She sat back and relaxed. “I said you were the second most gullible person in my experience. Coronadas Ascuasenya is the first. She believed me when I told her that you had already left the Barge for Bayfast. She believed me when I told her that our spies had discovered new information which you had to have to avoid disaster. She believed me when I said that with the proper credentials she could get into the castle. Those credentials are very good counterfeits, by the way. When she is finally discovered, the Regent’s men will believe they have foiled a serious espionage attempt.”
Svir stepped back from the desk, as shocked by her hostility as by what she was saying. For an instant she didn’t seem human; Grimm sat in the middle of an infinite complex of scheme and counterscheme. Every detail of the last ten days had pushed him according to her whim. And still she is driving me. Only now she has a whip that could really make me die for her.
“Do you know what Tar Benesh does with spies, Svir Hedrigs?”
The astronomer shook his head dumbly. Grimm told him.
“And when they get done, the spy is generally burned alive,” she added. “So, Svir my love, run to your cabin, get Ancho, and come back here. The briefing’s going to take a while; and you will find that the only way you can rescue Cor is to save the Fantasie collection in the process.”
Svir had never before wanted to kill anybody. He wanted to now—very much. This creature had imperiled the two lives he valued most. He took a deep breath, fighting dizziness. Grimm watched, her smile as mocking as her words. When he finally spoke, his tone was almost mild: “You hate us that much?”
There was a change in the other’s eyes. The smile broke for an instant, then returned. “I hate stupidity, something you all have in such excess.”
TEN
Six hours later, Svir Hedrigs emerged from the offices of the Tarulle executive deck and descended to the debarkation levels. He wore a baggy suit and carried a balsir cage disguised as a suitcase. Ancho sat comfortably within the cage; he wore the mysterious clicker on his back.
The barge had reached its pier space and was so firmly tied in that it was difficult to tell where barge ended and pier began. Seraph cast a bright, cheerful twilight across Bayfast. The clashing colors of the city were transformed into pastels. Here and there those pastels were highlighted by yellow and green sparkles where people had uncovered their evening lamps. This shimmery, glowing pattern stretched up to the edge of the seaward cliffs and around the bay to the inland cliffs, which cut off the Monsoonal Drag and made Bayfast a placid spot even at this time of year.
Svir left the barge and walked along the waterfront. The Festival of the Ostentatious Consumption was not due to begin for another six hours, but the citizens of Bayfast were already competing for the best sites along the waterfront from which to watch the events on Sacrifice Island. Svir knew he looked strange walking so dourly among the happy people. His severe costume contrasted sharply with the plaids and monocremes of the Bayfastlings. But he had his special reason for not wearing the costume Tatja had suggested.
The people of Crownesse were happy, confident, and nationalistic. Their ancestors were mainly from the Chainpearls. The hardships of The Continent had forced a dynamism on them. Their bureaucracy was talented, flexible, and—above all—devoted to the crown. In the centuries since they declared their independence from the sea, their culture had spread far: from Sfierro and Picchiu—the old Llerenito colonies in the north—all the way around the coast to the southern tip of the Continent. For the most part (and as such things go), the crown’s rule had been a beneficial thing. That changed abruptly twenty-five years ago, when the implacable Tar Benesh appeared in the King’s Court. The king had died and Tar Benesh had become the regent. Shortly after, the king’s children had disappeared in a sea wreck.
Since that time, Tar Benesh’s rule had been a study in expanding tyranny. He had, with the faithful help of the bureaucracy, transformed the open spirit of the Bayfastlings into an aggressive barbarism which could embrace things like the Ostentatious Consumption, and which would enslave the world rather than lead it.
Svir was walking east, toward the keep. That enormous polyhedron loomed black over the warehouse roofs. Even the ingenious Bayfastlings had needed seventy years to build this ultimate protection for the crown. Nothing short of a year-long artillery bombardment could breach that artificial mountain—and the keep had artillery of its own.
Svir stopped before he reached the plaza that surrounded the keep. He slipped into the entryway of a closed shop and covertly inspected the castle port. Once more the horrible fear rose in him, making every movement slow and clumsy. He was going to die. The whole plan was so complicated, and depended so heavily on Ancho and the tenuous information Tatja had about the keep’s design. But he knew he wasn’t going to back out. Tatja had discovered a motive strong enough to make him take the risk. It had worked with Cor and now it was working with him.
A figure dressed in the uniform of a guard captain walked across the plaza toward the port. That was the signal to begin. The “captain” was a Tarulle agent whose job it was to tip the guardsmen at the door to look sharp because the crown’s inspector general was expected momentarily. In truth, Inspector General Stark was supposed to visit the keep at this time, but he had been detained by other Tarulle agents. In any case, the guardsmen at the door were prepared to assume that the next authority figure they saw was the inspector general.
Svir fumbled open the suitcase and lifted out Ancho. The animal responded nervously to his obvious anxiety. Svir tried to reassure him. As per instructions, he depressed the tiny button on the box strapped to Ancho’s back. The contraption immediately began making a click-clock-click sound.
What if the device were a bomb hooked up to a clock, timed to explode after they were in the keep? For a moment, he considered ripping the machine off Ancho’s back. But there were limits to paranoia, even when it involved Tatja. Grimm. Since his survival was necessary for the salvation of the Fantasie collection, the device probably had some beneficial purpose.
He stood up, put the dorfox on his shoulder, and petted him. The animal began radiating immediately. His first target was a middle-aged merchant—one of the few people who were not yet at the waterfront. As the man passed Svir and Ancho, his eyes widened and he performed the nodding bow reserved for members of the bureaucracy. Svir smiled and walked onto the open area before the Keep. In some peculiar way, when Ancho used the effect on others, it made Svir feel confident, competent. And this feeling of authority actually seemed to feed back to the animal, making him perform even more effectively. Svir strolled briskly across the plaza.
The two guardsmen came to rigid attention as he approached. One of them saluted. Svir offhandedly returned the gesture. He passed his credentials to the guardsman. At the same time he spoke the ritual words. “The crown’s agent to inventory the prizes.”
The senior guardsman looked up from the papers. “Very good, sir.” Both men wore ridiculously ornamented dress uniforms, but there was nothing ornamental about their weapons. In a single glance, the guardsman gave Svir a thorough once-over. His alert and active mind checked for the minor details that would give an impostor away. Unfortunately for the guardsman, his own mind made him see the details he was looking for. If questioned later, both guards would swear they saw the crown’s inspector general enter the building, not Svir Hedrigs.
The fellow returned Svir’s papers to him and turned to a speaking tube that protruded from the black stone of the castle wall. Except for the words “Inspector General,” Svir couldn’t hear what was said. But that was enough. He had passed the second hurdle. At each checkpoint, the word would be passed back as to who he was supposed to be. With a greased sliding sound, a thirty-ton cube of stone lifted into the ceiling of the entrance. Beyond was darkness.
Svir walked in, striving not to look up at the mass of stone above him—or back at the city which would soon be blocked from his view. The stone cube slid down smoothly. He s
tood in the dark for almost five seconds. Ancho chirped nervously, and the device on his back continued its click-clock-click. He nibbed Ancho’s neck, and the little dorfox began radiating again. None too soon. A second block of stone was lifting. Algae-generated light flooded the chamber. He stepped into the hallway revealed and handed his papers to the guardsman standing there. Two were right by the entrance, while a third stood on a crenelated balcony. All three wore unadorned uniforms of bureaucratic back. They weren’t nearly as formal as the fellows outside, but they seemed just as competent. Svir’s identity was passed by speaking tube to the next checkpoint.
He walked on. The hall was well lighted and ventilated—even though it was within a mass of stone four hundred feet high. In some places the stonework was covered by wood paneling and cabinets filled with the arms of early kings. He passed through three more checkpoints, each of a different design. Whenever he had a choice of routes, he took the middle one—he was following a radius straight to the center of the keep, to the crown room vault.
Some of the outer passages were almost crowded. Bureaucrats were making final arrangements for the evening. Svir walked aloof from these, and hoped that none of them compared notes on exactly who they thought he was. As he approached the center, however, there were fewer and fewer people. Besides the guards, he encountered only an occasional very high-ranking bureaucrat.
Here the identification procedures became more complex. The walls were always paneled and the floors heavily carpeted. Svir wondered at this strange luxury in the most secret part of the keep. Besides the usual paintings and displays, there were small glass windows at regular intervals. Beyond that glass, Svir could see only darkness. Probably there was someone back there watching, guarding the guards. Svir was Suddenly very glad that Tatja had had Ancho practice at deluding hidden observers. Now he knew the reason for the luxurious trappings. Besides hiding the observation posts, they probably concealed a variety of weapons and deadfalls.
Finally he reached the last checkpoint: the doorway to the crown room itself. It was conceivable that at this moment only the inspector general and Tar Benesh himself had authority to enter this storeroom of the nation’s greatest treasures and most secret documents. Here the clearance process was especially difficult. For a few uncomfortable moments, Svir thought they were going to take his fingerprints and run a comparison right there. Would the illusion extend to fingerprints? But apparently that procedure was used in special cases only, and Svir was not subjected to it.
As they opened the outer vault door, he casually turned to the officer in charge. “Captain, I have instructions to move some of the prizes out to Sacrifice Island right away. I’d like to have a couple of squads ready when I finish the general inventory.”
“Very good, sir,” she answered. “We have about twenty people with the proper clearance for that job. I can have them here in fifteen minutes.” She handed Svir an algae lamp. “Don’t forget this, sir.”
“Uh, thanks.” He accepted the lamp uncertainly. “If everything’s in order, my inventory shouldn’t take that long.”
He turned and walked quickly into the lock area between the double doors. The outer door slid shut, the inner lifted open, and he stepped into the crown room.
The vault was a disappointment. The room was large and without ornamentation. Svir’s lamp provided the only illumination. Over all hung a musty smell. The treasures were not heaped in some spectacular pile, but were neatly catalogued on racks that filled most of the room. Each object had its own classification tag. A row of cabinets along one wall housed the personal records of the Royal Family. Svir walked along the racks. He almost didn’t notice the Crown Jewels and the 930-carat Shamerest diamond; in the dim light everything looked dull. Finally he reached the red-tag area—the prime sacrifices for the festival.
And there it was: the Fantasie collection. Its sheer bulk was impressive. The thousands of volumes were stacked on seven close-set racks. The racks sat on dollies for easy handling. Obviously Benesh thought of Fantasie as an article of portable wealth rather than a source of philosophical pleasure. But—as Tatja had so cynically pointed out—the collection was also the vehicle of Cor’s salvation. Even in this dim light, he could read some of the binding titles. Why, there was the last obra of Ti Liso’s zombie and golem series! For the last three centuries, Chainpearl experts had been trying to find that issue. The series had been illustrated by Inmar Ellis, probably the greatest artist of all time. Svir noticed all this in passing. No matter how valuable this collection, its physical dimensions were more important to him now. There was indeed enough room between the third and fourth racks to hide a human body.
Now he had to find the correct passage to the prison tier. If Tatja had lied about that … But if she lied, then she couldn’t possibly get the collection. Not by Svir’s efforts, anyway.
The vault doors were so well constructed that Svir did not notice that he had been discovered until the inner door lifted and he heard the raging voice of—
Tar Benesh.
The regent advanced into the room. A look of astounded shock came to his face as he saw Svir. Svir wondered briefly what authority figure the dictator saw in Ancho’s illusion.
Benesh was less than five feet tall. He weighed more than two hundred pounds. Once that weight had been slab-like muscle, but now he was as soft as the velvet and flutter-feather costume he wore.
He raised his arm shakily and pointed at Svir. “Take that—man,” he choked. The black-uniformed guardsmen swarmed toward Svir, their momentary confusion replaced by professionalism. Svir felt only confidence as they approached. He was in trouble, true, but he could work his way out of it.
The confidence vanished, replaced by sudden terror.
Then the guardsmen had him. He felt a needle thrust into the base of his neck, and his entire body became a single charley horse. He couldn’t move, he could scarcely breathe, and what he saw and heard seemed to be far away, observed through a curtain of pain. He felt his person being searched, and heard Benesh say, “A dorfox, that’s the creature you saw.”
“But M’Lord Regent, that’s a mythological creature.”
“Obviously not! Search the crown room.” An unprecedented order. “No one enters or leaves this vault till we find—” He paused, realizing that this was impractical. It would tie up the guard situation in the whole Keep. “No, forget that. But I want that creature, and I want it alive.” There was a lustfulness in his voice. “Check everyone and everything that passes through these doors.”
Svir felt himself picked up, moved swiftly toward the door. Of all the humans in the room, he was the only one who noticed the dorfox seated on the shoulder of Tar Benesh.
As they rushed him through the keep, Svir wondered what had given him away—though he really didn’t care now. Nothing could save Cor and himself. And soon this paralysis would be replaced by the ultimate agony of interrogation.
Finally his captors stopped. There was a creaking sound. Then he was sailing through the air. His hip struck the hard stone floor, adding extra fire to his pain. His head and shoulders were resting in a pile of straw. He smelted rot and blood. The door swung shut and he was in darkness.
There was a shuffling, and someone touched him. Cor! She held his shoulders and whispered what seemed a complete irrelevancy. “I’m sorry, Svir! I tried to warn you but they got me.” She was silent for a second, waiting for some response. He longed to put his arms around her. “Svir?” she whispered. “Are you all right? Svir!” He was so thoroughly paralyzed he couldn’t even croak.
ELEVEN
“—realize we’re sitting beneath the keep artillery. To get out, we have to go around the peninsula past the entrance guns. And now you want me to send twenty people on a raid! When Benesh connects us with this scheme, we’ll be blown out of the water—if we’re lucky!” Kederichi Maccioso slammed his fist down on Tatja’s desk, jarring her drafting instruments an inch into the air.
“Relax, Ked, we aren’t susp
ected of anything. It’s still a state secret that the collection is one of the sacrifices. There’s—” She broke off and motioned Maccioso to be silent. Barely audible against the thrumming crowd sounds, there was scratching at her office window. Tatja pushed the window open and pulled a shivering, croaking Ancho into the room. She held him close, comforting him with low sounds. Maccioso sat down abruptly and stared at them, shocked.
“The dorfox wouldn’t come back alone unless Hedrigs had been taken.” It was an accusation.
Tatja smiled. “That’s right. Svir never had a chance, though he lasted longer than I thought he would.”
“So Benesh knows. We’ve—” Then he realized what Tatja had just said. “You knew all along he would fail.” His voice became flat, deadly. “For all that you’ve done for Tarulle, I knew there’d come a time you’d sacrifice the barge. Don’t think I haven’t planned for it.”
“Shut up, Ked,” Tatja said pleasantly. “You’re disturbing Ancho. I know all about the coup you and Brailly have had in reserve the last three years.” She set Ancho on her desk. “You know,” she said with apparent irrelevance, “I’ve studied dorfoxes. If they were just a little smarter or a little more mobile, they could take over the world. As it is, I can manipulate them—much to Hedrigs’s surprise, I’m sure. With him out of the way, Ancho will accept me as his new master.” She undid the clicker and laid it carefully on her desk. “Hand me that bottle of lacquer, will you?” She accepted the bottle and screwed an atomizer onto its cap. She inserted the nozzle into the clicker’s keyhole and puffed the volatile lacquer into the box. In spite of himself, Kederichi Maccioso leaned over the table to watch. Ancho moved to the corner of the table and munched the klig leaves that Tatja had thoughtfully provided.
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