by Julian May
"Your Appalling Highness!" Betularn croaked. "Sovereign Lord of the Heights and Depths, Monarch of the Infernal Infinite, Father of All Firvulag, and Undoubted Co-Ruler of the Known World—into your hands I commend our Sword."
Sharn vaulted from the saddle, seized the purple container, and ripped off the lid. The huge diamond-bright weapon flashed in the sunshine. The studs on its hilt were gems of several colors. Its cable was neatly coiled, and the powerpack showed full charge.
"Goddess!" cried Sharn. "At last!" He lifted the photon weapon reverently. Betularn and all of the Firvulag still on the boats stood at attention, mailed fists against their hearts. Sugoll slowly dismounted, reassumed his natural appearance, and squatted in enigmatic abomination as the nonmutants raised the Firvulag Song.
When its last deep-noted echo had died away across the river, Sharn said, "Gird me."
Betularn buckled on the jeweled harness and slung the powerpack at the King's waist. Sham's face wore an expression of exultation. "Bid your troops to take theirease, White Hand, and come walk with me and our mutant cousin." He thrust the Sword into its belt loop and strolled off along the yellow pathway leading to the grandstands. The torrid breeze off the expanse of grassland had a redolence of spiced tea.
Betularn cast a disapproving eye on the Lord of the Howlers. "Your long absence from our Firvulag Court has atrophied your piety, Cousin Sugoll. One hopes your allegiance has not suffered a similar decline."
"I am ever the Goddess's good servant," the Great Abomination rumbled, "and a faithfulvassal to the High King."
"Now, White Hand," Sharn said amiably, "let's not have any sniping on this historic occasion."
"I'm only zealous in defense of your honor," the old warrior growled, "and you know myheart is loyal to you until earth be torn asunder, and high heaven, and Nightfall followsupon the cleansing flame!"
Somewhere out in the Field of Gold a meadowlark trilled. The Firvulag King, the veteran general, and the Prince of Monsters stepped off the blazing sandy path onto green coolness strewn with buttercups.
"So it is true," Sugoll said.
"Yes," Sharn said. He clasped his hands behind his back and watched his boots flatten the little yellow flowers as they walked. "But you must not be dismayed by Betularn's overliteral interpretation of the racial myth."
"I do not understand," said the Abomination.
"Neither do I!" White Hand's voice was rough with shock. "Is it to be the war that ends the world, or not?"
Sharn held up a soothing hand, smiling as he kept his eyes on the ground, then let hisfingers rest on the control studs of the Sword. "Let me explain to you both, as I'll explain to all the Little People. Ayfa and I have done a careful study of the sacred traditions since coming to the Throne. The signs and portents and the business about the Adversary, and all the rest of it. Our researches have convinced us that the Nightfall War doesn't have to be a conflict of mutual anni hilation at all. The traditions can be given a more positive interpretation, with the rebirth of a new and more glorious world following the destruction of the old order—and a single race victorious over all. Us, of course."
"What do you youngsters know of the old Way?" Betularn cried. "Your idea is a travesty! Your Atrocious Great-Great-Grandsire who fell immortal at the Ship's Grave must be puking before the Seat of the Goddess to hear such blasphemy. Nightfall is the end, everyone knows that. The end of everything!"
"It isn't," Sham insisted, "for, whatever we do here, Duat survives and all her daughter worlds—and would have done, had Firvulag and Tanu fought to Nightfall at Void's Edge."
"Heresy!" spluttered Betularn. "No, it's worse! Casuistry!"
Sugoll said, "You maintain, Royal Cousin, that Nightfall's taking place in the Many-Colored Land would initiate the New Heaven and New Earth of our traditions here—in space and time—rather than on the higher plane of reality?"
"Precisely," said Sharn. "And we Firvulag as precursors of the whole glorious affair! The Foe are in a fatally weak position, diminished in numbers and strength. Their ruler is an alien usurper who pads his puny battle-company with homesick fellow Lowlives who canhardly wait to skip back through the time-gate to their drab future world! We're strongerthan ever before, with a stock of high-technology weapons in addition to our new metapsychic fighting tactics. And now we have the Sword."
He paused, drew the great glass blade from his belt, and held it aloft with both hands. He said softly, "Night falls for the Foe, but for us it will be a new dawn."
He thumbed the lowest stud, the power-setting for ritual combat, and blasted the golden digitus impudicus emblem atop the Tanu royal enclosure to a puff of glowing plasma.
"Goddess!" cried Betularn. His face mirrored the turmoil taking place in his mind. "I was willing to put an end to it, to bow to the omens. But now ... Sharn-Mes, laddie, you've got this old soldier snorled to a fare-thee-well. I just don't know what to make of this."
"Trust me," urged Sharn. He turned to Sugoll. "And how about you, Cousin Howler? Are you confused, too?"
"I think not."
Sharn winked. "Reserving judgment, though. Is that it?"
The terrible crested head made a slight gesture of affirmation.
Sharn flipped the caplock from the upper power-settings of the Sword. "May I recall toboth your minds that our sacred weapon is a many-splendored thing. The Golden Asaleny's got himself a fleet of aircraft, which he thinks gives him an upper hand in the arms race. But our Sword was designed not only for rituals, but also for defense when we were getting our asses harried from planet to planet back in the old galaxy."
A flock of pied swans winged westward from the river, and Sharn, lips thinned in a foreboding smile, took fresh aim. "Shall we see what effect the highest power-setting will produce? Yes, let's!"
He thumbed the top stud.
Nothing happened.
Mouthing incredulous blasphemies, the King tried the other three superior settings. None worked.
"That treacherous bastard! That conniving little trickster!" Sharn punched the lowest stud. A green flash obliterated a single swan. The rest of the flock scattered, terrifiedby the concussion.
"The Sword is still entirely adequate for its legitimate purpose," Betularn noted austerely, "and its symbolic value is unimpaired. The Foe has been extremely clever."
Sharn choked back his rage. "I suppose you're right. But to be cheated in this flagrant way! It's—it's—"
"Typical of the times," said the Lord of the Howlers in a calm, sad voice. He reassumed his humanoid shape. "The heat becomes most oppressive, my liege. Shall we return to thepeace of Nionel?" Sugoll bowed slightly to Betularn. "I offer you and your troops our hospitality as well, White Hand."
"My thanks," said the general, "but we may as well get on with making camp here in the Field, in anticipation of the games. I'll come by for supper after I get the lads and lasses squared away."
Sugoll nodded. "Only a few guests are in the hostel buildings as yet, but the facilities are quite ready for occupancy. Or have you brought your own equipment?"
"Everything we could possibly need," Betularn replied, "plus a little bit more."
***
WALTER: Do you hear, son?
VEIKKO: Dad! At last. Jeez, you're loud. You must be awfully close.
WALTER: Less than 300 kilometers north of you there in Goriah, up in the Gulf of Armorica.
VEIKKO: ! How?
WALTER: All those storms. We ran before 'em.
VEIKKO: You ran ... in Kyllikki? Oh, my God. You must be out of your mind! Or were you doing your best to—
WALTER: What do you think?
VEIKKO: Marc didn't realize?
WALTER: He hasn't been here that often, and he's never voyaged aboard Kyllikki before. Remember that back in the Rye Harbor Yacht Club, the most boat he ever had under him was a 20-meter Nicholson. Nice craft, but it doesn't clue you to the whims of a four-poster schooner. Besides, I played it straight, conned her the best I could. If we'd taken t
he plunge it would have been kismet. Actually, Marc was rather gratified at the turn of speed I managed. And our keeping inside the storm track must have played hob with attempts to farsense us.
VEIKKO: Nobody in Goriah has the faintest notion where you are. Hagen was out of his mind. He got me to try farsensing you. [Chuckle.] Somehow I just couldn't get a fix ... Then he wanted to send a flyer to hunt and zap, but the King nixed that. Something funny's going on, Walter. This morning Cloud, Hagen, and the King took off with Elizabeth and some hot-shot Tanu stooge of hers. Body-flying, for chrissake, when we've got these perfectly good aircraft. Nobody here knows—
WALTER: It's Marc.
VEIKKO:?
WALTER: His final appeal to you children.
VEIKKO: You mean, if Hagen doesn't agree to stop work on the time-gate, it'll be no holds barred from now on?
WALTER: That's about the size of it. You realize, don't you, that Marc has been the voice of sweet reason all along, refusing to harm you ifthere was any possible alternative. Castellane and Warshaw and most of the other magnatesfavored hitting you kids with the full load, at the first possible opportunity.
VEIKKO: You evened the odds for us, Walter. You and Manion. I told Diane what her father did. She wasn't surprised. Hagen was.
WALTER: He would be, poor devil.
VEIKKO:... What shall I do now? I can't target you for the King, Dad. I can't.
WALTER: Now that we're near the mainland, it's going to be tough for anybody to farsense us. Ragnar Gathen and Arne-Rolf Lillestrom wired upa psychoelectronic fuzzer during the voyage. Crude, but probably effective enough to defeat long-range peeking. Has the King got any mechanical scanners?
VEIKKO: An IR with a range of about 70 kloms, and the aircraft have some kind of ground-combers. Can't you get away?
WALTER: Don't worry about it.
VEIKKO: But I do... You know I do.
WALTER: If Marc's proposing to tell Hagen and Cloud what I think he is, you may find all our problems solved.
VEIKKO: ? !!... a No matter what Marc promises, we're going to build the Guderian device.
WALTER: Possibly.
VEIKKO: We're all agreed, Dad. Well ... most of us. And the King's on our side.
WALTER: Wait, just the same, until you hear the proposal.
VEIKKO: Walter, you're not switching to his side? God!
WALTER: I'm on your side, Veik. Always. Now listen. Don't try to contact me again unless you do agree to Marc's proposal. It'll be too dangerous for both of us. You're almost within Castellane's tracking range now, and if she told Marc what we were doing... Well, I still might be useful to you if I stay alive. Dead, I'm only useful if I take Kyllikki with me.
VEIKKO: But what'll I—
WALTER: Wait. It can't be much longer. Goodbye, Veikko.
VEIKKO: Goodbye, Dad.
3
BASIL OPENED his eyes to blurred obscurity. There was red illumination overall and superimposed upon it, subtly writhing, an intricate branched pattern like veins. He heard the soft, regular hiss of surf. He heard a muffled cardiac drumbeat: dum-dum (skip) dum-dum (skip) dum-dum (skip). His memory furnished a tune to fit—"Zwei Hertzen in Dreivierteltakt." He thought: No, it's only one heart in three-quarter time. Mine. In an artificial womb. Constatne?
"Quite right, old friend."
A pale-colored blob hovered above eye level. The haziness was abruptly clarified as something crackling and transparent, resembling plass membrane, was stripped away from his face. He saw an El Greco angel wearing a golden tore. He said to it, "Well, hello, Creyn. Have I been in Skin?"
"For two days."
"I feel very comfortable," Basil said. The light brightened a bit and took on a more normal spectrum. He was aware of other Tanu standing in the shadowed recesses of the chamber. The carved timbering, stucco walls, and baroque window shutters were certainly those of the Black Crag chalet. "So he brought me here. How perfectly splendid!...But surely mybones can't have knit already?"
"We'll see." Creyn continued to unwrap him, stuffing the used Skin membrane into a scarlet pouch. He said over his shoulder, "Lord Healer, will you do the microscan?"
A taller Tanu, dressed like Creyn in red-and-white robes, stepped closer. His eyes with their pinpoint pupils were faded blue with glints of other colors, like certain opals. Except for deep lines about the mouth, his face was youthful. He had hair like fine-spun platinum.
"Remarkable," said Dionket at length. "The accelerated tissue-repair program of the Adversary has restored the ankle completely. The tibia still has some incomplete regeneration about the medullary cavity but appears quite adequate for normal load-bearing function."
Five Tanu minds intoned: Praise be to Tana.
Basil appended fervently: In saecula saeculorum!
He felt some kind of frame withdrawing support from his body. Then he was standing on his own two feet and realized he was stark naked. He stepped down from a sort of pedestal.
Creyn smiled at him. "Do you feel weak?"
"Not a bit of it, old chap. Just ravenously hungry."
Creyn helped him into a white-cotton robe and slippers. "These healers who have helped you are Dionket, once President of our Guild of Redactors, Lord Peredeyr Firstcomer, Meyn the Unsleeping, and Lady Brintil."
Basil said, "I thank you for your—er—professional ministrations. I'm amazed that you could do the job so quickly. I thought that Skin treatment for injuries such as this took considerably longer."
"It usually does," Dionket said, "when traditional redactive techniques are employed. But we used an experimental method on you—a concerted, intensive operation involving five healers rather than one."
"Mm," said Basil. "Glad I was able to take advantage of it."
Dionket and the three touched Basil's mind briefly through his gray tore, then filed out. The don said to Creyn, "I must also thank my rescuer for bringing me off Monte Rosa. I don't suppose Remillard is still here?"
Creyn's face showed no expression. "He is. It was his modification of the Skin program that we used to heal you."
"Judas priest! Then I owe him double thanks, don't I?" They came out of the infirmary and mounted an open stairway that led to the first floor of the lodge. "I don't mind telling you it was a shocker, having him show up on the mountaintop, all armored like some archetypal god of the machine. I didn't see anything of the man himself. The prospect of seeing him face to face is a trifle unnerving ... the challenger of the galaxy, the metapsychic paragon who became the deepest-dyed villain our race has ever known..."
"He eats mushroom omelettes and popcorn with Brother Anatoly," Creyn said. "And puts his feet up on the hearth fender to warm them on stormy nights like this. And forgets to put the lid down on the toilet."
Basil laughed. "Point taken. One of us after all, eh?"
"No," said Creyn. "But I think he would like to be."
Basil paused at the head of the stairs. His eyes met those of the Tanu who had become his friend on the long exodus from drowned Muriah. "There were hints dropped by Bleyn the Champion while we were on our expedition: that Remillard has actually been working mind to mind with Elizabeth. Is it true?"
"Together, they cured the chalet housekeeper's baby of the black-torc syndrome. More than that—they raised the little one to full operancy. Torcless metafunction."
"Good God. And when Remillard brought me here—"
"The Adversary was intrigued when we proposed putting you into our healing Skin. He had never seen the psychoactive substance in use. When Dionket Lord Healer demonstrated our customary redactive program the Adversary conceived this new technique, which he described as a spinoff from the more elaborate procedure used on the infant. Elizabeth bade us follow his instructions, saying he had been a paramount designer of metaconcert programs in your Galactic Milieu. The result was your accelerated healing."
They came into a small sitting room where there was a fire. Basil said, "That name you apply to Remillard: the Adversary. Would you care to e
xplain its significance?" He touched the gray metal at his throat. "I catch odd mental overtones from you, old chap. Just how deeply has Elizabeth become involved with this bastard?"
"I'll tell you everything I know, as well as the conclusions I've drawn and confided to no one ... Basil, you and I have both loved her without hope. We have seen her self-doubting and tempted to despair, not knowing where her destiny lies. Now she fears this Adversary, at the same time that she is drawn inextricably into his orbit. We may be able to help her."
"For God's sake, how?"
Creyn helped him into a chair, drew up a footstool. "Rest here for a while. I'll be back directly with some food for you—and a golden tore."
***
Heavy rain sluiced against the French windows of the lodge's grand salon. The slow-burning oak logs in the great fireplace did little to dissipate the chill.
Marc said to Brother Anatoly, "They have arrived."
The lanky old friar arose from one of the settees and brushed crumbs of tetraploid popcorn from his scapular. "Then I'll be off to bed. You won't want me cluttering the family reunion. I don't think I can wish you good luck."
"I wish you'd stay. You might find yourself coming to appreciate my point of view." Marc knelt beside the wood rack, selecting some billets of stone pine. "So might the children. None of you have all the data. When you do, perhaps you'll finally understand. Cloud and Hagen don't realize that they're absolutely vital to the Mental Man concept. Neither do most of my old associates who accompanied me to the Pliocene. If the children had never been born, I would have been content to die in my failed Rebellion and that would have been the end of it. But they were born. Call it providence or synchronicity or whatever. Now they have no choice but to fulfill their destiny."
