Deryni Checkmate

by Katherine Kurtz

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  moved—he thought they were on his left—and he felt dirt and straw beneath his fingertips.

  Was he out of doors?

  As he asked himself that question, he realized that the pain had subsided somewhat in the region behind his eyeballs, so he decided to hazard opening his eyes. Much to his surprise the eyes obeyed him—though for a minute he thought that he was blind.

  Then he saw his own left hand, only inches from his nose, resting on the—floor? Covered with straw? And he realized that he was not blind but merely in a darkened room, that a fold of his cloak had somehow fallen partway across his face, obstructing his view. Once his dulled senses adjusted to that fact, he was able to extend his gaze beyond the hand. He tried to focus, still without moving anything but his eyes—and found that he could now distinguish patterns of light and shadow, mostly the latter.

  He was in what must have been an enormous chamber or hall, all of wood. His field of vision was very narrow without changing his position, but the portion he could see was a wall of high, deep arches, darkly illuminated by the guttering light of torches set in black iron brackets. In each archway, far in the recesses, he could barely distinguish a tall, motionless 6gure looming vaguely menacing in the shadows, each armed with a spear and holding an oval shield of some dark heraldic design. He blinked his eyes and looked again, trying to read the blazons—then realized that the figures were statues.

  Where was he?

  Rather too abruptly, as he immediately discovered, He tried to get up. He managed to get his elbows under him, and actually got his head a few inches off the floor. But then the waves of nausea returned and his brain began spinning worse than before. He cradled his head in his hands, trying to will the whirling to subside. And finally, through the fog, he was able

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  to recognize the symptom he was fighting—the dizzying aftereffects of merasha.

  Memory returned in a rush. Merasha. It had been on the gate in the shrine. He had stumbled into the trap like a bumbling apprentice. And the flat aftertaste numbing his tongue told him he was still under the influence of the mind-dulling drug, that whatever his situation now, he would not be able to use his powers to extricate himself.

  Knowing the source of his discomfort, he found that he could at least curb the physical symptoms to some degree, control the numbness, stop some of the spinning. He carefully raised his head a few more inches to see a sweep of black wool robe a few feet to his right, and then a motionless grey boot not six inches from where his head had lain. His eyes darted to either side—more boots, long cloaks trailing the straw-littered floor, the tips of drawn broadswords— and he knew that he was in danger, that he must get to his feet.

  Each move of a cramped limb was torture, but he forced his body to obey; slowly raised himself first to elbows, then to hands and knees. As he rose, concentrating on that boot before his face, he raised his eyes also, knowing as he did that it was too much to hope that the boot would be empty.

  There was a leg protruding from the boot, and another leg and boot beyond it, and a grey-clad body attached to the legs. A falcon blazon on the chest swam in Morgan's vision. And as he raised his ggze to the piercing black eyes which glared down at him, Morgan's spirits sank. Now he was surely doomed.

  For the man in the falcon tunic could only be Warin de Grey.

  Duncan started to him on his heel to leave the chapel, then paused to scrutinize the chancel area again.

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  Something was still unanswered. Somewhere he had failed to evaluate all the information available— information which might still save Alaric's life. That candle he had seen when he first returned to the shrine. Where was it?

  Leaning to peer over the altar rail once more, Duncan spied the candle lying near the altar steps to the left of the centra! carpeting. He started to reach for the gate latch, froze in mid motion as he remembered the danger there, then swung his leg over the rail and climbed in instead. Glancing nervously back at the double doors, he crouched down beside the candle and studied it in position, reached out to prod it with a cautious forefinger.

  As he had suspected, the candle was still warm, the wax at the wick end still semisolid and malleable. He could feel just a whisper of Alaric's ordeal clinging to it yet, catch the faintest hint of pain and terror just before it was dropped.

  Damn/ AH this pointed to something he had missed—he knew it. Alaric had to have been within the railing. The gate had been opened, and the candle lay too near the altar to have simply rolled there. But where could Alaric have gone from here?

  Scrutinizing the floor around the candle, Duncan spied wax drippings on the bare wood, a fine trail of faintly yellow wax leading from the candle to a spot just left of the carpet approaching the altar. The wax was scarred and scuffed just beside the rug, as though someone had stepped on it before it had had time to congeal. And one of the droplets, a large one very near the edge of the carpeting, had a faint vertical line through it, almost as though—

  Duncan's eyes widened with a sudden idea, and he bent to look more closely. Could it be that there was a crack in the wood floor there, a line not part of the floor's intricate design, but running along the edge of the rug toward the altar?

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  He scrambled across to the other side of the carpet on hands and knees, sending an apologetic glance at the altar for his unseemly behavior, then squinted at the floor on that side.

  YesI There was definitely a faint line running the entire length of the carpet from the chancel gate to the bottom step of the altar, more pronounced than the-other joinings in the patterned flooring. And there appeared to be a seam in the carpet where it joined that portion covering the steps themselves.

  A trap door beneath the carpet?

  Crawling back to the left side, Duncan inspected the crack once more. Yes, the wax had been disturbed after it hardened, not before. It was lighter on one side of the line, as though one side of the crack had become lower, had dropped from under and then returned.

  Hardly daring to believe it might be possible, Duncan closed his eyes and extended his senses along the carpet, trying to fathom what lay beneath. He had the impression of space below, of a convoluted maze of slides and low corridors lined in polished wood through which a man, even an unconscious man, might slip for God knew how far. And the mechanism which controlled the opening of that space—that was a scarcely visible square in the patterned floor directly to the left of the carpeting, though he sensed that this Was not the only center of control.

  Scrambling to his feet, Duncan stared down at the carpeting, at the square. He could trip the device very easily. A hard stamp on the square would do that. But did the passage lead to Alaric? And if it did, was his cousin still alive? It was unrealistic to assume that the setters of the trap, whoever they were, would not have been waiting for Alaric when he reached the bottom, wherever that was. And if Alaric had gotten a strong dose of the merasha—and again, there was no reason to suppose to the contrary—then he would not

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  be able to function normally for hours. On the other hand, if Duncan went down, armed and in full command of his faculties—which were not inconsiderable— Alaric might yet have a chance.

  Duncan glanced once more around the chapel and made up his mind. He would have to be extremely careful. He really should drop into wherever he was going with drawn sword, ready to fight his way out. However, there was the question of the maze. He had no idea how far he would be going, how the maze would twist and turn before he got to the end. If he weren't careful, he could impale himself on his own weapon.

  He fingered the hilt of his blade thoughtfully, then tipped the scabbard up under his left arm, hilt down. That position, sheathed and with the blade held in place by his sword hand, should suffice until he reached wherever he w
as going. And then a quick draw-He heard sounds in the antechamber, and knew he must act at once if he hoped to avoid a confrontation with the treacherous little monk. Taking a tighter grip on his sword, he stamped on the square and crouched in the middle of the carpeting, felt the floor tipping out from under him. He caught a kst glimpse of the heavy chapel doors crashing back on their hinges, of the little monk, who did not look nearly as little now, framed in the doorway with three mailed and armed foot soldiers.

  And then Ke was sliding through the darkness, sword clutched to his side, faster and faster into what danger he knew not.

  Powerful hands jerked Morgan roughly to his feet and immobilized him, pinning his arms behind him and throwing a choke hold around his neck. He struggled at first, as much testing the strength of his captors as trying to escape. But a few sharp jabs to kidneys

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  and groin sent him quickly to his knees, doubled over with pain. A numbing pressure across his throat brought the darkness swimming dangerously near again as his wind was shut off.

  Stifling a moan, Morgan closed his eyes and forced himself to relax in his captors1 grip, willed the pain to recede as the men pulled him to his feet once more. It was clear he could not hope to win a physical contest against so many while in his present drugged condition. Nor, until the merasha wore off, could he rely on his powers. And as for normal thinking processes— hal He couldn't even think straight at this point. It would be interesting to see if he could, indeed, salvage anything out of this fiasco.

  He opened his eyes and forced himself to remain calm, to assess the current crisis as well as his befuddled senses would allow.

  There were about ten armed men in the chamber: four holding him prisoner and the rest grouped in a semi-circle in front of him, swords drawn and ready. There was a strong light source behind him— probably a door to the outside—and it was reflected from the swords and helmets of the men before him. Two of the men also held torches aloft, the orange light spilling around them like fiery mantles. Between those two stood Warin and another man in clerical garb whom Morgan thought he recognized. Neither had spoken a word during the short scuffle, and Warm's face was impassive as he gazed across at his prisoner.

  "So this is Morgan," he said evenly, with no emotion evident in voice or face. "THe Deryni heretic brought to bay at last."

  Folding his arms across the falcon blazon on his chest, Warin walked slowly around his prisoner and studied him from head to toe, his boots rustling the loose straw as he passed. Morgan, because of the choking arm across his throat, could not observe War-

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  in in turn; nor would he have given the rebel leader that satisfaction had he had the chance. Besides, his attention had been diverted to the cleric ahead. Recognition of the man had brought with it a chilling suspicion.

  The priest, if Morgan recalled correctly, was one Lawrence Gorony, a monsignor attached to Archbishop Loris' staff. And if that were, indeed, the case, then Morgan was in worse trouble than he had thought. For it could only mean that the archbishops had recognized Warm in some capacity, that they stood ready now to support the rebel leader's bid for power.

  It betokened another, more immediate, danger, too. For the presence of Gorony at this ambush—not one of his high-ranking episcopal masters—perhaps indicated that the archbishops had washed their hands of Morgan, had written him off, that they were now prepared, after a token semblance of ministering to his soul, to give him over to Warm's authority.

  Warin had never suggested anything but death for men of Morgan's race. Warm's mission, so he believed, was to destroy Deryni, however repentant they might be. And he was not likely to let Morgan, the arch-Deryni of all in his eyes, escape the fate he believed destined for all of his kind.

  Morgan controlled a shudder (and mentally marveled that he was able to do it), then flicked his gaze back to Warin as the rebel leader returned to his original place. Warm's eyes were cold and stern and glistening jet as he addressed his captive.

  "I shall not waste time, Deryni. Have you anything to say before I pronounce judgement on you?"

  "Pronounce judge—" Morgan broke off in consternation, realizing he had spoken the words out loud, as well as in his mind, and trying with only partial success to mask the fear and indignation the words had invoked.

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  Khadasa! Had he gotten that strong a dose of merasha, that he could not even control his tongue? He must be wary, must try to stall for time until the drug began to wear off and he could think clearly.

  And even as he thought it, he realized he was not thinking clearly at all, that he would be lucky at this rate to even last out the next few minutes without totally betraying himself. He wondered where Duncan was— his cousin would surely be looking for him by now— but of course, Morgan wasn't even sure when now was. He had no idea how long he'd been unconscious. Further, he might not even be at Saint Term's any more. He dared not count on Duncan to rescue him. If only he could stall, could bluff until some measure of power returned.

  "You were about to speak, Deryni?" Warin said, observing Morgan's face and beginning to realize that he did, indeed, have the upper hand.

  Morgan forced a wry smile and tried to nod, but the arm across his throat was heavy and mailed, and he could feel the metal links bite into his neck as the guard tensed.

  "You have me at a disadvantage, sir," he said shakily, "You know me, but I do not know you. Might one inquire—?"

  "I am your judge, Deryni," Warin replied curtly, cutting Morgan off in mid-sentence and studying him with cold deliberation. "The Lord has appointed me to rid the land of your kind forever. Your death will be an important step in the accomplishment of that mission."

  "Now I know you," Morgan said. His voice had steadied, but his knees quavered with the effort of concentration. He tried, successfully this time, to keep his tone light.

  "You're that Warin fellow who's been raiding my northern manors and burning out crops. I understand

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  you've been burning out a few people as well. Not in keeping with your benevolent image, I must say."

  "Some deaths are necessary," Warin replied coolly, refusing to be rattled. "Of a certainty, yours is. I will grant you one thing, however. Against my better judgement, I promised that you should have the opportunity to repent your sins and seek absolution before you die. Personally, I feel that such is a waste of time for your kind; but Archbishop Loris disagrees. If you do wish to repent, Monsignor Gorony will hear your confession and attempt to salvage your soul."

  Morgan shifted his gaze to Gorony and frowned, a further stalling technique coming to mind. "I fear you may have jumped to some hasty conclusions, my friend," he said thoughtfully. "If you had taken the trouble to ask before resorting to ambush, you would have found that I was on my way to Dhassa to submit myself to the archbishop's authority. I had already decided to renounce my powers and lead a life of penance/' he lied.

  Warm's black eyes narrowed shrewdly. "I find that highly unlikely. From all that I have heard, the great Morgan would never renounce his powers, much less do penance."

  Morgan attempted to shrug, was heartened to find that the guards had relaxed their hold just a bit

  "I am in your power, Warin," he said, telling tKe truth now to give weight to the lie he had just told, and to the lies he intended to tell if necessary. "As whoever procured the Deryni drug will have told you, I am totally helpless under the influence of the merasha. Not only are my arcane powers suspended, but my physical coordination is hampered. Nor, I think, could I lie to you in this condition if I wanted to." That was a lie, for as Morgan had discovered when he told the first falsehood, he could he under the

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  influence of the merasha. Now, if Warm would only believe him.

  Warin frowned and pushed at a clump of straw with his boot, then shoo
k his head. "I don't understand what you hope to gain, Morgan. Nothing can save your life now. You shall bum at the stake in just a short while. Why do you compound your sins by perjuring yourself even as death approaches?"

  The stake/ Morgan thought, his face going ashen. Am I to be burned as a heretic, without even a chance to defend myself?

  "I have told you I would submit to the archbishop's authority," Morgan said, incredulity edging his voice. "Will you not permit me to carry out that intention?"

  "That possibility is no longer open to you," Warin said impassively. "You have had ample opportunity to amend your life and you have not taken it. Your life is therefore forfeit. If you wish to try to save your soul, which I assure you is the gravest of danger, I suggest you do it now, while my patience still holds. Monsignor Gorony will hear your confession if you wish it."

  Morgan shifted his attention to Gorony. "Is it your intention to permit this, Monsignor? Will you stand by and be party to an execution without proper trial?"

  "I have no orders other than to minister to your soul's needs, Morgan. That was the agreement. After that, you belong to Warin."

  "I do not belong to any man, priest!" Morgan snapped, his grey eyes flashing in anger. "And I do not believe the archbishop can be aware of this gross miscarriage of justice!"

  "Justice is not for your kind!" Gorony retorted. His face was dark and malevolent in the torchlight. "Now, will you or will you not make a confession?"

  Morgan wet his lips and mentally kicked himself for losing his temper. Argument would do no good. He could see that now. Warin and the priest were

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  blinded by tbeir hatred of something they did not understand. There was nothing he could say or do which was likely to have any effect—except, perhaps, to hasten the execution if he wasn't careful. He must stall for time!

  He lowered his eyes and made a visible effort to assume the proper contrite expression. Perhaps he could stretch the time. There must be hundreds of things he could confess over thirty years of life. And if he ran out, he was sure he could invent a few.