Chapter 14 — False Runner
IF YOU’RE NEW HERE, YOU ARE LATE TO THE SAGA OF A TALE OF TWO TIMES. BUT, NO PROBLEM, THE PREVIOUS VOLUMES ARE AVAILABLE IN EBOOK OR PRINT FORMAT OR SOON WILL BE. (OF COURSE, FOR A PAID SUBSCRIPTION, YOU CAN DIG THE PREVIOUS CHAPTERS OUT OF THE SUBSTACK ARCHIVE.)
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~ 1 ~ When Marge Hemming had discovered that she needed and could get the Clan's help to make the Separator work, the Friend had told her that it would be, "Perfume for me, and a much improved position in the arms trade for you. May we crack open this Cold War with a little heat!”
~ ~ ~
Herbert Schooner knew that the time had come to make it clear to Marge that her Separator was, in fact, part of the Soma and very soon the Friend would vest in his Soma, after all these thousands of years in which she and Herbert had waited in mutual animosity.
It would make no money for her, even though her sale of the rogue Soviet atomic bombs might make her rich. But if the Foe did at last vest in the Soma, he himself would crack the Cold War open with more heat than she could imagine.
Because the process of vesting was also his opportunity to execute his plan, Herbert had to make the situation crystal clear to Marge, so that during that process of vesting she would serve as his tool.
To work this enlightenment on Marge, Herbert invited her to visit his Workshop that he might explain the Separator’s part in the Soma. As Marge walked along side Herbert down the Keep’s Corridor to his workshop, she considered that the vestment of the Friend in his Soma—if it happened at all—would merely improve her prospects of future arms sales. It was this very illusion, that Herbert thought to strengthen in her mind.
Herbert had fabricated a very tall, spiral Device which was to guide the Friend to his vestment in the Soma when the Soma was coiled around the base of this spiral guide. This Device was soon to be installed in the Room of Assembly in the deepest part of the Keep, a subterranean amphitheater, not unlike the Berlin Sword Palace in size and form. However, its seats were rounds of stone benches, and in place of a Battleground was a raised oval-shaped metallic surface. In the center of this surface, Mortimer Kane had often placed the Friend’s Calling Stone so that that the Friend could converse with the members of his Circle in the Room of Assembly.
However the spiral guide had yet to be anchored in the Room of Assembly, and it was now on display for Marge in Herbert’s Workspace. Herbert had planned to explain to her that the parts of the Soma were her Separator and the Device being fabricated by himself and Esther and Het at the Ontario hangar; there it was code-named the “Miner” for their consumption. The Separator would merge into the elongate worm-like Soma, becoming its power source. Although the Separator was now functional for Marge’s purpose, it would soon not be available to produce the explosive nuclear component of more atomic bombs for her to sell. But he would tell her that after the Friend was vested in the Soma, it would not be long before it would be disassembled and she would have her Separator back, during the long periods when the Friend would not be using it.
They reached the Workshop’s door and through its small window Marge sensed a vast darkness. Herbert opened the door to his Workshop, and the darkness became to her a looming cave entrance. “Take my arm for a moment as we pass through the Front Gate,” Herbert said causally. She did, and they entered into a large wood paneled room. With her arm on his, Herbert noticed that she was not wearing the bracelet which was her calling beacon for the Friend. So, she is not sharing this moment with him! A feeling of confidence and excitement suffused Herbert, and he said, “This is the inside of my wagon Workshop.”
Marge let go of his arm.
“Turn around, Marge, and look through the observation window in the door through which we have just passed. You can’t be seen by passersby, but you can see passersby in the corridor.” Marge saw several persons waking along it. One passing face looked directly at the window and seemed to see only the darkness which she had seen.
“Let me show you, another entrance,” said Herbert striding over to a smaller door directly across from the main door. He opened it and the light of the Workspace dimly illuminated a small tunnel entrance. “This is a real tunnel. I confess I made it to spy on you and Cherokee’s business by giving myself a secret entrance to Hector’s tunnel where, I discovered those five atomic bombs.”
Marge raised an eyebrow. “You spied on us? I had my men search for any other ways to get in besides the utility room in Steuben’s library which Cherokee planned to use to get the bombs out, in plain sight.”
“The reason that you did not find my entrance to Hector’s tunnel is that I made a tectonic offset for it. Only a skilled Delver could find it—if he searched for it. I can show you, if you like.”
“Not now; you can show Witteric. Herbert, we had one alert of intruders in the tunnel; my men found nothing but an electrical short in the utility room. Later, I inspected it personally, and communicated with the Friend about it. He said his Powers in Earth’s Province were “oddly disturbed” at about that time. Was that you?”
“No. Witteric told me about that, too. That was about the time that some geological consultants sonically detected a possible undocumented fissure. Steuben’s Institute was thinking of an expansion project. The fissure was really Hector’s tunnel and the bombs’ holding chamber. The consultant’s activities could have caused the short, but because of the ‘fissure’, the expansion was not carried out.”
“Well, the real bombs are now at the Beach, we put dummy bombs with real fuses in their place.”
Herbert nodded. “You may not know that Dr. Chavez’s office has been relocated close to that utility room; he uses the access corridor from which that room opens as his private entrance.”
Marge said, “I have a more recent report that someone has handled the fuses.”
“It must have been Chavez; fuses are his expertise. He could have used the entrance in the utility room to get in and concluded, most likely, that the bombs are genuine.”
“Good. Let them believe that my customers will pick up their wares on the New City University Campus!”
Closing the tunnel door, Herbert pointed to the twelve foot high spiral guide “There is the main attraction, Marge, we have to climb up the ladder to the top of the scaffold. There I will explain to you what that contraption is all about.”
“It looks rather like a glorified lightning rod, Dr. Schooner.” Marge said with little interest.
“It’s what I especially wanted to show you.” Herbert spoke with a slight overtone of disappointment. “Marge, the Separator is in the adjacent Workspace. Eugene and some of his technicians are putting it through its paces.”
“So it is working at last?”
“Yes it is, but first things first.” They walked over to the “glorified lightning rod”.
Marge’s interest in Herbert’s showing of twelve-foot high Device was kindled at the news about the Separator. “I’ll climb up first,” she said and quickly ascended the twelve feet of ladder to the top platform. Herbert followed and was about to begin his spiel, when below them, his secret tunnel’s door opened and a woman stepped from it and strode to the main entrance. The woman was Yohanna Okubo!
She glanced through the observation window into the corridor, removed something from her purse, and carefully inserted it into her braided hair. Instantly, the Black woman was transformed into a tall and stately white woman with blond hair, …Runner Liuvigota! Runner Liuvigota had carried messages to and gathered information for the Circle’s Overlords for thousands of years. The false Runner pushed the door open and entered the corridor.
Marge and Herbert had watched wordlessly. “What is the Clan witch up to?” Herbert whispered with genuine excitement in Marge’s ear. At his words, Marge instantly descended the ladder, paused to look out the observation window, and saw the false Runner, clipboard in one hand, open the door to the locker room across the corridor, look in, mark the clip board and continue to the next door.
Without speaking to Herbert, Marge exited the Workshop and followed the transformed Yohanna. Herbert, wondering, followed. He slipped on his Beacon ring which opened his presence for the Comrade. Whatever was going on, he felt it wise to keep the god informed, but the Comrade did not seem to be close to him.
~ ~ ~
Ricardo had recalled Yohanna from Quinceañera Beach to census the Shades in the Keep. At the Beach, her negotiations between Witteric and the Arab factions was long, demanding work, so she had been annoyed at his command, which he delivered personally by suddenly suddenly appearing to her when she was alone. He had told her what she had to do in the Keep.
“Inconvenient as it is, dear sister, now is the moment. It would only take a day, and we will return you as quickly as possible to Quinceañera Beach."
Yohanna had to agree that her absence would look only like part of her negotiator’s role, and she knew that Runner Liuvigota was present at the Beach, serving as Kane’s liaison with Liubagilds. Liuvigota was not a person whose movements would be challenged in the Keep.
~ ~ ~
She returned at once in the Guild seaplane, Ricardo and Wilson where the pilots and she the only passenger.
~ ~ ~
Marge held Kane’s opinion that Yohanna was the Clan witch. The sight of Yohanna has completely aroused her predatory instincts.
Herbert was surprised at Marge’s move to follow Yohanna moving in the guise of Runner Liuvigota. Did Marge not value Yohanna’s role in the negotiations at Quinceañera Beach?
But Marge did not now remember, as Thersa had warned her, she could not rely completely upon her memory. Long ago, a Clan witch had slain her puppet Princess Liuva. That and only that she now remembered, and vengeance was in reach. Yohanna would be Bauda’s atoning victim.
Herbert followed at a distance. What was the false Liuvigota up to? She was systematically traversing all of the Keep and glancing in each door. She clearly knows the layout of the Keep. Is she taking a census? Was the Clan expecting man-to-man combat? He didn’t know.
Marge gathered four men to accompany her from among her people whom she encountered in the busy corridors. Kane had been gathering the members of the Circle to the Keep for the Friend’s investiture in the Soma. Herbert himself—who seldom ventured beyond his Workshop’s chamber—had not realized how many had been gathered. He decided that the Clan must be surveying the increase. Yohanna’s single-handed foray into the opposition’s territory was something the witch might do—if there was a Clan witch. He sensed how dangerous she might be, and he fell back behind the four men who themselves were, on Marge’s instructions, following her.
After two hours, the false Liuvigota's work was complete and the blond runner exited though the guarded gate into the grand hallway. The guard nodded to the Runner, letting her pass with a nod. She was out of Marge’s sight for a moment at the point where the corridor passing the guard station turned into the grand gallery. The grand gallery continued to the entrance to the walking path through the eucalyptus grove that led down to the campus. One side of the wide hallway was lined with impressive displays behind glass, and on the other side of the hallway were the glass windows of the Institute of Early Manuscripts, which now was called the "Reginald Steuben Memorial Institute of Early Manuscripts.”
Yohanna had become aware that she had attracted attention, and attributed it to the fact of her unusually-long runner’s circuit. As she stepped around the corner, she had glanced about, and seeing no one looking directly at her, she removed her Persona Device and immediately joined a few persons gathered about the museum displays.
Marge continued past Yohanna, pretending not to notice her, and on out through the exit, followed by her ad hoc crew of four. Yohanna saw her out of the corner of her eye. The evening twilight was gathering and a full moon was rising.
Guessing that Yohanna would soon pass along the walkway to the campus, Marge ordered her men to set an ambush in the eucalyptus grove into which they moved. Marge herself waited in shadows where the walking path from the Turret entered the grove, her deadly kitten claw ready. Herbert hovered closely at the edge of the group of men, who recognizing him, paid him little attention. Yohanna emerged from the Keep’s entrance, and walked easily along the path to the grove, expecting that her pursuit had followed the blond phantom toward the college and, having found no trace of her, would eventually return to the Keep.
Herbert had been very impressed by the power of the Persona that Yohanna had used. He thought of Kane’s report of the carnage of Cherokee’s own Henchmen and Cherokee’s crazy notion that Thersa might herself be the Friend. He wondered, now, if it had been Yohanna Okubo who had defended Miss Knox. Herbert expected a possible display of like wrath against Marge and company.
~ 2 ~ Marge stepped out of the trees’ shadows in front of Yohanna and struck at her face suddenly with the poisonous kitten's claw that had felled Cherokee. But, quick as lightening, Yohanna parried it with her purse, and her own dagger leapt into her hand. Marge's two henchmen moved in behind Yohanna, who cried, "Marge, you are free of the Friends Circle. Leave him now!"
"For my own good, like Cherokee? You will follow him, Witch! Grab her!" Marge struck again. In one motion, Yohanna swung her purse behind her sending the henchmen sprawling and cut off Marge's kitten claw hand with her dagger.
Yohanna fled.
Marge yelled, "After her!” Herbert commanded from behind, "We have a guard on the other side of the grove if she comes out there. Tackle her so she goes down first. I will see to your mistress." The men raced off in pursuit.
After knocking down the two men and severing Marge’s hand, Yohanna had turned quickly aside, and dashed along the edge of the grove, leaping down into the gully. She ran upstream to a point above the Turret of the Keep. She clambered out, crossed through the tower's moon-cast shadow, where he she heard Marge scream. That was a death scream! Reentering the building through the door from which she had moments before exited, Yohanna slipped into and locked the door of the ladies’ locker room in Steuben's Institute. She removed her blood splattered clothes, rolled them tightly, put them in her purse and removed a very similar outfit. She took a quick shower, dressed and touched herself up so that she looked very much as she had when she had left the Keep.
After Herbert had given orders to Marge’s men, he had watched Marge gripping her arm tightly, just below the bloody stump. As she swayed, trying to keep her balance, the light of the recently risen full moon lent to her beautiful, agonized face a ghastly hue. Her severed hand lay at her feet, still clad in the poisonous Kitten's claw that Herbert had made for her, and with which she had killed Cherokee.
After Herbert had relished Bauda’s agony as long as he dared, listening both to the sounds of pursuit after her assailant and her bitter moaning—which he knew she wanted to let issue in screams of rage, he stepped forward, gingerly picking up the kitten-clawed hand. "It wasn't Thersa who dispatched Cherokee's men," Marge said in a slurred voice.
“I agree, Bauda.” With a side kick, Herbert knocked Marge off her feet. In her fall she lost her tourniquet grip, and her blood spurted on his face, and then it ran out on the ground.
Herbert stomped on her good hand, keeping it pinned to the ground. Then, holding her severed hand—still in the kitten's claw—he gave her a lethal scratching across both of cheeks of her outraged face. She screamed and died.
He knelt down to watch her expire. “An offering for my way,” he said gloating over her now immobile body. He saw her Beacon bracelet lying in the place from which he had seized her kitten claw—she must have put in on during her pursuit of the false runner.
But her men returned before he could pocket it. They had failed to find her assailant.
“Your mistress has died from the poisoned blade of the Clan witch.” Herbert rose from kneeling next to her body, shook his head, as if in sorrow and disbelief. “But we will have our vengeance.” The men looked at each other, suspecting that it was vengeance that they saw lying on the ground.
Then, directing the men, he had them carry her body over to the access road at the far edge of the grove, away from the gully, and ordered them to wait there with it. Marge’s men obeyed him as they would have her. One of them noticed her bracelet and carried it away with her body.
Herbert realized it was a stroke of luck that he had not touched it. Through it the Friend might have learned that he had killed Marge. He hurried back to the Keep.
With her refreshed look, Yohanna had gone to Ricardo’s office, where he had been waiting for her. “Things have happened. Ricardo, please lend me your arm for a moment, I'm sure Rhoda would approve."
They stepped into the grand hallway walking slowly. Yohanna held his arm intimately, as Rhoda might have, talking and smiling at him adoringly, as she related the grim details of Marge’s attack on her. They reached the vestibule. The entrance swung open and Herbert, disheveled, his face slightly bloody, nearly collided with them. Both parties halted. Yohanna, looking slightly guilty about being intimate with Ricardo, released his arm and said, "Herbert, did you fall? Are you all right?”
She was smiling, concerned, neat and immaculately clean as always. Herbert knew that Marge’s opponent must have been bloodied herself. Marge’s assailant? Having an affair with Dr. Chavez? A moment of confusion gave him pause, then he said, "Yes, I slipped down that bloody gully in the dark. I'll be all right.”
Feigning but slight embarrassment, Ricardo said, "We were just finishing up some late work. You must have backed up too far while watching the moonrise. Take care!”
Ricardo and Yohanna passed on out of the entrance, as Herbert passed into the Keep thinking, How could it have been Yohanna Okubo?
“My Hands, you have just now named Bauda’s slayer. We were near. Vengeance must be ours.”
I will put her career to an end, my Comrade.
“Do so at Quinceañera Beach, not here in the Friend’s temple.” Herbert now removed the Beacon ring that he had put on when Marge had begun to trail Yohanna in the Keep; he had not sensed the Comrade’s near presence until now when he spoke, and, in the excitement, he had forgotten that he was wearing the ring.
When Marge and Herbert had made body contact in the Workshop as they had followed Yohanna, the Comrade had made himself personally present in Marge through their touch. When Yohanna had struck back at Marge, cutting off her hand, the Comrade had been bewildered, and lost his personal presence in Marge. Consequently, he was unaware that it was Herbert who had slain Marge with her own poisonous kitten’s claw.
The Comrade did not accuse me! Why? After washing Marge’s blood off his face, Herbert called for the Keep’s imitation campus security vehicle—once part of Cherokee’s plan to retrieve the bombs—and sent it for Bauda’s body.
Yohanna and Ricardo stood outside the Keep in the moonlight, looking toward the Campus. "I was foolish, Ricardo. When I realized that I was being followed, I should have come straight to your office, but I went out into the evening, curious to know if Marge and her men had really been following me. When she attacked me, I made an appeal to her to leave the Circle, but she struck at me with a poisoned claw Device. To avoid the stroke, I cut off her hand, so that I could escape without further bloodshed. But I sense that Herbert has slain her—I heard her death scream, and I could smell her blood on him—and he was not part of the assault on me.”
As Yohanna had been speaking, Ricardo had been searching the sounds and shadows of the night. A few people—probably students—were afoot in the warm, moonlit shadows. The raising moon was still enormous in size. "I see a vehicle with only its running lights on working its way up the utility road. Let us move a little closer, Yohanna, and stay in the shadows.”
The imitation campus security van for which Herbert had called, stopped where the utility road turned toward the Turret. Yohanna perceived that the driver and the men standing about were Shades, whom she had counted earlier in the Keep.
Herbert—fresh and clean—came striding rapidly from the Keep and joined the men at the van. While they wrapped Marge's body in a blanket and put it in the van, Yohanna felt clearly that she and Ricardo were standing at the edge of a precipice.
Ricardo whispered to her, “Yes we are. Reach out in your mind for Hans—what he is doing right now?” Ricardo put his hand lightly on her shoulder. She thought of Quinceañera Beach and where Hans might be there. “I see him walking slowly along on the beach in the moonlight, Ricardo.” He removed his hand and Hans vanished from her seeing.
They watched Herbert get into the van, and it returned the way it had come. As the van pulled away, the four men began to sing a drinking ditty and swaggered convincingly.
“Now we must flee this place.” Ricardo took her hand resolutely, leading Yohanna toward the campus under the cover of the roisterous song. Yohanna was sure that they walking swiftly along the edge of the precipice again.
”No, bust," one of the four men said to some of the students who had been attracted by the activity. The students had heard Marge’s screams from the other side of the grove.
“We heard a woman screaming…”
"Oh, her. Yeah, security just took her away, too much to drink or whatever. A shame; a nice-looking bitch, too.” They started up their ditty again.
~ 3 ~ The van circled around to the Keep and pulled into one of the loading docks in the industrial section. “Guard the body and say nothing, until you receive Dr. Kane’s orders,” Herbert said to the driver.
He found Kane in his office. Mortimer Kane was a night hawk and was usually there with a secretary or two. At the moment, however, Kane was alone in the office complex. Herbert knocked on Kane’s door and entered at once.
But, before Herbert could speak, Kane told Herbert the news that he was bringing to Kane! "Herbert Schooner, I have just been informed by the Friend that Miss Marge Hemming has been slain by the Clan's witch."
"Within the hour, Dr. Kane, I have witnessed the act— at a distance— from which I rushed to her aid, but too late. She was struck by a poisoned blade. I have just seen to the transport of her body to the Keep from the Eucalyptus grove, where the attack occurred.”
Looking at Schooner thoughtfully, Kane said. “The Clan has moved against us to estimate our strength in the Keep. Miss Hemming’s unfortunate sacrifice has exposed their hand. You will assume the powers of her office at once. I will write a letter to Witteric and Retimer informing them that I have bestowed upon you her authority at Quinceañera Beach.” Kane began at once to write it.
This was the moment for Herbert Schooner—Gesalec—to hazard all by casting a Net about the sheet of paper upon which Kane was writing. Herbert had long-prepared the Net, which would make the sheet of paper become the Net’s Device of opportunity. The Net would bring him, virtually unseen, into a conversation of gods with humans. But it would work only once. The happy opportunity to slay Marge, he now was certain, had brought the Friend and the Comrade together, holding unheard converse with each other and Kane. Such a prompt action on Kane’s part, must have been commanded by the Friend. By his cast, Herbert was convinced that he would discover the Comrade and the Friend taking counsel together. The Friend must be in communication Mortimer Kane, and he, Gesalec the Maker, would, at last, gain insight into the true relationship between the two gods.
“What did you just say?” asked Kane looking up from his writing.
“I cast a guarding Net to deflect Clan Powers from our conversation, Mortimer. The Clan’s witch’s Powers may have may have trailed me from the site of their recent activity, in support, no doubt, of the fatal stroke that the witch dealt to Miss Marge Hemming.”
Kane nodded and returned to his writing. It was a most dangerous thing to eavesdrop on the Friend and his Powers, but Herbert now had taken that risk, and he overheard the two gods discussing him. As Kane nodded, the Friend’s and Comrade’s conversation in which, as gods, they exchanged their ideas intuitively, took shape in Herbert’s hearing as Old Goth. Along with their voices, Kane’s mind-voice sounded as bursts of high-pitched squeaking. The Comrade was saying, ‘My Liege, you are justified in seeking our vengeance on this witch. As witness to the deed of slaying your human Thane Bauda, Gesalec is most apt to carry out your vengeance, and the third god, whoever he is, cannot object to this act of justice. But the witch should not die in the neighborhood of your Keep, but remote from it, where the release of her Powers and the discomforting of the third god will trouble us little.’
‘I agree, My Thane, and the Clan will then be occupied in reestablishing a new witch. During that period I shall vest in my Soma.’ Then, he had instructed Kane to write the letter that Kane was now writing. From this circumstance, Herbert knew that he was placed—as he anticipated— in the near past of the Niche of the Net.
As Herbert listened, he rejoiced again that he had sent Marge into obliteration, the end of all humans. But he wondered to hear the Comrade espouse the third god theory, associated with Thersa. Kane did not hear this part of the gods’ discussion, but only those words directed to him by the Friend. Kane had once held this theory, but, now, under Gabrielle’s influence, Kane no longer espoused it. The Clan’s witch was supposed to be a foremost female Word Wise or Keen Maker to whom the third god was perpetually Personally Present, guiding her activities for his own ends amid the Clan’s War Thing. Herbert had not for a minute subscribed to this theory, the main purpose of which, it seemed to him, was to provide a cover for tactical missteps of the Friend.
Perhaps, he now thought, the witch theory was a cover for the Comrade’s activities. Ages ago, the Comrade had told him, “Our Pact is a shield to protect our Friend’s hind side— if, like you, he truly had hinder parts. If an offensive move against the Clan proves to be needed, we will have our reward by him, but if he discovers our Pact before then, we will be taken to be insubordinates to be punished for having this Pact witnessed by Ingundis the Maker.” A god’s words could not be trusted at face value, because their words were riddling rather than true, yet they carried meaning. Whom did the Comrade mean by “we” and how could a god be punished? After that day, Gesalec had come to the conclusion that the Comrade had his own plan to be accomplished through the process of the Friend’s vestment in the Soma, and that the Comrade’s punishment would be denial of that plan’s aim. But what could that plan be, but to usurp the Friend himself or another of the Friend’s Thanes in some way? With a thrill, Herbert now realized that actually usurping the Friend himself in some way was the Comrade’s plan.
The cast of his Net had worked as Ingundis the Maker—the secret witness of the Pact for the Clan—had told him it would.
When the Pact was being negotiated, he had served as a co-Maker in her Workshop—which, now, he possessed in the form of his Workshop here in the Keep. “You will be able, Gesalec,” she had told him, “in casting this Net to enter only once into a council of men and gods. Use the opportunity this Net bestows, only if you suspect that you are being played false and it is crucial to gain knowledge.” He had chosen to use it now, not to learn of possible Clan deceptions, but those of his Pact’s partner.
“I have instructed Herbert Schooner to proceed to Quinceañera Beach,” Herbert heard Kane’s squeaky voice say, noticing that his voice was becoming less squeaky.
‘My Liege, as you have foreseen, the Clan will no doubt make their next move there, perhaps, to test the strength of our Hold for protecting Swinthila’s Hands. I have instructed Gesalec to right the temple base, and there delve a Gate for the Left and Right hands to have ready access to the Commons.’
