by Dean Koontz
In the next landscape, I returned to my human analogue, though shedding the horseman form was painful and filled me with a sad need to feel my hooves striking stone.
There was no life here to imitate, so I did not have to worry about becoming inextricably meshed with a myth figure. This was the land of the broken black mountains which jagged up in slabs as big as houses, some even larger than that, like a world of broken crockery and shattered bottles. The sunlight was discolored by the refracting stone and became a depressing brown. The air was flat, as if it had been bottled for a long while, and no breeze moved in it. There were no sounds, no movements.
The sky was an even, ugly yellow, like dark mustard, and not a single cloud marked its expanse.
I walked forward.
The onyx rocks were smooth and cold against my bare feet.
As I scrabbled up the terrain, my fingers squeaked on the shiny surfaces. Those sounds seemed unendurably long in the ghostly silence. I did not like this place at all, wanted out of it as fast as I could move to the next veil of mist. But it was here that I found Child, found the place where he was trapped in his own madness...
IV
As I made my way over the ebony land, I reached a chasm in the shattered rocks, perhaps a thousand yards long and three yards wide at the top, narrowing to two feet at the bottom. Down there, some three hundred feet below, a soft blue light glowed. It seemed to be the gentle blue of shallow water, but even this slight color branded my eyes in contrast to the sameness of the terrain I had been struggling across for some minutes.
I called down, listened to the flat echo, but received no answer. If this was the place where Child waited, bound by his own insanity, circled by unnamed demons, he was unable to speak.
I swung over the jagged edge, looked to the bottom, then grew wings like those I had seen on the batlike creatures of the mountain. I descended gently, pulled the wings in and absorbed them as the way grew too narrow to glide. I dropped the last few feet onto the blue floor, found it was made of ice.
To the right, the rock wall cut off three feet above the ice, and the passage this created seemed to go on for some distance. Lying on my stomach, I slid along the shimmering ice; I was cold but not uncomfortable, exhilarated by the freshness of the air here. A hundred feet further on, the ceiling of black rock thrust suddenly upward, and I found myself in a full-sized cavern where I could stand.
On my feet again, I crossed the barren room to the far side where the ice-encrusted rock seemed to warp downward. There, I discovered steps roughly chiseled in the ice.
I went down them, cautiously, eventually came out in a shadowy chamber with another blue floor, though this one was not empty: Child sat in the center of it in an analogue version of his real body.
And...
And: the things crawled around him, circling in mindlessness, yet with a certain uncompromising evil that terrified me even though I knew they could not do me any physical harm. They were much like scorpions though somewhat longer than a man's arm, with flared, knifeedged carapaces shielding their backs, and twenty spindly legs on either side. Their stinging tails forked at the end, each of the two prongs tipped with a trio of wicked spurs as long as my little finger and tapered to needle points.
They did riot look at me, nor did their sensory cilia, bursting like whiskers around their beaked mouths, in any way indicate that they realized my presence.
Their legs hissed on the ice, and their constant parade had worn shallow grooves in the cold floor.
There were different numbers of them at different moments. Now there might be as few as a dozen describing the wide circle-now a hundred of them, magically crystallizing out of the crisp air-now thirty, now a dozen, now two dozen. No matter how hard I looked, I could not catch one of them appearing or disappearing, though their numbers fluctuated with every passing second. I had the feeling that I was in a funhouse where there was a complicated array of trick mirrors and that there was actually but one of these creatures whose presence was magnified to one degree or another by ingenious, mirrored pyrotechnics.
"Child?" I called.
The withered dwarf paid no attention to me, but stared with morbid fascination at the nightmarish scorpion guards which kept him ringed in and obedient.
Since I had first been trapped in this subconscious reality, I had not spared the time or the energy to consider the reason and psychology behind many of the mental analogues that constituted this inner universe. I had merely accepted and tried to deal with them, to search through them for a way out, a way to freedom and my own body.
Now, as I watched the grisly parade before me, I began to wonder what this collection of monsters was representative of. Why was Child's core of energy and intelligence trapped in this place, bound to this single minim of his entire subconscious universe? What were these scorpions that surrounded him and maintained their constant, evil vigil?
I examined them more closely and discovered that they did not have that surface sheen of reality that the centaur and the wolf had possessed. They shifted, as if they were liquid, and fragments of thought associations whirled inside 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 grotesque 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 considered 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 establish 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 tolerate 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 mirrors 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 kn
ow 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 had marched but where there was now nothing but scored ice. Approaching his analogue cautiously, I touched him, hunkered before him.
"Child?"
Quiet.
"Child? Speak to me?"
He looked at me. He blinked his eyes. And then chaos broke loose as his insanity boiled through the surface tension of the analogue and swept over me!
I was swept up, up, on a tide of human flesh, of torn arms and legs, of bleeding mouths, broken teeth, shattered bones, burning flesh, splintered eyeballs. Monsters rose in the swell and came toward me, lumbering ogres and swimming reptilian horrors. The arms and mouths in the ocean of human parts attacked me, grasped me and tried to pull me down, bit me and chewed at my unreal psychic flesh.
I felt myself losing hold of my own equilibrium. In a moment, I would spiral over the edge, into madness for the second time. I had recovered only recently, and I knew a second plunge to the bottom of that well would be the last I would ever make. I would fall back into gibbering incoherency, and I would remain there forever. Twice mad is once too often, and the shores of detached logic would never be available to me again.
The nearest ogre reached for me, with his sevenfingered hands, each finger tipped with the fanged mouth of a yellow-eyed snake.
I rolled across the rippling floor of human parts, kicking pieces of bodies up as I went.
The snake fingers missed by inches.
A flurry of mutilated corpses clutched me and pulled me under the surface of the sea.
I fought to air again, through nightmare conglomerations of dead men and women,
"CHILD!" I screamed.
Another ogre thundered down on me.
In the last moment before I could be grasped and dismembered, I did the only thing that would save me. Giving myself over to the basest of my id lusts, radiating bloodhunger and sexual need of the vilest sort, I repelled the ogres and the dragons, forced back the tide of human bodies that tore at me. In seconds, I was back on the blue ice floor where again the analogue of Child sat, tranced.
I circled him. Now I was in the form of one of the great scorpion beasts, mandibles chattering, forked stinging tail raised above my back, ready to attack.
His psychic energy formed a wall against me, but I danced on, broached that wall with my own mind, and leaped upon him, thrashing with him on the floor. This time, rather than argue with him, rather than plead with him, I devoured his psychic energy, destroyed him, absorbed him, and dissipated his shattered mind throughout my own.
Child no longer existed. I had killed him. But now I was in total control of his body. I left that place, made it dissolve around me. I made the mountain appear, and I climbed it, entered the caves through which I had first come down into Child's subconscious mind. In moments, I had freed myself, and was looking out at the world through Child's eyes, encased, again, in real flesh...
* * *
THREE
The Incomplete
Creation...
I
I found myself in Child's body, lying in a hospital bed with the barred sides raised to provide the illusion of a prison. The room was a private one, somewhere far up in the tower of Artificial Creation, no doubt. There was no light but that from a small blue bulb plugged directly into a floor socket. In that eerie glow, I could see that there was no nurse in attendance. How long had Child lain like this, dazed, almost comatose, unable to speak or see or hear anything of the real world as his madness kept him sealed in the analogue of his subconscious? Days or weeks? Perhaps even years?
Somewhat frantic at that last thought, I pushed up, weak and dizzy. My frail, bony arms felt as if they would crack, but they got me to the edge of the bed just the same. My short legs dangled a foot from the tiles after I got the barred slats down, and that measly twelve inches looked more like two or three miles. I built my courage, dropped, felt skinny legs buckle. I crashed forward on my face and lay there for a while, collecting my wits.
Was this what it was like for Child, this inability to cope with the inadequacies of his own body, this helplessness and dependence? No wonder his own search for a purpose and identity had been so much more thorough and extensive than my own.
I got on hands and knees and gripped the edge of the bed for support, gained my feet again. The door was but a dozen steps away. I toddled toward it, collapsed against it, holding on to the knob to keep from taking another serious fall.
Opening the door was a major chore, compounded by the fact that I wanted to do it quietly. I didn't want anyone to know that I was awake now and moving around. First, I wanted to find out a few things, attempt to discover how long I had been trapped in Child's mind.
And if I could somehow locate my own body-for, surely, they were keeping it somewhere close at hand, in another dark hospital room-and re-enter it before they were aware I had returned, I would be in a better position to take care of myself. I didn't trust Morsfagen or any other super-patriot professional soldier. The more ignorant I was about what had transpired since I had gone mad within Child, the further removed I was from my own body and, therefore, autonomy, the more power they would hold over me, the more they could demand and perpetrate.
The door finally opened and gave a view of an empty corridor that was painted a flat, unreflective blue. I stepped out of the room, closed the door, and hung by the wall, breathing heavily and trying to ignore the pain in the sunken chest of the mutant body which I inhabited.
I didn't care if I destroyed Child's body during this trek, for I had already destroyed Child himself by absorbing his psychic energy back there in that blue-floored room beneath the broken, ebony plain. He would never own his body again. I could feel his intellect, devoid of any personality now, within my own mind, magnifying my intelligence and perceptions. But that was the only minim of Child's real self that would ever survive.
Pushing away from the wall, I started down the corridor. I could not expect it to remain empty for long, and I would gain nothing by being seen here, before I had learned anything of my situation. I weaved from wall to wall, barely managing to keep my feet. And when the tall, uniformed man appeared at the head of the stairwell and shouted in surprise, I collapsed on my face...
When I woke, I was in the same hospital room, in the same bed, with the metal slats raised around the sides to keep me from falling out. There were differences, though.
There was plenty of light, and there was a nurse, a buxom, gray-haired matron with a bland, pleasant face and a concerned look plastered all over it. There was a guard by the door, on the inside, his holster unsnapped.
Why I should be considered that much of a threat when I could hardly even walk, I did not know. Morsfagen and a white-smocked physician stood by the right side of my bed, looking down at me. The physician exhibited concern and professional interest. Morsfagen had a look of hatred and sheer animal cunning.
"Welcome back," he said.
"I'm thirsty," I croaked, realizing for the first time how parched my throat was.
The nurse brought me water, which I gulped eagerly.
The chips of ice rattled against my teeth, stung my gums.
But it was all quite good, better than expensive wine.
"No more water, no more anything until some questions are answered," the general said.
"Yes," I replied.
"What has happened to Simeon Kelly?"
For a moment, I was surprised. Then I realized that th
ey had no way of knowing this wasn't Child who had awakened. It meant that there were other things they could not know, things which would give me the upper hand.
"I am Kelly," I said.
"No games," he snapped.
"This isn't."
He looked at me closely. "Maybe you had better explain."
So I told him about Child's investigation into the nature of God. He did not seem moved by the discovery that the universe held no purpose, that God is insane and always has been. Perhaps he did not believe me. I rather think that was the case with the doctor and the nurse and the guard by the door. But there was a crisp, cold gaze there that said Morsfagen did believe-and not only that he believed, but that he had come to the same conclusions himself some time ago, though he had simply lacked the proof that Child had managed to obtain. There was no room for God in Morsfagen's life, I realized. He had always operated outside a belief in heaven and hell and retribution for sin.
I carefully avoided mentioning that I had absorbed Child's energy, that he would never regain his body. If they thought that all could soon be returned to normal, they would be more eager to see me back in my own flesh, wherever it was kept.
When I was done, I asked: "How much time has passed?"
"A month," he said.
It was startling, yet it could have been worse. I had steeled myself to accept the word "years," and this was a blessing by comparison. A lot could have happened in a month. But Melinda might still be free, might still be waiting. Harry would be alive. My house would not have been sold to creditors. Yes, there was still time to regain normality.
"I want my own body," I said. That was the first step to that normality.
"Perhaps," Morsfagen said.
I looked around at the others to see whether they understood the cruelty in that tease. None of them seemed to pay any attention. Perhaps part of their jobs included paying no attention to such things.