Marune: Alastor 933 (11 page)

Efraim discovered himself to be hungry and ate with good appetite. Returning into the hall, he noted that it continued to a flight of dark winding stairs. A noise from the bedroom attracted his attention. He returned to find a pair of valets removing the garments of the dead Kaiark and arranging in their stead a wardrobe conspicuously less ample: presumably the clothes he had left in his old quarters.

“I go now to bathe,” Efraim told one of the valets. “Lay out something suitable for me to wear.”

“With haste, Force!”

“Also, remove this bed, and bring in something larger and more comfortable.”

“Immediately, Force!”

Half an hour later Efraim inspected himself in the mirror. He wore a gray coat over a white shirt, black breeches, black stockings, and black velvet shoes -

garments suitable for informal occasions within the castle. The clothes hung loosely on his body; he had lost weight since the episode at Port Mar.

The stairs at the back of the hall had not yet been explored. He climbed twenty feet to a landing, where he opened a door and looked out into a hall.

He stepped through. The door seemed to be a section of the paneling, invisible when closed. As he stood examining the door and speculating upon its purpose, the Lissolet Sthelany emerged from a chamber at the end of the hall. At the sight of Efraim. she hesitated. then approached slowly, her face averted. The green rays of Cirse, shining from the window at the end of the hall, backlighted her figure; Efraim wondered hour he had ever considered the gauze gowns drab. He watched her as she approached, and it seemed that her cheeks became suffused with a faint flush. Modesty? Annoyance? Excitement? Her expression gave no indication as to her feelings.

Efraim stood watching as she drew nearer. Evidently she intended to continue past, without acknowledging his presence. He leaned forward, half of a mind to put his arm around her waist. Sensing his intent, she stopped short and turned him an alarmed glance. No question as to her beauty, thought Efraim; she was enchanting, perhaps the more so for the peculiar Rhune predispositions.

She spoke in a light colorless voice: “Why do you bolt so precipitously from the mirk-hole? Do you intend to startle me?”

“Mirk-hole?” Efraim looked blankly over his shoulder at the passage. “Yes, of course. I had not considered …” Meeting her wondering gaze he stopped short.

“No matter. Come down to the Grand Chamber, if you will. I would like to talk with you.” He held open the door but Sthelany recoiled in amazement.

“Through the mirk-way?” She stared from Efraim to the passage, then gave a cool trill of laughter: “Do you care so little for my dignity?”

“Of course not,” Efraim declared hastily. “I am absentminded of late. Let us go by the ordinary route.”

“At your convenience, Force.” She waited.

Efraim, recalling nothing of the castle’s internal plan, reflected a moment, then set off down the corridor in the direction which seemed most logically to lead to the Kaiark’s chambers.

Sthelany’s cool voice came from behind him. “Does Your Awesome Presence first intend to inspect the tapestry collection?”

Efraim halted and reversed his direction. He walked past the Lissolet without comment and continued to a bend in the hall, which gave upon a foyer. Before him wide stone stairs flanked by heavy balustrades and archaic lamps of wrought iron led down to the main floor. Efraim descended, with the Lissolet coming demurely behind him. With only a second or two of hesitation he headed for the Kaiark’s chambers.

He opened the tall doors with the gorgon’s heads without difficulty, and ushered Sthelany into the trophy room. He closed the door and pulled a chair away from the table for her use. Giving him her now familiar glance of sardonic perplexity she asked: “Why do you do that?”

“So that you may sit, and hopefully relax, and so that we may talk at our ease.”

“But I may not sit in your presence, under the eyes of your ancestors!” She spoke in a mild and reasonable voice. “Do you wish me to suffer a ghost blight?”

“Naturally not. Let us go into the parlor, where the portraits will not trouble you.”

“Again, this is most unconventional.”

Efraim lost patience. “If you don’t care to talk with me, you certainly have my permission to go.”

Sthelany leaned gracefully back against the table. “If you order me to talk, I must obey.”

“Naturally I will not give such an order.”

“What do you wish to talk about?”

“I don’t really know. Truth to tell, I am puzzled. I have undergone a hundred strange experiences; I have seen thousands of new faces; I have visited the Connatic’s Palace on Numenes … Now that I have returned, the customs of Scharrode seem strange.”

Sthelany considered the matter. “For a fact you seem a different person. The old Efraim was rigorously correct.”

“I wonder … I wonder …” mused Efraim. He looked up to find Sthelany watching him intently. “So you notice a difference in me?”

“Of course. If I did not know you so well I would think you a different man - especially in view of your peculiar absentmindedness.”

After a moment Efraim said, “I confess to confusion. Remember, I did not realize I was Kaiark until yesterday. And arriving here, I discover an atmosphere of resentment, which is not at all pleasant.”

Sthelany showed surprise at Efraim’s ingenuousness. “What would you expect?

Singhalissa may no longer call herself Kraike; she lacks all legitimate place here at Benbuphar Strang. No less do I and Destian; we all must make plans for dreary old Disbague. We live here at your sufferance. It is a sad turn of events for us.”

“I am not anxious that you leave, unless you wish to go.” Sthelany gave an indifferent shrug. “My feelings are of interest only to myself.”

“Incorrect. I am interested in your feelings.”

Again Sthelany shrugged. “Naturally, I prefer Scharrode to Disbague.”

“I see. Tell me, what is your recollection of events in Port Mar during those hours before I disappeared?”

Sthelany grimaced. “They were neither edifying nor entertaining. As you will recall, we stayed at the hotel, which was quite decent and proper. You, Destian, Maerio, and I decided to walk through the town to a place called the Fairy Gardens, where we were to watch puppets. All warned us against the vulgarity we were sure to encounter. But we considered ourselves indomitably callous and crossed the bridge, some of us not altogether enthusiastically. You asked directions of a typical young man of the place, capricious and hedonistic - in fact, I believe him to be the same person who accompanied you here. He led us to the Fairy Gardens, but the puppets were gone. Your friend, Lorca, or Lortha, whatever his name, insisted on pouring a bottle of wine, so that we should, guzzle and gargle and swell out our intestinal tracts in full view of all.

Forgive my language; I can only report the truth. Your acquaintance showed no shame, and ridiculed matters of which he knew nothing. While you conversed, quite enthusiastically, as I recall, with the Lissolet Maerio, this Lorca became remarkably familiar with me, and indeed made some utterly witless proposals.

Destian and I left the Fairy Gardens. Maerio, however, remained with you. She is really much too tolerant. We returned to the hotel, where the Kaiark Rianlle became quite perturbed. He sent Destian to escort Maerio back to the hotel, which he did, leaving you in the company of your friend.”

“And shortly after,” said Efraim, “I was drugged and sent off across space!”

“I should ask your friend what he knows of the matter.”

“Bah,” said Efraim shortly. “Why would he play me such a trick? Somewhere I have gained an enemy, but I cannot suspect Lorcas.”

“You have gained many enemies,” said Sthelany in her soft sweet voice. “There are Gosso of Gorgetto and Sansevery of Torre, both of whom owe you blood, and both expect your reprisals. The Kraike Singhalissa and the Kang Destian are much disadvantaged by your presence. The Lissolet Maerio suffered from your ebullience at Port Mar; neither she nor the Kaiark Rianlle will readily forgive you. As for the Lissolet Sthelany” - she paused and looked sidelong at Efraim; in someone else he might have suspected coquetry - “I reserve my thoughts for myself alone. But I wonder if I can any longer contemplate trisme with you.”

“I hardly know what to say,” Efraim muttered.

Sthelany’s eyes glowed. “You seem distrait and not at all concerned. Of course, you have dismissed the compact as trivial, or even forgotten it.”

Efraim made a lame gesture. “I have become absentminded …”

Sthelany’s voice trembled. “For reasons beyond my imagination, you seek to wound me.”

“No, no! So much has happened; I am truly confused!”

Sthelany inspected him with skeptically raised eyebrows. “Do you remember anything whatever?”

Efraim rose to his feet and started into the parlor, then imagining Sthelany’s emotion should he offer her a cordial, returned slowly to the table.

Sthelany watched his every move. “Why have you returned to Scharrode?”

Efraim laughed hollowly. “Where else could I rule a realm and command the obedience of a person as beautiful as yourself?”

Sthelany abruptly stood back, her face pale save for spots of color in her cheeks. She turned to leave the trophy room.

“Wait!” Efraim stepped forward, but the Lissolet shrank back with a slack jaw, suddenly helpless and frightened. Efraim said: “If you were of a mind to trisme, you must have thought well of me.”

Sthelany regained her composure. “This does not necessarily follow; and now I must leave.”

Swiftly she departed the chamber. Like a wraith she fled down the corridor, across the Great Hall, in and out of a shaft of green light from the star Cirse, and then she was gone.

Efraim signaled Agnois the First Chamberlain.

“Take me to the chambers of the Noble Matho Lorcas.”

Lorcas had been lodged on the second level of Minot Tower, in rooms of grotesque and exaggerated amplitude. Hoary beams supported a ceiling almost invisible by reason of height and dimness; the walls, which were faced with carved stone plaques - again the product of someone’s cogence - showed a thickness of five feet where the four tall windows opened to a view of the northern mountains.

Lorcas stood with his back to a fireplace ten feet wide and eight feet high, in which a disproportionately small fire was burning. He looked at Efraim with a rueful grin. “I am not at all cramped, and there is much to be learned in the documents yonder.” He indicated a massive case thirty feet long and ten feet high. “I discover dissertations, contradictions, and reconsiderations of these same dissertations; and reconsiderations of the contradictions and contradictions of the reconsiderations - all indexed and cross-indexed in the red and blue volumes yonder. I plan to use some of the more discursive reconsiderations for fuel, unless I am furnished a few more sticks for my fire.”

The Kraike Singhalissa hoped to awe and quell this flippant Port Mar upstart, so Efraim suspected. “If you are uncomfortable, a change is easily made.”

“By no means!” declared Lorcas. “I enjoy the grandeur; I am accumulating memories to last a lifetime. Come join me by this miserable fire. What have you learned?”

“Nothing of consequence. My return has pleased no one.”

“And what of your recollections?”

“I am a stranger.”

Lorcas ruminated a moment. “It might be wise to visit your old chambers, and examine your belongings.”

Efraim shook his head. “I don’t care to do so.” He dropped into one of the massive chairs and slumped back, legs outthrust across the flags. “The idea oppresses me.” He glanced about the walls. “Two or three sets, of ears no doubt are listening to our conversation. The walls are shot with mirk-ways.” He jumped to his feet. “We had best look into the matter.”

They returned to the Kaiark’s chambers; Destian’s effects had been removed.

Efraim touched the button to summon Agnois, who, upon entering, performed a stiff bow, which almost imperceptibly seemed to lack respect. Efraim smiled.

“Agnois, I plan many changes at Benbuphar Strang, possibly including new staff.

You may let it be known that I am carefully evaluating the conduct of everyone, from top to bottom.”

“Very good, Your Force.” Agnois, bowing again, displayed considerably more verve.

“In this regard, why have you denied the Noble Lorcas suitable fires? I consider this an incredible failure of hospitality.”

Agnois grew pink in the face; his lumpy nose twitched. “I was given to understand, Force - or better to say - in actuality I must plead guilty of oversight. The matter will be repaired at once.”

“A moment, I wish to discuss another matter. I presume that you are acquainted with the affairs of the house?”

“Only to the extent which might be considered discreet and proper, Your Force.”

“Very well. As you may know I have been victimized in a most mysterious manner, and I intend to get to the bottom of the business. May I, or may I not, rely upon you for total cooperation?”

Agnois hesitated only an instant, then seemed to heave a doleful sigh. “I am at your service, Force, as ever.”

“Very good. Now, let me ask you, is anyone overhearing our present conversation?”

“Not to my knowledge, Force.” He went on reluctantly: “I suppose that such a possibility might be said. to exist.”

“Kaiark Jochaim kept an exact chart of the castle, with all its passages and mirk-holes.” Efraim spoke at sheer hazard, on the assumption that among so many records and so much careful lore, a detailed chart of the castle’s mirk-ways must inevitably be included. “Bring this article to the table; I wish to examine it.”

“Very well, Force, if you will furnish a key to the Privy Case.”

“Certainly. Where is Kaiark Jochaim’s key?”

Agnois blinked. “Perhaps it bides with the Kraike.”

“Where might I find the Kraike at this moment?”

“She refreshes herself
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in her chambers.”

Efraim made an impatient gesture. “Take me there. I wish a word or two with her.”

“Force, do you order me to precede you?”