The Galaxy Builder

Chapter Sixteen

Perhaps an hour later, in full darkness, Lafayette and the duke dismounted within hailing distance of a cluster of lights which Bother assured O'Leary was the Place of the Hill. They went forward on foot, leading their mounts. Bother pointed to a dim, greenish glow emanating from a point perhaps seventy-five feet above the rest of the yellowish lights at ground level.

"Even there towers the Hill," he explained. "As well we leave the steeds here." He patted the neck of his big animal. "Poor brutes, tis but cruel to abandon them here without their expected grooming and fodder to wait in the dark until the locals find and butcher them. But there's naught else for it." He dropped his reins in the mud. The horse stood as if tethered. Lafayette followed suit, and the two set off in the intense darkness, locating obstacles by the simple expedient of falling over them, after which they assisted each other to rise with much puffing and many colorful oaths from the duke. They avoided the dim glow of glassless windows and soon reached the accumulation of litter which marked the tower's base. The drift slanted upward at a shallow angle to the more substantive heaped trash of the Hill proper, which rose nearly vertically into the night to where the pale green glow seemed to float disembodied.

"Damme!" the duke exclaimed, halting abruptly.

"There be a great beast here, the witch's guardian monster, I doubt not!" Even as he spoke, Lafayette heard a whorffling, slurpy sound and sensed the bulk of something large and low-built moving heavily to a position athwart their route, where it settled down with a muddy squelch and again whoffled.

"Faugh!" Bother snarled. "The beast reeks of the infernal regions!"

"Or of a pigsty," Lafayette suggested. "You said the witch arrived on one. There was one behind the palace, back in dear old Artesia, where the royal swine, Jemimah and George, used to produce vast numbers of piglets for the palace kitchens." As Lafayette spoke, the unseen beast made ploffy noises.

"The beast soundeth eager for his next meal," Bother said. "Stand back, my lad, and I'll try conclusions with it." Lafayette saw a faint glint of starlight on the blade of the ducal longsword as it cleared its sheath with an ominous whoosh.

"Wait!" O'Leary blurted, moving forward past the armed duke.

"George?" he called tentatively into the darkness, and was at once rewarded with renewed plobby, whoffl-ing sounds. Lafayette advanced cautiously, sniffing the air.

"It is George!" he cried. "I'd know his brand of BO anywhere." A moment later, his outstretched hand encountered bristly hide, a large ear, then the moist snout of the great boar.

"He's tame," Lafayette assured Bother who, after briefly waving Lafayette back, had come up beside him. Lafayette patted the big head and scratched behind the gristly ears.

"I don't understand this, Duke," he said in a low tone. "This is George, no doubt about it. So we must not be as far from Artesia as it seemed."

"Thinkst thou we can safely pass by this monstrous beast?" Bother asked after he had felt his way all the way back to the pig's hindquarter. "In sooth, it hath the form of a great swine," he said doubtfully. "But an imp of hell can assume any form it listeth."

"George won't bother us," Lafayette reassured his companion. "Come on." He forged ahead, encountering a steep rise which, by the feel of it, was composed of stumps, planks, mud, grasses, and assorted artifacts, all impacted into an impenetrable heap. He sought foot-and hand-holds, and started up. After a moment, Bother followed. George whoffled contentedly. A male voice hallooed not far away, and a moment later flaming torches were converging on the base of the mound, their orange light revealing the wild-eyed faces and tangled hair of those who bore them. Yells broke out.

"Stand whur ye be," a coarse voice commanded. "Sergeant-at-Arms," it went on in a lower tone, "ready yer arbalest to let fly when I give the word!"

Abruptly, George whoffled, a note of anger audible in his snorts. There were noises of sloppy movement below, and more yells, followed by sounds of hasty retreat. The torches, tossed aside, lay sputtering in the black mud, but afforded enough light to assist Lafayette in picking his way upward.

"Well done, George," Bother called down. "Me-thinks a knighthood is in store for the noble beast," he added, his pale unshaven face turned up to O'Leary who was a few feet in advance. "Press on, lad, there's naught to stay us now, and Sir George guardeth our flank right doughtily. They say there be a ledge near the top, whence we'll gain the door which leadeth into the bowels of the pile."

Lafayette, after a moment's rest, went on, soon gaining the ledge to which the duke had alerted him. It was barely a foot wide and unevenly surfaced with an improvisation of flattened tin cans. Bother clambered up beside him, puffing.

"Mayhap twere best I'd left my armor of proof below," he gasped. "I'm nigh undone, lad. Let us rest and take council here a moment."

"If the settlement back there is actually on the site of Colby Corners," O'Leary said, "this place is just about where Lod's castle was back in Artesia, and this pile must be the analog of the castle, which is actually the Las Vegas Hilton, which Lod had managed to shift onto Plane V-87."

"I wot nothing of these mysteries, sir knight," Bother protested. "Work witchery if you must, but leave me retain my purity, OK?"

"Don't worry, Inspector," Lafayette reassured his ally. "I'm not up to witchery just now, only trying to dope out what we're up against."

"I be up against a plank which formerly performed a useful function in an outhouse," Bother grumped, "judging by the aroma. I say let's up and seek the portal reputed to be here, ere I perish from these evil vapors."

"Might as well," Lafayette agreed, and set off on hands and knees, the duke clanking behind him.

"You go in the other direction," Lafayette said over his shoulder. "That way we can cover it in half the time, assuming the ledge goes all the way around." Bother complied without comment. Feeling his way, Lafayette soon encountered a barrier of surprisingly regular iron bars. Investigating, he found that it was a thirty-inch-high railing, over which he climbed to find himself on a somewhat wider balcony.

Just then, the duke's hoarse voice spoke near at hand, and approaching. "No good, lad; this parlous ledge doth end abrupt but a few spans yonder. Twere a near thing, but by the help of the saints I retained my place, and—" His account ended with a dull clunk as his helm collided with the railing.

"Climb over," Lafayette urged. "It's wider here." His hands groping along the wall encountered glass, small panes set neatly in a mullioned door. "Hey," he called in a low but excited tone to Bother, now hulking at his elbow, "it's a regular door! No garbage here ..." He investigated, found an ornate wrought-iron latch, lifted it, and the door swung inward into darkness and the shriek of a female voice.

Lafayette blundered forward, uttering soothing words:

"There, there, take it easy, please, ma'am. No need for alarm. We're simply calling on the Lady Henriette in the Hill. Sorry to burst in on you, but it's dark out there, and we just sort of stumbled on the door."

After the first scream, the unseen female's response to the invasion of her lair was a barrage of small objects, thrown with surprising force and accuracy. Then a small and feminine voice said contritely:

"You startled me, sirrah, bursting in here in the dark into Her Ladyship's private withdrawing room, where even I, her faithful maid-of-all-work, am scarce allowed to dust. Forgive my fusillade if I did indeed score a hit upon thy persons. What manner of men be ye? One of ye, it seems, is made of metal, or so I judge by the clatter when my candlestick struck him."

"We're just ordinary fellows," Lafayette protested. "Of course the duke has his armor on, but that's only in case he has to do battle or something."

"Thou'lt find no battle here, sir knight," the now ladylike voice returned. "We be but two women, meaning harm to none." As she spoke, Lafayette could hear the sounds of flint on iron; then a spark glared, igniting a wick, and a bright flame glowed, flickering on a table-model cigarette lighter. It illuminated a shapely arm clad in gray cloth, leading up past a delightfully formed, though modest, bosum to a piquant face framed in golden-blond braid topped by a lacy cap.

"Adoranne!" O'Leary yelled. "That is, I mean, Your Highness! What in the world are you doing here" —he broke off as his gaze took in the spacious room behind her—"in Nicodaeus' old lab? And how did it get here? I had it figured the penthouse Frumpkin escaped into back in town was the lab!"

"Are you kidding, mister?" the girl returned. "Calling me 'Highness' ... hmmp! Why make ye sport of a poor serving-wench? You look disreputable, sir, for all your finery, mud-splattered as you are. Is this a proper fashion in which to call on milady?"

"Sorry," Lafayette said hastily. "I guess you're not really Adoranne, just her analog in this locus. Still, it's a good sign that such a close analog exists here: it proves we're not really far from Artesia. You're as like Adoranne as Swinehild was, and Melange was practically next door to Artesia—"

"Don't get excited, feller," the girl said. 'Til see if she'll see you at this unholy hour. Don't hold your breath." She put the lighter on a handy tabletop and turned toward the door.

"Wait!" O'Leary blurted. "Before you go, tell us about yourself—and Lady Henriette. How you happen to be here, where you came from—everything. By the way, what's your name?"

"I'm known here as Betty Brassbraid, though that be not my true name. And I'll leave it to my mistress to tell you what she deems well to relate." She left the room with a swish of woolen skirts, her feet quick and light even in the heavy wooden clogs she wore. As the door closed behind her, Bother spoke up:

"Zounds, Sir Lafayette, what fell den of the Black Arts be this, in sooth?" He was looking around suspiciously at the black crackle-finish wall panels set with a bewildering array of dials, oscilloscopes and idiot lights, the arcane astrological symbols scribed on framed posters, the alembics and retorts on the marble-topped benches.

"Stap me!" the duke continued his plaint, "this be no canny place for Christian men. Mayhap, Sir Lafayette, twere best we repair to yon balcony, there to await Her Ladyship."

"It's just Nicodaeus' old lab, as I said," Lafayette reminded the knight. "It's a pretty weird mixture of science and superstition, I'll agree. See those little jars over there beside the electron microscope? Eye of newt and best mummy dust. But Nicodaeus was an Inspector of Continua, First Class. He'd been in some strange loci, and he picked up a lot of mutually exclusive ideas along the way." Lafayette was idly eyeing the gilded skeleton dangling from a wire suspended from a rafter lost in the shadows above.

"Funny thing," he mused, "back in Aphasia, the bones were gone. Here, they're still in place. That probably has some heavy significance, if I were just sharp enough to figure it out. But every time I think I'm beginning to see a pattern, something like that pops up and proves I'm on the wrong track. If this room had been the one at the top of the scaffold back in town, as it should have been, I'd feel a lot better."

"Meseems twere passing strange, Sir Lafayette," Bother commented, "that ye be not all of a-maze to find such a chamber here in a rubble-heap. But instead, ye talk calmly of stranger riddles still. Still, I'm but a simple man of war, knowing naught of these matters."

"Don't kid me, Mobius, your groom told me you're an inspector yourself. It's time to drop the local persona and help me figure out what's happening before it happens."

"As to that," Bother said in a stiff tone, "doubtless you're aware that for me to divulge anything of a classified nature would be an LRC violation punishable by exile to uncontrolled space-time. Still, I shall do what I can to riddle me this curious circumstance. And a certain stable boy will rue the day he blabbed."

"Sure," Lafayette said soothingly, "I don't want you to tell me any secrets. And go easy on the horse-boy; he was trying to do his job—looking for some master criminal." Lafayette paused to look interrogatively at Duke Bother-Be-Damned. "Do you have any leads?"

"Not I," Bother replied impatiently. "I'm no gumshoe, my vital energies to expend in pursuit of fugitives from justice who are in all probability no more criminal than the beadles who so assiduously persecute them. Bah! What interests me just now is the woman of mystery, yclept Henriette in the Hill." The duke took a few clanking steps as if about to begin pacing the floor, but he halted as the lighter flame sputtered and went out, leaving the spooky room in darkness.

"How now?" the duke muttered, the words accompanied by the familiar swoosh of his sword being drawn from its sheath. Lafayette heard grunts and whistling sounds of the blade cutting air as the duke executed a few precautionary swipes at the surrounding emptiness. "I mislike me this," the warrior grated. "What fell influence snuffed yon candle without human hand nearby?"

"It's probably just out of fluid," Lafayette said, and groped his way to the table. He found the lighter, tried it without any effect other than a colorful shower of sparks, then dropped it to reassure the duke, who had responded to the unexpected display with a selection of colorful oaths and more swipes of the sword. Then a crack of light gleamed as a side door opened and the slim silhouette of a young woman appeared in the opening. She came in, followed closely by Betty, carrying a lantern which showed the deep-blue cloak about Lady Henriette's slim shoulders, then her piquant face and her glossy black hair.

"Daphne!" O'Leary yelled and started around the table toward her. Then, as the brunette beauty looked at him wide-eyed, he checked himself. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you, milady; for a moment I assumed you were my wife, Daphne, but I suppose you're just her analog in this locus, like the Lady Androgorre back in Melange, and for that matter Beverly and Cynthia. But it's wonderful to see you anyway, even if you aren't really Daphne."

"You speak strangely, sir," the Daphne-like woman said stiffly, and was abruptly thrust aside by the Man in Black, who had pushed past Betty and now stood blocking the doorway. He looked casually around and nodded in satisfaction.

"Well done, my dear," he said silkily. "And now I think the time has come for an end to meddling." He looked sharply at O'Leary.

"As for you, sir, I've already indulged your pretence of ignorance. Now let us down to business. What is it you really want?"

"Raf trass spoit, " Lafayette said casually, watching Frumpkin for his reaction, which was to stagger back a step as if he had been struck. Then his look of amusement was replaced by one of determination.

"You wouldn't dare," he hissed.

"Would I not?" Lafayette countered in an indifferent tone. He moved casually around the central table, and across toward Frumpkin, who stood his ground, though looking nervous. Behind him, Lafayette could hear sounds of feminine weeping.

"You promised!" Betty Brassbraid's tearful voice charged, and Frumpkin half-turned to shake off her clutch at his arm. At that moment, O'Leary stepped in and administered a knuckle-first blow to Frumpkin's solar plexus, which caused him to double over, presenting to O'Leary an unimpeded access to his head and neck. Lafayette carefully took a stranglehold, his forearm locked across Frumpkin's throat and levering upward, causing the Man in Black to utter croaking sounds which prompted Betty to shriek:

"Don't do it here, sir! The blackguard deserves to die, I don't doubt, but—I can't watch." She fled into gray shadows.

With his left hand, Lafayette found the flat-walker in his jacket pocket where Mickey Jo had placed it only a few hours before, though, Lafayette reflected en passant, it seemed like days. Steadying himself against Frumpkin's frantic efforts to break the hold, Lafayette oriented the Ajax device properly and, for some reason closing his eyes, he stepped back against the stone partition and pressed his body against the wall. He felt the familiar sensation as of wet cardboard parting before him. He was aware of Frumpkin's frenzied efforts to escape, and applied enough pressure to lift the Man in Black to tiptoe. As Lafayette stepped back, Frumpkin's weight became a heavy drag. He wondered briefly if he were doing any irreversible damage to his captive's internal arrangements, but he thrust onward, eyes open now to the expected vista of utter blackness broken by only a few randomly darting points of varicolored light. Then the syrupy resistance was gone.

A dim gray light infiltrated the darkness. He had only a moment in which to see two large fellows coming toward him before, with a sudden lunge, Frumpkin broke from his grip. There was an explosion that hurled O'Leary down into hot blackness. He came to rest lying with his cheek against a carpet. He opened one eye and saw faded red-and-purple curlicues; then hard hands were hauling him to his feet.

"Fool!" Frumpkin said in a complacent tone. "Did you really imagine I'd permit you so easily to disrupt my plans?"

"I don't know anything about your dumb plans," Lafayette countered. The Man in Black stood before him, rocking casually on his heels, his torn and dusty uniform replaced by a crisp new one with gleaming gold braid.

"Your alibis will avail you naught," Frumpkin snapped. "My decision is made: In spite of certain minor inconveniences it will "occasion me, I will now dissolve your entire troublesome Plane into unrealized status." He turned abruptly and went across to the big central panel. Lafayette kicked the closest knee, broke from the clutch of its owner, and in two jumps was at Frumpkin's side, catching the black-clad arm as it reached for a safe-wired switch. Before he could do more, a gust of opaque mist wafted across his vision. He thrust Frumpkin back and tried to push through the sudden gray mist. Unwittingly, he drew a breath as a hand caught his arm and drew him aside. As he came clear, he released his grip on Frumpkin, who collapsed facedown as O'Leary braced himself against the grip on his arm.

"Slim!" the hearty voice of Sprawnroyal, the Ajax rep, cried. "So you finely made it! Come on, hows about a good feed to start with, and then we can bring each other up to date!"