The Nonborn King Read Online Free PDF Page B

futile attacks on Elizabeth, they now combined to mind-blast Gomnol to death, knowing that the terrible Felice would be blamed. The girl was then divested of her golden lore and taken off by Culluket for interrogation. The other three saboteurs, badly wounded, were cast into the same prison as Stein and Sukey to await the end.
    Far to the north of Muriah, in the vicinity of the time-gale at Castle Gateway, Madame Guderian and Claude prepared to act. They had made message holders from amber, a material known to pass successfully through the reversed time-warp, and enclosed notes warning the twenty-second-century operators to halt all time travel because of the enslaving of humans by me Tanu. As the sun rose, the two old people, rendered invisible by Madame's metapsychic power, rushed toward the gate area.
    High in the sky, Aiken was searching for them. He did not want the time-gate closed, since this would deprive him of potential subjects once he became King- Before Aiken could spot his quarry he was seized by a miniature tornado and flung far away. He had been anticipated by Nodonn, who had plans of his own for the old couple.
    As Claude and Madame approached the gate, the image of Nodonn filled their minds. He was not there to stop them, but to explain why he was permitting them to succeed. Because of Tanu popular sentiment. Nodonn had not dared to close the time-gate himself; yet he knew that it posed a mortal threat to his race's survival. He now told Claude and Madame that they must do their work visibly, so that there would be no doubt where the responsibility for the gate's closure lay. Then he let them go.
    Hand in hand, the two old people stepped into the recycling time-warp and returned to the twenty-second century. Their bodies crumbled to dust, but the amber message holders survived. The time-gate was shut down forthwith.
    Now the time of the Grand Combat had almost arrived. The petty nobility of the Tanu showed a strange liking for Aiken Drum, and his kingly aspirations had become a very serious matter. Also, he now had the photonic Spear in working order. This sacred weapon had last been used officially in a duel of two great heroes back at the Ship's Grave, when Tanu and Firvuiag first arrived on Earth a thousand years earlier. The Tanu hero Bright Lugonn had wielded the Spear; the Firvuiag hero Sharn the Atrocious had used a similar laserlike weapon called the Sword. In later years, the Sword had been used as the Grand Combat trophy and currently it was in the care of Nodonn Battlemaster. Aiken's possession of the Spear gave a further air of legitimacy to his aspiration. According to Tanu chivalric usage. Aiken would be permitted to fight Nodonn, Spear to Sword, if he managed to attract a suitable number of adherents during the Grand Combat.
    A threat to Aiken now materialized from a strange source:
    his friend Stein- Suffering in prison with Sukey, who had miscarried of their son, Stein's mind was failing under the malignant influence of his gray lore. At the same time, the mental block installed by Gomnot began to weaken. It seemed that Stein would unwittingly betray Aiken's link with the saboteurs and his conspiracy with the late human Lord Coercer.
    Resisting the temptation to kill Stein and Sukey, Aiken begged Mayvar to get the pair out of Muriah, beyond the range of the Host's mental snooping. Mayvar agreed to this, then went to a meeting of the clandestine Tanu Peace Faction, which hoped that Aiken would succeed in his bid for the kingship and bring a new era of peace and civilization to the Many-Colored Land Besides Mayvar, the Peace Faction included the hybrid High Table members Bleyn, Alberonn, and Kattinel the Darkeyed (who announced that she was betrothed to none other than Sugoll, ruler of the Howlers), Dionket the Lord Healer, Creyn, and two banished Tanu stalwarts who might play special roles in the upcoming Grand Combat- One of these was Leyr, father of the hybrid Katlinel, who had been Lord