King's Test (49 page)

Generally these
outbursts consisted of little more than a barrage of shouted insults
and a flurry of gloves tossed contemptuously into faces, but
occasionally more serious incidents occurred, as when, seven years
prior, the chairman of the board of Allied Galactic Steelglass shot
dead the corporate head of Allied Galactic Plastisteel during the
soup course at a dinner given by the famous actress Madam Natasa
Holoscova. Ever since, party hostesses spent long hours agonizing
over their guest lists, scanning the latest computer records to
determine who was currently at war with whom and making certain that,
if combatants were inadvertently invited to the same party, they were
at least seated well out of each other's range.

Military units
stationed at Fort Laskar took no part in the proceedings, leaving
matters of security, traffic, and crowd control in the capable hands
of the Laskarian officials, augmented by the private forces of Snaga
Ohme. It was natural, however, that the base should go on alert,
considering the number of dignitaries present on the planet and the
potential for trouble.

The Warlord did
not attend any of the many glittering social functions leading up to
the Event, though when it became known that the hero of the Corasian
invasion was on Laskar, he was much in demand. The guards at Fort
Laskar's main gate turned away a steady stream of liveried,
invitation-bearing servants.

Sagan remained
on base, inaccessible except to the brigadier general, with whom the
Warlord spent an unusual amount of time. Alert status had quietly
been upgraded from yellow to red. The base was sealed off to
outsiders. All leaves were canceled. Few in Fort Laskar knew
precisely what was going on. But it was easy to guess. From the
numbers of troops being mobilized and the equipment they were being
issued, the soldiers of Fort Laskar were preparing for some sort of
jungle assault. That made it easier still to guess their target,
though there were many grim mutterings to the effect that it was
impregnable.

Sagan's only
other visitor, and the only outsider permitted on the base, was the
assassin with the operatic name.

Maigrey and
Sagan had neither seen each other nor communicated in any way since
they had parted the night they'd received the invitation. The Warlord
had been too busy. The lady had been indisposed. She had borrowed
several books from Brigadier General Haupt and shut herself up in her
room.

His lordship,
when he inquired what her ladyship was reading, was told—much
to his disquiet—a book of the collected poems of William Butler
Yeats.

Sagan was up
late the night Sparafucile arrived to make his report. The Warlord
had been studying aerial recon maps of Snaga Ohme's estate, but had
long since abandoned his work. Sitting, pondering, he was thinking of
Maigrey's choice of reading material. Yeats. He didn't like it. She
had probed more deeply into his mind, perhaps, than he had realized
or intended. He was half-considering confronting her when the officer
on night watch reported the arrival of the assassin.

"Send him
in."

Silent as a
stalking cat, Sparafucile slid through the door, moving instinctively
to melt into the shadows of the Warlord's room until the door was
shut and sealed behind him.

"Well?"
the Warlord demanded abruptly. "I haven't heard from you."
He was tired and irritated at being tired.

"There has
been nothing to say, Sagan Lord." Sparafucile stepped into the
light, shrugged.

"Abdiel has
had no visitors?"

"Only those
I tell you before, Sagan Lord. The creatures of Snaga Ohme."

"And the
boy?"

"He is with
him, Sagan Lord."

"The
mercenary and the woman?"

"Them, too,
Sagan Lord. But I think they are prisoners, not guests."

The Warlord
interrogated him with a glance.

"My
instruments show two life-forms always in one place in the same part
of house."

"Interesting.
I have no doubt you are right. They're not dead?"

"Instrument
readings indicate two warm bodies. Sometimes the bodies grow very
warm," Sparafucile added with a leering grin. "They find
interesting way to pass the time, eh?"

Sagan pointedly
ignored this last salacious intimation. Tapping on his desk with a
crooked forefinger, he considered the assassin's more pertinent
information. "Of course, Abdiel would keep Tusca alive because
the boy would know if his friend died. But when Dion is gone ... or
otherwise distracted '. . . say, the night of the Event ..." The
Warlord extended his finger, traced a minus sign on the metal. "A
pity," he said coolly. "Tusca was an adequate warrior.
Something might have been made of him. But he has only his father and
the lady to thank."

The Warlord
shook himself out of his preoccupation, returned his gaze to the
assassin. "Anything else?"

Sparafucile
hesitated. "It may be nothing, Sagan Lord, but someone in the
house is"—the assassin spread his hands to indicate a
guess—"target shooting."

"Target
shooting?" The Warlord frowned, stared at him. "How do you
know?"

"Don't
know, for certain, Sagan Lord. Instrument readings indicate bursts of
energy occurring at intervals in lower part of house. Always same
place, but different times during day and night."

"It's not a
machine of some sort?"

Sparafucile
indicated, by a wiggling of his hands, that the Warlord's conjecture
was as good as his.

"Target
shooting," Sagan reflected aloud. "That presents some
interesting possibilities. Continue monitoring, my friend, and inform
me through the commlink of any other developments. There will be no
more reports in person from now on, Sparafucile. Matters grow too
critical. I don't want you to let Abdiel out of your sight."

"Yes, Sagan
Lord. I see soldiers on base ready to march, perhaps?"

"You have
very good eyes, my friend. Sometimes it might be better to keep them
shut, like your mouth."

Sparafucile
winked, grinned, and nodded his misshapen head in acquiescence.

"The Event
takes place tomorrow night." The Warlord placed the tips of the
fingers of both hands together, finalizing his plans. "Abdiel's
space shuttle is near the house, I presume? His ship in orbit around
the planet?"

"Yes, Sagan
Lord."

"The
shuttle is guarded by the mind-dead?"

"Yes, Sagan
Lord."

"You can
handle the mind-dead, can't you, my friend?"

Sparafucile's
lips parted, showing sharp-edged, felinelike teeth.

"Very well.
Your task will be to prevent Abdiel from fleeing this planet. He will
attempt to do so on the night of the Event. How you are to manage
this, I leave to you, Sparafucile—"

"I blow him
up, then, Sagan Lord."

"No, you
fool!" The Warlord's patience cracked beneath his weariness and
the strain. He regained control of himself almost immediately. "He
may have the boy with him. You will merely keep him grounded until I
arrive to deal with him. Do you understand?"

"Not
altogether, Sagan Lord—"

"Do you
understand what you are supposed to do?"

"Oh, yes,
Sagan Lord."

"Return to
your post." The Warlord rose, flexed his aching shoulder
muscles, rubbed his back.

Sparafucile
glided out the door. Pausing as it opened, he turned to inquire, "How
is lady?"

"I can't
think why her health would be any business of yours."

"You tell
lady Sparafucile sends regards." The assassin leered.

"I'll pass
that along," Sagan said dryly, "between poetry readings."
He paused. "Oh, my friend, if the occasion arises and you can do
so without jeopardizing your mission, assist the mercenary Tusca to
escape. Then bring him to me."

"What if he
not want to come?"

"I said,
bring him to me."

"Yes, Sagan
Lord."

The Warlord shut
the door, hearing as he did so the rhythmic tramp of the centurions
arriving to escort the assassin off the base. Sagan was ready for his
bed, but he stood long moments in the darkness lit only by the faint
night-glow of various instruments and computer screens.

"Target
shooting," he repeated to himself, frowning, not liking the
inexplicable. He turned it over in his mind, considering. No answers
came to him, however, and finally he put the matter aside, put
thoughts of rest aside, and continued his work.

"Well, what
do you think of it?" the mind-seizer asked.

"I'm . . .
not sure," Dion admitted.

He held in his
hands what appeared to be four small round metal disks, each with a
crystal inside, one large metal, crystal-bearing disk, and a small
tube that fit inside the palm of his hand. "What is it?"

"A weapon.
The gun you will use to kill the Warlord."

"A gun?"
Dion appeared skeptical.

"Precisely.
These metal disks are cumulators," Abdiel explained. "You
place the cumulators on various parts of your body—two on your
breast, two at your waist, and one—the largest—over your
sternum. When activated by a signal from the gun, each cumulator
sends a beam of laser light into the tube in your hand. The tube
collects the five beams and concentrates them into one
extraordinarily lethal beam that will destroy anything at which you
are aiming."

"This . . .
this is what I'm to use to kill ..." Dion left the sentence
hanging, studied the gun, trying to appear vastly knowledgeable. "But
how do we sneak this into the Adonian's house? Won't his security
monitors detect it?"

"His
monitors would if the cumulators were activated. But when you enter
his house, Your Majesty, the cumulators will be completely drained.
Ohme will detect nothing except metal and crystals—your
jewelry, my king. The tube you hold now will be encased in a
different setting—it will be made to look like a belt buckle."

"But then,
how do I charge the . . . the cumulators?"

"The same
way you charge the bloodsword, Dion. With your body and your mind."

"Really?
Can I? That's incredible!"

"Isn't it,"
Abdiel remarked coolly. "When the time is right, you have simply
to concentrate your thoughts upon the cumulators, which have been
designed to work with the particular genetic characteristics of the
Blood Royal. Position them over the main nerve bundles in your body,
and when you direct your mental energies on them, they will absorb
that energy and activate. You have then only to aim and fire."

"Aim and
fire!" Dion repeated, studying the gun admiringly.

"You will
notice, when you practice firing the gun, that you will feel a warm
spot on your skin directly opposite the end of the weapon. A
protective coating covers the back of the weapon, prevents the laser
beam from doing you any harm. The beam is so powerful, however, that
its heat seeps through. Do not be alarmed by it."

"No, no, I
won't." Dion barely heard. He was preoccupied in positioning the
cumulators on his body.

"You will
have no trouble entering the Adonian's," Abdiel continued, "but
I must warn you that Ohme has sensors planted throughout his mansion.
Once you charge the cumulators, you must act swiftly, or his men will
detect you. If you keep to our plan, you should have no trouble
luring the Warlord to you."

"No trouble
at all!" Dion said, with a flash of exultation. He sobered a
moment later, however. "But what about the Lady Maigrey? She
mustn't be around—"

"I will
answer for the Lady Maigrey," Abdiel said mildly. "Of that,
my king, you may rest assured."

A target range
was set up in the lower level of the prefab house; the mind-dead
removed the collapsible walls to several boxlike rooms and opened
them into one long rectangular area. Dion practiced firing the gun at
intervals during the day, working an hour or so at a time. In his
intense, grim eagerness, he would have worked longer and harder. But
Abdiel cautioned against the young man becoming overfatigued,
blunting his sharp edge.

Dion arranged
the five cumulators over his body for what seemed like millions of
times, practiced directing his mental energies toward them. He could
have done it in his sleep. He knew because he
had
done it in
his sleep—in his dreams, at least—every night since
Abdiel had given him the weapon and instructed him in its design, its
use. Every night, in his dreams, he used the gun to kill the Warlord.

Down in the
target range, on the evening before the Event,

Dion showed off
his newly acquired skill for Abdiel and Mikael.

"I can
activate the cumulators in only a few moments," he informed
them, demonstrating. "Like this. And then—"

Lifting the gun
in one smooth, rapid motion, he aimed at his target and fired. The
target was a hologram of a man—a tall man with broad shoulders
clad in full body armor and helm decorated with the phoenix rising
from the flarries.

The shot went
through the mouth, the one place left unprotected by the man's helm.
"Watch this," Dion said. "Mikael, set the target
moving."

Mikael did as he
was instructed. The hologram began to dodge. Dion turned his back,
spun around, and fired, hitting his mark exactly. The target bobbed
and weaved defensively. The young man crouched and jumped and hit it
solidly from every conceivable angle. Mikael at last shut the target
off. Dion, panting, looked at Abdiel. The mind-seizer nodded in
satisfaction.

"Excellent,
my king. Remarkable, in fact. You are drawing upon the power of the
Blood Royal, the power they told you you couldn't handle. An
excellent irony. You will use the talent the Warlord denied you to
kill him. Mikael, take the gun."

"But I want
to keep it with me," Dion protested. "I have to practice. I
think I can cut down my time—"