Forsake the Sky

Chapter 1

Bright torchlight flickered on the faces of the seven men seated around the oak table. A nearly empty brandy bottle and a litter of used clay pipes gave testimony to the length of the conference, and one or two of the men were obviously stifling yawns.

“However you argue it,” said one of them, obviously not for the first time, “you can’t hold the palace. You might just be able to take it, as you suggest, with an army of thieves and evicted farmers. But without a prince of the royal blood to set on the throne, you’d be thrown out within the week and your army would be cut to bits and driven into the hills to starve.”

“I guess you’re right, Hodges,” said the man at the head of the table. “We ... shelve that idea, then. But you haven’t given me a reason why you oppose the idea of night raids on the Transport shipment between Barclay and the palace.”

“Well,” said Hodges doubtfully, scratching his chin, “I guess I don’t really oppose it ... but there are two reasons why I don’t entirely like it. First, you’re saying we should make a direct raid on the Transport, which is bigger meat than the Companions usually go for. Second, it would be on the surface, and our boys aren’t used to working without a roof overhead and a sewer or two to scuttle down if things get tight.”

“Well, our boys are going to have to get used to it,” growled the leader. “You know as well as I do what that Transport last week whispered before he died. Their home base, their system headquarters, is what they plan to make of this planet. And do you think they’ll allow our little thieves’ union to continue when Octavio is nothing but a Transport office and parking lot? Not likely. We’ve got to impede them, as seriously as we can, or we’ll all be shipped off to some prison planet within the year.”

Hodges shrugged, frowning uncertainly. “That’s true,” he said. “But the morale won’t be good among those who have to go on the raids.”

The leader stood up and laid his smoking pipe on the table. The scar of a sword-cut showed paler against his pale cheek, and a glittering bronze ear hung on the side of his head. Quite a piratical character he looks, thought Hodges, but I wish he’d be more realistic about policy. “Would they feel better about it,” the leader asked, “if the man who led the raid was their king?”

“You can’t,” said Hodges.

“Would they?”

“Sure. They’d feel even better if God led them in a glowing chariot. But neither one is possible.”

“Don’t be so ... hidebound, Hodges. I can lead them, and I will. The next shipment of supplies will be this Thursday night. I’ll take ten of our best men and capture the shipment; then we’ll all have a late dinner and be in bed before one o’clock. No trouble at all.”

“It’s a very bad idea,” Hodges insisted.

“Most good ideas look like bad ones at first,” Frank informed him.

THE moon was a shaving of silver in the sky, and Cromlech Road lay in total darkness. Crickets chirped a monotonous litany in the shrubbery beside the paved road, and frogs chuckled gutturally to each other in the swamps a mile to the east. The only motion came with the night breeze that swept among the treetops from time to time.

Frank crouched on a thick branch that hung out over the middle of the road, about twenty feet above the asphalt. He wore a knitted wool cap pulled low and a scarf wrapped around his face just under the eyes, and his sweater and pants were of black wool. His rapier hung scabbarded from his belt on one side; a long knife was tucked into the other. He was as motionless as the branch; even in daylight he’d have been hard to see.

Five men, also armed, hidden and silent, waited in the shrubbery on the east side of the road, and five more crouched on the west. None of them had moved or spoken for the last hour, and crickets and spiders had begun to build nests around their boots.

Frank stared at the empty stretch of the road south, only dimly visible to him, and tried to figure out what time it was. We've been out here about an hour, he thought, which would make it roughly nine o’clock now. About a half hour, then, until they come by.

Ten minutes later he tensed—a quiet, distant rattling and whirring was audible and growing momentarily louder. He curled his fingers around his sword hilt and waited, scanning the road more carefully now. The sound, punctuated now and then by coughing or an interval of muted metallic rattling, eventually became recognizable: it was that of a man riding a bicycle.

A moment later Frank saw the dim glow of the bike’s headlight; he could hear the man puffing now as he pedalled the thing along, and he heard also, very faintly, the long scratch of a sword being drawn. Don’t do it, Frank thought furiously. Can’t you idiots see that he’s a scout, running ahead of the shipment to make sure the way is clear? Frank held his breath, but the bicyclist passed on by the ambush without even changing the rhythm of his breathing. When the sound had dwindled away behind him, Frank let out a soft sigh of relief.

The shipment ought to be along promptly now, he thought; and sure enough, he saw, dimly in the distance, twin pinpricks of light that could only be the headlights of a Transport truck. He took a chance and gave a low whistle to alert his men. They send their scouts damned far ahead, Frank thought. We could have killed that bicyclist easily, and even if he’d yelled the truck is too far behind him to have heard it. Or maybe the bicycle was wired with flares; if we’d knocked it over, a dozen skyrockets would have pinpointed the ambush and likely set us all afire.

The truck was closer now, and he could hear its knocking motor labor up a slight rise. Well, Frank thought, it’s all in the lap of the gods now.

Nearer and nearer it came, until, when it was fifty feet in front of him, two steel-headed crossbow quarrels flashed out of the shrubbery, both slanted to the south, and tore into the truck’s front tires. The vehicle was doing perhaps forty miles per hour, so the stop, after the explosive loss of the tires, was a screeching, grinding, sparking slide.

Frank had hoped the truck would stop directly below him—it didn’t, quite, so he dropped out of the tree into the downward-slanting, dust-clouded headlight beams and with two blows of his dagger-hilt smashed the bulbs. The driver and two guards leaped out of the cab, brandishing swords at Frank, and were cut down by arrow-fire from the bushes.

Frank whipped out his sword, leaped to the hood and then to the top of the cab. Wooden boxes covered with a tarpaulin filled the truck bed; stretched across several of them was the limp body of another guard—apparently knocked unconscious when the truck was stopped. Even as Frank watched, one of the ambushers sank a dagger into the uniformed body.

Frank’s men now dragged the four bodies into the shrubbery while Frank climbed into the cab. He put the gear shift lever into neutral, and his well-trained crew pushed the crippled truck while Frank steered it off the road. The massive vehicle was carried by its own weight several yards into the bushes. Frank’s ten men cut branches from nearby trees and draped the truck with them, and aside from the cuts in the asphalt from the tire rims, there were no signs that anything had happened here.

“All right,” Frank whispered. “Quick, now, there might be a scout behind them, too. Everybody take one of these boxes and follow me. Forget the rest of them—this time we’ll take only what we can carry.”

Each of the eleven men shouldered one of the boxes from the truck bed and filed away eastward. After about a hundred and fifty yards, they came to a wider dirt road. Turning right, the party followed it south for a quarter of a mile. Once Frank thought he heard shouts behind them, but it was very faint. The boxes were getting heavy and awkward, but no one spoke or even slackened the pace.

They finally reached the clearing where the eleven sleepy horses were tied. Frank and his men tied their boxes to the saddles, mounted, and galloped away east—a bit awkwardly and unsteadily, for none of them were really competent horsemen.

WHEN the last of the brigands had left the room, Frank turned to Hodges and the four other men at the table.

“Hand me that crowbar, will you, Hodges?” he asked. Hodges passed it to him. Frank pried up the nailed-down lid of the first box and lifted it off. In the box, wrapped in many sheets of waxed paper, were twelve .45 calibre semi-automatic pistols, glistening with oil. In the next box lay a thousand rounds of ammunition and twelve clips.

“Good God!” muttered Hodges. “Open the rest of them!”

Frank quickly opened the next box and found twenty rectangular sponges, rough on one side for scouring. The next box Frank pried apart held flat cans of saddle soap, as did the next two. Six metal bottles of kerosene lay in the next one, and the eighth box was filled with more saddle soap. The last four boxes held, respectively, handsoap, pamphlets on diabetes, a hundred fountain pens (but no ink) and more saddle soap.

Frank opened a drawer in the table and pulled out his pipe and tobacco pouch. “Well,” he said, stuffing the pipe, “the guns and ammunition will be handy. Hell, all of it’s handy in one way or another. These scouring sponges, now. ...”

Hodges, who had been looking strangled, now exploded in helpless laughter. “Yeah,” he gasped.

“These scouring sponges, now.” He picked one of them up. “Nothing but the best. Duke’s choice!” He picked up two more and began juggling them.

“For God’s sake, man,” said Frank. “Pull yourself together.”

“Sorry, sire,” sniffled Hodges, wiping tears out of his eyes. “It’s been a long evening.”

“For all of us,” Frank agreed. “Now listen. We picked them off easily tonight, because they weren’t expecting anything—their precautions were minimal and the four guards we ran into were just tokens. Also, the shipment itself seems to have been a ... fairly minor one. It won’t ever be this easy again.”

“Right,” agreed Hodges. “Next time they’ll have a lot of alert, heavily armed guards riding along. So why continue? To corner the market in sponges and saddle soap?”

Frank held a lit match over his pipe-bowl and puffed rapidly on it. “No,” he said, tamping it now. “Maybe you’ve forgotten those twelve pistols. And there are two purposes to these raids—to scavenge things for ourselves and to impede the Transports. And of the two the second is more important.

“Maybe you’ve also forgotten all those reports of construction going on in the Goriot Valley. They’re building offices, barracks, factories for all we know! And when they’re finished, more Transports will move in than any of you dreamed existed! How many times do I have to point this out? The Subterranean Companions will be a forgotten joke inside of a year. In the meantime, though, their supplies are being landed at the Barclay Depot and driven up the Cromlech Road to the palace or the valley. If we interfere with those shipments, we put off the day the Transports take complete charge of this planet.”

“He’s right, Hodges,” spoke up one of the previously silent councillors. “It’s the least we can do.”

“Right!” agreed Frank eagerly, his bronze ear glittering in the torchlight. “It is the least, a mere ... temporary cure. We have to, eventually, get rid of the Transport entirely, which means, of course, getting rid of Costa as well.” He puffed on his pipe for a moment, sending thick smoke-coils curling to the ceiling. “We’ve got to find an heir—a prince.”

“There aren’t any, besides Costa himself, who has no children,” said Hodges with some exasperation. “And you can’t simply come up with a likely-looking pretender—you’d have to have documents, proof, things no forger could counterfeit.”

“I can’t help that,” Frank shrugged. “That’s what we need.”

TOM Strand jogged up the steps of the Transport General Offices’ building and grinned at his reflection in the front window as he straightened his tie. Ah, you’re a bright-looking lad, Tommie, he told himself. He pulled open the door and approached the stem-faced woman behind the receptionist’s desk.

“Uh, hello,” said Tom shyly. “I was asked to come ... that is, I have an appointment with Captain Duprey.”

The woman pursed her lips and flipped through her appointment book. “You’re Thomas Strand?”

“That’s right.”

“He’s expecting you. Second floor, room two-twelve.”

“Thank you.” Tom found the stairs after a few wrong turns and soon was knocking on the door of Room 212. He was told to come in, did so, and found himself in a pleasant, sunlit office, facing a smiling man with gray temples and laughter lines around his eyes.

“Tom Strand? I’m Captain Duprey.” The officer half-stood and warmly shook Tom’s hand. “Sit down, Tom. Will you have some brandy?”

“Yes, thank you.” Tom was gratified and profoundly flattered to be on such friendly terms with a Transport officer. I hope I’m equal to whatever job they have for me, he thought.

“Well, Tom,” said Duprey, pouring two glasses, “you’re in a position to do the Transport a big favor. And”—he looked up—“the Transport is not ungrateful to people who do it favors.”

“I’ll be ... glad to be of service, sir.”

“Good! I knew you were a smart lad when I saw you. I can certainly see we’ve picked the right man! Here, drink up.”

“Thank you, sir.” For a moment they both simply savored the brandy.

“Are you loyal to your Duke, Tom?” asked Duprey with a sharp look.

“Oh, yes sir!” Tom had, to be sure, his private doubts and dissatisfactions, but knew when to keep them to himself. “Absolutely,” he added with fervor.

“Good man!” Duprey looked ready to burst with his admiration for Tom. “Now,” he said, lowering his voice solemnly, “you were, I believe, a close friend of Francisco de Goya Rovzar?”

“Yes,” said Tom, mystified by this turn. “He and his father disappeared about a year ago. I heard they were sent to the Orestes mines.”

“I’ll tell you what happened, Tom. They were in the palace when Costa overthrew Topo’s decadent rule, and they resisted arrest. The father was killed and young Francisco escaped into Munson. You’ve heard of the Subterranean Companions?”

“Yes. They’re the ones who’ve been raiding your supply shipments, aren’t they?”

“That’s right, Tom. Well, Francisco has become their king and is the instigator of these raids!”

“He’s the king?” asked Tom in amazement. “Are you sure? How did he get to become king?”

“I understand he murdered the previous king, which is how succession works with these killers and thieves. Barbaric.”

“It certainly is,” Tom agreed. “I can see how he’d do well at it, though. My father is a fencing instructor, and Frankie was always his star pupil.”

“Is that right? Yes, that explains a lot of things.” Duprey flipped open a wooden box on his desk. “Have a cigar, Tom,” he said. “Genuine Havanas, all the way from Earth.”

Tom took a cigar, glorying in his apparent equality with this space-wise, experienced old soldier. Duprey lit it for him, and Tom puffed at it with an expression of determined enjoyment.

“This brings us right to the point,” Duprey went on. “I won’t mince words, for I see you’re a man who likes to know straight-out what’s what. Frank Rovzar is a criminal and a leader of other criminals. He is almost certainly responsible for the deaths of ... let’s see ... eighteen Transport soldiers, several of them officers, and his raids on our shipments are becoming more costly all the time. You see the position he puts us in?”

“I certainly do, sir.”

“Good. Now what I ... what the Transport asks of you is that you enlist in the Subterranean Companions. We’ll provide you with a credible story, of course. Then you can pretend to reestablish your friendship with him; get close to him; and then, quickly and mercifully, execute him. You’ll be acting as a representative of the state, naturally, and when you return from this valuable mission you’ll be given a high position in our company—as well as a cash reward for Rovzar’s death. It’s a fairly dangerous adventure, I know, and many men would fear to take opportunity’s somewhat bloody hand. But, unless I’m mistaken, you’re made of sterner stuff.”

Tom gulped his brandy, trying hard to mask the uncertainty inside him. Even for a high position in the Transport, he thought, can I coldly kill old Frank? Still, if I turn Duprey down I’ll likely wind up in jail myself.

“I’m always ready to do my country’s bidding,” Tom said with a pious look. “I’ll do my best, sir.”

“I knew you were our man!” said Duprey with the sort of smile one saves for a true comrade.

UNLIKE Blanchard, Frank made it a point to attend as many meetings of the Subterranean Companions as he could. He liked to keep up on the news and to learn as much as possible about the workings of the organization he’d become king of. Generally he sat to the side, smoking thoughtfully, only occasionally speaking up to add something or ask a question of Hodges.

Tonight he squinted curiously through a haze of latakia smoke at Hodges, who had just claimed to have an announcement to make about “the deceased king, Tolley Christensen.”

“After the duel in which Tolley Christensen was killed,” Hodges read from his notes, “his sword was picked up, together with the sword of King Blanchard. The two swords were observed to cling to each other. Upon investigation, Tolley’s sword proved to be magnetized. This is a trick expressly forbidden in the bylaws, and therefore I declare that Tolley’s admittedly brief reign was won by unfair means, and is, because of that, invalidated. Henceforth, then, our present King Francisco Rovzar is to be remembered as the successor to King Blanchard, with none between.”

Frank felt a quick panic. That means that Tolley wasn’t king when I killed him, he thought. Therefore, technically, I’m not really the king now. Damn it, Hodges, I wish you’d cleared this with me before announcing it.

Oh hell, he thought. Even if they do appoint someone else, I can always pull the ius gladii out of the hat again. And they’ll know I will, so they won’t try it even if they think of it.

A magnetized sword, eh, Tolley? Were you that scared of Blanchard? In the legendry and superstition of the understreet thieves, a magnetized sword was reputed to be much deadlier than an ordinary one; but Frank couldn’t see that it would make any difference. It just might, he thought, make getting a bind a little easier, and it might make your parries a little quicker— but it would do the same for your opponent, too.

Frank suddenly snapped out of his re very. Hodges was now reading the names of newly bonded apprentices. “What was that last name, Hodges?”

“Uh ... Thomas Strand.”

“Thank you.”

Thomas Strand! Could it be my old buddy? Frank wondered. I’ll have to check the lists after the meeting and see where this Strand is staying. It would be great to have Tom down here. Since Orcrist was killed, I don’t have a really close friend in this understreet antfarm—only George Tyler, I guess; and maybe Beardo Jackson.

Eventually Hodges declared the meeting adjourned, and the crowd broke up into departing groups arguing about where to go for beer. Hodges was shuffling his papers together and a handful of young apprentices were waiting for the nod to drag out the ladders and snuff the lights.

“Hodges,” Frank said. “I think I know one of the new apprentices. Let me—”

“Frank!” came a voice from below him. “Your majesty, I mean.”

Frank looked down and grinned to see Tom Strand standing in front of the first-row seats. Frank jumped down from the marble block and slapped him on the back. “When the hell did you fall into the sewer world, Tom?”

“A couple of days ago. I saw you kind of blink when the emcee read my name. But Frank, you look ten years older! You’ve got a metal ear! And how did you cut your face? Shaving?”

“We’ve both got long stories to tell, I’m sure. I’m taking off, Hodges. Oh, and I’d like to see you tomorrow at ten in the council room; there’s a detail or two of protocol I want to check with you on.”

“Right, sire.” Hodges leaped down from the platform and ambled into the sacristy.

“Come on,” Frank said. “I know where we can get some beer.” As they walked out he waved to the boys, who trudged off to the closet where the ladders were kept.

“TOLLEY killed Orcrist and Blanchard, both of them friends of mine, so I killed him. Afterward I found that that had made me the new king. And here I am. So how is it that you’ve become one of my subjects?” Tom mentally ran through the story Duprey had provided him with. “Well, Frank, my old girlfriend, Bonnie—remember her? Of course you do—Bonnie and I were out getting drunk one night, and a Transport cop came over and said to her ‘Drop creepo, here, baby, and try a real man.’ Well, I told him to, you know, buzz off, and he punched me in the face, so I hit him with a bottle and he fell right over, like he was dead.”

He’s lying, Frank thought—or at least exaggerating. Oh well, if he wants to look brave, I won’t hinder him.

“There were about six other Transports there, and they went for me, swords out. I’ve never been scared by swords, you know that, but I figured six of ’em were too many, so I headed out the door.”

“What about Bonnie?”

“Hm?”

“Bonnie. You left her there?”

“Oh ... no, no. I knew the guy that owned the place, see, and I knew he’d look after her. Anyway, I ran out of there and headed for Munson. I didn’t have any place to stay, and Munson in the winter isn’t the right town for sidewalk-sleeping, so I crawled into a sewer, followed it along, and found a whole city down here.”

“You were lucky you did. Munson on the surface is a Transport nest. Who’s your sponsor?”

“An old guy named Jack Plant. Know him?”

“Slightly.” Frank frowned inwardly. Plant was a perpetual whiner and complainer, and had in the past been vaguely suspected of having made deals with the surface police. “I’ll get you a good position so you can pay off your bond quickly.”

“Thanks, Frank. But I don’t want you doing me favors just because I’m your friend.”

“Don’t worry. I never let personal feelings interfere with what’s got to be done. But getting you a job isn’t any trouble. Finish your beer, now, and I’ll show you the way back to Plant’s.”

After Frank had left, Tom sat drinking weak coffee in Plant’s front room. I can’t kill old Frank, Tom thought, even if he is a criminal. The poor devil’s had a horrible time and has to live his whole life underground in a sewer. Of course it isn’t that bad— and he’s living high, by sewer standards.

Maybe, Tom thought, I could pretend to kill him. I could buy a slave of roughly Frank’s build, and then cut the slave’s head off and dress him in Frank’s clothes and tell Duprey that it was Frank. Then I’d have to do something with Frank ... maybe I could sell him into slavery in the Tamarisk Isles. I’d have to cut out his tongue, I suppose, but that’s better than being killed. I guess it would probably be best to blind him, too—can’t have him coming back, after all—but that’s still better than being killed.

Tom was gratified to see how readily he could think in these harsh terms.

Yessir, Tom smiled to himself, that’s what I’ll do. That way I get the Transport post Duprey promised me, and I don’t have to kill Frank. Hell, he’ll probably be happier, dumb and blind in the sunny Tamarisk Isles.

“OKAY, Hodges, that wasn’t it. Send in the next one.” Frank leaned back in his chair and wished he had his pipe.

The door opened and a thin, well-dressed man entered the room. His suit was clean and meticulously pressed, but looked a bit threadbare around the cuffs. He had apparently combed his hair recently with some kind of oil.

“Please sit down,” said Frank. “You are related to the royal family, I believe?”

“That’s right,” the man nodded.

“What is your connection?”

“My father was the rightful duke, and Topo had him killed so he could marry my mother.”

“Your father was Duke Ovidi?” Frank asked. “That’s right. Topo had him killed.”

“How?” Frank had always understood that Ovidi had died after falling, drunk, down a flight of stairs, thus leaving the dukedom to his brother Topo.

“My father was sleeping, and two scoundrels that Topo had hired snuck up and poured poison in his ear. Then Topo married my mother and took the title of Duke. But now I think it’s time that I claimed my kinship and threw Topo out. I’ve been having visions—”

“Yes, yes,” said Frank hastily. “Visions. I see. Well, thank you for your time. If anything develops, we’ll get in touch with you.”

The man stood up uncertainly and ambled out of the room. A moment later Hodges leaned in. “Another blank?” he asked.

Frank nodded.

“Nut or fortune-hunter?”

“Nut, for sure,” said Frank. “The guy doesn’t know Topo’s dead, even.”

“Well, I’ve got six more out here. You want ’em now or save ’em to see tomorrow?”

“Oh, tomorrow, I guess. We’ve got to find an heir, Hodges.”

“If you say so, sire.”

Frank waited until Hodges had got rid of the six other pretenders to the throne, and then went downstairs and put on his coat and sword.

“Going somewhere, sire?” Hodges asked.

“Yeah; I’m meeting a couple of friends on the boat.”

“Be careful.”

“Always, Hodges.”

Cochran Street was empty as Frank closed the door behind him. The air was chilly, and foul with fumes that were filtering up from some low-level swamp or stagnant branch of the Leethee. He pulled his coat tighter about him and strode off rapidly toward his dock. After insisting that his boatman and two guards remain where they were, Frank untied a small rowboat and took off down the Leethee. The river was flowing quick and smooth, but the choppy water and erratic evening wind of the harbor slowed him down. When he reached the anchored boat another rowboat was already moored to it.

“Frank!” someone called from the deck. “Get up here with the key, for God’s sake!”

Frank tied his rowboat to a mooring ring and climbed aboard the larger vessel. George Tyler stood shivering on the afterdeck, clutching a wine bottle as if it were a threatened baby. Frank unlocked the cabin and they both hurried inside.

“Get the heater lit,” gasped Tyler. “I’ve been out there for an hour.”

“You have not.”

“Well, nearly. Who’s this friend I’ve got to meet?”

“His name’s Tom Strand. He was my best friend before I came understreet.”

“Oh.” Tyler struck a match and lit the lamps. “Say, Frank, I’m sorry about what happened at my party.”

“Forget it, George. I’d say Kathrin and that Matthews dimwit are made for each other.”

“I guess so. They certainly see a lot of each other, anyway.” Tyler slumped into a chair. “Say,” he said, “where is Sam’s grave? I never thought to ask, but now I’d like to go and ... pour some wine on his last resting place, or something.”

“He doesn’t have a grave,” Frank told him.

“You didn’t bury him?”

Frank pulled the cork out of George’s wine bottle. “Not exactly. I dragged his body back to our boat and then went on to that meeting we’d been heading for. Afterward I rowed out past the jetty and tied a heavy chain around him and let him sink in the outer sea.” He handed Tyler a glass of wine.

Tyler frowned for a moment, and then nodded. “You did the right thing, Frank. Bodies buried understreet always pop out sooner or later on a lower level. Here’s to his shade!” He tossed off the wine.

Frank drained his, too, and flung the glass hard at the narrow starboard window, which shattered explosively outward, spraying the deck with tinkling glass. Tyler flung his through the jagged hole into the sea.

“Hey, take it easy!” someone called from outside. “Frank, is that you?”

“That must be Tom,” Frank said, walking to the door. “I was beginning to worry about him.”

Frank went out on deck and showed Tom where to tie his boat, then helped him aboard and opened the cabin door for him.

(Two hundred yards away a tall, blond man in the harbor patrol uniform lowered his binoculars. He looked pleased as he took up the oars and began pulling toward the south.)

“This is George Tyler, Tom, one of the great poets of our age,” Frank said. “George, this is Tom Strand. Will you have some wine, Tom?”

“Sure. I can never afford any on an apprentice’s wages.”

“Maybe you can do better than that,” said Frank, pouring two new glasses for Tyler and himself. “I have a position for you.”

“Oh?” Tom took his glass and sat down. “Doing what?”

“Training my troops in fencing. They—”

“Troops?” Tom asked incredulously.

“That’s right. I’ve been organizing these thieves and a lot of the homeless Goriot farmers into an army. I’m beginning to get them into some kind of shape, but they know nothing about real fighting. I’ve been giving groups of them some basic lessons in stance and parrying and all, but I need someone who can be a full-time instructor. You’re probably as good a fencer as I am; why don’t you take the job? You’ll have your bond paid off in no time.”

Tom stared into his wine. An underground army, he thought. Duprey will be damned grateful when I tell him. “Sure,” he answered, looking up. “It sounds fine to me.”

“Terrific. You can start the day after tomorrow. I’ll have Hodges get a group of the best ones together in the meeting hall.”

They soon finished the wine and opened a bottle of Tamarisk brandy; the sight brought tears to Tom’s eyes.

“Easy, Tom,” Frank said jovially. “I guess it’s been a long time since you’ve had good brandy. Relax. Real soon you’ll be able to buy all the fine brandy you want.”

“I know,” said Tom.

Chapter 2

A fly was circling, in the aimless way of flies, in and out of a beam of morning sunlight in Duke Costa’s throne room, annoying him mightily. Three hard-eyed, leather-faced men stood in front of him and watched impassively as the powdered and jewel-decked Duke flung books at the insect.

Finally one of them spoke. “Your grace,” he rasped. “Why have you called for us?”

“What? Oh. You’re the assassins, right?”

The three men exchanged cold looks. “We served your father in many ways,” said another of them.

“I know. But right now it’s only as assassins that I want to see you. Now listen closely, I hate repeating myself. The King of the Subterranean Companions is a young man named Francisco Rovzar. He owns a large boat in the harbor, just north of the ship basin, and he spends time there, I’ve heard, when he wants to relax after doing whatever horrible things he does— interfering with the government, mostly. Anyway, I want you to kill him. I’ll pay you the same rate my father did.”

“Double it,” growled one. “The malory isn’t worth a sowbug’s dowry these days.”

Costa frowned and pressed his lips together, but nodded. The three men bowed and filed out of the room.

They’re insolent boys, Costa thought. I probably should have had them seized and flung into a dungeon (I wonder if I have any dungeons?). But no. I’ll let them kill Rovzar first. It will be fun to mention, off the cuff, of course, to those serious-minded Transports that I’ve succeeded where they’ve failed, and had Rovzar killed without their tiresome help.

TOM Strand lifted his mask so that it sat on his head like a conquistador’s helmet. “Okay,” he called to the thirty sweating men lined up in the hall. “Advance, advance, advance, retreat, advance, lunge!” His students leaped about awkwardly, thrusting their swords in all directions. “Well, that’s pretty bad,” Tom said. “Let’s call it a day. But be back here tomorrow—I’ll teach this stuff to you guys or kill you all trying.”

The thirty thieves sheathed their swords and swaggered out of the hall, clearly pleased with themselves. Tom threw his mask onto the floor, sheathed his own sword and hurried out after them. He decided he didn’t have time to change out of his white fencing clothes.

He made his furtive way down a little-used alley that opened onto a stairway, which he followed down two flights. Moored to an ancient stone dock was a small skiff, in the bottom of which lay two oars, a wide-bladed axe and a bound and gagged man. Tom hopped in, shoved the tied man aside, loosed the rope and pushed away from the dock with an oar.

“So far so good,” he whispered nervously to the terrified prisoner. “Frank will get there about an hour after you and I do. Ha ha! You’re helping me into a high-paying Transport job, pal, so I guess the least I can do is kill you quick.”

Tom had decided that the way to handle this evening’s unthinkable work would be to evict his real personality and become, just for tonight, the kind of cold-eyed killer he had always admired in books; and he had found, to his somewhat uneasy surprise, that it wasn’t too difficult to numb his mind and act automatically, without thinking. I’ll just be a machine until this is over with, he kept telling himself.

The boat skimmed smoothly down the torch-lit Leethee tide, and none of the scavengers and beggars they passed gave the skiff a second look. Soon they passed through the last stone arch and found themselves in the harbor. The sun was only a hairsbreadth clear of the ocean’s horizon, and the sky was a cathedral of terraced red-and-gold clouds against a background of pale blue.

“We’re timing it well, my friend,” Tom said, grinning jerkily as he turned the boat north. “Old Redbrick’s ship ought to be just lowering anchor beyond the jetty. I’ll kill you, knock out poor Frank, cut out his tongue and eyes and row him out to the ship.” Tom thought he must have caught some subterranean ailment—he was nauseous and tense, and it required a constant effort to keep his eyes focused. “Redbrick will give me a hundred malories and take Frank away to the Tamarisk Isles. I’ll take your headless body to Duprey, and tell him it’s Frank, and he’ll give me a job. Everybody does well except you, I guess. And, hell, a slave is probably happier dead anyway, right?” The slave moaned through his gag. “That’s right,” agreed Tom.

He worked the boat north, around the anchored merchant ships, until Frank’s boat came into view. He pulled alongside it, relieved to see no other boats moored there.

“Up you go.” Tom cackled, hoisting the slave like an awkward piece of lumber onto the deck. He followed, carrying the axe. “Okay, you just lay there for a minute. This is complicated, I admit, but if we all do our parts it’ll work out fine.”

The slave turned his face despairingly to the cabin wall. Tom shrugged, put down the axe and went to the door, which was locked; he kicked it open and hurried into Frank’s room, where he picked up a gray shirt, a sword, a pair of shoes and a pair of white corduroy pants. He bundled these together and went out on deck again.

The bound slave still faced the wall, so Tom quietly set the clothes on the deck and picked up the axe. He raised it over his head, aiming at the man’s neck. He stood that way for a while, squinting at the horizon as if trying to remember something. Then his attention returned to his surroundings, and with a hearty grunt he swung the axe down with all the force he could add to the thing’s own weight, and he crouched as he struck to keep the blow perpendicular. He stood up a moment later, rocked the blood-splashed axe blade loose from the deck-wood it had bitten into, and flung it overboard. The severed head he tied in a canvas bag weighted with two sextants, which he also tossed over the side.

He cut the ropes loose from the body and stripped it of its clothes, and then pulled Frank’s pants and shirt onto it. The shoes were difficult—he pushed them and pounded on the slave’s feet, but to no avail. He finally tossed the shoes into the sea. The sword clipped easily onto the belt, and Tom stood up dizzily.

He picked up the slave’s bloodstained clothes, wrapped a large fishing sinker in them, and threw that bundle, too, into the water. It’s a messy ocean floor tonight, he thought crazily. I wonder how often the cleaning lady comes.

He stumbled to the bow and sat down in one of the canvas deck chairs to await Frank’s arrival. The sun was in Tom’s eyes; no matter how he blinked and shifted his gaze he frequently got an eyeful of glare. Black spots floated through his vision. For this reason he didn’t notice the approaching rowboat until it was only about fifty yards away.

“Oh no,” he muttered. He stood up and waved, and then dashed back behind the cabin, crouched beside the headless body and rolled it over the rail into the sea. “I’ll fish you out again real soon,” he giggled. Then he ran back to the bow and waved again, smiling broadly.

“That’s him,” said one of the three men in the boat. “Look at him waving at us, all dressed in white. He must have mistaken us for someone.”

“Yeah,” agreed another. “I wonder why he ran away when he first saw us, though? Do you think it’s a trap?”

“I don’t know,” said the third. “Best not to get too close, anyway. Move in ten yards more and I’ll pitch a bomb at him.”

A minute later the third man stood up, lit the fuse of a shot-put-sized bomb and hurled it at the larger boat. Tom still stood on the bow, waving. A moment later an explosion tore a hole in the cabin and flung pieces of lumber spinning through the air. The roar of the detonation echoed off the shore, and a cloud of smoke and wood splinters hung over the blasted vessel.

“Let’s circle and look for the body,” growled the man in the stem. The little rowboat made an unhurried circle around the smoking boat, and near the stem they found a headless body floating. They pulled it aboard.

“That’s him all right. Odd the way the bomb just took his head off and left the rest of him untouched, though.”

“Who cares?” said another. “It’s him. Look, there’s one of his shoes floating there. I’ve seen bombs do that. Let’s get his body back to Costa quickly, and get paid.” The other two nodded, and the one at the oars began leaning into his work.

AN hour later Frank wearily tied up his own rowboat next to Tom’s at the stem and climbed aboard. “Tom?” he called. “Sorry I’m late. Business, you know. Tom?” It was just light enough to see, and he looked in shock at the wreckage of his boat.

“Tom!” he shouted. “Where are you?” He leaped inside the cabin—and stared at the chaos he found. The bulkhead between the cabin and his own stateroom was split; the air was thick with the smell of gunpowder; his bed and desk lay shattered in the broken doorway, and stretched across this wreckage was a body. Frank crossed to it warily, and stared at the face.

He was just able to recognize it as Tom Strand’s.

Frank backed out of the cabin and sat down heavily on the deck. My father, he thought. Orcrist. Blanchard. And now Tom. I’m poison to my friends, beyond doubt.

After a while he stood up and stared out to sea, where a ship beyond the jetty was unfurling its sails and tacking south.

It must be the Transports who did this, Frank thought. They must have found out I was coming here frequently, and thought Tom was me. He went below and carried four bottles of Tamarisk brandy into the cabin, then broke them on the floor. After he dropped a lit match into the aromatic puddle and heard it whoosh alight, he strode out onto the deck, climbed into his rowboat and cast off.

HODGES lit a cigarette nervously. He liked times of quiet prosperity, leisure to spend untroubled days with his family and cats. It upset him to scent doom in the air, and tonight it almost masked the tobacco reek in his nostrils. He watched gloomily as Frank poured himself a fifth glass of scotch.

“Gentlemen,” Frank said, “remember that you are ... only my ... advisors. I will listen, have listened, to your timid cautions and warnings, and I don’t believe there’s arty course of action you’d favor. I’ve told you my idea, and you haven’t yet given me a good objection.”

Hodges leaned forward. “Your plan, sire, is to try out for the job of painting Costa’s portrait and to kill him once you get close to him. Right?”

“That’s right, Hodges. You’ve got it. And then I’ll give a signal down the pipes somehow, which will alert our sewer army. They’ll be massed and waiting in the tunnels somewhere, see. We’ve scavenged enough explosives to blow the floors out of half the basements in the palace, and though the Transports are prepared for possible attacks from north, south, east, west and above, they aren’t set up to deal with one from below."

“I don’t think we are, either,” said a burly old thief-lord known as Hussar. “You use the word army, Rovzar, but it’s just an accumulation of bums and farmless farmers.”

“We’ve been training them,” Frank insisted, “and each one of them has a strong stake—namely his home and livelihood—in our being successful. And they’ll be coming right up out of the cellars! Hell, we’ll probably have the palace under our control before the guards on the walls even notice that anything has happened behind their backs.”

“Well, Mr. Hussar has pointed out that you’d be killed yourself, almost immediately,” said Hodges.

“I might not,” Frank said, taking a liberal sip of his drink. “That doesn’t matter, anyway. The main thing is to get rid of Costa.”

“Ah. But who would they replace him with?”

“I don’t know. A relative, if he has any—though God knows I can’t find any. Who cares? It would be a change, anyway.”

“Maybe not,” Hodges answered. “Costa is only a figurehead for the Transport government. Kill him and they’ll get another mascot. If you could kill the whole Transport there’d be a change—but killing poor idiot Costa would do nothing but give you personal vengeance, which a king can’t really afford.”

“Well, dammit, Hodges, I’ve got to do something. Every day we lie quiet, the Transport gets stronger. What’s being done to stop them? I—”

“Sire,” Hodges said, “Hemingway said never confuse motion with action. I think—”

“I think,” said Hussar, leaning forward, “that perhaps we ought to discuss Mr. Rovzar’s claim to be our king.”

Hodges let the cigarette smoke hiss out between his teeth. Everyone had stopped talking, so the sound of Frank’s sword sliding out of its sheath was clearly audible.

“How do you mean, Hussar?” asked Frank with a smile.

“Put your sword away,” Hussar snapped angrily. “Tolley wasn’t king when you killed him. Isn’t that right, Hodges? Therefore, you can’t claim the ius gladii precedent. Therefore you’re not our king.” Hussar sat back. “I wouldn’t have brought this up,” he added, “if you hadn’t exhibited signs of alcoholism and insanity.”

“Hodges,” Frank said. “A point of protocol: what is the procedure when someone calls the king’s qualifications into question?”

Hodges answered wearily, as if reciting a memorized piece. “The person is free to prove his allegations by engaging the king in personal combat. Sorry, Hussar.”

Frank stood up, suddenly looking much soberer. His sword was in his hand. “Now, then, Hussar, what about these allegations?”

Hussar pressed his lips together angrily. “I withdraw them, sire,” he said.

There was a long pause. “All right,” Frank said finally. He sheathed his sword and sat down, looking vaguely puzzled and defeated. “I ... I guess you’re right, Hodges.” He had another sip of scotch. “What we’ve got to do, I guess, is keep building our army and keep looking for a ducal heir.” He drained his glass. “Keep sending the claimants to me, Hodges. Maybe if we don’t find a real one we can come up with a convincing fake.”

“A fake?” said Hodges. “Sire, even with a real one we’d have our work cut out for us.” He shook his head. “Gentlemen, I pronounce this meeting adjourned.” Everyone except Frank stood up and began shouldering on coats and bidding each other goodnight. They all filed out, leaving Frank alone in the room. Two of the lamps had gone out, the candles were low in their sockets, and the clink of the bottle-lip on the glass-edge, and the gurgle of the scotch sluicing into the glass, were the only sounds.

HEAVY music resounded in Kelly Harmon’s huge living room, and most of the guests were dancing wildly. Hannon lived in the finest district of Munson Understreet, and his parties, which had become legendary in the belt-tightening days of Costa’s reign, were said to be the gathering place of all the truly worthwhile people in Munson, above or below the surface. The music, provided by a trio of crazed trumpet players, was so loud that the knocking at the door could only be heard by the people actually leaning against it. They pulled the door open and a tall, dark-bearded man edged his way inside, waving an invitation, and was soon absorbed into the crowd.

The music and dancing slowly mounted in intensity to a feverish and frenzied climax, after which the dancers began reeling to their chairs and gulping drinks. Kathrin Figaro whirled like a spun top to the last choppy bars of one song, and collided with a table, knocking over a lamp.

“Whoops!” she giggled. “Time for a rest, I think.” She weaved away from the dance floor to the only empty chair, at a back table at which the bearded man was sitting. “Can I join you?” she asked breathlessly. He looked up at her and, after the briefest hesitation, nodded.

“Thank you.” She slid into the chair and looked at her table-mate. Long black hair was cut in uneven bangs across his forehead, and his eyes hid in a network of wrinkles under his brows. The black beard didn’t quite hide a long scar that arched across his cheek. “Do I know you?” she asked politely, privately wondering how this derelict had got in.

“Yes,” he said.

Kathrin looked at him uneasily. “Who are you?”

“John Pine.”

Kathrin looked blank, and then startled. “Frank ...?” she whispered.

He nodded.

“But I heard you were dead—they hung ... somebody’s headless body, dressed in your clothes, from the palace wall a week ago.” He shrugged impatiently. “When did you grow the beard, Frank? I don’t like it.”

“My name, please, is John Pine. The beard’s fake.”

“Oh.” She lifted two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing steward and set one of them before Frank. “Isn’t it terribly risky for you to be here? Did you come to see me?”

“No,” he said. “I didn’t know you’d be here. I came because I was bored.” He sipped the champagne. “Harmon has been sending me invitations to these affairs for months, and I decided to take him up on one.”

“Will I see you at more of these, then?” she asked brightly.

“No. I’m not much of a party man, as you doubtless recall. And it is too risky a thing to make a habit of.”

She tasted her drink thoughtfully. “Are you still king of the ... you-know-whos?” He nodded. “I heard about how you got it. It sounded very brave.” He looked at her skeptically. “I don’t see Matthews anymore, John. He treated me horribly, just ... horribly. Do you think,” she went on, lowering her eyes, “there’s any chance of us trying it again?” Yes, he thought. “No,” he said.

“But I’ve—”

“Don’t embarrass both of us, Kathrin.” He stood up. “There’s nothing to say. I shouldn’t have come to this. I’m sorry.” He stepped around the table, pushed his way through the crowd to the door and disappeared into the eternal understreet night.

THE yawning page boy plodded around the room, refilling the oil-reservoirs of the lamps from a can he carried. The job done, he returned to his chair, began nodding sleepily and was soon snoring.

George Tyler refilled Frank’s wine glass and then his own; his aim had deteriorated during the evening, and he poured a good deal of it onto the tabletop.

“Frank,” George said carefully, “don’t try to pretend with me that this is an ... altruistic action you’re contemplating. You know that it isn’t Costa that’s strangling this planet. He’s just a ... pitiful puppet ... within whom moves the cold, steely hand of the Transport.” Pleased with his metaphor, Tyler chuckled and gulped his wine. “And it isn’t even personal revenge, lad, that’s goading you to kill the poor geek. Not entirely, anyway. Want to know what it is?”

“What is it, George?” Frank asked obligingly. “It’s suicide, Frankie,” said Tyler sadly. “You want to die. No, don’t get rude with me; I’m a poet, I’m allowed to talk this way. If you go grinning up to the palace gate with a knife in your paint box, it may look like a gallant bid for revenge, but I’ll know. It will be a suicide attempt, disguised as desperate vengeance to fool everyone, yourself as well, maybe.”

“George, you are so full of crap—”

“Yeah, you say that. But you’re my last friend since Sam got it, and now you’re eager to get killed. And all because that half-wit girl ditched you for Matthews.”

“That isn’t it, George. Not much of it, anyway.”

“Aha! You admit it’s suicide, then?”

“I’m not admitting anything, dammit. I’m humoring a raving drunk.”

“Well, there’s a judgment. But all right, I won’t bother you anymore.”

For a full five minutes they drank in silence. “Someday I’ll be restored to my former exalted state,” Tyler muttered, half to himself, “and then I’ll set all this right. I’ll have Costa sweeping the gutters, and then you won’t have to kill him.”

“George,” said Frank levelly, “I have been trying very hard, for weeks, to find a real claimant to the ducal throne. Throughout that time I have admired your tact in not burdening me with your own ... delusions in that line. If there is (and there is) one thing I don’t want to hear, it’s another crackpot telling me he’s the true prince.”

“I’m sorry, Frank,” Tyler said. “You’re right, you don’t need that.” He emptied his glass. “I don’t really believe all my stories, either, so you needn’t think I’m a crackpot. It’s just my poetic nature letting off steam.”

“I didn’t mean you’re a crackpot, George. I spoke ... heatedly, without thinking.” Frank opened the table drawer and felt around in it, but his pipe was missing. “Where did you come up with all those stories about being Topo’s son, anyway?” he asked.

“I made them up, mostly,” Tyler said. “And my mother used to tell me I was. I was an illegitimate child, you see. I’ll bet all unwed mothers tell their sons they’re the secret offspring of royalty.”

“Yeah, probably so. Not a good idea, in the long run, if you ask me.” Frank poured out the last dribble of the bottle. “Page. Hey, page! Another bottle of this. A cold one.”

The page nodded and scampered away.

“It was a bedtime story, you see,” Tyler explained. Frank hiccupped. “Did your mother even work in the palace? At least?”

“Naw, the story hasn’t even got that much to support it. She told me she was a dancer at a tavern he used to go to. She claimed that for a season he was crazy about her, wanted to marry her. This would have been before Topo’s brother, Ovidi, died, you see, back in the days when nobody thought Topo would ever make Duke. And Topo was supposed to be a wild lad in those days, you know, Frank—drunk all the time, always getting into fights—my mother told me he even got a tattoo of her, had it done on his chest by some young painter they both knew. The guy had never done a tattoo before, but he’d got hold of a tattooing needle somewhere, and they were all drunk, and so they gave it a try.” Tyler smiled. “My mother said the tattoo didn’t turn out too badly, considering.”

Frank gulped some wine. “Oh?” he said. “That’s good, that’s a relief. Looked like her, did it? Caught a resemblance?”

Tyler laughed. “Well, no, probably not. He ... portrayed her ... in her dancing costume, which was ... well, it was a bird suit.”

Frank nodded. “A bird suit.”

“Yeah, an immodest one. My mother didn’t even describe it to me until I was fifteen. Her costume was an over-the-head bird mask, see, and big wings that she’d slip her arms down inside of—and nothing else. Well, shoes, maybe.”

Frank laughed, but Tyler’s words had reminded him of something. Sure you don’t want me to make it either all-bird or all-girl? I still could, you know. His father had said that—to Duke Topo—who had never permitted himself to be seen even partially undressed.

“She even told me he’d made up a birth certificate for me, acknowledging me as a son of his. She said he’d shown it to her once, but wouldn’t let her keep it, in case he changed his mind or something.”

The page returned with the wine, and Frank absent-mindedly took a swig right from the bottle. “Uh,” he said, noticing that his hand was shaking, “uh, this tattoo—”

“And you know where she said he’d hid this birth certificate?” Tyler went on. “You’ll love this. In a copy of Winnie the Pooh. Frank! That’s good wine!” Frank had dropped the bottle, and pieces of wet glass spun on the floor. The page leaped up to fetch a mop and broom. “Never mind that,” Frank told him. “Get Hodges for me. Tell him to summon a full council, at once. Yes, I know it’s three o’clock in the morning. A full council, you hear? Immediately! Run!”

The page darted out of the room.

“Frank,” said Tyler uncertainly, “are you all right?”

“For the first time in months, George.”

An hour later twelve irritable lords sat around the table, their eyes squinting, their hair oddly tufted, and half of them in incorrectly-buttoned shirts.

“What is this, Hodges?” rasped Hussar. “More delirium tremens?”

“You’re treading on thin ice, Hussar,” said Hodges softly. “His majesty will be here in a moment to explain the reason for this meeting.”

“We probably haven’t been hijacking enough brandy to suit him,” giggled Emsley.

“I’ll discuss that with you afterward, if you like, Emsley,” said Frank, who had silently entered the room. “Come on in, George.”

Frank and Tyler took the two empty chairs at Hodges’s left. “All right, gentlemen,” Frank said. “I’ve found an heir—a genuine one, as a matter of fact. He’s an illegitimate son of Topo, and I know where to find a birth certificate, signed by Topo, acknowledging him as a son.”

The lords stared at him skeptically. Even Hodges looked doubtful, knowing that Frank had not interviewed any claimants since the last meeting. “And who is this lost prince?” asked Hussar, with a look of long-suffering patience.

“It’s George Tyler,” Frank said, knowing full well the response that declaration would have. It did. After a moment of stunned silence all the lords burst into howls of laughter.

“Tyler?” gasped Emsley. “Get some black coffee into you, Rovzar.”

“Black coffee?” queried Frank with a quick smile. “Why black coffee, my lord?”

“Because you’re drunk,” Emsley replied carelessly. “That will do, I think,” Frank said, “especially in front of thirteen witnesses. You will do me the honor, Lord Emsley, of meeting me in East Watson Hall tomorrow morning at ten?”

Emsley paled. He glanced at Hussar, who was staring at the tabletop, and then at Frank. “But I—” he began. Frank raised his eyebrows. “All right,” Emsley said weakly. “Ten o’clock.”

“Now back to more important things,” said Frank. “George, tell them about your bedtime story.”

Tyler awkwardly outlined the story his mother used to tell him, and told them where she’d claimed the birth certificate was hidden.

“And Topo did have such a tattoo, gentlemen,” said Frank, with a little more conviction than he actually felt, “and I know where that copy of Winnie the Pooh is. I was with Topo when he was killed, and just before the Transports kicked down the door, I saw where he hid it.”

“Where?” asked Hussar.

“In the throne room. For the time being I’ll keep to myself the exact hiding place. Now pay attention, here is what we’ll do: I’ll assume a disguise and apply for the job of painting Costa’s portrait; I’m confident that I’ll get it. Once in the throne room I will quietly remove the Winnie the Pooh from its concealment, make an excuse to visit a bathroom, and blow a loud whistle down the bathtub drain.”

“And what will that do?” asked Hussar with exaggerated politeness.

“It will summon our army, which will be waiting in the sewers under the Ducal Palace. They will dynamite, from beneath, all the bathrooms, janitor closets and laundry rooms in the cellars of the palace, and attack through the resultant holes. I don’t think there’s any doubt that we can take the palace. And with an acknowledged prince to set on the throne, we can hold it.”

There was a thoughtful silence. “I think it’s good,” said Hodges finally. “I think it’ll work.”

“If you’ve got it right about this birth certificate,” said Hussar cautiously, “I agree.”

The others all nodded their somewhat qualified approval, except for Emsley, who looked nauseous.

“With George on the throne we’ll be able to evict the Transport from Octavio,” Frank said. “They won’t go cheerfully, but they haven’t become strong enough to openly oppose the government. In a year they would be strong enough. I suggest, therefore, that we mount our attack on the day after tomorrow, first to strike before they get any stronger, and second to prevent them from hearing about it in advance.”

“This seems hasty, your majesty ...” began Hodges.

“It’s quick, Hodges, but it isn’t hasty. Now send me maps of the palace sewers, and their connections with the understreet sewers. You’ll all be hearing from me tomorrow (later today, I should say), so be where I can reach you. And Hodges,” added Frank as they all stood up, “since it looks like I’m going to get no sleep tonight, bring me a pot of black coffee, will you?”

For the next three hours, Frank studied multi-level sewer diagrams and drawings of the palace, making copious notes and drinking quantities of coffee. Finally he threw down his pen and rubbed his bloodshot eyes.

“I think I see how we’ll do it,” he said to Hodges, who was lighting his twelfth cigarette since the meeting. “The palace sewers all run into a long watercourse that joins the Leethee near the Bailey District. That’s the most direct route, and it shouldn’t be hard for you to get the army organized there. Then you run them up the line and into the pipes that connect with the palace. The pipes are all five feet high and probably well built, since they date from the time of Duke Giroud. Then you’ll just wait for the whistle.”

“Sounds good to me, sire,” said Hodges a little sleepily.

Frank sat back and drained his most recent cup of coffee. “Hodges?”

“Yes, sire?”

“Was the Subterranean Companions’ meeting hall ever a church?”

Hodges blinked. “Uh, yes. A couple of hundred years ago some philanthropist built two churches understreet. He later disappeared—some say he ascended bodily into heaven, some say he fell into the Leethee.” Hodges took a long puff on the cigarette and exhaled slowly. “So one of his churches became our meeting hall, and one, to the northwest, was converted into a cheap hotel. It was destroyed, incidentally, when that bomb took out four levels last year. The place had two carved-iron gates out front, said to have been cast by some sculptor of note. They both fell into the Leethee flood when the explosion kicked the place apart. Haven’t been found yet.”

“Ah.” Frank reached for the coffee pot. “Well, I’ve got to figure out the arrangement of our troops, Hodges, but you can go home. Get some sleep; we’ll all be busy as hell later today.”

“Right. Thank you, sire.”

Chapter 3

Thirty miles northwest of Munson—separated from the city by slums, suburbs, small cities and, eventually, the most wealthy neighborhoods on the planet— stood the Ducal Palace, a grim fortress of centuries-old stone under the bright banners that waved from its walls.

The sun had made dust of the spring mud, and the merchants who thronged the gate and courtyard wore veils across their noses and mouths. Street musicians fiddled and clanged at every corner, storytellers babbled to rings of children, and palace guards fingered their sweat-damp sword grips and squinted irritably at the crowds. The place was a carnival of smells: garlic, curried meat, dust, sweat, hot metal and exotic tobacco.

Under the barbican, across the bridge and through the gate plodded a tall man on a gray horse. The man wore a ragged brown leather jacket and a white cape, and had wrapped a length of white cloth around his head and across his lower face, so that only his cold blue eyes, a glimpse of a scar and a lock or two of black hair showed. He was unarmed, and carried only a wooden box slung behind him on the saddle.

Whichever way it falls today, Frank thought, this is the end of a circular road I’ve travelled for a year. It’s been a busy year, too—I’ve been an art forger, a thief, a kitchen boy, a fencing teacher and a king of thieves. I’ve fallen in love, and climbed out of it. And I’ve seen more deaths—of friends, enemies and strangers—than I want to think about.

He nudged his tired horse across the crowded courtyard to the steps of the keep.

“What’s your business, stranger?” asked the guard, a red-faced man in the ubiquitous Transport uniform.

Frank unwrapped the white cloth from his head and shook back his hair. An artificial moustache clung to his upper lip. “I’ve come to paint the Duke’s portrait,” he said. “I understand he wants it done.”

“Yeah, that’s true, he does. Leave your horse here and go down the hall inside. Third door on your left. Are you armed?”

“No. I’m a painter.”

“Well, open up your box and let me see.”

Frank unstrapped his battered wooden box and handed it to the guard, who set it down on the dusty pavement and flipped up its lid. He rummaged about for a few seconds in the brushes, crumpled tubes and bottles, and then closed it and gave it back.

“Okay,” he said. “Go on in. Third on your left.” Frank dismounted and let a footman lead his horse away, then picked up his box and walked up the steps into the keep. The third door on the left opened easily when Frank turned the knob, revealing a counter behind which a dozen people sat at paper-littered desks. An old man shambled up to the counter.

“You’re applying for the custodial position?” he asked.

“No,” Frank said. “I’ve come to paint Duke Costa’s portrait.”

“Oh. Okay. Wait on that bench for a moment.” Five minutes later a grinning, slick-haired clerk approached. “You’ve brought your portfolio, yes?”

“No,” Frank said, “but I’ll draw you in two minutes.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Go ahead.”

Frank took a chewed pencil from a pocket in his leather jacket. He laid his box across his knees and quickly sketched the man, using the side of the box for a surface. The drawing was quick and graceful, shaded with the fine cross-hatching of which his father had been master.

“Hm,” said the official, peering at it. “Not bad. But can you paint? It’s a painting he wants, you know.”

“Paint. Sure.” Frank took three tubes of paint, all shades of brown, out of his box and squeezed blobs from them onto the bench. He dipped a brush in one and went to work on the wall. In five minutes there glistened on the ancient plaster a portrait, done in the style of Goya, of the slick-haired clerk.

“Well,” said the clerk, “you’re good enough for me to pass you on to the Duke for a final decision, but I’m afraid I’ll have to fine you five malories for defacing government property.”

“Take it out of my salary,” Frank said. “When can I start on the portrait?”

“Anytime, I guess. I’ll have a guard escort you to the throne room, and you can discuss it with the Duke himself. Uh, what’s your name?”

“Richard Helder,” Frank told him. The clerk scribbled it on a piece of paper, then handed it to a guard.

“Just follow him, Mr. Helder,” the clerk said. Frank nodded his thanks and followed the guard upstairs.

The throne room, as Frank noticed when he was finally admitted, had changed considerably during his absence. The bookcases and desk were gone, replaced by overly-colorful tapestries, the throne had been painted, and the year-old, unfinished Claude Rovzar portrait of Duke Topo was nowhere to be seen.

Duke Costa, a little redder of face and ampler of belly, was sitting on the throne and staring at a sheaf of star-maps. “Who’s that?” he asked the guard, pointing at Frank.

“An artist,” said the guard. “Richard Helder. Briggs passed him.”

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” Costa smiled, returning to his star-maps. Frank nodded and sat down in a chair by the entrance. He glanced at the doors and saw, dimly under the new paint, the unevenness of the putty filling in the old bullet holes.

The rise and fall of Duke Costa, Frank thought. Or maybe the rise and fall of Frank Rovzar. This is the room our fathers died in.

Under this building, he thought, staring at the floor, crouches, silently, my army. It would be an interesting development if the army wasn’t down there—if they’ve simply stayed home, as Emsley told them to do yesterday, just before I killed him.

Idly, as he waited, Frank did a couple of sketches of Costa in profile on the reverse side of the paint box.

Finally Costa flung the maps aside. “Mr. Helder?” he said. “I understand Briggs likes your work. He’s not too easily pleased. What were you drawing there, just a second ago?”

Frank walked forward and showed the Duke the profiles.

“Not bad,” Costa said with a critical squint. “I like the style. Did you ever study the works of Rovzar?”

“What artist hasn’t?” replied Frank.

“Just so,” nodded Costa. “When can you begin?”

“That depends,” said Frank in an artificially casual voice. “You see, the only canvases I have are small- -fit for paintings of children, or kittens, but hardly Dukes. I can order a canvas, of course; but with the interplanetary shipping system in the state it’s in, God knows when it would come.” He hoped Costa was unaware that canvases were made on Octavio. “Uh ... you wouldn’t happen to have an old canvas, a painting, lying around, that I could paint over? Something roughly three feet by five feet?”

“By God, I have!” laughed Costa. “Hey, guard!” he yelled. “Bring that picture in here! The big unfinished one!” He grinned at Frank. “You, sir,” he said, “are to have the privilege of painting over a genuine unfinished Rovzar.”

Frank raised his eyebrows, but didn’t say anything.

The painting was brought in, still on the original easel. It was dimmed with dust, and something greasy had dripped down the left side of it, but Frank easily recognized his father’s work, and the sight of it brought back memories of the old man with more force than anything else had in a year.

The guards bowed and withdrew. Frank took a rag out of his paint box and gently wiped off the canvas. There, looking nobler than Frank had ever seen him look in life, sat Duke Topo. Frank reached out and ran his fingers over the fine brush strokes.

He turned to Costa to speak, but saw the Duke, suddenly pale, rising from the throne and pointing a trembling finger at him. “I ... I was told you were dead,” he whispered.

“You’ve got me confused with someone,” said Frank levelly.

“No, no. Your drawing style—I should have guessed immediately.” The Duke slid his jewel-hilted rapier out of its velvet scabbard and then ran at Frank with the weapon held over his head like an axe. Frank snatched up the paint box and caught the descending blade with it; the sword stuck, and Frank roughly levered it out of Costa’s grasp. He kicked the Duke in the stomach and Costa dropped to the floor. Frank wrenched the paint-smeared blade loose, raised it—Costa cowered under an upflung arm—and brought it down across the face of the painting, slashing the canvas open from top to bottom.

“Guards!” bellowed Costa, scuttling away from him like a frightened beetle. “I’m being killed!”

Frank reached in behind the split painting and seized the book, then ran to the door just as it was flung open by the first of four sword-waving Transport guards.

Frank drove the spattered rapier at one of them, who parried it hard, flinging drops of color at the wall. The Winnie the Pooh was in Frank’s right hand, so he hit the man in the face with it A sword tore a gash in Frank’s right shoulder, and he twisted around and cut the throat of the guard who held it. Then he was through them, and running to find a bathroom. He impatiently peeled off the itchy false moustache and flung it to the ground.

“Get him! Get him!” screamed Costa. “He’s insane!”

Frank ducked into one room and surprised a half-dozen women who were tacking typed pages onto a bulletin board; he fled them and their panicky, guard-drawing screams and dashed down another hallway. Blood from his shoulder spotted his cape and ran down his arm onto the leather binding of the book he held.

Ahead of him a guard appeared from around a corner. The man raised his arm and a bang sounded as a strip of plaster beside Frank’s head turned to powder. Frank convulsively kicked open the nearest door, ran through the room beyond it and, whirling his cape over his head, leaped through the closed window.

He fell, together with a rain of shattered glass, through fifteen feet of air onto pavement, rolling as he landed to minimize the impact. He tore his cape off, picked up his book and sword and looked around. He was in an enclosed garden; tables stood among the greenery, and astonished people were flinging down forks and getting to their feet; two guards, swords out, strode toward him.

Frank desperately picked up a chair from beside a nearby table and tossed it through the largest ground-floor window, which burst inward with a hideous racket. Frank leaped through it, hearing the shouts of guards from all sides. I’ll never get to a bathroom now, he thought dizzily. They’ve got me surrounded.

He was in a bar-lounge occupied only by a sparse midmorning crowd. He vaulted over the bar, scattering glasses and ashtrays, and sent the bartender sprawling with a blow of his sword-pommel. Then, lying under the bar sink, he fumbled in his pocket and put a powerful whistle to his lips, and blew it with all the strength he could wring out of his lungs directly into the floor-drain.

“Where is he?” someone called excitedly.

“He’s hiding behind the bar!” howled the bartender, who had run off while Frank was blowing the whistle.

“All right, Pete, bring your boys in from the left, and we’ll go in from the right. We may be able to get him alive.”

Frank blew his whistle twice more, cupping his hands around the drain to aim the noise downward.

“The Duke’s right,” someone called. “He is crazy. He’s trying to play music back there.”

Frank took hold of his sword, stuffed the book in his shirt and stood up. A dozen of them. Here’s where I die, possibly. “What’ll it be, gents?” he asked with a smile.

They charged—and simultaneously the wall behind them exploded into the room like a gravel pile kicked by a giant. Frank was hurled backward into a display case of bottles, and two of the Transports landed on top of him. After the debris had stopped falling he flung their limp bodies aside and struggled to his feet, coughing in the dust-foggy air. He heard the roars of two more explosions; and a third; and a fourth.

The silhouettes of men moved behind the rubble of the wall. “Hey!” Frank called, waving his sword. “This way, Companions! I’m Rovzar!”

The men cheered and ran to him, led by Hussar. “Should have known I’d find you in the bar,” the lord grinned.

“We’ve got to get upstairs,” Frank said. “Costa’s up there. Come on.” Every second, more men were climbing out of the hole in the foundation where the ladies’ room had been, but Frank impatiently hustled the first ten out of the bar and up the first flight of stairs they came to.

They met three guards on the stairs; two died and the third fled upstairs, hotly pursued. Yells, cheers and explosions echoed up and down the corridors. Frank’s band of Companions took off after the fleeing Transport, but Frank concentrated on his search for the Duke. After a few minutes of running and dodging he saw, at the end of a corridor, the two doors of the throne room. He ran toward them and launched a flying kick that ripped the bolt out of the wood on the other side. The doors slammed inward, knocking over a Transport guard and startling six others. Behind them all stood Costa, radiating both fear and rage.

“There he is, idiots!” he yelled. “Get him, quickly!”

Frank ran at the six guards and, with only a token preparatory feint, drove his point through one man’s throat. He parried a downward-sweeping blade with his right arm, and winced as the edge bit through the leather jacket into his skin; then he riposted with a quick jab between the ribs and the man rolled to the floor, more terrified than hurt. Two Transports now engaged Frank’s blade while a third man ran in and swung a whistling slash into Frank’s belly. The impact knocked Frank off his feet and the guards cheered as their adversary fell.

“Finish him, finish him!” screeched Costa, waving a rapier he’d picked up.

The foremost guard raised his sword as if he were planting a flag, and drove it savagely downward into—the floor, for Frank had rolled aside. Pausing only to hamstring another guard, he scrambled catlike to his feet. His shirt was cut across just above the belt, and the Winnie the Pooh had been chopped nearly in half.

Costa, beginning to worry about the outcome of the skirmish, tore down one of his gaudy tapestries and opened a door it had hidden. Frank saw him step through it, and swung a great arc with his blade to make the Transports jump back a step—like most novice swordsmen, they were more fearful of the dramatic edge than the deadlier but less spectacular point—and then leaped for the secret door, catching it a moment before it would have clicked shut. He hopped through before the four remaining guards got to it, and shot the bolt just as they began wrenching and pounding on the door from the other side.

He turned; a narrow stairway rose before him, and he could hear Costa's quick steps ahead and above. Frank gripped his sword firmly and loped up the stairs two at a time. He was very tired—near exhaustion, really—and he was losing blood from his right shoulder and forearm; but he wanted to settle the issue with Costa before he rested. He kept thinking about the night at the Doublon Festival when he had seen Costa’s face over the barrel of a pistol, and had failed to pull the trigger.

At the top of the stairs stood an open arch that framed a patch of the blue sky. Leaping through it Frank found himself on the slightly tilted red-tile roof of the palace. The stairway arch he’d come out of stood midway between two chimneys that marked the north and south edges of the roof. Resting against the northern chimney was Costa, staring hopelessly at the spot where, before all the explosions started, a fire escape had stood.

Frank slowly walked toward him, and Costa stood clear of the chimney and raised his sword in a salute. After a moment of hesitation, Frank returned the salute. Plumes of black smoke curled up into the sky from below, and the roof shook under their feet from time to time as more bombs went off within the building.

Neither man said anything; they paused, and then Costa launched a tentative thrust at Frank’s face. Frank parried it easily but didn’t riposte—he was in no hurry and he wanted to get the feel of the surface they were fighting on. The tiles, he discovered as he cautiously advanced and retreated across them, were too smooth to get traction on, and frequently broke and slid clattering over the edge.

Frank feinted an attack to Costa’s outside line and then drove a lunge at the Duke’s stomach; Costa parried it wildly but successfully and backed away a few steps. A cool wind swept across the roof, drying the sweat on Frank’s face. His next attack started as an eye-jab but ducked at the last moment and cut open the back of the Duke’s weapon hand. That ought to loosen his grip, Frank thought, as another explosion rocked the building.

Costa seemed upset by the blood running up his arm, so Frank redoubled the attack with a screeching, whirling bind on the Duke’s blade that planted Frank’s sword-point in Costa’s cheek. The Duke flinched and retreated another step, so that he was once again next to the north chimney.

“Checkmate, Costa,” Frank said, springing forward in a high lunge that threatened Costa’s face; Costa whipped his sword up to block it—and Frank dropped low, driving his sword upward through Costa’s velvet tunic, ample belly and pounding heart.

The transfixed Duke took one more backward step, overbalanced and fell away into the empty air, the sword still protruding from his stomach.

Frank stood up and brushed the sweat-matted hair out of his face with trembling fingers. Time to go below, he thought; too bad Costa took both swords down with him.

He turned to the stairway arch—and a final, much more powerful explosion tore through all three stories beneath him and blew the north wall out in a rain of dissolving bricks. The whole north half of the roof crumbled inward, and Frank, riding a wave of buckling, shattering tiles, disappeared into the churning cloud of dust and cascading masonry as timbers, furniture, sections of walls and a million free-falling rocks thundered down onto the unpaved yard of the list.