The Nonborn King (40 page)

Moreyn Glasscrafter, city-lord of Var-Mesk, urged his chaliko and the riderless second mount along the moonlit beach with irritable lelepathic nudges How he hated to travel with these animals' Chalikos had an ingrained antipathy toward him and tended to evade his commands more often than nol The problem was negligible when there were other nders along who could augment his weak coercive faculty But the mysterious farspoken message had insisted that he come alone, and enjoined the strictest secrecy through fearsome Psychokinetic Guild oaths So he clumped along the ghostly gypsum-sand beach, keeping a sharp lookout for quickmires whenever he crossed one of the freshwater streams that ran down from the high continental escarpment Faintly luminous wavelets lapped the shore and there was a thin line of wrack staining the formerly sterile whiteness Diminishing salinity was making the erstwhile Empty Sea into a Sea of Life

He was more than 40 kilometers from the city, traversing a deserted region that would, in six million years, lie just off the Cote d'Azur Did he dare utter a short-range declamatory hail? He scanned the shore ahead and saw only dunes and isolated lumps of evaponte The mysterious Psychokinetic Brother was well hidden

Moreyn here.

Aha' On the other side of that pyramidal mass of salt, the faintest of rosy-gold auras Another poor devil, marooned alt these months on some Tana-forsaken shore, had finally made his way back to the Many-Colored Land

Mind-smilmg, holding up a hand in welcome, Moreyn came nding around the saline monolith on the landward side, saw the raft, and finally recognized the guild-brother with the shielded mind who had summoned him

"Lord Battlemaster'" he gasped, dumfounded The chalikos slipped out of his uncertain coercive gnp and began to shy from the glowing body that lay on the while sand "Steady, damn you'" Moreyn shrilled

Nodonn opened his eyes The two animals seemed to turn to stone Moreyn struggled down out of the tall saddle and knelt beside the supine form

"Let me cover you with my cloak' Arc you thirsty? Here, my flask' Goddess, what happened to your hand?"

"It's a long tale, Psychokinetic Brother Thanks for coming I'm nearly used up " He took a long pull from the water flask and sank back upon the sand Moreyn fussed about, lucking his ctoak under the Battlemaster's legs and torso Nodonn wore his suit of armor padding, now salt-stained and torn His exposed skin was badly sunburnt

"We thought you were dead' This is wonderful'" Moreyn's face fell "I mean, it's terrible' The Lowlife usurper, Alken Drum, has forced us to accept him as King He went from one city to another with his army, threatening us No one could stand up to him and survive In Var-Mesk, I blush to admit that we were all craven before the Shining One save Miakonn Healerson alone Oh, how proud you would have been to see his defiance, Battlemaster' It was hopeless of course, but magnificently true to the traditions of the battle-company Miakonn waited until the usurper was far gone in dnnk, and then called him to account' It was a bold ploy and might have succeeded had not the treacherous Interrogator, " The Glasscrafter broke off

"Peace, Brother," Nodonn reassured him "I am well aware that Culluket has betrayed the Host I know what he did to Miakonn, and why you are now city-lord in his place "

Moreyn bit his lower lip, his mind veiled in shamed misery.

Nodonn reached out "Never mind. Brother You have always been an excellent glass technician " He nodded toward the raft with its crude sail of stitched skins There was a bundle lashed to one of the crossbraces "See there? It's the armor you fashioned for me three hundred long years ago I've managed to lose one gauntlet You'll have to make me another before I take to the field "

"You'll defy the usurper?" Moreyn was transfigured

"Today, I'm a sorry excuse for a Battlemaster. But I'll mend For more than six months I was cast away on Kersic, bereft of my senses and beyond reach of any farsightful knowledge. Now only two Tanu know of my existence Lady Mercy Rosmar and you "

"She is married to the Lowlife King," Moreyn lamented, "and crowned his Queen." "Peace," said Nodonn again, easing the city-lord's mental turmoil "Mercy bides with the usurper because I have instructed her to make no move until the time is npe She remains faithful to me in her secret heart and eventually we will be reunited I plan to reclaim all that is mine Will you assist me to that end, Moreyn?"

"I would give my life for you, Battlemaster, poor thing that it is But you know how pitiful my aggressive faculties are Alken Drum would not even have me accompany his Quest to Koneyn

"I know he's after the Spear And fresh gold torcs to decorate his puny-minded rabble-m-arms, much good may they do him'"

Moreyn's glance kept straying to the wooden hand, which he regarded with singular apprehension "We don't have a healer m Var-Mesk qualified to tend your wound, Battlemaster So many redactors perished in the Flood The nearest practitioner with the competence, the nearest trustworthy Skin artisan, is Boduragol of Afaliah "

"He who has charge of my Host Brother, Kuhal Yes, I know of him " Nodonn flexed the fingers of the prosthesis, smiling slightly "But don't worry, Moreyn This makeshift works well enough If I go into Skin, I'll be nine months growing another Too long to tie idle when my metapsychic powers are fast returning and destiny calls I think that my hand's full healing may have to be postponed until I settle the hash of that Lord of Misrule over in Goriah'"

Moreyn's mouth dropped open He projected sheer calamity "Oh, no, Battlemaster' You mustn't delay the healing' Why, no one would rally to you'"

"You think not?" The Battlemaster was puzzled

"My Lord, perhaps you have forgotten

"Pull yourself together, man," Nodonn snapped "Explain, or at least open your damn mind so I can see for myself what you cavil at "

The timid screening lifted and Nodonn read plainly the tenet of the battle-religion that had not been mvoked for thousands of years on lost Duat, and never since the Tanu had come to the Many-Colored Land No one who was not perfect in shape might aspire to the kingship

Nodonn laughed "This is your objection'' This piece of antiquated flummery1' When our throne is profaned by a Lowlife upstart?"

"It is the law," whispered Moreyn, with the stubbornness of the meek "Alken-Lugonn is lawfully elected by the plenary session of vassals, and he was the chosen of Mayvar Kingmaker, exotic though his blood may be And as to that, n has been said that he was not of human woman born, but engendered through some miracle of Elder Earth "

"A test-tube baby nurtured in an artificial womb," scoffed the Battlemaster "No miracle There are many such among the humans "

But Moreyn pushed on "My Lady Glanluil, who attended the Grand Loving in my place when I was taken ill, says that even stranger things were hinted at by the Interrogator at the wedding feast He said, he said that both the King, I mean, Alken-Lugonn, and Queen Mercy-Rosmar have true Tanu genes in their germ plasm!"

"Alken Drum, kin to us? Chaliko flop'" But the Battlemaster felt his spine freeze He knew for a fact that Mercy's heritage was more Tanu than human The prodigy had been proven by Greg-Donnet Genetics Master long before the latter's defection

"The Interrogator is a life-scientist," Moreyn said, "and he has gained great knowledge of these arcane matters after consultation with human specialists He said that recent genetic assays have shown that virtually all of the humans here in the Many-Colored Land who possess metapsychic traits also have a preponderance of Tanu or Firvulag genes There is some mysterious power at work, linking our race with that of the Low lives "

"Impossible' Humanity's direct evolutionary ancestor is the small ramapithecme ape that we use as a servant Would we foul our blood by mating with animals? Never' And these lowly homimds will not even begin to approach rationality for more than five million years Long before that, we will have vanished from this melancholy planet "

"Can you be certain?" asked Moreyn.

Struck silent, Nodonn beheld in memory a pathetic pair of elderly humans, the rebel general Angelique Guderian and her consort, Claude, held captive in the moments before he permitted them to pass back through the time-gale to death. The otd man had dared to defy him. Upon hearing the Battlemaster's command, "Go back where you came from." Claude had uttered a baffling reply that now hung vivid and shorn of paradox:

You fool. We came from here.

"Madness!" said Nodonn angrily.

Moreyn went on. "These humans have legends. Myths about races of Old Ones who existed on Earth for long aeons before mankind arose, and who persisted as a pitiful and despised remnant even into the years immediately preceding the Galactic Milieu- Humans gave many names to these Old Ones: demons, faeries, gods, giants, elves. But all over the precoadunate Earth, primitive humans were convinced that the Old Ones existed. And that they mated, from time to time, with humanity."

"Madness!" Nodonn repeated. "I forbid you to speak of it further." He climbed unsteadily to his feet, kicking aside Moreyn's cloak. "Lead the spare chaliko to that lump of salt so that I may use it as a mounting block."

Moreyn hastened to bring up the animal; but he was constrained to finish his speech. "I think that all of this is an unlikely tale, Battlemaster. But other Tanu do not, and most especially, neither do the hybrids- The legend, the rationale of our kinship with humanity, makes the bitter pill of Lowlife ascendency easier to swallow.

"I'll give them another kind of medicine," Nodonn declared. "Get that armor bundle and lash it to my saddle. Do you know what's inside? The holy Sword! The weapon I wielded in my first confrontation with the usurper, and intend to wield again, victoriously! Then we'll see who dares prate of lost hands and Nonborn Kings and bastard descendants of the Tanu returning through the length of time to mate with their own forebears!"

The hapless Moreyn cringed- Nodonn's body glowed a raging solar gold, its brilliance on the threshold of pain. "Oh. take care lest the Foe detect you, Battlemasler! Take care!"

The aura was instantly extinguished. "You're right, old friend. My vehemence is rash. Stupid. Mercy warned me that the usurper's spies are everywhere. From now on, I'll guard myself well. I would not put you in jeopardy."

"Oh, who cares about me?" the Glasscrafter moaned. "My life means nothing. Yours means everything!" He fumbled ineffectively with the stirrup of his own chaliko, tried to mount as the beast danced, then gave up and wafted himself ignominiously into the saddle with his PK and made haste to fasten the dicky strap. Nodonn was careful not to smile "You are my charge, Battlemaster," Moreyn said. "I have a sacred obligation to shelter you until Lord Celadeyr and Queen Mercy-Rosmar can come for you and take you to safety in Afaliah." He sent a plea for forbearance toward the flawed titan, whose face was now lost in the moonlight's shadow. "I have prepared a secret hiding place for you where I can minister to your needs myself. I'm afraid that you'll find your confinement tedious, for the chamber is small, in a deep subbasement of the glassworks. But if you can restrain your battle ardor for a tittle longer, be patient, "

"Recently, I have had much experience practicing patience."

", then. the Good Goddess willing, your body as well as your metapsychic strength will be restored, and you will fulfill your great destiny."

Nodonn bowed his head. "I'm in your hands, Moreyn. From now on. command me and I obey."

The Glasscrafter heaved a relieved sigh. "Oh. that's fine. We'll head for home right away. You direct both chalikos, if you don't mind."

"Of course." said the Battlemaster,

Side by side, their gaits perfectly synchronized, the two huge animals began to trot along the strand toward Var-Mesk,

6

"THEY'RE COMING' THEY'RE COMING'" CALISTRO THE GOATboy shouted as he dashed up the length of Hidden Springs Canyon, his charges forgotten "Sister Amerie and the Chief and a lot of others'"

People swarmed from the cottages and huts, calling out to one another in excitement A long train of nders was wending its way into the village outskirts

Old Man Kawal heard the commotion and stuck his head from the door of Madame Guderian's rose-covered house beneath the pines He sucked air through his teeth

"She comes'"

A small cat came running from the box under the table, nearly tripping him when he spun about to snatch up a paring knife "I must cut flowers and hurry to greet her'" He pointed a stern finger at the cat "And you, see that your kittens are groomed so that you do nol disgrace both of us'"

The gauze-screened door slammed Muttering to himself, the old man chopped off an armful of the heavy June rose clusters, then rushed down the path scattering pink and scarlet petals behind him

There were sentimental reunions with old fnends for Peopeo Moxmox Burke, Basil Wnnbome, and Amerie Roccaro. who were hailed as heroes of the Lowlife liberation, and a fervent welcome was extended to the thirty daredevil pilots, technicians, and specialists of whom there were such great expec tations This group was instantly dubbed "Basil's Bastards" by Denny Johnson. commander of the Lowlife defensive forces, much to the flusteration of the alpinist ex-don

After a gratifying interlude at the community bathhouse, the new arrivals were honored at a gala fish fry and strawberry shortcake feast that was hastily contrived by Manalena Torrejon Perkin the vintner hauled out demijohns of Riesling and fragrant vinho verde and sweet white muscatel to fuel the neverending round of toasts, with the result that quite a few of the villagers, as well as Pongo Warburton and Ookpik and Seumas Mac Suibhne of the Bastards, were in no condition to join in the Mass of Thanksgiving that Amerie celebrated to bring the grand day to a close

Finally Old Man Kawai led exhausted Amerie to Mddame's cottage, over her protests that the place was his home now and should remain so "We will speak of this later," said the former electronics manufacturer "For now, you must take Madame's bedchamber Her spmt would wish it, and I will pensh of vexation if you refuse the honor I will be quite comfortable on a pallet in the kitchen with the cats for company "