Ghost Legion (76 page)

She jabbed him with her toe. "On your feet."

Tusk rolled over, groaning loudly. He looked over at Dion .. . who
wasn't there. No one was there.

Tusk blinked. "Where the—?"

"They've gone to stop Lord Sagan. On your feet," Cynthia
repeated flatly.

He stood up, wiped blood from his mouth. "Now's our chance. We—"

"Shut up. Turn around." Cynthia pressed the rifle into the
small of his back. "Keep your hands in the air. And don't try
anything."

Four guards had entered the room, posted themselves at the double
doors.

He lifted his hands.

"March," Cynthia said.

Tusk marched.

Four guards. I'll wait till I'm near the doors, then I'll jump her,
get the gun away. The guards won't dare shoot me, for fear of hitting
her. And good ol' Cynthia'll be my ticket outta here.

Tusk tensed, ready to spring. Then, "Shit!" he breathed.

A short, squat mechanical device trundled in through the open door.

It was his old friend—Mrs. Mopup.

The killer vacuum cleaner had at least one of her nozzles aimed right
at Tusk. The four guards had turned their attention away from him,
were looking at Mrs. Mopup, and grinning.

"Keep moving," Cynthia ordered. Her rifle jabbed him
painfully. "You don't want to upset Mrs. Mopup."

Tusk made up his mind. Killer vacuum cleaner or no, he was damned if
he was going to die screaming in some cell disrupter. He muttered a
response, which was colorful, graphic, and would certainly not be
included in a book of a famous hero's last words.

He took a step, planted his feet, and hurled himself sideways.
Cynthia's forward momentum carried her on ahead. She started to turn.
Tusk, twisting like a cat, jumped for her. His hands closed over the
gun barrel; he tried to wrench it from her grip.

"You bloody fool!" Cynthia gasped.

Holding on to the gun, she jerked it from his grasp. The guards had
stopped laughing and were dashing to her rescue. Cynthia lashed out
with her foot, caught Tusk in the solar plexus, sent him crashing to
the floor. The next moment, she landed squarely on top of him.

"Mrs. Mopup!" Cynthia shouted. "Shoot!"

Mrs. Mopup fired, four times, in four different directions
simultaneously.

. . . Many things answered me—

Spirits and men—but thou wert silent all.

Yet speak to me!...

George Gordon, Lord Byron,
Manfred

Emerging from the hatch of the commandeered spaceplane, Kamil gazed
in wary, distrustful astonishment at the alcazar looming black
against the brightening dawn. "What are we doing back here?"

"I left something behind," Sagan said, standing on the
tarmac.

She stared at him in astonishment. "I thought we were going to
save Dion. How can we—"

"If you're coming with me, hurry up," he told her coldly.

Kamil hesitated, frustrated. The journey to Vallombrosa had been
accomplished in silence. His dark demeanor awed her, daunted her.
Should she go? Or stay? What could she do if she went?

What can I do if I stay? she thought bitterly.

Kamil hurried, but she was awkward and slow-moving descending the
ladder. Sagan's long strides had carried him to the entrance of the
alcazar before Kamil was halfway to the ground. Afraid of being left
behind, knowing she would certainly lose her way through the erratic
jumble of corridors, Kamil slipped and slid the rest of the way down
the ladder. Then she had to run to catch him.

"What was it you left here, my lord?" she asked, not really
expecting an answer, but not liking the eerie silence of the halls of
the abandoned alcazar.

"The space-rotation bomb," he replied.

"No," she said, not daring to hope. "It's on the ship.
Flaim took the bomb on board."

"That one is fake. This one is real."

Kamil came to a halt, weak-kneed with relief. Dion was safe!

Her eyes flooded with tears. She dashed them away hurriedly, before
he could see them, and hastened to catch up again.

It was black as night in the alcazar. Sagan switched on a nuke light,
handed another to her. She flashed the light around, trying to figure
out where she was, but she had no idea. She had never been able to
find her way around. The oddly angled, distorted hallways had always
reminded her unpleasantly of a fever-dream she'd once had. Sagan,
however, moved ahead confidently.

"Will you tell me what's going on? Please, my lord?" Kamil
asked him timidly. "I think I have the right to know."

"I switched bombs," he answered her—again to her
astonishment.

But she had the feeling he was not talking to her. He was talking
through her to someone else. So vivid was the impression, Kamil
glanced to her left, half-expecting to catch sight of the lady. No
one walked beside her, but the impression did not go away.

"Flaim didn't give a damn about convincing Dion to abdicate the
throne. He wanted the space-rotation bomb and, in order to obtain it,
he had to probe deeply into his cousin's mind, far deeper than he was
able to do from a distance. That was his real reason for wanting to
get hold of Dion.

"And it was my reason for bringing them together. My reason for
forcing Dion to participate in the contest. I planned to switch the
real bomb for the fake one. But in order to do that, I had to have
the real bomb. Dion would never hand it over to me; nor should he.
But Flaim would—unintentionally.

"I made the switch the night before we left Vallombrosa. Prince
Flaim retrieved the bomb the next morning. He didn't know then that
he was carrying the fake. He couldn't know. No one could who did not
examine the bomb carefully. And than he would have had to know what
to look for. Garth Pantha would have recognized the difference, but
he had no reason to examine it. Why would he?

"If all had gone as I first planned," Sagan continued,
talking to the lady, one longtime friend and companion to another,
"Flaim would not have discovered the switch until he was on the
other side of the galaxy, prepared to blow up the Corasians. I would
arm the bomb and Pantha and Flaim would flee to safety. The bomb
would not, of course, go off. Tusca and his mutineers would seize
control of the ship, battle the Corasians if necessary, and return
with the king to fight the pretender.

"That was my plan, my Lady," he said quietly, apparently
completely forgetting Kamil's presence. "But the dark-matter
creatures forced the issue and so I had to alter it. It is a pity
they must be destroyed. They were undoubtedly harmless until they
came in contact with humans. We contaminate everything we touch, it
seems."

"What will we, do now?" Kamil asked, speaking for herself.
She had the feeling the Lady—if she was truly here—already
knew the answer.

Kamil's voice reminded him of her presence. He glanced at her, made
no mention of the fact that he had been talking to someone else.
Probably he had not even realized it. But now he spoke to Kamil.

"I am going to arm the bomb and set it to explode—after
we've left the planet."

"Won't the dark-matter creatures try to stop the bomb from going
off?"

"They can't. Once the cycle is started, only the person who
knows the code can stop the bomb from detonating. My guess is that
if
the creatures figure out it is armed and set to explode, they will be
afraid to touch it, afraid they might set it off.

"Actually," he continued, "exploding the bomb at this
location will prove far safer for the galaxy. According to my
calculations, the anomaly of the strange dark matter should contain
the power of the blast. Reduce its destructive force."

"But Vallombrosa will be gone?" Kamil looked around.

"Oh, yes," Sagan said dryly. "I simply meant the blast
would no longer possess the force needed to tear a hole in the fabric
of the universe."

"I see." Kamil swallowed. "And . . . after that . . .
well return to the ship?" Back to Dion, she thought, but did not
say. "What will we do then?"

"If Tusca has seized control, we simply walk on board. If not,
then I will take over myself. In that eventuality, Flaim will
probably escape us. And His Majesty will have a continuing fight on
his hands. But in the end, Flaim will fall. He does not have the
makings of a true king."

"Yet you said he passed the test...."

Sagan glanced at her; a dark smile touched the thin lips. "Perhaps
I lied." "You should tell that to Dion, then," Kamil
pointed out. "When this is over."

"He knows," Sagan said quietly. "He told you."

Kamil remembered her conversation with Dion in the courtyard.
You
can't see down that road because that road doesn't exist for me
,
he'd said to her then.
I am king.

She flushed uncomfortably, fell silent.

They continued moving farther into the alcazar. The fortress was
truly ghostly now. Unseen eyes watched them, unheard voices cursed
them, silent footfalls accompanied them. A door opened as they passed
by. Some distance ahead, another slammed shut.

Nerves taut, Kamil's hand fidgeted around the lasgun. She walked
behind the Warlord and to his left, instinctively leaving his weapon
hand free—though he was not armed—instinctively covering
his back. She didn't even know she was doing it until she saw him
give her an approving look.

"Your father has taught you well."

"Oh, this . . ." Kamil smiled shyly, pleased with his
praise, glad to talk again. Their talk drowned out the whispers.
"Actually, it was my mother. She is a shieldwife. Something I
guess I'll never be," she added softly with a sigh, "no
matter what happens."

"You have loved and been loved," Sagan said. "That is
what's important."

Kamil, surprised, couldn't answer immediately. Perhaps Sagan had
surprised himself with his comment because he pressed his lips
tightly together, as if to keep a check on them.

A table tipped over as they walked past. A chair skittered across a
floor.

She turned, nervously flashing the light behind her.

"The dark-matter creatures,' Sagan told her. "They are
watching us."

Kamil found herself walking at his side, almost touching him. He
glanced over at her, frowned. Blushing, she fell back to her former
position.

The silence, which wasn't silent, was unnerving.

"You were loved," Kamil said. "And you loved."

"Not enough," he answered.

A porcelain vase lurched to the floor, shattered. Kamil gritted her
teeth, shut her eyes to what was going on in the darkness around her.
She edged closer to him. "I don't understand."

Perhaps he needed the sound of living voices as much as she did. Or
perhaps he was again talking through her to someone else. .. .

"We both loved other things more, and that came near destroying
us."

"What things?"

"Power, for one. Glory, for another. Pride, ambition, the need
to control everything around us." He looked down at the five
scars on his hand. "Not surprising. We were bred to it. 'The
taint in our blood,' my lady used to say. But that's no excuse. Dion
was bred to it, as well. And he has turned out differently.
Glorie
a Dieu."

"That's the reason you're doing this for him?" Kamil spoke
hesitantly.

Sagan flicked her a brief glance, then looked away. "My lady
sacrificed her life for him. Left him as a sacred charge in my care.
If I had no other reason, I would guard him because of that alone.
But Maigrey was right. Dion will be our redemption. Because of him,
the Blood Royal will no longer be remembered with a curse. I have
pride enough left in me to appreciate that.

"Not that I wasn't tempted," he added after a moment's
thoughtful silence, talking again to his unseen companion.

"Flaim would have given me everything he promised. I would have
been Warlord of a vast and powerful armada. But I saw how it would
end. I would not be satisfied unless I had it all. Unless my power
was absolute. I would challenge him . . . and he, being younger,
stronger, would have defeated me. I would have fallen in ignominy and
shame. I would rather die."

His expression was suddenly chill and cruel. Kamil caught a glimpse
of the man he might become, of the man he had once been. She wasn't
certain now that she trusted him. Which man was the truth? Did he
know?

Kamil kept still after that, deciding she preferred the unquiet
silence to any more disturbing revelations.

Sagan was also apparently no longer inclined to talk. He had come to
a halt. Kamil, looking around, now recognized where she was—the
great hall, where Flaim had brought them on that first terrible
night.

The Warlord appeared displeased now, and impatient, and once Kamil
thought she heard him mutter. "I should have heard by now.
Something's gone wrong."

She was frightened then; afraid for Tusk and for Dion. She ventured a
question, but he ignored her. He shoved open the doors, entered the
room.

The strong beams of the nuke lamps reflected brightly off the huge
fireplace, the furniture, the near walls. She sent the light stabbing
into the vastness of the hall, was sorry she'd done so. The darkness
seemed to suck the light into its maw and swallow it. Kamil lowered
the light swiftly, kept the beam on the floor directly ahead of her.

Sagan entered the room, his light flashing here and there along the
wall. He walked across the stone floor, came to a tapestry. He pulled
the embroidered and moth-eaten cloth aside, revealing a small door.

He looked back behind, flashed the lamp around the room briefly, then
returned it to the door. He focused his light on the door handle.
Reaching out, he plucked a small piece of black cloth from between
the door and the frame. He nodded, satisfied. "Undisturbed.
Flaim never thought to check. I'm going in here. Keep watch," he
ordered.