King's Sacrifice (77 page)

"He's . . .
dead?" Dion faltered.

"I have
said all that I can say, Your Majesty."

Dion, thinking
he understood, nodded.

They were gone.
All of them. The secretary had been sent on a manufactured errand.
Dion was alone.

Soon they would
come with the royal robes, recovered from a museum. Soon they would
come with the diadem and scepter, removed from the dwelling place of
the late Snaga Ohme and returned, with the crown jewels, to the
palace. Soon they would come with the crown, a blood red ruby placed
in the center, placed in the hole left by the laser that had pierced
it the night of the Revolution.

Dion reached
beneath the collar of his royal uniform, took out the eight-pointed
star earring Tusk had given to him. Clasping it fast in his hand, he
looked around the room.

They were all
here: his uncle, strong in his faith if nothing else; his mother,
beautiful, laughing; his father, proud of his son; Platus, gentle,
loving; Maigrey, her silver armor shining in the moonlight. They were
with him. After all, he wasn't alone.

"Make me
worthy," he said to them.

A tap came at
the door. The ghosts departed. But, like Tusk, they would come back
if he needed them.

"Enter."

The captain of
the Palace Guard stood in the doorway.

"Is it
time, Cato?" asked Dion.

"It is
time, Your Majesty."

The Palace
Guard, armor polished and gleaming, formed two lines, one on either
side of the doorway.

Dion tucked the
small earring in his pocket. Drawing a deep breath, he walked out,
took the first step to his throne.

The Palace Guard
came to attention, saluted, fists over their hearts.

"God save
His Majesty!" the men shouted in one voice.

And Dion echoed
them in his heart.

God save the
king.

The brethren of
the Abbey of St. Francis gathered together in the courtyard, crowding
around an enormous vidscreen that several brothers with mechanical
and electrical skills had spent most of the two previous days
installing. The brethren, habitual silence broken, chatted and talked
among themselves, excited not only over the prospect of witnessing
the coronation and wedding ceremony of a new king, but also (and
perhaps more) over the unusual circumstance of the outside modem
world invading their peaceful monastic life.

Prior John, in
charge now that Abbot Fideles was away, fussed over the machine,
about which he knew absolutely nothing, got in the way of the
electrical-minded brothers (who prayed for patience beneath their
breaths), and nearly ruined everything by pushing the wrong button at
the wrong time, resulting in an alarming explosion and a shower of
sparks.

Finally,
however, the generator started with a roar and a strong smell of
gasoline. The vidscreen came to life. The coronation ceremony began.
The choir sang, lifting their voices in praise. Their abbot took his
place before the altar in the cathedral. He called on God to anoint
and bless His Majesty. The youthful king, dressed in royal robes,
with scepter and diadem, came walking down the aisle. He was pale,
solemn, touched by a radiance that made the bright, glaring lights
shining down on him dim in comparison.

Their attention
given to the vidscreen, their prayers going to the Creator, few of
the priests noticed the hooded and robed brother coming late to join
them, near the ceremony's end. Those who did notice paid him scant
attention, not even a smile of greeting or brotherly nod, for they
knew that neither would be returned.

The man was a
lay brother, one who had taken the habit and vows of a priest of the
Order of Adamant, but, either through his own choosing or by the
judgment of his superiors, would never be ordained.

The lay brothers
performed most of the heavy, manual labor about the Abbey and it was
obvious from the condition of this man's robes, which were covered
with dirt at the knees, the sleeves splattered with mud, that it was
his duties—perhaps in the garden—that had kept him from
seeing the beginning of the coronation.

It was not
surprising to the brethren to find this man at his labors upon this
day, which had been declared a holiday in the Abbey. He was always
working at some task or other, generally the most menial or those
that required exhausting, backbreaking toil. If a brother was taken
sick in the night, this man's strong arms lifted him. If a windstorm
damaged the roof, this man made the perilous climb to repair it.

He was the
tallest among them, but thin and gaunt, his body wasted from fasting.
Still, for a man in his middle years, his strength was remarkable. He
rarely spoke to anyone and few spoke to him; he was not well liked. A
darkness shrouded him, literally and physically, for he never removed
the cowl that covered his head, never showed his face to the light.
Those who—by chance or by the curiosity that is the besetting
sin of even the most devout—had seen his face wished always
afterward they hadn't. The shadow of the hood that covered it was
bright light compared to the shadow in the eyes.

He kept himself
apart from the community. He did not even join his brethren in their
prayers, but prayed alone, in his cell, refusing to enter the
cathedral, as if he deemed himself unworthy of being there.

No one knew his
real name or anything about his past. That was not unusual. When one
entered God's service, one severed all ties with the world outside.
He had taken for his monastic name
Paenitens
—the
Penitent One. But because of his refusal to enter into the presence
of God, he became known unofficially among them as The Unforgiven.

Abbot Fideles
alone was the only person who ever noticed the man or went out of his
way to speak to him; the man having been taken into the monastery by
the abbot's recommendation and under his auspices. The abbot's
greetings were never returned, but the man would, at least, bow his
head in acknowledgment.

Brother
Paenitens stood unmoving, presumably watching the ceremony, though no
one could see his eyes. The young king was kneeling, humbly,
reverently before Abbot Fideles.

Holding aloft
the crown, the priest was calling upon the Creator to expurgate the
blood that had stained it, forgive the sins of those who had defiled
it, accept the sacrifices of those who had fought to restore it to
its shining glory.

The brothers
forgot their excitement. The Presence filled the monastery, was all
around them. They fell to their knees, bowed their heads, whispered
words of fervent prayer for the young king, for his subjects.

A few of them
cast resentful glances at the lay brother, standing on the fringes of
the crowd, for he cast a pall over their joy and they wished he would
leave.

Abbot Fideles
placed the crown upon the young king's head. The king rose, faced his
people. Bells pealed in the royal city, bells would ring out at this
moment all over the galaxy. The cathedral's own bells began to chime.
The brethren smiled and nodded and spoke quietly of their pleasure,
except for one young novitiate, who was so carried away that he
actually burst out with a loud cheer. The offender was immediately
collared by Prior John, told to repeat his prayers twenty times over
until he could behave in a more seemly manner.

The vidscreen
was immediately shut off. The brothers, singing, began to file away
toward the cathedral, where a
Te Deum
would be chanted.

"
Te Deum
laudamus, Te Dominum confitemur.

"We praise
thee, God; we own thee Lord."

The lay brother,
forgotten in the general happiness and joy, did not join them, but
walked the opposite direction, toward his own solitary cell. But one
of the young novitiates (the same who had so disgraced himself)
boldly peered beneath the man's hood, sought to penetrate the shadow.

This brother
whispered, next day, among his fellows, that he had seen upon the
man's lips a sad, dark smile.

Someone once
asked a famous author (I forget who) how long he had been working on
a particular book.

"All my
life" was his answer.

I feel that,
in many ways, I've been working on this series of books all my life.

One of my
earliest childhood memories was of a television program popular in
the fifties—Tom Corbet and his Space Cadets. The cadets became
good friends of mine. They lived in the bathtub (we had a small
house) and were faithful companions.

The romance
and excitement of adventure in outer space caught hold of me at that
early age and increased, as I grew up. The bathtub was too small to
hold all the real life astronauts and fictional space-voyagers who
filled my dreams. I looked for them in books, for I am an avid
reader, but I failed to find anything in science fiction literature
at that time that took my fantasies and brought them to life.

I was
complaining about this lack to my agent, Ray Puechner. He said
(probably to shut me up): "Why don't you write the kind of book
you want to read?"

And, I did.

That was over
ten years ago. I completed the first two manuscripts in about two
years' time. I must admit, they were terrible. A friend of mine, who
has a copy of the original, is hanging on to it, threatening to
blackmail me if he ever gets hard up. The books made the rounds of
publishers and were deservedly rejected (although I did receive
several letters of encouragement. One, especially, from Susan
Allison, meant a great deal to me.)

The books
were raw, too emotional. But then so was I. And the books served a
purpose. They carried me through some hard times. One good thing
about being a writer, you can always leave this world and find solace
in another.

The next
year, I met Tracy Hickman and he introduced me to Raistlin and Simkin
and Mathew and a host of other wonderful characters. I enjoyed
writing those books, I learned a lot about my craft. But I never
forgot Maigrey and Dion and I kept thinking about them, dreaming of
them, making mental refinements to their story.

Pulling the
manuscripts out, one day, I reread them, blushed to see how dreadful
they were, and began to rewrite. Friends offered help and
suggestions, became part of the book. Raoul and the Little One came
into being. Tracy suggested the "evil democracy" Gary Pack
gleefully developed weapons of mass destruction. Jim Ward told me
Cary Grant was not Darth Vader (Believe me, it made sense at the
time.)

And all the
while, Ray had faith in Star and in me. He'd tell me, when I was
discouraged, that one day I would be able to share my dreams of the
romance of space travel with other people, share them with you. Then,
in the mid-eighties, Ray was diagnosed with cancer. About that time,
I offered the Star of the Guardians to Bantam. I wanted to have the
series published for Ray's sake, almost as much as my own.

Ray was too
ill to handle the negotiations, but he was pleased when I sold the
series, said he'd known I'd make it all along. Sadly, he didn't live
to see the first book published, but the last promise I made to him
was to dedicate Star to his memory.

This is for
you, Ray. For friendship—the shining star that lights death's
darkness.

Born in
Independence, Missouri,
Margaret Weis
graduated
from the University of Missouri and worked as a book editor before
teaming up with Tracy Hickman to develop the
Dragonlance
novels. Margaret lives in a renovated barn in Wisconsin with her
teenage daughter, Elizabeth Baldwin, and two dogs and one cat, where
she is working on a new
Star of the Guardians
novel. She
enjoys reading (especially Charles Dickens), opera, and
aqua-aerobics.