“Sandar went to hunt it,” her uncle said. “He has not returned.”
He hurried to the end of the aisle, returned with a portable tri-dee recorder in his hands. “Bring that—” He indicated another instrument, set to one side.
Roane scooped it up. But just as they reached the door there came the unmistakable sound of feet in the passage. More than one person walked there. It could not be Sandar.
Should they take cover behind the pillars? But her uncle did not move, seemed so sure of himself that Roane stayed where she was. Could it be Imfry—or the Princess and her captors?
Then the Colonel stood framed in the doorway where the panel had been, clearly lighted by a torch he carried. In his right hand was one of those awkwardly heavy projectile-firing weapons. Roane felt very naked as she waited for him to turn and look at her. But his attention never wavered from the way ahead. Behind him moved his men, seemingly alert for trouble, yet none of them glanced at the doorway or the room beyond it.
“Conditioned,” she heard her uncle mutter. “An excellent example of top conditioning—additional proof, if any were needed.”
They went on. What if they met Sandar up ahead? He would have his stunner. But the Princess and Reddick—what if they were already there? Her uncle was listening, and she ventured a question:
“What if they meet Sandar?”
He glared as if her whisper had been a shout, making no answer, a tactic which formerly would have silenced her. But Uncle Offlas was just a man, not some superpower. He might be able to force a dark future on her, but she could also fight back. And she was inwardly amazed at her own surge of confidence now.
Seemingly he was undecided. They could follow the Colonel’s party, use their own stunners to clear the way. Roane wondered why her uncle did not take that course. But he was prevented from doing whatever he might have done by a change in the chamber of the pillars.
A sharp crackling drew her attention back to the machines— to the column supporting the Ice Crown. There was a wild flurry of the lights on its front—while the glitter of the miniature crown flared into a flame she could not look at. There was another loud note and the pattern of small lights steadied.
Her uncle was staring at the display and now he aimed the tri-dee recorder at it. But even the flare of the crown had speedily subsided.
Roane knew what had happened as well as if she had viewed the act. The Ice Crown had been found. But had it been claimed by the Princess? Or had Sandar taken it—or Imfry?
More sounds, loud and echoing, but not from any one of the pillars—these came from the passage. She thought she heard a shout or two also. A fight between Reddick’s party and Imfry’s men?
“What—” She appealed to her uncle.
But he was totally absorbed in taking a recording of the pillar.
“Changes.” He was talking to himself. “At least five major pattern changes! A totally new course of events!”
A new pattern! The Princess, or Reddick? But Roane was not going to be involved again—she was not!
Telling herself that, Roane went to the door. As she stepped into the passage, she dropped the equipment her uncle had ordered her to take and began to run. One half of her mind, the sane half which was Roane Hume, was in open battle with that buried part which she thought she had had under control. She did not want to go, but that inner compulsion made her.
Roane reached the end of the passage. Now she smelled an acrid odor. With her stunner at the ready she squeezed through the rough passageway, listening for any sound. She heard a muffled clamor of voices and then saw the glow of torchlight. She crept to a point from which she could view the cave of the skeleton.
There was a raw hole where earth and rock had been dug away to make an opening to the outside. Some daylight showed there, but the torches were being used to light a second tear in the wall where the crushed skeleton had lain.
In that second opening stood Ludorica. She had her hands out before her, the fingers outspread to their furthest extent, as if she would protect with her flesh what she held. It was a copy of the Ice Crown on the pillar, save that it was of a size to fit a human head.
By the torchlight it blazed fire. And the expression on the Princess’s face as she gazed upon it, entranced, was one Roane had never seen before. Greed—no—but some emotion which was alien to the Ludorica she had known—an expression which repelled, not drew as the Princess had been able to draw her into an alliance even against her own desires.
It seemed that Ludorica was aware only of what she held, not of those around her. She was flanked by a. man in black who eyed her with almost as deep a fascination as she used for the Crown. On her other side was Reddick. He held one of those massive hand weapons and from its barrel still rose a thread of smoke fume.
Two of Imfry’s followers lay still against the wall near where Roane crouched. And the Colonel himself—Roane’s hand went to her mouth—his back was to the rock as if he needed support
One arm hung limp and there was a dark stain spreading on his shoulder. But he was being roughly bound by two of Reddick’s men, while two more stood with hand weapons trained on Imfry’s remaining men.
“The King is dead—long live the Queen,” Reddick intoned. Then he added, touching Ludorica’s arm, “My Queen, what would you have us do with these who came to seek the great treasure of Reveny?”
She did not raise her head or look away from what she held. When she answered her voice was thin and lacking in warmth, as if she spoke from a far distance of things which mattered little.
“Since I am Queen, as all can see, let them be served as traitors, for they reached for the Crown!”
Reddick smiled. But on the faces of the Colonel and of his remaining men there was shock, as if they could not believe what they had heard.
“The King being dead, our Queen has spoken,” Reddick said. There was a solemnity to his words, as if he were some official of a court of justice relaying a lawful verdict. “Let them be dealt with as traitors. My Queen”—he turned again to Ludorica—”this is no fit place for you. Let us ride to show your people that you are truly their crowned one.”
There was a hint of another emotion on Ludorica’s face as that mask which so repelled Roane changed a little. “Yes”—now her voice was more human, eager—”let me do so! This is the Ice Crown; I hold it, I wear it, for Reveny!”
Looking neither right nor left, and certainly not at the men she had so summarily condemned, she went to the newly cut opening, the man in black beside her putting out a steadying hand now and then. For she paid no attention to her footing, only to what she held. But Reddick lingered, watching his men bind the rest of Imfry’s force. When that was finished he spoke directly to the Colonel.
“The Crown has spoken, as it always does, my brave Colonel. I think that there is certainly a new day dawning for Reveny, but I do not believe it will be greatly to your taste. So perhaps it is best that you will leave us soon. Her Majesty will give the final word as to the hour and the manner of your going. But do not, I beg you, place any hope in old friendships. It is well known that the crowns always change those who wear them. It will be most interesting to see what changes will ensue once our liege lady is firmly on her throne.”
“Mind-globe cannot hold her forever.” Some of the stupefaction had gone from the Colonel now.
“Mind-globe? Ah, we might have used such a key to bring her here—since she alone could handle the Crown. But I assure you, my brave and interfering Colonel, what has passed since then is born of the Crown alone. To rule and reign is very different from living as an heiress to such glories. I think we shall find the Princess is no longer as you have always known her, but now a Queen! We must be riding. Bring these along—but intact,” he ordered his men. “It will doubtless please Her Majesty to make an excellent example of them.”
Roane had been so startled by the abrupt reversal of Ludorica’s attitude toward the Colonel that she had watched the scene without any thought of taking a hand in the action. But now, as Reddick’s men prepared to drag their prisoners away, she readied her stunner. She might not be any longer a part of Imfry’s efforts on behalf of one who had so strangely repudiated him, but neither could she see Reddick take him to his death.