LITMIR.BIZ

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on.”

      The giant turned from the window. “I am to go with you. My name is Arkor.”

      Jon frowned. For the first time the scarred giant’s height struck him. “Why…?” he started.

      “It is my country that we go to,” said Arkor. “I know how to get there. I can take you through it. Geryn says it is part of the plan.”

      Jon felt a sudden knot of resentment tighten inside him. These plans—the Duchess’, Geryn’s, even the plans of the triple beings who inhabited them—they trapped him. Freedom. The word went in and out of his mind like a shadow. He said, “When do we go then, if you know how to get there?”

      “In the morning,” said Arkor.

      “Alter, take him to a room. Get him out of here. Quick. Go on.” They backed from the room and Alter hurried them up the hall.

      Jon was thinking. After delivering Let to the forest people, he was going further. Yes. He would go on, try to get through the radiation barrier. But all three of them had to get through if they were to do any good. So why wasn’t Geryn coming instead of sending the giant? If Geryn came, then there’d be two people near the Lord of the Flames. But Geryn was old. Maybe the Duchess could bring him with her when she came. Mentally he smashed a fist into his thoughts and scattered them. Don’t think. Don’t think. Thinking binds up your mind, and you can never be—He stopped. Then another thought wormed into his skull, the thought of five years of glittering hunger.

      That night he slept well. Morning pried his eyes open with blades of light that fell through the window. It was very early. He had been up only a minute when there was a knock on his door. Then it opened, and Arkor directed the dwarfed form of the Prince into Jon’s room, then turned and left.

      “He says to meet him downstairs in five minutes,” Let said.

      “Sure,” said Jon. He finished buttoning up the ragged shirt stolen from the mugger the night before, and looked at the boy by the door. “I guess you’re not used to these sort of clothes,” he said. “Once I wasn’t either. Pretty soon they begin to take.”

      “Huh?” said Let. Then, “Oh.”

      “Is something wrong?”

      “Who are you?”

      Jon thought for a moment. “Well,” he said. “I’m sort of a friend of your brother. An acquaintance, anyway. I’m supposed to take you to the forest.”

      “Why?”

      “You’ll be safe there.”

      “Could we go to the sea instead?”

      “My turn for a ‘why’?” Jon asked.

      “Because Tel told me all about it last night. He said it was fun. He said there were rocks all different colors. And in the morning, he said, you can see the sun come up like a burning blister behind the water. He told me about the boats, too. I’d like to work on a boat. I really would. They don’t allow me to do anything at home. Mother says I might get hurt. Will I get a chance to work someplace?”

      “Maybe,” Jon said.

      “Tel had some good stories about fishing. Do you know any stories?”

      “I don’t know,” Jon said. “I never tried telling any. Hey, come on. We better get started.”

      “I like stories,” Let said. “Come on. I’m just trying to be friendly.”

      Jon laughed, then thought a minute. “I can tell you a story, about a prison mine. Do you know anything about the prison mines beyond the forest?”

      “Some,” said Let.

      “Well, once upon a time, there were three prisoners in that prison camp.” They started out in the hall. “They’d been there a long time, and they wanted to get out. One was…well, he looked like me, let’s pretend. Another had a limp…”

      “And the third one was chubby, sort of,” interrupted Let. “I know that story.”

      “You do?” asked Jon.

      “Sure,” Let said.

      “Then you go on and tell it.” Jon was a little annoyed.

      Let told it to him.

      They were outside waiting for Arkor when the boy finished. “See,” Let said. “I told you I knew it.”

      “Yeah,” said Jon quietly. He stood very still. “You say the other two…didn’t make it?”

      “That’s right,” Let said. “The guards brought them back and dumped their bodies in the mud so that…”

      “Shut up,” Jon said.

      “Huh?” asked Let.

      He was quiet for a few breaths. “Who told you that…story?”

      “Petra,” Let answered. “She told it to me. It’s a good story, huh?”

      “Incidentally,” Jon said. “I’m the one that got away.”

      “You mean?” The boy stopped. “You mean it really happened?”

      The early light warmed the deserted street now as Arkor came to the door of the inn and stepped into the street.

      “All right,” he said. “Come on.”

      CHAPTER VII

      The news service of Toromon in the city of Toron was a public address system that flooded the downtown area, and a special printed sheet that was circulated among the upper families of the city. On the mainland it was a fairly accurate brigade of men and women who transported news orally from settlement to settlement. All announced simultaneously that morning:

      Crown Prince Kidnaped

       King Declares War!

      In the military ministry, directives were issued in duplicate and redelivered in triplicate. At eight-forty, the 27B Communications Sector became hopelessly snarled. This resulted in the shipment of a boatload of prefabricated barracks foundations to a port on the mainland sixty-two miles from the intended destination.

      Let, Jon, and Arkor were just mounting the private yacht of the Duchess of Petra which was waiting for them at the end of the harbor. Later, as the island of Toron slipped across the water, Let mentioned to Jon, leaning against the railing, that there was an awful lot of commotion on the docks.

      “It’s always like that,” Jon told him, remembering the time he’d gone with his father in the morning to the pier. “They’re inspecting cargoes. But it does look awfully busy.”

      Which was a euphemism. One group of military directives which had been quite speedily and accurately delivered were the offers of contracts, primarily for food, and secondarily for equipment. Two of the distributors of imported fish who had absolutely no chance of receiving the contracts sent in a bid accompanied by a letter which explained (with completely fraudulent statistics) how much cheaper it would be to use imported fish rather than those from the aquariums. Then they commandeered a group of ruffians who broke into the house of old Koshar’s personal secretary, who was still sleeping after the previous night’s party which he had helped out with. (So far he has appeared in this story only as a hand seen around the edge of a storage cabinet door, a broad hand, with wiry black hair, on which there was a cheap, wide, brass ring in which was set an irregular shape of blue glass.)

      They tied him to a chair, punched him in the stomach, and in the head, and in the mouth until there was blood running down his trimmed, black beard; and he had given the information they wanted—information that enabled them to sink three of the Koshar cargo fleet that was just coming into dock.

      The Duchess’ private yacht made contact with a tetron-tramp returning to the mainland and Let, Jon, and Arkor changed ships. Coming from the yacht in bare feet and rags gave them an incongruous appearance. But on the tramp, among

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