Flash Gordon 5 - The Witch Queen of Mongo (16 page)

“Ming,” said one of the guards, pointing out through the entranceway of the cave.

Ming rose and looked over the guard’s shoulder. In the distance they both saw the tiny figure of a man walking through the bolder-strewn passageway.

“Prince Barin,” said Ming, unable to identify the man from the distance, but quite sure who it was.

“He’s bearing a white flag,” announced another guard.

Ming nodded, a smile twisting his mouth. “Good. He’s following his orders, so far. Now we wait.”

“Wait, Ming?”

“Wait, to see if he has brought along any other hidden men to help him, fool!” said Ming.

“Yes, Ming,” said the guard.

“Then, when we are sure there is no one to help him, we seize him.”

The guards waited silently, while Ming paced back and forth inside the cave. After a few minutes, Ming looked out and saw Prince Barin there, standing with the flag beside him.

“Azurians!” a faint voice called from below. “I am Prince Barin, come to surrender to you.”

Ming rose and peered out into the dawn light which was just beginning to break.

“Are you alone?”

“I am alone,” Prince Barin responded.

“Approach, Prince Barin,” Ming said, hiding a contemptuous smile.

The figure moved toward them through the boulders and loose dirt.

When Prince Barin was at the entrance to the cave, the guards sprang out and grasped him from both sides.

“Here, what is this?” Prince Barin asked.

“See if he is armed,” commanded Ming.

The guards frisked him.

“No weapons, Ming.”

“All right,” said Prince Barin. “So it is Ming the Second, isn’t it? We had heard rumors about you. You’re working with Queen Azura?”

“Indeed I am,” said Ming. “The rumors are true.”

“Well, then, you’ve got me. Now fulfill your bargain, and let Flash Gordon go.”

Ming threw back his head and burst into laughter. “Bargain? Idiot! Do you expect to bargain with an emperor?”

“What?” Prince Barin muttered. “You’re not an emperor.”

“No? I’ll take you and Flash and a thousand more troops in payment for the throne you have robbed me of!”

“It was your father who lost the throne, Ming, not you.” Prince Barin tried to pull away from the guards. “You’ve got to let me go. A bargain is a bargain.”

“An emperor doesn’t make bargains with underlings,” Ming said contemptuously.

Prince Barin struggled again, breaking loose from one of the guards. He swung his fist at Ming’s face. In frenzied reaction, Ming twisted the raygun out of his belt and smashed Prince Barin’s face with the barrel.

Prince Barin screamed and fell back into the hands of the guards.

“That’ll teach you to play games with me!” Ming yelled. He turned to the guards, his face grim. “Bind him up and let’s get him out of here. I don’t trust him, anyway. He might have his own troops hiding out there. Hurry it up, you clods.”

Ming flicked on the switch of the vidphone.

“Queen Azura,” he called.

Her face faded in. “Yes, Ming?”

“We’ve got him,” Ming said, allowing himself a satisfied grin. “He walked right into our trap.”

“Good,” Azura said heartily. “Now bring him to the palace and we’ll put the rest of the plan into action.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Ming as he bowed and snapped off the vidphone.

His eyes narrowed. He wondered if he could trust the queen. She said she was going to kill Flash Gordon, but Ming knew that she had once been in love with him. He wondered if perhaps her scheming little mind might not be planning some other kind of trick—like a double cross.

Take Flash Gordon as her king.

And kill Ming the Second.

Nasty little minx—he would have to cross that bridge when he came to it. Thoughtfully, he turned to watch the guards carrying Prince Barin into the corridor that opened out into the Caverna Gigantea.

The dungeon chambers lay directly below Queen Azura’s chambers in the palace of Azuria. The stone walls were as thick as the height of a man, with small, high windows barred with duroplast, Mongo’s strongest steel substitute.

The torture chambers were off to one side of the dungeons. From the walls hung chains with wrist manacles at their ends, and leg irons screwed into the rock walls. A rack was mounted in one corner, operated by a small computer to one side of it. Ropes and chains hung from the ceiling, where prisoners could be suspended, their feet barely touching the floor.

There were several variations of the iron maiden, and a long bench of thumb screws, wrist puncturers, and evisceration machines for special cases of recalcitrancy.

Ming followed the guards into the torture chamber and watched as they lifted Prince Barin into the air and locked the manacles to his wrists, so that he hung from chains screwed into the ceiling.

When they pulled away a long work ladder, Prince Barin sank down toward the floor, his arms high above his head, and his wrists already white from lack of blood.

Ming smiled with satisfaction.

He sauntered over to the dangling figure of the ruler of Arboria.

“Prince,” Ming said with a fiendish smile. “Now you know how it feels to be without a kingdom. Now you know how I feel—how I felt all during the years I was growing up.”

Prince Barin grimaced. “Cut me down, Ming. This isn’t fair. I made a bargain.”

“Fair? Unfair? Words, Prince Barin,” scoffed Ming. “Possession is nine tenths of the law. And we possess you. We also possess Flash Gordon. Now we own both of you. And we wouldn’t let you go, no matter what ransom was paid us. The Free Council has no leader like you. They’ll fold up quicker than a house of cards when we attack.” Ming laughed. “And I’ll be ruler of the kingdom that was stolen from my father.”

Prince Barin blinked. “It was not stolen. The people revolted against the tyranny of your late father. They simply threw off the yoke of repression and opted for freedom. Be sensible, Ming. If you undertake to treat them the way your father did, they’ll throw you out, too.”

“Not me,” said Ming. “I’ve read the histories. My father was a fool, counseled by idiots and blunderers. His armies were full of cowardly generals. I’ll lead them like a man should. I’ll be the greatest emperor the planet Mongo has ever known.”

“You’re a fool, Ming,” Prince Barin replied, and grimaced as pain shot through his arms.

“Fool!” cried Ming. He turned to the guards. “Leave him there. Meanwhile, I’m going to take care of Flash Gordon.”

There was a sudden silence in the chambers. A door clanged shut.

Ming wheeled around.

Queen Azura stood there with Qilp beside her. She was scowling at Ming.

“Getting your kicks, Ming?” she asked with a sneer. “I told you to imprison him, not torture him.”

Ming stood taller and strolled over to her, his face hard. “What’s the difference, oh, Queen Azura?” he asked with a snarl. “I’m getting sick and tired of having to follow all your orders point by point. This man Barin is responsible for the fact that I was exiled from my home and betrayed by my kingdom.”

“Your father disowned you,” Azura said testily. “If anyone is to be blamed, it is he, not Prince Barin.”

Ming’s vision turned a blurry red. He stalked toward the queen. “There’s no reason for us to quarrel,” he said in a threatening voice. “We’ve got Flash Gordon and Prince Barin both in our hands. What does it matter what we do with them? We can kill them or we can torture them. Anything we do now will be all right. We simply have to inform the Free Council that Prince Barin is in our hands, and we can take over control without even using our troops.”

Azura stared up at him. “You leave them both alone, understand?”

“You still fancy the Earthman, don’t you, Your Majesty?” asked Ming, leaning over the queen. “That’s why you don’t want me to touch him, because I’ll spoil your fun.” Ming roared with laughter.

Azura stared at him with loathing.

“All right,” Ming said finally. “I’ll promise you not to touch your beloved. You can do with him what you will. I don’t care. You can even keep him around as a pet while we rule Mongo together.”

“Shut up, you monster!” screamed Azura. “It’s a matter of policy I’m talking about. Not passion. You’re a dull-witted fool, Ming. Now get out of here and leave these hostages alone. I’ve got plans for them.”

Ming stared. “I’ll just bet you have, my beloved queen,” he said, chuckling. “I’ll just bet you have.”

Azura drew back her hand to slap Ming’s face, then thought better of it.

“Get out of here,” she told him in a low voice. “Guards! Leave me, please. Take your leader with you.” She glowered at Ming.

Ming straightened. “Let’s go, men. Queen Azura is not amused.” He smiled at her as he left and turned to Prince Barin, who dangled helplessly from the ceiling. “She’s all yours, Prince Barin.”

His laughter echoing in the torture chamber, Ming and the guards departed.

Queen Azura stared at Prince Barin for a moment, and then turned away from him. Her face was white with rage.

“Your Majesty,” Prince Barin said hoarsely as he twisted his wrists in the shackles.

She spun on her heel and frowned. “Yes?”

“You’ve got to let Flash Gordon go. It’s part of our bargain.”

Queen Azura stared at him and suddenly her face stiffened. She looked back at the door through which Ming and the guards had left.

“Bargains are made to be broken,” she said thoughtfully. A small smile spread across her beautiful lips. She began laughing. “All bargains . . .”

G
iving himself a passing glance in one of the palace mirrors, Prince Barin was astonished at the complete disguise the cosmetologists in Arboria had given him. He looked absolutely like Jado, the Azurian courier.

It was a lucky break for him that Queen Azura had become interested in Jado, enough to invite him to remain near the royal chambers. He had called in to Fraj, the minister of communications, by vidphone and told him of the queen’s orders.

Then he had begun to roam about the premises. What he needed, of course, he did not know where to find. However, since he knew it must be in the scientific laboratories, he tried to locate it there first.

The labs were in the central part of the palace in a wing adjacent to the queen’s apartment. The scientists in Azuria were held in high esteem and occupied four floors.

Prince Barin had already explored one of them without finding what he wanted. The first floor he had visited was involved with military travel—vehicles for personnel, vehicles for arms, and so on. It was the scientific-formulation section he was after.

Now, arriving at the second floor of the scientific sector, Prince Barin nodded to one of the security men on duty, flashed Jado’s I.D., and moved on through the door.

Here he could see long rows of tables covered with test tubes, and other lab paraphernalia. He felt his heartbeat quicken.

Two bespectacled scientists glanced up and nodded at him as he hastened past with a cheery wave of the hand. There were drawers and cupboards along one long wall, and it was at these that Prince Barin paused, glancing up and down the long counter as if he were looking for something that had been removed from his sight.

Surreptitiously he studied the labels on the drawers.

NC17G NER
CN5 PAC
KE98 ROC PRO
FM116 EXP
JG34 NER

And so on.

Prince Barin frowned. “Ner.” Nerve gas? Quite probably. “Pac.” What? “Roc Pro” was most certainly rocket propellant. And “Exp” was explosives.

“PAC”—pacifist gas?

Prince Barin glanced up and down the counter, but no one was in sight.

He reached out and flung open one of the cupboard doors. Inside he scrutinized a row of jars and bottles. Each had a label pasted to the outside—CN5, CN6, CN13.

He lifted one down and studied it more closely.

This could be what he was looking for. He remembered the formulation code: CN and whatever number followed.

Then he put the jar back, closed the door, and went on down the line.

At the end, he came to a cabinet with the letters “CAP 5NC.”

Something rang a bell.

He paused, and flipped the door open.

A row of jars stood there. He took one down and studied it closely. CAP 5NC; backward it was CN5 PAC. Backward because this was the antidote to the original drug?

Prince Barin slipped the jar into his pocket and closed the door quickly. One of the scientists was walking rapidly toward him.

He turned, smiled, and pushed past, making for the door into the lab.

As he reached out to open it, he was surprised to see it move quickly toward him as someone from outside moved rapidly in.

Queen Azura!

She stared at him in instant recognition.

“Jado,” she said. “My courier. What are you doing down here?”

“You said to be available, Your Highness,” Prince Barin said in Jado’s voice, bowing at the waist.

The queen’s expression softened. “Yes, I did suggest that, didn’t I?” Her eyes narrowed. “I hadn’t expected you to take my suggestion literally, however. I had simply meant for you to be on call. You are interested in laboratory work?”

“In a minor way, Your Majesty,” Prince Barin said, turning slightly to hide the bulge in his tunic.

“It is always fascinating work,” she said softly. “Since you are here, perhaps you can help me in one of my projects.”

“Certainly, Your Majesty,” Prince Barin said, feeling a very strong urge to bolt and run for safety.

“Come with me,” said the queen, and led him through the counters of beakers and test tubes to the far wall, where Prince Barin had explored the shelves already.

Unerringly, the queen took him to the cabinet in which he had seen the CN5 PAC jars. She reached up and took one down. Her eyes were amused.

“It is time for the prisoners to eat dinner, Jado. Perhaps you could help me feed them.”

“Certainly,” Prince Barin said softly.

“You know how to fix the food of Flash Gordon?” Queen Azura asked with a smile.

“I can certainly guess, Your Majesty,” Prince Barin said, smiling at the jar in the queen’s hand.

“Yes. It is a drug that makes a man a coward, Jado. Mixed with his food, he cannot taste nor smell it, yet when he has finished eating, he is a mouse.” She laughed softly.