A Question Of Time, Fred Saberhagen [best fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

to bed with him in a way? He didn’t like to do it the normal way?”

      “Nope.”

      “How, then?”

      “Does it matter?” Camilla wasn’t eager to talk about that part of her story. “You don’t need to be jealous of Edgar, lover. What you’ve got to be is careful of him.”

      “You think old Edgar is jealous of me? He’s keeping me here so’s he can have someone to be jealous of?”

      “No. Not that way. But you better believe he’s dangerous.”

      “Well, I’m not that worried. I won’t need a shotgun, either, if he tries to give me a hard time.”

      “What’ll you do, hit him with your fist?” Camilla looked scornfully at Jake. “That won’t do you any more good than the shotgun. But I s’pose you got to find out some things for yourself.”

      Jake could only gaze at her in hopeless puzzlement. “Where’s he really sleep?” he demanded at last. “I have to talk to him.”

      “I showed you where he sleeps.”

      “Bullshit.”

      Camilla only sounded worried. “Honey? Edgar’s a very unusual man.”

      He nodded grimly. “That’s what you keep telling me. I’m ready to take your word for that.”

      “He’s a very nasty man, too. I wish to God I—you and I—could get away.”

      “Well, honey, we will, just as soon as I get some things figured out. You keep telling me Edgar’s the one who’s somehow keeping us here. How can that be?”

      “He has some way of controlling time. Making doorways in it. Opening and closing them.”

      “Huh?”

      “Jake, I told you, time isn’t just time down here. Everywhere else hours and days just go by normally. Not here, not in the Deep Canyon. Down here it’s what I call deep time. Edgar’s tried to explain to me how it works, some of it anyway, but I don’t get it. Maybe you can get him to explain it to you.”

      “Maybe I can. I bet I can.”

      Jake spoke those words softly, but his tone must have alarmed Camilla. She said: “Don’t think because he looks old you can just twist his arm or beat him up. He’s stronger’n any man I ever met.”

      “Yeah?”

      “Take my word for it, honey.” She paused, looking at Jake. “You’re not gonna just take my word, are you?”

      Jake made a large, solid fist, and looked at it. There was no fat on him, and every muscle in his body was hard, from four months of building trails. “Doesn’t seem like I’m gettin’ anywhere without fighting him. And you tell me that whatever’s happened, it’s up to Edgar to straighten it out if he wants to.”

      “Don’t just jump in and fight with him, honey.” Camilla leaned very close to Jake. “Honey? You hear me? And that shotgun, leave it alone. I tell you that doesn’t mean anything to Edgar. Just make him mad, if he thinks you’re ready to kill him.”

      “What do you mean, a shotgun doesn’t mean anything?”

      She leaned back and spoke confidently. “All right then, go ahead, try using it on Edgar and see. Don’t blame me if it makes him mad.”

      Jake didn’t say anything. He could imagine himself using a shotgun on someone, but only as a last resort, if his life depended on it.

      Camilla moved toward him smiling, and they kissed. But even this woman’s lips, even her body, could now distract Jake only briefly from thoughts of his situation.

      “You haven’t seen anyone besides Edgar in all that time?”

      She hesitated. “I seen a couple of people.”

      “Who?”

      No answer.

      “Like the person who shot at him with the shotgun.”

      A nod.

      “A man.”

      “Yes.”

      “You mean these other people were here and then got out? Where’d they go?”

      “Nobody got out.” Then Camilla added: “The man who shot at him is dead.”

* * *

      Try as he might Jake couldn’t get any more details out of her about the supposed shooting.

      “All right, all right. So, Edgar sleeps in there, does he? That means at sunset he’s gonna come out of that cave where you say he sleeps? Come out through that little crack?”

      Camilla nodded.

* * *

      At sunset Jake was across the creek, over on the other side of the amphitheater, watching the little cave from no more than twenty feet away. It happened after the sun was completely down. One moment there was no one else in sight, and the next, Jake couldn’t see how it was done, Tyrrell was standing there in front of him.

      “Camilla’s been talking about me, I see,” said the old man, looking at Jake with no particular surprise or anger.

      Jake was too stupefied to answer right away.

      The old man nodded slowly. “All right, maybe it’s just as well. Let her talk. Now maybe you’ll believe her. I hope you’re ready to learn your job?”

      Jake ignored that. “I want out of here.”

      “I have no interest in what you want. I asked you a question about your work.”

      “To hell with your work. I’m telling you what—”

      The open-handed slap came at the side of Jake’s head so fast that he had no chance of trying to block it or dodge it. It hit him so hard that both of his ears rang, and he went staggering away, almost falling.

      In a moment he had got his legs under him again and was coming back. He launched a hard swing with his right fist, aiming for the old man’s jaw.

      —and in the next instant Jake’s arm was caught. Camilla was yelling, screaming something in the background. Jake tried to jerk free but there was no chance. His right arm felt like some heavyweight wrestler had his wrist in both hands, twisting, but he could see plainly enough that it was only little old Tyrrell, gripping him casually with one.

      “I’m not really going to hurt you,” the old man told Jake patiently, when Jake had given up struggling. “Because I want you to work, and I still have hopes that you’ll be bright enough to learn what you need to learn, with only a little pain.”

      One-handed, Tyrrell twisted the arm a little farther, not very far, and Jake cried out helplessly and went down on his knees.

      “Enough?”

      “Enough!”

      “Are you working for