The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [39]
Riddick was moved to repeat himself. “If you say so.”
The Lord Marshal almost smiled. With a nod, he indicated the bloody blade gripped with apparent (and only apparent) indifference in the man’s hand. “So you like that blade?”
Riddick considered the weapon, testing it with a few speculative flips and whirls. They might have been performed by a magician, for all that those nearby were able to follow the movements. Vaako was grudgingly impressed. The Lord Marshal watched with silent appreciation.
“Half-gram heavy on the back end.” Flipping it around, he considered it thoughtfully. “Not so good for throwing. Good metal, though. Unusual alloy. Never seen the like.” He indicated the body of the dead Irgun. “Obviously no problem penetrating bone.”
“In an age of high-speed compacted explosives, energy weapons, and internal guidance systems there is something comforting about a killing device as ancient yet reliable as a knife.” The Lord Marshal reluctantly watched the holder pocket the blade with one hand. “Yours, not mine. In our faith, we have a saying. ‘You keep what you kill.’” He leaned forward, squinting intently, studying the impassive face of the man standing before him. “Are you familiar to me? Did we meet before, on some distant field?”
Riddick met the other man’s gaze. And it was just a man’s gaze, he had already decided—holy Half Dead or not.
“You’d think I’d remember.”
The Lord Marshal nodded slowly. “You’d think I would, too. There’s an inkling there I can’t shake, but one I can’t place, either. I don’t like ambivalence. There’s no room for that in one who seeks the Threshold. I think perhaps further investigation is in order. Nor, in such matters and despite my position, am I so vain as to eschew assistance.” He looked to Vaako. “Bring him before the Quasi-Deads.” The interview over, he turned and stalked away.
Functioning as one, Vaako and the elite soldiers nearby coalesced to form a tight, threatening ring around Riddick. Had he been a cat, his hair would have bristled. As it was, the only visible sign of any reaction was a slight tightening of his fingers around the haft of the knife. A couple of the soldiers pushed toward him. At a glance from their intended prisoner, they promptly stepped back. Uncertainty hung over the incipient confrontation like one of the rotating gravity orbs that had remorselessly flattened sections of the city.
A slim figure pushed through the ring. She was unarmored, at least in the conventional sense, and carried no weapons—at least in the conventional sense. That did not make Dame Vaako any less dangerous than the soldiers who flanked her. On the contrary. She stared with unabashed interest at the axle around which the soldiers wheeled.
“Perhaps the breeder would do it if someone just asked him, instead of threatening him with dozens of weapons.” She advanced. Riddick’s goggles lowered as he studied the new arrival with interest. His grip on the knife did not slacken.
“It’s a rare offer,” she continued. “For a nonbeliever to pay a visit inside Necropolis.” Full of inscrutable promise, one finger rose to her lips and hovered. “Would you like to see me there?”
On his way back to the Basilica, the Lord Marshal now paused in the great portico. He frowned slightly. This was not a matter for Dame Vaako, and he disliked seeing her inserting herself in the middle of it. But being pragmatic, his primary interest was in results. He did not interfere.
Within the circle of soldiers, Vaako found himself liking even less the turn the confrontation with the insolent one had taken. Without an interjection from the Lord Marshal, however, he was obliged to let the scene play itself out.
Riddick was doing some investigating of his own. As he let himself be led onward, he inhaled deeply of the scent of one member of the party whose presence he was currently sharing. Anyone present would have had little doubt about whom he was referring to when he finally commented.
“Long time since I smelled beautiful.”
VII
As a congealed celebration of death made of metal