“This is our chance!” Linda tried
to fit herself into the narrow neighboring seat.
“Our chance to do what?” Nick had prowled the saucer
ship twice. He made several finds of what might be weapons, but he
dared not experiment with them inside the cabin. The only chance he
could see was one so hedged by threats it was nearer to an
invitation to disaster.
“To get back to our own world.” She was impatient.
“These saucers must go through. People have seen them back
there. We have only to learn how, then we’re home!”
“That learning how,” Nick pointed out, “might
take some time. Time we don’t have. When this
lands—”
“We can use illusions again.” Linda dismissed such
details as unimportant, her own goal the real one.
“You mean, we hope we can.” Nick found the flight
pattern of the saucer made him queasy, he wanted nothing more than
to be free of the alien ship.
“We can. And we can get back, too!” Her optimism
remained high.
“You’re forgetting the time factor, aren’t
you?”
“What time factor?”
“These others—they thought they had only been here a few
years. But it’s been thirty. How long have we been
here—days—a week—I’ve not counted. But how long have we been
away?”
What had happened back in the world of the Cut-Off? How long
before they had been missed and the search begun? What about Dad
and Margo? Who had been hunting Linda? She had said no more about
her past than he had. Who was missing her?
“Nick—” Her eagerness was gone, he might have struck
her in the face. “Do you think—But it couldn’t be! We
can’t have been gone months, we can’t!”
He could give her no reassurance. Before, he had not really
considered that point as it applied to himself or Linda. But now
Nick faced it squarely and found that he really did not greatly
care. All that had happened before their arrival in the forest
seemed to be the past of another person and have very little
meaning for the Nick Shaw that now was.
“Dave—” Linda stared ahead of her. “What will
Dave do? What will he think?”
“Who’s Dave?”
“My father, David. He’s with NASA—on the Cape. I was
staying with Aunt Peg for a vacation. But there’s just Dave
and me—we’re a family!”
Linda hunched down in the seat her body did not adjust to.
“Nick, we’ve got to get back. And the saucer people
must know how.”
“First things first—” Nick had only gotten that far,
not knowing how he could make her see the impossibility of what she
wanted, when the saucer began a vertical descent.
They had reached whatever goal had been set. Nick had had no
control over that flight. Now it must be tested whether he had any
defense over what they might encounter outside.
With a hardly perceptible jar the ship touched down and the
vibration of its life ceased. Nick headed back to the area about
the hatch. They had made the best plan they could and at least they
would have surprise on their side.
Again he was to have the active part. The rest, using their
combined concentration, would back him. As the side of the saucer
now opened slowly to form a ramp, Nick drew a deep breath and
walked forward.
He could not tell if his protecting illusion was in force, if he
would indeed appear to anyone outside as a normal alien crewman.
What he could see ahead was not too reassuring. There another of
the saucer ships rested on stilt-legs, its ramp down. To the right
was a section of ground in which huddled a group of drifters. Nick
could see no walls, yet none made an effort to escape even though
there were no visible guards.
To cross the space between the ship and the captives was an
ordeal. Nick expected any moment to be challenged, or else simply
rayed down. He studied the prisoners, tried to understand what kept
them there.
Some distance beyond the captives a tall pole arose into the sky
from a broad earth base. At its tip sprouted two fan shapes
fashioned of glittering wires stretched over frames. Even as Nick
sighted them they moved, the fans waving slowly upward until they
joined above the tip of the supporting pole. Along the wires glowed
light, deepening to a fiery red.
The air about Nick tingled with energy. It was like and yet
unlike the broadcast of the ankh. Nick knew, without understanding
why or how, some vast power was at work.
Now he saw those who controlled it. There were six of the suited
aliens clustered about the base of the pole. What they might be
doing there did not matter, the fact that they were so engrossed by
it did, giving Nick a slender chance.
“Those we seek—there—” An impression from Jeremiah
on his right side. Lung was to his left.
“Can’t go through—a wall ahead—” For the first
time he also caught the Peke’s thought
Nick walked forward with caution. Jeremiah moved before him,
stopped, as if his nose touched an unseen barrier. A force field?
One of the aliens need only look up—see him investigating it—
Though Nick put out his hand to touch what the animals said was
there, he felt nothing—save that a bolt of energy nearly rocked him
from his feet. With that how could the captives hope to escape? And
how could he and his party hope in turn to reach them? If he knew
how to control the ship perhaps they could lift it and drop it on
the other side of the barrier. But that was beyond his skill.
The prisoners noticed him. He saw faces turn in his direction.
Two of the disheveled figures got to their feet—Crocker and Jean.
Did they see him as himself, or did the alien illusion hold?
Illusion—some wisp of thought he could not pin down exactly.
What had Hadlett earlier said—that the illusions a man could
produce were born out of his own particular thoughts and fears,
that those from the medieval period who had taken him prisoner had
seen the demons and devils of their own time. Demons and
devils—what would be the demons and devils of the aliens? If he
only knew more! Nick felt bound and helpless, with weapons just out
of his reach, as he had been in the camp when he had first used the
freedom of mind. He had no guide, no way of knowing what would
serve as the proper demons and devils to evoke here.
Into his mind flashed a memory—that of the Herald riding
unconcernedly along under the attack of the saucer. But he was no
Herald, nor could he, Nick was sure, take on the seeming of one
himself, even though he could create the image of one for a short
space. He sensed that the Herald was too much of Avalon to be used
here in human counterfeit. Also if this place was of Avalon, what
had it to hold for these who were not subject to the People or
their powers? What other fear or threat could he summon? Wait—there
had been that time when another flyer of a different shape had
attacked the saucer—
The cigar ship! Demons and devils! But could they produce that
as an illusion?
In the prison compound Jean and Crocker were aiding Stroud to
his feet with the help of Lady Diana. If Nick was right in his
surmise he would have to drop his own cover, give all power to the
illusion.
“Join!” Nick sent the message to Jeremiah in the
linkage he could not hold direct with his own kind. The big cat
crouched, his tail tip quivering as if he stalked prey. He did not
glance at Nick but the man felt his message was received.
Lung bolted, skimming back to the ramp of the saucer. How long
did they have? Nick fastened his attention on the sky above that
pole, tried to draw there the demon of the aliens—one of the
cigar-shaped ships.
He—his message had gone through! Jeremiah—Lung—those in the
ship behind him understood. There was the enemy that the aliens
knew, hovering over their source of energy. He heard no sounds from
the crew working below, but saw them freeze for a moment and then
scatter, heading toward positions in the grass. They were about to
defend their post desperately, as if it were paramount to their
existence.
In his hand Nick held one of the weapons from the ship. It was a
rod about the length of his forearm, with two buttons at one end.
Being hollow in part he equated it with some type of gun. What it
might do he had no idea, nor even if he could fire it. But the
action of the aliens was a clue. If the fan-pole was so important,
for they were firing rays into the hovering illusion to protect it,
then if he could destroy it . . .
Nick began to run. There was shouting from the prisoner pen, but
he paid no attention. The pole was the important thing now. He came
to a halt, raised the rod and took a chance, pushing the nearest
button with his forefinger, aiming at the fans overhead.
He thought he had failed. There was no trace that the weapon had
fired. Then—
The red glow of the wires above flashed an eye-searing
white!
Nick flung his arm over his eyes. Was he blinded? And that
roaring—enough to deafen one. The ground shook under him, rolled as
if solid earth had vanished. He staggered around blindly, trying to
head away from that holocaust, back to the ship. But where was the
ship?
He was finding it hard to breathe, as if the air was being
drained away. Then he was crawling through a world afire. This
might be the ancient Hell of humankind—
Nick lay on the still trembling ground, pressed against it by a
force like a massive fist weighing upon his back. He was being
crushed and he thought he cried out feebly. Then came darkness in
which the fires of Hell were quenched.
The ankh stood tall, glowing. From it streamed light, reaching
out and out, and under that light was peace. The fan-pole stood and
glowed balefully, it drew upon the life-force of Avalon, and the
peace was broken. Things crept out of ancient places of the Dark to
walk the land again.
Peace fled before the power of the pole, before the Dark,
withdrawing into the city, into those places wherein Avalon nursed
full strength. To and fro were harried those who were neither of
the light nor the Dark—but were prey—Little things, fleeing without
purpose, pursued and attacked by their own fears made manifest and
given foul life. They were blind to all but what they unknowingly
summoned to their own torment.
The balance was disturbed. In the cities gathered the People.
Rita, those others who had accepted Avalon. There stood the Herald
who bore the name of this land, and behind him his four
pursuivants, Oak and Apple, Thorn and Elder, each wearing the badge
of his naming. To the fore of them all was Logos King-of-Arms. He
was mighty, clad not in the brilliant tabard of a Herald, but in a
robe of dark blue over which ran runes in silver that twisted,
turned, formed words of deep wisdom, and then dissolved to form
again. In his hands was a great sword, point down into the soil of
Avalon from whose metals it had long ago been wrought. Up the blade
of that sword were also runes. But these were fixed for all time,
set in the metal by a forging of power in ways now long forgotten,
even in a world where time meant little.
Two hands held the sword erect: wide shoulders held proud and
straight, and above them a head—The face of one who could summon
storms, bind wind and water to his will, yet who disdained to take
power for his own desires. Silver hair, bright as the crawling
runes. There was a name for this King, a very old name that Avalon
knew, which was legend also in another world—
Merlin.
Now the Logos King-of-Arms faced outward from the city. His
hands moved, uprooted the sword, raised its mighty weight with
ease, pointing it out at heart level. His lips moved, but whatever
words he spoke did not issue forth as sound—they were not for the
hearing of lesser men or spirits.
The aliens’ fan-pole lashed out with scarlet fire, which
brought black smoke that settled to stain the land. Where those
stains grew so did the Dark Ones spread, creeping toward the
cities. And the drawing of the alien power weakened that of Avalon,
so that life under it withered and lessened.
But—
There was a flare of force, so great that all that could be seen
was swallowed up. All was red and then white. The world was gone,
sight was gone. There was nothing.
“Nothing—nothing—” Nick heard that. Understanding
returned sluggishly. “Nothing—nothing—” His own voice
was repeating that.
He—he was Nick Shaw—and he was alive. But he did not want to
open his eyes and see again the awful nothingness that had been the
end of Avalon. How could he still live when all else, even a world,
was dead?
“All dead—” He put this thought into words.
“No!”
He had not said that. Who was here? Who had escaped the end of
Avalon?
“Who—?” he asked.
“Nick! Nick, please, look at me!” Someone—who?
“Who?” he repeated. He was not sure he cared, he was
so tired—so very tired. Avalon was gone. In him there welled a vast
sorrow. He could feel tears in his eyes, squeezing out under the
lids he would not raise. He had not cried for a long, long time—Men
did not cry, men could not cry. They could hurt as he was hurting,
but they must not cry.
“Nick! Please, can’t you help him. Do
something—?”
“There is only what he can do for himself.”
He had heard that voice before, long ago. In Avalon. But Avalon
was gone. He had seen it die. No—worse, it had been his act that
had finished it. Nick began to fit together painfully this scrap of
memory and that, to form an ugly picture. He had fired upon the
fan-pole with the alien weapon. There had been a vast explosion of
power. And there had been the Logos King—Merlin—with the sword. But
the blasting of the fan-pole must have overbalanced the energies on
which Avalon existed. Avalon was gone and where he might be now
Nick neither knew nor cared.
“Nick!” Hands were laid on him, their shaking hurt,
but the pain of his body was less than that of his spirit, the
knowledge of what he had unwittingly done.
“Open your eyes, see, Nick, see!”
He opened them. As he thought, there was nothing, nothing at
all.
“There is nothing. Avalon is gone,” he said into
that emptiness.
“What is he talking about? Is he—is he blind?” There
was dread in that voice from nothingness.
“He is blind in his own way.” Again that other voice
from the past.
The Herald! Avalon! But the land was gone, erased into
nothingness. How did the Herald still exist?
“Avalon, Tara, Broceliande, Carnac—” Nick said over
those names that had once had great meaning and that he had
rendered meaningless. “Oak and Apple, Elder, Thorn, and the
Logos King—gone.”
“He—he doesn’t know what he is saying—” The
first voice choked as if someone struggled against crying.
“What has happened to him?”
“He believes, and to him what he believes is,”
Avalon replied.
“You are Avalon,” Nick said slowly. “But that
is not true—for Avalon is gone. Am I dead?” There was no fear
in him now. Perhaps death was this—this nothingness.
“No, of course not! Nick—Please don’t be like this!
Oh, you can help him. I know you could if you would.”
“He must believe.”
“Nick, listen!” Someone was so close to him he could
feel a stir of breath against his cheek. Breath was life—so that
other must be alive. But how could one live in nothingness?
“Nick, you are here with us. You somehow blew up that power
standard, or whatever it was. And then—everything just happened.
The prisoners were able to get out. And the aliens all died. Barry
says the backlash of power did it. Their saucers were blown open.
Then—then the Herald came, Nick, you must see!”
Something stirred in him. This was Linda. He could give a name
to her voice. Linda and Avalon were here with him. He could feel
her touch as she held his head against her, he could even hear the
beating of her heart. A beating heart was life also.
And if Avalon existed for Linda, how could it be gone for him?
Once more he opened his eyes on nothingness. But there should be no
nothingness—there should be Avalon!
Nick drew upon his will of concentration. Avalon—let Avalon
be!
Sight did not return as it had gone in a burst of fierce
light—but slowly. He saw first shadows darkening the blank white of
that place into which he had been exiled by his own desperate act.
Then those shadows took on substance. There were figures. As he had
concentrated on creating illusion, so he concentrated now on the
return of a world. Was this an illusion also? No, he must not give
room to such a doubt.
There was Linda, watching, concern on her face, in her touch as
she supported him. There was Jeremiah, unblinking eyes regarding
him, and beyond, standing, so he had to raise his head a fraction
to see the better, the blaze of color that was the Herald.
Brighter, sharper, more real with every moment, the world came
back. Had he indeed lost his sight so that it had made him believe
he had lost all else into the bargain?
Nick did not know. All he cared about was that he had been
wrong.
He was lying, he discovered, at the edge of what must have been
a battlefield for forces, not men. Facing him, one of the saucers
had flipped from stilt feet to its side, part of it plowed in a
deep gash into the earth. The sight of that tore his mind from his
deep self-consciousness to think of the others. He freed himself
from Linda’s hold, struggled to sit up and look around.
Linda was safe, and Jeremiah, and Lung, for the Peke was pressed
close to the girl as if he feared they might be parted. But
Hadlett, Mrs. Clapp—the prisoners in the pen—?
“The others,” he demanded of Linda. “How are
the others?”
She did not answer at once, only looked distressed.
“The Vicar—Mrs. Clapp?” What of those two who had
shared this last adventure?
“Over—over there.” She put out a hand to restrain
him. But Nick pushed it aside and somehow got to his feet.
“Over there” was by the second saucer. There was a
rent in its upper surface, its landing ramp was twisted. At the
foot of it he saw Crocker and Jean. Mrs. Clapp and Lady Diana were
on their knees beside someone stretched on the ground. Nick began
to walk, though he felt very lightheaded and dizzy.
“Nick!” Linda was beside him. Before he could resist
she had caught his arm, drawn it about her shoulders, steadying
him. He did not try to push her away this time. If her help could
bring him to the others sooner he accepted it.
He covered the gap, stood with Linda’s support, looking
down at the Vicar. Hadlett’s eyes were open and when he saw
Nick he smiled. “St. George,” he said, “and St.
Michael are supposed to be the warriors. I have never heard it of
St. Nicholas that he went into battle, but rather that he was a
giver of gifts.”
Nick went to his knees. “Sir—” Until that moment he
had not realized, though perhaps he had dimly suspected, how close
were his ties with this man. Heart-ties Rita had called them. Now
he could feel why.
“You won for us, Nicholas. And”—Hadlett turned his
head just a fraction in Mrs. Clapp’s hold—“I think it
was perhaps a notable victory indeed. Have I the right of it,
sir?”
Nick realized then that the Vicar spoke to someone behind, and
he turned his own head to see that the Herald had followed them.
“He has won the freedom of Avalon, and not for himself
alone.”
“There was a danger then for you as well as us,”
Hadlett said. “Yet we were not allies—”
“Only in part. Avalon has its laws, which are not the laws
of men.”
Hadlett nodded, a fractional movement of his head. “That
was—” He paused and there was a struggle on his face.
“That was the truth that I had to abide by. Good may govern
Avalon—but it is not—my—good—” A red bubble formed in the
corner of his mouth. It broke and a trickle of scarlet came from
it.
Nick turned on the Herald. “Help him!”
“No, Nicholas.” It was not Avalon, but Hadlett who
answered. ‘To every man his own season. And the season
passes. You and I”—again it was Avalon he addressed—“know that. It is given few men to find peace. I am—content.
You told me once, Nicholas, that there might be many rivers from a
single source. That is also the truth, but we each choose our own.
Now, let me enter into my own peace in my own time.”
What he repeated thereafter were the words of his own priesthood
and belief, the belief he might not surrender to Avalon. Nick could
not listen. It was too unfair. The Vicar had given freely, and what
came in return?
He pulled loose from Linda, moved away from the others,
steadying himself with one hand against the bent support of the
wrecked saucer. Before him stretched the open land with a crater
rimmed in glassy slag to mark the site of the pole. Had that
operated the gateway to the aliens’ own world? If so it was
closed, perhaps forever.
What would happen to him and his companions now? Would the Dark
Tide Rita and the Herald warned of continue to flow? Or had his
vision, dream, whatever it might have been, held the truth—that it
was the force of the aliens that stimulated and released the Dark
Ones, built up their power to spread over the land?
“Nick?”
He did not look around.
“You won’t get back through any way of theirs
now!” He struck out at her voice.
“No.” But she did not sound crushed.
Nick turned his head. Linda stood there in worn and bedraggled
clothing, her hair loose about her shoulders, a raw scratch on her
cheek, Lung in her arms, as if he were now the only treasure she
could ever so hold. She looked forlorn, lost.
“I hope—I hope Dave—” Her voice broke.
“No—” She backed away as Nick took a step toward her.
“Don’t—don’t try to tell me—We won’t go
back, ever. After awhile we’re going to forget, I think. The
past will all seem a dream. Maybe. Nick, I shall accept Avalon. I
must! If I don’t—I’ll keep on remembering and that I
cannot live with!”
“And what about them?” Nick gestured toward the
others.
“The Vicar—he’s gone, Nick.” Tears spilled
down her cheeks and she made no move to wipe them away. “And
the rest—the Warden was killed in the backlash, as you might have
been, Nick—as I thought you were at first.” There was fear
and horror in her eyes now. “The others—they know now what
they must do. And you, Nick?”
“I always knew—after the city. There can be only one way
of true life in Avalon. If we would be any more than those
miserable human animals I saw in the woods, we must choose
that.”
He held out his hand, and Linda, cradling Lung against her with
her other arm, let her fingers be enclosed in his. Together they
started back. After all, Nick thought, in this choice the giving
was not so much his. What he received was far the greater.
Avalon the Herald waited for them, the radiance about him very
glorious indeed.
“This is our chance!” Linda tried
to fit herself into the narrow neighboring seat.
“Our chance to do what?” Nick had prowled the saucer
ship twice. He made several finds of what might be weapons, but he
dared not experiment with them inside the cabin. The only chance he
could see was one so hedged by threats it was nearer to an
invitation to disaster.
“To get back to our own world.” She was impatient.
“These saucers must go through. People have seen them back
there. We have only to learn how, then we’re home!”
“That learning how,” Nick pointed out, “might
take some time. Time we don’t have. When this
lands—”
“We can use illusions again.” Linda dismissed such
details as unimportant, her own goal the real one.
“You mean, we hope we can.” Nick found the flight
pattern of the saucer made him queasy, he wanted nothing more than
to be free of the alien ship.
“We can. And we can get back, too!” Her optimism
remained high.
“You’re forgetting the time factor, aren’t
you?”
“What time factor?”
“These others—they thought they had only been here a few
years. But it’s been thirty. How long have we been
here—days—a week—I’ve not counted. But how long have we been
away?”
What had happened back in the world of the Cut-Off? How long
before they had been missed and the search begun? What about Dad
and Margo? Who had been hunting Linda? She had said no more about
her past than he had. Who was missing her?
“Nick—” Her eagerness was gone, he might have struck
her in the face. “Do you think—But it couldn’t be! We
can’t have been gone months, we can’t!”
He could give her no reassurance. Before, he had not really
considered that point as it applied to himself or Linda. But now
Nick faced it squarely and found that he really did not greatly
care. All that had happened before their arrival in the forest
seemed to be the past of another person and have very little
meaning for the Nick Shaw that now was.
“Dave—” Linda stared ahead of her. “What will
Dave do? What will he think?”
“Who’s Dave?”
“My father, David. He’s with NASA—on the Cape. I was
staying with Aunt Peg for a vacation. But there’s just Dave
and me—we’re a family!”
Linda hunched down in the seat her body did not adjust to.
“Nick, we’ve got to get back. And the saucer people
must know how.”
“First things first—” Nick had only gotten that far,
not knowing how he could make her see the impossibility of what she
wanted, when the saucer began a vertical descent.
They had reached whatever goal had been set. Nick had had no
control over that flight. Now it must be tested whether he had any
defense over what they might encounter outside.
With a hardly perceptible jar the ship touched down and the
vibration of its life ceased. Nick headed back to the area about
the hatch. They had made the best plan they could and at least they
would have surprise on their side.
Again he was to have the active part. The rest, using their
combined concentration, would back him. As the side of the saucer
now opened slowly to form a ramp, Nick drew a deep breath and
walked forward.
He could not tell if his protecting illusion was in force, if he
would indeed appear to anyone outside as a normal alien crewman.
What he could see ahead was not too reassuring. There another of
the saucer ships rested on stilt-legs, its ramp down. To the right
was a section of ground in which huddled a group of drifters. Nick
could see no walls, yet none made an effort to escape even though
there were no visible guards.
To cross the space between the ship and the captives was an
ordeal. Nick expected any moment to be challenged, or else simply
rayed down. He studied the prisoners, tried to understand what kept
them there.
Some distance beyond the captives a tall pole arose into the sky
from a broad earth base. At its tip sprouted two fan shapes
fashioned of glittering wires stretched over frames. Even as Nick
sighted them they moved, the fans waving slowly upward until they
joined above the tip of the supporting pole. Along the wires glowed
light, deepening to a fiery red.
The air about Nick tingled with energy. It was like and yet
unlike the broadcast of the ankh. Nick knew, without understanding
why or how, some vast power was at work.
Now he saw those who controlled it. There were six of the suited
aliens clustered about the base of the pole. What they might be
doing there did not matter, the fact that they were so engrossed by
it did, giving Nick a slender chance.
“Those we seek—there—” An impression from Jeremiah
on his right side. Lung was to his left.
“Can’t go through—a wall ahead—” For the first
time he also caught the Peke’s thought
Nick walked forward with caution. Jeremiah moved before him,
stopped, as if his nose touched an unseen barrier. A force field?
One of the aliens need only look up—see him investigating it—
Though Nick put out his hand to touch what the animals said was
there, he felt nothing—save that a bolt of energy nearly rocked him
from his feet. With that how could the captives hope to escape? And
how could he and his party hope in turn to reach them? If he knew
how to control the ship perhaps they could lift it and drop it on
the other side of the barrier. But that was beyond his skill.
The prisoners noticed him. He saw faces turn in his direction.
Two of the disheveled figures got to their feet—Crocker and Jean.
Did they see him as himself, or did the alien illusion hold?
Illusion—some wisp of thought he could not pin down exactly.
What had Hadlett earlier said—that the illusions a man could
produce were born out of his own particular thoughts and fears,
that those from the medieval period who had taken him prisoner had
seen the demons and devils of their own time. Demons and
devils—what would be the demons and devils of the aliens? If he
only knew more! Nick felt bound and helpless, with weapons just out
of his reach, as he had been in the camp when he had first used the
freedom of mind. He had no guide, no way of knowing what would
serve as the proper demons and devils to evoke here.
Into his mind flashed a memory—that of the Herald riding
unconcernedly along under the attack of the saucer. But he was no
Herald, nor could he, Nick was sure, take on the seeming of one
himself, even though he could create the image of one for a short
space. He sensed that the Herald was too much of Avalon to be used
here in human counterfeit. Also if this place was of Avalon, what
had it to hold for these who were not subject to the People or
their powers? What other fear or threat could he summon? Wait—there
had been that time when another flyer of a different shape had
attacked the saucer—
The cigar ship! Demons and devils! But could they produce that
as an illusion?
In the prison compound Jean and Crocker were aiding Stroud to
his feet with the help of Lady Diana. If Nick was right in his
surmise he would have to drop his own cover, give all power to the
illusion.
“Join!” Nick sent the message to Jeremiah in the
linkage he could not hold direct with his own kind. The big cat
crouched, his tail tip quivering as if he stalked prey. He did not
glance at Nick but the man felt his message was received.
Lung bolted, skimming back to the ramp of the saucer. How long
did they have? Nick fastened his attention on the sky above that
pole, tried to draw there the demon of the aliens—one of the
cigar-shaped ships.
He—his message had gone through! Jeremiah—Lung—those in the
ship behind him understood. There was the enemy that the aliens
knew, hovering over their source of energy. He heard no sounds from
the crew working below, but saw them freeze for a moment and then
scatter, heading toward positions in the grass. They were about to
defend their post desperately, as if it were paramount to their
existence.
In his hand Nick held one of the weapons from the ship. It was a
rod about the length of his forearm, with two buttons at one end.
Being hollow in part he equated it with some type of gun. What it
might do he had no idea, nor even if he could fire it. But the
action of the aliens was a clue. If the fan-pole was so important,
for they were firing rays into the hovering illusion to protect it,
then if he could destroy it . . .
Nick began to run. There was shouting from the prisoner pen, but
he paid no attention. The pole was the important thing now. He came
to a halt, raised the rod and took a chance, pushing the nearest
button with his forefinger, aiming at the fans overhead.
He thought he had failed. There was no trace that the weapon had
fired. Then—
The red glow of the wires above flashed an eye-searing
white!
Nick flung his arm over his eyes. Was he blinded? And that
roaring—enough to deafen one. The ground shook under him, rolled as
if solid earth had vanished. He staggered around blindly, trying to
head away from that holocaust, back to the ship. But where was the
ship?
He was finding it hard to breathe, as if the air was being
drained away. Then he was crawling through a world afire. This
might be the ancient Hell of humankind—
Nick lay on the still trembling ground, pressed against it by a
force like a massive fist weighing upon his back. He was being
crushed and he thought he cried out feebly. Then came darkness in
which the fires of Hell were quenched.
The ankh stood tall, glowing. From it streamed light, reaching
out and out, and under that light was peace. The fan-pole stood and
glowed balefully, it drew upon the life-force of Avalon, and the
peace was broken. Things crept out of ancient places of the Dark to
walk the land again.
Peace fled before the power of the pole, before the Dark,
withdrawing into the city, into those places wherein Avalon nursed
full strength. To and fro were harried those who were neither of
the light nor the Dark—but were prey—Little things, fleeing without
purpose, pursued and attacked by their own fears made manifest and
given foul life. They were blind to all but what they unknowingly
summoned to their own torment.
The balance was disturbed. In the cities gathered the People.
Rita, those others who had accepted Avalon. There stood the Herald
who bore the name of this land, and behind him his four
pursuivants, Oak and Apple, Thorn and Elder, each wearing the badge
of his naming. To the fore of them all was Logos King-of-Arms. He
was mighty, clad not in the brilliant tabard of a Herald, but in a
robe of dark blue over which ran runes in silver that twisted,
turned, formed words of deep wisdom, and then dissolved to form
again. In his hands was a great sword, point down into the soil of
Avalon from whose metals it had long ago been wrought. Up the blade
of that sword were also runes. But these were fixed for all time,
set in the metal by a forging of power in ways now long forgotten,
even in a world where time meant little.
Two hands held the sword erect: wide shoulders held proud and
straight, and above them a head—The face of one who could summon
storms, bind wind and water to his will, yet who disdained to take
power for his own desires. Silver hair, bright as the crawling
runes. There was a name for this King, a very old name that Avalon
knew, which was legend also in another world—
Merlin.
Now the Logos King-of-Arms faced outward from the city. His
hands moved, uprooted the sword, raised its mighty weight with
ease, pointing it out at heart level. His lips moved, but whatever
words he spoke did not issue forth as sound—they were not for the
hearing of lesser men or spirits.
The aliens’ fan-pole lashed out with scarlet fire, which
brought black smoke that settled to stain the land. Where those
stains grew so did the Dark Ones spread, creeping toward the
cities. And the drawing of the alien power weakened that of Avalon,
so that life under it withered and lessened.
But—
There was a flare of force, so great that all that could be seen
was swallowed up. All was red and then white. The world was gone,
sight was gone. There was nothing.
“Nothing—nothing—” Nick heard that. Understanding
returned sluggishly. “Nothing—nothing—” His own voice
was repeating that.
He—he was Nick Shaw—and he was alive. But he did not want to
open his eyes and see again the awful nothingness that had been the
end of Avalon. How could he still live when all else, even a world,
was dead?
“All dead—” He put this thought into words.
“No!”
He had not said that. Who was here? Who had escaped the end of
Avalon?
“Who—?” he asked.
“Nick! Nick, please, look at me!” Someone—who?
“Who?” he repeated. He was not sure he cared, he was
so tired—so very tired. Avalon was gone. In him there welled a vast
sorrow. He could feel tears in his eyes, squeezing out under the
lids he would not raise. He had not cried for a long, long time—Men
did not cry, men could not cry. They could hurt as he was hurting,
but they must not cry.
“Nick! Please, can’t you help him. Do
something—?”
“There is only what he can do for himself.”
He had heard that voice before, long ago. In Avalon. But Avalon
was gone. He had seen it die. No—worse, it had been his act that
had finished it. Nick began to fit together painfully this scrap of
memory and that, to form an ugly picture. He had fired upon the
fan-pole with the alien weapon. There had been a vast explosion of
power. And there had been the Logos King—Merlin—with the sword. But
the blasting of the fan-pole must have overbalanced the energies on
which Avalon existed. Avalon was gone and where he might be now
Nick neither knew nor cared.
“Nick!” Hands were laid on him, their shaking hurt,
but the pain of his body was less than that of his spirit, the
knowledge of what he had unwittingly done.
“Open your eyes, see, Nick, see!”
He opened them. As he thought, there was nothing, nothing at
all.
“There is nothing. Avalon is gone,” he said into
that emptiness.
“What is he talking about? Is he—is he blind?” There
was dread in that voice from nothingness.
“He is blind in his own way.” Again that other voice
from the past.
The Herald! Avalon! But the land was gone, erased into
nothingness. How did the Herald still exist?
“Avalon, Tara, Broceliande, Carnac—” Nick said over
those names that had once had great meaning and that he had
rendered meaningless. “Oak and Apple, Elder, Thorn, and the
Logos King—gone.”
“He—he doesn’t know what he is saying—” The
first voice choked as if someone struggled against crying.
“What has happened to him?”
“He believes, and to him what he believes is,”
Avalon replied.
“You are Avalon,” Nick said slowly. “But that
is not true—for Avalon is gone. Am I dead?” There was no fear
in him now. Perhaps death was this—this nothingness.
“No, of course not! Nick—Please don’t be like this!
Oh, you can help him. I know you could if you would.”
“He must believe.”
“Nick, listen!” Someone was so close to him he could
feel a stir of breath against his cheek. Breath was life—so that
other must be alive. But how could one live in nothingness?
“Nick, you are here with us. You somehow blew up that power
standard, or whatever it was. And then—everything just happened.
The prisoners were able to get out. And the aliens all died. Barry
says the backlash of power did it. Their saucers were blown open.
Then—then the Herald came, Nick, you must see!”
Something stirred in him. This was Linda. He could give a name
to her voice. Linda and Avalon were here with him. He could feel
her touch as she held his head against her, he could even hear the
beating of her heart. A beating heart was life also.
And if Avalon existed for Linda, how could it be gone for him?
Once more he opened his eyes on nothingness. But there should be no
nothingness—there should be Avalon!
Nick drew upon his will of concentration. Avalon—let Avalon
be!
Sight did not return as it had gone in a burst of fierce
light—but slowly. He saw first shadows darkening the blank white of
that place into which he had been exiled by his own desperate act.
Then those shadows took on substance. There were figures. As he had
concentrated on creating illusion, so he concentrated now on the
return of a world. Was this an illusion also? No, he must not give
room to such a doubt.
There was Linda, watching, concern on her face, in her touch as
she supported him. There was Jeremiah, unblinking eyes regarding
him, and beyond, standing, so he had to raise his head a fraction
to see the better, the blaze of color that was the Herald.
Brighter, sharper, more real with every moment, the world came
back. Had he indeed lost his sight so that it had made him believe
he had lost all else into the bargain?
Nick did not know. All he cared about was that he had been
wrong.
He was lying, he discovered, at the edge of what must have been
a battlefield for forces, not men. Facing him, one of the saucers
had flipped from stilt feet to its side, part of it plowed in a
deep gash into the earth. The sight of that tore his mind from his
deep self-consciousness to think of the others. He freed himself
from Linda’s hold, struggled to sit up and look around.
Linda was safe, and Jeremiah, and Lung, for the Peke was pressed
close to the girl as if he feared they might be parted. But
Hadlett, Mrs. Clapp—the prisoners in the pen—?
“The others,” he demanded of Linda. “How are
the others?”
She did not answer at once, only looked distressed.
“The Vicar—Mrs. Clapp?” What of those two who had
shared this last adventure?
“Over—over there.” She put out a hand to restrain
him. But Nick pushed it aside and somehow got to his feet.
“Over there” was by the second saucer. There was a
rent in its upper surface, its landing ramp was twisted. At the
foot of it he saw Crocker and Jean. Mrs. Clapp and Lady Diana were
on their knees beside someone stretched on the ground. Nick began
to walk, though he felt very lightheaded and dizzy.
“Nick!” Linda was beside him. Before he could resist
she had caught his arm, drawn it about her shoulders, steadying
him. He did not try to push her away this time. If her help could
bring him to the others sooner he accepted it.
He covered the gap, stood with Linda’s support, looking
down at the Vicar. Hadlett’s eyes were open and when he saw
Nick he smiled. “St. George,” he said, “and St.
Michael are supposed to be the warriors. I have never heard it of
St. Nicholas that he went into battle, but rather that he was a
giver of gifts.”
Nick went to his knees. “Sir—” Until that moment he
had not realized, though perhaps he had dimly suspected, how close
were his ties with this man. Heart-ties Rita had called them. Now
he could feel why.
“You won for us, Nicholas. And”—Hadlett turned his
head just a fraction in Mrs. Clapp’s hold—“I think it
was perhaps a notable victory indeed. Have I the right of it,
sir?”
Nick realized then that the Vicar spoke to someone behind, and
he turned his own head to see that the Herald had followed them.
“He has won the freedom of Avalon, and not for himself
alone.”
“There was a danger then for you as well as us,”
Hadlett said. “Yet we were not allies—”
“Only in part. Avalon has its laws, which are not the laws
of men.”
Hadlett nodded, a fractional movement of his head. “That
was—” He paused and there was a struggle on his face.
“That was the truth that I had to abide by. Good may govern
Avalon—but it is not—my—good—” A red bubble formed in the
corner of his mouth. It broke and a trickle of scarlet came from
it.
Nick turned on the Herald. “Help him!”
“No, Nicholas.” It was not Avalon, but Hadlett who
answered. ‘To every man his own season. And the season
passes. You and I”—again it was Avalon he addressed—“know that. It is given few men to find peace. I am—content.
You told me once, Nicholas, that there might be many rivers from a
single source. That is also the truth, but we each choose our own.
Now, let me enter into my own peace in my own time.”
What he repeated thereafter were the words of his own priesthood
and belief, the belief he might not surrender to Avalon. Nick could
not listen. It was too unfair. The Vicar had given freely, and what
came in return?
He pulled loose from Linda, moved away from the others,
steadying himself with one hand against the bent support of the
wrecked saucer. Before him stretched the open land with a crater
rimmed in glassy slag to mark the site of the pole. Had that
operated the gateway to the aliens’ own world? If so it was
closed, perhaps forever.
What would happen to him and his companions now? Would the Dark
Tide Rita and the Herald warned of continue to flow? Or had his
vision, dream, whatever it might have been, held the truth—that it
was the force of the aliens that stimulated and released the Dark
Ones, built up their power to spread over the land?
“Nick?”
He did not look around.
“You won’t get back through any way of theirs
now!” He struck out at her voice.
“No.” But she did not sound crushed.
Nick turned his head. Linda stood there in worn and bedraggled
clothing, her hair loose about her shoulders, a raw scratch on her
cheek, Lung in her arms, as if he were now the only treasure she
could ever so hold. She looked forlorn, lost.
“I hope—I hope Dave—” Her voice broke.
“No—” She backed away as Nick took a step toward her.
“Don’t—don’t try to tell me—We won’t go
back, ever. After awhile we’re going to forget, I think. The
past will all seem a dream. Maybe. Nick, I shall accept Avalon. I
must! If I don’t—I’ll keep on remembering and that I
cannot live with!”
“And what about them?” Nick gestured toward the
others.
“The Vicar—he’s gone, Nick.” Tears spilled
down her cheeks and she made no move to wipe them away. “And
the rest—the Warden was killed in the backlash, as you might have
been, Nick—as I thought you were at first.” There was fear
and horror in her eyes now. “The others—they know now what
they must do. And you, Nick?”
“I always knew—after the city. There can be only one way
of true life in Avalon. If we would be any more than those
miserable human animals I saw in the woods, we must choose
that.”
He held out his hand, and Linda, cradling Lung against her with
her other arm, let her fingers be enclosed in his. Together they
started back. After all, Nick thought, in this choice the giving
was not so much his. What he received was far the greater.
Avalon the Herald waited for them, the radiance about him very
glorious indeed.