Would the ring continue to lead him? He could try an experiment. Andas loosed his grasp on the baton until he held it by only the lightest of grips. Then he spoke for the first time. Though he purposely kept his voice low, yet his words rang unusually loud in his own ears.

"To thy mistress, go!"

The baton quivered, moved. He tried not to hold it too tightly lest he hinder that movement, yet he must not drop it. It turned at a sharp angle left. And he pivoted to face that way. The baton stiffened to point, and he found he could not make it waver.

Away from the bone-walled huts it led him, from the lake, from the skimmer. It was like a spear aimed at the steep side of the crater.

Then he saw that he walked a marked way, sided by stumpy pillars, first knee high, then waist, and finally topping his shoulders, and these were also bones.

So walled in, Andas came to an opening in the cliff. As he paused, there was a flash within, a leap of greenish flame. He smelled a stench that was worse than the odor of the crawlers.

Then a voice called, "You have sought us out, Emperor. Have you then come to seek your crown? But your hour is past-even as the crown has pa.s.sed to one who can better wear it!"

In the green of the flames he saw the gathered company. Back against the wall on either side were a sprinkling of men, who stood, staring in a kind of despair and complete surrender, as if all their strength had been drained. But in the center was a group of women, and behind them another, enthroned.

Andas raised his eyes to the face of that one. On her head was the Imperial crown, the sacred one worn only when the ruler took his oath of allegiance. It was death for a lesser man to touch it. At the sight of that in this place, anger blazed hot in him.

The head on which it rested was held high with an arrogance he thought not even an empress in her own right could have shown. Her face had the perfection of a soulless, emotionless statue, with only the eyes and a cruel curl of mouth betraying life.

Her body was bare of any robe, but she held on her knees, so that it covered her to the base of her throat, a huge mask. That mask was demonic, yet not ugly. Rather it seemed great beauty had been twisted to serve great evil, so that it was degraded and debased.

"Andas." He saw the cruel smile grows as she spoke. "Emperor that wished to be. Behold your empress! Give homage as it is due!"

As she spoke, the mask before her looked at him also with a compelling stare. He s.h.i.+vered, knowing that it, too, had life-or was in some way an extension of a life force that had no human connection, more to be feared than merely alien.

"Homage, Andas, humble homage-" She made a chant of the words. And that chant was taken up by the women gathered at the foot of the throne until it beat in his head. But he stood erect and did not answer.

It appeared that she was not expecting such defiance, for now she ran tongue tip across her lips and ceased that chant. But a moment later she spoke again.

"You cannot stand against me any longer, Emperor of rags and tatters, of a ruined empire. If you have come to surrender-"

"I have not come to surrender, witch." Andas spoke for the first time, and his words cut across hers as swords might clang blade on blade in a duel.

"Yet you bear our emblem as a banner!" She laughed, pointing with her chin to the ring.

"Not as a truce flag, Kidaya, but as a torch to show me your path."

"And you have walked it-to your end, Emperor of ashes and dead men!"

"Not yet!" From whence came that flash of inspiration he never afterward knew. It was like an order sent ringing through his head by the will of a power beyond his own knowledge.

He readied the baton as if it were a throwing spear, such as a man uses for skill hunting. And he hurled it, so that the ring at its tip entered straight into the mouth of the mask.

Then he saw the lips move, close upon the wand and snap it. The portion bearing the ring, with the ring, vanished.

"To like fares like!" he cried, and the words also came from somewhere outside his own mind.

There was a moan running through the company. But Andas was no longer aware of them-he saw only Kidaya. Now, as her mask of confidence broke and she allowed emotion to show fleetingly upon her face-consuming hate-he traced a likeness to the Princess Abena, faint though it was. The princess was at the beginning of a crooked and shadowed road. This woman had walked the full way to stand at its end.

She laughed. "My poor littling! Now you have thrown away what small protection you ever had. As the Old Woman has eaten your safeguard, so shall she now eat you." She fell then to crooning, rubbing her hands caressingly along the sides of the mask, so that Andas could see that she did not need to steady the thing on her knees, but that it rested there of itself.

Kidaya crooned, and the mask began to grow larger and larger until it hid all of her, save her slender feet and the hands that still gentled it. If this was illusion, the hallucinatory power behind it was very great.

The eyes were alive, and they looked upon him with a stare as if to draw him forward to death, while the mouth opened and a great tongue used its tip to beckon him.

Andas could feel the urge, the need to reach that mouth. But what he wore about him kept him steady, though the pull was nigh unbearable. And all the time the mask grew.

Still Andas waited for the signal he was sure would come. Move too soon and that which manifested itself in the mask would not be drawn far enough into this plane of existence to be destroyed. Wait! But the need to go to it- He swayed as he stood, torn between the witchery of the mask and the counter force about his body.

He could not stand it much longer-he would be torn apart!

The signal he waited for came with a flash of energy filling his whole body. Andas raised his hands and began to trace in the air the contours of the mask. From his lips poured the ancient chant he had learned at the fort. It was the sound and tone of those words that should release the energy now filling his entire being and aim it as he made of himself a vessel of destruction.

His whole body quivered and shook with what filled it. Andas believed he could actually see faint threads of light shooting from the tips of his fingers. And then he obeyed the call of the mask, leaping up to meet it as if he were its prisoner at last.

There was- But no man could-would-be allowed to remember what came then. There was nothingness and the dark.

He was cold. He had never been so cold in his life. Life? No, this was death, which had been his burden and finally finished him. But could one smell in death? Could one feel? If so, then old speculations were at fault. Smell, feel, hear-for there was moaning he could hear.

See? Andas opened his eyes. He lay on rock, looking at blasted, blackened stone, so stained it might have been worked upon by blaster fire.

Stone? Memory came back. So, he was not dead. He levered himself to his knees and swung his head slowly from side to side. And what he saw sickened him somewhat but did not pierce far, for it was as if the cold he felt created an ice barrier between him and the world.

He could not get to his feet, but he crawled out of that hollow until he crouched in the open between the bone walls of the pathway. He was no sooner in the open than there was a resounding crash from within. A great billow of gritty dust puffed out, so he cried aloud and threw up his arms to cover his face. But afterward there was no moaning in the dark.

Andas crawled on, and the stones and gravel cut his hands and knees. He felt no pain, for the cold kept him in its hold, and no other sensation could pa.s.s it. Finally he came to the skimmer.

It took the last of his strength to crawl within and tumble into the pilot's seat. He had to raise two bleeding hands to set the controls, nor was he fully aware as the craft raised from the valley and swung around on the recorded tape that would take it home.

For a while he was limp, inert, preserved from all feeling. That he had accomplished what he had gone to do, that what occupied the mask had been destroyed in this world, at least for a s.p.a.ce, and with it those who had served it, he knew. But he felt no triumph. It was like watching a taped story in which one was not personally involved.

He had hoped to die swiftly and cleanly in that final moment when he made of himself the ultimate weapon. But it seemed that the very power he had invoked had preserved him, to die more horribly and lingeringly. That, too, he was able to face with detachment, which he dimly hoped would continue to hold. If the energy had burned out of him all fear and emotion, so much the better.

At last he either lapsed into a stupor or slept while the skimmer bore him away from those ominous mountains toward a land waiting to be reborn.

When Andas awoke, he was not in the skimmer, but lying on a cot bed, and around him were the walls of the fort. So he had made it back after all-or the skimmer had made it for him on tape command. But again there was no feeling of triumph in him, only a vast weariness. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep. Perhaps this was the first symptom he must endure before the end.

Someone moved into his line of vision. Shara stood there-but with a difference about her. Those tight braids were gone. Her hair made a soft halo about a face that was still far too thin and drawn. Again the years had fallen from her. She was young, and in her burned a light that made her far different from the woman who had wept over the dying emperor. But though she did not weep for him, she would watch a second emperor die. Suddenly feeling broke through the cold that encased him. There was no one to weep for him. And the desolate loneliness was more than he could bear. Andas closed his eyes. But it seemed she would spare him nothing.

"Andas! Andas!"

Reluctantly he looked at her once more. She was on her knees beside his bed so her face was close. There were tears in her eyes after all. One spilled over to form a clear droplet on her brown cheek.

"Andas-"

"It is done," he told her. "The Old Woman-is destroyed-perhaps forever. Rule in safety, Empress!"

"Only with an emperor!" she replied. "Andas, the medic-he could not find any radiation deterioration. You will not die, not now!"

He continued to stare at her. She was telling the truth. He could read it in her face. Not die? With radiation readings such as they had told him? It was impossible that any human being could survive.

Any human being! Did he have at last the answer to his one moving question? Was he Andas-the false false emperor, the android? This was the proof. emperor, the android? This was the proof.

"I am not what you think-no emperor, not even a real Andas." He must tell her now, before she went on building on something which did not exist. She would perhaps have some kindness in her, but being human, she could not but repudiate him for what he truly was.

"You are are Andas!" she told him firmly. Her hands closed upon his with a grip he could not find the will to fight. She held them, imprisoned in hers, against her breast. "You are Emperor Andas, of that there is no question." Andas!" she told him firmly. Her hands closed upon his with a grip he could not find the will to fight. She held them, imprisoned in hers, against her breast. "You are Emperor Andas, of that there is no question."

How could he make her understand? There was only the stark truth left.

"I am an android-made to look like the other Andas in my own world. But I thought that I was real!"

"You are real! You are Andas-"

"No!" His energy seemed to grow with his need to deny, to make her realize what he was. "This proves it. I am an android. A human being could not have survived such radiation. Don't you understand? I am not not human!" human!"

"Brother." A hand with fur growing down its back came out of nowhere to rest lightly on his shoulder. Andas turned his head to see Yolyos.

"Tell her," he appealed to the Salariki. "Tell her the whole story. She must not go on believing-"

"He has told me, Andas! When you went as we thought to your death, he told me. Do you think the medics would not have known that you were android? They believe that you were healed by the force you used to destroy the Old Woman, that it might have killed you instead if you had not been already exposed to the radiation, but that one balanced the other, to your saving."

"Yet neither would have affected an android-"

"No one could make so human an android. You are a man. Believe-accept it-" she entreated him.

But he looked to Yolyos. The Salariki smiled. "If you are android, so am I, but we are near enough human, it seems, to be human. Why should it then matter, brother? If it has saved your life twice over, be glad for it."

"Be glad-" Shara leaned closer. Her lips were warm and comforting on his.

He surrendered. Near enough human to be be human. He would believe-he had to now. human. He would believe-he had to now.

Wraiths of Time For Esther Turner, Renee Damone, and Carol Cross, all of whom have had their own struggles to prove themselves against odds in a hostile world.

-1-.

The box was placed in the exact center of the desk. Under the full beam of light Jason Robbins had turned on it, its eighteen inches of age-yellowed ivory glowed as might polished wood. Or was she only imagining that, Tallaha.s.see wondered. This artifact had a quality of-she searched for the right word, then knew it was one she would not use aloud-enchantment, that was it. There was a golden inlay on the lid, as well as four other disks, inlaid with gold, one on each side. She could guess without touching that they had been fas.h.i.+oned of that pure, soft gold used in ancient times.

"Well"-the grey-haired man, apparently in charge here, leaned forward a little-"can you give us any lead, Miss Mitford?"

Tallaha.s.see found difficulty in turning away from the box at which she had stared from the moment Jason had snapped on the desk lamp.

"I don't know." She spoke the truth. "There are elements of African design, yes. See." She pointed a finger, nearly as ivory in color as the time-darkened box itself, at the gold inlay on the lid which formed a strip curved like a snake to travel the length of the ivory. Yet the spiral had no real head, rather there was a strip of precious metal bent at right angles-not unlike a stylized hunting knife. "That really combines two known devices of old kings.h.i.+p. This device at the top is the 'plow' which we believe was carried by the rulers of Meroe. The rest is of a later period, perhaps, a symbolic sword blade in the form of a snake. But these two forms have never, to my knowledge, been found so linked before. The Meroe dynasties borrowed greatly from Egypt, and there the snake was a sign of royalty, usually a part of the crown. These"-her finger moved to the disks at the sides-"are again symbolic. They resemble very closely those gold badges that were worn by the 'soul-washers' of the Ashanti, the attendants of the king whose duty it was to ward off any danger of contamination from general evil. Yet-though it combines symbols from two, maybe three, periods of African history, it is very old-"

"Would you say a museum piece, then?" The man Jason had introduced as Roger Nye persisted. His tone was impatient, as if he had expected some instant snap judgment from her. And his tone aroused in Tallaha.s.see her own, sometimes militant, stubbornness.

"Mr. Nye, I am a student of archaeology, employed at present to help catalogue the Lewis Brooke collection. There are many tests that would have to be made to date this artifact, tests for which one needs certain equipment. But I will say that the workmans.h.i.+p..." She paused before she asked a question of her own: "Have you seen the rod of office in the Brooke collection?"

"What's that got to do with it? Or are you saying that this"-Nye indicated the box-"could be a part of that collection?"

"If it is," she was careful in her answer, "it was not included in the official customs inventory. However, there is something..." Tallaha.s.see shook her head. "You do not want guesses, you want certainties. Dr. Roman Carey will be here tonight. He is coming to study the collection. I would advise you to let him see this. At present he is the greatest authority on art of the Sudan."

"You are sure it is Sudanese?" Now it was Jason who asked the question.

Tallaha.s.see made a small gesture. "I told you, I cannot be sure of anything. I would say it is old, very old. As to its general point of origin I would believe Africa. But the combination of symbols I have not seen before. If I may..." She put out a hand toward the box, only to have Nye's hand close tightly about her wrist in a lightning-quick movement.

She looked at him in open amazement and then irritated dislike.

"You don't understand." Jason broke in again, speaking very swiftly as if he were afraid she could keep no better rein on her temper now than she could when they were children. "The thing is hot!"

"Hot?"

"It radiates some form of energy." Nye studied her with those measuring eyes. "That was how it was found, really. It was by sheer chance." He freed her hand, and she jerked it back to her lap. "One of our field men went to put his kit in a locker at the airport. He had a geiger counter with him and it started to register. He was quick to use it and located the source of radiation in a nearby locker. Then he called me. We got the port key for the locker. This was the only thing inside."

"Radioactive," Tallaha.s.see murmured. "But how..."

Nye shook his head. "Not atomic, though a counter can pick it up. It's something new, but the lab boys did not want to take it to pieces-"

"I should say not!" Tallaha.s.see was thoroughly aroused at the suggestion of such vandalism. "It may be unique. Has it been opened?"

Nye shook his head. "There is no visible fastening. And it seemed better not to handle it too much until we were sure of what we had. Now what about this rod of office you mentioned, what is it and where was it found?"

"There was a strong belief in the old African kingdoms that the soul of a nation could be enclosed in some precious artifact. The Ashanti war with England a hundred years ago came about because an English governor demanded the King's stool to sit on as a sign of the transferal of rulers.h.i.+p. But even the King could not sit on that. Sitting on a floor mat, he might only lean a portion of his arm upon it while making some very important decree or when a.s.suming the kings.h.i.+p. To the Ashanti people the stool contained the power of all the tribal ancestors and was holy; it possessed a deeply religious as well as a political significance-which the English did not attempt to find out before they made their demands.

"Other tribes had similar symbols of divine contact with their ancestors and their G.o.ds. Sometimes at the death of a king such symbols were retired to a special house from which they were brought to 'listen' when there was need for a grave change in some law or the demand for a decision involving the future of the people as a whole. These artifacts were very precious, and among some tribes were never seen at all except by priests or priestesses.

"The rod of office which Lewis Brooke found is believed to be one of these tokens. And because he discovered it in a place that has some very odd legends, it is of double value."

"He found it in the Sudan then?"

"No, much farther west. It was nearer to Lake Chad. There is an old legend that when the Arab-Ethiopian kingdom of Axum overran Meroe, the royal clan-and they themselves were the descendents of Egyptian Pharaohs and held jealously to much of the very ancient beliefs-fled west and were supposed to have established a refuge near Lake Chad. There has never been any real proof of this, not until Doctor Brooke made his spectacular find-an unplundered tomb containing many artifacts and a sarcophagus, though the latter was empty, and there was evidence that no body had ever been within it. Instead the rod of office rested there."

"The soul of the nation buried," Jason said softly.

Tallaha.s.see nodded. "Perhaps. There were inscriptions, but, though they used Egyptian hieroglyphics, the later Meroe tongue has never been translated, so they could not be deciphered. Dr. Brooke's unfortunate accidental death last year has delayed the work on the whole project of arranging and identifying the artifacts."

"I am surprised," Nye commented, "that he was allowed to take anything out of the country to bring here. The new nations are doubly jealous of losing any of their treasures-especially to us."

"We were surprised, too," Tallaha.s.see admitted. "But he had full permission." She hesitated and then added: "There was something odd about the whole matter, as if they wanted to get rid of all the finds for some reason of their own."

Jason's eyes narrowed. "A threatened uprising, perhaps, using the old rod of office for a rallying point?"