`I suppose it's for the best,' Ruach muttered to himself. `A man may find salvation on the road, if he wants to, just as well as he may at home. It's up to him. Meanwhile, I, like Voltaire's character – what was his name? Earthly things are beginning to slip away from me – will cultivate my own little garden.' He paused to look somewhat longingly after Burton.
`Who knows? He may some day run into Voltaire.' He sighed, then smiled.
`On the other hand, Voltaire may some day drop in on me!'
Chapter 19
* * *
`I hate you, Hermann Göring!' The voice sprang out and then flashed away as if it were a gear tooth meshed with the cog of another man's dream and rotated into and then out of his dream.
Riding the crest of the hypnotic state, Richard Francis Burton knew he was dreaming. But he was helpless to do anything about it.
The first dream returned.
Events were fuzzy and encapsulated. A lightning streak of himself in the unmeasurable chamber of floating bodies; another flash of the nameless Custodians finding him and putting him back to sleep; then a jerky synopsis of the dream he had had just before the true Resurrection on the banks of The River.
God – a beautiful old man in the clothes of a mid-Victorian gentleman of means and breeding – was poking him in the ribs with an iron cane and telling him that he owed for the flesh.
`What? What flesh?' Burton said, dimly aware that he was muttering in his sleep. He could not hear his words in the dream.
`Pay up!' God said. His face melted, then was recast into Burton's own features.
God had not answered in the first dream five years before. He spoke now, `Make your Resurrection worth my while, you fool! I have gone to great expense and even greater pains to give you, and all those other miserable and worthless wretches, a second chance.'
`Second chance at what?' Burton said. He felt frightened at what God might answer. He was much relieved when God the All-Father – only now did Burton see that one eye of Jahweh-Odin was gone and out of the empty socket glared the flames of hell – did not reply. He was gone – no, not gone but metamorphosed into a high gray tower, cylindrical and soaring out of gray mists with the roar of the sea coming up through the mists.
`The Grail!' He saw again the man who had told him of the Big Grail. This man had heard it from another man, who had heard of it from a woman, who had heard it from . . . and so forth. The Big Grail was one of the legends told by the billions who lived along The River – this River that coiled like a serpent around this planet from pole to pole, issued from the unreachable and plunged into the inaccessible.
A man, or a subhuman, had managed to climb through the mountains to the North Pole. And he had seen the Big Grail, the Dark Tower, and the Misty Castle just before he had stumbled. Or he was pushed. He had fallen headlong and bellowing into the cold seas beneath the mists and died. And then the man, or subhuman, had awakened again along The River. Death was not forever here, although it had lost nothing of its sting.
He had told of his vision. And the story had traveled along the valley of The River faster than a boat could sail.
Thus, Richard Francis Burton, the eternal pilgrim and wanderer, had longed to storm the ramparts of the Big Grail. He would unveil the secret of resurrection and of this planet, since he was convinced that the beings who had reshaped this world had also built that tower.
`Die, Hermann Göring! Die, and leave me in peace!' a man shouted in German.
Burton opened his eyes. He could see nothing except the pale sheen of the multitudinous stars through the open window across the room of the hut.
His vision bent to the shape of the black things inside, and he saw Peter Frigate and Loghu sleeping on their mats by the opposite wall. He turned his head to see the white, blanket-sized towel under which Alice slept. The whiteness of her face was turned toward him, and the black cloud of her hair spilled out on the ground by her mat.
That same evening, the single-roasted boat on which he and the other three had been sailing down The River had put into a friendly shore. The little state of Sevieria was inhabited largely by sixteenth-century Englishmen, although its chief was an American who had lived in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. John Sevier, founder of the `lost state' of Franklin, which had later become Tennessee, had welcomed Burton and his party.
Sevier and his people did not believe in slavery and would not detain any guest longer than he desired. After permitting them to charge their grails and so feed themselves, Sevier had invited them to a party. It was the celebration of Resurrection Day; afterward, he had them conducted to the guest hostelry.
Burton was always a light sleeper, and now he was an uneasy one. The others began breathing deeply or snoring long before he had succumbed to weariness. After an interminable dream, he had wakened on hearing the voice that had interlocked with his dreams.
Hermann Göring, Burton thought. He had killed Göring, but Göring must be alive again somewhere along The River. Was the man now groaning and shouting in the neighboring hut one who had also suffered because of Göring, either on earth or in the Rivervalley? Burton threw off the black towel and rose swiftly but noiselessly. He secured a kilt with magnetic tabs, fastened a belt of human skin around his waist, and made sure the human-leather scabbard held the flint poignard. Carrying an assegai, a short length of hardwood tipped with a flint point, he left the hut.
The moonless sky cast a light as bright as the full moon of Earth. It was aflame with huge many-colored stars and pale sheets of cosmic gas.
The hostelries were set back a mile and a half from The River and placed on one of the second row of hills that edged The Riverplain. There were seven of the one-room, leaf-thatch-roofed, bamboo buildings. At a distance, under the enormous branches of the irontrees or under the giant pines or oaks, were other huts. A half-mile away, on top of a high hill, was a large circular stockade, colloquially termed the `Roundhouse.' The officials of Sevieria slept there.
High towers of bamboo were placed every half-mile along The River shore. Torches flamed all night long on platforms from which sentinels kept a lookout for invaders.
After scrutinizing the shadows under the trees, Burton walked a few steps to the hut from which the groans and shouts had come.
He pushed the grass curtain aside. The starlight fell through the open window on the face of the sleeper. Burton hissed in surprise. The light revealed the blondish hair and the broad features of a youth he recognized.
Burton moved slowly on bare feet. The sleeper groaned and threw one arm over his face and half-turned. Burton stopped, then resumed his stealthy progress. He placed the assegai on the ground, drew his dagger, and gently thrust the point against the hollow of the youth's throat. The arm flopped over; the eyes opened and stared into Burton's. Burton clamped his hand over the man's open mouth.
'Hermann Göring! Don't move or try to yell! I'll kill you!' Göring's light-blue eyes looked dark in the shadows, but the paleness of his terror shone out. He quivered and started to sit up, then sank back as the flint dug into his skin.
`How long have you been here?' Burton said.
`Who . . .?' Göring said in English, then his eyes opened even wider. `Richard Burton? Am I dreaming? Is that you?' Burton could smell the dreamgum on Göring's breath and the sweat-soaked mat on which he lay. The German was much thinner than the last time he had seen him.
Göring said, `I don't know how long I've been here. What time is it?'
`About an hour until dawn, I'd say. It's the day after Resurrection Celebration.'
'Then I've been here three days. Could I have a drink of water? My throat's dry as a sarcophagus.'
`No wonder. You're a living sarcophagus – if you're addicted to dreamgum.' Burton stood up, gesturing with the assegai at a fired-clay pot on a little bamboo table nearby. `You can drink if you want to. But don't try anything.'
Göring rose slowly and staggered to the table. `I'm too weak to give you a fight even if I
wanted to.' He drank noisily from the pot and then picked up an apple from the table. He took a bite, and then said, `What're you doing here? I thought I was rid of you.'
`You answer my question first,' Burton said, `and be quick about it. You pose a problem that I don't like, you know.'
Chapter 20
* * *
Göring started chewing, stopped, stared, then said, `Why should I? I don't have any authority here, and I couldn't do anything to you if I did. I'm just a guest here. Damned decent people, these; they haven't bothered me at all except to ask if I'm all right now and then. Though I don't know how long they'll let me stay without earning my keep.'
`You haven't left the hut?' Burton said. `Then who charged your grail for you? How'd you get so much dreamgum?' Göring smiled slyly. `I had a big collection from the last place I stayed; somewhere about a thousand miles up The River.'
`Doubtless taken forcibly from some poor slaves,' Burton said. `But if you were doing so well there, why did you leave?' Göring began to weep. Tears ran down his face, and over his collarbones and down his chest, and his shoulders shook.
`I . . . I had to get out. I wasn't any good to the others. I was losing my hold over them – spending too much time drinking, stroking marihuana, and chewing dreamgum. They said I was too soft myself. They would have killed me or made me a slave. So I sneaked out one night . . . took the boat. I got away all right and kept going until I put into here. I traded part of my supply to Sevier for two weeks' sanctuary.' Burton stared curiously at Göring.
`You knew what would happen if you took too much gum,' he said. `Nightmares, hallucinations, delusions. Total mental and physical deterioration. You must have seen it happen to others.'
`I was a morphine addict on Earth!' Göring cried. `I struggled with it, and I won out for a long time. Then, when things began to go badly for the Third Reich – and even worse for myself – when Hitler began picking on me, I started taking drugs again!' He paused, then continued, `But here, when I woke up to a new life, in a young body, when it looked as if I had an eternity of life and youth ahead of me, when there was no stern God in Heaven or Devil in Hell to stop me, I thought I could do exactly as I pleased and get away with it. I would become even greater than the Fuehrer! That little country in which you first found me was to be only the beginning! I could see my empire stretching for thousands of miles up and down The River, on both sides of the valley. I would have been the ruler of ten times the subjects that Hitler ever dreamed of!' He began weeping again, then paused to take another drink of water, then put a piece of the dreamgum in his mouth. He chewed, his face becoming more relaxed and blissful with each second.
Göring said, `I kept having nightmares of you plunging the spear into my belly. When I woke up, my belly would hurt as if a flint had gone into my guts. So I'd take gum to remove the hurt and the humiliation. At first, the gum helped. I was great. I was master of the world, Hitler, Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Alexander, Genghis Khan, all rolled into one. I was chief again of Von Richthofen's Red Death Squadron; those were happy days, the happiest of my life in many ways. But the euphoria soon gave way to hideousness. I plunged into hell; I saw myself accusing myself and behind the accuser a million others. Not myself but the victims of that great and glorious hero, that obscene madman Hitler, whom I worshipped so. And in whose name I committed so many crimes.'
`You admit you were a criminal?' Burton said. `That's a story different than the one you used to give me. Then you said you were justified in all you did, and you were betrayed by the. . .' He stopped, realizing that he had been sidetracked from his original purpose. `That you should be haunted with the specter of a conscience is rather incredible. But perhaps that explains what has puzzled the puritans – why liquor, tobacco, marihuana, and dreamgum were offered in the grails along with food. At least, dreamgum seems to be a gift booby-trapped with danger to those who abuse it.' He stepped closer to Göring: The German's eyes were half-closed, and his jaw hung open.
`You know my identity. I am traveling under a pseudonym, with good reason. You remember Spruce, one of your slaves? After you were killed, he was revealed, quite by accident, as one of those who somehow resurrected all the dead of humanity. Those we call the Ethicals, for lack of a better term. Göring, are you listening?' Göring nodded.
`Spruce killed himself before we could get out of him all we wanted to know. Later, some of his compatriots came to our area and temporarily put everybody to sleep – probably with a gas intending to take me away to wherever Their headquarters are. But They missed me. I was off on a trading trip up The River. When I returned, I realized They were after me, and I've been running ever since. Göring, do you hear me?' Burton slapped him savagely on his cheek. Göring said, 'Ach!' and jumped back and held the side of his face. His eyes were open, and he was grimacing.
`I heard you!' he snarled. `It just didn't seem worthwhile to answer back. Nothing seemed worthwhile, nothing except floating away, far from. . .'
`Shut up and listen!' Burton said. `The Ethicals have men everywhere looking for me. I can't afford to have you alive, do you realize that? I can't trust you. Even if you were a friend, you couldn't be trusted. You're a gummer'
Göring giggled, stepped up to Burton and tried to put his arms around Burton's neck. Burton pushed him back so hard that he staggered up against the table and only kept from falling by clutching its edges.
`This is very amusing,' Göring said. `The day I got here, a man asked me if I'd seen you. He described you in detail and gave your name. I told him I knew you well – too well, and that I hoped I'd never see you again, not unless I had you in my power, that is. He said I should notify him if I saw you again. He'd make it worth my while.' Burton wasted no time. He strode up to Göring and seized him with both hands. They were small and delicate, but Göring winced with pain.
He said, `What're you going to do, kill me again?'
`Not if you tell me the name of the man who asked you about me. Otherwise. . .'
`Go ahead and kill me!' Göring said. `So what? I'll wake up somewhere else, thousands of miles from here, far out of your reach.' Burton pointed at a bamboo box in a corner of the hut. Guessing that it held Göring's supply of gum, he said, `And you'd also wake up without that! Where else could you get so much on such short notice?'
'Damn you!' Göring shouted, and tried to tear himself loose to get to the box.
`Tell me his name!' Burton said. `Or I'll take the gum and throw it in The River!'
`Agneau. Roger Agneau. He sleeps in a hut just outside the Roundhouse.'
`I'll deal with you later,' Burton said, and chopped Göring on the side of the neck with the edge of his palm.
He turned, and he saw a man crouching outside the entrance to the hut. The man straightened up and was off. Burton ran out after him; in a minute both were in the tall pines and oaks of the hills. His quarry disappeared in the waist-high grass.
Burton slowed to a trot, caught sight of a patch of white starlight on bare skin – and was after the fellow. He hoped that the Ethical would not kill himself at once, because he had a plan for extracting information if he could knock him out at once. It involved hypnosis, but he would have to catch the Ethical first. It was possible that the man had some sort of wireless imbedded in his body and was even now in communication with his compatriots – wherever They were. If so, They would come in Their flying machines, and he would be lost.
He stopped. He had lost his quarry and the only thing to do now was to lose Alice and the others and run. Perhaps this time they should take to the mountains and hide there for a while.
But first he would go to Agneau's hut. There was little chance that Agneau would be there, but it was certainly worth the effort to make sure.
Chapter 21
* * *
Burton arrived within sight of the hut just in time to glimpse the back of a man entering it. Burton circled to come up from the side where the darkness of the hills and the trees scattered along the plain gave him so
me concealment. Crouching, he ran until he was at the door to the hut.
He heard a loud cry some distance behind him and whirled to see Göring staggering toward him. He was crying out in German to Agneau, warning him that Burton was just outside. In one hand he held a long spear which he brandished at the Englishman.
Burton turned and hurled himself against the flimsy bamboo-slat door. His shoulder drove into it and broke it from its wooden hinges. The door flew inward and struck Agneau, who had been standing just behind it. Burton; the door, and Agneau fell to the floor with Agneau under the door.
Burton rolled off the door, got up, and jumped again with both bare feet on the wood. Agneau screamed and then became silent. Burton heaved the door to one side to find his quarry unconscious and bleeding from the nose. Good! Now if the noise didn't bring the watch and if he could deal quickly enough with Göring, he could carry out his plan.
He looked up just in time to see the starlight on the long black object hurtling at him.
He threw himself to one side, and the spear plunged into the dirt floor with a thump. Its shaft vibrated like a rattlesnake preparing to strike.
Burton stepped into the doorway, estimated Göring's distance, and charged. His assegai plunged into the belly of the German. Göring threw his hands up in the air, screamed, and fell on his side. Burton hoisted Agneau's limp body on his shoulder and carried him out of the hut.
By then there were shouts from the Roundhouse. Torches were flaring up; the sentinel on the nearest watchtower was bellowing. Göring was sitting on the ground, bent over, clutching the shaft close to the wound.
He looked gape-mouthed at Burton and said, `You did it again! You. . .' He fell over on his face, the death rattle in his throat.
Agneau returned to a frenzied consciousness. He twisted himself out of Burton's grip and fell to the ground. Unlike Göring, he made no noise. He had as much reason to be silent as Burton – more perhaps. Burton was so surprised that he was left standing with the fellow's loin-towel clutched in his hand. Burton started to throw it down but felt something stiff and square within the lining of the towel. He transferred the cloth to his left hand, yanked the assegai from the corpse, and ran after Agneau.