The Lost King (7 page)

Dion gripped the
windowsill with hands that were white and slowly losing all feeling.
He wanted to scream, yell, rush inside. But he could do nothing. Fear
had stolen his voice, his reason, his strength. None of the words the
two men spoke made sense to him. It would only be later that he would
recall them.

"I must say,
Platus"—Derek Sagan regarded the slender man with a cool,
grave expression of contempt—"that I am amazed to find you
still alive. Surely you knew what you faced at my hands?"

"You are right,
Sagan. I—I am not strong." Platus drew a deep breath.
"Nonetheless, I am of the Blood Royal. You will not take me
alive."

Reaching out his hand,
Platus grasped hold of the silver scabbard that lay upon the table,
lifted it unsteadily and appeared—to Dion—to remove the
scabbard's handle. Five needles projected from a short, stubby hilt.
Platus, somewhat clumsily and with a wince of pain, pressed his paha
over tbe needles, driving them into his skin. "I will fight ...
for my life."

Sagan stared at him a
moment, completely confounded. Then he began to laugh—rich,
deep laughter that sprang from some dark well deep inside.

Platus stood before
him, unmoving, holding the sword's hilt awkwardly in his hand.

"So, pacifist,"
Sagan said, when his laughter had subsided, "you have found
something worth fighting for at last. Put the bloodsword down, fool!"
He made a contemptuous gesture. "It is of no use against this
armor."

"I know better
than that, Derek," Platus answered with quiet dignity. 'Though I
was not a swordsman, my sister was. One of the best, in fact, as you
well know, for you were her teacher. Forged by the High Priests,
guided by my mental powers, its blade will cut through your armor as
if it were so much feeble flesh. You want to take me? You must fight
me."

"This is
ridiculous, pacifist!" Sagan's hps twitched in a smile.

It
was
almost
funny, the gentle Platus holding at bay a man who wore his own sword
with the casual ease of long familiarity, a man whose bare, muscular
arms were seamed with the scars of his battles. Dion felt wild
laughter of his own surge up inside him and he buried his face in his
hands, choked it down, then again lifted his head.

The smile on Sagan's
face had vanished, the dark eyes grown narrower still. Moving slowly,
he raised his hand. "Give me the weapon, Platus. You can't fight
me. You can't win. You know that. This is a waste ..."
Continuing to talk in a hypnotic monotone, the man took a step toward
Platus, his gloved hand reaching for the bloodsword. "You are an
avowed pacifist, poet. You believe in peaceful means to settle
contentions between men. Life is sacred, so you have often said. Hand
me the sword. Then tell me where to find the boy."

It seemed the man's
spell was working, if spell it was. Platus's sword arm began to
droop, his body trembled. Sagan drew another step closer.

There was a blur of
movement. Dion heard a wild cry and saw flame burst from the sword's
hilt, swinging in a deadly arc.

The blow would have cut
Sagan in two if the warrior had not saved himself by an experienced,
reflexive dive backward. Leaping after his enemy, Platus pressed his
advantage, attacking with such violence that Sagan—unable to
take time to draw his own sword—was forced to block one savage
blow with his left forearm. The fiery blade of the bloodsword cut
through the metal bracer Sagan wore, cut painfully into his wrist. He
kicked Platus in the leg, knocking his feet out from under him,
throwing him off balance.

Recovering himself,
Platus was up, slashing out again. Sagan flung his helm to the floor
and drew his own sword—a weapon similar in design to the one
Platus held. Blood streamed down the man's left hand, pulsing from
his wound. He appeared to ignore it.

Sagan held his sword in
a defensive attitude, prepared to block his opponent's jabs and
swipes, seemingly looking for an opportunity to disarm or wound him.
Platus continued to attack, but it was obvious he was rapidly
weakening.

This man would take his
master prisoner. Dion would come out of hiding and reveal himself and
then there would be no reason for this Sagan to hurt Platus. The boy
tensed, ready to pull himself up through the open window, when he saw
Platus's lips part in a smile, a strange smile in such a hopeless
situation—a smile of triumph.

And suddenly Dion saw
his master's intent. He saw it only a split second before Sagan saw
it, too. Neither had time to react. Lunging forward, Platus impaled
himself up the bloodsword's flaming blade.

With a bitter oath,
Sagan instantly shut off the sword. The blade disappeared, but it was
too late. Blood spurted from the silver armor. Platus sank to the
floor. Dion sprang to his feet, his fear riven by the same blade that
had pierced his master. A cry in his throat, he reached for the
windowsill.

A hand caught hold of
him by the back of his neck; a flash of pain shot through his head .
. .

Derek Sagan heard a
noise outside the window, a muffled thud. But he couldn't turn his
attention from the dying man long enough to investigate. Kneeling, he
lifted the bleeding body in his arms.

"Platus," he
said urgently, turning the head, forcing the fast-dimming eyes to
look into his. "You fool! Killing yourself is a mortal sin!
You've doomed your soul to endless torment!"

Platus smiled wearily.
"I don't . . . believe in your god . . . Derek. It is fitting
this way, after all." He gasped for breath. "My blood is on
your hands ... as was the blood of my king."

"Tell me where to
find the boy!" Sagan urged.

With his last strength,
Platus raised his hand, the fingers closed over the jewel that hung
around his neck. "The boy is safe!"

Sagan, in his rage and
frustration, shook the dying man. "You have damned yourself
eternally! I alone still have the power of the High Priests to
intercede with God! I can—"

The eyes fixed in the
head, gazing unseeing at the ceiling of the small house. The body,
encased in silver armor, shuddered and was still. The hand holding
the jewel went limp.

Cursing, the Warlord
dumped the lifeless corpse to the floor and stood up, staring in fury
at the wretched husk at his feet. His men would search the house, as
a matter of course, but Sagan knew Platus well enough to know that
they would find nothing. No trace of the boy, nothing to tell what he
looked like, no clue as to where he had gone.

Reaching down, the
Warlord picked up the hilt of the sword, now as lifeless as the body.
Once again the Guardians had defeated him. Once again they had been
just one step ahead of him!

"Why, Creator? You
have given them to me, as I prayed. Yet still you thwart me! What is
the reason?" He waited a moment for the answer to his prayer.
None was forthcoming and he irritably thrust the bloodsword back into
its silver scabbard.

He spoke into the
commlink in his helmet, calling his men. Remembering the noise he had
heard outside, he took a step toward the window to investigate when
suddenly he stopped, his attention arrested.

A sound had caught his
ear. It was not a sound from his ship, it was not a sound from
outside the dwelling. Indeed, it was not a sound that emanated from
this world, and he heard it not with his physical ear but with the
ear of his soul. A voice! A well-remembered voice ... a voice that
had not spoken in seventeen years.

Sagan closed his eyes,
shutting out his surroundings, with drawing deep into himself as he
had been taught as a child until he was aware of nothing around him
or even within him. His soul left his body, floating into the night,
and there it listened, free from the noise of heartbeat and rushing
blood.

And he heard the sound,
falling upon his burning spirit like cool mist. A cry of grief and
sorrow—the cry of a sister mourning the death of a brother.

The answer to Sagan's
prayer. God's plan became clear to him. "Forgive me for my
doubts, Creator. I understand!"

"My lord."

This voice was coporeal
and it grabbed hold of Sagan and snatched him back to the world,
forcing him to meld the two separate halves of his being together
again. Opening his eyes, the Warlord stared without recognition at
the centurion standing before him.

"My lord, forgive
me for disturbing you, but the men have been deployed and I'm
reporting to you as ordered—"

"Yes, Captain. You
have done well." Sagan glanced around the house, remembering. "I
heard a sound outside the window. Have your men investigate."

"Yes, my lord."
The captain made a motion and two centurions standing inside the door
departed with alacrity, two others moving to take their places.
"Further orders, my lord?"

"Secure the town
immediately. Ground all spacecraft of every type. No one is to leave
the planet. Any spacecraft that attempt to flee are to be captured,
not shot down. Send interrogators into the city. Begin a systematic
roundup of the town's population. I want to know everything, no
matter how insignificant, about this man"—the Warlord
shoved the body with the toe of his boot—"and a boy who
lived here with him. The dead man's name was Platus Morianna, though
according to our reports he used the alias Platus Moran. Search the
house. Bring me anything that looks like it might belong to a
teenager—anything! A picture of a girl, a model spacecraft, his
computer files. When you've finished, burn the house."

"Yes, my lord. And
the body?"

"He was an atheist
and he died by his own hand. May God have mercy on his soul."
Sagan bent down on one knee. "
Requiem aeternam dona eis,
Domine.
[Rest eternal grant them, O Lord.—Requiem Mass]
Closing the staring eyes, he lifted the limp hand and placed it over
the starjewel, whose bright light was fading into darkness. "Leave
the body in the house. Burn it over him."

"Very good, my
lord." The captain gestured again, and the two centurions,
followed by two more, entered the house and began to literally take
it apart. Speaking into his helmet's commlink, the captain relayed
his orders, and soon hoverjeeps loaded with men could be seen leaving
the shuttlecraft, sweeping over the plains, heading for the small
port city.

A centurion poked his
head through the open window.

"Captain, the
grass is so trampled out here, we can't make out any definite tracks.
Footprints all over—here and in the garden. There're animal
tracks, too. Wolves, looks like."

The captain glanced
inquiringly at the Warlord, who shrugged, no longer interested. "The
tracks could have been made days ago. This late at night, most likely
it was the animal I heard."

Stepping over the body,
he walked across the living room and out the door. Behind him, he
heard the thud of books hitting the floor, wood splintering, the
jangling twang of a broken harp string. The Warlord's gaze went to
the stars burning in the heavens, stars that to poets might be
sparkling gems but to him were pins upon a huge galactic map.

Mentally taking up one
of those pins, he twirled it in the fingers of his mind.

"At long last, my
lady. At long last!"

Freedom's just another
word for nothin' left to lose.

Kris Kristofferson, "Me
and Bobbie McGee"

"Hey, kid, damn
it! Can you hear me?"

A hand was over his
mouth. A heavy weight was smashing down on his chest, and burning
pain seared his soul. Dion opened his eyes. He didn't recognize the
face of the mercenary inches away from his. Or if he did, it didn't
matter. Dion's muscles leapt, he struggled desperately to free
himself. He had to get inside the house! He had to get to Platus!

"Shit, kid, that's
a Warlord in there!" hissed the voice, not an inch from his ear.

The pressure on his
chest increased, the hand tightened over his mouth. Dion glared
furiously at the black face. Lit by the red and golden lights of the
shuttlecraft, it might have been a demon's face gazing at him from
the fires of hell. Beads of sweat stood on Tusk's forehead; the
shuttle's lights were tiny pinpoints of flame in his dark eyes.

"Listen to me,
kid, and listen good!" Tusk shoved Dion's head back into the
dirt. "A man just gave up his life for you. Are you gonna make
that mean something?"

Dion struggled, but it
was a struggle against fate, against the forces of destiny, and,
after a moment, he ceased. Closing his eyes, he relaxed and nodded.

"Good," Tusk
muttered. Watching the boy warily, he let loose his hand from Dion's
mouth and lifted his knee from the young man's chest. "We're in
the bottom of some sort of ditch in back of your house," Tusk
breathed into Dion's ear. "The Warlord's still inside. Any
second this place is going to be lousy with marines. We've got to
make ourselves real scarce, real fast! You understand?"

Dion nodded again, his
hand reaching to rub his head.

"C'mon, kid!"
Tusk grunted, hauling him to his feet "I didn't hit you that
hard. Keep low."

Dion stood up
cautiously, glancing around to get his bearings. They were in the
bottom of the deep ravine in back of the house, safely concealed for
the time being. But they wouldn't be hidden long; he could hear
voices coming from the house. One voice he recognized, the voice of
the man who had killed Platus. Dion made a move toward the
embankment.

"Wrong way, kid!"
Tusk's hand closed over the boy's arm.

Dion's hps pressed
together; his eyes burned with the ache in his heart. Jerking his arm
out of Tusk's grasp, the boy turned and began to run down the dry
creek bed, running as hard and fast as he could, running away from
the house, away from the red and golden lights, away from the blood,
spilling down silver armor. . . .