A man who has nothing has nothing to lose. And having nothing to lose has everything to gain.
Such a man could be envied.
Gustav said, "I must apologize for the inconvenience you have been caused. But, for the duration of the emergency, your church must remain closed."
To his surprise the monk didn't object. Instead he said, "Perhaps we could be of help. As we are immune we could tend the sick-it will do no harm to bring them together. Also we could help to develop vaccines to save those who have been at risk. I have knowledge of the techniques and would be pleased to work with your technicians if they agree."
They would agree, argue though they might at first, but Kathryn would see that they obeyed his orders. And the monk had given him confidence that the outbreak could be controlled. The man was so calm, so self-assured. A man confident of his strength as Dumarest had been.
Dumarest!
Why had he been such a coward as to allow the man to take his place?
Chapter Nine
The wind was from the south, blowing from Katanga over the Juntinian Sea, a breeze loaded with fragrance which stirred the leaves of blooming trees and caused their multicolored fruits to swing and turn in random motions. Blooms and fruits on the same tree and all the blooms fully open, all the fruits at a perfection of ripeness.
When you owned a universe all things were possible.
Dumarest halted, breathing deeply, looking over a conception of paradise. Ground which felt like a soft mattress covered with thickly piled carpet. Air scented with a dozen perfumes. Trees and bushes covered with blooms and fruits, nuts and berries of all imaginable hues, shapes and flavors. The moat with its fish. The castle which dominated all.
Iduna's universe.
It had to be hers. No one but a child or someone with a childish mind would want such a profusion of gaudy colors and sweetness and fairy-tale appurtenances. A refuge she had made for herself against the alien terrors which had greeted her when entering the Tau. He remembered the way she had clung to him, her tears, the abject fear of remembered horrors. Remembered too his own experiences and wondered how the sanity of a child could have prevailed.
"Earl!" Iduna waved to him from the battlements, streamers of fluttering silk adding to the luster of her hair. "Earl, come and join me!"
A command?
If he ignored it would she send guards to make him prisoner? Could they hold him against his will? Would she change the environment to send him wandering in a maze? But here in the Tau he had an equal power and no matter what move she made he could counter. A game-was everything here a game?
"Earl! Hurry!"
A thought and he could be standing at her side but habit made him turn toward the castle, to enter it, to find a flight of sweeping stairs and run up to the first balcony, the second, to halt on the third and open a door.
And stared into a swirling chaos.
Mist which held barely discerned form, which writhed, which screamed in a thin, droning cacophony, which chilled with numbing terror.
A thing trapped, suffering, locked in a living hell.
A moment and it was gone, the door now giving on to a chamber soft with hanging tapestries, bright with sunlight streaming through narrow windows fitted with stained glass so that the beams made bright patterns on the tessellated floor. An empty room which held nothing but the furnishings and the light.
"Earl!" Iduna, impatient, calling to him from the balcony above. "Quickly, Earl!"
A new game she wanted to play and play it immediately with the arrogance of one unaccustomed to waiting. Or perhaps she wanted to show him something as a child would demand attention before displaying a scrawled painting or other adults to watch as a trick was performed. And it seemed, always, she hated to be alone.
The battlement was thronged with soldiers, attendants, Shamarre watching silently from her station, the beast at her side. Colors and brightness and figures which moved and faces with eyes and mouths which talked and yet all was nothing more than an extension of the castle, the battlement, the curtain walls, the triple arch and the turrets. Props to bolster a play.
And the thing screaming in the mist?
It had been real and he had seen it; of that Dumarest was certain. A glimpse into something ugly behind the glittering facade. A part of the castle, perhaps, for castles contained dungeons and not all prisons were below the ground. Yet it had changed in a flash into something else. A room harmless enough and one to be expected behind the door he had opened.
A glimpse of hell in paradise.
"Iduna!" She turned as he called and he saw her face illuminate with pleasure. "What is it? What are you going to show me?"
"You guessed!"
"No, but am I right? Is there something you want me to see?"
For answer she lifted her arm, pointing and, in the distance he could see wheeling shapes against the sky. Birds or things shaped like birds then as they came closer he could see things of nightmare, shapes elongated, distorted, set with tormented faces and disjointed limbs. Objects which keened as they wheeled.
"I made them," Iduna said proudly. "Shamarre!"
The beast at the woman's side sprang to the battlements and stood for a moment on a crenellation, its body sharply etched against the sky. A moment only then it sprang into empty air, to hang as if suspended for a moment, then to fall as wings sprouted from his shoulders. Wide, curved, fretted pinions which caught the air and gave the beast mastery over the element as it swept to the attack, paws extended, claws gleaming like sickles. Talons which ripped and tore as the beast closed with the flying horrors and sent their blood flying in a carmine rain.
A brief and savage conflict which sent the nightmare shapes to litter the ground as the beast, jaws, muzzle and paws smeared with gore, came to rejoin Shamarre. She patted it as it crouched at her feet, busy washing itself, the wings vanished from the smooth, tawny hide.
"Earl?" Iduna was looking at him, the smooth, round face smiling, changing even as he watched, to betray something feral. "You like that, Earl?"
"Why?"
"Why?" A frown ruined the smoothness of her forehead. "Why what? What do you mean?"
"Why the display? The butchery?"
"The combat, you mean." Dignity stiffened her voice, the offended pride of one who has never been questioned as to her motives. "It was sport. The chase." Then, as he made no comment, added, "Don't you like to hunt?"
"No. Neither do I like to see others kill for pleasure. There was no need. Those things didn't threaten you in any way. They-" He broke off, remembering. The things had been created with a thought and had no greater reality than the castle, the beast which had killed them, the attendants and guards standing now on all sides listening to the argument. He must not display his condemnation. It would serve no useful purpose and would alienate the girl. He said mildly, "I am sorry. You tried to please me."
"In my castle," she said stiffly, "all guests are entertained. And within my walls you are safe from the dangers which wait outside. You were foolish to have wandered away from the protection I offer. Those things I made and had destroyed, they were modeled on things which live in the outer marches. It is fatal to be caught by them at night."
Night?
Dumarest glanced at the sky seeing the same, flame-shot expanse he had seen before. But it had changed more than once and was changing again, growing darker and seeming to hold menace as it did so.
"Come," Iduna ordered. "It grows chill."
A thin wind gave truth to the statement. Dumarest saw others shiver, a servant draping a cloak around Iduna's shoulders, felt a sudden bite in the air. Things which made the castle seem a greater haven. As the gloom thickened flambeaux cast a warm and flickering light from cressets set on walls and turrets.