Triplet

Chapter 19

"Well," Melentha said when Danae had finished, "that's as interesting a story as I've heard on Karyx in a long while. You ever consider working Besak as a bard?"

Danae leaned hard on her temper. "It's true," she said, keeping her voice steady. "Every word of it."

She turned to Ravagin, sitting silently off in a corner of the conversation room. "Come on, Ravagin, say something. Tell her I didn't make this up."

"Unfortunately, my dear," Melentha put in, "Ravagin knows enough about Karyx not to take everything he sees at full face value."

"What are you suggesting—that it was all an illusion?" Danae scoffed. "Give me a little more credit than that."

"Illusions on Karyx can be very convincing," Melentha shrugged. "You've seen at least one doppelganger since you've been here, and that's actually one of the simpler ones. Someone who knows what he's doing can make extremely elaborate illusions."

Ravagin stirred. "Only if he's willing to put forth a lot of effort."

"Well, of course—"

"So what was the purpose?"

Melentha frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Okay, let's assume the whole incident was an illusion," Ravagin said. "Fine; but we start with the robe, and the robe was unquestionably real—you had it here long before we arrived. Ditto for the sleepwalker effect, unless you want to admit that someone can send spirits past your post line without causing even a ripple of reaction from your trapped demon. That means that Danae was kidnapped for some other purpose; and that someone with the necessary ability just happened to find out about it in time to sidetrack her to a fake Coven where he'd set up this grand illusion."

"The perpetrator didn't have to send spirits across the line," Melentha pointed out. "She's worn the robe out into Besak any number of times—maybe someone there put the djinn into it."

"Subtly enough that you couldn't spot it?" Danae put in.

Melentha threw her an annoyed look. "Believe it or not, there are people on Karyx who know more about spirithandling than I do. I don't find that particularly significant."

"So again we're back to the question of why," Ravagin persisted.

"Maybe as a joke," Melentha suggested, getting to her feet with cat-like grace. "Maybe she offended someone. Or maybe she interested someone too much with her composite bow and he was hoping to scare her into revealing the method of construction to him."

"So as far as you're concerned, it's over and done with?" Danae asked tartly.

Melentha's expression was almost excruciatingly condescending. "Whatever it was that happened to you—or whatever it was you thought happened to you—you got out all right, didn't you? If you want to dwell on it for the rest of your stay here, that's your privilege. But I don't see any point in it myself." She turned to Ravagin. "If you'll excuse me, I have to recall some spirits before I get all the safe houses on Karyx into an uproar over nothing."

She glided from the room. Danae muttered a caustic epithet at the closed door, then turned on Ravagin. "A lot of help you were," she snapped. "You could at least have scorched that nonsense about the whole thing being a dream. You were there too, you know."

Ravagin grimaced. "Unfortunately, she had a point. Illusion on Karyx can be extremely real."

Danae stared at him. "You aren't serious. Ravagin, we were there."

"Yes, I remember," he said dryly. "And if it helps, I don't really think there were any illusions involved. Aside from the one we'd already agreed on, I mean, the one about Coven being almost deserted."

"So why didn't you say anything to Melentha?"

"Because there's a slight possibility she was right," he admitted. "As she said, I have experienced the kind of illusion a genius spirithandler can create."

"So reality is up for grabs here—is that what you're saying? I don't buy that."

"No, it's not quite that bad. Full-sensory illusions are devilishly hard to maintain over any length of time, especially if there's more than one person involved or if the creator winds up having to improvise along the way. And they also don't seem to translate to long-term memory quite the same as real events."

Danae considered that. "So what you're saying is that maybe by the time we leave Karyx we'll know whether all of that really happened?"

"Something like that." He caught the look on her face and shrugged. "I'm sorry, Danae, but there's nothing more we can do about it at the moment." He stood up. "You'll have to excuse me; but unlike you, I didn't get any sleep at all last night. I'll see you in a few hours."

She pursed her lips. "Sure. Look... I'm sorry for all the trouble this caused you. I do appreciate your coming after me like you did."

"No extra charge," he said equably. "Besides, it was hardly your fault. I suggest that you stick around the house until I get up. We'll have time to go into Besak later today if you really want to, but I don't want you going there alone."

He left; and Danae let her lip twist into a grimace. Don't go into the street, Danae. Don't make up stories, Danae. "What's it going to be next?" she snarled into the empty room. " 'Play nice and don't get dirty, Danae?' "

Slapping the floor beside her cushion, she got up and strode to the window. A spotting of cumulus clouds had formed in the sky since their arrival back at Melentha's mansion, and occasional shadows could be seen skating across the lawn and post line toward Besak to the west. And beyond the village

—

"It was not a dream," she said aloud. "It was real. Real. I know it was."

Then why are you so vehement about it? a small voice seemed to whisper in the back of her mind.

Because she really wasn't sure.

For a long minute she stood there, watching the clouds occult the unnaturally dim sunlight and thinking about what Melentha and Ravagin had said about Karyx's brand of illusion. Of short duration, incapable of reacting well to the bombshell that she and Ravagin were from another world, playing to a limited audience—the Coven experience fit the pattern they'd described all too well.

And if Ravagin was right, she wouldn't know for a long time whether it had been real or not. If she ever found out at all.

"I do not accept that," she called out toward the post line. "You demons can be as clever as you want; you're not going to screw around with my head like that. You understand?"

There was no answer. All right, Danae; enough of the tantrum, already. Think it out. She had Melentha's statement that her own internal evidence was no good. An independent observer? But Ravagin had been the only one there, and he'd already disqualified himself as a judge. That left only the demon-possessed people of Coven themselves... and there was no way she would travel that road again, even if she were given a guarantee that she would again be allowed to leave. And that was it.

All who'd been present accounted for.

Or was it?

Danae caught her breath as a new possibility suddenly hit her. Crazy... but it might just give her the answer.

At an unknown but possibly extreme risk to herself. She sobered at the thought, knowing what Ravagin would say if he knew what she was considering. And what Melentha would say.

That she was being childish.

Danae's teeth clamped tightly together. Well, then, she was perfectly capable of doing all this without them. Of showing them both how the "child" could manage on her own.

Moving quietly, she walked to the door and eased it open. Melentha should still be busy with her spirit work; Ravagin would almost surely be asleep by now. With luck, she would be back before either of them missed her.

And then they'd really see something.

The man's name was Gartanis, and he was ancient.

Not just old. Old people weren't all that common in Besak, but Danae had seen enough during her visits to know what old age looked like on Karyx. Without the blunting of reconstructive surgery or biochip internal work, of course, the effects of aging were much more pronounced here than in the Twenty Worlds; but even given that, Gartanis was an oddity. Wrinkled, his vanishing hair gone snowy white, his vision and strength fading, he looked to Danae to be almost literally on his last legs.

All in all, not what she'd expected of the man alleged to be the most knowledgeable spirithandler in Besak.

"So," he wheezed as he waved his gnarled stick toward a chair across the pentagram-inscribed table from him. "What can I do for you, my young lady?"

"My name is Danae," she told him. "I've been in the area for several days now, talking to various of the tradesmen in Besak about a new kind of bow I would like to market—"

"Ah," Gartanis's eyes seemed to light up briefly. "You're the one. I've heard tales of you from others in the village."

"Yes," Danae nodded, obscurely surprised that he kept up that much with current events. "As I said, I've been marketing a bow that can be used as is or with trapped-spirit enhancement, and it occurred to me that you might have spells for sale that I might be able to use in my work."

For a long minute he sat motionless in his seat, eying her in a way she was not at all certain she liked. "I was informed that you sold spirithandling spells here," she said as the silence lengthened.

"If I was informed wrong—"

"Olratohin kailistahk!"

She jumped at the other's sudden shout. "What—?"

"Be silent," he rumbled. "... no. No, I was wrong—there are no spirits about you. But there is something else..."

He trailed off, and Danae swallowed painfully. She'd taken off the Coven robe as soon as they'd arrived back at Melentha's mansion and she hadn't come near the thing since... but there was no guarantee that something else hadn't been done to her. "Is it something bad?" she half whispered, afraid of breaking his concentration.

"I don't know for certain," he said slowly. "But... ah; that's it. Coven. You've been to Coven."

Her heart seemed to skip a beat. "How can you tell?" she managed to ask.

"Eh? Oh, I heard it from one of my sprites, of course. That spirithandler you've been staying with—

Melentha—sent out the word early this morning."

Danae got her breathing going again. "Oh."

The old man's eyebrows seemed to twitch. "You seem troubled by something. Something about Coven?"

"It... has to do with Coven, yes," she said cautiously. "It's really what I came to see you for in the first place. I'd like to buy a spell for invoking a demogorgon."

There was no reaction beyond a tightening of the wrinkled skin around Gartanis's eyes... but when he finally spoke his voice was oddly hollow. "A demogorgon. You wish to invoke a demogorgon."

"Yes," Danae nodded, forcing her voice to remain calm as her heart began speeding up again. "Is there a problem? I was under the impression all spirits could be invoked."

The old man's eyes seemed to come back from somewhere else. "Oh, surely, traderess," he snorted.

"All spirits can be invoked. And all animals can be captured, too. Tell that to the foolish hunter stalking a maddened cintah."

Cintahs had been mentioned in the original Triplet orientation sessions. Usually in conjunction with emergency defensive spells. "Are demogorgons that dangerous?"

"Dangerous? Not necessarily. Not even always." Gartanis's eyes bored into hers. "But they are unpredictable."

Danae licked her lips. "For instance?"

He was silent a long while. "How old do you think me?" he asked at last.

She considered, remembering to judge by Karyx standards. "Seventy years. Perhaps seventy-five."

He shook his head. "A hundred forty-seven."

"What?" she whispered, feeling her stomach tighten within her. Average life expectancy on Karyx was supposed to be only about fifty-eight...

"A hundred forty-seven," he repeated. "I was fifty when in my pride I traveled to the Illid ruins and invoked a demogorgon. This was the result."

"But to have gained nearly a hundred years of life—"

"Life?" he snapped. "You—in the prime of your youth—you would consider this life?"

She frowned. "But surely you weren't always like—" She caught her breath. "You were like... like you are now?"

Gartanis's eyes focused elsewhere again. "Yes. A high price for my arrogance."

Silence descended on the room. Danae felt her hands trembling in her lap, found her eyes tracing the deep valleys cutting through his cheeks. To be so old for so long... it sent chills up her back. "What...

what else happened? Were you able to talk to the demogorgon?"

"What does it matter?" he murmured. "Whatever I may have learned wasn't worth the price."

"No. I don't suppose it was." She took a deep breath. "Well... would it be safer to try and contact an elemental?"

He looked at her sharply. "Explain to me this brash desire to commune with the great powers, traderess Danae. Is your pride then so terribly swollen?"

She sighed. "I was hoping to get some information. Something happened to me in Coven, something that made no sense. I want to understand it, and I can't think of any other way to get the answers."

"Perhaps a peri or demon could help. Their invocations are certainly safer."

"The peris and demons are already in it up to their necks," she shook her head, feeling her resolve draining away. "I don't think I could trust anything they would have to say on the subject. But I suppose it doesn't matter all that much." Just like a child, she thought bitterly. Quitting when the cost gets too high. But he was right. Whatever was happening in Coven wasn't worth risking this kind of twilight life over. "Thank you for your time, Master Gartanis," she continued, getting to her feet. "If you'll tell me what I owe you—"

She broke off at the expression on his face. "Demons and peris involved on their own?" he asked.

"Not simply obeying orders from a human spirithandler?"

"It seemed that way, yes," she said cautiously. "Unless there was someone far in the background controlling things. I don't think the demon-possessed people we met had any real say as to what happened."

"The demons made decisions on their own?" Gartanis persisted. "They didn't simply go off somewhere and return with new orders?"

"Again, I think so. Why?—is it significant?"

Gartanis took a deep breath, his eyes glazed over. "When I was in communion with the demogorgon a hundred years ago... I remember some of it. A vision of—never mind. A corruption of the present, I thought at the time... but perhaps it was instead a vision of the future. Of now." Abruptly, his eyes came back; and gripping his stick, he worked himself out of his chair. "Come into the back room with me," he wheezed. "I'll get you the materials you'll need to invoke the demogorgon."

"Wait a second," Danae said, taking an automatic step backwards. "What's this vision thing you're talking about? And anyway, I'm not sure any more I want to know how to invoke a demogorgon."

Gartanis looked up at her, his eyes burning. "You will," he said softly. "You must."

"Why?" Danae persisted.

"Because you already know something of the danger. And because if you do not, all of Karyx will pay a heavy price... and you along with it."

But I won't even be on Karyx much longer. She left the thought unsaid, and for a long moment she and Gartanis stood facing each other. Then, carefully, the old man turned and hobbled back toward the rear of the house. "Follow me," he said.

Swallowing, she obeyed.

The knock on his door snapped Ravagin awake. "Come in," he growled, glancing through slitted eyelids at the curtains pulled across the windows. There was still light coming through the material, which meant it was probably late afternoon. He'd had several hours of sleep, though it sure didn't feel like it.

The door opened; but it was Melentha, not Danae, who came into the room. "Have you seen Danae?" she asked without preamble.

"Where, in my dreams?" he growled. "I've been asleep, in case you hadn't noticed. What do you want her for?"

"I don't want her for anything," Melentha snapped. "She and a horse are missing, and I want to know where she's gone."

"Damn her." Ravagin hissed an angry breath through his teeth. "Ten'll get you twenty she's gone off to Besak again." He sat up, started to swing his legs out of bed, and froze as a sudden thought struck him. "The Coven robe—where is it?"

"Still here," Melentha assured him. "Don't worry, even Danae's not dumb enough to get near that thing again. No, she's off somewhere on her own, getting into who knows what kind of trouble."

"Yeah." Ravagin got his legs out of bed, snared his tunic from the sidetable. "Can you get some sprites out looking for her?"

"Already done that. No results yet."

"Figures." Sprites were great for carrying out specific orders, but something open-ended like a general search was largely beyond their limited intelligence. "We might as well start with Besak.

You have some horses ready?"

"They will be in a minute. Meet you downstairs." Melentha vanished, closing the door behind her.

Damn her, anyway. Pulling his boots on, Ravagin grabbed his short sword and jogged down the hallway. That was it—the very last straw. Danae had disobeyed a direct order; and when they found her this trip was going to be officially aborted. He was through putting up with her childish reactions and her half-thought schemes and most of all of her damn psychological experiments with him as white rat.

And whichever heading this latest stunt came under, it was her last. He and Melentha would find her, dust her off if necessary, and bring her back... and tomorrow morning they would be be on their way back to the Tunnel.