Donnerjack

by Roger Zelazny

  “Very well. Let us plan such an afternoon sometime soon. I do try to save my evenings for John.”

  The wailing woman turned and faced Ayradyss, her green-grey gaze piercing the touch of cheer that Ayradyss had put into her tone when she spoke of John.

  “You are troubled by what you perceive as your husband’s neglect, are you not, Ayradyss? You fear that here in Verite you have lost something of the love that you nurtured in Virtu. Is this so?”

  “Yes.” The word was spoken so softly as to be nearly inaudible.

  “John D’Arcy Donnerjack loves you no less. Believe me in this, if you can believe one with a reputation such as mine. He deeply regrets the deal that he made with the Lord of the Lost to gain your return. He has already asked that one to accept something other than your child. The Lord of Deep Fields refused. Much of the work Donnerjack does is meant to keep Death from claiming his due.”

  “Why doesn’t he talk to me about this?”

  The crusader ghost clanked to join them, his chain seeming more solid, more impeding than ever before.

  “Because, lass, he’s a man and has a man’s foolish pride. He fears your reproaching him for what he has done, wants to bring you a solution, not a worry. But never doubt that he loves you, you and the wee bairn beneath your heart.”

  “John…”

  Ayradyss knelt and gathered a few of the beer bottles from the shoreline.

  “Voit, help me with these, if you would. I should have something to take back and show John. He did say he wanted to hear about my adventures.”

  “Gladly, mistress.”

  “I should hurry back. I don’t want to miss dinner.”

  “According to my chronometer, you have some hours yet, mistress.”

  “Good.”

  She turned her face, sad, yet strangely radiant, toward the three ghosts.

  “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Not at all, lass. We’ve lots of time, time for dreamin’, time for explorin’. You be getting back to the laird and tell him all about what you’ve seen today.”

  “Thank you.” She gestured as if she would hug the insubstantial trio. “You’ve been such an enormous help. We will do this again, won’t we?”

  One by one, each of the ghosts nodded; one by one, they winked out. Ayradyss handed a final bottle to the hovering robot. Then she turned her steps away from the hidden sea. The sound of it lapping against the gravel shore bid her adieu.

  * * *

  John D’Arcy Donnerjack did not hear the banshee howl again in the months that followed his pursuit of the Piper, though odd noises continued intermittently in the below ground-level area erroneously referred to as the dungeons, and the ghosts still walked the halls of Donnerjack Castle.

  “I say,” said Donnerjack—having himself learned the idiom—when he encountered the crusader ghost in the company of a much shorter vision who carried his head beneath his arm, “who’s your friend?”

  “He’s sixteenth century,” replied the crusader ghost, “and it involved foreign politics, so the old laird had him done Continental. I calls him Shorty.”

  The smaller specter raised its head by its gory locks, and it grinned at him. The lips writhed.

  “‘Afternoon,” it said. There followed a hideous grin, then the mouth opened wide and uttered a terrible shriek.

  Donnerjack drew back.

  “Why’d you do that?” he asked.

  “I am obliged periodically to utter my death cry,” the other replied. Then he repeated it.

  “It must have been quite an occasion.”

  “Oh, indeed it was, sir. All classes turned out for it, though a special affair was conducted here for the gentler folk, and much sport was had at my expense.” He shook the locks away from his head. “Observe the absence of ears, for instance. I was never able to turn up even their astral counterparts to carry in my pocket as a part of my haunting.”

  “Lord! And what were you accused of?”

  “The poisoning of a horde of minor nobles, and a plot to poison the local laird, not to mention much of the royal court.”

  “Ah, that people in their ignorance should act with such wanton cruelty.”

  “Dunno as to their ignorance, but the rest was certain cruel.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A torturer can make a man confess to a lot, even sometimes the truth.”

  “You mean to say that you were a poisoner and a plotter?”

  “Shorty’ll not be admittin’ to anythin’ more,” the crusader ghost said. Then the headless one shrieked again and began to fade.

  “You shouldna ha’ said it as you did,” the other explained with a quick shake of his chains. “You bring back the guilt to the memory arid you make those things worse. He was happy with just the thought of his missin’ ears. That, and the holiday in his honor, so to speak.”

  “If you remember your name or some big event, will it carry you off like that?”

  “I dinna ken. Hard to tell.”

  “Maybe it would warrant a little research.”

  “No, don’t go doin’ nothin’ like that, me laird. You can ne’er tell what you may set loose. I’d rather find out in my own good time.”

  “But—”

  “Best not to interfere in the natural development of things. Trust me.”

  He went out like a blown candle.

  Donnerjack snorted. “Fatalistic poppycock!” he observed. “Sometimes the only thing to do is interfere.”

  Donnerjack walked the battlements and felt the cold winds blow about him with a few small drops of rain. Soft weather. He thought of Death and of Ayradyss and of their son-to-be. It just wasn’t fair. He was giving the Lord of Deep Fields a palace like no other that had ever been. It was wrong that he should have to supply him with the fruit of his body as well as that of his genius.

  There ought to be some sort of defense. Could he devise a way to Death-proof Castle Donnerjack? He laughed. Bad choice of words. Nothing could really be insulated against Death. Yet the thought gave rise to other trains of speculation. The Lord of Deep Fields did not want the boy dead, he was sure of that. It was a live babe that he wished to conduct to the nursery in his dark palace. Why?

  He paced the battlements, hair stirred by a damp wind with a few small drops of rain. And he pondered the matter he had once dismissed. To what use could such a child be put? Some sort of agent or emissary? But surely Death could command messengers when he needed them. No, it had to be something else. Was it simply that it would amuse him to have a live page in his new domicile? Perhaps. He might find the contrast esthetically pleasing. It was hard to conjecture concerning a being of such unknown character. Lightning flashed beyond the hills, and a moment later thunder boomed. Better not to waste thinking time on guesswork if the information were not really essential.

  The first real problems to consider were how Death had worked his tricks—the returning of Ayradyss to Verite rather than Virtu, and the matter of their mutual fertility. Both feats were theoretically impossible. He worked his way back to his notion of higher spaces within Virtu. If his hypothetical Stage IV existed a part of the answer could lie there. The journey back… Had it masked a subtle Stage IV manipulation at some point?

  Another flash and another blast were followed by a real rainfall and he retreated within. Pacing the upper halls, he continued his musing. Supposing he were to unify Virtu theory to include the Stage IV presumption? If it could be made to work it might explain all of the place’s anomalies—from the Creation shuffle to the backward temporal expansion hypothesis to the incorporation of data to which the place had not had obvious access. If he could do that he was certain he could then attack it at a more practical level.

  In the days—and, ofttimes, nights—that followed, he devoted himself to the problem whenever he could get away from the matter of Death’s palace. He tried to work without the machines, using pads, pencils, and old-fashioned hand-held calculators whenever he could. When he did need lar
ge-scale computing power or the use of his corner of Virtu for a Gedankenexperiment, he transferred the results to his notebooks immediately afterwards and did his best to wipe away every trace of his work from that other world.

  He felt that the answer might lie in the Genesis Scramble. He worked his way back to Day One, but even then things were too complete. He was able to push it back nearly to the first hour then, but could not locate the conditions to rectify his formulations. Beyond that, Virtu seemed unable to produce a history of itself. Attempts at simulations gave different results at different times. He gnawed his lip, leaned back, and stared at the wall. For the first time in over a decade, he thought of Reese Jordan and Warren Bansa.

  A retired mathematician and information specialist, Reese Jordan was the oldest man Donnerjack had ever known. Even as a resident of the Baltimore Center for latropathic Disorders, Reese had held the record among the superannuated. As more and more means of prolonging life were introduced, the trails these therapies left within the body became progressively convoluted. Every resident of the Center was an advanced centenarian. Donnerjack did a quick calculation. If he were still around, Reese would be about 150 now. All of the residents had unique medical problems brought on by the medical practices which had preserved them. A veritable museum of life-prolongation techniques was represented in the bodies of the Center’s inhabitants. They could not be cared for like normal citizens; on the other hand, their study value far exceeded the cost of their keep. Each time one of them faced a crisis, a therapy had to be developed de novo to fit the particular case.

  Now Reese Jordan—if his mind were still intact—might prove an interesting consultant. He had been present and working a data-net the day the final straw had been added, and the world’s full, linked system had crashed. An hour later, when things came together again, Virtu had been formed. He had written a number of papers both popular and technical on the phenomenon. He had been in demand as a lecturer for years afterwards. Some of his early ideas were merely considered “curious” now, but he was undoubtedly one of the main authorities on the world’s electronic shadow.

  Donnerjack moved to a terminal, requested the number for the Center. A few moments later he had placed the call. An idealized male security face responded almost instantly, a proge, of course. “Center for latropathic Disorders,” it stated. “How may I help you?”

  “Is Reese Jordan still a resident there?” Donnerjack asked.

  “Yes, he is.”

  “May I speak with him?”

  “I’m afraid he is not available right now.”

  “Is he—all right?”

  “I am not permitted to discuss the residents’ conditions.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. What I mean is, would he be able to converse rationally with me if he were available?”

  “Oh, yes. But, of course, he is not available.”

  “Do you know when he will be?”

  “No.”

  “Are you just telling me that he is asleep—or in a therapy session— or that he is not physically present in the Center at the moment?”

  “He is physically present and he is not asleep, but he is occupied elsewhere.”

  Donnerjack nodded then.

  “You’re saying that he is in Virtu.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “May I have his coordinates there?”

  “I’m sorry, but that information is confidential.”

  “Well, presumably you can reach him there. Can you give him a message from me?”

  “We can leave one at his number. Can’t say when he’ll decide to check messages, though.”

  “I understand. The name is John D’Arcy Donnerjack. I worked with him years ago. Just tell him there’s something I’d like to discuss.”

  “Very well.”

  Donnerjack left his number and returned to his musings. Virtu. It seemed natural that Reese should return to it in his final days. He’d spent much of his life studying it. He was an avowed fan of its countless novelties, apart from his technical interest in it. Donnerjack picked up a pencil, scrawled an equation on a nearby pad. He studied it for a long while. Then he revised it.

  Hours later, he had exhausted the pad and found another. He felt that his work was wrong, but he also felt that he was weaving a net. Right now, it seemed more important to surround the problems with mere conjecture than to hope for precision.

  Later, Ayradyss joined him for lunch at the small table by the window.

  “You’ve been working very hard lately,” she said.

  “Lots of problems to solve.”

  “More than usual, it seems.”

  “Yes.”

  “That palace?”

  “That, and other things.”

  “Oh? Our problem?”

  He glanced at one of the terminals and nodded. She did the same.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine now.”

  “Good. Any more haunts?”

  “Do you really think you can do it? Prevent—”

  He shrugged.

  “I really don’t know,” he said. “Even if I solve my theoretical problems there’s the matter of figuring a way to put what I learn into effect.”

  She nodded.

  “I understand. Let me know how it goes.”

  He reached out and squeezed her hand. She rose, smiled, kissed him, and parted. “Later,” she said.

  “Later,” he agreed, and he returned to his work.

  How long he labored he did not know. He tended to lose track of time when his concentration grew heavy.

  Sometime later, he heard his name called.

  “Donnerjack!”

  The voice was familiar, though he could not place it immediately.

  He raised his head, looked about.

  “Yes?”

  “Over in your staging area.”

  Donnerjack rose to his feet.

  “Reese!” he said.

  “Right. Since I had your number I thought I’d come by rather than just call. It’s been a long time.”

  “It has indeed.” Donnerjack moved to the Stage’s missing wall, to his left. “Oh, my!”

  A tall man with an unruly shock of dark brown hair stood grinning at him. He wore jeans, tennis shoes, and a green sports shirt. He appeared to be somewhere in his thirties.

  “You’re looking—”

  “Don’t I wish,” Reese said. “It’s a persona. The real me is in a quiet coma looking vaguely moribund. The med AI’s working overtime again exploring more branches than a family of monkeys, putting together another tailored treatment. Time to make some more medical history or call it quits.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’ve had more of life than most, and I’m still enjoying it. I’ve been everywhere, done damn near everything, read some great books, loved some fine ladies, and collaborated as an equal with John D’Arcy Donnerjack and Warren Bansa.”

  Donnerjack looked away.

  “You’ve been around, all right,” he finally said. “They ever find out what happened to Warren?”

  Reese shook his head.

  “Never found the body, or anything associated with it. Only person I ever knew to go skydiving and never reach the ground. Too bad he was such a good magician—escape artist, at that. Just went to complicate things, add to the publicity, and muddy the waters. When the journalists were done everything was cold as well as distorted. And that damned note! Saying he was going to pull his greatest stunt that day!”

  Donnerjack nodded.

  “They never found any later notes, or a diary, or letters?” he asked.

  “Nope. And of everybody I’ve known, he’s one of the few I miss. I wonder if he was working on anything there at the end?”

  “A paper on the natural geometries of Virtu.”

  “Really? I never saw it. Was it published?”

  “No. He’d given me a draft to check over. Died before I could get back to him on it.”

 
“Interesting?”

  “Very sketchy. Still needed a lot of work. But, yes, now that I think of it, it was interesting. Odd. Haven’t thought about it in years. Now that I do, I see it bears somewhat on what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “You still have it? I’d like to see it.”

  “I don’t know. Wouldn’t know where to begin looking for it.”

  “Well, what was it you wanted to discuss?”

  “Wait a minute.” Donnerjack went to his desk and fetched his pads. Returning, he entered the Great Stage. “I’ve been working with some stuff I’d like your opinion on.”

  Reese glanced at the pads.

  “Looks like a lot of material there,” he observed.

  “Well—I guess so.”

  “Then I’m going to request that you enter Virtu and return with me to the place I just came from. You can have the data scanned and transmitted there.”

  Donnerjack rubbed his nose.

  “I don’t like the idea of transmitting it anywhere,” he said. “What’s so special about your address in Virtu?”

  “The differential time flow I worked out for it. A few minutes of real time become a few hours there. At a time like this, there’s no place else I’d rather be.”

  “I quite understand,” Donnerjack said. “If I may have the numbers for that place I’ll meet you there in just a little while.”

  Reese nodded and recited them. Then he turned and walked away, quickly reaching a vanishing point and passing into it.

  Donnerjack moved to another section of the large work area, where he entered a chamber and made the necessary adjustments. He ordered the coordinates, then lay back and relaxed.

  Later, he rose, clad in khakis and a light shirt. He stood in the shade of numerous trees and the sound of falling water came to him. Moving in the direction of the splashing, he came into a small, grassy clearing. Wildflowers were abundant, and at the clearing’s far end a vine-covered cliff face rose perhaps sixty feet against a clear blue sky. Several large boulders lay at the cliffs base and across the clearing, seeming almost intentionally positioned for effect. To his left, the waterfall plunged into a stream about fifty feet across. Higher up, along the face of the cascade, a rainbow winked into and out of existence.