The Dream Master (18 page)

“Not this time.” Both heads laughed.

It advanced.

Render backed slowly away, his feet bound by the yellow serpents. He could feel the chasm opening behind him. The world was a jigsaw puzzle coming apart. He could see the pieces separating.

“Vanish!”

The giant roared out its double-laugh.

Render stumbled.

“This way, love!”

She stood within a small cave to his right.

He shook his head and backed toward the chasm.

Thaumiel reached out toward him.

Render toppled back over the edge.

“Charles!” she screamed, and the world shook itself apart with her wailing.

“Then Vernichtung,” he answered as he fell. “I join you in darkness.”

Everything came to an end.

“I want to see Dr. Charles Render.”

“I’m sorry, that is impossible.”

“But I skip-jetted all the way here, just to thank him. I’m a new man! He changed my life!”

“I’m sorry, Mister Erikson. When you called this morning, I told you it was impossible.”

“Sir, I’m Representative Erikson—and Render once did me a great service.”

“Then you can do him one now. Go home.”

“You can’t talk to me that way!”

“I just did. Please leave. Maybe next year sometime…”

“But a few words can do wonders…”

“Save them!”

“I—I’m sorry…”

Lovely as it was, pinked over with the morning—the slopping, steaming bowl of the sea—he knew that it
had
to end. Therefore…

He descended the high tower stairway and he entered the courtyard. He crossed to the bower of roses and he looked down upon the pallet set in its midst. “Good morrow, m’lord,” he said.

“To you the same,” said the knight, his blood mingling with the earth, the flowers, the grasses, flowing from his wound, sparkling over his armor, dripping from his fingertips. “Naught hath healed?” The knight shook his head. “I empty. I wait.”

“Your waiting is near ended.”

“What mean you?” He sat upright. “The ship. It approacheth harbor.”

The knight stood. He leaned his back against a mossy treetrunk. He stared at the huge, bearded servitor who continued to speak, words harsh with barbaric accents:

“It cometh like a dark swan before the wind—returning.”

“Dark, say you? Dark?”

“The sails be black, Lord Tristram.”

“You lie!”

“Do you wish to see? To see for yourself?—Look then!” He gestured.

The earth quaked, the wall toppled. The dust swirled and settled. From where they stood they could see the ship moving into the harbor on the wings of the night. “No! You lied!—See! They are white!”

The dawn danced upon the waters. The shadows fled from the ship’s sails.

“No, you fool! Black! They
must
be!”

“White! White!—Isolde! You have keep faith! You have returned!”

He began running toward the harbor. “Come back!—Your wound! You are ill!—Stop…” The sails were white beneath a sun that was a red button which the servitor reached quickly to touch. Night fell.