By now Lorya had taken the farmer's second son as her lover, and she persuaded him to organize the young men of all the nearby farms as a band of warriors. It did not matter who won, she said-they would have to protect themselves, and neither side could punish them for that. It took some time for a century of fear of the Wizard to vanish, but in the end the job was done.

So now Lorya's lover commanded forty men, half of them mounted, and they patrolled the country for many miles in all directions. They kept the Wolves and the bandits out, and collected some taxes of their own. Lorya herself had learned to use a sword until she was a useful member of the band. Of course, in another month or so she would have to start saving her strength for the baby- She saw the question in Blade's eyes and nodded. "It is yours."'

"Does your lover know?"

"Yes. I made him swear a mighty oath to treat the Lord Blade's seed as he would treat the Lord Blade himself."

"And if he breaks that oath?"

"He is not the only protector in Rentoro. If I find a man who is traveling to Dodini, I may go with him anyway. I do not know what is happening in Dodini, but I do not think anyone there will now punish me for defying the Wizard!"

"That seems likely enough," said Blade. "Lorya, you've done rather well by yourself. I wish you luck-"

"No, Blade," she said with a smile. "Wish that I go on making my own luck. That is what you told me to do when you sent me to Peloff. That is what I have been doing."

Blade couldn't argue. He only hoped she could go on making this kind of luck as long as she needed to-long enough to get home to Dodini, long enough for Rentoro to settle down. She deserved to live, and Rentoro needed more cool heads like hers.

Chapter 24.

The next morning Blade kissed Lorya farewell, thanked her lover for his hospitality, and rode off to the south. With him as he rode was the knowledge that before dark tonight he might be confronting the Wizard.

In Peloff he saw again what might have happened to Lorya if she hadn't done so well making her own luck. There was no Peloff now, only ashes, charred timbers, and blackened stone, Bodies lay in the streets, most so badly charred that neither decay nor scavengers had touched them. Blade skirted the edge of the town and kept on to the south.

The village on the border of the Wizard's land still stood, but there was not a living human being in it, or a dead one either. Only flies on the garbage heaps and a scavenger dog or two moved among the houses and inns. The people might have evaporated, like dew at sunrise.

Blade climbed to the top of one of the inns and scanned the countryside to the south. He could see no one at work in the fields and no Wolves patrolling the roads, but neither surprised him. The Wolves and everyone else who could get clear of the Wizard's land must have long since done so.

If they could get clear. Everyone he'd met on the road spoke of something terrible and violent happening in the castle. Rumor and panic could exaggerate, but Blade wondered if they could make up such a tale out of thin air. He'd hoped he was through with mysteries in Rentoro, yet here he was, faced with one more!

Blade went downstairs and found dry bread and stale cheese. The water in the well was still clean. He drank and filled his water bottle. Then he mounted his heuda and rode south, past the white posts into the Wizard's empty lands.

In all the miles to the castle Blade did not meet a single living human being. The Wizard's lands seemed to have been depopulated as completely and as mysteriously as the village on the border. Blade began to hope for the sight of a burned house or a sprawled body, anything to tell of ordinary human violence. He had the feeling that he was riding down the road under the eyes of a thousand watchful ghosts.

Whatever had happened to the Wizard's people, it had happened some time ago. Kitchen gardens were rank with weeds. Livestock wandered aimlessly, browsing on the standing grain, while unmilked cows bellowed in agony.

Mile after mile without a sign of life, with all the defensible points abandoned. The bridges were intact, the fortified houses empty, not a single sentry visible anywhere. Now an army of ten thousand men could march up to the walls of the castle in a single day. Did the Wizard care?

By the time the castle loomed on the horizon ahead, Blade was almost certain his journey was in vain. The Wizard was dead. He had to be. He'd driven his people off, or perhaps killed them, and then ended his own life somehow. He was gone and all his secrets with him.

Yet Blade was not going to accept this idea until he'd explored the castle and seen the Wizard's body with his own eyes.

Blade rode up to the same gate he'd entered before and found it standing wide open. He rode straight in through the gateway and turned to the right. That led to the normal route into the castle. The b.o.o.by traps and other devices along the route that had tested him and trained the Wolves might have broken down-and they might not have. Blade wasn't going to take any unnecessary chances, this close to his goal.

He found two half-decayed bodies on his way in. They lay on the path side by side, a Wolf and what must have once been a young woman. The Wolf's skeletal hand clutched the hilt of a sword driven through the woman's body. Apparently she'd been fleeing when the Wolf overtook her. Fleeing from what? And why was the Wolf dead beside her? There was no sign of violence on the body or on the rusty armor that still encased it.

Blade rode on, and shortly before dark tied his heuda to the knocker on the innermost gate. Then he tied his pouch with the sky-bridge crystals to his belt. He didn't want to leave anything as valuable on the heuda, just in case the castle was not as deserted as it looked.

The gate was closed but not locked. Blade pushed it open and slipped inside. A few feet beyond the gate he nearly stumbled over another body. This one was almost fresh, and wore the robe of one of the Wizard's a.s.sistants. A faint gleam of metal caught Blade's eye. He bent down and saw one of the Wizard's own jeweled daggers thrust up to the hilt in the young man's back. Blade pulled it out and added it to the pouch on his belt A narrow dark pa.s.sageway led to the courtyard in front of the Great Hall. Blade came to the end of the pa.s.sageway and stopped abruptly. In the center of the courtyard the stones were cracked and blackened, in one spot melted into blackish gla.s.s. All around the blackened area lay bodies. A few were slightly burned, but most were intact and fairly fresh. Nearly all the bodies were naked, and some of the men and women lay locked together. A barrel of wine had split apart and dumped its contents across the stones, and drinking cups, robes, armor, and daggers lay scattered everywhere. It looked to Blade as if a sort of open-air orgy had been suddenly, gruesomely, and fatally interrupted.

Blade finished examining the courtyard, then raised his eyes to the window of the Great Hall. Half of it was gone, blown out by whatever had interrupted the orgy and fallen in pieces on the stone below. The pale glow of a lantern was visible at the bottom of the window, and Blade thought he saw a human head silhouetted against the glow. Slowly he stepped out into the open courtyard, and as he did the head turned and Blade heard a familiar voice call out: "Ho, Blade! Come up. I have much to say to you."

It was the Wizard.

The man sounded perfectly normal, not even angry, but Blade still preferred to be careful. The normal route to the Great Hall would give anyone waiting for him a dozen opportunities to lay ambushes in the darkness. So Blade scrambled up the wall beneath the window, using his rock-climbing skills on the carved cornices and gargoyles. He found an entire section of window knocked cleanly out and swung himself in through it, dropping into combat stance the moment his feet hit the floor.

The Wizard showed no surprise at seeing Blade come in through the window instead of the door. He was sitting at a table under the window, with a view-ball in front of him. It was activated-Blade caught a glimpse of blue sky and stark, snow-crested mountains. Beside the view-ball lay a yard-long wooden stick with a silver ball on one end.

The Wizard rose and came forward to greet Blade. There was new gray hair at his temples and his eyes were red, but otherwise he seemed as vigorous and well-groomed as ever. Blade took three backward steps and drew his sword. "If you don't mind, I'd rather you didn't come any closer."

The Wizard stopped and laughed softly. "So we are back to the first moves of our game, are we?"

"Yes, until I know what the game is."

"Ah, it will not take long to tell you." The Wizard's voice was low, his words were clear, and Blade could detect no sign of strain, tension, or loss of control in the man. He would almost have felt better if the Wizard had been raving and drooling. Under the circ.u.mstances, the man's calm was unnatural, even frightening.

"You surprised me when you and Serana fled that night," said the Wizard. "It was not a pleasant surprise, either. But when I thought over all you had done and said, I saw the truth clearly for the first time. Your destiny would not be linked to mine, at least not in Rentoro. So it was time to change my plans. My power would pa.s.s from Rentoro when I did, so what further use were my people?"

"You mean the Wolves?"

"Yes, and all the others as well. They had no further purpose. So the Wolves went against Morina, and did as well as they could without my aid. I would have been happier if Morina had perished along with the Wolves, but much was accomplished in spite of this failure."

"Not all the Wolves are dead," said Blade. "Some are finding places as leaders of Rentoro's new armies." Perhaps it was not wise to say this, and certainly he didn't like the Wolves any better than before. Nonetheless he was disgusted by the Wizard's sending out his faithful Wolves to be slaughtered simply because he could not stand the idea of his people living on after him.

"Ah," the Wizard said. "I would deal with them if I could, but the time for that is past. I have no one left to help me, unless you-no, I see that you would not care to, as much as you seem to have hated the Wolves."

"You are quite right," said Blade. "But where are the rest of your people? The castle seems to be deserted, except for a few bodies. Did they flee, or-"

"They did not flee," said the Wizard quietly. He rested a hand on the view-ball and concentrated all his attention on the image. It dissolved, the view-ball seemed to become filled with boiling milk, then a new image started to form.

Blade was strongly tempted to take advantage of the Wizard's concentration and knock him unconscious. He did not like what the Wizard's story implied about the man's state of mind. A feeling was growing in him that the Wizard should not be taken back to Home Dimension, even if it turned out to be possible. Was the Wizard still capable of revealing his secrets and teaching his skills? Perhaps. But wasn't he even more likely to prove murderously dangerous? Sooner or later he would be stopped, but at what cost to the Project? What cost in lives? The more Blade thought about it, the idea of bringing the Wizard home seemed like bringing a man-eating tiger to a c.o.c.ktail party.

Then the new image was formed in the view-ball, and the Wizard raised his hand to give Blade a clear look at it. Blade stared-and although he'd thought he was past being surprised or shocked by anything in Rentoro, his jaw dropped.

He saw the rugged, snow-covered surface of what seemed to be an endless glacier. Far off on the horizon jagged mountain peaks thrust up against a gray sky. The snow flew up in clouds, lashed by an icy wind.

The surface of the glacier was covered with frozen contorted bodies, both men and women. Blade recognized the clothes of castle servants and farm laborers, the armor of household guards and Wolves. Among the bodies a few living people crawled on all fours, like animals. With knives and bare hands they tore at the corpses all around them and crammed the frozen flesh into their mouths.

Blade forced his eyes away from the view-ball, but he could not quite make himself look at the Wizard. "You sent them all to the north?" he said, in a distant voice.

"Yes," said the Wizard. "Many years ago I went into the frozen mountains beyond the crystal mines and placed skybridge crystals there. I thought I might someday need a road of escape. Every year I went back there and saw that the crystals were still sound.

"Then the end did come. You brought it. Those who had served me could not be permitted to live, yet I could not kill them all myself. So I opened the sky-bridge into the north. I told all my people they would pa.s.s across it to safety, in a land where no one would know them. They obeyed-"

"Not all of them."

"No. There were some who rebelled, because they did not trust me. They had to be slain here in the castle. But most went across the sky-bridge, and now they are all dead or dying. Those who still live eat the flesh of the dead, Not even the bodies will be found, for they will vanish into the glacier and the glacier into the sea. To Rentoro, it will be as if all those who served in my castle and on my lands vanished into the sky. I did not leave Morina as a monument to my power, but I will leave this memory." The Wizard's voice was beginning to rise. Blade found it hard to keep his hands steady. They were shaking with his efforts to keep them from closing around the Wizard's throat and squeezing.

"Then I destroyed the sky-bridge, and by the power of my mind alone slew all those who had remained behind to guard it. You saw their bodies in the courtyard. Now only you and I remain alive in all the castle, and soon we also shall be gone. You will return to your England, and I will return with you. You have not served me here in Rentoro, but you will in England, and you will be the first of many to serve me there."

With those last words, the Wizard s.n.a.t.c.hed up the stick from the table and smashed it across Blade's sword arm. Blade felt the bone go and saw the sword fly across the room. He started to draw his dagger with his left hand, then suddenly the Wizard was a.s.saulting his mind more strongly than ever before.

Without the moment's warning given by the Wizard's physical attack, Blade's mind would have been in the other man's grip in seconds. He staggered back, both hands dropping limply, unable to even think about drawing his dagger. He took two more backward steps, then the Wizard's mental commands forced him to stop. He began to concentrate all his attention on simply keeping his mind out of the Wizard's grip, letting his body take care of itself.

The Wizard had gained in mental power since Blade left the castle. This was clear within moments. Blade ran through his mind mathematical formulas, images of London, images of his travels and battles in Rentoro and elsewhere. The Wizard matched every formula and image with one of his own that quickly dominated Blade's. Blade felt like a small radio station jammed by a more powerful one. He was grimly aware that he had no more than a few minutes of mental freedom left. The Wizard was going to beat him down, and then- Then he would do his best to return to Home Dimension with Blade, and he might succeed. He might arrive there with Blade firmly under his control and unable to warn anyone. Then the tiger would be loose in the c.o.c.ktail party. The Wizard's dreams of ruling England were the ravings of a madman. But how many people would die before the Wizard was stopped, and what would happen to Project Dimension X?

Blade knew he had to kill himself, or at least knock himself unconscious. He might end up staying here in Rentoro, the mind-slave of the Wizard until the man was killed, but that would be better than loosing the Wizard on an unsuspecting Home Dimension.

He forced himself to take a step toward the window. The Wizard increased his attacks. Blade tried to take another step and found his legs giving under him. He fell to his hands and knees, gasping, his head beginning to throb painfully with the effort of fighting the Wizard.

Then the throbbing in his head became the familiar pain that told of Lord Leighton's computer reaching out to grip his brain. It was agony, but at this moment it was also the most glorious sensation Blade could remember feeling. He would go Home, alive, his mind free, and be d.a.m.ned to the Wizard and his secrets!

Then the Wizard staggered and clapped both hands to his temples, crying out, "Blade! My head!" The room began to swirl around Blade, and only the Wizard remained clear, fighting to stay on his feet, eyes shut and face contorted.

The mental link between them meant the computer was gripping the Wizard's brain too! He was going to come back to Home Dimension with Blade, unless Blade could break the link. He tried to turn around, found his feet rooted to the floor, managed to draw his dagger, raised it, took a step forward- -and then everything dissolved into thundering black swirling chaos, with red and gold flaming through it. Blade fell through the chaos, the Wizard fell beside him, and suddenly there was a hard floor under Blade. He heard his dagger clatter on stone, saw the chair in the gla.s.s booth looming over him, and heard Leighton's voice.

"He's back-and there's someone with him!"

Blade saw the Wizard sprawled unconscious on the other side of the chair and knew he had to speak. He raised his head and croaked, "Dangerous-telepath-mad-killed all-"

Then he felt as if he'd been hit on the back of the head with a club. He slumped forward, and a complete blackness that wasn't chaotic at all but very soothing swallowed him up.

Chapter 25.

Slowly Blade drifted back to consciousness. He was in his usual room in the Project's private hospital. J just standing at the foot of the bed, flanked by two attractive nurses. Blade struggled up into a sitting position, discovering in the process that his right arm was in a cast. He looked a question at J.

"Just a simple fracture," the older man said with a smile. "You'll be out of here within a few days, unless the doctors really dig in their heels." J understood what a bad patient Blade was and how he usually recovered faster out of the hospital than in it.

"How is the Wizard?" Blade asked.

"The man who came back with you? We've got him in another room, under sedation. Yes, we heard your warning. We'll keep a close eye on him once he's conscious, although I doubt if an old man like that could really be dangerous, physically or mentally."

"You haven't had any experience of what-" began Blade, then stopped. His mind was still foggy, but somewhere far in the back of it a warning bell was chiming faintly. "Old man?"

"Oh yes-must be as old as Leighton or older. I admit he looked younger when we first saw him. That must have just been a trick of the lighting in the computer room. He-"

Slowly Blade shook his head. "He is younger. Or at least he was. He-"

"Richard, are you all right?"

Blade ignored J. In his mind the warning bell was now clanging like a fire alarm. Ignoring the presence of the nurses, he leaped out of bed and s.n.a.t.c.hed up a hospital gown. The nurses drew back, not quite willing to tackle Blade in this condition without J's permission. Before J could say anything, Blade pulled the gown over his head and was out the door.

He trotted down the corridor as fast as he could go without jarring his broken arm. Then he realized that in his haste he'd forgotten to ask what room the Wizard was in. Before he could turn back, two doctors and three nurses came charging down the corridor at a dead run, carrying every sort of emergency medical gear Blade had ever seen. One of them recognized Blade and snapped, "Get back into bed, for G.o.d's sake! We've got a total cardiac arrest in that old man Leighton dumped on us!" Before Blade could reply the medical team vanished into the nearest room.

Blade followed them in. The doctor turned to whisper savagely, "Get out of here, you-" But another doctor pointed at the electroencephalograph standing beside the bed. It showed that all brain function had ceased in the man lying in the bed.

Bernardo Sembruzo, Conde di Pietroverde, captain for the Visconti, Wizard of Rentoro, genius, was dead-dead of the old age his mental powers had kept at bay for so long, until those powers were destroyed by the pa.s.sage from Rentoro to Home Dimension.

Blade looked down at the wrinkled, shrunken, white-haired thing in the bed, and once again he could not have said a word to save his life. The Wizard had turned all his wisdom to uses that grew more and more evil, but he'd had that wisdom. He'd had it until Richard Blade-or at least something that Richard Blade set in motion-destroyed it.

In silence Blade walked back to his room, leaving the doctors and nurses standing around the dead Wizard. In spite of his broken arm, his exhaustion, and the sleeping pills the nurses gave him, Blade found it rather hard to get to sleep that night.

Four days later Blade was sitting in a chair in Leighton's private office. J was sitting in another, and Leighton sat behind his great battered Victorian desk. Beside the desk was a rectangular box covered with canvas and a battered briefcase.

Leighton looked up from his desk with a strangely satisfied smile on his face. Blade wasn't sure what there was to be satisfied about, considering that this trip to Rentoro seemed to have been a complete waste for everybody except the Rentorans.

"Ah, Richard," said Leighton cheerfully. "J tells me that you've been rather depressed over the fate of the Wizard. Blaming yourself for his death and all that."

There were times when J carried his fatherly interest in Blade a little too far. Blade frowned. "I think depressed is too strong a word. However, I will admit that I do feel responsible for a somewhat unfortunate situation." When he chose, Blade could use an understatement as well as anybody. "The Wizard must have had one of the most powerful minds that ever lived. That mind was working, even if rather oddly, until I dragged him with me into Home Dimension."

"The Wizard's situation was already unfortunate before you had anything to do with him," said Leighton. "The autopsy showed that. He'd been able to control the aging process in his body, but only partly in his brain. The autopsy showed a good many brain cells that had lost function long before you came on the scene. He must have already been on the edge, and those last efforts put him over. He was caught in a vicious circle. The more his brain deteriorated, the more wild ideas he got, and the more wild ideas he got, the more he increased the strain and the rate of deterioration.

"No, Richard, there's nothing you did to the Wizard that wasn't already inevitable-and close. In fact, one might say that you gave him a more merciful death than he would have had otherwise. If he hadn't come with you, he would have ended up a mindless animal, staggering, then crawling, then lying in his own filth until he died of thirst or starvation or disease. As it was, he died painlessly in a hospital bed, not even knowing that he was dying."

Blade felt a great sense of relief. If Leighton said this, it was true to the best of his knowledge. Leighton would lie with a perfectly straight face about quite a few things, but never about anything scientific. On scientific questions he would not tell a lie to save himself from a firing squad, let alone to make Richard Blade feel less guilty.

Blade smiled. "So I suppose he would not have been able to teach me or anyone else his skills, even in Rentoro?"

"Unlikely, to say the least. The effort involved in the teaching would probably have pushed him over the edge."

"So now he really is gone, and all his secrets with him," said Blade.

Leighton's eyes sparkled. "Not quite, Richard, not quite." Painfully he bent down and pulled off the canvas cover, revealing a wire cage with two white mice in it. Then he opened the briefcase and took out two pairs of sky-bridge crystals. They were only a fraction of the normal size, but there was no mistaking the material.

Leighton placed one pair carefully on his desk, then put the other pair on the floor in front of the cage. Blade held his breath. Leighton opened the cage door, the mice darted out, they pa.s.sed between the crystals on the floor- -then with a faint pop they appeared between the crystals on Leighton's desk. Both were lying motionless on their sides, but Leighton reached over and gently prodded their stomachs with a finger. Slowly they got to their feet, then darted for the edge of the desk. J caught them as they reached it, cupped one in each hand, and gently returned them to the cage.

"We are able to cut these from one of the crystals you brought, then activate them electrically," said Leighton. "Unlike mental force, electricity makes the crystals permanently active, and uses them up rather quickly. So we can't make any really high-capacity sky-bridges with the crystals you brought back.

"However, we're working on that. A spectrographic a.n.a.lysis suggests at least the possibility of synthesizing the crystals on a large scale. It will require a fairly large investment in research-don't groan out loud, J, if you please! but I suspect that in the near future . . ."

Blade found himself unable to pay attention to Leighton's predictions about the near future. A single, magnificently satisfying thought was echoing around his mind.

It hadn't been wasted, after all.