Chapter 12: Volna the Beautiful

Bram Forest had been day-dreaming.

Ylia? Hadn’t Ylia been calling his name? But how could that be? Ylia was almost two hundred million miles away. Clearly, as long as they kept the magic disc away from him, he could never see Ylia again. And besides, now that he had been vouchsafed a vision of his dead mother, the former queen of Ofrid, and now that that vision had conjured up the entire tragic past for him, why was it that when he shut his eyes and allowed the bright sun to beat down on the lids through the cell window he saw an image of the sun-browned maid, Ylia?

Could it be, he asked himself, wondering if somehow he were profaning the memory of the mother he had never known, that Ylia stood not for the past but for the present and the future, and that it was in the present and the unknown future that Bram Forest must live and do his life’s work and perhaps perish, although he was motivated from the past?

A guard brought food on a tray. The cell door clanged open, the tray was delivered, the cell door clanged shut. The guard did not pay particular attention to Bram Forest: he had been a docile enough prisoner.

Ylia, he thought.

He knew he must escape next time the guard brought food.

Dr. Slonamn held up the bracelet with the metal disc on it and stared curiously at the contraption. He was a psychologist, he could hardly consider himself an expert on metallurgy. Still, he had never seen a metal like that from which the disc had been fashioned. It seemed too opaque for steel, too hard for silver. A steel and silver alloy, then? But he had never heard of a steel and silver alloy.

He held it up to the light. Like a fly’s many-faceted eye it threw back manifold images of--himself. Somehow, it made him dizzy to gaze at the images. He drew his eyes away and had an impulse to fling the strange disc away across the room.

The sun was going down. He heard a clattering from the prison kitchen as the evening meal was prepared. Tomorrow, he thought, should see the completion of his work here. Another interview with the paranoid giant who had brought the disc, perhaps. The disc fascinated him.

He looked at it again. He didn’t want to, and recognized the strange compulsion within himself. Then, before he quite realized it, he was staring at his multiple image again. His senses swam. There was a far-away rustling sound like--the words came unbidden to his mind from a poem by Kipling--like the wind that blows between the worlds. He gazed again at the disc. It seemed to draw him, as a magnet draws iron filings. Now he wanted to fight it, wanted to fight with every ounce of his strength. A wave of giddiness swept over him, leaving nausea in its wake. He clutched at the prison-office desk for support. The rustling grew louder.

He saw--or thought he saw--a girl, a lovely, sun-bronzed girl. There was a look of fear on her face. She seemed to be crying out for help.

An abyss yawned before his feet, before his very soul. He longed despite himself to plunge into the abyss, whatever the fearful consequences might be. He lurched back, fighting the longing. Yet he knew he wouldn’t win. He took a step forward...

“Give it to me!”

The voice, urgent, distant, beckoned him back to reality. It seemed a great distance off, but it was something to which he could hold.

“Give me that disc!”

He felt himself dragged roughly back, saw the abyss retreating. The rustling of the wind between the worlds became distant, a sound imagined rather than heard.

“Give it to me!”

He blinked. The nausea had washed over him. He felt weak, drained, exhausted. But the substantial reality of the prison office surrounded him.

The young giant stood before him, strapping the bracelet which held the disc on his powerful arm. A look of intense concentration was on his face. His skin was bathed with sweat although it was cool in the room.

“What did you do to the guard?” Dr. Slonamn asked, wondering if the prisoner would slay him.

“He’ll be all right. I only hit him. I’m sorry. It was necessary.” The giant spoke in haste. His eyes were clouded, dreamy, as if he had taken an overdose of barbituates.

“What are you going to do?”

“You saw? In the disc?”

“Yes,” said Dr. Slonamn.

“I’m going. It’s my home.”

The giant took a step forward, then began to stagger.

“Your home?” Dr. Slonamn gasped. “Your home?”

The giant, who had given his name to the prison authorities as Bram Forest, did not answer. Dr. Slonamn reached out, as if to grab him. Bram Forest stood there, a smile and the acceptance of pain fighting for mastery of his face.

Dr. Slonamn staggered back as if struck. His hand had passed through Bram Forest’s body.

Staggering, trembling, Dr. Slonamn leaned for support on the desk. He could see through Bram Forest now. See through him entirely.

A cold fierce wind, like no wind ever felt on Earth, touched him. He shuddered.

When he looked again, Bram Forest was gone...

“Retoc the Abarian!” the seneschal’s voice proclaimed.

An uneasy stir passed through the crowd of mourning courtiers in the palace chamber. Retoc, ruler of Abaria, did not often visit Nadia. A state of armed tension existed between Abaria and Nadia of the ice fields. Nadia alone of the many disunited nations of Tarth had strength in some ways comparable to that of black forested Abaria, but even then, if a war came between the two nations, the issue would never seriously be in doubt.

As a matter of diplomacy, Retoc had been invited to the funeral of Prince Jlomec, although neither Bontarc, ruler of Nadia, nor his sister, Volna the Beautiful, had ever dreamed he would come.

While the crowd milled about in their white mourning garments, Retoc told the seneschal: “I wish an audience with the Princess Volna.”

The crowd was suddenly quiet. Volna the Beautiful, haughty, imperious, princess of the royal blood, would certainly refuse to see the Abarian ruler. Nevertheless, the seneschal bowed low, said, “Your request will be carried to the staff of the royal household, lord,” and disappeared behind a hanging.

Some time later, in another part of the palace, Bontarc was saying: “Volna, Volna, listen to me. You can’t see that man now.”

“I’m going to see him,” Volna the Beautiful told her brother. “So it may not be said that a princess of the royal blood hid in fear behind a wall of tragedy.”

“But sister! With dear Prince Jlomec still not on the burning barge which will carry him down the River of Ice on the final journey from which--”

“Please, brother,” Volna said a little coldly. “I’m going to grant Retoc his audience. Don’t you understand? He thinks me weakened by Jlomec’s death. Oh, I loved the Prince, yes. He was always so--so quiet and aloof from affairs of state. But I can be strong if strong I have to be.”