The Sky Is Falling | Page 9

cushion near the
door was Nema, juggling something in her hands. It looked like a cluster of colored
threads, partly woven into a rather garish pattern. On a raised bench between two
windows sat the old figure of Sather Karf, resting his chin on hands that held a staff and
staring at Dave intently.
Dave stopped as the door closed behind him. Sather Karf nodded, as if satisfied, and
Nema tied a complex knot in the threads, then paused silently.
Sather Karf looked far less well than when Dave had last seen him. He seemed older and
more shriveled, and there was a querulous, pinched expression in place of the firmness
and almost nobility Dave had come to expect. His old eyes bored into the younger man,
and he nodded. His voice had a faint quaver now. "All right. You're not much to look at,
but you're the best we could find in the Ways we can reach. Come here, Dave Hanson."
The command was still there, however petty the man seemed now. Dave started to phrase
some protest, when he found his legs taking him forward to stop in front of Sather Karf,
like some clockwork man whose lever has been pushed. He stood in front of the raised
bench, noticing that the spot had been chosen to highlight him in the sunset light from the
windows. He listened while the old man talked.
Sather Karf began without preamble, stating things in a dry voice as if reading off a list of
obvious facts.
"You were dead, Dave Hanson. Dead, buried, and scattered by time and chance until
even the place where you lay was forgotten. In your own world, you were nothing. Now
you are alive, through the effort of men here whose work you could not even dream of.
We have created you, Dave Hanson. Remember that, and forget the ties to any other
world, since that world no longer holds you."

Dave nodded slowly. It was hard to swallow, but there were too many things here that
couldn't be in any world he had known. And his memory of dying was the clearest
memory he had. "All right," he admitted. "You saved my life--or something. And I'll try
to remember it. But if this isn't my world, what world is it?"
"The only world, perhaps. It doesn't matter." The old man sighed, and for a moment the
eyes were shrouded in speculation, as if he were following some strange by-ways of his
own thoughts. Then he shrugged. "It's a world and culture linked to the one you knew
only by theories that disagree with each other. And by vision--the vision of those who are
adept enough to see through the Ways to the branches of Duality. Before me, there was
nothing. But I've learned to open a path--a difficult path for one in this world--and to
draw from it, as you have been drawn. Don't try to understand what is a mystery even to
the Satheri, Dave Hanson."
"A reasonably intelligent man should be able--" Dave began.
Ser Perth cut his words off with a sharp laugh. "Maybe a man. But who said you were a
man, Dave Hanson? Can't you even understand that? You're only half human. The other
half is mandrake--a plant that is related to humanity through shapes and signs by magic.
We make simulacra out of mandrakes--like the manicurist in the barber shop. And
sometimes we use a mandrake root to capture the essence of a real man, in which case
he's a mandrake-man, like you. Human? No. But a very good imitation, I must admit."
Dave turned from Ser Perth toward Nema, but her head was bent over the cords she was
weaving, and she avoided his eyes. He remembered now that she'd called him a
mandrake-man before, in a tone of pity. He looked down at his body, sick in his mind.
Vague bits of fairy tales came back to him, suggesting horrible things about mandrake
creatures--zombie-like things, only outwardly human.
Sather Karf seemed amused as he looked at Ser Perth. Then the old man dropped his eyes
toward Dave, and there was a brief look of pity in them. "No matter, Dave Hanson," he
said. "You were human, and by the power of your true name, you are still the same Dave
Hanson. We have given you life as precious as your other life. Pay us for that with your
service, and that new life will be truly precious. We need your services."
"What do you want?" Dave asked. He couldn't fully believe what he'd heard, but there
had been too many strange things to let him disbelieve, either. If they had made him a
mandrake-man, then by what little he could remember and guess, they could make him
obey