Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [164]
Suddenly the silence was suspicious. O'Leary snapped his eyes open. Sprawnroyal was gone. The corridor was empty. There was not even an impress of feet in the deep-pile blue carpet to show where he had stood.
"Blue carpet?" he muttered dazedly. "But I thought it was red. The only place I've seen a blue carpet like this was in Lod's palace . . ."
He whirled and ran along the corridor, leaped down stairs, sprinted across a wide lobby, dashed out onto an expanse of sand-drifted lawn, turned to look back. Broken lavender neon letters spelled out LAS VEGAS HILTON.
"It's it," he gobbled. "The building Goruble supplied to Lod. And that means—I'm back in Artesia . . . doesn't it?" He looked out across the dark expanse of desert. "Or am I still in some kind of never-never land?"
"There's just one way to find out," he told himself. "There's twenty miles of loose sand between here and the capital. Start walking."
Dawn was bleaching the sky ahead as Lafayette tottered the last few yards to the door of the One-Eyed Man tavern on the west post road.
"Red Bull," he whispered hoarsely, thumping feebly at the heavy panel. "Let me in . . ."
There was no response from behind the shuttered windows. An icy chill stirred in Lafayette's midsection.
"It's deserted," he muttered. "A ghost city, an empty continuum. They shifted me out of Melange, because I was unbalancing the probability equation, but instead of sending me home—they marooned me . . ."
He hobbled on through the empty streets. Ahead was the high wall surrounding the palace grounds. He clung for a moment to the small service gate, then, with fear in his heart, thrust it open.
Morning mist hung among brooding trees. Dew glistened on silent grass. Far away, an early bird called. Beyond the manicured flower beds, the rose-marble palace loomed, soundless. No curtain fluttered from an open window. No cheery voices cried greetings. No footstep sounded on the flagged walks.
"Gone," O'Leary whispered. "All gone . . ."
He walked like a man in a dream across the wet grass, past the fountain, where a tiny trickle of water tinkled. His favorite bench was just ahead. He would sit there awhile, and then . . .
And then . . . he didn't know.
There was the flowering arbutus; the bench was just beyond. He rounded it—
She was sitting on the bench, a silvery shawl about her slim shoulders, holding a rosebud in her fingers. She turned, looked up at him. The prettiest face in the known universe opened into a smile like a flower bursting into blossom.
"Lafayette! You've come back!"
"Daphne . . . I . . . I . . . you . . ."
Then she was in his arms.
THE SHAPE CHANGER
Out of the world, away and beyond
Borne on the wings of the magic song . . .
—Chant of the Thallathlonians
Chapter One
1
The moon shone bright on the palace gardens as Sir Lafayette O'Leary stepped stealthily forth from the scullery entrance. Silently, he tiptoed along the graveled path which led beneath a rhododendron hedge, skirting the royal Artesian vegetable garden and winding past the chicken yard, where a sleepy hen clucked irritably at his passing. At the street gate he paused to glance back at the dark towers looming against the cloud-bright sky. A faint light shone behind the windows of his third floor apartment. Up there Daphne was curled between silken sheets, waiting for him. He had sent her off to bed alone, telling her he'd join her as soon as he'd perused another chapter of his newest book on mesmeric science; instead, here he was, creeping out like a thief in the night, on his way to a stealthy rendezvous with a person or persons unknown—all because of that ridiculous note he'd found tucked under the napkin accompanying his after-dinner drink.
He pulled the grubby scrap of paper from his pocket, reread it by the dim glow from a lamp in a bracket on the wall.
X (His mark)"
"It must be from the Red Bull," Lafayette told him. "Nobody else could spell as creatively as this. But why the cloak-and-poniard approach? You'd think he was still cutting purses for