He stood and watched helplessly, his personal catastrophe eclipsed for the moment, as the skyship rapidly gained height. Although it was centred on the misty blue disk of Land, the ship was hard to see because the sun was almost in the same line of sight, already silvering the sister world’s eastern rim. Gartasian gave up trying to penetrate the dazzling rays and spokes and oily needles of light. He lowered his head and stared down at the grass, musing on the fact that the last action of his career and life had ended in abject failure, and it was only the sound of an approaching bluehorn which brought him out of the dark reverie. There were duties yet to be discharged.
“Stay back,” he shouted at Lieutenant Keero. “Don’t come near me!”
“Sir?” Keero slowed his mount to a walk, but kept it moving forward.
Gartasian pointed at him with his sword. “This is an order, lieutenant. Do nor come any closer! I have the plague.”
Keero halted. “Plague?”
“Pterthacosis. You’ve heard of it, I trust.”
The upper half of Keero’s face was masked by the shade of his visor, but Gartasian saw his mouth distort with shock. A moment later the sunlit hills of the western horizon blinked with prismatic colour, then abruptly dimmed as the shadow of Land came rushing over the countryside at orbital speed. As its edge swept across the scene, initiating the brief penumbral phase of little-night, the darkening sky was seen to be spanned by a huge spiral of misty radiance, its arms sparkling with brilliant stars of white, blue and yellow. The knowledge that it was the last time the spectacle of the night sky would be unfurled for him filled Gartasian with a yearning to ponder it in detail, to memorise the patterns of lesser whirlpools and comets so that he would have light to take with him into the place where there was no light. Pushing the notion aside, he addressed himself to the lieutenant, who was waiting about twenty yards away.
“Listen to me carefully, Keero,” he called out. “I will be dead before littlenight is over, and you must…” The fire in his lungs, aggravated by the effect of shouting, forced him to abandon the plan to transmit his precious new knowledge verbally.
“I am going to write a message for the King, and I charge you with the responsibility of ensuring that he receives it. Now, take out your dispatch book, make sure the pencil is not broken, and leave the book on the ground for me. When you have done that, rejoin your men and wait with them for the King to arrive. Tell him all that has happened here—and remind him that nobody is to approach my body for at least five days.”
Drained of strength by the painfully prolonged speech, Gartasian forced himself to remain upright and militarily correct while Keero dismounted and placed his dispatch book on the ground.
The lieutenant got back into the saddle and hesitated for a moment. “Sir, I’m sorry…”
“It’s all right,” Gartasian told him, grateful for the fleeting human contact. “Do not concern yourself about me. Just go, and take my bluehorn with you—I have no more need of him.”
Keero gave an awkward salute, collected the redundant animal and rode away into the twilight. Gartasian walked to where the book lay, his legs buckling further with each step, and allowed himself to sag to the ground beside it. He had barely finished removing the pencil from its leather sleeve when the last coin-clip of the sun slid behind the curvature of Land. In spite of the reduced level of illumination he was still able to see well enough to write, thanks to Land’s halo and the extravagant spangling of the rest of the heavens with fierce stars, some of them in tightly packed circular clusters.
He attempted to lean on his left arm, but jerked upright again as pain flared in the wounded shoulder. Exploring the injury with his fingers, he found that the brakka slug from the musket had spent much of its energy in gouging through the rolled leather at the edge of his cuirass. It had lodged in his flesh, but had not broken the bone. Reminding himself to include a note on how the weapon had fired without the normal delay, he sat with the book in his lap and began to write a detailed report for the benefit of those who would soon have to repel a deadly invader.
The mental discipline involved in the work helped him avoid dwelling on his fate, but his body interposed frequent reminders of the losing battle it was fighting against the ptertha poison. His stomach and lungs seemed to be filling with hot coals, agonising cramps encircled his chest and occasional bouts of shivering made his writing almost illegible in places. So rapid was the progress of the symptoms that on reaching the end of his report he was dully surprised to find himself still conscious, still with some dregs of strength.
If I move away from here, he thought, the book can be picked up without delay, and with no risk to any man’s life.
He set the book down and marked its position by weighting it with his red-crested helmet. The effort of raising himself to his feet was much greater than he had anticipated. He was unable to prevent himself from swaying in vertiginous circles as he scanned his surroundings, which seemed to be a scene painted on slowly undulating cloth. Keero had brought all his men together and a fire had been lit to guide King Chakkell to the spot. The soldiers and their mounts formed a stationary, amorphous mass in the dimness, and there was little movement anywhere but for the near-continuous flickering of meteors against the dense fields of stars.
Gartasian guessed the men’s eyes were fixed on him. He turned and walked away from them, staggering grotesquely, blood beading into the grass from the fingers of his left hand. After some twenty paces his feet were snared by bracken and he pitched forward, to lie with his face buried in rough-haired fronds.
There was no point in trying to get up again. No point in trying to cling on to consciousness any longer. I’m coming back to you, Ronoda and little Hallie, he thought, closing his eyes on the universe. I’ll soon be with…
Chapter 4
When Toller Maraquine heard the bolt of his cell door being drawn his principal emotion was one of relief. He had been allowed writing materials, and all through the hours of littlenight he had sat with the pad on his knees, trying to compose a letter to Gesalla and Cassyll. His intention had been to explain and apologise, but explanation had proved impossible—how was he to find any shred of reason in what he had done?—and all he had written was one bald sentence. I am sorry.
The three words struck him as being an apt but dismal epitaph for a life that had been thrown away, and now he had a profound desire to get the last minutes of futility over and done with.
He stood up and faced the opening door, fully expecting to see an executioner accompanied by a squad of jailers. Instead, the widening rectangle revealed the paunchy form of King Chakkell, flanked by stone-faced members of his personal guard.
“Should I feel honoured?” Toller said. “Am I to be seen off by the King in person?”
Chakkell raised a leather-bound dispatch book of the type used by the Kolcorronian army. “Your astonishing good luck continues, Maraquine. Our game is on again. Come with me—I have need of you.” He grasped Toller’s arm with as much force as the executioner would have used and marched him into the passageway, where recently extinguished wicks still smoked and fumed in their sconces.