“That’s where they were when your Prince Havilgar of Haulteclere got the idea to raid Aton. Six ships went in, and started systematically raiding the larger cities, irrespective of their national identities. They were looting merrily, in fine Space Viking style, when the various political groups found common cause and responded . . . vigorously.”
“That was an important battle,” agreed Harkaman. “That taught us that raiding civilized worlds was expensive. And lethal.”
“That was one result. Another was that the ruling parties of Aton were able to reforge their various political identities into one national identity, using their combined opposition to the Space Viking menace as a common cultural myth. That, and the technological knowledge gained by captured Sword World equipment, gave them a strong incentive to re-launch their civilization.”
“Glad we could help,” Harkaman murmured, sarcastically. “That battle had other effects, too, namely which royal house ended up with the throne of Haulteclere. “ He rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “Considering our problems in the Sword Worlds, right now, I can’t help wishing Havilgar had escaped.”
“So the Wizard mentioned,” Dawes agreed. “Which is why he arranged for that photoprint.”
“That’s right!” Harkaman declared. “The day Valerie went into labor! Someone gave Lucas a photoprint of Prince Havilgar’s ship, the Iron Crown. Only it was in front of buildings that were built within the last fifty years.”
“Yes, that was a very interesting photo,” Dawes nodded, steepling his fingers in front of his chin. “Because according to both Atonian and Haultecleran accounts, the Iron Crown was destroyed in the western desert of Aton, with three fifteen-megaton nuclear devices. When it came to the Wizard’s attention, he began an investigation. It’s still ongoing, but it’s clear that the Battle of Aton didn’t happen the way either versions of history say it did. Or they left something important out. While the Wizard hasn’t discovered much, yet, he does know that the ship has been removed from that location, within the last decade or so. But why, where, and who . . . well, he has his suspicions, but . . .” he shrugged.
“We have some people looking into that as well,” Harkaman said, carefully. “I’ll be certain to alert you if we discover anything of interest.”
“If you think it’s harmless enough to pass on,” corrected Dawes. “Please, Admiral, I understand your position,” he said, before Harkaman could object. “You have the national security of Tanith to consider, and I respect that. I don’t blame you for being careful with providing sensitive information to unknown strangers who appear out of the wilderness. But don’t worry – the Wizard will find out whatever you know, anyway, eventually. He always does.”
Harkaman suppressed a shiver. “That’s not the sort of admission that inspires trust in a new relationship,” he pointed out, refilling his coffee.
“It’s candid,” Dawes countered. “I don’t like to lie, in general. But when I have to, I’m very good at it. Don’t worry yourself about it, Admiral, you can apply as much security to your secrets as you like. It won’t matter. The Wizard will eventually find out.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” sighed the old captain. “But I’d also say that having a man like that as a friend would be a good thing to have.”
“It often is,” Dawes agreed. “It’s also dangerous.”
“I’m starting to see that. So tell me, Mr. Dawes: is the Wizard a friend of Tanith? Or merely an interested party?”
“A fair question,” Dawes considered, sipping his tea. “And quite subject to interpretation. But in my opinion, the two are not mutually exclusive. Let’s say that for now the interests of Tanith and the Wizard coincide. Beyond that, the Wizard is inclined to view Tanith in a friendly light. Thanks in large part to the honor you did his friend and agent, Sam Gatworth.”
“That was a noble thing the boy did,” Harkaman nodded, filling his pipe. “Any honor we did him was well deserved. I would have been in that blast, too, so I feel particularly touched. Her Highness has agreed to allow you to transport the body at your convenience. Until then, it’s safe in a place of honor.”
“I didn’t know Sam well,” Dawes admitted. “We worked in different . . . areas. But he is a cousin of mine, of some degree, so I do feel obligated to bring him home. The Wizard heard about your inquiries about his family on Fenris, though, and was touched. Which is why he ordered the unprecedented step of contacting you directly.” An exhaustive search had been made to identify just where and who were Sam Gatworth’s next-of-kin, and they had been able to trace him back to Fenris, where Lucas had enquired about the deceased hero.
“But you said our interests coincide,” Harkaman reminded him. “What interests do Tanith and your . . . the Wizard share?”
“Aton. Haulteclere. And war,” Dawes said, after searching his tea cup for the right words. “The Wizard has reason to believe that war is coming. War on a scale not seen in the galaxy since the System States War, half a thousand years ago. War that might very well lead to the eventual extinction of humanity. That, Admiral, is why the Wizard has an interest in Tanith. It’s the focus, right now, of opposing forces. That, more than anything else, is why he sent me.”
“I find that less than comforting,” Harkaman admitted, troubled.
“This makes me confident I’ve come to the right place, and what’s more, at the right time. Tell me, Admiral, what would you say if I could offer Tanith a far more advanced type of defensive weaponry than you enjoy right now?”
“Such as . . . ?” Harkaman asked, suspiciously.
“Well, every Wizard should have a Dragon,” Mr. Dawes began, smiling, as he took a notebook out and began sketching.
* * *
On a high bluff overlooking a squalid hovel of a fortress, two Golden Hand guards were hidden, surveying the scene below. Their tiny ship, a lighter large enough for just the two of them and minimal supplies, was hidden two miles away in a canyon. They’d embarked from their host’s ship during its gradual descent into Mertha’s gravity well, and continued on their own while the merchantman found the right mountain village to land in, on the other continent.
But Duke Alvyn’s information suggested that this side of Mertha might have a deeper connection with Spasso. So the two Golden Hand agents donned native-style dress and had trudged across the forbidding landscape for half the night to reach this vantage point. While that was not as arduous as it sounds – the local night lasting only six hours – there had been plenty of opportunities to get themselves both killed along the way.
Lt. Karvall peered through the binoculars at the scene below. It was technically a ‘castle’: the misshapen pile of rocks was roughly square in shape, three stories tall with adjoining sections of two stories on three sides. There was a large outer bailey, twenty feet tall, all of undressed local stone. The outer wall was adorned with iron spikes upon which stood a number of skulls in various states of decomposition, and men clad in a combination of modern combat armor and neobarbarian furs prowled around the un-crenellated tops of the wall and the buildings, a wide variety of mismatched weapons in their hands.
“I count sixteen, seventeen, eighteen on guard duty at that fortress,” he dictated to his associate, Lt. Bentfork, who made a notation on the pad. “Small arms, a few grenades – oops! There’s a rocket launcher there . . . and a recoilless rifle there,” he said, as he scanned the compound. “Three aircars in the courtyard. Only one looks like a Sword World car, or at least one I recognize,” he amended. “None are marked.”
“So is there a baby inside, or not?” Bentfork asked, anxiously.
“Well more than likely,” admitted Karvall. “The question is, is it the right baby. There are at least three, four hundred people in there. Chances are that there are a few families, and a few babies. I don’t want to call in the whole fleet unless we’re sure that it is the right baby.”
“A sound plan,” Bentfork agreed, gravely. The young Tanith soldier felt an additional bit of pressur
e about this abduction and rescue. To the recivilizing neobarbarians, the Royal Family was held in a kind of religious awe. Bentfork’s father, the former king – and now baron – of Tradetown, back on Tanith, had even erected a temple – no, it was a shrine, Karvall reminded himself – in honor of the Trasks. Recovering the baby Princess Elaine was a holy mission to the young man, not just a matter of deep personal honor. “Shall we deploy the snooper?”
“Let’s get it ready,” agreed Karvall, pulling the small black case out of his back pack. “It will be dark shortly, and we have a better shot at getting this through undetected then. Or at least there should be fewer people awake. I suppose. How the Nifflheim do people manage to live a proper life on a world where it’s night time again every twelve hours?”
“Does that look like a proper life to you?” Bentfork asked, as he took over the observation duties. “There’s a girl no more than fifteen getting beaten by a soldier in the courtyard. It looks like she dropped a basket. Now they’re – he’s – uh, this place is awful,” he said, sadly, unwilling to describe the scene further.
“Not only awful, but crawling with unfriendlies,” reminded Karvall as he opened the snooper’s case. Inside was a sphere no more than ten inches across, painted a matte black that seemed to drink in the light around it. There were various small apertures across the face of the sphere where optical scanners, infrared, sonar, and other detection devices were housed. The whole tiny remote lifted on its own contragravity unit, and was as silent as a cloud when activated. It was a very advanced, very sophisticated piece of technology. The Mardukan Navy had been quite liberal with such expensive toys in gratitude, and the Golden Hand were all trained in their use.
“There must be a thousand, two thousand of them in the valley,” Karvall pointed out. “And then those two other fortresses to the east and south have to have at least another few thousand.”
“So why come here? To the smallest one?” Bentfork asked, as he continued to view the stronghold.
“It’s the only one with space behind it for a ship to land,” reasoned Karvall. “If they have Princess Elaine here, then they’ll want to be close enough to a space ship to make a getaway. The troops are to slow down a ground assault. And there’s virtually no contragravity or electromagnetic discharge in evidence, normally. From orbit, if you didn’t know better, this would look just like another neobarb castle. If you can call that thing a castle. I mean, it makes the craphole you grew up in look like a palace!”
“The ‘craphole’ I grew up in was a palace, remember?” Bentfork reminded him. “My father was king. My brothers and I were raised as princes.”
“Sorry,” Karvall said, activating the probe and watching it float into the air. “I was speaking metaphorically. I’ve seen where you grew up. It’s nice. Indoor plumbing would be nicer,” he added, “but your father’s palace is lovely.”
“Thank you,” Bentfork said, a little mollified. “It beats the hell out of the barracks.”
“Or the Cave,” Karvall agreed, referring to the secret cavern complex that was the Golden Hand’s headquarters. “All right, this little guy is ready to deploy. What say we get a snack while we wait for the sun to go down?”
The two broke out emergency rations and canteens of water, and Bentfork had thoughtfully included a flask of the rotgut the natives on Tanith thought was liquor. It was cut with a strong-tasting herb that made every sip a struggle, but the effect was pleasant enough after it got into your system. When dusk came – quickly – the people in the compound did, indeed, bed down for the brief night.
Karvall piloted the probe over the treetops and the crumbling stone wall, safely twenty feet above the heads of the sentries. The sphere moved silently, barely making a breeze as it passed, and soon it was beaming back a host of images and data.
“Let’s start at the top,” Karvall suggested as he brought the probe to hover above a topmost window. “Traditionally captive princesses are held in towers – normally by wickedly evil queens – so that’s where we’ll begin.”
“There’s a folktale in Tradetown about a princess of the grassland nomads who was kept in a basket in a rivertree grove for nine days,” Bentfork remarked. “Three Tradetown knights found her. She, uh, convinced them each to let her go.”
“How?” Karvall asked, absently. “Looks like we have a guard at the top of the stairs – good sign. A newer weapon, too, a shiny new carbine. Ugly fellow. So how did she convince the knights to free her?”
Bentfork went on to describe, in graphic detail, the various sensual treats and the inevitable naughty favors the mythical princess committed to free herself. Karvall found himself blushing as his friend finished the story.
“That . . . was inventive,” he said, his mouth dry. “Looks like there are two more guards in the hallway. At least they share the same tailor. And barber. Actually, it looks like they ate the barber. Wait! Shh! I hear . . .” he said, ceasing to make any sound, even breathe, as he listened to the headphones. He thought he heard a sound, a thin, high-pitched sound. It might be a baby . . . it might be some unknown local nocturnal fauna who just sounded like a baby. He fiddled with the controls until the screen showed him the approximate location the noise came from.
“Blast!” he swore. “There’s a door in the way, and another guard. I’m just glad this doesn’t have an olfactory sensor. But if I back it out,” he said, twisting the knobs carefully, “and hold my tongue just right . . . there, let’s see if there’s a southern window that peeks into that chamber.”
“What did you hear?” Bentfork demanded.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Karvall soothed. “There are curtains in the way, or some sort of textile. A tapestry, maybe . . . but . . . ah, there, there’s a little space between—”
He stopped speaking so suddenly, and his facial expression changed so dramatically, that Bentfork immediately became concerned.
“What? What is it?” he asked, tugging on Karvall’s shoulder. “Did you find her? Did you find the Princess? Is she alive? What did you find?”
Karvall swallowed, slowly, and made himself inhale and exhale a few times, as his comrade became insistent.
“Would you believe,” he asked, in a far lighter tone than his expression conveyed, “a wickedly evil queen?”
“What?”
There in the remote viewscreen was the unmistakable figure of a woman – a young, shapely woman. She stood about five foot, three inches, and had a cascade of dark, wavy brown hair down her back.
Even in the scant light – the interior was lit by a single electric light and a few smoky oil lamps – Karvall recognized her. He’d seen her often enough, in newscasts, state addresses, and twice in person. She was only a few years older than himself, and undeniably beautiful. Even in the rough, rustic garb she wore now, as she paced back and forth across the room, she was physically lovely.
“That, my friend, is Queen Evita, former monarch of the Planetary Kingdom of Gram,” he whispered. “She used her charms to seduce sad old King Angus, and got him to divorce Queen Flavia – she’s the one the ship is named after. She’s a promiscuous whore, and she used the king and the government of Gram as her personal toy.”
“I take it you aren’t friends,” Bentfork asked, lightly.
“Not as such,” agreed Karvall, gravely. “In fact, Duke Angus’ troops, with some of Viktor of Xochitl’s thugs, raided my girlfriend’s family’s estate and shot her in the head and the stomach when they resisted. She was only fifteen at the time. It’s one of the things that made me follow Prince Lucas into space. After what happened to my cousin Elaine . . . well, I could relate to him on a more personal level after that. And now, to see her here. . wait, wait . . . okay, I see a cradle! If I can get just a little more definition . . . got it! Take the photoprints now! Five or six shots, while she’s not blocking the angle!”
Bentfork hurried to take the pictures remotely, somewhat blurry, poorly contrasted photos of a lump that looked like a thre
e-month old baby wrapped in a white blanket, sleeping peacefully. The resolution was too low for him to determine whether it was Princess Elaine, beyond all doubt . . . but he took a few more of the former Queen Evita of Gram, who obligingly turned in her pacing at just the right moment so that there was no mistaking her identity in the photo. Then Karvall sighed, moved the probe up to the rooftop, and turned off the screen.
“I’m 99% sure that the baby is Princess Elaine,” he said. “And I’m 100% certain that’s Queen Evita. I never thought kidnapping was her style, but then there are all sorts of things people didn’t know about her before she came to the throne,” he admitted. “This one shouldn’t surprise me.”
“What is she doing here?” Bentfork asked, as he gathered up the evidence.
“She’s obviously been exiled from Gram – Omfray’s wife made sure of that, no doubt. He’s not the sort to let anyone with a rival claim hang around too long, and she’s not the type to let her husband’s head be turned by a pretty set of legs. Besides, he’s too indebted to his in-laws to chance a dalliance. So she left, or was sent away, or something. And apparently she fell in with Spasso – ironic, since he’s widely credited with being responsible for her late husband’s assassination.”
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