The beast was out there, Daniel thought.
Lonely, mad, lost… but terrible and strong, and malevolent.
Because of that beast… and Daniel closed his eyes for a moment, in pain.
He was actually very tired, he thought, pulling the cloak around himself. There was a curious humming somewhere, a sound very like a bee, and just as soothing. It probably was some small insect, Daniel thought, drifting into sleep.
He sat in a chair in the living room of the house in Long Island, before the fireplace. He was holding a drink, and a number of people were talking and laughing. Sheila was there, coming toward him, slim and beautiful as always, in a basic black dress.
“I really can’t explain it,” he was saying. “But about the time I got to this curious ocean, the one that’s supposed to cover all the present smaller seas like the Black and the Caspian…”
“The Russians wouldn’t like that,” someone said, and laughed. “Maybe they would, though.
All that caviar!”
“But nobody could go back in time and just
change
things,” Sheila said, coming next to him. “Not even old know-it-all Dan!”
“We wouldn’t even exist!” someone said.
“Some of us don’t, now,” another voice came, acidly.
Sheila’s cool hand was on his and her voice was caressingly low. “Dan wouldn’t want to change everything.
Especially not me.”
There was something wrong, somewhere. He stared at the fire, which burned much lower. The picture over the mantel… wasn’t right. And there should have been the model of the freighter, on that shelf; but it wasn’t there. Besides, the house in Long Island had been sold, and torn down, for a development… why, before he’d even met Sheila.
He stared at her, and she wasn’t right, either. The faces around him were ugly, pale, and… evil.
Even hers.
Then she took the drink from his hand and put it down. He rose, walking like a sleepwalker, and went with her. They passed through the doors to the garden… but there was no garden, beyond.
There was a vast open space, and huge twisting shapes that rose all around it. It was like the sea-city, Daniel saw, but vastly larger, and sun poured down over everything in a hot flood. But in spite of the light, it was difficult to see well, somehow. The faces of the immense crowd of people were mere blurs. Great shadowy shapes swam overhead, like ships seen from the sea bottom, and there was a tremendous noise of voices, roaring.
Sheila was there. No, he saw, it was not Sheila, but a woman with pale hair, who smiled. In the crook of her arm there was a fat grinning child who stared round-eyed at Daniel. He looked, with an immense remembered agony rising in him.
They were shouting his name now. Hail, the Immortal, the God-King!
the
crowd roared again and again.
Then the woman turned and led him through vast halls, jeweled and brilliant with color, where hundreds of women stretched out their arms, whispering invitations in hot voices, writhing naked at his feet.
You are here, Daniel thought suddenly, and exerted a mighty effort toward waking. It was like swimming through an endless sea, never surfacing. He tried, but he could not wake. Yet the visions faded, and he was in greenish mist, floating.
You!
he
thought again, fiercely.
These are things which you may have, if you choose. The
voice came in his mind, clearly and cool
, without emphasis.
“You are the beast called the lost one,” Daniel said in silent speech.
“I am the one,” it said, still as calmly. “I am the beginning and the end. I made you, Daniel, and gave you life.”
“You took something out of the future, and brought it here,” Daniel said. “You did not make me. I…
am.”
“Free me,” the voice said. “Go back to Narr’s Wall and draw the lever you know of. None need die, warning may be given. Only a part of the wall will be swept away, and Numith will live. Then you will speak to all who live on land, and tell them you have dominion over them. If any refuse to serve you, my servants will come out of the sea to aid you. I can give you more than any man has ever possessed—power, kingship, all.”
Daniel struggled again to wake, but could not.
“I can give you the female you thought was lost, and her child,” the voice said.
“Lies,” Daniel said.
“If you wish, I can send you back, living, to your own time,” the voice said. “Choose either, or maybe both; this age, and your own. You cannot harm me, man. I have lived longer than you can count in years. But I wish to be free… and I am alone.”
There were no dolphins in that sea, Daniel suddenly realized.
Nor whales of any breed, except… that one.
Not even the less clever but still intelligent creatures he had seen, the otters, the seal folk, none but fish and weeds.
Perhaps the one had killed them all, Daniel suddenly thought with a new surge of hate. Why not? It could not bear equal life, any more than it could bear loneliness.
Somehow, it heard the accusation, and answered.
“I did not kill those who lived here. That was done long ago, by those who came before your kind, the old ones. They killed all that lived, as you will do. Then, in their long ending, when the world died around them, they sought to bring life back to it. But it was too late, for them, and they died.”
The voice grew fainter, now.
“Of the old ones, only one still lives,” it said. “She is old, old… and soon even she will die. She keeps her possession from me, but it too will be mine, all will be mine. I would like to die, but I may not, till all is within me…”
It faded.
“Daniel!” Eshtak was shaking his shoulder. “Daniel, there’s something out there!”
He was awake and on his feet. The dawn was scarlet on the thinner mists, and there was a shadow on the mists. He stared hard, with sleep-gummed eyes; the others were awake and looking hard as well.
“It’s a ship!” someone said.
The shadow darkened and parts of it began to emerge from the mist, seeming to form into solidity. It was a ship, smaller than it had seemed; the mist had magnified its size. It was no more than fifty or sixty feet long, Daniel guessed; a strangely shaped prow and stern, high-curved like a Chinese junk’s. It had two masts, but no sail was on them. A dozen oars moved at its sides, with slow beats, as it came on toward the shore.
Then it slowed and there was the rattle of an anchor chain, and a splash. The oars lay still and the strange ship rocked, a few yards from shore.
And still no one called from the silent ship, and no face was seen. The men on the shore began to mutter, moving closer together, gripping their swordhilts.
“You, out there!”
Daniel shouted at last. He walked into the water, outward till it reached his knees. Behind him, Eshtak groaned, and began to follow, but the rest stayed where they were.
Then a face showed at the ship’s rail; a pale, silent face, a curious hood over it. The man spoke in a croaking, slow, voice.
“You… are… Daniel.”
It might be a question, Daniel thought. He was near the strange ship now, standing hip-deep, while Eshtak stopped behind him.
“You know me?” he said.
“We have been sent to find you,” the man said in the same slow voice, as if he were nearly asleep. “Come.”
“Ware that one, Lord Daniel!” Eshtak called out urgently.
“A ghost ship!”
“It looks solid enough,” Daniel said over his shoulder.
Then, to the men on the shore, “Stay with the horses, and wait for me awhile.”
He splashed farther in, till he was swimming; and a moment later he caught at a net ladder at the ship’s side. As he came up over the rail, Eshtak climbed behind him and came to the deck at his side.
“You’ll not leave me waiting,” Eshtak panted, “Especially since neither of us will come back out of this alive, like enough.” He stared at the well deck and groaned. “I said it was a ghost ship. Look at those rowers.”
Six men sat on either side, leaning on the oars. Each man gazed straight ahead blankly. Their eyes were open, but there was nothing in those eyes.
They seemed healthy, strong,
well
-fed for slaves, if slaves they were. They bore no lashmarks, nor were they dirty. But their faces were brutish, almost like the faces of apes, a mass of lank brown hair hanging over each, and all were completely naked. Yet, Daniel saw, there were no chains, either.
The man who had called out stood waiting; he was a very short, squat figure, in a rusty black robe with a pointed hood. In the shadow of the hood his face was extraordinarily white, with the look of a toadstool.
“I am the Shipmaster,” he said, still in the dull voice. “My task is to bring you to the island, where she waits.”
“Hold on,” Daniel said sharply. The robed man had been turning slowly toward the rowing benches, apparently about to give an order. He stopped and turned slowly back to face Daniel.
“What island?” Daniel said, looking hard. “Who’s ‘she?’”
“There is only one island,” the Shipmaster said. “There is only one ship in the sea, this one. You desire to see the lost one. You cannot do so without the ship.”
He turned and moved away. Suddenly, almost without a sound, another naked man moved across the deck to the anchor chain, and began to pull it in, using nothing to aid him. The oars moved and the ship turned slowly. Daniel saw that the robed man sat, far aft, with a steering oar beside him.
The ship crept through the mist, the only sound the splash of oars. The mist made the motion so imperceptible that Daniel felt a strange conviction that it might indeed be a ghost ship, as Eshtak had said. Beside him, Eshtak stood with the stiffly alert, wide-eyed look of a terrified cat, his breath hissing in his teeth.
“We will die,” he whispered, half to Daniel and half to himself. But he stayed where he was.
Daniel could feel a slight rolling now, in the deck. They were well out into the sea, though the mist still rolled. He clapped Eshtak on the shoulder.
“It’s a real ship, if a little queer,” he said in a low voice. “Those rowers… they may be drugged in some way, but they’re flesh and blood.”
“Living?” Eshtak muttered. “They have the look of dead men.”
“Dead men don’t row,” Daniel said. “Come.” He walked aft, to the Shipmaster.
“All right, man,” he said sharply. “Speak. What of this island, and the rest of it? How did you know about me?”
“She rules the island,” the Shipmaster said. “She knows all that passes on the shores. The birds see, and tell.”
“She?
Who is she?”
“The mistress,” the man said. “She is the mistress of creatures. She is the last of the old ones.”
Eshtak uttered a shuddering sound.
“Are there other people there, on this island?” Daniel demanded.
“There are two, like
yourself
,” the Shipmaster said. “There are many, like us.”
Daniel scowled at him, thinking hard.
Eshtak growled deep in his throat. “He’s joking with us, Lord Daniel!” Eshtak said in a shaking voice. His sword slid out, and he stepped, crouching, toward the Shipmaster, who did not seem to notice him.
“A trap of some kind, isn’t it?” Eshtak
snarled,
his point at the Shipmaster’s throat.
“Answer!
If you…” He lunged forward, the sharp point pricking deep, and drew it back.
There was no blood, and the Shipmaster’s face showed neither pain nor any other change at all. Eshtak slowly lowered his sword, growing paler.
“He is a ghost!” Eshtak muttered.
“I am a living man,” the Shipmaster said, still in the same calm, abstract voice. “But I feel no pain, as you do. We who serve the mistress feel nothing except as she wills.”
There was nothing to be gotten out of the Shipmaster, Daniel knew; he gripped Eshtak’s arm and drew him back.
“Leave it,” he said. “Wait.”
The island loomed out of the mist, a white strand and a mass of dark trees, and a plank jetty, sagging with time. The ship lay alongside it, and Daniel followed the robed man down onto the creaking boards. They went to the shore and up a path of raked gravel, between park-like trees. Twice they passed robed figures, as like the Shipmaster as if they were copies.
Eshtak touched Daniel’s arm and indicated the strangely orderly parkland, with a nod.
“Look there,” he muttered.
Crouched, naked figures of human shape, moving with the silent swiftness of beasts, slipped out of sight as Daniel looked. As he watched, another naked figure ran, silently, in the distance, and vanished again. They were like wild things, he thought with a cold feeling of fear.
Ahead, a shadow on the misty air, growing more real as they came nearer; and Daniel stared, amazed.
It was a tower, a curious building that ran up into the mists, its top dimly visible. It seemed to be made of metal with the greenish look of ancient copper; convoluted roofs and gables marked every story, like the twisting shapes of a pagoda. As they came closer, Daniel saw intricate reliefs covered every inch of the building, sculptured figures that writhed and turned in incredible chaos. He could not see them clearly, but they seemed inhuman, more serpentine than man.
They entered a tall, narrow door. The hall within was lit with a dim glow from some unseen source, and it was warm, with a curious, acid smell. And, at the other end, there were three persons, standing silent and watching Daniel’s entrance.
He stood frozen, his eyes wide. There was a queer, harsh pain in his chest that kept him from speaking at all for a moment. Then he heard his own voice, as if it came from a long way off.
“Ammi.”
It was she. She stood, as he had seen her in the lying dream, holding the child on her arm, and staring at him as if she saw only a stranger. Beside her, a tall woman stood, and smiled; a woman with red-gold hair, very beautiful, robed in green.
“I am the mistress,” she said in a clear voice.
But Daniel still stared at Ammi and the child, like a man struck by lightning.
“You are alive,” he said. Then his hands clenched and he stiffened. “Or… is this another trick?” He strode forward toward the woman; but the tall woman stepped between them.