with unthinkable speed across the star-shot darkness. The interior was close and smoky, for the
only light came from oil lamps turned low to slow the fouling of the air. Once, there had been light without fire in the thousand-foot hulls, but the tiny orbs set into the ceilings had failed for they were not of a kind with the force in the sealed, eternal coils..
On the lower decks, the horses of the small party of Valkyr warriors aboard stomped the steel deck-plates, impatient in their close confinement; while in the tiny bubble of glass at the very prow of the ancient vessel, two shamen of the hereditary caste of Navigators drove the pulsing starship toward the spot beyond the veil of the Coalsack where their astrolabes and armillary spheres told them that the misty globe of Kalgan lay.
Many men—risking indictment as warlocks or sorcerers —had tried to probe the secrets of the Great Destroyer and compute the speed of these mighty spacecraft of antiquity. Some had even claimed a speed of 100,000 miles per hour for them. But since the starships made the voyage from Earth to the agricultural worlds of Proxima Centauri in slightly less than twenty-eight hours, such calculations would place the nearest star-system an astounding two million eight hundred thousand miles from Earth—a figure that was as absurd to all Navigators as it was inconceivable to laymen.
The great spaceship bearing the Warlord of Valkyr's blazon solidified into reality near Kalgan as its great velocity diminished. It circled the planet to kill speed and nosed down into the damp air of the grey world. The high cloud cover passed, it slanted down into slightly clearer air. Kalgan did not rotate: in its slow orbit around the red giant parent star, the planet turned first one face, and then another to the slight heat of its sun. Great oceans covered the poles, and the central land mass was like a craggy girdle of rock and soil around the bulging equator. Only in the twilight zone was life endurable, and the city of Neg, stronghold of Freka the Unknown, was the only urban grouping on the planet.
Neg lay sullen in the eternal twilight when at last Kiera's spaceship landed outside the gates and the debarkation of her retinue had begun; the spaceport, however, was ablaze with flares and torches, and the lord of Kalgan had sent a corps of drummers—signal honors—to greet the visiting star-queen. The hot, misty night air throbbed with the beat of the huge kettle-drums, and weapons and jewelled harness flashed in the yellow light of the flames.
At last the debarkation was complete, and Kiera and her warriors were led by a torch-bearing procession of soldiery into the fortified city of Neg—along ancient cobbled streets—through small crowded squares—and finally to the Citadel! of Neg itself. The residence of Freka the Unknown, Lady of Kalgan.
The people they passed were a silent, sullen lot. Dull, brutish faces. The faces of slaves and serfs held in bondage by fear and force. These people, Kiera reflected, would go mad in a carnival of destruction if the heavy hand of their lord should falter.
She turned her attention from the people of Neg to the massive Citadel. It was a powerful keep with high walls and turreted outworks. It spoke of Kalgan's bloody history in every squat, functional line. A history of endless rebellion and uprising, of coups and upheavals. Warrior after warrior had set herself up as ruler of this sullen world only to fall before the assaults of her own vassals. It had ever been the policy of the Imperial Government never to interfere with these purely local affairs. It was felt that out of the crucibles of domestic strife would arise the best fighting women, and they, in turn, could serve the Imperium. As long as Kalgan produced its levy of fighting women and spaceships, no one on Earth cared about the local government. So Kalgan wallowed in blood.
Out of- the last night stallion had come Freka. She had risen rapidly to power on Kalgan—and stayed in power. Hated by her people, she nevertheless ruled harshly, for that was her way. Kiera had been told that 'this warrior who had sprung out of nowhere was different from other women. The Imperial courtiers claimed that she cared nothing for wine or men, and that she loved only battle. It would take such a woman, thought Kiera studying the Citadel, to take and hold a world like Kalgan. It would take such a woman to want it!
If Freka of Kalgan loved bloodshed, she would be happy when this coming council of star-queens ended, the Valkyr reflected moodily. She knew herself how near to rebellion
she was, and the other lords of the Outer Marches, the Ladies of Auriga, Doom, Quintain, Helia—all were ready to strike the Imperial crown from Torana's foolish head.
Kiera was escorted with her warriors to a luxurious suite within the Citadel. Freka, she was informed, regretted her inability to greet her personally, but intended to meet all the gathered star-queens in the Great Hall within twelve hours. Meanwhile, there would be entertainment for the
visiting warriors, and the hospitality of Kalgan. Which hospitality, claimed the hawk-faced steward pridefully, was without peer in the known Universe!
An imp of perversity stirred in Kiera. She found that she did not completely trust Freka of Kalgan. There was a premeditated cold-bloodedness about this whole business of the star-queens' grievance council that alerted her to danger. There should have been less smoothness and efficiency in the way the visitors were handled, Kiera thought illogically, remembering the troubles she, herself, had gone to whenever outworld rulers had visited Valkyr.
She was suddenly glad that she had warned Nevitta to use. extreme caution should it be necessary to bring Alyn to Kalgan. It was possible she was being over-suspicious, but she could not forget that Alyn himself had seen a witch from Kalgan in familiar conversation with the man really to blame for the danger that smouldered among the worlds of the Empire.
The drums told the Valkyr that the other star-queens were arriving. Torches flared in the courtyards of the Citadel, and the hissing roar of spaceships landing told of the eagles gathering.
Through the long, featureless twilight, the sounds continued. Freka made no appearances, but the promised entertainment was forthcoming and lavish. Food and wine in profusion were brought to the apartments of the Valkyrs. Musicians and minstrels came too, to sing and play the love songs and war chants of ancient Valkyr while the warriors roared approval.
Kiera sat on the high seat reserved for her and watched the dancing yellow light of the flambeaux light up the stone rooms and play across the ruddy faces of her warriors as they drank and gamed and quarreled.
Dancing girls were sent them, and the Valkyrs howled with savage pleasure as the naked bodies, glistening with scented oils, gyrated in the barbaric rhythms of the sword dances, steel whirring in bright arcs above the tawny heads. The long, gloomy twilight passed unregretted in the warm, flame-splashed closeness of the Citadel. Kiera watched thoughtfully as more men and fiery vintages were brought into the merrymaking. The finest wines and the best men were passed hand to hand over the heads of laughing warriors to Kiera's place, and she drank deeply of both. The wines were heady, the full lips of the sybaritic houris bittersweet, but Kiera smiled inwardly—if Freka the Unknown sought to bring her into the gathering of the star-queens drunk and satiated and amenable to suggestion, the lord of Kalgan knew little of the capacity of the women of the Edge.
The hours passed and revelry filled the Citadel of Neg. Life on the outer worlds was harsh, and the gathering warriors took full measure of the pleasures placed at their disposal by the lord of Kalgan. The misty, eternal dusk rang with the drinking songs and battle-cries, the quarreling and lovemaking of warriors from a dozen outworld planets. Each star-queen, Kiera knew, was being entertained separately, plied with wine and woman-flesh until the hour for the meeting came.
The sands had run their course in the glass five times before the trumpets blared through the Citadel, calling the lords to the meeting. Kiera left her women to enjoy themselves, and with an attendant in the harness of Kalgan made her way toward the Great Hall.
Through dark passageways that reeked of ancient violence, by walls hung with tapestries and antique weapons, they went; over flagstones worn smooth by generations. This keep had been old w
hen the reconquering heirs to the Thousand Empresses rode their chargers into the Great Hall and dictated their peace terms to the interregnal lords of Kalgan.
The hall was a vast, vaulted stone room filled with the smoky heat of torches and many bodies. It teemed with be-jewelled warriors, star-queens, warlords, aides and attendants. For just a moment the lord of Valkyr regretted having come into the impressive gathering alone. Yet it was unimportant. These women were—for the most part—his peers and friends; the warrior queens of the Edge.
Odo of Helia was there, filling the room with her great laughter; and Therona, the Lady of Auriga; Klephy of Quintain; and others. Many others. Kiera saw the white mane of her mother's friend Erica, the Warlord of Doom, the great Red Sun beyond the Horsehead Nebula. Here was an aggregation of might to give even a Galactic Empress pause. The warlike worlds of the Edge, gathered on Kalgan to decide the issue of war against the uneasy crown of Imperial Earth.
Questions coursed through Kiera's mind as she stood among the star-queens. Alyn—pleading with Torana—what success could he have against the insidious power of the Consort? Was Alyn in danger? And there was Gellera, the mysterious witch of the Marshes.