The Rebel of Rhada

by Robert Cham Gilman

  The first Imperial died with his sword only half drawn, so caught by the music had he been. The others took warning and formed a battle line, for they were trained troops, though softened by too long duty in the capital.

  Beside Kier the Vykans were fighting, and the enclosed and badly lit rooms resounded to the ring of swords. The man opposing Kier was a good swordsman and strong. It took the young star king time to pierce his shoulder and disarm him. He made no move to prevent his bolt for the stairway leading down. There was no time to worry about that now because Kier could see through the other room to the window, where the mists seemed to glow with a dancing violet light.

  Another Vegan went down, and Kier turned to face a third. Ariane stood at his side as firmly as any trooper. He felt a surge of pride for her.

  Cavour had made a snare from his cloak and had caught an Imperial from behind. Gret and Erit were singing a wild, skirling melody. There was a touch of madness in the scene of dancing shadows, clashing blades, and alien music.

  Then, quite suddenly, a silence fell because the last of the guards lay still on the floor. The young Vyk was wounded, cut on the neck above his mailed shirt. But he was on his feet and regarding Ariane with worshipful eyes. We savages, Kier thought, how we love a warrior queen!

  Cavour, at the window now, called out to Kier, “It’s there! I see it now!”

  God reward Kalin, Kier thought, and make his hand steady. Ariane was staring, half afraid, at the ionized rain falling past the casements and on down into the abyss. “Kier--is it--?”

  “My starship, Ariane. And my very skillful cousin.”

  No one in the Empire, Ariane thought, had ever attempted to maneuver a starship so delicately, so close to the ground. A touch could bring shattering disaster, an explosion greater than the missiles of ancient legend.

  From below came the noise of armored men running. Kier ordered the Vykans to the casement. He stood there, straining his eyes against the now-brilliant mists. It seemed he could sense the immense bulk of the starship frighteningly close, but still he could not see it.

  “There!” cried the young Vyk. “I see an open valve!”

  Now Kier and the others could see it as well. The dilating aperture seemed a tunnel hanging in a swirling, glowing space. It bobbed and swayed grotesquely as the winds tore at the thousand-meter-long hull of the antique vessel. Across a gap of five meters Kier could see the hulking shape of his lieutenant-general Nevus and a crew of war-men with a casting line. But the noises of pursuit grew louder, mingled with the sacred humming of the starship.

  The line came hurtling into the room and, without being told, the Vyks made it fast.

  “Go quickly now!” Kier commanded. “Cavour, take Gret. You, warman--what’s your name?”

  “Han, sir,” the boy said.

  “Are you too hurt to cross carrying Erit?”

  “I can make it, King.”

  “Do it then, and quickly!”

  The boy looked longingly at the stairway, and Kier cursed him for a berserk Vyk who thought more of fighting than of his queen. The parade ground tongue-lashing spurred him into action, and he lifted Erit to his shoulders.

  “Go now, Cavour,” Kier commanded. The warlock, with Gret clinging to his neck, swung hand over hand along the wildly gyrating line. Kier saw him safely into the star-ship’s portal and shoved the boy Han to the casement. He, too, made the hair-raising crossing.

  Ariane looked at the line with a sinking heart. She knew her strength unequal to the crossing. Kier had thought of almost everything but not of that. She motioned her remaining Vyks to the window. They crossed, swinging crazily in the wind a kilometer above the city.

  Kier, alone now with Ariane, unshipped the casting line and lashed it to her harness. For a moment the girl did not realize what he was doing, and when she did, she fought him with a sudden angry despair.

  “I didn’t set you free so you could throw your life away, Kier!”

  Kier took the helmet from her head so that her dark hair blew in the wind from the window. “We are not beaten yet,” he said. “But in case something goes badly--” He laughed with the pleasure of battle and kissed her. “Be a proper queen and go!”

  He took the sword from her and shouted to Nevus and Cavour to take her. She stood for a moment on the casement, looking back at him, and then she was gone, swinging on the end of the casting line as the men in the starship hauled her into the valve.

  Kier turned to face the soldiery pouring into the outer room from the stairway. He looked back to see that the open valve of the starship was still in sight, moving, in fact, closer to the building as Kalin worked his incomprehensible magic half a kilometer away in the unseen prow of the vessel.

  Kier raised one of the swords and threw it like a spear at the first man to burst through the doorway. Before the man had fallen, Ariane’s weapon was in his hand and flashing after his own.

  Then Kier turned, ran across the room, and launched himself into space.

  The rain and wind were icy on his naked skin. He seemed to be suspended in a glowing Umbo where all was light and violence. His arms and hands, extended before him, gleamed with a ghost light.

  Then he struck the hull of the starship, clung there, slipped on the rain-wet metal, clung again, his heart pounding wildly. He felt the coaming of the open portal under his fingertips. The building was gone in the swirling, dancing, pulsating rain.

  A strong hand closed over his wrist. He looked up to see the bearded face of Nevus close to his own. Other hands reached him and hauled him into the starship. He lay on the deck, rolled over on his back, and tried to still the thudding of his pulse and heart. Then he smiled because Ariane was there, bending over him, her hair wet and tangled, and he could not tell if her face streamed with the rain or with the tears of relief that her rebel was safe.

  11

  The lessons of history are plain. Man builds and destroys, builds and destroys again. He is both noble and savage.

  Nv. Julianus Mullerium, The Age of the Star Kings,

  middle Second Stellar Empire period

  Each generation of man must choose between peace and war. From the beginning it has been so. To the end it will be so.

  Attributed to Emeric of Rhada, Grand Master of Navigators,

  early Second Stellar Empire period

  Kier and his chieftains were gathered in the young star king’s quarters as the Rhad vessel reached stellar speed. Nevus was pacing angrily, and Cavour sat in disapproving silence. Kier had given his orders.

  Presently, Nevus could contain himself no longer. “With respect, King. It seems to me that one miraculous escape is all a sane man can expect. The place for us now is the Palatinate, not Sarissa.”

  Kier shook his head. “Consider what you are suggesting. War on our own territory. Mariana will have the Rim, no matter what it costs. She said so and I believe her.”

  “And what will she use to take it, King?” Nevus spoke with a military man’s contempt for the enemy. “Fifty thousand fat Vegans?”

  “Fifty thousand Veg--and a million men from the Inner Worlds,” Kier said patiently.

  “If the Council of Sarissa accepts her as liberator and Queen-Empress,” Cavour interjected.

  “They will not,” Nevus declared.

  “Will they not?” Kier asked. He turned to Cavour. “Legitimacy is easily come by when you have the power. You already speak of the ‘Council of Sarissa’ as though it were a legal body and not a rump congress of dissidents. And ask yourself this: How many of the warleaders knew the boy Torquas? And this: How many of the kings fought against Glamiss at Karma and a dozen other places?” He paused for a moment, and the humming of the starship seemed to fill the silence. “The stellar government was put together by The Magnifico and my father and a few others of us with the edge of our swords. It’s true the star kings would probably not revolt by themselves. But with leadership? And a cause? With confusion in Nyor?” He shook his head. “Think how close to rebellion we Rh
ad have come--”

  The bearded Nevus threw his hands into the air. “What leader, King? What cause?”

  “Tallan of Sarissa, perhaps. Even Landro. And the cause? Call it freedom, if you like. The right to rule our territories as we like. To go for each others’ throats as we did for two thousand years before Glamiss brought order.”

  Cavour frowned. “He is right, Nevus. We both know it. It wasn’t sin that brought down the First Empire. It was this kind of political chaos. And the Dark Time lasted two millennia.”

  Nevus regarded his king for a long while, his eyes narrowed. “Are we to hold back the night alone, King?”

  “If we must,” Kier said.

  “What chance against the galaxy?”

  “None,” Cavour said, “if we wait until it begins.”

  Nevus sighed heavily. “Can we count on the Navigators?”

  Kier shook his head. “We can count on our own Navigators. But the Order won’t take sides. It cannot.”

  Nevus spread his gnarled hands on the table before him. “I am a soldier, King, not a politician. You must be both. But it is a dangerous game we play now.”

  “Hasn’t it always been?” Cavour asked quietly.

  Nevus said, “And if we lose you, King?” He turned hard eyes on his ruler. “You have no son. Who will lead the Rhad then?”

  “Kalin.”

  “A Navigator?”

  Kier nodded. “A Rhad.”

  “Does he know?”

  “He has never been told, but if it comes, he will know his place.”

  “I don’t like it,” Nevus muttered.

  Kier smiled and shook his old general’s shoulder. “You are far more rebel than I, Nevus.”

  “I am a citizen of Rhada, King. You would make us citizens of the Empire. I am one of the old men--you are one of the new.” He looked frankly at his warleader. “Is it the girl, Kier?”

  Cavour bridled. “You do him an injustice, General.”

  Kier shook his head. “No, he does right to ask, Cavour.” To Nevus he said, “It’s much more than Ariane. Though if Torquas is dead, she is Queen-Empress by right.”

  “Damn the Imperial family,” the old warman grumbled. “They have cost the Rhad an ocean of blood.”

  Cavour smiled ruefully. “It is the way of Imperial families,” he said. “From the beginning of time it has always been so.”

  Kier regarded his companions in silence. How near to truth they came, only to fall short of the vision. Perhaps the quality that set apart the leaders of men was this margin. Cavour and the general saw only the cost. They could not see the glowing dream of a united, peaceful civilization stretching from one rim of the galaxy to the other. The captains and the kings, the warmen and Imperial families, the starfleets and the men who voyaged in them were only the instruments that would one day in the distant future buy that great dream for all men. Glamiss and Aaron the Devil had that vision. Perhaps Ariane, too, had it. It was the greatest and the final test of rulers. Without it, the torrent of history would sweep them under, and they would be forgotten.

  “It is decided, then,” he said. “You will put me aground on Sarissa. Then you will take Ariane to Rhada.”

  The voice from the portal was imperious and angry.

  “What gives you the right to make decisions without me, Rebel?”

  Ariane’s eyes were bright with anger, and Kier thought irrelevantly that she had never looked so beautiful. The men rose to greet her.

  She swept into the room, still dressed in war gear, the silvery mail flashing in the torchlight. Behind her, bearing her weapons, came Han, the young Vyk warman, and Erit and Gret.

  Kier looked at his general and the warlock and murmured, with a half-smile, “Well, gentlemen. We’ve created a Queen-Empress. Now it seems I must deal with her. You can leave us.”

  The older men saluted and bowed to Ariane. “With your permission, noble lady,” said Cavour gallantly.

  Ariane watched them go with sparking eyes. “With my permission or without it,” she said angrily. She turned on the warman Han. “Well, go with them,” she snapped.

  The boy saluted in confusion and fled, wondering how someone so beautiful could be so unpredictable. The two Vulks withdrew together into the shadows.

  Ariane said to Kier, “Now what is this about sending me off to Rhada, Rebel?”

  Kier held a chair for her, but she ignored it, pacing angrily across the god-metal decking, the thigh-length metal of her mail shirt rustling musically.

  “For your safety, Ariane,” Kier said. “It’s best.”

  “Are you to decide that?”

  His smile grew broader. “I am, Queen.”

  “By what right?”

  “As your warleader.”

  The girl threw herself into the chair suddenly, her face somber. “What’s happening, Kier?” she said in a muffled voice. “Are the star kings gathering? Is it all going to be for nothing?”

  Kier leaned against the ancient carved table near her and looked at her proud, unhappy face. She raised her eyes to meet his, and he could see a suspicious brightness in them.

  “In a few short years have we lost everything our fathers fought for, Kier. Will the Dark Time come again?”

  Kier reached forward and cupped her chin gently. “We’re not beaten yet, Ariane.”

  She closed her eyes, and tears glistened on her dark lashes. “I’m thinking of my brother. Would they really have killed him? Could Mariana be so cruel? He is only a little boy--”

  Kier shook his head slowly. “He was Galacton, Ariane. And if he is dead or imprisoned, then you are Queen-Empress. Remember it. All we hope for depends on you.”

  She raised her head. “I won’t forget it.” And then she added in a level voice, “And neither shall Mariana and her Vegan lover.” She brushed aside Kier’s hand and stood, her eyes shining angrily. “No more mourning,” she said. Then, determinedly, she changed the subject. “Kier, does the name Kelber mean anything to you?”

  “Landro mentioned that some of the new ballistae in Nyor were the work of someone by that name. Only that.”

  “He is a warlock of Sarissa. Would Cavour know of him?”

  “Perhaps. Is it important?” “Mariana dealt with him.”

  Kier called to a warman to bring Cavour to them. Then he turned to Ariane. “Were there no warlocks in Nyor that Mariana had to buy spells from a Sarissan?”

  “I wish I knew,” Ariane said. “It was Erit who sensed the name from Mariana. It was nothing she would ever have spoken about. I cannot help but think that this Kelber was involved in Mariana’s plotting.”

  Kier called the Vulks to him. They had been sitting apart, silent in the shadows, foreheads and fingertips touching.

  In the light of the torches that lit the metal-walled room, the two Vulks were almost indistinguishable. Though one lived among the Rhad and the other on the Imperial planet, even their clothing was the same. Kier, like any human, tended to think of them in human terms--as male and female. But the distinction could not be so simply made. Vulks were all parts of a single organism, an intricate complex of minds that had been shattered by dispersion across stellar distances in the dim past. The Vulk race no longer functioned as it once had done, but when two or more Vulks came into close contact, some fragment of that once-immense racial entity was re-created. The Vulk Protocols, discredited in much of the galaxy now, had once inflamed human fear and hatred by distorting and exaggerating this power to combine minds. To Kier, the Vulk mind-touch was simply a potentially useful instrument of empire.

  “Tell me of Kelber the Sarissan,” he said to the Vulks.

  “It was long ago,” Erit replied. “I sensed Mariana’s thought that one called Kelber would provide a warleader.”

  Kier said thoughtfully, “No more than that? Warleaders are cheap enough.”

  “Not like this one, King,” Gret said.

  Kier noted that Gret now knew what Erit knew. He could guess how this sharing of minds must have frighte
ned the half savages who compiled the Protocols. It had been the undoing of the gentle Vulks--this ability to do what men could not do.

  Gret smiled sadly, knowing what Kier’s thought was. “Men rule, King, not Vulks. It is not our way. But no matter. Mariana sought a warleader from the warlock Kelber. That is all we know.”

  “What warleader?” Kier asked.

  The Vulk shrugged. “For some reason we do not understand, there was no name. And all men have names, King. Do they not?”

  “All that I know.”

  “Yet this one did not. He was mighty, stronger than most men. Perhaps a man of the Golden Age.”

  Kier looked questioningly at Ariane and saw that Cavour had returned. “You heard, Cavour?”

  “I heard.”

  “Is it possible?”

  Cavour shrugged and pulled at his beard. “I would not say something is impossible.”

  “But a man of the Golden Age? An immortal?”

  Cavour spread his hands. “I think not, King. I have studied the Warls all my life. There is no evidence the ancients conquered death. But there are hints of other things, other sorts of men, different kinds of life--” He frowned thoughtfully. “The men of the Golden Age were wise beyond our knowing, King.”

  Ariane asked, “Have you ever heard of this Kelber?”

  “Long ago there was a warlock of that name. It was said he knew the Warls better than most. But he was old. He should have been dead for many years.”

  “A Sarissan?” Kier asked.

  “No. An Imperial, I think. From one of the Inner Worlds. Bellerive, I believe. But, of course, warlocks travel. In those days, usually with a mob chasing them. He could have gone to Sarissa.”

  “A warleader,” Kier mused. “Tallan?”

  Cavour considered. “A legendary man, King. He rose like a comet on Sarissa. But I doubt he is immortal or any such thing. We know that travelers say he was born on the southern continent of Sarissa, became a bandit chief there, came to Sardis with an army, and overthrew the Interregnal lords. Sarissa is such a backward place that neither Glamiss nor any of his generals ever thought of garrisoning the planet. It was only a year ago that Tallan sent his pledge to Torquas.” The warlock smiled apologetically at Kier. “There is nothing in any of this to mark him as anything more than another turbulent star king.”