КатеринаК

→A thick-set man this, with a flaming mop of hair and broad features spotted with the scars of gamma leakage. A barrel for a chest and trees for legs, two great hands and fingers which looked as if they could tear steel. He stared down at the cringing beggar and jerked his head towards a golden fleck amongst the crowd.

→“But....” Bitterly the beggar stared after the tall figure of the golden man, then cringed, his thin hands clutching at his gold as he stared at the man who had gripped him by the arm.

→“Life?” Kalgan stared down at the beggar, and now his cold eyes had softened into something like pity. “You know not what you ask. Here.” Again light twinkled from the stream of gold he poured into the wooden bowl. “Drink of the black liquor of Ghort and forget your longings in delectable dreams.”

→“Nay.” Abruptly the old man fell to his knees and grovelled in the dust before the tall figure. “Give me your secret, Kalgan. Give me life! Give me a little longer to suck the air and to taste the wine, to caress the flesh and to feel the gold. Let me be young again, for a year, a month, a day. Give me life, Kalgan. Of your charity, give me life!”

→“You talk foolish words, old man.”

→“And called you well.” The beggar licked his lips again, oblivious to the crowds thrusting past. “For you have that which all men desire, and that thing is not the gold you own. I would give you a new name.” His voice dropped to a low whisper. “I would call you—Kalgan the Deathless!”

→“Do I?”

→“So men have called me.”

→“Aye. For are you not Kalgan the Golden?”

→“To an old man dreams are all that are left.” The beggar licked his lips as he stared at the slender youth of the man before him. “I would not take your gold, Kalgan. There is a greater gift you can give to one who has reached the end of his days. You know well of what I speak.”

→“Hold!” Kalgan twisted, and the old man’s hand fell from his cloak. “Enough.” He dipped into his pouch, and coins rattled into the wooden bowl. “Take this and remind me no more of the past, old man. Of what use are dead dreams?”

→“Then truly the Gods have blessed me this day. For are you not he who walks the worlds and ages not while other men grow old and die?” The beggar reached out his claw-hand and gripped the edge of the swirling cloak. “Remember me, my lord. Once when I was young I served you well, aye I bear the scars to this day. On Fethal it was, a raid, a grim time of blasting guns and flashing blades. There was a woman....”

→“That is my name.”

→“Aye. For are you not he whom men call the Golden One? Kalgan the Golden?”

→“Remember you?” The man halted, his eyes as cold and hard as ice and iron as he stared at the wreck of what had once been a man.

→“Charity, my lord! Of your generosity, remember me.”

→The tall figure strode onwards, like a thing of metal, a thing of stone and, seeing him, the beggar thrust forward the bowl in his hand.

→“Charity, my lords. Charity to an old man. Bread for my lips and medicine for my wounds. Charity!”

→A beggar saw him, a stooped and ravaged old man, his face scarred with the blue sears of radiation blasts and his scalp a raw egg. Ragged he was, grimed with dirt no water could remove, and his voice shrilled with the beggars’ whine.

→A man strode down the street from the spaceport. A tall man, slender as a tempered blade and with a litheness of motion that betrayed hidden strength. All of bronze he was, from the soles of his polished knee-boots to the crown of the helmet hugging his bleak, deeply tanned features. A short cloak swirled from his shoulders, half hiding the steel blade at his left hip and the blaster at his right. Straight he walked, his eyes never flickering, and he walked as though he walked alone.