The Parallel Man by Richard Purtill Page A

gaped and stared in poor imitation of humanity. But what about the serfs I remembered, surely they were natural men, born and not built by magical arts. But except for their shocks of unkempt hair. . . Suddenly I had a sort of double image; serfs as I had remembered them up to now and then a different set of images: serfs grinning, laughing, drinking; buxom serf women smiling at me and shock-headed children tumbling on the cottage floors. My heart pounded and I broke out in a sweat. Up to now I had not doubted my memories. I had reckoned myself a sane man in a mad world of enchantment. What if it was I that was mad . . .”
    I made myself breathe deeply and relax. Whatever had been done to me, some things I could hold to. I knew enough of hunting to win Benton’s respect. I could handle myself well enough in this strange world to make Elena Petros offer me a berth on Argo . Whatever I learned about myself I was my own man and could hold my own in this or any other world. And surely my memories of Castle Thorn and my life there could not all be false. I knew that castle as well as I knew my own hands—or did I? Tomorrow would tell. I made myself sleep.
    The next day it took an effort to keep my voice steady as I asked the guard at the starport gate about transportation to the castle. He shrugged. “Oh yes, you can get there all right, they run tours. But not many flitters care to go. Tell you what, go over to the passenger gate round the fence there; cut across the field. There are probably regular tours leaving from there for visitors with time to kill here. Some of the tours are free; the city merchants run them to attract business. I’d take off your crew badge and hope they take you for a wealthy cit.”
    I thanked the man and cut across the false grass to the gate he had indicated. A more grandly dressed gatekeeper looked at me oddly, then told me to wait. Presently he returned with another man. “The regular tour is gone, citizen, but Jelleck here will give you a lift to the castle gate and find a tour you can join.” I thanked him and accompanied the other man to a moving platform smaller and faster than the one I had ridden with the andros the day I first met Pellow. I settled in a seat beside the man named Jelleck and was whisked through crowded streets toward the castle. Nothing I saw looked familiar until we came to the castle gates. Where I remembered a moat there was a broad paved area, but the gate themselves and the walls above were heart-stoppingly familiar.
    The man named Jelleck looked around him. “If you’ll wait here, citizen, I’ll find a guide for you,” he said, and entered the castle through a small postern gate that I did not remember. I climbed off the platform and stretched. Another unfamiliar object near the gates was a statue standing immediately before the gates, a man in armor with an unfurled flag in one hand and a bared sword in the other. I strolled casually over to look at it and was suddenly standing there staring, unable to move. Dimly I heard a child’s voice behind me, “Mama, look! The man standing there looks just like the statute of King Casmir the Protector!”

8. The Hall of Kings
    I heard a chuckle at my side and turned to see a young man with a studious look about him, clothed in a shabby robe that looked somewhat like a monk’s habit. “The child’s right, ser,” he said. “You’re the spitting image of the Blessed King. You must have Jagellon blood all right, though by your clothing you’re from off-planet. Would you like a guide, ser? I’m a poor student and I promise you that your fee will all be spent on students’ necessaries—books and wine.”
    I laughed, liking the look of the young man, and flipped him one of the golden discs from my pouch; since one had bought me admittance to the blackout I reckoned it a fair fee for a guide. His face grew grave and with an obvious struggle he made as if to hand it back to me. “This is far too much for a guide,