A cautious offensive probe by Bormol and his top coercers brought forth only feeble metapsychic retaliation. The skirmish at the castle and the long pursuit had seemingly worn the invaders out. And now they were cornered.
Disdaining to fight mentally, the Roniah Hunt had charged, mind-yelling its exuberant battle-cry ... only to be met by the photon cannon.
After the shambles of retreat, rescue of the wounded, and regrouping, it was learned that the operants had zapped one canyon wall, built a ramp with the debris, and escaped the cul-de-sac. At nightfall, scouts reported to Bormol the new phenomenon of the giant mirrored hemisphere; and at that point, the Lord of Roniah decided to pack it in and call for help from the Battlemaster and his senior advisors...
Nodonn said, "There is one point I find curiously disturbing. The human prisoners at Castle Gateway. The ordinary time-travelers detained in the holding area. You say they were drained?"
Bormol was emphatic. "Minds wiped cleaner than the White Silver Plain, Battlemaster. Tabulae rasae. Damnedest thing I ever saw. It's a good thing it was early in the week and we only had two days' worth of prisoners. Those sixteen Lowlives are nothing but vegetables now. Whoever did that job had to be the devil's own redactor."
"And he found out everything that the prisoners knew about us," growled Leyr.
"And wiped them clean," Gomnol added, "which implies that the recently arrived time-travelers might have been able to tell us something useful about these émigré operants. Interesting."
"We know that some of the aliens—if not all of them—are what the humans term 'masterclass'," said Condateyr. "Otherwise they would not have been able to kill the Tanu overlords. Lord Moranet and Lady Senevar were highly skilled in both coercion and redaction."
Nodonn Battlemaster opened his mind and shared his stately train of thought with the others:
Certain of these aliens have awesome metapsychic powers greater than our own. However, they did not use them to the fullest potential against Bormol's Hunt, but relied instead upon a physical weapon. Additionally, they chose to flee our forces, rather than taking a stand. Some of the aliens show evidence of being weakened. Hurt. These human metapsychics, the elite of their race, have been driven to the extreme of Exile, a course officially forbidden to them. Ergo, they can only be outlaws from the Galactic Milieu. But that is a contradiction in terms! All metapsychics of the future world partake of a mental fellowship called Unity. There can be no outcasts. No rebels.
"None that we know about, Battlemaster," said Gomnol aloud. "But Tanu knowledge of the Elder Earth comes perforce from human time-travelers. And what did normal humans—even latents like myself—really know about the metapsychic faction and the inner workings of the Galactic Concilium?" His smile had a wry twist as he touched the golden tore behind the blue-glass gorget of his armor. "We had to come here, to the Pliocene, to find the true kinship of shared thought, the exercise of godlike powers. Thanks to you Tanu."
The sun-flood that was Nodonn's mind illumined dark cysts of malice deep within the human coercer's heart; but Apollo's face was serene, as always.
"Your gratitude to us is noted, Adopted Brother. Now demonstrate it tangibly! You are capable, as we are not, of asking these alien invaders who they are and what they want. You will use the human mode of farspeech that we Tanu cannot perceive."
Gomnol's guilty spurt of fear brought insouciant reassurance from the Battlemaster. "Oh, yes, Eusebio Gomez-Nolan. We know about it. A harmless bit of schoolboy secrecy to bolster the pride of you human gold-torcs. But now it can be useful. Mindspeak to these invading Lowlives, Second Coercer. And be sure that you tell me truthfully what response they make."
Gomnol's glowing blue form seemed to totter, his face went ashen within the fantastic helmet, and the cigar fell from his mouth. The metapsychic grip of the Battlemaster, compounded of all five mental faculties focused in precise neural assault, closed upon him for the briefest instant. It was the most frightful pain that Gomnol had ever experienced. It was replaced at once by lingering pleasure.
Nodonn waited patiently until the human recovered his equilibrium. Then he repeated, "Mindspeak, Second Coercer."
Gomnol slowly exhaled. His own mental screens were up now to mask his discomfiture, his hatred. "You ... and the Craftsmaster must stand by. In case the invaders react aggressively. That photon cannon could—"
Old Aluteyn said, "Nodonn and I can act in concert and put up a tough little shield. As long as we know what to expect, we can shelter the lot of us. Get on with your job, son."
Gomnol's confidence rapidly restored itself. He nodded gravely, struck a pose, and reached out with all of his coercive power. His thought-pattern was now indecipherable to the Tanu; but they were fully aware of its superlative technique—the gentle insinuating flow through the force-field, the abrupt concentration into a tidal thrust, and the irresistible impact of the Second Coercer's mind upon that weary-alert pattern of cold consciousness lurking inside the mirrored sphere. Gomnol spoke and the hidden watcher was constrained to answer.
Leyr's bitter commentary on the performance of his subordinate crackled on the Tanu intimate mode:
Just look at that pushy little runt's operation, Brothers! Only ten years since we gave him gold, and already his powers of coercion nearly rival my own! How long will he be content to be Second, eh?
The others kept their minds shuttered. It was an uncomfortable question.
After a time, Gomnol withdrew his mind from the hemisphere and spoke to the others with great effort. "He says ... his people only want to be let alone. They'll leave Europe, because of the Tanu hegemony. They'll go to North America. Never return."
"Tana be thanked!" Bormol growled. "And speed the day."
But Gomnol made urgent protest. "You don't understand. This whole group ...all of them are masterclass operants! There's been some kind of failed metapsychic coup d'état in my world, six million years in the future. This group is what's left of the losers. But they nearly won! This small group of human rebels almost overcame the metapsychic magnates of all six races of the Galactic Milieu!...They're in terrible shape now, but they'll recover. And when they do, if we could ally them to us—"
"The aliens must be destroyed." Nodonn's thought and voice were stormloud.
"But think of the advantage of an alliance! The Firvulag—"
"Any advantages would accrue to humanity, Second Coercer! These operant humans do not wear the golden tore. They can never be part of our fellowship."
"Of course you're right, Battlemaster!" Leyr exclaimed. He threw Gomnol a monitory thought. "You get a grip on yourself, Number Two."
Aluteyn Craftsmaster's mind-tone was withering. "Dammit, son—why should these operant humans join with us when they're probably capable of taking over the whole Many-Colored Land, given a little rest and recuperation?"
"And another photon cannon or two put into operation," muttered Bormol.
"If we all act in metapsychic concert, our will can prevail," Gomnol insisted. "There are thousands of us gold-torcs and only a handful of operant invaders. Some of them are dying. The others are devastated by failure and world-loss. They'd jump at an offer of friendship, I tell you!"
The Battlemaster said repressively, "I have farspoken the King. He concurs with my decision."
In a last effort, Gomnol sent a plea arrowing to Nodonn on the intimate mode:
Think Battlemaster think! Unique opportunity! Leaderinvaders is magnateConcilium MarcRemillard. Whole familyRemillard operated highestlevel HumanPolityMilieu! Marc/recovered + others potential KEY HostNontusvel ambitions vs. Firvulag...
No.
I saw Marc traumatizedvulnerable. Others muchweaker. Acting metacon-certcoercion Host + Me easily...
No.
Marc is JonRemillardbrother! And Jon = Jack the Bodiless!! Marc nearly match for brother I remember Milieupoliticking...
No.
Moonlight glistened on the sweat droplets trickling down Gomnol's face. From the dark
forest came a faint whickering sound and the thud of clawed feet The armored chaliko mounts of the party came trotting forward at Leyr's telepathic command. Nodonn vaulted into his saddle, kindling his own faerie aura of rose and gold about the beast's jeweled caparisons.
"I have also farspoken my Host-brothers," Nodonn said, looking down on Gomnol. "Hual Greatheart and Mitheyn, Lord of Sasaran, will coordinate a Grand Quest Hual will bring the Sword of Sharn down from Goriah, and I will wield it against this Lowlife crew. Mitheyn will come north from Sasaran with a land force strong in psychokinesis, creativity, and coercion. We will allow the invaders to move westward into the Valley of Donaar. Somewhere in the Grotto Wilderness, at a place of our choosing, we will annihilate them."
"As Tana wills," said Gomnol in resignation. After wiping his face with a white handkerchief, he reached for a fresh cigar, mounted his own chaliko, and rode away with the others.
***
Three days later, near a river that would one day be called the Dordogne, a massed body of Tanu chivalry swept down upon the crawling train of twenty-second-century vehicles; but since the operant humans, even in their weakened state, far surpassed the exotics in the faculty of farsensing, the Tanu attempt at ambush was unsuccessful. Sophisticated equipment initially unfamiliar to the fleeing metapsychic rebels and clumsily stowed to boot was now arrayed competently. Solar powerpacks were fully charged, small arms and personal force-screens were at the ready, and the photon cannon was emplaced for tactical advantage.
Four hundred and nineteen Tanu knights, including the Lord of Sasaran and Hual Greatheart were slain in the ensuing conflict. Twice that number of exotics, virtually the entire roster of survivors, fell wounded.
Nodonn Battlemaster saw his Flying Hunt decimated and his favorite chaliko blasted out from under him in midair. He narrowly missed dropping the precious Sword of Sharn into the Donaar River, and lost not only his Apollonian dignity but his temper as well.
Leyr Lord Coercer forfeited an arm, half a leg, and the left lobe of his liver. He had to spend eight months recuperating in Skin, during which time his subaltern, the human Sebi-Gomnol, consolidated his own position and resolved to challenge his fading superior in the next year's Manifestation of Powers.
The invading operants made their way to the Atlantic Coast. There they 40 THE NONBORN KING linked their modular ATVs to form boats, whistled up a fair psychokinetic wind, and vanished into the sunset.
After a two-month hiatus, the time-gate resumed normal operation.
Heeding the Battlemaster's counsel, Thagdal, High King of the ManyColored Land, decreed that the entire alien invasion déb&cle had never happened.
And for the next twenty-seven years, the Tanu kingdom in exile prospered ... until the Gibraltar Gate was opened and the Empty Sea filled.
PART I
The Postdiluvium
1
THE GREAT RAVEN overflew the desolation of Muriah.
She had to travel far from her mountain these days in her searches, since the near coasts of Spain and shrinking Aven were nearly picked clean of booty, the bodies buried ever more deeply in silt beneath the rising Mediterranean. She had scavenged the easily accessible golden tores months ago, and found the great treasure. The pickings were now all the more precious for their rarity.
Muriah, below her, had its ruin softened by a spreading verdurous shroud. After nearly four months of the rainy season, the former Tanu capital of the Many-Colored Land seemed to have surrendered to rampant Pliocene vegetation. Tendrils and runners and shoots from ornamental shrubs—unrestrained now that most of the little rama gardeners had perished—smothered the courtyards, the grand stairways, and the filigreed walls of white marble. Fresh growth even probed open doors and windows and clambered onto the roofs, thrusting the red and blue tiles awry. Trees sent out erratic withes from their spilntered trunks. Spores and seeds, washed or blown into the crevices of pavement and masonry, sprouted in ghoulish abandon.
The sweeping esplanades, the sporting arena, the Square of Commerce, the mansions, and all the proud structures built by the Tanu and their clever human slaves were being inexorably pushed and pried apart. Fungi, mosses, and vulgar flowering weeds loosened the once gleaming courses of alabaster and the dulled mosaics. The colonnade of King Thagdal's palace had its heavy pillars unseated by the irresistible growth of little brown mushrooms. Unlit silver torchères along the deserted boulevards were tarnished black by sea mist. The façades of the five metapsychic guild-halls had their heraldic colors defaced by dark splotches of mildew. Even the lofty glass spires, their faerie lights dark forever, were encrusted with dried salt and scabby lichen.
Circling, the raven concentrated her search along the northern perimeter of the ruined city. The entire docks area was now submerged. Sullen waves lapped halfway up the escarpment below the Coercer Guild Headquarters. Skylights in one section of the huge structure had been smashed and the tore factory inside held no treasure now. The raven had seen to it.
Her farsensing eye bored deep, seeing through water and rock into the submarine caves that once had been high and dry above saline flats rimming the Catalan Gulf. Months ago when Muriah city was alive, she had hidden in one of those caves with her doomed friends. There the trickster had come, robbing her! (But she had seen to that matter as well.)
And sooner or later she would see to the other unfinished business, for she was a creature methodical in her unsanity, this bird that glided in a gray March sky over a gray new sea, endlessly searching.
She scanned cavern after cavern where flotsam lay piled, cast up by the Flood's first cataclysmic surge and later entombed as the waters rose. Some of the caves still had air in their upper chambers. It was in one of these that she at last perceived the telltale density-signature of precious metal.
Gold.
Her harsh joy-cry echoed from the Aven cliffs. She plummeted, coming out of the dive just above the leaden water, and poised motionless with great ebony wings outspread. Then a small woman with a cloud of fair hair appeared in place of the raven: a woman dressed in a cuirass, greaves, and gauntlets of gleaming black. Felice laughed out loud and was abruptly naked, pale as salt-rime except for her wide dark eyes.
She pierced the water as cleanly as an arrow of flesh. A single torpedolike movement took her through the sea-tunnel and into the cave. Shining like a wan bluish corposant she walked over the water to a narrow ledge where the body lay. She laughed again at the sight of the dead enemy—until she realized that the dingy glass armor was not amethyst as her deceiving blue light made it seem, but ruby-red. Redactor Guild red.
"No!" she shrieked, dropping to her knees beside the corpse of the Tanu knight. His jaw hung slack and his wrinkled eyelids were closed. He wore no helmet. Lank fair hair still clung to his half-exposed skull. His golden tore was befouled in adipocere from the decomposing head and neck.
"Oh, no," she wept "Not yet."
She scratched away the moldy matter hiding the breastplate's heraldic motif, gasping and whimpering until the design was fully visible. It was a stylized tree laden with jeweled fruits, not the transfixed caput mortuum of Culluket the Interrogator.
Peal after peal of laughter rang in the dank cave. What a fool she was. Of course it wasn't him.
Felice jumped to her feet, grasped the hinged gorget plates of the ruby armor, and ripped them from place. They fell to the rock floor with a loud chiming sound. And then the severed head fell, for she pulled away the tore so violently that the vertebrae were disarticulated.
She held the tore high. It blazed incandescent and was clean. She plunged back into the water and in a moment the raven was rocketing skyward, gripping a golden circlet in powerful talons. Her mind's voice shouted triumph and profound relief. She called out to her Beloved as she had done so often, using the declamatory mode of mental speech that could span continents and oceans and reverberate around the world like the sonorities of dying thunder.
Culluket!
She called. High in the fea
tureless gray above drowned Aven she called.
The devils answered.
Felice's exaltation changed to terror. She shrank within an opaque thought-screen and sent the bird body hurtling in the direction of the Spanish mainland, protected from friction-burn by a subconical psychocreative shield. Only when she reached the vicinity of Mount Mulhacén did she slacken the furious dash and venture a cautious peep to see whether or not the devils had tracked her.
They had not Once again, she had eluded them.
She dropped all the screens and voiced a raucous, defiant croak. Then she flew home, the newest bit of treasure secure in her claws.
2
MORE THAN EIGHT THOUSAND kilometers west of Europe, the great bulldog tarpon of the Pliocene Epoch had once again begun their spring migration to the spawning grounds around Ocala Island and the Still-Vexed Bermoothes. It was time for the saint's elder brother to suspend his weary star-search in favor of his sole form of relaxation—hunting the silvery monsters.
The man in the skiff watched the fish come with his farsense. He was motionless and made no sound, hidden behind a mass of mangroves and flowering epiphytes in the Suwanee estuary on the west side of the island. He deliberately limited his mind's stupendous vision to the river channel within a few hundred meters of his hiding place, for he had his rules in the stalking of the big tarpon and he would not violate them. Not consciously.
In the manner of their kind, the fish surfaced and rolled in the sparkling blue water, taking gulps of air. Scales larger than a handspan reflected the tropical sun like mirrors. With their undershot jaws, glaring black eyes, and bristling gills of lurid scarlet, the tarpon resembled cruising dragons rather than ordinary fish. Numbers of them exceeded three meters in length and they were capable of attaining an even greater size, as the fisherman knew only too well. When hooked, a bulldog tarpon would fight with maniacal ferocity, sometimes for twenty hours.