"Welcome!" he cried. "Welcome to Teyn, cousin Lianna!"
Lianna inclined her head. The tension ebbed. Men began to breathe again, and wipe their sweaty hands and faces. Narath Teyn raised the horn to his lips and sounded it again. The Gerrn host dissolved into fluid motion, sweeping the car along in its midst.
Two hours later, Teyn Hall blazed with light and skirled with music. The hall itself stood high on the slope of a river valley, a great sprawl of native stone and timber with many windows open on the night. Wide lawns ran down to the river bank and the Gerrn village that sheltered there among the trees. Above, the night sky dripped fire from the wild auroras born of proximity to the stellar drift, and in the shaking light strange shapes fled and gamboled across the lawns, or passed in and out through the open doors, or roosted on the broad sills of the windows. Incongruous and ill at ease, six of Lianna's guardsmen stood by the car and watched, and the radioman spoke at intervals into the mike.
Inside, fires burned on huge hearths at each end of the massive hall. Chandeliers poured light from the vaulted ceiling. The air was heavy with the smells of food and wine and smoke and the mingled company. There was only one table, and Gordon sat at it with Lianna and Narath Teyn and Korkhann, who was dignifiedly able to cope with a chair. Most of the guests who filled the hall preferred the rich rugs and cushions on the floor.
In a cleared space in the center of the hall three hunched and hairy shapes made music, with a panpipe of sorts and a flat-voiced drum, while two bright red creatures with more arms and legs than anyone needed swayed around each other with mannered grace, their gestures as stylized as Kabuki dancers, their long faces and many-faceted eyes resembling red-lacquered masks. The drumbeat picked up; the pipes shrilled higher. The scarlet legs and arms moved faster and faster. The dancers swirled and swayed hypnotically, dissolving into a blur before Gordon's eyes. The heat was terrific, the dry fauve smell of the packed nonhuman bodies almost terrifying.
Narath Teyn leaned over and spoke to Lianna. Gordon could not hear what he said, but he heard Lianna's retort.
"I've come here for an understanding, cousin, and I mean to have it. All this is by the way."
Narath Teyn bowed his head, all grace and mockery. He was dressed now in green, his long hair smoothed and held with a golden circlet. His dancers reached an impossible climax, followed by an abrupt and stunning cessation of both movement and music. Narath Teyn rose, holding out flagons of wine. He shouted something in a hissing, clacking sing-song and the scarlet ones answered and came scuttering toward him, to accept their flagons with a bow. A storm of noise burst out as the guests applauded in their several ways.
Underneath the racket Gordon spoke to Korkhann. "Where does he get his ships?" he asked. "And his men?"
"There is a town and a spaceport on the other side of this world. There is much trade between these wild systems and he controls it all. In his own way he is rich and powerful. Also he..."
The noise in the hall died away as another sound intruded; the long whistling far-off roar of a space cruiser dropping toward a landing. Gordon saw Lianna stiffen, and his own nerves snapped even tighter.
"Well," said Narath Teyn, glancing skyward with innocent amazement, "it seems that more guests are on their way. Always a flood after a long drought!"
He dropped into a guttural tongue and pounded on the table, laughing, and the big black-furred Gerrn who had carried him sprang into the open space deserted by the dancers. He had been introduced to Gordon as Sserk, chief of the local clan of Gerrn and second under Narath Teyn. He moved around the circle now in a ritual movement, slowly, lifting each lion-clawed foot in turn. His hands were crossed above his head and each one held a knife. The rhythm of his movement was picked up by the voices of the Gerrn, becoming a sort of yowling chant that ended every so often in a deep grunted cough!, only to begin again when Sserk resumed his pacing. Narath Teyn, looking flushed and pleased, spoke again to Lianna.
"Also," whispered Korkhann dryly, "as I was about to say, I suspect that he has allies."
Gordon swore very quietly under his breath. "Can't you read anything in his mind?"
"The Gerrn guard him. All I can read is satisfaction, and that you may see for yourself, in his face. I'm afraid we're in for..."
A harsh scream cut across the chanting and a second Gerrn, a young male with spotted flanks and very powerful haunches, leaped into the circle and began a prancing counter movement, holding his two knives high. His eyes were fixed on Sserk, drunken amber, wide and shining.
The chanting took on a deeper note. Elsewhere in the room it grew quiet. Grotesque heads craned forward, strange limbs shifted and were still. The two Gerrn circled, balancing. The servitors, mostly young females of the tribe with the baby fur still fluffy on them, stopped running about and stood watching.
Sserk sprang. The knives flashed, were caught and parried, and instantly Sserk's rump dropped and his forepaws rose, one feinting with quick strokes while the other lashed. The spotted male spun lightly out of reach and reared up himself, his knives darting and clashing as Sserk parried in his turn, then leaped clear of the raking claw. They began to circle again, stamping softly, their haunches quivering.
Only Narath Teyn was not watching the fencers, Gordon saw. He was waiting for something or someone and his strange fey eyes were bright with a secret triumph. Lianna sat as proud and undisturbed as though she were in her own hall at Fomalhaut, and Gordon wondered if underneath that calm she was as frightened as he.
The duel went on, it seemed, interminably. The clever hands, the murderous swift paws, the sinuous bodies darting, bounding high. The eyes alight with the pleasure of battle that was not quite to the death. After a while there was blood, and a while after that there was a lot more of it, so that the spectators close to the circle were spattered with it, and the chanting became more of a simple animal howling. In spite of himself, and ashamed of it, Gordon felt the ancient cruel excitement rise in him, found himself leaning over the table and grunting with the blows. In the end the spotted male flung down his knives and took his torn flanks dripping to the door and out of it as fast as he could go, while Sserk screamed victory and the Gerrn crowded around him with wine and praise and cloths to stop his wounds. Gordon, feeling a little sick now that the excitement was past, was reaching for his own wine-cup when he felt Korkhann touch him.
"Look, in the doorway..."
A tall man stood there, clad in black leather with the symbol of a jeweled mace aglitter on his breast, and a cap of black steel with a plume in it, and a cloak of somber purple to sweep to his heels.
There was someone, or something, behind him.
Gordon caught Lianna's sharp intake of breath, and then Narath Teyn sprung up and was pounding for silence, shouting a welcome to the newcome guest.
"Cyn Cryver, Count of the Marches of Outer Space! Welcome!"
The count strode into Teyn Hall and the Gerrn made way for him respectfully. And now Gordon saw that the count's companion was dressed in a cowled robe of shimmering gray that covered him, or it, completely from head to foot. The form beneath the flowing cloth seemed to be oddly stunted, and it moved with a fluid gliding motion that Gordon found distinctly unpleasant.
The count removed his cap and bent over Lianna's hand. "A most fortunate coincidence, Lady! Fortunate for me, at least. I hope you'll forgive me for choosing the same time you chose to visit your cousin."
Lianna said sweetly, "The ways of coincidence are indeed marvelous. Who shall question them?" She withdrew her hand. "Who is your companion?"
The cowled creature bobbed politely and made a thin hissing sound, then glided away to a relatively quiet corner behind the table. Cyn Cryver smiled and looked at Korkhann.
"One of the Empire's more remote allies, Lady, who out of courtesy keeps himself veiled. He occupies with me much the same position as does your minister, Korkhann, with you."
He acknowledged introduction to Gordon and sat down. The feasting went on. Gordon not
iced that Korkhann seemed tense and distracted, his fingers opening and closing spasmodically around his wine-cup. The air grew hotter and noisier. In the cleared space two young Gerrn, without knives, began to circle and prance, batting at each other only half playfully. At the far end of the hall a fight broke out between two members of different species and was promptly smothered. The pipers and drummers were at it again, and a ragged-looking creature with leathery wings flapped up on to the carved balustrade of the great stair and began a rhythmic screaming that might have been song. Yet underneath all this Gordon seemed to sense an uneasiness, as though a shadow had crept across the festivities. Sserk and some of the other mature Gerrn appeared to have lost their desire for drink and jollity. One by one they began to withdraw, melting away unobtrusively through the unruly crowd.
Gordon wondered if they, like himself, felt the presence of the cowled stranger as a breath of cold wind along the spine. The corner where the creature squatted was now otherwise deserted, and the area seemed to be widening. Gordon shivered, unable to rid himself of the feeling that the damned thing was staring straight at him from behind its blank gray draperies.
Out in the circle one of the young Gerrn clipped his opponent too enthusiastically, bringing blood, and in a moment the claws and fur were flying in earnest. Lianna rose.
"I will leave you to your pleasures, cousin," she said icily. "Tomorrow we will talk."
Grabbing at the chance to escape, Gordon was at her elbow before she had finished speaking. But Narath Teyn insisted on escorting her, so that Gordon had no choice but to trail them up the great staircase, with Korkhann stalking beside him. The noise from the hall below diminished as they walked down the vaulted corridor.
"I'm sorry if my friends offended you, cousin Lianna. I forget, having lived with them all my life, that others may not. . ."
"Your friends don't offend me at all," said Lianna, "if you mean the nonhumans. You offend me. Cyn Cryver offends me."
"But, cousin. . .!"
"You're a fool, Narath Teyn. And you're playing for stakes far beyond your capacity. You should have stayed content here in your forests with your Gerrn."
Gordon saw Narath Teyn's face tighten. The fey eyes shot lightning. But his composure never wavered. "It is well known that a crown conveys all wisdom to its wearer. I shall not argue."
"Your mockery seems ill-placed, cousin, since you are willing to do murder for that crown."
Narath Teyn stared at her, startled. He did not deny, nor did she give him a chance to. She pointed to the other half of her twelve guardsmen, who were posted outside her door.
"I would advise you to explain to Cyn Cryver, in case he does not understand, that I am well guarded by loyal men who cannot be drugged, bribed, or frightened from their posts. They can be killed, but in that case you must also kill their comrades below, who keep in constant touch with my cruiser. If that contact is broken, Fomalhaut will be instantly notified, and a force will come at once from the cruiser. Cyn Cryver might use his forces to stop it, but neither you nor he could gain anything by that but ultimate destruction-"
Narath Teyn said, in a queer husky voice, "Have no fear, Lady."
"I have none," she said. "I bid you good night." She swept into her apartment and the guard closed the door behind her. Narath Teyn gave Gordon and Korkhann a blank glare and then turned and strode away down the corridor.
Korkhann took Gordon's arm and they walked on toward their own quarters. Gordon started to speak and Korkhann stopped him. He seemed to be listening. His urgency communicated itself to Gordon and he made no protest when Korkhann urged him on past their own doors, on faster and faster toward the far end of the corridor where it was deserted and quiet and almost dark, and there was a back stairway, winding down.
Korkhann pushed him to it with a strange desperation.
"For the moment we're not being watched. I must get down to the car, get word to Harn Horva..."
Gordon hesitated, his heart thundering now with alarm. "What... ?"
"I understand now," Korkhann said. "They don't plan to kill Lianna." His yellow eyes were full of horror. "They plan something far worse!"
6
Gordon started back. "I'm going to get her out of here."
"No!" Korkhann held him. "She's being watched, Gordon. There are Gerrn hidden in the room next to hers. They'd give the alarm at once. We'd never get out of the building."
"But the guards...!"
"Gordon, listen. There is a force here that the guards can't fight. The gray stranger who came with the count... I tried to touch its mind and was thrown back by a shock that half stunned me. But the Gerrn are stronger. Some of them got through, a little way at least. I know, because they were so shaken that they dropped their own guard. Did you see how Sserk and the others left? They're afraid, sick-afraid of that creature, and the Gerrn are not a timid folk." He was speaking so rapidly and in such desperation that Gordon had difficulty understanding him. "Sserk looked at Lianna. As I say, his own mind was unguarded, for the moment. He was seeing her as a mindless, blasted doll, and feeling horrified, and wishing she had not come."
Now Gordon felt a cold sickness in himself. "You mean that thing has the power to..."
"It's like nothing I've ever felt before. I don't know what that being is or where it comes from, but its mind is more deadly than all our weapons." He started down the stairs. "Their plan still depends on secrecy. If Harn Horva knows, and sends word to Fomalhaut, they wouldn't dare go through with it."
Probably not, Gordon thought. But Harn Horva could do more than send word to Fomalhaut. He could send men and guns, too many for even the gray stranger to handle all at once. There was a 'copter in the cruiser's hold. Help could be here in no more than thirty minutes, perhaps less. He flung himself after Korkhann.
The stairway led them winding down to a stone passage and a small door. They went through it with the sounds of revelry dim in their ears, into the warm night behind Teyn Hall, and then they ran, keeping close in the shadows. When they reached the front corner they stopped and looked cautiously around it.
The front of Teyn Hall still blazed with light, and merrymakers still swarmed in and out of the open door, though they seemed fewer now. The ground-car stood exactly as before, with six guards around it and the driver and radioman visible inside.
Gordon started forward.
Korkhann pulled him back. "It's too late. Their minds..."
In the instant Gordon lingered he saw what might have been the flicker of a gray robe gliding past a group of Gerrn and back into the hall. Then inside the car the radioman leaned forward and spoke into the mike.
"Look there," said Gordon, "they're all right, he's keeping the contact." He pulled free and ran toward the car.
He had taken perhaps five full steps when one of the guards saw him, and turned, and raised his weapon, and Gordon saw his face clearly in the window-light. He saw the others turning one by one. He set his heels in the grass and fled, back to the shelter of the corner. The guards lowered their weapons and resumed their posts, watching with glassy and uncaring eyes the shapes that leaped and scurried across the lawns and through the groves of trees.
"Next time," Korkhann said, "listen to me."
"But the radioman . . !"
"Contact will be carried on as before. Do you suppose the Gray One can't manage so simple a thing as that?" They retreated along the dark back wall. Korkhann beat his hands together softly, in anguish. "There's no hope now of getting word through. But we must do something, and quickly."
Gordon looked up at the high windows, where Lianna was. Where perhaps the gray stranger was already bobbling up the great staircase to the corridor, to strike the minds of Lianna's guards into passive jelly. Where the Gerrn lay hidden in dark rooms, watching the prey.
The Gerrn.
Suddenly Gordon turned and ran away across the wide lawns that sloped to the river and the groves of trees and the odd round roofs of the Gerrn village. Korkhann ran beside hi
m and for once Gordon was thankful for telepathy. He did not have to waste time explaining.
They went in among the trees, into alternate shadow and bursts of shaking light from the aurora, amid intimate unfamiliar sounds of a village going about its affairs. And then there was a gathering of half-seen forms around them, the menacing soft tread of great paws. In the fire-shot gloom above him Gordon could see the narrow heads looking down at him, cat-eyes eerily catching the light.
He was fleetingly astonished to realize that he was not in the least afraid. There was no longer any time for that. He said to the Gerrn, "My mind is open to you, whether you understand my words or not. I come to see Sserk."
There was a rustling and stirring among them. A black shape drifted to the fore and a slurred harsh voice said, "Both your minds are open to me. I know what it is you want, but I can't help you. Turn back."
"No," said Gordon. "For the love you bear Narath Teyn, you will help us. Not for us, not for the Princess Lianna, but for his sake. You have touched the mind of the gray stranger..."
The Gerrn stirred uneasily, growling. And Korkhann said suddenly, "Cyn Cryver and the Gray One. Who truly leads, and who follows?"
"The Gray One leads," said Sserk grudgingly, "and the count follows, though he does not know it yet."
"And if Narath Teyn is king at Fomalhaut, who will lead then?"
Sserk's eyes glowed briefly in the aurora light. But he shook his head. "I can't help you."
"Sserk," said Gordon. "How long will they let Narath Teyn rule-the Gray One and Cyn Cryver and whoever is behind them? Narath Teyn wants power for the nonhumans, but what do they want?"
"I could not see that far," said Sserk, very softly, "but whatever it is, it is not for us."
"Nor for Narath Teyn. They need him now because he's the legitimate heir, if the princess dies or is rendered unfit. But you know what will happen to him in the end. You know, Sserk."
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