“Uh, Arth"—Dennis’s mouth felt dry—"I think you’d better look at this.”
“At what, that little box? Are you lookin’ through it, or at somethin’ inside it?”
“Through it. It’s like a sort of magic tube that makes things far away look bigger. It may take you a minute to get used to it, but when you do, I want you to use it to look at that tavern at the end of the street.”
Arth squatted forward and took the monocular Dennis had to show him how to hold it. Arth grew excited.
“Hey! This is great! I can see like th’ proverbial eagle of Crydee!... I can count th’ steins on th’ table over at... Great Palmi! That’s Perth! An’ he’s talkin’ to Lord Hern himself!”
Dennis nodded. He felt a hollowness within his chest, as if fragile hope had suddenly turned into something heavy and hard.
“That scum!” Arth cursed. “He’s turnin’ us in! His dad even served with mine under th’ old Duke! Ill have his intestines an’ practice ’em into hawsers! I’ll...”
Dennis slumped back against the wall behind them. He was fresh out of ideas. There didn’t seem to be any way to warn his friends back at Arth’s apartment, or in the waterfront warehouse, where construction of the escape balloon had just begun.
He felt so helpless that, once again, the strange detachment from reality seemed to fall over him. He couldn’t help it.
Arth made a grand art out of cursing. He had quite a vocabulary of invective. For a while it kept him busy while the Earthman simply felt miserable.
Then Dennis blinked. A brief, sharp reflection had caught his eye from one of the neighboring rooftops not too far away.
He sat up and looked. Something small was moving about among the vents and rooftop debris.
“They’ve got somebody!” Arth declared, still staring through the monocular at the scene at the cafe. “They’re draggin’ him down from my place…” Arth whooped. “But they’ve only got one! The others must have got away! Perth don’t look happy at all! He’s tuggin’ at Lord Hern’s arm, pointin’ to th’ waterfront.
“Hah! By th’ time they get there all our people will be gone! Serves ’em right!”
Dennis barely heard Arth. He got up slowly, staring at the shape on the rooftop several blocks away; it glistened and scuttled from hiding place to hiding place.
Arth exclaimed. “It’s Mishwa they’ve caught! And…and he’s broken free and managed to jump Perth! Go get him, Mishwa! They’re tryin’ to get him off before he—Hey! Dennis, give that back!”
Dennis had snatched away the monocular. Ignoring Arth’s protests, he tried not to shake as he focused it on the roof a hundred meters away. Something quick and blurry passed in front of his line of sight.
It took him a few moments to find the exact spot. Then for seconds all he could see was the roof vent the thing had ducked behind.
At last, something rose from behind it—an eye at the end of a slender stalk that swiveled left and right, scanning.
“Well, I’m the son of a blue-nosed gopher…”
“Dennzz! Give me back th’ box! I gotta know if Mish got that rat Perth!”
Arth tugged at his trouser leg, Dennis shook free, focusing the monocular.
What finally moved out from behind the roof vent had changed subtly since the last time Dennis had seen it, on a highway late one dark night. It had turned a paler shade, blending well with the color of the buildings. Its sampling arms and cameras scanned the crowd below as it moved.
On its back it carried a passenger.
“Pix!” Dennis cursed. The little animal voyeur had found the perfect accomplice for its favorite activity, sidewalk superintending. It was riding Dennis’s Sahara Tech exploration ’bot like its own personal mount!
The multiple coincidences and irony were overwhelming. All Dennis knew was that the robot was the key to everything…to rescuing his friends and the Princess, to getting out of Zuslik, to repairing the zeivatron…to everything!
What couldn’t a man who knew what he was doing accomplish, simply by using the Practice Effect on a sophisticated little machine like that? It could help him build more machines, even a new return mechanism!
He needed that ’bot!
“Pix!” Dennis shouted. “Robot! Come to me and report! At once! Do you hear me? Right away!”
Arth grabbed furiously at his arm. In the street below people were looking up curiously.
The strange pair on the far roof seemed to pause briefly and turn his way.
“Prior orders are overridden!” he screamed again. “Come to me right now!”
He would have shouted more, but then Dennis was knocked down as Arth took him behind the knees in a powerful tackle. The little thief was wiry and strong. By the time Dennis managed to pull free to look again, the robot and pixolet had disappeared from sight.
Arth was cursing at him soundly. Dennis shook his head as he sat up, rubbing his temple. His attack of tunnel vision had evaporated, almost as suddenly as it had come on. But it might already be too late.
Oh, boy, he realized. What I just did.
“All right,” he told Arth. “Let me go! Let’s get out of here. We can go now.”
But moments later, when soldiers climbed onto the roof, Dennis realized that he was wrong again.
7. Pundit Nero
1
On the morning after the evening of his second imprisonment, Dennis awoke with a crick in his neck, straw in his ear, and the sound of voices in the corridor outside his cell.
He tried to sit up, and winced as movement prodded his bruises. He sank back into the straw and sighed.
“Argh,” he said concisely.
It was surprisingly easy to recognize his surroundings. Although he had never been in a dungeon before, he had visited countless examples in stories and movies. He looked this one over, impressed with the verisimilitude.
Apparently it had been well practiced as a dungeon. It was dank, cold, and apparently lice-infested. Dennis scratched.
It even sounded like a dungeon, from the slow, monotonous, drip-dripping of wall seepage, to the hollow clacking of passing boots in the corridor and the gravelly voices of the guards.
“…don’t know why they had to bring in a strange-looking foreigner to help us down here. Even if he does come wit’ hoity-toity references,” he heard one voice say.
“Yeah,” another agreed. “We was doin’ just fine…a little torture, a few convenient accidents, light practice. But this place sure has been lousy since Yngvi arrived…”
The voices faded as the footsteps receded down the corridor.
Dennis sat up and shivered. He was stark naked—they weren’t about to make for a second time the mistake of leaving a wizard with his own property. He felt around for the one filthy blanket his captors had given him.
He found it wrapped around his cellmate. Dennis nudged the fellow with his foot. “Arth. Arth! You’ve got two blankets now! Give me back mine!”
The little thief s eyelids opened, and he stared at Dennis blankly for a moment before focusing. He smacked his lips.
“Why should I? It’s ’cause of you I’m here. I shoulda said good-bye an’ let you go your own way right after we got out of th’ stockade.”