Dominion

SEVENTEEN

On her first night in the past, Margie tossed and turned on her straw pallet, and had bad dreams. Simon was calling her, from some vast distance, and she had to go back to him at once, but her arms and legs were paralyzed and it was impossible to move.

“Are you there, Margie? Margie, answer me clearly please.”

She couldn’t see Simon but his voice was coming to her clearly, drifting from beyond massive dream-walls and squat towers of timber and earth and stone. And there were also tall stone castle walls, and wooden screens of maze-like fretwork.

“Simon, I’m here, I’m here.” Now Margie was able to stand, but the ground was very slippery and slid out from under her feet whenever she tried to move, and if she fell it would mean her total and eternal ruin. She had never wanted anything more than she now wanted to get back to Simon, and yet she knew that was impossible.

His voice still drifted to her over parapets, under a starless sky. “Margie, I want to know about the guest that our hostess is expecting here. Can you see him from where you are?”

Margie was about to call back no, when in dream fashion the question arranged its own answer. “Yes, Simon, yes,” Margie called instead. A presence was standing near Margie now, a man. He was dressed somewhat in the manner of the man of the village who had taken her in, only his clothes were richer than any of theirs. He was at least a head taller than the short leader who had questioned Margie. She could not really see the tall man’s eyes. His lightly bearded face was very handsome, but Margie could feel a sickness radiating from it like a glow of ugly light. The man moved past her, starting up the same slippery slope on which she struggled for a foothold. His hands were raised before him, holding things that she knew were magically powerful, though she could not see them clearly. He totally ignored Margie as he passed her.

Simon’s next question came distantly: “Is it a man or a woman?”

Whether it was a man or a devil was the only real question. Sickness and hatred played from it like the beam of a dark searchlight. But Margie had no way to cry a warning. It was as if she and Simon were performing a version of their mentalist act, but one in which the warning codes had been proscribed. She had no power of speech except to answer questions truthfully. “It’s a man,” her voice said carefully.

Simon’s voice drifted to her again, in tones of careless ignorance. “Is the guest going to be able to join us here tonight?”

Margie uttered a silent, agonized prayer that he could not. And the handsome man, as if he were able to read thoughts—or hear prayers—turned his face to her and now she could see his eyes.

They rested on her only for a moment, but inside her skull a silent scream went up. Her voice, independent of her control, called calmly back to Simon: “He will try.”

“When will he be here, do you think?”

The slippery slope was not high. But near the top, opposition waited for the would-be guest. Out of a small mound, made of something Margie could not see clearly, there rose the broad, straight blade of a shining sword, topped by a cross-like ornate hilt. Light pulsed from the sword, and the jewels of its handle winked like small glowing eyes. The radiance of it forced back the man who tried to climb.

Margie answered Simon: “Either he’ll be at the castle very soon… I think he will… tonight or tomorrow… or… he may never get there.”

“And are you going to join us too?” Simon sounded so cheerful, so totally ignorant, that Margie felt her heart was going to break. She had opened her mouth to try once more to scream a warning in anger and despair, when a great soundless explosion tore the world of the nightmare to bits. She knew that this time the radiance of the Sword had repelled the man who tried to climb the hill of time, and she awoke sobbing with the relief that knowledge brought.

Margie did not wake in her own bed, or even in her own world, but for the moment even being in an alien world did not matter. The part of the world she found herself in was bearable and livable; it was not yet a part of his domain.

She was still in the building that housed the white-gowned women. On the second pallet in her small chamber her companion was still sound asleep. The nightworld around them was one of utter peace. Through the single window, too narrow for a man to enter, the moon looked in, nearly full and pale as cream. The small slice of the night sky that Margie could see was alive with stars.

But she had only the briefest glance to spare for them. On the moonlit grass a few paces outside the window, a man was standing silently. Margie recognized Talisman with relief. What she had seen of him before suggested strange things indeed, but he still represented a link to her own world.

Somewhere nearby a dog wined in its sleep, dreaming its own terrors. And Talisman, looking up and in at Margie, conveyed with an imperious motion of his hand that he wanted to be invited in.

Margie glanced at her roommate, who was snoring faintly, then leaned forward close to the unglazed window. “Come in, if you can,” she whispered cautiously out into the moonlight. “But this window’s too small and I don’t see—”

The figure standing on the grass vanished before her eyes. She had the sensation of a trailing garment brushing lightly across her eyes and forehead. As she turned her head in reaction to this she muffled a little cry. Talisman was standing in the middle of the small room, between the two straw beds.

He bent down at once, to touch with two gentle fingers the forehead of the sleeper at Margie’s side. To Margie he said quietly: “She will not awaken now, if we are reasonably careful. What have you discovered?”

“Discovered?”

Talisman hissed impatiently. “I am making allowances for the shock you have experienced. But it would not do for you to abandon your brain to permanent paralysis. Our situation requires that we cooperate, whenever we are able. I have made an enemy of a deranged wizard of immense power. And your circumstance while not exactly similar, is near enough. On top of that, our real enemies will sooner or later notice us; or at least begin to take us seriously.”

“Our real enemies?” Talisman sounded as if he were reasoning sanely, at least if you didn’t pay too much attention to what he was actually saying. And it gave Margie’s sanity a welcome boost, just to hear another human being calmly addressing her in English. Talisman intended to cooperate with her, and whatever else he might be, he was powerful. She was no longer alone.

He nodded. “I have stood before them, within the hour, not many miles from this village. Comorr the Cursed, Medraut—and the wizard Falerin, the one most dangerous to us. I was able to speak a few words that they could understand, and I understood more than I allowed to show of what they said among themselves.” His eyes were fixed on Margie. “There is a woman there who… well, that is important, but no need to go into it now. I have come here to tell you that these evil folk are planning a military attack on this village. They hope to catch a certain leader here, away from the bulk of his army; with him out of their way, their conquest of the whole island will be easy, or so they think.”

“The island?” Now stop echoing, Margie told herself fiercely; it sounds so dumb.

Talisman informed her softly. “We are in what is called, in our own time, Britain. I thought you had grasped that much at least.”

“I knew I’d landed in… someplace different. I can’t understand the language of these people at all, and they don’t speak mine, so we just haven’t been able to communicate. Look, we’re a long time in the past, aren’t we? From where we ought to be?”

Talisman nodded gravely.

“I thought so.” Margie quickly outlined what had happened to her since her arrival, then added her speculations on the white-garbed women, and on the building they were in. “So what do we do now? I have no intention of spending the rest of my life here.”

“My own sentiments exactly; I rejoice that we are in agreement. Our situation as I see it is dangerous indeed, but far from hopeless. These matters of magic have their own logic, you understand, even as dreams do. When we have grasped the logic of the situation, we ought to be able to do something to help ourselves.”

“Great.”

He nodded briskly. “You cried out in your sleep just now, before you woke. You were dreaming?”

“Yes.”

“Describe your dream, please. It could be of great importance.”

Margie told him of the slippery hill, and of the voice of Simon that had drifted to her from somewhere beyond it. She described as well as she could the evil man, and his losing conflict with the Sword.

Talisman listened carefully, nodding. “The hill is of course, among other things, an obvious pun on your friend’s name. But the evil young man, as you call him—I wish you could show me a photograph. Never mind, I think I know him anyway. The Sword thwarts him, do you see. Perhaps the Sword is also the key to our passage home.”

“God, if you can think of some way to get us home…” Margie leaned forward, putting her hand on Talisman’s arm; beneath his sleeve it felt as hard as wood. “Speaking of swords, yesterday the men here were forging something. At least there was a lot of hammering on metal, just after I arrived.”

“Ah.” Talisman’s eyes were fixed on her in speculation, and what she hoped was new hope. “If the Sword itself were forged here yesterday, that would provide the connection, the logic of magic that we need to find. If—” He broke off suddenly, with his head cocked listening. His raised hand held Margie silent.

She listened as hard as she could. In a few seconds the still night air brought her the sound of hurried hoofbeats, as of a single animal running at a fast pace.

The sound grew closer rapidly. There was a new uproar among the village dogs. Presently an exhausted horse with a youth riding bareback came cantering up to halt among the buildings.

“Hello the village! Men of Artos!” the youth cried out. In Margie’s state of mixed excitement and weariness it took her a few seconds to realize, with mixed feelings, that she could understand him perfectly, though he was speaking in the same tongue that she had listened to uncomprehendingly for hours before she fell asleep.

Armed men were running out of huts and houses to confront the messenger, demanding to know his name. Talisman, frowning, started to say something, but it was now Margie’s turn to gesture him to silence. “Wait,” she ordered. “Let me listen. I can understand them now.”

For the first time she saw Talisman truly surprised. “You can? What do they say?”

“The messenger says there is an enemy army advancing—he gives names, the same ones you mentioned, Comorr, Falerin, Medraut the Traitor. Everyone here in the village is going to have to pack up and run right now, without waiting for morning. To something called the Strong Fort, wherever that is.”