Pan Sagittarius (2509 CE)

by Ian Wallace

  “For decades I worked hard serving Grayle and his father Otter before him. Now I’ve retired at stud. Sooner or later a king has to be his own man. Let Grayle solve it.”

  “He can’t.”

  “Then he shouldn’t be king.”

  “It is because he is king that he can’t.”

  “Say the rest of it. It is because he is king and what that he can’t?”

  I pondered his searching question. “I see your point. If he were all king, just plain king like his father and most other kings, he would have Pelleon killed and be done with it. And if Gueraine then should go astraying with another knight, he’d kill Gueraine and be all done with it.”

  “Precisely, Pan.”

  “But Grayle is a king in a much larger sense, and you are partly responsible because you taught him what Thoth means.” Merleon’s eyes opened a little: they were rheumy. “Perhaps I taught him too well. I have taught him into unbeatable trouble.”

  “So why don’t you go back there and teach him out of this trouble?”

  The eyes closed, the rheum stayed. “I am human. I cannot teach him out of this one.”

  I said tart: “You are human wreckage. What kind of a priest are you?”

  “Irrelevant question. I was a very good kind of priest. I am a priest no longer.”

  I mused, then dared a challenge. “Gueraine has given Pelleon rendezvous for tonight in the Chapel of Maath. And Scans knows about it.”

  There was a great deal of mental silence, but the old eyes were wide open. Presently, speculatively: “Since you are able to enter minds, you are able to do something about this, Pan. The fate of Grayle’s dream turns on the outcome.”

  “I have the start of an idea. But it would be better if Merleon were to execute it.”

  “Merleon stays here with Ninevé.”

  “Then I must edit a little. Merleon remains here if he chooses; but my combinaison involves Ninevé, and afterward she will have no time for Merleon.”

  After more silence, Merleon suddenly struggled himself up to something more closely resembling a sitting position. Eyes wide-open-staring at a rugged-mossy rock wall, he grated: “I think you know what it is you have me by.”

  “Drive into it affirmatively, man! Wouldn’t you like to be a priest again—a priest of Thoth again?”

  The staring eyes came around to me who, materialized now, stood challenging Merleon. There was wonder in the old voice: “You think I could?”

  “I think you could.”

  He squeezed the eyes tight shut. He muttered: “You know, Pan—now that I have seen you, I have a silly sense that if this were happening nineteen years later, I would recognize you.”

  Young Pelleon came cloaked by night to the small Chapel of Maath. Shadowed by ancient mighty trees, the low old-stone shrine huddled ivy-shrouded, moss-ruinous, having dwelt here for centuries before the coming of Thoth and Maath, sheltering a pagan altar whose goddess was discarded and forgotten. Grayle had wished to rebuild the chapel, honoring Maath, the new goddess; but Gueraine had prevailed against this design, pleading the cause of archaic beauty, inwardly unready to accept Maath and yearning after the gone divinity.

  Tree-hidden, Pelleon stood gravely contemplating this place of consecrated assignation. It would be wrong to say that Pelleon was thinking, or wrestling with conscience, or presavoring a triumph of blood passion: Grayle was not in Pelleon’s mind, but far distant from his mind and from this place; it did not trouble Pelleon that he had made promise to Grayle never to touch Gueraine, for at that time he had believed himself, and now that memory was lava-buried by this passion. Rather, Pelleon was filled with glowing holiness: long had he worshiped the goddess Gueraine, now she was opening herself to him in total surrender of her divine being: his soul and his body were one, her soul and her flesh were one: this was fulfillment.

  Now Pelleon advanced to the rite of consummation. Clutching his cloak about him to avoid the brambles that crowded the crumbling tiny doorway, he stooped and entered. Having passed through a dark vestibule, he came fully into the dim-candled atrium.

  She awaited him, wholly receptive.

  He stood palsied, unbelieving, seeking to convey his mind to her—his mind richly glorified now by her acceptance of his love, as before his mind had been ascetically glorified by her acceptance of his worship.

  She laid finger to lips and nodded slowly, wisely.

  Discarding his cloak, he came to her in three paces and embraced her—tenderly for a while, then passionally, then terribly but leaped away as the chapel walls emitted armed men

  and

  recognized the burning eyes of Scans whose mouth was muffled by a scarf

  and crouched, and caught up his sword from the altar

  whereon he had laid it

  but they did not advance, and the eyes of Scans

  betrayed his disconcertment as he stared at the woman and Scans

  bowed low and managed to utter intelligibly through his ruined mouth and muffling scarf: “Your pardons, my lord Pelleon, my lady Ninevé. I mistook the situation. Soldiers, we withdraw and forget what we have seen.” And he turned swiftly and led the way out through the low door, and the men-at-arms followed until all of them were gone.

  And Pelleon was alone with his lady.

  Still crouching, clinging to his sword, Pelleon stared at her. “He called thee Ninevé. My Gueraine, how could he have mistaken thy fair hair for the darkness of Ninevé? for he recognized me, and the candles clearly light thee, every feature is Gueraine—”

  She came to him, putting her hands on his shoulders, gazing up into his eyes. “There is a thing that thou didst not know. Merleon is at work for us.”

  He ran a hand back through his hair. “Merleon? but how could he—” His eyes widened: “Enchantment, eh? He charmed them into looking at thee and seeing Ninevé!” Driving a hard grin onto his face, he seized her shoulder with his free hand. “So then thou art safe with me, Gueraine—forever, if Merleon chooses to keep guarding us forever—”

  He paused. The grin died. He said: “Only—”

  Her fingers touched his face. “Only, my love?”

  His left hand gripped her right wrist and brought the palm of her hand to his lips; and then in a fey way he prowled off, drawing her by the wrist after him, still holding his sword; and he sat on a wooden wall side pew, drawing her down beside him. He muttered: “And yet, if Merleon had not been here to cast this enchantment, we would have been discovered, thou wouldst have burned, we would have killed the dream. And another time, if Merleon should not be here to guard thee—discovery, thy burning, the death of the dream. For there is Scans and Scans, and when there is not Scans there is some other treacherous knight or jealous lady, and Grayle was right, there is no worship in this because of the universal prurience that poisons all the worship inherent in this—”

  He turned his great agonized face to the lady. “I love thee, Gueraine—and yet it seems I cannot love thee. I must go, and I cannot go. I wish to seek battle and give myself cheaply to death, but that would be disloyal to Grayle. But if I stay and do not die, surely I will dishonor thee, and it will be known.”

  In a dark corner of the vestibule, Gueraine, peering with pain through a stone curtain at the two on the pew, said quietly to the man who stood beside her: “I can stand no more of this. Release the enchantment, Merleon.”

  “Aye,” the man assented; and he thrust a wand through the curtain and waved it peculiarly. Thereby Merleon withdrew his projective hypnosis from the mind of Pelleon.

  Gazing at his lady, Pelleon saw her blond hair turn black and her face alter subtly: her eyes were dark and closer together and somewhat slanted, her nose was longer, her lips fuller, her skin darker, her face more slender.

  Being fey, Ninevé felt the change in his mind; and as his own expression went shocked, she laid a long hand on his big hand on her small wrist and told him quietly: “I am Ninevé, and that is how Merleon has helped us. Thou hast thy sword in thy hand: kill
me.”

  “Aye,” breathed Gueraine in the shadows.

  Face darkening, Pelleon began to raise the sword. Ninevé, already partially disrobed, closed her eyes and threw back her head, exposing to his hand the length of her beautiful neck and the rise-and-pit of her bosom.

  Sword fairly aloft, Pelleon bent above her throat, and his voice came in a thrilling alcove-penetrating murmur. “I worship Gueraine as I worship the goddess Isis and the goddess Maath, and there will be no hour of my living when my worship of her will not burn higher in my spirit than any transient passion; and in every moment of my worship I will be desiring her. But I will not dishonor my goddess, and I will not shame my god and my king. Tell me, nymph, what shall I do: slay thee, or use thee to slake my unholiness? for if I do not use thee, then will I be using another to keep me holy for Gueraine.”

  Ninevé clarioned, breathing hard: “Long ago I offered up my pride on the altar of Isis. Either do the second, or I shall welcome the first.”

  Gueraine entered the atrium. Seeing her, Pelleon leaped to his feet, arms hanging, sword at trail, but feet together and shoulders back. She came and stood before him, outwardly composed, looking gravely up into his face.

  He asked low: “What shall I do with the nymph, Madam?”

  She answered low: “Use her, Pelleon—but not here in our chapel. I would gladly burn for thee, and indeed I do burn for thee, but neither of us would kill the dream, and Merleon and Scans have proved that indeed we would have done this. So do thou slake thy burning with Ninevé who excels at the art of slakery, and I will make shift with Grayle while dreaming of thee. For were we to come together now, and stay together even undiscovered, in time it would grow tawdry-secret, and the worship would be gone—and I would wish to keep thy worship.”

  I knew that eye-to-eye soul interchange can be real. Unseen, I experienced this reality.

  Then Pelleon drew up his sword whose name was Invincible, holding it with both hands by the sharp two-edged blade with the curiously serpentine Serapian haft-and-guard before his face; and Pelleon kissed the three sacred serpents where they intertwined, and held the sword to Gueraine, and she laid lips upon it. When at length she stepped back, he turned and went to the altar and laid the sword thereon; and he turned again to face her, arms half outspread, hands bleeding from the sword edges.

  “I will leave the sword here,” he told her. “I have another sword, his name is Dauntless, he is younger brother to Invincible .”

  She told him: “I will see that Invincible remains there. For a time may come when we can enter this chapel together and reclaim him. But our time now is wrong by years, and that is all our trouble.”

  He bowed his head and was still.

  Gueraine turned to Ninevé who had not moved from her head-back self-abandonment. Gueraine spoke sharply: “Divert him but do not ruin him. He is worth more than both of us and all the men in this kingdom.”

  She paused. She turned to Pelleon. “Except, perhaps, Grayle.”

  His jaw rose. “Grayle is worth more than all of us and all the men in this kingdom. Lady, I say that, worshiping thee as my goddess.”

  Her head went down. “Go now with Ninevé.”

  Flowing to her feet, the nymph departed.

  Pelleon turned a final time to Gueraine.

  Laying her left hand on his left forearm, she turned her back to him, telling the floor: “It is unwise for us to kiss. But remember this parting as though we kissed.”

  Arm encircling her right shoulder, he laid his right hand on her hand on his arm, and strength flowed into her.

  And Pelleon departed.

  Gueraine stood by the altar breathing hard through her open mouth, struggling for reason.

  As the tall male figure emerged from the vestibule and came toward her, she looked up at him, desperate and appealing. “Merleon! Thou has intervened to save Pelleon and me; perhaps we were nothing to thee, perhaps it was only Grayle’s dream that mattered to thee; nevertheless by thy sorcery thou hast saved all of us. But I die now, Merleon, I die burning—and I pray thee, enchant me into serenity, make me sexless and cool!”

  Standing a little way distant, he surveyed her, saying nothing.

  From the mind of Gueraine, Merleon, still alcove-lurking, withdrew his projective hypnosis; but not without implanting a faint vestigial suggestion that would perish in time as an alien vestige but only after her own mind would have intuitively adopted it, seeing its worth.

  Before her eyes, the seeming of Merleon subtly altered, smallening.

  “Grayle?” she uttered. But the cold shock thawed in her soul by reason of radiant warmth stealing in. Sinking to her knees, she murmured: “Then, after all, thou’rt Thoth.”

  He said gruffly: “I am not Thoth. I am Grayle. But I love thee. And I understand about Pelleon, and I continue to love both of you. Tell me therefore whether it is better for me to leave thee alone or to stay and help ease thy torment.”

  Great things sped through her mind. How he had conquered those stronger than himself through force of will. How he had brought together all Caerleon through force of mind—aided, but only aided, by force of arms. His kindness. His brilliance. His dream. And then, how tonight he had found supernal power to take the likeness of Merleon, and intercept her en route to this rendezvous, and enchant the eyes of Scans and the eyes of Pelleon and her own eyes…

  But Pelleon he was not.

  But, all in all, he was greater than Pelleon.

  But Pelleon he was not…

  But long ago, he had chosen her; and he had cherished her, cherished her now; and Pelleon still he cherished…

  She bowed her head before the transfiguration, crossing her arms on her breasts. She whispered: “Thou’rt Thoth, my Grayle. Here in thy Chapel of Maath, canst take me to be Maath? Right gladly would I be Maath for thee—”

  Merleon and I teleported ourselves out of there.

  Under stars:

  “Well done, Merleon.”

  “Well done, Pan.”

  “I did nothing, Merleon. Except to shake you loose from Ninevé, of course; but other than that, I did nothing; you did all of it.”

  “That is why I said well done. Thanks to you, I am entirely in self-command, I am again a whole Priest of Thoth; and I am therefore qualified to evaluate what you have done. You had at your disposal all powers of effective interference. You restricted yourself to awakening and springing Merleon. Following your leadership, Merleon restricted himself to creating a handful of trivial deceptions. But in finality, it was the people who made their own decisions and found their own ways out of an utterly impossible impasse. That is why I say, Pan: for self-control—well done.”

  I coughed: “It was nothing, really.” I wasn’t entirely being self-deprecatory: rather, I was thinking about a Nigel-nova which in a scant nineteen years would negate in a star-system holocaust all the gains for Grayle’s long-range dream.

  Perhaps, though, the nova would not negate the gains for three people…No, four people…Or five? or six?

  It was on the tips of my lips to tell Merleon who I was. Or who I thought I was—asking him, a pro colleague, who he thought I might be.

  I desisted: it would be too much interference, just as warning Merleon about the nova would have been an absolutely obscene interference. But suppose I should reveal my identity-ambiguity to Merleon? I fell into imagining the dialog: What do you think, Merleon? Recall that I was spawned on another Ant an-track. Which of them fathered me, do you think?

  The only way to know, Pan, would be to run that track.

  This I refuse to do.

  I understand; and I am glad, because my own original future would be on it. But I am noticing, Pan, that your hair is auburn like Grayle’s, and your eyes are blue like Grayle’s.

  My mother’s race is such that I could have these features from her.

  And your will is indomitable like Grayle’s.

  Or like Pelleon’s; and l am tall like Pelleon.

  But like Gra
yle you are thoughtful, and like Grayle you subtly nudge; and these are traits that Pelleon would have to study in faint hope of understanding them— Merleon coughed. “I dislike interrupting a train of thought—”

  I brought myself violently back to this present. “I was only wondering, Merleon—what will you do now?”

  “Why, I will stick around,” quoth Merleon. “For when you and I quit the chapel, all signs pointed to the need for a prince’s tutor in approximately nine months. I am thinking about it already, Pan: I am toying with the notion of using basically Rousseauvian methods, modified by certain Serapian psychophysical theories— “—Pan?”

  Part Six

  Makrov

  In the year 1945, on the planet Mojud, a Fustenslaved Lord-person named Makrov was spirited by Nazis onto a Presidential warship that lay off the coast of Vania; and there he destroyed the chiefs of three allied anti-Nazi states by violently exploding himself with a microbomb concealed in his stomach. Even though the Makrov-soul realizes that he was operating under threat to his wife and children, and that he was drugged, he does not forgive himself for his suicidal treason to the world in general and to his Lord-people in particular. Pan, can you nudge him in a replay?

  6

  “By a peculiar concatenation of circumstances,” said the Führer, “the finger of fate is on you, Herr Makrov.”

  The skinny prisoner sat in the armless chair, shivering a little. There is a mystique about power: the Führer had it, and Makrov felt it in his nearly fleshless bones. He did not answer: he waited.

  From my vantage point in the brain of a Führer-henchman, I watched the Führer with an interest which, despite my duty, considerably overweighed my interest in this poor Makrov, who was in fact my assignment. Although I had psychoscreens up to minimize influences from the henchman-brain that I occupied, my host’s ambivalent love-hatred for his short, dark, apoplectically hypnotic leader made it hard for me to stay dispassionate.