A good fight,” the man with the staff said in a tone calculated to suggest he had seen a dozen such. Hao Sen made no reply; his heart was hammering too violently. All his plans had gone to nothing now. He was utterly vulnerable.
His only hope was to try and maintain the fiction that his guise was merely the effect of the creation of a schizoid secondary personality in the general run of the fantasy. He spat in the dust, rubbed his hands together, and went over to the dragon to draw his sword from its belly.
A glance showed him it was useless; the hilt was bent at right angles to the blade. Cursing, lie he made to toss it aside.
“Wait!” said the man on the temple steps in a commanding tone. “A sword that has taken the life of a dragon is not a weapon to discard so lightly. Give it here.”
Reluctantly Hao Sen complied. The man took it and examined it carefully; then, muttering something Hao Sen could not catch—a charm, presumably—he made a ring of his thumb and first finger, which he ran the length of the staff he carried. He kept the ring closed while he put the staff in the crook of his elbow and grasped the sword hilt with his free hand. Then he passed the ring down the blade.
The blood curdled and fell away, leaving the metal bright. When he reached the point where it was bent, it first quivered and then sprang to straightness, singing.
“I am the wizard Chu Lao,” said the tall man in an offhand voice. “Here, take your sword!”
And the second after, he was gone.
Bleakly Hao Sen considered the facts as they presented themselves. They made a depressing total.
It was clear that for all his careful preparations he had made one hidden and potentially fatal assumption: that he was dealing with an opponent like his other opponents. He was not. He was up against a man capable of taking just such thorough precautions in the elaboration of his fantasies as in any other department of his existence. The patch of mildew on the flank of the dragon should have been warning enough. Detail like that was almost inconceivable unless it was a product of Hao Sen’s reaction with his environment, or the dragon was a schizoid secondary, not a construct.
He’d used that trick himself often enough; he had been planning to use it again when he conceived the camel Starlight. And whether by guesswork or foresight, he’d had that gun spiked at once.
So the dragon had been a schizoid secondary, with its own “real” personality. And the master of Tiger City was not the Emperor, luxuriating in pomp and adulation. He was Chu Lao, the wizard.
Wizard! He shivered. No wonder the very first breaths of this fantasy had borne to him suggestion of magic!
True, he remembered previous occasions on which there had been magic incorporated into a world-picture. But then he had found it to be mere childish grandiosity, hastily cobbled together and lacking coherence. The magic practiced by Chu Lao, on the other hand, would be consistent, rigorous, governed by carefully worked-out laws; it would be as rigid and inflexible as science. And Chu Lao knew those laws. Hao Sen didn’t
He abandoned his original plans completely. Not for him now the subtle undermining, the fencing for a chance to seize control, which had been his favorite technique in the past. To use the weapons forged by his enemy and fight on ground chosen by him—that was a certain path to exhaustion and defeat. He looked over the sword the magician had mended for him, his thoughts grim.
At all costs he must avoid defeat. To be beaten once would be -an irrevocable sentence of doom.
Yet somehow he must still work within the pattern set by his opponent; to disturb the basic hypotheses too drastically would give a chance for the mental rapport to be broken, and he might find himself wandering in a fantasy world of his own creation, in which he was deluded into believing he had actually succeeded, whereas all the opposition he had overcome consisted in straw men. …
He reached his decision. Brute force was the only chance he now had. Then let it be by force.
They came down from the hills, purposefully, in ordered ranks: no barbarian rabble, these bandits, but an army welded together by discipline into a single efficient machine. When they were still miles from Tiger City, the glint of morning sun on their shields and helmets caught the attention of the city guards, and at once there was a great running to and fro on the ramparts.
Riding easily on his camel at the head of his army, Hao Sen grinned into his beard. His long pike with its cruel head was couched in its rest, alongside Starlight’s stately neck; his sword tapped lightly on his thigh.
Let them fuss and flurry! It would do them little good. What he had in store was enough to shake everyone in Tiger City up to and including the arrogant Chu Lao.
For more than an hour the bandits tramped down from the hills, silent except for the banging of gongs which marked the step. They made no attempt to come within bowshot of the city, but followed the circumference of a circle and surrounded it. Pack animals laden with brushwood, wagons with dismantled siege-engines, and great store of food added up to an obvious conclusion: they were determined to besiege the city before the Emperor could equip his army and provide adequate forage for his planned campaign against them.
Pleased, Hao Sen studied his work. He had chosen a comparatively minor post for himself, at the head of a detachment of camel cavalry, and the apparent chief of the bandits enjoyed all the luxuries a horde such as this could afford: a huge traveling yurt gorgeous with fine furs and pieces of stained Turkey carpet, on a four-wheeled wagon drawn by ten oxen. Around the wagon buzzed a continual swarm of officers, messengers and slaves.
The army halted. On the ramparts of the city were visible the leaders of the defending force. After a while, these collected on the balcony over the main gate, opposite which the chief’s wagon had taken station.
A herald went down to begin the formal preliminaries by demanding the surrender of the city without resistance. The answer was dignified but negative. It was followed by a shower of arrows, and the herald rode hastily back to his lines.
Fair enough. Hao Sen watched the defenders duck as the fire was returned. Then there was an interval punctuated only by desultory shots while messengers brought in information about the defenses.
It seemed that the main gate was the only vulnerable spot. Accordingly, the bowmen kept the heads of the defenders down while loads of brushwood and pots of pitch were dragged toward the heavy wooden doors closing it. Several men fell, but the job was well under way when it was abruptly abandoned. The attackers drew back, and the surprised defenders took stock of the situation. Cautiously they peered out from behind the black-and-yellow tiger’s-head shields to see what had changed the minds of the bandits.
The answer was soon apparent. The sky was clouding over rapidly, and a few drops of rain were spitting down already. No fire fierce enough to harm the gate could survive such a downpour as was threatening.
Hao Sen stared narrow-eyed toward the balcony over the gate. Surely that was—yes, indeed! There was the wizard Chu Lao, in a dark cloak that almost blended with the stone wall behind him, staring up toward the oncoming clouds. His magic was being called on to defend the city, and so far it looked as though he had the upper hand.
Hao Sen gave another wolfish grin, and the attackers leaped into action.
The furs and gaudy hangings on the “chiefs wagon” were snatched aside, revealing that they covered only a light bamboo frame with enough space for a man to enter, wait as if talking to the chief, and turn around to leave aaainagain. Apart from that, the whole wagon was an incendiary machine, full of tinder, pitch and jars of oil.
Now they whipped the only pair of oxen which had not been unharnessed. The startled beasts bellowed and leaned on the traces; the wagon rolled. After ten yards men dashed in with swords and slashed the oxen free, and the wagon continued by itself down the sloping road to the gate, its wooden wheels rumbling.
Hao Sen waited tensely. The defenders had seen what was happening, and were scrambling frantically to get off the balcony over the gate.
Another ten yards …
The fire-arrows went whizzing after the wagon; the second and third struck fair on oil-soaked rags at the back of the inflammable pile, and flames soared twenty feet, crowned with licking black thunderheads of smoke. The wagon slammed into the gate with a crunch of collapsing boards, and at once there was an inferno.
So far, so good. But had Chu Lao been taken unawares?
Apparently not, for the rain came streaming down after only a few minutes’ hesitation. As the smoke and flames died, it- could be seen that a wide gash had opened in the gate. Another incendiary wagon was being readied at the head of the slope to follow the first when the gate was hurled open and the defenders charged out in force.
This was such an illogical act that Hao Sen was startled. Tiger City’s best strategy would clearly be to wear the attackers down—or so he had thought. For a moment he questioned his own planning; then the city guards, both mounted and on foot, were streaming forward with yells and much brandishing of swords, and there was no time to wonder about second-best courses of action. ^
The fighting spread by degrees all around the city. It was tough work. After a while Hao Sen spotted a large silken banner being borne forward from the gate, and he dismissed his own command into the charge of a junior officer whom he suspected of being one of his schizoid secondaries. That banner was embroidered with a tiger, and must belong to the Emperor.
No! Wait!
Sudden insight, as blinding as lightning, pierced the gray, sober mood of Hao Sen’s mind. The tiger banner couldn’t be the Emperor’s; the imperial symbol was the dragon, the most powerful of all beasts. So the tiger would be reserved to Chu Lao, the wizard, because this was his city —Tiger City—and magic operated here according to strict rules, of which he had seen an example when Chu Lao repaired his sword and told him that a weapon that had killed a dragon “was worth keeping. …
And the tiger was only the second most powerful beast!
Hao Sen urged Starlight forward, his mind racing, trying to beat his path to the spot where the tiger-gaudy banner was set up.
There was a violent melee all around it, so it was a while before he could reach a spot from where he could see if indeed Chu Lao had come out to supervise the battle. Three times he had to use his pike to spit a construct soldier, and the third time he lost his grasp on it; shocked, because that implied he was much more tired than he had believed, he took a firm grip on himself as well as his sword.
At the same moment he saw the wizard under his banner, and the wizard saw him. Instantly, guards formed to block his path. Hoping that Chu Lao’s attention was distracted, he hurled himself sideways from his saddle, and Starlight rose on her hind legs, kicking furiously. The guards went flying.
The camel afforded only an instant’s respite, though. She was slashed across the forelegs the moment she touched ground with them. Hao Sen ignored her dying wails and fought onward, his sword sweeping an arc of death. Twice glancing blows made his helmet ring; twice he felt his sword-point slow and then free itself in a manner that meant it had cut clean through flesh. A dismembered arm seemed for one wild moment to be trying to catch hold of him by the beard.
Then he was through, and into the circle of enchanted ground surrounding the wizard.
“Chu Lao!” he shouted. “Chu Lao!”
The wizard, astonished, gazed at him—and yef yet that wasn’t only astonishment. There was … sardonic amusement. …
Hao Sen rushed on “Chu Lao, I name your city!”
All over the battlefield men seemed to lose heart for the fight. As though struck by a premonition, Chu Lao wavered.
“The city is Tiger City! That tiger is your city! And the tiger is less powerful than the dragon!”
How it happened could not be seen, but where the city had stood was a green-eyed striped cat, crouching and snarling, its claws unsheathed and huge beyond imagining.
“My tiger!” cried Chu Lao. “Yes, that is my tiger!”
“And this sword has drunk a dragon’s blood!” Hao Sen shouted. “This sword is my dragon!”
He whirled the blade once around his head and flung it sparkling into the air; as it twisted, it changed, and as it fell, it fell on four gigantic taloned feet. It raised its spiny head and waved its monstrous tail. Its open jaws roared defiance at the tiger.
It reared up. It slashed, and its talons added stripes of blood to the tiger’s hide. It bit, and rivers of blood stained the earth. Vainly the tiger clawed at its impenetrable scales. It had no chance. In moments it was struck down, with a thud to shake the world. Everything was riven apart, and with it Hao Sen.
For an instant he saw the rival armies, the gory ground, the dead and dying, and—
And it was over and he was Howson, not Hao Sen, and he was full of a nameless terror because of the way he had won.
XXxx
He stood at the end of the bed where they had put Choong to recover, waiting for him to wake up. Meantime, he had no refuge from his thoughts.
I think that Miss Moreno knew; at any rate, she left so quickly, before I’d slept off my exhaustion. … And Pan knows, but I can trust him after the times we’ve worked together.
Pandit Singh, of course, had no inkling of the terrible truth which had come to Howson. He was going around radiating paternal pride, and all the UN people—Lock- speiser and Ho and everybody—were feeling apologetic for doubting him in the first place, and Howson felt mainly a dull ache.
His triumph had been a sham. The whole business had been set up like tenpins for him, and he had been given an unlimited number of balls.
And here was Choong, who had treated him like a plaything, who was happily married and physically whole, and the world was so grossly unjust he didn’t know how long he could 5tand stand it.
Choong stirred, and it was as though a gigantic light had been switched on in the room; everything stood out in bright three-dimensional forms compared to which there had been gray dusk. That was his perception waking up. Only another telepathist would have realized there was a difference.
His eyes opened. There was a moment of blankness. Then:
I seem to know you …?
“Yes, you know me. Gerald Howson.” Deliberately he used words; he was shutting down every batten he could over his raging mind. “You’ve made a fool of me, haven’t you? Well, I want to know why!”
There was another blank moment, during which Choong ordered his thoughts with a swiftness which impressed Howson despite his preconceived anger.
“So you handled my … ah … case,” Choong said, and gave a wry smile. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have thought it necessary to bother you, of all people. A comparative novice should have been assigned to me. I thought I’d made it pretty clear that I wasn’t on the run, and would be willing to be brought back.”
Howson almost choked before he could reply; when he did, it was with such a blaze of fury that he used projection instead of words.
How can you be so casually selfish? Don’t you care about the worry and trouble you’ve caused? Don’t you care about the annoyance to me personally? What about the time I wasted—time I could have given to somebody in real need?
Choong cried out and put his hand to his head. The door of the room slammed back and a nurse looked in to ask what was wrong. Recovering, Choong waved her away, and with a suspicious glance at Howson she complied.
“You have some power on you!” Choong said. “Do you mind sticking to speech? My mind feels rather … ah … bruised from your earlier shock tactics.”
Howson remained sullenly mute.
“Did it honestly not occur to you that I wouldn’t resist?” Choong pursued. “Yes, I see it was so, right up till the last moment! I find that astonishing, if you’ll forgive my saying so. You must have jumped to the conclusion that the only reason a telepathist could wish to set up a catapathic grouping was to escape; it never struck you that I might simply wish to exercise my talent for its own rewarding sake!”
“Don’t gloat,” Howson mutte
red. “I know I could never have dragged you back if you hadn’t cooperated.”
“No, I think you’re missing the point.” Choong activated the headboard of the bed and got himself into a more comfortable position from which to look at How- son. “Damn it, Howson, you wouldn’t blame a man with physical gifts for enjoying himself at sports. Yet it seems to me that you have a block against the idea that telepathy can be used for pleasure. Why? You have a fabulous talent! And I’m by no means sure you wouldn’t have got me back even if I had resisted; the sudden final inspiration was brilliant, and took me absolutely by surprise. Don’t you ever get any fun out of your gift? For instance, my wife and I usually link up before we go to sleep; I dream much more vividly than she does, and I like her to share my dreams.”
“I’m not married,” Howson said in a tight voice. Choong flashed an impolite glance into his mind, briefly vulnerable from the strength of his emotion. When he spoke again, it was with a change of manner.
“I’m sorry. That was tactless of me. But—”
“I …” Howson felt a stir of puzzlement. Why should he need to justify himself suddenly to this man who had put him to such trouble? But he did. Haltingly, he went on, “I’ve done that sort of thing. With a deaf-and-dumb girl I knew.”
“Well, then! And you must enjoy your work to some extent. If for no other reason than that it makes a change to be a tough, resilient character capable of great physical effort.”
“I … yes, I do. I’m sometimes afraid of taking longer than necessary over a cure so that I can escape my limitations.” Howson licked his lips.
“That sounds dangerous,” Choong said judiciously. “My belief is that if you allowed yourself to derive more pleasure from your talent, you wouldn’t be tempted to … ah … borrow other people’s fantasies.”
“What are you suggesting?” Howson demanded. “That I set up a catapathic grouping myself? How could I dare to? Even if I accepted your casual attitude toward them!” Vargas, and dust on his eyelids … “I wouldn’t have much incentive to come back to reality, would I? And whom could I trust to bring me back? I’ve demolished all the tricks and weak points. On top of that, if someone did manage to fetch me back, what would happen to my confidence in my own ability?”