Dominion, Fred Saberhagen [uplifting book club books TXT] 📗

path had no choice but to immediately angle up the bluff. The first tall trees closed in around it, and as soon as he entered shade the first mosquito whined in Simon’s ear. Good thing he’d remembered to have them both use repellent. He led the way on up, with Marge following in the narrow path.

   Here what was left of the trail became somewhat more visible. Along most of its course the path was not as steep as the slope it climbed; it looped its way upward in sharp switchbacks with long legs of gentle ascent in between. At the second switchback Simon paused briefly to look down. Through a fragmentary screen of branches he could see that their guide had changed his position slightly, to sit now with his feet in the cooling water, his dark head bowed over the white pages of the book.

   “He’s going to talk to people, isn’t he?” murmured Margie, who had come to a halt at Simon’s side. “About ferrying us over here.”

   “I suppose he will. But not until the show’s over, I hope. I can promise him another five, and five for his sister, if they’ll keep quiet about it until tomorrow at least.”

   “Last of the big spenders,” Margie murmured.

   Simon winked at her, and, turning, climbed on. The path now ran through the full thickness of the woods. The tall tree trunks were not quite vertical, compromising with gravity and the steep angle of the land. After twenty yards or so, at the next switchback, Simon paused again, this time looking up. He took Marge by the arm and pointed. Now, indistinctly through a haze of summer growth, they had their first partial glimpse of the castle itself. Its gray stone walls, magnified ominously by their position, towered almost directly above them.

   “It’s huge!”

   “Well, yeah. Actually small for a castle, I suppose. It was a real castle once, in France. Somewhere in Brittany. Part of it dated from the tenth century or so, I seem to remember being told. Old Man Littlewood, Vivian’s and Saul’s grandfather, bought it and had it shipped over here, on barges I guess. He was caught—” Simon paused. He had been distracted by a snuffling noise; it was faint and distant and something about it struck him as very odd. Somehow his mind couldn’t simply dismiss it as a noise made by a dog. He thought of bears, which of course were not a reasonable possibility in Illinois.

   “What is it, Si?”

   “Did you hear anything?”

   Margie turned her head, seemingly sniffing the air. “No.”

   “It was nothing, I guess.” And now a dog, a real dog, was barking frantically; but very far away, no doubt on one of the nearby farms. Simon stared upward at the gray walls again.

   “What were you going to say about their grandfather?”

   “There was some kind of fire or explosion here one night and he was killed. That was before I was born, I think.”

   And he led the way on up. Now the path, working its way across a hillside grown stony, almost a cliff, grew steep enough to require very careful footwork in a couple of places. Anyone not reasonably agile and confident might feel better clambering on all fours at these spots, and even an athlete might reach for a nearby branch or treetrunk as an aid to steadiness. At the trickiest climbing turn, a wooden handrail that Simon remembered had now disappeared. Only the wooden roots of it were barely visible, like decayed tooth-stumps in the rich mossy soil.

   And here in places the limestone bones of the earth stuck out, their naturally squarish shapes serving the climber briefly as stairs. He’d once hurt a toe on one of them, Simon remembered … but right now he didn’t want to dwell on that previous ascent; that whole mysterious day. Right now he and Marge were here as workers with a job to do. It was probably the only way he could ever have brought himself to come back here at all; and he had long wanted to come back, to face certain things again, to try to

rediscover them … Simon was in good physical shape, he took pains to stay that way, but still his breath had quickened with the climb … as he’d felt it quicken on that other, mysterious day…

   When the path bent in it’s fourth switchback Simon looked down again toward the landing. He wanted to make sure that the canoe was still there. The screen of intervening greenery was now much thicker, but he could still see glints of aluminum. And the kid…

   For just a moment, when the breeze stirred intervening branches in the proper way, Simon caught a glimpse of dark human hair, tanned human skin. For just a moment he saw clearly, though only partially, the figure he had glimpsed on the island, beckoning. It was Vivian, naked, waiting for him.

   Marge was looking down too, doubtless trying to see what had so interested Simon. He moved back a step to stand for a moment with closed eyes. He swore to himself with silent savagery that he was not going to let his eyes or his mind or whatever it was play tricks on him. Never again. Could there be something about this place, this physical location, something chemical or atmospheric that brought on hallucinations, at least in certain susceptible people? How was he ever going to be able to sort out the truth, the fantasy, the dream, about his last days here if even now he was still subject to—

   Simon opened his eyes. Marge was watching him with curiosity, but all she said was:  “Looks like our guide’s still waiting for us.”

   “I couldn’t see too well through all the branches. What did you—?”

   Still her eyes probed at Simon.  “He’s still sitting there reading. That’s about all I could make out.”

   “Ah.” Simon nodded, and faced uphill again, and climbed.