Pliocene Exile - The Adversary Part 11

CLOUD: Don't talk like a fool. Even with this information as a tradeoff, we'll have to be extremely careful dealing with him.

Aiken's dangerous, Hagen. Perhaps more dangerous now than Papa.

HAGEN: Bulls.h.i.+t.

CLOUD: In the Goriah duel, Aiken stood up to everything that Nodonn could throw at him-including that photon-cannon Spear. But there was something else. As he killed Nodonn and Queen Mercy, he subsumed their metapsychic complexus.

HAGEN: Say what?

CLOUD: [Image.] A very obscure phenomenon. I remember that the Poltroyan entry in the computer mentioned it in connection with some ancestor-wors.h.i.+p thing. It's very abstruse.

Never fully doc.u.mented among humans. But it seems Aiken did it. The whole Castle of Gla.s.s in Goriah is buzzing with the news. How useful the powers will be to him remains to be seen. Kuhal says some Tanu believe the subsumption may kill Aiken.

HAGEN: Wishful thinking ... Listen, Cloud, we'll have to get his cooperation somehow. We can't fight him for the timegate site, and building the Guderian device will mean batting about from one end of Europe to the other gathering raw materials. To say nothing of conscripting Milieu-trained technicians to work out the trickier bits in building the thing. Our only hope of success depends upon cultivating the goodwill of this brain-gobbling little Dracula. Or coercing him into helping us.

CLOUD: More than that depends on Aiken.

HAGEN: ?.

CLOUD: Kuhal. He and the surviving invaders were taken.

They're imprisoned in Goriah now, incommunicado under a sigma-field, charged with high treason. The penalty for that is death.

CHAPTER THREE.

"You are summoned to judgment," Commander Congreve announced.

The 129 survivors of Nodonn's defeated little army came together and formed a silent double file with Kuhal Earthshaker and Celadeyr of Afaliah at the head. Having been warned by the smirking human lackeys who brought them supper, the Tanu knights were wearing their gla.s.s armour, cleaned up as well as they could manage. They glowed in splendid defiance-creator cyan and coercer sapphire and psychokinetic rose-gold, with the few combatant fa.r.s.ensors in the company resembling statues carved from s.h.i.+ning amethyst.

A squad of Congreve's human troopers marched in carrying covered baskets. At a mental command they pa.s.sed down the lines of prisoners, distributing sets of crystal chains. Each insurgent freely bound himself or herself with the symbol of submission to Tana, manacles about gauntleted wrists, the central snaplink fastened to the golden torc.

"We are ready," said Kuhal. Magnificent in halide radiance, he towered over the human commandant of the Goriah garrison.

He eyed the twenty-second-century weapon Congreve carried, incongruous against his exotic parade armour. "And you will not require that."

"The sacred chains bind us in honour," growled old Celadeyr.

Congreve's mental aspect was glacial. "So did your oath of fealty to King Aiken-Lugonn, which you swore at the Grand Loving! Follow me." He turned, lifting the Matsus.h.i.+ta laser carbine to a ceremonial port arms, and led the way from the detention barracks into the outer ward of the Castle of Gla.s.s.

Fog swathed the heavily damaged facade. Even though it was less than sixteen hours after the failed attack, much of the debris had already been cleared away. Piles of translucent blocks and the downed tools of workers indicated that repairs were in progress. The faerie lighting of the towers was only a violet-andgold blur tonight, with the overall effect oddly mutilated since the great spire of the castle had been blasted away by Nodonn.

The prisoners pa.s.sed through the scorched ruin of the main gate and into the central keep. Most of the corridors had been cleaned up, and only an occasional melt-scar or boarded cas.e.m.e.nt remained as souvenirs of the desperate fighting that had taken place.

The knights marched along bearing their chains proudly, their metapsychic luminosity overwhelming the lesser light of the oilfuelled wall sconces. At length they came into the main audience chamber of the Goriah citadel, which the usurper had caused to be almost completely refurbished. The floor was tiled in gold and midnight-purple. Pillars of twisted amber gla.s.s supported a high vaulted ceiling spangled with tiny starlike lamps. The dais was the only bright place in the room. Behind it shone the precious-metal sunburst of Nodonn Battlemaster, retained by the usurper because a solar disk had also been the traditional heraldic cognizance of the first-coming Lugonn. But the ornamental sun-face was blank now, its apollonian smile gone along with recollections of drifting ashes and a tarnished silver hand tumbling out of the dawn sky.

In the place of honour stood a black-marble throne, surrounded by twenty lesser seats, all empty. On the throne sat a little human eating an apple: the Nonborn King of the ManyColoured Land. He had evidently just come in out of the mist, for he wore a Tanu-style storm suit of golden leather still glistening with beads of moisture. Its visored hood was thrown back and the neck open. Aiken-Lugonn's throat was bare. He required no artificial stimulus to mental operancy.

The prisoners came before the dais and waited while Congreve made his brief telepathic announcement and then retired with the guard detail to the shadows in the rear of the hall.

The King munched his apple and let his gaze rove over the depleted battle-company. He had no metapsychic nimbus. In fact, his appearance was peculiarly wan, with only his dark red hair and brows and the eyes like little chunks of jet giving life to his face.

Kuhal Earthshaker spoke to Celadeyr on the intimate mode: So he lives Celo ... Alas for the rumour that he choked in the Devouring!

Not that one. But he does look psychodyspeptic.

Both Nodonn and Mercy-Rosmar-! To subsume either would have been beyond the power of our mightiest legendary heroes.

What are we to make of a being who a.s.similates two such minds? Perhaps it is the final confirmation that he is indeed the Adversary.

I didn't need any confirmation. Only you younger ones doubted.

Not true Celo. The Craftsmaster didn't believe it. Nor does Lady Morna-Ia. I know that even my brother Nodonn himself doubted as his end approached ...

He believed.

He doubted. Who knew Nodonn as I did-unless perhaps my lost mind-twin Fian Skybreaker? Nodonn was the eldest son of my father Thagdal and mother Nontusvel and I served him for three hundred and eighty-five years as Second Lord Psychokinetic. Aiken Drum the Adversary-? Nonsense. Nodonn hated and feared this parentless wariangle as a Lowlife upstart and adventurer. But he never accepted him as the ultimate Foe.

Tchah! Even the Firvulag know the b.a.s.t.a.r.d for what he is!

Why do you think the Little People connived with us-showed us the aircraft in return for our promise to return Sharn's Sword?

The Adversary's coming foreshadows the Nightfall War, and they cannot fight the last battle without their sacred Sword. O Kuhal believe! Nodonn never doubted. You are the doubter!

And I know why. That North American woman is to blame ... the one Boduragol paired you with in the healingOld fool. Were it not for Cloud I would still be half a mind.

You still are. The wrong half! All your Tanu instincts your racial soul died with FianWretchedoldman STOP! Not you not anyone may fault my courage in this doomed undertaking! Nor my loyalty to Nodonn and our battle-religion. This matter of the Adversary is beside the point as we stand here flagrant traitors brought to judgment.

... Ah yes. Your pardon Brother Earthshaker. I am a defeated dotard and should bethink me of Tana's imminent peace rather than some mythical apocalypse ... But I have seen fulfilled so many portents that puzzled us ancients by their absence during that conflict at Void's Edge a thousand years agone in the old Duat Galaxy. Now we have seen the engulfing waters! The monstrous carrion-bird Morigel! The One-Handed Warrior leading the battle-company against all custom! The summer fog! So there remains only the last dread epiphany ... that baleful mindstar heralding the fall of Night ... I tell you Kuhal that soon the war will rage in which no warrior can tell friend from foe. And finally there will be a tearing asunder of the earth and high heaven as the Adversary triumphs.

CeloAnd he is here.

Aiken Drum had come to the front of the dais, nibbling the last bits from his fruit. He flicked the apple core over his right shoulder and it vanished. At the same moment a double-lever steel boltcutter appeared in his right hand.

"Do you know what this is?" His voice was quiet. The deadly blood-metal tool gleamed as he raised it high. "It's iron. You Tanu thought that there was no way to remove a torc without killing the wearer. Well, you were wrong. There are two ways-and using this thing is one of them. When you cut off a torc with an iron tool it hurts like the lues of h.e.l.l. It may even drive you mad. But most healthy adult Tanu live through it, even though all of your wonderful metapsychic powers fall back into latency ... and you become as mentally impotent as the lowest bareneck human."

The prisoners glowed more brightly.

Aiken's face was expressionless. He turned his back on them, and then suddenly his telepathic voice clanged on the declamatory mode: LET THE HIGH TABLE GATHER FOR THE JUDGMENT.

Above certain of the twenty seats reserved for the Most Exalted Ones, faces were materializing-the fa.r.s.ent simulacra of the ruling council of the Many-Coloured Land: Morna-Ia Kingmaker, Bleyn the Champion, Alberonn Mindeater and his wife Eadnar, Condateyr Fulminator of Roniah, Sibel Longtress, Neyal of Sasaran, the human Estella-Sirone of Darask, and Lomnovel Brainburner of Sayzorask.

Celadeyr's intimate thought was aghast: So few!

And Kuhal's sardonic: Our own seats are empty Celo. And likewise those of Thufan of Tarasiah and Diarmet of Geroniah who perished when the aircraft fell. And the seat of poor Moreyn Gla.s.scrafter who poisoned himself with ferrous sulphate when the usurper flamed victorious. And Queen Mercy's place!

And the seats of those who perished at the Rio Genii-Artigonn and the Craftsmaster and my brother the Interrogator. Let me see ... the Second Redactor's position was vacant. Who is the missing twentieth? I have it. Armida the Formidable Lady of Bardelask. No doubt she has more important matters to occupy her.Celo said: Nine present. A quorum. Enough to condemn.