Elysia (18 page)

`Moreen!' Alarmed, de Marigny started forward.

`Easy, Searcher!' cautioned Eldin. 'Moreen's safer with the Tree than she'd be with ... why, with Hero here!'

`Oaf !' said Hero. 'But he's probably right: the Tree's the very gentlest soul in all the dreamlands.'

Now the three were in the Tree's shade; cool tendrils touched them, tasted, quivered; there was an almost magical dusk all around, where the Tree's pollens were honeysuckle sweet.

`Tree,' said Hero, 'it's Hero —'

—
and
Eldin!' (from the Wanderer.)

— and we've brought these friends to talk to you.'

`Hero?' answered a throbbing yet ethereal voice from nowhere from everywhere — as tendrils fell faster and touched all three. 'Eldin! Both of you, yes, and one other; but not a permanent dreamer, this one. No, a
real man
—and a girl, too — from the waking world!'

Moreen was nowhere to be seen, but her glad cry fell from high, high overhead even as the Tree's strong lifting tendrils grasped the three men: 'Henri! Oh, let him bring you up! This place is wonderful! Come see!'

But they were already on their way, wound up like bobbins on threads and passed higher and higher into the Tree's heart. Breathlessly they were whirled aloft, then suspended motionless for a moment until they got their breath back, finally deposited light as feathers in the crotch of great branches a thousand feet above the ground. And:
`Shrub sapiens,'
gasped Eldin. 'Boisterous, isn't he? For such a big 'un!'

But the Tree only chuckled in their minds. `Hero and Eldin,' he said again. `My very dearest friends! And de Marigny and Moreen. Well, well! Visitors again, after all this time. Men to talk to — and a real girl!'

`You've heard of us then?' said de Marigny. 'Of she and I?'

Transmitted to de Marigny's mind by touch, coming to him through leaves and cilia and tendrils, there was mental affirmation as the Tree said: 'Oh, I've heard of you, Searcher. Indeed, I've been expecting you!'

De Marigny couldn't contain himself. 'So Atal's alien thoughts from outside did come from Elysia after all,' he burst out. 'And they concerned me?'

The Tree read his meaning clearly. 'You and your young woman, yes, and the time-clock, too,' he answered. But now de Marigny detected a certain reluctance a note of sadness in the Tree's touch — and his heart sank.

'There's nothing you can tell us, is there?' he said. 'If you know I'm The Searcher, then you know what I seek. And your sadness can only mean that you either can't or won't help me.'

'I can't, and I can,' said the Tree. 'I
can't tell
you how to get to Elysia, no — but I
can
help. That is, I can narrow down your search a little.'

`Tree,' Moreen cut in, 'I don't quite understand. If someone — that other Great Tree, maybe? — spoke to you from Elysia, and if you in turn talked to him ... I mean, he
must
have known where you were, and vice-versa.'

The Tree followed her meaning and his leaves trembled a little as he considered how best to explain. 'A thought is
a
thought, child,' he said. 'I read yours by touching you. If I couldn't touch you I couldn't talk to you. But I am more attuned to the thoughts of one of my own race. He found me, yes, though not without difficulty, and once the connection was made I could talk back. But as to his location and how one might go there ...' (a mental shrug).

'Another dead end,' de Marigny's shoulders slumped. But then
he
lifted his head and gritted his teeth, still unwilling to accept defeat or even consider it. 'A dead end, yes — but there's something very wrong here. I mean, I know there's no royal road into Elysia — that one makes one's own way there or not at all — but is there any sense in their taunting me? The Elder Gods, I mean? I'm given clues that lead nowhere!' He turned a troubled face to Moreen. 'No man knows Titus Crow like I do, and yet even he ...' He shook his head. 'Something's
wrong!
Titus and Armandra both, they say find Sssss and he may have something for you. We save Sssss from the Hounds of Tindalos, and he's been told to direct us to Earth's dreamlands
— told
to do that by the weird pilot of some other time-clock from Elysia. In the dreamlands we go to see Atal, the very priest of the. Temple of the Elder Gods but even he has been shut out. "Ah! — but maybe Hero and Eldin can help us," he says. So we save the questers from Gudge '

'Narrowly!' put in Eldin.

— and in return they bring us to see the Tree. Now the Tree can actually
talk
to his cousin in Elysia, but be can't tell us the way there, and so —'

'Wait!' said the Tree. 'I
could
talk to him — when he sought me out. And perhaps I could have sought
him
out, given time. But not any more. I tried following his thoughts

'Except when they maybe, er, annoy him,' Eldin added with some feeling, at the same time looking away.

'Moreen might be able to speak to him,' said de Marigny.

She looked doubtful. 'I can talk to all creatures of Nature,' she said. 'Of if they can't talk, at least I can understand them. But a metal man? I'm not sure.'

'Anyway,' de Marigny was determined, `we have to try. Tree, I'm sorry but I can't stay - not even for a little while.'

'He's right,' said Hero. 'Kuranes will be anxious, waiting for our report - and there are all those lads to be picked
up off Zura's coffin-ship, and -'

- And my mission's more important than all of that,' de Marigny cut in. 'It's not just for myself and Moreen any more. It's for everything. I
have
to get to Elysia!'

`That's good enough for me,' said Hero.

`And me,' agreed Eldin. 'Let's go!'

'Your visit was welcome anyway,' said the Tree. 'I'll always remember you, Searcher, Moreen. And if you should ever be in Earth's dreamlands again .. .'

`We'll always come to see you,' Moreen promised, -when and if we can.'

They didn't prolong it. Farewells were short. As quickly
as
he could which was very quickly indeed, de Marigny picked up Kuranes' men from the deck of
Shroud II
and left Zura to brood alone over her Charnel Gardens. Before noon they were all back in Serannian

Kuranes met them on Serannian's sky-floating rim, the wharves not far from where the Museum jutted on its vertiginous promontory. And no need to inquire after Kuranes' pleasure at the sight.of his men, the questers alive and well, and Moreen and de Marigny as they trooped from the dock; his absolute joy and relief were visible in every word and gesture. As to his gratitude to de Marigny, that was beyond words; but desperately eager though The Searcher was, still the Lord of Ooth-Nargai calmed him and led him and his party to a wharfside tavern where a meal was quickly ordered and almost as quickly made
ready. Famished, Hero and Eldin fell at once to their food and drink, but de Marigny was scarcely interested in eating. Instead, and assisted by Moreen, he took the opportunity to tell Kuranes all that he had not yet grasped of his mission, also all that had happened through the previous night and morning.

When he was done Kuranes nodded. Pirates they weren't,' he said, 'not in the true sense of the word. Their vile
acts
of piracy were a simple ploy to
keep
honest men and ships - maybe even explorers and settlers - away from Zura's hinterland; away from that old volcano, which will doubtless be used as a fortress by the Cthulhu spawn when finally they force themselves upon the dreamlands ... If it were allowed to go that far! But that must never be. So, when Admiral Limnar Dass gets back with my armada from the moon, then I'll -'

`Eh?' de Marigny looked puzzled. 'But you told us your ships were plentiful and it was crewmen you were short of. You said you'd disbanded them all or something, that they'd be better employed repairing dreamland's moon-ravaged cities ...'

'Ah!' Kuranes looked confused, caught out. 'Well, yes, that's what I
said,'
he agreed, 'but not quite the whole truth. In fact, something of a large distortion. You see, if you'd been taken by Gudge and his lot, and if they'd questioned you - perhaps forcefully - about dreamland's defences ...'

`You didn't want us telling them that your ships were engaged in mopping-up operations on the moon, eh?'

'Something like that,' mumbled Kuranes. 'Not a mopping-up operation, exactly. Just a show of force, to let the moonbeasts know we can get at them any time we choose, if they ever decide to go against us in the future.'

'I see,' said de Marigny. 'And while the bulk of your fleet is there, doing whatever it's doing, at least one moonbeast, Gudge, has been here, preparing a stronghold
for the Great Old Ones. Well, that's at an end now, anyway.'

'It will be,' Kuranes agreed, 'when Admiral Dass gets back and I have him bomb that shaft and block it forever! Until then ... well, what has all of this shown us, if not how badly you're needed in Elysia, eh?'

'How's that?' de Marigny raised his eyebrows.

'Cthulhu has always been a great influence in men's dreams,' Kuranes stated the obvious. 'Indeed, he's responsible for most of what's nightmarish in them! But not since the Bad Days has
he made
so bold, attempting to influence the dreamlands and through them the thinking of men in the waking world - so greatly. In the affair of the Mad Moon, and now in this. The uprising, certainly an attempt at an uprising, must be very close now. He prepares the way for himself in space and time, and in all the parallel, worlds. The Crawling Chaos is abroad, the stars are very nearly right, and strange times have come again ...'

'Kuranes,' said de Marigny, 'you can help me. No one knows Curator and his Museum better than you.' I need to see him, somehow talk to him.'

Kuranes' turn to raise his eyebrows. 'The grey metal box?' he guessed. 'Did Atal tell you about that? A box with hands like those on your time-clock?'

`It is a time-clock of sorts,' de Marigny nodded. `I'm sure of it. For some strange reason of their own, the Elder Gods have chosen to lead me a mazy chase into Elysia. Maybe
I
have to work for what I want work hard for it - and even though I'm needed there, still they're making me earn my right of passage. Maybe it's that ... and maybe it's something else. I don't know. But I've been told to speak to Curator.'

'Nice trick if you can turn it,' said Kuranes - and he saw de Marigny's face fall. 'It would be no good my holding out false hopes,' he said. 'It's just that I don't know anyone who ever spoke to Curator - and got an answer! What's more, since the advent of the cube, now locked in his chest, he hasn't even been seen. Who can say where he is? He may or may not be somewhere in the Museum. But where? I don't know where he goes. Nor why. Nor how. Sometimes he's not seen for months at a time.'

Will you come to the Museum with us anyway?' Moreen begged.

'Of course I will, child,' said Kuranes at once. 'But it seems only fair to warn you: if Curator is not there - if we can't find him - then there's no help for it.'

When Kuranes, The Searcher and Moreen left the tavern, Hero and Eldin were hard at it, while the astonished proprietor brought them plate after plate and flagon after flagon ...

At the sea-wall, where the time-clock stood under guard of half-a-dozen pikemen, Kuranes pointed across the harbour to where a great stone circular structure stood on a promontory at the eastern extreme of the sky-island. Beneath the three-tier building the rock of Serannian was a comparatively thin crust less than fifty feet in depth, and beneath that — nothing. 'The Museum,' he informed. 'Only one way in and out: along that narrow causeway over the neck of the promontory — unless you're a bird, that is! Thieves think twice and then some more, before tackling the Museum. And then, when they've seen Curator, they don't even think about it any more. Most thieves, anyway . ..' And he glanced back the way they'd come and smiled a little. 'Hero and Eldin tried it on once twice in fact —since when they've given Curator and his Museum a wide berth.'

He led the way round the harbour to the causeway, paused before venturing out over that narrow span. 'No place for vertigo sufferers, this,' he commented. 'You've heads for heights, have you?' And as Moreen and de Marigny nodded in unison he led on.

The causeway was low-walled, perhaps thirty yards long, cobbled. Since there was room for only two abreast, the trio had to cross single-file in order to leave the way free for sightseers leaving the Museum. Looking down over the wall as they went,
de
Marigny and Moreen were able to gaze almost straight down into uncounted fathoms of air — the 'deeps' of the Cerenerian — at all the towns and rivers, shores and oceans of dream, which sprawled in fantastic vistas to all horizons. Far off they could even see Celephais, clearly landmarked where Mount Aran's permanently snow-capped peak stood proud of the gentling Tanarians.

They entered the Museum through a tall stone archway to find themselves in a three-storeyed building whose sealed windows were of unbreakable crystal. Ventilation was through the archway, which had no door, and also through a square aperture in the ocean-facing curve of the wall which was big as a large window but placed much higher. The first and second floors of the Museum contained only those items with which ordinary museums commonly concern themselves; as David Hero had once commented: 'mummies and bones and books', and suchlike. The ground floor, however, was where the Museum's true valuables were housed — of which the quantity and quality were utterly beyond belief.

For here were all sorts of treasures: jewels and precious stones, golden figurines, ivory statuettes, jade miniatures, priceless antiques and bric-a-brac from lands and times forgotten in the mists of ancient dreams, objets d'art which could only have been conceived in the fertile dreams of very special artists and sculptors. In its entirety, the place would be ransom for fifty worlds!

'Curator's collection,' said Kuranes, drawing back de Marigny and Moreen's minds from rapt contemplation, 'of which he's extremely jealous. Oh, yes, for each item has its place — and pity the man who'd try to change it! Myself, I find the upper floors even more awesome.'

The Searcher knew what he meant. He'd seen shrunken heads from immemorial Kled up there; and shrivelled mummies from a caverned mountain in primal Sarkomand; and stone-flowers from some eastern desert at the very edge of dreams, which must be kept bone dry, for a single drop of water would rot them in an instant; and books whose pages glowed with runes written (so Kuranes had it) by mages in antique Theem'hdra at the very dawn of time. And so:

'It is a very wonderful place,' de Marigny agreed, his hushed voice echoing in the now almost entirely vacated Museum, 'and we've seen wonders galore here.'

And reading his mind, Moreen added: 'But nowhere Curator.'

Kuranes sighed. 'I told you, warned you. No man can ever guarantee or govern Curator's comings and goings.'

They left the Museum empty of human life, walked back across the causeway. There, along the curve of the sea wall close to the time-clock, a pair of sated questers leaned, propped up by the wall, gazed out over folded arms at the merchantmen and other vessels riding at anchor on a bank of rose-tinted cloud. Hero looked up as Kuranes and his visitors from the waking world approached. 'No luck?' He read the answer in their faces.

Now Eldin straightened up, patted his belly, uttered a gentle, happy belch. And: 'Ah, well,' the older quester rumbled. `I'd hoped it wouldn't come to this, but plainly there's little else for it.' Swaying like a sailor - or perhaps swaggering like a pirate - he passed the three by and headed for the Museum. Curious, they turned to watch him as his pace picked up and he determinedly strode toward the causeway over the promontory. And now Hero ambled up and joined them.

`See,' the younger quester explained, 'Curator has a thing about us - especially about Eldin. Damn me, but that old metal man doesn't trust the Wanderer a bit! It has to do with a couple of big rubies we once almost, er, borrowed from the Museum - almost. Curator took umbrage, of course, and stopped us, since when we've steered clear. But now it seems we can use this, er,
aversion
of his to your advantage. Except Curator-taunting's a dodgy business at best - which is why we tossed for it.' He handed de Marigny an antique, much-rubbed triangular golden tond, upon which - on both face and obverse - the same bearded, long-forgotten face remained faintly impressed. De Marigny stared at the coin in his hand, stared harder, and:

'A double-header!' The Searcher exclaimed. 'You tricked him into it!'

Hero looked at de Marigny and narrowed his eyes a little - but only for a moment.
Then
he smiled and said: 'When you know Eldin and me better, you'll know there's no such thing as cheating or trickery between us. A bit of one-upmanship, maybe, that's all. The gamble was Eldin's suggestion, not mine. The coin's his, too. Oh, and incidentally - he's the one who won!'

De Marigny's embarrassment knew no bounds, but before he could say anything to perhaps make it worse -

'Ahoy there in the Museum!' called Eldin, his great hands cupped to his mouth. Passers-by paused in small groups to stare at him, and seagulls on the wall flapped aloft noisily, shocked by his shouting. 'Ahoy old klanker! Come out, come out wherever you are!. An old friend's here to see you, and perhaps sample some of your valuables. And if he
doesn't
see you, he'll
certainly
sample them!'

Hero grinned as he and the other three moved closer to where Eldin stood at the mainland end of the causeway. 'He's just getting warmed up,' he stated. 'He can taunt a lot better than that, believe me.'

`Well then, you metal mute, what's it to be?' roared Eldin. He swaggered forward a few paces onto the walled bridge, cautiously began to cross. But for all his bellowing, his eyes were fixed firmly on the Museum's archway entrance at the other end of the causeway. 'Ho, tin-ribs!' he shouted. 'The Wanderer's back and lusting for loot! So where's the rusty pile of rubble who runs this ruin, eh? Come out, you cowardly can of nuts and bolts!'

Eldin was a third of the way across now and beginning to think that perhaps Curator really was absent. Hand in hand with that thought had come another: if Curator
really

wasn't here, what was there to stop him from implementing his threat? Say one small pigeon's egg-sized ruby? Why, he could be in and out of the Museum's ground floor quick as thought, and not
even
Hero would guess what he'd done - not until they were well away from here, anyway. Eldin's eyes gleamed. On wealth like that, why, they could live like lords for years!

Now Eldin could have stamped up and down the causeway and bellowed for a month to no avail. Likewise his taunting: it would not have turned the trick. Curator was not attuned to stamping, bellowing or taunting. But he
was
attuned - sensitive to an infinite degree - to all thoughts of thievery, malicious damage, or other fell intent where the Museum was concerned. Such thoughts or intentions would have to be investigated and dealt with no matter what the source, but when that source happened also to be Eldin the Wanderer ...

'Oh-oh!' gasped Hero. 'Do you see what I see?'

Kuranes, de Marigny and Moreen, they alt saw. But not Eldin, for he was facing in the wrong direction. In the middle of the causeway he now crept like a cat (remarkable, for one his size and shape), and his bluster had fallen to little more than a whisper: 'Curator? Oh, Curator! Eldin's here to purloin a pearl, or burgle a bauble, or filch a figurine. Or maybe simply rip off a ruby, eh?'

`Eldin!' Hero called out, trying to stay calm. `I think -'

`Quiet?
the Wanderer hissed without turning round. '
Shh!
-
I'm concentrating.' Two-thirds of the way across, he could almost taste success.

But at the landward end of the causeway, behind and below him, Curator 'tasted' something else entirely: he tasted the essence of a thief, the scent of a scoundrel, the suspicious spoor of Eldin the Wanderer. And that was a scent he knew all too well.

Dry-mouthed, Kuranes, The Searcher and Moreen could only look on as Curator emerged more fully from
under
the causeway; but Hero was already running forward. 'Eldin, you idiot! You've succeeded, man - only too well! Look behind you!'

Curator was a vaguely manlike thing; tall and spiky yet somehow lumpy looking, with many spindly arms, a metallic sheen, and faceted, glittering crystal eyes that missed nothing. He came up from beneath the causeway like some strange steel spider, making scarcely a sound as he swung his thin legs up over the wall and drew himself erect on the cobbles of the narrow bridge. At which point, hair bristling on the back of his neck, Eldin slowly turned and saw him.

`B'god!' said Eldin, trying to smile and gulp at the same time. 'If it isn't my old pal the estimable Curator!'

Curator's eyes, a glittering icy blue one moment, turned scarlet in the next. At the same time Hero hurled himself at the metal man's back and grabbed hold of the blunt projection which was his head. Which action doubtless saved the Wanderer's life. For as Hero yanked at Curator's head, twin beams of red death lanced out of his eyes, missed Eldin by a fraction and blackened a patch of stonework on the archway behind him. 'He was only joking, you metal monster!' Hero roared, still trying to pull Curator's head off.

`Curator!' Kuranes was shouting. 'Curator, you're making a dreadful mistake.' But Eldin, who knew he wasn't, had already darted inside the Museum and disappeared from view. Now Curator turned his attention on Hero, for after the Museum and its contents, his next priority, was himself.

De Marigny yelled, `Moreen, the clock!' and raced for his time machine. If he could put the time-clock between Curator and the questers, then they would stand something of a chance. The girl, on the other hand - who had no fear of creatures no matter how weird or monstrous - ran the other way, onto the causeway where even now Curator was

hauling Hero off his back and holding him at arm's length. There was a split-second of near-instantaneous and yet minute scrutiny, and then Curator pivoted and swung Hero out over the wall. Hero's legs hit the wall and hooked there
clung for dear life - as Curator released him!

Moreen was almost upon the metal man but Curator hadn't seen her yet. Instead his head bent forward and his crystal eyes lit on Hero's legs, bent at the knees over the top of the wall. A metal hand reached out, grasped one ankle, straightened the leg. Another arm stretched its hand toward the other ankle, and -

Moreen was there. Without pause she got between Curator and Hero, reached over the wall and grabbed at one of the quester's flailing arms. And half-turning to Curator she cried: 'How dare you? How
dare
you?! Who are you to murder men for the sake of your stupid Museum? Now you fetch Hero up at once!'

Kuranes arrived puffing and panting. He leaned over the wall and caught at Hero's other hand, began hauling him up. Together, he and Moreen finally dragged the wheyfaced quester back to safety - of a sort. But still Curator had not quite released him. Nor had
he
forgotten Eldin.

Seeing Hero in deadly danger, the Wanderer had come charging from the Museum, fists up, adopting a classic boxing stance. Curator saw him, relinquished his hold on Hero (however reluctantly), stepped clankingly, threateningly, toward Eldin. At which point de Marigny set the time-clock down on the causeway between the two.

Curator saw the time-clock; his scarlet eyes slowly cooled to a still-dangerous orange, burned a fierce yellow for a moment, finally turned blue. They glittered like chips of ice as he took one clanking pace, then another, toward the clock. And inside the time-clock, suddenly de Marigny knew what he must do. Hadn't Atal told him that Curator `talked' to the grey metal cube by imitating the movements of its four hands - a robotic semaphore? Well, now he must use the time-clock to 'talk' to Curator in the same manner. But how? The time-clock hid many secrets
in its intricate
being, and this was one of them. Titus Crow had often hinted that the device was half-animate, semi-sentient; but that it should also have this power of mechanical speech . And yet why not? Didn't computers 'talk' to each other in the waking world? And why shouldn't time-clocks? Even Crow had never known the real significance of those four, often wildly vacillating hands: the time-clock, calculating, thinking, 'talking' to itself?

De Marigny knew how to use the clock's scanners, its sensors, its voice-amplification and weapon systems. He could drive it through time and space and places between the two. The 'buttons' and 'switches' and 'triggers' were all in his mind. In the clock's mind. In
their
minds, his and the clock's, when their minds were one. He closed his eyes now and felt for those familiar instruments, controls, and found them. And:
I have to talk to Curator,
he told the clock.
Through you. Please, help me talk to Curator.

In the waking world it might not have worked, but in dreams things are often simpler. This time it was simple: de Marigny felt a door open in his mind, or rather a door
between
his mind and the clock's, and knew he'd found the space-time machine's 'communicator'. And now he could talk to Curator.

Outside on the causeway, Curator came closer still; his crystal eyes seemed full of strange inquiry; he 'stared' expectantly at the hands on the time-clock's dial. And de Marigny didn't keep him waiting.

The change come over the metal man was at once apparent to Kuranes, Moreen and Hero; the change, too, in the time-clock. Its hands, never less than erratic in their movements, now seemed to lose every last vestige of normalcy; they moved insanely, coordination all awry. Or all
together,
coordinated as never before. Not in de Marigny's experience, anyway. And: