The Universe Twister (48 page)

"We'll have to go back up and ask." Back in the ballroom, now only sparsely crowded as the former adherents of the now-imprisoned Rodolpho maneuvered for position in the entourage of their new master, Lafayette went about plucking at sleeves, repeating his question. He netted nothing but blank stares and a few polite laughs.

"A blank," he said as Lorenzo, equally luckless, rejoined him. "To think I had it that close—and let it get away."

"What's up, Lafe," Swinehild spoke behind him. "Lost something?"

"Swinehild—the kosher salami from our lunch—have you seen it?"

"Nope. But wait a minute, I'll see if Hulk's got some. He loves the stuff."

Hulk sauntered over, wiping his mouth. "Somebody call me?" he inquired, and belched. "Par'me," he said. "Kosher salami gives me gas."

Lafayette sniffed. "You didn't—you didn't
eat
it?"

"Was that yours, Mister O'Leary? Sorry about that. Can't get any more just like it, but we got plenty liverwurst back at Ye Beggar's Bole."

"That does it," Lafayette moaned. "I'm sunk. I'm stuck here forever." He slumped in a chair, put his face in his hands. "Daphne," he muttered. "Will I ever see you again?" He groaned, remembering her as he had seen her last, her voice, the way she moved, the touch of her hand . . .

The room had grown curiously still. Lafayette opened his eyes. A few dropped hankies and smeared cigar butts on the polished floor were all that remained to indicate that a few moments before a noisy crowd had thronged the room. Faintly, voices floated from the passage outside. Lafayette sprang up, ran to the high, ornately carved, silver-handled door, pushed through into the red-carpeted hall. A figure—he thought it was Lothario, or possibly Lorenzo—was just disappearing around the shadowy corner. He called but no one answered. He hurried along the empty passage, looked into rooms.

"Swinehild!" he called. "Lorenzo! Anybody!"

Only echoes answered him.

"It's happened again," he whispered. "Everyone's disappeared, and left me marooned. Why? How?"

A sound of padding feet approaching along a side passage. A small, rotund figure in green-leather pants and a plaid sportcoat appeared at the head of a band of Ajax men.

"Sprawnroyal!" O'Leary greeted the customer-service man. "Thank Grunk someone's left alive here!"

"Hello, Slim. Boy, you get around. Me and the boys are here to see Krupkin—"

"He's in the dungeon—"

"Say, we're operating a half-phase out of sync with Melange; we usually duck over here for jobs like this to avoid the crowd, you know. But how'd
you
get here? When your Mark XIII came back empty, we thought you'd bought the farm! And—"

"It's a long story—but listen. I just had a thought of blinding brilliance! Krupkin gave you plans for a Traveler. Will you build it—for me—so I can go back to Artesia, and—"

"Not a chance, friend." Sprawnroyal held up both hands in negation. "If we pulled a trick like that, Central would land on us like a ton of twenty-two-karat uranium bricks!"

"Central! That's it! Put me in touch with Central, so I can explain what happened, and—"

"Nix again, Slim. Pinchcraft just got through going round and round with some paper-pusher named Fernwick or something about an allegation Ajax had let slip some cosmic-total-secret info to Krupkin. We barely managed to square matters; we won't reopen that can of worms for a while, believe me!"

"But—where is everybody?"

"We told Central about some of the monkey business going on here. Seems like Krupkin used stuff we sold him to make up a gadget to meddle with the probability fabric. He used it to yank a fellow named Lorenzo here. Wanted to use him as bait to get his hands on Lady A, so he could trade her back for Rodolpho's help. But when he did, he started a chain reaction; he got Lorenzo, and a couple dozen other troublemakers from alternate realities. What a hassle! But Central pulled a few strings and whisked a lot of displaced characters back to where they belonged. I don't know how it is they left you stranded here in half-phase. There's no life here at all, you know."

Lafayette leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. "I'm doomed," he muttered. "They're all against me. But maybe—maybe if I go back to Ajax with you, and explain matters directly to Pinchcraft and the others, they'll think of something."

Suddenly the silence was suspicious. O'Leary snapped his eyes open. Sprawnroyal was gone. The corridor was empty. There was not even an impress of feet in the deep-pile blue carpet to show where he had stood.

"Blue carpet?" he muttered dazedly. "But I thought it was red. The only place I've seen a blue carpet like this was in Lod's palace . . ."

He whirled and ran along the corridor, leaped down stairs, sprinted across a wide lobby, dashed out onto an expanse of sand-drifted lawn, turned to look back. Broken lavender neon letters spelled out LAS VEGAS HILTON.

"It's it," he gobbled. "The building Goruble supplied to Lod. And that means—I'm back in Artesia . . . doesn't it?" He looked out across the dark expanse of desert. "Or am I still in some kind of never-never land?"

"There's just one way to find out," he told himself. "There's twenty miles of loose sand between here and the capital. Start walking."

Dawn was bleaching the sky ahead as Lafayette tottered the last few yards to the door of the One-Eyed Man tavern on the west post road.

"Red Bull," he whispered hoarsely, thumping feebly at the heavy panel. "Let me in . . ."

There was no response from behind the shuttered windows. An icy chill stirred in Lafayette's midsection.

"It's deserted," he muttered. "A ghost city, an empty continuum. They shifted me out of Melange, because I was unbalancing the probability equation, but instead of sending me home—they marooned me . . ."

He hobbled on through the empty streets. Ahead was the high wall surrounding the palace grounds. He clung for a moment to the small service gate, then, with fear in his heart, thrust it open.

Morning mist hung among brooding trees. Dew glistened on silent grass. Far away, an early bird called. Beyond the manicured flower beds, the rose-marble palace loomed, soundless. No curtain fluttered from an open window. No cheery voices cried greetings. No footstep sounded on the flagged walks.

"Gone," O'Leary whispered. "All gone . . ."

He walked like a man in a dream across the wet grass, past the fountain, where a tiny trickle of water tinkled. His favorite bench was just ahead. He would sit there awhile, and then . . .

And then . . . he didn't know.

There was the flowering arbutus; the bench was just beyond. He rounded it—

She was sitting on the bench, a silvery shawl about her slim shoulders, holding a rosebud in her fingers. She turned, looked up at him. The prettiest face in the known universe opened into a smile like a flower bursting into blossom.

"Lafayette! You've come back!"

"Daphne . . . I . . . I . . . you . . ."

Then she was in his arms.

Out of the world, away and beyond
Borne on the wings of the magic song . . .
 
—
Chant of the Thallathlonians

1

The moon shone bright on the palace gardens as Sir Lafayette O'Leary stepped stealthily forth from the scullery entrance. Silently, he tiptoed along the graveled path which led beneath a rhododendron hedge, skirting the royal Artesian vegetable garden and winding past the chicken yard, where a sleepy hen clucked irritably at his passing. At the street gate he paused to glance back at the dark towers looming against the cloud-bright sky. A faint light shone behind the windows of his third floor apartment. Up there Daphne was curled between silken sheets, waiting for him. He had sent her off to bed alone, telling her he'd join her as soon as he'd perused another chapter of his newest book on mesmeric science; instead, here he was, creeping out like a thief in the night, on his way to a stealthy rendezvous with a person or persons unknown—all because of that ridiculous note he'd found tucked under the napkin accompanying his after-dinner drink.

He pulled the grubby scrap of paper from his pocket, reread it by the dim glow from a lamp in a bracket on the wall.

 
"Dear Sir Laffeyet,
I doant sea you in kwite a wile, but you bin on my mind plenty. The reezin I rite you this letter is, I got holt of a item witch its two big to handle aloan. I cant sa no more now, wich some fink mite get holt of it and steel a march on us. But meat me at midnite at Ye Axe and Draggin, an I will fill you in.

X (His mark)"

"It must be from the Red Bull," Lafayette told him. "Nobody else could spell as creatively as this. But why the cloak-and-poniard approach? You'd think he was still cutting purses for a living, instead of being a lionized hero with the royal pardon and the Order of the Dragon for his services to the crown. Which suggests that he's up to his old tricks. It's probably some wild scheme for counterfeiting quarters, or turning base metal into gold. If I had good sense, I'd turn around right now and forget the whole thing . . ."

But instead of turning back, he thrust the note into his pocket and let himself out the gate. Here in the narrow side street, the wind seemed chiller, bearing with it a whiff from the palace sty, where a pair of prize China pigs awaited the next feast day. Lafayette heard a mournful snort as he passed. In the far corner of the enclosure, George, the four-hundred-pound boar, huddled against the wall, as if recoiling from the advances of the scarcely less bulky Jemimah.

"Poor George," Lafayette murmured. "Maybe you've been cursed with too much imagination—like me."

At that moment, George seemed to catch his eye. With a frantic lunge he eluded the amorous sow, scrambled toward Lafayette, making piteous gobbling sounds.

"Don't make the same mistake I do, George, of not appreciating what you've got while you've got it," Lafayette advised the giant hog as it attempted unsuccessfully to rear up against the fence only to fall back with a loud
squelch!
into the mud.

"Go to Jemimah, tell her you're sorry, and forget the inevitable barbecue—" Lafayette broke off as George hurled himself at the fence, eliciting an ominous creak from the stout boards.

"Shhh!" he hissed. "You'll rouse the palace guards! Be sensible, George. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may . . ." But as he hurried off along the dark street, the mournful sounds followed him.

Few of the leaded glass windows set in the half-timbered gables overhanging the cobbled street showed lights; the honest folk of the capital were abed at this hour. Only dubious characters like himself—and the man he was going to meet—were abroad now, Lafayette reflected guiltily. In the distance he heard the
haloo
of a city watchman making his rounds, the barking of a dog, the tinkle of a bell. A steam-carriage rumbled past the intersection ahead, a red lantern swaying at its tailgate, its iron-shod wheels groaning against the paving blocks. Beyond, he saw a signboard bearing a familiar device: the prow of a Viking ship and a two-handed battle-ax. Below it was a low, wide, oaken door, iron bound, with heavy strap hinges. The sight brought back piquant memories. The Axe and Dragon had been the scene of his arrival in Artesia some years before—transported instantaneously from Colby Corners, USA, by the Psychic Energies focused by the Hypnotic Art, as described by Professor Doktor Hans Joseph Schimmerkopf in his massive volume on Mesmeric Science. It had also been the scene of his immediate arrest by the King's musketeers on a charge of sorcery, brought about by his careless decanting of several gallons of vintage wine from a one-liter bottle. He had managed to quash the indictment only by the desperate expedient of promising to slay a dragon. Well, in the end he had slain the dragon—one of them. The other had become his pet and favorite steed. He had also eliminated the fearsome two-headed giant Lod, which was rather a shame in a way; one of the heads hadn't been a bad sort of chap at all. Lafayette had gone on to depose the usurper, Goruble, and restore the throne to Princess Adoranne. Ever since, he—and his charming former chambermaid, Daphne—had been honored citizens of the quaint kingdom of Artesia, occupying a spacious apartment in the West Palace Annex, and on the closest terms with Adoranne and Prince Alain, her consort.

And now, here he was, back out in the cold, dark street, again approaching the door that had led him to such adventures, so long ago.

But there'd be no adventures this time, he told himself sternly. He had learned his lesson the last time he had found himself impatient with the peaceful life. His meddling had gotten him involved on a mad assignment from Central—head office of the Inter-dimensional Monitor Service—which had almost left him stranded in a deserted parallel world. No, this time he would know better. He had just come as a lark, actually. In a way it was rather jolly shivering in the cold, remembering his early days as a penniless draftsman, holed up in Mrs. McGlint's Clean Rooms and Board, subsisting on sardines and daydreams—but only because he had a cozy bed waiting for him back in the palace. Wouldn't it be ghastly, he thought, to
really
be some homeless gypsy, out on the tiles at this hour, chilled to the bone and hungry, with no relief in sight?

"That's enough gloomy thinking," he told himself firmly as he reached the tavern door. "In an hour I'll be snuggled up with Daphne, all the better for a brisk stroll in the night air." He adjusted a look of amused complacency on his face, shook out his cloak, and stepped into the warmth and beery aroma of the Axe and Dragon.

2

A bed of coals glowing in the ox-sized fireplace dimly illuminated the long, low room, the plank tables ranked along one side, the wine and ale kegs along the other. But for the silent bartender behind the trestle bar, the place seemed deserted, until a large figure rose among the shadows at the rear.

"Over dis way, bub!" a hearty voice growled. "Take a load off duh dogs, an' we'll hoist a few in membry o' duh old days!"

"Red Bull!" Lafayette exclaimed, ducking his head under the low, age-blackened beams. "I thought it would be you!" He clasped the calloused hand of the big man who beamed at him, his little red-rimmed eyes agleam in his lumped, scarred face. There was a little gray now, Lafayette noticed, in the bristly red thatch above the cauliflowered ears. Otherwise the soft life hadn't changed the former outlaw.