Nothing changed. Lafayette stifled his disappointment. The outfit had been dry-cleaned at least once since he had last used the flat-walker, years before, and it was probably ruined. Too bad: it would have been a big help. He raised a hand to brush away a cobweb that was touching his face; the sensation of a gossamer touch persisted. Then he noticed a faint glow in front of him —emanating from the stone wall? Suddenly excited, Lafayette took a cautious step, and felt the almost impalpable sensation he remembered from the last time he had walked through solid masonry.
For a fleeting instant he glimpsed the misty gray room, and Frumpkin's angular face shouting at him, "For the last time!" Then, without transition, he was out of doors, smelling fresh air. The sudden blaze of full sunlight dazzled him. He groped, feeling his way across uneven turf.
"Well, so you decided to come back and take my offer after all!" Frodolkin's hearty voice boomed at him. Hard hands clutched Lafayette's arms. He opened his eyes, saw that he was back in the ragged clearing from which he had fled only minutes before.
"You move good, kid," Iron-Head Mike declared. "I din't even see you until you was halfway past that stretch of wall. That's good. It's gonna be a big help to you when you get to the duke's camp. When I seen the phantom arm come outa the door and haul you in, I figgered you was done for. But I guess you know a few angles after all. Mike? Help our pal to sit down and give him some eats; he looks beat."
A hearty shove against his back sent O'Leary stumbling forward until a foot hooked his ankle and he fell heavily.
"Turn over, Bub," Mike's hoarse voice commanded. "The boss wants you sitting, not laying," Lafayette turned over and sat up. In the shade now, he was able, by squinting ferociously, to see through the glare an unfamiliar patch of neglected garden stretching across to a battered but intact granite wall, above which the tower reared up, intact, but stripped of its ivy. He was in yet another locus, he realized with a stab of panic. How would he ever find Aphasia II again, where poor little Daphne was probably crying her eyes out, expecting him to appear at any moment to take her home. He stood, ignoring Mike's yelclass="underline" "I ain't told you to stand up, Bub!
You wait right where you was, and I'll rustle ya a peaner butter and sardine sarnidge and some good sweet port!"
This new locus, O'Leary realized, was a close relative of the one he had just left, differing largely in that it seemed just a few stages less deteriorated. General Frodolkin, he saw, now wore a virtually intact, though faded uniform. His beard had been trimmed and the rust was gone from the sword blade. He was approaching, idly whacking at dandelion heads with the weapon. As Mike drew back a booted leg to sweep Lafayette's feet from under him, the latter dropped to a sitting position and promptly kicked Mike's knee, causing the big fellow to collapse like a condemned tenement under the wrecker's ball. As Mike snarled curses, Frodolkin came up, tsked mildly, and ordered the fellow to abstain from furthur drinking on duty on pain of beheading, a fate he dramatized by lopping a blossom from a wild-growing rose bush with a quick sweep of his bared blade.
"As for you, young fellow," he said, turning his attention to O'Leary, "if by any chance you should fail in your sacred mission, your fate will be no less dire, though slower."
"Where's Marv?" O'Leary demanded, ignoring the threat.
"Oh, yes, poor Marv," the General echoed. "I seem to recall that I turned him over to my PPS for a friendly chat. Hark! That's him now, I don't doubt," he interrupted himself as hoarse screams echoed from the middle distance.
"Free him," Lafayette ordered. "He's my partner, and he goes with me. By the way, where am I supposed to find this Duke Bother-Be-Damned?"
"Not at all a bad idea, O'Leary," Frodolkin said expansively. "I shall take it under advisement. Meanwhile, I'll do as you suggest. Oh, Percy!" he concluded with a yell. There was a crashing in the underbrush and a short, roly-poly fellow wearing a soiled leather blacksmith's apron appeared, dashing sweat from his brow.
"Yeah, boss?" he said in an anxious tone, his small beady eyes flicking to O'Leary. "A new client, eh?
Swell. Just gimme a minute to fan old Marv and put Band-Aids on his hurties. He was a stubborn cuss, but he finely spilled the beans. You better keep a eye out for a ruffian name of Old Eerie or Something, which Marv says he's planning to pull one o' them cooze-like. You know, worm his way inta yer worship's confidence, then turn the tables. Seems like he's got a lotta magical gear stashed in the Tower yonder, which he can turn hisself inta a big bird and all."
"Thank you, Percy, a succinct report," the general replied blandly. "Now you may bring Marv into the presence. Conscious, mind you." He turned a stern eye on Lafayette. "So," he murmured, "you plot treachery, eh? You disappoint me, lad; I'd great plans for you."
"I haven't plotted anything." Lafayette demurred. "I don't even know which way is up yet. All I want is to find Daphne—but I don't suppose she's here anyway," he concluded hopelessly.
"I assure you, she is not," Frodolkin said firmly. "You may as well abandon that fantasy. After your triumphal return, you shall have second choice, after only myself, of the nubile wenches of the region, which I hear the Duke's got a nice little seraglio of his own."
"I don't want a seraglio, I just want Daphne," O'Leary replied doggedly. "And if I'm going to kidnap this duke for you, I'd better get started." He rose, brushing leaf mold from his seat. "Do I get any weapons or supplies?" he inquired, "or do I just walk into his armed camp and bring him out barehanded and eat when I get back?"
"That's the idea, lad," Frodolkin concurred smoothly. "I knew you'd know how to go about it. His camp is sort of in that direction," he added, pointing vaguely. "I wouldn't send a man out unbriefed," he explained. "Only about half a day's walk, if you avoid the bog, of course."
"Don't you think you ought to give me some sort of ID?" Lafayette inquired, "so I don't get scragged by your own troops along the way."
"No need, Al. Just tell them you're under my personal protection. But mind you stay clear of ambushes and the like."
"And when I get back, you'll let me go back into the Tower, right?" Lafayette specified, starting off uncertainly in the direction indicated.
"To be sure, dear boy," Frodolkin agreed absently. "Though I, for one, couldn't be dragged in there by wild Caucasian ponies. Still, I suppose you have your magical apparatus stored there, eh?"
"It's not that," Lafayette demurred, heading for a trail which seemed to lead more or less in the direction Frodolkin had indicated. "It's just that the lab's my sole link with Artesia—and my only hope of getting back to wherever I left poor Daphne stranded, with Central's help of course—unless Allegorus has other ideas. I don't really trust that slicker. Well, bye, I'm off."
"So you are, lad, but on such a mission as yours, perhaps a trifle of brain-fever will be more help than hindrance." He waved carelessly, nearly nicking Mike, who had regained his feet and was muttering to himself, scowling after Lafayette.
"Oh, hi, boss," Marv's voice called blurrily as Marv himself staggered from a side path to fall in beside O'Leary. "I give Percy a bum steer," he confided. "Tole him you could turn yourself into a big bird, and all. Sure you don't wanta try it?" His tone was wheedling. Lafayette ignored the suggestion and forged ahead along the poorly defined trail.
Chapter Six
As O'Leary rounded a sharp turn in the rude path, he heard voices ahead—high pitched, almost squeaky voices:
"... only got a lousy one-percent droppage allowance."
"... three jumps and a slide outside our A-O Zone, and how we're gonna get back—"