“Where is Barlen?” she demanded. “Looking for Hardony,” Court said. “He’s arresting your redhead for treason.”
“So it’s true, then,” Irelle said. “Barlen’s jealousy has boiled over at last. Well, the orders are countermanded. You will remain where you are till my own men come for you.”
“Barlen’s jealousy?” Court stared at her. “Hardony’s a traitor. Barlen’s got proof. And I have too.”
The red-gold crown of hair shook from side to side. “I don’t believe that. Hardony is loyal. I’d stake my life on it.”
“Then you’d lose your life. He’s responsible for trying to start a war with Decca.”
“Oh, you’re mad,” Irelle said. Her hand reached to break the connection.
Court spoke in time to stop her. “Wait, Irelle!”
She hesitated. “What?”
“You won’t have to send your men for me. I’ll came to you. Furthermore I’ll bring with me proof, indisputable proof, that. Hardony’s planned to depose you and take your place.”
A shade of doubt came into Irelle’s blue eyes. “Proof? It cannot exist.”
“Give me five minutes. If I can’t convince you in that time, then act.”
“I do not wish to wait.”
“I’m coming to the palace,” Court snapped, and clicked the televisor into darkness. He went out, finding a guard at the street entrance.
“Get me an air-car.”
“You can’t leave, Ethan Court.”
“I’m ordered to report to the Throne,” Court said. “Tell Hardony when he returns.”
“The Throne—oh!” The man signaled. Soon an air-car slipped silently toward the ramp on which they stood.
“Shall I go with you, Ethan Court?” Without troubling to answer, Court sent his vehicle lancing up. Against the black sky he saw the palace on the mountain, and headed for it. But the seconds seemed to drag past, lengthening into eternities, before he reached his destination. Even then, no answer had occurred to him. He had to stop Irelle from countermanding Barlen’s orders. But how?
There was no proof, no tangible evidence, nothing that Hardony could not explain away. But after Barlen had struck, after his men had raided and captured vital places, there would, Court thought, be evidence enough. Hardony must not wiggle out of this trap.
So he hurried to Irelle in the great tower room under the transparent dome. In the dim light he saw a silver-gowned figure seated before a televisor, silent and motionless.
She turned. Her quiet voice dismissed Court’s guide. As the door swung down. Irelle rose.
“I’ve waited,” she said. “Your proof?”
* * *
Court gave her the Deccan treaty. She held it under a shaft of pale light, studying it intently. After a time she looked up. “Well?”
“Decca never intended to invade Lyra,” Court said. “They have no weapons. Hardony built up the whole idea through propaganda.”
She looked thoughtfully at the paper.
“How do I know this treaty is a true document? That Decca sent it?”
“You didn’t receive it,” Court said. “Hardony kept you from seeing it. He wants a war, so he can get the power he’d never achieve in peace.” Watching her averted enigmatic face, Court went on quickly, telling her what had happened—more than he had meant to tell.
When he had finished, he knew that he had failed. Irelle was silent.
“Do you believe me?” he asked.
“No. For Decca wants war, Court. So many things prove that. Only by being strong, by being able to resist, can Lyra survive.”
Court groaned. Had his words meant nothing to her?
“They have no weapons!”
“So you say.” Her voice was doubtful. “But even if they have none now, they may arm themselves later. Two nations can have peace only if each is strong.”
“My race thought that,” Court said grimly. “It didn’t work. There must be a common trust and understanding—not the piling up of weapons on each side till there’s an explosion.”
She looked at him. “Are you a coward. Court?”
Presently he answered hen “Maybe. There are some things I’m afraid of. Shall I tell you what one of them is?”
He took her arm and led her to the curve of the wall. In the dim light the metal circlet on her brow sent out faint gleamings.
There was a cold, hard knot inside of Court. Looking down at the rosy jewel that was Valyra, he saw the, fragile bridges and domes crashing into horror beneath the impact of bombs from the sky.
“There’s your city, Irelle,” he said. “It’s afraid now, but it’s still a good place. It has good people in it. But they can be turned into people who aren’t—aren’t nice at all. People who are afraid, and who hate, and who want to kill because they think that’s the only salvation for them. Who can become too blindly stupid to realize that there’s always a rebound. You can burn the cities of an enemy, but the enemy will come back. Maybe, after a while, you could ravage Decca, but unless you killed every Deccan, Lyra, in the end, would be destroyed too.”
His voice was very low. “Men don’t forget, Irene. It’s been along time since there was war on earth, and you don’t know much about it. You’ve got pretty pink cities and shiny uniforms and bright swords. Do you, think war is a duel?”
She moved a step away from him. Court’s hand on her arm tightened.
“They who take the sword, shall perish by the sword,” he said. “There were races in my time who learned the penalty. It was my job to fight those races. I did fight them. Yes, I was a soldier, Irelle. That’s glamorous, to you. For all you know about war is shiny uniforms and shiny swords. You don’t know what weapons are.”
Something cold and horrible crept into the room from the darkness where stood stars that had watched the earth for a long, long time. She might have been a marble statue for all the emotions she showed.
“You don’t see real weapons coming,” he said. “You can’t dodge them. You hear a noise, and you drop in the mud, and maybe you fall on something that was a man, before it was torn apart, and before it began to rot. Then you wait. You’re alone. You’re all alone. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a hero or a coward, it doesn’t matter whether you’re the Throne of Lyra or a scared kid. For if a bomb’s coming, you can’t stop it. It doesn’t fall only on battlefields. It doesn’t fall on soldiers alone. Bombs can rain down on Valyra, Irene, on civilians, right here! If a bomb misses you, or just tears a hole in your body, you can get over that. Afterward you want to kill the people who drop those bombs.”
* * *
Gently Court swung Irelle to face him. “Do you wish me to make bombs for you to drop on Decca?”
Fear blazed in her eyes, purple now, and deep. For a second he held her there, and then, against the backdrop of the rose-pearl city, they came together. Irelle had said that she would never kiss Court again, but she had lied.
She was afraid, and she clung to him, for a little while. The moment did not last. Court knew it could not last. But a feeling of desperate futility rose in him as he heard a murmur and a sound of approaching footsteps, and knew he had not changed her.
Irelle drew away. She gestured. The great room grew lighter. Through the rising doorway came two figures, Hardony, red-hair ruffled, a twisted sneer on his face, and behind him, a sword pointed at Hardony’s back, Barlen.
The door slipped down. “Stand still, red fox.” Barlen growled. “Treason to the Throne needs the Throne’s decision. I think it will be death.” He nodded toward Irelle. “‘Have you found evidence?“Court said quickly.
“I need no evidence to run my sword through this traitor’s throat,” Barlen snarled. “The Deccans have no weapons, and never had. Hardony planned to foment a war and become ruler. Can you deny that, red fox?” Irelle moved forward to stand beside Hardony, who turned his head to meet her calm gaze.
“Can you, Hardony?” she asked.
He was grinning. “Why should I, Irelle?” h
e asked. “All of it is true, but two things. I would have served you loyally and I would have made you ruler of a world.”
“You hear him,” Barlen said. “He’d have a war!”
Irelle smiled a little. “And you, a soldier, are a man of peace?”
“I fight for honor, not for gain,” Barlen said.
Court saw the movement too late. Irelle had moved a few paces toward Barlen. Abruptly, without warning, her hand flickered up from the folds of her gown. A dagger caught the light’s blaze. It’s flashing gleam flicked down. The gleam was quenched in Barlen’s back.
The giant snapped erect. He swung about to face Irelle, his countenance twisted with sudden amazement. The sword rattled from his grip.
He opened his lips but only blood came out. He fell face down, and was still.
Irelle caught up the sword and swung it, hilt-first, into Hardony’s waiting fingers. As Court sprang forward, the steel point darted up, poising, waiting, quivering with thirst.
“It isn’t wise, Court,” Hardony said.
“You killed him!” Court whispered, staring at Irelle. He still could not believe. He stood motionless now, frozen in the grip of surprise.
Irelle took Hardony’s arm and drew him, step by step, across the room. Court followed, but the sword still pointed unwaveringly at his heart.
“Irelle,” he said. “Wait.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Still guiding Hardony, she smiled with a queer, sly triumph. “Because I knew, Court. I knew all along what Hardony intended. That Deccan treaty—I suppressed that myself. Hardony was going to make me ruler of Decca, and ruler of the world in the end.”
“You fool!” Court said.
“Perhaps. I know only that I must conquer. Conquer and rule. Even as a child I dreamed of power. There were voices in my blood that whispered to me, that told me stories of past greatness and future triumphs. I must rule!” Now a relentless, terrible madness burned behind the white beauty of her face.
“Barlen’s soldiers are outside that door, Irelle,” Hardony said.
She glanced at him. “We’re going the other way, by the terrace.” She opened a panel in the transparent wall and guided Hardony through. “It will be wiser to have my own men around me, when Barlen is found. Though—” she nodded at Court “— though I will say that you killed him, and no one will doubt the Throne’s word. As a prisoner, there may be ways of inducing you to build weapons for us.”
* * *
Court took another step forward. Irelle and Hardony were gone in the dark. With reckless haste he sprang to the gap in the wall and darted through. He was on a terrace. Beyond its wall he could see Valyra below.
He saw shadows, two forms moving swiftly, and a larger shape, a bulky ovoid that looked like an air-car.
There was an air-car on the terrace! Who, then, was near?
The shadows seemed to dance before him. He heard a faint, warning cry, and the running of hurried feet. As he sprinted forward, he glimpsed a tangle of struggling, dim forms. A wild exultation sprang into life within him. There was a chance now to save a nation!
He saw Hardony drive his sword straight through the body of someone. He saw the victim seize ‘the sword’s hilt in a’ desperate grip, keeping the weapon sheathed in his own body, and resist Hardony’s furious tug. Then Court had reached Hardony.
His fist thudded solidly into the red fox’s face, shattering bone and bringing blood spurting from riven flesh. Hardony went staggering back, a thick yell rising in his throat. He recovered, came back, his eyes searching for the sword.
Irelle flung herself at Court, clawing, kicking, her hair a bright flame against the dark.
Court had no time. He had a job to do. He slammed a solid blow against her jaw, and heard her body fall. Then he turned on Hardony.
Hardony tried to dodge, to double back into the tower room, but Court was too quick. Court went in relentlessly, no expression on his face, no light in his steady eyes.
His hands found their goal—Hardony’s throat.
Fists battered at his face. A leg hooked itself behind Court’s and tripped him. But he did not loosen his grip when he fell. His fingers only closed the tighter.
Sudden panic filled the red fox. He tried to scream but could not. Frantically he attempted to wrench free.
“Court!” he wheezed. “Don’t—don’t!”
“You wanted war,” Court said. “Well, this is war.”
Finally Court let the body drop from his fingers. Already reaction was making him feel cold and sick. He went back to the man who had been run through by Hardony’s sword.
But the man was not yet dead. It was Farr. He looked up at Court, his fat face twisted in pain.
“Followed you,” he gasped. “Thought some way—I could help. Well—there was!” His chuckling laugh ended in a groan.
Farr’s gross hand reached up and took Court’s. The tiny eyes were steady and questioning.
“Court,” he said. “Court. Can you save Lyra?”
“Yes,” Court said. “There will be no weapons made. I’ll tell the truth and the treaty with Decca will be signed.”
“But—Irelle—will not sign?”
“There will be peace,” Court said. “I promise you that.”
Farr nodded contendedly—and died… .
* * *
She lay still and lovely on the couch in the tiny room beneath Farr’s castle. Her silver gown had been arranged, and her unbound hair, cloudy as spun red gold, draped the pillow. On her brow the metal circlet of the Throne took the light and gave it back in a dull glitter.
Court looked down at her. His throat hurt.
“I suppose there’ll always be people like you, Irelle,” he said. “There’s a madness in your blood.
You can’t be convinced. But you’ve got to be stopped. So Lyra will have a new ruler tomorrow. It won’t be Ethan Court, but it’ll be somebody who wants peace.”
The long lashes did not stir on the ivory cheeks. Court dug his nails into his palms. “Can you hear me, Irelle?” he said softly. “You’re going into your own worlds now. You can dream whatever dreams you want, and they’ll be true. But you won’t be able to hurt anybody now. You’ll never waken from your dreams. I must make sure of that. No, you’ll never waken. Forty years from now, fifty, maybe, I’ll come down here and look at you, and you won’t know I’m here. You’ll grow old and die some time, but you won’t know that. Irelle—my darling!”
* * *
Ethan Court bent and touched his lips, for the last time, to the soft crimson ones of the sleeping girl.
“I should have killed you, Irelle,” he whispered. “But this death is easier for you. I wonder if you ever knew that I loved you?” Her blue eyes were veiled. Court turned and went out of the room, staggering as he walked like a drunken man. He closed the heavy door and locked it with Farr’s key. He pressed his forehead against the cool metal.
There was so much to do now, so much to do, lest all that had been gained be lost for want of a man who would speak the truth freely. But the road ahead was clear, and peace, not war, lay it its end.
The elevator lifted Court steadily toward a world of life and promise. Beneath him, in a bare little room of Farr’s castle, Irelle lay in the sleep from which she would not wake again. He left her nothing … except dreams!
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