A Private Cosmos

VI IN THE MIDDLE of the night, they came out of another house, having entered by the air shaft, and stepped past the sleepers. This house was on the street just below the emperor's palace. From here on, there would be no internal shaft co

And then, while they were skulking in the shadows at the base of the wall, they came across two booted feet sticking out of a dark alcove. The feet belonged to a dead sentry; another man lay dead by him. One had been stabbed in the throat; the other, strangled with wire.

"Nimstowl has been here!" Anana whispered. "He is called the Nooser, you know."

The torches of an approaching patrol flared three hundred yards down the street. Kickaha cursed Nimstowl because he had left the bodies there. Actually, however, it would make little difference to the patrols if the sentries were dead or missing from their posts. There would be alarms.

The small gate set in the wall was unlocked. It could be locked from the outside only; Kickaha and Anana, after taking the sentries1 weapons, went through it, and ran up the steep stairway between towering smooth walls. They were wheezing and sobbing when they reached the top.

From below, shouts rose. Torches appeared in the tiny gateway, and soldiers began to climb the steps. Drums tboomed; a bugle bararared.

The two ran, not toward the palace to their right but toward a steep flight of steps to their left. At the top of the steps, silver roofs and gray iron bars gleamed, and the odor of animals, straw, old meat and fresh dung reached them.

"The royal zoo," Kickaha said. "I've been here."

At the far end of a long flagstone walk, something gleamed like a thread in the hem of night. It shot across the moonlight and was in shadows, out again, in again. Then it faded into the huge doorway of a colossal white building.

"Nimstowl!" Anana said. She started after him, but Kickaha pulled her back roughly. Face twisted, white as silver poured out by the moon in a hideous mold, eyes wide as an enraged owl's, she snapped herself away from him.

"You dare to touch me, leblabbiyT*

"Any time," he said harshly. "For one thing, don't call me leblabbiy again. I won't just hit you. I'll kill you. I don't have to take that arrogance, that contempt. It's totally based on empty, poisonous, sick egotism. Call me that again, and I'll kill you. You aren't superior to me in any way, you know. You are dependent on me."

"I? Dependent? On you?"

"Sure," he said. "Do you have a plan for escape? One that might work, even if it is wild?"

Her effort to control herself made her shudder. Then she forced a smile. And if he had not known the concealed fury, he would have thought it the most beautiful, charming, seductive, etc., smile he had seen in two universes.

"No! I have no plan. You are right. I am dependent on you."

"You're realistic, anyway," he said. "Most Lords, I've heard, are so arrogant, they'd rather die than confess dependency or weakness of any kind."

This flexibility made her more dangerous, however. He must not forget that she was Wolffs sister. Wolff had told him that his sisters Vala and Anana were probably the two most dangerous human females alive. Even allowing for pardonable family pride, and a certain exaggeration, they probably were exceedingly dangerous.

"Stay here!" he said, and he went silently and swiftly after Nimstowl. He could not understand how the two Lords had managed to go straight here. How had they learned of the small secret gate in the temple? There could be only one way: during their brief stay in WolfTs palace, they had seen the map with its location. Anana had not been with them when that had happened, or if she had, she was keeping quiet for some reason of her own.

But if the two Lords could find out about it, why hadn't the Black Sellers also located it, since they would have had more time? Within a minute, he had his answer. The Bellers had known of the gate and had stationed two guards outside it. But these two were dead, one knifed, one strangled, and the corner of the building was swung open and light streamed out from it. Kickaha cautiously slipped through the narrow opening and into the small chamber. There were four silver crescents set into the stone of the floor; the four that had been hanging on the wall-pegs were gone. The two Lords had used a gate to escape and had taken the other crescents with them to make sure that no one used the others.

Furious, Kickaha returned to Anana and told her the bad news.

"That way is out, but we're not licked yet," he said.

Kickaha walked on a curving path of diorite stones set at the edges with small jewels. He stopped before a huge cage. The two birds within stood side by side and glared at Kickaha. They were ten feet high. Their heads were pale red; their beaks, pale yellow; their wings and bodies were green as the noon sky; their legs were yellow. And their eyes were scarlet shields with black bosses.

One spoke in a giant parrot's voice. "Kickaha! What do you do here, vile trickster?"

Inside that great head was the brain of a woman abducted by Jadawin 3,200 years ago from the shores of the Aegean. That brain had been transplanted for J ad a win's amusement and use in the body created in his biolab. This eagle was one of the few human-brained left. The great green eagles, all females, reproduced parthenogeneti-cally. Perhaps forty of the original five thousand still survived; the others, the millions now living, were their descendants.

Kickaha answered in Mycenaean Greek. "De-wiwanira! And what are you doing in this cage? I thought you were Podarge's pet, not the emperor's."

Dewiwanira screamed and bit at the bars. Kick-

aha, who was standing too close, jumped back, but he laughed.

"That's right, you dumb bird! Bring them ru

The other eagle said, "Escape?"

Kickaha answered quickly. "Yes. Escape. Agree to help us get out of Talanac, and we will get you out of the cage. But say yea or nay now! We have little time!"

"Podarge ordered us to kill you and Jadawin-Wolff!" Dewiwanira said.

"You can try later," he said. "But if you don't give me your word to help us, you'll die in the cage. Do you want to fly again, to see your friends again?"

Torches were on the steps to the palace and the zoological gardens. Kickaha said, "Yes? No?"

"Yes!" Dewiwanira said. "By the breasts of Podarge, yes!"

Anana stepped out from the shadows to assist him. Not until then did the eagles see her face clearly. They jumped and flapped their wings and croaked, "Podarge!"

Kickaha did not tell them that she was Jadawin-Wolffs sister. He said, "Podarge's face had a model."

He ran to the storehouse, thankful that he had taken the trouble to inspect it during his tour with the emperor, and he returned with several lengths of rope. He then jumped into a pit set in stone and leaned heavily upon an iron level. Steel skreaked and the door to the cage swung open.

Anana stood guard with bow and arrow ready. Dewiwanira hunched through the door first and stood still while Kickaha tied each end of a rope to a leg. Antiope, the other eagle, left the cage and submitted to a rope being tied to her legs.

Kickaha told the others what he hoped they could do. Then, as soldiers ran into the gardens, the two huge birds hopped to the edge of the low rampart which enclosed the zoo. This was not their normal method of progress when on the ground; usually they strode. Now, only by spreading their wings to make their descent easier, could they avoid injury to their legs.

Kickaha got in between the legs of Dewiwanira, sat down with the rope under his buttocks, gripped each leg above the huge talons, and shouted, "Ready, Anana? All right, Dewiwanira! Fly!"