Act Three, Part Three

Sally port! Artie snapped his fingers. "Of course! The sally port! Hey, that's not a bad idea at all, and…" He glanced in the direction of the voice he'd heard and did a double-take. "Wait a minute! I recognize you; you're that kid who's been following me all over town! Who are you, anyway?"

Eyes wide, the boy backed up a step, hastily swallowed his bite of apple, and proclaimed, "Teshnante djo, merinko, njede porlante ingleshko."

"Oh no, you don't!" Artie replied with a snort. "You're not getting away with that 'Sorry, mister, I don't speak English' ploy, kid. We're speaking in Pterovnian! Now, who are you and why have you been following me around? I saw you with your apple outside that chemist's shop earlier today and... Hey! Get back here!"

The kid paid him no heed though, and pelted off down the street. Naturally Artie gave chase, but it was no use. Between the kid's head start, younger legs, and better knowledge of the byways of Lyuko, Artie was soon left panting in the street, his quarry long gone.

"Great!" he muttered to himself. "A lead, and I lost him! I wonder who little Apples there is working for? Still," Artie mused, "his idea about the sally port was a good one... provided I can locate the Old Palace again."

He rested for a minute or two, hands on his knees to catch his breath, then set out to find his way back.

…

Having shaken off his pursuer, Apples charged down one alley and up another until he found what he was looking for: the man in the muddy green coat. Winded but pleased with himself, the boy reported, "The American I have been following is at the Old Palace! He believes his friend is inside. Now our men can capture the blue-eyed American!"

"The blue-eyed American has been taken already," the man replied brusquely. "Our work here is done. Come!" And the pair slipped away to disappear into the depths of the city.

…

It took Artie a while to find the hidden back door to the Old Palace, but once he located it, he made very short work of the lock and was soon inside. The sally port, as it turned out, gave onto a passageway that angled to the right along the interior of the castle's curtain wall, then downwards underground. Artie pulled out a handheld reusable torch he'd invented, lit it, and set out exploring.

The passageway was inevitably dank and spooky, with a few obligatory skeletons chained to the walls here and there just to provide the proper ambience. Artie shuddered and moved along briskly. "Couldn't just open into the wine cellar, now could it?" he grumbled.

Shortly he came to a dead end, but knowing it wasn't likely that the original builders would have gone to all the trouble of putting in this underground passage for it to lead nowhere, he studied the wall before him carefully, touching anything and everything, searching for a… Aha!

"Hello, latch for the secret door!" he murmured smugly. The wall clicked open and he peered within.

To find the wine cellar! Again he congratulated himself, although a swift perusal informed him that only the most worthless wines had been left behind when the king had moved into his new palace. "Oh, well," Artie muttered philosophically. "Suppose vinegar has to come from somewhere…" He found the exit and moved on in his search for Jim.

…

Jim woke to iron bars and a pounding head, along with a rather dim recollection of how either had come about. Hmm... Ah, yes. There had been Niko and his grand plans for revolution... His order to incarcerate Jim... The Brit — improbably named Ichko — with his minions... And, yes, there had been a fight.

That too was dim in his recollection. The two minions had closed in on him, grinning. One had shoved Jim, only to learn at once the error of his ways. As the first one lay groaning upon the floor, the other, with a snarl, had drawn a gun. Instantly both Niko and the Brit as well had cried out, Niko demanding, "No guns!" while the other ordered, "Do not harm him!" — unless it was, "Do not harm his suit"?

Come to think of it, where was his suit? Here he was lying on this cot within a chilly make-shift jail cell at the far end of a hallway, and he was stripped down to nothing but his drawers! Jim glanced around, noticing some clothes that were stacked upon the chair that served as the only other piece of furniture in the cell. Clothes, yes — but not his own clothes. These items, he found as he inspected them, included a faded work shirt, an equally faded pair of old dungarees, and a remarkably cracked and holey set of work boots.

Someone had taken his clothes and left these in their place — and he probably didn't need to guess who was behind that. With a sigh, Jim set about pulling on the donated miner's outfit. And as he did, more of the fight began to come back to him.

…

Well, here was another passageway, broader than the hidden one Artie had found just inside the sally port. No more skeletons, at least, but plenty of dust. And yet…

He got down on one knee to inspect the dust. Ah yes, footprints! Someone had gone through this passage not too long ago, and among them… "I'd recognize the print of Jim's boots anywhere. So he went along this way and out through the sally port, and apparently along with some company! I wonder where they took him?" Artie frowned and tapped at his nose in thought. On the one hand, obviously Jim was no longer here, so was there any point in lingering? But on the other hand, Jim had come here for a reason, and if Artie was guessing correctly, the reason was almost certainly still here, and might well shed some light on why Jim had come and where he was now.

All right, now that that was settled, Artie hopped up and set off up the corridor heading deeper into the palace. Soon he found a set of stairs and bounded up them. At the top he had to unlock a door, but once that was done, he found himself within the museum proper. It was quiet and empty, and he roamed the silent rooms, looking for a way that led to a different area of the downstairs.

…

Jim remembered the man with the gun. After both Niko and the Brit had nixed the weapon, the man had tossed it aside and charged at Jim. And straightway the reckless minion had learned what it was like to be on the receiving end of a hip throw.

The rest of the fight was mostly a blur. A great number of the miners had rushed Jim then, and while he was dealing with them... What? Something must have happened, for there was still this tender spot on his scalp to account for. Jim fingered the area, noting that it was oblong and swelling. About the right shape to have been made by a cosh, or else by the butt end of a gun.

"Ah, you are awake!" came a smug voice with a British accent. "And you've discovered the little souvenir I bestowed upon you. Really, Mr West, you never should have lost sight of where I was, no matter how many other assailants had swarmed you."

Jim eyed his adversary, who had suddenly appeared from around one of the many stacks of crates that lined this dimly-lit hallway. "Then that was your crony's gun you hit me with," Jim guessed.

"Oh, on the contrary; it was my own," Ichko responded. "Which, conveniently enough, I still have right here." He drew it and aimed it through the iron bars at his prisoner.

"I seem to recall there was this little matter of not shooting me," Jim remarked.

"True, true. But that was before, you see."

"Before what?"

The Brit chuckled. "Before we divested you of that fine blue suit of yours!"

Jim looked down at himself. "You kidnapped me for my suit," he deadpanned.

"Oh, indeed! As you may recall from our conversation earlier with the, ah, Boss, I have a plan to, as they say, 'take care' of the primary obstacle to securing the throne. You, of course, would not cooperate to be the trusted man who eliminates that idiot Stepanko — but I have another who will, for the right price. And interestingly enough, he looks just like you!"

"So you're sending out a double of me to assassinate the king."

Ichko smiled. "Mm-hmm."

"Even though your boss told you not to."

Now the Brit laughed outright. "Oh, Niko is not my boss — not my real one! He's merely a dupe, a Pterovnian fool, useful for now, but soon to be tossed aside. Why, when we're done with him — and with you as well, of course — the so-called Traitor in the dungeons will no longer be regarded as the most hated man in Pterovnia, for the pair of you will have taken his place."

"For assassinating the king."

"Precisely! Not that either of you will be around long enough to revel in your new-found status, of course."

"Of course," Jim agreed. "So with the king out of the way, along with his obvious assassins in the persons of Niko and myself, that leaves a power vacuum, to be filled by…"

"By my real boss, of course."

"And that would be whom? Queen Victoria?"

The Brit barked with laughter. "Perish the thought! No, my real boss is someone far closer to Pterovnia than the Empress of that sceptered isle. He is… Well, let me put it this way, Mr West: it has a great deal to do with recent history in this cozy little corner of Eastern Europe. Tell me: how much do you know about the nation of Ruritania?"