Sung in Blood Read Free

elastic ropes. Similar poles and ropes were installed at stages all up the tower. Later, Shasesserre's young men would place their ankles in harnesses attached to those ropes and dive into space. The springy poles would absorb their momentum and halt them just short of death. They would dive from ever higher stations, their numbers dwindling as altitude betrayed courage's limit. It would be dark before they reached the top. The remaining divers would jump carrying torches.
    Rider had won the competition during his sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth years.
    He glanced at the workmen, then paid them no mind. They showed more interest in him. He was a remarkable physical specimen, and a reputed genius.
    The death engine stood at the side of the platform facing the Citadel. Rider asked, "Anyone touched this?"
    Heads shook. One man offered, "We didn't know what it was for. What is it?"
    Rider ignored the question. "Ingenious." He moved around the engine cautiously, never touching it.
    "Geep!" a workman said.
    "Hello to you too," Su-Cha sing-songed.
    Rider faced his associates. "Look this thing over when you catch your breath, Spud. See if it's booby-trapped."
    "Never again," Spud gasped. "Never again." He began studying the machine.
    "You still got to get down," Chaz reminded.
    "Let him jump," Su-Cha said. "Maybe he can knit wings before he hits."
    "Your sense of humor is juvenile," Chaz observed.
    "I'm just a young thing. Barely two thousand."
    "No booby traps," Spud announced.
    "Do you recognize the workmanship?"
    "No." Spud looked over the edge. He swayed. Rider grabbed his arm.
    "Dang!" Su-Cha said. "Thought he'd try it."
    Chaz kicked toward the imp's behind. Su-Cha was absent when his foot arrived. He cackled from a far corner of the platform, perched atop a workman's tool chest.
    Mumbling, the workmen started leaving.
    "Let's see if my father marked his killer. Su-Cha, do you smell anything?"
    The imp sniffed around the killing machine. His face puckered into one huge frown. "It's there. But weak. Be hard to isolate." He got down on all fours, snuffled like a hound. He went right to the top of the ladder and over the side, head down.
    "Don't take no demon to figure that," Chaz said. "No murderer was going to fly out of here."
    Greystone suggested, "We could offer a reward for witnesses." The scholar seldom spoke. When he did, even Rider listened. "Even at midnight someone might have seen him."
    "Hmm. No," Rider said. "Not yet. Likely to raise questions. Maybe if the news gets out. You and Spud might visit neighborhood watering holes. If anybody did see a climber he'll talk about it."
    Spud complained, "Come on, Rider. Why can't we go with you? How come Chaz and Su-Cha get in on all the excitement?"
    "Chaz will miss out too. He'll be looking for Soup and Preacher. We should have heard from them." Rider slowly turned as he spoke, flicked a glance toward the Citadel. "Ah. I thought so."
    "What?" Chaz demanded.
    "Someone is in the lab. Thought I saw movement a while ago."
    "Let's go!" Chaz whooped, and went over the side. Spud and Greystone followed. Rider examined the death machine again, then seized one of the diving ropes.
    He jumped.
    Workmen yelled. Rider plunged toward the Plaza. The spring in rope and pole absorbed his momentum. He came to a halt six feet from the surface, let go, landed running. His associates were not yet thirty feet down from the tower platform.
    He whipped into the Citadel, climbed stairs at a pace punishing even for his iron muscles, slammed into his father's laboratory.
    The place was a shambles.
    He placed one finger on the wall. It was warm. He nodded, made supple-fingered passes over the floor. Glimmering footprints appeared. Two men. One larger than the other. The larger tracks ran to the window and back. A lookout. The smaller feet went straight to the door, spacing indicating haste. The lookout had witnessed Rider's jump.
    Rider was rereading his father's message when Chaz, Omar, Greystone,