Wulfsyarn: A Mosaic

Wulfsyarn: A Mosaic Read Free

Book: Wulfsyarn: A Mosaic Read Free
Author: Phillip Mann
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Wilberfoss, we have a life which I cannot deny has something of tragic inevitability about it. A happy man, brought to ruin . . . or near ruin. His ending, however, is not tragic. It is the near tragedy which concerns me, for we can all learn from that. Jon Wilberfoss was a gifted man who had found some happiness. Then Fate stepped in and took hold of his life and shook it like a dog that is killing a rat.
    Fate. I do not know that I believe in Fate. As a machine I am detached from the rhythms and patterns that human beings detect in their lives, which is not to say that I cannot detect patterns in my own period of consciousness. I am, after all, a trained pattern detector. The difference is that I do not ascribe metaphysical significance to my patterns of experience while Jon Wilberfoss does, or did. He saw his whole life as shaped by Fate from the day he stumbled into an outpost of the Gentle Order and took his first vows.
    However, since I cannot explain the first cause of things better, I must defer to him. We will let Fate stand.
    We begin at the moment when Fate comes a-knocking...

Part 1
    1 The Calling of a Happy Man
    It begins in the darkness and the silence of night.
    The sound of stone tapping on wood. It is an urgent sound and at the same time it is discreet. It is not a sound for all ears... a lover trying to wake his sleeping mistress might knock in this way.
    After each pattern of taps there is an echo which dies in the silence and then a soft voice calls, “Wake up, Senior Confrere Wilberfoss. Wake up, sir.” The caller waits while the sleeper adjusts and begins to respond. Then the tapping begins again, slightly harder.
    It reaches into the sleeping mind of Jon Wilberfoss and chivvies him, raising him to consciousness from a strange dream in which he was standing on a road and a brown-eyed cow was in front of him, blocking his path over a narrow bridge across a swiftly flowing stream.
    Knock. Knock. Knock.
    Definitely louder this time. More demanding. Soon a latch will be raised if the summons is not answered and a stealthy figure will enter. For be certain, the one that is knocking will not go away unanswered.
    Jon Wilberfoss rolled away from his wife, turning his head from the musky tousle of her hair and releasing his arm from the warmth under her breasts. She, Medoc by name, an alien woman of the indigenous people called the Tallines, murmured like the sea, uttering words of her own language and turned on her back, moist lips open. For a brief moment her fingers touched and caressed his naked body touching his chest and then gliding down to his thighs. Reassured she relaxed and released him and slid from a dream of horses to a dream of houses and so back down into the bottomless deep of sleep.
    Not so Wilberfoss. Jon Wilberfoss was waking up. He drew the covers back slowly and blinked in the shadowy room. Already his dreams were fleeing into oblivion and he knew who he was and where he was. A man such as Wilberfoss, a trained combatant, did not wake with a lot of ballyhoo. His early training reached deep into his subconscious. He lay still for several moments, aware that his awaking had an external cause, and strained to catch the slightest irregular sound. Consciously he breathed silently and deeply to quieten his pulse.
    When he was confident that there was nothing unexpected in the chamber, he rose from the bed, a shadow among shadows, and moved across the room to find his gown. He dragged it over his shoulders with barely a rustle and then crossed to the door. The door squeaked when he opened it and the sound seemed loud in his ears: likewise the click when it closed. But his wife did not wake.
    Outside in the stone-flagged corridor, the passage lights, sensing his presence, began to glow softly. That they were not already glowing gave him confidence that there was no intruder and he smiled at himself, at his own apprehension.
    Indeed, what intruder could there be here in the heart of the Pacifico

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