Chapter Twenty-Four

Above, at the top level of the Temple of the Suns, the alarm was a more muted ringing, but it still stirred the crowd. Visitors to the temple raised their voices, a volume increase brought on by anxiety and curiosity.

Edris gave Casnar a look. The Cretanis prince was frowning, his head cocked at a listening angle.

"That is an alarm, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes, but—do you hear that? A sort of pounding?"

She listened. She did hear an irregular clanking. "That is odd."

A Sonnenkrieger colonel emerged from a door beneath Sol's chariot. "Your attention, please. Everyone please leave the temple precincts for the moment. Please remain calm, you are in no danger."

"What is the problem, Colonel?" Edris asked.

The officer bowed and gave her a reassuring smile. "Your Highness. Forgive me. I did not know you were in attendance." He moved closer so that others of the crowd, some now beginning to move toward the chamber entrance, could not hear. "It seems that a dusky, probably an anarchist, has found his way into the temple warehouses in the basement. We suspect he is armed. Probably trying to visit revenge on the priests of this temple for the destruction of his temple tonight, in the irrational way of duskies." He shrugged, a that's-the-way-they-are gesture. "Until we have him captured, we'd prefer for civilians to remain outside."

"Well, I will be a civilian for the moment," Edris said. She turned to catch the attention of her bodyguard, who hovered a few paces away, and began moving toward the exit. "Coming, Casnar?"

"I'll be along in a moment. I have a question about security for the colonel."

Alastair peeked out the door of the chamber with the dais. As he looked, he saw the central door, the guarded door, swing in. A Sonnenkrieger private stepped in and took a look around. Alastair froze, his hand on his trigger.

The soldier's look was only cursory. He stepped back out and shut the door, his motion suggesting he was unconcerned.

Alastair shut his own door, then called up, "Harris! It's getting uncomfortable down here!"

Harris didn't answer. Alastair just heard more pounding and clanking from his direction.

Ish maneuvered along the scaffolding almost as though it were level ground until she was two curtained-off sections away from the lecture area. Below was some sort of lounge, unoccupied, decorated by a sofa, two chairs, an icebox and some counter space. To her left, she could see men, Sonnenkrieger, racing by on the catwalk where she and Doc had stood moments ago.

She holstered her pistol, made sure that her shotgun hung securely from its cord on her back, and bent to grip the metal railing she was standing on.

Immediately her fingers tingled. She gave a hiss of irritation. Unsheathed steel, she thought. Her stockings had protected her feet, but she didn't have time to bring out her gloves yet.

She swung free, dangling beneath the poisonous metal framework, and hung over empty space, then dropped onto the sofa. As she hit, the impact driving her down into a crouch, she rolled forward off the furniture, hit the floor, and rolled up to her feet. The shotgun made too much noise clattering across the floor, but she felt no sudden pains or twinges—it was as successful a drop from that height as she could have hoped for.

She turned toward the lecture area, but her thoughts were on Doc, not papers.

Finally Harris descended the ladder. "Thanks for aging me a dozen years," Alastair said.

"You're welcome. Ready to go?"

Alastair growled at him.

They left the dais chamber, unnecessarily silent considering the alarm bells still ringing. Gaby must have been keeping watch at her own doorway; she moved out to join them. Moments later, they exited the lower door. The little chamber beyond was still empty.

"Right, left, or down?" Harris asked.

Alastair tried one door. "Locked. Not left."

Harris tried the other. "Same here. Looks like we go—"

His door swung open. A man-shaped silhouette filled the doorway—

Harris swung by reflex, a blow that should have caught the intruder in the balls and incapacitated him, but the silhouette blocked it with a palm and skidded half a step back. "Harris! Cool it."

"Zeb!" Then Harris caught sight of the shadow behind this shadow. "Noriko."

In a few words, they told one another what they'd found. Harris said, "I really, really need to see the city model. Right now."

"I'll show you, man."

Doc made it back into the corridor and raced back toward the exit to the garage and tunnel. He heard the pursuing soldiers reaching the turn behind him as he got to the intersection.

Forward, out, or up? he asked himself. Out was no choice; his friends were still in the complex. Up, the most central option, appealed to him. He turned up the corridor toward the stairs Harris, Gaby and Alastair had ascended not long before.

Ish took up the papers from the table. Above, footsteps were still clanking along the catwalk, but she was in deep shadow and no cries suggested that anyone had heard her.

It was too dark to read the papers. They'd probably be in Burian anyway. She stuffed them beneath her waistband and looked around. The exit from this place would probably be against the wall. She decided to bet on the wall beneath the rooms she and Doc had been exploring.

She took two steps. Then hands emerged from the curtain, grabbed her about the face and shoulders, and dragged her through.

At the top of the stairs, Doc found three doors. Quickly, he checked the knobs on each. Two locked, one unlocked. Lacking Noriko's skill with lockpicks, not having time to set up an appropriate devisement, and with booted feet pounding up the stairs behind him, he had no choice. He went through the center door.

And found himself in a circular, tall chamber with a balcony far above—a balcony lined by Sonnenkrieger who put him in the sights of their rifles almost as soon as he entered.

Among them were General Ritter, Colonel Förster, and a potbellied man Doc did not know but recognized from his description.

Doc forced himself to take on a pleasant expression. "Doctor Niskin, I presume?"

The potbellied man peered down at him. He did not seem jovial. "Doctor MaqqRee. Fortunate for me that you did not find this chamber before now. You might have caused me some trouble."

The door behind Doc slammed open. He didn't have to turn; he heard the Sonnenkrieger swarming in.

General Ritter said, "We're under control here, Tryg. Assign some men to guard that door. Send the rest out to find MaqqRee's confederates."

A man behind Doc asked, "Shall I bring them to you?"

"Just kill them."

The soldiers behind Doc filed back out again.

Ritter continued, "And, Förster, see what you can do about this noise. I think the situation is more or less under control."

Förster clicked his heels and entered an office along the right side of the balcony. Moments later, the alarm chopped off.

"You've had some distant contact with Tryg before," Ritter said. "He is a most persuasive man. I'm going to make him minister of propaganda, I think. He's managed to persuade an entire Kobolde tribe of your evil, Doctor MaqqRee, and has arranged for them to prune the Reini party of some of its weak branches. When things settle down a bit, of course."

Doc didn't bother to reply.

Niskin looked at Doc. His expression was grave and, oddly, Doc thought he saw some vulnerability in it. "I must ask you," he said, "and rely on your reputation for honesty, and the fact that you really have nothing to gain by lying to me. What has become of my daughter?"

Doc sighed inwardly. "She is dead."

Niskin rocked back. He might have fallen had he not been holding onto the balcony railing. But he nodded as though this were the answer he expected. "At whose hands?"

"In a sense, at yours. It was Volksonne who killed her."

"You lie."

"She cast that fireball devisement three times in Neckerdam, but only two landed. What do you suppose that means?"

Niskin just stared at him. It was a moment before Doc realized he wasn't seeing him—the man was just staring into the distance of time. Tears began to run down his cheeks.

"Doctor." That was Ritter. He looked apologetic. "I am sorry, Doctor, but this man's intervention could cause us considerable trouble. We need to move up the schedule."

Niskin nodded but did not speak.

"Förster," Ritter continued, "prepare yourself. We'll do the next one immediately."

Förster emerged from the office and clicked his heels. "I must point out that the temple has been cleared. There is no audience. No newsmen."

Ritter made an exasperated noise. "Well, we'll just have to put him out in the street, then. No, on the temple roof—we'll know no one is standing there. Prepare yourself."

Förster saluted, hand straight up as if gesturing to the sun, and moved around to the left-hand door.

Ritter said, "Come up, Doctor MaqqRee. I'm sure you will find this interesting."

"Done," Harris said.

The door by which they'd entered the city-model chamber opened and Noriko slipped in. "Soldiers coming," she said.

"Everybody out," Harris said. "Down staircase."

The door to the down staircase opened and Gaby slipped in. "Soldiers coming," she said.

"Ish," said her captor. "Miss me, darlin'?"

"Rudi!" She struggled, but could not break his grip. She managed to draw her pistol, but before she could bring it into line, another hand, not Rudi's, caught it and wrenched it from her grasp.

She looked up. Three other silhouettes besides Rudi's hovered over her. The man who'd taken her gun said, "That's not nice."

Rudi sounded hurt. "Why do you keep trying to kill me?"

"For betraying Doc."

"You're daft. I never betrayed Doc. I accepted money from him."

"You admitted to it. For revenge, you said."

"Not revenge on Doc!"

"You know," said the other man who'd spoken, "soldiers might hear and come at any time. The alarms have stopped."

"So they have," Rudi said. He released Ish. "Let's keep our voices down. Stand up, darlin'. We're all in the same fix. Oh. Let me introduce you to me brothers. Ixyail, this is Egon, Jorg, and Otmar."

She looked at them, surprised. "The Bergmonk Boys?"

"We're famous," said one, and giggled.

"I brought them here on my own coin," Rudi said. "To do what your lover might be too squeamish to."

"Doc said you didn't know where their safe house was—"

"I told him a wee lie about that." Rudi didn't sound contrite. "We got in upstairs through a door I saw one of me kidnappers come out through. Ottie's clever about such things, and about pockets too. But when we got down to the level above, soldiers spotted us and began chasing us. We ran down here—and the futtering staircase we came down on rose up behind us. So we've been hiding."

"No way out," said the one who'd giggled. "Unless you know of one."

Ish took a look around, though her view was mostly blocked by curtains. "No," she said. "Except for eight paces straight up." She rose. "Where's the staircase you came down by?"

They all pointed back the way Ish and Doc had come from, except the one who'd giggled, who pointed ninety degrees to the right.

Ish handed Rudi the packet of papers and her shotgun. "Hold on to these."

"What are the papers?"

"They're for Doc. You really plan no vengeance against him?"

"On my honor."

"Go to where the stairs come down." She began unbuttoning her blouse.

"Uhhh . . . if you don't mind, I'd prefer to stay. You might even move to where the light is better."

Ish glared. "You'd better leave."

In the dais chamber, Förster stripped down to his boxer shorts. Dr. Niskin handed him plain garments—common trousers and shirt, their color a close match for his skin tone—and Förster put them on.

"Let me see if I have worked out all the details," Doc said.

Niskin gestured for him to continue. Then the doctor threw a switch on the side of the large-screen talk-box against the wall. Its picture, lines and lines of text, began to swim into view.

"You start with puppets that move without strings," Doc said. He cast surreptitious looks at the three Sonnenkrieger who had joined them in the dais chamber, but they were keeping him under close, alert surveillance. "And at some point it occurs to you, or someone, that you might create an even grander puppet. A puppet indistinguishable from a god."

Ritter smiled. "That was my notion, actually. An idea that was just too compelling to put into the hands of a man like Aevar; he'd either be too pious to implement it or would use it mostly for his own benefit." He shrugged. "But even for a deviser of Niskin's skills, there were many, many obstacles to overcome."

"Such as the fact that godly devisements are untainted by mortality, and any sufficiently educated deviser could see past the deception."

"Correct," Ritter said. "So Doctor Niskin began doing research among devisers who thought outside conventional lines. Which led him to your old friend, the Changeling."

"I don't understand—what techniques, exactly, did the Changeling bring you? And why did he work with you?"

Niskin ignored the entire exchange. He moved from switchbox to switchbox on the wall, making sure electrical connections were secure.

Ritter said, "He told us how his mentor, Duncan Blackletter, had already created something living that was untainted by mortal devisement. He took some of us to spy upon a big man named Joseph. Blackletter had made him out of clay. The Changeling called the man a golem and said that Blackletter had learned portions of the art of fabricating him on the grim world." He smiled. "What a challenge it must have seemed to him to convince us that the grim world really existed. Eventually he took some of us there. That convinced us. We met Blackletter. We came to terms. Blackletter would rule Donarau, to the south. King Duncan. A genuine achievement for a career criminal such as himself. He would have fabricated his own god to support his regime, I suppose." The general shrugged. "I cannot say we were disappointed when he died before claiming all we owed him. And we owe him much. We owe him Volksonne."

"Volksonne is more than a puppet," Niskin said. He still didn't turn to meet Doc's gaze. "He lives. He lives in that large chamber. He is awake only when we wake him, and he thinks little more than we allow him to think, but he has godly life."

Förster moved to stand atop the dais. "And I grant him form. I direct his motions." He held up an object in his left hand. It was one of the gold arrowhead paperweights. "See here, the greatest weapon in the world. It fits in the pocket, but it commands a god."

"So it's you, Ritter, and Niskin and Förster here. And some handpicked Sonnenkrieger and temple personnel, I suppose," Doc said. "Who else? Casnar, of course. And Edris."

"Casnar, yes," Ritter said. "Edris, no. Casnar will marry Edris when her father dies, assuming he can persuade her, which he probably can, and thus will rule Weseria as well as Cretanis, someday. I will be leader of the Burian League."

"And when will Aevar die? I assume you have that planned."

"Plans change." Ritter's expression suggested that this was a minor inconvenience. "He would have died on the last day of the Games, his palace destroyed as he dressed for the closing ceremonies. But, because of you, we need to get details settled sooner. Ready, Doctor?"

Niskin nodded. In succession, he threw the switches all along the wall, except for the last; with each switch, three of the glass machine-gun barrels illuminated and poured light onto Colonel Förster.

"Improvise a bit," Ritter said to Förster. "Don't name him. Since he might be listening to broadcasts even now, we can't give him even a few ticks of advance warning."

"And give me half a chime," Niskin said. "I need to get to the model chamber." He shot Ritter an accusing glance. "This change in plans hasn't given me much time."

Förster, glowing gold as though lit from within, nodded, and looked down to a spot, a red letter X, just beneath the talk-box screen. Niskin threw the last switch. "Hear me, my people," Förster said.

Where Edris and her bodyguard waited in the tight-packed crowd, there were gasps as the glow appeared. Edris looked up to the top of the temple.

Atop the dome stood the burning man the press had spoken of. He looked down upon them, his expression benign. "Hear me, my people," he said, and the word rolled across the crowd and echoed from the buildings behind.

"I am Volksonne, god of the people. I am the god of the pure, of the clean, of the rightful."

Edris realized that she heard some of the words in Burian, others in Lorian, both languages she had spoken since childhood. It took her a mere moment to determine that she could attune herself to hear only one set of words, as though she were dialing between broadcasts on a talk-box set.

The crowd quieted, though Volksonne's words could be heard above the loudest noise they were likely to make.

"I return to cast cleansing fire on those who would keep the Burians from their true greatness. Now I destroy one who has not kept faith with his gods or his people, one who would tempt the Burians into ruin. I send my fury against this smiling traitor. Congregate, and in less than one chime's time you will bear witness to justice." 

With those words, the flaming man dissipated, and sparks rained down across the temple dome from where he had stood.

Edris shook her head, dispelling the wonder of the moment. She turned to her bodyguard. "We need to find a talk-box. So I can tell Father."

"No need, Highness," the man said. He nodded up the street.

In the distance, where the crowd thinned, many large cars in Reini black were pulling to a halt. Weserian army soldiers spilled out of the second and subsequent cars. And even at this distance, Edris recognized her father emerging from the first vehicle.

Alone, naked, Ish lowered herself into a crouch.

She did not concentrate—rather, she freed her mind, letting her perceptions move where they would.

As always, when unfettered, those thoughts moved to her. To her other self.

She smiled, feeling her other self embrace her. Though they had never met in the flesh, she almost felt the glossy fur move beneath her hands as they touched.

Then they traded places.

She opened her eyes. There it was before her, the curtained-off chamber filled with sofas and chairs. But now the colors were all different, muted. Every little movement of the curtains, blown in the light breezes from the air vents far above, attracted her eye. Dust motes she could not have seen a moment ago drew her attention.

The sofas looked comfortable. They were hers if she wanted them.

She looked up. Beyond the lights, she knew, were metal branches that would take her where she needed to go.

She leaped, and her scrabbling claws caught metal.

Zeb and Alastair held the door leading to the hall to Volksonne's chamber. Alastair, kneeling, leaned out, firing a burst. As he withdrew, Zeb, standing, leaned out and fired three shots at the distant silhouettes, then jerked back. Return fire hammered into the doorjamb beside him, and just over his head the wall opened in a pencil-sized hole as a rifle slug penetrated. "I don't know," Zeb shouted. "Lots. Eight or ten or more."

Harris, at the door to the stairs down, shouted, "At least that many down this way."

"Well, pick a direction and let's go, man. The numbers are just going to get worse if we wait."

Alastair shouted, "Stickbomb!" And a green object, like an elongated tin can on the end of a wooden handle, clattered into the room, fetching up against a chair.

Zeb felt his insides seize up. He'd never seen a fairworld grenade, but Alastair's word left no doubt as to what this was. He stepped forward, exposing himself to fire, and grabbed the thing, then heaved it back out the door. Alastair slammed the door shut as Zeb fell back. Bullets struck the door.

A moment later, an impact from outside hammered the door, blew it off its hinges, knocking Alastair off his feet. Zeb moved up and fired another four shots down the hall. The slide of his pistol locked back. Alastair, looking groggy, got into position.

Suddenly there were no more rifle shots from that direction, but Zeb didn't kid himself that the Sonnenkrieger down there were quitting the combat—he heard one of them shouting, loud tones of protest and anger. Zeb ejected his spent clip, snapped another one into place. "What's he saying, man?"

"No stickbombs," Alastair said. "They have to take this room intact."

"But not us, I take it."

"Correct."

Ish found the metal stairway down. It emerged from a door against the wall near where she and Doc had entered the catwalk, just a few paces down from the catwalk; earlier, she'd mistaken it for one of the lighting fixtures.

The first pace or two of it was metal platform, and there was a man there, a Sonnenkrieger soldier with his rifle at the ready. He was staring down into the darkness.

She didn't want to go on those stairs. She'd been walking on metal since she reached the light fixtures and all four of her feet burned from the contact.

She looked at the stairway. The length of stairs was parallel to the ground; each individual stair was angled, at the moment, like a mountain peak, pointing straight up. Machines did not interest her now, but it looked as though she had only to walk out on those stairs and her weight would cause the other end to lower, turning the whole affair into a true set of stairs, one she understood. That was good.

She crept closer. She was at right angles to the soldier, within his peripheral vision, but she was black within blackness, and moving atop the light-bearing scaffolding, not on the catwalks. He did not see.

At last he did, when she leaped. He turned, swinging his rifle into line, his eyes widening in surprise. Then she hit him, overbalanced him, carrying him over the rail. He yelled as he fell, and she leaped free, her claws digging into his flesh for purchase.

She crashed down atop the stairway and looked around, assuring herself that no one had seen her clumsy landing. She heard the soldier's impact on the floor below, heard his cry end.

The far end of the stairs began to lower—slowly, too slowly. Grudging the continued contact with the metal, Ish moved out further along the metal rig, and the far end descended more quickly.

The end of the stairs crashed down not three paces from the Bergmonk Boys. Rudi took a step back, his eyes widening.

Near the end of the thing was the biggest black cat he'd ever seen—a panther or jaguar, he supposed, as big as a human. It eyed him as though he were its next meal. He raised Ish's shotgun.

The cat turned and began trotting up the stairs, looking back at him once over its shoulder.

He turned back to his brothers. Even in the dim light, they looked uncertain. "What are you waiting for?" he asked. "Never seen a housecat before? Let's go." He started up the stairs.

Ritter took a rifle from one of the soldiers. Dr. Niskin led Doc and the two other Sonnenkrieger to the bottom of the tall chamber. Niskin and the soldiers left by way of the door there; Ritter didn't offer Doc the same courtesy.

Ritter told the last soldier, "Wait outside. Don't let anyone enter. Don't worry about noise. There's going to be some." The man saluted and left.

Which left Doc under Ritter's sights, and only Förster as witness. Förster stood outside the door to the dais chamber, lounging against the doorjamb. He lit himself a cigarette.

"You know," said Ritter, "I fully intended to love her."

"Adima Niskin?" Doc asked.

"Yes. And though you didn't kill her yourself, you were responsible for her death. You interfered with a most complicated devisement, and she died because of it."

"If you're working up a rationale for killing me," Doc said, "trust me, I've heard more compelling ones."

"No, not for killing you. But I think your involvement determines how I should kill you."

There were words exchanged outside the balcony-level door. Ritter did not look away from Doc, but grimaced at the distraction. "I think the god himself—"

The voices outside grew louder. Exasperated, Ritter shouted, "Very well, let him in!"

The door opened and Casnar entered. He looked among the three men present and his face fell.

"Just in time for the execution," Doc said.

"Damn it all, Doc." Casnar leaned over the rail to look at him. "You could have stayed out of it. You could have survived."

"How kind of you to think of me. If I may ask, if you didn't want me dead, why did you help them kidnap me?"

Casnar sighed. "We needed your seed."

Doc paused, appalled and amused at the same time, and barked out a laugh. "You what?"

"For one of many breeding programs Weseria is instituting. This one is quite special. The devisers say they can implant a woman with your seed and the child will have only your traits, none of the mother's. The laboratory for that program, the quarters for the women are all here. They take up nearly half of this complex." Casnar brightened. "Tomorrow that program will begin. In twenty years, Doc, Weseria will have an honor guard of pureblood Daoine Sidhe in Reini uniforms. The race will survive."

"Even if you were part of the plan to murder its father."

"I tried to protect you," Casnar protested. "I arranged for you to be taken, then released. All we needed was your seed. Once you were released in Neckerdam, you could have gone back—"

Ritter interrupted him, his face apologetic. "I fear you're a bit behind the times. When Albin Bergmonk reported failure on the grim world, I assumed MaqqRee's associates would be interfering, so I changed those orders. Adima was ordered to kill him. I thought it best."

Casnar glared at the general. "Then you're responsible for all this mess. All this wasted time."

"I will apologize at length when it is all done."

"Let him go, Ritter. He can't prove anything now. In just a little while, Aevar will be dead and you'll have everything you want. You can afford to be a little magnanimous."

Doc smiled. "I continue to be impressed by your filial devotion, Cas."

Ritter shook his head. "No. I'm sorry. No."

Casnar took one last, long look down at his half brother. "I'm sorry, Doc."

"I'd be far more impressed with that if you'd throw yourself at Ritter and let him shoot you. I'd be sure of your sincerity then."

Casnar shook his head. He turned to leave.

"My best to your mother," Doc said.

When Casnar was gone, Ritter asked, "Where was I?"

"How you're going to kill me."

"Yes, that's right." Ritter brightened. "I'm not. Nor is Förster. Volksonne will kill you."

Ish ran on ahead, leaving the Bergmonk Boys far behind her. They no longer concerned her. Nor did the gunshots she heard, the sound of a full-scale battle, from ahead. Only Doc did.

She caught his scent and followed it back to the garage intersection. She growled—she could not tell if the trail she was following was that of his entering or leaving.

Then she caught his scent going down the corridor toward the stairs. That had to be new. She followed.

It took her only moments to race up the stairs to the last landing, to hear and smell men above her. She turned the last corner and crept up a few steps.

Three men. She could smell them, could smell the oil and metal of their guns. She hated guns. She could leap on the men and kill them all . . . if they didn't have guns.

She waited and tried to think. Thought did not come easy to her. It shouldn't be this hard, even when she was this self. Her other self would know what to do. But she didn't want to change again, not so soon.

Harris felt something burn him, like a glowing fireplace poker dragged across his upper leg. He swore and backed away from the doorway. He looked down. Blood was welling from his leg, but it looked and felt like a deep graze or gouge, not a direct hit. Noriko leaned in to take his place, fired several shots with her revolver down the stairwell. "Alastair!" Harris yelled. "Maybe a devisement?"

"You want me to heal them? Other devisements are a little outside my line," the doctor shouted back. He fired a short burst down the hallway he guarded.

A familiar chattering began from the stairwell down. Harris swore loud enough to be heard over it. "Now they've got an autogun down there."

Above the roar of the firearm came voices—cries of pain and surprise, cries for mercy. A moment later, there were no more gunshots from that direction.

Harris peeked around the doorjamb. One landing down, the Sonnenkrieger who had been firing upon the associates now lay dead or dying.

A redbearded head poked around the rail at the turn of the stairs. "Don't shoot."

Harris was speechless for a moment. "Jorg?"

Rudi's head peeked out beside his brother's. "We heard shootin'."

"Are you on our side?"

"Don't be stupid. Of course we are."

Harris turned a grin to the others in the room and waved them forward. "We're out of here. Go, go, go."

They reached the intersection beside the garage, Harris, Gaby, Zeb, and Noriko. It was clear. Harris lined up to cover the hallway Doc and Ish had originally taken while Zeb aimed up the corridor toward the stairs. "All clear," Zeb said.

Behind them, Alastair came on at a run, and the Bergmonk Boys followed him. "They're not coming on," Alastair said. "They've taken up position in the model room. Guarding it."

"That's not good," Harris said. "That means they might be planning to use it. This place is going to be a real mess in the very near future. Where's Doc?"

Zeb shouted, "Freeze!" Then he raised his sights. "Ish! Harris, give me your jacket."

Walking down the staircase, her steps uncertain, came Ixyail. She was naked. Zeb and Harris ran up to her. Harris moved to cover her with his jacket, then took her chin in his hand. "Ish, are you all right? Can you understand me?"

"I . . . I . . ."

"Where's Doc? Do you know where Doc is?"

She pointed up. "At the top. Soldiers. I can't . . . I can't . . ." Her eyes fluttered.

Harris caught her as she fell. He grimaced. "Looks like iron poisoning. I've seen this before." He and Zeb returned to the others. Alastair and the Bergmonk Boys had joined them.

Harris turned to Gaby. "Get her out of here."

"Wrong."

Harris turned to Zeb, but the man in black just shook his head. "You're the one with the leg wound—you need to get out of here."

Harris turned to Rudi.

"Futter you. I'm not done here yet."

"Harris," Gaby said, "order the evacuation if you want, but you're coming with us."

"I'll go up and get Doc," Zeb said. "Rudi and I."

"And I," Noriko said.

Rudi said, "Jorg, take Ish. You boys, go out through the garage with Harris and these ladies, and kill anyone who tries to stop them."

"Right," said Otmar, and giggled. "What about you?"

"I'll be along."

"This should be interesting," Ritter said.

Förster smiled and raised the glass paperweight. "Bitte," he said.

This time, Doc did not have to use his Good Eye to see the wisps of light appear. First they were odd and innocuous, like pipe cleaners made of neon. Then they lengthened, swelled, combined, forming a human silhouette. In moments, they took on more and more solidity, swelling out into a man seven or eight paces in height. He glowed only faintly, perhaps reduced in glory because he was not standing in flames. He stood on the floor opposite Doc, his head just at the level of the balcony where Förster and Ritter waited.

Volksonne had features like Förster's, a little more perfect, showing no expression. Förster gestured, and Volksonne turned his eyes toward Doc.

He reached for Doc. Doc spun out of the way of the grasping hand. He kicked at the back of the hand, felt his foot connect, saw the blow jar the god's arm. Then he felt pain as the sole of his shoe ignited. As he stepped back on that foot, the flame was smothered.

Whatever Volksonne was, god or puppet, Doc couldn't beat him into submission. Ritter and his rifle guarded the upper door out, Sonnenkrieger guarded the lower. That meant Doc's only likely chance for survival lay with devisement—and the god wasn't likely to give him even the few moments he needed to cast one successfully.

Volksonne turned after him, his movements fast and sure, and grabbed again. Doc threw himself forward into a somersault that carried him under the outstretched hand and between Volksonne's legs. He felt heat radiate from the god. He heard Ritter and Förster laugh.

Casnar emerged from the door directly beneath Sollinvictus' chariot wheel and froze at what he saw.

King Aevar, Princess Edris, and two full squads of Weserian Army infantry were advancing toward the Eternal Flame. The king's face was set and even paler than it usually was. Edris, hurrying to keep up with him, was speaking to him.

This was a disaster. Now Aevar would not be at the palace when the fireball descended to consume it. Casnar gulped and stepped forward to greet the king, but a temple priest in red-and-orange robes was there first. "Your Majesty."

The king drew to a halt before him. "Turn off the Eternal Flame," he said.

"I, uh, I . . ." The priest was completely dumbfounded. A moment later, he found his voice again. "But, Majesty, I can't. If we do that, it won't be Eternal."

"Captain."

The army officer present drew his pistol and put the barrel to the priest's forehead.

Suddenly sickly of appearance, the priest turned to shout across the chamber to another in the same temple uniform. "Turn down the Eternal Flame to inspection levels, open east facing." That priest ran to a side door.

Casnar moved toward the soldiers and royals, circling around so that they would not be between him and the way out. None had noticed him except Edris' bodyguard, who noticed everything.

The captain kept the pistol to the priest's head, and Aevar maintained his expression of barely-contained fury for long, silent moments. Then the Eternal Flame began to lower. First the height of a man, it slowly shrank to less than two handspans high . . . and finally half of the flame, the eastern half circle, vanished. The western half remained diminished but still ablaze.

"Majesty, will this suffice?" asked the priest. He was begging. "It is the best I can do without violating temple oaths to the gods."

"It will do," Aevar said. "Now open the hatch in the center."

Casnar felt himself grow cold. The king knew too much. Aevar might survive the destruction of his palace, but one way or another, he would have to die tonight. Casnar thought through a dizzying number of options, of stories, of excuses—it was his strength.

There was supposed to be a mad dusky loose in the Temple. If Casnar could get the king to the levels below, and that's where the man obviously wanted to go, they could simply shoot him and find a dusky to blame. It didn't have the cachet of the king being wiped out by the god—wait a moment, the public wouldn't have to know that he died here, they'd assume he died in his palace. But that left the regular-army soldiers and Edris as complications . . .

The priest said, "I don't know what you mean, Majesty. I know of no hatch . . ."

Casnar was briefly diverted. The official priesthood here knew that there were Sonnenkrieger offices below, but didn't know how extensive, nor did they know about all the special Sonnenkrieger projects taking place. This priest was telling the truth. Casnar leaned in to see if the king would have him killed for it.

The king moved out onto the temple's hearthstone. Its surface was irregular, with several cracks marring it. Three of them crossed one another in a triangle close to the stone's center. It was this feature, which disguised the hatch the builders had engineered, that had caused this particular stone to be chosen. The king moved unerringly to stand beside the triangle and gestured at it. "Captain, have your men break through this."

Casnar's gaze fell on a discoloration just outside the triangle. It looked as though small pieces of rock had been broken away. The breaks were white, very fresh, and Casnar felt another jolt of fear go through him.

Doc, or one of his associates, had to have been there. And had known enough to take a sample from the hearthstone. That meant this temple was doomed.

Several soldiers moved out onto the hearthstone and began attacking the triangle with their gun butts. Casnar moved up beside the king's daughter. "Edris, may I have a word with you?"

She gave him a smile. "Of course."

"By the street, please. This is a matter of some delicacy." Perhaps he should ask her tonight, now, to marry him.

"Later, please, Cas. My father needs me."

"Edris—"

"Tell me here or it will have to wait."

He sighed and gave her a smile. "It can wait. By your leave." He turned and headed out.

Well, perhaps it was for the best anyway. He would still be king of Cretanis.