"Yeah. The white guy with the wrists like two-by-fours. He looked like an American, except he was dressed like outta the Arabian Nights. He was gonna do us barehanded, too. I remember him saying he was sorry he had to do it."
They started up the stairs.
"That was to you," Don Cooder said. "To me he said my murder was going to be a pleasure."
Jackman grunted. "Musta been a right-winger. They all got it in for you."
"No, he seemed to know me from somewhere. And he looked kinda familiar, to boot. He said something else. But I think it was knocked out of me."
"Not the first time," Jackman grunted.
They climbed five flights before they gave it up and started going room to room, trying telephones. All were dead. Not that it mattered much. They were in enemy territory, and condemned to die by Maddas Hinsein's Revolting Command Council. Even it they knew the Iraiti equivalent of 911, it probably wouldn't help.
They found a window that faced toward the broad plaza of Arab Renaissance Square.
"Maybe we can see something from here," Jackman suggested.
The square was virtually deserted. The crossed scimitars that had pierced the sumptuous skyline still did, they were surprised to see. In fact, they were still crossed.
A harsh clang greeted their ears. Even through the sealed window, it made their teeth rattle in sympathy.
"Ouch, that hurt," Cooder said uneasily. The twin blades vibrated so much the phenomenon was visible even from their distant vantage point.
Then the blades unlocked, stood apart momentarily, and came at one another with renewed fury. The pane of glass broke before their eyes, so great was the shock wave that rippled from the clashing blades.
"They're not supposed to move!" Don Cooder blurted. "They're monuments."
"Well, they're moving now,", said Reverend Juniper Jackman, licking his scraggly mustache in worriment. His pop eyes seemed to stick out further than usual. He had the furtive look of a compulsive arsonist who, upon awakening from a bender, smelled gasoline on his fingertips and couldn't recall how it got there.
Don Cooder drew in his breath. "What could be causing this? What incredible power, unseen, unknowable, unstoppable-?"
"I'm gonna unstop you if you don't stop talking like you're reading the seven-o'clock lead," Reverend Jackman spat. "Where do you get that stuff, anyway?"
Cooder shrugged. "All our news writers come over from the Enquirer. Saves us breaking them in."
"Figures."
Their eyes returned to the glass. The scimitars were in motion again. Once more the glass popped, the air reverberating with a metallic clang and crash. The sparks that leapt from the joined blades were as big as snowballs.
"You know," said Reverend Juniper Jackman, "I can't see what's got hold of those pigstickers, but I got me a notion it has something to do with that guy who tried to off us."
Don Cooder nodded. "I wasn't gonna bring this up, but just before everything came crashing down around us, did you happen to notice an Arab gal rip her clothes clean off?"
"Maybe," Reverend Jackman said hesitantly.
"Did you notice her arms?"
"Arms? Yeah, I noticed arms. A few."
"How many did you count?"
"I stopped at three," admitted Reverend Jackman. "Three arms on a woman is unchristian. I didn't wanna see no more."
"I counted four," muttered Don Cooder in a thin voice.
Silence fell in the dim room. Neither man had anything to add to that shared recollection.
A scimitar longer than a jet's wing twisted and slashed across the skyline. Its opponent blade drew back, avoiding the blow. The attacking blade continued uninterrupted.
It bit into the side of a building like a knife through cardboard. The building's facade abruptly collapsed. It was a cheap concrete apartment building, but still the concrete should not have crumbled so easily. The blow must have been terrific.
So must the backswing have been. It chopped a line of flagpoles, on which the Iraiti national flag fluttered in triplicate, clean in two.
"I figure the gal has the other blade," Reverend Jackman said at last. His voice was very small.
"I figure the same," said Don Cooder. "Thing of it is, why are they fightin'?"
"I think the gal broke the guy's neck."
"I thought it was the gal who had a neck that was broken," Cooder countered. "It leaned over to one side like a Texas buzzard eyeing a sick steer."
"Well, they both got broken necks, then. It happens.
The blades swung madly, dancing, emitting flashing rays of bronze and gold sunlight, as they waved and evaded one another.
"Looks like they're getting the hang of it now," Don Cooder said after a while.
Jackman squinted. "Look to you like they're getting closer?"
"Maybe? Why?"
" 'Cause if they are, we're right on the chopping block, I figure."
"When you suppose the bombs will start falling?"
"No tellin'."
"Then I vote we take our chances," said Cooder. "The way they're going at it, all those bombs will be good for is to smooth out the rubble anyway."
Reverend Jackman shook his head stubbornly. "Not me. This hunk of stone looks built to last. I'm stayin' right here until it ain't safe no more."
"If you're staying, then I'm staying," Cooder said, letting his famous granite jaw jut out like the prow on an Aegis cruiser. But his saggy eyes were uneasy.
All at once the glass in front of them simply fell out. And the gargantuan contending blades hadn't even connected.
Reverend Juniper Jackman and Don Cooder jumped back, grabbing one another in fear.