Masters of the Maze

by Avram Davidson

  “Why,” said Major Flint, “I hope not, that no goo — no Chulpex have killed that traitorous bastard, Gordon.”

  Jack Pace felt almost indifferent about Gordon. True, it was because of him that they were off, way off in this world of dreams and of nightmares so far that they might never get back. But the cause was dim and past by now. The present and the future were cold and menacing. “Save having to do it ourselves,” he mumbled. Gordon. Cars. Girls.

  Softly, his teeth clicking, Flint said, “But I don’t want to be saved having to do it ourselves. What? ‘Our — ’ No, no, Jack. Don’t dare try. He’s my bird, you hear? All my life, waiting … family before me … hundred eighty-odd years … now at last … now at last …” His voice died away.

  And the Na 14 said, “Should we not pause to take food?”

  His thoughts snapped back, Flint said sourly, “Live off your fat a while. You seem to have enough of it. Always eating. You can wait a while. Oh, what the Hell. Here. Take a can of pemmican. We won’t stop, though.”

  That was another problem. How to get rid of the Chulpex. Afterward. Nuclear weapons? Poison gas? Poison? He walked along, brooding.

  The Na 14 ate swiftly, greedily. The consumption of much protein was the only certainty in his present existence; that — and the knowledge of what it was doing to him. Otherwise, all had been uncertainty since he regained consciousness in the cave in the Land of the Red Fish. The Na 14 had not counted on such swift pursuit as that which encountered him there. It was unfortunate. But at least the eggs had hatched and he had killed all the male fry. The strange Na who had found and attacked him (from another Sire’s-get, his aura was unfamiliar) — where was he?

  The vivipar which called itself Flint said that it knew. That chulpechoid said that in return for the assistance of the Na 14 in the use of the to-it-unfamiliar tracking device, it would do various things: Inform the Na 14 where the strange Na was. Refrain from killing the female fry in the cave. Provide the Na 14 with protein until the resolution of its, the chulpechoid vivipar’s, quest. And then assist the Na 14 in gaining the mastery of Red Fish Land and its planet. This appeared to be a clever chulpechoid. Perhaps some use could be found for it subsequently; if not, then it and the others of its species must be dealt with alike.

  The Na 14 licked up the last of the protein, let the container fall, and peered over at the tracking device which the intelligent creature was now examining. He pointed. “There,” he said. “There. That one line. So.”

  • • •

  “Indeed,” said Enoch ben-Jared, stroking his beard. “I am a writer of some fame myself. Or so I am assured. They tell me that I have not only written copiously, but in a variety of languages rather astonishing. Welcome, my fellow.” And to Nate’s mind, no longer dazed but still remembering vividly that it had lately been dazed, came the clear knowledge that ancient Enoch ever young was not employing one of those requisite hypocrisies called courtesy. He meant: you are welcome. He meant: you are my fellow.

  More, there was more here than merely having safely walked through fire to a place where his feet were cool. More than being genuinely welcomed, more than being greeted as an equal by those whom he had previously regarded as infinitely his superiors. There was so much more that he was only just beginning to grasp it. But, he was beginning — !

  Looking at the calm, enlightened faces about him, Nate said, “I understand now … that you are not ‘The Masters of the Maze,’ as one speaks of ‘the Master’ of a vessel….”

  • • •

  The old man dressed in archaic Chinese costume smiled gently. A bullock wandered up and placed its muzzle on his shoulder. He rested a hand upon it, light as a breath. “You understand. It is a way. We are those who have ascended this way, finding understanding as we did so. Finding, next, complete understanding here, where there is neither north nor south, nor east nor west, nor up nor down. There is neither past nor future, and even present is recognized as being illusory. Here, then — to use a term no doubt familiar to you — here there is no maya.”

  Recognition sparked in Nate’s mind. “You are the one called ‘Old Fellow’!”

  Still smiling his gentle smile, “Yes, I am Lao-tze,” the old man said.

  “… you are those who have become Masters by virtue of having passed through the Maze to its Center!” he, Nate, concluded. “The imperishable fabric,” he murmured. And still understanding continued to well up inside of him, like a spring through parched-dry sand. “And I? And I — ?”

  “You, too,” said Enoch (ancient Enoch ever young), “are now one of us. You are one of the Masters. One of the Masters of the Maze. Therefore, welcome, and again, welcome … my fellow.”

  “Welcome,” said Benjamin Bathurst; “my fellow.”

  “Welcome, my fellow,” said King Wen, looking up from the square of earth on which he had circumscribed a circle and in which he was lining out his hexagrams.

  Appolonius of Tyanna and all the scores of others greeted him and with the same words bade him welcome. It was this sage who, when the ritual was completed, said to him, “What new thing has our new fellow to tell to us?”

  “The Chulpex are trying to break through,” Nate began.

  With a smile, Appolonius said, “This is not new. Is there a Maze? Then the Chulpex are trying to break through it. ‘Forever, forever, with useless endeavor, / Is Sisyphus rolling I His stone up the mountain …’ ”

  Nate told them that the situation was no longer the same. “It is ever no more the same,” said King Wen, in his deep, rolling voice. “It displays the paradox concerning change and permanence. The only permanent thing is change itself. The only new thing about the Chulpex is the thing that is old about the Chulpex: they are an aberration and their world is an aberration and the arm of the Maze on which it lies is itself an aberration. The nature of aberrations is not to endure; therefore the superior man does not concern himself with them.”

  Nate looked at him in perplexity. He was sure that he could and would make them see the danger, but already the urgency of the matter seemed a bit faded in the air of infinite calm which permeated the Center.

  “Before,” he said, “they were alone. Now they have allies. Before, they came through or attempted to come through, one by one. Now they’re coming through in swarms and myriads. Some new urgency seems to have possessed them. I don’t know what.”

  “Movement,” muttered King Wen, continuing to sketch the straight and broken lines of his hexagrams. “Movement to, movement fro. The endless concourse of the atoms. The waters run into the sea, they arise from the sea in clouds of vapor, the clouds discharge their waters upon the earth, and thence they run into the sea once again. This process cannot be interfered with. The houses of the righteous and the houses of the wicked alike are washed down by the floods, and in the sea the capsized vessel allows the enlightened and the unenlightened alike to drown. Nature does not interfere, and neither can we.”

  “But Darius Chauncey … he’s one of the Watchers … he told me that the only thing for me to do was to get to the Center and tell the Masters. Who was it who set up the system of Watchers in the first place? Who saw to it that the first Watchers were shown how to use the ward-stones? Wasn’t it you? You took action then, why can’t you take it now?”

  King Wen sketched the two broken and one unbroken lines of Rising Thunder before he replied. “It is permitted to build dams and dig canals to restrain and to channel off the floods,” he said. “Also, to construct vessels to go upon the waters and the seas. But to prevent the rains themselves and to drain the seas themselves, who may do this?”

  And the Old Fellow said, as though to his bull, “There is that which is Tao and that which is not Tao. It has been observed that, ‘Tao, though the means of all motion, is itself motionless.’ ”

  Nate paused, then asked, “Are you trying to tell me that it is impossible for you to take action against the Chulpex because you cannot? Or because you will not? Because you are literally incapa
ble? Or because you think it would be improper? Is your refusal based on physical, or on metaphysical, grounds?”

  O tenal Tenal asked, “Is there a difference?” O tenal Tenal, he had wandered away from the cities of Mars when the air of that planet was as rich as blood, and the wisdom and the wickedness of its seven hundred cities was without parallel. “The thief cannot steal because he is afraid of the wounds which will accrue. The thinker cannot steal because he is afraid of the inner shame which will accrue. One reason may be said to be physical, one reason may be said to be metaphysical: but both achieve the same result: one cannot steal. So there is no difference.”

  “But — ”

  O tenal Tenal said, “Moreover …” And the others joined in in the discussion. Intellectually, it was fascinating. Otherwise, it was frustrating. He tried to draw them pictures, he spoke to them of War. Famine. Pestilence. Death. They spoke to him of the necessity of change, the disorder of which was no disorder, for it resulted in permanence. If there were no change, chaos would result, and all things dissolve into their components, and the components in turn into theirs.

  “But the Chulpex — ”

  “Genghis Khan.”

  “A thousand times worse!”

  “A thousand times zero is zero.”

  “But their victory would result in a major change in the nature of life in the universe.”

  “Precisely why no major effort may be made to avert it. I am afflicted by the harsh brightness of the sunlight, I am oppressed by the sullen darkness of the night. I perish of heatstroke, I die from stumbling into a pit. Such is the nature of things. It is better than that the sun should go out or that it should burn both by day and by night. Yet it is essential neither that I suffer heatstroke nor falling. In the time of sun, I may remain indoors; likewise, in time of night. Or, desiring to go out, who prevents or what prevents my carrying either sunshade or lamp? Further: if, despite sunshade and despite lamp, still I perish, then obviously it is part of the fabric of all component things that I should do so.”

  Nate passed his hand in front of his face, shook his head.

  “This is difficult,” he said, low-voiced. “I had thought that mastery meant victory. Now I see that mastery means understanding and acceptance, and that this is the true victory. But I’m not philosopher enough to be ‘above the battle’ … I don’t want to be. I can’t take that dispassionate view of things, and I don’t want to. Evidently there’s a part of me to which enlightenment is not enough, a big part of me; and when the rest of me says, calmly and serenely, All flesh must die, that’s the part that won’t lie down and contemplate its navel — the part that says, Let this little kid live to be eighty and not let him die in war while he’s still a little kid.

  “Maybe I’m too new at all this. These allegories about floods and sunshades. You mean, those who are invaded can resist and maybe win. Maybe. But if the Chulpex break through and capture all the Maze and all the times and places and the rest of it that are connected to the Maze, then, eventually, hard as it is, what’s to prevent their getting here to the Center of the Maze?”

  O tenal Tenal lifted his hands, thin as spiders’ legs, to his thin, dry lips. “In theory, nothing.”

  “Then,” said Nate, “what’s to prevent their wiping all of you — or, I’d better say, maybe — all of us — what’s to prevent their wiping us all out here?”

  “They would not wish to.”

  “Not wish to. How do you know? I see none but humans here. Superior humans, glorified humans, clarified humans, enlightened humans — but: humans. And all our thoughts arise out of the structure of the human psyche. But Chulpex are not human! Is the structure of their psyche such that increased powers can benefit it? Suppose that instead of the cancer being cured, a super-cancer results? Will a superior wolf learn mercy, justice and humility if there is no preexisting comprehension of such qualities? or perhaps even the ability to comprehend them? You, sir. King Wen? What do you think is the likelihood of any Chulpex gaining full enlightenment? Partial enlightenment? You, O tenal Tenal. Sir. Would you create a race of super-thieves? You tell me things like, The superior man is not active — thereby risking gross interference with essential nature and the eternal flux — but he is passive, and thereby permits things to arrange themselves in accordance with their innate necessities.”

  “True,” said King Wen.

  Nate asked, “What are the innate necessities of aberrant things?”

  King Wen was silent.

  “Isn’t there a difference between the quality of Yang and Yin, which is coöperation, and the duality of Ahriman and Mazda, which is conflict?”

  King Wen was silent.

  There was a long, long silence, and then Appolonius of Tyana said, softly, “Cast the changes, my fellow, Wen. This is the process which you perfected, here in the Perfect Center, the Dragon Castle on the Floor of the Sea, the Yellow Castle at the Dark Pass between the Terrace of Light and the Purple Hall of the City of Jade, which same is the Space of Former Heaven. You sent it out to the Outer Worlds from here, the Germinal Vesicle at the Borderline of the Snow Mountains, the Primordial Pass between the Empire of Greatest Joy and the Lands Without Boundaries. In the Outer Worlds the changes may also be cast; how much more so here, the Altar upon which consciousness and life are made. My fellow, Wen, cast the changes.”

  King Wen was silent.

  Lao-tze said, “Let darkness give birth to light. Let the unseen be seen, the unconscious become conscious. Wen, my fellow, cast the changes.”

  King Wen sighed. To Nate he said, “We are the Masters of the Maze, but we are within, the Maze is without. You had heard of microcosm and macrocosm; now you understand, also, the introcosm and the exocosm. Everything flows, everything flows. You did not only come to the Center, the Center also came to you. The past recedes, the future approaches; the future recedes, the past approaches. You alone stand in your place, unmoved, in the eternal present. Here, around me, are the sixty-four hexagrams of the broken and unbroken lines, the Yin and the Yang, the weak lines and the strong lines: all the possible permutations of all the possible possibles. Here in my hands are the broken and unbroken sticks of the fragrant and sacred yarrow. Put your thoughts in order and formulate your question.”

  Again there was silence. Then Nate said, “ ‘Shall the Masters of the Maze take such action as may be necessary to prevent the Chulpex from breaking through, overcoming the Outer Worlds, and penetrating the Center?’ ”

  King Wen cast the changes, throwing down the yarrow sticks again and again, until the pattern of the pre-eminent now lay clear for all to see, arranged in the six lines of the hexagram. He pondered it, considering. “Progress,” he said, at last. “Above, the trigram li: strong, weak, strong. Unbroken, broken, unbroken. Yang, Yin, Yang. The lower trigram: ‘Receptive,’ Yin, Yin, Yin …”

  Lao-tze said, “The one who is to bring about progress — that is you, Nathaniel Gordon — is dependent upon others — that is us, the other, older Masters. Nevertheless, we regard ourselves as your equal, and are willing to follow you. You have much li: clarity. Therefore you do not abuse your influence.” He put his head a trifle to one side and made a slight humming noise. He pointed. “One moving line, as it is called, you see. ‘An enlightened ruler and an obedient servant.’ King Wen and Nathaniel Gordon. Although we, including Wen, are willing to follow you by taking action, in this case you are called ‘servant’ because you are willing to follow Wen by submitting to the judgment of his oracle. An enlightened ruler and an obedient servant; all are in accord; remorse vanishes. Wen, what is your commentary?”

  King Wen considered, briefly, before saying, “A man strives onward in association with others, whose backing encourages him. This dispels any cause for regret over the fact that he does not have enough independence to triumph unaided over every hostile turn of fate.” He turned from considering the pattern of the yarrow sticks and said to Nate. “Is it clear? The pattern is by no means uniformly auspicious.”
/>   “That much is clear. Yes.”

  “This moving line, then, the top line of the lower trigram, k’un, is broken, and is near to li, clarity. It refers to associates; a common trust posseses them; the subject is trusted by all about him; therefore the auspices are mainly favorable. The rest you see for yourself.”

  Nate nodded. The auspices were favorable for the success of the project. They were not necessarily favorable for himself. He told them so, and they agreed. They asked him if he were nonetheless willing, and he agreed.

  “Clearly, yours is the path of Tao,” said Lao-tze. “The classics tell us that the Dragon wishes to devour the Sun and that the Phoenix dances before the Dragon. Is it in order to lead the Dragon away from the Sun? You must follow the path of Tao.”

  • • •

  Many had sought to find what he had found, and had they indeed found it? Many had thought so. They had climbed mountains and gone into deserts, isolated themselves in forests and upon islands. They had sought God and they had sought Devil, Christ and Antichrist, immortality and annihilation, nirvana and revolution, in monastic cell and in prison cell alike, surrendering family, scanting food, denying former and familiar friends, refusing their bodies intimate and basic demands, doing deeds which in other contexts had been deemed wrong but in these were considered right. They had gone into exile, they had gone into the fire, faced death and courted death, defied death, and walked with death as with a familiar companion. Some had burned Jews in Spain, and then gone off, to be burned in turn, in Japan. Religion had inspired some, irreligion (that most demanding of all religions) had inspired others. There were those who had given themselves over to nationalism and those who had given themselves over to internationalism; still others had yielded to the insidious and shameless thing which, using the name of internationalism, is really the nationalism of another and foreign country. Inspired by impure motives and doing pure things, inspired by pure motives and doing impure things … There was no end to it. No greed was comparable to the appeal of self-sacrifice.