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A.R.Yngve DARC AGES Book Three _________________________ |
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Blood on the castle floor |
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Chapter 31
At the very same moment as Dohan was scolding his flippant friend, a nervous nobleman left his quarters in Lord Pasko's court and sought out Lady Tresa for a late-night audience. He had announced his visit earlier, with a note delivered in confidence; it told her of a secret admirer with important news. Her vanity thus stimulated, she let him inside her wing of the castle. In the light of her nighttime candle-lamps, she saw a familiar lower nobleman, an undistinguished knight of a local clan in the service of the ruling family. Through marriage, he was distantly related to the Paskos; Tresa could no longer remember the details. "So," she smiled at him, "is it love that brings you here?" A little affair was not at all an unpleasant offer to her; her husband had long since failed to satisfy her. The man leaned closer to her, and whispered: "My fear is almost as great as the passion that drove me to your sweet bosom. Where is the good city lord?" The city lord's wife made a harsh laugh and said: "Have no fear -- he's good asleep in his room next door, as usual. I could hit him over the head, and he would not move an inch." The nobleman blinked nervously at her, grasping her outstretched hand, kissed it fervently but quickly, and asked: "Do you have entrance to his room?" "Why, certainly I have a key to my own husband's bedroom. Why do you ask?" From the inside of his mantel, his arm shot out, holding a dagger. He stabbed her in the chest. With a look of quiet, intense surprise on her pale face, Tresa Pasko sank down onto the floor and died; as she sank into her wide green dress it seemed to envelop her, like some giant fly-trap plant. The trembling nobleman frantically searched her pockets and found the keys. He quickly unlocked the door to the adjacent bedroom; he could hear a muffled snoring inside. Having sneaked up to the sleeping Lord Pasko, he felt across the bed for his face. His hand clasped the lord's mouth shut. Raising his dagger, the man whispered: "Tyrant!" He stabbed his victim several times; Lord Pasko twitched in his bed, and lay still. The blood-drenched nobleman hurriedly returned to Tresa's chamber, and out into the corridor. He had a small chance of sneaking past the guards and out through a nearby high window, where a climbing rope was waiting to take him down. The assassin froze in surprise, when he found what was waiting for him at the escape window. Not a human guard, and not a robot servant -- the Pasko family normally abhorred those. A huge black, bulbous, long-legged robot, as quiet and patient as a spider awaiting its prey, stood in his path. Its multiple green sensor-eyes flickered, registering the human presence. Frozen in fear for a moment, the nobleman stood there -- five meters from the gleaming metal creature. Then he turned and fled. A short burst of laser-pulses smattered from the spider robot, and hit the fleeing assassin in the back. He screamed, collapsed, and his mantel caught fire. A moment later, a passing guard came running to the place and smothered the smoking mantel-cloth. The robot stepped forth and placed its forelegs across the corpse, as if to claim it. The guard backed away. Upset voices cried from the city lord's quarters: "Murder! Murder!" Tharlos was dozing off in his own bedroom when, a minute later, he was informed that his parents had been slain. It surprised him how little he actually felt then. Nevertheless he managed to show a face of concern, and went to see the murder scene with his own eyes. It turned out to look just the way he had planned it -- Migam and Tresa firmly dead, and the assassin himself assassinated by a trusty spider robot, just as it had been told. Tharlos dismissed the robot to its storage room, and took to examine the pockets of the dead assassin. He found a note, given to the assassin by Craz and Stierne, which "proved" that he was hired by Darc. Tharlos held up the falsified evidence to the crowd of onlookers. "See!" he shouted hoarsely. "Proof that Darc was behind it! He ordered the murder of my father and mother! I swear to you all, that Darc of Damon City shall die by my hand! Prepare the airforce for immediate flight! Alert all forces!" A guard in the crowd was the first one to confirm the new order: "Yes, Lord Pasko!" Tharlos was now, without ceremony or official verdict, the undisputed ruler. With all the commotion and panic stirred up by his own scheme, Tharlos failed to notice the red signal lamps blinking in the rooms of the former city lord and himself. The signal indicated that an urgent laser message was coming in to the receiving disk in the communications room. |
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Not until next morning, the new lord of Pasko City took the read the recent laser message. His drowsiness all but vanished when he transcribed and read the first part:
From: Lord Ahmes Seguda, Seguda City of Kibralta To: Sir Tharlos Pasko, Deputy Commander, Pasko City, Madrivalo, Castilia One of our scout ships has just approached Kap Verita and returned. It reported a massive volcanic eruption in the northern part of the archipelago. Heavy storms make seaborne transport from Kibralta impossible. The sea attack must be postponed... Tharlos stopped transcribing the punch-card tape. He tore it to shreds, his gaunt face contorted by fury. "Worthless cowards!" he hissed, his eyes wide with insane rage. "They betray me at the first opportunity!" His grand plan was in peril, and he blamed Lord Seguda. Then Tharlos, abruptly, changed his mind. He was going to make it without the help of Kibralta, he decided. His airborne allies in Castilia would do -- they, and his faithful new robot army. Tharlos knew well that volcanic eruptions were bad omens, believed to be manifestations of an angry Goddess. This only increased his defiance. "Koban-Jem spits upon your puny wrath," he muttered. Tharlos seemed to have already forgotten that only moments ago, his faith in Koban-Jem was badly weakened. Now his lunacy sprang into full bloom, and his personality changed effortlessly. He was briefly seized by the delusion that he was one of his black robots: hard, infallible, unfeeling. Fantasies of grandeur and bloody triumph swirled through his brain. He whispered to himself -- because he thought a spy might overhear him: "If there is no Koban-Jem to guide me... well, then I shall simply have to become Koban-Jem... I shall become death itself. No one can stop me now. No... one... can st..." Tharlos slumped down and fell asleep. |
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