by Andre Norton
Ramsay stared at him. Why had that thought not occurred to him? The stupidity of his own simple plan to return struck him speechless. Then he summoned the will not to allow this man to know how that struck home.
“If Kaskar was in my body, then where was I? There must have been some time lapse. I found myself awakening on Kaskar’s bier—”
“Yes, that has been our puzzle. Where were you during two days between the time when our unesteemed prince had his fatal attack and you came into residence in his carcass? An interesting problem. But of no consequence now. What remains is that of present Kaskar is safely dead, in two time worlds, and he is going to remain that way. There will be no resurrection to delight Ochall, that I assure you. And your foolish return to Lom will avail you nothing at all but—”
“My murder?” Ramsay somehow found the words, maintained with effort his outward composure. Melkolf indeed had the upper hand, for Ramsay did not doubt that he could easily be put to death here, and no one would ever be the wiser. Nor would his body turn up later to make trouble for his murderers.
“Murder? One cannot slay a dead man.” Melkolf laughed. “Had you a single wit in your head, you would have kept away, once you escaped. The Duchess arranged that, did she not? Well, she cannot speak of it, nor will she, knowing that Olyroun is the prize in the end. You will simply disappear. Using that”—he nodded at the cap-mask Ramsay had discarded—“someone will walk away from here and take ship to return to your homeland of Tolcarne. You have made it very simple for us, have you not?”
“No, he has not!”
Another man stood on the stairs, his long black-and-white robe giving bulk to his body. Melkolf shot a quick glance over his shoulder.
“How did you—” he began, then bit his lower lip as if those words had been shaken out of him by surprise and he wished he had never uttered them.
“How did I know, Melkolf? I was on my way to Her Splendor Enthroned apartments and met your messenger on his way. It needed very little persuasion to learn from him what had happened here. And what has been done is not in the least simple, Melkolf.”
“How so?” demanded the other defiantly.
“The very fact that Kaskar’s body drew this other is a thing we must know more about. Did it happen in the first exchanges you made?”
“No—”
“Then why should it in the most important one? There is always a meaning behind such things. We only follow paths which we choose for good or ill, that is our free choice. But we have not made those paths—do you understand me?”
“That is the talk put about by your Enlightened Ones. He is here because of some misfunction of the machine!” Melkolf scowled.
“But I thought you were certain of the functions of this machine of yours. Have you not shown us in private many wonders you have learned from your discovery of ancient and forbidden knowledge—”
“Forbidden by whom?” Melkolf flared. “By small-brained men who feared what they could not understand!”
“In the past by men who understood very well, well enough to have survived a world gone mad,” Osythes returned coldly.
“Legends—”
“All legends lie coiled around a core of truth. But we do not argue history now. This man’s fate is something that I do not understand; he is not to be lightly handled!”
“I do not intend to handle him at all,” countered the other. “I will use this”—again he indicated his weapon— “and there will be nothing left to handle.”
“No? What essence came to inhabit Kaskar’s body? You may destroy flesh and blood, bone and sinew, but there remains a part that cannot be destroyed—”
“I do not believe you.” Melkolf spoke firmly. “I believe what I see, what I can touch, hear—”
“If you believe what you see—there is Kaskar.” Osythes pointed. “Touch him, listen to him. He is what your machine has created. Do you deny that?”
“No—”
“Is he also the Kaskar who was—?” persisted Osythes.
Ramsay listened to this exchange with growing surprise. Just what was the Shaman trying to establish? That if Melkolf disposed of him, he would continue to haunt a lab in Lom? That sounded as impossible as everything else had been since he had had his first dream.
“No! Kaskar’s dead!” Melkolf stated that fact now with all the emphasis of one who was determined to hold onto at least one truth in a rapidly shifting play of suggestion.
“I agree. Kaskar is dead. But this man”—Osythes indicated Ramsay—“is someone, something else. And we must know more about him. Since he has flaunted certain laws of existence which were believed to be firmly set—”
“You mean the Enlightened Ones want him?” Melkolf demanded.
“His existence has not been reported to the Grove.”
For a moment a shade of disturbance showed on Osythes’s face. “Then he need not be.”
“Who is Adise?” Ramsay shot that question into their duet. He had no intention of standing there tamely while they decided whether or not he was going to be killed for what might be a second time, if one counted by bodies.
It was as if some potent voice had sounded out of the air, striking both of his opponents dumb. Melkolf stared, but Osythes blinked. Then the Shaman answered his question with a second.
“Where did you hear of Adise?” However, he gave Ramsay no chance to answer; instead, he swept on to reply to himself. “Then the Duchess—”
“What about the Duchess?” demanded Melkolf. “She brought him here—why?”
“If she were not the ruler of Olyroun, she would have entered the Grove. Her testing in the potentials of the true talent were high. Now it seems she has contacted the Enlightened Ones if Adise has been mentioned to this one.”
“Well, who is Adise?” Melkolf sounded defiant now.
“She is a Foreteller. I wonder—” Osythes looked more disturbed. “But I have no message, no sign from them. No.” He pointed to Ramsay. “We must keep him to hand, safe. Do you understand? I must wait for a message. And do not think you can daunt the Enlightened with any tricks.” His voice sharpened and deepened as he spoke. “This man is under protection—”
He raised his hand and pointed his thumb bearing a heavy ring at Ramsay’s head, moving that thumb in a small tight circle.
“You can’t. This matter comes before the Council—” Melkolf protested.
Osythes simply stared at him, full faced. The scientist’s scowl deepened, but he looked sulky also. As if he had been bested at last.
“Keep him in the cells where you had the others,” Osythes continued now in a cold, remote tone. “You will be advised when to produce him and where.”
With no further word, the Shaman turned to reclimb the stairs. Melkolf watched him go. The sulkiness was akin to hate in his expression. He turned and gave a vicious jerk to the cord about Ramsay’s wrists.
“Come on, you!”
There were a couple of tricks Ramsay thought of trying. But the fact that the scientist was very careful to continue to hold the glass weapon on him was an excellent argument against any reckless gesture. He thought he could believe Melkolf’s boasts about the efficiency of that arm. Perhaps the scientist would like his prisoner to try something so he could use it and then claim self-defense.
Melkolf rounded back of a tall installation to another open doorway giving on a very short hall. Here two iron-barred cells faced each other. The scientist threw open the door of the one on the left, waved Ramsay in. When he had slammed and locked the door, he gave a sharp snap of his fingers.
To Ramsay’s astonishment, the loops about his wrists loosed themselves, fell to the floor, and then the cord wriggled like a living creature out between the bars. Melkolf stooped and caught up the length, which now hung in his hold as limp as any length of ordinary thin rope. He wound it into a few neat loops and went away, with it swinging from his fingers.
Ramsay was left to explore his new quarters. Against one wall there was a shel
f that had some coarse coverings tangled upon it. He supposed this served as a bed. And there was a stool and an evil-smelling bucket. As accommodations, these were bleak enough, and he could see little hope of gaining any better in the immediate future.
However, as he settled on the stool, which was so low that he had to sprawl his legs across the floor or perch with his knees nearly up to his chin, Ramsay had enough to occupy his thoughts. He had been near complete extinction. He realized that now, with a sudden onset of mild panic.
That panic he had fought to control when facing Melkolf. Only he was still alive, and that was what counted. Also, there was indeed a sharp division of opinion now over his fate. So far, Osythes had shown himself strong enough to overrule the scientist.
That exchange between the two—Ramsay began to consider every word of it he could recall. They had used the machine earlier, and it had worked as they wished. No untimely return of the safely dead then. So, as Osythes had pointed out, why had it not worked the same way with him?
Ramsay had to force himself to accept Melkolf’s flat statement that Kaskar had been buried as Ramsay Kimble, that there was no return. However, at the moment he was more than a little surprised at his reaction; he did not particularly care. Was it because the longer he was Kaskar’s tenant the more he became identified with this world? So that the thought of no possible return failed to be a great shock?
Very well. Suppose he had to stay here. Then what sort of future could he expect? Osythes had hinted that he would be of interest to the Enlightened Ones. Not that that sounded too good. Ramsay had no intention of playing the part of some experimental animal while they studied him to see what made him tick, or rather why he made Kaskar tick. Ramsay smiled very grimly at that.
Melkolf wanted him dead, to expunge the mistake of his own experiment. Undoubtedly, his revival had sent Melkolf’s stock on a sharp downward plunge, as far as the scientist’s standing among his associates was concerned.
There was Ochall. How would he like another Kaskar all ready to hand? That talk of the High Chancellor’s strange power over the real Prince— how much of that was the truth? Was Kaskar just a weak character under the sway of a man everyone believed was a very strong and malignant personality? Or had Ochall perhaps used drugs, hypnotism, what-have-you, to bring the heir of Ulad under his thumb, unable to operate without Ochall’s express permission?
And Ochall had to have Kaskar as a front or he would go under. That was a point to remember.
Thecla—those in the conspiracy to get rid of Kaskar were aware now that she had been the one to help him in his first escape. But her own impression, that she was invulnerable to their counterattack—how true was that? Suppose she married Berthal as they all agreed she must—how much power would that give those of Ulad over her? Ramsay had no way of assessing the customs of this world enough to be able to answer for or against any future danger to the Duchess.
Adise—the mention of that name had plainly disconcerted Osythes. Yet Thecla had had the advice of that person, and the answer had been that he, Ramsay, had some part to play in Olyroun’s future. That was why the Duchess had consented to his return.
His own record certainly was not one of glowing success. Though he had located the lab and found the machine, he was now in the hands of one set of the enemy. No matter how Thecla might feel toward Berthal, the old Empress, and her companions in intrigue, Ramsay did not trust them in the least.
All he had won by throwing that name at Osythes was a respite, to face up to his own stupidity. Certainly he had gained no advantage that he was aware of at present. Thecla would know, or guess, where he was when he did not show up again. Did she have influence enough to demand his freedom?
Somehow that thought made Ramsay uncomfortable. Ever since he had fallen into this web, it had been Thecla who had rescued him from one difficulty and then the next. It was about time he did something on his own—something more constructive than walking straight into the first trap they had set for him.
He was angry now. He got to his feet and went over to inspect the door of his cage. Though he thrust his arms through the bars as far as he could and groped about outside to try to locate the lock, his fingers encountered nothing but smooth metal. There was not even a keyhole, and he had not the least idea how Melkolf had locked it.
He squatted down to note how the bars were set into the stone of the flooring, and he could see there was no possible way to break out. Of course, if a jailer showed up, he might play one of the games the invincible hero of spy stories always pulled: gasp that he was dying, and when they opened up to make sure, simply batter his way out. But Ramsay had a grim premonition that if anyone did come, Melkolf would be standing by with his trusty glass squirter. And he had already decided he was not going to gamble a second body on being right or wrong in any showdown with the master of this den.
That left him the unproductive answer of simply sitting and waiting for something to happen. He had never been patient at the best of times, and at present he was even less in favor of allowing the enemy nine-tenths of the advantages. However, there seemed to be nothing else he could do.
If he could manage a little constructive dreaming now—The sudden thought surprised him a little with wry amusement. Then he began to consider it with less amusement and more purpose. Sitting down again on that uncomfortable stool, Ramsay began methodically to recall all he had heard Greg tell about dream telepathy experiments. There were two dreamers and the control. Ramsay had never paid much attention to the apparatus part of the experiment and had absolutely refused to volunteer as one of the subjects. The control waited until the hookup suggested, by way of a brain-wave reading, that the sleeper was receptive (they called that REM—rapid eye movements—because that was the physical signal that dreaming had begun). Once the dreamer was ready for action, the control pulled a picture from a stack waiting, one he selected at random. Then he concentrated on that, and the dreamer, in more than a random number of cases, picked up suggestions of the contents of the picture.
But there was nothing for Ramsay to work with here on that level. Still, his mind played with the idea of dreams. Osythes had dreamed apparently from one alternate world to another to draw him, or else reached through to control Ramsay’s dreaming. Could that very act have set up some rapport between them, so that now Ramsay, in turn, could reach the Shaman? He doubted very much that would work. Surely not to the point that he could bring Osythes here, make him open the door.
Melkolf—no. Ramsay did not believe that the scientist could be reached. Greg said it would not work against a closed mind. And Ramsay guessed that Melkolf’s mind would be tightly closed, that the scientist believed it was his own ingenious machine that had had the major part in producing Kaskar’s demise. Osythes, however, was a dreamer. The point remained, when did the Shaman sleep—?
Ramsay’s head dropped into his hands. He might just as well believe that he could get up now and walk through those bars as that he could accomplish anything by dreaming it.
EIGHT
Ramsay threw the unsavory coverings from the shelf bed to the floor before he stretched out on the hard plank, which he thought was no too unlike the bier on which he had first awakened into this world. He closed his eyes, not to dream but to concentrate on the Shaman, both as he had seen Osythes in his dreams and later in person during Thecla’s welcome to Lom.
The Shaman’s black-and-white robe was mentally visible. However, Ramsay discovered it was far more difficult to build a face feature by feature. Yes, the hair was white and somewhat longer over the brow, looking thicker, as if fluffed up and out by some wind. Below that the forehead, then brows— also white and thick.
When Ramsay tried to recall the eyes beneath those brows, he nearly met defeat. Dark, a little sunken back into the skull—yes. Still there was a factor missing, a certain expression which Ramsay could not now define. Or was it lack of expression? There remained something masklike about the face of his vision—no true life beh
ind it.
He had never tried such a feat of concentration before, not such an intense one. This struggle absorbed him even more than when he had tried earlier to recall the dreams that had led him here. One after another, those dream scenes again crowded in, overlapping, covering his attempted single vision of Osythes. Now those dreams spun a cover for the Shaman. Yet Ramsay persevered.
Then, for one moment, Ramsay singled out the face he wanted, no longer a lifeless mask. Those deep-set eyes were regarding him with a hint of astonishment. That contact lasted hardly more than a breath before it was broken. Again, he “saw” only a black-and-white figure misting away, into nothing. Ramsay’s head, his whole body ached. Muscles must have tensed so much as mind while he had fought for what he had no reason to believe might succeed. Should he try again? Black and white—black—and— Black became gray and scarlet. Someone else—he sensed another presence—yet one, he was certain, who was as yet unaware of him. He cowered mentally away, as a small animal might flatten against the ground seeking to escape the attention of an enemy. That this other personality was the enemy—more so even than Osythes—Ramsay believed. But he could assign no name—Ochall? What had they said concerning the High Chancellor gave some credence to that. Greatly daring, Ramsay tried to summon up a face. There was nothing—except that he knew there was another there; to meddle further was folly.
Ramsay opened his eyes. Almost he expected that person to be leaning over him, willing to—to what? Ramsay did not know, but a sense of compulsion lingered. He sat up, looked around the cell. No, he was entirely alone. Nor did he catch any sound from the direction of the lab where Melkolf and the guard had discovered him.
If Melkolf was right—and at the moment Ramsay had no reason to doubt that the other believed exactly what he had said—there was no return to the past. He waited for his own reaction to that, perhaps even the rise of panic at being lost from all he knew.
Still—that did not follow. Ramsay looked down at the brown hands resting on his knees. Not his hands. But—they were! He did not feel any different in Kaskar’s body than he had in his own. When he looked in the mirror, his features were those of Ramsay Kimble, though his skin might be several shades darker, his scar gone, his hair differently cut. Still, he had seen Ramsay Kimble there as he had all his life.