Page:Amazing Stories Volume 21 Number 06.djvu/55

Rh "Cease your foolish chatter, you blind little croaking fool! You think you can tell Zigor what to do? I'll have you beat till you can't walk, for talking like that! I'll have you burned alive—do you hear—you, you—"

"Zigor, in all your life, did you ever have a friend, or did you always live alone? Never having any one to love—never saying 'Friend, to me you are more than any other?' Zigor, I pity you, for you do not know what life is made of, nor what to do with it. You are a fool."

"Get out of my sight," screamed Zigor in a rage, for something of the things she was saying to him cut him as no other words he had ever heard. He could not listen, the fire of her words seemed to burn into his mind with a terrible meaning he had never glimpsed before. He could not face her, for something in him admitted she was right, but his lack of true courage would not let him face the fact.

YDIA waited not, but left the room on a run, for she had a great respect for the mad anger of deros, having observed a great deal of it. She had no wish to make this Zigor mad with anger, but was taking a chance on angering him to make him see the light of wisdom if the ability to save his mind were still alive within him; which she doubted, for there is no more stubborn or blind mind than that of the dero.

Nydia knew this, as it is one of the cardinal teachings of the ancient race, upon which all its vast mental science and much of its language is based—but she knew there are people who think evil is correct logic, merely because they have always heard and seen it about them, and never had a chance to learn current logic, reason, mercy and beneficence. If Zigor was evil from this cause, she hoped to show him differently, but she knew she had not succeeded.

As Nydia fled through the throne room from the shouts of the enraged Zigor, she thought of the old man, and sped up the great stairs to the upper floors—somewhere up there were the chambers where the old man had been placed. She passed Chlio, leaning against the wall—a dazed, unhappy expression on her face and a sharp feeling of pity, for the fate that had struck the beautiful woman arose in her. She stopped, asking: "Chlio, where have they placed the old man?"

Chlio gestured toward a nearby door, closed with a great lock, such as the ancients fashioned, and which no man can get undone without the particular key designed for them. She knew there was no hope except in the cunning mind of the old man, and turning to Chlio, guessed that the key was on her person.

"Give me the key, Chlio, hurry!"

Mindlessly the unhappy woman handed her the huge key, made for hands so much larger than human, and Nydia flew to the door, reaching up to the great high lock placed almost above the reach of her small, frail hands. The great, time-resisting mechanism creaked slightly, and the door swung open. Nydia darted within, knowing she had only that time in which the caution of young Zigor was distracted by his rage—and began to struggle with the ropes about the wrists of the old man, who had been left still bound, out of the great respect Zigor had for his father's abilities. Then the old man spoke:

"Within my inner pocket you will find a tiny gun, a heat ray of the little people. Take it out and cut the ropes with its beam. Be careful, for it is a terrible weapon for all its size. Even at my age, I still do not wish a hole burnt through me, especially by your gentle hands, sweet girl."

Seconds later, the old man stood up, stretching and rubbing his aching limbs. His height, which Nydia had failed to observe before, was impressive here alone with him, and his eyes burned with a fierce fire of rage at his treatment by his own son. Granted he had kept the youth imprisoned, still—events had proven him more than right. This time, the old man swore to himself, there would be no leniency. This time—