To Die In Italbar

_Shind! What happened?_

Silence.

_Shind! Damn it! Answer me!_

_Malacar_, came the reply, _is dead. Wait now... Wait_.

Morwin stared at his hands.

"Aren't you going to?" Heidel asked him.

He did not reply.

_Jackara! Shind! Is Jackara all right?_

Nothing.

_Shind! How is Jackara?_

_She lives. Wait now_.

"What is wrong?" Heidel asked.

"I don't know."

"Your friend ... ?"

"... is alive. We have just been in contact. That is not the problem now."

"What, then?"

"I don't know. Not yet. I am waiting."

_I am trying to find out, John. I have to be careful. That goddess-thing is there_.

_Where?_

_With Jackara_.

_How? How did it happen?_

_I believe that I was responsible, that she traveled by means of my link with Jackara. I am not certain how_.

_How did the Commander die?_

_She shot him_.

_Then what of Jackara?_

_That is what I am trying to find out. Leave me alone, and I will let you know when I do_.

_What can I do?_

_Nothing. Wait_.

Silence.

After a time, "Do you know now?" Heidel asked.

"I know nothing. Except that I have lost something too."

"What is happening?"

"My friend is trying to find out. At least we know where your goddess went. --How do you feel?"

"I do not understand my feelings. She was with me a long while. Years. For a time, she healed through me those who had been stricken with peculiar ills. It was as if we carried both these things and their remedies within us. For I was always protected myself. Then in Italbar I was attacked for a slip of fortune, stoned. It was as if I had gone to die in Italbar. Everything was changed. Her nature, I learned then, was dual. In both aspects she functions to remove disease. In the form in which I first knew her, she sought to purify life in this fashion. In her other aspect, it is life itself that she deems the disease, and she seeks to purify matter by curing it of this ailment. Ironically--or perhaps not so--it was by means of that which she had earlier viewed as disease that she sought to do this. She is a remedy as well as a condition. I have served her as apostle in both extremes. --What did she seem like when you saw her?"

"Blue and evil and powerful. Beautiful, too. She seemed to mock me, threaten me ..."

"Where is she now?"

"She has taken possession of a girl--not far from here. She just killed a man."

"Oh."

"You have been the subject of quite a search."

"Yes, I guess I did know that--some way."

There came a roll of thunder near at hand. When its echoes subsided, Morwin said, "She may have been right."

"About what?"

"Life being a disease."

"I don't know. It does not matter. Does it? I mean, that is only one way of looking at things, no matter what her power."

"Do you look at things that way?"

"I suppose so. I--worshiped--her. I believed her. I still probably do."

"How's the shoulder?"

"Hurts like hell."

"She must have done some good too."

"I suppose so."

Bright flashes occurred to the south, followed by more thunder. A few spatters of rain fell upon them, about them.

"Let's get over to those rocks," said Morwin. "They slant some. Might keep us dry."

He helped von Hymack to his feet, drew his arm across his shoulders, supported him in slow progress to the place beside the stone.

_There are two of them, came Shind, and they are moving toward one another now_.

_Two of what? What are you talking about?_

But Shind seemed not to have heard.

_They have awareness of one another, he went on. I must be very careful. Size hurt me so ... Strange that I did not recognize his peculiarity when first we met ... But then, it is nearer the surface now. Sandow, too, is accompanied by a shadowy Other_.

_Sandow? He is here? With Jackara?_

_They are talking. She still holds the gun, but he stands too far away. I ca

Morwin brought von Hymack into the shelter of the rocks. He lowered him to the ground, where he assumed a sitting position, back braced against the stone. He seated himself beside him and stared into the grayness. By then, the rainfall had become steady.

_He tells her that she must go-- I do not understand where, or how... She laughs. That painful laughter ... He waits until she has finished laughing and begins to speak. It is some formal thing that he says--memorized, not spontaneous. It is intricate and rhythmical, containing many paradoxes. I do not understand it. She listens_.

"Heidel, she is now with a man who is presumably trying to stop her. I do not know what will conic of it. But it is for this that we are waiting. Whatever the outcome, I have no idea what will become of you. My commander, my best friend, is dead. He had plans for you which will never come to pass. They were not especially admirable plans. But he was a great man nevertheless, and I might have helped him with them. Then again, I might have killed you, because of a danger you represented to him. Either way ..."

"I probably deserve anything unpleasant that happens to me."

"It strikes me that you were manipulated, both by circumstances and a parasitic autonomous complex with paranormal capabilities."

"You toss that off pretty glibly."

"I've been pestered by paranorm specialists most of my life. I'm an empathesiac telekineticist, whatever the hell that means--well, I move things around with my mind, and I can cause objects to induce specific feelings in people. I've absorbed the terminology. I sympathize with you. You have been used, and I would have been party to your continued exploitation. Tell me what it is that you want now."

"What? I don't know ... To die? No. To go away, I'd say. Someplace far, isolated. That is all I ever really wanted. I haven't been myself for so long that I want to get to know me again. Yes, to go away ..."

--_has finished, and she is no longer amused. She has angry words for him... Threatening... But now the thing in his mind is much nearer to the surface--the thing so like herself, when first I felt her presence in von Hymack. He speaks of this thing, mentioning a name. Shimbo, it seems to be. She raises the gun_--

There came a dazzling flash, followed by a crack of thunder. Morwin sprang to his feet.

_Shind! What happened?_

"What--?" said von Hymack, jerking his head about.

Morwin slowly sank back. The thunder came again, between small, steady flashes of light, a low, growling note that did not cease.

_The bolt struck between them, Shind said. She dropped the weapon and he took it, cast it away. But now he is no longer himself. Both their minds are mainly opaque. They are somehow akin, and there is an exchange of energies betiveen them. I believe he bids her depart once more and she protests the unfairness of it. I feel that there is fear in her. He replies. She does something ... Now he is angry. Again, he tells her to depart. She begins to argue and he interrupts her, asking whether she would carry the dispute to a contest_.

The thunder ceased. The winds grew still. Abruptly, the rain halted. The fog-hung air was instantly possessed of an u

_I detect nothing now_, Shind said. _It is as though they have become a pair of statues_.