I said, “They could burn your brain for that. They could mince your soul. And now you make me an accessory.”
“What of it? That Prince commands, and he gets—but others have been there before him. I had to tell someone.”
“Enough. Enough.”
“Will we see her again?”
“Princes tire quickly of their women. A few days, perhaps a single night—then he will throw her back to us. And perhaps then we shall have to leave this hostelry.” I sighed. “At least we’ll have known it a few nights more than we deserved.”
“Where will you go then?” Gorman asked.
“I will stay in Roum awhile.”
“Even if you sleep in the streets? There does not seem to be much demand for Watchers here.”
“I’ll manage,” I said. “Then I may go toward Perris.”
“To learn from the Rememberers?”
“To see Perris. What of you? What do you want in Roum?”
“Avluela.”
“Stop that talk!”
“Very well,” he said, and his smile was bitter. “But I will stay here until the Prince is through with her. Then she will be mine, and we’ll find ways to survive. The guildless are resourceful. They have to be. Maybe we’ll scrounge lodgings in Roum awhile, and then follow you to Perris. If you’re willing to travel with monsters and faithless Fliers.”
I shrugged. “We’ll see about that when the time comes.”
“Have you ever been in the company of a Changeling before?”
“Not often. Not for long.”
“I’m honored.” He drummed on the parapet. “Don’t cast me off, Watcher. I have a reason for wanting to stay with you.”
“Which is?”
“To see your face on the day your machines tell you that the invasion of Earth has begun.”
I let myself sag forward, shoulders drooping. “You’ll stay with me a long time, then.”
“Don’t you believe the invasion is coming?”
“Some day. Not soon.”
Gormon chuckled. “You’re wrong. It’s almost here.”
“You don’t amuse me.”
“What is it, Watcher? Have you lost your faith? It’s been known for a thousand years: another race covets Earth and owns it by treaty, and will some day come to collect. That much was decided at the end of the Second Cycle.”
“I know all that, and I am no Rememberer.” Then I turned to him and spoke words I never thought I would say aloud. “For twice your lifetime, Changeling, I’ve listened to the stars and done my Watching. Something done that often loses meaning. Say your own name ten thousand times and it will be an empty sound. I have Watched, and Watched well, and in the dark hours of the night I sometimes think I Watch for nothing, that I have wasted my life. There is a pleasure in Watching, but perhaps there is no real purpose.”
His hand encircled my wrist. “Your confession is as shocking as mine. Keep your faith, Watcher. The invasion comes!”
“How could you possibly know?”
“The guildless also have their skills.”
The conversation troubled me. I said, “Is it painful to be guildless?”
“One grows reconciled. And there are certain freedoms to compensate for the lack of status. I may speak freely to all.”
“I notice.”
“I move freely. I am always sure of food and lodging, though the food may be rotten and the lodging poor. Women are attracted to me despite all prohibitions. Because of them, perhaps. I am untroubled by ambitions.”
“Never desire to rise above your rank?”
“Never.”
“You might have been happier as a Rememberer.”
“I am happy now. I can have a Rememberer’s pleasures without his responsibility.”
“How smug you are!” I cried. “To make a virtue of guildlessness!”
“How else does one endure the weight of the Will?” He looked toward the palace. “The humble rise. The mighty fall. Take this as prophecy, Watcher: that lusty Prince in there will know more of life before summer comes. I’ll rip out his eyes for taking Avluela!”
“Strong words. You bubble with treason tonight.”
“Take it as prophecy.”
“You can’t get close to him,” I said. Then, irritated for taking his foolishness seriously, I added, “And why blame him? He only does as princes do. Blame the girl for going to him. She might have refused.”
“And lost her wings. Or died. No, she had no choice. I do!” In a sudden, terrible gesture the Changeling held out thumb and forefinger, double-jointed, long-nailed, and plunged them forward into imagined eyes. “Wait,” he said. “You’ll see!”
In the courtyard two Chronomancers appeared, set up the apparatus of their guild, and lit tapers by which to read the shape of tomorrow. A sickly odor of pallid smoke rose to my nostrils. I had now lost further desire to speak with the Changeling.
“It grows late,” I said. “I need rest, and soon I must do my Watching.”
“Watch carefully,” Gormon told me.
5
At night in my chamber I performed my fourth and last Watch of that long day, and for the first time in my life I detected an anomaly. I could not interpret it. It was an obscure sensation, a mingling of tastes and sounds, a feeling of being in contact with some colossal mass. Worried, I clung to my instruments far longer than usual, but perceived no more clearly at the end of my seance than at its commencement.
Afterward I wondered about my obligations.
Watchers are trained from childhood to be swift to sound the alarm; and the alarm must be sounded when the Watcher judges the world in peril. Was I now obliged to notify the Defenders? Four times in my life the alarm had been given, on each occasion in error; and each Watcher who had thus touched off a false mobilization had suffered a fearful loss of status. One had contributed his brain to the memory banks; one had become a neuter out of shame; one had smashed his instruments and gone to live among the guildless; and one, vainly attempting to continue in his profession, had discovered himself mocked by all his comrades. I saw no virtue in scorning one who had delivered a false alarm, for was it not preferable for a Watcher to cry out too soon than not at all? But those were the customs of our guild, and I was constrained by them.
I evaluated my position and decided that I did not have valid grounds for an alarm.
I reflected that Gormon had placed suggestive ideas in my mind that evening. I might possibly be reacting only to his jeering talk of imminent invasion.
I could not act. I dared not jeopardize my standing by hasty outcry. I mistrusted my own emotional state.
I gave no alarm.
Seething, confused, my soul roiling, I closed my cart and let myself sink into a drugged sleep.
At dawn I woke and rushed to the window, expecting to find invaders in the streets. But all was still; a winter grayness hung over the courtyard, and sleepy Servitors pushed passive neuters about. Uneasily I did my first Watching of the day, and to my relief the strangenesses of the night before did not return, although I had it in mind that my sensitivity is always greater at night than upon arising.
I ate and went to the courtyard. Gormon and Avluela were already there. She looked fatigued and downcast, depleted by her night with the Prince of Roum, but I said nothing to her about it. Gormon, slouching disdainfully against a wall embellished with the shells of radiant mollusks, said to me, “Did your Watching go well?”
“Well enough.”
“What of the day?”
“Out to roam Roum,” I said. “Will you come? Avluela? Gormon?”
“Surely,” he said, and she gave a faint nod; and, like the tourists we were, we set off to inspect the splendid city of Roum.
Gormon acted as our guide to the jumbled pasts of Roum, belying his claim never to have been here before. As well as any Rememberer he described the things we saw as we walked the winding streets. All the scattered levels of thousands of years were exposed. We saw the power domes of the Second Cycle, and the Colosseum where at an unimaginably early date man and beast contended like jungle creatures. In the broken hull of that building of horrors Gormon told us of the savagery of that unimaginably ancient time. “They fought,” he said, “naked before huge throngs. With bare hands men challenged beasts called lions, great hairy cats with swollen heads; and when the lion lay in its gore, the victor turned to the Prince of Roum and asked to be pardoned for whatever crime it was that had cast him into the arena. And if he had fought well, the Prince made a gesture with his hand, and the man was freed.” Gormon made the gesture for us: a thumb upraised and jerked backward over the right shoulder several times. “But if the man had shown cowardice, or if the lion had distinguished itself in the manner of its dying, the Prince made another gesture, and the man was condemned to be slain by a second beast.” Gormon showed us that gesture too: the middle finger jutting upward from a clenched fist and lifted in a short sharp thrust.