Robert Sheckley - Mindswap

Murder lurked in this room – but for whom? Marvin feared the worst, but turned quite steadily, his face a mask of obsidian, and faced the enemy who was his beloved's husband and the captor of her father.

Milord Lamprey di Blackamoor stood silent and at his ease. He was above the middling height, and possessed a frame of extreme emaciation, punctuated by his narrow, closely cropped beard of jetty black, his deep-swept sideburns, and his hair cut en brosse and allowed to fall upon his forehead in snaky ringlets. And yet the appearance of narrowness was offset by the breadth of shoulder and the powerful swordsman's arm that could be glimpsed beneath his half-cloak of ermitage. He wore his points and josses in the new foppish style, interlaced with macedium pointings and relieved only by a triple row of crepe-silver darturs. His face was coldly handsome, marred only by a puckered scar that ran from his right temple to the left corner of his mouth, and which he had defiantly painted a fiery crimson. This lent to his sarcastic features a look both sinister and absurd.

'It would seem,' Blackamoor drawled, 'that we have played this farce long enough. The denouement approaches.'

'Does milord then have his third act prepared?' Marvin inquired steadily.

'The actors have been given their cues,' Blackamoor said. Negligently he snapped his fingers.

Into the room walked Milord Inglenook, followed by Sir Gules and a platoon of sour-faced Thuringian soldiery in plain deal-coloured half-jackets of buff, with sword-mattocks at the ready.

'What damnable entrapment is this?' Marvin demanded.

'Tell him – brother,' Blackamoor mocked.

'Yes, it is true,' Lord Inglenook said, his face ashen. 'Blackamoor and I are half-brothers, since our common mother was the Marquesita Roseata of Timon, daughter to the Elector of Brandeis and sister-in-marriage to Longsword Silverblain, who was father to Red Sword Ericmouth, and whose first husband, Marquelle of the Marche, was father to me, but after whose decease wed Huntford, Bastard Royal of Cleve and Pretender to the Eleactiq Preserve.'

'His outmoded sense of honour rendered him sensible to my scheme and ductile to the veriest suggestion,'. Blackamoor sneered.

'A strange state of affairs,' Marvin mused, 'when a man's honour dishonours a man.'

Inglenook bent his head and said nothing.

'But as for you, milady,' Marvin said, addressing Cathy, 'it mazes me past comprehension why you should choose marriage with the captivator of your father.'

'Alas,' Cathy said, 'it is a most diverse and noisome tale, for he courted me with threats and indifference, and captivated me by the dark power he doth possess which none oppose; and further, by the use of damnable drugs and double-edged words and sly skilful movements of his hands he did bemuse my sense to a state of counterfeit passion, wherein I seemed to swoon for touch of his damnable body and nibblature of his detestable lips. And since I was denied the comforts of religion during this period, and therefore had no way of knowing the true from the induced, I did indeed succumb. Nor do I offer any excuse of attenuation for myself.'

Marvin turned to the man who was his last remaining hope. 'Sir Gules!' he cried. 'Put hand to sword and we shall yet hew our way to freedom!'

Blackamoor laughed dryly. 'Think you he'll draw? Mayhap. But 'twill be but to peel an apple, or so I deem!'

Marvin stared into the face of his friend, and saw written there a shame deeper than steel and deadlier than poison.

'It is true,' Sir Gules said, trying to keep his voice steady. 'I cannot aid thee, though my heart breaks at your plight.'

'What damnable sorcery has Blackamoor rendered upon you?' Marvin cried.

'Alas, my good friend,' said the hapless Gules, 'it is a knavery so clearcut and so logical as to be irrefutable; and yet so cunning wrought and executed as to make lesser schemes of littler men seem very foolings of most childlike boys … Did you know that I am a member of that secret organization known as the Grey Knights of the Holy Subsidence?'

'Me knew this not,' Marvin said. 'And yet, the Grey Knights have ever been friends to learning and companions to piety, and most especially they have espoused 'gainst royal opposition, the cause of d'Augustin.'

'True, most extremely true,' the miserable Gules said, his weakly handsome features twisted into a grimace of agony. 'And so I too believed. But then last day yesterweek I learned that our Grand Master Helvetius had passed away-'

'Due to a bit of steel in the liver,' Blackamoor said.

'-and that I was now bound to the new Grand Master, as utterly and completely as ever, since our vows are to the Office, not the man.'

'And that new Master?' Marvin asked.

'Happens to be myself!' cried Blackamoor. And now Marvin saw upon his finger the great signet ring of the Order.

'Yes, so it did befall,' Blackamoor said, the left side of his mouth twisting cynically. 'I appropriated that ancient office, since it was an instrument well suited to my hand and sensible to my usages. And so I am Master, and sole arbiter of Polity and Decision-Making, responsible to no power save that of Hell itself, and answerable to no voice save that which echoes from the nethermost crevices of mine own soul!'

There was something magnificent about Blackamoor at that moment. Detestable and cruel though he was, reactionary and self-involved, luxuriating and careless of others, yet still withal, here was a man. So Marvin thought, with grudging respect. And his mouth hardened into fighting lines as he turned to face his antagonist.

'And now,' Blackamoor said, 'our principals are upon the stage, and we lack but one actor to fulfill our drama and bring it to a meet concludence. And this, our last performer, has long and patiently waited in the wings, observing yet unobserved, watching the convolutions of our situation and awaiting his cue to bring him on for his brief moment of glory … But soft, he comes!'

There was a sound of heavy footsteps in the corridor. Those within the room listened and waited, shuffling uneasily. Slowly the door swung open-

And there entered a masked man, clad in black from tip to toe, and carrying over his shoulder a great double-edged axe. He stood poised in the doorway as though unsure of his welcome.

'Goodday to you, executioner,' Blackamoor drawled. 'Now all is complete, and the final moments of this farce can be performed. Forward, guards!'

The guards closed in the locked sword-mattocks. They seized Marvin and gripped him fast, bending his head forward with neck exposed.

'Executioner!' cried Blackamoor. 'Perform your duty!'

The executioner stepped forward and tested the edges of his great axe. He drew the weapon high over his head, stood poised for a moment, then began his downward swing.

And Cathy screamed!

She threw herself upon that grim masked figure, clawing at him, deflecting his heavy axe, which clashed against the granite floor and drew a shower of sparks. The axeman pushed her angrily away, but her fingers had closed around the black silk of his mask.

The executioner roared as he felt the mask being torn away. With a cry of dismay he tried to cover his features. But all in that dungeon room had seen him clear.

Marvin was at first unable to believe the testimony of his senses. For, beneath that mask, he looked into a face that seemed somehow familiar. Where had he gazed upon that line of cheek and brow, those brown eyes with their faint tilt, that firm jaw?

Then he remembered; he had seen it, long ago, in a mirror.

The executioner was wearing his face, and walking in his body …

'Ze Kraggash!' Marvin said.

'At your service.' And the man who had stolen Marvin's body bowed mockingly, and grinned at Marvin with his own face.