Killer

N'Sumu watched the armored Greek with a stride as careless as that of a male lion at the height of his powers. The eye Vonones watched in profile flickered from sandy opaqueness to the abnormal, glittering clarity which was nonetheless normal for N'Sumu. "Do you know what he intends to do?" the Egyptian demanded without looking away from Lycon's back. The beastcatcher was nearing the apartment building opposite.

"I think so," said Vonones. "I'm afraid I do." Then he added, "Let's get inside."

There was a large party of animal-handlers in the courtyard of the apartment block; most of them trained in the arena rather than the field but the best that could be assembled in Rome on the present schedule. Vonones had as little confidence in their ability to capture the lizard-ape in time as he did in the hope that Lycon's armor would preserve him for more than one swipe of the beast's talons. A creature which could unlock a cage with its claws was unlikely to be seriously deterred by protection which did not cover the throat or the great arteries of its victim's thighs.

Such benefit as the sword could bring would be effectively posthumous; and even that was doubtful.

N'Sumu opened the sanctuary door whose corroded hinges had proven more of an obstacle than the padlock which Lycon had struck off in preparation for this night. Temples were centers of ceremony, not worship. In all likelihood, this sanctuary had not been opened in eighty years, ever since the Emperor Augustus had refurbished and rededicated it and scores of similar temples in superficial homage to the ancient values which his programs were undermining.

The door had double leaves which pivoted inward. Before they had swung open a hand's breadth-too narrow a slit to pass even a creature as lithe as the sauropithecus-the Egyptian paused. A beam of light, tinged slightly with blue and seemingly as palpable as a jet of water, gushed into the sanctuary and flooded the walls, floor, and ceiling. Only then did N'Sumu open the door leaves the rest of the way so that he and the Armenian could enter. The light appeared to have come from somewhere on his chest; but his toga was unmarked and unremarkable, and Vonones had only memory and the afterimage to assure him that the light had existed at all.

"If you're worried about it getting in b-before us," the animal dealer said with the hint of a stutter despite his attempts to control it, "it could be behind those." His whip nodded toward one of the door leaves, then the other. At the moment, he was more afraid of N'Sumu than he was of the sauropithecus itself.

"No, it couldn't," said the Egyptian as he stepped into the sanctuary. There was no reason not to hide what had happened, because neither Vonones nor Lycon would survive the capture of the phile. They knew too much, and they had made dangerously accurate extrapolations from what they knew. Still, the emissary saw no reason to add that the light would have stained itself bloody red had it played over the crouching form of the creature they sought.

The walls of the sanctuary were not pierced by windows, but several square feet of roof tile had blown off in past years to let in a dim column of moonlight like the sun drawing water through a break in the clouds. Vonones' eyes adapted to see in a room ten feet square and perhaps thirteen feet to the ridgepole. The cult statue had been replaced at the time the temple was reconstructed; but the replacement was of wood also and had decayed thoroughly during decades of neglect. Splits along the grain of the wood had cracked off much of the paint from the limbs and features of the goddess, and the torso had not been painted at all: a robe would be draped over the figure in the unlikely event of a ceremony at this shrine. The statue had less character in the moonlight than did the water-marks on the interior stucco of the walls.

The Armenian looked upward sharply, as the fact of the moonlight made him consider the opening through which it fell. But the Egyptian-and almost certainly Lycon, when he chose the location, though he had not said anything about it-had already considered and rejected that concern. Though the tiles were gone, the framing members of the roof were spaced too tightly for the beast to enter between them. That it could tear its way through beams which rain and the sun's heat had gutted of their strength was probable; but the delay would leave it at the mercy of whatever force it was that N'Sumu controlled.

That thought aroused a more serious question. The animal dealer shifted so that he could see past the bronze-ski

Aloud, Vonones said, "Master N'Sumu, will you be able to strike the creature down from this distance?"

The Egyptian did not look away from the facade of the building opposite. "I should be closer," he muttered. "Perhaps he'll lead it this way." He turned his head and added more sharply, "You understand that I can't afford to hit your friend Lycon instead of the beast?"

"Yes, of course," said Vonones, who misunderstood.

"The sauropithecus will give me only one opportunity," N'Sumu explained, "just as it did the first time. If I waste that chance, it will certainly deal with me before it finishes off your friend."

In a neutral voice, and returning his eyes to the empty doorways of the apartment block, Vonones said, "I see what you mean." He did, and he was more uncomfortable than ignorance had permitted him to be. His whip nodded in time with the angry pulse in his throat.

"Lycon," he added sharply, and the whip bobbed and held.

The man in armor stepped into the plaza, not from the arch to the courtyard as Vonones had expected but from the stairwell entrance giving onto the apartments above. He looked around, the motion and implied hesitation exaggerated by the rimmed globe of his helmet. His right hand touched the pommel of his sword, despite the fact that he already held a net with that hand.

N'Sumu noted the movement and said aloud, "You understand, Gaius Vonones-and your friend does-how the Emperor would react if his prize were killed instead of being captured?" He continued to face the opening and Lycon on the plaza beyond, but his eyes glanced sideways once and again to determine the Armenian's expression.

"Yes, I think I understand my lord and god as well as a barbarian from Nubia can be expected to do," Vonones said in a savagely controlled voice. The tremble of the whipstock increased, but the Armenian kept his eyes trained on the figure in armor. "And I think I understand Lycon as well."

As if he were a juggler on the stage, the figure in moonlight tossed something in the air. He tried but failed to catch it, betrayed by the lighting and the full-coverage helmet. His hobnails sparked visibly against the cobblestones of the plaza as he deliberately scuffed the object against the wall of the building before he picked it up again.

"Where did he get that?" N'Sumu snapped, his eyes once more beads of stone. He had kept his hands on the door leaves, blocking them to a safe approximation of being closed. Now in angry amazement, the Egyptian drew the doors further ajar.

"I gave it to him," said the animal dealer, satisfied for the first time in-far too long-by N'Sumu's obvious discomfiture. He had not known until that moment what it was that Lycon intended for the crushed remains of the lizard-ape's offspring. "From the site of the fire. This one, at least, was covered by masonry and not cremated." As Zoe and the children had been cremated, Vonones thought, and their ashes strewn in the Tiber-safe from further defilement by the creature Lycon had hunted…