Spectrum of a Forgotten Sun

Chapter Ten

The room was flanked with alcoves each containing a sculptured form; the cold eyes of depicted men and women staring blindly at the group around the table. In its center rested a lamp of glowing crystal, streamers of red and yellow, blue and emerald, azure and dusky violet painting shifting hues on the stone, the faces and clothes of those gathered.

"Galbrene," said Dephine bitterly. "The fool. Who would have thought he'd nursed a grudge for so long?"

"His pride-"

"To hell with his pride!" She glared at Hendaza, cutting him short, careless of any affront. "Why wasn't he stopped? I had your word there would be no trouble and now this. A public challenge and one that can't be settled privately. Or can it? Lekhard?"

"Even if he would agree it would be difficult," he said, flatly. "And it is unthinkable that he will agree. A public challenge must be met and be seen to be met. If not his own honor will carry the taint and suspicion of cowardice."

"Kanjuk?"

"My dear, what can we do?" The man spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. "Galbrene will not be denied. And it isn't a matter of a personal insult which could be settled with due regard to form yet without real danger to life. He has claimed you insulted the House and, I must tell you, there are many who agree with him. An unfortunate occurrence, but one which cannot be either ignored or dismissed."

Dumarest said, "Why not?"

It was the first time he had spoken since the dinner had ended and those present had gathered in the room. Beyond the doors men and women milled in anticipation, the air filled with the hum of speculation. A hum which held a feral sound, a savagery he had heard before.

One underlying the rasp of naked steel, the harsh panting, the thud of feet in the ring where men faced each other with bared knives and fought to the death. Blood and pain to titillate a watching crowd. Wounds and death to provide a spectacle for the jaded and bored. Dumarest remembered the burn of edged steel, the warmth of spilled blood, the shock of pain, the stench of fear. Remembered too the sudden expression in the eyes of an opponent as his own blade had driven home. The stunned, incredible realization that, for him, life had ended.

"What?" Lekhard turned with a lithe, animal-like movement, a wash of blood-red light painting his features, a mask from which his eyes glittered like jewels. "What are you saying?"

"I asked a question," said Dumarest evenly. "In my experience most things can be settled in more than one way."

"You don't understand," said Kanjuk. "On Emijar there is only one way to settle such an insult and all know it. The challenge must be met."

"Without armor," added Lekhard. His tongue caressed his lower lip. "Surely you have knowledge of our customs?"

A society which lived on the edge of violence-the guns carried were not toys. Yet to avoid the escalation of feuds certain rules had been evolved. Duels were fought with the contestants wearing armor which limited the vulnerable area. Limbs could be broken and painful wounds received, but the possibility of actual death was slight. The victor gained a badge from the vanquished, a token scalp, and the more obtained the greater the admiration.

But a public challenge such as had been made to Dephine would be to the death.

She said, forceably, "It must be stopped. Earl, you cannot fight the man."

"He must!" Hendaza looked from one to the other. His eyes were determined. "As your champion, Dephine, he can't refuse."

"He can and must!"

"No!" Lekhard was as determined as the other. "For one thing to refuse would be to gain the derision of the House. That you could, perhaps, bear. But there would be more. The gauntlet, for one. And for your champion-" he made the word a sneer. "-well, we do not treat cowards lightly on Einijar. Such men are taken and left unarmed in the haunts of the olcept. None have ever returned."

Dumarest said, "Dephine, just what does Galbrene have against you?"

In the following silence he looked from one to the other, seeing each trying to avoid his eyes, each masking his face in his own way; Lekhard with a sneer, Kanjuk with a bland expression, Hendaza with a frown. Only the woman was outright.

"Once, Earl, years ago now, I promised to marry him."

"And now he wants to kill you?"

"Yes."

"An odd way of showing his love."

"Love has nothing to do with it, Earl. Even the word itself doesn't mean to him what it does to you. It is a matter of pride. He chose me and I rejected him. I broke my given word. I made him a mockery in the eyes of his companions. If he could that man would tear me apart with his bare hands." Pausing she added, "I'm sorry Earl. I didn't know this would happen. If-" She broke off as Alorcene entered the room.

He crossed to the table, sat, his face expressionless. His hands, in the colored streams of light, looked like scraps of paper or thinly scraped bone as they rested before him. Hands which matched the thin dryness of his voice, quiet now in startling contrast to what it had been in the hall.

"I have questioned Galbrene de Allivarre Keturah and his claim is just. He has the right to challenge. You, Dephine de Monterale Keturah, have only the right to defend either in person or by use of a champion."

Dumarest said, "Her life at stake for a broken promise?"

"It is our way," said the old man quietly. "But it is not her life at stake but her reputation. Should you fall she will be ostracized, scorned, disavowed. She will be expelled from the House, the Family, from this world. But you, Earl Dumarest-you will be dead."

Through the uncurtained window he could see the stars, a glitter of distant suns each with its own worlds, their pattern broken by the sprawling blotch of an interstellar dust cloud, its edges haloed with a faint luminescence. From the balcony could be seen the night-shrouded land, the distant hills a wavering, ghostly line in the cold glow of the heavens. Beneath the parapet lay sheer stone, more in an unbroken expanse for twenty feet above, the wall ending in the overhang of a peaked roof. Things he had spotted in the fading daylight, barriers now augmented by the sealed portal, the watchful guards on walls and roofs.

A precaution against external enemies but one which kept men in as well as out.

Lying supine on the wide bed Dumarest stretched, easing muscle and sinew, his thoughts busy with odd scraps of assembled information.

The Shrine-would the items it contained hold any information as to the whereabouts of Earth? If the First Families had landed here long enough ago it was barely possible that an old navigational table would give the coordinates he had searched for for so long. Would Navalok permit him to search? A good start had been made to win his friendship, but more could be needed. The boy was a dreamer, one cursed by having been born to the wrong society at the wrong time. Earlier he would have been quietly disposed of so as not to contaminate the gene pool with his undesirable characteristics. Later he could make a place for himself as a thinker, a poet or an artist, a planner or a teacher. Now he was caught between two fires, tearing himself apart with the desire to prove himself according to the customs of his Family yet lacking the physical attributes which would make it possible.

But he would try and, trying, he would die.

Dumarest turned, thinking of his own problems.

An hour after the great bell sounded at dawn he would have to fight and, from what he had seen of Galbrene, the man was no stranger to combat. The badges he wore proved that, each a trophy of victory as the gun he carried showed his courage against the olcept. And, as Lekhard had pointed out, the man had not been satisfied with a minor kill. He had gone after bigger game and Dumarest knew what it took to face a ravening beast with nothing but a scrap of edged and pointed steel.

He heard the knock and had risen and was at the door before it could come again. The passage outside was lit with a smokey yellow light which gleamed from the gems set in the mane of auburn hair.

"Earl?" Dephine glanced at the naked blade in his hand. "Did you expect an assassin?"

"Get inside." He closed the door after her, thrusting home the thick, wooden latch. "What do you want?"

"To talk. I couldn't sleep and I missed you." Her eyes met his as she tilted back her head. "A light?"

The curtains rasped from their rings as he drew the thick material across the panes. An unnecessary precaution, perhaps, but it was late and curiosity could be aroused. For a second he fumbled in the gloom then, as light blazed from the lamp, Dephine came towards him, arms extended.

"Earl!"

He ignored the invitation.

"Galbrene was a surprise," he said, dryly. "One I could have done without. Could there be others?"

"I didn't know, Earl," she said, quickly. "I told you that. It shouldn't have happened and, on any other world, it wouldn't have mattered. He could have been taken care of without all this ridiculous formality."

"On any other world it wouldn't have been necessary." Dumarest watched as she poured wine. "Theft, lies and harlotry," he murmured. "How long ago was it, Dephine? Eight years? Ten? Twelve?"

"Why?"

"Galbrene has either a long memory or you made a hell of an impression."

"Both." She met his eyes without smiling and deliberately drank some wine. "Do you want me to pretend that I'm a pure little innocent who didn't know what she was doing? All right, so I'm guilty of everything he accuses me of, but so what? Are you any better? A killer? A man who lives by violence? Have you any right to judge?"

"Have I judged?"

"No," she admitted. "You haven't. Not from the very first. You took me for what I was, but treated me as if I were all the things a man hopes to find in a woman. Not as a cheap whore or a thief or a liar or someone who should have known better. Not like these fools who look at me and then at you and decide it would pay them to keep a shut mouth. You, Earl-you're a man!"

"Tell me about Galbrene."

"What is there to tell? He wanted me and, yes, we were betrothed. It was an arrangement and one of the reasons I wanted to get away. And I stole also, that I admit, but I needed money for passage and other things. And I didn't know that I'd ever want to come back. I didn't know that until after I'd met you and then, in the ship, with death all around and you lying so ill, dying I thought-Earl, if I'd known how to pray I'd have done it then! Prayed for you to live and to love me as I love you. To want to be with me so that we could find happiness together. To build a home, Earl. A home!"

The dream of every wanderer of space; to find a woman who would look at him with love in her eyes, to have a place to call his own, to rear children, to put an end to loneliness.

Yet his home was not here. It had to be on Earth-if he could find it.

He watched as she turned away from him and drank the rest of her wine. His own he left untouched and she looked at it then to where he stood. "Earl?"

"I asked about Galbrene."

"To hell with him! I've told you-"

"Nothing of importance," he said coldly. "I want to know how he thinks, how he feels, the way he gets himself ready for action. Has he a weakness which could be exploited? What is his strength?"

"I don't know, Earl," she admitted. "It's been too long and, anyway, his tactics might have changed. He's older now. Anyway, what does it matter? You can beat him. You can take him in any way you want. Just keep him moving and-"

"He'll fall in my lap?" Dumarest shook his head. "If you think that then you're a fool. No fight is ever certain. Always there is the unknown factor. No man is invincible no matter what he thinks. Or," he added grimly, "what others might like to think. He could win, Dephine, remember that."

For a moment she stared at him, wide-eyed, then turned to pour wine, the neck of the decanter rattling against the rim of her glass.

"Earl, you mustn't die! You musn't."

He smiled at her intensity.

"I mean it, damn you!" She threw the glass of wine to one side, coming to stand before him, hands resting on his shoulders. "No matter how you do it, Earl, you must live. Life has so much to offer when this is over. I'll be fully accepted and we could many and settle on land to the south or close to the field if you'd prefer it. Well have money enough to live comfortably. Enough to support children, Earl. Children!"

Her voice, her body, held temptation. There was strength in her and fire and a beauty which belonged more to the wild than to the conglomerations of civilization. A temptation which she enhanced as her arms lifted to wreath his neck, the full warmth of her body pressing against him with familiar urgency.

"Earl!" she whispered. "Earl, my love! My love!"

A fighter who dallied with women before a bout was a fool. Gently Dumarest pushed her away.

"Goodnight, Dephine."

"Earl? You-"

"Goodnight."

Dawn broke with a flood of color, streamers of red and orange, russet and gold, amber and strands of purple which hung like gaudy banners in the sky. Banners matched by the pennants surrounding the combat-area, the bright badges worn by the spectators on tunics and sashes.

The stands were packed but there was no jostling, no voices raised in argument and Dumarest knew why. An armed society is a polite one; when a look or word can bring injury or death then neither are lightly given. And surrounded by people ready to gun down anyone killing without cause an aggressor was forced to have regard for the code.

Hendaza said, "You have no doubts as to the procedure, Earl? If there is anything you need to know don't hesitate to ask. As your official mentor and aide it is my duty to help you in any way I can."

He had done his best, arriving an hour before dawn, fussing as Dumarest had bathed, worried at the little he had eaten. Now he stood at his side in the opening leading to the arena-a courtyard ringed with rising tiers of stone which served as seats. In another opening across the empty space Galbrene would be waiting.

Dumarest said, in order to please the man, "Are all challenges fought like this?"

"Not exactly. We stand as you are now but we are armed. Pistols-and the first one down or hit yields the day. We walk at the signal and fire at will." He rubbed at his chin, perturbed, torn with conflicting loyalties. Dumarest was a stranger, Galbrene was not, yet he liked Dephine despite what she had done.

"But all serious challenges are to the death?"

"Yes."

"And if the victor should decide to be merciful?"

"I don't know." Hendaza frowned. "I don't think it has ever happened. But if-"

The blast of a trumpet drowned what he was saying. A second note and the ritual began.

Dumarest stepped forward, seeing the shift of shadow in the far opening, the sudden appearance of a man. Like himself Galbrene was naked aside from abbreviated shorts. His hair was freshly cropped and his beard was little more than a fuzz the shorn hair offering little chance of a hold. Oil shone on his body so that little gleams of reflection accentuated the firm musculature beneath the skin. Ropes and ridges of muscle packed with animal-like power. The body of a man who had dedicated his life to the pursuit of physical perfection.

Dumarest slowed a little, feeling the coolness of sand beneath his feet, the firmness of stone beneath the layer of grit spread to ensure good traction. Galbrene walked a little wide-legged, the result of the bulging muscle padding the inside of his thighs. His arms too were lifted away from his body, thick biceps and massive forearms ending in broad, splayed hands and fingers.

Dumarest could understand Hendaza's shocked incredulity when he had demanded they meet without weapons. "But, Earl, you can't! It would be madness!" The man had wanted him to fight with pistols-but that would have given Galbrene the advantage. He had used guns all his life. A knife would have given Dumarest a better chance, but to demand one weapon was to open the door to an alternative demand. The whole point of the code was that the opponents should be as equal as possible, the only way to ensure that right would triumph.

And so they were to fight almost naked and hand to hand.

"Fool!" snapped Galbrene as they came closer. "Why waste your life on such a harlot? Yield now and I will be merciful."

Dumarest hesitated, appearing to consider the offer, noting the slight bunching of the toes of Galbrene's right foot, the swing of his left arm.

"If it can be made to look good I'm willing," he said. "I didn't expect anything like this. Dephine-"

He broke off as Galbrene charged, stooping, taking the rasp of a bunched fist over his shoulder, twisting and feeling the slamming blow of a foot against his side. His own hand grabbed at the ankle, slipped on the oil, rose with a stiffened edge to hit hard behind the calf. He had tried for the knee but it had been beyond reach. Deliberately he made the blow weak.

They broke and circled, hands lifted, feet sidling on the sand. Again Galbrene rushed in, hands pummeling, a knee jerking upwards, his head lowering in a butt to the face. Dumarest moved to one, side, dodged the knee, took a blow on the upper arm, sent his own clenched fist rising upwards to pulp the tissue of the nose.

"Fast!" Galbrene dashed blood from his lip with a sweep of his hand. "You move like a greased olcept. But how long can you keep it up?"

Longer than if he wasted breath in talk. Dumarest backed, dodged as the other rushed again, wove from the reaching hands and struck twice at a bicep. Blows which could have been delivered to the air for all the damage they seemed to have done.

"Fast but weak!" Galbrene laughed. "And you claim to be a champion? Dephine could have done better. Too bad, my friend, but now you die!"

A quick end to the combat and a greater enhancing of his own prowess. A mistake, one Dumarest had helped him to make. Galbrene, confident of his own physical superiority, had forgotten the danger of guile.

Dumarest dropped as hands reached towards him, spinning to one side, his hand grabbing up a mass of sand, stinging grains which he threw into the other's narrowed eyes. As the cloud of grit wreathed Galbrene's head he rose, hands poised, the edges like blunted axes as they struck at the point where the neck joins the body. Blows which would have broken an ordinary man's neck, ruptured arteries and sensitive tissue. Blows which met solid muscle which did not yield.

Dumarest felt a fist drive into his stomach, another scrape the edge of his jaw. Excited, unthinking, Galbrene pressed forward, eager to pound, to pulp, to destroy. His massive fists were like hammers which beat and beat as if he were a smith working at an anvil. Blood from his broken nose ran unheeded over his face to smear his chest and dapple the sand with carmine stains.

Dumarest ran. He turned and raced over the sand, to halt, to run again as like an engine of destruction Galbrene pounded after him. A race to gain time, a retreat in order to clear his head of the flashing stars the other's fists had created. Movement to wear the other down a little, to rob his blood of needed oxygen.

A small gain, but in the arena small gains could spell the difference between victory and defeat.

"Slow down!" yelled Galbrene. "Stand and fight like a man!"

A demand echoed from the stands where men and women leaned forward, shouting, faces avid, eyes reflecting their hunger. The lust for blood and pain and death, the primeval desire always to be found when the veneer of civilization was torn away and the true nature of the beast was revealed.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

The shouts were like the beat of a drum, a command to Galbrene, one which spurred him on to gain even greater fame than he possessed. The weakness of the culture to which he belonged; a society which insisted that a man always needed to prove himself without end.

"Kill!"

Dumarest halted, turned, ducked as the arms came towards him to rise within their circle, his hands stabbing upward with stiffened fingers, hitting the soft flesh beneath the chin, the windpipe and larynx. As the arms locked around his torso he swept his hands up and back, sent them forward to stab at the eyes. The left missed, the fingers catching the heavy brow to slip upwards to the cropped hair. The right plunged home, turned the eye into a thing of ruptured tissue and oozing fluids, sent blood to gush over the cheek and shoulder as, too late, Galbrene jerked his head to one side.

"Kill!"

Hurt, the man was still dangerous, the more so because of his pain. Dumarest felt the arms tighten and struck again at the neck, the remaining eye. Galbrene, eager to save his sight, leaned back, his arms slackening a little and Dumarest ducked, rammed the top of his head beneath the other's chin, jerked down his elbows and, resting his hands on Galbrene's shoulders, lifted his feet and slammed them hard against the point where the thighs joined the body.

A move which, had it worked, would have torn him from the crushing constriction of the arms.

One which failed.

Galbrene snarled, moved, and Dumarest felt his feet slip from the oiled skin. He settled them again on the other's insteps, his own arms circling the thick torso, fingers interlocking, the muscles of back, shoulders, thighs and loins straining as he fought the pressure which threatened to splinter his ribs and drive the jagged ends into his lungs. The constriction which, unless stopped, would snap his spine like a rotten twig.

"Kill!" The shouting was another thunder to add to the roar in his ears. "Kill!"

Galbrene was strong, but his head was being bent backwards and his back arched as he yielded to the pressure. A loss of leverage which alone was saving Dumarest's life. One which the other could regain by throwing himself down, twisting free his head, using his legs and massive arms to their full advantage.

Dumarest felt him shift, felt a foot slip from where it rested, the other as Galbrene jerked back his legs, sensed the coming jerk which would free the trapped head. Releasing the grip of his arms he sagged, turned limp as if stricken land then, as Galbrene shifted his own grip and moved his head, Dumarest lifted up a knee in a savage blow at the groin.

Had it landed as he intended it would have killed, as it was the knee hit bone as Galbrene twisted, slid up over the stomach to be trapped as again the enclosing arms exerted their pressure. Dumarest sent the other to join it and rode for a moment with both legs doubled, knees resting against Galbrene's stomach and then, with an explosive release of energy, he burst clear and was hurtling backward to land on the sand, to roll, to spring to his feet and dart in again to the attack.

To pause as Galbrene swayed.

A momentary pause made in order to gauge the situation. The man looked dazed, turning vaguely so as to present his blind side towards Dumarest. An advantage only a fool would waste.

"In, Earl! In!"

Dephine's voice, high, shrill and close. During the fight they had moved to where she sat on the lower tier, now leaning forward, both hands extended before her, the fingers pressed together and pointing into the arena. A thing Dumarest noticed before he reached his opponent and sent his hands to do their work, the stiffened edges crashing against vital centers, repeated blows delivered with blinding speed which sent the man slumping to the ground.

"Kill!" screamed Dephine. "Kill him, Earl!"

But there was no need. Galbrene was dead.