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A.R.Yngve
DARC AGES
Book Three
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Chapter 50

"It's now or never," Mechao told Darc the following noon, in the laboratory. "Do you have any experience in surgery?"

"Not really," he confessed. "But I've got a strong stomach, and I'll do anything I can to help. How long will it take Eye-Leg to heal afterwards?"

"Anything between a month and a year. It is an extremely difficult operation. Afterward, she will be vulnerable to complications. She may end up a drooling idiot, or die from a blood clot or ruptured artery."

Darc rubbed his scalp nervously; the ultimate decision to go through with this was even harder than he had imagined.

"I know! Either she might die today, or she will die for sure, soon! I told you... we are going to do it."

Mechao turned to his two oldest sons, who had already put on sterilized coveralls and face masks. They walked away to a sealed chamber farther into the darker recesses of the laboratory, and started preparing it.

From another corner of the cavern, Shara rolled in a bed on wheels. Eye-Leg lay on it, sedated, her eyes shut. Shara had tied up her own long hair in a shawl over her head, and put on a baggy set of coveralls.

She gave Darc a brief, frightened glance, but remained in control of herself. Darc looked at the artificial womb in its glass greenhouse, then to Mechao - who gravely shook his head.

"No, Shara," Mechao told her. This time you stay outside, until it is over."

Shara's eyes shifted between Darc and Mechao, pleading silently. Mechao wavered, as if some natural force was tugging at his senses. Then, the old witchdoctor burst into a fit of anger.

"Beware, woman!" Mechao barked; his thin voice echoed through the halls of the laboratory. "I am still the ruler of this island, and in this room my word is law! I am the son of eighteen generations of master surgeons!" Mechao banged his fist at a stone pillar, and paced up to the stunned Shara.

He pointed a bony finger to the machinery in the background, and shouted in her face: "My forefathers learned to create life in the machine womb, even before they learned to breed the natural way! How dare you think you can teach me how to save this Leper's life! Go, go help Amada in the household!"

Shara shrank away. For an instant Darc thought she would lose her temper - but he misjudged her. She nodded, and briskly walked off to the exit. Mechao wiped his brow, sighed heavily, and downed a large gulp from a flask of medicine.

He sighed again, and muttered: "I just needed to draw the line." Then he winked playfully at Darc, rubbing his hands - once more the enthusiastic, childlike wizard he was the first time they met. "Now, let's get the clone out of the womb. It's going to be a messy task."



At dusk it was finally done, and the operating team beheld the result.

Eye-Leg was kept unconscious as she lay under observation in the sealed operations chamber. Her bald head rested precariously on top of her new, pale body, wrapped in warm blankets. The girl's original, misshapen limbs were kept frozen in a storage locker, for later study.

When Eye-Leg awoke, she would find a perfectly normal body below her chin, and a heavy neck-brace that kept her head firmly clamped against that body until it was safe for her to move.

It was first now, that one could truly see the beauty and innocence of that young face. Her gray eyes were still bulging slightly behind her eyelids, as an aftereffect of a life spent upside-down. The DNA-shaped tattoo on her forehead was still there, a reminder of her past.

Now don't lose your head, girl, Darc prayed. Please don't. The bloodstained operating team left, leaving one member to guard the sleeping Leper during the first night shift.



They were allowed a long, undisturbed sleep.

Darc dreamt of his lost children again - not a nightmare this time. When he opened his eyes, a surprisingly pleasant memory of the dream was lingering in his mind.

A sense of closure, of a destiny made complete, filled him. Through the tall mansion windows, he saw the sky with rain and clouds drifting by. Another storm was rising, one that he might not live through.

He turned in his bed. Shara was already up and away. He sniffed at the bedclothes, trying to savor her scent in the imprint she had left. A little later he rose from the bed, groaning and yawning as he stretched his limbs.

In the mirror on the wall, he saw himself: A tall, lanky man in the prime of his life, with unkempt snow-white hair - even in his armpits and on various parts of his body.

He stared into that undetermined-of-age, yet lined face with its sharp, Caesaresque features. Is that you, David? he pondered. Or is it Darc? Or...

"'He is both young man and old man... alive to the night...'" His muttering grew into a high-pitched, hoarse cry. "No! I'm not you! I'm me!" He picked up a shoe and flung it at the mirror. It bounced off to the floor.

Darc chuckled to himself - or was it a sob? - and held up an imaginary microphone to his face: "And now, ladies and gentlemen," he said in rapid American English to the mirror, "for the first and last time in history... the King... back from the dead... possessing the body of a fool! A-one, a-two, a-one-two-three-four..."

In that moment, Shara carefully opened the door, so as not to wake him up. She was fully dressed in a green and blue native skirt and shirt - Darc wore a pair of baggy long underpants. They looked at each other.

"What did you say?" she asked confusedly. "That sounded like your song."

"I was just trying to remember something," he excused himself. Then it hit him; he cornered Shara and grabbed her shoulders. "The operation! I haven't checked if... have you seen her?"

"I know," she said, flashing a quick grin. "I wanted to let you sleep. She is alive and recovering. Thank you... for everything." She embraced him, and he mumbled in her ear: "Don't thank me yet."

"Oh, but I will," she half-whispered in his ear, tugging at his pants, and she began to kiss her way slowly down his chest.



The bulky carrier aircraft screeched and hissed deafeningly, as it hovered down toward the concrete landing-platform on top of Lord Pasko's castle.

As soon as the carrier had landed, a huge door rolled shut between it and the dark sky above. The carrier had been flown by robot control from Pasko City, stopped for refueling in an allied city farther north, and had continued northward to its secret destination.

It had departed several days earlier, loaded with precious stones and metals - and several cases of Lord Pasko's finest wine. As the carrier now returned from its clandestine journey, it carried a different cargo.

Tharlos Pasko walked over to the rear port of the carrier, and waited for the doors to open. The doors swung aside, and sank onto the platform floor.

The soldiers and mechanics present shrank away when they saw what waited inside: twelve new, glistening black spider robots. They were lined up in perfect rows, now and then rattling their thin legs restlessly, green sensor-eyes flickering on and off to save energy during transport.

Tharlos's eyes watered at the sight. His faith in the Black Sun strengthened each time he saw those dead, pseudo-intelligent creatures, ready to obey his every command. Tharlos cleared his throat.

"I am Tharlos Pasko!" he bellowed at the waiting spider robots.

At once their sensor-eyes lit up on their metal stalks; a noise of whining motors, compressed hydraulic gases, and rattling limbs rose from the cargo bay. A unison metallic chirp came from the black machines, confirming that they had recognized the name.

"I am your new owner and master. My first order to you is... line up in front of me - now!"

As a well-oiled team the robots marched out, resembling twelve giant black widow spiders lining up before a drill sergeant. Tharlos was satisfied. This batch cooperated much better than the previous one.

"Soon, you will receive a recharge of power for your batteries. But first, I shall perform a test of your loyalty to me, your new master!"

He snapped his fingers at a team of mechanics, who with frightened gazes rolled forth a cart. On the cart tray, a humanoid-shaped servant robot was writhing helplessly. Its arms and legs had been disassembled, and its remaining head and torso wrestled to get off its chains.

The servant's red-glowing sensor slit seemed to flicker faster when it turned to the row of spidery machines.

"Do you se this robot?" Tharlos shouted, pointing at the maimed servant. The black giants twittered and chirped. "Good. On my command, you will tear it apart, without using your lasers, until I order you to stop! On my command - now!"

Without a pause, two of the spider robots rushed forward with clicking, palpitating mandibles. Tharlos stepped back to give them room.

The crippled servant uttered a calm, metallic objection: "Please do not destroyYIIIII -"

And then the robot servant was no more. Tharlos ordered them to stop.

One of the attending mechanics looked away in disgust - to destroy the lifetime's labor of several guilds, on a whim, was against all his way of life stood for. The other men swallowed, turned pale, but dared not demonstrate what they felt.

Tharlos rejoiced: his new warriors showed none of the dangerous solidarity with fellow robots, that had made Bor Damon's own favorite servant a traitor in Tharlos's service.

If the courage of his human soldiers might fail him in the coming battle, these robots would never fail - because they always obeyed.

Or so he believed.



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