Gordon R. Dickson (17 page)

Slothiel laughed, and reaching over, drew the rod from the loops in Adok’s belt.

Galyan laughed also, but with a half-incredulous note of contempt in his voice.

“Have you really lost your senses, Slothiel?” he said. “We’ve fenced as boys. You’ve got fast reflexes, but you know that no one’s faster than I am. Except—” He nodded at the still-paralyzed figure of the Emperor.

“But we haven’t tried it as men,” said Slothiel. “Besides, I’m a little tired of all our play-acting here on the Throne World. I think I’d like to kill you.”

He took a step forward. Galyan stepped hastily back onto the polished surface of the ballroom floor and slowly drew the rod from the loops in his own belt.

“Shall we bet on it?” he said. “Let’s bet a banishment amount of Lifetime Points, Slothiel. How about fifty Lifetime Points? That ought to put either one of us over the limit.”

“Don’t talk to me of toys,” said Slothiel, slowly advancing foot after foot, as Galyan equally slowly backed and circled away from him. “I think I’ve lost my taste for gambling. I want something a little more exciting.”

They were almost in the center of the polished floor area now. There was still a dozen feet between them, but tall and bent over as they were, their wide shoulders hunched forward, the rods held low before them, it seemed as if scarcely one of their own long arm lengths separated the two of them.

Abruptly the rod in Slothiel’s hand spouted the white lightning of its charge. At the same time, he leaned back and to one side in an attempt to outflank Galyan.

Galyan, however, crouched under the white bolt, which crackled where his head had been a moment before, and spun on his heels, still in crouched position, to come up facing Slothiel and with his own rod shooting white fire.

A little faster, and Galyan would have been able to drive the fire of his own rod under the line of fire from Slothiel’s rod. However, the moment of Galyan’s turning was enough time to allow Slothiel to lower the aim of his own weapon, so that the discharge from Galyan’s rod met the discharge from Slothiel’s head on, and the two lines of white fire splashed harmlessly into an aurora of sparks. From that first moment, the lines of fire from the two rods were never disengaged.

Following the first wild gamble by both men (and Jim had practiced at the rods enough with Adok to understand what gambles they had been)—Slothiel’s attack and Galyan’s counter—both of the Highborn fought defensively and warily for more than a dozen fairly routine engages. As Jim had discovered with Adok, fighting with the rods was very similar to fencing with sabers, provided they were sabers that changed lengths frequently and unexpectedly. The focal point of the fire put forth by the rods—that point at which the discharge was most destructive—was at the tip of an inner cone of pure white light, and this cone could be extended by the man holding the rod, at will, from a length of six inches to ten feet. This was the point at which the utmost power of the rod was exerted. Directly in counter, the point of the cone of fire in one rod could be blocked only by the point of the cone of fire in another. However, if the cone tip should miss its target and the opposing rod could project its cone tip into the stream of fire behind the other tip, the penetrative cone could be bent aside, so that the attacking cone could go on to strike its target.

It was not just a matter of deflecting the stream of fire from the opponent’s rod, therefore, but of deflecting it with a portion of your own flame, which was stronger than that part of the opponent’s flame it encountered.

Slothiel and Galyan moved about the polished floor, each careful to avoid being backed against one of the green-draperied walls. From the encounters of their weapons came a steady succession of spark showers—exploding suddenly into near-fountains of light when the two cone points were the parts of the flames to make contact. Galyan was smiling grimly, thin-lipped and narrow-nostriled. Slothiel, on the other hand, after his first savage attack, fought with a sort of dreamy grace and a relaxed face, as if this were not a duel to the death but some minor sporting engagement in which he had perhaps backed himself with a small bet.

But Slothiel’s apparent indifference was no true clue to the way in which the duel was progressing. Hardly more than a few weeks ago, it would have looked to Jim more like some smoothly expert dance by two large men with some sort of Roman candles in their hands—a dance intended to demonstrate the rhythm of the man and the beauty of the fireworks rather than anything else. Now he knew better. Moreover, because he knew better, he was able to see that the duel could have only one ending. As graceful and swift as Slothiel was, half a dozen times already Galyan had almost caught him on the disengage from an encounter of the cone tips of their weapons. Sooner or later Slothiel’s luck and skill would not prevent him from being a little bit too slow in deflecting the other man’s fire.

Galyan was, indeed, the quicker of the two. And in this sort of duel, that meant everything.

In fact, as they all watched, the end came. Galyan leaped to his left suddenly, struck high with his flame, dropped down under the line of Slothiel’s countering discharge, and flicked up again inside to slash across Slothiel’s left thigh and left upper arm, which held the rod.

Slothiel went down on the polished floor on his right knee, his left arm dangling. His rod dropped and skidded a little way across the floor.

He laughed up into the face of Galyan.

“You find it funny, do you?” panted Galyan. “I’ll wipe that smile off your face!”

Galyan lifted his rod to bring it down across Slothiel’s features.

“Galyan!” shouted Jim, running forward.

The sound of his voice did not stop Galyan, but the rapid beating of Jim’s shoes upon the polished floor did. Galyan whirled like a cat.

Jim had drawn the rod from his own belt as he ran. He had just time to get it up and send the flame lancing from it, ahead of him, before Galyan’s rod joined its discharge with his in a shower of sparks.

Jim broke the flames of both rods high, disengaged, and stepped back. Galyan laughed.

“Wolfling, Wolfling …” he said, shaking his head. “You never really have learned what Highborn means, have you? It seems I’ll have to give you a lesson?”

“Jim!” called Slothiel from the floor behind Galyan. “Don’t do it! You haven’t got a chance! Run!”

“You’re both wrong,” said Jim. Now that he was actually engaged with Galyan, his mind was as cold as ice, and the remote coldness of his voice echoed that iciness within him.

He engaged with Galyan, and they fought through at least a dozen engage-and-disengage actions. Galyan’s eyebrows rose.

“Not bad at all,” he said. “In fact, very good for anyone not a Highborn—and unthinkably good for a wild man. I do hate to waste you, Wolfling.”

Jim did not answer. He continued to fight on, warily and conservatively, concerned only with keeping the cone tip of the discharge from Galyan’s weapon always out beyond the cone tip of his own flame and making sure he would not be backed against one of the walls. If he had not had experience fencing with foil, épée, and saber back on Earth, he would never have been able to pick up enough of the technique of handling the rods in the few short weeks in which he had trained with Adok. But that experience, combined with his own native ability, was now paying off. Little by little, as the duel went on, he found himself making his moves more surely.

“In fact, why should I waste you?” panted Galyan during one of the engages in which their faces came within a few feet of each other. The white skin of the Highborn’s features gleamed with perspiration. “Be sensible, Wolfling, and don’t make me kill you. Slothiel has to die anyway—now. But I had large plans for you, as head of my own, new Starkiens.”

Jim maintained his silence. But he stepped up the pressure of his attack. Off to one side, without warning, he heard the sound of running feet on the bare floor, and Ro’s voice shouting.

“Keep back!”

Jim dared not look up at the moment, but a few seconds later he found himself facing toward the lounge end of the room, and he caught a quick glimpse of Ro, standing beside the fallen Slothiel, holding the rod Slothiel had dropped, and covering Afuan with it. Melness lay sprawled at Adok’s feet, and it looked as if the master servant’s neck had been broken. Only the unmoving figure of the Emperor, standing over the dead Vhotan, was unchanged.

“Who do you think you are?” snarled Galyan suddenly. “When I speak to you, I want an answer, Wolfling!”

Jim countered a high thrust from the taller figure and stepped to the left in a disengage, without a word.

“All right!” said Galyan, showing his teeth in an almost mechanical smile. “I’ve had enough of this! I’ve been playing with you, hoping you’d come to your senses. Now I’m through with that. I’m going to kill you, Wolfling!”

The Highborn attacked suddenly, in a shower of sparks, and Jim found himself fighting for his life. Galyan had a tremendous advantage in reach over him, and the taller man was using that reach, as well as the spring in his long legs, to the upmost advantage. Parrying swiftly and continuously, Jim was still forced to give ground. He backed away, and Galyan crowded close upon him, driving him still further backward. Jim attempted to circle to the right, but found that way cut off by the blazing white lightning of Galyan’s weapon. He tried to break to the left, but Galyan outreached him. Out of the corners of his eyes he could see the other walls of the room, and from their distances he knew that the fourth wall must be close behind him. If Galyan could pin him against the wall, the restriction of Jim’s movements would give the Highborn an advantage that would end the duel quickly.

Galyan’s teeth were bared fixedly now, and sweat dripped from his chin. His great advantage in reach cut off any escape to right or left. Shortly, also, there would be no possible retreat straight backward for Jim.

There was only one way out of this prison of flame with which Galyan was fencing him about. That was to outdo Galyan at the Highborn’s strongest point. Jim must counter Galyan’s attack with an attack of his own, which would force Galyan first to halt, then to retreat in his turn. And in such an attack, there could be only one counter to Galyan’s advantage in reach—and that was speed. Jim would have to be quicker than the Highborn.

There was no point in further hesitation. Jim came out of a disengage and attacked savagely. At the first fury of Jim’s onslaught, Galyan gave ground along three steps out of sheer, reflexive surprise. But then he stood his ground.

He laughed hoarsely, pantingly, and briefly. He seemed about to say something, but evidently decided against wasting his breath, of which neither he nor Jim had any to spare. For better than a dozen engages and disengages they stood essentially toe to toe on the gleaming floor, neither one giving an inch.

It was a murderous pace, one that neither man could keep up for another minute without dropping from exhaustion and breathlessness. But Jim did not slacken off, and slowly Galyan’s eyes began to widen. He stared at Jim across the twin, clashing streams of fire, through the showers of white sparks.

“You—can’t—do—” he gasped.

“I am—” panted Jim.

Galyan’s face unexpectedly contorted into a staring mask of fury. He disengaged from Jim’s current attack and went immediately into a sweeping circle with the fire from his instrument—almost the type of maneuver that singlestick fighters call a moulinet.

It was a simple, raw bid to outspeed the cone tip of flame from Jim’s weapon. If Galyan could get ahead of that guarding cone tip, he would have a fraction of a second in which to go back in over Jim’s guard and destroy him. Galyan’s flame whipped over and down, and Jim’s blurred along with it. For a full arc, the desperate race held, without Galyan’s weapon gaining—and then, it was Jim whose cone tip moved ahead.

He gained, coming up on the second arc, broke in over the line of Galyan’s weapon, and shot the full force of his flame into the taller man’s unprotected chest.

Galyan tottered and fell, his own weapon coming around and down, to tap its rod end against Jim’s right side just below the ribs before falling from his hand to the floor. Jim felt a sudden coldness and hollowness inside him. Then Galyan was slumped at his feet.

Jim lifted his head slowly, his lungs pumping heavily to restore oxygen to his exhausted body.

He saw, through sweat-blurred eyes, that Slothiel now held the rod that Ro had held earlier, covering Afuan. Not only that, but Slothiel was, amazingly, back on his feet, although he leaned heavily on Ro. As soon as he had breath left to spare for walking, Jim moved slowly from Galyan’s dead body over toward Ro and Slothiel.

“Jim …” said Slothiel wonderingly, looking at him and slowly putting the rod he held back into his belt. Now he ignored Afuan, as Jim came up, “what are you?”

“A Wolfling,” said Jim. “What’re you doing back on your feet?”

Slothiel laughed, not entirely cheerfully.

“We heal fast, with the help of our power sources, we Highborn,” he said. “How about you?”

“I’ll do,” said Jim. He kept his right elbow pressed close against his side. “But I’ve left another body for you to clean up. I think it’s time for me to go home.”

“Home?” Slothiel echoed.

“Back to Earth—the world I came from,” said Jim. “The more thoroughly this is hushed up, the better for the Emperor. Nobody will miss me if I disappear, and you can tell the other Highborn that Galyan killed Vhotan and the Starkiens in a fit of madness, and you had to kill him in return to protect the Emperor.”

He glanced over at Afuan, who stood like a tall, white statue.

“That is,” Jim said, “if you can persuade the Princess to keep quiet.”

Slothiel looked at her only briefly.

“Afuan won’t disagree with me,” Slothiel said. “Galyan suggested that if I didn’t agree with him, the Emperor might decide I needed isolation and treatment. The same can apply to her.”

He turned, letting go of Ro, and walked, a little limpingly but completely under his own power, off the polished floor onto the carpet and up to the unmoving figure of the Emperor. Jim and Ro followed him.