“What’s the matter?” I whispered.
“Tremon, you have to get out of here,” she told me. “They’re going to kill you before morning. There has just been a meeting about you with all the big shots present.”
I remembered Artur’s warning. So I had gone too far for prudence despite all the logic at my command.
“Now, listen carefully,” she continued. “Tin not going to let them do it. Not even if what they say is true. I’ve seen your kind of potential too rarely here, and I won’t see it nipped in the bud.”
I frowned and sat on the side of the bed. “What did they say?”
“That you aren’t Cal Tremon,” she whispered. “That you’re some sort of assassin sent here by the Confederacy to kill Lord Kreegan.”
“What!” I exclaimed, perhaps a bit too loudly. All traces of fatigue and headache vanished as the adrenaline started flowing.
“Shhh … I don’t know how much time we have—maybe none,” she cautioned. “Still, I like you enough to give you a fighting chance.” She hesitated a moment. “Is it true?”
I owed her an answer, but this wasn’t the time for honor. “I don’t know what they’re talking about,” I replied as sincerely as I could. “Hell, my prints, genetic coding—everything is on file. You ought to know I couldn’t be -anybody but me, and believe me, the last thing Cal Tremon could be is a Confederacy stooge.”
“Maybe,” she responded uncertainly. “But even in-system the Cerbrians swap bodies all the tune, so I wouldn’t depend too much on that defense. Look, it doesn’t matter to me, I—what was that?”
We both remained perfectly still, not even breathing. Whatever she’d heard, though, I couldn’t make out, and we both relaxed, although only slightly.
“Look, you have to go now,” she said urgently.
“Go? Where?”
“I don’t know,” she responded truthfully. “Away. Away from Zeis Keep entirely. Into the wild, I suppose. If you survive the wild and bide your time, make your way south to Moab Keep, find the Masters there, who are a sort of religious order descended from the original scientists who were stuck here. There and the wild are the only places you’ll be safe, and only at Moab can you complete your training. It won’t be easy. You’ll probably die anyway, or be caught by Artur and his agents, but at least you’ve got a chance. Stay here and you’re dead by sunup, I promise you.”
“I’ll go now,” I told her.
“Do you know how to get out at night?” she asked.
“I know,” I told her. “I make it a point to locate all the exits as soon as I’m in a place.”
“You’ll have to avoid the other organized Keeps,” she cautioned me. “The knights will all have the word in a few days, all over the planet. Now go. Fast and far!”
I grabbed her and hugged her. “Vola, fine lady, I won’t forget this.”
She laughed softly. “I really think you might make it,” she said with a mixture of sincerity and wonder. “I really think you might. I have to admit I sort of hope you do.”
I left her and eased out into the hallway, which was dimly lit by two lanterns far down on either side. I knew the way out, but I wasn’t about to take it right away. Instead, I waited in a darkened recess until I saw Vola leave and go the other way. Maybe she was doing me the biggest favor of my Lilith existence, but I never trusted anyone completely.
Once she’d gone, I sneaked back into the room and used the bedding and pillows to make a rough form in the bed. Then I went out and down to one of the small holes that accessed the service corridors and crept back toward the room on the level above it. I located the peephole with some difficulty in the pitch darkness only by knowing where it had to be and by counting the number of such holes from my entry back to the room. I wanted to see what would happen next. Zeis Keep was a large area; I could hardly clear it before the alarm went out anyway, so I didn’t intend to try, not right away. First I would see if anyone did come in the night to do me in—and if so, who. If not, I was fully prepared to return to the room in midmorning and face down Vola.
The fact that they’d somehow gotten word I was an agent was important enough.
There probably weren’t three or four people in the whole Confederacy who would have known, and everyone but my counterpart hovering up there somewhere would have been mind wiped of the knowledge. Then I remembered the penetration of Military System Command’s core computers and realized that somewhere in there the information could be pieced together. What they had done once they could very well have done again. For all I knew, the Confederacy was currently at war with those mysterious aliens.
But the fact that they’d pieced together some facts and come to the correct conclusion about my status didn’t mean they were totally convinced of it. This could merely be a test to see if I really would jump. At this point I was determined to play by my own rules.
Suddenly I heard noises in the corridor. Two, maybe more, people walking with firm, confident steps toward me. I heard them now below, just outside the door to my room, then saw the door open cautiously.
There were three of them, I decided, two of whom stepped into the room while the third remained outside. One was Artur—he was hard to miss. The other was a rather ordinary man of middle years who was obviously from the civilized worlds. He, too, was dressed as a Master and held a small lantern which lit the room with an eerie glow.
“He’s gone!” the stranger whispered unbelievingly.
“What?” Artur thundered; then he stalked over to the bed and violently ripped the fluffed-up bedding away. He spun around angrily, and I had never seen as nasty a look as he radiated then. “Someone tipped him off. m know who and I’ll make him pay, by Godl”
“You will do nothing of the kind,” said the third man, out of sight outside the door. His voice had an odd quality, somewhat diffuse and unfocused, almost mechanical; it hardly sounded human at all. “He is a fully trained and capable agent. One of their best, we must assume, perhaps the best of the current crop. I think he realized he overplayed his hand this afternoon. We will have to find him, Artur. I charge you with that task. You find him while he’s still weak and vulnerable and untrained, or he’ll fry you with a glance and eat you for breakfast. Right now he is a minor nuisance, but potentially he is the most dangerous man on this planet, possibly as dangerous or more so than I. You find him and kill him, Artur—or one day he will seek out and kill us all.”
Artur bowed subserviently, his face impassive to that threat, which did a lot for my ego and hopes. And then the dark Master uttered words that chilled me beyond belief.
“Yes, My Lord Kreegan.”
I cursed inwardly that I had no way of getting a look at the Lord of Lilith himself without his also getting a look at me.
Artur gestured to the other man. “Come on, let’s roll out the troops. We have work to do. He’s got to cross a lot of open area within the Keep to get to the wild, and he’ll be moving fast to beat the sun. We may catch him yet”
With that, both men left and I heard their boots against the stone and tile floor clicking swiftly away. Still I did not move, nor did I intend to do so for quite some time. Artur was right, of course—there was almost no way at all I could cover the distance from the Castle to the wild in the remaining darkness, and to be caught in daylight with all the pawns out would be to be absolutely trapped. No, I intended to stay right where I was for the next hour or two, then to exist by day inside the corridors of the Castle itself. I would flee, yes, but as prepared as I could and on my own terms and schedule, not theirs.