King's Test (46 page)

"I look
before me," she added softly, reaching up to touch the
reflection that reached a ghostly hand to touch her back, "and I
see only darkness."

"'Two must
walk the paths of darkness
to reach the light,'"
Sagan
said, finishing the quote.

Maigrey shook
her head. "I see no light."

Sagan did. Sagan
saw a light, saw moonlight, bright and shining on a strange planet,
saw moonlight gleaming on silver armor, on a knife in his hands, saw
moonlight glisten on blood flowing from a mortal wound, on blood on
the knife and on his hands, saw moonlight glitter cold in gray eyes
that could no longer see the moon or anything. . . .

The vision of
Maigrey's death at his hands had come to him often, but never before
had it been so clear. It startled him, angered him. He felt
constrained, restricted, a prisoner of fate, without a choice. He
would see about that, he determined, removing his hands from the
woman abruptly.

"We have
much to discuss, my lady," he said, his voice cold. "Report
to me this day at 1800 hours."

He turned on his
heel, stalked through the door that, fast as it operated, barely
opened in time to permit him to walk through.

Maigrey, looking
around, startled, thought that it wouldn't have much mattered if the
door hadn't operated. In this mood, he would have walked through
solid steel.

Sighing, she
turned back to stare out the window. The storm was diminishing, its
fury spent, settling down into a dull and dismal steady rain.

"You've
gone to argue, once again, with God," she said to the absent
Sagan, staring at her reflection in the glass, a reflection made of
tears. "Why don't you give up? Don't you understand? God
abandoned us long ago, my lord. Long ago. . . ."

We soon learn
that there is nothing mysterious or supernatural in the case, but
that all proceeds from the usual propensity of mankind towards the
marvelous . . .

David Hume,
"The
Sceptic"

The rain
continued falling sporadically all during the morning hours. Dion sat
with Abdiel most of that time, leaving the mind-seizer only for
luncheon. The young man took his meals alone, in his room, having
little desire for the dubious company of the mind-dead.

The food cooked
by Abdiel's servants was wholesome and that was about the best that
could be said for it. The bland concoction had a consistency
somewhere between porridge and a meat stew that has been run through
a blender. It went down easily; its uninteresting flavor made no
attempt to divert the boy's thoughts by offering up any new and
dramatic taste sensations.

Being hungry,
Dion forked stew into his mouth absent-mindedly. Alone in his room,
away from Abdiel, the young man discovered to his discomfiture that,
thinking back on their time together, he found the old man repulsive,
the bonding appalling. Looking at the palm of his right hand, seeing
the still red and inflamed puncture marks, and remembering that
rotting flesh pressed close against his, Dion gagged on his food.
Only the insatiable hunger of a seventeen-year-old kept him doggedly
eating.

Painful,
disgusting, the bonding had been exciting, too. Dion began to think
of his mind much like Abdiel's strange house, with twisting, turning
hallways and hundreds of locked doors. Abdiel's mind inside his had
opened many of those doors, introducing the boy to new thoughts and
experiences, new ideas, new ambitions.

The two of them
had discussed many of those thoughts and ideas this morning. Strange,
but when he was with Abdiel, the young man didn't feel any of the
revulsion or disgust that came over him the moment the mind-seizer
was out of his sight. Dion recalled, somewhat uneasily, Maigrey's
warning to him about strong minds being able to control weaker.

Is Abdiel doing
that to me? Dion wondered. Am I under the mind-seizer's sway, as are,
obviously, the mind-dead?

No, he decided
upon serious reflection, scraping the food from the bottom of the
bowl. No, Abdiel has not taken me over. Dion was very much conscious
of his own will, knew he still retained it. He vaguely remembered,
when Abdiel first entered his mind, a contest between the two of
them, a contest that had been extremely painful, a contest the boy
had perhaps not won, but which had at least turned out to be a draw.

Dion thought
back again to the image of the house. Abdiel tried to seize the
house, but I prevented him. I invited him inside, however. He came in
and went about opening doors. Light and air flowed into my mind,
where once there was only darkness and stifling confusion. . . .

What about that
rite of initiation? I asked Abdiel. You saw it in my memory, and you
laughed.

"Forgive
me, my king." Abdiel laughed again, heartily. "But it was
all hypnosis, illusion. Oh, don't feel ashamed. You're not the first
to fall for it. Sagan and the lady managed it quite prettily, I have
no doubt."

But it seemed
... so real! I protested. I can still remember the spikes driving
through my hands, the fire searing my flesh.

"Of course
it did! So did the torture of the Corasians, when they captured you.
Yet, they didn't cut off your arm, any more than the spikes on that
metal ball pierced your skin. It was all in your mind."

But why? I
wanted to know. Why would they do such a thing to me? Why lie to me?
All that about God not wanting me to use my power—

"How can
you ask, Your Majesty? You know the answer. You've known it all
along."

Yes, I guess I
have known it. I just didn't want to admit it.

"Precisely,"
Abdiel continued. "They wouldn't be able to control you then."

You mean, I
asked, I can use the power?

"You would
need to be trained, but I could do that myself."

Abdiel was
modest. "Lord Sagan or the Lady Maigrey could have trained you,
but they chose not to."

What a fool I've
been! But I trusted, I believed in ... in her, especially.

"Ah, my
king." Abdiel sighed, grew very grave. "I've no doubt that,
when you first met the lady after her return from her self-imposed
exile, she had only your best interests at heart. But you must
remember, Dion, that she has fallen increasingly under the
charismatic spell of Derek Sagan. You yourself know how easily he can
exert his influence over someone."

Yes, I know.

"It may be
possible," Abdiel mused aloud, "that Maigrey is not
irretrievably lost. It may be possible to save her. If, somehow, his
influence over her could be ended—"

That won't
happen until he's dead! I told Abdiel.

"Mmmmmm."
Abdiel made no response beyond that soft hum.

Dion put his
head in his hands, clasped his hands over his ears. But I can still
hear that humming. . . .

And the hum
seemed to grow louder and more insistent until it was like the
buzzing of thousands of insects inside the young man's mind.

Dion fell asleep
and was awakened by Mikael, who came to escort the young man back
into Abdiel's presence. Escort was necessary. Though Dion had been in
the house two days, he continued to be uncertain of his way through
the halls and the stairs that all looked alike. And he noted, after
making some attempt to memorize a route by counting his footsteps,
that Mikael either never took the same path twice or Dion was never
lodged in the same room twice.

"I
suppose," he said to Mikael as they walked along, "that my
friends made it back to the plane safely?"

"I took
them myself," Mikael replied. "It was the master's command,
since the Warlord is on the planet. I waited to see their plane take
off and was informed, by the gentleman known as Anselmo, who has
monitoring instruments, that they safely left planetary orbit."

"It's odd,"
Dion said after a moment, "but I didn't think Tusk would leave .
. . just like that."

"Why not,
Your Majesty?" Mikael would, to judge by his words, have
registered surprise, had any emotion been able to register itself
upon his lifeless face. "After all, you yourself ordered him to
go."

Dion laughed
ruefully. "I'm glad he isn't around to hear you say that."
His laughter trailed off. "He didn't act like he was mad at me
or anything, did he?"

"No, not at
all. But he did seem to be worried about another friend—a man
named Dichter—"

"Dixter,"
Dion said, cheering up. "John Dixter. Yes, that must be it. I
just hope they don't try any wild rescue schemes ... at least until I
get back. I think I should go back," he said, suddenly impatient
to be doing something, suddenly overwhelmed by the desire to leave
Abdiel.

Mikael said
nothing, having nothing to say in reply to such a statement, but led
the boy to the master's room. The furnace was going full blast. Dion
felt the wave of heat smack him in the face when he entered the door.
He held back a moment, experiencing as usual a reluctance to enter.
He remained standing in the doorway, fidgeting nervously.

Abdiel glanced
at Mikael.

He has been
asking about his friends,
the mind-dead answered the unspoken
question.

And you told
him . . . ?

I mentioned
John Dixter, as you instructed, master.

Abdiel's lidless
eyes flicked sideways and Mikael, understanding, bowed and left the
room. John Dixter had been one of many small, assorted bits of
information Abdiel had obtained on his expedition into the boy's
mental processes.

"Look,
sir," Dion began abruptly, "I'm grateful for what you've
done for me, particularly"—the voice grew grim—"for
showing me the truth about . . . about things. But I think I should
be leaving now.

"Let's face
it. There's nothing I can do against Sagan. He's surrounded, day and
night, by men who would think it the greatest honor ever granted to
die for him. Not to mention the fact that he himself could chop me
into little pieces without even working up a sweat. Tusk's right,"
Dion finished bitterly. "I'm just a kid—"

"My dear
boy," Abdiel interrupted, voice soft with sympathy, "the
great Alexander was in his teens when he fought his first battles and
began the conquest of a world. Sagan was no older than you when he
fought the cyborgs at the Battle of Star's End. I have not kept you
here solely for the love of your company, my king, though your stay
has been a sweet pleasure to me. I have a plan, you see."

"A plan?
Plan for what?"

"A plan to
help you confound your enemy and rescue those you love from his
clutches."

"What?
How?" Dion demanded, sitting down on the edge of a sofa and
leaning forward eagerly.

"Patience,
Your Majesty. Patience. All in good time. Two have arrived who will
start providing answers."

Mikael appeared
at the door to the sauna. "Two gentlemen to see you, master."

"Show them
in."

The mind-dead
bowed, left, returned, bowed again, and stood aside to permit two
people coming along behind him to enter the room.

"May the
rain that is falling prosper you as it does the ground. I am Raoul,"
one said in a mellow, exquisite voice, "and this"—gesturing
to his companion—"is the Little One."

Dion stared,
momentarily forgetting his own problems in his wonderment. Raoul was
certainly the most beautiful human the boy had ever seen. Tall and
slender, the man had ivory skin and features that might have been
carved by a master craftsman. Hair, long and black and shining, fell
from a center part to below his hips. The lithe, well-muscled body
moved with the grace of a dancer.

The Little One
was aptly named, for he, she, or it came only to Raoul's waist.
Whether this personage was child or adult, male or female, human or
alien, Dion couldn't fathom, for the Little One was muffled in a
raincoat that might have belonged to someone twice the small person's
height, topped off by a hat of the style known as a fedora. All that
could be seen of the Little One were two large, marvelously
penetrating and intelligent eyes, peering out from behind the tips of
the raincoat's upturned collar.

"Snaga Ohme
has sent us," Raoul said with a fluttering motion of his hand.
"I am honored to be in the presence of Abdiel, former Lord Abbot
of the late Order of Dark Lightning. "

"The honor
is mine," Abdiel replied. "Will you be seated?"

"Thank you,
no," Raoul answered with a charming smile of regret. "We
are bidden not to intrude ourselves long upon your valuable time."
The beautiful messenger spoke and looked only at Abdiel. The eyes of
the Little One, however, never left Dion.

"We await
your words with pleasure," Abdiel said, reaching out his hand
and drawing the hookah to his side. He unwound the cord and placed
the pipe between his lips.

"My
employer, Snaga Ohme, deeply regrets that the business transaction to
which you both were parties did not conclude to either his
satisfaction or your own. Circumstances beyond the control of both of
you intervened and the transaction was consequently disrupted."

"What is
your point?" Abdiel sucked on the pipe; the water in the hookah
gurgled soothingly.

Raoul brushed
aside the black, shining hair from his face with a graceful motion of
both hands, as if he were parting a curtain and about to enter center
stage. "My employer, Snaga Ohme, wants to make certain you
understand that he was acting in your best interests, just as he
understands that you were acting in his."

"You may
assure Snaga Ohme that I understand him and I am confident he
understands me."

Raoul was
charmed at the thought of so much understanding floating around the
universe. The Little One had never, for an instant, taken the
penetrating eyes from Dion, who found it difficult to look anywhere
else except at the small, strange figure in the oversized raincoat.