Suddenly Jantor looked glum. «No! I am a fool to listen to you. It is too soon to move. There are too many details, too much to be done. My people are not ready for that life yet, and how do we know that the Morphi would cooperate? There might be struggle and rebellion-all would end in disaster. The Morphi might choose to die, or to sleep again, rather than be slaves to us.»

Blade leaned in his chair and pointed a finger at Jantor. «They will not. I assure you of that. As long as we control the power source they will obey. I swear it to you, Jantor. Listen to me. Believe me. Given a choice between life and the sleeping death, given only that choice and no other, the Morphi will choose life. I will stake my own life on it. All we need do is to make certain that we control the power source. I can see to that.

«Now, Jantor, think well. Now is the time to act. Now! Not a generation from now. Tell me of this power source. Take me to it. Let me study it and make my decision.»

Jantor shook his head and once more made the fylfot sign on his head. «You have all but convinced me, Blade. I think you have something of the power in you. But I cannot help you in this. I do not know the source of the power.»

Blade looked blankly at him. «You do not know? You are king-intelligent, ruler of the Gnomen-and you do not know?»

Jantor scowled. «Do not make me sound as stupid as my people, Blade. No Gnoman has this information. I doubt that many of the Morphi themselves knew where the power came from. There is only one person who knows.»

Blade guessed. «Sybelline?»

«Yes. Sybelline. She alone. I do not know how she knows but she does. Once I doubted, back when I first became king and began to plan, but she convinced me. She disappeared and I crept up to a kiosk to watch the city streets. At a time she had promised, the sleepers came alive again. They wakened and moved, and for an instant all was as it had been before-for just an instant. Then they slept again. She knows. She keeps the secret in her head.»

After a moment Jantor added, «Why do you think I have not killed Sybelline before this?»

Blade could see the labyrinth of intrigue before him. He had no choice but to enter.

«Perhaps,» he said, «I can prevail on Sybelline to show me the power source. It is worth trying. Is she friendly to me?»

Jantor guffawed and slapped his belly. «She is friendly indeed. She desires you, Blade, even though she is long past childbearing. And more than that she will plot with you against me. She will whisper to you-in bed if she can get you there-that you and she can rule better than Jantor.»

Blade did not answer. What was there to say? Jantor was right. Norn had already hinted at trouble to come.

Jantor might have been reading his mind. «Sybelline will soon make overtures to you, Blade. You will pretend to fall in with her. You will seek the location of the power source. You will plot against me in everything but deed. You will agree to whatever she suggests, but you will take no action.»

Blade was curious. «You trust me so far, Jantor?»

«I trust you not at all, Blade, but I have spies also. And I have a thousand good men with spear bars while Sybelline cannot muster fifty. If you betray me, Blade, it will be bloody war and I will win. All my plans will be smashed and the Gnomen may become a dying race, but you and Sybelline will die first. It is a simple choice, Blade. Play me false and suffer. Be loyal and serve me and, in time, rule with me. You are much younger than I am. Would it not be a comfort in your old age to rule and to look upon the thousands of your children and grandchildren?»

Blade would have spoken again, but Jantor waved him silent. «Go now. Keep me informed through the little one, Alixe. Use her well, Blade, and keep her carefully. She is very dear to me.»

«And a spy to you,» said Blade as he left.

He heard Jantor laugh.

CHAPTER 8

It was the habit of Sybelline, now and again, to sleep with her son Wilf. He had been fathered by a Gnoman long ago-she had long since forgotten the man's name-and so was only one-quarter Morphi. This showed only in his features, which were regular and well formed, and he had a full head of hair. Otherwise his body was that of a Gnoman, squat, powerful and bowlegged. Wilf was not as intelligent as Sybelline would have liked, nor was he much of a bed partner, but bed was the one place they could talk without danger of being overheard. Sybelline well knew that Jantor had spies planted among her bodyguard. When she slept with these young Gnomen, as she had with most of them, she was careful to guard her tongue.

Wilf, having tried dutifully to satisfy his mother, was at the moment getting dressed in the plastic garments on which his mother insisted. She had always detested the Gnomen half of her, and did everything she could to forget it. Her apartment was filled with furniture and hangings looted from the city above and her cupboards were stocked with Morphi food. She preferred Morphi liquids to good Gnomen water. Left to herself and in her own province, she was in all things more Morphi than Gnomen. Only when she must deal with the creature Jantor, who possessed brute power along with a desire to see her dead, did Sybelline smile and don a Gnomen robe and a mask of hypocrisy. It had not been easy but she had managed. For she, and she alone, knew the secret of the power.

Sybelline, naked on the comfortable bed taken from a Morphi apartment, watched as Wilf finished dressing. He had not satisfied her, he seldom did, and she knew that he longed to be gone. Wilf puzzled her at times. She had taught herself to read Morphi and had studied their books. No Gnomen, even Jantor himself, could decipher the strange right to left, top to bottom, dot and squiggle script of the Morphi.

Sybelline believed Wilf to be asexual. He did not really care for copulation in any fashion. Neither the Gnomen nor the Morphi had any concept of incest or homosexuality, so it did not figure in her thoughts. Wilf was a brooder, a loner-sullen and introspective. He never came to see her unless she sent for him. Now, thinking his duty discharged, he longed to get away.

Sybelline patted the bed beside her. She pulled a cover over her nakedness. «Come and talk a bit, Wilf.»

Wilf frowned and looked sulky. «About what, Sybel? I have things to do.»

She frowned in her turn. «We all have things to do. And sooner than you think. Now come and talk to me, or listen while I talk. It is important.»

Wilf scowled but did as he was told. «And dangerous,» he said as he sat beside her on the bed. «You do not have to tell me. You are still plotting against Jantor. You still have that crazy dream of eliminating Jantor and taking over the city up there, of awakening the sleepers and ruling alone. When will you learn, Sybel? It cannot be done. Jantor is too cunning and too strong. You are not deceiving him. He has a thousand spear bars; you have fifty men who are not even trained to use spear bars and whom you use mostly for bedmates. I tell you, Mother, you are going to get us all killed or put in the five-mile pits.»

Only when he was distressed and anxious did Wilf call her Mother. She patted his cheek to calm him.

«In the past that may have been true,» she confessed. «That is why I have waited and waited. But now it is different. You have heard of the man Blade?»

Wilf nodded. «I caught a glimpse of him as he was being escorted to his quarters. He is strange looking. I cannot imagine where he came from. He looks powerful and dangerous, and it is said that he can make children. But what is all that to us?»

Wilf, like all Gnomen except Jantor, was sterile.

«It is everything to us,» said Sybelline. It was the Gnomen in Wilf that made him so stupid. She must explain everything to him.