Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  When blood did flow!"

  "Oh, damn all wenches, here's an end of us because of your fool's madness," groaned Brusul as he caught up. "If those drylanders find us out, we'll make fine sport for them."

  Khal Kan grinned at the brawny warrior and the wizened little spy. "We'll not stay long. Just long enough to see what she looks like—this Golden Wings the desert tribes all rave about."

  They rode forward over the ocher desert. The huge red orb of the sun was full in their faces as it sank toward the west. Already, the two moons Qui and Quilus were rising like dull pink shields in the east.

  Shadows lengthened colossal across the yellow sands. The wind was keen, blowing from the far polar lands of this world of Thar. Behind them rose the vast, dull red shoulders of the Dragal Mountains, that separated the drylands from their own coastal country of Jotanland.

  A nomad town rose ahead, scores of flat-topped pavilions of woven black hyrk-hair. Great herds of horses of the black desert strain were under the care of whooping herdsboys. Smoke of fires rose along the streets.

  Fierce, swarthy drylanders whose skins were darker than the bronze faces of Khal Kan and his companions, looked at the trio with narrowed eyes as they rode in. Dryland warriors fell in behind them, riding casually after them toward die big pavilion at the camp's center.

  "We're nicely in the trap," grunted Brusul. "Now only wit will get us out. Which means we can't depend on you, Khal Kan."

  Khal Kan laughed. "A good sword can take a man where wit will stumble. Remember, now, we're from Kaubos."

  They dismounted outside the great pavilion and walked into it past cat-eyed dryland sentries.

  Torches spilled a red flare over the interior of the big tent. Here along rows, on their mats, sat the chiefs of the desert folk, feasting, drinking and quarreling.

  Upon a low dais sat old Bladomir, their highest chief. The old desert ruler was a bearded, steel-eyed warrior of sixty whose yellow skin was grizzled by sandstorm and sun. His curved sword leaned against his knee, and he was drinking from a flagon of purple Lurian wine.

  Khal Kan's eyes flew to the girl sitting beside the chief. He felt disappointment. Was this the famous Golden Wings, this small, slight, slender dark-haired girl in black leather? Why, she was nothing much—mildly attractive with her smooth black hair and fine, golden-skinned features—but not as pretty by half as many a wench he knew.

  The girl looked up. Her eyes met Khal Kan's. The stab of those midnight-black eyes was like the impact of sword-shock. For a moment, the Jotan prince glimpsed? a spirit thrilling as a lightning-flash.

  "Why, I see now why they rave about her!" he thought delightedly. "She's a tiger-cat, dangerous as hell and twice as beautiful!"

  Golden Wings' black brows drew together angrily at the open, insolent admiration on the face of Khal Kan. She spoke to her father.

  Bladomir looked down frowningly at the tall, grinning young warrior and his two companions.

  "Watermen!" grunted the dryland chief contemptuously, using the desert-folk's name for the coast peoples. "What do you want here?"

  "We're from Kaubos," Brusul answered quickly. "We had to leave there when the Bunts took our city last year. Being men without a country now, we thought we'd offer our swords to you."

  Bladomir spat. "We of the desert don't need to hire swords. You can have tent-hospitality tonight. Tomorrow, be gone."

  It was what Khal Kan had expected. He was hardly listening. His eyes, insolent in admiration, had never left the girl Golden Wings.

  A shrill voice yelled from the drylanders feasting in the big torchlit tent. A thin, squint-eyed desert warrior had jumped to his feet and was pointing at Khal Kan.

  "That's no Kaubian!" he cried. "It's the prince of Jotan! I saw him with the king his father, two years ago in Jotan city!"

  Khal Kan's sword sang out of its sheath with blurring speed—but too late. Drylanders had leaped on the three instantly, pinioning their arms. Old Bladomir arose, his hawk-eyes narrowing ominously.

  "So you're that hell's brand, young Khal Kan of Jotan?" he snarled. "Spying on us, are you?"

  Khal Kan answered coolly. "We're not spying on you. My father sent us into the Dragals to see if the Bunts were in the mountains. He feared that traitor Egir might lead the green men north that way."

  "Then what are you doing here in our camp?" Bladomir demanded.

  Khal Kan looked calmly at the girl. "I'd heard of your daughter and wanted to look at her, to see if she was all they say."

  Golden Wing's black eyes flared, but her voice was silky. "And now that you have looked, Jotanian, do you approve?"

  Khal Kan laughed. "Yes, I do. I think you're a tiger-cat as would make me a fit mate. I shall do you the honor of making you princess of Jotan."

  Swords of a score of dryland warriors flashed toward the three captives, as the desert warriors leaped to avenge the insult.

  "Wait!" called Golden Wings' dear voice. There was a glint of mocking humor in her black eyes as she looked down at Khal Kan. "No swords for this princeling—the whip's more suited to him. Tie him up."

  A roar of applause went up from the drylanders. In a moment, Khal Kan had been strung up to a tent-pole, his hands dragged up above his head. His leather jacket was ripped off and his yellow shirt torn away.

  Brusul, bound and helpless, was roaring like a trapped lion as he saw what was coming. A tall drylander with a lash had come.

  Swish—crack! Roar of howling laughter crashed on the echo, as Khal Kan felt the leather bite into his flesh. He winced inwardly from the pain, but kept his insolent smile unchanged.

  Again the lash cracked. And on its echo came the voice of Golden Wings, silvery and taunting.

  "Do you still want me for a mate, princeling?"

  "More than ever," laughed Khan Kan. "I wouldn't have a wench without spirit."

  "More!" flashed Golden Wings' furious voice to the flogger.

  The lash hissed and exploded in red pain along Khal Kan's back. Still he would not flinch or wince. His mind was doggedly set.

  Through crimson pain-mists came the girl's voice again. "You have thought better of your desire now, Jotanian?"

  Khal Kan heard his own laughter as a harsh, remote sound. "Not in the least, darling. For every lash-stroke you order now, you'll seek later to win my forgiveness with a hundred kisses."

  "Twenty more strokes!" flared the girl's hot voice.

  The whole world seemed pure pain to Khal Kan. and his back was a numbed torment, but he kept his face immobile. He was aware that the fierce laughter had ceased, that the dryland warriors were watching him in a silence tinged with respect.

  The lashes ceased. Khal Kan jeered over his shoulder.

  "What, no more? I thought you had more spirit, my sweet."

  Golden Wings' voice was raging. "There's still whips for you unless you beg pardon for your insolence."

  "No, no more," rumbled old Bladomir. "This princeling's wit-struck, it's plain to see. Tie them all up tightly and we'll send to Jotan demanding heavy ransom for them."

  Khal Kan hardly felt them carrying him away to a dark, small tent, his body was so bathed in pain. He did feel the gasping agony of the jolt as he was flung down beside Brusul and Zoor.

  They three, bound hand and foot with thongs of tough sand-cat leather, were left in the tent by guards who posted themselves outside.

  "What a girl!" exclaimed Khal Kan. "Brusul, for the first time in my life, I've met a woman who isn't all tears and weakness."

  "You're wit-struck, indeed!" flared Brusul. "I'd as lief fall in love with a sandcat as that wench. And look at the mess you've got us into here! Your father awaiting our report—and we prisoned here. Faugh.'"

  "We'll get out of this some way," muttered Khal Kan. He felt a reaction of exhaustion. "Tomorrow will bring counsel—"

  He heard Brusul grumbling on, but he was drifting now into sleep.

  Golden Wings' face floated before him as sleep overtook him. He felt again the strong e
motion with which the dryland girl had inspired him.

  Then he was asleep, and was beginning to dream. It was the same dream as always that came quickly to Khal Kan.

  He dreamed, first, that he was awaking—

  He was awaking—in fact, he was now awake. He yawned, opened his eyes, and lay looking up at the white-papered bedroom ceiling.

  He knew, as always, that he was no longer Khal Kan, prince of Jotan. He knew that he was now Henry Stevens, of Midland City, Illinois.

  Henry Stevens lay looking up at the ceiling of his neat maple bedroom, and thinking of the dream he had just had—the dream in which, as Khal Kan, he had been flogged by the drylanders.

  "I've got myself in a real fix, now," Henry muttered. "How am I going to get back to Jotan? But that girl Golden Wings is a darling—"

  Beside him, his wife's plump figure stirred drowsily. "What is it, Henry?" she asked sleepily.

  "Nothing, Emma," he replied dutifully. He swung out of bed. "You don't need to get up. I'll get my own breakfast."

  On slippered feet, Henry Stevens plodded across the neat bedroom. As he carefully shaved, his mind was busy with remote things.

  "Even if Jotan can pay the ransom, it'll be a week before I can get back there," he thought "And who knows what the Bunts will be up to in that time?"

  Out of the mirror, his own newly-shaven face regarded him. It was the thin, commonplace face of Henry Stevens, thirty-year-old insurance official of Midland City—a face far different from Khal Kan's hard, bronzed, merry visage.

  "I suppose I'm crazy to worry about Jotan, when it may be all a dream," Henry muttered thoughtfully. "Or is it this that's the dream, after all? Will I ever know?"

  He was facing the mystery that had baffled him all his life.

  Was Khal Kan a dream—or was Henry Stevens the dream?

  All his life, Henry Stevens had been beset by that riddle. It was one that had begun with his earliest childish memories.

  As far back as he could remember, Henry had had the dream. As a child, he had every night dreamed that he was a child in a different world far removed from Midland City.

  Each night, when little Henry Stevens had lain down to sleep, he had at once slipped into the dream. In that dream, he was a boy in the city Jotan, on the shore of the Zambrian Sea, on the world of Thar. He was Khal Kan, prince of Jotan, son of the king, Kan Abul.

  All through his years of youth and manhood, the dream had persisted. Every night, as soon as he slept, he dreamed that he was awaking. And then, in the dream, he seemed to be Khal Kan again. As Khal Kan, he lived through the day on Thar. And when Khal Kan lay down to sleep, he dreamed that he awoke as Henry Stevens, of Earth!

  The dream was continuous. There was nothing incoherent or jerky about it. Day followed day consecutively in the life of Khal Kan, as logically as in the life of Henry Stevens.

  Henry Stevens grew up through boyhood and youth, attending his school and playing his games and going off to college, and finally getting a job with the insurance company, and marrying.

  And each night, in Henry's dream Khal Kan was similarly pursuing his life—was learning to ride and wield a sword, and explore the mountains west of Jotanland, and go forth in patrol expeditions against the hated Bunts of the south who were the great enemies of Jotan.

  When he was awake and living the life of Henry Stevens, it always seemed to him that Khal Kan and his colorful, dangerous world of Thar were nothing but an extraordinarily vivid dream. All that world, with its strange cities and enormous mountains and forests and alien races, its turquoise seas and crimson sun, were surely nothing but dream.

  That was how it seemed to Henry Stevens. But when he was Khal Kan, in the nightly dream, it was exactly the opposite. Then it seemed to Khal Kan that Henry Stevens and his strange world of Earth were the dream.

  Khal Kan seldom doubted that. The hardy young prince of Jotan knew there could be no such world as this Earth he dreamed about each night. A world where he was a timid little man who worked with papers at a desk all day long, a world where men dressed and acted differently, where even the sun was not red but yellow. Surely, Khal Kan thought, that could be nothing but a dream that somehow had oppressed him all his life.

  Henry Stevens was, not so sure about which was real. There were many times when it seemed to Henry that maybe Thar was the real world, and that Earth and Henry Stevens were die dream.

  They couldn't both be real! One of these existences of his must be the real one, and the other a strange continued dream. But which?

  "If I only knew that," Henry muttered to his reflection in the mirror. "Then, whichever one is the dream, wouldn't bother me much—I'd know that it wasn't real, whatever happened."

  He looked ruefully at himself. "As it is, I've got two lives to worry about. Not that Khal Kan does much worrying!"

  His puzzled reverie was broken by the sleepy voice of his wife, calling a mechanical warning from the bedroom.

  "Henry, you'd better hurry or you'll be late at the office."

  "Yes, Emma," he replied dutifully, and hastened his toilet.

  He loved his wife. At least, Henry Stevens loved her—whether or not Henry was real.

  But Golden Wings! There was a girl! His pulse still raced as he remembered her beauty, when he had seen her through Khal Kan's eyes.

  How the devil was Khal Kan going to get out of the trap into which the girl's beauty had led him?

  He couldn't guess what the reckless young prince would do—for Khal Kan and Henry Stevens had nothing in common in their personalities.

  "Oh, forget it!" Henry advised himself irritably. "Thar must be a dream. Let Khal Kan worry about it, when the dream comes back tonight."

  But he couldn't forget so easily. As he drove to town in his sedate black coupe, he kept turning the problem over in his mind. And he found himself brooding about it that afternoon over his statements, at his desk in the big insurance office.

  If Khal Kan didn't get away, his father might send an expedition out of Jotan to search for him. And that would weaken Jotan at a time when the Bunts were menacing it. He must—

  "Stevens, haven't you finished that Blaine statement yet?" demanded a loud voice beside his desk.

  Henry started guiltily. It was Carson, the wasp-like little office manager, who stood glowering down at him.

  "I—I was just starting it," Henry said hastily, grabbing the neglected papers.

  "Just starting it?" Carson's thin lips tightened. "Stevens, you've got to pull yourself up. You're getting entirely too dreamy and inefficient lately. I see you sitting here and staring at the wall for hours. What's the matter with you, anyway?"

  "Nothing, Mr. Carson," Henry said panically. Then he amended, "I've had a few troubles on my mind lately. But I won't let them interfere with my work again."

  "I wouldn't, if I were you," advised the waspish little man ominously, and departed.

  Henry felt a cold chill. There had been a significant glitter in Carson's spectacled eyes. He sensed himself on the verge of a terrifying precipice—of losing his job.

  "If I don't forget about Thar, I will be in trouble," he muttered to himself. "I can't go on this way."

  As he mechanically added figures, he was alarmedly trying to figure out a way to rid himself of this obsession.

  If he only knew which was reality and which was dream! That was what his mind always came back to, that was the key of his troubles.

  If, for instance, he could learn for a certainty that Khal Kan and his life in Thar were merely a dream, as they seemed, then he wouldn't brood about them. There wouldn't be any point in worrying about what happened in a dream.

  On the other hand, if he should learn that his life as Khal Kan was real, and that Henry Stevens and his world were the dream, then that too would relieve his worries. It wouldn't matter much if Henry Stevens lost his job—if Henry were only a dream.

  Henry was fascinated, as always, by that thought. He looked around the sunlit office, the neat desks and bus
y men and girls, with a flash of derisive superiority.

  You may none of you be real at all," he thought. "You may all just be part of Khal Kan's nightly dream."

  That was always a queer thought, that idea that Earth and all its people, including himself, were just a dream of the prince of Jotan.

  "I wish to heaven I knew," Henry muttered baffledly for the thousandth time. "There must be some way to find out which is real."

  Yet he could see no test that would give proof. He had thought of and had tried many things during his life, to test the matter.

  Several times, he had stayed up all night without sleep. He had thought that if he did not sleep and hence did not dream, it would break the continuity of the dreamlife of Khal Kan.

  But it had had no effect. For when he finally did sleep, and dreamed that he awoke as Khal Kan, it merely seemed to Khal Kan that he had dreamed he was Henry Stevens, staying up a night without sleep—that he had dreamed two days and a night of the unreal life of Henry Stevens.

  No, that had failed as a test. Nor was there any other way. If he could be sure that while he was sleeping and living the dream-life of Khal Kan, the rest of Earth remained real—that would solve the problem.

  The other people of Earth were sure they had remained in existence during his sleep. But, if they were all just figments of dream, their certainty of existence was merely part of the dream.

  It was maddening, this uncertainty! He felt that it would drive him to insanity if the puzzle persisted much longer. Yet how was he to solve the riddle?

  "Maybe a good psychoanalyst," Henry thought doubtfully. "A fellow like that might be able to help."

  He shrank from his own idea. It would mean telling the psychoanalyst all about his dream-life. And that was something he had not done for years, not since he was a small boy.

  When he was a boy, Henry Stevens had confidendy told his family and chums all about his strange dreams—how each night when he slept he was another boy, the boy Khal Kan in Jotan, on the world Thar. He had told them in detail of his life as Khal Kan, of the wonderful black city Jotan, of the red sun and the two pink moons.

  His parents had at first laughed at his stories, then had become worried, and finally had forbidden him to tell any more such falsehoods. They had put it all down to a too-vivid imagination.