Star Winds

“All right. I’ll collect the book, and meet you in two hours.”

“Excellent. Join me outside the town, on the polar road. I’ll have steeds waiting.”

After Suivres had gone Rachad dressed himself and sat down for a few minutes to think. Far-off Earth seemed appealingly cozy and safe now that he had begun to immerse himself in the rough-and-tumble of Maralian society. Maralia was so big. And yet it was but one of many star countries. This part of the galaxy, it seemed, was a confusion of kingdoms, empires, principalities and even one or two independent republics.

And over it all spread the shadow of the Kerek. Rachad knew now what fear went with the speaking of that name, and that the position of Maralia, indeed of any human nation, was insecure. There were times when his brash self-confidence faltered, and he felt out of his depth. Especially when he thought of the hated and unbalanced Duke of Koss, a decadent hermit who, so it was said, despised the whole cosmos.

But Rachad’s heart sank when he thought of the coming exploit. Entering the Aegis seemed to him now like descending into a deep hole from which there was no escape.

***

The horses provided by Suivres were of a long-legged variety bred specially for Arp, and they fairly leaped and clattered along the road that followed the contours of the slate-colored landscape.

Rachad had approached the meeting place with caution, but there was no evidence that Suivres planned anything treacherous and gradually his fears had abated. In his saddlebag was the lead-covered tome he had recovered from its keeper, his landlord (who had not taken kindly to being awakened in the middle of the night), and by now Baron Matello would have been informed of his departure. No doubt he was already sending word to his secret camp near the Aegis.

For two hours the loping Arp horses cantered along the highway, until eventually Suivres reined in and turned off to lead the way across slablike terrain which gave off ringing clicks when struck by the horses’ hooves.

Behind them the road passed out of sight. Their steeds slithered down shingle into a deep gully masked by snake-like trees which bore broad olive-green leaves. There, hidden by the overhanging branches, was a ship.

Though of spacefaring design, she seemed even smaller than the Wandering Queen, especially as she currently showed neither masts nor booms. Urging his mount forward between the trunks of the slippery trees, Suivres uttered a low halloo. Men appeared, wary and with drawn weapons at first, but quickly recognizing him.

Soon, with much sweating and groaning, the ship was being hauled on runners to the shallow end of the gully, where she stood under an open sky. Rachad went aboard while the horses were stripped of packs, saddles and bridles, and set loose. Sprits went out; sail was raised and found a current despite the nighttime hour.

Stealthily the ship wafted into the air, and before long had gained space. Casting out her whiplash rods, on which she then bent extraordinary lengths of silk, she went hurtling away from the amber sun.

***

For speed the smaller starship could not match the Bucentaur, and the journey lasted a week. They cruised through a small cluster of stars which glowed in a dozen colors, looking like a splendid, dazzling brooch. Finally they approached an aggressive, furnace-like sun, its surface whirling visibly white and red.

Three planets endured the vagaries of this contentious star. The ship slanted down toward the largest of them: a craggy world of gravel and granite.

The Aegis was set amid mountains, and seemed itself an artificial mountain, jutting up from the tumbled and chaotic slopes, lustrous gray in color, like graphite. Slanting pilasters buttressed its sloping walls, creating an effect, Rachad thought, not unlike that aimed at by the builders of the Temple of Hermes Trismegistus. But clearly no outward show was intended in this case. No crenellations crowned its heights. No window grills or firing slits relieved its sullen immensity. The Aegis brooded, looking inward, separated from the rest of existence.

The starship alighted on a downward slope and reeled in her sail rods. Rachad, clutching his precious tome to his chest, followed Suivres onto the gravely surface, shivering in the cold wind. It was hard to imagine that the obdurate, seamless mountain ahead of him was in fact under siege. Yet somewhere nearby, if what Baron Matello had said was true, an armed force hid, provisioned, presumably, from the mining towns that dotted the planet.

They trudged up the slope. “If the Aegis is impassable, how do we get inside?” Rachad asked, catching his breath.

“That is arranged with considerable circumspection,” Suivres answered wryly.

The vast fortress loomed over them. They made for an oblong outcropping that protruded from the foot of the Aegis. Although it was hard to see how anyone could have been watching, a part of the oblong slid aside, revealing a square chamber within.