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yet, Hull,” snapped the Princess. “I have still my score to settle with you.” She turned back to Olin. “Where do you wander now, Einar?”
“To N’Orleans. I have some knowledge to give Jorgensen, and I am homesick besides for the Great City.”
He paused. “I have seen Joaquin. Selui has fallen.”
“I know. I ride to meet him tonight.”
“He has sent representations to Ch’cago.”
“Good!” she flashed. “Then there will be fighting.” Then her eyes turned dreamy. “I have never seen the saltless seas,” she added wistfully, “but I wonder if they can be as beautiful as the blue Gulf beyond N’Orleans.”
But Old Einar shook his thin white hair. “What will be the end of this, Margaret?” he asked gently. “After Ch’cago is taken—for you will take it—what then?”
“Then the land north of the saltless seas, and east of them. N’York, and all the cities on the ocean shore.”
“And then?”
“Then South America, I suppose.”
“And then, Margaret?”
“Then? There is still Europe veiled in mystery, and Asia, Africa—all the lands known to the Ancients.”
“And after all of them?”
“Afterwards,” she replied wearily, “we can rest. The fierce destiny that drives Joaquin surely cannot drive him beyond the boundaries of the world.”
“And so,” said Olin, “you fight your way around the world so you can rest at the end of the journey. Then why not rest now, Margaret? Must you pillow your head on the globe of the planet?”
Fury flamed green in her eyes. She raised her hand and struck the old man across his lips, but it must have been lightly, for he still smiled.
“Fool!” she cried. “Then I will see to it that there is always war! Between me and Joaquin, if need be—or between me and anyone—anyone—so that I fight!” She paused panting. “Leave me, Einar,” she said tensely. “I do not like the things you bring to mind.”
Still smiling, the old man backed away. At the door he paused. “I will see you before I die, Margaret,” he promised, and was gone.
She followed him to the doorway. “Sora!” she called. “Sora! I ride!”
Hull heard the heavy tread of the fat Sora, and in a moment she entered bearing the diminutive cothurns and a pair of glistening silver gauntlets on her hands, and then she too was gone.
Slowly, almost wearily, the Princess turned to face Hull, who had as yet permitted no gleam of hope to enter his soul, for he had experienced too much of her mockery to trust the promise of safety Old Einar had won for him. He felt only the fascination that she always bound about him, the spell of her unbelievable black hair and her glorious sea-green eyes, and all her unearthly beauty.
“Hull,” she said gently, “what do you think of me now?”
“I think you are a black flame blowing cold across the world. I think a demon drives you.”
“And do you hate me so bitterly?”
“I pray every second to hate you.”
“Then see, Hull.” With her little gauntleted fingers she took his great hands and placed them about the perfect curve of her throat. “Here I give you my life for the taking. You have only to twist once with these mighty hands of yours and Black Margot will be out of the world forever.” She paused. “Must I beg you?”
Hull felt as if molten metal flowed upward through his arms from the touch of her white skin. His fingers were rigid as metal bars, and all the great strength of them could not put one feather’s weight of pressure on the soft throat they circled. And deep in the lambent emerald flames that burned in her eyes he saw again the fire of mockery—jeering, taunting.
“You will not?” she said, lifting away his hands, but holding them in hers. “Then you do not hate me?”
“You know I don’t,” he groaned.
“And you do love me?”
“Please,” he muttered. “Is it necessary again to torture me? I need no proof of your mastery.”
“Then say you love me.”
“Heaven forgive me for it;” he whispered, “but I do!”
She dropped his hands and smiled. “Then listen to me, Hull. You love little Vail with a truer love, and month by month memory fades before reality. After a while there will be nothing left in you of Black Margot, but there will be always Vail. I go now hoping never to see you again, but”—and her eyes chilled to green ice—“before I go I settle my score with you.”
She raised her gauntleted hand. “This for your treachery!” she said, and struck him savagely across his right check. Blood spouted, there would be scars, but he stood stolid. “This for your violence!” she said, and the silver gauntlet tore his left check. Then her eyes softened. “And this,” she murmured, “for your love!”
Her arms circled him, her body was warm against him, and her exquisite lips burned against his. He felt as if he embraced a flame for a moment, and then she was gone, and a part of his soul went with her. When he heard the hooves of the stallion Eblis pounding beyond the window, he turned and walked slowly out of the house to where Vail still crouched beside her father’s body. She clung to him, wiped the blood from his cheeks, and strangely, her words were not of her father, nor of the sparing of Hull’s life, but of Black Margot.
“I knew you lied to save me,” she murmured. “I knew you never loved her.”
And Hull, in whom there was no falsehood, drew her close to him and said nothing.
But Black Margot rode north from Selui through the night. In the sky before her were thin shadows leading phantom armies, Alexander the Great, Attila, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Napoleon, and clearer than all, the battle queen Semiramis. All the mighty conquerors of the past, and where were they, where were their empires, and where, even, were their bones? Far in the south were the graves of men who had loved her, all except Old Einar, who tottered like a feeble grey ghost across the world to find his.
At her side Joaquin Smith turned as if to speak, stared, and remained silent. He was not accustomed to the sight of tears in the eyes and on the cheeks of Black Margot.
(All conversation ascribed to the Princess Margaret in this story is taken verbatim from an anonymous volume published in Urbs in the year 186, called “Loves of the Black Flame.” It is credited to Jacques Lebeau, officer in command of the Black Flame’s personal guard.)
DON’T JUMP
Hurtling off the asteroid with only a rope between himself and the endless void of space changed Tim’s perspective on everything. The importance of his job, his relationship with Samantha, it all looked very different from this vantage point. How could I have been so stupid, he wondered. I was just going to let Sam walk out of my life and for what, a crater, a God damn crater. I’m such an ass.
*
Tim Ross woke to the insistent rings of his vid-phone. He glanced at his alarm clock. Four thirty AM. Who the hell would call me at this hour. It’s not Sam, she’s here with me. Tim untangled himself from her, rolled over to the phone, and hit the audio-only button. “Ross here, this had better be good.”
“‘Morning, Ross,” it was Simmons’ voice, “sorry to wake you.”
“What’s the deal?”
“A cruise ship, on route to Titan,