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XIX
...He strode past the glassed-in banks of flat-faced machines, their huge metal eyes rotating, stopping, reversing, rotating again, ceaselessly, silently, to his left. To his right, a line of men and women, seated before glowing screens, traced designs with electric pencils upon them. The rug was soft and resilient, making the floor seem almost nonexistent. A gentle light emanated from glowing tubes overhead. The abstract design upon the wall to the right changed as he passed. A soft, characterless music filled the air. ...
...He halted when he came to the large window looking out upon the city. Far below, numerous vehicles passed on the streets. Boats moved upon the distant river, and an airplane was passing overhead. Towering buildings dominated the prospect, and everything was clean and shining and smooth, like a piece of well-tended machinery. A certain warmth grew in his breast as he regarded the power and magnificence of the scene. His fingers tapped at a latch, and he drew the window upward, leaning forward to drink in the full range of sensations which emanated from the city...
...A heavy hand fell upon his shoulder, and he turned toward the tall, heavyset man who stood smiling beside him, drink in hand, face as ruddy as brick, red hair mingled with white, red scalp showing through....
"...Yes, Mark, admire it," he was saying, gesturing with his glass. "One day, all of that will be yours...."
...He turned to look again, having drawn back slightly from the aura of power which surrounded the larger man. Something at the left side of his face clicked against the window's frame. Raising his hand to explore, he discovered a huge protruberance above his left eye. Immediately, he remembered that it had been there all along. Turning farther, with something like shame, he reached up and touched it again....
...His vision doubled. Beyond the window now, he saw two discrete scenes. Half of the city before him was still bright and beckoning. The other half was gray, drab, the air filled with ashes and yellowish fog-like tentacles. Raucous noises, as of the rattling of heavy machinery rose up on that side of the split scene, accompanied by a wave of acrid odors. Moist, sickly patches of color clung to the buildings. The river was muddy. The ships' smokestacks poured filth into the air....
...He drew back, turning again toward the big man, to discover that he, also, had doubled. The man to the right stood unchanged; the one on the left was even redder, his face partly shadowed, eyes flashing baleful lights....
"...What is the matter, my son?" he was asking.... Mark could not speak. He gestured toward the window, turning slightly in that direction, to discover that the scene was no longer split. The left side had superimposed itself upon his entire field of vision. His father merged also at that moment, and only the darker version remained....
...Gesturing frantically, Mark tried to inform him as to what had occurred. Suddenly, a dragon appeared above the skyline, Pol mounted upon its back, headed in their direction....
"...Oh, him," the shadowy figure at his side was saying. "He is a troublemaker. I cast him out long ago. He comes seeking to destroy you. Be strong. ..."
...Mark stared as the figure grew larger and larger, until finally it was crashing soundlessly, through the wall, reaching for him. Then there came a knocking sound, growing louder as it was repeated. Everything began to come apart about him, and he was falling....
He sat up in his bed, drenched with perspiration. The knocking continued. He rose and turned on the light, despite the fact that his left eye saw clearly. Throwing his robe about his shoulders, he moved to the door and opened it. The small man drew back, extending a piece of paper. "You asked to see this as soon as it came in, sir." He glanced at it and lowered it.
"We have Nora, and Pol got away with the magical device," he stated.
"Yes, sir. They're already in the air, bringing her here."
"Good. Notify the force at Rondoval that he may be on his way back there." He looked out, past his new flier, into the night. "I'd better check on the status of our mobilization. Return to duty."
"Yes, sir."
When he had finished dressing, he withdrew the photograph from his night table and stared at it for a time.
"We'll see," he said, "who falls."
Mouseglove was at the controls as they neared Rondoval.
"I don't see how you can seem so rested," he remarked, "after such a short nap. Mine didn't do me that much good--not after that damned shortcut of yours."
He looked about the messy cabin and wrinkled his nose.
"I seem to be drawing some sort of energy from the scepter," Pol answered. "It feels as though I have an extra heart or lung or both. That--"
A puff of smoke appeared above the battlements.
"What was that?" Mouseglove asked, as two more appeared.
"It almost seems as if it could be gunfire. Veer off. I don't want to take--" The ship shuddered, as if from a heavy blow, "--any chances," Pol finished, bracing himself and seizing the rod with his right hand.
A moment later they were falling, smoke coming into the cabin.
"Is it out of control?" Pol shouted,
"Not completely," Mouseglove replied, "but I can't pull it up. I'm trying to miss the rocks, at least. Maybe those trees over there ... Can you do anything?"
"I don't know."
Pol raised the scepter and strands were drawn to it through all the walls. To his eyes, it seemed again as if he sat at the center of an enormous, three-dimensional spiderweb. All of the strands began pulsing in time with the throbbing that rose in his wrist. The ship seemed to slow.
"We're going to miss the rocks!" Mouseglove shouted.
Perspiration sprang forth on Pol's brow. The lines between his eyes deepened.
"We're going to crash!"
A final burst of power fled from the scepter along the strands. Then there were treetops before them, upthrust branches reaching, then breaking. Abruptly, they came up against one which did not yield and they were pitched forward at the impact. The ship was torn open about them, but they were not aware of it.
Pol came awake with his hands tied behind him and did not open his eyes, as all his recent memories were immediately present within his throbbing head. He heard voices and smelled horses. There followed a sound of retreating hoofbeats. If whoever had shot at them had ridden down from the castle, the fact that they had not killed him immediately seemed to offer some sort of chance. He tested his bonds and found them very secure. He wondered how long he had been unconscious, and he wondered whether Mouseglove had survived the crash. And the scepter... Where was it?
He opened his eyes to the barest of slits and began turning his head, slowly.
He flinched, just slightly. But that was sufficient. He had not expected to see a centaur.
"Aha! You are awake!" cried the horse-man, who had apparently been scrutinizing him.
The well-muscled human torso towered above the sorrel horse-body, long, black hair pulled back from the dark-eyed, heavy-featured, masculine face and tied behind the head in something, Pol almost giggled, that he had once known as a pony tail.
"I am awake," he acknowledged, heaving himself toward a sitting position.
He succeeded on the second try. He saw Mouseglove lying on his side, hands similarly bound, still apparently unconscious, perhaps four meters away, beneath a large tree. The guitar case, apparently unscathed, rested against the tree's trunk. Pieces of wreckage lay between them, and when he looked upward, he saw the balance of the flier hanging like a giant, squashed fruit among the branches.
"Why have you tied us up?" he asked. "We've done nothing to you."
"Ha!" snorted his captor, executing a small prancing maneuver. "You call murder nothing?"