Empire of Two Worlds

The woman vanished and in her turn was replaced. The creatures began to stream off faster; then they came no more. The whine of power rose to a howl as Harmen poured in the energy from the control board. I felt myself sweating.

“We are approaching the threshold,” Harmen said, his voice louder. “Now, Klein — behold!”

As he said that it was as if I had been sucked into some kind of vortex. I ceased to become aware of my surroundings. Momentarily I got a vivid sense of blackness, of being surrounded by stars and galaxies. I felt so stunned I could make no kind of reaction to it but merely let myself be carried along.

Then the impression of outer space vanished and I was looking down on the surface of Killibol. The advancing army was rumbling across the bare, level surface, sending a flood of light ahead of it.

All at once I seemed to see not just that one scene but the whole of Killibol together: the whole dead, slate-grey planet, with scores of cities like termite heaps none of which suspected what was to come upon them. At the same time images of Earth and Merame began to get jumbled up in it. And then my vision seemed to expand to include hosts of strange dramas on countless planets across the universe; Bec’s saga was just one of them. I began to see what the alchemist had tried to tell me: that you can’t always separate cause and effect. When the alchemists of ancient times had made that gateway between Earth and Killibol they had created more than a physical bridge; they had linked the two planets in other ways as well. Becmath, it seemed to me then, had been predestined to change the world he lived on since the moment he was born; he had been instinctively drawn towards the means of effecting that change as surely as, in some desert parts of Earth, certain animals are drawn to sources of water by some sense that cannot be explained.

There was a humming in my ears. The feverish visions passed. I was standing in Harmen’s chamber amid the dying whine of power. Gasping, I wiped the film of sweat off my face.

“Is it real?” I breathed, “Or an hallucination?”

Harmen shrugged. “There may not be so much difference between the two. I prefer to say that it is real.”

He opened the big wooden doors. Thankfully I staggered out. I didn’t think I cared for the experience he had forced on me.

“And is that the Tincture you talk about?”

“No,” he said, frowning. “It comes close to the reality of the Tincture — but in an extremely attenuated form that cannot be maintained. It is an ephemeral, partial manifestation of the Tincture brought about by extreme stress. Hence, like the corrupted Tincture of the gateway, it confers some of its properties — in this case visions of far-away events, and glimpses into the operations of matter in all its forms. To try to grasp it is like trying to grasp at air. Fully manifested Tincture is a palpable solid; it can be handled and made into an object.”

Still breathing deeply, I glared around the bubbling laboratory. “That certainly must be something,” I said. “You reckon you’re going to make this stuff?”

“I believe I am close. The electric tension method I have just employed is not able to cross the final threshold … but we have other, more traditional processes under way.” Harmen ran his fingers through his untidy hair with a hint of weariness. “To be frank, there is no reliable record that the final aim has been achieved by any man, except for the notable Hermes Trismegistus who became as a god. But no one doubts that the goal is attainable. And I am closer than anyone for many centuries.”

He steered me between his watching apprentices and back towards his study. “There is something else of which I should in fairness warn you. You now possess a doppelganger.”

“A what?”

“You remember the transient beings who came into existence as the field built up? You have been in contact, however remotely, with an attenuated Tincture field. I have found from experience that transient creatures fall away easily from such a field. There is now a phantasmal duplicate of yourself which will show itself in moments of extreme stress and for a short time after your death.”

“I don’t seem to remember asking for that!” I yelled angrily. All the bad stories I had heard about alks came flooding to my mind. I was ready to believe them, now.

But Harmen was unperturbed. “It will do you no harm, You won’t even know about it, in all probability. I mention it only to forewarn you that Becmath also has a doppelganger.”

“Bec?”

“Of course. He has always taken a close interest in my work. He also has gone through your recent experience. He drew great confidence from it.”

In a strange way the visions I had been given, hallucinatory or not, had also given me confidence. Something had jelled in my mind. I felt more clear now about what was worth doing and what was not.