The Universe Twister (56 page)

"There!" she gasped. "Now tell me I'm your imagination!"

"But—but if you're real," Lafayette stammered, "then . . . what about Artesia—and the Red Bull and the cave full of gimmicks, and the old man in the coffin, and Lom, and—"

"Just something you dreamed, Tazlo dear," Sisli murmured. "Now lie down and let me feed you some cold boolfruit, and we'll talk about our future."

"Well . . ." Lafayette hesitated. "There's just one thing." He eyed the blank walls that encircled him. "It's all very well for you to walk through solid wood—and your pop and brothers, too, it seems. But what about me? How do
I
get outside?"

"Tazlo, Tazlo—you've been walking through walls since you were a year and a half old!"

"I guess that's about when I learned to walk—but not through teak paneling."

"Silly boy. Come . . . I'll show you." She took his hand, led him to the wall, slid into it. Lafayette watched as the wood engulfed her flesh, her body merging with the wall as if she were sinking into opaque water. Only her arm protruded, holding his hand. It withdrew swiftly, the wood closing around her forearm, her wrist—

Lafayette's fingers rammed the wood with a painful impact. Sisli's hand still gripped his; she tugged again. He pulled away, was rubbing his skinned knuckles as she reappeared, a worried expression in her wide eyes.

"Tazlo—what's the matter?"

"I told you I couldn't walk through walls!"

"But—but, Tazlo—you
have
to be able to!"

"Facts are facts, Sisli."

"But—if you can't walk through the wall . . ." Her expression was frightened.

"Then I guess I'll have to chop my way out. Can you get me an axe?"

"An
axe
?"

He described an axe.

"There's nothing like that in Thallathlone. And if there were—how long would it take you to cut through six feet of solid kreewood? It's harder than iron!"

Lafayette sank down on the bed. "Great. I'm trapped here. But—how did they get me inside—"

Before Sisli could answer, Vugli—the younger brother—stepped through the wall.

"I've just had a chat with Wizner Hiz," he said. "Now don't get upset with me," he added as Sisli whirled on him. "He sought me out, asked me how Haz was. I told him he was all right. So . . . he wants to see him."

"Vugli—how could you?" Sisli wailed.

"He'll have to face him sooner or later. And the sooner the better. If Haz does anything to rouse the old devil's suspicions—well, you know how Wizner is."

"How . . . how soon does he want to see him?"

"He said right now; tonight."

"No!"

"But I stalled him off—until tomorrow morning. I said he had a headache." Vugli gave Lafayette a sour look. "I didn't tell him his headache is nothing compared with the headache I've got."

After Vugli had left, Sisli looked at Lafayette with wide, fearful eyes.

"Tazlo—what can we do?"

"I don't know, kid," Lafayette said grimly. "But we'd better get busy doing it."

1

"Let's start at the beginning and see if we can make some sense out of this," Lafayette said in a calm, reasonable tone. "Now, I was safe at home, perfectly contented, when I got the note from the Red Bull—"

"Wrong," Sisli said with a shake of her head that made the violet plumes wave adorably. "You were off on one of your hunting expeditions, determined to bring home a pair of gold-crested wiwi-birds to be our hearth-companions after we've set up our nest."

"Very well—if you say so. So I
dreamed
I was in Artesia, getting a note from the Red Bull. And on impulse I did as he asked; went out alone, in the middle of the night, for a mysterious rendezvous at the Axe and Dragon."

"If you were so content—in this dream," Sisli said, "why did you do anything as silly as that?"

Lafayette sighed. "I guess I've always had a romantic streak," he confessed. "Just when everything is at its best, I get this restless urge to adventure. And I suppose the idea of going back to the Axe and Dragon had something to do with it. That's where it all started, you know—"

"No—I don't know. Tell me."

"Well—where should I begin? Back in Colby Corners, USA, I suppose. I was a draftsman. I worked at the foundry. It wasn't very challenging work. But I used to do a lot of reading. I read up on hypnotism. One evening I was trying out a few of the techniques I'd picked up from Professor Shimmerkopf's book, and . . . well, there I was, in Artesia, walking down a cobbled street in the twilight, with the smell of roast goose and stout ale coming from this tavern—the Axe and Dragon."

"In other words—you admit Artesia was imaginary!" Sisli said triumphantly.

"Well . . . I suppose in terms of Colby Corners and the foundry and Mrs. McGlint's Clean Rooms and Board it was a dream—but once I was there, it was as real as Colby Corner had ever been—realer! I was having adventures, doing all the things I'd always dreamed of doing, having the kind of adventures I'd always wanted—"

"Wish-fulfillment—"

"Please—stop saying 'wish-fulfillment.' I can't remember wishing I was accused of kidnapping the Princess and thrown in jail—or lost in the desert—or locked in a torture cage by Lod."

"But you escaped from all these dilemmas?"

"Well—certainly. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be here. In fact, I'm not sure I
am
here. How can I be sure? A dream seems real while you're dreaming it. You can pinch yourself—but you can dream you pinched yourself—and even dream you woke up, and—"

"Tazlo—please—don't let yourself get so excited. You were telling me about your dream-world of Artesia . . ."

"Yes. Well, I ended up living in the palace as a sort of permanent guest of Princess Adoranne—"

"This Princess—was she pretty?"

"Incredible. Golden hair, big blue eyes—"

"Blue eyes? How grotesque."

"Not at all; on the contrary. And a figure like an angel—"

"You—you were in love with this creature?"

"Well—I thought I was for a while—but . . ."

"But? But what?"

"But," Lafayette temporized, suddenly noting the edge Sisli's voice had acquired, "but of course in the end I realized I wasn't really in love with her—so she married Count Alain and lived happily ever after—at least for a while."

"While you occupied luxury quarters in her palace. How cozy."

"Believe me, she and I were good friends, that's all. And Count Alain was rated the top swordsman in the kingdom, by the way—"

"So—it was only fear of this redoubtable warrior that kept you from her?"

"Who, Alain? Nonsense. I fought a duel with him once and won—with a little help from Daphne, of course—"

"Who," Sisli said coldly, "is Daphne?"

"Why, Daphne is . . . is the former upstairs maid," Lafayette amended his statement. "But I mustn't get distracted from trying to figure out what's real and what isn't," he hurried on. "Anyway, there I was in Artesia, meeting the Red Bull. I thought—well, I thought it would be like old times, but somehow it wasn't. Even the Red Bull seemed different, somehow—he didn't seem to have any conscience anymore—"

"Things are always changed around in dreams, Tazlo."

"I suppose so. But that wasn't the biggest change. The Red Bull stepped out back for a moment, and suddenly—well, this part if very hard to explain. But suddenly—I was somebody else."

"It happens all the time in dreams," Sisli said sympathetically. "But now you're awake, and yourself, the same dear Tazlo Haz you've always been—"

"But I haven't always been Tazlo Haz! I was Zorro the Wayfarer!"

"I thought you said you were Lafayette Something, ex-king of Artesia! You see, Tazlo, how these different hallucinations keep shifting around?"

"You don't understand. It's all perfectly simple. First I was Lafayette O'Leary—then I was Zorro—and now I'm Tazlo Haz—only I'm still Lafayette O'Leary, if you know what I mean."

"No," Sisli sighed. "I don't. And this isn't helping our problem, Tazlo. You still have to remember how to walk."

Lafayette sat on the edge of the bed, gripping his head in both hands, ignoring the curious feel of short, curled feathers where his hair should have been.

"I have to come to grips with this," he told himself firmly. "Either I'm awake, and this is real, and I have amnesia—in which case I've always been able to walk through walls—or I'm asleep and dreaming—and if I'm dreaming, I ought to be able to dream anything I want to—such as the ability to walk through walls!" He looked up with a pleased expression.

"Ergo—either way, I can do it." He stood, eyed the wall defiantly, strode to it—and banged his nose hard enough to bring out a shower of little bright lights.

"Oh, Tazlo—not like that!" Sisli wailed. She clung to him, making soothing sounds. "Is it my itty bitty boy, can't even walk, poor Taz, there, there, Auntie Sissy will help . . ."

"I can walk through walls!" Lafayette snapped. "It's a perfectly natural thing to do in this crazy mixed-up place! All I have to do is hold my mouth right, and—" As he spoke, he had disengaged himself from the girl, advanced on the wall—and thumped it hard enough to stagger him.

"Tazlo—you're going about it all wrong!" Sisli cried. "There's really nothing difficult about it, once you get the feel of
merging
."

"Merging, eh?" Lafayette said grimly. "All right, Sisli—you want to help—teach me how to merge . . .!"

2

Lafayette had lost count of the hours. Twice Sisli had gone out for food—birdseed cakes and cups of sweet juices which in spite of their insubstantiality seemed to satisfy the inner man—or the inner whatever-he-was, Lafayette thought sourly. Once Vugli had appeared, ready to lay down the law, but Sisli had driven him off with a flash of temper that surprised O'Leary. But he was no nearer to pushing his body through six feet of kreewood than he had been at the start.

"Now, Tazlo," the girl said with a gentle persistence that Lafayette found touching even in his frustration, "relax, and we'll try again. Remember,
it's not difficult
. It's not anything that requires a tremendous effort, or any special skill. It's all . . . all just a matter of thinking about it in the right way."

"Sure," Lafayette said dully. "Like describing the difference between mauve and puce to a blind man."

"I can remember—just barely—the first time I did it," she said, musingly. Lafayette could sense the bone-deep fatigue in her, see it in the deep shadows under his eyes, the slump of her slim shoulders. But in the soft light from the glow-jar on the table, she still smiled lovingly at him.

"I was almost two. Father and Mother had planned a treetop picnic. They'd told me so many times how it would be to see the outdoors for the first time—"

"The first time? At age two?"

"Of course, my Tazlo. An infant can't leave the nest in which it's born until it learns to merge."

"Ye gods. What if the kid can't learn—like me?"

"Then—then it remains a prisoner for life. But that won't happen. Tazlo—it can't happen to you—to us!" Her voice broke into a sob.

"Now, now, take it easy, kid," Lafayette soothed, holding her frail, feather-like figure close to him and patting her back. "I'll catch on after a while—"

"Of . . . of course you will. I'm being silly." She brushed a tear away and smiled up at him. "Now, let's start again . . ."

3

The gray light of dawn was filtering through the light-aperture high in the wooden wall against which Lafayette slumped, fingering the newest bruise on his jaw.

"I guess maybe I wasn't meant for merging," he said wearily. "I'm sorry, Sisli. I tried. And you tried. You tried as hard as anyone could try—but—"

"Tazlo—if you don't appear for your appointment with Wizner Hiz, he'll know something is wrong. He'll come here—he'll question you—and when he learns you remember nothing of your life—that you have these strange delusions of other worlds—then he'll—he'll—" Her voice broke.

"Maybe not. Maybe I can convince him I'm just a nut case. That my brains are scrambled. Maybe he'll give me more time—"

"Never! You know how he is about anything that even hints of a Possession!"

"No—how is he?"

"Tazlo—you can't have forgotten
every
thing!" Sisli sat beside him, caught his hands, clasped them tightly. "In his Visioning, if he sees anything—just the faintest hint that a Mind-gobbler has gotten a foothold in someone—Out he goes!"

"Out where?"

"Out—outside. Into the Emptiness.
You
know."

"Sisli, could we accept it as a working hypothesis that I
don't
know? You tell me."

"Well . . . it seems so silly to be telling you what everyone knows—but—once, many years ago, Thallathlone was invaded by creatures too horrible to describe. They took people's minds—grabbed them when they had lowered the Barriers so they could merge—and possessed them. At first, the victim would simply seem a little strange—as if he'd . . . lost his memory. But little by little, they began to . . . change. First, they'd start to lose their feathers; their bones would begin to grow; their plumage fell out, and wiry, thin hairs grew in its place. Finally, their wings would—would wither away, and . . . and drop off!"

"It sounds awful," Lafayette said. "But surely that's just a myth. People don't just turn into other people—" he broke off abruptly at the import of what he was saying. "I mean—not usually . . ."

"Exactly," Sisli said. "
I
know you're still really you, Tazlo dear—but . . . but it does look rather . . . rather strange—and to Wizner Hiz, it will look more than strange! He'll be sure you're a Mind-gobbler—and he'll . . . he'll Sing you Through! And then you'll be lost . . . gone forever . . ." She burst into tears.

"There, there, Sisli, don't cry," Lafayette soothed, holding her in his arms. "Things aren't all that bad. We still have a little time. Maybe I'll get the knack of it yet—or maybe he won't come after all—or—"

"I'll . . . I'll try to be brave." Sisli brushed away her tears and smiled up at Lafayette. "You're right. There's still time. We can't give up. Now try again: close your eyes, think of the wall as being woven of little lines of light. And the lines of light are only tiny specks that move very fast—so fast they aren't really there—and you reach out . . . you feel them, you match the pattern of your mind to them, and—"