Dominion

by Fred Saberhagen

  When he came to a landing that felt right, he paused again and softly called her name. Then he slowly made his way along a dim hallway lined with doors, listening for an audible response that never came. It never came, yet he had the feeling that it had come… Simon couldn’t really explain it, even to himself. But he did feel sure, very sure, that this was the way to take to find Vivian.

  This was a part of the castle where Simon had never been before. He went down the hall looking into one bedroom after another, most of the rooms disused and unfurnished, with doors standing open. When he came to a closed door he tapped on it, not really trusting his sense that the room beyond it was unoccupied. He called Vivian’s name softly, and looked inside, and went on to the next room.

  Simon held his breath when he came at last to a room whose closed door held the feeling of something different shut up behind it. When after tapping and calling he opened this door, he discovered furniture, including a made bed. But there was no one in the room.

  He stepped in and looked around. To judge by the few items of clothing hanging in the closet, an adult couple was staying here, and logic said it must be Vivian’s and Saul’s parents. They hadn’t brought many things, so they weren’t staying long. So, if their important meeting was really in Blackhawk, why not a hotel there? It must have been important to them for some reason to establish a presence in the castle too.

  Out in the hall again, Simon looked back toward the stair he had come up. He saw nothing, heard nothing, but there was… something… back there now, somewhere just out of sight in that direction. The shadows would be deepening on that stairway now, as the sun lowered outside. He’d take some other route when the time came to go back downstairs. He’d already looked for Vivian in that direction, and in that direction maybe Gregory…

  Damn it, he wasn’t going to let himself be all that scared of Gregory. Sure, the man might yell at him angrily if he found Simon here. But he knew Simon and wasn’t going to shoot him for a burglar, so Simon wasn’t going to be scared… his hands were shaking slightly, and his knees. His mouth was dry, and he had to fight with himself to keep from running in the opposite direction from the stairs.

  Come on, he told himself fiercely. This is ridiculous. He was fifteen, not the age to start having hysterics over nothing, over one little odd experience, like some little kid who’d just watched his first horror movie. And what had he actually seen? Not a ghost, not a skeleton. A man, lying on a cot. What was so bad about that?

  He moved along the hall, walking normally, in the direction away from the stairs. The next room he came to also showed signs of habitation. Judging by the spare clothing visible, the occupant must be Saul.

  The door of the next room after Saul’s was also shut. The pulse in Simon’s head came back as he called softly, and tapped on the door, then opened it and went in. Vivian wasn’t here, though the clothes indicated it was her room. She wasn’t in the bathroom either. She wasn’t even (and here Simon felt silly bending down to look) hiding mischievously under the bed.

  What now? Having led him this far, his instinct seemed to have faltered. He could go out in the hall and search for her some more. He could wait in her room for her to come back. Neither of those courses felt right.

  He’d left the door to the hall open. Out there it appeared to have got darker rather suddenly. Or had it really? Looking that way, Simon blinked. One thing for sure, he suddenly didn’t want to go out into that hall again. He didn’t want to because… there was a presence out there now.

  Not Vivian. It could be Gregory, yeah, he thought it was Gregory, but… Gregory with something added, something taken away, something odd.

  It was not that Simon, looking out from Vivian’s bedroom, could see or hear anything physical out in the hall. Even the greater darkness was perhaps not physical. But it was there. Whatever shadowy presence he’d awakened in the scorched circular room had followed him up the stairs, and was out there, in some form, now. If Simon were to stick his head out into the hall he might well see it with his eyes, and what he saw might well be more than he could bear, though he didn’t know just what his eyes would see.

  Was it Gregory out there? Yes and no. Simon knew Gregory, to the limited extent he knew him at all, as a man, a human being, and this did not quite fit those categories. It felt like an it.

  The it/Gregory out in the hall hadn’t followed Simon right into Vivian’s room. It wouldn’t, or it couldn’t. Simon thought he could see how, in some half-conscious way, it had thought that it had better not. But if Simon went out there now, he’d have to confront it directly and rather closely. It might be no more than twenty feet down the hallway, listening, trying to think, struggling against whatever power kept it from thinking clearly right now and acting forcefully…

  Simon could, if he dared, if he hurried, rush right out into the hall this moment, without looking to his right, and then hurry along it to his left. If he hurried along, never looking back, then somewhere he’d find, he’d have to find, another way to get himself back downstairs. Although, as he thought about it, he got the distinct impression that in that direction there wasn’t a whole lot of hallway left.

  Simon stepped forward, teetered on one foot for an almost paralyzed moment. Then with a sound like a sob he sprang for the door and slammed it shut. The moment of possible escape had passed, because he’d been too scared to seize it. There was a huge, old-fashioned bolt near eye level on the massive door, and Simon reached up and shot it home, then sagged in relief against the wall beside the door. The it/Gregory had moved forward suddenly. Simon was all right now, he was safe for the moment at least, but almost he had waited too long.

  The presence he feared was now just outside the door. Simon could hear no sounds of breathing, he could hear nothing in fact, but he had not the least doubt that it was there. It moved, a little, and he sensed the movement by some means that was not hearing. It was waiting with great patience.

  Was it waiting for him to come out?

  The realization came to Simon that he was in a trap.

  There ran through his mind, like the litany of some prayer memorized but never quite believed, all of the scientific, rational, logical opinions that he had managed to accumulate during his fifteen years of life. But to try to call on science and logic now was useless. Simon could no more open that hall door now than he could have leaped from the castle roof.

  Maybe he could get out of the room through its window… but the window looked pretty small.

  A quick check in the bathroom showed him that the window there was absurdly tiny, and filled with little stained glass panels. If he were a cat, maybe. Back to the one window in the bedroom.

  Here, standing on a chair and pushing his upper body into the deep embrasure, he could manage to stick his head out easily enough. It was something of a surprise to see how full the daylight still was outside. Tall trees but not the horizon were covering the sun. Simon could have wriggled his body out through the window too, if there were anything at all nearby to offer a good grip, anyplace at all which he might reasonably hope to reach by climbing. Maybe, if he balanced on his toes on the sill here, then leaned far to the side, he might grasp that small ledge…

  He could see, if he tried, that this wasn’t really the way out.

  Standing on the floor inside the room again, the half-seen way to Vivian, to freedom, was as hard to pin down as ever. Once again Simon had the impression that it might be the window—but no. He could expect nothing but a fall to his death if he tried that.

  If he couldn’t find any way to get out of this room, then he’d have -to wait here. Sooner or later, Vivian would come back, or someone…

  Unless it got dark first.

  With the evil, infallible logic of nightmares Simon understood the worst in that one phrase. It was an axiom without support and needing none. When the sun had set, the room’s closed door would no longer hold.

  Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus God. Some hand of human shape outside was trying the doorkn
ob now. This was not only a feeling, Simon could actually see and hear it move. He stumbled away from the door and sank down on all fours on the thick bedside rug, stifling fear-whimpers in his throat. He could feel his bowels quivering, threatening to let go.

  The knob was still. Now there was a brushing sound, very faint, against the door. It reminded Simon of someone holding a corpse’s arm, manipulating it so that the dead fingers tipped the wood with excruciating delicacy.

  Minutes of daylight still remained, the barrier still held. Simon made it to the providential toilet, dropped his trunks and squatted there. He could void the sickness of fear to some extent, but not the fear itself. When at last he stood up and worked the handle that brought a prosaic rush of water through the pipes, terror was exorcised enough to let him once again approach the door to the hallway.

  Fearfully he approached the barrier, sensing now emptiness beyond, a deserted hallway. This time he put his ear right to the thick wood of the door and listened.

  He could detect no one, nothing, waiting for him in the hall outside.

  Choking on peculiar sounds, Simon unbolted the door. He pulled it open, like one reaching for air after near-suffocation. He stepped out into the hall.

  The it/Gregory had tricked him, just round the corner it was coming back in an utterly silent rush from the direction of the stairs—

  Simon screamed. He hurled himself back into the room and slammed the door and bolted it. Pride, logic, and science had been utterly routed from his mind. He threw himself toward a far corner of the room, floundering diagonally across Vivian’s wide bed that lay in his path. With his feet under him again, standing in the corner of the room, he sent his fingers groping behind knurls on the dim wall’s elaborate wood paneling. Small, hidden catches yielded to his fingers’ pressure. An almost door-sized section of paneling swung gently out into the room, just clearing a night table by the bed. Gasping, Simon stepped into the opening, down and into the passage hidden in the wall.

  He could have run through the dark passage if it had been necessary. So clearly did his mind now see the way ahead of him despite the physical darkness. But he did not run, for his vision showed him with equal clarity that he was not being pursued, and was not going to be. Instead of running he paced steadily, discovering and ignoring the spyholes and the other secret doors. They did not lead to a way out for him today. The way out was still somewhere ahead. He discovered, and bypassed, the lower, branching passage. A few moments after that he was standing inside the grotto looking out with a certain amazement at the paved court. Its stones were in shade now though the sun was still not really down. On the central stone table Vivian, now wearing her bikini, was stretched out napping with the red jacket folded under her head for a pillow.

  The door of iron grillwork was secured with a chain and padlock. But there was enough play in the chain so that Simon was able to open the door just enough to slide through. It cost him a painful moment, but he made it.

  He walked over to stand beside Vivian, looking down at her.

  He thought that he had made no noise at all approaching, but still she awoke. It was a graceful, not at all startled, stirring. “I see you found me,” Vivian said, smiling faintly. “You should be very glad.”

  “Yeah,” said Simon. His throat wasn’t working too well. Sweats of lust, exhaustion, terror, had dried on him in layers, mixed with a little river mud, powdered with the dust of long-forgotten passageways. He knew that he must stink. But that was no longer relevant. Emotionally he was too mangled to worry about or plan for anything.

  Vivian moved, stretched, got up. Her motions were luxurious, catlike. When she turned for a moment to again study the picture on the easel, her bikini bottom was pulled low in back, showing the top of the cleft between her buttocks. Simon stared at it, just stared, not aware of feeling anything. Whatever happened next would happen, that was all.

  Meanwhile Vivian was considering her work with evident dissatisfaction. “Maybe I should give up. It’s hard to paint from a statue. I don’t suppose you’ve ever tried.”

  “No.”

  “And to do a face from memory. Never mind.” And Vivian undid her bra and pulled it off. “Someday you’ll do much greater things than paint.” The panties fell, and Vivian held out her arms. “Now. Don’t you want your reward for finding me?”

  * * *

  And yet she made him wait a moment while she arranged the red jacket into a pad on the stone table, to ease her back when Simon’s frantic weight descended on her. She held him tightly and competently, and if she was uncomfortable, as she seemed to be, she certainly didn’t have to hold him very long. As he grasped her, Simon became aware that Saul was watching them from behind some bushes. But even being watched could not distract him now. Frenzy dissolved in joyless spasms. What pumped from him into Vivian burned heavily, bringing a mental image of molten lead. The convulsions of his body went on and on, draining him completely. They emptied the last reservoir, then died away, mechanical as functions in a plumbing system.

  Exhausted, void, he rolled free of Vivian’s body to lie stickily on stone. The stone was chill beneath its surface warmed by the day’s sun. Simon thought to look toward the bushes, but Saul wasn’t there any more. If he ever had been.

  Simon had trouble thinking. Or feeling. He couldn’t find anything inside himself now but emptiness.

  Vivian lay on her back almost primly, knees raised together, as if after all she might have enjoyed it, and her body was seeking to absorb what his had given. She raised an eyebrow at him now. “Simon?”

  “What?”

  “I thought I heard a car drive up. My folks will be here, and Gregory, and you look awfully guilty. Suspicious. I think you’d better be moving on.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Talisman paced in darkness.

  The woods were thick, and muted sound to some extent, but half a mile or so ahead he could hear the undeniable sounds of an army breaking camp and setting out on a night march. In his breathing days, campaigning against the Turk, he had done it himself too often to be mistaken about it now.

  He had come directly back here from his talk with Marge Hilbert, wondering what the sudden offensive move by Comorr and Falerin portended. He wondered also if his own presence and Marge’s, intruders from the future, was going to be allowed to alter the course of history. He thought that would not be allowed but he could not be sure. Anyway he was going to put it to the test tonight. The leaders of the invading army ahead were the allies in time of the evil folk in the twentieth century of the nosferatu —reason enough to attack them, but there was more. Talisman did not mean to spend any more time as an inhabitant of this antique century than he was forced to spend, and attempting a violent alteration of history here seemed to be a good way to bring matters to a head.

  He was rapidly nearing the camp. There was a lonely outpost forty or so paces ahead, beside the forest path. A single sentry leaned against a tree. Start the attack here, then. When they came to call the man in, they’d find a corpse.

  Talisman shifted to mist-form when he was within a dozen paces of the sentry, and drifted closer. It was almost impossible that a mundane eye should see him in this mode, but being mist dulled his own senses inconveniently as well. When he was only an arm’s length from the soldier, he regained human form and simultaneously reached out—

  The man’s head turned, an instant before Talisman could grasp his throat. The grinning face under the crude helm was unexpectedly familiar.

  “Think I’d forgotten you, bloodsucker? This is the land of cold green gore, remember?”

  It was certainly not the land Talisman had been inhabiting a few moments ago, that of Artos and Comorr. Even though Talisman had shifted his body out of mist-form, yet the mists round him persisted. Night forest had been replaced by gray nothingness. And Talisman’s reaching fingers never did find the throat they sought, though he redoubled his efforts when he saw who now confronted him. In vain. This was the land of magic now, like that
of dreams outside of normal time and space.

  His foe vanished from his grasp, reappeared behind him. The old man chanted triumphantly, an incantation. Then he cried: “Go for a little spin, bloodsucker! Keep going until someone calls you back!” And with that a mighty force swirled Talisman away.

  He traveled timelessly through a pyrotechnic world. The lack of physical orientation was sickening, even for him; one not immune to fear, he thought, might well have been driven mad. Is this then the end for me? he thought again. Where will my body—?

  * * *

  There was once more stable light, dependable substance. Talisman was standing upright, but on what? He discovered himself still—or again—in mistform, and he willed himself out of it, to manshape, to get a better look at his surroundings. Still there was some difficulty in doing that.

  Sound clarified first: the voice of a man, chanting something in medieval French, a language that was almost as familiar to Talisman as his native tongue, though a long time had passed since he had heard it spoken. The teeth of the man who spoke it now were nigh-chattering with fear, his tongue was on the verge of stumbling with every consonant.

  The words made sense, of a sort, though Talisman could not immediately see what they had to do with his present situation: “…bound to my will, Sathanas, by Apollonius, by Proteus, I adjure thee by Thutmose and Din that ye do us no harm but rather be constrained to serve us as we may command…”

  Bemused, Talisman muttered: “At least I know now where I am—still in the land of magic.”

  And now—some kind of smoke was swirling heavily about him, slowly dissipating—he began to get a look at his new physical surroundings. He was standing on cleared ground on the edge of a forest, beyond whose low trees a portion of a sizable castle was visible against a cloudy night sky. Lights as of torch or candle showed in a couple of the small windows. It was not the castle on the Sauk, nor, thought Talisman, was it any castle that he had ever seen before.