Lyrec (30 page)

In the hall below, people began to scream.

The robe turned to him. “I will probably never know who you are, but I do look forward to drinking your death, which I know for a fact will be soon now. Good-bye.” He vanished upon the last word; the people at the top step burst into the chamber and confronted Lyrec with drawn weapons. Released at the same moment from his paralysis, he could only drop to his knees. He could not have raised an arm to ward off a blow.

Hearing the shouts from below, one of the soldiers in the group crossed to the curtain and flung it back. “Someone’s fallen,” he said. He would have said more, but the man behind him yelled, “Your sword!”
 
The soldier wheeled around, hand already drawing his blade. He saw a dark-bearded man sitting on the floor beside a miniature crossbow. The man wore a bright, clean uniform—the uniform of a Ladomantine mercenary.

Someone down below yelled, “He’s been shot! Up there! Up there!”

The soldier shouted down to them, “We have him!”

The armed group closed on Lyrec. He watched them as if in a dream, barely able to understand what they were saying. He saw a foot swing up at his face but could not block it. He barely felt the boot kick his cheek. He tumbled over, cracking his head against a stone. That blow released him finally from Miradomon’s spell, but left him dazed by the violence done to him.

He was jerked to his feet and dragged to the edge of the balcony, revealed to the crowd. They fell silent and stared up at him. Then the men holding him shoved him roughly over to the stairwell and hauled him down the steps. He expected to be stabbed at any moment, but they took him into the hall alive. The assemblage stared at him, some craning to see, as he was led across the room to the steps beneath the throne.

Tynec stood above him arrogantly. Lyrec knew who he was facing, could perceive the aura of energy surrounding the child. “Murderer,” proclaimed Tynec so that all could hear. “No one here can doubt it, therefore I decree any trial to be a redundancy. You will be executed at dawn. Your pig of a king will regret having ever sent you.”

He was interrupted from further threats by a commotion in the crowd. Four men came forward bearing a litter, the people in their path falling back and muttering to one another. At first, Lyrec could not see who the victim was; only the end of the steel bolt Miradomon had thrown, sticking up above the litter. When the four men reached the edge of the parting crowd, they turned about and leaned the litter up. In it lay Cheybal. He was still alive, pale, his glistening eyes half-lidded. The bolt stuck out from the center of his chest. Trailing after the litter came Bozadon Reket in a state of shock; he carried Pavra, unconscious and all but forgotten, in his arms.

Cheybal saw Lyrec, shook his head and tried to say something.

Lyrec tried to lean closer, but one of the men beside him grabbed his hair and tugged back his head. Cheybal motioned the men holding the foot of the litter to lower their end that he might stand. Reket quickly passed Pavra to someone in the crowd and hurried forward. “No, no, old friend, don’t try to stand. You will kill yourself, sure.”

Cheybal squeezed shut his eyes against a wave of pain. He raised one trembling hand and pointed at Tynec. “Not the king,” Cheybal whispered. He tried to continue but the pain increased and he fell back with a groan.

Lyrec looked at Tynec. The boy’s eyes were wide, but not in fear, rather with some fearful malice directed at Cheybal. At his sides, the boy’s hands opened and closed as if squeezing something. “Stop him!” Lyrec shouted, and flung back two of his guards. “Stop the boy—he’s killing him!” The hilt of a sword smacked into the back of Lyrec’s head and he fell to his knees.

Cheybal twisted in agony now. Reket gripped his hand hard, willing his own life into Cheybal’s. Tears flooded his eyes. He bent over and said, “Cheybal, you struggle too much. Let Mordus come, embrace him—remember how we always said we would know the time and give over proudly, remember?” He wiped his nose and face.

Cheybal pulled Reket down suddenly. Through his pain, he said, “The girl. Watch over her. Listen to—to what she says … Ghost.”

It was all taking too long for Tynec. The commander put up too much resistance. He came down the steps and strode up to Cheybal. “Poor commander,” he lamented, interrupting Cheybal. “Your will is strong. You have served your country with honor.”

He touched Cheybal’s shoulder as if in sympathy. The commander went immediately rigid and was dead.
 

Bozadon Reket, still gripping Cheybal’s hand, had his fingers stung by the charge that surged through Cheybal for an instant. He dropped his dead friend’s hand and clutched his numb, tingling fingers. What had the boy
done
?

The young king saw the accusation in Reket’s eyes but found it too amusing and had to turn away to conceal his crooked smile. “Well, now,” he muttered. Climbing up three steps, he turned and addressed the crowd.

“The best man in Secamelan is dead! Killed by this Ladomantine assassin
—here
!” He thrust a finger toward the semi-conscious figure sprawled at his feet. “So, too, has he slain all cause for celebration. With the exception of our advisor from Findcarn, I want you all on your way by midday tomorrow. It is time to choose sides, but know that all
—all
enemies of Secamelan will be crushed!” He glanced at Cheybal and added impassively, “I shall need a new commander.”

Then he turned and marched back up the steps to the outer balcony.

The guests looked to one another for advice and found only stunned incomprehension, as if discovering themselves trapped in a room full of strangers. Or adversaries.

The prisoner was dragged roughly away.

Chapter 20.

The dungeon was so dark that what Lyrec knew of its shape and size he knew by feel alone. Straw covered the floor of stone. The walls were cold and moist and uneven like the walls of a cave. In one of the walls, a row of heavy iron rings had been hammered in; above these, a small shaft—the one potential source of light in the dungeon—let in a chill breeze as well as sounds from the yard above. Feet scuttled past, voices bellowed to one another, and uneasy horses whinnied and trod the ground while their jingling bits and reins and saddles were strapped in place. More distant than these but more constant was the sound of hammering: the raising of a scaffold.

At one point as he stood there, unconsciously gripping one iron ring tighter and tighter, two voices called down to him. They sounded drunk, malicious, and he refrained from answering. There followed a queer spattering sound. Lyrec moved back from the shaft an instant before the pranksters’ urine cascaded to the floor. They laughed and called down to him again, this time saying he would do well to kill himself before the soldiers marched him to the noose; if they had their way, the crowd would throw the soldiers aside and rip him to pieces with their bare hands.

A third voice called out from further away and the two pranksters scurried off.

Another voice called down, “Are you in
this
hole?” It was Borregad.

“I am.”

“That’s a relief. I’ve shouted into every grille along this wall. The others were either empty or stuffed with stupefied drunks. I had begun to think you weren’t being kept here at all and I’d have to contact you incorporeally—no easy thing with all the tension in the air. From what happened, I knew Miradomon was near, and I had no desire to accidentally tap into him, either. By the way, what smells here?”

“You wouldn’t care to find out.”

“This place is mad, do you know? A dozen times I’ve nearly been stepped on in the past few minutes alone. The whole city is alive with crazy people all dragging along sacks of armor—up that hill no less. They hardly say a word to anyone, either. They’re busy, but none too happy about it. Be glad they don’t know you by name. That fellow you killed, Cheybal—they had a great deal of respect for him. Tell me, was he possessed by Miradomon or what?”

“I didn’t kill him. I tried to prevent it. He was the object of Miradomon’s assassination plot. At the very moment of his death, I came blundering in and Miradomon was all too delighted to let me take the blame. He hung this uniform on me and disappeared.”

“‘Hung’ is regrettably accurate, you know. So he is now aware that we’re here?”

“No,” replied Lyrec. “He thinks I’m some champion conjured by the Kobachs, which apparently delighted him all the more. I suppose he has some plan to link the Kobachs and Ladoman, and probably half a dozen other countries. Secamelan, the strongest, takes on all other neighbors.” He sat down in the straw. “Oh, it’s all my fault. What a dim-witted move to attack him with a sword. He melted it away without lifting a finger. What a fool!”

“Well, you know I would be the first one to say so if it were true—but I doubt it mattered what you did. At least now you know him as I do.”

“Yes, but—” He stopped as something clanked behind him. It clanked again and he rose stiffly to see a strip of light appear in the wall opposite as the door swung open with a prolonged squeal.

The torch light stung his eyes at first and forced him to look away. A figure moved into the dungeon with him. Was it time, already? He stared at the wall where immense shadows cast by the moving torch wheeled past like the sunlight of a full day compressed into seconds. The door groaned, and Lyrec glanced at it. A scowling face peered in before the door swung shut. Another prisoner? He squinted across the room, blocking the torch light with one hand.

The face that looked back at him was fairly young. Light-colored hair was combed straight back from the forehead. The eyes appeared to be shadowed with weariness, but it might have been due to the harsh delineation of the torch. The person set his torch in a wall bracket. It spat flame into the straw beneath it; the man kicked at the straw to clear an area. Then, keeping his hand on the hilt of his sword, he moved toward Lyrec. “Sit,” he said. Lyrec obeyed. The young man drew his sword. Lyrec thought,
This is it, then.
 
I’m to be slain by a young executioner.

To his surprise, the man knelt warily and sat cross-legged, the sword resting across his lap. For a long while silence reigned while he sought hopefully for some answer in the dark-bearded face across from him. He scratched at his side. “There are vermin in this straw,” he said. “You have no idea who I am, do you?”

“No. Should I?”

“I think not,” the young man answered superciliously. “My name will mean nothing to you, but I will tell it to you all the same. It’s Faubus. And I have been chosen to replace the late Lohtje Cheybal as commander of the armies of Secamelan.”

Lyrec found himself disgusted with the arrogant young man. “If you came here to thank me,” he said, “you’ve wasted your time and used up too much of the precious little I have left. Hold me in contempt if you like, but do not act as if I’ve done you some service, or I’ll make you use that sword and cheat the hangman and the crowd above. And I doubt very much that your mad little king would care for that.” Faubus continued to stare at him. “Get away from me, do you understand? I did
nothing
to further your career.
 
I did nothing at all.”

Faubus nodded, then closed his eyes and wiped the oily sweat from his forehead.

“I thought not. You didn’t kill the commander.
 
The ghost did.”

“I tried to stop it.”

“Is that why you first demanded to see him?”

“More or less. At that point I had no idea he was to be the victim—just that someone was to die by Miradomon’s hand.”

“Miradomon? The ghost has a name?”

“He has a name, commander, but he’s no ghost. Would that he were.”

“Then you have to tell me what he is. There may be no way in which I can aid you—I’m to lead the army out at dawn and you are to die soon after. I need to know what I’m facing, who I’m fighting. I know what it is to command—Cheybal taught me himself—but I’ve no experience with enemies who defy the restrictions of flesh and blood. How do I stop him?”

Lyrec shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe you can.”

“But
you
could?”

“My most recent attempt certainly declares otherwise, but I know where he dwells, and it’s a place you can’t reach. And I have a weapon … maybe.”

“Who are you people? Are you … are you gods?”

“It always comes round to defining us. Why is that so important to you? All right, yes, we’re gods. Not
your
gods—I fear they’ve already succumbed to Miradomon’s power.
 
We don’t make your thunder or rain or cause your sun to rise. But he could destroy your sun if he had a mind to.”

Aghast, Faubus said, “Destroy the sun?”

“He’s done it before. On other worlds, some of which—the nearest ones—were virtually identical to this one.”

“Other worlds? Like ours?”

Lyrec remembered that no one on this world knew or even suspected the existence of other living worlds in their own universe, much less parallels connected by invisible doorways and inhabited by intelligent beings whose existences were linked to theirs in a way so beautiful and fundamental that it was impossible to describe. To comprehend even this minuscule amount of reality was asking too much of Faubus.

“Other worlds,” the new commander repeated. “Gods from other worlds.”

“Specifically from a world that was never supposed to have contact with yours. But Miradomon was—is—insane. He found the means to gain power through the destruction of worlds, of life, and he … he eliminated his own race.”

“Except for you,” corrected Faubus.

“And me!” yelled a voice from above, through the shaft.

“Who is that?”

“Another of my kind.”

“How many of you
are
there roaming about Secamelan?”

Lyrec smiled in spite of himself. “Just the three.”

“And possibly a fourth,” Borregad added.

“Wait, please,” begged Faubus. “This is too much all at once. Let me think a moment.” He looked down into a handful of straw.

They gave him silence in which to assemble what they had told him.