THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

The thin man smiled again, and Burton said, "Perhaps you would like to surrender your blade? I have no desire to kill you, monsieur."

"I was about to ask you to hand over your weapon, mansieur, and become my prisoner. But I see that you, like me, would then be unsatisfied as to which of us is the better at bladeplay. I have thought about you many times, Captain Burton, since I drove my rapier into your thigh. Of all the hundreds, perhaps thousands, that I have dueled with, you were the best. I am willing to admit that I do not know how our little passage in arms might have turned out if you had not been distracted. Rather, I should say that you might have held me off a little longer if it were not for that."

"We shall see," Burton said.

"Oh, yes, we shall see, if the boat does not sink too soon. Well, monsieur, I delayed my leavetaking to have one more drink to toast the souls of those brave men and women who died fighting today for this once-splendid vessel, the last of the great beauties of man's science and technology. Quel dom-mage! But some day I will compose an ode to it. In French, of course, since Esperanto is not a great poetic language and, if it were, would still not be equal to my native tongue.

"Let us have one drink so that we may toast together those we loved but who have passed on. There will be no more resurrections, my friend. They will always be dead from now on."

"P'raps," Burton said. "In any event, I will join you."

The many doors of the huge and long liquor cabinets behind the bar had been locked before the battle started. But the key was in a drawer below a cabinet, and de Bergerac went behind the bar and unbolted the drawer. He unlocked a cabinet and unshot the bar across a line of bottles and pulled one from the hole in which it was set.

"This bottle was made in Parolando," de Bergerac said, "and it has journeyed unscathed through many battles and much mishandling by various drunks. It is filled with a particularly good burgundy which has been offered from time to time in various grails and which was not then drunk but put into this bottle to be used for a festive occasion. This occasion is, I believe, festive, though in a rather gruesome spirit."

He opened another cabinet, and unlocked the indented bar holding a line of lead-glass goblets and took two and set them on the bar.

His epee was on top of the bar. Burton placed his own on the bar near his right hand. The Frenchman poured the burgundy to the brim, and he lifted his. Burton did likewise.

"To the dear departed!" he said.

"To them," Burton said. Both downed a small amount.

"I am not one for drinking much," de Bergerac said. "Liquor reduces one to the level of the beast, and I like at all times to remember that I am a human being. But... this is indeed a special occasion. One more toast, my friend, and then we shall fall to it."

"To the solution of the mystery of this world," Burton said.

They drank again.

Cyrano put his goblet down.

"Now, Captain Burton of the defunct marines of the defunct Rex. I loathe war and I detest bloodshed, but I do my duty when it must be done. We are both fine fellows, and it would be a shame if one were to die to prove that he is better than the other. Gaining knowledge of the true state of affairs by dying is not recommended by anyone with good sense. Thus, I suggest that he who draws the first blood wins. And if, thanks be to the Creator, who doesn't exist, the first wound is not fatal, the wi

"Upon my honor, that is the way it shall be," Burton said.

"Good! En garde!"

They saluted and then assumed the classic epee on-guard positions, the left foot at right angles to the right foot and behind it, knees bent, the body turned sidewise to present as small a target as possible, the left arm raised with the upper arm parallel to the ground, the elbow bent so the lower arm was vertical and the hand wrist limp, the right arm lowered and the blade it held forming a straight extension of the arm. The round coquille, or bellguard, in this position, protected the forearm.

De Bergerac, saying loudly the French equivalent of "Hah!," lunged. He was almost blindingly swift, as Burton knew from the Frenchman's reputation and from his one duel with him. However, Burton was also exceedingly quick. And, having spent many years on Earth and here in practice, his reaction to any particular attack was automatic.

De Bergerac, without feinting, had thrust toward Burton's upper arm. Burton parried and then riposted, that is, counterattacked. De Bergerac parried this and then thrust over Burton's blade, but Burton attempted a stop thrust, using the bellguard of his epee to deflect his opponent's tip and at the same time (almost) driving his own point into de Bergerac's forearm.

But de Bergerac counterparried and then quickly thrust around Burton's bellguard at Burton's forearm again. This maneuver was called the "dig" or the "peck."

Burton deflected the point again, though the edge of the blade drove along his arm. It burned, but it did not draw blood.

Dueling with the foil or the epee was something like trying to thread a moving needle. The tip of the attacker's blade was the end of the thread; the defender's, the eye of the needle. The eye should be very small and in this situation was. But in a second or less the thread-end would become the eye as the defender attacked. Two great swordsmen presented to each other very small openings which instantly closed and then reopened as the tip moved about in a small circle.

In competitive foil dueling, the target was only that part of the opponent's body exclusive of the head, arms, and legs but including the groin. In deadly combat, however, the head and the entire body were a target. If, somehow, a big toe was open, it should be skewered, could it be done without exposing the attacker to his antagonist's point.

It was an axiom that the fencer with a perfect defense could not lose. What then if both duelers had a perfect defense? Was it a case of the irresistible meeting the immovable? No. Human beings were neither. One of the perfect defenders would tire before the other or perhaps something in the milieu was to the slight or even great advantage of one fencer. This could be something on the floor to cause slipping or, in this situation, some object, a piece of blasted furniture, a bottle, a corpse over which one might stumble. Or, as when de Bergerac had fought Burton during the raid, a shout from a third party might distract a dueler for a fraction of a second, just enough for the cat-swift and eagle-eyed opponent to drive his sword into the other.

Burton was thinking of this with the edge of his mind while the main part concentrated on the dance of blades. His opponent was taller than he and had a Iqhger reach. This was not necessarily to Burton's disadvantage. If he got into close quarters where the Frenchman's longer reach did not matter, then Burton would have the advantage.

De Bergerac knew this, as he knew everything about fencing, and so he maintained the distance proper for his benefit.

Metal rang upon metal while the breaths of the two hissed. De Bergerac, maintaining his straight-arm, position, concentrated his attacks upon Burton's wrist and forearm to keep himself out of range of Burton's weapon.

The Englishman used a bent-arm position to make slanting thrusts, to bind his foe's blade, to "envelop" it. The binds were pushed with his blade against the other to make it go from one side to another. The envelopments were continuous binds in which the point of his blade made complete circles.

Meanwhile, he studied the Frenchman for weaknesses, just as the Frenchman was studying him. He found none. He hoped that de Bergerac, who was also analyzing him, would fail to discover any flaws.