The man in the crepe mask nodded. "Of course. Anything less would be barbaric. But I fear, my lord, that you and your companion don't meet the criteria for such a dispensation. You see, if a traveler can't pay in specie, we're prepared to collect the toll in goods and services. You have clothing. The weapons which, acting with commendable prudence, you've chosen to leave in their sheaths. And you, dear lady, have your charms. We get lonely up here, selflessly laboring—"
Montrose decided he'd stood bantering long enough to blunt the edge of the robbers' alertness. He shrouded himself in darkness and tapped Louise on the arm, hoping she'd understand he was signaling for her to attack.
She did. Gripped by her Spook power, the crossbow spun in an arc, wrenching the wraith in gray around with it. With a twang, the weapon discharged its bolt into the highwayman's ribs. He staggered and his flintlocks barked, the shots ringing against the bridge.
Wild-eyed, pivoting toward Louise, the green robber inflated his cheeks. Montrose sprinted toward him. The blowgunner couldn't see his attacker coming, but must have heard his footsteps bonging, because he spun back around to face him. The long wooden pipe made a coughing sound.
Montrose dove onto his belly and the dart whizzed over his head. He scrambled up again and knifed the green man in the stomach. The bandit collapsed.
A blade hissed out of its scabbard. Montrose whirled. Despite the quarrel in his side and his target's invisibility, the highwayman thrust out his darksteel rapier with deadly accuracy. The Scot only barely managed to leap back in time to avoid being spitted. His backside slammed into the guardrail.
Possibly orienting on the resulting clang, the highwayman lunged at him again. Montrose frantically flung himself to one side, then kicked the swordsman in the knee. The robber leader fell. Montrose booted him once more, this time in the temple. The rapier slipping from his grip, the bandit sprawled unconscious.
Montrose turned just in time to see Louise hit the man in gray three times. First the heel of her hand mashed in the nose of his leaden mask. Next her fist thudded into his solar plexus. And finally, bellowing a fierce kiai, she punched him in the throat. The masked man reeled against the railing, would have pitched over it if she hadn't grabbed him by the sleeve and yanked him back. She cocked her arm to hit him again, perceived he was already unconscious, and allowed him to fall onto the bridge.
"Why didn't you shoot him?" Montrose asked.
Louise shrugged. "I don't know. He came at me unarmed and I defended myself the same way." The Scot remembered when such chivalrous behavior had come naturally to him as well, and felt what might nearly have been a twinge of admiration, or at least nostalgia. "Besides, I don't have that many bullets." She smiled. "Compared to fending off the spirits in the bay, that was almost fun."
He scowled. "Productive, anyway. We can use additional weapons, and fresh disguises as well." Turning his back on her, he stooped, yanked off the highwayman's mask, and tied it around his own head. The black fabric felt soft and soothing on his face.
The great bowl of the Coliseum, with its Corinthian pilasters, round arches, and half-columns, was still hundreds of feet away. But Montrose could already hear the audience roaring inside. Indeed, he'd been hearing them for blocks.
A Legionnaire patrol, resplendent in burnished cuirasses and crested helmets, appeared in the press ahead. Struggling against the current of wraiths rushing toward the amphitheater gates, the soldiers headed in Montrose's general direction. Suppressing an impulse to veer away from them, the Scot told himself he wasn't a fugitive from the Smiling Lord's justice but an upstanding Stygian gentlemen turned out in a fine cloak, cocked hat, and lace to enjoy the games. And Louise was simply his companion, a bit eccentrically dressed perhaps in her leaden mask, trench coat, and slouch hat, but what did that mean in a metropolis whose sartorial styles reflected a hodgepodge of influences from the last few thousand years?
And sure enough, the warriors passed them by without a second glance.
Montrose and Louise had been climbing the mountain for five days, following a circuitous route which the Scot, drawing on his knowledge of the city and Harbinger instincts, judged to be the safest. Sometimes it snaked along the ground and sometimes scaled the towers, leading them across elevated bridges from one roof or balcony to another. Along the way, the fugitives had dodged countless patrols, watched the Laughing Lady's soldiers quell a riot with brutal efficiency, and seen a hideous structure resembling a colossal iron scorpion, one of the Skeletal Lord's lesser fortresses, vibrate until, with a deafening clangor, it shook itself apart. Another act of sabotage, evidently, accomplished with sorcery rather than explosives.
Despite the length of the journey, at odd moments Montrose still felt self-conscious in his new attire. He hadn't worn true seventeenth-century clothing in decades. The outfit felt surprisingly right, evoking a bittersweet nostalgia, but for some reason, dangerous as well.
"Considering all the evidence of unrest we've seen," said Louise, "I can't believe the Deathlords are putting on a gladiatorial exhibition." She switched the crossbow from her right hand to her left, then tugged the brim of her fedora lower.
"What better time?" Montrose replied. "With luck, the entertainment will take people's minds off the problems, and reassure them that the Seven have matters well in hand."
"Bread and circuses," she said distastefully. "Just like imperial Rome."
He twisted his shoulders to avoid jostling a heavy-set man in a crimson ceramic domino and a checked ulster. "And imperial Rome endured a long time, so it would seem their techniques of governance had merit."
"Mere survival isn't the be-all and end-all of existence, even for embattled spirits like us, who spend our days resisting the tug of Oblivion." She paused, and somehow, despite her visor,: he sensed she was smiling wryly. "Don't cringe, I'm not'commencing a sermon, just making an observation. D© you truly think the games will provide us a passport into the Onyx Tower!"
He shrugged- "It's the most promising scheme I've hit on so far, but obviously there are no guarantees. We'll just have to see how it goes."
A colonnade ran around the exterior of the amphitheater. Beneath the arches, prostitutes, tumblers, jugglers, souvenir vendors, Masquers, Sandmen, Chanteurs, Oracles., and even a Pardoner plied their trades. But few stopped to patronize them. Most people kept pushing toward the gates, intent on claiming whatever seating remained, or, failing that, standing room on the uppermost tier. Montrose and Louise shoved and squeezed their way in with the rest.
A dark corridor with an arched ceiling led to the interior of the stadium, a monument resembling the Flavian amphitheater in its heyday, or so Montrose had been informed by wraiths who had seen both, but considerably larger and grander. Ornately carved fountains in the forms of nymphs, chimeras, satyrs, dragons, skulls, and leering cadavers jetted sweetly scented water into ibc air. A moat ringed the white sand floor, where blind men, with blank expansesnf skin where their eyes should have been, fought with tridents and sabers. Electric floodlights—an innovation much decried by traditionalists, the Scot recalled—shone down to illuminate the action. From the cages beneath the arena sounded the roars and howls of captive Spectres and Phantasies.
The tiers of marble seats rose so high that from his position Montrose had to tilt his head far back to see the top. Many of the spectators ensconced in the rows or squatting in the aisles were animated to the point of frenzy.. They screamed encouragement and invective at the fighters, or brayed with laughter when the sightless men did something comical, like tripping over a fallen rival, or'backing into one another. Here and there, some masturbated, fornicated, clawed their own flesh, or collapsed and thrashed like epileptics. Hawkers worked their way through the throng, selling programs and cushions, while bookmakers clambered from one level to the next, shouting the /Current odds.
The general hysteria was a palpable miasma.) fouling the air. Louise shuddered. Recalling occasions when he too had relished the games, Montrose felt a pang of shame,
or at least discomfort. Annoyed with himself, he quashed it.
"Pull yourself together," he said gruffly. "It's just a moh relishing the sight of someone else's misfortune. Surely you've encountered such things before."
"Not when the mob was so, huge/- die said. "It's going to be an effort to keep the psychic fallout from driving me crazy, too." She waved her hand impatiently. "But I'm all right. Let's get on with it."
MontrOse turned, surveying the seats reserved for the grandees of the Tower. Predictably, none of the Deathlords had chosen to put in an appearance. They might wish to reassure the masses that all was well, but not enough to: expose themselves to the threat of assassination. However, some of the ministers of the Beggar Lord were present, as; were those of the Ashen Lady, each contingent warded by a substantial bodyguard :of glowering Legionnaires, The Scot frowned. Desiring to reach his own master—despite recent events, he Still thought the Smiling Lord more likely to heed him than were the other potentates of the Seven—he'd hoped to find officials from the Seat of Burning Waters in attendance. Theoretically, that would have enabled him and Louise to gain immediate access to the proper part of the Tower complex. As things stood, the two of them would wind up in either the palace of Golden Tears or the manse of Shadows.
"Ah, well," he said, "if there were no challenge, it wouldn't be any fun, would it?"
Louise chuckled. "Judging by the way events have fallen out so far, I don't think we need to worry about that."
The Beggar Lord's minions were the closer of the two groups, so Montrose led his companion toward them. As they neared the reserved seating, he was concerned that the locarii, as the old-timers insisted on calling the ushers, would demand to see their tickets, but none did. Perhaps his fine new sword and attire were responsible; now that he'd plundered the highwayman's possessions, he looked like he belonged with the other aristocrats. Or perhaps by this time the attendants themselves were too caught up in the spectacle unfolding on the sand to perform their function.
Montrose could feel it tugging at him as well. Louise was right, the atmosphere in this place would addle anyone who permitted it. From the corner of his eye, the Cavalier glimpsed a new battle.
A bestiarius—a monster fighter—equipped with a roaring chain saw sheared away pieces of a Spectre. The doomshade looked and smelled like a nine-foot statue made of dung and slime; Montrose caught the vile stink of it even though the ambient haze of perfume. At first the monster seemed to move too sluggishly to have any hope of defending itself. Then, with a metallic scream, the saw struck something solid hidden inside the monster's mucky torso. The weapon rebounded and slipped from its wielder's grasp. As he fumbled for it, trying to catch it before it tumbled to the ground, the doomshade raised its brown, crumbling hands and slammed them down on his shoulders. The bestiarius dropped, his face coming down on the dancing teeth of his blade.
The mob roared. A sickening, intoxicating wave of emotion swept through Montrose, filling him with vigor. He had to force himself to tear his eyes away. He hoped Louise hadn't noticed him yielding to the spell of the display.
She gripped his forearm. "Look there!" she said.
Clad in saffron hooded robes decorated with vertical rows of topazes, a pair of the Beggar Lord's ministers proceeded to the aisle separating them from the Ashen Lady's vassals. There, swaying like drunkards, clutching at one another for support, they began to make their way down the steps. Three soldiers, their artfully tattered yellow surcoats and the stocks of their assault rifles decorated with the outstretched hand emblem of the Legion of Paupers, fell in behind them.
Montrose had hoped that some of the dignitaries would separate from their party at some point, to visit a whore, buy a hallucinatory cup of wine from a Sandman, or pursue some other amusement. "There are too many of them for my liking," he said. "On the other hand, this could be our best opportunity."
"I'm game," said Louise. "Let's do it."
Suddenly feeling bold, he grinned. "Very well. Come on."
They pushed forward along the crowded aisle, striving to move quickly enough to keep their quarry in view yet remain relatively inconspicuous. They reached the stairs just in time to see the Beggar Lord's servants vanish into a doorway positioned beneath the lowest tiers of seats.
"Where does that go?" asked Louise.
"Underground," Montrose replied. "It's like a maze down there. Hurry, or we'll lose them." They strode on.
Beyond the doorway, a narrow stairway descended, illuminated by a single cold, hissing barrow-flame torch. Voices babbled and rushing feet pattered in the darkness below. The draft rising from the depths smelled of earth, stone, and the fetor of abominations.
A beefy woman in a latex Marilyn Monroe mask and baggy coveralls sat on a stool just inside the opening. A truncheon lay in her lap, and she held a slim volume of verse in her callused hand. Her gray eyes narrowed as if in annoyance or mistrust.
Montrose quickly extracted a few oboli—more bounty plundered from the robbers—from his purse. "We're aficionados," he said. "We'd like to go backstage to view the Spectres at close range."
"Well, you can't," the gatekeeper said brusquely. "If it were a normal show, and I liked the looks of you, then maybe. But we had to kick this extravaganza"—her husky voice infused the word with a wealth of sarcasm—"together at the last minute, on orders from the high mucky-mucks in the Tower, and everybody's frantic down below. Too frantic to put up with rubber-neckers getting underfoot."
"I just saw you let some other people pass," Montrose said.
"'Big shots from the House of Golden Showers," growled the woman in the rubber mask. "Them, I couldn't Stop. You, on the other hand, don't look to be anything but the usual idiot fan, so why don't you get the hell—"
Louise grabbed the gatekeeper, yanked her off her stool, and slammed her against the wall. I he club bounced clinking down the steps.
The larger woman tried to break free, but Louise did something—from his vantage point, Montrose couldn't see precisely what—that made her go rigid and helpless with pain. "Weare going into the tunnels," the Sister of Athena said. "You're going to take my friend's money and not give us any more trouble, isn't that right?"
The gatekeeper gave a jerky nod. Louise released her, Montrose dropped the coins on the stool, and the two fugitives bounded down the steps.
"That was a bit rough, wasn't it?" Montrose said. "Particularly coming from a kindly missionary, I was considering offering a larger bribe."
"You said we were in a hurry," replied Louise.
Alighting from the stairs, they found themselves in a large but crowded room, where teams of gladiators armed and costumed like medieval knights, World War II soldiers, and comic-book superheroes milled about, along with a brass band of Chanteurs. Getting in some last-minute practice, a Sandman conjured the illusions he'd be using to turn the floor of the arena into a cratered moonscape. The flickering phantasms made the; scene even more chaotic.
Montrose peered about, but saw no sign of the Beggar Lord's servants. He turned toward a gladiator dressed as a gaudy Hollywood fantasy of a cowboy, with a white Stetson, an elaborately embroidered Western shirt, chaps, boots, silver spurs, and two pearl-handled Colts slung low on his hips. Appearing more at ease than most of his fellows, the performer absent-mindedly twirled a lariat.
"Two ministers and three soldiers," Montrose said, "all wearing yellow. Have you seen them?" The cowboy nodded toward an opening in the back wall.
The fugitives hurried on, past wheeled cages full of hissing, gibbering horrors, lined up to enter an elevator and thence the arena as their presence was required. Then something whimpered up ahead.
Montrose raised a hand to halt Louise's advance. Masking himself in darkness, he crept on down the shadowy corridor. Small rooms, scarcely more than cubicles, opened off the hallway to either side. In one, an eyeless gladiator, perhaps the sole survivor of the combat in which he'd fought, lay on a table, his body riddled with punctures and gashes, shuddering and g
asping. Their cowls thrown back, the Beggar Lord's ministers hovered over him, exploring his pale, bloodless wounds with their tongues and fingers. The three bodyguards stood by stolidly. The bespectacled little man in the corner, however—a Usurer, judging from the delicate brass scales he carried, no doubt present to give the injured wraith a suffusion of vitality—seemed to be struggling to conceal his disgust.
Still veiled in shadow, Montrose skulked back to Louise. "We've found them," he whispered, startling her and making her jump. "Let's do this quickly and with a minimum of noise. No gunfire unless you have to."
The Heretic nodded. "You hit them first. Use your invisibility to take them by surprise. I'll jump in."
Montrose drew his rapier, then led Louise back down the hall. As they neared the doorway, the blind man began to blubber and plead for mercy. Courage, thought Montrose, deliverance is at hand. He realized he was glad he'd caught the officials practicing their perversion. Though he'd witnessed far worse, generally without it troubling him in the slightest, for some reason, this time around, the depravity disgusted him, and that was good. It would transform what had seemed a noisome extremity into a pleasure.
He stalked through the door and began the killing.
His first thrust took the nearest Pauper in the left eye. The Legionnaire's body dissolved instantly, before it had even begun to fall. Pivoting, the Scot stabbed a second soldier in the breast. The darksteel point struck armor, but punched on through. Bands of darkness writhed across the soldier's anguished features, and then they crumbled in on themselves.
The remaining Pauper frantically pointed his gun in Montrose's general direction. Louise's crossbow twanged. The bolt slammed into the bodyguard's chest, and he fell thrashing to the floor.
The ministers looked up from their pleasures. One froze, his mouth falling open. The other thrust his hand inside his robes, no doubt snatching for a weapon. Thrusting over the cot and the blind fighter's body, Montrose opted to slay the more dangerous man. Louise darted around the bed and knifed his stupefied companion.
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