Matello chuckled. He plainly enjoyed the tale. “Someone should have warned Flammarion about the man he was dealing with. What a churlish, unjust, detestable fellow he was! And that, mind you, was fifty years ago. So you can see how long poor Flammarion has been waiting.”
“Fifty years?” Rachad echoed.
“Yes. Flammarion built the Aegis for the old duke. A very strange man, driven by an incomprehensible hatred for everything and everyone. There was no one he did not treat with the utmost contempt, even the king, and he earned literally thousands of enemies. Even now, countless families bear him a grudge. His final act of contempt was to shut himself away in the Aegis and to ignore all of existence. He’s dead now, of course, and his son rules the Aegis as Duke of Koss. But he seems to have inherited everything from his father—his habits, his temperament, his interests, and also his enemies, including Flammarion, whose grudge is perfectly straightforward.”
“Does the younger duke never venture outside either?”
“He’s never been outside the Aegis in his life, to my knowledge. He was born there. It’s his world.”
Rachad pondered. “But how long can Flammarion wait?”
“He has a long life. And he comes from a race that never accepts a bad debt—it’s a peculiar psychological obsession all his kind have. For a bargain to be reneged on is a completely unacceptable tragedy.”
“And you are helping him to collect his fee?” Rachad said. “That’s very noble of you.”
Now Matello laughed loudly, and plumped himself down in a nearby chair, signing Rachad to another. Looking perplexedly at Flammarion, Rachad obeyed.
“With your innocence you could be the king’s own clown, Rachad! No, our partnership is based on mutual advantage, for there is much at stake for me, too. You see, the duke’s behavior has become a matter of serious concern for King Lutheron. The Kerek threat looms large, and Maralia faces the biggest threat yet to her existence. The king cannot afford to see so large a dukedom as Koss left in neglect, unable to come to the nation’s aid with all the strength it might. And meantime the duke ignores all messages and will admit no one—not even the king himself.”
“Then why doesn’t the king deprive the duke of his domains, and given them to someone else?” Rachad asked.
“Ah, there you’ve put your finger on it. That is what the king would dearly like to do, but he dare not The other nobles jealously guard their rights, and would never permit such a precedent, even against one they hate. The king would face rebellion. But there is something else the king can do. He can declare the duke fair game. That is, any man of noble blood who can dispossess him, by killing him or taking him prisoner, comes into his title and all his worlds. This the king has done—and that’s what I am about. I aim to make myself Duke of Koss!”
The baron’s eyes blazed. “The king would be glad to see a man of my experience take over the dukedom. I understand military matters. I’ll soon knock it into shape.”
“Are there other contenders, my lord?”
“Not one!” Matello tittered. “The task is regarded as impossible. The king’s declaration was made more in desperation than in hope. But I have a plan.”
Matello leaned forward, his arm on his knee, wagging his finger at Rachad. “Nothing in the whole cosmos will lure the duke out of his Aegis. We have to get inside somehow. But how? There’s only one possibility. We have to get it opened from the inside, by someone in our pay.”
He sighed. “The gods know we’ve tried. Now and then the duke’s servants emerge on various errands, but only those who were themselves born in the Aegis, and they are all damnably loyal to him. No, we have to find someone—a stranger—whom the duke will actually invite into the Aegis, of his own free will.”
“You mentioned a mission for me, my lord,” Rachad said with a feeling of apprehension. “Do I come into this somehow?”
“You do.” Matello leaned close to Rachad, fanning his cheek with his wine-laden breath. “Among the duke’s passions is an interest in alchemy. It’s he who possesses the other half of the book we took from that temple in Kars.”
He leaned back, grinning. “Do you begin to get my meaning? The last man to be taken into the Aegis was an alchemist, about ten years ago. Amschel is his name. The duke recruited him to try to perfect the Philosopher’s Stone in accordance with the book he had, though I don’t know where he got it. But obviously he’s failed, because for two or three years past the duke’s agents have been looking for the missing part.”
Matello broke off his tale to walk to the table, where he refilled his goblet and came back swigging it, the flagon in his other hand. “It was then we had a bit of luck,” he said. “Flammarion here had already heard of the whereabouts of this book, over a hundred years ago. He’s a much traveled being, you see. Probably nobody else in Maralia knew of it.”
“So that’s why you wanted the book.”
The baron nodded. “The duke has already let one alchemist into his fortress. He’ll do the same for another—if it’s somebody who’s bringing him what he’s looking for.”
“I? …”
Matello nodded again.
“My lord, I’m not sure I can pass myself off as an adept.”
Matello guffawed, his eyes twinkling. “Now the truth is out! But you know some of the pattern, which should suffice for a while. The Root of Transformations is your real passport into the Aegis, the rest is just decoration. I’m absolutely sure the duke will fall for it—but I can’t use one of my own men or his agents might get wind of the deception. It’s got to be somebody like you, from a distant, unknown place, and with that peculiar foreign accent of yours. Flammarion will tell you what you’re to do once you’re inside.”
Suddenly Matello emptied his goblet, filled it again and handed it to Rachad, himself sipping from the flagon. “Well, what do you say? I won’t compel you to it, because this is a job that has to be done willingly. But I’ll be damned annoyed if you refuse.”
Rachad thought over the proposal. It frightened him. But at the same time the idea of such an adventure, of playing such a role in Maralian power politics, was almost irresistible.
“Do you trust me, my lord?” he had the temerity to ask. “What if, once in the Aegis, I sided with the duke?”
“Unlikely,” Matello rumbled. “I can’t see you wanting to spend the rest of your life in an adamant fortress. If you crossed me, your life would be worth nothing outside it. Besides, you have so much to gain, young Caban. You’ll be able practically to name your own reward. Both halves of the book will be yours. I’ll send you home to Earth with a hundred tons of gold, if that’s what you want. Or you can stay here in Maralia, where King Lutheron will no doubt heap honors upon you.” The baron’s voice became silkily persuasive. Rachad thrilled.
He made his mind up. “So what am I to do?” he demanded.
“To begin with, simply take up residence down in the town. The duke has an agent there, I’m aware of that You must on no account let it be known that you have any connection with me. Pose as an alchemist, and put it discreetly about that you are in search of a missing alchemical text, which you may name. The duke’s man will lose no time in finding you, and you may both then discover that each has what the other is looking for. From then on it should be plain sailing.”
“He will try to buy it from me, of course,” Rachad commented.
“And you will absolutely refuse. You will insist on being allowed to study the other part of the book, and on discoursing with Amschel, who has attempted to follow its principles. Since the duke will not let either out of his control, he will have no choice but to invite you inside.”
“First he will want to be convinced that the book is genuine.”
“Then part with one page of it,” Matello replied with a shrug. “Amschel will authenticate it.”
Rachad nodded. “And if I open the gates of the Aegis—what then? Do you have it under siege?”
“Everything is made ready. It is under
constant observation, and nearby I have a small force hidden underground. They will rush in as soon as the Aegis is opened. There are only paltry defenses within, I believe.”
He paused, while Rachad carried on thinking. “You’ll find the duke a strange fellow,” Matello said softly. “They say the Aegis is a madman’s world. What goes on in there is unbelievable.”
“What I can’t understand,” Rachad said with a trace of asperity, “is why anyone in Maralia should be interested in alchemy at all, with gold so common. Why is the duke so keen on it?”
“You echo my own views,” laughed the baron gruffly. “Yet philosophers still strive for the secret of transmutation, for whatever obscure satisfaction it gives them. As far as I can see it’s a perfectly useless exercise—although alchemy has been known to produce some interesting weapons of war. I once heard tell of alchemical bullets that speed up indefinitely after they leave the muzzle. If they miss their target, they accelerate up to lightspeed.”
“I have seen better than that,” Rachad said hurriedly. “When we journeyed from Earth we were attacked by alchemical monsters that grew from seeds.”
“Yes, so I’ve been told. Well, young man, can I count on you?”
“Yes, my lord,” Rachad said definitely. “You can count on me.”
“Good!” the baron said, with great satisfaction. He drank deeply from his flagon, then raised it aloft.
“To the opening of the Aegis!”
And he laughed so wildly and so long that Rachad felt chilled in his bones.
***
Leaving the hall, Rachad made his way through the dank-smelling castle until coming to the ladies’ apartments. Once he hid in a window recess as a servant girl chanced to pass by. Gazing through the panes, he saw that the amber sun had set. Castarpos alone illumined Arp, with a shifting, uncertain glow, while below the castle Corrum twinkled dimly.
When the way was clear he eased himself into Elissea’s boudoir, secreting himself behind the arras until she came in, when he leaped out at her, laughing softly.
Afterward they lay together on her large, soft bed. “I have to leave Arp soon,” he told her brashly.
She scowled prettily. “Oh? And where are you going?”
“On a secret mission for your uncle.” He smiled mysteriously. “It’s very important.”
She raised herself on one elbow to lean over him. “When will you be coming back?”
“That depends. Later I might go back to Earth. I’ll take you with me. We’ll live together in Olam …” He stopped, realizing that the boast was vain.
A bullet that carries on accelerating, he thought. He tried to imagine how it was given the necessary properties. Quicksilver for mobility, ether to provide constant impetus. An amalgam of quicksilver and ether was not the easiest thing to bring about.
He would ask the artifex Amschel about it, once he was inside the Aegis.
Chapter TEN
“Caught you!”
Leaping from his bed, Rachad seized hold of the intruder who was in the act of stealthily lifting the lid of a clothes chest, and dragged him to the window. In the pale light of Castarpos the burglar blinked, his face paper-like, his throat feeling the prick of Rachad’s copper-pommelled poniard. It was Suivres, the Duke of Koss’s agent in Corrum. Just as Rachad had expected.
Outside the dank attic room, the town lay sleeping, looking like a slumped forest, its streets winding upward to the castle on the summit of the hill. Contemptuously Rachad pushed Suivres from him.
“Thief! Thought you would make off with my property, eh? Easier than dealing honestly, isn’t it?”
Suivres cleared his throat, and looked about him until he spotted an oil lamp gleaming in Castarpos’s light. With commendable aplomb he reached in his pocket for a flint and struck a spark onto the wick.
He turned to Rachad as the lamplight filled the room, not in the least abashed. He was dressed in puffed breeches and a tight-fitting doublet. He had a dried, somewhat weary face, the eyes pale and restless.
“I merely wished to confirm that you do indeed possess the remainder of the text,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. “No theft was intended. After all, so far you have only produced one page.”
“Which you have taken to Amschel to have authenticated.”
“True. And it is authentic.” Suivres looked around the shabby rented room. “Where? …”
Rachad grinned. “Not here. I’m not as stupid as I look. I have it in a safe place, never fear.” He looked at Suivres speculatively. “I see you did not have the courtesy to return my page.”
Suivres shrugged. “There is one aspect of this business that puzzles us,” he said. “What are you doing on Arp? There is no other alchemist within systems of here, that I know of. Hardly the place to come if you are really searching for the matching half of the book.”
“It’s simple enough,” Rachad replied instantly, his mind tumbling over itself for an explanation. “While I was in the Ragnak system I heard that someone here was making the same inquiries as myself. So here I came to follow it up.”
“Ha ha! That someone was myself, putting out feelers on the Duke’s behalf.” He straightened, and seemed to make up his mind. “Very well, then. I am authorized to take you to the Duke, with the book. We leave in a few hours. Where is the book?”
“How do we get there? How far is it?”
“Only a few light-years. We travel by horseback to where I have a ship hidden, some miles over the horizon.”
Rachad felt nervous now that the moment of departure was approaching. “How can I trust you?” he said irritably. “Once we are away from here it will be easy for you to have me murdered and seize the book for yourself.”
Suivres raised his eyebrows in an offended manner. “Really! You insult my liege-lord to think he could behave in such a fashion!”
“Really!” Rachad snorted. He had heard plenty about the eccentric duke during the time he had been living in Corrum. His name was mentioned in mumbles and whispers. There were endless tales of the perversions and grotesques practiced within the sealed-up Aegis, where none of the normal standards of mankind was observed.
“The stories rife about the Duke do not give one confidence in his conduct,” he pointed out stiffly.
“All of them exaggerated … Many of them, at any rate.” Suivres waved a hand dismissively. “The Duke is noble, a gentleman. Now what’s the matter with you? You were keen enough before.”
Rachad bit his lip. Perhaps his best guarantee of safe conduct was that he had managed to pass himself off as an adept. Very likely Amschel was as eager to meet him as he was to meet Amschel.
“All right. I’ll collect the book, and meet you in two hours.”
“Excellent. Join me outside the town, on the polar road. I’ll have steeds waiting.”
After Suivres had gone Rachad dressed himself and sat down for a few minutes to think. Far-off Earth seemed appealingly cozy and safe now that he had begun to immerse himself in the rough-and-tumble of Maralian society. Maralia was so big. And yet it was but one of many star countries. This part of the galaxy, it seemed, was a confusion of kingdoms, empires, principalities and even one or two independent republics.
And over it all spread the shadow of the Kerek. Rachad knew now what fear went with the speaking of that name, and that the position of Maralia, indeed of any human nation, was insecure. There were times when his brash self-confidence faltered, and he felt out of his depth. Especially when he thought of the hated and unbalanced Duke of Koss, a decadent hermit who, so it was said, despised the whole cosmos.
But Rachad’s heart sank when he thought of the coming exploit. Entering the Aegis seemed to him now like descending into a deep hole from which there was no escape.
***
The horses provided by Suivres were of a long-legged variety bred specially for Arp, and they fairly leaped and clattered along the road that followed the contours of the slate-colored landscape.
Rachad had approached
the meeting place with caution, but there was no evidence that Suivres planned anything treacherous and gradually his fears had abated. In his saddlebag was the lead-covered tome he had recovered from its keeper, his landlord (who had not taken kindly to being awakened in the middle of the night), and by now Baron Matello would have been informed of his departure. No doubt he was already sending word to his secret camp near the Aegis.
For two hours the loping Arp horses cantered along the highway, until eventually Suivres reined in and turned off to lead the way across slablike terrain which gave off ringing clicks when struck by the horses’ hooves.
Behind them the road passed out of sight. Their steeds slithered down shingle into a deep gully masked by snake-like trees which bore broad olive-green leaves. There, hidden by the overhanging branches, was a ship.
Though of spacefaring design, she seemed even smaller than the Wandering Queen, especially as she currently showed neither masts nor booms. Urging his mount forward between the trunks of the slippery trees, Suivres uttered a low halloo. Men appeared, wary and with drawn weapons at first, but quickly recognizing him.
Soon, with much sweating and groaning, the ship was being hauled on runners to the shallow end of the gully, where she stood under an open sky. Rachad went aboard while the horses were stripped of packs, saddles and bridles, and set loose. Sprits went out; sail was raised and found a current despite the nighttime hour.
Stealthily the ship wafted into the air, and before long had gained space. Casting out her whiplash rods, on which she then bent extraordinary lengths of silk, she went hurtling away from the amber sun.
***
For speed the smaller starship could not match the Bucentaur, and the journey lasted a week. They cruised through a small cluster of stars which glowed in a dozen colors, looking like a splendid, dazzling brooch. Finally they approached an aggressive, furnace-like sun, its surface whirling visibly white and red.
Star Winds Page 13