King's Sacrifice

by Margaret Weis

  "No, it is safe to proceed, although we should make haste. Your men have sighted Corasians, entering the Room of Fire."

  "That tears it." Xris took the twist from his mouth. "They're going to know we're here, now."

  "A pity," agreed Raoul, shrugging. "But it cannot be helped. And this did not go to waste. Abdiel, at least, does not know we are here. And these mind-dead will not be around to apprehend the young king."

  Britt appeared at the end of the tunnel, waving his hand.

  "Boss!" he called in a low, urgent voice. "We got company!"

  "I'm coming," Xris looked at the Loti, still kneeling beside the bodies. "What about you two?"

  "In a minute, friend cyborg. We have something we must do first." Raoul raised his eyes to meet those of the Little One.

  Xris clamped his teeth over the twist, shook his head, turned, and started down the tunnel.

  "Not yet, Abdiel does not know you and I are here. But he will." The voice was Raoul's. Only a murmur, but it came clearly to the cyborg's ear.

  "Now what?" Xris muttered, paused, looked back.

  The Little One removed a small case from the pocket of his coat, handed it solemnly to Raoul. The Loti opened it with equal solemnity, took something out, slid it into the hand of the corpse.

  Xris adjusted his cybernetic eye, brought the object in the corpse's hand into sharp focus.

  A gold-embossed business card carried the message:

  COMPLIMENTS OF SNAGA OHME.

  Chapter Seven

  ... of whom to ask Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies . . .

  John Milton, Paradise Lost

  Maigrey, Agis, and the half-breed crouched on opposite sides of the dark tunnel, weapons ready, waiting. Brother Daniel was some distance behind them, posted near the intersection of the two passageways. He had orders to run back quickly if he saw anything. Up ahead, the red light at the tunnel's entrance was bright, glowing, but no sign of Corasians.

  "What the hell are they doing?" Maigrey snapped irritably. "Why don't they attack?" She had shut off the bloodsword, shut off its telltale light. Unfortunately she couldn't shut off the voice that came with it.

  They are waiting for you, my lady. You must go that way, you know. You must go that way in order to reach Sagan.

  "Maybe they're waiting for us," suggested Agis, an unknowing echo. "Hoping to draw us out into the open."

  "I go have look," volunteered Sparafucile, and before Maigrey could stop him, the assassin was gliding silent as death down the passage.

  She watched him, his body a shapeless dark mass silhouetted against the red light, until he merged with the shadows and vanished.

  A short time later he reappeared again, almost directly in front of her, startling her.

  "Not fire-bots. Dead-ones"—(the half-breed's term for mind-dead)—"only. Many dead-ones, carrying red lamps. We meant to think they are fire-bots."

  "Why?" demanded Agis, suspicious. "That doesn't make sense."

  "A mind game," said Maigrey. "Anything to keep us off-balance."

  Yes, my lady. Mind games. You are so good at them, too. But you find them wearing, don't you? It saps the ability to concentrate on more important matters. Dion is coming, Maigrey? Did you know?

  "Lady, we go now. We not stay here! Dangerous!"

  Sparafucile's hand on her arm, shaking her.

  He's been talking and talking. I heard his voice, Maigrey realized. I wonder what it was he's been saying? I suppose it must have been important. . . .

  "Dead-ones block passage. But wall like arm. We hide behind arm, shoot." The assassin gestured, as if firing over a barricade. "Weird place," he added. "Water burn."

  "Burning water," Maigrey repeated absently.

  Certainly Dion is coming, Mind-seizer. That's the plan. He's coming to destroy you.

  Destroy me? Or join me? Not that it matters to you, my lady. Dion comes to me alone. And you won't be around to help him.

  "You'll find he doesn't need my help, Mind-seizer, " Maigrey said aloud. Alone! Surely, not alone! He was wiser than that now, wasn't he? She could see Dion clearly, see him in the cockpit of the Scimitar, see . . .

  Maigrey sighed in relief. He wasn't alone. But he was deceiving Abdiel into thinking he was. And she was the one who might shatter the illusion. Abruptly, she wrenched her mind away from Dion, before the mind-seizer could touch him through her, discover the truth.

  "My lady." It was Agis, quiet, respectful. Brother Daniel stood beside him; both regarding her with concern. "Are you all right?"

  My God, what a stupid question! No, she wasn't all right. She was threatening empty air, shouting answers to questions no one had asked. She looked at Agis, saw Abdiel's face. And she didn't dare banish the mind-seizer's image. She had to keep him before her, keep that keen mental gaze fixed on her, not on Dion.

  Half of me's not here, she wanted to tell Agis. Half of me's fighting a battle you can't see or understand. And, if I lose, there's no way you can save me!

  She wanted to say all this . . . But how could she, to Abdiel's mocking visage?

  "Move out," was what she finally said, aloud.

  They continued down the tunnel, no longer worried about keeping silent. Sparafucile made less noise than the darkness, but Agis's boots thudded on the rock floor. The heavy beam rifle he carried rattled, whined as it powered up. Maigrey's armor jingled like myriad small, silver bells. Brother Daniel's robes swished and flapped.

  Stealth wasn't important now. Abdiel knew they were there, knew they were coming. Haste was important. Maigrey had to reach Sagan. When she found him, she would be whole again.

  The half-breed's "arm" in the wall turned out to be a natural rock formation—a groin, that stretched out into the passageway, forming a crude barricade. Beyond, Maigrey could see the red nuke lamps clearly now, against a backdrop of yellow light that wavered like flames.

  Water burn. She recalled the half-breed's words, wished she'd asked him then what he meant. It was too late now. Shadowy figures were visible, moving back and forth across the light.

  Something whizzed past her, making an odd sound that she didn't at first identify.

  "Bolts," said Agis. "They're shooting bolts at us."

  Odd, Maigrey thought. Why not lasguns? Beam rifles? Far deadlier, far less need for accuracy.

  "Hold your fire!" she commanded, though there was really no need. Agis and Sparafucile were expert enough to realize that the mind-dead could only shoot blindly into the darkness. Returning fire from this distance would do little damage to the enemy, give away their position.

  More bolts shot past, striking the walls, the ceiling, clattering on the rock floor.

  Maigrey had switched the bloodsword from offensive to defensive, dimming its bright light, using it to shield herself and Brother Daniel, who had been instructed to keep close behind her. But, she realized, she need not waste the energy.

  Either these mind-dead were terrible shots or they were purposefully firing so as not to hit anything.

  Ah, but you mustn't die, my dear. That wouldn't suit my plans at all.

  You better kill me, Abdiel. Now, when you have the chance.

  Maigrey crouched behind the barricade. Bolts slammed into it, whistled above it. Brother Daniel huddled beside her.

  Sparafucile put his hand on the priest's shoulder, shoved him roughly to the floor.

  "Priest, he down!" the assassin ordered.

  Brother Daniel meekly obeyed. Maigrey took a grenade from her belt, intending to lob it over the barricade. The half-breed stopped her.

  "No good. Fall in water. Make only big splash."

  Water again. "I've got to see what it's like in there," Maigrey said irritably. "Agis, cover me. Make them keep their heads down while I take a look."

  The centurion lifted the beam rifle, positioned it on the top of the rock barricade, and fired.

  The result was completely, totally unexpected.

  A roaring sound, an explosion. Clouds of flame, that
roiled out of the cavern, burst over the barricade.

  Agis dropped the beam rifle, ducked behind the barricade, pulled Maigrey down with him. She had the vague impression of Sparafucile hurling himself to the floor.

  Maigrey covered her face, her eyes, wished desperately she could cover her ears. Screams—the screams of humans being burned alive—rose horribly above the crackling and hissing of the fire. From somewhere near her, Brother Daniel, voice breaking, prayed for the souls of the dying.

  In an instant it was over.

  The screams were silenced. The flames died to the flickering, wavering yellow light they'd seen earlier.

  "My lady!" Agis, face black with soot, leaned over her.

  She coughed, pushed him aside. Sitting up, she glanced around dazedly. "What . . . happened?" she managed to gasp.

  Sparafucile peered cautiously over the barricade. The half-breed's deformed face was awed. "Look, lady-mine!"

  Yellow flames flickered on the surface of a small lake, located at the far end of a domed cavern room. Scattered around the floor in front of the water lay the charred remains of the mind-dead, perhaps as many as twenty. The bodies were burned beyond recognition. It was obvious, from the distorted postures, that each had died in agony.

  "Dear God, have mercy!" Brother Daniel whispered.

  "I fired and . . . the room exploded," said Agis, shaken out of his accustomed stoic calm. He looked down perplexedly at the beam rifle. "I never saw one do that before."

  "Oil," said Maigrey, sniffing. Running her fingers along the surface of the rock barricade, she held them to the feint glow of the light. "It's on the surface of the water, maybe on the walls themselves. That's why they were using bolt weapons."

  "But they knew," Agis protested. "They had to know we'd use laser fire—"

  "They didn't know," Maigrey said softly, sliding back down behind the barricade. "But he knew. He sent them to die like that."

  "It not make sense," remarked Sparafucile, rubbing a grizzled chin. "There were many of them, they could have killed one, maybe two of us."

  "He doesn't want us to die," Maigrey said flatly. "At least not yet. Not now." She tried to tell herself it didn't matter how these poor, wretched, trapped souls of his died. She would have been forced to kill the mind-dead anyway. God's children. Abdiel had done them a fevor.

  It does matter, doesn't it, my dear? You hear their screams echo in your head. Your spirit sinks. Your energy seeps away. And you are right about one thing, Lady Maigrey. I don't want you to die. And don't you wonder why? You should, my dear. You really should.

  Maigrey rose to her feet. She couldn't believe, suddenly, how tired she was.

  "We'd better keep going. No, Brother Daniel," she added. "There's no time for that. Besides, their souls are resting in fer more peace now than the wretches ever knew when they were alive."

  Agis picked up his beam rifle.

  "I think you not use that anymore, eh?" said Sparafucile, grinning.

  "I think you're right," agreed Agis ruefully and slung the rifle over his shoulder.

  "Ancient weapons best, anyway. Never fail you. Never need charging. Only sharpened."

  The half-breed flicked his wrist. A gleaming knife slid out into his palm, the blade appearing in his hand like a sixth finger. He flipped the knife in the air, expertly caught it, thrust it back into his belt, from which protruded the hilts of several more "ancient weapons."

  "These won't do us much good against Corasians," observed the centurion.

  "They're better than nothing," Maigrey said wearily. "It doesn't—" She stopped, bit her hp.

  It doesn't matter what weapons you carry, isn't that what you were about to tell them, my dear? How true. I want you alive, not them. You'll watch them die, one by one, with the knowledge that you brought them to their deaths! And the loss of each will drain you that much more.

  "Let's go," Maigrey said, and moved around the barricade into the cavern lit by the fiery water, the cavern that smelled of oil and burned flesh.

  She picked her way among the bodies, refusing to look at them, refusing to hear the echo of their screams. She wished she could refuse to play Abdiel's game, because he was good. He was getting to her. Why wasn't he going to kill her? Surely, he must know that if she reached Sagan, the two of them would destroy him. Yet Abdiel didn't even appear to feel threatened! What did he have that he knew she feared more than death? . . .

  She crossed the cavern room, the others coming behind her, reached the entrance to another passageway, sloping downward. Beyond it she could see a cavern chamber, larger than the one in which they stood. Nuke lamps hung from the ceiling. The room was filled with machines of some sort, working busily, to judge by the noise and vibration beneath their feet. Beyond that room she'd find Sagan. . . .

  Yes, go. Wake Sagan. Bring him back to life. He will not thank you, my dear. The life you both face is a terrible one.

  Notice I said "life" you face, Lady Maigrey. Not death. I have no intention of killing you, though you must kill me.

  And that may not be so easy. But by all means, keep trying, my dear. Only the dead are without hope.

  The dead, and those who wish they were dead.

  "The serpent's tooth," said Maigrey.

  She stopped in the entrance, unable to move, staring into the darkness. At last, she understood.

  The others looked at her, looked uneasily at each other. She began to shake, leaned against the oil-slick wall. Agis started to go to her aid, but Brother Daniel stopped him.

  "No, this is her battle. We cannot help her. We cannot defend her."

  The serpent's tooth. Now you understand. The two of you—Sagan, yourself—infected by the poison.

  What will happen to the two of you? You will return to your galaxy. You will travel from planet to planet, and from each begins to come rumors of the atrocities you will commit. Torture, rape, mass murder, cannibalism—your crimes will grow ever more heinous. And who can stop you? The power of the Blood Royal is yours to command! You are superhuman— devils, demons.

  The people curse your names, curse the Guardians, curse the Blood Royal.

  But, as much as you horrify others, even more do you horrify yourselves. Half of you, sane, watches the other half turn into a homicidal maniac. You long to die; the instinct of survival is strong, however. When at last they do manage to trap you, they will drag you to your execution, struggling and shrieking like the cowards you are.

  And the people of the galaxy, friends, relatives of those you butchered, will watch you die and rejoice in the final downfall of the last of the Guardians.

  Maigrey drew a deep, shivering breath, pushed herself away from the wall. "We haven't fallen yet!" she said to the empty darkness. "Derek and I! Together, we will fulfill our destiny and destroy you!"

  There is that possibility. It is the risk I run and well worth it for such a reward. But for you there is no risk, Lady Maigrey. There is only a terrible choice. For if you rescue the Warlord and if by some chance, you two destroy me, Derek Sagan will fulfill his destiny and destroy you!

  Xris and his squad ambushed the Corasians in a largish tunnel, located on the opposite side of the room with the fiery lake. Cover was practically nonexistent, but Xris didn't dare use his missiles around the oil-slick water. The commandos squeezed into niches, crannies, hid themselves behind places where the rock jutted out, and waited.

  If this doesn't work, Xris thought, arming his weapons hand with his specially-designed missiles, we can kiss ourselves good-bye. He counted, by the sound, ten soldiers. And he only had ten missiles.

  The Corasians trundled into the passageway. The moment the lead alien gave a sign that it had, with its sophisticated sensing device, detected the danger, Xris lifted his weapons hand, fired. The missile rocketed directly into the robot "head".

  The Corasian exploded. Its casing blew apart, electronic arcs crackled and surged around it. But the alien inside wasn't dead. The fiery red ameboid body slid to the floor. His men b
egan to fire bolts at it. They might have thrown rocks.

  The other Corasians were firing now. Laser beams streaked through the darkness. A blast caught Britt in the leg, knocked him off his feet. The red blob, pulsing with horrible life, slithered toward him.

  Cursing bitterly beneath his breath, Xris prepared to fire again.

  This means we come up short. This means we're finished. This means . . .

  A laser beam streaked past him, shattered the rock wall behind him. Xris didn't even duck. Was it imagination? A trick of the eyes, half-blinded by the energy bursts? Or was the Corasian dying.

  "Xris! You killed it!" Lee shouted. "Hit 'em again! Hit 'em again!"

  The cyborg kicked aside shattered pieces of steelglass casing, prodded the slowly darkening blob that had once been inside it with the toe of his boot.

  "That's the last one," said Lee, coming up behind him. "At least we know now those missiles of yours work."

  "Yeah," Xris muttered, spitting tobacco, "everyone in the whole goddam place knows they work."

  "You got any idea where we are? How far we need to go?"

  Xris activated the small screen on his cybernetic arm, consulted the diagram. "Not far, according to this. But it's going to seem a lot farther if every Corasian in the place stands between it and us."

  Turning, he walked back to the cavern room entrance. Britt sat propped up against a wall. The flickering firelight glistened on sweat that covered his face. His eyes were closed. Raoul was packing up a medi-kit.

  "How's that leg?" Xris asked, kneeling beside him.

  Britt opened his eyes, tried to smile. He swallowed, grit his teeth. "Fine. I'm just . . . taking a little rest. But I'll be ready to move out when you give the word. Boy, those missiles of yours are really something."

  "Too bad I didn't bring more."

  "Say, could I bum a twist?"

  "You're quitting. Remember?"

  Britt grinned weakly. "Yeah, this'll be my last one."

  Xris handed over a twist, lit it for him. "Guess the lady won't mind if we smoke now."

  He stood up in response to a look from Raoul, who drew him off to one side.

  "The Little One says the man is lying. He is not fine," Raoul stated, shaking his head.