Page:Avon Fantasy Reader 17.djvu/9

RV 7 (THE SAPPHIRE SIREN) "No more so than are you," I retorted. "As I say, we start at dawn. If I am indeed your King, it is for me to command—yours to obey! But for tonight, we sleep—if it be safe to sleep here."

"You will never be safe," he replied, "waking or sleeping, until you are once again on the Chrysolite Throne, surrounded by your own bodyguards. Still, we can take some small precautions to prevent a complete surprise."

He picked up a metal basin and two sticks, with which he rigged a device against the door, which would fall and make a noise were the door tampered with.

"There," he grunted. "Now we can sleep—and we need it!"

The clatter of the falling basin awoke me. I came erect, sword in hand, although I was wavering on my feet. Zarf looked at me in pity, but said naught. Slowly the door swung open, and a most grotesque visage peered in. Zarf audibly sighed his relief.

"Come in, good Koto," he invited soothingly, as one might speak to a timid child. "King Karan will do you no harm. Nor will I." And out of the corner of his mouth Zarf muttered—"Koto owns this hovel. He is a Hybrid, born of a lost woman of the Rodar race and an Elemental of the Red Wilderness. Yet Koto is very gentle and timid. Nor is he such a fool as he looks, for when I told him your identity, the poor creature wept because his hovel was no ht abode for royalty, even in distress. All his life long, Koto will be proud"

"These Rodars?" I asked, softly. "And this 'Red Wilderness'?"

"The Rodars? Gigantic savages, running naked. Gentle enough, and with child-like brains; and the Red Wilderness is a vast and dreary desert, all yours, but totally worthless."

"Enter, good Koto," I commanded. "I, Karan, King of Octolan, bid you enter and kneel before me."

With a snivelling howl the poor wretch of a Hybrid blundered in awkwardly and flopped asprawl before me. He grasped his head in both apelike paws, looked at Zarf out of terror-filled eyes, opened his ugly gash of a mouth, and emitted a raucous howl. In a perfect paroxysm of fright he gabbled:

"I knew it! I knew it! This hut is unfit for King Karan the Splendid! And now he will cut off Koto's head with his sword—cut off Zarf's head, too, King Karan! He made me take you in"

"But you are mistaken, good Koto," I assured the poor fellow. "I have no intent to cut off your head—nor Zarf's."

Then I tapped him on the shoulder with the flat of my blade.

"Rise, Baron Koto, Lord of the Red Wilderness and of all the Rodar-folk that therein dwell. Thus I, Karan, reward your service in giving us succor in our need!"

Zarf became angry at the audacity of my act. To him it was nigh to an insult to the entire order of knighthood. Then, abruptly, he laughed.