Kirlian Quest (23 page)

"Research Astronomer Hweeh of Weew, here for treatment of shock, has identified an invasion fleet approaching—"

"Possession!" Kade screamed, his mind finally snapping under the strain. "First my wife, now my daughter. What is this curse of Kade?" He swept his hand through the phone image, breaking the connection.

Herald jumped at Kade, trying to get him away from the phone, but the man shoved him back with insane strength. "Help me, Qaval!" Herald cried. "We have to complete that call!"

Qaval shook his green head. "I may not lift arm against my captor, under terms of—"

Psyche reached out and put her free hand on her father's arm. The chain of the manacle still dangled from the other. "Rest, Father," she said. Under that intense aural compulsion, Kade leaned back against the wall. "Demon! Demon!" he muttered brokenly.

"We shall have to start over," Qaval said. "The channel cannot be restored from the center. Perhaps I can convince them we suffered a technical interruption."

But a new commotion interrupted the proceedings. There were screams from below, and the clashing of arms. Combat in the halls!

Qaval shook his head. "I feared this. We are too late."

"What's going on?" Herald demanded. Events were moving so rapidly he felt a bit dizzy.

"The castle has been breached," Qaval said. "A secret squad tunneled through the wall under the water, on the side opposite the ramp. The distraction of the cliff collapse and the elevation of the ramp enabled—"

Kade drew his sword. But suddenly wheeled soldiers, bearing the Shield of Arms of the Prince, were crowding into the room. Too many to oppose.

Kade charged. Herald, dismayed by this rashness, started to go after him—but it was already too late. Two Sador battlewheels moved onto him, and his sword-arm was sliced away in pieces. Kade fell, blood spurting from the stump.

"Father!" Psyche cried, horrified, starting forward herself. The chain of the manacle swung like a weapon.

But Qaval was there ahead of her. "Hold, troops!" he bellowed. "This is the Duke of Kade! See you not his Arms?"

They paused. A Sador commander rolled forward; it was the Earl of Dollar. "Hold!" he echoed, and the troops obeyed him.

Herald and Psyche dropped to their knees beside Kade. "We can heal him!" Herald cried. "Psyche, put your hands on his arm. Stop the blood. Concentrate your aura...."

They put their hands on him. Psyche was drenched in blood, and Herald was spattered, but neither paid heed. Their two auras worked in tandem, meshing through the body of the patient.

The blood-flow slowed—but not because of their healing. Kade's burdened Solarian heart had stopped.

Psyche's big eyes met Herald's, filled with appalled compassion. "I felt it," she said. "He—he didn't
want
to live."

The Duke of Qaval and the Earl of Dollar stood somberly before the corpse. "He was in error," Qaval said. "Yet he was a great man. A benediction on the Duke of Kade."

"A benediction," Whirl agreed.

The soldiers brought a curtain bearing the Arms of Kade, and Qaval laid it as a shroud over the body.

Now the troops gave way. A royal Sador rolled forward. It was Prince Circlet of Crown himself. "So we have captured the Possessed," he cried exultantly.

Qaval hardly deigned to face the Prince. "She is not possessed," he said. "She is a healer."

"Who just killed her father. Did she work her demon wiles on
you
, Duke?" the Prince demanded. "Do you join her in the fire?"

Qaval's body shook with the fury of an emotion Herald was certain was not fear. "I beg the Prince's indulgence," he said humbly. "As captive of Kade, I was chained to her. I believe her aura is natural; it did not hurt me. But more important, there is a Cluster threat that preempts the local question, and the girl must be saved to—"

"Remove this traitor from my sight!" Circlet snapped. "We shall deal with him anon. Bring the Possessed to the courtyard. We shall attend to this before permitting the looting."

The Duke of Qaval turned slowly to face the Prince. Qaval was unarmed, but beside him the Earl of Dollar was spinning his fighting wheel, and several soldiers bearing the Shields of Arms of Qaval were in the room. All were intent on the Duke. One signal from him, and they would turn against the Prince, for their ultimate loyalty was to their own.

Herald saw the war that raged in Qaval. On one side was his loyalty to his Prince; on the other, to his Cluster. And Herald knew what the decision had to be. Qaval was the supremely practical warrior; he did not scheme and fight for personal power, but for what he felt was right. But
for
that right, he always took the most expedient course. To obey the Prince would mean the possible loss of the entire Cluster society including Planet Kade.

Psyche put her hand on Qaval's stout arm. "Peace, Duke," she said. "Let there be no strife on my behalf."

He turned to her. "Lady, it is not merely—"

"Do not imperil your demesnes for me, good Lord of Qaval," she insisted. "I know the Cluster will be saved, if we but let fate take its course."

And Qaval, obviously against his better judgment, acceded to the will and aura of the Lady. Human soldiers of the Prince came and put new manacles on him and led him away, and the Earl of Dollar made no move.

Herald squatted by Kade's corpse as they took Psyche out. He was stunned by the suddenness of the collapse of this mighty castle, not quite comprehending what was happening. Solarian troops entered and took him by the arms, guiding him after the Prince. He went, numbly.

Behind him he heard the melodic chime of the phone. A servitor of the castle moved to answer it. Herald hardly cared.

Soldiers were breaking up the priceless antique furniture of Kastle Kade and throwing the pieces into a huge pile in the main court. A great metal framework was being assembled above this pile, its supports already buried in the fractured wood. Manacles hung from the upper bar.

Suddenly Herald comprehended. "No!" he cried, jerking away from the two who held him. They drew their weapons.

But Herald was free and moving. He dived for Prince Circlet. Qaval had not done this chore, but Herald had no such restriction. As his hand touched the Prince's wheel, Herald blasted him with his exorcism power. It should not have had any effect, but such was his concentration and determination and blind rage that it smashed into Circlet's lesser aura, almost wiping out his life.

The Prince screamed in mortal agony, then slumped on his support wheels while his vocal wheel shuddered to a stop. The soldiers and knights stood baffled, not knowing what to do. There was no visible wound on the Prince; they did not understand what Herald had done.

But Psyche understood. "No, that is not right," she said, turning. "By your leave...." And she drew her small arms from the grasp of her captors as though they were children, then walked to Prince Circlet and laid her hand on him. "Be well," she said—and Herald's deadly blast was nullified by a power greater than he commanded. The Prince recovered.

Then she went to Herald, looking up into his face as she touched him. She was painfully lovely, and her aura smote him with its incredible love, an intensity of at least 275, despite her distance from the cellar. She glowed, even in daylight. "Let no one else suffer on my account. I love you, Herald." And she left him and walked to the center of the court.

The soldiers of the Prince had no compunctions. They stripped her ruthlessly, roughly, until she was naked. They manacled her wrists to the frame, using the one already on her and the one hanging from the upper bar, so that she hung above the pile of wood. Herald, somehow blocked from action by Psyche's touch, so much more tender even than a kiss, watched with amazement and horror. How could he stand here, and let this abomination happen? Yet he was doing it!

Suddenly he saw an image, as of the Cluster Tarot, the Queen of Energy. A naked woman chained for a monster. It symbolized Andromeda, both Galaxy and mythical girl, and also Melody of Mintaka. Now it was Psyche, chained for the fire.

"Ignition!" Prince Circlet cried. The Sador's fervor had not been changed by Psyche's touch. Perhaps she had not wanted to change it, being constrained by a similar honor to that of her father and the Duke of Qaval.

The soldiers soaked the wood with lantern oil, and advanced with flaring torches. But they were cut off by one of their number, a fighting Sador noble. It was the Earl of Dollar! "You may not do this thing!" he cried.

But there were six of them and only one of him. They charged him, Solarian and Sador, overwhelming him by their number. "Healer!" Whirl cried as he was wounded. "Do you stand there idle while the Lady burns?"

Then axes struck, cutting Whirl apart. His wheels were ripped off. He was dead. And Herald... stood idle, still gripped by the stasis Psyche had put him in.

Now the torches were thrown onto the pile. The fire blazed up with lascivious vigor, licking around Psyche's bare feet. She jerked them out of the way with a whimper of pain, a faint little scream that tore at Herald's gut. Then she let them drop again, as though no longer deigning to protest against fate. "Herald, forgive them!" she cried. "They know not what they do!"

The flame roared up hungrily, its orange mass enveloping her blue body. Her golden hair caught, shriveling into a black mass.

The sight and sound of her agony broke Herald's stasis at last. He charged the fire, hauling out burning pieces of wood with his bare human hands. Suddenly he, too, was surrounded by the flame. Flame of Furnace! he thought irrelevantly. He drove in to the center until his hand struck something soft—one of her bare slender legs—and he gripped it hard and pulled. But only a handful of crackling skin came off on his fingers. She was chained, he could not draw her free; he had to break open the manacles somehow.

Then other hands were on him, hauling him out. Not hands; green claws, strong, resistant to the fire. It was Qaval, unchained. "She is dead, Herald! But
you
must live. Enough of the message got through. Segment Command called back."

That chiming phone! Could he have saved Psyche if he had gone back to answer it?

"You are summoned to Cluster HQ with Hweeh of Weew to testify about the Amoeba. And I too. And—the Lady." The Duke made an ironic grimace. "It took too long for the call to reach me, for the Prince's staff to be convinced. I came here too late. But now the Prince dare not interfere, and no doubt you shall see him brought to trial for his act in destroying a source of evidence."

As though any of that mattered! Herald had suffered himself to be drawn out of the pyre while Qaval talked. His tearing eyes saw Prince Circlet squatting on his wheels, impotent. The hell with Circlet!

He looked down at his hand, seeing the bit of burnt stuff on it. Was there a suggestion of blue, light blue, to its ash? He turned his back on the furnace, thinking of the warning of Smallbore of Metamorphic, the incalculable agony he had been foredoomed to suffer. Through space and time that torment had reached her mind, and he had not properly understood—until now.

He was in too much physical and emotional agony even to feel fury at the irony of the reprieve that had come just minutes too late to save his love. Psyche herself, in her fashion, had willed it. She had gone almost willingly into the pyre, balking all attempts to change her fate, as though she had seen some greater good. But Herald could not see it! He let the Duke of Qaval lead him away.

The looting was proceeding as they rode out on fresh steeds. The females of the castle were being taken into chambers for the service of victorious soldiers. Herald wondered briefly how Sador maidens were raped, but could not muster much interest. Most of the staff of Kastle Kade was human, anyway, and he knew how
they
were raped.

They took the ferry across to the north pier and wheeled rapidly through the forest to the west. They would proceed to the King of Crown's palace for Transfer to Cluster HQ. Hweeh would be mattermitted entire.

Herald, forgive them
—
they know not what they do.

Forgive them? He would gladly see them
all
go up in the flame they had made for Psyche. He could not even begin to assess the depth of his loss!

On they wheeled, the sun setting beautifully through the barrel trees of the forest ahead. As though any beauty mattered, compared to what had been in Psyche. The full shock had not yet settled in on him; neither Slash nor Solarian host reacted as simplistically as Weew! But in time, when the full magnitude of horror was assimilated...

As they emerged from the forest and entered the plain, there was a sound behind them. The trees shook, the ground shuddered, and a sudden wind swept past so fiercely that they had to duck down and cling to their saddles. The horses, terrified, bolted forward, doubling their prior pace.

When they had succeeded in halting the beasts, the three turned about and looked back.

A giant glowing mushroom was forming in the dusty sky. It ballooned and folded in on itself continuously, a thing of ghastly power and significance.

"That is an atomic explosion!" Hweeh exclaimed, his eye-stalk wobbling. "What of the Medieval Covenant? No explosives—"

"It is Kastle Kade," Qaval said. "There is no atomic technology on the planet and least of all
there!
And if there were, why would the victors set it off, destroying themselves?"

Herald's human jaw dropped. "I wished fire on them all!" he said. "Now it has come—and still it is not enough!"

"This cannot have been through any agency of yours," Hweeh pointed out. "There must have been a device there from some prior culture, and somehow it was set off."

"The Ancients!" Qaval exclaimed. "The source of the girl's enhancement of aura. If only we had known! Not a demon, but an Ancient site below the castle, a functioning one. She
was
possessed—by the aura of the Ancients!

"
There
is the connection!" Hweeh said. "To fight the Amoeba, we must have the power of the Ancients—and she
was
that power, via her attunement to the site. We could have had it
all
, through her!"