Hunt the Space-Witch! (17 page)

“Give me the report,” he commanded as Corun Govleq entered the throne room.

Govleq looked seriously preoccupied, but the shadow of a smile appeared on his face. “Good news, sire, for a change.”

“Well! What is it?”

“The rebellion seems to be confined to a handful of worlds—Aldryne, Dykran, Thyrol, Menahun, Quintak, and a few others. We've just about got the situation in hand on Thyrol, and word from Quintak is encouraging.”

Dervon smiled. “This gladdens me. I think strong action is called for now. Order out a battle fleet, Govleq.”

“To where, sire?”

“To Aldryne. The rebellion is confined. Now we can safely devastate Aldryne and Dykran, the instigator worlds, and re-establish control.”

Govleq nodded. “Excellent, sire.”

“This Hammer,” Dervon said. “What of it?”

The Minister of the Outer Marches shrugged and said, “We have heard nothing save that the people of Aldryne are massed behind it.”

“Ah. Order the full fleet to Aldryne, then. We'll bathe the world in fire.
Then
let the worlds of the galaxy shake this Hammer at us!”

“Very good, sire.”

A yellow-clad page appeared timidly at the entrance to the throne room and knelt there, waiting to be noticed. At length Dervon said, “Well, boy?”

“Message for Minister Govleq, Your Majesty.”

“Speak out,” Govleq ordered.

“A subradio message has arrived from Aldryne, sir. From Lugaur Holsp. He says he would talk of treaty with you, Minister Govleq.”

Govleq's dropping eyes opened wide. “What? Have the call transferred up here at once!”

“Of course, sir.”

The page vanished. Govleq turned to the monarch and said, “Well, sire?”

“Order out the battle fleet, anyway,” Dervon said. His lips curved upward in a wan smile. “Methinks this Holsp plans to use his Hammer as a bludgeon. But we'll speak to him nevertheless.”

A technician's voice said, “You can go ahead with the call now, Aldryne.”

Humming clatter came over the wall speaker in the Imperial throne room. Then a cold, deep voice said, “This is Lugaur Holsp, Your Majesty, speaking from the planet Aldryne of the system Aldryne.”

“What would you with me?” Dervon said.

“Are you aware, Majesty, that the Imperial Proconsul has been driven forth from Aldryne and Imperial rule destroyed both here and on the sister world of Dykran?”

“I have heard something to this effect,” the Emperor remarked sardonically. “I believe it's more than a rumor.”

“Indeed it is. By virtue of the Hammer of Aldryne—which I hold—this has been done.”

“Well, pig?” The Emperor's voice rose above a dry murmur for the first time in three decades. “Did you call to boast to me about this? A fleet of Imperial warships makes its way to Aldryne this moment to lay waste your entire planet.”

“This is the expected reaction,” Holsp said. “I desire to avoid this needless slaughter.”

“How, traitor?”

“I am no traitor. I am loyal to the Empire.”

“You show odd ways of demonstrating this loyalty,” the Emperor said.

“I offer to surrender,” said Holsp. “I offer to let it be known widely to all that the Hammer of Aldryne failed against Your Majesty, that the insurrection collapsed of its own accord, that Aldryne remains loyal to you. I furthermore will turn over to you those conspirators who plotted against your rule. In return I ask only the Proconsulship of Aldryne—and ten percent of the annual tax money.”

Dervon gasped at the man's audacity. He glanced at the thunderstruck Govleq and said, “Give us a few moments to consider this, Holsp.”

“Very well, Majesty.”

Dervon shut off the transmitter. “What do you think?”

“The man's a callous schemer,” Govleq said. “This is infinitely better than destroying the world. The show of force is necessarily limited in its appeal: It
frightens
men. Word of the collapse of the Aldryne insurrection will teach them that the Empire is so powerful it need not fire a shot.”

“So be it,” Dervon said. “This Holsp is incredible.” He opened contact again and said, “Holsp, we accept your offer. The insurrection is to cease; the ringleaders are to be turned over to the Imperial fleet shortly to reach Aldryne, and you are to issue a public statement saying that the might of the Hammer has failed. In return, we grant you the Proconsulship of Aldryne and ten percent of collected tax moneys.”

“Accepted, sire,” Holsp said unctuously.

That conversation stood out clearly in Ras Duyair's mind as his small ship settled slowly into its landing orbit and spiraled down on Aldryne.

His purpose was clear. The traitor Holsp would have to die.

It was obvious to Duyair that the false priest could not possibly have the Hammer. The Hammer was something too precious, too sacred to Aldryne; no man who had penetrated its secret could lightheartedly sell his world to the Emperor as Holsp had done.

No. Holsp had committed fraud, sacrilege, blasphemy: he had pretended to have the Hammer. The people of Aldryne had rallied around him and driven forth the Proconsul Darhuel—and this was their reward.

The spaceport looked strangely different as Duyair's little ship came down. The Imperial pennons were down except for one that hung in rags, a flickering streamer of purple and gold.

The ship landed. Moments later Duyair was among his fellow men. They had changed, too.

Their eyes were brighter, their shoulders more square. They had thrown off the yoke of Empire, and it showed.

How would they look, he wondered, if they knew that at this moment their leader, Lugaur Holsp, was conspiring with the Emperor to sell them back into Imperial bondage?

He hailed a cruising jetcopter. “To the Temple of the Suns,” he said.

“Yes, sir. Are you a priest there?” the driver asked as Duyair took a seat.

“My name is Ras Duyair.”

“Oh! So you've returned! Funny; Holsp told us you'd been killed in the insurrection.”

Duyair smiled grimly. “The report has been somewhat exaggerated. In fact, I've been on Dykran ever since the insurrection began. I aided in
their
revolt.”

“Dykran, too,” mused the driver. “I didn't know they kicked over the traces, too. We don't get much news. But we have the Hammer, and that's what counts. It's a pity your father's not alive. But he's probably glad, wherever he is, that Lugaur Holsp has continued his work.”

“I'm sure of that,” said Duyair absently. “Very glad. Aldryne is completely independent now, you say?”

“Last we heard of Darhuel and his bunch, they were running headfirst for Moorhelm. There isn't an Imperial soldier left anywhere on the face of the planet.”

“Wonderful,” Duyair said without enthusiasm.

The Temple of the Suns came in sight. The 'copter swooped low and began to descend vertically. It came to rest before the great gate. Duyair paid the man and alighted.

The Temple looked much as before, a sprawling, heavily ornamented building surrounded by a triple row of parapets, with gargoyles leering down from the uppermost floors. The giant cannon was as he had left it, in its housing.

He began to walk up the path to the Temple entrance. Several acolytes were tending the grounds; they stared at him with unconcealed curiosity as he went past.

He covered the flagstone steps two at a bound, reached the main door, knocked loudly.

The bland face of Helmat Sorgvoy appeared. “Yes, my son?” the priest inquired automatically. “What would you here?”

“I'd like to see Holsp,” Duyair said bluntly.

Sorgvoy gasped. “Ras! What are you doing on Aldryne? I thought you—”

“Get out of my way,” Duyair snapped. He shoved the priest aside and entered the Temple.

Lugaur Holsp was in the Room of Devotion when Duyair found him.

Duyair stood at the entrance for a moment, watching. Holsp was kneeling, whispering prayers inaudibly; his pale, fleshless face bore a look of deepest piety.

“All right, Holsp,” Duyair said after a while. “You can get off your knees. I want to talk to you.”

Startled, Holsp wheeled jerkily and said, “Who are—
Ras!
” He backed up automatically, hate hardening his cold face. Within the Temple, Duyair knew, no priest dared carry a weapon. Of course, there was little trusting Lugaur Holsp, but some taboos seemed inviolable.

“Yes. Ras. I understand you've been telling everyone I'm dead, Lugaur.”

“You vanished, the son of the great Vail Duyair. There were questions. What could I say?”

“That I had escaped after your fumbling attempt to torture the secret of the Hammer from me? No, you couldn't very well tell them
that
, Lugaur. So you told them I was dead.”

“Where were you?”

“On Dykran. I helped overthrow the Imperial Proconsul there. We heard you had a little revolution of your own here on Aldryne.”

Holsp smiled balefully. “We did. By virtue of the Hammer we drove Proconsul Darhuel from our midst. It was a glorious victory.”

Duyair ignored that. “The Hammer?” he repeated. “You found the Hammer so soon after my—ah—departure? Tell me about the Hammer, Lugaur. Where was it kept? What did it look like?”

“These are priestly secrets,” Holsp rasped a little desperately.

“I'm well aware of that. It's simply that I doubt very much that you
have
the Hammer, Lugaur. I think you put up a magnificent bluff and won the people of Aldryne over to your side long enough to stage a rebellion against Darhuel. But you didn't need a Hammer for that; Darhuel was a weakling, and any united action would have been sufficient to throw him out.”

Holsp was eying him uneasily. Recklessly Duyair went on. “You know why I don't think you have the Hammer, Lugaur? It's because the Hammer is a weapon big enough to wreck the Empire. And if you had the Hammer, you'd go ahead and wreck the Empire. You wouldn't be content with merely selling out to the Emperor for ten percent of Aldryne's tax money!”

Holsp's already-pale face seemed to drain of blood.
“How can you know that?
” he whispered harshly. Then, without waiting for an answer, he lifted a smoking censer and hurled it at Duyair's head.

Duyair had foreseen the move. He stepped nimbly to one side; the bejeweled censer crashed against the wall half a foot from his head. The pottery crumbled; incense spilled out over the floor.

Holsp sprang.

Duyair met the charge full on; he was three inches taller than the High Priest and forty pounds heavier. For a moment the fury of Holsp's attack drove Duyair backward; he felt the coolness of the Temple wall at his back and the driving ceaseless blows of Holsp in his stomach. Duyair grunted, bent slightly, heaved Holsp backward. The High Priest's eyes were glittering with rage.

Suddenly Holsp broke away and executed a whirling pirouette; when he faced Duyair again, the gleaming white blade of a knife was in his hand.

“A weapon? In the Temple?” Duyair asked. “You'll stop at nothing, Lugaur.” He stepped forward, moving warily, and for a frozen moment the two men faced each other.

Then Holsp slashed upward with the blade. Duyair's right hand descended, clamped on Holsp's wrist in mid-slash. He extended his arm rigidly, holding Holsp away from him, and began to tighten his grip. Bones cracked. Holsp grimaced but held on to the knife.

Calmly Duyair wrenched the knife from the High Priest's hand and advanced on him. For the first time fear entered Holsp's features.

“I heard your conversation with the Emperor,” Duyair said relentlessly. “You sold out Aldryne, didn't you? For ten percent, Lugaur!
Ten percent!
”

Duyair raised the knife.

“In the Temple?” Holsp asked hoarsely, incredulously.
“You'd kill? Here?
”

Duyair chuckled. “Your scruples ill befit you at this late hour, Lugaur. But the Temple code proscribes murder; it says nothing about execution.”

“Ras!
”

“Appeal the matter to the Emperor, Proconsul Holsp,” Duyair said coldly.

He drove the knife home.

There was a moment of exultation as he stood over Holsp's body, but it faded quickly. He had executed a traitor; Holsp had deserved death.

But now what?

Dervon's fleet was surely on its way to Aldryne to receive the conspirators Holsp had promised to hand over; they would arrive soon enough. They would receive no conspirators. And the Emperor would undoubtedly order a reversion to his original plan, total destruction of Aldryne as an object lesson for would-be rebellious worlds.

Hopelessly Duyair wondered whether it might not have been better to let Holsp live and yield to the Emperor.
No!
He banished the thought. There would be a defense of some sort.

The task immediately before him was to restore the minutiae of life: the routine of the Temple, the way of life of Aldryne. The people had to be told of Holsp's treachery. They could not be allowed to continue thinking of him as a hero.

“Thubar! Helmat!”

Duyair called the priests together, and there in the Room of Devotion told them the story. They listened in bewilderment, staring frequently at the bloody corpse of Lugaur Holsp.

When he was finished, Thubar Frin said, “I often doubted Holsp's claims of the Hammer. But the people believed him.”

“The people believed wrongly,” Duyair said.

Helmat Sorgvoy said, “The Temple is without its High Priest. I propose Ras Duyair to take the place of the false Lugaur Holsp and sit upon the throne of his father distinguished.”

Duyair glanced around at the assembled priests and acolytes. No one spoke.

“I accept,” he said. “We shall have the investiture at once.”

Silently he led the way to the High Priest's throne room. There, Helmat Sorgvoy, as ranking priest of the Temple, pronounced the brief rites that elevated Ras Duyair to the High Priesthood.