Pliocene Exile - The Adversary Part 95

"About making a deal?" Aiken shook his head. "I'll give him credit for that much cla.s.s. Not a peep. No ultimatum about me opening the Gateway sigma in exchange for his cancelling Gotterdammerung."

"He knows you wouldn't betray the children once you placed them under your protection. He seems to have his own notion of honour."

"Not that it wouldn't be a simple solution to this crock of s.h.i.+t," Aiken said brutally. Tearing a chunk from the pastry, he chewed it in silence for a minute. "All I can do is hope that Hagen and his crew finish the Guderian device before Marc talks the Firvulag around. Once the kids are through to the Milieu, our homegrown Lucifer is euchred. I'll take my chances fighting Nightfall with the Firvulag just as long as Marc isn't leading them in metaconcert."

She said, "Whatever happens-I want to help you. You know I'm blocked against aggressive action, but there's still my fa.r.s.ensing function, and I can heal-"

She broke off, tears spilling from her eyes. The little man in the gold-l.u.s.tre armour took both her hands in his own. "Why won't you go on Kyllikki?"

She looked away, shaking her head, trying to free her hands.

The King only gripped her more tightly.

"I don't want you here, Elizabeth. I want you safe. Kyllikki sails from Goriah tomorrow night. I'm going to fly you there and put you aboard with the others."

"No! I want to stay here and help you ... and if there's a chance of the time-gate opening-"

"So you'd go back to the Milieu if you could?"

"Wouldn't you?" she demanded hotly, her eyes glaring at him above the diamond mask.

He released her suddenly and she fell back in her chair. There was a roar from the crowd and a storm of laughter and applause.

With the pompous formalities concluded, a troupe of Firvulag comedians were putting on a turn, making perilous mock of the Singing Stone and the upcoming factional rivalry for it. Almost everyone in the Tanu royal enclosure was watching the fun.

n.o.body paid any attention to Aiken and Elizabeth.

He answered her question. "I'm the King and this is my land and I'll stay here until I die."

"Let me help you," she begged. "I want to very much, Aiken."

"All right." His agreement was abrupt. "If you'll take off the mask."

"No," she said stubbornly. "These people want me to symbolize Brede, and so I'm going to do it in full fig. Twofaced, just like her."

"Take it off." His black eyes were irresistible fonts of coercion. "Do you think I don't know what's in your mind? You don't want to be Brede, you want to be Saint Illusio the Martyr!

And I'm a little slow on the uptake, so I've just begun to figure out why. But you're not going to get away with it, la.s.s. You'll be no good to me playing weird little games: metapsychic hideand-seek. If you're with me, it's going to be on my terms. Do you understand?"

"Yes." She reached up and unfastened the straps of the jewelled respirator, lowered it, and smiled at him in obvious relief. "It was getting very hot," she admitted. "I don't know what possessed me. It just seemed to be an appropriate gesture.

Comforting. I suppose I was subconsciously hiding."

"That's right." He poured iced wine into a crystal goblet and held it out to her. "And when you discover what you're hiding from, you'll be home free. Now drink this and relax. I'll see you later. It's time for me to be off and get things ready for our own half of the preliminary fun and games."

There were 900 knights in the precision-riding manoeuvre team, and they came proudly onto the field in Guild formations, led by the golden-armoured King on his unique black steed. The chalikos of the company had their coats dyed in heraldic colours and were trapped in gem-studded garniture. Unicorn spikes adorned the mounts' chamfrons and they trailed gauzy lappets of gold or silver to match the floating capes and banner-topped lances carried by the riders. Following Aiken-Lugonn in the place of honour were the violet-and-gold knights of the Fa.r.s.ensor Guild; though few in number, they had been the first to take the King to kin. Then came the combatant redactors in ruby and silver; and the more numerous psychokinetics blazing rosy gold; and the bold sapphire chivalry of the Coercer Guild; and finally the creators wearing l.u.s.trous and changeable seahues-cyan and beryl and olivine and deepest ultramarine gla.s.s armour. The s.h.i.+ning One took up a position in the middle of the display ground, and the riders manoeuvred about him to the music of curling gla.s.s horns and thunderous kettledrums. The gorgeous clawed beasts marched and countermarched and wheeled and curvetted. They performed flashy caracoles and leaps, dancing in ever-changing patterns of colour about the motionless King. Flowers bloomed, rainbow stars exploded and were metamorphosed into abstract swirling designs, and the Tanu and human spectators cheered and ooh'd at each fresh display of equestrian virtuosity.

"Very pretty," sneered King Sharn, "if not particularly impressive from a martial arts point of view." He quaffed the beer in his skull-cup with a mighty gulp and gestured to a dwarf servitor for a refill. "Freshen your lime squash, too, Cousin?"

"No, thank you, Awful King," Sugoll said.

"Tarting up the chalikos with those dye-jobs is a fairly recent innovation you may not have seen before, Cousin. Lowlife golds introduced it at the Muriah games about thirty years ago, when they'd helped the Foe cement their domination of the Grand Combat. But you folks never bothered much with the ritual fighting, did you?"

"It was the reason we originally separated from the main body of Firvulag in my grandsire's day, and retreated to the hinterlands. The annual slaughter of the Combat had begun to seem meaningless to us."

In a low voice, Sharn said, "Don't mention it to the farts on my Gnomish Council-but Ayfa and I felt the same. War's good for one thing: putting yourself on top!"

"As it happens," Sugoll said, "I did attend the games in Muriah once. Last year, and incognito. I had been told that human scientists in thrall to the Tanu might have the technology to alleviate the deformities of my people. Thanks be to Teah the All-Merciful, this has proved to be true."

Sharn tipped a wink at the mutant. "If little Rowane turns out to be a typical refit job, you'll have to beat off Firvulag swains from your girlies with a stick at next year's Grand Loving!

I suppose you'll be candidate for the Skin-tank yourself, now, eh?"

"I will be the last, as is fitting."

Sharn studied the foam in his goblet. "Oh. Well, of course.

But you know, after we win the Nightfall War, we'll have lots more of the Skin you can use. And we'll save the noncombatant redactors to help with your healing if they promise to behave."

Sugoll's illusory eyes regarded the King calmly. "As Teah wills."

"We need you on our side in Nightfall, Cousin. Are you with us?"

"I must do as the G.o.ddess prompts me."

Sharn leaned forward. His face had become ominous in the ornate black-gla.s.s helm. "She wills that we conquer, Cousin-and you'd better consider carefully if you think otherwise! Oh, I know what your Lady's been up to. Working on Ayfa, bad-mouthing Firvulag prospects in the war, saying we won't be able to hold our s.h.i.+t together when the Golden Futterbug comes against us in metaconcert ... Well, I'm bighearted, and I'll make allowances for Katy. She's a Tanuhuman hybrid, after all, and probably a secret Peace Faction member to boot. But you've got a Firvulag soul, Cousin, no matter what shape your body is. You belong with us!"

Sugoll said, "We are all children of the G.o.ddess, all of one blood in the great mystery, folk of Duat and folk of Earth fated to share each other's destiny."

"Bos.h.!.+" cried Sharn. "Boondock mysticism! While you lot were off in the wilderness thinking n.o.ble thoughts, the Tanu crushed our spirits with the help of their human minions. Now it's our turn! We've got the advantage and we're going to win!"

"Look," said the Howler Lord, pointing out onto the tournament field. "Aiken-Lugonn directs the finale of his demonstration."

"A Flying Hunt," Sharn growled. "It figures."

The Firvulag monarch and the mutant stood side by side watching. Out on the golden sand, the small figure on the black chaliko was the centre of a vortex of iridescence. The jewelcoloured knights on their faerie chargers were rising in a great spiral above him, mounting high into the clear blue sky as the blaring horns and the drums rolled to a crescendo.

"Nine hundred knights," Sharn said bitterly, "and he's hoisting them all himself, too, not phasing in a metaconcert."

"Aircraft are approaching," Sugoll noted.

Twenty-six dark flyers with the openhanded golden blazon arranged themselves in a vast diamond pattern above the inverted cone of levitant knights. The rhocraft descended vertically until they floated a scant two hundred metres above the grandstands. The crawling purple network of the forcefields negating gravity's pull could be seen clearly, enveloping the birdlike shapes.

Suddenly, the music stopped.

The small golden manikin dismounted from his chaliko and stood with his arms raised high. The spiralling knights halted as though frozen in the bright transparent air. The spectators uttered a low sound, then were utterly silent.

The rho-fields clothing the fleet of aircraft winked out-and still the dark birds hung in the sky.