liquid, and fragments of thought associations whirled in-
side of them. It took only a moment to discover their true
nature.
Consider the human mind: three main parts to it: the
ego, the superego, and the id. The first is what we are and
what we have reached through the ordeals of life; the
second is what we think we are and what we attempt to
delude others into considering us as; the third is all the
things we want to be and do but which—either because of
public condemnation or a conflict with our own superegos
and guilt—we never dare consider. In the id, there are the
dark facets of our human soul, pieces of racial heritage
and other parts uniquely ours: blood lust and the desire to
rend flesh; sexual longings of grotesque sorts and on gro-
tesque scales; the urge to cannibalism, the hunger for the
taste of human meat We repress the id and most of us do
not even realize that it stirs within us like a worm in the
apple, so complete is our veil of civilization.
These scorpion-tailed monstrosities were Child’s id lusts,
his ugly needs which he, like everyone, had always kept
repressed. It was impossible to say how they had gotten
free, how they had encircled him like this, but I ventured
a guess or two as I watched them clack horny mandibles
and lift rattling, bony legs. Perhaps, when he had consid-
ered himself the Second Coming, he had been unable
to pretend the id lusts did not exist. Perhaps, finally, in
order to continue thinking of himself as a deity, he had to
rip the id from the other parts of his mind, tear it free of
the ego and the superego. And now those lusts were
attempting to integrate themselves with his mind, to estab-
lish contact with the ethereal fragments of his thought
processes, where they belonged. Or perhaps the id had
been broken loose of the rest of his mind when he had
tipped into insanity. Either way, they had found him
again, and they had spell-bound him with their evil. He
held them off with his psychic energy, still unable to toler-
ate their being a part of him. (Did he still nurture the
Second-Coming fantasy—or perhaps some equal legend
from another mythology?)
“Child?” I asked again.
Again: no answer.
If I could free him, if only for a moment, could contact
him and jar him into a moment of sanity, perhaps I could
get him to open a way into his conscious mind, a path to
lead me out of his body. But as long as the scorpions were
there, as long as he was transfixed by the sight of these
lusts he had forgotten, I could not reach him.
For the third time since I had first entered his mind
that day so long ago, I fashioned a sword from the air, a
shimmering blue luminosity with a curving blade and a
hilt of dazzling light. Stepping forward, I hacked at the
first of the scorpions in my way, halved it. It vanished. I
turned to a second of them, tore it through, then swung
furiously, wading through the spinning members of the
huge creatures, destroying them as fast as the magic mir-
rors brought them to my attention.
Their sound was a screeching cacophony, and their
mandibles punctuated the wailing fury with a drumbeat of
irregular snapping, thrumming clacks against the ice floor.
I do not know how long the battle lasted. It seemed
that perhaps days passed, though there was no sunrise and
sunset down there—and I did not tire in my analogue
body, did not need to stop for food and drink. I was the
irresistible force, wading into the legs and tails and shining
carapaces. In time, the numbers of the scorpions began to
grow smaller, and at last the air refused to disgorge more
of them. I knew they were not gone forever, because they
were nothing more than psychic energy, and that could
never be truly destroyed. But by then, I would not care if
they encircled him.
Child still sat on the ice, staring where the scorpions