The Rebel of Rhada

by Robert Cham Gilman

  “I never claimed it,” the warlock muttered. “The Warls tell of things that were. Men must find for themselves. I know--”

  “What, exactly, do you know?” Tallan said scornfully. “Landro asked for weapons, and you spent his money on this.” He pushed again at the racked, inert cyborg with a booted foot. “I should call the patrolmen.”

  The old man grew crafty. “That you’ll never do--king.” He came down hard on the last word, for he did remember now, he was sure that he remembered Tallan lying just there, on that same rack-- When, how long ago? He couldn’t recall, but it was so, and his voice filled with irony and emotion because Tallan, who wore the harness of a star king, who threatened his life, was not even a man.

  The warleader’s eyes narrowed speculatively.

  The old man’s arrogance increased, expanded dangerously. But he was too angry and confused to be prudent. “The people fear you,” he said. “They call you The Unknown. But I know you, Tallan, star king, great war-leader--I know you.”

  Tallan said thoughtfully, “Perhaps you do, Grandfather. Perhaps, after all, you do--”

  The old warlock’s mind veered wildly back to his obsession. “Then help me,” he demanded heedlessly. “Tell Landro I need power--more equipment-- Tell him I want--” He stopped suddenly because Tallan had moved across the room and stood over him now, towering, darkly menacing.

  “The trouble with knowledge-seekers,” Tallan said quietly, “is their fanaticism. They can’t be controlled, and when that happens, old man, their usefulness is at an end. Sometimes they are even so unwise as to threaten their protectors.”

  The old warlock’s breath began to come in short, labored gasps. It had been years since he had known real fear, and he could scarcely recognize it now. But his mouth was dry, and his body trembled as he shrank back, back, until his shoulders touched the cold stones of the wall.

  “Every living thing,” Tallan said, “has the instinct of self-preservation, the need to destroy what threatens it. Every living thing, Grandfather. You taught me that yourself. Do you remember?”

  Kelber blinked. He could feel his ancient heart pounding and leaping within his chest like an imprisoned animal. Had he taught Tallan? Yes, of course he had. He could remember now the great naked shape stirring with first life, the first childlike weeks with a lifetime of knowledge to impart in six months, a year. He learned so quickly, so well, not like a human child at all. And there had been times when he had wished, with all his old man’s human heart, that the cyborg could learn to love, to be a son, to be a man. But, of course, it never came to that. And he could recall the great strength, the power, and the training for war, and the slashing climb through the shattered ranks of the bandit captains who tried to hold Sarissa then. What chance had they against Tallan? Gods of space, what chance had he, Kelber, now?

  Suddenly, the smell of the marshes was strong in his old nostrils, and life seemed very precious, even this doddering, failing life. “Tallan,” he said shrilly, “Tallan-- no--no--”

  But the great warman had struck one strong blow with a fist of mail. The old man’s head was flung back against the stones of the wall with a sickening sound of crushing bone.

  For a time, Tallan stood unmoving, listening to the unnatural stillness. Then he touched the old man’s throat, feeling for a pulse that no longer throbbed.

  He picked up the warlock’s body as though it weighed nothing and carried it to a straw pallet in the corner. He did not give it another glance.

  Next he moved to the unfinished cyborg on the rack. He drew a blade of god-metal from his harness and swiftly opened the head. From the bloodless cavity, he took an oval object trailing hundreds of hair-thin wires. He cracked it open against the edge of an electrical cabinet. Inside the oval, racing through a maze of printed circuits and crystals, a tiny light flickered. He reversed his dagger, and using the pommel, he crushed the contents of the brain-egg. It took a long while, but presently the light faded and died out completely.

  He dropped the two halves of the cyborg’s brain onto the stones of the floor and ground the crystal and plastic to bits beneath his heel. “Sleep long, brother,” he murmured with an ironic half-smile.

  He sheathed the dagger and drew his great sword of god-metal. For several minutes he walked methodically from one wired cabinet to another, smashing dials and controls, overturning equipment racks, savaging wiring until it hung in useless tangles from the ancient machines. In moments he destroyed the work of half a lifetime.

  When he had finished, he turned to the book-laden tables, overturning them, spilling sheaves of priceless old manuscripts and diagrams over the flagstones. Then he took flint and god-metal from his pouch and struck a fire. When it was burning well, he smashed the light globes so that the room was illuminated only by the spreading flames, splashing and dancing on the old walls.

  Without looking back now, he walked through the burning room to the doorway. He paused, listening. Satisfied that he was unobserved, he let himself out into the Street of Night, under Sarissa’s dull and sullen sky. He carefully closed and locked the door behind him.

  He was at the citadel walls before he heard the alarm being spread in the city. When he turned to look, the flames were dancing and sparking over the housetops. He listened to the growing uproar in the streets for a long while, feeling the strange emotion that was, for him, the counterpart of human satisfaction.

  3

  Nyor, Nyor, city of sin

  Dance with the warlocks

  Let troubles begin

  There they will gather the witches and kings

  There let them be when the tocsin bell rings.

  From the Book of Warls, Interregnal period

  Despite the destruction of the civil wars that shattered the First Empire and the repeated sackings of the capital during the dark time of the Interregnum, Nyor remained the greatest city on the home planet of the galaxy’s only star-voyaging race. Glamiss Magnifico, though a native of Vyka, believed the ancient proverb: Who rules Nyor rules Earth. Who rules Earth rules the stars. Thus Nyor became, after the Battle of Karma, the personal holding of the Vykan Galactons and the first city of the Second Stellar Empire.

  Nv. Julianus Mullerium, The Age of the Star Kings, middle Second Stellar Empire period

  Torquas Primus, Galacton, King of the Universe, Protector of the Faith, Defender of the Inner and Outer Marches, Commander of the Starfleets, Lord of Nyor, and Hereditary Warleader of Vyka, had a cold.

  His eyes itched and burned; his throat was sore and his nose red and liquid. He was absolutely convinced that he burned with a high and possibly dangerous fever, despite assurances from his doctors that he was discomfited-- nothing more.

  Young Torquas had been cross all day, depressed and confined by his illness and by the rain that had been drenching Nyor for a week. The city, perched on its huge tel, seemed to huddle in the inclement weather. The boats on the river were docked and covered against the rain, the four million Nyori kept to their houses (for they had a superstitious dread of rainfall that dated back to the dawn of time when the blood-sickness was said to have fallen from the sky), and even the citadel grounds were deserted except for the Vykan guardsmen patrolling in their oiled leather capes and hoods. So Torquas kept to his rooms, annoyed by his companions and neglected by his wife.

  Mariana had promised to call on him, and she had not. She hadn’t sent the actors to amuse him as she had promised to do, either. She had not even come to question his physicians about his state of health--which was very bad, no matter what the stupid medics said.

  It was even possible, Torquas thought grimly, that he might be close to death. He considered the masses of grieving Nyori, the yellow-draped monuments, the hovering starships and warmen with reversed weapons in his funeral train. There would be dirges for days, and the women of the household would cut their lovelocks to burn on the star king’s bier. Oh, it would be a fine sight! He remembered his father’s funeral: far and away the most impressive pagean
t he could ever remember seeing. Only, if the funeral were his own, he would of course not see it--unless the priest-Navigators were right and he would be carried into Paradise in a great crystal starship from which he could see all the wonders of the Universe (of which he was undoubted king). Including, he supposed, his own great funeral.

  Still, it might possibly be that he was suffering from something not quite fatal, in which case he would have to reprimand Mariana for her neglect as soon as he felt able.

  He lay on his curtained bed, listening to the comings and goings of the two dozen courtiers who never left him. He was still rather morbidly considering his own death, but he concluded that it was very hard for anyone, even the Galacton, to come to grips with such a notion at the age of twelve years. Perhaps, when he became old enough to lead troops in battle, when he could actually see men die, he would be better able to cope with abstract death. Though when that remarkable day might come, he really did not know.

  When his father, The Magnifico, was still alive, he remembered, he had at least been trained in the use of arms. But since the great king’s departure for Paradise in the great crystal starship (that was really very hard to believe), there seemed no time for war games. Mariana insisted it was not fitting for the King of the Universe to spend his time in the armory swinging a wooden sword.

  Mariana was a Vyk herself, and a relative--even a distant cousin--should understand that Torquas, as head of the family, should be a warrior. How else would he hold his lands, the hundreds of worlds so distant they could not be seen in Earth’s sky even on the clearest of nights?

  He sighed heavily and stirred on the furs that covered the Imperial bed.

  He thought about his sister, the Princess Royal Ariane. He was very cross with Ariane, too. She had not been to see him in weeks. When he asked for her, Mariana and Landro said that she was still on Vyka, queening it on her estates. How dare Ariane go off-world without the Galacton’s permission? What was the point of being King of the Universe if you couldn’t even control your own sister?

  He closed his eyes and listened to the people on the other side of the curtains. Avaric, the fat Altairi heir who was supposed to be Lord Chamberlain, was playing at Stars and Comets with Lady Constans, the governess. Privately, Torquas referred to Constans as Lady No because it was she who was in charge of his court education, which seemed to consist mainly of things the Galacton should not do. The pages were arguing about the ownership of a hunting peregrine, and something had happened to make Orrin, the Imperial equerry, cry. It sounded as though one of the nine Gentlemen Pensioners was comforting him. Torquas frowned petulantly. Who ever heard of a Galacton, a Commander of the Starfleets, with a five-year-old child for equerry? All because Orrin was bond-cousin to Landro, and Mariana insisted the post go to him as a member of the Veg clan.

  Torquas had long ago decided he disliked all the members of the Veg family, Landro most of all. Mariana insisted Landro was wise and brave, but what really seemed to impress her most was that Landro was handsome. And, Torquas thought bleakly, too ambitious by half. He was enough Glamiss of Vyka’s son to sense that. One day, he told himself, I’ll challenge him to the Three Encounters with sword, flail, and dagger. It was a brave but futile thought. He knew it would never happen.

  He could hear a flurry of activity in the outer chamber, and he wondered if someone was actually coming to see him. He hoped it would be Mariana, or at least the troupe of actors she promised.

  He sat up and opened the curtains. Immediately, everyone in the room stood up. At first he had enjoyed making people do things of that sort. But now it only made him sulky because he knew he couldn’t really make them do anything at all. Only Mariana or Landro could do that.

  The fat Avaric said, “How may we serve you, King?”

  Torquas scratched his pale face and blinked at the light. The day was silvery gray, and it was cold in the large, uncomfortable room. He signaled for Lady No to bring him a bed jacket. When she had settled it over his narrow shoulders, he asked, “What was Orrin crying about?”

  The equerry blinked and stared sullenly at his sovereign. “It was nothing, sir,” Lady No said. “Lord Avaric took a sweet from him.”

  The Lord Chamberlain, who was fifteen and had a bad complexion from overeating, looked daggers at the governess.

  “You’re far too fat already, Avaric,” the Galacton said. “If you don’t stop eating so, I shall have to send you back to the Western Sea.” Avaric’s family held the Oahu Islands in the center of Earth’s great Western Ocean, an isolated estate that Avaric loathed for its warm weather, disturbing to his plump constitution.

  “What’s happening outside?” Torquas asked. “Has someone come to see me?”

  “Soldiers, sir,” Lady No said. “Warmen.”

  “Of course there are warmen there,” Torquas said impatiently. “There always are.”

  “But a great many, sir,” Avaric said. “A full squadron.”

  “Outside my door?” Torquas said curiously. “Open. Let me see.”

  Avaric signaled to one of the pages, and the boy swung the heavy god-metal door. The draft from the gallery made the tapestries sway. Beyond the doorway stood two ranks of Vegan Imperials in full war gear. Their gilded conical helmets bore the mark of Landro’s own division.

  Torquas swung his bare feet over the side of the high bed.

  “Oh, sir. You shouldn’t,” Lady Constans exclaimed. “The doctors said most distinctly that you should stay in bed.”

  Torquas ignored her and said, “Bring the squadron officer to me, Avaric.”

  The fat Lord Chamberlain retired and presently returned with a hard-faced young warman, who knelt at the Galacton’s bedside.

  “Leader,” he said, using the formal Vegan title. Torquas felt a twinge of irritation. Vegans were a gritty lot, always preferring their own out-land ways to the manners of Nyor.

  “What’s happening,” Torquas demanded. “Why is your squadron outside my door?”

  “Orders, Leader,” the warman said.

  “The Galacton is addressed as King,” Lady No said severely. “Or Lord, if you prefer. Never as Leader.”

  The warman turned cold eyes on the governess. “I am a Vegan, Lady,” he said.

  Torquas made a gesture of impatience. “Never mind all that. I want to know what is happening. Are we being attacked?” He half hoped that the answer would be yes. To be attacked would be exciting. Maybe he could lead his own division into battle and make Mariana proud. “Is there trouble, warman?”

  “A precaution, sir.”

  “I don’t understand. A precaution against what?”

  The courtiers in the room began to murmur amongst themselves. The squadron officer and the armed men in the gallery made them uneasy.

  “We have orders to protect you, sir. That is all.”

  “Who gave such orders?” Torquas asked.

  “The Empress-Consort.”

  Torquas rubbed his reddened nose. “Who am I being protected from, warman?”

  The officer got to his feet without permission and said, “There is a Rhadan starship entering the atmosphere. That is all I know.”

  Torquas turned to Avaric. “What’s happening here? Are we at war with Rhada? I have been told nothing about this.”

  Avaric, wide-eyed, shook his head stupidly. “I’ve heard of no war, King.”

  Lady No was not about to be intimidated by the cold-eyed Vegan. She stationed herself in front of him and declared, “There is no conceivable reason the arrival of a Rhadan starship should cause alarm in Nyor. In the first place, there are troops enough on the East Coast to defend the capital against a dozen starships. And in the second place, Kier of Rhada is as loyal as any star king in the Empire.”

  Torquas nodded. “Kier was one of my father’s best war-leaders.”

  The warman shrugged. “Nevertheless, Leader, I have my orders. A Rhadan vessel will soon be landing, and I have been told to protect you.”

  “What nonsense,” Lady
No said severely.

  “When will the ship land, when?” Orrin cried excitedly.

  “Within the hour,” the officer said.

  “I want to go see,” Torquas said suddenly.

  The officer looked uncomfortable. “My orders say that you must remain here, sir.”

  Torquas dropped from the bed and stood, barefoot and very young, before the armed soldier. “Who gave that order, warman?” he asked with a suddenly acquired dignity.

  “The warleader, sir.”

  “Landro?”

  “Sir.”

  “And who am I, warman?”

  The soldier looked unhappy. “The Galacton, sir.”

  Torquas studied the hard face and realized that the officer would not obey him. It would be foolish and perhaps even dangerous to attempt to force obedience.

  Torquas drew a breath and said, “Leave me.”

  “Sir.” The warman saluted and withdrew.

  “Avaric,” Torquas said. “I want to get dressed.”

  Lady Constans made gestures of disapproval, clucking about the Galacton’s health and the instructions of the doctors. But when she saw the boy’s face, she grew silent.

  Avaric and the Gentlemen Pensioners helped the Galacton to dress. Torquas wished that he had proper war harness to wear, but there was none. He had outgrown his old war gear, and Mariana had done nothing about providing him with new.

  He had finished washing himself in a basin held by a page when Mariana was announced. The Empress-Consort, dressed in a short gown of Vykan yellow, approached through the crowd of bowing courtiers. At her back came Landro, his tall and slender figure resplendent in court dress. He carried only ceremonial weapons, and he was not dressed for war. His hair was long, in the Vegan mode, and caught at the nape of his neck with a silver clasp. Torquas did not like Vegan styles. His father, he remembered, thought them perverse, and now so did he. But Mariana was beautiful, with a narrow, finely made face and short black Vykan hair worn close to her small, shapely head. Her hazel eyes reminded Torquas of his dimly remembered mother.