The Children of Kings

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Pull out . . . came the voice, so faint and distant he could barely make out the syllables, . . . before it is too late . . .

  Pull out? he echoed dazedly. How?

  Out . . . back . . .

  All contact ended.

  Alone, he was alone in a maelstrom of dark and light . . . ripped and shredded into a thousand bits of wispy nothingness . . . Brightness flared, wavered . . . nausea rose in storm-whipped waves . . . muscles spasmed. . . .

  Help me . . . he thought, and then thought itself left him.

  He slammed into something hard. The impact shocked along bones and bruised flesh. Lungs fought for air, but his breath had been knocked out of him.

  Gasping, he pushed against the hardness. He found himself on his hands and knees. One hand curled around something small and sharp-edged. Yellow lights overhead cast a sickly illumination. He made out a man on a makeshift pallet beside him.

  The man stirred. “Garrin?”

  Garrin? In a rush, the last few days came back to him.

  He opened his fist. The starstone glinted with its own inner light. Moving clumsily, he managed to wrap it in its layer of silk and put it back into the locket. His hands were shaking so badly, it took all his concentration to manipulate the clasp, but the movement seemed to help steady his vision.

  “Viss? You’re better?” His mouth formed the words, although his tongue felt as if it were coated with sour-tasting slime.

  “Some. Gods of space, kid, what happened to me?”

  What happened to you? What happened to me? But he knew the answer. In a fit of insanity, he’d accomplished a deep laran healing, one beyond the scope of all but the most powerful matrix workers. Even without Grandmother Linnea’s repeated warnings, he ought to have known better than to attempt such a thing without a monitor safeguarding him, mind and body. Only by the wildest stroke of luck had he and his patient survived. Whether he had sustained any lasting damage remained to be seen.

  Meanwhile, Viss was tugging at his sleeve. “Taz, Lakrin . . . Robbard . . . they okay?”

  Gareth shook his head. Robbard and Lakrin were beyond help, but Taz might need the same cell-deep cleansing.

  Blessed Cassilda, I can’t go through that again!

  Viss seemed to not have noticed that Gareth hadn’t answered. With a sigh, he shifted onto his side, facing away from Gareth, and fell asleep.

  Dizziness lapped at Gareth’s senses. He struggled to remember what he should do . . . food, yes. Linnea had insisted that he eat after a laran session . . . and moving around, to stabilize those parts of his brain. . . .

  But Taz . . .

  Food first, he told himself sternly. You won’t be able to help anyone if you fall over in a faint.

  23

  With an effort, Gareth managed to get to his feet, although he was none too steady. In the process, he remembered something Robbard had said during the last meal, about keeping packets of sweets for the natives. The last thing Gareth wanted was to put something in his stomach, and he had never been overly fond of candy, but it would be better than nothing.

  The stench that greeted him at the barracks door almost brought him to his knees. He clung to the frame, unable to force himself to go in. His only other option, he thought dazedly, was to beg something to eat from headquarters.

  He jumped at the sudden weight of a hand on his shoulder, losing his balance and almost falling against the guard’s solid bulk.

  “Boyo.”

  With heightened sensitivity, Gareth felt the guard’s mixture of curiosity and suspicion and deeply masked kindness.

  “Viss . . . he’ll be all right.” Gareth was babbling, making no sense to himself, praying that he didn’t sound as incoherent to the guard as he did to himself. “I need to eat . . . and then see about Taz. He wasn’t as bad . . .”

  The grip on his shoulder tightened for a moment. Then the guard released him and turned away. Breathing heavily, Gareth leaned against the doorframe.

  Move, he thought, but his legs would not obey. Tears brimmed up in his eyes, further distorting his vision. Savagely he told himself that if he gave up now, he would be throwing away any hope of saving Taz. It did not matter that these were not his kin, his own people. What mattered was that he was the only one who could reverse the poisoning. So he stayed on his feet.

  A few minutes later, the guard reappeared. He brought two of the packaged meals, steaming hot, and a glass bottle of distilled water from the captain’s own supply. At the sight, Gareth’s knees folded under him. His hands stopped trembling enough for him to spoon the food into his mouth. After only a few mouthfuls, he felt a tremendous, overpowering hunger. His body recognized what it needed and demanded sustenance. The water tasted flat but sent a shiver of pleasure through his belly. He devoured one of the meals and drank all the water. By the time he handed the empty bottle back, he was feeling stronger and cautiously hopeful that if Taz needed a similar healing, he would be able to do it.

  “You sure were hungry.” The guard sucked air through his teeth. “Good to go?” Gareth clambered to his feet in response. “When you’re done, you can get to work cleaning up in there,” meaning the barracks. “I left disinfectant and some other stuff for you. Just stay in camp, you hear? You’re a good kid, and it’d be a shame if you got into trouble. Take my meaning?” The guard disappeared into the headquarters building.

  Gareth couldn’t think past tending to Taz, praying he’d have the strength for a second healing. Whether or not he was successful, he wouldn’t have any resources left, certainly not for escape.

  Viss was sleeping quietly, his chest rising and falling in deep, easy breaths. Taz had been in better shape to begin with, and he’d been able to down more of the uncontaminated water. Even so, his skin felt cold and slick with sweat. He shuddered when Gareth touched the side of his face.

  Gareth settled himself, cross-legged, beside Taz. The starstone brightened as he cupped it in his bare palm. A breath lifted him into a near-trance. This time he knew what he was looking for. The memory of the interlacing webs of energy was still fresh in his mind. He wasted no time casting about. As before, he directed his own mental energy into the dying tissues and sensed returning vitality flare up in response. He was relieved to find the damage was not as extensive as with Viss. Taz would have survived without intervention, although his kidneys and liver might have been impaired.

  It was not until Gareth withdrew into his own body that he realized he was alone. The voice that had guided him through healing Viss had not spoken to him again. For a dizzying moment, he wondered if the voice had been real or only a figment of his own desperate need.

  No, he thought as he touched Taz’s forehead, still cool but no longer damp, I didn’t imagine it. He’d reached out, begging for help, and something . . . someone . . . had answered.

  Gareth, like most of his generation, referred to the four primary gods of the Domains—Aldones, Evanda, Avarra, and Zandru—as figures of speech. He didn’t for a moment believe in any supernatural being that could or would answer personal prayers. Yet someone had guided him through the healing.

  The most likely explanation was that Grandmother Linnea had left a residue of her personality and knowledge in his matrix stone, perhaps because she had handled it as his Keeper. Another possibility was that in the extremity of the moment, he’d managed to access buried memories of what she’d taught him about laran healing.

  Yes, that must be it. What else could it have been?

  Carefully, he rewrapped and replaced the starstone in the locket, then tucked the amulet inside the front of his shirt. Weariness drenched him. Hunger gnawed at his edges but did not threaten to overwhelm him as it had before. Even so, he was steady enough on his feet.

  Gareth found the second of the prepackaged meals where he had left it, although it was no longer hot. He sagged against the outside of the barracks to eat. T
he food steadied him but did not entirely lift his fatigue. Instead, he felt the full impact of having expended so much mental energy in such a short time.

  I’ll rest here . . . just for a minute. His head dropped forward. Dimly, he felt the packaging slip from his limp fingers.

  He roused some time later, although he could not have said what had woken him. The camp lay utterly still under a sky that lacked even a hint of western brightness. Stars spread across the heavens, piercing the dry desert air. Of the four moons, only Idris had risen.

  Taz and Viss still slept. By the regularity of their breathing and the resilience of their skin, both were doing well. Gareth went to the door of the barracks. Some of the smell had dissipated, but the muck would be harder to clean when fully dried. He’d best get to it.

  He found a large plastic bottle labeled as disinfectant, as well as a bucket and a bag of cloths and a large, coarse-bristled brush. Sighing, he told himself that if he had been permitted to enlist in the Guards cadets, he would have been assigned similar duties and been expected to perform them regardless of the hour or his own inclinations. Besides, the work needed to be done, and there was no one else around to do it. Taz and Viss were well enough where they were, but only for a time. The night was chilling rapidly and they’d fare better inside.

  Gareth set to work, beginning with the area around Robbard’s bunk. Before long, he’d skinned his knuckles and stubbed his fingers more than a few times. The disinfectant stung his abraded skin. His eyes watered at the smells and the slime, or perhaps from the images that flickered across his mind, fractured impressions of a man struggling to breathe, retching and purging as his body fought to rid itself of the poison.

  Gareth sat back on his heels, brush hanging from one limp hand. Two men were dead, criminals perhaps but not evil men, and now no one would know, no one who remembered them or cared for them. They would never come home, and it would be as if they had never existed. . . .

  His chest heaved, but not with the effort of resisting the waves of nausea. Within him, a great sobbing wail gathered, pushing out through his throat, pouring out into the night. He hunched over, leaning into the brush on both hands, scrubbing and weeping and scrubbing, as if he could scour away the terrible, senseless loss. His nose ran and his eyes burned and his throat ached as if flesh could not contain his grief. He couldn’t understand why he felt so strongly. He’d barely known these men.

  He went on from one patch of filthy floor to the next, from vomit-spattered bunk frames to compact footlockers, each marked with the owner’s initials.

  AT . . . L . . . JV . . . RE.

  The letters, in the Terran alphabet, brought him up short. So Robbard had been a first name, a personal name. E must stand for a family.

  Gareth crouched beside the lockers of the two dead men, running his hands over the initials. He picked them up, stacking one on top of the other, and got to his feet. They were surprisingly light. Perhaps the dead men’s other possessions remained on the starship. The best thing to do would be to take the lockers to Captain Poulos.

  “Captain? Captain Poulos? Offenbach, are you there?” No one answered when Gareth set down the lockers and rapped on the door of the headquarters building. He knocked a second time with still no response. The door itself had been secured.

  Gareth started back toward the barracks, thinking to leave the boxes there until morning, when he realized that the crawler was missing. He rushed over to where it had been parked with a growing sense of dread.

  Poulos, Offenbach, the guard—gone!

  Gareth halted on the scuffed and empty site. In the depths of a laran healing, he would not have noticed a herd of banshees stampeding through the camp, let alone a crawler leaving it.

  In the next heartbeat, he realized where they had gone. And why.

  Gareth reached the hills at an adrenaline-fueled run. Between Idris and the stars, there was barely enough light to make out the trail. His feet pounded up the slope.

  The trail steepened, following the folded contours of the earth. He stumbled on the rough footing, once or twice almost going to his knees. Fire bathed his lungs. His heart thrummed. Heat radiated from his body, but the wind of his passage dried his sweat almost as quickly as it dampened his skin. He pushed himself even harder.

  He tripped on a stone the size of his hand and went sprawling. Somehow he managed to catch himself on his hands. The impact knocked the breath out of him. He sat back on his heels, rubbing his hands. His whole body rocked with the force of his breathing.

  Wiping his hands on the thighs of his pants, he clambered to his feet. Tiny bits of gravel had embedded themselves in his skin. The abrasions stung as they bled.

  Gulping in one breath after another, he took his bearings. His headlong rush had brought him much farther than he’d expected. Below him, yellow lights marked the off-worlder base. When he peered at the trail above, the top of the ridge seemed almost within reach.

  The hills around him lay so still, he felt as if he were the only living thing in the world. Above him, the stars had faded. Idriel hung low on the horizon.

  If he had not been listening to the velvety silence of the night, he might have missed the sounds from the other side of the ridge top. Over the hammering of his heart, he caught the whine of a motor, the grinding of metal treads on loose rock.

  Without a second thought, he scrambled off the trail. A moment later, a pair of headlights appeared where the trail cut through the top of the hill. They seemed to hover for a moment before descending. The trail curved away, taking the crawler out of direct sight, but the noise of its approach grew louder.

  Gareth flattened himself against the boulder. He told himself that the passengers could not hear the beating of his heart over the sound of the engine. They were not searching for him. They had no reason to believe he had left the camp.

  But as soon as they arrived, they would know differently.

  The crawler was almost upon him now. He smelled its exhaust. Just as it passed, he heard a voice—Poulos, he thought—but could not make out the words. Then the vehicle was descending toward the camp and he could breathe again. He was shaking, his hands clenched so tightly that his fingernails dug into his abraded palms.

  Slowly he got to his feet. A hint of pastel light touched the eastern sky. At least he knew where the crawler and its riders were. With that thought, the sense of urgency that had been blanketed by the near encounter returned in full. This time, however, he kept control of himself. He climbed steadily and deliberately, not in headlong haste.

  Shortly after Gareth began his descent on the far side of the ridge, the village came into view, bracketed between two arms of dark rock. He stumbled to a halt. His muscles went lax in horror.

  Even in the ebb of night, he could see the village, or what remained of it, burning.

  Lines of flame marked wooden structures, sheds and huts, and the rails of livestock pens. Here and there, stone walls created blots of darkness. Nothing moved against the brightness.

  He plunged down the trail, half-flying, half-tumbling. Pebbles sprayed out from under his feet. He slid and slipped but somehow kept going.

  Dark Lady Avarra, may I not be too late!

  No, there was someone below . . .

  Gareth pushed for more speed. He burst on to the flat and sprinted for the village, speeding through the outskirts. He passed a few of the poorer huts, distant from the rest, that appeared to be intact.

  He rounded what was left of a livestock pen. Half the railings had fallen away and the rest were burned nearly through. Goats darted this way and that, bleating piteously. The largest rushed at him, then skittered to a halt and reared on its hind legs. The fire cast weird reflections on its eyes. Its pupils were so dilated, they looked round. Incensed, Gareth aimed a kick at the nearest post. His foot collided with fire-weakened wood. The post shuddered but held. A second kick, and the rails on
one side broke into burning fragments. The goats bolted through the opening. Something on the other side screamed.

  Another goat . . . a horse or an oudrakhi? Or—please, Dark Lady, no!—a human? The sound was so distorted, he could not be sure.

  The well, where was the well?

  Anyone able to get out of danger would already have done so. There might be wounded . . . he’d need water.

  Another frenzied sprint brought him to the center of the village. The stench of charred flesh hit him like a physical blow. A pall hung in the air, a smothering psychic miasma, the residue of terror and pain. A lungful of smoke provoked a coughing fit.

  That pile at the very place where he’d feasted with Cuinn and the others . . . that lumpy sprawling heap . . . was bodies.

  Bodies . . . he forced himself closer . . . charred and twisted, but not by natural fire.

  Blasters . . . they’d used blasters on the villagers!

  Gareth doubled over in a renewed spasm of coughing. The last dregs of the adrenaline that had fueled his race over the hills vanished, leaving a sickly, roiling chill in his guts. Ignoring the pain, he balled his hands into fists and pressed them over his mouth.

  This was all his fault, his! He had been unspeakably arrogant and puerile, picturing himself off on a great adventure—Race Cargill of the Terran Secret Service!—heedless of the consequences. Now his friends had paid with their lives.

  Stop it! he raged at himself. This was the worst indulgence of all, wallowing in self-pity instead of taking action, as if his ego were more important than those who might still be alive. He sent a promise to whatever god might be listening that whatever happened, whatever good he might be able to accomplish, he would claim no credit for it.

  Nausea crested. Somehow he resisted the wave of retching. Then it receded. Letting his hands fall at his sides, he inhaled sharply. The fires had almost burned themselves out, and the eastern sky was visibly brighter. At least, stone and sand and bare earth could not burn. The survivors, if there were any—