Philip José Farmer's The Dungeon 06] - The Final Battle by Richard Lupoff Page A

placed him, and whenever opportunity presented itself for rest, there he rested. There had been a few comfortable beds, as well. Most he had occupied alone. Others… A memory of pale skin, emerald eyes, and exotic, green-tinted hair arose. Clive blinked the recollection away, his eyes stinging with sudden tears. He drew his awareness back to the present.
    An elderly figure lay propped in the bed. Thin wisps of gray-white hair surmounted his nearly bald head. Mutton-chop whiskers of the same pale color marked his cheeks, which were themselves of a papery dryness and pallor: This apparition of death lifted a white-gowned arm and pointed a trembling finger at Clive.
    "It is he!" The voice was weak and quavered, but the words were clear enough. The thin face turned to one side, and again the old man said, "It is he!"
    Clive followed the direction of the oldster's glance. For the first time he became aware of the second figure in the room, a tall, slender woman shrouded in a gown of midnight blackness from neck to shoe. As Clive studied her he realized that her hair, although drawn severely into a bun behind her neck, was lengthy and rich and of a glossy black that shone in the dim lamplight like the brasswork on the desk. Her figure, although slim, was graceful and in other circumstances might even prove voluptuous.
    Her dress, he realized, was not all of black, but was trimmed with panels of a purple that approached magenta in shade.
    And her face—Seldom had he looked into so compelling, so exotic, and yet so human a face! Perhaps—and he cast his mind back over the innumerable females he had encountered on Earth and in the Dungeon—perhaps only the breathtakingly beautiful, exotic woman Nrrc'kth could be compared to this woman.
    "Calm yourself, Mr. du Maurier. I see him. But—
who
is he?" Her voice was cool, smooth, with a contralto deepness that set something to vibrating at the very core of Clive's being.
    "It is Clive Folliot—or his son, for he appears twenty years younger than Folliot ought to be!"
    "I am Clive Folliot, yes sir. But you have the advantage of me, sir."
    "I am your friend du Maurier. George du Maurier. You must know me, Folliot."
    Clive took a few hesitant steps across the room. He half-expected freezing brine to drip from his soaked clothing, but he looked down at himself and realized that he was dry. And instead of the tattered rags he had last worn in Chang Guafe's jerry-built iceboat, he was outfitted in a proper uniform of Her Majesty's Fifth Imperial Horse Guards—crimson tunic, glittering brass accoutrements, dark blue trousers trimmed with cloth-of-gold, polished leather boots.
    He peered into the old man's face. Yes, it was George du Maurier. But this was a George du Maurier ravaged by the passage of time, and possibly by other factors of which Clive Folliot knew little if anything. The George du Maurier whom Clive had last seen in London was a vigorous man of fifty, a cartoonist of accomplishment, a musician of at least semi-professional attainments, a student of the occult and the esoteric, and an aspiring novelist.
    This creature, this sorry specimen that lay propped against pillows, swaddled and warmed like an infant—this could hardly be his friend du Maurier.
    "What year did you say it was, du Maurier?"
    "It is of our gracious monarch's happy reign the fifty-seventh year, and of Our Lord, the one thousand eight hundred ninety-sixth."
    "1896!"
    "Did I not tell you that?"
    "When?"
    "When last we spoke. You seemed to be sailing in a very strange boat, in the company of two even stranger companions."
    "Yes," Clive acknowledged almost inaudibly. His head felt light. "Yes, I remember. But I thought it was a hallucination, a fantasy, a delirium."
    "It was none of those, Folliot. It was real."
    "And is this real?" His gesture encompassed the room and its occupants. "Is this woman real?"
    "On my deathbed, my manners desert me, Folliot. Doctor, may I