E.C. Tubb - The Winds of Gath

"Nothing. But your charity saved my life after the fight with Moidor. I like to pay my debts."

She nodded. "Then prove what you say."

It had come to the critical point as he knew it must. Suspicion wasn't enough. Her fingerprints and retinal pattern would have been tailor-made to match, the rest of her physique the same. The substitution must have been planned for years—those responsible would have made no obvious mistakes.

"During our journey," he said slowly, "we left the rafts and wandered toward the east. We stood watching and you likened the column to something. What was it?"

"A snake."

"Nothing else?"

"Perhaps, I can't remember. The conversation and the company were not that important."

"And neither is this test," said Dyne. "Without witnesses what can it prove?"

Nothing, of course, her word was as good as his and Dumarest recognized defeat. But he had to try.

"After my fight with Moidor you summoned me and we sat talking. It was just before the phygria attacked. You remember?"

"Of course."

"Yes." He wondered who had briefed her. It had been thoroughly done. "We were talking. About a friend of mine on Quail. Something reminded me of him. What was it?"

"My ring." She held out her hand to show it gleaming on her finger. "You said that the ladies of Quail used them for sport. They filled them with powerful aphrodisiacs." She yawned. "Your friend suffered from their sense of fun."

"That's right," said the Matriarch. Her face was hard as she looked at Dumarest. "If she were not my ward how would she have known that?"

How?

"No, My Lady," said Dumarest softly. "That isn't the question. The real question is how do you know it?"

He watched the answer dawn on her face.

THE MIRRORS! She turned to where it stood then hesitated with instinctive caution. It would not amuse her ward to learn that she was the target of a spy-device; it would amuse her still less to know that the knowledge was shared by the common guards. But that, at least, could be prevented.

"Leave us," she snapped at the women. "Wait outside."

The room seemed larger when they had gone.

"You!" She pointed at the girl. "Stand back. Right back against the wall."

"My Lady?"

"Do as I say!" The old woman relaxed a little as the girl obeyed. Now, if she were careful to shield the mirror with her body, not even her ward need know of its secret.

"My Lady!" The girl was insistent. "What other proof can I give?"

"A moment, child." The Matriarch's voice was soft but determined. "We shall soon know the truth."

Dumarest watched her as she turned. He frowned, not understanding what she was about, then he saw the old back stiffen, the withered hands clench in a paroxysm of rage.

"You!" She turned, her face distorted, her eyes burning with anger. "You liar! Gua—"

The girl was quick. She sprang forward and to one side, her hand lifting, leveling, something spurting from the ornate ring on her finger. It shrilled across the tent and buried itself in the Matriarch's side. She fell, gasping, still trying to summon her women.

"Guards!"

Dumarest shouted as the hand swung toward him. He ducked, throwing himself forward, flesh cringing to the expected impact. None came. Instead there was a sudden, vicious snarl and the stench of burning. Dyne stood, a tiny laser in his hand, the dead body of the girl at his feet. A charred hole in her temple told of the accuracy of his aim.

"My Lady!" Elspeth thrust into the room at the head of her guards. Her eyes narrowed, grew dangerous as she saw the Matriarch writhing on the floor. "Who—?"

"Get Melga!" Dumarest thrust her aside as he stooped over the old woman. "Hurry!"

The thing the girl had fired still shrilled its deadly vibrations, boring deeper into the flesh, destroying cell, nerve and tissue with its lethal song. Dumarest snatched at it with his left hand, tore it free, flung it aside. Smoke rose from where it fell on the carpet, a ring of flame circling a widening spot of ash.

"A vibratory dart," said Dumarest as the physician knelt beside him. "I may have got it out in time."

Melga pursed her lips as she examined the wound. Deftly she fired a pain-killing drug into the Matriarch's throat. Resetting the hypogun she fired three charges of antitoxin around the pulped place where the dart had struck. An antiseptic spray to cover the raw flesh with a healing film completed her immediate treatment.

"Show me your hand." Her lips pursed even tighter as she examined Dumarest's fingers. They were dark, bruised as if caught in a slamming door, the tips seeping blood. The blast of her hypogun terminated their pain.

"Dumarest!" The Matriarch stared at him, her eyes haunted hollows in the withered pattern of her face. Shock had closed the iron hand of age. She swallowed, weakly, gestured for him to come closer. Her voice was a thin reed of sound. "You were right," she whispered. "That girl is not my ward. She must be made to tell what she knows."

"The girl is dead," he said shortly. "Dyne killed her."

She nodded, fighting the lethargy of the drugs, able to concentrate only on the thing of greatest importance.

"Seena," she whispered. "You must find her and bring her back safely to me. Find her and…" Her voice trailed like smoke into silence.

"My Lady!" He reached out, tempted to slap the sagging cheeks, to shock her into awareness. Instead he touched her gently on the shoulder and steeled his voice. "My Lady!"

She blinked into his face.

"The Lady Seena," he urged. "Do you know where she is?"

"You will find her," she said. "You promise?"

"Yes, but—" He sighed as she yielded to the soporific effects of the drugs.

The Prince of Emmened was insane. He tittered as he walked and sang snatches of ribald song interspersed with crude verse and cruder oaths. The ground rang iron-hard beneath his feet, frozen by eternal night, locked in the stasis of ice. Cold caught his breath and converted it into streaming plumes of vapor.

"The gods are kind," he chuckled. "They spoke to me from the wind and told me the thing I must do. Can you guess at what that is?" He looked at her sideways, his eyes very bright.

"No," she said dully. They had given her a cloak and a scarf hugged her head but her shoes were thin and her feet frozen.

"They told me to follow my star." He ran a few paces forward, faced her, his face mad in the light of the torches held by his guards. "You are beautiful, My Lady. So very beautiful."

She didn't answer.

"So soft and warm and full of fire," he continued, falling into step beside her. "Crowder said that." He laughed at amusing memory. "Crowder is dead, did I tell you? He listened and went mad. He thought that he was his own father and flogged himself to death."

Again she remained silent. He scowled as she made no response.

"I am not used to being ignored, My Lady. I have ways to deal with those who so displease me."

"You remove their tongues," she said. "I have heard the rumors."

"Then you had best beware." He laughed again, enjoying the situation. "Some would say that a dumb wife was a thing to be envied. Such a one would never be able to tell of things which should remain secret—or send lying tales to that old bitch of Kund!"

"Of how you stole her ward in the height of the storm?" Seena did not look at the prince. "I have told you before—you will regret it."

"Perhaps. But have you considered, My Lady, I could have saved your life?"

He was too near the truth for comfort. Numbed, knowing that she had been drugged but helpless to do anything about it, she had allowed Sime to take her out into the storm. She remembered the look on his face when the Prince of Emmened had appeared out of the darkness; his relief when he learned that the prince intended to abduct the girl; the nightmare journey when she could only follow the insane ruler. The journey was still a nightmare but now she could move of her own volition, speak her own mind. Neither movement nor speech was enough to save her.