"In here." The centurion touched the young man's arm. Dion had been walking along in a dazed fog.
Numerous recreation lounges on board the Phoenix helped combat the long hours of boredom when off-duty—the quiet hours that were more deadly to a soldier's morale than the most terrifying bombardment. Gaming lounges, vid lounges, and gymnasiums with swimming pools provided recreation for the body and the senses. The library and classrooms—where qualified professors taught everything from alien thought and philosophy to military history to playing the synthesizer to transferring the magnificent panoramas of space to canvas using paint and brush—provided recreation for the mind.
All these were popular—mainly because they were places where a man didn't have to be. in addition, there were the bars. Ever since the days of Admiral Nelson, the "rum ration" had been considered essential to the morale of the naval fleet. These days rum had been replaced by hundreds of other far more exotic concoctions. A computer kept track of what each man drank and how much. Any hint of alcohol addiction and the crew member found himself under the none too gentle care of Dr. Giesk.
Dion entered the bar, pausing a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting after the glare of the corridor. All noises of the ship were suddenly left behind, replaced by soft, nerve-soothing music.
The bar was comfortable, inviting, designed for talking and relaxing. Stuffed couches arranged in semicircles undulated in mauve waves throughout the room. Indistinct and shadowy forms talked quietly, erupted into sudden laughter. Glasses clinked on the tables, cool air fragrant with artificial smells of anything but the antiseptic smell of the working part of the ship wafted from unseen vents. Dion stood in the doorway, looking around and feeling suddenly homesick for Tusk and Link and his other friends. He was unaware that he was beginning to attract attention until the talking and the laughter and the glass clinking ceased.
The bar suddenly grew quiet, except for the soft whoosh of air, and everyone in the place stared at him.
Dion had been the subject of rumor for a week: the search for him, his eventual surrender, his dramatic meeting with the Warlord and the Lady Maigrey. The young man should have felt intimidated by the staring eyes—the eyes that met his, then slid away to look knowingly into other eyes, the eyes that were skeptical or curious or laughing. The young man should have felt shy, awkward, embarrassed, perhaps even angry. Dion didn't feel any of this. A tingling sensation spread from his fingertips through his arms, pulsed from his heart to the rest of his body. He could scarcely breathe for the excitement.
Dion didn't need to drink liquor. He was tasting a stronger, more addicting wine—power. He breathed it in and sucked it up. He stood there a long time, saying nothing, meeting the eyes, drawing them to him, feeding off them. It was exhilarating, like the first time he flew the Scimitar.
The spark of divinity—flame or devouring fire.
Without saying a word, Dion turned and left the bar. Marcus glanced at the bartender and shrugged.
"Kids!"
The ship's bells chimed the watches and three days came to an end at last.
Derek Sagan emerged from the chapel. He'd spent the entire time in the tiny altar room. Nothing but water had passed his lips, and that sparingly. He'd slept on the bare, chill metal of the deck. He was gaunt and grim and looked as if he'd fought all the legions of heaven.
He bathed and broke his fast. Putting on his armor and a pair of gauntlets—hiding the old scars and the new—he concealed his ravaged face behind the cold metal of his helmet and unsealed the door.
"Send for your captain," he ordered the man standing guard-duty outside.
The captain entered, fist over his heart.
"Ave atque vale, my lord." ["Hail and be well." Ancient Roman salute.]
"And to you, Captain." Sagan returned the salute. "You bring a message."
"I do, my lord." The captain paused. He did not understand what he was saying—it was in an archaic language. He had committed it to memory phonetically and he needed to be certain in his mind he had it absolutely correct.
"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed.'"
Actually it came across more as "ze blud-dmmmmd tid iz luuzed" but Sagan understood the garbled words of the line from Yeats's poem The Second Coming. He knew who had sent it; he knew what it meant.
"Satisfactory, Captain. When it is 2300 hours, bring Lady Maigrey and the boy, Dion, to my chambers. Request Admiral Aks to report to me now."
"Yes, my lord."
The captain left upon his assignment. Derek Sagan poured himself a glass of water and raised it in salute to the door of the chapel.
"I am well on my way to victory. Any further argument?"
Alone in her room, Maigrey finished Little Dorrit:
They went quietly down into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed; and as they passed along in sunshine and shade, the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward and the vain, fretted and chafed, and made their usual uproar.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
In vain man's expectations;
God brings the unthought to be,
As here we see.
Euripedes, The Bacchae
Maigrey's guards escorted her to the double doors decorated with the phoenix rising from the flames that guarded the chambers of the Warlord. The centurion standing outside the doors spoke a few words into a commlink set into the wall, and Maigrey heard the harsh answer, "Let her enter."
The guard started to push open the door, but Maigrey halted him. "Wait," she murmured. She smoothed the folds of indigo blue velvet, adjusted the cowl over her hair. The centurion would think, no doubt, that she was preparing herself to be ushered into the presence of the lord. Maigrey wasn't; she was stalling. She didn't want to enter his room, his private chambers, his sanctum. It would be him. All him, all memories, and she didn't think she could bear it.
But what am I going to do? she thought. Stand here in the corridor, looking like an idiot? If I don't walk in there, he's beaten me. How do I expect to defeat him, destroy him if I can't summon the courage to walk into his bedroom?
Lifting her chin, disguising her fear beneath an imperious air, she stepped toward the door, and the guard—caught by surprise at her sudden movement—hastened to open it for her.
I would know this room anywhere, Maigrey reflected. If I were set down upon a strange world and entered these chambers, I would know them for his.
There were the same familiar objects, objects she had forgotten, yet if they'd been missing she would have noted their absence. The collection of Roman artifacts—armor, swords and daggers, shields. An ancient helmet, a broken sandal worn by some long-dead plebeian, a statue of Apollo Loxias, the god of the longsight. There were no new additions to his collection, which Maigrey found odd and foreboding. He paid homage to his past, but was not bringing it into his present ... or his future.
The furnishings were more numerous and more luxurious than he'd been able to afford when she'd known him. But they were in the same style, arranged in the same way with taste and simplicity. Had Maigrey been blind, she could have walked around this room without hesitation. She knew where everything was; everything was in its place. She could have sat down in a chair and wept.
Instead, she clasped her ice-cold hands together and took a step forward. A robed figure emerged from behind a plain black screen.
"You kept . . . that?" Maigrey stared.
Sagan was dressed in black robes, his father's robes. His head was bare; the cowl rested on his shoulders. He wore his long black hair loose; it fell in heavy, gray-streaked waves to his shoulders, curling slightly at the ends. He looked older, more haggard without the strong shielding of the armor. Maigrey glanced at the dark, cold eyes, then looked involuntarily at his wrist, knowing what she would see and seeing it, she swiftly averted her gaze. The sight of the new scar unnerved her. He was still practicing his faith. Somehow, she had presumed that following the revolution, he would have renounced it, as he had reno
unced everything else he had once believed in. The past, apparently, was intruding upon the future.
"Come this way, my lady."
With an abrupt, commanding gesture, Sagan beckoned her around behind the screen.
Drawing a deep breath, Maigrey followed him. The screen hid from view a large open area. This part of the chamber had been cleared of all furniture except a long metal table covered with a black cloth marked at each corner by a silver eight-pointed star. Another black cloth shrouded several objects in the table's center. Tall, thick, beeswax candles stood in silver candle holders at either end. Lifting the black cloth, Sagan allowed Maigrey to see the objects beneath it.
"Is it all correct, my lady? Is it as you remember?"
Yes, it is as I remember. Their own investiture came back to her clearly. The two of them, because of the mind-link, had gone through the ordeal together. The voice of the priest, Sagan's father, had reverberated around her, around the room. It had been the first time he'd spoken since he took the vow of silence—an act of penitence for his great sin. It was to be the last time anyone would ever hear him speak:
Two together must walk the paths of darkness before they reach the light.
Maigrey pressed her hand over her mouth. She couldn't read Sagan's thoughts; they were heavily shielded, and she hoped he couldn't read hers. Not that it mattered; he could undoubtedly see the pain on her face.
"My lady?"
His impatient voice came from a great distance, through a thick and blinding mist.
"Yes, it's all correct."
She tried to say the words but the mist was too thick, robbing her of breath, of strength, of sanity. It was billowing, blinding, suffocating, and she was sinking beneath it when she felt him near her, felt his hand upon her arm, steadying her.
His voice was in her ear, his breath warm and moist on her skin. "When this rite is ended, so is your usefulness to me. You will not know when, for I will not give you opportunity to thwart me, but sometime soon, rest assured, my lady, I will come for you."
Maigrey tensed; anger and excitement and the need to keep her plans hidden from him burned away the mists. She wasn't succeeding well. He gazed at her, amused.
"You're going to fight me, aren't you, my lady?"
"You'd be disappointed in me if I didn't, wouldn't you, my lord?"
Calm and composed again, she glided away from his touch and saw a smile flicker across the thin, stern lips.
You challenged me deliberately! She marveled. Neither spoke, except in their minds. To give me back my courage! Yet you could kill me now, without a moment's hesitation. You hate me that much. Or is it me? No, not me but what I remind you of, what I am to you. Your past, our past. And more than that—the future. A future that was bright and glorious and full of promise. Now it's bitter and dark and stained with blood. By erasing me, you erase all that and, with the boy, you once again have youth and hope.
You were always a romantic, my lady. You should have listened to the prophecy. There was nothing in our future except darkness, betrayal, death. By ridding myself of you, Maigrey, I rid myself of the one person who possesses the power and the understanding necessary to stop me. It is that simple.
That simple? Then why the doubt, why the confusion? I see your mind, my lord, and your purpose is not clear. Something clouds it, casts a shadow over it—
Sagan turned from her abruptly. The chain of thought severed, leaving behind a bleak emptiness. Maigrey remembered the sensation. It had always occurred when they broke the close mental contact between them. Even if they had been miles and miles apart, they both felt as if a chill wind were roaring through the hollow tunnel of their minds. Each was forced to concentrate a moment, force each one's own soul to move back in to fill the void.
This had not happened to them since the mind-link had been reforged. It only indicated how strong the link had grown—despite themselves.
"My lady?" He wondered if she was ready.
"My lord." As ready as she'd ever be.
The clock's digital readout lacked a few minutes of 2300. Dion sat nervously in a chair, staring at the computer chess game he'd started days ago and never gone beyond three moves. When the knock came at his door—the knock he'd been expecting ever since he'd received Sagan's message— Dion didn't move but stared at the screen, brow furrowed in concentration as if he had nothing on his mind except his gambit.
The knock was not repeated. The hatch slid open; Sagan's centurions had no intention of bringing their charge late.
"It's time."
The centurion who spoke was Marcus. Dion would have greeted him by name, but the soldier's face was stern, forbidding any attempt at familiarity.
His mouth dry, his hands wet, the young man rose to his feet, nearly overturning the chair in his nervousness. It had been a foolish thing to do, he realized—sitting there for over two hours speculating, guessing, imagining, trying to recall if Platus had ever dropped one tiny hint about this ritual. Now I'm stretched taut as a string on Platus's old harp. If someone touches me the wrong way, I'll snap.
Marcus eyed him with cool curiosity. Dion did not know, but the centurions had themselves been speculating what the Warlord wanted with the young man at this hour of the night. Everyone on board ship knew who Dion was, by now. They knew he was the heir to a throne stained in blood. They knew he was wanted by the President and Congress. They knew—or thought they did—that he might very well face execution unless he renounced his birthright. Perhaps Lord Sagan was going to discuss that issue with the boy right now. A "discussion" with the Warlord was rarely pleasant—he could make a man renounce the fact that he was a man at all. It was even money among the crew that—when they saw this young man again—Dion would be lucky to remember his name, much less the fact that he was king.
The ride up the Warlord's private elevator was accomplished in silence broken only by the soft hissing of life-support and the almost inaudible whoosh of the hydraulics. The centurions escorted Dion to the golden double doors decorated with a blazing phoenix and turned, silently, to leave him.
"But—what?" Dion felt helpless, paralyzed. He could barely force words from his parched throat.
"You are to enter alone," Marcus said, from the shadows. "Go ahead. The door will open. You are expected."
Dion heard the words as ominous, whether the man intended them to be or not. He hesitated and the thought came into his mind that he could turn and run and no one would stop him. And he realized, at the same moment, that this was Part I of the test. Raising a shaking hand, he pushed on the door and it slid silently open.
Dion stepped forward and was almost immediately blind, swallowed up by darkness. The door shut behind him. He held still, afraid to move until he could see, not wanting to impair his dignity by bumping into something. Listening, he heard a soft sigh and the rustle of smooth cloth and he knew Maigrey was here. She did not wear the starjewel. Perhaps its light was considered intrusive.
Within the thick blackness, a darker, heavier shape moved—the Warlord. "Stretch out your hand."
Dion did so, hesitantly.
"You feel the cloth at your fingertips?"
Groping, Dion found it—some sort of coarsely woven fabric.
"Strip off your clothes, drape that over your body."
Flushing in embarrassment, despite the darkness, Dion did as he was commanded, struggling with folds of the fabric, trying to figure out how it was worn. At last he found an opening he figured was for his head. He slipped it on and the crude robe fell over his shoulders and touched the floor. It left his arms bare and he shivered in the room's icy chill. The fabric was like rope. It itched and, when he moved, scratched irritably against his skin.
A strange scent made Dion's nose tickle. Incense. He was afraid for one panicked moment that he might sneeze. Rubbing his nose with his hand, he prevented it.
A candle flared. Above it, Dion saw Sagan's face clearly for the first time. Queasy fear gripped the young man's bowels. The metal mask of
the helmet had been cold and impersonal and unfeeling, but that was natural. He had assumed that the face beneath it was warm and alive.
He had assumed wrong.
Holding the candle in one hand, the Warlord lifted the cowl and covered his head. His face vanished beneath the fabric that seemed made of woven night.
Dion started to speak, to stammer out some sort of greeting, but Maigrey, moving into the candlelight so that she might be seen, made a slight negating gesture with her hand and shook her head.
"Do not speak, Dion." Her voice was soft and low. The pale hair, lying on her shoulders, was white and cold as moonlight. "Your thoughts turn inward"—her hands moved to her heart— "and outward." Her hands extended to the open air. "You look within, to yourself. Without, to the Creator."
Fear wrung Dion. His flesh was soggy pulp, his blood water. He was shivering with terror; he was desperately, horribly afraid. Think of himself? the Creator? The young man could visualize only fearful pain and death and oblivion.
"Come this way," Sagan ordered, gesturing.
Dion willed himself to obey but his feet wouldn't move. He ducked his head, covered his lips with his hand, and prayed to a God he had never believed in that he wouldn't spew out the bile filling his mouth.
He was dimly aware of Maigrey whispering, "What have you told him would happen? He looks as if he's going to his death!"
And he had to suffer the Warlord's stem, frowning displeasure. "Nothing. I've told him nothing."
Then Maigrey was beside Dion, her hands on his arms. Her touch was cool and soothing.
"Dion, it's a religious rite, a ceremony, nothing more. "
"No!" He gasped the word, almost choking, staring wildly at the black screen behind which lurked some unknown horror. "I'm going to die!" When he spoke the fear aloud, he was filled with a sudden peace and the shivering stopped, the sickness eased. Dion gently put aside the woman's hands.
The Lost King Page 30
