Complete Short Fiction, page 127
There were side passages, dark holes scarcely big enough for a man’s body. But Holroyd shook his head. It wouldn’t do to lose his way in a labyrinth of byways. His only course must lie to keep an unmistakable contact with this main corridor on which his own cell was located.
In abrupt curiosity, Holroyd examined the first light. Like the others it was made of wood. It felt cold to his touch; and when he pulled at it, it blinked out, as if he had pulled the switch.
It was attached to the ceiling by a wooden hinge, but the light didn’t go on again till he shoved the stick itself into contact with the concrete.
The power must come out of the ground.
Holroyd was about to pass on when he noticed the tag hanging from the hinge. On it was written:
Cell 17
Occupant: Amnesia case.
Remarks: None.
The tag on the second light said: “Cell 16, Name . . . Nrad . . . . Made the mistake of hitting back at a temple soldier.”
Holroyd studied the laconic inscription with grim eyes. Nrad’s mistake was one that he could appreciate.
At the end of the line of lights, in the darkness beyond cell No. 1, was a steep, narrow stairway. Holroyd climbed up it past dully lighted corridors, but it was the mental image that came that disturbed him, the picture of himself in this subterranean world of a temple that towered into the blue dark sky of an earth that had aged two hundred million years since his own birth.
The time involved was meaningless, more alien than death. Funny how pasts meant nothing. There was only this climbing up a secret stairway in a half light, climbing—ten, eleven, twelve levels.
He reached the twelfth and last, searched with a brief intentness for an outlet that might take him to the roof, and, finding none, stepped gingerly into the passageway and walked along it.
The ceiling here was high enough for him to walk erect. But here as on the dungeon level were branching tunnels that he ignored on the same simple theory that, by moving in straight lines, he wouldn’t get lost.
Here, too, were tags on every light. The first one read:
“Sadra, kitchen maid, pro-rebel, one of her lovers talkative Keep Sergeant Gan. Peephole but no entrance.”
It proved a typical tag. Every room was occupied by a woman servant of some kind; most of them had lovers, most were rebel supporters—and every one that Holroyd peered in at was sound asleep.
The eleventh floor was occupied entirely by men servants, all sound asleep. Soundlessly, swiftly, Holroyd worked his way down the narrow stairway; and all around him the temple slept.
Common zos occupied the eighth level, common fezos the seventh. The dark robes that hung over chairs and over the ends of beds identified them for what they were: priests! priestesses!
The fourth level was the apartment of the temple prince, and, the general direction tag went on: “his daughter, Giya, the temple princess.”
Ambitious Giya, Holroyd thought savagely, cunning, treacherous, quickthinking, power-covetous Giya. With clenched teeth, he peered through the peephole that was located at this end of her apartment. It took a moment to grasp the whole picture.
In the immediate foreground of his narrow line of vision was a large, heavily carpeted room. There were settees, chairs, tables. At the far side was the open door of a bedroom; and it was there that real interest began.
The edge of the bed and a long, narrow, shining table, with a mirror mounted on it, showed through the door. On a chair beside the table, at right angles to the door, sat the temple princess.
Her lips were moving. Holroyd pressed his ear against the peephole. Formless words drifted to him, an unintelligible yet melodious monotony of sound.
After minutes of watching, listening to that flow of sound, Holroyd left the peephole. Whoever she was talking to couldn’t possibly matter as much as his search for a passageway to the screer pens, his need to fly off into the still dark universe of eastern Gonwonlane.
For a timeless period he prowled along side passageways, taking great care not to venture too far afield. It must have been two hours later when he found himself again on the fourth level—and she was still talking.
Frankly curious, Holroyd fumbled his way along the branch corridor that led in the direction of her bedroom. As he stared in at her, he felt a wave of amazement.
She was alone. Her lips were moving, articulating; and her voice, as he put his ear against the tiny aperture through which he had peered, came strong and clear:
“—Let his minutes be days, his hours be years, his days be centuries. Let him know endless time as he lies in the dark. His minutes be days, his hours . . . years—”
Over and over the words were intoned; and at first Holroyd tried to think of them as a prayer, one of those endlessly repeated, senseless things designed to beat the mind into a pattern. Abruptly, that first impression collapsed like a fire denied oxygen.
The amoral, irreligious temple princess praying. And in private. Like hell she was. She—
The thought stopped. Holroyd felt a mental faintness, a daze of horror, an understanding at once comprehensive and as deadly as fleshed steel.
What was she saying? What was she saying? “Let his days be centuries.” Why, that’s what they had been—for Ptath. This was—
Too late Holroyd realized that his personal mind paralysis had briefly lost him control of his body to a mind that had no fears, nor doubts. Even as he grew aware that his hands were manipulating the secret entrance to the room, the action was done, over with; he was committed.
He stepped through the opening; and he must have made some sound because the woman came to her feet and turned with a tigerishly swift and inhumanly violent movement.
Funny—her appearance, Holroyd thought. He hadn’t really looked at her body through the peephole. But, then, he hadn’t suspected.
Hard to imagine just when the transformation had taken place. It must have been on the road, an attunement derived from the thought, the recognition of the god Ptath by the temple princess.
The flash of recognition must have leaped across eight thousand three hundred kanbs to the distant city of Ptath and instantaneously brought the goddess to possess the princess’ body. How it had been done was another thing entirely, impossible to explore now.
It didn’t matter. He had betrayed Tar and the secret of the hidden passageways. He wouldn’t have done it of his own free will, of course, but—
Holroyd felt a blind fury against the savage force inside him that was using his understanding and knowledge with such an utter disregard for danger and consequences.
The fury ran its brief, futile course.
There was only the Goddess Ineznia.
She stood there, and she was different than Ptath’s memory had pictured. From the memory, Holroyd had thought of a simple god succumbing to the deliberately displayed charms of the first woman who smiled at him.
He should have known that Ptath would not be easily impressed by any human being, and at the same time would not be consciously aware of special qualities in those who did impress his untamed mind.
The woman blazed with life. No wonder the temple prince had frowned in amazement at his transformed daughter. Her eyes were pools of flamelike intensity; her body shed an aura as strong as a blazing fire.’ Only her voice, when it came, was soft, though there was an eagerness in it, a strange passion and pride that, for an instant, had no relation to any reality:
“Peter Holroyd,” she glowed. “Oh, Ptath, this is a great moment in our lives. Do not be alarmed by my recognition of your identity. Know only this, that we have tasted victory. We have won the first, though not the most dangerous, round in the Goddess Ineznia’s determined war to destroy you.
“She it was who drew you to Gonwonlane from the parallel time before you were due to come normally. Without knowledge, stripped of power, you were to be materialized in the citadel palace—and destroyed.
“Wait! Do not speak!” Her voice was suddenly as strong as a vibrating steel bar. Holroyd, who had parted his lips to express his bewilderment, closed them again.
Not the goddess, he thought in a daze; this was not the goddess. But then who—
The woman was pressing on, her voice stronger, more urgent:
“All those initial plans of hers I have frustrated. Using my carefully hoarded remnant of god power, of which she knew nothing, I placed you at this remote point of Gonwonlane, usurped the body of the temple princess, and placed your elemental mind under a constant strain of pressure, designed to draw from its depth the whole personality of its last reincarnation.
“With success has this been done. And so, Peter Holroyd”—her tone was bell-like—“your fight for life begins. Act much as you would if you were in enemy territory. Be abnormally suspicious, but bold beyond all your previous conceptions on anything you decide to do. In crises trust your immortal body.
“Here is what you must do: You must conquer Nushirvan by any means that may occur to you. Think about that as you fly toward Ptath this night. It will take a little time for your mind to grasp the utter importance of this attack.
“And now”—she gave him a strangely sad smile—“that is all that I can tell you. Except for that, my lips are sealed by the same spell that has held my body in a dungeon of the citadel palace for more ages than I have been able to count.
“Ptath—Peter Holroyd—your second wife, long forgotten L’onee will try to do more for you as the opportunity occurs—but now, quick, out onto my balcony, and down across the courtyard to the screer pens, and—”
Her voice trailed; her eyes widened and flicked beyond Holroyd’s shoulder. Holroyd half turned; and the arrow from Tar’s bow whisked past his head and buried itself in the woman’s left breast.
For a moment she stood rigid, then she smiled at Holroyd, a tender, eager smile. Holroyd caught her as she crumbled, heard her mumble:
“Just as well that this body die. It would remember—too much. Good luck!”
Behind him, Tar was shouting: “Hurry, man, get into these clothes. We’re leaving right away.”
There were other cries in the vague distance, somehow unreal yet galvanizing.
His memory of her was of a rather plumpish young woman, from whom the flame of life had departed, lying very still on a thick rug.
The memory remained sharp and clear until he was being pulled onto the back of a crouching screer by a dimly seen rider. The hammerlike beat of windmill-like wings, the bang of the wind as the bird flung itself into the cloudy night sky crowded the picture from his mind. And then—
There was a wailing cry from the driver of Holroyd’s screer. “I’m hit!” the man screamed. He seemed to throw himself forward on the back of the bird. But somehow he must have slid. And fallen.
When Holroyd reached forward into the darkness where the man had been, there was nothing but an empty saddle. A vague scream floated up from the night below.
He was alone on an uncontrolled screer in a fantastic land.
VI.
The moon came out from behind an enormous cloud. A great orb of moon it was, mightier than Holroyd had ever seen. It was very near, as if Earth and its silver, shining daughter had strained ever since the long-forgotten twentieth century for a closer union, and now here was the glowing result.
The lowering globe looked ten feet in diameter. It filled the night with radiance. In its refulgence Holroyd had his last glimpse of Linn.
The temple town shone softly in the moonlight that bathed it. The temple itself towered white and pure, like a pillar silhouetted in a light of its own. Around it spread the trees of the park, dark and strange. The first circle of buildings began just outside the park. The others spread beyond.
The scene receded into distance. The town became a misty shape on a vast, blurred land.
That was the picture that stayed with Holroyd, the tininess of the town, the immensity of the land.
His mind let the town go. His attention withdrew from the past it represented, as it had deserted the woman a curiously long time ago. He felt a sudden sadness, a great melancholy. It struck him sharply that he had been striving all these minutes to push out of his mind the image of a human body falling down, down, into night.
He was more shocked than he cared to admit. Death of companion and enemy he had seen often enough, but always there had been the knowledge in the case of friends that he had no personal responsibility, and to hell with the enemy.
But this was friend.
Personally unknown. But friend, come to rescue him. One more body, Holroyd thought darkly, one more shattered bit of flesh seeking its traditional and terrible union with the soil of Earth.
How many men had tumbled reluctantly from heights into that abnormal merging with the land? How many during two hundred million years?
The thought yielded to the rushing wind, the flapping of meaty wings, the night that lasted and lasted. Rage came against the darkness: “Damn you, Ptath, what are you trying to do—balance off seven hundred years in one night?”
It should be getting light, Holroyd thought blankly. Why, the temple’s inhabitants had been asleep for hours, and he out here on this great airplane of a bird for yet more hours.
But the night went on. Something was wrong, definitely wrong. This incredible flight through an endless darkness. He tried to picture it: Himself on an impossible flying beast hurtling through night toward—
Toward what?
In the great, rushing dark, Holroyd shifted uneasily in his saddle. L’onee, whoever, whatever she was, had said she would help him again. Was this some version of that help?
It seemed hardly probable. Because she had also told him that he must go to the Nushirvan front, and attack and destroy the outlaw State.
Holroyd’s mind poised there, ruefully.
He must attack Nushirvan with its population of five billions, its endless mountains, its powerful and cunning fighting men.
Holroyd laughed curtly. The harsh sound of that wry laughter was snatched from his lips by the whining wind, and lost in the vast night.
But the thought remained; and after a moment he knew what she had meant and why it was possible.
In all ages a few men with wills of iron and personalities to match, ruled, and made the decisions upon which the masses of their times built their lives.
Very simply, very starkly, the demigod Holroyd-Ptath must go to the Nushirvan front, take control of all tire armies there and blitz Nushirvan before the Goddess Ineznia knew what was happening.
Holroyd drew a deep breath. He’d have to get in touch with the rebel groups, of course. And find out what the pamphlet Tar had shown him had meant in its statement that prayers were the source of the god power of the goddess.
Because, if that was true, then where did Ptath derive his power?
Abruptly, he felt the immensity of what was here. The excitement of it figuratively clanged inside him. “A 1944 brain,” he thought shakily, “dominating the body of the god of Gonwonlane.” His consciousness lifted up, up, to grasp at the wonder of it; his whole being blazed with sensational thoughts.
And the strange, long night lengthened.
Dawn came with tropical swiftness. The sun reared from the horizon behind him, and splashed its light across villages, farms, forests that had in their texture the shape of jungle. A green, prolific land it was.
Far to the north glittered a dark sea, and ahead was a city.
The city was very far away, so vaguely seen that it kept fading into the mist of distance. There seemed to be a monstrous towering cliff beyond it, and—
A cliff? Holroyd frowned. But Ptath was the city of the great cliff. And no screer could possibly have flown a seven-day journey in one night.
Even as the denying thought came, Holroyd knew better. With a startled consciousness he knew that this was what the endlessness of the night had meant.
Somebody was pulling him toward Ptath.
Was it L’onee?
Abruptly, he knew that he couldn’t even think of taking the chance. He had to force this beast down. Here. Now. This minute. He—
He felt a sagging sensation. The next instant, like an enormous prey-bound hawk, the screer plummeted toward the distant rim of a jungle.
The land below seemed uninhabited. At the last moment Holroyd had a flashing glimpse of a small, red-roofed house inset in a green shelter of spreading palm trees; and then the massive bird had flashed over the low line of jungle beyond.
It came down in a clearing, ran at top speed, flapping its wings madly. As it came to a plunging halt, Holroyd saw for the first time the tufts of feathers on its ribbed, leathery neck.
The sight struck him sharply, brought a ponderous wonder as to the screer’s twentieth-century ancestor.
But the development of flesh and bone was too radical; the physical structure would probably require the most detailed scientific investigation—not by him who had never been able to recognize by sight more than a few dozen birds. He—
The reverie ended as a silvery voice spoke from somewhere behind him:
“You would be wise, Peter Holroyd—Ptath—to climb down.”
Holroyd twisted in his saddle. A girl stood in a narrow pathway twenty-five feet away. There was a quiet earnestness in her dark eyes, a sadness in her olive-complexioned face, and a fire of personality that was unmistakable.
“Hurry!” said the voice of this new L’onee. “The flying screer does not linger long in one place untended. Be careful not to walk in front of it. It will not hesitate to peck at you.
“Besides,” she finished urgently, “we, you and I, Ptath, have but a brief hour together. There is no time to waste, none at all.”
As he slipped to the ground, Holroyd experienced the first tendrils of a wriggling embarrassment. It was hard to put a mental finger on that squirming sensation, but after a moment he managed it.
Ptath! Her utter acceptance of him as Ptath, regardless of the alien ego of Holroyd which had dominated the Ptath body now for hours and hours.
