"Earl Dumarest." Gydapen lifted his goblet and tilted it so the wine it contained left a thin, ruby film coating the engraved crystal. "I must congratulate you, my dear. A most unusual acquisition."
"He is hardly that, Gydapen."
"No?" The eyebrows lifted over the small, shrewd eyes. "Then what? Perhaps you will tell me, my friend."
"I merely escorted the lady, my lord," said Dumarest. "She needed someone to handle her raft. I understood the matter was Council business."
"Of course. Council business. Naturally." Gydapen gestured and a servant handed Dumarest a goblet of wine. Another and he departed leaving the three alone in the large hut. The interior was soft with delicate furnishings, rugs covering the floor, lanterns of colored glass hanging from the roof. At night it would be a warm, snug, comfortable place. One end would house the place where the mercenary slept. The other would contain stores, luxuries, wines and dainties to soften the rigors of the desert. "Your health, Earl!"
"Your health, my lord!"
Ceremoniously they drank, neither doing more than wet his lips and, watching them, Lavinia thought of two beasts of prey, circling, wary, neither willing to yield the advantage. Gydapen who owned land and commanded the loyalty of retainers, who had the protection of a great Family, who held the destiny of Zakym in the palm of his hand. And the other, alone, owning nothing, a traveler who searched for a dream.
But, watching them, she wondered why she had ever thought of Gydapen as a man worthy to sire her sons.
"The Council," he said again. "They think it right to send a woman without invitation, to land, to rob, to act the thief and spy. A woman whom I hold in high regard. Tell me, Earl, what do you think of such a Council?"
"They do what they can, my lord."
"As do we all. And, while I think about it, you have something belonging to Gnais, I think. The laser you struck from his hand. Thank you." He beamed as Dumarest dropped the weapon into his extended palm. "You made him look foolish. He will not relish that."
Lavinia said, abruptly, "Gydapen, for God's sake let's put an end to this! What are you doing? The guns? The men firing them at targets! Everything!"
"You saw?" Gydapen shrugged, his face expressionless, but his eyes moved to Dumarest. "Yet what did you see? Men training to protect me in case of need. Your own actions show that I have reason for such protection. You land, you order my own men to load your raft with goods which you know belong to me. Naked, outright theft. Are you proud of what your friends on the Council have made you do, Lavinia? Is it pleasant to know yourself for what you are?"
He was provoking her, hoping for an outburst of temper and the betrayal of secrets, but already she had said too much and knew it.
Quietly she said, "If you owe loyalty to the Council you will abide by their decision. The Pact is not to be broken. Must not be broken. Surely you can see that? What can you hope to gain by alienating the Sungari? Even if your mine shows profit what good can it do you if they turn against us?"
"Good?" Gydapen smiled and shrugged and toyed with his wine. "You are young, my dear. Innocent in the ways of commerce and men. But you are not drinking. Empty your goblet and permit me to refill it. You too, Earl. It is a good vintage. The best of this decade."
"I would enjoy it more, my lord, if I knew your intentions towards us."
"The direct question." Gydapen set down his glass and smiled with apparent pleasure but his eyes, Dumarest noticed, did not smile. "I admire you for putting it. You have strength and determination, qualities I can always use, but enough of that. Let us concentrate on the question. The answer, I am pleased to say, is nothing."
"My lord?"
"He can do nothing," said Lavinia, harshly. "Not unless he wishes to turn every hand against him. Alcorus knows we are here. Suchong, Erason, the others. I am on Council business. The guns were declared unlawful. You, Earl, did only as I ordered. He-"
"Could punish you for being a thief!" Gydapen looked at the hand he had slammed against the table then smiled. "What is the Council to me or to any Lord or Lady of Zakym? The guns are mine and will remain so. I do as I please and none will stop me. If they try I shall know what to do."
"You would kill your own?"
"I will defend what is mine. What is mine, Lavinia, and could be ours. Yes, my dear, could still be ours." Rising he extended his hands. "Let us forget this foolishness. You were curious, that I understand. Perhaps you are also ambitious. If so you will understand me better when I tell you that I, also, am ambitious."
He was, she realized, utterly sincere. At that moment if nothing else he spoke the naked truth. Then again he was smiling, leading them towards the door, opening it and ushering them towards the raft which rested, empty now, before the hut.
As it rose she said, "Earl, what did you think of him?"
"He's dangerous."
"True, but honest in certain ways don't you think?"
Dumarest said, flatly, "No madman is ever honest other than to his own delusions. How did he catch you?"
"I was wandering around with that man who met us when Gydapen appeared. I think he must have been here all the time."
A risk impossible to avoid. Had he been absent the guns would have been loaded and lifted away-now they had betrayed their intention. Yet he had permitted them to depart. Why?
Lavinia shrugged when he asked. "You heard him, Earl. There was nothing else he could have done."
"No," he corrected. "I heard you telling him that."
"It's the same thing."
To her, perhaps, but Dumarest recognized the difference. He looked at the sky. The suns were lowering towards the horizon, the discs merging, a haze softening the terrain below. The time of delusia when things were not exactly as they seemed and mistakes could easily be made.
Lavinia was at the controls. She looked beyond him as Dumarest touched her shoulder, her eyes vacant, her lips moving a little as if in silent conversation. Then, as he touched her again, she shuddered and leaned towards him.
"Charles! Charles, my dearest, why did-Earl!"
"What is the shortest way back to your castle?"
"Southwest by west. The compass-"
"Over high ground?"
"Yes. The Iron Mountains run far back and there are some high peaks."
Together with crevasses and precipices and ledges which could crumble beneath the weight of a foot. Bad country but, it being late, it was natural she would have taken the route.
"Earl!" She caught at his arm as he altered the direction the vehicle was taking. "We'll never get back in time!"
"Does it matter? What about the stopovers?"
"Yes." Her grip relaxed as she thought about it. "Yes, I suppose we could spend the night in one. But they aren't plentiful in this region. We'll have to rise high so as to spot where to land."
Rise high, very high, so high that nothing would be left of them or the raft if they crashed.
"Drop!" he snapped. "Fast!"
"Earl! What-"
"Do it! Get to the ground! Move!"
The engine was housed in a humped compartment. As Lavinia tilted the raft to send it gliding downwards to the misted terrain below Dumarest ripped at the casing, tearing away the thin metal with his knife, squinting as he peered inside. A grey cylinder rested against the engine, a cylinder which shouldn't have been there. He probed at it, eased it free and then, obeying the instinct which had saved him so often before, threw himself back and down.
The explosion was small, a dull report which caused the raft to judder and sent a puff of acrid yellow smoke from the engine compartment. Opened, it had lessened the damage, but it was still enough.
Dumarest heard Lavinia scream as the raft tilted. He rolled across the floor, felt the rail press against his shoulders and stabbed down with the knife, sending the blade slicing into the thin metal of the side. A hold to which he clung as the raft tilted still further, throwing him so that his body hung in space, only his grip on the knife and on the rail itself saving him from being hurled to the ground below.
"Level!" He yelled. "Level the raft!"
The woman, strapped into her seat, fought the controls, hair a tumbled mass over her face and eyes. The vehicle spun, lifted, dropped to spin again as if it were a falling leaf caught by sportive winds. Without power, supported only by the residual energy in the anti-grav units, the raft was little more than a mass of inert metal.
But still it had shape. A flat surface to act as a wing, permanent stabilizers fed from emergency sources, an aerodynamic balance which, with skill, gave a modicum of control.
Dumarest felt the strain on his arms lessen, a sudden blow as the edge of the raft hit against his stomach, then he was falling back into the body, sprawled, his knife ripped free and stabbed into the deck to provide another hold. Painfully, every muscle tense, he crawled to where the woman sat at the controls.
"Earl!" Her voice was high, strained with fear. "I can't handle it! We're going to crash! To crash!"
His arms closed around her as he locked his thighs around the chair on which she sat. His hands knocked hers aside as he took over control.
"Earl!"
"Crouch low. Bend your head into your lap. Rest your hands over the back of your neck. Turn into a ball if you can."
He stared at the swing and turn of the ground below. At the last moment, if able, he would release her straps and give her the best chance he could. Now, all he could do for the both of them, was to try and send the wrecked raft towards a slope, to keep it level, to let it skid instead of slamming against the rock and soil.
"How close?" Her voice was muffled but she had recovered her composure. "Earl, how close?"
"Brace yourself."
He dropped one hand to the release and freed her of the restraints. A hill loomed before them and he rugged, praying that the explosion hadn't totally destroyed the emergency units, that the hull would take the strain, that something, anything, would give them that little extra to clear the summit.
A gust of wind saved them. A vagrant blast which caught the prow of the raft, lifted it the essential fraction, letting it drop only after they had cleared the jagged peak. Below rolled a steep slope studded with massive boulders, mounded with accumulated soil tufted by patches of vegetation. Like a stone thrown over water the raft bounced and skidded, metal tearing with harsh raspings, fragments ripped free to litter the slope. A mount flung them into the air, a dip lay beyond, a boulder which smashed like a hammer into the prow of the raft, to send them both hurtling forward, to part, to land with a stunning impact, to roll and finally to come to rest.
Dumarest stirred, feeling the ache of strained muscles, a warm wetness on the side of his face. A questing hand lowered stained with red, the blood welling from a gash in his scalp. With an effort he turned and sat upright, fighting the nausea which gripped him and sent the terrain wheeling in sickening spirals.
When it had passed he looked around. Behind him rested stone, a rock against which he had been thrown, the force of landing softened by the vegetation on which he lay. Sharp thorns and jagged stones had ripped the plastic of his tunic exposing the glint of metal mesh buried within. A defense which had saved him from cruel lacerations but had done nothing to save him from ugly bruises.
But he was alive, intact, dazed a little, suffering minor injuries but that was all. His luck had not deserted him.
And Lavinia's had not deserted her.
She lay in a shallow dell, a place thick with soft grasses, shrubs like springs which had taken her weight and eased the final part of her landing. She was unconscious, a lump beneath the mane of her hair but, as Dumarest discovered after examining her body, she was free of broken bones.
Rising he looked around. The suns were low, the air holding a peculiar hush as if strained with the energies of an imminent storm. But there were no clouds and little wind.
Walking back to the ruin of the raft he found his knife, used it to slash a reedy plant and collected a handful of pale sap which he used to bathe the woman's face.
"Earl?" Her eyelids fluttered. "Earl-what happened? Earl!"
"Steady!" His hand was firm on her shoulder.
"Sit up if you can." He waited as she obeyed, staring with eyes free of suffused blood. A good sign-the chances were small she had a concussion. "Any internal pain? No? Good. Can you stand up and take a few steps?" He relaxed as she did as asked. At least she was mobile and he was freed of the necessity of taking care of a maimed and helpless person.
"Earl! Your face!"
"It's nothing." He collected more sap and washed the blood from his temple and cheek. The sap held a thin, sweet flavor and he drank a little. "Is any of this vegetation good to eat?"
"It won't hurt you but it contains no nourishment."
As he had expected, but at least it would fill their bellies in case of need. Lavinia stared her horror as he mentioned it.
"Earl, you can't be serious. We can't stay in the open. We have to find shelter before it's dark."
"Here?" He looked around, seeing nothing but the barren slope of the hill, the wreck of the raft.
"We must! Earl, we must!"
"Because of your bogey-men?"
"The Sungari! Earl, for God's sake believe me! If we are in the open at night we'll never see the dawn!"
Valid or not her terror was real. Dumarest looked at her, recognizing her near-panic, her incipient hysteria.
Quietly he said, "In that case we'll have to find somewhere to spend the night. Look around for a place while I go back to the raft."
"Why, Earl? What good can it do? The thing is a wreck."
But one which held sharp scraps of metal, wire, fabric, ribs-all things which could spell survival in a wilderness.
Dumarest examined it. The floor had been of metal covered with a coarsely woven fabric held with strips. He ripped them away, lifted the material and slashed it free with his knife. A coil of wire followed, some rods, a section of foil which he rolled into an awkward bundle. By the time he had finished the suns were resting on the horizon and Lavinia was desperate.
"I can't find a place, Earl. There aren't any caves. I don't even know in which direction the nearest stop-over is. The Sungari-Earl!"
He dropped his burden and held her in his arms until the quivering had stopped and she was calm again.
"If we can't find a place to stay then we'll make one." He gestured at the things he had assembled. "Need it be strong? Do the Sungari actually attack? Are they large or what?"
She didn't know as he had expected. Her fear was born of rumor and whispered convictions of a knowledge based on a lack of evidence. But, unless he were to end with an insane woman on his hands, he had to pander to her delusion.
As they worked she said, "Why couldn't we have used the wreck? Couldn't it have been easier?"
"No." Dumarest adjusted the fabric which he had stretched over the curved rods and lashed with wire. Rocks surrounded the crude tent and now he covered it with a thin layer of sand. "It was too big," he explained. "Too heavy to move and too awkward to seal. And I don't want to be there when they come looking for us."
"Looking?" Her eyes widened, filled with purple from the dying light. "Who? Gydapen?"
"A clever man." Dumarest dusted more sand over the shelter. "He knew you would be eager to get back home and, if we'd crashed over the Iron Mountains, we'd have stood no chance. He even guessed that you might suspect him and head for a stop-over but, as you said, you'd have to ride high to spot one. Either way he couldn't lose."
"The explosion," she said, dully. "He sabotaged the raft."
"Which is why he insisted that we take wine with him and kept us busy with his cat and mouse game. He needed time to set the bomb and he wanted it to be late when we left." Dumarest looked at the woman. "He wanted to kill you," he said, evenly. "And he will want to be certain you are dead."
Would already be dead if it hadn't been for him. Lavinia had a sickening vision of herself, broken, bloodied, the prey for scavengers. It had been so close! If Dumarest hadn't suspected, hadn't acted when he had-and even then it had been close.
She felt a momentary weakness and closed her eyes, thankful she wasn't alone, thankful too that it was Dumarest with her and not Roland or Alcorus or even Charles when alive. Charles-how ignorant she had been! And Gydapen — how stupid!
She heard the rasp and scrape of stone against steel and turned to see Dumarest squatting, knife in hand, sparks flying from the blade. Some finely fretted material lay before him on a small heap of whittled twigs. A nest which caught the sparks and held them as, gently, he blew them to flame.
A fire-but why?
Watching, she saw him feed the glow, building it to a blaze which he lifted with the aid of metal torn from the roll of foil and carried to a place between rocks well to one side. More foil, the rest of the roll, made a humped shape behind it.
"A decoy!" Finally she understood. "If anyone should come they will see it and think we are with it. But no one will come at night, Earl."
"Can you be sure of that?"
"How could they spot the wreck?"
"There are ways." He added more fuel to the blaze. Smoke wreathed his face making it cruel in the crimson light. "We found the bomb but a tracking device could have been fitted."
"They won't come at night," she insisted. "Not even Gydapen."
Perhaps not, but the man wasn't alone and mercenaries had few compunctions as to how they earned their pay. Gnais would be free of the planetary phobia concerning the dark. Infra-red devices could be available to track down the living if they had escaped death in the wreck. The fire would confuse such apparatus and mask their own body heat.
Things he explained. Lavinia listened, nodding when he had finished.
"You're clever, Earl. Now, for God's sake, let us get out of the night!"