Chapter Thirteen

From the air, Bardulfburg looked like a city that had grown up in the midst of a heavy forest, leaving the forest largely intact. Between stands of trees rose massive public buildings, all stone and columns and complex facades that reminded Zeb of aging city libraries. There were long banks of tenement housing, brick buildings that curved like serpents the distance of two or more city blocks. Monuments jutted into the sky, many of them statues atop high pedestals. A broad river and smaller streams cut across the scene, with arched stone bridges providing easy crossings. Bricktopped streets meandered across the city, conforming to no organizational plan Zeb could discern, crisscrossing at odd angles.

To the south, as the plane banked to descend toward the city's public airfield, Zeb could see the white circle of the Bardulfburg's coliseum, centerpiece, Harris had said, of the Sonneheim Games, surrounded by green playing fields and blockish structures that looked like antiquated college buildings. Then the plane dropped below the level of the trees surrounding the airfield and Zeb lost sight of it.

In moments they were on the ground and taxiing past hangars and other planes—mostly cargo craft, it appeared, and many of them Weissfrau Valkyries identical in form to Doc's plane. One hangar was set far back from the rest and far larger than the rest; its sliding front doors were open, and in the gloom beyond them, Zeb could see the gray curved nose of a zeppelin.

They came to rest within another hangar, its main door sliding shut behind them. Through a secondary door scaled to humans came a number of guardsmen, a dozen or so, who surrounded the plane. These men, fair of complexion and dressed in eye-hurting orange tunics and boots, glaring gold pants and gloves, carried rifles but did not seem overly intent. Zeb saw five of them out his port-side window and inferred an equal number to starboard.

"Time for bureaucracy and `unavoidable delays,' " Doc said. He moved up to the forward port-sided door and began undogging it. "Harris, you have all the papers?"

"Yes, boss."

Zeb turned to look at Harris. "I don't exactly have papers here, do I? That's going to cause some trouble, isn't it?"

"You have papers." Harris waved a fistful of documentation at him. "Not even forged. A legal Novimagos passport. By the way, is it Zebediah or just Zeb?"

"Just Zeb."

"Hey, I got it right."

Harris was off the plane first and spent several minutes dealing with the officer in charge. Meanwhile, Doc's associates remained in the plane, stretching and readying themselves. Then Harris called the associates out.

The officer in charge directed them to a temporary table set up near the hangar entrance; there, lean, middle-aged men with the bearing of clerks disinterestedly went through their luggage while the soldiers performed a more alert examination of the airplane's cargo. Each associate was questioned by the chief officer, who spoke English, with a slight accent, on his purpose in visiting Weseria. The officer's tone was courteous when directed at Doc, Harris, and Rudi, barely civil when directed at the others.

Zeb found his attention drawn to the armband each of the soldiers wore on his upper left arm. It was black with a gold symbol on it. The symbol was a blocky, primitive eight-pointed star, formed by taking a square and then superimposing another square, turned at 45 degrees, atop it.

Gaby saw his interest. "It's the symbol of the National Purification Party, the Reinis," she whispered. "It's supposed to be a sun."

"Ah."

She lowered her voice still further. "The swastika was also a solar symbol. A pretty innocuous one until the Nazis adopted one form of it."

"This just gets better and better, doesn't it?"

The soldiers rejoined their commander, and one spoke briefly to him in what sounded to Zeb like German; the associates had referred to it as Burian. The commander gave Doc a minimal salute and said, "All is in order. Fair luck to you at the Games." Then he, his soldiers, and the customs agents departed, marching briskly out the hangar doors, the customs men carrying the folded table between them.

Harris heaved a sigh of relief. "I hate red tape."

Gaby gave him a smirk. "You love red tape. You get to show off how good you are at cutting through it. What you hate is when the searchers get close to the hidden panel."

Zeb gave her his attention. "Hidden panel?"

"In the cargo compartment. Where we store the explosives, silly. And the extra sets of papers, extra guns, Alastair's bulletproof vest, that sort of thing."

"Of course."

The last soldier out through the door did not close it, and a moment later another man entered through it, walking briskly, a document in his hand. He looked, to Zeb's eye, like a gigantic leprechaun. Over six feet in height and burly, the man had bright red hair and was dressed in a suit and vest all in green; the illusion was complete down to a gnarled walking stick. He was clean-shaven and his expression suggested someone who had just come from a party or was looking for one. His features were handsome in a broad-faced, country-squire sort of way. "Doctor MaqqRee," he said, addressing Doc.

"I am," Doc said.

The leprechaun handed his document to Doc. "Lord Ruadan Crandunum, in the Crown's service, and now at yours. My papers. A pleasure to meet you at last."

"Not you," Harris said.

The others turned toward him—Alastair looking appalled at Harris's rudeness—except for Gaby, who was obviously having trouble suppressing a laugh.

Doc gave Harris a little frown. "You've met this man?"

"The first day Gaby came to the fair world," Harris said. "She and I went to a bar. He was there. I was right there with her, and he was hitting on her."

Ruadan's expression turned to one of surprise. "I have never hit a woman."

"It's an expression," Gaby said. She extended Ruadan her hand. "It means you were making the sort of offer no boyfriend likes to be on hand to witness."

Ruadan smiled at her. "He could have turned his back." He took her hand and bent to kiss it. He straightened and said, "I have, of course, followed your exploits in the press, Mrs. Greene."

"We're married now," Harris said. Then a look crossed his face, a realization of just how unnecessary that comment had been. "Which you know. Of course. Or else you wouldn't have called her Mrs. Greene. But we're married."

Ruadan gave him a nod that looked somehow both friendly and dismissive, as if Harris had said, "Of course we can't go swimming, we have no swimsuits." The oversized leprechaun turned back to Doc. "I have cars waiting and have secured rooms for you."

In two enormous cars, one an open-topped roadster and the other a hardtopped touring car, the Sidhe Foundation members and associates rolled through the city of Bardulfburg. They kept to the broad but winding main streets. Zeb found himself in the lead car with Doc, Gaby, Harris, and Ixyail, Ruadan driving, while Noriko drove Alastair, Rudi, and the majority of the group's baggage.

"Your quarters have a good view of the coliseum," Ruadan said. He had to half-shout to be heard over the noise of wind and traffic. "The former apartments of a Bardulfburg banker. He was largely forced out of business here because he was a dusky. There's a Weserian minister waiting to take over his apartments, which are choice, and he's scared off most of the parties who'd like to rent them. But the banker sold his lease to me, for your Foundation, just to spite the minister, so the minister won't be getting them for another couple of moons."

"Charitable of him," Doc said.

At street level, Zeb decided, the buildings of the city were even more monumental than he'd guessed from the air. They rose, towering blocks of dressed stone and archaic-looking columns, like pagan temples—but the shine off the polished stones, the crisp lines of their steps and corners, demonstrated that much of this was new construction. A significant number of the cars on the street, most of them a gleaming green so dark as to be almost black, were also new. This was obviously a nation in the grip of prosperity.

Everywhere they drove he saw paintings on building walls. Many exalted the common worker—a laborer, smiling, wielding a shovel, or an assembly-line worker wiping sweat from his brow and smiling as he gazed off into the future. Others showed soldiers like the ones he'd seen and a different sort dressed all in black. Many featured athletes in various events, especially hurdles, javelin throw and horsemanship. Zeb thought the style of illustration to be primitive and cartoony, but it seemed a good match for the overblown architecture of this city.

The streets were decorated with banners, some run up on flagpoles, others hanging from angled poles projecting from building faces. About half were the gold-on-black Reini symbol; most of the rest showed a more elaborate design—a rearing, winged black bull squared off with an upright gold eagle in natural colors, a gold sword point-up between them, all on a white field.

Doc, in the front seat with Ruadan, noticed Zeb's attention. "That's the family crest of King Aevar's family, and, while a family member rules here, the national symbol of Weseria."

"Two sky-god symbols," Gaby said. "And the bull is an invocation to fertility, which you see a lot with these inbred European ruling families, starting centuries ago."

"Your understanding of fairworld heraldry is improving," Doc told her. He turned back to Ruadan. "What else has been set up?"

"All the athletes also have quarters in the Sonneheim Athletes' Village," the leprechaun said. "Generally four to a cottage, a little cottage. They're not required to stay there, but most of the athletes aren't as lavishly funded as you lot, so the majority of athletes will be in their Village quarters. Those of you who register as athletes or coaches will have quarters there, too."

They turned onto a six-lane avenue thick with traffic. Unlike the other streets, where flags and banners were to be found once or twice a city block, here there were flagpoles every fifty yards or so, alternating between the Reini symbol and the ruling family's crest. "The Aevarstrasse," Ruadan said. "One of the king's big building projects these last few years. He wants visitors to Bardulfburg to come away impressed."

"It is impressive," Zeb said. "Where's he getting all the money for these civic improvements?"

"His father, the former king, was a bit of a puppet to a council of noble advisors," Ruadan said. "A very corrupt council. Three years ago, when the Reinis staged their coup and put Aevar on the throne, his first act was to disband the council, his second was to suppress the new coup they tried to stage, and his third was to seize all their properties. Since then he's been seizing properties right and left—especially from corrupt politicians and well-to-do duskies of the middle class—and he's been putting a lot of that revenue into improvements. And there have been occasional conquests of surrounding petty kingdoms. And a renewed spirit of patriotism and work ethic among the people. And a certain amount of cheating."

Doc raised a brow. "Cheating, how?"

"Defying the Burn Accord."

"Ah. Pity." Doc shook his head.

"Now you've lost me," Zeb said.

"It's an old agreement between nations," Doc said. "From a couple of centuries ago. The signatories agreed to form a board restricting the amount of coal, oil, and other such fuel sources they burned on an annual basis. Violators tend to suffer trade penalties when they violate it. But it's a standard trick among nations with poor economies to give themselves a bit of help by ignoring their Burn Accord restrictions."

"Not that Aevar would let you see it in Bardulfburg," Ruadan said. "No, this is his showplace city. No coal or oil burned here except by the trains. Otherwise there would be gray air here, too, like in many of Weseria's cities. And the Accord nations are taking their time about punishing him—they'd like to see Weseria become a strong trade nation again. Anyway, all those things Aevar has done have added up to the Bardulfburg you see."

The bank of imposing buildings continued along the right side of the Aevarstrasse, but ended to the left, giving way to a green lawn the width of a city block and a deep belt of forest beyond. In the distance, above the tops of the trees, rose the city's coliseum, styled, Zeb thought, in the fashion of the old Roman constructions, but shining white and new. Beyond it, half a mile or a mile in the distance to the west, rose a building just as magnificent—a gleaming white dome atop a circle of columns. Zeb couldn't even begin to estimate the size of the thing; at that distance, he couldn't make out any human-scale figures for comparison.

Ruadan saw his look. "The Temple of the Suns," he said. "Dedicated to the Games' godly patrons. It's another new building project. It will be dedicated tonight."

Ahead, where a statue of a horseman stood atop a ten-story-tall pedestal, Ruadan turned left onto another major street, which he called the Meinbertstrasse. Here, too, the right side of the street was lined with buildings, while the left alternated between forest and fields, many of which were lined or partitioned off into what had to be athletic fields. Eventually they had a clear view of the coliseum, with only fields and what had to be parking lots between, and it was there that Ruadan pulled over and parked, beside a round-cornered building of deep red bricks limned with fading green mortar.

Ruadan pointed up to a second-story balcony. "Your quarters," he said. "Good view, eh?"

The quarters were as appealing inside as out. They consisted of four large bedrooms, two ample common rooms, a library whose shelves stood empty, a decent-sized kitchen with a gas stove, and a single spacious bathroom with fixtures that were, to Zeb's eye, antiquated but charming, including a bathtub whose feet looked like reptilian claws. The single jarring note was the furniture, which looked well-used, with pieces largely not coordinated with one another—one bed was an aging four-poster, another a sled-style with scratches all over the headboard.

Ruadan shrugged, an unconcerned apology. "The owner took his possessions. I had a used-furniture dealer send over these furnishings. I'm afraid it was all I had time for."

"It's more than sufficient," Doc said. "Alastair, we'll need to set up temporary wards over all entrances, pipes, and ducts. Harris, find out who you need to offer some money to so we'll be notified if there have been any other last-minute changes in the occupation of this building. Ruadan, what's the schedule of events for the games?"

The leprechaun gestured to a table; on it was a stack of what looked like identical magazines, the covers of the same rough pulp as the interiors and decorated with a lean white-haired youth in running shorts, in the same artistic style as the illustrations Zeb had seen all over walls in the city.

"That's the official schedule, Lower Cretanis edition," Ruadan said. "The opening ceremonies were this morning at the coliseum, followed by early-round matches in some of the events, especially track and field, swimming and rowing. Tonight, in a little over a bell, actually, is the Parade of the Suns."

"Which is what, exactly?" Doc asked.

Ruadan smiled. "Oh, I shouldn't spoil it by describing it to you."

Shortly after nightfall, they joined the pedestrian traffic growing thicker on the street beneath their balcony and walked to the Aevarstrasse. There, the crowds gathered on either side of the street, packing in ever more densely to await the Parade of the Suns.

There were pockets where they did not press too close, such as around Zeb. He smiled, his amusement at the situation wavering between contempt for them and self-deprecation, as these white, white people rooted themselves in place so as not to be shoved into contact with him. They energetically kept their attention on the street so they would not have to acknowledge him. Zeb suspected that they didn't even notice that Noriko was a dusky with him around.

"Harris," Zeb said.

"Yeah?"

"In German, how do you say, `You are wonderful, I would be happy to marry your daughter.'?"

"Here it's Burian, not German," Harris said. "And I don't speak it."

Doc smiled. " `Sie sind wunderbar, ich würde gerne Ihre Tochter heiraten.' "

"Thanks, Doc. You're a sport." Zeb practiced the phrase, just in case he actually felt like using it at some point.

Within a few moments, the space around Zeb was filled by celebrants who apparently did not mind his duskiness; some turned curious looks to him as he repeated the phrase Doc had taught him.

"Here they come," said Ruadan. He stared northward up the street.

Zeb followed suit. In the distance, he could see lights that swayed and bobbed as though they were being carried. The crowd quieted and Zeb could finally hear the sharp taps of distant military drums, the notes of trumpets. As yet they had not resolved themselves into music.

As the lights grew closer, Zeb saw that they were indeed being carried—they were, in fact, atop poles, shining fifteen or so feet above the street, brightly glowing balls that gave off sparks like the sparklers Zeb used to buy for the Fourth of July, but much larger; each ball had to be the size of a basketball at least. The men carrying them were dressed in black, bulky robes whose hoods concealed their faces, whose folds concealed their builds; their gloves were black as well. Even the poles the glowing balls rode atop were black, so the balls floated like miniature suns above the street. The sparks they gave off extinguished when they fell upon their bearers' robes; other sparks fell into the street and glowed awhile before perishing, and still more were spat out into the crowd, where onlookers patted or stamped them out.

Six of the pole handlers walked abreast, and there were six ranks of them, so 36 balls of fire floated along the Aevarstrasse. Zeb was reminded, and made uncomfortable by, the resemblance between these fiery decorations and the little ball he had swatted back in Neckerdam. His burned hand throbbed, perhaps out of sympathy.

Behind the pole bearers came the marching band, a drum and bugle corps playing a military march that sounded, to Zeb's untrained ear, decidedly old-world. The members of the band wore the same uniform he'd seen earlier in the day, orange and gold with the gold-on-black armband of the Reinis.

A commotion, including raised voices and breaking glass, from further back in the crowd distracted Zeb and he turned away from the parade to look, as did several of the people around him. Several ranks back, two young men in dark suits faced a semicircle of soldiers in orange and gold. One of the men in suits held a bottle; its liquid contents looked black in the dim light. He shook it under the nose of one of the soldiers, shouting in Burian. His companion raised his fists into a boxing pose and suddenly all six soldiers drew truncheons and began to swing at the two men; Zeb could hear the sounds of the blows even over the crowd noise.

He stepped toward the fight, unsure whether he could reach it through the press of onlookers before him, but felt a hand grip him around the arm. He turned back; it was Doc who held him. Doc shook his head, his expression somber.

"What's that all about?" Zeb asked.

"I couldn't hear it all," Doc said. "The two men apparently wanted to cause some trouble, to throw bottles into the parade."

Zeb looked back at the altercation. It was done now; the soldiers were leaving, and the bent posture of two of them suggested they were dragging the unconscious forms of the troublemakers. "What was in the bottles?"

"Blood, I think. One of them shouted, `This is the blood of those he's betrayed.' " Doc shrugged. "Support of the Reinis is not universal, Zeb. They're in charge . . . but not all the Burians accept King Aevar's placing of blame on duskies or foreign governments as he would like them to."

Zeb took several deep breaths to calm himself. Doc might be right; it might have done no good to get involved. But the sight of those soldiers swinging truncheons at two unarmed men lingered with him.

The noise of the crowd, a murmur of anticipation, rose as the musicians passed, and Zeb turned back to see. A moment later, the next attraction in the parade came into view.

It was a car, a massive black touring car, open-topped, that looked as though it could probably seat four wide-hipped men in both the front seat and the back.

A black pole, canted forward at about a 45-degree angle, rose from the floorboard of the rear seat; its tip wobbled fifteen feet above the street, five or six feet ahead of the hood, and from it was suspended a circle of gold. Zeb gave the circle a closer look and decided that it was fashioned like a laurel wreath, too large for any man's head, but with leaves all of shining gold.

There were only two people in the car. One was the driver in black leather livery and cap; he was at the wheel. The other was in the back seat, on the left side, sitting atop the seat. He was, other than Doc, the whitest man Zeb had ever seen, his skin in the streetlights almost glowing in its paleness, his hair white as fine paper. He had a mustache and full beard but did not look old; his skin seemed unlined and his motions, as he energetically waved toward the crowds on either side of the parade path, were those of a younger man.

His garments were much like the uniforms of his soldiers, but the portions that would have been orange ranged closer to brown, and the ones that would have been gold were a deeper, darker hue of that color; his military tunic featured a double row of buttons. As with his men, he wore the Reini sun on a black armband.

His car pulled a flatbed trailer. On it were two statues, one before the other, each nine or ten feet tall, rocking a bit with the trailer's motions despite the way they were roped into place; the trailer had small spotlights, strategically mounted at the corners, to illuminate them. The foremost statue was of a woman, hardy of build, more like a grimworld woman than the lean, sharp-featured females Zeb was growing accustomed to on the fair world; she wore a long tunic belted at the waist, pants, high boots, elbow-length gloves, and a tight-fitting hood with a pointed extension drooping from the back of her head, and carried some sort of long riding crop. She shone as though she were made of solid gold, though Zeb suspected, given her size, that the statue was simply covered with gold plate or gold leaf.

The male figure wore nothing but sandals and a plaited kilt. His features bore the lean aspect of the people of the fair world; his expression was hard and critical. He, too, was gold.

And then they were past. Next were ranks of soldiers clad in orange and gold.

"What's the deal with the statues?" Zeb asked. The crowd noise had risen, so he practically had to shout to make himself heard.

Ruadan raised his own voice. "The female is Sol. She is beloved of the northwestern branches of the Burian people."

"Think Scandinavia, Zeb," Gaby said.

"The male is Sollinvictus. Adopted by the southeastern Burians during ancient times, when they struggled against and traded with the Isperians."

"Germans and Romans, respectively," Gaby explained.

Ruadan's expression suggested that he thought Gaby's amendments were unnecessary. "They're both gods of the sun. Now, the individual athletes competing here win wreaths in gold, silver, and bronze for events. But whichever group of Burian athletes, northwestern or southeastern, wins the most medals, determines which statue wears that gold wreath for the next four years. At the last Sonneheim Games, Sol won; she's worn the wreath for four years, and she gets to ride in front in the parade, as you see."

"But the local boys back Sollinvictus," Zeb said.

"That's right. Anyway, they're going to be installed at the temple at tonight's dedication."

The crowd's cheering increased, and next came rank after rank of young men and women dressed, despite the chill air, in shorts and light tops of gold, each with the Weserian royal crest on the chest. Their marching was not as precise as that of the soldiers, but was credible. They smiled, obviously happy to be doing what they were doing, but glanced neither right nor left.

Athletes in lockstep. Zeb felt his stomach sour a little; he much preferred the unstructured athlete processions he was used to from the grimworld Olympics, seeing the competitors having a good time, waving to their fans. This was too political, too regimented. He wasn't comfortable with happy athletes in support of a government that might just be this world's Nazi regime. He glanced at Harris, who had actually competed in tae kwon do at two Olympics, but Harris, deep in conversation with Doc, gave no clue as to how he felt.

Behind the athletes came more ranks of soldiers, these in a different uniform—mostly black, boots and belts gleaming, little Reini suns gleaming gold on their shoulders. Zeb felt a chill. Except for the sun symbol and a few minor details, these could be German S.S.

"Sonnenkrieger," said Gaby. "Soldiers of the Sun. Weseria's elite shock troops."

"Why am I not surprised?" Zeb asked.

Finally, another six-by-six formation of robed men with sputtering miniature suns atop the poles they carried brought up the rear of the procession. Onlookers stepped into the street in their wake, following, some at the parade's brisk pace, others at a more sedate rate. Doc's group followed suit.

Zeb shook his head. "Let me see if I've got this straight, Doc. Sol and Sollinvictus are what you call personas. Put them together, or rather calculate which parts they and the other sun-gods have in common, and you get an archetype, something that doesn't really represent Burians or any other group and is a lot more powerful, potentially. Is that it?"

Doc nodded. "That's sort of simplified, but that's essentially it."

"So do these gods, the personas, actually dislike duskies?"

Doc shrugged. "The priests of these southeastern Burians say yes. Priests elsewhere say no."

"I take it that means the gods aren't talking."

"Only through their priests, Zeb."

"Typical."

Doc smiled. "You'd prefer it otherwise? You'd enjoy daily talk-box broadcasts from the gods?"

"Come to think of it, not really."

The crowd in the parade's wake grew thicker. Some portions of it split off from pursuit of the parade and streamed off down side streets. The parade continued southward, but once they were south of the coliseum, Ruadan led the associates westward.

Ahead, on this broad avenue, was the Temple of the Suns. Its face was illuminated by spotlights, and other such lights sent beckoning beams swinging through the sky.

As they neared it, Zeb finally got an idea of its size. The building was flanked on all four sides by sets of stone stairs that ran nearly the length of the city block; they rose to a height of thirty feet, so the temple itself was essentially built on an artificial hill. Though the hill was square, the temple itself was circular, bounded by white stone columns that were themselves forty feet in height, supporting a tremendous white dome of a roof.

Behind the curtain of columns was the wall of the temple, except on the eastern face; visitors arriving from the east could walk into a deep channel that led to the temple's heart. The interior was dark.

The crowd around the temple was already substantial, thickest on the east side, as Doc and the associates arrived; the associates were able to make themselves a place at street-side, up against wooden barricades erected and protected by soldiers of the Weserian army.

Within minutes, the parade, or what was left of it, arrived from the south—Zeb heard the distant music of the marching band, but a block or so away, most of the elements of the parade disengaged and marched away. Only the sun bearers to the front, a unit of Sonnenkrieger, the king's car and the flatbed with the statues, and the final sun bearers arrived to halt in front of the temple. The king quit his car with grace, waving to admirers in the crowd, and slowly walked, alone, up the steps. Meanwhile, Sonnenkrieger detached the ropes holding the sun statues upright and carefully lowered them. A detachment of twenty of the soldiers was in place to carry each of the statues up the steps. Once the statues were moving, the sun bearers began to ascend the steps and the king's car and flatbed drove away.

At the top of the steps, the king came to a stop beside a microphone mounted atop a stand; the microphone was almost the diameter of a dinner plate. He tapped it a couple of times and looked reassured by the booming thumps that echoed across the crowd. He smiled and began speaking in Burian. His voice was rich, deeper than Zeb would have guessed for a man as lean as he was.

Doc translated. " `People of Weseria, and noble visitors from across the world, I, Aevar of House Losalbar, welcome you on this occasion of favorable auspices.' "

"Maybe," Harris said, "you could synopsize instead."

Doc gave him an admonishing look.

Harris shrugged. "Speeches age me at an unnatural rate."

"A shame they don't mature you at the same schedule," Doc said. He listened for a few moments. " `In choosing to build a single temple in honor of gods of different nations, the Weserian people affirm their ancient commitment to fostering cooperation and friendship between all the Burian nations.' I think you're right, Harris. I begin to feel my own life slipping away."

"See? See?"

Zeb shook his head, disbelieving. "I can't believe he's just standing out in the open like that. What if someone took a shot at him?"

"Odds are it would fail," Doc said. "He's a knowledgeable and powerful ruler. He doesn't have a court deviser on record, but he'll have invested in the services of one or more. He probably carries with him a number of blessings to turn the hands of enemies aimed at him. Such devisements wouldn't endure long once utilized . . . but it would be long enough for him to get to cover."

"Oh. A sort of magical bulletproof vest."

Doc sighed. "There you speak that word again." Then he looked startled and turned back to the king. "I don't believe it. He's already summing up."

The statues had by now reached the king and the Sonnenkrieger were carrying them the final few yards to the temple columns flanking the main entrance. As the king finished up his speech, the soldiers, with use of golden ropes, raised the two statues, that of Sol against the column on the north side, that of Sollinvictus against the column to the south, and began positioning them more precisely.

"Hereby dedicate this temple, honor of the gods, honor of the Games, honor of the Burian people, and so on, and so on. And so we ignite the Flame of the Suns, which will burn eternally in their honor and the honor of the people." Doc said. As he spoke the final word, the king stepped back, beaming, and the crowd erupted in a roar of applause. In the depths of the temple, a glow rose, then became a bright, flickering source of light.

The soldiers pulled the barricades aside so they guided, rather than impeded, the flow of traffic, and the crowd surged forward to ascend the steps. Doc stayed in place, and his associates grouped around him; the crowd flowed around them.

Ruadan gestured up at the main temple entrance. "Care to see? The murals on the main chamber's walls are lovely."

Doc shook his head. "Some other time, perhaps. We have other—"

"Noriko-chan!"

The voice came from the sidewalk behind them. Zeb and the others turned to look, Noriko on tiptoe so she could see over the shoulders of Zeb and Harris.

Moving toward them, at an angle to the heavy pedestrian traffic, was a group of five men, all in nearly identical bronze-colored business suits. They looked, to Zeb's eye, Japanese, though on the thin and elfin side. With a quick apology, Noriko pressed forward between Zeb and Harris to meet them.

When they reached her, the foremost of them, a slight smile on his face, spoke, a quick spate of Japanese.

The speaker was slightly taller than the other four, his close-cut hair immaculate, his features aristocratic, the leanness of his face suggesting not weakness but the keenness of a blade.

"Please," Noriko said, "perhaps we could continue in Cretanis. I am among friends who do not speak the language of Wo." She wore an impenetrable smile and had pitched her voice higher than normal; that, and her cadence, suggested the speech of a young girl rather than a grown woman.

The speaker hesitated, then offered a gracious smile to Noriko's companions. "Of course," he said, his speech very little accented with his native language. "One reads so much of the Sidhe Foundation's superhuman exploits one forgets they cannot be masters of all languages and skills."

Noriko said, "Doctor Desmond MaqqRee, I present Hayato, prince of Sakura province."

Hayato did not react, but Zeb saw his four companions stiffen, two of them barely perceptibly; the posture of a third tightened noticeably and he paled. That one stared at Noriko, anger or hatred visible in his eyes, though his face remained expressionless. Hayato, for his part, merely offered Doc a nod, which Doc returned.

Hayato returned his attention to Noriko. "As I was saying, I am pleased beyond words to see you here, and I look forward immensely to your participation in the competition."

"I am afraid that I am not here to compete," she said.

"How disappointing, Noriko-chan," he said. His tone became a bit more flat. "One would think you would consider it your responsibility to represent your art even when living away from home. So nothing has changed? You have abandoned all your responsibilities, all your honor, forever?"

"Nothing has changed with you." Noriko's tone had become even more artificially sweet. "You still do not show enough intelligence to dispute bad decisions and support good ones."

One of Hayato's companions, the one opposite Zeb, reacted, drawing his hand back to slap Noriko. Zeb felt a familiar adrenaline rush, felt the sensation of unreality as time begin to dilate just a bit.

Zeb got his hand up, intercepting the blow with a hard block that had to have numbed the man to the bone, and stepped forward in a knee strike that caught the man in the left of his chest. Zeb thought he felt ribs crack. The man went down hard on the bricktop street.

Zeb dropped back, hands high, ready for retaliation, but the situation was already under control. The man on Hayato's other side, who had been opposite Harris, was now a step back, bent over, struggling to breathe, his face turning red. And Hayato stood taller than before, Rudi directly before him, one of Rudi's automatic pistols pressed up into his nose. The other two men of Wo were frozen in place, prevented from acting by the danger their leader faced. Ruadan, on the other side of Doc's party, had turned his back to the situation—acting as rear guard, Zeb supposed. There were noises of alarm from the pedestrians around them; a gap widened between the surrounding pedestrians and the standoff. But the soldiers who had manned the barricades were gone; no one moved to interfere.

"Don't be ridiculous," Hayato said, his attention on Doc rather than Rudi. "Your very actions suppose I support my companion's reaction. Instead, I must apologize on his behalf. His rudeness is inexcusable." He turned his head, moving his nostril off Rudi's barrel, to glare down at his fallen companion.

That man was coughing and couldn't seem to stop. And suddenly there was blood on his lips.

"Looks like I put a rib into his lung," Zeb said, affecting unconcern, trying not to show that he was working to slow his breathing. "You'd better get him to a doctor."

"Of course," Hayato said. He continued to ignore Rudi; he gestured at one of the companions behind to help the fallen man to his feet. "Noriko," he said, his voice gentle, "your parents would be very disappointed in you if they knew you were afraid to face me. Even with wooden swords." He offered her the most minimal nod, all he could manage without coming into contact with Rudi's gun again, and turned his back on them. He and his companions moved away into the crowd.

"Should I pop him, Doc?" Rudi asked, his tone low enough not to carry far.

"No," Doc said. He turned back to their original direction. "You have a fast draw and fine combat instincts, Rudi, but shooting foreign princes in the back is never a good idea."

Rudi returned his pistol to his shoulder holster. "I'd have shot him in the head, not the back. What do you take me for?" He fell in step with the others. "So, am I wrong, or was he being rude in spite of all his sweet tones?"

"Very rude," Harris said. "Condescending."

"I don't get it, though," Zeb said. "Noriko, you really hit him with a zinger, but I missed it. Not the thing about his decisions. Earlier than that."

"She presented Hayato to me, rather than the other way around," Doc said. "Implying that I am of higher rank. Since I'm an unrecognized prince and a bastard, she was suggesting that Hayato was lower than that in the social order. Very telling."

"I apologize," Noriko said. Her tone was subdued. "I used your situation, without asking first. It was inexcusable of me."

Doc offered her a reassuring smile. "Not at all. I was amused. It was quite deftly done. Feel free to do so again."

"You obviously knew this Hayato," Zeb said.

Noriko nodded. "He is a distant cousin. I trained in sword against him from when I was very young. He offered me no respect then and offers me none now. He wants to fight me again just to demonstrate that I am not his equal."

"Will you be fighting him, then?" Rudi asked.

Noriko shook her head. "It would not further our goals." But despite the common sense in her words, she sounded diminished somehow.