Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  He turned his head and saw the young man in mail poised beside him, the second dagger lifted in his hand.

  “Get me that knife,” the youngster said peremptorily to Boyce. “Quick! I’ll put this one through the first man that moves!”

  Automatically Boyce stooped and took up the blade that had saved him. Eyes still on the crowd, the youth reached out blindly for the hilt. The dagger seemed to jump into his hand, so expertly did he take it. Now he jerked his plumed head toward the door beyond him.

  “You first,” he said. “Quick! Outside!”

  Still too amazed to question anything, Boyce slid past him against the wall and reached the other door. The youth backed after him, both throwing blades poised menacingly. His lithe body was poised as menacingly as the knives. Boyce thought he was laughing, though he could not see his face.

  He stood in the doorway a moment, his quick glance searching the room. Bare swords quivered in the light as the furious crowd about the table leaned toward him, none quite daring to be first to move. Eyes glared redly under the swinging lamp.

  THE youngster laughed aloud. Then with a quick motion he raised one booted leg and kicked the table over at the angry faces before him. Boyce, catching excitement from the sound of that exultant laughter, came suddenly to life and leaned out beside his mailed rescuer. Long arm and long sword reached over the armored shoulder and Boyce slashed the chain that held the lamp.

  It crashed down over the falling table. There was a wild jingling of musical counters spilled from the game-board. The light flared sharply and went out. Darkness swallowed up the room and with it the angry faces of the men inside.

  “Good work,” the young man laughed across his shoulder. There was the sound of a slamming door close beside them. Then, “Run! This way!” and a hand that still held a dagger nudged his arm.

  Through pitch blackness, along an echoing passage, the two fled. Behind them through the closed door a confused uproar sounded. Then Boyce saw light ahead, and realized that they were coming out upon a broad underground pier with black water on both sides of it. At the same moment he heard the door behind them burst open and the shouts of the pursuers gain suddenly in volume, echoing hollowly along the corridor they had just cleared.

  “Boat here,” Boyce’s companion gasped breathlessly. “End of the pier—hurry!”

  The sound of their racing feet was like thunder on the hollow boards as they ran for the end of the dock. Someone yelled behind them, and a vicious whine sounded past Boyce’s ear. Ahead of them an arrow struck the pier and vibrated, singing.

  The feet of the pursuers struck the, dock now, and the dark underground place echoed and re-echoed to the noise of heavy boots on boards and the shouts of the angry men. A bowstring sang again and another arrow whined past. Boyce glanced back.

  The redhead was foremost among the pursuers, purple cloak streaming from his shoulders. He brandished the stub of his mutilated whip, a formidable weapon still with its length of barbed lash. The rest made a jostling mob behind him, among which swords flickered in the light of the lamps strung along the edges of the pier.

  Boyce heard again that annoying, familiar laugh among the shouts. He would place it when he had a moment to spare—he would think once more of the crowned girl whose name he knew again, after such a long, long interval of forgetfulness. But later, later—not now.

  His companion was kneeling at the end of the pier, leaning over to untie a boat. He glanced up as Boyce came panting to the water-edge. “Hurry!” he said. “We’ll make it yet! I—” And then his gaze went beyond Boyce and he said more sharply. “Look out! Behind you!” and leaped to his feet.

  Boyce spun. The redhead had paused a little distance away and was swinging his whip again. Shortened though it was, his range was too close to miss. Boyce dropped almost to one knee, ducking under the vicious inward curl of the lash, heard it whistle overhead and launched himself hard for the redhead’s thick body.

  His shoulder struck the man in the chest, and he heard the gasping grunt the man gave and felt the toppling body give way beneath his driving blow. It had all happened quickly. Boyce scrambled to his feet as the redhead rolled across the dock.

  He snatched up the sword he had dropped in the moment of impact, seeing the red-booted feet of his companion flash by him as he rose. He looked up in time to see his rescuer make a joyous sort of leap toward the fallen man, kick him twice in the face, and give the squirming body a last thrust of the boot-toe that sent him splashing off into the black water.

  Then Boyce was clambering down the short ladder toward the boat with the first of the others almost upon him. Over his shoulder there was a flash of red boots and silver mail, and the armored youngster hit the boat before him. Boyce slashed the rope that held it to the pier with one stroke of his sword.

  Beneath him, as the rope parted, he felt an instant forward surge and the pier seemed to drop away as if by magic in their wake. The boat was very low, and not much larger than a rowboat. It was dead black in color, so nearly the shade of the black water that to the observers it must seem they moved unsupported over the surface of the waves.

  Whatever power moved it was invisible. It might have had a motor, but if it did, there was no sound or vibration to prove it. Boyce thought it must be propelled by some force of this unknown world harnessed to a science such as Tancred had described, a science so wholly alien that magic was as good a word for it as any.

  Several more arrows sang past as the boat shot smoothly away, but the shafts dropped into the water behind them. In a few moments even the shouts from the pier had died, as the lights died, and the boat moved through darkness and silence.

  Limp with relief and more than a little confused by the sudden change of attitude which his companion had shown during the fight, Boyce sat back in the boat and sighed heavily.

  “All right,” he said. “What now?”

  Against the dim luminance of the water he could see in vague outline the younger man’s hat and head and bent shoulders. He seemed to be guiding the boat. He laughed softly in the dark. It was not a reassuring sound.

  “Wait and see,” he said.

  CHAPTER X

  The Wrong She

  DAYLIGHT glimmered ahead, the grey ha If-daylight which was all these drifting lands ever knew. The boat glided under an archway and Boyce caught his breath at sight of what rose before them. It was a great round tower that seemed to be all of filigree, story upon story of it, the interstices glazed with sparkling crystal. Its wall rose straight from the center of a moatlike lake.

  Within Boyce could see dimly the shadows of moving figures here and there, no more than animate blurs upon the filigree walls. A tower of glass, he thought. And Guillaume had worn a collar of glass. Was there a connection there, or did all the City use glass-work in its building and its magic? He remembered now that he had broken through glass to enter this curious world.

  The boat moved swiftly and smoothly over the grey water amid clouds of mist and a low door opened in the base of the tower as they neared it.

  “Now we are home again,” the armored youngster said, and bent his head beneath the arch as the boat glided in. Boyce stooped too. They came into a water room walled with translucent glass, and a man in a brown tunic, a collar locked about his neck, came down broad steps to take the boat from its master.

  “Come,” the young man said, scrambling out of the boat and hurrying up the stairs, his red boots flashing beneath the heavy mail.

  Boyce followed him only as far as the platform around the pool. Then he took a firmer grip on his sword, glanced around the room for the nearest exit.

  “Not yet,” he said grimly. “I don’t know enough about you. Let’s get all this a little clearer before I—”

  “I think,” the young man interrupted, pausing in the doorway, “I heard you call upon Ira the.”

  Boyce gave him a long, steady look. Under the hat-brim the man’s eyes were watchful. After a moment Boyce put the sword back into its
sheath at his side.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll follow.”

  He heard the other laugh to himself. Then the man turned and led the way up a ramp of translucent crystal that wound around the tower just inside the filigree walls. They were transparent from within, and Boyce could look out over the whole city as they climbed, seeing the narrow streets open out beneath him, again filled with their colorful crowds.

  Toward the center of the City a building of black stone rose square and sheer above the rooftops. Above Boyce on the stairs the younger man waved a pointing arm.

  “The King,” he said.

  Boyce’s brows lifted. The brown girl who had guided him here said it was the King who summoned Them. They had wound in their dark procession through these very streets, then, toward that high, black building where someone awaited them who was not afraid—or was even the King afraid?—to look upon their faces. And it was City gossip that the summoning had something to do with the conquest of Kerak.

  There was a painted room at the head of the ramp. Three walls of it were covered with patterns of birds and flowers seen against a bright sky. Boyce glanced carelessly at the colorful scenes, looked away—glanced back with amazement.

  “Blue sky?” he demanded, scarcely knowing he spoke. “Birds, flowers, blue skies? Here in the City?”

  His host had crossed to a far comer and was unbuckling his sword-belt. Boyce’s eyes swept the room. The fourth wall was of glass and framed a vast panorama of City streets and mist and mountains beyond them, and a distant glimpse of Kerak with a tiny flash of crimson above the towers which was Kerak’s enchanted flag. Heavy golden curtains covered the walls here and there, and there were broad divans and deep chairs cushioned with velvet. It was a luxurious place.

  But he scarcely saw it. He was still enthralled by the presence of blue pictured skies, when so far as he knew the City had drifted forever on the sluggish land-tide of a world that knew no real day.

  “What do you know about the sky?” he demanded, turning to the silent figure of his host.

  He saw the figure stoop to lay down the broad plumed hat His back was still to Boyce.

  “As much as you know, William Boyce,” the other said amazingly.

  Boyce’s breath stopped for a stunned moment.

  “Who—who are you? How do you know my name?”

  The young man did not yet turn. He lifted both arms to the latches on the shoulders of his mail robe, clicked them deliberately and let the linked steel drop away. Beneath it he wore breeches and a close-fitted tunic of scarlet, above the scarlet boots. He put his hands to his head and shook out a sudden wreath of dark curls that fell upon the crimson shoulders as he turned.

  He laughed.

  “Do you remember now?”

  The room spun around Boyce. It was dark, a roaring darkness that was only the blood in his ears. He opened his mouth, but no words came. He stared and stared, and could not move or speak.

  She was not wearing the long robe he remembered, nor the iron crown. But the violent eyes were there, the color of hot small flames, and the same smile he remembered, white and scarlet and dazzling. And the same look of brilliance and danger and malice.

  He said in a whisper, “Irathe!”

  “There,” she said softly. “I knew you’d remember, in the end.”

  She came toward him slowly, walking with a lovely swaying gait he surely could not have forgotten until now. When she was very near him she lifted her arms and her head fell back until the dark curls lay in wreaths upon her shoulders.

  HE KNEW before he touched her how the strong, soft body would feel in his arms. In the instant before they kissed he knew what the kiss would be like, the shape and the feel of her mouth beneath his. Even the spicy fragrance she wore was familiar. He did not yet remember fully, but he knew he had held her thus many, many times in the past, in his lost year.

  “And so you remember, now?”

  Boyce shifted his arm about her, the dark curls fanning on his shoulder in a fragrant mass. They sat together on a divan before the window, looking out over the tremendous panorama of the City and the hills beyond.

  He paused a moment.

  “No. A little—not much. I’ll have to know, Irathe.” He hesitated over the name. He was not sure yet, not sure at all how much had been solved by this meeting. He was still uncertain about her. He knew too little.

  He was thinking of the way she had used her throwing-knives in the gaming-room brawl, of how her scarlet boots had kicked an enemy twice in the face before rolling him into the water to drown. Now she was all softness and fragrance in his arms. But it was not quite like this that he remembered her. He was not sure yet what it was he did remember—but he thought he knew what he did not remember. It was not like that.

  “You loved me in your own world, my darling,” she murmured against his cheek. “You loved me enough to—to follow me here, I think. Can you say you’ve forgotten our year together on Earth?”

  She was mocking him. She knew he had forgotten. She knew because it had been her doing that he had. He closed his eyes and struggled with his own mind, determined to prove her wrong this time.

  Slowly, painfully, in snatches and blanks and brief, vivid pictures, a piecemeal sort of memory began to return.

  “There was a house,” he said carefully. “On the river. You—it was your house. Big, quiet. No one around and a—servant? One, two people—” He recalled suddenly the swarthy man who had come to take the boat in the pool-chamber below. “People from here!” he finished in surprise.

  “Of course, why not? From my native City.” She smiled at him derisively. “Go on. Your memory’s better than I thought. Go on—if you dare!”

  He paused at that. Yes, somewhere at the other end of this memory was something frightening—something she knew of and dared him to recall. He would not. But he would go on a little more. Not too far . . .

  “I met you—somewhere,” he said, groping for a dim picture of the two of them together in some forgotten public place. “It was—I don’t know. Somewhere, by accident—”

  Her laughter stopped him. Malice and derision sounded together in it.

  “Accident, you think? Oh no, that was not accident, my darling! I searched for you a long time—or for one like you. One of the blood of the Crusaders.”

  He turned to stare into her violent eyes. They mocked him.

  “But that can’t be true. I’m not.” He hesitated. Guillaume du Bois—William Boyce. Face and name the same.

  “Why?” he demanded. She moved her cheek catlike against his shoulder.

  “I had a task to do. I still have a task.” For a moment he thought he heard weariness and genuine feeling in her sigh. “I have gone many times into many worlds, seeking many men and women, trying to finish that task. Perhaps you’ll finish it for me, my darling. Perhaps I’ve found the right man at last.”

  He did not answer. He was thinking clearly and rapidly, watching memories tumble through his mind like a kaleidoscope, pictures that shifted as he watched into new patterns, some of them significant, some sheer nonsense as he recalled them.

  He had met the girl—somewhere. He knew that now. And he must have fallen instantly, irrationally in love. He could remember a part of that delirium now; he could feel a part of it still, at this moment, with this warm, sweet-smelling girl in his arms. But there was something wrong. It was not quite the same girl.

  In that year there had been no question. He had followed her because he could not help himself. It was sheer infatuation, obsession—as if a spell had been laid on him to follow wherever she went. And she went to her big, quiet, secret house on the river in New York. And there, with him and with her servants, for a long, long while she had worked at—something.

  What? He had not known, even then. There were wide gaps in his memory. There were blanks, induced deliberately he thought, to keep her purpose secret. But if she had chosen him because of his likeness to Guillaume, his remote kinship with Guillaum
e—then her purpose must have been connected with Kerak and the destruction of the Crusaders. Why? It seemed a trivial thing to stretch over so wide a range of time and space, to involve such infinite effort.

  In the end—careful, careful, he reminded himself—in the end had come that thing which was too terrible to recall—the thing that had sealed off his memory of the whole year, like scar-tissue to protect a wound too deep to heal without it.

  Something about Them . . .

  A DARK procession coming up from the river, with tiny lights twinkling and tiny bells ringing, and a breath of cold as searing as heat blowing before them to warn all beholders away.

  Watching them from an upper window—congealed with an incredulity and a revulsion that would not accept what he saw—something about a doorway he watched, and They parading through it toward him, walking like men, though they were not and never could be men themselves.

  Her head had turned upon his shoulder. She was looking up at him and smiling a wise, malicious smile.

  “I warned you,” she said. “Even then, I warned you. You shouldn’t have stayed that long. So I had to do whatever I could to make sure you’d forget.” She laughed, as lightly as she had laughed when she kicked the fallen red man on the pier. “You forgot!” she said gaily.

  Suddenly Boyce knew there was something wrong here. He realized the wrongness so quickly that his body moved before he was aware that he had stirred. He found himself on his feet facing the divan, and he knew he had flung Irathe from his shoulder and sprang away as if the touch of her were loathsome.

  “It wasn’t you,” he said, his voice sounding thick and strange. “I know now—it was someone else, not you!”

  He saw her lovely, brightly tinted face convulse as if a flame had shot up behind it, lighting a violet glare in her eyes and drawing her beautiful, bright features into a grotesque shape of evil.