King's Test (62 page)

He heard someone
moving through the jungle and knew by the voice it was the man the
Starlady called Abdiel. The voice had a brittle quality to it. Marcus
guessed the man must be old. Perhaps I won't need a weapon, he
thought. My bare hands . . .

But then Marcus
heard another set of footfalls, coming—by the sound of
it—behind those of the old man. Probably the disciple the old
man had mentioned, the one who had killed the Adonian.

Light flared,
harsh and white—a nuke lamp. Marcus froze, holding his breath.
The beam played over him, flicked past him. leaving him in shadow.
The footfalls moved on. Cautiously. the centurion opened his eyes,
saw an old man clad in magenta robes. His disciple, armed with a
lasgun, walked behind, guarding the old man's back.

The disciple
would hear Marcus move. The lasgun—at that range—could
blow his head off. It wouldn't help the lady to be killed in her
defense, he realized. I have to live ... at least a little while
longer.

Abdiel held the
nuke lamp up, shining it on Maigrey. She was like an animal,
hypnotized by the light, unable to flee the death that approached.
The mind-seizer reached out to her.

Stealthily,
Marcus's right hand slid forward, fingertips touching the hilt of the
bloodsword. Moving swiftly, silently, he edged it back toward him
until he could get a firm grip on it. The centurion hesitated only a
moment, long enough to whisper a prayer to the God of his Warlord.
Then he jabbed the five needles into his palm.

Searing fire
flared through his nerves, tongues of flame licked at his skull, his
heart lurched wildly in his chest. Marcus nearly died in that
instant. It took every ounce of strength and courage he possessed,
adding to it some he didn't know he had, to keep from screaming out
in the agony.

But he didn't
die. He felt, through the awful pain, the tinglings of energy, saw
the sword begin to glow with a weak and feeble radiance. The pain, he
realized, was caused by the virus connecting his body with the
bloodsword, joining them together, making them one. It had worked!
The bloodsword was his to command!

Drawing on the
mental discipline his lord had taught him, Marcus used the pain, used
it to operate the sword in his hand. The blade flared more brightly.
He didn't have much time; the sword's light would be noticed.

Rising, hurling
himself forward in the same motion, Marcus swung the sword in a
slashing arc, bringing it down on the disciple's hand, the hand
holding the lasgun, severing the hand from the body. Mikael did not
cry out, but turned toward his attacker, stared at him. The
disciple's eyes registered nothing, neither pain nor shock nor fear.
Marcus's return stroke slashed Mikael's head from his neck. The head
crashed to the floor, the eyes unchanged, looking in death very much
as they had in life.

The centurion
whirled to face the old man, raised the sword to hack the feeble,
bent, and misshapen body in half Marcus halted, stroke arrested. He
was disconcerted to see Abdiel regarding him with almost amused
interest, a pleasant smile playing about the cracked lips. The
mind-seizer raised his right hand and the centurion found, suddenly,
that his arm wouldn't move at his command. But the arm would move, it
seemed, for Abdiel.

Marcus watched,
shocked, terrified, seeing and feeling his own arm come under the
command of someone else. The centurion's right arm, carrying the
bloodsword in its hand, offered that sword to Abdiel.

"How very
brave. And how very foolish." Abdiel plucked the sword's needles
easily from Marcus's bleeding palm, with as much nonchalance as if
the guard had been offering him a flower, and tucked the weapon into
his belt. "Your use of the bloodsword, centurion, linked your
mind to mine, much as the lady and I will be linked now."

Abdiel opened
wide his left hand. Marcus saw needles flash in the harsh, white
light, needles protruding from the flesh of the old man's palm. The
Starlady was staring at the old man as if bound in a riveting trance.
Her body trembled. The old man caught hold of her hand. His touch
jolted her to action. She fought back, flying into a violent,
frenzied struggle to escape him. He gripped her tightly, thrust the
needles in his palm deep into her hand.

Maigrey moaned,
sank to the floor on her knees, her hand still held fast in the old
man's grasp. Abdiel stroked her head as it rested against his thigh.

"There,
there, my dear," he said, soothing her.

Then, whispering
to her softly, he coaxed her to her feet. Whimpering, she clung to
him. As a parent assists a sick and feeble child, the old man placed
a gentle arm around her waist, led the stumbling woman toward the
door.

Marcus was
helpless to act, unable to move.

The door opened.
Abdiel, turning, flashed the lamp into the centurion's eyes. "You
are a dead man," he said, and released Marcus from his mental
grip. Holding on to the Starlady, Abdiel walked through the door and
out into the dark and deserted hallway beyond.

Marcus slumped
to the floor, like a puppet whose strings are cut. A feverish chill
shook his body, a throbbing ache pounded in his head—first
symptoms of the disease that would shortly and inevitably kill him.

Things fall
apart . . .

William Butler
Yeats, "
The Second Coming
"

Dion stared in
disbelief at a smoking hole burned through the left side of his vest.
The cumulator was shattered. The laser beam had struck it, blown it
up. Dion's stunned gaze traveled from the destroyed cumulator to the
gun in his hand and from there to a hole blown in the wall to the
left of the Warlord. A black streak of carbon scoring along the cheek
of Sagan's helm indicated how close the deadly, needle-thin beam had
come to him . . . and how far.

"What
happened?" Dion asked dazedly. Then he began to shake.

He must, Sagan
realized, have answered his own question.

"Abdiel
happened," the Warlord said, rising from his kneeling stance.
Reaching out his hand, he removed the gun from the boy's nerveless
grasp, examined it with interest. "A Judas gun. I haven't seen
one of these in many years. It fires both directions, front
and
back, betraying its master."

"You—you
knew!" Dion stammered, teeth clicking together. The pain of his
wound had hit him now, shriveling his stomach. The stench of burned
flesh—of his own burned flesh—made him sick.

"I didn't
know, but I suspected as much. The Blood Royal occasionally used such
killing devices on each other."

"Why didn't
you tell me?" Dion put his hand over the wound in a vain attempt
to stanch the bleeding. The metal of the cumulator had been driven
into his flesh; the crystal had exploded, piercing his skin with
tiny, razor-sharp shards.

"Would you
have believed me? You had to find out for yourself."

"You risked
your life—and mine—so that I could prove to myself what a
fool I've been!" Dion said bitterly.

"It wasn't
much of a risk," Sagan remarked dryly.

"Why?"
Dion flared. "Because you didn't think I had the guts to do it?"

"Let's just
say, my liege, that it was well God turned your hand or we both would
be dead right now."

"God didn't
turn my hand!" Dion spoke through teeth clenched against a
welling nausea. His body trembled, but not with the pain. It was the
intensity of his emotion. "7 turned my hand! I missed
deliberately! I
let
you live!"

"Indeed, my
liege. And why?"

Dion
straightened, lifted his head, willed himself to stand firm. "Because
I can use you. Because I intend to use you. Because you're no good to
me dead!"

Sagan eyed the
boy silently for a moment. Then the Warlord's lips parted in a rare,
dark smile. "I begin to think I've underestimated you, Your
Majesty. You may make a king yet!" He held the gun out to the
young man. "But you're still a long way from your throne. Next
time you use one of these, check the coating on the back. You should
find a thick, protective metallic substance. If the coating flakes
off with your thumb, like this"—he demonstrated, sending
chips of white paint floating to the floor—"then you will
feel far more than a 'warm sensation' against your skin when you fire
it."

Dion accepted
the gun in silence. Tossing it to the floor, he stomped on it,
crushed it beneath the heel of his boot.

"What a
fool!" he said to himself, tears stinging his eyes. "What a
fool!"

"Are you in
much pain?" Sagan asked.

"No,"
Dion lied, swiftly and ashamedly wiping his hands across his eyes.
His face was white, his skin cold and clammy to the touch. His
breathing was shallow, irregular.

"Good. If
you had been," the Warlord continued with a slight half-smile,
"I would have suggested you use whatever mental powers Abdiel
taught you to block it. I need your help—"

"Maigrey!"
Dion remembered. "You said she was danger! What— Is—"

"I don't
know." Sagan crossed the room, heading for the exit. "You
forced me to expend my concentration on you. And now I can't sense
her, contact her. I—" Flinging open the door, barreling
through it, he nearly ran down a man attempting to enter.

"Marcus!"

The centurion
staggered, collapsed. Sagan caught him. "What is it, Marcus?
What's happened?"

The centurion's
hands gripped his lord, hanging on to him tightly, determined not to
fall. Sagan, supporting his weakening soldier, felt something wet on
his arm. Looking down, he saw a thin trickle of red coming from the
centurion's right hand. The Warlord turned Marcus's palm to the
light. Five fresh needle marks oozed blood.

The Warlord
understood. "God help us," he prayed silently. "God
help her!"

The Lord Abbot
of the Order of Dark Lightning spirited his captive through the
Adonian's crowded house with swiftness and ease. No one saw them,
though they passed many people so close that the old man's magenta
robes brushed their skin. People saw Abdiel only when he wanted them
to see Abdiel.

Dark
Lightning—thus the mind-seizers had named their Order. A
sizzling bolt flashing from one mind to another, unseen, unheard,
illuminating, devastating. The dark lightning had struck Maigrey,
struck her down, seemingly, left nothing in her mind except ashes.
She accompanied Abdiel meekly, going where he led her, doing what he
told her.

The mind-seizer
was surprised at the woman's docile behavior, though every few
moments, he injected her with terrors drawn from her own inner being.
She was reacting exactly the way he'd hoped she would react. And that
made him suspicious. Abdiel didn't trust her. He knew there was a
part of her he could never control. He would have preferred a
struggle, some small resistance that he could overcome with the pain
he knew so well how to inflict, rather than her numb lassitude.

Seated inside
the tram car, hurtling toward the front gate, Abdiel studied his
victim. The two were no longer bonded; he had removed the needles. He
was deep inside her, his poison working. Her face in the bright light
of the tram was fixed, immobile, without expression. The gray eyes
were like the eyes of the mind-seizer's own mind-dead disciples.

But she isn't,
Abdiel said to himself, watching her distrustfully. She's retreated.
Hiding in there somewhere. Or perhaps . . . He sat back, paused to
consider. Perhaps not. Perhaps the Guardian's light has died.
Perhaps, inside, she's as dark as her starjewel. Let's see.

"My dear,"
Abdiel said aloud. "I want the Star of the Guardians. Hand it to
me."

No emotion on
her face, but her right hand trembled.

The mind-seizer
knew where and how to hurt her. Leaning forward, he jabbed a mental
knife into her subconscious, saw her eyes widen, her breath come
quick, reacting to a horror only she could see. Her right hand moved
to her breast, to the place where Abdiel had seen her secrete the
starjewel after she had retrieved it from the corpse of the Adonian.
The hand shook, went rigid, then fell suddenly to her lap. Her eyes
closed: sweat trickled down her face.

So, she isn't
quite dead yet, the mind-seizer realized, feeling almost relieved.
But she is close. A few more pricks and jabs, and she will hand over
her starjewel, hand over her life without hesitation.

The tram car
brought them to the front gate of the late Snaga Ohme's estate.
Abdiel was now faced with a problem. Mikael was dead. The mind-seizer
had no one to pilot his 'copter and he couldn't do it himself. His
problem was solved, however, relief coming from an unexpected source.
Abdiel discovered an entire contingent of soldiers from Fort Laskar
digging in, taking up positions around the Adonian's house.

"Sagan, how
thoughtful!" the mind-seizer murmured, and commandeered a
'copter pilot's brain and body on the spot.

They arrived at
the base without incident. The mind-seizer dismissed the 'copter
pilot, who, when he came to, had no idea where he was or how he got
there. Escorting his prisoner, Abdiel slid through the centurions
surrounding the space-plane. Their minds enthralled, the Honor Guard
noticed the mind-seizer and his captive no more than they noticed the
wind or the darkness of the long night.

Abdiel was
shivering, both with the chill—though the Laskarian night was
exceptionally warm—and excitement. He sent Maigrey up the
ladder to the spaceplane's hatch, followed her more slowly,
encumbered in his robes, his frail body unused to the inordinate
amount of physical exertion he'd expended this evening. He commanded
her to wait, to assist him.

She waited,
helped him down into the plane's interior with the gentleness and
respect a daughter might have shown a beloved father.