“The lord of this castle. A very strange creature—very terrible when his whims are thwarted. Brann is—he cares for nothing very much. He lives only for pleasure and, because he’s lived so long and exhausted so many pleasures, the devices he uses now are not very—well, not very pleasant for anyone but Brann. There was a warp in him before his birth, you see. He’s not quite—not quite of our breed.”
“He’s from the outside world? Human?” As he said it Miller knew certainly that the woman before him was not human, not as he understood the term.
But Tsi shook her head. “Oh, no. He was born here. He’s of our breed. But not of our norm. A little above in many ways, a little below in others. Your race—” there was faint distaste and pity in the thought, but she let it die there, unelaborated.
“You can’t understand yet.” she went on. “Don’t try. You see, you suffered a change when you came. You aren’t quite as you were before. Were you ever able to communicate telepathically?”
“No, of course not. But I don’t feel any different. I—”
“A blind man, given sight, wouldn’t realize it until he opened his eyes. And he might be dazzled at first. You’re at a disadvantage. I think it would be best for you to get away. Look there, across the valley.”
She lifted an arm to point. Far off across the dazzing meadows hills rose, green in the sunlight, shimmering a little in the warm, dear light. On the height of the highest a diamond glitter caught the sun.
“My sister,” Tsi said, “has that palace over there. I think Orelle would take you in, if only to thwart Brann. You aren’t safe here. For your sake, it was a pity the port of entry you reached was here in Brann’s castle.”
“There have been others, then?” Miller asked. “A man named Van Hornung—did he come here?”
SHE shook her head, the rainbow hair catching the sunlight. “Not here. There are many castles in our land and most of them live at peace within and without. But not Brann’s.”
“Then why are you here?” Miller asked bluntly.
She smiled an unhappy smile. “Most, of us came because we felt as Brann does—we did not care very much any more. We wanted to follow our pleasures, being tired of other pursuits after so many thousands of years. All except me.”
“Thousands of . . . What do you mean? Why are you here then?”
Her mouth turned down at the corners in a rueful smile.
“Well—perhaps I too was warped before birth. I can’t leave Brann now. He needs me. That doesn’t matter to you. Brann’s dangerous his heart is set on—on experiments that will need you to complete. We won’t talk about that.”
Miller said.”I came here for a purpose.”
“I know. I read part of your mind while you lay asleep. You’re hunting for a treasure. We have it Or perhaps I should say Orelle has it.” The violet eyes darkened. She hesitated.
“Perhaps I’m sending you to Orelle for a purpose,” she said. “You can do me a great service there—and yourself too. That treasure you seek is—should be partly mine. You think of it as a power-source. To me it’s a doorway into something better than any of us knows . . .
“Our father made it. long ago. Orelle has it now, though by rights she and I should share it. If you find a way to get that treasure, my friend, will you bring it to me?” Long-grooved habit-patterns in Miller’s mind made him say automatically, “And if I do?”
She smiled. “If you don’t,” she said, “Brann will have you sooner or later. If I can get it I think I can—control Brann. If I can’t—well, you will be the first sufferer. I think you know that. You’ll do well to persuade Orelle if you can. Now—I’ve made a bargain with Brann. Don’t ask me what. You may learn, later.”
“Go to Orelle, watch your chance and be wary. If you ask for the treasure you’ll never get near it. Better not to speak of it but wait and watch. No one can read your mind unless you will it, now that you’re learning telepathy, but watch too that you kit nothing slip from your thoughts to warn her.”
“You want me to take her hospitality and then rob her?”
Distress showed in Tsi’s face. “Oh, no! I ask only what’s mine, and even that only for long enough to control Brann. Then you may return the treasure to Orelle or strike a bargain with her over it. Five minutes with that in my hands is all I ask! Now here is something I’ve made for you out of your own possession. Hold out your wrist.”
Staring, he obeyed. She unclosed her hand to show him his wristwatch in her palm. Smiling, she buckled the strap around his arm. “It isn’t quite as it was. I changed it. If you need me concentrate on this and speak to me in your mind. I’ll hear.”
There were countless questions still unasked. Miller took a deep breath and began to formulate them in his mind. And then—Tsi vanished! The earth was gone from underfoot and he spun through golden emptiness, dropping, falling. The water-wall hung beneath him. He floated in midair a hundred feet above the crag-bordered stream at the cliff’s bottom!
Panic struck him. Then Tsi’s reassuring thought said, “You are safe. This is teleportation.”
He scarcely heard. An age-old instinctive fear chilled his middle. For a million years men have been afraid of falling. He could not now control that fear.
Slowly he began to drop. He lost sight of Tsi and the golden trees and then of the water-wall.
Under him the stream broadened.
He sank down at an angle—and felt solid ground beneath his feet.
There was silence except for the whispering murmur of the stream.
CHAPTER III
The World That Couldn’t Be
MILLER sat down on a rock and held his head in his hands. His thoughts were swimming. Cold, fresh air blew against his cheeks and he raised his face to meet that satisfying chill. It seemed to rouse him. He began to realize that he had been half asleep during the interview with Tsi, as though the mists of his slumber had still blanketed his senses. Otherwise Ire would scarcely have accepted this miraculous business.
Or was there another reason?
He felt a desperate impulse to see Tsi again. She could answer his questions, if she would. And she had been the first friendly face he had seen in this terribly strange land.
He looked up and willed himself to rise.
Impossible, of course. My own bootstraps, he thought, with a wild sort of amusement. Were his feet pressing less heavily on the rock beneath him?
And then, from above, came a high, thin laughter that was not truly audible—Brann!
Even before the mental voice came, that malicious, slow thought sent its familiar radiations before it. Something as recognizable as sound or color—more so!—fell down the cliff and crept coldly into Miller’s brain. He knew that unheard voice.
“You had better not come up,” it said.
Miller stood motionless, waiting. Instinctively he had fallen into the fighter’s crouch. But how useless ordinary precautions would be against this super-being!
He tried to close his mind.
“Go to Orelle, then,” it said. “I’ve made my bargain with Tsi and I’ll keep it. But she’s a fool. She always tries to close her mind to unpleasant things. She’ll never really admit we’re at war with her sister. As long as she doesn’t name it war, she thinks it’s something else.”
Again the high laughter.
“Go to Orelle.” Brann said. “I’m winning too easily. Perhaps they can use another fighter. Then they may be able to give me more of a battle. Though, if I chose, I could crush you with a thought—turn the air itself into a weight that would flatten you in an instant. But Orelle may think of a use for you. I can’t, except to divert myself with your reactions to certain experiments.”
The unheard voice grew carelessly casual.
“Too easy a victory Ls no victory at all. Go away.”
Anger stirred in Miller at that calm assumption of superiority. Brann was thoroughly justified, of course, yet no man likes to be discounted utterly. With all his power Miller willed him
self to rise, to float upward as easily as he had floated down—and this time be was certain that his feet lost contact with the earth.
Then a weight like a great stone crushed down on him. Only for an instant did that frightful, unbearable pressure continue, while the veins swelled on Miller’s forehead and he heard his breath coming in deep, rasping gasps as he tried to resist the onslaught.
He went to his knees—down till he lay on his back, prostrate, helpless beneath that furious assault of the air itself. A screaming river of wind thundered down and the thin bushes in the gorge stirred and small landslides began as the air-river rushed in hurricane force from above.
Brann laughed idly again and obviously lost interest. The pressure vanished. Sweating, breathing hard. Miller struggled to his feet. He did not try teleportation again. For a moment he stared up at the cliff-rim. Then he turned and began to walk up the gorge in the direction of Orelle’s palace. His mouth was thin and his eyes held an angry glow.
So Brann was winning too easily. Well—perhaps something could be done about that!
Far off across the glimmering valley a green hillside rolled high against the sky. The diamond twinkle that was the castle he must reach grew larger as he walked—grew larger with abnormal speed. Miller looked down and was surprised to find that measured by the pebbles and the flowers underfoot he was taking increasingly long steps.
Seven-league boots, he thought, as he found himself striding like a giant through the softness of the grass. The earth slid by beneath his feet with dream-like fluidity. Now the diamond glitter of Orelle’s palace was dividing into hundreds of tinier glitters and he saw the walls of pale-colored glass rising fantastically upon the green height of the grass-clad mountain. A palace of glass—or ice.
“Ice,” he thought suddenly. “Ice and snow and rocks. That’s all there is here. This is a dream. There’s no such world—there couldn’t be.”
And then reason, stirring in his mind, argued, “Why not? How do we know the limits of possibility? Out of the few simple building blocks of the universe—out of neutrons, protons, electrons—everything we know is made. How much else may there be we can’t even perceive—unless transmutation takes place and the structure of a man’s nuclear patterns change to let him see . . .
“After all, you aren’t the first There was Van Hornung and who knows how many before him? There was Tannhauser in the magical mountain of Venusburg—there was Thomas the Rhymer under the hill in fairyland. Paradise itself sounds like a distorted tale of just such a land as this. Legend remembers You aren’t in any new world. You’re only exploring a very old one and—”
WITHOUT warning the world dropped away under his feet and all logical progression of thoughts ceased abruptly. The sky was beneath him now and the shining world whirling dizzily over and over around him. But something firmer than gravity clasped him close so that there was no vertigo, even though the earth had forsaken him. Green translucence cradled him. There was a sensation of great speed, and then—Glass walls flashed past, spun, righted themselves gently. A solid pavement fitted itself against his soles and leveled off to the horizontal. He stood in a small, high room whose walls were row upon row of lenses, like bull’s-eye panes, all looking down upon him with—eyes? Black mechanical pupils that moved whenever he moved, following him as he walked toward the nearest wall. For an instant he felt stripped and naked under that multiple scrutiny.
Then a telepathic voice said. “You come from Brann?”
Miller looked around wildly. He was alone. Almost automatically he said, “No!” aloud, so that the air shivered to the harsh sound. He wasn’t sure why he denied it. Brann had spoken of war.
“Don’t he.” the voice said coldly. “I can see the dust of Brann’s mountain on you. Do you think we can’t identify a simple thing like dust from a given mountain? It streams off you like purple light in the fluorescent. You come from Brann. Are you a spy?”
“Tsi sent me.” Miller said. “Take me to Orelle.”
“Orelle speaks,” the telepathic voice told him without emotion. “My sister loves me—but Tsi is no woman to trust. No one on Brann’s mountain is worth trusting or he wouldn’t be with Brann at all. What Tsi finds distasteful she denies existence. What do you want here?”
Miller hesitated, glancing around the walls at the impassive, watching eyes of the—machines? Power, he wanted to say. Give me that power-source and I’ll go But he was silent, remembering Tsi’s warning.
How much of it he could believe he didn’t know now but it was second nature for him to keep his own counsel until he was sure enough to act. Orelle could not read his mind. Tsi had confessed that would be impossible once he began to master telepathic communication. He would be safe enough as long as he could give the right answers.
“I’m from the outside,” he offered hesitantly, thinking that hesitation and uncertainty might be his best defense until he learned more about this place. Exaggerate them, play up even more than was really genuine his bewilderment and confusion. “I—Tsi said you’d help me get oriented here.”
The disembodied voice was silent for a brief, considering moment. Then it said, “I think you lie. However—are you willing to accept our search? Only after you’ve been proved weaponless can we admit you here.”
What could he say but yes? For an instant he remembered the watch Tsi had strapped to his wrist and what she had said of it. But it was for communication only—she had said—and surely she knew that a routine search would probably be made. She wouldn’t have branded him with something that would give him away to the first inspection. Or would she? What he had heard of Tsi did little to increase his confidence in her. Still . . .
“Search if you like,” he said.
The room went dark. Miller, blinking in the sudden blindness, felt something like the vertigo he had not suffered in flight seize him relentlessly now he was on solid flooring. The air spun around him in a shrill diminishing vortex and it seemed to him limitless gulfs were opening underfoot and sucking him down, tight, tight, into a crushing spiral of darkness . . .
Out of the dark lights suddenly sprang into being, cold, blue lights that struck him like cold water—struck and penetrated. Looking down, he was aghast to see his own blood coursing red through transparent veins, to set his bones stand out cleanly white in their Lacings of muscle, moving startlingly when he bent to stare.
The lights went out again. The darkness ceased to whirl. And then for one instant he felt all through his body an indescribable shifting, a terrible motion of inconceivable multiplicity. And in that flash of the instant he was changed.
The atoms went back into their normal pattern. That unstable isotope which was himself shed its changed form and he was as he had always been, solid, human, normal.
It was a hideous feeling. Until that moment he had not realized how much he had changed already, what nascent, nameless senses had begun to open up in him, pushing back horizons upon glories beyond glories. It was like deafness and blindness suddenly closing in about a normal man. It was worse—it was like having all the properties of death itself imposed upon the living. Miller held his breath, closed his eyes.
He felt the shift again as the isotope form renewed itself within him. The shifting stirred in the unthinkable myriads of the nuclei that formed him. He was whole again.
Once more the vortex whirled and roared in darkness. Then the dark lifted and he was standing beside a bank of thick yellow flowers under an arched vault of glass. The floor was tiled in brilliant colors, resilient to the foot. The flowery bank rising from it might be real earth and flowers or it might be a skillful imitation. For it was also a divan.
Orelle lay upon it, smiling at him. He knew it was Orelle. He was aware, though he could not have explained how. of the telepathic emanation from her mind to his, individual as the pattern of the brain. She was beautiful—as everyone in this world seemed beautiful.
HE SAW something of Tsi’s features in MM hers but she was not dressed with the ext
ravagance her sister affected. She was very slender, and her graceful body was sheathed tightly in something like clear satin that covered her to the wrists and ankles and flowed in long smooth lines over the flowers she lay on. She was pulling them idly and twirling the blossoms between her fingers.
“Well, you are welcome,” she said, almost reluctantly, eyeing Miller with a smile that had wryness in it. “We found no weapons, though we searched you clown to the very structure of the protons. To tell you the truth, we have no reason to trust you.
“But Tsi must have had some reason for sending you here and I think we’re safer coping with her schemes at first hand than goading her on to try something more subtle still. Be sure you’re watched, my friend. Be careful what you do.”
Miller said wryly, “I’m not likely to do anything. From what I’ve seen of this place, I feel helpless. Do you all have the same powers as Tsi? How many of you are there? And what—”
Orelle shrugged. “We’re not used to hurry. Of course we have all the time we need. Your race doesn’t—even here. I can see your curiosity. And I’ll satisfy it, too. Yes. everyone here has the same powers, though naturally some are stronger than others. There is the telepathic factor, and—other things.”
“Bred into your race? But what about me? I’m not your kind.”
She said slowly. “A million years ago your ancestors were, though. Since then your people have gone down. It took eons to reach the peak when Atlantis and Mu were great cultures, and it will take eons more for your race to regain what they have lost. Only here, on this secret mountain, have we retained the strength of the old civilizations.” Miller said. “But what happened?”
“Oh. the usual thing. Men took weapons they weren’t ready to use. In that time—try to understand this—the atomic structure of the world itself was different. You know that? That the atom can change—”
“I do indeed,” Miller told her grimly. “If electrons change, or if the nucleus changes, the structure changes too.”
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