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

   Vivian gestured, and Simon climbed out ahead of her, bracing a foot on an ancient, newly-exposed timber that hissed and smoldered in the light rain. The smell of bitter smoke was stronger now, mingled with the dankness of old wood and old stonework freshly wet. Gregory, hatless, but still in his medieval servant’s garb, was working in the rain, heaving chunks of stone away from the place where the new hole went down into the interior of the building. Working with Gregory at his command were the twins from the antique shop. The girl looked at Simon helplessly when he caught her eye—it was the same look he’d seen on her face in that bedroom scene that he’d thought was a dream. In a moment she had moved away. She and her brother were scrambling about, taking Gregory’s orders, helping him shift debris, as if in a panic of fear. Illuminating the scene was an unearthly glow clinging to the top of the tower. St. Elmo’s fire, thought Simon, he’d heard of it; it sometimes accompanied lightning, but he’d never seen it before.

   Climbing up after Simon through the blasted hole, Vivian took Gregory by the arm; now for a moment it was Gregory who looked frightened. “Have you seen Carados?” she demanded of her servant, while Simon, not knowing the name, looked puzzled. Then Vivian added another question in another language. Simon thought that it was French or Latin, but he could extract no meaning though he had a smattering of both.

   Gregory shook his head, and in the same tongue began what might have been an explanation. Meanwhile the two young people continued to work as if the penalty for slacking might be death, turning back torn edges of roof, lifting stones away, exposing more of the smoldering fire to the rain that would not let it grow.

   “Simon.” Vivian had him by the arm again. “An enemy of ours has been here. He may still be here, nearby, on the castle grounds somewhere. He is a very unusual man, and he is calling himself Talisman. I met him once, a very long time ago… I should have remembered. I shudder to think of what might happen to Margie if he should find her. He likes to drink girls’ blood.”

   “Talisman. I don’t know that name.”

   “Rather tall, on the thin side… Dark. Age uncertain. If you can see him anywhere, anywhere at all, it’s important that you tell me.”

   Somewhere out there a presence moved. In the rainy woods around the castle, pitch-black now except for passing smears of lightning? No, farther away, much farther. Simon wasn’t going to try to determine where. To be able to withhold the sight of it from Vivian was a small victory.

   He said: “Your house seems to be on fire.”

   “The fire itself is nothing. Gregory will manage it. But come, we should reassure the others.” Then she guided Simon back over wreckage into the tower again, as if he might be incapable of making his own way. The power of her touch burned at him, sapping his will. Her own physical movements were as certain as her will, her plans. “Now you’ve seen where the lightning struck, Simon. Now tell me, where is the thing that drew it down?”

   He could have protested that there was no way for him to have that knowledge; but somehow he knew that Vivian knew better than that. There was an answer to her question; he didn’t want to look for it.

   “It’s very important, Simon. More important even than Talisman. Never mind if you can’t find it for me just yet. I’ll have a way soon to make it easier.” Vivian was smiling at him, talking to him in the tones of love. Her small hand, irresistible, drew him back down the littered stair, along the passage to the waiting elevator. “But right now you can tell me this much at least: you saw him?”

   He couldn’t pretend not to know who she was talking about. Not Talisman. “Yes. He tried to get in, through the passage. But he couldn’t.”

   There was a soft intensity now in Vivian’s voice that Simon had never been able to imagine there, not even in daydreams when he’d made her image speak to him. She said now: “His name is Falerin. His real name, just as your real name is Simon Colline… oh, I know, of course I know that too. He is a real magician, more than you are, more even than I am. I learned from him, you know. He is going to come to our world, and he will be the king of the world someday. Oh yes, oh yes, with his power, and the power that we can develop for him here. The science we can add now. One day the whole earth will be his domain, and mine. And yours too, Simon, if you help us… of course you’ll help us.” Simon had never seen Vivian so happy. She went on: “That’s what this is all about. He couldn’t live through all the centuries between his time and now. But I have, for this one purpose, to bring him here. He was about to come through, but the Sword blocked him and he had to retreat. It’s hidden here in the castle somewhere, or nearby. And you are going to find it for me, Simon. Then he’ll be back, he’ll come again.”

   Downstairs in the great hall, Hildy’s husband was calmly refilling his wife’s little crystal cup with wine. She picked up the cup, and drained it, and put it down again, and sat there looking steadily at Saul. In keeping with the other strange things of this strange night, the wine, which was like no wine that Hildy had ever tasted before, had the effect of making her thoughts