by Mike Ashley
Deborah’s face contorted into a look of pain and horror, and then shifted to a look of wild fear, and all the while her eyes were closed, her body was motionless, her breathing was even and shallow, and she was silent.
“Let me,” said Stryk, and he took the child and brought her over to the couch and lay her down. He examined her face closely for a minute, holding a finger to her throat to check her pulse and raising an eyelid to stare at an eye that refused to stare back. Then he lifted his head. “Melisa,” he called. “I think this is a task for you.”
The waif knelt by the couch, placing one hand on Deborah’s forehead and the other on her knee, and closed her eyes. For a minute or so they were both motionless, although it seemed, I cannot say how, that some sort of energy seemed to be flowing from Melisa to the little girl. And then, so gradually that we thought it an illusion at first, Deborah began to rise above the couch, until she was floating perhaps a foot and a half in the air. She remained so for some seconds, and then dropped back to the couch.
Melisa stood up, visibly drained. “She is sleeping,” she said. “She will wake up in an hour or so.”
Jonathan Stryk turned to the senator and his wife. “I would suggest that Melisa stay with the child for at least a week or so,” he said. “She will need psychic guidance and care to recover from her ordeal.”
“Is this some sort of ploy to get a bigger fee?” Langford demanded harshly. “I can’t see that you have been of much use here; you couldn’t even understand the kidnappers’ magic.”
“Don’t take your anger out on me,” Stryk said mildly. “There has been little magic here. There was a spell cast on little Deborah back in Chicago to remove her Ka – her soul, if you will – and cast it into some nether world of demons and wraiths; probably the only nether world of which the warlock who did this knew. She has been residing there for the past days, and it was not a pleasant place to be. If Melisa, who is the strongest empath I know, had not been here to bring her out of the spell right away, her mind might have been lost in this labyrinth of horror for good.”
“Why would anyone do such a thing?” I asked.
“To prevent us from determining the girl’s location by skrying or spell-casting. And they must have had a strong reason for doing so, since such determinings are tenuous at best.”
“What do you mean, no magic?” Langford asked. “Why, we saw with our own eyes-”
“What you were meant to see,” Stryk told him. “A trunk full of money when there was no money – or precious little – and a girl appearing in a puff of smoke when she was actually there all the time.”
Langford looked at him with obvious disbelief. “Explain yourself,” he said.
Stryk looked around the room. “Sit down,” he said in a voice that commanded attention. “All of you. I’ll tell you just what happened – and why.”
Chief Godfrey dropped into his chair. Several of those in the room without nearby chairs settled cross-legged on the floor.
“This was carefully thought out,” Stryk said, adopting his “I am the teacher” mode, with appropriate gestures. “There were at least three people involved – maybe more. First the girl was kidnapped – on her way home from school, I believe?” he looked questioningly over at Mrs Langford, who nodded agreement.
“Then a competent, but thoroughly heartless and unprincipled warlock put a spell on her, sending her Ka into some sort of limbo. This was done both to keep her body unconscious and to prevent a forensic sorcerer – me – from being able to follow her movements, even in a broad, general fashion.”
“Why?” Senator Langford asked.
“For the best of reasons,” Stryk told him. “So that you wouldn’t know that she was being moved from Chicago to San Francisco. It happened two days ago, and she was moved in that very trunk,” he continued, pointing dramatically at the offending piece of luggage.
“The person who brought the trunk, a man named Lundt, put it in the check room of this hotel, with Deborah unconscious inside, and went up to his room on the third floor, where he was promptly murdered.”
Chief Godfrey leaned back in his chair and stared intently at Stryk. He wasn’t convinced yet; but he wanted to be. “How?” he asked. “And why?”
Stryk nodded. “A slight digression,” he said, “to explain an impossible crime.” Was it a trick of the light, or did his eyes seem to glow slightly as he glanced around the room?
“As to why I can only guess,” Stryk said. “Perhaps, after he brought the trunk in, the plotters had no further need for him. Perhaps he didn’t know the real plan, and they were afraid he’d talk when he found out. As to how, it was not magic, although it was made to look like an ‘impossible crime’ so that we’d think that it was – part of the misdirection to get us to accept magic as the explanation for what was to come.”
“If it wasn’t magic—” Chief Godfrey began.
“He was shot from within the opened suitcase on the bed,” Stryk said. “Probably by a mechanical gun set to go off when he opened it.”
“Then what happened to the gun?”
Stryk pointed a long finger at Pierson, the hotel manager. “He took it,” he said.
Pierson jumped to his feet. “Excuse me?” he yelped.
“The inside of the suitcase was singed to make us think of teleportation,” Stryk said. “But it was singed beforehand – the residue was jumbled, showing the case has been moved. Therefore the weapon was removed by hand – human hand – and the only hand in the room after the killing, by your own admission, was yours.”
“That’s nonsense,” Pierson barked. “Nonsense, nonsense! I protest!”
The protest was because two of the plainclothes cops had come up behind Pierson and shoved him back down in his seat.
“Now,” said Stryk, “back to the story of the trunk. At some point this trunk was substituted for the trunk full of money. A thin layer of bills was put on a paper frame at the top, the bills and the frame having been soaked in a liquid that would cause them to burn up almost instantly when a flame was applied. Some more singeing was put around the trunk to enhance the ‘cold fire of teleportation’ effect, which our minds would already be primed for by the singed suitcase in the murdered man’s room.”
“Why such an elaborate scheme?” asked Chief Godfrey.
“Misdirection,” Stryk told him. “If you think of magic, you won’t think of a simple, non-magical substitution. That’s also why I was involved.”
“But I, ah, involved you myself,” Senator Langford said.
“Did you?” Stryk asked. “At whose suggestion?”
“Um, well; Fenster, it was you, wasn’t it? You told me about this article you had read . . .”
“I don’t think so, boss,” Fenster said.
“Ah but it was,” said Stryk. “Would it interest you to know, Senator, that the article he read claims that I’m a charlatan and a fraud? Just what they needed for their scheme; an incompetent forensic sorcerer who would be awed by the supposed presence of powers far greater than his own.”
Senator Langford stared at his legislative aide, and Fenster looked away. “How was it done?” Langford asked. “The switch, I mean.”
“I’m not sure,” said Stryk, “but the perfect time would have been when your luggage was downloaded in front of the hotel and put in that high-sided luggage cart.”
“Yes!” Mrs. Langford said. “I remember. Fenster helped unload the luggage, and I wondered about it. I’ve never seen him go out of his way to lift anything before.”
“Fenster and Pierson,” Chief Godfrey said. “A perfect pair of scoundrels”
“I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt the girl,” Pierson whined.
“No,” Stryk agreed. “You needed her alive to work the scheme. Can’t have a phoney transference rite without having someone to transfer. But you didn’t care much what shape she was in.”
Fenster suddenly made a leap for the door. Stryk produced a wand from his sleeve and snapped it like a
whip, and Fenster was suddenly frozen in mid-air.
“Grab him,” Stryk said.
Two burly cops took hold of the frozen Fenster, and Stryk waved his wand again. Fenster slumped into the arms of the law.
“Charlatan, am I?” Stryk muttered. He turned to Chief Godfrey. “That trunk with the two million in it is somewhere in this hotel. I’d suggest that you put some men on to finding it, before someone stumbles on it by accident.”
“Good idea,” the chief said.
“Shall we go now?” Stryk asked Melisa.
“I’ll stay with the girl for a while,” Melisa told him. “Just to be sure she wakes up without fear.”
“Good idea,” said Stryk.
Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock (b. 1939) is one of the true grand masters of fantasy. Since the 1960s he has created an incredible body of work, remarkable as much for its ingenuity and creativity as for its sheer volume. Although for a period Moorcock was producing something like a book a month, his storytelling power was such that the books lost none of their quality. In the fantasy field he is best known for his huge cycle of books about the Eternal Champion, which began in the early sixties with his stories about the albino sorcerer Elric of Melniboné but has since grown to include just about all of Moorcock’s fascinating characters such as Corum, Dorian Hawkmoon and even that wildly unpredictable Jerry Cornelius. Even the following story, which was originally a one-off way back in 1964, was subsequently woven in to the eternal tapestry. Yet it’s still a story not many may know, so I’m more than happy to resurrect one further reflection of the Eternal Champion, Earl Aubec of Malador.
FROM THE GLASSLESS WINDOW of the stone tower it was possible to see the wide river winding off between loose, brown banks, through the heaped terrain of solid green copses which blended very gradually into the mass of the forest proper. And from out of the forest, the cliff rose, grey and light green, up and up, the rock darkening, lichen-covered, to merge with the lower, and even more massive, stones of the castle. It was the castle which dominated the countryside in three directions, drawing the eye from river, rock or forest. Its walls were high and of thick granite, with towers; a dense field of towers, grouped so as to shadow one another.
Aubec of Malador marvelled and wondered how human builders could ever have constructed it, save by sorcery. Brooding and mysterious, the castle seemed to have a defiant air, for it stood on the very edge of the world.
At this moment the lowering sky cast a strange, deep yellow light against the western sides of the towers, intensifying the blackness untouched by it. Huge billows of blue sky rent the general racing greyness above, and mounds of red cloud crept through to blend and produce more and subtler colorings. Yet, though the sky was impressive, it could not take the gaze away from the ponderous series of man-made crags that were Castle Kaneloon.
Earl Aubec of Malador did not turn from the window until it was completely dark outside; forest, cliff and castle but shadowy tones against the overall blackness. He passed a heavy, knotted hand over his almost bald scalp and thoughtfully went towards the heap of straw which was his intended bed.
The straw was piled in a niche created by a buttress and the outer wall and the room was well-lighted by Malador’s lantern. But the air was cold as he lay down on the straw with his hand close to the two-handed broad-sword of prodigious size. This was his only weapon. It looked as if it had been forged for a giant – Malador was virtually that himself – with its wide cross-piece and heavy, stone-encrusted hilt and five-foot blade, smooth and broad. Beside it was Malador’s old, heavy armor, the casque balanced on top with its somewhat tattered black plumes waving slightly in a current of air from the window.
Malador slept.
His dreams, as usual, were turbulent; of mighty armies surging across blazing landscapes, curling banners bearing the blazons of a hundred nations, forests of shining lance-tips, seas of tossing helmets, the brave, wild blasts of the warhorns, the clatter of hooves and the songs and cries and shouts of soldiers. These were dreams of earlier times, of his youth when, for Queen Eloarde of Lormyr, he had conquered all the Southern nations – almost to the edge of the world. Only Kaneloon, on the very edge, had he not conquered and this because no army would follow him there.
For one of so martial an appearance, these dreams were surprisingly unwelcome, and Malador woke several times that night, shaking his head in an attempt to rid himself of them.
He would rather have dreamed of Eloarde, though she was the cause of his restlessness, but he saw nothing of her in his sleep; nothing of her soft, black hair that billowed around her pale face, nothing of her green eyes and red lips and her proud, disdainful posture. Eloarde had assigned him to this quest and he had not gone willingly, though he had no choice, for as well as his mistress she was also his Queen. The Queen’s Champion was traditionally her lover – and it was unthinkable to Earl Aubec that any other condition should exist. It was his place, as Champion of Lormyr, to obey and go forth from her palace to seek Castle Kaneloon alone and conquer it and declare it part of her Empire, so that it could be said Queen Eloarde’s domain stretched from the Dragon Sea to World’s Edge.
Nothing lay beyond World’s Edge – nothing save the swirling stuff of unformed Chaos which stretched away from the Cliffs of Kaneloon for eternity, roiling and broiling, multicolored, full of monstrous half-shapes – for Earth alone was Lawful and constituted of ordered matter, drifting in the sea of Chaos-stuff as it had done for aeons.
In the morning, Earl Aubec of Malador extinguished the lantern which he had allowed to remain alight, drew greaves and hauberk on to him, placed his black-plumed helm upon his head, put his broadsword over his shoulder and sallied out of the stone tower which was all that remained whole of some ancient edifice.
His leathern-shod feet stumbled over stones that seemed partially dissolved, as if Chaos had once lapped here instead of against the towering Cliffs of Kaneloon. That, of course, was quite impossible, since Earth’s boundaries were known to be constant.
Castle Kaneloon had seemed closer the night before and that, he now realized, was because it was so huge. He followed the river, his feet sinking in the loamy soil, the great branches of the trees shading him from the increasingly hot sun as he made his way towards the cliffs. Kaneloon was now out of sight, high above him. Every so often he used his sword as an axe to clear his way through the places where the foliage was particularly thick.
He rested several times, drinking the cold water of the river and mopping his face and head. He was unhurried, he had no wish to visit Kaneloon, he resented the interruption to his life with Eloarde which he thought he had earned. Also, he too had a superstitious dread of the mysterious castle, which was said to be inhabited only by one human occupant – the Dark Lady, a sorceress without mercy who commanded a legion of demons and other Chaos-creatures.
He reached the cliffs at midday and regarded the path leading upwards with a mixture of wariness and relief. He had expected to have to scale the cliffs. He was not one, however, to take a difficult route where an easy one presented itself, so he looped a cord around his sword and slung it over his back, since it was too long and cumbersome to carry at his side. Then, still in bad humor, he began to climb the twisting path.
The lichen-covered rocks were evidently ancient, contrary to the speculations of certain Lormyrian philosophers who asked why Kaneloon had only been heard of a few generations since. Malador believed in the general answer to this question – that explorers had never ventured this far until fairly recently. He glanced back down the path and saw the tops of the trees below him, their foliage moving slightly in the breeze. The tower in which he’d spent the night was just visible in the distance and beyond that, he knew, there was no civilization, no outpost of Man for many days’ journey North, East or West – can Chaos lay to the South. He had never been so close to the edge of the world before and wondered how the sight of unformed matter would affect his brain.
At length
he clambered to the top of the cliff and stood, arms akimbo, staring up at Castle Kaneloon which soared a mile away, its highest towers hidden in the clouds, its immense walls rooted on the rock and stretching away, limited on both sides only by the edge of the cliff. And, on the other side of the cliff, Malador watched the churning, leaping Chaos-substance, predominantly grey, blue, brown and yellow at this moment, though its colors changed constantly, spew like the sea-spray a few feet from the castle.
He became filled with a feeling of such indescribable profundity that he could only remain in this position for a long while, completely overwhelmed by a sense of his own insignificance. It came to him, eventually, that if anyone did dwell in the Castle Kaneloon, then they must have a robust mind or else must be insane, and then he sighed and strode on towards his goal, noting that the ground was perfectly flat, without blemish, green, obsidian and reflecting imperfectly the dancing Chaos-stuff from which he averted his eyes as much as he could.
Kaneloon had many entrances, all dark and unwelcoming, and had they all not been of regular size and shape they might have been so many cave-mouths.
Malador paused before choosing which to take, and then walked with outward purposefulness towards one. He went into blackness which appeared to stretch away forever. It was cold; it was empty and he was alone.
He was soon lost. His footsteps made no echo, which was unexpected; then the blackness began to give way to a series of angular outlines, like the walls of a twisting corridor – walls which did not reach the unsensed roof, but ended several yards above his head. It was a labyrinth, a maze. He paused and looked back and saw with horror that the maze wound off in many directions though he was sure he had followed a straight path from the outside.
For an instant, his mind became diffused and madness threatened to engulf him, but he battened it down, unslung his sword, shivering. Which way? He pressed on, unable to tell, now, whether he went forward or backward.
The madness lurking in the depths of his brain filtered out and became fear and, immediately following the sensation of fear, came the shapes. Swift-moving shapes, darting from several different directions, gibbering, fiendish, utterly horrible.
