Star Winds

Chapter NINE

For all his grandiose titles, Baron Goth Matello’s actual standing in life went little way toward satisfying his true ambitions for himself. In fact his highest rank—Margrave of the Marsh Worlds—was really worth least of all, for the Marsh Worlds were a dismal group of border planets not even worth taxing, but which it was his onerous duty to defend. Also largely empty was his title of Baron (by which he was formally addressed in keeping with Maralian tradition, it being his only hereditary title), most of the barony he had inherited having been gambled away in his impetuous youth, when he had been overmuch addicted to the card table and the dueling field.

To Rachad or Zhorga, or indeed to any Earthman, he was incredibly wealthy, but in his own estimation Matello regarded himself as poor. What he aspired to was a dukedom: a goodly crop of rich worlds where a man of expansive appetites need not feel cramped.

As it was, his base these days was the unprepossessing Castarpos Moons demesne, of which he was official Protector, and his one concession to undeniable luxury was the Bucentaur, his magnificent personal starship to buy which he had taxed his holdings till they bled. As the giant starship swung down toward the pitted surface of Arp, largest of the moons, those on deck were able to look down on the huddled town of Corrum which was Matello’s residence. Not long after she had landed, in a permanent dock on the edge of the town, a procession of horses and carriages suddenly issued forth from her, to go clattering through the narrow, winding streets, making for the craggy manor-castle that loomed on high ground.

Castarpos, the moon system’s primary, a vast striated world on which no man had ever set foot, bulked huge in the sky. By contrast the sun was small and amber, and seemed to add a burnished hue to everything it touched in the perpetually gloomy landscape. The sight of his domain afforded Matello no pleasure, however, and he kept the curtains drawn as his carriage passed through the town, mulling meanwhile over the plan that was forming in his mind.

During the journey from Mars he had been discreetly informed that an improper liaison had developed between the young Earthling, Rachad Caban, and his niece Elissea. He would have been quite within his rights to kill the youth immediately; but he had chosen to do nothing, and on the contrary had gone out of his way to show the impudent youngster every consideration, giving no sign that he knew what was going on. Caban, he had decided, was just the man to carry out the scheme he had in mind. He was audacious, self-interested—a chancer if ever there was one—and he even had some alchemical knowledge, which was excellent for Matello’s purpose.

Ensconcing himself in his stone fortress, Matello spent some time disposing of household affairs. That evening, he sent for Caban.

Nervously Rachad entered a vaulted hall of modest proportions. A fire blazed in a huge grate, adding a wavering glow to the light of the cressets. The baron sat at a large table that might have been of teak, but was more probably of a local material. Near him was a flagon and two goblets. He was thoughtfully tapping the lead cover of the alchemical treatise he had taken so much trouble to obtain.

At the other end of the hall Rachad saw something odd. A cloud of yellow dust hovered in the air over a large iron tank. Traces of the same dust were scattered about the floor.

Rachad coughed, and bowed.

“Ah, it’s young Caban!” Matello greeted jovially. “Come over here. Try some of this.”

Rachad approached. Matello filled a goblet with murky brown liquid and handed it to him. Rachad looked at the beverage doubtfully before sipping it. The stuff had a thick, aromatic flavor. He swallowed, then spluttered as it scorched his throat.

“The local vintage,” Matello told him. “It’s brewed from berries grown on the upland plateaux. Rough stuff, but not bad once you get used to it. Drink!”

The order was peremptory. Rachad forced himself to gulp down the wine, feeling his stomach burn and his senses reel.

“Now sit down,” grunted Matello with a grin. “We have something to discuss. How best make use of this.”

Once more he tapped the book. In his woozy state, Rachad wondered how long he could keep from revealing that the book was of little help without its supporting text, the Asch Mezareph, which thanks to his silence had been left behind on Earth. “I am to help you make gold, my lord?” he said, slurring his words a trifle. “You have an alchemical laboratory?”

Matello threw back his head and laughed loudly. “What, me make gold? What in space for? Not far from here I can show you a moonlet composed entirely of gold.”

His eyes twinkled to see Rachad’s startlement. “I can see that you’re a real backwater boy. Maybe gold’s something special back on Earth where you come from, but here in Maralia it’s worth no more than iron. Real wealth takes the form of power. Power over men, over territories.”

Rachad lowered his head, biting his lip. He should have thought of this before, he realized. Out here among the stars there would be a plenitude of every kind of material.

He looked up. “Then why do you need the book, my lord?” he asked, puzzled.

Matello slammed his goblet on the table. “Not to make gold, you may be sure! This book is bait. I need it to help me to get a man inside the Duke of Koss’s Aegis. Do you understand me?”

“No, my lord.”

Matello sighed. “I feared not.”

“What is this ‘Aegis,’ my lord?”

“An aegis,” Matello answered, with self-conscious patience, “is an impregnable fortress. It is built of adamant, a substance which is absolutely indestructible, and once inside it there is no known weapon that can harm you, and no way that the fortress can be breached. Now, as to the Duke of Koss, who lives in its protection—” Suddenly Matello rose to his feet. “Let someone else give you an indication of his character.”

Beckoning to Rachad, he strolled to the far end of the hall, stopping at the iron tank. As he followed, the fog of yellow powder stung Rachad’s nostrils and made him cough. He looked into the low tank, and recoiled with a gasp.

“Don’t be afraid,” the baron murmured. “He’s as civilized as you or I.”

Rachad guessed that the tank was deeper than it appeared from the outside and was set into the floor. It was filled to within a foot of the brim with fine yellow powder, resembling flowers of sulphur. The powder was waving and rippling. “Swimming” just beneath its surface was an undulating shape.

“Flammarion!” Matello said in a loud voice. “I have with me the young man I mentioned.”

The swimming shape surfaced. The creature was gray in color and resembled a stingray, with a waving, flapping cape. From beneath it came slim tentacles which tapped the sides of the tank, but Rachad could not properly see what else the cape hid. He forced himself to be calm as the beast flopped part of itself over the side of the trough, splashing out gouts of bright yellow powder.

“I sense you, humans. Greetings, Rachad Caban.”

“Er—greetings,” Rachad stuttered. The creature’s voice was soft and human-sounding, yet somehow larger than a man’s without being louder.

“This is Flammarion,” Matello said to Rachad, “a master builder from the other side of the galaxy. He it was who built the duke’s Aegis, long ago, and he and I are now united in a common purpose—somehow to break into that aegis. It is an ambition not altogether unique to us, for the duke has many enemies.”

He turned to the tank. “Tell Caban your story, Flammarion. It is best he should know the background to his mission.”

There was a pause, while the alien creature flapped and stirred in the powder-bath. “It is a sad tale, a pathetic tale, one that can only bring bathos and pity,” the voice said mournfully. “I am an acknowledged expert in the building of aegises. I alone know the secret of adamant, a material impervious to any weapon, unaffected even by alkahest, the universal solvent. No gun, arbalest or sonic trembler can break it, no acid can corrode it. It deadens even the shriek of Vurelian war trumpets, whose vibrations pass through stone and steel to kill those within.”

Flammarion paused again and went surging through the powder. “Thinking to employ my talents in foreign parts of the galaxy, I traveled to that region where humans dwell. Here I was commissioned by the Duke of Koss to build an aegis for him. I labored mightily, constructing, I believe, the best example of my skills so far. Finally the work was finished, the duke took up residence, and after a decent interval to allow inspection, I presented myself before the gate to collect my fee: two tons of heavenly water, a rare commodity much prized by my kind.”

The voice of the alien became burdened with dole. “His answer was direct and most unkind. ‘If the Aegis is truly invulnerable as claimed by you and specified by contract, you have no means by which to enter and extract payment. You cannot hurt me; here I shall remain forever. Begone!’ Oh, cruel injustice! Since then I have remained nearby, trying by this stratagem and that to force payment from my client.”

Matello chuckled. He plainly enjoyed the tale. “Someone should have warned Flammarion about the man he was dealing with. What a churlish, unjust, detestable fellow he was! And that, mind you, was fifty years ago. So you can see how long poor Flammarion has been waiting.”

“Fifty years?” Rachad echoed.

“Yes. Flammarion built the Aegis for the old duke. A very strange man, driven by an incomprehensible hatred for everything and everyone. There was no one he did not treat with the utmost contempt, even the king, and he earned literally thousands of enemies. Even now, countless families bear him a grudge. His final act of contempt was to shut himself away in the Aegis and to ignore all of existence. He’s dead now, of course, and his son rules the Aegis as Duke of Koss. But he seems to have inherited everything from his father—his habits, his temperament, his interests, and also his enemies, including Flammarion, whose grudge is perfectly straightforward.”

“Does the younger duke never venture outside either?”

“He’s never been outside the Aegis in his life, to my knowledge. He was born there. It’s his world.”

Rachad pondered. “But how long can Flammarion wait?”

“He has a long life. And he comes from a race that never accepts a bad debt—it’s a peculiar psychological obsession all his kind have. For a bargain to be reneged on is a completely unacceptable tragedy.”

“And you are helping him to collect his fee?” Rachad said. “That’s very noble of you.”

Now Matello laughed loudly, and plumped himself down in a nearby chair, signing Rachad to another. Looking perplexedly at Flammarion, Rachad obeyed.

“With your innocence you could be the king’s own clown, Rachad! No, our partnership is based on mutual advantage, for there is much at stake for me, too. You see, the duke’s behavior has become a matter of serious concern for King Lutheron. The Kerek threat looms large, and Maralia faces the biggest threat yet to her existence. The king cannot afford to see so large a dukedom as Koss left in neglect, unable to come to the nation’s aid with all the strength it might. And meantime the duke ignores all messages and will admit no one—not even the king himself.”

“Then why doesn’t the king deprive the duke of his domains, and given them to someone else?” Rachad asked.

“Ah, there you’ve put your finger on it. That is what the king would dearly like to do, but he dare not. The other nobles jealously guard their rights, and would never permit such a precedent, even against one they hate. The king would face rebellion. But there is something else the king can do. He can declare the duke fair game. That is, any man of noble blood who can dispossess him, by killing him or taking him prisoner, comes into his title and all his worlds. This the king has done—and that’s what I am about. I aim to make myself Duke of Koss!”

The baron’s eyes blazed. “The king would be glad to see a man of my experience take over the dukedom. I understand military matters. I’ll soon knock it into shape.”

“Are there other contenders, my lord?”

“Not one!” Matello tittered. “The task is regarded as impossible. The king’s declaration was made more in desperation than in hope. But I have a plan.”

Matello leaned forward, his arm on his knee, wagging his finger at Rachad. “Nothing in the whole cosmos will lure the duke out of his Aegis. We have to get inside somehow. But how? There’s only one possibility. We have to get it opened from the inside, by someone in our pay.”

He sighed. “The gods know we’ve tried. Now and then the duke’s servants emerge on various errands, but only those who were themselves born in the Aegis, and they are all damnably loyal to him. No, we have to find someone—a stranger—whom the duke will actually invite into the Aegis, of his own free will.”

“You mentioned a mission for me, my lord,” Rachad said with a feeling of apprehension. “Do I come into this somehow?”

“You do.” Matello leaned close to Rachad, fanning his cheek with his wine-laden breath. “Among the duke’s passions is an interest in alchemy. It’s he who possesses the other half of the book we took from that temple in Kars.”

He leaned back, grinning. “Do you begin to get my meaning? The last man to be taken into the Aegis was an alchemist, about ten years ago. Amschel is his name. The duke recruited him to try to perfect the Philosopher’s Stone in accordance with the book he had, though I don’t know where he got it. But obviously he’s failed, because for two or three years past the duke’s agents have been looking for the missing part.”

Matello broke off his tale to walk to the table, where he refilled his goblet and came back swigging it, the flagon in his other hand. “It was then we had a bit of luck,” he said. “Flammarion here had already heard of the whereabouts of this book, over a hundred years ago. He’s a much traveled being, you see. Probably nobody else in Maralia knew of it.”

“So that’s why you wanted the book.”

The baron nodded. “The duke has already let one alchemist into his fortress. He’ll do the same for another—if it’s somebody who’s bringing him what he’s looking for.”

“I?…”

Matello nodded again.

“My lord, I’m not sure I can pass myself off as an adept.”

Matello guffawed, his eyes twinkling. “Now the truth is out! But you know some of the pattern, which should suffice for a while. The Root of Transformations is your real passport into the Aegis, the rest is just decoration. I’m absolutely sure the duke will fall for it—but I can’t use one of my own men or his agents might get wind of the deception. It’s got to be somebody like you, from a distant, unknown place, and with that peculiar foreign accent of yours. Flammarion will tell you what you’re to do once you’re inside.”

Suddenly Matello emptied his goblet, filled it again and handed it to Rachad, himself sipping from the flagon. “Well, what do you say? I won’t compel you to it, because this is a job that has to be done willingly. But I’ll be damned annoyed if you refuse.”

Rachad thought over the proposal. It frightened him. But at the same time the idea of such an adventure, of playing such a role in Maralian power politics, was almost irresistible.

“Do you trust me, my lord?” he had the temerity to ask. “What if, once in the Aegis, I sided with the duke?”

“Unlikely,” Matello rumbled. “I can’t see you wanting to spend the rest of your life in an adamant fortress. If you crossed me, your life would be worth nothing outside it. Besides, you have so much to gain, young Caban. You’ll be able practically to name your own reward. Both halves of the book will be yours. I’ll send you home to Earth with a hundred tons of gold, if that’s what you want. Or you can stay here in Maralia, where King Lutheron will no doubt heap honors upon you.” The baron’s voice became silkily persuasive. Rachad thrilled.

He made his mind up. “So what am I to do?” he demanded.

“To begin with, simply take up residence down in the town. The duke has an agent there, I’m aware of that. You must on no account let it be known that you have any connection with me. Pose as an alchemist, and put it discreetly about that you are in search of a missing alchemical text, which you may name. The duke’s man will lose no time in finding you, and you may both then discover that each has what the other is looking for. From then on it should be plain sailing.”

“He will try to buy it from me, of course,” Rachad commented.

“And you will absolutely refuse. You will insist on being allowed to study the other part of the book, and on discoursing with Amschel, who has attempted to follow its principles. Since the duke will not let either out of his control, he will have no choice but to invite you inside.”

“First he will want to be convinced that the book is genuine.”

“Then part with one page of it,” Matello replied with a shrug. “Amschel will authenticate it.”

Rachad nodded. “And if I open the gates of the Aegis—what then? Do you have it under siege?”

“Everything is made ready. It is under constant observation, and nearby I have a small force hidden underground. They will rush in as soon as the Aegis is opened. There are only paltry defenses within, I believe.”

He paused, while Rachad carried on thinking. “You’ll find the duke a strange fellow,” Matello said softly. “They say the Aegis is a madman’s world. What goes on in there is unbelievable.”

“What I can’t understand,” Rachad said with a trace of asperity, “is why anyone in Maralia should be interested in alchemy at all, with gold so common. Why is the duke so keen on it?”

“You echo my own views,” laughed the baron gruffly. “Yet philosophers still strive for the secret of transmutation, for whatever obscure satisfaction it gives them. As far as I can see it’s a perfectly useless exercise—although alchemy has been known to produce some interesting weapons of war. I once heard tell of alchemical bullets that speed up indefinitely after they leave the muzzle. If they miss their target, they accelerate up to lightspeed.”

“I have seen better than that,” Rachad said hurriedly. “When we journeyed from Earth we were attacked by alchemical monsters that grew from seeds.”

“Yes, so I’ve been told. Well, young man, can I count on you?”

“Yes, my lord,” Rachad said definitely. “You can count on me.”

“Good!” the baron said, with great satisfaction. He drank deeply from his flagon, then raised it aloft.

“To the opening of the Aegis!”

And he laughed so wildly and so long that Rachad felt chilled in his bones.

Leaving the hall, Rachad made his way through the dank-smelling castle until coming to the ladies’ apartments. Once he hid in a window recess as a servant girl chanced to pass by. Gazing through the panes, he saw that the amber sun had set. Castarpos alone illumined Arp, with a shifting, uncertain glow, while below the castle Corrum twinkled dimly.

When the way was clear he eased himself into Elissea’s boudoir, secreting himself behind the arras until she came in, when he leaped out at her, laughing softly.

Afterward they lay together on her large, soft bed. “I have to leave Arp soon,” he told her brashly.

She scowled prettily. “Oh? And where are you going?”

“On a secret mission for your uncle.” He smiled mysteriously. “It’s very important.”

She raised herself on one elbow to lean over him. “When will you be coming back?”

“That depends. Later I might go back to Earth. I’ll take you with me. We’ll live together in Olam…” He stopped, realizing that the boast was vain.

A bullet that carries on accelerating, he thought. He tried to imagine how it was given the necessary properties. Quicksilver for mobility, ether to provide constant impetus. An amalgam of quicksilver and ether was not the easiest thing to bring about.

He would ask the artifex Amschel about it, once he was inside the Aegis.