The Road to Amber (18 page)

Oh. The other thing I wanted to tell you concerns the first Alice. I had located some small memory caches for her. They were inadvertently recorded because of a peculiar conflict situation. Nelsor, I am going to begin pushing against this retirement program if you do not answer me…

A
lice stared at the vibrating landscape in the sky. A final span of bridge came drifting in slowly from her right, streaming colors as it passed through the rainbow. The voices of her dead sisters ceased, and only the wind that blows between the worlds could be heard in its chill passage.

“It is called the Killing Ground,” she said then. “It has been transferred here from another location since my last visit. It is the final place.”

“You never referred to it so before,” Kalifriki said.

“I only just learned the name. I have reached Nelsor again. Or he has reached me. He bids me cross over. He says, ‘Come back to the Killing Ground, Alice, my last.’”

“I thought you had never been to the final place.”

“I told you I had glimpsed it.”

As the last piece of bridge slid into place, connecting their span with the lowest step beneath the oval, she saw the vibrations shake loose a small white object from the niche. With a sudden clarity of vision, she discerned it to be a skull. It bounced, then rolled, coming to rest in the sand near a spreading red stain.

“Kalifriki,” she said, “I am afraid. He is changed. Everything is changed. I don’t want to cross over to that place.”

“I don’t believe I can get us out at this point,” Kalifriki said. “I feel we are bound too tightly to my initial disposition of the Thread, back in the Valley of Frozen Time, to employ it otherwise here. We must pass through whatever lies ahead, or be stopped by it.”

“Please make certain,” she asked, licking her lips. “He is calling again…”

A
lice, Alice, Alice. You must be the one. It could have been none of the other wasted ladies. Even if Aidon fumbled in his approach by not putting the questions, there should have been some lapse on their part, some betrayal of the truth, should there not? The guilty one would not even have corne in… Why, why are you here at all? And that stranger at your side… What is your plan? If it is you, why are you here? I am troubled. I must put you the questions. Why did you come back, Alice my last? It must be you…mustn’t it? And why do you hesitate now? Come back to the Killing Ground, where her blood stains the sand and our skills lie in constant testimony to the crime. Come back. No? Then I call upon the siphon to bear you to me, here in the last place, beside the well of the dot that is the center of the universe. Even now it snakes forth. You
will
come to me, Alice, here and now, on this most holy ground of truth. I reach for you, You cannot resist.

Not now, Aidon. Not now. Go back. Go back. I have retired you. Go back.

It comes for you, Alice.

“I
am sorry,” Kalifriki said. “It is as I told you.”

Staring ahead, Alice saw a black line emerge from the well, lash about, grow still, then move again, rising, swaying in her direction, lengthening…

“The siphon,” she said. “A piece of ship’s equipment. Very versatile. He is sending it for me.”

“Is it better to wait for it or go on?”

“I would rather walk than be dragged. Perhaps he will not employ it if I come on my own.”

She began moving again. The black hose, which had been approaching, snakelike, halted its advance as she came toward it down the final length of silver. When she came up in front of it, it retreated. Step by step then, it withdrew before her. She hesitated a moment when she came to the end of the span. It leaned slightly toward her. At this, she took another step. It backed off immediately.

“We’re here,” she said to Kalifriki. “There are several ledges now, like a rough stairway, to climb.”

She began mounting them, and as soon as she reached the flat sandy area the siphon withdrew entirely, back into the well. She continued to advance, looking about. She carne to the well, halted, and peered down into it.

“We are at the well,” she said, and Kalifriki removed his hand from her shoulder and reached down to feel along its wall. “It goes all the way through this asteroid,” she continued. “The dot—the black hole—is down there at its center. The siphon is coiled about the inner perimeter, near to the lip. It shrinks, so that one circuit is sufficient to house it. Below, I can see the bright swirling of the disc. It is far down inside—perhaps midway.”

“So this place is being eaten, down at its center,” Kalifriki said. “I wonder if that is the cause of the vibration?”

She walked on, past the red stain and the skull, to regard the niche from which the skull had tumbled. Another skull rested there, far to the right, and a collection of pincers, tongs, drills, hammers, and chains lay in the middle area.

“Torture tools here,” she observed.

Kalifriki, in the meantime, was pacing about the area, touching everything he encountered. Finally, he stopped beside the well. Looking back, Alice saw that the rainbow fell upon his shoulders.

Then, above the sighing of the wind, there came a voice.

“I am going to kill you, Alice,” it said. “Very slowly and very terribly.”

“Why?” she asked.

The voice seemed to be coming from the vicinity of the skull. It was, as she recalled it, the voice of Nelsor.

”All of the others are dead,” he said. “Now it is your turn. Why did you come back?”

“I came here to help you,” she said, “if I could.”

“Why?” he asked, and the skull turned over so that the empty sockets faced her.

“Because I love you,” she replied.

There came a dry chuckling sound.

“How kind of you,” he said then. “Let us have a musical accompaniment to that tender sentiment. Alices, give us a song.”

Immediately, the awful plaint began again, this time from near at hand. To her right, six nude duplicates of herself suddenly hung in chains upon the black wall. They were bruised but unmutilated. Their eyes did not focus upon any particular objects as they began to shriek and wail. At the end of their line hung a final set of chains.

“When I have done with you, you shall join my chorus,” Nelsor’s voice went on.

“Done?” she said, raising a pair of pliers from the ledge and replacing it. “Employing things such as this?”

“Of course,” he replied.

“I love you, Nelsor.”

“That should make it all the more interesting.”

“You are mad.”

“I don’t deny it.”

“Could you forget all this and let me help you?”

“Forget? Never. I am in control here. And it is not your love or your help that I seek.”

She looked at Kalifriki, and he removed the bow from his shoulder and strung it. Then he opened the case and withdrew its arrow, the spectrum blazing upon its tip.

“Ifyour friend wishes to punch a hole in my head, that is all right with me. It will not let out the evil spirits, though.”

“Is it possible for you to reembody yourself and come away with me?” she asked.

Again, the laugh.

“I shall not leave this place, and neither shall you,” he said.

Kalifriki set the arrow to the bowstring.

“Not now, Aidon!” Nelsor shouted. Then, “Or perhaps your friend would shoot an arrow down the well to destroy the dot?” he said. “If he can, by all means bid him do so. For destroying the universe is the only thing I know to protect you from my wrath.”

“You heard him, Kalifriki,” she said.

Kalifriki drew back upon the bowstring.

“You are a fool,” Nelsor said, “to bring—of all things—an archer here to destroy me…one of the legendary ones, I gather, who need not even see the target…against a dead man and a black hole.”

Kalifriki turned suddenly, leaning back, arrow pointed somewhere overhead.

“…And a disoriented one, at that,” he added.

Kalifriki held this position, his body vibrating in time with the ground.

“You are a doomed, perverse fool,” Nelsor said, “and I will use your sisters in your questioning through pain, in testament against you. They will rend you, stretch you, dislocate you, crack your bones.”

There came a sound of chains rattling against stone. The chorus was diminished by half as the restraints fell from three of the Alices and their singing ceased. At that moment, their eyes focused upon her, and they began to move forward.

“Let it begin,” he said, “in this place of bloody truth.”

Kalifriki released his arrow upward. Bearing its dark burden, the Dagger of Rama sped high and vanished into the blackness.

N
elsor! She has brought with her a being capable of destroying our universe, and it is possible that he just has. I must perform some massive calculations to confirm my suspicion—but in the meantime our survival depends upon our acting as if it is correct. We cannot return to our alpha point and start again if I am destroyed. And if I am destroyed you are destroyed, along with this place and all of your Alices. We are facing the end of the world! I must confer with you immediately!

T
he three Alices advanced upon the first stair.

A
idon! Whatever it is, this is not the time for it! I am finally arrived at the moment for which I have waited all these years. I find your importunities distracting. Whatever it is, deal with it yourself, as you would. I will not be interrupted till I have done with this Alice. Stay away from me until then!

T
he three Alices mounted the first step. At their back, their sisters’ song reached a new pitch, as if the crescendo might finally be attained.

V
ery well, Nelsor. I shall act. First Alice, I summon what remains of you. By bone, dot, and siphon, I call you to embodiment upon the Killing Ground! Perhaps you can reason with him.

A
lice glanced at her three sisters, approaching now upon the farther stair. Kalifriki lowered his bow and unbraced it, slung it. He reached up then and removed the bandage from his eyes.

“N
elsor, listen to me,” Alice said. ”Aidon will be destroyed. So will the programs which maintain your own existence-unless you reembody and shift your entire consciousness back into human form. Do that and come away with me, for this place is doomed. No matter what our differences, we can resolve them and be happy again. I will take good care of you.”

“…‘Again’?” Nelsor said. “When were we ever subject to mutual happiness? I do not understand you, clone. What I do not understand most, however, is why one of you killed my wife. And I feel strongly that it was you, Alice my last. Would you care to comment on this?”

From somewhere, a bell began to ring.

“Who sounds the ship’s alert?” he cried.

“Probably Aidon,” she responded, “as it realizes the truth of what I have been saying.”

“You have not yet answered my question,” he said. “Did you kill my wife?”

The second skull fell from the niche, rolled to the bloody area near to the first. The bell continued to ring. The voices of the three chained Alices rose and rose.

She grimaced. The other Alices mounted another step.

“It was self-defense,” she said. “She attacked me. I had no desire to harm her.”

“Why would she attack you?”

“She was jealous of us.”

“What? How could that be? There was nothing between us.”

“But there was,” she said. “You once mistook me for her, and we had our pleasure of it.”

“Why did you permit it?”

“For you,” she said. “I wanted to comfort you in your need. I love you.”

“Then it could have gone by and been forgotten. How did she learn of it?”

“I told her, when she singled me out for reprimand over something one of the others had done. She slapped me and I slapped her back. Soon we were fighting on the ground, here—when this place was elsewhere. She struck me about the head with a tool she had at her belt. This is why I wear these scars. I thought she would kill me. But there was a rock nearby. I raised it and swung it. I was not trying to kill her, only to save myself.”

“So you are the one.”

“We are the same. You know that. Down to the cellular level. Down to the genes. You cannot have her back. Have me instead, I am the same flesh. You could not tell the difference then. It will feel the same now. And I will be better to you than she ever was. She was rude, imperious, egotistical. Come back. Come away with me, Nelsor my love. I will care for you always.”

He screamed, and the three Alices halted at the top of the stair.

Slowly, a haze formed about the skull which faced her.

“Go back, Alices. Go back,” he said. “I will deal with her myself.”

The skull fell backward—now somewhat more than a skull, as the outlines of features had occurred about it in the haze—and a wavering began beneath it, delineating the form of a body, pulsing it into greater definition. Beside it, however, a similar phenomenon began to invest the second skull. The three Alices at the edge of the oval turned away, began walking back down the stair just as their sisters hit and ran the crescendo, voices changing from wailing to pure song. The three never returned to the wall, however, but faded from sight before they reached the bottom stair. At that time, the chains rang against the wall, and Kalifriki saw that the others had vanished as well.

Shortly, the nude form of a dark-haired, short-bearded man of medium stature took shape, breathing slowly, upon the sand. Beside him, another Alice came into focus, grew more and more substantial.

“You did not tell me the full story,” Kalifriki said as they watched.

“I told you everything essential to the job. Would more detail have changed anything?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “You fled after the fight, and this is your first time back then, correct?”

“Yes,” she said.

“So you were not party to the other six Alices’ journeys to this place, save that you monitored them to learn what you could of it.”

“That’s right.”

“You might have warned them that any of them would be suspect. And after the first of them died you knew Nelsor’s state of mind. You let your sisters go to their deaths without trying to stop them.”