The monster peered out, mocking Elizabeth. “Amerie couldn’t prove to me that there was a God. Or if there was, that he cared about us. Can you prove it?”
“There are rational proofs for a First Cause and an Omega, for the Father and Son. Empirical proofs for the Love that we call the Holy Spirit. But I never knew a single being who attained faith through the proofs. Mostly, they seem to be used after the fact of conversion . . . as reassurances.”
“To plaster over your doubts, you mean!”
“To shore up our weakness. But the need has to come first, I think. That seems to be the only real proof. The need for love.”
“Amerie said something like that to me once. I wanted to believe in a God then. I needed his help. Perhaps he existed then, for me. Now he doesn’t. There is no God and there are no devils and you are nothing but a dream of mine! There! Now you know what I think.”
“Felice—”
“Does it make a difference? That I don’t believe any of you exist? Can you still heal me?”
“I’m confident that I can.”
The monster’s grin bloomed like a poisonous flower. “I wonder if your God would approve of your great confidence! If you bite off more than you can chew, you’ll pay the price. And a lot of other people might, too.”
Elizabeth stood up, her mind still open. “Make your choice now, Felice. Agree to the healing—or leave and never come back.”
The diabolical smile faded. There came the old fear, and the still older need that had never been fulfilled. Poor tormented infant, accepting hurt in place of love, filth as substitute beauty, death’s oblivion rather than agonized life.
“Well?” said Elizabeth.
“I’ll stay with you,” the girl whispered.
Her wall tumbled down. A naked thing looked at Elizabeth and waited.
4
SOMETIMES, AIKEN DECIDED, BEING A KING WAS A CROCK OF shit.
He was wide-awake at three in the morning, glumly watching the lawny owls chase mice around the ramparts and balconies of the Castle of Glass. The house lights were off. He’d had to decree a blackout once a week in order to give the feathered hunters a clear field in their war on the rodents, who throve as a result of his courtiers’ penchant for alfresco dining.
It had been a frustrating day. Celadeyr of Afaliah had taken great exception to Aiken’s master plan for the raid on Felice’s lair. He objected to having to supply all the chalikos for the campaign, and he wanted the rendezvous to be in his own city rather than at the Gulf of Guadalquivir. He had given in with very bad grace when Aiken asserted his royal authority.
Then Yosh Walanabe told him that the new shipment of bamboo was hopeless for fighting-kite bones. The stuff was too weak for use in the big man-carrying o-dako, and too brittle for the smaller rokkaku. It was back to the drawing board (and the swamp) if they hoped to have a kite-fighting event in the Grand Tourney this fall.
Then came news that the damn barenecks had mutinied in the main candy factory down in Rocilan. Aiken sent Alberonn to check it out and it was discovered that a cadre of Aiken’s jumped-up gold-torcs (the ones without any significant latencies) had been running a scam, forcing production to unnaturally high levels by overworking the bares and ramas, then selling surplus goodies on the Lowlife black market. The golds had been promptly snuffed and the harried workers given a revised quota. But Aiken brooded over how much more ripping off his dubious recruits might be into, and he finally decided to recall the entire elite guard back to Goriah where he could keep it under his coercive thumb, rather than spreading it out. It would leave some city garrisons dangerously undermanned, but that would happen anyway once he got the Spanish campaign off the ground.
Then there was Bardelask. The Famorel Little People were closing in, polishing off the outlying Valentinois plantations one by one. Lady Armida was running scared (with good reason), demanding that the sovereign lead a relief force to put the fear of Tana into old Mimee and his gang.
Aiken couldn’t do it, of course. Not with all his big guns mobilizing for the move into Koneyn. Poor Bardelask was expendable, even though he didn’t dare admit it to Armida. The principal strategic objective was the photonic Spear and the cache of golden torcs that Felice had squirreled away. Anyday now, Elizabeth would wind up her redact job and turn the monster loose. (Aiken’s spy in Black Crag estimated that the brain overhaul would take another two weeks—but who could risk it?) He had to raid the treasure-cave before Felice emerged from the room without doors and then, following Cullukel’s plan, ambush her before she added it all up.
Then a newly arrived Lowlife from the Vosges region reported that some kind of Free Human expedition was in the offing. There were also rumors that the outlaws would soon have other weapons besides the iron.
And Sullivan-Tonn “respectfully requested” that he and Olone be allowed to move to Afaliah, and Olone defied her husband right to his face, calling him a jealous old cheese-pecker all the while giving Aiken the eye. (The request was taken under advisement.)
As a result of all the demands made on him during the day, Aiken had been late to supper. The roast swan dried out and the soufflé fell.
And for the fifth night in a row. Mercy had merely submitted, unaroused, and blamed it on “fey influences” abroad in the May night.
This last, unaccountably, had troubled Aiken most of all. He himself had felt the presence of some uncanny mental substratum; but inexperienced as he was in the nuances of farsensing, he could not even confirm its existence, much less identify it or trace its source. He had appealed to Culluket, but the Interrogator detected nothing. Whatever the emanation was, it seemed closely directed along the uniquely human mode.
After Mercy fell asleep, when he was coldly alert and unsexed, he finally worked up the nerve to check out one of his most insidious suspicions: that she herself was the source of the metapsychic disturbance. While she lay there among the satin sheets, he carefully fashioned a soft mind-probe, supposedly indetectable, that could be merged with his great coercive faculty and used to winkle out secrets. The Interrogator had been training him in its operation over the past several months, and he had used it successfully on other humans—notably the potentially traitorous Sullivan. But Aiken had never yet dared to use it on his wife. Redaction was his shakiest power, and if she caught him . . .
In her sleep. Mercy smiled. A pang of fury shot through him. It had to be! There was no other explanation. No other way to explain why she was no longer afraid of him—and thus, no longer responsive.
The probe had slid easily into her, oblique and wheedling:
Are you happy Mercy my love?
So happy.
And why are you happy?
I have my child and I have my sweet acushla.
And who is he?
Who else but my own true lover?
(But no image, damn her!) Look upon your lover dear Mercy and tell me what you see.
I see the new sun rising beyond the inland sea.
(Sun!) Do you hear his voice?
I hear it now.
(But she could be talking about Me!) What is his name Mercy my love?
His name is Joy. Brightness Culmination.
Where is he woman where is he WHO is he?
Oh . . . oh . . . halfway betwixt Var-Mesk and hell alas don’t go Love don’t risk the Monster wait for me to help wait . . .
Jesus!
He whisked his coercive effort from her cortex to the stem reticulum until her frenzied movements calmed and her breath became slow and regular and there was no risk that she might awaken. But something at her deepest mental level was now aware. It had not recognized him as the intruder, but it knew that there was danger. Aiken waited, but the crystal of cognizance continued to glow. Finally he had to withdraw with the utmost caution. He waited awhile, then climbed out of bed, put on a robe, and retired to the balcony to think.
Every one of those replies Mercy had given could be applied to himself, as well as to the other. Only
the fleeting reference to Var-Mesk was puzzling. (Unless you classed the entire bloody Q&A as an enigmatic totality.) Mind-probes! What a rotten, cowardly thing to do—grubbing around inside the brain of the woman he loved, looking for an excuse to set her up.
Yes, set her up.
Yes, the woman he loved.
“Never again,” he vowed. “No matter what I suspect about her. If it’s true after all, and he’s back. I’ll find out soon enough. But not by probing Mercy.”
He stood at the parapet watching the owls and listening to the surf from the Strait of Redon lash the distant seawall. How true it was: Being a king could be hell.
He went switch-off, stopped thinking, let his racing mind go flaccid inside the snug screens of his own weaving and the artificial mental shield of the psychoelectronic device he now wore constantly. Downhearted, tinged with vagrant dread, he floated . . .
And heard it.
A farspoken voice, faint but distinct on his intimate mode in spite of the stacked barricade:
Aiken Drum. Greetings at last. You’ve been a hard nut to crack, you know. Don’t be afraid. We’ve been trying to bespeak you for nearly a week now—with a good deal of untidy slop-over on the European end unfortunately. It must have been very uncomfortable for those around you.
“Who the fuck is that?” Aiken whispered.
Laughter. Easy, lad, easy. Trace the thought-beam.. Can you do that? Right. Way to hell and gone across the Atlantic. Nowhere near you or your Many-Colored Kingdom. Only me speaking to you now. not the others. And no threat to you. Just the opposite, actually.
“Identify yourself,” he said between gritted teeth, straining to penetrate the dark distance, “or I’ll phase in the sigma!”
You have one of those available? Interesting. But I’d still get through. Your own metapsychic wall is much more formidable than any contrivance, you know. Very effective, for an uncoadunate amateur. That’s why we had such difficulty reaching you in the first place. But it never would have done for us to hail you on the ordinary declamatory mode. What we have to discuss is for your mind alone.
“Show yourself, dammit!”
Very well.
An image: massive, shining and metallic, roughly humanoid in shape, artifact of high technology. Space armor? Radiation shielding? Extremity life-support equipment? Superimposed was the man’s face, ruggedly handsome; cleft chin and wide mouth, sunken eyes with winged brows, fine aquiline nose, curly hair going gray. He said:
We’ll help you get the Spear and the cache of golden torcs.
“The hell you say!” Aiken’s heart soared at the same time that he was frozen with alarm. Who was he?
“You mean, you know the exact location of Felice’s hideout in the Betics?”
Yes. We can make a deal.
The trickster’s natural craftiness reasserted itself. “Oh, yeah?”
Three of my people are in Europe already. You have nothing to fear from them. Metapsychically, they’re much weaker than you [Images.] We know of your preparations to invade Spain before Felice comes out of the room without doors, your hope of finding and repairing the photonic Spear and then using it against her before she can retaliate.
“It’s my Spear, dammit, and the torcs are my property, too! I won’t blast Felice if she listens to reason after Elizabeth finishes her psychic overhaul job.”
So you think a sane Felice equates with a benign one, do you?
“Fat chance,” he admitted “Get on with your pitch.”
Your scouts have not been able to pinpoint the location of Felice’s hoard. To prove my good will, I will tell you that the eyrie is on the northern flank of Mount Mulhacén, about 430 kilometers southwest of Afaliah.
“No map image?” Aiken remarked snidely “It’s a big mountain.”
My people will meet your forces here [image] in the foothills of the Betics, along the Río Genil, and lead you directly to the cave. Be there one week from today.
Aiken gave a scornful chortle. “Better still, let your guys pick up the Spear and the torcs and bring ’em to me here in Goriah!”
They are incapable of levitation and have no ground vehicles. Also, there is the inevitable mortal hazard, should Felice return prematurely. As you are no doubt aware.
“Don’t get cute with me,” Aiken said quietly. “Suppose you tell me what’s in this for you, Mr. Ironass. And who are you anyhow? That damn lobster shell you got on, how do I know you’re human at all?”
I’m as human as you are. The equipment . . . allows me to exert my farsenses beyond normal metapsychic parameters. For example, the penetration of your multiphase barrier.
Aiken’s mental eye studied the now faceless mechanism. “It seems to me that I’ve seen pictures of rigs like yours. A long time ago, in some schoolbooks I should have paid more attention to. Metapsychic Grand Masters use life-support equipment like that in the Milieu when they’re into really heavy mindwork. And I don’t just mean farsensing.” Abruptly, he changed the subject. “This deal of yours. I suppose it would involve share and share alike from now on in Europe.”
Not at all. If I had wanted the Many-Colored Land, ! could have taken it years ago. You need have no fear that I covet your little realm. Aiken Drum. Ruling a few thousand barbarians as a quasi-feudal overlord isn’t exactly my style.
“Neither is diplomacy, sweetheart!”
Touché, Your Majesty . . . But I still maintain that this planet is quite large enough for both of us. My needs are modest and unlikely to affect your ambitions in the least. Unless you become tempted to aspire beyond Pliocene Europe.
“Spell out the arrangement.”
It will take a good deal of explanation, including some rather ancient history. And some of the governing factors haven’t matured yet. I would prefer to postpone discussing my side of the reciprocity until you’ve dealt successfully with Felice. For now, I offer you the knowledge possessed by my three associates, plus their full metapsychic cooperation in your raid. Their minds are stronger than those of your Tanu allies, but still susceptible to your coercive control within the metaconcert you and Culluket have devised.
“So you know about that, too! How do I know you aren’t really counting on Felice’s blasting me—putting me out of the picture so I won’t be able to queer your own scheme later?”
Felice represents a much greater threat to my designs than you.
“Ha! So you don’t have enough watts to put her down yourself! Not even operating through that wizard rig of yours!”
No. Felice is one of those wild factors I mentioned. She is a menace to both our ambitions.
Aiken hesitated. The unknown operant in North America was making uncomfortable sense, but the lingering suspicion remained, together with Aiken’s own deeper doubts on the ability of his amateur metaconcert network to stop Felice in a direct confrontation.
“I’m going to show you something,” Aiken decided, allowing a diagram to form. “These are the minds I’ve got to work with. And this is the orchestration Cull and I worked out for a three-barreled coercive-creative-PK assault with me doing the focus and him monitoring the penetration. You seem to know Felice a hell of a lot better than I do. So . . . how about it? Given the fact that she’ll probably come up sane, be more in control of her faculties, would we have any chance of stopping her?”
There was a silence. The armored image faded, leaving Aiken alone on the balcony, the chill wind blowing up his robe and making his golden balls retract with a sense of keen foreboding. Then:
Your original plan was to avoid confronting Felice at all costs. You hoped to secure the photonic Spear, repair it, and poise yourself at a high altitude above Black Crag in order to burn her as she exited the room without doors.
“Right. But that scheme was contingent on finding her lair in the Betics before Elizabeth finished her redact. We still might pull that one off. But what’re the odds if Felice catches us flatfooted?”
I lack complete data. But it seems likely that even with the hel
p of my three people, Felice would be able to destroy you if she got within two kilometers of your assault team. The metaconcert matrix that your friend the Interrogator taught you is highly inefficient. In true synergy, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
“What’s our coefficient?” Aiken inquired grimly.
Only about point-four-six.
“Could you teach me how to jack up the output? In a week?”
Laughter rang in Aiken’s brain. He saw again the human face of the unknown, and his neurons tasted appreciation by another who shared a certain sense of bravado. “Well, could you?” yelled the shivering little man. (And is it possible you are who I think you are?)
I could design such a program and impart it to you. Its use, however, would involve inherent perils, even for a raw natural talent such as yourself. Ideally, the metaconcert should involve my own operants as well as your forced subjects. The pair of us would contribute to the input, and one of us would filter and provide impetus while the other handled executive focus.
“I do that. I control it.”
Channelizing that amount of psychoenergy barebrained could prove fatal. I don’t know your capacity.
“Culluket does. He could monitor the transfer. And cut me off as well if you tried to go primary and zap me instead of Felice!”
Laughter. Sobriety. The equipment I use protects me from being annihilated by my own metapsychic power. You coutd never handle my full potential . . . but less may not suffice for Felice.
“On the other hand, it might! Right?”
Silence.
“Right?” demanded the Nonborn King.
Do you know what psychocreative feedback is? [Image.] In this more sophisticated form of metaconcert, there is danger to all the participants if the focusing agent is inadvertently overwhelmed—as could happen if your concentration failed at a crucial moment.
Aiken chuckled. “I see. The director cashes in, there’s a good chance the rest of the grunts in the orchestra do, too. But if the monitor does his stuff, the danger’s minimized for you. Right? If Felice reflects the psychozap back on me. I get snuffed—but Cull’s linkage snaps for a fail-safe and the rest of you can pull out under a synergistic umbrella. Isn’t that the way it would work, Mr Paramount Grand Master? Isn’t that the way it worked when your brother and his wife put down your Rebellion?”