The Enchantress of World's End

“Have you anything to report, Varesco, or have you come merely to feast your eyes upon that which is unobtainable?” she asked with sweet cruelty. Averting his eyes from her ripe flesh hastily, the gaunt man flushed a dirty yellow and bowed without speaking.

“Very well, then get on with it.”

“Complete failure down the entire spectrum of conceivable perversions,” said Varesco in clipped metallic tones. “Save for this evening, when I went back to using boys. Ganelon Silvermane paid scant attention to the youth in question, but then sent for him again, and—”

“And?” demanded the Red Queen between stiff lips.

“Nothing much,” admitted the Ningevite. “He exchanged a few words with the boy, then apparently asked him to dance for him. The boy danced before him for a time, but the Zermishman made no further advances, merely watching attentively. The boy left, shortly thereafter.”

“Did you observe the incident personally?”

“No-o-o,” said Varesco reluctantly. The Enchantress glared at him, with brilliant eyes flashing.

“A pity,” she said fiercely. “A mental linkage made at that moment, and you could have read the emotional reaction passing through his consciousness, could you not?”

He nodded without speaking.

“Well, what variety of boy was it he asked for?” she inquired. The question was casual, but her jealousy was perfectly obvious in her heaving bosom and glittering eyes. Varesco described the lad.

“White skin, blond hair, long legs, rouge on—”

“Had Ganelon ever seen him before?”

“I doubt it; the child generally serves the prisoners in the main dungeons their luncheon. I instructed that he attend Ganelon Silvermane because he is about thirteen and girlishly pretty. I had previously exposed the Zermishman to boys in the seventeen to twenty-year-old range, with no response whatsoever. Possibly, he prefers them in their early teens—”

“You interrogated the boy, of course?”

“Not I, but my aide, Quang. He questioned the child immediately after Silvermane dismissed him. He said that Silvermane asked his name, age, homeland; learning him to be of Gorombe stock, he asked the boy to perform the traditional ‘Moonwillow Leaves’ for him. The boy danced with seductive grace; Silvermane watched him attentively, the boy reports, corroborating Quang’s own observances, then he bade him leave before the lad could essay a tentative caress.”

The Red Enchantress watched her reflection in the huge mirror with cold, hard, cruel eyes while dusky maids dressed her long, darkly-crimson tresses into an elaborate coiffure.

“And what do you deduce from this, Ningevite?” she demanded at length.

Measuring his words carefully, the gaunt man in the narrow tight robes of blinding blue said: “The native dance of that name is performed by Gorombe virgins, just before the mating rituals. Perhaps Ganelon Silvermane as a boy entertained affection for some lad from Gorombe. Brief, unphysical infatuations are typical behavior during adolescence and normal enough,” he said with clinical detachment.

“Why this particular boy, I wonder?” mused the Enchantress. “The age factor alone? The color of hair, eyes—?”

“If I might subject the Zermishman to a Mind Probe—”

She said nothing: the subject was one on which they had often had discussions. He adroitly changed the subject.

“—If my hypothesis is correct,” he said smoothly, “perhaps this particular boy reminded the Zermishman of some dear little companion of his youth. The experiment, while inconclusive, at least shows more promise than the others.” His allusion, of course, was to the parade of men, women, girls, boys and animals which Ganelon had seen in an attempt to find out where his interests lay.

“Have this particular slave attend Ganelon as his servitor from now on,” the Red Queen commanded. “Repetition may either dispel the attraction the boy seems to have for him, or lead to something more concrete.”

“I hearken and will obey,” said Varesco. Then, slyly: “I remain prepared to conduct a depth probe and erasure of the memory centers at your command. I suggest an artificial memory—”

“Useless, you fool, if Ganelon is interested in young boys!” Zelmarine snapped. “Such a diversion of the mating urges lie deep in the instinct-centers, of the mind, too deep for you to safely attempt corrective surgery! If necessary, my physicians will extract his spermatozoa and fertilize my ova by artificial insemination. I shall then have his body destroyed!”

The bite of vindictiveness was clear in her deep voice. The Ningevite Mentalist smirked inwardly: artificial insemination, whereby the male fertilizes the female by simple surgical techniques, would have been far easier than this elaborately drawn-out attempt at seduction. But the towering feminine ego of the Queen made it imperative that she succeed in the conquest of her aloof, disinterested superman. She would either conquer Silvermane, or kill him!

Varesco eyed her naked back with hopeless eyes. Whatever happened, his love was futile …

After his brief questioning by Varesco’s chief spy, the boy Phadia made his way swiftly into the Pueratorium, a huge, barracks-like room he shared with some fifty boys, and entered his own private cubicle. Sponging off his body-rouge and slipping out of his loincloth, he slid on a pair of white panties and pulled a light tunic of lavender silk on over his head. The tunic was so short that it barely covered his upper thighs, but it was the best he had. He had long ago sewn a pocket unobtrusively into the lining of it. Now, he secreted some of his best jewelry and a few favorite cosmetics into this hidden pocket and slid his bare feet into gilt slippers.