"Brother," I addressed it, "wear them well this short while, for it is but some human rite."
But it either could not or would not understand me. It continued its outcry and began beating at the transformed portions of its own person. So I laid a deep sleep upon it, there in the lee of a triangle of standing gray stones, serving both Pol and itself with little real effort on my own part. I told myself at the time that this was a necessary personal involvement--my first--in the affairs of others, for purposes of assuring that things be played out smoothly in their entirety, so as to satisfy a number of purely intellectual needs of my own.
But even then I was beginning to wonder.
I regarded that fascinating land for several extra instants before I swirled and began the long journey back, bright thunder and loud lightning oxymoronic over oxbows as I passed, passed I negative to reverse point and back, finding thoughts this time in Larick's head, of Avinconet and those he served. The first glimmer of understanding came to me.
I rotated with a certain satisfaction, then followed them to the next station. There, I saw the transference repeated with Pol's other leg. This annoyed me more than a little. His mind was as far asea as any of the others', convincing me that he was being victimized. It did not seem a very fair thing, judging from the little I knew about humans, especially coming from Larick the way that it was.
When we moved on to the next one, several things occurred in addition to the alteration of Pol's abdomen. The one candidate dropped dead. He, of course, was nothing to me; but at approximately the same moment there came a repetition of the word "Faney". I studied the others for reactions to this, but there were none. Of course, they had just acquired a dead man which might have proved distracting; still, it had sounded very loud, and after a few moments I heard it again.
And then again.
It became steady, relentless in repetition. At first I cowered, but then I listened. How silly of me to have thought that the others could hear it when it was so obviously addressing me and me alone. I felt that at some level I was beginning to understand it. And then something else occurred.
The body was moved, the ritual proceeded, Pol was altered. But none of these seemed particularly important at just that moment. I was undergoing a change, far less physical in nature than Pol's, a thing which raised fascinating and involved speculations on the subjects of free will and determinism. Unfortunately, I did not have time to pursue them just then, for my full attention was required by the change itself: I had changed my mind. I had taken an unstated, barely realized position of not interfering in the affairs of others for as long as I could remember. I suddenly brought it into focus, examined it and decided that the time had arrived to make an exception.
I did not like what was being done to Pol, but I did not possess the expertise necessary to reverse the phenomenon. I would do something, though--what, I was not certain--something to help him return to what was normal for him, so that he could deal with his own enemies as he saw fit.
I thought about it as we descended to the final station. The voice repeating "Faney" had faded. Pol predictably lost his feet at the next stop. I studied Larick in those moments when he was not conducting operations. I saw that he intended to spirit Pol off to Avinconet, where he would be a prisoner, as soon as the night's work was concluded.
When we departed the last station and moved on into the big cavern, I watched as he laid the paralysis upon Pol and began conducting the others outside. It seemed that I might be able to lift the spell which held him there in the alcove, but I was uncertain as to what could be done next.
I followed the first initiate outside, to witness the last phase of things. Then I saw that a number of the masters had come up to accompany their people back into town. Lurking in a secluded spot, Mouseglove watched the cavemouth.
Of course.
I was already working on my plan as I returned to the cavern. When I discovered the sorcerer of the midnight visitation with Pol, however, I halted and observed. There was a great feeling of power about the man.
He began using that power. I saw that he was employing it to reverse the transference. I moved immediately to interfere in a fashion which could not be detected. It was pure impulse on my part, not to see such good materials wasted. The creature's head could be mounted upon a stick by its fellows for all I cared. I made use of the drawstring space pocket as I had seen Pol do for storage purposes.
I saw Pol returned to himself and disguised. It in no way affected my plan when I realized what he intended to do. He would still be operating in an area of considerable danger.
So I sought the body of Krendel, the red-haired man who had died earlier. In that no one else was using it at the moment, I permeated it and set about studying how it worked, I wanted to have it ready soon to run the errand I had conceived of, to Mouseglove, who waited without.
X
The small man slipped through the golden hole in the center of the room and it began to close behind him. A contracting halo, an optical aberration, the view through the opening was not that of the far side of the sumptuous apartment. Instead, the eye followed the dwindling form of the dark-clad man who had passed that way across a high tapestry-hung hall as it approached an arched gallery past pillars dark and light.
Then the wavering lens closed upon itself, flickered and was gone. Ibal slumped back upon the heap of cushions on which he had been sitting bolt upright. His breathing was suddenly deep and rapid; perspiration dotted his brow.
Vonnie, kneeling beside him, delicately blotted his face with a blue silk kerchief.
"There are not many," she said, "can do the door spell well."
He smiled.
"It is a strain," he acknowledged, "and, to tell the truth, not something I'd ever intended to work again. This time, though ..."
"...it was different," she finished.
He nodded.
"What are you going to do now?"
"Recover," he answered.
"You know that is not what I mean."
"All right. Recover and forget. I've given him a hand. My honor is satisfied."
"Is it? Really?"
He sighed.
"At my age, that is all the honor I can afford. The days are long gone when I would care to get involved in something like this."
Her hands passed through his hair, dropped to his well-muscled shoulders, rubbed there for a time, then led him back to a seated position. She raised a cool drink to his lips.
"How certain are you of your assessment of the case?" she finally inquired.
"The gods know what else it could be!" he said. "Something not at all natural sends Mouseglove to me, with the story that the young man I'd sponsored is old Det's son and that he's just been kidnaped by Ryle Merson. Honor says that I should do something because Ryle has made off with the man I sponsored. So I have. Fortunately, all Mouseglove wanted was a fast trip back to Rondoval--and I've just provided it."
"Is that really enough?"
"It is not as if he were my apprentice. I was only doing the man a favor. I barely know him."
"But--" she began.
"That is all," he replied.
"But it was not what I meant."
"What, then?"
"The things you said at first--could they be true?"
"I forget what I said."
"You said that it is a continuation of something that began before Pol was born ..."
"I suppose that it is."
"...the thing that had led to the wars."
He took the goblet into his hands and drained it.
"Yes, I believe so," he said then.
"Something that could reopen that whole business?"
He shrugged.
"Or close it. Yes. I think that might be the case--or that Ryle believes it might be the case. Same thing."