Clouds, heavy and gray, betrayed the advent of yet another storm. I passed by the smoldering ruins of a church that had burned overnight.
At AC the hex signs were on the walls, the lights were dim, and Child was tranced. “You’re late,” Morsfagen said.
“You don’t have to pay me for the first five minutes,” I snapped. I slipped into the chair opposite Child.
“You’re sure you want to continue this, Sim?” Harry asked.
“Quite,” I answered and was immediately ashamed at having cut Harry short. It was the atmosphere of the place. So damned military. And Morsfagen. Like Herod—trying to destroy the Child. And I was on edge for another reason; there was a certain dinner guest . . .
This time, I parachuted through the emptiness of his consciousness, not flailing . . .
Labyrinth.
The walls were hung with cobwebs, the floor with dirt and bones. Far down there, somewhere in the novalike center of the mind was the Id. It gave out the same, nearly unbearable whine that all Ids do. And somewhere above, in the blackness, was the area where the conscious mind should have been. It was clear that this mind of the super-genius was strangely unhuman. Most minds think in disconnected pictures, but Child’s created an entire world of its own, a realism within his mind.
There was a clacking of hooves, and from the source of light at the end of the tunnel, came the outline, then the form of the Minotaur, nut-brown skin and all textures of black hair, eyes gleaming.
“Get out!”
I mean no harm.
“Get out, Simeon.”
There was a blue field of sparks crackling above his head, and psychic energies shot thin, sporadic flames from his nostrils.
“Leave a monster his only privacy!”
I too am a monster.
“Look at your face, monster. It is not wrinkled like a dried fig; it is not old beyond its years; it is not caked with the dust of centuries. You pass for human. You pass, at least you pass.”
Child, listen, I—
He charged and grasped at me with hoof-hands. I fashioned a sword from my own fields of thought and smashed him broadside on the head.
And he was gone, a vapor in the darkness, a phantom.
Holding the green glow of the weapon, I advanced slowly down the twisting corridors, toward the inner part of him where his theories would bubble, where thoughts would run rampant. I came out finally on an earthen shelf above a yawning pit. Far below, eternities away, drifting and glowing, was a circular mass, and the heat in my face was great.
I reached out and grasped for anything, a sub-current, a cracked image, the shell of a daydream, and I caught a
Hate River, ebbing and flowing. HATE, HATE, HATE HATEHATEHATEHATE – HA – TE – HATEHATE. Somewhere in the middle of it, a two-headed thing swam. I caught the “T” in HATE and traced it along the currents, searching. T To Thumb and a sucking . . . and The sucking suddenly To brown nipple and and moTher’s breasT . . . and again The T dominated . . . and I allowed the river to carry me inevitably on toward Theorem.
Theory ThoughTs . . . Through Thousand Times Tedious Tiring . . . Ten Times one Times Two to Sub-oughT-seven in drepshler Tubes now being used . . .
The flood was too fast. I could see the theory, but I could not direct it fast enough toward the ocean in the distance where a waterspout whirled (taking the thoughts to the little bit of conscious mind he possessed). The thoughts that were now being spoken in dust whispers in a room far away—the thoughts being recorded while serious men with serious faces listened, seriously.
Then the drug must have finally taken hold, or I would have been swallowed alive. The two-headed beast had swum near without my noticing, and it caught my eye as it moved swiftly, its mouth gaping, a giant cave that drooled . . .
I lifted my sword as it raised its huge head above me to strike. Then there was a sudden, jerky slip like an old movie reel that had been spliced, and everything went into slow motion. It was like an underwater ballet. It would have taken the beast’s jaws an hour to reach me, and I slew him as his red eyes glistened, and as a strange THRIDDLE-THRIDDLE came from his throat. Or hers.