Speaking in the language of the Confederation, he asked, “What is your name? Your real name, that is.”
“All men here know me, heathen.” The Kooreeof deep, rich baritone boomed hollowly in the narrow, high-ceilinged cubicle. “I am Skiros, Kooreeos of …”
“Cut the crap, chum!” Klairuhnz had not spoken the language he now used in many years, except in his dreams, so his speech was slightly halting. Nevertheless, its effect on Skiros was instantaneous. Paling visibly, the cleric recoiled, as if from a buffet.
But he recovered quite rapidly, replying in Old Ehleeneekos, “I cannot understand you, heathen dog. Try barking in a civilized tongue!”
The Bard vented a humorless laugh. “Oh, you understand me, right enough, witchman. Just as the late Titus Backstrom understood, as the late Lillian Landor would have understood, as Doctor Manuel Kornblau understands!” He grasped the small “club” by the arm which contained the small box and squinted down the other arm at the prisoner, his thumb pulling back a grooved protrusion of metal with a sharp click.
“How many of these little toys have you scattered about this Duchy, witchman? Or are they reserved as a last resort for your kind only?”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d not point that gun at me. It’s a twelve-point-five millimeter magnum, you know, one of the Center’s developments, and powerful enough to punch through plate armor or stop a charging bison bull. The shock alone would stop the heart of this body, no matter where it was struck.” Skiros’s manner was relaxed, conversational. His language however, would have been meaningless to anyone in the duchy save his listener, since he spoke a cultured, nondialectal twentieth-century American English!
Klairuhnz smiled broadly. “So, Reverend Bishop, you really are a witchman, eh? Now, once again, what’s your name?”
“Gold,” the blackbeard answered easily. “William Gold. And you? You must be one of the mutants. Which one, may I ask?”
The Bard nodded. “Yes, Mr. Gold, you may ask. I’m Milo Moray.”
Gold’s eyes widened. “Well I’ll be damned! The Undying God of the Horseclans himself. Then I’ll not ask why you’re here. I’ll just assume that Manny was one of the ‘lucky ones’ who made it to Kehnooryos Atheenahs alive. But, tell me, is he still alive or have you killed him, too?”
Mile’s head bobbed again. “When last I saw him, he lived. Of course, he wasn’t any too comfortable. In addition to the alterations which were performed on him in Gafnee, because of his mindshield and his stubbornness- which latter quality I am glad to see you don’t share-my persuasion specialists were required to perform some rather extreme exercises upon his body.”
“Damn!” spat Gold. “You’re as much a barbarian as the swine you root among!”
“Barbarism is a survival trait in this world,” Milo smiled. “It has been for several hundred years … or didn’t you ivory tower boys know? Yes, Father Gold, I am a barbarian, but before you throw any more such epithets my way, be damned sure your own conscience is clean. This Old Time Religion you clowns have dreamed up is far more bloodthirsty and barbaric than anything these people have developed on their own!”
A hint of his sanctimonious facade crept back into the prisoner’s tone. “We are simply striving to reestablish the faith which you so ruthlessly suppressed in the course of the last century, Moray.”
“In a pig’s ass!” snapped Milo. “For all that its fat-cat hierarchy were secretly engaged in such little sidelines as slavetrading, whoremongering, and smuggling-not to mention oppressing the humbler Ehleenoee with a quasi-military, quasi-religious masked force of bravos who would have made the sixteenth-century Spanish Garduna look like a troop of Boy Scouts—their religion was basically Eastern rite Christianity. Yours sounds more like Satanism, what with the carving up of helpless children on your altars, the mixing of their lifeblood with the wine for your so-called Communion, and all the other obscene parodies of worship you engage in.”
The chained man shrugged, his face expressionless. “If a pack of hounds serve you well, you endeavor to keep them contented. Most of our worshipers are well pleased with this kind of religion.”
“I suspect,” said Milo wryly, “that those fools are less enchanted by your sanguinary religion than they are by the Utopian promises with which you’ve been deluding them. Need I ask what the hell you and your fellow ghouls are up to?”
In lieu of answers, the prisoner abruptly asked, “How old are you, Moray? When were you born, was it before the War?”
Milo did not need to ask which war, because for the few who had survived it, there could be but the one that three-day holocaust which had irrevocably wrecked the civilization of their world and the worldwide plagues which had almost extirpated all the races of mankind. He shrugged. “I think I was born sometime around the turn of the century … the twentieth century, that is. That would put my age at a bit less than nine hundred years. Why?”
The manacles clanked as Gold steepled his fingers. “That means, Moray, that you were alive at the very apogee of man’s culture and scientific achievements. Wouldn’t you like to see the reestablishment of that culture and most of its appurtenances and civilized comforts?”
He leaned as far forward as his chains would permit, his black eyes gleaming, his voice now husky with his fervor. “Can’t you understand, Moray? We at the J. and R. Kennedy Memorial Center are all that’s left of The United States of America. We are simply trying to perform the patriotic duty of any good citizens: to bring about the recovery of our country. Our country, Moray, yours and mine! As it was before the War. Cities-real cities, man-research facilities, laboratories, universities, hospitals, electricity, flush toilets, automobiles, theatres, television, telephones, newspapers. Think of it, Moray!”
Milo cracked a knuckle aimlessly. “No sale, Gold. I’ve heard that spiel before from your director, when I spoke with him on the Landor woman’s radio a hundred years ago. He told me all about your plans to establish a dictatorship and call it by the name of a long dead republic. I want no part of such infamy! I warned him at that time to keep his parasites out of my lands. For your sake and for the sakes of those others he sent to trespass and agitate, I’m sorry he chose not to listen to me.”
“I cannot, just cannot understand you, Moray,” sighed Gold. “Why on earth are you so antagonistic toward us? We should be allies, should be working together, since we’re so much alike, have so much in common.”
Milo’s expression became ugly. “I have nothing in common with you, Gold!”
The prisoner smiled warmly. “Of course you have, my good Moray. After all we are both of us immortal. In that way, at least, you are like me and I am like you.”
A strong shudder coursed the length of Milo’s body and utter loathing weighted his voice, reflected on his face as well. “No, Gold, not like me, never like me! I did nothing to bring about my longevity, nor did those who truly are like me. Our differences from ordinary humans are the gifts of Nature. The long lives of you and your ilk could not be less natural! You really deserve the appellation ‘witchmen,’ you know. Although I think that ‘vampires’ might be a better term.
“Yes, you’ve lived as long as I have, maybe longer, but in those seven or eight hundred years, how many vibrant young bodies have you personally usurped, Gold? In even one hundred years’ time, how much human flesh and blood is needed to keep a warped, demonic thing like you alive?”
“Two, sometimes three transfers are necessary for survival of the mind, barring illness or accident. In the early days, it was a more frequent process, of course; but since we commenced selective breeding for strength, health and longevity … and also, we strive to take exceedingly good care of our bodies, Moray.