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His way was barred by a sheet of pale flame.
"And so my choice is not really a choice," he said softly.
Is it ever? came the familiar, ironic notes in his head.
"I guess that remains to be seen."
Like most things, came the reply, accompanied by slightly conciliatory sensations.
"I've never been able to figure out whether you're an enemy or an ally."
We are agents. We aided you once.
"And the next time...?"
Why should you have any reason to doubt those who have helped you in the past?
"Because I came away with the feeling that I'd been pushed into something."
I would say, rather, that we pulled you out.
"That is a debatable point. But you say that you are agents. Agents of what?"
Change.
"Much is encompassed by that word. Could you be more specific?"
Two of the forces at work upon this world are science and magic. At times they are opposed to one another. We are on the side of the magic.
"This place hardly seems a stronghold of technology."
It is not. There is no direct confrontation involved here.
"God damn you! Getting a straight answer out of you is like milking a wildcat! Why can't you just tell me what is involved?"
The truth is such a sacred thing that we guard it well.
"I believe that you want my cooperation."
That is why we are assisting you again.
Pol tried shifting to the second seeing. This time it seemed to work smoothly. With it, he detected the outline of a human form within the flame--small, masculine, head bowed, hands hidden within the long sleeves which overlapped near its dark center. An orange strand drifted near Pol's right hand, the far end of it vanishing within the flame. He caught it with his fingertips and twirled it. The dragonmark throbbed upon his forearm.
"Now you will tell me what I wish to know--" he began.
His hand felt as if it were on fire. He stifled a scream and dropped to one knee in his agony. His second vision departed. His entire arm ached.
We will not be coerced in such a fashion, came the reply.
"I'll find the right way," he said through clenched teeth.
It would be so much easier and would save so much time if you would let us show you rather than spend the night telling you what is involved.
Pol rose to his feet, holding his aching right hand in the other.
"I suppose that's the best deal I'll get from you tonight."
It is. Turn and follow the other.
Pol turned and beheld another tongue of flame. This one was only the size of his hand, and it hung in the air in the middle of the corridor about eight paces before him. A moment after his gaze fell upon it, it began to drift away from him. He followed.
It led him through a hall filled with grotesque statues, both human and non-human, a low, red brilliance, a soft, almost vibrant glow lying upon the whole setting, cast perhaps by the flame itself, giving the impression that all of the stone forms were begi
He moved down a series of stone stairways, each rougher than the preceding one, passing through damp chambers and long passageways, which, judging from the descent he had made, must be well beneath the castle itself and hacked from the living stone of the mountainside. At some point, Pol ventured a look behind him and saw that the other flame was nowhere in sight. He also saw, however, that the shadows seemed to slide in a liquid, almost sentient fashion at his back, in a ma
The rooms and corridors through which he passed bore the dust of disuse in heavy layers, a thing he found mildly heartening when he moved through a series which could only be torture chambers--equipped as they were with chains, racks, tongs, pincers, weights, flails, whips, mallets and a great variety of oddly shaped blades. All of these bore stains, rust marks or both, along with the comforting coatings of dust. There were bones in odd corners, all of them gnawed long ago by rodents, now dry, brittle, cracked and discolored. Pol brushed a wall with his fingertips and heard the echoes of screams from long ago. When he switched to the second vision, he caught near-subliminal glimpses of atrocities enacted in times gone by, the traumas of which had etched themselves into the setting. Hastily, he reverted to the normal mode of seeing.
"Who ..." he whispered, more to himself, "was responsible for these things?"
The present lord, Ryle Merson, came the reply from ahead.
"He must be a monster!"
Once, such things were routine here. But he ceased all such activities nearly a quarter of a century ago, claiming that he had repented. It is said that he has led a relatively blameless, possibly even virtuous life since.
"Is it true?"
Who can say what lies in a persons heart? Perhaps he ca
"You are making this all totally enigmatic to me. I confess to being prejudiced, but in no way can I see his treatment of me as virtuous or blameless--and that goes for his lackey, Larick, as well."
People have reasons for things that they do. Motives and objectives are seldom of matching moral color.
"And what of yourself, whatever you are?"
We are neither moral nor immoral now, for our actions contain no element of choice.
"Yet something set you upon the course you follow. There was a decision there."
So it would seem--a touch of irony to these words?
"Still not giving anything away, are you?"
Nothing.
They moved past a fetid-smelling cistern in which something was splashing. The floor of a recess near an adjacent airshaft was heavy with the droppings and fragile, hieroglyphic skeletons of what might have been bats. Indentations in the floor contained small pools of water. The walls were slimy in this area, and Pol felt as if a great weight of earth and rock hovered just above his head, groaning the long, slow notes of timeless stresses.
He wondered at the brief conversation, recalling the allegations of the Seven after the battle at Anvil Mountain, giving the impression then that their actions were determined. At least they were consistent in what little they did say. There was something more about them which he felt that he should remember, something almost dream-like in texture....
His efforts at recollection ended as he turned a corner and halted. Whether it was a corridor or a room which he now faced, he could not tell. The way ahead was misty--almost smoky--though he detected no odors about it. The flame had halted when he did, and it seemed much nearer now; its brightness had increased, and it had acquired something of a greenish cast.
"What the hell," Pol asked, "is that?"
Just a heal etheric disturbance.
"I don't believe in ether."
Then call it something else. Perhaps you will be footnoted by some future lexicographer. We know that things were different where you grew up.
"I'll be damned. That's the closest I've come to getting a rise out of you. So you know my history?"
We were present when you departed this world. We were present when you returned.
"Interesting. Your remarks almost lead me to believe that you do not know what things were like in the place where I was raised."
True, though we are able to conclude a number of things about it from examining your actions and reactions
since your return. For example, the familiarity with technology which you demonstrated--