Ghost Legion (54 page)

"Alert the guards...."

That was a possibility. Xris took one look at the heads of
government, the arts, religion, moving up the hill. Once the shooting
started . . . He shook his head. "They probably wouldn't believe
us anyway. By the time we convinced them, it'd be too late. Damn it,
we've got to get inside! I—By God!" he said suddenly, his
gaze on the procession of dignitaries. "There's the answer.
Brother Daniel!"

"Who? Where?" Raoul blinked his pink-lidded eyes.

"The archbishop! Brother Daniel. Don't you remember? With Lady
Maigrey—"

"Ah, yes! Do you think he will remember us?"

"I don't see how he could ever forget," Xris said grimly.
He was busy surreptitiously arming his weapons hand.

Raoul stood on tiptoe, waving the pink silken scarf he'd removed from
around his neck. "Yoo-hoo! Brother Dani—"

"You idiot!" Xris grabbed hold of the Loti, dragged him
down. "Don't draw attention to us! Not yet, at any rate. The
Little One got any of those sleep-drugged darts on him?"

The fedora was bobbing up and down enthusiastically.

"He says yes."

"Tell him to load up. At my signal, go into one of your fits.
Head for the archbishop. The Little One and I'll see you get a clear
path. Got it?"

"Ah, yes!" Raoul glittered. "A fit. And what do I do
when I get there? Do I get to kiss anyone?"

"No, damn it! Drop like rock. I'll handle it from there. The
Little One know what to" do?"

"Yes, he is most—"

"I don't care what he is. Those bastards are already inside.
Wait till the archbishop gets opposite us . . . Ready . . . Now!"

Raoul sucked in a breath, let out a piercing shriek. Xris, knowing it
was coming, was still unprepared for it. The Loti's scream was
tortured, truly terrifying, and had the effect of causing those
standing around him to make a concerted effort to get somewhere else.
Even those in the procession came to a confused halt, heads craning
to see what was going on.

Raoul was now twitching and foaming at the mouth and doing a spastic
dance—the very image of a Loti on a bad trip.

Three of the baroness's guards started toward him. The Little One
clapped his hand to his mouth. One of the guards winced, slapped at
her neck as if she'd been stung by a bug. The next moment, she was
prostrate on the ground. Her two companions had their hands out,
ready to catch hold of the gyrating Raoul.

Xris grabbed one with his steel hand, sent a mild jolt of electricity
through her body. She stiffened and collapsed, writhing on the
ground. A kick of his steel leg sent the other guard crashing back
into the milling crowd.

People fighting to get away from the Loti opened up a path that led
right to the highway. Seemingly oblivious to what was going on, Raoul
jerked and twisted rapidly out of the crowd, dove headfirst to the
ground right in front of the archbishop, and, with another horrible
scream, curled up in a fist-clenching pink velvet ball at the
priest's feet.

Xris was right behind him. The cyborg threw his own body protectively
over Raoul, looked up into the archbishop's shocked face,

"Brother Daniel!" said Xris swiftly, speaking in the
military argot used by the Warlord's men. "Remember us?"

Archbishop Fideles looked at him closely, gasped. "Xris!"

"Play along with me!" die cyborg told him. He raised his
voice, switched to the language of Ceres. "The Adonian is dying!
Give him your blessing Holiness!"

The guards crowded around. Two of them seized hold of the archbishop,
intent on guarding him from possible danger.

"An outrage! Remove this man! How dare you—"shouted
another member of the Order of Adamant, who was also trying to drag
the archbishop away.

The guards had lasguns aimed at Xris's head.

"Halt this madness!" Fideles demanded loudly and
forcefully, his voice carrying over the tumult, as it had once
carried in the confusion of battle. "You, Prior John. Stand
away. Give this poor man air. And you call yourself God's minister."
He cast a withering glance at the prior, who fell back in offended
dignity.

"You, guards. Leave the poor man alone! Put away your weapons!
You are on holy ground!

The guards, moving slowly and reluctantly, did as the archbishop
commanded. They stood back, leaving a clear space around the
prostrate man and his friends, though they kept their guns leveled at
Xris. The crowd in front had fallen silent, trying their best to
hear, shushing those in back who couldn't see and were demanding to
know what was going on.

The archbishop knelt down, laid his hand on Raoul's forehead. Fideles
was trying hard not to notice that Raoul had winked at him.

"What in the name of heaven, Xris—" Fideles began in
an undertone.

"The queen's in danger." Xris leaned close to the
archbishop, pretending to be ministering to the stricken Adonian.
"Those clerics who went into the temple aren't clerics. The
Little One spotted them."

"God save us!" Fideles exclaimed in horror. "Who sent
you?"

"Lord Sagan," said Xris.

Dixter hadn't told the cyborg much, just enough.

Fideles stared, then closed his eyes in relief. "Thank God! I
had not heard from him. I was beginning to think—"

"No time for that now, Brother!" Xris interrupted grimly.
"Get us inside!"

"Yes, of course. You're right." Fideles gathered up his
heavy ceremonial robes and rose to his feet. "This man is in
desperate need of medical attention. Let him be carried into the
temple."

"But Holiness! That is not possible!" One of the temple
priests came dashing forward. "He is a Loti! It would be a
sacrilege—"

"He is one of the Goddess's children, however unworthy!"
Fideles returned sternly. "Far greater sacrilege if he dies out
here on the temple steps."

Xris had lifted Raoul, was holding him tenderly. The Adonian looked
quite pale and pitiful, his eyes closed, his body lifeless, his long
black hair hanging almost to the ground. The Little One clung to
Raoul's limp hand like a frightened child to its sick mother.

Either the priest was moved by true concern for a fellow mortal or by
the thought (cleverly introduced by Fideles) of a Loti—surrounded
by reporters—breathing his last on the temple steps. The priest
gave orders for the wretched man to be carried inside. Guards
surrounded them, hustled them swiftly into the temple, away from the
curious eyes of the crowd and the vidcams.

Fideles looked after them worriedly. Forced to return to the
ceremonial procession, the archbishop said and did what he was
supposed to say and do. But those around him noted that he appeared
worried and preoccupied. Prior John whispered that the incident had
badly upset the Holy Father, and everyone was extremely kind and
solicitous to the archbishop.

Little did Prior John know that the archbishop was trying his level
best to figure out some way of shaking loose those obtuse fools and
hurrying off to join his former comrades-in-arms.

CHRIS: Go ahead, Lee. You don't owe anything to anybody.

LEE: Except to myself.

The Magnificent Seven

Kamil had been granted leave to attend the religious ceremonies if
she chose, but she perversely declined, declaring that she would
spend the day in her room. In truth, she would have liked to have
seen the ceremonies and witnessed the rites, but refusing to do so
gave her a feeling of control over her situation and she took a
certain grim delight in exercising it.

Not that she lacked control. She was not a prisoner—at least
not a prisoner of the queen's. Kamil could have walked out the
enormous front doors of the temple at any time she chose. The cyborg,
Xris, who had brought her here, was waiting—by the queen's
command—to take her back, take her wherever she wanted to go.
The bindings were off her arm. The limb was stiff but healing well.
Each day Kamil told herself that tomorrow would be the day she left.

Each day tomorrow came, and another tomorrow would be invoked.

Kamil offered various excuses to herself—Astarte would see
reason, Astarte would agree to step aside, Astarte would this or
Astarte would that.

But, of course, Astarte never would and Kamil knew it. The real
reason she was staying here was that it was easy to stay here. If she
left—when she left—Kamil would have to make a decision.
She would have to face Dion, face herself, face the fact of them
together. Their lovemaking, which had seemed so wonderful and
beautiful and a little bit daring and thrilling, was now something
tawdry and shabby, secretive and furtive. In the dark night, when she
lay sleepless, tears drying on her cheeks, Kamil knew that she could
never again think of only the two of them. From now on, there would
always be a third person, watching silently, sadly from the shadows.

Kamil felt ashamed and guilty, and she hated feeling ashamed, hated
feeling guilty. It was Astarte who made her feel this way, and
therefore Kamil found it convenient to hate Astarte.

"Why did you have to ruin everything?" Kamil had demanded
of her rival one day, when they were walking together in the quiet
solitude of the temple gardens. "Everything was fine. No one was
getting hurt. Not you! You don't care about
him.
Not
Dion.
All you care about is the king. You can have the king. Let me have
Dion."

Astarte had looked at her with those lovely clear eyes and there was
sorrow in them. "I wish I could. For his sake, I wish I could. A
part of him will be lonely when you are gone. A loneliness I can
never fill. But it cannot be." She shook her head. "It must
not be."

Then I'll take him! He'll divorce you! He's already considering
it!
Kamil had wanted to shout at her, but she hadn't. She had
only walked away. Astarte's calmness, her understanding, her
acceptance, her sorrow, baffled Kamil. It was like battling an enemy
who throws down all her weapons and stands and stares at you.
Refusing to surrender, yet refusing to fight.

Kamil was going over all this for the thousandth time in her mind,
and had just decided that she would most definitely leave tomorrow,
when the sounds of the approaching procession came in through her
open window. Tired of her own company, glad for some distraction, she
walked out to one of the high temple walls, from which she had an
excellent view. Leaning over it, she watched with gloomy interest the
thousands of people shifting and swaying far below.

The head of the procession was just entering the temple steps—a
group of robed men and women, singing and bearing fruit and grains in
tribute to the Goddess's bounty. Restless, Kamil was about to leave
and return to her room when she noticed some sort of disturbance
taking place down below.

The procession straggled to a halt. She couldn't make out what was
happening; the crowd was swirling around in disorder. Then the mob
parted. Guards shoved people back. The archbishop was involved, to
judge by his ornate and colorful robes. And then a man was carrying
what looked to be a garishly glad woman inside the temple.

Sunlight flashed off a metal arm. Kamil leaned perilously far out
over the wall to get a better look. It
was
Xris! The cyborg
was carrying a woman into the temple.

"How odd," Kamil said aloud, talking to herself. "How
extremely odd. But then I'm not surprised someone was hurt.
Considering the mass of people down there. Still, it's strange Xris
should be involved. I wouldn't think he'd have been interested in
this sort of thing."

The healers would be prepared to take care of whoever it was. The
infirmary had been restocked with supplies for the event, more beds
added. Religious ecstasy generally felled several of the more
zealous. Apparently someone had been affected early.

But Xris involved . . . The more Kamil thought about it, the less
sense it made.

"I'll just go see what's going on. I need to talk to Xris
anyway," she added, somewhat ashamed of her own morbid
curiosity. "I need to discuss plans for leaving. This will be
the perfect opportunity."

The gardens and grounds were empty; most of the inhabitants were
either on duty in the arena or busy in other parts of the temple.
Kamil returned to the main building, entered through a side door, and
passed quickly down the maze of hallways. She had learned her way
around in the past days. The infirmary was located in a back wing off
the main building. It had its own private garden and tropical
solarium, complete with a pool of bubbling hot, healing waters.

Gliding soft-footed into the sickroom, Kamil cast a quick glance
around. None of the healers took any particular notice of her; she
had taken to dressing in the comfortable, loose-fitting gowns all the
women wore. But she didn't see the cyborg. No one was in a state of
quiet alarm; no one was fussing over a new patient.

"Now, this
is
odd," she stated to herself, "I
would have thought they'd be here by now. I wonder what's going on."
She left the infirmary, went back into the hall, turned, headed for
the front entryway.

The halls she walked were empty. All was quiet within the temple
walls, a quiet made eerie and unnatural by contrast with the cheering
and singing that could be heard outside.

Kamil rounded a corner and was proceeding down the main hallway when
a strange-looking personage clad in a too-long raincoat and a
battered hat suddenly appeared out of nowhere, popping up directly in
front of her like the evil demon pops up in a fairy tale. The person
made no sound. Two astonishingly bright eyes stared at her.

Gasping in shock, Kamil nearly tumbled over the small figure. She
tried to dodge around.it ... a hand clapped over her mouth. Strong
arms dragged her into an empty room.

"Don't scream," said a faintly mechanical voice in grim
tones. "I'm not going to hurt you. I need information and I need
it fast. The life of your High Priestess is in danger."