Forsake the Sky

by Tim Powers

  At last the doors were unbolted from the inside and swung open by an expressionless guard—Frank thought now that it had not been the usual doorguard—who beckoned them inside and escorted them up the stairs and along the familiar hall to the throne room. The man pulled the doors open for them and stepped back, and Frank, getting a fresh grip on the satchel of painting supplies, followed his father inside.

  “Ah, there you are, Rovzar!” boomed Duke Topo from the tall chair of mosaic-inlaid ebony in the center of the room. As usual for these sessions, his bulky person was enclosed in a baggy pair of blue silk trousers and a green velvet coat. Ringlets of hair so shiny as to seem varnished, covered his head and clustered about his shoulders.

  “Your Grace,” acknowledged the older Rovzar. Father and son both bowed. The room was lit by tall, open windows in the eastern wall; bookcases hid the other three walls, and a desk and chair were set in one corner. In the middle of the room, facing the throne in which the Duke sat, was a wooden stand supporting a canvas five feet tall and three feet wide. The canvas, which was framed temporarily in plain wood, was the nearly finished portrait of the Duke, done in oils. It presented him dressed and seated as he now was, but it conveyed a dignity and strength, even a touch of sadness, that were lacking in the model.

  “You think you’ll finish it this session?” the Duke asked.

  “It’s not unlikely,” answered Frank’s father. “But I can’t say for sure, of course.”

  “Of course,” nodded the Duke.

  Old Rovzar put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Okay, now, Frank,” he said, “you set up the palette and turp and oil while I say hello to the picture.” He crossed to the painting and stood in front of it, staring intently. Frank unbuckled the satchel, set up a small folding table and laid out on it a dozen crumpled paint tubes, then poured linseed oil and turpentine into two metal cups. He unwound a rubber band from a bundle of brushes and set them in another cup. A young page, standing beside the sitting Duke, looked on with great interest.

  The doors opened and a slim, pale young man entered. He wore powder blue tights and a matching tunic with ruffles at the throat. A fancy-hilted sword hung at his belt.

  “Costa, my boy!” greeted the Duke. “Finished with your piano lesson so soon?”

  “I despise pianos,” the prince informed him. “Is he still working on that picture?” He walked over and peered closely at the canvas. “Hmmm,” he grunted, before turning and walking to the window. His attitude implied that this painting wasn’t bad, in a provincial way, but that he’d frequently seen better. Frank remembered the prince’s tantrums after he had been told that he was not to be included in the painting—for a week Costa had sulked, and then in the days since tried to make it clear that he regarded Rovzar as an inferior painter.

  Frank’s father was sketching lightly in a background area of the canvas, oblivious to the world. What is it that’s different about young Prince Costa this morning? Frank had wondered. He’s quiet, for one thing; usually he makes himself tiresome with frequent questions and distractions. Frank suppressed a smile as he remembered one day when Costa had brought a drawing pad and pastels and made an attempt to portray the Duke himself, with much squinting and many theatrical gestures. But now he simply stood at the window, staring down into the courtyard.

  Frank’s attention was caught by his father’s blocking in of the background. With a few passes of a pencil the artist’s hand had converted a patch of blank canvas into several bookshelves in perfect perspective. He set about defining the shadows with quick cross-hatching.

  Suddenly it occurred to Frank what was different about Prince Costa. This was the first time Frank had seen him wearing a sword.

  “Where’s my number eight camel hair?” asked old Rovzar, pawing through the brushes. “Right here, Dad,” replied Frank, pointing out the one in question. “Oh, yes.” The painter took the brush, dipped it into the linseed oil, and began mixing a dab of paint.

  A loud bang echoed up from the courtyard.

  “What was that?” asked the Duke.

  Several more bangs rattled the glass in the windows, then there was a series of them like a string of firecrackers going off.

  “By God,” said Frank, “I think it’s gunfire." He spoke incredulously, guns and powder being so prohibitively rare and expensive these days. Panicky yells sounded, punctuated by more shots.

  “We’re beset!” gasped the Duke. Prince Costa ran out of the room, and the Duke took his place at the window. “Troops!” he shouted. “A hundred Transport soldiers are within the bailey!”

  Old Rovzar looked up. “What?” he asked. “I trust my painting won’t be interrupted?”

  “Interrupted?” The Duke waved his fists. “The Transports will probably use your canvas to polish their boots!” An explosion shook the palace, and the Duke scrambled back from the window. The pandemonium of shouts, shots and screams was a mounting roar.

  The Duke ran bobbing and puffing across the carpeted floor to the desk. He yanked out drawers and began throwing bundles of letters and documents in a pile on the floor. “How did they get in?” he kept whining. “How in the devil’s name did they get in?”

  Frank glanced at his father. “Do we run for it?” he asked tensely. The young page stared at them with wide eyes.

  Frank’s father scratched his chin. “No, I guess not. We’re better off here than down in that madhouse of a courtyard. Just don’t panic. Damn, I hope nobody sticks a bayonet through this,” he said, staring at the painting.

  The hollow booms of two more explosions jarred Frank’s teeth. “This attack must be costing a fortune,” he said, awed.

  The Duke had struck a match and set it to his pile of papers; most of them were yellowed with age, and they were consumed quickly, scorching the rug under them. When they had burned to fragile black curls he stamped them into powder. “What else, what else?” the distraught Duke moaned, wringing his hands.

  Suddenly from beyond the throne room doors Frank heard a hoarse, triumphant yell, and then heavy-booted footsteps running up the hall toward the room they were in. The page ran to the doors and threw a more-or-less decorative-looking bolt into the locked position.

  The Duke had heard it too and sprang to one of the bookcases. His pudgy hands snatched one of the books from the shelf, and then he stood holding it, staring wildly around the room. The attackers were pounding on the doors now. The Duke’s eyes lit on the painting and he ran to it with a glad cry. He stuffed the book—which, Frank noticed, was a leather-bound copy of Winnie the Pooh—behind the picture’s frame, so that it lay hidden between the canvas and the thick cross-bracing. This done, he ran back to his throne and sat down, exhausted. Frank and the old painter stared at him, even in this crisis puzzled by the Duke’s action.

  Six bullets splintered downward through the doors, one snapping the bolt and two more tearing through the page’s chest, the impact throwing him to the floor. Frank’s numbed mind had time to be amazed at the quickness of it.

  The doors were kicked open and a dozen men strode into the room. Eleven of them were soldiers who wore the gray Transport uniform and carried rifles, but it was the twelfth, the apparent leader, who held the attention of Rovzar, his son and the Duke.

  “Costa!” exclaimed the astounded Duke. “Not you ...?”

  Costa drew his sword with a sharp rasp of steel. “On guard, your Grace,” he whispered tightly, holding the blade forward and crouching a bit. Terrible form, thought Frank.

  It was adequate against the Duke, though, whose only defensive action was to cover his face with his hands. Prince Costa hesitated, his face palely blotchy and his sword trembling, then cursed and drove the blade into Duke Topo’s chest. He wrenched it out, and the Duke sighed and bowed forward, leaning farther and farther, until he overbalanced and tumbled messily to the floor.

  One of the Transport soldiers stepped to the still-open window and waved. “He’s dead!” he bellowed. “Topo is dead!” Cheers, wails and renewe
d shooting greeted this announcement. Frank could smell smoke, laced with the unfamiliar tang of gunpowder and high explosives.

  The other soldiers seized Frank and his father. “Damn it,” old Rovzar snarled, “you apes had better—” One of the soldiers twisted the old man’s arm, and the painter kicked him expertly, leaving him rolling in pain on the floor. Another raised his rifle clubwise.

  “Duck, Dad!” yelled Frank, earning himself a slap in the side of the head.

  His father had leaped away from the descending gun butt and made a grab at Costa’s ruffle-bordered throat. One of the soldiers next to Frank stepped aside to have a clear field of fire. “No!” screamed Frank, twisting furiously in his captor’s grasp. The soldier fired his rifle from the hip, almost casually, and the bang was startlingly loud. The bullet caught old Rovzar in the temple and spun him away from the surprised-looking prince. Frank, painfully held by two soldiers now, stared unbelievingly at his father’s body stretched beside the bookcase.

  “Take the kid along with the servants,” said Costa, and as the soldiers, one of them limping and cursing, filed out, carrying Frank like a piece of furniture, the only coherent thought in Frank’s stunned mind was that he was, if anything, somewhat older than Costa.

  FRANK shifted now on his cot. The man who’d been having the nightmare seemed to have come to terms with his dreams, for the dark cells were silent except for the perpetual susurration of many people breathing, a sound like water quietly flowing through pipes underground. We’d all better come to terms with our dreams, Frank thought. They’ll be the best part of our lives, in the Orestes system.

  No more painting, he thought, trying to make himself grasp the idea. No more friends, fencing, decent food and drink, girls—not ever again would he ride a horse through woods at dawn, not ever again swim in the surf, never again, in fact, feel the gravitational field of Octavio, the planet on which he’d been born. Did you get sufficient use out of ... everything ... while you still had it?

  My God, he thought as the sudden sweat of comprehension misted his forehead and chilled his belly, isn’t there anyone who can get me out of this? What about Tom Strand, or his father? Couldn’t either of them do anything? Of course not, rasped the logical part of his mind. How could they reverse the decision of the Transport and the planetary government? The idea, he was forced to admit, was ridiculous.

  Panic eventually gave way to a decision. I am not going to Orestes, he thought. I simply am not going. I will escape.

  He got up from his cot and felt his way through the inky blackness to one of the sleeping men and shook him by the shoulder. The man started violently.

  “Who is it?” he whispered in terror.

  “I’m a fellow prisoner,” Frank hissed. “Listen, we’ve got to escape. Are you with me?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, kid,” the man almost sobbed, “go back to sleep and leave me alone.”

  “You want to go to Orestes?” Frank asked wonderingly.

  “Kid—you can’t escape. Forget it. Your life won’t be real great now, but make an escape attempt and you’ll be surprised how sorry you’ll be, and for how long.”

  Frank left the man to his sleep and returned to his cot, his confident mood deflated.

  After another half hour of sitting on his mattress, Frank was again convinced of the necessity of escape. Wasn’t there a wide ventilation grille set in the center of the ceiling? He tried to remember. Let’s see, he thought, they marched us in here, showed us each a cot, and then turned off the lights. But it seems to me I did notice a slotted plate set in the ceiling. I could escape through the ventilation system!

  He stood up again. It seemed to be in the center of the ceiling, he recalled. He made his way to a wall and counted the number of steps it took to walk its length; then did the same with the other wall. Twelve by eight, he thought. He then went back to the midpoint of the twelve-pace wall and took four paces out into the room, thanking Chance that no sleeping prisoners lay in his path.

  By my calculations, he mused, I should now be directly beneath that ventilation grille. He crouched; when he leaped upward with a strong kick, his fingers crooked to catch the vent. Instead, they cracked against unyielding concrete.

  He fell back to the floor, strangling a curse. His hands stung, and he could feel blood trickling down one finger. Bit of a miscalculation, Rovzar, he told himself.

  He pulled himself to his feet and got ready to jump again, this time only intending to brush the ceiling with his fingers, to feel for the vent. This is what I should have done to begin with, he thought.

  After four jumps, muffled by his rubber-soled shoes, he found the vent. His next leap gained him two fingerholds and in a moment he had got a firm grip with both hands. Now what?

  Why, he thought, I’ll bring my legs up and kick the plate until it comes loose, and then I’ll pull myself up into the hole and be off. Righto. He drew his legs up, and with a sort of half flip he kicked the plate with one toe. It made hardly any noise, but he was disappointed at how weak the blow was. This time he got swinging first, and then used the momentum of his pendulum motion to emphasize the kick as he flipped again and drove his heel at the grille.

  With an echoing clang of broken metal his foot punched completely through the grille. The recoil of the kick wrenched his hands free, but he didn’t fall back to the floor; instead he hung upside down, his foot caught in the twisted wreck of the vent.

  Shouts echoed eerily through the corridors, and the prisoners below Frank whimpered in uncomprehending fear. An alarm added its flat howl to the confusion. Frank, dangling from the ceiling, pulled at his trapped foot, hoping to be able to return to his cot before the guards arrived. Footsteps thudded in the corridor, and immediately the lights in Frank’s cell flashed on, blinding him. The will to move left his body and he relaxed, swinging limp from the mooring of his foot. He heard the door rattle and squeak open, and then something hard was driven with savage force into his stomach and consciousness left him.

  FRANK came back to wakefulness by degrees, like a length of seaweed being gradually nudged to shore by succeeding waves. First he was aware of a hum of voices and a sense of being carried about. None of it seemed to demand a response.

  Then he dimly knew he was sleeping, but it was a deep, heavy sleep, and he did not want to wake up yet even though it sounded as if some people were up already.

  Abruptly, a cold finger and thumb pried his right eyelid open. Frank saw an unfocused sea of bright gray.

  “This kid’s okay,” came a loud, gravelly voice. “Throw him over there with that clown who set his bed on fire.”

  Frank had groggily assumed that the voice was speaking figuratively when it said “throw,” but now unseen hands clamped on his ankles and wrists. “Wait, wait—” Frank began mumbling. “Heave ho!” called someone cheerily, and Frank found himself lifted from whatever he’d been lying on and tossed sprawling into the air. His eyes sprang open wide and he grabbed convulsively at nothing. He saw the concrete floor rushing up at him and he managed to twist around in midair so that he landed on his hip instead of his head. The sharp, aching pain of the impact was his first clear sensation of the morning.

  Laughter rang loud in the room, and Frank looked up from where he lay to see what sort of people were amused by this. A Transport captain and four guards returned his gaze with a mixture of humor and scornful contempt in their eyes. All of them wore pistols, and two of the guards held coils of rope.

  “Take these two jerks first,” said the captain, pointing in Frank’s direction. “And tie their hands.” The man exited and the four guards walked over to Frank and rolled him over onto his face, then quickly and securely tied his wrists together behind him. They left him lying there and moved on to someone behind him.

  “Get up now,” one of the guards said. Frank struggled to his knees and then stood up. His stomach was a collage of pain and numbness, and he sagged when he straightened up; the colors of unconsciousness began to glitter before his
eyes. He lowered his head and breathed deeply, and the weakness passed. He heard a sigh behind him and turned to see a tall, thin man with graying hair. It must be the guy who set fire to his bed, Frank realized.

  “All right, you two, get moving,” a guard said. “Out that door.”

  Frank and his sad-eyed companion shambled out of the little room and, escorted by the guards, made their way down a corridor to an open doorway. Morning sunlight glared on wet asphalt outside, and the air was cold.

  Somehow Frank was not very depressed. The light of day had dispelled the fears of the night, and his system was buoyed up by the realization that he was embarking on a perilous journey. Anything can happen, he thought.

  The guards prodded the two blinking prisoners outside. Five hundred yards away the silver needle of a Transport ship stood up against the sky, gleaming in the sun like a polished sword. Even though it was the vehicle that was to carry him to Orestes, Frank was overcome with the beauty of the thing.

  “Are these our two escapees?” asked a Transport officer who had walked up while Frank was staring at the rocket. He carried in his hand an object that looked like a rubber stamp or a wax seal.

  “Yes, sir,” answered one of the guards.

  “Open their shirts,” the officer said. A guard took hold of Frank’s shirt-collar ends and yanked them apart. Three buttons clicked on the asphalt. I’m glad this is just an old painting shirt, Frank thought automatically. He heard his companion’s shirt being dealt with in the same way.

  “Now, boys, this won’t hurt a bit,” said the officer with a cold smile as he pressed the seal onto Frank’s chest. The metal felt warm and itched a little, but was not uncomfortable. “There,” the officer said. “Now everyone will know at a glance who you are.”