Operation Chaos

XV

I knew exactly where I was bound. A wartime friend of mine, Juan Fernandez, had put his Army experience to good use. He’d been in the propaganda section, and done many excellent scripts. These days, instead of preparing nightmares to send the enemy, he was broadcasting a popular dream series, and his sponsors were paying him accordingly. In fact, everyone loved Fernandez except the psychoanalysts, and they’re obsolete now that scientific research has produced some really efficient antipossession techniques. Last year he had built a lodge in the country of his ancestors. It stood entirely by itself on the Sonora coast, at one of the loneliest spots on Midgard and one of the most beautiful. Fernandez had offered me. the use of it this month, and finny and I had set our wedding date accordingly.

We glided down about noon the next day. Westward the Gulf of California burned blue and molten, white. Surf broke on a wide strip of sand beach, cliffs rose tier upon tier, finally the land itself rolled off to the east, dry, stark, and awesome. The lodge made a spot of green, perched on a bluff just above the strand.

Ginny clapped her hands. “Oh! I wouldn’t have believed it!”

“You Easterners don’t know what big country is,” I said smugly.

She shaded her eyes against the sun-dazzle and pointed. “What’s that, though?”

My own gaze traveled no further than her arm, but I remembered. Atop a cliff, about a mile north of the lodge and several hundred feet higher, crumbling walls surrounded a rubble heap; the snag of a tower stood at the northwest angle, to scowl among winds. “La Fortaleza,” I said. “Spanish work, seventeenth century. Some don had an idea he could exploit this area for profit. He erected the castle as a strong point and residence, brought a wife here from Castile. But everything went wrong and the place was soon abandoned.”

“Can we explore it?”

“If you like.

Ginny laid a hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong, Steve?”

“Oh . . . nothing. I don’t care for the Fortaleza myself. Even as a human by daylight, I sense wrongness. I went over there once after dark, wolf-shape, and it stank. Not so much in a physical way, but—Oh, forget it.”

She said soberly: “The Spaniards enslaved the Indians in those times, didn’t they? I imagine a lot of human agony went into that castle.”

“And left a residuum. Yeah, probably. But hell, it was long ago. We’ll have a look around. The ruins are picturesque, and the view from there is tremendous.”

“If you really are worried about ghosts—”

“Forget it, darling! I’m not superstitious!”

And we landed at the lodge and did indeed forget it.

The place was built in cloister style, white walls and red tile roof enclosing a courtyard where a fountain played. But there was also a garden surrounding the outside, green with leaves and grass, red and white and purple and gold with flower beds. We were quite alone. The grounds were elementalized for Earth and Water, hence needed no attendants; the other two elemental forces kept the house air-conditioned, and an expensive cleanliness spell had also been put on it. Since Ginny was now temporarily out of the goetic game, she prepared a Mexican lunch from the supplies we’d brought along. She was so beautiful in shorts, halter, and frilly apron that I hadn’t the heart to offer to teach her to cook. She exclaimed aloud when the dirty dishes floated back to the kitchen and followed to watch them dive into soapy water and frisk around. “It’s the most up-to-date automatic dishwasher I’ve heard of!” she cried.

So we had plenty of time for an afternoon of surf bathing. At sunset we climbed back a stairway hewn from the yellow rock, ravenous, and I prepared steaks by introducing them to a charcoal fire but allowing no further conversation. Afterward we moved onto a patio overlooking the sea. We sat in deck chairs, holding hands, and the stars came out to greet us.

“Let’s Skinturn at moonrise and frolic a bit,” I suggested. “You’d make a delightful lady wolf. Or, hmm, I wou—Never mind!”

She shook her head. “I can’t, Steve, dear.”

“Sure, you can. You’d need a T-spell, of course, but—”

`That’s just it. You have lycanthropic genes; all your need to change species is polarized light. But for me it’s a major transformation, and . . . I don’t know . . don’t feel able to do it. I can’t even remember the formulas. I guess I’m not able, any more. My knowledge has gotten even fuzzier than I expected. I’ll need refresher courses in the most elementary things. Right now, only a professional could change me.”

I sighed. I’d been looking forward to wolfing it. You don’t really know the world till you’ve explored it with animal as well as human senses, and Ginny was certainly a part of the world- Whoa, there! “Okay,” I said. “Later, when you’re an adept again.”

“Of course. I’m sorry, darling. If you want to run off by yourself, werewise, go ahead.”

“Not without you.”

She chuckled. “You might get fleas, anyhow.” She was leaning over to nibble my ear when we both heard the footsteps.

I rose to my feet, muttering inhospitable things. A form, shadowy under the velvet sky, approached us over a path which snaked inland. Who the devil, I thought. Someone from the village, ten miles hence? But—My nose in human shape is dull by my wolf standards, but suddenly caught a smell I didn’t like. It wasn’t an unpleasant odor; indeed, its pungency seemed at once to heighten Ginny’s half-visible beauty to an unbearable degree. And yet something in me bristled.

I stepped forward as the stranger reached our patio. He was medium-tall for a Mexican, which made him shorter than me. He moved so gracefully, no more loud than smoke, that I wondered if he could be a werecougar. A dark cape over an immaculate white suit garbed the supple body. His wide-brimmed hat made the face obscure, till he took it off and bowed. Then light from a window touched him. I had never met a handsomer man, high cheekbones, Grecian nose, pointed chin, wide-set eyes of a gold-flecked greenish gray. His skin was whiter than my wife’s, and the sleek hair was ash-blond. I wondered if he was a Mexican national, let alone of native stock.

“Buenas noches, senor,” I said curtly. “Pardon, pero no hablamos espanol.” Which was not quite true, but I didn’t want to make polite chitchat.

The voice that answered was tenor or contralto, I couldn’t decide which, but music in any case. “I’ faith, good sir, I speak as many tongues as needful. I pray forgiveness, yet having observed from afar that this house was lighted, methought its master had returned, and I did come with neighborly greeting.”

His pronunciation was as archaic as the phrasing: the vowels, for instance, sounded Swedish, though the sentences didn’t have a Swedish rhythm. At the moment, however, I was surprised by the words themselves. “Neighbor?”

“My sister and I have made abode within yon ancient castle.”

“What? But Oh.” I stopped. Fernandez hadn’t mentioned anything like this, but then, he himself hadn’t been here for months. The Fortaleza and grounds belonged to the Mexican government, from which he had purchased several acres for his hideaway. “Did you buy it?”

“A few rooms were made a right comfortable habitation for us, sir,” he evaded. “I hight Amaris Maledicto.” The mouth, so cleanly shaped that you scarcely noticed how full it was, curved into an altogether charming smile. Had it not been for the odor low in my, nostrils, I might have been captivated. “You and your p fair lady are guests of Senor Fernandez? Be welcome.”

“We’ve borrowed the lodge.” Ginny’s voice was a tad breathless. I stole a glance, and saw by the yellow windowlight that her eyes were full upon his, brilliant. “Our . . . our name . . . Virginia. Steven and Virginia . . . Matuchek.” I thought, with a cold sort puzzlement, that brides were supposed to make great show of being Mrs. So—and-So, not play it down in that fashion. “It’s very kind of you to walk this far. Did your . . . your sister . . . come too?”

“Nay,” said Maledicto. “And truth to tell, however glad of your society, ’tis belike well she was spared sight of such loveliness as is yours. ’Twould but excite envy and wistfulness.”

From him, somehow, unbelievably, in that flowering night above the great dim sea, under stars and sheer cliffs, that speech to another man’s wife wasn’t impudent, or affected, or anything except precisely right. By the half-illumination on the patio, I saw Ginny blush. Her eyes broke free of Maledicto’s, the lashes fluttered birdlike, she answered confusedly: “It’s kind of you . . . yes . . . won’t you sit down?”

He bowed again and flowed into a chair. I plucked at Ginny’s dress, drew her back toward the house and hissed furiously: “What the devil are you thinking of? Now we won’t get rid of this character for an hour!”

She shook free with an angry gesture I remembered from past quarrels. “We have some cognac, Senor Maledicto,” she said. It would have been her best smile she gave him, slow and sideways, except that the faintest tremble remained upon her lips. “I’ll get it. And would you like a cigar? Steve brought some Perfectos.”

I sat down while she bustled inside. For a moment I was too outraged to speak. Maledicto took the word. “A charming lass, sir. A creature of purest delight.”

“My wife,” I growled. “We came here for privacy.”

“Oh, misdoubt me not!” His chuckle seemed to blend with the sea-murmur. Where he sat, in shadow, I could only make him out as a white and black blur, those oblique eyes glowing at me. “I understand, and shall not presume upon your patience. Mayhap later ’twould please you to meet my sister—”

“I don’t play bridge.”

“Bridge? Oh, aye, indeed, I remember. ’Tis a modern game with playing cards.” His hand sketched an airy dismissal. “Nay, sir, our way is not to force ourselves unwanted. Indeed, we cannot visit save where some desire for us exists, albeit unspoken. ’Twas but . . . how should a man know aught from our dwelling, save that neighbors had arrived? And now I cannot churlishly refuse your lady’s courtesy. But ’tis for a short time only, sir.”

Well, that was as soft an answer as ever turned away wrath. I still couldn’t like Maledicto, but my hostility eased till I could analyze my motives. Which turned out to be largely reaction to a third wheel. Something about him, maybe the perfume he used, made me desire Ginny more than ever before.

But my rage came back as she hovered over him with the cognac, chattered too loudly and laughed too much and insisted on having the Maledictos to dinner tomorrow! I hardly listened to their conversation. He talked smoothly, wittily, never quite answering my questions about himself. I sat and rehearsed what I’d say after he left.

Finally he rose. “I must not keep you,” he said. “Moreover, ’tis a stony path to the Fortaleza, one with which I am not well familiar. Thus I must go slowly, lest I lose my way.”

“Oh! But that could be dangerous.” Ginny turned to me. “You’ve been over the trail, Steve. Show him home.

“I’d not afford you that trouble,” demurred Maledicto.

“It’s the least we can do. I insist, Amaris. It won’t take you long, Steve. You said you felt like a run in the moonlight, and look, the moon is almost due up.”

“Okay, okay, okay!” I snapped, as ungraciously as possible. I could, indeed, turn wolf on the way back, and work some of my temper off. If I tried to argue with her now, the way I felt, our second night would see one Armageddon of a quarrel. “Let’s go.

He kissed her hand. She said farewell, in a soft, blurry voice, like a schoolgirl in love for the first time.,

He had a flashlight; it made a small, bobbing puddle of radiance before us, picking out stones and clumps of sagebrush. The moonglow on the eastern ridges grew stronger. I felt it tingle along my nerves. For a while, as we wound across the mountainside, only the scrunch of our shoes made any noise.

“You brought no torch of your own, sir,” he said at last. I grunted. Why should I tell him of my witchsight-to say nothing of the fact that I was a werewolf who in my alternate species had no need of flashlights? “Well, you shall take mine back,” he continued. “The way were perilous otherwise.”

That I knew. An ordinary human would blunder off the trail, even in bright moonlight. It was a dim, nearly obliterated path, and the land was gnarled and full of shadows. If he then got excited, the man would stumble around lost till dawn—or, quite probably, go off a precipice and smash his skull.

“I will call for it tomorrow evening.” Maledicto sighed happily. “Ali, sir, ’tis rare good you’ve come. New-wedded folk are aye overflowingly full of love, and Cybelita has long been as parched as Amaris.”

“Your sister?” I asked.

“Yes. Would you care to meet her this eventide?”

“No.”

Silence fell again. We dipped into a gut-black ravine, rounded a crag, and could no more see the lodge. Nothing but the dim sheen of waters, the moonglow opposite, the suddenly very far and cold stars, lit that country. I saw the broken walls of the Fortaleza almost over my head, crowning their clifflike teeth in a jaw. Maledicto and I might have been the last living creatures on Midgard.

He stopped. His flashlight snapped out. “Good night, Senor Matuchek!” he cried. His laughter rang evil and beautiful.

“What?” I blinked bewildered into the murk that had clamped on me. “What the hell do you mean? We’re not at the castle yet!”

“Nay. Proceed thither if thou wilst. And if thou canst.”

I heard his feet start back down the path. They didn’t crunch the gravel any more. They were soft and rapid, like the feet of a bounding animal.

Back toward the lodge.

A moment I stood as if cast in lead. I could hear the faintest movement of air, rustling dry sagebrush, the ocean. Then my heartbeat shook all other noises out of me.

“Ginny!” I screamed.

I whirled and raced after him. My toes caught a rock, I pitched over, bloodied my hands with the fall. I staggered up, the bluffs and gullies flung my curses back at me, I went stumbling down a slope and through brush and cactus.

Again my foot snagged on something and I fell. This time I cracked my head against a boulder. The impact wasn’t serious, but pain speared through me, lights burst, and for a minute or two I lay half-stunned.

And I felt a new presence in the night.

And through the hopeless aloneness that streamed from it and into my heart and marrow, I felt wire-taut expectation.

—success in my grasp, this third time-both of them, he dead and she corrupted, afterward broken by remorse-safety from the threat that can be seen: over them like a storm cloud as that certain moment draws nigh safety at last—

And the thought jagged more dreadfully sharp than any pain: Maledicto couldn’t affect her by himself, not that strongly anyhow, not overcoming the love and, pride and decency of her . . . no, the Tempter hasp worked in person on my girl—

I did not know what evil was intended. But in flash, the vision of her alone with Maledicto burned me free of everything else, of hurt, weakness, sense and even for a while the memory of a sneering Observer. I howled forth my rage and desperation, sprang erect, and ran.

That was sheer berserkergang. I didn’t consciously notice what I was doing. Doubtless this had been planned, so I’d fall over a cliff to my death. But half-animal instincts and reflexes—I suppose—guarded me.

Presently I’d exhausted my wind and had to stop and gasp a while. That forced pause gave my sanity a chance to take over.

Glaring around, I saw neither castle nor lodge. I’d lost my way.