by Andre Norton
She was handed down with a little more ceremony than she had been ushered into the chair, and the officer offered her his wrist, his men falling in behind as a groom hurried forward to lead off the equipage, thus affording her a tail of honor, too.
But the towers of the High Castle were so awe-inspiring, so huge a pile, that she was glad she had an escort into their heart. The farther they advanced through the halls, the more uneasy she became. It was as if once she were within this maze there might be no retreat and she would be lost forever.
Twice they climbed staircases until her legs ached with the effort and they took on the aspect of mountains. Then her party passed into a long hall which was lighted not only by the candle trees, but some thin rays filtering through windows placed so high above their heads that nothing could be seen through them. Tamisan, in that part of her which seemed familiar with this world, knew this to be the Walk of the Nobles, and the company now gathered here were the Third Standing, nearest, then the Second, and, at the far end of that road of blue carpet onto which her guide led her, First Standing. They were sitting; there were two arcs of hooded and canopied chairs, with above them a throne on a three-step dais. The hood over that was upheld by a double crown which glittered with gems. On the steps were grouped men in the armor of the guard and others wearing bright tunics, their hair loose upon their shoulders.
It was toward that throne that the officer led her and they passed through the ranks of the Third Standing, hearing a low murmur of voices. Tamisan looked neither to right nor left; she wished to see the Over-queen, for it was plain she was being granted full audience. Something stirred deep within her as if a small pin pricked. The reason for this she did not know, save that ahead was something of vast importance to her.
Now they were equal with the first of the chairs and she saw that the greater number of those who so sat were women, but not all. Mainly they were at least in middle life. So Tamisan came to the foot of the dais, and in that moment she did not go to one knee as did the officer, but rather raised her fingertips to touch the rim of the crown on her head; for with another of those flashes of half recognition she knew that in this place that which she represented did not bow as did others, but acknowledged only that the Over-queen was one to whom human allegiance was granted after another and greater loyalty was paid elsewhere.
The Over-queen looked down with a deeply searching stare as Tamisan looked up. What Tamisan saw was a woman to whom she could not set an age; she might be either old or young, for the years had not seemed to mark her. The robe on her full figure was not ornate, but a soft pearl color without ornamentation, save that she wore a girdle of silvery chains braided and woven together, and a collarlike necklace of the same metal from which fringed milky gems cut into drops. Her hair was a flame of brightly glowing red, in which a diadem of the same creamy stones was almost hidden. Was she beautiful? Tamisan could not have said; but that she was vitally alive there was no doubt. Even though she sat quietly there was an aura of energy about her suggesting that this was only a pause between the doing of great and necessary deeds. She was the most assertive personality Tamisan had ever seen, and instantly the guards of a dreamer went into action. To serve such a mistress, Tamisan thought, would sap all the personality from one, so that the servant would become, but a mirror to reflect from that moment of surrender onward.
“Welcome, Mouth of Olava who has been uttering strange things.” The Over-queen’s voice was mocking, challenging.
“A Mouth says naught, Great One, save what is given it to speak.” Tamisan found her answer ready, though she had not consciously formed it in her mind.
“So we were told, though gods may grow old and tired. Or is that only the fate of men? But now, it is our will that Olava speak again if that is fortune for this hour. So be it!”
As if that last phrase were an order, there was a stir among those standing on the steps of the throne. Two of the guards brought out a table, a third a stool, the fourth a tray on which rested four bowls of sand. These they set up before the throne.
Tamisan took her place on the stool, again put her finger to her temples. Would this work again, or must she try to force a picture in the sand? She felt a small shiver of nerves she fought to control.
“What desires the Great One?” She was glad to hear her voice steady, no hint of her uneasiness in it.
“What chances in, say, four passages of the sun?”
Tamisan waited. Would that other personality, or power, or whatever it might be, take over? Her hand did not move. Instead, that odd, disturbing prick grew the stronger; she was drawn, even as a noose might be laid about her forehead to pull her head around. So she turned to follow the dictates of that pull and looked where something willed her eyes to look. All she saw was the line of officers on the steps of the throne, and they stared at and through her, none with any sign of recognition. Starrex! She grasped at that hope, but none of them resembled the man she sought.
“Does Olava sleep? Or had his Mouth been forgotten for a space?”
The Over-queen’s voice was sharper and Tamisan broke that hold on her attention, looking back to the throne and the woman on it.
“It is not meet for the Mouth to speak unless Olava wishes.” Tamisan began, feeling increasingly nervous. That sensation gripped her left hand, as if it were not under her control but possessed by another will. She fell silent as it gathered up the brownish sand and tossed it to form a picture’s background.
This time she did not seek next the blue grains; rather her fist dug into the red and moved to paint the outline of the spaceship, above it a single red circle.
Then, there was a moment of hesitation before her fingers strayed to the green, took up a generous pinch and again made Starrex’s symbol below the ship.
“A single sun,” the Over-queen read out. “One day until the enemy comes. But what is the remaining word of Olava, Mouth?”
“That there be one among you who is a key to victory. He shall stand against the enemy and under him fortune comes.”
“So? Who is this hero?”
Tamisan looked again to the line of officers. Dared she trust to instinct? Something within her urged her on.
“Let each of these protectors of Ty-Kry,” she raised a finger to indicate the officers, “come forward and take up the sand of seeing. Let the Mouth touch that hand and may it then strew the answer. Perhaps Olava will make it clear in this manner.”
To Tamisan’s surprise the Over-queen laughed. “As good a way as any perhaps for picking a champion. To abide by Olava’s choice, that is another matter.” Her smile faded as she glanced at the men, as if there was a thought in her mind which disturbed her.
At her nod they came one by one. Under the shadows of their helmets their faces, being of one race, were very similar and Tamisan, studying each, could see no chance of telling which Starrex might be.
Each took up a pinch of green sand, held out his hand, palm down, and let the grains fall while she set fingertip to his knuckles. The sand drifted but in no shape and to no purpose.
It was not until the last man came that there was a difference, for then the sand did not drift, but fell to form again the symbol which was twin to the one already on the table. Tamisan looked up. The officer was staring at the sand rather than meeting her eyes, and there was a line of strain about his mouth, a look about him as might shadow the face of a man who stood with his back to a wall and a ring of sword points at his throat.
“This is your man,” Tamisan said. Starrex? She must be sure; if she could only demand the truth in this instant!
But her preoccupation was swept aside.
“Olava deals falsely!” That cry came from the officer behind her, the one who had brought her here.
“Perhaps we must not think ill of Olava’s advice.” The Over-queen’s voice had a guttural, feline purr. “It may be his Mouth is not wholly wedded to his service, but speaks for others than Olava at times. Hawarel, so you are to be our champion?”
The officer went to one knee, his hands clasped loosely before him as if he wished all to see he did not reach for any weapon.
“I am no choice, save the Great One’s.” In spite of the strain visible in his tense body he spoke levelly and without a tremor.
“Great One, this traitor…” Two of the officers moved as if to lay hands upon him and drag him away.
“No. Has not Olava spoken?” The mockery was very plain in the Over-queen’s tone now. “But to make sure that Olava’s will be carried out, take good care of our champion-to-be. Since Hawarel is to fight our battle with the cursed starmen, he must be saved to do it. And,” now she looked to Tamisan, startled by the quick turn of events and their hostility to Olava’s choice, “let the Mouth of Olava share with Hawarel this waiting that she may, perhaps, instill in Olava’s choice the vigor and strength such a battle will demand of our chosen champion.” Each time the Over-queen spoke the word “champion” she made of it a thing of derision and subtle menace.
“The audience is finished.” The Over-queen arose and stepped behind the throne as those about Tamisan fell to their knees; then she was gone. But the officer who had guided Tamisan was by her side. Hawarel, once more on his feet, was closely flanked by two of the other guards, one of whom pulled their prisoner’s sword from his sheath before he could move. Then, with Hawarel before her, Tamisan was urged from the hall, though none laid a hand on her.
At the moment she was pleased enough to go, hoping for a chance to prove the rightness of her guess, that Hawarel and Starrex were the same and she had found the first of her fellow dreamers.
They transversed more halls until they came to a door which one of Hawarel’s guards opened. The prisoner walked through and Tamisan’s escort waved her after him. Then the door slammed shut, and at that sound Hawarel whirled around.
Under the beaking foreplate of his helmet his eyes were cold fire and he seemed a man about to leap for his enemy’s throat.
His voice was only a harsh whisper. “Who… who set you to my death wishing, witch?”
IV
His hands reached for her throat Tamisan flung up her arm in an attempt to guard and stumbled back.
“Lord Starrex!” If I have been wrong, if…
Though his fingertips brushed her shoulders, he did not grasp her. Instead it was his turn to retreat a step or two, his mouth half-open in a gasp.
“Witch! Witch!” The very force of the words he hurled at her made them darts dispatched from one of the crossbows of the history tapes.
“Lord Starrex,” Tamisan repeated, feeling on more secure ground at his stricken amazement and no longer fearing he would attack her out of hand. His reaction to that name was enough to assure her she was right, though he did not seem prepared to acknowledge it.
“I am Hawarel of the Vanora.” He brought out those words as harsh croaking.
Tamisan glanced around. This was a bare-walled room, with no hiding place for a listener. In her own time and place she could have feared many scanning devices, but she thought those unknown to this Ty-Kry. To win Hawarel-Starrex into cooperation was very necessary.
“You are Lord Starrex,” she returned with bold confidence, or at least what she hoped was a convincing show of it. “Just as I am Tamisan, the dreamer. And this, wherein we are caught, is the dream you ordered of me.”
He raised his hand to his forehead, his fingers encountered his helmet and he swept it off unheedingly, so that it clanked and slid across the polished floor. His hair, netted into a kind of protecting cushion was piled about his head, giving him an odd appearance to Tamisan. It was black and thick, just as his skin was as brown-hued as that of her new body. Without the shadow of the helmet, she could see his face more clearly, finding in it no resemblance to the aloof master of the sky towers. In a way, it was that of a younger man, one less certain of himself.
“I am Hawarel,” he repeated doggedly. “You try to trap me, or perhaps the trap has already closed and you seek now to make me condemn myself with my own mouth. I tell you, I am no traitor. I am Hawarel and my blood oath to the Great One has been faithfully kept.”
Tamisan experienced a rise of impatience. She had not thought Lord Starrex to be a stupid man. But it would seem his counterpart here lacked more than just the face of his other self.
“You are Starrex, and this is a dream!” If it was not she did not care to raise that issue now. “Remember the sky tower? You bought me from Jabis for dreaming. Then you summoned me and Lord Kas and ordered me to prove my worth.”
His brows drew together in a black frown as he stared at her.
“What have they given you, or promised, that: you do this to me?” came his counterdemand. “I am no sworn enemy to you or yours, not that I know.”
Tamisan sighed. “Do you deny you know the name Starrex?” she asked.
For a long moment he was silent. Then he turned from her, took a stride or two; his toe thumped against his helmet, sending it rolling ahead of him. She waited. He turned again to face her.
“You are a Mouth of Olava…”
She shook her head, interrupting him. “We have little time for such fencing, Lord Starrex. You do know that name, and it is in my mind that you also remember the rest, at least in some measure. I am Tamisan the dreamer.”
It was his turn to sigh. “So you say.”
“So I shall continue to say, and, mayhap as I do, others than you will listen.”
“As I thought!” he flashed. “You would have me betray myself.”
“If you are truly Hawarel as you state, then what have you to betray?”
“Very well. I am… am two! I am Hawarel and I am someone else who has queer memories and who may well be a night demon come to dispute ownership of this body. There, you have it. Go and tell those who sent you and have me out to the arrow range for a quick ending there. Perhaps that will be better than to continue as a battlefield between two different selves.”
Perhaps he was not just being obstinate, Tamisan thought. It might be that the dream had a greater hold on him than it did on her. After all, she was a trained dreamer, one used to venturing into illusions wrought from imagination.
“If you can remember a little, then listen.” She drew closer to him and began to speak in a lower voice, not that she believed they could be overheard, but it was well to take no chance. Swiftly she gave her account of the whole tangle, or what had been her part in it When she was done she was surprised to see that a certain hardening had overtaken his features, so that now he looked more resolute, less like one trapped in a maze which had no guide.
“And this is the truth?”
“By what god or power do you wish me to swear to it?” She was exasperated now, frustrated by his lingering doubts.
“None, because it explains what was heretofore unexplainable, what has made my life a hell of doubt these past hours, and brought more suspicion upon me. I have been two persons. But if this is all a dream, why is that so?”
“I do not know.” Tamisan chose frankness as best befitting her needs. “This is unlike any dream I have created before.”
“In what manner?” he asked crisply.
“It is a part of a dreamer’s duty to study her master’s personality, to suit his desires, even if those be unexpressed and hidden. From what I had learned of you, of Lord Starrex, I thought that too much had been already seen, experienced and known to you, that it must be a new approach I tried, or else you would find that dreaming held no profit.
“Therefore, it came to me suddenly that I would not dream of the past, nor of the future, which are the common approaches for an action dreamer, but refine upon the subject. In the past there were times in history when the future rested upon a single decision. And it was in my mind to select certain of these decisions and then envision a world in which those decisions had gone in the opposite direction, trying to see what would be the present result of actions in the past.”
“So this is what you tried? And what deci
sions did you select for your experiment at the rewriting of history?” He was giving her his full attention.
“I took three. First, the welcome of the Over-queen, Ahta, second, the drift of the colony ship Wanderer, third, the rebellion of Sylt. Should the welcome have been a rejection, should the colony ship never reach here, should Sylt have failed, these would produce a world I thought might be interesting to visit in a dream. So I read what history tapes I could call upon. Thus, when you summoned me to dream I had my ideas ready. But it did not work as it should have. Instead of spinning the proper dream, creating incidents in good order, I found myself fast caught in a world I did not know or build.”
As she spoke she could watch the change in him. He had lost all the fervent antagonism of his first attack on her. More and more she could see what she had associated with the personality of Lord Starrex coming through the unfamiliar envelope of this man’s body.
“So it did not work properly.”
“No. As I have said, I found myself in the dream, with no control of action and no recognizable creation factors. I do not understand.”
“No? There could be an explanation.” The frown line was back between his brows, but it was not a scowl aimed at her. It was as if he were trying hard to remember something of importance which eluded his efforts. “There is a theory, a very old one. Yes, that of parallel worlds.”
In her wide use of the tapes she had not come across that, and now she demanded the knowledge of him almost fiercely. “What are those?”
“You are not the first, how could you be, to be struck by the notion that sometimes history and the future hang upon a very thin cord which can be twisted this way and that by a small chance. A theory was once advanced that when that chanced it created a second world, one in which the decision was made to the right, when that of the world we know went to the left.”
“But alternate worlds, where, how did they exist?”
“Thus, perhaps,” he held out his two hands horizontally, one above the other, “in layers. There were even old tales created for amusement, of men traveling not back in time, nor forward, but across it from one such world to another.”