“I know,” Frazer said, before she could answer.
“Okay,” Russell said matter-of-factly. “Let’s go.” He guided Maggie and Mary Morley down the riverside and onto the raft; he touched the two women in a gentle manner, an attitude of chivalry which Maggie had not encountered in some time.
“Thank you,” she said to him.
“Look at it,” Seth Morley said, gazing back at the Building. The artificial background had already begun to phase into being; the Building wavered, real as it was. As the raft moved out into the river–pushed there by the four men– Maggie saw the huge gray wall of the Building fade into the far-off bronze of a counterfeit plateau.
The raft picked up speed as it entered the central current of the river. Maggie, seated by Betty Jo’s wet body, shivered in the sun and shut her eyes. Oh God, she thought, help us get back to the settlement. Where is this river taking us? she asked herself. I’ve never seen it before; as far as I know it doesn’t run near the settlement. We didn’t walk along it to get there. Aloud, she said, “Why do you think this river will take us home? I think you’ve all taken leave of your senses.”
“We can’t carry her,” Frazer said. “It’s too far.”
“But this is taking us farther and farther away,” Maggie said. She was positive of it. “I want to get off!” she said, and scrambled to her feet in panic. The raft was moving too swiftly; she felt trapped fear as she saw the contours of the banks passing in such quick succession.
“Don’t jump into the water,” Russell said, taking her by the arm. “You’ll be all right; we’ll all be all right.”
The raft continued to gather speed. Now no one spoke; they rode along quietly, feeling the sun, sensing the water. . . and all of them afraid and sobered by what had happened. And, Maggie Walsh thought, by what lies ahead.
“How did you know about the raft?” Seth Morley asked Russell.
“As I said, I saw it when we–”
“Nobody else saw it,” Seth Morley broke in.
Russell said nothing.
“Are you a man or are you a Manifestation?” Seth Morley said.
“If I was a Manifestation of the Deity I would have saved her from drowning,” Russell pointed out caustically. To Maggie Walsh he said, “Do you think I’m a Manifestation?”
“No,” she said. How I wish you were, she thought. How badly we need intercession.
Bending, Russell touched Betty Jo’s black, dead, soaked hair. They continued on in silence.
Tony Dunkeiwelt, shut up in his hot room, sat cross-legged on the floor and knew that he had killed Susie.
My miracle, he thought. It must have been the Form Destroyer who came when I called. It turned the bread into stone and then took the stone from her and killed her with it. The stone I made. No matter how you look at it, it goes back to me.
Listening, he heard no sound. Half the group had gone; the remaining half had sunk into oblivion. Maybe they’re all gone now, he said to himself. I’m alone . . . left here to fall into the terrible paws of the Form Destroyer.
“I will take the Sword of Chemosh,” he said aloud. “And slay the Form Destroyer with it.” He held up his hand, groping for the Sword. He had seen it before during his meditations, but he had never touched it. “Give me the Sword of Chemosh,” he said, “and I will do its work; I will seek out the Black One and murder it forever. It will never rise again.”
He waited but saw nothing.
“Please,” he said. And then he thought, I must merge more deeply into the universal self. I am still separate. He shut his eyes and compelled his body to relax. Receive, he thought; I must be clear enough and empty enough to have it pour into me. Once again I must be a hollow vessel. As so many, many times before.
But he could not do it now.
I am impure, he realized. So they send me nothing. By what I have done I’ve lost the capacity to accept and even to see. Will I never see the God-Above-God again? he asked himself. Has it all ended?
My punishment, he thought.
_But I don’t deserve it_. Susie wasn’t that important. She was demented; the stone left her in revulsion. That was it; the stone was pure and she was impure. But still, he thought, it’s awful that she’s dead. Brightness, mobility and light– Susie had all three. But it was a broken, fractured light which she gave off. A light which scorched and injured . . . me, for example. It was wrong for me. What I did I did in selfdefense. It’s obvious.
“The Sword,” he said. “The Sword-wrath of Chemosh. Let it come to me.” He rocked back and forth, reached up once again into the awesomeness above him. His hand groped, disappeared; he watched it as it vanished. His fingers fumbled in empty space, a million miles into the emptiness, the hollowness above man. . . he continued to grope on and on, and then, abruptly, his fingers touched something.
Touched. . . but did not grasp.
I swear, he said to himself, that if I am given the Sword I will use it. I will avenge her death.
Again he touched but did not grasp. I know it is there, he thought; I can feel it with my fingers. “Give it to me!” he said aloud. “I swear that I’ll use it!” He waited, and then, into his empty hand, was placed something hard, heavy and cold.
The Sword. He held it.
He drew the Sword downward, carefully. God-like, it blazed with heat and light; it filled the room with its authority. He at once leaped up, almost dropping the Sword. I have it now, he said to himself joyfully. He ran to the door of the room, the Sword wobbling in his meager grip. Pushing open the door he emerged in the midday light; gazing around he said, “Where are you, mighty Form Destroyer, you decayer of life? Come and fight with me!”
A shape moved clumsily, slowly along the porch. A bent shape which crept blindly, as if accustomed to the darkness within the Earth. It looked up at him with filmed-over gray eyes; he saw and understood the shirt of dust which clung to it . . . dust trickled silently down its bent body and drifted into the air. And it left a fine trail of dust as it moved.
It was badly decayed. Yellowed, wrinkled skin covered its brittle bones. Its cheeks were sunken and it had no teeth. The Form Destroyer hobbled forward, seeing him; as it hobbled it wheezed to itself and squeaked a few wretched words. Now its dry-skin hand groped for him and it rasped, “Hey there, Tony. Hey there. How are you?”
“Are you coming to meet me?” he said.
“Yes,” it gasped, and came a step closer. He smelled it, now; mixture of fungus-breath and the rot of centuries. It did not have long to live. Plucking at him it cackled; saliva ran down its chin and dripped onto the floor. It tried to wipe the saliva away with the crust-like back of its hand, but could not. “I want you–” it started to say, and then he stuck the Sword of Chemosh into its paunchy, soft middle.
Handfuls of worms, white pulpy worms, oozed out of it as he withdrew the Sword. Again it laughed its dry cackle; it stood there swaying, one arm and hand groping for him . . . he stepped back and looked away as the worms grew in a pile before it. It had no blood: it was a sack of corruption and nothing more.
It sank down onto one knee, still cackling. Then, in a kind of convulsion, it clawed at its hair. Between its grasping fingers strands of long, lusterless hair appeared; it tore the hair from itself, then held it in his direction, as if it meant to give him something priceless.
He stabbed it again. Now it lay, sightlessly; its eyes gummed over entirely and its mouth fell open.
From its mouth a single furry organism, like an inordinately large spider, crawled. He stepped on it and, under his foot, it lay mashed into oblivion.
I have killed the Form Destroyer, he said.
From far off, on the other side of the compound, a voice carried to him. “_Tony!_” A shape came running. At first he could not tell who or what it was; he shielded his eyes from the sun and strained to see.
Glen Belsnor. Running as fast as he could.
“I killed the Form Destroyer,” Tony said as Belsnor dashed up onto the porch, his chest heaving. “See?” He pointed, with his Sword, at the crippled shape lying between them; it had drawn up its legs and entered, at the moment of its death, a fetal position.