As he straightened from the strange ideally ecstatic embrace, Grayson knew that never again would he feel nostalgia for his home world. Such rapturous mingling of being had been totally unexpected by him, and Sareen was radiant with realized expectation.
“It changes everything for me, Paul. The very cores of us have touched and mingled, left a little of us in each other! We will never be the same again, or content without each other!”
“I know that, Sareen. I did not know before. I am sorry I was so slow to understand.”
“Tonight there is a celebration, a send-off for our warriors, when those who must perhaps die have their last opportunity to enjoy life. There you will take me. I will not remain away from such pleasures now! It may be the last time that any Azurans can enjoy anything. Within short hours the enemy will be upon us.”
SAREEN HAD miraculously blossomed from the reserved spirit of maidenhood into the lovely new Sareen-in-love-with-Grayson. Sareen, leaning upon his arm, guiding his steps in the intricate “Dance of the Coatin,” which means betrothal. Gliding past the glowering Marduc, standing among the many who watched, Grayson sensed on his masklike ruddy face, stiff and emotionless, an aura of menace. Notwithstanding his efforts to conceal it, Grayson knew Marduc intended to try to kill him very soon. But he did not realize how soon.
There were other puzzling living beings at that dance. Grayson decided that these Azurans were not ignorant of their true existence as beings of energy, for when his sight switched over to the new sight, there were among them certain rosy colored lovely shapes which became conscious of his regard upon them. Trying to read their thoughts, Grayson found his vision of their inner selves blocked by a subtle resistance making them opaque. He gathered these were immortal monitors, or were supposed to be immortal monitors, of ancient being, wise and experienced in life. That they were powerless to aid or harm, held there merely to observe. The parallel between their present truth and his early teachings struck him. He wondered if there were not further parallels. Such as that—the Azurans had no material existence at all—but only an illusion of materiality brought over from their beginnings upon a material world? That all this seemingly material world of flesh and blood and metal and ships—was in truth but an omnipresent illusion of these energy beings’ earthly trained brains, from their first life upon what they called Azura the Lower. He had heard them speak of this “lower plane”, and it was getting clearer to him. If that was true, then there were things he knew about this world that they themselves did not “KNOW”, else they would use the powers he saw it gave them. For instance they thought they had to build material ships—and man them with real life—send them out to die in a war against beings who did not know their true nature either! Was it true that Azurans knew the laws of their world or had only brought over from lower Azura an illusion of material laws? Grayson decided to try an experiment—he would tell an Azuran something was there that was not there, and see if they saw it!
Glancing again at the rosy-figured energy beings whom he had seen with hi; new sight, now that his vision had decided to conform to the Azurans’ standard way of seeing, he noticed that these beings were invisible, could only be detected by him as a slight rosy haze! He knew that to the ordinary Azuran they were not present at all. He murmured to Sareen—
“Over there is a strange man or woman clad all in red! How odd a creature. That is no native Azuran!”
Sareen glanced where Grayson pointed, and cried—“Why there is a man who is no Azuran! Grayson, he is—very strange indeed! He’s gone. He saw me watching him, and threw up an arm—and disappeared! For an instant I saw him, then he caused himself to disappear! What does it mean, is he an invisible enemy among us?”
Grayson smiled. “I think not, for I have noticed them around since I first came, and none of them have seemed to be enemies. They are monitors from the next plane, sent to aid Azurans remain free of the fiery infection that consumes the Karnians.”
Sareen frowned on him whimsically. “You know so much with those other-world eyes of yours. More than I do myself about my own land. It isn’t fair!”
“Sareen, when you glimpsed that being, did he seem material, like other Azurans?”
“Why yes, Paul, quite material. Why do you ask?”
Disregarding her question and the nearby glowering Marduc, Grayson asked her: “Is it inevitable that the Karnians will attack Azura? How can they be certain of defeating so powerful a state? Just because they have won a battle or so does not necessarily mean that all is lost!”
“It does mean that, because they seem to have obtained all of our military secrets, and constructed counters for them which we in turn have been unable to learn about in time. Only some fortunate turn of events can save us.”
“If they are so sure, why do they not attack at once? Why is there any delay?”
“Because they have far-flung war-fronts, and it takes time to plan and execute a major attack on any one front . . .”
“Takes time, eh? I wonder,” murmured Grayson.
But Sareen went on un-noticing with her explanation.
“. . . . time to get the ships here, time to cover the distance. It has been estimated, that time. We know pretty closely when they will attack, and we know what will happen. So far, we have but one defense, one weapon that they have not stolen, the Q-Order Menta-Barrier has not as yet been used by either of us.”
“Just what is a Menta-Barrier, Sareen.”
“It is a method of impressing a mental projection of a thought pattern upon one of these thought-crystals such as I carry at my belt. Inserted in an electric circuit, it can be used then to create a power screen around a ship, a force-wall of vibrations patterned in such a way that those frequencies they use for offense can not penetrate. The Q-Order Menta-Barrier is one that includes all the frequencies used previously and some new ones.”
GRAYSON laughed. He wondered if his own world would seem so ridiculously, childishly full of error and delusion as this one if he were an alien there? They thought that the Menta-Barrier they put into a crystal could be projected as a wall of force . . . and all the time they were creating the whole thing out of their own belief that it was true! The Karnians were accepting it because they pursued the same generally held errors, which errors became in truth the laws of this world because they all projected them into reality with all their minds—in this strange world where form and color and materiality all answered quite readily the vagaries of thought—because this world was truly and honestly not a world, but merely thought-bodies adrift in ether, creating about them by residual belief a world similar to the one they had been born upon—Lower Azura. So the old sayings that Hell and Heaven both reside within you was true! And these Azurans by their acceptance of wholly imaginary limitations of their powers, were allowing the Karnians to defeat them—who also fought with the same limitations but had spies whose information made them BELIEVE they knew the answers to all the Azurans attacks and ruses—and hence because they thought they had the defense to every possible attack—they DID have it!
Grayson laughed out loud as he saw the ridiculous ease with which the tables could be turned upon the Karnians. He saw the hypnotist who had astounded him, long ago, on Earth—making a subject sit solidly down upon a chair that was not there, and remain suspended in the air—supported by nothing but his own legs and the conviction that he was upon a chair! He laughed again . . . For this whole world was like that subject of the hypnotists—a mere generally-accepted conviction that things were as they were seen to be!
But he was neglecting Sareen, who certainly did not look to him like any “conviction” that she was not flesh and blood. She was real and vital and ravishing—
“Then one of the officers of the fleet is a traitor?” asked Grayson, glancing at Marduc in the distance.
“Of course, but which one?”
“I could guess.” mused Grayson, directing their steps unconsciously in the dance toward Marduc.
“Just because
you don’t like Marduc, doesn’t mean he is a traitor.”
“I saw evil in him. What else would evil be doing among you of Azura?”
“You know our system of graduations. How could an evil man reach a position of power, as Marduc has, unless something were very wrong with our testing of such people?”
“Something is very wrong, dear Sareen. But I don’t know whether it is safe to tell you or not. You might disappear!” Grayson smiled at her.
“Perhaps total reliance upon our unseen monitors is a mistake, you think?”
“A VERY large mistake. No one else can ever do your work for you in any world. You have to do these things your own selves. But that is not what I meant, though it is part of it.”
“They have no real power among us, they are only eyes, and record keepers. How could an evil man reach power, though?”
“If he were an imposter, replacing a loyal man with a double. Or if your monitors were themselves plotting against you.”
“Impossible. They are from the higher planes of life!”
“Such is but a belief, dear Sareen. What you believe is not always true. They might be merely aliens, from a different plane, possessing different abilities and natures—but your belief in their divinity would give them divine powers. Do you not know that?”
“I have suspicions, dear Paul.”
“I think that this war of the Karnians has deeper signifigance than you think, Sareen. Some of these so-called monitors whom you know but cannot see—some of these regulators of your strange system of life, are traitors too! They want to rule in the place of Nardan, and are betraying him. Marduc could be the agent of such beings, planning through the other dimensions to wrest the material world of Azura from its rightful possessors and upon wrecked Azura build a new system to their own liking. Thus Marduc, an evil man, would rise to power. For their rewards he would sacrifice his chance of graduation into the other realms in the accepted way—would stake all on the chance the Karnians will win. It is not thought of by you as it should be. He is evil, he is your traitor, this Marduc!”
Thus absorbed in their low-spoken words to each other, Sareen and Grayson had glided along, and the last words had been said almost into the ear of Marduc, for they had danced almost into him where he stood beside the wide, gleaming floor of blue glass. Marduc had heard Grayson say . . “evil . . is your traitor, Marduc.”
Knowing instantly that his life depended upon stopping any action this pair might take against him, Marduc, seeing in their surprised faces and expressions that they had not known he was beside them . . . Marduc seized the opportunity.
He grasped Grayson by the shoulder, shouting, “You name me traitor, you spy? I have taken all I can stomach from you.”
Grayson stared into the dark eyes of Marduc’s eyes, trying to rally from his surprise and the sudden weakness which he could not understand. Then he saw Marduc’s companions, two who stood beside him, invisible to any but Grayson himself. They extended their rosy fluid bodies in a shield of impalpable opacity around the two men, and Grayson saw that not a single dancer saw anything unusual or turned their eyes toward them even though to Grayson, Marduc seemed making a Devil of a racket! The plot was getting clearer to Grayson. These invisibles were in truth a part of it, had gone over to the Karnians. There were others like Marduc. And Marduc had him at his mercy here, protected and aided by powers he could not understand, and none here able to witness what was going on for the shield of opacity that shimmered about them, apparently unnoticeable to any other.
Sareen gave a scream and Grayson glanced her way to see hands lift her, begin to bear her away. Grayson wrenched powerfully with his hands, then threw his vision into the new range, and grasped with his inner strength at the core of the man. But his eyes were caught upon Marduc’s black gaze as a moth upon a pin. Marduc held him there, throwing all his strength into a mental attack as cunning as it was unexpected. For he was strongly suggesting to Grayson that he was doomed, and from his eyes flowed with the fatal meaning an intent strong with the fire of hate, an intent to kill. Unable to extricate his will from the sudden meshing blackness spinning hypnotically upon him out of Marduc’s eyes, Grayson could only throw his will into a stronger grasping after, an attempt to quench that inner flame of Marduc’s evil being, Marduc stagged suddenly away from him, even as he himself staggered, felt the light go out about him, felt a black absorption strike his inner strength. The spinning black whorls that were Marduc’s eyes suddenly became an abyss into which consciousness fell plum-metting. Blackness, and a swelling and expansion and weakening of his strength—blackness engulfed him.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I am mass, alive with energy aware. Time and space, are other things at which I peer. I press my life-energy-aware against space-time, it gives before me . . . .
GRAYSON awoke in a strange chamber. A stranger, not Sareen! Another woman, waiting there? He raised weakly on one elbow, said: “Sareen! Where is she?”
The woman gently pushed him back to the pillows, saying, “Sareen will come back to you. I am taking her place. She is away.”
“Marduc has stolen her. I know! You are lying to me. But you must not! Marduc is a spy, and is set upon having Sareen. You must not make any more mistakes about Marduc. Azura itself depends upon it. He has nearly succeeded in our defeat.”
As Grayson fell again into unconsciousness, the stranger woman smiled sadly upon the poor alien, who had such very bad luck—his poor head quite addled by the stangeness of the new world of Azura. Sareen had not even been reported missing. She had sent word she was going to Amzor for a wedding trip. Which seemed very wise, for Azura was surely going to fall before the Karnians, she would go away herself if she had the means. This stranger was presumptuous to think that their own most paramount Sareen would be interested in one like him. The rich and powerful Lord Marduc; now, he was a catch for any woman. Why should he be a spy? Was he not already in possession of all that Azura could give him of pomp and circumstance?
Grayson’s warning went unheeded, while Grayson lay, spiritually and physically shattered, weak as a kitten, his mind lost in mists of strange doubts of his own identity and whereabouts. While the water clock dripped the moments away, and the war-fleets of Karnia sped even to the very borders of the Azuran Empire—gathered there, unattacked, in ever greater strength.
But at last the weakness left his limbs, and as soon as Paul Grayson knew what had occurred and was able to move, he escaped his nurses vigilance, dressed himself unaided and made his way on stumbling feet out of the strange building and into the eerie silent streets of the city.
Grayson had learned much, both from his work with Sareen and from his own deductions, but the attack by Marduc had clinched his analysis of the nature of this world—a world of spirits who were convinced that they were material and so lived in an illusion of materiality that was little more than a generally accepted conventionality of thought.
These people were in truth only seeing mind pictures. They were not living a material life, but they did not know it, except vaguely, and in flashes of inner light. They did not have to walk across a room, if they but knew it, they could cross with the speed of thought. Grayson realized that the world of Azura was as it was only because of life which they brought with them from their previous, more physical life. Just why these people were ignorant of their true state Grayson could not fathom, but he knew it was true. And for him the veil of their reality was rent, he saw their limitations and knew them to be imaginary and self-imposed. For him, now, these limitations did not exist. If he could tear that veil from their eyes, they would be invincible to any onslaught the Karnians might launch. But could he do it?
He had learned from Marduc’s attack. Some ancient wise man had left the details of such hypnosis behind him, and Marduc had learned it. You could conquer anyone if you could convince him hynotically of his own destruction! Marduc had nearly convinced him. It had perhaps been his own almost-realized insight into the nature of this wo
rld that had saved him. He did not believe that anything could destroy him, and he had survived.
GRAYSON had practiced unobserved, upon his nurse, a simple soul. He had noted she was affected by his attempts to use the same tactic of forceful mental flow carrying the same strong hypnotic suggestion that Marduc had used.
But he had not used it fully, only toyed with it weakly. Now, stumbling weakly along the streets toward the point he sensed was the palace of Nardan, he attempted to throw with his eyes a beam of force as Marduc had done when he had overcome him.
He dared not use one of the few Azurans about for a target, he did not know what might happen. He directed his energies toward a pillar that upheld the crystal dome over this part of the city streets, and was completely surprised to see it suddenly vaporize before the simple power of his alien eyes!
This proved to him that matter was not matter here, but a tenuous organization of some ethereal substance, controled entirely by the mesh of the thought of the many—and it could be dissolved entirely by a forceful thought of its non-existence—its substance immediately rejoining the ethereal energies of the plane of this world.
He looked about him, noted he was unobserved. The great crystal dome bulged downward slightly where the pillar had supported the weight. The pillar itself was gone, all but a few ragged fragments jutting out of the clear transparent pavement. Silent, terrific moment of realization of utter power!
Grayson suspected that no Azuran could have done such a thing with a single unaided mind. Perhaps not at all, as it was most probable that the pillar had grown laboriously from the slow work of many hands, imagining themselves working with real matter, just as they had done in their earlier existence.
The 47th Golden Age of Science Fiction Page 15