But all those moments of confrontation were etched unforgettably in his memory - and he thought likely in Bleys' as well - for the two of them were oddly alike in many ways, and both had felt those likenesses, as though they might have been close friends if they had not been predestined foes.
So now, he noted the changes in the other man since their last meeting between the two walls of the tunnel opened in the phase-shield to let them meet. For either to have touched the milky whiteness of these walls, then, would have meant being drawn into it and destroyed, the touching body spread out evenly through the physical universe.
The impression of strength and burliness Hal had noticed for the first time then had developed even further in Bleys - even while in appearance Bleys' height and slimness were still the same. He had been almost elegant in that slimness, when Hal had first seen him, at the killing of Hal's tutors. He could not be called "elegant" now.
Instead, a force that was invisible, but very powerful, now radiated from him. It was strong enough that Hal could almost feel it, like the heat from the fire, and it challenged by its mere existence, challenged and attempted to dominate all those about Bleys.
For a long moment Hal was baffled at how such a thing could grow in the man he faced - and then he realized. Each time before that Hal had met Bleys, it had been obvious that the Other possessed great personal power. But the difference now was that he had taken a step further, the ultimate step. He no longer possessed nor controlled power. He was power.
Now most of the people of ten Younger Worlds looked and listened to him as if he was, in some way, superhuman. They did not merely obey his commands willingly. They rushed to follow the voice that would send them to die, if necessary, to destroy a Mother World they now believed had never given up an ancient desire to conquer and enslave them - an Old Earth, backed by the black magic of the Final Encyclopedia and ruled by the evil will of an arch-demon named Hal Mayne.
Hal reached for some compensating power within himself, but did not find it. He was not daunted by the strength now in Bleys, and he did not doubt that his mind, his will and imagination, was as strong as the Other's. But he could not feel a similar counterforce in himself. If it was there at all, it was as something entirely different, for all that he stood as Bleys' opposite number, the equal and countering chess piece on the board of History.
At the same time he was grateful that he had not met with Bleys, robed in power and certainty as he was, a couple of months ago when he, Hal, had been at his lowest ebb in the Final Encyclopedia. Or even, that they had not had this meeting before this morning's sudden explosion of understanding in Hal, the revelation that had come as the sun had risen above the mountains and the dewdrop burst into its explosion of light.
As it was, now he looked at Bleys from the viewpoint of eternity and found that which the other possessed to be infinitely small and transitory in that context. "What brings you?" Hal asked. "You can't really be expecting any change of attitude on my part?" "Perhaps not." Warmth now flowed from Bleys instead of the push of personal power. He could charm, and he knew it, even though everyone in the office at the moment knew that all but a fraction of his abilities in that respect were composed of hypnotic and other techniques developed by those same Exotics Bleys was now trying to destroy. "Perhaps not," he said again, "but I've always believed you'd listen to reason, and I have an offer, one you might want to consider. " "Offer?" "Yes. Let me establish a little background first. One of your tutors, who I most wrongly and mistakenly allowed to be killed - you'll never have forgiven me for that-"
Hal shook his head. "No," he said, "it's not a matter for forgiveness. I can see now why it happened. At the time though, their murder triggered off the way I'd felt about another, earlier death. So I wanted to destroy you, then, as I'd wanted to destroy whoever was responsible, in that earlier time. It wasn't until I had to live through that sort of loss a second time, with you, that I started to understand retaliation's not the answer. No, forgiveness is beside the point, now. Which changes nothing as far as you and I are concerned."
Hal had seen Bleys' eyes narrow ever so slightly at the mention of an earlier grief, and felt a touch of annoyance at possibly having betrayed himself to the Other's acute mind. No one could match Bleys in catching and pursuing an incautious slip. But then the annoyance evaporated. There was no way, even with Bleys' own self-developed equivalent of intuitional logic, that the man opposite him now could trace Hal back to the life of Donal Graeme. "An earlier grief?" echoed Bleys now, softly. "As I say, it's beside the point now," answered Hal. "What about my tutors?" "One was a Dorsai. He must have made sure you learned something about military history, as far back as civilization tells us anything about it?"
Hal nodded. "Did he ever mention a man who lived in the fourteenth century, one of the first military captains, condottiere as the Italians named them, named Sir John Hawkwood-"
Hal jumped internally, though he kept his face calm. What sort of black magic in Bleys had made him bring up that, of all names? Then his thoughts calmed. Their minds of necessity ran on parallel tracks toward a mutual end. It was not as unlikely as it might seem that they should both have considered the same historical character in the same short span of time. It could mean nothing at all that Bleys had happened to mention him now. Moreover it was Bleys' way to go at things obliquely. He would hardly have brought up his main purpose in coming, this quickly. Best to wait and see what was behind the mentioning of that name. "Oh, yes," said Hal. "I'm not surprised," said Bleys. "A sort of medieval Cletus Grahame, wasn't he?" "I suppose you could say that. Why?" Hal said. "There's a story about him - a bit of poisonous gossip, actually, only important really because it could be repeated and believed by some people who didn't know better, even after hundreds of years. I just wondered if you knew it - about two of his soldiers he was supposed to have found quarreling over a nun they had caught-"
"...and he cut her in half, then said something to the effect that now there was part for each of them?" Hal nodded. "Yes, I know that particular bit of false history." "I can't understand it." Bleys' tone was close to musing. "You'd think the sheer physical impossibilities involved would be enough to make anyone see through such a story. I suppose the reader is supposed to imagine that this man Hawkwood neatly divided the victim at the waist with one swipe of his sword, then delivered his single line of dialogue to the two soldiers and walked off, leaving them both stunned and deprived. None of those who repeated the story can have had the least experience with butchering animals for food. I had, as a half-grown boy on Harmony, and I boggle at the idea of hacking through that much flesh and backbone with one swipe of a fourteenth century broadsword. Even if the victim cooperated as much as possible by somehow miraculously keeping in place and on her feet until the operation was complete and the soldiers stood by with open mouths, it's humanly impossible. In real life it could have taken him minutes." "More than a few minutes," said Hal, "given the mild steel of the weapons of that time, and the probable lack of edge left on his sword after whatever fighting they'd all been in. Since it was only with the soldiers drunk and blood mad after taking a city or castle, that even the worst of them would have indulged themselves in such license. But that's the least of such an event happening in real life."
Bleys looked at him amusedly. "The least?" he asked. "Yes," said Hal. The knowledge stored in the Final Encyclopedia was coming back to his mind. "Hawkwood isn't called the first of the modern generals for no reason. He was the most businesslike of the early condottiere. He knew the people he fought against today might be the people he'd be fighting for tomorrow. So he made sure his men never ruffled the sensitivities of local civilians, except under the conditions of outright war. That was one of the reasons for his success, apart from the sensitivities other elements of his life show. He kept a strict discipline over his hired soldiers, and hanged any one of them caught infringing even minor local laws." "But of course," said Bleys, "as you say this must have happened during the sacking and looting of a just conquered city. " "In which case he wouldn't have been present at such an incident at all," said Hal. The memory of being Hawkwood as he walked in the circle had come to life again in his head. "He was a man of the fourteenth century and a combat professional. His actions and letters don't show him as the type of man who'd do anything as ridiculous as what that story has him doing, any more than a present day Dorsai would slaughter or torture prisoners. "