The Warlock of Rhada (25 page)

The fear of excommunication touched him. Not because he feared the Star: Linne was a godless man--but because the men of Vyka would probably not follow a leader whom the Order refused to consecrate.

But one would see about that--later. Linne turned to give the command for the firecharge . . .

Quite suddenly the rebel position blazed with light.

The men in the moraine stared upward in superstitious fright. The light of their torches faded to insignificance in the incandescent glow from above. The war mares cried out their fear and anger.

Ulm’s face grew pale under his grimy beard. The Bishop, too, stared upward. He, of all those below, came nearest to understanding that the blaze of light was not supernatural, but some manifestation of Empire science. Yet it struck dismay into his heart.

Linne, his useless torch still held in his left hand, his heavy sword in his right, gaped at the gorgeous apparition that had materialized on the platform by the tunnel mouth.

Glamiss stood in a feathered cape that scintillated with a glory of light and color no Vykan had ever seen before. Yet it touched a hundred hidden strands of racial memory.

The young warrior stood draped in the regalia of the ancient King-Elector, heir to the Star Throne of a thousand suns.

A hushed murmuring fell on the armed men. Glamiss, his trappings sending spears of color and light into the darkening night, raised his arms. His voice, strangely amplified, rang out over the valley of Trama. Even the Navigators in the grounded starship a kilometer away heard it clearly.

‘‘People of Vyka! Hear me!”

The warmen of Ulm’s levy had never before been addressed as the “people” of anywhere. They were bonded warmen, predators to be sure, but little better than slaves in the service of a lord of a dark land. They listened, half-afraid, half-moved, as Glamiss spoke to them.

“You know me, Vykans! There is not one of you who does not know me! Now listen to what I have to say to you--” Kaifa, dazzled by the vision of a young Star King, stared open-mouthed. Years ago he had seen painted images of the great imperials, the kings of Nyor. This Vykan, this
barbarian
, was wearing the regalia of the Rigellian Galactons! A storm of conflicting emotions shook the Navigator’s sanity. The very look of the Vykan challenged ancestral loyalties even as it outraged priestly reverence for the ancient past.

Glamiss said clearly, “Here in the mountain is what is left of the Empire.” He raised his hand to display a small, rounded cone. “I command its powers!”

From the cone a thin beam of ruby light materialized as if by magic. Glamiss played it along the moraine and the rocks bubbled, coruscated, and ran molten.

“I command this weapon--
and many more like it.“

The mares shrieked and backed away from the red-glowing stream of melted stone that trickled down the moraine. Kaifa bit his lips until he tasted blood.
A laser pistol.
No such weapon had been fired or even found in the known galaxy for four thousand years or more. Great Star, what else must there be in that mountain? he wondered.

Glamiss spoke again as the laser-beam flickered and died. “Within the heart of the mountain is a Falling Sun.” He searched the sea of upward-turned faces. “Do you understand me? Do you understand what it is in my power to do?”

Kaifa could stand no more. He thrust back his cowl and screamed,
“Blasphemy! The Adversaries speak!”

Glamiss’s eyes searched out the Bishop. Kaifa shivered. Even at this distance he could see that some Power did, indeed, speak with Glamiss of Vyka’s voice. The face was that of a young man, but the
eyes--
the eyes were filled with a knowledge of things a man of this barbarian time could only imagine. Kaifa felt crushed and humbled by the weight of that knowledge.

“Hear me, Vykans,” Glamiss said more gently, though his voice still rang out over the dark valley. “It was Destiny that brought us to this place. Not the Adversaries, warmen, but the veritable Spirit of the Star.” His tone grew strangely distant. “If only I could share with you what I have learned, good people. If only it were possible. I have seen the glorious past of our race. I have seen a thousand suns shining on one flag, one people.
And it will be so again!”

The warmen, sensing that something unique was happening, something huge and sky-moving, waited, listening.

“It begins here,” Glamiss said. “I raised the flag here--and--it--ends
--in Nyor!”

The warmen stirred and stared at one another at the mention of fabled Nyor--the El Dorado, the capital of the Universe where gold and gems lay in the street for the taking. Was he offering them Nyor, they wondered? It was as though some savage king of another age offered men Valhalla--while they yet lived.

Glamiss’s voice turned harsh and demanding. “Ulm! Where are you, Ulm?” He searched the gathering and found his quondam lord. “You named me rebel, Ulm! You brought these men against me! Now I challenge you for Vara!”

Ulm stared at the cone-weapon still in Glamiss’s hand, his eyes round and protuberant, the sweat bathing his hairy cheeks.

Glamiss moved down the rubbled moraine and the blaze of light flamed about him, streaming from the stuff of the feathered cape woven for an Emperor’s heir. “Answer my challenge, Ulm! Do it now. Because these men of Vara are mine when this is done. And I will use them to take all of Vyka, and then Vyka will take the Rim--and the Rim will take Nyor! So answer my challenge, Ulm!”

“No!”
The strangled cry came not from Ulm, but from Linne, mounted and armed, plunging from the ranks to confront Glamiss.
“No, by all the Stars, it shall not be!”

He spurred at Glamiss, sword swinging free. From above came a cry of alarm: the folk of Trama had gathered there to watch the frightening play of events.

Kaifa waited for Glamiss to burn down the charging Linne with the laser, and then realized that instead, the younger man had drawn his flail.

Linne’s mare galloped swiftly, her claws bared, lips drawn back in a battle-shriek. Linne struck with his heavy-bladed weapon, and Glamiss’s morningstars screamed across the cutting edge as Linne went past, whirled his mare, and charged again.

The tip of the sword pierced Glamiss’s mail and sent a feather of light from the glorious cape drifting into the darkness beyond the blaze of illumination in which they fought.

Linne yelled savagely and whirled still again, but as he charged this time, Glamiss’s flail caught his wrist and jerked him from his mare’s back. He tore himself free and struggled upright, grasping his sword with both hands. His face was distorted into a grimace of rage and frustration. He charged again on foot, stumbling in his manic fury against the upstart who would steal Vara from him.

He saw only the swift flashing of the starred iron as it descended on his face, and that was the last he ever knew, for the flail crushed him.

The warmen of Vara beat their weapons together in approval. They had been frightened by the manifestations they had seen, but this was a thing they knew and understood. A man had won their loyalty in single combat.

Glamiss turned to look up at the folk gathered on the platform above. He could see that Emeric had appeared among them. Emeric, his brother--more closely related to him now than any other man could ever be, for they had shared the Warlock of Rhada’s memories, and his death.

He heard the suddenly shouted warning and turned to see old Ulm, his face white and desperate, riding him down. There was a whirring and a sullen thud, and the lord of Vara’s face went blank with surprise.

He galloped past, tottering, clutching his saddlehorn, to fall among the darkened stones. There he lay still, the depressed wound of a crossbow quarrel welling blood.

Behind him, standing among the warmen, Bishop Kaifa held the crossbow.

Glamiss moved down the moraine and the warmen gathered about him, acknowledging his overlordship now easily, for there remained no one to challenge him for it.

When he reached the Bishop, Glamiss said, “Why? You saved my life--why?”

The Bishop’s thin, dark face seemed hewn from old iron.

“The mountain. You
know
what it is, you know everything about it--”

“Not everything,” Glamiss said, remembering the dead Warlock. “But enough.”

Kaifa’s eyes glittered. “What is hidden there can bring us back to where we were--when the suns fell.”

Glamiss turned thoughtfully to look up to the place where Emeric stood. “Yes,” he said. “To that same place.”

Emeric said, “And now it begins, the jihad, the holy war?” They stood alone in the library, a room they understood much better now, fortified as they were with the dead Ophir’s memories.

Glamiss remained silent for a long time. “Is there another way, Nav?” he asked at last.

The priest did not reply. They had both been touched with the bitter wisdom that comes with age during their time under the Personality Exchanger. It would not do for them to lie to one another.

Glamiss smiled mirthlessly, his mind fixed on the long bleak road ahead. “We are not Vulk, after all,” he said.

Emeric nodded, “We go alone, then.”

Glamiss spoke earnestly. “Not alone, Emeric. Together, you and I.” He smiled again, a shadow of the carefree warrior’s grin Emeric remembered. “All the way to Nyor.”

“Where the streets are paved with gold?”

“And the women are all beautiful.”

The Navigator shook his head. “No, my friend. We don’t go together.”

Glamiss frowned. “Why not? I have Vara. I’ll soon have Vyka. Then the Rimworlds--”

“I know--the jihad to make a new Galacton.”

Glamiss’s eyes turned hard. “Is that wrong?”

“I don’t know,” the priest said heavily. “It’s human.”

“A few years--no more, Emeric--”

The Navigator shook his head. “A lifetime, Glamiss. Maybe more.”

The warman laughed. “Not so, friend priest. With the weapons stored here--the knowledge we’ll take from this place--”

“The Falling Suns? Atomics?”

“Only if necessary,” Glamiss said, frowning.

“No, Glamiss. Not that way.”

Glamiss stared at him from under lowering brows.
He’s already becoming a king,
Emeric thought.
He has the arrogance of power growing in him. How strange it was that each of us took from the old Warlock what was most natural to our makeup. Glamiss the glory and arrogance, I the self-doubts and the fears--

“Glamiss,” Emeric said sadly, “you have Vara, as you say. It is a small holding, but it gives you a base of power. And you’ll have all of Vyka very soon, I have no doubt. I don’t know how many men will die across the Great Sky before you found your Second Empire--” He smiled ruefully. “Remember your dream of Nyor? You have the feathered cape--you’ll have the golden city, too, I have no doubt. You’ll find the streets aren’t paved with gold, but that won’t matter in the end. You will have the Queen of the Skies--” He turned away and made the sign of the Star on his breast, filled with a sadness he could not contain. “I wish I could believe it is right, old friend. I wish I could be so certain--”

“What are you saying to me?” Glamiss demanded.

Emeric felt the stab of his own disloyalty. He wondered how many years would pass before the bitterness of this moment died away for them both. He said, “What will be, will be. It is the will of God.” His blue Rhadan eyes turned steely.
“But there will be no magic weapons, Glamiss. No lasers, no killing of men from far away. You will fight--but by all the Stars, you ‘II see the men you kill up close and know that you are paying a terrible price for Nyor. “

Glamiss’s hands closed vise-like on the Navigator’s shoulders as the Vykan guessed at what thing Emeric had done.

Emeric nodded slowly. “You begin to understand me, Glamiss Conqueror. That’s good. I’ve pulled the cadmium rods from the nuclear pile below and destroyed them. There is nothing you can do. We have--” he glanced at the ancient chronometer on the wall--”about forty minutes before the pile goes critical and sends this mountain into the sky.” He ignored the pain of Glamiss’s tightening grip that pressed the iron mail of his shirt into his flesh. “We can move everyone into the
Gloria
and escape--or we can stay here and be part of the last nuclear blast of the Dark Time. The choice is yours, Glamiss Warleader.”