King's Sacrifice

by Margaret Weis

  The shuttlecraft landed on Phoenix, His Majesty descended, to be received by a glittering assemblage: Admiral Aks, looking worried and gray and harried around the edges; Captain Williams, smooth and personable and determined to cover himself with glory; Baroness DiLuna, daunting, haughty, self-satisfied; Rykilth, pleased with himself, to judge by the color of the vaporous fog surrounding him; Bear Olefsky, huge, stalwart, towering as a mountain; General John Dixter, stolid, reassuring, slightly rumpled.

  Dion tread the red carpet that spread beneath his feet like a river of blood and received their formal bows with calm dignity, mindful of the watching eyes.

  Soon, when all was ended and the vidcams were shut down, the 'droid reporters escorted from the ship, the people would shut off their vids and go about their ordinary lives.

  Dion would descend into hell.

  And if he came back, they would cheer him and love him and crown him their king. And if he failed, they would forget him and wait for someone else.

  Had he ever had a choice? Was what Maigrey said true? Was he standing here now by an act of divine intervention? Or had he made the decisions that brought him to this point? Was he acting of his own free will? Or was he being fooled into thinking he was by some snickering omnipotent being?

  He remembered Platus, who wanted the child to be ordinary, but who had named that child after Plato's hope of a good and wise ruler.

  He remembered Sagan, killing Platus. He heard again the Warlord's voice, Perhaps I came to rescue you.

  And Abdiel's voice, You can use the power of the Blood Royal. You have only to reach out your hand, my king, and take it.

  He remembered golden eyes, a shield held in front of him. He hadn't spoken of what he intended. He hadn't had the courage. Oh, he'd told her about DiLuna, about his promise to marry another. That much, Kamil had a right to know. There would be no lies between them. But not this. Not his decision to do . . . what must be done. Tusk was right, something might happen. Fate . . . God . . . chance . . . might intervene.

  Might save him from himself? Is that what he wanted?

  "Your Majesty." Admiral Aks came forward. "We have received a signal from the Lady Maigrey. She is making the Jump across the Void."

  "We will follow," said Dion, rubbing the palm of his right hand, as if it pained him.

  Book Four

  Where all life dies, death lives. . . .

  John Milton, Paradise Lost

  Chapter One

  Day after day, day after day

  We stuck, nor breath nor motion: As idle as a painted ship

  Upon a painted ocean.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

  Night watch.

  No different from the day watch, except by the clock. Powered by strange winds of pulled-apart quarks, racing past the light of stars left far behind, the Belle sailed across the Void at speeds only the aweless minds of computers could calculate.

  And yet, to those aboard, it seemed they stood motionless, becalmed.

  Agis came onto the bridge, stood behind the pilot's chair, looked over the half-breed's shoulder at the instrument readings.

  "All goes well?"

  "She go very well," said Sparafucile, stretching in lazy satisfaction.

  The half-breed uncoiled himself from his seat, unwinding body parts as if he had no bones. Just how he sat for hours unmoving, Agis had never been able to determine. Eyes almost completely shut beneath his thatch of tangled hair, Sparafucile either hunched over or curled up or slouched down, or perhaps a grotesque combination of all three. Settling himself in, he never shifted position for the duration of his watch, which was four hours. A casual observer might have supposed the half-breed had fallen asleep. That casual observer, trying to sneak past Sparafucile, would have been dead wrong.

  Agis remained standing, after the assassin had removed himself. The centurion disliked sitting down just after the half-breed had vacated the chair. He left behind an unpleasant warmth, to say nothing of the lingering, objectionable odor. Agis always spent the first half hour of his watch standing.

  Sparafucile grinned at him, as if he knew exactly what the centurion was thinking, and left the bridge, heading out to do God knows what.

  Agis gave the chair a disgusted glance and, pouring himself a cup of hot coffee, leaned against the console and concentrated on monitoring the instruments.

  Watch was extremely boring, vitally necessary, which was why the Lady Maigrey had scheduled the three of them— herself, Agis, and the half-breed—four hours on, eight hours off.

  Agis kept his eyes on the instruments, fixing one part of his mind on its monitoring duties, setting his inner mental alarm to go off when required. That done, he sipped his coffee and allowed the other portion of his mind not currently engaged to travel through time and space in the opposite direction, travel back to where it always traveled at times like this: back aboard Phoenix.

  The centurion could not remember a time in his life when he had not been a soldier. He assumed there had been one. He assumed he'd had a childhood, parents, a home, perhaps a dog. No conscious memories of such a past existed for him, however. It wasn't that such memories were unhappy ones, deliberately shoved aside. They were simply unimportant. He couldn't have told, without looking up his record, his real name.

  Life began for Agis when he entered the military. He'd been an exemplary pilot, whose skill and daring won him the attention of the Warlord. The proudest moment in Agis's life was his acceptance into the ranks of the Honor Guard. Agis's second proudest moment was when he'd attained the rank of captain of that elite corps.

  He was with them now, in spirit, if not in body.

  "Cato is a good commander," he said to the flashing numbers on the screen. "He will serve the young king well. And he'll be able to adapt to being captain of the Guard for a king, as opposed to that of a Warlord. I'm not certain I could have. He'll be going through hell now, though."

  Agis pictured in his mind the myriad duties required of a captain whose king is not only going to war, but was going to war in the company of dubious allies against an extremely hostile neighbor in that neighbors own territory, outnumbered zillions to one.

  But if all went well, if they beat the odds, if they pulled this off, Cato could find himself captain of the Palace Guard, a force whose existence had been wiped out the night of the Revolution. Honor, glory, wealth, even a chance for retirement, a pension—a thing never expected in the Warlord's Honor Guard. One rarely grew old in Sagan's service.

  I won't, Agis thought with a smile.

  The coffee had grown cold, he set the cup down.

  Agis had no regrets. On the contrary, he would have had it no other way.

  "No matter what happens, even if we win, even if we defeat our enemy, I have the foreboding that I will be the last of the Guard to serve my lord. And so it's better this way. Cato will make a good captain of the Palace Guard. Yes, it's better this way."

  Calmly, at peace, Agis took his seat in the now-cool leather of the chair and devoted his full and complete attention to his duty.

  Night watch. Another night.

  Xris made his way to the engine room, prepared to take over the watch from one of his men. Like Agis, Xris was mainly responsible for watching numbers, monitoring equipment. But the numbers he watched indicated the functioning of the engines and the computers that ran the engines, and unlike Agis, Xris and his men were required to spend considerable amounts of time constantly adjusting, altering, repairing the complex systems.

  The cyborg read the log from the last watch, checked his instruments, ordered his men to go get some sleep. Harry complied. Britt emerged from somewhere back in the depths of the engine just as his replacement, Bernard, came through the door. Two men were required in engineering, working eight-hour shifts.

  "Never thought," said Britt grimly, removing the badge that measured the amount of radioactivity his body had absorbed and tossing it down on the desk, "that you'd turn me into a
n engineer, Xris. Being bored to death is a hell of a way to go."

  The cyborg smiled, shook his head. Leaning back in his chair, he pulled one of the black twists of tobacco from a pack stashed in a pocket, lit it. "Things'll liven up soon enough."

  "Yeah? Well, I tell you, I'm going to be so happy to get to Corasia that I'm liable to throw my arms around one of the buggers and give it a big hug. Maybe kiss the ground it rolls on. Can I bum one of those from you?"

  Xris blew smoke. "I thought you quit."

  "Yeah, I did. Thanks."

  "Speaking of hugging the Corasians, that's about what we're going to be expected to do when they come on board."

  "Yeah, so Lee said. How do we know that they just won't decide to add us to the items already on their menu?"

  "We don't. But the lady plans to convince them that we're wanting to establish a regular supply route. 'Fresh meat delivered right to your door.'"

  "You think it'll work."

  "It's got possibilities. The black market trade in human flesh and technology has picked up over the years. Back when I was with the agency, rumor had it that people in very high places were involved. The Corasians aren't stupid, even if they do all think with one brain. They're bound to figure that they can gain more by cooperating with us than making us a midday snack."

  The augmented hearing of the cyborg caught the sound of the mincing, high-heeled gait of the Adonian, the shuffling whisper of his raincoated companion.

  "Company coming," he warned Britt.

  "Who?"

  "The pretty boy."

  "Cripes!" Britt looked alarmed. "I'm out of here. That guy gives me the creeps."

  "Did I hear someone mention a midday snack?" asked Raoul, entering the engineering room. "I made sandwiches." He held in his bejeweled hands a box containing food and steaming cups of coffee.

  Britt gave the sandwiches a horrified glance, shook his head. "No, thanks. The boys and me, we've been cooking our own meals." He edged his way out the door, disappeared in haste.

  Raoul gazed after him. The Little One rustled in his raincoat, shook what presumably was its head beneath the large hat.

  "The Little One remarks that this man of yours seems to hold an antipathy toward us."

  Xris nodded, puffed on the twist. "Got a thing against being poisoned. He's funny that way." Reaching for a sandwich, he removed the twist from his mouth, took a bite, chewed it stolidly.

  "But not you?" Raoul asked, placing the box upon the console, removing hard-boiled eggs, fancifully cut slices of pickle, knives and forks, and silk napkins monogrammed with the liner's name.

  "Me," said Xris, eyeing the sandwich, "I figure poison would be the lucky way to go. Don't you, Adonian?"

  Raoul smiled in polite agreement, flipped his long hair back over his shoulders with a graceful gesture of his hands, then returned to fussing with the pickles. Xris finished one sandwich, picked up another, paused to frown at a flickering indicator light.

  The cyborg tapped at the light with the fingernail of his good hand. The light began to burn steadily. He leaned back in his chair, chewed on the sandwich, gazed at the Loti.

  Raoul was looking particularly charming today, wearing a long-sleeved silk blouse tucked into skintight black toreador pants with lace stockings and six-inch heels.

  "I hear you and your friend there are planning to go in with us when we reach—what is that name her ladyship calls our destination—the Stygian caverns."

  "Yes." Raoul was repacking the box that contained additional sandwiches, redistributing the coffee cups to balance them better. "Your information is correct."

  "You going in there high heels and all?"

  "I believe," said Raoul pleasantly, "that for the battle I will change into flats."

  Xris grunted, took the twist from his mouth. "Can you shoot?"

  "Oh, dear, no," said the Loti, the shock sending a mild ripple through his euphoria. "At least I could," he added, after some consideration, "but there's simply no telling what I'd hit."

  Xris put the twist back between his lips. "Going to be kind of difficult, poisoning Corasians, isn't it?"

  "I don't really care much about the Corasians," said Raoul, lifting the box, preparing to depart. "I trust those who can shoot them will shoot them. It is Abdiel and his mind-dead disciples against whom the Little One and I"—he nodded at his diminutive companion—"have sworn to take revenge."

  "And how are you going to manage that in the middle of a firefight? Run up in between laser bursts and ask them if they'd like a bite to eat?" Xris snubbed out the butt end of the twist on the china saucer of the coffee cup.

  "How amusing." Raoul laughed delicately. "But not to worry. We have our little ways." He paused, cast a limpid glance at the sandwich from beneath blue-and green-drenched eyelids. "Enjoy," he said, and he and his companion tripped off down the corridor.

  Xris looked at the sandwich, shook his head, shrugged, and finished eating it. Lighting another twist, he stuck it in his mouth, went back to his work.

  Night watch. Again.

  Brother Daniel rose from his kneeling posture, grimacing slightly at the tingling sensation of blood returning to numb legs. Carefully he folded the leather scourge, whose numerous strips felt incongruously soft in his hands, soft and wet with blood. He tucked it away, thrusting it in a nondescript bag that contained a silver chalice, a small dagger, his prayer book.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Tomi's voice was lucid, only slightly groggy.

  Brother Daniel, startled, very nearly dropped the bag. Had he miscalculated? Surely, she should not be coming out of the drug so soon. How many hours, days had passed? Not that many . . . ? He looked at the clock, but was confused. He couldn't remember when he'd last given his patient the injection—an unpardonable sin for a nurse.

  He glanced at the record sheet, kept on the nightstand, at the record made in his neat, precise handwriting, since he lacked a personal computer that he would have had aboard Phoenix. Yes, he'd miscalculated, made a mistake.

  Silently, inwardly, he rebuked, reproached himself. Never before had anything like this occurred. He had been the model, the one all looked to for support in times of crisis. He was one of the few who had remained calm during the enemy bombardment of Phoenix, one of the few who had remembered to keep records at all during that terrible time.

  Now he was tailing apart, crumbling, failing his patient, failing himself, failing God.

  Or was God foiling him? Why weren't his prayers, his desperate prayers, being answered?

  Biting his lips against the pain, Brother Daniel drew on gingerly a shirt over the fresh and bleeding wounds that striped his back. The shirt was too big, fit loosely over the slender frame, fit more loosely than it had when this voyage of the damned began.

  Daniel heard the sheets rustle. Looking in the mirror, opposite him, he saw Tomi struggle to prop herself up on her elbows. "I've seen a lot of weird things in my time," she stated. "I've seen guys who paid women to whip them, and women who paid guys to whip them, and just about every combination beyond that, but I never saw anyone whip himself. You get some sort of sick thrill out of that?"

  Daniel did not respond. Carefully, he buttoned the shirt. Then, carefully, he prepared the next injection. Turning around, keeping his eyes on the bed sheet that he would change when the patient was, once again, comatose, he stepped forward.

  "Don't, please!" Tomi pleaded. Her tone was no longer tough, but soft, vulnerable, frightened. "Not for a little while, at least. An hour. Give me an hour. Just to . . . talk. I promise I won't say anything you don't want to hear. We'll talk about . . . each other. About you. I want to understand you."

  Daniel hesitated. The hand holding the air injector trembled. He kept his eyes fixed on the rumpled sheet, but he could see her arm, bare, round, shapely, muscles well defined, skin dark and smooth against the lemon-yellow fabric.

  "You don't know how horrible it is," she continued, her tone pitched low. The hand, numbed by the paralyzer around
the wrist, twitched involuntarily. "I keep thinking, when you give me that drug, that I'll go to sleep and never wake up. Or that if I do wake up, it'll be in some Corasian slave—No! I'm sorry. I won't talk about it! I promise. Tell me, tell me why you did . . . that ... to yourself. I want to understand you, truly."

  Daniel shifted his line of vision, moving up the arm to the face. Her black eyes, still clouded somewhat by the drug, held nothing in them that he did not already hear in her words— fear, desperation, and interest, an interest in him.

  Surely, an hour wouldn't hurt. He laid the injector down on the nightstand and drew up his chair, this chair where he had spent so many long and tortured night watches.

  Tomi's arm moved. If the hand had been capable, it would have reached out to him. He saw her trying, saw the effort of will that the paralyzers disrupted at the wrist. His heart twisted within him, the pain of his self-inflicted wounds could never obviate the pain of his longing.

  "You wouldn't understand," he told her, sitting down, being careful not to rest his injured back against the cushions.

  "Maybe I would. I had a fight with my boyfriend, once. I went home and I slammed my fist into a wall. Split my knuckles wide open and punched a hole in the plasterboard. But it made me feel better. Though I wished at the time it had been his head instead of the wall I broke." She sank back on the pillow. "Oh, God! I wish I could think straight! I know what I want to say. I know this sounds crazy, but is that why you're hurting yourself? To make yourself feel better?"

  "Yes," lied Brother Daniel.

  "It's me, isn't it? You want me. And you won't take advantage of me. That's sweet." Tomi closed her eyes, smiled dreamily. "I never met a man so sweet. And gentle. I bet you're a real gentle lover. And sensitive. Your touch." Tomi sighed, stretched, arms, legs, her body moving beneath the sheets. "You'd know where to touch a woman so that she—"

  Tomi opened her eyes suddenly. Her voice was husky, muted. "You can have me. We can be lovers. You know that. So what's the matter? You've never been with a woman before? But you know about love, don't you? You've dreamed about it at night You've dreamed about me!" she guessed, the strange ties that sometimes bind captor and captive providing her sudden insight.