"Ari, look at me." The girl rolled large languid eyes toward him. "I don't want you to go with him when he comes." "Who, Daddy?"
"Hocking. He's putting you under some kind of spell. He's stealing your mind."
"Nonsense!" She laughed, and the sound pattered down like light rain into the courtyard below. "Why would anyone want to do that? It's impossible besides."
"I'm not so sure anything is impossible anymore. But if he hasn't put you under a spell, you tell me what he has been doing. Where do you go? What do you do?"
"We don't go anywhere, really. A room, I think. We don't do anything. Honestly, I have to go… I am helping."
The last was added almost as an afterthought. Zanderson pounced on it like a hungry cat. "Helping? Who are you helping?"
Ari turned her eyes away and gazed out across the wall to the green hills beyond. "I'm… helping…" She could not say more.
"Ari! Look at me! Don't you see what's happening to you? You don't remember why you're doing it. You're not helping, Ari. You're being used. He's using your mind-you're becoming a a vegetable!"
The outburst brought a wispy smile to Ari's lips. She raised her hand to her face and rubbed her cheek distractedly. "I do feel a little funny sometimes. It's so strange…" She turned away again. Her father brought her back, taking her shoulders and turning her around.
"What is strange? What do you remember? Tell me!"
"It's so strange-I feel so sleepy inside, like my head is stuffed with cotton."
"Ari"-he took her hands and pressed them in his own- "promise me you won't go with him any more. You have to stop now before there's nothing left. Will you promise?"
"All right, Daddy. If you like."
"No, darling. It's not for me. It's for you-do it for your own sake. He's destroying you. Don't let him. Resist."
She looked at him vaguely; he wondered if she heard him at all. He decided to try a new approach to make her understand.
Remember when you said that we'd be rescued soon? I believe it now. I do."
"Rescued?"
"You said that Spence knew where we were and he'd come and free us. Well, I think you were right. I think he's coming now.
He'll be here soon."
"Who's coming, Daddy?"
"Spence! That's what I'm telling you. Spence is coming." Ari regarded her father with blank, uncomprehending eyes, as if he suddenly started speaking a foreign language. "I don't think I know who you're talking about."
"Spence! Your Spence-Dr. Reston. Don't you remember" "I don't know him," she replied slowly and turned away again, closing her beautiful blue eyes-now the color of shallow ice pools-and turning her face once more toward the sun. Her father staggered back into their room like a man stunned by a blow; he collapsed, dazed, on a bed of cushions. Then he raised clenched fists to his temples and began to weep. …
THE SUN ROSE A liery red gong above a green hillscape. Three tired travelers witnessed the sunrise with burning eyes. They had been marching through thick forest undergrowth all night and were exhausted and hungry, not having eaten anything substantial for nearly two days-since being expelled from the goonda camp as sorcerers.
The spectacle of the red sun casting its bloodly glare over the thickly forested, steeply undulating hills brought but little cheer to the party. The relatively commonplace sight of the hard – beaten, rock-strewn, crumbling road did, however, improve their spirits somewhat.
"There it is!" shouted Gita. "I see it! Through those trees. There!"
The fat little man dashed through the thinning brush and rushed out onto the old highway. He fell on his knees and kissed its sun-baked surface in a show of heartfelt gratitude, like a primitive seafarer making a successful landfall. "At last, old toothless friend, we meet again," crowed Gita. Adjani and Spence, standIng over him, watched with amusement. "I do not think I have ever seen a sight so wonderful or welcome," he continued, gazing ahead into the distance. "A road is a marvelous thing."
"It beats scratching through jungle, that's for sure," offered Spence. He, too, turned his eyes toward the north and saw the wall of mountains, purple and hazy in the distance, their faces still cloaked in night's gloom. "How far do you think it is?"
Adjani cocked his head and said, "We can't be sure, but I'd say Siliguri is still a hundred kilometers to the north and Dar. jeeling is half again as far."
"Yes, and all uphill from here," said Gita.
"Any chance of hitching a ride?"
"Very doubtful. Merchants are the only ones with vehicles.
Our caravan undoubtedly turned back. Anyway, that was three days ago; even if they decided to go on they would be there by now."
Spence squinted his eyes into the distance. "Well, then we have no other choice. We walk."
Gita let out a small whimpering noise and said, "It seems the road and I are destined to become very good friends. But," he added on a more optimistic note, "I have always wanted to see the mountains."
They turned toward the mountains and began walking along the road, easily falling into stride. Spence noticed that the air seemed lighter, less dense and humid. He took it as a sign that they were beginning to climb ever so slightly up the grade toward the rarefied heights of the mountains. The freshness revived him somewhat, clearing his tired mind and inflating his sagging spirits.
With nothing but the rolling road before him he let his mind wander where it would.
As it had often in the gloomy hours when they traveled by night, the prospect of the impending clash with the Dream Thief intruded on his thoughts. What would happen when they reached their destination he did not know, and hardly dared guess. For now it was enough that some distance still lay between himself and his enemy. He felt in a way secure-although why this should be he could not say, since the Dream Thief had shown himself able to cross astronomical distances to touch those he wished to touch. No barrier seemed able to stop him. And where he was not physically present his underlings were.
Knowing what he knew, it seemed surpassingly strange to Spence that he should be pointing his feet toward the Dream Thief's secret home on a path of certain destruction. But that is exactly what he was doing. In the end he knew it was the only thing he could do.
Spence wondered if he were being drawn to his fate by the Dream Thief himself. It often appeared to be the case-he felt an impulse within him that did not come entirely from his own heart. Could the Dream Thief manipulate his thoughts?
And if so, how did he know when his thoughts were being manipulated? Which were his own and which belonged to the other?
He pondered these things, and he had pondered them often since leaving Calcutta. He was deep in thought when he felt a nudge at his elbow.
"You look lost, sahib." Adjani fell into step beside him, studying him.
"I was just thinking how foolish we are to be rushing like lemmings to our own destruction." He swiveled his head around and took in Adjani's reaction to these words and then turned again to his feet shuffling along. "You and Gita-you don't have to go. You could turn back. Gita should, at any rate; he has a family to think about."
"Yes, that's one way to look at it."
"Is there another way?"
"Of course. There is always another way."
"Let's hear it, then. It seems to me that we are three illequipped, insignificant, hardheaded do-gooders who haven't got the sense to get out of trouble when they have the chance. We're fools for thinking we can face up to the Dream Thief-whoever or whatever he is. It's sheer lunacy. How can we even dream we'd make a difference?"