Dion stared at the man.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Reluctantly Cato moved away from the door, though he did not lower his weapon. "If Your Majesty will permit me to enter first-"

"That will not be necessary, Captain. I will go alone, as the archbishop requested. Post the guard, as usual, then return to your duties."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Dion shifted his gaze to his secretary, who had been holding on to the king's arm.

D'argent flushed, removed his hand. "Sire, if you would allow me to accompany you-"

"Thank you, D'argent, but that will be all for this evening. You may return to your room."

The secretary had no choice but to bow and leave, first exchanging a worried glance with Cato, who had no choice but to bow and do as the king commanded.

Dion was alone. His face set rigid, limbs so cold he had lost all power of feeling, he placed his nerveless hand on the manual override, but at that moment the door slid open.

All other electronic systems in the room had gone dead. No lights shone, not even the emergency fights.

The robed and hooded man stood by the window. His back was turned; he did not look around. His tall figure was a black nothingness bounded by the cold white shimmer of the stars.

Dion shut his eyes, gathering his strength, his courage. Drawing in a deep breath, trying to ease the painful throbbing of his heart, he walked into the room.

The door shut and sealed behind him.

A single light flashed on overhead. The white beam, harsh and bright, illuminated the king. He was blinded, could no longer see the man by the window. But he heard the rustle of his robes, guessed that the man had turned, was studying him.

Dion stood unblinking in the harsh light, stood unmoving during the harsher surveillance.

Brother Penitent left the window, walked to the king. He blotted out the light. His shadow passed over Dion, like the wings of a dark angel.

He knelt, sank to one knee. "God keep Your Majesty," he said, his tone cool, impassive.

"Thank you ... Lord Sagan," Dion answered "Please rise, my lord."

"I am Brother Paenitens," Sagan corrected, humbly standing. He lifted his hands, removed the cowl from his head. "Derek Sagan is dead."

Dion stared, astounded at the change only a few years had wrought. The thick black hair was completely silver gray at the temples; the lines in the face were deeply, severely etched; the eyes bitter, shadowed.

"My appearance shocks you," said Sagan dryly. "I thought I looked rather well ... for a corpse."

Too late, Dion realized he'd allowed his feelings to show. He adjusted his face, carefully concealing the pity and compassion that would be met with scorn. He changed the subject; a king's prerogative.

"Yet I know Lord Sagan is alive and he is here, for only he would be familiar enough with his own shuttlecraft to disable the monitors and manipulate the electronics."

Sagan stood in the darkness, well out of the single shaft of white light, but Dion could still see, on the man's thin lips, the twisted smile.

"Cato is an excellent officer," commented the Warlord. "Intelligent, astute. He recognized me, although he doesn't realize it. His mind rebels against what his heart is trying to tell him. If I had remained longer under his surveillance, he would have figured out the truth."

"He would die before he betrayed your secret."

"I am aware of that, my liege," said Sagan quietly. "But Brother Paenitens entered this shuttlecraft and Brother Paenitens will leave it."

Dion caught himself about to sigh, checked it. The mark of the man's suffering was plain upon his face. Dion could not hope to understand it, could only pray to God that he would be spared such anguish. But wasn't repentance supposed to bring peace to a trouble soul? What terrible battle still raged in this one?

"As you wish, my lord. I may call you that? So long as you are here? It seems . .. more natural."

Sagan shrugged, did not reply. He had turned away and was once more staring out the window.

How many times have I seen him thus? Dion asked himself silently, his heart aching with memories, some of them disturbing and painful. But that was long ago, when he and I traveled among the stars. Here, the stars shine down upon us and we stand in darkness.

"It is good to see you again, my lord." Dion spoke awkwardly, uncertain how to proceed. "What have you been-"

"Pardon, my liege," said Sagan, turning around. "But His Holiness did not send me all this distance to make polite conversation."

"Very well, my lord," Dion replied coolly, "what news have you brought? It must be important for you to come yourself."

"My news is vital. You are in danger, my liege. The crown itself is in peril."

Dion shrugged, smiled. "Danger is part of a ruler's life, my lord, as you well know. I receive threats against my life daily. I've survived four assassination attempts. Nevertheless, I thank the archbishop for his concern. What is the source of this present danger, my lord?"

"You know the source," Sagan answered unexpectedly. Reaching out his right hand, he took hold of Dion's, held it- palm up-to the light. "You've seen him."

Dion's smile vanished, lips compressing to a thin line. He looked down at his hand, at the five marks on the inside of the palm that were swollen and red. Swiftly he snatched it from Sagan's grasp. The fingers curled in, hiding the scars.

"Who is he?" Dion asked in a low voice.

"Your cousin, my liege," said Sagan. "Your first cousin. The only son of your late uncle, the king."

"Son?" Dion stared, incredulous. "My uncle was never married. He died childless."

"He died unmarried. Not childless. He fathered a son."

"Are you saying ... Is my cousin the rightful heir to the throne?"

"No, Your Majesty," answered the Warlord grimly. "He has no legitimate claim to it. But I fear, sire, that this will not stop him...."

Chapter Twenty.

And like a devilish engine recoils Upon himself; horror and doubt distract His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir The Hell within him . . .

John Milton, Paradise Lost "And that is the story, my liege." Sagan concluded his report.

"My God!" Dion raised his head. He was pale, shaken. "Is this possible? Can this doctor be believed?"

"A deathbed confession, my liege?" Sagan asked wryly. "Made to the archbishop himself? Yes, I believe it. More importantly"-he raised his right hand, palm out-"I believe this."

Dion made no reply. Sickened in body and in soul, he tried to wade through the chaotic thoughts that swirled in his mind like oil on the surface of turgid water. He was nauseated; there was a foul taste in his mouth. He glanced up vaguely as Sagan rose to his feet, began to pace the room.

"How could no one have known?" Dion demanded. "You, my lord! Didn't you suspect?"

Sagan stopped pacing, regarded the king with amazement. "My liege, I was not even born yet when Princess Jezreel disappeared from the palace. I believe I heard mention of her, on occasion, but I honestly can't recall in what regard.

"Forgive me for saying this, Your Majesty," he added dryly, "but I despised the entire Starfire family. I cared little what happened in their personal lives."

Dion stirred in resentful anger. "My father-" he began.

"Your father was the best of a bad lot," Sagan interrupted im patiently, "who had sense enough to do one worthwhile thing in his entire life. He married your mother."

Dion considered it politic to revert back to the original subject, unpleasant though it might be.

"But how could such crimes be hidden? If as the doctor said, my .. . my"-Dion licked his dry lips-"aunt had committed murder-"

"Covering it up would not have been difficult," said Sagan. "You must understand something, my liege. Nothing could ever be permitted to taint the Blood Royal. How could the genetic scientists admit they'd made a mistake? What scandal, what panic would this have caused among the populace? How could they be told that there was a possibility such powerful beings as ourselves were subject to the weaknesses of ordinary mortals? What faults we had were held to be on the side of the angels, not demons.

"Of course the terrible incident had to be concealed. I am certain it was handled with aplomb, dispatch. The murdered victim's body disposed of quietly, quickly. Your aunt hustled off, with some excuse made for her disappearance-anything from a publicly announced decision to join a nunnery to the staging of her own funeral would have been easy for the king's handlers to manage. After that, they take care that the princess is rarely mentioned, her name not avoided, but never brought up. She fades from sight, fades from memory. From all memories except one."

Dion shuddered. He slumped in his chair. He was suffocating, unbuttoned the collar of the heavy jacket. Sweat trickled down his scalp; his body chilled.

Sagan stared out the window, out into the stars. "The one thing in all of this I don't understand, the one factor that does not compute, is Pantha."

Dion looked up. "Who is this Pantha? I mean, I know who he is or was, but why is he so important? He's been dead for years."

"Because-dead or not-he is the link between two seemingly disparate, unconnected occurrences: the birth of the king's illegitimate son twenty-eight years ago, and the rise of a force calling itself the Ghost Legion twenty-eight years later. What planet does this Legion give as its home base? Vallombrosa-Vale of Shades. And who discovered Vallombrosa? Garth Pantha."

"And he took the baby," said Dion, his interest caught.

"And that's what doesn't make sense. Consider this. Your Majesty." Sagan left the window, came to stand before the king. "Pantha was an intergalactic hero. From what I've read, he deserved his reputation. He was Blood Royal. He had fame, wealth. He was a skilled pilot, a brilliant scientist. He was a man of insatiable curiosity, who lived for exploration, discovery. He had no family, no settled home, but was constantly on the move, constantly seeking adventure."

"I see your point," murmured Dion. "Why would such a man saddle himself with a child?"

"And shortly afterward disappear."

"According to Dixter, Pantha was marooned in deep space. Evidence indicated he blew up his spaceplane rather than die a slow death-"

"Not Pantha." Sagan shook his head. "I remember that I was skeptical at the time. He was the type who would have fought to survive to the last breath. Such a 'death' would have been easy to fake. No body. Only remnants of his plane, drifting in space."

"Was his death investigated?"

"Of course, my liege. It created an enormous sensation, the mystery of the century. The evidence that he'd blown himself up was circumstantial, at best. One simple fact finally made everyone believe he truly was dead."

"And that was?"

Sagan shrugged. "No one ever saw or heard from him again."

Dion considered this, pondering.

"If he'd been a recluse during his life," Sagan continued, "if he had detested notoriety, avoided it, people would have accepted the notion that he staged his own death in order to disappear from view. But Pantha was a celebrity. He adored attention, courted it. He was a vid star. His name was a household word for billions throughout the galaxy. For such a man to vanish from the public eye, there could be only one explanation-he was dead."

"Either that," said Dion slowly, "or he had discovered something so valuable that it would make up for everything he would lose, something he had no intention of sharing with anyone else."

"A king's son," said Sagan quietly.

"An illegitimate king's son," Dion countered. "A product of an incestuous relationship that would never be countenanced by any society in the galaxy!"

"Yet the boy is a child of the Blood Royal. True, your cousin might be a feebleminded genetic mess. But he might also be a genetic wonder."

Dion stared down at his hand, at the swollen scars. He began to rub the palm.

"Burns, doesn't it, my liege?" said Sagan.

"Yes," Dion replied, frustrated. "It burns and aches. Every time I use the bloodsword the pain grows worse. And the dreams are more frequent. But how did you know?"

Sagan held out his arm, pulled back the long sleeve of his robe to reveal his own hand. He turned it palm up.

"You, too, then," Dion said. "But how? How is he doing this?"

"Through the bloodsword. As I once told you, those who use it can-if they are strong-gain ascendancy over the minds of others. Your cousin hasn't managed that. Yet he has touched us."

"The bloodsword? But how would he get hold of one?. . ." Dion paused, answered his own question. "Pantha's."

"Precisely. Perhaps the most valid evidence we have that Garth Pantha did not perish in space twenty-eight years ago."

"But you haven't used the bloodsword! Yours was destroyed, unless . .." Dion hesitated.

"Unless I have reverted back to my old ways? No, my liege." Sagan let the long, loose flowing sleeve fall, smoothed the coarse fabric over his arm, hiding his hand. "I took a vow, when I took my new name, that I would never in this life set my hand to a tool of death. It is a vow I have not broken, nor will I. But I used the bloodsword for many years. Our cousin-he is my relation, too, by the way, though distantly-would have little difficulty establishing an affinity with me, a crude sort of mind-link. After all, you knew I was not truly dead."

"But why is he doing this, my lord? What does he want?"

"Think back, Dion," said Sagan slowly. "Think back to a seventeen-year-old boy who stole a spaceplane and flew to meet a Warlord who had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds, including a man this boy loved. Do you remember that boy, Dion? When he came to me, he placed in jeopardy not only his own life, but those of his friends. Why did that boy risk it? Why did he come to me? Why seek me out?"

"I wanted to know the truth," said Dion defensively, feeling vaguely as if he'd been accused of a crime. "Who I was. What I was."

"Your only reason, my liege?"

Dion remained silent, not answering.

Sagan reached out, took hold of the king's hand. He touched the sore palm, probed the scars. The Warlord's touch was gen-de, yet Dion flinched.

"You were drawn to me like a comet is drawn to its sun. You didn't know why you came, what you sought . . . until you set foot on my ship. Then you felt it. Then you knew. You wanted what I had, Dion. That is why you came. And that is why your cousin has come."