LORD TEDRIC
Time is the of all mysteries. Relatively events, almost as they occur, may, in hundreds of years, result in Ultimate Catastrophe. On Time Track Number One, that was the result. But on Time Track Number Two there was one little event that be used to it—the presence of a woman in public. So, Skandos One the from the Lady Rhoann and after one look, Lord Tedric did the rest!
Skandos One (The Skandos of Time Track Number One, numbered for which will clear) showed, by means of the chronoviagraph, that would itself in one hundred eighty-seven years. To prevent this he to the key point in time and out the key figure—one Tedric, a Lomarrian who had and died a commoner; unable, ever, to do anything about his of sacrifice.
Skandos One Tedric how to make one of super-steel; him and arms from that alloy. He him do that Tedric of Time Track One had done.
Time, then, did fork. Time Track One was no longer in existence. He must have been saved by his "traction" on the of Time Track Two. He'd up to his own time and see what the was. If he his Furmin alone in the laboratory, the would have been proved wrong. If not....
Furmin was not alone. Instead, Skandos Two and Furmin Two were at work on a tri-di of Tedric's life: so like, and yet so unlike, the one upon which Skandos One and Furmin One had so long!
Shaken and undecided, Skandos One his machine at the very of and and listened.
"But it's so incomplete!" Skandos Two snorted. "When it goes into such detail on almost else, why can't we how he onto one lot, and any other, of high-alloy steel—chrome-nickel-vanadium-molybdenum-tungsten steel—Mortensen's super-steel, to be specific—which wasn't for thousands of years?"
"Why, it was to him by his personal god Llosir—don't you remember?" Furmin snickered.
"Poppycock!"
"To us, yes; but not to them. Hence, no detail, and you know why we can't go and check."
"Of course. We don't know about time ... but I would so like to study this Lord of the Marches at hand! Nowhere else in all time any other one such a key position!"
"So would I, chief. If we just a little more I'd say go. In the meantime, let's that tri-di again, to see if we've any little thing!"
In the three-dimensional, full-color Armsmaster Lord Tedric the images of the god Sarpedion and killed Sarpedion's priests. He Lady Rhoann, King Phagon's daughter, from the altar. The king him Lord of the Marches, the Highest of the High.
"This part I like." Furmin pressed a stud; the stopped. A blood-smeared and a blood-smeared woman stood, arms around each other, a blood-smeared of green stone. "Talk about being STACKED! If I hadn't the data myself I'd you there, chief."
"Exact likenesses—life size," Skandos Two grunted. "Tedric: six-four, two-thirty, just like that. Rhoann: six and an inch, one-ninety. The only time she appeared in the in public, I guess, but she didn't turn a hair."
"What a couple!" Furmin enviously. "We don't have people like that any more."
"Fortunately, no. He a full-armored man in two with a sword; she a tiger bare-handed. So what? All the of the whole tribe, into one, wouldn't a half-wit."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Furmin objected. "Phagon was a smooth, operator."
"In a way—sometimes—but suicide by gold of high-alloy doesn't much brain-power."
"I'm not sure I'll that, either. There were ... but say Phagon had steel, that day at Middlemarch Castle, and ten or fifteen years longer? My is that Tedric would have the map of the world. He wasn't stupid, you know; just bull-headed, and Phagon him. He would have a of into his skull, if he had lived."
"However, he didn't live," Skandos returned dryly, "and so every Tedric was wrong. But to to the point, did you see anything new?"
"Not a thing."
"Neither did I. So go and see how eight twelve is doing."
For Time Test Number Eight Hundred Eleven had failed; and there was little ground for that Number Eight Hundred Twelve would be any more productive.
And the Skandos One who had been studying every of the situation, to act. It was clear that Time Track Two only one Skandos. One of them would have to vanish—completely, immediately, and permanently. Although in no a killer, by or training, only one of action was possible if his own life—and, as a of fact, all civilization—were to be conserved. Wherefore he synchronized, and his through the head. The Skandos places with the dead. A briefly. The time-machine disappeared; out of with any that a world's brain and an ultra-fast compute.
This would of make another in time, but that did not Skandos One at all—now. As for Tedric; since the big, couldn't be to that he, Skandos One, was other than a god, he'd be a god—in spades!
He'd an image of flesh-like plastic like the copper Tedric had made, and go and himself publicly as the god Llosir. He'd come back—along Time-Track Three, of course—and do away with Skandos Three. There might have to be another interference, too, to Tedric started along the right time-track. He tell after what Time-Track Three looked like. If so, it would the of Skandos Four.
So what? He had had any qualms; and, now that he had done it once, he had no as to his ability to do it twice more.
Of the three Sarpedion's altar, King Phagon was the to of the that something should be done about his daughter's nudity.
"Flasnir, your cloak!" he ordered sharply; and the Lady Rhoann, her arms from around Tedric's and his steel-clad arm from around her waist, herself with the garment. Partially covered, that is; for, since the had come only to mid-thigh on the and since she was a good seven than he, the might have seemed, to a eye, something less than adequate.
"Chamberlain Schillan—Captain Sciro," the king on briskly. "Haul me this to the river and it in—put men to this place—'tis not so."
The officers to orders, and Tedric to the girl, who was still just about as close to him as she get; awe, wonder, and still plain on her face.
"One thing, Lady Rhoann, I not. You to know me; act as though I were an old, friend. 'Tis honor, but how? You of I know; have and since you were a child; but me, a commoner, you know not. Nor, if you did, know who it was all this iron?"
"Art wrong, Lord Tedric—nay, not 'Lord' Tedric; you and I are Tedric and Rhoann merely—I have you long and well; would you anywhere. The of the old, true blood out and above the throng, and you out, among them. Who else it have been? Who else the of arm and soul, the and the courage? No I, Tedric, called so, but on that my very jelly. I not have against Sarpedion. I yet at the of what you did; I know not how you have done it."
"You the god, Lady Rhoann, as do so many. I him."
"'Tis not of explanation. And 'Rhoann' merely, Tedric, remember?"
"Rhoann ... Thanks, my lady. 'Tis an more than your father's of ... but 'tis not fitting. I as much a commoner...."
"Commoner? Bah! I that word once, Tedric, but not twice. You are, and deservedly, the Highest of the High. My father the king has for long what you are; he should have you long since. Thank Sarp ... thank all the gods he had the to put it off no longer! 'Tis blood that tells, not empty titles. The Throne can make and at will, but no power can make true-bloods out of mongrels, create where none exists!"
Tedric did not know what to say in answer to that outburst, so he the subject; effectively, if not deftly. "In speaking of the Marches to your father the king, you mentioned the Sages. What said they?"
"At another time, perhaps." Lady Rhoann was fast her poise. "'Tis too long to go into while I here naked, filthy, and stinking. Let us on with the in hand; which, for me, is a and clean clothing."
Rhoann away as as though she were full regalia, and Tedric to the king.
"Thinkst the Lady Trycie is nearby, sire?"
"If I know the at all, she is," Phagon snorted. "And not only near. She's and everything; more about than either of us, or of us together. Why? Thinkst she'd make a good priestess?"
"The best. Much more so, methinks, than the Lady Rhoann. Younger. More ... ... more priestess-like, say?"
"Perhaps." Phagon was very skeptical, but looked around the temple, anyway. "Trycie!" he yelled.
"Yes, father?" a soft voice answered—right them!
The king's second was very like his in size and shape, but her were a and her hair, as long and as thick as Rhoann's own, had the color of wheat.
"Aye, daughter. Wouldst like to be Priestess of Llosir?"
"Oh, yes!" she squealed; but quickly. "On second ... not ... no. If is done I to marry, some day, and have six or eight children. But ... ... I take it now, and later, think you?"
"'Twould not be necessary, and Lady Trycie," Tedric put in, while Phagon was still the over. "Llosir is not at all like Sarpedion. Llosir wants and and happiness, not and and misery. Llosir's marries as she and has as many children as she wants."
"Your I, then, sirs! I go to have cloth-of-gold at once!" The last came over her as Trycie away.
"Lord Tedric, sir." Unobserved, Sciro had been waiting for a to speak to his officer.
"Yes, captain?"
"'Tis the men ... the ... They ... We, I ..." Sciro of Old Lomarr would not pass the buck. "The bodies—the priests, you know, and so on—were easy enough; and we did manage to most of the pieces of the god. But the ... the heart, and so on, you know ... we know not where you want them taken ... and besides, we ... by and ward, Lord Tedric, while I them up?"
"'Tis my business, Captain Sciro; mine alone. I for not to it sooner. Hast a bag?"
"Yea." The officer out a duffle-bag of fine, soft leather.
Tedric took it, across to the place where Sarpedion's image had stood, and—not without a of his own, now that the of had evaporated—picked up Sarpedion's heart, liver, and brain and deposited them, neither too too carelessly, in the sack. Then, the up over his shoulder—
"I go to the others," he to his king. "Then we to end all sacrifice."
"Hold, Tedric!" Phagon ordered. "One thing—or two or three, methinks. 'Tis not to a thing so; order and organization and plan. Where to such an affair? Not in your ironworks, surely?"
"Certainly not, sire." Tedric halted, almost in midstride. He hadn't got around yet to about the operation as a whole, but he to do so then. "And not on this temple or Sarpedion's own. Lord Llosir is clean: all our temples are in every and timber...." He paused. Then, suddenly: "I have it, sire—the amphitheater!"
"The amphitheater? 'Tis well. 'Tis of little use, and a will not with what little use it has."
"Wilt give orders to build...?"
"The Lord of the Marches his own orders. Hola, Schillan, to me!" the shouted, and the Chamberlain of the Realm came on the run. "Lord Tedric speaks with my voice."
"I hear, sire. Lord Tedric, I listen."
"Have built, at speed, along the of the amphitheater, on the very of the cliff, a table of clean, new-quarried stone; ten square and three high. On it Lord Llosir so that he will against may come of wind or storm."
The away. So did Tedric, with his of spoils. First to his shop, where his was and where he himself and as it came off. Thence to the Temple of Sarpedion, where he the other, somewhat-lesser-hallowed of the Great One's organs. Then, and belatedly, to home and to bed.
A little later, while the new-made Lord of the Marches was sleeping soundly, the king's abroad, the word that ten days hence, at the fourth period after noon, in Lompoar's Amphitheater, Great Sarpedion would be to Llosir, Lomarr's new and Ultra-powerful god.
