Jack Chalker - Charon - A Dragon at the Gate

“Just the five of you?” Koril said pleasantly. “I’m shocked.”

“More than enough for the lot of you,” Korman responded for the group. “We don’t spend quite as much time here as we did in your day, Tulio. We don’t have to.” With that, all five levitated a meter or so above the stage and moved out just beyond it. All of us gasped at this, for we all realized it was no Warden trick. They were really doing it.

“Parlor tricks, Dieter?” Koril scoffed. “I thought we were beyond that.”

“No parlor trick,” one of the women answered him. “We are not as you knew us, Tulio. We are immortal, as powerful in body as in wa, with minds clearer than your merely human minds could ever be.”

“So that’s how she kept your allegiance,” Koril responded. “With the new model alien robot bodies. You serve her now because you are programmed to serve! No longer humans—but mere machines.”

“We are not ‘mere machines,’ Tulio,” Korman replied. “I’ll admit I have never heard ‘programmed’ used as a curse word before, but you are wrong. We were among those who freely chose to. throw you out, Tulio. Freely. And none of us has ever regretted it. Should we choose, we could leave this place. Really leave, Tulio. The wa within us dies as it would in you, but leaves us alive and whole—and more than human.”

“May we—examine those fancy new clothes of yours?” Koril asked, and all of us understood that he didn’t mean literally.

“Go ahead. We can fool any scanner, rig any test—but look at us as we really are. Be our guest, Tulio—and the rest of you. You are powerful ones indeed to have come this far. But no tricks.”

Koril had a pained expression. “Would I insult your intelligence?” With that, all four of them reached out their Warden senses to the five who still floated, impossibly, in the air.

“You see our superiority,” Korman continued, not so much bragging as being rather matter of fact about it all. “You are a good man, Tulio. You served Charon well and the Brethren before that. Don’t you see that the revolution is now? Are you so old and blind and prejudiced that you can’t realize that your ideals can become reality now—out there? With your 1

They were very, very confident, I thought. Almost unsettlingly so, yet I also understood that this sort of overconfidence can kill you. I had no idea what Koril had up his sleeve at this point, but I motioned to Darva and we edged away toward a far wall, well away from the area between the two group of sores. Suddenly I had a thought, and leaned over and whispered to her, “See that alcove to the left of the stage? I bet that goes up to You-Know-Who.”

She nodded. “Seems likely. When do you want to try for it?”

“Good girl. But not until they’ve started doing whatever they’re doing. They’ll probably ignore us—I hope. We’re certainly no threat to them.”

“I’ll follow your lead,” she whispered, and we turned back to watch whatever was going to happen.

“Well, Tulio?” Korman was saying. “It’s yours. It’s for all four of you, in fact. Immortal, superior bodies—free to escape this prison. Free to run an empire.”

Koril smiled. “So it’s an empire now, is it? And who would I be in this? Lord—or pre-programmed servant?”

Korman shrugged. “Your old position is, of course, already taken. But you would lead the Synod, as a matter of course. You never really liked being Lord anyway.”

Koril sighed. “That’s true enough. And yet I feel I cannot take your offer for two reasons. I do not trust those alien friends of yours as much as you do—though I’m sure I would once I got my new, unproved body. Without a guarantee you cannot give, that of an unmolested mind, I can hardly accept. And, as for the second reason—do you remember Jatik?”

Korman looked puzzled, then brightened for a moment “Of course. Little weasel of a man. Sore for Diamond Rock. As bizarre a psychopath as we’ve ever had here on Charon. Killed in the desert, if I remember.”

Koril nodded. “Killed coming to me. But he made his report, Dieter, before he died. He saw those friends of yours, those aliens. Tell me, Dieter—what would a man like that find so terrifying that he would brand it pure evil? It is a question that has troubled me, and driven me on, these past several years. More than anything, it’s why I’m here.”

Korman laughed. “Evil? The Lord of Satan, Agent of the Destroyer asks me about evil? What would that little psycho know about evil, anyway? Different, yes—incredibly so. Alien in many senses of that word. But evil! The former Lord of the Diamond, Lord of the Most Sacred Order of Brethren talks of evil!” And again he laughed.

“Now!” Koril yelled. At that moment all laughing stopped as a wall of Warden force at least the equal of what I had seen below lashed out with blinding speed right at Korman. Taken aback, he had only a simple shield himself and so he burst into flame before our very eyes, flame so intense I could not bear to look at it.

The others, less intent on Koril’s speech and less confident than their leader of their own powers—after all, all of them hadn’t been able to kill Koril alone the last time, or even keep him prisoner—struck back. Ignoring the flaming Korman, who toppled to the floor and continued melting into an acrid puddle, each of our sores took on the four remaining head to head.

I wasn’t sure how they had managed to melt a robot of the type that had penetrated Military Systems Command and outsmarted all the Confederacy’s best security devices, but I wasn’t about to stay around and ask questions. I moved slowly and cautiously towards that alcove, and Darva followed. We were, as we had hoped, totally ignored.

Still, I stopped when we reached the alcove and looked back. It was no longer just wa being traded, willpower against willpower. The Synod sores were coming straight on, but the four, under Koril’s direction, began twisting, turning, forming a careful mathematical pattern. Such was its nature and intricacy that it actually began disturbing the air between the two sets of antagonists. Incredibly I saw ripples there, then crackles of real, visible energy—electrical bolts forming and shooting, at first randomly and then laterally.

“Oh, by the gods! They’re creating their own tabarwind!” Darva exclaimed.

“Let’s get the hell out of here!” I responded, and we ducked into the alcove.

Frankly, the place didn’t match the exterior. It was dark and dank and smelly. There were all sorts of pieces of furniture and stuff as well as controls for the curtains and whatever else was in the room. Still, far in back was indeed a service corridor which ran in one direction to a lift, clearly visible. Obviously the service entrance. We picked the other direction, as roars and howls of thunder and the crackle of raw energy sounded behind us. What was happening in that room back there would have been the sight of a lifetime—but it would almost certainly have ended ours.

Sure enough, at the end of the corridor a wooden stair led upward. We both hesitated at the bottom, then Darva looked at me. “Where’s Kira or Zala or whatever the hell she is?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I didn’t really notice. Back there, I suppose. Hell, forget her—now.” I took the lead and walked slowly and carefully up the stairs, laser pistol drawn.

I reached the top, stopped, and waited for Darva. I don’t know quite who or what I expected up there, but it sure as hell wasn’t Yatek Morah.

Darva tired before I could stop her, but Morah merely shrugged off the shots and dissipated the energy harmlessly. He was still dressed as I remembered him—in his black trooper uniform, although he had added a red-lined cape of the same material. His eyes were still bizarre and almost impossible to look at.