“Minus seven PK.”

She leaned close to him, fragrant, lovely. “Burn me, Richard. Bring up flames from your mind and let them blacken and cook and turn to ash this body that you will never know because you are not a man but a poor worm without sex or sensibility. Burn me!”

But he was the one who burned. Tears coursed down his cheeks and caught in his mustache. He tried to spit at her but his mouth was clotted and his tongue swollen. He twisted his head because his eyes would not close to shut out the blue and primrose coolness of her cruelty.

“Plus two point five create.”

“Interesting, but not good enough, of course. Rest for a moment now, Richard. Think of your companions upstairs. One by one they will come to this room as so many others have come, and I will get to know them as I know you. And some will serve the Tanu in this way and others in that, but all will serve, save a few blessed ones who will find that the gate into Exile is the door into paradise after all… You have one last chance. Come into my mind. Feel me. Probe me, take me to bits and reassemble me in a more compliant image.” She bent closer toward him until the flawless skin of her face was only a few hands-breadth from his own. No pores, no creases on that face. Only pinpoint pupils in the nephrite eyes. But beauty! Vile and tantalizing beauty of incredible age.

Richard strained against the damps of the chair. His mind screamed.

I hate you and violate you and diminish you and cover you with excrement and I call you dead! I call you rotted! I call you writhing in pain everlasting, stretched on the rack of the superficies until the exhalation of the universe dies and space falls in upon itself…

“Minus one redact.” Richard fell forward. The coronet dropped from ms head to strike the stone flags with a bell tone of finality.

“You’ve failed again, Richard,” Epone said in a bored voice. “Inventory his possessions, Jean-Paul. Then put him in with the others for the northern caravan to Finiah.”

CHAPTER THREE

Elizabeth Orme was so dazed by the shock of the translation that she scarcely felt the guiding hands that urged her up the pathway toward the castle. Someone relieved her of her pack and she was glad. The soothing mumble of the guide’s voice carried her back to another time of pain and fear long ago. She had felt herself awakening in a cushioning womb of warm solution where she had been regenerating for nine months in a web of tubes and wires and monitoring devices. Her eyes blinded, her skin deprived of tactile sensation by the long immersion in amniotic fluid, she could nevertheless hear a gentle human voice that calmed her fear, told her she was whole again and shortly to be freed.

“Lawrence?” she whimpered. “Are you all right?”

“Come along now, missy. Just come along. You’re safe now and you’re among friends. We’re all going up to Castle Gateway and you’ll be able to relax there. Just keep on walking like a good girl.”

Strange howls of maddened animals. Open the eyes in horror and shut them again. Where is this place?

“Castle Gateway, in the world you call Exile. Take it easy, missy. The amphicyons can’t get us. Just up these stairs now and well have you lying down for a nice rest. Here we go.”

Opening doors and a small room with, what? Hands were pressing her to sit down, to lie down. Someone lifted her feet and arranged a pillow under her head.

Don’t go away! Don’t leave me here alone!

“I’ll be back in just a few minutes with the healer, missy. We won’t let anything happen to you, bank on that! You’re a very special lady. Relax now while I get somebody to help you. Washroom behind that curtain.”

When the door closed she lay motionless until a surge of nausea rose in her gorge. Struggling up, she lurched into the washroom and vomited into the basin. An excruciating pain lanced her brain and she nearly collapsed. Leaning against the whitened stone wall, she gasped for breath. The nausea receded and so, more slowly, did the agony in her head. She became aware of someone else entering the room, two persons speaking, arms supporting her, the rim of a thick cup pressed to her lips.

I don’t want anything.

“Drink this, Elizabeth. It will help you.”

Open. Swallow. There. Good. Now sit again.

A voice, deep and honey-rich. “Thank you, Kosta. I’ll take care of her now. You may leave us.”

“Yes, Lord.” Sound of door closing.

Elizabeth clutched the arms of her chair, waiting for the pain to come back. When it didn’t, she let herself relax and slowly opened her eyes. She was sitting at a low table that held a few dishes of food and drink. Across from her, standing beside a high window, was an extraordinary man. He was robed in white and scarlet and wore a heavy belt of linked squares of gold set with red and milk-white gemstones. Around his neck was a golden torc, thick twisted strands with an ornamented catch in front. His fingers, holding a stoneware cup with the medicine, were oddly long, with prominent joints. She wondered vaguely how he had managed to slip on the many rings that gleamed in the morning sunlight. The man had blond shoulder-length hair cut in a fringe above his eyes, which were very pale blue, seemingly without pupils, and sunken deep into bony orbits. His face was beautiful despite the fine web-work of lines at the corners of his smiling mouth.

He was nearly two and a half meters tall.

Oh, God. Who are you? What is this place? I thought I was going back in time to Pliocene Earth. But this is not… this can’t be…

“Oh, but it is.” His voice, with a musical lilt, was kind. “My name is Creyn. You are indeed in the time-epoch known as Pliocene and on the planet Earth, which some call Exile and others the Many-Colored Land. You’ve been disoriented by your passage through the time-portal, perhaps more seriously than the rest of your companions. But that’s understandable. I’ve given you a mild strengthening draft that will restore you. In a few minutes, if you please, we’ll talk. Your friends are being interviewed now by people of our staff who welcome all new arrivals. They’re resting in rooms like this one, having a bit of food and drink and asking questions that we’re doing our best to answer. The guardians of the gate alerted me to your distress. They were also able to perceive that you are a most unusual traveler, which is why I am interviewing you myself…”

Elizabeth had closed her eyes again as the man droned easily on. Peace and relief permeated her mind. So there really is a Land of Exile! And I’ve really managed to come into it safely. Now I can forget what I’ve lost. I can build a new life.

She opened her eyes wide. The tall man’s smile had become ironic.

“Your life will certainly be new,” he agreed. “But what is lost?”

You… can hear me.

Yes.

She leaped to her feet, drew breath, cried out in a shattering scream. Vocalization of ecstasy. Life found restored renewed. Gratitude.

Softly! she told herself. Draw back from the pinnacle. Gently. After that first mad interior leap, go cautiously. Reach out at the simplest possible mode, at wide focus, for you are weak with rebirth.

I/we rejoice with you Elizabeth.

Creyn. You permit shallow question?

Shrug.

Elizabeth slipped clumsily beneath the surface of his smile, where a neat reticulation of data waited passively for her study. But the deeper layers were shielded by warning hardness. She snatched up the proffered information and got out quickly. Her throat had gone dry and her heart pounded with the shock of the assimilation. Gently! Gently. Two mental blows within a few minutes on her raw tenderness. Suspend heal allow self redaction. He cannot read deeply or far. But coerce yes. Redact yes most strongly. Other abilities? No data.