Lords of Creation Page 9

  “Because it—”

  Ellory caught himself just in time, before he said “reduces the oxide faster”. He knew nothing of oxidation, reduction, chemistry. He was a Stone-age man, ignorant of even the simplest reactions. He saw the girl’s close attention. Did she suspect? Was she trying to trap him?

  “—seemed to burn out the metal better,” he finished, with barely a halt. “That is all I know about it.”

  He shrugged again, hoping he was not as bad an actor as he felt himself to be.

  “Queer!” the girl murmured, half to herself. “Queer that you should suddenly excel in an art that might ordinarily take generations to develop. Are you a true genius, or are you—” She hesitated.

  Her eyes bent on him with such a piercing speculation that Ellory prepared for exposure of his identity. But again, as the other time, the Lady of Lillamra laughed at herself.

  “But that would be still more unbelievable! An Ancient—alive today! The spell of night has put fancies in my head. I will go before I think of more absurd things.”

  She shook her head, as if to clear it, and the silvery tide of her hair struck shafts of moonlight through the darkening air.

  She spoke again, to the chief.

  “Jon Darm, this man deserves better than a herdsman’s life. Invite him to your council table. He can do much for you, with his mind. But”—warning flashed from her voice—“remember that I have forbidden the use of metal weapons hereafter.”

  Her ship, a few moments later, drummed into the air and was lost in the gloom of near night.

  Chapter 13

  WARLORD OF NORAK

  “She came near to suspecting you were an Ancient!” said Jon Darm worriedly, when the last throb of the rocket ship had dissolved into the hush that was normal. “If she once knew, she would take you from us. It would be best to hide you, next time.”

  “Hide?”

  Ellory, fuming now in reaction to the recent humiliation, swore under his breathe, savagely. “Life isn’t worth living under that kind of treatment. Is it, Jon Darm? Is it, Mal Radnor—Sem Onger—Sharina—”

  He challenged them all. All, in turn, looked at him resignedly, sadly. Sem Onger patted his shoulder, in a soothing gesture. Ellory shoved his hand away. His anger rose in him, shaking him from head to foot. He had the urge to slap their faces, to sting them out of their apathy.

  Then he saw the faint glow in Sharina’s eyes.

  “It isn’t, Humrelly!” she murmured. “But what can be done about it?”

  Ellory gripped himself. His thoughts surged.

  There was a spark here, the spark that had always burned in revolt against tyranny, and that would never die. He could fan that spark, kindle a fire, with the right fuel. He sensed that covertly they waited, with an instinctive hope, for their guest from a great past to go on.

  Ellory straightened up.

  “I’ll tell you what can be done! Revolt! Fight!”

  He snapped the words, watching their reaction. He saw them start and exchange glances. It was a thing they understood, they who had so recently fought for land. But would they understand fighting for a principle?

  “A fight for freedom from Antarka!” Ellory added tensely. Jon Darm cleared his throat nervously.

  “That is impossible, Humrelly! The Lords of Antarka are powerful. You have heard the fate of those tribes which resisted them—cities burned, people hunted.”

  “Yes, individual tribes,” Ellory said steadily. “But what if many tribes resisted them? You and the Quoise and the Jendra and all the others—”

  “The Quoise!” burst in Mal Radnor. “But they are our enemies!”

  Stone-age psychology again—a thousand years of it. Ellory went on patiently.

  “Your enemies? Which is the greater enemy, they or the Antarkans? For a thousand years your little states have been bickering with one another, wearing each other down. The Antarkans have reaped in the meantime. Wherever a little spark of revolt flamed, they quenched it. But could they quench a big flame? One that involved dozens of united tribes, numbering millions of fighting men? Could they?” Ellory was applying debating technique, learned three thousand years ago. Present a question whose answer undermined the foundation of your opponent, like a planted bomb. Demand an answer.

  “Could they?” he insisted. “Mal Radnor, you’re a military man. If you had a million fighting men at your back, could the Antarkans vanquish you?”

  Mal Radnor gasped at the sheer thought.

  “With such an army,” he said excitedly, “I could do much! I could—” He stopped, as though the prospect dizzied him.

  “But where to gather such an army?” Sem Onger shook his old head sagely. “You are new among us, Humrelly. You do not know of our age-long enmities between tribes. Your eloquence would mean nothing among other tribes. The Quoise, if you spoke alliance to them, would slay you at the first word, not knowing you as we do. And so with all the other peoples. Even if you bore a charmed life, you would speak years before achieving your aim.”

  Jon Darm nodded. “Alliance! Unity! The very thoughts dizzy us. It is like a queer dream, Humrelly.”

  As queer a dream, Humrelly reflected, as the thought of a world state had been to the fighting nations of his twentieth century.

  Mal Radnor sighed as if seeing an enchanting vista fade into nothingness.

  “A million men at my back! Ah, Humrelly, that is magic even you cannot perform!”

  Ellory realized he had struck a real snag this time.

  Preach a gospel of unity among warring, Stone-age tribes? Launch the new-born thought of empire in one sweep? In the 20th century, it would have been as easy as making the rounds in London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Washington, and airily suggesting that they all form a nice, sweet little brotherhood, under one government. It might come about of itself, in this Stone age, in time. But time is slow.

  Ellory knew he was perhaps a thousand years ahead of history.

  If he had radio, he might do it. His voice, cast over a spidery network, creating mass spirit—if only that one thing had reMalned from the dead past! Here, he would have to plod from tribe to tribe, like a mad preacher.

  Ellory’s shoulders sagged. The Lords of Antarka would rule long after his natural death, most likely.

  He started. Sharina had touched his arm.

  “Humrelly, you won’t give up?” Her eyes were pleading. “There must be a way. I believe in you! In such a short time, you have done so much already—won a war for us. You can do greater things. Even, perhaps, defeat the Lords of Antarka—some day!”

  Ellory looked at her lovely face. She had inspired him once before, there at the ruins, with a subtle power. She inspired him once again.

  Something leaped into his mind. So stupendous was the thought that he consigned it to the privacy of his mind for the time being.

  He asked only one question, facing Mal Radnor. “Is the army disbanded?”

  “We will begin tomorrow, sending the men back to their homes and farms throughout the land—”

  “You will not begin tomorrow,” said Ellory tersely. “Tomorrow, in the square, I’ll address them, and all the people!” Jon Darm looked up, half angered.

  “What is the meaning of this, Humrelly? I am chief!”

  “But I’m the Warlord of Norak, by your own hand and decree this day!” reminded Ellory evenly. “Trust me, Jon Darm. I will explain tomorrow.”

  That night found Ellory in the deserted, empty crypt in the Kaatskills, watching the shadows of flickering candlelight on the stone walls. He had come here to think, alone.

  Thoughts more grave and serious than any since his awakening burned through his mind. Fate had thrown him at the crossroads of history. Each little decision of his from now on would echo down through ages. He knew tha
t as certainly as he knew his name.

  One breathless thought loomed gigantically—the thought that had been born just a few hours before. Empire! Military empire—forged by blood and sword!

  Sweeping out with a metal-armed horde, conquering, welding all the little tribal states into a mighty nation! That was the one way to do it. Perhaps all the land once known as America could be brought under his banner. But not for self-glorification. Only to defy the Lords of Antarka.

  Ellory paced up and down, and ghosts from the past paced with him—Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon. But none had had so lofty a casus belli. The cost: lives and temporary suffering among the Stone-age people. The reward: their eventual release from the yoke of Antarka.

  Did he dare start it?

  He felt suddenly young, inexperienced, crushed by responsibility. Who was he, a common enough mortal from the twentieth century, to lead the fiftieth century to better things? If only he could invoke statesmen from the past for guidance!

  What about the glowing wax? And his dream of launching science? Might that not be the wiser, safer course, instead of loosing the dogs of war?

  But that, again, might take years and years, or might never materialize. If it had been so hard to make even a few blunt iron things, how much longer would it take to produce all the finer implements of a mechanical civilization? And that was on the assumption, first, that he somehow solved the metal-and-power question. And perhaps, before he gained a good start, the Antarkans would step in and destroy his work, jealous of this threat of budding science.

  Back and forth his thoughts swung, as the long night hours passed.

  His the decision to make—his alone! Not a whisper from the past to help him. The crypt was silent, desolate, symbol of how remotely lost were the world and environment of his birth.

  A new world—a new problem!

  And then, like a sound through the halls of time, he seemed to hear a faint cry—the cry, perhaps, of billions of buried dead who had been oppressed. The cry of those who had died martyrs against tyranny. And who would fight again, if alive now.

  There was only one course, that cry told him, regardless of consequences. Empire among the people with whom his life was entwined! Empire to throw against the might of Antarka! At whatever cost!

  Ellory made this decision as the first crimson tints of dawn stole into the eastern sky. As he rode his horse through the chill morning air, quick plans ran through his mind.

  First and foremost—lighting the spark in Jon Darm and his people.

  At noon, Homer Ellory stood on the front balcony of the Royal House, overlooking a sea of faces. Directly before him, in the square, stood the twenty thousand fighting men whom he had armed with steel, and whom he had fought with. Beyond, filling all the streets, were the populace, for the word had gone around like wildfire that the man from the past would speak publicly for the first time.

  Back of Ellory, Sem Onger leaned against the balustrade, mumbling to himself skeptically about “voices cast for a thousand miles by radio”, which he had just read in one of the crypt’s books. Mal Radnor and Sharina stood together silently.

  Jon Darm raised a hand and utter quiet came over the assemblage.

  “Our guest from the past needs no introduction,” he said simply. “He wishes to address us all.” The chief stepped back with a wondering look at Ellory.

  “People of the fiftieth century,” said Ellory, his voice carrying clearly over the still air. “I came from a time that knew evils as well as good things. Humankind has always been faced with problems. And you have a problem today as great or greater than any in history. The tyranny of Antarka!”

  He said it boldly, bluntly. Oratory would confuse their Stone-age minds. The plain truth would impress them most, light that spark he knew lay ready for fanning.

  A murmur arose in the crowd and died as it waited his next words.

  “For a thousand years the Antarkans have robbed you of young men and girls, and food supplies. You and the other tribes. By what right? By no right that any of you believes, deep in your hearts. Many of you have seen your sons and daughters taken away, to serve these self-appointed masters.

  “And much of your toil in the fields is to feed them. You carry an invisible burden with you all your lives!”

  His voice rose a note. “Why? Why? Have you ever asked yourselves that?”

  The answering murmur from the crowd, louder now, proved they had.

  “Must it go on for another thousand years?” Ellory pursued. “Your sons to slavery, your daughters to worse, your food tribute to mouths that speak of you as worms? It should be stopped—and can be. But only by united effort, along with the Quoise, the Jendra and all the other tribes.”

  Quickly he added: “Who are your greater enemies—the Quoise or the Lords of Antarka?”

  Crowds, as had been the way of crowds through history, are won easily. Ellory was a little amazed at the chorused bellow that came back:

  “The Lords of Antarka!”

  “There is only one way to achieve unity with the Quoise and other tribes, against the common enemy.”

  Ellory’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the railing over which he leaned tensely.

  “By conquering them! The army of Norak, invincible with metal weapons, must sweep out and defeat all opposition, and later unite them under one commander. Before this great army of millions, the Lords of Antarka must yield!”

  Blank silence greeted Ellory.

  Back of him, he heard the gasps of his companions. It was a fateful moment, and Ellory shivered. He tried to say more, but his tongue stuck.

  Jon Darm’s voice hissed angrily at his side. “Humrelly! What have you said? You—”

  “Father, he’s right!” It was Sharina’s voice.

  “You are not so startled, Jon Darm,” cackled old Sem Onger. “You were thinking the same all night yourself! I know, I know, for in your youth you had ideas, as I had, and others of us. But we were afraid. Humrelly is not afraid!”

  Mal Radnor sprang forward suddenly.

  “Freedom from the Lords of Antarka!” he yelled, his young face alight. “Who will follow our Warlord, Humrelly, in this great cause?”

  The hushed silence of the audience was broken. Twenty thousand metal weapons flashed in the sun as the army acclaimed its new leader with a thunderous cheer. Back of them, the crowd joined in the din.

  Ellory was amazed with the suddenness of it all. He dimly realized that a thousand years of oppression had come to a head He had lit the spark that, fate willing, would blow distant Antarka off the face of Earth, as a ruling power. About him had settled the cloak of conquest, and already, faintly, he could hear the tramp, tramp, tramp of marching feet

  Two weeks later, Ellory and Mal Radnor had their last dinner, on the eve of their venture, with Jon Darm and his daughter, and Sem Onger. The latter, old and philosophical, ate the heartiest.

  “Come, come,” he chided them all. “Eat and be less solemn. Our cause is just, our plans careful. I will continue making metal weapons, in the ruins. Humrelly and Mal Radnor will lead our legions to victory. The Antarkans, if by chance they observe a battle, will think it another border war. You, Jon Darm, will soon be governing chief of a great land. You, Sharina—”

  He paused, then: “You have yet to take in marriage the future chief of this land, freed from Antarka!”

  Ellory glanced at Sem Onger, for a meddling old fool, but Mal Radnor spoke up.

  “After this great campaign,” he said slowly, “time enough to think of such matters.”

  In a gesture little short of magnificent, the young chieftain had left the matter open. Ellory did not know what to think. He was at the point of jumping up, forcing the issue, one way or another, but hesitated. Would it be wise, at this time, with so much ahead? Perhaps the less s
aid the better.

  He rose, gripping a wine glass.

  “A toast to success!” he proposed. “And to the downfall of Antarka!”

  The five drank silently, caught by the spirit of the moment.

  Chapter 14

  CONQUEST

  Events began to move swiftly. To Homer Ellory, it was like the sweep of history in some intangible book he was reading. He felt himself curiously apart from it, a pawn in a game played by the gods who molded destiny from the clay of human affairs.

  Followed by its wagon trains of supplies and camp attendants, the army of Norak crossed the Hudson River and marched south. The Quoise state was Ellory’s first objective, in his empire building. As he had surmised the Quoise border patrol, dismayed, fell back sullenly before the invaders, without presenting opposition. They wished no second taste of metal-armed might.

  Under Mal Radnor’s guidance, Ellory led his legion to the capital city of the Quoise. The night before they entered, Ellory went over their campaign plans with the young chieftain.

  “We’ll strike down the Atlantic seaboard, defeating whatever armies oppose us,” he summed it up.

  He opened the Atlas taken from the crypt’s library, to a map of the eastern states. Previously, with Sem Onger’s knowledge, he had blocked in the Maln tribal states, as they now existed. A thick black charcoal line snaked southward, passing through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia. It was to be their conquering line of march.

  Mal Radnor stared with never-failing wonder.

  “I can hardly believe, Humrelly, that it shows every river, mountain and plain in our path! How could the men of your time perceive all that, and record it on such a small space?”

  “I’ll explain some other time,” smiled Ellory. “But the map, I think, still holds, even if made three thousand years ago. Topography changes little during such a short tick of the geological clock.”