by John Dalmas
Though the altar was centered in the room, the focus of the ritual was an intricately wrought tripod of what appeared to be black iron, topped with a shallow bowl, the seven Voitar forming a circle around it. The bowl held a round gem the size of an egg, surrounded by a soft pure glow that seemed more than light.
It gripped his attention, and with an effort, Macurdy pulled his gaze from it. A feeling of suffocation alarmed him; he'd been holding his breath. Cautiously he inhaled.
Kurqôsz held a slender knife in one hand, and in the other a silver shield, which he positioned over the woman's head and chest. Reflexively Macurdy closed his eyes. After a long blurred minute, the energy swelled, then surged powerfully. Macurdy's eyes sprang wide, and he lost consciousness.
* * *
When he awoke and looked down again, the sorcerers had left and the flames had burned out, the coals sullen red. The woman was slack, throat cut, torso bloody, with only the residual body aura of a corpse. The stand and jewel were gone. These things registered on his mind without conscious thought. Groggily he stood and backed away from the edge, failing to hear the bolt turn behind him. The door opened, almost hitting him, leaving him partly shielded by it. Someone, seemingly Tsûlgâx, stepped inside, leaving it open. Too groggy to wonder if his cloak had survived his unconsciousness, Macurdy watched broad shoulders and erect head disappear down stairs he hadn't noticed before. Only in hindsight would he wonder what the half-Voitu had arrived to do: clean up perhaps, and carry off the corpse.
Shivering, Macurdy left, plodding zombie-like up the stairs, not stopping at any of the levels, but continuing past the third, up a last flight to a gable door. It opened on a minuscule balcony, a tiny standing place at the eaves of the steep and circular tower roof.
The sky was clear, a great vault spangled with stars. Only then did he realize, vaguely, that the psychic energy he'd felt earlier was gone; had been since before he'd wakened. For several more minutes he thought not at all, until, shivering, he realized how cold the night was. Without checking to see if things were clear, he wentback in, down to the second level and into the corridor. He didn't notice whether there was light beneath the doors. Gathering his wits, he cleared the alarm or barrier—whatever it was—and stepped through.
The sentry lay comatose on the floor. It registered, but Macurdy didn't wonder at it. Thinking only of bed, he returned to his room, where the auras would have told him, if he'd noticed, that the psychics were as comatose as the guard.
When he lay down, he had wits enough to deactivate his cloak, and as he pulled the covers over himself, thought blurrily that Tsûlgâx, or whoever had gone to clean up, was either enormously durable, or remarkably insensitive to psychic shock.
26
A Peculiar Gate
The next morning the psychics weren't taken to their instructors. They weren't even wakened for breakfast, but instead rousted out for an early lunch. It seemed to Macurdy that the psychic "power surge" of the night before must have left everyone, except Tsûlgâx and probably the Voitar, in a state of collapse.
About the time they'd finished lunch—rye bread, margarine, cheese and sausage—Macurdy became aware of a hum of energy; a different energy than he'd felt the night before. The others felt it too; he could read it in their auras, and by the way they looked around.
Not long afterward, a haggard Lieutenant Lipanov and an entire squad of equally haggard guardsmen took the psychics for a walk; all but the old woman. And if that wasn't remarkable enough, Greszak went with them, long legs like swift scissor blades. The Voitu's vigor startled Macurdy.
This time they didn't stay on the country road, with its mild ups and downs, but in just a short distance turned off on a truck trail that angled up the side of the Witches' Ridge. Built by the military for four-wheel-drive vehicles, Macurdy decided. He wondered why.
The day was sunny and mild, somewhat above freezing, and the upgrade unrelenting, so that despite frequent short breaks to catch their breath, most were soon sweating. The middle-aged gypsy complained of chest pain, and a guardsman took her back to the schloss, but everyone else kept hiking up the stony road until, two-thirds of the way to the top, they stopped. By that time the energy field was considerably stronger, oppressing all of them except himself—himself and Greszak— who'd been scanning the psychics continually.
On the way back down it suddenly cut off. By then Macurdy knew what kind of energy field it was, knew it well from Injun Knob: Somewhere on the Witches' Ridge was a gate, if not to Yuulith, then to some place like it—an activated gate, though the hour was far from midnight. The realization, when it hit him, had given him chills.
And the Voitar? The Voitar were definitely not from Mars. They were—they had to be—from the other side of the gate.
* * *
Neither Landgraf nor Kupfer nor the Voitar explained the unusual walk. Nor Schurz, who almost surely didn't know. It was not a coincidence though, Macurdy felt sure. Perhaps a test, to see which of them were affected, and how much.
* * *
The next day the psychics returned to their class routine, but something had changed. The gate field turned on for something approaching an hour, but at roughly an hour later. It repeated the next day, an hour or so later than on the day before.
Later that day, the glowering Tsûlgâx took Montag from the classroom to Kurqôsz's office. "Herr Montag," said Kurqôsz, "have you felt anything unusual in the air, lately? In the afternoons?"
"Yessir, Herr Kronprinz!"
"How would you describe what you feel?"
Montag frowned as if trying to think. "There is a—feeling to it. It made my skin buzz at first."
The red eyebrows arched. "Indeed! Do you find it unpleasant?"
"No sir, Herr Kronprinz!"
"Hmm." It seemed clear to Macurdy that his answer was no surprise to Kurqôsz, yet the intense green eyes looked as if they were trying to bore into his skull. Abruptly they disengaged, turning to Tsûlgâx, and the crown prince nodded dismissively without speaking.
And that was all there was to that. Tsûlgâx gripped his arm and returned him to class. Something, Macurdy told himself, was up, but he had no idea what.
* * *
After class that day, Schurz delivered him to Kupfer's office, and Kupfer delivered him next door to Landgraf. The colonel looked him over with a gaze serious but mild.
"Herr Montag, Crown Prince Kurqôsz tells me you have done well here. I am proud of you. You are a good German psychic."
"Thank you, Colonel sir!"
"Herr Doktor Professor Schurz tells me that even your intelligence has improved, an entirely unexpected effect. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
"Yessir, Colonel sir!"
Landgraf looked as if he wasn't fully convinced. "The Crown Prince," he said, "believes you might progress further if you trained somewhere else. He will take you to his homeland, a place called Hithmearc, and work with you himself. You will like that. You will be well treated, a guest of the Imperial Family. When you come back, you will perform very important services for your Führer and Fatherland, and be well rewarded." He got to his feet then, and Macurdy expected the Nazi salute, with a sharp "Heil Hitler!" Instead the colonel shook his hand. "Congratulations," he said.
He looked tired.
* * *
By that time Macurdy had a theory about this gate. Presumably, like the Ozark Gate, it had turned on once a month, at local midnight nearest the full moon. That's why he hadn't felt its field: he'd been asleep. Now it was activating daily, at whatever hour the moon crossed the local meridian. That would explain the daily shift in time.
As to why: It seemed to him the Voitar had caused it with their midnight ritual at the new moon. How that could be was hard to imagine, but certainly the timing fitted.
* * *
The next day Montag went to class in the morning as usual. After lunch, Schurz had him pack his few things in a military rucksack, then they went to class again. Macurdy had realized f
or some time that he excelled the others in creating monsters, but still they were no more than three-dimensional, solid-seeming images. Horszath seemed to see them well enough, but when he'd asked the others, they didn't see them at all. Macurdy, on the other hand, could see theirs clearly, and felt confident his were better—more "real," so to speak, more convincing. Manfred's lacked a sense of solidity and mass, and the evil with which he imbued them was more perversion and cruelty than the raw essence that Horszath wanted—and that none of them succeeded in giving him.
Montag's version departed even further; it held grief, despair, loss. Horszath found it unacceptable.
At breaktime, Montag, with his rucksack, was delivered to Greszak's office. Moments later, Kurqôsz, with Tsûlgâx in tow, took him outside with them to a waiting military VW, and its SS driver. Almost as soon as they left, Kurqôsz began to look ill, though the gate had not yet turned on. When it did, partway up the ridge, the Voitu looked no worse, while Tsûlgâx seemed unaffected. Nearing the crest, the crown prince stopped the driver and they got out, to walk the rest of the way. Whatever had been wrong with him, it eased quickly as they hiked. On the crest, the road became rougher, more rocky, and they followed it north a short distance.
Macurdy could feel the gate powerfully now, and wondered what the experience would be like. When he'd gated through on Injun Knob, he'd been in place before it turned on. Here he'd have to walk into it. Soon he could feel it pull on him as if by suction, more strongly as they approached, so that it was hard not to run toward it For one alarming moment, it threatened to suck him from his body, then darkness swallowed him—indigo-tinged nothingness with a bass resonance more felt than heard. For a gut-wrenching instant it was as if his body disassembled, then he was somehow spit out, arms flailing for balance, and sprawled into—straw! After a moment he got up and looked around, unsteady, shaking a bit. Kurqôsz and Tsûlgâx were still down. Here darkness was simply night, a night much colder than the evening he'd just left. They were in a steep-roofed, ceilingless structure—a sort of pavilion perhaps a hundred feet long, open beneath the eaves to air and moonlight. Several Voitar had been waiting with spears and lantern, and one of them called in a language Macurdy didn't know.
Kurqôz answered, then rose unsteadily to his feet, Tsûlgâx rising with him, and gave orders. The Voitik men-at-arms wore bulky fur cloaks and carried others, putting them over the shoulders of the arrivals. Hands, non-threatening, helped them from the shelter, on a path shoveled through snow too deep for Macurdy to see over.
Ahead was a building, two-storied and steep-roofed, with walls of broad overlapping planks. Its entrance was marked by something like the kerosene lamps he'd grown up with—an oil lamp with an open-topped globe of glass that shielded its flame from the wind. One of their escort raised a bar and held the door open. They went into warmth, and it was closed behind them.
Kurqôsz gave more orders. Two guards, these without spears but carrying scabbarded swords, took Macurdy down a lamp-lit corridor, a smell of fragrant smoke overlying the smell of wood—cedar of some kind, he thought. They stopped at a door. One of the guards opened it and gestured him in, the motion brusque but not hostile. The room was lit by another oil lamp, this one open: in one wall was a window tightly shuttered, in a corner a built-in ceramic stove, flames visible through a window that might have been isinglass. A long low bed stood by one wall. The guard, whom Macurdy judged at about seven feet, said something unintelligible—a single word—then stepped back into the corridor and closed the door, leaving him alone.
Macurdy checked the bed. The sheets resembled flannel; the covers were fur. A small table held a washbasin, a bowl of soft soap, a large pitcher of water and a mug. A towel hung by it.
He wondered if they always had quarters ready like this, or if someone had come through from the schloss the day before, with instructions. Meanwhile he wasn't sleepy, but it seemed he was to stay there. Someone, he hoped, was seeing to supper for him, though here it was probably nearer breakfast time. He decided he might as well wait lying down.
He did, atop one fur blanket and beneath the other, and before he realized what was happening, fell asleep.
27
Rillissa.
Macurdy awoke spontaneously, feeling as if he'd slept for hours. Swinging his legs out of bed, he got up, went to the door and peered out. Two guards stood there. He pantomined his hunger, and one of them led him down the corridor to a room with a 12 foot long table, and a floor covered with thinly spread straw. There he was seated, the guard standing behind him, Macurdy wondering how long it would be.
Ten minutes later a female came in, her appearance almost human, more handsome than beautiful, but with Voitik hair and eyes. Macurdy wondered if that was normal for female Voitar, or if she was a mixed-blood. Sending the guard away, she sat down across from him. "You are Kurt Montag," she said carefully. "Excuse my halting German. I have practiced it only two days."
He stared.
"My name is Rillissa. The Crown Prince has assigned me as your companion. I am told you are hungry. Food will soon be brought for you."
She recited her sentences as if doing a drill, but her pronunciations were quite good, and her grammar, if stiff, was correct.
"You began to learn German only two days ago?"
"Learn?" She frowned, then seemed to realize something. "Ah. Of course. You are not used to us. It is not necessary that I learn it, you see, only that I practice it to gain facility. Skill." She paused, then smiled. "I shall ask that you speak slowly, until I am more practiced. The Crown Prince warned me that you speak an atrocious dialect."
She smiled as if totally unaware that her comment might offend. Macurdy realized now that the Voitik species did in fact share a hive mind, as he'd speculated, that she tapped it to speak German, and that access alone was not sufficient for fluency. "You speak German well," he said. "I will try to speak slowly. I am glad the Crown Prince sent you."
A human servant came in, set the table for two, and left. Almost at once another entered with a tray. Breakfast was a kind of omelet, heavy on onions and what Macurdy guessed was barley, with a coarse dark molasses bread. On the side was butter, a kind of pickled fish, two large mugs, and a large pot of buttered tea with honey. While they ate, they talked hardly at all, lacking grounds for easy conversation; they'd need to concentrate to talk together.
Over tea he said, "I do not understand why the Crown Prince sent you."
"To help you learn well. Also, you have none of your own people here, and need a companion so you will not be lonely. Loneliness is a problem for you because you do not share mind."
It occurred to Macurdy that he'd rarely felt lonely in his life, but he let it pass. She smiled again, and changed the subject "When you are ready, I have something to show you."
He swallowed the last of his tea, and she led him upstairs to a balcony. The sun had risen, and she pointed out the pavilion that housed the gate on this side. "That is where you arrived," she said. "And that"—she pointed past it, up the valley—"is the Gletscher that covered this location for a very long time, so that no one knew what was here."
Macurdy judged the glacier's foot as about a hundred yards above the gate.
"Seven years ago," she went on, "when the snow melted in May, a woman was found frozen, farther down the valley. No one knew who she was, but her clothing and shoes were strange. Though it was not known then, she had pushed her way more than three kilometers through snow, which could not have been nearly so deep as now."
Rillissa began to shiver, and they went back inside. Macurdy wondered if she lacked the talent to draw on the Web of the World, or just didn't know how.
"And of course," she went on, "no one could guess where the woman had come from, or how. To the local authorities, who are human, she was simply a strange discovery, a mystery, and soon no one thought about her anymore.
"Two months later, a cattle herder reported a strange couple at the site where the gate is. The woman was—" Rilli
ssa paused, briefly uncertain of the word "—was in a coma, and the man who crouched beside her was raving. The woman soon died, and the man, who never recovered his sanity, died a few weeks later. It was supposed they were connected to the woman who had frozen—their clothing and shoes had similar peculiarities—but the mystery remained a local matter.
"Until a month later, when the same herdgirl found three dead men just where the couple had been found. They wore strange uniforms, and what were thought might be weapons, though how they worked was unknown. This brought the mystery to the attention of the imperial police."
The two events that could be dated had occurred when the moon was full, Rillissa went on, so a month later the imperial police had officers waiting, just in case. At midday they'd felt a physical pressure—somewhat like a strong wind—and three more strange humans had appeared suddenly, flailing and sprawling. The two in uniform soon died. The other recovered, after suffering what seemed to be the flu. He was a German psychic, who identified the frozen woman as a reputed witch, based on a reported disappearance, false teeth, and her clothing. "Meanwhile, one of the imperial police had pushed against the repelling pressure, and after a brief darkness found himself in a strange place on top of a ridge. And not in midday sunlight, but the middle of night! Afraid he might not find the place again, and demoralized by isolation from the hive mind, he'd stayed there till daylight. Then men in uniform arrived, and arrested him." Rillissa shrugged. "And from that unintended exchange, a German psychic for an imperial police sergeant, has grown a relationship between our government and yours, and further exchanges."