FSF Magazine, February 2007 Read online

  Bandar thought it wise to remove themselves from the bare threshold of the Commons, so close to the prime arrondisement where the characteristic entities were to be found in their purest form. He was about to suggest that they visit one or two of the more benign Locations, but Wasselthorpe was now peering down the road, his virtual body slightly leaning in that direction as if pulled by magnetism. He said, “I wish to explore."

  "A little, no more,” Bandar said. “I grow concerned."

  "But I am fine."

  Bandar explained that before they had come here he had been willing to take Wasselthorpe for one of those rarities with unusually biddable memories who find it easy to enter the Commons. But now he did not know what to think. Wasselthorpe was apparently not a natural, yet he could effortlessly detect the presence of the dreamers around them when even Bandar must work to catch a glimmer.

  Wasselthorpe said, “I feel no fear. I am where I should be."

  The phrase troubled Bandar. “As if you were called here?” he said.

  "Yes,” Wasselthorpe said.

  "We should go back,” Bandar said.

  The young man looked around. “Are we in danger?"

  "Not I,” said Bandar, “but you may be in great danger."

  But Wasselthorpe perceived no threat. “Why should we return?"

  "To see if you can,” Bandar said. To be called into the Commons presupposed an entity that did the calling, a powerful archetype that Wasselthorpe, lacking an arsenal of thrans and mentalist techniques, could not withstand.

  "I sense no ill intent here,” Wasselthorpe said. He begged to be allowed at least to look about and promised that at the first sign of danger, Bandar could lead him back.

  Perhaps it was the lingering confidence of Red Abandon, but Bandar acceded, at which point Wasselthorpe said, “I have an inclination to go down the road,” adding, when Bandar let his anxiety show, “It is only a mild inclination."

  "In the Commons, nothing is ‘only’ anything,” Bandar said.

  "What could happen?"

  "I cannot name any of the particular menaces because to name is to summon."

  Wasselthorpe found the concept hard to encompass.

  "It is not a laughing matter,” said Bandar. “Naturals who find their way into the Commons almost never find their way out. The unprotected consciousness is soon absorbed by a pure archetype."

  Apprentice nonauts, hearing of these things, always showed some degree of fear. Yet Wasselthorpe displayed no concern and Bandar felt a rising curiosity about this odd young man.

  He offered a bargain: they would go down the road together, but Bandar's commands must be instantly heeded. Wasselthorpe agreed and made to set off, but Bandar delayed their going to teach the young man the strongest of the thrans: the three, three, and seven, whose tones would hide them from the characteristic entities. He bade the young man sing it loudly and without cease, then linked his arm in Wasselthorpe's and led him down the road.

  They soon reached the divide that separated the threshold from the first level of the Commons. Because Bandar was conducting the journey, it presented as an old stone bridge across a black river. On the other side was an open space in which the “usual suspects” sat or stood or milled about.

  Bandar was surprised to note that near the far end of the bridge sat the Hero. His Helper, as always, was nearby. That the Hero appeared in such proximity meant that that archetype must be the entity whose influence was most dominant in Wasselthorpe's personality. Odd, he thought, I would have predicted the Fool for naivete and the Seeker for his exaggerated interest in unraveling mysteries. The Fool was indeed nearby, but although the Seeker was Bandar's own dominant archetype, it was wandering far back in the crowd.

  They had meanwhile reached the middle of the bridge. Bandar, his arm still linked with Wasselthorpe's, sought to restrain his further progress. The young man continued to chant the thran but his face was taut. He pulled against Bandar's grip.

  Now a curious thing happened: the Hero's head came up as if something had attracted its attention. The Helper, too, showed increased alertness. Bandar saw that many of the other archetypes had stopped their characteristic activities and had turned toward the bridge.

  That shouldn't happen, was his first thought. To Wasselthorpe, he said, “Louder."

  The young man increased his volume but still his body seemed to yearn toward the archetypes.

  "This is wrong,” Bandar said, “as if they sense us."

  The Hero had turned to face them, even though the insulating thran should have denied it any perception of their presence. Now it took a step toward them. The Helper followed, as did some of the other entities, including the Wise Man. The Father left the Mother and Child and moved toward the bridge.

  Wasselthorpe was still chanting, but his volume had decreased. Bandar hauled on his arm, trying to pull him back. But he felt the young man's virtual flesh resisting with unexpected strength.

  Bandar now added his voice to the thran. The Hero stopped and stood still, its head turning this way and that as if listening for an elusive sound. The other entities also paused.

  The nonaut had, with difficulty, returned Wasselthorpe to the top of the arched span. Now the young man exerted himself and would go no farther back. Worse, he stopped chanting the thran to half-turn toward Bandar and say, “Wait!"

  Bandar recognized the look on Wasselthorpe's face; it was the “wild surmise” that gripped apprentice nonauts when they first felt a resonance between their own psyches and the pure entities that blended within them to make them who they were. It was not a look he wanted to see on the face of an uninstructed beginner.

  "Listen,” the young man said.

  Listening was the last thing Bandar intended. He chanted more loudly, almost straining the throat of his virtual body. He dragged at Wasselthorpe's arm with both hands but could not budge the resisting young man.

  A frisson of horror went through the nonaut as he saw the Hero step forward again. It set the heel of one boot onto the stones of the bridge. Impossible! thought Bandar. It can't do that!

  The stones of the bridge moved beneath his feet, grating against each other. Wasselthorpe stood as if entranced. The Hero raised its foot to take another step. Bandar had no doubt that the entity was somehow aware of them, despite the thran, that it was drawn to them by an attraction so powerful that it could suppress the elemental forces that separated Locations in the Commons.

  He yanked on Wasselthorpe's arm, spinning the young man around to face him. He could not speak while intoning the thran, but he let his terror show in his face and raised one hand in a gesture that said, What are you waiting for?

  To his great relief, he saw understanding dawn. Wasselthorpe rejoined him in chanting the thran. The Hero's second foot did not step onto the bridge.

  Bandar signaled Wasselthorpe to sing louder and when the young man did as he was bid, Bandar pulled him back to the road that was the threshold of the nosphere. Without delay, he sang the tones that opened an emergency gate and thrust Wasselthorpe through the rift the moment it appeared. Moments later, Bandar came back to the deck of the Orgulon. He leaped to his feet and leaned over the still-seated form of the young man, shaking his shoulders until the eyes opened and focused on him.

  Wasselthorpe mumbled something and Bandar sat down again. “I believe he is all right."

  "He has also regained the power of speech,” said a female voice. The security officer was standing over them.

  Abbas explained about Wasselthorpe's intermittent bouts of rigor. The woman showed a professional's unwillingness to accept second-hand testimony. She squatted before Wasselthorpe and said, “What happened?"

  The young man was still dazed. Bandar stepped in. “We encountered an archetype,” he said. “More significant, it encountered us."

  "A man with a sword. His helmet had wings,” said Wasselthorpe, his gaze turned inward.

  Bandar found the detail interesting. “That's one of its earliest forms."<
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  Wasselthorpe added more specifics of his view of the entity. He had seen a dawn-time barbarian wearing chain mail and the skin of an extinct canine predator. Then he lapsed back into introspection.

  The security officer glowered. “What have you done to him?"

  "Nothing,” said Bandar. He gave a short explanation of what had happened on the lip of the prime arrondisement. “But he is fine."

  The security officer expressed surprise and distaste that anyone would venture into such a hell for a pastime. Bandar assured her he had no intention of accompanying Wasselthorpe into the Commons again.

  She seemed to want to take the discussion further and Bandar was conscious of not having made a good impression. But her next words were never uttered because there came a panicked scream from the darkness that shrouded the foredeck.

  * * * *

  The ensuing few minutes were full of shouts and action. It appeared that a passenger—indeed it was the dark-haired man whose female companion had been miraculously cured of the lassitude—had fallen from the foredeck. The landship's great wheels had crushed him. The captain, a small, precise man, came on deck and ordered the vessel stopped, then dispatched a flying gig to retrieve the corpse. The security officer held a whispered consultation with the captain, who then announced that the passenger's death might have involved a criminal offense. The slim young woman became hysterical. Protesting that it had been an accident, she was led below by the security officer.

  The passengers had crowded around in the way that bystanders at horrific events often do. Bandar sought solitude by the landship's rail and reflected on what had transpired in the Commons. He was deeply troubled by the Hero's seeming awareness of them despite the thran, and especially its determination to come for them directly across the bridge. That should have been impossible.

  When he refocused his powerful memory on the events, he was struck by a detail that had eluded him at the time. While the Hero had blindly sought Wasselthorpe, Bandar now realized that the Helper had not just been following its master. Its eyes had not lacked focus, nor were they directed at Wasselthorpe. They had been aimed straight at Guth Bandar. It sensed me, he thought. Thran or no thran, it knew I was there.

  It was a worrisome thought. Bandar did not care to be absorbed and tipped into permanent psychosis. But even if he were willing to go mad, his choice would not have been the Helper, insanely serving some blustering hero. He shuddered and knew that he was not just responding to the chill breeze off the night prairie.

  Abbas and Wasselthorpe joined him after the body had been removed and the crowd cleared. They speculated on how the poor fellow might have come to fall overboard. Bandar offered the opinion that the landship might have encountered a transient gravitational cyst, causing the man to unbalance and tumble over the rail. The conversation reminded him that it was just such anomalies he had come to investigate, and he excused himself, then hurried below to fetch his measuring equipment. But when he came back on deck and activated his device, he detected nothing out of the ordinary.

  The security officer approached him as he adjusted settings and calibrated norms. “Now what are you up to?” she wanted to know.

  Bandar told her. His explanation earned him a look that let him know that he was becoming one of her least favorite passengers. Deciding it would be best to retire, he pocketed his equipment and went to his cabin.

  * * * *

  It had been a tiring day, so Bandar decided to combine his concern about Wasselthorpe and the Hero with his need for rest. He fell asleep, allowed himself to slip into a dream, then took control. He transported himself to the threshold and set off for the prime arrondisement with the intention of examining the bridge and the archetypes—especially the Hero and Helper—beyond the barrier.

  He had scarcely taken three strides, however, before he felt a grip on his shoulder that sent a cold shock through his virtual torso. Startled, he turned to see what had accosted him and found himself looking up into the pleased face of Phlevas Wasselthorpe.

  "What are you doing?” Bandar said.

  "I am dreaming."

  "This is very wrong,” said the nonaut. “You should not be here."

  The young man counseled him to be unconcerned. “It is only a dream."

  "Yes,” said Bandar, “but it is my dream."

  "No, it is mine,” said the other. “You are a figment."

  "Tell me,” Bandar said, “when you look at me, do I seem to change in any way? Or is my form constant?"

  The other looked him up and down. “It is peculiar, but you do seem to remain unchanged, whereas the woods behind you have been several different kinds of forest."

  "What does that tell you?"

  "What should it tell me?"

  "A hundred things, none of them good. I will open us a gate.” Bandar sounded the first few notes of the emergency exit thran. He was astonished to find himself silenced. Wasselthorpe had placed a hand over Bandar's mouth. The hand felt very real.

  This time the shock of contact was strongly colored by a bolt of fear. Bandar struggled and with a great effort managed to wrench himself free. He backed away, saying, “Oh, this is much worse than not good. I should appear to you as at best a shifting image. Instead you not only see me but can lay hands on me and prevent my following my own will."

  "I am sorry,” said Wasselthorpe. “I do not want to depart."

  "I want nothing but,” said Bandar. “Do you not understand that you frighten me?"

  "I do not wish to.” The young man looked around at the shifting landscape. “Do you not sense that somehow all of this is as it is meant to be?"

  That was precisely what frightened Bandar. “Neither of us is experiencing an ordinary dream,” he said. “Some force is shaping us to its own ends. In the Commons, the only such force is an archetype intent on absorbing a consciousness. That way lies madness."

  "I do not feel irrational,” said Wasselthorpe. “My mind seems unusually clear, considering that I am dreaming."

  "Again, a worrying sign,” said Bandar. “My sense of things tells me that you are being drawn into the role of Hero and that I am being pressed into the part of the Helper."

  "I want from you only advice,” Wasselthorpe said.

  "Let us be exact,” said Bandar. “You feel compelled to enter more deeply into the Commons and you want me to be your guide."

  "I suppose."

  "I refuse."

  "Why?"

  "Because the end of this is your absorption into the entity that summons you, followed by insanity and certain death. And poor Bandar, towed along helpless in your train, suffers a comparable doom."

  Wasselthorpe found the warning hard to believe. “All will be well,” he said. “I am certain of it."

  Bandar informed him that that was always the Hero's sure belief, right up until the moment the dragon's teeth closed upon his tender parts.

  Now Wasselthorpe disputed the contention that he was ruled by the Hero. “Why can I not be a blend of several archetypical entities, like you and anyone else?"

  Bandar told him to look at himself.

  The young man looked down and Bandar saw mild surprise take possession of his face. Wasselthorpe was clad in chain mail, scuffed boots, and rough trousers bound up by criss-crossing straps. A shaggy gray pelt covered his shoulders, its paws tied across his chest. In one hand was a sword of iron. Bandar gestured and Wasselthorpe raised a hand and touched the wings that sprouted from the helmet on his head.

  "Does that seem familiar?"

  The young man had to admit that it did. Yet, he was as thoroughly unconcerned as a Hero would be.

  Bandar suggested that he ought to open a gate so they could discuss the situation in the waking world, where it was easier to resist an inclination to madness. He was chagrined to see the other's face fill with heroic resolve.

  "No,” Wasselthorpe said. He was here to do something, and felt that he must do it.

  Bandar had backed a little farther away; Wasse
lthorpe was accompanying his declaration with sweeping gestures, and only now noticed that he was doing so with the hand that held a sword. Considerately, he laid the weapon down on the road. Instantly, it disappeared from there and reappeared in his grasp.

  "What do you think the ‘something’ you are here to do might be?” Bandar said.

  The other spoke without reflection. “I must search."

  "Search for what? Something nice, like treasure? Or something with fangs and an insatiable appetite?"

  A blank look came over Wasselthorpe. He did not know, he said, but he would know it when he saw it.

  "Oh, my.” Bandar put his hands over his eyes and shook his head. “All right,” he said. It did no good to argue with a Hero. But he begged to be allowed to shape the adventure. That way they stood some chance of surviving it.

  The young man agreed to follow his advice.

  The nonaut said, “Look around and tell me if there is anything that draws your attention."

  Wasselthorpe immediately found that something about the woods beyond the field interested him.

  "Very well,” said Bandar, “let us approach them. But I must lead."

  Wasselthorpe agreed.

  "All right,” said the nonaut, though the situation was far from it, and asked the young man to indicate the direction in which he wanted to travel. Wasselthorpe closed his eyes and let his sword hand rise to point the way. When the nonaut asked how far he thought they should go, the answer was, “Not far."

  Bandar turned the globe and regarded the proposed line of travel. A short distance away was the entrance to a Class Three Event. “Curious,” he said. He put away the globe. He would have liked to call an end to the expedition here and now so that he could mull the coincidence: here they were traveling the Swept, a legacy of the War Against the Dree, and now a strange young man who was powerfully influenced by the Hero had a strong urge to enter the Event that the war had carved out in the Commons.