“No quarter!” I’d roared instanty, sizing up the situation. There’s no time!”
And we were on the remnants of the dozen in a lashing whirlwind of steel, a kind of berserker drive that would normally be beneath us. I smashed the first man to the ground with my shield’s edge alone, drove my sword’s tip straight through the skull of another. The back-sweep of my blade took the head of a third, almost by accident, so that it flew still screaming from the torso.
Rawl, disdaining his shield for mere men-at-arms, was into them with both hands on his sword’s haft. Roaring: “Marack! Collin! Marack! Collin!” he killed four men in as many seconds. Sernas, I must say, was no laggard when it came to bloody in-fighting. Inspired by his deed with the f aldirks as well as the company he now kept, he skillfully dropped to one knee and whirled his greatsword to sweep the feet from off the legs of a veritable giant of a sergeant—he also used both hands—then arose to catch a second man beneath the arm, the chink in the hauberk, as it were. He drove to the very heart—and was inundated by a fountain of blood that drenched his flowered surcoat.
I, in the meantime, had broken the last man’s neck with my shield’s edge. I quick spun to seize the captured Alphian weapons from Gen-Disto, upon which he and his companions, minus the sorcerer who remained with me, raced for the dubious protection of the crowd now gathering in the arch of the city gates.
Dosh had wasted no time either. He’d run ahead to open the gates of the dottle pens, holding the beasts ‘till we got there. We mounted them bareback, one by one as they were freed, then raced with all speed toward the hill and our ship.
At the site, I quick phased the craft from its luxury of invisibility, while Rawl, Dosh and Sernas whacked the dottles’ broad fannies to chase them off, and the five of us passed through the small port to confront the awestricken Kriloy and the two amazed sorcerers, Gaati and the red-eyed Dretus.
“Take it up!” I yelled to Kriloy. “Quick! I want it over the areaway to the south gates, now!”
Within sixty seconds I’d fathomed the simple structure of the laser and blaster guns, pressed the right studs and was rewarded with both freed power-packs in my hands. They were the same, interchangeable. I applied a monitor-gauge to both, pressed the input stud to my belt-packs and saw what I’d expected take place—a noticeable rise in my pack, a noticeable drain in those from the two Alphian weapons. I figured that at full drain it would take perhaps a half-hour to immobilize the packs completely. I then subjected the guns to a series of three-dimensional, electron photography shots and that was it I could barely contain my joy. I’d planned some sort of a commando strike to seize a gun. It would have had to have been done. But not now. We’d done it! By the gods, I thought—a windfall from old Ormon, himself—the war was one-third won!
I took over the drive, gave the weapons to Kriloy. “Send em out the eject, right in front of the gates, ya hear? I want them to be found, quick!”
Seconds later—while I hovered, a fifty-foot air-distortion to those by the gates below, Kriloy yelled, “Bombs away!” and I knew that the guns would soon be back in Alphian hands.
We were home free!
Except for the fast disappearing, double-damned clouds….
From Janblink to Oortfin, the distance is just two hundred miles. Another five minutes and we were there. The cloud cover was weaker than over Janblink city. Indeed, in all the north, though clouds remained, they were now piled in great, miles-high cumulous formations of white. Blue sky was everywhere. The rains and our protection had definitely ceased.
But now, below us, was a sight to do my heart good. In all the green vales and on all the mountain tops of the little Alpine range, there was no sign whatsoever of the somber pile of great Gortfin Castle. It was simply gone. Vanished. Disappeared!
I breathed a sigh of relief and uncorked a bottle of Velas, while the rest stared bug-eyed at what they undoubtedly viewed as the ultimate magick!
“Blast, Kyrie,” Kriloy exclaimed in awe. “Where’s the damn castle?”
I’d had as yet neither the desire nor the patience to apprise him of the problem. I’d figured that he’d know it soon enough. The rest of my band seemed equally in the dark since Rawl and Dosh had listened but idly to our exchange with Elioseen, and the lecherous Sernas, not at all.
I played the topo-computer coordinates with my fingers. The exact contour block appeared to parallel the visuals. Pointing, I said to Kriloy, “There it is. Don’t you recognize it?”
I’d directed him to an oddly flat and barren hilltop, behind which was a great meadow with herds of browsing gogs intermingling with many dottles. The hill was between two lush valleys which arose on either side to small mountains covered with conifers. Streams were at the bottom of the valleys as well as a few hunters’ huts and the houses of woodsmen. “Recognize the north meadow?” I asked Kriloy.
His eyes widened, stared. “Bloody Jesu-Og! But what happened to the castle?”
“Not a thing. Just set her down.”
He did. And I swear it was like going through •warp. One second, nothing; the next—when we’d descended past the level of the tallest tree—a brilliant flash, and there was Gortfin Castle in all its medieval dark-ages splendor. On the meadow, I noted for the first time, there were a number of cavorting dottle babies, colts. It was foaling time for dottles. The mares, if one could call them such, stared proudly and waved their fannies.
I hustled everyone out of the ship, except Kriloy, that is. I made to leave myself, but he yelled, pleading: “Hey, Kyrieee! Sheeh. You’ve got to cue me in. Here you come staggering back to the ship like a gang of butchers fresh from the abatoir. Gortfin Castle disappears. We find it again. Hell, man. You got to let me know what’s happening.”
“I’ll get back to you. I promise,” I yelled. “Work on that energy flow… And close the port, NOW!”
He slammed the entry door inward. I phased it out; this, to the puzzlement of a couple of hoary dottle wardens. Our little band went running toward Gortfin’s northern gate….
Greeted in the great hall by Fel-Holdt, Rondin and Jos-Viins, I briefed them quickly as to what had happened and we retired to the lower rooms of the chirurgeons, Marack’s court doctors, who accompany every army and who are a part of every populated community. We luxuriated in the great heated pool, served by cane conduits from which water flowed throughout the castle, pumped by crude devices from the streams below. Afterward, we were massaged with perfumed medicinal oils and left, to a relaxed catnap.
I’d also sent a quick message to Elioseen that we would meet in council at the sixteenth hour. Marack’s lords had shown no concern that I’d freed her. Indeed, the opposite was true. There was a new feeling of relaxation, of well-being, even, at the news; a consensus, I took it, that I’d done the right thing. She’d informed them too of her success with Gortfin’s invisibility. Another reason, I concluded, for that relaxed state of mind. Without a doubt, we were on the road to recovery, in spirit at least, from the initial trauma of helplessness in die face of an omnipotent enemy.
But Elioseen refused to wait for our council. My messenger returned with a note from her requesting my urgent attendance in her old rooms in the castle’s west wing. Waking Rawl, who forever slept with the innocence of a five-year-old, we retired to my apartment, dressed in clean linens and such and followed the guide to our lady’s chambers.
“‘Tis that I thought that you should see for yourself what is happening now in Glagmaron,” she told me solemnly in greeting. “I would not have been able to bridge the gap ‘twixt here and there,” she confessed, while leading me by the hand through a number of inner chambers to a final large one which seemed like an ancient Terran cabalist’s retreat, “had I not had the help of our wizards. One’s power wanes, you know, when it’s not used.”
The twelve members of the coven awaited us; joined now by the sorcerers, Gaati, Dretus and Per-Teens. They reflected Elioseen’s solemnity and concern.
There were great burning tape
rs everywhere. Some gave off incense; others seemed capable of noxious fumes. Bottles, boxes and charts lined the east wall. Tables were strewn with black firepots, retorts and all the stuff of the witches’ art. More. Signs and words of magic were all-pervasive, on the great tapestries, the walls; painted upon the floor in great circles wherein power, Fm sure, was supposedly gathered— and re-released. Some tables were strewn with charts and spells. One side of the room was a library, with tight rolls of papyrus and heavy tombs of vellum; all of it handprinted.…
I was struck with a sudden trepidation. It was as if something, until now hidden, were peeping out at me from behind a darksome curtain… . How much of all this, I wondered, was malarkey—and how much of it practical, the real McCoy? And more frightening still: Was the answer to Camelot’s magick to be truly found, as Hooli had said—in word sounds to disrupt and use the converging lines of the planet’s magnetic field? For the first time, I actually questioned Hooli’s description of how it was all supposed to work. I questioned it more when Elioseen led the twelve (minus the three, who’d yet to be worked into her schema), to a table where sat a flat pan about two feet in diameter and an inch or so in depth. It was filled with liquid mercury.
She paused reflectively, placed me and Rawl to one side but in close view of the silvered surface and then arranged the others. She then conducted them, literally, as if she were the maestro and they the orchestra, in a word incantation. …
It sounded almost Gregorian. And it was in three parts. The first made of the pan of mercury a window to whatever Elioseen wanted to see. The second created a zeroing-in effect on a particular area of Glagmaron City. The third provided the audio—gave voice and sound to what was happening there. The three incantations seemed actually directional; apart from each other and even insulated, sound-wise, from each other. I simply couldn’t believe what was happening; though, in one way or another it had been with me for all of my days on Camelot-Fregis.
The chorus began; we saw the city. The second chorus intervened in volume; the eye of the liquid mirror zoomed in as would a scanner so that we were actually on a corner of the city’s central plaza, Or square, facing the temple of worship to the gods Ormon, Wimbely and Harris. Statues of the three as well as of a goodly number of their apostles, had been pulled down. They lay broken; chunks of marble, legs, arms, heads and torsos strewn about like so many plaster rejects. In the square’s center a bonfire roared. Around it danced hundreds of people, while the fire itself was fed by icons, tapestries and “books of faith” hauled from within the temple. Squads of warriors were posted around all the entries to the streets leading away from the square. They wore the white tab upon their swords’ harnesses, where they crossed above their hearts. Knights were with them; I recognized a goodly number… . And in all the streets, being held back by the men-at-arms, were throngs of weeping citizens.
We watched as-the doors of the temple opened to allow the exit of a half-dozen Alphians, followed at a respectful distance by a troop of Marack’s lords, knights and merchants, all dressed in their most costly robes. A white tag was now pinned to the breast of each. The Alphians paused at the top of the steps. A line of what appeared to be “neophytes of the new religion” was then allowed to advance from one, of the side streets. They knelt in six rows below She Alphians; upon which a single sky-lord unsheathed the sword from off his back and walked down the lines to touch each supplicant upon the shoulder and thereby bestow some favor or office upon him. The Alphian, in his splendor, seemed like the “Angel of Death,” which he proved ultimately to be. For another single line of Marackian lords and knights was then thrust forward from a side street. Their arms bound, they were forced to their knees and made to wait while the .same Alphian with his shining sword walked slowly behind them to deliberately strike off each shrieking head as he went.
The bodies were thrown hastily into waiting wagons, only to have their places taken by another line, and yet .another; the last being made up of students, some of whom I had known and liked.
The executions continued, with now and then a change in executioners so that each Alphian had his chance to show his sword work….
Then Elioseen spoke softly to her coven. The directional group changed tonal inflections but slighty—and the scene shifted—lifted from the square to soar up and away to a sylvan glade to the south of the castle. Two tents were pitched. A picket line of saddle dottles browsed unhappily on what they could reach from their strangely, to them, confined circumstances. No one ever tied a dottle to anything. Penned them up, yes. Stabled them, yes. But tied? Absolutely not!
There were at least a dozen Alphians present, and with them a dozen or so of the prettiest daughters of Marack’s court. Our magick mirror enlarged upon the scene so that we saw Tarkiis and Marquest, his adjutant, in all their splendor. Seated next to the two of them were Murie and Caroween. Unlike the sad dottles, our two lovelies were not tied and seemed in no way to be unhappy….
I heard Murie say—and her voice came strangely slurred as if from under water—”Well, my lord, what think you of our courtesy now? Does it compare well with your far land?”
He leaned across from where he lay quite close to her, against huge pillows beneath a tree’s protecting limbs. “Nothing compares to our fair land, as you call it. For we have no land’ as such. We simply have what we need; what we want. For all we can imagine is given us by the elder gods of whom we’re a part. Example: This scene. If we think it and want it, we can have it”
Murie was in no way nonplussed by this answer. She actually teased: “If you think me, can you then have a me for your own?” Her accompanying smile, the small fingers that traced a line down his arm, nigh drove me to hurl the mirror to the floor. But the watchful eyes of Elioseen cautioned and forced my control.
Tarkiis replied, “Since I could never imagine you, I could not create you. We know of the two sexes. But in my land there is only one, ourselves, such as you see. We confess,” he smiled mechanically, “that we are strangely touched by you. ‘Tis an example of the atavistic urge, no doubt, about which we’ve been told.”
“Would you give way to it?”
“We do what we wish to do.”
“Do you know how?”
In a sense she was making a fool of him, if the concept fit at all, and if he’d but known it. But in no way did this observation lessen my rage.
Tarkiis replied, “What’s there to know? All animals and most lower life, for that matter, couple in some way. If I thought it would be pleasurable, I would use you to do it.”
“But how will you know if you don’t?” Murie asked softly. Her voice was husky, her lips just inches from his own, her eyes wide, staring steadily into his. Gods! For Tarkiis not to react was a damned insult. I’d kill the bastard twice—for the contradiction.
And Caroween: I could not help but see that that bold vixen, for whatever purpose, was pressed against her accompanying Alphian lord and was actually walking her slender fingers up the silvery stuff of his pantaloons to his thigh top. A vague glitter shone in her eyes. The newness of what he was obviously experiencing caused him to shudder inadvertently.
Murie said, and her voice was huskier still, “Would you do it now, my lord—if I asked?”
Tarkiis said, “If you asked? I don’t understand. It is, not for you to ask anything. You are here, my lady, because I wish it. All of yours remain alive, as does this world, because we wish it. We have a task to perform here. That is all. If there are accompanying things of pleasure that are as yet unknown to us, and if you are somehow a part of that, I’ll surely use you. But not, my lady, because you ask.”
Murie, without batting an eye and with the same boldness displayed by Caroween, placed a hand directly on him and began a caress, ever so softly….
He frowned, watching the hand. His eyes became troubled.
And the mirror went dead and cold.
Elioseen said—and it had been her raised hand that had stopped the chorus and thus the mirror—
”Be angry, sirs, with what you have seen in the square and elsewhere, but not with your ladies. I think I know what they’re attempting to do, and it’s not for you or me to judge them. Earlier on there was a chant in the square that the ‘Collin’ was dead; this to a question and a statement of defiance by a student who was promptly taken. … Whatever. You now know what is happening. The sky lords move fast; too fast, perhaps. Indeed, I fear me, Collin, that even now we may be too late.”
My ears were ringing. My body literally thrummed with the tension of what I had seen. My brain seemed to boil with a fever of rage and unbridled hatred. I’d become an animal, the kind that the likes of Tarkiis could not easily dismiss. I fought for control, feeling the hot sweat over all my body. My eyes, sans contacts, would have looked like the pits of hell.
My shieldman stood with fists clenched and eyes unblinking while blood from his bitten lips rolled down his chin. Whatever happened, I knew that Tarkiis would never survive the both of us. I grasped Rawl’s shoulder, saying softly to Elioseen, “Mayhap you’re right, my lady. But, on the other hand, we just might be able to change it back. I’ll ask you for just one thing: Can you-repeat what you did once before when you plucked myself, the Princess Murie Nigaard and two others from the kings’ road and brought us here to Gortfin?”
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