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to usurp the throne of troubled Artesia. It
was like the old days, Lafayette tried to tell himself—the bad old days when he
was, at first, a displaced pauper in flight from the law and an outraged
populace, and later, when he was a pampered favorite of the sovereign, in
flight from the cops as well as from a gang of cutthroat wayfarers plus the
Central Security Forces, all determined to cut him to small bits without trial.
Compared with those days, he assured himself, this was a cinch: All he had
chasing him now was Lord Trog's hit squad—and he was inside the ruins of the
palace, with free access to the Tower, of all places, the one place he was
likely to find some key to this mad situation; and surely Daphne was up there,
waiting for him to rescue her.
     
                But, he reminded himself sternly, he had
promised Daphne to stay away from the lab, and now she was gone, poor trusting
girl ... But she had to be in the Tower, unless Trog and his boys were
better liars than seemed likely ... So all bets were off: His promise didn't
count. And the pivot-stone opening on the narrow passage to the Tower stair had
to be right along here ...
     
                He found it and slipped through onto the landing
outside which he had first been grabbed by Marv and Omar, which reminded him
...
     
                "This way, fellows," he called
heartily. "Stick with me and we'll be out of here in maybe a trice and a
half."
     
                "Where are we at?" Marv demanded
sullenly from the darkness hiding him.
     
                " 'Where' means 'at what place', Lafayette
told the uncouth fellow. "So you don't need to hang that 'at' on the end
of your sentence; it's redundant."
     
                "Skip all that jazz, bo," Marv
returned. "But whereat are we?"
     
                "Where we are at," O'Leary replied
with dignity, "is right back where you two clowns clobbered me in the
first place."
     
                "You mean—?" Omar's voice choked up
before he could utter the thought.
     
                "I mean," Lafayette confirmed.
"It's a lot better than the lower dungeon, right?"
     
                "Excuse us, bo," Omar's voice floated
back as the two exited hastily into the night.
     
    -
     
                "Daphne," O'Leary yelled up the
stairwell, but only a sardonic echo returned. He started up into darkness,
brushing aside cobwebs, tripping over small objects on the stone steps;
doubtless, he thought, items dropped by thieves as they hastily looted the
ruin. He paused to yell again: nothing, not even a good echo this time. But she had to be up there, didn't she? he thought desperately. There was one
way to find out. He started up, one step at a time. Round and round the spiral
stairway climbed. The steps continued to be littered with loose objects. It was
strange that the Tower had survived, essentially intact, when all the rest had
been reduced to rubble; but that was a good sign, he thought contentedly—that
Central still maintained an interest in their only permanent point of contact
with Locus Alpha Nine-Three, Plane V-87, Fox 221-b, known to its inhabitants as
Artesia.
     
                He was halfway up when he heard the first sounds
of pursuit from below. Apparently Lord Trog had offered his loyal hit squad a
fate even more dismal than the Dread Tower to any who failed to enter the
latter in pursuit of the quarry. He sat on a step and listened. The pursuers
seemed to be moving rather slowly. But even so, he'd be trapped at the top and
would be able to do nothing but await their arrival.
     
                O'Leary rose and went on. At last he reached the
big iron-bound door. A ragged hole gaped where the big combination lock
installed by Nicodaeus had formerly served to bar intruders. It was just as
well: he wasn't sure he could remember the combination. He called once again
for Daphne as he pushed the