can they see us here? No—the steam. But men will come in moon-suits to carry away the blast—if—we can live—until then.” She coughed. “But we can’t. She was swaying. “You go—that way. Kiss me Tom, and leave me. I want to die—on the throne-—of Urbs. Only—a thing—like this, some accident—can kill an—Immortal!”

  “Leave you?” he cried. “Not even in death!” He choked as he drew her close.

  A wave of steam and fire engulfed them. “Help me to my—throne,” she whispered, gasping.

  Her eyes, tear-bright and sea-green in the fierce lightnings, went blank. They closed, and she slipped half through his arms. Her knees gave way as she collapsed.

  CHAPTER XXV

  Inferno

  HE held her against him. Put her on the throne? Why not? Why not hold her there until the end, die with her in his arms? Or perhaps shield her with his body until men came, or until the blast burned out. Somehow she must be saved!

  Never—not even when a thousand years ago an electric current was shot through him to kill him, had his urge for life been so great as it was now. Now, when life promised so much—the love of himself and the Black Flame of Urbs, two beings who should have been dead centuries ago and in different ages—he must die!

  Had Destiny kept them alive to meet and love for this brief moment before death? Madness! Better to die struggling for life. Raising the girl in his arms, he staggered away toward the wall that still shielded the room where he had found the Princess.

  Her weight was slight, but he had not taken ten steps when he went crashing to his knees. He struggled up dizzily. The line of diagonal black squares showed dim on the floor, yet he could not be sure that he had not changed his direction. He was suffocating; the roaring blast seemed to bellow in a gigantic throbbing, now in his very ears, now dim and faint and far away.

  He battled on. Suddenly he realized that he was moving burdenless. Without even being aware of it he had dropped the Princess. He turned grimly back until he stumbled over her lying huddled with her cheek against the steaming floor. Swinging her across his shoulder, gripping her knees so tightly that his fingers bit into the silk-soft skin, he staggered back over the lost ground.

  Each step was a gamble with death. If he fell now he would never rise again. He tottered on while his lungs labored in the vitiated air and the searing steam. Then behind him the blast roared fai
nter. Or was it simply that his senses were dulling?

  It was the sharp blow of his head against the wall that brought him back from a dreamy somnolence into which he was falling, surprised to feel the weight of the unconscious girl still on his shoulder.

  The wall! Which wall? In what direction was the door that meant life? He groaned and turned at random to the right, simply because his right arm clutched the limbs of Margaret of Urbs and his left hand was free to support him against the carved masonry. But an ejaculation of triumph escaped his burned, cracked lips as his hand slid over steam-clouded glass, and he saw white faces through the track it left.

  He could go no further; make not one more move. The limp body of the Princess slid from his arms, and vaguely then he knew that both of them were being dragged into the safety of the corridor. He gasped in great breaths of clear air that whistled in his seared throat, and then his heart chilled as his bloodshot eyes turned on the form of the Flame.

  HER face frightened him. Waxen pale, still as the image on her throne, she seemed scarcely to breathe. A grave Immortal who bent above her straightened up and said tensely:

  “Get Martin Sair—and quickly!” His eyes flashed to Connor. “You’re not hurt,” he said. “Just rest here for some time.”

  There was a stir in the hallway. Two men in brown all-encompassing suits and crystal helmets were pulling something metal. It looked like a steam-shovel scoop with two fifty-foot handles. A grapple for the blast, to box it before it undermined the vast Palace.

  Then Martin Sair was at hand, and the Master, his sorrowful eyes on the Princess.

  “Clear the corridor,” said the sandy-haired Immortal, and guards swept back the crowd.

  Through the North Arch. Connor glimpsed thousands upon thousands of Urbans on the Palace lawn, and then they were hidden as the gates closed.

  “He must go, too,” said Martin Sair, nodding at Connor. “The fewer lungs here the better. The girl is asphyxiated.”

  “No!” Connor croaked, flinging an arm across the Flame.

  “All right. Move aside, then.”

  But a roaring like all the tortured souls since creation burst from the opening doors. Out rushed the gnomelike men pulling their grapple, and Connor thrust his body between them and the Princess, taking the fierce rays on his own flesh.

  The container glowed brilliant as the sun, and out beyond the North Arch a chain dropped from the sky—a Triangle to bear away the deadly thing, to drop it into the sea. And the Palace was silent now as the silence of death.

  Death? Tom Connor glanced fearfully at the marble features of Margaret of Urbs. They were like death, too, and he gazed so fascinated that he was utterly surprised to look up and see Evanie and Jan Orm being herded down the corridor by half a dozen grim-faced guards.

  “Trying to escape out of the South Gate,” said one.

  The Master turned cold, burning eyes on them, and then again looked sorrowfully down on the still perfection of the features of the Black Flame.

  An Immortal placed a box at Martin Sair’s side.

  “Adrenalin!” snapped the Giver of Life, and took the tube the other handed him. “Amino-hyoscine! Daturamine!”

  He pressed the pale flesh of the girl’s arm, parted the closed lids to gaze into unseeing eyes. Finally, in the familiar manner of an ancient physician, he placed thumb and forefinger on her wrist, frowning as he felt for the faint throb of her pulse.

  “Suffocated,” he repeated. “Asphyxia.”

  In an agony of apprehension, his eyes blurred, Connor watched the slow rise and fall of her breast. Twice he fancied that the movement had ceased, and each time, with an almost inaudible gasp, the labored breathing recommenced. Then it did cease; he was positive, and a great wave of despair engulfed him.

  “Her heart’s stopping,” Martin Sair said briefly.

  Dying! Tom Connor gazed wildly about the corridor. Uncomprehending, he saw the grim light of triumph in the face of Evanie Sair as she looked coldly down on the fading glory of the Black Flame.

  That such beauty should perish—be thrust into the earth—turn into a heap of crumbling bones! Unthinkable!

  “Dying!” Connor croaked. “Dying!”

  Martin Sair said only, “Now! Cardiacine! And get the oxygen mask ready.”

  “Dying!” he croaked again.

  The Giver of Life glanced coldly at him.

  “Dying?” He echoed impassively. “No. Dead. What of it?”

  The Master turned grimly away and passed silently into the Throne Room with a word of brief command to the guards. They thrust Evanie Sair and Jan Orm before them, but Tom Connor did not miss the backward glance of triumph which the girl flung defiantly at him.

  CONNOR gazed desolately on the lovely clay that had been the Black Flame of Urbs, wondering dully why Martin Sair still bent so attentively above her, still kept the pale wrist in his hand.

  He started when the austere Immortal moved, placed his lips close to the cold ones of the girl, and rapped out: “Now! The mask!”

  The Giver of Life jammed a cone over the still face. There was a moment’s silence; nothing happened. The scientist bent closer. Abruptly he placed his hands about the waist of the Princess, shook her violently, until her head rolled from side to side. He slapped her breast, her cheeks. And then, like the faint sighing of evening wind, she breathed.

  A thin, muffled gasp—no more. But life-bearing oxygen flowed into her lungs, and the suspended metabolism of her body resumed its interrupted chemistries. Her breathing strengthened to a labored, whistling panting.

  “Chain-Stokes breathing,” muttered Martin Sair, whose genius had recalled a spirit already treading the pathways of eternity. The Black Flame, rekindled, burned dimly and flickeringly—but burned!

  It was past Connor to comprehend. The transition from the deeps of desolation to the peak of hope was too vast to span in a moment. He merely gazed blankly on the mask-covered face of the Princess. When realization began to dawn, the cry of amazement and ecstasy strangled in his seared throat and became only an inchoate gurgle. He managed a choked question.

  “Will she—live?” He moved as if to clasp her in his arms.

  “Don’t!” snapped Martin Sair. “On your life, don’t touch her yet. Give her red corpuscles time to oxygenate. The girl’s asphyxiated, suffocated, strangled! Do you want it all to do over again?” His eyes perceived the anguish in Connor’s face, and he softened. “Of course she’ll live. Did you think Death could so easily defeat Martin Sair? He has beaten me many a time, but never in so mild a contest as this!”

  The great Immortal again bent over the girl. Her breathing had eased. For a terrible instant Connor thought it was ceasing once more. Martin Sair lifted the mask from the pallid, perfect features, still quiet as marble save for the sighing of her breathing.

  “Now the elixir vitae,” he said. “That will put fire into this chilly blood.”

  He took a phial of ruby liquid from the hand of his silent assistant, the same potent stimulant, it appeared, that had roused Evanie from the deathlike sleep of the Messenger.

  The Princess was far too deep in unconsciousness to swallow. Martin Sair poured a tiny, trickling stream between her lips, no more than a few crimson drops. It was enough. As it made its fiery way down her throat she moaned and her exquisite face twisted as if in agony. The limp hands clenched convulsively into white fists.

  MARTIN SAIR rose.

  “You see,” he said to his grave assistant, “there was nothing organically wrong. Oxygen-starved, that was all. The organism was undamaged. The blood had not even begun to coagulate. It was simply necessary to start the body machine working, since it was in perfect running order.”

  “Cardiacine is a gamble,” his assistant said slowly. “I’ve had it rupture the hearts in some cases.”

  Martin Sair snorted. “Not with proper precautions. Daturamine and amino-hyoscine first. Cardiacine is powerful, of course.” He mused. “I’ve seen it produce pulsations in the heart
of a man ten days dead.”

  Connor ceased to listen. Cases! As if this were a medical case, this miracle! They droned on without even a glance at the pain-racked, exquisite face. Tom Connor touched her cold cheeks, kissed the soot-streaked forehead.

  “Careful!” warned Martin Sair. “But she breathes!” Connor whispered exultantly. “You’re sure—certain she’ll live?”

  “She’ll be conscious in ten minutes. A little sick, but conscious.” The scientist’s tone softened again. “In two days she’ll be as bright as ever. After all, her body is the body of a twenty-year-old girl. She has youth, resilience. You can stop worrying.” Someone touched Connor’s shoulder; a guard, who began droning, “Orbis Terrarum Imperator—”

  “I won’t go!” Tom Connor blazed. “I’m staying here!”

  “She’s out of danger, I tell you,” insisted Martin Sair. “If she were ever in danger—with me at hand!”

  Hesitantly then, Connor followed the guard, glancing apprehensively back at Margaret of Urbs, prone on the stone floor of the corridor. Then he reluctantly went on into the Throne Room.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  The Master Sits in Judgment

  IN the Throne Room the ventilators had drawn out the steam and smoke-poisoned air, but moisture dripped from the walls and gathered in pools on the floor. The terrific destruction of the blast was evident everywhere. No single hanging remained on walls or windows. Everything inflammable was in cinders, and the very floor was still almost blistering hot.

  The far end was a mass of indescribable ruin, debris from the shattered wall, even fragments of the diorite bases of the thrones. The air, despite the humming ventilators, was stifling in the radiations from floor and walls.

  The Master sat upon the half-melted wreckage of his throne, his stern eyes on Evanie and Jan Orm, who stood between guards before him.