Part 106 (1/2)

Let my Brain s.h.i.+ne on! This is the way it should be. This is the way I win, I conquer it all, engulf it in my furnace and feed upon it!

Never let it stop.

It stops now. And just in time I think ...

Aiken woke. He was lying on smouldering turf, wearing a stained and soggy suit of armour-padding. Big Dougal sat beside him, raising his head and proffering a cup of lukewarm muddytasting water. It was extremely dark except for a full red glow all along the northern skyline.

”The wildfire is past, my liege. How fare you?”

Aiken tried to sit up. A pang of agony shot through his head and he saw multicoloured stars. Then he got hold of himself and managed a puny beam of farsight. He and Dougal seemed to be the only ones alive in the midst of a scorched plain strewn with bodies. ”No!” he whispered. ”No no no!”

”Take heart, Asian. Many of our people live. They are beyond the blasted bridge, receiving aid from those who lately fled. It was said that you had perished in the dire combustion but I knew it was not so. I sought you out and found you, and now we will go to a small boat I have waiting, and thence to an aircraft that will carry you home.”

”Sharn ... Ayfa ... ”

”They are dead, and more than half their host. The rest fled before the wildfire that your mind enkindled, into the north and the west and the southern jungle. But none dared cross the Nonol to our sanctuary, and none dared dispute when the departing Adversary named you High King.”

”Gone. Marc's gone.” Suddenly, Aiken had to grin. ”Oh, that was a narrow escape! Small wonder those rigs are outlawed in the Galactic Milieu.”

Dougal had with him an oil lantern that had long ago burnt out. With feebly reviving creativity Aiken engendered a wee faerie light to sit in it and cast a meagre radiance to show the way. Arm in arm they limped toward the river. Their progress was very slow. Gradually the eastern sky acquired a tentative grey sheen, silhouetting the broken ma.s.ses of the twin grandstands and the blackened snags of trees down by the sh.o.r.e.

Wraiths of smoke drifted here and there, given substance when the lantern light caught them.

Then they saw something else-a harder, brighter gleam in the midst of a great tumble of Firvulag bodies. They came close and discovered a thing like a backless throne, exquisitely carved from translucent greenish stone and ornamented with silvery metal. Its cus.h.i.+on had been burnt to ashes, but otherwise the Singing Stone was unharmed.

Dougal lifted the lantern high and marvelled. ”Would you seat yourself upon it, High King?”

Aiken uttered a weary laugh. ”Maybe some other time.” He turned away from the trophy and let his farsight range, mourning the lost splendour, the wasted lives. And now to begin all over again for the third time! Could he do it? Did he even want to try? Or should he simply turn his back on the entire mess and follow the ones who had surrendered, returning to the security of Elder Earth?

There was a definite tinge of dawn in the east. ”Who knows what I'll do?” Aiken said to Dougal. ”It looks like the Night is almost over. Let's go find that boat of yours and see what's on the other side of the river.”

Tony Wayland had managed to escape the vigilance of Chief Burke when the terrible news from the Field of Gold reached the time-gate site. Wild with fear for Rowane, he secreted himself on a shuttlecraft returning to Nionel. He spent the remaining hours of the night searching futilely among the huddled mutants who dozed in small groups around dead campfires in the eastern meadow. It was not until the sun was full risen that he found Greggy beside a tiny brook, leaning against the trunk of a willow tree, the head of a sleeping woman in his lap.

The Genetics Master giggled softly. ”Well, well! Back at last, are you? We'd given you up, you know. Poor Rowane cried herself to sleep.”

Tony demanded, ”Where's my wife? What have you done with her?”

”Why, she's here,” Greggy said slyly. He let one fingertip caress the eyelids of the little beauty who nestled against him.

The eyes opened. Saw Tony. He stood there as dumb as a stick of wood as she rose and stood in front of him, lips trembling, hands clasped together. ”It's really her,” Greggy said. ”She went through my new Skin-tank. The very first case. I'm so proud.”

She said in a low voice, ”I hope you like me. I hope you'll stay now.”

”I loved you the way you were,” he said brokenly, and then he touched his golden torc. ”I loved you too much. I wasn't strong enough then. But now I have my torc and it'll be all right. Rowane.”

”But you do like me as I am now?” she pleaded.

”I love you. You're beautiful. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen. But it wouldn't have mattered if you'd stayed the same, Rowane. Believe me.”

”Not everything about me is changed,” she whispered, and then gave a little teasing laugh. Tony gulped, but only held her tighter. She said, ”I wonder if the baby will take after you-or me?”