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hung above, and along the walls were heroic life-size statuary of royal family members from ancient
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days, and the floors were polished inlaid rare woods. What happiness he had had here for a time, when
he had supposed himself a kind of king! He had thought he had the love of a beautiful Queen!
He paused, searching with narrowed gaze, holding the laser ready, willing himself to hate her as he had
hated her every day of his imprisonment. As he had hated her when she acceded to Flick's demand that
Kian try to be the Roundear of prophecy. As he had hated her when she forced him to train Kian. As he
had hated her when Kian fell.
His eyes rested momentarily on a doorway he didn't remember, and a shimmer there made him think
"ghost." Then she was there in all her beauty, undimmed by twenty years, hair undone, dressed in the
filmiest of nightgowns. She beckoned him, and his hate evaporated; it was impossible to oppose such a
creature! He knew that magic, another aspect of that sorcery he had tried not to believe in, kept her
eternally youthful in body, if not in mind. Suddenly it didn't seem to matter. Despite himself, he took a
step forward.
The floor vanished beneath his feet.
He landed in a painful heap, the laser still in his hand. Something struck his wrist, and his fingers
opened involuntarily. The laser clattered to the floor. Something struck him on the head, dizzying him.
"Go ahead, Peter, finish him!"
It was her voice. Hers! He blinked, seeing her now, trying to see the reality he knew was there.
She stood before a reflecting mirror that sent her image up to the mirror placed in the ballroom, and to
this cellar, too. She was no ghost! She remained hidden, physically, while her image supervised the
action here. The floor had not simply dematerialized; above him, in the ceiling, was the opened trapdoor.
It had been a simple trap. Mirror and trapdoor. Planned for him since he agreed to teach Kian? Or just
here, waiting for its time of need? Waiting for John Knight to come seeking her? Waiting for the laser in
his hand and his heart full of hate? The Queen was evil, but no fool. She had known he would one day
attempt to take her life.
As his sight cleared, he saw Peter Flick standing over him. The Queen's cruel consort had the sword
turned flat side toward him, ready for another swing. "Finish him, Peter! Use the edge!" Was that the
woman he had loved? No, it was just the illusion, the reality of her as deceptive as the mirror image.
Magic enhanced her, and always had. He had fought so hard against a belief in magic because he had
wanted the illusion to be real. He had tried, even after his first imprisonment, to believe that it was real.
That refusal to accept magic had even misled Kelvin, and now "I want him to suffer," Peter said.
"Fool!" she retorted. "That man is dangerous! Finish him!"
John Knight tried putting his hands out, to brace himself against the floor. The floor seemed to spin.
Then there was agony, as Peter Flick trod heavily on his right hand. He felt Flick's full weight. He heard
a snapping sound, and knew that his trigger finger had broken.
"He can live a long time yet," Flick said. "Just as long as I'm willing to let him. Let's keep him alive a
while and enjoy him, love."
"Peter," Zoanna said icily, "remember who you are! I am the one to say, and I say kill him."
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John Knight realized that because the Queen wasn't here physically, being present merely in mirror
image, she had to act through her consort, and Flick was taking advantage of the situation. Evidently the
man was too stupid to realize what that would cost him, the moment the Queen didn't need him
anymore. He saw Flick's evil grin, and then he saw him pick up the laser.
"No! No!" John said. He was trying to play for time; he wasn't really that weak.
"Yes, yes," Flick taunted. "Yes, I will fix you with this. That's more appropriate, don't you think? To be
slain by your own ofiworld weapon. Offworld magic, offworld science, as you call it it's all the same
to me."
"Peter, that's dangerous!" the Queen said. Peter Flick examined the weapon, turning it over and over in
his delicate fingers. His hands were more accustomed to the touch of fine linen and fragile art objects.
"You don't know how to use it!" the Queen said. "Remember what it did!"
"I'm remembering. I think I'll start with his legs." John watched his enemy turn the laser until it pointed
at his feet. He saw the grin he had come to know so well, and knew that Flick would take his time
squeezing the trigger. More time than he needed.
He watched the finger start to tighten. He took a deep breath and kicked out. His heavily booted foot
struck Peter's left kneecap.
Peter gasped and lost his balance. His arm came up. His finger tightened involuntarily. The ruby beam
cut halfway through the supporting column at John's back. A chunk the diameter of a dragon's neck
vanished. It left a hole between the column's base and the rest of it.
The column dropped, its end smoking. It twisted sideways and fell, breaking apart in segments.
But Flick was not paying attention. His finger still pressed the trigger, and the beam still shone. It raced
on, cutting a trench through the overhead floor. Flick's right arm went all the way back as he fell.
The ceiling gave way with a crack louder than a pistol shot. Bits of statuary rained down. The floor
sagged where a jagged, zigzag cut had been made. It shook, starting to collapse from the center.
It was coming down, John realized. The ballroom floor was crashing down on Peter Flick's head!
"The Queen was right," John said as he scrambled for the relative safety of an arch. "That thing is
dangerous."
Then, with a crunch like that of a gigantic dragon's jaws, the ballroom floor gave way completely and
crashed into the basement.
John Knight saw Peter Flick caught under the descending roof. The man had not had the wit to seek
immediate shelter. Dust rose in choking clouds so thick that John could not see, and his ears felt as
muffled as his eyes, and it was hard to breathe. He curled up, covering his ears as well as he could,
closing his eyes, and putting his mouth against his shirt to inhale.
Finally, as the noise ceased to reverberate and only a great ache remained, he crawled through the
settling dust to the region where Flick had disappeared. There was a large timber there now, with
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something sticky beneath it. The laser had stopped showing; evidently the weapon had been crushed, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]