MISTAKE INSIDE
By JAMES BLISH
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Startling Stories, March 1948.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
This was England, two hundred years before bomb craters had become a fixed feature of the English landscape, and while the coffee house still had precedence over the pub. The fire roared, and the smoke from long clay church-warden pipes made a blue haze through which cheerful conversation struggled.
The door swung back, and the host stood in the opening, fat hands on hips, surveying the scene contentedly. Someone, invisible in the fog, drank a slurred uproarious toast, and a glass slammed into the fireplace, where the brandy-coated fragments made a myriad of small blue flames.
"Split me if that goes not in the reckoning!" the innkeeper bellowed. A ragged chorus of derision answered him. The inn cat shot down the stairs behind him, and its shadow glided briefly over the room as it passed the fire. It was an impossibly large, dark shadow, and for a moment it blacked out several of the booths in the rear of the chamber; the close, motionless air seemed to take on a chill. Then it was gone, and the cat, apparently annoyed by the noise, vanished into the depths of a heavy chair.
The host forgot about it. He was accustomed to its sedentary tastes. It often got sat on in the after-theater hilarity. He rolled good-naturedly across the room as someone pounded on a table for him.
But the cat, this time, had not merely burrowed into the cushions. It was gone. In the chair, in a curiously transparent condition which made him nearly invisible in the uncertain light, sat a dazed, tired figure in a Twentieth-Century Tux....
The radio was playing a melancholy opus called "Is You Is or Is You Ain't, My Baby," as the cab turned the corner. "Here you are, sir," croaked the driver in his three A.M. voice.
The sleepy-eyed passenger's own voice was a little unreliable. "How much?"
The fare was paid and the cabby wearily watched his erstwhile customer go up the snow-covered walk between the hedges. He put the car in gear. Then he gaped and let the clutch up. The engine died with a reproachful gasp.
The late rider had staggered suddenly sidewise toward the bushes—had he been that drunk? Of course, he had only tripped and fallen out of sight; the cabby's fleeting notion that he had melted into the air was an illusion, brought on by the unchristian lateness of the hour. Nevertheless the tracks in the snow did stop rather unaccountably. The cabby swore, started his engine, and drove away, as cautiously as he had ever driven in his life.
Behind him, from the high tree in the yard, a cat released a lonely ululation on the cold, still night.
The stage was set....
There is order in all confusions; but Dr. Hugh Tracy, astronomer, knew nothing of the two events recorded above when his adventure began, so he could make no attempt at integrating them. Indeed, he was in confusion enough without dragging in any stray cats. One minute he had been charging at the door of Jeremy Wright's apartment, an automatic in his hand and blind rage in his heart. As his shoulder had splintered the panel, the world had revolved once around him, like a scene-changing stunt in the movies.
The scene had changed, all right. He was not standing in Jeremy Wright's apartment at all, but in a low-roofed, dirt-floored room built of crudely shaped logs, furnished only with two antique chairs and a rickety table from which two startled men were arising. The two were dressed in leathern jerkins of a type fashionable in the early 1700's.
"I—I beg your pardon," he volunteered lamely. "I must have mixed the apartments up." He did not turn to go immediately, however, for as he thought disgustedly concerning the lengths to which some people will go to secure atmosphere, he noticed the dirty mullioned window across the room. The sight gave him a fresh turn. He might just possibly have mistaken the number of Jeremy Wright's apartment, but certainly he hadn't imagined running up several flights of stairs! Yet beyond the window he could see plainly a cheerful sunlit street.
Sunlit. The small fact that it had been 3:00 A.M. just a minute before did not help his state of mind.
"Might I ask what you're doing breaking out of my room in this fashion?" one of the queerly-costumed men demanded, glaring at Hugh. The other, a younger man, waved his hand indulgently at his friend and sat down again. "Relax, Jonathan," he said. "Can't you see he's a transportee?"
The older man stared more closely at the befuddled Dr. Tracy. "So he is," he said. "I swear, since Yero came to power again this country has been the dumping ground of half the universe. Wherever do they get such queer clothes, do you suppose?"
"Come on in," invited the other. "Tell us your story." He winked knowingly at Jonathan, and Hugh decided he did not like him.
"First," he said, "Would you mind telling me something about that window?"
The two turned to follow his pointed finger. "Why, it's just an ordinary window, in that it shows what's beyond it," said the young man. "Why?"
"I wish I knew," Hugh groaned, closing his eyes and trying to remember a few childhood prayers. The only one that came to mind was something about fourteen angels which hardly fitted the situation. After a moment he looked again, this time behind him. As he had suspected, the broken door did not lead back into the hallway of the apartment building, but into a small bedchamber of decidedly pre-Restoration cast.
"Take it easy," advised Jonathan. "It's hard to get used to at first. And put that thing away—it's a weapon of some kind, I suppose. The last transportee had one that spouted a streamer of purple gas. He was a very unpleasant customer. What do you shoot?"
"Metal slugs," said Hugh, feeling faintly hysterical. "Where am I, anyhow?"
"Outside."
"Outside what?"
"That's the name of the country," the man explained patiently. "My name, by the way, is Jonathan Bell, and this gentleman is Oliver Martin."
"Hugh Tracy. Ph.D., F.R.A.S.," he added automatically. "So now I'm inside Outside, eh? How far am I from New York? I'm all mixed up."
"New York!" exclaimed Martin. "That's a new one. The last one said he was from Tir-nam-beo. At least I'd heard of that before. How did you get here, Tracy?"
"Suddenly," Tracy said succinctly. "One minute I was bashing at the door of Jeremy Wright's apartment, all set to shoot him and get my wife out of there; and then, blooey!"
"Know this Wright fellow very well, or anything about him?"
"No. I've seen him once or twice, that's all. But I know Evelyn's been going to his place quite regularly while I was at the observatory."
Bell pulled a folded and badly soiled bit of paper from his breast pocket, smoothed it out on the splintery table top, and passed it to Hugh. "Look anything like this?" he asked.
"That's him! How'd you get this? Is he here somewhere?"
Bell and Martin both smiled. "It never fails," the younger man commented. "That's Yero, the ruler of this country during fall seasons. He just assumed power again three months ago. That picture comes off the town bulletin board, from a poster announcing his approaching marriage."
"Look," Hugh said desperately. "It isn't as if I didn't like your country, but I'd like to get back to my own. Isn't there some way I can manage it?"
"Sorry," Martin said. "We can't help you there. I suppose the best thing for you to do is to consult some licensed astrologer or thaumaturgist; he can tell you what to do. There are quite a few good magicians in this town—they all wind up here eventually—and one of them ought to be able to shoot you back where you belong."
"I don't put any stock in that humbug. I'm an astronomer."
"Not responsible for your superstitions. You asked my advice, and I gave it."
"Astrologers!" Hugh groaned. "Oh, my lord!"
"However," Martin continued, "you can stay here with us for the time being. If you're an enemy of Yero's, you're a friend of ours."
Hugh scratched his head. The mental picture of himself asking an astrologer for guidance did not please him.
"I suppose I'll have to make the best of this," he said finally. "Nothing like this ever happened to me before, or to anybody I've ever heard of, so I guess I'm more or less sane. Thanks for the lodging offer. Right now I'd like to go hunt up—ulp—a magician."
Bell smiled. "All right," he said, "if you get lost in the city, just ask around. They're friendly folk, and more of 'em than you think have been in your spot. Most of the shopkeepers know Bell's place. After you've wandered about a bit you'll get the layout better. Then we can discuss further plans."
Hugh wondered what kind of plans they were supposed to discuss, but he was too anxious to discover the nature of the place into which he had fallen to discuss the question further. Bell led him down a rather smelly hallway to another door, and in a moment he found himself surveying the street.
It was all incredibly confusing. The language the two had spoken was certainly modern English, yet the busy, narrow thoroughfare was just as certainly Elizabethan in design. The houses all had overhanging second stories. Through the very center of the cobbled street ran a shallow gutter in which a thin stream of swill-like liquid trickled. The bright light flooding the scene left no doubt as to its reality, and yet there was still the faint aura of question about it. The feeling was intensified when he discovered that there was no sun; the whole dome of sky was an even dazzle. It was all like a movie set, and it was a surprise to find that the houses had backs to them.
Across the street, perched comfortably in the cool shadows of a doorway, an old man slept, a tasselled nightcap hanging down over his forehead. Over his head a sign swayed: COPPERSMITH. Not ten feet away from him a sallow young man was leaning against the wall absorbed in the contents of a very modern-looking newspaper, which bore the headlines: DOWSER CONFESSES FAIRY GOLD PLANT. Lower down on the page Hugh could make out a boxed item headed: STILETTO KILLER FEIGNS INSANITY. In a moment, he was sure, he wouldn't have to feign it. The paper was as jarring an anachronism in the Shakespearean street scene as a six-cylinder coupe would have been.
At least he was spared having to account for any cars, though. The conventional mode of transportation was horses, it seemed. Every so often one would canter past recklessly. Their riders paid little regard to the people under their horses' hoofs and the people in their turn scattered with good-natured oaths, like any group of twentieth century pedestrians before a taxi.
As Hugh stepped off the low stone lintel he heard a breathy whistle, and turning, beheld a small red-headed urchin coming jerkily toward him. The boy was alternately whistling and calling "Here, Fleet, Fleet, Fleet! Nice doggy! Here, Fleet!" His mode of locomotion was very peculiar; he lunged mechanically from side to side or forward as if he were a machine partly out of control.
As he came closer Hugh saw that he was holding a forked stick in his hands, the foot of the Y pointing straight ahead, preceding the lad no matter where he went. On the boy's head was a conical blue cap lettered with astrological and alchemical symbols, which had sagged so as to completely cover one eye, but he seemed loathe to let go of the stick to adjust it.
In a moment the boy had staggered to a stop directly before Hugh, while the rigid and quivering end of the stick went down to Hugh's shoes and began slowly to ascend. He was conscious of a regular sniffing sound.
"Better tend to that cold, son," he suggested.
"That isn't me, it's the rod," the boy said desperately. "Please, sir, have you seen a brown puppy—" At this point the stick finished its olfactory inspection of Hugh and jerked sidewise, yanking the boy after it. As the urchin disappeared, still calling "Here, Fleet!" Hugh felt a faint shiver. Here was the first evidence of a working magic before his eyes, and his sober astronomer's soul recoiled from it.
A window squealed open over his head, and he jumped just in time to avoid a gush of garbage which was flung casually down toward the gutter. Thereafter he clung as close to the wall as he could, and kept beneath the overhanging second stories. Walking thus, with his eyes on the sole-punishing cobbles, deep in puzzlement, his progress was presently arrested by collision with a mountain.
When his eyes finally reached the top of it, it turned out to be a man, a great muscular thug clad in expensive blue velvet small-clothes and a scarlet cape like an eighteenth century exquisite. Was there no stopping this kaleidoscope of anachronism?
"Weah's ya mannas?" the apparition roared. "Move out!"
"What for?" Hugh replied in his most austere classroom tone. "I don't care to be used as a sewage pail any more than you do."
"Ah," said the giant. "Wise guy, eh? Dunno ya bettas, eh?" There was a whistling sound as he drew a thin sword which might have served to dispatch whales. Hugh's Royal Society reserve evaporated and he clawed frantically for his automatic, but before the double murder was committed the giant lowered his weapon and bent to stare more closely at the diminutive doctor.
"Ah," he repeated. "Ya a transportee, eh?"
"I guess so," Tracy said, remembering that Martin had used the word.
"Weah ya from?"
"Brooklyn," Hugh said hopefully.
The giant shook his head. "Weah you guys think up these here names is a wonda. Well, ya dunno the customs, that's easy t' see."
He stepped aside to let Hugh pass.
"Thank you," said Hugh with a relieved sigh. "Can you tell me where I can find an astrologer?" He still could not pronounce the word without choking.
"Ummmm—most of 'em are around the squaah. Ony, juss between you an' me, buddy, I'd keep away from there till the p'rade's ova. Yero's got an orda out fa arrestin' transportees." The giant nodded pleasantly. "Watch ya step." He stalked on down the street.
Looking after him, Hugh was startled to catch a brief glimpse of a man dressed in complete dinner clothes, including top hat, crossing the street and rounding a corner. Hoping that this vision from his own age might know something significant about this screwy world, he ran after him, but lost him in the traffic. He found nothing but a nondescript and unhappy alley-cat which ran at his approach.
Discouraged, Hugh went back the way he had come and set out in search of the public square and an astrologer. As he walked, he gradually became conscious of a growing current of people moving in the same direction, a current which was swelled by additions from every street and byway they passed. There was a predominance of holiday finery, and he remembered the giant's words about a parade. Well, he'd just follow the crowd; it would make finding the square that much easier.
Curious snatches of conversation reached his ears as he plodded along. "... Aye, in the square, sir; one may hope that it bodes us some change...." "... Of Yero eke, that of a younge wyfe he gat his youthe agoon, and withal...." "... An' pritnear every time dis guy toins up, yiz kin count on gittin' it in the neck...." "... Oft Scyld Yero sceathena threatum, hu tha aethlingas ellen fremedon...."
Most of the fragments were in English, but English entirely and indiscriminately mixed as to century. Hugh wondered if the few that sounded foreign were actually so, or whether they were some Saxon or Jutish ancestor of English—or, perhaps, English as it might sound in some remote future century. If that latter were so, then there might be other cities in Outside where only old, modern and future French was spoken, or Russian, or—
The concept was too complex to entertain. He remembered the giant's warning, and shook his head. This world, despite the obvious sweating reality of the crowd around him and the lumpy pavement beneath his feet, was still too crazy to be anything but a phantom. He was curious to see this Yero, who looked so inexplicably like Jeremy Wright, but he could not take any warning of Outside very seriously. His principle concern was to get back inside again.
As the part of the crowd which bore him along debouched from the narrow street into a vast open space, he heard in the distance the sound of trumpets, blowing a complicated fanfare. A great shouting went up, but somehow it seemed not the usual cheering of expectant parade-goers. There was a strange undertone—perhaps of animosity? Hugh could not tell.
In the press he found that he could move neither forward nor back. He would have to stand where he was until the event was over and the mob dispersed.
By craning his neck over the shoulders of those in front of him—a procedure which, because of his small stature, involved some rather precarious teetering on tip-toe—he could see across the square. It was surrounded on all four sides by houses and shops, but the street which opened upon it directly opposite him was a wide one. Through it he saw a feature of the city which the close-grouped overhanging houses had hidden before—a feature which put the finishing touch upon the sense of unreality and brought back once more the suggestion of a vast set for a Merrie-England movie by a bad director.
It was a castle. Furthermore it was twice as big as any real castle ever was, and its architecture was totally out of the period of the town below it. It was out of any period. It was a modernist's dream, a Walter Gropius design come alive. The rectangular faƧade and flanking square pylons were vaguely reminiscent of an Egyptian temple of Amenhotep IV's time, but the whole was of bluely gleaming metal, shimmering smoothly in the even glare of the sky.
From the flat summits floated scarlet banners bearing an unreadable device. A clustered group of these pennons before the castle seemed to be moving, and by stretching his neck almost to the snapping point Hugh could see that they were being carried by horsemen who were coming slowly down the road. Ahead of them came the trumpeters, who were now entering the square, sounding their atonal tocsin.
Now the trumpeters passed abreast of him, and the crowd made a lane to let them through. Next came the bearers of the standards, two by two, holding their horses' heads high. A group of richly dressed but ruffianly retainers followed them. The whole affair reminded Hugh of a racketeer's funeral in Chicago's prohibition days. Finally came the sedan chair which bore the royal couple—and Dr. Hugh Tracy at last lost hold of his sanity. For beside the aloof, hated Yero-Jeremy in the palanquin was Evelyn Tracy.
When Hugh came back to his senses he was shouting unintelligible epithets, and several husky townsmen were holding his arms. "Easy, Bud," one of them hissed into his ear. "Haven't you ever seen him before?"
Hugh forced himself back to a semblance of calmness, and had sense enough to say nothing of Evelyn. "Who—what is he?" he gasped. The other looked at him tensely for a moment, then, reassured, let go of him.
"That's Yero. He's called many names, but the most common is The Enemy. Better get used to seeing him. You can't help hating him, but it'll do you no good to fly off the handle like that."
"You mean everybody hates him?"
The townsman frowned. "Why, certainly. He's The Enemy."
"Then why don't you throw him out?"
"Well—"
The other burgher, who had said nothing thus far, broke in: "Presenuk prajolik solda, soldama mera per ladsua hrutkal; per stanisch felemetskje droschnovar."
"Exactly," said the other man. "You okay now, Bud?"
"Ulp," Hugh said. "Yes, I'm all right."
The crowd, still roaring its ambiguous cheer, was following the procession out the other end of the square, and shortly Hugh found himself standing almost alone. A sign over a nearby shop caught his eye: Dr. ffoni, Licensed Magician. Here was what he had been looking for. As he ran quickly across the square toward the rickety building, he thought he caught a glimpse out of the tail of his eyes of a top hat moving along in the departing crowd; but he dismissed it. That could wait.
The shop was dark inside, and at first he thought it empty. But in answer to repeated shouts a scrambling began in the back room, and a nondescript little man entered, struggling into a long dark gown several sizes too large for him.
"Sorry," he puffed, trying to regain his right hand, which he had lost down the wrong sleeve, "out watching the parade. May I serve you, young sir?"
"Yes. I'm a transportee, and I'd like to get back where I belong."
"So would we all, so would we all, indeed," said the magician, nodding vigorously. "Junior!"
"Yes, paw." A gawky adolescent peered out of the back room.
"Customer."
"Ah, paw, I don wanna go in t' any trance. I'm dragging a rag-bag to a rat-race t'night an' I wanna be groovy. You know prognostics allus knock me flatter'n a mashed-potato san'witch."
"You'll do as you're told, or I'll not allow you to use the broomstick. You see, young sir," the magician addressed Hugh, "familiar spirits are at somewhat of a premium around here, there being so many in this town in my profession; but since my wife was a Sybil, my son serves me adequately in commissions of this nature."
He turned back to the boy, who was now sitting on a stool behind the counter, and produced a pink lollipop from the folds of his robe. The boy allowed it to be placed in his mouth docilely enough, and closed his eyes. Hugh watched, not knowing whether to laugh or to swear. If this idiotic procedure produced results, he was sure he'd never be able to contemplate Planck's Constant seriously again.
"Now then, while we're waiting," the sorcerer continued, "you should understand the situation. All living has two sides, the IN-side and the OUT-side. The OUT-side is where the roots of significant mistakes are embedded; the IN-side where they flower. Since most men have their backs turned to the OUT-side all their lives, few mistakes can be rectified. But if a man be turned, as if on a pivot, so that he face the other way, he may see and be on the OUT-side, and have the opportunity to uproot his error if he can find the means. Such a fortunate man is a transportee."
"So, in effect, existence has just been given a half-turn around me, to put me facing outside instead of inside where I belong?"
"A somewhat egotistical way of putting it, but that is the general idea. The magicians of many ages have used this method of disposing of their enemies; for unless the transportee can find his Atavars—the symbols, as it were, of his error—and return them to their proper places, he must remain Outside forever. This last many have done by choice, since none ever dies Outside."
"I'd just as soon not," Hugh said with a groan. "What are my Atavars?"
"To turn a capstan there must be a lever; and to pivot a man Outside means that two other living beings must act as the ends of this lever, and exchange places in time. Your Atavars changed places in time, while you stood still in time and space, but were pivoted to face Outside."
At this point he reached over to the boy and gave an experimental tug on the protruding stick of the lollipop. It slipped out easily; all the pink candy had dissolved. "Ah," he said. "We are about ready." He made a few passes with his hands and began to sing:
"Jet propulsion, Dirac hole,
Trochilminthes, Musterole,
Plenum, bolide, Ding an sich,
Shoot the savvy to me, Great White Which!"
The tune was one more commonly associated with Pepsi-Cola. After a moment the boy's mouth opened, and, licking the remains of the lollipop from its corners, he said clearly, "Two hundred. Night-prowlers."
"Is that all?" Hugh said, not much surprised.
"That's quite enough. Well, maybe not quite enough, but it's about all I ever get."
"But what does it mean?"
"Why, simply this: that your Atavars are two hundred years apart from each other; and that they are night-prowlers."
"Two hundred years! And I have to find them?"
"They are represented by simulacra in Outside. You must identify these simulacra and touch each one; this done, they will exchange again, and you will be rotated Inside. Have you seen any here?"
A light burst in Hugh's brain. "I saw a man from my own age who looked like a bona-fide night-prowler, all right."
"You see?" The magician spread his hands expressively. "Half the work is over. Simply search for another night-prowler whose costume is two hundred years older—or, of course, younger—than the first. It's very simple. Now, young sir—" The hands began to wash each other suggestively.
Hugh produced a handful of coins. "That's no good," said the little man with a sniff. "I can make that myself. It's the city's principle industry. I don't suppose you have any sugar on you? Or rubber bands? No? Hmm. How about that?"
He prodded Hugh's vest. "That" was Hugh's Sigma Chi key, dangling from his watch chain. He had been elected to the honorary society by virtue of a closely reasoned paper on the deficiencies of current stellar evolution hypotheses. With a grin he passed it across the counter. "Thanks," the thaumaturgist said, "I collect fetishes. Totem fixation, I guess."
Feeling rather humble, Hugh left the shop and started back toward Bell's house by the most direct route his memory could provide. Now that he had begun to get his bearings, his stomach was reminding him that he had gone the whole day without food. On the way he saw the known Atavar half-way down a dark alley, contemplating a low doorway sorrowfully; but when he arrived, the top-hatted figure was gone. By the time he entered the house where he had his first glimpse of Outside, he was decidedly discouraged, but the pleasant smell of food revived him somewhat.
"Good evening," Bell greeted him, though the ambiguous daylight was as unvaryingly bright as ever. "Find your astrologer?"
"Yes. Now I have to find a night-prowler. You wouldn't be one, by any chance?"
The man laughed softly. "In a sense, yes, but I'm too old to be the one you want. You're Atavar-hunting, I take it?"
"That's it."
"Well, I'm not a simulacrum. I'm a native here, one of the original settlers. Come on and eat, anyhow." He led the way into the room which Hugh had first seen, and waved him to the table. On it was a platter bearing a complete roast hog's head with an apple in its mouth and three strips of bacon between its ears, a pudding, a meat pie, a spitted duckling, three wooden trenchers—boards used as plates—and three razor-sharp knives. Obviously forks were not in style Outside.
"Has Yero's administration caused a potato shortage?" Hugh asked curiously.
"Potato? No. You transportees have odd ideas; you mean potatoes to eat? Don't you know they're a relative of the deadly nightshade?"
Hugh shrugged and fell to. There was bread, anyhow. During the course of the meal the two pumped him about his experiences during the day, and he answered with increasing caution. They seemed to be up to something. He especially disliked young Martin, whose knowing smile when Hugh described his belief that Yero's queen was in actuality his own wife irritated him. As the dinner ended Bell came to the point.
"You've heard Yero spoken of as The Enemy? Well, his rule here is intermittent. He just pops up every fall season and takes the place of the Old One, who is the only rightful king, and a good one. It's during Yero's ascendancy that all the transportees show up—all the people who make mistakes during that period, if the mistakes are of a certain kind, get pivoted around here to correct them. It gets pretty nuisancy.
"You can see what I mean. Here you come busting in on us and split our good pine door and eat one third of our food. Not that we begrudge you the food; you're welcome to it; but it is a bother to have all these strangers around. In addition it decreases the future population in a way I haven't time to describe now. Everybody hates Yero, even the transportees. It's our idea to assassinate him before he gets to come back another time; then the Old One can really do us some good and the town can come back to normal. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it?"
"I thought no one ever died here."
"Nobody ever does, naturally, but accidents or violence can distribute an individual to the point of helplessness. Since you seem to hate Yero like the rest of us, we thought you might like to throw in with us."
The hospitality of the two did not permit him to refuse immediately, but more and more he was sure he did not want to be involved in any project of theirs. Bell's picture of what the Outside's substitute for death was like revolted him; and in addition, the thought occurred to him that it would be dangerous to take any positive steps while he was still ignorant of the error that had brought him here.
"I'd like to sleep on that," he said cautiously. "Do you mind if I defer judgment for the night? I haven't had any sleep for thirty-six hours, and I'll just pass out, if I don't get some."
"All right," Bell said. "You think it over. With The Enemy out of the way it might be easier to find your Atavars, too, you know. Nothing ever works right while he's in power."
When Hugh awoke his brain did not function properly for quite a few seconds. The bed had had fleas in it, and the changeless brilliancy of the "daylight" had kept him awake a long time despite his exhaustion. The sight of the black-clad figure seated on the nearby stool did not register at first.
"Good mornin'," he said muzzily. Then, "You!"
"Me," the man in the top hat replied ungrammatically. "I had to wait for the two Princes to get out of the house before I could see you. I've been looking for you."
"You've been looking for me," Hugh repeated angrily, sitting up in bed. He noticed with only faint surprise that the wall of the room was plainly visible through the visitant's stiff shirt bosom. "Well, you'll have to solidify a minute if you're going to do me any good. I'm supposed to touch you."
"Not yet. When you do, this image will vanish, and I've got a few things to talk to you about before that happens. I got bounced back two hundred years in time just on account of a fool mistake you made, and I'm as anxious to see you straightened out as you are myself." He hiccuped convulsively. "Luckily I'm a book collector with a special bent towards Cruikshank. I had sense enough to consult Dr. Dee while I was behind the times, and found out where you were. Do you know?"
"Where I am? Why, I'm Outside."
"Use your noggin. How much does 'Outside' mean to you, anyhow?"
"Very little," Hugh agreed. "Well, the only other place I know where people go that make mistakes is—awk! Now, wait a minute! Don't tell me—"
The figure nodded solemnly. "Now you've got it. You should have guessed that when the Princes told you their boss was called the Old One. You've already had clue after clue that they're forbidden to conceal from you; that no one dies here; that all the world's magicians come here eventually; that making money—remember the saying about the root of all evil?—is the town's principle industry; and so on."
"Well, well." Hugh scratched his head. "Hugh Tracy, Ph.D., F.R.A.S., spending a season in Hell just like Rimbaud or some other crazy poet. The fall season at that. How Evelyn would love this. But it's not quite as I would have pictured it."
"Why should it have been?"
Hugh could think of no answer. "Who's Yero, then? He's called The Enemy."
"He's their enemy, sure enough. I don't know exactly who he is, but he's someone in authority, and his job is to see that the Purgatory candidates get a chance to straighten things out for themselves. Naturally the Fallen buck him as much as possible; and part of the trick is to disguise the place somewhat, to keep its nature hidden from the transportees—the potential damned—and lure them into doing something that will keep them here for good. That bed you're in, for instance, is probably a pool of flaming brimstone or something of the sort."
Hugh bounded out hastily.
"Yero establishes himself in the fortress of Dis, which is what that pile of chromium junk is, up on the hill, after you get behind the disguise. Each time he comes, he makes a tour through the town, showing himself to each newcomer in a form which will mean the most to that person. The important thing is that few people take kindly to being corrected in the fundamental kinds of mistakes that bring them here, so that nine times out of ten Yero's appearance to you makes you hate him."
"Hmm," Hugh said. "I begin to catch on, around the edges, as it were. To me he looked like a man I'd started out to murder a few days ago."
"You're on the track. Examine your motives, use your head, son, and don't let the Princes trick you into anything." The pellucid shape steadied and grew real and solid by degrees; the man in the top hat rose and walked toward the bed. "Above all—don't hate Yero."
His outstretched hand touched Hugh's sleeve, and he vanished on the instant with a sharp hiccup.
There was no one in the house, and nothing to eat but a half-consumed and repellent-looking pudding left over from the "night" before, which he finished for lack of anything else rather than out of any attraction the suety object had as a breakfast dish. Then he left the house in search of the other Atavar.
The light was bright and cheerful as always, but he felt chilly all the same. Discovering where he was had destroyed all of his amusement in the town's crazy construction, and taken the warmth out of his bones. He eyed the passers-by uneasily, wondering as each one approached him whether he was seeing a prisoner like himself, a soul in eternal torment, or an emissary of the Fallen whose real form was ambiguous.
For the rest of the morning he roamed the streets in search of a likely-looking figure, but finally he had to admit that his wanderings were fruitless. He sat down on a doorstep to think it out.
His Atavars were the "symbols of his error"; they were night-prowlers, obviously, because he had been one himself, gun in hand. The error itself was something to do with Jeremy Wright and Evelyn—not the impending murder, because it had not been committed, but some other error. The man in the top hat had been chosen, perhaps, because he had conceived of Wright as a cavalier, a suave homebreaker, or something of the sort; dinner clothes made a pointed symbol of such a notion. Of what else, specifically, had he suspected Jeremy? Tom-catting!
He groaned and dropped his head in his hands, remembering the cat he had seen in conjunction with his first sight of the man in dinner clothes. How was he to find one ragged alley-cat in a town where there were doubtless hundreds? Cats did not wear period costumes. He couldn't go around touching cats until something happened!
He heard a sniffing sound and a thin mournful whine at his side. He looked down.
"Go 'way," he said. "I want a cat, not a mongrel pooch."
The puppy, recoiling at the unfriendly tone, dropped its tail and began to sidle away from him, and gloomily he watched it go. Brown dog?—Brown cat?—Brown dog! An inspiration!
"Here, Fleet," he essayed. The puppy burst into a frenzy of tail-wagging and came back, with that peculiar angled trot only dogs out of all the four-footed beasts seem to affect. Hugh patted its head, and it whined and licked his hand.
"There, there," he said. "You're lost, I know. So am I. If your name is Fleet, we'll both be home shortly. It darn well better be Fleet."
Hugh considered the animal speculatively. It certainly seemed to respond to the name; but then, it was only a puppy, and might just as easily respond to any friendly noise. Grimly he sat and waited. In about an hour the dog began to get restless, and Hugh carted it across the street to a shop and bought it some meat, leaving in payment a letter from a colleague which the shopkeeper seemed to think was full of cantrips, charms of some kind. Then he resumed his vigil.
It was approximately four o'clock by his personal time-keeping system when he finally heard the sound he had been listening for, but not daring to expect—the voice of the red-headed urchin, calling his dog's name in incredibly weary tones. In a moment the boy appeared, his face tear-streaked, his feet stumbling, his eyes heavy from lack of sleep. The stick was still pulling him, and the conical cap, by a miracle, still rested askew on his head. The rod lunged forward eagerly as soon as it pointed toward Hugh, and the boy stopped by the doorstep, the divining rod pointing in quivering triumph squarely at the puppy. The boy sat down in the street and began to bawl.
"Now, now," said Hugh. "You've found your dog. Don't cry. What's the matter?"
"I haven't had any sleep or any food," the boy snuffled. "I couldn't let go, and the dog could move faster than I could, so I've been pulled all over the city, and I'll bet it's all the Old One's fault, too—" His voice rose rapidly and Hugh tried to calm him down, a little abstractedly, for in the reference to the Old One Hugh had recognized the boy's real nature, and knew him for an ally. Wait till I tell Evelyn, he told himself, that I've seen an Archangel and one of the Cherubim face to face, and hatched plots with the Fallen!
"I saw your dog, and figured probably you'd be along."
"Oh, thank you, sir. I guess I'd have spent the rest of eternity chasing him if you hadn't held him until I could catch up with him." He looked angrily at the forked stick, which now lay inert and innocuous on the cobbled pavement. "I used the wrong spell, and it had to smell people. No wonder we could never get close enough to Fleet for him to hear me!"
"Do you think you could make the rod work again?"
"Oh, yes, sir. Only I never would."
"I want to use it. Do you mind?"
"I don't mind. It's my uncle's, but I can always cut another one. Only it won't work without the hat, and I took that from my uncle too. He's an Authority," the urchin added proudly. Hugh thought of Goethe's Sorcerer's Apprentice and grinned.
"How come you didn't shake your head and knock it off when you got tired?"
"Oh, the hat only starts it. After that it goes by itself. I just didn't want to lose my uncle's hat, that's all."
"Good for you. Then suppose I borrow the hat for just a minute, and you grab it when the stick starts. I want to find a cat."
The boy shook his head doubtfully. "I wouldn't want to do it myself, but it's your business. What kind of cat? I have to make up a spell."
Hugh anticipated some difficulty in explaining what it was he wanted, but to his relief the boy had already recognized him as a transportee and understood at once.
"All right. Put the hat on. Pick up the stick like I had it. That's it, one fork in each hand. Now then:
Seeker of souls, lost boys and girls,
Of objects and of wells,
Find his gate between the worlds
Before the curfew knells;
Find the cat who should reside
In the mortal world Inside."
The divining rod started forward with a terrific jerk, and Hugh plunged after it. The boy ran alongside him and snatched off the magician's cap. "Thanks," Hugh shouted. "You're welcome," the boy called after him. "Good luck, sir, and thank you for holding my dog." Then the stick hauled Hugh around a corner, and the dog-owner was gone; but in Hugh's mind there remained a split-second glimpse of a strange smile, mischievous, kindly, and agelessly wise.
The cherub had not specified in his incantation which senses the rod was to use, and so it had chosen the quickest one—intuition, or supersensory-perception, or sixth-sense—Hugh had heard it called many things, but until he held the ends of the fork he never quite comprehended what it was.
The stick drew him faster. His toes seemed barely to touch the hard cobbles. Almost it seemed as if he were about to fly. Yet, somehow, there was no wind in his face, nor any real sensation of speed. All about him was a breathless quiet, an intent hush of light through which he soared. The houses and shops of the town sped by him, blurred and sadly unreal. The outlines danced waveringly in a haze of heat.
The town was changing.
Fear lodged a prickly lump in his larynx. The faƧades were going down as he came closer to his own world. He knew that before long the conventional disguises of the town would be melted, and Hell would begin to show through. Startled faces turned to watch him as he passed, and their features were not as they should be. Once he was sure he had confronted Bell and Martin for an instant.
A cry, distant and wild, went up behind him. It had been Bell—or was it—Belial? Other feet were running beside his own; shortly there were other cries, and then a gathering roar and tumult of voices; the street began to throb dully with the stampeding feet of a great mob. The rod yanked him down an alleyway. The thunder followed.
In the unreal spaces of the public square the other entrances were already black with blurred figures howling down upon him. The stick did not falter, but rushed headlong toward the castle. His hands sweated profusely on the fork, and his feet skimmed the earth in great impossible bounds. The gates of the fortress swept toward him. There were shadowy guards there, but they were looking through him at the mob behind; the next instant he was passing them.
The unreal spaces were black with blurred faces rushing down upon him.
The mists of unreality became thick, translucent. Everything around him was a vague reddish opalescence through which the sounds of the herd rioted, seemingly from every direction. Suddenly he was sure he was surrounded; but the rod arrowed forward regardless, and he had to follow.
At last the light began to coalesce, and in a moment he saw floating before him a shining crystal globe, over which floated the illuminated faces of his wife—and—Yero, The Enemy. This was the crucial instant, and he remembered the simulacrum's advice: "Don't hate Yero."
Indeed, he could not. He had nearly forgotten whom it was that Yero resembled, so great was his desire for escape, and his fear of the tumult behind him.
The light grew, and by it, the table upon which the crystal rested, and the bodies belonging to the two illuminated heads, became slowly visible. There was a cat there, too; he saw the outline become sharp as he catapulted on through the dimness. He tried to slow down as he approached the table. The rod, this time, did not resist. The two heads regarded him with slow surprise. The cat began to rise and bristle.
The shouting died.
"Hugh!"
He was in Jeremy Wright's apartment, a splintered door behind him, his heels digging into the carpet to halt his headlong charge. In his outstretched hand was, not a warped divining rod, but a gun.
"Hugh!" his wife cried again. "You found out! But—"
The table was still there, and the crystal. The cat and the castle were gone. But Jeremy Wright was still dressed in the robes of an astrologer. He was an astrologer.
"I'm sorry, darling, honestly—I knew you hated it, but—after all, breaking in this way! And—a gun!
After all, even if you do think it's humbug—"
Hugh looked at the serene face of Jeremy Wright, and silently pocketed the automatic. There was nothing, after all, that he could have said to either of them.
About the Author
.jpg "James Benjamin Blish")
Born: May 23, 1921, East Orange, NJ
Died: July 30, 1975, Henley-on-Thames, United Kingdom
Spouse: Virginia Kidd (m. 1947–1963)
Children: 3
James Blish Novels at Amazon
.jpg "William Cuthbert Faulkner")
