by Andre Norton
"I suppose he did not know where?"
"There could be only one place she would seek," Shara said in her usual toneless voice. "She would go to the Valley of Bones where there is a power to help her."
They were silent. Ishan stared at the girl, and the Lady Banokue looked down at her folded hands on the table top, hands a little plump, with the rings of her rank cutting into her flesh as if she had worn them so long that they were a part of her. Makenagen plucked at his lower lip. As Yolyos relaxed in his seat, Andas thought he saw the Salariki's nostrils expand as if he tested some scent in the air.
"If the off-world mercenaries are alone and those who hired them have, in a manner of speaking, deserted them"—Andas spoke first—"then perhaps we can persuade them that they are contract broke. And if we offer terms, they may surrender in honor."
"It is a trap!"
"That we have a means of testing. We have the skimmer. Suppose we return this prisoner to the mount by it and then await results? Mercenaries do not take kindly to contract breaking on alien worlds. It will depend upon what promises have been made them."
"Shara nodded. "And do not think that such have not been made. There is good reason to believe that oaths have been taken to hold these men even as they died. The heart of the rebellion is not Drak Mount now—it is the Valley of Bones."
"But to get to the valley, I must have something I am sure lies within the mount."
"You have a plan, my lord?" asked Makenagen.
"I have this." Andas showed his hand on the table top. Across the flat of his palm lay the key.
"But you cannot—the temple is under deadly radiation!" Ishan cried.
"Not deadly if one has a radiation suit. I know what I would seek. I can find it wearing such protection."
"No!" Makenagen brought his fist down on the table with force enough to make the blow audible. "You would die. This is too great a risk, and if we have not you, then Kidaya has won and we might as well all put knives to our own throats and have done with it!"
"What do we then?" Andas asked. "Do we wait here until Kidaya and that demon crew think up another evil to send against us? Have we not slipped down far enough into the dark of barbarism? We need what is in the mount, and we need it now! You all know what this means, what force it is said to unlock." He held the key now between thumb and forefinger as a pointer aiming it down the length of the table.
"The temple is impossible," Makenagen repeated. His eyes were on the key, but his head shook stubbornly back and forth, denying any promise it might have.
Andas wished he could accept that as firmly as did this noble. What he held to as the only plan he could formulate was nothing he wanted to do. He was no hero willing to die to accomplish some task that might or might not save the situation. But it was part of the burden laid on him. Only the rightful emperor or his proclaimed heir could hold the key and set it in the place it was meant to go. And he was not even sure what he would unlock if he could accomplish that much, save that he did believe to the full that it would give him the ultimate answer to the life of the empire. And it would seem that the hour had come when they must have that answer or go down to defeat.
If Drak Mount was the well-equipped fortress they claimed, there must be radiation suits there. Wearing one of those, he could enter the temple or its ruins and then—"Take one step at a time," Andas cautioned himself—these were formidable steps.
"Let the prisoner be brought," he ordered Ishan, knowing the longer they sat in council, the less they would decide, and to act was important.
In appearance the man proved to be like those from whom they had captured the skimmer, save that he had lost all self-confidence. But his training held, and he came to attention before Andas.
"You have told us a tale of your troubles," the prince began. To him the prisoner seemed broken in spirit. He could well believe that they had pumped out of him all that was to be learned. But perhaps Yolyos could learn more.
"The plague, Your Mightiness—"
"Just so. And I have also heard that your employer or employers broke faith—is this not so?"
The man looked startled, as if that question had penetrated through his own misery.
"Broke faith, Mightiness?"
"Did not the false rebel Kidaya and her lords withdraw, leaving you, whom she had brought hither to fight for her, to die alone? To the mind of an honest man, soldier, that is breaking contract. Have you not thought of it so?"
"Nothing has been said, Mightiness. We hold to duty."
"Needlessly. Now, soldier, there is that you can do, not only in your own behalf, but also for your whole company—what is left of them by now. You can take our terms to whomever remains of your leaders with authority enough to agree to surrender. We shall grant mercenaries' terms with full honors, oath pledge for that. This is now no battle of yours, for you shall see no pay from those who fled."
"Mightiness, no one can return overland to the mount. I came forth on a skimmer, which failed me. The heavy arms are all on auto and locked there, by the Lady Kidaya's orders. There can be no way for me to get in."
"You came by skimmer—you can return by skimmer. Or have the air defenses also been locked on auto?"
The soldier licked his lips, but his eyes did not shift under Andas's level regard.
"No, Mightiness. It was thought that—that those of your command no longer had any air power. And it was also said, Mightiness, that you yourself were dead, or soon to be so!"
"Yet I am not, nor are we lacking in air power. You will be taken to the top of Dark Mount and there dropped with your grav belt—" Andas turned to Ishan. "He was wearing a grav belt?"
At the captain's nod, the prince continued. "You will carry to your commander our terms. We shall give him the space of a day to consider them. If he accepts, he and at least two of the highest ranking officers under him shall signal from the top of the mount. A skimmer will be sent to bring them to me to give truce oath. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Mightiness."
"Have him ready to go," Andas told Ishan.
"They will not yield." But Makenagen did not sound as emphatic as he had earlier.
"I think that they will. The mercenaries sell loyalty, but it must work both ways. If they believe that contract is broken, they will surrender on mercenary terms. Since we cannot ship them off-world, we shall take their paroles until we can."
"You put faith in their oaths?" Makenagen still fought a rear-guard action.
"You know the breed, do you not?"
"Yes. If they will take trust oath."
"One thing waits upon another." Andas fell into the more formal court speech. "The day grows near, my captains—the audience is ended." For the first time he stepped from battle commander to emperor with that dismissal. They went, save for Yolyos, to whom he made a gesture, and Shara.
"What did you learn?" Andas hardly waited before they had gone to ask.
"First, your traitor is not here. Second, you read that prisoner aright. I think he will do exactly as you wish. Let us hope his superiors do likewise. But what you intend to do, Prince—or should it be 'Emperor?'"
"I believe that which this opens"—Andas stowed the key once more within his clothing (he had shed at last the grimed and badly worn coverall and been fitted with tunic, breeches, and boots)—"will give us the answer to Kidaya at long last. It is the mightiest weapon our race ever knew. We are pledged never to call upon it until the last extremity. And to my judging, we have reached that point. We can wait out the fall of the Drak Mount, and that may take centuries with their defenses on auto—those will run until the energy is exhausted.
"But it is not the Drak Mount that matters so much as the Valley of Bones. For as long as the empire has existed, the Old Woman has menaced it. How does the warning go?" He looked to Shara, who replied.
"Dark spawns dark, evil gives root to evil.
What man has wrought, man can destroy.
But that is the way of man.
&
nbsp; For the other, it is waiting, watching—
And in the end triumph over all.
Night will fall, day comes not again.
Winter's cold knows no spring.
And the dried bones will lie in rows,
But none shall weep,
For there will be no eyes to hold the tears."
"A mournful enough saying," the Salariki commented. "This has some meaning beyond its gloomy surface words?"
"The Old Woman negates all we believe is life. She wears many faces. Sometimes she has sunk to become a bogey with which to frighten children; other times we see her followers walk proudly with power. But there was always the warning of an ultimate confrontation between the power invested in him who can use the key and the Old Woman. I think the time has come—here and now."
"And Kidaya was sent into the world to induce that coming?" Shara mused. "Then all the evil she has wrought here falls into a pattern that one can understand, for if it had been the Empress's crown she wanted, she could have gained her ends without wreaking such destruction on friend and foe alike. She has had choices, and always her choice has fallen in a way to bring more chaos. So you take the weapon of the key. And where do you bear it—to the Valley of Bones?"
Andas suddenly felt very weary, like a man pushed to the edge of endurance who must yet stoop and add another burden to a load he already carried. "Where else?" he asked her simply. He had never wanted to do more than what now seemed light and pleasant duty in his own time. But there was no turning back. From the moment he had laid hand on the key, he had chosen the path that led straight here, and he could not turn aside, even if he would.
"But not alone," she protested.
He was too tired to argue. Sometimes when he was alone (which seemed to be very seldom now), he would close his eyes and rub his fingers across the lids, as if to so rub away all the light and sound about. Without Shara he could not have played his part for an hour. Sometimes he wished she would let him blunder into self-betrayal so he could be free.
Now he went to the window of the small room to which the rule of the empire had shrunk. For a space action was out of his hands. All hung now on the surrender of Drak Mount.
"Emperor"—Yolyos gave him the title without any of the accompanying honorifics his own people used—"there is someone coming and"—he had faced around, his nostrils dilated—"this is not right—"
Andas had no chance to ask for explanations, for the door sentry looped back the blanket that served as a curtain.
"Lord, it is the Arch Priest with tidings of urgency."
"Let him enter."
The man whom came in was twin to the Kelemake Andas remembered. He had not followed the universal habit of eradicating his beard, but sprouted a small growth on his chin, trimmed into an aggressive point. His voluminous robe was not as shabby as the garments of the rest of the garrison and was the russet-red of the temple. And he also had the conical, pointed miter of his rank, though this was not jeweled in regal splendor, but merely carried on its front a silver representation of the key. A like replica depended on a long chain about his neck.
Andas had seen him twice since he had come to the fort. But both times it had been a purely formal meeting in company. It seemed to him that the Arch Priest, instead of making a point to welcome his emperor back, had, as unobtrusively as possible, chosen to escape any direct communication with his leader. But he was here now and seemed eager for an interview.
"Pride of Balkis-Candace"—his voice was that of a man who had learned to use it effectively with audiences—"the message is that we move on Drak Mount."
"After a fashion," Andas agreed. "An offer for surrender—"
"These off-worlders, these evil ones—they should not be allowed parole!" There was a glint in the priest's eyes now. How much dared Andas judge this double by the man he had known? Of old such a look meant that Kelemake, the scholar, was preparing to rip to shreds some long-held belief.
"They are mercenaries. We shall offer them the usual peace by oath."
"When such as they have despoiled this world, brought the empire to dust? Pride of Balkis-Candace, those who have passed beyond will not be honored by such mistaken mercy. I pray you think again before you offer terms to drinkers of blood. Let them stay and die in the hole into which they have sealed themselves."
"Much the easier way." Andas hoped that he sounded reasonable. The priest's attitude was a little strange. Theirs was not usually a cry for revenge. "Save that it may take years. And we do not have years to go on starving out our own existence. If this struggle can be brought to an end, then the oaths are worth it."
"There will be no peace with Kidaya!" Kelemake fairly spat. "And she is not at the mount."
"No. She is where we must seek her."
Kelemake showed his teeth in what might be a smile, savoring of contempt. "Doubtless with weapons taken from the mount. Which perhaps might be a worthy plan, save that those with whom she shelters now have such weapons as can put to naught any taken from Drak."
"Not at all." Andas's hand went to his tunic breast beneath which lay the key. "There is this." On some impulse he did not understand, he drew forth his heritage. Again it seemed that the light in the room gathered to it.
The change in Kelemake was astounding. His hand had been resting on his own silver key, the badge of his office. Now he twisted that up and out as if thus he held a cutting weapon. But whatever he intended was never completed, for Yolyos sprang. The Salariki had been edging to the side, and his sudden attack beat the priest of his knees. A second chop from the alien's hand collapsed him. Yolyos stopped and jerked loose the key, examined it, and a moment later uttered a deep growl.
"A fine toy indeed for a priest, Emperor. Behold!" Holding the key as Kelemake had done, he moved closer to the table. There was a click, and in the wood of its top quivered a tiny dart hardly as long as a cloak pin, which must have been fitted snugly into the shaft of the key.
"Do not touch it!" Yolyos swept out an arm to keep Andas back. "There is a very suspicious smear on it. But I will tell you something else. This"—he stirred the body of the priest with a boot toe—"was not a man—not as we know men."
"Android?" Andas jumped to the one conclusion ever with him.
"No, he was human once. What he is now, perhaps your followers of the old Woman can best name. But this is your traitor or I never have sniffed one with more of such stink!"
"Kelemake!" breathed Shara. "But the priests, they are armored against the Old Woman. They have to be, or they could not function as priests."
"But how long has it been since there was a temple with protective safeguards to uncover such?" Andas asked. "You smelt his treachery?"
"I picked up a foulness like those woods creepers, enough to know he had kinship with them. And he came here to kill you, which suggests one thing—that those you would face hold you in fear. Perhaps this last plan of yours is what they dislike."
"But how would they know—we have only just discussed it?"
"Did not you show me those eye and ear holes in that palace of yours? If there are not such in the walls hereabouts, then this one had his spies. He must have been worried indeed to risk killing you before witnesses and so betraying himself. Either he planned to kill us also, or else he has served his master—or mistress—as much as he can and was due to be discarded. How better quit the service than in a blaze of glory, removing the chief threat with you?"
Andas knelt beside the priest, turning the body over. He did not expect to find Kelamake dead. Surely Yolyos had not struck that hard. But he was, and Andas searched the man. He did not know what he sought, save that there might be some link between this traitor and the enemy. And he found it at last in the interior of the miter, lying directly behind the key symbol. It was a tiny device, which, when he tried to rip it free, proved to have a whole network of very fine wires buried in the sides of the headgear where they might touch the skull of the wearer.
That skull was shaved as wa
s customary among priests. Yolyos squatted down on the other side, looking first at the cap and then at the skull. Suddenly he put forth a hand, extending the claws on two fingers to their greatest extent, and made a savage pass across the skin, tearing it open. No blood flowed, and they could all see the glint of metal that ripping had uncovered. The priest wore a metal plate as part of his skull.
"More of your Nessi dealings," Yolyos commented. "They appear to temper their magic with science, if one can call it that."
Andas stood up. "The sooner we visit the Valley of Bones, the better," he said between set teeth.
-17-
Andas paced back and forth. The rooms in this small fort, never meant to serve as more than an outpost, were not intended for pacing. He could cover the space in about four medium strides. But he could not sit still with the thoughts that clawed at his mind, even as the Salariki had clawed free the Arch Priest's secret. How many more of those gathered at this heart of the command were more—or less—than they seemed to be? He had only Yolyos's talent to "smell" out the enemy.
Dark old tales came unbidden to his mind. Once his people had worshiped gods who turned their faces from the light, who were to be appeased only with blood sacrifices. Only the Old Woman existed still from that time. Then kings had kept about their persons "witch doctors," men and women supposedly with the gift of literally sniffing out prospective enemies. The result had depended upon the whim of those doctors. And the innocent must have suffered with the guilty many times over. Yet Andas could not believe that those of human breed had ever been gifted with Yolyos's talent. And he should be thanking Akmedu that not only had the Salariki followed him into this waking nightmare, but that he was also comrade in arms.
The alien sat now, cross-legged, in a deep window seat, watching Andas. He had refused the clothing of the Imperial forces, save for breeches, boots, and a cape. Apparently to cover his furred upper body caused him discomfort. And he held to his nose a wilted green ball he had clung to ever since they had left the woodland, though the aroma of those herbs and leaves had faded considerably since they had been gathered.