Her heart still beat, yet he could do nothing for her. Quickly he cast the only enchantment that would help.
Her eyes were open, for the lids were gone, torn away. But now she saw.
“Incarnadine,” she croaked, her swollen lips trying to smile. “Inky dearest.”
“Ferne. Are you still in pain?”
“No, Inky. It’s marvelous. I feel nothing now. I want to go home.”
“In a moment. Just say yes or no to my questions. You somehow got away from the guards who conducted you to your exile. You spelled them and fooled them into thinking that they had thrust you through a wild aspect. True?”
“Yes.”
“You cast about for a plan. In a moment of wildest desperation, you decided to throw in your lot with the Hosts.”
“Very bad mistake, Inky. I was … a fool.”
“Don’t talk,” he said. “Save your strength. Now, listen. You didn’t do what you did last time, unravel the spell that blocked their portal. Instead, you simply unhooked it temporarily and passed through. I don’t know how you did it, but you did it.”
She nodded.
“Again, you amaze me, sister. But then you were at the mercy of the Hosts. You tried bargaining with them, but they had the upper hand. They had you. You outlined a plan to attack the castle, taught them how to transfer power between universes. But there had to be someone on the other side to use that power. A confederate within the castle. An adept magician who could use that power selectively and wisely within castle walls.”
“Yes. J —” She struggled to utter the name. “Jamin.”
“And someone else. Something else. A warrior demon who had stayed in hiding when we chased the Hosts from the castle?”
“Yes.”
“I see. Insurance against Jamin’s possible double cross. So, the Hosts had a plan, and now the machinery for a covert operation. The plan was first to rid the castle of powerful magicians, starting with the more talented of the Guests. This tactic was high on the list, I imagine, because the Guests had proved such a thorn during the last round of hostilities.”
“Yes.”
“But there was one catch. Feeding power through the interdimensional barrier drained the Hosts of their reserves. They needed another source of power, and you knew of one. This was their way of persuading you to divulge it.”
“Yes, and I told them. I told them everything, Inky, all my tricks. But they didn’t stop, they didn’t stop….” She trailed off into a moan.
“Easy, easy.” He made motions again, then waited for her respiration to stabilize. “Are you all right now?”
“Yes, Inky.”
“Fine. You’re going to go to sleep in a moment. When you wake up, you’ll be home.”
“I’m dying, Inky. I know it.”
He was silent.
“Inky?”
“Yes, my dear?”
“Did you love me?”
“Of course, dear sister.”
“You know what I mean. We once kissed like lovers, and we weren’t exactly children. We were in our early teens. Do you remember it?”
He looked away.
“You do. You’re ashamed. You did love me, I always knew it. But we never made love. We should have. To hell with convention, Inky.”
“Ferne, my darling sister Ferne.”
“Don’t cry, Inky. I knew what I was doing. We all do what we must. We all have our —”
Sudden, violent convulsions racked her. Then the light in her eyes faded, and her chest heaved once and was still.
Extricating her body from the diabolical machine was a consummately grisly task. Parts of her came away with the blades, the screws, the drill bits; gobbets of flesh crumbled off. But at last she was free. He could not recognize the body of his sister, who had been the most beautiful woman he had known.
He materialized a casket to contain her remains, and conjured two pale figures — indistinct, squat, and homuncular — to bear her away.
They reached the roof, where the Voyager still waited, undisturbed.
The sky was no longer black. Streamers of pale green fire banded it, forming a circular storm system whose calm central eye was contracting rapidly as the chaos closed in. He stopped to regard this phenomenon as the pallbearers loaded the casket into the Umoi machine.
He heard a roar like thunder, turned, and watched pieces of the dark tower fall and crash to earth. The roof under him wobbled, and he thought he had better be off. He dismissed the bearers, and they disappeared. Then he boarded the craft.
He watched from on high as the black spire disintegrated and the surrounding complex of hives turned to dust. The ground disappeared, shrouded in fingers of green mist that choked and throttled the life out of the land.
Some time later, there was nothing below but a vast gray wasteland, featureless and undifferentiated.
He threw a switch and even that was gone, replaced by the nothingness of no place, of nowhere.
Nowhere at all.
Thirty-nine
Chamberlain’s Quarters
Gene had once fought a demon of the Hosts successfully, but only with magical help. Now he was holding his own without aid, after having survived the fiend’s initial attack. Either Gene’s skills had increased or the demon was operating on low power. Gene was persuaded by the latter theory. The way he understood it, these warrior demons were really analogous to robots, needing energy from the home universe.
Gene swung mightily, sparks flying as his sword met the demon’s. He backed his opponent into a corner and probed for an opening that would allow a killing blow.
But the demon had some juice left in him. It attacked with renewed vigor, and Gene had to back off.
Then, very suddenly, something changed. The demon halted and lowered its sword. The hideous head twisted to and fro, glowing eyes searching about for things unseen.
“Something is happening,” it said.
Its sword clattered to the floor.
“Vasagaroth!”
Jamin came out from behind a stuffed chair and rushed to the side of his diabolical ally. “Vasagaroth, you can’t stop now. You must kill him. You must kill them all, or I am doomed!”
Vasagaroth turned withering eyes on him. “It is the end.”
“Don’t say that! What is amiss?”
The demon teetered backward to the wall and leaned against it, the sweaty red luminosity of its body on the wane.
Jamin whirled about, eyes desperate, pleading. “I give myself up! Linda, you must intercede for me with His Majesty. I was possessed by the minions of Hell! I knew not what I was about! They in —”
The words choked off, for Vasagaroth’s immense taloned hand, the right, had locked about Jamin’s neck. The other enveloped his head. Both squeezed. Jamin’s feet lifted a few inches off the floor. He kicked wildly, his body spasming.
Linda yelled, “Gene, do something!”
Gene could do nothing. Jamin’s strangled gasp ended abruptly, blood spurting from between the demon’s fingers.
Linda screamed.
Then Jamin and his murderer keeled over together and lay still on the bloodied oaken boards.
Gene kicked at the demon’s body. It had lost its luminescence and was curiously insubstantial, as if having instantly turned to papier-mâché. He examined Jamin briefly.
“They’re both history,” Gene told an ashen-faced Linda.
“My God. What happened?”
“Have no idea. There’s nothing we can do here. Back to the lab.”
They left and shut the door.
The Voyager had returned.
Incarnadine stood on the platform, watching two Guardsmen carry away what looked like a coffin.
Gene mounted the stairs to the platform, made as if to say something, but held off. Incarnadine’s thoughts seemed light-years away. Gene stood by silently.