He was stiff and cold. Hurt badly, too, he thought vaguely. His wounds had not been tended. Very carefully, he opened his eyes. They told him what he had already known. He was in a dark cell, filthy and damp. A sick chill shook him. Teeth chattering, huddled on the stone floor, Kieron sank again into unconsciousness.
When he awoke again, he was burning with fever and a cold bowl of solidified, greasy gruel lay beside him. His tongue felt thick and swollen, but the sharp agony of his wounded side had subsided to a dull hurt. With a great effort, he dragged himself into a corner of the dungeon and propped himself up facing the iron-bound door.
His searching hands found that he had been stripped of his harness and weapons. He was naked, smeared with filth and dried blood. As he moved he felt a renewed flow of warmth flooding down from his torn flank. The wound had reopened. Sweat was streaking the caked blood on his cheek. His mind wandered in a feverish delirium—a nightmare dream in which the tall, coldly arrogant figure of Freka seemed to fill all space and all time. Kieron's over-bright eyes glittered with animal hate....
Somehow, he felt that the hated Kalgan was nearby. He tried to keep his eyes open, but the lids seemed weighted. His head sagged and the fever took him again into the ebony darkness of some fantastic intergalactic night where weird shapes danced and whirled in hideous joyousness....
The rattling of the door-lock woke him. It might have been minutes later or days. Kieron had no way of knowing. He felt light-headed and giddy. He watched the door open with fever-bright eyes. A jailer carrying a flambeau entered and the light blinded Kieron. He shielded his face with his hand. There was a voice speaking to him. A voice he knew ... and hated. With a shuddering effort, he took a grip on his staggering mind, his hate sustaining him now. Moving his hands away from his face, he looked up—into the icy eyes of Freka the Unknown.
"So you're awake at last," the Kalgan said.
Kieron made no reply. He could feel the fury burning deep inside him.
Freka held a jewelled dagger in his hands, toying with it idly. Kieron watched the shards of light leaping from the faceted gems in the liquid torchlight. The slender blade shimmered, blue and silvery in the Kalgan's hands.
"I have been told that the Lady Alys was with you—here on Kalgan. Is this true?"
Alys ... Kieron thought vaguely of her for a moment, but somehow the picture brought sadness. He put her out of his mind and squinted up at Freka's gemmed dagger, unable to take his eyes from the glittering weapon.
"Can you speak?" demanded Freka. "Was Toran's sister with you?"
Kieron watched the weapon, a feral brilliance growing like a flame in his dark eyes.
Freka shrugged. "Very well, Kieron. It makes no difference. Does it interest you to know that the armies are gathering? Earth will be ours within four weeks." His voice was cold, unemotional. "You realize, of course, that you cannot be allowed to live."
Kieron said nothing. Very carefully he gathered his strength. The dagger ... the dagger...!
"I will not risk war with Valkyr by killing you now. But you will be tried by a council of star-kings on Earth when we have done what we must do...."
Kieron stared hard at the slender weapon, his hate pounding in his fevered mind. He drew a deep, shuddering breath. Freka spun the blade idly, setting the jewels afire.
"We should have taken you the moment Landor was missed," mused the Kalgan. "But ... it really doesn't matter now...."
Kieron's taut muscles uncoiled in a snakelike, lashing movement. He hit Freka below the knees with all his fevered strength and the Kalgan went down without a sound, the slim dagger clattering on the slimy floor of the cell. The guard leaped forward. Kieron's searching hand closed about the hilt of the dagger. With a sound of pure animal rage in his throat he drove it into Freka's unprotected chest. Twice again his hand rose and fell, and then the guard caught him full in the face with a booted foot and the light of the torch faded again into inky blackness....
In the darkness, time lost its meaning. Kieron woke a dozen times, feeling the dull throbbing ache of his wounds and then fading again into unconsciousness. He ate—or was fed—enough to keep him alive, but he had no memory of it. He floated in a red-tinged sea of black, unreal, frightening. He screamed or sobbed as the phantasms of his sick dreams dictated, but through it all ran a single thread of elation. Freka, the hated one, was dead. No horror of nightmare or delirium could strip him of that one grip on life. Freka was dead. He remembered vaguely the feel of the dagger plunging again and again into his tormentor's breast. Sometimes he even forgot why he had hated Freka, but he clung to the knowledge that he had killed him the way a drowning man clings to the last suffocating breath.
Sounds filtered into Kieron's dungeon. Sounds that were familiar. The hissing roar of spaceships. Then later the awful susurration of mob sounds. Kieron lay sprawled on the stones of his cell-floor, not hearing, lost in the fantasmagoric stupor of delirium. His wounds still untended, only the magnificent body of a warrior helped him cling to the thread of life.
Other sounds came. The crash of rams and the clatter of falling masonry. The shrieks of men and women dying. The ringing cacophony of weapons and the curses of fighting men. Hours passed and the din grew louder, closer, in the heart of the Citadel of Neg itself. The torches on the outer cellblocks guttered out and were left untended. The sounds of fighting rose to a wild pitch, interlaced with the inhuman, animal sounds of a mob gone mad.
At last Kieron stirred, some of the familiar sounds of battle striking buried chords in his fevered mind. He listened to the advancing clash of weapons until it rang just beyond his dungeon door.
He dragged himself into his corner again and crouched there, the feral light in his eyes brilliant now. His hands itched for killing. He flexed the fingers painfully and waited.
The silence was sudden and as complete as the hush of the tomb.
Kieron waited.
The door was flung wide, and men bearing torches rushed into the cell. Kieron lunged savagely for the first one, hands seeking a throat.
"Kieron!" Nevitta threw himself backward violently. Kieron clung to him, his face a fevered mask of hate. "Kieron! It is I ... Nevitta!"
Kieron's hands fell away from the old warrior and he stood swaying, squinting against the light of the torches. "Nevitta ... Nevitta?"
A wild laugh came from the prisoner's cracked lips. He looked about him, into the strained faces of his own fighting men.
He took one step and pitched forward into the arms of Nevitta, who carried him like a child up into the light, tears streaking his grizzled cheeks....
For three weeks Alys and Nevitta nursed Kieron, sucking the poison of his untended wounds with their mouths and bathing him to break the fiery grip of the fever. At last they won. Kieron opened his eyes—and they were sane and clear.
"How long?" Kieron asked faintly.
"We were gone from Kalgan twenty days ... you have lain here twenty-one," Alys said thankfully.
"Why did you come back here?" Kieron demanded bitterly. "You have lost an Empire!"
"We came for you, Kieron," Nevitta said. "For our king."
"But ... Alys ..." Kieron protested.
"I would not have the Great Throne, Kieron," said Alys, "if it meant leaving you to rot in a cell!"
Kieron turned his face to the wall. Because of him, the star-kings fought Ivane's battle. And by now they would have won. The only thing that had been done was the killing of the treacherous Freka. He held Kalgan now, for the Valkyrs had returned seeking their Warlord after Freka's plan had stripped the planet of fighting men—and the mobs had done the Valkyr's work for them. But two worlds were not an Empire of stars. Alys had been cheated. Because of him.
No! thought Kieron, by the Seven Hells, no! They could not be defeated so easily. There were five thousand warriors with him now. If need be, he would fight the Imperium's massed forces to win Alys' rightful place on the throne of Gilmer of Kaidor!
"Let me up," Kieron demanded. "If we hit them on Earth before they have a chance to consolidate, there's still a chance!"
"There is no hurry, Kieron," said Nevitta holding him in the bed with a great hand. "Freka and the star-kings have already...."
"Freka!" Kieron sat bolt upright.
"Why, yes ..." murmured Nevitta in perplexity. "Freka."
"That's impossible!"
"We have had information from the Imperial City, Kieron. Freka is there," said Alys.
Kieron sank back on the pillows. Had he dreamed killing the Kalgan? No! It wasn't possible! He had driven the blade into his chest three times ... driven it deep.
With an effort he rose from the bed. "Order my charger, Nevitta!"
"But sir!"
"Quickly, Nevitta! There is no time!"
Nevitta saluted reluctantly and withdrew.
"Help me with my harness, Alys," ordered Kieron forgetful of majesty.
"Kieron, you can't ride!"
"I have to ride, Alys. Listen to me. I drove a dagger into Freka three times ... and he has not died! One man can tell us why, and we must know.That man is Geller of the Marshes!"
Neg was a shambles. The advent of the Valkyrs had been a signal for the brutish population to go mad. Mobs had thronged the streets, smashing, killing and looting. The few Kalgan warriors left behind to guard the city had had to aid the Valkyrs in restoring order. It seemed to Kieron, as he rode along the now sullenly silent streets, that Kalgan and Neg had been deliberately abandoned as having served a purpose. If Freka still lived, as they said, then he was something unique among men, and not meant for so unimportant a world as Kalgan.
Shops and houses had been gutted by fire. Goods of all kinds were strewn about the streets, and here and there a body—twisted and dismembered—awaited the harrassed burial detachments that roamed the shattered megalopolis.
Kieron and Alys rode slowly toward the marshy slums of the lower city, Nevitta following them at a short distance. The three war horses, creatures bred to war and destruction, paced along easily, flaring nostrils taking in the familiar smells of a ruined city.
Along the street of the Black Flames there was nothing left standing whole. Every hovel, every tenement had been gutted and looted by the mobs. Presently, Kieron drew rein before a shuttered shanty between two structures of fire-blackened stone.
Nevitta rode up with a protest. "Why do you seek this beloved of demons, Kieron?" he asked fearfully. "No good can come of this!"
Kieron stared at the shanty. It stared back at him with veiled ghoulish eyes. The writhing mists shrouded the grey street in the eternal twilight of Kalgan. Kieron felt his hands trembling on the reins. This was the lair of the warlock.
The stench of the marshes was thick and now the mists turned to soft rain. Kieron dismounted.
"Wait for me here," he ordered Nevitta and Alys.
With pounding heart, he drew his sword and started for the door that gaped like the black mouth of a plague victim. Alys touched his elbow, disregarding his instructions. Her eyes were bright with fear, but she followed him closely. Secretly glad of her companionship, Kieron breathed a prayer to his Valkyr gods and stepped inside....
The place was a wreck. Old books lay everywhere, ripped and tattered. In a corner, someone had tried to make a bonfire of a pile of manuscripts and broken furniture and had half succeeded.
"The mob has been here," Alys said succinctly.
Kieron led the way through the rubble toward the door of a back room. Carefully, he pushed it ajar with the point of his blade. It creaked menacingly, revealing another chamber—one filled with strange machines and twisted tubes of glass. Great black boxes stood along one wall, coils of bright wire running into the jumbled mass of shattered machines that dominated the center of the room. The air of the cold, silent room had a strange and unpleasant tang. The smell, thought the Valkyr, of the Great Destroyer!
The tip of his sword touched one of the bright copper coils springing from the row of black boxes along the wall, and a tiny blue spark leaped up the blade. Kieron yanked his weapon away, his heart racing wildly. A thin curl of smoke hung in the air, and the steel of the blade was pitted. Kieron fought down the urge to run in terror.
"I'm afraid, Kieron!" whispered Alys, clinging to him.
Kieron took her hand and moved cautiously around the pile of broken machinery. He found Geller then, and tried to stop Alys from seeing.
"The Great Destroyer he served failed him," Kieron said slowly.
The warlock was dead. The mob, terrified—and hating what they could not understand—had killed him cruelly. The staring eyes mocked Kieron, the blackened tongue lolled stupidly out of the dry lips. Geller's mystery, thought Kieron, was still safe with him....
On the way out, Kieron stopped and picked up the remnants of a book of sigils. It was incredibly old, for the characters on the cover were those of the legendary First Empire. With some difficulty he made out the title.
"'Perpetually Regenerating Warps and their Application in Interstellar Engines'...."
The words meant nothing to him. He dropped the magic book and picked up two others. This time his eyes widened.
"What is it, Kieron?" Alys asked fearfully.
"Long ago," Kieron said thoughtfully, "on Valkyr, it was said that the ancients of the First Empire were familiar with the secrets of the Great Destroyer...."
"That's true. That is why the Interregnum came, and the dark ages," said Alys.
"I wonder," mused Kieron looking at the books. "What was this Geller known best for?"
Alys shuddered. "For his homunculi."
"The ancients, it is said, knew many things. Even how to make ... artificial servants. Robots, they were called." He handed her the book. "Can you read this ancient script?"
Alys read aloud, her voice unsteady.
"'First Principles of Robotics.'"
"And this one?"
"'Incubation and Gestation of Androids'...!"
Kieron of Valkyr stood in the silent, wrecked laboratory of the dead warlock Geller, his medieval mind trying to break free of the bondage of a millennium of superstition and ignorance. He understood now ... many things.
VI
Like great silver fish leaping up into the bowl of night, the ships of the Valkyr fleet rose from Kalgan. Within the pulsing hulls five thousand warriors rode, ready for battle. Against the mighty forces of the assembled star-kings, the army of Valkyr counted for almost nothing; but the savage fighting men of the Edge carried with them their talisman—Alys Imperatrix, uncrowned sovereign of the Galaxy, Heiress to the Thousand Emperors—the daughter of their beloved warrior-prince, Gilmer, conqueror of Kaidor.
Like great silver fish leaping up into the bowl of night, the ships of the Valkyr fleet rose from Kalgan....
Like great silver fish leaping up into the bowl of night, the ships of the Valkyr fleet rose from Kalgan....
Like great silver fish leaping up into the bowl of night, the ships of the Valkyr fleet rose from Kalgan....
In the lead vessel, Nevitta dogged the harried Navigators, urging greater speed. Below decks, the war chargers snorted and stomped the steel decks, sensing the tension of the coming clash in the close, smoky air of the spaceships.
Kieron stood beside the forward port with Alys, looking out into the strangely distorted night of space. As speed increased, the stars vanished and the night that pressed against the flanks of the hurtling ship grew grey and unsteady. Still velocity climbed, and then beyond the great curving glass screen there was nothing. Not blackness, or emptiness. A soul-chilling nothingness that twisted the mind and refused to be accepted by human eyes. Hyperspace.
Kieron drew the draperies closed and the observation lounge of the huge ancient liner grew dim and warm.
"What's ahead, Kieron?" the girl asked with a sigh. "More fighting and killing?"
The Valkyr shook his head. "Your Imperium, Your Majesty," he said formally, "a crown of stars that a thousand generations have gathered for you. That lies ahead."
"Oh, Kieron! Can't you forget the Empire for the space of an hour?" Alys demanded angrily.
The Warlord of Valkyr looked at his Empress in perplexity. There were times when women were hard to fathom.
"Forget it, I say!" the girl cried, her eyes suddenly flaming.
"If Your Majesty wishes, I'll not speak of it again," said Kieron stiffly.
Alys took a step toward him. "There was a time when you looked at me as a woman. When youthoughtof me as a woman! Am I so different now?"
Kieron studied her slim body and sensuously patrician face. "There was a time when I thought of you as a child, too. Those times pass. You are now my Empress. I am your vassal. Command me. I'll fight for you. Die for you, if need be. Anything. But by the Seven Hells, Alys, don't torture me with favors I can't claim!"
"So I must command, then?" She stamped her foot angrily. "Very well, I command you, Valkyr!"
"Lady, I'll never be a Consort!"
The girl's face flushed. "Did I ask it? I know I can't make a lapdog out of you, Kieron."
"Stop it, Alys," Kieron muttered heavily.
"Kieron," she said softly, "I've loved you since I was a child. I love you now. Does that mean nothing to you?"
"Everything, Alys."
"Then for the space of this voyage, Kieron, forget the Empire. Forget everything except that I love you. Take what I offer you. There is no Empress here...."
The silver fleet speared down into the atmosphere of the mother planet. Earth lay beneath them like a globe of azure. The spaceships fanned out into a wedge as they split the thin cold air high above the sprawling megalopolis of the Imperial City.
The capital lay ringed about with the somnolent shapes of the star-kings' great armada. Somewhere down there, Kieron knew, Freka waited. Freka the Unknown. The unkillable? Kieron wondered. For weapons he had his sword and a little knowledge. He prayed it would be enough. It had to be. Five thousand warriors could not defeat the assembled might of the star-kings.
Shunning the spaceport, Kieron led his fleet to a landing on the grassy esplanade that surrounded the city. As the hurried debarkation of men and horses began, Kieron could see a cavalry force massing before the gates to oppose them. He cursed and urged his men to greater speed. Horses reared and neighed; weapons glinted in the late afternoon sunlight.
Within the hour the debarkation was complete, and Kieron sat armed and mounted before the serried ranks of his warriors. The afternoon was filled with the flash of steel and the blazing glory of gonfalons as he ordered his ranks for battle ... a battle that he hoped with all his heart to avoid.
Across the plain, the Valkyr could make out the pennon of Doorn in the first rank of the advancing defenders. Kieron ordered Nevitta to stay by the Empress in the rear ranks and to escort her forward with all ceremony if he called for her.
Alys rode a white charger and had clad herself in the panoply of a Valkyr warrior maid. Her hips were girded in a harness of linked steel plates, her long legs free to ride astride. Over her chest and breasts was laced a hauberk of chain mail that shimmered in the slanting sunlight. On her head a Valkyr's winged helmet—and from under it her golden hair fell in cascades of light to her shoulders. A silver cloak stood out behind her as she galloped past the ranks of Valkyrs, and they cheered her as she went. Kieron, watching her, thought she resembled the ancient war-goddess of his own world—imperious, regal.
With a cry, Kieron ordered his riders forward and the glittering ranks swept forward across the esplanade like a turbulent wave, spear-heads agleam, gonafalons fluttering. He rode far ahead, seeking a meeting with old Eric of Doorn, his father's friend.
He signalled, and the two surging masses of warriors slowed as the two star-kings rode to a meeting between the armies. Kieron raised an open right hand in the sign of truce and old Eric did likewise. Their caparisoned chargers tossed their heads angrily at being restrained and eyed each other with white-rimmed eyes.
Kieron drew rein, facing the old star-king.
"I greet you," he said formally.
"Do you come in friendship, or in war?" asked Eric.
"That will depend on the Empress," Kieron replied.
The lord of Doorn smiled, and there was scorn on his face. He was remembering Kalgan and Kieron's reluctance. "You will be pleased to know, then, that the Imperial Ivane bids you enter her city in peace—so that you may do her homage and throw yourself on her mercy for your crimes against Kalgan."
Kieron gave a short, steely laugh. So Ivane had already learned of the Valkyr sack of Kalgan. "I do not know any 'Imperial Ivane,' Eric," he said coldly. "When I spoke of the Empress, I meant the true Empress, Alys, the daughter of your lord and mine, Gilmer of Kaidor." He signalled Alys and Nevitta forward.
The gonfalons of the Valkyr line dipped in salute as Alys trotted through the ranks. She drew rein, facing the amazed Eric.
"Noble lady!" he gasped. "We were told you were dead!"
"And so I might have been, had Ivane had her way!"
The old star-king stammered in confusion. There was more here than he could understand. Only a week before, he and the other star-kings had done homage to Ivane and hailed her as their savior from the oppressions of the Emperor Toran, and the nearest living kin to the late Gilmer. And now...!
Eric frowned. "If we have been made fools, Freka must answer for this!"
"And now," asked Kieron grimly, "do we enter the city in peace or do we cut our way in?"
Eric signalled his men to swing in beside the ranked Valkyrs and the whole mass of armed men moved through the fading afternoon toward the gates of the Imperial City.
It was dusk by the time the cavalcade reached the walls of the Imperial Palace. Kieron called a halt and ordered his men to rest on their arms. Taking only Nevitta and Alys with him, he joined Eric of Doorn in challenging the Janizaries of the Palace Guard.
They were passed by the stolid Pleiadenes without comment, for the lord of Doorn was known as a vassal of the Imperial Ivane. Faces set, the small party strode up the wide curving stairway that led into the Hall of the Great Throne. The courtiers had been warned by the shouts of the people in the streets that something was happening, and they had already begun to gather in the Throne Room.
He had come a long way, thought Kieron, from the day when he had stood before the Throne begging an audience with Toran. Now, everything hung on his one chance to prove his case—and Alys'—to the assembled nobles.
Kieron noted with some concern that the Palace Guards were gathering too. They covered each exit to the chamber, cutting off retreat.
By now, the Hall of the Great Throne was jammed with courtiers and star-kings, all tensely silent—waiting. Nor did they wait long.
With a blast of trumpets and a rolling of tympani, Ivane entered the Throne Room. Some of the courtiers knelt, but others stood in confusion, looking from Alys to Ivane and back again.
Kieron studied Ivane coldly. She was, he had to admit, a regal figure. A tall woman with hair the color of jet. A face that seemed chiseled out of marble. Dark, predatory eyes and a figure like a Dawn Age goddess. She stood before the Great Throne of the Empire, mantled in the sable robe of the Imperium—a robe as black as space and spangled with diamonds to resemble the stars of the Imperial Galaxy. On her head rested the irridium tiara of Imperatrix.
Ivane swept the Hall with a haughty stare that stung like a lash. When her eyes found Alys standing beside Kieron, they brightened, became feral.
"Guards!" she commanded. "Seize that woman! She is the killer of the Emperor Toran!"
A murmuring filled the chamber. The Janizaries pressed forward. Kieron drew his sword and leaped to the dais beside Ivane. She did not shrink back from him.
"Touch her, and Ivane dies!" shouted Kieron, his point at Ivane's naked breast. The murmuring subsided and the Janizaries pulled up short.
"Now, you are all going to listen to me!" shouted Kieron from the dais. "This woman under my blade is a murderess and plotter, and I can prove it!"
Ivane's face was strained and white. Not from fear of his sword, Kieron knew.
"In the Palace dungeons you will likely find Landor ..." Kieron continued. "He will be there because he knew of Ivane's plottings and talked too much when he had a dagger at his throat. He will confirm what I say!
"This woman plotted to usurp the Imperiumas long as five years ago! It may have been longer...." He turned to Ivane. "How long does it take to incubate anandroid, Ivane? A year? Two? And then to train him, school him so that every move he makes is intended to further your aims? How long does all that take?"
Ivane uttered a scream of terror now. "Freka! Call Freka!"
Kieron dropped his sword point and stepped away from Ivane as though she were contaminated. There was little danger fromhernow—but there was still another.
Freka appeared at the edge of the dais, his tall form towering above the courtiers. "You called for me, Imperial Ivane?"
Ivane stared at Kieron with hate-filled eyes. "You have failed me!Kill him now!"
Kieron whirled and caught Freka's blade on his own. The courtiers drew back, giving them room to fight. No one made a move to interfere. It was known that Valkyrs had sacked the city of Neg, and according to the warrior code the two warlords must be allowed to fight to the death if they wished.
Kieron made no attack. Instead he retreated before the expressionless Freka.
"Did you know, Freka," asked Kieron softly, "that Geller of the Marshes is dead? He was your father in a way, wasn't he?"
Freka made no reply, and for a moment the only sound in the hushed chamber was the ring of blades.
Suddenly Kieron lunged. His sword pierced Freka from breast to back. The Valkyr stepped back and pulled his blade clear. The crowd gasped, for Freka the Unknown did not fall....
"Are you really unkillable?" breathed Kieron. "I wonder!"
Again he lunged under the mechanical guard of the Kalgan. Again his blade sank deep. Freka backed away for a moment, still alert and unwounded.
Kieron shouted derisively at the star-kings: "Great warriors! Do you see? You have followed the leadership of an android! A homunculus spawned by the warlock Geller!"
A gasping roar went up in the chamber. A sound of superstitious horror and growing anger.
Kieron parried a thrust and brought his blade down on Freka's sword arm. Hard. A sword clattered to the flagstones—still gripped by a slowly relaxing hand. There was no blood. The android still moved in, eyes expressionless, his one hand reaching for his enemy. Kieron struck again. A clean cut opened from shoulder to belly, slicing the artificial tendons and leaving the android helpless but still erect. Kieron raised and lowered his blade in glittering arcs. Freka ... or the thing that had been Freka ... collapsed in a grotesque heap. Still it moved. Kieron passed his point again and again through the quivering mass until at long last it was still. Somewhere a woman fainted.
A thick silence fell over the assemblage. All eyes turned to Ivane. She stood staring at the remnants of the thing that had been ... almost ... a man. Her hand fluttered at her throat.
Alys' voice cut through the heavy stillness. "Arrest that woman for the murder of my brother Toran!"
But the crowd of courtiers was thinking of other things. Jaded and cynical, they had seen with their own eyes that Ivane was a familiar of the dreaded Great Destroyer. Someone cried: "Witch! Burn her!"
The mass of courtiers and warriors swept forward, screaming for the kill. Kieron leaped for the dais, his sword still bared.
"I'll kill the first one who sets foot on the Great Throne!" he cried.
But Ivane had heard the crowd sounds. The black mantle slipped from her shoulders, and she stood stripped to the waist, like a marble goddess—her eyes recapturing some of their icy hauteur. Then, before she could be stopped, she had taken a jewelled dagger and driven it deep into her breast.
Kieron caught her as she fell, feeling the warm blood staining his hands. He eased her down on the foot of the Great Throne and laid his ear to her breast.
There was no pulse. Ivane was dead.
Before the assembled Court, the Warlord of Valkyr knelt before his Empress. The star-kings had gone, and the Valkyrs were the last outworld warriors remaining in the Imperial City. Now, they too, would take their leave.
The Empress sat on the Great Throne, mantled in sable. Somehow, the huge throne and the vast vaulted chamber seemed to make her look small and frail.
"Your Imperial Majesty," said Kieron, "have we your leave to go?"
Alys' eyes were bright with tears. She leaned forward so that none but Kieron might hear. "Stay a while yet, Kieron. At least let us say our goodbyes alone and not ..." She looked about the crowded Throne Room, "... not here."
Kieron shook his head mutely. Aloud, he said again, "Have I Your Majesty's permission to return to Valkyr?"
"Kieron...!" whispered Alys. "Please...."
He looked up at her once, pain in his eyes, but he did not speak.
Alys knew then that the gulf had opened between them again; that this time, it was for the rest of their lives. The tears came and streaked her cheek as she lifted her head and spoke for all the Court to hear.
"Permission is granted, My Lord of Valkyr. You ... you may return to Valkyr." And then she whispered, "And my love goes with you, Kieron!"
Kieron raised her jewelled hands to his lips and kissed them.... Then he arose and turned on his heel to stride swiftly from the Great Hall.