“We can’t be responsible for death or disfigurement, you know,” reminded the duelsmaster.
He toyed with the company emblem on his ceremonial robe absently, awaiting Marmorth’s answer. Behind him, across the onyx and crystal expanse of the reception chamber, the gaping maw of the silver corridor opened into blackness.
“Yes, yes, I know all that,” snapped Marmorth impatiently. “Has Krane entered his end?” he asked, casting a glance at the dilation- segment leading to the adjoining preparation room. There was fear and apprehension in the look, only thinly hidden.
“Not quite yet,” the duelsmaster told him. “By now he has signed the release, and they are briefing him, as I’m about to brief you, if you’ll kindly sign yours.” He indicated the printed form in the built–in frame and the stylus on the desk.
Marmorth licked his lips, grumbled briefly, and flourished the stylus on the blank line. The duelsmaster glanced quickly at the signature, then pressed the stud on the desk top. The blank slipped out of sight inside the desk. He carefully took the stylus from Marmorth’s unfeeling fingers, placed it in its holder. They waited patiently for a minute. A soft clucking came up through a slot at the side of the desk, and a second later a punched plastic plate dropped into a trough beneath it.
“This is your variation–range card,” explained the duelsmaster, lifting the plate from the basket. “With this we can gauge the extent of your imagination, set up the illusions, send you through the corridor at your own mental pace.”
“I understand perfectly, Duelsman,” snapped Marmorth. “Do you mind getting me in there! I’m freezing in this breechclout!”
“Mr. Marmorth, I realize this is annoying, but we are required both by statute of law and rule of the company to explain thoroughly the entire sequence, before entrance.” He stood up behind the desk, reached into a cabinet that dilated at the approach of his hand.
“Here,” he said, handing Marmorth a wraparound, “put this on till we’ve finished here.”
Marmorth let breath whistle between his teeth in irritation, but donned the robe and sat back down in front of the desk. Marmorth was a man of medium height, hair graying slightly at the temples and forelock, a middle–aged stomach bulge. He had dark, not-quite-piercing eyes, and straight plain features. An undistinguished man at first glance, yet one who had a definite touch of authority and determination about him.
“As you know — ” began the duelsmaster.
“Yes, yes, confound it! I know, I know! Why must you people prolong the agony of this thing?” Marmorth cut him off, rising again.
“Mr. Marmorth,” resumed the duelsmaster patiently but doggedly, “if you don’t settle yourself, we will call this affair off. Do you understand?”
Marmorth chuckled ruefully, deep in his throat. “After the tolls Krane and I laid out? You won’t cancel.”
“We will if you aren’t prepared for combat. It’s for your own survival, Mr. Marmorth. Now, if you’ll be silent a minute, I’ll brief you and you can enter the corridor.”
Marmorth waved his hand negligently, grudging the duelsman his explanation. He stared in boredom at the high crystal ceiling of the reception chamber.
“The corridor, as you know,” went on the duelsman, adding the last phrase with sarcasm, “is a super–sensitive receptor. When you enter it, a billion scanning elements pick up your thoughts, down to the very subconscious, filter them through the banks, correlating them with your variation-range card, and feed back illusions. These illusions are matched with those of your opponent, as checked with his variation– range card. The illusion is always the same for both of you.
“Since you are in the field of the corridor, these are substantial illusions, and they affect you as though they were real. In other words, to illustrate the extreme — you can die at any moment. They are not dreams, I assure you, even though they are not consciously projected. All too often combatants find an illusion so strange they feel it must be unreal. May I caution you, Mr. Marmorth, that is the quickest way to lose an affair. Take everything you see at face value. It is real!”
He paused for a moment, wiping his forehead. He had begun to perspire freely. Marmorth wondered at this, but remained silent.
“Your handicap,” the duelsmaster resumed, “is that when an illusion is formed from a larger segment of your opponent’s imagination than from yours, he will be more familiar with it, and will be better able to use it against you. The same holds true for you, of course.
“The illusions will strengthen for the combatant who is dominating. In other words, if Krane’s outlook is firmer than yours, he will have a more familiar illusion. If you begin to dominate him, the illusion will change to one that is more of your making.
“Do you understand?”
Marmorth had found himself listening more intently than he had thought he would. Now he had questions.
“Aren’t there any weapons we begin with? I’d always thought we could choose our dueling weapons.”
The duelsmaster shook his head, “No. There will be sufficient weapons in your illusions. Anything else would be superfluous.”
“How can an illusion kill me?”
“You are in the corridor’s field. Through a process of — well, actually, Mr. Marmorth, that is a company secret, and I doubt if it could be explained in lay terms so that you would know any more now than you did before. Just accept that the corridor converts your thought–impressions into tangibles.”
“How long will we be in there?”
“Time is subjective in the corridor. You may be there for an hour or a month or a year. Out here the time will seem as an instant. You will go in, both of you; then, a moment later — one of you will come out.”
Marmorth licked his lips again. “Have there been duels where a stalemate was reached — where both combatants came back?” He was nervous, and the question trembled out.
“We’ve never had one that I can recall,” answered the duelsmaster simply.
“Oh,” said Marmorth quietly, looking down at his hands.
“Are you ready now?” asked the duelsman.
Marmorth nodded silently. He slipped out of the wraparound and laid it across the back of the chair. Together they walked toward the silver corridor. “Remember,” said the duelsmaster, “the combatant who has the strongest convictions will win. That is a constant, and your only real weapon!”
The duelsmaster stepped to the end of the corridor and passed his hand across an area of wall next to its opening.
A light above the opening flashed twice, and he said, “I’ve signalled the duelsman on the other side. Krane has entered the corridor.”
The duelsmaster slipped the variation–range card into a slot in the blank wall, then indicated Marmorth should step into the corridor.
The duelist stepped forward, smoothing the short breechclout against his thighs as he walked.
He took one step, two, three. The perfectly round mouth of the silver corridor gaped before him, black and impenetrable.
He stepped forward once more. His bare foot touched the edge of the metal, and he drew back hesitantly. He looked back over his shoulder at the duelsman. “Couldn’t I — ”
“Step in, Mr. Marmorth,” said the duelsmaster firmly. There was a granite tone in his voice.
Marmorth walked forward into the darkness. It closed over his head and seeped behind his eyes. He felt nothing! Marmorth blinked . . .
Twice. The first time he saw the throne room and the tier-mounted pages, long-stemmed trumpets at their sides. He saw the assembled nobles bowing low before him, their ermine capes sweeping the floor. The floor was rich, inlaid mosaic, the walls dripped color and rich tapestry, the ceiling was high-arched and studded with crystal chandeliers.
The second time he opened them, hoping his senses had cleared, he saw precisely the same thing. Then he saw Krane — High Lord Krane, he somehow knew — in the front ranks.
The garb was different — a tight suit of chain–mail in blued–steel, ornamental decorations across the breastplate, a ruby–hilted sword in a scabbard at the waist, full, flowing cape of blood–red velvet — but the face was no different from the one Marmorth had seen in the Council Chamber, before they had agreed to duel.
The face was thin: a V that swept past a high, white forehead and thick, black brows, past the high cheekbones and needle–thin nose, down to the slash mouth and pointed black beard. A study in coal and chalk.
The man’s hair had been swept back to form a tight knot at the base of his skull. It was the knot of the triumphant warrior.
Marmorth’s blood churned at the sight of the despised Krane! If he hadn’t challenged Marmorth’s Theorem in the Council Chamber, with his insufferable slanders, neither of them would be here.
Here!
Marmorth stiffened. He sat more erect. The word swept away his momentary forgetfulness: this was the silver corridor. This was illusion. They were dueling — now, at this instant! He had to kill Krane.
But whose illusion was this? His own, or the dark–bearded scoundrel’s before him? It might be suicide to attempt killing Krane in his own illusion. He would have to wait a bit and gauge what the situation represented in his own mind.
Whatever it was, he seemed to be of higher rank than Krane, who bowed before him.
Almost magically, before he realized the words were emerging from his mouth, he heard himself saying, “Lord Krane, rise!”
The younger man stood up, and the other nobles followed suit, the precedent having been set. By choosing Krane to rise first, Marmorth the King had chosen whom he wanted to speak first in the Star Chamber.
“May it please Your Illustriousness,” boomed Krane, extending his arms in salute, “I have a disposition of the prisoners from Quorth. I should beg Your Eminence’s verdict on my proposal.”
He bowed his head and awaited Marmorth’s reply.
Had there been a tone of mockery in the man’s voice? Marmorth could not be sure. But he did know, now, that it was his own illusion. If Krane was coming to him for disposition, then he must be in the ascendant in this creation.
“What is your proposal, High Lord Krane?” asked Marmorth.
Krane took a step forward, bringing him to the bottom of the dais upon which Marmorth’s throne rested.
“These things are of a totally alien culture, Your Highness,” began Krane. “How can we, as humans, even tolerate their existence in our way of life? The very sight of them makes the gorge rise! They are evil–smelling and accursedly–formed! They must all be destroyed, Your Highness! We must ignore the guileful offers of a prisoner–for–prisoner exchange! We will have our fleet in Quorth City within months; then we can rescue our own captured without submitting to the demands of four monsters! In the meantime, why feed these beasts of another world?
“I say, destroy them! Launch all–out attack now! Rescue our people from the alien’s slave camps on Quorth and Fetsa!”
He had been speaking smoothly and forcefully. The nods of assent and agreement from the assembled nobles made Marmorth wary. A complete knowledge of the Quorth–Human war was in his mind, and the plan of Krane sounded clear and fine. Yet, superimposed over it, was his knowledge that this was all merely illusion and that somewhere in the illusion might be a chink in which his errors could lodge. The plan sounded good, but . . .
“No, Krane!” he decided, thinking quickly. “This would be what the aliens want! They want us to destroy our prisoners. That would whip their people at home into such a frenzy of patriotism — we would be engulfed in a month!
“We will consider the alien proposal of prisoner–for–prisoner exchange.”
The rumbles from the massed nobles rose into the cavern of the Star Chamber. There was unrest here.
He had to demonstrate that he was right. “Let them bring in the chain of aliens!” he commanded, clapping his hands. A page went out swiftly.
While the hall waited, Marmorth concentrated fiercely; had he made the proper decision? There seemed to be a correlation between Krane’s challenging of his Theorem of Government in the Council — back in the world outside the corridor — and this proposal he had just defeated.
There was a correlation! He saw it suddenly!
Both his proposal of the Theorem in the Council and his decision here in the illusion had been based on his personal concept of government. Krane’s refutation out there and his proposal here were the opposite. Once again they had clashed.
And this time Marmorth had won!
But had he?
Even as he let the thought filter, the chained aliens were dragged between the massed nobles and cast on their triple–jointed knees before Marmorth’s dais. “Here are the loathesome beings!” cried Krane, flinging his arms high and apart.
It had been a grandstand gesture, and the frog–faced, many–footed beings on the Star Chamber’s floor realized it.
Suddenly, almost as though they were made of paper, the chains that had joined the aliens snapped, and they leaped on the nobles.
Marmorth caught the smile on Krane’s lips. He had been behind this; probably had the chains severed in the corridor outside by some henchman!
Without thinking, Marmorth was off his throne and down the stepped dais, his sword free from its scabbard and arcing viciously.
A hideously warted alien face rose before him and he thrust with all his might! The blade pierced between the double–lidded eyes, and thick ochre blood spurted across his tunic. He yanked the blade free, kicking the dead but still quivering alien from its length. He leaped, howling a familiar battle–cry.
Even as he leaped, he saw Krane’s slash–mouthed smile, and the Lord’s sword swinging toward him!
So it hadn’t been his illusion! It had been Krane’s! He hadn’t chosen the proper course. Krane’s belief at the moment was stronger than his own.
He fended off a double–handed smash from the black–bearded noble, and fell back. They parried and countered, thrust and slashed all around the dais. The other nobles were too deeply involved fighting off the screaming aliens to witness this battle between their King and his Lord.
Krane beat Marmorth back, back!
Why did I choose as I did? Marmorth wailed mentally, berating himself.
Suddenly he slipped, toppling backwards onto the steps. The sword flew from his hand as it cracked against the edge of a step. He saw Krane bearing down on him, the sword double–fisted as his opponent raised it like a stake above his head.
In desperation, Marmorth summoned up all his belief. “It was the right decision!” screamed Marmorth with the conviction of a man about to die. He saw the sword plunge toward his breast as . . .
He gathered the light about him, sweeping his hands through the dripping colors, making them shift and flow. He saw the figure of Krane, standing haughtily in the bank of yellow, and he gathered the blue to himself in a coruscating ball.
Fearsomely he bellowed his challenge, “This is my illusion, Krane! Watch as I kill you!”
He balled the blue in his hand and sent it flying, dripping sparks and color as it shot toward the black–bearded man.
They both stood tall and spraddle–legged in the immensity of they-knew–not–where. The colors dripped from the air, making weird patterns as they mixed.
The blue ball struck in front of Krane and exploded, cascading a rich flood of chromatic brilliance into the air. Krane laughed at the failure.
He gathered the black to him, wadding it in strong and supple fingers. He wound up, almost as though it were a sport, and flung the wadded black at Marmorth.
The older man knew he had not yet built enough belief to withstand this onslaught. If the black enfolded him he would die in the never- ending limbo of nothingness.
He thrust hands up before his face to stop the onrush of the black, but it struck him and he fell, clutching feebly at a washy stringer of white.
He fell into the black as it billowed up to surround him.
This was not his illusion! It could not be, for he was vanquished! Yet he was not dead, as he had felt sure he would be. He lay there, thinking.
He remembered all the effort he had put in on the Political Theorem. The Theorem he had proposed in the Council. It had represented years of work — the culmination of all his adult thought and effort; and, he had to admit, the Theorem was soundly based on his own view of the Universe.
Then the presumptuous Krane had offended him by restating the Theorem.
Krane had, of course, twisted it to his own evil and malicious ends — basing it anew on his conception of the All.
There had been a verbal battle. There had been the accusations, the clanging of the electric gavel, the remonstrances of the Compjudge, the shocked expressions of the other Councillors! Till finally Marmorth had been goaded by the younger man into the duel. Into the silver corridor.
Only one of them would emerge. The one who did would force his own version of the Theorem on the Council. To be accepted, and used as a basis for future decisions and policy. Each Theorem — Marmorth’s monumental original, and Krane’s malformed copy — was all–inclusive.
It all revolved, then, around whose view of the Universe, whose Theorem, was the right one. And it was inconceivable to Marmorth that Krane could be correct.
Marmorth struck out at the black! Mine, mine, mine! he shouted soundlessly. He lashed into the nothingness. My Theorem is the proper one! It is true! Krane’s is based on deceit!
Then he saw the stringer of white in his hand. So this was Krane in the ascendant, was it? Now came the moment of retaliation!
He whipped the stringer around his head, swaying as he was, there in the depthless black. The stringer thickened. He cupped it to him, washing it with his hands, strengthening it, shaping and molding it.
In a moment it had grown. In a moment more the white had burst forth like a ripe blossom and flooded all. Revealing Krane standing there, in his breechclout, massaging the pale pink between his fingers.
“Mine, Krane, mine!” he screamed, flinging the white!
Krane blanched and tried to duck. The white came on like a sliver of Forever, streaking and burning as it rode currents that did not exist. Then the light shattered, blazed into thousands of spitting fragments. As Marmorth realized they had nullified each other again, that the illusion was dissolving around them, he heard Krane bellow, as loud as Marmorth himself, had, “Mine, Marmorth, mine!”
The colors ran. They flowed, they merged, they sucked at his body, while he …
Shrank up against the glass wall next to Krane. They both stared in fascinated horror as the huge, ichor–dripping spider–thing advanced on them, mandibles clicking.
“My God in Heaven!” Marmorth heard Krane bellow. “What is it?” Krane scrabbled at the glass wall behind him, trying to get out. They were trapped.
The glass walls circled them. They were trapped with the spider–thing and each other, trapped in the tiny tomb!
Marmouth was petrified. He could not move or speak — he could hardly sense anything but terror. Spiders were his greatest personal fear. He found his legs were quivering at the knees, though he had not sensed it a moment before. The very sight of the hairy beasts had always sent shudders through him. Now he knew this was an illusion — his illusion. He was in the ascendant!
But how hideously in the ascendant. He wondered, almost hysterically, if he could control the illusion — use it against Krane.
The spider–thing advanced on them, the soft plush pads of its hundred feet leaving dampness where it stepped.
Krane fell to his knees, moaning and scratching at the glass floor. “Out, out, out, out . . . ” he mumbled, froth dripping from his lips.
Marmorth realized this was his chance. This fear was a product of his own mind; he had lived with it all his life. He knew it more familiarly than Krane — he could not cancel it, certainly, but he could utilize it more easily than the other.
Here was where he would kill Krane. He pulled himself tightly to the wall, sweating palms flat to the glass, the valley of his backbone against the cool surface. “I’m right! The Theorem as I stated it i–is c–correct!” He said it triumphantly, though the note of terror quivered undisguised in his voice.
The spider–thing paused in its march, swung its clicking, ghastly head about as though confused, and altered direction by an inch. Away from Marmorth. It descended on Krane.
The black–bearded man looked up, saw it coming toward him, heard Marmorth’s words. Even on the floor, half–sunk in shock, he shouted, pounding his fists against the floor of glass, “Wrong, wrong, wrong! You’re wrong; I can prove my Theorem is correct! The basic formation of the Judiciary should be planned in an ever–decreasing system of — ”
Marmorth didn’t even listen. He knew it was drivel! He knew the man was wrong! But the spider–thing had stopped once more. Now it paused between the two of them, its bulk shivering as though caught in a draft.
Krane saw the hesitation on the monster’s part, and rose, the old confidence and impudence regained. He wiped his balled fists across his eyes, clearing them of tears. He continued speaking, steadily, in the voice of a fanatic. The man just could not recognize that he was wrong.
“You’re insane, man!” Marmorth interjected, waving his hands with fervor. “The economy must be balanced by a code of fair practices with a guild system blocking efforts on the part of the Genres to rise into the control of the main weath!” He went on and on, outlining the original — the only true — Theorem.
Krane, too, shouted and gesticulated, both of them suddenly oblivious to the monstrous, black spider–thing which had stopped completely between them, vacillating.
When Marmorth stopped for an instant to regain his breath, the beast would twist its neckless head toward him. Marmorth would then speed up his speech, spewing out detail upon detail, and the beast would sink back into uncertainty.
It was obviously a battle of belief. Whichever combatant had more conviction — that one would win.
They stood and shouted, screamed, outlined, explained and delineated for what seemed hours. Finally, as though in exasperation, the spider–thing began to turn. They both watched it, their mouths working, words pouring forth in twin streams of absolute, sincere belief.
They watched while . . .
The starships fired at each other mercilessly. Blast after blast exploded soundlessly into the vault of space. Marmorth found his fingers twisted in the epaulette at his right shoulder.
As he watched Krane’s Magnificent–class destroyer wheel in the control–room screens, a half–naked, blood–soaked and perspiring crewman burst into the cabin’s entrance–well.
“Captain, Captain, sir!” he implored.
Marmorth looked over the plastic rail, down into the well.
“What?” he snapped with brittleness.
“Cap’n, the port side is riddled! We’re losing pressure from thirteen compartments. The reclamation mile is completely lost! The engineers group was in one of the compartments along that mile, Cap’n! They’re all bloated and blue and dead in there! We can see them floating around without any . . . ”
“Get the hell out of here!” Marmorth turned, lifting an ornamental paperweight from his chart–board and flinging it with all his strength at the crewman. The man ducked and the ornamental paperweight bounced off the bulkhead, snapping pieces from its intricate bulk.
“You maniac!” the man yowled, leaping back out of the well, through the exit port, as Marmorth reached for another missile.
Marmorth shut his eyes tight, blanking out the shuddering ship, space, the screens, everything.
“Right, right, right, right, right! I’m right!” he shouted, lifting clenched fists.
The explosion came in two parts, as though two torpedoes had been struck almost simultaneously. The ship rocked and heeled. Bits of metal sheared through the outer bulkheads, crashed against the opposite wall.
As the lights went dead, and the screams drove into his brain, Marmorth shouted his credo once more, with all the force of his conviction, with all the power of his lungs, with all the strength in his gasping body.
“I’m right! May God strike me dead if I’m not right! I know I’m right, I made an inexhaustible . . .
“Check!” he finished, opening his eyes and looking back down at the chessboard. The pieces had, happily, not moved. He still had Krane blocked off.
“I say check,” he repeated, smiling, steepling his fingers.
Krane’s black–bearded face broke into a wry grimace.
“Most clever, my dear Marmorth,” he congratulated the other with sarcasm. “You have forced me to touch a bishop.”
Marmorth watched as Krane, with trembling fingers, reached down to the jet bishop. It was carved from stone, carved with such care and intricacy that its edges were precisely as they had been desired by the master craftsman. They were razor sharp.
The pieces were all cut the same. Both the blanched alabaster pieces before Marmorth, and the ebony–stone players under Krane’s hand. The game had been constructed for men who played more than a “gentleman’s game.” There was death in each move.
Marmorth knew he was in the ascendant. Each of them had had two illusions — that remembrance was sharp — and this was Marmorth’s. How did he know? The older man looked down at the intricately–carved chess pieces. He was white, Krane was black. As clear as it could be.
“Uh, have you moved?” Marmorth inquired, his voice adrip with casualness. He knew the other had not yet touched his players. “I believe you still lie in check,” he reminded.
He thought he heard a muted, “Damn you!” under Krane’s breath, but could not be certain.
Slowly Krane touched the player, carefully sliding the fingers of his hand across the razor–thin, razor–sharp facets. The piece almost slid from his grasp, so loosely was he holding it, but the move was made in an instant.
Marmorth cursed mentally. Krane had calculated beautifully! Not only was his king blocked out from Marmorth’s rook — Marmorth’s check–piece — but in another two moves (so clearly obvious, as Krane had desired it) his own queen would be in danger. In his mind he could hear Krane savoring the words: “Garde! I say garde, my dear Marmorth!”
He had to move the queen out of position.
He had to touch the queen!
The most deadly piece on the board!
“No!” He gasped.
“I beg your pardon?” said Krane, the slash–mouth opening in a twisted grin.
“N–nothing, nothing!” Teeth clenched, Marmorth tried to concentrate.
There was little chance he could maneuver that thousand–edged queen without bleeding to death for his trouble. Lord! It was a problem without a viable solution. It was… what?… a double–edged dilemma. If he did not move, Krane would win. If he won, it was obvious that Marmorth would die. He had seen the deadly dirk’s hilt protruding slightly from Krane’s cummerbund when the other had sat down. If he did move, he would bleed to death before Krane’s taunting eyes.
You shall never have that pleasure! he thought, the bitter determination of a man who will not be defeated rising in him.
He approached the queen, with hand, with eye.
The base was faceted, like a diamond. Each facet ended in a cutting edge so sensitive he knew it would sever the finger that touched it. The shape of the upper segments was involved, gorgeously- made. A woman, arms raised above her head, stretching in tension. Beautiful — and untouchable.
Then the thought struck him: Is this the only move?
Deep within his mind he calculated. He could not possibly recognize the levels on which his intellect was working. In with his chess theory, in with his mental agility, in with his desire to win, his Theorem rearranged itself, fitting its logic to this situation. How could the Theorem be applied to the game? What other paths, through the infallible truth of the Theorem — in which he believed, now, more strongly than ever before — could he take?
Then the alternative move became clear. He could escape a rout, escape the garde, escape the taunting smile of Krane by moving a relatively safe knight. It was not a completely foolproof action, since the knight, too, was a razored piece of death, but he had found a way to avoid certain defeat by Krane’s maneuverings.
“Ha!” the terrible smile burst upon his face. His eyes bored across to the other’s. Krane turned white as Marmorth reached out, touched one piece he had been desperately hoping the older man would not consider.
Marmorth felt an uncontrollable tightening in his throat as he realized the game would go on, and on, and on and . . .
He unclenched his fist as the volcano leaped up around them.
It was more than the inside of a volcanic cone, however. The corridor was there, too. The dung–brown walls of smooth rock shivered ever so slightly, and both men knew the silver corridor was just beyond their vision. They could see it glimmering with unreality.
It was almost as though they were looking at a double exposure; an extinct volcano superimposed over the shining tube of the silver corridor.
It isn’t far away, thought Marmorth. He felt, with a sudden release of nervous tension, Someone is going to win soon.
He stared up at the faint patch of gray sky, visible through the roundly jagged opening at the cone’s top. The walls sloped down in a fluid concavity. Here and there across the rough floor of the cavern, stalagmites rose up in sharp spikes.
And there — over and through the walls of the dead formations — the corridor hung faintly. A ghostly, shivering, not–quite–real shadow, inside the substance of their illusion.
They stood and stared at each other. Each knowing they were not really in the heart of a volcano, but in a metal corridor. Each knowing they could die as easily by this illusion as they could at each other’s hands. Each asking the same questions.
Was this the end? Were there a limited number of illusions to each affair? A set pattern to each duel? Who had won? Could there be a winner?
They stared at each other, across the dusky interior of the extinct volcano.
“I’m right,” said Krane, hesitantly.
“You’re wrong,” answered Marmorth quickly. “I’m the one who’s right!”
In a moment they were at it again, each screaming till his lungs were raw with the effort, and red patches had appeared in their cheeks. They paused for an instant, gathering air for another tirade, Krane looking about him for a weapon.
They were both as they had begun. Naked save the breechclouts which clung to their buttocks.
They resumed their shouting, the sound reverberating hollowly in the dim interior of the volcano. The sounds hit them, bounced across the stone walls, reverberated again. The fury had been built to a peak and pitch they both knew could not be exceeded. They had strained every last vestige of belief and conviction in their minds.
As Marmorth realized he was at the pinnacle of his belief, he saw the same conviction come over Krane’s face. He knew that from here on in, it would be a physical thing, with both of them stalemated in illusory power.
Then the woman–thing appeared.
She plopped into being between them. She wasn’t human. There was no question about that. Marmorth took a halting step backward. Krane remained rooted, though his pale face had blanched an even more deadly shade. A strangled, “My God, what is it?” slipped past Marmorth’s lips.
It was less than human, yet more than mortal; it was a travesty of a human being. A mad nightmare of a vision! Like some fearsome god of an ancient cult, it paused with long legs apart, hands on hips.
The woman’s body was lush. Full, high breasts, trim stomach, exciting legs. Gorgeously proportioned and seductive, the torso and legs, the chest and arms, were normal — even exaggeratedly normal.
But there all resemblance to a woman ceased.
The head was a lizard–like thing, with elongated snout, wattles, huge glowing eyes set atop the skull. Looking out through flesh– sockets thick and deep — little hummocks atop the face — the eyes were small, crimson and cruel.
The nose was almost nonexistent. Two breather–spaces pulsed, one on either side of a small rise in the yellowed, pocked flesh of the head.
The mouth was a wide, gaping, and triangular orifice, with triple rows of shark teeth in the upper and lower jaws. The woman–thing looked like a gorgeous female — with the weirdly altered head of a crocodile.
The ebony, leathery, bat’s wings rising from the shoulder blades — quivering — completed the frightening picture.
Wisps of smoky, filmy garments were draped over the woman– thing’s shoulders, around her waist. She stood absolutely unmoving.
Then she spoke to them.
It was not mental. It actually sounded, but not from the body before them. They knew it was — her? — but it did not come from her at all. The fearful mouth remained almost shut, propped slightly open on the sharp tiers of teeth.
The voice issued from the walls, from the tips of the stalactites, from the high, arching roof of the volcano; it boomed from the rocky floor — it even floated down the length of the infinitely–stretching corridor.
The voice spoke in thunder, yet softly.
Well, Gentlemen?
Krane stared for a second at the woman–thing; then he looked about wildly, trying to find the source of the voice. His head swung back and forth as though it were manipulated by strings from above. “Well, what?” he shouted to no one.
Have you realized the truth yet?
“What truth? What are you talking about? Who is that? Is it you?” chimed in Marmorth, bathed in sudden fear.
The corridor shimmered oddly, just behind the stone walls of the volcano.
I’m a voice, Gentlemen. A voice and an illusion. Just an illusion, that’s all, Gentlemen. Just an illusion from both of your minds. Made of equal portions of your mind. For you are each as strong as the other.
There was a pause. Marmorth could not speak. Then:
But tell me, have you realized what you should have known before you were foolish enough to enter the corridor?
Krane looked at Marmorth with suspicion. For the first time it seemed to occur to him that perhaps this was a trick on the other’s part. Marmorth, recognizing the glance, shrugged his shoulders eloquently.
He found his voice. “No! Tell us, then! What should we have known?”
The only real answer as to who is right: which Theorem is the correct one!
“Tell me, tell me!” they shouted, almost together.
There was silence for a moment. The woman–thing ran a scarlet–tipped hand across the hideous lizard snout, as though searching for a way to phrase what was coming. Then the single word sounded in the heart of the volcano.
Neither.
Krane and Marmorth stared past the woman–thing, stared at each other in confusion. “N–neither?” shouted Marmorth incredulously. “Are you mad? Of course one of us is right! Me!” He was shaking fists at the gruesome being before him. Illusion, perhaps; but an illusion that was goading him.
“Prove it! Prove it!” screamed Krane, stepping forward, flat–footedly, as though seeking to strike the woman–thing.
Then the voice gave them the solution and the proof that neither could contest, for both knew it to be true on a level that defied mere conviction.
You are both egomaniacs. You could not possibly be convinced of the other’s viewpoint. Not in a hundred million years. Any message dies between you. You are both too tightly ensnared in yourselves!
The woman–thing suddenly began to shiver. She became indistinct, and there were many shadow–forms of her, surrounding her body like halos. Abruptly, she disappeared from between them — leaving them alone in the quickening darkness of the volcano’s throat.
Alone. Staring at each other with dawning comprehension, dawning belief.
They both realized it at the same moment. They both had the conviction of their cause, yet they both knew the woman–thing had been right.
“Krane,” said Marmorth, starting toward the black–bearded man, “she’s right, you know. Perhaps we can get together and figure . . . ”
The other had started toward the older man as he had spoken.
“Yes, perhaps there’s something in what you say. Perhaps there’s a . . . ”
At the instant they both realized it — the instant each considered the other’s viewpoint — the illusion barriers shattered, of course, and the red–hot lava poured in on them, engulfing both men completely in a blistering inferno.
What kind of a culture are we breeding around us? A society in which everyone tries to be average, right on the norm, the common denominator, the median, the great leveler. College kids demonstrating a callow conservatism that urges them not to stick their heads above the crowd, not to be noticed. Political candidates so bland they must of necessity be faceless to gain identification with their equally faceless constituents. A sameness in thinking, in demeanor, in dress, in goals, in desires. More than the obvious threats of cobalt bombs, World Communism, famine, plague, pestilence or the insidious ennui of Barry Manilow, I fear for the safety of my country and its people from this creeping paralysis of the ego. I have tried to say something about it in