Star Winds

Previously the planet had been uninhabited, but the Kerek appreciated its strategic value and had moved in to begin converting its atmosphere. That could not be allowed, with the war swaying back and forth across Maralia the way it was, and King Murdon had sent in Baron Matello at the head of a large force—as punishment, perhaps, for his formerly stubborn allegiance to the disgraced and imprisoned Lutheron—to prevent it.

“Ah, Rachad, you’ve come a long way with me,” Zhorga muttered, staring down at the pale, blank face with its enlarged pupils. “What a pity you have to turn in your ticket now.”

It was one of those flying sickles that had sliced the young man open. Zhorga wondered if it might be kinder if he were to finish the job now. But instead he turned and clambered up the walls of soft red earth and made his way back to what he had been doing when he heard of the incident—supervising the placing of a great bombard to assail Kerek positions.

For about an hour Rachad drifted into a dreamless sleep. When he awoke, his whole body seemed to be burning.

Blurrily he saw someone come softly down into the dugout and lean over him. His vision cleared somewhat, and he gasped as he recognized a small, slightly monkey-like face, with quiet brown eyes and silky hair.

For a moment he could not speak. He stuttered.

“Master Amschel!”

The alchemist wore light leather armor and a brief, almost superfluous iron helmet. He ran his eyes over Rachad, as if inspecting him, then reached inside his leather hauberk, producing a small phial.

“You’re supposed to be dead!” Rachad protested. “How did you escape from the laboratory—the explosion?”

Amschel ignored the question. “You are dying, my friend,” he said in a dry tone. “Drink this excellent medicine, the true elixir. It will vivify your body, throwing off disease, hastening the healing of even the deepest wounds.”

He must have fled the laboratory in advance of the explosion, Rachad reasoned hazily. He must have hidden somewhere, eventually contriving to leave the Aegis along with the rest of them. But what was he doing in Matello’s army?

Amschel put the neck of the phial to his lips. A thick liquid poured out.

Rachad became immediately absorbed by a taste that was like a golden glow, so vivid he seemed almost to see it. The medicine trickled down his throat with a gentle burning, like the finest liqueur, and as it reached his stomach he felt golden drops of liquid radiance spreading through his body, giving him a feeling of lightness and vigor.

“That’s … wonderful,” he whispered.

Amschel smiled. “It has even been known to revive men thought dead. But I see you have changed your occupation from that of laboratory assistant to that of soldier. Are you no longer seeking the Stone? What did you do with the book I gave you?”

“I left it in the Aegis, Master Amschel. After what happened I decided its information was too dangerous.”

“I see.” Amschel seemed to reflect. “The Stone can make you proof against the Kerek Power—have you not considered that? It could be important, in the times that lie ahead.”

“But we are already holding our own against the Kerek!” Rachad boasted. “The tide has turned—Zhorga says we will have driven them out of Maralia altogether in a few years.”

Amschel smiled. “Perhaps—but for how long? This is only one of the Kerek’s present theaters of conquest. If they fail with Maralia they will simply, in a few years, transfer even greater forces from elsewhere.”

“Perhaps we will have greater forces by then,” Rachad said defiantly.

Amschel nodded. “Well, I must be on my way. Rest now. I think you may feel much better in a day or two.”

“Wait!” called Rachad as he saw Amschel disappearing over the lip of the dugout. He struggled up and, holding his middle with one arm, crawled up after him—an exercise that only minutes before he would have found impossible.

Ahead, he saw the dismal landscape that covered most of the planet: great flat mist-covered marshes, interspersed with hillocks and ridges of firmer ground, out of which grew drooping violet trees.

Amschel’s stooped figure was picking its way along one of these ridges. It was then that the Kerek sally came, as it did every hour or so. This time it was not a flock of flying sickles or disks, but a brief barrage of bombard shot. Rachad uttered a loud cry, the exertion tearing painfully at his stitches, as a ball exploded near the alchemist.

Even from where he lay, he could see that Amschel was practically ripped apart. Like a rag doll the alchemist’s body, whether living or dead, was flung off the causeway-like ridge. Rachad crawled toward the spot, careless of any hurt to himself now, but already Amschel’s remains were sinking into the wet bog, disappearing with a slurping, gurgling sound while Rachad looked on with horror.

He closed his eyes, overcome with nausea. War, he thought. This was what war meant.