Stretched taut, spread-eagle by wrists and ankles on the reeking, blood-fouled, green horror-stone, the Lady Rhoann lay; her yard-long, thick brown hair a wide-flung riot. Six priests had not immobilized Rhoann of Lomarr without a struggle. Her eyes went from shattered image to blood. covered armored giant and back to image; her face was a study of part-horrified, part-terrified, part-worshipful amazement.

  He slashed the ropes, extended his mailed right hand. "Art hurt, Lady Rhoann?"

  "No. Just stiff." Taking his hand, she sat up—a bit groggily—and flexed wrists and ankles experimentally; while, behind his visor, the man stared and stared.

  Tall—wide but trim—superbly made—a true scion of the old blood—Llosir's liver, what a woman! He had undressed her mentally more than once, but his visionings had fallen short, far short, of the entrancing, the magnificent truth. What a woman! A virgin? Huh! Technically so, perhaps ... more shame to those pusillanimous half-breed midgets of the court ... if he had been born noble ...

  She slid off the altar and stood up, her eyes still dark with fantastically mixed emotions. She threw both arms around his armored neck and snuggled close against his steel, heedless that breasts and flanks were being smeared anew with half-dried blood.

  He put an iron-clad arm around her, moved her arm enough to open his visor, saw sea-green eyes, only a few inches below his own, staring straight into his.

  The man's quick passion flamed again. Gods of the ancients, what a woman! There was a mate for a full-grown man!

  "Thank the gods!" The king dashed up, panting, but in surprisingly good shape for a man of forty-odd who had run so far in gold armor. "Thanks be to all the gods you were in time!"

  "Just barely, sire, but in time."

  "Name your reward" Lord Tedric. I will be glad to make you my son."

  "Not that, sire, ever. If there's anything in this world or the next I don't want to be, it's Lady Rohann's brother."

  "Make him Lord of the Marches, father," the girl said, sharply. "Knowst what the sages said."

  "'Twould be better," the monarch agreed. "Tedric of old Lomarr, I appoint you Lord of the Upper, the Middle, and the Lower Marches, the Highest of the High."

  Tedric went to his knees. "I thank you, sire. Have I your backing in wiping out what is left of Sarpedion's power?"

  "If you will support the Throne with the strength I so clearly see is to be yours, I will back you, with the full power of the Throne, in anything you wish to do."

  "Of course I will support you, sire, as long as I live and with all that in me lies. Since time was my blood has been vassal to yours, and ever will be. My brain, my liver, and my heart are yours."

  "I thank you, Lord Tedric. Proceed."

  Tedric snapped to his feet. His sword flashed high in air. His heavy voice rang out.

  "People of Lomarr, listen to a herald of the Throne! Sarpedion is dead; Llosir lives. Human sacrifice—yes, all sacrifice except the one I am about to perform, of Sarpedion himself to Llosir—is done. That is and will be the law. To that end there will be no more priests, but a priestess only. I speak as herald for the Throne of Lomarr!"

  He turned to the girl, still clinging to his side. "I had it fast in mind, Lady Rhoann, to make you priestess, but..."

  "Not I!" she interrupted, vigorously. "No priestess I, Lord Tedric!"

  "By Llosir's brain, girl, you're right—you've been wasted long enough!"

  In another time—track another Skandos and another Furmin, almost but not quite identical with those first so named" pored over a chronoviagram.

  "The key point in time is there," the Prime Physicist said, thoughtfully, placing the point of his pencil near one jagged peak of the trace. "The key figure is Lord Tedric of Lomarr, the discoverer of the carburization of steel. He could be manipulated very easily ... but, after all, the real catastrophe is about three hundred eighteen years away; there is nothing alarming about the shape of the curve; and any interference with the actual physical events of the past would almost certainly prove calamitous. Over the years I have found your judgment good. What is your thought on this matter, Furmin?"

  "I would say to wait, at least for a few weeks or months. Even though eight hundred twelve fails, number eight hundred fifty or number nine hundred may succeed. At very worst, we will be in the same position then as now to take the action which has for a hundred years been specifically forbidden by both Council and School."

  "So be it."

  The End

 

 

  Tedric (rtf), E E (Doc) Smith - [Lord Tedric 01]

 

 

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