Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [161]
"Kosher salami!" Lafayette shouted. "That's it! The favorite of millions from the Bronx to Miami—the key to the riddle is kosher salami!" He gulped, almost lost his grip, and held on.
"The salami was under me when I conjured up the knife—and we were eating it when I managed the costumes—and it was in my pocket on the cliff. So all I have to do is—"
O'Leary felt a cold hand clutch his heart.
"My pocket. It was in the pocket of my coat—and I left it up above, padding the rope!
"All right," he answered. "So that means you have a climb ahead, that's all.
"Climb up there? My hands are like ice, and I'm weak as a kitten, and freezing, and anyway—it will take too long—
"Get moving.
"I . . . I'll try." With vast effort, O'Leary unclamped a hand, groped for a grip higher up on the rope. He was dangling free of the wall now. His arms were like bread dough, he realized, his weight like a lead effigy.
"It's no use . . .
"Try!"
Somehow he pulled up another foot. Somehow he managed another six inches. He clung, resting, inches upward. The wind banged him against the wall. He looked up; something dark lay on the parapet, flapping in the wind.
"It's too far," he gasped. "And anyway—" As he watched with horrified fascination, the coat, having gradually worked free of the rope under which it had been pinned, flopped over, the brocaded tails dangling down the outer face of the parapet. The wind plucked at the garment, nudged it closer to the edge. It hung for a moment; a new gust stirred it—
It was falling, the empty sleeves waving a hectic farewell, dropping toward him. Wind-tossed, it whirled out away from the building.
With a wild lunge, Lafayette threw himself into space. His outstretched fingertips brushed the coat, snatched, caught the heavy cloth. As wild wind screamed past him, O'Leary groped for the pocket; his fingers closed over the greasy lump of salami Swinehild had placed there—
"A miracle! Any miracle! But make it fast!"
A terrific blow smashed at O'Leary; out of the darkness he went spinning end over end into fire-shot darkness filled with shatterings and smashing and screams. Then blackness closed in like a filled grave.
"It was a miracle," a voice that Lafayette remembered from another lifetime, ages before, was saying. "As I reconstruct events, he fell from the roof, struck the flagpole, and was catapulted back up and through the window, to land squarely atop his Highness, who was rushing to discover the source of the curious sounds outside."
"Give him air," another voice snapped.
Lafayette found his eyes open, looking up at the frowning visage of Lorenzo, somewhat bruised but as truculent as ever.
"You could at least have let me in on your plan," the other O'Leary said. "I was getting worried there at the last, just before you arrived."
"You . . . you were marvelous, sir," a sweet voice murmured. With an effort like pushing boulders, Lafayette shifted his eyes, was looking into the smiling face of Daphne—of Lady Andragorre, he corrected himself with a pang of homesickness.
"You . . . really don't know me, do you?" O'Leary managed to chirp weakly.
"You're wondrous like one I know well, yclept Lancelot," the lady said softly. "I ween 'twas you I saw from my coach as I rode forth to my tryst in the forest. But—no, fair sir. We are strangers . . . and I am all the more in your debt."
"As am I," another voice spoke up. A man stood beside Lady Andragorre, his arm familiarly around her girlish waist. He wore a short, trimmed beard and a curling moustache under a floppy hat. "Methought I'd languish till doomsday in his Grace's dungeons—until you arrived to spring me." He studied Lafayette's face, frowning. "Though I cannot for my life see this fancied resemblance of which my bride prates."
"Face it, Lafayette," Lorenzo spoke. "This character's in on the ground floor. He belongs here in Melange, it seems. He used to be duke, before Krupkin came along and stuck Rodolpho up in his place. Now he's in charge again, and Krupkin's in the dungeon. And the lady isn't Beverly