Max Allan Collins

to some wonderful afterlife; or was he merely unconscious, perhaps dy­ing, and dreaming one last sweet dream before the underworld claimed him?

'A man!' the damsel nearest him chirped.

Mathayus clamped a hand over her pretty mouth. 'Quiet, now.'

Then he realized they seemed to be staring at him much as he had at them—in wonderment. He had not the slightest idea why, having no sense of what a magnificent male specimen he must have seemed to the fetching young women.

He took his hand off the girl's mouth, and she remained silent. Good. Rising, drawing his scimitar, he looked all about. 'What is this place?'

Another of the girls whispered, 'Lord Memnon's harem, of course.'

They were all around him now, a beautiful swarm.

'But you'd never know it was,' another said. 'Our lord so seldom visits....'

Another exquisite creature said, 'He has better things to do, it would seem.'

And another stroked the assassin's bare arm, say­ing, 'Always off on his campaigns of war. No time for us ... we get so lonely.'

The girl who had first spoken now said, 'We long for a man's touch,' and she gently took his free hand—the other held the scimitar—and brought his palm up to rest on a firm, full breast. Reflexively, he cupped it, as she covered her hand with his and held it there.

She was squealing with girlish delight, just as he pulled his hand away, saying to her, 'You're won­derful, but... This isn't a good time.'

'What better time,' one of the them said, eyes sparkling over her veil, 'could you imagine?'

'It could be a very good time,' another said, and they were surging forward, crowding him, crying out to him, Stay here! Stay with us! We will pleasure you! We know how to please a man!

As they fawned over him, disrobing him he thought, he was drunk with the sight of them, the scents, the exotic delights that seemed to hover like shimmering dreams; and—great warrior that he was, he was a man after all, only a man—he did not realize they were in reality disarming him, plucking his knives, his metal, from his belt. Nor did he sense the mighty bow and its quiver leave his shoulders, as another wench slipped them off, behind his back.

'Stay with us,' a green-eyed one was cooing,

'and we will make your every fantasy come

true__ '

Then one of them, in a sudden, almost savage move, yanked the scimitar from his grasp, while a few steps away one of her sisters pulled a large tas­sel and rang the huge gong, sending waves of sound radiating across, seemingly, the entire world.

And now these sweet harem girls became vicious creatures, no less lovely, but clawing now, scratching and biting, a multitude of ferocious cats attack­ ing.

In one swift movement, swinging both his arms, Mathayus disentangled himself, flinging them here and there like rag dolls, and they tumbled pretty end over pretty end, landing awkwardly on the scattered pillows.

He had regained his scimitar and several daggers, but not his mighty bow, when half a dozen archers burst into the harem den ... and in their lead was the brutal Thorak.

Thorak's scar turned white as surprise and rage seized him. 'It's the Akkadian] ... He lives ... but not for long—kill him!'

As the archers let fly with their arrows, the as­sassin dove toward that huge gong, tumbling behind it; with a sweep of his scimitar, he cut the ropes binding the golden sphere to its pedestal, from which he snatched the huge shieldlike object. Roll­ing the gong swiftly along, hiding behind it as ar­rows pinged and danced off its outer surface, Mathayus made his way to the harem doors, through which he sent the gong