"It's a turning multiverse, my dear captain." The broad-faced, genial nobleman peered hard at Klosterheim. He frowned in apparent surprise. "Forgive me if I seem rude," he said, "but is it my impression, sir, or have you shrunk a foot or two since last we met?"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Gentleman at Large
Klosterheim and Lobkowitz had been acquainted in Christendom. They were not friends. Klosterheim was deeply suspicious of every word the newcomer uttered. Lobkowitz, while more affable, seemed equally wary of Klosterheim. Gunnar said something about two peoples forever at odds. He believed the races must be natural enemies.
As Prince Lobkowitz stood with his back to our fire, Gunnar asked him what brought him to the region.
"Very little, sir. My business was with another party, but you know how it is, this close to a node on the great tree of time. Although it makes travel between the worlds a little easier, it also makes it confusing. Variances of scale, which would be so vast as to be unnoticed elsewhere, are not so great here. The closer to where worlds connect, the less we are, as it were, divided. We do our best, sir; but the Balance must be served, and the Balance determines everything in the end, eh?" The huge fellow had a rather quiet manner. It seemed odd to find delicacy in one of his size.
His apparent diffidence put a swagger into Gunnar the Doomed. He was the only one of us to be amused. "My men described your footprint. To hear them talk you were at least ten feet tall, though I must admit you're the biggest human being I've ever met. You're even bigger than Angris the Frank, and he is still a legend. Are they all your size where you come from?"
"Pretty much," said Prince Lobkowitz. Gunnar did not miss the sardonic tone. His faceless helm turned to regard the huge man with some curiosity. I, too, felt I was missing what might have been a joke.
The sleet continued to fall. It was not settling as snow. Ipkap-tam decided it was too warm for bad snow, that what we had was no more than an autumn squall. In a couple of days it might even seem like summer again. He had experienced the phenomenon many times.
Now that we thought Lobkowitz was our giant, Ipkaptam was far more at ease. It was decided we would indeed send the main warriors ahead at a rapid trot while I would bring up the rear. Prince Lobkowitz, who knew the terrain no better than I did, elected to stay behind with us. "At least until it becomes possible to rejoin my party!"
While the prince went off to relieve himself, I was warned secretly by Gunnar to keep an eye on Lobkowitz and to kill him if he acted at all suspiciously. Klosterheim was especially uneasy. He said that the man was not necessarily malign but that his presence
suggested there were other, possibly dangerous, elements involved in this adventure.
I asked him to be more specific. What did he know about Lobkowitz? Had the newcomer followed us here? Was he in league with the Kakatanawa?
"He has no more right to enter the Kakatanawa stronghold than I," said Klosterheim. "But he has friends who also seek what I seek and what Gunnar seeks. I believe he shares a mutual interest. It will do no harm to make an ally of him now. It's best he's kept in the rear, at least until we know what we are facing. He might be a spy, for instance, sent to learn our secrets. If not, we could use someone of his size."
Gunnar was unhappy. "There are too many unknown elements in this. My idea was to come here, take what I needed, and leave. I had not expected Klosterheim, the Pukawatchi-nor giants ..."
"That man is not a giant," insisted Ipkaptam. "He is human. You would know if he was a giant."
With a scowl, Klosterheim agreed. "This is a strange area of the multiverse," he confirmed. "It is, as Lobkowitz says, a node. Where the branch joins the tree, eh? Usually we are too far away from a node to experience this phenomenon, but here I would guess it is common."
I accepted this oddness was familiar to them and trusted their judgment. Only Gunnar continued to be ill at ease. He kept muttering about superstition and repeating what was clearly a simplification if not a lie-that he was here for one reason only, and he had promised his fighters the loot of the City of Gold.
Ipkaptam signaled for Gunnar, Klosterheim and the others to follow and set off at a lope. The main war party fell in behind him, and all were soon lost in the mists of the deep valleys. I was glad to keep a slower pace. It gave me a chance to speak to the gigantic man, to ask him how he had found himself here. He said he was traveling with a friend and they had become separated. The next thing he knew, he said, he spotted our camp. His friend was clearly nowhere in the area.
"And is this friend similar in size to you?" I asked. Prince Lobkowitz sighed. "These are not my natural surroundings, Prince Elric, any more than they are yours."
I agreed with some feeling that they were not mine. If I discovered I was on a wild-goose chase, then Gunnar should pay with interest for all my wasted hours. While I had once sought the seclusion and isolation of the countryside, nowadays I again preferred the alleys, the noisy streets and crowded public places of urban life. Nonetheless, events had curious resonances, I said. It made me think that perhaps this adventure had parallels with a life I could not quite remember.
As Ipkaptam predicted, the snow held off and the sleet continued to fall. The Pukawatchi boys and women were not loquacious. Lobkowitz and I were thrown together as a result. He was oddly closemouthed on some subjects, and when I accused him, half joking, of talking like an oracle, he laughed loudly. "I think that's because I am talking like an oracle," he said.
He explained that this age was not his own. He was something of an interloper. But this realm, or one like it, was similar to his own past. As he was sure I understood, he did not dare inadvertently reveal anything of the future, yet he was constantly tempted to use his knowledge.
It was the reason, he said, for prophecies and omens to be so obscure. A directly related account of coming events automatically changed those events. Knowledge of them meant that some could act to avoid what they disliked. This not only made prophecy dangerous, it added to the multiplicity of the worlds. A few ill-judged words could create branch after branch of additional alternatives. It served no general purpose, he said. Few such branches survived for long.
I remembered the Stone Giants and their meaningless prophecies, but I said nothing to Lobkowitz, even though we were together, tending to walk behind the main party, following tracks the Pukawatchi and Vikings had made.
Then as we began to approach the foothills of the mountains, the sleet changed to snow. By the following morning it had settled
and the sky had cleared. It was a blue day. Snow lay before us all the way to the mountains, and tracks were rare. Where a buffalo had passed, you could see immediately. Also hare and birds had used the land ahead, but of the Pukawatchi trail there was nothing.