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

upon him. There for a long, long time he’d been sure that all the business of magic was in the past for him. But it was not to be.

   Tears gathered in his eyes, spilled slowly into the upper furrows of his aged cheeks. Lord God, Lord God, so this world is not yet through with me. But I am crippled, have been crippled for a thousand years. Bound and deformed by… some… great…

   Enchantment.

   There. His uglified new shirt was soaked with sweat, and he was gasping. But he’d got that far, at last, at least. Now weariness and awe were transmuting slowly to fresh rage. The damned bloodsucker must be even older than he looked. He was the enemy. It was all his fault from the beginning.

TWENTY

   Simon was aware of himself riding down in the elevator, of the elevator doors opening, returning him to the great hall. After that, he began to lose track of his physical location. Vivian’s electric touch was on him steadily. He could hear the murmur of her voice, he saw her eyes. And then he could see nothing but her eyes.

   Vivian had not changed from when she was fifteen, he could see that now. She was still fifteen, or rather she was ageless. Nor would she ever change. She would never be any different from what she was. And Simon knew that to have her would be to possess the world.

   Under Vivian’s careful guidance his body walked, going he knew not where. And, also guided by Vivian, his mind drifted, entering a secret, pleasant, mysterious place. In that place there was nothing to see but Vivian’s eyes, nothing to think about but what Vivian might want.

   Your powers are real, Simon. That was Vivian’s voice, the only voice that could reach him now. They always have been real. You shouldn’t be afraid of that.

   Yes, all right, they are real. I won’t be afraid, if you tell me not to be afraid.

   I do tell you so. Now. Do you remember the day when you were tested? I want you to remember that day.

   Tested?

   The day, said Vivian,when I let you lie with me. Did you see the Sword on that day, Simon? I think you may have seen it.

   He wanted to keep silent, but it was hopeless, his thoughts burst out. Oh, damn you, damn you, Vivian.  All I’ve ever been able to remember is how you let me fumble at your body. All I’ve ever really wanted since then is to have you again. To have what you wouldn’t give me even then.

   But what he wanted did not interest Vivian. I’m going to send you back to that day, Simon. I’m going to send you wherever I must, to find the Sword. We must discover where it is now.

   Simon didn’t ask what Sword. He had seen it in one vision already.

   You are going to walk what you call the secret passage. With my help it can take you to many places, many times. If we must, we will follow the Sword forward through the centuries from the day when it was forged. But first we’ll try that day just fifteen years ago. You can do it, for me. We must find where the Sword is now.

   I’ll try, Vivian. Vivian.

   You must do more than try. When you have found the Sword, Simon, then I will tell you my true name. And then I will give you the secret thing that you have always wanted. The secret thing, most precious and intense, that lies behind the door of sex.

   Oh, I want you, Vivian. For a moment Simon saw only the vision that was always with him, that one day had been reality, Vivian as a young girl naked, inviting him, beckoning him on. He tried to reach for her.

   Not yet, dear Simon. I want so much to love you, but not yet. First you must find the Sword. Magic that you must penetrate conceals it. No one, not even I, not even Falerin, can find things, see things, as well as you can. In that magic you have the potential to be supreme.

   In a momentary flash of clear physical vision, Simon knew that he was standing again in the blasted doorway that led to the once-secret passage. His attempt at a performance had been used by Vivian to key the forces that had torn it open to the mundane world. And now Vivian was about to send him into it.

   Find the Sword for me, Simon. Here begins your search, in your own past.

   And he was drifting on the Sauk in the old row-boat, the almost paintless hulk that in all the childhood summers he could remember had been tied up at the old willow stump at Frenchman’s Bend. The boat wandered with the motion of an almost lifeless current between two jungled islands. Simon was alone, lying on his back in the bottom of the old boat, with a little sunwarmed leakage water flowing and ebbing gently around him. He was wearing the old remembered green swimming trunks and nothing else. His feet were up on the middle seat, and a clear warm summer sky was over him. Insects droned from the island shores, and there was an almost fleshy smell of mud.

   When he was back in the city between vacations, going through the dull routine of school, Simon’s memories of Frenchman’s Bend drew in color and interest. But the glamour applied by his restless imagination tended to disappear quickly when he returned to the real place. The river had shrunken, every time he saw it again, turned muddier and dirtier than the Sauk he thought that he remembered. And most of the people appeared somehow shrunken too, even if months of growth had actually made the young ones physically larger. When reality seemed inadequate Simon’s imagination tended to come back into play.

   He was