“You have five minutes,” she told him, “to take us straight to any ‘Honoured Guests’ who’ve arrived here in the last three days.” She looked at Feril. “Start counting.”
The fat man sat up, trying to muster his dignity. He took a breath.
“And you had better fucking know who I mean,” she told him, before he could speak, “or you’re cooked meat.”
“Daughter,” the man said, standing, his voice confident and controlled. He pointed to the habit on the chair. “At least allow-”
“Oh, at least nothing,” she said, suddenly angry. She fired the gun at the floor between his feet. Splinters burst from the varnished wood. There was a yelp from beneath the bedclothes and the fat man hopped on one foot, holding the other. His eyes had gone wide again. “Move!” Sharrow yelled.
They walked through the apartments; the fat brother limped, leaving a trail of blood. She limped after him, frowning at the red spots they were leaving in a trail behind them. She kept looking back. They climbed steps, crossed a terrace underneath a roof of stained glass, and then the fat man pointed a shaking hand at a door.
She stationed him two metres back from the door, a finger to her lips. “Keep him there,” she told Feril quietly. The android stood behind the naked man, gripping his quivering shoulders. She went to the wall at the side of the door and tested the handle. It turned and she pushed; the door swung open.
“No!” the fat man screamed, an instant before his torso exploded open through a giant red crater in his midriff. Blood gushed from his mouth as his eyes rolled back and his entrails flooded out. She ducked and rolled across the bottom of the door, firing.
Feril let go of the man and stepped to the side.
Sharrow jumped up and stuck her head round the side of the door; Molgarin lay on the floor inside, screaming.
“You?” she said, frowning.
Molgarin was propped up on his elbows, howling. He was dressed in a dull habit; the HandCannon lay where he had dropped it. The laser had burned deep into one shin and shattered the other; blood pumped onto a dark carpet.
He saw her. “Don’t kill me!” he screamed. “Don’t kill me! I’m not immortal! I’m an actor, not some warlord! My name’s Lefin Chrolleser! I worked in a rep company on Trond I swear! For pity’s sake, please! He made me do it! He made me! I’ll take you to him! Please don’t kill me!” He put his head back, sobbing and spluttering. “God, my legs! My legs!” He looked back at her, eyes streaming, and wailed, “Oh, please don’t kill me, please… I promise I’ll take you to him…”
Sharrow looked at Feril. “Could you carry him?” she asked.
The android nodded. “I think so.”
She burned the man’s leg wound with the laser to stop the blood. His screams echoed through the stained-glass rooms.
They walked unhindered through the midst of the chained. Nobody followed them. Feril carried the moaning man. She limped in front, following his whispered directions.
They took a creakingly ancient lift, descending into the bowels of the House down a circular shaft.
He watched the scene at the gatehouse on the monitor. Armed monks swarmed over the wreckage and ran along the walls. Ancient weapons were hauled out from under tarpaulins inside long-neglected towers; geriatric tanks were trundled out of storage and hauled into positions where their rusty cannons could cover the breach.
He shook his head. He ought to have attended to this. He had been foolish to rely so much-as they had-on the reputation of the place keeping people away.
He checked the bank of broadcast and subscription-beamed monitors again. Most stations local to southern Caltasp were blanked out. The rest of Golter was reporting on the small war that had broken out with the Rebel States. The Court was keeping a surprisingly firm grip on the relevant facts. His own information was that the war had already gone tactically nuclear, and larger weapons couldn’t be ruled out. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it was depressing and elating at the same time; another pointless war, another increase in Golter’s lamentably high background radiation level and yet more destruction… But this might be the beginning of the end for the World Court. The time might be coming.
He looked at the House monitor screens.-They really ought to have proper security surveillance. There wasn’t even any surviving record of exactly what had happened at the gate; the recording apparatus had been sited in the gatehouse itself.
The chamber’s rear-interior door chimed. He checked the monitor.
It was that fool Chrolleser… He started to look away.
… and Sharrow.
He looked back, stunned.
Chrolleser looked feverish and sweaty; he held the HandCannon he’d asked to keep after the fiasco in the Keep. It was pointed at Sharrow’s head.
“Sir!” he gulped. “Sir; look! I have her! And she has brought the Gun!”
He closed his mouth; it must have fallen open. He pulled the monitor view back. The two were alone in the long corridor that led back to the old elevator shaft. The Gun was strapped to Sharrow’s side. Her eyes looked old and defeated, her face grey and wan. So that was who had wrecked the door! He should have guessed.
“Come in!” he yelled, punching the door button. He buzzed the Restricted Library, switched the desk camera on and directed the transmission to the Library, then jumped up from his seat and ran across the chamber, up the flight of stone steps and along the balcony to the opening door.
He skidded to a stop in front of it as Sharrow clicked a magazine back into place in the stock of the HandCannon, cocked the gun and pointed it at a spot between his eyes.
Behind her Chrolleser seemed to have fainted, head lolling to one side, even though he was still standing up. Then something moved underneath his bulky habit and he bent forward. The actor collapsed to the floor, moaning; the android the team had taken with them from Vembyr slid out from under the back of Chrolleser’s habit, holding a laser rifle.
He was aware that his mouth had opened again. He stared from Sharrow to Chrolleser to the android, then back to Sharrow again.
She smiled. “Hello, Geis,” she said. The HandCannon in her bandaged hand barely wavered as she punched him in the jaw with her other fist.
“No! No, Sharrow! You’ve got the whole thing wrong! I captured Molgarin. He’s my prisoner. Look, I’m just glad you’re safe!” He laughed. “That’s quite a right jab you have there, but come on, this is ridiculous. Sharrow. Untie me.”
The chamber was big, irregularly shaped on several levels and tall-ceilinged. It was so packed with treasures that it looked like nothing more than a giant junk shop. Geis sat tied to one seat, Molgarin or Chrolleser or whatever his name was to another. The android stood in front of them, the laser rifle in its hand.
Geis had bled a little from one side of his mouth. He worked his chin now and again as he talked to her. The other man was mumbling, barely conscious.
Sharrow walked round the big stone table that dominated the chamber’s central area and on which she had deposited the Lazy Gun. The enormous table was loaded to overflowing with a whole trove of treasures; the less valuable items were not quite priceless.
She looked up from the casing of the Universal Principles to a rack of weapons she recognised from the undercroft of the tower in the fjord. A system of pulleys kept a load of jewel-encrusted harnesses suspended over the table. The harnesses looked about the right size for bandamyions. On the wall behind were a couple of giant diamond leaf ikons from the time of the Lizard Court. They were each the size of a house and she had read about them in school; they had been missing for three thousand years. There was a small door underneath the two ikons with wall tracks leading from it; the chain system extended even to here.