Geis of the Gargoyle (43 page)

"Including how we'll find the philter?"

"You will never find the philter."

"And you will never tell the truth about that," he retorted.

She shrugged.
 
"We shall see."

The train pulled into another station.
 
"This is where you get out," Hanna said.

"Suppose we prefer to ride on to another station?"

"You can't.
 
This is the end of the line.
 
You can proceed farther only on the ship of thought."

Gary looked at Gayle, and shrugged.
 
The illusions would be whatever the philter decided they were.
 
And if there were another station, that would probably just be another variant of the same city.
 
"So we'll search in Stone Hence," he agreed grudgingly.

They left the train.
 
The future city spread out around them and towered above them impressively.
 
At the street level there were many fancy shops with lighted displays.
 
Was the philter likely to be in any of them?

He had a bright idea.
 
"Let's see if there are any plumbing shops here," he said to Gayle.

As they looked down the street, they saw an especially bright store with a marquee: PLUMBING GALORE.
 
That was almost too convenient, but still worth checking.

Inside the store were many weird objects.
 
They seemed to relate to water, but their purposes were unclear.
 
"What is this?" Gary asked.

"That's a flush toilet," Hanna said.

"What does it flush?"

She said a dirty word.

After a moment, he realized that the answer had been literal.
 
That was what it flushed.
 
Embarrassed, he went on.

They spied a kind of enameled basin with an impossible array of things jammed in it.
 
"What is that?"

"The kitchen sink.
 
Everything is in it except itself."

"What does this shop have in the way of water filters?" he asked, wondering how she would react.
 
Was it possible by some devious rule of mad magic that she would have to show him what he asked for?

She showed him a collection of little meshes and screens.
 
There were hundreds of them.
 
One of these might be the philter-but how would they know it from all the others? And if they spotted the real one, how would they handle it? A demon could not be held in the hand; it would simply fade out and appear elsewhere.

The more he thought about it, the more hopeless his quest seemed.
 
How had the Good Magician expected him to capture a demon?

"You look as if you are realizing that your quest is hopeless," Hanna said smugly.

Then he remembered: she could read his thoughts.
 
That's where she had gotten the image of Hannah Barbarian from.
 
So even if he got a good notion where the philter was, she would know it as soon as he did, and would do something to prevent him from following up.

"You are catching on," Hanna murmured appreciatively.

He sighed.
 
He turned to Gayle.
 
"She knows what I'm thinking.
 
That means the philter knows.
 
So I don't have a chance to surprise it, and if I get close to it, it can move or divert me before I catch it.
 
I don't know what to do."

"But can it read my thoughts?" Gayle asked.

"Of course I can," Hanna said.

"Then what am I thinking now?"

"Why should I tell you what you already know?"

"Because I don't think you can read stone thoughts," Gayle said' evenly.
 
"You can get into Gary's fleshly head, but my soul and thoughts are secure from you.
 
Prove it isn't so."

Hanna scowled.
 
That was answer enough.

"Then you take the lead," Gary said, relieved.
 
"And if you locate the philter, grab it with stone."

Gayle smiled, showing formidable teeth.
 
"I shall.
 
I think I owe it a reckoning."

"You're fooling yourself," Hanna said.
 
"I call your bluff: find the philter.
 
I'll guide you anywhere you ask."

"Let's take that spaceship building," Gayle said.
 
"I would like to see Alpha Centauria."

"As you wish." Hanna led them from the shop and to the spaceport.
 
Another ship was waiting there.

They took an odd moving stairway up to a door that opened in the side of the ship.
 
Gary was bemused; this just wasn't his idea of a ship, as it had no sails and was standing on its tail end.
 
But he had seen the other one flee from the fire at its tail, so it evidently had strong magic propulsion.

"What kind of stair is this?" Gayle asked as she balanced somewhat nervously on forepaws and hindpaws.

"It is called an escape-later," Hanna said.
 
"Escalator for short.
 
Because it takes more time to get in and out of the ship with it, but is more convenient."

"More convenient than what?" Gary asked.

"Than jumping."

She had a point.
 
It was now a long way down.

Hanna entered the ship, and Gary was about to follow, when there was a noise behind.
 
He turned, startled, and saw Gayle catching at the steps.
 
The esk-later seemed to have lost a step or two, putting her in peril of falling.

Quickly he reached out, catching her by a stone wingtip as her hind feet broke through the stairway.
 
He hauled her in-but her stone weight was much greater than his, and he succeeded only in jerking himself toward her.

"Let go!" she cried.
 
"You'll just hurt yourself too!"

"Not without you," he said.
 
He caught the rail with his free hand and hung on desperately.

Gayle scrambled with all four feet, precariously balanced, but in a moment his pull on her wing enabled her to get more of a grip and haul herself up to secure footing.

"That escalator is intended for human use," Hanna said.
 
"Your great weight must have overstressed it." She did not seem unduly alarmed.

"I must be more careful," Gayle said, somewhat shaken.
 
Gary was shaken too.
 
A fall from this height could have shattered her into a dozen pieces.

The interior of the ship was fairly nice.
 
There were a number of small compartments, and special seats with harnesses.
 
"These are acceleration couches," Hanna explained.
 
"You must strap yourselves in."

"But they don't fit me," Gayle protested.

"That may be a problem," Hanna agreed.
 
"Maybe you will be all right on the deck."

Gary strapped in, and Gayle crouched down.
 
"Now the acceleration will be strong at first, but will ease once the ship attains escape velocity," Hanna said.
 
"Just hang on until it passes." She faded out.

The ship shuddered.
 
Then Gary felt a huge invisible hand press him down so heavily that it was hard to breathe.
 
He gasped and clenched his muscles, fighting to maintain consciousness.
 
Somehow it seemed that the pressure was not merely down but out, as if something wanted to dump him out the window.
 
But he managed to realign, internally, and shore up his constitution.
 
His flesh might be human for the nonce, but his nature was gargoyle, and there was stone in his personality as well as his natural body.

After what probably was not as long as it seemed, the pressure eased, and he was able to function normally again.
 
There was still pressure there, making him weigh perhaps twice what he normally did, but he could handle that readily enough.
 
He looked down-and Gayle was gone.

Alarmed, he looked all around.
 
He saw claw scrape marks on the floor.
 
They streaked back to the rear of the compartment, where the access hole was.
 
And there was Gayle, her teeth locked around the leg of a couch.

Gary remembered how he had felt the push toward the

window.
 
The same force seemed to have affected Gayle.
 
But she had been near the hole rather than the window.
 
Had she slid into the hole, she would have taken a fall with the full power of the downward pressure.
 
That would have been worse than the fall from the esk-later.

He unbuckled himself and went to her, treading slowly and heavily.
 
"I never thought the force would be so strong," he said.

"Neither did I," Gayle said, after prying her teeth from the leg.
 
She, too, could handle this reduced level.
 
"I was lucky to save myself."

Gary looked out the window.
 
Stars, planets, and comets were whizzing by.
 
"We must be traveling very fast," he said.

"And going very far," she agreed.

"Where is Hanna?"

"She must be seeing to one of the other pairs."

"So we're on autopilot now."

"We must be.
 
See, there's a repetitive quality to those stars out there."

"Yes," he agreed.
 
"So maybe we have to talk, while she figures we'll be busy with the extra weight.
 
She probably doesn't realize how tough gargoyles are."

"Talk?"

"I don't think those accidents you have had are coincidental.
 
This is mostly illusion, remember.
 
How can we fall, if we aren't really high up? So why should that esklater give way under your weight, if it's just a semblance? Weight can't crush an illusion."

"I didn't think of that," Gayle said.
 
"And the way I slid to the hole-yet how could a fall hurt, if it's illusion?"

"But it could hurt-if the illusion covers a real pit.
 
I saw Iris dispatch a monster by using illusion to trick it into running into a chasm.
 
Since the philter controls these special illusions, those problems must have been intentional."

"So there really is a pit," she said.
 
"I reacted when I seemed to be falling, but I also realized that it wasn't fully real.
 
Now I'm suspicious that it is." She moved to the access hole in the floor and put a paw in.
 
"There's a void here, all right." She considered half a moment.
 
"But we knew there was a hole here, because we used it to enter this chamber.
 
What about the way the esk-later started to collapse under my weight? You had gone right over the same place."

"Maybe in the real world, there's a pit there, covered by light boards.
 
They supported my weight, but not yours."

She nodded.
 
"I believe you are right.
 
She wouldn't have led us over that spot just by chance.
 
But why would the philter want to get rid of me, and not you?"