Exile by Al Sarrantonio Page B

shadows, "I was not . . . always cruel. . . ."

Chapter 12
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    "I' m sorry to report I have no idea where he is," Finance Minister Besh said in an even tone. In this case distance produced boldness, and Besh was well aware that if High Leader Prime Cornelian were standing beside him at this moment instead of sixty million miles away, his unsightly visage a mere image on a wall Screen, Besh's voice would be anything but level.
    "I'm sorry to hear your report, Besh," the High Leader said, though he sounded not nearly as interested or upset as the finance minister had thought he would. "I imagine your people are out scurrying about trying to find him?"
    "Of course, High Leader," Besh said.
    "Good. Let me know if he turns up."
    Before Besh could even bow, the Screen went dark, leaving the finance minister with salutations and such dryly stuck in his throat.
    Strange, Besh thought, mildly irritated; he was the kind of man who liked praise for a job well done and considered dressing down appropriate otherwise.
    Minister Acron, seated at the conference table behind him, was not quite so contemplative.
    "The pup will be found, and when he is I will strangle him myself!" the florid-faced defense minister, newly released from incarceration, shouted. He raised his fist to pound the table, but held it frozen at Besh's request.
    "Please," the finance minister, stroking his chin, said. "I must think this through."
    "What is there to think through? The King must be caught and dispatched with! There is no greater danger to us!"
    "That is true," Besh said, lowering his lanky frame into the nearest chair, "but there are other factors to consider. For instance, who has facilitated his escape?"
    "Faulkner, of course!"
    Besh waved a hand in dismissal. "I mean besides Faulkner. The boy could not do this alone. It is obvious that Faulkner foresaw his ... present circumstances and alerted the king to their possibility. It is reasonable to suppose that the prime minister also provided the king with a plan of escape and a method to effect it. You say he was told when of the prime minister's demise?"
    "At one-thirty in the morning," Acron said impatiently. "One of the bloody assistants alerted him."
    "It was Faulkner's machine, no doubt?"
    "Yes." Acron's ill temper was growing. "The machine was torn to pieces by my men. It saw nothing. Obviously it was programed by Faulkner to check on his well-being every fifteen minutes or so. When it discovered—"
    "Yes," Besh said, continuing to stroke his chin. "It then went immediately to young Dalin. It was very clever of the prime minister. But now . . ."
    "But now what ? Where is he? "
    "There were no obvious clues, I'm afraid, Acron. He seems to have vanished into thin air." Besh continued to rub his chin. "But there are always clues, Acron. Always."
    Even in death, Prime Minister Faulkner continued to surprise Dalin Shar with his knowledge. Dalin had spent his entire life sleeping in this particular bedroom—yet he had never had even the faintest knowledge that there was a secret passageway built into the wall next to his bed. It had been put there, Faulkner informed him, by Dalin's father during the same period that the underground rooms had been built in the palace.
    Faulkner...
    When the door from his bedroom closed behind him, leaving him in a dark corridor with only a slim handlight for guidance, a fear went through him like he had never known before.
    For the first time in his life, he felt truly alone.
    When his father had been murdered, Dalin had been young, and there had been constant attention and diversions. There had been nursemaids, and there had been ... Faulkner.
    It occurred to Dalin now that the prime minister had always been there. Always. From the very beginning, Faulkner had been ever-present, as tutor, adviser, confidant. Never could Dalin recall a time when the prime minister had been unavailable or too busy to listen to whatever petty grievance or problem the king found