The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Were not painaway caplets supposed to have some soporific effect? Perhaps today he should make an opportunity to visit the hospital supplies himself for some sedative usually available only on prescription. What was the label name of that stuff he’d used more than once during the two or three months immediately following the business at Squire Fitzhugh’s? Slumberine, he thought, when it came into his hands. But was that the same caller it wore in the pharmacist’s supply cabinet?

  What was more, did he want to risk sedated slumber in a den of murderers?

  He made up his mind to try counting, instead of sheep, suspects.

  All had been robed and hooded. He had had some hopes of turning his induction to investigative use by observing his fellow members as closely as possible; but all had been masked, robed, and hooded.

  To be fair, thinking back, he was sure that M. Magadance had warned him of this ahead of time. He had mentally modified her statement in light of the theory that when people lived together clockround in so small and enclosed a community, the identities of some if not all must become apparent to their fellows by such clues as size and shape of bodily frame, way of walking, sound of voice, and color of eyes.

  Reality perceivers might quibble that fanciers rarely perceived these qualities accurately in their fellow beings anyway. But unless they were also doppelganger perceptives, fanciers did perceive their fellow beings consistently. Angela, for example, looked always the same to her husband—interestingly, even when he was in reality mode, and that even though the way she always looked to him did not match her printed photograph when he saw it with realizer’s vision.

  Portraits were among the most problematic aspect of the phenomenon. Most fanciers saw in them the same features which they perceived in the living originals—this in spite of seeing all other printed pictures as realizers saw them; that is, pictures printed with accompanying text. Original artwork and framed prints without text frequently changed, like the other artifacts of life, to fit the fancier’s personal world. Portraits, whether photographic or otherwise, remained always portraits, and always, except to the eyes of dopplers and a very few other small subgroups of fanciers, portraits of the same originals. Corwin had perused several studies of the enigma. The general consensus seemed to be that it was comparable somehow to the manner in which the words of a text remained constant for all readers even though the typeface and format of the publication, printout, or holograph changed with the individual’s perception.

  And if a fancier guessed a hooded person to be So-and-so, then that hooded person would take on the height, eye color, and so on that the fancier perceived So-and-so to possess, whether or not the guess were correct and whether or not the fancier were a doppelganger perceptive.

  In any event, Corwin had known these people for only a few hours at the commencement and end of an afternoon when sleepiness vied with hypertension. Under such conditions, not even a fulltime realizer ought to have hoped for much success in identifying their masked apparitions. And all had been robed and hooded in black, with the single exception of Dr. Macumber.

  Dr. Macumber. That might explain the appearance of the Angel of the Odd in Corwin’s last sight of the waiting closet as Inquisitorial dungeon. Macumber had been first in the doorway, and while his speech bore no resemblance to the Angel’s curious mock Dutch-American, and while no human form could resemble the Angel’s anatomy of beer keg, bottles, and funnel; there was nevertheless to Corwin’s perception a certain similarity of temperament, a kind of mischievous aloofness, although unmixed in the mad doctor’s case with the Angel’s irascibility.

  Now Corwin wondered whether he could have screamed while in the “pit” and whether, secretly listening outside, they had heard. If he could remember whether he had wondered the same then, it might tell him where, when, and in what state of consciousness the pit episode had occurred.

  Their apparition in the doorway had told him nothing. Three forms: the small doctor in the lead, two draperied companions immediately behind. For a fleeting instant he had glimpsed Macumber in the height of realizers’ fashion—dapper white trousers with corduroy pleats, white tunic with wing lapels and high-standing collar, and a huge silk neckscarf in emerald green and gold—before his flickering perception reclad the doctor as an elderly court physician of late Renaissance times. The chronicity seemed logical enough; but, interpreting the general setting as Spanish Inquisition, his perception had apparently decided to keep Macumber a little divorced from the rest of the proceedings. That should be pondered upon.

  The black robes and hoods of the doctor’s companions had remained constant, identical in Corwin’s last snatch of standard reality and in his own world. He guessed one to be Withycombe, by the height and probable leanness; but the height could have been enhanced with special footwear, and the robes were sufficiently voluminous to disguise figures to a certain extent. Moreover, Corwin had not yet seen all the staff members belonging to the Purgatory Club, one or more of whom might be as tall and thin as Adrian Withycombe. The second hooded escort might have been almost anyone, male or female, even M. Klipspringer in extremely height-enhancing shoes.

  As though on purpose to enable his companions to continue shrouding themselves in the added anonymity of silence, Dr. Macumber had done all the talking. “Well, well, m’boy, are you ready? All chipper and eager? Never mind, nobody feels exactly chipper at this point. Time to strip. Most of ’em prefer stripping themselves down here in the waiting room. More dignified than letting the robes do it later. To your briefs. Always leave the purgatants their briefs.”

  To Corwin’s hopeful suggestion that he also be left his undertunic, the doctor had shaken his head until the breeze of the action stirred his white frizz. “Dadgum, boy, think. It’s a tanning. Barebacked, m’boy, barebacked! ... Hmm, what’s that all over your briefs? Willy Wombat? No worry, we always give our purgatants the choice of their own decencies or one of these instead. Inspect ’em myself, every one. Guarantee they’re all plain black and none of ’em ever worn more than the once. Here, let’s see your size—” reaching out for the waistband of Corwin’s shorts—”Oh, bit ticklish, eh? No worry, get the size from your trousers lying here. ... Yes, this pair should do you just fine.”

  Or some such line of cheery prattle. It was improbable that all of his exact words could have stuck in Corwin’s conscious memory, but the recollection was very clear of those gnomesque old fingers reaching out to turn over the label section of his underwear waistband, later handing him a garment that seemed, to his then perception, a white loincloth like those worn by victims in illustrations of Inquisitorial dungeons, except that it was sewn to be stepped into like shorts.

  He put it on alone behind the corner curtain, stealing an extra moment to scrutinize the underwear which Dr. Macumber claimed to see dotted with the portraiture of Willy Wombat. To Corwin, it appeared a pair of plain, unprinted shorts in conservative white. He himself had never knowingly purchased underwear bedizened with cartoon characters. It was conceivable that a mischievous salesclerk might have sold him such, claiming them to be plain; or that Angela might have bought him a jocular gift of Willy Wombat underwear, as she had presented him with his two undoubted novelty sets, the one bearing images of jungle animals and the other checks in five loudly clashing colors. And that, in either case, it had been those which he had packed, fresh from their box, in his suitcase for his undercover sojourn here. It would be remarkable if he had possessed Willy Wombat shorts for any length of time without noticing the fact when in reality mode. He wondered if the “mad doctor’s” reality perception were quite as perfect as pretended.

  This thought had heartened him, on his re-emergence, to suggest that some sort of dickey or other biblike garment could be provided for his chest. Macumber’s chuckling response had been: “Just think of yourself as a body in an old engraving, lad!”

  While Corwin reminded himself that Dr. Macumber hailed from a generation that
had in its heyday still filled the beaches with barechested men and bikinied women, the old doctor looked him over with briskly annoying professionalism, thumped his chest, pinched his upper arm, took his temperature and pulse, and listened to his heart through what Corwin’s fantasy perception, having no other archaic equivalent immediately available, transformed into a long ivory cone. Then, chuckling, Dr. Macumber declared him a very healthy young specimen, heartbeat no faster than normal under the circumstances; guaranteed that his clothing would be returned to his hotel suite; and handed him a hooded robe much like that worn by the others, save for being deep crimson and lacking draperies to mask the face completely.

  Of the procession across the grounds he retained little save the impression that one should walk barefoot either all one’s time, or never at all. Had it been day, he might have tried using the march to reinforce the orientation of the partial tour M. Magadance had given him earlier. By night, and with the hood blocking his side vision, he could scarcely see beyond the light of the advance figure’s candle. He thought their way wove through the shadows of Rackamesque trees here and there, but those could have been merely personal perception. The second robed escort, the tall one, walked at his right side and caught his arm twice or thrice to steady him when his bare toes caught in roots, or some pebble pranked his naked heel.

  “Loose gravel,” Corwin had explained. His escort had made no vocal reply, but given his biceps a quick pressure that seemed friendly. It must be Withycombe.

  Dr. Macumber’s steps crunched along bringing up the rear, and from somewhere a Dies Irae accompanied their progress, sounding less like Gregorian chant than a Carl Orff setting for mixed choir of many voices. Corwin guessed that Dr. Macumber carried a chip player.

  The small but “totally realistic” mountain with club-appropriated caverns in its bowels overlooked the meadow on one side and the miniature lake on the other. The procession approached it from the lake side, joining a third black-robed and taciturn figure who waited in a barge beneath the gazebo. They stepped into the barge, the third figure poled off, and they were gliding over Stygian waters upon which danced the light of the single candle-lantern. During this passage Corwin suspected there would have been so little difference between his impressions as fancier and as realizer as to make his mode impossible to determine except by what it had been before and what it was afterward, with no perceptible shift.

  The Charon had guided their barge behind the miniature waterfall—an effect that in other circumstances might have signaled a translation into Elfin realms—and tied it up at a small cave entrance so close above the water that only a single narrow ledge gave footing. They had to disembark one at a time. The tall one went first, hunching over even whilst stepping up in a maneuver not graceful, but obviously practiced; then turned and, kneeling, leaned a little forward through the cave mouth, extending one hand.

  All this scene was illuminated from above by what Corwin perceived as a flaring and flickering torch, though it might more plausibly have been an electric or oil lantern, affixed over the opening.

  “Now you, m’boy,” Macumber had chuckled at Corwin. “Watch your head.”

  Beneath the purgatant’s bare feet, the ledge was surprisingly unslippery, feeling like coarse sand. The cave mouth, however, was so small that he grazed his forehead in spite of Macumber’s warning, and had to duck lower before pulling himself inside. The manifold symbolisms of the thing crowded his brain; he wondered how he had failed, while still outside, to perceive the ingress to this cave as a Hellmouth of medieval art, and decided that that would have been to constrict its symbology to a single facet. Slightly more to the point, he wondered if this were the entrance planned by the original landscapers, or a new back way tunneled by the Purgatoriants. To ask would probably be useless at the moment. Dr. Macumber might or might not give a reliable answer, and none of the other three had as yet uttered a syllable, although the tall one’s grip was comfortingly steady on Corwin’s wrist.

  Pulled safely through, he found the ceiling higher immediately inside, high enough for him to walk upright. Withycombe had still to stoop. Assuming that it was Withycombe; but who would borrow the need, with artificially enhanced height, to walk with head ducked and shoulders hunched beneath a low, rough cavern ceiling?

  If the one was Withycombe, would the other two be Of The Light and John Stock?

  There were no stalactites, no stalagmites, no glistening glassy cave formations. Unless Corwin’s perception was blocking them out, little care had been taken to trick this tunnel up as anything else but a utilitarian passageway. As, indeed, why should it have been tricked up, if tunneled by fanciers for fanciers? Odd, though, that there were not even nitrous patches. Corwin’s own fantasy mode ought to have supplied those, but seemed content for the moment with flaring the ghostly and gothic shadows into shapes ever more grotesque.

  He believed that his fantasy mode had been unbroken throughout the experience from their coming for him. But in the dry-hewn tunnel, his only checkpoint would have been another glimpse of Dr. Macumber’s costume, and the only human figures Corwin could see before and behind him had been robed and hooded.

  He remembered, too late, that Sherlock Holmes, if not the even more admirable C. Auguste Dupin, would have measured the tunnel’s length by counting his paces. He began at once, but counted only four or five before the lead figure doubled over and led the way on hands and knees through a second opening.

  Corwin followed suit. The chamber into which they emerged was replete with both cave formations and cave paintings: he saw the latter as similar to those his fancy had etched upon the walls of his basement waiting room. There were at a rough estimate perhaps thirty feet in diameter of relatively open floor space between the calciferous draperies encircling the area. The ceiling was lost somewhere above the reach of the flickering torchlight.

  The chamber was crowded, thronged, dense with blackrobed forms. Too many, far too many! had been his first reaction. And then for a time he had clutched at the notion that some of them were mere insubstantial shadows, tricks of the light.

  Who should be here? Of The Light, John Stock, and Adrian Withycombe; Chief Running Stag, M. Magadance, Lady Larghetta, and M. Gary Logefeil; M. Elsin Klipspringer; and the unrobed Dr. Macumber—that made nine. The first ordeal of a new member might bring Warden Warren to make one of his rare personal appearances as spectator (robed like the others), raising the number to ten. M. Magadance had also given Corwin a list of the additional Purgatory Club membership drawn from the staff. He had attempted to memorize it when alone in his rooms before dinner; but, already giddy with lack of sleep, surfeit of new experiences, and the data-cramming efforts of the previous night, he could recollect only that there were seven names on this new list and that one of them was something like Hogbloom, who was either the child pornographer or the arsonist with two previous convictions. Seven plus ten should make seventeen in all.

  Seventeen was a considerable gathering, but there seemed at first glimpse to be twice or thrice even that many grouped about the chamber.

  He remembered that the human brain could not calculate more than a certain number of objects at a glance, but tended to see more than—was it five? seven?—as simply “many,” a phenomenon both useful and convenient to choreographers and drama directors. He tried to count the Purgatorians hood by hood. He continued trying all the while two of them stripped away his robe and half led, half pulled him to a low, thick stalagmite near the center of the chamber. He managed three counts and reached three different totals: nineteen, seventeen, and twenty. The one time he could have forgotten to include the pair holding him.

  The stalagmite was slightly shorter than waist-high and had a metal bar driven through it near the top. To each protruding end of this bar was attached an iron gauntlet. Having his wrists locked into these stopped his enumerations, since he could no longer see those figures behind him. Considering that some of the robes co
ncealed women, he preferred staring at the top of the stalagmite anyway, as he tried to tally the eras and areas, from aboriginal times to the earlier decades of his own century, and even at a few restricted beaches and pools in today’s Reformed States, which considered a male fully dressed in a loincloth or equivalent. It also helped to compare the scene with that in some art school or medical arena.

  Seventeen Purgatorians—eighteen if he included himself—could be accounted for by every member currently active, if only as spectator, plus M. Parkinson, having turned out. But if there were in fact nineteen or twenty, where had the extra ones come from? Might M.’s Bluehair and Walker have decided to put in their extraordinary attendance?

  After so long a wait that he actually waxed impatient—for not only was the air chill to his unclothed skin and the cave floor cold to his bare feet, but it grew amazingly strenuous to stand bent forward, and he commenced to wonder if it would add too much to the general indignity of his posture to twist his neck and wipe his forehead on his upper arm—two of the monkish figures stepped forward.

  He thought they were not the same pair who had shackled him and then melted back into the ranks. He doubted, moreover, that they had taken part in escorting and ferrying him, but could find no reason for this opinion except that neither of the new brace was tall enough to be Withycombe. He thought that both were males, although, in spite of the common image of executioners at work, neither of them was bare-chested.

  His first sight of their whips quelled Corwin’s impatience for it all to be done with. He seemed to remember gasping aloud. No one else broke the silence. The chant produced, in all likelihood, by a portable chip player had long ago been muted.