The Parallel Man

by Richard Purtill

  I gave her a grin. “Not tonight, my pretty one. But good hunting,” I said. She gave a little trill of laughter, raised a hand in salute and strolled languidly off, her eyes searching the faces of the men who were emerging from the theater.

  Back aboard Argo I found Pellow lying on his bunk and told him of my adventures. He nodded dully, still wrapped in emotional freeze. “Yes, blackouts will do the job all right, but I don’t want out of freeze until I leave this ship,” he said. “It will be bad enough knowing I can’t flit again except as a passenger without living in crew quarters and seeing starflitters about me every day. I’ll look for lodgings in the city tomorrow, I think. What about you?”

  I hesitated, “I may know more after tomorrow. Don’t leave Argo for good without leaving me word of where I can find you.” He nodded listlessly and was stretching out again as I asked, “These gynas the man spoke of, what are they? The bawdy called them dolls, and puppets . . .”

  Pellow shrugged. “That’s what they are, mechanicals just like andros, Technically I suppose they’d have to expose the blue dome under their wigs if they ever went out of doors But you’ll never find them outside a bawdy house. Physically they’re a perfect replica of a woman but their programming is pretty limited; they’re made for only one thing. The ones that are replicas of famous actresses and other well known women are kept in pretty tight seclusion; their owners would be in big trouble if the duplication could be proved. You hear stories of women who’ve been copied without their permission hiring wilders to break up a bawdy house and destroy the gynas. On the other hand, you hear stories of 3V stars who let themselves be duplicated for a share of the profits.”

  I groped for a way to put the question I wanted to ask without exposing my ignorance. “The andros—I’ve seen none of them here so far.”

  Pellow shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t expect to see any here. They can’t flit, the effect of Q on them are too unpredictable. A general-purpose andro like we were pretending to be costs a small fortune to build; more than most cits make in five years. It’s not worthwhile making them on a backwater planet like this; there are humans to do even the most menial jobs. Gynas are another matter; you can always peddle exotic sex, especially near a starport.”

  I fell into my bunk, my head whirling. The “andros,” then, were some sort of doll or puppet, moved by enchanters’ arts. No wonder they gaped and stared in poor imitation of humanity. But what about the serfs I remembered, surely they were natural men, born and not built by magical arts. But except for their shocks of unkempt hair. . . Suddenly I had a sort of double image; serfs as I had remembered them up to now and then a different set of images: serfs grinning, laughing, drinking; buxom serf women smiling at me and shock-headed children tumbling on the cottage floors. My heart pounded and I broke out in a sweat. Up to now I had not doubted my memories. I had reckoned myself a sane man in a mad world of enchantment. What if it was I that was mad . . .”

  I made myself breathe deeply and relax. Whatever had been done to me, some things I could hold to. I knew enough of hunting to win Benton’s respect. I could handle myself well enough in this strange world to make Elena Petros offer me a berth on Argo. Whatever I learned about myself I was my own man and could hold my own in this or any other world. And surely my memories of Castle Thorn and my life there could not all be false. I knew that castle as well as I knew my own hands—or did I? Tomorrow would tell. I made myself sleep.

  The next day it took an effort to keep my voice steady as I asked the guard at the starport gate about transportation to the castle. He shrugged. “Oh yes, you can get there all right, they run tours. But not many flitters care to go. Tell you what, go over to the passenger gate round the fence there; cut across the field. There are probably regular tours leaving from there for visitors with time to kill here. Some of the tours are free; the city merchants run them to attract business. I’d take off your crew badge and hope they take you for a wealthy cit.”

  I thanked the man and cut across the false grass to the gate he had indicated. A more grandly dressed gatekeeper looked at me oddly, then told me to wait. Presently he returned with another man. “The regular tour is gone, citizen, but Jelleck here will give you a lift to the castle gate and find a tour you can join.” I thanked him and accompanied the other man to a moving platform smaller and faster than the one I had ridden with the andros the day I first met Pellow. I settled in a seat beside the man named Jelleck and was whisked through crowded streets toward the castle. Nothing I saw looked familiar until we came to the castle gates. Where I remembered a moat there was a broad paved area, but the gate themselves and the walls above were heart-stoppingly familiar.

  The man named Jelleck looked around him. “If you’ll wait here, citizen, I’ll find a guide for you,” he said, and entered the castle through a small postern gate that I did not remember. I climbed off the platform and stretched. Another unfamiliar object near the gates was a statue standing immediately before the gates, a man in armor with an unfurled flag in one hand and a bared sword in the other. I strolled casually over to look at it and was suddenly standing there staring, unable to move. Dimly I heard a child’s voice behind me, “Mama, look! The man standing there looks just like the statute of King Casmir the Protector!”

  8. The Hall of Kings

  I heard a chuckle at my side and turned to see a young man with a studious look about him, clothed in a shabby robe that looked somewhat like a monk’s habit. “The child’s right, ser,” he said. “You’re the spitting image of the Blessed King. You must have Jagellon blood all right, though by your clothing you’re from off-planet. Would you like a guide, ser? I’m a poor student and I promise you that your fee will all be spent on students’ necessaries—books and wine.”

  I laughed, liking the look of the young man, and flipped him one of the golden discs from my pouch; since one had bought me admittance to the blackout I reckoned it a fair fee for a guide. His face grew grave and with an obvious struggle he made as if to hand it back to me. “This is far too much for a guide, ser,” he said. “And I can’t give you exchange.”

  I pushed his hand away. “Keep it for your studies then, ser scholar,” I said, “and enough wine not to interfere with the studying.”

  He laughed at that, but his eyes were bright as he carefully stowed the disc in his clothing. “This will buy me things from off-planet that will save me much time in my studies,” he said awkwardly. “I thank you, ser, and I’m at your disposal for as long as you like. Come round to the Little Gate, going through the gift shop yonder spoils the castle for anyone with taste. Do you know any Carpathian history, ser, or should I start at the beginning?”

  “Treat me like a child at his first lessons,” I said.

  He chuckled again and fell into a lecturing tone as we walked along the paved area with the castle walls soaring above us. “Well, ser, Carpathia was colonized just before the Wars of Unity when, of course, the remoter colonies were soon cut off. A Szilar raider torched the techno complex, which they hadn’t had time to decentralize, and the planet slid right back to the feudal age in a few generations: The colonists had to go back to the most primitive subsistence farming and the starcrew who were stranded here when their ship was torched became a feudal aristocracy. The captain of the ship was a man named Casmir Jagellon who had a hobby of reading ancient history from Home. He formed his crew into an order of knighthood and got about the long task of building up civilization again . . .”

  “To restore the Golden Days . . .” I said softly. It was a phrase from my knightly oath.

  The young scholar shot me a startled glance. “But if you know the oath of the Knights of Thorn . . .” he began.

  I shook my head, “Never mind, go on as you began,” I said. “A child at his first lessons.”

  He shrugged and went on. “Well, ser, Casmir Jagellon became King Casmir the First and built the first castle here on Castle Crag. Some colonists revolted and went off to found their own societies. But most of
those reverted to barbarism. Actually we know more about this early history than we do about the later history of Carpathia because for a while some sophisticated recording devices survived which could make record chips. When those broke down or wore out records were kept only with pen and ink on reed paper, and not all of these records survived. There was a Dark Age, a period from which more legends and myth than real history survive. For instance, if you look at the shield of King Casmir the Protector on the statue outside you’ll see a winged fire-breathing lizard, a firedrake. Most scholars now say they’re only legends, influenced by old stories from Home like the Bilbo-saga. Some scholars think they really existed, but they’re in the minority.”

  “Why does. . . King Casmir. . . have one on his shield?” I asked.

  He chuckled. “Oh, the usual thing, he killed a firedrake and rescued a princess.”

  “Was her name Delora?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.

  The young scholar shook his head. “Oh no, one of the Hedwigas, I think. Delora isn’t a Carpathian name, even, and I’m sure it doesn’t come into any of the legends.”

  A day or so ago I would have backed my own memory against a scholar’s knowledge of legends but with my new uncertainty his words gave me a sharp stab of uneasiness. “How about Mortifer?” I said.

  He laughed. “Oh yes, he comes into that legend as a cross between the wicked enchanter and the usurping regent. King Casmir eventually banished him, I think. But there are a lot of Mortifers in Carpathian history, some heroes, and some villains. Mortifer is one of the old Carpathian family names, probably descended from one of the original starcrew, though that name doesn’t appear on the log as we have it. Ah, here’s the Little Gate.”

  We entered a small but richly decorated gate; again its position but not its style matched my memories. As I expected, we stood within the courtyard of the castle with the Great Tower soaring above us. Built into the wall near us was a small church; the scholar led me into its nave and left me to look at the great altar and the carved and gilded statues while he crossed himself and knelt briefly to pray. I stood looking about me, while more suppressed memories flitted through my mind; Mass at the high altar with the flash of swords and sound of trumpets at the Elevation, catechism lessons from an old priest who had been my tutor before Mortifer. How could I have forgotten?

  The scholar did not speak until we were out of the church; then he said quietly, “That chapel is still the Cathedral of Thorn and for the Carpathians who keep the Old Faith, the holiest place on Carpathia. The First Chaplain is buried there and Holy Queen Hedwig. Not the kings, though, they’re all buried in the Hall of Kings on the other side of the castle. There was quite a furor a few years ago when some scientists from the Royal Academy got permission to examine some of the bodies for archeological purposes. Carpathia isn’t a monarchy anymore, of course, but the Old Carpathia Party talked about desecration of our history.”

  “The king who stands before the castle . . .” I said slowly.

  He nodded. “Your look-alike? He was Casmir the Tenth. He united all the little kingdoms and really started Carpathia on the road to civilization. You couldn’t be descended from him; he was quite a devout man by all accounts and faithful to the princess he rescued. Some of his descendants were a bit more—er—prolific and no doubt your family . . . Well, the direct line died out before Rediscovery and if there had been a legitimate cadet branch . . .”

  He was growing more embarrassed as he tangled himself in explanations. “I take your point,” I said. “How is Carpathia ruled now?”

  The scholar looked troubled. “Theoretically it’s a Direct Democracy,” he said, “but the old families interfere a lot. The present Mortifer doesn’t hold political office, he’s an Academician, but according to the Old Carpathia Party he has a lot more influence than he should have on government decisions. Right now he’s in some sort of trouble at Home and the government is resisting attempts to extradite or even question him. Well, you’re not interested in Carpathian politics. Would you like to see the Great Tower or . . .”

  “The Hall of Kings, I think,” I told him. “What sort of thing does this Mortifer do? Does he live here in Thorn?”

  “Oh yes,” said the young man. “He has a suite of rooms at the Royal Academy which a lot of scholars think should be put to use as research space; another example of his influence. They must be some of the best rooms in the city way up at the top of the building like that. Here, let’s go up the guards’ stair and along the battlements. You can see the Academy over on Hedwiga’s Hill across the valley.” As I followed the young scholar up the well worn familiar steps I reflected that my golden circle had been well spent. The young man was so eager to please me that I had only to express interest in a subject to be flooded with all of the information the young man had.

  “There’s Hedwiga’s Hill, with the Institute on top,” said my companion as we reached the battlements. As I had half expected, “Hedwiga’s Hill” was the Mount of Sacrifice. There looked to be a small chapel of some sort on the ledge where I remembered fighting the firedrake, and the top of the hill had been carved and quarried so that the whole top of the hill was a great building. It was built of the gray local stone, but had no battlements or towers; it looked more like a monastery than a castle, but somehow it echoed the look of the castle whose walls we stood on. Some master builder had taken care to see that the two buildings which dominated the town below should not jar with each other.

  The town itself was a fairer sight, looked at from this more human height, than it had been from Argo. I could see the glint of fountains in the squares and the green of parks scattered here and there among the streets. Around the castle were the old winding streets that I remembered, but farther away the streets went in broader curves that followed lines of the country. The rigid geometry of the city of enchanters where I had boarded Argo was happily absent. I began to feel a sense of belonging here, a sense of possession, and with it a sense of responsibility. “A beautiful city,” I said to the scholar.

  He nodded, slowly looking out over the city. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I want to travel through the Commonwealth; there’s so much to see, to learn. But always I’ll want to come back to Thorn, to meditate on what I’ve learned. I don’t know whether I’ll ever be elected to the Academy over there, but there are humbler places where perhaps more real scholarship goes on . . .”

  Just then I heard footsteps on the stairs we had come up, and turned to see the man Jelleck, who had brought me to the castle from the starport. He was followed by a burly man who eyed me with a curiously appraising look. “I’ve found you a guide, ser,” said Jelleck, gesturing to the man beside him.

  “Thanks for that,” I told him, “but I have found my own guide.” If there had been some small coins in my pouch, I might have tossed him one; but if a golden “ecu” was too much for a guide, it was too much for the smaller service he had rendered, and my supply of the little circlets was limited.

  My young scholar-guide cut in, “You’re not one of the regular guides,” he told the burly man. “Where’s your medallion? The Castle guides barely tolerate us scholars guiding people here; you can get into serious trouble doing guide’s work without authorization.”

  Jelleck opened his mouth but the other man took his arm in what looked like no gentle grip. “We had a guide waiting for you below,” said the burly man glibly. “But if the citizen here has no need of him, we’ll dismiss him. Come on, Jelleck.” He hustled Jelleck back down the stairs.

  The scholar grinned at me. “The tough had better sense than the tout,” he said. “Some unauthorized guiding does go on, of course, because you can’t be sure that one person showing another the castle isn’t just a citizen showing a country cousin the sights of Thorn. But if anyone is caught taking a fee, the official guides will take it to court. That muscleman looked the type who might try to bully an extra fee out of a timid tourist; he’ll get nailed for Uncivil behavior someday, if that’s his game. No
t that he’d get far with you, ser.”

  I smiled at that, but I realized now what the burly man’s look of appraisal had been; the look of one fighting man sizing up another. A faint chill of uneasiness came over me. Even if Jelleck was a rogue and had some dishonest ploy in mind, was he not risking a great deal, since I knew his name and he was known to the gateman at the starport? The sense of being pursued, which had faded with my other emotions on Argo, came back in full force. I looked around me as the scholar talked of kings and battles, trying to think of what I could do if I were attacked here. How many memories of this castle could I trust, how much would this strangely altered Castle Thorn fight on my side?

  The Hall of Kings was new to me; a strongly built place half hall and half chapel perched on a crag at one side of the castle and connected to the battlements by a high-flung bridge of wood. I hesitated before setting foot on the bridge; the place was a cul de sac. Still, not many could come at me at once over that bridge; the passage could be defended fairly easily by a determined man.

  As if echoing my thought the young scholar said, “Casmir the Fourteenth made a stand here when his enemies seized the Castle by treachery. He burned the bridge behind him and held out until loyal troops relieved him. Later renovaters have wanted to rebuild the bridge in stone but the traditionalists have always objected, and so the bridge is wooden just as in the days it was burned. Of course, the timbers have been renewed, but it still makes some visitors from high-tech worlds nervous; they don’t really trust natural materials like wood.”

  The bridge was sturdy enough, and the interior of the hall which we entered through massive wooden doors had a dignified simplicity. There was a central aisle lit by clerstoty windows above, and off of this aisle was a series of alcoves like small side chapels in a great church. Some of these contained obvious mausoleums, others held statuary groups or plaques. A shield hung above the entrance to each alcove and a flagstaff projected above each shield. The flags on the staffs were tattered and faded, but you could see the Crown and Sword design on each; they had been the personal standards of the dead kings.