King's Test (35 page)

"Thank you,
my lord, for your hospitality." Maigrey bowed gravely, started
to move past him. "But I will return to my spaceplane."

He blocked the
way. "I cannot allow that, my lady—"

"Why? What
are you afraid of?" she flashed bitterly. "That I'll
'escape' my prison?
You're
not my jailer, my lord.
I'm
the one who's locked myself into my cell!"

"It is your
safety about which I am concerned, my lady," the Warlord said
coolly. "Snaga Ohme knows you have the bomb and undoubtedly his
spies in Haupt's command know where to find it. And then there is
Abdiel, though perhaps he doesn't know yet—"

"He knows,
Sagan Lord," Sparafucile struck in. The half-breed fished among
the tattered rags, withdrew an object, displayed it in the palm of
his hand—a green rock, veined with red, once carved in a
perfect globe, now split into innumerable pieces.

"Where did
you find this?" Sagan took the bloodstone's pieces gingerly,
tossed them on the deck, ground them to dust beneath his heel.

"The lady's
plane. I search like you tell me, and find it in the underfittings—"

Maigrey closed
her eyes, sank down onto a chair, her strength gone.

"You have
the bomb in the spaceplane, am I correct, my lady?" Sagan
questioned. "If anyone attempts to take it by force, the
computer will blow up the plane and anyone inside."

"That is, I
believe, standard procedure, my lord." Her voice was low, hardly
audible.

"You gave
the computer instructions, however, that would release the bomb . . .
verbal
instructions? Instructions that could have been . . .
most likely
were
overheard. ..."

Maigrey remained
motionless. She might have been a marble statue, set to guard a tomb.

"Careless,
my lady. Very careless. And after you had encountered the mind-dead
as you did once this day—"

Gray eyes,
glistening with fever, opened, stared at him. Bloodless lips parted,
speaking silently. You
could have told me! You could have warned
me!

"Would you
have believed me, my lady?" Sagan asked.

Maigrey looked
away, rose unsteadily to her feet. "If you will excuse me, my
lord—"

"Wait one
moment, Maigrey." Sagan put his hand on her arm. "There is
a very simple solution to all this. Give
me
the bomb. I can
then concentrate my efforts on freeing Dion."

"Perhaps
you would, my lord. Perhaps you wouldn't. Once you had this weapon,
you might not think it necessary to save the boy. No, I will keep
what I have. I paid dearly for it."

"You may
pay dearly to keep it."

"A threat,
my lord?"

"A
statement of fact, my lady. Two of the most powerful and unscrupulous
men in the galaxy will stop at nothing to obtain the bomb."

"Only two?
You omit yourself—out of modesty, I presume."

"No, I omit
myself for a reason. Like it or not, lady, in this I am your ally."

Maigrey smiled
suddenly, sadly. "Yes, you are, though not precisely in the way
you imagine. You see, Derek, in order to release the bomb, XJ-27 must
both see me and hear me and be able to identify me."

"As you
say, standard procedure. Sagan shrugged. "Go on. I take it that
isn't all."

"The
computer must also identify an object that I show to it, verifying
this object by its physical properties and its—"

"Yes, yes,
Sagan interrupted impatiently. "The object is?"

Maigrey's smile
twisted the scar on her face. "The Star of the Guardians, my
lord.
My
Star of the Guardians."

The Warlord
regarded her for long moments in silence. Then he bowed gravely, from
the waist. "I am impressed, my lady."

Maigrey inclined
her head. "I thought you would be, my lord."

"You did
strike a fair bargain for it—"

"I would
have kept my part fairly if the Adonian had kept his."

"So now if
I want to recover my property—"

"—you
must help me recover mine."

"But with
no guarantees."

"No
guarantees. I am glad we understand each other, my lord."

Sagan nodded. "I
think that, whatever else may have happened between us, we have
always understood each other."

"Have we?"
she asked him suddenly, abruptly. Again, in the gray eyes, he saw the
shadow of unnamed horror. "Have we?" she repeated, with
desperate earnestness.

The question was
unexpected. He probed her thoughts but her mind was dark; he groped
through an unfamiliar, unlit room. He chose not to answer.

She turned away.
He escorted her to the door of his chambers. She walked next to him
in silence, wrapped for warmth in his red cloak.

"Captain,
take the Lady Maigrey to her quarters and post a guard outside her
door."

"Yes, my
lord."

She left him.
Sagan watched the small procession walk down the corridor. Behind
him, the half-breed made a shuffling movement, indicating he was
prepared to leave if not wanted. Sagan made a sign with his hand,
however, and Sparafucile waited quietly for his lord's attention to
return to him.

The Warlord
watched the light in the corridor shine on long, pale hair. "A
pretty problem. Four of us want this 'pearl of great price.' Maigrey
has it, but she must keep it. Snaga Ohme has the starjewel, but not
the lady. I have the lady, but not the jewel. Abdiel has neither, he
wants both. But he has Dion. I wonder how he figures to use Dion.
..."

The lady
disappeared into a room not far from his. He heard the door sigh
shut, the scrape of the boots of the Honor Guard, taking up their
positions outside. Sagan shook his head.

"I must
have you strong," he repeated to her. "I must have you
well."

A night of
memories and sighs . . .

Walter Savage
Landor, "
Rose Ayltner
"

It was midnight,
the darkness at its deepest, approaching the flood. Laskar was a ship
sailing upon night's rough sea. Its bright lights and noise and
gaiety pitched and heaved on waves of money and liquor, drugs and
sex. Occasionally it tossed an unwary passenger overboard, left him
to drown in the murky depths.

Dion stumbled
outside Abdiel's house, hoping the fresh air would help him regain
his senses. But though the air had cooled rapidly with the setting of
Laskar's green sun, the sand still retained the day's heat. Warmth
radiated upward, like the solar furnace in the rooms inside.

The young man
mopped his sweating face, reveled in the breeze that lifted the thick
red hair, cooled his scalp, did little to cool the fever within him.
His right arm burned and ached; the pain seemed to travel up into his
brain. He sought vainly to try to organize and sort his thoughts, but
they shimmered in the heat like mirages on the desert floor. He
looked upward, into the black sky, dusted by sparkling stars.

Deep space:
frigid, aloof, peaceful, vast. He could lose himself up there
quickly, vanish into obscurity, become ordinary. For a moment, he
longed for it as a parched man longs for cool water while his brain
bubbled and seethed, a witch's caldron.

King! You shall
be king. . . .

Clutching his
pounding head, almost sick from the heat, Dion stumbled back into the
house and ran bodily into one of the mind-dead.

"Tusk. I
want to see Tusk," Dion demanded, grabbing hold of the image of
the mercenary, clinging to him in the upheaval of his senses. "He
hasn't . . . left, has he?"

"No,"
Mikael said. "He has been waiting for you."

"Good. Take
me to him."

Dion staggered
upstairs and down, feeling his way with his hand on the walls more
than walking, following Mikael's lead. The young man was completely
lost. The house, with its numerous sharp corners and angles that each
looked exactly like the one before and exactly like the one after,
made no sense.

Mikael halted
before a door. Dion, not watching, tumbled into him. The mind-dead
steadied him with a strong, impersonal grip. Unlocking the door with
a key, he pushed it open.

Tusk sprang out
instantly, the mercenary's face contorted with fury and
determination. Whether by accident or design, Mikael had maneuvered
the unstable Dion to a position in front. The boy's body blocked the
door. Tusk would have had to go through him to get out.

"Tusk?"
Dion was startled out of his confused state by the mercenary's sudden
and frightening appearance. "What's wrong? Is—"

Dion swayed on
his feet. Tusk, swearing beneath his breath, caught hold of him,
dragged him inside the room. Mikael slammed shut the door; the lock
turned.

Tusk led Dion to
the bed, eased the boy onto it. "I'll get you some water, kid.
..."

"No."
Dion shook his head, made a feeble gesture with his hand. "I . .
. don't think I could keep it down."

"Name of
the Creator, kid, what'd that bastard do to you?"

Dion glanced up,
frowned. "Don't talk like that. If you mean Abdiel, he didn't do
anything
to
me. He showed me the truth, that's all."

"Put your
head between your knees. Take a deep breath. There. Feel better?"

Dion did as he
was told, and in a moment, when the room quit turning topsy-turvily,
he raised his head. Tusk, no longer floating balloonlike on the
ceiling, was standing stolidly in front of him.

"What
happened to your shoulder?" Dion noticed the mercenary rubbing
his left arm.

"Hurt it,
bashing it against the door."

"Why?"
Dion stared at him.

"To get the
hell outta here! This may come as a shock to you, kid, but I don't
much like being locked up in prison cells!"

This isn't a
prison. We can leave anytime we want."

"Yeah? Then
why did Rigor Mortis there turn the lock and take away the key?"

"You were
acting like such a bastard, I'd have locked you up, too."

"All right,
kid." Tusk waved at the door. "Let's get going. We'll find
Nola on the way out—"

"You go
ahead. I'm not leaving." Dion massaged his right arm. The pain
seemed to be growing in intensity.

Tusk grabbed
Dion's wrist, turned the boy's palm to the light. Five welts oozed
blood.

"What—?"
Tusk understood, caught his breath with a clicking sound in his
throat. He dropped the hand, stared at Dion in revulsion, edged away
from him. "My God!"

Dion closed his
hand swiftly.

"My God,
kid!" Tusk repeated hoarsely. "You let him do that to you!"

"You can't
understand! You're not of the Blood Royal," Dion said coldly,
trying to ignore the pain.

"Damn
right! And before I let that old man do something like that to me,
I'd—" Tusk stopped.

Dion wasn't
listening. The boy had curled in upon himself, shaking, shoulders
hunched. "I saw her, Tusk!" he whispered. "I saw her!
He was kissing her, Tusk!"

"Saw who?"
Tusk gazed at the boy, perplexed. "Nola? Who was kissing Nola?"

"I'm not
talking about Nola!" Dion bounded to his feet, paced the room.
"Maigrey! Lady Maigrey!" He rounded suddenly on Tusk. The
blue eyes burned, flames dancing on ice-cold water. "I saw her,
Tusk! Through this!" Dion raised the bleeding right hand. "I
saw her. She went to the house of that Snaga Ohme. She told him she
was sent by Sagan. She sold him her starjewel, Tusk! The Star of the
Guardians! For what? For a bomb that could blow up . . . blow up . .
. everything." Dion waved his hands. "All of us. And you
know what she did with it, Tusk?"

The mercenary
tried to stem the incoherent flow. "Kid—"

Dion caught hold
of Tusk, fingers squeezing the mercenary's flesh. "She met
Sagan. In the office of the commander at Fort Laskar. The Warlord
kissed her hand, Tusk! I saw him. I saw her. I saw her face. They
left together, arm in arm. Friendly. Oh, yes, very friendly."

Dion started
pacing again. Tusk followed him.

"How did
you see this, kid? Vids? Did he have a spy camera—"

"The candle
flame," Dion muttered. "I saw her in the candle flame. ..."

"A candle—?
Kid! It's a trick! He's put some sort of drug into your system! You
hallucinated—"

"No, Tusk."
Dion stopped his restless movement, turned and faced his friend. He
was suddenly calm, terrifyingly calm. "It wasn't a
hallucination. I know. Everything I saw, every word I heard, really
happened. She's with him, Tusk. She's betrayed me."

"Kid, all
right. Let's say . . . somehow you saw her and him. There's got to be
some explanation. You know the lady! She wouldn't do anything to hurt
you. She risked her life for you!"

Dion sighed,
softened. "That's what Abdiel said."

"What?"
Tusk scowled, not particularly liking this sudden new ally. "What'd
the old man say?"

"He said
that there must be . . . extenuating circumstances. He defended her,
Tusk. I want to believe him. I want to believe in her. But I saw—"

"Dixter!"
Tusk said, snapping his fingers. "That's it! Sagan's got Dixter.
He'd use the general to force her to side with him, kid."

"Of
course!" Hope's flame illuminated the blue eyes, burned bright
and clear with strengthening resolve. "And now I know what I
must do."

"Yeah, get
outta here! Somehow or other we'll reach the lady—"

"No."
Dion shook his head firmly. "The Warlord would never let us.
He'd use me as he's used her. Or merely eliminate me altogether. He
doesn't need me now. He doesn't need the true heir to the throne. He
has the bomb. He can blackmail the galaxy. In fact, I'm a threat, a
liability to him. I see my way, Tusk. I know what I must do. Abdiel
will help me."

"Fine, kid,
but he can help from a distance—"

"You can
leave, Tusk." Dion's head was clear, his thoughts and plans and
ideas shining like crystal. "Take Nola and go back to Vangelis.
And thanks for everything. I truly appreciate it."