Roger Zelazny - Jack Of Shadows

He dismissed the thoughts. He might have married her had he met her sooner, for he had no qualms about leaving a wife behind when he returned to where he must. But he had just met her this semester, and things were close to completion.

"What of the sabbatical you've been mentioning?" she asked. "Any decision on that yet?"

"I don't know. It depends on some research I'm doing right now."

"How far along is it?"

"I'll know after I've used some computer time I have coming."

"Soon?"

He glanced at his wristwatch and nodded.

"That soon?" she said. "If the indications are favorable...?"

He lit a cigarette.

"Then it could be this coming semester," he said.

"But you said that your contract was-"

"-in good order," he said. "But I didn't sign it. Not yet."

"You once told me you thought Quilian doesn't like you."

"He doesn't. He's old-fashioned. He thinks I spend too much time with computers and not enough in libraries."

She smiled.

"So do I."

"At any rate, I'm too popular a lecturer not to be offered a renewal."

"Then why didn't you sign it? Are you asking for more money?"

"No," he said. "But if I do ask for a sabbatical and he refuses, it will be fun to tell him to shove his contract. Not that I wouldn't sign one and walk out, if it would benefit my-research. But I would enjoy telling Doc Quilian where to put his offer."

She sipped her beer.

"Then you must be near to something important."

He shrugged.

"How did your seminar wind up?" he asked.

She laughed.

"You certainly stick in Professor Weather-ton's craw. He devoted most of the lecture to dismembering your Darkside Customs and Philosophies course."

"We disagree on many points, but he's never been darkside."

"He intimated that you haven't either. He agrees that it is a feudal society, and that some of its Lords may actually believe they possess direct control over everything in their realms. He dismisses the whole notion of their being loosely united in a Compact, based on a premise that the sky will fall if they do not maintain some sort of Shield by means of cooperating in magical endeavors."

"Then what keeps everything on that side of the world alive?"

"Somebody asked that question, and he said it was a problem for physical scientists, not social theorists. His personal opinion, though, was that it involved some sort of high altitude bleed-off from our force screens."

He snorted.

"I'd like to take him on a field trip sometime. His buddy Quilian, too."

"I know you've been darkside," she said. "In fact, I think your connection with it is even stronger than you say."

"What do you mean?"

"If you could see yourself now, you would know. It took me a long while to realize what it was, but when I noticed what gave you a strange appearance in places like this, it seemed obvious-it's your eyes. They are more light sensitive than any eyes I have ever seen before. As soon as you get out of the light and into a place like this, your pupils become enormous. There is only a faint line of color around them. And I noticed that the sunglasses you wear most of the time are far darker than ordinary ones."

"I do have an eye condition. They are quite weak, and bright lights irritate them."

"Yes, that's what I said."

He returned her smile.

He crushed out his cigarette, and as though this were a signal, a soft, sickening music slithered from out of a speaker set high on the wall above the bar. He took another drink of beer.

"I suppose Weatherton got in a few shots at the resurrection of bodies, too?"

"Yes."

And if I die here? he wondered. What will become of me? Will I be denied Glyve and return?

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Your nostrils flared. Your brows contracted."

"You study features too much. It's that awful music."

"I like looking at you," she said. "But let's finish and go to my place. I'll play you something different. There is a thing I want to show you and ask you about, too."

"What is it?"

"I'd rather wait."

"All right."

They finished their drinks, and he paid. They departed, his feelings of apprehension subsiding as they moved into the light he filtered.

They climbed the stairs and entered her third-floor apartment. Just over the threshold. she halted and made a small noise in the back of her throat.

He pushed past her, moving quickly to the left. Then he halted.

"What is it?" he asked, searching the room with his eyes.

"I'm sure I didn't leave the place like this. Those papers on the floor... I don't think that chair was over there. Or that drawer opened. Or the closet door..."

He moved back to her side, studied the lock for scratches, found none. He crossed the room then, and she heard a sound that could only be the clicking of a knife blade as he entered the bedroom.

After a moment he emerged, vanished into the other room, passed from there into the bathroom. When he reappeared, he asked her, "Was that window by the table opened the way it is now?"

"I think so," she said. "Yes, I guess it was."

He sighed. He examined the windowsill, then said, "A gust of wind probably blew your papers. As for the drawer and the closet, I'd bet you left them open yourself this morning. And you've probably forgotten about moving the chair."

"I'm a very orderly person," she said, closing the door to the landing; and when she turned she said, "But I guess you're right."

"Why are you nervous?"

She moved about the apartment, picking up papers.

"Where did you get that knife?" she asked him.

"What knife?"

She slammed the closet door, turned and glared at him.

"The one you had in your hand a minute ago!"

He extended his hands, palms forward.

"I have no knife. You may search me if you wish. You will not find a weapon."

She moved to the chest of drawers, closed the one which had been opened. Stooping, she opened a lower one and removed a newsprint-wrapped parcel.

"This is a part of it," she said. "Why am I nervous? This is why!"

She placed the parcel on the table and undid the strings which held it.

He moved to her side and watched as she unwrapped the papers. Inside were three very old books.

"I thought you'd taken those back already!"

"I intended to-"

"That was the agreement."

"I want to know where you obtained them and how."

He shook his head.

"We also agreed that if I were to recover them, you would not ask me those questions."

She placed the books side by side, then pointed at the spine of one and the cover of another.

"I am certain those were not there before," she said. "They are bloodstains, aren't they?"

"I don't know."

"I tried to wipe some of the smaller ones off with a damp tissue. What came off certainly looked like dried blood."

He shrugged.

"When I told you these books had been stolen from their cases in the Rare Books Room and you offered to recover them, I said, 'Okay'." She continued, "I agreed that if you could get them back. I'd see that it was an anonymous return. No questions. But I never thought this meant bloodshed. The stains alone would not have made me think that that is what happened. But then I began considering you and realized how little I actually know. That's when I began noticing things like your eyes and the quiet way that you move. I had heard that you were friendly with criminals-but then you had written some articles on criminology and were teaching a course on the subject. So it seemed in order at the time I heard it. Now I see you move through my rooms with a knife in your hand, presumably ready to kill an intruder. No book is worth a human life. Our agreement is off. Tell me what you did to get them."