The warmth of the sun was on the rocks as they started on the down trail. Roane, looking about her, and then hastily averting her eyes from anything but the path, thought it had been well she had come up in the dark. It would have been difficult for her to make that climb otherwise. The zigzag of the trail brought them to the bottom, where Imfry consulted his belt disk and struck out briskly.
There was no straight trail, of course. They detoured, lost time, came back. But if any hunt for them was in progress, it had not spread so far. There were birds and once or twice short glimpses of animals, but no sign men had ever walked this way.
They traveled in silence for the most part, and Imfry moved with an energy which suggested his wound no longer gave him any trouble. Roane refused to think of what lay ahead. It was enough to savor this one day which lay as a safe haven between the past and the future. She made no complaint at the steady pace her companion set, though now and again he did pause, suggest they rest. It was then he talked, though nothing of what they did, or had done, or would do—almost as if to speak of what concerned them most was to summon ill fortune.
Rather he painted for her the Reveny, the Clio, that he knew. And Roane listened as to a tale told in the Markets of Thoth, where, as all know, the most skillful of story spinners compete. He spread before her his homestead of Imfry-Manholm, which lay in mountain country where they raised the long-fleeced corbs, and grew, on small terraces bitten out of the steep slopes, vines which bore those berries from which the sharp-tanged winter wines were pressed.
“My brother is lord there, being the younger son. Though his mother ruled in his name during his childhood—she being my father’s second lady. He came to take liege oath at Urkermark last year. He is a good lad, steady. And he is already ring-promised to the daughter of Hormford Stead across the valley.”
Imfry dug his boot heel into the soft earth as they sat side by side on the moss-cushioned trunk of a fallen tree.
“The younger son inherits? On most worlds it is the eldest.”
“But this is the sensible way. A man’s older sons are usually well grown, settled in lives of their own, at his death hour. But the youngest may still be unable to make his way in the world. Therefore it is only just that he be so provided for. I was a court fosterling, because of my mother—” He paused for a long moment and stared down at the hole he was excavating. “My father had good reason to believe my rise in the world would be favored. My sister was ringed young to the son of his best friend—Ward Marshal Ereck. But what of your life, m’lady?”
“There is little to tell. I am without parents, raised in a Service créche where my Uncle sought me out. I tested well for memory work and in certain learning arts, so he knew I could be a useful member of a team. So has it been.”
“And you are perhaps ringed to this cousin of yours?”
“Sandar?” For a moment the speaking of his name evoked a sharp picture of him in her mind. Perhaps once, in the very beginning, she had nursed a few small colorless dreams. But those had been quickly quenched by working with Sandar—with whom her role had been that of a kind of dull-witted servant—and Roane found the memory of them embarrassing now.
“Certainly not Sandar!” she repeated firmly.
“But some other—on one of your star worlds?” he persisted.
“There is no time in the Service, or at least as Uncle Offlas plans one’s life, for such things. He does not even think of me as a woman. I am another pair of hands, often clumsy ones, to his mind. He takes me with him because, as I am his kin, he is allowed to use me on sealed worlds, where a stranger might cause trouble.” Suddenly Roane laughed. “But this time he was not fortunate—I have done just as he has always feared someone would do. And do you know, Nelis—I think—I hope—I no longer care!”
For that was true! Last night when she had told him her story a burden had rolled away. Uncle Offlas—she did not have to be his puppet. Let him blacken her to the Service—she had a world before her here. They could not hunt her down, or at least she thought they would not dare.
“Strange ways—” Imfry’s comment did not seem to be exactly an apt answer, but he did not enlarge upon it, only got to his feet as a signal to push on.
That odd lightheartedness with which she had begun this march, that feeling of being apart from the past and the future, being in the safe present, faded as they went. She had thought, for a few moments, that she did not have to fear Uncle Offlas. Perhaps she did not, if she kept away from where he was to be found. But she was heading right back there. Why?
“Please.” She slipped around a bush to match pace with Imfry. “We must take care. You cannot guess what they can do. If the LB has come there will be more—”
“But you have said that the crown machine is the control—that we must destroy it. Was that not what you urged on me?”
“Yes. But I forgot—” To her vast surprise and self-disgust, she felt tears rising again. What was the matter with her? She had never done this in her life. She was no longer herself. Desperately she fought for control. “Yes. I am sorry—it is the only thing to be done.” She fell behind, intent on restraining her troubling emotions. “I only urge caution. They have instruments which can detect us at a distance.”
He shrugged. “We can only do our best and hope for the continuing favor of fortune. We are”—he consulted his guide disk—“not too far from the cave. And we shall approach it from the side where Reddick’s men broke in.”
Now she was able to watch a master woodsman at work. It seemed to Roane he melted into the brush, able to become invisible at will, while she sweated over her own efforts, which now appeared infinitely clumsy, to follow his example. But she applauded the caution he brought to the advance. If there were no repellers or detects—
They looked out on a slope of raw earth eroded by rain, flanking the hole Reddick’s men had made. Imfry spoke so low Roane had almost to read the words from his lips as he shaped them: “Is there any warning set here?”
“I do not think so. Unless they have a new one. I burned out the repeller.”
His body was as tense as a runner’s waiting at the mark. “Get in, as quick as you can!” And he was off in a dash to cover the stretch of open ground, disappear between mounds of earth and rock. Roane followed, to stand where Ludorica had held the crown in her hands.
“Wait!” She held up her hand in swift warning. From her former experience with the distort Roane knew she could feel that were it present. As Imfry’s skill had been their guide in the woods, maybe she could serve equally well here.
Roane slipped into the rough passage, heard him move in her wake. So far, there was no trace of the protective measures she feared. But she could hear, every time she paused to listen, the faint pulsations of the installation.
They came to the smoothed portion of corridor. There was a faint glow from the machine chamber. Roane touched his arm, put her lips close to his ear.
“What do you see—right there?” She indicated the faint light.
“Nothing.”
“You hear?” she persisted.
“Nothing. It may be that I cannot. The Princess could not, you said.”
If that were true—had she failed before they had begun? Would he take on faith what she might describe to him? She slipped her hand down to lace his fingers with hers.
“Come!” Hand in hand, linked as children on their way to some day of play, they crept along, edging warily toward the open panel.
Sandar? Uncle Offlas? If they were still within—Roane had no way of making sure. However, if she and Imfry were not spotted at the door, then there were places of concealment inside. Even the crowned pillars were tall enough to provide temporary cover.
At the panel Roane loosed her hold, pushed a step across the threshold. The mutter of noise, those lights which seemed so bright since she had been moving in the dark. But she could see no one there.
“Now!”
Roane could not see the expression on his
face, but he caught her hand, held it in bruising pressure.
“You—went—into—the—wall!” He spaced his words as if he were struggling for some control.
“Through an opening. Close your eyes, do not try to see—but come—” Roane had a sudden inspiration. Perhaps conditioning existed only at the panel, and once inside, he could see.
She led and he followed. “Raise your feet, there is a step barrier—”
His eyes were closed, his hand out as if to feel the wall his confused senses said was there. Then she caught his fingers, drew him on until he was in.
“Look!”
He opened his eyes. A spasm crossed his face. “Dark—blind dark!”
“Hush!” Roane searched for any stir among the pillars. But it would seem that their luck held. The chamber appeared empty.
“It is all dark.” He had himself under tight control again. “I see nothing—”
“Close your eyes once more.” If he could be more sure of touch than sight—
Roane drew him to the first of the pillars.
“There is a column here.” She made the description as simple as she could. “It has a wide plate set in the surface facing you. Around that are rows of lights which flash on and off constantly in patterns of color. At the top is a small crown about the size of your fist. It is in the form of—I think you might best term them flames—and these are brilliantly red, glowing as if actually afire—”
“The Flame Crown of Leichstan!” he cried.
“Now—give me your hands.” She had to move very close to do this, press against his back, reach around his waist to direct his fingers to the surface of the map and the lights, making him trace across and around.
“Do you feel?” She waited anxiously for the answer on which so much depended.
“Yes! These then are the lights? And the crown?”
“It is too far above to be touched.”
“And where is the crown of Reveny?” he demanded eagerly.
“Here—” She led him along to stand before the proper pillar and described it in patient detail.
“Tell me now of the others!”
Roane did, guiding him to each in turn, though he only touched a pillar now and then to reassure himself they were there. At last she came to the dead one, and since it had no light of its own she trained the beamer on it.
The diadem of fluted shells had turned an unpleasant green color which hinted of decay.
“The crown of Arothner in truth,” he admitted. “You have marked each nation that I know—Are these all?”
“Yes.”
“And these you believe can govern our thoughts, raise a kingdom high, smash it low—”
“We think so.” Again after some space of time she allied herself with the Service. “Though the records of the Psychocrat hierarchy were largely destroyed in the blasting of their command station, some pieces of information have been fitted together. We ourselves have extensions of computers which are akin to these in general formation. There must be a broadcast linkage between pillar and crown.”
“Which explains much,” he said as if to himself. “There have been puzzles a many in the past—why some kings seemed to reverse themselves. Roane”—Imfry swung around, his eyes open, searching for her though she stood there directly before him—“you are very right. This is evil, the blackest kind of evil! And it is better to face chaos than such slavery. I have seen it work with the Queen before my eyes. She became someone else when she held the crown. The person—the thing this wanted her to be! There must be an end!”
His voice rose but that did not distract Roane’s own warning system. A distort! Somewhere within these burrows a distort had begun to broadcast.
“Quick!” She pulled at him, forcing him around the edge of the pillar which stood farthest from the door. The sensation was growing stronger.
“There is something—I feel the need to get away,” he said.
“I know. That is a distort, a protective device. If they set it here—” Perhaps she could break out, as she had before. But Roane seriously doubted Imfry could.
Movement at the panel—Sandar! He slipped through with supple agility, took cover in the dark behind the pillars. So he must suspect their presence. Roane did not doubt he was armed with a stunner. He need only use that, spray at will, to render them helpless. Unless he was afraid of unguarded use of any ray around these pillars.
She pressed Imfry’s arm in warning, felt him tense. Had his sight been equal to hers, they might have chanced skulking behind this row of pillars, opposite to those behind which Sandar had gone to ground. But if there was a distort at the door to bottle them in, even reaching it would do no good. For the present Roane could think of nothing but to remain in silent hiding.
Imfry had his “gun,” she the tool, but neither was any defense against a stunner. Could the tool take out the distort, unseal the doorway as it had finished off the repeller? Perhaps, but Roane could not lead Imfry through hide-and-seek. And to leave him here would expose him, helpless, to Sandar.
That her cousin was on the move she had no doubt, though she could hear nothing but the click-click of the machines. And so engrossed was she in listening for some betraying sound that she was almost startled into betrayal when a voice called:
“Roane, I know you are here—” The words were in Basic and the loud tone echoed so she could not be sure of the direction from which they came.
“The LB is coming in,” Sandar continued. “When it lands you know what to expect—stass. If you surrender, you’ll escape that. The more you give evidence of abnormal behavior the worse it is going to be for you when the inspectors arrive.”
He was trying to frighten her, and Roane had to admit he was succeeding in part. If the landing party had been warned about her, they would have no mercy at all—the quickest method of dealing with her would be used. They need only bring in a stass projector and spray, and she and Imfry would be locked in a prison as tight as the cage of Hitherhow. Her eventual fate would be no less now than complete mental re-education. Which meant that she must—they must escape before that happened.
“You can’t get out.” Sandar’s voice continued to echo. But she must wait no longer. And one chance was as good as another. This duel was between them. He would be concentrating on her, not Imfry.
She took the chance of a whisper—“Stay here!”
His hand brushed her shoulder with reassuring touch, letting her know he understood. Roane slipped to the next pillar. She was more used to the echoing now and she thought that Sandar was still close to the door.
If she could create a diversion—there was the ruined crown of Arothner. Roane stood out and took aim on that discolored crest with the tool.
A flash of brilliance and the crown was gone, melted into fiery droplets. At the same time she saw Sandar begin a leap from one pillar to the next. In turn she took a desperate chance, swinging the tool around, aiming for the rock ahead of him. He cried out as footing disappeared, stumbled—But his stunner was coming up, he had not dropped it. Roane rayed again, trying to nick that. The edge of the beam did touch it, but the full force she released cut across the pillar which held Reveny’s Ice Crown.
CHAPTER 17
ROANE COWERED as the world split apart in incandescent flame. Under her the rock floor was as unstable as bog scum. It swayed, buckled. The pillar which had taken part of the tool’s energy was now a torch, its brilliance blinding. And from that leaped tentacles of yellow-white to touch its fellows, so they also blazed.
Imfry—he could not see and he was behind one of those pillars. He might be caught in the holocaust sweeping from one column to the next. Only now she was as blind as he—
Roane began to crawl, feeling her way. A torrent of sound deafened her, even as the blaze sealed her eyes. That mutter arose to a shriek, as if the pillars had life and were now in torment. There was such a wave of heat that she could hardly breathe.
She never knew how she reached Imfry. On
ly by fortune she ran against his body. She clawed her way up to her feet, using him as a support, and then forced him back with her until they crashed against the far wall of the chamber. From there, there was no escape, not with them both as blind and far from the door as they were. They could only endure and hope that they would not be utterly consumed in the fury which raged, sending out sound and stifling heat.
Sandar! For the first time Roane thought of him and winced. Had he been in the direct line of that blast? If so—it was by her doing he was dead. She had not wanted that. She had not intended him any harm, only to knock out the stunner, give them a chance—
The roar was dying—or else her ears were becoming dulled. And the heat—surely that was not so great. Roane fought to see, moisture welling in her smarting eyes, trickling down her cheeks, where she impatiently smeared it away with one hand while with the other she kept her hold on Imfry. But all she could make out was a blood-scarlet curtain against the world.
There was no measurement of the time that devastation raged. It could have lasted an hour, a day—for it seemed endless. But at last Roane was certain that it was nearing the end, for the heat was gone now, the sound. They were trapped in a dark which was complete, where it was hard to breathe. Her gasps matched the ragged breaths of her companion.
“Get—out—”
Feel their way along the wall to the door? It was their only chance. She tugged at Imfry, but he was already on the move. Roane was not even sure of the direction, though she thought they must go left, their guide being one hand against the warm stone, while they linked fingers lest they lose contact. Roane’s eyes continued to tear and smart. In her a new fear was born. Had her sight been blasted? Then, for the first time, Imfry spoke: “Where—where are we?” There was an uncertainty in his voice which she had never heard before. He might have been one who had suddenly awakened from a deep sleep in a strange place.
“In the installation. No—stay with me!” For the hand she held fought against her, and he gave a sudden lunge as if to break her grip, but she held tight and pushed him on.