"That is all well and good," said I, "but I fear you may yet find yourself stranded in Time's Arctic wastes. I still don't see how we, without your assistance, are to accomplish the task you have set us. Merdenne has no doubt hidden the swords in the farthest crannies of the Earth. And even if he hasn't revealed how he was tricked out of this one, his henchmen will still be on their guard against anyone who comes snooping after the swords."
"True enough." Ambrose remained unruffled in the face of my many protests. "It will take great courage and guile on the parts of all of you to accomplish what must be done. And failure is more likely than not, no matter how valiantly you struggle. But you won't be merely casting about in the dark for the scattered Excaliburs. As I said earlier, I have suspected for a little while the nature of Merdenne's plotting. Many persons of both high and low rank, odd and conventional positions, are in my employ, for one reason or another. Some of them value the same ideals as I do, others are a little more mercenary. They have all been enlisted to locate the hidden Excaliburs, and have met with some success. The swords are objects of such power, even in their weakened state, that they cannot long be hidden from eyes that know what to look for. These agents of mine will assist you in your task."
"How are we to contact them?" He drew a sealed envelope from his coat pocket and handed it across the table to me. "Here is the name and house number of the person whom I feel you should seek out first. It will soon be daylight. I would advise that the three of you retire to my residence and rest until this evening. Work of this kind, no matter how good its intentions, is best done under the cover of darkness, and you will need all your strength as well. In the meantime I will do that which I have set for myself. When you set out once more upon your errand, it will be in a world that holds no direct threat from Merdenne – or assistance from me."
Arthur tapped the side of his empty glass. "A course lined with pitfalls," he mused. "But I can see no other."
"We've done all right so far," said Tafe.
I struck the palm of my hand with the envelope Ambrose had given me, while refraining from voicing the doubts that crept upward along my spine. What good would it do to say that none of us – not even Ambrose – accurately knew the true nature of the accomplices of Merdenne from whom we had to wrest the several Excaliburs? Indeed, how trustworthy were the cohorts of Ambrose into whose hands we were entrusting our lives and mission? Misgivings darker than these, perhaps even unnameable, moved within me.
The sun's edge reddened the oily waters that lapped against the docks. I slipped the envelope that held the thread-end of our destiny into my breast pocket, just over my unquiet heart.
6
A dark place that resisted the ascending light of morning; to this came a figure whose pale face and hands con trasted with his dark cloak. He pushed open the narrow, craze-hinged door and entered, leaving behind him the cramped street where the buildings leaned together to provide pools of shadow for the tattered forms of men and women, London's human refuse, that loitered at the base of the dark walls.
Candles guttered in the room, and shapes moved and watched beyond the yellow circles of light. Another face, so pale it seemed to shed its own ghastly radiance in the dark, turned away from its companion and up at the newcomer. "Dr. Ambrose." The voice was flat, unemotional. Only a nar rowing of the eyes revealed the hate and loathing beneath.
"You left a chess game unfinished," said the newcomer. "That's not like you, Merdenne."
Pale also was the flesh of the other figure sitting at the table, but unhealthily so, like the belly of a rotting fish, damp and repellent to the imagined touch. A pair of blue glass lenses beneath the skull's fringe of fine white hair completed the face that followed the words of the two identical men.
"I have larger amusements to pursue," said Merdenne levelly. "In fact, you have come upon me in the midst of discussing a point of strategy with my associate here." The sick-looking face with the blue glasses nodded in hollow politeness. "I fear I have no time for that smaller game."
"No time?" Ambrose smiled. "I think otherwise." His hand darted forward and locked about the wrist of his double. The candles flicked out and the room was plunged into darkness. When the candle was lit again, the eyes be hind the blue glasses saw a turned-over chair beside himself, and nothing else.
Ambrose painfully raised himself from the rubble strewn ground. He touched his hand to the side of his face, looked and saw blood bright against his fingers. A ringing noise filled his ears.
A few yards away, Merdenne staggered to his feet. He shook his head, then gazed about him at the vista of ruined masonry, the crumbling fragments of a once great city. His eyes shifted focus for a few seconds, as if looking beyond the scene's material aspect.
"You fool!" He spun about on his heel and glared in fury at Ambrose. "You've trapped us here!"
Wearily, Ambrose sat upon the base of a shattered mar ble column. "We're not trapped," he said, gazing at grey clouds moving across a grey sky. "Just removed from the game for a little while. Let our pawns play out the moves we've arranged for them." He gestured at the scene around them. "This will pass, one way or another, when the strug gle is decided." With a sharp-pointed stone he began to scratch at the dirt in front of his boots.
"What are you doing?" snapped Merdenne.
A cross-hatch of sixty-four squares showed in the dust. Ambrose began picking through the small stones around him, sorting out the darkest and the lightest and arranging them on the squares. "This will do for a rook," he said. "And here's your king… I believe you had just castled when we left off, though I'll let you take that move back, if you wish." He glanced up at Merdenne's scowling face. "Come, come." he chided. "We have a little time here. Can you think of a better way to pass it?"
Merdenne glared at him for a few more seconds, then without speaking sat down on the other side of the board inscribed in the dust.
I drew the envelope from my pocket and once more read Ambrose's message – Tom Clagger can be trusted – followed by a house number in Rosemary Lane. As the three of us – Arthur, Tafe and myself – had set out from Ambrose's lodgings just as dusk was setting upon the city and had spent some time searching fruitlessly for the mysterious Mr. Clagger's residence, it had now gotten quite dark. The mazy streets and alleys of this poor section of London, packed tight with the most wretched of the urban refuse, seemed even denser and less penetrable at night. I pocketed the envelope again and turned to my companions.
"I fear we have lost our way," said I. This, though we were not out of sight of some of the city's tallest landmarks! Such is the intricacy of these lesser explored urban parts. "Stay here and I shall seek directions." I crossed the narrow street and headed for a group of roughly clad men standing about the open door of an ale shop.
My undertaking was accompanied by a little trepidation, for in an area such as this the possibility of violence for the sake of robbery or even mere amusement is always something to be reckoned with. Our little expeditionary party had tried to dress as plainly as possible, but our great-cloaks simply by their cleanliness attracted the sinister attention of the loiterers on the street. But the urgency of our mission propelled me on toward the men who were even now scowling at my approach.