Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  Now the operation could roll in earnest. He swiveled in his chair and touched a button. “Where are Ay’s ship and crew at this moment?”

  “Just brought up to present-time, sir, I was just going to call you. We dropped them into Reservoir H as planned. Colonel Lukas and his psych team are starting to work right now.”

  The sand beach sloped up to a lowland of gravelly soil and sparse grass. Harl trod it with the six men he had chosen to go exploring with him. The others were left waiting at the water’s edge, ready to protect the ship or shove her off again.

  Hari’s scouting party proceeded slowly inland through the mist. They had not far to go; as soon as they had passed over the first hillock, they were met by a single tall figure walking out of the mist—a man in white robes such as were worn by Good Enchanters of the old religions.

  This man stopped, raising his hands in the gesture of peace, showing not the least surprise or fear at finding himself suddenly confronted by seven armed sea-rovers.

  “My name is Lukas,” he said simply, in Harl’s native language. He had a bad accent, but Harl had managed to understand worse.

  “Let us put some pointed questions to this ’chanter,” said Torla, putting a hand on his dagger.

  The one in wizard’s garb raised his eyebrows and his right hand slightly. Perhaps only showing polite dismay, perhaps giving or preparing to give a signal.

  “Let us wait!” said Harl sharply. The mist concealed everything that was more than a few paces away; there might be an army in it. He nodded to Lukas politely and named himself and his companions.

  The man in white robes bowed in grave acknowledgment, his hands once more at rest. “My house is very near; allow me to offer you its hospitality, at least for a meal.”

  “We thank you for the offer,” said Hard uncertainly. The man’s unshaken air of confidence was unsettling. Harl wanted to ask what country they had landed in and how, but was reluctant to reveal his ignorance.

  “I pray you, some or all of you come at least for food and drink. If you wish to leave men to guard your ship, I will order refreshment sent to them.”

  Harl mumbled for a moment, undecided. How would Ay have met this strange confident courtesy?

  “Very well, we seven will go with you,” he answered at last. When he walked back over the hillock to explain matters to the rest of the crew, some of them also argued for seizing the wizard at once and asking pointed questions.

  Harl shook his head. “We can do that at any moment. But once a man’s blood is out, it’s hard to pour back into his veins should the bleeding prove a mistake. We’ll just watch him close, until we learn more. If food and drink are sent you, I suggest you treat the bearers with some courtesy.” No urging of caution and alertness was needed; the men were all ready to strike at shadows now.

  Then Harl and this chosen six ringed themselves about Lukas and walked inland with him. The six took their cue from Harl and acted as if it were all accidental and unintentional, their surrounding their prisoner like a prisoner. For his part, Lukas gave no sign of being bothered in the least.

  The mist grew ever thicker as the party proceeded inland. Before they had gone a hundred paces Harl could see that the gray billows were coming, rolling down from atop a line of low cliffs. Like a wall, these cliffs blocked further progress; the wizard’s house was built right against their foot, a simple stone building, big and solid enough to be a manor or a small fortress, with a look of newness. At second glance it was hardly a fortress, for the windows were low and wide, and the wide doorway open.

  Several people in simple servants’ garb emerged from this doorway and bowed to the approaching Lukas and his guests; Harl noticed with some relief that none of the servants looked anything but solidly human. The girls among them were comely in a down-to-earth style and seemed lively as well. They eyed the warriors and giggled before popping back inside.

  “No fairy-tale witches there,” growled Torla. “Though I make no doubt they know enchantments of a sort.”

  Torla preceded Lukas through the doorway, and the rest of the searovers followed close on the heels of the white-robed man. Harl came in the last place, looking over his shoulder, his hand on his axe. He could not begin to feel easy about any man who welcomed seven armed strangers into his house.

  Inside there was nothing visible to feed Harl’s suspicion, save more of the strange confidence. The entrance led them directly into a great manorial room, in which were set more than enough benches and tables to have accommodated the long-ship’s entire crew. At the huge fireplace, a smiling, confident servant turned the spitted carcass of a weighty meat animal. Browned and dripping, the roast was so nearly done that it must have been started hours before.

  Though a good deal of light came in at the wide-open windows with the fog, the walls were mounted with torches, making the room quite bright Through hangings covering the rear wall Harl could now and then glimpse servants going about tasks in distant chambers dug back behind the line of the cliff. There was of course no telling how many armed men might be back there, or lurking somewhere outside; but so far Harl had not seen a single weapon, barring table knives. Another easy-mannered servant was now laying eight places at the head table, setting out worthy but not spectacular silver plates and tankards.

  Lukas proceeded straight to the head of this table and turned with a gracious gesture. “Will you be seated? There is wine or ale, as you choose.”

  “Ale!” barked Harl, in a meaningful tone. He had drugs that blended their taste very smoothly with that of wine; and even honest drink must not be allowed to take the edge of clearness from his and his mens’ minds. The others took the hint and echoed the call for ale, though Torla looked disappointed.

  As the company seated themselves, two girls came from behind the hangings to rill their tankards. Harl watched to see that the wizard’s drink was poured from the same vessel as his own, and Harl waited until the wizard was wiping foam from his lips before he tasted the drink himself. And even then Harl took only a sparing swallow.

  The ale was neither too strong nor too weak, but still had something slightly peculiar in its taste. In the place where everything was strange, how could the ale be otherwise? Harl asked himself. And he allowed himself another sip.

  “The ale of your country is strong and good,” he ventured, being complimentary. “So no doubt you have many strong men here and serve a strong king.”

  “All that you say is true,” Lukas agreed.

  “And your king’s name?”

  “Our present king is called the Planetary Commander.” The wizard smacked his lips over ale. “And whom do you serve?”

  A tremulous groan passed round the board. The tankards scraped in unison as they were lifted, and then together they thudded down, all lighter than they had been. All except HarPs. He could see no sign of treachery, but still he decided firmly that he would not drink any more, not just now.

  “Whom do we serve?” he asked the world. “Our good, young lord is dead.”

  “Young Ay is dead!” Torla roared it out like a man challenging the pain of a wound. A serving girl came to refill his tankard, and Torla seized her and pulled her onto his lap. But when she softly resisted his pawing he only held her there gently, while a comical witless expression slowly grew on his face.

  Harl wondered at this. His own mind was perfectly clear . . . and yet he should be more concerned, more alert than he was. Should he not?

  “Young Ay’s death would be sad news,” said Lukas calmly. “If it were true.”

  Oddly, no one took offense at this implied slur on their truthfulness in such a matter. Only another murmur of mourning passed round the table. “We saw him die!”

  “Ah, yes!”

  Harl’s big fists were knotted, remembering their helplessness against the dragon. “We saw him die, in such a way that, by all the gods, I can scarce believe it yet myself!” Lukas leaned forward, intent. “And what way was that?”

  In a faltering voice
Harl told him. Harl’s throat quickly grew dry with speech; hardly realizing that he did so, he swallowed more from his tankard. The truth about the dragon sounded in his own ears like a clumsy lie. What chance was there of King Gorboduc believing it?”

  When Harl’s recital was finished, Torla tried to stand up and say something; the girl fell from his lap and landed with a yelp on her soft bottom. His face showing uncharacteristic concern, Torla bent as if to help her. But she scurried away, and Torla just kept right on bending until he was seated again, with his head lying on the table. Then he began to snore.

  His shipmates only laughed. Something was wrong, the men should not be drunk on one or two tankards apiece of any ale. Harl puzzled over this, took another thoughtful sip himself and decided he had better get to his feet.

  “Your king is not dead,” the wizard was telling him monotonously. “Not dead, not dead, why should you believe that he is?”

  “Why? We saw the dragon take him!” But Harl was no longer quite sure of what he had seen, or what he remembered. What was happening here? He swayed on his feet, half-drew his sword and croaked: “Treachery! Wake up!” But his men’s eyes were glassy or closing. Around the table some of these men started to rise, but then they sank back, letting weapons slide forgotten to the floor.

  “Wizard?” one man muttered, pleading. “Tell us again that our king lives.”

  “He lives and shall live.”

  Alone, Harl staggered back from the table, his sword sighing all the way out of its scabbard into his hand. To hurt anyone for any reason would be a very terrible thing, but he felt so frightened that he might do even that. “Stand back!” he warned the wizard.

  The wizard also stood up, not much frightened with the length of the table between himself and Harl. From inside his robe Lukas took a mask like an animal’s snout, which he fitted onto his face. His voice come out thickly: “No one will harm you here. I have shared with you the drink that makes men peaceful.”

  Harl turned and ran for the door. Outside, the mist suddenly turned sparkling in his lungs. When he reached the hillock from which he could see the beached ship, he discovered that all the men he had left to guard her were dead or dying. Half a dozen nearly human monsters with gray snouted faces were busy arranging their bodies in rows on the beach. The men who could still move were offering no resistance, but letting themselves be led like load-oxen.

  It was really too bad that such a thing had happened. Reflexively Harl groped for his sword and axe; then he remembered that he had thrown all his weapons away somewhere.

  “It’s all right,” said Lukas’ soothing voice, from just behind Harl. As Harl turned, the wizard continued: “Your men are asleep. They need rest, don’t wake them.”

  “Ahh, that’s it!” Harl sighed with deep relief. He might have known there was no reason to worry, on this good island of sparkling ale and sparkling air and friendly people who spoke nothing but truth. He saw now that the snouted monsters were only men who wore masks like the wizard’s, taking care of his men. Harl looked confidently at Lukas and waited to be told some more good news.

  Sighing behind his mask, Lukas seemed to relax. “Come here,” he said. And he led Harl down to the water’s very edge, where the wet sand was kept lapped to perfect smoothness by the little wavelets coming in.

  With his finger the wizard drew in the wet sand, making the crude outline of a grotesque head. “Suppose that this is the dragon you thought you saw. What exactly did you think happened?”

  Harl groaned wearily and sank to his knees, staring helplessly at the sketch. Now that he could relax he was very tired, and he was going to deep soon; but right now he had to concentrate on what Lukas was showing him.

  “It seized Ay,” Harl said. “In its mouth.”

  “Like this?” The wizard’s finger drew a stick-figure clenched in the dragon’s teeth, waving helpless lines of arms and legs. Even as he drew, the little waves were coming in over the sketch, smoothing and blurring its lines.

  “like that,” Harl agreed, sitting down awkwardly.

  “But now all that is being wiped out,” the wizard intoned. “Wiped away. And when this evil thing is gone, then the truth—what you and I want to be the truth—can be written in.”

  The waves were erasing the dragon, and Harl could sleep.

  VI

  Somewhere along the line in his training Matt asked: “Then King Ay is in fact dead and not wounded, as I was first told?”

  “We said he was wounded, because he can be brought back to life. His dying and his wounds will be as if they had never happened.”

  “Then if I fail, someone else may try again? If I am killed back there, my life too may be brought back?”

  He had his answer at once from the gravity of their faces, but they went into explanations. “All this that you see here, all this work, is to give that one man back his life. If we can do that, then all the other bent and altered lives around his will also flow back where they were. But not yours, for your life was not there in the original pattern. If you die back there, that death will be real and final for you—as death will be for all of us here, if you should fail. No one else will be able to try again.”

  One of the perquisites of Derron’s new rank was a small, private cubicle of an office, and right now he was silently cursing his promotion for giving Lisa a fine place in which to corner him. She was angry as he had never seen her before.

  “Whose fault is it if not yours?” she was demanding. “You admit you’re the one who suggested using Matt. Why didn’t you suggest they go back and grab someone else from the past instead?”

  So far Derron was keeping his patience. “Operations can’t just go and pull someone out of history every time they feel like it. Ay’s crew is a special case; they’re going right back where they belong. And Matt’s a special case, he was about to die when we brought him up. Operations has finally been able to bring up a couple of other men who were about to die in their own time, but those two haven’t had time to learn where they are, let alone what the mission they’re wanted for is all about. When they do know, they may refuse.”

  “Refuse! What chance does Matt have to refuse it, when you demand it of him? He thinks you’re some kind of a great hero—he’s still like a child in so many ways!”

  “Beg your pardon, but he’s not a child. Far from it. And he won’t be helpless. Before we drop him he’ll be trained in everything he’ll need, from politics to weapons.”

  “Weapons?” She was still like a child herself, in some ways.

  “Certainly, weapons. Although we hope he’s only going to be in Queensland for a few days and won’t get involved in any fighting. We’re going to try to bring him back before the wedding.”

  “Wedding!”

  Derron hastened on. “Matt can take care of himself, and he can do this job. He’s a natural leader. Anyone who can lead Neolithic people—”

  “Never mind all that!” Lisa was now on the brink of tears. “Of course he can do it, if he must. If he’s really the only one who can go. He’ll go, and I wouldn’t stop him. But why were you the one to suggest that he be used? Right after I talked to you about him. Why? Did you just have to make sure that he was temporary, too?”

  “Lisa. What do you think I am?” Her angry eyes were brimming over, and she hurried to the door. At die last moment she turned. “I don’t know! I don’t know you any more!” And she was gone.

  Days ago the plastic membrane had fallen away from his face. The new skin had appeared already weathered, thanks to the Modems’ magic, and the new beard had then grown almost visibly for two days before slowing to a normal rate.

  Now, on the day he was to be dropped, Matt stood for the last time before the mirror in his room, getting a last good look at his new face. Turning his head from side to side, he pondered the different angles of Ay’s cheeks and nose and chin. He wondered if the spirit behind the face had also changed enough. It did not seem to Matt that he was yet possessed of the spirit of
a king.

  “Just a few more questions, sire,” said one of the tutors, standing now at Matt’s elbow. For days now they had conversed with him only in Ay’s language, while wearing for him airs of respect suitable for subordinates addressing a warrior chief. But that was just play acting, no help in changing a spirit.

  “First, how will you spend the evening on the day of your arrival in Queensland?”

  Turning away from the mirror, Matt answered patiently. “That is one of the times we cannot be sure of, where Ay’s lifeline is hard to see. I will stay in character and try to avoid making decisions, especially big ones. I will use my communicator if I think I need help.”

  “And if you see the dragonlike machine that killed your predecessor?”

  “I will try to make it come after me or somehow get it to move around as much as possible. This will help you find the keyhole to cancel out the dragon with all the harm it has done. And the sword I will carry will give me some chance to defend myself.”

  The tutors’ questioning went on, while the time for the drop neared. A team of technicians came in to dress Matt in the best copies that could be made of the garments Ay had worn when embarking for Queensland.

  They treated him more like a statue than a king. When it was time for the finishing touches, one of the costumers complained: “If they’ve decided at last that we should use the original helmet, where is it?”

  The other answered: “Both helmets are out at the reservoir. The communications people were still working on them.”

  The tutors kept thinking up more last-minute questions, which Matt answered patiently while the dressers put a plastic coverall on him over his clothes, and another officer came to lead him out to the little train that would take him through a tunnel to Reservoir H.

  Once before he had ridden the train, when he had been taken to see the sleeping men and the ship. He did not expect to enjoy riding the ship. As if in tune with this thought, one of the tutors now looked at his timepiece and handed Matt what he knew was a motion-sickness pill.