Flash Gordon 5 - The Witch Queen of Mongo (8 page)

A shaft of air enveloped the vehicle, its drivers, and its passengers, and they all rose steadily into the heights of the queen’s tower.

Then, quite suddenly, they were settling down in a spacious, well-ventilated chamber illuminated by indirect reenergized sunlight. The chamber seemed to be a large group of rooms that had been made into a separate apartment, set aside from the rest of the palace.

Flash guessed that it must be Queen Azura’s personal quarters.

At the end of the large area, a winding stairway led into an upper region where Flash saw several doors opening off a corridor. Heavy drapes hung from the walls; there were no windows.

Couches and tables and desks of various design stood about in the spacious area and the stone floor was covered with a richly brocaded carpet of a peculiarly exotic Mongo design.

The drivers turned to inspect Flash and Willie, and then moved quickly away from the gravity sled and vanished through an oval slot in the wall that closed once it had received them.

A brooding silence hung over the large spacious chambers. Flash saw no one at all about. Along one wall, he made out a series of small cupboards like wooden coffins raised on end. There were five of them; all were empty.

Flash closed his eyes and lost all sense of time. It seemed many hours that he lay there, waiting. Or it might have been only a few minutes.

Suddenly, a door at the far end of the chamber opened and a grotesque, capering-figure four feet high entered, laughing and gesturing to someone behind him.

And then Flash saw Queen Azura.

Stately, commanding, smiling, and as evil as any one person could be, she entered the chamber behind the gibbering dwarf with a sweeping, queenly gait in total contrast to her jester’s mien.

The monster jumped up and down, staring at Flash and Willie supine on the gravity sled, making faces, and laughing harshly. Queen Azura soon stood beside him, her eyes glittering with excitement.

She was as beautiful as she had been the first time he saw her, Flash realized. If anything, she was more beautiful. In this land where aging was controlled by scientific means, and health was a simple matter of a pill a day, beauty was the only possible condition of the human body.

Except for the dwarf. Flash wondered who he was.

“At last,” Queen Azura said, sighing, leaning down over Flash and looking into his eyes. “We meet again, my friend,” she said with an almost hissing sound to her voice. “I know you can see me. I want you to realize that you are totally in my control now, Flash Gordon. You’ve blundered badly, allowing yourself to be taken into the Land of Blue Magic.”

Flash tried to open his mouth to speak the angry retort his mind willed him to, but he could not. He lay there, unable to move a muscle.

“Yes, my love. It was a nerve gas, called paralysis NG, projected from nozzles hidden in the face of the cliff. The vapor paralyzed you and left you prey to my guards of the upper reaches.” She laughed. “Oh, it is worth all the jewels in my kingdom to see you like this, powerless and unable to resist—so handsome, so muscular, so beautiful to behold.”

She leaned over him, lifting her trailing hand to touch his lips with her finger.

“How I recall the last time we met, when you rejected me, Flash Gordon.” Azura’s eyes turned dark with anger. “Rejected me!”

There was silence.

The dwarf jumped up and down and giggled. Queen Azura turned quickly, flinging her hand across his mouth and sending him sprawling end over end against the hard wall.

“Hey!” he cried. He staggered to his feet, touching his face which was bright red where she had hit him. “You shouldn’t do that to me, Your Highness.”

“I do what I want with my subjects,” hissed Queen Azura. “You’re lucky I didn’t dip you in the acid pot, Qilp. Nobody mocks me.”

“I did not mock, oh, Queen Azura!” Qilp whimpered. “After all, I am your trusted minister of intelligence. I simply enjoy the giant Earthling’s helplessness.”

Queen Azura turned from Qilp, her eyes once again moving over Flash’s body. She was a beautiful woman, Flash thought. But evil and dangerous.

“Well, we must bring you out of your stupor, lovely Flash,” Queen Azura murmured, again moving her hand to Flash’s face and touching his cheek. “Then we shall see what happens to the brave Earth visitor.”

She turned and clapped her hands loudly.

An oval aperture in the wall opened and a group of four bespectacled individuals came into the room. They stood around the gravity sled without further orders.

“Bring the big one to consciousness,” snapped Azura.

“What about the small one, oh, Queen Azura?” asked one of the men.

“Put him in one of the suspension vaults, for the time being,” the queen said after a moment’s thought. She gestured vaguely toward the wall.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said another of the workers.

They approached the gravity sled. One of them peered through the thick lenses at Flash’s face. He reached into his skintight leotard and removed a small box. It was full of capsules. He lifted one and brought it close to Flash’s face.

“That’ll be enough, Dr. Kluf,” said Queen Azura. “Take care of the youth and leave me.”

Dr. Kluf waved his hands at the others and they lifted Willie from the sled and carried him on his back over to one of the boxes lining the wall. Carefully, they turned him upright, and then placed him in the box. He stood there serenely, staring out into the chamber.

“Don’t wake him,” Azura snapped thinly.

“Yes, oh, Queen Azura,” Dr. Kluf said, bowing, his eyes narrowed behind the lenses of his glasses.

What kind of eyes, Flash wondered, must these people need to see in this half-dark kingdom?

Azura clapped her hands and stamped her foot. “Out,” she said.

“Me too?” Qilp asked with a leer.

“No,” Azura said slowly. “You stay; I may need your help.”

The two of them stared at Flash on the gravity sled.

“He should be coming around now,” Queen Azura mused lazily. “Maybe this will speed up matters.”

She leaned down over Flash and touched his lips with hers.

Qilp giggled.

Quickly, Flash grasped her wrist and held her tightly, so she could not move.

“Let me go,” gasped Azura.

“You want to play games with me?” Flash asked roughly. “Then let’s play.”

Azura’s face turned red. “Flash, I’ve been good to you. I gave you the antidote to the nerve gas. Now you be good to me.”

Flash sat up slowly on the seat of the gravity sled and held her tightly against him.

“Don’t joke with me. You haven’t done a thing for me. You’re still holding me captive.” Flash smiled at her briefly. “Or possibly, I’m holding you captive.”

Azura’s face stiffened. “You’re hurting me, Flash. I’ll remember that when—” Azura fell silent.

“When what?”

She shook her head.

“All right,” Flash said, shaking Azura’s wrists and giving her a twist. “Give the antidote to Willie.”

Azura’s face was blank. “Who’s Willie?”

Flash nodded his head toward the suspension vault where Willie had been placed.

“In that coffin you’ve got against the wall.”

“Oh. You mean the silly little boy.”

“Give him the antidote,” Flash snapped. “And be quick about it.”

“Is he your son, Flash?” Azura asked slyly.

“He’s a good friend,” said Flash.

“You’ve always played it so heavy with me, Flash. We’re here together. What’s wrong with relaxing a little? We can have a good time before I let you go.”

Flash stared. “I don’t believe you will let me go, Azura.”

Her face twisted. “You aren’t doing yourself any good grabbing hold of me like that,” Azura said.

“I’ll let you go if you tell that dwarf of yours to bring Willie out of his paralysis.”

“I’m no dwarf,” Qilp yelled indignantly.

“He can’t do it, anyway,” Azura assured Flash. “Only I can, or my scientists.”

“Then do it.”

“How can I act when you’ve got hold of my hands?” Azura pleaded.

“Tell me what to do,” Flash ordered her. “I’ll do it.”

Azura’s eyes narrowed. “There’s a locket in the clasp of my cape,” she told him.

Flash looked down at the clasp that held Azura’s cape together in front of her throat. He saw a small jeweled locket.

“Open it,” Azura commanded.

“If you’re tricking me, Azura,” Flash began threateningly.

“I swear,” she said softly.

Flash opened the locket. There was a small capsule inside.

“Break the capsule,” said Azura.

Flash glanced over Azura’s shoulder at Qilp. The dwarf stared at him with no expression in his eyes at all.

With sudden resolution, Flash crushed the capsule.

Instantly, he felt a languor overtake his entire body. He smiled at Azura and let her go.

She rose and straightened her sheath dress, watching him carefully.

Flash leaned back and looked up at her. For some reason he was suddenly afraid, more terribly afraid than he had ever been in his life before.

“What is it, Flash?” asked Azura with veiled interest. “You look different.”

“Yes, Earthman,” Qilp said grinning evilly. “What is it?”

Flash shook his head. “Nothing.” He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath to steady himself. He could feel his flesh crawling, almost with terror.

Azura stood over him, reaching out her hand to him. “All right, Flash. Was I lying to you?”

Instinctively Flash recoiled from the touch of her hand. He drew back away from her, his whole body quivering with an atavistic fear he could not isolate.

“Go away!” he cried. He was astonished to hear his voice high and reedy and bordering on hysteria.

Azura threw back her head and laughed throatily.

Flash could feel cold perspiration on his forehead. “What are you laughing at?”

“It’s a new preparation we’ve developed here in the Kingdom of Blue Magic,” she said, her voice bubbling with mirth. “It makes cowards of the bravest of men.”

“C-c-cowards,” Flash stuttered, unable to say the word correctly. “I’m no coward!”

“Perhaps you weren’t, Flash, but you are now.”

Qilp giggled.

Flash frowned. He understood. “You tricked me. You made me break a capsule of this new formulation invented by your evil scientists.”

“Exactly,” Queen Azura crowed.

“But when I broke the capsule, why weren’t you affected by it?”

“I stayed far enough away,” said Azura. “It is called pacifist mist, Flash Gordon, but we also serve it in the food of those we wish to keep subdued.”

“And if I refuse to eat?” Flash demanded.

“You starve to death, Earthman!” yelped Qilp.

Flash frowned. He was regaining some of his old courage. “But I won’t let it work. I’ve got a stronger will than most people. I can think away fear.”

Azura turned quickly to Qilp. “Run!” she ordered him. “Get your cousin here. I don’t think that stuff is working.”

Qilp bolted headlong across the chamber to the door and slammed it behind him.

“So,” said Flash, jumping down off the gravity sled and advancing on Azura. “It’s not working. It can make the average man a coward, but not Flash Gordon.”

Azura backed away, her eyes showing momentary terror. “I think you may be the exception,” she murmured and quickly touched her belt.

Flash saw the quick movement of her hand.

“What are you doing?”

But she had out another locket, and the fumes of the second capsule had risen to his nostrils before he could draw back.

The greatest terror gripped him. In the air around him suddenly, he could see the shapes of hideous monsters—things conjured from the imagination of a madman.

There were misshapen animals with pointed teeth, dripping blood. There were emaciated, wrinkled, hideous old crones, lifting talons to rake his flesh. A corpse of moldering putrescence floated toward him, screaming hysterically and reaching out to touch him with slimy fingers.

“Stop! Stop!” screamed Flash.

He fell back and crawled away from the phantoms in the air about him. Soon his shoulders touched the wall and he could go no further.

“Get them off me,” he pleaded with Azura.

The queen laughed.

“I’m afraid. I’m afraid.”

Through the haze of terror, he saw her look down at him.

“Silly man,” she snarled. “Silly, foolish man. You could have been my king, but you chose instead to reject me. To fight me. You’ll find out what it is to make an enemy of Queen Azura.”

“No, no,” Flash howled, pushing himself back against the wall. “Go away.”

Azura laughed again, an evil, sinister laugh that made Flash’s body quake with fear.

Q
ueen Azura was elated. Here, within her power through a combination of paralysis NG and pacifist mist, was the catalyst she needed for her final act.

She had been silly to be so worried about how to achieve her ends. Didn’t something always happen at the last minute to put the whole scheme into focus?

Phase one of her plan had long been in the works, including the development of weaponry and military machinery—“hardware” as her minister of war called it—and also including a great deal of mass propaganda administered to her people through the controlled media under the administration of her ministry of communications.

And phase two was also very much in the works, although it was so deeply secret and so very much controlled by total security that no one in the realm really knew the truth about it. No one but Qilp. Of course, there were rumors, and the rumors kept bringing up the dreaded name of Ming the Merciless, although he had been dead for six years.

Queen Azura smiled at the thought of phase two.

And now, suddenly, here was phase three, ready to go. The sudden and unexpected arrival of Flash Gordon on the planet Mongo, and the almost unbelievable good fortune of having him drop into her hands, had caused her to think seriously of implementing phase three immediately.

And phase three would bring on phase four—all-out war.

Thoughts of phase two were a bit unnerving to Azura, but she knew she must face all the rather unpleasant possibilities involved in working with the principal factor of that action. Qilp would be back soon. She erased all thought of
that
from her mind.