Wyvernhold

VERA TOBIAS knew that the gatekeeper of Wyvernhold was a giant but was still surprised when he proved tall enough to look over an elephant.

This giant could not be a real person—a zoon as the scientists put it. He was a zooid. The process of making zooids had earned Sigrnund Palraa the fortune needed for Wyvernhold.

The giant bent to peer. With a trembling hand, Vera thrust the invitation-card out of the window. The giant took it and began reading it with a flash light the size of a hydrant, Palma had warned Vera to bring the card to show, just as he had warned her not to tell anybody she was coming. The reason for the latter demand was his desire to keep people off his estate. If the news got out that he was entertaining, he said, reporters and other vermin would try to sneak in. And, while the grounds were well posted about the dangers of trespassing, he did not want the complications that ensued when even the most flagrant trespasser was killed.

He added something about parking her 'plane on the meadow across the highway from the main gate, but she laughed and asked him what sort of 'plane he thought a poor widow and librarian could keep?

Probably, he thought her husbands had been rich. Others thought that. But Robert, the first, had no backlog behind his big earning power and had killed himself leaving not even an insurance-policy. Adrian was a four-flusher, a faker who spoke vaguely of non-existent investments, trusts, homes, and other property. Nothing you could pin down, but enough to fool everybody but the Department of Internal Revenue. (In her rare candid moments, Vera admitted she had used the same tactics on Adrian, so it was hard to say who got fooled the worse. ) He made a modest living as a salesman until he dropped dead of heart-failure.

So here was little Vera, only in her middle thirties and still not at all bad-looking, a real sod-widow twice over, driving up in a battered little old automobile for dinner with one of the world's richest men.

The giant tucked the card into the leather scrip that hung from the belt of his medieval-looking costume."Drive in, madam, and stop a few feet inside the gate," he said.

Vera did. She heard the gate close and big bolts shoot home. Ahead rose a dark mass of forest. She thought she could see a tower over the trees in the fading light.

The giant reappeared."Follow me, madam," he said. His voice was no deeper than that of an ordinary man, though one would have expected a bass boom. On the other hand it had the flat, mechanical quality of all zooidal speech.

The giant strode off up a winding graveled road. Vera followed.

She tried to repress, as foolish, phantasies in which she snared and married Sigmund Palma. A man in his position could have a harem chosen from the planet's beauties. Of course if by some fluke she did land him, she could manage him. She could manage any man; she had proved it. Her bridge-friend Bea had been a lying, slandering cat to say behind Vera's back, that Robert's suicide and Adrian's early death had resulted from too much management.

Still, Vera couldn't help regretting that awful quarrel, seventeen years ago to the day, when she had thrown Sigmund Palma over for Robert Gingrich. Bob had seemed to have much better prospects. Sigmund had called her a mercenary little vampire, incapable of love, and she had called him an empty, neurotic poseur, incapable of truth.

Well, poseur he might be; but one could put up with a lot of affectation from a billionaire interstellar explorer and industrial tycoon...

THE GIANT shouted. Vera looked out the side of her car and almost drove off the road.

Beside the road stood a unicorn. It stamped and lowered its horn as if to charge, but the giant's shout seemed to check it. One might have thought it as big Belgian cart-horse with a four-foot twisted horn glued to its forehead; but a close look, even in this poor light showed that this was no horse. The details were different. It had three hooves on each foot and a long tufted tail like a lion's.

Vera fought down her fear. If the knowledge that Sigmund Palma had brought back from Fleury's planet enabled him to make zooids in the form of people and real animals, he could make them in the form of fabulous monsters, too. Come to think, a literate zooid probably violated some law. Wasn't there a rule that no zooid should be made that intelligent? The question had come up among librarians, who were asked what they'd do if a zooid came in and asked for a book. No doubt the creator of zooids could get permits for experimental types.

The trees closed in: big old pines and cedars. Sigmund Palma must have covered the estate with the darkest evergreens he could find. The effect was somber.

The road dipped and crossed a wood en bridge. Hemlocks replaced the other evergreens. The stream gurgled blackly under the car. '

With a loud splashing, a huge reptilian head rose from the water and arched towards the car on a long neck. The head had long, writhing, whiskery filaments. The jaws gaped to show foot-long teeth. The giant shouted again and the head withdrew.

Vera pulled her shaken nerves together. Well, she thought, if by some chance she did land Sigmund Palma, she would insist on getting rid of that thing. If he wanted fabulous monsters, he might have something pretty like the unicorn, but no dragons, dinosaurs, or other reptiles, real or synthetic. She would be firm.

The giant had been striding for several minutes. They must have come miles. The road forked again and again. The giant always chose one way without hesitation, but Vera could never have remembered all the turnings.

The black shadow of the forest lifted and there was the castle. It looked medieval, but not quite authentically so. There was a histrionic boldness, a self-assertiveness, about its lines that would not be found in a real castle; (Vera's eidetic memory turned the pages of Angelucci's "The Castles of Europe," a big picture-book in the Reference Department. ) Wyvernhold looked like a stage-set wrought by a non-literal stage-designer for "Macbeth" or "Lohengrin". A pair of orange flames blazed on each side of the en trance, across the drawbridge. Their reflections in the water of the moat made a rectangle of four orange splotches. The giant raised a hand.

"Park here, madam," he said.

VERA DREW up to the side of the moat and got out. The giant started to lead her across the drawbridge when there was a rustling overhead. Vera looked up and shrieked. Something batlike but condor-sized was swooping down upon her. She made out a hooked beak, pointed ears, and a long snaky tail. The giant shouted again and the thing sheered off. Vera recognized a wyvern from Schwarzbach's "Heraldry". The wyvern flew in slow flapping circles to regain altitude and came to rest on the battlements. There it sat silhouetted like a gargoyle.

Vera would have given up and driven away but for the thought of those billions. The wyvern, too, would have to go. If Sigmund wanted a wyvern to symbolize his castle, he could have this one stuffed and mounted on a turret.

She asked: "What was that word you shouted? Isn't it the one you used on the other things?"

"Follow me, madam," said the giant, starting across the drawbridge.

The flames flanking the portcullis came from a pair of bronzen torcheres that leaned out from the wall. They were, she decided, gas-flames. The main door, behind the portcullis, was closed. The giant banged the knocker. The door opened.

"Mrs. Adrian Tobias," said the giant.

"Come in, Mrs. Tobias," said a flat, toneless voice.

The speaker was a kind of djinn seven feet tall, clad in a turban, baggy silken pants, and slippers with turned-up toes. The skin of his face and bare torso was dark; his nose was hooked; his chin was adorned by a black forked beard.

"Let me take your coat," said the djinn, bowing.

Well, at least he would not squash the life out of her by accidentally stepping on her, as the giant might have done. She gave her coat to the djinn, who hung it in a closet and said: "This way, please."

He led her down a huge hall that seemed to run parallel to the outer wall of the castle for an indefinite distance. At least it was lighted electrically, and not by torches or some other affectedly antique means. For even a small part of the wealth represented here, Vera would have yielded to any proposal that Palma might make—except that, being a practical woman, she knew the only way of securing a slice would be by having a firm legal hold on the owner.

The djinn stopped at an open door and announced: "Mrs. Adrian Tobias!"

He bowed Vera into the room. It was a big library, ornately furnished. There were what looked like rare books on glass-covered lecterns with fluorescent lights over them. There was a pair of globes, a terrestrial and a celestial globe, each about a yard in diameter. The celestial globe had the stars marked by jewels.

Vera got only a brief blurred impression of all this at first, because she was too busy looking at her host and his companion. She still recognized Sigmund Palma. The years had lined his sharp, aquiline features and put a touch of distinguished gray on his temples, but otherwise had changed him little. But his costume...

It was something between a Greek hoplite and a Napoleonic cuirassier. It included several pieces of armor, either of silver or silver-plated. Under his left arm Palma carried a helmet of sphero-conical shape with a nasal and a chain-mail camail. He wore a shining cuirass, a tartan kilt, a pair of high laced boots of the type used for camping about the year 1900, and over these a pair of gleaming greaves. A sword hung in a jeweled scabbard from a baldric over the cuirass. Metal wrist-guards encircled his forearms. He was a spectacle.

The other person was a tall slant-eyed woman with orange hair, clad in a long clinging half-transparent sea-green gown. She lounged in a languid attitude on a sofa.

PALMA STRODE forward, gleaming and glittering like a Christmas-tree. He clicked the heels of the 1900 boots and bowed. Then he came on again with his hand outstretched."Well, Vera!" he said."How nice to see you

"How nice to see you too!"

"You don't look a day older."

"You look younger if anything."

"Oh, let me present Gnoth. Gnoth, this is my old friend Vera Munch—only I should say Vera Tobias."

The slant-eyed woman nodded."Delighted."

"So am I," said Vera.

"Will you have a wassan?" said Palma.

"What's that?" said Vera.

"A cocktail made by the Retf of Fleury's planet. Fairly harmless and not like anything you've ever tasted."

"All right."

Palma clapped. The djinn appeared. Palma said: "Three wassans." He turned back to Vera."I brought Gnoth from Fleury's planet too, you know."

"How interesting," said Vera without warmth. Her recollection of Clarke Li's "The Inhabited Universe" was that the Fleurians were civilized but far from human. No extraterrestrials were that human."How about that butler? Is he from Fleury's planet too?"

"No, Selim was made in my own factory—ah, here we are."

Selim was there with three glasses on a tray. The liquid was deep purple with little flashing lights. Sigmund Palma set down his helmet and each took a glass.

"Zla seiru," said Palma.

The cocktail was different, though Vera would have found it hard to say just how. It tasted like an arctic sun set.

"We've both come a long way," said Palma.

"So we have," said Vera."You've done marvelously."

Palma shrugged, as well as one can in a cuirass."Fate took a hand. As Mrs. Kelly tells me, the Powers decided it was time my spirit were given another run, to see if its character had developed in proportion to its other qualities."

"Who's Mrs. Kelly?" said Vera. She noticed that the beautiful Gnoth had not drunk. Instead she sat holding her cocktail with the unnatural immobility that zooids assume when not carrying out their masters' orders. Vera, though she had never had a zooidal servant, knew that zooids did not consume human food and drink. They drank a liquid that one bought from Sigmund Palma, Incorporated: a mixture of hydrocarbons, carbohydrates, soluble proteoids, and other components; more like a motor-fuel than the food of a zoon.

Perhaps Fleurians acted like that, too. Still, Vera felt that things were not what they seemed, even though what they seemed was bizarre enough.

"My medium," said Palma.

"You mean a Spiritualist medium?"

"She is of higher grade in the occult sciences than a mere Spiritualist."

"What did she tell you?"

"She revealed to me that I was a reincarnation of many great conquerors and adventurers."

"Is that why you dress like that?"

"Yes, to honor them, since after all they're just earlier and less perfect versions of me. The cuirass is one Alexander of Macedon might have worn. The helmet is for Harald Hardraada. The kilt is for Rob Roy Macgregor."

"How extraordinary!"

PALMA MADE a deprecatory movement with his open hand."Some might think it a bit odd, but I'm only doing what many men would like to do if they could and if they dared. The sword, now, is like that used by Rasalu of Atlantis."

"Atlantis? Now how could you find out about that? I thought scientists had decided it never existed?"

"Mrs. Kelly told me all about it, even down to the design of the sword. And I have a fur hat I wear when I feel like Attila, but only in cold weather."

With a slight shudder, Vera began to recast her plans. If she should land Sigmund, she would have to have him committed to an asylum. She would not need to be greedy. With all his billions, she could afford to make him an allowance, big enough to support him in comfort. She said: "What about those things on the grounds, Siggy? Those dragons and things. Are they all zooids, or are some of them from Fleury's planet too?"

"They're all zooids. Did you have any trouble with them?"

"N-not exactly. A couple made passes at me, but the giant shouted at them and they went away. He shouted some foreign word I never did catch."

Palma grinned, "That was the password for tonight. Nobody can move about my grounds without it.

"The advantage of zooids is that you can build them with just enough intelligence to understand the idea of a password, but not enough to demand rights or pay. That's why the unions don't like them."

In the doorway, Selim said, "Dinner is served."

The big dining room had half-timbered walls and a low beamed ceiling. The walls were hung with crossed weapons of all kinds and ages. The food was excellent though not unconventional. Gnoth did not eat.

"Tell me about yourself, Siggy," said Vera between bites of pheasant-breast. This was the oldest gambit in the game between men and women, and it still usually worked."What's this great mystery the papers keep hinting at?"

"They hint because they don't know. A man in my position has to protect his privacy, you know."

"Well?"

"Oh, I don't mind telling you. You won't repeat it, will you?"

"Of course not." Vera calculated how, if Palma showed no signs of being hooked, she could get a ghost writer to put the material into salable form.

"Well, the only mystery is how I got the proteoid formulas from Fleury's planet. You know the Fleurians have a scientific religion—or, I should say, they make a religion of science. The god Ytluc symbolizes the law of gravity; the goddess Thra, the theory of evolution, and so on. Now, when I settled in Cigrath, I got to know Gnoth, the daughter of Senemos the high priest.

"From her I learned the Fleurians were ahead of us in one science: biochemistry. They had worked out the formulas for making proteoids. Our chemists have long known these were theoretically possible, but each proteoid is a particular combination of guanidino-sulfonic acid molecules, arranged in a particular way, just as with proteins. The chance of hitting the right one of the possible ways is—well, suppose there were one grain of sand different from all the other grains of sand in the world, and you knew this one grain was lying somewhere on some beach on earth. Your chance of finding this grain at the first try, by going to some beach at random and picking up one grain, would be much better than your chance of making a proteoid without these formulas."

SELIM SERVED the dessert. Palma continued: "Gnoth told me the formulas were in the archives of the Temple of Xir. By this time she loved me passionately—didn't you, Gnoth?"

"Yes," said Gnoth tonelessly.

"So she arranged to disguise me as a priest of Xir..." Palma rattled on between bites of meringue glace. It was a pretty thrilling story, full of good blood-and-thunder melodrama. The only trouble was that Vera already knew it.

It was, in fact, freely adapted from (1930), by Otis Howard Rice. Vera, who read with incredible speed and re membered everything, had come across this work while helping a reader who was writing a thesis on the history of imaginative fiction.

They smoked and drank several ponies of liqueur while Palma rambled on about his Fleurian adventures. He concluded:

"... so we slammed the door of the spaceship in the face of these furious priests. The skipper warned them he was going to take off, but they hung round the base of the ship, pounding on the supports, till the jet roared out and fried the whole lot to cinders. So here we are."

"How exciting! And you still have those original data-sheets?" said Vera.

"Yes. I haven't dared copy them lest the code-numbers leak out. I can't get proper patent protection because the patent-law's been in a mess ever since interstellar travel started. So I have to exploit the formulas secretly, which is a precarious business. No doubt earthly biochemists will some day catch up to the Fleurians and my formulas will be worthless, so meanwhile I make all the hay I can. I don't think Alexander or Napoleon would be ashamed of me. True, I haven't conquered the world by force of arms, but I do have influence on the World Organization."

This, thought Vera, was probably true. The newspapers also hinted that Sigmund Palma had several of this parliament's representatives in his pocket. But for heaven's sake, what, in this monstrous mass of lies, boasts, and affectations, was true? Certainly Palma's wealth was. If he wasn't really a reincarnation of Winston Church ill, he did sway the destiny of millions as a tycoon and political wire-puller on the world stage. If Gnoth was not a real Fleurian, Palma had certainly been to Fleury's planet and had brought back something.

"Would you like to see the formulas?" said Palma.

"You'd show them to me?"

"Why not? You won't betray me."

"Oh, Siggy, how sweet of you!"

"Come along, then. Selim, show us to the dungeon."

SELIM LED the three down stone stairs where dank moss grew on slimy walls. At least so it looked until Vera's finger-tips, brushing the wall, discovered that the moss was artificial. Even the water seeping down the wall was made of water-glass and was quite dry. This was certainly carrying a pose pretty far. Vera resolved that nothing Sigmund Palma might do should startle her.

The- dungeon was fitted up with instruments of torture and death, such as a realistic-looking beheading-block with an ax to match. Vera shuddered. The quicker this maniac was confined, the better. It might all be just play-acting, but there was probably a sadistic streak here that might break out into deeds of horror. And he surely wouldn't show her these precious papers unless he meant to see more of her—perhaps even to marry her. She would really be doing good...

Sigmund Palma went to the wall. A section of the stone swung back. It was just plaster-board on a hinge, painted to look like stone. Behind it was a modern-looking safe-door.

Palma spun the dial and spoke some low words at the door. The door opened. Palma took out a thick roll of paper, yellow in the gaslight."Here they are," he said, unrolling them.

Vera strained her eyes to read the sheets in hope of gleaming enough mental pictures with her eidetic memory so that, no matter what the outcome, she would have something to exploit. But the writing seemed to be in a strange signary. Fleurian, no doubt. There was a short paragraph at the top of each page, and below it long columns of what looked like numbers, or combinations of letters and numbers. How could she ever remember all those odd little shapes...

"How does it work?" she asked.

"Those are code-numbers, in a Fleurian language of course. By setting the controls of the synthesizers I control the order in which the guani-dino-sulfonic acids are arranged in the proteoid molecule. With modern automation I run the factory practically single-handed as far as the materials are concerned; most of my workers are just maintenance-men. Each day I set the controls for the day's run and scramble them at the end of the day. My biochemists assemble the zooids from these materials. I know now how God felt when Adam worked."

"Do you synthesize the whole zooid, or just an egg?"

"Neither; I synthesize an individual at what would be the stage of hatching or birth. Proteoid-molecules are simpler than protein-molecules and don't include mechanisms of heredity and differentiation. So I have to make most of the proteoids that go into the complete zooid, or at least organs to make these proteoids."

"But aren't there thousands of different kinds?"

"There are thousands of different proteins in a zoon, but a zooid is a much simpler biochemical structure, though it works well enough for our purposes. But it can't breed, or heal an injury by itself, or be anywhere near as adaptable as a fairly simple zoon."

"Why can't you make real people? Out of real protein, that is?"

"Because there are so many complications that a factory, to make them, would have to be as big as a continent. Have you seen all you want?"

"Yes. Oh, Siggy, it's so nice of you to trust me like this..."

"Yes, isn't it? Take her."

GNOTH SEIZED one of Vera's arms and twisted it behind her. Selim did the same with the other.

"Siggy!" screamed Vera."What are you doing?"

Palma grinned."What do you think?"

"Tell them to stop!"

"No."

"Let me go!"

"After showing you those? Ha!"

"What are you going to do?"

"I'll do you a favor."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, anybody who calls me an empty, neurotic poseur deserves torture."

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!"

"But, because we've been friends, I'll give you a quick death.. Strip her."

Vera screamed and struggled and wept but could do little against the strength of the zooids. They tore and cut off her clothes.

"You've kept your figure well," said Palma."If I were just a man, I might be tempted to use that body. All right, her head."

Selim and Gnoth tied Vera's wrists and ankles. They dragged her to the block and forced her to kneel. From the far side of the block, Gnoth dug steely fingers into Vera's black curls and pulled her head forward so that her neck pressed into the narrow, hollowed-out place on top of the block.

Out of the corner of her eye, Vera saw Selim pick up the ax. He swung it.

Vera stopped screaming and shut her eyes. Instead of a sharp shock and oblivion, there was a loud clang and a yell from Palma."Gnoth! Help me!" he cried.

Gnoth let go of Vera's hair. Vera fell in a heap and struggled up to see Selim and Palma fighting, the former with the ax and the latter with the Atlantean sword. As an ax is not much good for parrying, they leaped back and forth and swung and jabbed without much actual contact. The front of Palma's cuirass was creased by a glancing ax-blow.

Gnoth picked up an iron dojigger, something like a poker with an intricate end, from the rack of torture instruments. She ran around Selim and hit him over the head from behind, The djinn whirled and struck. Gnoth's head flew off. Blue haemoid fluid spouted.

Palma lunged and drove the sword into Selim's body. As Selim turned back, Palma withdrew the blade and thrust again. Then the ax crashed down on his head, splitting it to the chin.

Palma fell, clanging, his brains spilling out on the floor. Selim took a couple of steps with the hilt of the sword protruding from his chest and the point from his back. Then he too sank down.

Vera fainted.

WHEN SHE came to, the djinn was sitting with his back against a pillar. The sword was still through his body. His ax lay in front of him. He said: "If you wish to cut your bonds, you can crawl over here and rub them against the ax-blade."

It was awkward. As Vera struggled she said: "What happened, Selim? Why did you save me?"

He spoke slowly."I am not an earthly zooid, but a Fleurian as you people call us.. My proper name is Zdion. I came to earth, destroyed Palma's zooid butler, and took its shape. My task was to recover or destroy the formulae Palma had stolen, and this was the first time he opened the safe in my presence. Hitherto he has always locked everyone out of the dungeon."

"You mean you can change your shape?"

"Yes. We are what you call poly morphs."

"Why should anybody want to change?"

"In our system, the young are workers and adopt a squat muscular shape; the middle-aged are rulers and take a long-limbed large-brained shape suit able for overseers; the old are consumers or esthetes and adopt a shape with large digestive systems and sensory organs to assure the greatest enjoyment."

"But how do you do it? With bones and everything?"

"How do you change your expression?"

"Why I—I just do, that's all. My brain tells my muscles what to do."

"It is as simple as that with us, though we cannot change quickly. It takes several days of effort for one complete change."

"What do you look like in your natural shape? If you have one, that is."

"Something like your alligators. I can imitate an Earthman, but I could not grow extra limbs and look like, say, a spider."

"Thank goodness for that. Did Sigmund steal the papers from the Temple of Xir like he said?"

"He did steal them, but not as he told you. He did it by murdering Senemos, who had befriended him. Senemos was no priest but a professor; life on our planet is quite different from that which Mr. Palma described to you."

"I thought so. Tell me more."

"It is too long and intricate a story to tell you now, especially as I am dying."

"Dying? I should think you could heal yourself, with your shape-changing ability."

"Some hurts we can do that with, but not these. I shall soon be dead."

"Then what's all that about Gnoth? Was she a Fleurian or a zooid?"

Zdion indicated the female corpse by a head-movement."That Gnoth was a zooid."

"D'you mean there was a real one on Fleury?"

"There was. The real Gnoth was the offspring of Senemos. We are bisexual, you know. Gnoth took the form of a Terran female so that Palma should have one of our race to deal with, with whom he could feel at ease. We did not count on Palma's becoming imbued with sexual passion towards Gnoth.

Nor did we know he was mad, even by your standards—a paranoiac, I think you call them. As we do not have that form of insanity, we did not recognize it.

"So Mr. Palma made plain to Gnoth his unnatural lusts, and also his wish for Gnoth's help in stealing the proteoid formulae. When Gnoth, filled with horror, tried to stop him, Mr. Palma killed Gnoth. This murder seems to have affected him more than that of Senemos, for, when he returned to earth and made his fortune, he built a replica of Gnoth in the latter's human form. From watching him closely for several months, I think he convinced himself that this zooid was really Gnoth, and that the rest of his tale of eloping with Gnoth from Fleury's planet was also true."

Zdion coughed. Some fluid, neither human blood nor zoodal haemoid, trickled down his chin into his forked beard. To Vera he seemed little by little to be resuming his reptilian form.

THE LAST bond parted. She stood up, ignoring her nudity. After all, Zdion was not human, and there was wealth to be had by ready and resolute action.

As her own clothes had been ripped to pieces, she looked around for a substitute. The only one was the gown on the headless body of Gnoth. To strip the body was a desperate deed, even if it was only a zooid, but there was no help for it. She said: "Well, I'm awfully grateful to you anyway, you poor thing. Isn't there anything I can do for you?"

"Yes. Hand me that bundle of papers that Mr. Palma dropped."

"What for?"

"To destroy them. It is what I came for."

"You can't do that!" "Why not?"

"Well—uh—Sigmund ran his fac tory on a day-to-day basis. He made the critical settings himself from notes he took from these papers. Without them, the whole business would stop."

"It need not, if Earth will make a fair bargain with Fleury's planet."

"But think of the money!"

"Your Terran money makes no difference to me. It is stolen wealth."

"What of that?"

"Though your ways and ours differ in many respects, we both believe theft to be wrong."

"Well, Sigmund owes me something for the horrible fright he gave me. So there!"

Vera struggled into Gnoth's gown. It fitted her like a tent, but at least she could get home without being arrested. She pulled the gown up through the girdle so that she should not trip over it, picked up the roll of papers and started out.

"Mrs. Tobias! Give me those papers!" said Zdion.

Vera walked faster.

"Come back!" cried the Fleurian."You do not know what you are doing!"

He started to crawl. She ran up the stone stairs hearing Zdion's dying cries behind her.

The palace seemed deserted. No doubt, there were other zooid servitors, but Vera had no wish to investigate. All she wanted was to get into her little car and speed home with the proteoid formulas. Then a clever girl like her could find some way to extort a fortune from Sigmund Palma, Inc. for their return. Not so much as if she had married and committed Palma, but enough to give her the comfortable income for which she had long lusted. Palma might be dead, but there would be heirs and executives of the company...

She got her overcoat from the cloak room and unbolted the massive door. Outside it was dark and starlit. In the dim light of the gas-torches she could see her little car standing by the far bank of the moat. Little orange high lights danced upon its surface, reflecting the flames. A mist was beginning to rise from the moat, She started across the drawbridge.

Halfway across, a swish made her look up. The wyvern was swooping at her.

With a little shriek she turned back to the castle. A huge reptilian head, with writhing tendrils, rose from the moat on a long neck and barred her way.

She turned back towards the far end and started to run. But the unicorn appeared at that end of the drawbridge, horn lowered and hooves thundering on the timbers in a charge.

Just as they closed in, Vera remembered that one had to have a password. Zdion could no doubt have given it to her...