Project Gutenberg's Bride of the Dark One, by Florence Verbell Brown

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Bride of the Dark One

Author: Florence Verbell Brown

Release Date: February 17, 2010 [EBook #31306]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRIDE OF THE DARK ONE ***

Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Planet Stories July 1952. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on
this publication was renewed.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

BRIDE OF THE DARK ONE

By FLORENCE VERBELL BROWN

_The outcasts; the hunted of all the brighter worlds,
crowded onto Yaroto. But even here was there salvation for
Ransome, the jinx-scarred acolyte, when tonight was the
night of Bani-tai ... the night of expiation by the
photo-memoried priests of dark Darion?_

* * * * *

The last light in the Galaxy was a torch. High in the rafters of
Mytor's Cafe Yaroto it burned, and its red glare illuminated a gallery
of the damned. Hands that were never far from blaster or knife; eyes
that picked a hundred private hells out of the swirling smoke where a
woman danced.

She was good to look at, moving in time to the savage rhythm of the
music. The single garment she wore bared her supple body, and thighs
and breasts and a cloud of dark hair wove a pattern of desire in the
close room.

Fat Mytor watched, and his little crafty eyes gleamed. The Earth-girl
danced like a she-devil tonight. The tables were crowded with the
outcast and the hunted of all the brighter worlds. The woman's warm
body, moving in the torchlight, would stir memories that men had
thought they left light years behind. Gold coins would shower into
Mytor's palm for bad wine, for stupor and forgetfulness.

Mytor sipped his imported amber kali, and the black eyes moved with
seeming casualness, penetrating