Iduna

And what of the screaming thing he had seen?

An enemy trapped and tortured and left forgotten in the mist as Iduna concerned herself with the novelty of a new playmate? Leaning back Dumarest closed his eyes and tried to remember each minor detail. The door had opened and he had looked into hell. A chaos of mind-wrenching horror which had vanished even as seen but the impact had remained. The face-where had he seen that face before?

A moment then he opened his eyes and shook his head. The glimpse had been too short, the impact too shocking and details now were added items won from personal memory. But he could try again.

Rising he reached for a towel then dropped his hand. A thought should dry him so what need of a towel? But the thought wasn't enough and, still wet, he tried again. Losing patience he rubbed himself dry and moved back into the other, larger room. It held a wide bed, small tables heavy with crusted objects of enticing shape and color, a lamp which threw circling patterns of variegated hues. The air held a delicate scent he hadn't noticed before and a window, sealed, held a pattern of stars.

The door opened at his touch to show a corridor lit with flaring torches, the floor decorated with a profusion of inlaid leaves so that he seemed to be walking on a forest path, the walls to either side carved to resemble massive boles from which tiny faces seemed to peer and wink and grin. A path which curved to a balcony from which stairs ran up and down. To where a guard stood in frozen immobility, her face rigid and hands set on the shaft of a pennoned lance. As Dumarest passed her eyes remained fixed; scraps of broken glass gleaming in the shadow of her helm; a casque painted red and orange in the dancing flames of flambeaux.

The silence was absolute.

Dumarest paused at the balcony looking up one flight of stairs then the other to where torches danced and guards stood like statues at their stations. He turned, suddenly, eyes probing the corridor, conscious of someone watching but seeing nothing. The passage was deserted and only the shadows moved from the dancing interplay of light. like the corridor the stairways were barren of life other than the guards and they could have been made of stone. The air changed to hold the stench of corruption.

A stench which grew as Dumarest hesitated on the balcony trying to orient himself. To determine how to find the door which had given on horror.

The third balcony up-that he remembered, but on which floor was his room? Down a flight? Up in a turret? Was even the stairway the same? The interior of the castle was a maze in which it would be easy to get lost. Which way? Which?

Dumarest began to climb, guessing that his room was on the second floor, using the basis of the guess as the node of a frame of reference. Up a flight then and turn left and the door facing him should be the one he wanted.

But there was no door, only a blank wall of stone before which a guard stood in rigid immobility.

The guard and the stench was now sickening.

Another flight and this time there was a door but it opened on a chamber dark but for the illumination cast by a single candle, unfurnished but for a single chair. Higher there was a salon flanked with windows which showed the night, stars like gems which glowed with indifferent interest and formed patterns he did not know. The air was cleaner now and he used it as a scent, tracing it back and down until it filled his nostrils and mouth with the stink and taste of vileness.

To the blank wall and the immobile guard.

Back in his room Dumarest crossed to the window and studied the panes. They were false; the entire window was one sheet of glass crossed with leaden strips so as to emulate individual segments, the glass itself firmly set in a rigid frame. To open it would require partially demolishing the surrounding wall.

Would a child know of the intricacies of glazing, masonry, joinery? Was there need?

And astronomy?

Dumarest reached toward the stars depicted on the window. His fingers seemed to touch them, a common illusion, but the perspective was wrong, the stars seeming more like discs scratched at random on a sheet of heavily smoked glass than true suns burning in the void. And space held more than stars. There should be the blur of distant nebulae, the shimmer of fluorescence from electronically activated curtains of gas, the somber loom of clouds of dust-all the awesome splendor of the universe.

'What are you doing, Earl? Looking for Earth?'

Turning, he looked at Iduna. She was no longer a child.

The door creaked a little as she closed it behind her to step into the chamber. Tall, smiling, hair a glinting mass of liquid ebon, the midnight tresses shot with sparkling white fire from trapped diamonds. Fire matched by the stones around her throat and wrists and narrow waist. Cold brilliance which sparkled from the brooch on the simple black gown which hugged prominent breasts as it fell to be caught at the narrow waist, to swell over the hips and thighs, to trail the floor. A gown slit down the side so as to reveal the alabaster whiteness of calf and knee and thigh, the delicate, high-arched feet nursed in sandals of diamond-studded ebon.

'My lady!'

Her regal stance earned the title but there was more. Her face, whiter than he remembered, was a vision of loveliness, the lips full, the cheeks shadowed with slight concavities, the bone prominent, the eyes wide and enigmatic beneath thin and slanting brows. Gone were the irresolution, the petulance, the immaturity. Standing before him was a woman.

'Earl!'

'My lady?' He had forgotten what she had said. A question?

'I asked if you were looking for Earth.' Her voice was the music of the wind, the pulse of an organ. Bells chimed in distant cadences and her very breath scented the air. 'Earth,' she repeated. 'Your home world or so you said. Don't you remember? Earl!'

He was standing staring like a stunned and bewildered boy.

With an effort he looked away, his eyes resting on the lamp, the table, the wide bed-it was impossible not to look at the woman. Closing his left hand he felt the bite of nails against his flesh and clenched the hand tighter.

'My home world, my lady, yes.' He drew a deep breath. 'It is far from here. I don't know where.'

'It can be found.' She was casual, the subject was already boring her. 'My father could help you if necessary. He is fond of old things and puzzles and mysteries and problems. They help to occupy his time.'

'Your father? Gustav-'

'I have only one father, Earl. Is it possible to have more than one?'

'No. I don't think it is.'

'Then why ask stupid questions.' The movement of a hand put an end to the discussion. 'Now tell me how I look. You like the gown? The gems?'

'You are lovely, my lady. More than lovely. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met. The most beautiful there ever could be. Even to look at you makes me the happiest of men.'

'You may be happy, Earl.' She was gracious. 'And because you have been so kind there is no need of formality. Your Queen permits you to address her as an equal. An honor given to few. Now you may kiss my hand.'

Dumarest took it, bowing his head over it as he lifted the fingers to his lips, to touch the satin-soft whiteness, to taste the sweet effulgence, the breath, the exuded perfume. A scent which triggered a sudden, near- overwhelming desire so that he burned to take, to hold, to possess-he tasted blood as his teeth bit at the inner membranes of his cheek.

Was he mad to lust after a child?

Not a child. Never a child. Iduna was all woman and fully mature and her presence filled the chamber and stimulated his every cell with an aching need to take her and use her in the ancient ceremony of procreation. He wanted her more than life itself. To be apart from her was unthinkable. He felt like kneeling before her to kiss her feet, to cringe, to grovel, to beg.

What was happening to him?

'Earl!' Her laughter was sweet and echoed in a fading tintinnabulation. 'You look so odd. So startled. And there is blood on your lips. What's the matter? Haven't you ever played this game before?'

Game?

Of course, what else would it be to her but a game? One played many times with figments of her imagination,