Sebastian of Mars (6 page)

“Yes, sire.”

“Good. And thank you, Thomas.”

The way I said it must have made him cock his
head in query.

“For what, sire?”

“For everything. You have been with me since
I was a kit, and I’m afraid I sometimes have taken you for granted.
This is inexcusable. Without you I would be dead now.” I gestured
at my surroundings, a near perfect reproduction of my rooms back in
Wells. The window was missing, of course, since we were halfway up
a volcano and hiding like rabbits.

He bowed. “It is my service, sire. What I
swore to.”

“It is more than that. You are like a brother
and a father all rolled up into one. I just wanted you to know I am
old enough now to understand that.”

There was color to his cheeks, behind his
spare fur. “Thank you, sire.”

“You will never call me sire again. You will
call me Sebastian, just like always.”

It was his turn to say something wise. “I’m
sorry, but I can’t do that. It would not be right. Whether you like
it or not,
sire
, you are now grown up. There are many who
rely on you, and many who have already laid down their lives in
your name.”

This shocked me, and it must have showed on
my face. Suddenly I was weak, and looked for a chair. I curled to
the floor and lay there panting.

Thomas was instantly at my side. “I’m sorry,
sire, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“
I don’t know if I can do this,
Thomas!
”

I could tell from his startled look that my
face was pale, my eyes wide with panic.

Again, I thought of my mother, and steeled
myself.

“I would wish that no one else ever see me
like that.”

Thomas said something that startled me: “I do
not envy you, sire. For all the coin on Mars, I would not be in
your position.”

I took a deep breath and, with Thomas’ help,
drew to my feet. “I fear we have difficult times ahead.”

“Yes,” he replied. “But you have many who
will stand behind you.”

I felt instantly, strangely stronger. “I know
that. And you are first among them.”

“Yes.” He had a faraway look, and then he
said, “Did you know, sire, that the man who betrayed your mother
was my Uncle?”

It was my turn to startle him. “Yes, I knew
that.”

“How –”

“There are more wagging tongues than your
own, Thomas. Suffice it to say I heard it in the scullery.”

“Fat Brenda!” he said, and for a moment his
lips thinned with anger.

“No, it was not her, though it might have
been. It is common knowledge.”

“The thing is,” he went on, “is that I feel
responsible to this day for what my Uncle did. He brought great
shame on my family.”

“He brought shame on himself. No man’s
actions can be blamed on others.”

“Your mother put great trust in him, and look
what he did to her.”

I tried to harden my voice, the way I had
sometimes practiced in front of the mirror in my room when no one
was there. I had never sounded convincing. “Your Uncle was an
idealist and a fool. Are
you
an idealist and a fool,
Thomas?”

My practice must have paid off, because he
nearly shouted, “No!”

“Good. Then we need not speak of this again.
I must say that I will miss those days when you called me
Sebastian.”

“So will I, sire.”

When I turned around he had gone, closing the
door gently behind him.

My sister’s memorial
ceremony was held the next morning, before the sun rose, as Phobos
moved silently overhead, as I wished. In the clan of Mighty it was
known as the Moon Ceremony. We assembled on the plain where our
airship had landed, a quarter mile from the secret door into the
mountain. Phobos was dim and strange, a faint lantern, as I
muttered the same words my mother had spoken over the graves she
had dug with her own hands of Mighty and his band, after they had
been treacherously murdered by agents of the same Frane we now
fought:

O mighty son of the sky,

Fierce night warrior,

Guardian of the dark ways,

Help me in my pursuits

If they be worthy ones,

And let me not stray

From the path of righteousness,

From the road of good deeds,

And from the way which leads

To the well being of
my people.

There were tears in my eyes as I finished. I
began to struggle for breath, but hid it in front of all these
people. I looked over at Thomas who regarded me with alarm, but
held his place. I nodded. The world went black for a moment but
then I regained my composure and my breath returned.

“Thank you for coming,” I said, my voice a
strong gasp, and then I turned away from the multitude of eyes that
regarded me.

I turned back, drawing weak air deep into my
lungs.

“We face difficult days ahead,” I said, and
my voice grew louder with my words. “More difficult than those
behind us. My sister was but one of those who died. Many of you
have suffered greater losses. Do not think for a moment that I do
not know this, or appreciate your sacrifices.” My voice grew even
stronger, and for a moment I felt my mother’s blood surge through
me. “Do not forget this: Frane will
never
win.”

Then, my strength all but exhausted, I used
the last of it to walk proudly from that place and back to my
simulacrum room, where I immediately collapsed.

M
any weeks passed.
As Thomas had predicated, my lungs gradually grew used to the thin
air. After a while, I relished it, looked forward to the momentary
fight when I seemed to be overwhelmed and then, summoning my
reserves, overcame the crisis. Each episode seemed to make me
stronger.

And I was growing stronger physically, too.
The passage from kithood to adulthood was swift and, as I had been
told to expect, thoroughly frightening. I grew three inches in the
scant time we had been at Olympus Mons, and my stamina seemed to
develop along with my age.

We held Council meetings of a sort, and the
news was almost never good. General Xarr had been pushed out of
Wells altogether, and had resorted to a holding action in Bradbury
to the immediate west of the capital city. But now Bradbury seemed
on the verge of falling.

“It is remarkable what Frane was able to
accomplish from exile, and while on the run for five years,”
Lieutenant Jift, the military commander of our area, reported. He
was a severe feline, with almost emaciated features and a patch
over one eye even more intimidating than Xarr’s own. His lips were
pulled back over his sharp teeth in a natural sneer, the result of
the wound that had taken his right eye. His manner was
straightforward and unembellished, which I found refreshing, if
frightening. “The F’rar clan was more secretive and subversive than
we ever imagined. All the while they integrated themselves into the
new government – at the insistence of Queen Haydn –” at this
mention of my mother’s name he glared at me balefully “–they were
drawing plans against the rest of the clans, and against the Second
Republic.”

“We are not here to point fingers,” Thomas
said mildly, seeking the role of conciliator.

“I point fingers where there is blame!” he
shouted, and then immediately bowed curtly in my direction. I knew
he had lost many family members not only in the first war, but in
the present one, by treacherous F’rar hands. I gave him a slight
bow in return.

“What would you have us do, Lieutenant?” I
asked, trying to hide my own ire at his slur of my mother’s
memory.

“Kill all F’rar,” he nearly spat.

“How dare you!” Rella, the sole F’rar member
of the council who had come with us, replied immediately.

“Lieutenant!” Thomas pleaded.

Jift turned his evil eye on Rella. “I stand
by my words.”

“This is impossible!” Rella shouted, pushing
her chair back as she stood up. “Either the Commander or I must
leave this room! Everyone knows I have tried to do nothing but
intervene with my people to end this terrible conflict!”

There was silence, and then I stood and said,
“We will all leave, as I call this meeting adjourned. We will
reconvene tomorrow morning at the hour of ten.”

Both Rella and the Lieutenant sought to catch
my eye, but I quickly left the room, Thomas in tow.

“You are learning, sire,” he whispered to
me.

“Am I?” I said. “I
fear before this is over that there will be bloodshed in our own
ranks.

T
hese weeks at
Olympus Mons, though fraught with bad news and worry, were also
filled with wonder.

There was the volcano itself, of course.
Though my movement was restricted, it was the restriction of a man
in the middle of a vast ocean. The tunnels that had been outfitted
for our comfort were many, and held many pedestrian sights – but it
was the outside plains, and the unexplored sections of the lava
tubes, that provided me with my greatest pleasures.

To experience these delights, I had to result
to a bit of subterfuge, of course. Thomas was easy to lose, lost in
thought as he usually was; but there were other guards and minders
that also had to be left behind. I developed a system that worked,
whereby I would fake a spell or spasm (though these things seldom
happened to me anymore) and, when those closest to me went for
help, I would slip away. It worked for a while, but when my methods
were discovered I had to work on subtle variations. For instance,
after faking a fainting spell, now one of my attendants would
leave, instead of both – I then had to fictionalize a second
malady, more severe and usually involving unconsciousness, which
could only be alleviated by the dispatch of the second minder.

Then I would wander off where I pleased.

I discovered many marvels in this fashion.
Always a science buff, I found fossils that I knew would be of
interest to Newton and his Science Guild. One of them at least I
was sure was a partial skeleton of one of the Old Ones. For one
thing it was much too long for a feline, and strangely
proportioned. I was reminded of one of the pictures in the
crumbling book my mother had used to name my sister and me. The
torso was elongated to a strange degree, nearly half again my own
height, and the fingers of the single hand that had been preserved
were long and thin. The pelvis looked strange, also, as if this
creature had never for a moment walked upon all fours, even in
rest.

There were other treasures in this
wonderland, almost too innumerable to name. There were crystals and
rocks and minerals for my collection, as well as internal volcanic
springs of water that, I was sure, had never been seen by feline
eyes. It was near one of these that I found the Old One skeleton.
Had he stumbled here in search of water, and perished on the shores
in sight of his need? There were strange fish fossils beside him.
Perhaps he had eaten, and been poisoned by a species of aquatic
animal inhospitable to his system?

I wondered if he had been a prospector like
me, in search of mineral treasures – as when I found, not far from
the scene of the Old One’s demise, a cavern alight with minerals
producing their own inner light, which put anything I had ever seen
in a museum to shame.

And then there was what I can only call ‘the
ghost’.

There had, as Thomas had mentioned, always
been vague rumors about Olympus Mons – that, being the King of all
mountains, it must surely be haunted. There were tales in books and
popular media about prospectors and explorers who had ventured into
the bowels of the volcano in search of history or treasure and
never been heard of again. Every exotic place nurtured such
stories, and Olympus Mons was no different.

I had discounted such nonsense, of
course.

And yet, on the very day I discovered the
skeleton of the Old One, I heard the ghost myself.

As I crouched mesmerized on the bank of the
spring, studying the bones of this ancient Man of Mars, I heard the
faintest of sounds in front of me and to my right. I thought at
first that Thomas or his guards were coming for me and, even though
the sound came from in front of me, that echoes were doing their
work. I stood up and dusted my hands, waiting for their
arrival.

But no one came.

And then I heard the sound again.

It was in front of me, for sure. There was
the dark maw of a cave tributary far across the stream, but the
sound did not originate from there. It seemed to come from the cave
ceiling, where a group of ledges that looked like nothing so much
as the faintly etched steps of a ladder were set into the lava
wall.

My torch sputtered as the faint voice came
again, more clearly: “
Followww
. . .”

The fur on the back of my neck stood up
straight, and I took a step back. I reached for my torch and held
it up, studying the rock wall, which rose high into the dimness.
Was there an opening up there near the cave roof?

I could not be sure.

The ethereal voice called once more:
“
Followww
. . .”

My fear was quickly replaced by curiosity,
and when the voice sounded again, I sat abruptly, put the torch
aside, took off my boots, and, retrieving the torch, stepped
forward, into the rivulet of water, carrying my boots with me.

I shivered, feeling its chill on my feet.

“
Followww
. . .”

The ghostly voice was definitely coming from
the top of the cave to the right.

“Who are you?” I called, hearing my own voice
echo.

There came no answer.

I made my way to the wall, noting more bones
on the far shoreline of the stream. I sat and re-laced my boots,
then stood and was confronted by a definite set of steps leading
up.

“
Come
...”

“Yes, I’m coming!” I shouted, and put my foot
into the first solid inset in the wall–