The Navigator of Rhada (23 page)

“Torquas,” Kynan said again. “Hear me.”

The twin face, that mirror image of his own, turned toward him. “I hear you,” the boy murmured.

Kynan wondered:
We are exactly of an age--why do I feel so much older?
He said, “Do you know what has happened?”

“I saw it all. The priest killed your bond-brother.”

“Yes.”

“Because he was going to tell the army that there are two of us. The priests will kill anyone who does that.” There was genuine fear in his voice.

Kynan took the jeweled circlet from his head and held it, looking at the play of light on the gems and metal. With this went the power to rule men wherever they were found in the galaxy-- Then he thought:
No, that isn’t right.
The crown was but the outward symbol of the authority men gave willingly to their King. Without that willingness, there was no power. And one day men would cease to bestow it. They would rule themselves.

“Can that be so?” Torquas asked, and Kynan realized that he must have spoken aloud.

“Not in our time, perhaps, brother. But one day,” he said. ”I wish it were so now,” Torquas said with sudden feeling. “It’s too great a burden for one man.”

Kynan smiled slowly and sadly. “I’ve found it so.”

“And so have I!” Torquas exclaimed. “All I ever wanted was to be a poet--Kynan.” He pronounced his brother’s strange Rhadan name for the first time and smiled tentatively.

Then he looked at the circlet in Kynan’s hands and shuddered. “Must I die too? To keep our secret?”

Kynan placed the crown on his brother’s head. “You are firstborn,” he said formally. “You are the King.”

Torquas touched the metal unbelievingly, his eyes fixed on Kynan’s somber face. Within him a maelstrom of emotions whirled. For a time, despite his fear, he had been free. Now he was free no longer. He was human enough to voice a protest, but Kynan stopped him.

“You are firstborn,” he said again. “You were trained to be a King; I to be a Navigator. Now you must be a better King, and I can no longer be a Navigator.”

“But the priests chose
you.”

“The ambitious priests in the Order would have liked to rule the Empire through me, brother. But that can’t be. It is a step backward, toward the Dark Time. Power must be dispersed--not concentrated. That is the trend of history. You are the King.”

With these words, Kynan raised his brother to his feet, and then, in a gesture as old as all the empires of men, he knelt before his sovereign.

Perhaps, he thought, he imagined it. But it seemed that Torquas stood straighter and more proudly. With a touch of self-mocking irony, he thought, too:
He is not a good
King, but he is the true King. That much I can do for the spirit of the Star that was taught me by the Order.

Torquas pulled him to his feet and embraced him. It was a very non-Gonlani gesture, this display of affection between men. It was the way of a Vykan.
And I am no Vykan
, Kynan thought suddenly.
My world is here, on the Rim.

“Confirm me in my bond-father’s kingship, Torquas. That is all I ask. If I can no longer be a Navigator, let me at least be a Rhad again.”

Torquas spoke wonderingly, “No more than that?”

“Yes. This much more.
Be
Galacton, brother. Rule well. And,” Kynan added more gently, “remember that you have a brother who calls you King.”

They stood now for a moment in the entrance to the tent with the high sun of Aurora on them, Torquas crowned, Kynan cowled as a priest for what he knew would be the last time. Far off, near the last of the starships remaining before the sanctuary, the Vykan officers awaited their warleader.

“Baltus.” Kynan spoke to the warlock quietly. “Take the King to his officers.”

Torquas embraced Kynan once more and asked, “Will we meet again, brother?”

Kynan smiled ruefully. “That wouldn’t be wise, would it.”

The Galacton protested.

Kynan shook his head. “The Empire isn’t ready for
two
kings, Torquas.”

Kynan watched the warlock and the Vykan depart.
Will I ever regret what I gave up,
he wondered? The Star knew how tempted he had been. But no, the probes in his brain were there for all time. He could make them harmless only by making himself harmless--as a petty kinglet, one among thousands.

He saw Janessa coming across the plain, and his sadness lifted. There were worse things than to be warleader and king of the Gonlani-Rhad. With Janessa beside him, he would not dream those wonderful-fearful dreams of a galaxy, a river of stars in his hands.

Skua appeared and nipped at him with her blunted old teeth. “Ky-nan again,” she said. He looked into the slotted eyes with interest. There was wisdom everywhere. One only had to search for it.

“Home,” the mare said.

“Yes, home now,” he replied. His lips firmed into a hard, straight line of determination. There was still LaRoss to be dealt with. It would be a harsh judgment, given in the manner of a Rim star king.

And Triad with the Royal Vulk to come. Yes, Gret had promised. He could relive adventures from the Age of Heroes. What did giving up an empire compare to that?

Janessa had paused to watch the last Imperial starship lifting. A breeze had risen and was blowing fresh from the Inland Sea.

Kynan raised his hand and waved to her. She turned and ran toward him. He thought about Evart and Pius and Clement waiting with his ship in the forest--waiting to make the last journey he would ever make as a consecrated Navigator. If there was a sadness there, it was lessened by his certainty that they, and thousands of others like them, would roam the galaxy for centuries yet to come, bringing the peace of God to generations of men yet unborn. And the Order--the dedicated priests who were the
real
Order--would never know what he had done to keep it pure. What did it matter?

He thought of a line of poetry written by a long-dead man of Earth’s Dawn Age. It was as true now as it had been when it was written: “Let tomorrow take care of tomorrow-- Leave future things to fate.”

Thinking that, he stepped forward to take Janessa in his arms.