"Reasonably advanced, brother."
"You have moved through time already?"
"Not personally."
"My engine," Baron Kalan continued implacably,
"is capable of moving ships at enormous speeds across vast distances. Why, we could invade any land on the globe, no matter how far away…"
"When will the point be reached," Meliadus asked, moving closer to Taragorm, "when a man can journey into the past or future?"
Baron Kalan shrugged and turned away. "I must return to my laboratories," he said. "The King-Emperor has commissioned me urgently to complete my work.
Good day, my lords."
"Good day," said Meliadus absently. "Now, brother, you must tell me more of your work-show me, perhaps, how far you have progressed."
"I must," Taragorm replied facetiously. "But my work is secret, brother. I cannot take you to the Palace of Time without the permission of King Huon. That you must seek first."
"Surely unnecessary for me to seek such permission?"
"None is so great that he can act without the blessing of our King-Emperor."
"But the matter is of extraordinary importance, brother," Meliadus said, his tone almost desperate, almost wheedling. "Our enemies have escaped us, probably to another era of the Earth. They offer a threat to Granbretan's security!"
"You speak of that handful of ruffians whom you failed to defeat at the Battle of the Kamarg?"
"They were almost conquered-only science or sorcery saved them from our vengeance. No one blames me for my failure…"
"Save yourself? You do not blame yourself?"
"No blame to me, at all, from any quarter. I would finish the matter, that's all. I would rid the Empire of her enemies. Where's the fault in that?"
"I have heard it whispered that your battle is more private than public, that you have made foolish compromises in order to pursue a personal vendetta against those who dwell in the Kamarg."
"That is an opinion, brother," Meliadus said, restraining with difficulty his chagrin. "But I fear only for our Empire's well-being."
"Then tell King Huon of this fear and he may then permit you to visit my palace." Taragorm turned away, as he did so his mask beginning to boom out the hour. Further conversation was momentarily impossible. Meliadus made to follow him, then changed his mind, walking, fuming, from the hall.
Surrounded now by young lords, each seeking to attract her deadly attentions, Countess Flana Mikosevaar watched Baron Meliadus depart.
By the impatient manner of his gait, she assumed him to be in uneven temper. Then she forgot him as she returned her attention to the flatteries of her attendants, listening not to the words (which were familiar to her) but to the voices themselves which were like old, favorite instruments.
Taragorm, now, was conversing with Shenegar Trott.
"I am to present myself to the King-Emperor in the morning," Trott told the Master of the Palace of Time.
"Some commission, I believe, that is at this moment a secret known only to himself. We must keep busy, Lord Taragorm, eh?"
"Indeed, we must, Count Shenegar, lest boredom engulfs us all."
Chapter Six
THE AUDIENCE
NEXT MORNING Meliadus waited impatiently outside the King-Emperor's throne room. He had requested an audience the previous evening and had been told to present himself at eleven o'clock. It was now twelve and the doors had not yet opened to admit him. The doors, towering into the dimness of the huge roof, were encrusted with jewels that made up a mosaic of images of ancient things. The fifty mantismasked guards who blocked them, stood stock still with flame-lances ready at a precise angle. Meliadus strode up and down before them; behind him, the glittering corridors of the King Emperor's hallucinatory palace.
Meliadus attempted to fight back his feelings of resentment that the King Emperor had not granted him an immediate audience. After all, was he not paramount Warlord of Europe? Had it not been under his direction that the armies of Granbretan had conquered a continent? Had he not taken those same armies into the Middle East and added further territories to the domain of the Dark Empire? Why should the King-Emperor seek to insult him in this manner? Meliadus, first of Granbretan's warriors, should have priority over all lesser mortals. He suspected a plot against him. From what Taragorm and the others had said, they judged him to be losing his grip. They were fools if they did not realise the threat that Hawkmoon, Count Brass and Huillam D'Averc offered. Let them escape their deserved reckoning and it would inflame others to rebel, make the work of conquest less speedy. Surely King Huon had not listened to those who spoke against him? The King Emperor was wise, the King Emperor was objective.
If he were not, then he was unfit to rule…
Meliadus dismissed the thought in horror.
At last the jewelled doors began to move open until they were wide enough to admit a single man-and through this crack strode a jaunty, corpulent figure.
"Shenegar Trott!" exclaimed Meliadus. "Is it you who has kept me waiting so long?"
Trott's silver mask glinted in the light from the corridors. "My apologies, Baron Meliadus. My deep apologies. There were many details to discuss. But I am finished now. A mission, my dear Baron-I have a mission! Such a mission, ha, ha!"
And before Meliadus could tax him further on the nature of his mission, he had swept away.
From within the Throne Room now issued a youthful, vibrant voice, the voice of the King Emperor himself.
"You may join me now, Baron Meliadus."
The mantis warriors parted their ranks and allowed the baron to pass through them and into the Throne Room.
Into that gigantic hall of blazing color, where hung the bright banners of Granbretan's five hundred noblest families, which was lined on either side by a thousand statue-still mantis guards, stepped Baron Meliadus of Kroiden and abased himself.
Ornate gallery upon ornate gallery stretched upwards and upwards to the concave ceiling of the hall.
The armour of the soldiers of the Order of the Mantis shone black and green and gold, and in the distance, as he rose to his feet, Baron Meliadus saw his King Emperor's Throne Globe, a white speck against the green and purple of the walls behind it.
Walking slowly, it took Meliadus twenty minutes to reach the globe and once again abase himself. The globe contained a sluggishly swirling liquid that was milk-white but which was sometimes streaked with iridescent veins of blood-red and blue. At the center of this fluid was curled King Huon himself, a wrinkled, ancient, immortal foetus-like creature in which the only living things seemed the eyes, black, sharp and malicious.
"Baron Meliadus," came the golden voice that had been torn from the throat of a beautiful youth to furnish King Huon with speech.
"Great Majesty," murmured Meliadus. "I thank you for your graciousness in permitting this audience."
"And for what purpose did you desire the audience, baron?" The tone was sardonic, a trifle impatient. "Do you seek to hear us praise again your efforts in Europe on our behalf?"
"The accomplishment is enough, noble sire. I seek to warn you that danger still threatens us in Europe…"
"What? You have not made the continent wholly ours?"
"You know that I have, Great Emperor, from one coast to the other, to the very borders of Muskovia and beyond. Few live who are not totally our slaves. But I refer to those who fled us…"
"Hawkmoon and his friends?"
"The same, mighty King Emperor."
"You chased them away. They offer us no threat."
"While they live, they threaten us, noble sire, for their escape could give others hope, and hope we must destroy in all we conquer lest we are troubled by risings against your discipline."