Dominion by Fred Saberhagen (best motivational novels txt) 📕

were performing a version of their mentalist act, but one in which the warning codes had been proscribed. She had no power of speech except to answer questions truthfully. “It’s a man,” her voice said carefully.

   Simon’s voice drifted to her again, in tones of careless ignorance. “Is the guest going to be able to join us here tonight?”

   Marge uttered a silent, agonized prayer that he could not. And the handsome man, as if he were able to read thoughts—or hear prayers—turned his face to her and now she could see his eyes. They rested on her only for a moment, but inside her skull a silent scream went up. Her voice, independent of her control, called calmly back to Simon: “He will try.”

   “When will he be here, do you think?”

   The slippery slope was not high. But near the top, opposition waited for the would-be guest. Out of a small mound, made of something Marge could not see clearly, there rose the broad, straight blade of a shining sword, topped by a cross-like ornate hilt. Light pulsed from the sword, and the jewels of its handle winked like small glowing eyes. The radiance of it forced back the man who tried to climb.

   Marge answered Simon: “Either he’ll be at the castle very soon… I think he will… tonight or tomorrow… or… he may never get there.”

   “And are you going to join us too?” Simon sounded so cheerful, so totally ignorant, that Marge felt her heart was going to break. She had opened her mouth to try once more to scream a warning in anger and despair, when a great soundless explosion tore the world of the nightmare to bits. She knew that this time the radiance of the Sword had repelled the man who tried to climb the hill of time, and she awoke sobbing with the relief that knowledge brought.

   Marge did not wake in her own bed, or even in her own world, but for the moment even being in an alien world did not matter. The part of the world she found herself in was bearable and livable; it was not yet a part of his domain.

   She was still in the building that housed the white-gowned women. On the second pallet in her small chamber her companion was still sound asleep. The nightworld around them was one of utter peace. Through the single window, too narrow for a man to enter, the moon looked in, nearly full and pale as cream. The small slice of the night sky that Marge could see was alive with stars.

   But she had only the briefest glance to spare for them. On the moonlit grass a few paces outside the window, a man was standing silently. Marge recognized Talisman with relief. What she had seen of him before suggested strange things indeed, but he still represented a link to her own world.

   Somewhere nearby a dog wined in its sleep, dreaming its own terrors. And Talisman, looking up and in at Marge, conveyed with an imperious motion of his hand that he wanted to be invited in.

   Marge glanced at her roommate, who was snoring faintly, then leaned forward close to the unglazed window. “Come in, if you can,” she whispered cautiously out into the moonlight. “But this window’s too small and I don’t see—”

   The figure standing on the grass vanished before her eyes. She had the sensation of a trailing garment brushing lightly across her eyes and forehead. As she turned her head in reaction to this she muffled a little cry. Talisman was standing in the middle of the small room, between the two straw beds.

   He bent down at once, to touch with two gentle fingers the forehead of the sleeper at Marge’s side. To Marge he said quietly: “She will not awaken now, if we are reasonably careful. What have you discovered?”

   “Discovered?”

   Talisman hissed impatiently. “I am making allowances for the shock you have experienced. But it would not do for you to abandon your brain to permanent paralysis. Our situation requires that we cooperate, whenever we are able. I have made an enemy of a deranged wizard of immense power. And your circumstance while not exactly similar, is near enough. On top of that, our real enemies will sooner or later notice us; or at least begin to take us seriously.”

   “Our real enemies?” Talisman sounded as if he were reasoning sanely, at least if you didn’t pay too much attention to what he was actually saying. And it gave Marge’s sanity a welcome boost, just to hear another human being calmly addressing her in English. Talisman intended to cooperate with her, and whatever else he might be, he was powerful. She was no longer alone.

   He nodded. “I have stood before them, within the hour, not many miles from this village. Comorr the Cursed, Medraut—and the wizard Falerin, the one most dangerous to us. I was able to speak a few words that they could understand, and I understood more than I allowed to show of what they said among themselves.” His eyes were fixed on Marge. “There is a woman there who… well, that is important, but no need to go into it now. I have come here to tell you that these evil folk are planning a military attack on this village. They hope to catch a certain leader here, away from the bulk of his army; with him out of their way, their conquest of the whole island will be easy, or so they think.”

   “The island?” Now stop echoing, Marge told herself fiercely; it sounds so dumb.

   Talisman informed her softly. “We are in what is called, in our own time, Britain. I thought you had grasped that much at least.”

   “I knew I’d landed in… someplace different. I can’t understand the language of these people at all, and they don’t speak mine, so we just haven’t been able to communicate. Look, we’re