The Jewel of Bas
Copyright© 2024 by Leigh Brackett
Chapter 6
Ciaran stroked the harpstrings. “Wait...” It was all humanity crying out of the harp. Little people, lost and frightened and pleading for help. No voice could have said what it said. It was Ciaran himself, a channel for the unthinking pain inside him.
“Wait—You were human once. You were young. You laughed and quarrelled and ate and slept, and you were free. That’s all we ask. Just those things. Remember Bas the fisherman’s son, and help us!”
Grey eyes looking at him. Grey eyes looking from a boy’s face. “How could I help you even if I wanted to?”
“There’s some power left in the Stone. And the androids are your creatures. You made them. You can destroy them. If you could do it before they finish this thing—from the way they spoke, they mean to destroy you with it.”
Bas laughed.
Ciaran’s hand struck a terrible chord from the harp, and fell away.
Bas said heavily, “They’ll draw power from the gravitic force of the planet and broadcast it the same way. It will never stop as long as the planet spins. If they finish it in time, the world will live. If they don’t...” He shrugged. “What difference does it make?”
“So,” whispered Ciaran, “we have a choice of a quick death, or a lingering one. We can die free, on our own feet, or we can die slaves.” His voice rose to a full-throated shout. “God! You’re no god! You’re a selfish brat sulking in a corner. All right, go back to your Marsali! And I’ll play god for a minute.”
He raised the harp.
“I’ll play god, and give ‘em the clean way out!”
He drew his arm back to throw—to smash the crystal web. And then, with blinding suddenness, there was light again.
They stood frozen, the two of them, blinking in the hot opalescence. Then their eyes were drawn to the crystal web.
The Stone of Destiny still fluttered like a dying heart, and the crystal rods were dim.
Ciaran whispered, “It’s too late. They’re finished.”
Silence again. They stood almost as though they were waiting for something, hardly breathing, with Ciaran still holding the silent harp in his hand.
Very, very faintly, under his fingers, the strings began to thrum.
Vibration. In a minute Ciaran could hear it in the crystal. It was like the buzz and strum of insects just out of earshot. He said:
“What’s that?”
The boy’s ears were duller than his. But presently he smiled and said, “So that’s how they’re going to do it. Vibration, that will shake Ben Beatha into a cloud of dust, and me with it. They must believe I’m still asleep.” He shrugged. “What matter? It’s death.”
Ciaran slung the harp across his back. There was a curious finality in the action.
“There’s a way from here into the pit. Where is it?”
Bas pointed across the open space. Ciaran started walking. He didn’t say anything.
Bas said, “Where are you going?”
“Back to Mouse,” said Ciaran simply.
“To die with her.” The crystal maze bummed eerily. “I wish I could see Marsali again.”
Ciaran stopped. He spoke over his shoulder, without expression. “The death of the Stone doesn’t mean your death, does it?”
“No. The first exposure to its light when it landed, blazing with the heat of friction, made permanent changes in the cell structure of my body. I’m independent of it—as the androids are of the culture vats they grew in.”
“And the new power source will take up where the Stone left off?”
“Yes. Even the wall of rays that protected me and fed my body while I slept will go on. The power of the Stone was broadcast to it, and to the sunballs. There were no mechanical leads.”
Ciaran said softly, “And you love this Marsali? You’re happy in this dream world you created? You could go back there?”
“Yes,” whispered Bas. “Yes. Yes!”
Ciaran turned. “Then help us destroy the androids. Give us our world, and we’ll give you yours. If we fail—well, we have nothing to lose.”
Silence. The crystal web hummed and sang—death whispering across the world. The Stone of Destiny throbbed like the breast of a dying bird. The boy’s grey eyes were veiled and remote. It seemed almost that he was asleep.
Then he smiled—the drowsy smile of pleasure he had worn when Ciaran found him, dreaming on the stone cross.
“Marsali,” he whispered. “Marsali.”
He moved forward then, reaching out across the crystal web. The long nails on his fingers scooped up the Stone of Destiny, cradled it, caged it in.
Bas the Immortal said, “Let’s go, little man.”
Ciaran didn’t say anything. He looked at Bas. His eyes were wet. Then he got the harp in his hands again and struck it, and the thundering chords shook the crystal maze to answering music.
It drowned the faint death-whisper. And then, caught between two vibrations, the shining rods split and fell, with a shiver of sound like the ringing of distant bells.
Ciaran turned and went down the passage to the pit. Behind him came the dark-haired boy with the Stone of Destiny in his hands.
They came along the lower arm of the fork where Ciaran and the hunter had fought the Kalds. There were four of the grey beasts still on guard.
Ciaran had pulled the wand from his girdle. The Kalds started up, and Ciaran got ready to fight them. But Bas said, “Wait.”
He stepped forward. The Kalds watched him with their blood-pink eyes, yawning and whimpering with animal nervousness. The boy’s dark gaze burned. The grey brutes cringed and shivered and then dropped flat, hiding their faces against the stone.
“Telepaths,” said Bas to Ciaran, “and obedient to the strongest mind. The androids know that. The Kalds weren’t put there to stop me physically, but to send the androids warning if I came.”
Ciaran shivered. “So they’ll be waiting.”
“Yes, little man. They’ll be waiting.”
They went down the long tunnel and stepped out on the floor of the pit.
It was curiously silent. The fires had died in the forges. There was no sound of hammering, no motion. Only blazing lights and a great stillness, like someone holding his breath. There was no one in sight.
The metal monster climbed up the pit. It was finished now. The intricate maze of grids and balances in its belly murmured with the strength that spun up through it from the core of the planet. It was like a vast spider, making an invisible thread of power to wrap around the world and hold it, to be sucked dry.
An army of Kalds began to move on silent feet, out from the screening tangle of sheds and machinery.
The androids weren’t serious about that. It was just a skirmish, a test to see whether Bas had been weakened by his age-long sleep. He hadn’t been. The Kalds looked at the Stone of Destiny and from there to Bas’ grey eyes, cringed, whimpered, and lay flat.
Bas whispered, “Their minds are closed to me, but I can feel—the androids are working, preparing some trap...”
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