Wizards’ Worlds (39 page)

“Does Olava sleep? Or has His Mouth been forgotten for a space?”

The Over-Queen’s voice was sharper, and Tamisan broke that hold on her attention,
looked back to the throne and the woman on it.

“It is not meet for the Mouth to speak unless Olava wishes—” Tamisan began, with increasing
nervousness until she felt that sensation in her left hand, as if it were not under
her control but possessed by another will. She fell silent as it gathered up the brownish
sand and tossed it to form a picture’s background.

But this time she did not seek next the blue grains; rather her fist dug into the
red and moved to paint in the outline of the space ship, above it a single red circle.

Then there was a moment of hesitation, before her fingers strayed to the green, took
up a generous pinch and again made Starrex’s symbol below the ship.

“A single sun,” the Over-Queen read out. “One day until the enemy comes. But what
is the remaining word of Olava, Mouth?”

“That there be one among you who is a key to victory. He shall stand against the enemy
and under him fortune comes.”

“So? And who is this hero?”

Tamisan looked again to the line of officers. Dared she trust to instinct? Something
within her urged her on.

“Let each of these protectors of Ty-Kry—” She raised a finger to indicate the officers.
“Let each come forward and take up the sand of seeing. Let the Mouth touch that hand
and may it then strew the answer—perhaps Olava will so make it clear.”

To Tamisan’s surprise, the Over-Queen laughed. “As good a way as any perhaps for picking
a champion. Though to abide by Olava’s choice—that is another matter.” And her smile
faded as she glanced at the men, as if there was a thought in her mind which disturbed
her.

At her nod, they came one by one. Under the shadows of their helmets their faces,
being of one race, were very similiar; and Tamisan, studying each, could see no chance
of telling which Starrex might be.

Each took up a pinch of green sand, held out his hand palm down and let the grains
fall while she set fingertip to the back of that hand. The sand drifted, but in no
shape and to no purpose.

It was not until the last man came that there was a difference, for then the sand
did not drift, but fell to form again the symbol which was twin to the one already
on the table. Tamisan looked up. The officer was staring at the sand rather then meeting
her eyes, and there was a line of strain about his mouth, a look about him such as
might shadow the face of a man who stood with his back to a wall and a ring of sword
points at his throat.

“This is your man,” Tamisan said. Starrex? She must be sure—if she could only demand
the truth in this instant!

But her preoccupation was swept aside.

“Olava deals falsely!” That cry came from the officer behind her, the one who had
brought her here.

“Perhaps we must not think ill of Olava’s advice.” The Over-Queen’s voice had a guttural,
feline purr. “It may be his Mouth is not wholly wedded to his service, but speaks
for others than Olava at times. Hawarel—so you are to be our champion—”

The officer went to one knee, his hands clasped loosely before him as if he wished
all to see he did not reach for any weapon.

“I am no choice, save the Great One’s.” In spite of the strain visible in his tense
body he spoke levelly and without a tremor.

“Great One,
this
traitor—” Two of the officers moved as if to lay hands upon him and drag him away.

“No. Has not Olava spoken?” The mockery was very plain in the Over-Queen’s tone now.
“But to make sure that Olava’s will be carried out, take good care of our champion-to-be.
Since Hawarel is to fight our battle with the cursed starmen, he must be saved to
do it.” Now she looked to Tamisan, who was still startled by the quick turn of events
and their hostility to Olava’s choice. “Let the Mouth of Olava share with Hawarel
this waiting that she may, perhaps instill in Olava’s choice the vigor and strength
such a battle will demand of our chosen champion.” Each time the Over-Queen spoke
the last word she made of it a thing of derision and subtle menace.

“The audience is finished.” The Over-Queen arose, stepped behind the throne as those
about Tamisan fell to their knees; and then she was gone. But the officer who had
guided Tamisan was by her side. And Hawarel, once more on his feet, was closely flanked
by two of the other guards, one of whom pulled their prisoner’s sword from his sheath
before he could move. With Hawarel before her, Tamisan was urged from the hall.

At the moment she was pleased enough to go, hoping for a chance to prove the lightness
of her guess, that Hawarel and Starrex were the same and she had found the first of
her fellow dreamers—was this far onward toward their release.

They traversed more halls until they came to a door which one of Hawarel’s guards
opened. The prisoner walked through and Tamisan’s escort waved her after him.
Then the door slammed shut and at that sound Hawarel whirled around.

Under the beaking fore plate of his helmet his eyes were cold fire and he seemed a
man about to leap for his enemy’s throat.

“Who—” His voice was only a harsh whisper. “Who set you to my death wishing, witch?”

H
IS
clawed hands were reaching for her throat. Tamisan flung up her arm in an attempt
to guard, stumbled back.

“Lord Starrex!” If she had been wrong—if—!

Though his finger tips brushed her shoulders, he did not grasp her. Instead it was
his turn to retreat a step or two, his mouth half open in a gasp.

“Witch—witch!” The very force of the words he hurled at her made them like darts dispatched
from one of the archaic crossbows of the history tapes.

“Lord Starrex,” Tamisan repeated, feeling on more secure ground at seeing his stricken
amazement, no longer fearing he would attack her out of hand. His reaction to that
name was enough to assure her she was right, though he did not seem prepared to acknowledge
it.

“I am Hawarel of the Vanora,” he brought out those words as harsh croaking.

Tamisan glanced around. This was a bare-walled room, with no hiding place for a listener.
In her own time and place she could have feared many scanning devices. But she thought
those unknown to this Ty-Kry. And to win Hawarel-Starrex into cooperation was very
necessary.

“You are Lord Starrex,” she returned with bold confidence or at least what she hoped
was a convincing show of such. “Just as I am Tamisan, the dreamer. And this, wherein
we are caught, is the dream you ordered of me.”

He raised his hand to his forehead, his fingers encountered his helmet, and he swept
it off unheedingly, so that it clanked and skidded across the polished floor. His
hair, netted into a kind of protecting cushion, was piled about his head, giving him
an odd appearance to Tamisan. It was black and thick, just as his skin was as brown-hued
as that of her new body. And without the shadow of the helm she could see his face
more clearly, finding in it no resemblance to the aloof master of the sky towers.
In a way, it was that of a younger man, one less certain of himself.

“I am Hawarel,” he repeated doggedly. “You try to trap me, or perhaps the trap has
already closed and you seek now to make me condemn myself with my own mouth. I tell
you, I am no traitor—I am Hawarel and my blood oath to the Great One has been faithfully
kept.”

Tamisan experienced a rise of impatience. She had not thought Lord Starrex to be a
stupid man. But it would seem his counterpart here lacked more than just the face
of his other self.

“You are Starrex, and this is a dream.” If it was not, she did not care to raise that
issue now. “Remember the sky tower? You bought me from Jabis for dreaming. Then you
summoned me—and Lord Kas—and ordered me to prove my worth.”

His brows drew together in a black frown as he stared at her.

“What have they given you or promised, that you do to me?” came his counter-demand.
“I am no sworn enemy to you or yours—not that I know.”

Tamisan sighed. “Do you deny you know the name Starrex?” she asked.

For a long moment he was silent. Then he turned from her took a stride or two, his
toe thumping against his helmet, sending it rolling ahead of him. She waited. He rounded
again to face her.

“You are a Mouth of Olava—”

She shook her head, interrupting him. “We have little
time for such fencing, Lord Starrex. You do know that name, and it is in my mind that
you also remember the rest, at least in some measure. I am Tamisan the dreamer.”

It was his turn to sigh. “So you say.”

“So I shall continue to say. And, mayhap as I do, others than you will listen.”

“As I thought!” he flashed. “You would have me betray myself.”

“If you are truly Hawarel as you state, then what have you to betray?”

“Very well. I am—am two! I am Hawarel and I am someone else who has queer memories
and who may well be a night demon come to dispute ownership of this body. There—you
have it! Go and tell those who sent you and have me out to the arrow range for a quick
ending there. Perhaps that will be better than to continue as a battle field between
two different selves.”

Perhaps he was not just being obstinate, Tamisan thought. It might be that the dream
had a greater hold on him than it did on her. After all she was a trained dreamer,
one used to venturing into illusions wrought from imagination.

“If you can remember a little—then listen!” She drew closer to him and began to speak
in a lower voice—not that she believed they could be overheard, but it was well to
take no chances. Swiftly she gave her account of this whole mad tangle, or what had
been her part in it.

When she was done she was surprised to see that a certain hardening had overtaken
his features, so that now he looked more resolute, less like one trapped in a maze
which had no guide.

“And this is the truth?”

“By what god or power do you wish me to swear to it?” She was exasperated now, frustrated
by his lingering doubts.

“None, because it explains what was heretofore unexplainable—what has made my life
a hell of doubt
these past hours and brought more suspicion upon me. I have been two persons. But
if this is all a dream—why is that so?”

“I do not know.” Tamisan chose frankness as best befitting her needs now. “This is
unlike any dream I have created before.”

“In what manner?” he asked crisply.

“It is part of a dreamer’s duty to study her master’s personality, to suit his desires,
even if those be unexpressed and hidden. From what I had learned of you—of Lord Starrex—I
thought that too much had been already seen, experienced, known to you. That it must
be a new approach I tried, or else you would find that dreaming held no profit.

“Therefore it came to me suddenly that I would not dream of the past, nor of the future,
which are the common approaches for an action dreamer, but refine upon the subject.
In the past there were times in history when the future rested upon a single decision.
And it was in my mind to select certain of these decisions and then envision a world,
co-existent with our own, in which those decisions had gone in the opposite direction—trying
to see what would be the present-day result of actions in the past.”

“And so this is what you tried? And what decisions did you select for your experiment
at the rewriting of history?” He was giving her his full attention now.

“I took three. First, the Welcome of the Over-Queen Ahta; second the drift of the
Colony ship Wanderer; third, the rebellion of Sylt. Should the Welcome have been a
rejection, should the colony ship never reached here, should Sylt have failed—these
would produce a world I thought might be interesting to visit—in a dream. So I read
what history tapes I could call upon. Thus, when you summoned me to dream I had my
ideas ready. But—it did not work as it should have. Instead of spinning the proper
dream, creating incidents in good order, I found myself fast caught in a world I did
not know, nor build.”

As she spoke she watched the change in him. He had lost all the fervent antagonism
of his first attack on her. More and more, she could see what she had associated with
the personality of Lord Starrex coming through the unfamiliar envelope of the guardsman’s
body.

“So it did not work properly—”

“No, as I have said, I found myself in the dream, with no control of action, no recognizable
creation factors. I do not understand—”

“No? There could be one explanation.” The frown line was back between his brows but
it was not a scowl aimed at her; rather it was as if he were trying hard to remember
something of importance which eluded his efforts. “There is a theory, a very old one—Yes!
That of Parallel worlds!”

In her wide use of the tapes she had not come across that and now she demanded the
knowledge of him almost fiercely. “What are those?”

“You are not the first—how could you be—to be struck by the notion that sometimes
history and the future hang upon a very thin cord which can be twisted this way and
that by small chance. There was a theory once advanced that when that chanced it created
a second world, one in which the decision was made to the right, when that of the
world we know went to the left.”

“But—alternated worlds—where—how did they exist?”

“Thus, perhaps.” He held out his two hands horizontally one above the other. “In layers.
There were even old tales, created for amusement, of men traveling, not back in time,
nor forward, but across it from one such world to another.”

“But—here we are. I am a Mouth of Olava, nor do I look like myself. Just as to the
eye you are not Lord Starrex—”

“Perhaps we are the people we would be if our world had taken the other side of your
three decisions. It is a clever device for a dreamer to create, Tamisan.”

“Only,” she told him now the last truth, “I do not think I have created it. Certainly
I can not control it—”