“I hope you get your wife back, Bard. It’s very wicked of people to keep her from you.”
Bard said, “Alaric, Father and I must be away from court for a few days. Father and I and some of his leroni. Dom Jerral will be here to advise you, if you need him.”
“Where are you going?”
“Father knows of someone who would be a great help in commanding the armies, and we are going to find him.”
“Why not simply order him to come to court? The regent can command anyone to come.”
“We do not know where he lives,” Bard said. “We must find him by laran.” That, he thought, was quite explanation enough.
“Well, if you must go, you must. But please, can Melisendra stay with me?” he asked, and Bard, though he knew Melisendra was one of the most skilled leroni, decided not to refuse his brother.
“If you want Melisendra,” he said, “she shall certainly stay with you.”
He had braced himself for an argument with his father, but to his surprise, Dom Rafael nodded.
“I had not intended to bring Melisendra in any case; she is the mother of your son.”
Bard wondered what difference that made, but he did not bother to ask. It was enough for him that his brother wanted Melisendra's company.
They left the castle that night and rode toward Bard’s old home. Three leroni, two woman and a man, had accompanied them, and Dom Rafael led them to a room Bard had never seen before, in an old tower room at the end of a broken staircase.
“I have not used any of these things in decades,” he said, “but laran-craft, once learned, is not forgotten.” He turned to the wizards and asked, “Do you know what this is?”
The man looked at the apparatus, and then at his two comrades, and Dom Rafael, in dismay. “I know, my lord. But I thought the use of such things was outlawed outside the safety of a Tower.”
“In Asturias, there is no law but mine! Can you use it?”
The laranzu glanced again, uneasily, at the women. He said, “A duplicate under Cherillys’ Law? I suppose so. But of what or whom?”
“Of my son here; the commander of King Alaric’s armies.”
One of the women looked at Bard and he caught the ironic flicker of her thought. Another of the Kilghard Wolf? I should think one of him to be more than abundance! He supposed she was a friend of Melisendra’s. But they shrugged, quickly shielded again, and said, “Yes, my lord, if that is your wish.”
He could sense their surprise, distaste, wonder; but they made no audible protest, making their preparations, setting seals on the room so that no alien presences could enter and no other leroni spy on them from elsewhere.
When all was prepared, Dom Rafael signaled to Bard to take his place before the screen, to remain silent and motionless. He obeyed, kneeling silently. He was so placed that he could not see his father, nor any of the three telepaths, but he sensed them near him. Bard did not think he had much laran, and what he did have had never been properly trained. He had always rather despised the art of sorcery, thinking it a skill or craft for women; he felt a little frightened as the almost tangible web of their thoughts tightened around him. He sensed that they were extending their thoughts into him, deep into brain and body, seeking out the very pattern of his being; he thought, fancifully, that they were seeking out his very soul, tying it up tight and imprisoning it in that glassy screen there.
He could not move a finger or a foot. He felt a moment of paralyzed panic… no. This was a perfectly ordinary piece of laran sorcery, with nothing to fear; his father would not let anything harm him.
He remained motionless, looking at his reflection in the glassy surface. Somehow he knew it was not only the reflected shadow on glass but himself there in that multilayered screen, reinforced at all levels with starstone crystals which resonated to the starstones of the leroni around him. He felt the combined web of their layered thoughts swing out over vast gulfs of empty space, extending, searching, searching to find something to fit that pattern, fit it exactly… something came near, close to touching… near to captive… no. It was not a duplicate, a resemblance, touching perhaps at ninety out of a hundred, but not the exact duplicate which alone could be captured within the screen. He felt the other slide away, vanish, as the search swung out again.
(Far away in the Kilghard hills, a man named Gwynn, an outlaw and fatherless—although his mother had told him he had been fathered in the sack of Scathfell by Ansel, son of Ardrin the first of Asturias, thirty years ago—woke from an evil dream in which faces had swung around him, circling, swooping like hawks on their prey, and one of the faces was like his own as twin to twin…)
Again the web swung out, this time over greater gulfs, starless night, a tremendous void beyond space and time, with swirling, nightmarish vortexes of terrible nothingness. Again a shadow formed behind Bard on the screen, shimmered, wavered, twitched, struggled as a sleeper struggles to wake from nightmare; somewhere a spark flared in Bard’s brain; myself, or the other? He did not know, could not guess. It struggled for freedom but they held it, imprisoned in their web, moving from point to point of the pattern encased in the screen… searching to see that every atom, every trifle was congruent, identical…
Now!
Bard saw in his mind before his eyes saw the flare of lightnings in the room, a searing shock as the other was torn loose from the shadow in his mind, the pattern doubled and breaking, splitting apart… terror flamed in him; was it his own fear, or the terror of the other, unimaginably hurled across that great gulf of space… He caught a glimpse of a great yellow sun, hurling worlds, stars flaming across the dark void, galaxies spinning and drifting in shock… Lightning crashed through his brain and he lost consciousness.
He stirred, conscious now of savage headaches, pain, confusion. Dom Rafael was lifting him, feeling his pulse. Then he let him go and went past, and Bard, sick and stunned with the lightning, followed with his eyes; and the leroni, behind him, watching, looked dazed too. He caught a wisp of thought from one of them, I don’t believe it. I did it, I was part of it but still I don’t believe it…
Lying on the floor at the opposite pole of the great screen lay the naked body of a man. And Bard, though he had been prepared intellectually for this, felt a surge of gut-wrenching terror.
For the man lying on the floor was himself.
Not someone very much like him. Not an accidental or close family resemblance. Himself.
Broad-shouldered, and halfway between them, the blackish blotch of a birthmark which he had seen only in a mirror. The muscles bunching in his sword arm, the same dark-reddish patch of hair at the loins, the same crooked toe on the left foot
Then he began to see differences. The hair was cut a little shorter, though at the crown of his head there was the same unruly whorl. There was no scar across the knee; the double had not been at the battle of Raven’s Glen and did not have the sword-slash he had taken there. The other did not have the thick callous at the inside of the elbow where the shield strap rested. And these little differences somehow made it worse. The man was not simply a magical duplicate created somehow by the laran of the screen; he was a real human being, from somewhere else, who was, none the less, precisely and exactly Bard di Asturien.
He didn’t like it. Still less did he like the confusion and fear which the other was feeling. Bard, without much laran, could still somehow feel all that emotion.
He couldn’t stop himself. He got up and went across the room to the naked man lying there. He knelt beside him and put an arm under his head.
“How are you feeling?”
Only after he had spoken did he stop to wonder if the alien other could understand his language. That would be luck entirely too good, though he supposed that perhaps his kin somewhere in the Kilghard Hills had probably fathered this duplicate. Could any man be so like without being kin somehow? The strange man’s skin looked darker, as if it had been burned brown by a fiercer sun… No, that was folly, the sun was the sun… but still,
the picture was in his mind of spinning galaxies, a world with a single cold white moon, and the frightening thing was that somehow all those images seemed to belong in Bard’s mind!
The strange man spoke. He was not speaking Bard’s language; somehow Bard knew that no one else in the room could understand him. But Bard knew what he had said, as if they were linked in the strongest laran bond.
“I feel like hell. How do you expect me to feel? What happened, a tornado? Hell—you’re me! And that’s not possible! You’re not the devil by any chance?”
Bard shook his head. “I’m not any of the devils, not even nearly,” he said.
“Who are you? What is this? What happened?”
“You’ll find out later,” Bard said, then, feeling him stir urgently, held him unmoving. “No, don’t try to move yet. What’s your name?”
“Paul,” the man said weakly, “Paul Harrell.” And then he fell back, unconscious. Bard moved, spontaneously, to raise him, support him. He shouted for help. The laranzu came and examined the unconscious man.
“He’s all right, but the energy expended in that journey was frightful,” he said.
Dom Rafael said, “Get old Gwynn to help you carry him; I’d trust him with my life, and more.” Bard helped the old coridom carry the stranger to his own old rooms, laid him in his bed, locked the door of the suite—not that it was necessary; the laranzu assured them that he would not wake for a day and a night, or perhaps more.
He returned, to find that Dom Rafael had ushered the leroni into an adjacent chamber, where the old coridom had laid ready a hot supper, with plenty of wine. Bard, desperately curious about the stranger, reached for contact with his father, but for some strange reason his father was wholly shielded against him.
Why should his father barricade his mind so strongly?
“Food and drink is prepared for you, my friends. I have been a laranzu, I know the terrible hunger and thirst of such work. Come, eat and drink and refresh yourselves. Then I have had rooms made ready for you to sleep, and rest as long as you will.”
The three leroni went quickly to the table and began to raise the wine glasses. Bard was thirsty too; he began to pick up a glass, but his father seized his arm in an iron grip, preventing him. At that moment one of the women screamed, a dreadful raw-throated scream, and slithered down lifeless to the floor. The laranzu gulped, spluttered in shock, but it was already too late.
Poisoned, Bard thought with a thrill of fear, thinking how close he had come to drinking of that same wine. The other leronis raised her face in blind appeal, and Bard felt her terror, the dread of certain death; she had swallowed almost none of the wine, and he saw her look around, hunting against hope for a way of escape.
Bard hesitated, for the woman was young, and not without attractiveness. Sensing his confusion, she came and flung herself at his feet. “Oh no! Oh, my lord, don’t kill me, I swear I’ll never say a word—”
“Drink,” said Dom Rafael, and his face was like stone. “Bard. Make her drink.”
Bard’s confusion was gone. His father was right; none of them could let the leronis live to tell of this night’s work. Old Gwynn could be trusted with their lives; but a leronis whose mind could be read with another’s starstone—no, not possible. Essential to their plan was the knowledge that he should not be known to have a double. The woman was still clutching his knees, babbling in terror. Reluctantly, he bent to his work, but before he could touch her the woman dodged away, springing to her feet, and ran. He sighed, foreseeing a really nasty chase and the need for cutting her down at the end of it; but she ran around the table, caught up the goblet and drank deeply. Even before the third swallow she gave a small strange cough and fell lifeless across the table, upsetting a tray of bread, which fell with a clunk to the floor.
So this was why his father had not brought Melisendra!
Dom Rafael poured out the rest of the poisoned wine on the stone floor.
“There is a wholesome bottle here,” he said. “I knew we would need it. Eat, Bard, the food is untouched, and we have work to do. Even with Gwynn’s help, it will be a night’s work to bury them all three.”
* * *
BOOK THREE
The Dark Twin
* * *
Chapter One
« ^ »
If he is me, then who in hell am I?
Paul Harrell was not sure whether the thought so strong in the forefront of his mind was his own thought, or that of the man who stood before him. It was immensely confusing. At the same time, two emotions warred in him: this man would understand me, andI hate him; how dare he be so much what I am? It was not his first experience with ambivalence, but it was his most disturbing awareness of it.
The man who had introduced himself as Wolf said his name again. “Paul Harrell. No, that is not one of our names, although the Harryls are among my father’s most loyal men. It would have been too much to ask that you should have been one of them.”
Paul felt his head again, finding, rather to his surprise, that it was all in one piece. Then he thought of the perfect way to test whether this was, after all, a bizarre nightmare of the stasis box.
“Where’s the head?”
He knew that the other man had understood even the slang phrase—how the hell did he do that thought-reading trick?—when he pointed. “Across the corridar.”
Paul got up, naked, and went through the indicated door. No locks. He wasn’t a prisoner, whatever they wanted with him, so it had to be an improvement. The corridor was stone, filled with an icy draft, and his feet felt freezing. The room was a reasonably well-appointed bathroom. The fixtures were somewhat strange in appearance, and he couldn’t even imagine what they were made of, though it certainly wasn’t porcelain, but it was easy enough to figure out the plumbing; he supposed there were only a few designs among humans. There was hot water—in fact, there was a large sunken tub filled with steaming hot water that looked somewhat like a Japanese bath-house fixture, and from the faint medicinal smell he supposed it came right up from a volcanic spring somewhere. Relieving himself, Paul supposed this was the ultimate reality testing. He caught up a fur-lined rug or blanket from a bench and wrapped it around himself.
Returning to the room, the other looked at Paul in his improvised blanket, and said, “I ought to have thought of that. There’s a bedgown on the chair.”
It looked like an old-fashioned bathrobe, but bulkier, lined with some silky fabric that felt like fur, and fastened tightly up at the neck to keep out draughts. It was very warm; in his own world it would have been good for a topcoat intended for traveling in Siberia. He sat down on the bed, drawing up his bare feet under the warm robe.
“That’ll do for a start. Now, where am I, and what is this place, and what am I doing here? And, incidentally, who are you?”
Bard repeated his name and Paul tried it over on his tongue. “Bard di Asturien.” It was not so outlandish, after all. He was trying to assimilate what Bard had told him about the Hundred Kingdoms. He wondered what the name of the sun was—if they were a pre-space culture, they probably called it The Sun—and he didn’t know of any world within the Confederacy which had a sun as large as this, or as red. The really big red suns usually didn’t have habitable planets. “Are there really a Hundred Kingdoms?”
He was thinking of a kind of United Confederacy where the kings all met together, as in the four-yearly Congress of the Confederacy of Worlds. Only there weren’t a hundred inhabited planets. A hundred kings together would be quite an assembly, especially if they got along no better than the embassies of the Confederacy usually did! And there were only forty-two of them!
Bard took his question quite seriously.
“I am better at strategy than at geography,” he said, “and I have not consulted a map maker recently; there may have been some new alliances, and the Hasturs have recently taken over a vacant throne or two. I think perhaps there are seventy-five or eighty, no more. But the Hundred Kingdoms is a good round number a
nd sounds well beyond their borders.”
“And how did you manage to bring me here?” Paul asked. “The last I heard, even with hyper-drive, to go much farther than the Alpha colony took an enormous amount of time, and I notice that my hair and nails haven’t grown all that much.”
Bard scowled and said, “I haven’t the least idea what you are talking about.” Does he have sorcery stronger than ours? Paul heard the unspoken thought perfectly well.
“I take it, then, we’re right outside the Confederacy of Worlds.”
“Whatever they may be, we are,” Bard said.
“And the Terran police have no jurisdiction here?”
“It, or they, certainly do not The only law within this kingdom is that of my father, as regent for my brother Alaric. Why do you ask? Are you a fugitive from justice, or a criminal under sentence of death?”
“I spent enough time as a fugitive,” Paul said. “I was remanded for rehabilitation twice before I was eighteen. At this time I am supposed to be in custody, and under sentence…” It made no sense to speak of the stasis box. They evidently didn’t have it here and there was no sense in giving them ideas.
“Your country imprisons, then, rather than giving death or exile?”
Paul nodded.
“And you were—imprisoned? Then, since I delivered you out of prison, you owe me service.”
“That’s a moot point,” said Paul, “and we’ll moot it later. How did you bring me here?”
But the explanation—starstones, a circle of wizards—made no more sense to him than, he suspected, the stasis box would have made to the Wolf. Come to think of it, it was as likely as anything else that could get him out of a stasis box. It had been tried, of course, but had never been managed before; or if it was, the government wasn’t telling anybody.
“What about the people who brought me here?”
Bard’s face was grim. “They’re in no condition to go blabbing about it.” Paul knew perfectly well what he meant. “In your own idiom, they are in earth, except for my father. He will meet you later; he is still sleeping. His night’s work was—strenuous, for so old a man.” Paul had a fragmentary picture: three graves, hastily dug by moonlight, and suddenly he turned cold. This was no place for frightened conformists. Well, that was the kind of place he had wanted all his life. The people in this place played by rules he could understand. He knew Bard was quite willing to frighten him, and he decided it was time to let this self-styled Wolf know that he didn’t scare easy. Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Not me.
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