Sir Harold and the Hindu King

The lights faded, the ground jolted up under their feet, and Shea and Chalmers found themselves alone in the dark. Shea had a confused impression of single-story houses with curving adobe walls and thatched roofs, with bigger buildings of stone looming behind them in the moonlight. A world of aromas filled his head, sharp and pungent, some familiar, most not; the only one he could name was something that smelled like curry. The ground beneath him was just that—ground, the packed earth of an unpaved street. He seemed to be in a sort of expanded intersection, not big enough to call a plaza.

And hot. The heat beat all about him, stifling. By the time his head stopped spinning, Shea was already sweating. "Whew! If this is what it's like at night, I'd hate to be here at noon!"

"Brace yourself," Chalmers said grimly. "We probably will still be here."

"Where are we, Doc?"

"To judge by the heat, I would say it must be somewhere in the tropics." Chalmers swayed.

Sea caught his arm to steady him. "Only a minute, Doc—then you'll stabilize."

"I shall recover," Chalmers muttered. "Am I growing weaker, Harold? Syllogismobile travel has never struck me so hard before"

But Chalmers lurched, bumping against Shea, who might have toppled himself, if it had not been just at that moment that someone bumped into him from the other side. "Oh, excuse me!" he said. Just to be on the safe side, he stepped quickly away, right hand dropping to his sword hilt—but with his left still holding to Chalmers just in case he was still woozy. He could have sworn the other party muttered something about a stupid beggar, but he must have been wrong, because the man said, softly but exuberantly, "Brother! Comrade in thievery! How are your pickings tonight?"

Shea stared, taken aback—and looked the man over in one quick glance. He wore a dark-colored cloth wrapped about his hips, sandals, a sword, and a forked beard with moustaches that curved up to the corners of his eyes. Besides that, he had a very flat nose—but the real distinguishing characteristic was the turban. They were in India !

No, wait a minute—there were other countries where people wore turbans, from Arabia through Persia. . . .

But they didn't eat curry.

Not exactly conclusive evidence, but the aroma, the heat, and the turban all added up, so Shea decided to operate as though this were India until proven otherwise. The syllogismobile had made him a natural speaker of the local language, so she he said, "Sorry, friend—the darkness must be deceiving you. We're not thieves, we're foreigners. We, uh, were traveling late—decided we were so close to the town that we might as well keep pushing until we arrived."

"Foreigners? Well, that does explain your outlandish clothing." Flat-nose eyed them suspiciously. "But how did you come into the city after the gates closed?"

A straight-line gleam caught Shea's eye and, looking more closely, he saw that the man had a thread tied over his nose and around his head. No wonder his nose was flat! For a wild second, he thought it was a fly-fishing leader, then realized that, in a pre-industrial town it must be something less exotic—horsehair, say, or catgut. But why the disguise? "After the gates closed? We didn't."

Chalmers nodded, muttering, "Quite true, quite true."

Shea hoped he was only indulging in irony, not shock. "We've, ah, just been wandering around, trying to find a good hotel."

"Wandering! Yes," Chalmers agreed.

Shea noticed he didn't commit himself to the questionable part of the statement, "Would you know of a good inn, kind sir?"

"An inn? Not if you have no money! And you do not, from the look of you."

Obviously, the man still thought they were thieves—or at the best, beggars. Unfortunately, his comment hit home—they didn't have any money, at least not in local currency. "What can you recommend, then?"

"To get out of sight! As quickly as possible! There is a gang of thieves plaguing this city, and if you run afoul of them, they may kill you rather than risk your bringing witness against them!" Flat-nose shouldered past them with a hasty, "May you have good fortune!" and disappeared into the night.

Shea's blood chilled; he had heard of such things, but had not thought they happened until the 1920s. "You don't think there really is a gang working the town, do you, Doc?"

"More to the point," said Chalmers, "is the possibility that we have just encountered a member of the band." He shuddered. "Who would know better of their existence—or have a better reason for wishing us to go indoors, where we cannot see what he does?"

He obviously didn't doubt the man for a second. "I guess you're right, Doc. After all, why else would he make such a clumsy attempt at disguise?"

"You mean the thread around his nose? Yes, quite so. Presumably, that tells us two things: that the thieves are ruthless, and that they are flat-nosed."

Shea stared in surprise. "You mean we just talked to a local cop?"

"It is a possibility," Chalmers said, "but more pertinent is his advice. Let us find a hole to hide in, Harold."

It was good advice indeed. Shea looked around, able to make out a bit more of their surroundings now that his eyes had adjusted to the moonlight. The larger buildings in the distance were elaborate and intricate—and he was sure he recognized the silhouette of a slim tower. "I think we're in India, Doc. More to the point, we're in a genuine city, not just a big town."

"I quite agree." Chalmers looked around, frowning. "Now, where do you hide in a city if you can't find a hotel?"

"A back alley is a good place." Shea drew his sword. "Of course, the local muggers might not have gone to bed yet, and they like alleys, too. Want to take a chance on it, Doc?"

"Let me consider the proposition." Chalmers steepled his fingers, resting his lips against them for a minute. Then he drew a circle in the dust with his toe, reciting,

There was a burst of light like a photographer's flash, and a two-foot-high man with a long beard and a longer gray robe stood before them, bald head gleaming in the moonlight. "Good evening, sir! May I help you?"

"Victorian," Chalmers muttered to Shea, and to the prophet, "You may indeed, O Wise One! Can you tell me where we are?"

"Where? Why summon me for such trivialities, sir? Well, it is your money. You are in India—the city of Chandradoya, to be precise."

"You guessed well, Harold," Chalmers observed. Then, to the diminutive prophet, "Thank you, O Fount of Wisdom. Can you also tell me the identity of that man whom we addressed but now?"

"He with the horsehair round his nose? To be sure, sir! That was Randhir, the rajah of this fair city! Will there be anything else?"

"The rajah himself, eh?" Chalmers mused. "Running about at night without a bodyguard, dressed as a peasant? Well, well! Quite eccentric . . . No, thank you, Esteemed One. I need no further information at this time."

"A pleasure to serve you, sir. That will be six shillings, please."

"Pay the man, Harold," Chalmers said.

Shea favored Chalmers with a quick glare, then fished in his purse. "I'm a little short on shillings at the moment. How about a Russian grivna?"

"I am sure that will be equal or better in value," the prophet said quickly. He took the coin and bowed. "Call upon us whenever you have need, sir!" With another flash, he disappeared.

As Shea blinked away afterimages, Chalmers told him, "So magic works in this universe—but not very well."

"Not well? Why?"

"Come now, Harold! Do you honestly believe the King himself would be going about at night dressed as a commoner, with a horsehair round his nose? This isn't the Arabian Nights, you know."

"Oh, isn't it? Any particular myth you recognize, Doc?"

Another flash, and there stood the miniature prophet again. "You are in the midst of a tale from the collection Vikram and the Vampire, compiled by the sage Bhavabhuti, and translated by Sir Richard Francis Burton—yes, the explorer who helped search for the headwaters of the Nile."

Shea goggled, but Chalmers said, completely unruffled, "Which tale exactly?"

"The fifth," the prophet said, and held out a cupped palm. "Two shillings, please." Feeling numb, Shea handed over another Russian coin. The prophet took it and bowed. "Thank you, gentlemen! Call again, whenever you please!"

Shea found his voice. "But we didn't. Call again, I mean."

"True, but we make unbounded returns. Good evening." The prophet disappeared brilliantly.

"Don't ask any more questions," Chalmers advised, "or he'll be back in a flash."

"I won't," Shea promised. "I'm having trouble enough adjusting to the idea of a plainclothes rajah."

"Surely you do not believe the little man!"

"You mean the Prophet of Profit? Why not? We've run into stranger things," Shea sighed. "Besides, his being king would explain the attempt at disguise."

Chalmers frowned. "How so?"

"Because if his royal nose is of a size with his rank, of course he'd want to make it look shorter. Hadn't we better go looking for that alley now?"

"Yes, by all means." Chalmers followed Shea along the dusty street. "We must see to obtaining local clothing as soon as possible."

"I think we'll have to wait for daybreak, when the shops open. What caste do you think I should opt for?"

"Persian robes—a traveler from the West will be your best role here. That avoids the whole issue of caste as well as it can be avoided."

"But not too far to the west, hm?"

"Indeed. Our Medieval Russian garb must be quite incomprehensible to most of the local residents. We want to be believable as foreigners, not maniacs. For myself, a simple saffron robe will do nicely—I shall be a sunnyasi, a wandering holy man."

"With your Northern European complexion? Whom do you think you're fooling?"

"Philosophers can be of any breed, and still be credible," Chalmers replied, with a loftiness that made Shea wonder about suppressed impulses toward asceticism. He decided a quick change of subject was in order. "I thought our little philosopher was Victorian English."

"He was—he came from John Wellington Wells' shop at Number Seventy, Simmery Axe."

"But we're speaking a Hindu dialect right now. How come we understood him?"

"He is magical, you know," Chalmers sighed, "unlimited knowledge, and all that sort of thing."

"Oh." Shea let that one sink in. Then he asked, "You mean he's apt to show up any time I ask a question now?" He glanced at the darkness about him with apprehension, realizing too late that he might have triggered another visit.

So did Chalmers; he let out a sigh of relief when nothing flashed. "Only if it's a matter of knowledge we do not have, or cannot gain locally, I would presume. Still, I would be careful what you asked for."

"I know—I might get it." Shea pointed. "There's a likely looking alley."

"What it's looking like, I will not say." Chalmers eyed the black space between buildings with misgiving. "Still, if it is our only hope of avoiding the gang of thieves, let us hie ourselves thither."

"Thither?" Shea echoed, but he headed for the mouth of the alley anyway.

Stepping in, they passed from bright moonlight into sudden shadow. "Where are you, Harold?" Chalmers whispered.

"Right beside you—or your voice, anyway. This place is as dark as the Black Hole of Calcutta." Then Shea remembered that they might not be all that far from Calcutta, and swallowed. Sweat would have sprung out all over his body, if it hadn't already. "Why are we whispering?"

"Because it's da-ah-uh-HO!" Chalmers stumbled, lurched, and reached out to catch hold of Shea, who braced himself just in time to keep both of them on their feet.

"Stupid fool!" hissed a voice that started below them, then rose quickly in both pitch and elevation. "Can you not see where you step?"

"N-no, actually, we can't." Shea huddled back against Chalmers, then remembered himself and stepped in front, hand going to his sword. He could only just make out the gleam of reflected light from eyes and an earring. "Can't see a thing." But his eyes were adjusting to the deeper darkness, and he could detect a vague, irregular circle low down in the wall opposite him, with another man coming out of it on hands and knees. Chalmers had tripped over their current conversationalist as he made his exit—but who came out of a building through a hole in the wall? Especially with a bagful of hard-looking lumpy objects over his shoulder?

Thieves—and ones who didn't pussyfoot around with such niceties as lockpicks or glass-cutters. But how did they knock a hole in a wall without making a racket that would bring down every policeman in the neighborhood?

Easy—no police. And the neighbors didn't bother the men because they were scared stiff. "Doc," Shea hissed, "I think we've found our gang of thieves."

"Not mine," Chalmers assured him, then forced a smile and stepped forward. "Greetings, O Man of Skill! We are strangers in your fair city, and . . ."

"Strangers indeed, not to know enough to keep within doors at night!" A knife suddenly appeared at Chalmers' throat—rough and homemade, by Shea's twentieth-century standards, but with a gleam of sharpness to its edge that showed it was quite functional. "What shall we do with these two, Chankoor?"

"Hold them a moment, Din," the other man said as he stood up. "When we are all out, we shall take him to the captain."

"Even as he says," Din told Chalmers and Shea. "Hold yourselves quite still now, or my hand might waver."

Chalmers swallowed convulsively, almost nicking his Adam's apple in the process, and stared at the man with bulging eyes. Behind his back, Shea stiffened a finger and let it relax, very slowly, as he began to mutter something about melting, but Chalmers clamped a hand onto his arm, and Shea decided that Doc hadn't quite given up hope of talking his way out of this.

"Take your hand from your sword-hilt, cow-eater," Din sneered, and twisted the knife for emphasis. Below him, a third man, then a fourth, crawled out of the hole, the last reaching back to drag out two more bags of plunder.

"Tell us who you are, completely and truthfully," Chankoor demanded.

"Tell him, Harold," Chalmers said out of the corner of his mouth, eyes never leaving Din's face.

"Harr-ld?" Chankooor scowled at Shea. "What manner of name is that?"

Shea tried to remember what the Hindus might have called Europeans, before the Portuguese opened up trade with their ports. "We are, uh, Frankish, uh . . . thieves! Yes, Frankish thieves, come to study the techniques of your so-excellent band, whose fame has reached even to . . ."

"The truth!" The knife twisted again, and Chalmers gasped.

Shea wondered on which part of his concoction the man had caught him out. "Oh, all right! We heard there were rich pickings here, and that no one could stop robbers in this city, so we came to . . . well . . ."

"Cut a slice of the haunch for yourself?" Chankoor grunted. "Foolish barbarian! Know that our captain will tolerate no band but his own in this city! However, if your gods bless you, perhaps he will allow you to join us. Come, then, and we will take you to him. Turn and go!"

The knife withdrew, and a hard hand turned Chalmers toward the mouth of the alley. His shoulders slumped with relief even as he stepped away, then stepped faster as the knife-point pricked the back of his neck and the hard hand tugged him along.

Another hand caught Shea's arm in a grip like a blood-pressure cuff and hauled him after Chalmers. He went, wondering why the thieves hadn't taken his sword. Could it be the design was so alien to them that they didn't recognize it for what it was? No, surely not! They must have been confident of being able to kill him before he could stab any of them. Talk about arrogance!

He fell in beside Chalmers, reflecting that, although the local dialect of Hindustani might be his native language now, and that he probably wouldn't even be able to remember a word of English, he should still be able to speak a language that had always been foreign to him. "Qu'est-que nous faisons maintenant, Monsieur le Docteur?" What do we do now, Doc?

"Nous irons encontre ce capitaine de voleurs," Chalmers replied. "J'ai devient curieux." We go meet this captain of thieves; I have become curious.

There were times when Shea could cheerfully have done without the inborn curiosity of the inquiring mind.

"Speak not in your bleating tongue!" Chankoor snarled right behind Shea, and a knife pricked the back of his neck. "Oh, all right," he grumbled, and followed the other two thieves out of the alley and into the night—where he virtually froze, staring about him in shock. The street swarmed with thieves, who didn't seem to be at all concerned about somebody's seeing them. A buzz of conversation filled his ears, and the moonlit gyrations of the thieves confused and dazzled him. He blinked, then rubbed his eyes. Had all this been going on before, and he just hadn't noticed it? Some of them must have just been starting the evening's work—apparently, he had fallen into the hands of the early birds that were out to get the golden worm—because they were still rubbing oil on their bodies between swigs from bottles that Shea was sure contained something more potent than fruit juice. Some had progressed beyond that point, rubbing lamp-black around their eyes and eyesockets, no doubt to make them less visible—between more swigs from bottles, of course.

Out of the corner of his eye, Shea saw a robed man hurrying along the street, apparently oblivious to the thieves, but apprehensive about them. A couple of footpads fell upon him and bore him down; a knife flashed, and the victim cried out, a cry that ended in a horrid gurgle. The footpads stood up holding a fat purse.

"Why didn't we see them before?" Shea asked Chalmers—and the knife was suddenly at his throat again. "You are not the thieves you claim to be," their captor growled, "or you would know the answer to that!"

"We do not practice the same skills as you do, in our benighted lands," Chalmers said quickly. "Indeed, we have come here to learn them! Pray tell us how we did not . . ."

He broke off, staring. So did Shea, for their captors had let go of their arms, and the street was suddenly empty again, except for the dead body—three dead bodies, now that he saw the view without the swarm of thieves. He could still hear them, but their voices seemed muted, distant.

Then, suddenly, a thief was there, crouching as he rubbed oil over his shoulders. He recited an incantation, and Shea and Chalmers stared, fascinated, recognizing only a few words here and there; obviously, the man was speaking in an old language, probably Sanskrit; Shea was mildly surprised that he didn't hear it as Latin.

Then the man disappeared.

Hard hands fell on their shoulders again, and the noise of the crowd was back in full force—and so was the gang, many of whom were now watching Shea and Chalmers, laughing with glee at their looks of surprise. "Do you understand now?" their captor asked from behind.

"Yes, I think so," Chalmers said slowly. "You have incantations to make yourselves invisible, but the effect does not last long."

"Yes, even as we have incantations to enable us to see in the darkness. Do you not have such?"

"No," Shea said, "but we'd love to learn them." He pointed at a group of men who seemed to be practicing some sort of martial art, except that Shea could very clearly make out some movements that seemed to be those of cutting purse strings. "What are they doing?"

Chankoor seemed to puff himself up, grinning with self-importance. "They practice the lessons of the god with the golden spear."

"What god is that?" Chalmers asked.

Chankoor stared in surprise. "You are thieves, and do not know?"

"Thieves from lands far to the west, remember," Shea said quickly, "very far to the west."

Chankoor muttered something about ignorant barbarians, but explained, "He is Kartikeya, the god of thieves, who revealed to the master Yugacharya the Chauriya Vidya, the Thieves' Manual. Any who wish to succeed in theft must know its precepts by heart. Regard those men, now . . ." He pointed at two men who labored at the base of a wall. ". . . and those, those, and those!" He pointed out three other groups who were also at work on the walls of three other shops. "They carry out the four modes of breaching a house."

Shea peered through the darkness, and saw that the first pair were picking bricks out piece by piece. Shoddy material, no doubt—and Chankoor confirmed it. "Burnt bricks," he explained, but didn't say who had burned them. Another pair were at work with a cold chisel, cutting through. "Those bricks are unbaked, and old," Chankoor explained. "The monsoon winds softened them quite nicely—but exposure to sun or salt will do as well."

The third pair needed no explanation—they were splashing a mud wall with bucketfuls of water. Shea shuddered, feeling that he had never fully appreciated modern construction methods before. He also didn't need much explanation for the fourth pair—all he needed to see was the huge augur with which they were boring into the wall of a wooden house. "They're going to have to drill a lot of holes before they can make one big enough to crawl through."

"Not so many as you would think," Chankoor said offhandedly. "They have saws with slender blades with which they can join the holes. See with what artistry they practice their craft! These sons of Skanda make breaches in the shape of lotus blossoms, of the sun, the new moon, the lake, and the water jar!"

"They do seem to be enjoying their work," Chalmers said diplomatically. "I find it hard to believe that a group of such, ah, 'rugged individualists' would be willing to take orders from anyone."

"Ah, but you have not seen the captain yet!" Chankoor said with a grin. "Come, let us find him!"

Moonlight or not, they were caught in a maze of single-story mud-brick houses that was a tribute to a lack of city planning. Shea found himself growing dizzy with the turns and twists. He did notice that they seemed to avoid the big stone buildings carefully. As they went, other bands of three and four came out of side streets to join them, clanking bags on their backs, laughing and joking over their good luck. It made Shea's flesh crawl, especially since he was soon surrounded by them. Looking up, he happened to notice the disguised rajah only a few feet away; he had apparently been taken up by one of the other squadrons, just as Shea and Chalmers had. Shea nudged Chalmers and nodded at the rajah, ever so slightly; Chalmers looked, and his eyes widened. He exchanged a quick worried glance with Shea before they both turned back to the front, marching onward in the midst of a mob of muggers, feeling as though they walked under the Sword of Damocles.

Then they turned a corner and almost ran into the city wall. Shea jolted to a stop out of sheer surprise, but a knife-point in his back, and a snarl, motivated him to go forward again. "How are we going to get over it?" he whispered to one of his captors, but the man hissed back, "All shall become evident to the enterprising. Forward!"

Shea gulped and marched, Chalmers beside him. He could have sworn they were going to march right into the wall, and Shea found himself wondering if Chankoor were planning to have them grind their faces into it. "Doc, do you think they'll consider stopping?"

"The question has occurred to me, too," Chalmers admitted. "Perhaps they believe themselves to be invisible."

Shea remembered the incantation for invisibility. "But the guards won't open the gates for invisible men!"

"I do not think it will be the guards who open them," Chalmers returned. "After all, invisible men can still strike blows."

Shea remembered the Wells novel, and shuddered; after the random, senseless slayings he'd seen for no more than a few pieces of minted metal, he didn't doubt that the robbers would not hesitate to kill their way out every night. "Maybe they're just going to loiter around until the gates open at daybreak," he said hopefully. "They can mutter the spell over and over, after all." But the look of skepticism Chalmers gave him was all the comment the notion deserved.

Chankoor fooled them both. He simply walked up to the gate and knocked in what sounded like Morse code—three quick knocks, then two slow. For a moment, everything seemed frozen; Shea even held his breath. Then, slowly, the gate opened. "Magic?" he whispered.

"No," Chalmers said with disgust. "Bribed porters."

Shea stared, then felt a surge of self-anger at his own gullibility. He risked a glance about—and stared. He found himself gazing at the man with the horsehair over his nose! He couldn't see the horsehair in this dim light, of course—it was only a stray moonbeam that had showed it to him in the first place—but he certainly recognized the face. It was Rajah Randhir, and his eyes flared with anger at this betrayal by his own gate guards.

Din pricked Chalmers' neck again; he flinched and said, "I think we had better undertake our own transportation, before these fellows lose patience and leave us by the wayside."

"With our throats slit," Shea muttered. He started walking beside Chalmers, following the stocky moonlighted figure before them.

Out they went, in the midst of a host of thieves and killers. They only walked for about ten minutes before they came to a knot of men milling about in the roadway, talking and laughing, with more joining them from footpaths beside the way every minute. Shea stared. Could the thieves really be so bold, and so busy, that they had worn their own paths? If they were, how could there be anything left in the city worth stealing?

They certainly weren't worried about the sentries at the gate hearing them. The voices were loud, the laughter louder, and here and there a snatch of song. Their guides led them to the center of the mob, which parted to let them through at a muttered, urgent demand from their captors. Looking about for any possible escape routes, Shea happened to catch the rajah's eye. Randhir gave a start of recognition, then gave him a furious glare that as much as promised instant death if Shea dared breathe a word about his not being a genuine thief—but Shea knew how he felt; he wasn't at his most relaxed, himself, surrounded by a pack of outlaws who would probably slip a knife between his ribs as easily as they would hiss him to silence. He tried to look reassuring before the thieves behind him hustled him along.

The crowd stopped parting at a man who was taller than the rest, and strikingly handsome, if you liked lots of beard and moustache. He had muscles, anyway, and his style of dress certainly let it show. After all, a loincloth and turban don't hide all that much.

"Captain Charya," said Chankoor, "we have here two strangers who stumbled upon us as we were leaving the shop of the goldsmith."

He didn't have to be so literal, Shea thought.

"Strangers indeed!" Charya said in a deep, amused voice. "I have never seen stranger!"

"Stranger strangers?" Shea murmured, but Chalmers kicked him in the shin, and he pinched his lips shut.

"They claim to be thieves from a foreign land," Chankoor explained.

"Are you truly?" Charya the captain eyed them keenly, as though he could spot a lie by sight—and maybe he could, if he was good enough at reading posture and attitude. "A high-toper, or a lully-prigger?"

"Uh-h-h-h . . ." The terms caught Shea flat-footed. When in doubt, stall, he thought, and improvised. "Just another cove in the lorst, Captain."

"Ah! A petty thief!" Charya nodded, satisfied. "How if I told you to mind old Oliver?"

He might have been speaking Hindi, but the spell that gave Shea the ability to understand it, was doing a great job of translating it into English idioms. "Why, I'd keep an eye on the moon, to make sure I was done stealing and gone before it rose—but your coves don't seem to worry about that."

"Why should we care?" Charya's grin gleamed in the moonlight. "There's not a soldier in the city is not afraid of us—any, even the rajah himself!"

At the moment, Shea thought, that just might have been true. "If you have the town sewed up that tight, more power to you." After all, that was just a statement of fact. "But look sharp, Captain, or the lamb-skin man will have the pull of us, and as sure as eggs are eggs, we shall be scragged as soon as lagged."

"Then keep your red rag quiet," grumbled the thief beside him.

"Why should I be the only one?" Shea shot back.

Charya laughed. "Why indeed! All the Watch together would not dare accost us within the city—and outside of it, even less! Still, though, my lads are anxious to wet their whistles, so let us be off to the flash ken, where the morts are waiting. Come, join us!"

He turned away, beckoning, and what could Shea do but follow?

Chalmers paced beside him, muttering, "What manner of foreign language was that?"

"Thieves' jargon," Shea explained.

"And where did you learn it?"

"I've been doing some volunteer counseling," Shea explained, "unpaid—down at the county jail."

"Surely those terms were not American!"

"No, one of the thieves was English," Shea explained. "Besides, some of the language came over with the colonists and hasn't changed since. For example, if a pickpocket says a man carries his wallet on his left prat, that means his left hip pocket."

"Hence the term 'pratfall,' " Chalmers said thoughtfully. "Yes, I see."

Someone jostled Shea from the other side. Turning to protest, he found himself staring at an overly flattened nose with a horizontal groove across the tip. He shifted his focus up to the glaring eyes of the incognito rajah. "Do not whisper a word of our earlier meeting," he hissed, "or I shall see you scragged indeed."

Shea swallowed heavily, imagining the feel of a hempen noose tightening around his neck. "Don't worry, Your Ma . . ." In the nick of time, he remembered that he wasn't supposed to know Randhir's real identity. ". . . your magic secret is safe with us. After all, if you wanted to drop us, all you'd have to do is tell them about our meeting yourself."

"You know I cannot do that without compromising myself!"

"Yes," Shea said, "exactly." He stared into the rajah's eyes until comprehension registered, and the royal lips parted in a grin. "Ah, a point well taken! We have both used the same ruse to keep our heads on our necks, have we not? Nonetheless, be sure you say nothing of me, or I shall bring down their wrath upon you!"

"It's a deal," Shea promised. "You don't betray us, and we won't betray you."

"Well enough." The rajah nodded, satisfied. "See that you keep to it." He drifted away from them.

"What was that all about?" Chalmers asked.

"Just a little mutual-silence pact," Shea told him. "Details later."

Chalmers took the hint, remembering the number of ears available to hear them, and changed the subject. He pointed to a large rodent that scuttled out of sight into a hole in the ground as they approached. "Reassuring sight, somehow."

Shea took his point—it was nice, sometimes, to remember who the real rats were—but Charya saw too, and exclaimed with satisfaction, "Ah! You recognize the rat-hole as a good omen! You must indeed be thieves!" He clapped Shea on the back, sending him staggering, and strode along, singing a merry tune.

As they went, Shea sneaked the occasional glance at the incognito rajah. The man was constantly glancing about him with an intentness that puzzled Shea. Was he memorizing faces for prosecution? Since that included Shea's and Chalmers' faces, the thought gave Shea a cold chill. He tried to ignore the rajah, and hoped he would return the courtesy.

The moon was setting, and Chalmers was beginning to stumble with fatigue, when Charya finally raised a hand to halt his gang. Shea stopped thankfully, leaning against Chalmers, who leaned against him—it had been a long day, starting in 10th Century Russia and finishing past midnight in India. No wonder he was tired, Shea reflected—that was a heck of a long hike. He looked up at the cliff that towered above them, then down at the rain forest at its foot, and shuddered. What else was he going to have to go through before he could rest?

High grass, for one thing; it was up to his knees in this meadow, and they had to hike across to reach the trees on the far side, which was apparently what the robber captain was planning on doing. Through the high grass they went, and Shea was just glad it wasn't late enough for the dew to have fallen—the grass seemed to drag at him badly enough as it was. He was really tired!

Chaiya put two fingers in his mouth, for all the world like an American schoolboy, and blew a whistle that Shea could have sworn must have blasted the feathers off every sleeping bird in the forest—but the only one that answered was an owl, who was very unlikely to have been sleeping. Chaiya shrieked back at it; Shea and Chalmers both jumped, but a voice near them murmured, "Be not afrighted; he imitates the jackal's cry—and very well, too."

Shea looked up, startled, and saw that Rajah Randhir had come up just behind them. He wasn't looking at them, though, but at Chaiya, and very keenly, too.

Half a dozen silhouettes rose from the long grass about them.

Shea couldn't help a start of apprehension, and for a minute, he thought he was seeing ghosts—anything could happen in a magical universe, after all—but he recovered from his surprise, and realized they were just men, though big ones, and armed to the teeth—literally; one of them was biting his spare knife, his hands being full with sword and shield. But he took the knife out without letting go of the shield—nice trick, that—and demanded, "What do we offer when Kali demands tribute?"

"A melon," Charya replied.

Chalmers stared, but behind them, Rajah Randhir hissed, "Ah! The password!"

It must have been, for the guard challenged again, "Then where is your melon?"

Charya tapped the side of his head.

The guard bowed. "Proceed, my captain." He stepped back, and the guards sank down into the grass again as smoothly as though they were sinking into the earth itself.

"They are cautious indeed," Randhir breathed.

"Yes, if they're going to check the password even with the captain himself," Shea agreed.

"They aren't really Thuggee, are they?" Chalmers asked nervously.

"Worshippers of Kali, who offer her human lives?" Randhir shook his head ever so slightly. "I think not. They are thieves, and though they may murder, it is only to gain the gold in their victims' purses. No, they worship Kartikeya."

Shea hoped he was right.

"You know a surprising amount, for foreigners," Randhir said, eyeing Chalmers narrowly—but the psychologist was saved from a reply because, just then, they passed in among the trees, and Randhir had to turn to chop secretly into the bark of a tree as they passed. The action triggered realization in Shea—the rajah was blazing his path! His constant scrutiny of his surroundings wasn't shiftiness or fear—he was memorizing landmarks! He was planning to escape, then come back with an army!

They walked for another ten minutes; then the trail opened out into a large clearing, but the light of the moon was blocked by a huge sheet of rock that reared up at the far side of the glade like a butte in the deserter like a painter's canvas, because the bottom ten feet or so were decorated with vermillion handprints. Shea wondered what they signified, but the psychologist in him decided he didn't want to know.

Chaiya walked up to it and bowed low, then knelt and pulled up a tuft of grass. He beckoned, saying, "Come, new boy! Aid me here!"

Shea started to step forward, but Rajah Randhir brushed past him and stooped to help the robber captain. They heaved, and Shea saw they were both holding on to an iron ring.

"Replace your divots," Chalmers muttered.

As they heaved, a trapdoor opened in the ground. A shaft of light poured out, and a hubbub of voices drowned the night noises. Some of the voices were shouting, some singing loudly and off-key, and beneath them, Shea definitely heard the clink of glasses. Some of the voices, he was quite sure, were female.

"This is the ken," Charya said. He turned, stepping down into the hole, and commanded, "Follow me!"

Shea's hair stood on end, but the rajah very calmly stepped down into the hole as Charya sank from sight, and the robber behind Shea growled, "Hurry up! I thirst!"

"If they're eager for it," Chalmers murmured, "it can't be all that dangerous."

Shea nodded reluctantly and stepped forward. As he came to the hole, he saw a ladder stretching downward. It was made of bamboo and looked entirely too flimsy to hold him, but both the captain and Randhir looked to be heavier than he was, so he swallowed heavily, braced a hand against the trapdoor, and stepped down onto the ladder. It held—it didn't even sway—and he descended a rung at a time, Chalmers following him.

He stepped off and turned around to find himself in a large cave with troughs of water against the walls and suits of silk and fine cotton hanging on racks. Charya began to wash away his night makeup, and Shea's hair tried to stand up as he realized part of what was flowing off the man's hands was dried blood. Randhir started washing, too, then stood back and watched philosophically as the robbers filed down off the ladder and went to wash off the dirt and brick-dust of the night's work—and the dried blood. That done, they took off their turbans, and Shea found out why the fabric rose so high—it was concealing a heap of hair. The men started to comb out their long, disheveled, dusty locks, then to rearrange them and wind clean, colorful turbans around it. Recoiffured, they turned to anointing their clean skins with perfumed oil.

"Come, strangers! Refresh yourselves!" one man cried.

"A chance to acquire local dress, Harold," Chalmers muttered, and Shea called, "Why, yes, thanks! Don't mind if I do!"

As he washed, Shea kept an eye on the men around him. Some had long, slender daggers hung to lanyards lashed around their waists, some had little bags slung under their left arms, and some, oddly, wore kerchiefs around their necks.

As they finished dressing, the gang members leaped through a curtained archway with whoops of delight. Charya took his time, though, robing himself in splendid brocade over silken trousers, and Shea wasn't about to go through the curtains ahead of him. Nether was Chalmers, of course, and it didn't surprise Shea to see that Randhir waited upon the robber-captain's pleasure, too. He began to suspect that Charya was dawdling, and sure enough, most of the gang had gone before he led the way through.

They came out into a huge cavern, lighted by torches fixed to the stone walls—and if they gave off light, they gave off smoke as well, but that didn't matter much, because the floor was crowded with men sitting cross-legged with water pipes before them and bumpers of something alcoholic by their sides. Carpets of every kind, from the choicest tapestry to the coarsest rug, were spread out under the smokers, and were strewn with bags, wallets, weapons, heaps of booty, and here and there, a grappling couple—for there were women among the men, carrying trays and mugs, and dispensing kisses as freely as food and drink. Here a thief made a ribald comment at a waitress, and she answered him back with both sauciness and earthiness. Here and there a waitress gave a shriek of delight—at least, Shea hoped it was delight—as one of her "customers" pulled her down from a contest of wits to a wrestling match.

A pretty young woman saw Charya and struck a gong beside the archway. At its brazen note, all the robbers stopped what they were doing and turned to him, clapping. The captain stood there with a glittering grin, drinking in the applause. As it slackened, he threw out an arm toward the Rajah—and, incidentally, Shea and Chalmers—and cried, "Make shanti to our new companions!"

"Shanti!" the robbers cried with one voice, and suited the action to the word. Randhir smiled and bowed to them. Watching him in the lamplight, Shea could only think it was lucky for him that the light was so dim—even this close, he couldn't make out the horsehair that flattened his nose.

"What of the score of the evening, Captain?" one man called out.

Charya grinned. "I've scarcely had time to count it all—but I have numbered the bags of loot. There are twenty, and at a guess, we have hauled more booty tonight than ever before!"

The robbers gave shouts of approval, applauding and hooting.

"Eat, drink, and be merry!" Charya cried. "You have earned it!"

The robbers answered with a shout of agreement and settled down to some serious debauchery.

But even the most decadent must grow sleepy, and these particular debauchers had put in a hard night's work before they began debauching. It took four or five hours, but the flaring torches began to burn out, and one by one, the robbers began to nod, then to lie down and pull up a cushion for a pillow. Some rolled themselves up in the rugs and covered their heads; all fell asleep right where they lay. They dropped off by twos and threes, until only the thieves right next to the wall were still sitting upright, and that was only because they were leaning back against it. Even they were nodding drowsily or leaning to one side; they might have been technically awake, but they were too stupefied with opium or hashish, to really be aware of anything.

Shea and Chalmers still sat with the Rajah, not feeling at all safe, the more so because they were among the few still awake. "Feigh drowsiness," Randhir muttered to them, or our heads will be forfeit." He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the smoke coming from Shea's hookah. "What manner of hashish is that?"

"One that couldn't stupefy a mouse." Shea didn't bother telling the king that he had chanted a singing commercial for a brand of cigarettes while he was lighting up.

A servant woman strolled by them, looking about for anyone needing attention. She glanced at the rajah, then looked again, staring in alarm. Randhir tensed for action, but the woman gave a quick, furtive glance about her, then knelt down by the rajah and busied herself tidying up about him. "Majesty!" she hissed. "O Rajah! How came you with these wicked men?"

Shea looked up, affronted, but Chalmers murmured, "She means the thieves, Harold, not necessarily us."

"You, too!" the woman said. "If you are with the Rajah, you must be his guards, or at the least, men of goodwill. Do you run away as fast as you can, Majesty, or they will surely kill you when they awake."

"Many thanks for kind wishes, woman," Randhir answered, his voice as low as hers, "but I do not know the way; this cave is a veritable maze, and I could not say how to find the trapdoor. In which direction am I to go?"

"Follow me!" the woman hissed, and stood up, hands full of dirty goblets. She threaded her way through the confused mass of snorers. The Rajah followed, walking as lightly and deftly as a tiger. Shea followed, trying to put his feet exactly where Randhir had, with Chalmers behind him. An inch to the left or right, and he would have stepped on the sleepers, who were likely to resent being awakened so suddenly and unpleasantly. He had a notion that they would show their resentment with knives or clubs, and wasn't eager to try to reason with them about channeling their aggressions.

The woman pulled the curtain aside, and they stepped into the robing-room again. There stood the ladder, rising up from the floor to lean against the foot-thick rim of the hole.

"Here stands your escape," the woman whispered. "Go now, my Rajah, and quickly!"

"I shall remember you for this," Randhir promised her. "You shall be rewarded."

"The only reward I crave is rebirth in a higher caste, my rajah, and to that I bend my efforts as well as I may. Forget your lowly handservant, and go!"

"May this good deed bring you great karma," Randhir said, and climbed up the ladder. Shea followed, reflecting that the woman was clearly a slave; she was doing the best she could to fulfill her dharma, her role in the order of the universe, but certainly had no choice in being maidservant to a gang of thieves.

Randhir crowded himself up against the trapdoor, hunched over; Shea wondered, but as the Rajah straightened with a grunt, heaving up, he saw the sense in the man's strategy; the heavy stone trapdoor swung up ever so slowly—but the ladder dipped and swayed, and Shea clung for dear life, thinking that the rung on which the rajah stood had to snap, it couldn't possibly hold against such pressure. . . .

It did hold, though, and with a final thrust, Randhir straightened. The door shot up, then fell open with a thud that made Chalmers wince. Randhir climbed up and out of the hole, then turned to heft the trapdoor closed . . .

. . . and saw Shea's head just above the opening. "What," he hissed, "are you still here?"

"And just as eager to get out of here as you are." Shea sidled over to the edge of the ladder, lifting one foot off to leave as much free room as possible, and beckoned to Chalmers, below the rim where Randhir couldn't see it. "We need to get out in a bad way, because if those bad men find out we're not bad too, then we're going to be in bad trouble."

Chalmers squirmed up past him.

"You put me in a dilemma," Randhir said, scowling. "If you are truly thieves, you could raise the alarm and bring down an ambush upon me, for surely there must still be guards about!"

"If I were a thief," Shea retorted, "I would have raised the alarm long ago, and they would have killed you while they had you in their hall."

"There is some sense in that," Randhir allowed. "Still, I cannot . . . Ho! Stop, you!"

But Chalmers threw himself over the rim of the hole and rolled out from beneath the trapdoor.

"Tricked!" Randhir snapped. "By Indra, if I suffer you to . . . Pah!"

The last was said in disgust as Shea rolled free, too, then rose, dusting off his hands. "Can I help you lower that thing? It won't do any of us any good if it goes 'boom' as it falls."

Randhir stood a moment, irresolute, Shea's offhanded offer taking him by surprise. Then he sighed and accepted the fait accompli. "Aye, it is well thought. Aid me, then, for the trap has grown heavy during this chatter."

Shea laid hold of the iron ring too, and together they lowered the trapdoor until it closed with a muffled thud. Then Randhir cast about him, doubled over, searching. Shea was just about to ask what was going on when the Rajah straightened with a soft exclamation of satisfaction, holding the plug of grass in his hand. He tamped it carefully back over the iron ring.

"He does replace his divots," Chalmers muttered to Shea.

"Sure he does," Shea whispered back. "He owns the whole golf course!"

"Come—away!" Randhir whispered, and turned to plunge back into the woods.

Shea hurried to catch up with him and said, keeping his voice low, "I think you said something about there maybe being guards still posted?"

"We shall deal with them when we must." Randhir drew his dagger. "If we are going to travel together, we must know one another. I am Matun."

Shea held his face neutral for a moment, thrown by the alias—then realized that a man in disguise certainly wasn't about to use his own name. "I'm Shea, and my friend is Chalmers."

"Shea and Chalmers—well met." Randhir gave them each a curt nod. "Let us hurry, now! We would be well advised to be clear of this wood while it is still dark!"

"And the sentries sleepy. You are very brave," Chalmers said, coming up on his other side, "but this very night, we have learned an incantation that makes people invisible."

Randhir halted. "Why, so we have! Indeed, I made shift to memorize it as soon as I heard it! But can I remember it now?"

"We should be able to, between the three of us," Shea said, "but will it work if we don't cover ourselves with oil?"

"The coconut oil was to aid the robbers in slipping through tight places," Randhir told him, "and to prevent a man of the Watch from gaining a hold on them. Still, you may be right; we can only attempt it."

"There were gestures that went with it," Chalmers informed him, "like this." He made a circle above his head, then drew his hand flat down in front of his face, palm toward his eyes, and on down along his whole body. "Do that as we recite!"

They all pantomimed as they chanted the words together. They were meaningless, incomprehensible, but Shea felt sure that if he had ever learned Sanskrit, they would be poetry of the highest order. He looked up at Chalmers and Randhir . . .

Just in time to see their forms waver, grow transparent, and disappear. "I can't see you at all!"

"Nor I you," Chalmers' voice answered out of thin air, "nor His Majesty."

Shea looked closely at the space where the rajah had been. Sure enough, he was completely invisible. No, wait . . . there was a gleam of light, a ray, a straight line. . . .

The horsehair. Randhir really ought to do something about that.

Dawn was breaking as they came to the city gate, so they didn't have to wait long until it opened. The invisibility spell had worn off after the first couple of hours, so Shea had no trouble seeing Randhir as he said, very casually, "It would be nice if mere were somebody here who could simply command the porters to open the gate for us."

"It would," the Rajah agreed in a wooden tone.

"But there isn't, of course," Shea sighed. If the guards recognized the "thief" of the night before and heard him issue a royal command, they would run for their lives the second the king was through the gate—and probably keep on running all the way to the ken and warn all the other thieves, too. The king was out to capture them, not just inconvenience them.

So they waited until the gates opened, three travelers among the many who gathered, waiting. When the huge panels swung wide, they poured into the town—and Randhir led Shea and Chalmers unerringly toward the gleaming dome of the royal palace.

As they came up to the gates, Chalmers dropped behind Randhir a few steps and pulled Shea alongside. "He is going to reveal his lofty station to us, Harold. Be suitably impressed."

"Oh! Yes, of course." Shea smiled brightly.

Randhir marched right up to the gates, and the guards stared, amazed at the insolence of the "peasant." Then they clashed their spears together, blocking his way. The Rajah halted and told them, "Summon your captain."

The guards began to look angry, and the older of the two said, "We take no orders from ruffians!"

"You do not know me, then?"

"Know you?" the younger cried. "We have never seen you in our lives."

"That is reassuring." The Rajah took out his knife and cut the horsehair. His nose, freed, swelled back out to its royal proportions, somewhat resembling a cross between an eagle's beak and a seaside promontory. "Do you know me now?" he demanded.

The men stared, then bowed low. "My King and sovereign!"

"I am indeed. Now summon your captain."

One guard ran to call his boss, and Chalmers leaned over to mutter, "Most interesting. He made sure neither had been among the thieves last night, before he risked revealing his identity."

"Very wise," Shea agreed. "Of course, they might have been lying."

"Quite so, but I'm certain it was only double-checking; he would have recognized them if he had seen them last night."

"If he could have," Shea said. "He's got a much better memory for faces than I have."

"Well, yes," Chalmers agreed, "but that would not take much, would it now?"

Shea turned a look of indignation on him. "Well, thank you, Mr. Memory Wizard!"

Chalmers was saved from an answer by the arrival of the guard captain, who took one look at Randhir and blanched. "Seize him," the rajah commanded.

The captain reached for his sword, but the guards managed to react to their surprise fast enough so that it never cleared the scabbard. A spear-point touched his chest, and he froze; then a fist cracked into his jaw, and he folded.

"Chain him in the dungeon," the rajah commanded, "and bind his mouth; make sure he speaks to no one. He is a thief, and has betrayed us all."

As the guards carried the man away, Shea conceded, "I guess he does have a good memory for faces."

"Yes," Chalmers agreed, "but very poor recruiting procedures."

Finally, Randhir turned to Shea and Chalmers. "Now you know whom you have accompanied this evening."

Shea stared and took a step back—right into Chalmers, who muttered, "Pure ham." It was a good thing—Shea had been on the verge of sticking his hands in the air and crying, "I surrender, Sheriff!" Instead, he risked a glance at Chalmers, who was simply staring, pure and simple, then began to tremble ever so slightly.

Randhir saw and smiled, sure of his power and majesty. "Do not be afraid, for we have been comrades in danger. Come with me now, and refresh yourselves."

He turned and marched before them. As they passed through the gates, Shea suddenly became sure of safety, and felt himself go limp—limp with relief, but also weariness.

"Do not relax yet." Chalmers' voice was heavy with exhaustion. "One misstep, and we could still lose our heads."

"That's right—the Rajah has no reason to think we're not foreign thieves." Shea managed to muster a few grams of remaining strength, enough to imagine the Rajah's face swollen with anger and his voice shouting, "Off with their heads!" The result was remarkable—adrenaline surged through him, stiffening his backbone and brightening his eyes. He managed to keep his step brisk as he followed Randhir.

Into the palace they went, but by a side door that led into a room with long tables adorned with knives. For a moment, Shea thought the Rajah had led them to his torture chamber. Then he saw the garbage bins, and realized they were in the kitchens.

The light of dawn showed him an old woman who was snoring in a chair by the window. "Up!" Randhir commanded, but his voice was gentle. The woman's eyes snapped open; she saw the Rajah, and pushed herself painfully to her feet. "Water," Randhir commanded, and the woman hobbled away to dip water from a bucket into a silver bowl. She hung a clean cloth over her arm and brought both to her King. He peeled off false eyebrows and washed his face thoroughly, taking away some of the coloring, then dried it and began work on his moustaches, twisting them down from the corners of his eyes to blend in with his beard. The woman handed him a comb, then went to bring a richly brocaded robe. Randhir combed his parted beard back into one single, well-trimmed mass, then doffed his rough tunic and slipped into the robe the old woman held out for him. He tied a sash about it, then exchanged his black cotton turban for one of purple silk with a peacock's feather held by a golden brooch to the front and turned to face them, magically transformed into the very image of a Hindu king. "Come, friends of my night's adventure! You must tell me what you have seen, so that we have as full an account of this night's work as we may!" But he didn't give them a chance to talk, only led them out of the kitchen and through a narrow hallway into a broad one, then up a broad flight of steps and into a room floored with cool marble and roofed by an azure dome upheld by columns of alabaster. At the far end, on a dais surrounded by more columns, stood a great chair covered with gold. Randhir stepped up and sat in the throne as casually as Shea might sit in his office chair. "Now, my guests! Tell me what you have seen."

"You . . . you're the Rajah!" Chalmers spluttered, and Shea took his cue, staring as though still stupefied. "You?"

Randhir permitted a slight smile to play over his lips. "Indeed. Your companion of the evening's search is truly the Rajah Randhir—and I gather, from your conduct and the strangeness of your garb, that you are no more thieves than I am."

"I assure Your Majesty that we most certainly are not!" Chalmers said. "But surely our observations can be of little value when we have seen only what so esteemed a personage as yourself has seen!"

Trust Doc, all right. When it came to knowing how to lay it on, he had no peer.

"Ah, but before our separate groups joined together, you saw what I did not see! Come, tell me of it!"

"We saw some men finishing the looting of a house," Shea said slowly. "Then we saw the rest of the gang gathered out in the street, getting ready for the night's work and practicing their skills. A few of them even practiced them on passersby, killing them for the few coins in their purses."

"It would seem you have indeed seen no more than I have myself," Ranahir sighed, "for from that time on, we were together. However, you can join us when we march against them, to help me remember the way, and the means of entering."

Shea wasn't all that sure he liked that idea, so he changed the subject—quickly. "Your Majesty must have been willing to sacrifice your pride enormously, to consort with such low-lifes for a night!" He didn't say anything about aiding and abetting a burglary.

But the stroke seemed to please Rajan Randhir. He nodded, saying, "The good of my subjects demanded such a sacrifice, since the spies I sent on that errand did not return. I could see that if I wanted knowledge of the thieves' ways, I should have to go myself. Now I know why, and it is fortunate that I disguised myself so thoroughly, for a number of the thieves were my own people—watchmen and guards, patrolmen and spies."

Chalmers stared. "Surely not the spies you sent to ferret out information about the gang!"

"The very same, and a merry laugh they must have had at their assignment. I do not think they shall laugh tomorrow."

His tone chilled Shea, and reminded him of the coldblooded killing he had witnessed. "Are you sure none of those men worshipped Kali? They seemed bloodthirsty enough to be genuine Thuggee." Even as he said the word, though, he realized that it only meant "rascals"—at least literally.

"Many of them were," Randhir admitted. "I lied to you at the time to prevent you from panicking, for I saw you knew of Kali, and that her worshippers sacrifice human lives to her. They whom you call Thuggee are more accurately termed Phansigars; you could tell them by the kerchiefs they wore round their necks—the kerchiefs with which they strangled women and men alike. Others worshipped Bnawani; those with little bags slung under the left arm were Dhaturiya-poisoners. Even some among Kartikeya's crew are dedicated to murder—for example, those who wore their poniards at their waists; they are stabbers by profession."

Shea shuddered.

"But how is it," Chalmers asked, "that Your Majesty found this gang of low-lifes worth your own personal attention? Should that not have been left to hired spies?"

"It should," Randhir confirmed, "but as I have told you, my spies disappeared; I have no doubt the thieves found them out and slew them."

"That leaves only one question," said Chalmers. "How did the thieves know who your spies were?"

"Because they had spies, Doc," Shea said, before the rajah could answer. "In fact, they had spies among the king's spies."

"It is true," said Randhir, "and the merchants of my city have become extremely upset over their constant losses, while the whole populace has begun to live in fear of the murderers. To make all worse, the kingdom to the east of mine has seen the weakness these thieves make in my land, and have begun to assemble armies near the border; I have no doubt their rajah means to invade. It became vital to find out these thieves, break up their gang, slaying the murderers and punishing the thieves."

"And since no one else could do it," Chalmers said slowly, "you undertook it yourself."

"That is a part of my dharma, the duty of the station in life to which I was born," the rajah confirmed. "Now, though, I know where they lair, and how many they are—so this night, I shall take my archers and my soldiers and set upon them."

"But what if their spies warn them you are coming?" Chalmers asked.

"Ah, but now I know who the men are that they managed to plant in my household," Randhir reminded him. "At last I have found the rats hidden in the walls of my palace, and can trap and exterminate them. First, though I must find some cats. Will you be among them?" The look he gave assured them that if they weren't, they would swing with the rest of the thieves. Apparently he still wasn't entirely sure of their innocence.

Well, at least they had a chance to survive the raid. Shea glanced at Chalmers, caught his infinitesimal nod, and turned back to the Rajah. "Why, sure, Your Majesty! After all, we know where the rat-hole is." Then he remembered how the robber chieftain had thought such holes were good omens, and swallowed.

A guard stepped up behind them and bowed.

"What is your message?" Randhir snapped.

"My Rajah," said the man, "a deputation of merchants awaits to heap upon you their grief over this last night's losses."

Randhir sighed. "Let them enter." Then, to Shea and Chalmers, "Do you stand against the wall, and you shall see the agitation and misery these thieves have caused."

Shea started to protest that he already had a pretty good idea, but Chalmers beat him to it. "Of course, Your Majesty. We are honored by the privilege of observing your court." He bowed, and Randhir gave him a gracious nod, apparently pleased by his courtesy. Shea began to understand how Chalmers had become Director of the Garaden Institute.

They stepped over next to one of the guards, maintaining a discreet distance from his spear, and watched the merchants file in. They wore plain white pyjamas, but the robes they wore over were of silk or damask, as were their turbans. They lined up in front of Randhir and bowed.

"O Pearl of Equity!" said the one who was presumably oldest, to judge by his gray hairs and lined face. "Only yesterday, you consoled us with the promise of some contrivance by the blessing of which our houses and coffers would be made safe from theft—but our goods have never yet suffered so severely as during the last twelve hours."

"The Rajah hears; the Rajah's heart bleeds with your own," Randhir assured them, "and I do indeed speak of blood, for I know men were slain this night past. Still, an elephant grows not in a single night, nor by eating only one heap of hay—so it is not likely to be slain by a single arrow. Go back to your shops and guard your goods and your family as well as you may; let none go out on the streets after the sun has set, but let them stay within doors. Tomorrow, or surely in two days' time, I shall, with the blessing of the Bhagwan, relieve you of further anxiety."

"But what more can you do?" asked another merchant. "You have hired watchmen, you have changed your officers, and you have established patrols; nevertheless the thieves have not diminished, and plundering is constantly taking place."

"Indeed," said a third, "we have suffered more in this night past than ever before!"

"Be sure that you do not suffer more sorely yet," Randhir told them. "Read the Thieves' Manual, and guard against the methods it teaches! Close your shops and sleep today, then guard each the inside of his own shop this night, with sword and club—for if you are vigilant, it may be effort wasted, but if you are not, it will surely invite disaster!"

The merchants shuddered at the idea.

"The end of this siege is in sight," the Rajah said in a consoling tone, "but that end may be long in coming—or short. Go now, each to his own house, and pray that disaster passes you by—but pray also to strengthen your Rajah's arm, for I will destroy these men of violence, or myself die in the attempt!"

His tone rang through the marble hall, and the merchants winced at the sound. They lost no time in bowing, then hurrying out, so quickly that they almost trod on each others heels.

When the merchants had left, Randhir stared after them, looking grim. Suddenly he turned and said to a guard, "Bid a score of archers sleep long during the heat of the day, then hold themselves in readiness for service."

The man bowed and left the throne room on the run.

Randhir turned to another guard and said, "Bid ten come."

The man bowed and, like the first, left on the run. Randhir sat still in his chair, brows drawn down over glaring eyes, staring straight ahead, not moving a muscle. His face was so grim that even Shea and Chalmers held still, watching, feeling the tension building about the man, waiting for the storm to break.

The guard reappeared with ten soldiers behind him. "They are come, O Guardian of the Poor!"

"Follow!" Randhir snapped, and fairly leaped down off his throne. He darted a glance at Shea and Chalmers, snapping, "You, too!"

Under the circumstances, they weren't about to disagree.

Randhir led the way to a small gate in one wall at the rear of the palace. There he brusquely ordered the guard who stood by it, "To barracks with you!" and to two of the soldiers he had brought with him, "See that he talks to no one until tomorrow morning."

A sudden look of terror crossed the man's features, but he was smoothing them out even as his fellows marched him off.

"You don't know that he was one of the thieves," Shea objected.

"No," the Rajah agreed. "If I did, he would be dead. There is small doubt of his guilt—how could his fellow thieves have come and gone without his connivance?—but since I have no proof, he may live until I do."

The gate opened, and a guard's voice outside said, 'The way is clear." A villainous-looking man in soldier's livery came through, not exactly sneaking, but certainly not making any unnecessary noise—not even when the Rajah himself clapped a hand over the man's mouth, holding him from behind, and commanding a soldier, "Slay him."

The sneak's eyes widened in horror for a few seconds before his fellow soldier plunged a dagger into his breast. The man's eyes rolled up and he went limp. The king let him fall, then nodded to the man who had slain him. "Well done. Lug him away to the burning-ghats. You, assist him!"

Another soldier helped the first pick up the dead one.

"Send more men," the Rajah told him.

The soldier nodded and went, carrying the body.

"Stand ready as sentry," the rajah told another man, "and when next a man comes through that gate, if I nod to you, like this . . ."—he gave a short, curt nod—". . . catch and gag him, as I did even now."

The man nodded, poker-faced, and took his station.

"Uh, Your Majesty," said Shea delicately, "isn't this a little drastic?"

"The dead," said the Rajah, "do not, like grandmothers, tell tales."

Shea stared, aghast, "You killed them to keep them from sending word to their gang? Wouldn't gags have worked just as well?"

"Gags, a dungeon, and many guards?" Randhir nodded. "But it would have come to the same fate in the end. They were guilty of robbery one and all, and many guilty also of murder—but without exception, since they were members of the Rajah's household and bore information to his enemies, their fellow thieves, they were guilty of treachery."

"You, uh, couldn't maybe have given them a little time to think things over and see the error of their ways?"

"To what end? I have set forth laws; they have broken those laws, and would still have to receive the punishment. The penalty for murder is death," the Rajah informed him, "and so is the penalty for treachery. Be sure he deserved his fate, for I recognized him from the robbers' ken."

"His Majesty is the Incarnation of Justice," Chalmers said, with a very meaningful look at Shea and a tone that clearly said, Shut up!

The Rajah nodded, with a thin smile. "What greater justice could he wish, when the Rajah himself is witness, and his judge is the highest in the land?"

It took Shea a second to realize the Rajah was talking about himself. With it came the realization that from Randhir's point of view, everything he had said was perfectly true. In a kingdom in which the Rajah was not only the executive and legislative power, but also the ultimate court of appeals, Randhir was the highest judge in the land, and surely the most reliable witness! He was sentencing men he had seen the night before with his own eyes, and was witness, prosecutor, judge, and jury all in his own right. All that was missing was the executioner.

Apparently he was willing to be that, too. As the next thief tiptoed in through the door wearing his civilian garb (a gardener), Randhir gave the guard the nod, and the man caught the thief in a wrestling lock, with his free hand over the thief's mouth. He barely had time to realize what was happening to him, and his eyes were just widening in the horror of that realization, before Randhir's dagger plunged into his heart.

Shea had to look away, feeling ill. Randhir noticed; his frown turned to concern. "You do not look well, friend Shea."

"It is your burning Hindi sun," Chalmers explained, ever glib. "We folk of the north are not used to its rays being so direct—so bright, and so hot."

"So that is why you were abroad at night! Well then, go into the palace, and tell a porter that I said to find you a chamber. Sleep well, for I shall need your vigilance tonight."

Shea took that as ominous, but since the Rajah turned away, obviously dismissing them from his thoughts, they turned away too. When the porter showed them the bed, Shea fell into it without undressing, without even taking off his swordbelt. It had been a long day followed by a sleepless night, and very, very stressful.

Under the circumstances, he wasn't surprised to see a torch flaming in a sconce on the wall when Chalmers shook him awake. "The Rajah summons us, Harold. There is time to wash and eat, though, before we join him."

Shea remembered the executions he had watched. "Don't know if I have much appetite, Doc."

"Nor have I, to judge by the odors wafting from the kitchens—I never have been partial to curry. But we shall have to find something palatable, for I do not doubt that we shall need all our energies tonight."

"Don't know if I'm up to watching any more coldblooded killings," Shea said. "Do you suppose we could plead headaches?"

"Randhir's cure would probably be to cut off our heads, Harold. He is still somewhat suspicious of us, and would take any hesitation as evidence of guilt."

"I suppose so," Shea sighed, and pushed himself to his feet. "Doc, what about Florimel? So far, whenever a god or a magician has sent us out of his universe, we've wound up in the next one Malambroso has sent her to. It seems we've been following her magical trail, sort of."

"An interesting notion." Chalmers frowned. "Perhaps Malambroso's spell moving her on has weakened the barrier between universes, and the next spell ejecting us has hurtled us onward along the path of least resistance."

"But if that's so," said Shea, "where is she in this universe, Doc?"

Chalmers spread his hands in a shrug of helplessness. "She could be anywhere, Harold! It may have been only luck that led us to her before this."

"Or it may have been magic of her own! She has learned something about the art, Doc! Can't you sic a direction-finding spell on her?"

Chalmers' gaze became distant. "An interesting notion . . ."

"But not immediately," Shea said quickly. He hadn't meant to distract Chalmers into an academic trance. "First we have to survive the night and prove we're not thieves."

That brought Chalmers back to the needs of the moment with a vengeance. "An excellent point, Harold. Come, let us find some chapattis."

"But we're already dressed!"

"No, chapattis are food," Chalmers sighed, "a sort of Hindu tortilla. They, at least, should not be too highly seasoned. Let us dine."

Fed and armed, they were ready when the guard appeared at their door and summoned them. They followed him through only two short corridors and down one flight of stairs—they were near the kitchens, only one step above servant quarters, though their room had been furnished with cushions and silken hangings. They came out into the courtyard into a darkness relieved only by starlight, to find a hundred archers and fifty spearmen milling about, conversing in very low voices. Suddenly they stilled and turned toward a doorway in the palace wall itself, for through it came Rajah Randhir, clad in steel helmet and breastplate, sword on his hip and small shield on his arm. A murmur of amazement ran through the troops, for Randhir had tied the horsehair round his nose again, and his waxed moustaches stood up to the corners of his eyes like the horns of a Brahma bull.

He looked about him, gave a single nod of satisfaction, and said, "Yes, I am Rajah Randhir, though I have disguised myself as a thief. Follow me and do not ask why. Shea and Chalmers! Stand by me!"

Shea swallowed with great difficulty and walked down an avenue that opened magically within the troops, Chalmers one step behind him. As they came up to the Rajah, he said, "If I mistake the route, you will correct me. Come!" He turned about and strode away into the darkness. Shea followed, grimly reflecting on the unspoken proviso—that if Shea or Chalmers betrayed him, they would be handy for instant execution by the Rajah himself. Somehow, Shea wasn't eager for the honor.

Through the darkened town they went, and Shea wondered at the quietness. Then, remembering that the moon was down, he realized that it was so late that the thieves had finished their bloody work and gone back to their ken. There was a singular lack of dead bodies, though. Apparently the merchants had heeded the Rajah's warning and passed on the advice, and everyone had stayed indoors.

He found out later that he'd been more right than he knew—not only had everyone stayed sensibly indoors for once, the merchants had hired bodyguards and patrolled their shops and houses on the inside. When they had heard scraping at one place, they had hurried to it, and when the first head had poked through the hole, they had brained it neatly with a cudgel. The thieves' partners had pulled him out at once, of course, but the bodyguards had stabbed through the hole with a spear. There had been an outcry on the other side, then silence, and after a while, the householder had taken up the patrol again, leaving one bodyguard at the hole. The only booty the thieves had taken that night had come from the few bodyguards who had been thieves themselves, and had knocked their employers senseless (or, in some cases, slain them), then let their fellows in—but there had been only two or three successful in such ruses. All in all, it had been a grumbling, dissatisfied band who had wended their way home that night—but it had included three fraudulent bodyguards who had overheard some very interesting gossip from their employers.

At the moment, though, neither the Rajah nor any of his men knew that. They padded through the unnatural hush of the night until the city wall rose up before them. There, the Rajah gave the rhythmical knock he had heard the robbers give. After a moment, the huge portal opened, and the porter stuck his head around, hissing, "What has kept you so late? The others have all gone on long before you, and . . ." He broke off, staring in horror at the array of armed men. Randhir clamped a hand over his mouth and yanked him through; one of his soldiers, apparently primed for the task, leaped past. Shea heard a howl of night, suddenly cut off into a horrid gurgling, even as he saw a soldier transfix the captured porter with a spear.

Randhir dropped the body and dusted his hands. A soldier hauled the gate open, and the troop filed out after their Rajah.

"The term 'rough justice' comes to mind," Chalmers murmured.

"Rough, but legal," Shea reminded him. "You can't call him a vigilante when he is the government, can you?"

"Are you there, Shea?" Randhir called softly.

"Right behind you, O Lightning of Indra," Shea called. After that little display, he certainly didn't want to be in front of the rajah.

As they neared the meadow, Randhir called them to a halt, then murmured briefly with his soldiers. When he went on, Shea and Chalmers had followed him for a good ten paces before they realized that the soldiers had stayed behind. Chalmers' step faltered, but Randhir took him by the arm, saying, "The thief-sentries will recognize you two and think nothing amiss. As for me, you see I have disguised myself as I did last night. We three, at least, will hold the attention of the guards without alerting them. Come!"

Chalmers gave Shea a look that clearly said they had no choice. They really didn't—the Rajah had a grip of iron, and his men were watching.

Randhir whistled twice through his fingers, just as the robber captain had done the night before. There was a pause during which Shea's heartbeat seemed to him the loudest night sound of all; then he heard the hooting of an owl. The rajah replied with an excellent imitation of the robbers' jackal-scream, making Shea wonder if it was a standard part of the military training in this part of the world. The six robber-sentries rose from the grass like spectres, and their leader advanced to receive the password—but before he could, Shea found out why the soldiers had stayed behind.

They hadn't, really—they had just filed around the edges of the meadow, then wormed their way forward toward the Rajah. Now they rose from the grass and fell on the robbers, silencing them with clubs and knives, then tying up the ones who still lived.

"It is well done," the Rajah said, smiling at the sergeant who came forward, breathing heavily. "Are any hurt?"

"Only two of our own men," the sergeant answered. "Ramjit is wounded in the right arm and will be unable to fight more tonight. Kamal bleeds from a cut in the ribs, but protests that he can still fight."

"Then let him see Ramjit safely home," the Rajah said, "but not until we are done with this night's work. Bid Ramjit come with us, and wait while we assail the robbers—but see them bandaged first."

"We have done so." The sergeant glanced to the side, saw another soldier's wave. "They are tended; Ramjit bears the pain well. We can march, O Sword of Justice."

"Let us go, then." Randhir turned away into the night.

But as they came in sight of the sheer rock wall, a figure rose atop it against the light of the predawn sky, and a shrill whistle sounded. Instantly, a hail of arrows fell on the rajah and his men.

"Back!" the rajah cried. "The thieves be in ambush! We have been betrayed!"

Soldiers cried out in pain, and more than a few fell to the earth, pierced through. The troops gave ground, but Randhir called out, "Turn and flee! We must find a place to make our stand! Run!"

At the command, the soldiers turned and ran.

"Never argue with legitimately constituted authority, Harold," Chalmers advised.

"No, Doc!" Shea protested. "Someone tipped off the thieves' captain! The Rajah obviously didn't kill off all the robbers' spies, but he thinks he did! If they don't win this fight, he'll blame it on us!"

"Why, so he will, won't he?" Chalmers stared, thunderstruck.

So did the Rajah—but as he ran, Charya came scrambling and sliding down the cliff-face, calling out, "Hola! What kind of Rajput are you, if you run away from combat?"

Randhir churned up the grass in his haste to stop and turn around. He whipped out his sword and waited for Charya to come up. "Strike at your king, and the penalty is death!" he bellowed.

"Hung for the lamb, hung for the sheep," Charya retorted. "If you take me alive, you will slay me for one reason or another. Why not regicide?" As he said it, he slashed with his scimitar.

It was a blow that would have done credit to the Lord High Executioner, but Randhir met it with a blow equally strong, that set both blades ringing.

"Doc," Shea said anxiously, "if that blow had landed, the next rajah would have tracked us down and tortured us to death!"

"Indeed! We must protect the Rajah, and quickly!" Chalmers ripped up handfuls of long grass and began weaving them into a very rough, very clumsy fabric as he chanted,

"Coleridge will forgive you," Shea promised.

"Let us hope that it works." Chalmers watched the fight with anxious eyes.

Randhir slashed a stroke that would have opened Charya's chest wide, if it had landed. But the chieftain leaped back, and the Rajah staggered as his own blow pulled him off balance. The captain gave a shout of triumph and leaped in again, sword whining straight toward the Rajah's head—but Randhir managed to swing his blade up in the nick of time. Shea gasped, thinking Chalmers' magic shield had failed—but Charya's blade glanced aside inches from Randhir's face. Shea relaxed with a sigh. "Your spell worked, Doc."

"Yes, but I don't think anyone else realizes that." Chalmers glanced nervously about him. "At least, I hope they do not; a reputation as a sorcerer is the last thing I need right now."

"Don't worry," Shea assured him. "To everyone else, I'm sure it looked as though Randhir parried the blow."

"I trust so," Chalmers agreed, "but I am certain that I saw Charya's sword glance off the rajah's blade and on toward his head, where the spell turned it aside scant centimeters from his skin."

"Don't tell," Shea advised.

Charya slashed another blow at Randhir, but this time the king really did catch it on his own blade. Charya shoved against it, jumping back, then advanced on the Rajah, whose sword whirled in a figure-eight that would have minced anything it met. Charya retreated and retreated, though, his own blade up and ready for the slightest opening in Randhir's guard.

Now came the real beginning of the fight; it seemed the opening rain of blows had been only a prelude. Having tested each other, the two swordsmen settled down to serious fencing. They withheld their steel and bent almost double, knees flexed, skipping in circles around each other, each keeping his eye well fixed upon the other, with frowning brows and contemptuous sneers. The battle stilled as soldiers and robbers alike stopped to watch their leaders battle.

"Ah! The king cuts a caper!" cried a soldier.

"But Charya answers with a measured leap!" cried a robber.

"Aye!" his mate cried in delight. "He springs forward like a frog!"

"And the king hops backward like a monkey!"

Then, incredibly, the king began striking his saber against his shield, a steady rhythmical beat—but Shea could see the blade never wavered much from readiness to strike. Charya, not to be outdone, began to beat on his shield, too—and Randhir stooped low with a loud cry, cutting at Chaiya's legs. Charya sprang into the air, though, and the blade whistled harmlessly under him. Even as he came down, though, the robber chief whirled his sword three times around his head and brought it down like lightning in a slant, toward the kings left shoulder—but the King snapped his shield up, and the sword clashed against it and bounced off. The rajah staggered back, thrown off balance by the strength of the blow. The captain followed closely, slashing and cutting, and for a moment, it was all the Rajah could do to block with his shield and parry with his sword. Then he rallied, suddenly leaping forward and striking, and Charya had to raise his shield in defense.

On and on they fought, till they were both rasping huge ragged gasps and the blows became rough and clumsy and slow. They were so well matched in courage, strength, and skill that neither could obtain the slightest advantage.

Of course, the Rajah did have Chalmers' magical shield—but Shea could see that Reed was watching the match far too intently, with drops of sweat starting on his brow, his whole body tense. "Somebody trying to cancel your spell?" he asked softly.

Chalmers gave a terse nod. "Our captain has some sort of supernatural help siding with him."

"Or against us," Shea pointed out. "Malambroso's probably in this universe too, after all, and if we can figure out that our lives depend on the Rajah's right now, so can he."

"A point well taken," Chalmers grunted. "Lend a hand, can you, Harold?"

"How?" Shea asked, at a loss.

"Something, anything, to throw that robber off balance!"

"Off balance?" Inspiration struck, and Shea dropped to one knee, patting the ground about him until one hand closed on a pebble in the darkness, an irregular lump about two inches across. Carefully, Shea stood up, lowering his foot onto the pebble and chanting,

Shea felt a sudden absence beneath his sole, and stepped down to feel nothing but grass. It was hard to tell in the half-light, but he thought he saw something small appear under the robber captain's instep—and sure enough, Chaiya stepped down and the stone revolved, sliding from under his foot. He cried out in rage, arms windmilling, and landed on his back so hard that it drove the breath out of him, leaving him helpless for a moment—and when he caught his breath, he found himself staring at the point of the Rajah's blade, six inches in front of his face, right between his eyes. "I am lost!" he cried. "Save yourselves! Flee!"

With a wail, the thieves disappeared into the forest. The soldiers shouted and ran after them.

"Bide, Shea and Chalmers," the Rajah grated. "Do you, O dexterous and cunning swordsman, now loose grasp from your hilt, or my point will pierce your brain."

"Strike, then!" Charya cried in defiance. "Better a clean death in battle than execution in shame!"

"While there's life, there's hope," Shea said. "Miracles have happened before."

"Not for one so guilty as I!" But even as he said it, that very hope wavered in Charya's eyes, and his hand loosened on the hilt. Shea knelt and tugged the sword away.

"You speak truly," Randhir told Charya, "for I shall do all in my power to see you executed for your crimes."

"Can you control the whims of the gods?" Chalmers challenged. "Can you read dharma so clearly as to be able to say there is no chance of this doughty knave living? For surely, he is most admirable in his skill and courage, no matter how despicable he may be in the ways in which he uses them."

"There is truth in that," the Rajah admitted. "However, though the race is not always to the swift, that is the way to place your wager. Bind this knave, then set him on his feet!"

So because of the shred of hope that Shea and Chalmers had raised within his heart, Charya of the robbers was taken alive for the Rajah's justice, not slain on the ground where the turned stone had stretched him.

The next morning, Shea and Chalmers presented themselves in the Rajah's private audience chamber. They found Randhir standing by the window, gazing moodily out over his kingdom.

"Your Majesty," Shea prompted, "you sent for us?"

"Indeed." Randhir turned to face them. "I wish to thank you."

Alarm shrilled in every fiber, but Shea forced a bland and uncomprehending smile. "Thank us? For what?"

"It could have been chance or fate that placed that stone under Charya's foot," Randhir said quietly, "even though we had been back and forth over the same ground before—but I doubt it. And I know his sword glanced off some invisible shield when I thought it would surely cleave my head open."

Chalmers protested, "Surely Your Majesty is . . ."

" 'My Majesty' knows what I saw, and knows magic when I see it!" Randhir snapped. "Since there was no magician there, I can only conclude that it was done by one of you foreigners—or both!"

"Surely we're not so foreign as that," Shea objected.

"Are you not? You do not even know the proper forms of address for a king! You can address me as nothing but 'majesty!'"

"Why, if that is so," Chalmers said quietly, "we could not be very powerful magicians, or we would have known those forms."

"Aye, if you deemed it worth your trouble! Do not deny what a Rajah knows—you are magi from Persia, are you not?"

Shea exchanged a glance with Chalmers, who sighed and turned back to the rajah. "Not from Persia, O Fount of Wisdom, but from much farther to the west."

"Much farther," Shea agreed.

"And we are not magi, for they are Zoroastrian priests," Chalmers went on. "Rather, we are scholars who study magic for its own sake."

"Then you are magicians!"

"Just so," Chalmers aid quietly, "magicians, nothing more—not sorcerers, nor necromancers, nor even magi, though the word 'magic' stems from that term."

"I knew it!" Randhir slapped his thigh in glee. "You are indeed magi, and I thank you for your help—nay, for my life! But just how far-ranging are your powers?"

Shea stared, his mind racing. They had to say enough to make themselves look important, but not enough to make Randhir want to keep them as permanent assets. Before he could decide on the right balance, though, Chalmers said, "We can work defensive magic only, O Eye of Insight—spells to protect, and spells to aid. Slaying and other evil works, we are more than glad to leave to those who are sorcerers and necromancers."

"Good, good!" Randhir nodded energetically, and Shea breathed a secret sigh of relief. Once again, Chalmers' skill at the conference table had turned the tide.

Or maybe not. "The protection you gave me during the fight," the rajah said, "can you do that for a city? For an army perhaps?"

Chalmers let his shoulders slump with disappointment. "I fear not, O Gem of Rectitude. Magic on such a scale is simply beyond my strength—or even that of our combined powers, my friend and I. It would require a virtual corps of magicians, all working together in concert—and quite frankly, it is almost impossible to persuade so many of us to acknowledge any one of our number as leader, or to work together without arguing."

True enough, Shea reflected—at least, if you substituted the word "scholar" for "magician."

"I had feared as much," Randhir said, disappointed. "Still, I will trouble you to stay near me as we take Charya out to be executed. A dozen or more of his gang escaped, and I would not put it past them to try to rescue him at the last minute, even at the cost of slaying their Rajah."

"How horrendous!" Chalmers said, with just the right amount of horror. "Be certain we shall stay close by you, O Rajah!"

Shea listened to it all with foreboding. He didn't mind staying close to the Rajah—for a day or two, or even until they managed to locate Florimel. After that, though, the Rajah's possessiveness could become a serious problem.

"Why have you come to my city of Chandrodoya?" the rajah demanded.

"We have come seeking my wife," Chalmers explained. "She was kidnapped by a wicked enchanter named Malambroso. He is old, about my height, and lean, with a graying beard and moustache and long graying hair. She is perhaps the height of my ear, slender, brown-haired, and remarkably sweet-faced."

"I should hope you think the last, if you are her husband," Randhir said with a smile. "Well, I shall have my spies seek throughout the city for any word of such folk—but I am certain that if a woman with brown hair had appeared, word would already have come to me. They are not unknown, but they are rare in Chandrodoya"

"I shall be grateful for whatever boons you may bestow, O Ocean of Compassion."

The Rajah smiled with grim amusement. "Only remember that those boons require I remain alive, O Magus. Remember it well, and guard me closely."

Charya's last day began with a bath at the hands of servants who were guarded by vigilant soldiers. They dressed him in fine clothes, then turned him over to the soldiers, who mounted him on a camel and led him parading around the city, followed by the Rajah with Shea and Chalmers right behind him and in front of his bodyguard. In front of the thief marched a herald who proclaimed, "Who hears! Who hears! Who hears! The king commands! This is the thief who has robbed and plundered the city of Chandrodoya! Let all men therefore assemble themselves together this evening in the open space outside the gate leading toward the sea. And let them behold the penalty of evil deeds, and learn to be wise."

"What is the penalty, O Cleaver of Criminals?" Shea called to the monarch in front of him.

"He is to be nailed and tied to a scaffold, with his hands and feet stretched out at full length in an erect posture until death takes him," Randhir answered. "He shall have everything he wishes to eat, so that we may prolong his life and misery—but when death draws near, melted gold will be poured down his throat until it bursts from his neck and other parts of his body."

Shea shuddered. "Talk about royal treatment!"

"I would just as soon die by a more lowly, but faster, method," Chalmers said grimly. "It would seem the Romans were not the only ones who practiced crucifixion."

Shea stared. "Why, that is what he's talking about, isn't it?" He turned back to Randhir. "Is that the usual punishment, O . . ." He swallowed, thinking up an appropriate honorific that wouldn't be too insulting. ". . . O Hammer of Retribution?"

"Impalement is more common," the rajah replied, "but since this man has caused so much suffering, he should endure a longer death—and since he has slain so many, the manner of his own dying should be as painful as possible."

"But why so expensively?"

Now Randhir turned back to give Shea a wintry smile. "He wreaked misery upon his victims, and slew so many for no better reason than to gain gold, Shea. Now let him drink it."

Shea had to admit that the punishment did fit the crime. That, however, did not make it any less gruesome.

The evening was still hot when they led Charya out to his execution. Crowds lined the streets, jeering and making obscene gestures. Their jostling and stamping churned up an amazing amount of dust, and between that and the heat of the setting sun, Charya and those who followed him were soon stifling and coughing. The air was probably rich with the scents of curry and cardamoms, but all Shea could smell were the horses of the soldiers who mounted guard on the prisoner through his long march.

Now the procession turned into a broad boulevard, passing beneath the windows of some of the wealthiest merchants in town—and the ones who had lost the most to the thieves. Revilement and abuse poured from the windows above, turning into a chant:

This is the thief who has been robbing the whole city! Let him tremble now, for Randhir will surely crucify him!

Unfortunately, the man didn't look like the villain they described—anything but. Now that he was cleaned up and riding tall, straight and proud in the ruddy light of sunset, that light showed him to be handsome, very handsome, carrying himself with pride and bravery, meeting the jeers of the people with a faint sneer. Wicked or not, everyone knew of his strength and courage, and in the silks and satins the king had put on him, he looked like a prince himself. His gaze was calm and steady as he glared with disdain at the tormentors about him.

They saw, and redoubled in their rage. "Let him tremble now! Let him tremble now!"

But Charya did not tremble; instead, his lips quivered, his eyes flashed fire, and deep lines gathered between his eyebrows. Finally, his face creased into a sardonic smile.

A scream echoed above the clamor of the crowd, a scream that pierced their noise enough so that many of them broke off, staring upward at the window in the grand house that the procession was passing. There, at a second-story window, stood an unveiled woman, very young, who was staring straight into the robber's eyes, for on his camel, he was only a few feet below her, and not a dozen feet away. She went pale, and quivered as though his glance was a flash of lightning. Then she broke away from the fascination of his gaze and turned to the old man beside her, saying something with great force as she pointed at Charya. As the procession moved on, Shea came near, and heard her say, ". . . Go this moment and get that thief released!"

But Shea looked at the old man's face and gasped, "Malambroso!"

So it was, or his exact double. Shea grabbed Chalmers' shoulder with one hand and pointed with the other. "Look, Doc! Our kidbaooer!"

No, Chalmers said, his eyes on the woman, "my wife."

Shea stared at him, then whirled and looked again at the young woman. It was Florimel—except that she had black hair and a much darker complexion. But hair could be dyed, and so, for that matter, could skin—not that an enchanter of Malambroso's stature would need to resort to such crude techniques to change a person's appearance. "You're right, Doc! That's either Florimel's exact double, or Florimel herself in disguise! But why would Malambroso . . ." His voice trailed off as the answer struck him.

"Yes," Chalmers said grimly. "How better to hide her from us? We would be seeking reports of a fair-skinned, brown-haired woman!"

"And, of course, that would be the only way to make her fit in with the local populace." Shea nodded. "Good hiding place, now that you think of it—but it seems to have backfired on him."

Malambroso was pleading with Florimel. "My darling Shobhani, that thief has been pilfering and plundering the whole city, and by his command scores of citizens were killed! Why, then, at my request, should our most gracious Rajah Randhir release him?"

Almost beside herself, Florimel exclaimed, "If by giving up your whole property, you can induce the Rajah to release him, then instantly do so—for if he does not come to me, I must give up my life!"

She turned away, covering her head with her veil, and sank down weeping, while Malambroso stared down at her, wounded to the core.

So was Chalmers, at seeing Florimel so obviously in love with another man.

"He called her's hobhani,' " Shea said quickly. "Maybe it's not Florimel after all, just her double! Then inspiration struck. "Maybe each universe has analogs of the people in our universe! Maybe that old man is just an analog of Malambroso!"

"No," Chalmers said, his face turning wooden. "That is Malambroso, and the young woman is indeed my Florimel."

"Oh, yeah?" Shea, in another fit of inspiration, turned him and pointed at the thief, whose face was in profile to them as he stared at the young woman. "Think of him without the beard and the muscles! Think of him as a withdrawn young scholar! Who does he look like?"

Chalmers stared, and turned ashen. "He is me!"

"A younger analog of you," Shea said quickly. "The real you is still here! But this is what you would have looked like if you had been born a Hindu outlaw! No wonder she fell in love with him!"

Chalmers' face sagged. "I feel very old, Harold!"

"You feel old! How do you think Malambroso feels?"

"Very angry." Chalmers turned back to the window, suddenly afraid for Florimel—or Shobhani, whichever she was. Sure enough, Malambroso's face was suffused with rage—but even as they watched, all the fight went out of him as anger gave place to misery. He nodded with resignation and said, "I shall try to give you what you want, my child." He turned away from the window, and Shobhani looked up in sudden hope.

"He does love her," Chalmers said in surprise. "Her happiness means more to him than his own!"

"I never would have guessed it of him," Shea agreed.

Malambroso came running out into the midst of the parade and threw himself to his knees in front of Randnir's horse. The Rajah necessarily reined in—why lose a perfectly good taxpayer?—and Malambroso cried, "O great king, be pleased to receive four lakhs of rupees, and to release this thief!"

But the rajah replied, "He has been robbing the whole city, and by reason of him my guards have been destroyed. I cannot by any means release him."

"Alas!" Malambroso cried, and scuttled back into his house, his face in his hands.

"I never thought I would feel sorry for the man," Chalmers murmured.

The procession moved on, but Shea turned back in his saddle to watch the end of the domestic crisis. Malambroso appeared again in the window and explained, "Shobhani, I have said and done all that is possible, but it avails me naught with the Rajah. Now, then, we die—for I shall not outlive you!"

"Father, you must not!" Shobhani/Florimel cried, taking his hands.

"You are dearer to me than life itself, and I made plans weeks ago for the manner in which I would slay myself if anything brought about your death."

"You must not!" she cried again, "but I must! I must follow my husband and die when he dies!" And she darted away from the window. Malambroso stood a moment in shock, then ran after her, crying, "No, Shobhani! Stop!"

But Chalmers was trembling. "Husband? How can Florimel have another husband? Even if Shobhani is only Florimel's analog, how can she be married to a thief?"

Shobhani darted from the house to take up her place by the side of Charya's camel.

"Away!" snapped a guard, riding up beside her.

"I cannot," she replied. "I fell in love with him at first sight."

The guard drew back, aghast, and Randhir moaned faintly. 'The poor child!"

Malambroso burst from the house to fall on his knees in front of Shobhani. "No, my child! Come back inside!"

"Away, old man!" The soldier raised his spear-butt, threatening. "How dare you dissuade her from her pious duty!"

"Pious duty? What is he talking about?" Chalmers demanded, white showing all around his eyes; but Shea, more practical and less involved, leaned down to catch Malambroso by the arm and haul him up to his saddle. "Okay, Malambroso! Explain—and it better be good!"

The enchanter looked up at him, then stared in shock. "Harold Shea!"

"And Reed Chalmers." There was a note of incipient mayhem in Chalmers' voice, and Shea realized with a shock that even the gentle Reed might be capable of a crime of passion. "Explain what we have seen! Is that Florimel, or not?"

"She is, she is!" Malambroso yammered. "I enchanted her body into the coloring of the local people, I enchanted her mind into forgetting that she was Florimel, to believe instead that she was the maiden Shobhani, reared out of sight of men, never being allowed outside the high walls of the garden, because her old nurse, who died when she was only five, gave me, her father, a solemn warning—that Shobhani should be the admiration of the city, but should die a sati-widow before becoming a wife. A harmless piece of nonsense, surely—but reason enough for her father, who kept her as a pearl in a casket."

Chalmers stared in horror. "Ritual suicide when her husband dies? Letting herself be burned alive on his funeral pyre?"

Malambroso shuddered. "That is one of the ways, yes."

"You mean she's following that scoundrel to his execution because she's planning to die when he does?" Shea cried, aghast. "But how can she think he's her husband if you've got her hypnotized into believing she isn't even married?"

"It is this confounded belief in reincarnation," Malambroso groaned, "and in the events of one life affecting the next life! Having begun life anew in this universe, she is reincarnated in its terms—but the only previous life she has had was the one we all know, in which Reed Chalmers was her husband!"

"Is her husband," Reed said in an iron tone.

"Not in this universe! By its rules, this is a new life!"

"But she's been in half a dozen universes!" Shea protested. "Was each of them a previous life?"

"Yes, as far as this universe is concerned," Malambroso moaned, "and in each of them, Chalmers was her husband! But here in Chandrodoya, Chalmers' analog is the robber chieftain, so she fell in love the moment she set eyes upon him."

Shea stared. "You mean that, in Hindu terms, the robber chieftain was her predestined husband?"

"Yes, unless she had seen Chalmers first! Oh, how I wish I had not kept her so well hidden!"

"But why does she have to commit sati?" Shea demanded. "Nobody would have known if she had just kept quiet! She could even fly in the face of convention and stay alive even now! They weren't married—no one would blame her!"

"She would," Malambroso told him. "As a good Hindu maiden, sati is part of her dharma, the obligation of the role in life to which she was born; to refuse to commit sati would load her soul with bad karma—the wages of sin, in our terms—so when she did die, she would be reborn in a lower caste. But if she does commit sati, her soul will gain a great deal of good karma—I suppose the closest equivalent we have is grace—and she will be reborn in a higher caste. She even had the gall to recite Hindu proverbs at me—that there are thirty-five millions of hairs on the human body, and the woman who ascends the pyre with her husband will remain so many years in heaven before she's reborn—and that, as the snake-catcher draws the serpent from his hole, the wife who commits sati will rescue her husband from hell and will rejoice with him; though he may have sunk to a region or torment, be restrained in dreadful bonds, have reached the place of anguish, be exhausted and afflicted and tortured for his crimes, her act of self-sacrifice will save him."

Chalmers stared in horror. "And she really believes this?"

"No other effectual duty is known for virtuous women at any time after the death of their lords, except casting themselves into the same fire," Malambroso sighed. "As long as a woman in her reincarnation after reincarnation shall refuse sati, she shall not escape from being reborn in the body of some female animal. Her only road to rebirth in a higher caste, and to eventual nirvana, is to commit sati when her husband dies!"

Chalmers gave him a very black look. "You have a great deal to answer for, Malambroso, you and your in-depth hypnotic spell! Certainly you have placed entirely too much knowledge of Hindu dogma in her mind. Whatever possessed you to impose such an asinine scheme of disguise? Your daughter indeed! Oh, I will admit it was far easier than to believe that she was your wife, since you're such a relic—but how did you think you were going to be able to marry your own daughter?"

"When I was sure you had come and gone, I was going to remove the enchantment from her mind so that she would know I was not her father, then feed her a love phyltre," Malambroso snapped, "and who are you calling a relic, you antique?"

"Antique! I'll have you know . . ."

"I'll have you both know that we only have a few minutes," Shea interrupted. "We're almost to the city gate! If you don't nail down a solution to this dilemma before they nail down the robber, we're going to be dealing with a barbecue, not a woman!"

"Yes, quite so!" With a visible effort, Chalmers throttled his anger and wrenched his mind back into analytical mode. "So love at first sight was her recognition that the robber was her fated husband," he summarized, "and because he dies, she must die! Oh, blast and flay you, Malambroso! You have really made a thorough mess of it this time!"

"I know, I know!" Malambroso groaned, "but curse me later if you must! For now, only aid me in finding some way to save her!"

By now, they had come out of the gate, and the robber chieftain saw the scaffold standing upright, waiting for him. His steps faltered, but the guards pricked him with their spears, and he gave them a look of disdain before he marched up proudly and firmly to stand before the giant wooden X. He lifted his arms, holding them out to his sides, and the executioners stepped up with hammer and nails.

"If you can do anything to prevent this, do it now!" Malambroso pleaded.

"The invisible shield we put over the rajah when they were fighting?" Shea suggested.

"I have no grass," Chalmers answered, watching the scene with narrowed eyes, "and Randhir would know in an instant who had done it. No, we must concoct an effect that could be mistaken for something valid, within their own religion."

The three men stood silent for a long moment as the executioners threw a rope around the thief's waist and tied him firmly to the middle of the X.

"Iron skin," Shea said suddenly.

"Of course! From the elbows to the fingers, and from the knees to the toes! Quickly, Malambroso! You take the arms! Harold, take the right leg! I will take the left!"

Malambroso cast a quick look of confusion at Chalmers, then shrugged and turned to business. He drew a few odd objects from beneath his robe, began to manipulate them, and muttered a verse in Arabic. Chalmers took a small knife from his thief's finery and leaned down to rub it against his shin, muttering. Shea, realizing how his boss was applying the Laws of Sympathy and Contagion, drew his own knife and stropped it against his thigh, muttering,

Malambroso and Chalmers finished their verses in a dead heat with his—and just in time. The executioner placed a huge spike against the bandit's wrist, drew back a hammer, then drove it forward with all his might.

The spike struck the robber's skin and glanced off, burying itself in the wood. The executioner stared in amazement, then shook himself, obviously thinking he had missed his stroke. He placed the spike again, struck again—and watched it skid again.

The robber, watching, grinned. "What is the difficulty? Is my skin too strong for your weak muscles?"

But the other executioner was having the same problem with the other wrist. The first firmed his lips into a straight fine, placed the spike, and, with great determination, drove his hammer as hard as he could. The spike skidded again and flew out of his grasp.

The robber chieftain gave a low, mocking laugh.

The executioners each snatched up another nail and hammered at them with fury. They couldn't even dent the bandit's skin. His laughter grew louder and louder as their frustration mounted. Finally, they threw down their spikes, crying, "He is bewitched!"

At the word "bewitched," Randhir's eyes automatically swiveled to Shea and Chalmers—but Harold only returned a gaze of blank innocence, while Chalmers stood with head bowed. Of course, his head was bowed to keep the king from seeing his lips move as he chanted a verse while he pulled a thread from his cuff and stretched it between his hands until it snapped.

The rope fell from the robber's waist. He looked down in surprise, then grinned and stepped forward, holding up unmarked wrists in a gesture of triumph.

"The gods have spoken!" cried a woman in the crowd. "The God of the Golden Spear protects him!"

"Or perhaps the Goddess of Brides," another woman countered.

"Yes, it would seem that the gods have given their judgment, and that the thief is to live." Randhir looked as though he had bitten down on a rotten nut, but he managed to force the words out.

"Praise Heaven!" Malambroso cried, going limp—then straightening in alarm as Florimel gave a cry of delight and ran to throw her arms around the thief's neck. Grinning, he caught her up and whirled her about. "He cannot marry her!" Malambroso cried.

"I did not say that he would," Rajah Randhir grated, "for though he shall live, he shall not go unpunished. He shall be a common soldier in my army, and I shall send him to the border, so that when my greedy neighbor invades, this robber chieftain shall be the first whom arrows strike! If the gods still protect him then, if he comes home from the battle alive and well, I may permit him to pay court to the maiden—or I may find more tasks for mm to do, many more, until he has proved his worth and made amends, at least in part, for all the misery he has caused."

The thief put down Shobhani and turned to salaam to the Rajah. "Whatsoever you wish, O Diamond of Justice, I shall do! Indeed, if I had known virtue might win me the hand of so beauteous a maiden as this, I would have forsaken my evil ways long ago!"

Shobhani threw her arms around him again, and the people cheered as Malambroso moaned—in harmony with Chalmers.

"Stand away, maiden!" the Rajah commanded. "He must go forthwith to the border, this very night! Soldiers! Take him to your barracks and equip him for the journey!"

The soldiers surrounded the bandit and marched him off, back into the city.

"I wonder how many beatings he will sustain between the city and the border?" Chalmers muttered.

"Accidents will happen," Shea said virtuously. "Hey, its gotta be better than dying, Doc—and he's proved he can take it."

As the crowd moved off, cheering the same man they had cursed only an hour before, the Rajah turned on Shea and Chalmers. "Well enough, magicians! I cannot prove it, and I certainly do not know why you did it—but I could swear his escape was your doing, and not the work of the gods at all!" He gave Malambroso a narrow glance. "He is one of you too, is he not?"

"I assure you, O Gem of Insight," said Malambroso, "that I have no wish to see my daughter Shobhani marry a thief!"

"No, but you would rather that than see her commit sati, would you not? Come, Shea, admit it!"

"Okay, we're guilty," Shea sighed.

"Harold!" Chalmers snapped in alarm.

"Fear not," Randhir said grimly, "I have already spoken, and I shall not reverse my judgment again. However, it is not my judgment you need fear now, but that of Shiva—for it is with his justice that you have interfered!"

"Perhaps," Shea said slowly, "or perhaps I have been sent here by another god, whether I knew it or not. Who knows but that I may have been the instrument of Heaven?"

"Oh? And what god would choose a foreigner for his tool?" Randhir said, not quite sneering.

"Oh . . . one who likes to see handsome young men sporting with beautiful young women," Shea said slowly.

Randhir frowned. "Krishna, you mean?" At that point, Shea was open to all suggestions. He shrugged. "He loved playing with the milkmaids himself, didn't he?"

The Rajah's eyes narrowed. "If you truly believe that," he said, "I challenge you to prove it by coming with me to Krishna's temple and standing before his statue. If you are not struck down by Krishna's anger, I may begin to believe you are sent by a god, and are not liable to punishment yourself, for interfering with the king's justice."

A look of alarm spread over Chalmers' features, but Shea felt only a wash of relief. Statues were only sculptures, after all—lumps of wood or rock fashioned into something resembling human form. He bowed. "As you wish, O Scale of Justice."

"But," Malambroso said hastily, "since the maiden Shobhani is the cause of this difficulty, should she not also stand by us before the statue?"

"She shall," the Rajah promised. "Come!" He turned away, and his soldiers stepped up behind the three enchanters, spears out to prod.

As they followed the King, Chalmers muttered to Malambroso, "You colossal idiot! Admittedly, a statue is only a statue, but you never know what tricks priests can work, especially in a magical universe! Do you want Florimel to be struck by lightning, too?"

"Come, Chalmers." Malambroso had regained his former aplomb. "You do not truly believe such a thing can happen, do you?"

"Well . . . no," Chalmers admitted, "and it does keep her from getting lost." But a gleam had come into his eye, and Shea wondered what he was planning.

He found out when they stood before the image of Krishna—wooden, apparently, for it was painted, and the blue face of the boy-god looked down upon them as Chalmers reached out to stroke Shobhani's black hair, muttering a verse. Alarmed, Malambroso spun to prevent him—but too late. The woman looked up, blinking in confusion, then saw Chalmers and cried, "Reed! Oh, thank Heaven! But where are we?"

Malambroso groaned, "I shall win her yet, Chalmers! You shall regret this!"

"Maybe sooner than you think." Shea eyed the statue nervously.

Chalmers turned to him with a frown. "Whatever can you mean?"

"Only that this universe has its own rules," Shea reminded him, "and Krishna might be more than a myth, here."

Chalmers stared, and alarm was just beginning to show in his face when a shaft of light burst from the statue, engulfing them all.

Shea flailed, catching Chalmers' hand, then stood, frozen by the glitter that dazzled him and filled all the universe about him. He could only hope Chalmers had been able to catch hold of Florimel. Then Shea found room to wonder if this was really what it was like to be hit by lightning, and if it was, it was odd, because he felt no pain.

Then the dazzle died, the ground seemed to push itself up under his feet, and he looked around him, blinking in confusion—Florimel, arms around her husband's neck, cried, "Oh, Reed, praise Heaven! We are home!"

Belphebe started to struggle up from the chair where she sat watching, but Shea reached her in two steps, dropped to one knee, and enfolded her in an ardent embrace. The room was very quiet for a few minutes, as the two married couples celebrated the travelers' safe return with a kiss and a promise—of more kisses to come.

Finally, Shea came up for air and turned to Chalmers to ask, "How did you do it, Doc?"

"I did not, really." Chalmers still looked rather dazed. "I only reached out for Florimel's hand—I remember thinking that if I were going to die by electrocution, I could at least die holding her. I reached out for your hand, too, but the hand I touched was quite bony—I am certain it was Malambroso's, and I let go at once. Even as I did, though, I felt his hand pulling away from mine, but even as I caught yours, I could swear I heard him cry out in fright." He shuddered. "I could wish the man many evils, but none so bad as that cry seemed to express."

"You don't think he . . ." Shea couldn't finish the question.

"No, I do not." Chalmers collected himself with a visible effort. "I think it probable that Krishna—or his priests; they may have been magicians who resented the competition—sent our old adversary back to his home, as he seems to have sent us to ours. And oh, Harold, I am mightily glad he did!"

"You can say that for me, too." Shea turned to watch Belphebe and Florimel, chatting as merrily as though they had seen each other only last week. "So Florimel didn't get herself lost by trying to work a syllogismobile spell on her own?"

"It would seem not. Certainly Malambroso appeared in my house for the purpose of kidnapping her, but before he did, he no doubt took advantage of the opportunity to update himself on our researches. Thank Heaven he is so untidy that he did not bother to clean up the evidence, or we should never have been able to track him!"

"But we did, and we won Florimel back, and we're home. Just to be on the safe side, though, Doc—maybe you'd better give her the full syllogismobile course, so that if somebody kidnaps her again, she has a fair chance of escaping."

"An excellent thought." Chalmers gazed at his wife, but his face was grim. "I assure you, Harold, I intend to guard her very closely from now on! She shall never be stolen from me again!"

Shea glanced uneasily from husband to wife, and hoped Chalmers was right.