"You yourself made the same comment earlier, when you remarked that I, a man of God, am with you to participate in this unholy mission. Why, you ask. You asked me if I were not risking my immortal soul by accompanying you." "And you said--" "I said that I had little to risk. Strange words, coming from an Archbishop, but my soul is long since forfeit. God works in strange ways, and so his servants follow." "You're still talking in riddles," Kesley complained. "Why did you come along, then, if you knew it would damn you?" "I am _already_ damned for serving Miguel!" Santana cried. His doughy face was taut with sudden animation. "Don't you see that Miguel and his Dukes have overthrown Rome, have supplanted Christ with themselves? And we continue to serve them, not because we desire it, but because we must!" Kesley frowned. A light of torment, almost of martyrdom, gleamed in the Archbishop's eyes now. "What difference does it make," Santana asked, "if I help you kill Winslow? I cannot be any more damned than I am already--and possibly, possibly the consequences of your act will--will--do you see?" "Killing Winslow will topple the whole apple cart," Kesley said softly. "You're gambling an already assured damnation against the chance that knocking off one Duke will crush all the rest and restore your religion to supremacy." He chuckled quietly. "I sometimes wonder just _whose_ catspaw I am," he said. "Everyone's," the priest remarked. "Poor pawn, you've fallen fair of everyone's scheming." The priest continued to read for a while, then uttered a brief prayer in rapid Spanish--perhaps it was even Latin, Kesley thought--and blew out his candle. Kesley closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Sleep would not come. Brooding, he rolled and fidgeted, seeing over and over again the loose-jointed, hideous figure of the mutant. VI "I'll be back later," Kesley said in the morning. His eyes stung as if they had been sandpapered during the long, sleepless night; his lips were dry and cracking, and the oppressive city heat hung around him like the caress of a giant velvet glove, smothering without actually touching. "Where are you going?" Santana asked, not looking up. It was a mechanical question asked out of mere courtesy, and Kesley ignored it. "Saddle my horse," he told one of the men. "I won't need any of you to go with me." The morning air was already steaming as he rode out into the city. The market was crowded with sleepy-eyed Chicagoans haggling for the fruit and vegetables that had been brought in while they slept. Kesley traversed the marketplace in a wide circuit and struck out along the broad cobbled road that led to Duke Winslow's palace. About halfway there, he cut sharply and veered to the right, guiding his horse down a steep hill and off onto a narrow, red-brown unpaved road. Looking ahead, he could see his destination: the impossibly untidy bramble of shanties that was the ghetto of the mutants.