Part 104 (1/2)

It struck the dome offeree capping Castle Gateway. The great sigma drained away into bedrock via a hundred metapsychic grounding channels. There was a profound roaring noise and the earth heaved. As the low-hanging clouds reflected the bluewhite corona of the conquering Adversary, Castle Gateway rocked, broken by the tremors that shook the plateau, and crumbled slowly into piles of rubble. At its heart was a lesser silver hemisphere, steadfast in the midst of destruction.

The incandescent brain laughed as it transposed its energies to the d-jumping function and teleported into the dusty ruins.

Then it struck again, hammering the stacked lesser sigmas and the internal metapsychic s.h.i.+eld generated by the King. The shelter attenuated like frost melting from a windowpane.

The brain perceived the two familiar minds, caught them as they hovered on the brink, forestalling their suicide, claiming them.

Now, it cried.

Now!

The armoured black form gave way to the body of a living man. Dismissing both his Firvulag minions and the artificial energies of the enhancer, he stood on the platform in front of the Guderian device, looking at his paralysed son and daughter.

One side of his mouth was lifted in a gentle smile. Then he turned to Elizabeth. She knelt on cracked flagstones next to the control console, surrounded on three sides by motionless workers. Aiken lay unconscious in front of her.

”As you see,” Marc said, ”I've won. You knew I would.”

Elizabeth lifted the King's head and smoothed his dishevelled hair. ”Another ten or fifteen seconds and they would have been gone. The machine is ready. If only Aiken had let me operate the controls.” She was very calm. ”I should plead with you, Marc.”

”Open to me instead.”

Her eyes widened. He only nodded. Aiken's heart beat again and the currents in his brain had the steady cycle of dreamless sleep. She kissed his brow and laid him softly on the stones.

Then she stood facing Marc. ”Very well.”

Her mental walls dissolved. There was no fear, no submission, only a pa.s.sage of free entry and a dropping of a fiery mask.

Marc said, ”Ah.” He stepped to the control console over Aiken's body, activated the tau-generator, and sent the four people inside the gazebo through the grey limbo, into Madame Guderian's rose garden in the hills above Lyon, in the France of the Galactic Milieu.

Dawn came to the Field of Gold, and the squad of Howler referees staggered as they held up the huge leather ball filled with sand. It was white with black markings, and in the fitful overcast of the lurid sunrise it looked like a misshapen skull all smeared with blood.

The Marshal of Sport intoned: ”Grand Tourney contestants!

This event, called variously hurley or s.h.i.+nty, marks the culmination of this first year's games. As you know, the winner in this contest will also be proclaimed victorious in the Tourney as a whole, and be awarded the Singing Stone. The game will be fought in a single ten-hour match, beginning as the sun lifts above the horizon and concluding as it sets. The playing ground is the entire Field of Gold, sixteen square kilometres. The Firvulag own the north goalposts and the Tanu own the south.

Both physical and metapsychic prowess may be employed, but no weapons. The team with the greatest number of goals wins.

There are no other rules or restraints ... Now let the team captains salute their n.o.ble opponents.”

A bedlam of cheering greeted Sharn and Ayfa, marching out to the face-off circle at the head of their phalanx of stalwarts.

Then the Tanu Great Ones sallied forth-leaderless.

Heymdol Buccinator proclaimed: ”Inasmuch as King AikenLugonn is presently unable to take the field, the Tanu team will be captained by Bleyn the Champion.”

Groans arose from the human and Howler spectators and delighted catcalls from the ebon host of Little People, who now rushed helter-skelter onto the sandy expanse in front of the grandstands like a swarm of glossy black beetles. Suddenly there was a flash of amber light and an earsplitting sonic boom that made the ground tremble. A flyer emblazoned with an open hand hovered above the Rainbow Bridge. From its open bellyhatch plummeted a sizzling little golden comet.

Bleyn said: ”I gladly yield the captaincy of the Tanu team to King Aiken-Lugonn!” And the mind-shouts of the humans and mutants drowned out the Firvulag's furious hoots.

Landing, Aiken strutted to the face-off circle and raised the visor of his golden helmet. ”Morning, Ayfa. Morning, Sharn.