Split Infinity (13 page)

Suddenly he was strangling. The chain was constricting, cutting off his wind and blood. The amulet seemed to be expanding, its demon-figure holding the ends of the chain in its miniature hands, grinning evilly as it pulled.

Stile did not know how this worked, but he knew how to fight for his life. He ducked his chin down against his neck and tightened his muscles, resisting the constriction of the chain. He hooked a finger into the crease between chin and neck on the side, catching the chain, and yanked. He was trying to break a link, but the delicate-seeming metal was too strong; he was only cutting his finger.

More than one way to fight a garrote! Stile grabbed the grinning demon by its two little arms and hauled them apart. The little monster grimaced, trying to resist, but the chain slackened. Stile took a breath, and felt the trapped blood in his head flow out. Pressure on the jugular vein did not stop the flow of blood to the brain, as many thought; it stopped the return of the blood from the head back to the heart. That was un-comfortable enough, but not instantly conclusive.

But still the demon grew, and as it did its strength increased in proportion. It drew its arms together again, once more constricting the loop about Stile’s neck.

Even through his discomfort. Stile managed a double take. The demon was growing? Yes it was; he had observed it without noting it. From an amulet a few centimeters long it had become a living creature, swelling horrendously as it fought. Now it was half the size of Stile himself, and fiendishly strong.

Stile held his breath, put both hands on the hands of the demon, and swung it off its feet. He whirled it around in a circle. It was strong—but as with robot strength, this was not sufficient without anchorage or leverage. This was another misconception many people had, assuming that a superman really could leap a mile or pick up a building by one comer or fight invincibly.
 
That belief had cost many Gamesmen their games with Stile—and might cost this demon its own success. As long as the creature clung to the chain, it was in fact captive—and when it let go, even with one hand, it would free Stile from the constant threat of strangulation. That would be a different contest entirely.

The demon clung tenaciously to its misconception. It did not let go. It grinned again, showing more teeth than could fit even in a mouth that size, and clamped its arms yet closer, tightening the noose. Stile felt his consciousness going; he could hold his breath for minutes, but the constriction was slowing his circulation of blood, now squeezing his neck so tightly that the deeply buried carotid artery was feeling it. That could put him out in seconds.

He staggered toward a towering tulip tree, still whirling his burden. He heaved mightily—and smashed the creature’s feet into the trunk.

It was quite a blow. The thing’s yellow eyes widened, showing jags of flame-red, and the first sound escaped from it. “Ungh!” Some chain slipped, giving Stile respite, but still the demon did not let go.

Stile hauled it up and whirled it again, with difficulty.
 
He had more strength now, but the demon had continued to grow (how the hell could it do that? This was absolutely crazy!), and was at this point only slightly smaller than Stile himself. It required special power and balance to swing it—but this time its midsection smashed into the tree. Now its burgeoning mass worked against it, making the impact stronger. The demon’s legs bent around the trunk with the force of momentum; then they sprang back straight.

Stile reversed his swing, taking advantage of the bounce, bringing the demon around in the opposite arc and smashing it a third time into the tree. This time it was a bone-jarring blow, and a substantial amount of slack developed in the chain.

Stile, alert for this instant, slipped his head free in one convulsive contortion. The chain burned his ears and tore out tufts of his hair—but he had won the first stage of this battle.

But now the demon was Stile’s own size, still full of fight. It scrambled to its hooved feet and sprang at him, trying to loop the cord about his neck again. It seemed to be a one-tactic fighter. In that respect it resembled the imitation-Sheen robot Stile had fought not so very long ago.

Stile caught its hands from the outside, whirled, ducked, and hauled the demon over his shoulder. The thing lifted over him and whomped into the ground with a jar that should have knocked it out. But again it scrambled up, still fighting.

What was with this thing? It refused to turn off! It had taken a battering that would have shaken an android—and all it did was grow larger and uglier. It was now a quarter again as large as Stile, and seemed to have gained strength in proportion. Stile could not fight it much longer, this way.

Yet again the demon dived for him, chain spread.

Stile had an inspiration. He grabbed the chain, stepped to one side, tripped the demon—and as it stumbled, Stile looped the slack chain about the creature’s own body and held it there from behind.

The demon roared and turned about, trying to reach him, but Stile clung like a blob of rubber cement. He had discommoded large opponents this way before, clinging to the back; it was extremely hard for a person to rid himself of such a rider if he did not know how.
 
This demon was all growth and strength, having no special intelligence or imagination; it did not know how.

The demon kept growing. Now it was half again as large as Stile—and the chain was beginning to constrict its body. Stile hung on, staying out of the thing’s awkward graspings, keeping that chain in place. Unless the demon could stop growing voluntarily—

Evidently it could not. It grew and grew, and as it expanded the chain became tighter, constricting its torso about the middle. It had fallen into the same noose it had tried to use on Stile. All it had to do was let go the ends—and it was too stupid to do that. What colossal irony! Its own arms wrapped around it, being drawn nearly out of their sockets, but the only way it knew to fight was to hang on to that chain. It became woman-waisted, then wasp-waisted. Stile let go and stood apart, watching the strange progression. The creature seemed to feel no pain; it still strove to reach Stile, to wrap its chain about him, though this was now impossible.

The demon’s body ballooned, above and below that tiny waist. Then it popped. There was a cloud of smoke, dissipating rapidly.

Stile looked at the ground. There lay the chain, broken at last, separated where the demon-figure had been. The amulet was gone.

He picked it up, nervous about what it might do, but determined to know what remained. It dangled loosely from his hand. Its power was gone.

Or was it? What would happen if he invoked it again? Stile decided that discretion was best. He coiled the chain, laid it on the ground, and rolled a rock to cover it. Let the thing stay there, pinned like a poisonous snake!

Now that the threat was over. Stile unwound. His body was shivering with reaction. What, exactly, had happened? What was the explanation for it?

He postulated and discarded a number of theories.
 
He prided himself on his ability to analyze any situation correctly and swiftly; that was a major part of his Game success. What he concluded here, as the most reasonable hypothesis fitting all his observations, was quite unreasonable.

A. He was in a world where magic worked.

B. Someone/thing was trying to kill him here, too.

He found conclusion A virtually incredible. But he preferred it to the alternatives: that a super-technological power had created all this, or that he, Stile, was going crazy. Conclusion B was upsetting—but death threats against him had become commonplace in the past few hours. So it was best to accept the evidence of his experience: that he was now in a fantasy realm, and still in trouble.

Stile rubbed his fingers across his neck, feeling the bum of the chain. Who was after him, here? Surely not the same anonymous angry Citizen who had sent the android squads. The serf who had crossed the curtain and given him the amulet had been friendly; had he wanted to kill Stile, he could have done so by invoking the demon at the outset. It seemed more likely that the man had been genuinely trying to help—and that the amulet had acted in an unforeseen manner. Perhaps there were a number of such magic talismans, dual-purpose: clothe the ordinary person, kill certain other persons. Other persons like Stile. That left a lot in doubt, but accounted for what had happened. Stile was a fair judge of people and motives; nothing about the other man had signaled treachery or enmity. The amulet, as a mechanism to protect this land from certain people, seemed reasonable.

Why was he. Stile, unwanted here? That he would have to find out. It was not merely because he was new.

The stranger had been new, not so long ago, by his own admission. Presumably he had been given a similar amulet, and used it, and it had performed as specified.
 
Stile had at first suspected some kind of practical joke —but that demon had been no joke!

It could not be because he was small, or male; those could hardly be crimes in a human society. There had to be something else. Some special quality about him that triggered the latent secondary function of the amulet. Unless the effect was random: one bad amulet slipped in with the good ones, a kind of Russian roulette, and he happened to be the victim. But he was disinclined to dismiss it like that. A little bit of paranoia could go far toward keeping him out of any further mischief. Best to assume someone was out to get him, and play it safe.

Meanwhile, he would be well advised to get away from this region, before whoever had laid the amulet-trap came to find out why it had failed. And—he wanted to learn more about the status of magic here.
 
Was it some form of illusion, or was it literal? The demon had shown him that his life could depend on the answer.

Where would he go? How could he know? Anywhere he could find food, and sleep safely, and remain hidden from whatever enemy he must have. Not the nearest castle he had spied; he was wary of that now. Anything near this place was suspect. He had to go somewhere in the wilderness, alone—

Alone? Stile did not like the thought. He was hardly a social lion, but he was accustomed to company.
 
Sheen had been excellent company. For this strange land-Stile nodded to himself. Considering all things, he needed a horse. He understood horses, he trusted them, he felt secure with them. He could travel far, with a good steed. And there surely were horses grazing in those fields to the north. He had not been able to make out the specific animals he had seen from the tree, but they had had a horsey aspect.

Stile walked north, keeping a wary eye out for hazards, demonic or otherwise, and for something else.
 
The land, as the trees thinned, became pretty in a different way. There were patches of tall lush grass, and multicolored flowers, and sections of tumbled rocks.
 
And, finally, a lovely little stream, evidently issuing from the mountains to the south, bearing irregularly northwest. The water was absolutely clear. He lay on his stomach and put his lips to it, at the same time listening for any danger; drinking could be a vulnerable moment.

The water was so cold his mouth went numb and his throat balked at swallowing. He took his time, savoring it; beverages were so varied and nutritious and avail-able on Proton that he had seldom tasted pure water, and only now appreciated what he had missed.

Then he cast about for fruit trees, but found none.
 
He had no means to hunt and kill animals right now, though in time he was sure he could devise something.
 
Safety was more urgent than nourishment, at the moment; his hunger would have to wait. With a horse he could go far and fast, leaving no footprints of his own and no smell not masked by that of the animal; he would become untraceable.

He followed the stream down, knowing it was a sure guide to the kind of animal life he wanted. This was ideal horse country; had he actually seen some horses grazing, there from the treetop, or only made an image of a wish? He could not be certain now, but trusted his instincts. Magic confused him, but he knew the ways of horses well.

Suddenly he spied it: the semicircular indentation of the hoof of a horse. And, safely back from the water, a pile of horse manure. Confirmation!

Stile examined the hoofprint. It was large, indicating an animal of perhaps seventeen hands in height, solidly built. It was unshod, and chipped at the fringes, but not overgrown. A fat, healthy horse who traveled enough to keep the hooves worn, and was careless enough to chip them on stones. Not the ideal mount for him, but it would do. Stile felt the relief wash through his body, now that he had the proof; he had not imagined it, he had not deluded himself, there really were horses here.
 
His experience with the demon amulet had shaken his certainties, but this restored them.

He moved over to the manure and stared down at it.
 
And faded into a memory. Seventeen years ago, as a youth of eighteen, looking down at a similar pile of dung...

His parents’ tenure had ended, and they had had to vacate Planet Proton. Tenure was twenty years for serfs, with no exceptions—except possibly via the Game, a more or less futile lure held out to keep the peons hoping. He had been fortunate; he had been born early in their tenure, and so had eighteen free years. He had fitted in a full education and mastered Proton society before he had to make the choice: to stay with his folks, or to stay on Proton.