Free The Navigator of Rhada by Robert Cham Gilman Page A

Whatever he learned was under the seal of service. He was going to report it to us, and the hand of God has struck him down.”
    “Nonsense,” the Tactician snapped testily. “The hand of Tran struck him down because he suspected where a priest’s higher duty lies. With the Order.”
    “Nevertheless,” the Psychologist said, “his information failed to reach us. Logician--can you make an educated guess what it might have been?”
    “Partially, only that.”
    “Well, then?”
    “That Karston is on Earth--very probably at Saclara.”
    “A sorry awakening for him,” the Preacher said sadly. “To have bought disaster at the price of one’s own father.”
    “These Rim princes are a grasping lot,” the Tactician said. “No price is too great for them to pay for a little power.”
    The Psychologist smiled mirthlessly. “And are we so different, brother?”
    The Tactician retorted smartly, “We fight for the Order.”
    “Yes, well at the moment we don’t fight at all,” the Psychologist murmured. “Everything rides with a twenty- year-old boy. And we can only watch.”
    “I have them again,” the Technician said, working on his instruments.
    The Five gave their attention to the display consoles. The images were dark and indistinct, doll figures moving through a microcosmic storm of wind and rain.
    “By the Star!” the Technician breathed. “There is someone waiting for them on the beach.”
    “The Vulk?” demanded the Tactician.
    The Technician shook his cowled head. “No. It is Baltus, the star king’s warlock.”
    The Five bent to the consoles, watching and waiting.
     
    With the towering, dark bulk of Melissande behind them, Kynan and Janessa made their way down the twisting path to the sea. They had managed to move through the back passageways and corridors of the ancient stone keep without arousing pursuit--for Kynan remembered Melissande well. But there had been no possibility of taking Janessa from her tower apartments out of sight of the young warman put by her door to guard her; this man Kynan had simply overborne with both his priesthood and his position as a member of the royal house of Gonlan. But it was inevitable that the soldier would check with his captain when Janessa was not promptly returned, and when this happened, the troops would be turned out to search for her.
    The wind, racing across a thousand kilometers of open ocean from the ice barrier far to the north, was frigid with polar rain. The path, steeply descending the rocky cliffs, was dangerously slippery. Once Janessa stumbled, and he had to turn and hold her until she regained her balance. The warmth of her against him set his heart to racing. He could scarcely see her face in the stormy night, but he felt her wet hair blowing against his cheek. “All right?” he said.
    “Yes,” she breathed, “but hurry. They’ll be after us soon.”
    He turned and continued down the path. He could hear the sound of the surf now, very clearly. He hoped desperately that the mare Skua had found her way to this place. Without horses they would be hopelessly trapped against the sea. And what he could say by way of explanation to Crespus and LaRoss would save neither Janessa nor himself. With Kreon dead, his position among the nobility of Gonlan was anomalous. Only those who chose to honor the old star king’s blood-relatives need do so; no longer were free men bound to b e guided by the hand of a dead king.
    The path began to level now, and Kynan could feel the gritty depth of sand beneath his feet. But the wind was turbulent here, billowing against the base of the sheer cliffs, and it was necessary to shield one’s face against the stinging lash of the driven spray.
    Kynan heard, over the roar of the wind and sea, the cry of the mare Skua, and soon her sender bulk stood between him and the slashing spray. Janessa pressed close behind, and Kynan said in her ear, “I didn’t think the storm would be this bad. It may drive the sea against