Dominion

by Fred Saberhagen

  And even as Hawk thought of wine, and of how he might provide himself with some, he was gazing at a half-dead wino stretched in the gutter just a few paces away, and he knew in his heart without having to argue the point with himself that there was no way in the goddam world he was ever going back to being that. God, how could he ever have—?

  Just because, that’s why. Why he’d been condemned to spend most of his life lying in a gutter. A thousand years of gutter, just because. And he mustn’t ever try to find the underlying reason, because—

  This because was hammering him to death, with every mental step he tried to take. He couldn’t move an inch now without colliding with it, and at the same time he knew he had to move. What made his situation all the more desperate was the fact that until this moment it had never come really clear to him what bad shape he was in.

  Looking up into the starless city sky, Hawk gasped a few deep breaths. He clung fiercely to the thought that he was making progress against… against whatever was oppressing him, whatever had kept him in the gutter for a millennium. At least he now understood that there was a fundamental question that cried out to be answered. And experience assured him that when something like this had a man in its grip, when a life was totally screwed up as his was, for no visible reason, then the invisible reason most likely involved…

  It involved…

  It had to do with…

  He couldn’t make it. He could grunt and groan, struggle any way he liked, but he could not complete that simple thought. He was gasping, on the point of fainting, ready to kill someone for just one drink. But he wasn’t going to drink. So, if he couldn’t go after Carados, then how about the vampire? That would be fine, that would be fun. Already he had tentatively planned on bouncing the bloodsucker around from one century to another, as long as that game could be kept going; but that was more prank than serious punishment. And sooner or later the victim of the game was more likely than not to wind up back in present time. Where Hawk would be able to get at him in earnest… or, indeed, where he would be able to get at Hawk.

  That thought was enough to somewhat curb Hawk’s yearning for a drink. Not that the prospect inspired him with anything like the terror it would have a few days ago; Hawk no longer felt particularly afraid of anyone or anything. Still the probability of being confronted by an angry vampire, one as tough and smart as that old one had been, tended to clear the mind and concentrate the attention.

  Before he could really concentrate, though, there were other nagging questions to be thought about. Example: That young cop, hopelessly mundane if anyone ever was, had asked Hawk if the castle contained a sword. Imagine a question like that, just asked out of the blue. Where would a mundane young Chicagoan have got hold of that idea?

  Until now, Hawk had managed to keep himself from thinking about the Sword at all. It wasn’t forbidden him to do so, it was just too painful, it was rooted in memories that he didn’t dare stir up for fear of the anguish they would inflict upon him. But it was possible to think about the Sword, at least as an alternative to that subject about which he could not think at all.

  And once he had allowed himself to start to think about the Sword, why then he knew right away just where it had to be, at least its general location. It was right in Nimue’s way, interfering with whatever it was that she was offering blood sacrifices to accomplish.

  In his mind’s eye, now probing his own dark future to the extent that he was able, Hawk could see himself beginning to be surrounded by swords. From them flowed danger, and breathtaking opportunity too, possibilities not quite visible as yet…

  First a small plastic blade, held in the unknowing fingers of Carados, juxtaposed unwittingly with the clear liquid held up inside a vodka glass, so that the hilt seemed to project above the surface ready to be grasped. By one who dared… and then the other Sword, the great iron cross-hilt held up in a dream, throbbing out of concealment with a beneficence of power…

  Swords… and there were pentagrams too in the future to weight upon him. There for a long, long time he’d been sure that all the business of magic was in the past for him. But it was not to be.

  Tears gathered in his eyes, spilled slowly into the upper furrows of his aged cheeks. Lord God, Lord God, so this world is not yet through with me. But I am crippled, have been crippled for a thousand years. Bound and deformed by… some… great…

  Enchantment.

  There. His uglified new shirt was soaked with sweat, and he was gasping. But he’d got that far, at last, at least. Now weariness and awe were transmuting slowly to fresh rage. The damned bloodsucker must be even older than he looked. He was the enemy. It was all his fault from the beginning.

  TWENTY

  Simon was aware of himself riding down in the elevator, of the elevator doors opening, returning him to the great hall. After that, he began to lose track of his physical location. Vivian’s electric touch was on him steadily. He could hear the murmur of her voice, he saw her eyes. And then he could see nothing but her eyes.

  Vivian had not changed from when she was fifteen, he could see that now. She was still fifteen, or rather she was ageless. Nor would she ever change. She would never be any different from what she was. And Simon knew that to have her would be to possess the world.

  Under Vivian’s careful guidance his body walked, going he knew not where. And, also guided by Vivian, his mind drifted, entering a secret, pleasant, mysterious place. In that place there was nothing to see but Vivian’s eyes, nothing to think about but what Vivian might want.

  Your powers are real, Simon. That was Vivian’s voice, the only voice that could reach him now. They always have been real. You shouldn’t be afraid of that.

  Yes, all right, they are real. I won’t be afraid, if you tell me not to be afraid.

  I do tell you so. Now. Do you remember the day when you were tested? I want you to remember that day.

  Tested?

  The day, said Vivian,when I let you lie with me. Did you see the Sword on that day, Simon? I think you may have seen it.

  He wanted to keep silent, but it was hopeless, his thoughts burst out. Oh, damn you, damn you, Vivian. All I’ve ever been able to remember is how you let me fumble at your body. All I’ve ever really wanted since then is to have you again. To have what you wouldn’t give me even then.

  But what he wanted did not interest Vivian. I’m going to send you back to that day, Simon. I’m going to send you wherever I must, to find the Sword. We must discover where it is now.

  Simon didn’t ask what Sword. He had seen it in one vision already.

  You are going to walk what you call the secret passage. With my help it can take you to many places, many times. If we must, we will follow the Sword forward through the centuries from the day when it was forged. But first we’ll try that day just fifteen years ago. You can do it, for me. We must find where the Sword is now.

  I’ll try, Vivian. Vivian.

  You must do more than try. When you have found the Sword, Simon, then I will tell you my true name. And then I will give you the secret thing that you have always wanted. The secret thing, most precious and intense, that lies behind the door of sex.

  Oh, I want you, Vivian. For a moment Simon saw only the vision that was always with him, that one day had been reality, Vivian as a young girl naked, inviting him, beckoning him on. He tried to reach for her.

  Not yet, dear Simon. I want so much to love you, but not yet. First you must find the Sword. Magic that you must penetrate conceals it. No one, not even I, not even Falerin, can find things, see things, as well as you can. In that magic you have the potential to be supreme.

  In a momentary flash of clear physical vision, Simon knew that he was standing again in the blasted doorway that led to the once-secret passage. His attempt at a performance had been used by Vivian to key the forces that had torn it open to the mundane world. And now Vivian was about to send him into it.

  Find the Sword for me, Simon. Here begins your search, in your own
past.

  And he was drifting on the Sauk in the old row-boat, the almost paintless hulk that in all the childhood summers he could remember had been tied up at the old willow stump at Frenchman’s Bend. The boat wandered with the motion of an almost lifeless current between two jungled islands. Simon was alone, lying on his back in the bottom of the old boat, with a little sunwarmed leakage water flowing and ebbing gently around him. He was wearing the old remembered green swimming trunks and nothing else. His feet were up on the middle seat, and a clear warm summer sky was over him. Insects droned from the island shores, and there was an almost fleshy smell of mud.

  When he was back in the city between vacations, going through the dull routine of school, Simon’s memories of Frenchman’s Bend drew in color and interest. But the glamour applied by his restless imagination tended to disappear quickly when he returned to the real place. The river had shrunken, every time he saw it again, turned muddier and dirtier than the Sauk he thought that he remembered. And most of the people appeared somehow shrunken too, even if months of growth had actually made the young ones physically larger. When reality seemed inadequate Simon’s imagination tended to come back into play.

  He was letting it take over now, as he lay on his back in the heat of the sun with his eyes half closed. He was thinking, as he so often did, about Vivian. He was concentrating, as he usually did when he thought of her, on that day last summer when Simon and her little brother Saul had tried to talk her, dare her, into going into the river naked while they watched.

  The effort had been a tantalizing near-success. Vivian had waded in her bikini—watching her play around in that was maddening enough, for Simon at fourteen—and then, once up to her shoulders in the opaque brown water, she’d slipped quickly out of the suit, holding up the two pieces of it for them to see, and laughing that she’d won the bet. Simon had rowed his boat toward her, but before he could get very close the suit was somehow on again.

  The whole business, of course, had really been Vivian’s idea from the start. No one ever talked or teased or bet her into doing anything but what she wanted to.

  Simon sunning in the bottom of the boat at age fifteen couldn’t let this memory dwell on that scene for more than about two seconds without a physical reaction starting. That was okay. Pretty soon he’d pull down his trunks and do something about it. But there was no rush.

  He’d closed his eyes now fully against the sun, and was letting his imagination work on the remembered image of Vivian laughing at him, shoulder-deep in water. It was coming clearer and clearer. She held up her suit, panties in one hand, bra in the other. Her smile in the image was becoming inviting, beckoning, not the taunting expression it had been in reality. And now she was starting to wade towards him.

  Simon sometimes felt a little frightened at the things his imagination could do for him. He’d never, for example, seen a real live girl completely unclothed. But when in a hundred hot deliberate dreams since last summer he’d brought Vivian out of the water naked, every detail of uncharted anatomy was as clear as something from a motion picture frame. And Simon couldn’t resist doing it that way, usually, seeing more and more detail, even if it did tend to get a little scary.

  Now he brought the image of Vivian wading into water only knee-deep, smiling at him, displaying herself. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his trunks, and then immediately worried that maybe he ought to row over to an island first, get among bushes where he could be absolutely sure of a few minutes’ privacy. Not that anyone was likely to see him where he was now, but—

  A high-pitched voice shattered his daydream, calling from some distance away. “Yeeoh, Simon!”

  Vivian vanished, reality returned with a rush. In confusion Simon sat up in the boat, tugging his trunks as straight as he could. A craft he recognized as Gregory’s white canoe was sixty yards or so downstream, being paddled up toward him by one person. In a moment Simon recognized Saul Littlewood.

  She’s here, was Simon’s first thought. If Vivian’s little brother is here in Frenchman’s Bend today, then so is she.

  Saul was waving a greeting. Simon waved back, then took up one of his oars. Using it like a paddle, he made slow headway to meet the canoe’s advance.

  “Yo,” Simon called back, when the canoe with the younger boy in it was closer. “I didn’t know you guys were here.”

  Now Saul with a delicate touch of paddle brought canoe sideways against boat; and Simon with his stronger hands gripped both gunwales, holding the two craft clamped together.

  Saul was wearing cutoff jeans, and a new expensive-looking T-shirt with an elaborate pattern. He was dark-haired, of average size and chunky build. As was to be expected for a twelve-year-old, he’d grown considerably in the nine months or so since Simon had seen him last.

  “We ain’t gonna be here long,” Saul said now. “We’re driving home again tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh.” Then I’ve got to see her today, before she leaves. Vivian and Saul lived most of the year with their parents in one of the far northern suburbs of Chicago, closer to Simon’s home in the city than either place was to Frenchman’s Bend. Yet Simon had never seen them anywhere but here. In fact he had never met them, had known only vaguely of their existence, until just last summer.

  Saul, watching Simon closely, said: “So why don’t you come up to the castle now? Vivian’s there. She was saying to me she wished you were around.”

  “Yeah?” Simon swallowed. “Okay, I will. Who else is there?”

  “Our parents were, but they had to go back into Blackhawk. Some kind of a meeting or something. They won’t be back till after dark.”

  “Is Gregory there?” Simon knew that the dignified-looking man intermittently lived in the castle, as part of his caretaker duties. For various reasons he didn’t like Gregory, and thought that Gregory felt the same way about him.

  Saul shook his head. “Vivian’s up there all by herself right now. She’s out by the grotto, you know? She’s painting a picture of one of those statues. She was telling me she thought it looked like you.”

  “Me? Jeez. Which statue?”

  Saul looked for a moment as if he thought that a dumb question, but he answered without comment. “The big naked guy standing there holding the stone and the slingshot. Well, he ain’t quite naked, he’s got a figleaf on.”

  “Jeez. I haven’t got muscles like that.”

  “You got a lot more muscles than you did last summer. Vivian was saying she bet you had.”

  “Jeez.” Simon couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He hoped that if he was blushing it didn’t show through his tan. And the uncomfortable bulge in the front of his trunks had eased abruptly when Saul startled him, but now it suddenly gave signs of coming back.

  If Saul had noticed either of these reactions he was being diplomatically silent about it. The joined boats had drifted out from between islands, and now it was possible to see the relatively distant shore on both sides. Saul was gazing toward the shabby house where Simon stayed during vacations. “Your uncle’s car’s not there,” he observed.

  “My aunt and uncle had to go into Blackhawk. Just like your folks. Said they prob’ly won’t be back till late.”

  “Your grandma go with ’em?”

  “Yeah.”

  Saul was silent, with the air of one who has just made some kind of subtle point. The hot, humid air seemed to be somehow supporting the suggestion that somewhere in Blackhawk, population about one hundred thousand, there was a gathering today of the adults of the clan, and that gathering might have a secret importance.

  It might be true, thought Simon, and so what, and anyway Vivian was throbbing in his blood. He said: “Look, how about it we both go over there in the canoe? It’ll be faster. I’ll tie up the rowboat first.” He released his grip, letting the two craft separate.

  “Okay.” Saul wielded his paddle again. Rowing and paddling, they worked their respective vessels toward the landing at Frenchman’s Bend.

  As
if returning to a dropped subject, Saul asked: “What do your aunt and uncle do in that shop all day?”

  “Jeez, Idunno. Putter around. Sometimes they get a customer. Why?”

  “I bet they don’t have too many customers.”

  “I guess not.”

  “But they make enough money to get along. Or they get money from somewhere else.”

  “I guess so. Why?”

  Saul paddled, looking straight ahead. “Does your grandma have a job?”

  “Yeah, in an office down in the Loop. Some days she works at home. Why?”

  Saul shrugged. “Just that some of our relatives have a lot of money, and some don’t.”

  “Which ones have a lot?”

  Saul just shrugged again.

  They were nearing the shore. “I guess,” said Simon, “your folks are some who do.”

  Watching Simon closely again, Saul said. “They’re my step-parents, actually.”

  Simon nodded at this information, then did a double take. “Both of ’em?”

  “Yeah, both. The way they tell me it happened was that my real father died before I was born, and then my mother married again. Then she died, when I was still real young, and my stepdad got married. So I got a full replacement set.”

  “You and Vivian both did, then.”

  Saul never answered that straight out. The prow of the canoe grated gently at the shoreline, and he braced his paddle against the river bottom to hold the craft against the gentle current. He said: “Our whole family’s kinda crazy, you know? I mean the way it’s organized. There’s about a couple thousand people all related to each other. Like you and me. And the funny part of it is, almost nobody has any really close relatives. Except for husbands and wives.”