Fortin waited a moment for other members of Rolls' entourage to form around him in an alcove of the entrance hall. When the six big men had done so as planned, Fortin squatted down and reversed his cloak to bring the pink side out.
There was a white beret under his slouch hat. He kicked off his black boots, replaced them with pink sandals, and pulled up white tights to cover his legs as he rose.
The last item of Fortin's disguise was the pink violin, hidden beneath his cloak with the sandals.
At the moment Rolls swept Penny into his arms at the far end of the hall, Fortin stepped through the mirrored door at the back of alcove. He was an unremarkable flash of pink in the event that any of Penny's servants noticed him at all.
Three women were chattering among themselves in the corridor. They paused when Fortin appeared, then resumed their discussion in marginally lower tones as the newcomer ignored them. Fortin strode down the hall in the opposite direction.
Fortin knew the layout of Penny's palace better than . . . probably better than anyone else, even Penny's servants, because they grew old and died. Penny herself neither knew nor cared about the intricacies of the mansion constructed to her whim. Her focus was narrower—and very different.
A squad from the kitchen staff, looking more than usually silly with their fluffy uniforms grease-spattered, wheeled trolleys of food up one of the side-corridors as Fortin passed. They paid no attention to him.
The food would be served to Rolls' retainers in one of the many refectories on the lower level of the palace. No one would notice that there was one fewer of the men in orange livery than had been admitted to the hall.
A garden of palmettos was planted beneath the staircase at the end of the main corridor. A prismatic slit window high in the wall above provided the plants with sufficient light for growth. Fortin checked over his shoulder to make sure nobody could see him, then tossed his balled cloak behind a screen of the broad, feathery leaves. Penny's upper level servants didn't wear overgarments.
Fortin skipped briskly up the stairs.
A doorway opened immediately off the spiral staircase; on the other side would be an arbor in the palace rotunda. Fortin reached to open the door, but paused with his hand on the knob.
There were voices from the other side of the panel; male and female servants, several of each. Nothing that would concern Penny, of course, so long her needs were attended. . . .
Fortin laughed silently and continued up the stairs that now spiraled within one of the flying buttresses. He had more important things in mind than disturbing an orgy—or joining it.
His sandals whick-whick-whicked on the stone treads with the regularity of a metronome.
They all hated Fortin, but they needed him as well. For tasks like this, for the tricks that no other god could accomplish. . . .
And that made them hate him all the more; but they had to bear his presence unless they were willing to destroy themselves as well, for the Matrix was balance. If the others slew Fortin, then they let their own lives out in the same stream of blood.
If Diamond were destroyed—
If Fortin were to destroy Diamond—
Then Fortin's fellows, who hated him because he was half android—which they despised—and half North, whom they wisely feared . . . then Fortin's fellows might slay him in their ungoverned rage and bring down all this near perfection which they ruled. Which would be the best trick of all, surely.
The staircase ended in a finial at the top of the buttress. Fortin peeked out. No one was in sight.
A railed walkway circled the top of the rotunda, more to add golden glitter to the appearance than for safety needs. Beyond the railing, Fortin could see fairy-castle turrets, each streaming with bright flags, studding the outer walls of the palace.
Still hidden in the finial, because there were windows in the spire overlooking the rotunda roof, Fortin stripped down to his pink jockstrap and sandals. He strode out, wearing an expression as arrogant as the bulge of his groin.
In the flare of the central spire was an unobtrusive door. It opened to Fortin's touch. The corridor beyond was decorated with plaster cherubs, roses, and swags in case Penny herself chose to use it. In all likelihood, nobody passed through the hall except the maintenance crews who swept and polished the roof.
And Fortin. Now.
He ignored the stairs around the elevator shaft. A trio of servants stepped from a room across the way, carrying bundles of bedclothing. One of them saw Fortin, and they ducked out of sight again.
Their mistress had the power of life and death, so there was risk to a servant whom Penny noticed—but not much risk, because death didn't interest Penny very much.
Their real danger came from the savage whim of a human promoted to the mistress' bed. Such a one had Penny's ear and power—until she tired and cast him out. Out, nowhere; perhaps to menial service, perhaps back to a grubby village in the Open Lands where he'd been born; perhaps to a void in the Matrix, for Penny had her notions too, and in bed alone she could be interested for good or ill.
No sensible servant wanted contact with a doomed man who might wish to destroy as much as he could before his own inevitable end.
Fortin walked into the lift shaft and began to rise. Not because he was one of Penny's favorites, as those who watched from behind half-opened doors thought; but because Fortin too was a god.
He wondered if Penny hated and despised herself. Probably not. She wasn't perceptive enough to realize that she should, that they all should.
Fortin got off the lift at the top level, where the spire swelled into the huge, gilded egg of Penny's private suite.
Maids were straightening one of the great rooms. They peered at Fortin through the open door. One giggled. They were nude except for wisps of white gauze in their hair and a similar tracery of pink around their hips.
Fortin stared at them coldly. "This isn't for you," he said, jutting his hips forward to emphasize his words.
The girls' bright, scrubbed faces changed. One of them quickly closed the door.
Fortin entered the white angora room that was Penny's particular favorite. He paused when he heard laughter, but the balcony door was open and the sounds came through it.
The necklace was on a dresser. Fortin fingered the stone for a moment. It was warm, blood hot, even though it must have been several minutes since Penny tossed it aside to get on with a variation of the one matter that interested her more than her own appearance.
Fortin slipped the transparent strap over his head and let the jewel bounce against his own chest. For a moment he looked at himself in the dresser's triple mirror and saw the form of Rolls, complete with the first hint of a paunch rolling over the cord of his orange jockstrap.
And again, a muscular stud with sullen, swarthy features, not Fortin but any one of a thousand men who'd gained Penny's attention in an existence where duration no longer had meaning. The jewel concealed itself.
Fortin looked toward the balcony door. It stood open at an angle. Reflected in its crystal surface, ghostly against the cloud-streaked sky beyond, he saw Rolls and Penny.
The palace's mistress was leaning her whole torso out over the top rail. Her chubby calves intertwined with the railing's vertical supports, and Rolls' great hands gripped her breasts.
Penny cried in delight as Rolls stroked into her again from behind, and again, and again.
A risky position, even with Rolls' strength and Penny's own undoubted athleticism. But what was even godhead without risk?
There was no expression on Fortin's face as he stepped into the lift shaft. He would leave the palace as a faceless member of Rolls' entourage and hand over the necklace as soon as they were clear.
When Rolls was done with it, Fortin would slip the necklace back here.
And Fortin would revisit Ruby.