Zardoz Read Online Free Page A

Conscious now of the change in him, she was unsettled. He felt more sure of himself, a feeling to be short-lived.
    “You have a name.”
    “Zed.”
    “Zed,” she echoed.
    The sunlight caught her left breast and seemed to separate it from her body. Zed was entranced with its beauty, paralyzed by its power. His eyes were drawn upward to hers, fearfully dragged there. A silent bolt of light flashed again from her eyes into his brain, worse than the first shock when he had lost his gun. This one drilled deeper than any bullet, yet he lived…but fell into the darkness and the void beneath his feet, skewered on the pin of light.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Subterranean Interrogation

    Zed was at home again, hunting.
    They galloped along by the sea’s edge, sometimes splashing through the breaking-foam, always scudding after the prey.
    Spurts of sand kicked up by their horses’ hooves were echoed by the bullets plowing into the ground, the occasional shot that had gone wide.
    It was more fun to use the lance, to spike the prey. Some preferred to cut with the saber. To Zed all three means were as one.
    They scampered ahead, some falling, others turning off to try to draw the hunters away, the females trying to protect their young.
    The tenacity with which these lower beings clung to life was great, and gave spice to the hunt.
    Zed leaned forward and stuck the bobbing man in the back. The little figure stopped pacing his horse’s head and vanished from view. Another target. This man still carried the lance that had split his back, there was life in him still. Zed passed him up: live prey was best. He swung down and executed a perfect cut. The head flew from the shoulders of the Brutal below him.
    He rose in his stirrups and cut down on the other side, severing another creature from his breath by hacking clean through from neck to hip. Zed’s men roared approval. It was a good day.
    “I love one that puts up a good fight. I love to see them running. I love the moment of their death when I am One with Zardoz.” Zed heard his own voice speaking these words.
    “Its coordination is exceptional.” Another voice came in to cloud Zed’s brain. Was this voice a dream from the past, or future? Was this life he could feel and breath itself a dream? The voice had a ring of memory: of an auburn-haired girl, by a lake.
    Zed galloped past the main body of dead and dying, leaving them to his followers. He had his eyes on better game. The woman was fleet of foot. Like the others she was dirty, dressed in tatters, and she splashed along the sea edge.
    Unlike the other females, she had not tried to offer herself, or to protect her young. She must be fresh and untried. A good specimen.
    Zed leaned back in his saddle and drew his net. He cast it high and wide ahead of her. It snaked out, then spread, fanlike, around her. As it snapped shut at her thrashing limbs, Zed reined in, leaped from his horse, and was on her. He kissed her lip, then bit into it as she struggled less and less.
    The dream returned to him. The auburn-haired woman who had hurt him had a friend, another woman like herself, proud and strong. She had pale eyes, brown hair, was dressed in green clothing. Taller than the first, she had an icy gaze and deep disdain of him. The two conferred, within a glacial, smooth windowless chamber, glancing down at him from time to time. He was pinioned, or so it seemed. The dream swam away.
    He mounted the captured woman. He spent himself and rose, dragging her after him. She was fine booty, to be taken home across his saddle, to bear a child for Zardoz’s sake.
    The image ran out of his mind and left blankness.
    Zed cleared. The two women looked down at him. They had faces filled with disgust. It was as if the last scene had reversed itself. Zed was the weakling, trapped in an invisible net. The women were his captors, his future leaders and owners. He felt as the Brutals had felt, but he was still strong beneath it all. Although Zardoz had betrayed