King's Test (34 page)

The young man
regarded him coldly, the petulant mouth drawn tight. "I'll see
you later, Tusk."

"Yeah,
sure, lad."

Turning to
leave, escorted by Mikael, Tusk saw Abdiel put a thin arm around the
boy's waist, draw him near. The mercenary strained his ears,
listening.

"Many years
ago, when they were both young—about your age," Abdiel was
saying, "the Lady Maigrey and Derek Sagan—that was before
he had gone entirely evil—were initiated by me into the Order's
secrets. It was a wonderful time. Our spirits communed, and I might
have been able to help them, particularly Derek. But he grew
impatient, because I would not teach him all that he wanted to know.
He turned Maigrey against me, and I was forced to send the two away.
. . ."

The old man's
voice faded in the distance, taking Dion with it.

Mikael led Tusk
through the maze of the house, upstairs and down and around
innumerable sharp comers. No windows offered a view outside, but the
mercenary had the impression from the number of stairs they climbed
as opposed to those they descended that he was being led to an upper
portion of the multileveled house.

Arriving at a
door that looked like countless other doors they'd passed in a hall
that looked like every other hall, Mikael halted, withdrew an
old-fashioned metal key, and inserted it into an antiquated metal
bolt lock. The key clicked, the zombie turned the swivel on the bolt,
slid it aside. Tusk watched, puzzled, then understanding clicked with
the lock.

"You guys
aren't big on electricity around here, huh? Solar heat, no force
fields, no lasguns or phaser weapons ..."

Mikael pushed
open the door, revealing a small, square, windowless room made of
cedar that looked like every other room in the house.

The zombie
gestured politely for Tusk to enter.

"Just a
little test, if you don't mind." Tusk drew the lasgun, pointed
it at the lock on the door, and fired.

Nothing. The
weapon was dead.

"The
master's body has a natural tendency to disrupt electric fields,"
the disciple explained. "He can control it, of course, but it
tires him, being constantly forced to exert so much energy. We find
it easier, when we are at home, to do without. Please step inside."

"Where's
Nola?" Tusk demanded, looking around the room.

"Resting in
her own room. Please step inside."

Tusk glowered.
"What if I said Nola and I wanted to leave?"

"The woman
is, I'm afraid, far too tired to travel. Please step inside."

My gun may not
work but I could punch this bastard out, Tusk thought. Shit, though,
I'd never find Nola in this rat's nest. And then there's the kid. . .
.

Tusk, scowling,
stepped inside. As he passed the door, he noted that the cedar was a
veneer; the door itself was made of solid steel.

"Your
dinner will be brought to your room," Mikael said, and shut the
door. The bolt slid home.

Swearing beneath
his breath, Tusk hurled the useless lasgun to the floor. It bounced,
skittered across the hardwood, slammed up against the opposite wall.

"To my
cell, you mean."

"I
apologize for Tusk," Dion said later, when he had finished
dining—alone—in his room, and had been brought by Mikael
into Abdiel's presence once again. "I don't know what gets into
him sometimes."

"There is
no need for apology, my king." The old man reached out his hand,
rubbed the fingers gently along Dion's arm. "He is not of the
pure Blood Royal, is he? His mother was, I believe, quite an ordinary
human."

"Yes."
Dion's first impulse was to withdraw from Abdiel's touch, but he was
strangely attracted by it. It promised him things—just what, he
didn't know, couldn't specify. Things he wanted, was hungry to
obtain.

He submitted to
Abdiel's caress, allowed the old man to lead him like a child to
another cedar room, identical to the first and to all the others,
except that this one was almost devoid of furnishings. A short-legged
table stood in the center of the room, surrounded by cushions on the
floor.

"Please,
sit down, my king." Abdiel motioned, seated himself cross-legged
on the cushions, his elbows resting on the table. The room was
stiflingly hot. Dion, seating himself awkwardly across the table from
Abdiel, saw that the old man was shivering.

"You can't
expect those who are not of the Blood Royal to understand us, my
king," Abdiel was saying. "You might as well ask the worm
to empathize with the eagle. That is why I have not invited him to
join us. Are you comfortable? We may be here a long while, once we
began the viewing."

"The
viewing?" Dion glanced around, puzzled. He had expected some
sort of vidscreen but saw nothing like that.

Abdiel smiled,
pointed to three objects that stood on the table: a thick, round,
white candle, burning with a clear, bright flame, and two rocks that
had each been honed into the shapes of perfect globes. "No, you
will find no vidscreens here, my king. I have no need of them. And
neither will you."

Abdiel placed
the lighted candle in the center of the table, equidistant between
himself and Dion. Taking one of the rocks in his hands, he handed it
to the young man, kept the other rock himself.

Dion turned the
rock over, studying it by the candlelight. The stone was a dark
green, highly polished, and veined with streaks of warm red. He
rolled it in his palm. The sensation produced by the smooth, polished
rock moving against his skin was sensual and soothing.

"Heliotrope,"
he said, identifying it.

"Also known
as the bloodstone. Very good. Your Majesty. Your education has not
been neglected. Platus, your mentor, was a wise man, an intelligent
man. A gentle man, too gentle for his own good, I fear."

Dion didn't
answer; the memory of his dead Guardian, who had given his life for
him, jabbed him painfully. He set the rock down on the table, kept
his hand on it to prevent it from rolling. "You said we were
going to view something that has to do with the Lady Maigrey."
His voice harshened. He was, he reminded himself, here on serious
business.

"I forget
the impatience of youth. Very well, we will begin. Grasp the stone
tightly with your hand—your left hand, my king. Give me the
right."

Abdiel held his
own bloodstone in his right hand. He stretched across the table,
reaching to Dion with the left. Candlelight danced and sparkled on
the shining needles.

Dion didn't
move. A shudder convulsed his body. He stared at the needles, his
right hand opening and closing spasmodically.

"You will
feel a sharp pain at first, my king, just as you do with the
bloodsword. But the pain will soon pass." Abdiel's voice was
soft, seductive, sensual as the feel of the smooth rock against the
young man's skin. "Or rather, you won't notice it. The sensation
of our minds, our souls, flowing together will completely obliterate
any physical discomfort."

"Why must I
do . . . this?" Dion asked through lips so numb he could barely
move them. "What will happen?"

"You will
see, young man. Your eyes will be opened. Not only your physical
eyes, but the eyes of your soul. Once, long ago, Maigrey and Derek
Sagan bonded with me. We retain that bond. I have the power to see
them, to know what they are doing, saying, sometimes even thinking! I
can share that power with you, Dion, if you will share your being
with me."

Confused
thoughts, words of Maigrey's came back to Dion about the stronger
being able to gain ascendancy over the minds of the weaker. But what
did that have to do with him? He'd been warned against Sagan, and he
had not succumbed.

I am, after all,
destined to be king.

"The
power," Dion said, his eyes on the glistening needles. "Maigrey
told me I possessed it, but I could never use it."

"A lie!"
Abdiel breathed. "She is afraid. She fears the power in you. Of
course you can use the power of the Blood Royal. You have only to
reach out your hand, my king, and take it!"

Dion pressed his
lips tightly together, stretched out his hand. Not trembling, not
wavering, his palm with its five new, fresh scars closed over the
palm of the old man.

Abdiel clasped
it tight. The needles penetrated the boy's flesh.

Dion gasped in
pain, shivered at the sensation of the virus flowing into his body,
burning, pulsing, far stronger than with the bloodsword. His arm
jerked. Abdiel held the boy's hand fast, stroked it, pressed the
needles harder into the flesh.

"Look into
the candle flame!" he ordered.

Dion,
shuddering, moaned and tried to free himself.

"Look into
the candle flame and see!"

The voice came
from within, from his heart, from his mind. It was his, it was
Abdiel's. Wonders unheard of, knowledge unguessed at stirred in
Dion's brain. He couldn't use it yet, couldn't catch it, but he
would. He would learn to. The ache of invasion subsided. Sublime
pleasure suffused him. He would be old and wise when he was young and
strong. He would be, with this power, forever and truly a king!

Dion lifted his
head, looked into the flame, and saw.

I've a grand
memory for forgetting . . .

Robert Louis
Stevenson,
Kidnapped

Maigrey looked
tired, tired and defeated. Her head drooped; her shoulders slumped.
She put her hand to the wound on her neck. It must sting and burn,
but the Warlord guessed that its pain was minor compared to old
wounds that throbbed and bled, draining the exultation of victory
from her. She thought she had won the war. She had now discovered she
hadn't even been on the right battlefield. He knew how she felt. He'd
been on the field, unfortunately facing the wrong direction.

"How long
have you known?" Maigrey's voice broke the silence, but not by
much. Sagan couldn't be certain if he had heard her. But he knew her
question from her thoughts, and answered.

"Not long,
my lady. Abdiel kept himself well hidden. I was aware of him a short
time back, on
Phoenix.
Even then I wasn't certain. I made
inquiries, studied the records of his supposed death. No one, of
course, had seen or heard of him for many years. Not surprising. He
could stand in front of you and, if he didn't want you to see him,
you wouldn't see him. I sent Sparafucile to investigate, warned him
how the mind-seizer operates." Sagan laid his hand on the
half-breed's shoulder. "My friend was not blinded like the
others. He saw him. Abdiel is a frequent, albeit unknown, guest at
the presidential mansion."

Sparafucile
grinned, pleased at the commendation. Maigrey cast the breed a
disgusted glance from the corner of her eye. "Why didn't you
just have Abdiel assassinated? Your 'friend' appears quite adept at
that line of work."

"Why didn't
we
kill him once, that long time ago, lady? We had the chance,
yet we were thankful to escape with our lives. You know his defenses,
Maigrey! You're not thinking—"

"Damn it, I
know
I'm not thinking!" She rounded on him, fists
clenched in her anger. "I don't
want
to think! I'm tired
and I hurt and ... my God, Sagan, he's got Dion! Do something! We've
got to do something!"

He stared at her
in astonishment, saw that she was frantic, on the verge of hysteria.
He grabbed hold of her wrists and gave her a swift, firm shake. "What
the devil is the matter with you?"

Maigrey gulped,
caught her breath. She stared at him blankly, without recognition,
bloodless lips gaping open. A shudder convulsed her body; she drew
back from him, shrinking in upon herself. He let her go. Shivering,
she turned away from him, rubbing her arms.

Your lady not
fight the dead ones, Sagan Lord.
Sparafucile's report on the
ambush returned to the Warlord.
She fight the others and fight
well. Boom! Boom! Boom! All of them gone. But the dead ones . . . the
lady froze. If Sparafucile had not been there, the lady would, I
think, be a dead one herself now.

Sagan had
disregarded the statement. Sparafucile had his faults and one was
that he invariably made himself the hero of any situation. The
Warlord had fought with Maigrey in numerous battles and had never
known her to freeze in the face of danger. But then, he'd never known
her to be hysterical, either.

"Surely
this news of Abdiel can come as no surprise to you, my lady."
Sagan probed, not delicately or gently. He didn't have time. "You
were attacked this afternoon by his mind-dead. Surely you recognized
them. The night of the revolution—"

Maigrey's head
jerked involuntarily. She fixed him with a look expressive of such
horror and fear that the Warlord was taken aback. She hid herself in
an instant, averting her face, retreating behind strong defenses. But
she could not build her walls fast enough, or thick enough. Sagan
remembered that look. He had the feeling he would remember it until
the day he died.

She was
shivering so much she could barely stand. Lifting his cape from the
table, he wrapped it gently around her. "You're exhausted.
There's nothing we can do tonight. Get some sleep—"

"Don't
condescend to me!" Maigrey snapped, flinching away from him,
though she kept the cape and huddled into its warmth. "I
apologize for my weakness, my lord. It won't happen again."

But it will,
Sagan said to himself, dark eyes and thoughts on the pale woman
shivering in his cloak. It will happen again, and the next time it
could well prove fatal—to you, to me, to my plans, to the boy.
I need you strong, Maigrey. I need you well.

"You're not
the only one who has had a trying day, my lady. I, too, need to rest.
We will continue our discussion in the morning. I hope you will do me
the honor of being my guest. I have ordered quarters readied for you
in my shuttle, just down the corridor."