Sandcats of Rhyl (21 page)

“That’s so old, Nightwind, it amazes me you would try it. Watch Heuser. I am. I want to see him crush the life from your body. Perhaps I’ll make him rip you apart. He seems possessed of incredible strength for one so small. I could believe he’s not quite human. Is that it?” Slayton sat down on his throne, sweat pouring from him. There was a wild look in his eyes hinting at total madness. The magic wand in his hand was exacting its price for the power he was wielding so ruthlessly. It was taking more than any man should be required to pay.

“He’s a cyborg. I thought you’d have guessed that before now. But I’m not joking about Steorra. Look, Slayton, look behind you!”

“Hah!”

Steorra, hearing her name, fought against the black tides threatening to consume her again. She rolled to one side, felt pain, was prodded to alertness by it. Finding the blasterifle near at hand, she reached out and gripped the stock. She came to a sitting position, aimed the powerful weapon and pulled the trigger. A sick crackling noise followed by a corona discharge was the only result.

The blasterifle had been damaged in the fight. It didn’t fire.

But the static discharge caused Slayton’s attention to be pulled away once again. His eyes widened slightly as he saw Steorra sitting, vainly pulling at the trigger of the rifle.

“Slut! I’ll kill you with my own hands!” He raised the scepter high and swung in a mighty downward arc.

Blocking with the rifle, she prevented the scepter from smashing her skull. They grappled, Slayton trying to pin her to the floor and finish her off with his bare hands.

Nightwind had his own hands full. Heuser still fought the compulsion to kill, but the insidious power of the scepter was too great for him to completely break.

“S — sorry, Rod,” he mumbled as he staggered forward.

Nightwind summoned up all his strength. With a mighty kick, he impacted squarely on Heuser’s kneecap. He was shocked all the way up to the hip by the kick. He staggered but Heuser’s leg was kicked out from under him. This was all Nightwind needed. He kicked again — this time for the temple. His foot collided accurately on Heuser’s exposed head. The small man’s head jerked at a sickening angle, he twitched convulsively, then lay still.

Nightwind couldn’t take the time to see if his friend was still alive or not. If he didn’t kill Slayton — fast-there would be no hope for any of them. Steorra was managing to hold her own against the scepter-wielding madman. This was all that allowed Nightwind to come up from behind and smash his fist as hard as he could into the back of Slayton’s neck.

The blow stunned Slayton enough to force him to drop the jeweled wand. Nightwind kicked it spinning across the room, then repeated the kick, this time for Slayton’s solar plexus. His foot seemed to vanish to the ankle.

Air whooshed from the man’s lungs, he let out a sick grunt and fell over, knocked out cold.

Nightwind clutched his left arm to his side. The wrist was definitely broken. The pain in his shoulder indicated a broken collarbone. In addition, he hurt all over.

He sank to the throne, grateful for the softness of the cushions Slayton had manufactured with the aid of the scepter. They eased the tension in his body a little, although they did nothing to take away any of the pain.

Nightwind looked down at Steorra and said, “Milady, you’re a mess. But the most beautiful mess I’ve ever seen. The next fight I get into, I want you on my side from the start.”

“And you, sire, you’re not exactly in the best shape.”

They looked at each other, mutual admiration shining in their eyes. They laughed, not from humor but from nervous release. The laughter turned into hysteria and before either knew it, they were clinging to each other for support.

Finally, tears leaving salty trails on Nightwind’s cheeks, he managed to control himself. He held Steorra away from his injured arm, saying, “Is Slayton sleeping well enough? Or should we tend to him a little more?”

Steorra brushed back a vagrant strand of her brunette hair, now totally disarranged, and wiped away a smear of blood before checking Slayton. She put her hand to his neck searching for the carotid artery. Looking up, she said, “I get a pulse. He’s still alive.”

Nightwind sighed. He would have liked to kill Slayton, but somehow it didn’t seem so important anymore.

“What are you going to do with him, Rod?”

“Why ask me? It was your father who put us on the trail to this lovely city. And it was Slayton and Dhal who were the claim jumpers. It seems to me the decision is up to you.”

He watched her carefully. The betrayal, the murderous attempts on her life, all the counts against Slayton, were being tallied up.

She said simply, “He goes to the authorities for what he did. The Council needs living proof of his treachery. Maybe that will shock them into acting faster on the recognition for the sandcats.”

“A good idea, I guess. Steorra?”

“Yes, Rod?”

Their eyes locked for a moment. He started to say something, but his lips became thick with pain and a wave of nausea washed over him. He managed to say, “Look after Heuser. See if he’s still alive.”

It wasn’t necessary. A weak voice from across the room said, “If I didn’t have such a hard head, you would have done me in. Next time see if I let you buy those fancy steel-toed boots.”

Heuser joined them, obviously operating at less than full capacity. He limped, his leg bent at a strange angle where Nightwind had kicked him.

“Space! You mean
I
did that to you?” Nightwind couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t normally strong enough to do permanent damage to plasteel limbs. In his condition, it seemed impossible.

“You must have an incredible store of adrenaline, Rod. But it looks like you two took the worst of it.” He surveyed both of them with a critical eyes, then declared, “You’ll live. But what about our mutual friend, the king of nothing?”

They quietly explained their intention of taking Slayton back to stand trial. The brain scanners would quickly reveal the depth of his involvement in the attempted enslavement of an intelligent race. He would be able to atone somewhat by hastening a Council decision on the sandcats’ status.

“I hate to see the louse live, but …” Heuser stopped in midsentence. “The Guardian!”

The sandcat was no longer peacefully sleeping. With Slayton’s compulsion gone, the ‘cat had awakened and was pushing the bar off the doors into the throne room.

Nightwind managed to catch a brief flash of the Guardian’s mental command:
Come!
…
KILL!

Before he could say a single word, the doors were flung open. Facing them were scores of sandcats, fangs revealed in soundless snarls.

“ROD,” SAID HEUSER, “This doesn’t look like a tea party to me.”

Kill … all … desecration! … Rulers return … kill!

The fragmented thought spoured over Nightwind’s mind like thick syrup. It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to separate the sounds in his head from those of normal speech. But he didn’t have to receive the thoughts of killing to know the sandcats were intent on revenge for what Slayton had done to them.

“I think we’re going to have to do some fast talking to get out of this,” agreed Nightwind. His eyes surveyed the ranks of the sandcats. The beasts crowded into the room forming a fan-shaped array in front of the throne. The sheer bulk of their muscular bodies would have prevented any of the humans from escaping even if it hadn’t been for the bared teeth. Nightwind found a grim amusement in the motions of the sandcats’ tiny hands. The tendrillike fingers clenched and unclenched in a very human gesture.

The sea of beige fur and fury parted. Down the chamber and through the door came a sandcat, hints of silver woven through its sleek coat. There was a certain bearing about this animal differentiating it from the others. The Guardian possessed a measure of the same assured demeanor. It was almost a regalness, a familiarity with command.

That one!

The thought was crystal clear. Nightwind’s mind staggered under the force of it. This sandcat was direct and to the point. The command was instantly and even gleefully obeyed by a half-dozen sandcats.

Slayton was dragged from the throne room and taken to the middle of the great outer chamber.

“Stop them, Rod! Please, do something!” Steorra clutched at his arm.

Wincing with the pain of her touch on his injured arm, he said, “You stop them. They want to get a little revenge for Slayton making slaves out of them again after all these centuries. They didn’t like it when the Rulers did it; it’s no better today.”

“But … look! They’re … oh, it’s hideous!”

“I have to agree with the lady,” said Heuser, his voice low. “It’s not every day you have a frontrow seat for a dismemberment. Next time, cancel my reservation.”

Nightwind watched in sick horror as the sandcats slowly, carefully, methodically destroyed the remnants of what had once been a human being.

Steorra suddenly broke and ran for the corner of the throne room. The sandcats standing guard made no move to stop her. She couldn’t escape. And, in their own way, they enjoyed watching the condemned struggle like a bug caught between two crushing plates of glass.

She scooped up the scepter. Holding it, she waved it back and forth, then cried in disgust, “How do you work the damn thing? I can’t make them stop!”

Nightwind knew it would do no good trying to stop the sandcats from carrying out their chosen sentence on Slayton. Not now. If the man wasn’t already dead, he was too close to the brink even for twenty-third-century medicine to piece back together. It would be days getting him to Rhylston. And the relatively primitive medical facilities there would require him to be put into a cryogenic cocoon and shipped to another planet. Nightwind wasn’t certain who would pay for it even if such treatment might save Slayton’s life.

He, personally, wasn’t feeling too inclined to go to the bother of trying to save the man.

“Here, Rod, please try! Stop them!” pleaded Steorra. “It won’t work for me. You use it!” She tossed the scepter across the room. He deftly caught it, feeling the heavy weight in his right hand.

The sandcats sensed something wrong — very wrong. Steorra wasn’t able to properly use the scepter. Nightwind knew this — and more, much more. The wand was coming to life in his grip. It was no longer heavy. It seemed to float. Light, airy. No, it wasn’t growing lighter. He was becoming stronger. The pain flowed from his body, never to return. The broken collarbone healed. The injured left arm was whole.

And the universe opened before him. He saw back down the corridors of history. He saw the future branching out in myriad ways. The present was no longer sufficient to occupy his eternity spanning brain.

As the sandcats began to approach, he issued the simple command:
Stop!

They fell to the floor, paws crossed and their heads laying across the junction. Their amber eyes glared with ill-suppressed hatred for the man. He was in total domination of their very souls. His wish became their duty.

The mental flood of information staggered Nightwind as he caught the subtleties of thought in the sandcats. He had thought he was getting a reasonable picture of their mental processes in his brief, sporadic telepathic rapport with the Guardian. He couldn’t have been more wrong. It was like touching the tip of an iceberg. With the scepter, he was able to plunge into the icy waters of the creatures’ minds and
see
what lay beneath.

They were complex, intelligent creatures. Not in the way of man, but not inferior — merely different. Nightwind’s lightning-quick mind absorbed all this and more. He found their culture rooted in the past. The days of their domination by the Rulers were both worshiped and deplored. No human could fully appreciate the odd mixture of reverence and hatred in which they held the Rulers.

The cities were relics of the lost race. The reptilian masters had tried to survive the gradual heating of the planet and failed. In a way, the Ancient Place was both a museum and a shrine. A museum depicting slavery and degradation. A shrine telling of the elevation by the Rulers to a position in the universe above simple animals.

Nightwind took all this in, then ranged farther with his mind. He understood as no human ever had before. Slayton’s brain was unable to appreciate the capabilities of the scepter. He had used it for mere command. It was also a matter generator. Using the power of the mind, material could be formed. Nightwind had only to think, and the substance was created.

He made a large ice cube and laughed as it slowly melted. Thousand credit notes flowed from his hands as he mentally manufactured the wafer-thin sheets of plastic. He knew they would pass through any verifier in the galaxy. They were perfect. His mind made them so.

Do you choose to command?

The thought startled Nightwind. It came with the precision of a razor slicing across his mind. He looked at the sandcats paying him homage. It was easy for him to locate the source of the thought. The sandcat with the silver highlights in its coat was staring directly at him, eyes blazing with … what?

Even Nightwind couldn’t decipher that alien gaze.

“Rod, Rod! Snap out of it. If you can get us out of here, do it! Those ‘cats are in one hell of a murderous mood after what Slayton did to them!” Heuser was frantic.

Nightwind looked into the cyborg’s mind. He found it amusing. The little man was so devoted to him. Honest. Loyal to death. He would do anything without being commanded using the scepter’s amplifying power. Nightwind reached out and took control of Heuser’s mind to see what it would be like. It was so simple. He used the cyborg like a marionette. The feeling of physical power in the small body made him laugh. He was so much more powerful than the cyborg and without recourse to plasteel and monofilament fibers.

And Steorra. Her mind was a placid pool of crystal-clear water, now disturbed and rippling. She held such idealistic notions. Simplistic, she belonged in the chemist’s laboratory she had trained so long for. The real world was too abstruse for her. She would never believe evil existed, even when confronted with it. Steorra would never — quite — admit Slayton was anything but misguided. She would have been satisfied with therapy and his possible rehabilitation.