The Lost King (36 page)

Nothing, except
themselves.

A small side door,
invisible in the metal wall panels, slid open. One of the Honor Guard
appeared and saluted, closed fist over his heart.

"The boy is here,
my lord."

"At my signal,
send him in alone. You and the others take up your posts outside. No
one is to disturb us for any reason."

"Yes, my lord."

The centurion
disappeared, the panel slid silently shut. Sagan climbed the steps of
the dais. Maigrey would have risen to her feet, but she was afraid
that if she did so, she would crumble in a heap at the foot of the
throne. It took all her courage, all her resolve just to keep sitting
there. The Warlord took his place beside her, standing at her right
hand.

"My lady?" he
questioned silently.

"My lord,"
she replied without a voice.

Sagan touched a tiny
control on his wrist.

The huge doors slowly
rumbled open.

By his shining and his
power she knew him . . .

Mary Renault,
Fire
from Heaven

Stealing the old
reconditioned Scimitar and flying it out of the mercenary base was an
easy task. No one tried to stop Dion, or even seemed to notice his
leaving, for that matter. Fighters were coming and going at all hours
of the day and night, running escort for the TRUCs and whatever other
functions the war on Vangelis called on them to perform.

Dion ordered the
plane's computer to secure him clearance so that his voice wouldn't
give him away in case there was anyone in the tower who knew him. The
computer did as he commanded. An updated edition of the XJ model, it
was extremely polite and subservient and performed its job without
comment. The boy thought it boring.

Once outside of the
planet's gravitational pull, Dion searched space for the Warlord's
ship and couldn't find it. So all the young man's lies and plans had
come to this—nothing. He felt a baffling, frustrated
disappointment and was just trying to make up his mind to go back to
base, tail between his legs, when he caught sight of an officially
marked, short-range Scimitar streaking across the starlit darkness.
He followed it, hoping it would lead him back to its base.

It did.

Be careful what you
wish for
.

Dion laughed. What did
that old man know? At the age of seventeen, having just discovered he
was heir to a galactic empire, the boy felt equal to anything. He was
young; he was immortal.

The awesome sight of
the Warlord's fleet was the first pin to prick ego's bright bubble.

Dion had never imagined
anything so magnificent, so beautiful, so deadly—the gigantic
Phoenix
, its white surface gleaming brightly as a sun. Its
escort ships surrounded it, planets basking in the reflected
radiance. Heading toward this wondrous sun, flying his reconditioned,
shabby Scimitar, Dion wasn't a planet, much less a sun. He was an
insignificant dot, a speck of dust.

"I don't belong
here. What a fool I am," he murmured to himself, but he didn't
turn back. A tractor beam latched onto his ship and pulled him
ignominiously toward a destroyer circling the outer perimeter. The
tractor beam wasn't necessary. Another force—a force much more
powerful than any created by man—was pulling Dion inexorably
closer. He hoped, very much, that it was destiny.

Four soldiers were
waiting for him when he emerged from his Scimitar. He recognized them
by their Roman panoply and red-crested helms—the Warlord's
centurions, the ones who had surrounded his house on the night Platus
had died. They didn't say a word to him; it seemed—from the
stern, impassive look of them—that they didn't intend to waste
their hreath. On orders from their captain, they formed ranks around
Dion and marched him off.

Impressed by them,
irritated at himself for being impressed and even a little
frightened, the young man lagged behind once to see what would
happen. An iron hand clamped painfully over the flesh of his upper
arm and a rough but efficient shove kept him moving. Something in the
captain's eyes, flicking his direction, told Dion that the man's
orders were to get the boy there—in what condition was left
entirely up to the captain's discretion. After that, Dion kept in
step.

They marched him on
board a shuttlecraft that carried them from the destroyer across a
vast expanse of space to
Phoenix
. He had a long time to look
at the warship. Viewed up close, it was unbelievable—the most
colossal object the boy had ever seen.

The shuttle waited in
line to dock behind several others which apparently had more
important business. What was he, after all, but heir to the galactic
throne—a throne that didn't exist? Slumping into a chair, Dion
felt his confidence ooze out of him. Guilty thoughts of his gentle,
beloved mentor came to him.

Platus knew. He tried
to save me from this. He gave his life to keep me away from Derek
Sagan. And here I am, running to the very man who murdered him.

Surely Platus would
have understood! Surely he must know how important this is to me! No,
what am I thinking? Everything he taught me, everything he wanted for
me was just to be a simple, good, ordinary man—like himself.

Dion tried once again
to summon up his anger over being cheated out of what was rightfully
his. But—looking around him at the visible, outward signs of
incredible, ruthless power—he was beginning to realize that his
anger was the frustrated anger of a little child whose father refuses
to allow him to thrust his hand into the fire.

The shuttle docked on
Phoenix
at last. The guards escorted Dion out and marched him
into and out of elevators and through a seemingly endless maze of
corridors. Not one of the men moving purposefully about glanced at
him or paid the slightest bit of attention to him. So much for the
king of the galaxy. Dion stumbled and nearly fell. The iron hand
propelled him onward. It wasn't defiance now; it was his heart, down
around his shoes, tripping him.

The guards led him into
a part of the ship that was empty of people. The corridors were cold
and lifeless, their silence oppressive. Here, at the end of a
passageway, he was met by four more of the Roman-clad centurions.
One, whose feathered crest was black in comparison to the others'
white crests, gestured to Dion to step forward. The young man did so,
his own guards falling behind and to either side. The black-crested
guard gripped him by the arm, led him in front of a blank wall, and
stood silently, waiting. The guard didn't speak. Dion wasn't even
certain the man was breathing.

Beneath his feet, the
young man could feel the slight vibrating thrum of the ship's
engines. He thought, almost, that if he listened closely enough he
might hear them. But that was wishful thinking. The silence dinned
and echoed around him. When a small beep went off on the
black-crested guard's wrist, Dion nearly climbed up the sheer-sided
walls.

The guard placed his
hand, palm down, over a security panel. A massive door rumbled aside,
revealing a vast, domed, circular chamber. A rush of cold, purified
air blew past Dion, ruffling the flaming red-golden hair and drying
the chill sweat on his body.

Looking within the
hall, he saw—far away—a dais, and on it what seemed to
his dazed and blurred vision to be the embodiments of the moon and
the sun.

He looked at the guard.

"In there,"
the man said—the first words anyone had spoken to Dion in
hours.

The young man stepped
inside, hoping his legs wouldn't collapse beneath him. The door slid
shut behind him. He was alone, except for the two people on the dais,
and they only made him feel more alone than he'd ever felt before in
his life.

"Come forward,"
the man said.

Not "Come forward,
Your Majesty." Not "Come forward, Your Highness." Just
"Come forward."

Dion wondered if he
could. He recognized the man: the one who had driven the shining
sword through Flatus's body. He recognized the woman: the one who had
warned him away.

The sun and the moon.
He was in the presence of both and he felt their pull on him, felt
his blood surge like the tide, his body move in response. It would be
very easy, he realized, to take his place in orbit around these two.
And he realized in the same instant: But I want them to orbit me.

He walked across the
metal floor, his thick boots making an unholy noise that jarred every
nerve in his body. There was no help for it but to grit his teeth and
end it quickly. When he came to stand before them, in front of the
dais, the echoes of his footfalls seemed to linger on long after he'd
stopped walking.

Dion looked into the
eyes of the woman because he could see her eyes. They drew him and
held him. Too late, he discovered that they were peeling him, laying
back his flesh in layers, cutting open bone to see the heart and
brain beneath. She tore out every secret and held them up to the
light of the glittering jewel she wore and examined each carefully.
She tucked them back within him and sewed up the gashes, but Dion
knew he would always carry the scars, the marks of her probing—like
the scar on her face.

He sensed approval and
pity, expressed in a small, whispering sigh. The woman did not take
her eyes from him, but their scalpel cutting ceased. She passed the
knife to the man.

"What is your
name?"

"Dion, sir."

The Warlord stepped
from the back of the throne where he'd been standing. He made a
polite, if chill, gesture toward the woman "I would introduce
Lady Maigrey Morianna. But then. I understand that you two have
already met."

Dion flushed. He didn't
know what to say. His tongue went stiff. Maigrey smiled at him, her
eyes grew warm, and he relaxed cautiously. Apparently he wasn't
supposed to say anything.

"I am Lord Derek
Sagan. We have
not
met."

Oh, yes, we have, Dion
said, but only to himself. Lady Maigrey seemed to understand him,
however. He saw one of her eyebrows lift; the smile was sad and
shared sympathy. He remembered, then, that Platus had been her
brother.

"Who gave you your
name?"

It was a startling
question. Dion was momentarily confused. "The man who raised me,
l-lord." The title came clumsily. He felt reluctant to talk
about Platus to his murderer.

"His name?"
Sagan's voice was cold and sharp, doing more damage than the woman's
gaze, for the man was leaving wounds he obviously didn't intend to
close.

Dion swallowed, his
throat burned, his tongue was thick and didn't fit inside his mouth.
"Platus, my lord. Platus Morianna."

"And what is the
derivation of your name?"

Dion blinked at the
man, staring stupidly.

"Who were you
named for?" Sagan said with a touch of impatience. "Why
this particular name?"

"I was named for
Dion, ruler of Syracuse in Earth's fourth century b.c., my lord."

"A ruler who was
betrayed and assassinated by those who claimed to be his friends.
Truly a worthy namesake."

"That wasn't the
reason, my lord!" Dion cried, stung to courage. "I was
named for him because Dion was the student of Plato and was
considered by the philosopher and those of the Academy to be the
embodiment of what they considered ideal in a king—"

Dion's voice died. Why
had this never occurred to him? This name Platus had given him was a
clue to his destiny. He'd never seen it before now. He'd always been
too absorbed in his anger over the question of a last name to
understand that the first was his answer. Platus hadn't despaired of
him or his heritage. The name Platus had given him was his blessing—
and his warning.

Memories—the two
of them sitting together, reading together, his master's gentle voice
expounding, explaining. Tears burned Dion's eyes and he was
frightened of them, for he knew Sagan would have no patience with
them. He thought of running, flinging himself out from under the
cruel knife of the man's gaze. But he knew if he ran away that would
be the end. He would always be running, not from the Warlord, for he
would no longer care, but from himself.

A bright, cold
light—half-seen through a shimmer of tears— caught his
gaze. Lady Maigrey had lifted the starjewel in her hand and held it
so that it would capture his attention. Its cool, pure radiance eased
Dion's grief and pain. His tears could not shame him; if anything,
they shamed the man who had caused them.

The drops itched as
they dried on his cheeks, but he didn't wipe away the traces.

"Very good,"
Lord Sagan said in a voice so soft that Dion wondered if he'd heard
the words or imagined them. "Lady Maigrey"—the helmed
face turned toward the woman—"the night the king died, you
and the Guardians stole a baby from the palace at Minas Tares. Whose
child was it that you took?"

The starjewel's light
was no longer clear and beaming but was suddenly splintered and
jagged, refracted. Dion saw the woman's hand tremble and she clasped
her fingers around the jewel tightly. The light almost completely
disappeared and the hall seemed dark and barren without it.

"The baby was born
to Semele, wife of the Crown Prince. The child was a boy." The
lady's voice, heard for the first time, was dark and barren as the
hall.

"The child, for
some reason I will never fathom," Sagan continued, "was
given into the care of your brother, Platus Morianna. I presume, my
lady, that there was some token you sent with the child so that, in
the eventuality that something unforeseen occurred, the Guardians
would know the child, the heir to the throne, at a later date?"

Maigrey's answer was
inaudible. Dion understood it only by the movement of her lips. "Yes,
rpy lord."