Isle Of The Dead

"Why not?" I cried.

"Do you remember what you said to me then, last night ... ?"

"Yes, and I remember your reply. All of that was last night, anyhow, when I was somebody else. --You had your chance and you blew it. If I had the strength, I would scratch your name and the date on the stone. So long, it's been good to know you."

"Frank!"

I didn't even look back.

--_Your changes of character continue to amaze me, Frank_.

--_So you made it, too, Green. I suppose you're in some other damn cave and want to be dug out_.

--_No. In fact I am only a few hundred feet from you, in the direction in which you were heading. I am near the power-pull, though it can't help me now. I will call out when I hear you approaching_.

--_Why?_

--_The time is near. I will go to the land of death, and there my strength shall fail. I was hurt badly last night_.

--_What do you want me to do about it? I've got problems of my own_.

--_I want the last rite. You told me that you gave it to Dra Marling, so I know that you know the way. Also, you said that you had _glitten__--

--_I don't believe in that any more. Never did. I only did it for Marling because_--

--_You are a high priest. You bear the Name Shimbo of Darktree Tower, Shrugger of Thunders. You ca

--_I have renounced the Name, and I do refuse you_.

--_You said once that if I helped you, you would intercede for me on Megapei. I _did_ help you_.

--_I know that, but now that you are dying it is too late_.

--_Then give me this thing instead_.

--_I will come to you and give you what aid and comfort I can, save for the last rite. I am finished with such things, after last night_.

--_Come to me, then_.

So I did. By the time I reached him, the rain had just about let up. Too bad. It had been doing a fair job of washing away his body fluids. He had propped himself back against a rock, and the whiteness of bone shone through flesh in four places that I could see.

"The vitality of a Pei'an is a fantastic thing," I said. "You got all that in that fall last night?"

He nodded, then --_It hurts to speak, so I must continue in this fashion. I knew you still lived, so I kept myself alive until I could reach you_.

I managed to get what was left of my pack off my back. Then I opened it.

"Here, take this. It is for pain. It works for five races. Yours is one."

He brushed it aside.

--_I do not wish to dull my mentality at this point_.

"Green, I am not going to give you the rite. I will give you the _glitten_ root and you can take it yourself if you wish. But that's all."

--_Even if I can give you that which you most desire in return?_

"What?"

--_All of them, back again, with no memory of what has happened here_.

"The tapes!"

--_Yes_.

"Where are they?"

--_A favor for a favor, _Dra_ Sandow_.

"Give them to me."

--_The rite_ ...

... A new Kathy, a Kathy who had never met Mike Shandon, my Kathy--and Nick, the breaker of noses.

"You drive a hard bargain, Pei'an."

--_I have no choice--and please hurry_.

"All right. I'll go through with it, this one last time. --Where are the tapes?"

--_After the rite has begun and may not be stopped, then I will tell you_.

I chuckled.

"Okay. I don't blame you for not trusting me."

--_You were shielding. You must have been pla

"Probably. I'm not really sure."

I unwrapped the _glitten_, broke off the proper proportions.

"Now we will walk together," I began, "and only one of us two will return to this place ..."

After a cold, gray time and a black, warm one, we walked in a twilit place without wind or stars. There was only bright green grass, high hills and a faint aurora borealis that licked at the grayblueblack sky, following the entire circle of the broken horizon. It was as if the stars had all fallen, been powdered, were strewn upon the hilltops.

We walked effortlessly--almost strolling, though with a purpose--our bodies whole once more. Green was at my left hand, among the hills of the _glitten_-dream--or was it a dream? It seemed true and substantial, while our broken, tired carcasses lying on rocks in the rain now seemed a dream remembered, out of times long gone by. We had always been walking here, so, Green and I--or so it seemed--and a feeling of well-being and amity lay upon us. It was almost the same as the last time I had come to this place. Perhaps I had always really been here.

We sang an old Pei'an song for a time, then Green said, "I give you the _pai'badra_ I held against you, _Dra_. I hold it no more."

"This is good, _Dra_ tharl."

"I promised, too, to tell you something. It was of the tapes, yes. --They lie beneath the empty green body I was privileged to wear for a time."

"I see."

"They are useless. I called them to me there with my mind, from a vault where I had kept them. They had been damaged by the forces let loose upon the isle; and so, also, were the tissue cultures. Thus do I keep my word, but poorly. You gave me no choice, though. I could not come this way alone."

I felt that I should be upset, and knew that for a time I could not be.

"You did what you had to," I felt myself saying. "Do not be troubled. Perhaps it is better that I ca

"Now I must tell you of Ruth Laris," he said. "She lies in the Asylum of Fallon in Cobacho, on Driscoll, where she is registered as Rita Lawrence. Her face has been altered, and her mind. You must remove her and hire doctors."

"Why is she there?"

"It was easier than bringing her to Illyria."

"All this pain which you caused meant nothing to you, did it?"

"No. Perhaps I had worked with the stuff of life too long ..."

"... And poorly. I am inclined to think it was Belion within you."

"I did not wish to say it, because I did not want to offer excuses, but I feel this way also. This is why I tried to kill Shimbo. It was this part of me that you faced, and I wished to strike at it, too. After he left me for Shandon, I felt remorse for many of the things I had done. He had to be sent away, which is why Shimbo of Darktree came. Belion could not be permitted to create more worlds of cruelty and ugliness. Shimbo, who cast them like jewels into the darkness, sparkling with the colors of life, had to confront him once again. Now that he has won, there will be more such as these."

"No," I said. "We can't operate without each other, and I've resigned."

"You are bitter oven all that has happened, and perhaps justly so. But one does not easily abandon a calling such as yours, _Dra_. Perhaps with the passage of time ..."

I did not answer him for my thoughts had turned inward again.

The way that we walked was the way of death. However pleasant it seemed, this was a _glitten_ experience; and while ordinary people may become addicted to _glitten_ because of the euphoria and the brain-bending, telepaths use _glitten_ in special ways.

Used by a single individual, it serves to heighten his powers.

Used by two persons, a common dream will be dreamed. It, also, is always a very pleasant dream--and among Strantrians it is always the same dream, because this form of religious training conditions the subconscious to produce it by reflex. It is a tradition.

... And two dream it and only one awakens.

It is, therefore, used in the death rite, so that one need not go alone to the place I've spent over a thousand years avoiding.