negotiation.
He glanced about, sizing up his situation.
There was only one exit from the Diamond Fund. Its display cases offered no hiding places. Not that Surplus particularly desired one. He was by nature a confronter rather than a slinker.
A third vitrine smashed. It was just outside the entrance to the room.
There was a moment’s silence. Then a shaggy figure, large as an ogre, filled the doorway. Heaped in its arms was a fortune in armor and weapons. It paused to peer about before entering.
“How pleasant to encounter a compeer,” Surplus said, stepping into the light of a column. “I trust your endeavors have been fruitful?”
With a tremendous clatter, the intruder dropped everything he held. Kicking the loot out of his way, he strode into the light and was revealed as a member of the Royal Guard. “All thish ish mine!” the bear-man cried. “If you try to take sho much ash a kopek of it, I’ll kill you.”
The fellow swayed slightly. It was clear he had been drinking.
Surplus brought his cane up to his mouth and delicately tapped its silver knob against his lips. “Split the swag fifty-fifty?”
“Hah!” The guard shambled forward, stumbling and almost falling when he stepped on what appeared to Surplus’s tutored eye to be the ancient and indeed priceless Alexander Nevsky Helmet.“Shergeant Wojtek shares with nobody.”
“I’ll go as low as one-third. In all fairness, there is far more here than the two of us can hope to carry off on our own.”
Sergeant Wojtek rolled his neck, showing his teeth. Then he held up his paws, uncurling the fingers one by one to extend their claws. “Do you imagine for an inshtant that a former member of the Royal Guard can be bought?”
He threw a punch at Surplus’s head.
Surplus danced away from the blow. “Really, sir, there is no reason for us to fight. We are surrounded by an ocean of wealth. It makes no sense to quarrel over who gets to drink from it.”
He barely managed to evade a second blow.
“Nobody takesh whatsh mine!”
“You make an excellent point, sir, I do confess it, a most excellent point,” Surplus said, searching desperately for an appropriate strategy. With each missed punch, the length of corridor behind him grew shorter. At its end, he could break and run, true. But the bear-guard was assuredly not only stronger but also considerably faster than he was. It was only his drunken state that had kept him from simply charging forward and seizing Surplus in a crushing hug. “Yet nighttime is a dwindling resource, and with the dawn we may expect a restoration of order. It would not do for either of us to be found here tomorrow morning.”
“Shtand shtill sho I can kill you, damn it.” Sergeant Wojtek aimed a haymaker at Surplus and almost fell over when it missed. Clearly the alcohol had badly degraded his reflexes. This was a factor which could be used to Surplus’s advantage.
“Is there to be no resolution other than death?” Surplus asked with genuine regret. He held his cane before him, one paw on the knob and the other by its tip, as if he thought it possible to fend off the gigantic animal-man chimera with it.
“None,” the Royal Guardsman said truculently.
“Then I must inform you, sir, that you are a drunken lout, a traitor, a thief, a murderous thug, a disgrace to your uniform-and quite possibly not even a gentleman.”
With a bellow of rage, Sergeant Wojtek charged.
All in one movement, Surplus stepped to the side, like a matador dodging a bull, pulled away the wooden sheath that was half of his sword-cane, and plunged the sword down the space at the side of the guard’s neck that was unprotected by bone.
Deep the sword went, into the heart and through.
…20…
Countless acts of heroism and cowardice, opportunistic looting and saintly forgiveness, small cruelties and inexplicable kindnesses occurred within the disaster that was Moscow. The citizens of that great metropolis, caught up in what felt very much like the end of the world, were granted the rare opportunity of confronting their true selves.
Thus it was, at any rate, for one young man who, weeping and bleeding, left the Hotel New Metropol by a rear window with a cask of rasputin wrapped in stolen hotel blankets. Through the maze of bewildered streets he limped. Column after column after column of black smoke rose up from the helpless corpse of the city behind him, and converged into a dark shroud overhead. Slowly, painfully, he fled.
Hours later, when Arkady finally reached the outskirts of town where the city dwindled to nothing and weary farmlands began, he paused to take stock. He was penniless, horseless, and thoroughly ashamed of himself. All his connections in Moscow were either dead or extremely unlikely to want to see his face ever again. Further, his home was unimaginably distant and to reach it he would have to cross a howling wilderness filled with monsters. On foot.
Well, what had to be done, had to be done. The demon machines had unintentionally given him a weapon that could be used to wipe their kind from the face of the earth. His father would know, far better than he, how to put the rasputin to good use. All Arkady had to do was make certain that it reached him.
He squared his shoulders and set off.
Baronessa Lukoil-Gazproma’s clothes were stained and disheveled and her spirit was in even worse shape when Irina found her at last. She was sitting on the stoop of a house whose shabby appearance testified that she probably did not even know whose it was, with her head in her hands. “I am so damnably tired of politics and society,” she said without looking up when Irina leapt down from her phaeton, crying out her name. “I want nothing more than to retire someplace out in the country, where I would never have to deal with people again. If only I could live in perfect solitude, just me and one or two dozen friends. No men. I am done completely with their entire gender.”
Irina sat down beside her friend and took her hands in her own. “Well, who could blame you if you did? Still, I doubt your husband would approve.”
“Nikodim Gregorovich? He would be elated. I have never told anybody this, precious one, but the baron wanted me to do…certain things. And when I did, he…Well. Our marriage must be counted a failure.”
Irina did her best to look surprised by news which all of Moscow society had known for years. Luckily, the baronessa was too lost in her own unhappiness to notice the sardonic twist to Irina’s mouth when she said, “I am shocked. But never mind that. Come home with me, Dunyasha, and I will have my servants bathe you. Then I will dry you with my own two hands and lead you to bed, and pleasure you with my mouth. I will sing you a lullaby and watch over you until you fall asleep.”
“Dear, sweet Irinushka,” the baroness said. “Whatever have I done to deserve such loving kindness from you?”
“You honestly don’t know?”
“No.”
“Years ago, I was affianced to the baron at the time, and you stole him away from me. Surely you remember that.”
“Oh, Irina Varbarova, I’m so sorry! That was such a strange and romantic summer, with all those parties and flirtations, and somehow I convinced myself that you did not mind.”
“Nor did I,” Irina said. “It was to be a marriage of convenience. The baron had money and I had none. So my feelings toward him hardly mattered. But I was quite afraid of him. I believe that’s what attracted him to me in the first place. Really, I am indebted to you for saving me from a marriage I dreaded. Even if it did mean I lacked financial security as a result.”
“Oh, Irina, you will never want for anything so long as I live. Anything I have, whatever you want, is
