Empire of Women & One of our Cities is Missing (Armchair Fiction Double Novels Book 25) (7 page)

Gan nodded
suddenly, his eyes seeming to take fire from her glance:
 
“I’ll take your offer, Amazon!
 
I would not wish to place my life’s value
above that of every human in the
galaxy,
would you?”

With this
parting shot, Gan turned and left, leading little Elvir by the hand.
 
The woman strode after, whispering
sharply.
 
“Treachery means death,
Captain.
 
You talk of honor, so come in
honesty and you will be dealt with honorably.”
 

Gan
nodded, did not turn his head.
 
“In one
hour I return alone, to see how you keep your word.
 
I may be a fool, but never a coward.”
 

Elvir
walked beside him, sobbing little hushed sobs of defeat between clenched
teeth.
 
Gan turned and caught her up,
holding her face level with his own.
 
“Why the tears, little woman?”

“You’ve
made a date with a sorceress, and you’ll never get away from her.
 
You’re not
mine
anymore.”
 

Gan put
her
down,
pausing as he realized the girl knew what
was supposed to be a secret to himself alone.
 
Then he laughed and put aside the thought.
 
She would either keep silent or not.
 
It made no difference to him.
 

IN HIS
quarters, Gan found the Regent of Konapar, seated on Gan’s own chair, his
fingers drumming impatiently upon the table.
 
“Where have you been keeping yourself, Captain?
 
Rendezvous with some captive Phiran
priestess?”

Gan, irked
by his attitude, did not smile.
 
“Exactly,
your
Highness.
 
That is just where I have been.
 
I’ve arranged a meeting, supposedly with one
who will reveal the secret we seek.
 
But
I’m under oath not to reveal the matter to you.”
 

The Regent
scowled, puzzled.
 
“But you’ve just
broken that oath, haven’t you?”

“No.
 
I can’t break it until I return.
 
The oath may look different then, you
know.
 
They may try to kill me or keep me
captive—hard to say what can happen.
 
But
I intend to learn whether it is a trap or the genuine thing.”
 

“I’ll have
you followed.
 
You’re a valuable man to
me, Captain.
 
I’ll not have this.”
 

“Exactly why I brought the matter up at this time.
 
My men will know where I
am.
 
There is no need for you to have me
followed.
 
You’ll have to trust me, Your
Highness.
 
It’s my neck I’m risking, you
know.”
 

The Regent
looked thoughtful.
 
“You have a
point.
 
If some blunder revealed you were
followed by us, it could mean your death, right enough.
 
Very well, Captain.
 
Luck to you.
 
But, to repeat a phrase I picked up from you—don’t do it, Captain!
 
Don’t even think of it!
 
I’ll have you spitted over a slow fire.”
 

Gan
laughed.
 
“I’ll not keep it from you, Tor
Branthak, though I may drive a hard bargain.
 
I’ll sell it to you once I get it.”
 

The Tor
grimaced.
 
“I’ll wager it will cost
enough.
 
But then, there’s always
another means if you prove difficult.”
 
His eyes lighted.
 
“After all, we
will have two chances.
 
I came here on
suspicion, meaning to have it out with you, hammer and tongs.
 
I have just ordered the so-called Supreme
Matriarch, that young-looking one, taken to the plateau.
 
There, on my own ship, we can give her a
thorough going over with instruments, with truth serum, with lie-
detectors,
injections of drugs—get the facts out of
her.”
 

Gan heaved
himself to his feet.
 
Unaccountably, the
order for Celys’ arrest set his blood afire.
 
Rage choked him.
 
The idea of the
noble Matriarch handled like a criminal, given dangerous injections,
questioned interminably, put through an inquisition that could well ruin her
health or worse, was one he could not accept without emotion.
 
But with an effort he held his tongue until
his wits cooled.
 

The Regent
noticed nothing, went on drumming with his fingers on the tabletop.
 
“I’ve taken quite a fancy to that
woman…what’s her name now…Celys, Pelys—something.
 
Where the priestesses get their names I can’t
fathom.
 
They seem to have no family
names.
 
The temple is their only family tie.
 
She should make a most ornamental addition to
the gems in my harem, if she proves reasonable.”
 

Gan’s
breath nearly choked him with the hot fire in his lungs.
 
He could not have foreseen this.
 
The man had given no hint of his intentions
toward the head Matriarch.
 
Better to
wait, bide his time.
 
No good to speak of
the thing now.
 

Gan was
having his first full realization of his own attachment to the sharp-tongued
Matriarch.
 
This thought struck him, and
he relaxed.
 
He nearly
smiled
as he perceived that there had not been enough between them to give him any
confidence that the woman would not prefer the Regent’s harem to his own
company.
 
She thought of him as an unscrupulous
adventurer.
 
Gan stilled his anger,
thrust some garments into a small duffel bag,
slung
it
from his shoulder.
 
Clips of pellets for
his sidearms completed his preparations.
 
He turned to the Regent and bowed slightly, his smile ironic.
 

“I trust
my departure will cause you no inconvenience, Your Highness.
 
I expect to be gone but a short
time,
and I hope to find you well on my return.
 
I have your best wishes for success?”

The Regent
studied him for a second,
then
nodded stiffly.
 
“Formality becomes you, Captain.
 
Don’t let the plagued women bamboozle
you.
 
Get the facts, and let them stuff
their ideals and fine talk where it will do most good.”
 

GAN TURNED
on his heel and left.
 
But he had no
intention of leaving without making sure of something that was bothering
him.
 
He moved off toward the Mother’s shrine,
where he knew Celys might conceal herself in the sanctum if she had heard of
the order to arrest her.
 
It could be
that she had not been found as yet.
 

His guess
was correct.
 
The Matriarch had been
warned by her eavesdropping young acolytes of the order to take her to the
plateau outside the city, and had slipped out of her usual regal green ritual
robe and donned one of the simpler white gowns belonging to her acolyte,
Eloi.
 
Mingling with the chattering
groups of adolescents, she was indiscernible to the searching eyes of the
soldiery and had escaped recognition for several hours.
 

But a few
hours ago, when they had all filed into the dining hall, one of the guards had
recognized her and given a cry of alarm.
 
Celys had fled headlong, dodging through the familiar and intricate
passages with the skill of a hunted fox.
 
Darkness had come on, and she had slipped into the great sacred shrine
where the dim light and the huge pillars, which supported the dome, gave her
effective cover.
 

The
crew of Gan Alain were
standing guard at their usual posts,
while two-score of the Konaparian warriors scoured the halls and rooms of the
temple with search beams in their hands.
 

Gan paused
for a moment beside Chan DuChaile’s post before the big arch of the shrine of
Myrmi-Atla, and murmured a question.
 
“Have they caught the white bird yet, Chan?”

Chan
glanced about, shook his head.
 
Then he
whispered:
 
“If you’re
figuring on something else for her, I can tell you where she is, but not for
the likes of Tor Branthak.”
 

“I was
planning on taking her to the Mother.
 
Do
you know what that means?”

Chan
nodded, for he had discussed many things with the chattering young girls who
were penned in the temple.
 
“She’s
slipping from pillar to pillar in her own sacred shrine while the Konapar
heroes steal about with lights…”

CELYS
crouched behind the great central pillar in the shrine of Myrmi-Atla, watching
the swinging lights of the searching Konaparians and praying they would
conclude she was not within the darkened shrine and pass on.
 
She shrank back as one small beam swept
toward her, then mysteriously blinked out.
 
Feet whispered softly on the stone, and she nearly shrieked as a heavy
hand clamped down on her face, shutting off her breath.
 
In her ear a familiar voice whispered.
 

“Will you
be quiet, you beautiful fool?
 
Or must I
beat sense through your hide with a whip?
 
I am your friend.
 
Now, tell me,
how do we get out of this place before some of the Regent’s men spot you?”

The hand
slowly released its powerful grasp and Celys shuddered as breath came back
into her lungs.
 
The beast was still
trying to trick her with his honest blue eyes, with his heart-ensnaring curls
and fearful brawny arms about her.
 
There
was nothing he would not stoop to!
 
What
was she to do?
 
She who had thought men
so simple and easy to fool before—and this one was not fooled in the least,
whatever his game.
 
If only he was what
he seemed, an honest, strong man trying to do the right thing, rather than an
amorous beast trying to undo her reason with his
love-making
in order to secure the ancient secret from her.
 

Celys, in
a sudden flash of hatred for all things masculine and alien, tugged out a
little dagger from a hidden sheath.
 
Her
hand drew back, darted forward, and Gan’s hand caught her wrist just as the
point touched his throat.
 
A few drops of
blood stained her wrist as she twisted, and the knife dropped with a sinister
tinkling on the floor between them.
 

Gan had
half a mind to call out and bring the searchers down upon her, but he growled
softly into her ear:
 
“For a woman who is
unable to resist my arms, you show small gratitude for my affection.
 
I come to help you escape the Regent’s
third-degree
, and you try to knife me.
 
Are you just a common murderess, and not the
high-minded woman I thought?”

Celys was
sincerely thankful the blade had done no harm.
 
The spasm of rage had passed, and she realized she was near the breaking
point from strain, or she would never have done such a thing.
 
Tears came to her eyes, and at the same time
anger burned in her cheeks, trembled in her hands—anger at her own impotence
against these males from another world.
 
She wanted so very much to believe in this man beside her, yet she felt
certain he was but a scoundrel who mimicked the ways of honor to betray
her.
 

Gan
murmured:
 
“Lead the
way to the secret passages that lead from this temple.
 
I have a way of contacting your forces—in
fact, a guide is even now awaiting me in the subterranean passages.”
 

Celys
nodded her head in mute acquiescence, her eyes on his with something of final
defeat in them.
 
Gan knew that it was the
defeat of an overweening feminine pride, which could not bear to think of any
man as superior.
 
Her voice was very
weak, whispering into his ear.
 

“Forgive
me.
 
I’m half out of my mind with
strain.
 
You embodied all the indignities
I have suffered—I am not myself.
 
I would
have escaped long since through a passage nearby, but I have not been able to
approach the entrance, as there has always been somebody about.
 
Come…”

GAN TOOK
her hand and let her guide him through the dimness.
 
Then he saw her reason for choosing the
shrine of the All-Mother’s image for her hiding place.
 
She pressed a carved ornament in the stone of
a pillar pedestal and a segment of the pillar opened out.
 
They slipped inside and Celys pulled the
false stone back into place.
 
The pillar
itself was the top of a tiny stairway, so narrow that Gan had trouble
squeezing his great shoulders past the winding steps that circled a center
pole.
 
Celys giggled audibly at his
contortions.
 

“This
wasn’t meant for a fat Matriarch…”

“May you
never grow fat…you are perfect as you are,” he said, grunting.
 

Her eyes
danced, but he did not know if it was because of his contorted face as he wriggled
his way downward, or because of the compliment.
 

At the
bottom Gan paused to readjust his leather corselet.
 
There he discovered the woman had found
opportunity to lift one of his pellet guns from his belt.
 
Gan shivered with sudden apprehension for if
she meant to kill him, one of his own guns would prove more efficient than the
slender blade with which she had failed.
 

“Better
give me the gun, sister.
 
It was never
meant for female hands.”
 

Her laugh
was mocking, cool and quite possessed.
 
“So
now it’s ‘sister’?
 
I have become younger
since last night?
 
Do you no longer
consider me motherly?”

“The gun!”
growled Gan, frowning.
 
“You’re much too
impulsive with weapons to carry them about so carelessly.”
 

“
You
have a weapon.
 
I
have a weapon.
 
What could be fairer?”

Gan
shrugged, his eyes meeting only a rather charming expression of deviltry in
hers.
 
Then he
said:
 
“Well, keep it.
 
But let me warn you, the triggers have been
filed.
 
They’re about half the standard
pull.
 
Also, there’s another thing I must
speak to you about.
 
I had a similar
altercation with one of your associates.
 
She is waiting now in the subterranean passages to guide me to the
Mother.
 
She has my word of honor to
reveal nothing of what I learn without permission, and I have hers for my
safety.
 
Now that you’ve led me into this
secret passage of yours, you will have to guide me to her.”
 

Rather
abruptly she shoved the gun, which she had been holding behind her, toward
him.
 
“In that case, take your ugly
weapon.
 
I will have no need of it.
 
The mother will decide your fate when we
reach Avalaon.
 
Come…”

Gan lifted
the weapon gingerly from her hand, for it was actually hair-triggered, and she
hadn’t handled it too gently.
 
In her
hands, it would have been more dangerous to her than to him.
 

The
beautiful Matriarch laughed again at his tense expression, then turned and
moved off into the darkness.
 
Here and
there along the narrow passages little glow lamps were set, and Gan tried to
figure his distance and position in the temple by the distance between
lights.
 
But he was hopelessly lost in
the twisting of the narrow passage within the walls.
 

In short
minutes she slid open a panel, let him out into the underground chambers where
he had left the Amazon, Aphele.
 
She was
waiting there, concealed by the shadows, alone.
 
She moved out into the dim light.
 

“I thought
you’d never come…”

Gan
grunted.
 
“I had to rescue the soubrette
of the cast.
 
The Tor was about to give
her a going over.
 
I suppose you know
the Supreme Matriarch?”

Aphele
darted to the open panel, where Celys stood, and the two women touched hands
for an instant.
 
Aphele turned back to
Gan Alain.
 
“Must she flee?
 
Her Supremity is needed here.
 
I don’t understand.”
 

Celys
moved forward, facing Aphele.
 
“Where
have you undertaken to lead this man, Lieutenant?
 
Not to Avalaon?”

Aphele
stood proudly, facing her superior.
 
“I
realize the risk.
 
But I believe he might
be convinced when he knows all.
 
It is
worth trying.”
 

Celys
shook her head.
 
“He is but the captain
of a single ship, an adventurer of no influence,
a
mere mercenary under Tor Branthak’s command.
 
What good could he do our cause?”

The two
women stood facing each other, and what passed between them was mysterious to
Gan, for Celys turned away, shrugged,
said:
 
“Very well, I have nothing to say.
 
But you are playing with a fire that is apt
to burn more than you think.”
 

Almost
immediately Lieutenant Aphele drew her pellet gun, leveled it at Gan.
 
“Your weapons, Captain.
 
I am sorry if I led you to believe you would
not be my captive.”
 

Gan gave
them up.

NOW THE
two women rather pointedly ignored him, and after they caught up with the
waiting troops and Gan found himself marching in the center of a score of
well-armed and well-disciplined warrior women, he rather doubted his own good
sense.
 

Gan
realized that the Matriarch’s disappearance, coinciding with his own departure,
was going to place Tor Branthak’s trust of him under a strain.
 
But the chances were he’d never have to worry
about that.
 
What really worried him were
his men and his ship.
 
It would have been
best if he had demanded his share of the wealth of Alid and left immediately
after the city had fallen.
 
But he had been drawn by the damned
secret
and he doubted
more strongly every moment that there
was
any secret.
 

The march
continued for what Gan judged was an hour, perhaps some four miles of
underground tunnels.
 
Then they entered a
line of monorail cars suspended from the ceiling of the tunnel.
 
Gan reasoned that they left the cars outside
the city because of the possible sound their use might make under the
foundations.
 

The train
was light and fast, designed for passenger use only.
 
Gan judged they traveled around sixty miles
an hour for several hours.
 
Then the
tunnel ended, but before ascending a ramp into the open air, the women donned
garments of rough skins and sand hoods of soft leather.
 
These were the garments of the wild nomads of
the deserts of Phira, and at the surface a herd of the horse-like beasts called
morts
was awaiting them.
 

From the
air, the party would resemble any other mounted party of nomads and would
cause no unwanted inquiry from the Konaparian scout planes patrolling the
planet for possible organized resistance.
 

“Is the
place distant?” asked Gan of Aphele, who rode beside him.
 
Celys had taken her place at the head of the
column, riding beside the officer who headed the detachment.
 
Aphele twitched the head of her pop-eyed,
horned mount closer to him and smiled as she lifted back the hood from her ears
to reveal her wealth of soft brown hair.
 

“Two days
ride, Captain.
 
Unless you are accustomed
to riding, you will have calluses where none were before.”
 

Gan shook
his head.
 
“I have never ridden anything
not on wheels or jets before.
 
I think I
know what you mean already.”
 

The
woman’s eyes were humorously sympathetic.
 
“You will not enjoy the next two days, Captain.
 
You will need whatever stoicism your nature
provides.”
 

Gan,
already appreciating the monotony of the repeating dunes and the irritating
qualities of sand down his neck, decided that the best way to ignore the
unpleasantness was to keep on talking.
 
He was somewhat nettled by the obvious dislike of himself expressed by
the warrior women’s concerted disregard of his presence.
 
He threw back his own hood, letting the
sun shine
on his golden curls.