The Nonborn King (38 page)

The thing entered tempted came closer inadvertently revealed a glimpse of itself 0 God see the pathetic betrayal of the poor infant girl by her wretched parents Had it made her incapable of responding to any parent figure?

"You love me?" Incredulity the fury held in abeyance

"I had no children of my own, but I loved many of them And healed them. and taught them It was my life in the Milieu "

"But none of them were as bad as me "

"None needed me as much as you do, Felice "

The girl was sitting in the other chair, leaning toward the figure in the red jumpsuit with the hidden face It was only Elizabeth! She who had been kind back at the auberge, convincing the officials to relinquish chaining her to the chair after the attack on Counselor Shonkwiler. Elizabeth who had bungled the elk-hunting, then showed such gratitude when Felice took over the distasteful skinning and gutting task. Elizabeth who had been so sad about losing her husband- Who had learned to pilot a balloon so that she couid fly free and at peace in the Pliocene... only to give up that freedom and peace so that Felice might escape Culluket.

"I believe you," said a small voice. The monster receded into the far distance

Elizabeth lowered her hands, straightened, smited. "Shall I tell you how it would be done?"

Felice nodded. Her cloud of platinum hair was electric with excitement.

"First, we'll need to work in a safe place, where the discharges from your mind won't be a danger to others. Have you ever heard of Brede's room without doors?"

Felice shook her head.

"It's a mechanical mind-screening device of great power. Brede used it as a refuge, when the pressure from other mentalities became too great to bear. When she was within it, she could see out by means of her farsight, but no other mind could reach her. Brede let me share this refuge for a time Before she died in the Flood, she gave the device to my friends so that I might have it here. The room without doors isn't a prison. Those inside can leave it at will. But if I am to undertake your healing, you must agree to slay inside the room with me for the duration of the treatment. Perhaps several weeks."

"I agree."

'There is another condition. Now that I know how strong you really are, I would like to use helpers in certain phases of your healing. I'm not as strong as I was in the Milieu. You remember that I had lost my metapsychic powers and only regained them with the shock of passing through the time-gate."

"I remember. Who would be the helpers?"

"Creyn and Dionket."

The girl frowned. "Creyn is all right. I'm not afraid of him. But the Lord Healer.. .he's stronger than my Culluket, and yet he didn't stop the torture. He was too cowardly. And now he hides away in the Pyrenees with Mmanonn and the stupid Peace Faction most of the time, instead of helping his people fight the Firvulag. I think that's despicable!"

"You don't understand Dionket. Nevertheless, you must accept my need of his assistance."

"How would you use the two exotics? They could never hold me, you know "

"Not using their own powers. But I would program a number of specialized mental restraints that they would operate while I was occupied with more complex healing functions. Think of a surgeon going deep into the body, using retractors and hemozaps and other devices to allow a clear field of work. Dionket and Creyn will free me from having constantly to monitor your defense mechanisms while I perform the catharsis."

Felice was silent. The great brown eyes were abstracted, seeming to watch a fire-backed eagle that wheeled slowly in the cloudless May sky. At last she said, "And when it was all finished, would I be goodT

"You'd be sane, child. Only God knows the other "

The monster peered out, mocking Elizabeth. "Amerie couldn't prove to me that there was a God. Or if there was, that he cared about us. Can you prove it?"

"There are rational proofs for a First Cause and an Omega. for the Father and Son. Empirical proofs for the Love that we call the Holy Spirit. But I never knew a single being who attained faith through the proofs. Mostly, they seem to be used after the fact of conversion... as reassurances."

"To plaster over your doubts, you mean!"

"To shore up our weakness. But the need has to come first, I think. That seems to be the only real proof- The need for love."

"Amerie said something like that to me once I wanted to believe in a God then. I needed his-help. Perhaps he existed then, for me Now he doesn't. There is no God and there are no devils and you are nothing but a dream of mine! There! Now you know what I think."

"Felice, "

"Does it make a difference? that I don't believe any of you exist? Can you still heal me?"

"I'm confident that I can."

The monster's grin bloomed like a poisonous flower. "I wonder if your God would approve of your great confidence! If you bite off more than you can chew. you'll pay the price. And a lot of other people might, too."

Elizabeth stood up, her mind still open. "Make your choice now, Felice. Agree to the healing, or leave and never come back."

The diabolical smile faded. There came the old fear, and the still older need that had never been fulfilled. Poor tormented infant, accepting hurt in place of love, filth as substitute beauty, death's oblivion rather than agonized life.

"Well?" said Elizabeth.

"I'll stay with you," the girl whispered.

Her wall tumbled down. A naked thing looked.at Elizabeth and waited SOMETIMES, AlKEN DECIDED, BEING A KING WAS A CROCK OF

shit.

He was wide-awake at three in the morning, glumly watching Ihe lawny owls chase mice around the ramparts and balconies of the Castle of Glass. The house lights were off. He'd had to decree a blackout once a week in order to give the feathered hunters a clear field in their war on the rodents, who throve as a result of his courtiers' penchant for alfresco dining.

It had been a frustrating day- Celadeyr of Afaliah had taken great exception to Aiken's master plan for the raid on Felice's lair. He objected to having to supply all the chalikos for the campaign, and he wanted the rendezvous to be in his own city rather than at the Gulf of Guadalquivir. He had given in with very bad grace when Aiken asserted his royal authority.

Then Yosh Walanabe told him that the new shipment of bamboo was hopeless for fighting-kite bones. The stuff was too weak for use in the big man-carrying o-dako, and too brittle for the smaller rokkaku. It was back to the drawing board (and the swamp) if they hoped to have a kite-fighting event in the Grand Toumey this fallThen came news that the damn barenecks had mutinied in the main candy factory down in Rocilan. Aiken sent Alberonn to check it out and it was discovered that a cadre of Aiken's jumped-up gold-torcs (the ones without any significant latencies) had been running a scam, forcing production to unnaturally high levels by overworking the bares and ramas, then selling surplus goodies on the Lowlife black market The golds had been promptly snuffed and the hamed workers given a revised quota But Alken brooded over how much more ripping off his dubious recruits might be into, and he finally decided to recall the entire elite guard back to Goriah where he could keep it under his coercive thumb, rather than spreading it out It would leave some city garrisons dangerously undermanned, but that would happen anyway once he got the Spanish campaign off the ground

Then there was Bardelask The Famorel Little People were closing in, polishing off the outlying Valentmois plantations one by one Lady Armida was ninnmg scared (with good rea son), demanding that the sovereign lead a relief force to put the fear of Tana into old Mimee and his gang

Alken couldn't do it, of course. Not with all his big guns mobilizing for the move into Koneyn Poor Bardelask was expendable, even though he didn't dare admit it to Armida The principal strategic objective was the photomc Spear and the cache of golden torcs that Felice had squirreled away Any day now, Elizabeth would wind up her redact job and turn the monster loose (Alken's spy m Black Crag estimated that the brain overhaul would take another two weeks, but who could risk it?) He had to raid the treasure-cave before Felice emerged from the room without doors and then, following Culluket's plan, ambush her before she added it ail up

Then a newly arrived Lowlife from the Vosges region re ported that some kind of Free Human expedition was in the offing There were also rumors that the outlaws would soon have other weapons besides the iron

And Sullivan-Tonn "respectfully requested" that he and Olone be allowed to move to Afaliah, and Olone defied her husband right to his face, calling him a jealous old cheese-pecker all the while giving Alken the eye (The request was taken under advisement )

As a result of all the demands made on him during the day, Alken had been late to supper The roast swan dried out and the souffle fell.

And for the fifth night in a row. Mercy had merely submitted, unaroused, and blamed it on "fey influences" abroad in the May night

This last, unaccountably, had troubled Alken most of all He himself had felt the presence of some uncanny mental substratum, but inexperienced as he was in the nuances of farsensing, he could not even confirm its existence, much less identify it or trace its source He had appealed to Culluket, but the Interrogator detected nothing Whatever the emanation was, it seemed closely directed along the uniquely human mode

After Mercy fell asleep, when he was coldly alert and unsexed, he finally worked up the nerve to check out one of his most insidious suspicions that she herself was the source of the metapsychic disturbance While she lay there among the satin sheets, he carefully fashioned a soft mind-probe, supposedly mdetectable, that could be merged with his great coercive faculty and used to winkle out secrets The Interrogator had been training him in its operation over the past several months, and he had used it successfully on other humans, notably the potentially traitorous Sullivan But Alken had never yet dared to use it on his wife Redaction was his shakiest power, and if she caught him

In her sleep. Mercy smiled A pang of fury shot through him It had to be' There was no other explanation No other way to explain why she was no longer afraid of him, and thus, no longer responsive

The probe had slid easily into her, oblique and wheedling "Are you happy Mercy my love"

So happy.

And why are you happy ?

I have my child and I have my sweet acushia.

And who is he?

Who else but my own true lover''

(But no image, damn her') Look upon your lover dear Mercv and tell me what you see

I see the new sun rising beyond the inland sea

(Sun!) Do you hear his voice?

I hear it now

(But she could be talking about Me!) What is his name Mercy my love?

His name is Joy. Brightness Culmination

Where is he woman where is he WHO is he?

Oh. . oh... halfway betwixt Var-Mesk and hell alas don't go Love don't nsk the Monster wait for me to help wait - Jesus'

He whisked his coercive effort from her cortex to the stem reticulum until her frenzied movements calmed and her breath became stow and regular and there was no risk that she might awaken. But something at her deepest mental level was now aware. It had not recognized him as the intruder, but it knew that there was danger. Alken waited, but the crystal of cognizance continued to glow. Finally he had to withdraw with the utmost caution. He waited awhile, then climbed out of bed, put on a robe, and retired to the balcony to think.

Every one of those replies Mercy had given could be applied to himself, as well as to the other. Only the fleeting reference to Var-Mesk was puzzling (Unless you classed the entire bloody Q&A as an enigmatic totality ) Mind-probes' What a rotten, cowardly thing to do, grubbing around inside the brain of the woman he loved, looking for an excuse to set her up.

Yes, set her up.

Yes, the woman he loved.

"Never again," he vowed. "No matter what I suspect about her. If it's true after all, and he's back. I'll find out soon enough. But not by probing Mercy."

He stood at the parapet watching the owls and listening to the surf from the Strait of Redon lash the distant seawall. How true it was: Being a king could be hell.

He went switch-off, stopped thinking, let his racing mind go flaccid inside the snug screens of his own weaving and the artificial mental shield of the psychoelectronic device he now wore constantly. Downhearted, tinged with vagrant dread, he floated..

And heard it.

A farspoken voice, faint but distinct on his intimate mode in spite of the stacked barricade.

Aiken Drum. Greetings at last You've been a hard nut to crack, you know Don't be afraid We've been trying to bespeak you for nearly a week now, with a good deal of untidy slop-over on the European end unfortunately. It must have been very uncomfortable for those around you

"Who the fuck is that?" Aiken whispered

Laughter. Easy, lad, easy Trace the thought-beam. Can you do that? Right. Way to hetl and gone across the Atlantic. Nowhere near you or your Many-Colored Kingdom. Only me speaking to you now. not the others. And no threat to you. Just the opposite, actually.

"Identify yourself," he said between gritted teeth, straining to penetrate the dark distance, "or I'll phase in the sigma!"

You have one of those available? Interesting But I'd still get through. Your own metapsychic wall is much more formidable than any contrivance, you know. Very effective, for an uncoadunate amateur- That's why we had such difficulty reaching you in the first place. But it never would have done for us to hail you on the ordinary declamatory mode What we have to discuss is for your mind alone.

"Show yourself, dammit!"

Very well An image: massive, shining and metallic, roughly humanoid in shape, artifact of high technology- Space armor? Radiation shielding? Extremity life-support equipment? Superimposed was the man's face, ruggedly handsome; cleft chin and wide mouth. sunken eyes with winged brows, fine aquiline nose, curly hair going gray. He said:

W&T1 help you get the Spear and the cache of golden torcs "The hell you say!" Aiken's heart soared at the same time that he was frozen with alarm. Who was he? "You mean, you know the exact location of Felice's hideout in the Belies?"