Past Imperative

43

THE CLIFF EDGE WAS EASIER WALKING THAN THE JUNGLE, because there was a lot of bare rock there. At times she had to choose between undergrowth and hair-raising acrobatics, but she made good progress. Soon she saw a distant twinkle of lights and guessed they were the bonfires at the temple.

I do your bidding, Holy Tion. Watch over me!

She began to worry that she might go right past the Sacrarium without seeing it. She should have asked the mad old hermit to give her directions. Well, if she arrived at the ruined bridge, she would know she had gone too far. And in the end there was no doubt. The forest thinned and she saw bare pillars standing over the trees, palely shining in Trumb's uncanny light.

Then she became very cautious. The distance was not great, but she moved one step at a time, feeling for her footing so she would not crack twigs or stumble on rocks. Her fur slippers were very good for that. She lifted branches out of the way; she stooped and at times even crawled on hands and knees. She clambered carefully over the fragments of masonry strewn around. There was no hurry—she had all night. She assumed that the forest was full of reapers, and that helped her to concentrate.

When she came to the steps, she sat down and took a breather. Then she wriggled up on her tummy through the litter of leaves and twigs until she could see into the court, staying close to a pillar. The ruin was empty and apparently deserted, haunted in the bright moonlight.

Well, if anyone else was around, he would be keeping quiet as she was. He would be flat on his belly as she was. He would be breathing very quietly as she was.

The mossy stone was cold. She should have brought one of Porith Molecatcher's fur blankets. But then she might have gone to sleep. She might have snored!

The Sacrarium seemed completely deserted. Not even the owls were making noises tonight. From the looks of the place, no one had come here in a hundred years. She had a deep conviction, though, that she was not the only one watching that circle of paving. The Thargian would be around somewhere, and perhaps the reinforcements he hoped for. Zath would have a reaper or two. T'lin Dragontrader? Sister Ahn?

Tion? Garward? Eltiana?

Even the gods would be watching.

But no one coughed. No one cracked a twig.

Why was the jungle so quiet?

Trumb climbed slowly up the sky.

The shadows played strange tricks. Eventually Eleal became convinced that there was a reaper standing on the far side of the Sacrarium, alongside one of the unbroken pillars. She told herself firmly that she was imagining things. No man would stand when he might have to wait for hours—he would sprawl on the ground as she did. Nevertheless, her eyes insisted on telling her that there was a dark figure standing beside that pillar, a man in a black gown with a hood. She thought she could even make out the paler glimmer of his face. Of course it had to be a delusion, a trick of the light.

She was too cold and uncomfortable to sleep, too frightened now to go away. No reaper would find her unless he stepped on her. Aware that she might have to wait until dawn, she stayed where she was, and the forest made no sounds at all.

44

AN HOUR OR SO AFTER MIDNIGHT, THE DOGCART CLATtered through Amesbury and began the gentle climb westward to Stonehenge. The moon was barely past the full, playing hide-and-seek in the clouds. A chill wind was blowing—the weather had turned nasty.

Creighton was on the rear-facing seat, idly tapping on one of the little drums the Gypsies had made for him. Edward was talking with the driver, Billy Boswell. Billy was about Edward's age, short and swarthy and naturally reticent. Under the gorgio's blandishments he had gradually been persuaded to talk about his life and himself. Now he was telling his worries that he might have to go and fight a war. That was exactly what Edward did want, but he was having trouble transferring his viewpoint to the Gypsy. He did not know how the Rom fared in Germany, and the greater benefits of English civilization were somewhat irrelevant to a man who spent most of his year on the road selling clothespins.

"Now, I was born in Africa—"

"Never ‘eard of it."

Mm! Edward tapped his feet in counterpoint to the drum.

"By the way,” Creighton said suddenly at their backs, “where did you get the fancy shoes, Exeter?"

"Billy gave them to me after we passed through Andover this afternoon. Very kind of him, I thought.” They were a size too small, but a man must not look a gift shoe in the tongue....

"Didn't cost nuffin',” Billy said in his Cheapside accent.

Mm! again.

Creighton stiffened, and pointed. “See lights over there?"

"Yes,” said the front bench unanimously.

"Where's that?” Edward added.

"It must be the Royal Artillery Barracks at Larkhill. Means we're getting close."

Salisbury Plain, apparently, was not a plain. The road dipped into another hollow.

Edward felt scruples. This sneaking around in the small hours of the morning with a Gypsy and a highly suspect character like Creighton was probably going to involve him in trespassing at the very least, and Lord knew what else. “Does anyone live at Stonehenge, sir? Who owns it?"

"It's owned by Sir Edmund Antrobus. There's a policeman lives in a cottage about quarter of a mile to the west. Let us trust that the worthy constable does not suffer from insomnia.” After a moment Creighton added, “The aerodrome's even closer, but I don't suppose there will be anyone there in the middle of the night."

Edward looked up as a patch of cloud began to glow fiercely silver. He shivered.

"Ah!” Creighton said. “You feel it too? How about you, Boswell?"

The Gypsy muttered something in Romany.

"Incredibly strong, if we can feel it here. There it is!"

The moon sailed out from behind its veils. Glimmering on the skyline a short way ahead stood the ghostly circle of trilithons—ruined, sinister, inexplicable. At first it seemed very small, surrounded by so much emptiness. As the cart grew closer, the height of the stones began to register. Who would have erected such a thing in so desolate a spot, and above all why? It was archaic insanity in stone, alone in the wind and time. The pony continued to trot along the dusty track, unaffected by such morbid wonderings.

Edward's scalp prickled. “Are you sure we couldn't try somewhere a little less spooky first, sir? Not so much ‘virtuality'?"

"We could, but I have my reasons for wanting to start here. The Chamber knows the prophecy too, remember. There are only five or six nodes in Sussland, so it would not be an impossible task to interdict them against you."

"I don't think I quite follow that. In fact I'm sure I don't."

"Think of a magic spell: ‘No one named Edward Exeter may come this way.’”

"Magic is that specific?"

"Call it mana, not magic. If it's strong enough, it can be. I'm hoping that a portal this powerful will overcome that sort of blockage, if it's been tried.” Hrrnph! “It's a great mistake to assume that your enemy is infallible, you know. They may have forgotten that you have a middle name."

Edward wished Creighton's words would justify the confidence in his tone. “What about guards at the other end? I mean, if the Blighters are hunting me here, why won't the Chamber be waiting for me there?"

"I'm sure they will be,” Creighton said breezily. “I hope some of our chaps will be on hand to make a fight of it. I'll be on my own turf, too, in a manner of speaking."

Affalino kaspik ... The nonsense words were going around and around in Edward's head. He could feel the complex stirrings of the rhythm, too. Was that some sort of response to the occult power of the node? Sheer funk, more like.

"There's a fence!” He hoped that the fence would be the end of the matter and they could go home now, but he didn't really expect that. It was a confident-looking barbed wire fence strung on steel posts.

"Yes, and the attendant is not on hand to accept our sixpences or whatever they charge."

"We can climb that."

"We could, but Mr. Boswell can deal with the fence for us, can't you, Mr. Boswell?"

Billy said nothing while the cart dipped where the track crossed a wide hollow and a bank. Then he reined in the dogcart alongside the fence. “Didn't tell me t'bring me tools. Can just ‘eave it dahn fo’ ya."

"Why not?” Creighton said, jumping out of the gig. “Devil take it! Beastly bad form to disfigure a national treasure that way.” His obnoxious heartiness was probably concealing the same sort of eerie nervousness as Edward was feeling. “Now, Exeter, I have bad news."

Edward sighed. “Yes, sir."

"You can take nothing with you when you cross over. Nothing can translate except a human being, not even the fillings in his teeth. You needn't worry about those, but clothes are an impediment."

"We have to go through with this rigmarole in the nude?"

"Starkers.” Creighton tossed his hat into the dogcart and began unbuttoning. “Quick, while there's moonlight."

Groaning, Edward began to strip also. He removed his shoes with relief. Dawn would appear in about two hours, he thought. The moment the sun's edge showed above the horizon he would be free of his oath, and then he was going to shed his lunatic companion, even if the only way to do it was to walk into a police station and give himself up.

Billy led the pony forward a few feet. A section of fence tried to follow with a long squeal of agony, the posts pulling free from the chalk. “'At aw'a do ya,” the Gypsy remarked, and backed up the cart so he could recover his rope.

Edward looked nervously at the lights of Larkhill to the north; he stared across the dark plain to the vague shapes that might be the aerodrome buildings, but no lights had come on in their windows. He tossed his socks into the wagon.

"Splendid fellow!” Creighton said patronizingly. “Now, Boswell, you'll wait here for twenty minutes or so, won't you? Just in case. Hate to have to walk to Salisbury in my birthday suit."

He reached into the dogcart for the drums. He hung one around his own neck and looped the other over Edward's.

"Come, Exeter!” he barked cheerfully, stepping carefully over the fallen wire. He set off across the turf, a ghostly white shape in the moonlight.

Still fumbling with the buttons of his fly, Edward suddenly said, “No!"

Creighton stopped and wheeled around. “Word of honor!” he barked.

"Sir, you extracted that by unfair means. I have a duty to King and Country."

"You have a duty to your father's memory and his life's work, also."

"Sir, I have only your word for that. You have not been fair with me."

Creighton growled. “You have no concept of what is going to happen in this war. Millions of men are going to die! The mud of Europe will be soaked with blood!"

"I have a duty!"

"Idiot! Even if you managed to get to the front—which I doubt very much—you would be nothing there but more cannon fodder. Your destiny lies on Nextdoor. Shut up and listen to me! You don't know what the prophecy calls you—the Liberator!"

"Me?"

"You! Why do you think the Chamber fears you? These are the people who killed your parents, Exeter! If you refuse to come with me now, then your mother and father died in vain!"

Edward shivered in silence for a moment, the night air icy cold on his bare chest. “I have your word on that, sir?"

"I swear it as your father's friend."

With a sigh, Edward unfastened his trousers.

Naked, he followed Creighton through the gap in the fence, shivering with both cold and a bitter apprehension. Nudity seemed only fitting, somehow. The last few days had progressively stripped him of everything—his good name, his prospects for a career, his chance to fight in a war, his future inheritance, his most precious possessions, like his parents’ picture and that last letter to Jumbo, even Fallow, which had been in fact his home. Alice. He might never even know how The Lost World turned out at the end, he thought bitterly. All gone.

"Might as well go right to the center,” Creighton remarked. “We'll be less conspicuous there if anyone should happen to come along the road."

What would Billy Boswell do in that case? Better not to think about it. Better not to think about anything. Edward followed his leader between the towering stones, into moonlit mystery. At close range, Stonehenge was not just a clutter of standing stones, it was a building—a ruined building, but an awe-inspiring one.

Creighton's teeth gleamed at him in a smile. “One last warning!"

"Tell me."

"Passing over is quite a shock to the system, especially the first time. You'll be badly disoriented. I should react better, although it's a bit like seasickness—you can never predict. It may last some time. I hope we'll have some friends there to help. They won't speak any English, of course."

"How can I tell if they're friends or enemies?"

"Well, look out for johnnies in black gowns like monks. They're called ‘reapers’ and they're deadly. They can slay a chap with a touch. Otherwise—friends will help you. If they try to kill you, assume they're enemies."

"Why didn't I think of that?” Edward muttered under his breath. “Lay on, Macduff!"

Creighton turned his back, and began to pat out the rhythm on the drum with his hands. In a moment he said, “One—two—three!” and began the chant.

Jumping, jiggling, gesturing, singing, they pranced around, following each other in a small circle. Inso athir ielee ... paral inal fon.... The moonlight faded, then brightened.

There were a lot of beastly sharp stones in the grass.

Edward decided he was not cut out to be a witch doctor. This was the most ridiculous thing he had ever done in his life. He would freeze to death. And it was wrong! Those great pillars looming over him in the darkness were an ancient mystery, sanctified in ways he could not imagine. He was profaning something mighty, consecrated by the hands of time itself....

He cried out and stumbled to a halt, shivering and sweating simultaneously, shaken to the core by a sense of revulsion and awe. “No, no!"

Silence returned to the night.

"Aha!” Creighton said triumphantly. “You felt that?"

"No. Nothing. I felt nothing!"

"Hrrnph! Well I did! It was starting. So it works. It's going to take us somewhere, even if not where we want to go. Sure you felt nothing?"

"Quite sure,” Edward said, jaw chattering. “Quite certain."

"Mm? Clench your teeth.” Creighton reached out and prized up a corner of the sticking plaster on Edward's forehead. “Now!"

Yank!

"Ouch! You scalped me!"

"Let's see if that helps. All right, we'll start from the beginning again. Now, concentrate! Be sure and get the movements right. Ready?..."

"No!” Edward shouted, backing away. “Oh, no!” He was naked and cold and he had been duped into behaving like a lunatic. “You're just trying to fulfill the prophecy, aren't you? That's what all this is about!"

"I'm trying to save your life! If what we do fulfills the prophecy, then so be it. You'd prefer to die? Take it from the beginning—"

"I won't! I'm not coming."

"Boy!” the colonel thundered. “You gave me your word!"

Edward backed away farther. “You cheated. You lied to me!"

"I did not!"

"You said the Service supports the prophecy! You said my father was one of them—you said he did, too! But the guv'nor didn't, did he? He wanted to break the chain! He said so in that letter!"

After a long moment, Creighton sighed. “All right, old man. You're right. I never lied to you, but you're absolutely right. Cameron Exeter did not approve of all the things prophesied about the Liberator. Some, yes, certainly, but not all. He split with the majority on this. He did not want any son of his to be the Liberator."

Edward backed up another step and cannoned into a monolith. It was hard and cold and jagged. He recoiled. “The guv'nor did not approve of turning worlds upside down! That's what he said."

"That was partly it—what you will do to the world. But it was more what the world will do to you."

"What do you mean: ‘What the world will do to me'?"

"He didn't think you could possibly be man enough to...” Creighton shivered. “Look, you haven't any alternative now, have you? Trust me! When you get to Olympus we'll give you the whole story from beginning to—"

The silence of the night exploded in noise. Something enormous roared nearby, the sound merging into the pony's scream of terror. Billy howled curses as the dogcart rattled and jangled away into the distance, taking him with it and leaving the two men stranded, naked, on Salisbury Plain.

"What in the name of Jehoshaphat was that?” Creighton demanded, staring into the darkness.

The hair on Edward's neck was rising. “That was a lion!"

"No!"

"Oh yes it was! That's the grunt they use to scare their prey when they're hunting. How do lions get to Stonehenge, Colonel?"

"Ask rather what they eat at Stonehenge. Let's try the key again, shall we? And this time it had better work."

Edward thought he agreed with that. He had heard lions often enough, but never so horribly close. That fence would never stop a hungry lion, and there was a gap in it now anyway.

"Ready?” said Creighton. “One—Two—Three..."

Affalino kaspik ... The drumbeats throbbed. Arms and legs waved—even head movements were supposedly important, and he kept wanting to watch the wall of trilithons, to see what might be coming through. To look for green eyes in the night.

The moon sailed into a cloud and died.

Half the beat stopped as if cut off by a guillotine, and so did Creighton's voice. His drum bounced and rolled away on the grass. Edward stumbled to a halt. He was alone.

45

IT BEGAN AS A FAINT SIGH IN THE DISTANCE. IT CAME closer. It was a rushing of wind through the trees and soon seemed all around, everywhere but where Eleal lay in the darkness. At last it arrived and the leaves stirred. Boughs creaked, thrashed. Gradually it faded, traveling on, and the night stilled. Trumb shone unchallenged in a cloudless sky, drowning out the stars with his baleful splendor.

She shivered, wondering what god had sent that wind sign. She was cramped and cold. She flexed herself, one limb at a time, frightened of making any noise among the trash of leaves and branches that covered the steps. She had no idea how long she had been lying there, too tense even to doze. Her neck was appallingly stiff.

Her eyes were still insisting that there was a reaper on the far side of the court. It could not be just a trick of the light, for the big moon had moved a long way since she arrived, and was very bright. It must be a tree stump, perhaps a dead sapling coated in ivy. No man could stand for so many hours like that.

Trumb must eclipse soon! There had been a hint of shadow on one side of his disk when he rose, but now it was a perfect circle and that meant...

A scream rent the silence of the night and a man rolled to the paving only a few yards from her. His limbs flailed and he cried out again. Her hair rose. Where had he come from?

Naked, a grown man—this must be the Liberator! He sounded as he was in terrible pain. She started to rise and then stopped, hearing feet slap on stone. Another man came running out of the darkness on her right, and then a second from the left.

The first was T'lin—big, and heavily bearded, and wearing a black turban that barely showed in the moonlight, so that the top half of his head seemed to be missing. He carried a bundle. And the other was the lanky Thargian, drawing a sword and looking around as he ran.

Huh! Well if those two were here, they could attend to all the washing and nursing required. Eleal's services were not needed, not wanted. She could have enjoyed a good night's rest instead.

The Liberator's cries of pain had faded to grunts and moans. He retched and vomited, then groaned again.

"You, sir!” the Thargian exclaimed. “We expected someone else.” He knelt, and helped the man sit up.

T'lin stayed standing, peering around warily at the darkness with his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Gover?” The Liberator retched again, and doubled up as if cramped—except that the Thargian had implied that this was not the Liberator. “Good to see you."

"We should leave!” T'lin growled.

"Calm down, Seventy-seven!” the Thargian snapped. “If there was anyone out there, they'd be all over us by now."

"Yes, but—"

"Just wait a minute! Can't you see the man's in pain? Bad crossing, sir?"

The reply was a suppressed bubbling shriek from the newcomer, as another spasm took him. The Thargian put an arm around his shoulders and cradled his head like a child's.

"All right, Kriiton,” he muttered. “You're among friends. It'll pass."

The comforting seemed to help. In a moment Kriiton muttered, “Thanks!” and pushed himself free. “Where's Kisster?” He looked around. “God Almighty! He ... He didn't make it?"

"No sign of anyone else, sir."

The reply was lost in another groan, another spasm of cramps. Again the Thargian cuddled the sufferer, and again the physical comforting seemed to ease the pain.

The men were fading! Eleal tore her eyes away and looked up in sudden terror. Trumb was well into eclipse already. Darkness raced over the great disk.

"Gotta go back ‘n get'm!” Kriiton mumbled.

"You're in no state for another crossing, sir! It would kill you! We've got no key for it anyway, not that I know of."

"Where is this?"

"The Sacrarium at Ruatvil."

Kriiton sighed. The others were almost invisible now; his bare skin showed up better. “In Sussland! So it should have worked! Let's hope he keeps trying!"

"First time is hardest sometimes, isn't it?” the Thargian said.

The Kriiton man suppressed a groan, as if he was being racked by more cramps. “Can be. Maiden voyage. Trouble is, the opposition was moving in on us."

Trumb had dwindled to a thin line, a sword cut in the sky. The darkened disk was faintly visible, black against the reborn stars.

"Opposition may move in here, too, sir,” the Thargian said. “Seventy-seven's right. We ought to go, soon as you're ready. Damned moon'll be back in a minute. We've brought some clothes so let's get you up now and—"

T'lin uttered a yell of warning. Another figure had entered the darkened courtyard, gliding swiftly over the ancient stones, black and infinitely menacing. Eleal thought of flight, her limbs twitched uncertainly, and then she just froze, like a small animal facing a large predator. Dolm had been able to see in the dark!

"Up!” Kriiton yelled. “Get me up!"

The other two grabbed his arms and hauled him to his feet. Trumb's final crescent had gone. Starlight flashed as the Thargian brandished his sword in the reaper's face.

The reaper stopped just out of reach and chuckled. “You expect to block me with that, Gover Envoy?” That was not Dolm Actor's voice! Eleal was too terrified to move an eyelid, barely even to think, but she knew that was not Dolm's voice she was hearing.

The Thargian cried out and his sword clanged to the ground.

"Don't fandangle with me, Reaper!” Kriiton croaked. He was leaning hard on T'lin's shoulder, as if unable to straighten properly. “Go now and I'll spare you."

"But I will not spare you! Prepare to meet the Last Victor."

The men were half-seen shapes in the faint gleam of stars. Trumb's disk was a round black hole in the stars, the moon of Zath. The reaper stretched forth his hand and took a step forward.

Flash! Thunder!

Ruins and jungle jumped out of the night and then vanished again.

Eleal cried aloud and jerked back, her ears ringing from the crash. Her eyes burned with a dazzling afterimage, as if she had been blinded. Lightning out of a clear sky? She wiped away tears with shaking hands.

"By the moons, sir!” Gover Envoy was shouting, but his voice sounded muffled through the hum in her ears. “You answered his arguments!” He laughed shrilly.

T'lin was muttering. Forcing her eyes to work, Eleal saw that he had fallen on his knees in prayer. The reaper was stretched out flat on his back, motionless. Envoy was supporting Kriiton. There was a strange, tingling scent in the air.

"Crude!” Kriiton muttered. “Lost control."

"It worked!” said the Thargian. “That one filled no sacks."

"Worked too well. Drained me. Far too much!” He made an effort to stand by himself. “I wanted to stun him, not fry him. All right, where are those clothes?"

Eleal's eyes were recovering. Her ears still buzzed. In the heavy darkness, tiny red fireflies shone on the body of the reaper, and she did not understand those. She heard, more than saw, that T'lin had scrambled to his feet and unrolled his bundle.

So where was the Liberator? And what was this Kriiton, who appeared out of empty air and called down thunderbolts? Was he man or god? His paleness faded away as he hauled a smock over his head, and then he was just a dark shape like the others. He staggered, and Envoy reached out an arm to steady him, but obviously he was recovering.

"Right,” he grunted. “Shoes? Fornication! I had D'ward right with me. Damned good kid, too, from what I saw."

A razor cut of light in the sky in the background heralded the return of Trumb. The pillars glimmered back into view and the stars faded. Puzzled, Eleal strained to make out what the men were doing. There seemed to be four of them. There were four of them! She opened her mouth to yell a warning, but her dry throat made no sound. Another reaper had joined the group.

Two men went down in fast succession, without a sound. They thrashed on the ground and then she heard some muffled choking, but that was all.

The third one yelled, and leaped back. Then he turned and fled. His feet slapped noisily over the stones.

The reaper laughed, a deep and horribly familiar sound. “Come back! I want you!” It was Dolm Actor! He also ran, but in total silence, a black cloud flowing swiftly across the court. His quarry vanished between the pillars, and shrubbery crashed as he plowed into it. The reaper followed him out without a rustle. The two dying men lay still.

Gone!

The sounds of the fugitive's flight had stopped, but that might be either because he had reached the path or because the reaper had caught him—and would then return, perhaps.

Eleal felt sick. Her heart was hammering its way out of her chest and there was a bitter swirling sensation in her head. Swift, unwelcome brightness was flooding the Sacrarium as if a door was opening, revealing the carnage. She wanted to cry Stop! She preferred the dark. Three bodies, three men dead, and probably one more corpse out in the woods now. Dolm Reaper might come back at any moment, to gather more souls for Zath. Hers.

She couldn't leave dying men, however little she expected to be able to help.

And she had to know which ones they were.

Quick, then! She staggered to her feet and tried to run forward. It was only a few yards, but she was so stiff and unsteady from lying still that she nearly fell. She stumbled to her knees beside the Thargian, almost on top of his fallen sword. Gover Envoy lay on his side because his back was bent like a bow, his limbs twisted behind him. His mouth was still dribbling blood, black in the green light, and his dead eyes bulged as if he had perished in terrible agony. He had not made a sound, but obviously a reaper death was not an easy one.

The first reaper lay on his back, spread-eagled. He had a gaping black hole in his chest, and there was a nasty scent of scorched cloth and charred meat around him, but at least his ending had been quick. His cowl had fallen back to expose his face. She had never seen him before, a bearded man of middle years. His eyes were rolled up, the whites shining green in the light of his god.

The third corpse lay in the same contorted arch as Envoy, but he was on his belly, head and limbs bent up grotesquely. His face was distorted by the same rictus of agony—teeth exposed, dead eyes bulging, and a puddle of blood congealing under his mouth. He was not T'lin, and therefore had to be the strange Kriiton, whose powers had been able to slay one reaper but not defend against another. His nose was prominent, his eyebrows heavy, and he had a stubbly mustache. Man or demon, he was very obviously as dead as the other two.

So T'lin Dragontrader had escaped, if he had managed to run fast enough. Run, T'lin, run! Very faintly, she heard a dragon burp in the distance.

Nothing Eleal could do here.

She scrambled to her feet and glanced around to make sure no reapers were approaching. Right before her eyes, a man rolled to the paving out of empty air. He thrashed a whirl of bare limbs, and screamed.

46

WHEN EDWARD SAW CREIGHTON'S DRUM ROLLING ON the grass, he felt as if time itself had stopped. He knew his heart had. He was conscious of the darkness, the wind on his heated skin, and utter disaster. Billy and the dogcart had gone and would not return.

To be arrested stark naked on Salisbury Plain would certainly reinforce a plea of insanity, but he did not want to spend the rest of his life locked up in Broadmoor. That might be the better choice, though, if his only alternative was to be eaten by lions. He did not for one moment believe that some escaped circus animal had chanced to wander past Stonehenge. There might or might not be a flesh-and-blood carnivore out there, but without doubt there was an enemy.

Time had not stopped, and he had none of it to waste. For a brief moment he considered trying some of the African chants and dances he knew, but he saw at once that those might take him to the wrong place. He must believe what Creighton had told him. He must follow Creighton; without Creighton he would be hopelessly lost. As he was about to start tapping, he heard laughter in the darkness, human laughter. He did not look. He began the ritual again, concentrating on the beat, trying not to think about the interdiction Creighton had mentioned.

Laugh away, friends! We'll try this again.

He let the rhythm grow in his mind, shutting out everything else. De-de-de-DAH-de, DAH-de ... He began the beat. Creighton had been taking it too slowly. He began the dance. Affalino kaspik ... He ignored the laughter. DAH de-de-DAH Affaliki suspino ayakairo...

Faster, faster! He let the rhythm flower, seeking its subtleties, its complex cross-beats, three against four, left against right, four against five, tasting it in his mind, living it. The words rolled and jigged. The movements flowed. He absorbed the ritual soaking through him, bearing him back to childhood and farther yet, to atavistic tribal memories. My fathers danced here in the Dreamtime! He felt the response, the surge of power, the thrill, rising like a life force, a thrill permeating his whole body.

Now the aura of awe and sanctity swelled in wonder.

Here it comes! DAH-de, DAH-de-de ... The power grew up around him. Waves of excitement surging—he could feel them in his blood and along his bones. His heart moved in time. He felt awe, sanctity, power. The laughter had stopped. Legs, head, elbows—hands beating the intricate rhythm, primitive, primal. Kalafano Nokte! Finothoanam ... Stronger, harder. He was one with the world and the pulse of worlds. The power roared. Something tried to block it and he overrode it, wielding strength and will. A voice howled in sudden fury. The cosmos opened for him and he plunged through.

He had a momentary sensation of flying. He felt himself as infinitely tiny, swept past shapes infinitely large. Dark and cold. Speed.

Impact!

Were it possible to be smashed flat and live, then that was the sensation. Not physical pain—emotional. He had never guessed at anything approaching such shame, such sorrow and despair. All his muscles knotted up in horror, and then it was physical also. He heard himself screaming and he wanted to die.

Someone was hugging him, soothing him. In his wrenching abyss of misery, he sensed a spark of human compassion. He clung, clung desperately. Agonies of cramps, waves of nausea—but someone cared, and that was salvation. The spark was there, life amid the measureless void of death.

There was a hand over his mouth, but he could not stop screaming. Every muscle strained, every tendon was pulling free of his bones. His gut was a fire pit and his heart was tearing itself to ribbons. Die, die, oh please die!

A voice shouted his name, over and over.

He opened his eyes and saw the moon. Godfathers! What had happened to the moon? The screaming had started again. Was that him?

Who was this he was crushing to him?

He was rolling around on cold stone, hugging someone. In the dark. The air was hot and scented. Moonlight, green moonlight.

Nextdoor was much more than just an island.

47

THE MAN FELL STILL, HIS MUSCLES TOO EXHAUSTED TO DO more than quiver like leaves in a wind. His arms had been holding Eleal in iron bands, and now they dropped away limply. His eyes were open, staring, but they did not seem to be looking at anything. His breath came in frightening, irregular gasps.

She backed off a few feet on hands and knees. “Liberator?"

"Yes,” said Dolm's resonant voice. “I fancy that is the Liberator this time."

Eleal opened her mouth to scream and nothing happened. She stared up in paralyzed silence at the reaper looming over her, immensely tall and dark against the sky. He shook his cowled head sadly. His face was in shadow, but she could not mistake the voice.

"I have no option, Eleal. You do understand that?"

She wriggled farther away.

"Running will not save you,” Dolm said. “You belong to my master now. First the Liberator, then you."

"No!” she whimpered.

"You are young and your soul is worth much."

"All souls are worth much,” said another voice.

The reaper turned in a swirl of black cloth to regard the newcomer as she hobbled across the courtyard, pounding her staff with one hand, trailing her sword in the other. Its point scraped across the stone with a bloodcurdling scratching.

Dolm laughed. “Yours is not, old woman. Depart and cherish the days that are left to you. If you are gone when I have taken these two, then I shall not pursue you."

Eleal leaped to her feet and raced around the litter of corpses to Sister Ahn's side. The bent old crone dropped her stick and rested her gnarled hand on Eleal's shoulder instead. She kept her eyes on the reaper, though. “Repent, Minion of Zath!"

He paced toward them. “I have nothing to repent, hag."

"Not the deeds you commit in his name, no.” Her harsh, corroded voice was surprisingly powerful. “But there is another, or he would not have enlisted you to his dread band. Repent, I say, and be free!"

"Never!"

"Here, my dear,” Sister Ahn said. “Lift this sword with me. Both hands. We must fulfill a prophecy."

It did not occur to Eleal to refuse. Trembling, she took hold of the hilt around the nun's frail grasp, and between them they raised the long blade until it pointed unsteadily at the man in black.

Dolm laughed again, a grotesque parody of that jovial laugh Eleal knew so well. “You know that weapons are useless against a reaper! Come then, to my master!"

He strode forward. In a creaky chant, Sister Ahn gabbled something so fast that Eleal made out few words. “Holy-Irepithear ... transferthesin ... thathemaysee ... pay here not elsewhere...” The sword seemed to swing of its own accord. The reaper screamed and fell. Sister Ahn crumpled. The sword dropped clanging to the stone.

Eleal staggered away with a shriek of fright. For a moment the temple swayed about her and she stuffed knuckles in her mouth. Her knees wobbled. Then she saw that the danger was gone. Dolm Actor was a shapeless, motionless heap of black. The old woman was sitting on the ground, doubled over, her head between her knees.

Eleal knelt down to hug Sister Ahn's thin shoulders.

"Sister! Sister!"

The nun fell sideways and rolled on her back. Dark blood was already soaking through the front of her habit.

Eleal uttered a shrill sob that was almost a scream. “What happened?” The blade had never touched the nun, she was certain.

Eyes flickered open. The emaciated face twisted into a smile. The pallid lips moved, but Eleal heard nothing.

"What?” she leaned closer on hands and knees, frightened now even to touch the old woman's garments. So much blood!

"My part is over, child,” Sister Ahn said, soft but clear. “Yours begins. Eleal has the stage now—for a little while."

A moment later, her eyes rolled up, lifeless. As Eleal watched in horror, death and moonlight smoothed out the wrinkles like melting wax, leaving only a hint of a smile. The sword had never touched her, but it had obviously slain her. One dead woman and four dead men and...

The Liberator was trying to sit up.

Eleal ran across to him. He would explain what was happening. He could defend her against whatever other horrors the night might bring. He was a much younger man than she had expected, only a very tall boy—unless he shaved off his whiskers, of course, in which case she supposed he might count as a grown man. His hair was dark, yet his wide-stretched eyes were light. Blood from a gash on his head had painted one side of his face and dribbled down his neck and chest, black in the greenish moonlight.

"Liberator?"

He stared blankly at her for a moment, then seemed to realize that he had no clothes on. He moved his hands to cover himself. The movement brought on a spasm of cramp; he gurgled and doubled over.

Eleal found a garment, one that T'lin had dropped. She took it to the Liberator; he tried to take it from her and again went into convulsions. Eleal put it over his hands, one at a time, and then lifted his arms to let it drop around his neck. With difficulty, frequently twisting and writhing with cramps, he managed to pull it down and tuck the hem over his thighs. Then he looked up and again tried to speak, but what he said was still gibberish. It ended in a sob of pain and despair.

Naked and crying he shall come into the world and Eleal shall wash him. She shall clothe him and nurse him and comfort him.

She would have to do something about that blood.

"Are you the Liberator?” she shouted.

More gibberish. Partly he had trouble even speaking, for the least movement seemed to start all his muscles into cramps. Partly he was using some language she had never heard. It was not Thargian, or even Niolian.

"Eleal,” she said, tapping her chest. “Liberator?” She pointed at him.

He said something that sounded like, “Edward."

She sniggered at that. “D'ward?"

He nodded faintly.

"Good! Come, we must go! There must be some sandals you can have."

More gibberish—"Kriiton?” He had his back to the corpses.

She pointed. The youth turned carefully to see and gave a cry. He tried to rise, only to collapse in a whimpering tangle. Then he began dragging himself over the ground, moving one limb at a time. Obviously the effort was agony for him, but he persevered. Her efforts to help merely hindered him, so she stood aside and let him crawl. She tried to warn him about more reapers coming, but he paid no heed. He hauled himself all the way to Kriiton's body and peered at the face.

He shuddered, then gently reached out and closed the eyes, muttering something Eleal could not understand. She brought him sandals and Sister Ahn's staff and pointed urgently to the north. He nodded, and began the ordeal of rising to his feet.

Leaning heavily on the walking stick and the child's shoulder, Edward moved his feet one at a time in the direction she had suggested.

The night was a blur of nightmare for him. He knew he was in deep shock and should not try to make sense of anything until he had recovered. Creighton had warned him, but he had not expected so much pain, so much confusion and weakness. Half his muscles were useless and he did not know how much he could trust his senses. Was that really Creighton lying there? Who were the others? Reapers, Creighton had said, but all the clothes had seemed black. The moon was pure hallucination—three or four times the size a moon ought to be and a lurid green. The markings on it looked like a hammer. Its light drowned out the stars.

The building was a vague echo of some ruined Greek temple, with remains of a circle of pillars on a paved plinth. Beyond that lay jungle. It had a humid, tropical smell. There were mosquitoes, although any attempt to swat them—any sudden movement at all—brought on the terrible muscle cramps. Even resting, his whole body ached from them.

His tongue had found two gaping holes in his teeth. They felt enormously larger than they would look, of course, but again Creighton's prediction had been correct. The fillings were back on Earth, in the grass of Wiltshire. So were his stitches and sticking plaster; his face was caked with blood from the reopened wound on his temple. It drew insects.

Bodies all over the place, five of them. Expect friends or enemies, Creighton had said, but obviously both had been waiting. There had been an ambush and a battle. Had Edward crossed over at the same time as Creighton, would he also now be stiffening in that charnel house? He might as well be—for what did a man do in a strange world when he could not speak the language, had no friends, no money, nor even any concept of who his friends and enemies were? Why had Bloody Idiot Creighton been so secretive about what Edward was to expect?

And the girl—who had brought her here and why? Was one of these dead men her father, perhaps? She was understandably terrified, of course, shaking almost as much as he was. Every few minutes she would jump at some shadow, but for her age she was doing amazingly well. She had a pronounced limp, which made her an unsteady support. Every lurch, every effort to lift the staff, threatened to make his muscles cramp up in knots.

She seemed pathetically eager to help and please. And since she showed no signs of wanting to add Edward's corpse to the collection, he must assume that she was a friend. Her impatience suggested that she had some associates waiting, or a safe refuge. Transportation, perhaps. At the very least she would know how to get word to the Service that Cameron Exeter's son had arrived on Nextdoor.

48

THINKING MONEY, ELEAL AWOKE AT FIRST LIGHT, HAVING slept very little, and poorly. The bed she had chosen was gravelly, but the only reasonably flat area near the shelter. D'ward had suffered even in his sleep. His moans and cries had disturbed her often and she had gone to inspect him several times.

She threw off her rug and went to take another look. He was sleeping peacefully. She had washed the blood from his face, but the pad of moss she had bound to his head was caked. She had also bathed as many of his scrapes as she could without being indecent, although by the time she and Porith had brought him in, he had been more or less unconscious.

She glanced around the shadowy gully. Where was the mad old hermit? Very likely he was curled up under a bush somewhere nearby, but she did not know where. With any luck he was already out hunting breakfast, three breakfasts. Well, she would enlist his aid later. Right now she had some pillage to attend to.

She clambered up the bank and set off back to the Sacrarium. The bodies would have to be buried, or disposed of in some other way if Porith had no spade, and she had seen no signs of one. T'lin's friends or more of Zath's reapers might investigate the ruin soon, and there was always the chance of a stray pilgrim. Whoever found those five corpses would surely raise a hue and cry. She did not want that, so she would have Porith remove them. First they should be looted. Almost certainly there would be money on some of those dead men and she did not see why she should share it with Porith Molecatcher. He had no use for silver and she did.

She would also collect Sister Ahn's magic sword and present it to the Liberator. Anyone with so many enemies should be armed, and tall, lean men like D'ward always looked good with swords dangling at their belts. It would certainly look better on him than it had on Sister Ahn.

The walk seemed much shorter than it had the night before, especially when she had been half-carrying D'ward. Grown men were heavy, even young, skinny ones. From that point of view, a baby would have been much easier to manage.

The sun rose while she was working her way along the cliff top. It warmed her and revived her. Birds sang cheerfully. She saw the pillars and turned away from the cliff, moving with more care amid the trees. Soon she passed the spot where D'ward had collapsed. She had left him there while she went and fetched Porith. He had been very unwilling—she had almost had to punch him to make him come back and help her. Stupid, crazy old man!

She reached the Sacrarium steps...

The bodies had gone.

She stood like a tree, staring in disbelief. Nothing stirred. Eventually she crept forward and took a closer look. There were dried bloodstains on the stone, nothing more.

She soon discovered a trampled trail through the woods, leading to the cliff. Someone had dragged the corpses along there—probably just one man, she thought, or the weeds would not be so crushed. She found a fragment of black cloth snagged on a thorn.

At the edge she lay on her tummy and peered over. Far below her, Susswater was a slowly roiling yellow snake. She could guess that it would be a deafening torrent if she were down there, but from up here its motion was barely detectable, just a hint of life, like muscle moving below skin. Specks of birds were circling about halfway up the cliff, so some of the bodies might have caught on rocks.

Who could have done this? Certainly no stray pilgrim would have chanced by in the middle of the night. Old Porith Mole-catcher was too frightened of the reapers. There might be more reapers about, and she reminded herself that she could not recognize a reaper unless he was wearing his work clothes. T'lin Dragontrader might have escaped and returned. Or the Service he had mentioned might have sent more agents. The reapers she did not want. The Service blasphemed, so she thought she probably did not want that either. In any case, she had no idea who the Service was, or where it could be found. D'ward must know, and he could decide.

She found Porith drinking at a pool some distance upstream from his shelter. She knelt down on the edge of the gully and remarked cheerfully, “Good morning!"

He jumped like a frog and then scowled up at her.

"Did you move the dead bodies from the Sacrarium?” she demanded.

He shook his head, mad eyes wide.

"What's for breakfast?"

He scowled even more at that, and shook his head. Then he pointed in the general direction of the cave and made a “Git!” motion.

"You wish my friend and myself to depart?"

Emphatic nod.

"I'm sure we will withdraw as soon as he is rested. But right now he's still very weak and must be fattened up and strengthened for the journey. Red meat and lots of it!"

She tried a winning smile and it was poorly received.

"Don't you make obscene gestures at me, Porith Molecatcher! You're a priest, you said. Well, this is gods’ work. You're mentioned in the prophecy, the Filoby Testament, and Holy Visek is god of prophecy. So the gods know you and what you're doing, and they expect you to give succor to the Liberator. The seeress said so!"

Glare.

"Breakfast, if you please?"

Eleal rose and walked away with as much dignity as her limp allowed. Ambria Impresario would have been proud of her.

She found D'ward sitting outside the cave. He smiled weakly at her and said, “Eleal!"

"Godsbless, D'ward! Have you remembered how to speak yet?"

He looked at her blankly. His eyes were intensely blue, although his hair was as black as any she had ever seen. She would not call him handsome, she decided. He was plain. He was bony. On the other hand he was certainly not ugly.

It was hardly fair to judge him now. His features were pale and drawn, his arms and legs a mess of scrapes and bruises. Caked blood disfigured his bandage and his mouth was swollen where he had bitten his lips. All in all, though, he was alert and probably on the mend. He seemed older than he had in the night. Lots of men shaved their faces, especially Thargians. Golfren and K'linpor did because they played juvenile roles sometimes and could add a false beard when they needed one. Boys like Klip Trumpeter did, because their whiskers were still patchy.

"Drink?” she said. She mimed drinking and pointed to the stream. “Water?"

He nodded. “Drink."

She took a gourd down and brought it back full. She taught him I drink and you drink.

"I drink,” he said, and drank. His hands trembled. Smile, gibberish.

"Thank you."

"Thank you?"

She nodded.

He tapped his bandage and said, “Thank you,” again. He had a very winning smile.

Eleal made herself comfortable and began lessons: man, woman, boy, girl, tree, sky, fingers, happy, sad, angry...

Edward was one big ache. Every muscle was bruised from the cramps, and he had battered all his bones repeatedly against stone paving. The spasms had stopped, though, and his head was clearing. He felt giddy if he tried to stand, but he would be all right in a day or so.

Nextdoor was surprisingly Earthlike—gravity and temperature, sky and clouds and sun all much the same. The plants looked like vegetation he had seen in the south of France, and the day was going to be hot accordingly. Nevertheless, this was not Earth. The moon had been very wrong. The beetles had eight legs.

Ridiculous! His mind rejected the evidence. He would wake up soon and find himself back in Albert Memorial. And when he did, he would refuse any more drugs!

He could recall seeing metal swords in the night, but not firearms. That put the culture somewhere between the Stone Age and the Renaissance, quite a gap. Both Eleal and he were dressed in very simple garments like overgrown undervests, leaving arms and shoulders and lower legs exposed. Natives in Kenya could get by in such costumes, or even less, but he would be arrested if he tried to walk along an English beach like this. The homespun material had never seen the looms of Manchester. That did not mean that there was no advanced civilization around somewhere. Earth had its Nyagathas as well as its Londons. A world was a big place and he must not judge this one by a hole in the woods.

The accommodation left a lot to be desired. He did not remember arriving at the cave. The girl could not have carried him by herself, so she had friends around somewhere. And probably enemies also, else why was she hiding him here? Her obvious intent to teach him the language suggested that she was not expecting any English-speaking collaborators to arrive in the near future. He'd learned German by spending a summer in Heidelberg with the Schweitzes, but Frau Schweitz had been proficient in English. It would be tougher without an interpreter to clear up misunderstandings, even if he did have a knack for languages.

Eleal was a pretty thing, with curly hair and a snub nose. He guessed she was eleven or twelve, no more. She had a deformed leg. She was certainly Caucasian, and could even have been English as far as looks went. And she was a sharp little dolly. Once they had gone through everything she could point to, she fetched a fur rug and spread it out on a flat rock. It was full of fine brown sand and she used this as a drawing board. Then the conversation began to grow interesting.

Four moons? Trumb, Ysh, Eltiana, Kirb'l. Two men, two women—meaning gods and goddesses, of course. The sun was Wyseth and both, which seemed odd. Well, now he was starting to get a feel for the genders. All languages except English had gender problems, and even in English ships and whales were feminine.

Eleal, Ysh, Eltiana. That was why the girl laughed when he tried to correct her pronunciation of his name—it must sound feminine to her. She was as fussy as a Frenchman about pronunciation. He tried his surname, Exeter, and she grinned again. “Kisster?"

He decided he would rather be D'ward than Kisster.

He sketched the ruined temple, and learned its name, or the word for temple. Or the word for ruin? She began to tell him the story with gestures and illustrations. She had gone there by herself, apparently—he wondered why. Creighton had appeared and her word, “Foop!” sounded much like the “Plop!” he might have used. She knew Creighton's name! Then two men had run in, separately, T'lin and Gover. She looked inquiringly; he shook his head to show that the names meant nothing to him.

He tried “Service” and “Chamber,” but those meant as little to her. Nor did “Olympus,” which Creighton had mentioned as if it were the Service's headquarters. But all those words were obviously codes, club talk that members of the Service used among themselves. The inhabitants of this world would not call it Nextdoor, nor yet the equivalent of that expression. They would just call it the World. Olympus might be a private house in some city as far from here as London was from Stonehenge.

A whole world to explore? Even Columbus had not blundered into anything quite so unthinkable.

Columbus had not wanted to rush home and enlist in the army, either, but Edward did. The only way he could do that was to locate the Service, and that meant he must learn to talk. He hauled his mind back to work.

Then he recalled two words he already knew in this unnamed language.

"Vurogty Migafilo?"

The girl started and clapped her hands in delight. She pointed southeast. “Magafilo!"

Migo, Creighton had said, meant a village in the genitive case, so maga must be nominative or dative. The language was inflected, like Latin.

At that moment a third person joined the group. Edward had not heard the apparition approach and his start of surprise gave him a shocking spasm of cramp in his back.

Robinson Crusoe, or the Wild Man of the Woods? No it was Ben Gunn, straight out of Treasure Island. Emaciated and weather-beaten, with untamed white hair and beard, this near-naked scarecrow could pass as an Indian fakir. Obviously he was the owner of the cave and Edward had slept in his bed. The glint in his crazy eyes was distinctly unfriendly, implying that hermits did not appreciate uninvited guests. He had brought a bag of berries and some dirty tubers. He dropped them and spun on his leathery heel to leave.

Edward said the words that seemed to mean, “Thank you."

The girl spouted a long, angry speech. The hermit turned back and fixed his glittery, Ancient Mariner gaze on Edward. He could not possibly be as deranged as he looked, could he?

Edward pointed to the cave and said, “Thank you,” again.

The hermit showed his teeth in a sneer and stalked away without a word. Unfriendly chappie!

"Porith,” Eleal said, pointing at the scrawny back vanishing upstream. She stuck her tongue out and cut it off with a finger.

Edward thought Good God! and confirmed his understanding with more gestures. Why would anyone cut out a man's tongue? Perjury? Sedition? Blasphemy, perhaps?

He tried to convey the question but either did not succeed or did not understand the answer.

One look at Porith's offering made him nauseous. He explained that with more gestures and pushed it all to the girl. She ate while continuing her story of the night's events. Eleal was quite a storyteller. Even understanding less than a tenth of her words, Edward could appreciate her dramatic performance. She rolled her eyes and waved her hands until he was hard put to keep a straight face.

She began using berries and roots to denote the characters on stage. The roots were the baddies. She explained them by cutting imaginary corn with a sickle. He nodded, recalling Creighton's warning of reapers. Soon, though, his head ached with the effort of trying to memorize so many words at one sitting. He would forget most of them. It was like playing charades with no one to tell you if you had guessed right. What did she mean by reapers, the sun, a crescent, and kneeling?

The reapers sounded very much like the dreaded thugs of India, the murderous worshipers of Kali. The British had struggled for years to wipe out thuggee.

They went back to the temple story and Eleal dropped a hint of advanced technology. Possibly she was fantasizing or had made a mistake, but it sounded as if Creighton had killed one of the reapers with a loud noise—a gun, obviously!

The picture was becoming clearer. Eleal had gone to spy, by herself. Creighton had crossed over, arriving dazed and shocked. The next two arrivals, T'lin and Gover ... how did Eleal know their names? Those words might not be names at all but visible categories like “policeman” or “Chinaman.” Whoever or whatever they were, the “t'lin” and the “gover” had welcomed Creighton, so they were almost certainly Service. They must have brought a gun for him, because then the first reaper had attacked and Creighton had shot him dead.

The girl's observations might be more reliable than her beliefs. She thought the reapers came from the god of death. Of course! Earthquakes came from Poseidon and thunder from Thor, yes? The reapers belonged to, or were agents of, the Chamber. But who were the Chamber? Who were the Service?

The T'lin man had escaped. He was Edward's road to sanity and assistance. He was the lead to the Service and Home and duty.

"T'lin! Er, want? T'lin!” he said.

Eleal scowled and said something about T'lin and gods and bad.

Nextdoor certainly seemed to have gods in both abundance and variety.

"No religion is wholly bad,” the guv'nor had told him often enough. “Without gods of some sort, life seems to have no meaning, so mortals need gods. But no religion is wholly good, either. Every religion at some time or another has persecuted strangers, stoned prophets, burned heretics, or extorted wealth from the poor."

Edward did not believe in gods. He believed in progress and love and tolerance and ethics. He did not think Nextdoor was going to change his mind.

Eleal tired of the word game. Teaching D'ward to speak good Joalian was going to take much longer than she had expected. His accent was worse than a Niolian's and he kept forgetting things she had told him. Just when she thought she was making progress, he would come out with absolute nonsense like, “Onions sings bluer gentle?"

The day was hot and still. All her nights seemed to be full of wild adventures now, and her days needed for sleep. He was yawning too. She sent him off to the cave to rest, and he went without argument, moving as stiffly as a very old man. It would be cooler in there for him. She climbed up the bank and stretched out on a mattress of ferns under a tree.

For a while her mind kept racing. Obviously Porith Molecatcher wanted her to leave and take her Liberator with her, and he could probably starve her into obedience. Somewhere farther from the Sacrarium would be much safer. Perhaps tomorrow D'ward would be strong enough to go.

Go where?

Go to Tion, of course! Her god was a just and benevolent god. He had saved her from Eltiana's jail and Zath's reapers. The Maiden had helped by sending Sister Ahn to kill Dolm Actor, but Irepit's convent was many vales away, in Nosokland, wherever that was. Here in Sussland the Maiden's grove had been destroyed. So that left Tion, and now it was safe for Eleal to rejoin the troupe, because Dolm was dead. So she would deliver the Liberator safely to Tion's temple in Suss, and Tion would reward her.

Reward her how?

Paa, the god of healing, was another avatar of Tion. Tion, therefore, was god of healing as well as god of art and beauty. Tion could cure sicknesses—and deformities! Eleal drifted off to sleep, thinking about the reward she would like best of all.

Porith shook her awake. The crazy old man was so excited he was hooting like a goose and drooling all over his beard. He made beckoning gestures, he tugged her hand. Grumpily she rubbed her eyes and stood up.

Come! he said in sign language. Come quickly!

She followed on dragging feet. The afternoon was half-gone, the air as hot as fresh milk. Porith kept running ahead and having to wait for her.

Soon she realized that he was following a faint trail. Many branches hung across it, so it was never visible for more than a few feet, but it was an easier way through the forest than any she had found. It must be a path of his own making, for no one else would come here. It led past the Sacrarium on the side away from the cliff. Just beyond there, Molecatcher plunged through some bushes and made more wild whooping sounds.

She followed, and found him capering alongside a tent. It was a small tent, of good linen, colored a very inconspicuous green, and well concealed in the undergrowth.

"Oh, wonderful!” she cried, suddenly as excited as he. “I heard Gover Envoy invite T'lin to his tent! So whoever stole the bodies didn't know about this! And the man who owned it is dead, so we can have it!"

Apparently that was all the reassurance the old man needed. He knelt to fumble with the ties. Then he plunged inside on hands and knees with Eleal at his heels. The interior was a cavern of riches, straight out of The Fall of Tarkor. There were six or seven bales and packs there, leaving barely room for a man to lie down. Some spare clothes and a couple of straw hats lay on top of them, and a pair of good-looking boots, also. Eleal's fingers itched to start exploring this wealth, but she knew she must wait until it had been transported back to Molecatcher's cave. Gover Envoy just might have friends who knew where his camp was. He had mentioned a courier on a fast moa.

They needed two trips to transfer all their treasure, and by the time they brought in the last of it, D'ward was awake and sitting beside the first load. Eleal was relieved to see he had not opened anything, because she thought she deserved that pleasure. It would be like a birthday feast, with presents. He seemed strangely interested in the packs themselves, studying the fastenings and the stitching. In some ways D'ward Liberator was very odd!

She began with the lumpiest pack, because that seemed likely to be the most interesting. Most of the others smelled like food—bacon and onions and dried fish. Right at the top she found a bronze mirror and a razor. The Thargian had been clean-shaven, so these confirmed that the tent had belonged to him and not a reaper who might come in search of it. D'ward's blue eyes had lit up at the sight of them, so she gave them to him as a gift. The soap she kept, but she would let him share.

Next came two iron cooking pots. She gave those to Porith, because she would not be able to carry them away and he was host, and cook. He gibbered over them. And then—wonder of wonders! A leather-bound book—the Filoby Testament itself!

She beamed in joy and held it up for the others to see.

D'ward snatched it out of her hand.

A printed book, by George! A hide-bound, gold-embossed beautiful book! Nightmares of the Stone Age vanished, the Renaissance dawned in certainty, and even the Industrial Revolution began to seem possible.

Then the title jumped off the cover at him.

Vurogty Migafilo

Vurogty Migafilo! He flicked the pages. The language was jabber, but the letters were unmistakable. There were a few unfamiliar accent marks and obviously some of the pronunciations had changed—(beta) was V, as in modern Greek—but overall the alphabet used was too close to classical Greek to be coincidence.

He barely noticed as Eleal grabbed the book back from him. Creighton had said that the keys to the portals were very ancient. Edward had not understood the significance of that at the time. While the Earth had been inventing steam engines and hot air balloons and now aeroplanes, it had been forgetting the antique wisdom of the shamans and witch doctors. People must have been crossing between worlds for thousands of years. Not many of them, but enough to found races and influence culture. They could have brought nothing with them, no tools or domestic animals, nor even fillings in their teeth, but their memories had come.

Someone had brought the art of writing from Earth to Nextdoor, or someone had taken the art of writing from Nextdoor to Earth. The Greeks were supposed to have copied the alphabet from the Phoenicians and improved it, but perhaps both had come from outside. The Greek alphabet had spawned the Latin and the Cyrillic and many others. This language of Eleal's was written in yet another variant of the Greek alphabet.

What else, who else, had crossed between worlds? For example, Edward thought—wishing he had someone to argue this with—Prometheus, who had stolen fire from the gods, might be an ancient memory of some interworld traveler. Perhaps many myths would make sense as muddled records of people vanishing mysteriously or appearing even more mysteriously. Suppose a man, or woman, popped out of nowhere into the middle of a druid ceremony at Stonehenge—would not the newcomer be hailed as a god?

With a squeal of delight, Eleal found her name where someone had marked a passage. She showed it to Edward. He nodded and smiled, but his mind was busily chipping out a whole new view of human history.

49

BY EVENING, HE WAS FEELING MUCH STRONGER. WITH Porith's fumbling help, Eleal had pitched the tent in thick shrubbery on the east side of the stream. She probably hoped that any reapers who came snooping around would not venture to cross the gully. The old hermit was so delighted to have his own house back that he had become almost jovial; at sundown the three of them ate a celebratory feast outside his cave.

Edward's appetite had come back with a rush. He suffered a stabbing toothache in consequence, but did not inquire about local dentists. His muscles and joints were recovering from their bruising, so he no longer moved like a centenarian. Later he managed to scramble up the bank for the first time, and then Eleal led him to the edge of the cliff.

The sun had just set. The view was superb—not merely the breathtaking canyon and the waterfall plunging into it, but also the many little white farmhouses standing out clearly on the far bank as if arranged there by an artist. Each had its own cluster of heavy shade trees and lighter, feathery things like palms or frozen green fountains. A background of fertile countryside faded off into distant foothills and a jagged frame of mountains. The land was prosperous, and obviously either tropical or subtropical, because the sun had been overhead at noon. It was better watered than his Kenya birthplace, he decided, and probably at a lower elevation—judging by terrestrial standards, which might not fit the case at all. Westward the ranges were a dark saw-edge against the last glow of evening. To the east the icy summits burned in gold and pink, and some of those peaks could match anything the Alps had to offer. Another range loomed over the forest behind him. The basin itself was about the width of the Mittelland at Lausanne, but closed off to east and west. The river was much bigger than the Rhine, the largest he had ever seen.

Waving an all-encompassing arm, Eleal explained that this was Something-Suss, which he assumed was what Creighton had translated as Sussland. When Edward asked the names of the ranges to north and south, they were both Something-else-Suss. The river was Yet-Another-Suss, and so was the little town he could see in the distance. He had a lot to learn.

Still, the town was promising. A gleam of reflected light there was somehow related to another god, Tion—a good god, apparently. Nice to hear that some of them were not horrors! Having discovered that Eleal had strong religious convictions, Edward had resolved to be very cautious on the subject of gods.

She indicated that tomorrow she was going to take him to that Town-Suss. He could manage that, he thought, five miles or so. Then he asked with gestures about crossing the canyon and learned that there would have to be a detour to the east, to Maganot. Still thinking in English, he translated that to Village-Not ... Notham? Notting? Notby?

"Magathogwal,” she explained, pointing the other way, and then, “Magalame, Magajot."

He pointed straight down. “Query name."

"Ratharuat."

Ratha must be yet another geographical prefix, perhaps meaning “forest” or “place smaller than a village” or “old ruins, nobody lives there now.” Ruat? That name sounded familiar, but his memory was reeling from overwork and he could not place it.

The two of them sat in contented silence as the stars came out. Birds or something were making a strange racket in the trees and once in a while his stomach would rumble loudly, provoking Eleal to giggles. Then she began to sing. He could not follow the words, but the melody was pleasant. She was a competent little songstress.

She was a pretty girl, too, although she would never be a classical beauty; her nose tipped up and her hair was more frizzy than curled. She had a quick smile and a remarkable self-confidence. He suspected she was short for her age, but of course he was only guessing, for the local population might be stunted by twentieth century European standards. He wondered what had happened to her leg. It could not be rickets in this climate.

The song ended. The singer glanced up to see what her audience thought of it. Edward clapped, not sure if that was the local sign of applause. Apparently it was, because she beamed. On impulse he smiled, took her hand, and squeezed it. She blushed. He released it quickly, recalling Miss Eleal's dramatic tendencies. She was probably old enough to start having romantic notions also. He had no wish to provoke an embarrassing juvenile crush. Call me in five or six years, perhaps.

Five or six years? Five or six days ago, he had been on the boat train from Paris. Now he seemed to be stranded for the rest of his life on a world unknown, more exotic than anywhere Haggard ever Rode or Rudyard ever Kipled.

The giant green moon, Trumb, seemed to have disappeared. A small blue light just above the sunset was Ysh, Eleal said, and then she became excited and pointed to a brighter, yellow star. That was Kirb'l, and apparently seeing Kirb'l was an honor, or a good omen, or something. Kirb'l Tion, she said, and gestured toward Suss town.

Gods again! To change the subject Edward asked about her home and parents. She evaded the question and asked about his. They still conversed in baby talk and gestures, and that could become a bad habit. He decided to give himself one more day of that and then insist on using proper grammar.

The stars were lighting up with tropical swiftness. He could see the Great Bear low over the mountains to the northeast and Arcturus above that. He asked Eleal about their names, and again she became evasive. She would never admit ignorance. He wondered what other planets might circle this sun, but did not embarrass her by asking, and he probably could not have made himself understood anyway. He located Vega and the Summer Triangle. Then he turned around and peered up the stream gorge, which gave him a south view through the trees. There was the Centaur, which the guv'nor had pointed out to him when he was only—

He uttered a grunt of astonishment that made Eleal jump. Impossible! These were the stars of Earth.

Even before he went to sleep, he knew he was in for trouble. In the middle of the night it arrived. He crawled out of the tent without waking the girl.

Don't drink the water—but if he was going to be stranded on Nextdoor for the rest of his life, he must drink the water, and his insides would just have to learn to deal with the local germs. He'd suffered from the traveler's curse in France and in Germany and lived through it, but he was not familiar with the interplanetary variety. What he needed now was a good dose of codeine, Dover Pills. Without that he might be in for a severe case of Delhi Belly.

By morning he had a corker.

There was no question of leaving that day. He could barely crawl in and out of the tent, and eventually he stayed outside. He tried to reassure Eleal, but lacked the strength to explain the cause of the problem. She fussed and worried and prayed. She brought him water to drink, and made some thin soup, which he sometimes managed to keep down. Her concern was very touching, and she demonstrated remarkable patience at just fanning flies off him, although she was annoyed that he would not continue the language lessons. Another day ought to do it, he thought.

The next day he was running a high fever and things were looking dicey. His first term at Fallow he had caught every disease known to childhood, although he must have had as much inbred immunity as any native-born English boy. Those mumps and measles and whooping cough would have killed his Embu friends at Nyagatha. He had inherited some resistance to English diseases, and he was better fitted to survive as an adult in Africa than any homebred white man, but he was not equipped for Nextdoor.

He began to wander in and out of delirium, never recognizing it until it was past. He did not want to die here, so far from home and everyone he knew. Where was home? Not Fallow. Nor Nyagatha. Certainly not Uncle Roly's house in Kensington. How ironic to escape the hangman's noose only to succumb to fever on another world! Oh, Alice, Alice! Perhaps he would have fallen to a German bullet had things turned out otherwise, but that would at least have had a certain dignity. Interplanetary disease had killed H. G. Wells's Martians.

Little Eleal was distraught, not knowing what to do. He tried to tell her that she was doing everything possible, but he could remember nothing of the language except her name. Alexander the Great had sighed for new worlds to conquer. They would have killed you, Alec.

O, brave new world! Lost world.

He did not want to die.

The next day he was weakening fast. The girl brought him drinks and washed away his sweat and held his hand. He was immeasurably grateful and could not tell her so. She was a gritty little thing. He heard her berating the old hermit. He tried to say that she should leave and go home to her parents. She didn't understand the King's English, poor child.

A whole new world and he was going to die without ever seeing more than a few square feet of it. He had so much wanted to find Olympus and talk to people who had known his father.

Creighton came to see him, fading in and out of illusion, talking of strangers.

Mr. Goodfellow came, sorrowfully. “I can do nothing, Edward,” he said, clutching his beaver hat. “I have no authority here."

Why was the girl still hanging around? What was her interest in Edward? The way she bullied old Ben Gunn was really very funny. What day was this?

That night—whatever night it was—a monstrous thunderstorm lashed the jungle, while Edward raved in delirious arguments with Inspector Leatherdale, trying to convince him that miracles still happened and could open bolted doors. Poor Bagpipe Bodgley came by and talked of the Lost World, asking how the story had ended.

Then he found himself in jail, explaining to the doctor that his broken leg had been cured by a minor god left over from Saxon prehistory.

Eleal was praying again.

"That won't do any good!” he said crossly, aware that she could not understand.

"Well, you never know, old man,” Creighton said. “Let's just hope nobody hears, that's all. I told you that they're not gods, but may behave like gods. But even if somebody does hear, well they're not all horrors."

"Did you give my love to Ruat?” Mr. Goodfellow asked.

His fever broke that night, and he lived. By morning he was lucid, but as weak as a newborn babe. He watched the dawn steal in through the leaves and smelled the new, wet scent of a cleansed world; he was infinitely grateful just to be alive.

He hoped he could stay that way, but obviously it would not be easy. Daylight had brought enlightenment. Sometime in his madness he had worked out who the opposition was, and why the Service referred to it as the Chamber.

The Chamber of Horrors, of course.

He was young and superbly fit, and he recovered quickly. One day he was a raving maniac and the next he was sitting up and very shakily trying to shave himself. The looking glass showed him the narrowness of his escape. That afternoon he began the language lessons again. The next day he was managing small walks.

Porith had hidden most of the food. Eleal screamed and threatened until he produced it. She wanted it for D'ward, to build up his strength.

With much glee she showed him the passages in the Filoby Testament that mentioned her, and the others that mentioned him—. He was also sometimes identified by a title that Eleal did not even try to translate but which must be the “Liberator” Creighton had mentioned, and once he was called the son of That was a fair attempt to transliterate a name that must surely have been unique on Nextdoor. The reference had worked well enough to bring death to his parents and might yet do the same to him.

Edward knew that Eleal was keeping secrets from him. She could follow his pidgin and gestures perfectly well when she wanted to. When he asked some question she preferred not to answer, he became completely incomprehensible and remained so until she could change the subject.

She was very impatient to leave. He suggested that she go on ahead and he would follow or wait for her to return, but she refused, and for that he felt very grateful. He owed her his life, but to embark on a walk of perhaps several days’ duration before he recovered his strength would be real folly, risking a complete relapse. He tried to explain that.

She managed to explain the need for haste—she had friends who would be leaving soon. He made her a promise: He must stay one more day, and he would do some walking to build up his strength, but they would leave the day after.

50

THE NEXT MORNING ELEAL TOOK D'WARD EASTWARD along the cliff edge. He leaned heavily on Sister Ahn's staff and persevered until they reached cultivated fields. He needed a rest before he could walk back. In all they had covered no more than a couple of miles, yet he was exhausted and slept through the whole afternoon.

In the heat of the day she lay on the grass and swatted flies and wondered how Uthiam had made out with Ironfaib's Polemic, and the others in their individual pieces. She even wondered if young Gim had done well with his harp or won the gold rose for his beauty. How that would embarrass him!

She also thumbed through the Filoby Testament. It was a terrible muddle. She had found the four references to her that Gover Envoy had mentioned. That had not been difficult, as he had marked them all in the book. The order did not seem to matter.

Verse 386 was the important one, about clothing and washing. In Verse 401, she brought “him” to the caveman for succor, and “him” had been D'ward of course.

Verse 475: Before the festival, Eleal will come into Sussvale with the Daughter of Irepit. The minion of Zath seeketh out the Liberator, but he will be called to repentance. Well, they had done all that! What use was a prophecy after you'd done it?

The only Eleal prophecy she had not yet fulfilled came right at the end of the book. Out of 1102 verses altogether, there she was again in number 1098: Terrible is the justice of the Liberator; his might lays low the unworthy. He is gentle and hard to anger. Gifts he sets aside and honor he spurns. Eleal shall be the first temptation and the prince shall be the second, but the dead shall rouse him.

What prince? Tempting to do what? A lot of the prophecies were like that—they almost meant something but not quite. Like Verse 114: Men plot evil upon the holy mountain. The servants of the one do the work of the many. They send unto D'ward, mouthing oaths like nectar. Their voices are sweet as roses, yea sweeter than the syrup that snares the diamondfly. He is lured to destruction by the word of a friend, by the song of a friend he is hurled down among the legions of death.

The book spoke of D'ward and the Liberator separately and never said they were the same man—perhaps she was in there under other names too. Nor did it ever say who or what he was supposed to liberate.

Sussians were very fond of liberators. This year's tragedy was called The Tragedy of Trastos, and it was about Daltos Liberator, one of their ancient heroes, who had slain Trastos Tyrant, his own father, and brought democracy to Sussland. It was a very good tragedy, with lots of gods and goddesses. Suss would love it. At the festival it would have won the rose for the best play easily ... maybe! Dolm Actor had played major roles in both the tragedy and the comedy. Dolm had been slain by Sister Ahn's sword. K'linpor was his understudy, but Golfren was K'linpor's, and Golfren acted like a rock.

This was Neckday and the festival would end tomorrow. Eleal did not want to think about that. Usually the troupe stayed on in Suss, because the winning group was allowed free use of the temple amphitheater and many citizens would come to see the winning play. Those performances often brought them more money than any others in their year. But without Dolm they could not stage either the Varilian or Trastos, only the masque, and unless they had won the rose, they would not have a free theater available.

In other words, there was a very good chance that the Trong Troupe would leave the following day, Toeday, and there was no hope of D'ward reaching Suss before then. Once the troupe had crossed Monpass, it might wander almost anywhere in Joalland.

Eleal might never manage to get him to Suss at all, because she had no money to pay the toll over the bridge at Notby.

There! She backed up a page in the Testament and yes, there was D'ward's name again.

D'ward shall become Tion. He shall give heart to the king and win the hearts of the people. D'ward shall become Courage.

What in the world did that mean? There was nothing to say that it referred to the Liberator. What a terrible muddle! Well, at the least it proved that she would be right to take D'ward to Tion's temple.

51

THEY PLANNED TO LEAVE AT DAWN THE NEXT MORNING, to make progress before the day grew hot. Edward had no idea what dangers lurked out there in the world: slavers, press-gangs, or knights in armor challenging passersby to joustings? He would have to rely on Eleal to lead him safely to wherever she thought he ought to be—for his benefit or hers. Clearly, she had plans, and they had involved careful preparation and much discussion with old Porith.

Whatever those plans were, he would have to go along with them. He could not spend the rest of his life in a jungle tent, certainly not while there was a war on that he must fight in.

Judging by garments looted from the dead Gover's baggage, standard dress in Sussland was a smock of drab gray material with a touch of bright-colored embroidery on hem or shoulder strap. Eleal had been improving on one of these costumes. Below the neckband she had stitched a jagged sunburst of white cloth, cut from a flour bag. Below that again, out to either side, she had attached a green hammer and a red Ø, and underneath them, but closer together, a yellow triangle and a blue star. The colors were vital—having nothing else green to hand, she had cut a piece out of the tent to use for the hammer. This armorial creation was to be Edward's wear. He concluded that anything so lacking in sense must obviously be very holy.

That evening she repeated her instructions solemnly and emphatically, a ragged urchin sitting cross-legged in the dirt, literally wagging a finger at him. He was to be a gods’ man, walking to gods’ houses—a pilgrim, in other words—and he was not to speak to anyone. She would do the talking. He was not sure if she was to be his guide, pupil, or assistant, but the role seemed to be formal and well-defined. He would play the lama, she the chela. His only communication was to be a gesture of blessing, and she made him practice that.

The idea was ingenious and might save him considerable trouble if he attracted the attention of the authorities. Nextdoor had no British consuls to stand bail or threaten to send gunboats. On the other hand, all cultures he knew of imposed certain obligations on their able-bodied young men—honest labor and military service being two that came to mind at once. This handy cop-out as a pilgrim might work for the elderly, but he worried that his ingenious young accomplice was overlooking some snag. He certainly put no faith in the addled wits of old Porith, the ex-priest. Nevertheless, having no better plan of his own to propose, Edward agreed that he would be a holy man. He just hoped he would not be called upon to perform some sacred ritual. Public flagellation, for example.

Before the sun rose, the travelers left their tent for the last time and ate a hurried breakfast. They scrambled down the bank and called at Porith's cave to say farewell. Eleal gave him a kiss, which flustered him. The crazy old man was much richer than he had been before she arrived, because he had inherited all the valuables from the tent. He had resented Edward when they first met. The last couple of days he had become quite friendly.

Edward was not sure of the proprieties of handshaking and was certainly not inclined to kiss the shaggy old gargoyle, so he used his pilgrim-blessing gesture instead, a raised palm with fingers spread. The hermit stared at him for a moment, and then sank to his knees and bowed his head.

Eleal and Edward exchanged startled glances and took to their heels before they began to laugh. They looked back from the top of the bank, and the old man was still on his knees, as if in prayer.

Edward trudged along the jungle path with Eleal hobbling eagerly ahead. Besides his pilgrim's smock, he wore sandals and an absurd Chinese coolie straw hat like a wheel, all looted from the dead Gover. He leaned on his walking stick, which had belonged to some woman called Ahn, who had slain the second reaper. He was still not sure who she had been or how she had died.

He thought he might manage five miles if he were lucky. If he were unlucky, then he would discover that beggars were set to work picking oakum or mending roads. He had already identified the first snag in Eleal's pilgrim deception—by the rules of the game, neither of them could carry any baggage, not even a packed lunch, although he had slipped the razor and a lump of soap into his pocket when she wasn't looking.

When he neared the ruined temple, his skin rose in gooseflesh. The eerie sensation he had known in Winchester Cathedral and at Stonehenge was enormously magnified, into a dread sense of cold and dark and sanctity. He remembered Creighton saying he could always recognize virtuality on Nextdoor. Apparently the talent was amplified in strangers and Edward was a stranger here.

Did portals work in both directions? He still knew the key; he could easily make himself a primitive drum. But would that key take him back to Stonehenge, or on to some other world? Even if he dared take the risk and did reach Stonehenge, he would arrive there penniless and stark naked. By now Inspector Leatherdale would have a warrant out for his arrest. There was no easy way out of this mess.

He was glad to leave the temple behind. Beyond it the path was much clearer and in half a mile or so it emerged from the forest close to another ruin, a monumental arch. Despite Eleal's protests, Edward went to inspect it. Once it had anchored the end of a suspension bridge. Corroded remains of chains still hung from it, and the base of a matching arch was discernible on the far side of the gorge. Had he seen its like on Earth, he would have guessed that it dated from Roman times. Here it might be more recent, but no traveler had crossed Susswater at this point for several centuries.

The ancient road it had served was still evident, leading southward through a curiously diffuse settlement, a hodgepodge of farmland, trees, ruins, and cottages. No one else was about yet, so he was free to chat with Eleal. He soon established that this was Ruatvil. He learned how the language distinguished between small, medium, and large places—villages like Notby, towns like Ruatvil, cities like Suss. He suspected that even a city would seem very small by his standards. London or Paris would fill the whole valley.

"Hello, Ruat!” he said in English. “Mr. Goodfellow sends his love."

Eleal looked up quickly to frown at him. Her hat fell off and they laughed.

He felt very strange, walking under a tropic sun again, disguised as a peasant, but he had been seven days in this new world now and was eager to see more of it.

Beyond the remains of Ruatvil, he noticed real peasants toiling in the fields under coolie hats like his. People could pass through the portals, animals could not. The concept of agriculture could; the domesticated species would have to be local. He saw beasts of burden and herds of others that might be edible. They had a rough similarity to oxen and goats, and he thought he recognized geese until he observed that they had fur instead of feathers. The vegetation was unfamiliar, but none of it would have seemed out of place in a terrestrial land he had not visited before.

The biggest surprise of the morning was a man racing past on the back of something shaped like an ostrich. It was gone before Edward had time to see it properly. Soon two more riders approached from the south, and then he had time to observe that their mounts had hair and hooves. They moved very fast. Eleal told him they were mothaa, so he classified them in his mind as moas, although they must be more mammal than bird. He was trying hard to think in the local language, but he had not succeeded yet.

The road now was merely a red dirt trail, rutted and pocked with weeds. Hedges defined the fields and he saw no barbed wire, no eyeglasses or steam engines. He no longer believed in Creighton's gun—he had another theory now to explain the reaper's death—but he still hoped that the culture of Ruatvil did not represent the limits of Nextdoor's technology. An interplanetary traveler arriving at some isolated Chinese or African village would not find motorcars or telegraph wires.

No policeman asked to see the travelers’ papers, no highwayman demanded their money or their lives. By and large the population just ignored them—field workers, herders, men driving oxcarts. The only exceptions were a few pedestrians coming along the trail in the opposite direction. They mostly regarded the holy man with surprise or disapproval, and in some cases with open amusement. Edward tried giving his sign of blessing, but that met with outright laughter and ribald comments. Thereafter he maintained a dignified impassivity, but obviously an eighteen-year-old prophet was no more convincing on Nextdoor than he would have been on Earth. He needed old Porith's white beard.

To his shame, he soon found himself hard put to keep up with the crippled child at his side. Eleal might have less than two complete legs, but she made good use of what she had. He wondered why she did not wear a built-up shoe to make her stride more even.

The road continued to wander south. As their destination lay to the north, he concluded that the detour was going to be sizable, probably dictated by the availability of bridges. After five or six miles he had reached his limit. Happily, just there the road crossed a small knoll, capped by a grove of tall trees like gigantic umbrellas, casting black velvet shadow. Eleal pulled faces, but agreed to let him rest.

An hour or so later, they set off again and soon came to a junction. Eleal turned to the east. A short distance on this new road brought them to a fast-flowing river, whose milky water told of its glacial origin, like streams Edward had seen in the Alps. He was staggering now, his legs trembling. He had a nagging toothache and blisters from the unfamiliar footwear.

"Rest!” he said as he staggered down the incline to the ford. Such weakness was humiliating, but his illness had drained him of strength.

Clutching her hat, Eleal looked up at him with a worried frown. “Not speak!"

"Not speak,” he agreed. The last thing he needed now was the strain of trying to make conversation.

She led the way over a long line of stepping stones, into a small grove on the far bank. Several groups of travelers were taking a noontime break in a wayside campground. Two oxcarts stood by the road; a few of the strange moa bipeds grazed on tethers under trees resembling beeches. Watchdogs that looked more like oversized shaggy cats guarded a herd of goatlike creatures. Flower-bedecked shrubs brightened the grove. Almost all the blossoms were some shade of red, and he had noted the same thing at Ruatvil. It reminded him of Kenya, where blue and yellow flowers were similarly rare. Delicious odors of cooking came wafting from the fires.

Eleal pointed to a log near an unoccupied hearth, seeming to imply that Edward should sit on it, so he did. He thought he heard his knees utter sighs of relief. He felt like one big ache. He had a sunburn, and he was trembling with fatigue.

Was it all fatigue? He looked around uneasily at the pillared tree trunks. Something creepy ... Then he realized that it was virtuality again. This campground was a node—not on the scale of the Ruat temple or Stonehenge, but awesome enough to make his skin prickle. He could see no shrine or ruins; he could only hope that it had no resident numen.

Eleal had gone hobbling over to the largest group of wayfarers, eight or nine men busily eating and arguing. They broke off their conversation to inspect her. Then they scowled across at her pilgrim companion.

Undeterred, she began to make a speech. Edward could not understand any of it. One of the men shouted angrily, waving her away. They were a nondescript gang, rough and weather-beaten. A couple of the youngest wore only loincloths, the rest were clad in the customary drab smocks, their straw hats lying on the grass beside them. Every man had a knife at his belt and they all sported beards. Most were stocky and dark-complexioned. Apart from their clothes, they could have been rural Italians.

Eleal was never easily discouraged. She continued her harangue, gesturing dramatically in Edward's direction—no doubt explaining how holy and worthy he was. He did not feel holy and worthy, but he did feel hungry, and unbearably weary. The throb in his tooth hurt almost as much as his feet.

One of the younger men said something witty and all the others laughed. The oldest, a graybeard, shouted at her again. They were not speaking the language Eleal had been teaching Edward, and neither was she. It had a more guttural sound to it, but he caught a word or two and decided it might be only a dialect variation. She grew shriller and more insistent. Graybeard stood up and advanced on her menacingly. Evidently her plan to elicit charity for her pilgrim was not going to work. Nice try.

Abandoning hopes of lunch, Edward rose also. He limped forward and laid a hand on Eleal's shoulder. She jumped, and fell silent. He had intended to draw her away, but she did not move and that turned his gesture into one of protection and support. Suddenly there was confrontation. Graybeard was no longer threatening a child, but a man both younger and taller than himself. He could not possibly back down now.

From the looks of him, Graybeard was a seasoned old rover. His face was burned by the sun, with lines of red road dust marking its wrinkles. His shoulders were impressively hairy and beefy, his dark eyes bloodshot and menacing. He said something contemptuous; the words could have been Chinese for all Edward knew, but the tone was an unmistakable warning that certain young scroungers should go and find themselves honest work before they had the living daylights knocked out of them. His companions jeered their agreement.

Oh, is that so? Before he realized it, Edward had raised his eyebrows in challenge. He was not going to take that remark, whatever it meant, from a gang of vagrant peddlers. Never let them see you're afraid of them....

Too late he registered that his Fallow training might have betrayed him. He was not dressed to play the role of the young gentleman; these were not insubordinate English navvies. He was not His Majesty's District Officer, backed by the invincible might of the British Empire. He was not even Bwana's son at Nyagatha. He was exactly what these men thought he was, a beggar. Public school airs were inappropriate under the circumstances.

Too bad! To back down now would only make things worse.

He returned the man's stare with contempt, holding the eye contact: Do your worst!

Graybeard shouted again.

Really? You don't say?

Doubt flickered over the other man's craggy features. Had he never seen blue eyes before? He asked a question.

Still Edward said nothing. Eleal said nothing. The doubt curdled into worry. The old man turned away; he strode quickly back to the fire and returned bearing a stick with a sizzling lump of charred meat on it. Eleal snatched it from him and peremptorily demanded another, holding out her hand. Another man hurried over with a second.

Edward nodded in acceptance, and offered his spread-hand blessing. Both men laid palms on their hearts and bowed low, apparently relieved.

The holy man returned to his log, trying not to limp on his blisters. He did not sit immediately, but took a careful look around to make sure the trouble was over. He had won the attention of the whole campground. Eleal came to stand beside him. Her face was paler than usual, but she flicked him a wink. He kept his features impassive, deciding it would be safe to eat.

But then one of the younger men followed and knelt to offer Eleal a bowl of cereal mush. Edward gravely blessed him as she accepted it. Another came with a gourd of water. One by one, men hurried over to kneel and buy the holy man's blessing. Other men from other groups joined in, bringing food from their own meals. Soon there was a feast spread out around the venerable pilgrim's feet.

Eleal's eyes grew wider and wider every time she looked up at him. Edward remained inscrutable, as if this sort of tribute was no more than his due. Eventually he realized what was expected of him—he sat down to show that he was satisfied. Then the offerings stopped coming. He hoped the two of them could do justice to such a banquet. He had collected half the food in the campground, enough to feed a monasteryful of starving monks.

His mouth was watering. He bit into the meat, feeling delicious hot fat run down his chin. His tooth had stopped aching.

Graybeard's oxcart was piled high with what seemed to be small blue carrots. They did not make a very comfortable throne, but Edward sat cross-legged on the top under the shade of his hat and made the best of the ride into Filoby. He clutched his staff, trying to look holy and ineffable, dribbling unholy sweat in the heat of the afternoon. Eleal sat beside the old man and chattered imperiously. God knew what sort of tale she was spinning, although Edward heard his name being mentioned. Her religious scruples were starting to seem surprisingly flexible. Every now and again she would twist around and address some remark to him, but he rarely caught more than a couple of words. Migafilo was one.

Eventually they came to another river. A ford and a steep hill out of the valley brought them into a village of whitewashed cottages with roofs of red tiles. This must be Filoby, the Magafilo of the prophecy. It was an unimpressive clutter of narrow clay lanes and perhaps fifty homes, but a rank odor of charred wood hung in the air. Several cottages had been burned—recently, for repairs were under way. There were more people around than might have been expected at that time of day. They looked up with interest at the pilgrim on his chariot.

Then worse destruction came in sight. Beyond the village rose a small conical hill, spiky with black tree trunks. As the oxcart approached, Edward began to feel the now-familiar sense of virtuality. He shivered despite the heat. That hill was a node and a sacred place. It must be the birthplace of the Filoby Testament, and it had been ravaged by fire. Gutted ruins of many buildings stood stark amid the ashes of the grove. From what Creighton had told him about prophecy, he could only assume that this destruction was more work of the Chamber, striving to block fulfillment of the Testament. The people who had devastated Nyagatha had struck here also, the killers of his parents, the enemies who would still be seeking his death.

Here Graybeard's road parted from his. The holy pilgrim descended from the carrots with as much dignity as he could contrive in his skimpy frock.

Mumbling apologetically, the old man knelt in the dirt and removed his hat to receive the pilgrim's final blessing. Feeling mischievous, Edward went so far as to lay his outspread hand on the man's head. That must be a signal honor, for when the old rascal rose to his feet, tears were cleaning small tram lines down the dust on his weather-beaten cheeks. He gabbled thanks, fumbling with his hat.

Edward turned and walked briskly in the direction his small disciple indicated. He could not see her face under her hat and he wondered what she was thinking. It was not like Eleal to remain silent.

The street was narrow. He was constantly passing close to people. Almost without exception, they bowed to him. One or two women knelt as he went by. He responded with his sign of blessing and saw faces light up.

This was all very creepy! Not everyone was dark-eyed and swarthy—he saw auburn hair, some mousy brown. He saw hazel eyes and gray eyes. His own blue eyes might be rare, but they could not be unique in the world, so they were not what was provoking superstitious respect. He was tall by local standards, but again not uniquely so. His was not the single white face among a thousand black. Above all, he was only a youth. Why should his pilgrim garb merit this sudden veneration? Were the inhabitants of Filoby so much more devout than those of Ruatvil, who had laughed at him that morning?

No, something had changed when he faced down Graybeard in the campground. That confrontation had given him confidence, of course, which might be part of it, but his wildest theories were starting to seem believable.

He could not ask Eleal to comment, for now the road was busy and a pilgrim must not speak. Even when he had left the village behind, there was no lack of travelers. As soon as one party had passed, another was in sight. They all seemed to be heading south, and he did not understand that. He was going the wrong way.

Nor were they all peasants. Well-dressed folk rode past on swift moas or in gigs drawn by animals resembling pony-sized greyhounds. Many of the pedestrians wore colored robes, and he guessed that those were priests and priestesses. Even they greeted him with respectful gestures—clasped hands, touches to breast or forehead. He responded with his five-finger blessing, and no one accused him of irreverence.

The travelers were more varied than the locals. He saw fairer skins, even some blond hair and eyes as blue as his own. One or two could have been Saxons or Scandinavians. Others might have been Indians or Arabs. Clothes showed more diversity, also—tunics and baggy pants like Turkish pajamas, gowns, simple loincloths. Men were bearded or clean-shaven or mustachioed, their limbs smooth or hairy. Noses were hooked or straight, broad or narrow. The population of Nextdoor was a cross section of European types, but of course that was to be expected. Creighton had said that most of the European portals connected with a territory he had called the Vales. Of course the racial types would be similar if people had been crossing to and fro for thousands of years, keeping the bloodlines mingled.

Fascinated, Edward strode along the dusty track. Heat and sweat and insects were minor inconveniences. He eyed the sprouting crops in the fields, the hedges, the livestock, the farmhouses. Many trees stood on carpets of fallen blossom—in England it was August, but in the Vales it was spring.

A troop of six armed men approached, streaking along on moas. As they came near, their leader drew his sword. For a moment Edward's muscles all tightened up in alarm, but the man merely raised the blade in salute and kept on going.

Suddenly Eleal took a grip on her hat and tilted her head to look up at him. Her face was flushed and worried. “Rest?” she pleaded. She was panting, her smock soaked with sweat.

He was so surprised and ashamed that he almost broke his presumed vow of silence. Nodding, he slowed down—blessing a passing pair of monks at the same time. Eleal limped to the shade of a hedge and flopped down on the grass. Edward joined her, lowering himself with more dignity. He had forgotten that his legs were so much longer than hers. He had run the poor cripple off her feet. How could he have been so thoughtless! And why had she not said something sooner? Obviously it was not only his teeth that were feeling better—he had recovered his physical strength, too.

Two well-dressed men stopped and offered canteens of water, inquiring solicitously after the holy man's health. Eleal replied in the same clipped dialect, obviously explaining that it was she who was weary. They nodded understandingly. Grateful for the drink, Edward sent them on their way with a blessing.

Whatever his magic was, it worked on Eleal also. She was regarding him with awe and delight and adoration.

He waited for a gap in the stream of passersby and risked a question. “Query many men going."

She replied with a long dissertation about the god Tion and the city of Suss, but he did not understand and had no chance to question her further. She seemed to know the reason for this migration and she was obviously not worried by it, so he could forget theories of plague or marauding Goths coming out of the hills. He would just have to wait and see. He hoped she would revive soon, so they might continue on their way.

Another half hour or so brought them to Rotby, which was much like Filoby, or slightly larger. The natives were just as respectful to the young pilgrim, just as pleased to receive his blessing, so the effect was showing no signs of wearing off. If anything, it seemed to be growing stronger.

The bridge beyond Rotby was marked by a great megalithic arch, a twin of the relic at Ruatvil. Another stood on the far bank of the gorge, several hundred feet away. The green-bronze chains looped between them supported a wooden roadbed barely wide enough for a single oxcart. Despite the steady flow of travelers approaching, few were heading north—Edward still wished he understood that imbalance—so there was no great press of people ahead of him at the massive timber gates. There were enough for him to work out the procedure, though, and to see that the men in metal helmets and leather armor were collecting a toll.

Eleal took his hand and squeezed it warningly.

He thought Phooey! Obviously a holy pilgrim who had taken an oath of silence and a vow of poverty could not be expected to have money.

He might be required to find some rich layman to pay his way for him, of course.

He laid a comforting hand on Eleal's shoulder as they approached the gate. Two guards were taking the cash, checking it carefully, and then dropping it in a bag—one doing the actual work, the other mostly keeping a careful eye on him, although sometimes they would both have to bite a coin before reaching a decision. Three other guards lounged on a bench in the shade behind, chatting in bored fashion. All five wore swords.

A peasant and his wife passed through. Edward and Eleal were next. The guard held out a horny hand.

Edward gave him his respect-compelling stare.

The soldier demanded money in unmistakable, no-nonsense terms.

Edward said nothing.

The soldier scowled, hesitated, and glanced at his companion. He, in turn, swung around and said something to the three on the bench. The man on the left and the one in the middle both looked to the one on the right. Obviously military procedures did not vary much from one world to another.

The one on the right was a grizzled bull of a man, and his expression as he sized up the juvenile prophet suggested that he would like nothing better in the whole world than a chance to have that stripling under his command for a few hours. Edward waited. For a long, unhappy moment there was challenge and confrontation, as there had been in the campground.

Then the leader rose to his feet, his two companions an instant behind him. He marched forward four steps as if to take a closer look at Edward's blue eyes. He stamped his feet, barked an order, and the whole squad came to attention. He saluted. Edward gave him a blessing and led Eleal through the gate, onto the bridge.

When I grow up, he thought, I am going to be Pope.

The gorge was especially narrow there. The walls fell sheer to the spray—in fact the north side looked undercut, which suggested that one day soon the Rotby bridge might be taken out of service by the river itself. Even upstream and downstream from this notch the canyon was much deeper than it was wide, the river barely visible in the shadowy depths. Its voice was a constant, threatening mumble, sensed more through the soles of the feet than the ears. The chains creaked softly. Many roadbed timbers were in need of repairs and the road itself had a worrying dip to the center. Edward decided he would be evermore content to remain on the far side when he reached it.

Other travelers stepped aside for him and bowed. The driver of an oxcart brought it to a halt—no easy task, for the roadbed sloped steeply at that point. The guard at the north gateway saluted as the pilgrim passed through.

A few cottages stood to the right; a grove of trees to the left was clearly another of the wayfarers’ campsites. Several early bird groups were setting up tents and at least one hearth trickled smoke already. After the banquet he had eaten at noon, Edward did not expect to be hungry for several days, and his legs had found some sort of second wind—he could cheerfully have carried on walking—but the girl was flagging again and would appreciate a break. She must have come to that conclusion herself, because she turned off into the campground without hesitation.

He sensed no virtuality this time. This was not a node, but it was an attractive enough spot, well shaded and cool. Between the trees, massive flowering bushes shaped like giant puffballs displayed innumerable shades of red, from orange through almost to violet. Some of them were bigger than armchairs. Taking a second look, he wondered if each bush might be a single enormous blossom. Half a dozen moas were grazing off to the side, and he decided to go and take a look at those interesting...

A man shouted, “Eleal!” and came running forward.

Eleal screamed. She grabbed Edward's hand and hauled at him.

"Reaper!” she shrieked. “Reaper!"

Edward stayed where he was, ignoring her frantic tugging while he summed up the man who had provoked her terror. Seeing the effect he had produced, the stranger had halted, so he was no immediate danger. He was standing about twenty feet away, staring. There was nothing threatening about his appearance—he was taller than most and in his late twenties or early thirties, but he bore no visible weapon. There was a rawboned awkwardness even to the way he was standing. He wore a yellow tunic and loose pants down to his knees.

Eleal was babbling, “Reaper!” and trying to pull Edward away.

He could see no danger in the man. His expression was one of extreme distress—pain, perhaps, or fear, or any one of several things, but more suffering than any desire to cause suffering. Both ignorance of the language and the role he was playing prevented Edward from arguing with the girl, but he was much stronger than she was. Effortlessly towing her along beside him, he strode forward to take a closer look.