The Golden Sword (31 page)

When we were, all three, within, Sereth followed and touched again the lighted box he held in his palm. A tremor came up through my boots. We were moving. I was glad that I could not see the tunnel, around me, speed by. Sereth put the tiny box in his pocket-belt. Then he motioned Chayin to him. I eyed the seats circling the wall.

“I want you to know how to guide it, in case,” I heard him say, as Chayin bent his head over a panel Sereth’s knowing fingers exposed to view.

I went and watched also, that I might keep my mind off the tons of mountain over us. When I knew I could, if need be, make the craft obey me, I went and tried a seat. I found, as had Lalen, who lounged stretched out upon the floor, that those seats were made for smaller, shorter frames than even my own. Formed, as they were, for diminutive rears and child-length legs, I could not find comfort in their support. I, also, sat upon the floor, taking from my belt the slitsa-covered ors Chayin had given me. I saw that he had folded back the tips of certain pages. By the time I had read each indicated page and smoothed back all the markers, we were there.

“Here we are,” said Sereth, the first words he had spoken in enths. Somehow none of us found it easy to speak, encased in our ancestors’ legacy.

“Where is here?” I asked, slipping the book in my pouch. I wonder what they would think, those forgotten ones, of the use to which we turned their handiwork.

In answer, Sereth, disdaining his tiny box, played upon the craft’s panel. The wall upon my left slid aside, although I was sure we had entered from the right. Thusly exposed was a tunnel the double of the one we had left neras behind; gray and glassy and featureless.

“Hurry!” Sereth ordered.

Chayin went first, and turned when he stood upon the platform. The space between platform and craft was a good stride across. Sereth pushed me gently toward Chayin, who extended his arm to me, and I jumped it. Then Lalen crossed over, giving the chasm no notice.

Sereth leaped through as the wall of the craft started closing. Even as his feet hit the platform, the craft began to sink beneath the channel, and when it was gone, the channel flooring, soundless here, slipped into place leaving no visible seam.

We stood there, in that pressing silence, regarding each other. Our breathing seemed very loud in that emptiness.

“Where,” I asked, “are we?”

“Let us go
see. I
put us within a nera or two of the Liaison First’s, but we may be farther.” Sereth put his hand upon the wall, carefully judging the level, and walked toward his right. Chayin mimed him. I stood watching until Lalen’s hand urged me to follow. I turned and glared at him, but I went, after I shook his grip from my arm.

“Here,” said Sereth when we had walked perhaps a half-nera along that gray same-seeming platform, and a portion of the wall fell back, revealing recurved stairs of well-worn archite. A paucity of ceiling globes gave the stairwell shadowy menace.

When we were all through the hidden door and stood upon the stairs, Sereth turned to Chayin.

“Close it,” he suggested. Chayin felt along the right-hand side of the door. It slid shut with not even a scrape, and semidarkness closed upon us. My ears felt as if I had changed altitude too rapidly. I swallowed, and waited for my eyes to adjust.

“Move,” hissed Lalen, ever behind me. I sighed and followed Chayin and Sereth, taking those shallow stairs two at a time.

It was a very long and winding stairwell. I climbed behind them so long there was nothing in the universe but stairs, and the effort of raising one’s aching thighs to take them. So hypnotized did I become that I crashed into Chayin and Sereth where they had stopped at the stair’s head, as I stumbled for a stair that did not exist.

“Quiet!” Sereth hissed. Chayin’s arm steadied me where I straddled two steps, for there was no room upon the top one.

Sereth caused that wall, also, to move aside. The light of sun’s setting upon the Astrian plain flushed redly over us, spilling down the stairs behind. The sight of it caused me to gasp. We were, truly, upon those plains where I was raised.

I pushed forward between them.

“Look you, Sereth, Chayin.” And I pointed southeast, where Astria sparked and gleamed upon the horizon, her towers arcing prisms into the blazing sky. I stepped out upon the ledge, which had kept its secret so well from me. I had played upon this hill, among these boulders, as a child. I had roamed here, often, with Santh.

“No wonder one never sees a Day-Keeper upon his way anywhere,” I breathed.

Chayin laughed. “Except Hael,” he amended. “Will they not know we have used their ferry?” I asked Sereth.

“I doubt it. They do not count that craft among theirs. Nor, to my knowledge, have they used those tunnels I took.” He looked around. “Move,” he said to Lalen.

Lalen moved, and Sereth showed us all how to control the stone door—by a sensor under a stone panel that slid to a special touch only. He bade us each try until we had made the door obey us. By then the light was almost gone from the sky.

“Is that the Liaison First’s?” he asked me, pointing to the, distant squat structure just taking light for the evening. It hulked there, all star-steel ugliness.

“Yes,” I said, remembering how miserable I had been within it, at M’lennin’s hands. “Are we going to walk right in?” I queried him.

“Right in,” he affirmed.

Chayin stretched. The uritheria medallion glinted balefully at me from his chest. He had his cloak thrown back, rubbing that old shoulder wound that often pained him. “Let us start, then. I would walk out this stiffness.”

We started. I judged it to be seven neras, over easy ground. The moon, third quarter and failing, was not yet risen when we stopped, so close we could see the outer court gate and the red-glowing palm-lock within. We shared a bladder of water, ate some pounded denter. The men played with their gear.

“Just walk right in?” I asked.

“Get us through the gates, yes.”

“There is manual override,” I said thoughtfully.

“Why would he override a welcome visitor?” Sereth.said.

That was true; the keep would announce me as one in its data bank. No alert. Dellin might not even bother to monitor the door at all. M’lennin had often not bothered.

Sereth, Chayin, and Lalen donned the soft-capped Parset masks they had brought.

“Just let him see you,” said Sereth. “Once he sees you, he will have no thought of us. Remember, you are surprising him. It is likely he does not know you are on the planet.”

I smiled, and as we had agreed, I unsheathed the knife Sereth had given me and took first blood with it upon my own arm. I winced at my hand’s work. The scratch, long and just deep enough, bled copiously. I shook some of the blood upon my clothing as it ran down my arm onto my hand.

“Let us go. I could bleed to death.” And I walked beside them until we were close to sensor range, at which time Sereth and Chayin made as if to support me, and we lurched hurriedly along, Lalen guarding the rear with nervous strokes.

“If this does not work,” I whispered, “what will we do? What if he has guests? What if he is not here?”

“Be silent. Look hurt. Stagger,” ordered Sereth.

Then the sensors had us, and we were all silent. The lights in the outer court rose brighter. We had been announced. I slapped with palm-lock, and the door slid aside. We clattered up the three steps, and as the door slid soundless closed behind us, I heard a commotion. Chayin drew his blade. I reached into my boot as Dellin careened around the corner, two men behind him. I threw the two razor-moons, one to Dellin’s right and one to his left. He was half-dressed, unarmed. One man screamed. Someone grabbed my shoulder, and I was upon the floor, behind Chayin and Sereth, with Lalen straddling me, blade ready.

“Estri! What?” I saw him understand, stop dead, raise his hands and clasp them above his head. One of the two Slayers was doubled over, the razor-moon deep in his gut. I wondered how I could have missed the second man, who held his sword wavering, crouched upon the landing leading back into the reception hall.

“Put it down,” I heard Sereth say. The man looked around, turned, sprinted up the steps, down the corridor. Chayin leaped after him, scooping the razor-moon from where it lay in the passage. Moments later, I heard a scream.

Through Sereth’s legs I saw Dellin eye the wounded, groaning Slayer’s sword.

“Let me go,” I begged Lalen, who still stood over me. He wrapped his free hand in my hair. “Pick it up, Dellin,” invited Sereth.

“You will kill me.”

“Not immediately. Pick it up, Slayer.” And Dellin did. Chayin appeared at the top of the stairs, his arms crossed over his chest, and squatted down to watch.

Dellin hefted the blade, slick with its owner’s blood, and took a step toward Sereth. Sereth’s blade flashed an instant after Dellin’s attacking stroke. The sword fell from Dellin’s grasp and skittered across the star-steel floor. Dellin clutched his hand against him, staring at the offending weapon, unbelieving.

“Try again,” Sereth suggested diffidently. “We all have our off days.”

I leaned forward, but Lalen pulled me back by the hair.

This time Dellin grabbed up the blade and lunged with it in both hands at Sereth, holding the sword as a spear. Sereth simply was not there, but beside him. The Ebvrasea’s sword whickered through the air, and Dellin’s blade skittered almost into my hands. Dellin went to his knees, and Sereth neatly knocked him senseless with his weapon’s hilt.

He stood over the Liaison a moment, then reached in his pocket-belt and manacled Dellin’s large wrists behind him with heavy Nemarsi wristlets. That three-linked style is unmistakable to any who has ever worn those obdurate steel bands.

I found myself rubbing the small bones of my own wrists, remembering the sores steel chafes upon them. Dellin’s black-haired head lay still. I recollected another time I had seen Sereth knock a man’s blade from his hand upon the first stroke. I started to get to my feet but Lalen wound his grip tighter in my hair.

Sereth was bending over the wounded man, his booted feet in a pool of blood. He pulled the razor-moon from the Slayer’s middle and turned away. He shook his head.

“Your turn,” he said to Lalen, indicating the badly wounded man. “I will watch her.”

I went to Sereth and hid my head against his chest while Lalen dispatched the man I had mortally wounded. I had to step over Dellin’s unconscious body to do so.

“Next time,” said Sereth, “you will dispatch your own wounded.” He pushed, me away from him and bent to Dellin, the gory razor-moon still in his hand, wiping it clean upon the unconscious Liaison’s clothing.

“That is formal garb,” I remarked, looking at Dellin, his hands behind his back, in his black breech with the gold banding, his white tunic colored with the fallen Slayer’s blood. Dellin had gained weight since I had last seen him. His form, always carrying too much muscle for my taste, had that unhealthy softness about it of a man just running to fat.

Sereth handed me the razor-moon, and a shadow fell across us, where we knelt over Dellin on the star steel. Chayin loomed there, holding the second razor-moon.

“Perhaps we should wake him, and find out where he was going. None of them, it seems, are going to get there, and my man has lost the ability to answer.” Chayin had that kill-smile upon him.

Sereth squinted up at him. He nodded.

“First, we must make sure that we have no visitors. Estri, can that be done?”

“Third door on your left, around that corner. When last I was here, the room was blue. From there you may program the doors as you wish.”

“Come do it. I am not familiar with M’ksakkan devices. Lalen! Bring the Liaison.” And he did, with some difficulty, for Dellin was almost as, large as he.

So we came to stand in that blue room, which had been M’lennin’s most private quarters.

Lalen, with a grunt of relief, dropped Dellin’s deadweight to the irridescent Torth pelts. Chayin’s eyes roamed the keep, impressed with all the off-world opulence. Still did the strung-ruby draperies from the looms of Pliatus, half a galaxy away, adorn those M’ksakkan crystal windows. Still did the wistwa desk, carved from the creamy bones of the great sea beast of Oguast, dominate the room. Dellin had not changed a thing. Even M’lennin’s ragony pipes sat in their display rack upon the desk’s top.

I went to the room’s one blank wall and slid it back, exposing the master board that ruled the Liaison’s keep.

I showed its workings to Sereth, who was quick to learn. I remembered the first time I had seen that blinking plethora of lights and switches. I showed him the patch bay, and how it could be used to route any function of any input module, and the logic of the system was not lost upon him. Truly, the board had only five capabilities: communications, in-house and out, programmable function of its automated services, duplication of inserted material, and visual display. But each function had widely variable parameters, and the combinations of effects available neared the infinite.

By the time Sereth had wiped from the data bank all entry prints and fed our own into it, the Liaison First was groaning softly.

I heard the clink of his manacled wrists as they discovered their bonds. He moaned again, and would have rolled to his back, but Lalen’s foot thundered audibly against Dellin’s kidneys. He made a tiny mewling sound and turned his head toward us.

“Lie still, M’ksakkan,” Lalen commanded. The Liaison’s face was beaded with sweat.

Chayin, disdaining the steel and sueded chairs, crossed his legs under him upon the Torth pelts, his knees near Dellin’s head.

“Would you like to sit up?” he said pleasantly to our captive. Sereth stepped back from the board, taking from his pouch a length of braided leather.

Dellin did not answer.

I went and knelt beside Chayin, where the Liaison could see me.

“Do what they say,” I advised him gently. His gray eyes sought mine, accusing. He was breathing heavily, and I almost reached out to touch him. Instead, I twisted my hands together in my lap. This man, whom once I thought I loved, had betrayed us.