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Odin fancied that he could hear the two Kalis purring contentedly like cats. Well, they had done a good job. Let them purr. He would like to have thanked them, but how can you thank two bowling balls with scalps of cat's whisker wire? Gunnar sat up and began grumbling anew: "Well, thanks. Now, get me some clothes. Freida would not like it if I sat here half-undressed before a young lady.
The weapon and the three Kalis suddenly became one immense sardonyx that blazed huge and grand for a brief moment. Then the jewel-blaze burned out, and a handful of ashes sifted to the ground. The fourth Kali was undone. It tried to go forward against that jewel-fire. Then it hesitated and darted back.
Do you remember a story about the bush-men dying from a curse? Here." She held her two precious Kalis in one arm while she tapped the base of her skull. "In here is a bulb, the old brain, not even an idiot's brain, that brought you up from the jungle. It is a simple, worrying brain. Easily frightened. Easily convinced. It was convinced that you were dead. We had to arouse it."
He yelled at Ato's and Maya's wearying armies, urging them to go on and account themselves well. He stood by Odin's side, and the two hacked and thrust until the stairway was chocked with bodies and no one was left to assail them. He and Odin were splashed with blood. The tumult was deafening. The tiger-screams of the Kalis, the agonized torment of their prey.
With a shrill cry of fear it flung itself into Nea's arms, its coppery tentacles holding her close in a last effort to escape destruction. She had said before that the Kalis were the nearest things to human that could be made. She had been the poor relation, the daughter of a dreaming failure.
They slid to the marble street and died. And the Kalis laughed and whined and screamed as they fed. Even above their feeding-song and the screams of their victims came the shrill, triumphant cry of Nea urging them on. Nor was the rest of Maya's army still. One old Bron who had been a slave of Grim Hagen for too long had found a shotgun among Hagen's treasures and was blasting away.
As though spun out like gleaming strands of cobwebs, coils of light came flickering toward the attacking Brons. Like blue-white ripples they went across the fore-running Kalis. The ripples of light went on expanding. The shotgun in the hands of the old Bron suddenly burst to pieces. The old rifles fell apart.
Remember, I warned you that unless I found that my journey repaid me, it would be bad for you." "It is but a few yards farther, my lord. There is my master the sheik of the Beni Kalis awaiting you." Gervaise rose to his feet as Hassan and two of his crew came up. "Now," the former said roughly, "where have you bestowed these captives you want to sell me?"
"There are a hundred more on the two ships," Maya told Odin. "Oh, Jack, we have Nea to thank for most of this. Nea and Wolden. After you and your men left, Nea took her Kalis, as she called them, and some of her people. They came through the barrier and made their way to the Old Ship. They surprised the few guards that Grim Hagen had left. They freed me and the other prisoners.
The Kalis began purring contentedly, as though space were no more than a huge living room, and they were beside a comfortable fireplace, looking up at their all-powerful mistress. The dust-cloud was farther away than Ato had guessed. Long before they reached it, his instruments began to waver. He looked at a star-map. Meanwhile, Nea fed rows of figures into a humming calculator.
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