The World Shuffler (2 page)

That was what it had settled down to, Lafayette thought as he pulled on the coat and hurried down the hall: conventional routine. Dull conformity. Ye Gods, wasn’t that what he had wanted to get away from when he had been a penniless draftsman back in the States? Not that he wasn’t in the States now, geographically, at least, he reminded himself. Artesia was situated in the same spot on the map as Colby Corners. It was just that it was another dimension, where things were supposed to
happen!

But what had been happening lately? The Royal Ball, the Royal Hunt, the Royal Regatta. An endless succession of brilliant events, attended by brilliant society, making brilliant conversation.

So ... what was wrong? Wasn’t that what he’d dreamed of, back in the boardinghouse, opening sardines for the evening repast?

It was, he confessed sadly. And yet ... and yet he was bored.

Bored. In Artesia, land of his dreams. Bored.

“But ... there’s no sense in it!” he exclaimed aloud, descending the wide spiral staircase to the gilt-and-mirrored Grand Hall. “I’ve got everything I ever wanted—and what I haven’t got, I can order sent up by Room Service! Daphne’s as sweet a little bride as ever a man could imagine, and I have a choice of three spirited chargers in the Royal Stable, to say nothing of Dinny, and a two-hundred-suit wardrobe, and a banquet every night, and ... and ...”

He walked, echoing, across the polished red-and-black granite floor, filled with a sudden sense of weariness at the thought of tomorrow, of yet another banquet, yet another ball, another day and night of nonaccomplishment.

“But what do I want to accomplish?” he demanded aloud, striding past his reflection in the tall mirrors lining the hall. “The whole point in sweating over a job is to earn the cash to let you do what you want to do. And I’m already doing what I want to do.” He glanced sideways at his image, splendid in plum and purple and gilt. “Aren’t I?

“We’ll go away,” he muttered as he hurried toward the garden. “Up into the mountains, or out into the desert, maybe. Or to the seashore. I’ll bet Daphne’s never gone skinny-dipping in the moonlight. At least not with me. And we’ll take along some supplies, and cook our own meals, and fish and bird-watch, and take botanical notes, and ...”

He paused on the wide terrace, scanning the green expanse below for a glimpse of Daphne’s slender, curvaceous figure. The last of the partygoers had gone; the butler had disappeared, and the maid. A single aged gardener puttered in a far corner.

Lafayette slowed, mooched along the path, hardly aware of the scent of gardenia in blossom, of the lazy hum of bees, the soft sigh of the breeze through well-tended treetops. His enthusiasm had drained away. What good would going away do? He’d still be the same Lafayette O’Leary, and Daphne would the same girl she was here. Probably after the first flush of enthusiasm he’d begin to miss his comfortable chair and well-stocked refrigerator, and Daphne would begin to fret over her hair-do and wonder what was going on in her absence from the party scene. And then there would be the insect bites and the hot sun and the cold nights and the burned food and all the other inconveniences he’d gotten used to doing without ...

A tall figure appeared briefly at the end of the path: Count Alain, hurrying somewhere. Lafayette called after him, but when he reached the cross path, there was no one in sight. He turned back, feeling definitely depressed now, he admitted. For the first time in three years he had the same old feeling he used to have back in Colby Corners, when he’d go for his evening walk around the block and watch the yellow twilight fade to darkness, thinking of all the things he’d do, someday ...

Lafayette straightened his back. He was acting like a nitwit. He had the best deal in the world—in any world—and all he had to do was enjoy it. Why rock the boat? Dinner was in an hour. He’d go, as he always went, listen to the conversation he always listened to. But he didn’t feel like going back inside—not just yet; he wasn’t quite up to making bright conversation. He’d sit on his favorite marble bench for a while and read a page or two of the current issue of Popular Thaumaturgy, and think himself into a proper mood for the gay banter at the dinner table. He’d make it a point to tell Daphne how stunning she looked in her latest Artesian mode, and after dinner they’d steal away to their apartment, and ...

Now that he thought of it, it had been quite a while since he had whispered an abandoned suggestion in Daphne’s cute little ear. He’d been so busy with his wine, and holding up his end of the conversation, and of course Daphne was quite content to sit with the other court wives, discussing their tatting or whatever it. was the ladies discussed, while the gentlemen quaffed brandy and smoked cigars and exchanged racy anecdotes. 

Lafayette paused, frowning at the azalea bush before him. He’d been so immersed in his thinking that he’d walked right past his favorite corner of the garden—the one with the bench placed just so beside the flowering arbutus, and the soft tinkle of the fountain, and the deep shade of the big elms, and the view of smooth lawn sloping down to the poplars beside the lake ...

He walked back, found himself at the corner where he had glimpsed Alain. Funny He’d passed it again. He looked both ways along the empty paths, then shook his head and set off determinedly. Ten paces brought him to the wide walk leading back to the terrace.

“I’m losing my grip,” he muttered. “I know it’s the first turn past the fountain ...”He halted, staring uncertainly across the strangely narrowed lawn. Fountain? There was no fountain in sight; just the graveled path, littered with dead leaves, and the trees, and the brick wall at the other end. But the brick wall should be farther back, past several turns and a duck pond. Lafayette hurried on, around a turn ... The path ran out, became a foot-worn strip of dirt across untended weeds. He turned—and encountered a solid wall of shrubbery. Sharp twigs raked at him, ripping at his lace cuffs as he fought his way through, to emerge in a small patch of dandelion-pocked grass. There were no flowerbeds in sight. No benches. No paths. The palace had a desolate, unoccupied look, looming against a suddenly dull sky. The shuttered windows were like blind eyes; dead leaves blew across the terrace.

O’Leary went quickly up the terrace steps, through the French doors into the mirrored hall. Dust lay thick on the marble floor. His feet echoed as he crossed quickly to the guardroom, threw open the door. Except for an odor of stale bedding and mildew, it was empty.

Back in the corridor, Lafayette shouted. There was no answer. He tried doors, looked into empty rooms. He paused, cocked his head, listened, heard only the far-away twitter of a bird call.

“This is ridiculous,” he heard himself saying aloud, fighting down a sinking feeling in the stomach. “Everyone can’t have just picked up and sneaked out without even telling me. Daphne would never do a thing like that ...”

He started up the stairs, found himself taking them three at a time. The carpeting had been removed from the upper corridor, the walls stripped of the paintings of courtiers of bygone years. He flung wide his apartment door, stared at the unfurnished room, the drapeless windows.

“Good Lord, I’ve been robbed!” he gasped. He turned to the closet, almost banged his nose against the wall. There was no closet—and the wall was twelve feet closer than it should have been.

“Daphne!” he yelled, and dashed into the hall. It was definitely shorter than it had been, and the ceiling was lower. And it was dark; half the windows were missing. His shout echoed emptily. No one answered.

“Nicodaeus!” he gulped. “I’ll have to telephone Nicodaeus at Central! He’ll know what to do ...” He darted along to the tower door, raced up the narrow, winding stone steps leading to the former Court Magician’s laboratory. Nicodaeus was long gone, of course, recalled by Central for duty elsewhere; but there was still the telephone, locked in the cabinet on the wall; if only he could get there before ... before ... O’Leary thrust the thought aside. He didn’t even want to think of the possibility that the cabinet might be empty.

Puffing hard, he reached the final landing and pushed through into the narrow, granite-walled chamber. There were the work benches, the shelves piled high with stuffed owls, alarm clocks, bottles, bits of wire, odd-shaped assemblies of copper and brass and crystal. Under the high, cobwebbed ceiling, the gilded skeleton, now mantled with dust, dangled on its wire before the long, black, crackle-finished panel set with dials and gauges, now dark and silent. Lafayette turned to the locked cabinet beside the door, fumbled out a small golden key, fitted it into the keyhole; he held his breath, and opened the door. With a hiss of relief, he grabbed up the old-fashioned brass-mounted telephone inside. Faint and far away came a wavering dial tone.

O’Leary moistened dry lips, frowning in concentration: “Nine, five, three, four, nine, oh, oh, two, one, one,” he dialed, mouthing the numbers.

There were cracklings on the wire. Lafayette felt the floor stir under him. He looked down; the rough stone slabs had been replaced by equally rough-hewn wood planks.

“Ring, blast it,” he groaned. He jiggled the hook, was rewarded by soft electrical poppings.

“Somebody answer!” he yelped. “You’re my last hope!”

A draft of cool air riffled his hair. He whirled, saw that he now stood in a roofless chamber, empty of everything but scattered leaves and bird droppings. Even as he watched, the quality of the light changed; he whirled back; the wall against which the cabinet had been mounted was gone, replaced by a single post. There was a tug at his hand, and he continued the spin, made a frantic grab for the telephone, now resting precariously on one arm of a rickety windmill, at the top of which he seemed to be perched. Grabbing for support as the structure swayed in the chill wind, creaking, he looked down at what appeared to be a carelessly tended cabbage patch.

“Central!” he yelled through a throat suddenly as tight as though a hand had closed about it. “You can’t leave me here like this!” He rattled the instrument frantically. Nothing happened.

After three more tries he hung the phone up with dazed care, as if it were made of eggshells. Clinging to his high perch, he stared out across the landscape of bramble-covered hillside toward a dilapidated town a quarter of a mile distant, no more than a sprawl of ramshackle buildings around the lake. The topography, he noted, was the same as that of Artesia—or of Colby Corners, for that matter—but gone were the towers and avenues and parks.

“Vanished!” he whispered. “Everything I was complaining about ...” He stopped to swallow. “And everything I wasn’t complaining about along with it. Daphne—our apartment—the palace—and it was almost dinnertime ...”

The thought was accompanied by a sharp pang just below the middle button of the handsomely cut coat he had donned less than half an hour ago. He shivered. It was cold now, with night falling fast. He couldn’t just perch here beside the dead phone. The first trick would be to get down to the ground, and then ...

That was as far as his numbed mind cared to go for the moment. First
I’ll
think
about the
immediate
problem,
he told himself. Then,
later, I’ll think about what to do
next.

He tried putting a foot on the open-work vane beside him; it seemed remarkably limber, his knees remarkably wobbly. The rough wood rasped his hands. As he started out, the framework sank slowly under him, with much creaking. He had already worked up a light sweat, in spite of the chill wind. No doubt about it, the easy living had taken its toll, condition-wise. Gone were the days when he could rise at dawn, breakfast on sardines, do a full day’s work over a hot drawing board, dine on sardines, and still have the energy for an evening of plastics experiments and penicillium cultures. As soon as he got out of this—if he ever got out of this—he’d have to give serious thought to reviving his interest in body-building, long walks, pre-dawn calisthenics, karate, judo, and a high-protein dieting ...

The ring was a light tinkle, almost lost against the open sky. Lafayette froze, hearing the echo in his mind, wondering if he had imagined it, or if it had been merely the tolling of a bell down in the village; or possibly the distant ding-dong of a cowbell, if there were any cows in the vicinity and they wore bells that went ding-dong ...

At the second ring, Lafayette broke two fingernails in his upward lunge; once his foot slipped, leaving him dangling momentarily by a one-handed grip, but he hardly noticed. A short instant later he had grabbed up the receiver, jammed it into his ear upside down.

“Hello?” he gasped. “Hello? Yes? Lafayette O’Leary speaking ...”He quickly reversed the phone as a shrill squeaking came from the end near his mouth.

“... This is Pratwick, Sub-Inspector of Continua,” the chirping voice was saying. “Sorry to break in on your leisure time in this fashion, but an emergency has arisen here at Central and we’re recalling certain key personnel to active duty for the duration. Now, according to our records, you’re on standby status at Locus Alpha Nine-three, Plane V-87, Fox 22 1-b, otherwise known as Artesia. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Lafayette blurted. “That is, no—not exactly. You see—”

“Now, this situation requires that you abandon your interim identity at once and commence to operate underground, posing as an inmate of a maximum-security penal camp, doing ninety-nine years for aggravated mopery. Got it?”

“Look, Mr. Pratwick, you don’t quite grasp the situation,” O’Leary broke in hastily. “At the moment, I’m perched in a windmill—which seems to be all that’s left of the royal palace—”

“Now, you’ll report at once to the Undercover station located at the intersection of the palace sanitary main and the central municipal outflow, twelve feet under the Royal sewage-processing plant, two miles north of town. Is that clear? You’ll be in disguise, of course: rags, fleas, that sort of thing. Our man there will smuggle you into the labor camp, after fitting you out with the necessary artificial calluses, manacles, and simulated scurvy sores—”

“Hold on!” Lafayette cried. “I can’t undertake an undercover assignment in Artesia!”, “Why not?” The voice sounded surprised. “Because I’m not in Artesia, confound it! I’ve been trying to tell you! I’m hanging on for dear life, a hundred feet above a wasteland! I mean, I was just strolling in the garden, and all of a sudden the bench disappeared, and then the rest of the garden, and—”