Abdekiel’s chill eye narrowed, as he watched the little Piper fighting for his very life with persuasive words. Something—something—what was it he had seen?
“—She herself has told you, Great Master, that it was not I!” Perion babbled on, falling to his bony knees, pleading with lifted hands. “Put her to the Test—put her to the torture, the great, ungainly slut! But blame not humble, lowly Perion—poor, spat-upon Perion, reft of all his treasures—his lovely little lamp, his F-Faraz carpet!”
Watching him narrowly, the Warlord frowned. If this were acting, he had never seen the like. He could almost find it in his cold heart to believe the wretch groveling there before the Balance of Zargon, kneeling in His holy place before His awful visage of two-colored stone—sobbing and gibbering for his life. Surely his words are truth. This cannot be mere art, mere pretense—!
” … I swear! By the Balance of Zargon—the Blood of Thaxis’ Scarlet Spear!” the Piper shrilled … and again, with the violent motion of his head, the earring caught a vagrant glint of light.
And Abdekiel saw it. And the gleam flashed triumphant in his black, slit-eyes.
At last! he thought, cold joy searing through him like a draught of heady wine.
“Perhaps, after all, my art can uncover the truth you seek. Great One!” he said calmly, benignly. A chilling smile spread slowly over his colorless lips—and the strange, muted triumph in his tones arrested the attention of all, which had been fixed on the begging words of the Piper.
“Warlord—behold!”
With the speed of a striking serpent, his hand flashed out and tore the copper ring from the Piper’s ear!
There was a long, breathless moment of silence—shock-surprise. Then—
“Ahhh!”
The gasp of surprise came from a dozen lips … and a shudder ran over the assemblage.
Before their eyes, the scrawny form of the Piper— changed!
6.
THE WHITE WIZARD—UNMASKED!
PERION CHANGED. His form seemed to ripple, to quiver against the air, as an image reflected in water wavers when its liquid mirror is touched by the wind’s invisible hand. The outlines of the Piper’s form blurred … faded … the colors running into each other in a vague, phantasmal, multi-hued shadow of light.
As they watched, struck dumb, blasted with awe and astonishment, the figure grew … taller … yet taller … six full feet and more, overtopping even Drask’s rawboned height. The scrawny limbs became clothed in hard, steely sheaths of muscle. The sunken chest and little potbelly were transformed into a torso swelling with mighty thews … a deep-arched chest … the lean, supple, rock-hard waist of a fighting man.
Clear gray eyes flashed in a square-jawed, high-cheeked face, a face whose broad intellectual brow and clean-shaven cheeks showed not the greasy, sallow pallor of Perion, but the leathern tan of a deep-space man, burnt mahogany by the void’s unshieldable lambda-rays. A young, strong face … yet there still lurked within its mocking gray eyes something of Perion’s irrepressible deviltry.
The little cap with its bedraggled plume, too, had vanished. In its place a mop of straw-yellow hair, which contrasted startlingly against the deep tan of the man’s face.
From throat to wrist and heel he was clothed in a tight-fitting garment of pure white, wrought from some sparkling and unfamiliar material whose glossy, metallic sheen and total lack of color made the suit curiously elusive to the eye—a blur of utter whiteness, a figure sculpted from pure light.
“By-Thaxis’-Thirsty-Spear! Is this—Perion?”
Smiling like a great cat, the shaman interposed smoothly. “May I present, Lord—not Perion of North Hollis—but Perion of Parlion,” he smirked.
The tall, well-built young man grinned, with just a hint of the Piper’s old swaggering humor in his smoke-gray eyes.
“A minor correction, my Lord Fat-Guts. Not Perion at all. Call me … Calastor.”
A whisper of the dreaded name ran through the assembled Rovers like a swift wind rustling through a wheatfield.
Drask recoiled on his high seat, his iron face shaken, gray, his fierce eyes blank with disbelief.
“What magic—or madness—is this? The Piper—Calastor?”
“Aye, Drask! The White Wizard—no phantom at all, nor even a mocking shadow, but a beloved member of your entourage!” the athletic youth in dazzling white chuckled.
“But … how—?”
Abdekiel answered the query. He lifted one fat palm, displaying the copper earring.
“An illusion-charm, my Lord! Its components are tailored to warp the wavelength of light about the man who wears it, creating the illusion of a different appearance. It was an art known only to the ancient Imperial craftsmen of the Lost Age. I only recognized the instrument moments ago … for who noticed the gauds worn by a strutting clown? But years ago I saw its very mate, in the hands of a Master Mage of Trevelon, the Planet of Philosophers. When the charm is removed from the body of the man to whose atomic structure it is attuned, the illusion is destroyed, and he regains the natural appearance he wore before donning the device.”
“And, as for the rest,” Calastor cut in, “a bit of acting, some skill in disguising the voice”—he shrugged whimsically—“and the trick was done!”
“Incredible,” the Warlord said slowly. “I would never have believed it possible.”
“Hell’s-work, I say,” Tonguth muttered, signing himself superstitiously. “Hell’s-work and Devil-magic!”
“Not so,” Calastor replied. “Not magic, but science. I fear that you, good Tonguth, have a far closer and more intimate acquaintance with Hell than have I. No, it is a mere device. An almost microscopic machine, even as yon shaman so cleverly observed. Had it not been for his sharp eyes, I might well have carried off my deception even longer.”
“And we have Truth from his lying lips at last, my Lord,* the shaman observed. “See? The instrument works to the same effect—casting the identical illusion—on whoever dons it. Lord, behold—”
He clipped the copper ring on his own lobe—and, for the second time, the miraculous transformation took place before their wondering eyes. But this time the operation was seen in reverse. Abdekiel shrank … blurred … his butter-yellow, placidly-smiling face withered and became the mocking, wizened, impish and not-overly-clean visage of Perion the Piper. His dull gray robes melted, colors shifting with eye-aching speed, changing into a duplicate of the gorgeous garments the Piper had last worn. Even Abdekiel’s elephantine bulk and height dwindled, by some unimaginable optical magic, into Perion’s spindle-legged smallness.
A second Piper stood beside the transformed first, laughing at them with shrewd, mischievous eyes. Superstitiously, the Rover chieftains recoiled from the illusion, muttering.
“What a weapon, by the Blood!” Drask mused, fingering his stiff spike of black beard. “No wonder this White Wizard eluded me for so long. Armed with a pouchful of such magic rings, he assumes a different appearance at will. Any man with such a device could spend months in the very stronghold of his most deadly enemy, without slightest risk of detection …”
Abdekiel unsnapped the illusion-ring from his ear and assumed his proper appearance.
“These devices, as I said, are tailored specifically to present different forms and are attuned to the vibratory scale of the individual atomic structure. I am only able to maintain the Perion-form briefly, and by effort of will.”