Star Winds

The line of guards were standing stiffly at attention, the ends of their weapons planted firmly on the floor, and were making no response to Matello’s entrance. Then Matello saw Rachad, standing beside a gaunt, pale figure in a long purple robe.

He knew at once that this was the Duke of Koss. Though the figure looked ill and consumptive, he recognized him from a painting he had once seen of the former duke. Yes, this was the detested Koss’s son for sure.

Zhorga drew abreast of Matello. The two of them stared in puzzlement at the unexpected scene. Suddenly the duke swayed, his head drooped, and he fell in a graceful swoon to the floor.

“Your Grace!” The captain of the guard rushed to the limp form, taking the lolling head in his hand. “Two of you over here, on the double!”

Rachad sidled hastily over to Matello, his face feverish. “Round them all up—quick!” he hissed. “Before they realize they’ve been tricked!”

“Tricked?”

“They think the duke ordered them to open the Aegis—but that’s not the duke at all! It’s an homunculus I made!”

“Eh?” Matello growled, not fully understanding what Rachad was talking about. But his earnest advice was good enough. He glanced round at his men who were still streaming after him through the doorway.

He thrust out his sword, and roared: “Kill them all!”

The ensuing fight was brief and bloody. The pikemen were totally bewildered. Only when actually attacked did they move, in sudden panic, to defend themselves, wielding their long pikes with skill, so that several of Matello’s liegelings were stretched out on the floor before full possession was taken of the plaza.

While men continued to pour through the gateway, Matello wiped his sword on a pied tunic and returned to stare thoughtfully at the body of Rachad’s homunculus. Already it was beginning to shrivel up. The purple cloak, also organic in nature, had become like a huge withered leaf.

“How did you manage it?” he asked. “I had almost given you up.”

“It wasn’t possible to open the Aegis straight away,” Rachad explained eagerly. “It was too well guarded. I’ve been working with Master Amschel, in his laboratory. That was where I got the idea of making an homunculus replica of the duke, under my mental control. And it worked!”

Rachad was bursting to tell the whole story. Surreptitiously he had guided the rapidly weakening homunculus through the Aegis. For the last stages of the journey he had been obliged to support the ephemeral creature by letting it lean on his shoulder. Then, at the gateway, there was the stunned astonishment on the part of the guards, as they heard the reedy voice of their duke order them to open up. At first they had reacted with inbred reluctance. Three times the homunculus had pressed his command, and only the actual presence—so they thought—of their master had prodded them out of their stupor, making them perform the incredible act, something they had been sure they would never see in their lifetimes.

But when he tried to launch into his tale Matello shut him up with an impatient wave of his hand. “Later,” he said, but nevertheless he clapped Rachad fondly on the shoulder. “It was a brilliant piece of work, my boy. You’ve saved all our lives, though you don’t know it, and I’ll remember that.”

Straightening, he began to bark orders. “Commandant, see to it that everybody gets in here without delay, before the Kerek find out what’s happening. Then close up these doors again, and we’ll organize a general takeover of this place. There might still be a bit of fighting to do.”

“With odds in our favor, this time,” Zhorga added. He grinned at Rachad. “You’ve done well, shipmate. I’m proud of you.”

***

They went through the Aegis like a storm.

The impact of hardened fighting men, drawn both from Matello’s forces and King Lutheron’s, on the sybarite’s paradise was like that of a barbarian horde on a soft, decadent culture—which, in exaggerated form, was exactly what the interior of the Aegis represented. There was practically no resistance and Matello, sensing his followers’ relief at having escaped imminent death at the hands of the Kerek, allowed them a brief catharsis of rape and ransack. Artworks were smashed, sumptuous drapes torn down in acres of billowing finery to reveal the bare adamant beneath, and for a while the omnipresent haunting music was mingled with coarse bellows of triumph.

Flammarion, moving with surprising agility by means of his warping wings, attached himself to the party led by Baron Matello and proved as eager as any. But his search had only one object—the Duke of Koss himself, the man who had spent a lifetime as his creditor.

They eventually found the defeated duke deep down in the fortress. He lay limply on a samite couch, a servant girl dabbing at his brow with scented water. He seemed to be in a state of collapse.