Robert Silverberg - Nightwings

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Please note: The working copy of this book had two chapters numbered 6 in part

3. They have been left as is.

Hugo Award winner for Best Novella 1969

Nebula Award nominee for Best Novella 1968

NIGHTWINGS

by Robert Silverberg

AVON BOOKS

A division of

The Hearst Corporation

959 Eighth Avenue

New York, New York 10019

Published by arrangement with the author

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 83-90760

ISBN: 0-380-41467-8

portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U. S.

Third Avenue, New York, New York 10022

First Avon Printing, September, 1969

AVON TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND IN

OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA REGISTRADA. HECHO EN

U. S. A.

Printed in the U. S. A.

For Harlan,

to remind him of open windows,

the currents of the Delaware River,

quarters with two heads,

and other pitfalls.

Part I

NIGHTWINGS

Roum is a city built on seven hills. They say it was a capital of man in one

of the earlier cycles. I did not know of that, for my guild was Watching, not

Remembering; but yet as I had my first glimpse of Roum, coming upon it from

the south at twilight, I could see that in former days it must have been of

great significance. Even now it was a mighty city of many thousands of souls.

Its bony towers stood out sharply against the dusk. Lights glimmered

appealingly. On my left hand the sky was ablaze with splendor as the sun

relinquished possession; streaming bands of azure and violet and crimson

folded and writhed about one another in the nightly dance that brings the

darkness. To my right, blackness had already come. I attempted to find the

seven hills, and failed, and still I knew that this was that Roum of majesty

toward which all roads are bent, and I felt awe and deep respect for the works

of our bygone fathers.

We rested by the long straight road, looking up at Roum. I said, "It is a

goodly city. We will find employment there."

Beside me, Avluela fluttered her lacy wings. "And food?" she asked in her

high, fluty voice. "And shelter? And wine?"

"Those too," I said. "All of those."

"How long have we been walking, Watcher?" she asked.

"Two days. Three nights."

"If I had been flying, it would have been more swift."

"For you," I said. "You would have left us far behind and never seen us again.

Is that your desire?"

She came close to me and rubbed the rough fabric of my sleeve, and then she

pressed herself at me the way a flirting cat might do. Her wings unfolded into

two broad sheets of gossamer through which I could still see the sunset and

the evening lights, blurred, distorted, magical. I sensed the fragrance of her

midnight hair. I put my arms to her and embraced her slender, boyish body.

She said, "You know it is my desire to remain with you always, Watcher.

Always!"

"Yes, Avluela."

"Will we be happy in Roum?"

"We will be happy," I said, and released her.

"Shall we go into Roum now?"

"I think we should wait for Gormon," I said, shaking my head. "He'll be back

soon from his explorations." I did not want to tell her of my weariness. She

was only a child, seventeen summers old; what did she know of weariness or of

age? And I was old. Not as old as Roum, but old enough.

"While we wait," she said, "may I fly?"

"Fly, yes."

I squatted beside our cart and warmed my hands at the throbbing generator

while Avluela prepared to fly. First she removed her garments, for her wings

have little strength and she cannot lift such extra baggage. Lithely, deftly,

she peeled the glassy bubbles from her tiny feet and wriggled free of her

crimson jacket and of her soft, furry leggings. The vanishing light in the

west sparkled over her slim form. Like all Fliers, she carried no surplus body

tissue: her breasts were mere bumps, her buttocks flat, her thighs so spindly

that there was a span of inches between them when she stood. Could she have

weighed more than a quintal? I doubt it. Looking at her, I felt, as always,

gross and earthbound, a thing of loathsome flesh, and yet I am not a heavy

man.

By the roadside she genuflected, knuckles to the ground, head bowed to knees,

as she said whatever ritual it is that the Fliers say. Her back was to me. Her

delicate wings fluttered, filled with life, rose about her like a cloak

whipped up by the breeze. I could not comprehend how such wings could possibly

lift even so slight a form as Avluela's. They were not hawk-wings but

butterfly-wings, veined and transparent, marked here and there with blotches

of pigment, ebony and turquoise and scarlet. A sturdy ligament joined them to

the two flat pads of muscle beneath her sharp shoulderblades; but what she did

not have was the massive breastbone of a flying creature, the bands of corded

muscle needed for flight. Oh, I know that the Fliers use more than muscle to

get aloft, that there are mystical disciplines in their mystery. Even so, I,

who was of the Watchers, remained skeptical of the more fantastic guilds.

Avluela finished her words. She rose; she caught the breeze with her wings;

she ascended several feet. There she remained, suspended between earth and

sky, while her wings beat frantically. It was not yet night, and Avluela's

wings were merely nightwings. By day she could not fly, for the terrible

pressure of the solar wind would hurl her to the ground. Now, midway between

dusk and dark, it was still not the best time for her to go up. I saw her

thrust toward the east by the remnant of light in the sky. Her arms as well as

her wings thrashed; her small pointed face was grim with concentration; on her

thin lips were the words of her guild. She doubled her body and shot it out,

head going one way, rump the other; and abruptly she hovered horizontally,

looking groundward, her wings thrashing against the air. Up, Avluela! Up!

Up it was, as by will alone she conquered the vestige of light that still

glowed.

With pleasure I surveyed her naked form against the darkness. I could see her

clearly, for a Watcher's eyes are keen. She was five times her own height in

the air, now, and her wings spread to their full expanse, so that the towers

of Roum were in partial eclipse for me. She waved. I threw her a kiss and

offered words of love. Watchers do not marry, nor do they engender children,

but yet Avluela was as a daughter to me, and I took pride in her flight. We

had traveled together a year, now, since we had first met in Agupt, and it was

as though I had known her all my long life. From her I drew a renewal of

strength. I do not know what it was she drew from me: security, knowledge, a

continuity with the days before her birth. I hoped only that she loved me as I

loved her.

Now she was far aloft. She wheeled, soared, dived, pirouetted, danced. Her

long black hair streamed from her scalp. Her body seemed only an incidental

appendage to those two great wings which glistened and throbbed and gleamed in

the night. Up she rose, glorying in her freedom from gravity, making me feel

all the more leaden-footed; and like some slender rocket she shot abruptly

away in the direction of Roum. I saw the soles of her feet, the tips of her

wings; then I saw her no more.

I sighed. I thrust my hands into the pits of my arms to keep them warm. How is

it that I felt a winter chill while the girl Avluela could soar joyously bare

through the sky?

It was now the twelfth of the twenty hours, and time once again for me to do

the Watching. I went to the cart, opened my cases, prepared the instruments.

Some of the dial covers were yellowed and faded; the indicator needles had

lost their luminous coating; sea stains defaced the instrument housings, a

relic of the time that pirates had assailed me in Earth Ocean. The worn and

cracked levers and nodes responded easily to my touch as I entered the

preliminaries. First one prays for a pure and perceptive mind; then one

creates the affinity with one's instruments; then one does the actual

Watching, searching the starry heavens for the enemies of man. Such was my

skill and my craft. I grasped handles and knobs, thrust things from my mind,

prepared myself to become an extension of my cabinet of devices.

I was only just past my threshold and into the first phase of Watchfulness

when a deep and resonant voice behind me said, "Well, Watcher, how goes it?"

I sagged against the cart. There is a physical pain in being wrenched so

unexpectedly from one's work. For a moment I felt claws clutching at my heart.

My face grew hot; my eyes would not focus; the saliva drained from my throat.

As soon as I could, I took the proper protective measures to ease the

metabolic drain, and severed myself from my instruments. Hiding my trembling

as much as possible, I turned around.

Gormon, the other member of our little band, had appeared and stood jauntily

beside me. He was grinning, amused at my distress, but I could not feel angry

with him. One does not show anger at a guildless person no matter what the

provocation.

Tightly, with effort, I said, "Did you spend your time rewardingly?"

"Very. Where's Avluela?"

I pointed heavenward. Gormon nodded.

"What have you found?" I asked.

"That this city is definitely Roum."

"There never was doubt of that."

"For me there was. But now I have proof."

"Yes?"

"In the overpocket. Look!"

From his tunic he drew his overpocket, set it on the pavement beside me, and

expanded it so that he could insert his hands into its mouth. Grunting a

little, he began to pull something heavy from the pouch-something of white

stone-a long marble column, I now saw, fluted, pocked with age.

"From a temple of Imperial Roum!" Gormon exulted.

"You shouldn't have taken that."

"Wait!" he cried, and reached into the overpocket once more. He took from it a

handful of circular metal plaques and scattered them jingling at my feet.

"Coins! Money! Look at them, Watcher! The faces of the Caesars!"

"Of whom?"

"The ancient rulers. Don't you know your history of past cycles?"

I peered at him curiously. "You claim to have no guild, Gormon. Could it be

you are a Rememberer and are concealing it from me?"

"Look at my face, Watcher. Could I belong to any guild? Would a Changeling be

taken?"

"True enough," I said, eyeing the golden hue of him, the thick waxen skin, the

red-pupiled eyes, the jagged mouth. Gormon had been weaned on teratogenetic

drugs; he was a monster, handsome in his way, but a monster nevertheless, a

Changeling, outside the laws and customs of man as they are practiced in the

Third Cycle of civilization. And there is no guild of Changelings.

"There's more," Gormon said. The overpocket was infinitely capacious; the

contents of a world, if need be, could be stuffed into its shriveled gray maw,

and still it would be no longer than a man's hand. Gormon took from it bits of

machinery, reading spools, an angular thing of brown metal that might have

been an ancient tool, three squares of shining glass, five slips of paper-

paper!-and a host of other relics of antiquity. "See?" he said. "A fruitful

stroll, Watcher! And not just random booty. Everything recorded, everything

labeled, stratum, estimated age, position when in situ. Here we have many

thousands of years of Roum."

"Should you have taken these things?" I asked doubtfully.

"Why not? Who is to miss them? Who of this cycle cares for the past?"

"The Rememberers."

"They don't need solid objects to help them do their work."

"Why do you want these things, though?"

"The past interests me, Watcher. In my guildless way I have my scholarly

pursuits. Is that wrong? May not even a monstrosity seek knowledge?"

"Certainly, certainly. Seek what you wish. Fulfill yourself in your own way.

This is Roum. At dawn we enter. I hope to find employment here."

"You may have difficulties."

"How so?"

"There are many Watchers already in Roum, no doubt. There will be little need

for your services."

"I'll seek the favor of the Prince of Roum," I said.

"The Prince of Roum is a hard and cold and cruel man."

"You know of him?"

Gormon shrugged. "Somewhat." He began to stuff his artifacts back in the

overpocket. "Take your chances with him, Watcher. What other choice do you

have?"

"None," I said, and Gormon laughed, and I did not.

He busied himself with his ransacked loot of the past. I found myself deeply

depressed by his words. He seemed so sure of himself in an uncertain world,

this guildless one, this mutated monster, this man of inhuman look; how could

he be so cool, so casual? He lived without concern for calamity and mocked

those who admitted to fear. Gormon had been traveling with us for nine days,

now, since we had met him in the ancient city beneath the volcano to the south

by the edge of the sea. I had not suggested that he join us; he had invited

himself along, and at Avluela's bidding I accepted. The roads are dark and

cold at this time of year, and dangerous beasts of many species abound, and an

old man journeying with a girl might well consider taking with him a brawny

one like Gormon. Yet there were times I wished he had not come with us, and

this was one.

Slowly I walked back to my equipment.

Gormon said, as though first realizing it, "Did I interrupt you at your

Watching?"

I said mildly, "You did."

"Sorry. Go and start again. I'll leave you in peace. And he gave me his

dazzling lopsided smile, so full of charm that it took the curse off the easy

arrogance of his words.

I touched the knobs, made contact with the nodes, monitored the dials. But I

did not enter Watchfulness, for I remained aware of Gormon's presence and

fearful that he would break into my concentration once again at a painful

moment, despite his promise. At length I looked away from the apparatus.

Gormon stood at the far side of the road, craning his neck for some sight of

Avluela. The moment I turned to him he became aware of me.

"Something wrong, Watcher?"

"No. The moment's not propitious for my work. I'll wait."

"Tell me," he said. "When Earth's enemies really do come from the stars, will

your machines let you know it?"

"I trust they will."

"And then?"

"Then I notify the Defenders."

"After which your life's work is over?"

"Perhaps," I said.

"Why a whole guild of you, though? Why not one master center where the Watch

is kept? Why a bunch of itinerant Watchers drifting from place to place?"

"The more vectors of detection," I said, "the greater the chance of early

awareness of the invasion."

"Then an individual Watcher might well turn his machines on and not see

anything, with an invader already here."

"It could happen. And so we practice redundancy."

"You carry it to an extreme, I sometimes think." Gormon laughed. "Do you

actually believe an invasion is coming?"

"I do," I said stiffly. "Else my life was a waste."

"And why should the star people want Earth? What do we have here besides the

remnants of old empires? What would they do with miserable Roum? With Perris?

With Jorslem? Rotting cities! Idiot princes! Come, Watcher, admit it: the

invasion's a myth, and you go through meaningless motions four times a day.

Eh?"

"It is my craft and my science to Watch. It is yours to jeer. Each of us to

our speciality, Gormon."

"Forgive me," he said with mock humility. "Go, then, and Watch."

"I shall."

Angrily I turned back to my cabinet of instruments, determined now to ignore

any interruption, no matter how brutal. The stars were out; I gazed at the

glowing constellations, and automatically my mind registered the many worlds.

Let us Watch, I thought. Let us keep our vigil despite the mockers.

I entered full Watchfulness.

I clung to the grips and permitted the surge of power to rush through me. I

cast my mind to the heavens and searched for hostile entities. What ecstasy!

What incredible splendor! I who had never left this small planet roved the

black spaces of the void, glided from star to burning star, saw the planets

spinning like tops. Faces stared back at me as I journeyed, some without eyes,

some with many eyes, all the complexity of the many-peopled galaxy accessible

to me. I spied out possible concentrations of inimicable force. I inspected

drilling-grounds and military encampments. I sought, as I had sought four

times daily for all my adult life, for the invaders who had been promised us,

the conquerors who at the end of days were destined to seize our tattered

world.

I found nothing, and when I came up from my trance, sweaty and drained, I saw

Avluela descending.

Feather-light she landed. Gormon called to her, and she ran, bare, her little

breasts quivering, and he enfolded her smallness in his powerful arms, and

they embraced, not passionately but joyously. When he released her she turned

to me.

"Roum," she gasped. "Roum!"

"You saw it?"

"Everything! Thousands of people! Lights! Boulevards! A market! Broken

buildings many cycles old! Oh, Watcher, how wonderful Roum is!"

"Your flight was a good one, then," I said.

"A miracle!"

"Tomorrow we go to dwell in Roum."

"No, Watcher, tonight, tonight!" She was girlishly eager, her face bright with

excitement. "It's just a short journey more! Look, it's just over there!"

"We should rest first," I said. "We do not want to arrive weary in Roum."

"We can rest when we get there," Avluela answered. "Come! Pack everything!

You've done your Watching, haven't you?"

"Yes. Yes."

"Then let's go. To Roum! To Roum!"

I looked in appeal at Gormon. Night had come; it was time to make camp, to

have our few hours of sleep.

For once Gormon sided with me. He said to Avluela, "The Watcher's right. We

can all use some rest. We'll go on into Roum at dawn."

Avluela pouted. She looked more like a child than ever. Her wings drooped; her

underdeveloped body slumped. Petulantly she closed her wings until they were

mere fist-sized humps on her back, and picked up the garments she had

scattered on the road. She dressed while we made camp. I distributed food

tablets; we entered our receptacles; I fell into troubled sleep and dreamed of

Avluela limned against the crumbling moon, and Gormon flying beside her. Two

hours before dawn I arose and performed my first Watch of the new day, while

they still slept. Then I aroused them, and we went onward toward the fabled

imperial city, onward toward Roum.

The morning's light was bright and harsh, as though this were some young world

newly created. The road was all but empty; people do not travel much in these

latter days unless, like me, they are wanderers by habit and profession.

Occasionally we stepped aside to let a chariot of some member of the guild of

Masters go by, drawn by a dozen expressionless neuters harnessed in series.

Four such vehicles went by in the first two hours of the day, each shuttered

and sealed to hide the Master's proud features from the gaze of such common

folk as we. Several rollerwagons laden with produce passed us, and a number of

floaters soared overhead. Generally we had the road to ourselves, however.

The environs of Roum showed vestiges of antiquity: isolated columns, the

fragments of an aqueduct transporting nothing from nowhere to nowhere, the

portals of a vanished temple. That was the oldest Roum we saw, but there were

accretions of the later Roums of subsequent cycles: the huts of peasants, the

domes of power drains, the hulls of dwelling-towers. Infrequently we met with

the burned-out shell of some ancient airship. Gormon examined everything,

taking samples from time to time. Avluela looked, wide-eyed, saying nothing.

We walked on, until the walls of the city loomed before us.

They were of a blue glossy stone, neatly joined, rising to a height of perhaps

eight men. Our road pierced the wall through a corbeled arch; the gate stood

open. As we approached the gate, a figure came toward us; he was hooded,

masked, a man of extraordinary height wearing the somber garb of the guild of

Pilgrims. One does not approach such a person oneself, but one heeds him if he

beckons. The Pilgrim beckoned.

Through his speaking grille he said, "Where from?"

"The south. I lived in Agupt awhile, then crossed Land Bridge to Talya," I

replied.

"Where bound?"

"Roum, awhile."

"How goes the Watch?"

"As customary."

"You have a place to stay in Roum?" the Pilgrim asked.

I shook my head. "We trust to the kindness of the Will."

"The Will is not always kind," said the Pilgrim absently. "Nor is there much

need of Watchers in Roum. Why do you travel with a Flier?"

"For company's sake. And because she is young and needs protection."

"Who is the other one?"

"He is guildless, a Changeling."

"So I can see. But why is he with you?"

"He is strong and I am old, and so we travel together. Where are you bound,

Pilgrim?"

"Jorslem. Is there another destination for my guild?"

I conceded the point with a shrug.

The Pilgrim said, "Why do you not come to Jorslem with me?"

"My road lies north now. Jorslem is in the south, close by Agupt."

"You have been to Agupt and not to Jorslem?" he said, puzzled.

"Yes. The time was not ready for me to see Jorslem."

"Come now. We will walk together on the road, Watcher, and we will talk of the

old times and of the times to come, and I will assist you in your Watching,

and you will assist me in my communions with the Will. Is it agreed?"

It was a temptation. Before my eyes flashed the image of Jorslem the Golden,

its holy buildings and shrines, its places of renewal where the old are made

young, its spires, its tabernacles. Even though I am a man set in his ways, I

was willing at the moment to abandon Roum and go with the Pilgrim to Jorslem.

I said, "And my companions-"

"Leave them. It is forbidden for me to travel with the guildless, and I do not

wish to travel with a female. You and I, Watcher, will go to Jorslem

together."

Avluela, who had been standing to one side frowning through all this colloquy,

shot me a look of sudden terror.

"I will not abandon them," I said.

"Then I go to Jorslem alone," said the Pilgrim. Out of his robe stretched a

bony hand, the fingers long and white and steady. I touched my fingers

reverently to the tips of his, and the Pilgrim said, "Let the Will give you

mercy, friend Watcher. And when you reach Jorslem, search for me."

He moved on down the road without further conversation.

Gormon said to me, "You would have gone with him, wouldn't you?"

"I considered it."

"What could you find in Jorslem that isn't here? That's a holy city and so is

this. Here you can rest awhile. You're in no shape for more walking now."

"You may be right," I conceded, and with the last of my energy I strode toward

the gate of Roum.

Watchful eyes scanned us from slots in the wall. When we were at midpoint in

the gate, a fat, pockmarked Sentinel with sagging jowls halted us and asked

our business in Roum. I stated my guild and purpose, and he gave a snort of

disgust.

"Go elsewhere, Watcher! We need only useful men here."

"Watching has its uses," I said mildly.

"No doubt. No doubt." He squinted at Avluela. "Who's this? Watchers are

celibates, no?"

"She is nothing more than a traveling companion."

The Sentinel guffawed coarsely. "It's a route you travel often, I wager! Not

that there's much to her. What is she, thirteen, fourteen? Come here, child.

Let me check you for contraband." He ran his hands quickly over her, scowling

as he felt her breasts, then raising an eyebrow as he encountered the mounds

of her wings below her shoulders. "What's this? What's this? More in back than

in front! A Flier, are you? Very dirty business, Fliers consorting with foul

old Watchers." He chuckled and put his hand on Avluela's body in a way that

sent Gormon starting forward in fury, murder in his fire-circled eyes. I

caught him in time and grasped his wrist with all my strength, holding him

back lest he ruin the three of us by an attack on the Sentinel. He tugged at

me, nearly pulling me over; then he grew calm and subsided, icily watching as

the fat one finished checking Avluela for contraband."

At length the Sentinel turned in distaste to Gormon and said, "What kind of

thing are you?"

"Guildless, your mercy," Gormon said in sharp tones. "The humble and worthless

product of teratogenesis, and yet nevertheless a free man who desires entry to

Roum."

"Do we need more monsters here?"

"I eat little and work hard."

"You'd work harder still, if you were neutered," said the Sentinel.

Gormon glowered. I said, "May we have entry?"

"A moment." The Sentinel donned his thinking cap and narrowed his eyes as he

transmitted a message to the memory tanks. His face tensed with the effort;

then it went slack, and moments later came the reply. We could not hear the

transaction at all; but from his disappointed look; it appeared evident that

no reason had been found to refuse us admission to Roum.

"Go on in," he said. "The three of you. Quickly!"

We passed beyond the gate.

Gormon said, "I could have split him open with a blow."

"And be neutered by nightfall. A little patience, and we've come into Roum."

"The way he handled her-!"

"You take a very possessive attitude toward Avluela," I said. "Remember that

she's a Flier, and not sexually available to the guildless."

Gormon ignored my thrust. "She arouses me no more than you do, Watcher. But it

pains me to see her treated that way. I would have killed him if you hadn't

held me back."

Avluela said, "Where shall we stay, now that we're in Roum?"

"First let me find the headquarters of my guild," I said. "I'll register at

the Watchers' Inn. After that, perhaps we'll hunt up the Fliers' Lodge for a

meal."

"And then," said Gormon drily, "we'll go to the Guildless Gutter and beg for

coppers."

"I pity you because you are a Changeling," I told him, "but I find it

ungraceful of you to pity yourself. Come."

We walked up a cobbled, winding street away from the gate and into Roum

itself. We were in the outer ring of the city, a residential section of low,

squat houses topped by the unwieldy bulk of defense installations. Within lay

the shining towers we had seen from the fields the night before; the remnant

of ancient Roum carefully preserved across ten thousand years or more; the

market, the factory zone, the communications hump, the temples of the Will,

the memory tanks, the sleepers' refuges, the outworlders' brothels, the

government buildings, the headquarters of the various guilds.

At the corner, beside a Second Cycle building with walls of rubbery texture, I

found a public thinking cap and slipped it on my forehead. At once my thoughts

raced down the conduit until they came to the interface that gave them access

to one of the storage brains of a memory tank. I pierced the interface and saw

the wrinkled brain itself, pale gray against the deep green of its housing. A

Rememberer once told me that, in cycles past, men built machines to do their

thinking for them, although these machines were hellishly expensive and

required vast amounts of space and drank power gluttonously. That was not the

worst of our forefathers' follies; but why build artificial brains when death

each day liberates scores of splendid natural ones to hook into the memory

tanks? Was it that they lacked the knowledge to use them? I find that hard to

believe.

I gave the brain my guild identification and asked the coordinates of our inn.

instantly I received them, and we set out, Avluela on one side of me, Gormon

on the other, myself wheeling, as always, the cart in which my instruments

resided.

The city was crowded. I had not seen such throngs in sleepy, heat-fevered

Agupt, nor at any other point on my northward journey. The streets were full

of Pilgrims, secretive and masked. Jostling through them went busy Rememberers

and glum Merchants and now and then the litter of a Master. Avluela saw a

number of Fliers, but was barred by the tenets of her guild from greeting them

until she had undergone her ritual purification. I regret to say that I spied

many Watchers, all of whom looked upon me disdainfully and without welcome. I

noted a good many Defenders and ample representation of such lesser guilds as

Vendors, Servitors, Manufactories, Scribes, Communicants, and Transporters.

Naturally, a host of neuters went silently about their humble business, and

numerous outworlders of all descriptions flocked the streets, most of them

probably tourists, some here to do what business could be done with the

sullen, poverty-blighted people of Earth. I noticed many Changelings limping

furtively through the crowd, not one of them as proud of bearing as Gormon

beside me. He was unique among his kind; the others, dappled and piebald and

asymmetrical, limbless or overlimbed, deformed in a thousand imaginative and

artistic ways, were slinkers, squinters, shufflers, hissers, creepers; they

were cutpurses, brain-drainers, organ-peddlers, repentance-mongers, gleam-

buyers, but none held himself upright as though he thought he were a man.

The guidance of the brain was exact, and in less than an hour of walking we

arrived at the Watchers' Inn. I left Gormon and Avluela outside and wheeled my

cart within.

Perhaps a dozen members of my guild lounged in the main hall. I gave them the

customary sign, and they returned it languidly. Were these the guardians on

whom Earth's safety depended? Simpletons and weaklings!

"Where may I register?" I asked.

"New? Where from?"

"Agupt was my last place of registry."

"Should have stayed there. No need of Watchers here."

"Where may I register?" I asked again.

A foppish youngster indicated a screen in the rear of the great room. I went

to it, pressed my fingertips against it, was interrogated, and gave my name,

which a Watcher may utter only to another Watcher and only within the

precincts of an inn. A panel shot open, and a puffy-eyed man who wore the

Watcher emblem on his right cheek and not on the left, signifying his high

rank in the guild, spoke my name and said, "You should have known better than

to come to Roum. We're over our quota."

"I claim lodging and employment nonetheless."

"A man with your sense of humor should have been born into the guild of

Clowns," he said.

"I see no joke."

"Under laws promulgated by our guild in the most recent session, an inn is

under no obligation to take new lodgers once it has reached its assigned

capacity. We are at our assigned capacity. Farewell, my friend."

I was aghast. "I know of no such regulation! This is incredible! For a guild

to turn away a member from its own inn-when he arrives footsore and numb! A

man of my age, having crossed Land Bridge out of Agupt, here as a stranger and

hungry in Roum-"

"Why did you not check with us first?"

"I had no idea it would be necessary."

"The new regulations-"

"May the Will shrivel the new regulations!" I shouted. "I demand lodging! To

turn away one who has Watched since before you were born-"

"Easy, brother, easy."

"Surely you have some corner where I can sleep-some crumbs to let me eat-"

Even as my tone had changed from bluster to supplication, his expression

softened from indifference to mere disdain. "We have no room. We have no food.

These are hard times for our guild, you know. There is talk that we will be

disbanded altogether, as a useless luxury, a drain upon the Will's resources.

We are very limited in our abilities. Because Roum has a surplus of Watchers,

we all are on short rations as it is, and if we admit you our rations will be

all the shorter."

"But where will I go? What shall I do?"

"I advise you," he said blandly, "to throw yourself upon the mercy of the

Prince of Roum."

Outside, I told that to Gormon, and he doubled with laughter, guffawing so

furiously that the striations on his lean cheeks blazed like bloody stripes.

"The mercy of the Prince of Roum!" he repeated. "The mercy-of the Prince of

Roum-"

"It is customary for the unfortunate to seek the aid of the local ruler," I

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Pleasenote:Theworkingcopyofthisbookhadtwochaptersnumbered6inpart3.Theyhavebeenleftasis.HugoAwardwinnerforBestNovella1969NebulaAwardnomineeforBestNovella1968NIGHTWINGSbyRobertSilverbergAVONBOOKSAdivisionofTheHearstCorporation959EighthAvenueNewYork,NewYork10019Copyright(c)1968,1969byGalaxyPublishingCo...

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Robert Silverberg - Nightwings

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