Robert Adams - Swords of the Horseclans

“As I remember, Lily, your present body is quite attractive, though a wee bit too slender for my own tastes. Nonetheless, you should have no trouble getting back. Just find a strong or wealthy man and … be nice to him.” He paused, then went on, unable to entirely mask his merriment. “Who knows, Lily, after all these centuries you might decide you like it”

“You … you … you no-good, dirty-minded sexist animal!” she screamed. “You and your kind, you’d just love to know I made the trip on my goddamned back so you could have something to snicker about. When you look at a woman, none of you bastards ever even thinks that her mind might be as good or better than yours; no, all that you can think about is using her body for your own selfish …”

She broke off suddenly, startled by a noise in the anteroom. Then the mike slipped from her hand as a spearman of Zastros’ bodyguard entered.

At that moment, Crawley inquired, “Lily! Lily! Dr. Landor! Can you hear my transmission?”

Making the ages-old hand sign against evil, the wide-eyed guard backed toward the anteroom, half whimpering, “Witch! Witchcraft!”

Fully aware of her danger, Lillian arose, smiling and extending a hand to the terrified soldier. “Oh, Solvos, you know I’m no witch. This chest is simply a toy with which I amuse myself while my dear lord sleeps. Here, give me your hand and look into my eyes.”

But he comprehended no single word she spoke, except for his own name. In her confusion, she was still talking in twentieth-century American English—as different from Old Merikan as the language of Chaucer. He only knew that she was speaking and using his name and advancing at him, and he suspected an attempt to ensorcell him. Just before he turned to run, he lashed out at her with the ferrule of his spear. He felt it strike, then took off as if Satan himself were hard on his heels.

Without the High King’s pavilion, Strahteegos Grahvos could make neither heads nor tails of the white-faced, stuttering spearman’s words. Knocking the heavy, solid-brass dress spear from his hand, Grahvos took the man’s shoulders and shook him violently. Even then, all that he could understand of the confused utterings were repeated references to witches, witchcraft, spells, and of men imprisoned in magical chests. Disgustedly, he threw the soldier aside and strode purposefully toward the entry, the other nobles crowding behind him.

A limp hand extended into the anteroom. Grahvos carefully pulled aside the curtains to disclose the crumpled form of Lady Lilyuhn, still swathed in her robe of brocade silk. But the crackling radio set drew his attention. He stepped over her and crossed to squat in front of it. All at once, the crackling ceased and Craw-ley’s voice impatiently demanded, “Blast you, Lily, stop playing games! I know your transceiver’s still on. Acknowledge my transmission. Damn it, Charley, are you certain this is the proper frequency?”

The front rank of nobles went as wide-eyed and ashen as had the spearman. Grahvos looked up in time to see Thoheeks Mahnos rapidly crossing himself, his lips moving in half-forgotten prayers.

“Oh, for the love of God, Mahnos,” Grahvos expostulated, “grow up! This is some sophisticated variety of machine, nothing more.”

He picked up the mike lying on the carpet and examined it carefully. “This is wrought of that odd material the Elder People employed … plahsteek, I think it was called. The machine might even be from those times.”

Though frightened, like all humans, of those things they did not understand, the nobles were not cowards. Seeing Grahvos unharmed, they slowly entered the inner chamber and scrutinized the strange device, first from a distance, then closer. But no more voices came from it, only a low-pitched hum and sporadic crackling sounds.

While they gaped at this wonder and gradually overcame their fears, far to the south, in the midst of the Great Southern Swamp, Dr. Bud Cra$ley was speaking into an intercom.

“Sir, I am afraid that we must write off Dr. Landor and the project to which she was assigned.” Briefly, deleting her expletives and verbal abuse, he quoted Lillian’s last report, closing by saying, “Then she suddenly broke off in the middle of a sentence, although she failed to deactivate the transceiver. There were some muffled noises, then several minutes of silence. The next voices I could hear distinctly were all masculine and all were speaking Greek.”

The senior director’s voice sounded sleepy. “All right, Bud, and thank you. Apparently Dr. Landor allowed herself more time than she really had. It was possibly our mistake to assign her to such a mission, anyway; she hated men—all men—and the emotion of hate tends to cloud one’s judgment and perceptiveness as much as does the emotion of love. We must exercise more care in the future; there’re too few of us to waste.

“But, nonetheless, Bud, you might try leaving our transceiver on that frequency for a while. Miracles happen, you know. She might be in hiding.”

Lillian was in hiding. When the spear butt had crashed against her body’s delicate skull, there had been a moment of shocked confusion; then she had felt the life-force leaving her body. Frantically, unthinkingly, she re-entered Zastros. Only when the transference was complete did she think what this meant. True, the drugs would wear off in time, but his body would never achieve full consciousness or the ability to move and speak without … without those few, simple words. But those words must be spoken through the mouth and vocal apparatus of that beautiful young body that lay almost dead on the floor of the dressing chamber. And she realized that she was not hiding safely—she was trapped I

Willing Zastros’ recumbent body to its maximum possible awareness, she heard the nobles enter the pavilion, heard that ass, Crawley, accuse her—a responsible, mature woman with no less than four degrees—of “playing games.” The nobles milled about the dressing chamber for a short while, exclaiming over various aspects of the radio.

Children! Lillian thought contemptuously. But, then, all men are basically dirty-minded little boys!

She heard the clump of boots and the clank of armor as someone came toward the couch, and she strove vainly to force Zastros’ eyelids to open. Then a rough band had taken the inert body’s arm and shaken it vigorously.

A voice she recognized as that of Strahteegos Grahvos spoke harshly. “Zastros! Zastros! Damn your eyes, Zastros, wake up!” The hand let go and the boots clumped back. “He’s out like a snuffed torch, gentlemen.”

Someone muttered something Zastros’ ears could not pick up the meaning of.

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop that foolishness!” barked Grahvos’ voice. “Sorcery, my calloused butt! Wine or drugs did this, probably both together; we all know he kept his wife drugged most of the time, so he obviously uses them, too.

“But it doesn’t matter; awake or asleep, he’s still deposed. Let High-Lord Milo waken him. We came mainly for the jewels and the gold. Let’s find them and get on the march. One of you pull off his house signet and find his sword. They should go to his nephew, Kathros. But no obvious plundering, gentlemen; if you’must steal, steal small. I don’t want our prospective overlord to think ill of us, nor should you; remember, our future lies with his Confederation.”

After a brief period of pushing about of furniture, dragging and clattering noises, and a short, sharp pain in Zastros’ right thumb as his signet was jerked off, Lillian heard the men’s voices fade away into the distance, leaving her alone in her refuge-become-prison. She made a stab at re-entering the body in the other room, but the way was closed, and no amount of will could budge so much as the tiniest muscle of Zastros’ hulk.