“Son,” Kip said, looking squarely up at the tall, white-haired man standing before him. “You’ve lied to yourself all these years. Think, lad. Think back.”
Targ blinked through the tears spilling over his eyes. “You said, ‘Give me the map.’ I gave it to you. Then you bargained with the Marren-kan … He took you away …”
“No, lad,” Kip said. “That’s a lie. That’s a lie you’ve been telling again and again since your mother’s ships came and rescued you from that terrible place. Think, lad, think …”
Suddenly, off to Griffiths’s left, a youth appeared in the chamber. He was speaking to a younger version of Kip-lei Targ. Beyond them stood several hideous creatures that Griffiths took to be the dreaded Gorgons he had heard so much about. “Father, no! There’s got to be something we can do …”
“The crew is dead already, son—dead if they’re lucky. Gorgons are really amazing healers, lad. They know more about medicine than any human I’ve ever met does …”
Targ turned around, horror and pain in his face as the scene—all too real—played out around them. The young vision of Kip-lei continued. “… They took Old Phin’s breath just before they found me. I was their last man until we discovered you about. I’d barter for our lives, boy, but there’s nothing I can offer …”
“Wait! Yes, there is! I found a map!”
“What, lad?”
“I found a map—a Lost Empire map. It shows the passage to the core.”
“Give it to me, lad! Quick! I’ve the devil to deal with!” The boy quickly pulled the folded map from his case and showed it to his father. Kip winked at his son. “Don’t you be showing that to anyone, boy. It’s our ticket home.” Kip pushed the map back into the case. Standing, he then turned toward the Gorgon. “Captain, would you be interested in a proposition?”
“The only proposition I’ll have of you now is the squeal of your own blood in your throat!” Marren-kan spit the words, drawing his twin sabers from both scabbards and thundering toward the human, his tail flailing in anticipation. “You’ve declared your last man. It’s time to put an end to your thieving words!”
The sabers crossed each other, advancing on Kip’s neck.
“Not even for the treasure of Lokan?” the young L’Zari suddenly yelled, panicked. “Not even for the passage to the Nightsword?”
The Gorgon stopped. L’Zari waited. He could hear the faint cold sound of steel rubbing against steel.
“Your deal?” the towering pirate intoned, speaking to the lad.
The razor edges of both swords hovered only centimeters away from Kip’s neck. “No, lad! Don’t do it!”
“No!” the elder Targ cried out from across the chamber. “Don’t do it!”
“This man’s life for the passage to untold wealth and power,” the young L’Zari said. “His life for the secrets of the core.”
The steel slid backward slightly, away from the old spacer’s throat. “No! I want to taste his blood … And just where are these secrets kept?”
“Here,” the young L’Zari said, frantically searching for the pouch. “Here … here’s the map! You can have it! Now, please, let my father go!”
The Gorgon laughed. It was a hideous sound: deep and rumbling yet spiced with the squeal of nails on slate. In moments the huge beast was nearly in hysterics, his weapons lowered casually to his side while his third arm reached out and grasped Kip’s shoulder, seemingly for support.
“You’ll give me the map to the greatest treasure of all time in exchange for this worthless human’s life?” the Gorgon brayed. “That is the full extent of your bargaining?”
The young L’Zari smiled hopefully. “Yes.”
“Fool!” laughed Marren-kan.
The Gorgon chief suddenly thrust upward with his swords, holding his target still with his third hand. Both blades passed straight through the old spacer’s body under the rib cage. The strength of the blow carried the sabers cleanly through up to the hilts, the blades themselves undeterred by the bones and spine they passed through. The movement continued upward, the Gorgon’s laugh turning suddenly into a horrendous battle cry of rage. Kip’s body, his face frozen in a mixture of surprise, pain, and horror, was lifted clear of the ground, impaled on the blades.
The young L’Zari screamed and rushed forward but the second Gorgon was too quick. A single blow brought a merciful blackness crashing down on his conscious mind.
The scene suddenly vanished with a cry from Targ. Griffiths turned around to see the Prime on his knees, weeping uncontrollably.
Kip stepped forward, passing where Griffiths and Merinda lay, and resting his hand on Targ’s shoulder. “Now, stop that, lad! It weren’t your fault!”
“It was my fault,” Targ said haltingly. “I shouldn’t have tried to bargain with him. I should have trusted you.”
“It were no good, boy. He was set on killing me anyway. It would have made no difference,” Kip said. “It were good of you to try, lad. No one else ever tried to save my life the way you did.”
Targ, his eyes bleary and red, stood up, nearly a head taller than the man before him. “Father?”
“Aye, lad?” The old man looked up into Targ’s face.
“I’ve found it for you,” Targ said through his tears, holding out the Nightsword. “I’ve found the treasure.”
“Aye, that you did, lad,” the old man said with a smile. “And right proud of you it is that I am of that. You’re a good lad, L’Zari.”
Kip opened his arms to his son.
Targ smiled, tears streaming down his cheeks. Reaching out, he folded his arms around his father. They embraced warmly.
There was a puff of suddenly crystallizing gas.
Griffiths pulled Merinda back instinctively.
The point of a blade rammed its way out through the old man’s back. Targ, still embracing his father, arched backward in pain and surprise.
The Nightsword spun out of Targ’s hand.
In that instant, the chamber reverted once more to Lokan’s throne room. The pillars rematerialized, Lokan’s body returned. Gravity evaporated as Griffiths and Merinda, both still partially paralyzed, drifted up from the floor.
Kip’s body collapsed into bones and dust under Targ’s embrace. The Prime floated suddenly free of the floor, the soles of his vac suit lifted by the force of the blow from behind. As Targ’s body drifted higher and higher, impaled on the sword, Griffiths could see at last the source of the attack.
There, behind Targ, floated Captain Evon Flynn with both hands still upon his cutlass’s hilt.
The Nightsword turned slowly end over end away from Targ.
“Griffiths,” Merinda yelled as she and Griffiths drifted away from the floor. “Get the Nightsword!”
“I can’t reach it,” Griffiths replied in frustration. “It’s passing us!”
“Use the belt!”
“What?”
“Your levitation belt,” Merinda said desperately.
Damn, he thought, why didn’t I remember that earlier instead of crawling across the floor! He reached down and pulled the control globes from the buckle. He oriented himself quickly, thrust quickly toward the leisurely turning sword …
… and ran directly into the chest plate of Kheoghi the minotaur. The brutish pirate arrested Griffiths at once and held him above him.
Kheoghi held the Nightsword pointing directly at Griffiths’s throat.
“You’ll be releasing them thar control globes at once, mate,” the minotaur growled, “else I’ll be forced to pop your pretty bubble.”
Griffiths let go of the levitation control globes. They drifted off into the chamber as the power in the belt stopped. Kheoghi pulled Griffiths around, holding him in front of him tightly with the Nightsword fixed across the throat of his vac suit bubble.
Flynn still held the hilt of his sword, now buried up to the guard in Targ’s back. Targ struggled but Flynn held the sword firmly, adding his own twists to the hilt from time to time.
&
nbsp; “Die, Targ, you bastard!” Flynn yelled. “Now it’s my time! Here’s the balance on the ledger, Targ!”
The vac suit suspended above Flynn struggled a few moments more and then stopped moving. At last, Flynn released the cutlass hilt, setting the body of Targ to drift with the blade still passing through him, the vac suit sealed to the metal of the blade. Griffiths could see brilliant red liquid beginning to stain the interior of the Targ’s vac suit helmet.
Griffiths looked away.
“Oh, poor spacer,” Flynn mocked. “A bit too squeamish for the work, are we now, Master Griffiths?”
“It’s not in my line,” Griffiths replied.
“No, I suppose not,” Flynn sniffed. “But I’ve seen worse things done by this same man in the name of honor and justice. He’s dead. I’m not. I have the prize and he does not. That’s all that matters in the end.”
Vac-suited snake-women drifted toward Flynn, holding Merinda between them.
“They’ll hunt you,” Merinda said. “They’ll hunt you and they’ll find you. There isn’t a government among the stars that the Omnet won’t either buy or coerce into giving you over.”
“Only if they find out,” Flynn smiled. “Which, unfortunately, means that there’s only going to be one side of this story told—my side.”
“So we die?” Griffiths said.
“No,” Merinda said suddenly.
“Really?” Flynn said with feigned astonishment. “And what ever makes you think so?”
“Because Kheoghi wouldn’t put up with it,” Merinda said calmly. “Griffiths signed the Articles. He’s a member of your own crew.”
“A traitorous one,” Flynn pointed out.
“Perhaps,” Merinda agreed. “But a member nevertheless. What do your Articles say about that, Quartermaster Kheoghi?”
“They be clear indeed,” Kheoghi intoned. “Traitors from our company be given access to a cutlass, sundry items for survival, and then marooned on a deserted place beyond the reach of aid.”
“Marooned? Here?” Griffiths was incredulous.
“One could hardly think of a more deserted place than this,” Flynn replied. “I may be a liar and a thief, Griffiths, but I’m not entirely devoid of feelings. Merinda’s right: I couldn’t possibly kill you—against the code of our Articles which you signed, oh fellow pirate. As to Merinda,” Flynn turned to her and smiled warmly. “Well, let’s just say that I owe her her life. We’ve been through much together. It’s said that dead men don’t pinch but I rather think that marooned ones don’t either—especially when they’re marooned in a place that no one has ever been able to reach before.”
“What are you going to do, Flynn?” Merinda said in tones devoid of feeling.
“Why, it’s already been done,” Flynn grinned. “Quartermaster Kheoghi has already rendered the ship you came in useless and sent it drifting off into the void. I’ve taken the same precautions with old Marren-kan’s ship, so I’m afraid she’s lost to you as well. Of course, you might try using one of the local ships, but it seems there is some local phenomenon that drained the energy out of these hulks long ago. I’m afraid they’re better used as tombs than as transports these days.”
Flynn glanced upward at the slowly twisting form of Targ. “It’s too bad, really. The man just wouldn’t listen to a deal.”
“The wraith fleet will be waiting for you,” Merinda said. “Do you really think you can cut a deal with them?”
“You don’t get it, Merinda,” Flynn smiled. “I already have. Kheoghi! Hand me the Nightsword. It’s time to claim our reward.”
The minotaur did not move.
“Kheoghi! The Nightsword … now!”
The great beast turned toward Flynn.
“Kheoghi?”
“No, Flynn. I claim the Nightsword.”
Flynn looked confused and suddenly upset. “Kheoghi! I’m the captain! I speak for the crew!”
“No longer, Flynn,” Kheoghi said in a deep, rumbling voice. “I stand for captain!”
“Traitorous idiot!” Flynn exploded. “I led you here! It was I that brought you this treasure and now you throw me aside!”
“Flynn-human.” Kheoghi’s eyes narrowed in slowly kindled anger. “We may be selling our souls to this life but we be not selling the souls of our clan! This here bauble brung us all to this ruin! I be claiming this here evil weapon in the name of the OomRamn and all them creatures that were wronged by the human Lokan. If thar be a clan that can set right the wrong what was done to us, then it be a clan other than human!”
“Aye!” came a ragged chorus from the Uruh and gnomes in the rotunda.
“So what say you?” Kheoghi scowled at Flynn through his enormous vac suit. “Will you acknowledge me captain and serve the cause … or will you be joining your friends here on this lovely barge?”
“As my nervous system appears to be returning to normal”—Merinda smiled wickedly as she tentatively flexed her legs—“I personally would be grateful if you stayed, Flynn. I would relish the opportunity of explaining the consequences of betrayal to my old friend over an extended period of time.”
Flynn’s face reddened. He knelt at once. “Fine! Kheoghi, I relinquish the captaincy. By your word!”
“Your allegiance is required by the Articles,” Kheoghi commanded. “Fail me, Flynn, and we shall resolve our differences in personal combat … and I never turn my back on anyone. Escort Master Flynn back to the Venture Revenge. Uruh, make preparations for sail.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” the Uruh chorused as they drifted out of the chamber behind a still-fuming Flynn.
The minotaur then turned to Merinda and Griffiths. “I’ll be leaving air regenerators at the landing bay where you came in, Griffiths-mate. There’ll be food and water as well, such as I can spare, and the weapons as provided for by the Articles.”
“Then you intend to maroon us as well?” Griffiths sighed.
“Aye, mate, I do,” Kheoghi grunted. “There be no other way of it by the Articles.”
“That’s a terrible thing you hold in your arms, Kheoghi,” Merinda said, pointing to the ancient sword.
“Aye, ma’am, that it be,” Kheoghi said. “Still I be thinking that it will be safer among us minotaurs than by most.”
Kheoghi turned and walked to the doors leading out of the chamber. He stopped and spoke over his shoulder.
“Of course, you never know when I might be coming by this way again.”
With that he stepped out and closed the doors behind him. The sound echoed throughout the tomb.
Epilogue
Marooned
The echoes still were sounding through the throne room as Merinda began to act. “Griffiths! Quickly! Get those control globes for your levitation belt! We’ve got to get to Targ!”
“Targ?” Griffiths said, as he began looking about the room for the globes. “The man was run through with a sword, Merinda! What are you going to do? Give him first aid until the paramedics arrive?”
“The what?”
“Never mind! Here they are!” Griffiths walked carefully across the floor and grabbed one of the globes. The other was outside his reach. He leaped away from the floor, sailing up into the rotunda, and grabbed the other. “Fine; I’ve got them. Now what?”
“Bring Targ down here to me!”
“You’ve got to be …”
“Just do it! Now!”
Griffiths twisted the globes and approached the still rotating Targ. He avoided looking into the clear bubble of the helmet. Grasping the sorcerer’s leg under the crook of his arm, he twisted the globes once more and pulled the body back toward the floor.
The moment he was within reach, Merinda turned him over. “Hold him here,” she commanded. Griffiths obeyed.
Putting a foot against the small of Targ’s back, she grasped the sword and pulled. The blade slid free with a flash of frozen air as the tear in the vac suit sealed once more.
Merinda twisted Targ’s body back again to float in front of her l
evel with the floor.
“I don’t know how much I’ll be able to do,” she said more to herself than to Griffiths. “He’s comatose and there’s a lot of internal bleeding.”
Griffiths was astonished. “You mean he’s still alive?”
“Remember what Zanfib said?” Merinda spoke as she worked, first rubbing her hands together and then gesturing over the body. “Never underestimate a wizard. Targ was the greatest of our time but it wasn’t enough. This place has a dampening field of some kind that seems to prevent mystic energies from being applied. It might be bound up in whatever drained the power from the ship systems here. I don’t know. I do know that he’s still alive.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t think the Nightsword has been used yet. Those pirates are probably wondering what the big deal is with this sword right now because it’s still bound to Targ.”
“Can you heal him?” Griffiths asked.
Merinda seemed too busy to reply.
“Griffiths?”
Griffiths awoke to their third day in the tomb.
“Yes, Merinda?”
“He’s gone,” was all she said.
“I’m sorry.” It was all he could think of to say.
They sat on the steps in the throne room hall. Merinda had not dared to move Targ for fear of compounding his injuries. Now Targ had finally given up his life despite Merinda’s best efforts. Their watch was over.
The three days had passed somewhat slowly. Griffiths had busied himself with an occasional trip back to the landing bay for a few supplies. Kheoghi had been as good as his word—it looked like they would be able to live in their little vac suits for a long time, now that he had figured out how to get the food through the bubble helmets with a little help from Merinda. He was also far more comfortable now that he had figured out how to use the waste dump system in the suit with a little embarrassing help from Merinda.
When he wasn’t busy shuttling supplies he kept Merinda company as best he could. When she was too busy tending to the fading Targ, he kept occupied by reading the inscriptions that covered the walls of the throne room. When the histories and glories of the Lost Empire no longer fascinated him, he simply sat and watched Merinda.
Nightsword Page 39
