"Truth," Hawkmoon replied evenly, "is a coarse noose about your throat. I think we should hang you."
He fingered the dull black jewel imbedded in his forehead. "I am not unfamiliar with the tricks of the Dark Empire. I have been their victim too often to risk being deceived again." He looked at the others. "I say we should hang him now."
"But how do we know if he is really the only one who can reach us?" D'Averc asked sensibly. "We cannot be too hasty, Hawkmoon."
"I am the only one, I swear it!" Tozer spoke nervously now. "I admit, good sir, that I was commissioned to come here. It was that or lose my life in the prison catacombs of the Great Palace. When I had the old man's secret, I returned to Londra thinking that my power would enable me to bargain with those at Court who were displeased with me. I wished only to be returned to my former status and know that I had an audience to write for once again. However, when I told them of my new-found discipline, they instantly threatened my life unless I came here and destroyed that which enabled you to enter this dimension ... so I came—glad, I must admit, to escape them. I was not particularly willing to risk my skin in offending you good folk but..."
"They did not ensure, in some way, that you would perform the task they set you?" Hawkmoon asked.
"That is strange."
"To tell you the truth," Tozer said, downcast, "I do not think they altogether believed in my power. I think they merely wished to test that I had it. When I agreed to go and left instantly, they must have been shocked."
"Not like the Dark Empire Lords to allow such an oversight," mused D'Averc, his aquiline face frowning.
"Still, if you did not win our confidence, there's no reason you should have won theirs. Nonetheless, I am not altogether convinced that you speak the truth."
"You told them of this old man?" Bowgentle said.
"They will be able to learn his secret for themselves!"
"Not so," Tozer said with a leer. "I told them I had struck upon the power myself, in my months of soli-tude."
"No wonder they did not take you seriously!"
D'Averc smiled.
Tozer looked hurt and took another draft of wine.
"I find it difficult to believe that you were able to travel here by exercise of your will alone," Bowgentle admitted. "Are you sure you employed no other means...?"
"None."
"I like this not at all," Hawkmoon said darkly.
"Even if he tells the truth, the Lords of Granbretan will wonder where he found his power by now, will learn all his movements, will almost certainly discover the old man—and then they will have the means to come through in strength and we shall be doomed!"
"Indeed, these are difficult times," Tozer said, filling his goblet yet again. "Remember your King Staleen, Act IV, Scene II—'Wild days, wild riders, and the stink of warfare across the world!' Aha, I was a vi-sionary and knew it not!" He was now evidently drunk.
Hawkmoon stared hard at the weak-chinned drunk-ard, still finding it almost impossible to believe that this was the great playwright Tozer.
"You wonder at my poverty, I see," Tozer said, speaking with slurred tongue. "The result of a couple of lines in Chirshil and Adulf, as I told you. Oh, the wickedness of fate! A couple of lines, penned in good faith, and here I am today, with the threat of a noose about my gullet. You remember the scene of course, and the speech? 'Court and king, alike corrupt . . . ?'
Act I, Scene I? Pity me, sir, and do not hang me. A great artist destroyed by his own mighty genius."
"This old man," Bowgentle said. "What was he like?
Where exactly did he live?"
"The old man . . ." Tozer. forced more wine down his throat. "The old man reminded me somewhat of Ioni in my Comedy of Steel. Act II, Scene VI . . ."
"What was he like?" Hawkmoon asked impatiently.
" 'Machine-devoured, all his hours were given o'er to that insidious circuitry, and old grew he, unnoticing, in the service of his engines.' He lived only for his science, you see. He made the rings . . ." Tozer put his hand to his mouth.
"Rings? What rings?" D'Averc said swiftly.
"I feel that you must excuse me," Tozer said, rising in a parody of dignity, "for the wine has proved too rich for my empty stomach. Your pity, if you please..."
It was true that Tozer's face had taken on a greenish tinge.
"Very well," Bowgentle said wearily. "I will show you."
"Before he leaves," came a new voice from near the door, "ask him for the ring he wears on the middle finger of his left hand." The tone was slightly muffled, a little sardonic. Hawkmoon recognized it at once and turned.
Tozer gasped and clamped his hand over the ring.
"What do you know of this?" he said. "Who are you?"
"Duke Dorian here," said the figure with a gesture towards Hawkmoon, "calls me the Warrior in Jet and Gold."
Taller than any of them, covered all in armour and helm of black and gold, the mysterious Warrior raised an arm and pointed a metal-clad finger at Tozer. "Hand him that ring."
"The ring is of glass, nothing more. It is of no value..."
D'Averc said. "He mentioned rings. Is the ring, then, what actually transported him here?"
Tozer still hesitated, his face stupid with drink and with anxiety. "I said that it was glass, of no value . . ."
"By the Runestaff, I command thee!" rumbled the Warrior in a terrible voice.
With a little nervous movement, Elvereza Tozer drew off the ring and flung it onto the flagstones.
D'Averc stooped and caught it up, inspecting it. "It's a crystal," he said, "not glass. A familiar kind of crystal, too..."
"It is of the same substance from which the device that brought you here was carved," the Warrior in Jet and Gold told him. He displayed his own gauntleted hand and there, on the middle finger, reposed an identi-cal ring. "And it possesses the same properties—can transport a man through the dimensions."
"As I thought," Hawkmoon said. "It was no mental discipline that enabled you to come here, but a piece of crystal. Now I'll hang you assuredly! Where did you get the ring?"
"From the man—from Mygan of Llandar. I swear that is the truth. He has others—can make more!"
Tozer cried. "Do not hang me, I pray you. I will tell you exactly where to find the old man."
"That we shall have to know," Bowgentle said thoughtfully, "for we shall have to get to him before the Dark Empire Lords do. We must have him and his secrets—for our security."
"What? Must we journey to Granbretan?" D'Averc said in some astonishment.
"It would seem necessary," Hawkmoon told him.
Chapter Four - FLANA MIKOSEVAAR
AT THE CONCERT, Flana Mikosevaar, Countess of Kanbery, adjusted her mask of spun gold and glanced absently about her, seeing the rest of the audience only as a mass of gorgeous colours. The orchestra in the center of the ballroom played a wild and complex melody, one of the later works of Granbretan's last great musician, Londen Johne, who had died two centuries earlier.
The Countess's mask was that of an ornate heron, its eyes facetted with a thousand fragments of rare jewels. Her heavy gown was of luminous brocade that changed its many colours as the light varied. She was Asrovak Mikosevaar's widow, he who had died under Dorian Hawkmoon's blade at the first Battle of the Kamarg. The Muskovian renegade, who had formed the Vulture Legion to fight on the European mainland and whose slogan had been Death to Life, was not mourned by Flana of Kanbery and she bore no grudge against his killer. He had been her twelfth husband, after all, and the fierce insanity of the bloodlover had served her pleasure long enough before he had set off to make war on the Kamarg. Since then she had had several lovers and her memory of Asrovak Mikosevaar was as cloudy as all her other memories of men, for Flana was an inturned creature who barely distinguished between one person and another.
It was her habit, on the whole, to have husbands and lovers destroyed when they became inconvenient to her. An instinct, rather than any intellectual consideration, stopped her from m
urdering the more powerful ones. This was not to say that she was incapable of love, for she could love passionately, doting entirely on the object of her love, but she could not sustain the emotion for long. Hatred was unknown to her, as was loyalty. She was for the most part a neutral animal, reminding some of a cat and others of a spider—though in her grace and beauty she was more reminiscent of the former. And there were many who bore her hatred, who planned vengeance against her for a husband stolen or a brother poisoned, who would have taken that vengeance had she not been the Countess of Kanbery and cousin to the King-Emperor Huon, that immortal monarch who dwelt eternally in his womblike Throne Globe in the huge throne room of his palace.
She was the center of other attentions, also, since she was the only surviving kin of the monarch, and certain elements at court considered that with Huon destroyed she could be made Queen-Empress and serve their interests.
Unaware of any plots concerning her, Flana of Kanbery would have been unperturbed had she been told of them, for she had not the faintest curiosity about the affairs of any one of her species, sought only to satisfy her own obscure desires, to ease the strange, melancholy longing in her soul which she could not define.
Many had wondered about her, sought her favors with the sole object of unmasking her to see what they could learn in her face, but her face, fair-skinned, beautiful, the cheeks slightly flushed always, the eyes large and golden, held a look remote and mysterious, hiding far more than could any golden mask.
The music ceased, the audience moved, and the colours became alive as the fabrics swirled and masks turned, nodded, gestured. The delicate masks of the ladies could be seen gathering around the warlike helms of those recently returned captains of Granbretan's great armies. The Countess rose but did not move towards them. Vaguely she recognised some of the helms—particularly that of Meliadus of the Wolf Order, who had been her husband five years earlier and who had divorced her (an action she had hardly noticed).
There, too, was Shenegar Trott, lounging on heaped cushions, served by naked mainland slavegirls, his silver mask a parody of a human face. And she saw the mask of the Duke of Lakasdeh, Pra Flenn, barely eigh-teen and with ten great cities fallen to him, his helm a grinning dragon head. The others she thought she knew, and she understood that they were all the mightiest warlords, back to celebrate their victories, to divide up the conquered territories between them, to receive the congratulations of their Emperor. They laughed considerably, stood proudly as the ladies flattered them, all but her ex-husband Meliadus, who appeared to avoid them and conferred instead with his brother-in-law Taragorm, Master of the Palace of Time, and the serpent-masked Baron Kalan of Vitall, Grand Constable of the Order of the Snake and chief scientist to the King-Emperor. Behind her mask, Flana frowned, remembering distantly that Meliadus normally avoided Taragorm...
Chapter Five - TARAGORM
"AND HOW HAVE you fared, Brother Taragorm?" asked Meliadus with forced cordiality.
The man who had married his sister replied shortly: "Well." He wondered why Meliadus should approach him thus when it was common knowledge that Meliadus was profoundly jealous of Taragorm's having won his sister's affections. The huge mask lifted a little super-ciliously. It was constructed of a monstrous clock of gilded and enameled brass, with numerals of inlaid mother-of-pearl and hands of filigree'd silver, the box in which hung its pendulum extending to the upper part of Taragorm's broad chest. The box was of some transparent material, like glass of a bluish tint, and through it could be seen the golden pendulum swinging back and forth. The whole clock was balanced by means of a complex mechanism so as to adjust to Taragorm's every movement. It struck the hour, half-hour and quarter-hour and at midday and midnight chimed the first eight bars of Sheneven's Temporal Antipathies,
"And how," continued Meliadus in this same unusually ingratiating manner, "do the clocks of your palace fare? All the ticks ticking and the tocks tocking, mmm?"
It took Taragorm a moment to understand that his brother-in-law was, in fact, attempting to joke. He made no reply.
Meliadus cleared his throat.
Kalan of the serpent mask said: "I hear you are experimenting with some machine capable of travelling through time, Lord Taragorm. As it happens, I, too, have been experimenting—with an engine ..."
"I wished to ask you, brother, about your experiments," Meliadus said to Taragorm. "How far advanced are they?"
"Reasonably advanced, brother."
"You have moved through time already?"
"Not personally."
"My engine," Baron Kalan continued implacably,
"is capable of moving ships at enormous speeds across vast distances. Why, we could invade any land on the globe, no matter how far away..."
"When will the point be reached," Meliadus asked, moving closer to Taragorm, "when a man can journey into the past or future?"
Baron Kalan shrugged and turned away. "I must return to my laboratories," he said. "The King-Emperor has commissioned me urgently to complete my work. Good day, my lords."
"Good day," said Meliadus absently. "Now, brother, you must tell me more of your work—show me, perhaps, how far you have progressed."
"I must," Taragorm replied facetiously. "But my work is secret, brother. I cannot take you to the Palace of Time without the permission of King Huon. That you must seek first."
"Surely unnecessary for me to seek such permission?"
"None is so great that he can act without the blessing of our King-Emperor."
"But the matter is of extraordinary importance, brother," Meliadus said, his tone almost desperate, almost wheedling. "Our enemies have escaped us, probably to another era of the Earth. They offer a threat to Granbretan's security!"
"You speak of that handful of ruffians whom you failed to defeat at the Battle of the Kamarg?"
"They were almost conquered—only science or sorcery saved them from our vengeance. No one blames me for my failure ..."
"Save yourself? You do not blame yourself?"
"No blame to me, at all, from any quarter. I would finish the matter, that's all. I would rid the Empire of her enemies. Where's the fault in that?"
"I have heard it whispered that your battle is more private than public, that you have made foolish com-promises in order to pursue a personal vendetta against those who dwell in the Kamarg."
"That is an opinion, brother," Meliadus said, restraining with difficulty his chagrin. "But I fear only for our Empire's well-being."
"Then tell King Huon of this fear and he may then permit you to visit my palace." Taragorm turned away, as he did so his mask beginning to boom out the hour. Further conversation was momentarily impossible. Meliadus made to follow him, then changed his mind, walking, fuming, from the hall.
Surrounded now by young lords, each seeking to attract her deadly attentions, Countess Flana Mikosevaar watched Baron Meliadus depart.
By the impatient manner of his gait, she assumed him to be in uneven temper. Then she forgot him as she returned her attention to the flatteries of her attendants, listening not to the words (which were familiar to her) but to the voices themselves which were like old, favorite instruments.
Taragorm, now, was conversing with Shenegar Trott.
"I am to present myself to the King-Emperor in the morning," Trott told the Master of the Palace of Time.
"Some commission, I believe, that is at this moment a secret known only to himself. We must keep busy, Lord Taragorm, eh?"
"Indeed, we must, Count Shenegar, lest boredom engulfs us all."
Chapter Six - THE AUDIENCE
NEXT MORNING Meliadus waited impatiently outside the King-Emperor's throne room. He had requested an audience the previous evening and had been told to present himself at eleven o'clock. It was now twelve and the doors had not yet opened to admit him. The doors, towering into the dimness of the huge roof, were encrusted with jewels that made up a mo-saic of images of ancient things. The fifty mantis-masked guards who blocked them, stood stock s
till with flame-lances ready at a precise angle. Meliadus strode up and down before them; behind him, the glit-tering corridors of the King Emperor's hallucinatory palace.
Meliadus attempted to fight back his feelings of resentment that the King Emperor had not granted him an immediate audience. After all, was he not paramount Warlord of Europe? Had it not been under his direction that the armies of Granbretan had conquered a continent? Had he not taken those same armies into the Middle East and added further territories to the domain of the Dark Empire? Why should the King-Emperor seek to insult him in this manner? Meliadus, first of Granbretan's warriors, should have priority over all lesser mortals. He suspected a plot against him. From what Taragorm and the others had said, they judged him to be losing his grip. They were fools if they did not realise the threat that Hawkmoon, Count Brass and Huillam D'Averc offered. Let them escape their deserved reckoning and it would inflame others to rebel, make the work of conquest less speedy. Surely King Huon had not listened to those who spoke against him? The King Emperor was wise, the King Emperor was objective.
If he were not, then he was unfit to rule ...
Meliadus dismissed the thought in horror.
At last the jewelled doors began to move open until they were wide enough to admit a single man—and through this crack strode a jaunty, corpulent figure.
"Shenegar Trott!" exclaimed Meliadus. "Is it you who has kept me waiting so long?"
Trott's silver mask glinted in the light from the corridors. "My apologies, Baron Meliadus. My deep apologies. There were many details to discuss. But I am finished now. A mission, my dear Baron—I have a mission! Such a mission, ha, ha!"
And before Meliadus could tax him further on the nature of his mission, he had swept away.
From within the Throne Room now issued a youth-ful, vibrant voice, the voice of the King Emperor himself.
"You may join me now, Baron Meliadus."
The mantis warriors parted their ranks and allowed the baron to pass through them and into the Throne Room.
The History of the Runestaff Page 33
