Captives of the Flame by Samuel R. Delany (beach read TXT) 📕

block, ambling along in the shadow. The hoodlum crept up behind him, then grabbed his cloak, ripped it away, and leaped forward.

Only there wasn't anything there. The mugger stood for a moment, the cape dangling from his hand, blinking at the place a man should have been. Then something hit him in the jaw. He staggered back. Something else hit him in the stomach. As he stumbled forward now, beneath the street lamp, a transparent human figure suddenly formed in front of him. Then it planted its quite substantial fist into his jaw again, and he went back, down, and out.

Jon dragged the man back to the side of the alley, fading out completely as he did so. Then he took the hoodlum's clothes, which were ragged, smelly, and painfully nondescript. The shoes, which were too small for him, he had to leave off. Then he flung the cape back around his shoulders and pulled the hood over his head.

For the next six blocks he was lost because there were no street signs. When he did find the next one, he realized he was only a block away from the inn.

As he reached the stone building, he heard a thud in the tiny alleyway beside it. A moment later a girl's voice called softly, "There. Just like that. Only you better do exactly as I say or you'll break your arms or legs, or back."

He walked to the edge of the building and peered into the alley.

Her white hair loose, Alter stood looking up at the roof. "All right, Tel," she called. "You next."

Something came down from the roof, flipped over on the ground at her feet, rolled away, and then suddenly unwound to standing position. The black-haired boy ran his fingers through his hair. "Wow," he said. Then he shook his head. "Wow."

"Are you all right?" Alter asked. "You didn't pull anything, did you?"

"No," he said. "I'm all right. I think. Yeah, everything's in place." He looked up at the roof again, two stories above.

"Your turn, Let," Alter called up.

"It's high," came a childish voice from the roof.

"Hurry up," said Alter, her voice becoming authoritative. "When I count three. And remember, knees up, chin down, and roll quick. One, two, three!" There was the space of a breath, and then it fell, rolled, bounced unsteadily to its feet, and resolved into another boy, this one blond, and slighter than the first.

"Hey, you kids," Jon said.

They turned.

Jon looked at the smaller boy. His slight blond frame, less substantial then even Alter's white-haired loveliness was definitely of the royal family. "What are you doing out here, anyway?" Jon asked. "Especially you, your Highness."

All three children jumped.

It looked like they might balk, and after that descent from the roof, he wasn't sure where they might balk to. So he said, "Incidentally, the Duchess of Petra sent me. How did you do that fall?"

His Highness was the only one to relax appreciably.

"And are you sure you're supposed to be outside?"

"We were supposed to stay on the top floor," Tel said. "But him," he pointed to his ragged Highness, "he got restless, and we started telling him about the tricks, and so we went up to the roof, and Alter said she could get us down."

"Can you get them back up?" Jon asked.

"Sure," said Alter, "all we do is climb ..."

Jon held up his hand. "Wait a minute," he said. "We'll go inside and talk to the man in charge. Don't worry. No one'll be mad."

"You mean talk to Geryn?" said Alter.

"I guess that's what his name is."

They started back out of the alley. "Tell me," Jon said, "just what sort of person is Geryn?"

"He's a strange old man. He talks to himself all the time," said Alter. "But he's smart."

Talks to himself, Jon reflected, and nodded. When they reached the door of the inn, Jon pulled his cape off and stepped into the light. A few people at the bar turned around, and when they saw the children, they looked askance at one another.

"Geryn's probably upstairs," Alter said. They went to the second floor. Jon let the children go ahead of him as they passed into the shadow of the hall. He only stepped up to them when Alter pushed open the door at the end of the hall and bright light from Geryn's room fell full across them.

"What is it?" Geryn snapped. And then, "What is it, quick?" He whirled around in the chair at the rough wooden desk when they entered. The giant was standing by the window. Geryn's gray eyes fidgeted back and forth. Finally he said, "Why are you out here? And who is he? What do you want?"

"I'm from the Duchess of Petra," Jon said. "I've come to take Let to the forest people."

"Yes," said the old man. "Yes." Then suddenly his face twisted as if he were trying to remember something. Then shook his head. "Yes." Suddenly he stood up. "Well, go on. I've done my part, I tell you. I've done. Every minute he's in my house he endangers my boarders, my friends. Take him. Go on."

The giant turned from the window. "I am to go with you. My name is Arkor."

Jon frowned. For the first time the scarred giant's height struck him. "Why...?" he started.

"It is my country that we go to," said Arkor. "I know how to get there. I can take you through it. Geryn says it is part of the plan."

Jon felt a sudden knot of resentment tighten inside him. These plans—the Duchess', Geryn's, even the plans of the triple beings who inhabited them—they trapped him. Freedom. The word went in and out of his mind like a shadow. He said, "When do we go then, if you know how to get there?"

"In the morning," said Arkor.

"Alter, take him to a room. Get him out of here. Quick. Go on." They backed from the room and Alter hurried them up the hall.

Jon was thinking. After delivering Let to the forest people, he was going further. Yes. He would go on, try to get through the radiation barrier. But all three of them had to get through if they were to do any good. So why wasn't Geryn coming instead of sending the giant? If Geryn came, then there'd be two people near the Lord of the Flames. But Geryn was old. Maybe the Duchess could bring him with her when she came. Mentally he smashed a fist into his thoughts and scattered them. Don't think. Don't think. Thinking binds up your mind, and you can never be— He stopped. Then another thought wormed into his skull, the thought of five years of glittering hunger.

That night he slept well. Morning pried his eyes open with blades of light that fell through the window. It was very early. He had been up only a minute when there was a knock on his door. Then it opened, and Arkor directed the dwarfed form of the Prince into Jon's room, then turned and left.

"He says to meet him downstairs in five minutes," Let said.

"Sure," said Jon. He finished buttoning up the ragged shirt stolen from the mugger the night before, and looked at the boy by the door. "I guess you're not used to these sort of clothes," he said. "Once I wasn't either. Pretty soon they begin to take."

"Huh?" said Let. Then, "Oh."

"Is something wrong?"

"Who are you?"

Jon thought for a moment. "Well," he said. "I'm sort of a friend of your brother. An acquaintance, anyway. I'm supposed to take you to the forest."

"Why?"

"You'll be safe there."

"Could we go to the sea instead?"

"My turn for a 'why'?" Jon asked.

"Because Tel told me all about it last night. He said it was fun. He said there were rocks all different colors. And in the morning, he said, you can see the sun come up like a burning blister behind the water. He told me about the boats, too. I'd like to work on a boat. I really would. They don't allow me to do anything at home. Mother says I might get hurt. Will I get a chance to work someplace?"

"Maybe," Jon said.

"Tel had some good stories about fishing. Do you know any stories?"

"I don't know," Jon said. "I never tried telling any. Hey, come on. We better get started."

"I like stories," Let said. "Come on. I'm just trying to be friendly."

Jon laughed, then thought a minute. "I can tell you a story, about a prison mine. Do you know anything about the prison mines beyond the forest?"

"Some," said Let.

"Well, once upon a time, there were three prisoners in that prison camp." They started out in the hall. "They'd been there a long time, and they wanted to get out. One was ... well, he looked like me, let's pretend. Another had a limp ..."

"And the third one was chubby, sort of," interrupted Let. "I know that story."

"You do?" asked Jon.

"Sure," Let said.

"Then you go on and tell it." Jon was a little annoyed.

Let told it to him.

They were outside waiting for Arkor when the boy finished. "See," Let said. "I told you I knew it."

"Yeah," said Jon quietly. He stood very still. "You say the other two ... didn't make it?"

"That's right," Let said. "The guards brought them back and dumped their bodies in the mud so that ..."

"Shut up," Jon said.

"Huh?" asked Let.

He was quiet for a few breaths. "Who told you that ... story?"

"Petra," Let answered. "She told it to me. It's a good story, huh?"

"Incidentally," Jon said. "I'm the one that got away."

"You mean?" The boy stopped. "You mean it really happened?"

The early light warmed the deserted street now as Arkor came to the door of the inn and stepped into the street.

"All right," he said. "Come on."

CHAPTER VII

The news service of Toromon in the city of Toron was a public address system that flooded the downtown area, and a special printed sheet that was circulated among the upper families of the city. On the mainland it was a fairly accurate brigade of men and women who transported news orally from settlement to settlement. All announced simultaneously that morning:

Crown Prince Kidnaped
King Declares War!

In the military ministry, directives were issued in duplicate and redelivered in triplicate. At eight-forty, the 27B Communications Sector became hopelessly snarled. This resulted in the shipment of a boatload of prefabricated barracks foundations to a port on the mainland sixty-two miles from the intended destination.

Let, Jon, and Arkor were just mounting the private yacht of the Duchess of Petra which was waiting for them at the end of the harbor. Later, as the island of Toron slipped across the water, Let mentioned to Jon, leaning against the railing, that there was an awful lot of commotion on the docks.

"It's always like that," Jon told him, remembering the time he'd gone with his father in the morning to the pier. "They're inspecting cargoes. But it does look awfully busy."

Which was a euphemism. One group of military directives which had been quite speedily and accurately delivered were the offers of contracts, primarily for food, and secondarily for equipment. Two of the distributors of imported fish who had absolutely no chance of receiving the contracts sent in a bid accompanied by a letter which explained (with completely fraudulent statistics) how much cheaper it would be to use imported fish rather than those from the aquariums. Then they commandeered a group of ruffians who broke into the house of old Koshar's personal secretary, who was still sleeping after the previous night's party which he had helped out with. (So far he has appeared in this story only as a hand seen around the edge of a storage cabinet door, a broad hand, with wiry black hair, on which there was a cheap, wide, brass ring in which was set an irregular shape of blue glass.)

They tied him to a chair, punched him in the stomach, and in the head, and in the mouth until there was blood running down his trimmed, black beard; and he had given the information they wanted—information that enabled them to sink three of the Koshar cargo fleet that was just coming into dock.

The Duchess' private yacht made contact with a tetron-tramp returning to the mainland and Let, Jon, and Arkor changed ships. Coming from the yacht in bare feet and rags gave them an incongruous appearance. But on the tramp, among those passengers who were returning for their families, they quickly became lost.

On Toron, the pilot of the shuttle boat that took workers from the city to the aquariums found a clumsily put-together, but nevertheless unmistakable, bomb hidden in the lavatory. It was dismantled. There was no accident. But an authority, Vice-Supervisor Nitum of Koshar Synthetic Food Concerns (whose name you do not need to remember, as