The Lost King Read online

  The Lost King

  Star of the Guardians, Book 1

  Margaret Weis

  In memory of my agent and friend, Ray Puechner

  You always had faith in Maigrey and in me. I think you'd be proud of both of us. We miss you.

  And as we are to have the best of guardians for our city, must they not be those who have most the character of guardians?

  Yes.

  And to this end they ought to be wise and efficient, and to have a special care of the State?

  True. . . .

  Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those who in their whole life show the greatest eagerness to do what is for the good of their country, and the greatest repugnance to do what is against her interests. . . .

  And they will be watched at every age, in order that we may see whether they preserve their resolution, and never, under the influence either of force or enchantment, forget or cast off their sense of duty to the State.

  Plato, The Republic

  Introduction

  If Fantasy is a romance of our dreams, then Galactic Fantasy is a romance of our future.

  It has always seemed to me that the heart of any truly good and memorable story is the romance of its characters and their environment. Its a viewpoint which Margaret and I both share and which has always and continues still to bring us together telling tale after tale. The emotions and perspectives of the story's characters are shared by us as we read. It is their thoughts which concern us; their fulfillment that we long for; and their pain that we share. Galactic Fantasy is about people of the stars—but it is also about people we feel we could know.

  Galactic Fantasy is certainly not science-fiction. Sci-fi often deals with the romance of plastic and chrysteel; our love and worship of technology. The Gods of Science, rising from the crucible of the industrial age, sought to bring its own order into romance and, somehow, dehumanized us. Now, in the closing decade of the twentieth century, we find that our century of technology has nearly overwhelmed us with capability, but has done little to increase our wisdom in using it—we are still children with the tools of giants. Inevitably, technology has failed mankind as a god.

  I believe that man will reach the stars. When he does, the 'science' of how our spaceship gets from place to place will ultimately be less important than how we, as people, act when we get there. Galactic Fantasy explores how we deal with our own fears, ambitions and passions as we soar among the heavens—not the technicalities of getting there.

  Both Margaret and I are patrons of Galactic Fantasy; so much so that each of us is writing our own series in this genre. I've rolled up my sleeves and parked myself in front of my Macintosh to spin my own yarn in the time between books with Margaret. But don't wait for me. Here is a story which is about all of us in another, future time. Its a story which Margaret has wanted to tell for years—I am delighted now that she has the chance to tell it.

  Tracy Raye Hickman

  Book I

  Rebel Angel

  . . . his face

  Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride Waiting revenge. . . .

  John Milton, Paradise Lost

  Chapter One

  "I shall be as secret as the grave."

  Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

  The man in the white coat watched a bright line of blips scitter across his portable monitors screen in irregular bursts and pulses.

  "Finally!" he muttered, mopping his sweating brow with the starched sleeve of his coat. He glanced around distractedly, having been so intent upon his work that he had forgotten, momentarily, where he was. "You"—he motioned to a guard, faceless in a gleaming, feather-crested helmet, who stood at rigid attention in the doorway—"inform his lordship that the subject is ready."

  "Yes, Dr. Giesk."

  The centurion turned immediately. He did not run down the glistening corridors of the deserted university building in search of his supreme commander. Running would have been a serious breach of discipline. The soldier certainly marched double-quick time, however, while two of his comrades, left behind standing duty in the doorway, exchanged relieved glances beneath the visors of their crested, Romanesque helmets. The Roman touch was a whim of their lord, a fancy. The uniforms were designed to dazzle, to intimidate, to look well on the vids. Going into battle, they would have worn the standard plastisteel armor. This wasn't battle, however. This was a torturing—formal, ceremonial. And their lord had been growing impatient.

  Heavy, measured footsteps could be heard advancing down the corridor. The centurions snapped to attention, their already stiff bodies achieving a state of rigidity normally approached successfully only by rigor mortis. The clenched fists of their right hands thudded against their armor-plated chests—over their hearts—in salute as a tall man entered the room that had been, only a few days before, a chemistry lab.

  "Ah, Dr. Giesk. I was beginning to think you might fail me."

  The deep baritone voice was emotionless, almost pleasant and conversational. But Dr. Giesk shuddered. Failure was a word the Warlord never spoke twice to any man. The doctor could not remove his hands from the controls of his delicate equipment, but he managed to give the Warlord a beseeching look.

  "The subject proved unusually resistant," Giesk quavered. "Three days, my lord! I realize he was a Guardian, but none of the others held out that long. I can't understand—"

  "Of course you can't understand."

  The Warlord's voice was dispassionate, but Giesk could have sworn he heard the man sigh. Stepping around overturned desks, his boots crunching broken glass beakers and tubes, the Warlord approached a steel table that had been hastily wheeled into the lab—now deemed "interrogation chamber." Upon that table lay a human. Small white dots of a plastic-like substance had been placed upon the mans head and chest. Thin beams of light ran from the dots to the doctors machine, holding their victim in their grasp like the delicate legs of a spider. The man's naked body twitched and jerked spasmodically. Traces of blood stained his mouth, nose, and chest. No blood marred the floor or the gleaming steel of the table. The centurions had made certain all was clean. Their lord demanded things be neat.

  The Warlord stared down impassively at the man on the table. The lord's stern face was visible only from the nose down beneath his gleaming crested helmet that, like those of his guards, had been copied from the early Romans. The face might have been made of the same metal as the helmet, for it registered no emotion of any type—no elation, no triumph, no pity. The Warlord laid a guantleted hand upon the quivering chest of the man with as little regard as he would have laid that same hand upon the man's coffin. Yet, when the Warlord spoke, his voice was soft, tinged with a sadness and, it seemed, regret.

  "Who is there left now who understands, Stavros?"

  The gloved fingers touched a jewel the man wore around his neck. Hanging from a silver chain, the jewel was extraordinarily beautiful. Giesk had been eyeing it greedily during the last three days, and the doctor could not refrain from casting a jealous glance at the Warlord when he fingered it. Carved into the shape of an eight-pointed star, the gleaming jewel was the only object worn by the naked man, and it had been left around his neck by the Warlords express command.

  "Who knows of the training, the discipline, Stavros? Who remembers ?"

  Again, Giesk thought he heard the Warlord sigh.

  "And you. One of my best."

  The man on the table moaned. His head moved feverishly from side to side. The Warlord watched a moment in silence, then bent close to speak softly into the mans ear.

  "I saved your life once, Stavros. Do you remember? It was at the Royal Academy. On a dare, you had climbed
that ridiculous thirty-foot statue of the king. You were what—nine? I was fifteen and she ..." the Warlord paused, "she would have been six. Yes, it was soon after she came to the Academy. Only six. All eyes and hair, wild and lonely as a catamount." His voice softened further, almost to a whisper. The man on the table began to shiver uncontrollably.

  "Frozen with fear, Stavros, you hung onto the statues arm. It would not bear my weight, and so it was she who crawled out to you, carrying the rope that would save your life. Can you see her, reaching out her hand to you? Can you see me, holding the ropes, holding the lives of both of you in my hands?"

  The mans body convulsed.

  "Fascinating," murmured Giesk with professional interest, monitoring his instruments. "I haven't been able to elicit a response that strong in three days."

  The Warlord moved his hand up to the man's head, the gauntleted fingers stroking back the graying hair almost caressingly. "Stavros," commanded the Warlord, his helmeted visage bending over the man. "Stavros, can you hear me?"

  With what appeared to be a violent effort, the man wrenched his head back and forth. He wasn't, it seemed, negating the fact that he could hear the voice from his past. He was negating the horror.

  "That was the night we discovered, she and I, that we were mind-linked. None of you could understand. I could not understand myself, then, and thought bitterly it was a cruel joke played upon me by the Creator, who seemed to have played cruel jokes upon me from my birth."

  It occurred to Giesk that he was hearing the story of the Warlord's childhood. The subject of many rumors among the men under the Warlord's command, his past had become legend. Giesk foresaw nights of numerous rounds of free drinks in the officer's club, all present calling on him to repeat what he was hearing this day in this strange situation.

  "The bastard son of a High Priest, a man whose inability to control his passions caused him to break his vow of chastity. I was his penance—a daily reminder to him of his sin. He accepted it, never shirked it, but from that day I was left in his care to the day of his death he never spoke. By the kings command, I was sent to the Academy. You hated me, didn't you, Stavros? Hated me because I was smarter, stronger, better than all the rest of you. You hated me, and feared me, and respected me."

  The man on the table made a gasping sound. Giesk, monitoring his instruments, saw the need for haste but hesitated to interrupt the Warlord, who seemed to have forgotten the presence of anyone else in the room except the naked man.

  "But as much as you hated me, you loved her. Barbarian child of a barbarian king, she came to the Academy—the first female student ever admitted, and that only because she'd been thrown out of the girls Academy. Rescuing you, saving your life, Stavros—it was then that she and I discovered that we could speak to each other without words—our minds, our hearts, our souls were one." The Warlord fell silent, perhaps walking the paths of the past.

  Were those paths dark and twisted? wondered the doctor. Or did they run straight and true, leading those two children inexorably to their fate?

  "My lord," ventured Giesk, "his heartbeat grows increasingly erratic—

  The past slammed down its iron gate of no return.

  "Stavros," said the Warlord, "you have held out long against the torture—as you were taught. Our masters would have been proud of you. None of the others were able to withstand half so much, as you must surely know since it was they who betrayed you. But resistance is useless now, my old friend. You have no will of your own. You must do whatever I ask. And I am going to ask you only one question. One question. You will answer. And then I will release you from this torment. Do you understand?"

  The man on the table made a slight moaning sound. A froth of blood appeared on his ashen lips.

  "Be quick, my lord!" cried Dr. Giesk, "or you will lose him!"

  The Warlord brought his face so near to that of his victim that his breath touched the mans skin, displacing the bubbles of blood and saliva on the gaping mouth.

  "Where is the boy?"

  The man shivered, fighting with himself. But it was useless. The Warlord regarded him intently. The gauntleted hand moved to rest upon the cold white forehead.

  "Stavros?"

  In a wild, tortured shriek, the man screamed out words that made no sense to Giesk. He glanced at the Warlord uncertainly.

  The Warlord slowly rose and straightened. "Well done, Dr. Giesk. You may now terminate."

  Giesk closed his eyes a moment in intense relief. His shirt, beneath his lab coat, was wringing wet with sweat.

  "Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord."

  Giesk reached out, flipped a switch. The light beams attached to the mans body flared to a brightness that made all in the room avert their eyes. The limbs strapped to the table jerked. The man gave one last, hollow cry. The body stiffened and then, horribly, relaxed. The lights blinked out, and it was all over.

  The Warlord had remained to watch the end. He stood beside the body, his hands clasped behind his back beneath the long, flowing red cloak that hung from golden clasps upon his shoulders—clasps carved in the shape of a phoenix. His lips—a thin, dark line beneath the visor of his helm—parted to speak the dead mans eulogy.

  "Three days, yet at the end you broke."

  Turning on his booted heel, the Warlord nearly collided with Dr. Giesk, who was coming to remove his monitoring instruments from the corpse. Dr. Giesk shrank back, the Warlord swept around him. The centurions sprang to attention. Giesk once more approached the body, his hand outstretched.

  Pausing in the doorway, slightly turning his head, the Warlord remarked, "Don't touch it, Giesk."

  The doctor snatched back his hand. "But, my lord," he protested, his eyes on the jewel that no longer gleamed, but seemed as devoid of life as the still, cold chest on which it rested, "the gem's value is measured in planets! Surely, you can't mean to—"

  "The starjewel is buried with its possessor," said the Warlord. "The curse of God on any who steal it."

  A patriotic member of the Republic, Giesk had no fear of the wrath of some mythical eternal being. The doctor did, however, have a healthy fear of the wrath of the Warlord. Giesk began peeling plastic off the corpse's gray skin.

  The Warlord, with a smile that was only a deepening of the dark slit of his lips beneath the helm, left the room, detailing a centurion to stay behind.

  "You had better hurry, Giesk," the Warlord remarked from the hallway. "We leave within the hour."

  The doctor was packing his equipment away with the practiced ease of a man who had done this sort of thing often.

  "Five minutes, my lord, not longer," Dr. Giesk promised, slamming lids, locking latches, and coiling power cords most industriously.

  There was no reply. The Warlord was already halfway down the corridor. He walked swiftly, as he tended to do when thinking, his pace dictated by the rapidity of his thought. Almost running behind him, his guard of honor was hard-pressed to keep up.

  "Prepare the shuttle to lift off, Lieutenant." The Warlord spoke into a communications linkage inside his helmet. "And patch me through to Admiral Aks."

  "Yes, my lord," a voice crackled in response, and within seconds another voice sounded in the Warlord's ear.

  "Aks, here, my lord."

  "We will not rejoin the fleet. Determine the location of a planet known as Syrac Seven and plot a course for it. I want the ship ready to leave within the hour."

  "Yes, my lord."

  "One thing more."

  The Warlord paused reflectively, both in thought and in his strides. Stopping before a window, he glanced down the empty hall where only days before students from this planet's solar system had been hurrying to classes, discussing the problems of the ages in solemn, youthful voices. The university had been closed by the Warlord's command when he had arrived to take Stavros prisoner. The half-million students and other members of the faculty had been ordered to leave.

  Where did they go? the Warlord wondered idly, his gaze flicking over the ancient b
rick buildings. Six white columns— remnants of a bygone era—gleamed in the system's white-yellow sun. Were the students crowded into one of the small cities on this planet or had they taken this opportunity to return to their homes? Had this been an unexpected holiday or a major annoyance? The Warlord inspected the new, modern buildings with their sleek, windowless design. His gaze went to the smooth, well-kept lawns, the flower beds cultivated in letters that stood for an abbreviation of the university's name.

  What was the name? He couldn't remember. Not that it mattered.

  I wonder, he thought, resuming his walk just as the centurions behind him had managed to catch their collective breath, if Stavros had been a good professor.

  "Admiral Aks," he spoke into the commlink, "I want every object within a one-hundred-kilometer radius of where I am standing destroyed."

  "My lord?" The admiral's tone indicated he did not believe he had heard correctly.

  "Destroyed," the Warlord repeated slowly and distinctly. "I trust we are not experiencing a communications malfunction, Admiral Aks?"

  "N-no, my lord." Aks ventured a protest. "The university is extremely popular, my lord. This will create a most unpleasant incident in the solar system."

  "Then it will give our diplomats something to do besides shuttling from one pleasure spa to another. Inform the ruler of this world—"

  "Governor, my lord."

  "Governor, then! Inform him that no one, not even the so-called intelligentsia, is above the law. These people knew what Stavros was, yet they harbored him. I will show them, as I have shown others, what happens to those who shelter the Guardians. If the governor has any complaints, he may send them to the Congress through the official channels."

  "As you command, my lord." The Admiral's voice crackled and went out.

  Dr. Giesk was the last to board the shuttle, arriving in a flurry of white lab coat, clanking instruments, trailing wires, and fluttering necktie. The hatch slammed shut behind him, the airlock sealed. Fancifully designed and painted to resemble a phoenix, the red and gold shuttlecraft tucked its landing gear neatly up into its sleek body and lifted off-planet swiftly, spiraling up into the sky.