Charon: A Dragon at the Gate

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Twists and Turns

Darva tired before I could stop her, but Morah merely shrugged off the shots and dissipated the energy harmlessly. He was still dressed as I remembered him—in his black trooper uniform, although he had added a red-lined cape of the same material. His eyes were still bizarre and almost impossible to look at.

“Put away those things,” he told us, gesturing at the pistols. “They are of no use here—and there is no need for them.”

I sighed and bolstered mine. Darva, uncertain, did the same. I looked at him, then at Darva, and sized up the situation. “Does ‘Darkquest’ mean anything to you?”

Darva looked blank, but Morah actually chuckled. “Now where’d you learn that little phrase?”

“I’m it. Park Lacoch. The same boy Korman threw to the wolves a year ago.”

Morah sounded genuinely amused. “And of what use is that information to me now? I already know the true nature of Embuay, and I also know the location of Koril’s base.”

“That may be true, but it’s not my problem,” I responded casually. “I was given a job to do, and the first chance I got I did it.”

That comment, and my calm manner, seemed to give him pause. “You may be right at that.”

“Look—I could’ve taken the safe way out at Bourget, but I didn’t. I deliberately got myself caught and wound up a changeling. Whether or not “you no longer need the information, it says something about me, I think. I’ve paid a pretty high price to be just a redundancy.”

Darva looked at me strangely. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Sorry, honey. I’m a bottom-line pragmatist. I’ll explain it all to you later. Let’s just say Morah and I aren’t necessarily the opponents we might seem to be.”

She looked at Morah with obvious distaste. “Your girl Zala sure wasn’t any help to you, you know.”

Morah nodded, and I felt a little relieved that she was at least going along with me for now.

“It is true that the girl’s been something of a disappointment so far,” the Chief of Security admitted. “Is she with you?”

“Back there—someplace,” I told him. “We didn’t exactly want to stick around for the fireworks.”

“Yes, well, I can understand that,” he responded, sounding a little nervous and preoccupied. “How many are down there?”

“Koril and three others, all damned good,” I told him truthfully. “Plus your girl, of course, if she survived all that”

“Hmmm… Yes. I see…”

He looked and sounded worried, and it gave me no end of satisfaction to see such emotions in him. His appearance, manner, and those damnable eyes all carried such an air of overwhelming power that I would have sworn he was above such things.

“How come you aren’t down helping out your fellow—whatevers?” Darva asked, sensing the same thing.

’1 am not required to,” he said simply. “I am not on the Synod.”

“What! But Koril said—” I began, but he cut me short.

“I told you before I was Chief of Security. I just did not tell you whose security.”

“Oh, gods!” Darva breathed. “He’s working directly for them!

Morah cocked his head. “The battle is over downstairs,” he told us matter-of-factly. “We are about to have visitors.

I suggest we three all go into that room over there and remain very silent.”

I hesitated a moment. “Who won?”

“If the Synod had won, we wouldn’t have to get into this room, now would we?”

That was good enough for me. I followed him. Darva, shrugging, did the same. I knew she was still trying to figure out which side we were on now. As for me, I was trying to figure out Morah’s motives-in all this. Clearly, as chief representative of the aliens on Charon, it was in his best interest to keep Matuze on her throne. Yet, here we were, about to let Koril have her.

There wasn’t time for questions, though; we barely got the door closed when we heard somebody slowly mounting that final stairway. The newcomer sounded tired, perhaps weak and wounded, but he came steadily on. One man. One only. I knew who it had to be.

We heard him pause at the top of the stairs, and I could visualize him looking around cautiously. Finally, he walked past our door and away from us, his footsteps receding.

I turned to Morah. “You’re letting him have her.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. But—wait!”

A second, quieter tread could be heard on the stairs. Whoever it was was far lighter and more cautious than the first. We held our breaths a moment, then Morah let out a small sigh and beckoned us back in the room. On the far side was a rather pretty landscape of some world I’d never seen. He pressed a neatly hidden stud on it and the painting moved down silently revealing a one-way mirror.

It was a huge, comfortable living room, beautifully furnished and with good use of open space. Sculpture and paintings were around as well, and I clearly recognized some as lost art treasures of man’s past. Originals, too, I knew instinctively.

Sitting on a divan, dressed casually in slacks, sandals, and a purple sleeveless shirt, was Aeolia Matuze. Unmistakably Matuze, looking every bit as good as her pictures. Very casually relaxed, legs crossed, she was smoking a cigarette in a long holder. She looked neither worried nor apprehensive.

“I assume this is soundproof?” I said in a low tone to Month.

He nodded. “Absolutely. But I have a one way mike connection in.”

“She looks awfully good for her age,” I noted. “Robot?”

“Oh, no. Spell. I don’t think we’re quite ready for a robot Lord of the Diamond as yet.”

“Why not just make everybody robots?” Darva said acidly. “That would make your job obsolete.”

“You misunderstand our motives,” Morah replied, shaking off the sarcastic tone. “The robots are weapons, and, in. a sense, bribes; but they have their limitations as well. As weapons and bribes, they are valuable for the superior abilities they give. But they are sure death for a people and a civilization because of what they take away. Someday, perhaps, you will understand that. But—watch.”

“Do you know what’s gonna happen?” Darva asked him.

He shook his head from side to side. “Not the slightest idea. But it should be—interesting. You see, those entire quarters are wa-inert. Not only is there no wa in anything, the chemical treatment dampens out any wa sense you might have. It is quite a complex treatment and has to be—imported, if you understand.”

I nodded. “That’s why you don’t have it all over this place.”

“That, and the fact that it’s very hard to manufacture and doesn’t work with many surfaces. Still—here we go.”

Aeolia Matuze leaned forward and flicked some ashes into an ornate standing ash tray, then turned toward the door to our right A figure entered, a figure only recognizable with effort.

His clothing was scorched, and his face—all his exposed skin—Was blackened as if by prolonged desert exposure. He was a terrible, and terrifying sight. He stood there in the doorway unsteadily, and stared at the woman.

Aeolia Matuze looked up in surprise. “Toolie! Oh, you poor dear! Whatever did they do to you?”

“It’s been a long time, Aeolia,” said Tulio Koril wearily.

“Oh, my! Come! Sit down in a chair and relax! Can I get you a drink or anything?”

We were dumbfounded by the scene, but Koril just chuckled dryly. “Got some of that wine? The good white?”

She stood up, went over to a small bar, reached behind, took out a bottle, opened it, and poured him a large glass; then she took it over to him. He accepted it, drank some in big gulps, then slowly sipped it. It did seem to relax him.

Aeolia Matuze sat back on the couch so she was pretty well facing him, then just watched bun. She showed no fear, no shock, or horror at her predecessor’s visit, which of course implied that either there was something we didn’t know going on or, at the very least, something Koril sure as hell didn’t I remembered Morah’s comment that, in there, both of them were equals in wa, having none at all.

Aeolia Matuze looked genuinely concerned. “Tell me—the burns. Do they hurt much?”

He shrugged. “Not so bad. More stiff than anything else. I think I’m still in a little bit of shock, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

She nodded and appeared satisfied. “You know, I loved you for years, but never more than today. What you did was impossible, Toolie. No other man alive could have made it up here.”

“You knew I’d come back.”

She nodded. “I knew that if anybody could, you would. Tell me, how did you get by the Synod? They could rip iron bars, shoot into space—why, you wouldn’t believe it And they still had all their powers!”

“That was your problem,” Koril told her, taking another sip of wine. “If they didn’t keep their wa power, they were valueless as Synod members. If they did, then they had to have the wa in their molecules as sure as you and me. And wa is wa.”

“But they are virtually impervious!”

He chuckled. “Know what we’re made of, Aeolia ? Chemical. Know what rock is made of? More chemicals. The rule is that if you’re matter you have to be made of something. Chemicals. A specific mix of chemicals. And once you know how something’s put together, and you know there’s wa in each molecule; that stuff, whatever it was, was no different than natural flesh. No different.

And I happened to have a sample of the stuff ahead of time. I had it analyzed. It actually surprised me. The movement of just one little atom in its basic material caused it to change into another equally bizarre substance—but one that burned and melted quite nicely. Isn’t it nice, Aeolia, to know that even sorcery is nothing more than basic chemistry?”

She laughed, seemingly delighted with his explanation.

“How clever of you! I’ll bet the reception room’s a mess.”

“It’ll need a little more than mere redecorating,” he agreed. “At least I’m happy now you got those paintings out of there.”

Darva shook her head wonderingly. “They’re talking like they’re old buddies! Wasn’t he here to kill her?”

“Perhaps,” Morah replied. “But they were married for twenty-seven years.”

Both Darva’s and my own mouth flew open but no sound came out.

“…two left alive down there,” Koril was saying. “They’re in worse shape than I am. They’re backstage, but I told them not to come up just yet.”

Matuze looked satisfied. “Tell me, Toolie—why now? I thought you’d be stuck forever down there in your desert hideaway, particularly with all those delicious toys we allowed to get through.”

That startled the sorcerer. “Allowed?” She smiled sweetly. “Toolie! Who knows you better than I do? Do you really think you could have gotten all that stuff from off world all this time without our help? It was far cheaper and easier to keep you occupied at what you love best than to try any all-out fight. In a few more months’ time, your return would have been academic anyway. Our delicious little war is well underway.”

Koril looked absolutely devastated by the obvious truth of what she was telling him. He had as much as admitted his failings to me. I now more than suspected that Dumonia had caught onto the plot and that had been why he’d finally decided to push. But Koril wasn’t about to mention the Cerberan, I’ll give him that.

“It has to do with evil, Aeolia. Evil.”

She laughed. “Evil? What in the world are you talking about?”

And, once more, he repeated the words that seemed to have haunted him since they were first uttered by the hapless Jatik.

She listened intently, but without any obvious reaction. Finally, when he’d completed his story, she said, “That’s the most utter and complete nonsense I’ve ever heard! They’re—odd—I admit, but they’re not evil. What is evil, anyway, except somebody’s arbitrary idea of what’s wrong? Isn’t that what you fought the Confederacy about? Aren’t our ideas evil by everyone else’s standards? Do you feel evil, Toolie? I don’t.”

But Koril did not reply. Slowly he seemed to stiffen, then relax. The wineglass dropped from his fingers and bounced on the rug, spilling a little of the remainder.

Toolie?” she inquired sweetly. Toolie?” Getting no response, she stood up and went over to him, then bent down and examined him carefully. Satisfied, she nodded and looked around the empty room.

“Morah!” she snapped, her tone suddenly cold and imperious. “I know you’re spying around here someplace! Clean up this mess and get this garbage out of my living room!”

“She poisoned him!” Darva gasped. “All this way and he lets her poison him!”

“No,” I told her. “He surrendered. When he got all the way up here he just couldn’t do it—and she knew it. She sure knew him, all right!”

Darva just shook her head sadly. “So simple. So powerful, so smart a man.”

“Oddly enough, those are exactly the qualities in humans that are worth preserving,” Morah added enigmatically. “You’ll see. But—wait. The play isn’t over yet.”

Aeolia Matuze was up and striding around the room like a mad woman. “Morah! Somebody! Attend met It will be necessary to arrange the executions of those below and those troops who failed me! Where the hell is everybody?”

“Here.” A cold, female voice came from behind her. She whirled and looked very surprised and not the least bit annoyed.

“Who the hell are you?” Aeolia Matuze snapped.

“We’re the new Queen of Charon,” Zala/Kira replied as she shot Aeolia Matuze three times. The Lord of Charon toppled and fell, a look of total surprise and bewilderment frozen forever on her face.

I looked at Morah. “She expected you to guard her.”

He nodded. “She never could get it through her head who I worked for,” he replied, as we watched the woman we both knew walk over, check Koril first, then Aeolia Matuze.

Yatek Morah sighed and turned away from the window. We did the same. “What now?” I asked him.

He smiled. “That depends on you. The remainder of Koril’s surviving Class I’s will pretty well fill out the Synod.”

Darva turned and pointed back at the glass. “But she’s not qualified to run Charon! Zala’s a helpless wimp and Kira’s a mechanized assassin!”

“I’m aware of that,” Morah replied. “Think of this, Lacoch. You’re the Confederacy’s assassin. Don’t bother to deny it. Nobody else in your batch showed any real promise. I arranged that whole sideshow at Bourget on that assumption.” He made a backhanded gesture at the glass. “Her type is now obsolete. It has served its purpose. I’ve called the few surviving ones to the Diamond. The robots are better, more reliable, and harder to kill.”

“Koril thought you wanted to be Supreme Lord of all the Diamond,” I told him.

“That ambition had crossed my mind when I had my agents on Takanna keep a small version of this bioagent project going many years ago,” he admitted. “However, that prospect no longer interests me. It has become rather—small. Petty, even. No longer worth going after. It has been so for quite some time.”

“And Zala?”

He chuckled. “That’s up to you. Kira is extremely good at what she does, but that’s ah she does. Zala—well, she trusts you. And she’ll need the help of a lot of people she trusts to put things back together and get the government straightened out once more. You’re an assassin. She’s an assassin. It will be interesting to see who, in the end, is the better.”

“You’re offering me a shot at being Lord of Charon,” I said, a little in awe of the possibilities. I tinned to Darva. “Remember those dreams we had? Of changing things for the better, of a virgin continent for the changelings?”

She looked at me strangely. “You mean you’d do it? But it’d be on his terms and at his pleasure.”

I turned to Morah. “From what I’ve seen I could have a very brief tenure myself.”

“She was power-mad, you know. She was about to proclaim herself Supreme Goddess of a new, true, and only religion. She was no longer rational enough to do what she was supposed to do—run Charon. As for me and my employers, we frankly don’t care how the humans run each other on Charon. Our motives—but no, that must wait. I know from reports from Lilith that you carry within you, perhaps still, a sort of organic transmitter. You will eliminate it, or I will. Then, I think, you can be told the whole story. Then you can make your own decisions. For now I must go and tend to our new queen.”

For a while we just stood there, not saying anything to one another. Finally Darva asked, “Well? After all this, you’re gonna do it? Or what?”

I smiled and kissed her, then looked back at the glass. Zala was there now, not Kira, and she was doing a happy little dance between the bodies. I stared at her, not quite knowing what to do next.

Finally I sighed and said, “Well, I’m of two minds about this…”