'Yes,” said Banning, “I will go home.'
He strode in through the ruined gate, with Sohmsei on his right hand and the others clustering round in a piping, scuttling, adoring crowd. He could feel the adoration like an almost tangible wave, and he thought that the ancient Valkars had done well in picking their bodyguards. These could be trusted.
How much and how far, he was to find out later.
The city was enormous, a Babylon of the stars, and when it was in its glory it must have blazed splendidly with light and color, and roared with sound, and glittered with wealth of countless worlds. Banning could picture the embassies coming down that ruined road, princes from Spica and kings from Betelgeuse and half-barbaric chieftains from the wild suns of Hercules, to bend their knees in the King City of the Valkars. And now there was only silence and the red twilight of Antares to fill the streets and the shattered palaces.
'It will live again,” whispered Sohmsei, “now that you are home.'
For some reason, Banning answered, “Yes.'
A great avenue ran inward from the gate. Banning followed it, striding over the sunken paving blocks, and the feet of his escort clicked and rustled on the stone. Ahead, on the very edge of the lake and dominating the whole city by its sheer size and might, was a palace of white marble. Banning went toward it. The avenue widened into a mighty concourse flanked on either side by statues of tremendous size. A grim smile touched Banning's lips. Many of the figures had fallen to block the way, and those that still stood were mutilated by the brutal hand of Time. But when they all stood whole and sound, mighty figures reaching out toward the stars and grasping them with proud hands, they must have dwarfed any human embassy into insignificance, driving home to them the overwhelming strength of the Empire, so that they would reach the throne-room with sufficiently chastened minds.
Now the hands of the statues were broken and the stars had fallen from them, and the eyes that watched Banning's passage were blind and filled with dust.
Banning mounted the steps of the palace.
'Lord,” said Sohmsei, “since you left, the inner porch has fallen. Come this way—'
He led Banning to a smaller door at one side. Behind it there was wreck and ruin. Great blocks of stone had fallen, and the main vault of the roof was open to the sky. But the inner arches still stood, and fragments of fretted galleries, and wonderful carvings. The main hall, he thought, might have held ten thousand people, and at the far end, dim and shadowy in the blood-red light, he saw a throne. And he was astonished, for he felt now a hot, angry sense of wrong.
Sohmsei scuttled ahead, and Banning followed, picking his way among the fallen stones.
There was a ruined gallery, and then a lower wing directly on the lake. Banning guessed that here had been the personal apartments of the Valkars. The wing was in fairly good repair, as though long efforts had been made to keep it habitable, and when he entered it he saw that it was clean and cared for, the furniture and hangings all in place, every ornament and trophy polished bright.
'We have kept it ready,” Sohmsei whispered. “We knew that some day you would return.'
'You have done well,” said Banning, and shook his head irritably — this pilgrimage was having too disturbing an effect on his emotions. But Sohmsei only smiled.
Slowly Banning wandered through the deserted rooms. Here, more than anywhere else in the city, he was conscious of the weight of centuries of unbroken rule, of pride and tradition, and of the human individuals, the men and women who had made it so. It came out here in little things, in personal belongings, in portraits and curios and all manner of objects collected over the centuries from other lands and stars, used and treasured and lived with. It was sad to see them as they were now, lost and forgotten except by the Arraki who had guarded them—
There was one room with tall windows looking out over the lake. The furnishings, now a little ragged, were rich but plain. There were books, and maps, and starcharts and model ships and many other things. There was a massive table, and beside it was a chair, not new. Banning sat down in it, and the worn places received his body with comfortable familiarity. Through a door to his right was another room with a great tall bed that bore the sunburst symbol on its purple curtains. On the wall at his left, between the bookshelves, was a full-length portrait — of himself.
A cold fear caught him, deep inside. He felt Neil Banning begin to slip away, as a veil is drawn away to show another face, and he sprang up again, turning his back on the portrait, on the chair that fitted him too well, on the bed with the royal hangings. He held on hard to Neil Banning, and strode out onto the terrace, beyond the windows, where be could breathe again, and think more clearly.
Sohmsei followed him.
They were alone in the red twilight, looking down at the darkening lake. And Sohmsei murmured, “You come home as your father years ago came home. And we Warders were glad, since not for many generations had our lords been with us, and we were lonely.'
'Lonely?” A strange pathos touched Banning's heart. These unhumans, faithful to their lords the Valkars through all the dead ages after the fall of empire, waiting on their ruined world, waiting and hoping — And finally a Valkar had come back. Rolf had told him, of how Kyle Valkar's father had returned to the old throne-world that all others shunned in fear, that his son might be born to the memory of the Valkar greatness.
'Lord,” Sohmsei was whispering, “on the night when you were born, your father laid you in my arms and said, “He is your charge, Sohmsei. Be his shadow, his right arm, the shield at his back.'
Banning said, “And you were that Sohmsei.'
'I was,” said Sohmsei. “After your parents died, I was that. I hated even Rolf, because he could teach you man-arts that I could not. But now, Lord, you are different.'
Banning started a little. “Different?'
'Yes, Lord. You are the same in body. But your mind is not the same.'
Banning stared into the dark strange eyes, the wise unhuman loving eyes, and a deep shudder shook him. And then there was a sound in the sky and he looked up to see a bright mote flash across the vast face of Antares, sinking in the west. The mote swept in and became a ship, and vanished out of sight beyond the palace, and Banning knew that it had landed on the plateau.
It seemed cold to Banning, very cold, as though the dusky lake exhaled a chill.
'You must not tell the others that my mind is different, Sohmsei,” he whispered. “If it is known, it could be my death.'
Another ship dropped down, toward the plateau, and then another. It was growing dark.
'They will not know,” said Sohmsei.
Banning still felt cold. These alien Arraki, then, had parapsychic powers of some kind? And this one had sensed that mentally he was not the Valkar?
Presently, into the darkening rooms with a swift, rustling rush came another of the Arraki, smaller and lighter than Sohmsei, and less brilliantly marked.
'It is Keesh, my son,” said Sohmsei. “He is young, but he shows some promise. When I am dead, he and his will serve the Valkar.'
'Lord,” said Keesh, and bowed his head. “The man Rolf, and others, come. Many others. Shall the Warders let them enter?'
'Let them enter,” Banning said. “Bring them here.'
'Not here,” said Sohmsei. “It is not fitting. A Valkar receives his servants on his throne.'
Keesh sped away. Sohmsei led Banning back through the darkening shadowy rooms and ruins. He was glad of the guidance as he stumbled over the broken blocks. But in the great main hall, Arraki with torches were now entering.
The gusty red torchlight was almost lost in that vast, ruined gloom. But through the great rent in the ceiling, two ghost-like ocher moons now shed a faint low. By the uncertain light, Banning followed Sohmsei to the black stone seat. It was uncarved, stark — its very lack of ornament speaking a pride too great for show. Banning took his seat upon it, and a great whispering sigh went up from the Arraki.
It would be easy, Banning thought, sitting in this place to imagine oneself a king. He could look past the ruined porch, down that great avenue of colossi, and see other Arraki torches approaching with Rolf and the others. Easy to imagine that those were great princes of distant suns, nobles and merchants of the mighty galactic empire of long ago, bringing the tribute of far-off worlds to their king—
King? King of shadows, posturing here in a dead throne-city on a ruined, lost world! His subjects only the Arraki, the dogs of the Valkars who had staved faithful though the stars crashed. His royalty only a poor pretense, a
