"Ah," Lord Marvelous said comfortably. "Shot your bolt and fell short, eh, Lafayette? Pity, and all that. Here you are, separated from all you hold dear by a barrier so thin and so insubstantial as to be indetectable by the subtlest instruments of mankind. Yet you can never cross it. Look yonder ..." Marv paused to wave a hand toward the pink-spired palace gleaming rosy in the early sun. Chauncy, the assistant chamberlain, appeared briefly on the terrace, setting out the morning's wash for the laundry truck. Other familiar faces were in sight, including on the upper terrace Adoranne, slim and blond and beautiful as ever, Count Alain at her side. O'Leary made a tentative step toward them, felt himself stopped cold as by a resilient but infinitely tough film. Daphne was coming toward him along the walk, but appeared not to see him.
"It's not really there, lad," Nicodaeus' voice said at Lafayette's ear. "This is a shadow of what might have been and almost was. Something—I don't know what— is preventing our reality from shifting that microscopic distance to merge into full identity and give it all the flush of life."
"We're closer than before," O'Leary said. "The palace was in ruins at first; now it's back in place, as perfect as ever. Nicodaeus, I have to get across the barrier. What can I do?"
Daphne came closer, seemed to brush past Lafayette almost within reach; but as he turned to speak to her, he felt the impalpable membrane close in on him, stifling his breathing. He fought clear, stood breathing hard, looking after his wife's retreating image.
"She's real enough, Slim," Roy told him. "Just out of reach. Something's not meshing quite right. Wait a minute." He went to Nicodaeus, who had herded Marv and Frumpkin aside.
"Maybe we can squeeze it outa this pair," Roy said. Nicodaeus turned, shook his head. "It's nothing they're doing, Roy. It's some sort of residual resistance preventing our matchup."
"Scratch your heads in vain, petty wretches," Frumpkin said in his haughtiest tone. "As you see, in the eleventh hour my dream of glory is the master of your protégé's soulful yearnings. Let him face me if he dares!"
"I heard that," Lafayette said, regretfully taking his eyes from the ghostly Daphne retreating along the path while the real Daphne dabbed her eyes, beside him.
"Oh, Lafayette," she wailed, "I saw how you looked at her, and even though I knew it was really me you were admiring, I'm still jealous. Never mind her," she went on briskly after blowing her dainty nose on a bit of lace; she rose, and suddenly her expression was one of astonishment and alarm. "Lafayette!" she screamed. Her face went slack as she collapsed on the grass. Lafayette reached her first and knelt down at her side. Nicodaeus bent over the girl, then gave O'Leary a look of commiseration.
Chapter Twenty-Three
"Pity, Lafayette. The stress of the juxtaposition was too much. Her vital energy has merged with her other self, beyond the barrier. Wave good-bye, lad. You're fated never to touch her again."
"Hard lines, Slim," Roy comforted O'Leary. "Nice dame, but now we still got a problem. Think hard: Focus the Psychical Energies one more time."
It's easy, Lafayette told himself. All I have to do is realize that this is Lord Marvelous' doing, and it's not binding—not if I can just think. What should I do? He looked up to meet Nicodaeus' sympathetic gaze.
"Look carefully, Lafayette," the older man said. "Can you find something, some tiny flaw that will invalidate this almost-world, and allow your own vision to emerge into full reality?"
Beyond Nicodaeus, Lafayette saw Marv and Frumpkin with their heads together.
After all, he informed himself doggedly, it's only their world view against mine. They believe in lies and treachery, and I don't. It's up to me to be right. I have to be right!.
"What is it, Lafayette?" Nicodaeus broke in on his thought. "Have you noticed something that would tend to discredit the actuality of this construct?"
"The facade of the real palace is perfect," O'Leary replied, his eyes fixed on a small but unsightly scar on the polished pink marble slab inside the ballroom entrance. He walked across to it.
"Laugh, honey," a feminine voice came from behind Lafayette. He turned. Mickey Jo, slim and radiant in a trim white uniform with gold shoulder boards, was hurrying toward him across the lawn.
"I don't suppose it's important," she went on, "but my conscience got to bothering me. Remember when I put your pocket stuff in your new suit, back in the motel? Well, I kept something as sort of a souvenir, you know, to remember you by and all. Just a pebble. I figured it wasn't worth anything and if I asked you about it you'd throw it away. So I kept it. Now, it came to me I ought to give it back." She extended her hand, on which rested a lump of pink marble, polished on one side. Lafayette remembered picking it up and casually dropping it in his pocket long ago, before Trog's throne.
"Is it your lucky stone?" Mickey Jo asked wistfully. Lafayette took the bit of rock, turned and fitted it into the raw wound on the wall before him. It seated perfectly, leaving not even a visible seam. At that instant, a subtle change came over the scene. Behind Mickey Jo, Lafayette saw Daphne hurrying toward him.
"I guess it was," he said as Daphne's fog-soft hair brushed his face and his lips met hers.
The End
* * * * * *
Ace Original / February 1984
ISBN: 0-441-27280-0