Talisman looked around at the dark woods, the leaden, roiling sky, as if he were keenly interested in the weather, or listening carefully for some particular sound. “Getting help, Margie, at this stage, would be even more difficult than you imagine.”
“At this stage? Stage of what?”
“I shall explain when there is time. First lead me to the dungeon.” The words were delivered with a commanding gesture.
Long ago Margie had learned, or decided, that there were some people who could be argued with and others who couldn’t. She realized already that this man was definitely in the second category. She could run away from him (or could she?) and spend the rest of the night probably stumbling exhaustedly around the countryside; she didn’t think she had the strength left to get herself across the river. And she didn’t want to waste what little she had left in argument.
“Trust me, Margie Hilbert.”
Somewhat to her own surprise, Margie found that she was inclined to do so. With a weary nod she turned and once more started slowly up the trail, this time not bothering to pretend a limp. The silence behind her remained absolute, and she had to turn her head to make sure that Talisman was following her. To her surprise he was only two steps back. Another lightning flash revealed a great bloodstain drying on his dark shirt, which was torn near neck and shoulder; otherwise there was no indication that he had been hurt at all. His steady, eerily silent movement gave an impression of great strength.
“Go on.” Talisman’s eyes prodded her impatiently along.
Margie turned and climbed. Gradually she moved faster, feeling a compulsion to get this—whatever “this” was, exactly—over with. The remainder of the ascent was silence, and mosquitoes, and an occasional spatter of rain.
Not until they had reached the deserted grotto did she pause again. The barred door of rusted iron hung open as she, or perhaps her pursuers, had left it. She pointed to indicate the way.
“I see,” said her companion. Then he stood back for a moment, looking over the situation, peering straight up the bluff and then to right and left as if he could see perfectly well in darkness. “Then it is not a true dwelling,” he said. “Not here, at least. Let me try whether I can enter here uninvited.”
At least those were the words Margie thought she heard. By now she had about given up hope of anything this evening making sense.
Talisman stood in front of the iron door and bent his head. And there, to Margie’s troubled vision, he seemed to disappear. A moment later she was aware of his figure standing just inside the cave. “Come,” he urged her softly.
Fatalistically she followed orders. Otherwise she’d have to turn away to run and stumble through woods and mosquitoes again, listening for pursuing feet; she still wasn’t ready to try that again. So she moved forward, groping after Talisman, one hand on his back for guidance. He moved through the tunnel at a good pace, as if he now knew just where he was going. The only sounds that Margie could hear were those of her own soft-soled shoes, and her own faint breathing.
Before Margie had quite realized how quickly they were progressing, they were at the branching passage and turning down it. From here on guidance was provided by faint, flickering torchlight and continued groans. Now Margie could see that the door to the dungeon room stood wide open.
The room was as she had first seen it, occupied only by the old man still on the rack. His left arm, the one that she had freed, now moved with little brushing motions across his chest, as if conscious, he were trying to reach his other bonds.
Talisman took two paces into the dungeon and stopped momentarily. Muttered speech, full of outrage, burst from him in some foreign tongue. Margie paused, watching warily, as Talisman stepped quickly forward again. The three remaining straps opened their stubborn buckles to three quick flicks of his fingers. The old victim’s limbs, freed, contracted.
And now the eyes of the victim opened at last. Hooded still by age-carved lids, their cloudy gray-blue was the color of sky between storms. Still half dazed and on the brink of terror, the old man uttered guttural sounds. He raised himself on his elbows and looked around him in bewilderment.
Talisman moved a long pace back from the rack, to stand beside Margie. Then, even as the freed man on the rack edged himself on his elbows farther from his deliverers, half-snarling at them in fear, Margie was astounded to see her tall companion go down on one knee, facing the old one.
“Maistre,” murmured Talisman softly. At least it sounded like that to Margie: one foreign word, of French or Latin probably.
The old man wheezed in chest and throat. He hawked up phlegm, and spat it toward a corner, all without taking his eyes from Talisman. He said at last: “Don’t gimme any of that crap.” The words came out in a weak gargle, and yet the dominant impression that they conveyed was of force.
Each breath in the old man’s throat was a wheezing rasp, evidently accelerated by fear. His eyes remained fixed on Talisman—they had identified importance. The old man’s arms and legs, now that they were freed, looked as much muscular as they were fat. And now that he had turned on his side, his belly bulged paunchily, matted like his chest with gray-brown hair. Ample maleness, half hidden in the heaviest fur, had something about it that struck Margie as somehow peculiar—the old man was uncircumcised, she realized. And she almost blushed, to have taken notice of such a thing at a time of death and danger. She felt as if some mischievous power had forced her to do so.
Talisman had risen to his feet and was waiting silently. At last the old man spoke to him again. “Who the hell are you? I thought you was some butcher, when you come after me on the street.”
In the guttering torchlight, the dried blood on Talisman’s shirt might have been no more than shadows. His voice now sounded proud, offended, and yet constrained to remain respectful. “You must realize now that when I sought you on the street I meant no harm. I sensed that a worthy master, a man of great stature, was nearby and needed help. In honor I could do no less than try to find you. I would have offered service, but I was prevented from recognizing you there. Your own powers prevented—”
“Service, shit!” The words came in a double snort, of what sounded like contempt and wonder mingled.
Talisman’s voice rose briefly louder, to override an objection that was in itself too contemptible to deserve a more direct reply. “I would not offer unsought help to many now alive. Understand that. I have been prince, in my own land. And I am now—what I am. If your powers could hide you from me on the city streets, then of the strength of your powers I am sure. As I am sure that once you had nobility. And that you are now the prisoner of the scum who hold this house above us.”
“Sonovabitch,” the old one said. He spoke in a milder voice, as if he were impressed despite himself by Talisman’s ringing speech. “Look,” he began a reasonable tone. Then he paused to consider his own nakedness, to look at Margie, and at the room around him. He seemed to come fully awake now for the first time. ” ‘Scuse my foul mouth, little one. What’ve they done with me? But I’m still alive. Still alive.”
Talisman answered him. “What has been done to you, maistre, I can only conjecture. But truly the powers that did it must have been formidable.”
“Whatinell you mean?”
“I mean that I cannot accept your rejection of my service. Not until I know that you make it knowingly, and free of all enchantment.”
That last word seemed to Margie to hang echoing in the dim dungeon air. Antment antment antment. She no longer felt able to pass any judgement on what made sense and what did not. She waited for what might happen next.
The old man was looking at first one of them and then the other, meanwhile muttering as if in calculation. Then he shook his head, as a man might who was indeed trying to clear it of some spell.
“Dunno what you mean.” His voice rose. “Where’s my friggin’ clothes?” And now his eyes were fixed on Margie, as if perhaps she ought to be in charge of wardrobe. The old man’s whiskers were pure vaudeville decoration, sticking out in all directions. His whiskers and his hairy paunch almost succeeded in making him a complete joke, a comic satyr strayed from some ancient Roman stage. Almost, not quite, because there were his eyes. Blue-gray eyes, hard-looking inside their baggy lids. They had not blinked often, those eyes, even when the aged body had cringed in fear, and they contained something frightening.
For a moment Margie could only stare back in fascination. Talisman meanwhile spread his hands, a weary,
