The Rebel of Rhada (11 page)

“Nearer,” the Vulk said dreamily, his fingers caressing the strings.

The warlock said, “But nothing out
there.”

The Vulk stopped playing. He crouched in an attitude of prayer. “At the guardroom now. Slipping past in the darkness.” He murmured something in an alien tongue. The warlock wondered if he were invoking the aid of his own nonhuman gods.

“A long climb, Warlock,” Gret murmured.

“Are we to do nothing to help them?” Cavour asked. He could hear the Vegans in the room outside the god-metal door. They were gaming at Stars and Comets, quarreling over their throws.

Cavour returned again to the window, searching the upper darkness. There was nothing there that he could see. But a freak of the wind cleared away the mists below, and he suddenly saw a procession of torches and men, tiny as ants in the distance, running down the crooked street toward the base of the tower. Imperials, a whole squadron of them. The wind brought the faint sound of alarms. Cavour’s heart sank. It was Kier they were seeking. His escape was discovered at last. He said anxiously, “They can’t go back.”

The Vulk shook his head. “They never could.” He rose to his feet and said, “Call the guards now. It is time.”

Cavour cast one more despairing glance out of the window. “There is nothing there, Gret.”

“It is time,” the Vulk said, and Cavour nodded and began pounding on the metal door with his clenched fists.

The guardroom was behind and below them. They had slipped past one at a time while the secure Imperials slept or quarreled or polished their weapons. But on the floor above were others. Kier guessed as many as eight or ten. They would not have guarded a warlock and a Vulk with fewer.

He could hear the sound of music. It was Gret, of course, playing his hypnotic airs for the warmen, distracting them from their obvious--and mutinous--duties.

Ariane said, “Have you led us into another blind alley, Rebel?”

He smiled at her temper and did not reply. His chest and arms still throbbed with the iron Queen’s embrace, and there was nothing ahead but fighting and danger, but he felt a savage joy to have a weapon in his hand again and a simple job of combat to do. The complexities and politics would come later, on Sarissa, if they lived to reach that place.

Erit heard the music and murmured something in a language none could understand. The Vykans made the sign of the Star in the air and commended their souls to God. They would fight, and perhaps die, in the midst of magic they did not understand. If their Ariane and the Rhad were not afraid, then they would try to disregard their own superstitious fear. But Vulks and warlocks filled them with dread.

Kier gathered them on the narrow metal stairway. They rested themselves from the long, long climb in the narrow shaft and listened to him.

“There’s no time for tricks and not much chance they would succeed anyway,” he said. “Gret has their attention --some of them, at least, will be listening to him. They’ll be slow to react to us. I know what Vulk music can do. Make ready now.”

The warmen drew their weapons. And this time, so did Ariane. “We need every sword,” she said.

Kier looked down at the clear blue eyes under the metal cap and felt his heart beat faster. By the Star, what a queen for the Rhad she would make. But he should not think of that now. She would be queen to all the worlds. That thought brought a nick of sadness.

As though she read his thought, she smiled for a moment and then grew somber. “Why do we wait, Kier?”

She might have meant one thing or another. He chose to think she meant only the first. “A moment, Queen,” he murmured.

Erit raised her blind face and spoke, but not with her own voice.
“There is a light in the sky, King!”

“Now, go!” Kier shouted, and plunged up the remaining stairs into the guardroom.

There were six Imperials in the guardroom. The door to the cell chamber stood open, and Kier could see three more of the Vegan warmen within. The place resounded with the wild twanging of Gret’s song.

The first Imperial died with his sword only half drawn, so caught by the music had he been. The others took warning and formed a battle line, for they were trained troops, though softened by too long duty in the capital.

Beside Kier the Vykans were fighting, and the enclosed and badly lit rooms resounded to the ring of swords. The man opposing Kier was a good swordsman and strong. It took the young star king time to pierce his shoulder and disarm him. He made no move to prevent his bolt for the stairway leading down. There was no time to worry about that now because Kier could see through the other room to the window, where the mists seemed to glow with a dancing violet light.

Another Vegan went down, and Kier turned to face a third. Ariane stood at his side as firmly as any trooper. He felt a surge of pride for her.

Cavour had made a snare from his cloak and had caught an Imperial from behind. Gret and Erit were singing a wild, skirling melody. There was a touch of madness in the scene of dancing shadows, clashing blades, and alien music.

Then, quite suddenly, a silence fell because the last of the guards lay still on the floor. The young Vyk was wounded, cut on the neck above his mailed shirt. But he was on his feet and regarding Ariane with worshipful eyes.
We savages,
Kier thought,
how we love a warrior queen!

Cavour, at the window now, called out to Kier, “It’s there! I see it now!”

God reward Kalin,
Kier thought,
and make his hand steady.
Ariane was staring, half afraid, at the ionized rain falling past the casements and on down into the abyss. “Kier--is it--?”

“My starship, Ariane. And my very skillful cousin.”

No one in the Empire, Ariane thought, had ever attempted to maneuver a starship so delicately, so close to the ground. A touch could bring shattering disaster, an explosion greater than the missiles of ancient legend.

From below came the noise of armored men running. Kier ordered the Vykans to the casement. He stood there, straining his eyes against the now-brilliant mists. It seemed he could sense the immense bulk of the starship frighteningly close, but still he could not see it.

“There!” cried the young Vyk. “I see an open valve!”

Now Kier and the others could see it as well. The dilating aperture seemed a tunnel hanging in a swirling, glowing space. It bobbed and swayed grotesquely as the winds tore at the thousand-meter-long hull of the antique vessel. Across a gap of five meters Kier could see the hulking shape of his lieutenant-general Nevus and a crew of war-men with a casting line. But the noises of pursuit grew louder, mingled with the sacred humming of the starship.

The line came hurtling into the room and, without being told, the Vyks made it fast.

“Go quickly now!” Kier commanded. “Cavour, take Gret. You, warman--what’s your name?”

“Han, sir,” the boy said.

“Are you too hurt to cross carrying Erit?”

“I can make it, King.”

“Do it then, and quickly!”

The boy looked longingly at the stairway, and Kier cursed him for a berserk Vyk who thought more of fighting than of his queen. The parade ground tongue-lashing spurred him into action, and he lifted Erit to his shoulders.

“Go now, Cavour,” Kier commanded. The warlock, with Gret clinging to his neck, swung hand over hand along the wildly gyrating line. Kier saw him safely into the star-ship’s portal and shoved the boy Han to the casement. He, too, made the hair-raising crossing.

Ariane looked at the line with a sinking heart. She knew her strength unequal to the crossing. Kier had thought of almost everything but not of that. She motioned her remaining Vyks to the window. They crossed, swinging crazily in the wind a kilometer above the city.

Kier, alone now with Ariane, unshipped the casting line and lashed it to her harness. For a moment the girl did not realize what he was doing, and when she did, she fought him with a sudden angry despair.

“I didn’t set you free so you could throw your life away, Kier!”

Kier took the helmet from her head so that her dark hair blew in the wind from the window. “We are not beaten yet,” he said. “But in case something goes badly--” He laughed with the pleasure of battle and kissed her. “Be a proper queen and
go!”

He took the sword from her and shouted to Nevus and Cavour to take her. She stood for a moment on the casement, looking back at him, and then she was gone, swinging on the end of the casting line as the men in the starship hauled her into the valve.

Kier turned to face the soldiery pouring into the outer room from the stairway. He looked back to see that the open valve of the starship was still in sight, moving, in fact, closer to the building as Kalin worked his incomprehensible magic half a kilometer away in the unseen prow of the vessel.

Kier raised one of the swords and threw it like a spear at the first man to burst through the doorway. Before the man had fallen, Ariane’s weapon was in his hand and flashing after his own.

Then Kier turned, ran across the room, and launched himself into space.

The rain and wind were icy on his naked skin. He seemed to be suspended in a glowing Umbo where all was light and violence. His arms and hands, extended before him, gleamed with a ghost light.

Then he struck the hull of the starship, clung there, slipped on the rain-wet metal, clung again, his heart pounding wildly. He felt the coaming of the open portal under his fingertips. The building was gone in the swirling, dancing, pulsating rain.

A strong hand closed over his wrist. He looked up to see the bearded face of Nevus close to his own. Other hands reached him and hauled him into the starship. He lay on the deck, rolled over on his back, and tried to still the thudding of his pulse and heart. Then he smiled because Ariane was there, bending over him, her hair wet and tangled, and he could not tell if her face streamed with the rain or with the tears of relief that her rebel was safe.

The lessons of history are plain. Man builds and destroys, builds and destroys again. He is both noble and savage.

Nv. Julianus Mullerium,
The Age of the Star Kings,
middle Second Stellar Empire period

Each generation of man must choose between peace and war. From the beginning it has been so. To the end it will be so.

Attributed to Emeric of Rhada, Grand Master of Navigators,
early Second Stellar Empire period

Kier and his chieftains were gathered in the young star king’s quarters as the Rhad vessel reached stellar speed. Nevus was pacing angrily, and Cavour sat in disapproving silence. Kier had given his orders.

Presently, Nevus could contain himself no longer. “With respect, King. It seems to me that one miraculous escape is all a sane man can expect. The place for us now is the Palatinate, not Sarissa.”

Kier shook his head. “Consider what you are suggesting. War on our own territory. Mariana
will
have the Rim, no matter what it costs. She said so and I believe her.”

“And what will she use to take it, King?” Nevus spoke with a military man’s contempt for the enemy. “Fifty thousand fat Vegans?”

“Fifty thousand Veg--and a million men from the Inner Worlds,” Kier said patiently.

“If the Council of Sarissa accepts her as liberator and Queen-Empress,” Cavour interjected.

“They will not,” Nevus declared.

“Will they not?” Kier asked. He turned to Cavour. “Legitimacy is easily come by when you have the power. You already speak of the ‘Council of Sarissa’ as though it were a legal body and not a rump congress of dissidents. And ask yourself this: How many of the warleaders knew the boy Torquas? And this: How many of the kings fought against Glamiss at Karma and a dozen other places?” He paused for a moment, and the humming of the starship seemed to fill the silence. “The stellar government was put together by The Magnifico and my father and a few others of us with the edge of our swords. It’s true the star kings would probably not revolt by themselves. But with leadership? And a cause? With confusion in Nyor?” He shook his head. “Think how close to rebellion we Rhad have come--”

The bearded Nevus threw his hands into the air. “What leader, King? What cause?”

“Tallan of Sarissa, perhaps. Even Landro. And the cause? Call it freedom, if you like. The right to rule our territories as we like. To go for each others’ throats as we did for two thousand years before Glamiss brought order.”

Cavour frowned. “He is right, Nevus. We both know it. It wasn’t sin that brought down the First Empire. It was this kind of political chaos. And the Dark Time lasted two millennia.”

Nevus regarded his king for a long while, his eyes narrowed. “Are we to hold back the night alone, King?”

“If we must,” Kier said.

“What chance against the galaxy?”

“None,” Cavour said, “if we wait until it begins.”

Nevus sighed heavily. “Can we count on the Navigators?”

Kier shook his head. “We can count on our own Navigators. But the Order won’t take sides. It cannot.”

Nevus spread his gnarled hands on the table before him. “I am a soldier, King, not a politician. You must be both. But it is a dangerous game we play now.”

“Hasn’t it always been?” Cavour asked quietly.

Nevus said, “And if we lose you, King?” He turned hard eyes on his ruler. “You have no son. Who will lead the Rhad then?”

“Kalin.”

“A Navigator?”

Kier nodded. “A Rhad.”

“Does he know?”

“He has never been told, but if it comes, he will know his place.”

“I don’t like it,” Nevus muttered.

Kier smiled and shook his old general’s shoulder. “You are far more rebel than I, Nevus.”

“I am a citizen of Rhada, King. You would make us citizens of the Empire. I am one of the old men--you are one of the new.” He looked frankly at his warleader. “Is it the girl, Kier?”

Cavour bridled. “You do him an injustice, General.”

Kier shook his head. “No, he does right to ask, Cavour.” To Nevus he said, “It’s much more than Ariane. Though if Torquas is dead, she is Queen-Empress by right.”