By the time Ostby reached the outer balcony a black frustration clogged
his veins. To be so close and still be unable to act. He was willing
to give his life to close the "door," but every way he turned he found
himself battering against walls of futility. The anger within him
now, so close to despair, was more than he could control. His reason
feared that anger and he fought against it, but it went with him like a
tangible thing and he knew that he could no longer restrain it.
The sight of the Imperator lounging in an easy chair on the balcony,
his face, arrogant and powerful, set in its habitual expression of
disdainful hauteur, did nothing to ease Ostby's emotional storm.
"I've been reading the police reports concerning you and giving them
some thought," the Imperator's voice laid its heavy weight on him. "My
conclusions are not very flattering. I find you lack many admirable
qualities. I'm about convinced that your dominant characteristics are
cunning and guile rather than strength. If there is one thing I hate
it's a dissembling man."
"You could be wrong," Ostby said, so softly that only a man as
confident and self-assured as the Imperator would have missed the
pent-up force behind the softness.
The Imperator waved his hand negligently. "I'll admit that you
displayed ingenuity in hiding from the police," he said, "and you have
a certain amount of animal-like adaptation to danger. But when you
fought it was only with the desperation of a cornered rat! Your most
noteworthy trait is subterfuge. I despise a gutless man!"
"Does it take guts to boast of your strength while hiding behind a
palace guard?" Ostby asked.
For the time it took an incredulous expression to cross his face
Magogar sat still, not believing what he had heard. No one spoke to him
like that! He straightened and turned to face Ostby full on. "Will you
repeat that?" he asked, the words half strangling in his throat.
"You heard me correctly," Ostby said, seating himself deliberately and
insolently in a chair that faced the Imperator across a heavy wooden
table. He had thrown the gauntlet. Now to strike hard at the twisted
core of pride that bent the Imperator to fit its ruthlessness. "You
boasted that you were the strongest man in the world, physically and
mentally. You're wrong on both considerations. Mentally you are weak,
with a sick and rotten pride that warps your mind. I believe you're
even a bit insane."
The Imperator rose to his feet. Muscles bunched in hard straight lines
along the ridges of his jaw, and the flanges of his nose were white
with suppressed rage.
Ostby went inexorably on. "Physically you've passed your prime. Soft
living has coated your muscles with fat, and fat girds your middle.
You...."
"You've said enough," the Imperator interrupted. He reached toward a
bell resting on the table between them.
"Wait!" Ostby stopped him with the word. "What is the strong man going
to do? Ring for his men to help him? Are you a coward as well as a
braggart?" Ostby could see his words strike like blows.
The Imperator, his eyes wide open, wicked and quiet, sat down
purposefully. Oddly he seemed to have recovered his self-control. "Pull
your chair up to the table," he said. "We will see where the strength
lies."
This was the moment! Now, Ostby reflected, if only he hadn't
overestimated himself. With the thought came a tinge of doubt. Perhaps
he would find that he was governed by the same false pride of which he
had accused Magogar.
He followed the Imperator's example and laid his left arm flat on the
table. Their left hands made contact. They rested their right elbows,
their arms forming an elevated triangle, with the table's surface as
the third side.
They gripped right hands, each large and powerful. Ostby hoped that
he had the sheer animal strength to cope with the Imperator's extra
hundred pounds of weight.
The Imperator threw his full strength into a forward press, and they
were locked in fierce, inarticulate conflict. Ostby felt the muscles
in his forearm, his biceps, and into his shoulder protest against the
violent strain. It took all his strength to meet the power that beat
against him, wave upon wave, and he realized immediately that the
best he could hope to do was hold his own. He set his muscles, with
all his might behind them, and watched almost disinterestedly as the
cords of his forearms swelled and pushed out the skin until they stood
like taut wires. A dull ache came into the shoulder socket, and he
felt perspiration gather in a cold drop in the pit of his arm and roll
clammily down his ribs. He knew now that, whatever he might have said,
the Imperator was not soft.
For a long minute, while the realities about them seemed to pause, they
held their position, both straining every muscle. The Imperator's face
turned slowly red. The red flowed down his cheeks and into the corded
tendons of his neck. Ostby could feel a pulse pounding in his own
temple.
Suddenly, though he felt no relaxation in the Imperator's arm, Ostby
knew he had won. Something in the grip of the hands told him that from
here in he was in command. The first concrete sign of it, however,
showed in the Imperator's face. Ostby saw the first doubt creep into
the cruel down-slanting corners of his mouth, and deep within the
features of his face there was a sign of remote breakage. With the loss
of certainty came a kind of shame into the man's face, and before
Ostby's eyes he changed. Changed as the things he had lived for, all
his life, were destroyed.
There was an excitement in Ostby now, and the excitement pleased him.
He bent the Imperator's arm slowly back, until it was a few inches
above the table top. He shot the adrenalin of his excitement into his
arm and rapped the knuckles of the Imperator's hand sharply against the
table.
For a moment they sat in a silence that carried more inflection than
any noise. The Imperator's head was dropped as he went through his
lonely thoughts. When he rose all reason had left him, and his face
was twisted into a snarl of bottomless hate. Ostby knew he was facing
a madman. A brutish roar rose from the Imperator's massive chest and
rolled along the walls of the room. He reached for Ostby, and the table
between them collapsed before his advance.
In the hall behind him Ostby heard the sound of running feet, and he
knew he had to act, fast and forcefully. He set himself flat on his
feet and brought his right arm around with fierce strength. His fist
landed squarely against the Imperator's jaw.
The Imperator stood motionless and his eyes rolled slowly back. He
swayed--with his body still unbending--and fell across the upturned
table. He lay very still.
Ostby ran quickly to the balcony ledge and dived over.
* * * * *
Ostby swam underwater until his burning lungs forced him to the
surface. He observed with relief that he had placed a bend in the
harbor shore between him and the view from the balcony. He pulled
himself from the water and walked rapidly away. The first shadows of
evening had begun to fall and he hoped his wet clothing would not
arouse too much attention. His broken right hand throbbed with dull
anguish.
A half-hour later Ostby entered the Flats and made his way toward
Siggen's house. He was only a few blocks from his destination when a
tightening between his shoulder blades warned him of danger. Swiftly he
turned. His throat quickened as he saw two men, a half-block behind,
hurrying to overtake him. He began to run. He'd be safe if he could
reach Siggen's.
Then with dismay he noted two men ahead of him blocking the walk. He
looked desperately to either side for a way out.
He spied a passageway between two houses and cut sharply in between
them. Behind him he heard a shout and men running. In front loomed a
high fence. A blind alley!
Without pausing, he leaped high and caught the top of the fence, his
shattered hand protesting every movement. Swinging his body like a
pendulum he pulled his feet up. "I've got to make it!" he breathed.
He didn't!
His feet missed the top of the fence and fell back. He hung for a
second, helpless.
He felt the sting of steel in his neck. He hung in shocked stupor as
his life poured out in a flood of blood that ran down his shoulder.
Ostby crumbled to the ground. Painfully he clasped his fingers over the
gaping wound but the blood continued to ooze out between his fingers.
All strength and power of movement left him.
Oddly enough his mind remained clear. There was no fear in him now, and
no pain. The thing that had happened to him seemed the misfortune of
some other person and he viewed it almost dispassionately. There was
only regret that he would never be able to finish his job. And he had
been so close.
Soon he became aware that someone stood beside him. He looked up with
eyes that still registered clearly everything they saw. The cynical
figure, wiping a short knife on a handful of grass, Ostby knew, was the
man who had assaulted him. There was no emotion in the man. No hate and
no rancor.
Abruptly another figure stood beside the assassin. With a shock Ostby
recognized Rinda. For a second hope flickered as he noted the anguish
on her face and the tears in her eyes. But the face hardened resolutely.
"I want you to know I had it done," the Duchess said. She drew back her
foot and kicked him. Then she was gone.
So it had been she, Ostby reflected. Ironic justice. The one diversion
he had allowed himself had been his undoing.
The assassin still stood at his side, Ostby noted. Was the ghoul
waiting to enjoy the finish, he wondered. Then his mind, which even
in this extremity refused to accept its fate, conceived the shred of a
plan. He strove to speak. At the third attempt he succeeded.
"How much.... How much did ... she pay you?" he asked.
"One thousand heds."
"If you get me ... take me...." Ostby's reasoning was beginning to
leave him. Vision and speech blurred. A fiery ball of pain strained at
the base of his head, as though striving to break out.
The immediacy of his need helped him focus his vision once more on the
face above him. He gasped, "Take me to Siggen. He will pay you two
thousand if you get me there alive."
Ostby felt himself being lifted carefully off the ground.
The ball of fire in his head burst and he fell through darkness. He
fell until he struck the bottom of a black pit, went through and fell
some more. Consciousness left him.
* * * * *
For six days Death sat on the wooden prop at the foot of Ostby's bed
and grinned at the thing that clung so tenaciously to life. The spark
within its destitute body flickered feebly those days and the nearest
Ostby came to lucidity was when he sat up in bed and cursed the
grinning spectre.
Each time fat but gentle hands eased him back and murmured to him until
he returned to sleep.
By the sixth day Death's grin became strained. Why would the creature
not die? All the vitality had been drained from the husk, yet the thing
within--the thing called Will--would not surrender its life. Each
minute it forced the body to breathe once more. And the next minute
it breathed again. The minutes stretched into days, and the days to a
week; and the seventh day, when Ostby opened his eyes, Death was gone.
He had won the hardest battle of his life.
Death's frost still lay along his nerves during the next two weeks.
Ostby realized how far he had been along the road to dying by the
reluctance with which his strength returned. This was the first time
in his life he could remember having been weak, so weak that the last
frayed ends of his vitality lay naked. And with this weakness came a
kind of humbleness. He lay quietly in the placid embrace of the apathy
which the humbleness brought.
"I wish I knew some way to thank you," he said to Siggen.
"Don't try," Siggen urged. "If I'd ever had a son," he added, "I would
have liked him to be like you."
An hour later Siggen said, "I'll do what you ask, but only on one
condition: that you wait until you are stronger before you move."
Ostby considered. "I'll give myself two more days," he said. "By that
time you should have everything ready."
Reluctantly Siggen agreed.
The sun had not yet risen, but its light was creeping into the sky
as Siggen and Ostby stood huddled in a cold doorway across from the
palace. All around them Ostby's discerning eye caught signs of life.
But the signs did not disturb him. They were Siggen's men, and they
were here at his request.
Suddenly a small splash of sound came from within the palace. A few
minutes later two men, dressed in the uniform of the Imperator's guard,
emerged. They were followed by four more. And during the next half-hour
almost a hundred came from the palace. Some of them carried their
belongings in their arms, and all of them were in a hurry.
"Something unusual is happening in there," Siggen said.
"Whatever it is, it suits our plans," Ostby said. "There can't be many
guards left inside. Your men should have little trouble overpowering
the remainder."
"I don't like it," Siggen said. "But every fear grows worse by not
being looked at. Shall we go in?"
"Soon," Ostby answered. "Take me to the water-duct first."
"It's just around the corner," Siggen replied. "Come on."
They turned the corner of the building and Siggen paced off eight
steps. "It should be right here," he said. He kicked in the dust until
his foot struck a loose brick. "Right," he grunted.
Siggen bent and lifted the brick from its loose-fitting hole. "I
supervised the job myself to see that it was done right," he said.
Ostby could hear a faint gurgle of water coming from the hole.
He rolled back the sleeve of his left arm and probed with his fingers
until he found the spot he sought. "Cut here," he said.
Siggen shook his head disapprovingly but did as he was told. Blood
crept out around the knife blade as it did its work. Ostby said nothing.
When Siggen had extracted the capsule, he handed it to Ostby.
Ostby knelt on one knee and broke the capsule, holding it carefully
over the hole in the street. He counted the drops that fell.
"Six," he said. "And one more." He shook the broken halves, and dropped
them into the water flowing beneath the hole. "That should do it," he
commented, with satisfaction. "One drop will effectively impregnate two
hundred fifty thousand gallons of water."
"I wish I knew what you were trying to do," Siggen said, "but I suppose
that you'll tell me in your own good time. Do I send my men in yet?"
"Yes, we'd better start. They know that they're to take over the entire
first floor and to hold it against all comers?"
Siggen nodded and lifted his hand in a prearranged signal. The shadows
about the buildings gave up their skulkers, and figures slipped out
from every doorway and hiding place and entered the palace.
* * * * *
Ten minutes passed and not a sound came from within.
"It's too quiet," Siggen said. "I don't like it."
"We'll go in now," Ostby said.
Once in the palace Siggen called over one of his men. "Anything doing?"
he asked.
"Nothing," the man replied. "The whole place seems deserted."
"What do we do now?" Siggen asked, turning to Ostby.
"We'll go upstairs. Magogar should be there."
"Will I bring along some of the men?"
"No," Ostby said. "I have a feeling that we won't need them."
Siggen and Ostby went slowly up the stairway. When they reached the
room that housed the Brain, Ostby entered first.
"You timed it very well," a hollow voice greeted him, but it failed
to catch Ostby's entire attention for he was looking down at a figure
lying on the floor.
The figure was that of the Imperator, with a knife buried in his breast!
"Yes, he's dead," the hollow voice said, "and you killed him."
"I?" Ostby brought his attention up to the huge eye that gazed at him
unwinking.
"You," the Brain answered. "Technically it's suicide. But when you
defeated him in a test of strength, you killed him as surely as though
you plunged the knife into his heart!"
"Then my work may be finished," Ostby said. He looked at the Brain with
a question in his gaze.
"Yes," the Brain answered his unspoken question. "It is done. You were
wise in deducing that I must use water to function, and thus would be
exposed to the potion you placed in the palace water-duct. I'll never
be able to open the 'door' again."
"I'm happy to hear that," Ostby said, letting his shoulders ease down.
Only with the release did he realize the weight of the burden he
had been carrying all these past months. "I hope it didn't harm you
otherwise," he said.
"Not at all," the Brain answered. "You merely changed the pitch of a
subtle brain resonance necessary for the opening of the 'door.' It is
analogous to a growing boy's loss of the ability to sing tenor. His
vocal cords are in no way injured when they grow too coarse to attain a
certain pitch. But...."