Abdiel grimaced slightly. The black pills were bitter; he didn't like them. He washed it down with a glass of water and grabbed hastily for an orange capsule, whose flavor he enjoyed.
"I have finalized my plans, Mikael," Abdiel continued, savoring the capsule’s faint aroma. "I am now ready to proceed with them. I will rid myself of an ambitious Warlord, a troublesome king, and a perverted Adonian genius. That leaves me with the bomb, the Lady Maigrey, and the star-jewel. And that, my dear Mikael, leaves me with the universe. "
"The Lady Maigrey will not give up the bomb," Mikael observed.
Abdiel crunched the orange capsule, sucked out the center. He took Mikael's hand, and stroked his palm caressingly. "She will not have a choice. She will be only too happy to give it to me, just as she will be only too happy to die afterward." The mind-seizer considered bonding with his disciple, but decided against it. There was breakfast to finish and work to be done with the boy. He let Mikael's hand drop and turned his attention back to the pills. Abdiel sighed. Still one black one left.
"Do you truly believe the boy is destined to be king?" Mikael asked.
"Destiny!" Abdiel scoffed. "You sound like Derek Sagan, or worse, that priest father of his, who maintained that we are controlled by some omnipotent, omniscient Being who counts the hairs upon our heads and grieves over the fall of a sparrow. Here is your Being." The mind-seizer reached up his hand, needles flashing in the light, and tapped his own skull. "Here is the power that controls and manipulates and determines and decides.
"Faith in this God of his has always been Sagan's weakness and it will be his downfall. You see, my dear, no matter what he may protest to the contrary, Derek Sagan believes in his heart that this boy is his anointed king. He was always a reluctant rebel, was Sagan. He tried to save with one hand what he was destroying with the other.
"If he had devoted himself to conquering the galaxy," Abdiel continued, putting off as long as possible the taking of the black pill, "he could have done so. The part of him that burns with ambition has the skill and intelligence, the wealth, the power to rule. He designed and had that bomb built for just such a purpose. And what does he do? Throws it away in an obsessive search for his lost king! Oh, he has his excuses, made mostly to justify himself to himself. But you will see, Mikael, when it comes to the test, when he is forced to make a choice, he will go with God. And it will be my privilege to hasten him on his way."
"I understand, master," Mikael said, rising, filling the water glass, and returning to his seat.
"This initiation business." Abdiel popped the pill into his mouth, chewed furiously. "A perfect example. I looked into the boy's mind, saw the whole affair. It was as good a performance as any of the old spiritualists used to put on for the benefit of gullible clients. The boy nearly suffocates for no apparent reason. Real spikes, not fake as is supposed to happen, pierce the boy's flesh. Cleansing fire—from heaven, no doubt—heals the terrible wounds."
Abdiel gulped water. Replacing the empty glass on the table, noting with relief that there were only orange, green, and purple capsules left, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and selected a green. "What a waste. Sagan has no idea of his own mental power. Not only does he convince the Lady Maigrey and almost convinces the boy that these 'miracles' have occurred, Sagan manages to convince himself! An illusionist who believes devoutly in his own illusions."
"You say 'almost convinces," master. Then the boy does not believe?"
"Dion believes because he wants to believe, not because he truly does. He was, after all, raised by an atheist and there is doubt and confusion deep within the boy. But instead of accepting and dealing with his internal conflicts, Dion fears them. He seeks desperately to prove himself."
"You have control of his mind, master?"
"No," Abdiel admitted. "He is Blood Royal and of good stock. People denigrated the Starfires, but none of our Order could gain ascendancy over any of them. They were a conceited lot; they thought well of themselves, too well to easily let another take hold. Dion has enough self-love to make him safe from my control, but he has enough self-doubt to leave him vulnerable—not to what I command but to what I suggest. In other words, Mikael, I won't have to force him to do what he will do. He will be glad to do it himself."
Mikael bowed his head in acknowledgment of his master's genius. Abdiel took the last capsule. His repast concluded, he sank back comfortably in the sofa cushions, content to bask in the radiant warmth of the solar heater.
"Bring me the boy," Abdiel commanded.
"Is he awake?"
"He will be, by the time you reach him."
The storm broke, its fury preceded by a ball of blazing lightning that burst over Laskar with the crack of doom. Lightning flashed constantly, thunder rattled and boomed, rain hurtled from the heavens, hail pounded like fists on the outside of the Warlord's shuttlecraft. The noise did not wake Sagan. He hadn't been asleep. He'd spent the night fighting a revolution, spent the night sharing Maigrey's dream.
He felt this morning as he had felt that morning long ago—drained, exhausted, empty. He could imagine how Maigrey must be feeling and he refrained from touching her mind, as one refrains from touching an open wound that is raw and bleeding. Let it have a chance to heal, the scar tissue to grow over. . . .
"My lord. You sent for me."
"Yes, Marcus. Enter."
The door slid aside. The centurion stood in the doorway.
The Warlord, facing the window, watching the majesty of God's wrath, did not look around.
Marcus remained standing at attention, silent, waiting to be commanded.
"Is my lady awake?" Sagan asked finally.
"Yes, my lord."
"I want to hear directly from you what happened this morning."
"Yes, my lord. I knocked several times on her ladyship's door and received no answer and so, according to your orders, I entered the Starlady's room—"
"Whose room?" Sagan glanced around, missing a particularly spectacular lightning strike. "What did you call her?"
Marcus flushed deeply. Thunder shook the shuttlecraft. "The Starlady. Pardon, my lord. It's just a ... a name we men gave her on board Phoenix. We meant no disrespect."
No, that's true enough, Sagan thought. Quite the opposite, in fact. You would die for her in a moment.
Perhaps you will have the chance.
"Continue, centurion," was all the Warlord said aloud.
Marcus cleared his throat. "I entered the Lady Maigrey's room and found her lying on the floor unconscious. I informed my captain—"
"—and he informed me. Go on."
"It appeared, on examination"—Marcus's flush deepened—
"that she was not injured, but had fainted. The captain sent for the base doctor. By the time he arrived, the Lady Maigrey had regained consciousness and refused to see him. She sent us all out of the room and sealed the door shut. The security cameras are on—"
"She's disrupted the signal." The Warlord motioned to his own blank monitor screens.
"I see, my lord." Marcus seemed somewhat at a loss, not quite certain what was wanted from him.
Sagan gave him no help but remained standing motionless, staring out at the storm.
"She's all right, I think, my lord," Marcus continued, feeling called upon to say something. "We can hear her pacing—"
"Thank you, centurion. That will be all. Your watch is nearly ended, is it not?"
"Yes, my lord."
"I relieve you of your duties early. Go get some sleep."
"Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord. Shall I detail a replacement?"
"No, I will take care of that myself. You are dismissed, centurion."
Marcus did not look overly pleased, but he could do nothing except salute and leave the Warlord's presence. Sagan, watching him obliquely, saw the man glance down the empty hallway toward the lady's room—the Starlady's room— before making his reluctant way aft to where the Honor Guard berthed aboard the shuttlecraft.
Maigrey halted in her pacing, turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. She wore a long, plain, white cotton gown, devoid of decoration. Her pale hair hung down around her shoulders, unbrushed and disheveled. He could see little of her face through the ragged hair, except two eyes, dark as the smoke that swirled through his memories.
"Damn you to hell, Derek Sagan." Her voice was calm, tight, controlled. So might God Himself sound on the day of judgment.
"It had to be done, Maigrey." Sagan was not apologetic, merely explanatory. "Sparafucile told me how you froze when the mind-dead attacked you. That's never happened to you in battle before. I wondered why, and then I knew. You couldn't remember anything about that night, could you? You had blotted out what happened, repressed it. And that repression would hamper your ability to act and respond in any situation where you might meet either the mind-dead or their master again. And you will meet them again, my lady. And soon. For Dion's sake, if for no other, you must be prepared to deal with them."
He had said the right words, touched the right chords; their music was sad, melancholy, but harmonious. That which had driven them apart had—remembered, shared—brought them together. Maigrey leaned her cheek against the steelglass, watched the rain pour down the outside, watched the sky shed the tears that she couldn't cry. Her grief ached and burned inside her, but somehow it was better than that vague feeling of dread and terror, of not knowing, not remembering.
"You're right, my lord," she said softly, her eyes on the flaring lightning, "and in my head I know she's been dead seventeen years but in my heart it seems that she died ... in my arms . . . just moments ago. ..." Maigrey lifted her hands, stared at them.
Sagan could almost see the blood that had once covered them, the blood on her blue robes, the pool of blood forming beneath the motionless head.
He walked across the room to the window. Standing behind her, he rested gentle hands upon her shoulders. His sympathy was silent and unexpected, even by himself. Last night, for the first time, each lived through what the other had experienced. Mind-linked, they had once been closer than any two people could possibly come. Pride and mistrust were the barriers that had risen between them; were the barriers that stood between them still. Perhaps, if those barriers had been removed then, things might have been different. Perhaps if they could be removed now . . .
Sagan shook his head, banished the speculation as being wasteful of time and energy. Maigrey remained motionless, watching the retreating storm, relaxed beneath his touch, resting against him for support. Her hand went to her cheek, to the old scar that in her confused mind was an open wound. Her thoughts were much the same as his, or maybe they were his; he couldn't tell anymore. The longer they were together, the more thin and transparent the barriers became. The idea of the barriers falling was both attractive . . . and repellent.
"' Two together must walk the paths of darkness . . .' "
It seemed his father's voice that spoke the words now, as he had spoken them long ago, the only words he had ever spoken since taking his vow of silence. A shiver crept over Sagan, chilling his flesh, until he realized it was Maigrey who had said them.
"I used to think, my lord," she continued, "that we had fulfilled the prophecy, that we had already walked the 'paths of darkness.' But I begin to believe I was wrong. I have walked paths of darkness and you have walked paths of darkness, but we have walked them apart, all these years. And the prophecy says 'Two together.
Sagan, understanding, clasped her more tightly, drew her closer to him. Both kept their gaze fixed on the storm, on the lightning dancing between cloud and ground, the hailstones battering the window, the rain that streaked down in glittering rivulets, gathering up and blending their reflections into one, as two streams converge to form a river.
"I look before me," she added softly, reaching up to touch the reflection that reached a ghostly hand to touch her back, "and I see only darkness."
"'Two must walk the paths of darkness to reach the light,'" Sagan said, finishing the quote.
Maigrey shook her head. "I see no light."
Sagan did. Sagan saw a light, saw moonlight, bright and shining on a strange planet, saw moonlight gleaming on silver armor, on a knife in his hands, saw moonlight glisten on blood flowing from a mortal wound, on blood on the knife and on his hands, saw moonlight glitter cold in gray eyes that could no longer see the moon or anything. . . .
The vision of Maigrey's death at his hands had come to him often, but never before had it been so clear. It startled him, angered him. He felt constrained, restricted, a prisoner of fate, without a choice. He would see about that, he determined, removing his hands from the woman abruptly.
"We have much to discuss, my lady," he said, his voice cold. "Report to me this day at 1800 hours."
He turned on his heel, stalked through the door that, fast as it operated, barely opened in time to permit him to walk through.
Maigrey, looking around, startled, thought that it wouldn't have much mattered if the door hadn't operated. In this mood, he would have walked through solid steel.
Sighing, she turned back to stare out the window. The storm was diminishing, its fury spent, settling down into a dull and dismal steady rain.
"You've gone to argue, once again, with God," she said to the absent Sagan, staring at her reflection in the glass, a reflection made of tears. "Why don't you give up? Don't you understand? God abandoned us long ago, my lord. Long ago. . . ."
Chapter Two
We soon learn that there is nothing mysterious or supernatural in the case, but that all proceeds from the usual propensity of mankind towards the marvelous . . .
David Hume, "The Sceptic"
The rain continued falling sporadically all during the morning hours. Dion sat with Abdiel most of that time, leaving the mind-seizer only for luncheon. The young man took his meals alone, in his room, having little desire for the dubious company of the mind-dead.
The food cooked by Abdiel's servants was wholesome and that was about the best that could be said for it. The bland concoction had a consistency somewhere between porridge and a meat stew that has been run through a blender. It went down easily; its uninteresting flavor made no attempt to divert the boy's thoughts by offering up any new and dramatic taste sensations.
Being hungry, Dion forked stew into his mouth absent-mindedly. Alone in his room, away from Abdiel, the young man discovered to his discomfiture that, thinking back on their time together, he found the old man repulsive, the bonding appalling. Looking at the palm of his right hand, seeing the still red and inflamed puncture marks, and remembering that rotting flesh pressed close against his, Dion gagged on his food. Only the insatiable hunger of a seventeen-year-old kept him doggedly eating.
Painful, disgusting, the bonding had been exciting, too. Dion began to think of his mind much like Abdiel's strange house, with twisting, turning hallways and hundreds of locked doors. Abdiel's mind inside his had opened many of those doors, introducing the boy to new thoughts and experiences, new ideas, new ambitions.
The two of them had discussed many of those thoughts and ideas this morning. Strange, but when he was with Abdiel, the young man didn't feel any of the revulsion or disgust that came over him the moment the mind-seizer was out of his sight. Dion recalled, somewhat uneasily, Maigrey's warning to him about strong minds being able to control weaker.
Is Abdiel doing that to me? Dion wondered. Am I under the mind-seizer's sway, as are, obviously, the mind-dead?
No, he decided upon serious reflection, scraping the food from the bottom of the bowl. No, Abdiel has not taken me over. Dion was very much conscious of his own will, knew he still retained it. He vaguely remembered, when Abdiel first entered his mind, a contest between the two of them, a contest that had been extremely pain
ful, a contest the boy had perhaps not won, but which had at least turned out to be a draw.
Dion thought back again to the image of the house. Abdiel tried to seize the house, but I prevented him. I invited him inside, however. He came in and went about opening doors. Light and air flowed into my mind, where once there was only darkness and stifling confusion. . . .
What about that rite of initiation? I asked Abdiel. You saw it in my memory, and you laughed.
"Forgive me, my king." Abdiel laughed again, heartily. "But it was all hypnosis, illusion. Oh, don't feel ashamed. You're not the first to fall for it. Sagan and the lady managed it quite prettily, I have no doubt."
But it seemed ... so real! I protested. I can still remember the spikes driving through my hands, the fire searing my flesh.
"Of course it did! So did the torture of the Corasians, when they captured you. Yet, they didn't cut off your arm, any more than the spikes on that metal ball pierced your skin. It was all in your mind."
But why? I wanted to know. Why would they do such a thing to me? Why lie to me? All that about God not wanting me to use my power—
"How can you ask, Your Majesty? You know the answer. You've known it all along."
Yes, I guess I have known it. I just didn't want to admit it.
"Precisely," Abdiel continued. "They wouldn't be able to control you then."
You mean, I asked, I can use the power?
"You would need to be trained, but I could do that myself."
Abdiel was modest. "Lord Sagan or the Lady Maigrey could have trained you, but they chose not to."
What a fool I've been! But I trusted, I believed in ... in her, especially.
"Ah, my king." Abdiel sighed, grew very grave. "I've no doubt that, when you first met the lady after her return from her self-imposed exile, she had only your best interests at heart. But you must remember, Dion, that she has fallen increasingly under the charismatic spell of Derek Sagan. You yourself know how easily he can exert his influence over someone."
King's Test Page 33
