“O. K…Scheer, you take Wilkie’s place at the projector. Don’t let fly unless you are spotted. If we aren’t back in thirty minutes, return to the Citadel. Come on, Wilkie — now for a little hocus-pocus.”
Scheer acknowledged the order, but it was evident from the way his powerful jaw muscles worked that he did not like it. Ardmore and Wilkie, each attired in the full regalia of a priest, moved out across the roof in search of a way down. Ardmore kept his staff set and projecting in the wave band to which Mongolians were sensitive, but at a power-level anesthetic rather than lethal in its effect. The entire palace had been radiated with a cone of these frequencies before they had landed, using the much more powerful projector mounted in the scout car. Presumably every Asiatic in the building was unconscious — Ardmore was not taking unnecessary chances.
They found an access door to the roof, which saved them cutting a hole, and crept down a steep iron stairway intended only for janitors and repair men. Once inside, Ardmore had trouble orienting himself and feared that he would be forced to find a PanAsian, resuscitate him, and wring the location of the Prince’s private chambers out of him by most ungentle methods. But luck favored them; he happened on the right floor and correctly inferred the portal of the Prince’s apartment by the size and nature of the guard collapsed outside of it.
The door was not locked; the Prince depended on a military watch being kept rather than keys and bolts — he had never turned a key in his life. They found him lying in his bed, a book fallen from his limp fingers. A personal attendant lay crumpled in each of the four corners of the spacious room.
Wilkie eyed the Prince with interest. “So that’s his nibs. What do we do now, Major?”
“You get on one side of the bed; I’ll get on the other. I want him to be forced to divide his attention two ways. And stand up close so that he will have to look up at you. I’ll talk all the business, but you throw in a remark or two every now and then to force him to split his attention.”
“What sort of a remark?”
“Just priestly mumbo-jumbo. Impressive and no real meaning. Can you do it?”
“I think so — I used to sell magazine subscriptions.”
“O. K. This guy is a tough nut really tough. I am going to try to get at him with the two basic congenital fears common to everybody; fear of constriction and fear of falling. I could handle it with my staff but it will be simpler if you do it with yours. Do you think you can follow my motions and catch what I want done?”
“Can you make it a little clearer than that?”
Ardmore explained in detail, then added, “All right let’s get busy. Take your place.” He turned on the four colored lights of his staff. Wilkie did likewise. Ardmore stepped across the room and switched out the lights of the room.
When the PanAsian Prince Royal, Grandson of the Heavenly One and ruler in his name of the Imperial Western Realm, came to his senses, he saw standing. over him in the darkness two impressive figures. The taller was garbed in robes of shimmering, milky luminescence. His turban, too, glowed with a soft white fire — a halo.
The staff in his left hand streamed light from all four faces of its cubical capital — ruby, golden, emerald, and sapphire.
The second figure was like the first, save that his robes glowed ruddy like iron on an anvil. The face of each was partially illuminated by the rays from their wands.
The figure in shining white raised his right hand in a gesture not benign, but imperious. “We meet again, O unhappy Prince!”
The Prince had been trained truly and well; fear was not natural to him.
He started to sit up, but an impalpable force shoved against his chest and thrust him back against the bed. He started to speak.
The air was sucked from his throat. “Be silent, child of iniquity! The Lord Mota speaks through me. You will listen in peace.”