King's Test (65 page)

Sagan hastened
to climb the ladder leading up the curved side of the Scimitar. No
use reprimanding his men, no use telling them that an enemy had
boarded that plane with impunity, strolling right past their very
noses, strolling through their minds, leaving no trace of his
passage.

The Warlord
reached the top, discovered the hatch standing open—a bad sign.
He peered down, into the darkness. Sagan eased himself into the
gaping hole, dropped down to land soft-footed as a panther inside the
spaceplane.

Emergency lights
only were operational, bathing the interior in a warm and eerie red
glow. Life-support had been shut off. Maigrey must have routed the
majority of the computer's systems to the bomb. Sagan inserted the
bloodsword into his palm but did not activate it, crept further
inside. The air was hot and humid and difficult to breathe, smelling
of sweat and fear and the faint, iron-tinged odor of blood.

He found her
lying on the deck of the living quarters. She was. to all
appearances, dead. Her flesh was chill. His hand on her pulse
detected no beat. She was not breathing.

Sagan removed
the bloodsword, placed it back in its sheath at his belt, and knelt
down beside her. It was all a trick, a sham. She had slowed her
body's functions to almost nothing, retreated far back into the inner
recesses of her mind.

The Warlord
could almost picture Abdiel's terrible frustration The mind-seizer
knew what Maigrey was doing, knew how to bring her out of her
self-induced comatose state. But dragging her back to consciousness
would take time and, for Abdiel. the minutes to total annihilation
were ticking away.

Speaking of
minutes. "Computer," Sagan called out. "How much time
to detonation?"

The computer's
audio clicked on, speaking in a monotone, without a trace of even
mechanical life.

"I have
been programmed not to respond to any questions or commands."

"Computer,
override."

"I have
been programmed not to respond—"

"Shut up,
then!" Sagan snapped irritably.

"I have
been programmed not to respond—"

The Warlord
ignored it. Sitting back on his heels, he studied Maigrey. "Oh,
you're good, my lady. Really good," he told her. Placing his
hands on either side of her head, he joined his mind with hers.

At first it was
dark, far darker than the spaceplane, and Sagan edged his mental way
forward, moving blindly but unerringly toward his goal. He knew where
she'd fled, knew she'd run to a place where only he could follow with
ease. And if he never came to find her, it would be a place where she
could rest in eternal peace.

He entered a
chapel, an ancient building, one of the first built on the Academy's
grounds. It was night, very late in the night. He found Maigrey,
sitting in the back, hidden in the incense-scented shadows that
danced to the flickering lights of the votive candles. Sagan seated
himself beside her, saying nothing.

In the front of
the chapel was a boy—about fifteen years of age. He was well
built, strong, muscular. Black hair, uncombed, framed a brooding
face. Dark and intelligent eyes watched the flame of a candle he
himself had just lit. He appeared to have undergone some recent
mental and physical exertion; his hands were raw from rope burns, his
hair damp with sweat. He was arguing vehemently with someone.

"Who are
you talking to?"

The speaker was
a six-year-old girl. She walked up the aisle of the chapel, gazing
around it with a solemn air, yet not awed by her surroundings. Her
hair was pale and fine and floated around her face like an untidy
cloud. She was clad in a white nightgown, the fabric torn and dirty.
Her lithe body was thin and tended to run to arms and legs, elbows
and knees. Her eyes, especially at this moment, were enormous,
luminous in the light of the candle flames.

"They took
Stavros to the infirmary," she said, stumbling over the long
word. She was newly arrived, and still learning the language of the
Academy.

The brooding boy
did not answer her, refused to look at her. The girl came to stand
beside him, glanced up and down and all around the chapel with easy
familiarity.

"I guess
you were talking to God, huh, Derek?" she said. "Did you
ask Him what happened to us tonight?"

"I didn't
ask Him 'what.' I
know
what !" the boy responded
bitterly, glaring at the child with flashing black eyes. "I was
asking Him why!"

Many others at
the Academy had quailed before those eyes. The girl remained
undaunted. "You mean you asked God why He let us talk together
without saying any words? Can't everyone do that?"

"It's
called a mind-link and no, everyone can't do it," the boy
retorted. "Can you talk to that feeble brother of yours that
way?"

"I guess
not," the child conceded. "But then, I didn't ever want
to." Her eyes were on the wavering flames. "Sometimes,
though, I knew what my father was going to say before he said it. I
miss my father." Her head turned. She looked at the boy with a
new understanding, a sympathy. "Your father ..." she began,
faltering. "I'm sorry. ..."

"Shut up!"
The boy turned on her savagely. "Get away! Leave me alone!"
It seemed he might strike her.

The girl stood
her ground, her gray eyes wide and fearless and glimmering with
tears. "I know why God did this." She reached out her hand,
laid it timidly on the boy's arm. "It's because we're both
alone."

The boy tensed
at her touch, stared at the small, sun-browned hand on his strong
arm. Then he relaxed, as if something inside him had broken, given
way. He bent his head, seeking to regain control. The child removed
her hand, stood before him in respectful silence.

"You don't
have any shoes on," he said to her suddenly, his voice harsh.

The girl
shrugged. "I never wore shoes at home."

"But it's
cold here. You'll catch your death. You're shivering. Besides,
someone must be looking for you."

"Someone
was," the child said, and, reaching out, she took gentle hold of
the boy's hand.

"Maigrey,"
Sagan said quietly, "it's time to go."

She drew a
breath, another, and another. Her eyelids flickered, the long lashes
casting delicate shadows over the scarred cheek. Sitting back, he
waited with as much patience as he could muster, knowing that it
would take some time for her body and mind to reconnect.

"Maigrey,"
he said after a short while, shaking her.

Her eyes opened.
She glanced around dazedly, surprised to find herself wherever she
was, perhaps surprised to find that she was no longer in the chapel.
Awareness returned to her, and she smiled wanly.

"You
decided to come. I guessed you would. You couldn't bear to give it
up, could you, my lord?"

He slid his arm
beneath her shoulders. She sat up, too quickly. The red-washed
shadows spun around her. She closed her eyes, shutting them out,
rested wearily against his chest.

"You sent
Dion away, my lord?"

"Far away.
Can you walk?"

"Give me a
moment—"

"We don't
have a moment, lady!" the Warlord reminded her tersely.

Again, Maigrey
smiled. The Warlord helped her to her feet. She paused, to give the
plane's hull time to stop moving in and out. Then she and Sagan made
their way down into the cramped space of the small cockpit. The
crystal bomb sat on the console. Thin beams of light ran from the
computer to the bomb. It made a faint sound, as if humming softly to
itself.

The Warlord
looked inside the bomb, saw the starjewel—or what had once been
a starjewel. It had become a grotesque lump, its shape
indistinguishable, its eight sharp points clotted with dried blood.
Its aspect was hideous, filling the mind with horror and images of
tortured death. Sagan looked away from it quickly.

"How much
longer?" he demanded.

A smile twisted
the corner of Maigrey's lip, twisted the scar that now pulsed faintly
with a trace of life. She relaxed into the pilot's chair. Reaching
out, she lifted a broken silver chain lying next to the bomb, a chain
whose metal was tarnished and dark. Idly, she wrapped the chain
around her fingers.

"Oh, I
think we'll let that be a surprise."

"It will
be," the Warlord said, kneeling down beside her, his eyes
seeking to draw level with hers, "to the millions of innocents
who will die. One moment of surprise, the next moment one of sheer
terror—"

"Don't give
me that, my lord." Maigrey's lips tightened; the gray eyes
glittered. "You designed this bomb. You caused it to come into
being. What is it you tell your men? 'When you pick up a weapon and
point it at someone, you better be damn sure in your heart you can
use it.' You wouldn't have 'picked it up,' my lord, if you truly
cared about those innocents!"

But she was
nervous. She wound the chain around and around. Her fingers were
black with dried blood. The Warlord probed her mind, but he might
have walked into a dark and echoing cavern. Nothing. No fear, no
regret, no anger, no hatred. Nothing.

His hand closed
over hers. Her skin was like the marble in a crypt.

"You
altered the code word needed to shut the bomb off?" Sagan asked.
His hand left hers, moved near the bomb, near the keys with their
strange symbols gleaming brightly on top.

"Did I, my
lord?"

"You must
have. Otherwise I could stop it."

Maigrey
shrugged. "Yes, you could—
if I
didn't change it. If
I did . . . touch that first wrong button, and you
will
get a
surprise. Ah, I see you calculating the odds. It would be worth it, I
know, in the last few seconds remaining, for you to make the attempt.
But you don't know how many seconds remain. It could be five. It
could be five million. And who knows, you might be able to persuade
me to change my mind."

Sagan moved his
hand away from the bomb. It was hot in the plane, hot and stuffy. He
took off his helm, ran his fingers through the hair that was thick
and black but starting to recede slightly from his forehead, graying
around the temples. "God will not forgive you, my lady. Your
soul will be eternally damned for this."

"Look at my
starjewel, my lord, and tell me that my soul isnt already damned."
Her gaze, sad and shadowed, went to the crystal bomb. "I wanted
it. I wanted it for my own. When I realized I had the means to
acquire it, back there on
Phoenix,
I threw away everything for
the chance. I deserted Dion, my king I left John Dixter to die alone.

"Ambition!"
Maigrey's fist clenched. "The taint in the Blood Royal. Ambition
was what truly led to our downfall, the lust for power that was like
the sun in our eyes, dazzling, blinding. The downfall of the
Guardians. The last of the Guardians." She sighed. Her
bloodstained fingers were entangled in the chain.

Sagan glared at
her, frustrated, unable to touch any part of her. He wanted to
throttle her. If he couldn't choke the information from her, then at
least he would avenge his own impending demise. His hands twitched
with the frustrated desire.

But it's
difficult to kill someone already dead. Sagan knew then how Abdiel
must have felt.

The Warlord
threw himself into the co-pilot's seat. God, he was tired! Far too
tired. Leaning back, he flexed his shoulders, tried to ease the knots
cramping his muscles. If he couldn't figure out some way to stop the
detonation, he would be resting comfortably very soon. A very long
rest.
Requiem aetemam.

"Did you
know, my lord," Maigrey continued, speaking softly,
abstractedly, "that when I knew you were coming to find me on
Oha-Lau, when I knew the mind-link had been reforged, I planned to
kill myself. Did you know that?"

"Yes,"
he answered.

"My
brother's spirit came to me and convinced me to live. Live for Dion.
And I did live. But Dion wasn't the reason. I could see, through your
mind linked with mine, the fleet of ships, the wealth of planets, the
power.
That
was why I lived!" Maigrey looked at the chain
binding her bloodstained fingers together. "And you threaten me
with eternal damnation!"

She fell silent.
The Warlord said nothing. What was there to say, except acknowledge
the truth? Minutes passed in silence, counted by each indrawn breath,
each heartbeat, each involuntary blink of the eye that might be the
last. He could picture the explosion, a white tongue of fire licking
out from the crystal. His brain would have one split second to react,
one horrible, awful moment of involuntary fear. Then his body
consumed completely, nothing left. . . .

"For one
moment," Maigrey said, "we will shine brightly as a star."

She lifted her
head suddenly, glanced around as if she'd heard a noise. Sagan had
the startling impression that she was waiting for something ... or
someone. He thought, then, that he'd heard a sound. He turned, looked
up into the cabin, straining to hear.

Nothing. Only
the pulse of his own life, beating inside him. And, above that—the
faint, buzzing hum.

"Perhaps I
didn't send the boy away, my lady." He hazarded the throw. The
minutes were ticking by.

"You did,
my lord. I know. Don't lie to me. I see it in your mind."

"But he'll
be alone now, Maigrey. With no one to advise him."

"Better for
him," she whispered. Her hands twisted the jewel's
blood-encrusted chain, pulled it tighter. "Better for him.
Without any of us to influence him, the taint in his blood will
dwindle, be diluted. Perhaps he'll overcome it—"

"How can
I?" The youthful voice was cold, bitter, angry. The sound of
feet came on the deck above them. "How can I now? After what
you've done to me?"