"He keeps us penned in the Citadel as his slaves. The scientific
discoveries we make he claims as his own. He sent the diseases that the
people blamed on the scientists."
Angus said, "I will kill him." But he thought to himself, I only play
for time. It's promise or get my legs broken.
They led Angus to a little room where a cowled man waited for him with
garments that were living reds and ochres, braided with gold and ornate
with jewels. The scientist said coldly, "You are to impersonate the
Ambassador of Nowk. He's red-headed and big with a scar on his face
like your own."
The night air was crisp as Angus stepped with the cowled scientist
through a stone gateway and into a long, sleek wheeler. He gathered his
cloak of black sateenis about him and sank into the foamisal upholstery.
The cowled man whispered, "Everything is arranged. A woman dancer,
Berylla by name, will dance for the Diktor. Right after that he plans
to call you to his side to discuss the new trade agreement with
Nowk. The dancer will give you the signal as she leaves. When you're
summoned strike at the Diktor's neck. A divertissement in the form
of drunken revellers has been planned. In the excitement, you will be
spirited away."
Angus touched the slim dagger at his side and nodded.
* * * * *
The Diktor of Karr was a big man. He was solid in the shoulder and slim
at the waist. His head was bald, and there was a jagged scar across
his right temple. He sat on his jewelled throne and drummed restless
fingers against the hand-carved arm.
Beside him sat a woman with sloe eyes and hair the color of a raven's
wing. The thin stuff of her gown clung to supple haunches and proud
breasts. She watched the new Ambassador from Nowk thread a path through
the guests, unable to decide whether the man was ugly or ruggedly
handsome. But he was big, with long, heavily-muscled arms and legs, and
he had the look of a fighter.
Moana laughed softly. There was music in her voice and art in the
manner of her movement as he drew closer. Her eyes ran over his big
frame slowly, slumberously.
Red Angus came to a stop at the base of the dais and bowed low. He was
a pirate but he had been in the great capitals of the Six Worlds.
"Your first visit to Karr?" smiled Stal Tay.
"The first, excellency."
"You like the court we keep?"
Red Angus knew of the taverns and swill-wet streets of the Lower City.
He knew the people were slaves to the Hierarchy and to the Diktor and
his little coterie. Girls danced and pandered to the desires of the
rich--if they did not, things were done to them in secret. He knew men
grew old before their time, working to pay for the rare jewels that
Moana and others like her flaunted.
But he murmured, "Plegasston of Nowk has said, 'For the good of the
State, the greatest number of its people must enjoy the greatest amount
of its highest rewards.' But Plegasston was a dreamer."
Moana gestured Angus to the golden chair beside her. She let her
fingertips brush his hand as he took the seat. "Tell me about yourself,
Ben Tal."
Angus grinned, "I'm a relative of his Eminence of Nowk. That explains
all about me. But you. You're priestess to the god Stasor. You've gone
into the black pool to face him. You've heard his pronouncements!"
Moana made a wry face and shrugged. Strains of music swept down from
the fluted ceiling, diffused throughout the room. Her black eyes
glowed. "Don't talk religion to me, Ben Tal. Take me in your arms and
let us dance."
She was warm and fragrant, following his movements. Her dark eyes
enticed as her hands fluttered from his arm to his shoulder to his
neck. She made the moments fly. Seated with her at a table, letting her
feed him playfully, he almost forgot his mission.
And then....
The room darkened. The hidden musicians made their stringed instruments
dance with savage rhythm. And in a circle of golden light, her white
flesh gleaming fitfully through a garment of diamonds, a woman swayed
out onto the cleared floor.
And Angus remembered. He was here to kill a man.
The woman in the service of the Hierarchs was a fireflame out there
with the jeweled dress cloud of living rainbows swirling about her.
She pirouetted, dipped, and leaped. She was motionless--and a storm
of movement. She laughed. She wept. She taunted and cajoled. She was
everything any woman ever was.
Angus saw her eyes darting, hunting him. They slid over his deep chest
and long legs, square jaw and close-cropped red hair many times without
recognition. Only toward the end, as the beam of light that spotlighted
her dance touched him too, did she know him.
Her surprise made her stumble but she recovered swiftly. She whirled
around the room, diamonds tinkling faintly to the stamping of her bare
feet. She threw herself into the Dance of the Garland of Gems, and made
it a living thing. When she came to the black curtains she posed for an
instant, moved her arm in the agreed signal, and was gone.
The Diktor lifted a hand and gestured. Angus bowed to Moana and got to
his feet. With all the iron control he had developed on the lonely
star-trails he fought to keep his hand from his knife-haft.
He bent to take his seat. Now his right hand was sheltered by his body
and he put it on the dagger.
The thin blade whispered, coming out of the scabbard.
Red Angus leaned forward and thrust at the throat before him.
Four hands came out of midair and fastened to his wrist. They dragged
him down by surprise and by the weight of their bodies. He went off
his chair in a rolling fall, hitting the man to his left, toppling him
backwards into Stal Tay.
* * * * *
Men were shouting. A woman screamed. Angus brought his hard left fist
up in a short arc, drove it into the stomach-muscles of the man on his
right. The man grunted and went backwards. Red Angus stood free, his
clean blade still naked in his hand.
He leaped for Stal Tay but other guards had come running. One threw
himself before the dagger, both hands catching at it. Another hit the
pirate across the legs with his hurtling body. A third man clawed
himself to a position astride his back, hooking a hairy forearm under
his chin. That was when the rest of them hit him.
Angus went back off his feet into a mass of struggling, cursing flesh.
The guards yelped triumphantly but Red Angus had fought in tavern
brawls in the Lower City, had wrestled with salt slavers on the desert
dunes, had fought fights from Karr to Rimeron. He surged up. His fists
went up and down. His right hand flashed out, closing on a guard's
wrist. The guard screamed and fell away, moaning.
Angus breathed through distended nostrils, dancing back, fists thudding
into rib and jaw. He fought to get room and he almost made it. But
a guard left his feet in a wild dive before the pirate could brace
himself. The man hit his knees and took them out from under him. Angus
went down under a dozen leaping warriors. Grimy, blooded, Red Angus
shook his head and gave up.
Moana was standing above him, laughing scorn through the queer, awed
light in her eyes. Her white breasts rose and fell swiftly under their
scant covering. "The little dancer knew you, Ben Tal. I saw that. But
she's never been out of Karr City. And this is your first visit. Who
are you?"
Red Angus shrugged as the guardsmen lifted him to his feet and sat him
roughly down in a chair before the Diktor. He made a wry face. There
was a taste like bitter ashes dragging down the corners of his mouth.
His belly quivered under the glistening cloth of his breeches. He
seemed to hear the Hierarch's drawling voice, "If you fail, you die!"
The Diktor waved a hand. The guards lifted him, dragged him behind
velveteen drapes and along a stone corridor, into a small room. The
Diktor and Moana followed at his heels. It was the Diktor who turned
the key in the lock.
"Who sent you?" the stocky ruler asked softly. "Who paid for my death?
Tell me that, and you'll walk out of here a free man."
Red Angus shook his head. He met the hazel eyes of the Diktor grimly.
Stal Tay smiled. "Berylla the dancer knows you. I can always have her
brought in, you know."
Moana had been walking around Angus. She came close, put a hand on
the tunic that fitted his chest like a glove, and ripped. His heavily
muscled shoulder was laid bare, where the inflamed interlocking
triangles gleamed.