“Lieutenant—halt! I must remind you that the Royal Guard—and the Royal Guard alone!—has jurisdiction within the walls of the palace.”
So saying, the captain of the Guard drew his own sword and charged after Zulkeh and Shelyid, who—the first preoccupied with thought, the latter with sack—continued their progress toward the far door. But the captain had not taken three steps of his own before the lieutenant of the Constabulary planted himself in the way. A lively discussion concerning legal jurisdiction ensued. The debate escalated in lockstep with the paces of our heroes, until, by the time the wizard and his apprentice were halfway down the long chamber, the entire Guard and Constabulary were hacking and hewing each other with a vigorous display of swordsmanship.
Drawn by the sound of clashing steel, a platoon of the Praetorian Guard burst into the chamber through the very door toward which our heroes made their way.
“Stop them!” cried Gerard. In an instant, the fierce Praetorians charged the struggling mob of guards and constables, pouring around Zulkeh and Shelyid like water around rocks in midstream. The brawl in the center of the chamber now became three-sided.
Then, as our heroes were but ten paces from the far door, two new bodies of armed men poured into the chamber from doors behind the throne—Janissaries from the west, Mamelukes from the east. Recognizing his earlier error, Gerard now issued explicit instructions to these newly entered soldiery, detailing with unmistakable exactitude the necessity of immediately arresting the wizard and his apprentice, not forgetting to point directly toward the culprits, all of which precision was pointless since the Janissaries and Mamelukes had immediately started slaughtering each other with the gusto derived from hallowed and historic rivalry.
Zulkeh and Shelyid passed through the far door into the corridor beyond.
Dodging and weaving his way through the slashing mob, Gerard pursued. By the time he entered the corridor, his prey were almost to the lobby at the far end. Not twenty feet beyond, a squad of Secret Police stood in the lobby, fingering their cudgels, frowning with concern, gazing down the corridor, wondering at the sounds of struggle issuing from the royal audience chamber.
The quick-witted Gerard seized the moment. To the Secret Police, he cried: “Arrest the wizard!” To the wizard he cried: “Stop, Zulkeh—stop!”
Shouting with fierce enthusiasm, the Secret Police charged toward the wizard and his apprentice. The wizard turned abruptly at the sound of his name. Attempting to avoid his master, Shelyid tripped over the loose fringe of the faded and worn carpet and lost his footing. Head down, locked in concentration, completely overbalanced by the giant sack, Shelyid—or rather, the sack—plunged directly into the onrushing squad of policemen, with much the same results as a bowling ball striking pins.
Half the squad was down, senseless. The ones who managed to avoid the direct blow of the sack now flung themselves upon the dwarf. Alas, as he recoiled from the collision, Shelyid turned a complete 360 degrees, knocking over another two or three of the policemen as he did so. Still struggling to regain his balance, the dwarf now lurched to the left, crushing one wight against the entry wall; then to the right, crushing another; then he caromed right into the lobby, rolling over the last secret policeman still conscious, and burst through the large entry door leading to the plaza beyond. The door shattered into pieces. In a moment the tumult and chaos were left behind as Zulkeh and Shelyid exited the palace and headed down to the lake, oblivious to the cries and alarm behind them.
The last sight Gerard had of them, as he stood fuming in what was left of the door to the palace, was of Zulkeh and Shelyid climbing into the water taxi and making their way back across the Moyle. Throwing up his hands with rage, the Chief Counselor charged back into the palace. His voice could dimly be heard:
“Call out the Royal Janitors! The Royal Cooks! The Royal Gardeners! Arrest the wizard!”
Moments later, the sound of martial clangor resounded from within—mops clashing with pots, pans against shears, clippers versus brooms.
* * *
For their part, Zulkeh and Shelyid went their way unmolested. At length they arrived at the central travel station of Goimr. This edifice, huge and many-winged, had once housed a vast assortment of enterprises dedicated to the provision of transport for those citizens of Goimr seeking egress from the dismal city. In times past, the would-be traveler could hire or purchase a coach, a dray, a chariot, a wagon, a cart or, indeed, any other conceivable means of land transport. In recent times, however, all of these enterprises had been acquired by the Consortium, as one of that ubiquitous firm’s projects in its conquest of the commerce of Grotum. Their assets had been combined, and the entire travel station had been consolidated under the aegis of a newly founded corporation, the Great Grotum Northern, Eastern, Southern, Western, Central and Environs Express and Transport Company, a subsidiary of Grotum Cultural Endeavor, Ltd. (a non-profit enterprise), itself a subsidiary of Colonial Exploitation, Inc. (a philanthropic foundation), itself, in turn, a subsidiary of the Consortium. This latter was headquartered, as was the case with most commercial enterprises of any note in the civilized world, in the famed and far distant city of splendid Ozar.