CHAPTER XXVII

_Tarrano the Man_

"Wake up, Lady Elza."

A silence. His hand touched her white shoulder. "Wake up, Lady Elza. It

is I--Tarrano."

Elza opened her eyes, struggling to confused wakefulness. The white

walls of her sleeping room in Tarrano's palace of the City of Ice were

stained with the dim red radiance of her night light. She opened her

eyes to meet Tarrano's inscrutable face as he bent over her couch;

became conscious of his low, insistent, "Wake up, Lady Elza;" and his

fingers half caressing the filmy scarf that covered her shoulders.

Terror flooded Elza; that time she had always feared, had come. Yet she

had the presence of mind to smile, drawing away from him and sitting up,

with the fur bed-covering pulled to her chin.

"Tarrano? Why--"

He straightened, and into his expression came apology.

"I frightened you, Lady Elza? I'm sorry. I would not do that for all the

worlds."

Her terror receded. The old Tarrano over whom she still held sway. She

summoned a look of haughty questioning.

"You are bold, Tarrano--"

His gesture was deprecating; he seated himself on the edge of her couch.

She saw now that he was fully dressed and armed with a belt of many

instruments.

At this time Elza had been in the City of Ice for a considerable period.

Irksome, worried days of semi-imprisonment; and through them, Tarrano's

attitude toward her was unchanged. She saw little of him; he seemed very

busy, though to what end, and what his activities, she could not learn.

Within the palace, half as guard, half as maid-servant, Tara was

generally Elza's only companion. And then, one evening when Tara's

smouldering jealousy broke forth in Tarrano's presence and Elza uttered

an involuntary cry of fear, Tara was summarily removed.

Elza was left practically alone; until at length came this night when

invading the privacy of her sleeping room, Tarrano awakened her. He sat

now upon the edge of her couch.

"I have a confession to make to you, Lady Elza." He smiled slightly. "As

you know, there is no one else in our habitable universe to whom I would

speak thus frankly."

"I am honored, Tarrano. But here, at this hour of sleep--"

He waved away the words. "I have asked your pardon for that. My

confession--as once before, Lady Elza, I come to you most humbly,

confessing that my affairs are not going as I would like. You do not

know, of course, that Mars--"

"I know nothing," she interrupted. "You have kept me from the

news-mirrors, if indeed there are any here--"

"Mars revolted against me," he went on imperturbably. "The Little People

are again in control. Fools! They do not realize, those governors of

Mars, that their public ultimately will demand this _Everlasting Life_

of mine--the Brende secret--"

She frowned. "No one knows better than you, Tarrano, that my father's

secret does not bestow immortality. To cure disease, in a measure--"

He checked her; his smile was ironical. "You and I know that, Lady Elza.

We know that on this plane we would not want everlasting life if we

could have it. But the public does not know that--let us not discuss it.

I was telling you--confessing to you--I have lost Mars. Temporarily, of

course. Meanwhile, I have been preparing to invade the Earth." His

gesture was expansive. "I have been planning, from here in the Cold

Country, to send armies to your Earth."

He paused an instant. "I think now I shall wait until the next

opposition--we are far from Earth now, but all in good time we shall be

closer.... Strange is it not, that I should like to tell you my plans?"

She did not answer; she watched his smile fading into a look of

grimness. "In the Great City, here on Venus, they are getting ready to

attack me. Did you know that?"

"No," she said.

"You supposed they were? Your brother, and that Jac Hallen?"

"Yes."

"And you hoped they were, of course?"

"Yes," she repeated.

He frowned. "You are disconcertingly frank, Lady Elza. Well, let me tell

you this--it would come to nothing. The _Rhaals_ are with them--all the

resources of the Central State are to be thrown against me. Yet it will

come to nothing."

Her heart leaped. Tarrano was making his last stand. Beyond the logical

sense of his words, she could see it in his eyes. He knew he was making

his last stand. He knew too that she was now aware of it; and that

behind the confidence of his words--that was the confession he was

making.

Tarrano's last stand! There seemed to her then something illogically

pathetic in it all. This man of genius--so short a time ago all but the

Emperor of three worlds. And now, with them slipping from his grasp,

reduced to this last stronghold in the bleak fastnesses of the Cold

Country, awaiting the inevitable attack upon him. Something pathetic....

"I'm sorry, Tarrano."

As though mirrored from her own expression, a wistful look had come to

him. Her words drove it away.

"Sorry? There is nothing to be sorry about. Their attack will come to

nothing ... yet--" He stopped short, and then as though deciding to say

what he had begun, he added:

"Yet, Lady Elza, I am no fool to discard possibilities. I may be

defeated." He laughed harshly. "To what depths has Tarrano fallen that

he can voice such a possibility!"

He leaned toward her and into his tone came a greater earnestness than

she ever heard in it before.

"Lady Elza, if they should be successful, they would not capture me--for

I would die fighting. You understand that, don't you?"

She met his eyes; the gleam in them held her. Forgetful of herself, she

had allowed the fur to drop from her: she sat bolt upright, the dim red

light tinting the scarf that lay like gossamer around her white

shoulders. His hand came out and touched her arm, slipped up to her

shoulder and rested there, but she did not feel it.

"I will die fighting," he repeated. "You understand that?"

"Yes," she breathed.

"And you would be sorry?"

"Oh--"

"Would you?"

"Yes, I--"

He did not relax. His eyes burned her: but deep in them she saw that

quality of wistfulness, of pleading.

"You, my Elza, they would rescue--unless I killed you."

She did not move, but within her was a shudder.

"You know I would kill you, my Elza, rather than give you up?"

"Yes," she murmured.

"I--wonder. Sometimes I think I would." Suddenly he cast aside all

restraint. "Oh, my Elza--that we should have to plan such things as

these! You, sitting there--you are so beautiful! Your eyes--limpid pools

with terror lurking in them when I would have them misty with love! My

Elza--"

The woman in her responded. A wave of color flooded her throat and face.

But she drew away from him.

"My Elza! Can you not tell me that even in defeat I may be victorious?

It is you more than all else that I desire."

Without warning his arms were around her, holding her fiercely to him,

his face close to hers.

"Elza! With you, defeat would be victory. And with you--now--if you

would but say the word--together we will surmount every obstacle.--"

He was kissing her, bending back her head, and his grip upon her

shoulder was bruising the flesh. No longer Tarrano, Conqueror of the

universe, just Tarrano the man. Terror surged within Elza's heart.

"Tarrano!"

"Elza dear--my Elza--"

"Tarrano!" She fought with him. "Tarrano, do you dare--I tell you--"

The frightened pleading of a woman at bay. And then abruptly he cast her

off. His laugh was grim.

"What a fool I am! Tarrano the weakling!" He leaped from the couch and

began pacing the room. "Tarrano the weakling! To what depths has Tarrano

fallen!"

He stopped before her. "I ask your pardon, Lady Elza. This has been

madness. Forget my words--all madness."

His tone was crisp. "Human weakness to which I did not realize I was so

prone made me talk like a fool. Desire you above the conquest of the

universe? Absurd! Lies that men whisper into women's ears! All lies!"

Was he telling the real truth now? Or was this a mood of recrimination?

Bitterness that his love was scorned. Again his gaze held her, but in it

now she could see nothing but a cruel inflexible purpose.

"Tarrano in defeat! That is impossible, Lady Elza. You will very shortly

realize that, for I am going to show you how, single-handed, I can make

it impossible. Show you with your own eyes. It was my purpose in coming

to waken you--my purpose, when your beauty led me into weakness

incredible.... Get up, Lady Elza."

She stared. With folded arms he stood emotionless regarding her.

"Get up, I tell you. Put on those garments you wore when we arrived. We

are going travelling again."

He stood waiting; and beneath his gaze she shrank back, drawing the fur

rug over her.

A smile of contempt parted his lips. "You hesitate? You think I am still

a weakling? You over-rate your beauty, Lady Elza.... Make haste, I

command you. We must start very soon."

She summoned her voice. "Start? Where? What are you--"

"No questions, Lady Elza. Not now. Make haste--"

He jerked from her the fur covering, flung it across the room, and with

the same gesture turned away impersonally. Trembling, she rose from the

couch and donned the garments he had indicated, while he stood brooding

by the window, gazing through its transparent pane at the glistening

frozen city which was all that remained of his empire.