Dominion by Fred Saberhagen (best motivational novels txt) 📕

   Talisman nodded gravely.

   “I thought so.” Marge quickly outlined what had happened to her since her arrival, then added her speculations on the white-garbed women, and on the building they were in. “So what do we do now? I have no intention of spending the rest of my life here.”

   “My own sentiments exactly; I rejoice that we are in agreement. Our situation as I see it is dangerous indeed, but far from hopeless. These matters of magic have their own logic, you understand, even as dreams do. When we have grasped the logic of the situation, we ought to be able to do something to help ourselves.”

   “Great.”

   He nodded briskly. “You cried out in your sleep just now, before you woke. You were dreaming?”

   “Yes.”

   “Describe your dream, please. It could be of great importance.”

   Marge told him of the slippery hill, and of the voice of Simon that had drifted to her from somewhere beyond it. She described as well as she could the evil man, and his losing conflict with the Sword.

   Talisman listened carefully, nodding. “The hill is of course, among other things, an obvious pun on your friend’s name. But the evil young man, as you call him—I wish you could show me a photograph. Never mind, I think I know him anyway. The Sword thwarts him, do you see. Perhaps the Sword is also the key to our passage home.”

   “God, if you can think of some way to get us home…” Marge leaned forward, putting her hand on Talisman’s arm; beneath his sleeve it felt as hard as wood. “Speaking of swords, yesterday the men here were forging something. At least there was a lot of hammering on metal, just after I arrived.”

   “Ah.” Talisman’s eyes were fixed on her in speculation, and what she hoped was new hope. “If the Sword itself were forged here yesterday, that would provide the connection, the logic of magic that we need to find. If—” He broke off suddenly, with his head cocked listening. His raised hand held Marge silent.

   She listened as hard as she could. In a few seconds the still night air brought her the sound of hurried hoofbeats, as of a single animal running at a fast pace.

   The sound grew closer rapidly. There was a new uproar among the village dogs. Presently an exhausted horse with a youth riding bareback came cantering up to halt among the buildings.

   “Hello the village! Men of Artos!” the youth cried out. In Marge’s state of mixed excitement and weariness it took her a few seconds to realize, with mixed feelings, that she could understand him perfectly, though he was speaking in the same tongue that she had listened to uncomprehendingly for hours before she fell asleep.

   Armed men were running out of huts and houses to confront the messenger, demanding to know his name. Talisman, frowning, started to say something, but it was now Marge’s turn to gesture him to silence. “Wait,” she ordered. “Let me listen. I can understand them now.”

   For the first time she saw Talisman truly surprised. “You can? What do they say?”

   “The messenger says there is an enemy army advancing—he gives names, the same ones you mentioned, Comorr, Falerin, Medraut the Traitor. Everyone here in the village is going to have to pack up and run right now, without waiting for morning. To something called the Strong Fort, wherever that is.”

EIGHTEEN

    In the ears of Simon Hill that last scream of Hildy’s seemed to go on echoing endlessly. The echoes escaped the castle, they fled down corridors outside of time, passages that he had not known existed. The blast that provoked the scream drove Simon to his knees, his face averted from the small, broken little doorway that had once been secret, through which the sickly light now poured into the great hall. At last that pale glare abated. And at last the inward echoes of that scream faded to a tolerable level.

   Then Simon could raise his eyes. When his gaze fell on the fireplace he saw again the faces in the flames. The faces were even more distorted now, as if they writhed in pain.

   So for him there was to be no easy escape, no calm pretense that magic did not exist. He’d tried that for most of his life, and it wasn’t going to work. In a way, he was almost glad.

   He made himself look back toward the doorway that had once led to a secret passage. The bizarre light that had come pouring out of it was fading steadily, was now almost gone. The wind that had seemed to blow through it from another world had dwindled to a faint draft, was hardly more than imaginary now.

   Marge was in there, somewhere. At least she had been there. He, Simon, had got her into this, pretending to himself that no real danger existed here at the Castle. Feeling responsible, he rose unsteadily to his feet and moved toward the little doorway, a jagged opening now with stones and wood torn from its edge. He glanced in passing at the group still gathered round the dinner table, a few steps to his right. Some were still seated, looking stunned, some now stood beside their chairs. Voices rose in a moaning jumble. Someone was muttering something about lightning. And now Vivian’s voice was speaking, plainly, loudly, reasonably, enforcing calm. But a few moments ago she had been screaming too, Simon was sure or it. Just before Hildy’s outburst, Vivian had screamed in hopeless agony, something that might have been a name. A word that sounded like Falerin.

   Simon faced forward again, toward the shattered wall. What was that howling that he could hear now, coming from outside the castle? Wolves, in the 1980s, in Illinois?

   Reaching the blasted doorway, Simon supported himself in it numbly, with