Part 1

THE MAN THE SUN GODS MADE

By GARDNER F. FOX

They called him a god and worshipped him. He neither ate nor drank, nor breathed the wild free air, yet he was mighty beyond belief. But grief bowed those superbly-muscled shoulders, for he knew he was human.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1946. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Tyr stood on the warm white sands and stretched. The hot yellow rays of the sun played across his ribbed chest and the muscles in his long legs and thick arms. Tyr smiled. It was good to be alive, even if he was a god.

He wondered when they would come to worship him again, sending the bittersweet keening of the _suota_-horns out across the silver deserts and blue lakes of Lyallar. He hoped it would be soon, for he had, despite himself, grown to like sitting on the ruby throne. From where he stood, looking across the groined vastness of the Lord Chamber, he could see the upturned faces of his people. Even the rat-face of Otho he liked at moments like those, for the wondrously beautiful face of Fay smiled red-lipped at him. Tyr gave many gifts to Fay from the treasures that the Lyallar heaped upon him. And always it seemed she was eager for more, her brown eyes flickering like those of a greedy child.

Tyr spread his arms, feeling millions of tiny nerve-ends in his skin open to drink in the energy pouring from the titanic orb of fire in the heavens that was sun to the planet Lyallar. Tyr ate no food, and breathed no air. All that he needed for his existence he got from the sun.

As the energy flooded into him, making him tingle in every fibre of his being, Tyr felt again the effect of that energy on his brain. It was as though the power he fed on was so great that it opened the deeper spaces of his mind so that any problem was no problem at all--while the moment lasted.

He had found the stone tower in a moment like that. Seen it at first miles away, standing lone and stark on the silver sand. Built of brownish rock, round as the bole of a tree, it was something new to him who had explored all the strange places of this planet. Tyr had run to it, testing his swift feet. He could have distanced a dozen cheetahs, one after another, could Tyr. He was more than swift. He was inhuman.

The lock was easy to break with all that energy flooding him. He merely took it in his big hands and his muscles writhed and bulged, and the flaky red metal of the lock snapped. With the flat of a hand he pushed open the door and went within. It was dim and cool inside, and at first Tyr did not like it.

There were queer objects all about him, some of glass, some of metal. Here were curves and cones and vibrating rods of the thickness of a man's little finger. And books! Even the libraries of the Trylla contained no books such as these. He lifted one down and browsed, and found that his mind was understanding it, knowing what those terms and symbols meant, without thinking. His mind frightened Tyr at times. It was almost not a part of him. It was as though all the men and women who had been his forebears had left a little something of themselves in his makeup, so that their knowledge and experience could guide their descendant.

Many hours Tyr spent in that odd place. It was a change from the deserts and the ruby throne. Gradually, through the years, he found that he was amassing an education from the books and the glass and metal objects--

_Suu-ohhh-taaaa!_

* * * * *

The clarion notes rang sweet and clear. They brought Tyr erect, the peculiar ring chained to his neck bouncing on his chest. He looked toward the dim horizon, where stood Yawarta, city of the ruby throne.

This was the call to the god of the Lyallar. Tyr ran easily, like a perfect machine that never tired. Across the white sands, and through the eerie forest in which all the trees resembled frost-flakes, silver-white in the sun. Deep in the heart of the forest lay an azure pool, its blueness contrasting startlingly with the silver of the forest.

The towers of Yawarta were slim and dark beyond the grassy fields. Like drops of blood on a satin pillow they brooded, reminding the Tryllan race that they were slaves to the _ardth_ who dwelt far beyond the nearest star.

A girl was standing before a golden door set flush with the hillside.

"Fay!"

"Speak not, on your life!" she whimpered.

They stood silent, breathing softly. Tyr heard the voices then, harsh voices, where the Tryllans spoke in musical syllables.

"The _ardth_! They have returned?"

"Yes. They swear to kill you, Tyr. They are hunting you now, along the tunnels to the door."

Tyr bent and swung the girl high on his chest, grinning. "They will never catch Tyr."

Tyr began to run. His legs blurred with the speed of his motion. He stepped out along the grassy slope, and down it, and then was running free on the plains. He heard Fay's gasp as she grew aware of his pace. She buried her head against his shoulder to breathe, and her yellow hair whipped and stung his face as the wind tossed it.

For four hours Tyr ran, not needing to breathe. When he swung the girl down, he was as composed as though he had moved ten feet. Fay stared up at him with warm brown eyes.

"Truly you are a god, Tyr. Only a god could run without effort."

"No god. Only--only--"

He halted. He had no word to describe himself. Neither did the Trylla, except "god." So god he had become, unwillingly; yet he was dimly aware that he was unique among men, that he stood alone.

"We are far from the Old Ones, the _ardth_, here," he said. "It would be easy to dwell here on the deserts until they have left."

Fay stirred restlessly, saying, "I do not want to stay on the deserts. They are bare places. No people, no laughter."

"I don't blame you. There must be something I can do."

He rubbed his hands on the soft white fur that clasped his hips. A hot anger was beating up inside him, making his nostrils flare. The Old Ones! They had come back to Lyallar, where Tyr ruled! The masters of planets and the far reaches of space had come back. He was one, and the _ardth_ were many. Individually, nothing could ever defeat him. But one against a race! He shook his head.

"You could fight them, Tyr. You are a god. What can the Old Ones do to you? There is no way of killing you. Sometimes an assassin has tried, while you sat on the ruby throne. But no one has ever succeeded."

That was true. Yet he did not tell her that his own uncanny speed saved him. There was no sense in testing fate, by letting a weapon strike him. He had a subtle knowledge that he might be immune to certain types of missiles, but he was not sure.

"You could walk into Yawarta and slay them all, Tyr," the girl said softly, watching him carefully with her brown eyes. "Then we could go back to the old days. You could give me that emerald necklace I want."

Tyr wondered at the greed in the brown eyes. It disturbed him. But it did not disturb him as much as the thoughts of the Old Ones. Thought of them brought a yearning for battle that rose red and mist-like inside his great chest. How to tell of that hotness within him, where his guts ought to be, but were not, that made his heart pump with fury? Yet, despite his rage, he was alert and careful as a stalking cat. He could not tell this to Fay; she wanted him to walk unarmed into Yawarta and blast the _ardth_ with some sort of supernatural power.

He walked around on the white sand, brooding at his moving feet. He looked into his mind for the words, stumbling and halting.

"Fay, the Trylla have made of me a god. Now I know I am no god. I am not such a god as the legends of the Tryllan cults tell of, at any rate. I am only a man. A human being, who is something of a freak."

There was a patient smile on the girl's red mouth. She shook her head and the soft yellow hair tumbled around her bare shoulders.

"We have spoken of this before, Tyr. Always you say that you are not a god, and then you turn around and do what only a god can do."

* * * * *

Tyr sighed. "Maybe I am a god. Maybe I expect a god to be too much. But that is not exactly the point. It is this: the Trylla call me god, no matter what I call myself. Therefore I must act like a god, for their sake."

Fay nodded, brown eyes fastened on him.

Tyr said slowly, "A god would not let oppressors molest his people, would he, Fay?"

"That is just what I have said. You must go into Yawarta and slay and slay--"

"No. No, I do not think that is what a god would do."

Fay frowned slightly. She kicked at a lump of sand and watched it fly apart. She ran a finger into her thick yellow hair and twirled it.

"Of course you may be right," she said tartly. "I am not versed in the way of gods."

"Nor am I," scowled Tyr. "But, in the heart of me, something says there is another way. That, if I can convince the _ardth_ that I could defeat them, smash them in some way--then what would be the triumph of a god."

"That might take a long time. I would like very much to have that emerald necklace. Otho said it was worn by Queen Yatha-sath two thousand years ago. Please, Tyr?"

She came close to him, perfumed warmth and soft white skin. Her mouth was very red. But Tyr looked away, frowning.

"The Old Ones derive their powers from a thing called science," he said slowly. "It says so in a book in the Tower. If I could learn that science, I might defeat them with their own weapons. But that would take a long time. Many years."

* * * * *

He stared up into the sun and smiled gently, feeling its hot rays lave his chest and arms and thighs. Like bubbles of air surging up through water, he felt the dormant strength of his muscles. He had strength. A strong man can fight with his hands and with his legs. He would fight.

He turned sharply to Fay and asked, "What is the Barrow that the Trylla often mention? Where is it?"

"The Barrow is the pride of the Trylla. Without it there would be no hope."

"Yes, yes. I know. But what _is_ it?"

"It is the hidden place where all the wartime secrets of the race are stored. When the last invasion of the Old Ones took place, nearly a hundred years ago, all the accumulated knowledge of the conquered Tryllans was locked away lest the Old Ones destroy it."

"Could you find the Barrow?"

Fay shuddered. Tyr looked at her, saw her fingers move through her yellow hair, watched with gentle smile as white teeth nibbled at red lip. He put out his big hands and held her arms.

"It is for the Trylla that I ask."

"I--I know. I can find the Barrow." Her chin lifted defiantly. "Of what use are old legends if they make those who hear them weaklings and cowards? Better to--to die bravely than to hole up like the _tabbug_ at the first cry of the hunting-cat!"

Tyr grinned at her, wondering if she believed in her own words. She was so lovely, so childishly greedy for pretty things, so--he frowned at the idea--so unconsciously selfish, wrapped in her own interests, that abstract terms like bravery and cowardice seemed alien to her tongue. Her brown eyes flirted up at him from under their long lashes, and caught his warm grin.

She muttered sullenly, "The Barrow is five days' journey from the Desert of the Dead, and that lies two days' travelling from here."

"So near?"

"Much of the journey is across terrible deserts, and the rest is over insurmountable mountain barriers. The Barrow is atop the tallest mountain on all the planet."

"That makes it so much harder for the Old Ones to find it," Tyr said.

"The Old Ones can fly. The Trylla must walk. Our monorails run only in the cities. Oh, Tyr, the only way you can win is to go into the chambers of Yawarta and destroy the leading _ardth_. You can do it no other way!"

"If Harl the Ancient still lives," Tyr dreamed, "he could help me fight. He was the greatest of the Tryllan warriors. There are rumors he does live, in the Barrow. That is why I must find it. I need Harl."

The girl nibbled at her red mouth sullenly, saying, "I don't see why you don't do as I say. In that way, you'd get to power faster. We wouldn't have to share the glory with Harl."

"The _ardth_ aren't bowling pins to fall at the sway of an arm, Fay. They are dangerous men. Wise men with enough savagery in their blood to make them vicious."

Tyr knew he could never hope to walk into the secret chambers of the _ardth_ alive. He knew his limitations. He was human, after a fashion. He bled when cut, and he ached when bruised. And the _ardth_--

The _ardth_ were a strange race. They were nomads who swept across the trails of the stars in great vessels that spanned a bridge of space from planet to planet. Never happy for long, they were eaten by a cancerous unrest that drove them on and on, to the outermost rims of the galaxies, hunting always.

They had home planets, too, but they were seldom at home. Instead they chose to lock themselves in ships of metal and fling themselves out between the suns. Instead of green grass and trees, their windows looked on blackness relieved only by twinkling dots that were stars, and steadily glowing pinpricks that were unexplored planets.

Five hundred years ago they had come to Lyallar. The Tryllans, then a great race, had fought them bitterly and had driven them off. Three hundred years later, they came again; this time they came for war. That war lasted seventy-two years and, at its end, the Tryllans were a broken race. And that time the Old Ones stayed, or, rather, their cities stayed--and the Glow.

* * * * *

No one really knew what the Glow was. It made the Old Ones powerful, and was as closely guarded by them as was the Barrow by the Trylla. Without the Glow, the _ardth_ were naught. They hid the Glow deep in their biggest city, that they named Mart.

"If we could go to Mart and find this Glow," said Tyr abruptly, out of his deep thought.

Fay laughed bitterly, "The Barrow one can find by rolling downhill, compared to finding the Glow and using it."

Tyr grunted. It was hard, being a god.

Sometimes he wished he were like other men, for then he would have no people to protect, no Old Ones to battle for a race that looked to him for guidance. Often he had thought that the Old Ones might be gods, but he knew that none of them could do what he could do.

His godship prodded him into saying, "Let us find the Barrow, and Harl."

"Harl is old, very old," replied the girl. "He is so old that he must be a doddering gaffer now."

"But his brain would be young," Tyr argued. "And it is the brain that is trained in war from which I seek aid."

The girl sat on a rock and undid a sandal and shook sand from it. She shrugged petulantly and fastened her sandal. "Must we go now? It is almost night."

Tyr looked at the sun low on the horizon. Tyr did not like to travel by night. He preferred the hot day, when the sunrays beat with insistent heat about his tanned chest and shoulders. But there was need for hurry. The Old Ones did not stop for darkness, and neither would he.

"Come," he said shortly.

The way was easy, at first. In the red light of the dying sun, they saw the sand before them, each rise and dip moulded into graceful curves by the winds that whipped the barrens night and day. They went lightly, swiftly.

Slowly the stars loomed in the darkening sky above them. And, as is the way with travellers the worlds over, they grew silent and more intimate in unspoken thought. Once or twice Fay's hand brushed Tyr's, and he helped her across the higher dunes.

On a hard swirl of sand, they stood close. Fay whispered, "All those stars, Tyr. You would think the Old Ones would be satisfied with so many. They might leave Lyallar alone!"

Tyr felt surprise at the emotion within him. It was almost a sympathy with the nomad oppressors.

"They have curiosity. I have it myself. I have lived on every desert that Lyallar can boast, yet I am ever searching for a bigger and a hotter one. Maybe the Old Ones are like that."

He looked down at the girl, smiling wistfully at the pale loveliness of her hair, at the warm brown of her eyes. He shivered, watching her. He wanted so much to take Fay and go out into the desert with her, away from everything that smacked of godhood. They could go to the Tower, and live there safely. The _ardth_ would not find him there. There would be none to say him yea or nay. If--he was a god!

Tyr sighed and turned from Fay's red mouth and looked out across the unending dunes. An inner voice whispered, _The Trylla need you, Tyr. You are their god, and a god does not run away. When is a god needed more than in time of trouble? You cannot leave them, for they are as children. You must fight._ He nodded in the darkness, grimly.

Side by side they went on through the night. And now they went apart from each other, as though the decision were a final parting. Words were unnecessary. The Trylla needed Tyr.

It was dawn when they saw the others trudging wearily across a far bank of sand. Tyr shouted and waved, summoning them. Dragging deadened limbs they came, in torn clothes and with smears and streaks of dirt on gaunt faces. They stood before him, and in their eyes was the dull glaze of despair and in their voices the sullen acceptance of their fate.

"We fled after seeing the _ardth_ ships come."

"They will find us, though. We want just a few more days of freedom."

"All of Yawarta is captive to them. They have made Otho governor, and thrown Zarman, whom you appointed ruler, into the cells."

"And they have sent out commands that you be returned to them at once. They have offered rewards."

Tyr grinned mirthlessly, shaking his tawny head. A return meant torture, possibly death. If the Old Ones thought enough of him, they might feed him to the Glow.

He said, "Fay and I are bound for the Barrow. We will find Harl and call him to lead new armies against the _ardth_. Join with us. We shall win."

"We cannot win ... alone."

They looked at him out of dull eyes in which tiny flames of hope sprang alive and flickered, and then died. They shuffled their feet. They looked tired enough to fall, and the bare soles of several bled red drops into the sands.

"Sleep," said Tyr gently. "You need rest. Dawn is coming up, and I can go on in the sunlight to survey the path before us."

He drew Fay with him, over the crest of a dune. His fingers rose to touch the circlet of dull gold that gleamed from the chain about his neck. Slowly he unfastened it as Fay watched, staring. The ring was a part of him, for he had worn it ever since he could remember. Now he wanted Fay to wear it. It bruised his ribs when he ran, or bounced on his back and against his jaw. But more than that, every Tryllan knew that ring. It would be a symbol of power in Fay's hands.

"Use it well," he said, closing her white fingers about it.

Her brown eyes were wide, looking up at him. Tyr put out his hands and caught her arms above her elbows. He held her like that, just looking at her beauty, for a long moment.

And then he turned and ran swiftly, lest the muffled thunder of his blood should smash the resolutions his brain had welded so firmly.

II

Sand slipped away in back of him, as wind passes the arrow in its flight. Air was cool on his chest and on the powerful thighs that rippled with muscles as he ran. The sun beat at him, leaving him in its warmth. He grew strong and powerful as the cells of his skin sucked in energy.

Run, Tyr. Run faster and yet faster, that the thoughts teeming in your brain may be left behind. You are a god, and a girl named Fay is not for you. You have only the _ardth_-men, Tyr. They are your enemies, and they must be vanquished!

But how? But how? His brain howled in desperation. They are so many. They know sciences, and they have weapons. You have two bare hands and a strong body, a strange body, a body that frightens you at times, it is so different.

Something dug into the sand ahead of him and exploded. Tyr swerved like a frightened faun and came to a stop. Something else blew up a little closer to him. Hard granules of sand stung his flesh.

He saw them, then, in the sky. Three sleek aircraft with stubby wings and a long fuselage out of which shot tiny glints of red.

The _ardth_!

Tyr drew his hands down his ribs, lips twisted. By the god that he was supposed to be! He'd show them a race, even if they could fly and he could only run.

The sun was hot and searing. Good! It was his ally, that immense orb. While it shone, they could not catch him.

Tyr ran.

His pace was a blurred thing. His flight was that of the _kala_-bird whistling before the hawk. He swerved and he darted, and he made fools of the men in the shiny things above and behind him. It was an incredible thing that he did, but Tyr was an incredible being. The rules were not made for him, for who made the rules knew nothing of Tyr. He outran those aircraft.

All day long, while the sun beat upon him, Tyr flew. Vaguely he realized that he was a living, functioning thing of energy--not pure energy, but energy translated into human power.

Yet he was human, and the fliers were machines. He lost them among the rocks, but the aircraft spread in widening circles and one of them found him again. And so Tyr ran on. Once or twice he stumbled, toward the end of the day. The thunder of the jet planes was loud in his ears. They swooped low, casting long shadows before them.

There were no more explosions. Those had stopped once he began his mad race. He thought, 'At least, Fay and the others are safe. I've led the _ardth_ a long way from them.' The muscles in his legs were hardening, knotting. They grew heavy and inert.

Tyr staggered.

The planes had landed, and the men were coming for him. The stars-and-bars on their jackets loomed bigger and bigger as he stood and waited. His chest rippled with sweat, and his long arms hung limp on either side of his giant frame.

He could fight and die here, with the moon starting its rise in front of him, and the wilderness of his run behind him. His body was pouring the energy through his system again, and his muscles grew less heavy.

"By Kagan!" swore the first _ardth_-man, staring at him with round eyes over the muzzle of a lifted gun. "Who are you, man? _What_ are you?"

"He's their god," rasped another, appraising Tyr with knowing eyes.

"No wonder," grunted the third, holstering his weapon. "A god such as he would find me among his worshippers! They'll never believe us on Rigel-7!"

"Do you yield?" asked the first.

They did not seem so frightening, close up. They were like Tyr. They were men, smaller than he, but men. He could kill them all, here and now, but--

He owned a desire to see more of these _ardth_. Perhaps he could reason with their commander, make some sort of compromise. He would do anything to save the Trylla. Fay and the others were safe. Let them go to the Barrow. He would know where to find them when he escaped from the _ardth_. And he would escape. There was no prison made that could hold Tyr.

He said slowly, "I yield. I will go with you."

Dully, despite all his hopes and plans, he knew himself a complete and total failure as a god.

* * * * *

Her hair was black as the tip of a raven's wing, parted in the middle, and drawn back over tiny ears. She had black eyes and a wide, crimson mouth that kept smiling at him, gently. She stood in the midst of the cloaked _ardth_-men who stared at him as they listened to the voices of the airmen who had captured him.