The Galaxy Builder (20 page)

            "Only a few card tricks," Lafayette
explained apologetically.

            "Card magic, eh? Meseems I've a pack of
pasteboards back at my ducal seat; necromancy is illegal, of course, but in a
good cause I'd wink my eye and reward you of my largesse as well. Come along,
fellow. I'll send a troop of menials along for the car." He turned and set
off without awaiting O'Leary's assent, then halted suddenly and turned
ponderously.

            "If ye be a creature of the infamous
Trog," he barked, "be assured I'll lay the rascal by the heels ere he
knows of your treachery."

            "You know Trog?" Lafayette gasped.
"That's wonderful; it means I really
am
back in Aphasia—not the
same locus where I lost Daphne, of course—that disappeared several days ago by
now, I suppose, if Belarius wasn't lying."

            "See here, fellow," the Duke said
heartily. "Though thy wits be scrambled somewhat, tis manifest, still thou
had'st the wit to rally to my side, rather than having at me in cowardly
fashion when I lay entrapped in the muck yonder. So I graciously extend my hand
in friendship, be ye ever so base of birth."

            "I'm Sir Lafayette O'Leary," Lafayette
said stiffly, accepting the duke's muddy hand. "And once rightful king of
Artesia, withal."

            "Oh. OK, no offence," the duke
replied. "Leary, huh? Whereat is it? Never heard of the demesne."

            "Not 'whereat', Lafayette corrected
automatically.
"Where
is it? In the course of a lifetime you waste
enough breath to deliver a three-hour speech, just putting in that redundant
'at'."

            "Don't ast
me
whereat it is,"
Bother-Be-Damned returned defiantly. "It was .you brung it up. Me, I never
hearn tell on it. Must be small potatoes." The matter thus disposed of,
the duke turned away and resumed his march, not precisely toward the distant
smoke, Lafayette noted as he followed. A hundred yards off to the left, Marv
was standing, undecided, shading his eyes to watch Lafayette's progress. Then
he shook his head, appeared to speak briefly into his clenched fist, and set
off on an intercept course. Mickey Jo was nowhere in sight.

            "By the way, Your Grace," Lafayette
addressed his new acquaintance, "I'm looking for a gray room, very large,
dim-lit, with a carpet and a bunch of big soft chairs. Do you happen to know of
such a room?"

            "Avaunt thee," Bother replied in a
tone of dismissal. "I've rich chambers in plenty in my ducal seat, or
anyways I
did
have before the tidal wave. Looks like it musta knocked it
flat. Too bad."

            "It would take a very large building to
have a room of that size in it," Lafayette added hopefully.

            "My castle is the largest in the
province," the duke assured O'Leary. "Or was, since meseems tis gone,
now."

            "I have to find it," O'Leary went on.
"You see, that's where this skunk named Frumpkin hangs out—and he's got
Daphne."

            "Unlucky in love, eh, lad?" Bother
commented cheerfully. "Well, it's happened to doughtier fighters than you,
Sir Lafayette; best to forget the baggage and find another."

            "But she's my wife," Lafayette
protested. "And I love her. I don't want some other baggage—and besides,
she's not happy; I can tell, even though she said he treats her OK."

            "Pity and all that," the duke said.
"This Frumpkin, now, what sort of wight is he? Stout of arm and back, with
a goodly company of men-at-arms about him?"

            "Nothing like that," O'Leary
corrected. "He's an ordinary-looking creep, and he's always alone, except
when he's with Daphne—he calls her Dame Edith."

            "Then trounce the rascal soundly, whip the
wench for her impertinence, and proceed to matters of importance," Bother
advised.

            Slogging along at the heels of the duke, O'Leary
half-listened as the nobleman recounted the multifarious deeds of infamy with
which he, a humane and sensitive fellow, had been beset, most of which
atrocities he laid at the doorstep of one Trog. "... or 'Lord Trog', as
the upstart styles himself," Bother sneered.

            "I've met him," O'Leary put in;
"a runty little fellow, all whiskers and fleas, surrounded by cutthroats
thirsting for an innocent victim to turn over to the PPS."

            "What? Trog runty?" Bother yelled.
"Art daft in sooth, Sir Knight! He's a very clothes-pole of a man clad
always in scented silks and satin, a dandified degenerate of the worst
stripe!"

            "Maybe he's grown since I saw him,"
Lafayette hazarded.

            "Bah!" the duke barked. "But what
of the upstart? Art his minion?"

            "Not me." Lafayette reassured the
armored duke. "I'm nobody's minion. I'm on my own."

            "Indeed? Then t'were well you cast your lot
with the forces of good, against evil and chaos. And eftsoons, methinks."
The duke paused both in his speech and his stride to lower the vizor of his
great helm, revealing a battered and scarred visage which glowered at O'Leary,
and past him at Marv.

            "Red Bull!" Lafayette gasped. "Am
I glad to see you! I'm so lost I thought I'd never see a familiar face again!
Let's get busy and figure out how to get off this mud-flat and back to
Artesia!"

            The duke thus addressed took a step back and
drew his well-honed sword halfway from its mud-coated sheath.

            "Avaunt thee, sirrah!" he barked.
"It mislikes me not to hold converse with one who is manifestly afflicted
of Oompah; still, I'll not outrage the proprieties by beheading thee if thou'll
but cease thy frenzies!

            "Thinks't me a gentleman cow, eh? Aroint
thee!"

            "Don't be silly, Red Bull," O'Leary
replied calmly. "You know very well I can lick you. Remember that time in
the alley under the city walls, just before I went out into the desert?
That
time Princess Adoranne was missing—this time it's Daphne. She's lost
somewhere back in Aphasia, unless Aphasia's already dissolved back into
nonrealization. Come on! We always had good luck as a team—except maybe the
time I turned into Zorro, and that wasn't your fault!"

            "You pretend, fellow, to be my boon
companion?" the duke bellowed. "You rave! No doubt thy keeper waits
thee even now, among the huts yonder. But be calm: I'll not reveal thy secrets!
But in sooth t'were well to make oblique approach, the beadles to avoid."

            "What difference will it make what route we
take?" O'Leary countered. "We have to come in across open mud no
matter which way we go."

            "True, but under cover of darkness, we can
creep close ere we're discovered to the watch."

            "Hey, Al," Marv called, crossing the
last few feet to rejoin the party. "Innerdooce me to this here feller,
OK?" he proposed, eyeing the duke's six-foot-plus stature, impressive even
in its coating of mud, which was beginning to dry now and to flake off in large
chunks, revealing the polished steel beneath.

            "Certainly, Marv," O'Leary acceded.
"Your Grace," he addressed the duke, "permit me to introduce my
fellow refugee, Marv: We've been through thick and thin together. Marv, His
Grace, Duke Bother-Be-Damned."

            "Hi, Grace," Marv responded dubiously.

            "Not my real name," the duke muttered,
"merely an eke-name given me by the common herd. But you may call me
'Bother', and you will." He extended his un-mailed hand, which Marv took
hesitantly.

            "OK, pal, whatever you say," the
latter said quickly. He gave the hand a quick grip and dropped it, then took up
a position half behind O'Leary.

            "Say, Al," he muttered. "If this
guy is some kinda dook, he must be the big shot around here, right? So maybe we
oughta get in solid with him, and maybe stay of fa the gallows, like."

            "Good thinking, Marv," O'Leary agreed.
"I've already cemented relations, and we're on our way into town, if
that's what it is, to straighten things out. Funny thing, Marv: Your old friend
Trog, or someone else with the same name, seems to be at the bottom of the
problem here."

            Staying a pace behind O'Leary as he forged on in
the wake of the Duke, Marv shook his head. "Don't figure, Al. No one guy
coulda caused a mess like
this."
He waved a hand at the sweep of
soggy clay. "Especially old Trog. He's what you call a congenital
psychopathic inferior. No more brains'n a grasshopper. Sits around and gives
dumb orders, is all he can do. Like sending me and Omar off to the dungeon, and
all."

            "Still, it's interesting that he's
here," O'Leary pointed out. "So, we must not be as far from Aphasia
as it seemed. Another thing, the duke is an alterego of an old pal of mine
known as the Red Bull—which independently suggests we're not far from
Artesia."

            "Beats me," Marv muttered. "All
they told me was stay close, and report when I get a chanst."

            "How do you report?" O'Leary wanted to
know.

            "There's this contact," Marv replied.
"He's spose to get in touch."

            "Listen carefully, Marv," Lafayette
said. "Does
'raf trassspoit'
mean anything to you?"

            "You're dang right," Marv said.
"That's what His Lordship useta yell whenever anything din't go
right."

            "You mean Trog?" Lafayette pressed the
point.

            "Old Troggie is right," Marv
confirmed. "And now you say he's got a finger in this here mess, eh? We
better have a talk with that little runt before it's too late."

            "Sure," O'Leary agreed. "We'll go
see him and try to find out what's at the bottom of all this crazy business.
He's the duke's worst enemy, but he'll probably be glad to send us on a secret
mission."

            Ahead, a small crowd of ill-assorted survivors
of whatever had happened to the countryside had gathered to watch the advance
of the three refugees across the glistening mud-flat. Spears, pitchforks, and
clubs were among the articles with which they were prepared to welcome the
newcomers. The sun was low now, staining the sky a bilious yellow which
reflected from the wet surface like puddles of molten gold. The duke halted and
spoke over his mailed shoulder:

            "Withal, we'd best delay here until the
light has gone." He paused to knock crusts of mud from his sword-hilt.
"Once among the rabble," he went on in a conspiratorial tone,
"you'll stand mute whilst I conduct negotiations." He growled, eyeing
the group standing by the clapboard huts. In the glow of early evening, men and
shacks alike were no more than black silhouettes against the lowering sky.

            "It passeth all propriety that I, a royal
duke, should skulk here, awaiting the pleasure of these churls!"

            "Play it cool, Your Grace," Lafayette
suggested. "There are too many of them for one to stand strictly on
ceremony."

            "Bah! Let not base caution wait upon rny
knightly valor!" Bother yelled and without furthur words, charged, sword
brandished aloft. The squatters began hesitantly to close ranks, then abruptly
scattered, retreating among the huts, where Bother made a desultory search
accompanied by yells and whacks of his blade which brought a number of the
ramshackle structures down in ruin. While the duke was thus occupied, O'Leary,
with a quick word to Marv, moved off to one side and began a wide, curving
approach which would bring him up at the rear of the settlement.

            "Hey, Al," Marv called in a tone of
distress, "wait up!" O'Leary turned to see his companion-in-distress
struggling to his feet, coated with black muck except for the pale blob of his
unshaven face, dim in the fading light.

            "Smear a little mud on your face,
Marv," Lafayette called softly, "and you'll be invisible." Marv
complied. Even at a distance of two feet, he was but a dark bulk against
darkness. At that moment, the duke's voice bellowed across the night.

            "Very well, Sir Lafayette, you may emerge
now. Sir Lafayette? Damme, where's the fellow got to? Come out at once, I
say!"

            "I'm right here," O'Leary called.

            "Say, Al," Marv commented,
"you're pretty well daubed your ownself. Prolly he can't see you. So now's
our chanct."

            "Chance," O'Leary corrected. "No
t.
Chance for what?"

            "Art a warlock?" Bother demanded of
the now near total darkness. "Hast the cloak of Darkness? Remember how I
befriended you when you were a nameless vagabond. Come along, now, Sir
Lafayette, we'll broach a keg to our comradeship."

            "All of a sudden he wants to be pals,"
Marv commented. "Our chance to sneak in behind him and grab the best
quarters in the local hostel," he went on as if there had been no
interruption. "OK, Sir Al? Sir Al! Whereat are ya? Oh. I gotcha," he
concluded as his wildly groping arms encountered O'Leary's shoulder.