The cart went creaking beneath his perch. Blade sprang and, with no compunction at all, cut the driver's throat with the stone knife. The man hardly had time to struggle.

There was a single rein leading to the beast's head. Blade tugged it and the animal stopped and stood patiently. Blade hauled the body into the back of the cart and stripped it. It was the yellow uniform he was after, the breeches and vest and cap. No one in Jedd, Mok had said, would interfere with a corpseburner or even approach him closely if he could help it. The work, and the taint of the plague, made them feared and avoided. A corpseburner could come and go as he pleased. This suited Blade exactly.

He left the naked body in the cart and urged the animal forward, toward the walls of Jeddia, chief and only city of Jedd, where the Empress, or Jeddock, now lay dying somewhere on a pavilion in a lake. Dying to music played by musicians who worked in shifts so that the music never stopped.

The cart creaked onward, the beast plodded and Blade studied the mountains ringing the valley. The peaks glittered in moonlight high above the pall of smoke. Iron. And if there was iron in those mountains — and they but a small part of this dimension — there were certain to be countless other minerals. Perhaps rare ones that could scarcely be found back in Home Dimension. Billions and billions of pounds of treasure just waiting for teleportation. And when that was.one, England would again be the leading power in the world, displacing the United States.

Blade remembered the terrible pains in his head. Damn Lord L and his computer! If only the old man would leave him alone for a time — long enough to get his job done.

But nothing was to be counted on. Blade had to get on with it as best he could and as fast as he could. Establish himself. Take over. Begin his surveys.

That meant risk. To offset the risk he had only his two favorite weapons — bluff and boldness. Always boldness.

He was approaching a gate in the city wall. Soldiers in cumbersome iron breastplates and helmets, wearing baggy, loose breeches and armed with lances and swords, moved back to let him pass through. None spoke or even looked hard at the man in the yellow garb of death. Blade smiled. Fine. Until he was ready for his next step, he would be the man who wasn't there.

Chapter Fourteen

It was amazingly easy. Blade sent his cart rumbling through the filthy, narrow streets of the city, pausing now and then to ask directions of men and women who fled even as they answered. He in turn ignored those who carried bodies from their houses and implored him to take them as he passed.

An hour after entering Jeddia, he was concealed in a small copse of trees near a lake. In the center of the lake, mounted on stilts, was a large pavilion. Dim lights glowed through its cloth sides and the strains of music wafted plangently over the water to Blade. The same melody played over and over again by horns and stringed instruments. The old Empress had composed the tune, so Mok had told Blade, and had decreed that it be the national anthem of Jedd, and now she was dying to it. Blade, who could take his music or leave it, admitted that the thing had a certain haunting bittersweetness about it and that, once heard, you would never forget it.

He waited and watched. Barges scuttled constantly from the pavilion to a landing near him. Soldiers — most of them officers, judging from the gilded iron breastplates they wore — and solemn men in long, rich robes and skullcaps of what appeared to be velvet. Ministers of state, advisers, lawyers, merchants and the like. Blade paid them little heed. He was waiting for one man. The Wise One.

Whose real name, Mok had confided, was Nizra.

The moon was falling down the sky when Nizra came from the pavilion to the shore. The music still played on and on, so Blade knew the old Empress still lived. He moved to the edge of the little wood and stared hard as Nizra, the Wise One, stepped from his barge onto the landing. He was accompanied by a sizable retinue, with servants bearing torches, and in the flaring light it was easy enough to see.

Blade saw at once that this Nizra was a macrocephalic. His head was enormous, twice the size of that of an average man, like a giant, pallid flower blooming on a slender stalk. The head drooped continually to one side or the other, as though the weak spine could not bear the weight of it. Blade observed and whistled softly to himself. It was a giant of a braincase and if the brain in any way matched it in size, and in proportional acumen, he had best beware. The Wise One might be just that — and cunning into the bargain.

Now the man was giving orders, dismissing most of his party. Blade peered harder as Nizra stepped full into the glare of a torch. The man wore a flowing robe and a skullcap, as had the others, but the skullcap was a gleaming scarlet. A badge of office, Blade supposed, as was the gleaming chain that encircled the scrawny neck and at which the man continually fumbled with spidery fingers.

Nizra, with four soldiers in attendance, walked a short way around the lake, following a well-worn path, and disappeared into a tall, narrow house of the usual stone and wood. The soldiers did not enter. Blade watched as they spoke for a moment, then split into twos, one party remaining before the house, the other disappearing in the gloom to the rear. This Nizra was well guarded. So much the better. He would be that much more impressed when Blade appeared like a wraith from the very walls. For Blade was counting heavily on the first confrontation. It would decide his fortunes — and whether he would live or die.

He waited patiently until things quieted down. He had about two hours until dawn. Barge traffic between the landing and the pavilion ceased, though the dim lights still glowed and music came everlastingly over the quiet water. Blade made ready. He watched the two guards in front of the house intently. They were bored and sullen and patrolled back and forth, hardly speaking, each intent on his own thoughts. The only light was a guttering torch in a sconce over the door of the house that enlarged and distorted the shadows of the guards as they passed to and fro. Blade moved in closer.

He had only the stone knife. This killing — for he meant to kill them for his own safety and for the effect of it — must be a matter of skill and timing and luck. The skill involved did not worry him — when he had to be, Blade was a most efficient killer.

Still he waited and at last the guards paused to chat for a moment beneath the torch. Blade had been waiting for that. He ran swiftly across the path and ducked into the shadows of a hedge that lay near the end of the near guard's beat. Blade crouched there, stone knife ready, waiting. It must be noiseless.

The guards resumed their pacing. The man was coming toward Blade now, leather harness creaking, short sword swinging in its scabbard, the faintest of star sheen reflected from polished iron armor. Blade took a deep breath and held it.

The guard passed him. He was humming, very softly, a snatch of the refrain that came from the old Empress' pavilion. Blade let him get three paces past, then took him from behind with one brawny arm about his throat to stifle any cry. With his free hand he brought the stone knife around and sought for the man's throat just above the breastplate. The guard was strong and struggled mightily for his life, but Blade held him as he might a babe and slit the jugular neatly. Blood spurted, drenching the dying man and Blade as well. He did not mind. He wanted the blood on him.

Time was important now. The other guard would have reached the end of his run and turned back. Blade held the guard erect until he bled himself out, then lowered him and snatched off the swordbelt and scabbard. The sword was short and wide, double-edged with a thick hilt, and very heavy. Very like an old Roman sword.