CAPTIVES OF THE FLAME
by SAMUEL R. DELANY
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidencethat the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
ACE BOOKS, INC.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York 36, N.Y.
CAPTIVES OF THE FLAME
Copyright ©, 1963, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Printed in U.S.A.
This is for Marilyn, of course.
SAMUEL R. DELANY considers Captives of the Flame to be the firstof a trilogy dealing with the same epoch and characters. It is,however, his second published novel, his first being The Jewels ofAptor, Ace Book F-173, which has received considerable acclaim.
A young man, resident in New York City, Delany is a prolific andtalented writer, whose work in poetry and prose have won him manyawards. Asked for comment on his literary ambitions, he preferredto quote one of the characters from one of his works:
"I wanted to wield together a prose luminous as twenty sets ofheadlights flung down a night road; I wanted my words tinged withthe green of mercury vapor street lamps seen through a shaling ofoak leaves in the park past midnight. I needed phrases that wouldbreak open like thunder, or leave a brush as gentle as willowboughs passed in a dark room.... The finest writing is always thefinest delineation of surfaces."
PROLOGUE
The green of beetles' wings ... the red of polished carbuncle ... a webof silver fire. Lightning tore his eyes apart, struck deep inside hisbody; and he felt his bones split. Before it became pain, it was gone.And he was falling through blue smoke. The smoke was inside him, cool asblown ice. It was getting darker.
He had heard something before, a ... voice: the Lord of the Flames....Then:
Jon Koshar shook his head, staggered forward, and went down on his kneesin white sand. He blinked. He looked up. There were two shadows in frontof him.
To his left a tooth of rock jutted from the sand, also casting a doubleshadow. He felt unreal, light. But the backs of his hands had real dirton them, his clothes were damp with real sweat, and they clung to hisback and sides. He felt immense. But that was because the horizon was soclose. Above it, the sky was turquoise—which was odd because the sandwas too white for it to be evening. Then he saw the City.
It hit his eyes with a familiarity that made him start. The familiaritywas a refuge, and violently his mind clawed at it, tried to find otherfamiliar things. But the towers, the looped roadways, that was all therewas—and one small line of metal ribbon that soared out across thedesert, supported by strut-work pylons. The transit ribbon! He followedit with his eyes, praying it would lead to something more familiar. Thethirteenth pylon—he had counted them as he ran his eye along the silverlength—was crumpled, as though a fist had smashed it. The transitribbon snarled in mid-air and ceased. The abrupt end again sent his mindclawing back toward familiarity: I am Jon Koshar (followed by themeaningless number that had been part of his name for five years). Iwant to be free (and for a moment he saw again the dank, creosotedwalls of the cabins of the penal camp, and heard the clinking chains ofthe cutter teeth as he had heard them for so many days walking to themine entrance while the yard-high ferns brushed his thighs andforearms ... but that was in his