Once again we were shown into M. Greenleaf’s room. Once again we found the harpist sitting at his bedside. Neither seemed to have been talking, but today they basked side by side in bright sunshine that poured through the unshaded window panes, gleaming not only on the people, but also on the polished leaves of as many potted plants, surely, as hospital guidelines allowed.
In the midst of all this greenery, both faces wore a similar ... passiveness of expression, I shall call it. Yet—you may call it fancy—Angela and I could sense a faint undertow of tension radiating out from them.
Once again, the musician stood as we entered. This time she proposed guiding Angela to the hospital restaurant for afternoon refreshment. M. Rampal, you must understand, has a sort of Venus-Flytrap theory of personal alimentation which permits her to partake of ordinary food and drink in an ordinary humanesque manner. Although on this particular occasion she was no doubt merely making an excuse to leave M. Greenleaf and me alone together.
The women having exeunted, I approached his bed.
“And you,” he said, gazing at me with those clear blue orbs, “must be Corwin.”
I have been told that I look affronted when first-named by casual acquaintances, and I suppose that he read the involuntary expression in my face, for he quickly added, in accordance with modern etiquette,
“Or should I call you M. Poe?”
“In consideration of the fact that I have never spoken with you until today,” I replied, “nor set eyes on you until yesterday, I believe that emming might be preferable. In light of the same considerations, I think that I may perhaps demand to know why my name appears on your Emergency card.”
“Chiefly,” said he, “because they will not let a person buy travel tickets without an Emergency card listing somebody’s name. I did not plan on having to use it, and if you do not wish to assist me, you may go as freely as you came.”
Apologizing for my effrontery, which I probably would not have dared offer him had he not been supine in a hospital bed, I persisted: “But why my name? Was it randomly chosen, or—”
“Some mutual acquaintances mentioned your name to me, Cor—M. Poe.”
“Did they?” said I, considering whether to ask why he had not listed their names instead of mine. “May I inquire who?”
His green brows contracting slightly as though to signal that the brain behind and above them was reaching a decision, he asked in a low voice, “Do the names Thorn and Frostflower mean anything to you?”
“May I sit?” said I.
“I should guess that you certainly can,” said he. “There is a choice of empty chairs, and I have no command over you in the matter.”
The thought crossed my mental turmoil that so nice a grasp of an all but antiquated distinction between the verbs “can” and “may” hinted at considerable study of our language from grammars as elderly as those I favor myself. And yet any connection of such linguistic niceties with the personal world suggested by his appearance was far from obvious.
Forcing myself to choose the chair M. Rampal had vacated, I sat and said, “M. Frostflower and her…dare I say, rather rambunctious friend ... were characters in a dream I had about a decade and a half ago, when I was a callow young university undergraduate. But how did you know of them? You don’t—Good heavens! You don’t mean to imply that a pair of dream characters belong to our mutual acquaintance?”
“A decade and a half,” said he, “would be approximately one fifth of your expected natural lifespan. Do you often remember mere dreams for that span of time?”
“No. Rather less than I remember the episodes of waking life. And it may have been more than a decade and a half. But as certain actual events etch themselves vividly into the working memory, so does the occasional extraordinarily remarkable dream. My dream of Frostflower was one such phantasm, and I penned a memorandum of it almost at once.” As my dearest Angela knows, I had also tried my pencil, more than once, at a portrait of the gentle sorceress of my dream.
“It was no dream,” said M. Greenleaf. “They were real, and the Circle that permitted them to travel from one dimension to another was real. They visited your world, met you—as a callow university student—then met me later in their travels. Actually, I used one of the coins you gave Thorn to open a portal from my world to yours.”
“Are they well?”
“When they visited me and when they left me.”
“And…the dog?” I asked. “Did they still have him with them?”
“Dowl? Yes.” M. Greenleaf smiled. “He was in good health, too.”
It was as well that I had always believed the pale, lovely sorceress a mere dream, or I would have regarded her as the Lost Love of my life; at the time I met her, Angela and I had still been more like sister and brother: friends from childhood, little else. To be sure, it was less ardor than goddess-worship with which I had always thought of Frostflower, whose purity seemed to me almost as unapproachable as that of the Blessed Virgin; and the adventures we had shared, with Thorn and Dowl companioning us, had been innocent as a story for young children. Nevertheless ... “And does she ...” I asked ... “That is, has M. Frostflower still got about her the bit of jewelry I gave her?” (And which I had always subsequently believed to have been mysteriously lost in mere coincidence.)
“The onyx?” Greenleaf nodded. “She wore it several times during their visit with me. Never when there might have been danger of losing it.”
I believe that I sighed, and it was probably about then that I took out my spectacles case, though only to begin tapping it meditatively on one forefinger. I will not say I was quite ready to believe him; but even supposing some perfectly commonsensical explanation for his acquaintance with characters and details from an old dream of mine which I had not yet shared with anyone outside my own intimate circles, common courtesy—in which I feared I had lately been all too deficient—would have guideruled me to play along with his perceptions.
“Let us see, then, where we are,” said I. “The old theory of a multiversity of multiple dimensions or universes somehow coexisting like the layered faerylands of ancient mythologies is entirely true. You hail from one of these parallel worlds, having come here by means of an artifact—a minted coin—presented by me some years ago, in humble recognition of lifesaving services rendered, to a visitor from—presumably—yet another alternate dimension. I assume that you are either a notable scientist or a mighty wizard—”
“In my own world,” he replied. “While in yours, I am simply a student. Your world is strictly scientific. Magic does not work here.”
“Then how could either you or M. Frostflower come here? Or leave again?”
“By the magic of our worlds taking a temporary toehold in yours, thanks to our own efforts on the magic-world side.”
“I see,” said I.
He raised the green brow on the unbandaged side of his face. “Do you?”
“As well, at any rate, as I comprehend Trinitarian theology. Although I beg to reserve judgment,” I added, “on the question of whether or not our world holds any magic. But granting that it doesn’t, what can possibly interest you here?”
“Everything that has interested your own scientists for centuries. In my own world I am as much botanist as sorcerer, but I seek all kinds of knowledge. Merely for the seeking and learning. I am not content to know that my magic works—I want to know why it works. Only a scientific universe can teach me with any certainty. And—perhaps—to leave your world a better place than when I found it.”
“I see no reason you should not do that,” I assured him. “And what have you learned?”
“Fascinating secrets like gene-splicing. Scientific, not magical.”
How he had learned such secrets was a story in itself. I can well imagine the feelings of the children’s librarian upon M. Greenleaf’s initial apparition in her domain: a grown gentleman—t
wo meters and more of mature adult—wearing full wizardly costume and green hair, fumbling about among the print picture books and puzzling over the simple directions on the covers of the codex readers.
After she had apparently satisfied herself that he was both functionally sane and reasonably intelligent despite his unaccountable lack of acquaintance with the commonest types of micro-readers (as well as his total computer illiteracy), she had shown him how to instaprint, so to speak, the pages of a blank-leaved volume by inserting any desired microchip in the spine or cover, and the moment he proved himself a ready pupil at that, attempted to steer him to the adult wing.
His reply: “Books for adults often assume too much knowledge on the part of the reader. I prefer to do my preliminary research here.”
And there he had planted himself every day for a week. Quite a picture he must have made, half reclining on a childsized couch in a secluded but sunny nook of the children’s reading room, quietly poring over juvenile texts on botany, history, science, etiquette, and suchlike fields, his fine walking stick with its gold knob leaning against his knee and assisting, no doubt, by its simple, inactive presence, to keep any mischievously-inclined youngsters at a silent and respectful distance. When, at the end of that week, he had announced himself ready for graduation to the adult wing, the children’s librarian had looked almost wistful.
All this, however, he was to describe to me only later. That first afternoon, my immediate reply to his remark about such secrets as gene-splicing was:
“Well, all this about your point of origin would help to explain both the color of your hair and the presence within your jaws of the buds of a third set of teeth.”
“Seventy-fifth set,” said he.
“Sev-en-ty-fifth?”
“An immortal would need that capacity. When teeth wear out or break, they cannot heal themselves. They must be replaced. This will be my seventy-fifth set of teeth.”
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “You may call me Corwin—or anything else, within reason—that you like.”
“Simply because of my venerable age?” he asked with an odd quirk of a smile.
“But you spoke just now,” I said, “unless I misunderstood, of my freedom to refuse you assistance, thus implying that you might need some. In what way could I conceivably assist you?”
“I also told you that magic doesn’t work in your world. I can earn enough by natural means to pay for my ordinary living expenses, but not for your world’s kind of hospital bills.”
“But you can rest easy on that score,” I tried to reassure him. “M. Rampal—”
“Ariella!” he cried. “I can’t let her pay! She already thinks—Oh, what a dutschfang mess!”
He told me, then, from his vantage, the history I shall brashly attempt to recreate more or less from both their points of view.
* * * *
She was at that time putting together her Etheric Strings, the harp ensemble that has since toured the world several times with such resounding success; while he, studying by day in his chosen obscurity, by night earned his spartan keep by harping at a small coffee-house.
It had seemed the ideal paid employment for him. Catering primarily to fantasy perceivers (and with a menu priced accordingly), it comprised a semi-underground chamber replete with nooks, alcoves, and miniature vaults, some scaled to a single occupant, others large enough for parties of two to four. One booth could hold eight, but on the whole smaller and quieter groups were encouraged. All these mock caverns being molded of smooth white marbleplas and illuminated but faintly with electric candles, the place was admirably fashioned to become any sort of cave, tavern, or expresso den for fanciers of personal worlds as diverse as those of Tolkien, the Upper Paleolithic, last century’s Beatnik era, et cetera.
From a dais near the half-concealed back doorway, the musician or musicians sent out, via a system of acoustics and unobtrusive microphones, a low enough decibel level of background music to entertain without obtruding on any conversation.
The management’s general policy was to vary the style of music: baroque one evening, hip the next, folk-ballad the next, and so on; but so effective and so popular—on the small scale of the establishment’s regular clientele—did Zim Greenleaf’s harping grow that in a very short time he had gone from playing two hours every third evening to three hours every other evening: a heavier schedule he himself refused. His instrument—the harp that, thanks to a parallel development brought about by the operation of virtually identical laws of the physics of sound production in both worlds—was a highly polished and gorgeously decorated creation of his world’s analogue to maplewood, strung with shining, brasslike strings, their tuning just sufficiently different from that of our own musical tradition to impart a strange, elusive, achingly beautiful quality to its melodies.
From night to night, the number of customers who sought those tables nearest the dais and listened in almost perfect silence had been increasing, the conversational hum from the farthest alcoves decreasing; but it was all one to him whether anyone heard him or not. His sole concerns were to play and be paid for it. Absorbed in his music, he was never aware of her that evening until, having played his first hour and arrived at the moment to begin his first rest interval, he unclosed his eyelids and found her standing before the dais.
It was a sufficiently low stage that, as he sat and she stood, their eyes were nearly on a level.
The immediate impression of each of these two on first beholding the other was of a matching version in the complementary gender. She was considerably shorter than he and less attenuate in her slenderness; her face was rounder and daintier of feature; her unbound hair was longer and flowed downward whereas his, at this time, was brushed upward and held in place, as it seemed, with hairspray; her brows and lashes were a golden auburn; and her tresses were a paler green than his, as were her garments—a floorlength silk chiton and overtunic with long, pointed sleeves, the ensemble embroidered over in leafy vines of a deeper green. But all these superficial differences seemed of a piece with the shadings either between masculine and feminine or merely between individual and individual. All in all, in costume and appearance, each seemed to have been created for the other.
On his part, this impression, though startling, was coolly and totally objective. On hers, if she glimpsed momentary startlement in those flower-blue eyes of his, she let it pass without comment.
She, after all, had had almost an hour to photosynthesize the impression. She had arrived moments after the start of his performance, quietly chosen a table in the shadowed periphery, and snuffed out its candle the better to absorb the sight and sound of the entertainer on his twilit dais.
Now, standing before him, she informed him: “Welcome.” Her speaking voice brushes expressiveness just closely enough to avoid monotone while preserving neutrality. She continued: “The redbloods call me Ariella Celeste Rampal, and I greet you, Zim Greenleaf, as a fellow and a true musician.”
He did not yet know that she had come specifically to hear him play, but he understood that she knew his name from the notices the management programmed to tell customers who was on the dais. As for her name and fame, he had first encountered them within a month of his arrival in our world, meeting them time and again as he investigated what types of music he could best merchandise to us. Softly as she spoke, he guessed by the fresh ripple of applause, and by the expressions on the faces at the nearest tables, that his own reputation had been signed and sealed by her notice; that he could doubtless have had a career on the concert stage, had he felt any temptation to settle in this world.
What he did not yet fully understand was that when she called him “fellow,” she meant not only “fellow musician,” but also, “fellow vegeton.”
For the time being, he had answered, “I return your greeting, Ariella,” and tranquilly shaken the cool, steady hand she held out.
“After I h
ear the rest of your performance,” she went on, “I would like to talk with you. Are you free to take nourishment with me tonight?”
“I am free,” he replied, “and I am honored.”
About two hours and a half later, they supped together in the same coffee-house. Over the espresso that she perceived as nitrogenated water and he as espresso, she had offered him a key chair in her ensemble.
The first excuse he tried was, “I cannot play your style of concert harp.”
“I think you must mean that you have not yet learned. It ought to take you no longer than a few months. But even if for some reason you cannot learn the concert harp, we can still feature you in compositions including the Celtic harp.”
“I have a three-month contract with this place.”
“It will be more than three months before we can make bookings. I have still two chairs to fill. And I would like to commission special music for you. Perhaps Strakovski would be interested, or Lalumierette.”
“I have my own studies. I play only to support myself for them. I need extra time more than extra money.”
“Will you at least rehearse with us, the six of us I have now? Will you try it for just two afternoons a week?”
Although her tone never changed, he understood that she was pleading with him, that she wanted him as she had rarely if ever before wanted anything. He still did not suspect, however, that she wanted him for anything but his musicianship.
He considered the advantages a place among her Etheric Strings might lend him. He had discovered that money, although nothing to him for its own sake, is very useful in our world for opening doors to knowledge. He hoped to travel, which was why he had already managed to obtain an In Case of Emergency card with my name in the “Notify” space; but he had foreseen only expeditions to other parts of North America. As one of Ariella Celeste Rampal’s musicians, he could travel about our globe, his employment taking care of both expenses and—he trusted—any red tape concerning passports and suchlike.
The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK Page 92
