"Stand and take it, you cowards!" Emerald reached down and whacked the back of his head. Soup's lights went out. Moments later he was bound and in the wagon with Preacher and several dead gnarly men.
IV
Rider went up the tower with a tireless ease matched only by Su-Cha, who levitated from stage to stage. The imp grinned down at Chaz, Spud, and Greystone, offering endless unsolicited advice.
Chaz threatened, "Any more mouth and we'll see how you rope dive without a rope." It was an empty threat. Su-Cha would fall only if he wanted.
Rider reached the high platform well ahead of his men. Below, people pointed and asked what the Protector's son was doing. He was well-known, which he did not like. It would interfere with his new work.
The side of the platform facing the Golden Crescent boasted a pair of lithe, springy fiftyfoot poles of newly trimmed green wood brought up just that morning. Workmen were attaching long, tough, elastic ropes. Similar poles and ropes were installed at stages all up the tower. Later, Shasesserre's young men would place their ankles in harnesses attached to those ropes and dive into space. The springy poles would absorb their momentum and halt them just short of death. They would dive from ever higher stations, their numbers dwindling as altitude betrayed courage's limit. It would be dark before they reached the top. The remaining divers would jump carrying torches.
Rider had won the competition during his sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth years.
He glanced at the workmen, then paid them no mind. They showed more interest in him. He was a remarkable physical specimen, and a reputed genius.
The death engine stood at the side of the platform facing the Citadel. Rider asked, "Anyone touched this?"
Heads shook. One man offered, "We didn't know what it was for. What is it?"
Rider ignored the question. "Ingenious." He moved around the engine cautiously, never touching it.
"Geep!" a workman said.
"Hello to you too," Su-Cha sing-songed.
Rider faced his associates. "Look this thing over when you catch your breath, Spud. See if it's booby-trapped."
"Never again," Spud gasped. "Never again." He began studying the machine.
"You still got to get down," Chaz reminded.
"Let him jump," Su-Cha said. "Maybe he can knit wings before he hits."
"Your sense of humor is juvenile," Chaz observed.
"I'm just a young thing. Barely two thousand."
"No booby traps," Spud announced.
"Do you recognize the workmanship?"
"No." Spud looked over the edge. He swayed. Rider grabbed his arm.
"Dang!" Su-Cha said. "Thought he'd try it."
Chaz kicked toward the imp's behind. Su-Cha was absent when his foot arrived. He cackled from a far corner of the platform, perched atop a workman's tool chest.
Mumbling, the workmen started leaving.
"Let's see if my father marked his killer. Su-Cha, do you smell anything?"
The imp sniffed around the killing machine. His face puckered into one huge frown. "It's there. But weak. Be hard to isolate." He got down on all fours, snuffled like a hound. He went right to the top of the ladder and over the side, head down.
"Don't take no demon to figure that," Chaz said. "No murderer was going to fly out of here."
Greystone suggested, "We could offer a reward for witnesses." The scholar seldom spoke. When he did, even Rider listened. "Even at midnight someone might have seen him."
"Hmm. No," Rider said. "Not yet. Likely to raise questions. Maybe if the news gets out. You and Spud might visit neighborhood watering holes. If anybody did see a climber he'll talk about it."
Spud complained, "Come on, Rider. Why can't we go with you? How come Chaz and Su-Cha get in on all the excitement?"
"Chaz will miss out too. He'll be looking for Soup and Preacher. We should have heard from them." Rider slowly turned as he spoke, flicked a glance toward the Citadel. "Ah. I thought so."
"What?" Chaz demanded.
"Someone is in the lab. Thought I saw movement a while ago."
"Let's go!" Chaz whooped, and went over the side. Spud and Greystone followed. Rider examined the death machine again, then seized one of the diving ropes.
He jumped.
Workmen yelled. Rider plunged toward the Plaza. The spring in rope and pole absorbed his momentum. He came to a halt six feet from the surface, let go, landed running. His associates were not yet thirty feet down from the tower platform.
He whipped into the Citadel, climbed stairs at a pace punishing even for his iron muscles, slammed into his father's laboratory.
The place was a shambles.
He placed one finger on the wall. It was warm. He nodded, made supple-fingered passes over the floor. Glimmering footprints appeared. Two men. One larger than the other. The larger tracks ran to the window and back. A lookout. The smaller feet went straight to the door, spacing indicating haste. The lookout had witnessed Rider's jump.
Rider was rereading his father's message when Chaz, Omar, Greystone, and Su-Cha arrived.
"Catch them, Rider?" the imp piped.
"No. They were looking for a last message. And found one."
"Darn. That means trouble."
"For them." Rider indicated the wall.
Su-Cha chortled. "You changed it. Are they going to be mad."
"More than you know. I'll be there to greet them."
Chaz rubbed his hands together eagerly, drew the huge and entirely illegal sword he carried.
He examined its edge.
"No," Rider said. "I'm going alone. You have your assignments."
"Rider!"
Rider ignored their protests, leaned out the window.
"What is it?" The whole laboratory shivered. Glass rattled. Dust danced.
"Military airship. I should have sensed it sooner. The web is more damaged than I thought.
We'll have to wrap this up fast and get to repairing it."
Noise rose from the Plaza as the airship passed over. It settled toward the military moorings on the Martial Fields.
It was a gaudy bombard from the eastern fleet. The side effects of the sorcery that propelled it faded.
"Off on your errands now," Rider said.
"Suppose we catch the killer?" Su-Cha asked.
"Bring him here." Rider's voice was cold grey iron. "There are questions I want to ask."
"Right."
Chaz was out the door already, humming. He'd thought of an amusing trick to play on Soup and Preacher.
Su-Cha, Spud, and Greystone followed.
Rider busied himself in the laboratory, collecting items he concealed about himself. Then he set out on the trail of glowing footprints. He believed he knew where they were headed, but wanted to see what stops they made.
The footprints materialized a dozen steps ahead of him, faded that far behind. Before long the men making them separated. He elected to follow the smaller prints.
V
Chance led Su-Cha, Spud, and Greystone across Chaz's path. The northerner was holding up a wall with one shoulder while talking to an attractive young woman. His mind was not on business.
Su-Cha said, "Feast your glims on this, guys," and he scrunched his eyes tight shut.
His body changed. Not much, but enough to provide the appearance of a child about four. Then he charged Chaz, wrapped his arms around the barbarian's legs. "Daddy. Daddy. Mommy says you have to come right home."