Superstitious. The Izmir of Zir was superstitious. In that, and in that alone, lay Blade's one chance of staying alive.

At last he slept. When Valli came for him that night after dark he had grown another year and was beginning to look like a very stalwart infant indeed. His hair was darker and thicker and already inclined to curl. Muscles were developing beneath the baby fat. Valli kissed and hugged him and when Blade drew away impatiently she laughed and said, «If I did not believe before-and all day I have been wondering if it was not a dream after all-then I must believe you now. I think you have gained ten pounds this day.»

«I don't see how,» Blade said crossly, «since I am starving to death. If I do not have meat soon I will never grow back to manhood.»

«You must manage a little longer,» said Valli. «In the morning, if this crazy plan works and we are still alive, you will have food.» She eyed him and with a strange little smile said, «In the meantime, if you want it, there is my breast.»

Blade shook his head, though her breasts were inviting enough. «No. I am grown beyond that now. I must have meat. So let us get on with it. . your lover Ramsus is going to help?»

Valli made a face and sank onto a divan. From an anteroom a single light cast a faint glow over her face. Blade noted that for the first time she was wearing lip salve and that her lashes and brows had been darkened. Her hair smelled of fresh scent and she wore new combs to keep it atop her head. Her kirtle was new, he saw, and shorter than before, and tonight she wore scarlet underpants.

I have, he thought sourly, a most beautiful mother.

«Ramsus is ours,» said Valli. «He will do anything I ask. He should, after this afternoon. He nearly killed me. He is not a man at all-he is a beast, a goat, an animal or a devil. I do not know what he is-except that it is impossible to satisfy him.»

«That is good,» said Blade. «He will want you tomorrow and the day after. That will keep him quiet and cautious. What is he going to do for us?»

Valli explained. Ramsus had promised to drug a guard who would normally be stationed at the door of the Izmir's bedchamber. The man would become ill and a substitute guard would be sought. Ramsus would volunteer for the duty.

Blade was pleased, but looked for flaws in the plan. «Suppose Ramsus is not chosen? Suppose another man volunteers and is given the post?»

Valli shook her head. «Small danger. It is dull duty and the palace guard is lazy and spoiled. They never volunteer for anything.»

Blade nodded. She was probably right. It was the same back in Home Dimension.

«So far, so good, but how do you get me into the palace?»

Valli patted his head and pulled him onto her lap. «Come, let me coddle you a bit before you grow too big.» She pressed his face against her breasts. «My little sweet-I hate all this. I do hate so to see you become a man so quickly.»

Blade pulled away. «Enough of that. How do you get me into the palace?»

«Simple enough-if nothing goes wrong. Stel has agreed to help me. I have told you of my friend Stel?»

«Yes, yes. She wanted to leave me to die. Can you trust her now?»

«I think so. I know things about her, things which I have threatened to tell if she does not aid me. Of course, I would not really tell, but-«

«Get on with it.»

Valli sighed. «You are becoming a man, all right. Already you give orders like the Izmir himself. Very well-there is a postern gate that leads into the palace near the old man's chambers. It is guarded by a single man and it is well known that sometimes he sleeps.»

«We cannot depend on that,» Blade complained. «This may be the night that he does not sleep.»

«Patience, little Blade. I know that. But Stel is to go to him and engage him in talk and, in good time, offer her body. They will go off into the bushes. It will really be no great hardship for Stel,» said Valli with some spite, «for it is a long time since she has had a man.»

«And then what-supposing this all works out?»

«I will sneak quickly into the palace, carrying you, and make my way to the chambers of the Izmir. The corridors are deserted at that time of night and, with good luck, I will see no one but Ramsus. He will be guarding the bedchamber. He will let me in and I will place you on the bed of the Izmir and depart, to pray and to hope that all goes well and that we will both live to see another dawn.»

Blade thought it over for a moment. There were no flaws in the plan-if his luck held. It was simple and uncomplicated and should work. And there was no alternative.

«It is the best we can do,» he agreed. «How soon do we go?»

«Two hours before dawn. I have a basket outside the door. I will carry you in that.»

And so she did. Matters went well. Their luck held and she left him on a great soft bed in which an old man snored loudly. Valli kissed him and stroked his head and whispered, «Goodbye, little Blade. If matters go badly we will both die. If they go well and you do come to power in Zir, you will not forget your Valli? Or your promise?»

«I will forget neither,» whispered Blade. «Go. Go quickly.»

Her kirtle rustled as she left the room. A door closed softly and Blade heard an instant of whispering. Then he was alone in darkness and listening to the Izmir snore.

Blade sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed and waited patiently for light to show through the curtains. He tried to concentrate, to get a message through to Lord L, but the crystal was still dead. As dead, Blade thought, as he might be if this gambit did not come off.

Once in the pavilion, when he had spied on the women who came there to make love, he had heard them mention that in Zir unwanted babies were strangled.

Chapter 5

When it grew light enough to see Blade crawled up the bed until he crouched near the pillow on which rested the Izmir's head. The old man was bald and toothless, with cheeks heavily pouched and a nose like a scimitar. His neck was thin and wrinkled, leading under the bedclothes to a body that Blade guessed would be an emaciated wreck. This man was very old. He could die at any moment, even the next, in his sleep. Blade could only hope that the wracked flesh and the senile brain would hold together for a time yet-long enough for Blade to attain his growth and the ability to survive on his own.

The light grew stronger. The Izmir moaned and tossed a bit, mumbling to himself, and at last opened his gummed and rheumy eyes and stared, face to face, at Blade.

«Do not fear me,» said Blade. «I am the child, sent as Casta promised. I am your heir. I come in a child's body and with an adult's head and brain.»

Blade's small spine was cold and the hair frizzled on the nape of his neck. The next second would be decisive-if the old man screamed and summoned his guard, if panic and mindlessness took over, Blade did not stand much of a chance. He held his breath.

The Izmir did not move. His runny eyes narrowed and when he spoke his voice was surprisingly calm and deep.

«If you are a dream or a phantom,» said the Izmir, «you can go away. I am too old to frighten. If you are real, and this I do not yet believe, lay your flesh to mine so that I may feel it.»

Blade put his tiny hand in the wrinkled old one of the Izmir. The old man picked up the little hand, examined it, stroked it, squeezed it, then let it fall. «If it is a dream,» he said, «it is a most marvelously vivid one.»

«I am no dream,» said Blade. «Look you at my head-is it not too big for my body?»

The Izmir nodded. «Much too big. You are grotesque.»

«And hear my voice,» Blade continued. «Is it that of a man or an infant?»

«A man.»

«And do you believe that in this oversize skull there is a man's brain, fully developed?»