count silently to three. “Fire!”
They fired.
The Duke of Muscovy’s great heart was hammering so hard it was about to burst. He had no illusions on that front. His body had been designed for a prone and sedentary existence. He could not long survive standing up and walking about like one of his own minuscule subjects. Already his mighty bones had sustained hundreds of small fractures from the stresses of his stroll through the city. His internal organs, crushed by forces they were never meant to withstand, were failing. In just a few seconds his heart would stop.
He had realized that all this would happen even as he had struggled to awaken, for the duke’s tremendous brain was capable of miracles of extrapolation. Further, having lived only a shadowy half-existence erenow, the dreads and fears natural to a man knowing he was about to die did not rise up within him. Quite the opposite. For the first time, he found himself capable of feeling full human emotion, and he had given himself over to the experience.
It had been, as he had known it would be, a brief life but a joyous one.
Down on the street below, the duke saw an artillery crew swarming about their piece. They were as cunningly detailed as the very best of toy soldiers and he loved them as fully and uncritically as a little boy would have. There were tiny plumes on their shakos and all-but-invisible brass buttons on their jackets. They were tamping down powder and ball while their commander gestured with a sword that was the merest glint of reflected moonlight.
Then his heart failed. In the instant before the world went dark, the Duke of Muscovy saw a puff of white smoke at the mouth of the cannon.
Dying, he regretted that he would never know what came next.
The first thing Arkady heard upon regaining consciousness was one of the Pearls saying, “Well, that was pleasant. What shall we do next?”
He was, Arkady realized, lying on his back, with his trousers around his ankles. One of his shoes was gone, as were his shirt and jacket, but the helmet was still upon his head. Every muscle in his body ached as if he had been beaten with a cudgel. Further, he was utterly and completely exhausted. He could not so much as lift a finger. He had not the energy even to speak. Nor could he bring himself to open his eyes. Worst of all, he had no memory of whatever it was these six perfect Daughters of Ishtar had just done to him.
“I want to see the face of our bridegroom,” Aetheria said. (He recognized that dulcet voice which he had once worshipped, and which still tugged at his heart.) His head shook from side to side as she tugged and tugged, before finally undoing the chin-strap.
There was a brief, astonished silence.
“It’s Arkady!” somebody exclaimed. There was a scuffling noise as the Pearls gathered around his prone body, looking down.
Strangely enough, none of them died. Evidently the mental commands implanted in them by the Caliph’s technicians were not going to kick in. They had enjoyed sex (or so they had thought) with the Duke of Muscovy, and that act had freed them of their psychic shackles. Leaving them free to do whatever they wanted with whomever they wished, as was the birthright of women everywhere.
“But why was he wearing a crown?”
“And carrying a scepter?”
“Look. Here in the pockets of his jacket: precious stones, jewelry, gold nuggets.”
“He has become a thief!” Aetheria cried. “That is sort of romantic,” another Pearl said doubtfully. “Not romantic enough.”
“Anything less than suicide is an insult, in my opinion.”
“At any rate, these treasures belong to the Russian people and the State of Muscovy, so he cannot keep them,” Aetheria said. “Look at this cunning jeweled egg! We can’t simply leave him here to walk away with them.”
“There’s a chest over there; place all these things in it. When the Neanderthals return, we can have some of them stand guard over it for the duke.”
Somebody coughed. “Um…we’re back,” said a male voice and, almost simultaneously, another said, “We won the fight.”
The Pearls shrieked. “Cover your eyes, we’re all disheveled!” “Don’t look.” “Where are my clothes?”
Upon which, cursing his eyes for so steadfastly refusing to open, Arkady felt himself falling back into oblivion.
Unhurriedly, Anya Pepsicolova dressed. When she had finished tying her shoes, she straightened and looked down on Darger’s naked body for a long, still moment. Darger stared warily back at her, clearly alarmed by the expression on her blood-caked face, but equally clearly still thinking, still scheming. Perhaps she should shave off all his hair, from head to foot, as well? That would bring a neat symmetry to her long, difficult journey through the underworld. She considered the possibility seriously, but then decided against it. Because, really, she’d done enough.
Aloud, she said, “There. That’s taken care of.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” Darger said with unctuous insincerity. But then, under the circumstances-post- coital and still bound hand and foot to the gurney-he was not exactly under oath. “So. Where, if I may ask, have you been all this time?”
“Oh, out and about.” Pepsicolova tugged at her lapels to straighten her jacket. She shrugged. “You know.”
“What did you do?”
“This and that.” She slipped her cap onto her head and adjusted the angle. “Nothing of any particular note.”
“Good, good, I’m glad to hear it.” A note of cunning entered Darger’s voice. “So, my darling Anya, now that we’ve experienced mutual ecstasy-I presume it was good for you, too?-we must discuss our future together.”
“Future?” Anya was pretty sure that Darger hadn’t experienced anything at all like ecstasy. She would have noticed. But that was a matter of perfect indifference to her, one way or the other. What did matter was that her skin felt stiff and itchy. “Well, the first thing I’m going to do is to wash my hands and face. Then…I don’t know. Go for a walk, maybe.”
She turned her back on Darger, on her career as a spy, on the City Below, on everything that had happened to her since she first encountered Chortenko, and started to walk away. Up ahead in the distance, she saw something waiting patiently for her. She could not help but smile.
Darger laughed ingratiatingly. “You foolish, loveable thing,” he said. “The future of our relationship, I meant. Our feelings toward each other. Oh, I’ve been a blind fool! Wasting my time searching for tombs and books and libraries and tsars, when all the while there you were, right before me. But I shall make it up to you, my precious one, I swear.”
His voice grew fainter behind her.
“We have plans to make, my sweetness. Promises to make. An engagement ring to buy. We must… Surely you’ll…you’ll… Wait! Come back! You’ve forgotten to untie me!”
But Anya Pepsicolova was no longer listening.
Several long, bleak minutes later, Darger realized that Pepsicolova had left behind the big knife she carried in her belt. It had slipped from its sheath to the gurney when she doffed her trousers, and then been knocked to the floor in the course of her inexplicable passion. Afterward, she had not bothered picking it up. He could see it, just barely, out of the corner of his eye, tantalizingly near at hand.
Darger eyed the blade yearningly. It might be just possible, he judged, that a desperate and determined man to, by shifting his weight vigorously and repeatedly, overtopple the gurney. Then, by various stratagems, he could draw the knife to himself and so cut through one of his restraints. After which, the rest would be a breeze.
A harrowing, difficult, and suspenseful half hour later, it was done.
Arkady was gone, and with him the bulk of what Surplus had managed to liberate from the museum cases.
Worse, there came the sound of breaking glass as a second vitrine was smashed open. It was louder than the first had been, which meant that Surplus’s competitor was coming closer. It also indicated, Surplus feared, that whoever was at work was an amateur seizing the moment, rather than a professional who would be open to
