Генри Каттнер - Lands of the Earthquake

“You were controlling it just now?” Boyce said.

“No. It automatically says and does certain things when anyone enters here. It spoke to you, eh? Had you been a man of the City, you would have obeyed and fled. Even Jamai has never dared approach the King.”

“I’ll keep the crystal, Irathe. I mean to go back—when I can. But stay out of my mind! You and the Huntsman.”

Irathe moved her slim shoulders in a gesture Boyce could not interpret.

“Jamai? What devils move him, I wonder, beside the devils of his own mind? I think he is mad. When the Oracle and I were one, he loved me. Then, afterward—he still loved me , but it was not enough. Do you know why?” She looked at Boyce through her lashes, half–smiling.

Yes, he knew. Old legends had given him the answer, stories of angel and demon battling for a man’s soul. The allegory of Jekyll and Hyde, and a hundred other such tales.

For Irathe was evil. Not immoral—on the contrary, she was completely free, unshackled by any bonds of conscience or remorse or empathy. She was as amoral as the inhuman creatures which had created her from a whole woman.

Good and evil, inextricably mingled in the human mind, each a check and balance upon the other—necessary to each other. And never to be separated, except by a science utterly behind the comprehension of man.

But that separation had taken place. The Oracle, no less than Irathe, was monstrous. Psychiatry had dealt with cases of schizophrenia, split personality, in which there were two inhabitants of a single mind. Sometimes one personality was pure as a saint, the other utterly vicious and evil.

But here the fission was complete. The negative and positive in the girl’s mind and soul and body had been separated. No man, Boyce thought, could love Irathe without going mad. For he knew now that she was not human.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I know why the Huntsman couldn’t—why it isn’t enough. When I loved you, Irathe, you weren’t like this.”

“No. Once each cycle, the Oracle and I blend for a little while. We are one again. But I still maintain my power. I am dominant; I have control—with certain restrictions. And while we are in one body thus, I cannot harm her without harming myself. Afterwards, when we separate again, I am tranced for a while. By the time I recover, she is back in Kerak where I cannot reach her.”

Boyce nodded.

“On Earth, then—”

“We were in one body. But I have been in many worlds. Only when we were in one body, because I needed her, I said I could not harm her here. The cage of fire, and other things, prevent me. I could not reach her in Kerak.”

“Do you want to kill her?”

He thought Irathe paled a little.

“No. She is part of me, even though we are in separate bodies. Harm to her would be harm to me. But I—I am not safe. Suppose she and I were made one again forever?”

She held up her hand to stop Boyce.

“No! As I am now, I want to be always! Free to do as I want! Free to open the gateways of the universe, if I wish—to rule, to wield power, to feel no sorrow! If she and I are one again, and I not dominant—her foolish emotions, her shallow conscience halting me from my will—no! I rule here!

“I know a way to prison the Oracle forever, where no one can reach her, and where she can never harm me. Till now I could not summon her from Kerak, except during the cycles when I dared not move because we were one.”

“With you in control. I see. It wasn’t you I knew on Earth, then—”

“You knew us both. In one body. I have searched through worlds and worlds, trying to find a key to Kerak, to the Oracle. For I had to gain entrance there and learn something of her secrets, something of how Tancred protected her and how strong he had become.

“As myself I could not go. Nor in the minds of any who would help me, for the Oracle can read men’s minds.” Her violet eyes looked at Boyce sidelong, slyly, with triumph in them.

“I found a way. I found a double way. At last the simple idea came to me that was easiest of all—to find someone she would love. She loved you, William Boyce. I knew that. She and I in a single body, forever divided in our minds, but sharing the same flesh—oh, I knew her thoughts! Something had touched her icy, frozen heart at last. I lingered in your world until I was sure. When her lover—her husband—called, I knew she would come.”

Irathe’s laughter was sweet and cold.

“I lingered until I knew I had wakened in you too the same fire. And until I was sure your mind held the knowledge of how to come here, and the passion to follow. But then—then, William Boyce, all your knowledge had to be erased from the surface of your memory. You see why.

“If you had gone into Kerak knowing what you do now, the Oracle would have recognized her danger and Tancred would have done with you as he has done with many of my envoys. So when my work was finished—I summoned Them to my aid. I knew Their presence was enough to drive all memory of me and of our year together deep, deep into the wells of the subconscious in your mind.

“If you are wise, you’ll leave them there! My purpose is served now. Though Jamai tricked me and used the crystal you carry to invade your mind before me, yet he has done my work. The Oracle comes blindly into my hands! Soon now, soon, the long wait will be ended!”

She smiled at him sweetly.

“I want your help,” she said. “I have told you that each cycle the Oracle and I become one again. In the past I have been dominant. But she grows stronger. Some day, I think, she may gain control—and find a way to conquer me. To make me subservient forever, in the same body with her. That must not happen. You will help me to prison her , if I need your help. And in return—”

She met his eyes squarely. Boyce leaned on the sword and waited, unsmiling.

“Instead of an image of ice—something better. The whole, complete Irathe you can never know again. And that ice image—you would die of cold,” she said, and suddenly laughed, a wild, reckless gleeful laughter that echoed shrilly from the pillars. “With me in your arms, William Boyce—you would not think of ice!”

She took another step toward him. He still leaned on the sword, conscious of the intense attraction he felt toward her, of the exotic appeal of her slim, vibrant body.

“Jamai tried that, didn’t he?” he said softly.

Her mouth twisted. Her beauty failed for an instant as the mockery of a devil showed in her eyes.

“Yes, he tried,” she said. “He had loved both of us, when we were in one body, before my father worked his magic with Them. It would have been better had I erased his memory, as I erased yours. For Jamai remembered me as I was, and yet he could not help but love me. And I am—what am I, William Boyce?”

The sword hilt was cold against his palms. He spoke hoarsely.

“I don’t know. But I know you’re something that never should have existed. A man—a woman—is supposed to be a mixture of good and evil, if that’s the way to put it. Maybe the Crusaders weren’t so superstitious when they wrote about lamias—demon–women. No man could love you , Irathe, without going mad. If the Oracle is ice, you are flame that destroys all it touches.”

“Then Jamai is mad,” she said. “Perhaps his mind split as my body and soul did. Perhaps he tried to create two selves, as They did to me. But only They have such power. When a mind splits thus, it is madness. Sometimes Jamai is Jamai and hates me and hates the Oracle and wishes to destroy us both.

“Sometimes he is the Huntsman, and does not care, and would not care if this world ended now. But he loved me before They worked their spell, and he is bound to me—to Irathe—by unbreakable bonds—and he must die. I cannot trust that windvane mind of his.”