by Various
He dropped into a half-crouch and came for me, stooping to protect his body from my fists. I wished fervently for a sword or a gun. I have never cared for an equal fight, as Ganelon does not fight for sport, but to win. But this fight must be terribly, unbelievably equal.
He dodged beneath my blow, and I felt the rocking jar of what seemed to be my own fist jolting against my cheekbone. He danced back, light-footed, out of range.
Rage came snarling up in my throat. I wanted nothing of his boxing, this game fought by rules. Ganelon fought to win! I roared at him from the full depth of my lungs and hurled myself forward in a crushing embrace that carried us both heavily to the gray sponginess that was limbo's floor. My fingers sank delightfully in his throat. I groped savagely for his eyes. He grunted with effort and I felt his fist thud into my ribs, and felt the sharp white pain of breaking bone.
So wholly was he myself, and I he, that for an instant I was not sure whose rib had snapped beneath whose blow. Then I drew a deep breath and sobbed it out again half finished as pain like bright light flashed through my body, and I knew it was my own rib.
The knowledge maddened me. Careless of pain or caution, I drove my fists savagely into him at blind random, feeling exultantly the crackle of bone beneath my knuckles, the spurt of blood over my hard-clenched hands. We strove together in a terrible locked embrace, there upon the floor of limbo, in a nightmare that had no real being, except for the pain shooting through me after each breath.
But in a moment or two, I knew somehow, very surely, that I was his master. And this is how I knew. He rolled half over to jab a hard blow into my face, and before the blow began, I had blocked it. I had known. He squirmed from beneath me and braced himself to strike me again in the ribs, and before he could strike, I had twisted sidewise away. Again I had known.
For I had been Edward Bond once, in every way that matters. I had lived in his memory and his world. And I knew Edward Bond as I knew myself. Instinct seemed to tell me what he would do next. He could not out-think me, and so he could not hope to out-tight me, to whom his every thought was revealed in the moment before he could act upon it.
Even in the pain of my broken rib, I laughed then. Freydis had overreached herself at last! In smothering Ganelon under Edward Bond's memories in the Earth World, she had given me the means to vanquish him now! He was mine, to finish when I chose, and the Dark World was mine, and Edward Bond's kingdom of free people was mine too, and Edward Bond's lovely pale-haired bride, and everything that might have been his own.
I laughed exultantly, and twisted in three perfectly timed motions that blocked and overbalanced the man who was myself. Three motions only -- and then I had him across my knee, taut-stretched, his spine pressing hard against my thigh.
I grinned down at him. My blood dripped into his face. I saw it strike there, and I met his eyes, and then strangely, for one flashing instant, I knew a fierce yearning for defeat. In that instant, I prayed voicelessly to a nameless god that Edward Bond might yet save himself, and Ganelon might die....
I callled forth all the strength that was in me, and limbo swam redly before my eyes and the pain of my broken rib was a lance of white light as I drew the deep breath that was Edward Bond's last.
I broke his back across, my knee.
XVII. Freedom at Last!
HURRIEDLY TWO cold, smooth hands pressed hard upon my forehead. I looked up. They slid lower, covering my eyes. And weakness was like a blanket over me. I knelt there, unresisting, feeling the body of the man who had been myself slide limply from my knee.
Freydis pressed me down. We lay side by side, the living and the dead.
The silver rods of the sorceress touched my head, and made a bridge between Edward Bond and Ganelon. I remembered Medea's wand that could draw the life-force from the mind. A dull, numbing paralysis had me. Little tingling shocks rippled through my nerves, and I could not move.
Sudden agonizing pain shot through me. My back! I tried to scream with the white fury of that wrenching agony, but my throat was frozen. I felt Edward Bond's wounds!
In that nightmare moment, while my brain spun down the limitless corridors of a science beyond that of mankind, I knew what Freydis had done -- what she was doing.
I felt the mind of Edward Bond come back from the gulfs. Side by side we lay in flesh, and side by side in spirit as well.
There was blackness, and two flames, burning with a cold, clear fire....
One was the mind -- the life -- of Edward Bond. One was my life!
The flames bent toward each other!
They mingled and were one!
Life and soul and mind of Edward Bond merged with life of Ganelon!
Where two flames had burned, there was one now. One only.
And the identity of Ganelon ebbed, sank... faded into a graying shadow as the fires of Edward Bond's life leaped even higher!
We were one. We were --
Edward Bond! No longer Ganelon! No longer Lord of the Dark World, Master of the Caere!
Magic of Freydis drowned the soul of Ganelon and gave his body to the life of Edward Bond!
I saw Ganelon -- die!...
When I opened my eyes again, I knelt upon the altar that had been Llyr's. The empty vaults towered hollowly above us. Limbo was gone. The body across my knee was gone. Freydis smiled down at me with her ageless, timeless smile.
"Welcome back to the Dark World, Edward Bond."
Yes, it was true. I knew that. I knew it was my own identity, housed though it was in another man's body. Dizzily I blinked, shook my head, and rose slowly. Pain struck savagely at my side, and I gasped and let Freydis spring forward to support me on one great white arm, while the hollow building reeled about me. But Ganelon was gone. He had vanished with limbo, vanished like a scatter of smoke, vanished as if the prayer he breathed in his extremity had been answered by the nameless god he prayed to.
I was Edward Bond again.
"Do you know why Ganelon could break you, Edward Bond?" Freydis said softly. "Do you know why you could not vanquish him? It was not what he thought. I know he believed he read your mind because he had dwelt there, but that was not the reason. When a man fights himself, my son, the same man does not fight to win. Only the suicide hates himself. Deep within Ganelon lay knowledge of his own evil, and the hatred of it. So he could strike his own image and exult in the blow, because he hated himself in the depths of his own mind.
"But you had earned your own respect. You could not strike as hard as he because you are not evil. And Ganelon won -- and lost. In the end, he did not fight me. He had slain himself, and the man who does that has no combat left in him."
Her voice sank to a murmur. Then she laughed.
"Go out now, Edward Bond. There is much to be done in the Dark World!"
So, leaning upon her arm, I went down the long steps that Ganelon had climbed. I saw the green glimmer of the day outside, the shimmer of leaves, the motion of waiting people. I remembered all that Ganelon had remembered, but upon the mind of Ganelon the mind of Edward Bond was forever superimposed, and I knew that only thus could the Dark World be ruled.
The two together, twinned forever in one body, and the control forever mine -- Edward Bond's.
We came out under the emptied arch of the opening, and daylight was blinding for a moment after that haunted darkness. Then I saw the foresters anxiously clustering in then- battered ranks around the Caer, and I saw a pale girl in green, haloed by her floating hair, turn a face of incredulous radiance to mine.
I forgot the pain in my side.
Aries' hair swam like mist about us both as my arms closed around her. The roar of exultation that went up from the forest people swept the clearing and made the great Caer behind us echo through all its hollow vaults.
The Dark World was free, and ours.
But Medea, Medea, red witch of Colchis, how we might have reigned together!
* * *
Contents
THE INVADERS
By
Murray Leinster
It started in Greece on the day after tomorrow. Before the last act raced to a close, Coburn was buried to his ears in assorted adventures, including a revolution and an invasion from outer space!
We're not given to throwing around the word "epic" lightly, but here is one! Swashbuckling action, a great many vivid characters, and a weird mystery--all spun for you by one of the master story-tellers of our time.
On a certain day--it may be in the history books eventually--Coburn was in the village of Ardea, north of Salonika in the most rugged part of Greece. He was making a survey for purposes which later on turned out not to matter much. The village of Ardea was small, it was very early in the morning, and he was trying to get his car started when he heard the yell.
It was a shrill yell, and it traveled fast. Coburn jerked his head upright from the hood of the car. A whiskered villager with flapping trousers came pounding up the single street. His eyes were panic-stricken and his mouth was wide. He emitted the yell in a long, sustained note. Other villagers popped into view like ants from a disturbed ant-hill. Some instantly ran back into their houses. Others began to run toward the outskirts of the village, toward the south.
Coburn, watching blankly, found himself astonished at the number of people the village contained. He hadn't dreamed it was so populous. All were in instant frenzied flight toward the mountains. An old woman he'd seen barely hobbling, now ran like a deer. Children toddled desperately. Adults snatched them up and ran. Larger children fled on twinkling legs. The inhabitants of Ardea vanished toward the hills in a straggling, racing, panting stream. They disappeared around an outcrop of stone which was merely the nearest place that would hide them. Then there was silence.
Coburn turned his head blankly in the direction from which they had run. He saw the mountains--incredibly stony and barren. That was all. No, not quite--there was something far away which was subtly different in color from the hillsides. It moved. It flowed over a hill crest, coming plainly from somewhere beyond the mountains. It was vague in shape. Coburn felt a momentary stirring of superstition. There simply couldn't be anything so huge....
But there could. There was. It was a column of soldiers in uniforms that looked dark-gray at this distance. It flowed slowly out of the mountains like a colossal snake--some Midgard monster or river of destruction. It moved with an awful, deliberate steadiness toward the village of Ardea.
Coburn caught his breath. Then he was running too. He was out of the village almost before he realized it. He did not try to follow the villagers. He might lead pursuers after them. There was a narrow defile nearby. Tanks could hardly follow it, and it did not lead where they would be going. He plunged into it and was instantly hidden. He pelted on. It was a trail from somewhere, because he saw ancient donkey-droppings on the stones, but he did not know where it led. He simply ran to get away from the village and the soldiers who were coming toward it.
This was Greece. They were Bulgarian soldiers. This was not war or even invasion. This was worse--a cold-war raid. He kept running and presently rocky cliffs overhung him on one side, a vast expanse of sky loomed to his left. He found himself panting. He began to hope that he was actually safe.
Then he heard a voice. It sounded vexed. Quite incredibly, it was talking English. "But my dear young lady!" it said severely. "You simply mustn't go on! There's the very devil of a mess turning up, and you mustn't run into it!"
A girl's voice answered, also in English. "I'm sure--I don't know what you're talking about!"
"I'm afraid I can't explain. But, truly, you mustn't go on to the village!"
Coburn pushed ahead. He came upon the people who had spoken. There was a girl riding on a donkey. She was American. Trim. Neat. Uneasy, but reasonably self-confident. And there was a man standing by the trail, with a slide of earth behind him and mud on his boots as if he'd slid down somewhere very fast to intercept this girl. He wore the distinctive costume a British correspondent is apt to affect in the wilds.
They turned as Coburn came into view. The girl goggled at him. He was not exactly the sort of third person one expected to find on a very lonely, ill-defined rocky trail many miles north of Salonika.
When they turned to him, Coburn recognized the man. He'd met Dillon once or twice in Salonika. He panted: "Dillon! There's a column of soldiers headed across the border! Bulgarians!"
"How close?" asked Dillon.
"They're coming," said Coburn, with some difficulty due to lack of breath. "I saw them across the valley. Everybody's run away from the village. I was the last one out."
Dillon nodded composedly. He looked intently at Coburn. "You know me," he said reservedly. "Should I remember you?"
"I've met you once or twice," Coburn told him. "In Salonika."
"Oh," said Dillon. "Oh, yes. Sorry. I've got some cameras up yonder. I want a picture or two of those Bulgarians. See if you can persuade this young lady not to go on. I fancy it's safe enough here. Not a normal raid route through this pass."
Coburn nodded. Dillon expected the raid, evidently. This sort of thing had happened in Turkey. Now it would start up here, in Greece. The soldiers would strike fast and far, at first. They wouldn't stop to hunt down the local inhabitants. Not yet.
"We'll wait," said Coburn. "You'll be back?"
"Oh, surely!" said Dillon. "Five minutes or less."
He started up the precipitous wall, at whose bottom he had slid down. He climbed remarkably well. He went up hand-over-hand despite the steepness of the stone. It looked almost impossible, but Dillon apparently found handgrips by instinct, as a good climber does. In a matter of minutes he vanished, some fifty feet up, behind a bulging mass of stone. He did not reappear.
* * * * *
Coburn began to get his breath back. The girl looked at him, her forehead creased.
"Just to make sure," said Coburn, "I'll see if I can get a view back down the trail."
Where the vastness of the sky showed, he might be able to look down. He scrambled up a barrier two man-heights high. There was a screen of straggly brush, with emptiness beyond. He peered.
He could see a long way down and behind, and actually the village was clearly in sight from here. There were rumbling, caterpillar-tread tanks in the act of entering it. There were anachronistic mounted men with them. Cavalry is outdated, nowadays, but in rocky mountain country they can have uses where tanks can't go. But here tanks and cavalry looked grim. Coburn squirmed back and beckoned to the girl. She joined him. They peered through the brushwood together.
The light tanks were scurrying along the single village street. Horsemen raced here and there. A pig squealed. There was a shot. The tanks emerged from the other side. They went crawling swiftly toward the south. But they did not turn aside where the villagers had. They headed along the way Coburn had driven to Ardea.
[Illustration]
Infantrymen appeared, marching into the village. An advance party, rifles ready. This was strict discipline and standard military practise. Horsemen rode to tell them that all was quiet. They turned and spurred away after the tanks.
The girl said in a strained voice. "This is war starting! Invasion!"
Coburn said coldly, "No. No planes. This isn't war. It's a training exercise, Iron-Curtain style. This outfit will strike twenty--maybe thirty miles south. There's a town there--Kilkis. They'll take it and loot it. By the time Athens finds out what's happened, they'll be ready to fall back. They'll do a little fighting. They'll carry off the people. And they'll deny everything. The West doesn't want war. Greece couldn't fight by herself. And America wouldn't believe that such things could happen. But they do. It's what's called cold war. Ever hear of that?"
The main column of soldiers far below poured up to the village and went down the straggly street in a tide of dark figures. The village was very small. The soldiers came out of the other end of the village. They poured on after the tanks, rippling over irregularities in the way. They seemed innumerable.
"Three or fo
ur thousand men," said Coburn coldly. "This is a big raid. But it's not war. Not yet."
It was not the time for full-scale war. Bulgaria and the other countries in its satellite status were under orders to put a strain upon the outside world. They were building up border incidents and turmoil for the benefit of their masters. Turkey was on a war footing, after a number of incidents like this. Indo-China was at war. Korea was an old story. Now Greece. It always takes more men to guard against criminal actions than to commit them. When this raid was over Greece would have to maintain a full-size army in its northern mountains to guard against its repetition. Which would be a strain on its treasury and might help toward bankruptcy. This was cold war.
The infantry ended. Horse-drawn vehicles appeared in a seemingly endless line. Motorized transport would be better, but the Bulgarians were short of it. Shaggy, stubby animals plodded in the wake of the tanks and the infantry. There were two-wheeled carts in single file all across the valley. They went through the village and filed after the soldiers.
"I think," said Coburn in biting anger, "this will be all there is to see. They'll go in until they're stopped. They'll kidnap Greek civilians and later work them to death in labor camps. They'll carry off some children to raise as spies. But their purpose is probably only to make such a threat that the Greeks will go broke guarding against them. They know the Greeks don't want war."
He began to wriggle back from the brushwood screen. He was filled with the sort of sick rage that comes when you can't actively resent insolence and arrogance. He hated the people who wanted the world to collapse, and this was part of their effort to bring it about.
He helped the girl down. "Dillon said to wait," he said. He found himself shaking with anger at the men who had ordered the troops to march. "He said he was taking pictures. He must have had an advance tip of some sort. If so, he'll have a line of retreat."