“I’ll follow as I can,” Felph said, then laughed. “ ‘No greater love hath a man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends!’ You see Orick, I’m just like your Christ. I’ll be your messiah today.”
Orick did not laugh. It seemed sacrilegious to do so. Still Felph continued. “I lay my life down, but I shall take it—up again!” He staggered to his feet, grabbed a darkfriend in one hand to use as a light, and said, “Hide not your light under a bushel, Orick. Let your light so shine, that others will see your good works and glorify your father in heaven!”
Four thousand years old, Orick realized, and in all that time, all Felph had learned from the Scriptures was to mock them.
Orick turned and ran, following the fading light that Athena carried. Felph cackled and shouted epithets as he ran. Once he looked back, saw Felph struggling up the trail. Orick was a fast bear, and strong. He caught up to his friends shortly. In a moment, the sound of Felph’s cackling died away. A moment later, he heard a dull thud that might have been a distant explosion.
Had Felph fired his weapon?
Orick held his breath, but did not stop. His blood so pounded in his veins he could not be certain, but he fancied that another shot followed, then a wailing scream.
Perhaps. Perhaps he imagined it. Orick ran for his life.
Chapter 18
Thomas Flynn regarded himself as pragmatic. He wanted little from life—a woman to keep him warm at night, decent food in his belly, a fine instrument to play. And he wanted to live forever.
But now, as a slave with Lord Karthenor’s Guide directing his every action, Thomas’s hopes grew cold.
The morning after he’d killed the shepherd’s wife for Lord Karthenor, Thomas Flynn conjured an escape plan. He did not know how to remove the Guide Karthenor had affixed to his skull. He could not run or fight.
But he could plot. Karthenor himself had given Thomas the key, the night he’d ordered Thomas to play and sing.
In the morning, Thomas found that his Guide would not let him speak, but as Thomas set the fire and began frying up fresh eggs and ham for Karthenor’s men and the shepherd’s toddler, a tune came to mind. Thomas found himself humming. It took him several moments to realize that though his Guide would not let him speak, it would let him sing. Thomas had long known that with a song he could melt the heart of most young maidens, and lighten the heart of the sourest codger.
So all morning he pondered the message he would send, then, when his plan felt complete, he composed a song. It was not a perfect song—in fact, Thomas found it damned bad by any standard, but Karthenor had ordered him to sing a sweet tune, and Thomas composed a sweet tune for the words. They let him say what he needed to say, so as Karthenor sat spooning eggs to the orphaned child, Thomas got down the lute and sang,
“You say All lives have meaning,
Like you, I want to live in the sky,
But I am bound,
By you I’m bound.
In these chains I slowly die.”
Karthenor stopped feeding the boy, who immediately began grabbing for the spoon. Karthenor glanced up at Thomas in surprise. “You have something to say? Speak, Thomas.”
Thomas tried to infuse his words with charm and sincerity. “This Guide is a damned nuisance, man! I’m an artist. Even if you think me only a drudge, thumping my lute strings as if I were beating a rug, I’ll be needing use of my fingers to practice.”
Karthenor laughed. “Fine, you may practice your instrument and sing—so long as you don’t grow tedious. Anything else?”
“Yes,” Thomas said, and found his heart thumping, voice tight. He wasn’t sure if the lie would come off. “You told me last night something of your philosophy, and I’ve been thinking. I agree with you. I came from a backward world, and when I saw the chance to get out, I jumped. And as for recognizing the worth of man, well, a man’s only worth comes from what he makes of himself, sure. So I want to know, how do I join you?”
Karthenor smiled, a clever, intimidating smile. His gold mask gleamed brightly, half-reflecting the sun that shone in through the window by the rocking chair, where Karthenor sat.
“I’ve seen potential in you,” Karthenor said. “When I questioned you, I saw that you could be one of us, perhaps.
“But I must ask: do you expect me to believe you would help us hunt and destroy your niece, your only kin? On your world, family bonds are important.”
Thomas dared not lie, but his Guide allowed him some freedom in answering. He skirted the truth, choosing his words carefully, “Maggie is my only kin. But that didn’t stop me from leaving her to grow up alone. Facing trials in life builds strength, and I’d rather have a strong niece than some weepy cow. I tracked her down when I heard she had an inheritance coming. I wouldn’t have stolen it. I planned only to use it as seed money, to make a little profit for myself, then leave her with what she owned.”
“But would you fight her?” Karthenor asked.
“For the right cause,” Thomas said, recognizing that he could hide behind half-truths, evade answering all night. “Yes, I’d fight her.”
Karthenor grinned slyly. “Is the dronon cause the right cause? Is my cause the right cause? Tell me fully.”
The Guide would not let him lie to so direct a question. “No, it’s not. There’s nothing wrong with using people, that is the basis of the capitalistic system. Folks hire themselves out like oxen, trading their lives cheap. But I don’t believe you use them well, Karthenor. I don’t believe you understand how to manipulate others subtly, and I don’t think you have to make a person’s life miserable, even if you do take him slave. There’s no justification for being plain vile.”
Karthenor nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right. I tend to be crude in my attempts at manipulation. To expand on your metaphor, I sometimes yoke racing stallions to the plow.
“And it may just be,” Karthenor said, “I’m not as idealistic as I like to pretend. To be blunt, it amuses me to use people. I like the thrill, the power.”
Karthenor looked at his men to see their reactions. Neither seemed surprised. Karthenor continued, “If I did not like your singing voice, Thomas, I’d dispose of you. But … in my mercy, I spare you. This also makes me feel powerful. Maybe that’s all I’m really about—power.
“Those with the least power tend to crave it most. Perhaps when you have been a slave long enough, you too will crave power. You might yet become dronon.
“But I suspect it will take time. A very long time …”
Karthenor’s words dashed Thomas’s hopes for a quick release. Shortly after, they departed the shepherd’s shack, the toddler riding the front of an airbike, tucked under Karthenor’s arm.
By midday they reached a gate, left Tremonthin for a heavily populated world with high technology. There, Karthenor abandoned the toddler, leaving him on a deserted road at the edge of a city.
In rapid succession they drove through several gates, till they reached a gray alien planet with tortured, pitted plains. Strange animals seemed almost to agonize under a dim red sun.
Karthenor stopped to make a radio transmission, then waited. By evening, a huge walking vehicle approached, a black city that stalked across the ruined land like a giant tick, the metal of its legs crashing and grinding as if each step were agony. At its front, three red lights blazed like fire, showing Thomas his first dronon—creatures that in the distance he thought looked like giant flying ants. They manned the city’s gun emplacements.
The dronon city marched to them, halted. Karthenor and his men ascended, climbing handholds along one huge leg.
Thomas had never thought himself afraid of heights, but when he’d reached sixty meters in the air, he looked below at the rocky plain, gray in the twilight, and his hands began shaking.
“Do not be afraid,” Karthenor ordered from below. Thomas’s Guide stilled his shaking hands; he climbed with confidence.
The dark interior of the hive city smelled acrid, a biting scent that burned
Thomas’s sinuses. White powder dusted the metal floors. Karthenor warned Thomas to avoid the dust. He bid Thomas follow through dark halls, dimly lit with red globes, passing dronon sentries who lined the tunnels, sometimes clinging with all six limbs to a ceiling so they hung like gaudy fixtures.
Deeper within, the air became hotter, stifling. Bangs and groans issued from deep recesses of the hive. As the city turned and walked, the floor pitched like a ship at sea. The jostling did not bother the dronon, who scurried about on six legs, but it was hell for a human to walk in here. Sometimes the group would stop, then climb rungs on the wall to reach a higher level. Thomas studied everything—the black-carapaced warriors so large and cruel; the elegant, almost gaunt, scholars with their tan bodies and green facial markings. Small white workers rushed everywhere, like immature roaches, prodding and carrying items.
As for the machinery—the alien angles to the tubing, the strange faceted lights—for Thomas it provided only a bizarre and incomprehensible backdrop to the dronon activities. He was, after all, nothing but an old man from a world where his people shunned anything more complex than a rake.
At last Karthenor reached a great room with a gently curving floor, where a bloated dronon queen sat, gorging herself on huge chunks of meat. Small workers frantically scurried about, attending her needs. The queen dronon had ruddy golden-colored chitin, with faint bronze tints beneath her legs.
When Karthenor reached this chamber, he and his men each fell to one knee, bowed their heads, and held their arms forward, palms raised above the floor. Karthenor said, “I have come, My Queen, as you bid.”
The queen spoke, her mouthfingers tapping her voicedrum. A translator pinned to Karthenor’s lapel spoke. “You are just in time. The great work is accomplished. A few hours past, an ansible transmission pinpointed the location of the human’s Golden Queen in a far galaxy. We will fly to her. The Tharrin will not have time to warn her. She will not escape.”
“Excellent,” Karthenor said. “It will be an honor to accompany you, as it is an honor to serve you.”
The dronon queen dismissed him. Thomas followed Karthenor and his men to a small chamber within the city.
In a dim room, several levels down from the queen’s chamber, Karthenor and his men rested. Fresh air blew into this room through open vents, and the dronon had placed six cots in three tiers along the walls. Nothing about the room seemed quite right. The dronon had made the beds too long and too narrow, as if expecting men who were nine feet tall and thin as rails. Some beds were on the floor, others smashed right up against the ceiling. These dronon, Thomas felt sure, had never seen a human.
Once in the room, Karthenor unpacked a bit of food for his men and gave Thomas a bar of some kind of grain with fruit and nuts mixed in. Karthenor was an odd man. Sometimes he’d forget to feed Thomas all day. Other times he overfed him. Whatever his mood called for. Thomas felt grateful to eat.
Karthenor said, “I have good news for you, news I dared not speak until now—not on any human world.
“You’ve traveled through the world gates, Thomas, something almost no one ever does. The Tharrin jealously guard gate technology, fearing the gates could be ill-used. But when the dronon got control of the Tharrin’s Omni-mind, they pried some secrets from it, and learned that gate technology is far more powerful than the Tharrin ever let on.
“As you’ve seen them, the gates lead from world to world, each taking you to only one destination. But there is no reason a gate cannot be programmed to take you to any destination you desire. Nor is there any reason a gate cannot be built large enough to send a ship across space.
“Of course the Tharrin would never use them this way. They wouldn’t like the idea of warships winking across the galaxy in the time it takes you to drink a shot of whiskey. It would make mankind too powerful, lead to easy confrontations.
“Fortunately, the dronon don’t have the Tharrin’s compunctions against the use of gate technology.
“The Lords of the Seventh Swarm have built a gate that leads to all worlds, and they’ve built it large. Large enough for warships to fly through.
“Tonight, we fly through it, and you will see your niece for the last time. Tomorrow, the galaxy will be ours.”
Chapter 19
When Zeus woke, Hera had already left the room. Her side of their huge bed was empty. Zeus sprawled on his back, naked, luxuriating in the extra space. Hera is a clinging vine, he thought. She clung to him in her sleep, chasing him across the sheets all night in an effort to cuddle. She clung to him around other women. It annoyed him when she stepped between him and Maggie, just when Maggie felt ready to succumb to his persuasions.
Zeus did not eat when he rose. His stomach seldom woke before midday. He got up, decided to stroll around the palace naked. He’d enjoyed the sensation of the morning air on his skin yesterday, had reveled in his newfound freedom. Today he would celebrate Felph’s absence by going out naked for the whole day, if the mood took him.
He went first to the garden where he’d rendezvoused with Maggie. If the wench had enjoyed his presence last night, he hoped she would come this morning. Besides, she’d left her shoes by the fountain. Perhaps she’d return for them. She might even use them as an excuse in her own mind to justify a walk in the garden, hoping for his return.
Zeus reached the north halls, found the sun high. He usually woke near dawn, but it must be nearly nine o’clock. No wonder Hera had slunk off before he awoke.
Zeus whistled as he made his way between the rose hedges, hoping it might attract Maggie, if she couldn’t see him.
When he reached the peacock fountain, resplendent in the morning sun, he found Herm sitting on the stone bench, tinkering with a gun, cleaning it.
Herm looked up at him, saw he was naked. “My, you look elegant this morning.”
“I just couldn’t find a thing to wear,” Zeus laughed, walking up to the fountain. The nereid viviform swam about, just under the clear waters, rolling to her back, then to her stomach. Her generous breasts were so inviting, Zeus found it bothersome. Unfortunately, her maker had not given her all the female parts Zeus would have wished.
Zeus looked in the grass for Maggie’s shoes. They were gone, along with the dishes from last night.
“Too bad you slept late,” Herm said. “The object of your desires came by earlier and retrieved her footwear. You must have made a great impression on her. I suspect that if she saw you now,” Herm looked pointedly at Zeus’s crotch and his green eyes flashed, “she wouldn’t be merely impressed, she’d be astonished.”
“Ah, I’ve nothing she hasn’t seen,” Zeus chuckled.
“Really?” Herm said, raising a brow: “I thought Hera caught you last night before you began waving it around.”
“Nice timing, that,” Zeus said, unable to hide his annoyance. “Did you spy for her? Did you fly about, keeping watch?”
Herm grinned. “And interfere in your affairs? No.”
Zeus eyed Herm, growing angry with the winged man. Herm affected his slightly superior smile, and his lidded eyes concealed more than they revealed. Certainly Herm hid something.
“I think you’re lying,” Zeus said. “You’re plotting against me. I could kill you for that.” Zeus raised his right hand threateningly, palm out. He stood but ten feet from Herm, a bit far to throw an electric shock, took a step closer.
Herm stiffened in fear, watched the hand. He held his gun loosely, dared not move.
“I’m sorry you think so ill of me,” Herm said, “me, your oldest and dearest ally. Why would you believe I’m against you?”
“I can tell, you’re hiding something!”
“Dear brother,” Herm whispered, his voice smooth and oily, “what has got into you? You threaten me? How many times have I acted as your messenger when you wanted to make a tryst? How many times have I lied to Hera on your behalf? Do you believe I’d side with her now?”
Zeus held his arm steady, studying Herm’s eyes, waiting for him to say mor
e.
“If you want to know,” Herm said at last, “I spent the evening abed, recuperating from this rather severe wound gotten, I might add, in your service.” He held up his arm, displaying the bandage, reminding Zeus of the skog he’d killed, part of which Zeus had fed to Maggie last night on his amorous escapade.
“You’re still hiding something.” Zeus could seldom read Herm’s face, yet the winged man frequently held secrets.
“A surprise,” Herm said. “I haven’t told you everything about this morning: I got up early, to hunt skogs,” he held up his pistol, “and I spotted Maggie here in the fountain, as naked as you are now! She said she’d come to retrieve her shoes, but I think she came for more.”
Zeus wanted to leap for joy, but still didn’t trust Herm. “You’re just saying that.”
Herm grinned at his expression. “I assure you, it’s true.”
“Odd,” Zeus considered. “She seemed tame last night.”
“Perhaps she needed to warm to the idea,” Herm said. “But she’s interested in you, now. She asked me to bear a message.”
“Which is?”
“She says she has work to do today, preparing for Felph’s return. But she wants to meet you tonight, here. She said she will be naked, and wants to see you similarly attired!”
“Hah!” Zeus laughed, unsure whether to believe such good fortune. It seemed too much, yet Herm had borne similar messages for Zeus to women here on Ruin. Never had he lied before. He would not do so now. “Hah! A wild one, eh?”
“It seems so. Will you do it?” Herm smiled.
“Meet her here, naked? I … I don’t know. Have you told anyone else—Hera?”
Herm shook his head. “Only you. Maggie left not half an hour before you got here. She asked me to stay.”
“So no one else knows of this?”
“No one,” Herm said.
Zeus decided to trust the winged man. “Tell no one. In fact: tell Hera you spoke to me and you discovered I have a tryst with Maggie tonight—in her rooms. That should drive her mad, trying to discover how to interrupt us in the lady’s private chamber.”
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