Man of Two Worlds Read online

  He took a seat beside the girl he had met in the hall. His disguise gave him a moment of panicky self-confidence in which he imagined everyone there was looking at him and knew his sex.

  He fought it down.

  An older woman emerged from behind curtains and mounted the low platform. She was magnificent in thick gold robes and a crowning helmet that gleamed with white and purple stones. She glanced around amid the instant quiet.

  “Ladies of the Temple—for that is now your rightful title,” she said, “you are this day no longer women of Kronweld. You belong to a new and larger world, for which you have forsaken forever, the old. You belong to the world of the infinite, a world that lies on the very threshold of the realm of the God.”

  Ketan squirmed. He wished she would say some words that had meaning. But the girl next to him was ecstatic. Lie wondered if he were missing something of significance.

  But his mind refused to concentrate on the speaker’s words. Only one thought had pounded within him since he had entered the room. Where was Elta?

  Without attracting attention, he tried to crane his neck and get a glimpse of her. This would be a bitter farce if he didn’t find her.

  She was sitting two rows in front of him. Her eyes were intent upon the speaker. She was drinking in every word that was spoken.

  The whole mystery of everything that had happened since the night of his rendezvous at the Karildex with the shriveled old woman burst upon him anew in an overwhelming wave.

  Question after question assailed him, for which there were no answers. Foremost: Why had Elta come here ? Was this the thing she had referred to when she had told him she was going away? It seemed impossible that she had pians to come back from the Temple.

  Whether she did or not, there would be no turning back for him now until he had found the last secret of the unholy place.

  He wondered if the old woman had sought him at the Karildex again. Would he ever see her again ?

  He tried to turn his attention back to the woman on the platform.

  “You are to preside at the creation of man,” she was saying. “To no greater task could you have dedicated your lives. The work of the First Group and the Seekers Council in Kronweld is small beside ours.”

  Suddenly a new and strange fear grasped Ketan, The woman meant what she said.

  It took him a moment to grasp the full significance of that. He fought down the fear and told himself his discoveries couldn’t be wrong. He had the evidence of the Bors and of his own charts of the interior of the human body. He couldn’t be wrong.

  Yet how could anyone as close to the charlatanism as she was speak as she was speaking. It was different with the members of the Seekers Council. They didn’t have any real knowledge of the Mystery. But she must know—

  He listened abstractedly to her long eulogy of the life of a Lady of the Temple. There was nothing in it that gave him a clue. Ller only concrete directions were that they were to be ready to march to the Temple at the rising of the second sun when the building would have its once in a tara opening.

  They were dismissed and went out from the room. Ketan wound among the small groups that coalesced in knots of conversation and sought Elta. She was not joining any of the groups either, and hurried away. He caught up with her and spoke urgently. “May I see you alone—?”

  She turned. The nearness of her brought a tightness to his throat. “Of course, Murna—” Her hand went to her throat. “You’re not Murna— Who are you ? I’ve never seen you here before !”

  “Please,” he said urgently, “in your room?”

  Doubtfully, she turned and led the way. lie looked back, but no one was following them. Then they were inside the room and he closed the door. He approached closer to her. She backed in half fright.

  “Look closely, Elta.” His voice lowered to its masculine pitch. “Do you see nothing in me that you recognize ?”

  Her eyes widened in horror. “Ketan—!”

  “I had to come after you, Elta. Why have you done this insane thing ?”

  “Me!” she gave a short despairing laugh. “What about you ? How did you get in here ? What do you intend to do ? Don’t you know that if they found you here, killing would be mild to what they would do to you? That’s merely the penalty for one of the girls if she leaves after taking the vows and receiving her instructions.”

  “So that’s the kind of discipline that’s necessary here. It must be a benign place. I’m going to expose its corruption to all Kronweld.”

  “Oh, you fool, you fool—” Elta sank wearily on the bed. “You don’t know anything about this place.

  “Why wouldn’t you trust me, Ketan? I told you I’d come back to you and we’d go into Dark Land. Now—”

  “Back? From here? Is this where you intended to go all the time ?”

  She nodded, her head bowed.

  “Why?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  A barrier as black and as forbidding and as infinite as the Edge seemed to have risen between them. There was nothing Ketan could think of to say in the face of its widening separation of them. Elta seemed for a moment like an utter stranger. She could not be the Seeker Elta whom he had loved— with whom he would make their companionship.

  “Now—?” he said.

  A low, bitter sob escaped her. “Now … now, there is nothing. You are declassed … and the God only knows what more for coming here. Hoult would have killed you in Kronweld. Now he has a double excuse if you go back. They will hunt us down, even in Dark Land—

  “But that is the only solution. Escape and go there. - Tell me how you got in here—we’ll go now, both of us. We can make it. We’ll leave all this behind us and forget it for the rest of our lives—if they’ll let us. You know Dark Land. Surely we can find hiding there where they can never find us.”

  Her eyes were upturned towards him, earnest, pleading. He shook his head.

  “It wouldn’t be worth it. Even if we succeeded we would condemn ourselves to lives of perpetual fear and running from those we feared to fight.

  “I think there are other lands besides Dark Land and Fire Land, which no man has seen. I think that somewhere beyond them is the land of my vision, where a tall, thin pinnacle rises in a desert of red and white drifting sands. I think even that you may know where that land is. But regardless—that’s where we’re going. I believe the secret of its location is in this Temple.”

  He had no reason for this last statement except the complete sense of clarity and correctness which flowed over him ever since he had first made the decision to enter the Temple. It was as if he were being drawn along by an invisible wire that signaled when he was making a wrong or a right move.

  “I must find that pinnacle,” he said, “and you shall go with me.” But Elta’s eyes widened as they had the first time he mentioned it. “You must not find it,” she said in a voice of terror.

  Ketan gazed long and steadily upon her. “You know what is there. You know where that pinnacle is.”

  “No! If I did I would have destroyed it long ago. I only know of the terrible things it is said to hold. Trust me—if you won’t take me with you into Dark Land. Go without me. Soon I will come to you and then I promise that never will we have to live in fear again. The Temple will be destroyed, even as you wish. Then I will tell you all you want to know about me.” “I don’t know how you know of these things, Elta, but if they are as fearful as you would have me believe I cannot wait for you to choose a time to tell me. I must know them now. I must find them out for myself.” He shook his head slowly. “It is not I who does not trust you—you do not trust me enough to tell me what you know of the pinnacle—how you know of a thing I have only seen in vision. Tell me what you know of the old woman who came to me at the Karildex, why Leader Hoult would kill me if lie had the chance. What is the mystery of him and Teacher Daran—and of Elta?”

  She remained silent, head bowed, and unmoving.

  At the opening of the Temple of Bi
rth every inhabitant of Kronweld, without exception, gathered in the semicircle surrounding the white marble building. The guarding line of atomic devastation was broken down and armed guards were posted before the single entrance to the Temple.

  Ketan remembered well the day of his own emergence. For the first time he saw the outer world and the glowing twin globes shining from the cloud-hazy sky. Somehow, he had known that it would be as it was, but still the impact of the terrible reality of the exterior world had been a physical blow.

  That had been twelve tara before. Since that day he had been able to remember absolutely nothing that preceded his entry into Kronweld.

  Yet, deep below the conscious level in his mind was the conviction that there had been something before—that he had not simply sprung into existence three quarters grown as he emerged from the Temple. Something had been done to block off the things he was not meant to remember.

  He recalled the things that he knew that day when he stepped out into the air and sunlight of the natural world. He knew the language. He knew the fundamentals of Seeking. He knew what kind of a society he would find himself in. He knew that he would be assigned to a house of his own as a primary learner and advance until he became a full Seeker, if he could.

  That much he knew, but of the means by which he knew these things he could recall nothing.

  He remembered no part of the interior of the Temple beyond that moment when he stepped through its portal. He wondered now if any .of the surroundings would strike a note of familiarity within him.

  The atmosphere in Preparation Center was tense. It infiltrated even into Ketan. But he had a far greater reason for anxiety than any of the girls. He felt certain that discovery would mean swift death. Surging beneath the surface of Kronweld were strange, unknown forces of which he had never conceived. Forces that were merciless and swift.

  And somehow Elta was ensnared in their midst. He felt it was his destiny to destroy those forces— which loomed now even larger and more deadly than his original problem of overthrowing the system of registration for Mysteries.

  A sudden, resounding blast of instruments was heard, penetrating even the thick walls of the Center. There was a flurry among the newly inducted Ladies, and Ketan found himself beside Elta in a double line before the great doors of the Center.

  The chief Lady of the Center was at the head of the column, crowned with the splendor of her golden robes.

  Slowly the massive doors swung outward. There was a great hush, oppressive in its solemnity, as the column began its slow march into the daylight.

  There was a wide lane leading directly from the Center to the still closed door of the Temple. Lining each side were the thousands of inhabitants of Kronweld, heads bowed in reverence before the Ladies whose very footsteps had become holy by their consecration.

  Ketan felt suddenly and utterly naked. The impact of mass reverence convinced him momentarily of the fiendishness of his deception. He felt a wild urge to break and run through the vast crowd.

  And there was a pounding fear in his heart lest someone look closely and recognize some familiar feature in his face. He kept his eyes averted downward, looking steadily at the heels of the woman in front of him. Elta, at his side, gripped his hand once in a gesture of tender despair.

  The music softly flowing from the Temple grew louder as they approached the long broad flight of steps leading upward. At the top, the double column separated, half moving to each side of the steps, and halted there.

  A thunderous blast from unseen , trumpeters split the air. Then silence.

  Slowly and ponderously, reluctant to break their seal upon the Temple, the massive, golden doors parted.

  Ketan remembered that moment twelve tara before. That first crack of daylight was like a revelation from the God. Now he saw unnumbered other new inhabitants waiting impatiently, fearfully, beyond those doors. He saw the look of terror that crossed their faces, then they began to move tremblingly into the light of the twin suns.

  He watched them pass between the lines of waiting Ladies. There was a terrible bravery about that moment and an intense sympathy went out from him.

  They took only a few moments to pass. With an involuntary gasp, Ketan looked up through the doors. The dark hall was empty. There were no more to come out.

  He looked back at the receding column. There were not more than two hundred and fifty of them.

  His own gasp was re-echoed by the low murmur that began to swell from the watching group. It was a murmur of despair and wonder. Only two hundred and fifty—

  Each tara the groups emerging seemed to become smaller and smaller, but this was the smallest of all.

  Where would the reduction end? Why were there not more? No man in Kronweld knew the answers.

  Now, the twin lines of the waiting Ladies turned and advanced. They converged at point in the center of the broad doorway. The doors closed.

  Ketan had returned to the Temple of Birth.

  Amid silence except for the padding of their soft shoes on the marble floor, they wound slowly down a long, curving corridor whose side was shaped by the rotundity of the outer wall.

  The corridor led into a small chamber heavily rugged with maroon carpet. Faint strains of music issued from unseen sources.

  “I leave you now,” their leader said, “to your lives of service. Dedicate your every thought and desire to the performance of your duties well, for upon you rests the future of man. I leave you now to Matra, First Lady of the Temple of Birth. Learn from her—resolve, each of you, to be as great a Lady as she has been.”

  The golden robed Lady left the room. They sat in expectant silence.

  Before them was a low platform with a dais in the center. Curtained alcoves marked either side.

  There came a faint rustling of the curtains on the left, and then from between them emerged an old woman. Her silver hair was neatly bound with a jeweled band and her thin limbs were clad in white, shining robes.

  She stood a moment glancing over their expectant faces as if with an intense hope and longing. Her eyes met Ketan’s.

  At that instant his world exploded.

  She was the old crone who had come to the Karildex and told him he must slay Leader Hoult, Teacher Daran, and Elta,

  He felt a current of recognition pass between them. The corners of her mouth turned slightly in an enigmatic smile, and her glance passed on.

  She knew him.

  His breath came hard and damp perspiration oozed from his pores as a sense of entrappment flooded over him.

  He scarcely heard her begin speaking.

  “—eighty tara I have been here. I do not regret a day that I have lost from the outer world. My only regret is that I have not done my work well—none of us ever fulfill our dreams.

  “You who once came forth from these sacred chambers must learn that it was here that the hopes and ideals and desires of the God who built Kronweld were planted within you. In turn, now you shall teach others as you were taught.

  “You wonder what is required of you—you are new and hopeful, you are eager and fearful. You shall know every emotion that crosses a human breast, but sorrow and heartache you will bear in disproportionate amounts.

  “It is your task first to learn the great things that have come down from the time of the first woman, and then to teach them to those who come unto us.

  “All of you have wondered where life came from, how it is created. That is one of the forbidden Mysteries which Seekers in Kronweld have often been tempted to search out, but it is not wisdom that they should know. Even we who have been blessed to care for new life have not been given knowledge of how it is created. That knowledge is reserved only for the God. We see the performance of his works, but we do not comprehend how they are done.

  “Tomorrow, after you have rested and refreshed yourselves, you shall witness the creation of life.”

  Fearful doubts began to flow through Ketan. Not a shred of evidence, not a clue to tell him that he was right. Wh
at if his beliefs and theories were a horrible blasphemy as the Council had judged?

  He might never know. Matra’s eyes roved over the assembled Ladies but ever they returned to him, boring into him as if trying to establish unspoken communication. Communication for what? He could not tell if her glance was one of condemnation or not.

  Now a needle-sharp sadness came into her voice.

  “I will not be with you long,” she continued. “Perhaps you are the last group of new Ladies that I shall welcome into the Temple. If so, I give you my last command; You must do your work far better than your predecessors have done. Perhaps some of you may know it already; some of you may not. Kronweld is failing. Don’t let that shock you. So slowly that you who have lived there your short lives may not have seen it Kronweld is retrograding, going into the past. No more are there great fearless Seekers like the mighty Igon who was the last of the great ones.

  “Why this is so, I do not know. Nor do I know why the creation of new life is less with each tara that passes. The group that I emerged with numbered over two thousand. You saw those who came forth today. You must find why this is so or Kronweld is doomed. I hope there may be one within this room who will find the reason for this.

  “You may go now. An attendant for each of you is outside in the corridor. You will be shown to your rooms and tomorrow taken to the chamber of birth.”

  They arose, silent and somewhat shaken by the intensity of her almost inaudible speech.

  Ketan turned with the group and sought the door. Elta, beside him, felt the tenseness of his body and looked inquiringly into his face.

  He knew that he would not get to the door. Halfway there, he realized the ancient was speaking again. Someone plucked his sleeve and he turned.

  “You who call yourself Murna — I would speak with you,” Matra said.

  He paused and turned. She was looking at him again with those eyes he knew could read his thoughts. Elta went on with the rest.