"I believe I recall your offering a bonus If I killed Griswold, Templeton, and Goodfellow for you. I'm willing to do it now. Is the offer still good?"
He paled slightly, then grinned.
"I'm afraid it expired several months ago when I came to an agreement with these men."
"You're partners now?" I asked.
"More or less, yes."
"And Von Kempelen's here?"
"So he is. You have been doing your homework. Would you care for a glass of sherry?"
"So long as you'll keep talking."
"Of course. What can I tell you?"
He found me a small brandy snifter, from which a few drops were ordinarily inhaled. He filled it halfway.
"You say you'll pay Annie," I stated. "But you're still forcing her to do something she doesn't want to."
"For her own good, as I can demonstrate."
I took a sip.
"Demonstrate it, then."
"I spoke of her share in a great fortune, so great that—"
"I see. And Edgar Poe?"
He rose. He jabbed the air with his cigar and paced through the smoke.
"What of Edgar Poe?" he asked. "If he has become a friend of yours—and Annie's—I'm sorry. Truly.
But the unique relationship among the three of you could not go on forever."
"Oh, could it not?"
"It could not." Ellison nodded, as if I had simply been agreeing with him from the beginning. "Because Poe no longer exists—not in this world, our world, the world of practical affairs. He must go his way as we go ours. He has chosen the dreamer's way—I did not choose it for him, nor did you."
"The separation is your choice, though."
"Not a bit of it, my boy. No, not a bit. Dreams and the world of practical affairs can never mingle long."
I took a final sip of the sherry and put the glass aside.
"I want to see her."
"Of course," he said.
He walked across the room and made a small gesture. I followed him.
He opened a door and we passed into another larger room, also filled with books and pictures. He continued through it, but I paused before a painting in a niche to the left. It was a portrait of a woman with curling hair and large dark gray eyes. She wore an old-fashioned bonnet and an Empire robe with rounded neck and shoulders, possessed of a floral design. I halted and stared at those mysterious eyes, the dark masses of hair.
"Come on," Ellison called, halting on the threshold.
"Seabright Ellison sounds almost like a stage name," I said. "You ever do any acting?"
His eyes narrowed.
"Perhaps. Why do you ask, lad?"
I studied him in turn. The painting was a larger version of one which I possessed in miniature—my only picture of my mother, Elizabeth. I doubted he could know I owned it.
"The lady looks somehow familiar," I said.
He shrugged.
"It came to me as part of an estate I bought. Just fit that piece of wall."
My head spun. Nothing I had encountered since meeting the man had shocked me as much as this.
"Oh," I said, and turned away.
He passed through the door and into another high-ceilinged room of books, armor, and art. I took a quick step back and ran my thumb over the painting's dusty brass nameplate.
Elizabeth Arnold, I read there, and I hurried after.
It was my mother's name, though I'd hardly needed that confirmation of the actress' identity. If he were really the man who'd abandoned her... .
But this was this world, not my original one. Ceteris paribus, he was Poe's deserting father, not mine.
But all things were not equal between this Earth and my Earth, which meant I could never know for certain whether he were truly, intentionally sacrificing his own son in this enterprise. Or if my own father had been a person similar to him, back home.
"Lovely place," I said, catching up with him. The doors had ceased after those first two rooms and now we passed through Gothic archways hung with red or blue cloth. I began realizing that this gallery passed along the entire side of the building.
"You don't remember your folks, do you?" he said, after a time.
"I don't think so. I was pretty young."
We came to the end of the gallery and turned right. A short length of hallway took us past an entranceway to a courtyard about which numerous armed men lounged, eyeing each other from opposite ends of the place.
"Athletic teams?" I suggested.
He chuckled.
"Yes. Mine and theirs. We brought them along to keep each other honest."
"So you had to go in together to meet Von Kempelen's price?"
He nodded.
"The man drives a hard bargain."
"If he were me he'd have brought his own athletic team, to keep the other two honest."
He clapped me on the shoulder.
"Spoken like a true soldier," he observed. "One of the reasons I hired you. You're going to have to tell me all about your odyssey when this thing's done."
"What is Von Kempelen's edge, anyhow?"
"He's got something we want," he said.
"And after you get it how does he walk out of here?"
He took a deep draw on his cigar and let it go. He showed me a lot of teeth then, but said nothing.
"Care to see his lab?"
"I want to see Annie."
"She's probably there."
"What happens to her," I asked, "when this is all over?"
"She's the greatest natural psychic in the world, you know."
"What does that mean?"
"A powerhouse like that is worth money in a lot of other endeavors."
"What if she doesn't want to work?"
"She's becoming dependent upon certain chemicals. She'll work for them."
I felt tears come into my eyes.
"I'm glad you're not my father," I said, on impulse.
He stepped back as if I had struck him. My hand was on the hilt of my blade. I let it drop. I still needed him.
"And I'm not Poe's father either," he said through clenched teeth.
"Never said you were. Do you have any children?"
He turned away.
"None to speak of," he said.
I followed him in what I took to be a northerly direction.
"You hate me, don't you?" he asked, after a time.
"That's right."
He paused at the head of a wide stone stairway. He turned and leaned back against the wall.
"I'd like to clear that up before tonight."
"So that's what you meant about my timing?"
He nodded.
"Tonight's the night. But you must have known that, at some level."
"I guess I did."
"I get to keep all the gold," he said then. "But I had to surrender a lot of my holdings, including most of this place."
"And Annie?" I asked. "She's a part of the price?"
He nodded again.
"But I'm going to want you on my side tonight, Perry, when it's time to pick up the pieces. Yes, I promised them Annie. I'd have promised them anything to get the work done. But afterwards... .
They're going to have to be happy with the real estate, the jewels, the foreign holdings. I get the gold, you get Annie, the hell with everybody else."
"You're too Byzantine, Ellison," I said, "too Machiavellian. There's no way I could trust a man like you even if I wanted to."
He sighed. Then he stared downward at his feet. A full minute must have gone by. Either he really had at one time been an actor or there was a great internal struggle in progress.
Then, "All right," he said, and he reached beneath his dressing gown and withdrew a silver flask. He unscrewed its top, removed it and waved it under my nose. It smelled like whisky.
He filled the top, which was the size of a shot glass, and he tossed it off in a single swallow. Then he refilled it and extended it toward me. I accepted it and did the same.