by David Mason
The man who had called out stood waiting; he was a very short, squat figure, in a rusty black robe with a pointed hood. In the shadow of the hood his face was extraordinarily white, with the look of a toadstool.
“I am the Shipmaster,” he said, still in the dull voice. “My task is to bring you to the island, where she waits.”
“Hold on,” Daniel said sharply. The robed man had been turning slowly toward the rowing benches, apparently about to give an order. He stopped and turned slowly back to face Daniel.
“What island?” Daniel said, looking hard. “Who’s ‘she?’”
“There is only one island,” the Shipmaster said. “There is only one ship in the sea, this one. You desire to see the lost one. You cannot do so without the ship.”
He turned and moved away. Suddenly, almost without a sound, another naked man moved across the deck to the anchor chain, and began to pull it in, using nothing to aid him. The oars moved and the ship turned slowly. Daniel saw that the robed man sat, far aft, with a steering oar beside him.
The ship crept through the mist, the only sound the splash of oars. The mist made the motion so imperceptible that Daniel felt a strange conviction that it might indeed be a ghost ship, as Eshtak had said. Beside him, Eshtak stood with the stiffly alert, wide-eyed look of a terrified cat, his breath hissing in his teeth.
“We will die,” he whispered, half to Daniel and half to himself. But he stayed where he was.
Daniel could feel a slight rolling now, in the deck. They were well out into the sea, though the mist still rolled. He clapped Eshtak on the shoulder.
“It’s a real ship, if a little queer,” he said in a low voice. “Those rowers… they may be drugged in some way, but they’re flesh and blood.”
“Living?” Eshtak muttered. “They have the look of dead men.”
“Dead men don’t row,” Daniel said. “Come.” He walked aft, to the Shipmaster.
“All right, man,” he said sharply. “Speak. What of this island, and the rest of it? How did you know about me?”
“She rules the island,” the Shipmaster said. “She knows all that passes on the shores. The birds see, and tell.”
“She? Who is she?”
“The mistress,” the man said. “She is the mistress of creatures. She is the last of the old ones.”
Eshtak uttered a shuddering sound.
“Are there other people there, on this island?” Daniel demanded.
“There are two, like yourself,” the Shipmaster said. “There are many, like us.”
Daniel scowled at him, thinking hard.
Eshtak growled deep in his throat. “He’s joking with us, Lord Daniel!” Eshtak said in a shaking voice. His sword slid out, and he stepped, crouching, toward the Shipmaster, who did not seem to notice him.
“A trap of some kind, isn’t it?” Eshtak snarled, his point at the Shipmaster’s throat. “Answer! If you…” He lunged forward, the sharp point pricking deep, and drew it back.
There was no blood, and the Shipmaster’s face showed neither pain nor any other change at all. Eshtak slowly lowered his sword, growing paler.
“He is a ghost!” Eshtak muttered.
“I am a living man,” the Shipmaster said, still in the same calm, abstract voice. “But I feel no pain, as you do. We who serve the mistress feel nothing except as she wills.”
There was nothing to be gotten out of the Shipmaster, Daniel knew; he gripped Eshtak’s arm and drew him back.
“Leave it,” he said. “Wait.”
The island loomed out of the mist, a white strand and a mass of dark trees, and a plank jetty, sagging with time. The ship lay alongside it, and Daniel followed the robed man down onto the creaking boards. They went to the shore and up a path of raked gravel, between park-like trees. Twice they passed robed figures, as like the Shipmaster as if they were copies.
Eshtak touched Daniel’s arm and indicated the strangely orderly parkland, with a nod.
“Look there,” he muttered.
Crouched, naked figures of human shape, moving with the silent swiftness of beasts, slipped out of sight as Daniel looked. As he watched, another naked figure ran, silently, in the distance, and vanished again. They were like wild things, he thought with a cold feeling of fear.
Ahead, a shadow on the misty air, growing more real as they came nearer; and Daniel stared, amazed.
It was a tower, a curious building that ran up into the mists, its top dimly visible. It seemed to be made of metal with the greenish look of ancient copper; convoluted roofs and gables marked every story, like the twisting shapes of a pagoda. As they came closer, Daniel saw intricate reliefs covered every inch of the building, sculptured figures that writhed and turned in incredible chaos. He could not see them clearly, but they seemed inhuman, more serpentine than man.
They entered a tall, narrow door. The hall within was lit with a dim glow from some unseen source, and it was warm, with a curious, acid smell. And, at the other end, there were three persons, standing silent and watching Daniel’s entrance.
He stood frozen, his eyes wide. There was a queer, harsh pain in his chest that kept him from speaking at all for a moment. Then he heard his own voice, as if it came from a long way off.
“Ammi.”
It was she. She stood, as he had seen her in the lying dream, holding the child on her arm, and staring at him as if she saw only a stranger. Beside her, a tall woman stood, and smiled; a woman with red-gold hair, very beautiful, robed in green.
“I am the mistress,” she said in a clear voice.
But Daniel still stared at Ammi and the child, like a man struck by lightning.
“You are alive,” he said. Then his hands clenched and he stiffened. “Or… is this another trick?” He strode forward toward the woman; but the tall woman stepped between them.
“No,” she said quietly. He growled and thrust out his arm to sweep her aside. She smiled and struck at it lightly, and he cried out in pain.
“You may not touch the woman Ammi,” the mistress said. “She does not know you. She does not know herself.”
The mistress gestured, and the figure of Ammi turned and went out quietly; a door slammed, somewhere in the tower.
“I showed her to you, that you may know she still lives,” the mistress said. Eshtak had crouched behind Daniel and was panting in utter terror, waiting. Daniel rubbed his arm. The sting of her blow was like an electrical shock; the woman must have a weapon of some sort, he thought, coldly calculating now.
“There is no time to tell you much,” the mistress said. “Your woman came here with those men who held her prisoner, and her child was born here. Your child.”
Daniel held his calm, fiercely.
“She told me of you, and I knew then, who and what you are,” the mistress went on. “I waited, knowing you must come here, as you have. And you will do me a certain service, and yourself.”
“If that was my wife, why does she not know me?” Daniel said quietly. “Is she an illusion?”
“There is no trickery,” the mistress said. “She does not know you because of… him. The one who was lost. Once, while I was not watchful, she entered the sea, and he reached out to seize her and draw her to himself. But I came, and brought her out Yet, he holds her mind.” She looked at Daniel with strangely glowing eyes. “She cannot be free until he dies.”
Daniel looked back into those strange eyes.
“I came here to kill him,” he said in a cold voice.
“I know that,” the mistress said. “Listen, man. I… am very old. You would not know what I mean… but I am here because this one small island remains, of all that once was my world.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re speaking of the old ones?” he said. “I’ve seen pictures of them, at least what they were said to be. Reptiles. You are as human as I am.”
“Am I?” She looked at him, smiling slightly. “Never mind, man. I am the mistress, here. You saw my beasts. Those who serve me, because… I must, I m
ake as they are, beasts. They do not suffer, believe me. They become what they are, willingly.” She stared beyond Daniel, at Eshtak. “As your servant now is.”
He turned, to see Eshtak staring, his eyes empty. The man made a strange gobbling sound and turned, running to the door. He dashed through it and was gone.
“Did you do that?” Daniel whirled with bared teeth, fury in his eyes. “Free him!”
“I cannot,” she said. “It is as he desires. But when you go, take him; he will be free when he is gone from here.”
Daniel’s hand was clenched tightly over his sword hilt, and the blade was half-drawn, though he suspected she would easily strike him again as she had done once. But staring at the tall woman, he suddenly believed her words. Eshtak might be only mad with fear, too, he thought; the superstitions of his world come to life within him.
“You would wish to see your… enemy,” she said. She turned and moved toward a doorway. “Come.”
He followed, tensely aware of every shadow, watching as they went up a narrow curving stair. The tower seemed deserted. As they went up and up, the woman moved effortlessly ahead of him, seeming to flow up the endless stairway. They passed an occasional doorway, always tall and narrow as they all were. Through some of them, Daniel caught glimpses of strangely furnished rooms, bright, clean, always empty. There was an air of immense age about those rooms, in spite of the absence of any signs of time.
Daniel was wearying now; the stair seemed to go on forever. But he gritted his teeth and trudged on after the mistress.
Then they came out onto a broad circular rooftop, rimmed with a high parapet. The sky was clear blue, here. On the parapet, grotesque bronze figures stood at intervals; a bird, a reptile, a manlike shape, and others not recognizable at all. The mistress paused and looked back at Daniel.
“You are strong,” she said. He leaned against a door pillar, breathing harshly till he regained his control.
“Your tower is high,” he said, still panting a little.
She did not answer, but turned to the parapet and stood, looking out. He came across the rooftop to stand beside her.
Below, the mist seemed to move rapidly in a swirling circle with the tower at its center. It cleared and grew dense again, and cleared once more, pulsing like a gigantic living thing. And as it cleared, Daniel could see down, across a broad sheet of water, and in the distance, a shore. But the island was always hidden.
Each pulsation of the mist seemed to change the color and look of the sea. Now, as Daniel looked, he saw clear, sharp images of things on that sea and the distant shore, images that were almost too bright, as if through a distorted lens. For a moment, he caught an incredible glimpse of grey ships, iron monsters that rolled in clouds of smoke. Then he saw a Byzantine dromond, slashing across the oil-smooth water like, a great insect skating on a pond.
Beyond, on the horizon, towers seemed to rise, flicker, and vanish again, like fungi growing in the night. Flares of light eddied, out there. In the mist, he thought he saw an aircraft, low over the sea, a perfectly modern jet. It vanished almost as quickly as it came.
And odd, squat vessel skimmed by, riding atop the water, and vanished too.
Daniel looked at the woman, who regarded the mist below with a calm regard.
“My tower rises through time itself,” she told him. “I may see all the layers of time, melting one into another… the things that may be, and those things that… may have been.” She stared at him with cat eyes. “In the minds of your kind, the future changes, and the past is always fixed, while you stand always in the present. It is delusion, man. But it is the safest delusion for you.”
She leaned over the parapet and pointed. “Look, there.”
A grey shape rose in the sea and a tower of water sprayed skyward. For a moment, the mighty head rose, and even at this distance Daniel felt that the beast regarded him, and could see into his very soul. He shuddered involuntarily and gripped the parapet.
“It is he,” the woman said. “He waits for you, in the sea beyond this island.”
Daniel stared at her, for a long moment “Why?” he asked suddenly. “Why should you want this?”
“Why do you want it?” she asked.
“He must die,” Daniel said without certainty. Then, “He caused… all of it. Sooner or later, he’ll find some tool to do his work, break the wall and free him. Mankind will be…”
“Man?” The mistress laughed. “Your kind is fleeting. A few thousand years of man’s ways, and then there will be others… wiser, perhaps. As there were others before. My kind ruled for ten times the number of centuries that yours will exist. Yet, in time we… were gone away.” She smiled at him and he felt the strange chill again.
“Do you think that by slaying him you serve man?” she said softly. “Believe that, then, if you wish. Or that you do it to avenge your tribe. Or to save the earth itself from others like you, later. The earth will not die, man, no matter what you do to it. It will destroy you, if you become a disease… and live again. We discovered that, too late.”
Daniel had gained his calm again. He shrugged. “Well, then. I’ll do it to gain my wife back… or to free her mind, even if I don’t happen to survive it.” He looked at the mistress thoughtfully. “I was warned that I would… stop. Cease to exist.”
“It is true,” she said.
“But Ammi will live,” he said. “And the child.”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “I ask that you send them back to the lands of men, and my friend, Eshtak, with them. Since I will not…”
“I will do that,” the mistress said. Her eyes glowed, now, huge and strange.
“We were very many,” she said after a moment, and looked out again over the scudding mist. “I told you, I am left. He, out there, hates me, because I am… what I am, and alone. I was given this place to be my watch-tower, for a reason you may never know. Here, I have always been, and always will be. The men of your kind who come here fall within that force that preserves this place, and become like beasts, as you saw. But they only lose all that in you which makes you a man… and what is left, is not suffering.” She smiled strangely again. “You, because you are man, will always suffer. I kept the force from you; all those others are men, who came here, who will come here… always.”
She turned toward the stair, and paused, looking back at him.
“You see me as you wish to see me, man,” she said. “I am not what you see. But you will never see that form.”
She went in, and he followed again,
Daniel came to the ancient pier where the ship still lay. In his hand he carried that which he had made, hastily but well, in the groves beside the tower. The grooved iron heads had been lashed to his belt for many months, waiting for this time. He had hammered their shapes himself, the deep grooves channeled for a purpose. In each groove a brown gum was rubbed down, hard; the poison of a plant that grew beside the Salt River, far away.
He had lashed each head to a straight, heavy sapling, and these three harpoons he carried now. He came to the ship, where the Shipmaster waited for him; climbed, and dropped on the deck.
Then he saw Ammi. She carried the child still, and she came down the planks to stand and look with that terrifying blind stare, at Daniel. He could only stand and look, silently.
The child crowed and waved a small fist at him, but Ammi said nothing at all.
Then the ship moved away, and the oars dipped.
Daniel moved to the prow and leaned his harpoons against a bulwark; he stood, waiting, idly staring down at the blank-faced men who rowed. Looking, he frowned suddenly, in puzzled half-recognition. The black-bearded man, who rowed with the others, empty-eyed as they… he looked strangely like that Esmare warlord who had been left, long ago, in the pygmy village. Daniel shrugged and forgot the matter again.
And Ulff, who had been High King of Esmare, pulled his oar and stared into emptiness, where he perceived a complete peace. He wished for nothing at all as he rowed. He
had always rowed, and he was entirely happy with rowing.
The beast rose before the ship, and lay staring at Daniel. Its voice came to him, neither pleading nor threatening; it told him the final secret, speaking of who he was, and would be, and what he had been. Daniel, who stood braced in the prow with a harpoon balanced carefully in his hand, saw, and understood.
I had hoped to make you wise, the beast said.
You did, Daniel answered silently. But even so…
His arm went back and forward; the harpoon sang, propelled by all his strength. It struck the water and skidded under before the great gray bulk that floated before him.
Why don’t you run away? Daniel asked.
It is a serious problem, the beast said. I wish to live, but I am curious to discover if I can die. If I flee, I will never discover if you could be my death, and there’s no other who can.
Daniel lifted the second harpoon.
If I am indeed nothing at all but a kind of dream, Daniel said, and laughed aloud suddenly… why, whale-beast, you may be somebody’s dream, too!
The second harpoon flew, and missed.
I had never thought of that, the beast said. Why, if you are teaching me a new thing, you may be real after all!
And with incredible speed, the whale lashed the water, and hurled itself toward the tiny ship, the water lifting in a great fan from its blunt head. As it came, Daniel waited to the last moment; then, the grey mountain loomed before him, and he thrust with the last harpoon.
The wreck drifted, slowly, in the shallows near the island; planks and cordage tangled together, rocking. Three of the naked men waded, waist-deep, drawing pieces of wood to the shore and dropping them. A robed man stood, directing the work of other men, who were already at their task of building another craft.
The rowers had swum ashore, and sat or walked about idly among the trees. Their work was to row, as the Shipmaster’s work was to steer; he walked among the trees, his eyes blank.
Eshtak sat on a rotting log, weeping into his knotted fists, held to his face. He was weeping because he had fallen into the strange madness of the island, and abandoned Daniel at the last. And he was also weeping because he had discovered that he wasn’t brave enough to kill himself; he had tried, and failed.
