"Alas, his heroism was for naught. He was captured and placed in a prison camp. You can imagine the conditions there: the filthy water, the scanty food, the forced labor, the torture. Yet once again, the pilot knew his duty. He rallied the dispirited inmates under his leadership. He faced down the camp commandant, and demanded adequate treatment for the prisoners.

Finally he organized a mass escape.

"Thus it was that after many a great hardship, he found himself in Babel again. There he discovered that his term of service had run out while he was in the camp and an honorable discharge had been issued in his absence. I may not have mentioned this, but the pilot was an orphan and, having no family to return to, he found himself at loose ends. So, what with one thing and another, he ended up making a pilgrimage to an oracle who dwelt deep in the darkness in the roots of Babel.

"Was the pilots way difficult and dangerous? Did he see the sun rise at midnight? Of these matters and much else as well he is sworn not to say. Yet in the end, he won through to the oracle, paid her a price that he may not divulge, and discovered the one thing that he most yearned to know: The secret of his parentage.

"Up from the darkness our pilot rose. He emerged in the Hanging Gardens, and was moved almost to tears by the natural beauty that presented itself to him there. Yet though he now knew that he had a rightful claim to a great inheritance, he did not reveal himself. For he was without personal ambition. Instead, he worked with the underprivileged and established a small business, doing his wee part — as do so many here — to increase the wealth and welfare of the country as a whole.

"Nevertheless, one cannot live in a city without seeing the ills that afflict it. The poverty, the injustice, the lack of leadership and vision. So in his spare hours, the pilot went looking for answers. Up and down the city he walked, meeting with the high and the low, citizens of every class and race, and listening to what they had to say. Until finally he knew what needed to be done.

"Babel is sick for lack of a king. There is the simple truth, which not a man-jack or lady-jill here will deny. All our woes stem from the fact that the Obsidian Throne sits empty. There is no one to make the hard decisions. Expediency and compromise rule the land. The poor are neglected, the businessfolk are overtaxed, and the nobility grow fat and indolent. Babel needs a king! Yet where can one be found?" He paused for a long moment. Then he leaned into the microphone again.

"My name is Will le Fey. His Absent Majesty was my father."

As one, everybody in the hall stood up and roared.

The Sons of the Blest surged forward and raised him up on their shoulders and paraded out into the street, where the first of the haints from Ginny Gall were just pouring in. As the two currents met, there were swirls and eddies of dark and pale faces, all smiling, ecstatic, friends linking arms and strangers hugging strangers.

Vines sprouted in the streets and covered the sides of buildings. Trees burst into flower and birds into song as Will passed. Somebody ran out of a furniture store with a Chippendale side chair and suddenly he was plonked onto its cushion and the makeshift throne was floating up the West Side like a cork on a river. Somebody else ran into a furnishings shop and emerged with an armload of garden flambeaux that were lit and passed along hand to hand. It became a torchlight parade.

The sea-elves had come to town, and if there was a lass anywhere in Babel who remained unseduced, she hadn't been interested in the first place. Now they emerged from the bars and strip joints, still crisp in their dress whites, saw the procession and joined in, forming ranks and marching in time to ancient songs of glory. Let rogues and cheats prognosticate, they sang

Concerning king's or kingdom's fates

I think myself to be as wise

As he that gazeth on the skies

My sight goes beyond

The depths of a pond

Or rivers in the greatest rain

Whereby l can tell

That all will be well

When the king enjoys his own again.

At which all the street united to sing the chorus:

Yes, this I can tell

That all will be well

When the king enjoys his own again.

Meanwhile, a flatbed truck had somehow materialized under Will's throne. Citizens threw flowers until the truck was half-buried in them. Egret-headed bird maidens flew in loop-de-loops overhead, corkscrewing bright silken banners behind them.

All the emotion welling up from the crowd flowed through and into Will until he was intoxicated with it. He waved and blew kisses, while confetti snowed down on him and maenads and fauns tumbled naked in the street. The experience was much like waking up and discovering that the dream was still ongoing — and then waking up again and again, always with the same result.

It felt wonderful.

A pair of donkey ears sprouted from the bobbing heads of haints and Cluricauns jogging alongside the flatbed. Will looked down and saw Nat smiling up at him. "You're on your own now, son! This is your time. Grab the bastard by the throat and strangle it."

"Nat, this is incredible. You've got to—!" But his words were smothered by the immense throng. He wanted to tell Nat that he should come along, to advise him and make sure he didn't overplay his hand. All the cons he had ever pulled taken together were as nothing compared to this.

But Nat had already fallen behind and disappeared.

There was no time to think about that, however, for the television cameras had arrived at last. Their trucks paced him and their flood-lights made his image blaze like a terrestrial star as it went out to every set in the city. The sea-elves, still lustily singing, came once again to the chorus, and once again all joined in to sing:

Yes, this I can tell

That all will be well

When the king enjoys his own again.

Had hours passed? Or was it only minutes? Never afterward was Will able to decide. Yet now the hordes of Babylonians, millions it seemed, came crashing up against a line of crones and wizards, all dressed in their robes of office and holding their staves of power. They dammed the street leading to the city's topmost skyscraper Ararat upon whose uppermost floors rested the Palace of Leaves, and though they were old and trail and the procession slammed into them like a mighty wave against a seawall, not all the throng put together could prevail against them.

The oldest crone of the lot spoke, and though she spoke softly her words sounded forth loudly enough that none need not hear. "Stand ye forth, Pretender, and surrender yourself to our custody that you may be tested."

The crowd made an ugly noise of disapproval. But Will put up his hands and silenced them.

"Be calm, my people!" he cried. It was a spontaneous decision not to employ the royal we, but it felt right that their new monarch should impress them with his natural and unaffected humility. "It is just and proper that the Council of Magi should demand proof of my parentage. Nor is Pretender an ignoble title, for it does not mean that my claim is false, but only that it has yet to be tested. Which tests I not only submit myself to but demand — for the kingship of Babel is not a petty thing, to be given up lightly, but a solemn responsibility that falls only upon the blood line of Marduk. So I am well pleased with these, my loyal crones and wizards. Faithfully have they guarded my throne, and for this shall they be richly rewarded when I have ascended to it. As shall you all, my dear and loving subjects. As shall you all!" All cheered.

"Now I leave you to be taken to the Palace of Leaves and there put to such tests and questions as shall prove my legitimacy. Such things are prescribed by custom, and are not to be hurried. They may well take weeks."