the hex-walled room.
“You’re late,” Morsfagen said, consulting his watch and
scowling at me as he waited for the thrust of my tongue.
Maybe he had decided one more witty remark on my part
would be the weight to push him to action.
I didn’t give him the chance. “Sorry,” I said. “I got held
up in traffic.”
He looked genuinely perplexed, opened his mouth to
say something, closed it, and ground his teeth together. It
was almost as if he would have preferred being insulted to
being treated civilly.
I had come to AC only for the money this time, not to
demonstrate my super-humanness, my Christlike talents.
The therapy the mechanical psychiatrist had given me had
worked deep and had taken root. But with a few more
paychecks in my pocket, Melinda and I could be vaga-
bonds for an eternity, running from the ugliness, the filth,
war, and the people who made it. I thought of the future
in the context of the two of us, though I could not yet
know how she felt, whether her interest in me matched
mine in her. But from a life of pessimism, I had suddenly
become optimistic, and I refused to consider any but the
brightest of possible futures.
Child was tranced. His mouth sagged slightly, and his
twisted teeth could be seen beyond. His hands trembled
against the arms of his chair, even though he was asleep.
They administered the drugs while I watched, then stepped
back to allow the freaks to converse in the way only we
could understand.
I parachuted from the room, down into the labyrinth,
not trusting to stairs that might have been there yesterday
and not today….
Hooves clacked on rock, the sound like splinters of flying
glass.
There was an outline like a child’s scrawl, not nearly so
definite and real as the day before. Whether he was losing
power to refute my presence or merely planning some de-
ception to put me off my guard, I did not know.
There was the vague odor of musk, all the textures of
dark hair that fell like night mists, but all of them merely
hazy crayon lines.
“Get out!”
I mean you no harm at all.
“And I wish not to harm you, Simeon. Get out.”
Yesterday, as you well remember, I fashioned a sword
from the very air itself. Do not forget that. Do not
underestimate me, though I am in your regions.
“I beg of you to leave. You’re in danger here.”
From what?
“I cannot say. It is in the knowing that the danger lies.”
That is not good enough.
“It is all I can say.”
I swung the sword, and he dissipated into an eerie blue
vapor that clung to the walls until the wind whistled in to
blow it away. It curled along the stone, slithered back to
the pit, and was gone.
Two hours into the session, as I was sprawled on the
dirt shelf above the pit, grasping at thoughts and diverting
them toward the waterspout, a “G” drifted out, and with
another level of my mind, I plucked at it and traced it. G
to Grass . . . which is dark Green and bendinG over the
hills … toppinG and hills to see GGGGG … G … G
. . . GodGodGodGodGodGod like a whirlwind moaninG
and babblinG over the Glens, cominG, cominG, twistinG
relentlessly onward toward me … G … G …
I reached out to take a strong hold on the thought pro-
gression, partially because it might lead to something of in-
terest and partially because it was such an odd, intense, and
seemingly fractured train of images. Suddenly, the earthen
shelf under me gave way, plunging me down toward the
flaming pit which sent climbing streams of magma after
me.
Wind lifted me toward the river before I could plunge
into that cauldron of teeming madnesses.
I flew as if I were a kite.
The river swept me toward the ocean.
The water there was choppy and hot—and at places
steam rose in spirals like smoke snakes.
At places, ice floated, dying.
I fought for the surface, desperately trying to stay on