Chapter V

The ducal capital of Chicago sprawled in a lazy ring on the banks of Lake Michigan, in Illinois Province. As Dale Kesley and his small retinue waited outside the city's walls before requesting admission, the thought occurred to him once again that the world's cities were similar. As he looked at Chicago, it seemed to him that he might never really have left Buenos Aires.

Duke Winslow's palace, visible high in the background overlooking the calm lake, might have been an exact replica of Don Miguel's, except that its flat walls were hewn from broad slabs of flesh-red feldspar instead of spun, as Miguel's were, from shimmering polyethylene. In the stagnant, late-August air, the sun's rays hit the palace walls weakly, giving them an oily glare that Kesley found displeasing. But still he preferred the natural blockiness of the stone to the consistent slickness of the plastic that formed the walls of Miguel's palace. Polyethylene walls were the products of controlled hard radiation and, controlled or no, Kesley, like all men, found the concept of radiation repugnant. It jarred against ingrained taboos.

His eye, becoming city-familiar now, began to detect other differences between Winslow's capital and Miguel's. The guards posted in Chicago's outer walls lacked the tense urgency of the small brown men who protected Buenos Aires; they stared outward with a sleepy complacency that seemed to characterize the entire city and possibly, Kesley admitted, the entire North American Empire. Here in the north, there was none of the crackling atmosphere of tension that seemed to prevail in Buenos Aires.

Kesley's horse, a firm-fleshed black thoroughbred of the Old Kind, furnished by Miguel and transported with finicking care from South America, pawed impatiently at the layer of fine ash that covered the ground outside the city, and snorted. Kesley steadied the animal with soothing pressures of his calves and thighs; the horse detected the signals and subsided.

"Shall we go in?" Kesley asked.

"Why not?" came the reply from his left. Kesley glanced over at the rider, Archbishop Santana. "We are here, and the time is proper," the priest said.

Kesley turned in the saddle to gesture at his six men. They rode behind at a respectful distance, six well-muscled members of Miguel's guard, resplendent in their imperial blue shorts and flashing yellow jackets. Kesley urged his horse forward; Santana, a surprisingly good horseman despite his unathletic physique, did the same, and the six guards followed. They advanced to the wall.

A toll-keeper waited there, a dried old man in Ducal uniform seated beside an immense tollbox ornamented with Duke Winslow's arms. Kesley reined in before him and drew out a jangling leather pouch.

The toll-keeper's lips moved silently as he counted the party. "Eight dollars," he said.

"_Por cierto._" Kesley leaned far to the right and handed the man the pouch. "Eight dollars of that is for toll, _amigo_."

Frowning, the old man undid the drawstrings, emptying the contents of the pouch into his wrinkled palm. Eight tiny golden dollars rolled out, followed by a massive imperial doubloon of Miguel's coinage. A faint blink was the only acknowledgement the toll-keeper showed; nodding curtly, he dropped the eight dollars in the till, pocketed the doubloon as if by divine right, and gestured casually within with a quick toss of his head.

As Kesley and his party proceeded through the heavy gate, Kesley grinned quietly to himself. He wished van Alen could have seen the strange metamorphosis of his one-time protege: here he was, clad in the lustrous velvet robes of a Knight of the Empire of South America, riding a full-blooded, spirited, Old-Kind horse instead of a swaybacked, scaly old mutant, and distributing largesse with the natural air of the high-born.

He entered the city proper at a slow canter, the Archbishop at his side, his men behind. The streets were crowded. Chicago, built on the very ashes of the Old City of that name, was the largest city of Duke Winslow's territories, home to some three hundred thousand souls. Kesley saw eyes brighten at the sight of his magnificent horse; men in the streets cleared back, giving way, as the South American party entered.

"We should find an inn first of all," the Archbishop advised. "Tomorrow, you and I will try to seek audience with the Duke."

Kesley shook his head. "We announce ourselves to the Duke at once; we tell him we'll have an audience tomorrow. None of this begging for an appointment."

Santana shrugged. "As you wish, _Señor Ramon_." The sudden, hard, sardonic inflection in the Archbishop's purring voice mocked the false title Miguel had bestowed on Kesley for the purpose of the journey.

Kesley rode silently on, brooding over his mission. He had agreed lightly enough, back in Buenos Aires, to the assassination of Winslow, but now that he actually was in Winslow's own capital, with the rosy bulk of the Ducal Palace towering ahead, he wondered how he could have acceded so casually to so dangerous and so terrible a mission.

The looming palace ahead was the nerve-center of a continent, and one man--_one man_--controlled the multitude of ganglia. The entire vast spread of North America, from the dismal radiation-roasted Eastern seaboard to the broad plains of the Middle-West farming country to the open, relatively unscathed lands of the far West, depended for its organization on Chicago and on Chicago's Duke.

For the first time, Kesley realized the immensity of the confusion that would result when he struck down Winslow. He had no motive for the crime, either; it would be a sheerly gratuitous act, performed as a gesture of disengagement and nothing more.

But what could Miguel's motive in upsetting the balance of the world possibly be? Surely, Kesley thought, the South American Duke knew what would happen once Winslow was removed. The taut framework of North American life would collapse inward on itself like a puffball that had discharged its dusty cloud of spores.

Who would profit? Miguel? Were assassins now drawing near the Ducal Palaces of Stockholm, of Johannesburg, of Canberra, readying themselves to rid the world of all Dukes but Miguel at one bold stroke? If so, why? Did Miguel want the crushing responsibility of the entire globe's governance strapped to his shoulders for all eternity?

It seemed unlikely. Kesley thought of the Immortal's deep, weary eyes, and of the moment of weakness when Miguel had let his heavy head sink between his hands. No, Miguel had some other motive.

Amusement, perhaps.

Kesley nodded. That was it: amusement. Having long since exhausted the pleasures of his power, having tasted everything human life had to offer, the timeless man was searching desperately for a relief from boredom.

For that reason he had bared his chest to Kesley's knife and, perhaps, he had not cared whether Kesley struck or not. For the same reason, he had chosen Kesley at random to remove Winslow, to upset the balance, to _change things_.

Kesley shuddered. What a nightmare an Immortal's life must be, he thought, once the first few centuries had passed.

* * * * *

Later, Kesley rode back from the palace with a little less lordliness than he had had going forth.

"That major-domo had nerve," he remarked mournfully, as the little band of South Americans trotted through the broad palace approaches toward the gate leading back into the city. "An appointment next week! Who does Winslow think he is? And what does he think of Miguel, if he treats his ambassadors this way?"

"Peace, son," the Archbishop said. "Be philosophical. Duke Winslow is a busy man and a proud one. I warned you this would happen."

"But we're _ambassadors_!"

"Exactly so. Had we been ragamuffins we would have had a better chance of an immediate audience." Santana shook his head. "You fail to see that Winslow is deliberately humbling us to stress his own superiority over Miguel."

"I hadn't thought of it that way," Kesley admitted. "Of course. He was just telling us to stand outside and wait around until he was ready to let us kiss the Ducal robe."

"Precisely. And our course now is simple. We find lodging, and we allow a week to pass. Then, Winslow will see us. And then, my friend, the time will come for you to carry out our Duke's command."

"I know."

Kesley felt himself perspiring heavily beneath his ambassadorial robes, and not entirely because of the humid air. He knew--and Santana as well, evidently--that he had no plan for slaying Winslow. He was counting on some random twitch of the Immortal's psychology to put the Duke in his power. But would Winslow, as had Miguel, bare his chest willingly to the blade?

Probably not, Kesley thought balefully. From what he had already deduced of the workings of the Immortal mind, it was hardly likely that any two Dukes would share a behavioral pattern. And that left Kesley in an awkward position.

"A week is a long time," Kesley said, as they rode through the gates. The double doors clanged shut behind them, sealing off Winslow's palace from the city. "I'll be ready when the time comes, padre."

"I hope so. I will pray for your soul," the priest intoned.

"Fine," Kesley said savagely. "Pray for me sincerely, father. _Pater noster_--"

"Don't mock what you don't understand," Santana said. He crossed himself fervently. "Your soul is in danger, _Señor_ Ramon."

"_My_ soul? What about yours, you old windbag?"

Santana squirmed in the saddle, faced Kesley. The plump priest's sad eyes gazed mournfully into Kesley's. "My soul?" Santana repeated. "My soul is long since forfeit, but I pray constantly for my salvation."

Kesley reddened. "What do you mean by--"

He cut himself off in mid-sentence and pointed to the left. "What's _that_?" he asked hoarsely. "Mutant?"

"Yes," the Archbishop said. "There are many of them in Chicago. I think he plans to make trouble; be ready to defend yourself."

The creature was coming toward them out of a jumble of clumsily-thatched huts strung in a wobbly circle around a gullied heap of slag at the extreme left side of the road. It was tall--nearly seven feet, Kesley estimated--with elongated spidery limbs and a bloated, almost hydrocephaloid skull, devoid of hair. The mutant wore only a rag twisted carelessly about its middle; the body thus revealed was grotesquely piebald in color, blotched and spotted, the purpling skin lying loosely and peeling away in great leprous flakes.

Kesley had seen mutants before: mutant horses, mutant wolves, other products of ravaged genes, but he had never before been this close to a _human_ sport, other than Miguel. Miguel was human in all physical aspects save his life span; the creature shambling toward them now could be called "human" only by the loosest of definitions.

As the mutant approached, a musty odor of decay drifted before him. Kesley shuddered involuntarily.

Once, he knew, the cities of the world had been populated by almost as many mutants as normals. That had been in the days immediately after the great blast, before the Dukes had taken command of the world.

But most of these mutants had been sterile, carrying, like the Dukes, lethal genes. Others carried recessive characteristics only. Gradually, through the centuries, the mutant population had died out and dwindled away into scattered groups here and there in the biggest cities--and, word was, there was one city somewhere in Illinois populated only by mutants.

This one was blind, Kesley saw now, but it moved with unerring accuracy.

"Archbishop Santana!" the creature called, in a hoarse croak of a voice. "Wait for me, Archbishop!"

"How does he know you?" Kesley asked.

"Some of them have strange powers," Santana whispered. He nervously undid the crucifix that hung from the breast of his surplice and held it before him, as if to ward off the Devil.

The mutant merely chuckled. "Put away your toy, Archbishop. I don't frighten so easily."

"Stay back," Kesley snapped. "Keep away from us." To Santana he said, "Let's get out of here. Spur your horse and let's go.

"No. Let's hear him out."

The mutant stationed himself directly in their path and pointed a twisted, lumpy forefinger at Santana. "Behold the man of God," he croaked hoarsely. "_Ecce homo!_"

"What do you want?" the Archbishop demanded. Kesley saw that Santana was sheet-white beneath his outward duskiness.

"I want nothing. I merely came out here to laugh at the Archbishop of God who has come to Chicago on a mission of _murder_!"

Kesley stiffened in the saddle, but Santana caught his arm just as he was about to go for his gun. "What is this talk of murder?" Santana demanded.

Late afternoon clouds were dropping over the city now, and a cool wind came sweeping in from the lake. Kesley shivered as the mutant grinned, baring scraggly stumps of yellow teeth.

"Murder? Did I say murder? But there will be no murder, milord. Merely betrayal--and betrayal again."

* * * * *

That night, in the rooms they had taken near the city's central marketplace, the image of the mutant haunted Kesley, imposing itself before his eyes with demonic insistence.

Betrayal? No murder? The paradoxes and cloaked ambiguities the grotesque creature had uttered ground into Kesley's already sensitive consciousness, bringing with them the sharp image of the piebald spider of a man that was the mutant.

Kesley looked across the room to Santana. The plump Archbishop, having divested himself of his traveling costume, wore a loose cassock without surplice. He was thumbing the pages of his breviary, flicking rapidly over matter long since committed to memory.

"Padre?"

"Eh?"

"That mutant this afternoon--"

"Don't speak of him," Santana said.

"But he bothers me, Santana. I can't get him out of my mind, him or that crazy nonsense he was muttering."

"That was not nonsense," the Archbishop said in a hollow voice. "He struck at the heart, that man."

"I don't understand."

"You yourself made the same comment earlier, when you remarked that I, a man of God, am with you to participate in this unholy mission. Why, you ask. You asked me if I were not risking my immortal soul by accompanying you."

"And you said--"

"I said that I had little to risk. Strange words, coming from an Archbishop, but my soul is long since forfeit. God works in strange ways, and so his servants follow."

"You're still talking in riddles," Kesley complained. "Why did you come along, then, if you knew it would damn you?"

"I am _already_ damned for serving Miguel!" Santana cried. His doughy face was taut with sudden animation. "Don't you see that Miguel and his Dukes have overthrown Rome, have supplanted Christ with themselves? And we continue to serve them, not because we desire it, but because we must!"

Kesley frowned. A light of torment, almost of martyrdom, gleamed in the Archbishop's eyes now.

"What difference does it make," Santana asked, "if I help you kill Winslow? I cannot be any more damned than I am already--and possibly, possibly the consequences of your act will--will--do you see?"

"Killing Winslow will topple the whole apple cart," Kesley said softly. "You're gambling an already assured damnation against the chance that knocking off one Duke will crush all the rest and restore your religion to supremacy." He chuckled quietly. "I sometimes wonder just _whose_ catspaw I am," he said.

"Everyone's," the priest remarked. "Poor pawn, you've fallen fair of everyone's scheming."

The priest continued to read for a while, then uttered a brief prayer in rapid Spanish--perhaps it was even Latin, Kesley thought--and blew out his candle. Kesley closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

Sleep would not come. Brooding, he rolled and fidgeted, seeing over and over again the loose-jointed, hideous figure of the mutant.