Ice and Shadow (13 page)

A second tray with food was brought in and the Queen and then Reddick were served with great ceremony. They ate and drank. Roane saw their lips move and knew that they talked, but for her the scene was played out in utter silence. Twice their walking cups were sent back to be refilled.

Then the plates were cleared and the Queen and he whom she had considered her greatest enemy sat in apparent amity. From the front of his tunic Reddick brought forth a scroll which he spread flat on the table before him. While Roane could not read the words written there, she could see the black lettering, and ribbons of scarlet and black at the foot of the sheet, affixed by an irregular blob of purple of the hue of Ludorica’s gown.

The Queen leaned back in her chair, fanned herself with slow motions of the purple feathers. All the vivacity, those quick changes of expression which Roane had seen on her face in the past, had vanished. Her face was a mask under the piles and rolls of her hair. Even her eyes were half closed as if the lids and the long lashes acted to conceal what she thought or felt.

Reddick’s lips moved. He must be reading aloud what was written on the scroll. He glanced up at last, looking straight at Ludorica. And it seemed to Roane that he did so searchingly, as if he expected some protest, or at least some comment from her.

But if he did so, he was disappointed. She gestured with the fan, and the usher who had led her in came out of the shadows, took the scroll from the Duke, brought it to place before the Queen.

She let it remain rolled. To all appearances she was not interested in what it contained, nor in what Reddick wanted from her. Perhaps he grew impatient, for Roane saw his lips move again.

For the first time Ludorica answered him. No show of emotion troubled her mask. Instead a faint flush arose on the Duke’s cheeks. If that was caused by anger he suppressed all other signs of resentment valiantly.

But, having perhaps rebuked her kinsman, the Queen laid down her fan, spread out the scroll with both hands. Perhaps she reread what was written there. At least she sat so for several long moments.

Then she spoke again. One of the waiting ladies brought forward a small tray on which was a box which she opened before presenting it. The contents seemed a solid black block. Ludorica raised her right hand, pressed her thumb firmly against the block, and then to the paper, leaving a clear print. She then dipped her hand in a small basin the lady was quick to offer and washed her thumb clean.

She still held the scroll in her left hand, but allowed it to reroll as Reddick moved to draw back her chair. As she arose she left it lying.

Passing her kinsman as if he had become invisible, Ludorica left the room. The Duke caught up the scroll and tucked it once more within the security of his tunic before he followed her.

Roane stirred, or tried to stir. She had watched a very real scene which carried with it the conviction that by some weird chance she had been projected into Ludorica’s palace and there been witness to some dire action. But why—and how—

The room was gone suddenly. Instead she faced, for perhaps the length of one breath out of a lifetime, a single face. And that was going to haunt her—

“Roane!”

She was being shaken with increasing roughness, roused out of that state which did not seem wholly akin to normal sleep.

“Nelis!” Did she call that aloud? There was danger—

Roane opened her eyes. She was being drawn out of her bed roll by Sandar, and he was doing that shaking. But Sandar was not a part of—

“Roane! Wake up, can’t you? Wake
up!”
His last shake was hard enough to make her head roll on her shoulders. And she at last accepted that she was back from that strange far place. She lay in her cubicle at camp, and her cousin was using impatiently harsh means to acquaint her of that fact.

“Haabacca jet us to the Cloud!” he exclaimed. “Sniff this so you can see straight!” With one hand he pushed her head forward, with the other made a balled fist and then opened it under her nose, where the capsule he had so crushed could spend its fumes directly into her lungs. Sniffing those fumes cleared her head.

“What is the matter?” she asked sulkily. For all the ominous shadows which clung about that dream, she wanted to hold it—especially the very last—for a dream once gone is sometimes gone forever.

“We’re moving out.” He stood up. “Father let you sleep as long as he could. But we’re ready to collapse shelter now. Store your gear and do it fast!”

She crawled out of the sleeping bag, rolled it with the ease of long practice into a packet which fitted into a pocket in the wall. For the rest there had been a clean sweep here. All the possessions allowed her in this Spartan life had vanished. They must have been hard at work while she slept, slept and dreamed.

And out of that dream she carried the conviction that she had witnessed a true happening. Nelis Imfry—that was who it had concerned the most. The scroll that Reddick had produced and that the Queen had signed—and that last glimpse of a lean brown face before Sandar had shaken her awake—they were strung together as might be a necklace of view-pearls.

View-pearls? Roane paused in her sealing of the pocket. She had not the slightest esper rating. Had not Uncle Offlas had her tested long ago? An esper was invaluable to an archaeologist. Retrogressive hypnotherapy could be used by a sensitive to locate digging sites. There were those who could hold a circlet of view-pearls in their hands and read the authentic past. But she was not one of them. Then how did she
know
that she had done so now? And how had she been so empowered? Was it part of the same subtle influence which had drawn her to the Princess at their first meeting, forced her to serve Ludorica? But why should that influence now switch her concern to another?

Roane’s hand went to shield her eyes. She tried to think normally, to argue against this new compulsion. No—she was not going to—She was
not!
The installation was not going to use her, too. But it could not be that! The installation moved the Queen now and what she was doing was directly against her former will.

Could she herself now be a puppet—but whose?

“Roane, come on!” Sandar stood there. “What’s the matter, do you need another waking inhalation?”

“No!” She needed nothing except some quiet, a calm mind, and a chance to think. But when she would get all three she was not sure.

CHAPTER 13

THE SHELTER HAD BEEN COLLAPSED
around the packed core of equipment. Unless someone stumbled upon it bodily, it was so well concealed that the camp could not be sighted by any forest traveler. With packs of emergency supplies the three withdrew to the cave passage.

There the elder Keil set a repell beamer working at the entrance, locked it on his thumb set so that no one else might turn it off. As long as he had Roane’s belt she would be a prisoner here, as safely captive as if she were chained by a collar, since without its force she could not go out as others could not enter.

Saying that there was no reason to waste time during their enforced stay in hiding, he and Sandar went back to the installation chamber. They had left a call beam at the dismantled camp to provide direction for their off-world rescuers.

Roane trailed the two men, but to watch those crowned pillars disturbed her. Was it true that the destruction of those inhuman controls might devastate Clio, bring about planet-wide chaos and death to peoples conditioned for generations as puppets? Or—but one could not be sure without careful study made by those trained to deal with such cases. And such study could take planet years.

In the meantime, Roane leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. She discovered she could pull from memory every vivid detail of that dream, if dream it was—from the gleam of the colors, the metals, the gowns, the high ceremony of the meal, to the expressions or lack of expression on the faces of those who had played out the scene.

Time. Her scratched hands balled into small fists which she wished she could use to batter her way out of here. Time was going to defeat her. She need only glance down that aisle of pillars to Uncle Offlas, wearing her belt draped over one shoulder. She had no plan—

Her head ached and the constant mutter of the machines seemed to match it throb for throb, until she could stand it no longer. The men were both intent upon what they were doing, studying the play of lights across those pillar surfaces. She gave a sigh and returned to the cave entrance where they had stacked their survivor kits.

There was that other entrance to the cave passages, where Reddick’s men had broken through. But Uncle Offlas had set a double broadcast to operate a second barrier a little beyond the installation chamber. No—Roane knew it was hopeless. Yet she found herself pulling at the pack seals, lying out on the floor, in the light of a small beamer, their contents.

Food—plenty of E-rations—a well-stocked medic kit, spare chargers for beamers and stunners—Nothing of service to her.

She piled all she had taken from Uncle Offlas’s kit back into it. And she already knew all that was in hers. There remained Sandar’s and she turned it out, without any real hope.

Another beamer—or—Roane turned the tube around in her hands, brought it closer to the light with a small thrill of excitement. Not a regulation beamer, and not the forbidden blaster, but an archaeologist’s hand tool which had some limited properties of both. She studied the setting dial on the butt and then unsealed the charge-holding stem. If—oh, if only—

Roane hastily emptied out again all three kits, dumping their contents on the stone. In a short time she had three sets of charges lined up—those for stunners, those for two sizes of beamers. And—three of the latter fitted! One of those would not give her the highest force this tool could use, but perhaps enough. Only it would be slow in working—and she could not face either man were he armed.

She sat back on her heels. There was the repeller. Roane swung up the beamer to touch the ceiling of the cave at the point above where the machine sat. What she tried was such a gamble that the promise of failure far outweighed that of success, but she could see nothing else. And it would take time—

Holding the beamer on the spot she had selected, Roane thumbed on the tool, aiming its energy broadcast at that section, moving it with precision to cut the outline of a circle in the rock.

It did slice—but so slowly! And she could tell from the vibration of the tube in her hand that the operation was using far too much power. The charge might well be exhausted long before her purpose was accomplished. But she kept at it.

A rain of small bits of stone, gnawed away by the ray, fell toward the repeller. Heartened, Roane grew reckless, bearing down on the button to send the highest intensity of beam into that cracking surface.

Back and forth she swept, weaving a maze of cracks and cuts. The powdery fall was thicker, and larger bits of rock came. The repeller had its own protective casing. She might not be able to bring down a piece large enough to crack that, but she was forcing the broadcast to use some of its energy to protect itself. And Uncle Offlas had already set it on high. He had had to, to produce the two force walls, here and down the passage.

Sweep, sweep. Pebbles fell now. Roane used the beamer to read the dial on the repeller. What she saw there was heartening. The needle was a fraction into the red-zone warning of overload. Then a larger fragment, perhaps the size of her own doubled fist, came clanging down.

A flash from the repeller, an acrid breath of odor. Shorted! She had shorted the shield!

Until that moment she had been moved only by hope. Hope, and the desperate need to be on the move which had come from that dream. Roane unscrewed the tube, recharged the tool.

That done, she stowed it in the front of her tunic and set about making up a small pack—food, a medic kit, the third charge for her weapon-tool, a beamer, a pair of night lenses. She knotted all together in a plasta sack before she allowed herself to think seriously of what she would do.

Roane stood a moment in the dark of the cave, listening. To her alert ears the murmur of sound from the installation was steady. She picked up no hint that either of the others might be returning. But—if she left here now she was making a final choice. All because of a dream? She did not know. Perhaps it was that influence which hung here on Clio, warping her reasoning powers.

She could even see clearly what she should have considered good sense, the only right pattern of living for an off-worlder. Only—Roane shook her head. She could not put name to the emotions which had shaken her out of the life she had always known, just as she could not withstand their present pull.

Taking up the sack, putting on the night lenses, Roane stepped over the repeller and walked out of the cave into a new life which she felt had been chosen for her, whether or not she consciously willed it.

Only, now that she was free, where should she go? Hitherhow was her lone point of reference. Wearing these native clothes (she had lacked another change of clothing in camp), she might be able to get into the village, learn something. That was Reddick’s holding. Surely he would send his prisoners there. Though would they still be in the keep now?

Half the night later, as she had days earlier, Roane crouched on the hilltop to watch keep and village. There were one or two lighted lanterns along the street leading from the keep’s massive gate to the highway. But the houses were all dark. She hesitated, certain of the folly of her vague plans, but just as sure she must do something.

As she lingered, she heard a sound that was not one of the night noises, a pounding in regular beat, growing louder—until two duocorns, ridden at a steady, ground-covering pace, came into view from the west, the clatter of their passing awakening louder echoes as they reached the cobbled pavement of the short village street. They were brought to a stop before the gate of the keep.

A horn sounded, one of the riders holding it to his lips, blowing a series of notes with certainly no respect for the slumbers of any in village or keep, for the harsh peal shattered the peace of the night. Men spilled into the courtyard, two of them tugging at the gate bar. Then the riders were in, one coming out of his saddle to head at a hasty trot for the near tower.

The men in the courtyard scattered, leading away the puffing, foam-bespattered duocorns. Roane rolled over on her back, pulled off the night lenses to stare up at the sky. There was a paling there. It must be later than she had first thought. And she had accomplished nothing as yet. Better get down to the village. When she looked there again there were lights in some of the house windows. The horn had done its duty to awaken the inhabitants.

Then—lights in the keep—more stirring there. From the main tower came a blast of sound greater than that other horn, one that echoed from the cluster of heights ringing Hitherhow. Men formed lines on the courtyard pavement. More and more lights appeared in the village houses.

Roane pulled the Revenian hood up over her head, drawing it about her face as best she could. It was the only anonymity she had as she went down into the village. A second blast of sound which was a summoning spurred her on.

By the time she reached the short street the people were already coming out of the houses, many of them carrying lanterns, moving toward the keep. There the courtyard doors had been flung open, a line of guardsmen on either side. And from the snatches of conversation Roane overheard as she edged into the crowd, she learned that the peal from the tower was a summons which had not been sounded in years; the reason for it none about her could guess.

“War! Those Vordainians—they have always looked jealously in our direction—”

“No, we have most danger at the west—Leichstan, they have never been friendly since their king re-wed.”

“It may only be some proclamation from the Queen. She is only new come to the throne and—”

“A proclamation would be delivered at a decent hour, not when a body is jerked out of a warm bed in the night. This must be something more weighty—”

Roane fastened the bag of supplies to her belt. The night lenses she had tucked into the front of her tunic. And now her fingers sweated on the smooth tube of the tool, her only weapon. If she had to use that, it would require skill.

The crowd tightened more about her as they pushed through the gate, between the ranks of the guardsmen, to stand facing the main door of the keep. Then the horn sounded for the third time and the murmur of questioning voices died away. Three men appeared so suddenly they might have materialized out of space. They wore uniforms such as Reddick’s men had, with the addition of those badges and lacings which denoted officers. Two were colonels if she read those signs aright, but the man in the center must be of even higher rank.

A riding cloak hung from his shoulders and he tossed it back impatiently as he unrolled a strip of writing. Roane bit hard upon her lower lip. As well as if she stood at his hand to see it, she knew what that was. She had seen it last in her dream.

“Know you all who swear allegiance to the Ice Crown of Reveny”—the officer had a carrying voice and read slowly and clearly as if there was need that not a single word of this escape those listening to him—“on this day of Martle passed, in the three hundred and fiftieth year of the Guardians, in the reign of Queen Ludorica of the High House of Setcher, Regnant Lady of Reveny in her own right by Blood and Crown, it is decreed that one Nelis Imfry, of the House of Imfry-Manholm, be stripped of his rank as Colonel in the Command of Reveny, of his place in the House of Manholm, and of all privileges granted him by our late gracious lord, King Niklas, whom the Guardians have seen fit to take into their everlasting Peace.

“The said Nelis Imfry, being no longer of the Court, of any House, or of those who stand to arms for Reveny, shall suffer in addition the death accorded to traitors to the Crown, since diverse acts of foul treason have been proved on him.

“And this sentence is to be carried out forthwith at the keep of Hitherhow where the said Nelis Imfry lies in the keeping of our well-beloved cousin and gracious lord, Duke Reddick. Given by seal and hand, under the wish of the Crown, by Blood Right of rule, ours alone on this day—Ludorica, Queen Regnant of Reveny.”

The officer allowed the scroll to snap shut again, handed it to one of his companions. He then raised his hand to touch fingers to the badge so prominently displayed on the breast of his tunic.

“So says the Queen! Let it be thus done!”

There was a somewhat ragged assent from those about Roane, repeating the officer’s words, but slowly, as if those who gave lip service to the sentiment he expressed were either astounded or not pleased. And Roane heard again questioning, though this time in the most subdued whispering, a faint hissing. She was working her way to the left and the edge of the gathering, striving to do so in the least noticeable manner.

What she could do to alter the future, she did not know. But the feeling that she must hold the key to the situation had been growing stronger by the moment. She was at the fringe of the crowd now, close to the line of sentries. They might have been set there to discourage any sympathy for the condemned, but Roane saw nothing to suggest a demonstration in the Colonel’s favor. The people were very sober, and even the whispers had died. Once before Roane had felt such an aura of fear—on another planet when a crowd of cowed worshipers had watched a ritual killing. This was contagious; she knew the same chill.

They were bringing out the prisoner. His arm hung in a sling, and in the lantern light his face was worn, older seeming, the bones showing more clearly beneath the drawn skin, as if in the few hours since she had seen him last a number of years has passed. But he walked firmly, looking neither right nor left, until they brought him to the wall. There were guards moving along the parapet above, towing a bulky contraption which rasped and jangled, until they pushed it over, to be lowered on chains until it thudded to the pavement.

By lantern light it could be seen clearly, a cylinder of metal hoops and netting, not as tall as the man they were shoving to it, so when they forced him inside, he was able neither to stand erect nor to move in relief from a torturous cramping. Once they slammed the opening shut, the bolts were made fast.

Then came the scrape of metal against stone as it was raised to the top of the wall, turned about so its occupant faced out to the dawn sky, there wedged fast. Those on the parapet drew back, almost as if they wanted no bodily contact with the cage.