Fianna bent her head and went away. She did not look at Stark. It was
as though she had no interest in anything that happened.
Stark looked at Kynon, who had not moved or spoken.
"He is safe enough," said Berild, answering Stark's unspoken question.
"I drugged his wine so that his mind was opened to mine, and he is my
creature as long as I will it."
Hypnosis, Stark thought. His nerves were beginning to do strange
things. He wished desperately that he were back in the cell facing
Freka's sword, which at least would deal with him openly and without
guile or subterfuge.
Berild set her hands on Stark's shoulders, and smiled as she had done
that night by the ancient well.
"I offer you three things tonight, wild man," she said. Her eyes
challenged him, and the scent of her hair was sweet and maddening.
"Your life--and power--and myself."
Stark let his hands slip lightly down from her shoulders to her waist.
"And how will you do this thing?" he asked.
"Easily," she said, and laughed. She was very proud, and sure of her
strength, and glad to be alive. "Oh, very easily. You guessed the truth
about me--I am of the Twice-Born, the Ramas. I hold the secret of the
Sending-on of Minds, which this great ox Kynon pretended to have. I can
give you life now--and forever. Remember, wild man--forever!"
He bent his dark face to hers, so that their lips touched, and
murmured, "Would I have you forever, Berild?"
"Until you tire of me--or I of you." She kissed him, and then added
mockingly, "Delgaun has had me for a thousand years, and I am weary of
him. So very weary!"
"A thousand years is a long time," said Stark, "and I am not Delgaun."
"No. You're a beast, a savage, a most magnificent cold-eyed animal, and
that is why I love you." She touched the muscle of his breast, and then
his throat, and added, "It's a pity there will never be another body
like this one. We must keep it as long as we can."
"What is your plan?" Stark asked her.
"Simply this. I will place your mind in Kynon's body. You will _be_
Kynon, with all his power. You will be able then to keep Delgaun in
check--later, you can destroy him, but not until after the battle is
won, for we need the men of Valkis and Jekkara. You can keep your own
body safe from him, and at the worst, if by some chance he should
succeed in slaying the man he believes to be you, _you_ will still be
alive."
"And after the battle," said Stark softly. "What then, Berild?"
"We will rule together." She held his palms against hers. "You have
strong hands, wild man. Would you not like to hold a world between
them--and me?"
She looked up at him, her eyes suddenly shrewd and probing. "Or do you
still believe the nonsense you talked to Kynon, about the tribes?"
* * * * *
Stark smiled. "It's easy to have principles when there's no gain
involved. No. I am as my name says--a man without a tribe. I have no
loyalties. And if I had, would I remember them now?"
He held her, as she had said, between his hands, and they were very
strong.
But even then, Berild could warn him.
"Keep faith with me, then! My wisdom is greater than yours, and I have
powers you don't dream of. What I give, I can take away."
For answer, Stark silenced her mouth with his own.
When she drew away, she said rather breathlessly, "Let us hurry. The
tribes are gathered, and Kynon was to have given the signal for war at
dawn. There is much I must teach you between now and then."
She paused with her hand on the lid of the golden coffer. "This is a
secret place," she said quietly. "Since before the ocean died, it has
been secret. Not even Kynon knew of it. I think only Delgaun and I, the
last of the Twice-Born, knew--and now you."
"What about Fianna?"
Berild shrugged. "She is only my servant. To her, this is only a little
cavern where I keep my private wealth."
She pressed a series of patterned bosses in intricate sequence, and
there was the sharp click of an opening lock. A shiver ran up along
Stark's spine. The beast in him longed to run, to be away from this
whole business that smelled of evil. But the man in him knelt at
Berild's wish, and waited, and did not flinch when the blank-eyed Kynon
came like a moving corpse beside him.
Berild raised the golden lid. And there was a great silence.
On the slave block of Valkis, Kynon had brought forth two crowns of
shining crystal, and a rod of flame. As glass is to diamond, as the
pallid moon to the light of the sun, were those things to the reality.
In her two hands Berild held the ancient crowns of the Ramas, the
givers of life. Twin circlets of glorious fire, dimming the shallow
glare of the torches, putting a nimbus of light around the white-clad
woman so that she was like a goddess walking in a cloud of stars.
Stark's whole being contracted to a point of icy pain at the beauty and
the wonder and the terror of them.
She set one crown on Kynon's head, and even the drugged automaton
shivered and sighed at its touch.
Stark's mind veered away from the incredible thing that was about to
happen. It spoke words to him, hurried desperate words of sanity, about
the electrical patterns of the mind, and the sensitivity of crystals,
and conductors, and electro-magnetic impulses. But that was only the
top of his brain. At base it was still the brain of N'Chaka that
believed in gods and demons and all the sorceries of darkness. Only
pride kept him from cowering abjectly at Berild's feet.
She stood above him, a creature of dreams in the unearthly light. She
smiled and whispered, "Do not fear,"--and she placed the second crown
upon his head.
A strange, shuddering fire swept through him. It was as though some
chip of the primal heart of all creation had been set by an unguessed
magic into the cells of the crystal. The force that shaped the universe
and scattered forth the stars, and set the great suns to spinning.
There was something awesome about it, something almost holy.
And yet he was afraid. Most shockingly afraid.
His brain was set free, in some strange fashion. The walls of his skull
vanished. His mind floated in a dim vastness. It was like a tiny sun,
glowing, spinning, swelling....
Berild lifted a crystal rod from the coffer, a wand of sorcerous fire.
And now Stark's thoughts had lost all track of science. A cloud of
misty darkness flowed around him, thickened....
A great leaping flare of light, a distant echo of a cry that he did not
recognize as his own, and then....
Nothing.