Under the Eye of God (18 page)

“Sorry,” said Ota, shaking its head. “I see enough violence just serving under Star-Captain Campbell.”

Meanwhile, Keeda had finally decided that he had heard enough, and at last, laboriously, he levered himself erect. Beside him, Kask also began to lift himself. The sight of a Dragon rising to its feet brought silence to the prisoners on the stone island. The sight of both Dragons erect terrified them. The prisoners rose to their feet nervously, and readied themselves to jump out of either monster's way.

Keeda roared low in his throat. He towered over all these little men, but in particular he focused his hungry gaze on the small one with the skin like red leather. “By what right do you speak such treason? Who dares to stand before this Dragon and speak such shit?” All of the other prisoners began backing out of the way, leaving a clear space between the Dragon and its prey.

The revolutionary stared back unafraid. “My name? Don't you know? Can't you tell who stands before you? Don't you recognize a brother?”

Keeda pointed back to Kask. “There stands
my
brother. My
only
brother.” Keeda lumbered forward. “I repeat, what name do you go by?”

The angry little man stepped boldly forward. “You see before you a member of the Martian Lee clone-family. Number 1169.”

Keeda rasped something unintelligible. His eyes reddened. “Say your prayers. Prepare to die,” he commanded. “I have sworn a blood-oath. No one named Lee will ever escape my wrath alive.”
³²
The Dragon lunged—

Kask tried to stop Keeda. He grabbed for his brother's arm, bellowing, “That debt has died. It no longer holds!”

“No matter!” roared Keeda. “This death wants no price. This Lee
needs
killing.”

Keeda picked up Lee and held him over his head in one great hand, ready to fling him out into the water. He paraded around the perimeter of the disk, shouting and hooting his defiance, taunting Lee to stop him. “I'll give you the only appropriate reward for traitors—”

Sawyer and Finn both leapt to their feet shouting, “No!” Sawyer ran to the Dragon, pulling at its arms, hanging from them, kicking and punching and trying to stop Keeda from concluding his deadly game. Keeda ignored him. He lifted Lee high and—

The first shot sizzled just past Keeda's left ear. The scream of air imploding and the sudden burst of steam from the fetid water beyond slapped him like a hammer blow. Silence rippled outward like an aftershock. Sawyer let go of Keeda's arm and dropped back down to the stone floor of the disk-island.

Keeda whirled around and bellowed his defiance at the guards on the catwalks above. “Don't stop me!”

The second shot scorched the stones between his feet. They glowed red and gave off an oily smoke. The sound of the blast stung everybody's ears. It echoed across the lake for long angry seconds.

Keeda hesitated. The rifleman remained unseen. Finally, the heat from the burning stones forced the huge Dragon to take two steps backward away from the painful surface.

“I've taken a blood oath,” Keeda called, but his whooping cries lacked their previous angry defiance. “He
needs
killing.”

A spotlight pinpointed the huge Dragon and a penetrating voice rolled across the vast underground chamber, rippling the surface of the lake and bouncing off the distant walls. “Put. The. Man. Down.”

Still, Keeda hesitated. What could they do to him? Kill him? At least, he would die with honor, and in the fulfillment of a blood oath. He hissed in angry confusion. He looked up at the man squirming in his great claw. He really wanted to throw this son of a primate into the hungry water of the chamber.

Sawyer looked up at Keeda and whispered, “I don't think you should do it.”

Finn took a few steps closer and added his encouragement to his brother's; he spoke on the Dragon's own tongue.
“It would dishonor your family to kill him this way—this manner of killing has neither style nor virtue.”

“I have never dishonored my family.” Keeda glowered down at the two men. He looked past them to Kask. “Ask my brother.”

“Then don't start now,” Sawyer said. “
You
ask your brother.”

Keeda looked uncertainly to Sawyer and Finn, then beyond them to Kask.

Kask nodded to Keeda. While he couldn't directly admit the accuracy of Finn's words, still he couldn't deny them either. “If nothing else, we must keep our honor,” he grumbled.

Still Keeda hesitated. He didn't want to give any human a reason to think he had triumphed over a Dragon. At last, he lowered his hand so he could stare directly into Lee's eyes. He roared at the man, “You deserve killing, and I will kill you someday. Not today, but someday I will give you a death that I can brag about. Count on it. I will not betray a blood-oath.”

“I ask of you one thing only,” said Lee, “Hold true to the largest loyalty you can. Someday, perhaps, you might give that loyalty to the Alliance of Life.”

Keeda snorted. Even in death, the man still preached treason. Incredible! He lowered Lee-1169 the rest of the way to the stone surface. He lashed his tail angrily and stamped away. Kask followed him.

Sawyer and Finn exchanged a look that revealed both fear and relief. Lee-1169 looked at them oddly. “Why did you save me?” Sawyer shrugged. Finn shook his head. Both turned away quickly to avoid showing how the moment had affected them.

Now, the lights above came up. On the high ledges and the gun emplacements surrounding the lake, the Dragon Guards stamped and shuffled impatiently; they swiveled their weapons and targeted one prisoner after another. Now, the watchers on the slender catwalks above became visible as stark black gnomes hanging directly over the islands. They appeared as gaunt and mysterious figures behind their spotlights. The beams pierced the gloomy murk, probing and searching like radiant fingers, until each one had isolated a specific prisoner on one of the stone islands. All over the chamber, the inmates began standing up, shielding their eyes, and peering fearfully up into the brooding and ominous glare.

A spectral catwalk led out to a central platform that hung high over the whole chamber. The prisoners could see a tall thin Vampire sweeping angrily to that vantage point, followed by two aides. The Vampire took up his position, leaning out over the railing to look down on his unfortunate charges. He flung back the hood that cloaked his features, and a whisper of recognition swept across the islands below. The Vampire smiled, revealing his gleaming teeth. His incisors glistened long and needle-sharp.

“d'Vashti,” said Harry to no one in particular.

Kernel Sleestak d'Vashti had a needle beam in his left hand. He glared down at Keeda with anger-reddened eyes, he pointed down at Keeda and pinned him in the glare of his beam. He shouted across the entire chamber, his voice amplified like thunder; he aimed his words at the Dragon Guards hulking in the high gun emplacements. “Pay attention! Disobedience never goes unrewarded! Failure never goes unpunished!”

d'Vashti's beam changed color then, became a ray of crimson power—a tractor beam—Keeda struggled against the pressure, but no Dragon had the strength to resist the repulsive strength of a focused singularity field. He began slipping and sliding backward across the stone surface of the island toward the dark water beyond. He glanced once over his shoulder, grunted in dismay, and struggled harder. His huge tail lashed furiously back and forth, but the deadly beam kept pressing him ever closer to the water. At last, he could resist no longer. Waving his arms helplessly, he toppled backward into the murky wet stink.

The water boiled around him. It turned red. It frothed. The Dragon struggled, screaming, surfaced once, scrabbling at the edge of the island—for a moment, he looked futilely into his brother's eyes, then he slid back and disappeared forever. After a moment, the surface of the lake became still again.

Kask stood rigid, horrified. He trembled like a thing possessed. The words came unbidden to his lips. “Keeda did not deserve such a dishonorable death.” Fortunately, he spoke this thought too softly for d'Vashti to hear—or the Vampire would have sent him quickly to join his brother.

Now, d'Vashti glowered around the chamber like an avenging demon. His beam regained its harmless color and began searching through the prisoners, focusing d'Vashti's attention first here, then here, and finally here. The inmates cowered under his terrible gaze. “We will now proceed with the process of selection.”

A groan rose up among the poor creatures on the stone islands. From a hundred throats, it came—a multitude of voices, united in a sad chorus of despair. Sawyer and Finn exchanged a worried glance.

“Selection?”

“I don't want to know.”

A series of ramps came rising up out of the water, bringing rank sewage and dead things with them. Like the spokes of a wheel, they connected all of the islands to an ominous platform at the edge of the lake framed by an ornate curved proscenium. A dark door dilated open in the depths of the arch, revealing a deep crimson glow beyond.

From his vantage above, d'Vashti began picking out prisoners, directing them across the spokes and through the glowing door. His selections included all of the bioform and chimera species, none of the humans. Picking their way carefully to avoid stepping on the most distasteful of the objects left on the still-wet ramps, the varied creatures crossed over to the narrow shelf of stone. They looked uncomfortable and afraid. d'Vashti selected Ota with an offhand gesture, and the LIX bioform followed the others with resignation. It disappeared after them into the red gloom.

Of all the non-human prisoners, only Kask remained unselected. He stood alone, wondering if he should call d'Vashti's attention to his existence, or if wisdom dictated silence. Remembering Keeda, he opted for silence.

The dark door closed and the ramps sank quietly back into the dank and brackish water. As they did, a new set of stone walkways rose up; these ramps stretched between the various islands. They locked into place and d'Vashti began pointing again, directing various prisoners from one disk to another, sorting them into groups by some criterion known only to himself.

He pointed and pointed and pointed again. “You—cross to that platform. You—stay there. You—cross over.”

On the central platform, one prisoner dropped to his knees, weeping. He lifted his arms up to d'Vashti, wailing for mercy and forgiveness, but d'Vashti had already moved on. He strode out onto the catwalks to call down to specific prisoners—again and again, his beam stabbed and selected. The other prisoners moved nervously away from the one who still wept alone and forgotten.

d'Vashti stopped as if he had suddenly remembered something. He looked back at the pitiful man and appeared to consider his plight. “I've reconsidered,” he said calmly. “You may stay there.” Using the slender catwalks like a spider web, he circled around the chamber, once again rearranging his choices, ignoring the grateful slobbering thanks of the man he had seemingly spared.

Shortly, Sawyer, Finn, Lee-169, Kask, and Justice Harry Mertz all found themselves assigned to the same stone island. They crossed to it and stood around uncomfortably looking at each other. What happens now? None of them had either speculation or comment on their situation.

Sawyer whispered to Finn, “How bad do you think it will get?”

Finn whispered back, “
Very
bad.”

“Oh, good.”

“Good?” Finn raised his eyebrow at his brother.

“I guessed right.”

Above, the selection process appeared to have stopped. d'Vashti made one last circuit of the webwork, prowling and peering until he felt satisfied. He moved two more prisoners, telling them to swap their places on different islands. He smiled as he watched them cross, first one, then the other.

At last, he straightened. As the prisoners watched in fear, d'Vashti gave a signal to someone unseen, then turned his attention downward again.

Several of the stone islands began to sink away under the prisoners—including the central platform, still bearing the man who had begged so pitiably for his life. The waters began sweeping up and over the edges. The prisoners on them danced and hopped from one foot to the other. Some of them dived into the water and tried to swim—the water frothed around them—others died where they stood. The pitiful man rose to his feet and screamed enraged curses at d'Vashti. “You betrayer of souls! May you fall into the night forever! I hope that your dying lasts for the rest of your life.” He continued cursing even as the things in the water pulled him down and away, even as he flailed against them, until his final words dissolved into a desperate gurgling rattle.

The dank waters continued to froth and bubble and rage; it seemed as if the horror would never end. d'Vashti watched without comment. When the water at last became silent again, he straightened up and gave an order to the Captain of the Dragon Guard. “Send the rest of them to trial.”

And then he exited. The darkness wrapped itself around him, and then floated down like a blanket to smother the remaining prisoners as well.

In the gloom, Kask began to wail in despair—a series of long low whoops of grief and dismay over the death of his brother. The sound had a horrendous quality. It rolled out through the stench-ridden air, bounced off the walls, and left the nerves of all who heard it raw and quivering.

A crowd of several hundred had gathered for the day's proceedings, filling the Imperial chambers and spilling out into the corridors beyond. Rumors had circulated all over the city about the petitions before the court, and the many Lords and their fewer Ladies, had arrived in their best finery to make a day of it. Because of the great number of Vampires in attendance, the representation of the lesser races had visibly diminished. Nevertheless, the chatter of excited curiosity-seekers filled the ornate-paneled room. Delicately carved screens separated the various court areas. Crimson trim illuminated the pale velvet panels on the walls. Tiny ornate figures peered down from the cornices above—the little gargoyles concealed a battery of recording devices, not to mention an additional battery of assorted weaponry. Just in case.