invisible flesh was solid enough. Hands like cold steel gripped my shoulders. “You have been back? Back to the days before the second sun? Adric, tell me; did Earth truly have but one sun?”
“Wait—” I begged. “You mean I’ve travelled in time?”
The exultation faded from Gamine’s voice imperceptibly. “Never mind. It is improbable in any case. No, Adric; not really travelling. You were only sent out on the Time Ellipse, till you contacted some one in that other Time. Perhaps you stayed in contact with his mind so long that you think you are he?” “I’m not Adric—” I raged. “Adric sent me here—”
I saw the blurring around Gamine’s invisible features twitch in a headshake. “It’s never been proven that two minds can be interchanged like that. Adric’s body. Adric’s brain. The brain convolutions, the memory centers, the habit patterns— you’d still be Adric. The idea that you are someone else is only an illusion of your conscious mind. It will wear off.”
I shook my head, puzzled. “I still don’t believe it. Where am I?”
Gamine moved impatiently. “Oh, very well. You are Adric of Narabedla; and if you are sane again, Lord of the Crimson Tower. I am Gamine.” The swathed shoulders moved a little. “You don’t remember? I am a spell-singer.” I jerked my elbow toward the window. “Those are my own mountains out there,” I said roughly. “I’m not Adric, whoever he is. My name’s Mike Kenscott, and your hanky-panky doesn’t impress me. Take off that veil and let me see your face.”
“I wish you meant that—” a mournfulness breathed in the soft contralto. A sudden fury blazed up in me from nowhere. “And what right have you to pry for that old fool Rhys? Get back to your own place, then, spell-singer—” I broke off, appalled. What was I saying? Worse, what did I mean by it? Gamine turned. The sexless voice was coldly amused. “Adric spoke then. Whoever sits in the seat of your soul, you are the same—and past redemption!” The robes whispered sibilantly on the floor as Gamine moved to the door. “Karamy is welcome to her slave!”
The door slammed.
Left alone, I flung myself down on the high bed, stubbornly concentrating on Mike Kenscott, shutting out the vague blurred mystery in my mind that was Adric impinging on consciousness. I was not Adric. I would not be. I dared not go to the window and look out at the terrifying two suns, even to see the reassurance of the familiar Sierra Madre skyline. A homesick terror was hurting in me.
But persistently the Adric memories came, a guilty feeling of a shirked duty, and a frightened face—a real face, not a blurred nothingness—beneath Gamine’s blue veils. Memories of strange hunts and a big bird on the pommel of a high saddle. A bird hooded like a falcon, in crimson.
Consciousness of dress made me remember the—nightshirt—I still wore. Moving swiftly, without conscious thought, I went to a door and slid it open; pulled out some garments and dressed in them. Every garment in the closet was the same color; deep-hued crimson. I glanced in the mirror and a phrase Gamine had used broke the surface of my mind like a leaping fish. “Lord of the Crimson Tower.” Well, I looked it. There had been knives and swords in the closet; I took out one to look at it, and before I realized what I was doing I had belted it across my hip. I stared, decided to let it remain. It looked all right with the rest of the costume. It felt right, too. Another door folded back noiselessly and a man stood looking at me.
He was young and would have been handsome in an effeminate way if his face had not been so arrogant. Lean, somehow catlike, it was easy to determine that he was akin to Adric, or me, even before the automatic habit of memory fitted name and identity to him. “Evarin,” I said, warily.
He came forward, moving so softly that for an uneasy moment I wondered if he had pads like a cat’s on his feet. He wore deep green from head to foot, similar to the crimson garments that clothed me. His face had a flickering, as if he could at a moment’s notice raise a barrier of invisibility like Gamine’s about himself. He didn’t look as human as I.
“I have seen Gamine,” he said. “She says you are awake, and as sane as you ever were. We of Narabedla are not so strong that we can afford to waste even a broken tool like you.”
Wrath—Adric’s wrath—boiled up in me; but Evarin moved lithely backward. “I am not Gamine,” he warned, “And I will not be served like Gamine has been served. Take care.” “Take care yourself,” I muttered, knowing little else I could have said. Evarin drew back thin lips. “Why? You have been sent out on the Time Ellipse till you are only a shadow of yourself. But all this is beside the point. Karamy says you are to be freed, so the seals are off all the doors, and the Crimson Tower is no longer a prison to you. Come and go as you please. Karamy—” his lips formed a sneer, “If you call that freedom!”
I said slowly “You think I’m not crazy?”
Evarin snorted. “Except where Karamy is concerned, you never were. What is that to me? I have everything I need. The Dreamer gives me good hunting and slaves enough to do my bidding. For the rest, I am the Toymaker. I need little. But you—” his voice leaped with contempt, “you ride time at Karamy’s bidding—and your Dreamer walks—waiting the coming of his power that he may destroy us all one day!”
I stared somberly at Evarin, standing still near the door. The words seemed to wake an almost personal shame in me. The boy watched and his face lost some of his bitterness. He said more quietly “The falcon flown cannot be recalled. I came only to tell you that you are free.” He turned, shrugging his thin shoulders, and walked to the window. “As I say, if you call that freedom.”
I followed him to the window. The clouds were clearing; the two suns shone with a blinding brilliance. By looking far to the left I could see a line of rainbow-tinted towers that rose into the sky, tall and capped with slender spires. I could distinguish five clearly; one, the nearest, seemed made of a jewelled blue; one, clear emerald green; golden, flame-colored, violet. There were more beyond, but the colors were blurred and dim. They made a semicircle about a wooded park; beyond them the familiar skyline of the mountains tugged old memories in my brain. The suns swung high in a sky that held no tint of blue, that was as clear and colorless as ice. Abruptly I turned my back on it all. Evarin murmured “Narabedla. Last of the Rainbow Cities. Adric—how long now?”
I did not answer. “Karamy wants me?” Evarin’s laugh was only a soundless shaking of his thin shoulders. “Karamy can wait. Better for you if she waited forever. Come along with me, or Gamine will be back. You don’t want to see Gamine, do you?” He sounded anxious; I shook my head. Emphatically, I did not want to see that insidious spook again. “No. Why? Should I?”
Evarin looked relieved. “Come along, then. If I know Gamine, you’re pretty well muddled. Amnesiac. I’ll explain. After all—” his voice mocked, “you are my brother!”
He thrust open the door and motioned me through. Instinctively I drew back, gesturing him to lead the way; he laughed soundlessly and went, and I followed, letting it slide shut behind me.
We went down stairs and more stairs. I walked at Evarin’s side, one part of me wondering why I was not more panicky. I was a stranger in a world gone insane, yet I had that outrageous calmness with which men do fantastic things in a dream. I was simply taking one step after another; knowing what to do with that part of me that was Adric. Gamine had spoken of habit patterns, the convolutions of the brain. I had Adric’s body. Only a superficial me, an outer ego, was still a strange, muddled Mike Kenscott. The subconscious Adric was guiding me. I let him ride. I felt it would be wise to be very much Adric around Evarin. We stepped into an elevator shaft which went down, curved around corners with a speed that threw me against the wall, then began, slowly, to rise. I
