Inpriss immediately curtsied, apparently overawed by the presence of royalty. Vro acknowledged her with a just-perceptible movement of her head, but his eyes softened.
‘Did they abduct you too, my dear? Never fear, you are under the protection of the House of Ixian now. This nest of villains will be cleaned out. Here, let my officer take care of you.’
He called over the Captain of the Guard. As Inpriss was led away, she looked back imploringly at Aton. He smiled and nodded to her, trying to reassure her.
Prince Vro turned back to Aton. He could not help but notice a change in him since he had last seen him. There was something godlike about the handsome young officer. His eyes were stern and flashing; his whole being seemed charged with life and energy.
‘We are here looking for my beloved Veaa,’ he told Aton. ‘I would appreciate your assistance. Have you acquainted yourself with the layout of this den?’
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you. I arrived here only in the last few minutes. But I have killed three Traumatics in that time.’
‘Easy,’ Prince Vro objected, ‘I want them alive.’
They walked together up the staircase and through the house. Aton watched as Vro’s detective and his assistants questioned the Traumatics who were brought to them, using a combination of torture and field-effect device. Most were eliminated after a minute or two; Rolce did not become interested until he interrogated one of the two women to be found.
She was a tough-faced woman of about fifty whose ragged hair bore streaks of grey. ‘She knows something,’ Rolce announced as she lay between the plates of the device. ‘I’m getting images.’
Vro peered close. On the monochrome screen flickered the shadowy spectre of a young girl in a coffin. ‘Veaa!’ he cried in a choked voice.
‘The prong, long and hard!’ snapped Rolce.
The female Traumatic screamed and drew in breaths in hard noisy gasps. ‘I’ll talk!’ she begged. ‘I’ll talk!’
‘Let her talk!’ commanded Prince Vro.
‘That’s not necessary, Your Highness. Information is more reliable when obtained by field effect.’
‘Let her talk!’ roared Vro. He leaned close. ‘You know of Princess Veaa. Was her body brought here?’
‘Ye-e-e-s.’ The woman’s lips twisted lasciviously. ‘An imperial princess! The Minion thought her soul might be retrievable. That it was suspended in the strat.’
‘And was it?’
‘No! She was good and dead. Properly dead. Her soul had gone back to the beginning, like everyone else’s.’ Her face registered disgust.
‘So what did you do… with the body?’
‘Kept it. For a trophy.’
‘Is it here in the temple?’
‘No.’
‘Then where?’
‘Don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘In the city somewhere.’
Rolce ascertained that she was telling the truth. And as more interrogatees were put under the device, Vro grew more and more fretful. Many of them knew of Princess Veaa. But no one seemed to know where she had been taken.
‘Don’t despair, Your Highness,’ Rolce comforted him. ‘She’s been here, that’s certain. It’s a routine matter to trace her from here on.’
Aton decided to explore the temple and left them to it. It was fairly quiet now, but the Imperial Guard would have their work cut out to winkle out everyone in a building so large. There were probably a hundred hiding places. Aton made his way upstairs towards the area where he had found Inpriss. Perhaps, he thought vaguely, he could find what Prince Vro was looking for.
He opened all doors he came to as he went. He saw altar rooms, storerooms filled with enigmatic equipment, rooms for mysterious purposes. In some of the rooms people huddled in corners and stared at him fearfully. He did not envy them; the Church was not kind to heretics.
Venturing down a deserted corridor he heard a strange mewing sound from behind a door. Aton hesitated, then opened the door slowly and slid inside.
Standing with its back to him was a fat, shabby, slope-shouldered figure holding in pudgy hands a mirror-like object whose surface crawled and shimmered with unrecognisable shapes. The mewing seemed to be an expression of pleasure or amusement as the man gazed into the roiling surface.
At Aton’s entrance he put down the mirror and turned to face him. Aton confronted a being straight out of a nightmare, a nightmare he had endured only recently.
The man with jewels for eyes!
The crystal-filled sockets flashed and glittered in a multitude of colours. The face was pudgy and covered with a film of sweat. The slobbery mouth was agape with mirth.
‘Come in, Captain Aton, and close the door!’ welcomed the creature, its voice giggly and cheerful. ‘I have been waiting for you!’
Aton felt an urge to retreat, to get away. ‘Who – what – are you?’
‘I? Do you not know? I am Hulmu’s Minion, chief of all his worshippers!’
‘But you are not human.’
‘Not human? Indeed I am! A little extended, perhaps, but that is because I am Hulmu’s pet, his little favourite. Like you, I am familiar with the strat. I have been all the way down to Hulmu, to let him sport with me. From time to time he gives me little presents and gadgets. He gave me these eyes, all the better to see in the strat with.’
‘Hulmu is real?’ Aton became aware of a peculiar offensive odour the Minion gave off.
‘Oh, indeed! Do not doubt it. He gave me the time-distorter, all the better to wreak havoc with.’
‘The distorter? It comes from you?’
‘Correct. Surprised?’ The Minion lolled his head disclaimingly. ‘I don’t use it much myself,’ he drawled. ‘I have an arrangement with the Hegemonics – purely out of the goodness of my heart, of course. When they want to raid the empire, I lend it to them. Afterwards I take it back for safekeeping. They tried to keep it for themselves once. They still don’t know how I got it back!’ He chortled.
‘There is only one?’
‘Only one. It’s enough.’
‘Why don’t they try to make another?’
‘Can’t. They might have tried to analyse it, I dare say. No human being will ever make a gadget like my time-distorter. Only Hulmu is clever enough for that.’
‘But why? Why should you want to destroy the empire?’
‘Why not? It’s all part of Hulmu’s plot and counterplot. He is the scriptwriter, is he not? He projects us, does he not?’ The Minion’s giggles became hysterical. ‘How does it feel to have an audience?’
Aton felt dirtied by this creature’s presence. Surely, he thought, the Traumatics’ creed cannot be literally true. When he compared this giggling monster with the sedateness and calm reason of the Church…
The Minion seemed to read his mind. ‘Oh, the cult of Hulmu is very old. A little bit older than the Church, even. I should know, I started it! Before I became Hulmu’s Minion I was Absol Humbart! But those other fools, San Hevatar and Dwight Rilke, rejected Hulmu, the genuine creator. They founded their silly church.’
Grinning, the Minion came towards him with tiny mincing steps. Aton determined to destroy the loathsome creature if he could. He ejected energy from his body, sending rays and waves against the shambling figure. The Minion laughed. His own body began to pulse, shedding sparkling rainbows all around. He seemed to regard it as a game. Their contest filled the room with fantastic forms of light, but neither was hurt in any way.
‘I was wiser. I gave myself to Hulmu. He gives me my little toys, and I help him to get what he needs – souls in death trauma!’
They both left off wasting energy in firework displays. Suddenly the sound of booted feet came from further along the corridor. The Imperial Guard were on their way.