by Andre Norton
“Yes—”
Thecla waited no more than for that single word of assent from him.
“Very well. I am giving you for servant one of my guard who is familiar with the ways of Tolcarne. His uncle is one of the few merchants who still ventures there for trade. He will gossip and his talk will bear out your position among those of Ulad. But since he has not himself been overseas he cannot challenge any small slip of bearing you might make.
“This much I shall do: My party will carry you under their approval into Lom, into the palace. You must thereafter be on your own. If you can influence Melkolf—well and good. But I would advise you not to move with any haste, and to take very good care.”
“My lady, it is folly!” Grishilda burst out. “If he goes to Lom Court as one you vouch for and then is uncovered! My dear lady, this is a matter of too much danger for you!”
“It is by the word of Adise that I do this,” Thecla answered quietly.
“Oh, these Enlightened Ones!” Grishilda made a repudiating gesture with both hands. “My lady, I know you will listen to them and obey. But they say frankly that they care not for a single person, only for what they deem the good of all. They would sacrifice even you in some plan of theirs!”
“That could be the Truth,” conceded Thecla. “But in this case, Adise gives me bond-word that I shall not lose by supporting the one who moves in Kaskar’s place.”
“Bond-word?” Grishilda repeated. “Bond-word from an Enlightened One? My lady, seldom have any of our people heard that.”
“Just so. And this I will do as I have been advised, and we shall see what comes of it. Now to practical matters of the present. We go by flyer in the morning. This night, cousin, you shall stay in the north tower, better aloof from all save Cyart who is to be your liege man. It is custom anyway that you come not much into open company.”
A short while afterward Ramsay stood by a window, wishing he could shed the confining masked hood, which was overwarm and chafed around his throat. But he knew from Yurk that that was not done unless he was entirely alone. And the man Thecla had assigned to him moved about the room behind. He should be planning what he would do when they reached Lom. Only he knew so little about what he might find there it would be better to wait and see what fate would toss him as a chance.
Oddly enough, in spite of what seemed incredible to the sensible Ramsay Kimble he had been—and would extend every effort once more to be—he was accepting the fact that this had happened. He moved through no dream or hallucination. No, he was here in a world perhaps parallel to what he had always known—first tied to it by dreams, and then in a body not his.
That any machine could accomplish what Thecla calmly believed Melkolf’s could do— Only he understood from Yurk’s comments upon the past state of civilization that this world had once reached a standard undoubtedly in advance of any his own had ever known. There could well be reason to believe that Melkolf had rediscovered some principle those supermen of long ago had once put to use.
There remained only that he must discover whether such a machine would work two ways, whether Melkolf could be confronted and forced to return Ramsay. And since the party of which that scientist was a full member certainly did not want his presence here, they ought to be only too glad to send him back. For their purposes, Kaskar was now dead, Berthal ready to take the throne. Ramsay was a threat; he might even be able to exert a little blackmail on his own behalf, working through either the old Empress or this Osythes. He would just have to wait and see.
Waiting took him into the air again the next morning aboard the largest flyer he had yet seen. Thecla and Grishilda had a cabin to themselves near the fore of the machine. Ramsay sat surrounded by the men of her bodyguard, Yurk to his left. But he did not try to make any conversation as they were carried steadily to the southwest and Ulad.
Ramsay was not even aware that they had crossed the border until suddenly he saw other flyers in the air bracketing them, flying an escort of honor. They ate once and, as evening began to close in, he caught the first flash of the lights of Lom—the spread of the city across the plain beneath.
When they landed, it was outside the walls of Lom Palace, where a saluting guard awaited them, together with an old man in black-and-white, and another in almost as long a robe of yellow; both were bowing to welcome Thecla.
Ramsay started at the sight of the black-and-white robe. That was the man he had seen twice in his dreaming. He could only be Osythes, the one responsible for enmeshing him in this coil. He wanted to be angry at the sight of the other’s thin face, the brush of his white hair. Only it was not quite anger Ramsay felt now, rather excitement, the impatience of one who must act. And Osythes could be the key to that action.
SIX
Ramsay had tossed aside traveling cloak, unfastened the throat latch of that bonnet with its mask, behind which sweat gathered on his forehead. However, he knew better than to discard that headgear, for Cyart still bustled about the suite of chambers that had been assigned to Thecla’s kinsman. Also— Ramsay studied first one wall and then the next with suspicion. Perhaps this civilization had not yet advanced to the refinement of “bugging” a room when those in power wished to check on its inhabitants. But that did not mean that he could not be under some form of surveillance, if only through a secret peephole. This palace was the kind of medieval looking structure that made one think instinctively of secret passages, spy holes, and all the other aids to a court intrigue.
So best to continue to wear his mask, no matter how hot and confining it seemed. If there was some spy crouching behind the hanging-covered walls, there was no use in exciting a report that Kaskar had again returned—this time alive.
The chamber was luxurious. One of those long couches, covered with a thick green fabric, balanced piles of wide cushions scattered across a similarly shaded carpet to serve as chairs. And there were small tables, each bearing numerous figurines, bowls, cups, which Ramsay guessed were for display, not use, since they were of precious metals or carved from what looked like semiprecious stones. Long windows to his left gave not on the outer world but on a narrow balcony above a court. He caught words of command from below. A squad was being put through some drill there.
Somewhere within this pile must lie that lab that he remembered from the last dream in his own place and time. After Cyart had stowed away the baggage Ramsay had brought from Olyroun, Ramsay dismissed the man, wishing he dared take the servant enough into his confidence to ask him to keep his ears open, report anything he heard that might point to the direction in which Ramsay must search. Only he dared not risk any such suggestion.
He sat down on the couch, realizing only too well just how difficult this was going to be. Of course, he could attempt to cultivate Melkolf, but Ramsay doubted his ability to do that without raising any suspicion. Having never before played the part of a detective, he did not have the slightest idea how to begin. Instead, he strove to recall every one of those dreams that had tied him in to this wild venture. Perhaps somewhere hidden in his own memory he could find a possible clue.
The first one— That had been entirely of Osythes, the old man in his full black-and-white robes, seated in a chair with a tall, carved back, his head resting against it so that his chin was pointed up a little, his eyes closed, a certain rigidity and tenseness of his figure suggesting, as Ramsay guessed now, complete concentration. In that dream Ramsay had seemed to watch the Enlightened One through some window, as if between them at that moment there were a pane of clear glass.
Try as he would now, he could bring to mind only Osythes, the chair, that sense of deep involvement in thought that the Shaman had projected. Ramsay had not been in any way an actor in that dream, only an onlooker.
That first contact must have signaled the point when Osythes, searching for Kaskar’s “twin” on some other world plane, had at last discovered Ramsay. Then there had been no suggestion of foreboding. He himself had awakened from the dream only curious. So his curiosity
had led him to mention it to Greg, mainly because it had been clearer, remained more firmly fixed in his mind, than any dream he had remembered having before.
Now Ramsay saw Osythes in a chair—was the Shaman perhaps dreaming also? Or was the priest forcing his personality to search beyond this plane of existence? What next?
The second dream—Osythes had been in that also, but not passive, seemingly asleep in his chair. Instead he had stood, his eyes open, in his hand a round, glittering object, like a mirror, from which light reflected. The Shaman had held it carefully, moving it back and forth, until the flashes it reflected had struck straight into Ramsay’s own eyes. This time there had been no feeling of a protecting wall between them; rather it was as if Ramsay himself, without power of motion, were in the same strange chamber with Osythes.
The chamber? Ramsay closed his eyes now, bent his powers of concentration on trying to recall—not the Shaman with his flashing mirror, but what stood about him as a frame.
Walls—yes—and with hangings on them—much like the hangings of the walls that covered this chamber here and now. What were the designs on those hangings? Not those of animals and birds such as Ramsay would see if he opened his eyes; rather lines of black and white, the same colors as the Shaman’s robe. They had formed geometric patterns. But he could not see them except very hazily, and it required a terrific effort of will to recall them at all. The flash of the mirror into his eyes had tended to center his attention only on the Shaman.
Now—the third—
Osythes again, but beside him two others. One was a woman, and she was seated in a chair that had a heavy canopy over her head. That shadowed her figure so much that he could make out but little of it. On the other side of that chair was another man. He was much younger than the Shaman, wearing all gray, both undersuiting and vest-coat—bearing a hawk-eagle on his badge on his shoulder. Osythes had pointed the way; this was Melkolf bringing science to carry on what mental powers had begun.
That suggestion fitted—very well. Ramsay believed that now he could recognize the face of the enemy.
Three dreams. The fourth—?
Osythes no longer occupied the scene here, nor was the woman in the canopied chair visible. Ramsay could see only Melkolf, the scientist, clearly defined against a shadowy background. He was engaged in fitting a box with a rod into the square top of a large apparatus that stood shoulder-high before him. Ramsay drew a quick breath— That must be the machine Thecla had spoken of. He struggled to concentrate on it, but to do so was like watching an object through a wavering wall of water. One moment it was clear, the next it was hidden by a rippling. It was not the machine, however, he realized quickly, that he must deal with. No, rather the room that held it. What was that like?
Walls—stone, no hangings such as had existed in the first two dream pictures. But the stone was lighter in color, too. And there were other fittings in the room aside from the cube where Melkolf worked. Unfortunately, in some manner, Ramsay’s attention had been concentrated mainly during the dream on the scientist. Had he been already so tuned in to whatever had been used to contact him that he had been linked at that moment to the exclusion of all else?
Not quite, for there had been a fifth dream before the final one from which he had been awakened to serve the purposes of Melkolf s companions. In that he had been going down a long hall, before him the black-and-white robe, the Shaman’s white head, holding his attention. Osythes approached a section of wall with a large panel that bore the hawk-eagle painted on it in gold.
The Shaman glanced hastily from high to left and back again as if to assure himself that he was alone. Ramsay suddenly wondered about this dream. It was unlike the others in that neither Melkolf nor the Shaman was facing him, or using either the mirror or the box. Rather this was as if Osythes might not have been thinking of his prey at all. Then how had linkage occurred? Was it done because once having touched Ramsay through some control he evoked by an Enlightened One’s mental range, the Shaman had inadvertently opened a door for Ramsay that could be a two-way one, enabling his victim also to spy upon him?
At any rate, Ramsay watched the Shaman lift old, heavily veined hands to touch the outer tips of the gilded bird’s spread wings. He appeared to exert heavy pressure. Then, in answer, the panel split down the center. Osythes stepped through that opening quickly, bundling his robe about him tightly as he went.
He had to move quickly indeed, for the paneling snapped shut again, as if the mechanism that controlled it were on a tight spring. Then had followed a change in the dream, a shifting of background.
Once more Ramsay saw what must be the laboratory, this time from a different angle. Osythes went before him, descending a stairway into what must be, in comparison with the Shaman’s slightly stooped figure, a large area. The equipment housed there was in startling contrast to the medieval appearance of the rest of Lom Palace. Ramsay recognized nothing he saw, but it startled him with the feeling that all these installations were centuries in advance of anything he had seen, either in a dream or in reality, in either Ulad’s city or his own home.
Centuries ahead? Or aeons behind, Ramsay wondered now. That story Yurk had told him—of a highly technical civilization that had vanished in a chaos of worldwide war. Suppose Melkolf, a man with what passed at present for scientific training, had found some very ancient storage place, or just the knowledge to reproduce such experimental equipment? That could be the answer.
Osythes reached the floor of the lab now, walked across it. Melkolf and Berthal suddenly came into view, as if the Shaman had raised his voice to summon them.
Though the dreams had always been vividly realized as to sight, Ramsay had never heard anything during them. Now he longed to have that second sense added as he saw the three men conferring together. He might not hear their words, but he was able to pick up a sense of excitement, of need for action. As Osythes turned, the other two accompanied him. Then—
Ramsay shook his head, opened his eyes. That had been when he woke up. And there had been only one more dream, that which had been his undoing, after which the compulsion to drive to the mountain and his crash must have been exerted. He remembered Melkolf in that and the man he knew now to be Prince Berthal—cousin to the helpless Kaskar.
That last dream held nothing he could now put to advantage. All he really had was the secret panel that led to the lab. But could he openly tour what might be miles of corridors within this pile, seeking one panel with a gilded bird on it? There could be more than one, since the hawk-eagle was the badge of the ruling house.
What about by night? Were there then sentries on duty along the corridors? How long would he have to hunt? In what direction? Ramsay’s frustration sent him pacing restlessly back and forth, tugging at the throat latchet of his hood. He longed to skin that and the mask off, but he did not quite dare.
Melkolf, Urswic, and Berthal—Thecla had warned him that those three might take matters into their own hands, making sure that Kaskar, or what seemed to be Kaskar, might never rise to trouble them again. Osythes and the old Empress were opposed to such a drastic step. Ramsay began to concentrate on the Shaman.
From what Grishilda had said, these Enlightened Ones did not take much note of the needs of the individual. They dealt with matters of the future, how men and events might be manipulated in the present to bring about the results they had decided were the most beneficial. Apparently Osythes had been of the belief that the removal of Kaskar, which would immobilize Ochall’s plans to rule Ulad through a puppet, was of great importance.
But would Osythes support a mock Kaskar in his demand to be sent back to where he really belonged? And if the Shaman was friendly enough to exert himself on Ramsay’s behalf, did he have enough control over the Empress’s party to enforce such a move?
Thecla was housed in the so-called Yellow Tower, and its position in relation to his own chambers he had discovered easily enough through Cyart. After all, he was Thecla’s proclaimed only kinsman. At such,
surely he had reason enough to seek her out. Perhaps she could solve a few riddles for him. It would do no harm to see her anyway.
Ramsay rebuckled his hood, surveyed himself in the mirror to be sure that his Kaskar features were truly in eclipse. He thought that he made a rather sinister appearance in this suiting of dull red, the hood and mask concealing most of his face. A picture from a book flashed into his mind, that of a medieval headsman in part so appareled, waiting for the reluctant approach of a victim.
However, he was equally sure that even Kaskar’s hostile grandmother could not recognize him at present, and that he dared venture out. In spite of his grim appearance, as a Feudman he was unarmed by the standards of the world, and thus harmless. The customary short sword did not swing from the belt tightened about his vest-coat.
Beneath the feud mask, Ramsay grinned a little. To each world its own arts. He had listened to Yurk carefully, leading the veteran soldier to accounts of his own past campaigns against mountain outlaws. Karate skills were seemingly unknown in either Ulad or Olyroun. Ramsay flexed his hands now. At least he carried a secret protection. For he already knew, from some research at the lodge when he was totally alone, that the skill in his memory could be grafted on to this new body. He was a little slower, a little less tough. But he had been working on that, too.
Now as he stepped into the corridor, he walked with purpose. However, his attention was not only just for the guard who might dispute his way, but also for the wall panels. Here they were designed with arabesques in complicated patterns, no hint of any bird about them. As he turned into another corridor, which should lead directly to the Yellow Tower on a level below Thecla’s suite, Ramsay saw that the panels gave way to a series of shallow niches, in each of which was poised the figure of a small, monstrous-looking animal. The company of figures were all different and all highly fantastic. Ramsay thought that they, like those pieces on display in his own chamber, had been fashioned from semiprecious stones, quartz and perhaps jasper—but he knew so little of the subject he could not be sure.