The Sungari? Here?
Dumarest looked at the walls, noting the cracks and fissures they held, each of which could contain alien eyes and ears. The chamber was below the surface and so within their domain. Did every room hold their spies?
Things which could adopt many forms.
Worms, for example-or men.
"Drop your weapons," said Ardoch. "Dumarest, you will permit yourself to be bound. Refuse and the woman will die."
Dumarest said, coldly, "What has that to do with me?"
"Earl!" Roland lunged forward to be caught and held by the mercenary. "Are you mad? Do as he says or Lavinia will die!"
"Then let her die." Dumarest didn't look at the struggling man. "I didn't come here to save her. She means nothing to me."
"Earl! For God's sake! She carries your child!"
"Keep him quiet, Kars." As the mercenary clamped his hand over Roland's mouth Dumarest said to Ardoch, "Is Louchon waiting at Eibrens Rise with men and gas to stun all who arrive? Did you think me fool enough to swallow such a story?"
"The prediction was high in order of probability. But if you are not interested in the woman why are you here?"
"For you," said Dumarest. "For money. Chart Embris will pay a high reward to the man who delivers to him the murderer of his son."
A bluff? Ardoch stood, assessing the situation. How could he have been so greatly at fault? Every factor had been calculated and an extrapolation drawn from viable premises. Yet, as he had so often reminded his clients, always there was the unknown. And had he been so much in error? Dumarest had come as predicted-only the motivations driving him seemed to be at variance. Greed instead of love. But had the act been witnessed or was it nothing but a wild guess?
Dumarest, watching, saw the almost imperceptible movement of the hand resting against Lavinia's throat.
Dryly he said, "I trust you remembered to reload the needle buried beneath the nail."
Proof if any was needed. Weight to add to the logic of Dumarest's actions, his apparent unconcern for the woman. Why should any man sacrifice himself for another? Why should any rational being be so insane?
And why did the room keep flickering?
Ardoch blinked, aware of a peculiar tension in the base of his skull, a stirring as if the grafted Homochon elements were rising from quiescence. Colors glowed with a new brightness, hues merging, shifting, altering the tone of skin and hair, touching the chamber with alien configurations.
But he was unprepared… the Samatchazi formulae… the relaxation… the defenses against invasion…
His mind expanded, bursting with an overwhelming flood of sharpened impressions, opening like a flower to the rays of alien suns.
Burning… burning… dying in a flash of unbearable revelation… a sac overfilled… the filament of an overloaded bulb… searing… torn with mental corrosion…
Ardoch reared, rising to stand on the tips of his toes, head thrown back, mouth open, arms extended, the sinews of his neck standing like ropes against the skin. His eyes were glazed, blind, and the pupils uprolled so that only the glisten of white showed between the lashes. From his open mouth came an animal-like panting. A mewing. A wordless, mindless drone.
And, standing, he burned.
Smoke rose from the skull-like head, streamed in oily tendrils from the sleeves of the scarlet robe; hung in a noxious cloud so that his figure became blurred and sagged as if made of wax, flesh falling from bone, the bone charring, turning black, becoming ash.
Falling.
Falling to lie in a small heap on the moldering floor.
To rest in a silence broken only by Lavinia's hysterical screams.
Three ships waited on the field and Dumarest had already made his choice; a compact vessel which would take him beyond the Rift and on to Izhma. A world where he would find computers and a society free of traditions, a planet on which the dead stayed that way and delusia was unknown.
Gartok said, "Well, Earl, I guess this is goodbye. But who knows? Someday we may meet again."
"When you get tired of the fleshpots, Kars?"
"Things are easy here," admitted the mercenary. "And a strong man can make his way if he is willing to abide by the rules. But, one day, it'll get that I want to see the stars. That'll be the time for me to leave."
As it was time for Dumarest to leave but he had more reason than a need to see the stars. A cyber had died and the Cyclan would know it. As they must know he was on Zakym. Others would be sent to find the trail and, again, the dogs would be on the chase.
"They'll learn nothing from me," said Gartok, quietly. "Nor from anyone else on this world. How many really knew you? How can they tell more than is already known?"
And how much did he know?
Dumarest looked at the man, seeing the scarred face, the flat, impassive features, but seeing more than lay on the surface. Like Zakym the man held an inner life; one that was shrewd and more complex than the one he displayed. An arrangement with the Church, he had said. Monks did not advocate violence and abhorred killing but justice was dear to them. Even poetic justice.
"The Sungari," said Gartok, abruptly, as if wanting to end the scrutiny. "They took care of the cyber, yes?"
Driving him insane with the stimulation of his brain, showing him vistas beyond imagining, using him, probing, discovering. Investigating the unusual specimen.
Testing him to destruction.
"Burning him." Gartok shook his head. "I'll never forget that. Turning a living man into ash while we watched. Maybe he deserved it, but, God, what an end! But why, Earl? Why?"
"They are curious," said Dumarest. "I appealed to that curiosity, And they could have wanted to show just how powerful they are. Remember that, Kars, if ever you are tempted to cheat them."
"I will."
"I think they wanted to complete the bargain they had made with me. We found Louchon dead later-he and the cyber were all that was left of the invading force." Dumarest added, casually, "You're staying at the castle?"
"Where you should have been, Earl. Lavinia-"
"No." He hadn't seen her since the time the cyber had burned.
"She could be made to understand. You had to reject her. I knew that and even Roland came to see it was all you could have done."
"But he hasn't said so?"
"No." Gartok rubbed the edge of his jaw. "I didn't trust that man. I thought he was working with Tomir-but it was Taiyuah who did that. Him and his damned worms! Well, he's old and will be dead soon."
Dead and forgotten and his petty intrigues ended. But others would live, Roland for one.
"He loves the woman," said Gartok. "You were right, Earl, the man is sick with longing for her. And I think that now she knows it. He was the only one who showed concern. And yet-how can anyone change so soon?"
They didn't. She hadn't. But time would work its magic. She would forget or, if not forgetting, cease to consciously remember. New life would come to fill her days and Roland would be there to provide the father and comforter she and the child would need.
His child.
Born on this strange and alien world. To grow in comfort and security as all children should. To be happy as was their right. The son or daughter he would never see.
A siren wailed from the field and Dumarest held out his hands. Gartok touched them with his own, palm to palm, the mercenary salute of friendship showing the lack of weapons.
"Good luck, Earl."
"Goodbye."
Gartok watched as Dumarest headed toward the gate, passed through it, moved across the field to the waiting ship. A man escaping from a world which had become a trap-but one still locked in the prison of his dream.