The Navigator of Rhada (3 page)

There was another whispered talk between the two warmen, and one returned to where the horses stood waiting. He unslung the remaining lance and returned to stand with his companion.

The range was not more than twenty meters, and Kynan considered risking a shot. Still, the pistols were notoriously inaccurate at anything less than belly range and, once fired, took more than a minute to reload, prime, and cock. He decided to wait for better odds.

The man who had thrown his lance now unsheathed his electric flail. Kynan could hear the chains crackling and see the blue sparks through the curtain of falling rain.

The man with the lance raised his weapon and took careful aim. Kynan waited until his arm swept forward before straightening and moving sideways onto the rock ledge. At that instant, the assassin with the flail charged him. Kynan lifted his pistol and fired. The heavy bullet struck the man in the stomach, doubling him up and flinging him back against the cliff. He fell face down across his own flail, and there was a flash and the smell of scorched flesh as the weapon overloaded and burned out.

Kynan felt a stab of pain in his thigh and looked down to see that the thrown lance had pierced his leg just above the knee. He stumbled and fell, snapping the haft of the weapon, the ripped muscle drawing a moan of agony from him.

The second assassin was charging, flail held high. Kynan dropped his useless pistol and pulled his sword over his shoulder. He caught the first sweep of the flail on his blade, and a shower of sparks scattered over the rubber grip of the sword.

Kynan forced himself to his feet and leaned against the cliff as his assailant took a fighting stance with his back to the sea.

The man was breathing hard, and his face was distorted with anger. “All right, holy Joe. Now--now, we’ll see!”

Kynan put his weight on his uninjured leg and thrust. He could not afford a long fight--he was losing too much blood for that. Even with the lance point in his thigh, he must attack or die.

The flail crackled by his face, trailing sparks. Kynan aimed a series of head cuts, feinted, swept his point down across the hand holding the flail.

The man screamed with pain and anger and changed weapon hands. He charged heedlessly and caught a ringing blow on his steel cap. A single chain brushed across Kynan’s injured leg, and the electric shock almost knocked him down. He could feel the warm blood streaming, and he felt a growing weakness.

The light was going swiftly, and the rain made the footing dangerous. Kynan caught the assassin’s cheek with his point and laid the dark face open to the bone.

The warman, more heavily built than the Navigator, closed with him hilt to hilt. Sparks showered as the chains touched the sword blade. Kynan looked into the dark eyes, the bloody face, and saw the look of the priest-hater. There were many such throughout the galaxy, men who hated the clergy for real or imagined wrongs. But they were rare on Gonlan, and Kynan wondered what had happened among the Rhad to conjure up this kind of dark passion.

“I’ll kill you
--
Nav--kill you--”
The man’s voice was harsh, strangling in his throat.

Kynan could feel himself weakening. There was no time now for anything but survival. His free hand found his knife and drew it. The Navigator let the other force him back a step, then twisted toward the cliff’s edge.

The man lost balance, and Kynan, with a short, desperate motion, drove the knife home.

The assassin dropped the flail, turned, and ran--his hands holding his stomach. He ran headlong into the rock wall, feeling nothing but his mortal wound, turned, ran again across the track and straight over the edge. He made no sound as the rain and night consumed him.

For what seemed to be a long time, Kynan stood on the ledge, his breath coming in deep, painful sobs. It was dark now, and the wind drove the rain in gusts before a rising storm.

Kynan’s wounded leg gave way abruptly, and he found himself stretched out on the wet rocks of the path with the rain stinging his face.

He was very weak, and his whole side seemed on fire with the pain of the lance head in his thigh. But he dragged himself toward the body of the assassin he had killed with his pistol.

Still stretched out at full length and with his strength all but gone, Kynan inspected the contents of the dead man’s pouch by the tiny light of his electric torch.

There was nothing significant: only a half-dozen Imperial coins. The bearded image of Torquas, the Galacton, was etched familiarly into the stainless steel disks.

The lance head felt like a drop of molten metal in his thigh. He dropped the torch, and it went out. He fumbled for it among the wet rocks and could not find it.

He called out to the assassin’s horses to come to him, but the beasts had wandered away up the path now that the fighting was done.

Kynan tried next to drag himself into the lee of the cliffs, for he had begun to shiver uncontrollably with cold and shock. In his confusion he crept in the wrong direction. He had reached the edge of the drop to the sea and was almost over the edge when he fainted.

Fear the Vulk, for he sees without eyes and knows the black arts and dreams of the blood of children. He is not as men. He is without loyalty.

Preface to
The Vulk Protocols,
authorship unknown,
Interregnal period

--and it is my wish that my descendants honor this Patent while the House of Rhad rules in Rhada. The Vulk known to men as Gret has been my honored friend and my father’s friend. My trust in him is complete and without condition. For howsoever long the Vulk Gret wishes to serve the House of Rhad, let him be known as Royal Vulk to this family. Given this thirtieth day of the seventh month of the year 6,001 Galactic Era: this sixtieth year of my reign as Kier, second star king of Rhada.

Excerpt from a Patent of Nobility, The Rhadan Archives,
early Second Stellar Empire period

The alien creature with the ancient title faced the councilors of the Gonlani-Rhad in the hall of Melissande. Like all of his kind, Gret was small in stature--not more than a meter and a half high--and delicately made. His overlarge head, quite hairless and pallid, gleamed in the torchlights. The angry warmen who faced him stood silent, watching the smoothly featureless face, the sensitive mouth, and the motionless, tapering hands resting on the carved bow of the lyre he carried.

The men of Gonlan: Crespus, the General; Kreon’s warlock, Baltus; Tirzah, the Constable; and LaRoss, the First Minister, were hearing counsel from the Vulk--counsel they did not want to heed.

“There was no need for the star king to send you, Master Gret,” General Crespus said, after a long silence. “This is a local matter. We can handle it ourselves.”

Gret gave a very human sigh. For years beyond counting, he had lived among men. He had served the first star king of Rhada, and the star king Kier of blessed memory. He had counseled Kier’s son and grandson and now his great-grandson, Alberic, who was growing old. In Gret’s nonhuman mind lay the memories of millennia and a profound understanding of the savage and wondrous creatures called men.

Gret’s fingers struck a vibrant note from the lyre. “The making of war on an allied nation-state is scarcely a local matter, General. The noble Rhad asks that you consider very carefully. The friendship between the Rhad and the Aurori is long standing, sanctioned by the Order and the Empire.” Privately, Gret wondered about the Empire in this connection. But this was hardly the place to voice his doubts. Long ago, in Kier’s time, the ties between the Empire and the Rhadan Palatinate were close. Gret remembered Ariane, sister of the first Torquas, who had married into the royal family of Rhada. The troubadours had sung of her:

Men called her Princess,
Men called her Queen,
Wore she armor of purest gold
And loved she well her Rim-world king,
She whom the warmen called
--
Ariane!

But these were old memories of other times. The world was
now,
as one found it. With the threat of civil war on the Rim--

“You have already brought war very near,” Gret said, “by stealing the heiress Janessa from Star Field. Alberic offers to mediate.”

“Alberic is growing old,” growled Tirzah. “Perhaps he forgets what it means to be a Rhad warman, but we have not, Master Gret.”

Baltus, the warlock, said, more mildly, “Our king is dying, Gret. Poisoned on Aurora where he went in friendship. Our heir is captured. You know young Karston. He is not called the Proud for nothing. By now he may have been killed. I can’t imagine anyone holding him alive for very long. So then, are we expected to do nothing?”

The Vulk inclined his head. “I admit your provocation has been great, and the men of Gonlan are honorable. The noble Rhad takes all this into consideration. But he asks that you think what war on the Rim will mean.” The thin lips formed a sad smile. “I know better than most what civil strife brings. I remember the Dark Time. Long before any of you were born, I fled from world to world in peril of my life because I was a Vulk, and for my kind there is safety only in the rule of laws--laws that crumble in war. Five hundred years ago men fought with spears and swords and dropped stones from the starships. Now, thanks to science”--he nodded ironically to the warlock--”we have rediscovered gunpowder and the art of bombing cities. Are we to light the fuse here on the Rim? What are laws for, then? What is the purpose of the Empire and the nation-states if not to bring justice without war?”

General Crespus stared red-eyed at the Vulk. “The nation-state exists for the protection of its people and its honor. Perhaps you’ve been too long on the Inner Planets, where things are done differently. Here on the Rim we are not afraid of war.”

“Spoken like a true general, Crespus,” Gret murmured. “Yes, it’s so I have served the Rhad at Nyor--the first Vulk to be an ambassador to the Imperial Court from a Rim world, thanks to Kier and Ariane. None of you would remember them, for it was long ago, before you were born. But they had a vision of a Second Stellar Empire greater than the first: a supernation of worlds at peace, governed by laws and just men. It has not yet come to pass--but it must, or the Dark Time will come again. War is a cancer. It spreads swiftly. If Gonlan and Aurora begin to fight, all the Rhadan worlds will become involved. Loyalty to the Empire will disintegrate--because the Rhad are all like you. ‘Blood and honor,’ General. The clergy will take sides. Men of the Order will fight one another for their home worlds. It takes very little to start a war, gentlemen. It is very difficult to stop one. I ask that you consider carefully. Your star king, Alberic of Rhada, asks it--implores it, if you will. Return Janessa to Aurora.”

“Never,” Tirzah declared, his hand on his flail. “What will happen to Gonlan if our king can be poisoned and our prince kidnaped without fear of retaliation?”

Gret sighed. He felt suddenly old and weary. He wished sadly for the comforting mind-touch of Erit, his sister-wife. But she was far away, on Rhada. No, he would have to face this alone, knowing that he could not prevail against human pride and anger.

“The Order of Navigators maintains an enclave on Aurora,” he said. “They are mining sacred ores there. What do you imagine they will do if you attack the planet?”

The cold, rain-laden wind from the sea swayed the tapestries hanging on the walls of the ancient hall. Gret shivered for a moment, thinking that he was, indeed, growing old at last because he stood here with these warmen talking of peace and battle, and yet a part of him yearned for the comforting warmth of his quarters in the star king’s great house on Rhada. There was a time, he thought, when electric heat and soothing surroundings would have been the farthest things from his mind while engaged on such a mission as this.

Baltus, the warlock, rather more scientist than warman, was the only hope for a peaceful settlement here, Gret knew. He wondered if he had done a wise thing in invoking the threat of the Navigators, however. In times past, the Order had persecuted warlocks unmercifully for delving into the ancient mysteries and intruding into the priestly preserves of Golden Age knowledge. The persecutions were almost unknown now, but the memory of those desperate times during the Interregnum between the Empires was a heritage of all warlocks, some of whom were now members of the AbasNav party.

“The Order will behave the way the Order has always behaved,” Baltus said. “The Aurori Navigators will pilot the Aurori starships. The Navigators of Gonlan will pilot ours. The clergy cannot afford to take sides in a dispute such as this.”

“The Navigators have already taken sides, Baltus,” Gret said flatly. “Their enemy is the Empire. It hasn’t always been so, nor will it always
be
so. But since Torquas X’s time, there has been conflict between the Order and the government of the Empire.”

“Well, then,” Tirzah said brusquely, “what is that to us?”

“Only this. The Auroran enclave is important to the Order. So important, I fear, that it might cause them to abandon their traditional evenhandedness. If you attack Aurora, Rhada may come under an interdict.”

“Impossible,” Crespus declared. “The Ten Worlds of Rhada are devout and God-fearing. Excommunicate us? Impossible, I say. Why, more than likely the Navigators will favor us in any war with the Aurori. Firstly, because the treacherous attack on the betrothal feast was a betrayal of the laws of hospitality and a breach of the peace of God. And secondly, because the Aurori have attacked the bond-father and bond-son of a holy Navigator. Kynan-- you know the boy, Gret. Kreon’s adoptive son.”

“You have sent for him, of course.”

“We have, naturally. Kreon insists on seeing him. Some of our people even consider him the heir to Gonlan, now that Karston may be dead,” said LaRoss, speaking for the first time.

Gret turned his attention fully to the First Minister. Vulks did not “see” as humans did. Their perceptions were stimulated by mental energies and that universal principle that the ancient priest-kings of long-ago-destroyed Vulka called “the life force.”