When the white sun had set and the red sun glowed a darkening ember
across the Sierra, a summons came, brought by one of Karamy's
toy-soldier cohorts. I dressed--in crimson again, for there was no
other clothing anywhere--and followed the voiceless sentry down through
a labyrinth of elevators, finally emerging into a long corridor. I
strode down it, hearing my own steps echo; a second rhythm joined them
imperceptibly, and Gamine stole out of the darkness, swathed in the
luminous veiling, creeping noiselessly as a ghost behind me. Later I
became conscious of Evarin's padding cat-steps behind Gamine, trailing
us, single-file. And other figures came from darkened recesses to
stretch the silent parade; a slim girl in a winged cloak, flame color;
a dwarfed man who walked beneath the amethyst huddle of purple cap and
furs. Memory fitted names to them, but I did not speak to them, or they
to me.
After a long time, the immense corridor began to tilt upward, climbing
toward a glimmer of light at the end. Without realizing it I had swung
into an arrogant, loping stride; now I brushed away the slave-soldier
who headed the column and took the lead myself. Behind me the others
fell into place as if I had bidden them; the flame-clothed girl in the
winged cloak, the cat-footed Evarin, the dwarf bent in his jester's
cap, Gamine in the blue shroud. Without warning, we came out into a
vast court; an enclosed space, yet wide as the outdoors, a yard, a
plaza, a place of imposing grandeur. A place of memory.
The red sun above us glowed like a lurid coal. There were tall pillars
on three sides of the courtyard, and at the far end, a vaulted archway
led into a treelined drive that stretched away for miles into the
twilight. Between two pillars, Karamy waited; slim, shimmering golden
from head to foot. A hungry impatience sparked in her cat's eyes.
"You're late."
"I'm ready," I said. What I was ready for, I was not sure.
Karamy waved an impatient signal to the Narabedlans who were coming up.
"Adric is with us again," she said in her curious lazy voice, "Your
allegiance to Adric--children of the Rainbow!"
I stood at her side, mute, waiting; a guard of silent men behind us.
"Lord Idris;" Karamy summoned. The hunchback came to bow jerkily before
us. "Welcome home--Lord!"
The girl in flame-color darted to where we stood and her dipping curtsy
was like the waver of a moth toward a flame. "Adric--" she murmured.
The wings of her cloak lifted and fluttered across her shoulders as if
they would fly of themselves. She was a shy thing, and her dark hair
waved softly as if it too were winged. I touched her fingers lightly,
but under the smolder of Karamy's gaze I let her go. She watched me,
shyly, with averted face.
Evarin's face was slyly malicious, but his voice was pure silk. "It
is--pleasure to follow you again, my brother," he almost purred, and I
scowled at the mockery at his face and refused his offered hand. Only
Gamine said nothing, coming forward on gliding feet to bow briefly
and retire; but the silver-sweet, sexless voice of the spell-singer
murmured in a singing, almost wordless, croon.
"Save your spells, Gamine," said Karamy savagely, and Evarin jerked
round at the shrouded form, but Gamine heeded neither of them, and the
sweet contralto chanting went on.
From somewhere the silent men brought horses. Horses--here, in this
nightmare world? I had never been on a horse in my life. I found myself
vaulting, with a nice co-ordination of movement, into the saddle. The
courtyard, for all the bustle of department, seemed to hold the silence
of a grave. Karamy kept me close to her. When we were all mounted, she
threw the amber rod upward, and the last rays of the red sun caught
its rays and sent a pure shaft of light down the darkened alleyway
lined with trees. At the sight of that gleam, a curiously familiar
emotion stole through me. I threw up one arm over my head, mimicking
Karamy's gesture. "Ride!" I shouted.
And the flying steeds kept pace with mine.
The driveway under the arch of trees led for miles under the thick
boughs. Through the easy drumming of hooves, I could still hear the
sweet distant sound of Gamine's singing, which floated on the wind,
keeping pace with the rise and fall of the rolling road, in a quick
cadence. The wind whipped Karamy's golden hair like a halo about
her head. I glanced over my shoulder to where the rainbow towers
stood, now black, silhouetted against the greater darkness of the
mountains. Overhead in the pink sky, the crescent of the tiny moon was
brightening, and lower in the sky I saw another, wider disc, nearly at
full. Cold air was stinging my cheeks and nipping my bones with frost,
and I felt the sparks struck from hooves beating on the frozen ground.
_Cold!_ Yet in Karamy's garden flowers had glowed in a tropical
glory--
And for a moment, it was entirely Mike Kenscott--sick, bewildered and
panicky--who glanced about him with horror, feeling the swirling cold
and a colder chill from the golden sorceress at my side. It was Mike
Kenscott's will that jerked at the reins of the big gelding to end this
farce now--
"What is it?" Karamy cried, over the noise of the hooves.
And I heard my own voice, raised above the galloping rhythm, cry back
"Nothing!" and call out a command to the horse.
Good God! I was Mike Kenscott--but prisoner in a body that would
not obey me--a mind that persisted in thoughts and habits I could
not share, a--soul?--that would carry me to destruction! I was Mike
Kenscott--trapped on a nightmare ride through hell!