The Altar at Asconel

by John Brunner

  But proof of his suspicion made him feel sick.

  At least they hadn’t suspected him in their turn. He was acknowledged as a fit companion, a tribute to the glibness of his tongue and his courtly manners. It almost seemed that it was easier to conduct nefarious business in broad daylight than under the cover of night. The trouble they had had sneaking Tharl into the Warden’s palace, even though his memory held a clearer picture of it than had ever been given to the old soldier when he was assigned to security duties here in the capital.…! With Eunora keeping watch for patrols so that they could dodge into shadow every time, they had still spent better than four hours getting Tharl inside.

  Spartak’s eyes strayed towards the palace. Was the man safe where he was supposed to be?

  Tharl twisted himself into a marginally more comfortable position. The hot, clammy air from the discharge pipe of the air circulators coated his skin with dirty moisture. But he had gloves, and his hands would not slip on the switches of his gun. Lovingly he sighted it for the hundredth time on the distant golden dome shielding the alien monster Belizuek.

  He felt himself a changed person since the moment he met Spartak and his brothers. He had been given back his sense of purpose in life; he had been offered a chance to avenge the slaughter of his wife and son. He lowered the gun to a resting position and gave a sigh of contentment. Nothing else mattered. He was still bruised from a fall he had taken trying to get up into the interior of this ventilation pipe, still retrospectively anxious about the noise he’d made which might have alarmed a guard—but apparently had gone unheeded—and both hungry and tired in the bargain. To the Big Dark with such complaints! He had the important thing: a job to do.

  Once more he lifted the gun and peered through its telescope. His heart quickened. Spartak was in position among the dignitaries on the steeply banked seating. It couldn’t be much longer now.

  If only the little girl played her part—!

  The next in the sequence of unscheduled events didn’t come until Bucyon and Lydis were getting down from their groundcar. The archpriest Shry—a curiously horrible figure, his back enormously bulging with some soft outgrowth of tissue—came to greet them, bands played and the watchers cheered.

  Under the arms of the guards who held back the crowd, a little girl slipped like an eel, clutching a bunch of flowers. A cry of alarm went up, and guards leveled their guns; then they hesitated, seeing how tiny she was, how well-scrubbed and attractive in her too-small, faded frock, and how innocuous the posy was that she now shyly offered to Bucyon.

  The tyrant scowled for a second, wondering who had arranged this “spontaneous” gesture of affection and why he had not been warned. He glanced at Lydis, who was frowning, but when after some seconds she did not tell him to desist, he put on a smile and accepted the flowers, afterwards patting the girl’s head. She was by now almost overcome by the strain of her great moment, and when Bucyon had gone on she slipped out of sight. Under one of the temporary stands erected to watch the procession she keeled over and slept for more than half an hour.

  The posy had contained the last of Spartak’s precious supply of the drug with which he had restored her to sanity. Handing it to Bucyon, she had triggered an injector that shot the entire dose into the fleshy ball of his thumb.

  And all the time she had slid away from the probing of Lydis and Shry. To resist them, to lie and deceive them for about ninety seconds, had cost her every ounce of her energy, so that when she fell down in a faint she knew neither where she was nor whether she would ever wake up.

  Spartak felt a lurching sensation of relief. Bucyon was coming up the main aisle of the Assembly holding the posy he had given to Eunora. Provided the injector hadn’t misfired, he was going to be extremely tractable.…

  And that, presumably, was Shry. He shivered as he studied the gross misshapen form of the archpriest. Yet Lydis found nothing distasteful in him; she accepted his arm as he helped her to a chair, to one side of and behind the Warden’s, that Bucyon sank into. Fanfares made the very sky resound, and were themselves scarcely louder than the bellows of applause that issued from the crowd.

  Then they brought Vix and Tiorin down the aisle.

  Silence fell, for which Spartak was eternally grateful. He ached to see his brothers treated thus. Their disguises had been stripped—their hair restored to its original flaming red—and they were clad in plain white suits, with their feet bare in an age-old penitential gesture.

  And there was apparently no sham about Bucyon’s claim that they were to sacrifice themselves voluntarily. They were neither bound nor very closely guarded, and as they came down the long aisle they held their heads high and walked like heroes.

  The horrifying idea struck him that if they spotted him they would feel it an honor to give him away. He cursed not having found time to change his appearance once again, and made what shift he could to hide his face behind a raised hand.

  But they passed on, to take their places on the altar-like dais, and all was in readiness for the great moment.

  The only explanation he could think of for their obvious willingness to come to their own funeral was that Belizuek’s emanations were already in control of their minds. And indeed, now that he turned his attention to it, Spartak thought he could feel the same awe-inspiring presence which had impressed the Penwyr congregation.

  For a moment, indeed, it tempted him to yield, seeming to say, “Fool! Even if Belizuek is in truth a living creature, is he not the last of a line greater than the human race—those squabbling borrowers of another’s power?”

  And further: “What can I do to thwart the destiny of this whole planet? I, one man, with a feeble plan that depends on a dozen outrageous coincidences to succeed!”

  He hoped Tharl was going to be on time.

  People had recognized Vix and Tiorin, and their faces reflected their complete conviction about Bucyon’s claims. He really did have them here; they really were about to enter Belizuek’s service. Some, especially those near Spartak, had harbored doubts till this very last moment. Now they were mentally congratulating themselves on having thrown in their lot with the winning party.

  Shry stepped to the front of the dais and began to address the crowd in a whining bleat of a voice, describing the event they all knew they were about to witness. But no one complained; behind the words there slowly grew the sense of Belizuek’s presence, the aura of a master of galaxies, the sense of being in a supernatural creature’s power. Spartak sweated and fidgeted. He had told Tharl to fire arbitrarily five minutes after the commencement of the ceremony. Never had five minutes been so long! Already the waves of mental control were battering his defenses; most of the crowd had succumbed willingly and instantly.

  Something must have gone wrong.

  Tharl must have been discovered.

  The plan was a failure. Asconel was doomed and he with it.

  Shry reached the climax of his introduction, turned his twisted body and threw up an arm in a dramatic gesture towards Tiorin and Vix—

  And with impeccable theatrical timing, Tharl loosed the first of his energy bolts against the golden dome enclosing Belizuek.

  XXIII

  THE SECOND bolt followed, the third, fourth and fifth, with the impersonal regularity of a clock’s ticking, and on the fifth the golden dome was broached. A noise like a scream was heard, half with the ears, half with the mind, and a foul stink oozed out over the crowd. It reminded Spartak of the stench from mud exposed by an exceptionally low tide at the mouth of a river much used for the disposal of sewage.

  Paralysis overtook everyone present for the space of long seconds, except himself. The first shot had brought him to his feet; before the last had struck, he had fought his way down the nearest transverse aisle and was clambering over the barrier separating the seats from the longitudinal aisle up which his brothers had so lately been marched on show.

  His head was ringing with both sound and soundless cries: the yells of dismay that had now broke
n out among the crowd, the incoherent jabbering of orders to the guards, something being shrieked in a high panicky voice by the woman Lydis—all these were commonplace reactions to what had happened. But overlying them, permeating the very air, was a sudden terrible sense of doom, the emanation from Belizuek’s mind as his body was exposed to the oxygen-rich air of this planet preferred by men.

  Spartak thought of the tens of millennia through which his species had used up the atmospheres of their old worlds, adapting little by little, growing used with every passing generation to a higher concentration of carbon dioxide, a lower percentage of available oxygen, until the contact of this rawer air was like acid poured on naked flesh.

  But that was nothing to occupy his mind right now. For the present he had the single advantage of knowing what had happened; it was a slender weapon to offer against Bucyon’s armor, but he had to make the most of it.

  He glanced at Vix and Tiorin. As he had hoped, they were standing bewildered, blinking at each other and the familiar Place of Grand Assembly, like men newly woken from a bad dream. But it would take Belizuek a while to die, and until he did die, the invisible talons would remain fast on their minds.

  Now: action.

  Spartak drew himself up to his full height and confronted the man who till this morning had been only a name to him—Bucyon, who had come from space to rape and ruin a beautiful world in the name of an obscene monster. And who now, if he was human, must be open for mastery by the first who seized control of him.

  “Bucyon!” Spartak bellowed, hands cupped around his mouth. The name seemed to plough through the oppressive mental aura as the energy bolt had sizzled upwards in the rain of Gwo, leaving a visible track of white steam. “Bucyon, speak to your people!”

  Spartak had spent long on his choice of phrase. That was his ultimate selection: a command both innocuous and deadly.

  Shry had gone wailing to see what harm was done to the golden dome; half out of sight from Spartak, he was waving his arms frantically, trying to make guards and other priests come to him and help repair the damage. But the woman Lydis—doubtless aware of the drug now coursing through Bucyon’s body—had jerked to her feet and now stood rockstill, her eyes burning Spartak.

  The call he had uttered took effect. Hoping for some guidance from Belizuek’s human deputy, the crowd quieted, the guards tensed for anticipated orders, the priests hesitated as they made to obey Shry’s beckoning signals.

  “Speak to your people, the people of Asconel!” Spartak shouted again. “Tell them—what is Belizuek?”

  But he was watching Lydis, not Bucyon, and was prepared when she gasped and tried to clutch at the big man’s arm, wanting to prevent the betrayal which he could not because the drug compelled him to total honesty.

  He jumped forward, hurling himself at the overhang of the dais and rolling onto its boards like a high-jumper clearing a difficult mark. As he moved, he was still calling: “Bucyon, Bucyon, tell them, tell them—the people of Asconel want to hear from you—tell them about Belizuek!”

  On the last breathless yell he was at Bucyon’s side, and his shoulder slammed against Lydis’, heedless of her sex. Fragile as a foamed dummy, she staggered back and fell against the chair from which she had risen, and remained dazed for a few precious moments during which Spartak alone had Bucyon’s ear.

  The drug took over his will, and he spoke helplessly to the attentive audience.

  “Belizuek is the last survivor of the species that ruled the galaxy before man.”

  The oppressive aura of hate and desperation redoubled its intensity, as if a stormcloud had settled over the Assembly. Spartak risked a glance behind him, fearing that Shry might have contrived to effect repairs.

  “He’s a material creature, isn’t he?” he shouted. “Not a mystical spirit, not a supernatural being, but a creature that had to feed and breathe as we do!”

  “Yes!” Bucyon agreed, helpless to deny it.

  “And that can be killed as we can!”

  “Yes!”

  Already the impact of this revelation was having its effect among the crowd. Those who had believed otherwise were pale with dismay; the conscious traitors who had never been duped were yet paler, for some of them thought they recognized a familiar countenance behind the new beard on Spartak’s face, despite the dyeing of his hair.

  “Why is he still with us, when the rest of his kind have gone? Tell them that!”

  “They cast him out,” Bucyon answered. “They exiled him to the world called Brinze, where men found him.”

  “Why?”

  “They said it was because he was insane, but he isn’t.” Spittle was gathering on the corners of Bucyon’s mouth and running down into his beard. His eyes were rimmed white as he strove and failed to stop his tongue from speaking.

  “Ah, but he was supposed to be immortal, wasn’t he?” Spartak thundered. “And he’s not! One breath of Asconel’s clean sweet air, and he’s dying!”

  But so slowly! Was there not another charge in Tharl’s gun, to burn directly into Belizuek’s substance? Spartak could feel the maddened will to survive which the creature was now broadcasting like raw energy, and so too could everyone else. In the living brains of those who surrounded him, human and alien thought were locked into terrible conflict, and—

  And it stopped.

  Exactly as though the sun had come out, the sense of death and disaster ceased, and Spartak allowed himself to hope for victory. He half-turned, and was met by a scream from the cripple Shry.

  “Belizuek lives! It’s only the servant who’s died—burned out—his brain failed! Bring the captives over here!”

  Guards, still blindly obedient to Shry’s command, made for the passively waiting Vix and Tiorin.

  “Tell them to stop!” Spartak gasped at Bucyon.

  But Lydis was on her feet, thrusting herself between her overlord and the man who had dared to stand against him.

  “No!” she hissed, so close to Spartak that tiny drops flew from her rage-contorted mouth and struck his cheek. “Belizuek is All, Belizuek is a Master, Belizuek was before the galaxy was!”

  Time froze. The guards were poised to pinion Vix and Tiorin, the people were still too confused to act, and he could say nothing. Even crippled by the breach in his protective dome, there was no knowing what Belizuek could do if he were given a fresh victim to serve as a telepathic link between himself and his slaves.

  An idea? A glimmer of hope? Spartak pushed Lydis aside roughly and addressed Bucyon once more. “Tell the people what Belizuek does with his servants! Say what becomes of those who go behind the screen into his presence!”

  “He won’t answer,” Lydis spat. “Your drug has spent itself, and I control his mind. Guards! Guards!”

  Indeed, Bucyon’s face had taken on the vacant look of an idiot, and he stood swaying and gazing out over the Assembly without seeing it.

  A sense of defeat which had nothing to do with Belizuek’s emanations overcame Spartak. The guards closed on his brothers. Lydis laughed madly in triumph—

  And Tharl let go the last charge from his energy gun.

  Like a white-hot steel bar it blazed down towards the rent in the golden dome, and in the final yard of its passage it speared Shry and turned him into a staggering horror wrapped in flame. Beyond him, only half spent on such a petty target, it burned deep, deep into the vitals of Belizuek, and Lydis screamed as though the pain were hers alone.

  A unison shock raced through the crowd. The guards about to seize the captives turned, the priests cried out in terror, Spartak in relief.

  Then Vix moved.

  He shook himself as though rousing from a long sleep, clubbed both fists together, and brought them up into the kidneys of the guard who would have seized him. The man gave a yell of agony and clapped his hands to the seat of the pain. Vix reached past him and took his sidearm and his sword in simultaneous precise movements. The sidearm he thrust into Tiorin’s hand as the other man also came to himself, and with
out a pause jabbed the sword’s point home in the exposed neck of the disarmed guard.

  He opened his throat in a cry which had not been heard except ceremonially since long before Bucyon usurped the Wardens chair, and it was like turning back the pages of the past.

  “For Ascone-e-e-el!”

  And he was away.

  Spartak was giddy with the speed of it. His eyes could not follow the instant blur that his half-brother became, a red-topped living torch of disaster for those who stood in his way. Behind, calmer, Tiorin weighed the gun he had suddenly acquired, then with a thoughtful look raised and aimed it. A bolt scattered the priests from around the golden dome, sending them tumbling off the edge of its raised platform. Another dispersed those muddled guards who thought to come to the rescue of their fellows. Another discouraged a group of conscious traitors who were trying to get out of the far end of the Assembly.

  But by then Vix had cleared a path all the way to Spartak’s side, and five men lay coughing the same blood which smeared his blade. He clapped Spartak on the arm and yelled at him, “A miracle, brother, a miracle! I love you for it!”

  And he was after Bucyon himself, the sword swinging high to split the bemused usurper’s skull.

  “Stop!” Spartak cried. “He’s no more than a booby now—his mind’s gone!”

  “Let the people see!” Vix answered savagely, and struck.

  With that final blow, even before Bucyon toppled headlong, the berserk madness left him. In its place, there was a cold white fury that made Spartak shiver as he looked on it.

  Tiorin came forward to stand with his brothers. No one lifted a hand to prevent him.

  “I’m Vix of Asconel!” Vix roared at the frightened people. “Here’s Tiorin, your rightful Warden! Here’s Spartak our brother to whom we owe our deliverance and yours!” He pointed with his sword, and the blade dripped red. “There lies a tyrant who had you in his hand—look at yourselves and think, think, think! You’re underfed, you’re dirty, you’re lousy, you’re like savages and not civilized citizens!”