Part 2 (2/2)

The shock sent him falling into oblivion.

He awoke to discover Elizabeth, Dionket, and Creyn attending him. He had nearly died, but they had saved him. In antic.i.p.ation of such a disaster, Elizabeth had asked Minanonn to fly her and the other two redactors to Spain, where they had observed the encounter with Felice and its aftermath.

Felice had vanished. The mental blast had triggered an enormous rockfall into the river, burying part of Aiken's fleet and altering the course of the Genii. Cull was gone, and the Craftsmaster, and Mercy, and some ninety others. The rest were safe-and awaiting the recovery of their King.

It hardly seemed possible to Aiken that Mercy could be dead.

Her body had not been recovered. But there was the testimony of Celadeyr, who claimed to have seen her die, and Mercy's empty silver-and-emerald helmet. Still deathly weak, Aiken returned to Goriah to recuperate. He attempted to farspeak Marc Remillard in North America, but received no reply.

Some time pa.s.sed. A force of Lowlives led by Basil Wimborne travelled once again to the s.h.i.+p's Grave crater. There they rendered no less than twenty-nine of the exotic aircraft operational. The rest were destroyed. According to plan, twentyseven of the flyers were brought to a secret hiding place on the slopes of Monte Rosa-which during Pliocene times exceeded Mount Everest in height. Chief Burke hoped that this region would be inaccessible to Aiken and the Firvulag alike.

The other two flyers brought the Lowlife expedition back to the Vosges Mountains. They were concealed in the Vale of Hyenas, not far from Nionel, where it was planned to adapt them for defensive purposes.

In the small Tanu city of Var-Mesk on the sh.o.r.e of the New Sea, Celadeyr of Afaliah finally met with Nodonn. He brought with him Mercy-who, of course, was not dead at all. There was a tender reunion between Nodonn and his former wife.

Since there was no time to heal Nodonn's missing hand, Mercy furnished him with one made of silver to take the place of a wooden prosthesis old Isak had carved, back on Kersic. Regretfully, Nodonn told Mercy that she would have to return to Aiken while he himself accompanied Celadeyr to Afaliah and set about gathering an opposition force of conservatives. It was necessary that Mercy keep them informed of Aiken's movements. Aiken was too metapowerful for any of the Tanu to keep track of by means of ordinary fa.r.s.ensing. After a brief happy interlude, the lovers parted.

Mercy came back to Aiken with a story of having had amnesia.

The King seemed to believe her; but he was much changed from the fun-loving trickster who had come to the Many-Coloured Land the previous August. There was a sombre air about him, and he still had not fully recovered from the terrible effects of the fight against Felice. Together, Aiken and Mercy supervised preparations for the Grand Tourney, which would be held at the end of October in place of the abolished Combat.

Meanwhile, in Afaliah, Nodonn and Celadeyr pa.s.sed the word to all traditionalist Tanu that the designated heir of the late King Thagdal was alive and ready to challenge the human usurper.

Nodonn's brother Kuhal Earthshaker regained his strength almost completely after an innovative Skin treatment shared with Cloud Remillard. Cloud, attracted to Kuhal and now alone in the Many-Coloured Land (her brother and the others were slowly making their way north on land from their landing site in western Africa), became converted to the traditionalist cause.

Nodonn had promised his cooperation in a temporary reopening of the time-gate if the rebel children subsequently destroyed it completely.

Marc's fate was still a mystery. He had not responded to Cloud's attempts at fa.r.s.ensing nor had any of the other old Rebels back in Ocala. Cloud concluded that her father must have been attacked by Felice in an unusual metapsychic manoeuvre, the dimensional-jump, or translocation. This was essentially a mind-powered hypers.p.a.ce trip-the kind of operation performed by Brede's s.h.i.+p when it had transported the exotics from the Duat galaxy to this one. D-jumping was a rare but recognized metafaculty in the Galactic Milieu. Felice could have tracked Marc along his fa.r.s.ense beam and done considerable harm. Cloud and Hagen suspected that Marc had survived, since he was encased in the armour of the cerebroenergetic equipment that provided artificial augmentation of his mind.

But once he left the armour's protection, his injuries would surely require treatment in Ocala's regeneration tank. This would explain why Marc had been incommunicado for nearly three months ...

Up north in the Howler city of Nionel, Tony Wayland the metallurgist and his friend Dougal once more made plans to join Aiken Drum. Abandoning their devoted goblin brides, the pair set off through the jungle, only to stumble by accident into the Vale of Hyenas, where they were captured by the Lowlives working on the two exotic aircraft. As known deserters from the Iron Villages and possible traitors, Tony and Dougal were to be sent to Hidden Springs under guard, for trial by Chief Burke. En route, the party was fallen upon by Firvulag regulars.

Dougal escaped, the escorting Lowlives were killed, and craven Tony saved his life by babbling to the Firvulag about the aircraft.

Hustled off to High Vrazel, Tony repeated his tale to King Sharn and Queen Ayfa. He was then turned over to an ogress, the Dreadful Skathe, while the Firvulag monarchs pondered on ways to use his intelligence. They were aware that Nodonn was a.s.sembling forces down in Afaliah and that he had in his possession the sacred Sword of Sharn, which had once been wielded by the Firvulag King's own ancestor in the Nightfall War and which would have to be in the possession of his successor in any renewal of hostilities. Nodonn was as yet far too weak to attack Aiken in Goriah-even using the Sword. After all, Aiken had the Spear.

But if Nodonn had the advantage of aircraft ...

Sharn and Ayfa decided to tell Nodonn about the two flyers (which the Firvulag were incapable of using themselves) hidden in the Vale of Hyenas, in exchange for the Sword-if and when Nodonn conquered the usurper. Nodonn would be honourbound to carry out his part of the bargain, and there undoubtedly were, among Tanu First Comers, a few surviving pilots.

The proposal was made and accepted. On 24 August, four Tanu and Cloud Remillard invaded the Vale of Hyenas, subduing Basil and his crew. With one aircraft commanded by Thufan Thunderhead, an experienced Tanu pilot, and the other flown by Celadeyr, who had had a bit of flight training, Nodonn led 400 Tanu knights in an air a.s.sault on Goriah.

Mercy knew they were coming. In order to prevent Aiken from using the cache of Milieu arms against Nodonn, she prevailed upon a human psychokinetic specialist, Sullivan-Tonn, whose young wife, Olone, was infatuated with Aiken. Mercy and Sullivan broke into the dungeon storage room, and she used her creative power to disrupt the chamber's insulating lining, embedding all of the equipment in a spongelike ma.s.s pervaded with bubbles of poisonous gas.

Aiken confronted them as they fled from the dungeon. The Nonborn King disposed of Sullivan, then took Mercy to their bed for a final, fatal embrace. As she died, his brain a.s.similated all the powers that had been hers.

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