Golden Torc - 2 (21 page)

MAYVAR: If Tana wills that my golden laddie survive the Delbaeth Quest, then he will.

EADONE: Is Aiken Drum fertile?

MAYVAR: He is.

EADONE: Would he challenge Nodonn?

MAYVAR: You must ask him that.

NONTUSVEL: A human! A human challenging my Nodonn?

KUHAL + IMIDOL + RIGANONE + CULLUKET + ANEAR: Tana forfend!

EADONE: Are Aiken Drum's metapsychic powers of sufficient potential to defeat the Battlemaster?

MA WAR: Only Tana knows.

ALUTEYN: You know what would happen if the boy did win, don't you, kinfolk? He'd challenge the Thagdal! Is that the game you're playing, Venerable Sister?

MAYVAR: Beware, Aluteyn Craftsmaster. I play no games! I only do my Making as the Goddess commands me, and neither you nor the Host nor the entire battle-company of the Many-Colored Land may tell me how to fulfill my ancient office... Or would you?

(Dread.)

ALUTEYN: Well, you blew it once before with Lugonn, so it's no certainty.

MAYVAR: It is no certainty, as you say, Craftsmaster. But the Combat alone may prove the Goddess's will in this matter. Let no one here presume to interfere with my Making.

CULLUKET: No one will interfere-if your motives are true to the Tanu ideal.

MAYVAR: So once again, Young Redactor, you accuse me of heresy.

CULLUKET: Do you deny you have long opposed the battlephilosophy? Do you deny your sympathy for the traitorous heretic Minanonn, who betrayed his office as Battlemaster by preaching that Tanu and Firvulag should be brothers in sun as well as shadow?

MAYVAR: Poor Minanonn was ahead of his time, and imprudent. And he has paid for his rashness these five hundred years.

CULLUKET: But you and Dionket are cool hands! You're willing to play a waiting game until your human puppet is on the throne.

DIONKET: The Venerable Kingmaker and I are loyal to the Tanu race and resolved to see its destiny fulfilled in glory. And I admonish you to keep a respectful turn of mind, Redactive Brother, when addressing your elders.

NONTUSVEL: Oh, dear. This is all so confusing! Culluket, my son, you can't accuse people of heresy simply because they prefer the quiet life to Hunting and fighting. There have always been gentle ones among us.

IMIDOL: And they grow more numerous. Especially among the hybrids.

KATLINEL: We hybrids are loyal to the Tanu race! It is our race! But if it's heresy to persuade the Thagdal to look afresh upon the old violent customs that originated on a forgotten planet in an inaccessible galaxy-then perhaps we are guilty!

NONTUSVEL: Of course you aren't, Katy. I'm sure Cull didn't mean it that way. Why-many of the Host are of a peaceful temperament, unless the Firvulag do something hopelessly provocative...

MAYVAR: And even then, there are those who eschew the pleasures of punishing villains such as Delbaeth in favor of remaining securely at home here in the capital while others do the Questing.

ALUTEYN: That's one on you, Cull. You never were one to do your own dirty work.

NONTUSVEL: We will not quarrel! There will be no more talk of heresy. I forbid it.

EADONE: Our Awful Queen is wise. Listen to her.

NONTUSVEL: There is still another potential consequent of the Aiken Drum matter to be considered. Let us look again upon the plan of Lord Gomnol. Suppose it happened that, in the uncertain future, the operant genes of the woman Elizabeth merged not with the seed of our beloved Thagdal, but with that of this fully human male!

EADONE: Tana have mercy! There is the true threat to our racial destiny!

ALUTEYN: The penalty for bearing a human child is death for parents and offspring.

NONTUSVEL: How could this be enforced if Aiken Drum were High King?

IMIDOL: A race of operant humans contending against us!

RIGANONE: We would be crushed.

CULLUKET: Let our loyal Lady Kingmaker explain this away!

MAYVAR: I can only do my Making as the Goddess prompts me.

IMIDOL: And Gomnol! Is our human brother manipulating the lot of us in some new experiment, as he has been manipulating us ever since he came through the time-gate?

GOMNOL: Perhaps you would like to challenge me for the Guild Presidency in the manifestation of powers, Coercive Brother? NONTUSVEL: Oh, no! Now stop this, all of you! There is only one way we will ever untangle this muddle.

EADONE: Tell us, Sister and Mother.

NONTUSVEL: We must demand a ruling of Brede.

EADONE + ALUTEYN: Excellent. The Thagdal will surely agree. RIGANONE: But there's no telling what that weird old Two-Face will say! She never involves herself in the affairs of the High Kingdom. She's no true Tanu at all... she's something else altogether.

ANEAR: Something dreadful.

EADONE: Listen to me, you fearful young ones. Brede is the oldest and wisest, our guide and our first benefactor when an entire galaxy was arrayed against us. She had the original vision that inspired transport of the first Comers to our Exile here.

KUHAL: True, Lady Sciencemaster. But let us also remember that Brede brought both Tanu and Firvulag to this Earth. In some deep way she is linked in destiny to both races. We cannot be sure-

NONTUSVEL: We can only hope that she will choose what is best for both. We may even pray that she will choose what is best for all three races!... And now, my dearest ones, I would have you link minds with me once again. But this time you will not sing the Song for our poor dead sister, Bybar, but for all of us living on this planet, exiled and afraid.

13

AFTER NEARLY TWO WEEKS OF QUESTING IT HAD COME TO this: a vast black hole in the mountain and a nasty choice. "What's wrong with chasing him underground?" Aiken Drum asked.

Nodonn bestowed a pitying glance on his diminutive rival. "On foot? With no bear-dogs to help catch his scent and distract him?"

The two of them were sitting on thoroughly winded chalikos, waiting for the other leaders of the great Hunt to reach the ledge in front of the cave. Several dozen amphicyons milled about yowling their frustration. None ventured more than two or three meters into the cavern entrance, from which a chill, dampish exhalation flowed.

"Let's take a peek at what's inside," Aiken suggested. He conjured up a fulgurant ball of energy like a floating star shell and sent it wafting into the dark cleft. The two Hunters followed its progress with their farsight. It came into a huge chamber all fanged with stalactites and stalagmites where there was a broad lake. On the far side a low arched passageway led deeper into the mountain and Aiken guided the psychoenergetic flare into this opening, through which an underground river flowed.

The tunnel pinched and the roof lowered after about half a kilometer, and finally the stream flowed over a precipice into a void so black that the light of the flare could not illuminate it. For a moment the two metapsychics saw with their mind's eye a waterfall dropping like a length of gauze into nothingness. Then the flare was suddenly extinguished.

A faint sound of laughter floated from the depths. "And up yours, too," Aiken said to the faraway Shape of Fire.

The King's mount came scrambling up the rocky slope, followed closely by Stein-whom the monarch had taken a liking to, Lord Celadeyr of Afaliah, Lady Bunone Warteacher, and fifteen or so others of the party possessing the PK power to assist their faltering steeds in the climb. Because of Delbaeth's habit of bombarding pursuers with fireballs, it had not been possible for the Quest to take to the air. "Well?" growled Thagdal.

"Gone to ground," said the Battlemaster.

The King removed his diamond helm, slouched in the saddle, and chewed his golden mustache. "Damn it all to hell.

After chasing him all this way,"

"He does it every time," Celadeyr of Afaliah remarked, shrugging aquamarine-armored shoulders. "Leads you from one plantation to the next. Lets you think you've got him trapped, then pops up outside your line, fries a few grays and anybody else he catches with his pants down, and then off to the races again. Daring you to nail him! That's our Delbaeth. But it always ends the same way-into some bloody cave, and the laugh's on you."

"Damn smart for a Firvulag, Celo."

The Lord of Afaliah spurred his chaliko through the rabble of bear-dogs to the cavern mouth. "Would I have asked for your help against an ordinary spook? Good thing for us Delbaeth is a maverick and doesn't fight in the Combat!...This is a new bolt-hole. At least we've managed to chase him farther west than ever before. This part of the Cordillera is way to hell and gone out on the Isthmus."

The King spat. "Don't know where the devil we are, not being able to reconnoiter from the air. Steinie-you got any beer left?"

The Viking passed a large canteen.

Celadeyr said, "Now that the Shape of Fire's underground, it's safe to fly if you wish, Majesty. He'll stay holed up for several days now to rest. There'd be no danger at all flying back to Afaliah."

"Give it up?" cried Stein. "We still got three days clear until the friggin' Truce! There's still a chance we could get him." The mounted assembly laughed. Bunone Warteacher, awesome in a silvery bascinet that made her look like a bird of prey, said, "Delbaeth isn't coming out. Would you and your saucy master follow him in?"

"Why not?" Stein asked, and once more the Hunters laughed. Aiken said to the King, "I told you I'd get him for you. I promised it, in fact. If I don't get Delbaeth, I'm screwed for the Grand Combat-right?"

"Oddly phrased," said the King. His smile was affable. "But the conclusion is accurate. You've had ample opportunity to carry out your boastful proposal on this Quest. If we return to Muriah having failed, I'll consider your service-bid for Stein null and void. It would be proper to punish you for the insolence of having made the bid in the first place, but in consideration for your repair of the computer and several other worthwhile accomplishments, I feel disposed to generosity. You'll be eligible to fight in the High Melee with the other gold-torc human warriors. But you may not aspire to the Heroic Encounters."

"It is fitting," said Nodonn, glowing in the advancing dusk.

A few bats began to zip out of the cave on their evening forays. "If we're packing it in," Celadeyr said, "Let's get down the mountain before any others ruin their mounts trying to climb up here."

"Now just a damn minute," Aiken protested. "I didn't say I was giving up. There's still three days before the Truce... I'm going after Delbaeth. Into the cave."

"And I'm going with him," Stein said. "Nobody's gonna auction me off like a prize steer again!" The mental and vocal babble greeting their declarations made it possible for Aiken to screen off Stein's unspoken thought: So what if I get killed? If any Tanu takes me for a slave, I'll never see Sukey again.

"Make your foolhardy gesture if you must," said Nodonn. "Show us, if you can, that you know how to beat the Shape of Fire on his own home ground." Most of the Tanu crowded onto the ledge roared appreciation of the Battlemaster's remark. "The rest of us will return to Lord Celadeyr's castle for refreshment, then fly on to the capital. Delbaeth will keep until after the Grand Combat. Should we discover your bones when we finally penetrate to his lair, we'll conduct suitable obsequies and sing for you the Song."

More laughter. But in the midst, a protest.

"So you object, Bleyn and Alberonn?" inquired the Battlemaster. Two riders urged their beasts to the fore. Bleyn the Champion was a hybrid, powerful in both PK and coercion, who sat at the High Table. Alberonn Mindeater, another hybrid, was one of the best warrior-illusionists. Both were of the faction of Mayvar and both had helped to train Aiken and Stein in martial arts for their initiation.

"It is not fitting that this company desert Lord Aiken here in the wilderness while he descends to challenge Delbaeth," Bleyn stated. "Shame on those who would hold a brave man's endeavor up to mockery."

Nodonn only smiled.

Alberonn said, "We two will await the return of Aiken and Stein. We will camp before this very cave mouth, praying for their success. We will wait for the three days, so that the time originally allotted for this Quest may be honorably fulfilled."

"I also will wait," decided Bunone, "and my three warriormaids. Aiken Drum is a man of singular talents! We, too, will pray that he survives."

The High King threw up one flashing hand in a gesture of resignation. "Oh, very well! What's three more days? We've earned a little rest after chasing that damn spook the length of the Betics and never once daring to take to the air for fear of his fireballs. But if we stay here, Celo, you've got to fly us in some decent food and booze."

The Lord of Afaliah said, "We can set up camp in the meadow below, near the torrent, where the attendants and the baggage train now wait. My son Uriel himself will lead a squadron of levitants to bring refreshment."

"That's that, then," said the King. He glowered at Aiken. "Three days only! You hear me?"

The golden manikin leapt from his saddle, knelt on one knee before the royal chaliko, and grinned under his golden visor. "Thank you for your patience, Awful Father. We'll bring you Delbaeth's balls for biddy-swabbers!"

And then, while the Questers watched in incredulous silence, Aiken Drum and Stein took off their armor and stacked it in a pile just beside the cave entrance. They left all their weaponry except Stein's bronze sword and took from their saddlebags only the Viking's parcel of snack foods, the canteen of beer, and a thin golden box about the size of a pen case, which Aiken stuffed quickly into the front of his undertunic. Waggling an admonitory finger at Nodonn, the golliwog said, "No fair peeking after us, Sun-Face. Don't you chase us with flares."

"I will not," the Battlemaster promised, his smile undimmed.

"Then-goodbye, all!" said Aiken Drum.

There was a soundless snap.

Two extra bats joined the flock wheeling over the heads of the Hunt. After taking a few minutes to get used to their wings, the pair swooped down and disappeared into the darkness of Delbaeth's cave.

"Hey, kid!"

"Shh. Gotta be sure nobody's farsensing us. Wouldn't trust that fewkin' Archangel one AU's worth."