Golden Torc - 2 (41 page)

"If? If?" he squealed in mock fury. "You clapped-out old seeress! Are you going to renege on your own Making? Do I have to prove myself to you again?"

He cast down the photonic weapon with a ringing clang and launched himself, suddenly naked as a fish, at the scarecrow figure lounging on the amethyst throne. There was no one else in the chamber and the seat of power was quite large enough for two.

"Enough.. .enough!" she wheezed, laughing until tears trickled through the furrows of her cheeks. "At least let me live to share the triumph and give you your name!" He let her go, still feigning vexation at her apparent lack of confidence. Perched on purple velvet cushions with his legs crossed, he stuck two fingers under his golden torc and pulled. The metal stretched like an elastic band, then sagged as limp as half-pulled taffy. He began to fling the gold about, spinning it thinner and thinner, catching loops of it on the toes of each bare foot and weaving cat's cradles with the flexible filament that had been a golden torc.

"So doubt me, Hag! And I'll give back this silly gift of yours and go my own way. Who needs you? I've got my quiverful of powers all honed and ready at last and I'm a match for any of 'em now! Bring on the Firvulag spooks! Bring on Thagdal and Nodonn!"

"If you would be king, you must play by their rules," she said flatly. "If they suspect that you are fully operant without the torc they may yet combine against you. And strong as you have become, my Shining One, the massed minds of the battlecompany could kill you, given the incentive."

"The fighters are crazy about me. And the ladies think I'm cute!"

"But the Host spreads rumors. They say you co-conspired with Gomnol and Felice's saboteurs. They say that your inept handling led to the closing of the time-gate. Far more ominous, they say that you would mate with the operant woman Elizabeth and engender a race of fully operant humans here in the Many-Colored Land."

"Me and the Ice Lady? What a detumefying thought!" His smirk was as jaunty as ever, but the golden skein melted back into a circle, which he replaced about his neck. He began to put his suit of many pockets back on. "But you may have a point at that. A good thing Elizabeth is about ready to pack it in and fly. I can't understand why she's hung around this long. Not unless she really does give a damn about us after all."

"Don't think of her." The crone patted his head. "Don't think of anything but the Combat. Your participation in the preliminaries should present no special hazard. And no one may challenge you in the manifestation of powers if I nominate you Second Farsensor. But once the High Melee begins you will need to muster all the bravery and cleverness and metapsychic power at your command. It's not enough for you simply to survive the fighting. You must show yourself an inspired leader and a destroyer of the Foe. Then, as the Combat draws to its climax, contingents from all the guilds may rally to follow your banner rather than that of Nodonn! Thus you will be seen as a valid kingly aspirant in the Heroic Encounters at the end." Aiken said in a wistful little voice, "You sure I can't use iron?"

Mayvar cackled. "Oh, you jester.. .on the day when you become King of the Many-Colored Land you may do as you please. But never dream of using the blood-metal in this Combat. It would be said that you were allied to the Lowlives in the north. Why do you think I cautioned secrecy when I gave you the weapon to use against Delbaeth?"

Aiken laced his fingers behind his head and rocked back and forth, contemplating limitless vistas.

"When I'm king we'll change all kinds of rules. With a cohort of gold-torc humans armed with iron, we'll mop up the human rebels and take care of the Firvulag, too. But we won't slaughter 'em-hell, no! Now that the time-gate's closed, I'll have to scrounge up subjects anywhere I can. And look at all of the neat things the gnomies make! Fancy jewelry and chaliko tack and booze that's just stone faraway! Nope-I'll pacify the Little Folks by threatening 'em with the ultimate weapon and we'll have one big happy kingdom under Good King-"

He stopped rocking. His black eyes widened and his mouth dropped in stunned surprise. "Oh, damn," he whispered. "Mayvar can you hear it? It's mostly on the intimate human mode but enough slops over into the gray band for you to pick up if you spread it out and listen sharp. You grab? It's Stein."

"Vengeance," Mayvar said. "He blames you. Incredible!" The golliwog youth sat stiffly on the edge of the amethyst throne, farsensing for all he was worth. "Still no firm conclusion. But mulling it over, the stupid ox... How I promised to keep Sukey safe. But she wasn't kept safe. Ergo, my fault! Can you beat that for idiot logic? Sure as shit, that little broad is unconsciously leaking some part of the truth to him. Women! It'd be enough if she just hinted the miscarriage wasn't spontaneous. Looks to me like there's only one thought moving Stein-blame it on somebody besides himself."

Mayvar said, "You did promise no harm would come to Sukey. The word of a gold-torc nobleman and royal aspirant-"

"What about your precious rules?" he exploded. "Play by the rules, you said! Are you tellin' me now I should have gone against the King and Queen just to spare Sukey a little houghmagandy that shouldn't have done her or the kid any harm? If Stein wasn't such a thick-headed-" Mayvar had cocked her head, still farsensing. "Hear what his mind cries out! This is no joke, Aiken Drum." His tirade against her forgotten, Aiken focused again. The farspoken maunderings of the half-crazed Viking were mostly being broadcast through his torc on the uniquely human spectrum, and they were so chaotic that even human listeners would have been unlikely to expend the effort needed to decipher them. But if a person were patient and lifted aside the ramblings and mutters and the mixed-up business about Sukey-there was something else.

The saboteurs coming to invade the torc factory, thinking they would receive Aiken's help with the Spear. Aiken's cosy arrangement with Gomnol.

"Oh, Christ," breathed the trickster. "His mind-block's going. And with Gomnol dead, my puny redact isn't going to be able to nail the lid back down tight enough."

"You must act at once. If Stein's thoughts are brought to the attention of the Host, they will use him to prove you reprobate and unworthy of aspiring to the kingship. They will serve you as they did Gomnol."

"God... I'll have to get both Stein and Sukey out of here tonight-not wait till after I'm king, like I planned."

"It is late for that course of action." She showed him what the safest course would be, at the same time trembling at her test of him.

"I couldn't," he told her. "Not Stein and Sukey!"

"Alive, they will always be a threat to your sovereignty."

"No! There's gotta be another way!"

"You feel an obligation to them? Your honor? Your halfjesting promise? Your pride?"

"Not them! Anybody else I'll zap to charcoal, but not them." Not the crazy dumb lovers see how they suffer because of one another shrunk/enlarged by the giving but what would it be like? Poor doomed damned saps wondered at but denied by the safe avoider as I avoid/deny you dying womanbodymind. He repeated, "Not them."

Mayvar rose from the throne and swayed there hooded, looking like the calyx of some huge, unopened violet flower. He knew but could not see her fresh tears. "Blessed be my Making. I knew that you were not as Gomnol... and there is another way."

He bounded up and grabbed her by the arms. "What?"

"Remain here and make ready for tomorrow. Trust me. I will see that your friends are sent out of Muriah tonight."

2

ON THIS COMBAT EVE, EVERY TRUE MEMBER OF THE ANCIENT battle-company had thoughts only for the coming clash of Foes, the joint celebration of life and death that they believed was their reason for continuing existence in the Many-Colored Land. But there were a few who had rejected the ancient traditions, and these came together-even one who had not set foot in the capital city for five hundred years-to consider whether or not this year's Grand Combat might be the great turning point foreseen by Brede.

To their exasperation, the Shipspouse herself would not attend the meeting, would not confirm or deny the possibility. "The Combat itself will manifest the Goddess's Will," she had told Dionket,"and then you will know what you must do." But the Lord Healer had not been satisfied with that. What did a mystic know of power struggles? Her vision was so disconcertingly long.

And so he had summoned the leaders among the antibattle faction, even the pair long banished, to a secret chamber deep within the Mount of Heroes; and when Katlinel dared to bring in the two outsiders, the extraordinariness of the times excused it and even lent it a mad kind of suitability.

DIONKET LORD HEALER: Greetings to you all, fellow traitors and peacelovers, and especially to our Psychokinetic Brother Minanonn Heretic, and our Coercive Brother Leyr, so long absent from our cabals, and our distinguished Foeman-

SUGOLL: Ally.

DIONKET:now so fortuitously allied, the Lord Sugoll, ruler of Meadow Mountain, and greatest of those called How-lers... Sisters and Brothers, we are indeed poised on the brink. Say, Mayvar.

MAYVAR KINGMAKER: Aiken Drum is ready. The human youth is fully operant, possessed of all faculties save redaction in a truly remarkable degree. I believe no single Tanu or Firvulag champion will withstand him. Failing catastrophe or a mass attack by the entire battle-company-which cannot happen unless he is attainted unworthy according to our ancient code-he will become king five days hence after defeating both the Thagdal and Nodonn at the culmination of the Grand Combat.

MINANONN THE HERETIC: A human ... barely more than a child.

A trickster, if rumor does not lie! This is your pivotal figure? MAYVAR: I have tested him in all the ways. He is flawed-and who among us is not?-but he will be worthy.

ALBERONN MINDEATER: Kid's got good stuff. Nerve. Heart.

BUNONE WARTEACHER: Jisum! Both kinds.

MAYVAR: He can be cruel, but he is capable of love all unrealizing.

I have been true to my Making.

LEYR THE BANISHED: But-a little human mountebank?

KATLINEL THE DARKEYED: You loved a human once yourself, Father. And our races are merged, for better or for worse.

MAYVAR: Aiken Drum will engender operants. Not so many as Elizabeth might with her fuller penetrance, but enough.

GREG-DONNET GENETICS MASTER: Have no fear, kinfolk! Aiken's genetic assay is colossal! I mean-compare him to Nodonn, for instance. The Battlemaster is gorgeous, but we all know how few pureblood offspring he's sired. And his hybrids haven't a High Table candidate or even a first-class power in the lot.

BLEYN BATTLE-CHAMPION: Who wants to be the one to remind Nodonn of his deficiencies?

(Rueful laughter.)

LEYR: Well, you've seen this boy fight and I haven't. But it's hard to swallow the notion that any human could stand up to Nodonn, much less this stripling with a silly name.

MAYVAR: He will receive another name, according to our custom, after he survives the High Melee.

MINANONN: Look here. Granted this Aiken Drum licks Nodonn in the Encounter-and I'm not nearly so sanguine as you seem to be on that point, Kingmaker-both the post of Lord Psychokinetic and the governorship of Goriah will fall vacant when the boy assumes the throne.

DIONKET: Exactly. And now that Sebi-Gomnol is dead, the Coercer Guild must also seek a new leader.

LEYR: Almighty Tana! Is that why you got Minnie and me back here?

KATLINEL: Father-surely you can best Imidol in the manifestation of powers. His coercive will is much weaker than Gomnol's was.

LEYR: Ye-es, but don't underestimate the enemy, Katy-girl. Imidol won't settle for a simple manifestation the way someone like Aluteyn would. He'll want a battle-trial-minds and weapons during the Melee.

DIONKET: This is true. And you are much older than Imidol, Coercive Brother, and there is considerable risk. But we know your mind. If you were victorious and reascended to the High Table you would play a moderating role... no matter who became High King.

LEYR: Dammit-Minnie's the peaceloving heretic, not me!

ALBERONN: But you'd never favor the extermination of humanity

nor of us hybrids-as does the Host of Nontusvel.

LEYR: Of course not!

KATLINEL: And much as you love Combat between equals, Father, you have scant heart for the senseless slaughter of the Hunt, or the perversion of the Low Melee that has come about since the advent of torced human fighters, or the unsporting tactics used against the Foe in the High Melee itself.

LEYR: Bad business, those gray shock troops and the whole matter of mounting our fighters on chalikos. Small wonder the Foe sulks and makes Lowlife alliances.

DIONKET: The Host must not be allowed to dominate the High Table! We appeal to you, Leyr. And to you also, Minanonn.

MAYVAR: We stand at a crossroads, Brothers and Sisters. We may choose our turning or have it forced upon us.

LEYR: Very well. Perhaps I'm getting soft-headed in my old age... but I'll challenge that young brawler Imidol.

MAYVAR: And you, Minanonn?

MINANONN: You see me allied to your cause in the event of Nodonn's defeat, contending against Kuhal Earthshaker for the leadership of the psychokinetics.

MAYVAR: You have the power. You were Battlemaster once.

MINANONN: Five hundred years gone, before my enlightenment. And you know me little, Kingmaker, if you think that I would sacrifice my principles now to to become a killer once more.

DIONKET: For an end to killing!

MINANONN: Not even for that.

MAYVAR: If the Guild presidency might be decided in a peaceful manifestation of powers and not in battle-trial?

MINANONN: That will never happen under the Thagdal's regime.

MAYVAR: But if our faction forces a change of the rules under a new king?

MINANNON: Then I would willingly aspire. However, until the dawn of that unlikely new day, I must take leave of you, Sisters and Brothers. I fly back to my place of banishment in the wilderness. Farewell.

(He goes.)

BUNONE: Until we meet again, dear Brother Heretic! When our faction controls the Many-Colored Land and I forgo my war-teaching for fancy embroidery!