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

   “Do these people know we’re coming?”

   “Couldn’t reach anybody there by phone; they say the phones are connected, though.”

   “I gotta take a leak,” the old man said. “How about stopping somewhere?”

   A gas station near the outskirts of Blackhawk was honored for the occasion. While the cars’ tanks were being filled again the men for the most part stood around beside the cars, talking about the rain and watching it pour down just beyond the edge of the high canopy sheltering the pumps.

   Joe and a state trooper were both keeping an eye on the door of the men’s room while the old man was inside. There was no window, they’d made sure, no other possible way out of the closet-sized chamber. Still Joe was almost surprised when Mr. Falcon reappeared in perfectly normal fashion.

   The state trooper now took a turn in the closet himself, leaving Joe for a moment effectively alone with the old man. Joe didn’t waste any time.

   “Mr. Falcon, thanks.”

   “Oh?” Falcon gave him a shrewd look, and didn’t ask him thanks for what.

   “But they picked up some of those bullets I fired. Turned out they’re silver. They weren’t when I loaded ’em, but… I’m in for some kind of an investigation.”

   The old man chewed this over for a few seconds, as Joe stood before him more supplicant than guard. At last Falcon offered: “Deal?”

   Joe nodded eagerly, then hesitated. “What’ve you got in mind?”

   “Tell me how you know about the Sword. I can fix it about those bullets.”

   Joe considered, mentally crossed his fingers, and said a prayer. He’d noticed in the past few years that he was getting into the habit of doing that. He decided. “A man named Talisman told me.”

   “You know ’im, huh?” The old man gave a wise, slow nod, as if impressed; and in the next moment burly policemen were milling around both of them, talking about the roads and the weather.

   As they were driving along the highway on the north bank of the Sauk, some miles west of Blackhawk, the old man began urging them to stop. Presently the whole caravan had pulled over. The sun was setting and they’d all just put their headlights on. They were right at some wide place in the road called Frenchman’s Bend. The few houses and shacks were all dark and silent, looking totally uninhabited. The rain had stopped, for the time being anyway, and the swollen river looked ominous and dirty.

   The old man got out of the car on the side toward the river, and then just stood for a moment peering across, as if he could really see something on the far side. Joe could see the dark, humped smudges of the wooded bluffs over there and an enormous full moon struggling to get airborne above some of those trees and between the clouds.

   “That’s the place,” the old man said. “Right over there.” He sounded eager, but not in any particular hurry.

   “Might be,” someone muttered. “It oughta be about there.”

   Someone even raised the idea of trying to get a boat, but no one else had any enthusiasm for that idea. Once they crossed the river again, at the next bridge thirty miles below Blackhawk, they started having some more trouble with roads. With a little luck and daring they got through, but it was full night by the time the caravan reached what had to be the castle. The main building was invisible, but headlight beams fell on a massive stone wall, and after they had driven a little way along the road that followed the wall they came to where a private drive went in through an old chained gate.

   The full moon was now well above the trees in the east; it evoked bizarre shapes and shadows among the trees inside the grounds.

   “We’re not going to bother the owners tonight, correct?”

   “It’s not that late, we could give them a try.”

   Men got out of their cars, looking for a doorbell or something similar. They milled around, some of them with pocket flashlights in hand.

    “Where’s Falcon?”

   “Where’s Falcon?”

   “He was right here, sonovabitch. Sonovabitch, come on, guys, where is he?”

   “He was right—”

   But he wasn’t anymore.

   When the screams started from the direction of the house it gave them an even better reason for breaking in.

TWENTY-EIGHT

   Hildy Littlewood was running for her life, fleeing from her husband, from the man with whom she’d once sworn love, undying love. On flying feet she sped through darkened stone passageways, past midnight vaults. The lights in the castle were few, and seemed to be going out one by one. Once she stopped running in a place where she was sure there was a light switch, and ran her hands over the wall for what seemed like hours, whimpering all the while, until she found it. She flicked the switch up and down a score of times but nothing happened. Somehow the electricity must have been turned off. Maybe the lightning…

   Now she could hear Saul’s pacing feet, not running after her, pursuing patiently instead. His voice, a room away, called: “Hil?”

   She fled again, gasping with the effort, knowing this was all a dream, taking comfort in the fact that before much longer she would simply have to wake up. To find herself where, and doing what? Hildy came to a door that she knew had to lead to the outside. She threw herself at it, wrenching and pushing at the latch and knob. They would not turn or move, they would not even rattle. As if the whole door and wall had been carved in one piece from wood, or built in one piece of reinforced concrete. Hildy almost collapsed, sobbing.

   Here came Saul’s patient feet again, pacing and pausing, once more a room away. Saul probably feared that if he came into the same room with her she’d have