"What year were you born?"
He scratched at his white hair. "I knew the number once. But I've
forgotten."
"I guess the only way I'll find out how long I was gone is to saw that
damned elm in two and count the rings--but even that wouldn't help
much; I don't know when it blew over. Never mind. The important thing
now is to talk to this Baron of yours. Where does he stay?"
The old man shook his head violently. "If the Baron lays his hands on
you, he'll wring the secrets from you on the rack! I know his ways. For
five years I was a slave in the Palace Stables."
"If you think I'm going to spend the rest of my days in this rat nest,
you got another guess on the house! This Baron has tanks, an army. He's
kept a little technology alive. That's the outfit for me--not this
garbage detail! Now, where's this place of his located?"
"The guards will shoot you on sight like a pack-dog!"
"There has to be a way to get to him, old man! Think!"
The old head was shaking again. "He fears assassination. You can never
approach him...." He brightened. "Unless you know a spell of power?"
I chewed my lip. "Maybe I do at that. You wanted me to have a plan. I
think I feel one coming on. Have you got a map?"
He pointed to the desk beside me. I tried the drawers, found mice,
roaches, moldy money--and a stack of folded maps. I opened one
carefully; faded ink on yellowed paper, falling apart at the creases.
The legend in the corner read: "PENNSYLVANIA 40M:1. Copyright 1970 by
ESSO Corporation."
"This will do, Pop," I said. "Now, tell me all you can about this Baron
of yours."
"You'll destroy him?"
"I haven't even met the man."
"He is evil."
"I don't know; he owns an army. That makes up for a lot...."
* * * * *
After three more days of rest and the old man's stew, I was back to
normal--or near enough. I had the old man boil me a tub of water for
a bath and a shave. I found a serviceable pair of synthetic fiber
long-johns in a chest of drawers, pulled them on and zipped the weather
suit over them, then buckled on the holster I had made from a tough
plastic.
"That completes my preparations, Pop," I said. "It'll be dark in
another half hour. Thanks for everything."
He got to his feet, a worried look on his lined face, like a father the
first time Junior asks for the car.
"The Baron's men are everywhere."
"If you want to help, come along and back me up with that shotgun of
yours." I picked it up. "Have you got any shells for this thing?"
He smiled, pleased now. "There are shells--but the magic is gone from
many."
"That's the way magic is, Pop. It goes out of things before you notice."
"Will you destroy the Great Troll now?"
"My motto is let sleeping trolls lie. I'm just paying a social call on
the Baron."
The joy ran out of his face like booze from a dropped jug.
"Don't take it so hard, Old Timer. I'm not the fairy prince you were
expecting. But I'll take care of you--if I make it."
I waited while he pulled on a moth-eaten mackinaw. He took the shotgun
and checked the breech, then looked at me.
"I'm ready," he said.
"Yeah," I said. "Let's go...."
* * * * *
The Baronial palace was a forty-story slab of concrete and glass
that had been known in my days as the Hilton Garden East. We made it
in three hours of groping across country in the dark, at the end of
which I was puffing but still on my feet. We moved out from the cover
of the trees and looked across a dip in the ground at the lights,
incongruously cheerful in the ravaged valley.
"The gates are there--" the old man pointed--"guarded by the Great
Troll."
"Wait a minute. I thought the Troll was the Bolo back at the Site."
"That's the Lesser Troll. This is the Great One."
I selected a few choice words and muttered them to myself. "It would
have saved us some effort if you'd mentioned this Troll a little
sooner, Old Timer. I'm afraid I don't have any spells that will knock
out a Mark II, once it's got its dander up."
He shook his head. "It lies under enchantment. I remember the day when
it came, throwing thunderbolts. Many men were killed. Then the Baron
commanded it to stand at his gates to guard him."
"How long ago was this, Old Timer?"
He worked his lips over the question. "Long ago," he said finally.
"Many winters."
"Let's go take a look."
We picked our way down the slope, came up along a rutted dirt road
to the dark line of trees that rimmed the palace grounds. The old man
touched my arm.
"Softly here. Maybe the Troll sleeps lightly...."
I went the last few yards, eased around a brick column with a dead
lantern on top, stared across fifty yards of waist-high brush at a dark
silhouette outlined against the palace lights.
Cables, stretched from trees outside the circle of weeds, supported
a weathered tarp which drooped over the Bolo. The wreckage of a
helicopter lay like a crumpled dragonfly at the far side of the ring.
Nearer, fragments of a heavy car chassis lay scattered. The old man
hovered at my shoulder.
"It looks as though the gate is off limits," I hissed. "Let's try
farther along."
He nodded. "No one passes here. There is a second gate, there." He
pointed. "But there are guards."
"Let's climb the wall between gates."
"There are sharp spikes on top the wall. But I know a place, farther
on, where the spikes have been blunted."
"Lead on, Pop."
Half an hour of creeping through wet brush brought us to the spot we
were looking for. It looked to me like any other stretch of eight-foot
masonry wall overhung with wet poplar trees.
"I'll go first," the old man said, "to draw the attention of the guard."
"Then who's going to boost me up? I'll go first."
He nodded, cupped his hands and lifted me as easily as a sailor lifting
a beer glass. Pop was old--but he was nobody's softie.
I looked around, then crawled up, worked my way over the corroded
spikes, dropped down on the lawn.
Immediately I heard a crackle of brush. A man stood up not ten feet
away. I lay flat in the dark trying to look like something that had
been there a long time....
I heard another sound, a thump and a crashing of brush. The man before
me turned, disappeared in the darkness. I heard him beating his way
through shrubbery; then he called out, got an answering shout from the
distance.
I didn't loiter. I got to my feet and made a sprint for the cover of
the trees along the drive.