The Sinners of Erspia

The Magistrate shifted in his seat. “For a Swirlite, at any rate. And since you have just admitted your guilt, it only remains for me to condemn you, with the comment that it is most unseemly for the annual testing to have to suffer such indignities. Take him to the execution ground."

“But wait a minute—"

Laedo had not expected this. He had even left his gun behind, assuming that the town he had seen in the distance would be peaceful. To bear weapons there might even be forbidden. But no one was prepared to listen to him. He was handcuffed, taken outside, bundled on to a horse-drawn cart, and this sent trundling over the flagstones.

The magician Harmasch, in his gold-starred, conical cap, clambered aboard as the cart began to move.

Laedo's two guards glanced at him, but said nothing.

“Why do you say there are worlds not made by Klystar?” Harmasch asked. “That is a terrible blasphemy."

“Because it is true.” Laedo told him “Though Klystar did, for a fact, make a number of worlds. Do you know how many?"

“There is only one,” Harnasch said reprovingly.

“No, there are more."

A small crowd of people began to follow the cart as it passed through the streets of the town. Their faces were passive but curious.

“Why is this town called Klyston?” Laedo asked.

“In honour of Klystar. It means ‘Klystar's town'."

“Yes, of course,” Laedo muttered. Then: “Where is Klystar now? Is there any way to reach him?"

“Whenever you perform magic, Klystar is reaching out to you. Otherwise you would be powerless. That is why it is wrong to meddle with these powers without the proper training and ceremonies, as you Swirlites do."

It was disappointing to meet with such superstition. Obviously the people of Erspia-4 had no real knowledge of Klystar.

Though there must have been some knowledge once. At least they knew his name.

And there was technical skill here. Laedo had seen a railway train coming through Klyston, pulled by a steam-powered locomotive. If things had not gone so badly wrong for him, perhaps he could have had his transductor made.

Or could he? A comical, almost ludicrous image came into his mind. Perhaps all machine parts were made by star-capped magicians in ‘mentufactories', special places set aside by Klystar where thought-directed inertial fields could twist metal into pre-arranged shapes.

And why not? it seemed that nothing was too crazy for the Erspia worlds.

By now they were beyond Klyston and making for a bare moor. Laedo turned to the wizard.

“Listen to me. A few miles north of here is a large metal structure. A young woman is trapped in it. You must help her."

Harmasch did not even hear him. “Change your Swirlite heart in these your last moments. May you find peace in Klystar's bosom."

He dropped from the cart and began walking back to the town.

The cart stopped. Laedo was taken by the arms and helped to the ground.

A numbness of will had come over him. How did he arrive in this situation? How could he have behaved so incautiously in a new and unknown culture? The geniality and apparent harmlessness of Klyston's people had misled him, he told himself. He had been unable to imagine that they would put him to death for what was to him no more than a mischievous discourtesy.

Dire consequences were flowing from his failure. He was about to lose his life. Worse, he had incurred bad karma. He would never now be able to carry out his bound duty, which was to deliver his cargo of cavorite. And poor Histrina would die of thirst or suffocation, locked in the lead-lined cabinet.

The method of his execution was now revealed to him. A cord with a lead weight on each end was wrapped around his neck. The guards retreated, and as they did so the lead weights rose in the air.

A quartet of magicians surrounded him, keeping a distance of about twelve feet. They were concentrating, their eyes on the lead weights. The weights moved in diametrically opposite directions, tightening the cord, which bit into him.

He was being garrotted by ‘magic'!

Choking, he fell to the ground, unable to raise his hands to stay the weights, which surged away from one another as if with a will of their own. There was a roaring in his ears. He felt his tongue being forced from his mouth.

Then suddenly, mercifully, the pressure eased. Magicians, guards and onlookers were fleeing with cries of alarm. He became aware of a chivvying call from the middle distance. "Halloo! Halloo! Halloo!"

He struggled to his knees, the strangling cord still uncomfortably tight about his neck. A troop of horsemen was rushing in at a gallop. They were a strange sight. Each rider held his steed's reins in his left hand and twirled his right arm over his head in a flailing motion. Each whirling arm seemed to be the base of an air vortex which caught dust and debris thrown up by the horses’ hooves: a deliberately created dust devil. Furthermore the dozen or so vortices eventually joined up to form a minor whirlwind which accompanied the horesmen and trailed behind them.