The Last Valkyrie

by Lionel Roberts, Lionel Fanthorpe, Patricia Fanthorpe

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera; Fantasy; Dark Fantasy; Epic Fantasy

Synopsis

Whenever disaster wipes its bloodstained hands on the pages of human history man asks why?
Before the dawn of science primitive man believed in the intervention of weird supernatural powers. Omens were consulted. Oracles were read. Did these things bode good or evil?
Science has explained many of the olden day terrors in terms of ergot poisoning, static electricity, delusion and hypnosis. Some stubborn facts remained unexplained and inexplicable.
Do ghost armies march across the sky while their physical counterparts bleed and die below them? At what strange frontier do fact and fiction blend?
To the terrified watchers below, the thing in the sky looked like a man, carried by a gigantic eagle. But as it descended they could see no space between the man and the bird.

Release date: January 30, 2014

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

Nothing could stop the flying devil with the wings of a bird and the body of a man.

SEA. Wide, blue, empty. A limitless expanse of Mediterranean. The Great Sea. The ancient sea. The sea around which the cradled civilisations of the world had grown, and struggled with one another for ascendancy. Had seen their hour of glory, and had died as they had been born, in warfare, in strife, in agony.…

Beyond the sea a coastline. Greek coastline. Rugged rocky, tortuous. A coastline as strong and as forthright as the nation who lived beyond it. The brilliant cunning of the Greek mind—as twisted as the inlets of their coastline, with its promontories, its peninsulas and its gulfs. Beyond the coastline fields. Cultivated fields; beyond the fields, mountains—high, forbidding, frightening, dangerous, and in the fields and the mountains, men … Men in the cities too. Men in the cities and in the towns. Men of Athens, men of Corinth, men of Medara, men of the Peloponnesus, men of the great northern mainland, men of Naxos, men of the islands, men of Greece. Farmers, artificers, craftsmen, sailors, politicians, democrats, oligarchs, tyrants; living together in a great tangled heap of humanity. A heap of humanity that led the world in its own time, and whose influence extended for five millennia into the future. The World of ancient Greece. A world of gladness and beauty. A world of pain, and savagery, and death. A world very much like our own, a mixed world, a perplexing world. A world in which everything was different except basic human emotions. A world where there were secrets. A world where skilled men worked alone. Such a man was Daedalus—Daedalus the artificer.

Daedalus secured the door of his workshop firmly, with two brilliantly constructed iron bolts. Ratchet bolts. Bolts which could only be withdrawn by his hand. He let down thick, heavy shutters. Impenetrable shutters. Shutters that cut out the light from the skilfully-placed window. His workshop was soundproof, sight-proof. Daedalus did not wish to be overlooked. He completed his preparations and turned to the young man with him.

“Consanes,” his voice was heavy, grave, “I have something of the greatest importance to show you.”

Consanes too was a craftsman. A tall broad-shouldered youth with a handsome, noble face. Eyes that were perhaps a trifle too ambitious, but otherwise he might have been taken for one of the gods themselves.

“You and I are perhaps the two greatest craftsmen in our world, for just as Greek craftsmanship exceeds all other so you and I lead the field. Here in Athens, the heart of the world’s technology and science, here where all mysteries are understood, and where all magic is comprehended, you and I reign supreme. That is perhaps good in some ways.” The voice of Daedalus had a slightly sinister edge, a mocking edge. The young Consanes did not notice—or if he did, appeared not to. “And now,” went on the older man, “there are things which I would show you, so that your knowledge shall be as great as mine, and the two of us can—if we think fit—rule the world between us. And not only the world of Athens, but the greater world outside. We can take the kingdoms one by one. Every separate city state can be welded into the empire of Daedalus and Consanes. It is an idea that appeals to you, perhaps?”

The young man said nothing.

“You are overcome by the thought?” continued Daedalus.

Still there was no reply.

“Consanes, I find you a strange man. I offer you the power to become a world ruler and you have no reply,” said Daedalus. “Why?”

“I have no reply,” said Consanes, “because in the first place I believe in the freedom of man. I would do nothing to rob him of that freedom. What work I have done has been directed towards increasing man’s freedom—not taking it from him.”

“When I was a young man, I thought along similar lines,” said Daedalus with a weary sigh. “But I have seen more than forty winters and summers—too many. The body survives—dreams do not! Ideals are merely dreams, only a fool has ideals, Consanes! Take it from me—in ten years’ time you will thank me for the offer I have made to you now.…”

Consanes shook his head. “No,” he said softly, “I will not thank you,” and as Daedalus turned to look, he saw that Consanes was holding a dagger. “I may be young, Daedalus,” said the artificer, “but I am not so young that. I do not understand your purposes. The very fact that I am your nephew does not prevent you from being jealous of my attainments and achievements! Do not pretend that you have not heard! The Royal prize was mine this year—not yours! I know what your reactions were. News travels swiftly in a city state … and I have friends. I know just what your reaction was. I know how you received the news! Knowing you as I do, I knew it would not be long before that jealousy which poisons and sours your otherwise brilliant mind would work itself out into some scheme for destroying me. But this shall not be! Kindly unbolt the door and allow me to pass, or I shall strike you down as I would a mad dog. I am younger and stronger than you, Daedalus—have no doubt about the outcome.…”

“You misjudge me cruelly,” said the older man. “I have no designs upon you, Consanes. Had I sought your life, would I have brought you here to show you my greatest secrets? I had hoped we could have worked together. But if you do not wish it you are perfectly free to go. The door lies before you, you may leave. I have nothing further to say.”

“Your bolts will open to no hand but your own, Daedalus,” said the young Consanes, “you must open them.”

“Very well, but I assure you they would not be difficult for you. Especially as you won the Royal prize!”

For a second the young man eyed him darkly. He knew that somewhere in this room was a trap. He felt it in his very bones. A death trap. He knew too, that it was aimed for him. But where did it lie? Somehow he distrusted those bolts. But what was it that Daedalus intended him to do? Was he to unbolt the door or was Daedalus? Was Daedalus’ reluctance to open the door genuine? Did it mean that the hand of the man who touched the bolt would release secret mechanism? Or did it mean that the hand on the bolt would release the mechanism elsewhere?

He decided that perhaps the best course would be to stand as close to Daedalus as possible.

For a second another fleeting doubt crossed his mind. Was Daedalus as clever as all that? Was that the older craftsman’s scheme? Daedalus the master of the mind and the work—had he already worked out that this was how Consanes’ mind would think? Had he planned his cunning device so that it would descend, or erupt or thrust at Consanes as he stood beside him? Where in these dark recesses did the danger lurk? He held the dagger firmly, the point not many inches from the heart of Daedalus.

“One false move, uncle, and it will be your last!”

“The only wound I have to fear from you,” replied Daedalus in a voice of mock piety, “is the wound inflicted on my heart, my feelings—not my flesh and blood.…”

“Hypocrite!” retorted the young man, “Your love for me and my love for you are as alike as two peas. As alike as two bunches hanging on a vine, as alike as two olives growing together on the hillside. You desire my death because you are jealous of me. I desire your death so that. I may reign supreme without your rivalry! There, I have said it! I have brought out into the open this lurking poison that is destroying us both. You live in fear, and so do I. Fear that is engendered by jealousy.” His voice lost its harshness. “I only wish that you had spoken truth, uncle. I wish that we could have worked together. But this cannot be. We are as far apart as Olympus and Hades.…”

“Greater breaches than that have been spanned, greater gulfs have been crossed,” said Daedalus. His hand was hovering near the bolt. “Do you wish me to unfasten the bolt, or will you?”

“You unfasten it,” said Consanes.

Something that might have been a wicked glint flashed for a second in the older man’s eyes. “No!” contradicted Consanes, “I will open it!”

With just a tiny fraction of reluctance, so small as to be almost imperceptible Daedalus stepped back.

“Don’t step back too far,” ordered Consanes. “Stay within reach of my dagger!” He put his hand to the bolt. “Tell me the secret of manipulating it.”

“Pull outwards, then upwards, and when you hear the click, pull down,” instructed the older man.

“Outwards,” said Consanes, “Upwards, and then down when I hear the click.” He took the bolt in his right hand. The dagger was in his left. His eyes never left Daedalus’. Slowly the bolt began to move under his fingers. Moving outwards away from the solid wood of the portal. “Upwards,” a faint click … “downwards.” The word ‘downwards’ ended in a choking scream. From a concealed mechanism below the bolt, a metal shaft leapt from the wood, and pierced Consanes’ body.

“Curse you,” he screamed, “Curse you! I’m dying.”

“Yes,” said Daedalus quietly, “You are dying. I decided that one of us would have to go, the choice lay in whoever opened the door. There lay the beauty of the plot.”

Consanes slumped to the floor, his hands pressed tight to a mortal wound, his eyes closed in their final flutter, then opened wide in a long vacant stare.

“Good-bye, nephew,” said Daedalus quietly. “I must leave you now, before the hue and cry starts. Before your influential and pestilential friends raise a clamour for my blood. Such a pity that Athens has lost both its great craftsmen!” And he was gone, walking softly, purposefully, towards the harbour; he met an old nurse by the wayside, a nurse and a boy on whose immature features could be seen a replica of Daedalus’ own.

“Come, Icarus,” he said, “We are going for a sail.” The boy looked up at him trustingly, hopefully.

“I like sailing,” he said, with the soft, ingenuous simplicity of early childhood. “Are we going far?”

“We are going across the sea, my son, to another land,” whispered Daedalus.

They reached Crete after a short and pleasantly stormless voyage. Daedalus had experienced a few anxious moments while he waited and wondered on the harbour’s edge. He had timed the tide and the killing to perfection. His passage was booked and ready. The gold had been paid, but there was always the possibility of a last minute slip up—if somebody should find the body of Consanes a little too soon … Moments ticked by, but no one could have guessed what thoughts were passing through the mind of the artificer. Slow moments, every second an eternity. Every infinitesimal movement of the sun across the blue vault of heaven seemed an eon, an age, a countless epoch of time.

Then they were on board. And the rest was safe. They were on board, and soon the journey was over. A few pleasant days and nights beneath the Mediterranean sky, no storm, and a fair wind; no misadventure with the boat; no shifting of the cargo; no mutiny. Just a quiet, pleasant voyage.

And now, Crete.

And here, thought Daedalus, with one peril behind me, another is to begin.

He made his way up the harbour steps, waving a farewell to the Captain.

“I wonder what he would say,” thought Daedalus, “if he knew that a murderer had just left his ship?” He wondered whether the gods had known … perhaps Poseidon had a singular regard for murderers! Perhaps the gods were away—or perhaps, he thought with a cynical laugh, there were no gods!

“Come Icarus,” he helped the lad up the massive stone steps, leading to the harbour wall, and looked out across ‘the blue waters. Far, far away beyond that horizon, he knew, lay the Athens that, despite his sins, he had loved in his own way. An Athens whose admiration he had not been able to share. It had to be his alone. The Royal prize had been the final straw. A last taunt to his hypersensitive pride. He had to be the greatest Athenian craftsman. He had to be the acknowledged head of the ancient world’s skill and technology. He had not been prepared to share even one tiny flame of his glory with Consanes, let alone rank second—or even equal to Consanes. “The upstart! The puppy! The insolent cub! How dare Consanes offer himself as a challenger? How dare he? His mind was still rankling with bitter thoughts against his dead rival, as he stood looking at the crowd on the harbour wall. A pretty cosmopolitan crowd they were. Huge brawny Africans from Numidia on the northern coasts of Africa; Egyptians, Jews, Greeks, Romans, Cretans; men of Corinth; men of Dacia; men from Gaul in the north. Even a strong, rugged-looking stranger who might have come from faraway Britain. Yes, a strange crowd, he thought. Venetian traders—all in all a good crowd in which a man could lose himself. A typical harbour . . .