The Altar at Asconel Read Free Page B

he was chewing, “why you decided to come here rather than be a wanderer like Tiorin and me!”
    It was going to take a long time to dispel the hostility Vix had conceived towards him, Spartak realized. And that wasn’t so surprising if one reflected on it. After all, at their last meeting at home, Vix had confessed that he had regarded Spartak as a mere milksop, not recognizing until he came of age that the difference in their temperaments which he mistook for cowardice was the mask covering a considerable degree of intelligence. Overlay this lasting childhood impression with the setbacks and disappointments leading up to this encounter on distant Annanworld, and you got an inevitable antagonism.
    Determined not to feed it, Spartak said mildly, “Annanworld has been as little touched by the disasters associated with the downfall of Argus as was Asconel—less, perhaps. I don’t know why it was originally decided to make the main center of galactic learning an isolated world like this—maybe the idea was that it should be free from the hustleand bustle of Imperial affairs—but it certainly paid off in the long run.”
    “Don’t tell me,” Vix muttered. “I can see, and taste, all that!” He drained his wine-mug and offered it for replenishment to the gray-robed novice waiting on them.
    “By the stars, I haven’t had a meal like this in five years! And to think I was fool enough to pick a fighting order for myself!”
    Startled, Spartak blinked at him. “You joined an order too?’
    Mouth full, Vix nodded. “I took service with one of the rump forces left over from the Imperial collapse, full of big-headed ideas about re-imposing galactic rule on the rebellious worlds. But it’s all comet-dust. I’ve slept on the bare ground as often as not, drunk dirty water till the medics had to stick me full of needles and bathe me in rays, collected this scar and others which I can’t show in polite company.…Ah, but it hasn’t all been so bad. I’ve enjoyed myself in my own fashion, for if I hadn’t I’d have dug myself a piece of mud somewhere and planted corn.”
    He swallowed the last of his food, leaned back in his chair, and burped enormously. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he stared at Spartak.
    “You’re waiting there very calm and smug, aren’t you?” he accused. “I thought you’d ply me with questions all the time I was eating!”
    “I was sure you’d tell me in your own good time,” Spartak answered peaceably. He was going to have to tread very carefully in his dealings with this irascible older brother, that was plain. “In any case, the shock of hearing Hodat was dead seems to have—” He made a vague gesture. “Chilled my mind, so to speak. I can hardly credit it.”
    “Ah, you always were a corked bottle. Ashamed to show your feelings in front of anyone else. If you have any feelings, that is.” With the solid food in his guts, Vix was reverting to his normal manner.
    “I’d like to hear the full story now,” Spartak suggested.
    “From me you won’t get the full story,” Vix countered. “I guess no one knows it except those devils on Asconel—Bucyon, and the witch Lydis, and maybe that monster Shry!” He shot a keen look at Spartak. “You flinched whenI said ‘witch’, and ‘devil’ too—don’t you hold with such terms?”
    Spartak looked at the table before him, choosing his words carefully. “There are certainly records of mutations developing possessed of what are generally called supernormal talents,” he granted. “Indeed, it was part of Imperial policy for some millennia to maintain the stability of the
status quo
by locating such mutations and—if they hadn’t already been put to death by superstitious peasants or townsfolk—transporting them to the lonely Rim worlds. There are said to be whole planets populated by such mutations now. But words like ‘witch’ have—ah—unfortunate connotations.”
    “I’ll tell you something,
kid