Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [64]
"Where's that voice coming from?" O'Leary croaked.
"Voice of my conscience," Lod growled, then guffawed and drank.
"Some conscience; I can hear it all the way over here. Why don't you pay some attention to it? It's smarter than you are."
Lod lifted his lip in a snarl. "One day I kill conscience," he muttered as though to himself. "And day grows close." A shriek of insane laughter answered him. He drank again, spilling the ale down his chin, slammed the jack to the table and eyed O'Leary balefully.
"You babble of her Highness, Princess Adoranne, my bride-to-be," he growled. "He swore to me: wench would be my prize! And now my agents bring word that he spirit her away. Time grows close; his plots ripen—and now he needs me not, thinks he! He do away with girl, threat to his grip on throne, and cast me aside—me, to whom he swore his oath!"
"You mean . . . Adoranne really isn't here?" O'Leary stared with pain-blurred eyes at the horrendous face.
"Aye, he is sly one," the giant went on, slurring his words now. "With his promises and his gifts and his treachery. But the fool fail to remember that in my own land, I was king!" Lod banged the mug again, sloshing ale. "By force of my arm and guile of my nature, I made myself king! My father was mighty one, but I slew him! I!"
"He trusted you, unnatural son and brother!" the voice piped. "You cut him down while he slept."
"To victor belong spoils!" Lod boomed. He refilled his mug, drank, tore a great chunk off the roast bird while the thin voice screamed curses.
"But—" Lod pointed a finger at O'Leary, as the latter twitched away from the stab of a spike digging into his thigh. "Does traitor who plots in palace deal fairly with me? Does he fear powers that made me king? No! He thrust me aside, think to confine me here in this parched land while richness of cities and fields goes to him!"
"Why not?" O'Leary heard himself taunting. His mind was fogging now; only the recurrent prick of the dagger points kept him from fainting. "Nicodaeus knows it's safe to cheat you, because you're stupid."
"Stupid?" Lod laughed, a sound like a stone tower falling. "Yet he sent you, a weakling, here."
"How did this weakling pass the guardian?" the voice piped. "Ask him that, mighty imbecile!"
"Yes, now you will talk!" Lod leaned forward unsteadily. "Why did the gray magician send you? Why you? Who are you? What are you? How—"
O'Leary managed a creditable Bronx cheer.
Lod started to his feet, then sank back heavily. "I exercise myself needlessly," he muttered. "But a little time, and the cage will do its work."
"But a little time, and you will die," the disembodied voice screeched. "Then will the foul ghosts of the ancestors rend your stinking corpse, and that of my father will be foremost."
"Silence!" Lod bellowed. He poured and drank, slopping the ale. "If I die, who then feed you, evil leech?" The giant slumped back in his chair, watching O'Leary with red-rimmed eyes. "I tire of this sport," he rumbled. "Speak now, little man! What are secret schemes of Nicodaeus? What double-dealing lies behind his promises? Why did he send you? Why? Why? Why?"
"Don't you . . . wish you knew . . ." O'Leary managed. If the cage were made of something soft, like taffy . . . or if he had thought to provide a small gun . . . or if someone—anyone—would burst in now, open the cage . . .
It was no use. He was stuck here. His powers didn't work under stress like this. True, when he'd been drowning, he had managed to jump back to Artesia at the last instant. But at least he had been drowning in comfort, and perhaps he hadn't yet reached the last minute. If he ever got out of this, he'd have to set up some controlled experiments, determine the extent and nature of his abilities.
But this time he wouldn't escape. He'd die here; and Adoranne would never know he'd tried.
" . . . now, before it's too late," the tiny voice was chanting. "Let him go, foul parricide, turn back from disasters you know not of."
"Almost," Lod rumbled blurrily, "I think stubborn runtling has suborned you, so merrily you