Falcons of Narabedla
by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Version 1.0

CHAPTER ONE

SOMEWHERE on the crags above us, I heard a big bird
scream.

I turned to Andy, knee-deep in the icy stream
beside me. "There's your eagle. Probably smells that
cougar I shot yesterday." I started to reel in my line,
knowing what my brother's next move would be.
"Get the camera, and we'll try for a picture."

We crouched together in the underbrush, watch-
ing, as the big bird of prey wheeled down in a slow
spiral toward the dead cougar. Andy was trembling
with excitement, the camera poised against his chest.
"Golly," he whispered, almost prayerfully, "six-foot
wing spread at least, maybe more -- "

The bird screamed again, warily, head cocked into
the wind. We were to leeward; the scent of the car-
rion masked our enemy smell from him. The eagle
failed to scent or to see us, swooping down and drop-
ping on the cougar's head. Andy's camera clicked
twice. The eagle thrust in its beak.

A red-hot wire flared in my brain. The bird -- the
bird -- I leaped out of cover, running swiftly across the
ten-foot clearing that separated us from the attacking
eagle, my hand tugging automatically at the hunting
knife in my belt. Andys shout of surprise and dismay
was a far-away noise in my ears as the eagle started
away with flapping, angry wings -- then, in fury,

swept down at me, pinions beating around my head.
I heard and felt the wicked beak dart in, and thrust
blindly upward with the knife: ripped, slashing, hear-
ing the bird's scream of pain and the flapping of wide
wings.

A red-hot haze spun around me -- 

This had happened before. I had fought like this
before, for my life, for my life-
Then the screaming eagle was gone, a lifting cry
down-wind and a vanishing shadow, and Andy's
rough grip was on my shoulder, shaking me, hard.
His voice, furious and frightened, was barely recog-
nizable. "Mike! Mike, you damned idiot, are you all
right? You must be crazy!"

I blinked, rubbing my hand across my eyes. The
hand came away red. I was standing in the clearing,
the knife in my hand red with blood. Bird blood. I
heard myself ask, stupidly, "What happened?"

My brother's face came clear through the red haze,
scowling wrathfully. "You tell me that! Mike, what in
the devil were you thinking of? You told me yourself
that an eagle will attack a man if it's bothered. I had
him square in the camera when you jumped out of
there like a bat out of a belfry, and went for the eagle
with your knife. You must be clean crazy!"

I let the knife drop out of my hand. "Yeah," I said
heavily, "I guess I spoiled your picture, Andy. I'm
sorry. I didn't..." My voice trailed off, helpless. I felt
like a prize fool. The kid's hand was still on my shoul-
der. He let it fall away and knelt in the grass, groping
for his camera. "That's all right, Mike," he said in a
dead voice. "You scared the daylights out of me, that's
all."

He stood up swiftly, looking straight into my face.

"Only -- damn it, Mike, you've been acting crazy for a
week. I don't mind the blasted camera, but when you
start going for eagles with your bare hands -- "
abruptly he flung the camera away, turned, and
began to run down the slope in the direction of the
cabin.

I took one step to follow, then stopped, bending to
retrieve the broken pieces of Andy's cherished cam-
era. He must have hit the eagle with it. Lucky thing
for me. Even a hawk can be a mean bird, and an
eagle -- Why, why in the hell had I done a thing like
that? I'd warned Andy, time and time again, to stay
clear of the big birds.

Now that the urgency of action had deserted me, I
felt stupid and a little light-headed. I didn't wonder
that Andy thought I was crazy. I thought so myself,
more than half the time. I stowed the broken camera
in my tackle box, mentally promising Andy a better
one, hunted up the abandoned lines and poles,
cleaned our days catch. It was dark before I started
for the cabin; I could hear the hum of the electric
dynamo I'd rigged, and see the electric light across
the dusk of the Sierras. A smell of bacon greeted me
as I crossed into the glare of the unshielded bulb.
Andy hadn't waited for the fish. He was standing at
the cookstove, his back stubbornly turned to me. He
did not turn.
"Andy-" I said.

"It's okay, Mike. Sit down and eat your supper."
"Andy -- I'll get you another camera."
"I said, it's okay. Now, damn it, eat."
He didn't speak again for some time; but as I
stretched back for a second mug of coffee, he got up
and began to walk restlessly around the room.

"Mike, you came here for a rest," he said at last.
"Why can't you lay off your everlasting work for a
while, and relax?" He looked disgustedly over his
shoulder at the work table where the light spilled
over a confused litter of wires and magnets and coils.
"You're turning this place into a branch office of Gen-
eral Electric."

"I can't stop now," I said violently, "I'm on the
track of something, maybe something big, and if I
stop now, I'll never find it!"

"Must be real important," Andy said sourly, "if it
makes you act like bughouse bait."

I shrugged, not answering. We'd been over that
before. I'd known it when they threw me out of the
government lab, just before the big blowup. I thought
angrily, Maybe I'm heading for another one. But I
didn't care.

"Sit down, Andy," I told him. "You don't know
what happened down there. No, it's not any military
secret, or anything. It was all declassified a long time
before I finished my service hitch." I paused, swal-
lowing down the coffee, not caring that it scalded my
mouth. I said, with the old bitterness, "Except for
me."

I'd been working in a government radio lab, on
some new communications equipment. Since I'd nev-
er finished it, there's no point in going into details. It's
enough to say that it would have made radar as ob-
solete as the stagecoach.

I'd built a special supersonic condenser, and had
had trouble with a set of magnetic coils that wouldn't
wind properly. When the thing blew up, I hadn't had
any sleep for three nights, but that wasn't the reason.
That was normal around there. I was normal then,

just another communications man, a little bug-eyed
about the kind of research tinkering I liked, but
without any of the crazy impractical notions that had
lost me my job afterward. They called it overwork
Only I know they thought the explosion had dis-
turbed my brain. I didn't blame them. Sometimes I
thought so myself. Or at least I'd have liked to think
so.

It started one day in the lab with a shadow on the
sun and an elusive short-circuit somewhere that kept
giving me shock after shock until I was dizzy. By the
time I got it fixed -- and I never could figure out why
that circuit should have shorted -- the oscillator had
gone out of control, or so I thought. I kept getting a
series of low-frequency waves that were like nothing
I'd ever seen before. Then there was something like a
voice, speaking out of a very old, jerry-built crystal set
 -- only there wasn't a radio receiver, or a speaker,
anywhere in the lab, and nobody else heard it. I
wasn't sure myself, because right then, every instru-
ment in the place went haywire; and forty seconds
later, part of the ceiling hit the floor, and the floor
went up through the roof They found me, they say,
half-crushed under a beam. Anyway, I woke up in a
hospital, with four cracked ribs, and feeling as if I'd
had a lot of voltage poured into me.

It went down in the report that I'd been struck by
lightning. They had to say something.

It took me a long time to get well. The ribs, and the
other things, healed fast -- faster than the doctors liked.
I didn't mind the hospital part, except that I couldn't
walk without shaking, or light a cigarette without
burning myself, for weeks. The thing I minded was

what I remembered from before I woke up.

Delirium. That was what they told me. But the
kind and type of marks all over my body didn't ring
true. Electricity -- even freak lightning -- doesn't make
those kinds of burns. And this comer of the world
doesn't make a habit of branding people.

Only before I could show the marks to anyone out-
side the hospital, they were gone. Not healed, just
gone. I remember the look on the intern's face when
I showed him the spots where the burns had been. He
didn't think I was crazy. He thought he was.

There was a psychiatrist sniffing around, too, put-
ting forth slow, soothing suggestions about psycho-
somatic medicine and hysterical stigmata, but that
was just for the record, too.

I knew the lab hadn't been struck by lightning. The
Major knew it, too. I found that out the day I reported
back to work All the time we talked, his big pen
moved in stubby circles across the pages of his log-
book, and he talked without raising his head to look
at me.

"I know all that, Kenscott. No electrical storms re-
ported in the vicinity, no radio disturbances within a
thousand miles. But," his jaw was stubborn, "the lab
was wrecked and you were hurt. We've got to have
something for the record."

I could understand all that. What I resented was
the way they treated me when I went back to work
They transferred me to another division and another
project. They turned down my request to follow up
research on those low-frequency waves. My private
notes were ripped out of my notebook while I was at
lunch, and I never saw them again. And as soon as
they could, they shipped me to Fairbanks, Alaska,

and that was the end of that

The Major told me all I needed to know, the day
before I took the plane to Alaska. His scowl said more
than his words, and they said plenty.

"I'd let it alone, Kenscott. No sense stirring up more
trouble. We can't monkey with side alleys, anyhow.
Next time, you might get your head blown off, not just
a dose of stray voltage out of the blue. We've done
everything but stand on our heads, trying to find out
where that spare energy came from and where it
went."

"Then you admit there was something!" That was
more than I'd been able to get from anyone else on
the project.

"Unofficially, yes." The Major scowled, not looking
at me. Then it all came out in a single fast string of
words. "What it boils down to is that it shows up
when you're around, and it doesn't show up when
you're not around, and we don't know if it's fakery or
poltergeists or ESP but we don't want any more of it,
whatever it is. We've marked that whole line of re-
search closed, Kenscott. And if I were you I'd call my-
self lucky and keep my mouth shut about it."

"It wasn't a message from Mars," I suggested
without smiling, and he didn't think it was funny
either. But there was relief on his face when I left the
office and went to clean out my drawer.

I got along all right in Alaska, for a while. They put
me on paperwork, routine supervisory jobs, and ig-
nored me when I tried to get back to the practical end
of it. And then they shipped me back to the States,
with a discharge, and a recommendation of a long
rest I tried to explain it to Andy:

"They called it overwork They said I needed rest

Maybe so. The shock did something funny to me -- 
tore me open -- like the electric shock treatments they
give catatonic patients. I seem to know a lot of things
I never learned. Ordinary radio work doesn't seem to
mean much to me any more. It doesn't make sense.
And every now and then something will start to
make sense, and then doesn't. When people out West
were talking about Flying Saucers, whatever they
were, and when there was all that talk about atomic
fallout changing the weather, and the cloud-seeding
experiments, all this sort of halfway made sense for a
while. Only I kept expecting it to happen without" -- 
I moved my hand, helplessly, trying to put words to
a random impression -- "without people having to go
up there in planes and do anything about it. And
when we came up here -- " I paused, trying to fit more
confused impressions together. He wasn't going to be-
lieve me anyhow, but I wanted him to. A tree slapped
against the cabin window, and I jumped.

"It started the day we came into the mountains.
Energy out of nowhere, following me around. It can't
knock me out. Have you noticed that I let you turn the
lights on and off? The day we came up here, I shorted
my electric razor," I rubbed my hand over a stubbled
face, "and I blew out five fuses trying to change one.
Remember?"

"Yeah, I remember: we had to drive into town for
some more." My brother's eyes rested uneasily on my
face. "Mike, listen -- you are kidding, aren't you?"

"I wish I were," I said. "That energy just drains
into me and nothing happens. I'm immune." I
shrugged, rose and walked to the Hallicrafter, picked
up the disconnected plug and thrust it into the socket.
I snapped the dial on. "Watch."

The panel flashed and darkened; confused static
came crackling from the speaker. I took my hand
away.

"Turn it up," said Andy uneasily.

"It's already up." My hand twiddled the dial.

"Try another station," the kid insisted. I pushed
each button in succession; the static crackled and
buzzed; the panel light flashed on and off in little
cryptic flashes. I said "And reception was fine at
noon; you were listening to the President's press con-
ference." I took my hand away again. "Okay, you try
it."

Andy frowned, but he came over and switched the
button back on. The little panel light glowed steadily,
and the mellow voice of Milton Cross filled the
room:

"... orchestra in the Fifth, or Fate Symphony of
Beethoven..."

And then the majestic chords of the symphony,
thundering through the cabin:

"Ta-da-da-dumm. ... ta-da-da-DOOM!"

My brother stared at me as racing woodwinds
caught up with the brasses. There was nothing
wrong with the radio. I stood listening to the sound of
fate.

"Mike. What did you do to it?"

"I wish I knew." I reached out; touched the volume
button briefly.

Beethoven died in a muttering static of insane
drums.

I swore, and Andy sucked in his breath between
his teeth, edging warily backward. He stared at the
radio and then at me, and then reached out and
touched the dial. Once more the smoothness of the

"Fate" symphony rolled out into the room and swal-
lowed us. I shivered.

Andy said, shakily, "Maybe you'd better let it
alone."

The kid turned in early, but I stayed in the main
room, smoking, restless, wishing I could get a drink
without driving eighty miles over bad mountain
roads. Neither of us had thought to turn the radio off,
and it was moaning out some interminable, throb-
bing jazz. I turned my notes over restlessly, not really
seeing them.

Lightning that wasn't lightning. Scars on my body
 -- curious festering marks that the psychiatrist had
tried to tell me were psychosomatic. The cry of an
eagle wheeling above me -- striking savagely at my
eyes, set to kill -- and I deserved that death.

What had I remembered, just then, when I went
far the eagle with a hunting knife?

I let my head sink in my hands, closing my eyes,
trying to clear my mind of surface things and re-
member ... remember. ...

Fantasy? Was it fantasy that made me see a
strange, cloaked form, and between the cloaked form
and me, a woman? A golden woman. ...

Golden hair, tiger-tawny, fell like silk around her
shoulders; her eyes were golden, wide open and fixed
on me like the eyes of a great cat. She held something
in her hands.

Vision, dream, fantasy -- abruptly she was gone as
Andy's voice came sleepily from the alcove:

"Going to read all night, Mike?"

"If I feel like it," I said tersely, and began walking
up and down again.

"Michael! For the luvvagod quit that and let me get

some sleep," Andy exploded, and I sank into the
armchair again. "Sorry, Andy."

Where had the intangible part of me been, those
hours and days while I lay crushed under a fallen
beam in the lab, then under morphine in the hospi-
tal? Where had those scars come from -- and where
had they gone?

More important -- what had made a radio lab, of all
places, explode like that? Electricity can set fires, and
radio waves, too intense, will inflict burns. Men can
be shocked into insensibility, or even killed, by elec-
tricity. But electricity just doesn't explode.

And what freak of lightning was I carrying in my
body, that made me immune to ordinary current? I
hadn't told Andy about the time I'd deliberately
shorted the dynamo in the cellar and taken the whole
current through my body. I was still alive. It would
have been a hell of a way to commit suicide, but I
hadn't.

I swore, slamming down the window. I was going
to bed. Andy was right; either I was crazy, or else
there was something wrong that ordinary doctors
didn't know about. Sitting here stewing about it
wouldn't help. If it didn't let up, I'd take the first train
home and see another psychiatrist -- and if that didn't
help, well, maybe I'd see a good electrician! But right
now, I was going to hit the sack

My hand went out automatically and switched off
the light.

"Damn!" I thought incredulously; I'd shorted the
dynamo again. The radio stopped as if the whole or-
chestra had dropped dead; every light in the cabin
winked swiftly out, but my hand on the switch
crackled with a phosphorescent glow as the entire

house current poured through my body. I tingled
with weird shock, heard my own teeth chattering.

And something snapped open in my brain. I heard,
suddenly, an excited voice, shouting.

"Rhys! Rhys! That is the man!"

CHAPTER TWO

"You ARE MAD," said the man with the tired voice.

I was drifting. I was swaying, bodiless, over a vast
abyss of caverned space; chasmed, immense, lim-
itless. Vaguely, through that humming distance, I
could hear two voices. This one was old, and very
tired.

"You are mad. They will know. Narayan will
know."

"Narayan is a fool," said the second voice. There
was something hauntingly familiar about that voice.
I had heard it before. Where?

"Narayan is the Dreamer," the tired voice said, "he
is the Dreamer, and where the Dreamer walks they
will know. But have it your way. I am old, and it does
not matter. I give you this freely to spare you, and to
spare Gamine what must come."

"Gamine -- " the second voice stopped. After a long
silence, "You are old and also a fool, Rhys. What is
Gamine to me?"

Bodiless, blind, I drifted and swayed and swung in
the sound of the voices. The humming, like a million
high-tension wires, sang around me, and I felt myself
cradled in the pull of something like a giant magnet,
that held me suspended securely on nothingness, and
drew me down into the field of some force below -- 

above -- elsewhere. Far below me the voices faded,
and as if their sound had removed some invisible and
intangible support, I swung free -- fell -- plunged
downward in sickening motion, head-over-heels into
the abyss. ...

And yet, through all this, I was conscious of stand-
ing motionless, my hand on the light-switch in the
cabin -- and yet I was falling through nowhere
space....

My feet struck hard flooring with a kind of snap. I
wrenched back to full consciousness with a jolt.
Winds blew cold in my face: the cabin walls had
been flung back to the high-lying stars. I was standing
at a barred window at the very pinnacle of a tall tow-
er, in the lap of a weird blueness that arched flicker-
ingly in the night. I caught a glimpse of a startled face,
a lean tired old face beneath a high, peaked hood, in
the moment before my knees gave way and I fell,
striking my head against the bars of the window.

I was lying somewhere in the dark I had no
awareness of myself as Mike Kenscott; instead my
mind was filled with a nightmarish fear and urgency.
There was something I had to do, a warning I had to
give. ... and I was horribly afraid.

I stirred and around me the darkness thinned and
grew paler; I could see, dimly, shapes and forms. I
rose, with the fluid motion of movement in a dream,
passed through a strangely arched door and into a
dim-lighted corridor, burning with blue fluorescence.
My own breath was loud in the silence, but I heard
no footsteps. I knew I must be very still and keep to
the edges of the corridors, and at the same time some-
thing angry and proud in me told me to walk fearless
and unafraid.

The corridor was long, but I felt no fatigue. Twice
I passed strange forms, feeling no curiosity about
their strange cloaked and muffled shapes; I knew
somehow that they could not see me. I paused before
a bolted door, and the frightened part of myself
stopped, feeling dreamish panic. Then I felt myself
raise my hands, making curious gestures. The door
slid noiselessly back and I passed through.

The room was dark and empty, with a great win-
dow opening on starred night. Here and there around
the walls hung strange limp winged forms. Without
hesitation I went to the wall and lifted down one of
the things. ...

A cloak? A dead bird? I felt feathers, pinions, limp
and lifeless; a curious fear sucked under my
breastbone. Some tiny packed-away part of me
screamed, What am I doing? But without hesitating,
I drew the dark feathered thing over my head. ...

There was a strange, suspended, timeless moment
when I floated, bodiless, a mere point of conscious-
ness in space. Then, fumbling, I found my body
again, moving the feet carefully to a low couch; sup-
porting myself with my hands, I lowered myself and
lay down. There was a strange pull to my body, an
awful tugging as if the essential me was struggling to
get out, to free myself from tangled heavy clothes. I
knew somehow that I dared not yield yet to this strug-
gle for freedom. Carefully, painfully, I lowered myself
to the couch, straightened my body into a careful line,
drew a deep breath ...

And suddenly I was out and away, rising up with
a great flapping of wings, soaring on the rhythmic
beat of pinions. My arms -- my arms were great
wings, and all around me was empty sky and cold
fresh winds.

Flying! The oldest dream of mankind -- but this was
no dream! I could feel the cold sting of the wind,
laden with sprinkles of dampness. Dark as it was, my
eyes swept down from the dizzy height and saw
below me a vast tract of wooded country. Colors were
filtered out in the moonlight, but far, far below me I
saw a tower rising and the great black yawning win-
dow from which I had come.

Nightmarish haste beat at me; I felt my bird-body
stretch itself into an arrow-straight line, felt the phi-
ions extend themselves into regular beating. I was
flying Eastward, over the woodland, seeing below me
little roads and pathways, isolated dwellings and
farmland, feeling the wind in my face.

It seemed hours that I flew, but I felt no fatigue, and
the time seemed strangely telescoped, so that it might
have been minutes or days. I passed the woodland,
flying over hills and valleys, until at last, far below
me, a cluster of tents and dwellings showed like dark
shadows in the fading moonlight.

I banked against the breeze, began to fly down-
ward in slow spirals. The freshening breeze in my
eyes, the strengthening light, told me that dawn was
near; the bird-body seemed tireless, the heart beating
as strongly as an insensate machine, but I -- the in-
tangible me -- felt fear and exhaustion and dread. I
knew that the dawn brought danger for me; but I
was not sure why.

Down, and down. A red line of light against the
horizon crept and strengthened, giving color to the
green meadowland below. Now I could see the tents
clearly, and the men who were moving around them,
coming out into the dawn.

Too late! I cried out and heard my voice a high,
eerie falcon-scream; I had been seen. Below me the

forms of the men clustered, broke into groups, cried
out and pointed upward.

"One of their accursed spies!"

I saw a big man, formless in the dawn and fea-
tureless, kneel down, something like a crossbow
athwart his chest. Suddenly fear gave way to rage. He
dared! Wheeling, darting with a speed that amazed
me, that made the ground below me into a blur, I
plunged downward. The men scattered, crying out,
and I heard my soundless laughter explode into an-
other eerie bird-cry. ...

An arrow sang shrilly by me; another. Swiftly, au-
tomatically, I eluded them, but fear and wonder were
rising in me. What was I doing here? Why had I
come? Why were they shooting at me when I had
come to warn ... to warn. ...

To warn -- whom?

I saw the crossbow bolt speeding toward me, des-
perately beat wings to one side -- too late! I braced
myself for the shock

The arrow went into my breast. Strangely, I felt no
pain, only a curious sense of pressure; a tingling snap
and a painful shock I felt my wings go limp, collapse,
heard a great outcry from the men below, joy and
triumph and exaltation. I was falling. ...

With no sense of elapsed time, I was lying on a
narrow high bed, in a room filled with doors and
bars. I could see the edge of a carved mirror set in a
frame, and the top of a chest of some sort. It was not
the room where I had found -- or dreamed? -- the limp
feather-forms. It was lighted with bright sunlight, and
on a bench at the edge of my field of vision, two fig-
ures were seated.

One was an old man, an old, old, gray man in a

high peaked hood, hunched wearily beneath the cowl
of a robe like a Tibetan lama's. Briefly I had seen the
face beneath the cowl, heard the old, tired voice, in
the moment before plunging into that strange dream?
-of flight.

The other was a slimmer, younger figure, swathed
in silken, silvery-blue veiling, with a thin opacity
where the face should have been, and a sort of pale
shining of flesh through the silken sapphire of the
veils. The figure was that of a slim boy or an im-
mature girl; it sat erect, motionless, and for a long
time I watched it, curious, between half-opened lids.
But when at last I blinked, it rose, and passed through
one of the multitudinous doors; almost at once, a soft
sibilance of draperies announced its return.

I sat up, getting my feet to the floor or almost there;
the bed on which I was lying was higher than a hos-
pital bed. The blue-robed creature gave me a handled
mug, like a baby's drinking-cup; I took it hesitantly
between my fingers.

"Neither drug nor poison," said the blue-robe
mockingly, and the voice was as noncommittal as the
veiled body; a sexless voice, soft alto, a woman's or a
boys. "Drink, and be glad it is none of Karamy's
brewing."

I tasted the liquid in the mug. It had an in-
determinate greenish look, and a faint pungent taste I
could not identify, though it reminded me variously
of anise and garlic. It seemed to remove the last traces
of shock I handed it back empty and looked sharply
at the old man in lama costume, who had not moved
at all, or even raised his eyes to look at me.

"You're-Rhys?" I said. "Where in hell have I gotten
to now?" At least, that's what I meant to say. Imagine

my surprise when I heard myself asking in a lan-
guage I'd never heard before, but understood per-
fectly, "To which of the nine hells of Zandru have I
now been consigned?"

At the same time I became conscious of what I was
wearing. I wouldn't have been surprised to see feath-
ers -- if I was still dreaming -- but there weren't any. I
was wearing what seemed to be an old-fashioned
nightshirt, chopped off an inch or so below the loins,
and deep crimson in color. "Red flannels, yet!" I
thought with a gulp of dismay, and checked my im-
pulse to get out of bed. I didn't know how I'd come
here, or who had put me into the thing, but I wasn't
going to stand around in a red nightshirt!

"You might have the decency to explain where I
am," I said, "and how I got here."

The tiredness seemed part of Rhys' voice. "Adric,"
he said wearily, "try to remember. You are in your
own Tower. And you have been under restraint
again. I am sorry." His voice sounded futile. I felt
prickling shivers run down my backbone. In spite of
the weird surroundings, the phrase "Under restraint"
had struck home. I was a lunatic and locked up
somewhere!

The blue-robe cut in, in that smooth, sexless,
faintly-sarcastic voice, "While Karamy holds the keys
to his memory, Rhys, you will be explaining it to him
a dozen times in a cycle. He will never be of any use
to us again. This time, Karamy won. Adric, try to re-
member. You are at home, in Narabedla."

It sounded like Bedlam; and it looked like it. I
shook my head. Nightshirt or no nightshirt, I'd face
this on my feet.

I felt better standing up. I walked to Rhys; put my

clenched hands on his shoulders. "Explain this! Who
am I supposed to be? Where am I? You called me
Adric. I'm no more Adric than you are!"

"Adric, you are not amusing!" The blue-robe's
voice was edged with anger. "Use what intelligence
Karamy has left you! You have had enough sharig
antidote to cure a tharl! Now, who are you?"

The words were all but meaningless. I stared,
trapped, and let my hands fall away from the old
man. "Adric," I said, bewildered. No. I was Mike
Kenscott. Hang on to that. Michael Warren Kenscott.
Cabin in the Sierras. Fishing holiday with my brother
Andy. Andy! Two times two are four. The circum-
ference equals pi times the diameter. Four rulls is the
chemming -- stop that! Mike Kenscott. Army serial
number 13-48746. I cradled my bursting head in my
hands.

"I'm crazy. Or you are. Or we're both sane and this
monkey business is all real."

"It is real," Rhys said, compassion in his tired voice.
"He has been very far on the Time Ellipse, Gamine;
never have I searched so far. Adric, you must try to
understand. This was Karamy's work She sent you
out on a time-line, very far, very far into the past. Into
a time when the world was different. She hoped you
would come back changed, or mad. Or perhaps she
simply wanted to punish you."

"Punish me for what? Who is-"

The weary, hunched shoulders went up and then
down.

"How can I say what is between you and Karamy?
Must I concern myself with that, too?" His eyes were
dim, withdrawn. "I have done what I can. Now I
must return to my own tower -- or die. I have long

outstayed my leave. Gamine, will you explain?"

"I will." A hint of emotion flickered in the neutral
voice of the blue-robe -- Gamine? "Go, Ancient."

Rhys left the room, silently, without turning back,
or a word of farewell. Gamine turned impatiently to
me again. "We waste time this way. Fool, look at
yourself"

I strode to a mirror that lined one of the doors.
Above the crimson nightshirt I sought for my own
familiar face and the sight rocked my reason. Out of
the mirror a man's face looked anxiously but the face
of a stranger.

I clutched at the frame of the mirror with one
hand. The man in the mirror did the same, as if in
panicky striving to climb out of there. The face that
was not mine was eagle-thin, darkly moustached,
with sharp green eyes; and the body belonging to the
face was lean and long and strongly muscled and not
quite human. I squeezed my eyes shut. This couldn't
be!

I opened my eyes. The man in the red nightshirt I
was wearing was still reflected in the mirror, and he
looked scared as hell. He was.

I turned my back on the mirror, walking to one of
the barred windows to look down on the familiar
outline of the Sierra Madre, a hundred miles away. I
couldn't be mistaken. I knew those mountains.

But between me and the mountains lay a thickly
forested expanse of land, which was like no scenery I
had ever seen in my life. Or had I seen it in that
dream of flying?

Dream?

The bars, I saw now, were not bars, but ornamen-
tal grilles; they opened, at a touch, onto a high

balcony floored with blue slate. I was standing near
the pinnacle of a high tower; I dimly saw the curve of
another, just out of my line of vision, hardly more
than a shadow. The whole landscape below me was
bathed in a curiously pinkish light; through a heavy,
overcast sky I could just make out, dimly, the shad-
owy disc of a watery red sun. Then -- no, I wasn't
dreaming, I really did see it -- beyond it, higher in the
sky and pale through the clouds, a second sun, so
blindingly blue-white brilliant that even through the
thick cloud-cover I had to squeeze my eyes shut and
look away.

It was proof enough for me. I turned desperately to
Gamine behind me. "Where have I gotten to? Where
 -- when am I? Two suns -- but I know those moun-
tains."

The veiled face turned up to mine, question in the
tilt of the shrouded head. What I had thought a veil
was not that; it was more like a shimmering screen
wrapped around the features, so that Gamine was
faceless; an invisible person with substance but no
recognizable characteristics. Yes, it was like that; as if
an invisible person were wearing the curious silken
drapery. But the invisible flesh was solid enough; fin-
gers like warm steel gripped my shoulder:

"You have been back -- back to the days before the
second sun? Adric, tell me, was there truly only one
sun, before the Cataclysm?"

"Wait," I begged. "You mean I've traveled in time?"

The exaltation slowly faded from Gamine's voice.

"Never mind. It is improbable in any case that you
would remember enough -- no, Adric, not really trav-
eling. You were sent out on the Time Ellipse; you
must have contacted someone in that Other Time.

Perhaps the contact lasted so long that you feel your-
self someone else."

"But I'm not Adric!" I raged. Suddenly the words I
had heard, in that sudden opening of my mind, came
back to me: That is the man. The voice I now knew
for Rhys had called him Adric.

"Adric sent me here, somehow! Maybe this is his
body, but-"

I saw the blurring around Gamine's invisible fea-
tures twitch. "It's never been proven that two minds
can be interchanged that way. Adric's body -- Adric's
brain. The brain convolutions, the memory centers,
the habit patterns -- all those are part of the physical
brain. You'd still be Adric. The idea that you are
someone else is only an illusion of the con-
scious mind. It will wear off You stayed too long,
Adric."

I shook my head, puzzled. I was Mike Kenscott. I
hung on to that, desperately. "I still don't believe it.
Where am I?"

Gamine moved impatiently. "Oh, very well. You
are Adric of Narabedla, and -- if you are yourself
again -- Lord of the Crimson Tower."

"And who are you?"

"You don't remember me?"

"I don't."

"I am Gamine. I am a spell-singer -- and other
things."

I jerked my elbow toward the window. "Those are
my own mountains out there," I said roughly, "but
I'm not Adric, whoever he is. My name is Mike
Kenscott, and all your hanky-panky doesn't impress
me. Take off that veil, and let me see your face."

"I wish you meant that," a mournfulness breathed

in Gamine's soft contralto. "If I dared believe -- "

A sudden fury blazed up in me from nowhere;
without volition I took one step forward, and heard
my own voice, shouting.

"What is it to you what I mean? What right have
you to pry for that old fool Rhys? Get back to your
own place, Spell-singer, before you find that Karamy
has not all the magic in Narabedla!"

I broke off, appalled. What was I saying? Worse,
what did I mean by it? Gamine turned; the sexless
voice was merely amused. "Adric spoke then. Whoev-
er sits in the seat of your soul, Adric, you are the same
and past redemption!" The iridescent draperies whis-
pered on the flooring as Gamine moved toward the
doorway. "Karamy is welcome to her slave!"

The door slammed.

Left alone, I flung myself down on the high bed,
stubbornly concentrating on Mike Kenscott, shutting
out the vague and blurring mystery that was Adric
impinging on my consciousness. I had spoken Adric's
words. At least, they were not my words. But I was
not Adric! I would not be! I dared not go to the win-
dow, and look out at the terrifying two suns, not even
to see again the familiar, reassuring outline of the
mountains, lest seeing them I should begin to
believe...

But persistently the Adric memories came, a guilty
feeling of a shirked duty, a frightened face -- a real
face, not a blurred nothingness -- beneath Gamine's
blue veil. Memory of strange hunts and a big bird
borne on the pommel of a high saddle. A bird
hooded like a falcon, in crimson. ...

Consciousness of dress made me aware of the -- 
nightshirt? -- I still wore. Moving swiftly, without de-

liberate thought, I found myself going to a door and
sliding it open. I pulled out some garments and
quickly dressed in them. They went on easily, strange
though they were -- tights, high gaiters, a laced tunic
and overblouse -- when I did not stop to think about
what I was doing. Every garment in the closet was
the same color, a deep-toned crimson, although some
were edged with dark fur and a few were em-
broidered with gold or silver threads. A phrase
Gamine had used broke the surface of my mind, like
a leaping fish; Lord of the Crimson Tower. Well, I
looked it.

There were knives and swords in the closet; I took
down one to look at it, and before I realized what I
was about, I had belted it across my hip. I stared,
decided to let it remain. It looked just about right with
the rest of the costume. It felt right, too. I was stepping
back to get a better look when another door folded
noiselessly back and a man stood looking at me.

He was young, and he would have been handsome
in an effeminate sort of way, had his face been less
arrogant. Lean, somehow catlike, it was easy to de-
termine that he was akin to Adric, and to me, even
before habit and memory fitted a name to him, and
an identity.

"Evarin," I said.

He came forward, moving so softly that for an un-
easy moment I wondered if he had pads like a cat's
on his feet. He wore deep green from head to foot,
similar in cut and material to the garments that
clothed me. His face had a flickering, as if he could, at
a moment's notice, raise about himself a barrier of
invisibility like that which surrounded Gamine. He
didn't look as human as I -- as Adric.

"I have seen Gamine," he said. "I'm told you are
awake, and as sane as you ever were. And we of
Narabedla are not so strong that we can afford to
waste even a broken tool like yourself. So welcome
home, brother!"

Wrath -- Adric's wrath -- boiled up in me; it was an
unnerving experience to feel myself boiling with rage
against a man I'd never consciously seen before. I felt
myself step forward, felt my hand grip around the
hilt of my sword. Evarin moved lithely backward.

"I am not Gamine," he warned, "nor to be served
as Gamine was served. Be careful!" he made no move
to touch the knife in his belt.

"Be careful yourself," I muttered, not knowing
what else I could have said. Evarin drew back his
thin lips into a smile. "Why? You have been sent out
on the Time Ellipse until you are only a shadow of
yourself. But I did not come here for a quarrel, and all
this is beside the point. Karamy says you are to be
freed, so the seals are off all the doors, and the
Crimson Tower is no longer a prison to you. Come
and go as you please -- at Karamy's bidding." His lips
formed a sneer. "If you call that freedom."

I said slowly, "You don't think I'm crazy?"

"Except where Karamy is concerned, you never
were," Evarin said. "What is that to me? I have all I
could desire. The Dreamer gives me good hunting,
slaves enough to do my bidding, and as for the rest -- 
I am the Toymaker. I need little else. But you -- " his
voice leaped with sudden contempt, "you who were
so powerful -- now you ride Time at Karamy's bid-
ding, and your Dreamer walks waiting the coming of
his power that he may destroy us all one day!"

I stared somberly at Evarin; the words meant little

to me, a jumble about Karamy again and Dreamers,
and yet they seemed to wake an almost personal
shame in me. Were emotions, then, only a habit of the
mechanical synapses of the brain? Had they no con-
nection with the person I was, Mike Kenscott? Or was
I mad -- feeling the emotions of a person called Adric,
shame and regret and fear over things I'd never done,
or dreamed of doing?

Evarin watched me, and his face lost some of its
bitterness. He seemed little more than a boy. He said
quietly; "The falcon flown cannot be recalled. I came
only to tell you that you are free." He turned, shrug-
ging his thin shoulders that seemed somehow mis-
shapen, and walked to the high grilled window. "As
I say, if you call that freedom."

I followed him to the window. The mists were
clearing; the two suns shone with blinding brilliance,
and I had to turn my eyes away from the sky. By
looking far to the left, I could see a line of rainbow-
tinted towers rising, tall and delicate, yet massive,
capped with slender spires. The nearest seemed to be
made of jeweled blue, some stone that gleamed in the
light like lapis lazuli; one, clear emerald green; others
were golden, flame-orange, violet. They formed a
semicircle about a wooded park, and beyond them
the familiar skyline, of the mountains tugged other
memories. The blinding sky held no hint of blue, but
was colorless as sunlight on ice. Abruptly I turned my
back on it all.

Evarin murmured, "Narabedla. Last of the Rain-
bow Cities. Adric, how long now?"

I was trying to make sense of the names he had
spoken. "Karamy" --  I said hesitatingly, but Evarin
took it for a question.

"Karamy can wait. Better for you if she waited for-
ever," he said with that soundless laughter. "Come
along with me, or Gamine will be back You don't
want to see Gamine, do you?" He sounded anxious,
and I shook my head. No. Emphatically, I did not
want to see that insidious spook again.

He looked relieved. "Come along, then. If I know
Gamine, you're pretty well muddied -- amnesiac. I'll
explain. After all," his voice mocked, "could I do less,
for my only brother?"

He thrust open the door, gesturing for me to lead
the way. Instinctively I drew back, telling myself it
was only because I did not know which way to go.
He laughed soundlessly and preceded me, and I fol-
lowed, letting the door slide shut.

We went down stairs and more stairs, and I
walked along at Evarin's side, wondering with some
surface part of my thoughts why I was not more pan-
icky. I was a stranger in an incredible world, wearing
another man's clothes, called by his name, led
around by his friends, or his enemies--how could I
tell which? And yet I had the fantastic calmness
with which men do incredible things in a dream. I
was simply taking one step after another, surrender-
ing myself to -- Gamine had called them habits, mem-
ory patterns embedded in the convolutions of the
brain. Patterns? I had Adric's body and presumably
his brain. It seemed to know what to do. Only a su-
perficial me, an outer ego, was a strange, muddled
Mike Kenscott.

The subconscious Adric was guiding me. I let him
ride. I felt it would be wise to be very much Adric
around Evarin, though he seemed friendly enough.

We stepped into an elevator shaft which went

down, curved around corners with a speed that
threw me against the wall, then, slowly, began to rise.
I had long since lost all sense of direction. Abruptly
the door of the shaft opened, and we began to walk
along a long, dimly-lighted corridor.

The corridor of my dream?

From somewhere we heard singing; a voice some-
where in the range of a trained boy's voice or a
woman's mature contralto. Gamine's voice. I could
make no sense of the words, but Evarin halted,
swearing.

I thought the faraway voice sang my name, but I
could not tell. "What is it, Evarin?"

He gave a short exclamation, the sense of which
was lost on me. "Come along. It is only the spell-
singer singing old Rhys back to sleep. You waked him
this time, did you not? I wonder Gamine permitted it.
He is very near his last sleep, old Rhys. I think you
will send him there soon."

Without giving me a chance to answer -- and indeed
I had no answer ready -- Evarin pulled me into an-
other shaft which began immediately to rise with us.
Eventually we stepped out into a room at the top of
another tower, a room lavishly, even garishly
furnished. Evarin flung himself down on a divan,
gesturing me to follow his example.

"Now tell me, where in Time has Karamy sent you
now?"

"Karamy?" I asked tentatively.

Evarin's raucous laugh rang out again. "Can you
really be as confused as you sound? Ai, what a joke it
would be on Karamy, if it were so! The Witch of the
Golden Tower destroys your memory -- even your
memories of her!" He flung back his head, shaking

with that eerie laughter.

Then, suddenly quieting, he said with an odd air of
confiding, "My one demand of the Dreamer is free-
dom from that witch's spells. We in the Rainbow City
should at least leave one another free. Some day-
some day I shall fashion a Toy for her, and she will
discover that the Toymaker of Narabedla is to be
reckoned with. I demand little of the Dreamers, Zan-
dru knows, I do not care to pay their price. But
Karamy does not rare what price she pays, so-" a
spreading movement of his hands, "she has power
over everyone, except me. She had power to send you
out on the Time Ellipse. I wonder who brought you
back?"

It was beginning to make an eerie sort of sense.
Somehow. Adric had incurred the wrath of Karamy,
who was a "witch of the Golden Tower." whatever
that was, and she had sent him out of his body.
Someone, in trying to bring him back, had snared -- 
me.

But I wasn't going to tell Evarin that. Something
deep inside me knew that a confession of weakness or
fear would be a catastrophe. I only shook, my head.

"Anyhow, I'm back," I said. "Though I don't re-
member much."

"You remember me," Evarin said. "I wonder why
she left you that? Karamy never trusted me."

And she was right not to trust him. The thought
came out of that reservoir of knowledge that I could
not tap at will, but nevertheless welled up in me. I
said "Only your name. Nothing more."

Because Evarin, I knew, was never ten minutes the
same. He would profess friendship at one minute,
and mean it; ten minutes later, still in friendship and

with no malice in him, he would flay the skin from
my body and count it only an exquisite joke. He
seemed to follow my thoughts, laughing.

"Still, you know my name, and that is something-
bare is brotherless back, and that goes for me as
much as for you, Adric! Tell me what you have for-
gotten."

Could I trust him with my terrible puzzlement?
How much could I, as Adric -- and I must be Adric to
him, for that was my only safety, his wary respect for
Adric and what Adric might do -- how much could I,
as Adric, get along without knowing? And how many
questions could I dare to ask without betraying my
own helplessness?

"I've been out of my body too long," I said at last.
"I can't remember." One thing, at least, I had to
know, "What are the Dreamers?"

That had been the wrong question. I knew it as
soon as it escaped my lips. His eyes altered; he felt
safer with me. now.

"Zandru, Adric, you have been far indeed," he said.
"You must have been back before the Cataclysm."

I had, whatever the Cataclysm was. But I only
nodded.

"Well, our forefathers, after the Cataclysm, built the
Rainbow Cities, and made the Compact that killed
the machines. In the Rainbow Cities we who could be
trusted with power, lived and ruled as we had
always lived and ruled; but the Compact made it cer-
tain that lesser men would never again be able to defy
us. Oh, there were a few idealists who said that we
were reducing them to barbarism. They didn't under-
stand!" Evarin sounded passionately excited. "It was
only that we kept them safe -- safe from powers they

only abused! They live simply, as common men are
meant to live, and they cannot meddle with arts and
powers beyond their understanding!"

He looked at me as if in challenge, but I said noth-
ing, and Evarin got up and began to pace the floor
restlessly.

"What are the Dreamers? No one knows; they do
not know, themselves. They were men once. At least,
they are born from men and women. Mendel knows
what caused them. But one in every ten thousand
men is born such a freak -- a Dreamer."

"Mutations?" I said the word only to myself;
Evarin did not hear. He went on:

"Some say that they were caused by the Cataclysm
itself; others, that they are the souls of the dead ma-
chines. They are human and not human. They are
telepaths. They have power; they can control every-
thing: things, minds, people. They can throw
illusions around men and things -- they contested our
rule."

He sat down again, brooding, quiet. "A dozen gen-
erations ago, here in Rainbow City, one of our people
managed to bind the Dreamers. We could not kill
them -- they can protect themselves, I do not know
how -- for the weapon aimed at them must fall; the
blow turned upon them recoils upon the striker. But
he learned how to bind them, in sleep, make them
harmless to us. That in itself might have been enough.
But then we discovered that as they slept -- and
dreamed -- they could be forced to give up their
powers. To us. So that we controlled their powers,
could wield their magic." There was a glimpse of
horror behind his eyes as he said, "For a price. The
price you know."

I kept silent I did not know the price. I wanted
Evarin to go on.

He shivered a little, shook his head, and the horror
vanished.

"So each of us in Rainbow City has a Dreamer who
gives up his powers -- for the price appointed -- so that
his master can do as he wills. And after years and
years, as the Dreamer grows old and feeble, his
powers wane, and then they can be killed. As they
grow older and weaker, it is even safe to let them
wake but never too strongly, or too long."

He laughed, bitterly. A fury came from nowhere
into his face.

"And you loosed a Dreamer!" he cried. "A Dreamer
with all his powers hardly come upon him! He is
harmless as yet, but he waked, and he walks! And
one day the power will come upon him and he will
destroy us all!"

Evarin's thin features were drawn with despair,
not arrogant now, but filled with fear and pain. "A
Dreamer," he sighed, "and you had been made one
with him already! Can you see now why we do not
trust you, brother?"

Without answering, I rose and went to the win-
dow. This tower room did not look down into the
neat little park, but on a vast tract of wild country. Far
away, curious trails of smoke spiraled up into the ab-
normally bright sunshine, but a thick, cottony fog lay
over the bottomland. There was a shine of lakes,
patches of forest, bare hills. Against the sky I saw a
bird wheeling, silent, hovering against the wind.

"Down there," said Evarin in a low voice, following
me to the window, "down there the Dreamer walks
and waits to destroy us all. Down there -- "

But I did not hear the rest, for my mind completed
it.

Down there is my lost memory. Down there is my
life.

Somewhere down there I had left my soul.

CHAPTER THREE

I TURNED from the window. "Rhys is a Dreamer," I
said, with slow certainty. "What is Gamine?"

Evarin nodded, ignoring the question. "Rhys is a
Dreamer, yes," he said. "He is old now, so old he is
near to mortal. So he wakes, and he walks. But once
he was one of us, the only Dreamer ever born within
Rainbow City. He will not harm his kindred; he is of
our blood." Evarin cleared his throat. "So that
Gamine takes what knowledge can be had from his
old, old mind. And does not pay."

"But Gamine?"

Evarin still hesitated. "Karamy hates Gamine," he
said at last, "and so no one sees Gamine's face. I ask
no questions and I would not advise you to ask, un-
less you ask Karamy." A smile flickered on his mobile
mouth. "Ask Karamy," he said gleefully. "She will
tell!"

Karamy. She had been mentioned many times
now, this Witch of the Golden Tower. Perhaps her
memory lay in the same deep well that had fitted
name and identity to Evarin when he stood before
me. But it seemed safe to ask, "Why does Karamy hate
Gamine?"

"My brother, if you cannot answer that, who can?
Gamine and I have little love for one another, but on

one thing we agree that Karamy's procession of slaves
is monstrous, and that you are a fool, and worse, to
pay for her desires. Karamy is far too fond of power
in her own hands to pay to put it into yours. She
has won every struggle between you so far -- or why
were you sealed within your own tower?"

"But I'm free now," I said.

He surveyed me, curiously. "Yes. It's possible you
might be stronger than I think If so, we might join
forces, you and I, if you think Karamy is too strong for
our good. I can help you recover your memory."
Evarin's prowling footsteps made no noise as he
came to my side. "See, I have made you a Toy."

He put something small and hard into my hand, a
thing wrapped in silvery silks. I raised my hand
curiously, untwisting the wrappings. They were
smooth and colorless with a bluish cast, like
Gamine's veiling, like no other fabric I had seen
before.

Evarin backed slowly away from me. For an in-
stant all I could see was a sort of blurred invisibility,
like Gamine's face through the veil; then a sort of mir-
ror surface became visible. It did not seem to reflect

anything; rather, it was a coldly shining surface,
cloudy, glittering from within. I bent to examine the
pattern of the shadows that moved on the surface.
There was a curious pull from the mirror, a cold that
crept sluggishly through my hand, a familiar,
soothing cold. My eyes bent closer -- 

A faint movement distracted me; Evarin was
watching me, avid, eager, intent. Recognition crashed
suddenly in my mind. Evarin's deadly Toys! I dashed
the thing to the floor, giving it a savage kick The
blurred invisibility wavered; I caught sight of a tiny

jeweled mechanism before the thing sprang back to
blurring gray ice again. Evarin had backed halfway
across the room; I leaped at him and collared him.

"My memory's not that bad," I grated. "Damn you,
I'll tie the thing to your throat!"

Evarin's mouth twisted; suddenly his whole face
writhed into a blur and I felt his whole substance
evaporate from between my hands; I backed away
just in time as he materialized, whole and deadly, too
close.

"I go guarded," he jerked out. "My Dreamer does
not wake!"

He stooped for the fallen Toy; I kicked it out of his
reach, bent to retrieve it. "I'll keep this," I said, and
wadded the insulating silks around it, thrusting it into
a pocket. Evarin glared at me, helplessly. Suddenly
the rage in his face gave way to malicious laughter
and he stood rubbing his braised shoulder, laughing
and laughing. "Well, it was a good try!"

"Yes," I said, not laughing, "but this will stay in my
pocket, and you'll stay solid for a while now, any-
way! Toymaker! Damned freak!" I stormed out of the
room, slamming the door behind me.

Now that Adric was back in control, I had no trou-
ble discovering where I wanted to go. Some blind in-
stinct led me through the maze of elevators, corridors,
staircases. I passed servants quarters, kitchens,
rooms full of things which I dismissed with a bare
glance of disinterested familiarity. I would have been
hopelessly lost if I had stopped to think where I was
going, but finally I found myself in the open, the semi-
circle of rainbow towers rising around me.

Overhead the suns, red and white, sent a curious
double-shadowed light through the neatly-trimmed

trees. A little day-moon, smaller than any moon I had
ever seen, peered over the shoulder of the violet tower.
The grass under my feet was just grass, but the
brightly-tinted flowers in mathematically regular
beds were strange to me; huge, fleshy, too bright.
Paths, bordered by narrow ditches to keep the pedes-
trians off the flowers, wandered in and out of this
strange lawn. I accepted all this without conscious
thought, but some scrap of memory made me avoid
the ditches most carefully. As I remembered, there
was an extremely practical reason for them.

Faint, shrill music tugged siren-like at my ears,
wordless, like Gamine's crooning. Staring, I realized
that the flowers sang. The singing flowers of
Karamy's garden -- Adric remembered their lotus
song. A song of welcome? Or of danger?

I was not alone in the garden. Men, kilted and
belted in the same gaudy red and gold as the flowers,
passed and repassed restlessly, unquiet as chained
flames. For a moment the old vanity turned up-
permost in my mind. For all her slaves, Karamy paid
homage to the Lord of the Crimson Tower! Paid -- 
would continue to pay!

The men passed me, silent. They wore swords, but
their swords were blunt, like children's toys. They
were a regiment of zombies, of corpses. Their very
salutes as I passed were jerky, mechanical.

A high note sang suddenly in the flowers; I felt, not
heard, the empty parading cease. In a weird ballet
they ranged themselves into blind lines that filed
away nowhere. They were toy-soldiers, all alike.

And between the backs of the toy-soldiers and the
patterned flowers I saw a man running. Another me,
from another world, thought briefly of the card-sol-
diers, flat on their faces in the Alice-in-Wonderland

garden of the Queen. Wonderland. I heard myself say,
with half-conscious amusement, "They all look so
much alike until you turn them over."

The man running between the ditched flower-beds
was no dummy from a pack of cards. He wore dark
breeches and a dark shirt, and he moved quickly and
lightly. I heard the high shrilling note again from the
flowers -- the flowers? Staring, I realized that the man
held a whistle between his teeth, and it was this,
blended into the flower-song, which gave the shrill
note. He beckoned, still running, leaped over a ditch
and came to rest near me.

"Adric!" he called softly, "Karamy walks here. Just
listen to the flowers! I was afraid I'd have to get all the
way into the Tower to find you and Narayan couldn't
guard me that far!"

He raised his hand, the whistle in it, and blew a
soft, liquid trill, which blended into the purring
flower-tones. Then, drawing a deep breath, he said
matter-of-factly, "Aldones! Am I glad to see you!
Narayan said he knew you were free, but none of us
quite believed it. He's outside the gates. He sent me to
help. Come on."

The sight of the man touched another of those live-
wires in my brain. Narayan. The name hit another, a
dull chord of fear, of dread and danger.

But I had come straight from Evarin. I knew the
man. I knew the response he expected, but that brief
glance into the Toymaker's mirror? -- had set up a
chain of actions I could not control. I tried to put out
my hand in friendly greeting, and felt instead, with
horror, my fingers at my sword-belt. I tried, without
success, to halt the sword that flew, without volition,
from its sheath.

The man backed away, eyes full of terror. "Adric -- 

no -- the Sign -- " he held up one hand, deprecatingly,
then shrieked with agony, bent double, clutching at
the severed fingers. I heard my own voice, savage,
inhuman, the thin laughter of Evarin snarling
through it:

"Sign? There's a sign for you!"

The man flung himself out of range, but his face,
convulsed with anguish, held more stunned
bewilderment than anything else. "Adric -- Narayan
swore to us that you were -- you were yourself again."

I forced my sword back into its sheath. It didn't
seem to want to go; I had to struggle as if it were a
live thing, writhing out like a serpent. I stared without
comprehension at the wound I had not wanted to in-
flict, at the darting heads of the flowers behind the
man. I could not kill this man who had the name of
Narayan on his tongue.

The flowers twitched, stirred, threw long, ropy ten-
drils out toward the man's bleeding hand. A quick
nausea tightened my throat

"Run!" I said urgently. "Run, or I can't-" The
flowers shrilled. The man threw back his head, eyes
wide with panic, and screamed.

"Karamy! Aieee!" He staggered back wildly, teeter-
ing on the edge of the little ditch; I cried another
warning, incoherent, too late. He trod on the flowers,
stumbled across the little ditch. The writhing flower-
heads shot up shoulder-high. They screamed) a wild
paean of flower-music, and he fell among them,
floundering, sprawling, I heard him scream once,
harshly, hopelessly. I turned my eyes away. There
was a wild thrashing, a flailing, a horrible yell that
died and echoed against the walls of the enclosing
towers. There was a sort of purring murmur from the
flowers.

Then the flowers stilled and were quiet, waving in-
nocently behind their ditches.

Karamy, gold and fire, walked along the winding
path between the trees. And in the space of a second
I forgot the man who lay in the bed of the terrible
flowers.

She was all gold. From the glowing crown of her
hair to the tips of her sandaled feet, she was a
burnished shimmer; there was amber on her brows
and a rod of amber twisted in her hand, and her
smile was a dream. ...

A vision, a fantasy I had seen in my other
world. ...

Great beauty has a stunning effect. It paralyzes oth-
er emotions. So I stared at the golden witch, at the
shining amber rod that seemed to outline my face.
But old habit made me turn my eyes away.

Karamy smiled, turning her cat's eyes to the lifeless
sprawl in the flowers. "So? I thought I heard some-
thing. I wonder how he came so far?" Still watching
me, she spun the shining rod; the flower-song rose
again, a soft keening wail, and two of the zombie
guards moved noiselessly through the garden. At the
silent movement of the amber rod, they lifted the
corpse and bore it away. The music died. Karamy's
eyes were bent on the ground; following the direction
of her glance, I saw something lying there. A
whistle.

Karamy touched it with one sandaled toe. "Clever,"
she said scornfully, "but not quite clever enough."

Then, eagerly, she raised her face to mine and held
out her delicate hands.

"Adric! Adric! As soon as you are free, they pursue
you again! That is not what you want, is it?"

I didn't answer. One of Adric's memories scuttled

rabbit-fashion across my mind, giving a name to the
man I had betrayed to the flowers.

Karamy slid in front of me so that I had to look at
her. The lovely lazy voice murmured the name I was
beginning to know.

"Adric, you are angry," the soft voice caressed me.
"I knew it was cruel to let Evarin near you, but what
else would have roused your anger enough to bring
you back to yourself? Adric, we need you, Narabedla
needs you. We felt betrayed when you left us, to shut
yourself up alone with old Rhys and the stars! But
now you have returned." Her hands gripped my
shoulders and she clung to me. "Have you forgotten
me, too? Or are you still my lover?"

It rang phony! Phony, was the way I put it to my-
self. Part of me felt like ripping her loose, calling her
a lying, murdering she-devil, and getting that much,
at least, on the record But I was fast acquiring a
double cunning. The animal cunning of Adric's old
habit -- and a desperate, trapped cunning of my own,
born of fear -- fear of this unfamiliar world with ter-
rible dangers at every corner, and magic lurking in
mirrors and flowers. And how could I tell what I,
myself, would do next? There was blood on my
hands already. And if Adric was a pawn between
warring forces in this world, how could I know what
to do? There was nothing to do except ride along on
the surface, play my hunches, and see where they
took me.

I said, "Who could forget you, Karamy?"

She was very soft and sweet and something more
than lovely in my arms, and I held her crushingly
close while I struggled with a memory that would
not quite come.

Karamy dropped her arms. The mantle of lazy
seductiveness dropped with them. "You are still an-
gry because I sent you out on the Time Ellipse! You
do not yet know it was for your own good! You have
not yet learned your lesson!"

I retorted, "If I were a tame cat, would you have
any use for me?" and pulled her back again. That talk
meant danger for me; I could think of only one way
to silence it. She seemed to like it, but even with her
lips acquiescent under mine, I was wary. Was I fool-
ing her, or was she just playing my own game, and
playing it a little better?

And my mind was not completely on what I was
doing. I was still aware of the fleshy, deadly, waving
flowers. ...

"Now we can make plans," she said, a little later.
"First, Gamine." She looked sharply at me, but I kept
my face expressionless, and she went on, "Gamine is
always with the old Dreamer; she lets him wake far
too long. He is old; he is akin to us, but even so he will
grow too strong. We must send Rhys away from
Narabedla. Gamine may stay, or follow him to exile,
but Rhys must go."

"Rhys must go," I conceded.

"He should be slain, but Gamine will never do it,"
said Karamy, with a shrug that disposed of Rhys,
"and at least, while Gamine is bound to Rhys,
Gamine seeks no bond with a stronger Dreamer.
Evarin -- " she snapped her jeweled fingers. "His
Dreamer sleeps sound! Evarin fears even his own
powers! As for his Toys, well, they can serve us too.
My Dreamer grows strong but he serves me!" The
beautiful face looked ruthless and savage.

"Your Dreamer walks free in the forest! Only you

can rebind him! You with my help, Adric of the
Crimson Tower!" Her eyes smoldered. "Yes, and my
Dreamer shall serve you, too, until then! I will pay to
put power into your hands!"

The very phrase Evarin had used! Briefly, a shud-
der stung me. But Karamy's glowing face burned
through the sting of fear.

"You have come back to us, Adric and we need
you! Tonight, tonight I go to the Dreamer's Keep, and
you go with me. And after that, you will go to the
forest where the Dreamer walks and end this danger
to Rainbow City forever! And then," her lambent eyes
burned, a flame, a coal, "then there will be no
challenge to our power, in all Narabedla, in all the
world!"

Against my will, I felt the slow kindling of the
flame she roused. Power, power unlimited, and a
beautiful woman with sorcery at her fingertips.
Adric's ambition was like a fire in me, and I was
swept away on it.

Witch -- golden witch! I knew now, how the
Dreamers must be paid -- the price for which they
would give up their magical powers into the hands of
the Lords of the Rainbow. The small part of me that
was still Mike Kenscott shuddered away in fear and
disgust; the rest of me accepted the memory with
a shrug, and it was this Adric part of me that
spoke.

"I'll go. I need power badly enough to take it even
from your hands, Karamy. And afterward I'll go into
the forest where the Dreamer walks, and bring him
back to you."

But even as I swept Karamy into my arms and bent
her head back roughly under my mouth, a warning

prickle iced my spine, and my eyes narrowed over
her golden head.

I said, insinuatingly, "And then, Karamy -- " but
only in my mind did I complete the sentence:

And then, Golden witch -- I will find a way to deal
with you, too!

CHAPTER FOUR

AFTERWARD, WHEN I had found my way back to the
Crimson Tower, I searched for hours for something
that might give a clue to Adric's mysterious past. I
was puzzled about this Adric, this strange cotenant
who came and went as he pleased in the chambers of
my memory.

What was identity anyhow? Was it just an aware-
ness of self? I felt like myself -- like Mike Kenscott. I
could remember living a whole life as Mike Kenscott,
childhood, school, army, work, girls. And yet, and
yet, with Evarin, with Karamy, with the strange man
I had betrayed to the flowers, I had found myself act-
ing, speaking, thinking in ways that Mike Kenscott
could never have accepted.

I didn't want to think about that. If I stopped to
think about it, I'd start to panic again. Grimly, I rum-
maged the rooms for clues. I found many strange
things, but nothing of importance. Whoever had taken
Adric's memory (Karamy? Why?) had made sure
that nothing in his surroundings should clear up the
puzzle in his mind.

I knew only one thing; Adric was feared, disliked,
distrusted by all the Narabedlans, except, perhaps,
Evarin in some moods. And all the Narabedlans ex-
cept Gamine had something to gain by feigning

friendship for Adric. I could not quite make out
whether Karamy's attitude was love that pretended
scorn to mold Adric to her will, or contempt that pre-
tended love for the same reason. I didn't trust her, and
I was just as glad that Adric didn't.

The name Narayan stuck burrlike in my mind.
Friend or enemy?

The white sun had set, and the red sun was begin-
ning to dip downward, when a servant knocked soft-
ly at the door, bringing food. He was not one of the
zombies of Karamy's garden, but he spoke with re-
spect verging on terror. Briefly, I considered question-
ing the man; then decided that I didn't dare. It would
be foolhardy to let anyone in this rabbit-warren of
enemies guess how weak, how confused and unsure
I was. They thought that the Lord Adric was himself
again, and if they were afraid enough of Adric, it
might keep them off me for a while!

The man hesitated before backing out. "The Lady
Cynara wishes to come to you, Lord Adric," he mut-
tered at last. "May I bring her here?"

And who the devil was the Lady Cynara? Adric's
wife? His concubine? Another of the Narabedlans,
friend or foe, inhabitant of one of these Rainbow
Towers? Whoever she was, I had enough trouble
now. I said curtly "No," and the man mumbled
something and went away.

I sat at the barred window of Adric's high tower,
trying to force memory from the alien mind in which
I was prisoner. And whether it was sheer effort of
will, or the result of that fragmentary look in Evarin's
mirror, or whether, as Gamine insisted, I was really
Adric, and Mike Kenscott only an illusion of Karamy's
magic, memory did begin to pulse back

In the early days ...

In the early days, before the vagueness that came
on my mind, Adric of the Crimson Tower had been a
powerful lord of Rainbow City. The memories of that
time were not memories which I, as Mike Kenscott
would have cared to own, but I, as Adric, found them
vastly pleasing.

We were an ancient race, we lords of the Rainbow
City. Our kin had wielded power over all this land
but we were a shrinking race, too, and a dying race
Fewer and fewer of the Children of the Rainbow were
born to Narabedla's power. And of those, some were
weaklings, unfit to share in the tremendous power of
the captive Dreamers, and Adric, in his overpowering
ambition, had struck against them, gathering all rule
into his own hands. As kings in all lands have done
from time out of mind, slowly, methodically, he
eliminated all those who would contest his power
And now all Narabedla looked to the Lord of the
Crimson Tower for rule; and in Rainbow City there
dwelt only Evarin, who toyed with pleasure and mis-
chief, and Gamine -- had Adric ever known the truth
about Gamine? -- who loved only wisdom, and a
scant handful of others who acknowledged Adric as
unquestioned lord.

And Karamy! Karamy who had come to challenge
my power -- and remained to share it!

I had wanted power and I had had it, unlimited,
from a Dreamer newly bound, who stirred but vague-
ly in his sleep. Past Narabedla, half the known por-
tions of this world sent tribute to the Lord of the
Crimson Tower.

Some memories were triumphant. Some seemed
funny to Adric's cynical mind. Some were terrible

beyond guessing, for Adric had not counted the cost
of his triumphs, and even he shuddered at the price
the Dreamers had exacted.

Then, to this willful and wild man, something had
happened. I had no idea what. Fleeting images came
through grayness -- a blonde, boyish face lifted in in-
credulous terror, or joy: a fleeing form, veiled, that
retreated down the corridors of my memory, averting
its face as I followed.

Whatever had happened, it had come when Adric
was surfeited, even if momentarily, with conquest,
when he was sickened with blood and horror at the
price of his power. For this magical power -- forced
through the mind of the Dreamers, the mutants, kept
in enforced sleep or suspended animation -- called for
energy, kinetic energy, available from one source and
from one source only. Adric had fed the Dreamer lib-
erally with that source. For a time.

One day, as a whim, I had redeemed a young
woman marked for that fate. Then the vagueness
came and choked memory. I might think, I might
burst my brain, but so far and no further could I re-
member. I could not force memory of that chain of
events.

But after that, Adric's reign had collapsed like an
arch with the keystone removed. His armies scat-
tered; he had shut himself up or been imprisoned in
the Crimson Tower, his memories had been stolen,
and he had gone, or been sent, spinning along a time
line, forward or perhaps back, whether in Time or
Space I could not imagine, until somewhere in the
abyss of the other worlds he had touched the man
who knew himself as Mike Kenscott.

And then, perhaps, Adric had escaped. He had

reached out, drawn Mike Kenscott into his web and
exchanged the two. It was a perfect escape, perhaps,
for a life Adric had come to hate; a life filled with too
many conflicts to be endured.

But I was Adric. ...

There was an explanation for that, too. The physi-
cal body could not make the transition. I had Adric's
body, the convolutions of his brain, the synaptic links
of habit. His memory banks. Only the ego, the super-
imposed pattern of conscious identity -- the soul, if you
will -- was that of Mike Kenscott. In Adric's body and
brain, the old patterns and habits ruled and, to all
intents and purposes, I was Adric.

And back in my own time, I supposed, Adric was
living in my body, living Mike Kenscott's life, going
through the motions, with only the same queer lapses
I was making here. And after a while, even these
would fade. I was wholly trapped. Living Adric's life,
would Adric grow stronger and stronger in me, until
 -- he? -- wholly unseated the other identity? And he,
with my body, somewhere in the other world, would
he become me?

Andy, 1 thought with a wild swift fear, what will he
do to Andy?

Nothing. He could not harm Andy, not in my pat-
tern, any more than I could hate Evarin. Or could he?
I had drawn my sword, today, on a man who called
me friend, given him to Karamy's terrible flowers.

I had to get back! God, I had to get back! But how?

How had I come here?

Once before, for a little while, Adric and I had
touched lives on -- what had Gamine called it? The
Time Ellipse. That day they thought the lab was
struck by lightning. For eighteen hours, while I lay

crushed under a laboratory beam, and later under
drugs in the hospital) he and I had shared a fragment
of life somehow. But the escape had not been com-
plete. Something had driven him, or drawn him, back
to his own world.

And he had tried again, or had been sent back And
this time he seemed to have succeeded. Was he in my
hunting cabin in the mountains, cleaning fish for sup-
per, curiously rummaging through my electrical
equipment? Viciously I hoped he'd give himself some
damned good shocks on it.

Something of Adric had stayed with me after our
first contact. The strange lapses, the day I had flown
at an eagle with my knife.

When the red sun glowed like a darkening ember
across the Sierras, one of Karamy's toy-soldier guards
came with a summons. Hat, mechanical, the words
were a simple request for my presence, but they
made me shudder. Somehow I had thought that these
 -- zombies? -- could not speak I stared at the man. He
was a tall sturdy looking fellow, with a round simple
freckled face, bronzed with health; arms and chest
were bulging with muscle. But the eyes were ran-
dom, unfocused, the mouth was drooping-slack, and
when I questioned him about where I was to go he
stared and shifted his eyes and repeated in the same
flat tone:

"The presence of the Lord Adric is requested."

He stood without moving, immobile except for the
slow rise and fall of his breath, and finally it dawned
on me that if this creature had no volition, he -- or it-
was simply waiting for my command. I wanted to
tell it to go away, but I wasn't sure whether I could
find my way without a guide.

I went automatically to the cupboard, drew out a
crimson cloak lined thickly with fur, and shrugged it
around my shoulders with a careless gesture; then-
waved my hand at the silent sentry and he turned, his
slow even tread ringing on the stairs. I followed him
down through a labyrinth of stairs and elevator-
shafts, finally emerging into a long corridor.

I strode down it, hearing my own steps echo; a
second rhythm joined my steps, almost impercep-
tibly, and Gamine stole out of the darkness, still lumi-
nously veiled, a noiseless ghost behind me. Later I
became conscious of Evarin's padding cat-steps trail-
ing us. And others came from darkened recesses to
stretch the silent parade; a girl in a slim-winged cloak
the color of flame, a dwarfed man who walked in a
huddle of purple cloak and dark fur.

The corridor began to angle upward, climbing to-
ward a gleam of light at the end. Without realizing it,
I had swung into an arrogant, loping stride; now I
brushed away the slave-soldier who headed the col-
umn, and took the lead myself. Behind me the others
fell into file as if I had bidden them; the flame-clothed
girl in the winged cloak, Evarin in leaf-green, the
dwarf bent in his jester's cap, shrouded Gamine.
Without warning we came into a vast courtyard, an
enclosed plaza of imposing grandeur.

The red sun glowed above us like a gas fire. There
were tall pillars on three sides of the court, and at the
far end a vaulted archway, leading into a tree-lined
drive that stretched away, shadowy, into the forest.
Between two pillars Karamy waited, slim, shimmer-
ing, golden; a hungry impatience sparked her cat's
eyes.

"You're late!"

"I'm ready now," I said. For what, I wasn't sure.

Karamy waved an impatient signal to the
Narabedlans who were coming up. "Adric is with us
again! Your allegiance to Adric, Children of the Rain-
bow!"

I stood at her side, mute, waiting, the guard of si-
lent men behind us.

"Lord Idris!" Karamy summoned. The dwarf came
to bow jerkily before me. "Welcome home, Lord!"

Evarin's face was sly and malicious, but his voice
was a purr of silk "It is pleasure to follow you again,
my brother."

The girl in flame-color said nothing, but her dip-
ping curtsy was like the waver of a moth toward a
flame. "Adric -- " she murmured. She was a shy thing;
the wings of her cloak lifted and fluttered as if they
would fly of themselves, and her dark hair waved
softly as if it too were winged. I touched her fingers
lightly, but under the smolder of Karamy's eyes let
her go.

"You ride with us, Cynara?" Karamy sounded dis-
pleased. The girl in the winged cloak raised her face,
but she did not speak Gamine's voice, a soft singing
croon, hummed for a moment, almost wordless, in
the twilight. Then, gliding forward, Gamine
murmured, "It is my will, Karamy. Do you dispute
my right?"

For a moment the tension was like visible force,
like a shimmer in the air; then Karamy made a care-
less gesture.

"What do I care for you or your spells, Gamine?
Come or go at your own will, bring whoever you like.
There is no talk of rights at this moment."

I had wondered, seeing the Narabedlans as-

sembled, if old Rhys would join us as well, but ap-
parently he was not expected. From somewhere the
silent men brought horses. Horses here in this night-
mare world? They looked like any other horses any-
where. I had never been on a horse in my life. I found
myself vaulting, with a nice co-ordination of move-
ment, into the high, peculiarly horned saddle.

The courtyard, in spite of the stamping horses, the
bustle of departure, somehow held the silence of the
grave. Karamy kept me close to her; when we were
all mounted, she flung the amber rod upward. The
last rays of the sun caught its prism, and threw a
beam of pure light down the darkened alleyway of
trees. At the sight of that gleam, a curious emotion
stole through me, at once familiar and strange. I flung
up my arm over my head.

"Ride!" I cried. "Ride to the Dreamer's Keep!"

The alleyway under the arch of trees led for miles
under the thick boughs. Behind us drummed the
hooves of Karamy's guard; through the noise I could
still hear the sweet floating sound of Gamine's sing-
ing, rising and falling with the rise and fall of the
rolling road. The wind whipped Karamy's golden hair
into a pale halo around her head.

I glanced back over my shoulder to where the rain-
bow towers stood, just black silhouettes now against
the greater darkness of the mountains behind them.
Overhead in the pink sky the crescent of the tiny
moon was brightening; lower, near the horizon, I
saw a wider disc, almost at full, just coming clear of
the trees. Cold air was stinging my cheeks and nip-
ping my bones with frost. I felt the sparks struck from
the hooves beating on the frozen ground.

Frost! Yet in Karamy's garden, the flowers had

glowed in tropical glory!

And for a moment it was Mike Kenscott, entirely
Mike Kenscott, sick, bewildered and panicky, who
glanced about him with horror, feeling the swirling
cold and a colder chill from the golden sorceress at
my side. It was Mike Kenscott's will that jerked the
reins of the big gelding, to end this farce now.

"What is it?" Karamy cried, above the hoofbeats.

And I heard my own voice, raised above the gallop-
ing rhythm, cry back, "Nothing," and call out a com-
mand to the horse.

Good God! I was Mike Kenscott, but prisoner in a
body that would not obey me, a mind that persisted
in thoughts and habits I could not share, a soul that
would carry me to destruction! I was Mike Kenscott
and I was trapped on a nightmare ride through hell!

CHAPTER FIVE

I HAD BEEN SCARED before. Now I was panicked, wild
with a nerve-destroying fright I'm no coward. I set
up a radar transmitter on Okinawa within ninety feet
of a nest of Japs. That was something real. I could
face it. But under two suns and a pair of strange
moons, surrounded by weird people that I knew
were not human as I understood it -- all right I was a
coward. I steadied myself in the saddle, trying with
every scrap of my will to calm myself. If this was a
nightmare well, I'd had some beauties.

But it wasn't, I knew that. The frost hurting my
face, the sound of shod steel on stone, the vivid colors
all around me -- dreams are not in color. All these
things told me that I was awake, wide awake. And
through all this I was riding hell-for-leather, knees
gripped on the saddle, guiding the horse with the grip
of my thighs, and I'd never been on a horse in my life.
Riding, riding -- 

We had ridden several miles, and stopped twice to
breathe the horses, but we were still beneath the great
archway of trees. The sky's pink sunset had faded; the
land was flooded with blue, fluorescent moonlight. I
looked up through the black foliage; I suppose I had
some confused idea that I might find out, when I was
by the stars. But the view to the north was hidden by

mountains, and except for the Big Dipper, I don't
know one constellation from another.

I had dropped back from Karamy's side until I rode
between Gamine and the girl in flame-color. The
spell-singer saluted me with a vague nod, but the girl
in the winged cloak threw back her hood, and I saw
dark eyes, watching me from a pure, sweet young
face. Before the luminous innocence of those eyes, I
wanted to cry out that I was not Adric, warlock of
Narabedla, I was just a poor guy called Mike, I was
just -- me!

But it was Gamine who spoke; the musical voice
was not raised, but carried easily to my ears. "You
seem to be wholly yourself again."

I didn't know what to say. I shook my head.

Strangely, there seemed to be sympathy in the neu-
tral voice. "If our memory halts, at least you will re-
member -- perhaps too much -- at the Dreamer's
Keep."

"Gamine," I asked, "who is Narayan?"

I saw the blue robes quiver a little, and a curious
flickering glint crossed the face of the girl in the
winged cloak. But Gamine's voice was perfectly even.

"I have never seen anyone of that name. Perhaps
Cynara could answer you, if you asked her."

I glanced at the girl -- Cynara? But I did not put the
question, for the name Cynara had suddenly touched
another of those live-wires in my brain- or Adric's
Cynara. Narayan. Narayan and Cynara. If I could
only remember!

What would Cynara have said, if I had let the ser-
vant bring her to me, in the Crimson Tower? Was it
too late to find out?

I looked up at the girl again, and something in me

said No! Damn it, I didn't want any more of Adric's
memories!

Cynara had drawn her dark pony level with mine.
She rode side-saddle, easily, straight and slender, as if
she had been born to it; beneath the flame-colored
cloak she was small and slim, and endearingly hu-
man, the only normal, human thing I had seen in this
world! I felt like bursting out, telling her -- 

"Don't be frightened," Cynara said, and her voice
was low and sweet, muted so that I could barely
make out the words, and her lips hardly moved. "You
won't have to go. It's all arranged."

"What -- " I burst out, but she shook her head quick-
ly, with a warning glance at Evarin, who was swiftly
overtaking us.

Karamy turned in her saddle; beckoned to me, im-
periously. For a moment I rebelled; then I touched
my heels to the horse's flank and rode forward to re-
join Karamy.

For several minutes the road had been climbing,
and now we topped the summit of a little rise and
abruptly the trees came to a halt. We drew our horses
to a walk.

We stood atop the lip of a broad bowl of land, per-
haps thirty miles across, filled to the brim with thick
dark forest. Far out, at the bottom of this valley, lay a
cleared space, and in that space rose a great tower.
Not a slender, fairylike spire, not one of the towers of
Rainbow City. This was a massive donjon, thrusting
heavy shoulders upward into the moonflooded sky,
ancient, terrible.

The Keep of the Dreamers!

Something in me murmured "This is the forest
where the Dreamer walks" or had the murmured

words come from Karamy, at my side? She rode
eagerly, her face taut, her slender hands clenched on
the reins. Part of me knew the reason for her eager-
ness, and part of me wondered at it. For all this time
I was Mike Kenscott, but a helpless Mike Kenscott,
who watched himself without knowing what he
would say or do next! Like those puzzling nightmares
where a man is both actor and audience to some
mummery being played, I watched myself say and do
things as if I were twins. In effect, I suppose I was -- 

Karamy turned in her saddle to face me.

"You don't trust me!" she said vehemently. "I can
feel it! What is it?"

"Have I reason to trust you?" I was not sure wheth-
er I spoke or Adric, cautious, watching myself

I had expected her to flare into anger again; in-
stead, a bewitching cat-smile spread over her fea-
tures, and her gold eyes seemed to gleam in the light.
She murmured, "Perhaps not," and her laughter was
like a golden bell.

Then her face grew intent and eager.

"Adric, if you would stop to think, you would re-
alize that I need you, that Narabedla needs your
strength. Listen, Adric, everything has changed. The
people are rebellious, even defiant. I can't lead armies
against them! I ask you, have we ever had to ride with
guards before, here in our own forest?"

I heard Evarin's harsh laugh behind me. "So, you
would strip Adric of all his powers, then complain
because you have no strong hand?"

"And little enough punishment," said the harsh
voice of the dwarf Idris, drawing his horse level with
ours. He glowered at me. "I hate you for a traitor,
Adric, you, who freed a Dreamer and loosed all this

upon us! I said you should die!"

"But you can see it was not needful that he should
die," Karamy said, and looked at me as if seeking my
support. "Surely you can see now, Adric, that what I
did was only to bring you back to your senses -- to
save what I could."

"She's right," Evarin said. "We can settle our
private quarrels later, Adric; just now we have a re-
bellion on our hands, and a Dreamer at large. If Rain-
bow City is to survive at all, we've got to forget the
past. What Adric may have done in a moment of
madness, he can undo now. If you can't make peace,
at least make a truce!"

"Adric," Karamy murmured. "Take me where the
Dreamer walks."

I knew, with sudden surety, that because of some
bond between the freed Dreamer and myself, I could
do this. But something cautioned me to say only,
"That bond is broken, Karamy. Did you not break it
yourself? I have not forgotten that much," and for my
reward I saw unsureness leap in her cat's eyes. So
that shot had told; Karamy had tried to break the
bond, and had succeeded, or thought she had. Now,
when she thought Adric was enough her dupe to use
that bond only for her private purposes, and not
against her, she was guessing.

But this woman was past mistress of subtlety. She
murmured, "The bond can be reforged, that I swear."

Ah, but I knew how far to trust even Karamy's
oaths! "Forge it, then," I said bluntly, "but don't count
on me to undo what you did."

We had dipped down into the bowl of forest, and
were riding through thick woods, along a road that
struggled windingly, with many curves and sharp

corners. Adric knew this country; his knowledge
made Mike Kenscott shiver. He had hunted here, and
for no four-legged game. As if Karamy read my
thoughts, I heard her low laughter.

"So. My wrist aches for the feel of a falcon! We'll
hunt here again, you and I!" The words gave me a
quivering excitement, an insidious thrill.

Behind me I heard Gamine's chanting take on a
new note. The words were still indistinguishable, but
the very tone held warning. A pulse began to twitch
jerkily in my neck

Without warning, the road twisted and redoubled
in an S-curve. Karamy and I spurred our horses and
rounded the first bend in one racing burst of speed,
swung round the second, and were fairly in the trap
before we knew it.

It was the agonized whinny of my horse, and the
jolt of my body automatically righting itself from the
plunging of the animal beneath me, that made me
realize we had ridden straight on a chevaux-de-frise.
I yelled, cursing, shouting to Karamy to get back, get
back, but her own momentum carried her on; I saw
her light body fly out of the saddle and disappear.
The others, rounding the curve, were fairly on the
barrier already, and the place was a scramble, with
riderless horses milling in a melee of curses and the
screaming of women and the thrashing of feet. I was
out of my saddle in a moment, thrusting Gamine's
mount back from the stabbing points fixed invisibly
against the dark barrier in the road, shouting to
Evarin and Idris. Evarin leaped to my side, and I tore
madly at the barricade. Idris bore down on me,
mounted. "Go round," he shouted. I plunged through
the underbrush at the side of the road, with hasty feet

twice snaked by long creepers. Past the barrier, the
road lay open and deserted and Karamy lay there in
a shimmer of crumpled silk, motionless.

"Gamine, Evarin," I shouted, "no one's here!
Karamy is hurt."

The head and shoulders of Idris' horse thrust
through the thick brushwood at the edges of the path.
"Is she dead?"

I bent, thrusting my hand against her breast. "Only
stunned. Her heart's beating. Get down," I ordered,
and Idris scrambled, monkey-fashion, from the sad-
dle. I lifted the woman in my arms, but she did not
move or open her eyes. Idris touched my arm.

"Put her across my saddle."

She was a limp dead weight in my arms, and as I
laid her on the saddle she stirred and moaned. Sud-
denly, behind me, Idris cried out.

"What?" I asked sharply.

"I heard-"

I never knew what Idris heard. His head vanished
as if snatched away by a giant's hand; a rough grip
collared me, choking fingers clawed at my throat, a
thousand rockets went off in my head, and I lay
sprawling in the brushwood, eating dust, with an
elephant sitting on my chest and threatening hands
gouging at my throat. My last coherent thought,
before the breath went out of me, was -- 

"I'm waking up!"

CHAPTER SIX

BUT I WASN'T. When I came to -- it can only have been a
few seconds that I was unconscious -- it was to hear
Evarin snarling curses, and Idris barking incoherent-
ly with rage. I heard Karamy shriek my name, and
tried to answer, but the steely fingers were at my
throat, and with that weight on top of me I hadn't a
chance. The fall, or something, had knocked Adric
clean out of me, I was fuzzy-brained, but I was me;
I was an innocent bystander again.

I could just see Evarin and Idris in the road, casting
wary glances into the thick brushwood. Above me, I
could barely make out the face of the man who was
holding me pinned to the earth with his body. He had
the general build of a hippopotamus, and a face to
match. I squirmed, but the threatening face came
closer, and I subsided. The man could have broken
me in two like a matchstick

Around me in the thicket were dozens of crouching
forms, fantastic snipers with weapons at their shoul-
ders, weapons that could have been crossbows or dis-
integrators -- or both. "Enter Buck Rogers," I thought
wearily. I was beginning to feel faint again, and old
welter-weight on my stomach didn't help any.

Just as I thought I'd burst, he moved, stubby fingers
knotting a gag in my gasping mouth; then the in-

tolerable weight on my chest was gone, and I sucked
in air with relief The fat man eased himself
cautiously away, but I felt a steel point caress my
ribs. The threat didn't need words.

I could see the Narabedlans gathered in a tight little
knot in the road. The snipers around me were still
holding their weapons drawn, but the fat man com-
manded in a whisper "Don't fire. They're sure to have
guards riding behind them."

The voices died away to a rasping mutter, and I lay
motionless, trying to dig up some of Adric's memo-
ries that would help. But the only thing I got was a
memory of my own football days, and a flying tackle
from a Penn State halfback that had knocked me ten
feet. Adric was gone, clean gone.

The Narabedlans were talking in low tones,
Gamine the rallying-point around which they
clustered. I wondered why that surprised me; then
the surprise, too, faded. Evarin had his sword out, but
even he did not step toward the mantling thicket.
Cynara was holding Idris by the arm, and I heard her
crying out, wildly, "No, no! If you make a move,
they'll kill him!"

Between two breaths, the road was alive with
mounted men. I never knew who they were; I was
quickly jerked to my feet and dragged away. Behind
me I heard shouting, and steel clashing, and saw
flashes of colored flame; spots of black danced before
my eyes as I stumbled along between two of my cap-
tors. I felt my sword dragged out of the scabbard. Oh
well, I thought wryly, I don't know how to use it,
anyhow, now that Adric's run out on the party!

Under the impetus of a knife in my ribs I found
myself clambering into a saddle, awkwardly, hands

tied, felt the horse running beneath me. There wasn't
much chance of getting away, and anyhow, the fire
couldn't be much worse than the flying pan!

Behind us the sounds and scufflings died away.
The horse I was riding raced sure-footed in the
darkness. I hung on with my two hands; only Adric's
habitual muscle reflexes kept me from tumbling ig-
nominiously to the ground. I don't think I had any
more coherent thoughts until the jolting rhythm
broke and we came out of the forest into full moon-
light and the glare of open fires.

I raised my head, still clinging to the saddlehorn
with one hand, and looked round. We were in a
grove, tree-ringed like a Druid temple, lighted with
watch-fires and torches stuck up on long poles. Tents
sprouted in the clearing, giving the place an untidy,
gypsy appearance. At the back was a white frame
house with a flat roof and wide doors.

I swallowed hard, swaying in the saddle, It was
the place of my dream, where I had flown as a
strange bird, where an arrow had struck me. I felt a
strange darting pain in my chest, and grabbed at the
horn of the saddle.

Men and women were coming out of the tents ev-
erywhere. The talk was a Pentecost of tongues, but I
heard the name "Adric!" run in a blaze around the
circle, and over and over again, another name, re-
peated:

"Narayan! Narayan!"

A slim young man, blonde, dressed in rough
brown, came out of one of the larger tents and
walked deliberately to me. The crowd drew back,
widening to let him approach; before he came within
twenty yards he signaled to one of the men, who im-

mediately unknotted the gag from my mouth and un-
tied my hands, helping me slide down from the sad-
dle. I stood clinging to the stirrup, exhausted.

"Any trouble, Raif ?" the young man asked.

My gigantic captor shook his head. "Seems we
caught 'em without any magic! They were bound for
the Keep, but we've kept 'em away a good while now.
The Witch had a few dozen of her guards, though."

The blonde young man shook his head soberly. "At
least you got safely away? You didn't try to fight."

"Orders are orders," said the big man glumly.
"You said, get Adric and get away again. Well, here
he is and here we are, and those -- " he swore, shock-
ingly, and the blonde young man laughed.

"You'll have your chance for fighting, soon
enough!"

He came forward until he could almost have
touched me, and studied my face dispassionately. At
last he raised his head, turning to the fat man, Raif.

"This isn't Adric," he said, "I don't know this man
at all."

I should have been relieved. I don't know why I
wasn't. Here was somebody, at last, who could tell
the difference. Instead, my first reaction was
bewilderment and angry annoyance. How could he
tell that? I was as furiously embarrassed as if I'd been
caught wearing stolen clothing. My beefy captor was
as angry as I was.

"What do you mean, this isn't Adric?" he de-
manded. "Are you wearing your eyes inside your
pockets? We took him right out of their accursed
cavalcade! If it isn't Adric, who is it?"

"I wish I knew," Narayan said under his breath.
His eyes were still fixed on my face, with a stillness

that was disconcerting. He was tall and straightly
built, with pale blonde hair, square-cut around his
shoulders like a troubadour in a Provencal ballad,
and gray eyes that looked grave, but friendly. I liked
his looks, but he had a trace of the uncanny stillness
I'd noticed in old Rhys. For a moment I had half de-
cided to tell my story to this man with the grave eyes.
He would surely believe it.

But as he looked at me, doubt came into his face,
and then he sighed and looked at the men around
him before turning back to me.

"Adric?" he said, "do you still remember me? Or
did Karamy take that, too?"

I sighed. I didn't dare tell the truth, and I felt too
chilled and exhausted and disoriented to lie convinc-
ingly. Yet lie I must, and do it well, without even
knowing why this man -- Narayan? -- had twice risked
an attack on the powers of Rainbow City to get Adric
away.

Well, I had an excuse in Adric's supposed loss of
memory. Anything I didn't remember, any mistakes
I made -- "You are Narayan?" I asked.

The fat man, still holding me by the elbow,
scowled at Narayan. "Don't let him get by with
that," he growled. "Look you, did Brennan come back
this afternoon? He knows his way around Rainbow
City, he went guarded! Ask Adric what happened to
Brennan and make him tell you!"

The clamoring broke out around us again, but
Narayan never took his eyes from my face as he an-
swered gently, "There is always danger, Raif Blame
no man unjustly. And even Adric is not to blame, if
Karamy has him under her spells."

"Traitor!" Raif snarled at me, and spat. I had an

eerie memory of Idris -- same words, same gestures.
Around us the crowding men muttered to one anoth-
er, casting uneasy glances at me, and I felt my body
tensing, my fists clench with the first traces of the
now-familiar, murderous rage of Adric. Oh, God, no!
Not again! I thought of Brennan, his face raised
trustfully to me in friendship, felt again the whiplash
stroke of my sword, heard his dying yell. ...

Shaking, I clutched at the saddle-horn, trying des-
perately to hold on to myself Of all the people I might
have been in this madhouse world, this Adric takes
the prize, I found myself thinking with a weird de-
tachment, neither side trusts him as far as they can
kick him and I don't blame them.

I let go of the saddle-horn and stepped dizzily for-
ward. "You might try asking me," I said, with a
weary anger.

"Then, if you're not Adric, who the hell are you?"
fat Raif snapped, "and what did you do with Bren-
nan?"

I shook my head, exhaustion sliding over me. I
don't know what I would have said, but Narayan
stepped toward me, saying quickly, "Not here, Raif."
He seized my arm in a firm grip. "Stand back, you
people there. Come along."

The men murmured to themselves, but they
cleared a path for us, stepping back warily as
Narayan led me toward the frame house at the edge
of the grove; Raif and one other man trailed after us,
and the men began to disperse into their tents and
around their fires. A few, still grumbling, clustered
hive-fashion round the door as we went up the steps.

Inside, in a great timbered room, a fire was burn-
ing; flames leaped up from a great crimson bed of

logs, creating warmth and light in the shadows. I
went toward the fire gratefully; I was stiff with rid-
ing, and chilled and empty and stupefied with the
cold.

From a wooden settle near the fireplace, a slim fig-
ure rose, the figure of a slight dark girl in a cloak that
caught the firelight like escaped flames.

"Cynara!"

"Adric," she said half-aloud, holding out both
hands to me. I took them, partly because she seemed
to expect it, partly because the girl seemed the only
real thing in this whole incredible nightmare. Some-
thing real, something to hold on to -- 

Then she flung her arms around my neck and held
herself close to me, not passionately, not sensuously,
but, in a curious way, as if she were protecting me.

So she had known about this. But what was she
doing here?

Narayan took the girl by the shoulder and gently
pulled her away from me; she shrank a little before
the annoyance in his eyes.

"Cynara," he said, "what are you doing here?"

"I -- I slipped away from them in the dark I sup-
pose Gamine knows, but they'll never find me here."

He looked down at her, shaking his head. At last he
said, "Little sister, you must go back to Narabedla. I
would not make you go if there was any other way,
but there is not. We have all risked too much to keep
you there." He beckoned to the third man who had
come inside with us. "Kerrel, take Cynara back to the
roadway, but don't get caught yourself. Cynara, you
can tell them that you were lost in the woods, or that
you were caught and escaped."

"I won't go back," she said, with her mouth trem-

bling. "Now that Adric's here again, what's the use of
it? Surely there can be an end to it, now."

She clung to my hand, but I only shook my head,
helplessly. I didn't understand, but her fear com-
municated itself to me. I put my arm round her, feel-
ing her tremble. Narayan looked from Cynara's face
to mine, and finally sighed.

"Maybe you're right. Now's the time when we
have to risk everything, win all, or lose all." He turned
to the men. "I'll talk to Adric. Alone."

Raif's thick lips set, stubbornly. He looked as if he'd
be a very nasty customer in a fight.

"If he's Adric, and if he's under Karamy's dev-
ilments, then -- "

"I have faced Adric, and Karamy too," said
Narayan with a friendly grin. "Get out, Raif, you're
not my bodyguard, nor yet my nurse."

The fat man accepted dismissal, reluctantly, and
Narayan came to my side. Cynara let go my hand
and withdrew to the settle near the fire. I was sorry to
lose her support.

She, at least, trusted Adric. ...

There was real friendliness in Narayan's smile.
"Well," he said, "now we will talk, you and I. You
cannot kill me, any more than I could kill you, so we
may as well be truthful with one another. Why did
you leave us again, Adric? And what has Karamy
done to you this time?"

The room reeled around me. I put out a hand to
steady myself; when the dizziness cleared, Narayan's
arm was around my shoulders, and he was holding
me up with a strength surprising in his slight frame.
He eased me into a seat. "You've been pretty roughly
handled," he said. "The men, well, they had orders.

But perhaps they carried them out with too much
zeal. And if I know Karamy's ways, you've been heav-
ily drugged for a long, long time." His eyes studied
me, intently. "You don't look very glad to be here, but
at least you didn't come in fighting. Maybe we can
talk. Better come and have a drink And when did
you eat last?"

I rubbed my forehead. "I can't remember," I told
him honestly. Adric's servants had brought food, but
I hadn't touched it.

"I thought so. You look half starved," Narayan said.
"That's what sharig does to you, as I have reason to
know." He went into the next room, assuming that I.
would follow and that I knew my way around.

After the insanely furnished rooms in Rainbow
City, I was a little surprised when the next room
turned out to be a fairly ordinary and functional
kitchen, equipped with items not too unlike those in
my own world. Well, after all, how many ways are
there to design a stove? Or a table?

Out of a relatively unsurprising icebox, (although it
had an oval door) he assembled various cold foods,
and poured liquid into an oddly-shaped handled cup,
motioned me into a chair and set the things on the
table. "Here, eat this," he said. "I know those damned
drugs of theirs; you'll make more sense after you've
eaten, and we've plenty of time to talk all night if we
choose." He saw me glance at the mug, laughed
sketchily and poured himself a drink from the same
bottle; he sat down opposite me, sipping it slowly.
"Go ahead. Even if I felt like poisoning you, I wouldn't
until I knew what Karamy was up to," he chuckled.

I laughed, too. Poison? When any of them could
have shoved a knife into me, at any time during the

last three hours? I started eating. I hadn't felt hungry,
but with the first bite, I realized that I was famished.
I had last tasted food some forty-eight hours ago (and
that had been in another world); Adric, judging from
the hunger I felt, had evidently fasted longer than that.
I ate everything on the plate; Narayan sipped his
drink and watched me, and when I finally pushed
the empty plate aside, he put back his mug and said,
"Now, what's happened? You're Adric -- and you're
not."

I felt better and stronger than I'd felt since Adric,
with help from Rhys (but why? Why?) had
catapulted me into this world. Narayan seemed
friendly, but so had Evarin. Now I must talk fast and
convincingly, before those searching gray eyes.

"I'm not sure,'' I said at last. "I don't remember
much, just coming to myself, this morning, in the
Crimson Tower. I think it was this morning. I was
freed. Karamy wanted to take me to the Dreamer's
Keep? and then your men came along. I didn't know
whether I was being captured or rescued. I still
don't."

I stared with purposeful blankness at Narayan, and
he stared back; I could feel his debate with himself,
what to do or say. Obviously an Adric sane and glib
and possibly untruthful was a different thing than a
man too bewildered and drugged and shaken to tell
anything but the truth.

Finally Narayan said, "I'm not sure what I ought to
do or say, Adric. There was a time when I could read
your thoughts. Not now. The bond between us isn't as
strong as it was. You know that."

I nodded. Adric's thoughts seemed to be surging
back, insidiously, as if Narayan held the key to unlock

them. Fool, not to question me when he had me in his
power! Soft fool!

I clung with both hands to my awareness of Mike
Kenscott. What crazy drama was going to be un-
folded in the battlefield of my mind now?

"What did Karamy do?" Narayan asked.

My voice was as quiet as his own. "Karamy sent
me out on the Time Ellipse." This much I knew from
Rhys and Gamine. "She hoped I'd come back
changed, or mad, or maybe not at all. I think -- I think
she wanted me to betray you again."

"Adric!" Narayan reached out and gripped my
arm, above the elbow, until I cried out with the pain
of that steely grip and wrenched away, rubbing
bruised flesh.

"Sorry," Narayan muttered, looking at his hands, "I
forgot I was -- " he swallowed, staring at me. "But
why do you say -- to betray me again? What betrayal?
Adric, it was your hand that freed me! Zandru's hells,
Adric," he begged, "Adric, how much have you for-
gotten? Who and what do you think I am?"

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE FIRE IN the other room had burned to an ember.
Without a glance my way, Narayan mended the fire,
sat down, his legs stretched to the little blaze, his chin
in his hands, waiting. I could not stand still; I walked,
restless, around the room, speaking in little jerks and
half-sentences, not knowing how much was memory
and how much was what I could piece together from
the jigsaw puzzle of this strange, nightmare world.

"You are -- you were the Dreamer," I said. "I re-
member -- being bound to you, and later I -- I re-
member when I freed you. Not knowing what it
might mean, not knowing whether you might have
slain me on the ground of sacrifice."

"No." Narayan was as motionless as Gamine's
veils. "No, Adric, never that. We cannot kill one anoth-
er, you and I. I could order you killed, I suppose, but
I -- I would never do that unless there was no other
way. I always hoped there would be another way, for
me, for you."

I tried to trim my words carefully between the two
personalities that were battling in my brain. At least
I was beginning to reconstruct Adric's story with
some coherence and logic, not the isolated scraps I
had deduced before.

"Adric freed you," I said. "I am not sure whether it

was for your sake, or whether he wished to -- to work
for his own power against the others in Rainbow
City." Yes, that was the burning incongruity; that
Adric, this harsh and cruel man, should have freed a
Dreamer, should have worked against his own peo-
ple and his own power. Why, why? If I knew that, I
would have the key to everything.

But I did not know. I sighed and went on.

"Karamy took Adric from you, by treachery," I
said. "She sent him, half-mad, back to the Crimson
Tower. Karamy's magic stripped him of his memo-
ries, broke the bond between you and Adric."

"Not entirely," Narayan said, staring into the fire. "I
knew when you woke. But I could not come, myself,
into Rainbow City and rescue you. You know what is
kept there."

I didn't, but it hardly seemed important now.

"Karamy stripped Adric of memory and power,
sent him back to stargazing in Narabedla; she hoped,
when at last she let him return, that he would be the
old Adric. Karamy needed his power, more than she
feared it. But it was not Karamy -- " the voice that was
not quite mine shook, suddenly, with my own weari-
ness and the blank terror I'd been keeping at bay, "it
wasn't Karamy who sent me here! I'm not Adric, you
were perfectly right, I'm no more Adric than you are!
I'm in Adric's body, yes, I have -- I have some of his
memories, his thoughts, he sometimes moves me like
a puppet, but her -- " my voice cracked suddenly; I
knew I sounded like a hysterical kid, but I couldn't
stop once it had broken loose. "I'm not Adric! I'm not,
I don't belong here at all."

Narayan jumped up and I heard his hurrying steps
behind me; then his steely hands were on my shoul-

ders hard, swinging me around to face him. "All
right," he said, "steady. It's all right now."

I drew a long breath and let it out again, shamed.
Narayan looked at me, his eyes still skeptical, but he
sighed. I could guess his thoughts; had he broken me
down into honesty, or was this more of Adric's
treachery?

I felt a light hand, a leaf-touch, on my arm; then
Cynara was holding my hand, looking intently up
into my face. "I knew," she whispered. "I couldn't be
sure, but once I saw your eyes looking out at me from
Adric's face."

I saw the doubt dissolve in Narayan's face. Slowly,
he nodded. "I sensed you weren't the Adric I knew,"
he said. "But I couldn't believe that Adric, when it
came to the test, would do that to me. I suppose, for
him, it was the easy way out. A perfect way of es-
cape."

He sank down on the bench again, dropping his
head into his hands. "A perfect way out," he repeated,
and his voice sounded suddenly old and tired. "Let
his memories disintegrate, or step into another world,
and leave another man in his place. Another person-
ality. And just not care what happened."

I shook my head, still feeling the trembling inside.
"But what would Adric want with my life?" He was
a lord, a powerful warlock; could he step into the
world of Mike Kenscott, radioman, ordinary citizen of
an ordinary world?

"It was a way to escape the trouble he caused,"
said Cynara, bitterly. "So it was all for nothing! We
haven't got Adric, and we've involved an innocent
outsider!"

After a long time, Narayan looked up. "That's right;

you're an outsider," he said slowly. "You owe us
nothing. But my men think you are Adric, and they
think you've been rescued from Karamy, and brought
back to us. I'd never be able to convince them other-
wise. Do you think you could, in Adric's body?"

Cynara answered, clutching my hand in that close,
protective way, "They'd think it was more of
Karamy's magic. Like -- like her zombies. They'd -- 
they'd tear him to pieces, Narayan!"

Narayan said, troubled, "You don't owe us any-
thing. But would you mind pretending to be Adric for
a little while longer? Otherwise -- " he stopped. I re-
alized that he was not a man who would enjoy mak-
ing threats, but I could understand his situation. I was
just an outsider who messed things up by being, at
the same time, Adric.

Well, I seemed to be stuck with it. I certainly didn't
feel any loyalty to the Narabedlans of Rainbow City,
or give a hang what happened to them. Narayan, by
comparison, looked pretty decent. Even if he was
making a pretty desperate effort to overthrow the gov-
ernment by force and violence, I couldn't blame him.

In fact, I wouldn't mind helping! I had a few scores
to settle with Rainbow City, myself. ...

And, all these principles aside, it looked like the
only way to save my skin -- even if it was Adric's skin.

"All right," I said, "I'll try, but what's this all about,
anyhow?"

"That's right, you wouldn't know. You have some
of Adric's memories, but not all. Do you remember
who I am?"

"Not entirely," I said. I remembered -- in that
strange Adric-way -- some things. Narayan had been
born, about thirty years before, into a respectable

country family who were appalled to realize that
they had given birth to one of the mutant Dreamers,
and were only too glad to hand him over to those in
power at Rainbow City. Still a child, he had been
bound into the enforced stasis in the Dreamer's Keep,
and there he had slept. ...

Cynara said, "You remember the old Dreamer who
served the Crimson Tower?"

I remembered that, too -- or Adric did. He had
grown old and weak, mortal. He could no longer
give, to Adric's vaulting ambition, the full measure of
power that Adric had come to desire. And at last he
had been eliminated. I bowed my head.

"I slept in the Dreamer's Keep," Narayan said, qui-
etly. "I was awakened and bound to you, and given
sacrifice. I learned to use my power, and to give it up
to Adric." A brooding horror dwelt in the gray eyes;
I realized that Narayan lived in his own personal,
private hell with the memory of what he had done
under the spell of Narabedla. "Adric was strong."

Yes. Adric had called upon the young Dreamer's
developing powers, without counting the cost. What
wonder if the memory maddened Narayan? The
young Dreamer finally seemed to win his silent strug-
gle for self-control, and went on quietly;

"Well, one day you -- or rather, Adric -- freed me. I
was never sure why. I suppose it was in a moment of
remorse." Cynara stirred, but Narayan went on, not
seeming to see her.

"I found my sister again, Cynara." And now he
raised his eyes to the girl, laying his hand on her
shoulder; she smiled, and again I saw the strange
protectiveness in that smile, as Narayan said quietly,
"I was like a child. I had to learn to live again, all the

simplest things. Just being alive took all my strength
for months. I was wholly powerless, because I had
been trained to use my powers only through the Sac-
rifice. And I had to learn to -- to live without that. It
wasn't easy."

"Why?" I asked thoughtlessly.

Narayan's eyes froze me, but his answer dropped
the last link into the chain of memory. "To use that
power," he said,

Outside the door I could hear the noises of the
camp; the light of their watch-fires crept in through
the cracks. The fire had burned low again, and
Narayan's face was in shadow, he moved restlessly in
the dim firelight.

"I have harnessed the power, somewhat," he said.
"I can use it myself, a little. For simple things, and to
protect myself."

I was beginning, vaguely, to understand. In my
own world I had heard of psi powers, of extra-senso-
ry perception, of seance mediums who could do
things called magical to those who did not under-
stand them. I had also heard that these wild talents
were physically exhausting, draining the physical
energy; the collapse of a medium after a seance -- I
had thought it was fakery. Evidently the Narabedlans
had found out a way to harness that psi power, to
control it, to provide the energy for increasing it vast-
ly, by feeding the Dreamers on the life energy of living
men. ...

I shuddered, a bone-deep, racking thing that left
me weak and white, and dropped nerveless on the
seat. Cynara held me tight.

"No," said Narayan grimly, watching my face, "it's
not pretty. But if I had any doubts of your not being

Adric that would have finished them. You really
didn't know, did you?"

I shook my head, still sick with the horror of it.

"Well, I learned to live without it," said Narayan,
his face quiet and controlled again. "Then Cynara
was taken for sacrifice." His eyes on the girl were ten-
der. "Adric freed her, redeemed her, gave her the free-
dom of Rainbow City. He could do that because
Evarin was weak and Gamine did not care. Even the
Lords of the Rainbow have many commoners in their
retinue. Not a spy there, never that. But someone to
act as a link between us, Adric and me. Then there
was Rhys, the old Dreamer."

Rhys. The only Dreamer-mutant ever born within
Rainbow City.

"Yes. Gamine is bound to Rhys, but is careless and
lets him wake for long periods of time, and Rhys and
I have been in contact. I hardly know how to explain
this to anyone else, our minds can speak."

"Telepathy too?" I murmured.

"Only to another Dreamer. He helped me to learn
to use my powers. But he will not raise a hand
against Narabedla. They are his kindred too."

I was hearing scraps of conversation from a vast
abyss of time and space, whence I had been drawn in
electrical coma across the Time Ellipse. They will
know, Narayan will know. And Adric; What have I
to do with Narayan? Adric had been playing a fancy
double game with Narayan, and I opened my mouth
to say so, but the young Dreamer was still talking,
and I lost track of the words, thinking of Rhys.

Perhaps this was why Rhys had helped Adric find
a way out of his world, because it had helped Rhys,
too, find an escape from an unbearable conflict. With

Adric gone, Rhys need not face a choice between his
kindred in Narabedla, and his wish to see the
Dreamers freed. With Adric gone, perhaps the old, old
man could live out his last few years in a world pre-
cariously at peace.

"I had forgotten, we had all forgotten, that Adric
was Narabedlan too. Until he vanished, until Karamy
stretched out her hand and took him back"
Narayan's voice brooded. These men had been
friends.

"Adric was gone, and the hand of Narabedla lay
heavy on us. Without Adric to lead them we felt there
was a chance for rebellion. I have been working,
planning -- you saw." He bit his lip. "Then I knew that
Adric was free, and I sent Brennan to see why he did
not return to us. Brennan didn't come back"

I lowered my head and miserably told him what
had happened to Brennan.

Narayan's face looked haggard in the firelight. "He
was a brave man," Narayan said at last. "He knew
what he faced, and dared it. I don't blame you. After
the change, there was a time when you went on liv-
ing Adric's life, almost by reflex, thinking his
thoughts, carrying out his habits. But now he will
grow weaker in you, I think I hope. Who are you in
your own world?"

He thought Adric would grow weaker in me. I had
feared that Adric would grow stronger and stronger,
until he crowded me out entirely. Was Narayan
right? Was Adric gone for good? "My name is Mike
Kenscott," I said at last. "Michael."

"Michael." Cynara turned the strange word on her
tongue, curiously. Her hand, forgotten, still lay in
mine. "And what are you? A great lord of magic?"

I laughed, wearily; cut off the laughter as I looked
into the lovely face. "No, girl," I said softly, "there's no
magic in my world." Magic? I'd have to think about
that.

"It must be very strange," she murmured, "strange
and a little frightening, to change worlds. I can re-
member Narayan when he came from the Dreamer's
Keep, with a life to learn."

Was it only compassion in her dark eyes, com-
passion for a man suffering the same disorientation
as the brother she had cherished and protected? Or
was it something more? "Michael," she repeated
softly.

Narayan broke into our natural absorption, gently.
"The men will have to call you Adric; they will be-
lieve you are Adric come back to us. Later, perhaps -- "
he shrugged. I didn't say anything. I was still afraid
I hadn't seen the last of Adric; but I liked this man.
And Cynara, clinging to my hand, the one person in
this world who had known and accepted me for my-
self, not as a shadow of Adric.

Narayan moved to turn on lights. "It's very late," he
said, "and you must be worn out. We've taught even
the Narabedlans to stay out of the forests by night,
lately, so we're safe enough here, even if they had
some idea of getting Adric back And in any case, they
can't do much until they've been to the Dreamer's
Keep. If we can cut them off from the source of their
magic -- " he smiled, and with a sudden, boyish
friendliness he held out his hand. "Well tomorrow
we'll see what comes! Michael -- " he hesitated, then
said, almost reluctant to speak the words, "I'm glad
you're not Adric. He might be hard to handle, now."

As if the lights had been a signal -- for all I knew,

they were -- Raif came back into the room without
knocking. Narayan crossed his hostile stare at me. "It's
all right, Raif," he said. "Adric has come back to us."

The elephantine face creased up in a sudden grin.
"I'm sorry I handled you so roughly, Lord Adric. But
I had orders, and I wasn't sure."

"I'd have done the same thing myself," I said, and
took the hand he offered.

"Find him a place to sleep," Narayan suggested,
and, with a backward glance at Cynara, I followed
Raif up a low flight of the farmhouse stairs into an
empty room. There was a bed there, clean but
rumpled; Raif said "Kerrel went on watch at the road-
way; he won't be back much before noon. You can
sleep here."

I kicked off my boots and crawled between the
blankets, suddenly too weary to speak I had been
two days without sleep, and most of that time I had
been under exhausting physical and mental strain, in
two worlds. I saw Raif cautiously finger his weapon,
and sensed that whatever Narayan said, he wasn't
taking too many chances with Adric. I didn't blame
him. He had brains, this outsize lieutenant of
Narayan's.

Sleepily I said "You can put that away, friend
elephant. I'm not even going to move until I've had a
good, long-"

I didn't even finish the sentence. I went to sleep.

I had slept for hours. I came out of confused
dreams -- a great wheeling bird, a knife, Andy's face,
the blue blur of Gamine's veiling, the pitiful cry of a
woman in anguish -- when I heard a softer voice, and
felt small hands pulling me upright. I opened my

eyes to see Cynara's dark lovely eyes gazing down at
me.

"Michael, wake up! Karamy and Evarin are riding
today, hunting Adric! Hunting you!"

I sat up, dizzy-brained, far from alert, still stupid
with sleep; I could not understand her agitation, or
the way she had spoken to me. But I put a careless,
reassuring arm around her shoulders for a moment.
Then, hearing the swift noise of steps on the stairs,
released her, bent and began to pull on my boots.

Narayan shoved open the door, dragging a brown
tunic over his head as he came. "I see Cynara's told
you the news," he said. "I was right. We'll have to
move quickly now. If they have too good hunting -- "

He fumbled with the laces of his shirt. A dead
weariness was in his eyes; they looked flat, almost
glazed. He met my questioning stare and smiled
tiredly.

"The Dreamers stir," he told me. "I am not yet free
of that need, not wholly. So I must be careful."

Cynara shuddered and threw her arms around her
brother's neck, clutching him in a fiercely sheltering
clasp. But he was already deep in thought again; he
freed her arms without impatience. "We'll meet that
when the time comes, little sister. So Karamy and
Evarin ride hunting, Idris too, most like." His brows
contracted. "All but Gamine," he mused. "If I could
only get through to Rhys." Then, with an impatient
gesture, he put the thought aside. "I don't dare. Not
with that stirring."

I understood. Narayan was still attuned to the ter-
rible hungers of the sleeping Dreamers in the Keep.
Well, that was to be expected.

As for me, I felt fresh and strong, and my mind was

working again, though with some strange blurs. How
had I come here to the house of the freed Dreamer?
Just what had happened last night? I had thought
Narayan would never trust me again, but now, when
I needed it most, here I was in his complete con-
fidence again.

Soft fool!

Yes, this was better than any of Karamy's plans!
Damn Karamy anyhow, meddling with my memory,
but at least it had served my turn last night, to step
aside into another identity, win Narayan's con-
fidence!

And Karamy had the audacity to fly Evarin's devil-
birds after me? After me, Adric of the Crimson Tow-
er? Well, she should have a lesson she would never
forget -- and so should the damned Toymaker himself
 -- and so should this walking zombie here, staring
stupidly at me with a foolish smile of friendship.
Gods of the Rainbow, what preposterous things had I
done and said last night?

"Let them come, birds and all," I said. "There's
been no Sacrifice for some time. They have no other
resources." I laughed soundlessly at the thought; are
you short on magic today, Karamy? Forced to use the
foolish gimcracks of the Toymaker? "We'll take them
tonight at the Dreamer's Keep."

But what you do not know, Narayan, I added to
myself with secret satisfaction, is that you will join
them there! When I have used your powers in my re-
venge against those who were leagued against me,
then you will go back to your place, Dreamer! Till
then, plan to crush me and mine! Dream on -- dream
your waking dreams, till 1 scatter them. . . .

It never occurred to the soft fool to question if the

Adric of last night were the Adric of this morning. We
went downstairs and snatched a quick breakfast.
Cynara saw the winged, flame-colored cloak she had
worn in Rainbow City, lying on the settle, snatched it
up wrathfully and stuffed it into the fireplace. In her
plain gray dress, her shy prettiness was more striking
than ever. Cynara was not Karamy, but she was a
pretty thing, and after all, it helped Narayan to trust
me when Cynara perched on the arm of my chair
and ran her dainty fingers over the bruises on my
face.

"Your roughnecks nearly killed him, Narayan!"

"Oh, I'm not hurt." I made my voice gentle for her
ears alone. But I scowled darkly into my plate,
pushed the food away and strode out into the camp.
Narayan shouted quickly, jumping up, sending his
chair crashing backward, as he ran after me and we
went down the steps together. "Wait, wait! Don't
forget, to them, you're still a traitor," he commanded.

I kept my voice foolish and humble. "I had for-
gotten."

"I know the truth, and they'll take my word,"
Narayan said with his friendly smile. He took my
arm, and we walked like that through the tents,
Narayan's expression almost belligerent. I saw the
faces of the men as they came out of their rude
shelters, saw suspicion and mistrust giving way to
tolerance and then to acceptance and relaxation as
they watched us walking arm in arm. Finally
Narayan called to Raif, "Watch him, will you? Some
of the men may not know yet."

"There's not much time for this nonsense," I said.
"If they're out hunting. Raif, find me twelve men who
aren't afraid to come close to Rainbow City."

Raif glanced at Narayan, who looked surprised.
Then Narayan said, "I give what orders you want,
Adric," and I had to hide a smile. Before long I would
win back the place my foolishness had lost! The idiot
whose body I had shared briefly had almost put it
beyond redemption, but in a way he had helped, too;
he had won Narayan's trust as I could never have
done. Well, that futile booby should not share in my
coming triumph! Nor should Narayan.

Fumbling in my pocket, I touched something hard
and smooth. Evarin's magic mirror, not true magic
but the product of his childish tinkering. Still, it might
serve. Narayan looked over my shoulder curiously as
I pulled it out. "What is that?"

"One of Evarin's Toys. I may find a use for it," I
said, and tossed it idly to him. "Look at it, if you like."
I held my breath; Narayan took it in his hand for a
moment, curiously, but did not untwist the silk "Go
ahead," I urged, "unwrap it."

I might have sounded too eager; abruptly, Narayan
handed it back "Here. You'd better keep it. I don't
know anything about Evarin."

I should have known it would not be that easy.
Feigning indifference, I thrust it back into my pocket.
It didn't matter one way or another, Narayan would
lose. For Evarin and Karamy rode a-hunting today,
and I knew what their game would be.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I PULLED MY cloak closer about me, prickling with ex-
citement, as I knelt between Raif and Kerrel in the
tree-platform. Just beneath me, Narayan clung to a
lower branch. My ears picked up the ring of distant
hoofbeats on the frozen ground, and I smiled.

I knew every nuance of this hunt. Evarin might not
find his birds so obedient to his call today! A scrap of
me remembered another world, where a dazed and
bewildered other self had flown at a living bird with
his pocketknife, and I spared a moment to laugh at
the memory.

Boldly, I plotted possibilities. There must be a
snare. But who? Narayan himself? No, he was my
only protection until I could get free of this riffraff
Besides, he said he had been learning to use his
power -- unaided. If he unleased it, at close range like
this, he could drain me lifeless, as a spider sucks a
trapped fly.

Kerrel then, or Raif I had a grudge against the fat
man, anyhow.

I plucked at Raif's sleeve. "Wait here for me," I said,
cunningly, and made as if to leave the platform. Raif
walked smiling into the trap. "Here, Adric! Narayan
gave orders you weren't to run into any danger! After
all! it's you they want!"

Good, good! I didn't even have to order the man to
his death; he volunteered. "Well, we want a scout
out," I demurred, "to carry word when they come."
As if we wouldn't know!

"I'll go." Raif leaned past me, touching Narayan's
shoulder. He explained in a whisper -- we were all
whispering, though there was no need for it -- and
Narayan nodded. "But don't show yourself."

I held back laughter. As if that would matter!

The man swung down into the road. I heard his
heavy tread strike rock; heard footsteps diminish, die
in the distance; felt it, like a tangible prickling of the
nerves, when he passed the limit of Narayan's percep-
tions. Yes, we were still bound, like an invisible net!
If I could only read his thoughts. . . but no. Then he'd
be able to read mine!

A clamoring, bestial cry ripped the air, a cry that
seemed to ring and echo up out of hell, a cry no hu-
man throat could compass. But I knew what had
screamed. That settled the fat man! Narayan jerked
all over, his blonde face white as death. "Raif." The
word was almost a prayer.

We half-scrambled, half-leaped into the road. Side
by side, we ran down the roadway together.

The screaming of a bird warned me. I looked up
and dodged quickly. Over my head a great scarlet
falcon, wide-winged, wheeled and darted in at me.
Narayan's yell cut the air; I ducked, flinging up a fold
of my cloak over my head. I ripped the knife from my
belt and slashed upward, ducking my head, keeping
one arm over my eyes. The bird wavered, hung in the
air, watching me with live green eyes that shifted
with every movement. The falcon's trappings were
green, bright against the scarlet feathers.

I knew who had flown this bird!

The falcon wheeled, banking like a plane, and
rushed in again. Falcon? But no egg had hatched
these birds, and I knew who had shaped these scarlet
pinions!

From behind my cloak-wrapped arm I saw
Narayan pull the pistol-like electro-rod, and
screamed warning:

"Drop it. Quick!"

The bird, holding Evarin's powers at this moment,
could turn gunfire as easily as Evarin himself; could
absorb the energy and in turn be re-charged by it.
And if the falcon drew a drop of my blood, then I was
slave to whoever had flown it.

I thrust upward with the knife, dodging between
the bird's wings. Men leaped toward us, knives out
and ready. The bird screamed wildly, flew upward a
little way, and hovered, watching us with those
curiously intelligent green eyes. Another falcon, and
another, winged across the road, and a thin uncanny
screeching echoed in the city air. I heard a tinnyjingle
of little bells. The three birds -- golden- and green-
trapped and harnessed in royal purple -- swung above
us; three pairs of unwinking jewel eyes hung motion-
less in a row. And far behind us, against the dark-
ening sky at the horizon, the dropping red sun
silhouetted three figures, on horses, motionless there;
Evarin, Idris and Karamy, intent on the falcon-play,
three traitors baiting the one who had escaped their
hands.

For a moment, briefly, I wished I were on the other
side of this hunt. Slaves we had in plenty, but the tak-
ing of passive victims is dull stuff and ai, the falcon-
game was good sport! Body left behind, all senses

poured into the stuff of the bird, soaring and darting
down upon the terrified victim, playing with him as
an eagle plays with her helpless prey! Darting at the
eyes, the tender parts, thrusting, drawing the blood
that gave power over him, watching the helpless
terror of the victim. Or, at times -- but how rarely! -- a
spirited fight against some victim made bold by de-
spair. A dangerous game, for if he killed the bird, it
was a painful and nasty shock But what is a game
without danger? There were always more birds. And
the victim who escaped your hands once could be
taken and tormented at leisure.

And I had faced the falcons before this, too; flown,
myself, against another for a wager, or pitted myself,
armed only with a knife, against another's bird. But
this was no rough game with my kindred for careless
sport or light stakes. This was deadly in earnest; they
had all massed themselves against me, and I'd need
every scrap of skill.

The falcons hung, poised, swept inward in massed
attack They darted between my knife and Narayan's;
behind me a fearful scream rang out, and I knew one
of the falcons, at least, had drawn blood; that one of
the men behind us was not ours! Turning and
stumbling, the stricken man ran blindly through the
clearing, down the road; tripped, reeled, stumbled
over the body of a man who lay across the roadway
under his feet. Narayan gave a gasping, retching
sound, and I whirled in time to see him jerk out his
electro-rod and fire shot after wild shot at the stum-
bling figure that had been our man.

"Fire!" he panted to me. "Larno wouldn't want to -- 
to get to them. He'd rather be dead."

I struck down the weapon, savagely. "Fool! Some

hunting they must have!" Narayan began protesting,
and I wrenched the rod from him. The man was far
beyond firing range now. At Narayan's convulsed
face I swore, savagely. This weak fool would ruin
everything! What was one man more or less?

I glanced around, orienting myself quickly. The
birds hung away again, and I motioned Narayan's
men in close. "Don't fire on the birds," I cautioned
them. "It only energizes them. They soak up the
power from your weapons. Use knives. Cut their
wings and try to immobilize them. Look out!" The
falcons, like chain-lightning, traced thin orbits down
in a flash of color, then darted in, in a slapping con-
fusion of beaks and beating wings. I backed away,
flicking up my cloak, beating at the birds with the
weighted edge; our men, standing in a close circle,
back to back, fought them off with knives and the ends
of their cloaks, swatting them away. Three times I
heard the inhuman scream, three times I heard the
lurching footsteps as a man -- not human any more-
broke away from us and ran blindly, stumbling to-
ward the distant ridge.

I heard Narayan cry out, whirled to him. He ran
toward me, beating back the purple-trapped bird that
darted in and out on swift, agile wings. The
screeching of the falcons, the flapping of cloaks, the
hoarse breathing of men hard-pressed, gave the
whole scene a nightmarish unreality in which the
only real thing was Narayan fighting at my side. His
gasp made me whirl by instinct, flinging up my cloak
to protect my back; my knife thrust out to cover his
throat. He raked a long gash across the falcon's head
above the beak, was rewarded with a scream of un-
birdlike agony and the spasmodic open-and-shut con-

vulsing of the talons. They razored outclawing. They
furrowed a slash in the Dreamer's arm. The deadly
beak darted in to cut, but I threw myself forward,
unprotected, off balance, ready to strike.

At the last moment, talons and beak drew back
from Narayan, turned aside straight for me, with
more than birdlike intelligence! And my knife was
turned aside guarding Narayan!

But Narayan jerked aside. His knife fell unheeded
in the road as his arms shot out and grabbed the bird
behind the head, twisting his whole body convulsive-
ly to be out of range of the stabbing needle of beak
The bird lunged, pecking at the cloak that wrapped
his forearm. Thrown off balance, I stumbled against
Narayan and we fell together in a tangle of cloaks and
knives and thrashing, slapping wings, asprawl in the
road. The wings beat like a cyclone, the cruel talons,
thrust with the power of steel, raked my face and
Narayan's, but Narayan hung on grimly, holding the
deadly beak away. I fumbled, blinded by the wings
slapping against his face, for the knife; thrust again
and again. Thin yellow blood spouted in great gouts,
splattering us both with burning venom.

I snatched the struggling bird from the Dreamer's
weakening hands and twisted until I heard the neck
snap in my fingers. The bird's wild struggles sudden-
ly stopped; it went limp between my hands. What-
ever had given it life had withdrawn.

And high on the ridge above us the dwarfed figure
of Idris threw up his hands and collapsed like an
empty sack across the pommel of his saddle.

Narayan's breath went out in a long, limp sigh as
we untangled our twisted bodies from one another
and the dead falcon. Our eyes met briefly as we

mopped away the blood, and he smiled, shakily,
spontaneously. Damn it, what a waste! I liked this
man! Almost I wished I need not send him back to
tranced and horrible dreams.

He said quietly "There is a life between us now."

I twisted my face into a smile matching his. "That's
one of them," I said savagely, turned to watch the
other two falcons tearing into the ring of men. "Come
on," Narayan shouted, and he flung ourselves into the
breach. I threw down my knife, snatched a sword
from somebody, and waded in, swinging the sword
in great arcs that seemed somehow right and natu-
ral. The men scattered before the sword, like scared
chickens. The falcons dipped down; I went berserk
with hate, sweeping it in vicious semicircles against
the lashing birds.

The sword cut empty air and I realized, blankly,
that both birds lay cut to ribbons at my feet. Their
yellow blood washed the dead leaves. Narayan's eyes
swam through a red haze into my field of vision.
They were watching me, trouble and fright in their
gray depths. I forced myself to sanity and dropped the
sword on the dead birds.

"That's that," I said briefly.

We took toll of our losses. Three, four men, lost to
the slavery of the birds. Most of the rest had razor-
slashes from the talons, and Narayan, gasping with
pain, rubbed a spot of the yellow blood from his face.
"That stuff burns!" he grimaced. I laughed, tightly. He
didn't have to tell me. We'd both have festered burns,
deep as the brand of red-hot iron, to deal with tomor-
row, the stuff Evarin used for the "blood" of his birds
was deadly.

"You saved my life." Narayan's voice was quiet,

and I bit my lip against murderous rage. Fool that I
was, why hadn't I stood back? The Dreamers are in-
vulnerable to ordinary human attacks, but they can
be put out of action -- 

And yet I had acted without thinking, to save
Narayan. Was there such a bond between us? I found
myself shaking with doubt.

"Are you hurt?" Narayan asked. "Let me see your
arm," but I shoved him away. Savagely, I told myself
not to be a fool. Of course I had protected Narayan. I
needed him still, and I wanted him strong and un-
harmed; nothing as quick and simple as an easy
death. He'd rather die than go back to the Dreamer's
Keep; I felt sure of that. Well, he wasn't going to be
given a choice.

"Look!" One of the men stared, pointed upward,
his face tense with fright. Another great bird of prey
hung balanced on the wind above us; but as we
watched, it wheeled and swiftly winged toward the
Rainbow City. One of the men was quickly nocking
an arrow to the bow, but the bird was too far and too
high; I could barely see the azure shimmer of the
bells and harness. A thin sweet tinkling came from
them, like a mocking echo of the spell-singer's voice.

Gamine!

CHAPTER NINE

BACK IN THE windowless house, we snatched a hurried
meal, cared for our slashes and burns, and tried to
plan further. The others had not been idle while I led
a picked party against the falcons. All day Narayan's
vaunted army had been accumulating -- I could hard-
ly say assembling -- in the great bowl of land between
Rainbow City and the Dreamer's Keep.

There were, perhaps, four thousand men, armed
with clumsy powder weapons, not more than half a
hundred of the electro-rods like Narayan's, with worn
swords that looked as if they had been long buried,
with pitchforks, with scythes, even with knobbed
wooden clubs. I was put to it to conceal my contempt
for this ragtag and bobtail of an army. And Narayan
proposed to storm the might of Narabedla, the magi-
cal powers of Rainbow City with this?

Yet everywhere I saw looks, heard scraps of con-
versation, cries and salutes, showing me the con-
fidence that these desperate men had in their leader.
Were they all mad, or deluded? So much the better, I
thought grimly. Take him from them, and they'll
scatter to their rat-holes again!

I felt my lips twisting in a bitter smile. They trusted
Adric, too -- Adric, who had freed the Dreamer. When
I had shown myself to them, their shouts had made

the very trees echo. Well -- again the ironic smile
came, unbidden -- that was just as well too. When
Narayan was properly reprisoned, I could use the
power of their lost leader to tear down what he
himself had built. The thought was deliciously funny.

"What are you laughing about?" Narayan asked
me. We were lounging on the steps of the house,
watching the men thronging around the camp. His
slumberous gray eyes held deep sparks of fire, and
without waiting for my answer, he went on, "Think
of it! The curse of the Dreamers' magic lifted from this
land. The tyranny of the Rainbow Cities gone forever.
Think what it means! It means life and hope for any
number of people, with no more fear, no more
slavery, no sacrifices and raids, no evil birds -- " he
broke off, spreading his hands in a helpless gesture.
"But you can't know. Even with all of Adric's memo-
ries, you couldn't know!"

I remembered that he thought I was still Michael
Kenscott. Dimly, like something in a dream, I could
remember" Michael's loyalty for Narayan. They were
two of a kind, fools, soft weaklings. . . .

And even more dimly I could remember when I
had shared that dream, when it had seemed more
worthy than the lust for power. Cynara came down
the steps and bent to me, laying her soft arm around
my shoulder, and I drew her down, but a volcano of
hate, so great that I had to hide my face, burned up in
me. This man Narayan was my equal -- no, I ad-
mitted it grudgingly, my superior -- and I hated him
for it. I hated him because he could not be killed save
by mischance, and because he risked that in-
vulnerable state in a way I would never have dared,
even in the days when I had been guarded by all his

magic. I hated him because I knew that in his dream
of power no one would suffer, and I hated him be-
cause I knew what I would do with his powers, once
I had him safely bound in the Dreamer's Keep again,
fed with the energy that would force him to give them
up piecemeal to me. And above all, I hated him be-
cause once I had been weak enough to share his
dream.

"You said once there was no magic in your world,
Michael," Narayan broke into my thoughts, and I
started. Well, let him deceive himself! I shrugged. "I
suppose you'd call the forces of my world magical
enough, until you understood them," I temporized.

"The falcon-hunt -- Adric told me once that if the
falcon was destroyed, the one who was inhabiting it
went into shock," Narayan said musingly. "That
means Idris, Evarin, Karamy, all three of them out of
action for a time. If we could strike right away -- "

I said abruptly, "Your plans are good, Narayan.
There's just one thing wrong with them; they won't
work Storming Rainbow City won't get you any-
where. It won't even make a beginning. You could
kill Karamy's slaves by the hundreds, or the
thousands, or the millions, but you couldn't kill
Karamy. And the more slaves you kill, the more she'll
search out and enslave to replace them. You've got to
strike at them in the Dreamer's Keep. It's the only
place they're vulnerable."

He did not question my knowledge, or Adric's
memories. It was Cynara who reminded me,
"Narayan's freedom is limited, remember. He cannot
go into Rainbow City, or to the Dreamer's Keep, be-
cause Adric, freeing him, could not locate his
talisman."

Narayan nodded. "So I've no choice. I'll have to at-
tack them on the road to the Keep, and take my
chances."

"What's your army for?" I asked, rudely, "to knock
down haycocks? The army can deal with the guards,
and the slaves, but the Narabedlans have to be taken
in the Dreamer's Keep; it's the only way. I'll go to
Rainbow City for you, and get the thing!"

"You?" Narayan and Cynara turned on me, simul-
taneously, and I reminded myself not to seem too
confident; it was Kenscott's display of weakness that
had made Narayan trust him. But Cynara's eyes were
glowing. "Yes, and I'll go too, in case your memories
fail."

Good, good and better. That suited me perfectly!
Rainbow City was empty except for old Rhys, and
perhaps Gamine, who had not flown falcon with the
others, and was presumably indifferent to the in-
ternal struggles of the other Narabedlans. But
Narayan looked doubtful. "Adric tried that once,"
he said sombrely, "and all that happened was
Karamy recaptured him, and sent him out on the
Time Ellipse."

"But Karamy won't be here this time; she and the
others will be busy with your army," I reminded
him. It was settled that way, and I listened to their
plans and suggestions, half contemptuously. Yes, the
Narabedlans were vulnerable in the Dreamer's Keep,
but if I were there, with Narayan, and Narayan's
talisman in my hands, I could stop worrying about
Evarin, Idris and the rest.

Cynara bent lightly to touch the ripped talon-mark
across my face. "You're hurt again, and you never
told me," she accused. "Come this minute and let me
take care of it!"

I almost laughed. Me, Adric of the Crimson Tower,
being ordered around by a little country girl! I
snorted, but spoke pleasantly.

"I'll live, I expect. Come and sit here with us." I
pulled her down at my side, but she leaned her head
against her brother's knee, and her face was
troubled.

She was a pretty thing, and I thought, watching
her, that I could forgive her, almost, for being the
cause of all my troubles. When I took the girl, for a
whim, from among Karamy's slaves, I had not
known she was Narayan's sister. And then -- and then
 -- like a live wire jolting in my brain, the flash and the
blankness. What lay hidden there? What had I for-
gotten? I put my two fists to my temples, as if to tear
out the memory by main force, but nothing came ex-
cept the blur of a face -- blonde like Narayan's, white
with terror -- and a voice speaking words I could not
understand, the silvery-sweet voice of Gamine. Who,
what was Gamine?

"Michael -- " Cynara looked frightened, and I
brought myself back, by main force, to the present. I
made myself smile.

"You -- looked so fierce, so far away," she said,
faltering, "like -- like Adric, not like you."

I reached out to draw her to me, but she pulled
away, rising lightly to her feet, like a dove poised for
flight. I raised her slim fingers to my lips for a mo-
ment before I freed her. The gesture pleased her, so
much that I watched with contempt as she tripped
away. Silly, simple girl! It would please her!

The white sun, incandescent on the horizon, was
still bright enough to blur the red sun to a pale spot,
when we set out for Rainbow City. Cynara rode at my

side; Narayan was to come a part of the way. Kerrel
had taken the army, in sections, to set an ambush for
Karamy's guard near the Dreamer's Keep; I listened to
Narayan giving him instructions, to the sound of grief
in his voice when he spoke Raif's name.

But at last we took the opposite road, a winding,
twisting road that led through the forested country to
Rainbow City. Cynara rode beside me, her dark eyes
brilliant, her cheeks red with the cold, lovely in her
gray dress, but it did not suit her as the winged,
flame-colored cloak of Narabedla had suited her.
There was dainty witchery in Cynara, and a pretty
trust that made me smile and promise, recklessly,
"We will win." It pleased me to think that I could
comfort Cynara for her brother's downfall. Once con-
ditioned anew to Rainbow City, she would forget all
this, and be a fair and beautiful companion. If she
continued to please me. Well, it might be amusing to
see this unformed country girl wield all the power of
Karamy the Golden!

But would she ever look at me with so much trust
again?

I cursed my fancies, savagely, and dug my heels
into my horse's flank What did that matter? Was I
morbid or mad again to care for that?

It took us an hour of hard riding to reach the lip of
the great cup of land, where we paused, looking
down the dark, almost-straight alleyway of trees that
led to the walls of Rainbow City. I whistled tunelessly
between my teeth.

"Whatever we do, it's going to be wrong," I said.
"We'd be taking quite a chance to ride up to the main
gate this way. At the same time, they'd be expecting
us -- if we came at all -- to sneak in the back way;

they'd never expect us to ride straight up the front
avenue."

"The deer walks safest at the hunter's door,"
quoted Narayan, laughing, "but won't they be expect-
ing us to use that kind of logic?"

Cynara giggled but stopped at my frown. "At that
rate," I said, "we could go on all night."

Narayan reached overhead, snatching down a
crackling sheaf of frost-berries, selected one narrow
pod. He held it between finger and thumb. "Chance.
Two seeds, we go around; three, we ride straight up
to the main gate. Agreed?" I nodded, and he crushed
the dry husk One, two, three seeds rolled into my
outstretched palm.

"Fate," said Narayan. "Ready?"

I jounced the seeds in my palm. "One for Evarin,
and one for Idris, and one for Karamy," I said con-
temptuously, and flung the little black balls into the
road. "We'll scatter them like that."

We were lucky. The drive was deserted; if there
were guards out, they had been posted on the secret
paths that Adric knew. Straight toward the towers we
rode, and just before dusk we checked our horses and
tethered them within half a mile of the Rainbow City,
going forward cautiously on foot. I objected to this
arrangement. "I'll get in alone," I told them. "If any-
thing happens to me, they mustn't lose you as well."

"I can't go inside," Narayan said, "but I'll come as
close as I can. If anything goes wrong, well, I'll be
here to help."

Silently, I damned the man's loyalty, but there was
nothing I could say without spoiling the illusion I had
worked so hard to create. I took his hand for a mo-
ment. "Thank you."

His voice was equally abrupt. "Good luck"

Cynara moved forward with me; I stopped,
glanced at her with a frown.

"I'm coming," she said fiercely, and clung to my
hand. "I'm coming, and there's no way you can stop
me!"

So much loyalty? For me?

Still, she might be useful, if only as hostage later.
"Come on, then," I said, "but keep your wits about
you. They'll probably have all the bolt-holes guarded,
and I'm not even sure yet how we're going to get in."

"Narayan," she asked, "can you help?"

The young Dreamer's face was in shadow, where
we stood under the great dark loom of the outwalls,
but I could tell that he was very pale. "Perhaps," he
muttered, seeming to force the words out through
some strange sluggishness. "I will try. Brennan came
this way," he shook his head, as if dizzied.

"Maybe you'd better try," I said cautiously, "I have
no magic, remember."

We moved slowly along, keeping in the lee of the
rampart; Narayan moved unsteadily, on faltering
feet. Then he stumbled; quickly, my hand was on his
arm.

"You'd better go back" I said quickly. "We'll find a
way in somehow."

I needed Narayan whole and strong, later! After-
ward, when he had served my turn -- 

Cynara was looking at him, trouble in her eyes. He
tried to smile reassuringly, but the effort only con-
tracted the muscles of his face. "I don't know --  exactly
why it is," he said thickly, "I don't know what was
done, but as I come closer to the walls I can feel my
strength -- leaving -- me -- "

I supported him upright, guiding his steps back
sway from the outwall. On the surface, I was all so-
licitude; inwardly I rejoiced. Now I knew what I
wanted to know. Not in my lifetime had a freed
Dreamer walked in Narabedla, except for old Rhys
who was one of us, and my knowledge was hazy; I
had not known how close Narayan could come to the
forbidden areas.

Long years ago, generations ago, when the
Dreamers first threatened the might of Rainbow City,
there had been another Toymaker in Narabedla, and
he had found the way to bind the Dreamers. They
could not be killed. But he had made, and set up in
Rainbow City, a device -- blurred, vague memories of
Mike Kenscott's world flickered across my conscious-
ness, with words like vibrations, and subsonics -- 
which, harmless to everyone else, worked selectively
on the Dreamers who had been bound to Narabedla.
A similar device, in the Dreamer's Keep, held them
bound in their tranced sleep. Still a child, each of the
mutant Dreamers we brought into contact with this
device, and bound into rapport with one of the
Narabedlans, as Narayan to me.

The effects of this device could be nullified, for brief
periods of time, by the talismans. The Narabedlan
kept the talisman (magic? vibrations?) that would
wake his Dreamer and at the time of the sacrifice, the
Dreamer was waked; fed with the life-energy that in-
creased his powers tenfold, and these powers trans-
ferred to the giver of the sacrifice.

Magic?

Narayan brushed a hand across his eyes. "I'm all
right here," he told me. "But until you get my
talisman, this is about as close as I can come."

Did he really think I would turn it over to him?
Yes, I supposed he was that foolish, to think that
Adric, having given him his freedom, would also
make him free of Rainbow City and the Dreamer's
Keep -- to destroy us all!

Cynara looked back at Narayan, uneasily, as we
approached the outwalls again. But my attention was
turned to the problem of getting in. I looked up at the
ramparts of the outwall, surrounding the great semi-
circle of towers that was Rainbow City, their irides-
cent shine blurred to a dark glow in the dying sun-
light. Rainbow City, a city no longer. Old, half-
blurred memories nagged at me; there had been a
day when this great castle had been alive with men
and women, filled to the brim with joyous bustle,
sport, and happiness -- not the eerie, half-deserted
haunt of half a dozen surviving warlocks of my caste,
with their zombie retinue of the living dead! Cynara's
hand felt warm in mine, and I felt that for a moment
she almost shared my thoughts.

"It could be so beautiful."

"It will be beautiful again," I promised, "but just
now we have to get in."

Around an angle of the ramparts there was a gate,
little known, perhaps unguarded. We approached it
fearfully, expecting every moment to hear a challenge
or feel a bolt out of darkness; stole closer, keeping in
the lee of the rampart.

The gate was open.

It swung, ajar, on hinges that creaked softly,
rhythmically back and forth. Beyond it was darkness.
I swept Cynara back with one arm, staring with hard
eyes at that darkness. "Careful," I muttered, "it could
be a trap."

And I had no magic! Carefully, on tiptoe, I stole
closer to the gate.

Still nothing but the silent creaking. I beckoned
with one arm, stepping through. Cynara followed
me, her light footsteps sounding loud in the echoing
stillness.

We were inside Rainbow City.

We stood in a pillared court, long and narrow,
alabaster flagstones under foot, a long dark passage-
way opening before us, a dim patch of sunset sky
high overhead. At one end of the court was a curved
high-rising wall, shimmering greenly, the Emerald
Tower, and at the other end, the pale loom of the
Azure Tower rose blue and high over us. The colors
were dimmed with dusk, and our very breathing
seemed to give back echoes. I stood, looking around,
trying to orient myself The walls of the court cut off
any view of the other towers, and as always, when I
tried to concentrate on any one detail it grew vague in
my mind.

Cynara flinched and cried out as a shadow crossed
us; I whirled, my breath coming loud, my hand al-
ready dragging my sword from the sheath. High
above us a falcon wheeled, spiraled down; I heard
the thin-sweet tinkling of bells. Gamine! I thrust
Cynara behind me, but the falcon made no move to
attack; it hovered, eyes bright with mechanical glitter,
pinions moving faintly to sustain it on the high air
above us. I clenched my fingers nervously on sword-
hilt, itching to strike, but it hung out of reach, just
watching, and somehow the poise of the wings made
me think of the calm, malicious detachment of
Gamine. But I kept my hand on my sword, guiding
Cynara with one hand into the passageway.

It was wide and high, but seemed cramped after
the open court, and I walked warily, glancing over
my shoulder to see if the falcon would follow, but it
did not. I saw it dart down and veer away again;
heard the high screeching and the jingle of bells as it
swept upward and vanished from our sight.

I went quickly now, finding my way through the
labyrinth toward the Crimson Tower, Cynara hurry-
ing at my side. We crossed open courts with pools
and gardens and fountains quickly, keeping in the lee
of the buildings, wary of being seen. I knew where I
was, now. One more court, and one more passage-
way ...

Before us, the walls of the Crimson Tower rose at
last, shining like a still-burning coal. Low lurid light
burned in the courtyard before us; I breathed more
freely. Now, at least, I was on familiar ground.

Cynara screamed, and I whirled, sword out and
ready. Behind me, advancing in an unbroken line
that spanned the court from one side to another, a
round dozen of Karamy's guards in their gold and
crimson advanced on slow feet; the lurid light
sparked red on the steel tips of eight-foot pikes, leveled
in a spear-wall toward my breast. In the burning twi-
light their faces were stolid, expressionless; they
called no challenge, seemed to show neither battle-
lust nor excitement. They simply advanced, step by
mechanical step, pikes extended. Cynara shrank
away; I took a step backward, darting my eyes along
the line. Hopeless. There was no break in that solid
phalanx, that advanced foot by slow foot, relentlessly.

"Quick," I cried, "Cynara! Into the tower!" and
gripped my sword, not that I could reach any of them
against those long pikes! My eyes darted from side to

side, seeking escape. The steel points came closer,
closer. ...

Then one of the zombie guards leaped into the air,
still horribly silent, clawed at his breast, collapsed
and lay still, with a clattering of his pike. I flung the
useless sword away, snatched at the fallen guard's
pike. Behind me Cynara stood shaking, Narayan's
long black electro-rod in her small hands; she was
steadying the weapon with both hands, twisting it
frantically for another shot.

The zombie guards had neither halted nor
hesitated, advancing step by mechanical step, closing
the rank of their dead comrade. Gripping the pike, I
swung it, knocked two of the oncoming pikes aside,
while the guards tottered and fell back I ran the pike
into one man's breast; he writhed horribly, half jerk-
ing the weapon from my hands, in that terrible voice-
less silence; then died without a groan. I pulled the
pike clear, leaped up the steps of the Crimson Tower.
Past me, a white bolt crackled and another of the
guards leaped, silently clawed his breast, and fell
lifeless.

Still in that ghastly silence, the remaining pikesmen
milled in confusion. I snatched the electro-rod from
Cynara, my fingers manipulating the controls with
swift skill; swept it into the ranks. The guards, half
their number lying dead, ran aimlessly back and
forth, pikes thrusting mindlessly into the air, as if at
some silent signal, then turned and silently fled, the
sound of their booted feet dying away on the
stones.

I wiped my brow and looked round at Cynara,
pale and shaking at my back I had not known she
had the weapon or that she knew how to use it!

"They're gone," she said, and I heard the effort she
was making to keep her voice steady, "but they may
be back I'll keep watch here, while you're in the
Tower."

I nodded, my breath coming in great gasps, and
went into the Tower. There might not be much time.
If Karamy had set this trap for me, there might be
others. I went up the stairs, slowly, rounding every
bend with caution, but the Tower was silent and
deserted.

Quickly, I ransacked room after room, to no avail.
When she took my memories, Karamy had also been
careful to take anything that would give me power
over any of the Dreamers, even old Rhys. As for the
thing that would force Narayan to my will again, I
could find it nowhere.

I went up more stairs until I stood at the very pin-
nacle of the Tower; Adric's star-room; into which I
had been catapulted -- was it less than three days ago?
I stood at the high window, vaguely thinking of a
younger self, an Adric who had watched the stars
here, not alone. I traced back through the years, div-
ing down into the seas of sudden memory, and
brought up the knowledge of -- 

"Kenscott!" said a voice behind me, and I whirled
to look into the face of a man I had never seen before.

He had the primitive look of a man out of the for-
gotten past. I had seen such creatures as I swam in
the nowhere of the Time Ellipse. He was tall, clean-
shaven; he looked athletic; his eyes and hair were a
ridiculous color, pale brown. He looked angry, if he
could be said to have any expression at all.

But he spoke clearly and with deliberate calm.

"Well, Michael Kenscott," he said, "you have taken

my place very nicely. I suppose I should thank you.
You've fooled Karamy into giving me my freedom,
and Narayan into giving me his trust, and the rest, I
think I can manage for myself." He laughed. "In fact,
you're so much me that you don't seem to know who
you are! What weak creatures you people are! But I
can force you back into your own body, such as it is."

The man was mad! At any rate, he'd insulted the
Lord Adric in his own Tower, and by Zandru's eye-
lashes, he'd pay for it! I flung myself at him with a
yell of rage; my fingers dug into his throat.

And I cried out in the strangling clutch of long lean
fingers grabbing at me, clutching my shoulders, bit-
ing into my neck

An agonizing wrench shuddered over my body, a
painful and somehow familiar jolt.

I faced -- 

Adric!

CHAPTER TEN

OF COURSE I understood, even while I fought, dizzy
and reeling, to loosen the death-grip I'd put on my
own throat. I was back, I was me, I was Mike
Kenscott again.

Adric loosened his hands of his own free will, and
stepped away, breathing hard. "Thank you," he said,
in the harsh voice that had been mine for so long. "I
myself could hardly have done better. No, I won't
strangle you."

With one swift movement, he snatched something
from a little recess in the wall -- pointed, twisted -- and
fired pointblank at me. A white bolt zipped at me.

To my amazement, only a pleasant, tingling heat
warmed me. I had enough split-second reasoning re-
flex left to claw at my breast and fall in a slumped
huddle to the ground. Adric fumbled in his pockets,
half-drew his sword as if to reassure himself it was
there; pulled out the little mirror I had taken from
Evarin, still wrapped in its protective silks. I watched,
breathless, between narrowed eyelids. If he would
only look into it.

Instead, with a shudder of disgust, he flung it at
me. With a braced, agonizing effort, I made myself lie
perfectly still, not flinching to avoid the blow. The
thing struck my forehead; I felt blood break to the

surface and trickle wetly down my face. I heard
Adric's firm receding steps and the risp of a closing
door. He was gone.

I moved. To this day I am not sure how I escaped
death from Adric's weapon, but I believe it was be-
cause I was in my own body -- and his world. After I
had touched Adric the first time, my reaction to
earth's electricity had changed. In this world I was
not immune to their forces, but I could absorb them
without damage. I wiped the blood from my temple,
glancing with brief, startled recognition at my own
hands again.

Cynara! Cynara, waiting at the foot of the Crimson
Tower, waiting for me, in Adric's body! I forgot that,
overshadowed by Adric's memories, I had plotted
against Narayan and Cynara; remembered, with
anguish, the trust in Cynara's eyes. What would Adric
do to her and to Narayan?

I grabbed up the mirror, crammed it into my
pocket. Against the nightmare haste that drove me, I
ran to the closet I remembered from that first day;
quickly, from the racks of weapons, chose a short,
ugly knife. I wouldn't need swordsman's training to
use that!

Thank God, I knew my way around the place; I
could remember everything I had done when I was
Adric! But I could also "remember" what he had
done when he was me! (A vague, shocking memory
of a scene with Andy half-stopped my heart, but I had
no time for that now.) That meant that Adric could
also "remember" everything that I had done and
planned with Narayan!

This crazy, mixed-up business of identity! Would I
ever again be sure which of us was which?

I dashed out of the tower room, ran down the end-
less stairs three at a time, heart pounding. The fallen
zombie-guards still lay dead in the courtyard, but
there was no sign of Cynara, nor of Adric.

"Cynara!" I shouted her name.

An eerie screaming answered me, and a dangerous
whirring of wings suddenly beat around my head. I
staggered, almost fell backward as one of the
murderous falcons, the one in blue, darted at me. I
backed against the wall, but the bird darted in again;
I drew my knife, but the bird hung off Suddenly it
made another dart; I edged along the wall, knife
poised. Again it veered away and hung there, regard-
ing me with those live eyes. The damned bird was
herding me toward the blue tower!

And Gamine had not flown falcon with the others!
Cautiously, I moved toward the blue tower walls; the
falcon followed me at a careful distance, out of
knife-reach, hovering. Experimentally I took a step
back toward the crimson tower, and the bird darted
in again, the strong pinions beating in the enclosed
space, the vicious little beak thrusting at me.

Cynara! What had happened to her? I tried to
dodge past the bird; was enveloped in the flapping
darkness of wings, beating hard against my face.
Spent, breathless, I let myself be driven back and
back, toward the blue walls of Gamine's tower; re-
treated slowly up the stairs, step after step.

The bird darted past me, poised in the stair-well.
Blindly I slashed upward with the knife, was re-
warded with a splatter of thin burning blood, but the
bird, still not disabled, darted and pecked at me, driv-
ing me up and up.

"All right, damn it," I grated, ducked beneath the

threshing wings and ran, up the stairs toward the
pinnacle of the blue tower. Behind me, abruptly, the
falcon flapped, threshed, went limp and rolled down
the stairs, a tangle of wings, landing far below with a
flailing thump, the life withdrawn from it.

I paused on the stairs, breathing hard. What now?
Gamine was no friend to Adric, I knew that. My
memories of Adric did not help me here; Adric had
had a blankness in his memory around Gamine, a
blurring and invisibility, a place where sight and
memory stopped short. Had he ever seen Gamine?

Could Gamine help me against Adric?

What was Adric doing now? I had served him
well; won Narayan's trust, then turned him loose
again in his own body, to betray and destroy
Narayan again -- the one hope against Rainbow City,
delivered into the hands of the man who had first
freed, then turned against him!

And even yet I could not wholly hate Adric. I had
lived three days and three nights in Adric's body and
brain; I knew his strengths, his weaknesses, his
dreams and his torments, his desires and his fears. I
could not wholly condemn him.

He had done good once. He had freed the Dreamer,
he had shared Narayan's dream of freeing Narabedla
from the slavery of the Rainbow City, but why had he
changed? Karamy's devilments? Few men would be
to blame for yielding to Karamy's spells, the Golden
Witch of Narabedla.

A shadow flitted across my sight; the robed and
veiled Gamine stood above me in the stair-well, an air
of cold amusement in the Spell-singer's mocking
voice. "How like you this body, Adric? You are beaten
now for sure! The stranger works with Narayan in

your body, Adric!" The cold, neutral laughter chilled
my blood. "Watch and see what you will do!"

"I'm not Adric," I shouted. "Adric's in his own
body again, he got back, he's going to betray Narayan
and Cynara."

"I expect you would like me to believe that,"
Gamine murmured, contempt in the clear, sexless
voice.

I clenched my fists, shaking with rage at the delay.
Cynara at Adric's mercy, and Narayan. Suddenly I
thought of the one person who would know. Rhys!

"Let me by to Rhys," I begged. "He'll know that I'm
telling the truth!" How did I know that? Gamine
laughed, and, infuriated by the mocking laughter, I
shouted "Damn you, let me by," and thrust out my
arms to move Gamine forcibly out of my way.

Whatever Gamine was -- woman, man, imp, witch
or robot -- it was not human. Steel wires seemed to
writhe between my hands. I struggled impotently
with that bonebreaking grip; then, on swift impulse,
thrust my hands swiftly at the blurred invisibility
where Gamine's face should have been.

Gamine screamed, a thin cry of horror and despair.
Suddenly I knew where I had been during those two
weeks in the hospital when Adric lay lifeless in my
body, in the hospital, in my place, crushed and
shocked with unfamiliar force. An instinct I had
grown to trust warned me to pull away, sharply,
from Gamine's relaxed grip. I shouldered by and ran
like hell.

Halfway up the last flight of stairs, I heard the
Spell-singer's running feet behind me; I quickened
my stride and sprinted for the heavy door at the top of
the steps. I could feel Rhys's presence behind that

door! I threw my weight against the door, twisted the
handle frantically.

The door was locked.

Behind  me  I heard the soft,  silk-shod feet of
Gamine, and hopelessly I put my back to the door,
my hand on Adric's knife. If there was no other
way -- 

The door opened suddenly and I was flung
backward, sprawling, into the room. "Well, Michael
Kenscott," said the old, tired voice of Rhys, "you are a
fool, but Gamine is no better. I knew you were not
strong enough to crowd out Adric, but I had to try.
Yes, I knew you were coming. I know where Adric
has gone. I know where Narayan is, and what they
plan to do."

I picked myself up angrily from the floor. The old
Dreamer's calm voice, his serene wrinkled face be-
neath the peaked cowl, stirred me to sudden blind
rage. I clenched my fists and advanced on him. "You
know all that? Is there anything you don't know?"

Gamine had come into the room behind me; the
old Dreamer stared over my shoulder at Gamine and
said wearily, "I don't know whether you can stop
them now. I let it go too far because I wanted peace,
because I still hoped -- " he spread his hands in a
curious, hopeless gesture. The dreamy look of the
very old, or the very young, was on his face. "I hoped
 -- but no matter. It is time, Gamine. You must go with
Narayan to the Dreamer's Keep."

"No," Gamine whispered in protest. "Narayan can-
not go there! His talisman was destroyed! When
Adric freed him, still fearing him, Adric kept the
talisman and Karamy took it from him, and de-
stroyed it!"

So that was what Adric had been seeking, without
my knowing why. If I had found the talisman, and
put it into Narayan's hands, then indeed the Dreamer
would be free; free of the device -- my training in-
terpreted it as electronic waves, attuned somehow to
the brain of the Dreamers -- that would cast him
into tranced sleep if he came within the magnetic
field. Bearing his talisman to damp out the special
electronic vibrations, Narayan could go where he
would, even into Rainbow City, or the Dreamer's
Keep.

But the talisman had been destroyed. Adric, his
memories blurred by Karamy's magic, did not know
that. A part of Adric's power over Narayan was gone.
At least, Adric could not take and keep the talisman
as he had planned, but Narayan was forever barred
from freedom and from the full use of his power.

The talisman -- magic? A special vibration device
that held and concentrated the powers of the
mind? I did not know. Maybe "magic" was only an-
other word for a force that I could not understand.
But the talisman was the bond between the sleeping
Dreamer and the Narabedlan bound to him, through
which the Dreamer's mind drew on the energy of the
sacrifice, transferred that power to his master.

Old Rhys had lowered his head into his hands.
Now he slowly raised his eyes.

"There is still mine. Give it to him, Gamine."

At Gamine's cry of dismay, Rhys' voice was sud-
denly a whiplash. "Give it to him! I still have power
to -- to compel that, even from you! What does it mat-
ter what happens to me? I am old, Gamine -- old, and
it is Narayan's turn, and yours!"

Gamine sobbed, harshly. From the silken veils the

Spell-singer drew forth a small jeweled thing. Like
Evarin's mirror, it was wrapped in insulating silks.
She untwisted the silk

It was fashioned like a small sword, not a dagger,
but a perfectly proportioned sword, a Toy. The hilt
was an intricate pattern of blue crystals. It was about
eight inches long. Briefly, another memory not mine
touched me.

They were always made in the shape of a weapon,
these talismans, symbols of the most powerful weap-
on known to Rainbow City, the power over the
Dreamers.

Evarin's make, this Toy, Adric had seen its fashion-
ing, when Gamine had been bound to the old
Dreamer -- so old that he could safely be freed from
the Dreamer's Keep, bound by ties of blood to
Narabedla. Gamine had not cared for power. Gamine
had chosen only this: to sit at the feet of old Rhys and
learn his wisdom. And this had given Rhys the free-
dom of Rainbow City.

"Michael must take it from your hands," Rhys'
voice was gentler. "While you hold it, I am still bound
to you, Gamine. The power must be transferred by an
act of will. Then, with this in his own hands, Narayan
will be free to go where he will, even to the Dreamer's
Keep. Give it to Michael, Gamine." Rhys sat down,
wearily, as if the effort of talking had tired him past
bearing. I stood and listened, with a rebellious pa-
tience, but my eyes were on the little Toy in Gamine's
hands. It winked blue. It shimmered. It pulsed with a
curious heartbeat, half-hypnotic. Rhys watched too,
his tired face intent, almost eager.

"Gamine. If Adric had seen you, had remembered"

"I want him to remember!" Gamine's low wail
was a weird keening in the silent room, and Rhys
sighed.

"I cannot tell where this will end," he said at last.
"I am Narabedlan. I could not destroy my own peo-
ple. Gamine is not bound, nor you, Michael Kenscott.
I suppose I am a traitor, but when I was born,
Narabedla was a fair city, without so many crimes on
its head. I have lived to see power grown to a vast evil,
and I have let it grow. Now there must be an end. Go
and warn Narayan."

Gamine hovered near me, intent, jealous, the
shrouded gaze fixed on Rhys. The old man said in a
fading voice, "Give it to him, Gamine, and let me rest.
Stand away from me, Michael. I have made an end.
I do not want to be bound again to you."

I did not understand and stood stupidly still;
Gamine gave me an angry shove. "Over there, you
fool!"

I reeled, recovered my balance; stood where
Gamine directed, about twelve feet from the couch
where old Rhys leaned back against the cushions,
half-reclining. The old man laid one hand on the hilt
of the Toy talisman sword in Gamine's fingers.

"My poor city," he whispered. "Alas, for the Chil-
dren of the Rainbow! Yet once their towers were fair
beneath the double sun."

He took his hand away. He lay back on the
cushions. Abruptly Gamine thrust the toy sword into
my hands. I felt a sudden stinging shock, like electric
current, jolt my whole body; saw Gamine's robed
form quiver with the same jolt. The Toy in my hand
was suddenly heavy, heavy as if made of lead, and
the tiny winking in the hilt was dulled, dim, dead.

The peaked hood of Rhys dropped lower; lay unstir-
ring over his face.

Gamine caught my arm roughly, and the steel of
those inhuman fingers bit to the bone as they hauled
me almost bodily from the room. I heard the echo of
a sob in the Spell-singer's whispering croon.

Rhys farewell!

The next thing I knew, we were racing side by side
down flight after flight of stairs. Together, we fled
through the subterranean passages of Rainbow City.
We came out into the pillared court where, two nights
before, the Children of the Rainbow had assembled to
ride to the Dreamer's Keep.

And across the courtyard I saw the form of a man.
His brown tunic was ripped and torn, his pale face
smeared with dirt or blood; he moved slowly, strug-
gling, forcing himself as if he moved through quick-
sand, falling to his knees, sprawling, then painfully
dragging himself upright again in a weary crawl. He
braced himself with his two hands and stared at me,
almost without comprehension, then his dragging
hands moved -- for a weapon, a spell?

There was no time for explanations. I threw myself
at his knees in a tackle no football coach would be
proud of, but it did the trick Narayan went down,
sprawling weakly on the flagstones, struggling with
the last remnants of strength.

Good God! What sheer will-power, what iron
strength, had let him force himself so far into the
Rainbow City, into the power of the terrible vibra-
tions which were spell-binding to a Dreamer? His
gray eyes, glazed with pain, looked at me with suspi-
cion and helpless hate, and he forced his slow, pain-
ful movements upright, to his knees.

"Narayan, listen," I said urgently, seizing his shoul-
ders, feeling the man tense himself against me, "I'm
not one of Karamy's men!"

"Cynara, he's got Cynara," the Dreamer muttered
dizzily. "Cynara -- who in Zandru's hells are you?" He
was almost unconscious, holding onto awareness
with iron will.

"Michael Kenscott." Suddenly, knowing it was the
best way to establish my good faith, I pulled out the
Toy Gamine had put into my hand. "I've seen Rhys.
He sent you this."

The gray eyes were blurred, half-conscious, but he
held out his hand to take the thing from me.

In his hand it came alive. The small jeweled Toy
flared suddenly brilliant, dazzled with a wild sun-
burst of faceted light: blue, golden, crimson, flame-
orange, opal. Narayan's pale struggling face eased;
the glazed eyes cleared, and he pulled himself up to
his feet, erect and strong, alert, drawing a deep breath
of relief and release, and letting it go again.

"In my own hands," he murmured, almost dis-
believing. "Free! I'm free!" Then, shaking his head
and coming out of his half-ecstatic contemplation, he
started, and thrust the talisman inside his shirt.

"Michael Kenscott," he said, looking keenly at me.
"Yes, I can sense that. I knew, when Adric came, that
he had -- changed."

"He's got Cynara?" I demanded.

Narayan nodded, grimly, speaking with hard re-
straint. "Yes. He surprised me, knocked me out. I
fought, but he dragged me inside the court, where I
was powerless. I felt my strength going. Cynara
heard me cry out, and came and he dragged her
away."

He looked past me. The robed, cowled figure of
Gamine came noiselessly forward; stopped, a pace or
two away from Narayan. I tensed, but Narayan's
gray eyes only widened, grew grave.

Then:

"Gamine," he said, very softly. "At last, face to face.
Gamine."

"Rhys is gone. But I am here, Narayan, and the
time has come." Gamine's soft, sweet voice was bare-
ly audible.

"The time has come."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I BROKE IN rudely, thrusting between the Dreamer and
the robed form. "You can stand here like that," I ac-
cused, "but Adric's got Cynara! What will he do with
her?" Cynara, the one real, human thing in this
world, the one who had trusted me, who had even
pitied and trusted Adric, and Adric had played on her
trust, carried her away, God knows where!

Narayan said tensely, "He'll take her to the
Dreamer's Keep. It's just the sort of revenge he'd want
to try -- " his voice strangled.

"How much start had he? Narayan?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure how long I was un-
conscious. No matter how we ride, we'll be too late."
He clenched his fists in helpless rage and pain. "We'd
need wings to stop him!"

Gamine cried out, low, "Wings! But we have
wings! The falcons, Narayan! Evarin left the birds
here!"

Narayan's face was convulsed, but he shook his
head, resolutely. "No, Gamine. I can't. If I save
Cynara, I lose the only chance to -- to destroy the
power of Narabedla. I can't take that chance. She -- "
he choked. "She wouldn't want me to; we've all risked
too much to let one life stand in our way." He turned,
grimly. "Come on! We'll ride to the Dreamer's Keep."

But Gamine caught at me, with that strange
strength. "You, Michael," she said. "You can stop
Adric, or delay him! You can go on the wings of a
falcon!"

"What?"

And abruptly the memory rushed over me. The
weird half-memory I had thought a dream. Adric,
half-dazed, not knowing whether he was himself or
some other, come back from the Time Ellipse, Mike
Kenscott only a dazed atom in his mind; Adric, his
memory gone but knowing by instinct that he had to
warn Narayan, and knowing no other way. He had
stolen into the room of the falcons, he had taken over
the bird, he had flown -- 

Narayan was blinking at me, wide-eyed. "We saw
a falcon," he said, low. "We thought it was one of
Evarin's spies, and Raif shot it. So Adric really did try
to warn me, once, before Karamy got him into her
power again." He looked grieved, unhappy, but he
turned to me. "Michael, Gamine is right. We are
needed in the Dreamer's Keep, Gamine and I, but you
 -- you can overtake Adric, and delay him, at least. Go
as a falcon!"

A flood of ice-water seemed to drench my being.
That was crazy, impossible, a weird dream! And I'd
just gotten back into my own body, after all this time,
and I damned well wasn't going to get out of it again!
I tried to explain all this to Narayan, but he only re-
peated, his face drawn and troubled, "It's Cynara's
only chance. Michael, I've no right to ask you, you
don't owe us anything. But for Cynara -- "

For Cynara. Cynara, who had trusted me, who had
known I wasn't Adric, who had, perhaps, saved me
in Narayan's camp. The thought turned my blood

cold, but I held myself together with both hands, and
said thickly, "All right. I'll try. What-what do I have
to do?"

Narayan gripped my hand, painfully hard.
"Good," he muttered. "Show him, Gamine!"

"Quick! This way!"

I followed the robed form along a passageway,
hauntingly familiar, dreamishly strange. A curious,
sick, almost exhilarating fear braced every muscle in
my body with tingling force, as a dark door opened
and I saw the limp shapes of my dream.

Moving slowly, hesitantly, searching with every
move for the right feel (to match the vague and
elusive memory of a dream?) I reached up and
pulled down one of the limp feather-shapes. It was a
fluffy crimson mass, and felt curiously warm to the
touch, not the cool neutral feel of cloth or feathers.
Gamine stood by, not interfering. But when I held it
between my hands I turned to the robed and
enigmatic form, suddenly not sure.

"What do I do now? Adric had some sort of way to
transfer his mind, his consciousness." I stood staring
down at the feather-thing, like a limp pillow, in my
hands. "I don't."

Gamine said, very low, "Pull it over your head. Like
a cloak"

I started to unfold the thing; stopped, shaking, at a
razor-touch that left a thin line of blood on my hands.
Talons! I stared at the fine-steel claws, so exquisitely
shaped, but Gamine made an impatient sound and I
pulled it carelessly about my shoulders.

Almost immediately I felt the strange, not un-
pleasant sensation I remembered, as if my head
were expanding like a great gaseous balloon, as if

I were soaring up into the ceiling. I felt the falcon-
wings expanding, beating -- 

Dimly I heard Gamine's warning cry, but the ex-
hilaration of flight was already on me; with a great
extending of wings, I fluttered, was flying. My eye-
sight was suddenly sharper, from a new perspective,
the room forming strange new prisoning outlines
around me. Not caring, I saw a clumsy two-legged
body slump nerveless to the floor, saw an indistinct
form fling the window wide, and I was out and gone
on the buffeting winds, mounting higher and higher
in a sort of ecstasy of soaring flight. ...

The sky was colorless pale, but not empty space.
With strange new perceptions I could see, like layered
ribbon, the currents of the wind and air. I rode them
upward, dipped one wing and transferred to a shim-
mering downcraft, playing, intoxicated with the
sense of space and freedom.

All my life I had been earthbound! Now for the first
time I had the freedom of a dream, to lift and soar,
float motionless on a scrap of wind, then with a
mere touch of motion, drift and hover like a skim-
ming cloud. . . .

Far, far below me, the rainbow towers were sharp-
edged and bright, toylike. Thick, dark carpet of forest
dimmed the curve of the land below me, and far
away, low on the horizon, a dark-rising shape-
The Dreamer's Keep! The sight recalled me to my-
self, brought me back from the intoxicating for-
getfulness; Adric bore Cynara into danger, while I
played here on the wings of the wind, carefree as a
bird. ...

Quickly, I took stock and oriented myself I was
hovering at a great height above the Rainbow City;

far, far below I saw the court and the gate, and three
tiny figures that might have been mounted men, rac-
ing along the roadway. That was not what I wanted.
I spread my wings, riding a swift pale perceptible
current of air, and sped eastward.

Tonight the forest was deserted, though I made out,
with the supernaturally-keen eyes of the falcon, the
small moving shapes of pale deer and other strange
animals. But nothing human moved in the forests to-
night. Narayan's men had all been drawn away on a
grave errand.

I soared up and up to a still greater height. The
land was still clear and sharp-edged beneath me, ev-
ery outline distinct -- the sort of vision you get from a
tremendously good pair of night glasses. Far away on
the horizon I saw a great moving mass of men;
Narayan's army on the march? Further still, serried
ranks moving grimly, I caught a glimmer of red and
gold and knew that Karamy's army of the living dead
were prepared to meet the attack But what of
Karamy, Evarin, Idris? Was their deadly cavalcade al-
ready at the Dreamer's Keep, was the awful sacrifice
already on its way to doom? I didn't know what
Narayan's powers might be, now that he was freed,
but could he alone, whatever his psi force, dare to
face three Narabedlans newly charged with force
from that deadly sacrifice? Karamy, Idris, Evarin
would be filled to the brim with power from their
Dreamers -- in their tranced sleep, glutted with life-
energy, giving it up to the Narabedlans.

And Adric was racing to join them -- and he had
Cynara! But where, where?

Grateful for the telescope sight of the falcon, I quar-
tered the country inch by inch, tracing the roads that

wound like white ribbons through the forest. Adric
would take the shortest and straightest road.

There, there! Far below me, a solitary horseman
raced, crouched over the neck of his steed, a limp,
dark burden across his saddle. Adric!

I heard my own curses like a high shrill falcon-cry,
and forced it back to silence. That cry might have
warned him! Wheeling, soaring, I rode the downdraft
in a long spiral, centering in on that solitary horse-
man. Silent, tipping my wings, I soared in, and
strange, non-human calculations flickered curiously
through my mind; I was aware of his body as juicy
warmth, conscious of the motion of his horse as a
tensile interplay of muscle against air, and the bare
back of his neck was like a white glimmering mag-
net. Strike there, strike there! I hung motionless on the
wind above him, beating my pinions just enough to
match the speed of his horse, centering in on that
vulnerable patch of skin where I could thrust, take
purchase on his broad shoulders, strike at the root of
the brain.

But I waited too long. Perhaps some small rustle of
wings, perhaps the bird-shadow crossed his sight, but
Adric jerked his body upright in the saddle, arching
his back, crying out curses. He was warned!
Cautiously I hung off, watching; then darted in, going
for his eyes.

But his reflexes were lightning-fast, and he was an
old hand at this game. The slapping edge of a
weighted cloak struck one wing, knocking me off bal-
ance; I had to beat both wings to keep from falling
like a stone, and when I balanced again on the air, he
had his sword out and was sweeping it in those great
arcs I remembered.

I flapped my wings in fury, beating back on the air.
I could not reach him without being cut to ribbons! I
circled him, grimly, seeking an opening.

Across the saddle Cynara stirred and moaned.
Adric cursed, his glance going swiftly from the girl to
my hovering beak above him, and I exulted; now if
Cynara can use her head, she can divide his attention
just enough ...

Adric's sword-room was lessened with the girl stir-
ring; he could not move freely, and I dived in, hearing
Cynara's scream of terror. I struck between Adric and
the girl, clawing, darting in my beak, wings beating.
Adric toppled backward, overbalanced; the horse
reared, and Cynara slid to the ground, struck heavily
and lay still. I darted in, ready to strike, but Adric
recovered, and had his sword out, making a steel ring
between himself and me.

I cursed and heard again the eerie falcon-scream of
rage and frustration, hanging away again. I circled
behind him, but he turned, warily, keeping guarded.
I darted into a sudden opening; slashed, was re-
warded with an explosion of curses from Adric, and
saw a long gash slowly open in his forearm; but he
recovered swiftly, swung his sword up and I over-
balanced, tipped, feeling the flight-feather gone from
one wing. Strangely, I felt no pain, but a spasm of
panic fear. I had to struggle for balance.

I saw Cynara raise herself, slowly, to a sitting posi-
tion. Her eyes were wide with terror. I circled in
again, feeling the crippling weight in my wounded
wing. Now I must risk all! I dived in like an airplane,
zooming straight at Adric's face. I took him off guard
and he overbalanced, fell backward; my claws
slashed blood from his cheek as I dug my talons into

him, wings beating, gripping for balance. I bent my
beak for the kill.

His left arm sliced upward; with an eerie scream of
fury I saw -- too late! -- the sharp-pointed dagger in his
hand. I felt it slice through one wing; plunge into my
heart. I saw a splatter of burning yellow venom,
heard Cynara's scream, and I was. ...

... I was clinging, sick and shaking, to the saddle of
a galloping horse. Rising wind beat in my face; above
me the moons swung in an indigo sky, and sparks
beat from the horse's hoofs on frosty stone. I gasped,
for a moment disoriented, wobbling dangerously, not
knowing what had happened.

Then awareness came. I had lost. Adric had killed
the falcon, and I was back in my own body. ...

Riding! Narayan's blonde hair was frosty pale in
the moonlight; he rode at my side, straight in the sad-
dle, his face drawn and intent. At my other side,
the robed Gamine was a nightmare ghost, a phan-
tom.

"Narayan!" I gasped.

He turned in his saddle; drew his horse up for a
moment.

"You're back! What happened? Adric -- "

"I failed," I said bitterly, and told them. Narayan
looked grim, but his hand gripped my shoulder.
"Easy! You did the best you could, and at least you
may have delayed him enough."

"But how did I get here?"

"We brought you with us," Gamine said sharply.
"Enough talking! Ride!"

It took all my concentration to stick on the animal's
back, but I was acquiring balance and a feel for rid-

ing. The ill wind was blowing some good, I thought
inanely.

Far away we heard the sudden spatter of gunfire,
the screams of dying men, the ring of swords and
spears, the shrill cry of a falcon. Narayan's face
looked haunted.

"Kerrel and his men have met the guards! They're
attacking!"

The scream of falcons rang swiftly over Gamine's
head. The too-familiar beat of wings slapped over my
back; I flung up one arm to knock away one serpen-
tine neck My terrified horse plunged and bucked,
and I rocked in the saddle, nearly falling. Another
bird swooped down on Narayan, and another, and
then there were swarms of them, gold and purple
and green, crimson, blue, flame-color; the air was
thick with their wings. Gamine screamed. I saw
Narayan beating the air with his sword; the veiled
Spell-singer, crouching in the saddle, was lashing
them with a whip. The lash kept the birds at bay, but
the razor claws caught at the blue shroudings.

Narayan, whip in one hand, sword in the other,
beat round him in great arcs, and I heard one bird's
death-cry send ringing echoes through the forest I got
my knife out, slashed upward.

"The mirror," screamed Gamine, "Evarin's mirror!
Quick, they're coming by millions!"

They were, indeed, coming in scores, darkening
the sky; whirling and screeching, an army of ghastly
death. These were not the soul-falcons such as I had
flown, elaborately endowed with the intelligence of
their launcher and all his human cunning; these were
machines. Alive, yes, and deadly, but not with the life
we know. Only the nightmare freak of a science gone

mad could control, or produce, these hateful things
that were filling the clean air, groping for us with
needle beaks and talons, wild wings beating. Only
Evarin -- 

I fumbled blindly for the mirror-thing, clumsily
stripping away the silks around it. A needle-talon
raked my wrist, and by sheer instinct I struck up-
ward, turning the face of the mirror toward the bird.

The falcon reeled in mid-air, flapped, went limp
and fell. A tingling shock rattled through my arm. 1
dropped the mirror and leaped to catch it. The thing
was a perfect conductor. It drained energy! Now I
knew why Evarin had been so anxious to have me -- 
or Adric -- gazing into its depths!

The birds were brainless, all pure energy, unless
controlled by the personality of the owner, and the
Narabedlans had no time for that today, no leisure to
play the falcon-game! But Evarin had loosed them
against us, in a last desperate play.

I grabbed the mirror, and held it upright; I caught
a half-glimpse, from the tail of my eye, of the weird
lightnings that coiled inside it, but even that glimpse
twisted my stomach in nervous knots. Shielding my
face, I held the thing upward. The birds flew toward
it like moths streaming around a candle; shock after
shock flowed along my arm. Three more of the hor-
rible falcons fell limp, lifeless, drained!

A strange exhilaration began to buoy me up. The
force from the birds was not electricity, but some kin-
dred energy which my nerves drank greedily. I thrust
the mirror out; was rewarded again with the surge of
power, and again the birds, by dozens this time,
flapped and fell.

Then, as if whatever had loosed the army of falcons

had realized their uselessness, the whole remaining
force of the birds wheeled and fled, winging swiftly
overland to the distant donjon that rose high on the
horizon.

Recalled to the Dreamer's Keep!

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE FLOW OF strength had renewed me; I felt I could
face whatever came. I thrust Evarin's mirror into a
packet; flung a word to Narayan and we were riding
again, Gamine racing behind us. The blue, shroud-
like veils had been slashed to ribbons; I could see the
pale gleam of naked flesh through the torn veiling.

The noise of battle behind us grew more distinct; I
could make out separate explosions, flashes of col-
ored flame. I shuddered; even now that frightful
army of falcons might be winging to join Evarin. The
rebels could kill some of them, but for every falcon
dead there would be twenty more slaves for
Narabedla. What could Narayan's men, with their
scythes and pitchforks, do against the incredible sci-
ence of a Toymaker?

Narayan's strained face was ghastly in the moon-
light. I needed no telepathy to read his thoughts.
Slaughter for his men. What for his sister? Our horses
seemed to lag, to drag through a mire of motionless-
ness, though they were at the full gallop of endurance.

The sounds of battle drew nearer. Everything in me
cried out that I was a fool, riding full tilt into a battle
in which I had no personal stake, in a world that was
not my own. Yet something else told me, coldly and
with a grim truth, that all I possessed was what I

might win today, for this was the only world I would
ever know, that I would never see my own world
again.

Never! And Adric should rot in a hell of his own
choosing, for that!

But we were passing the sounds of battle! If we had
raced before, now our horses seemed to fly. Behind us
the fight raged, men screamed in the agony of death,
wounded horses neighed and I heard the muffled
sound of earth flying upward, exploding in fire. But
the sounds grew dimmer; faded away.

We had left the forest, and were riding across a
dark and hummocky plain. Moss padded our hoof-
noises; now and then some small furry thing skittered
across the track, and twice my horse shied at swoop-
ing night-birds and my heart stopped until I saw they
were not the falcons of Evarin.

Stark and black now against a treeless horizon I
could see the Dreamer's Keep. I rode hunched in the
saddle, my eyes on the vast cairn only a few miles
away now.

Suddenly a vast arch of lightning spanned the sky
above the Dreamer's Keep. Blue lightning. I heard
Narayan groan like a man in his death-agony; twist-
ing in my saddle, I saw brooding horror on his face,
mingled with pain, and a terrified satisfaction.

"The sacrifice, I still feel it," he breathed, in labored
gasps, "I still -- take strength from it -- Michael!" His
voice held unbearable torture, and the veins in the fair
face stood out, black and congested with effort. "If I
start to -- to work for them -- promise to -- promise to
shoot me."

"Oh, God-" I gasped.

"Michael, promise! Gamine!"

Gamine spurred her horse to his side; I heard the
low, neutral voice, sweet, almost crooning. Again the
vast arc of blueness spanned the sky; Narayan dug his
spurs into his horse's flank and raced ahead of us.

On the plain, limned starkly in silhouette against
the sky, a horseman appeared. He rode low in the
saddle, his horse limping, a darkness across his sad-
dle. I cursed; I knew that lean crouched figure,
knew it as well as my own! I had delayed Adric, but
now he rode to the sacrifice, and before him, limp
across his saddle, he bore Cynara!

The rest of that nightmare ride is a blank in my
memory. The next thing I remember clearly is rein-
ing up beneath the lee of the gaunt pile of rocks-on-
rocks that was the Dreamer's Keep. There was no sign
of Adric, or of Cynara, no sign of any living person,
nothing but the incandescent lightning that rayed out
every four seconds or so. Narayan's face was a white
death-mask, and Gamine's breathing came in short
sobs. I alone was free of the effect; my body throbbed
and tingled with the weird energy set free in the
night.

We flung ourselves from our horses. Gamine
tugged futilely at the torn veils, and for the first time
the blurred invisibility wavered and I caught a
glimpse of one blue eye, blue as the sky-lightnings
that rose and flamed and died.

The tower dwarfed us with its massive bulk, rising
sheer for hundreds of feet. Gamine clutched my arm.
"Listen!"

All I could hear was a low, not unpleasant hum-
ming, like the singing drone of great bees, or high-
tension wires, but the sound struck them with horror.
Narayan fumbled in his shirt; drew forth the little

talisman Rhys had given me, and at the sight of it his
haggard face relaxed. He gripped it tightly in his
hands; drew a long moaning sigh, closed his eyes for
a moment.

Somewhere above us a shivering scream rang out.
It broke the static immobility that held us; Narayan,
slipping the Toy inside his shirt again, began to run
around the Keep, Gamine and I panting at his heels.
We came around the corner beneath an arching out-
crop of stonework No one needed to give orders; as
one, we scrambled up on the ledge, crowding close
together. I gripped my hand on the knife in my belt;
it had a comforting solid feel. I needed that.

A framed archway let us look down into the in-
terior of the Keep. Below us a voice cried out in de-
spair and unbelief "Adric, Adric! No, oh no!"
The voice was Cynara's.

Under our combined weight the glass shattered:
we hurled inward. We found ourselves standing on a
great shelf, about ten feet above the floor of the Keep,
looking down at a scene framed in stark horror.
Golden Karamy, dwarfed Idris, Evarin, stood in a
close circle about a ring of coffins that glowed pale
crystal, gleamed with scintillant radiance. In the
hand of each of the Narabedlans was a tiny, jewelled
sword, a Toy, and in the coffins-
Gamine screamed. "The Dreamers!"
Not till then did we see what Adric was doing. At
the center of the ring of coffins, a dais rose upright,
horribly altar-like, and a line of the mindless slaves,
nude, vacant-eyed, moved in single file before that
dais. As each one stepped forward, there was a shud-
dering moan, the tiny swords glared with light, and
the slave -- was not!

And Adric, Cynara captive between his hands, was
thrusting her forward, into the space between the cof-
fins, toward the nexus of blue light, toward the
Sacrifice-stone of the Dreamers!

The sight put me beyond caution. We threw
ourselves from the ledge, and went down into a
writhing, sprawling mass of living flesh. A barked
command from Idris, and the slaves swarmed on us,
drowning us in smothering bodies. I kicked and
sprawled and thrashed and scratched and bit my
way to the top of the heap, and somehow, for a sec-
ond, I rolled free.

That instant was enough. I was on my feet, the
knife in my hand. Dragging bodies clung at my heels;
I kicked out savagely, felt my boot strike naked flesh,
felt and heard the pulpy sound of a skull crushing
under the impact of my heel. The sound rocked my
stomach, but I was not in a position to be fastidious.
My eyes were swimming in trickling blood. Gamine
clawed free, and together we elbowed out of the
press.

Evarin sprang at me. I thrust blindly with the knife
in my hand, ripped into his shoulder, missing the
throat by inches. I caught the talisman Toy from his
hand as it fell free. A moment of the clinging, tearing
melee; then Gamine and Narayan and I were stand-
ing back to back in the center of the ring of coffins.
There was a long howl of pain and terror from
Evarin and the four Narabedlans flung themselves
backward in terror.

For within the coffins there was a stirring. ...

But Adric was no coward. He threw himself
backward, grasped Cynara again and with all the
force of his lean arms he flung the girl straight to-

ward the nexus of blue light! Narayan and Gamine
stood frozen, but I broke free, dashed forward, I
passed straight across the cone of blue lightning-
Unharmed!

The blasting energy only tingled pleasantly in my
body as I caught Cynara in mid-air and reeled away
from the force that would have meant utter annihila-
tion for her. Narayan caught Cynara's staggering
body from my arms, drew her back to safety. Then I
felt the impact as Adric's tall, heavy body crashed
against me, felt the shock as my fist smashed into his
jaw, and heard him grunt as we locked into a clinch
that carried us nearer, and nearer to that center of
blue energy! A moment we swayed there, at the very
edge of the lightnings.

Then Evarin's tensed cat-body lit into the center of
my back

Again the heat thrust needles through me. Adric
was flung clear, but there was an arch of blue that
spanned the vault, a wild scream like the death-cry of
a panther -- 

The Toymaker was gone!

Within the coffins the blue lights flared, as if the last
shock of energy had freed them. Quickly Idris and
Karamy ran forward, thrusting the talisman Toys
against the very lids of the coffins, but too late. The
Toys in the hands of Narayan and Gamine spat glar-
ing blue fire, and step by step the Narabedlans re-
treated, farther, farther, farther. ...

The coffins were suddenly empty. As if by magic,
three men and a woman clustered around Narayan
and Gamine. In their faces I could distinguish a
curious likeness to Narayan, and to old Rhys; and
Narayan, within the circle of Dreamers, reached out

and flung the tattered veils from Gamine. A trium-
phant chant rushed sweetly from the lips of the Spell-
singer as the veils came away and at the center of the
mutants stood Gamine the Dreamer, dwarfing them
all with her majesty, a Dreamer who had never slept,
never been bound. She was a woman, as I had begun
to guess, slender and fair and very beautiful, and I
thought of Isis and the young Osiris as her blue eyes
blazed and the lovely body arched upward in tall
freedom from the shrouding veils. The blue lightnings
swirled and faded, and the Dreamer's Keep was
bathed with trembling, glimmering rainbows.

Karamy and Idris retreated, step by slow step,
slinking backward into the shadows. Only Adric
stood his ground. He looked dazed, his eyes fixed on
Gamine, but he did not falter.

The rainbows died. The air was void and empty of
energy. The Dreamers stood looking on the crouching
Karamy with her hidden face; on the bent, gnarled
dwarf, on Cynara kneeling white and radiant with
joy, on Adric who stood staring at Gamine like a man
released from a spell.

Gamine spoke at last "Rhys was right; the time
had come. The time is here, now. What next?"

The circle of Dreamers turned one to another, but
Gamine shook her head, her long pale hair lifting
electrically around her face. "No. Why should they
die? They are only an old dwarf, a silly fool who
could not make up his mind." Her eyes dwelt first on
Idris, then on Adric. "And Karamy. They have no
power, now we are freed. They had not even power
to see me as I was, not entirely. Pity them in their
weakness. Now we are freed."

Adric drew himself upright. His slackly-parted lips

set firmly, and he looked at Narayan with a dis-
passionate, stubborn shrug. Then he turned back to
Gamine.

"Mil me, if you like."

But it was Narayan who answered, stepping to
ward the man in crimson with a strange, choking
excitement. "No, Adric. I want you to see what you
saw before, to see what sent you away, to see the
thing that drove you mad. Gamine, Gamine, show
him what he saw then."

Gamine came slowly forward to where Karamy
knelt..

"Stand up, witch."

Slowly, Karamy rose to her feet. There was no hope
in her eyes, no mercy in Gamine's. The two pairs of
eyes, cat-yellow and blue, fought for a moment.

"And was I wrong?" Karamy demanded at last,
raising her head, her beautiful face set and cold with
pride. "I knew you would destroy us, Gamine, and
destroy our world. For that I was willing to fight you
to the death, and if it is my death, still. What I have
done was what had to be done!"

Gamine smiled, faintly. "And by that you stand or
fall or die, Karamy?" She turned to the others.
"Karamy is beautiful, is she not?"

I suppose no woman on Earth has ever been, or
ever will be, as beautiful as Karamy the golden. She
stood there, proud and straight, amber and golden
and tiger-tawny and turned her eyes on Adric, and I
saw longing an 1 love break forth in the man's eyes.
He gazed and gazed, and Karamy held out her arms,
and Adric, bemused, went toward her. ...

"Hold him," Narayan commanded tersely.

One of the Dreamers made a curious sign with his

left hand, and Adric, arrested, stood gripped in a vice
of invisible force.

"This was Karamy's power," said Gamine in her
clear ringing voice, "but now see Karamy shorn of the
Illusion her Dreamer threw to guard her! See the
form of Karamy that she made me wear! This!"

She reached out and touched Karamy lightly with
the little talisman Toy she held.

There was a gasp of horror from many throats.
Karamy -- Karamy the golden, the exquisite. There are
no words for the kind and type of change that took
place before our eyes. I was sick and retching with
horror before the metamorphosis was half complete;
Cynara was sobbing softly and piteously; but Adric,
frozen, could not look away.

Gamine's laugh -- low and sweet, and doubly dead-
ly for its sweetness -- reached our ears. "Yet I should
be grateful," she murmured, mockingly, "for
Karamy's magic kept my true shape hidden. So I am
free, Karamy, free and a Dreamer, and you, shall I
lend you my veils, sister?" Again, the horrible laugh.
"No? Go forth!" Her voice was a lashing whip, and
with a broken wail, the thing that had been Karamy
threw up an arm across the staring sockets and fled
away into the night. And we never saw it again. ...

So that was the end of Karamy the Golden, the end.

A little later I found that Adric and I were staring
stupidly at one another, puzzled, but without
animosity. Cynara came and slipped a protecting
arm around Adric and I turned away, embarrassed,
for the man was sobbing like a child.

I was amazed and sick with the enormity of all I
had seen and done; I shook and shivered with deadly
chill. I suppose it was reaction.

"Steady!" Narayan's steely hand on my shoulder
kept me once again from making a fool of myself

"You've done a great deal for us," he said. "I wish
we had some way of thanking you, not for myself, for
millions of people. Perhaps some day we'll find a
way of sending you back to your own world, but
with Rhys and Karamy gone -- "

Adric, looking subdued and speaking with a
curious humility, looked at me over Narayan's shoul-
der. "There will be a way, some day. It will take time
to find it, but some day -- "

I knew what they meant. The magic of the
Dreamers could not be used again in the old ways,
and now their power was an unknown quantity.
Adric said, "In the meantime -- "

"In the meantime, you seem to be stuck with me,"
I said, and spontaneously we grinned at each other. I
could not hate this man. We had known one another
too well. Freed of his enchantments ...

He chuckled. "Rainbow City's big enough for us
both."

Narayan looked from Adric to me; then Gamine's
intent face was at his elbow. "I'll see to these men,"
she said. "Narayan, they need you." She motioned to
the wakened Dreamers, standing in a dazed circle.
"They must be told why they were wakened, and
how. There are slaves to be freed, armies -- "

Narayan glanced guiltily over his shoulder. "That's
so," he acknowledged, gravely; squared his shoulders
and went to his people. I watched him go, feeling as
if my one friend here had deserted me. But it had to
be that way. Narayan was not our kind. He was the
sort of man who could remodel a world, but the look
he gave Adric and me told us that we should have a

share, if we liked, in the rebuilding.

Gamine took my hand, and I left Adric and Cynara
with a wistful glance. Cynara was lovely, and very
human, and I suppose I had hoped that in some way
she would compensate for my enforced stay in this
world. But if Adric was himself again, could I hope
that?

Gamine and I stood on the steps of the Dreamer's
Keep and her voice, soft and wistful, mourned in the
darkness. "Old Rhys knew I had been born with
Dreamer powers, even before I was bound to him. He
knew and kept me close to him, hid me and helped
me. One day Adric found out. It changed him; he -- 
we freed Narayan, together. Then Karamy made me
what I was, what you saw. It hurt Adric -- hurt some-
thing deep in him. I could have cured him, in time,
but Karamy had him bewitched. She stripped him of
power, of memory. Perhaps some day he will re-
member that I was what I was."

"Gamine! Gamine!" Adric's voice cried from
within, and the next moment he rushed forth, caught
the Dreamer woman in his arms and his mouth met
hers, and she stood swaying in his arms, laughing
and crying together. Cynara, following slowly, smiled
with gentle satisfaction. Over Adric's shoulder,
Gamine's blue eyes met mine. Adric knew.

Cynara's voice was tenderly humorous as we left
them together, in the glory of the rising red sun. "Poor
Gamine," she said, "and poor Adric. I kept an eye on
him, for her sake and Narayan's. I was sorry for them
both, Michael, I knew -- I knew you were not
Adric-"

She was very lovely and very human, Cynara, and
I remembered how I had looked into her eyes on our

first ride together, and hated being the person Adric
was then.

"I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never
made -- "

"But you did," Cynara said softly, and I realized I
had spoken the words aloud. I looked at Adric,
clasped in Gamine's arms, standing in the glow of a
new day that was dawning for them. He had found
his world.

"But it is your world too," Cynara said, and taking
my hand in hers, led me down the steps of the
Dreamer's Keep, into the strange sunrise. A shout
went up from the men assembled around the tower,
waiting. I heard it, drew a deep breath and then put
my arm around Cynara, calling to Adric to come and
share it with me.