Star Winds

Chapter FOURTEEN

Desperately Baron Matello hacked with his long-bladed broadsword at the Kerek officer that was trying to dismember him with one of its curiously curved sickle-weapons. Skittering back and forth on its four legs, the creature swung the sickle to and fro in clever, deceptive thrusts. Matello swiped the weapon aside hastily and, wielding his sword with both hands, renewed the attack.

Vapor puffed as the edge of his blade bit into the alien’s nacreous neck armor. He chopped again, and cut the giraffe-like neck right through. Decapitated, gouting greenish blood, the Kerek collapsed.

Then a human Kerek-warrior rushed at Matello from across the deck of the Bucentaur. So swift and furious was the onslaught that the baron reeled back, receiving a confused impression of honey-colored armor and a deadly, flickering scythe-sword.

Wildly he sought to defend himself. Suddenly the golden-armored figure bent at the waist and tipped forward, a crossbow bolt protruding from his chest, falling on Matello.

The baron pushed the corpse aside and raised his sword in thanks to the archer who had probably saved his life.

He had never known such a shambles. Though his men had practically cleared the Bucentaur’s deck of Kerek now, the galley that had rammed her was solidly enmeshed in her superstructure. But the fact was that so far Matello’s ship had come off lightly. Not far away floated the gutted hulk of the royal barge, still glowing with sticky fire, and attached to the Bucentaur by a long flexible trunk through which the king and his retinue had escaped as the flames spread.

Matello leaned wearily on his sword, thinking that there might have been a chance of victory if only everything could have been gotten ready in time. As it was, the Kerek had emerged from the shoals and attacked Lutheron’s gathering fleet with a huge horde, catching it by surprise.

The two fleets were now battling as they traveled together at superlight velocity. And that battle, invisible from where Matello stood for the most part, was ending in the total destruction of Maralian power.

Peering into space, he saw something that chilled him. He saw glints of blue in the distance, quickly resolving into a score of galleys bearing remorselessly down on the Bucentaur. And these new, larger galleys the Kerek were deploying now, Matello knew, were equipped with catapults and spring cannon. He glared around him, aware that the Bucentaur had already lost a good part of her armament—as well as her smaller craft—in earlier encounters.

Then a gladsome sight glided into view to cut off the attacking squadron. It was the Amanda, a giant Maralian galleon, almost as large as the Bucentaur but every inch a fighting ship. She bristled with huge weapons and besides that was undamaged, being part of the small reserve that had but recently added itself to the battle.

Even as he watched she let loose a drenching salvo of sticky fire, the combustible that burned under any conditions, that stuck to its target and spread until it had consumed it. Matello watched for a few moments, then turned and dodged through one of the hooded doorways. Sheathing his green-dripping sword, he loped through the long passageways, a tall figure in his tight-fitting purple spacesuit which was ribbed with steel bands for armor. Soon he came to the control room. Sliding back his faceplate, he entered.

King Lutheron was present, his face pale, his features gaunt. He was staring at the big viewscreen where the huge galleon was beating off the Kerek ships.

The captain rose as Matello appeared. “The Amanda is screening us from further attacks while she can, my lord. She signals us to withdraw, to save the king while we may.” He glanced at Lutheron with a troubled expression.

“I agree,” Matello rumbled. “Without doubt that is what we should do.”

King Lutheron tore his gaze with difficulty from the glass screen. His voice was reedy with grief. “A king without a country?” he said. “Maralia is about to be overrun.”

“To lose the battle is bad enough,” Matello argued, “but if Your Majesty falls too… While Your Majesty lives there is still hope. But when a king falls in battle, often his nation disappears under the heel of the conqueror forever.”

King Lutheron dropped his eyelids, seeing the force of this. “But where can we escape to? Already the Kerek horde will be spreading out. They will pursue us, perhaps head us off. We will not get far.” He sighed. “Aghh… Better, perhaps, to go down fighting.”

Matello was silent. “I know a hiding place,” he said after a moment. “We are not far from where the Duke of Koss has his Aegis. There I have a secret underground camp. We can hide there, covering the Bucentaur or else destroying her, or setting her to sail crewless in space.” He hesitated. “Likely even the Duke of Koss will give his monarch shelter in these circumstances. Once in the Aegis we would be safe for all time.”

Briefly and without humor, King Lutheron laughed. “Koss? I think not! But for him, we might not even be in this mess.”

They all flinched as a sudden white glare lit up the circular glass screen. A fire-dart had found its mark on one of the Amanda’s weapons turrets. The Kerek galleys had got close in to her, too, like jackals worrying a larger prey, and already fighting was taking place on her decks.

“We must decide now, liege-lord,” Matello urged. “Another few minutes and it may be too late.”

King Lutheron was despondent. “Very well,” he conceded wearily, “we shall slip away like cowards. Attend to it, Sir Goth.”

Pulling his cloak around him, he strode from the room. When he had gone, Matello rounded jerkily on the ship’s captain.

“All right!” he barked. “You heard him! Let’s get out of here!”

As had been the practice of the supply ships that visited the secret camp from time to time, the Bucentaur landed well beyond the Aegis’s visible horizon, putting down near to the screened tunnel entrance.

From the grounded ship streamed a procession of men and stores. Like ants, they vanished underground, following the miles-long tunnel to the subterranean barracks. It was going to be crowded, Matello admitted. Over a thousand people would be compressed into a space meant to accommodate a couple of hundred. But the access tunnel could be used, and if that was not enough, well then some people would just have to shift for themselves in the open for a while, until more excavations could be arranged.

King Lutheron paused a few yards inside the down-sloping passage to examine the circular walls. The rock and soil was held back by a framework of what at first he took to be metal. He reached out and touched it.

“Adamant,” Matello explained briefly. “Flammarion himself took a hand in constructing this place. I don’t think we could have done it unnoticed but for his help.”

“Why didn’t he line the walls with adamant altogether? Then we would have been invulnerable here.”

“That would make it a miniature aegis. Flammarion refuses to build aegises gratuitously—something to do with the guild he belongs to.”

They stood aside to allow the procession of refugees to stream past. Flammarion’s tank rolled past them on wheels, drawn by serfs, the alien invisible beneath the yellow powder.

Matello turned to the bearded officer who accompanied them. It was Captain Zhorga, the former Earthman who had made himself so useful lately.

“Take His Majesty to the camp and see that he is shown suitable quarters,” he instructed. “I have to see to the disposal of the Bucentaur. With your leave, liege-lord?…”

The king nodded. Matello bowed and left, making his way back up the tunnel into the open.

The planet’s blazing sun was low in the sky. The ship’s entire company had left her now, and he saw her captain, the last to disembark, stepping through a side portal.

There was nothing for Matello to do, but he felt an urge to watch his prize possession’s last few minutes of life under human direction. The ropes that were to trigger her departure had already been laid. While he watched, teams of men hauled on them, releasing the spring bollards that snapped out lengths of silk on the enormous yards.

It was a pity to waste her, Matello thought, but it was best to eradicate as many traces of their presence as possible.

Landing on uneven terrain had damaged her still further, but even so the huge vessel was more than equal to the last demand made on her. Her sails darkened the place where Matello stood as she first lumbered, then soared into the air, rapidly gaining height. Her direction had been set; she would make it into space with ease. With any luck she would also reach the destination intended for her, and fall into the raging, multicolored sun.

The great glass jar in the corner of Rachad’s room was over six feet tall. It was in fact a giant cucurbit he had taken from the laboratory with the help of one of Amschel’s assistants. It curved gracefully, the lamplight gleaming off its surf ace.

On the table, the four small jars still stood, but the four homunculi they had contained had reached the end of their natural life span now. The tiny corpses slumped against the glass bottoms, degenerating into slime which was clouding the water. In time, Amschel had assured Rachad, the water would become clear again, a simple mineral solution as before.

Filling the big cucurbit with a similar solution had taken him several hours. But that had been weeks ago. Rachad now sat on a chair in front of the vessel, thinking hard. Every evening at about this time he spent an hour at the exercise, holding an image in his mind and attempting to project it into the burgeoning mass. The work exhausted him, for he had never found it easy to think in a sustained way.

The huge homunculus was almost fully formed now, but the features were still indistinct. The next few days would tell if his efforts were to be rewarded with success or failure—would tell if, in the end, his creation would step forth and speak in a faint, drifting voice…

Rachad was beginning to daydream again. It always happened after a few minutes. He pulled his mind back on the job, focusing his mind’s eye on the necessary picture, thinking, thinking…

“And how close are they, would you say?” Baron Matello asked, his brow furrowed in a frown.

“No more than fifty miles, my lord!” the kneeling messenger answered unhesitatingly.

Matello grunted dourly. The news was bad.

With the Kerek’s famous knack of tracking human ships, he had been afraid that something like this would happen. The enemy, it seemed, had come upon this uninviting world only days after the landing of the Bucentaur. The serf kneeling before Matello and King Lutheron had ridden from the nearest mining town, which was in panic after hearing of the Kerek’s doings in other such towns around the planet.

It would not take the Kerek long to spot the Aegis. They would then attempt to besiege it, and the situation of those in the underground camp was therefore unenviable.

King Lutheron, sitting in a plush chair with what in the circumstances was a luxurious amount of space around him, spoke up. “Perhaps it is time we should seek Koss’s hospitality after all.”

“Perhaps,” Matello admitted grudgingly. Although he had been the first to offer this possibility to the King, the truth was that he hated the idea of going begging to the hated duke. He would rather have perished.

“Leave it for a while,” he said. “The Kerek have not discovered us yet. I still hope to be able to take the Aegis without our demeaning ourselves.”

He ignored the incredulous looks of the officers around him, the camp commander included, who until the interruption had been idly occupying themselves with all there was to do in such a place—cleaning and sharpening their weapons.

“Yes, my liege-lord,” he repeated in a murmur, “I suggest we leave it for a while…”

Caban, what the hell has happened to you? he thought furiously to himself.

The homunculus had been growing for about ten weeks. Rachad came into his room one night and stared at it, biting his lower lip.

As far as he could judge the creature was fully matured. The facial features had taken final form several days previously, and a haughty, austere visage stared back at him through the side of the jar, the head, with its long bony nose, tilted ever so slightly on one side.

It was a marvel to Rachad how faithfully the development of the homunculus had followed the direction of his thoughts—the likeness to the original was uncanny. Yet still he had hung back, wanting to be sure. He would only get one chance.

Suddenly he made up his mind. The time for hesitation had to end sooner or later. It was do or die. And the present moment—the Aegis’s nighttime, its activity subdued, and when the laboratory staff had all retired—was most propitious for his purpose.

He stepped to his bed, bent, and drew from beneath it a large hammer. Standing again before the oversized cucurbit, he braced himself and swung the hammer with both hands.

The first blow starred the glass with cracks. The second shattered it and the cucurbit fell to pieces. A gush of water flowed forth, swilling around Rachad’s legs and flooding the floor of the small room.

And following the flood there stepped forth the man-sized homunculus. The fluid seemed to fall away from him to leave him perfectly dry, even dropping out of the fabric of his voluminous purple robe. He stepped hesitantly, looking frail, gazing around him with glazed eyes.

Rachad focused his thoughts. Say to me: I can speak, young Rachad.

The voice that came was distant, breathless, vague. “I can speak, young Rachad.”

A perfect imitation!

Rachad walked the creature up and down the room, still under thought control. To look at, it was hard to believe it was not a genuine human being.

He would have to move quickly. It was odds-on whether they would get to their destination before the homunculus collapsed.

“Come with me,” he ordered.

Stealthily they left the sleeping quarters, making for the entrance to the inner maze.

Low ceilings of soil and rock confined the noise of bustle as, in the underground tunnels, men readied themselves for a last stand.

Outside, Kerek ships were dropping from the sky like autumn leaves. Baron Matello closed his ears to the bitter arguments going on around him, getting Captain Zhorga to help him strap on his armor. He lifted up his two-handed sword, his favorite weapon, and ran the lamplight up and down it before sheathing it in its enormous scabbard.

Nearby, visible through the open door of the commandant’s section, a squad of men-at-arms were checking their bell-muzzled muskets. It was so cramped and crowded here. It would almost be good to get into the open once again, even though it was to face certain death. Sourly Matello glanced at the periscope at the far end of the chamber. The man who sat peering into it was one of a round-the-clock watch of six, and the presence of the niggling, useless duty had begun to grate on Matello’s nerves.

Suddenly the argument broke off and King Lutheron turned to Matello. “What do you say, Sir Goth? The Commandant here is trying to persuade me that now is the time to seek refuge with the Duke of Koss. It was you, I remember, who first raised the possibility.”

“There are too many of us, liege-lord,” Matello rumbled. “Koss would never let us in—even unarmed, we are enough to take over the Aegis, and he will let nothing interfere with his private wretchedness.” He paused to pull tight a large buckle, moving his arms to test his freedom of movement and grunting with satisfaction. “In a way I brought about this state of affairs, liege-lord—but I never thought the Kerek would descend on us like this. Rather, I thought they’d pass this star by—but there’s the Kerek for you, they seem able to sniff anything out, and it will only be a short time before they find us and dig us out of our hidey-hole. I say, make a sally against them while they are unprepared, then retreat back here and kill them by the droves as they try to reach us through the access tunnel. We’ll make a good, hard fight of it before they get us all.”

“That I agree with,” the camp commandant said, his face turning red with something like anger. “But the Duke of Koss might admit the King at least, if not the rest of us!”

“We would have to reveal the presence of our camp, which will put the duke in a strange frame of mind. Still, it is up to His Majesty to make that decision.”

“Give me a sword,” King Lutheron said. “I will fight with the rest of you.”

Matello nodded. “Come along, Zhorga, let’s inspect the men.”

At that moment a yell went up from the man at the periscope. “Commandant! Come quickly!”

The officer lumbered to the instrument, bent and put his eyes to it. After only a second he straightened and turned to address the room in astonishment.

“The gates are opening!”

Matello blinked. He rushed to the periscope, nearly shouldering the commandant aside in his haste. What he saw through the eyepiece made him gasp.

The eyepiece communicated with a lens that, hidden in the shadow of a rock, kept watch on the Aegis. Two great doors were now edging slowly outward, giving a glimpse of geared machinery within.

“He’s done it!” he gasped hoarsely, turning back to the others. “The Aegis is open!”

Like him, everyone was paralyzed for a moment. Then Matello began to bellow wildly.

“Get moving, you curs! This is what we’ve been waiting for!” With his clenched fist he gestured at the commandant, his eyes bulging. “Drop the ramp! Sound the advance!”

The commandant snapped out an order, then strode to the two big levers that were set in grooves at the side of the chamber. As a trumpet began to sound he took them one by one in both hands and pulled them hard over.

The result was dramatic. The roof fell in, a section of ground overhead folding inward to form a ramp which showered dirt and dust directly into the post. Matello was first to leap up that ramp, his great sword in his hand, closely followed by Zhorga and others who had already arrived in answer to the trumpet’s summons.

He emerged scant yards from the Aegis gate. Matello raced for the widening gap. His broadsword flashed briefly in the fierce sun. Then he was inside, looking for young Caban.

But it was not Caban who had opened the Aegis. Matello found himself facing a large, nearly empty plaza, illuminated by soft ceiling lights. A line of pikemen, in the peculiar pied livery of Koss, stood behind a mass of timber that looked as if it had been newly chopped to pieces. A large adamant box-shield lay on top of the pile. Matello could easily guess that this had protected the wheeled mechanism which was now being worked by two more pikemen as the foot-thick doors continued to swing open.

The line of guards were standing stiffly at attention, the ends of their weapons planted firmly on the floor, and were making no response to Matello’s entrance. Then Matello saw Rachad, standing beside a gaunt, pale figure in a long purple robe.

He knew at once that this was the Duke of Koss. Though the figure looked ill and consumptive, he recognized him from a painting he had once seen of the former duke. Yes, this was the detested Koss’s son for sure.

Zhorga drew abreast of Matello. The two of them stared in puzzlement at the unexpected scene. Suddenly the duke swayed, his head drooped, and he fell in a graceful swoon to the floor.

“Your Grace!” The captain of the guard rushed to the limp form, taking the lolling head in his hand. “Two of you over here, on the double!”

Rachad sidled hastily over to Matello, his face feverish. “Round them all up—quick!” he hissed. “Before they realize they’ve been tricked!”

“Tricked?”

“They think the duke ordered them to open the Aegis—but that’s not the duke at all! It’s an homunculus I made!”

“Eh?” Matello growled, not fully understanding what Rachad was talking about. But his earnest advice was good enough. He glanced round at his men who were still streaming after him through the doorway.

He thrust out his sword, and roared: “Kill them all!”

The ensuing fight was brief and bloody. The pikemen were totally bewildered. Only when actually attacked did they move, in sudden panic, to defend themselves, wielding their long pikes with skill, so that several of Matello’s liegelings were stretched out on the floor before full possession was taken of the plaza.

While men continued to pour through the gateway, Matello wiped his sword on a pied tunic and returned to stare thoughtfully at the body of Rachad’s homunculus. Already it was beginning to shrivel up. The purple cloak, also organic in nature, had become like a huge withered leaf.

“How did you manage it?” he asked. “I had almost given you up.”

“It wasn’t possible to open the Aegis straight away,” Rachad explained eagerly. “It was too well guarded. I’ve been working with Master Amschel, in his laboratory. That was where I got the idea of making an homunculus replica of the duke, under my mental control. And it worked!”

Rachad was bursting to tell the whole story. Surreptitiously he had guided the rapidly weakening homunculus through the Aegis. For the last stages of the journey he had been obliged to support the ephemeral creature by letting it lean on his shoulder. Then, at the gateway, there was the stunned astonishment on the part of the guards, as they heard the reedy voice of their duke order them to open up. At first they had reacted with inbred reluctance. Three times the homunculus had pressed his command, and only the actual presence—so they thought—of their master had prodded them out of their stupor, making them perform the incredible act, something they had been sure they would never see in their lifetimes.

But when he tried to launch into his tale Matello shut him up with an impatient wave of his hand. “Later,” he said, but nevertheless he clapped Rachad fondly on the shoulder. “It was a brilliant piece of work, my boy. You’ve saved all our lives, though you don’t know it, and I’ll remember that.”

Straightening, he began to bark orders. “Commandant, see to it that everybody gets in here without delay, before the Kerek find out what’s happening. Then close up these doors again, and we’ll organize a general takeover of this place. There might still be a bit of fighting to do.”

“With odds in our favor, this time,” Zhorga added. He grinned at Rachad. “You’ve done well, shipmate. I’m proud of you.”

They went through the Aegis like a storm.

The impact of hardened fighting men, drawn both from Matello’s forces and King Lutheron’s, on the sybarite’s paradise was like that of a barbarian horde on a soft, decadent culture—which, in exaggerated form, was exactly what the interior of the Aegis represented. There was practically no resistance and Matello, sensing his followers’ relief at having escaped imminent death at the hands of the Kerek, allowed them a brief catharsis of rape and ransack. Artworks were smashed, sumptuous drapes torn down in acres of billowing finery to reveal the bare adamant beneath, and for a while the omnipresent haunting music was mingled with coarse bellows of triumph.

Flammarion, moving with surprising agility by means of his warping wings, attached himself to the party led by Baron Matello and proved as eager as any. But his search had only one object—the Duke of Koss himself, the man who had spent a lifetime as his creditor.

They eventually found the defeated duke deep down in the fortress. He lay limply on a samite couch, a servant girl dabbing at his brow with scented water. He seemed to be in a state of collapse.

He stirred feebly when Matello and his men burst into the chamber. His face was fully as pale and deathlike as the face of the homunculus that had recently impersonated him. “Who are these strangers who disturb my peace?” he murmured, his voice so faint as to be barely audible. “Vandals, despoilers, desecrators of my pleasure…”

“We are here because you failed to do your duty, Koss!” Baron Matello stormed.

From behind him Flammarion came forward. He reared up over the supine noble like a threatening cobra. “Now is the time to remind you of our contract, Your Grace!” he exclaimed, his voice vibrant with passion.

“What strange beast is this?” the duke queried breathlessly. “Ah yes, the builder of my retreat, of my cosmos.”

“My fee! I am here to collect my fee, unpaid for all these years!”

“But the Aegis was not invulnerable, master builder,” the duke replied in a pained whisper. “No payment is due.”

“Not invulnerable?” Matello demanded incredulously.

“Why, no… as is attested by your presence here…” The duke smiled faintly. Then he uttered a sigh.

His head suddenly lolled.

“He took poison,” the girl told them. “It takes a few minutes to work.”

Matello grabbed the duke’s head by the hair and turned it so as to lift an eyelid with his thumb. Then, with a grunt, he let it drop.

“Well that’s that. Don’t worry, Flammarion, there’s plenty of stuff here. I’ll see you get your reward.”

Flammarion’s response was dolorous and labored. “But the logic of his argument is inescapable,” he droned. “To collect payment, I must first force access to the Aegis; yet once that is done the terms of the contract are broken. How completely the old duke tricked me! I can accept no fee.”

“What are you worried about? Take what you want anyway.”

“No. The ethic of my craft will not permit sharp practice. What an ill day it was when I ventured into Maralia! I have labored in vain!”

“Well, it probably won’t make any difference,” Baron Matello muttered to the others as Flammarion shuffled despondently away. “The way things look, we’ll all have to spend the rest of our lives here.”