The Rebel of Rhada Read Online Free Page A

frame in the center of the room.
    He turned an hourglass and mended a broken connection, chittering and mumbling to himself. When he had done, he shuffled to a control panel and closed a switch, and immediately some of the ancient machines began to hum and the air filled with an acrid smell of burning.
    The man-thing on the rack twitched and shuddered and then lay still, its flesh bubbling where the wires entered.
    The warlock dashed the hourglass against the wall in a fury. He trembled with demented anger, bobbing up and down, trying to remember, muttering old chants from the Book of Warls, the black bible of warlocks. But it was useless, useless. Why couldn’t he remember? How had he grown so old, so forgetful--?
    From the dark doorway came the sound of laughter, contemptuous and cold. “Another failure, Grandfather.”
    The old man returned to his desk and began rooting like an animal in the piled confusion of papers.
    “Back to the Warls, is it?” The speaker stepped into the light. He was a large man, immensely strong, proportioned with a powerful grace that no Sarissan could hope to match. He wore a dark cloak and cowl.
    The warlock frowned and said crossly, “Power is what I need. Power. I used it and it is gone! How did the ancients do it, how? Where did the new life in the batteries come from? Where did they find it?”
    “Try chanting, Grandfather,” the cloaked man said ironically, turning back his cowl.
    His face was inhumanly handsome, lofty, noble. Only the old warlock knew that it was the face of an actor of the Golden Age, a man four thousand years dead, and the warlock had forgotten.
    “I did it once,” the old man said with the stubborn anger of age.
    “A miracle,” the large man said with sarcastic piety. He made the sign of the Star mockingly. He unfastened his cloak and thrust it back to hang from his broad shoulders. The bright light glittered on the ornamented war harness of a star king. A great sword hung at his side, the pommel carved with the royal mark of Sarissa.
    “They could help me,” the warlock said querulously. “By the Star, they should help me--”
    “Don’t swear by the Star, Kelber,” the star king said with mock sadness. “You’ll be struck down.” His cold eyes surveyed the clutter of forbidden machines. On Sarissa the mere possession of such engines of sin could mean death at the hands of a terrified mob. Perhaps, he was thinking in his icy, methodical way, it would be simplest merely to call the patrolmen.
    The old man sat, confused in his mind. His folded hands trembled. He was trying to remember. It seemed to him that things had not always been this way. It seemed to him only a short time ago he had been a robust man, a seeker after the old knowledge, a strong man with a searching mind, impatient with the laws and the timid questings of the Navigators. But what had happened, he wondered. Where did it all go? How did I forget? How did I grow old?
    The star king stepped to the center of the room and looked down at the incomplete thing on the rack. He prodded it with a booted foot. The wires trembled. There was no sign of life. He turned to look speculatively at Kelber. “What were your plans for this, I wonder.”
    The warlock rubbed his bony hands across his face and frowned. “Plans? What plans? I don’t understand you.”
    “Three years ago you were told there was no need for this cyborg. Energy weapons are what’re wanted. But you wasted your time on this--thing.”
    The old man grew suddenly very angry. “You--you and this thing, as you call it, are the same, Tallan. You remember that.”
    The star king shook his head. “You are old, Grandfather. You grow senile. You imagine things. How could such a thing be?” The mouth smiled, but the eyes remained cold, watchful.
    The warlock shook his head and blinked his tired eyes. “Tallan. You remember. You must remember--”
    Again, that slow and contemptuous shake of the head. “You only imagine it happened