The Parallel Man (9 page)

Firedrake slayer; a good name to die with if one must die. As the mighty monster slipped off the edge I thrust my left hand into a rent in the wing I had made with my dirk, and plunged the dirk itself into the base of the wing, using it again as an anchor. My feet scrabbled, but could find no purchase; I hung by my hands alone as we left the ledge, and the frantic beating of the blinded beast’s other wing tossed us in mad spirals. Down, down, down, nearer to death on the crags below. I was hanging below the beast, it would land on me and crush me.

A branch whipped my cheek and I suddenly smelled evergreen sap. With the greatest effort of will of my life I made my hands release their hold and I fell through the air. Branches cracked, my fall slowed, and for a second I dared to hope. Then my leg hit something solid and snapped as the branches had snapped. There was a terrible pain and I lost consciousness.

There were fevered dreams afterward that seemed to last for centuries. But one day I awoke to brightness in my eyes and the smell of bread baking somewhere. A serf’s dull eyes were regarding me from a face that seemed to float above me. Then as I tried to move the face vanished and I nearly lost consciousness again in the pain from my leg and ribs and head. The room swam around me, then came into focus again; my own room at Castle Thorn. The sword of my fathers was back in its rack on the wall, a newly painted shield beside it. The arms were my own, the sword and crown, but without the “file,” the “difference” which marked me as the oldest son of the king. That shield should be borne by my father, not by me. I was staring dully at the shield, my mind refusing to work, when Stanislaus, the court physician, bustled into the room, his face beaming.

“Hail, firedrake slayer!” he said. “Hail, Casmir, protector of the kingdom! Rest now and heal. All is well.” I must have made some feeble gesture toward the shield, because his face became grave. “Your father’s heart could not hold the sorrow of your peril and the joy of your victory without bursting,” he said solemnly. “Casmir the Ninth is dead. Long live King Casmir, Tenth of the Line!” That was too much and I lapsed into Unconsciousness again.

After that were long lazy days and nights with less pain and fewer nightmares. Delora came to me once or twice, suitably chaperoned and laid a cool hand on my brow. Her skin was reddened and her eyebrows and lashes scorched away, but she was lovely as ever. Her thanks were flowery, but had little real warmth behind them and a dull irritation stirred under my lethargy. She was lovely but was there a real woman behind that beautiful facade? I remembered . . . what did I remember? Laughing faces, tender looks . . . Were they real memories, or fantasies? I slept again.

Little triumphs marked my days; cutting my own meat, being supported, none too gently, by two serfs as I got out of bed to use the garderobe. There was a day when I knew that I had my life back, if not all my strength; I was a man who had been broken and was weak, no longer a broken man. It was on that day my old life ended.

I was lying in my bed in a sort of restful doze, postponing the moment that I would have to take up the reins of power.

Mortifer was away and that gave me time to drift and heal. As soon as he returned there would be a test of wills, one I meant to win. My father’s age and weakness—yes weakness, I could call it by its name now—no longer put me in Mortifer’s power. I was no longer his pupil and would never be his puppet. I was determined to show him that. If only the Falling Sickness did not betray me, as it had done before in confrontations with Mortifer . . .

Suddenly I realized that the small noises of the everyday functioning of the castle had ceased. I looked over at the serf who stood by the door ready to summon help or run errands. He was unnaturally still and as I gazed at him I realized that he was not breathing, not even blinking. The hair rose on the back of my neck and my skin tingled. Enchantment! Mortifer must be back, and this must be his way of attack, sudden, swift and silent. Was I, too, paralyzed? No, I felt as fit and able as ever. As blood coursed in my body in response to the challenge I felt fitter than I had since my fight with the firedrake. I leaped to my feet, and ripped my sword and shield from the wall. I thrust my feet into the soft boots beside the bed and tiptoed to the door.

It opened silently; the hinges had been well-oiled, not to disturb a wounded man’s sleep. In the corridor a serf and a mirror courtier stood frozen like statues. I crept softly past them, my ears straining for any sound. There! That could only be the gates of the Great Hall being opened; I would know that creak and groan anywhere. A small stair not far along this corridor would bring me out onto the dais; it was a way for the royal family to slip away from a feast that went on too long. Should I take a more indirect way? No! The King of Carpathia should face his enemies boldly, not creep like a rat in his own hold!

They were standing in the center of the Great Hall, a little knot of men in strange garments. Their leader was not Mortifer, but a man I had never seen before in strange close-fitting garments of green so dark it was almost black in some lights. Behind him was a man in brown with a strange object, which gleamed and sparkled . . . in his hands? No, floating in the air before him! Enchantments!

They had not seen me yet; they were gaping around the Hall. I stepped suddenly out onto the dais, letting my sword touch my shield to make a small ringing sound. Every eye turned to me, but no one made a hostile move. The green-clad leader looked at me impassively, but the man in brown gasped, “The same man—the same in every detail!”

The leader said in a steady voice, “That was what we might have expected, given what else we know.” He turned his gray eyes to me and said, “I am Justinian Droste. You are . . . Casmir?”

I nodded, trying to keep my face impassive. “Casmir, King of Carpathia, tenth of the Line. And you, I suppose, are creatures of Mortifer’s?”

The man named Justinian Droste gave a short laugh and said with apparent sincerity, “We’re no friends to Mortifer, King Casmir. In fact, we’re here to help you against Mortifer, if you’ll let us. Help you in ways you can hardly guess at yet.”

I lifted a skeptical eyebrow at them. “And what do you want in return for your—help?” All the same my blood was pounding in excitement. Mortifer was powerful and wily; despite all my royal power and authority I had half-feared the issue of any struggle between us. But with a rival gang of enchanters on my side, perhaps I could break Mortifer, break him and banish him as I had longed to do ever since he had wormed his way into my father’s confidence.

Droste looked into my eyes and said softly, “We want to bring Mortifer down. Just that. Will you help us?”

I held his eyes for a long moment and then nodded slowly. “If I can do it without prejudice to my people and my kingdom, I will.”

Justinian Droste sighed. “Your people and your kingdom, yes. I’m afraid that’s the first shock I have for you. But after the mistakes we made last time I’m determined to tell you everything. Perhaps it’s easier to show you than to tell you, though.” He walked over to the side of the hall; one of the castle serfs was frozen there where he had been wiping a table. Droste took a small globe from a pouch at his waist and pressed it, making a fine mist issue from a small orifice at one side of the globe. Droste directed the spray at his own hand and rubbed it lightly into the wrist. “This stuff is harmless,” he said, “just a solvent for a common adhesive. Notice that it does nothing to the hair on the back of my hand.”

He stepped over to the serf, lifted the fellow’s shock of hair and sprayed under it. Then he pulled gently and the whole head of hair came off in his hand. Under it was a dome of gleaming metallic blue, like a skullcap, coming almost to the serf’s eyebrows. Justinian Droste stepped back and nodded to the man in brown who touched the blue dome with a small glittering object, then put both of his hands on the dome and gave it a sharp twist. The whole top of the serf’s head came off in his hands and he laid it on the table the serf had been wiping. The thing was like a mushroom; the “stem” had been inside the lower part of the serf’s head.

“A control unit,” said Droste. “This is a fairly standard low-level general purpose android, generally called an ‘andro.’ All of the servitors in this place are of the same type; they haven’t even bothered to give them false foreheads under that mop of hair. I take it that you’ve been conditioned not to pay much attention to servitors, so they didn’t take much trouble with them.” He turned to the man in brown. “Andres, give me the stat of the plot of the other place.” He studied a sheet of what looked like parchment or stiff cloth for a moment then said formally, “Follow me, please, King Casmir.”

“Wait,” I said. “This—thing—is not flesh and blood? It is a . . . puppet, moved by magical arts?” Droste nodded, his face grave. I laid my shield on the table and gripped my sword. Trying to think of what remained of the serf as no more than a lay figure for practice, I swung the sword over my head and dealt the thing a mighty blow. What was left of the head and one shoulder and arm bounced to the floor. There was no blood and no bone, only the gleam of metal, the glitter of some sort of crystal, and a tangle of multicolored threads and tubes. “Yes,” I said, dully, “yes, the thing is—what you said.”

“By the Mercy,” said the man in brown, whom Droste had called Andres. “If you went on 3V with that act, you’d make a fortune.” Droste gave him a sharp look and he fell silent, following Droste and myself as we headed for the main staircase out of the Hall. I stole a glance at the glittering object he pushed along with him; without a doubt it did float in the air.

Droste led me to an ornamental door and turned. “What is behind this door, King Casmir?” he asked. “Have you ever been inside it?”

I shook my head. “It is the Ladies’ Suite,” I said, “the Solar, the bedchambers of the unmarried court ladies, sewing rooms and the like. As a bachelor knight it is all forbidden territory to me.”

Droste nodded soberly, “Much of the castle is, is it not, on one pretext or another? Let’s look inside the door.” It resisted and Andres applied another of his glittering instruments to it. The door swung open, revealing a large gray chamber with no windows and no other doors. The walls were perfectly smooth and the room was without any furniture. Around the walls stood a dozen or so women, some in the dress of court ladies, others garbed as upper servants. All the faces were familiar; women I was used to seeing about the castle. Droste stepped over to the nearest, sprayed at the hairline and lifted the hair to reveal a blue dome. A flap of skinlike stuff peeled away from the forehead, revealing the blue.

“These are what are called ‘gynos,’ ” said Droste quietly. “They’re replicas of real women, and a great deal more detailed physically than a GP andro like the servitors. Ordinarily they’re only used for, well, rather discreditable purposes. Some of the male courtiers are probably from similar sources, but women generally have more sense than to . . . well it does happen though. But probably some of them are custom-made, both male and female. The resources of a good-sized planet were open to the people who constructed this place. If you’ll come out onto the battlements with me I’ll show you more.” As I followed him out into the hallway he said, “There are no children here, are there?”

I shook my head. “We sent them away when the firedrake came. They don’t seem to fly across the river. That’s why the Castle is so empty, my father didn’t want to separate families more than could be helped . . .” My voice died away.

Justinian Droste said dryly, “There’s very little call for child-size andros, and no tapes for childlike behavior. Their resources weren’t unlimited. Speaking of the, ah, firedrakes, how many have you seen close up at one time? More than one?” I shook my head and Droste nodded. “We only found one,” he said. “That must have been custom-made. Someone had done it quite a bit of damage, though. Ah, here’s the way out onto the battlements. Do you notice anything odd?”

I looked around me at the familiar scene. Around the horizon were the circling mountains; below us at the foot of the Castle Crag were the huts and cottages of Thorn village. Across the valley was what was now being called the Mount of Sacrifice, a name of ill-omen. But that was . . . Suddenly something about the clouds struck me. There was almost always a wind at Castle Thom, especially at this time of year. I had hardly ever seen the clouds completely still at Thorn, even in midsummer. But now the clouds were utterly motionless, as if on a blazing day in midsummer.

“We’re underground here, King Casmir,” said Droste’s voice in my ear. “The sky and clouds are holographic projections; so is most of the more distant scenery. Normally the cloud movement would be following a taped program but the little gadget that Andres is taking care of so assiduously stops all motion which depends on—well, certain electronic processes which are rather basic. I take it that you’ve been able to leave the castle very little and on those occasions you’ll have gone north or roughly east.”

At my stupefied look he shrugged lightly. “Those are side caverns,” he said, “some of the scenery there is real. Any other direction you’d soon run into rock.”

“But when I was a boy I ranged all over the countryside,” I burst out. “It’s only the last two years that we’ve been hemmed in like this.”

Droste’s tone was less somber as he said, “Two years, yes. That seems to be the time that this has been going on. Before that your memories are probably genuine, though they’ve been tampered with.”

The state of shocked lethargy gave way to a surge of hope “Then all this is just some sort of spell cast over me for the last two years?” I asked. “Of course, that’s when Mortifer came with his warning of the firedrakes. When they came as he predicted my father would hear nothing against him. But I never trusted him . . . What did he do—kidnap me and imprison me here? The kingdom . . . my father . . . are they . . . ?” Hope died as I saw the look on Droste’s face. I swallowed a lump in my throat and faltered. “In some of the old tales they say that men taken under the hills by the elvish folk have returned to find their friends grown old or dead; that a year with them under the hills is many years in the world of mortals. Is it . . . something like that?”