LC03 Shield's Lady

  But these corridors and rooms offered hints that whatever had set out to boobytrap this sector of the galaxy had a physical body that used such conveniences as benches. The beings also had at least some senses that were similar to those of humans. For example, they needed light in a familiar range of the spectrum to find their way around in the darkness.

  But they had learned to do a great deal more with light than humans ever had, Gryph reminded himself as he turned left in the branching corridors. The beings who had built this installation and created the crystal ships had discovered how to turn light into a weapon that could be controlled by the mind.

  And Targyn, a strong but mentally unstable Shield, had been living here, studying alien secrets for months.

  Gryph slowed as he turned down the last corridor, his senses alert for that tingling awareness that indicated someone was approaching. It was a hunter’s talent, not Shield talent he depended on now. Openings were scattered in the corridor walls. If he received sufficient warning of someone’s approach, he should be able to duck out of sight for a few crucial minutes.

  The warning that finally came was the faint rumble of voices from the other side of a bend in the corridor. Gryph sprinted to get to the safety of an open room. There was no time to slide the metal door shut behind him. The movement would have been obvious.

  There also wasn’t much point. Gryph decided it was time to start whittling down the odds. Bandit hunting was familiar work. Lock in hand, he waited patiently just inside the chamber as the two men came down the hall.

  The first man who spoke sounded disgruntled and a little scared.

  “He’s crazy I tell you,” the man complained to his companion. “We should have known better than to make a deal with a Shield. All that talk of making our fortunes with prisma was just to get us to work harder for him. I don’t think he ever intends to neutralize the stuff. He’s going to continue fooling around with that live crystal.”

  “He’ll kill us all in the process,” the other man said bluntly. “So what do we do?”

  “We can take him,” the first man said softly. “He’s good, I’ll grant you that, but there’s three of us and one of him. We’ll have to get hold of Miscroft and explain just what’s going on. Targyn can’t use that crazy mind business on us because we’re not Shields. It’s just a case of three fighting men against one. We can handle those odds.”

  “Whatever we do it had better be quick. Since that other Shield arrived Targyn’s been acting crazier than ever. He says he’s going to prime the prisma, whatever that means.”

  “Let’s find Miscroft. We’ll make our move now. I think you’re right. Targyn’s mind is going fast and there’s no telling what he’ll do next.”

  Gryph listened to the conversation and decided there was an element of rationality to it. If the three bandits turned on Targyn they might just possibly take him. If they didn’t succeed in that, they could at least distract him long enough for Gryph to do something permanent about Targyn’s future. He lowered the arm he had raised in preparation for hurling the lock at a bandit head.

  There was an old Shield saying to the effect that a little strategy went farther in the long run than a great deal of indiscriminate bandit bashing.

  Unfortunately, strategy had its limitations. Even as Gryph made the decision to let the bandits pass down the corridor, he heard their choked yells.

  “Targyn!” The first one sounded shaken. “Hey, wait a minute. What’s the matter with you? We were only going to—”

  A faint whooshing noise filled the corridor, followed by a gargled scream. Gryph recognized both sounds. The first was the deadly vibration of a throwing disk. The second was the sound of death. Scratch one bandit as a potential ally.

  Gryph heard the panicked, scrambling noises the second man was making as he tried to fire a blade bow. He got off one wild shot, but the next moment he too fell with an unmistakable thud.

  This was as much of a distraction as he was likely to get, Gryph decided. He had to move now while Targyn was still resonating with the satisfaction of his kills. This was the point at which a hunter was most vulnerable.

  Gryph pinpointed Targyn’s position in the corridor as best he could based on the length of time it had taken for the hurled throwing blades to cut down the two bandits.

  He launched himself out into the hall. A part of him objectively noted that he had approximated Targyn’s position quite accurately. The other Shield stood a few meters away, facing Gryph. His burning eyes were surveying his victims who lay on the floor in widening pools of blood. In his hand he held a third throwing blade. Targyn was well-trained. He left little to chance.

  Gryph sent the heavy metal lock hurling toward Targyn along a trajectory that would have caught the other man in the throat if all had gone well.

  But it didn’t. Targyn saw the flicker of movement an instant before Gryph appeared in the corridor. He reacted to it instinctively, throwing his lethal blade even as he whipped himself to one side.

  The lock struck Targyn’s shoulder instead of his throat. Targyn’s blade whooshed down the corridor toward Gryph, who was no longer occupying the middle of it. It missed its target by scant centimeters.

  As soon as he had launched his own poor weapon, Gryph had followed it toward its goal. He leaped the bodies of the bandits in the process and closed the gap between himself and Targyn swiftly. He had to reach the other Shield before Targyn could rearm himself.

  But Targyn made no move to pull another weapon from his kit. Instead he slapped his fingers over the prisma lock. A deathly grin stretched his lips and an unnatural glitter lit his eyes.

  Gryph sensed the mental blast of light a fraction of a second before it hit him. That small warning saved his life, but the blow stopped him cold. He went down beneath it as surely as if Targyn had struck him with a blade.

  Instinctively he fought the slamming force of the light inside his head the same way he had fought it before. But this time he had no prisma to use as a focus tool.

  Somehow he caught his mental balance and blocked the paralyzing rays before they could rip his mind to shreds. His whole body vibrated with the energy it was taking to adjust to the strange battle. He didn’t know how he was managing the defense without his prisma lock, but he didn’t question it. Gryph simply held on.

  He opened his eyes and saw Targyn braced a short distance away. The other man’s eyes widened and his grin broadened.

  “This,” Targyn said, “is going to be interesting.”

  Gryph’s only consolation was that Targyn apparently had to exert as much physical energy in focusing the mind blast as Gryph was using to block it. At least the rogue Shield couldn’t cut him to pieces with a blade while holding him pinned with the invisible light rays.

  But Gryph knew he couldn’t hold out for long. Already Targyn’s mental weapon seemed to be gathering energy and strengthening itself. Targyn’s fingers played on the prisma lock as if the man were searching for just the right wavelength.

  Gryph closed his eyes, satisfied that his enemy was as physically immobilized as he was. For all the good that did. Then he started concentrating on feeling his way back along the wavelengths of painfully brilliant light that were trying to shatter him.

  He had thought about this a lot during the past few hours. He’d had little else to do but think about it while locked in the prison chamber.

  His only hope lay in the suspicion that projecting the kind of mind violence Targyn was projecting couldn’t be too dissimilar from projecting thoughts and images. The mechanics of the thing had to be the same, Gryph had reasoned. And he’d had plenty of experience lately projecting images into Sariana’s head.

  He concentrated the way he would if he had his lock under his fingers. The pulsing rays of light separated under his mental touch, just as they would if he were tracking prisma. Gryph found the ones he wanted and started the ta
sk of countering their rhythm, feeding the pattern back upon itself and projecting it.

  The first indication he had of any success was when Targyn screamed in rage.

  “You bastard! Do you think you can play this game? I’ll show you how weak you are.”

  Gryph sensed the redoubling effort Targyn was making and he moved to counter it before the new blast could strike.

  The battle was fought in an agonizing silence, the blood of the dead bandits trickling between Gryph’s bare feet as he stood braced in the corridor.

  Targyn screamed again, rage and hatred flaring out along the invisible beam of mental light.

  Gryph caught the rage and hatred and sent it pulsing back along with the full force of the beam.

  Targyn’s control faltered for a moment. It resumed almost immediately, but Gryph had sensed the growing weakness in his opponent. He sent an image of that weakness back along with everything else he was trying to project.

  Without any warning Targyn broke. The blast of mental light wavered and disappeared. Gryph was so overwhelmed by the sudden loss of a target that he staggered and slipped in the blood of one of the bandits.

  He went down on one knee just as Targyn threw himself forward, knife in hand.

  “I’ll kill you anyway!” Targyn screamed. “You can’t stop me. I’m stronger than you are. Stronger than any other Shield!”

  Gryph scooped up the knife lying on the floor beside the fallen bandit. He brought the blade up in a short arc that ended in Targyn’s chest.

  Targyn collapsed across the body of the bandit he had killed earlier, his blood mingling with his victim’s.

  Gryph crouched warily beside him. A dying Shield was not an unarmed Shield.

  “Targyn?”

  Targyn’s eyes opened, revealing a gaze that was already glazing over. He smiled grimly. “Too late, Chassyn. You’re too damn late. It’s already started.”

  “What’s already started?”

  “The reaction. Without me to control it, every weapon on the ship will detonate. It’s going to take a big chunk out of this continent, Chassyn. There’s enough power in those weapons to reach all the way to Little Chance. Maybe farther.”

  “How do I stop it?” Gryph demanded savagely.

  “You’re stronger than I thought, Chassyn. Maybe, just maybe, you could have done something if you had your lock or the aid of another Shield. But you have neither, do you? The storytellers will weave a hell of a legend out of all this, won’t they?”

  What was left of his life flowed out of Targyn before Gryph could figure out how to threaten a dying man.

  Chapter

  19

  SARIANA fell to the floor as the last of the painful energy vanished from her fevered mind. Lucky, perched on her shoulder, clung tightly and hissed anxiously. Sariana had been kneeling on the floor of the metal chamber, hugging herself while she endured the battle Gryph was fighting.

  When she had picked up the echoes of the first blast that had struck Gryph she had known immediately that it was the same sort of attack that had caught him unaware yesterday morning. Now, she knew its source. It wasn’t hard to tell that Targyn was projecting a killing energy and that Gryph was fighting for his life.

  She was powerless to do anything except watch mentally as the battle flared back and forth. But when the end came there was no sense of loss. She could still feel Gryph’s presence somewhere in the corridors. He was alive. And she knew what that meant.

  “Targyn’s dead, Etion,” she announced with weary relief. “He’s gone.”

  Rakken, who was working his way through another bottle of wine, looked up with glazed hope in his eyes. “Dead? Are you certain? How can you know that?”

  “I just know it.” She stumbled to her feet, reaching up to soothe Lucky with a soothing stroke.

  Rakken eyed her disbelievingly. “Even if you’re right there are still those three bandits.”

  The door of the chamber shushed open. Sariana and Rakken both jumped. Gryph stood in the doorway. There was blood on his shirt and his face was etched with stark lines. “Make that one bandit. Targyn obligingly took care of the other two for us. But we’ve still got a big problem.”

  Rakken stood up so fast the wine bottle toppled over and shattered on the floor. His eyes were wide with excitement “What problem? All we have to do is cut up the prisma and we’re rich!”

  Gryph eyed him coldly. “Targyn did something to the prisma. Before he died he said it was primed to detonate. He claimed it’s going to take a lot of the surrounding landscape with it, and I’m inclined to believe him. We can’t run far enough or fast enough. We’ve got to try to stop it.”

  “We?” Sariana moved toward him, examining the blood on Gryph’s shirt to make sure it wasn’t his. She was so relieved to see him she could hardly stand. She longed to throw herself into his arms and just collapse.

  “We.” Gryph looked at her. “You and me, Sariana. I can’t think of anything else to try. My weapon kit is gone and I can’t use another Shield’s prisma.”

  Sariana caught her breath at what he was proposing. You think you can use me the way you would prisma?”

  “I don’t know.” He reached for her hand. “But you’re all I’ve got.”

  “It’s so nice to feel needed,” she muttered weakly as he pulled her into a run. It wasn’t the first time she had made the sarcastic observation, but as usual Gryph wasn’t paying any attention.

  “Hey, wait,” Rakken yelled behind them. “What do you think you’re doing? What about the other bandit?”

  Gryph ignored the man. He was too busy giving instructions to Sariana as he drew her down the hall. “When we reach the ship room I want you to just become passive. Think of yourself as a mirror. You’ll catch the light I’m sending at you and reflect it back to me, but that’s all. You don’t have to try to focus or channel. I’ll take care of that.”

  “I’m supposed to pretend I’m just a lifeless piece of prisma, right?”

  “No,” he retorted. “You’re my new lock. You’re tuned to me and I’m going to work the live prisma through you.”

  “Has anyone ever tried this before?” she asked breathlessly as she was pulled down another corridor.

  “Not that I know of. But no Shield has ever had a Shieldmate like you before, either.”

  “How do you know?” Sariana demanded, not certain if the observation was a compliment or not.

  “Take my word for it. If there had been a linking as strong as ours at some time in the past, there would be some legend or tale still circulating about it.”

  “You’re probably right. Do you think we’ll become legends someday, Gryph?”

  “At the rate you’re going it’s not impossible.” He turned another corner. “Don’t look down,” he ordered brusquely.

  But of course she did and her punishment was a close view of three dead men. One of them was Targyn. Sariana tore her gaze from the terrible sight as Gryph yanked her quickly past them. She swallowed a few times in an effort to calm her queasy stomach, but before she could think of anything to say Gryph was turning another corner.

  He stopped suddenly as the hallway opened onto a vast cavern. “By the Fire on board the Ship,” he breathed in genuine awe.

  Sariana knew exactly what he meant, but she couldn’t even summon words. The sight that greeted her made her speechless.

  The cavern was huge, lined with the same gray metal that lined the passageways and corridors behind them. But it wasn’t the chamber that inspired awe and wonder. Awe and wonder were inspired by the strange ship that occupied most of the space inside the cavern.

  The vehicle was roughly oval in shape with a sleek dome. It rested on its flat belly. But the alien shape of it wasn’t nearly as fascinating as the material from which it was made. It was crystal clear and yet it wasn’t. It glittered in the light,
but the eye couldn’t quite focus on that brightness. There was an impression of wide, flat, oval objects inside the ship, but one couldn’t quite make out the details. The whole thing was lit from inside with a soft, pulsing glow.

  Sariana peered at the ship for a long moment. “It’s like looking into ice cubes,” she finally announced.

  “Living prisma crystal,” Gryph said softly. “I’ve never seen prisma in this condition, although I’ve heard it described a thousand times in song and story.” He strode farther into the room. “Targyn was right. This ship is much larger than any other ship found on this planet.”

  “Perhaps it was some sort of supply ship,” Sariana suggested as she followed Gryph slowly into the room. “Perhaps it’s bigger than all the others because it carried weapons to resupply the smaller ships.”

  Gryph nodded. “It’s possible. Or perhaps it was designed for some major assault that was never launched.”

  “We’ll never know.” Sariana examined the vehicle more closely. “Something’s moving inside it, Gryph!”

  He followed her gaze and nodded. “Targyn said he had primed it. He had been experimenting. Somehow he started a reaction within the weapons. He thought he could control that reaction.”

  “What now, Gryph?”

  “I’m not sure,” he admitted.

  “Somehow you being unsure about anything gives me cold chills.”

  “Sorry,” he said with a wry smile. “I’ll try to sound more in charge. Here, give me your hand.”

  Sariana held out her palm and he closed his fingers warmly around it.

  “Remember that first night together?” Gryph asked as he tightened his hand on hers. “Remember how it felt when we touched the prisma lock together?”

  “How can I ever forget? It was every woman’s dream of a wedding night.”

  “This is no time for sarcasm,” Gryph observed. “Save it for later. Concentrate on the sensation of linking with me.”

  Sariana closed her eyes and let the feeling of being linked sweep through her. It was easy to summon up that odd sense of awareness now. Almost immediately a wave of Gryph’s emotions poured through her. She couldn’t identify any single one, but she knew they were all from him.