Demon Lord VI - Son of Chaos (3 page)

***

When Nikira
woke, refreshed after an undisturbed sleep-cycle, she rose and went
into the bathroom to splash her face before donning a fresh
uniform. Sitting at her desk, she activated the communications
screen, and Enyo’s face filled it. “Any change, Enyo?”

“
No, Commander, he still appears to be asleep.”

“
He’s been asleep for close to twelve hours.”

Enyo shrugged.
“He’s weak.”

“
Is he deteriorating again?”

“
Not yet.”

Nikira
deactivated the screen and stared into space. The dra’voren
undoubtedly had much more to show her, but if he continued to sleep
he might relapse into a coma before he could. That would be a great
loss to science, but she also found herself longing to see him
again. She wondered if he was influencing her as he had done his
slaves, but discarded the notion. If he had, surely she would be
experiencing a strong urge to worship him as they did, or, at the
very least, release him? Dismissing her doubts, she rose and headed
for the containment room. Retribution had almost arrived at the
area where the other ship waited, its trap set for any dra’voren
that came in response to her passengers’ earlier prayers.

Enyo turned
from his console as she entered. “He’s still asleep.”

“
Then it’s time to wake him up. I want to see what else he can
do before he falls back into a coma.”

The door to
the shredder room slid open as she approached it, and the two
guards followed her inside. Nikira walked around the table, gazing
down at the man who lay upon it. His face was peaceful and
strangely innocent in repose, his striking colouring enhanced by
the bright lights.

“
Dra’voren.”

“
My name is Bane.”

“
So, you’re not asleep.”

“
Not since you walked in.”

“
Good.” She stopped beside his head. “Show me more of your
powers.”

“
You would find it frightening, and I have no wish to earn
another headache.”

“
I’m not a coward.”

“
Probably not, but if I took control of one of your soldiers
and made him dance, you would not find that too amusing either,
would you?”

“
No.” She frowned.

“
So let me sleep, I am tired.”

Nikira
hesitated, becoming aware that a lot of time had passed, and that
he must indeed be exhausted. She tried to recall what he had shown
her, but her mind was blank. Nevertheless, she could not shake the
impression that she had spent many hours with him, questioning him,
and was quite weary herself. She glanced at the soldiers, one of
whom stifled a yawn, then headed for the door. Enyo turned to her
with a puzzled frown as she stepped out of the shredder room.

“
Changed your mind?”

“
No. He’s tired.”

“
I thought he was going to show you some more of his
tricks?”

“
He did.”

Enyo eyed her.
“No he didn’t. You were in there for only a couple of minutes, then
he said he was tired, and you left.”

“
No, he showed me a lot of things, and answered a lot of
questions.”

“
Are you feeling all right, Commander?”

“
Of course, why do you ask?”

“
Because you’re acting strange. None of what you just said
happened.”

“
Of course it did. I spent hours in there, talking to
him.”

“
No, you didn’t.”

Nikira rubbed
her brow, frowning. “Then why do I feel so tired?”

“
He took control of you.”

“
What?”

“
He must have made you think you’d questioned him, and that you
were tired.”

Nikira gripped
a nearby console as her legs turned to rubber. “I didn’t feel a
thing.”

“
We must kill him now, Commander, before he takes control of
all of us and makes us free him.”

“
If he could do that, he would have by now.”

Enyo glanced
through the window. “He could have made you believe his lies, too.
Perhaps he can only take control of people who are close to
him.”

“
I was when I questioned him.”

“
Then he knew we’d get suspicious if you believed him.
Considering that he uses his brain to the extent he does, he’s
definitely not stupid. I reckon he knew that if you’d ordered him
released, we’d have known something was wrong and stunned all of
you.”

“
So he tried the subtle approach, and it almost
worked.”

“
But it would only have bought him some time.”

Nikira sank
down on a chair. “That’s why he agreed to show me his powers, and
then pretended to sleep for so long. He’s waiting for something...
or someone.”

“
Time to let Senior SciTech Drontar test his
poison.”

“
I suppose so.” Nikira fought a strong urge to order the
dra’voren kept alive. Just a little longer, something within her
cried; a few more days to study him and learn his secrets. She
swallowed hard. “Stun him.”

Enyo ran his
hand over his console, tapping buttons, and a dull thud shook the
room. Nikira stood up and stared through the window, her heart
heavy. The dra’voren’s head had lolled to the side, and a drop of
blood oozed from his nose. She turned to Enyo.

“
Tell Jonar to administer the poison.”

The senior
confinement technician activated a communications screen while
Nikira sank back down on the chair, struggling to shrug off the
wave of desolation that washed over her at the prospect of the
dra’voren’s demise. At least it would be a peaceful death, she
mused, then gave herself a mental shake, angered by the strong
compassion she felt for him, knowing it to be the result of his
evil influence. He was filling her mind with thoughts of pity and
mercy when he deserved neither. He was a world destroyer, she
reminded herself, a foul creature who used the darkness to kill and
torture, who slew creators, the world builders without whom there
would be no life. He deserved to suffer the agony he had inflicted
upon others and know his crime before he died. That he would not
did not spark the rage in her that it should have, and again she
blamed his influence for stripping her of her rightful hatred of
him and all his kind.

Jonar arrived
with his little bag of tricks and took out the syringe of amber
poison. Nikira averted her eyes as he entered the shredder room,
wanting to leave before he administered the fatal injection. It was
barbaric, she told herself, that was why it sickened her so. The
dra’voren was a living person, a human being, even if he was a
depraved and evil creature who deserved death. Only the fact that
he was a dra’voren made her force herself to condone what was to
happen to him.

Chapter Two

Intervention

Crouched in
the Channel, Tryne watched the three men enter the metal room, one
approaching the tar’merin with a vial of poison. Cloaking himself,
he stepped out and crept up behind the man, who stopped beside the
Demon Lord, the vial of poison held loosely at his side. Seizing
the opportunity, Tryne leant forward and snatched the vial from the
man’s hand, turned and stepped back into the Channel as bedlam
erupted behind him.

Nikira jumped
up as Jonar bellowed in alarm and sprinted for the door, the two
soldiers close behind him.

“
Stunner! Now!” Jonar shouted as he leapt through the
doorway.

Enyo tapped
the control panel as the shredder room door slid shut, and the
floor shook with another dull thud. Jonar ran to the observation
window and peered through it, frowning. Nikira joined him, but
apart from the dra’voren, the shredder chamber was empty.

“
What is it?”

“
There’s something in there!”

“
What?”

“
I don’t know. Something invisible!”

Nikira glanced
around the shredder room again. “If there was, it would have become
visible when the stunner hit it.”

“
Well clearly it didn’t. Unless it was the
dra’voren.”

“
He’s unconscious.”

“
We don’t know what he can do. He might -”

“
What happened?” she interrupted.

“
Something took the syringe right out of my hand.”

Nikira turned
to Enyo. “Activate the shredder. If there’s something in there that
can remain invisible even when it’s stunned, the shredder will
destroy it.”

Enyo looked at
the scanner screen. “But there’s nothing on the scanner, Commander,
and the lodestones are active.”

“
Perhaps it’s something that can cloak the dark power too,”
Jonar muttered.

“
And that the lodestones can’t drain? If that’s the case, we’re
in big trouble.”

“
A dra’voren can only be drained once his form has been
stripped away,” Nikira pointed out.

Enyo signalled
to his contechs, who turned to their consoles. The oscillating
light guns around the shredder room spun, their tips glowing as
they warmed up, then blue fire strafed the air, intensifying until
Nikira was forced to look away. The flickering brilliance continued
for several minutes, and when it stopped, Nikira studied the
shredder room again. The dra’voren remained unharmed, but the grey
trousers he wore were tattered and smouldering.

She turned to
Jonar. “There’s nothing there.”

“
There was. It must have left after it took the
syringe.”

“
If it was a dra’voren, why didn’t the scanners detect it, and
why didn’t the stunner work on it?”

Jonar threw up
his hands. “I don’t know! I’m a medtech, not a contech!”

Nikira turned
to Enyo, who shrugged. “It must have left the room before the
stunner was activated, but I don’t know why the scanners didn’t
pick it up. A dra’voren should have set off all the alarms, like
that one did.”

“
You’d better check your equipment then.” Nikira leant on the
sill of the observation window. “If we’ve got another dra’voren
loose in the ship, our only hope of destroying it is to lure it in
there and shred it. But I find that hard to believe, because if
there was, it would have started killing people by now.”

“
Well I’m not going in there again,” Jonar averred.

“
You will if I order you to. If it wanted to kill you, it would
have done it already.”

“
That’s another good point, Commander,” Enyo said. “A dra’voren
would have killed him, not just taken the syringe.”

“
Unless it doesn’t want us to know what it is.”

“
Or it’s not a dra’voren.”

Nikira raised
her brows. “What else could it be?”

“
Something that doesn’t use dark power, and can become
invisible and move through walls.”

“
You’d better start searching the database. I’m going to ask
Drontar if he has any suggestions.”

Nikira headed
for the lab, her head aching from the tension.

***

As soon as he
calculated that it was safe to do so, a few minutes after the blue
light had died away, Tryne stepped from the Channel again. He
studied the closed door, then the sharp blade poised over the
tar’merin’s heart. Prying the dagger from its cradle in the strange
mechanism, he went over to the door. It took him several minutes to
jam the blade into the narrow crack between the door and its frame,
then he stood back to admire his handiwork.

Satisfied that
the door would not easily be opened, he stepped back into the
Channel and sought the poisoner, who had left the room outside
shortly before. He found the man striding along a bright corridor
and left the Channel to follow him. The poisoner soon turned into a
spacious room and went over to a shiny glass cupboard.

Tryne surveyed
its contents, frowning at the assortment of poisons in it. The
poisoner took a vial from it and swung around, almost bumping into
Tryne, who stepped hastily aside. He waited for the poisoner to
leave, then glanced at the other people in the room, who were all
bent over strange equipment. They seemed engrossed in their work,
and Tryne considered the glass cupboard again, a delightful plan
presenting itself.

Finding a
Channel that shared space with the inside of the cupboard, he
stepped into it, reaching through the Channel wall to pluck the
foul vials from the shelves. When the shelves were almost bare and
his arms were full, he walked along the Channel until he found one
that existed outside the ship, and stepped across. Dumping his
burden on the sandy ground, he returned to the metal room to guard
his charge.

***

Nikira frowned
at the vidscreen that showed the inside of the shredder room door,
where the dagger that had been rigged over the dra’voren’s heart
was now wedged between the door and the frame, jamming it.

“
How the hell did that get there, Enyo?”

The senior
contech shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine, Commander.
The dra’voren’s still unconscious. We couldn’t figure out why the
door wouldn’t open until I turned the camera and we saw that. I’ve
sent for engineers. They should be here at any moment.”

“
So there is something in there,” Jonar muttered.