The Cauldron

by Jean Rabe

  God, but that situation curled her toenails! Ellen had to be … what … forty years older than Carl. Fifty probably. Old enough to be his mother, maybe grandmother, and he was looking at her with the eyes of a teenager in love. Curl her toenails and turn her tummy. Jerrah stuck two fingers in her mouth and pretended to gag.

  What if Carl really had been Ellen’s husband—or actually was still her husband, somehow preserved in time like a two-headed pig in a jar in some carnival sideshow? Jerrah shuddered. That wasn’t possible, was it? But what if it was true? What would the two of them do? Pick up the wedded bliss where they left off? That notion made her almost really gag. Ellen seemed nice and all, but she was just too, too old for Jerrah to wrap her mind around the notion of a rekindled romance between the pair.

  Better just to get out of this mess. Why had she stuck around so long anyway? What sort of answers had she expected to get? Carl was all caught up in himself and certainly wasn’t going to help her ferret out why she’d gotten involved in this … mess. Why had she taken a bus to Morgantown? Why had she felt compelled to follow Carl? Sure, she wanted answers. But more than answers, she decided she wanted to book out of here.

  “A helluva mess,” Jerrah pronounced as she shuffled back to their cabin. Because Ellen’s dinner was so early, it was still plenty light outside, and the sun struck the lake’s surface making it sparkle. It was actually pretty, Jerrah thought. Why the hell did she fear water? A few summers ago she’d worked at her local pool as a lifeguard, and she didn’t have any bad memories from it. Nothing real good, but nothing that should make her so wary now.

  Just what was going on with her mind?

  Inside the cabin, she looked around, spotted her backpack next to the couch, and grabbed it up. She thought about writing Carl a note, but what would she say?

  I’ve come to my senses and I’m going home?

  Have fun with your “old” girlfriend?

  You’re even more messed up than me?

  I’m out of here?

  In the end, she left nothing—deciding to split before she changed her mind or before Carl came back to “call it a night” and confront her about his missing money. She grabbed a paring knife out of the drawer by the sink, double-wrapped the blade in a paper towel and put it in her back pocket; it wouldn’t be much protection if she hitched a ride with some scumbag, but it would make her feel a little safer. And if she had the opportunity, she would indeed hitch a ride.

  The screen door banged shut behind her and she started hoofing her way back toward the lodge and the road that would eventually take her to the highway.

  It would probably be dark before she made it all the way to the highway … unless she could find that ride. She supposed she could have swiped Carl’s car; he’d left the keys on the table. Stealing forty-six bucks was one thing. A car … out of the question. She’d started out walking fast, and the exertion had her huffing before she guessed she’d gone a mile. She slowed to a steady pace and shifted her pack to her other shoulder. Maybe she should have waited until the morning, maybe asked Carl then if he’d take her as far as the highway, maybe talked him into taking her back into Morgantown so she could catch the next bus.

  Where the hell was Morgantown?

  She’d not looked at a map. Indiana, apparently. She should’ve asked one of the waitresses, or even Carl. But she hadn’t wanted to seem stupid. Really, walking into Morgantown and not knowing where the place was with regards to anything else.

  “Stupid!”

  It couldn’t be terribly far from her hometown of Greencastle. Couldn’t be, could it? She was never floating in money, though she had a savings account put away only for grad school expenses, so the bus she’d taken to Morgantown couldn’t have been a costly ticket.

  Why why why had she taken that bus?

  And why now, when she looked to her right and could see the highway, traffic purring along, was she turning around and walking back to that damnable run-down resort?

  Jerrah sat on the sagging couch in the cabin, backpack between her feet, staring out the window, nervously knocking her knees together. The lake was black, the night sky reflecting off the water, like she was staring into some bottomless pit.

  She remembered turning around, but for the life of her she didn’t remember walking back here.

  She did, however, remember a presence in her head. It felt like someone was hitchhiking a ride in her brain. Except that someone was doing the driving. Lord, but it had given her a hell of a headache.

  It was a demanding presence, with something familiar about it, and it left her with odd images … an awkward attempt to steer a TransAm, minutes staring at an office building and the swarm of people moving by it on the sidewalk. Then there was the almost hospital-like picture of a seamless metal floor, a man-sized cocoon, and the whisper of a word: augmentor. Mostly, it left her with thoughts about Carl Johnson.

  Jerrah drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, rocked back and forth and waited for Carl to return from his dinner date with his elderly wife.

  He needs to tell me I’m not going insane, she thought.

  ***

  Chapter 28

  Shipkeeper

  Melusine rested while the shipkeeper paced, the fluttering hem of his robe a susurrus in the otherwise dead air. He’d mentally dissected all of Melusine’s reports on the entity who might or might not be Delphoros. He’d meticulously noted each snippet and replayed it again until everything blurred. His thoughts whirred with dread and possibilities.

  The one who Melusine investigated was old, having lived many lives, more than Delphoros could have—Melusine and navigator and himself all agreed on that point. Three hundred, four hundred or a little more … hadn’t that been the number of years Delphoros had been absent from their home world? No. One hundred and fifty. Delphoros had been absent from Elthor for one hundred and fifty years.

  Melusine’s quarry apparently had lived at least more than a thousand years. So that quarry could not possibly be Delphoros.

  Not if their information on Delphoros was correct.

  Puzzling.

  Or, more to the point, not if shipkeeper’s memory of that information was correct. Had their travels through otherspace rattled his mind? All of their minds? Had he lost decades, not days, during their travels? Time could be distorted in otherspace. Had they lost track of years?

  Lost track of centuries?

  Shipkeeper rubbed at his forehead and quickened his tread, his path taking him around navigator’s tank and then to the liaison.

  What if his memory did not serve correctly?

  What if the things he held true were indeed true, but the time in which he held the facts was muddled and played some horrid trick?

  Could, indeed, his conception of the years be wrong? Could the one who Melusine focused on truly be Delphoros? Their target? Their reason for traversing otherspace to reach this retched watery globe?

  And if it was Delphoros, shipkeeper knew that he no longer correctly gauged the passage of time. It wasn’t the passing of more than a century. It was the passing of nearly a dozen centuries.

  Bring Delphoros home, that was the order.

  Delphoros was needed, an essential component to keeping alive their ability to traverse otherspace. Bring him home so he could be used, studied, so his presence might breed others with his ability.

  Bring Delphoros home.

  But if hundreds upon hundreds of years had fled by unaccounted for, more than a thousand years perhaps, would “home” still need Delphoros? Had those in charge nurtured other navigators to render Delphoros’s presence moot? Did “home” still exist?

  A shiver raced through shipkeeper and he rubbed his head harder, the self-inflicted pain competing with an incessant throbbing at his temples. He thrust away the ugliest of the possibilities.

  Yes, home was still there, he decided. And whoever was in power still wanted Delphoros.

  But should they have him?

  The one that
Melusine watched—the Bright One—worried shipkeeper to the point of vexing his very being. That one was so old and powerful.

  Too powerful.

  Even if the entity was Delphoros … their target … their very reason for being here … he was too powerful to even consider bringing home.

  The world below had a violent history, years peppered with bombs that had ripped cities off the map.

  Shipkeeper sensed that the Bright One had that measure of power coursing through him.

  So much power. The concept at the same time awed and chilled shipkeeper.

  “Too much,” he whispered, fingers reaching tentatively toward the liaison.

  Beyond his orders, shipkeeper felt that he had a responsibility to his race—to keep that overly powerful entity instead away from the home world and thereby prevent cities from being ripped off the face of their planet. Too, there was the risk the Alzur ship would gain Delphoros, either snaring him from the planet below or raiding this very ship after Melusine had caught him.

  The shipkeeper could simply report back that Delphoros was not found.

  So Delphoros had to die to keep the home world safe and so he would not fall into the clutches of the Alzur.

  Besides, did Elthor really need more than the one navigator working on this ship? More navigators would mean more shipkeepers. Right now, the shipkeeper believed he was the only one. A rare flower, treasured, important. If there were others, he would not blossom so beautifully.

  Tendrils of the augmentor caught shipkeeper’s fingers and tugged him closer.

  Melusine was resting and would be oblivious. She would not know that shipkeeper used the augmentor to visit Earth by merging with someone below.

  Shipkeeper knew that she would not go along with his plan to end Delphoros’s life. It was not in her nature to go against orders, nor in her nature to kill. Therefore it was shipkeeper’s responsibility to snuff out this power, secretly, to be the savior of his people and perhaps thereby at the same time be the savior of the alien world below. To remain the one rare flower in Elthor’s garden.

  The tendrils drew his mind in and down.

  Shipkeeper had used the augmentor before, in his role he had to be familiar with all aspects of the ship, including this. He was in charge of the entire ship’s operation and could fill in as needed, save for dipping into the navigator’s tank. He certainly was not as proficient as Melusine with the augmentor, clumsy compared to her, a veritable novice by her standards. But he knew enough.

  Shipkeeper felt himself spiral down a tunnel, shadowy shapes twisting past his mind’s eye, reaching for him even as he reached for the woman Melusine frequently had been merging with.

  What was she called?

  They all had such varied, interesting, multiple names below.

  Jerrah.

  That was it. After a few moments shipkeeper felt his consciousness settle into the woman’s form. It was a jarring sensation, like his skin was being prickled all over by the needles of a sticky plant.

  He fought the urge to retreat while at the same time the woman fought his intrusion. But her mind was not as strong as his. An inferior race, shipkeeper judged. No wonder Melusine had such an effortless time merging with them.

  “Delphoros.” Shipkeeper tried out the woman’s voice and found it melodic.

  Melusine had discovered that this woman was an easy target on one of her first forays here, and when she’d made the connection she forced this woman to travel onto a … shipkeeper searched for the term … Greyhound bus … to get closer to the Bright One. Melusine periodically had visited Jerrah again to keep her close to the Bright One—Carl, he called himself. The Jerrah creature didn’t understand why she dogged this man, and Melusine had been careful not to impart that information. The Jerrah creature worried that she was going mad. Perhaps the woman would indeed lose her sanity before this was all concluded. A small price, shipkeeper knew, and an insignificant casualty.

  Shipkeeper pushed Jerrah’s thoughts aside and looked out through her eyes. “Delphoros,” he repeated. “Where is the Bright One?” He took a step forward, testing his host’s legs. “Carl!” he hollered. “Are you here, Carl?”

  No answer. Shipkeeper stretched a foot forward again, and then another, nearly falling as he worked to get used to this body. He bent at the knees, stretched his arms out, and rolled his shoulders. The body was reasonably fit. He took a deep breath and inhaled again before releasing it.

  The air was so different here than his home world. No better, but different. Here it was tinged with the scent of wood, a hint of mustiness, and the odor of hated water. He turned the body so he could look out the window at the lake, then he bent over again and emptied the contents of Jerrah’s stomach on the floor, trembling at the expanse of the lake.

  The shipkeeper focused on the importance of his task, steadied the borrowed form, and spun to face the wall, keeping the water out of sight. He forced his mind—and in response this body—to relax. He was not in the water, and neither would he be going in the water. He was safe.

  The colors of the place pleased him, more varied and bright than the muted sameness of the ship. From her mind he gleaned labels for the hues, finding the words curious and trying them out on Jerrah’s tongue. He decided he liked green the best. He reached forward and felt the upholstery of the couch, running his fingers over the nap and delighting in the threadbare spots. Next he glossed over the varnished wood paneling, then the weathered feel of the door frames. The shipkeeper suppressed his childlike wonder and forced himself to regard the place stoically. He would view his surroundings as simply a box that contained objects, the colors and textures unimportant. He thrust his borrowed hands inside his pockets to avoid the temptation of touching more things.

  He knew this body he controlled was not as large as Carl’s, and so simply physically overpowering the target would not be possible. But there were tools, knives, and heavy things that could bludgeon Carl unto death. Anything shipkeeper decided to employ would require the element of surprise; if Carl—the Bright One—was alerted, he would escape through otherspace.

  Shipkeeper could not allow the entity to escape.

  That’s why he would try to avoid using the ship’s weapon. Delphoros was powerful, and perhaps he could sense the disturbance in space that powering the weapon created. Delphoros must have no warning!

  He looked into the small rooms—two bed chambers and a bathroom that smelled of a flowery astringent cleaner. He stared for long moments into the mirror before returning to what passed for the kitchen.

  Carl/Delphoros clearly was elsewhere.

  The lodge, Jerrah’s thoughts revealed with more pressing. Carl was no doubt with his elderly wife in the lodge or in her rooms above it. The shipkeeper probed deeper into Jerrah’s thoughts to understand the terms and implications. The shipkeeper knew Melusine used more finesse when manipulating borrowed bodies, there was more art than violation in her practice. But the shipkeeper had neither the time nor the skills to be delicate.

  Melusine …

  Shipkeeper abruptly withdrew from Jerrah and pulled back from the augmentor, checking to make sure that Melusine still rested. She did, soundly. Then he returned to Jerrah … to find that in the brief moment she’d been freed of his control she had dashed outside the cabin.

  Shipkeeper slammed hard into her mind and rested control of the body, returning her to inside the cabin where he could more thoroughly investigate. He registered an assortment of knives in a drawer. He could use these. Rummaging through Jerrah’s satchel he discovered vials of pills, which he crushed up using a bowl and large spoon. He poured the powder into an opened container of liquid in the small refrigerator; perhaps Carl would drink it and succumb to a dose of medicine lethal enough to do the job. Jerrah’s mind had told him pills could be dangerous. The shipkeeper planted a suggestion that Jerrah stay away from what she called “juice.”

  He investigated the bedchamber that clearly was Carl’s; the other had Jerrah’s scen
t about it. Here he placed a knife under the mattress, another under a small chest, one under the bed. The smallest he put in Jerrah’s back pocket, surprisingly discovering one already there and tucking her shirt over the handles.

  Any of these knives could slit Carl’s throat. Keep it simple, he thought, nothing that might alert the Bright One.

  The shipkeeper understood the principles of these beings’ vehicles and suspected he’d have little trouble operating one. They would be infantile compared to the workings of the ship. If needed, he could run Carl over with one, though again surprise would be needed to keep the entity from fleeing into otherspace. Simple ways to kill a powerful man, the shipkeeper mused. Simple, primitive, likely more effective than something elaborate or of Elthoran make. Use nothing that could give him advance warning.

  Satisfied he knew every inch of the cabin, the shipkeeper delved into every corner of Jerrah’s mind, capturing image after image of Carl and collecting all of her impressions and interactions with him. Melusine’s reports had been thorough, but shipkeeper wanted to be certain that she’d left nothing out.

  “Delphoros.” The word was a curse on his borrowed tongue. “Delphoros or whoever you are, you will die very soon. To keep my world safe and to keep you from Alzur, you will cease to exist.” And to keep me in power.

  The shipkeeper breathed deeply through Jerrah’s lungs and strode surely to the door, opened it, and stepped outside, turning the woman’s head to avoid looking at the lake. The scent of the water was much stronger out here, and it almost made him retch again. He felt for the knives in his pocket. He wouldn’t wait for Carl/the Bright One/ to return to the cabin. He would go to the entity. Though in truth it would be easiest to dispatch the target while it slept in the dingy bedchamber, the shipkeeper was impatient. He would take Jerrah’s body to this lodge and …

  The shipkeeper leaped out of Jerrah’s mind, and inside the ship he pulled back from the augmentor, the sudden extraction dizzying him. He staggered away and caught himself against the navigator’s tank.