Bursting around the corner came a man in full flight. He came right at Gene, saw him, yelped, danced around him and ran on into the shadows.
“Hey!” Gene yelled after him. “Hey, buddy!”
He was gone. Gene picked up his briefcase and trotted after him for a few steps, then stopped. He scratched his head. The man had been dressed strangely.
The horrific noise sounded again, much nearer. Gene took a few more paces in pursuit but stopped again, unsure of what to do. He looked back toward the intersecting passageway.
What came running around the corner this time froze him solid to the floor.
It was large, maybe seven, eight feet, walked on two legs, and was covered head to foot with silky white fur. Oh, and the head. The head was smallish, but the mouth was not, agleam with razor-edged teeth and curved three-inch fangs. Bone-white claws tipped its fingers. Its shoulders were almost as broad as the beast was tall, and from them hung long sinewy arms. But with all that bulk, it was fast. And it was coming toward him.
Somewhere within Gene’s mind, a part that had not as yet turned the consistency of Cream of Wheat, he was thinking,
As the beast neared, the glow from the jewel-torch fired its eyes, luminescent yellow agates. An alien intelligence burned within them, fierce, cruel, and inhuman.
The sound of the hell-beast shook the passageway.
But the white-furred thing ran right past him — and as it went by, it spoke.
It said, “Run, you fool!”
Inner Palisade — South-Southeast Tower
The voice spoke to him as he lay in meditation in the Hall of Contemplative Aspects, a grouping of adjacent rooms at various intervals along the curving wall of the tower. In each room there was a wide unglazed window reaching almost from floor to ceiling.
He reclined on a couch set back a short distance from the window, head propped on an arm. About him, the room was a seraglio of painted screens, velvet cushions, wicker baskets, luxurious carpets, low settees. Here and about were inlaid tables upon which lay assortments of finely crafted objects — brass oil lamps, rosewood boxes, carved tusks, scented candles, incense burners, and other curios. Tapestries and decorative rugs draped the walls. Scents of exotic perfumes hung discreetly in the air.
Outside the window, two moons — one larger and of a pale blue color, the other bronze tending toward gold — were becalmed above a quiet sea, its waters a-dance with fingers of moonlight. Sparkling combers washed a narrow beach, above which lay a town of white stone buildings topped with domes, minarets, and campaniles. Above, the night was starry. Glowing filaments of nebulous gas stretched across the firmament. Faint sounds of exotic music arose from the town, and here and there among the buildings, festival lights could be seen. Tall broad- leafed trees stirred in the salt breeze.
But when he heard the voice, the mood was broken.
“No doubt,” he answered aloud.
“As one of my Guests is fond of saying, ‘Whatever turns you on.’”
“We all have our sundry problems.”
Sighing, he arose and walked out of the room. Passing through an archway, he entered another of the chambers, this one sparsely furnished: a single table with an ensconced candle on it, and a low wooden bench. The window opened onto a vast level plain populated with huge monoliths in various geometric shapes. He seated himself on the bench and endeavored to recapture a meditative state of mind.
To no avail.
He let a few moments of silence go by before he said, “Indeed.”
He got up and approached the window, stepping out through it, and stood in the sand. A mild wind blew in from his right, carrying fine grains of sand to tickle his cheek. He felt the desire to walk out among the monuments, touch them, sit within their shadows. He stepped farther out.
The voice diminished as he withdrew from the suspended rectangle of the window.
The sound of the wind through the monoliths was drear, but somehow comforting. The sky was violet. A triangle of three bright stars shone just above the horizon to his left. All was simplicity, clarity, peace.
He was farther from the window now. The voice was partly lost in the moving air.
“What did you say? You remember? What?”
“What of him?”
“Do you remember what you are?”
He halted. The voice was a whisper now.
“Why do you speak now? You have not done so in a hundred years.”
“Does it matter?”
“You spoke to me. I ask again — why have you broken your silence?”
A spark of light above caught his eye, and he looked to the zenith. A falling star scratched a trail across the heavens. It glowed with a phosphorescent green light.
“Ah.”
When the star had descended, he looked down, his face troubled.
“Nothing.” Presently, he said, “A moment ago you spoke of soaring, of destroying. Is that your nature?”
“You also spoke of the Spell Stone. What is it?”
“But what is it? Where is it?”
“I see.” The song of the wind rose up again, and he turned toward it. He felt drawn to the open spaces before him. But the shackles of obligation held him back. He chafed at them.
He shook his head, turning to the window. On the other side of the sky a blue-white sun was setting. Here, the freedom of nothingness was comforting. But he knew he could not stay. He had many tasks before him.
“Tell me this,” he said. “Do you remember your name?”
“That is good.”
After taking one last look at what lay about him, he strode toward the window and stepped inside it.
