Julian May - The Many-Coloured Land

He whistled a few notes of the bawdy old ballad through his teeth. Only then did he become aware of the anxious voice and the plucking at his sleeve.

“Come along, sir. Your friends have gone on to Castle Gateway. We’ve gotta get along, too. You’ll want to rest and refresh yourself and like as not ask some questions.”

The guardian was a dark-haired man, well built but rather raw-boned, with the spurious youthfulness and overwise eyes of a fairly recent rejuvenate. Richard took in the dark metal necklet and the white tunic that was probably a lot more comfortable in this tropical climate than Richard’s own black velvet and heavy broadcloth.

“Just let me look around a little, guy,” Richard said, but the man kept tugging at him. To avoid argument, Richard began to move along the path leading to the castle.

“That’s a nice commanding position you’ve got there, guy. Is that mound artificial? What do you do for a water supply up here? How far to the nearest town?”

“Easy on, traveler! Just you come along with me. The interview committeeman will be able to answer your questions better than I can.”

“Well, at least tell me the prospects for local gash. I mean, back in the present, or the future or whatever the hell you call it here, we were told that the male-female ratio here was about four to one. I wanta tell you that almost turned me off from coming over! If it wasn’t for certain pressing circumstances, I might not have come to Exile at all! So how is it really? You have women up at the castle?”

The man replied austerely, “We’re hosting a number of female travelers, and the Lady Epone is temporarily in residence. No women live permanently at Castle Gateway.”

“So where do you guys get it? Is there a village or a town for weekend passes or whatever?”

In a matter-of-fact manner the man said, “Many of the castle staff are homophilic or autoerotic. The rest are serviced by traveling entertainers from Roniah or Burask. There are no small villages in this area, only widely separated cities and plantations. Those of us who serve at the castle are happy to remain there. We’re well rewarded for our work.” He fingered his necklet with a small smile, then redoubled his effort to rush the new arrival along.

“Sounds like a real organized setup,” said Richard in a dubious tone.

“You’ve come into a wonderful world You’re going to be very happy here once you’ve learned a little about our ways… Don’t mind the bear-dogs. We keep them for security. They can’t get at us.”

They hurried through the outer ward and into the barbican, where the guardian tried to steer Richard up the stairway. But the ex-spacer pulled away, saying, “Be right back! Gotta take a look at this fascinating place!”

“But you can’t…” exclaimed the guardian.

But he did. Clutching his plumed hat, Richard broke into a run that was only slightly slowed by the weight of his backpack. He went clattering over the flagstones into the deep interior of the gatehouse, dodging around corners at random until he emerged into the large inner courtyard of the castle. This early in the morning, the area was deeply shadowed, surrounded on four sides by the two-storey hollow wall with its corner towers and battlements. The courtyard was nearly eighty meters square. At its center was a fountain with trees planted around it in stone boxes. More trees grew at regular intervals around the perimeter. One entire side of the yard was taken up by a large double corral neatly walled in perforated stone. Half of it contained several score large quadruped animals of a type Richard had never seen before. The other half of the corral seemed to be empty.

Hearing the voices of pursuers, Richard dodged into a kind of cloister that ran around the other three sides of the inner ward. He ran for a short distance, then turned into a side corridor. It was a dead end. But on either side were doors leading into apartments within the great hollow wall.

He opened the first right-hand door, slipped inside, and closed the door behind him.

The room was black. He stood perfectly still, catching his breath, gratified to hear the sound of running feet grow louder, then fade away. For the moment, he had escaped. He fumbled in one pocket of his backpack for a light. Before he could switch it on, he heard a faint sound. He stood immobile. A line of radiance had sprung into being across the darkened room. Someone was opening another door with infinite slowness and the illlumination from the inner chamber swept toward him in a widening beam until he was caught. Silhouetted in the doorway was a very tall woman. She was dressed in a filmy sleeveless gown that seemed almost invisible. Richard could not see her face but he knew she had to be beautiful.

“Lady Epone,” he said, not knowing why.

“You may come in.”

He had never heard such a voice. Its musical sweetness held an unmistakable promise that set him on fire. He dropped his pack and came toward her, a figure dressed entirely in black drawn by her bright allure. As she went slowly into the inner chamber, he followed. Dozens of lamps hung from the ceiling, reflecting off draperies of shimmering gold and white gauze that curtained a vast bed.

The woman held out her arms. Her loose gown was of pale blue, unbelted, with long yellow panels floating from the shoulders like misty wings. She wore a golden circlet about her neck and a golden diadem on her blonde hair. The hair hung nearly to her waist and so, if Richard’s eyes didn’t deceive him, did her incredibly pendulous breasts beneath the gossamer fabric.

She stood nearly half a meter taller than he did. Looking down with inhuman glowing eyes, she said, “Come closer.”

He felt the room turn. And the eyes shone more brilliantly and soft skin caressed him until he was drawn into an abyss of joy so intense that it must destroy him. She cried, “Can you? Can you?”

He tried. And he could not.

The sweet breath of light turned into a whirlwind then, screeching and cursing and tearing at him, not at his body but at something cringing apologetically behind his eyes, worthless and deserving to be punished. Torn out, held up to ridicule, flung down and trodden upon, hammered by blasts of hatred, the shapeless thing shrank into a smaller and smaller mass until it was a blot of utter insignificance, finally vanishing in the white blaze of pain.

Richard woke.

A man in a blue tunic knelt at his feet, fumbling with his ankles. Richard was clamped into a heavy chair, seated in a small room with walls of unadorned gray limestone blocks. The Lady Epone was standing in front of him, her eyes flat and jade colored, her mouth curved in a smile of contempt.

“He’s ready, Lady.”

“Thank you, Jean-Paul. The headpiece, if you please.”

The man brought a simple silver coronet with five points and placed it on Richard’s head. Epone turned to a construction on a table beside the chair, which Richard had mistaken for some kind of elaborate jeweled metallic sculpture. The apparatus glowed faintly in its crystalline parts, the multicolored lights waxing and waning in what was evidently some malfunction. Epone gave the largest prism, a pinkish thing the size of a fist, an impatient flick with thumb and forefinger.

“Ah, bah! Will nothing function in this cursed place? There! Now we will begin.”

She folded her arms and inclined her gaze on Richard. “What is your given name?”

“Go to hell,” he muttered.

A tremendous throb of agony seemed to lift the top of his skull.

“Please speak only to answer my questions. Obey my orders at once. Do you understand?”

Sagging against the chair clamps, he whispered, “Yes.”

What is your given name?”

“Richard.”