Ghost Legion (77 page)

Kamil stared inside when he opened the door, caught only a swift
glimpse of the room's interior. It appeared to be a storage room. He
shut the door.

Shivering, trying to tell herself that she didn't mind being alone in
this terrible place, Kamil drew her lasgun and took up a position
near the door. She even remembered to check the gun's setting, make
certain it was on kill, not stun.

She stood in the empty hall, listening to the perturbed stirrings of
the dark-matter creatures, stirrings that seemed suddenly to become
angry, dangerous.

Kamil licked dry lips, held tightly to the gun, tried to keep her
hand from shaking. With every breath she drew, a sharp pang of fear
jabbed beneath her rib cage.

She recalled an old saying of her father's—something to the
effect that the enemy climbing over the wall was always less
frightening than the enemy hiding in the hills, and she suddenly
realized its truth. She would have given a great deal for a real,
live, solid, substantial person right now—be it friend or foe.

And then she heard Sagan's voice coming from within the room, heard
him swear a brief, bitter oath. Footsteps crossed the room. He yanked
the door open.

"What—" Kamil began, but the question died on her
lips. Despair and fear squeezed her heart.

"Flaim has discovered the fake. He and Pantha are on their way
here . . . may be here already."

"Dion?" She asked it without a voice, only her lips moving.
"Tusk?"

"They are bringing Dion here. Tusca has failed. I've lost
contact with him. He may already be dead."

Sagan walked back into the storage room.

Kamil, not knowing what to do, stood staring into the whispering
darkness until she felt it start to close in around her. It was
trying to steal her breath, to suffocate her. She crept into the
storage room, nearer the light, nearer Sagan.

His nuke lamp rested on top of a table, its harsh beam shining on a
crystal cube with a golden pyramid in its center. A row of tiny
buttons, each with a strange character on it, were positioned on the
top of the cube.

He held in his hand a dark and ugly jewel, carved into the shape of
an eight-pointed star. The jewel was revulsive to look upon, conjured
horrible images in her mind. She saw a hideous, distorted twin of
herself, evil, perverted, dancing on her own grave. Now she
understood the expression on his face; fey, dire, doomed. He was
seeing himself.

Kamil shuddered. She didn't want to look at the jewel, didn't want to
look at him. Yet, she discovered, she couldn't look anywhere else.
Her gaze was held by the jewel, by his face, both terrible and awful.
She shut her eyes, but that didn't work, for she could still see the
jewel's dark light and, worse, she felt as if she were slowly falling
into its dark heart.

Opening her eyes, she asked him softly, "What . . . what are you
doing?"

His large, strong fingers moving with incongruous delicacy, Sagan
carefully embedded the jewel in the bomb, fitting it into a
star-shaped depression obviously intended to receive it.

"Arming the bomb." He did not look at her. "You should
return to the spaceplane."

"I couldn't. I don't know the way. I'd get lost."

"Your godmother will assist you," he said dryly. "She
will see to it that you escape Vallombrosa safely."

Kamil only shook her head. "No, my lord. I'll stay."

He said nothing more. He began to punch in the code, repeating the
words as he depressed each button. " 'The center cannot—'"

Kamil heard movement behind her—real movement, solid movement.

Sagan lifted his head. Kamil turned, her lasgun drawn and aimed.

Dion and Flaim stood in the doorway. Kamil had a clear shot. But
which was which? The white light of the nuke lamp reduced all
complexities to simple shapes formed of brilliance and shadow,
reduced the two cousins to one. The Starfire flared
white-hot—all-consuming in one, blazing with a clear, pure
light in the other. But it burned in the blood of both. And, for an
instant, both looked uncannily alike.

Startled, uncertain, Kamil hesitated. In that instant, Flaim drew the
bloodsword, held it in front of him, its shield activated.

"Take your hands away from the bomb, my lord. Keep them still.
Make no move. Not so much as the flicker of an eyelid. Or His Majesty
dies. You"—Flaim's eyes flicked to her, returned
immediately to the Warlord—"throw down the gun."

Bitterly reproaching herself for her failure, Kamil held on to the
gun more out of frustration than because she hoped to be able to do
anything with it.

"Throw it down!" Flaim commanded.

"Do as he says," Sagan told her.

Half-blinded by tears, Kamil hurled the gun away from her. It slid
across the floor, banged up against Flaim's foot.

A third person emerged from the darkness. Garth Pantha bent down,
picked up the gun, thrust it into the belt of his robes.

"Move away from the bomb. Come out in the open, my lord,"
Flaim ordered. "Keep your hands where I can see them. Both of
you—move!"

The prince began backing up, motioning with the bloodsword for the
two inside the storage room to follow. He kept fast hold of Dion,
pulled him along with him.

Dion was pale, dazed and groggy. He stumbled when he walked. He
didn't even seem startled to see Kamil. He only looked bewildered,
almost stupefied. And then his eyes rolled back, his head lolled on
his shoulders. He fell to the floor, on his hands and knees. Flaim
loosened his grip.

"Watch him, Pantha!"

Drawing Kamil's lasgun, Pantha held it to the king's head.

"Keep walking, my lord!" Flaim ordered.

The Warlord emerged from the storage room. Kamil followed at his
left, a pace or two behind and to one side. The part of the hall in
which they stood was lit by the eerie blue glow of the bloodsword,
the bright white glow of the nuke lamp. But most of the rest of the
vast hall was in darkness, as though a gigantic hand was cupped over
them, sheltering the light from a whispering wind.

Flaim made a gesture. "Pantha, go inside the room. Get the bomb.
It's sitting on the table. And while he is doing that, you, my lord,
will die."

Pantha left to obey the prince's commands. Flaim advanced on Sagan.

Dion lifted his head slowly. His eyes were alert, flaring blue. His
fainting spell had all been an act, Kamil realized confusedly, but
what could he do?

Attack Flaim with his bare hands, if nothing else. Dion gathered his
energy and strength within himself. Coiled like a wild beast, he
prepared for a desperate lunge.

Sagan looked at Dion, smiled slightly, shook his head. The dark,
shadowed eyes shifted to Pantha, who was hurrying toward the storage
room.

There lies your duty, Dion,
his look said plainly. Kamil could
almost hear the unspoken words.
You cannot save me.

Dion understood. So did Kamil. Fear, anguish, and helpless
frustration choked her throat. She longed to do something, but she
had no idea what. She was afraid to interfere, afraid of destroying
whatever slim hope they all had.

Face pale, jaw set, Dion altered his stance slightly, shifted his
attention to Garth Pantha.

Flaim raised the bloodsword. The blade flared a brilliant blue. Sagan
stood motionless, bathed in the blinding light, unarmed, unable,
unwilling to defend himself.

"Now, child, spoke a cool, low voice in Kamil's ear, "be
ready."

And so our scene must to the battle fly . . .

William Shakespeare,
King Henry V
, Act IV, Chorus

Bright white light blossomed around Tusk. He stared into it, awed,
blind.

"I always heard," he said to himself, "that when you
die, you move toward a white light. This is it. They're right. It
is
kinda pretty."

A heavy weight pressed down on his chest, but there was no pain. He
waited to be absorbed into the light, to move off down the tunnel, to
be welcomed by . . . oh, say, his father, maybe.

The heavy weight lifted from his chest. A shadow loomed before his
dazzled eyes. A voice spoke. It wasn't his father, it was a woman.

Well, thought Tusk, this is almost as good. So long as she leaves
before Nola gets here.

The woman leaned close to him and spoke again.

"Just what the hell were you trying to do?"

Tusk was confused. From all he'd heard, people weren't supposed to
talk that way up here. The woman slapped him across the face.

Yep, he was definitely in the wrong place.

"Wake up. Snap out of it."

And now he noticed that the bright light had gone out. He had a brief
and extremely unpleasant sensation of being rolled down a narrow
black tube. He hit bottom and the impact jolted him awake. Alarms
were buzzing raucously; the sound stabbed into his head. He looked
up. Three people stood over him.

"I'm alive," he said, hoping for confirmation.

"No thanks to you," Cynthia snapped. "Of all the
idiots— I had everything under control and then you—"
Seething, unable to complete a sentence, she glared at him, then
turned away "We better shut off those damn alarms. We'll have
every guard in the place down on us. Don, explain what's going on to
the bridge. ... I don't know. Make up something. You're good at that.
Rick and I'll drag the bodies inside."

Tusk—still lying on the deck, still trying to figure out what
had happened—watched dazedly. Perrin, on his way to the
commlink, stepped over Tusk, grinned.

"Want a drink? You look like you could use one."

Dhure gave him a nod and half-salute as he walked past. He and
Cynthia began dragging the smoking bodies of the guards into the
prince's quarters.

"At least these weren't any of our guys," Cynthia said.

"We would have had to take them out anyway," Dhure
commented. The last of the bodies was inside. He glanced down at the
blood and bits of charred flesh left lying on the deck, shook his
head. "There's a few more fanatics like them left on board, too.
We don't have much time."

"Shut the doors," Cynthia ordered.

Perrin was on the commlink, talking to the ship's commander in
soothing tones. Dhure walked over to Tusk, squatted down beside him.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I think so." Tusk felt gingerly all over his body,
couldn't find any holes. With Dhure's assistance, the mercenary
staggered to his feet.

Cynthia glared at him again. "What the devil did you go and jump
me for anyway? I'm on your side!"

"And how the devil was I supposed to know that?" Tusk
demanded irritably, remembering. His hands started to shake. No, he
said to himself angrily. Not now! "You could have given me the
high sign—"

"Not with .. ." Cynthia stopped. "Not with Flaim
watching," she said quietly. She didn't look a whole lot better
than he felt. "I intended to get you out of here, past the
guards. Then we were going to meet up with Don and Rick and—"

Tusk patted her shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. I had
visions of myself locked in some damn cell disrupter—"

"What's done is done." Cynthia cut him off, must have got
her wires crossed, sir," Don's voice drifted over to them. "The
damn thing went berserk. .. ."

Tusk grinned. "Good ol' Mrs. Mopup."

Cynthia smiled, but her smile didn't last long. She shook her head
and sighed. Her gaze went involuntarily to the crystal cube with its
golden pyramid, lying on the floor.

"It's not . . . not the real one?"

"So they say." Tusk wasn't about to go take a better look.
"Anyone got an extra lasgun I can borrow?"

Cynthia popped open Mrs. Mopup's chest cavity, produced a lasgun and
holster. "There's another beam rifle in here, as well.
Disassembled. But it wouldn't take long—"

"No, thanks." Tusk shook his head. "I got a couple in
the Scimitar."

"Damn, this is an ugly thing." Dhure, squatting down beside
the crystal cube, was careful not to touch it. "You sure it's
fake?"'

"I'm not sure of anything anymore," Tusk said grimly.
"Pantha seemed to think it was a phony and my guess is he
wouldn't have gone off and left it if it wasn't, but I wouldn't touch
it. Especially the jewel."

The starjewel was lying on the floor, tangled in its chain. The
glittering gem, carved of a rare gemstone by a process long kept
secret by the High Priests of the Order of Adamant, was now dead and
forgotten, as the priests themselves were dead and forgotten.

" A starjewel could never be accidentally lost or misplaced,' "
Tusk said, hearing the echo of his father's voice, " 'but if it
is willfully given up by its owner, it will start to die.' There's
supposed to be a curse on anyone who takes a jewel that isn't
rightfully his or her own."

"Who would want it?" Cynthia asked with a shudder.

The jewel's fiery heart was already beginning to flicker and
diminish. Soon it would turn black and hideous to look upon. Tusk
thought of his father's starjewel. It had shone clear and bright, its
white light shining cold and pure amid the consuming flames of his
funeral pyre. Even when the body had been reduced to ash, the jewel
was unharmed, untouched. They had placed it in his tomb with the
burial urn.

"Yeah," Tusk said, "who would want one?" Reaching
down, he picked up the small metal disk, the bloodlink. He stuffed it
in a pocket, buckled on the holster. "Can you get me flight
clearance? Or do I have to shoot my way out?"

"You can get clearance." Don Perrin sauntered over, a glass
of scotch in his hand. "The commander thinks Prince Flaim is
still on board. His Highness is too busy to talk right now. So I'm
relaying His Highness's commands. I'll tell the flight deck you're
leaving the ship on His Highness's orders. Where did they all go
anyway?"

"Vallombrosa," Tusk said, heading for the doors.