Time, then, did fork. Time Track One was probably no longer in existence. He must have been saved by his
“traction” on the reality of Time Track Two. He’d snap back up to his own time and see what the situation was.
If he found his assistant Furmin alone in the laboratory, the extremists would have been proved wrong. If not .
. .
Furmin was not alone. Instead, Skandos Two and Furmin Two were at work on a tri-di of Tedric’s life: so like,
and yet so wildly unlike, the one upon which Skandos One and Furmin One had labored so long!
Shaken and undecided, Skandos One held his machine at the very verge of invisibility and watched and
listened. “But it’s so maddeningly incomplete!” Skandos Two snorted. “When it goes into such fine detail on
almost everything else, why can’t we get how he stumbled onto one lot, and never any other, of high-alloy
steel-chromenickel-vanadium-molybdenum-tungsten steel-Mortensen’s supersteel, to be specific-which wasn’t
rediscovered for thousands of years?
“Why, it was revealed to him by his personal god Llosir -don’t you remember?” Furmin snickered.
“Poppycock!”
“To us, yes; but not to them. Hence, no detail, and you know why we can’t go back and check.”
“Of course. We simply don’t know enough about time . . . but I would so like to study this Lord of the Marches
at first hand! Nowhere else in all reachable time does any other one entity occupy such a uniquely key
position!”
“So would I, chief. If we knew just a little more I’d say go. In the meantime, let’s run that tri-di again, to see if
we’ve overlooked any little thing!”
In the three-dimensional, full-color projection Armsmaster Lord Tedric destroyed the principal images of the
monstrous god Sarpedion and killed Sarpedion’s priests. He rescued Lady Rhoann, King Phagon’s eldest
daughter, from the sacrificial altar. The king made him Lord of the Marches, the Highest of the High.
“This part I like.” Furmin pressed a stud; the projector stopped. A blood-smeared armored giant and a blood-
smeared naked woman stood, arms around each other, beside a blood-smeared altar of green stone. “Talk
about being STACKED! If I hadn’t checked the data myself I’d swear you went overboard there, chief.”
“Exact likeness-life .size,” Skandos Two grunted. “Tedric: .six-four, two-thirty, muscled just like that. Rhoann:
six feet and half an inch, one-ninety. The only time she ever appeared in the raw in public, I guess, but she
didn’t turn a hair.”
“What a couple!” Furmin stared enviously. ,we don’t have people like that any more.”
“Fortunately, no. He could split a full-armored man in two with a sword; she could strangle a tiger
bare-handed.
So what? All the brains of the whole damned tribe” boiled down into one, wouldn’t equip a half-wit.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Furmin objected. “Phagon was a smooth, shrewd operator.”
“In a way-sometimes-but committing suicide by wearing gold armor instead of high-alloy steel doesn’t show
much brain-power.”
“I’m not sure I’ll buy that, either. There were terrific pressures . . . but say Phagon had worn steel, that day at
Middlemarch Castle, and lived ten or fifteen years longer? My guess is that Tedric would have changed the
map of the world. He wasn’t stupid, you know; just bull-headed, and Phagon could handle him. He would have
pounded a lot of sense into his skull, if he had lived.”
“However, he didn’t live,” Skandos returned dryly, “and so every decision Tedric ever made was wrong. But to
get back to the point” did you see anything new?”
“Not a thing.”
“Neither did I. So go and see how eight twelve is doing.” For Time Test Number Eight Hundred Eleven had
failed; and there was little ground for hope that Number Eight Hundred Twelve would be any more
productive.
And the lurking Skandos One who had been studying intensively every aspect of the situation, began to act. It
was crystal clear that Time Track Two could hold only one Skandos. One of them would have to vanish-com-
pletely, immediately, and permanently. Although in no sense a killer, by instinct or training, only one course
of action was possible if his own life-and, as a matter of fact, all civilization-were to be conserved. Wherefore
he synchonized, and shot his unsuspecting double neatly through the head. The living Skandos changed
places with the dead. A timer buzzed briefly. The time-machine disappeared; completely out of
synchronization with any continuum that a world’s keenest brain and an ultra-fast calculator could compute.
This would of course make another fork in time, but that fact did not bother Skandos One at all-now. As for
Tedric; since the big, dumb lug couldn’t be made to believe that he, Skandos One, was other than a god, he’d
be a god-in spades!
He’d build an image of flesh-like plastic exactly like the copper statue Tedric had made, and go back and
announce himself publicly as the god Llosir. He’d come back-along Time-Track Three, of course-and do away
with Skandos Three. There might have to be another interference, too, to get Tedric started along the right
time-track. He could call better after seeing what Time-Track Three looked like. If so, it would necessitate the
displacement of Skandos Four.
So what? He had never had any qualms; and, now that he had done it once, he had no doubt whatever as to
his ability to do it twice more.
Of the three standing beside Sarpedion’s grisly altar, King Phagon was the first to become conscious of the fact
that something should be done about his daughter’s nudity.
“Flasnir, your cloak!” he ordered sharply; and the Lady Rhoann, unclamping her arms from around Tedric’s armored
neck and disengaging his steel-clad arm from around her waist, covered herself with the proffered garment. Par-
tially covered, that is; for, since the cloak had come only to mid-thigh on the courtier and since she was a good
seven inches taller than be, the coverage might have seemed, to a prudish eye, something less than adequate.
“Chamberlain Schillan-Captain Sciro,” the king went on briskly. “Haul me this carrion to the river and dump it in-put
men to cleaning this place–tis not seemly so.”
The designated officers began to bawl orders, and Tedric turned to the girl, who was still just about as close to him
as she could get; awe, wonder, and relieved shock still plain on her expressive face.
“One thing, Lady Rhoann, I understand not. You seem to know me; act as though I were old, tried friend. ‘Tis vast
honor, but how? You of course I know; have known and honored since you were a child; but me, a commoner” you
know not. Nor, if you did” couldst know who it was neath all this iron?”
“Art wrong, Lord Tedric-nay, not “Lord” Tedric; henceforth you and I are Tedric and Rhoann merely-I have known
you long and well; would recognize you anywhere. The few of the old, true blood stand out head and shoulders
above the throng, and you stand out, even among them. Who else could it have been? Who else bath the strength of
arm and soul, the inner and the outer courage? No coward I, Tedric, nor ever called so, but on that altar my very
bones turned jelly. I could not have swung weapon against Sarpedion. I trembled yet at the bare thought of what you
did; I know not how you could have done it.”
“You feared the god” Lady Rhoann, as do so many. I bated him.”
“‘Tis not enough of explanation. And ‘Rhoann’ merely” Tedric, remember?”
“Rhoann … Thanks, my lady. ‘Tis an honor more real than your father’s patent of nobility . . . but ’tis not fitting. I feel
as much a commoner. . . .”
“Commoner? Bah! I ignored that word once, Tedric, but not twice. You are” and deservedly, the Highest of the
High. My father the king has known for long what you are; he should have ennobled you long since. Thank Sarp . .
thank all the gods he had the wit to put it off no longer! ‘Tis blood that tells, not empty titles. The Throne can make
and un-make nobility at will, but no power whatever can make true-bloods out of mongrels, nor create real
manhood where none exists!”
Tedric did not know what to say in answer to that passionate outburst” so he changed the subject; effectively, if not
deftly. “In speaking of the Marches to your father the king, you mentioned the Sages. What said they?”
“At another time, perhaps.” Lady Rhoann was fast recovering her wonted cool poise. “‘Tis far too long to go into
while I stand here half naked, filthy, and stinking. Let us on with the business in hand; which” for me, is a hot bath
and clean clothing.”
Rhoann strolled away as unconcernedly as though she were wearing full court regalia” and Tedric turned to the
king.
“Thinkest the Lady Trycie is nearby, sire?”