by Andre Norton
“So Olava had to bide her time until death reached for the King, hoping that before his son might confront the Crown for its choosing, her own candidate might take it. And he was her son—though the King would never let him drink from the kin-cup and thus acknowledge him as a true blood son before the Court, since he was not fully of the Blood.
“When the King died, they went to fetch the Ice Crown for the choosing. Though Olava tried to prevent my grandfather from standing before it, the choosing went as it has always done and he was proclaimed king. However, he was but a child and there were great lords enough favoring Olava to say that the old King had named her regent with them as a council to advise her.
“A common enough tale, one which has been told before. But what had not happened before is that when my grandfather came of an age to put on the Crown and thus assume all power, the Crown, brought from safekeeping for the ceremony, disappeared immediately thereafter before it could be returned.
“For Olava dared what never had been dared before. She took the Crown, meaning thus to defeat my grandfather. And the power of the Crown blasted her as it always does those handling it unlawfully. But before she died, my grandfather finding her privately, she laughed and said that it had gone to Och’s Hide and that only chance might now find it. Her clan, she said, would guard the way to it, and only when it accepted one of them would it appear again.
“Since then there has been this hidden darkness in Reveny. We dared not let any know of the loss. And since it has not yet been needed to hail a new king, the secret has been kept. My father died during a hunt in these very hills, but what he sought was no animal of the chase, but Och’s Hide. Two of my uncles also died young. The third disappeared. And now—King Niklas is very old, and it has fallen on me to take up the search. For if I cannot stand before Reveny with the Ice Crown when death claims him—then our line comes to an end. And Reveny itself will be overrun by Leichstan or Vordain, where true wearers of crowns rule. A land without a crown is a land without name or being. So the Guardians decreed in the far beginning.”
“Has it ever happened that a country did lose its crown?” asked Roane.
The Princess shivered, but with more than just the chill of the passage through which they walked now.
“Once, in Arothner. The crown—it was the Shell Crown, for Arothner was of the sea—was destroyed in a tidal wave. And what followed was horrible. The people—a madness fell upon them. They turned upon their own lords, upon each other, so that all the nations on their boundaries set up armies to keep them in their own torn land. And thereafter it has been accursed and no one goes there for fear the same mind-blasting force might strike them. What was once a great nation with many ships, and the trading city of Arth as its capital, is now only barren waste, and if any still live there, they are no longer men—
“At least the Ice Crown has not been destroyed, for then the same fate would have fallen on Reveny. And to that hope we hold. But it must be found!”
“It would seem that there are those who also know the secret and do not want this crown discovered—if your father and the others died and this has happened to you.”
“Yes.” The Princess’s lips tightened. “I guess and think I guess rightly, though I have no proof, that it is Reddick’s doing. Though I never thought he would go so far as to have me taken out of Hitherhow when it was well known I was within those walls. There must be some desperate need to bring him so into open action. It may be this passage he would protect. Roane, does it seem warmer here to you?”
Ludorica slowed, put out her hand as if to touch the wall, but did not quite complete that gesture.
She was right! The chill which had closed about them in the fore part of the passage was gone. This was like walking under a gentle sun, just comfortingly warm. Roane touched the wall. There was warmth there, more so than in the air about them. And also something else, a faint vibration.
Excitement surged in her. A Forerunner installation still alive? It had happened on other worlds—Limbo, Arzor. If that were possible then this would be one of the big finds, and anything—even breaking cover on a closed planet—would be forgiven the discoverers! This could be the answer to her problem.
“What is it?” Ludorica, watching her closely, must have read the elation on her face.
“I do not know—not yet—” Roane returned quickly and then asked: “Who is Reddick, and why would he want to hold the Crown?”
“Though the King would not claim Olava’s son, he ennobled the boy and gave him command of Hitherhow in his lifetime, a right which must be renewed in each generation. Reddick is his grandson. But so might he have the secret of Och’s Hide. If I can only find the Crown, Duke Reddick has no chance. Then he cannot lay hand to it before the King’s death, or as long as I live—”
“As long as you live,” Roane echoed her meaningfully.
“You mean—but of course! That is why—he had a double purpose.” The Princess nodded. “Stop me from searching, or else make sure if I did chance upon it—Which also means—” Her face now mirrored not only determination and cold anger but also fear.
“Roane, I have not seen King Niklas for five days. It was he who told me I must make haste to find the Crown, gave into my hands all he had denied me for years, the clues he had tried to sift and follow, all that my father and uncles had when they went seeking. Perhaps he is more ill than he would have me know, or else has since grown worse. And Reddick knows this. If the King were himself, the Duke would never have dared to have me stolen from Hitherhow.”
“Do you not have someone to depend on?”
“None sharing the Crown secret. But if I can now find that and reach Yatton or the border, I can cross over into Leichstan with the Crown and gain a breathing space in which to rally the loyal lords. My mother was a princess of Leichstan, though she died at my birthing and he who sits the throne there is but a distant cousin. Yet I can claim blood kin, and all must aid one who wears a crown!”
She flicked the beamer ahead. “Come! If it lies here—do you not see? I must have it, and soon!” Now she began to run.
But the beam had picked up something else, a change in the wall to their right. Roane pressed to that side and then halted at a slab of transparent material. Inside—an installation! It could be nothing else. Rows of machines with here and there a flashing point of colored light. She pressed her face to the glass, trying to see more of what lay there. But the light was too intermittent—she had only glimpses as one flash was echoed by another. Green, blue, red, orange, a multitude of colors and combinations. Yet those did not reflect into the passage where she stood.
“Come on!” The Princess was ahead, paying no attention to what held Roane fascinated. “Why do you stop?”
“The lights—this must be an installation. But what—”
Ludorica came back reluctantly. “What lights?” she demanded, flashing the beamer directly onto the panel, thus revealing two machines of pillar shape inside, spinning off flecks of color.
“What lights?” The Princess pulled at Roane’s arm. “Why do you stand staring at bare wall and talking of lights? Are you mind-twisted?” She dropped her hold, drew back a little.
“What do you see there, then?” Roane asked.
“Wall—just as there, and there, and there—” With a stabbing finger the Princess pointed ahead, to the side, behind them. “Nothing but wall.”
Roane was shaken. But she did see a strange installation behind a transparent panel! She could not be mistaken or imagine that! There could be only one reason why the Princess did not see it too—conditioning!
And such conditioning could mean something else. Roane’s thoughts took a leap into dark surmise. Perhaps what they had uncovered was not Forerunner remains, but rather something left by the Psychocrats who had decreed Clio’s fate. While such a find might not have as much impact as the discovery of a genuine Forerunner installation, it could be important in another way. The Service knew little of the techniques o
f conditioning on the various closed worlds. To discover part of such an experiment might excite those in fields beyond that which Uncle Offlas represented. So she might have a bargaining point after all, some claim for consideration for the Princess.
“It is just bare wall!” Ludorica proclaimed again, still backing away from Roane, now eyeing the off-worlder as if she expected some dangerous outburst.
“A trick of the light.” Roane thought that a feeble answer, but she knew that if the Princess was conditioned she would resist even the thought of what might lie there.
“Trick of the light?” repeated the Princess doubtfully. “Oh, perhaps Olava set her own safeguards against seekers. I have heard of such tricks but they only work with some people.” She now regarded Roane pityingly and put out her hand. “Let me guide you past. I cannot be so bemused, you know. None of the Blood Royal can be caught in a foreset mind-maze.”
Ironic, Roane thought with wry amusement, a case of the blind leading the sighted. But if the Princess was willing to accept that explanation, she should be thankful. She did not look again at the panel.
Shortly thereafter the nature of the passage changed. The wider, smoothed walls gave way abruptly to a narrower way with rough rock on either side—as if those who had cut this path had used a natural break in the cliff for their purposes and this was the original cave unmarked by their improvements.
As the beamer caught the narrowing of those rough walls the Princess slackened pace, looked puzzled.
“Why should it change so?” she asked, more as if she questioned in her own mind than expected an answer from her companion.
“Do you still think this is Och’s Hide?”
“What else could it be? There would be no other reason to cut a passage through rock. Yet—”
“Wait!” Roane lifted her free hand, held it before that crevice. “There is air—a current of it. Maybe there is another way out ahead.”
They found the narrow passage a rough one. Twice walls closed in, so that they had to scrape through, and Roane had no idea how far they might be from the entrance. What if those from camp cleared the blockage there and did not find her? But at least they would have her report and so go exploring. Of course, the men might run into difficulties raised by some hunting the Princess and thus be delayed.
As they emerged into a wider space Roane spoke: “I do not know about you, but I am hungry.”
“Do not speak of food!” retorted Ludorica. “When one has nothing, it is better not to dwell on that lack. Let us get out of here—”
“But I have provisions of a sort,” Roane countered. There was no use in trying to conceal such things as tubes of E-ration when so much else in the way of cover had been broken, and she was painfully hungry.
“Where? You carry no provision bag—” The Princess once more turned the beamer on Roane, who had already unsealed her coverall and brought out one of the tubes. There were only two left, and with their rescue still uncertain, it was better that they now divide one between them.
The Princess stared at the tube. “You carry food so? But there is not enough in that to make even a quarter of a meal if you hunger as I do.”
“This is a special kind of food, made for travelers,” Roane explained. “A small portion, say half of this tube, is equal to a full meal. It does not taste as the real food you know, that is true. But it is as good for the body, and it will give us strength. If you hesitate, I shall eat first.” She measured off half the length of the tube, squeezed the contents bit by bit into her mouth without touching the edge to her lips.
Her companion watched her with deep interest. And when Roane had done and passed her the tube, Ludorica put it to her mouth in turn. She made a slight face as she tasted the paste, swallowed.
“It has little flavor, as you warned. Truly I do not think I would relish many meals taken so. But when one hungers there need be little choice of dish; any food will do.” She finished the tube quickly and gave it, empty, back to Roane.
From long training the off-worlder wadded it into a ball, which she hid under a loose stone. The princess had set the beamer upright as one might a candle, and its light reflected from the roof over their heads, showed them that the space in which they now stood was a true cave.
But it showed something else, too. Roane gave a start as she caught sight of it, snatching up the beamer to turn it full upon what lay there. That had been a man once. But she had seen ancient burials enough not to be squeamish. These bones lay half buried under a fall of rock which concealed the skeleton above the waist.
She heard an exclamation from the Princess as the light caught a spark of fire to one side of the crushed bones. Roane stooped to pick up a band of metal in which were set small gem stones. It was a fine piece of work, the stones making small flowers among raised leaves of the metal.
A moment later the circlet was snatched from her hand, the Princess turning it about in her own fingers.
“The arm ring of Olava! This is Och’s Hide! And the Crown—the Crown!” She turned around, searching the walls of the cave as Roane swept the beamer. But the side wall opening which had once existed where the skeleton lay crushed was filled in past their exploration. There was now no opening at all that Roane could see.
CHAPTER 5
“IF IT WAS EVER HERE,” Roane pointed out, “then it must now be buried under that fallen rock.” Privately she thought the bracelet a very small clue.
“But it can be dug free!” Ludorica crowded as close to the mound as she could and still avoid the skeleton. “You say those you know will come to free us from the outer cave. They surely can aid here to find the Crown! Let me but rest my hands on it and Reveny has naught to fear, for then as long as I live no one else can claim it—”
“As long as you live. What then, if, once you have found the Crown, your enemies find you? How long will you continue to live?”
The Princess looked back at Roane, her eyes wide with what might be shock.
“But no common man can raise his hand against the wearer of the Crown; such are under the protection of the Guardians. Any such death must come before the Crown has rested on the chosen’s head.”
“But the Crown now would belong to your grandfather, would it not? So long as he remains alive you will be in danger.”
“True. But if what I fear is also true, and that is in a manner proved by the fact that Reddick moved against me so openly, then the King is very near to death. The Crown will know that; it has many strange powers. All the crowns do. They are the hearts of the countries possessing them and their lives are those of the nations—as was proved at Arothner. No, when your people come they must dig for the Crown. It still exists and I must find it!”
And that influence she was able to exert at times, which Roane recognized but somehow could not resist, brought Roane to half agreement now. Yet enough of her fought that compulsion so that she was able to persuade the Princess to return to the other end of the passage to meet their rescuers.
That Uncle Offlas would come she had no doubt, but how long he would take was another matter. Especially if he had to avoid searchers in the woods. And she said as much in warning to the Princess.
“But you can send a message—though why tapping on that ugly arm circlet carries a message—” Momentarily she was diverted. “I do not know who you truly are. But that you are not of Reveny, nor of any kingdom I know, I will swear to. Had you not brought me out of that tower, I would not—” Again she paused. “But I stand here and not in the hands of Reddick’s men, so I have a measure of trust in you. Send another message to those you say will come to unseal us; tell them to use my name to the garrison at Yatton. There is there Colonel Nelis Imfry. He was of the palace wards before he took service with the March Guards. Summoned in my name, he will come. You may tell your people, if those clicks really talk, to say to him—”
“No.” Roane shook her head. “They will not go to Yatton nor any other place for your guard, no matter what message I send.�
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Perhaps she was wrong in being so definite about that. It might arouse Ludorica’s suspicions even further. But she must make plain before the camp party arrived that they would not give the Princess any help in solving her complicated problems of dynastic inheritance.
“My people are sworn”—she tried to put the situation into words the Princess would understand—“by oaths, very tightly binding, to have naught to do with the affairs of others. I have already broken this oath by what I have done since we met. For this I shall have to pay. But you will find deaf ears if you ask for any aid from those who come.”
They were passing the wall panel which the Princess could not see but which so fascinated Roane. The latter kept her eyes resolutely turned from temptation. And at that moment the com on her wrist flashed. She did not need the beamer light to read the sparked code.
Sandar! But no mention of Uncle Offlas. Only a sharp demand that she turn the call beam higher so that he would have a guide.
“They are here now!” She began to run along the smooth flooring, not caring whether the Princess followed or not.
Back in the entrance cave she again faced that plug of stone and clay, cautiously, since she did not know the force of the tool they would use to clear it. And she threw out an arm to hold the Princess to an equally safe distance.
The latter had given no vocal protest when Roane had denied her help. But she was smiling with anticipation. There was such an aura of confidence about her that Roane was uneasy. Perhaps she should have given her the whole truth in warning—not only that Ludorica could expect no aid, but that those who came might take her into another captivity, that her quest for the Crown might well come to an end here and now. Roane half opened her lips, was about to say what she must, when there was a shifting of earth about the plug. The stone which was its anchor disappeared.
Roane caught her breath. They were using that tool! Then indeed they were ready for desperate measures; such were unboxed only at times of extreme need.