Charon: A Dragon at the Gate Read online

  Basically, the magicians and their students were the cops. They reported to a board of Bishops whose responsibilities encompassed whole planetary areas. Collectively this group was known as the Synod.

  Interestingly, the Bishops were appointed by the Director, who could hire or fire them at will. I wondered how the hell Matuze could make a firing of somebody that powerful stick—and why the Bishops were in any way obedient to her in the first place—but they were. The reason was something to be found out later. Still, the system confirmed my basic idea that Matuze herself, while probably schooled in those magical arts and reasonably competent, wasn’t the top witch or whatever in terms of magical power.

  Sooner or later I’d have to find out just what the Director’s base of power was.

  One thing was sure—Matuze had not only all the political power but all the respect and pomp as well. She was almost invariably referred to in ancient royal terms, such as “Her Highness” or even “Her Worship”; but she was nevertheless, the Lord, not the Lady, of the Diamond.

  She liked to have her picture everywhere, that was for sure. Four different full-size portraits adorned the lobby. When the rain actually stopped for periods and we had walking tours of the town, I found her likeness almost everywhere, even on many of the corns we were shown—but not all. Older coins showed several men’s faces, different men, and while I was sure she hated them I could see she was practical enough not to go to all the trouble and expense of replacing all the old currency until it was worn out—not when the mint was 160 million kilometers away. All the portraits showed her much the way I remembered her—fairly young, attractive, somewhat aloof and aristocratic. Even though she was from the civilized worlds and conformed to the norm, there was something in that personality that even portraits caught, something that made her stand out. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, if she still really looked that good.

  The animal life on Charon was too diverse to keep track of, and was quite strange depending on which of the three continents you were on. Difficult as it was in rain-soaked Honuth to believe, animals existed on the parched central continent for whom rain could be disabling, even deadly. The most important thing, from a survival viewpoint, was that the animals also possess a certain power for magic. It was on a primitive level, of course, but the carnivores, in particular, could quite often make you think they were a tree, a bush, or even a pretty flower, until you came too close. Some of the carrion-eaters in particular could project whole landscapes, disorienting and confusing travelers as well as instinct-driven herbivorous prey, causing bogs to look like rocks or land water.

  “In a very real sense,” Garal warned us, “walking along unprotected on Charon in broad daylight in good weather is like walking blindly in pitch-dark night, never knowing what is waiting for you, never knowing what is real and what is not.”

  This situation, of course, reinforced the feudal Company system. Nobody dared walk away, nor even travel from town to town, without the protection and abilities of a sorc. Charon was a deadly place indeed, well-suited for easy population control and political domination.

  But Charon didn’t worry me because in the long run its least common denominators were the same socio-economic factors that supported every world, even the Confederacy itself. Here, you got the training to use the power if you could—the easy way up, like being born to power or position elsewhere. Failing that, you found somebody who did have the power and rode up with that individual, using that person’s power as your own—a slower and more delicate method than the first, but one that worked.

  I realized, of course, why we were being kept in this hotel in this rain-soaked town for so long. Our hosts were waiting for the final “set in” of the Warden organism in order to demonstrate its effects—and powers. We were the cream of the criminal crop; we had to be shown explicitly who was boss first.

  With one exception, that is. Zala continued to be more and more of an enigma to me. I realized very early on that she had been lying about herself, at least in part—she was never trained to be an accountant or, for that matter, in any similar profession. In just routine conversation and in discussing the briefings it became clear that her counting ability only slightly exceeded the capacity of her fingers and toes; her reading ability was similarly quite basic. That put her well outside any government, business, or scientific areas of expertise. It confined her, in fact, to the lowest job classes, not at all unusual for the frontier but very unusual for one of the civilized worlds.

  But lies were the stock in trade of people sent to Charon, so the problem wasn’t that she was lying but that she was a bundle of contradictions. The ego, the sense of self-worth in the job you were born to do, was central to the social fabric of the civilized worlds. Everyone had a job they did well and knew was important, even vital, and something few others could do as well. Sex was casual and recreational There were, of course, no family units and everyone’s egocentrism kept the concept of individualism a core idea. You had a circle of friends certainly, but no dependency on others in a psychological sense. The slogan “Interdependence in work, independence in self was everywhere and was always being drummed into you.

  But not Zala. Zala needed somebody else, and I do mean needed. She latched onto me immediately despite the distinct possibility that I was still a mass murderer of women. I had enjoyed out sexual encounters; she had required, needed them. She was simply incapable of existing, let alone surviving, on her own for very long—and that was an incredible idea for someone like me from the civilized worlds. Timid and passive, she lacked any of the egocentrism I took for granted. I didn’t have any illusions that she’d chosen me because of some innate magnetic charm or superior radiance I gave off. She’d chosen me because I happened to be there, was convenient, and therefore the one.

  But once I was chosen, she was totally solicitous of my welfare to the exclusion even of her own, as if she had no thoughts of her own but simply awaited my pleasure. Although her behavior was demeaning in my eyes and bothered me in the extreme, nonetheless I have to admit I got a certain charge from it, since it certainly fed my own ego beyond anything I had come to expect short of service robots.

  And yet, and yet … How the hell did somebody like her ever get to be at all, particularly on the civilized worlds? And why was she sent to the Warden Diamond?

  Late in the evening of the fourth day on Charon I decided to confront her. Her response, which was both embarrassed and nervous at being caught in so obvious a lie, did little to answer my basic questions about her.

  “I—well, you’re right,” she admitted. “I’m not an administrator. But the rest is true. I am, well, what they call a bioslot Entertainer, but that isn’t really quite right either. Basically, well, the planetary administrators often have guests from other planets and from the Confederacy itself. There are banquets and entertainments of course for the bigwigs—and I’m part of it. My job is—was—to provide those important people with just about anything they wanted. Keep them happy.”

  Now I knew what she meant. I’d seen a number of her type in just such circumstances while working on cases involving business and government bigwigs. The very sameness of the civilized worlds made them pretty dull. When you saw one you saw them all. Even the entertainments, meals and the like were standardized—in the name of equality, of course. It was a perfect and proper system, but there were still men and women in incredibly high places who had to be impressed when they dropped in on your little world, and those in the Entertainer class were the ones to do it They planned and set up banquets that would be unique and offer exotic delicacies. They planned and performed unusual entertainments, including live dancing and even more esoteric demonstrations. And if even sex was boring they could provide really exotic demonstrations there too. So that’s what Zala was—literally programmed and trained and raised to do anything and everything for other people. Cut off from that, she’d naturally latched onto the first person that would make her feel valued—me.

 
But these facts didn’t explain what she was doing here, or why she had lied.

  “As for the lie, well, it seemed better here to be an administrative assistant than an entertainer. They would have just thrown me in some kind of frontier-style brothel and that would have been that. I am not a whore! My profession is a valuable and honorable one—back home.” Big tears started to well up in her eyes, and I found myself somehow on the defensive instead of the attack. She was really good at that.

  Still, she stuck to the rest of her story. She was supposedly a genetic illegal, of what kind she hadn’t been told, and she had been shipped here without a clue as to why. Shifting her to the right slot in life had cleared up one of my mysteries, but left her big one still unanswered.

  * * *

  On the afternoon of our fifth day, we got a taste of what was to come on Charon. Some minor tests had been performed without our knowing about them; they proved we were now fully “affiliated”—or seasoned—and ready to face the cold, cruel world. One of the tests, I discovered, involved the excellent soup we’d been served for lunch. Everybody had had some, everybody loved it; the only trouble was there hadn’t been any soup.

  At the end of the meal it came as a big shock when Garal stood up and announced, “We will need no service to clear this soup from the table.” He waved his hand, and the soup—bowls, spoon, and tureen—suddenly and abruptly vanished. Even the spots where some had spilled a little on the tablecloth instantly vanished.

  Although we’d all been warned to expect this, I’m afraid my jaw dropped as low as any other. The demonstration was incredible—unbelievable. That soup had been as real as my own right hand. And yet, we had all sat there, in reality eating absolutely nothing, and raving about it.

  “Now, at last, you see what we mean,” Garal said smugly. “But we need a few more examples just to give you an idea of the range.” He pointed at a young, sandy-haired frontiersman. “You. Float up and over the table and hover there.”

  Immediately the startled man rose from his chair, still in a sitting position, floated over to about a meter above the dining table. He grew panicky and started flailing away at the air as we all gaped.

  Mogar, the big brute with the single room who was sitting next to the man, reached over to the now empty chair and felt around. His IQ was obviously higher than I’d thought—it’s exactly what I would have done. “Th—he’s not in the chair!” the big man growled in amazement. To prove it, even to himself, he moved down one and sat in the chair.

  “Stop thrashing about in the air!” Garal snapped, but the hapless floating man didn’t heed him. Finally Garal, in a disgusted tone, said, “All right then—get down from there!” He snapped his fingers. The man fell into the center of the table with a loud crash, almost knocking it over. Soup wasn’t the only course we’d had, and he got up a little dizzily covered in leftovers.

  We were all stunned. Levitation? “I thought you said the magic wasn’t real,” I remarked suspiciously. “If that wasn’t real—what is?”

  Garal smiled. “Now you’re getting the true measure of Charon. What is real here? Did that man float up, then fall? Or did he climb up under the impression he was floating and then fall into the food? Do you know?”

  “Do you!” somebody grumbled.

  He smiled. “In this case, yes, I do. But I don’t always know. You have to be a real master of this always to tell what’s real and what’s not—and usually, even then, there’s somebody around at least as good as you who can fool you. The point is, you can’t trust anybody or anything on Charon. Never.” He snapped his fingers once again, and we all fell smack on our behinds. The chairs we had been sitting in had all abruptly vanished.

  Garal laughed. “You see? Real or illusion? Because I will it even I see what you see, perceive it as you perceive it. A perfect check on my own handiwork. Had someone come in who’d never met any of us before while you were sitting eating your soup, that person would have seen you all sitting there eating soup. They would see what you saw, smell what you smelled, the works. Why? Not because I willed the illusion, but because you believed it—and radiated it.”

  Zala picked herself up a little painfully and then helped me to my feet. We were all more than a little shaken.

  “Enough of these children’s games,” our host proclaimed, “you now know exactly what you’re in for. It’s not really all that bad—nor is it all that easy. Spells and counterspells, mental control and discipline, those are the keys and they aren’t easily learned—and even less easily tamed.”

  “Well how do we know what’s real, then?” somebody asked.

  He took the question seriously. “There is only one way to survive and prosper on Charon. Only one. You must act as if everything is real—even magic. You have to discard all your notions of the past and live as if you were part of a children’s fairy tale. You’re in a world where magic works. You’re in a world where sorcery, not science, reigns, even though it knows and understands scientific principles. You’re in a world where science, natural law, and even logic and common sense can be suspended at the whim of certain people. It doesn’t matter if we’re dealing with reality or illusion—it doesn’t matter one bit. No matter what it is, it is real to you, and to everyone else. Look—see that pitcher of fruit juice on the table?”

  We all looked at it, expecting it to vanish. It did not Instead, Garal concentrated, half shutting his eyes, and pointed to the pitcher.

  Slowly the yellow liquid inside seemed to churn, to bubble, to run through with many colors, while smoking and hissing. It was an ugly brew now, and all the more so because we had all drank from that pitcher earlier.

  Garal opened his eyes and looked at us seriously. “Now, that pitcher contained one hundred percent nui juice and nothing else. I have just changed the contents into a deadly poison—or have I? You all see and smell the stuff, don’t you?”

  We all just murmured assent or nodded. “All right, then. Stand back a bit.” He walked up, carefully lifted the pitcher, and spilled a small drop on the edge of the table. It hissed and bubbled and began eating through the tablecloth and into the finish. Then he replaced the pitcher on the table.

  “Now, did I just change that into a deadly acid, or is that still a pitcher of fruit juice?”

  “It’s still fruit juice,” somebody said, and reached for it “No! Don’t touch it!” Garal almost yelled; the man hesitated. “Don’t you understand? It doesn’t matter what it really is! It doesn’t matter a bit! You all perceive it as acid—and so for you it is acid. If you got some on you it would burn a hole in you. Why? Because you’d subconsciously tell the Wardens in your own body that it was acid, and your cells and molecules would react accordingly. We believe it’s acid, and so our Wardens tell those in the tablecloth and top that it’s acid, and they, having no sensory apparatus of their own, believe it too, and react accordingly. Don’t you see? Whether it is illusion or not, this is not simple hypnosis.” He waved an arm at the room as a whole. “See all this? It’s not dead. It’s alive! The rocks and trees outside are alive. The table, walls, clothing, everything is alive. Alive with Wardens. And so are you and so am I.

  “Wardens don’t think, but they hear what you are thinking and they act accordingly. They broadcast that to all the other Wardens, and those Wardens act accordingly. That is acid because your senses tell your brain it is acid—that’s hypnosis. But your brain tells the Wardens, and the others that it is acid—and that’s not hypnosis. That is acid.”

  Tiliar entered from the rear accompanied by a distinguished-looking man, in his forties perhaps, wearing a long black robe adorned with golden and silver threads. He was gray-haired, an unusual sight in one so young, and had a ruddy complexion, as if he’d spent a lot of his time in a hard outdoor climate. Not this climate, though—he certainly was dry enough.

  Garal stepped back and bowed slightly in deference to the newcomer. Both he and Tiliar treated the man with respect, the respect of subordinates to the boss.

&nbs
p; He stopped and looked around at us, then at the acid still sputtering in the pitcher, and smiled. With no sign of concentration or effort at all, he mumbled a word and pointed to the pitcher, which immediately ceased bubbling and quickly began to transform itself back into fruit juice. Once its normal, healthy yellow color was restored, he walked over to it, picked it up, materialized a glass from somewhere, and poured juice into the glass. He then drank about half and looked satisfied, then put the glass back down on the table.

  “My name is Korman,” he introduced himself, his voice a mellow and pleasant baritone with an air of extreme confidence in its tone. “I’m what the locals would call the sorc—the town sorcerer. I’m also one of those who sit in the Synod, so I’m here as the official representative of the government of Charon and Her Worship, the Queen Aeola, Lord of the Diamond. Welcome.”

  That was a new one. So she was queen now? Could goddess be far behind—or would that be too much even for the Synod?

  “My assistants here will be setting up an interview table in the rear while we chat,” he continued, “and I hope I can answer some of your questions.” He paused a moment “Oh, how inconsiderate of me!” He snapped his fingers and the chairs reappeared. In addition to ours, an almost thronelike wooden monster appeared at the head of the table. He sat in it.

  We all eyed the chairs with some suspicion, which gave Korman some amusement.

  “Oh, come, come,” he admonished us, “please have a seat—or has nothing Garal told you sunk in as yet? Face it, you don’t know if the chairs were always there and only seemed to vanish, or whether there never were any chairs. And does it make any difference? These chairs are solid and comfortable. They will support you. You can go completely mad here trying to decide if things like that are real. Accept what your senses tell you. Sit down, please!”