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.
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. Hyper-space.
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 you thought of 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. 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." Lust rose as he felt the tensions in her.
"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, gonfalons fluttering. He rode far ahead, seeking a meeting with old Eric of Doom, 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 Doom 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 Doom was known as a vassal of the Imperial Ivane. Faces set, the small party strode up the wide curving stairway that led into the Hal! 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 kneHt, 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 al! 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 wil! 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 confnrm what I say!
"This woman plotted to usurp the Imperium as long as five years ago! It may have been longer. ." He turned to Ivane. "How long does it take to incubate an android, 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?" I
vane 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 from her now — 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 mich tiers drew back, giving them room to fight. No one made a move to interfere. It was known that Valkyrs held the city of Neg, and according to the warrior code 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 threast 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 KaHgan. 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 artificia! 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 stil! 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.
Tthe 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, 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…"
Ile looked up at her once, pain in his eyes, but he did not speak.
Afys 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 s treaked her cheeks 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.