“Brother,” I addressed it, “wear them well this short while, for it is but some human rite.”
But it either could not or would not understand me. It continued its outcry and began beating at the transformed portions of its own person. So I laid a deep sleep upon it, there in the lee of a triangle of standing gray stones, serving both Pol and itself with little real effort on my own part. I told myself at the time that this was a necessary personal involvement—my first—in the affairs of others, for purposes of assuring that things be played out smoothly in their entirety, so as to satisfy a number of purely intellectual needs of my own.
But even then I was beginning to wonder.
I regarded that fascinating land for several extra instants before I swirled and began the long journey back, bright thunder and loud lightning oxymoronic over oxbows as I passed, passed I negative to reverse point and back, finding thoughts this time in Larick’s head, of Avinconet and those he served. The first glimmer of understanding came to me.
I rotated with a certain satisfaction, then followed them to the next station. There, I saw the transference repeated with Pol’s other leg. This annoyed me more than a little. His mind was as far asea as any of the others’, convincing me that he was being victimized. It did not seem a very fair thing, judging from the little I knew about humans, especially coming from Larick the way that it was.
When we moved on to the next one, several things occurred in addition to the alteration of Pol’s abdomen. The one candidate dropped dead. He, of course, was nothing to me; but at approximately the same moment there came a repetition of the word “Faney”. I studied the others for reactions to this, but there were none. Of course, they had just acquired a dead man which might have proved distracting; still, it had sounded very loud, and after a few moments I heard it again.
And then again.
It became steady, relentless in repetition. At first I cowered, but then I listened. How silly of me to have thought that the others could hear it when it was so obviously addressing me and me alone. I felt that at some level I was beginning to understand it. And then something else occurred.
The body was moved, the ritual proceeded, Pol was altered. But none of these seemed particularly important at just that moment. I was undergoing a change, far less physical in nature than Pol’s, a thing which raised fascinating and involved speculations on the subjects of free will and determinism. Unfortunately, I did not have time to pursue them just then, for my full attention was required by the change itself: I had changed my mind. I had taken an unstated, barely realized position of not interfering in the affairs of others for as long as I could remember. I suddenly brought it into focus, examined it and decided that the time had arrived to make an exception.
I did not like what was being done to Pol, but I did not possess the expertise necessary to reverse the phenomenon. I would do something, though—what, I was not certain—something to help him return to what was normal for him, so that he could deal with his own enemies as he saw fit.
I thought about it as we descended to the final station. The voice repeating “Faney” had faded. Pol predictably lost his feet at the next stop. I studied Larick in those moments when he was not conducting operations. I saw that he intended to spirit Pol off to Avinconet, where he would be a prisoner, as soon as the night’s work was concluded.
When we departed the last station and moved on into the big cavern, I watched as he laid the paralysis upon Pol and began conducting the others outside. It seemed that I might be able to lift the spell which held him there in the alcove, but I was uncertain as to what could be done next.
I followed the first initiate outside, to witness the last phase of things. Then I saw that a number of the masters had come up to accompany their people back into town. Lurking in a secluded spot, Mouseglove watched the cavemouth.
Of course.
I was already working on my plan as I returned to the cavern. When I discovered the sorcerer of the midnight visitation with Pol, however, I halted and observed. There was a great feeling of power about the man.
He began using that power. I saw that he was employing it to reverse the transference. I moved immediately to interfere in a fashion which could not be detected. It was pure impulse on my part, not to see such good materials wasted. The creature’s head could be mounted upon a stick by its fellows for all I cared. I made use of the drawstring space pocket as I had seen Pol do for storage purposes.
I saw Pol returned to himself and disguised. It in no way affected my plan when I realized what he intended to do. He would still be operating in an area of considerable danger.
So I sought the body of Krendel, the red-haired man who had died earlier. In that no one else was using it at the moment, I permeated it and set about studying how it worked, I wanted to have it ready soon to run the errand I had conceived of, to Mouseglove, who waited without.
X.
The small man slipped through the golden hole in the center of the room and it began to close behind him. A contracting halo, an optical aberration, the view through the opening was not that of the far side of the sumptuous apartment. Instead, the eye followed the dwindling form of the dark-clad man who had passed that way across a high tapestry-hung hall as it approached an arched gallery past pillars dark and light.
Then the wavering lens closed upon itself, flickered and was gone. Ibal slumped back upon the heap of cushions on which he had been sitting bolt upright. His breathing was suddenly deep and rapid; perspiration dotted his brow.
Vonnie, kneeling beside him, delicately blotted his face with a blue silk kerchief.
“There are not many,” she said, “can do the door spell well.”
He smiled.
“It is a strain,” he acknowledged, “and, to tell the truth, not something I’d ever intended to work again. This time, though . . . ”
“ . . . it was different,” she finished.
He nodded.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Recover,” he answered.
“You know that is not what I mean.”
“All right. Recover and forget. I’ve given him a hand. My honor is satisfied.”
“Is it? Really?”
He sighed.
“At my age, that is all the honor I can afford. The days are long gone when I would care to get involved in something like this.”
Her hands passed through his hair, dropped to his well-muscled shoulders, rubbed there for a time, then led him back to a seated position. She raised a cool drink to his lips.
“How certain are you of your assessment of the case?” she finally inquired.
“The gods know what else it could be!” he said. “Something not at all natural sends Mouseglove to me, with the story that the young man I’d sponsored is old Det’s son and that he’s just been kidnaped by Ryle Merson. Honor says that I should do something because Ryle has made off with the man I sponsored. So I have. Fortunately, all Mouseglove wanted was a fast trip back to Rondoval—and I’ve just provided it.”
“Is that really enough?”
“It is not as if he were my apprentice. I was only doing the man a favor. I barely know him.”
“But—” she began.
“That is all,” he replied.
“But it was not what I meant.”
“What, then?”
“The things you said at first—could they be true?”
“I forget what I said.”
“You said that it is a continuation of something that began before Pol was born . . . ”
“I suppose that it is.”
“ . . . the thing that had led to the wars.”
He took the goblet into his hands and drained it.
“Yes, I believe so,” he said then.
“Something that could reopen that whole business?”
He shrugged.
“Or close it. Yes. I think that might be the case—or that Ryle believes it might be the case. Same thing.”
He set the gob
let aside, raised his hands and looked at them.
“Pol has apparently aroused the concern of something powerful and supernatural,” he said, “and he also has the good offices of the friend we just sent on his way.”
“I was not talking about Pol. I am thinking of the entire situation of which that is but a part. This place is full of important practicioners of the Art. It is the only occasion in four years when they will all be together like this. I would almost say that it seems more than coincidental. Don’t you feel that we ought to bring this to their attention?”
Ibal began to laugh.
“Stop and think about it for a minute,” he said later. “I think it would be the worst possible thing to do. There were attractive things about both sides in that conflict. Some stood to benefit, some did not. Do you really think we’d get a consensus? We can start the next war right here, if you’d like.”
She had stiffened as he spoke and her eyes widened slightly.
“Gods!” she said. “You may be right!”
“So why don’t we forget about the entire thing?” he finished. He reached out and took her hand. “And I know exactly how to go about it.”
“I believe I’m getting a headache,” she said.
Mouseglove did not look back. He accepted the sorcery which had brought him to Rondoval as a part of life. If magic were used against him, things could be very bad. If it worked to his benefit, he was grateful. Until he had met Pol, he had generally attempted to avoid the notice of sorcerers, counting them—usually correctly—as an untrustworthy lot. He mouthed a few words of thanks to Dwastir, patron of thieves, that this one had been helpful, as he hurried into the great hall and made his way down the stairway.
He located the bundle of faggots Pol had charmed for him, raised one and spoke the necessary words over it. He turned then and headed without hesitation along the confusion of tunnels, moving back toward the caverns where he had obtained more than one’s normally allotted span of rest.
For a long while he passed through the cool places of dancing shadows before he reached the entranceway where the great slab Pol had toppled lay in shattered ruin all about.
Picking his way among the rubble, he continued into a place where the echoes died in the distance and the walls and roof were no longer visible, a place where the odor of the beasts hung heavy and the torch flickered in vagrant drafts. Here, too, he knew his way, and he proceeded along it with much less trepidation than he would have experienced some months earlier.
The vast, still mounds of scaled and furred bodies were sprawled casually about, many of them sleeping in the depths of magical charges as they had, he had, before. Some few others slept out their natural daily, weekly or monthly spans.
He wondered, as he made his way to the familiar niche, whether the one he sought would indeed be resting there. He might be anywhere in the world, his absence necessitating Mouseglove’s rousing another—a thought he did not relish. Having been trapped for twenty years in the same version of the sleep spell as Moonbird, he had developed a peculiar link—a thing even verging on friendliness—with the giant dragon. With any of the others, he would have to attempt a complicated explanation, possibly beginning with his own identity. No, he did not like that thought at all.
As he came near to the place where Moonbird normally rested he grazed his shoulder against an unremembered rocky prominence.
Mouseglove! It has been long!
He stumbled back. It was a shoulder of dragon rather than a shoulder of stone against which he had brushed. He recovered almost immediately and moved to lay his hands upon the beast.
“Yes, I am back,” he replied. “There is trouble. We need your help.”
The great bulk shifted beneath his hands, causing them to slide along the hard, smooth scales. Moonbird began to rise.
What is it? he asked.
“We must go to Anvil Mountain, find Pol’s scepter, take it to him.”
He cast it into the fiery hole. He told me this.
“He told me, also—”
But I have been back, and the fires have died. All is gray rock now. I do not know how far I could dig in it. Get tools.
Mouseglove thought for a moment.
“There is a room off the main courtyard,” he said, sending along the image. “I will return and look over the tools there. Meet me in the yard.”
It will be faster for me to take you there.
“Well . . . ”
Mount!
Mouseglove scrambled onto his back. Minutes later, they were gliding through the darkness.
XI.
Pol was awakened by the light shining upon his face. He tossed his head several times to avoid it, then sat suddenly upright, eyes opened.
The door of his cell stood wide.
Had someone come for him, then met with some momentary distraction? He listened. There were no sounds from the corridor.
Cautiously, he rose to his feet. He crossed the cell to the place where he had stood earlier, conjuring ineffectively, eyes throbbing.
Some illusion? To torment him?
He extended his hand beyond the door frame, touched the door. It moved slightly. At that moment, he felt the essence of mocking laughter, soundless. It was as if something vaguely sinister were amused at his puzzlement, his trepidation—something inhabiting a level of reality which did not coincide with his own. He stood frozen, waiting, but it did not occur again.
Finally, he moved forward, passing out into the corridor. It was deserted.
What now? he thought. Should he set out upon the route along which he had followed Larick? Should he strike out and explore elsewhere within the castle? Or should he head back to the courtyard, take one of the flying beasts and flee?
The latter course struck him as the most sensible: Flee, hide and wait for the return of his powers. Then he could go back to Rondoval, rouse his bestial minions and come back here as he had come to Anvil Mountain—to tear the place apart. It made better sense than remaining, powerless and outnumbered, in the citadel of an enemy.
He turned in the direction of the courtyard with the cages. Then he stood still.
His way was barred by a sheet of pale flame.
“And so my choice is not really a choice,” he said softly.
Is it ever? came the familiar, ironic notes in his head.
“I guess that remains to be seen.”
Like most things, came the reply, accompanied by slightly conciliatory sensations.
“I’ve never been able to figure out whether you’re an enemy or an ally.”
We are agents. We aided you once.
“And the next time . . . ?”
Why should you have any reason to doubt those who have helped you in the past?
“Because I came away with the feeling that I’d been pushed into something.”
I would say, rather, that we pulled you out.
“That is a debatable point. But you say that you are agents. Agents of what?”
Change.
“Much is encompassed by that word. Could you be more specific?”
Two of the forces at work upon this world are science and magic. At times they are opposed to one another. We are on the side of the magic.
“This place hardly seems a stronghold of technology.”
It is not. There is no direct confrontation involved here.
“God damn you! Getting a straight answer out of you is like milking a wildcat! Why can’t you just tell me what is involved?”
The truth is such a sacred thing that we guard it well.
“I believe that you want my cooperation.”
That is why we are assisting you again.
Pol tried shifting to the second seeing. This time it seemed to work smoothly. With it, he detected the outline of a human form within the flame—small, masculine, head bowed, hands hidden within the long sleeves which overlapped near its dark center. An orange strand drifted near Pol’s right hand, the far end of it vanishing within the flame. He ca
ught it with his fingertips and twirled it. The dragonmark throbbed upon his forearm.
“Now you will tell me what I wish to know—” he began.
His hand felt as if it were on fire. He stifled a scream and dropped to one knee in his agony. His second vision departed. His entire arm ached.
We will not be coerced in such a fashion, came the reply.
“I’ll find the right way,” he said through clenched teeth.
It would be so much easier and would save so much time if you would let us show you rather than spend the night telling you what is involved.
Pol rose to his feet, holding his aching right hand in the other.
“I suppose that’s the best deal I’ll get from you tonight.”
It is. Turn and follow the other.
Pol turned and beheld another tongue of flame. This one was only the size of his hand, and it hung in the air in the middle of the corridor about eight paces before him. A moment after his gaze fell upon it, it began to drift away from him. He followed.
It led him through a hall filled with grotesque statues, both human and non-human, a low, red brilliance, a soft, almost vibrant glow lying upon the whole setting, cast perhaps by the flame itself, giving the impression that all of the stone forms were beginning to stir. The air there was stale in his lungs, and he found himself holding his breath until he had departed the place. The luster was present in some of the other chambers and hallways, yet somehow it lacked the sinister character it had given to that room and those representations. The dragonmark had begun throbbing when they had entered the place and did not grow still until they were well away.
He moved down a series of stone stairways, each rougher than the preceding one, passing through damp chambers and long passageways, which, judging from the descent he had made, must be well beneath the castle itself and hacked from the living stone of the mountainside. At some point, Pol ventured a look behind him and saw that the other flame was nowhere in sight. He also saw, however, that the shadows seemed to slide in a liquid, almost sentient fashion at his back, in a manner he found more than a little unsettling. He hurried to keep pace with his guide.
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