He shook his head and tried again. His eyes ached more and his temples began to throb. There was a burning sensation along his right forearm. Once more, he saw the strand dimly, but he was unable to influence it.
He returned to the bench and covered himself. He thought of the woman for a long while before he slept again. And this time the only dream-image that he could later recall was the demon head on the stick, grinning.
IX
In some ways I suppose that it was illuminating, though I am not actually certain how. It did something for me or to me, but I do not know what. It also served to make my nature more obscure to me in certain areas. Yet--
I had entered Belken, that great, dark, glittering, stone hulk, moving along the high tunnel I had found within. In the topmost chamber I brooded for a time, in the place of the waters. I felt a kind of power there, reverberating all about me. It was, in some ways, very disturbing; yet I found it soothing at other levels. I decided then to investigate the entire psychic structure within the mountain.
The route that the would-be sorcerers would take from station to station was clearly marked in non-physical terms. I proceeded to the second area and meditated for a long while in that place, also. If it did good things for them, charged as it was with a kind of ordering power, I reasoned that it might benefit me, too.
How long I took at that and the next station, I do not know. A long while, I believe, for I was lost in long reveries and quickly forgot all about time as I regarded their progressions. It only occurred to me that it might be growing late when I felt an increase in the levels of intensity of those forces in which I was basking. I quickly traced it back to its origin in a circle of sorcerers in the glittering city below. At that time I also learned that it had grown dark outside. I knew this meant that the initiation was about to begin and that the power would continue to rise all night long. I moved on to the next station to maintain my lead. I wanted to complete the thing now, for I felt it possible that it might shake something loose in my memory, giving me what I sought.
Something strange happened at that fourth station, for I heard a voice--tantalizingly familiar--speaking as if addressing me personally, intimately even.
"Faney," it said. "Faney."
It was a masculine voice, and it seemed to me as if I should understand exactly what it meant by that pronouncement. It was spoken fairly sternly, as if some order were being laid upon me. Faney. Was this my name, summoned from my faded past by the charged ambiance? No, that did not seem quite right. Faney...
"Faney!"--even stronger tones this time, and with them a roused sense of duty, a desire to follow the incomprehensible order and a sense of frustration at not being able to.
I expanded and contracted. I darted fitfully about within the chamber, seeking some means of discharging the injunction.
"Faney!"
Nothing. There was nothing that I could discover to do which would satisfy what was rapidly becoming a compulsion without an object.
So I moved on. And the power kept growing within the mountain. But the pressure was eased a bit in the next place, and I remained there for a long while. Again, I lost track of time and was only roused from a trance-like state into which I had lapsed by the sounds of the approaching candidates. Almost sluggishly, I drifted down to the next station so as not to be disturbed by them.
The sixth seemed more peaceful than any so far. I spread myself out and absorbed the good vibrations.
It did not seem that long before I heard them approaching again. This time I did not stir. I had no desire to depart and it occurred to me that it could be instructive to witness what went on in the course of the rites.
I watched them enter and take their positions. When he began speaking, I found myself peculiarly attracted to the one called Larick. I studied him, and then I realized why. It was an extraordinary discovery and I was still considering its effects when my attention was drawn to Pol. I was startled by the change in his appearance.
He was slouched well forward and his hands were enormous and scaly. A quick investigation beyond his garments showed me that his arms, though very attractive in their massive, dark fashion, were no longer his arms. Still he could not be unaware of this, and if it did not bother him I did not see why it should bother me.
But it did.
Further examination showed me that he was the only one of all those present whose anatomy had been altered. As I puzzled over this, another transformation began in the area of his shoulders and breast. This time I was able to trace it to its source, and I saw that Larick was causing it. I was unable to discover its motive in his mind, for a sorcerer's thoughts become impenetrable when he is working with the stuff of his trade. And none of the others' minds contained anything worth knowing; they were uniformly rapt in a kind of trance state.
I waited until they were finished there and moved on with them to the next station. Whether or not the motive would become clear to me, I was determined to investigate the method of the magical operation being practiced upon Pol.
I observed the next transformation very carefully and saw that it might more truly be considered a transference. As Pol's leg was replaced by a larger, more powerful version, I was able to trace the shifting of materials beyond the mountain. I followed, speeding and spinning down avenues where space was wrinkled and time a stream with many bends and some few oxbow lakes. I followed to the place of the Gate--that dream of Pol's which I had glimpsed. And I followed beyond, into the deadlands where I found a wailing creature whose body was now half-human, dragonmark upon the arm.
"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.