The Adversary - 4 (63 page)

"May only full-blooded Firvulag enter the lists under your banner?" Marc asked.

The King and Queen stared at him.

Sugoll said, "Technically, any human subject of my city, Nionel, also qualifies as a Little Person. However we are a peaceable folk-both Howler and human citizens alike-and as hosts of the Grand Tourney we have refrained from most of the contests in order to attend to the duties of hospitality."

Marc stood with hands on hips, looking down on the pageantry in the arena with a rakehelly grin. "I don't suppose you'd nominate me an honorary citizen of Nionel, would you, Lord Sugoll?"

"Damn right he will!" Sharn cried. Then his enthusiasm faltered like a half-inflated balloon. "Do you think you could lick him? No metapsychic powers allowed. But you do look pretty well built-"

"Big-game fishing. And this jousting seems fairly simple. One merely calculates the appropriate vectors and kinetic reactions.

I presume the contestants may mind-control their mounts."

"Oh, yes," said Sugoll. "That's permissible." He indicated a neat stack of translucent glass, lustrous as moonstone and silverchased. "If you wish, you may use my armour and steed."

Still smiling, Marc bowed. "A la bonne heure."

"And I'll be your squire!" the Firvulag King enthused. "Let's go sign you up! You'll need a fictitious name, of course."

"Jack Diamond will do," said the Adversary.

Marc dismounted from his blowing, foam-stained charger, threw down his buckler and lance, and pulled the brave tuft of broomstraw from the ridiculous helmet of the fallen Bottle Knight.

The Firvulag spectators filled the air with jubilant cacophony.

Aiken doffed his headpiece, sketched a sardonic salute, and said, "Well smote, White Knight. God, what a klop! I feel like I've been in a head-on collision with an impacting asteroid."

Marc raised his visor. "Applied mathematics." He held out a gauntleted hand and courteously hauled his vanquished opponent upright. "I'm afraid the temptation was irresistible."

"I hoped it would be," the King replied.

Marc's right eyebrow rose a millimetre.

Aiken said, "You see, I had to fight in the jousts. Morale.

However, it would never do for Me to get physically creamed by one of the Foe, would it? But a big hulking human is something else." The Trickster's eyes glittered. He gestured at the eruptive horde of gnomish fans who cheered the victorious Firvulag chivalry. "See how happy and confident you've made them feel? They're on top of the world. Invincible! Positive they can whip us Tanu to a fare-thee-well without hardly trying. And without help from talented but possible perfidious Lowlives."

Abaddon sighed. "Very clever." He retrieved his borrowed equipment and remounted to join the winners' parade. "But the time-gate is still closed, isn't it?"

"Wouldn't you like to know!"

"What events are scheduled for tomorrow?"

"The biggie is the tug-of-war," Aiken said. "With minds. No chance for hanky-panky. We'll have to play it straight. At least I will."

"Then the advantage is still to the ungodly," Marc said.

"Tomorrow then." He lifted high his lance, with the crest of the Bottle Knight spitted at the tip, and rode away.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The rumour mill had been grinding among bareneck and greytorc attendees ever since the Grand Tourney began, with two topics uppermost in the minds of the unprivileged human attendees: the possibility of imminent war, and the possibility of a time-warping escape hatch to the Milieu. It was not until the start of the Fourth Day that the hearsay, innuendo, fear, and suspicion began to find anchorage in undeniable fact.

Item: Twenty-five rhocraft of the Royal Flying Corps took up permanent hover station 4000 metres above the Field of Gold.

(Fresh rumour: a hotshot grey scanner technician maintained that the ships' guns were trained smack on the Firvulag grandstand!) Item: The encampment of Little People among the trees on the north side of the field, which had welcomed Lowlife visitors during the first three days of the Tourney, was now cordoned off by smiling but resolute ogres.

(Fresh rumour: Howlers as well as humans were being denied entrance because of their dubious loyalty to the Firvulag cause!) Item: King Aiken-Lugonn was absent from the royal enclosure after the first round of duels in the Heroic Manifestation of Power. His lack of regal courtesy did not prevent Bleyn, Alberonn, and Celadeyr of Afaliah from scoring signal victories over Galbor Redcap, Tetrol Bonecrusher, and Betularn of the White Hand, thus putting the Tanu far out in front in the point scoring.

(Fresh rumours: A keen-eyed ex-navigator among the barenecks insisted he had got a fix on the departing flagship of Aiken-Lugonn, and that its vector was a veritable beeline for Castle Gateway! The time-gate was about to open! The timegate device was hopelessly glitched! The King was getting ready to flit to the Milieu! There was not now nor had there ever been a Guderian Project working on a new time-gate!) Item: The Howlers had "withdrawn with the greatest reluctance" from participation in the crucial tug-of-war game scheduled for that afternoon, pleading the press of duties in overseeing the equipment that would be required for the culminating sporting event of the Tourney.

(Fresh rumours: The Firvulag royals were livid with rage at the defection! Human citizens of Nionel hinted at the secret pact between Sugoll and AikenLugonn that pledged the mutant minds to the Tanu cause! The Hurley/Shinty Game to be played on the Fifth Day was nothing more nor less than an exotic version of Gaelic-Rules Football-and any civilized sports fan knew that such contests invariably degenerated into bloody free-for-alls! It was going to be the Nightfall opener!) Item: The reclusive mystery woman, Elizabeth Orme, sat in the royal box at the side of an unknown human.

(Fresh rumour: The fellow was none other than Marc Remillard, instigator of the Metapsychic Rebellion, the fabled Adversary in the flesh!) The morning's events reached their climax, the final match of the Heroic Manifestations of Power. The Howler field attendants pumped up the bellows, making the fountains of fire stretch sky high, and pour forth commingled black and rose-coloured smoke. The monstrous iron chevaux-de-frise in the midst of the flames glowed white-hot. Glass trumpets sounded a fanfare, kettledrums thundered, and then the Marshal of Sport made his amazing announcement: "The Tanu hero Kuhal Earthshaker, scheduled to contend in this final Manifestation against the Firvulag Battlemaster Medor, has withdrawn."

A mighty roar of disappointment arose from the Tanu partisans. The Little People cheered roundly and the bookmakers scrambled in a frenzy to cope with the last-minute scratch.

The Marshal declared: "By consent of the Committee of Referees, Lord Kuhal's place will be taken by Minanonn the Proud, also called Heretic, former Battlemaster of the Tanu."

Now tumultuous jubilation seized the Tanu and human spectators while the Firvulag hooted, hummed derisively, and shapeshifted into obscene illusory forms to express their vexation.

The points at stake in the contest were sufficient to return the overall advantage to the Little People if Medor should win-and he had been an odds-on favourite over Kuhal because of the latter's status as a precariously healed invalid. Now, however, Medor faced not a convalescent but one who had been the premier metapsychic warrior of his race before retiring to voluntary exile.

The smoke from the central pyre changed. Blue and green smoke gushed up together with the clouds of rose-red and black.

The two heroes entered the field. Medor was armed in plates of jet studded with orange diamonds and wicked topaz spikes.

Minanonn wore a magnificent panoply embodying his triple coercive, creative and psychokinetic metafunctions. The triskelion was chased in gold upon his massive cuirass and a goldenwinged dolphin crowned his helm. The Firvulag champion and the Tanu took up positions on opposite sides of the surging bonfire. Howler officials handed each contender one end of a stout chain of pyrostatic glass, which passed through the centre of the flaming fountain and the incandescent iron hedgehogs that lurked at its heart. Then the Marshal signalled, the crowd howled, and the finale in the Manifestations of Power began.

In the Tanu grandstand, the two of them watched with unseeing eyes and minds distracted.

She said: It was thus between Lawrence and me.

He said: This is the way it was with me and Cyndia.

They agreed: Such perfect soul-consonance may surely be achieved but once and any attempt at reprise is doomed to futility.

If this is true even among the small-minded how much more invidious an effort between the grandmasterly. And thrice hopeless when both are proud and untrustful.

Exerting both metapsychic power and physical strength, Minanonn and Medor hauled at each other. At first their pull on the chain was steady. The Firvulag hero found himself dragged closer and closer to the inferno and the two bristling contraptions of blazing blood-metal within it. The Tanu and the humans in the audience whooped in anticipation of a quick victory. But guileful Medor suddenly let himself be yanked wholly into the flames. The crowd shrieked. Minanonn had to shift balance in order to regain purchase lost when the chain fell unexpectedly slack.

Medor gave a mighty leap backwards at the same time that his mind slickened the sand with ectoplasmic ichor. The Tanu hero staggered and slid. His own creativity strove to cancel the manifestation of his rival. Medor hauled back with savage, abrupt jerks, intent on preventing Minanonn from regaining a fair grip on the slithering chain. (If the Heretic let it slip out of hand, the match was lost.) Inexorably, the former Tanu Battlemaster was drawn into the fountain of fire. Now his metapsychic strength was divided between shielding his body from the terrible heat and pulling back before Medor managed to bring him up against the white-hot spikes of poisonous iron.

The two humans never noticed.

She said: We lived and loved in Unity. We worked hard formed the strong young minds laid secure foundations for mature function. It was so good. He fulfilled me.

He said: I spawned the inhuman thousands and steered the great scheme and she seemed to relate in loving concurrence. And for love of her I begat the Children of her body and sowed the seed of love's death.

They agreed: Such memories form an insuperable rampart between us.

Minanonn flattened the flames. He clutched the tag-end of the glass chain and gave a herculean wrench. Medor was pulled off his feet. The Heretic grasped the chain more securely and let the fire rise up around him, as it also did around his antagonist. Medor uttered a farspoken howl, which was echoed by his countrymen in the stand. Both heroes were totally engulfed, but it was Minanonn who stood firm and the Firvulag who was hauled closer and closer to the glowing metal points.

The man and woman were oblivious.

She said: We feared even amid happiness knowing that life would not be worth living if we were separated. Surely a loving God would know this and take us together. We trusted. In the crash I lost my metafaculties and the Unity. He was killed. I died the worse death.

He said: In the very act of love she betrayed me. Murdering Mental Man she wept and said she did it for love of me and all humanity. He is dead in me forever and only the Children can resurrect Him.

They disagreed.

Minanonn, holding the chain fast in preparation for the fatal pull, cried out with mind and voice: "Yield, Medor Battlemaster! Yield or impale yourself on scorching blood-metal, gaining Tana's peace but the obloquy of the Little People as you deprive them of a great leader."

Medor let the chain slip from his hands.

The flames died. Minanonn stood in discoloured, soot-filthy armour, holding the entire length of glass chain above his halfmelted helmet crest. The Tanu throng cried his name again and again and gave him a shattering accolade of slonshal.

The two up in the royal enclosure were aware only of themselves.

She said: Your vision that you cling to so obstinately is evil.

This is not merely my judgment or Anatoly's. After twenty-seven years the consensus of the Galactic Mind was unanimous. If you can't see that Cyndia was right and you were wrong you're just what Anatoly called you: arrogant and invincibly ignorant but still wrong wrong wrong.

He said: And what about you? At least my flaw is grand while yours is merely pathetic. You evade responsibility deny commitment out of simple cowardice. You pretend to noble despair when you are merely whimpering and self-righteous. You condemn my ignorance and arrogance when your own is equally great ... and you say you can never love and you lie lie lie.

She said: What does a heartless monster like you know about love?

He said: Let me look into your mind. Then say you don't love me.She said: Never! It's impossible.

He said: Then so is the rehabilitation of the Duat Mind.

They agreed.

"Well, Medor?" bellowed the Firvulag King.

Aides, trainers, and hangers-on fled from the dressing room of the defeated champion as they felt the scourge of Sharn's wrath. But when he was all alone with his Battlemaster the monarch doffed his robes, helped slather soothing ointment on Medor's blisters, and sprayed them with a painkilling Milieu medicament that was said to be nearly as efficacious as Tanu Skin.

"I did my best," the woebegone general said. "But I knew I was cooked as soon as Heymdol announced that the Foe were entering the Heretic as a ringer. No one but Pallol One-Eye was in Minnie's class." After a moment, he appended diplomatically, "Except you yourself, of course, High King."

Sharn mouthed curses through clenched teeth. "We're not out of the woods yet, either. I lodged protests with the stewards; but there's no valid reason for keeping Minanonn or any other Peace Faction member out of the games, assuming their precious consciences tell them that the Grand Tourney isn't ritual warfare but just good clean fun. The Heretic's banishment was a matter of politics. If Aiken wants to accept him on the Tanu team, there's not a damn thing we can do to prevent it."