"Flaim! Stop him! Stop him!" Pantha screamed from the prison entryway.

Flaim-seeing at last the Warlord's intention-flung himself at the dying man.

Too late.

Sagan's bloodstained hand grasped hold of the bomb, fumbled for the button, the fourth one from the beginning of row twenty-six.

The one marked with the symbol d.

Convulsively gasping, eyes closed against the burning pain or death, he pressed the button down.

Thin beams of light, like tiny threads of starfire, radiated outward. They extended from the starjewel, planted in the bomb's heart to the golden pyramid. When the light touched the pyramid, the bomb began to make a faint sound, as if humming to itself.

Flaim stared at it, his eyes wide in horror. "Stop it!" he breathed.

Sagan lay on the floor. "Five minutes," he said, and the words came out a whisper, stained with his life's blood.

"We must get out of here!" Pantha screeched. He caught hold of Flaim, fingers like talons. "The creatures! The creatures can save us. Quickly, my prince. We must reach the room! We must communicate with them."

Flaim flung the old man away from him.

"Why?" he demanded savagely, standing over Sagan. "Why? I was everything you wanted to be!"

"That is why," Sagan answered.

"Flaim!" Pantha begged.

The prince glared at Sagan in impotent outrage; then, turning, he ran from the star-shaped prison. Pantha dashed after him.

Maigrey watched them leave, then shut the door.

Kneeling on the floor beside the Warlord, she drew off her blue cloak, folded it, gently placed the bundle beneath his head. He groaned in agony when she lifted him. She took hold of his right hand, brought it to her lips, clasped her own right hand tightly around it.

He looked up at her.

"You're not crying, are you?" he asked, with a faint touch of irritation.

"No, my lord," she said softly. "I'm not crying. I can't."

The beams of light in the bomb grew stronger, brighter. The humming grew louder, was harsh and discordant.

Sagan looked at it and his face blenched. He couldn't help but think of the end, the blast, the one unspeakable, horrifying moment of unendurable agony before the blessed solace of death.

Maigrey saw his glance. She leaned forward; her pale hair fell around him like a curtain, hiding death from sight.

The floor and walls began to shake, shuddering as if in terror. A crash and a rumble came from somewhere in the alcazar. Rock dust drifted down over them. And out of the night-a hideous shriek of rage, a despairing wail of terror.

"The creatures have answered Flaim's plea." Maigrey said.

He tried to speak, but blood flowed from his mouth. He choked, fell back, shuddering.

"Hold fast to me, my lord," she said. "I'm here."

He gripped her hand hard. The spasm passed. Everything else seemed to be fading from his sight, was drowning in darkness. Everything except her. She shone more clearly, became more real to him each passing moment.

"What did you give up to come to me, my lady?" he asked her. Their minds spoke. His voice was silenced forever.

"Nothing that matters, my lord," she answered.

Lifting his left hand with a great effort, he smoothed back the pale cloud of hair, touched her cheek, ran his fingers along the scar. He left a crimson mark, his own blood.

"Your soul. You are damned, my lady, as I am damned."

"My soul was never mine to lose, my lord. It was yours. Always yours."

He smiled, a true smile. And then he stiffened. A stifled cry of wrenching agony escaped his lips. The pain was unendurable.

"Not long now," Maigrey said softly.

The starfire light inside the crystal case shone brightly, pulsed stronger than his own torn and wounded heart.

"Don't leave me," he breathed.

"I won't," she promised.

She bent over him, put her arms around him. She lay her head on his breast.

"Ever."

The center cannot hold.

Chapter Eleven.

king: I tell thee truly, herald,I know not if the day be ours . . .

herald: The day is yours.

William Shakespeare, King Henry V, Act IV, Scene vii The Scimitar shot through the Lanes. The silence on board the spaceplane was one with the silence of the eternal night around it. The only words spoken were terse conversations between Tusk and the computer, figuring the fastest way possible to get the plane off Vallombrosa and into hyperspace.

Dion had carried Kamil from the alcazar. He made her comfortable on the bed, as comfortable as possible; she was wandering, now, in her mind. He sat beside her in a chair. So many miracles were needed now; what gave him the right to ask for this, in particular? His thoughts went back to the golden-tinged day he'd met her. He'd been so lonely then. Searching desperately for someone to love, for someone to love him. He had found her. She had found him.

His shieldmaid. As in the dream, she had fallen, protecting him. As in the dream, he would pick up his weapon and go forward, leaving her behind.

He held her hand and her wild ravings ceased. But she sank into a frightening sleep, which seemed far too deep. Try as he might, he could not rouse her.

He was aware of Tusk, standing at his shoulder.

"We're ready to make the Jump. Is she ... is she any better?"

Dion shook his head.

Tusk, who could see things for himself, laid his hand in silent sympathy on his friend's shoulder, then returned hastily back to the cockpit.

Dion listlessly strapped himself in, made Kamil secure. He had long ago learned to cope with the effects of leaping into hyperspace. Leaning back in his chair, he forced himself to relax, closed his eyes.

They were fighting together, side by side. The battle raged around them. Friends and comrades fell, struck down, dead, dying. And then there came a lull. The horrific noise of slaugh-ter ceased. The enemy was gone. The two of them stood alone on the field, resting, waiting for the next onslaught. They could hear the din of terrible trumpets. It was coming. He drew his bloodied sword, advanced to meet it. He turned to smile one last time at his shieldmaid.

But she had laid down the shield, laid it at his feet. Reaching out her hand, she took the sword from him, to wield it for herself.

"The shield is yours, sire, to defend and protect. It is my place to continue the fight. Good-bye, Dion. ..."

"Dion . . ."

He jolted awake. Kamil lay propped up on one elbow, her hand on his arm, shaking him. Her face was bruised and covered with blood, but her eyes were clear and focused and alert and puzzled.

"You're all right!" he breathed.

"I'm fine," she said, "except for a splitting headache. And, oh, Dion, I had the strangest dream ..."

The Scimitar was in the Lanes, putting light-years between them and the Vale of Ghosts. They were safe. Unless the universe ripped apart-always a possibility, however remote, with the space-rotation bomb.

The three of them could do nothing now but wait. Kamil ignored pleadings to stay in bed. A shot from Tusk's medkit eased the pain in her head. She came forward, to be with Dion and Tusk. They huddled together in the small cramped cockpit, waited in silence. To try to put into words what they had seen, what they had been through, what they laced would have demeaned it, diminished it. And so they spoke of it in silence, heart to heart, and found far greater comfort.

It was Tusk, sitting in the pilot's chair, who first broke the silence, broke it softly, reluctantly. "We're coming up on the point you wanted to leave the Lanes, kid. Do you- Shall I . .. take us out?"

"Yes," said Dion.

"Get hold of Dixter; fast," Tusk told XJ.

XJ obeyed without adding its normal sarcastic comment. Either the computer was impressed with the awful solemnity and tension of the situation or else the threat Tusk had muttered under his breath when they first came aboard had been dreadful enough to at last muzzle XJ-27.

"Sir John Dixter, Your Majesty," announced the computer in a tone that could almost have been called respectful.

"Dion! Son!" Dixter appeared to be struggling against a need to reach out and embrace the vidscreen, a need to reassure himself that Dion was real. "I heard what happened! Are you all right? And Tusk and-"

"We're fine, for the moment. All fine. How did you know-*"

"Her Majesty." Dixter's expression was grim. "She's been in contact with us. Yes, she's safe. Sagan spoke to her on board the ship, told her what he planned. He also gave her the names of some people she might be able to count on-friends of ours, Tusk, from the old days. Gorbag the Jarun, some of the other mercenary pilots.

"They'd all grown disenchanted with the prince, especially when they heard that the dark-matter creatures were running amuck. The queen was able to persuade them to help her seize control of the ship. They did so, without bloodshed. She's a remarkable woman, Dion," Dixter said with enthusiasm, speaking before he thought.

He looked uncomfortable immediately after.

"Yes, sir," said Dion, smiling, "she is."

Kamil stood up suddenly from the co-pilot's chair where Dion had ordered her to sit. "You belong there," she told him. "Tusk .. . might need your help."

"Kamil ..."

"No, it's all right. Really." She smiled at him.

"Kid?" Tusk twisted around.

"Yes, I'm here," said Dion briskly.

He took the co-pilot's seat, continued talking to Dixter. "You know, then, sir, what Sagan planned to do. How he switched bombs. He was going to detonate the space-rotation bomb harmlessly, far, far out in some remote part of the galaxy. But ... it didn't quite work out."

Dion cleared his throat, his voice choked by the ache of fear and dread inside him. "Flaim discovered the plan at the last minute, went to Vallombrosa to try to stop Sagan. We escaped. My lord . . . did not."

"Yes, son," said John Dixter. "I know. You see . . ." He hesitated, rubbed his jaw.

"Tell me," Dion commanded. "What happened?"

"Vallombrosa's not there anymore, son. The planet's gone-as though it had never been. Nothing left of it, that we can detect. Of course, we can only scan it from a distance. We don't dare send in recon planes. Not yet. Sagan was correct in his postulation that the dark matter would contain the blast. He theorized that the dark matter would act like a shield, prevent the chain reaction from continuing throughout the galaxy. Destruction was confined to a relatively limited area."

"To Vallombrosa."

"I'm sorry, son," Dixter said. "There's a possibility, of course, that Sagan could have escaped. . . ."

Dion stood up.

Tusk glanced at him, shook his head, looked away.

Kamil reached out a hand to him. Dion didn't see it. He walked blindly to the ladder, climbed it-apparently by feel alone-disappeared up into what had once been the gunner's bubble, was now the observation dome.

Dion sat in the bubble, staring out into space, its dark deadly blackness sparkling with myriad roaring furnaces of suns. Immense fires that give birth to life, sustained life, destroyed life. Viewed from this distance, the suns were nothing but tiny white sparks in the vastness of the universe.

In the vastness of the mind of God.

Vallombrosa. Valley of Ghosts. Gone as if it had never been. His cousin. Gone, too.

Dion looked at his right palm. The five wounds were no longer swollen, had ceased to pain him. Soon they would fade to nothing but five white scars on his hand, for he would never use the bloodsword again.

Derek Sagan.

Dion stared into the darkness and its coldly burning stars and thought of the man whose darkness had cast a shadow over the king's own life, a shadow that had forced Dion to close his eyes, look inward, see his own darkness. Only then had he been able to open his eyes, see beyond the darkness, to the light.

Well done, boy.

He heard the words echo in his mind, heard them again, as he had heard them clearly that day of the duel. It was then that he had known for certain that Sagan had not betrayed his oath, that he was his king's Guardian, as he had sworn so long ago. It was this faith Flaim had seen inside Dion, though his cousin had not been able to recognize it. It was this faith that had, Dion supposed, cost Sagan his life.