A.R.Yngve
DARC AGES:
City Of Masks
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Chapter 9
On the courtyard outside the palace, the city lord ordered the burning of their clothes, as the doctor had suggested. Berluchos told the visitors to wait with him for the palace staff to assist them.
It might have been a ruse. But Berluchos was serious enough to order Gradischa and Bottichea to stay away from him, while he sent for new clothes for everyone who had visited the prisoner - including himself and the guards.
Gradischa stood at the far end of the courtyard, waved at the dull-eyed, barely moving Kensaburé and shouted across: "I shall wait for you, my brave warrior! I want to hear all about your great adventures!"
What went on in Kensaburé's drugged mind at that moment? He was thinking, after a fashion:
Cold outside. Moist. Rain in the air. So hard to think. Something in the wine. Feels good. No. Not good. Try to remember. That fat lady with the stupid smile invited me to her room and offered me a drink... no. Not a smile. It was a mask. I drank the wine... the whole damned bottle. It had an odd aftertaste. I remember now. I've been drugged. And while I was down, she took off her face... I mean her mask... and I saw... HELP! Holy Goddess, get me out of this cursed place! Then I fainted, and woke up when a little ray of sunlight shone in my face... woke up...
He let out a faint yelp, and blinked with suddenly clear eyes. He found himself standing next to Awonso on the courtyard outside the palace.
"Awonso! I saw her face! Great gods. Did she drug you too, boy?" He shook the shorter, younger man's shoulder until Awonso babbled at him to stop.
"Stop that... sire..." Awonso blinked, rubbed his head, uncertain of what caused his splitting headache - the vigorous shaking, or bad health. "The wine! I knew there was something wrong about it. But I had to wash down that blasted tablet..." He blinked again and became fully awake. "Where the King's shite is my radio set?"
The eyes of Berluchos watched them through the eyeholes of the grinning face, revealing nothing.
Kensaburé remembered now the episode from the catacombs with the prisoner, every ugly detail, and his mind filled with grim, determined insight. How much easier it was for him to think and plan when he had a clearly defined enemy.
This city was ruled by thoroughly corrupt men and women, who spat on the ideals he held for sacred and would gladly lie to his face to stay in power.
But not even he was gullible enough to accept the city lord's bluff that one single captive Leper - with a nose that size - had come all the way here alone. Threo was right; This is Leper City.
Without Awonso's radio set, there was no chance of sending the distress call - and perhaps it would not have worked anyhow, what with the unexplained static.
"Is the Blackwhale...?"
"Gone, sire," Awonso said. "And forget about bribing our way out on another ship. They can close the harbor with that giant chain, if you recall. And even if we could get past the chain, even if we sailed in a whole cluster of boats, their guns could sink every one of them before we got far enough."
"We could jump ship and swim."
"I cannot swim. Sire." Awonso shook his head. "It is five hundred kilometers to the nearest other city on this coast. Perhaps you want to try the tunnel we saw, which might lead to an opening, where we might run into Lepers, and..."
"Enough! I hear you. Lady Okono, I could really use Buchu now. And I have to find Jacob, to help me into my armor. Goddess willing, he remembered to set the booby-trap."
Okono urged her baby-eyed robot closer. Never had a robot looked more endearing, its movements more childlike. Even Threo, who detested robots, had to admit to himself that Kiti-Mo made an exception to his dislike.
"What booby-trap?" she asked.
The blond knight lowered his voice slightly. "It is a matter of personal honor, my lady. If anyone tries to move my armor without using the hidden switch... boom!"
The city lord's guards had their rifles trained on the visitors and there was no longer any doubt that Kensaburé's party were hostages to the city lord.
"I heard that!" screamed the city lord, standing no more than twelve feet away. "You will not blow up my beautiful palace! Captain! No one shall touch or move our guests' luggage! Make sure it is left alone! And lock up Sarastos!"
The captain of the palace guard saluted Berluchos and ran toward the entrance doors. The masked Gradischa waved at Kensaburé from the entrance steps, while her veiled daughter stood silent beside her.
Kensaburé shuddered inwardly at the blurred memory of Gradischa's true face. If her daughter even remotely resembled her mother, there was no chance he was going to flirt with either of them, even to save his life...
The servants came out of the palace carrying torches, firewood and piles of fresh clothing.
"There," said Berluchos. "Now, this should not take long..."
"Lie down," Okono said in a terse voice.
"What?" asked Kensaburé, unable to connect her voice with the pale artifice of her ever-pleasing mask.
Okono tore off her mask, and at once he understood. Hers was the face he had seen on her late brother Kamo's face during that Spring Joust, when he had beaten both Kensaburé and his bigger brother Saburé, and uttered the command "Yield" to Saburé's bruised, bloodied face. She had her brother's killer eyes.
"Lie down!"
During the space of a single breath, Kensaburé grabbed Awonso and Threo by their collars and let himself fall down on his back, pulling them down with him.
As they fell, Okono shouted: "Kiti-Mo-Fan!"
In the passing of a second, the skull-masked guards shifted their aim down at the men on the ground, hesitated and were about to aim at the standing Okono, when something completely unexpected happened.
The short robot's painted eyeballs plopped out of their sockets; its four feet locked into the ground with a hiss of suction cups, its knees clicked into a locked straight position, and a needle-thin laser-beam flickered out of the center of its swiveling head.
The head spun like some possessed puppet, and out of the empty eye-sockets spewed crackling, rapid gunfire.
Over the deafening noise, Threo could swear he was hearing the robot's synthetic voice shout with glee - or maybe that was only in his imagination.
The gunfire did not hit Okono, but all around her the guards dropped like flies with bullet holes in their white masks. Anyone who was holding a gun aimed at the hostages immediately became a dead man.
Okono took one look at the carnage around her, pointed at the staggering figure of Berluchos, and uttered a sharp command: "Kiti-Mo-Fan!"
"No," the eyeless robot replied. "You taught me only to shoot to defend you. The target is not holding a weapon."
Okono groaned; this was not the best time to instruct the robot in advanced ethics. Berluchos got the respite he needed, and fled from the palace into the boat they had arrived in.
"To the harbor!" he cried. The rowers had them in motion before Kensaburé had come to his feet and grabbed a rifle from the dead guards. He fired a shot in vain, and the boat disappeared behind a street-corner.
Everyone in his party picked up a rifle. Okono also picked up and pocketed Kiti-Mo's two eyeballs. The robot's four legs detached themselves from the ground, and it bounded after its creator like a devoted dog.
Without a word, Kensaburé guided the party toward the palace entrance. He had to get his armor back, or he would be powerless to stop Berluchos.
Gradischa held up her gloved hands in front of her masked face, and her veiled daughter clutched Gradischa's skirts; the party ignored them and ran for the doors.
The doors slammed shut in their faces, and then came the click of bolts sliding into place. Iron bars covered all windows on the ground floor. Okono lifted one of the painted eyeballs. "Ten-second fuse!" she twisted the two halves of the ball and the clockwork inside creaked ten times.
She dropped the eyeball by the foot of the palace doors and shouted "Hold your ears!"
The others, including Gradischa and Bottichea, ran to the row of columns that lined the walls, and took cover between them.
The bomb went off with a large blast, shattering every window in the front walls of the palace; the barred double-doors flew off their hinges and into the great hall.
Before he had time to think things over, Kensaburé was dashing out of cover, holding the bayonet for a charge, and the others were following him.
"Wait, wait!" Awonso said. "I have an idea."
The battle for the city had begun.
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DARC AGES (c)A.R.Yngve 1995, 2000, 2004, 2006. All rights reserved. May not be copied without permission.
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