Forsake the Sky

  “Given up?” asked Frank.

  Abruptly, Orcrist laughed. “Yes, by God,” he said. “Which is yours?”

  “The one whose ear lobe is showing. I didn’t want to do an absolute copy.”

  Orcrist laughed again and clapped Frank on the shoulder. “Come along to breakfast,” he said. “And we can discuss your career possibilities.”

  Chapter 5

  Beardo was staring with ill-concealed distaste at a glistening fried egg on his plate. With a petulant jab of his fork he ripped open the yolk.

  “There’s a sad sight for you, poet,” he said somberly.

  “Oh, quit playing with it,” said Tyler.

  Both of them were frowning and squinting, and they seemed to have occasional trouble in breathing.

  “Beardo,” said Orcrist, leading Frank into the breakfast room, which was cheerily lit by actual sunlight reflected down a shaft from the surface. “Your boy here proves to be a competent art forger. I propose to buy him from you. How does sixty malories sound?”

  “You’re too generous, I’m sure,” smiled Beardo, cheered by this unexpected windfall. “Sixty it is.”

  Frank was surprised to find that he was a buyable article, but he said nothing.

  “How do you feel about that, Frank?” asked Orcrist.

  “You’d be a licensed art forger, bonded to me. You can have room and board here, plus a good salary, half of which, for the first two years, goes to me. Then when your bond is paid off you keep all of it. Will you take it?”

  How can I not take it, Frank thought. It sounds like a good deal, and there’s absolutely nothing else I can do. He bowed. “I’d be delighted, Mr. Orcrist. Where do I sign?”

  “After breakfast, can’t do business before breakfast. Why, gentlemen, you’ve eaten nothing! Not hungry?” He winked at Frank. Beardo and Tyler shook their heads.

  “Well I thank you for your company anyway. I assume two such busy citizens as yourselves must have many appointments, so I won’t inconvenience you by insisting that you stay for lunch.”

  ORCRIST told Frank that they’d get him registered with the Subterranean Companions that night. In honor of the occasion he provided Frank with some clothes of a more sober nature: a suit of brown corduroy, black boots and a black overcoat. “It’s not a good idea to be too conspicuous down here,” he confided. “If you went out dressed in those other clothes, the first thief who saw you would figure it was Ali Baba himself walking by, and bash you before you could blink.”

  Frank examined the conservative lines of his new overcoat with some relief. “Who are the Subterranean Companions?” he asked.

  “A brotherhood of laborers engaged in extralegal work. A thieves’ union, actually. And we’ve got to get your name on the roll. Freelance work simply isn’t permitted.”

  “Well, I want to do this right,” Frank put in.

  “Of course you do.”

  That evening, after a much simpler dinner than the previous night’s, Orcrist and Frank set off down Sheol Boulevard, a grand street whose brick roof stood a full twenty feet above the cobblestones. Streetlamps were hung from chains at intervals of roughly fifteen paces, and taverns, fuel stores and barber shops cast light through their open doorways onto the pavement.

  “This, I guess you could say, is Downtown Understreet,” said Orcrist. “Three blocks farther are the good restaurants. We’ve even got a couple of good bookstores down here.”

  “Will we be passing them?” asked Frank.

  “Not tonight. We’ve got to turn south on Bolt after this next cross street.”

  They walked on without speaking, listening to the sounds of the understreet metropolis—laughter, shouts, clanking dishes and lively accordion music—echoing up and down the dim avenues.

  At Bolt Street they turned right, and then took a sharp jog left, into an alley mouth, and stopped. They were in almost total darkness.

  “Where are we?” whispered Frank.

  “Sh!”

  He heard the rattle of keys, and then the scratch and snap of a lock turning. Orcrist’s hand closed on his shoulder and guided him forward a few paces. There was a breath of air, and the sound of the lock again, and then a match flared in the blackness and Orcrist was holding it to the wick of a small pocket lantern. The narrow hallway smelled of old french fries. Orcrist put his finger to his lips and led Frank forward, past several similar doors, to a stairway.

  “Going down,” Orcrist whispered.

  At the bottom of the stairs, six flights down, Orcrist relaxed and began chatting. “Got to be careful, you see, Frank,” he said. “There are people who’d pay a lot for the death of a ranking member of the Companions, so I never come by the same route twice in a row.” They were walking along another corridor now, but it was brighter and wider, and Orcrist extinguished his lantern and put it away.

  “Why aren’t you armed?” asked Frank, who had noticed the absence of a sword under Orcrist’s cape.

  “Oh, I’m adequately armed, never fear. Ah, and here we are.”

  They stepped through a high open arch into a huge hall that Frank thought must once have been a church. The pews, if it ever did have any, had been ripped out and replaced by ranks of folding wooden chairs, but the place was still lit by eight ancient baroque chandeliers. A big, altarlike block of marble up front was currently being used as a speaker’s platform.

  Frank followed Orcrist up a ramp to an overhanging structure that might have been a side-wall choir loft or a theater box. “Make yourself at home,” Orcrist told him, gesturing at the dusty chairs and music stands that littered the box. “I’ve got to count the house.” He pulled a pair of opera glasses from his pocket and began scrutinizing the crowd below. Frank sat down. His injured ear was throbbing, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  After about ten minutes Orcrist put the glasses away and turned to Frank. “I’ll be back soon,” he said. “I’ve got to give your name to the registrar and pay your first month’s dues. Don’t leave the box.” He waved and ducked out.

  Frank leaned on the balcony rail, looked out over the restless throng, and soon saw Orcrist’s dark, curly hair and drab cape appear from a side door. He watched him make his way to the speaker’s stand and huddle for a moment with one of the men there. Frank’s attention was distracted then by a fight that broke out in the middle of the hall, and when he glanced back at the speaker’s stand Orcrist was gone. He was still trying to sight him when Orcrist’s voice spoke softly behind him.

  “Don’t look so eager, Frank. Don’t be conspicuous.” The older man pulled a couple of chairs close to the rail. “Sit down and relax,” he said. “This may take a while.”

  Frank had been expecting great things of this secret, underground meeting of thieves, but soon found himself bored. The speaker, a pudgy man named Hodges, spent the first few minutes exchanging casual jokes with members of the audience. Frank understood none of the references, though Orcrist frequently chuckled beside him. Hodges addressed everyone by their first names, and Frank felt more excluded than he had at any time in the past three days. He felt a little more at home when Hodges read the list of newly-bonded apprentices and he heard “Rovzar, Frank” read out as loudly as any of them.

  What would Dad say, Frank wondered briefly, if he knew I was making a living as an art forger? He’d understand. As he once told me, while squinting against the sunlight of a cold morning, “Frankie, if it was easy, they’d have got somebody else to do it.” The meeting dragged on interminably, and just when Frank was convinced that he must fall asleep, a new figure appeared on the speaker’s platform. It was a burly old man with a close-cropped white beard, and Frank saw the other officials who were standing about bow as the old man nodded to them. “Who’s that?” Frank asked.

  “I thought you were asleep,” Orcrist said. “That bearded guy? That’s Blanchard. He’s the king of the Subterranean Companions. I expected to see him here. He must have heard about the palace rebellion— it’s only something big that br
ings him to one of these meetings.”

  Blanchard now rapped the speaker’s table with a fist. The crowd quieted much more quickly than it had for Hodges.

  “My friends and colleagues,” he began in a strong, booming voice. “I’m sure many of you have noticed evidences of a concealed crisis in the Ducal Palace.” There was a pause while the more literate thieves explained the sentence to their slower-witted fellows. “Well, I am now able to tell you what’s going on. Prince Costa has formed an alliance with the Transport Company and, day before yesterday, overthrown and killed Duke Topo.” There were scattered cheers and outraged shouts. “We now have a new duke, gentlemen. It is too early to estimate the effects this change will have upon us and our operations, but I will say this: proceed with caution. The Transport spacers are no longer just drunken marks whose pockets you can pick and whose girls you can abuse. They are now our rulers. They will almost certainly function as police. Therefore I abjure you”—again there was a flurry of interpretation for the less bright thieves—“step carefully; don’t cause unnecessary trouble; and keep your eyes open.” The old man glared out at the cathedral-like hall. “I hope you ignorant bastards are paying attention. Maybe some of you remember Duke Ovidi, and how he hung a thief’s head on every merlon of the Ducal Palace. Those days, friends, may very well be upon us once more.”

  On the way home from the meeting Frank’s ear began to bleed again, and he passed out on the Sheol Boulevard sidewalk. Orcrist carried him back to the apartment, changed his bandage and put him to bed.

  FRANK tossed a paintbrush into a cup of turpentine and ran his hands through his unruly hair. It’s going well, he thought. He’d been trying to get this painting in line for three days and had finally mastered Bate’s style. He raised his head and stared at his still-wet painting, then turned and studied the original, hung next to it. I’ll have this canvas finished this afternoon, Frank thought, which leaves the problem of darkening it and cracking it so that it looks as old as the original. But that was purely a technical detail, and he didn’t anticipate any trouble with it.

  The front door swung open and Orcrist strode in. He took off his black leather gloves and tossed them ’ onto a chair.

  “By God, Frank,” he said, studying the forgery, “you have got the soul of Chandler Bate on canvas better than he did himself.”

  “Thanks,” Frank said, wiping off a brush. “I’ve got to admit I’m pleased with it myself.”

  “It was the philosopher Aurelius,” said Orcrist, sinking into his habitual easy chair, “who observed that ‘the universe is change.’ If he’d thought of it, he’d probably have added ‘and an art forger’s duties vary with the season.’ ”

  “Ah. Are my duties about to vary?”

  “As a matter of fact, they are.” Orcrist poured two glasses of sherry and handed one to Frank. “For three weeks now you’ve been working away here, and you’ve copied four paintings and eleven drawings that I’ve brought you. Where do you suppose those art works have come from?”

  “Stolen from museums and private collections,” answered Frank promptly.

  “Exactly. And whom do you suppose I had do the stealing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll tell you. A cousin of mine named Bob Dill. And two nights ago he was stabbed to death by a zealous pair of guards at the Amory Gallery. They chased him all over the building, hacking at him, and finally brought him down in the Pre-Raphaelite room.” Frank was unable to guess the appropriate response to this story, so he said nothing.

  “What with one thing and another,” Orcrist continued, “I find it impractical to hire another thief. The fine art market is suffering these days; Costa’s damned taxes have taken up a good deal of the money that should rightfully go to people like you and me. The market isn’t dead, you understand, just a trifle unsteady.”

  “So how will you get your paintings now?” Frank asked with a little trepidation.

  “You and I will pinch them ourselves,” Orcrist announced with a smile and a wave of his glass.

  Frank had a quick vision of himself bleeding out the last of his lifeblood on the floor of the Pre-Raphaelite room. “Make Pons do it,” he suggested.

  “Now Frank, I know you don’t mean that. I knew when I first saw you that you had an adventurer’s heart. ‘The lad’s got an adventurer’s heart,’ I said to myself.” Frank looked closely at Orcrist, unable to tell whether or not he was being kidded. “Besides,” Orcrist went on, “I once gave Pons a chance to ... prove himself under fire, and he absolutely failed to measure up. He’s a fine doorman and butler, but he does not have an adventurer’s heart.”

  “Oh,” said Frank, wondering how adventurous his own heart really was.

  “At any rate, Frank, we’ll begin tonight. Since it’s your first crack at this sort of thing, I plan to start with the Hauteur Museum. It’s an easy place.”

  “I’m glad of that.”

  “Relax, you’ll enjoy it. Now go get something to eat. We’ll leave at ten.”

  As Frank crossed to the door, he heard a soft creak behind it, and when he stepped into the hall he saw the door of Pons’s room being eased quietly shut.

  THE Hauteur Museum had once been Munson’s pride, but with the building of several new theaters in the Ishmael Village district to the north, the Hauteur found itself no longer the heart of metropolitan culture. It was still well-thought-of when anyone did think of it, and it could still boast some influential paintings and sculptures, but its heyday had passed.

  At eleven o’clock Frank and Orcrist entered its cellar, having wormed their way up a laundry chute that had once, when the Hauteur had been a hotel two centuries before, emptied into a now-abandoned sub-basement. Orcrist had carefully lifted off the mahogany panel that hid the forgotten laundry chute. “We want to replace it when we’re done, you see,” he told Frank in a whisper, “in case we ever want to come back again.”

  They stole silently up the carpeted cellar stairs. Their way was lit by moonlight filtering through street-level grates set high in the walls, and Frank realized with a pang of homesickness how long it had been since he had seen real moonlight. I hope the museum has windows, he thought.

  The door at the top of the stairs was unlocked, which Frank thought was careless of the owners. The two adventurers swung it open as quietly as they could. Orcrist motioned Frank to wait while he padded off into the darkness of the museum. Frank waited nervously, only now beginning to realize just how much trouble this night’s enterprise could lead to. Holy saints, he thought with a chill of real fear, if I’m caught they’ll send me back to Barclay! I’ve still got that tattoo on my chest.

  After a few uneasy minutes he heard a thump, then a multiple thud like a bag of logs thrown on a floor. God help us, he thought. What was that?

  “Frank!” Orcrist’s whisper cut the thick silence. “It’s all clear! Carefully, now, go down the aisle on your left!”

  When Frank did as he was told, he found himself in the main room. Paintings hung on every side, and he saw with delight a window opening on a quiet street and a deep, starry sky.

  “Get away from the window, for God’s sake,” whispered Orcrist. Frank turned back to the room to see the older man standing over an unconscious uniformed body. “Come on,” he hissed to Frank. “There are two paintings over here we ought to get.”

  Working in silence, Frank helped Orcrist unframe and roll two mediocre Havreville canvases. Orcrist thrust them inside his coat. “See anything else worth carrying?” he asked.

  Frank was beginning to relax, and he strolled up and down the dim aisles, peering at paintings and statues with a critical eye. Not bad, most of it, he thought, but none of it seems worth the trouble to forge. I’m not even very impressed with those Havrevilles. As he turned to rejoin Orcrist he noticed, with a thrill of recognition, a small portrait hung between two gross seascapes. He stared intently at it, remembering the hot July day on which it had been painted. His father had been very fond of the mod
el, and had frequently sent young Frank out for coffee or paint or simply “fresh air.”

  “Anything?” Orcrist inquired impatiently.

  “No,” whispered Frank in reply. “Let’s clear out.”

  Chapter 6

  The Schilling Gallery, on which they made an assault four days later, was “not such an easy peach to pluck,” as Orcrist was subsequently to observe to Frank. They failed to locate the drain that Orcrist swore would lead them directly into the gallery’s office, and they had to bash a hole in the tile floor from beneath with an old wooden piling they found in the sewer. The noise was horribly loud, and they weren’t in the gallery five minutes before armed guards were pounding at the doors. Orcrist refused to flee, though, determined to make off with a genuine Monet, which the Schilling had on loan from another planet.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here!” pleaded Frank, who saw the doors shaking as they were battered by boots and sword hilts on the other side. “One of them may have gone to get a key! We don’t have thirty seconds!”

  “Wait, I found it!” called Orcrist. He carefully took the canvas out of its frame and rolled it. He was sliding it into his pocket when the east door gave way with a rending crack of splintering wood. Four yelling, sword-waving guards raced toward the two thieves.

  Frank leaped sideways, grabbed a life-size bronze statue of a man by the shoulder, and with a wrenching effort pulled it over. It broke on the tiles directly in front of the charging guards, and one of them pitched headlong over the hollow trunk which was ringing like a great bell from the impact of its fall. Frank snatched up a cracked bronze arm and swung it at another guard’s head—it hit him hard over the eye and he fell without a word.

  “Come on, Frank!” called Orcrist, standing over the jagged hole through which they’d entered. Frank impulsively picked up one of the statue’s ears, which had broken off; then he ran toward Orcrist. The other two guards were also running toward Orcrist from the other side of the room, their rapiers held straight out in front of them. Orcrist’s hand darted under his cape, and then the front of the cape exploded outward in a spray of fire, and the two guards were slammed away from him as if they’d been hit by a truck. They lay where they fell, their faces splashed with blood and their uniforms tom up across the front. The harsh smell of gunpowder rasped in Frank’s nose as he leaped down through the hole after Orcrist.