Gamine moved impatiently. "Oh, very well. You are Adric of Narabedla;
and if you are sane again, Lord of the Crimson Tower. I am Gamine."
The swathed shoulders moved a little. "You don't remember? I am a
spell-singer."
I jerked my elbow toward the window. "Those are my own mountains out
there," I said roughly. "I'm not Adric, whoever he is. My name's Mike
Kenscott, and your hanky-panky doesn't impress me. Take off that veil
and let me see your face."
"I wish you meant that--" a mournfulness breathed in the soft
contralto. A sudden fury blazed up in me from nowhere. "And what right
have you to pry for that old fool Rhys? Get back to your own place,
then, spell-singer--" I broke off, appalled. What was I saying? Worse,
what did I mean by it? Gamine turned. The sexless voice was coldly
amused. "Adric spoke then. Whoever sits in the seat of your soul, you
are the same--and past redemption!" The robes whispered sibilantly on
the floor as Gamine moved to the door. "Karamy is welcome to her slave!"
The door slammed.
Left alone, I flung myself down on the high bed, stubbornly
concentrating on Mike Kenscott, shutting out the vague blurred mystery
in my mind that was Adric impinging on consciousness. I was not Adric.
I would _not_ be. I dared not go to the window and look out at the
terrifying two suns, even to see the reassurance of the familiar Sierra
Madre skyline. A homesick terror was hurting in me.
But persistently the Adric memories came, a guilty feeling of a
shirked duty, and a frightened face--a real face, not a blurred
nothingness--beneath Gamine's blue veils. Memories of strange hunts and
a big bird on the pommel of a high saddle. A bird hooded like a falcon,
in crimson.
Consciousness of dress made me remember the--nightshirt--I still wore.
Moving swiftly, without conscious thought, I went to a door and slid
it open; pulled out some garments and dressed in them. Every garment
in the closet was the same color; deep-hued crimson. I glanced in the
mirror and a phrase Gamine had used broke the surface of my mind like
a leaping fish. "Lord of the Crimson Tower." Well, I looked it. There
had been knives and swords in the closet; I took out one to look at it,
and before I realized what I was doing I had belted it across my hip. I
stared, decided to let it remain. It looked all right with the rest of
the costume. It felt right, too. Another door folded back noiselessly
and a man stood looking at me.
He was young and would have been handsome in an effeminate way if his
face had not been so arrogant. Lean, somehow catlike, it was easy to
determine that he was akin to Adric, or me, even before the automatic
habit of memory fitted name and identity to him. "Evarin," I said,
warily.
He came forward, moving so softly that for an uneasy moment I wondered
if he had pads like a cat's on his feet. He wore deep green from head
to foot, similar to the crimson garments that clothed me. His face had
a flickering, as if he could at a moment's notice raise a barrier of
invisibility like Gamine's about himself. He didn't look as human as I.
"I have seen Gamine," he said. "She says you are awake, and as sane as
you ever were. We of Narabedla are not so strong that we can afford to
waste even a broken tool like you."
Wrath--Adric's wrath--boiled up in me; but Evarin moved lithely
backward. "I am not Gamine," he warned. "And I will not be served like
Gamine has been served. Take care."
"Take care yourself," I muttered, knowing little else I could have
said. Evarin drew back thin lips. "Why? You have been sent out on the
Time Ellipse till you are only a shadow of yourself. But all this is
beside the point. Karamy says you are to be freed, so the seals are off
all the doors, and the Crimson Tower is no longer a prison to you. Come
and go as you please. Karamy--" his lips formed a sneer. "If you call
_that_ freedom!"