Then I found it. A stray thought, the ultimate weapon.
F? Field? Force Field capable of stopping all entry by anything, including air, permitting neither bombs nor bacteria passage? Field
I latched onto it and gently nudged it toward the main stream, toward the waterspout. The ultimate weapon-the weapon to make weapons obsolete.
I thought I was being subtle, but I was underestimating Child. There was a clacking of hooves behind me.
'Get out!'
No. You don't understand.
'It's you who doesn't understand!'
He pounced. I stepped quickly aside, struck at him, and sent him flailing over the brink, into the pit
Far out at sea, the Force Field Theory was shot up the waterspout. Soon it would be spoken in a dark room, taped, transferred to paper, and sent by special messenger to those who might put it into practice.
Sighing, I turned to go. But with a low, animal grumble, the walls of the labyrinth began to sway and the floor to shake and buck.
From somewhere down in the pit, there was a scream, a deafening ululation which spread throughout the caverns, echoing and re-echoing. Clutching the edge of the pit, the Minotaur was pulling himself onto the earthen ledge. I could see that it was not the Minotaur who screamed, but I could not see anyone else.
What is it? I asked above the noise.
His eyes were wild. He opened his mouth, and I watched horrified as snakes came slithering forth.
I kicked him. He fell back into the pit, all the way to the churning bottom this time.
When I turned back to the caverns, the ceiling caved in before me, dirt and stones spilling over my shoes. And there was no longer an exit. I wasn't going to get out!
I turned to the sea and saw the waterspout dying, withering. There was no hope in that direction, either. No hope! And the situation was so ironic, like Jesus finally sealed into his tomb. But I had given up that delusion, hadn't I?
What, for crissakes, is going on? I yelled above the constant screaming from the pit. Then it occurred to me that I might find the nature of the disaster by latching on to a stray thought. I reached out into the turbulent river and found all of them starting the same way:
G? G? GGGGGGGGGG? leadingG to Grass rollinG over the hills? to G? G? GGG God God God like a tornado whirlinG across the Glen, relentless, relentless? GGG GGod GGod? GODGODGOD? random? what purpose?? trap Him like the wind to find His purpose, find my purpose? GGGGGGG
I realized the nature of it then. Child's purpose in life had been shattered when he met me-just as mine had been shattered when I encountered him. He could no longer pretend to himself that he was the Second Coming, the virgin birth. But he had no mechanical psychiatrist to treat him and could find no woman to love or who would love him. He was so restricted in his physical existence that he had to turn to theory and intellectual search to find an answer.
GODGODGODGOD? trapped in a cavern to tell answers? GGG
I followed the thoughts to their end; I was swept along with them against my will. I never should have listened in the first place. It was the ultimate theory, and he had proven it beyond a doubt
He had tried to contact God.
He had found the whereabouts of the Supreme Being, the plane of existence upon which He lived.
He asked what meaning there could be to life and to the chaotic world in which man lived. And he was answered; he solved his problem.
He asked what was at the center of creation. And he found out.
And now I was trapped down there.
There were three of us.
Child, Simeon, and God.
And we were all three quite insane.
TWO
Humanity Restored
I
Trapped within the convoluted miasma of Child's mind, I eventually lost all consideration of what was real and what was not. Here, in the fascinating chiaroscuro ruins of his subconscious mind, the shattered mental analogues were every bit as concrete as the world I had known outside of Child. The stones were textured by the weather as they were in the world beyond; the trees had as many leaves of as many different shades of green as any I had seen before; the wind was not a constant, but changed from bitter cold to almost suffocating warmth, and was moderate more often than not. There were birds and a wide variety of land-bound animals, which, though subtly different or wildly mutated from their 'real' parallels, were always believable, detailed and rich with color and habits. At first, I catalogued the differences, the fine points of distinction between the real world and this analogue of Child's interior, but that only made me melancholy, unsatisfied, and soon had me acting like a manic-depressive. I realized that, if this were to be my home for the remainder of my days, I would have to forget the other world I had known. And for my own peace of mind, I would also have to forget that when Child died, we all died, trapped here inside him. It was bizarre, but it was my new reality and required my swift adaptation.
So I adapted.
At first, there had been a time of madness. When I recovered my wits, I did not know how much time had passed, and I could not remember much of what I had done. I remembered running along canyons of stone which shimmered and changed colors around me, thrust up, dissolved, formed new projections, a living rock that sang mournful dirges and sometime burst into long, wailing screams that made me fall and cover my ears and scream in sympathy. There were visions of mottled skies that were sometimes all shades of yellow, sometimes all shades of red, sometimes an ugly whirl of black and brown. I had climbed in cold places and had followed descending trails into warm ones. I had been on strange seas with waters thick like syrup, and in lakes where the surface reeked of brandy. I had seen dark shapes, like huge spiders, dancing along endless webs of sticky white thread, and I had seen maggots crawling in the walls, disappearing in the stone when I came close enough to examine them. At times, a force of monumental strength passed me, a whirling madness of surging energy, which was He, which was God, the maddest of the three of us. And then I was sane, lying on the floors of a wide tunnel, stretched full length, as if I had fallen while running from something that terrified me.
I sat up, looked around me, knew that it was so, that I was trapped here, and decided there was nothing to do but make the most of it.
Besides, I nurtured a grain of hope. Perhaps the mind of the wizened boy, this Child, would regain its sanity.
Perhaps, then, there would be a way out, a way to return to my own body. They would keep me alive, back there in AC, feed me through my veins, keep my body processes functioning, hoping for my return just as I was. If Child returned to normal, I could go upwards through the nowblocked conscious mind and return to my own flesh. Free.
With even the smallest minim of such hope, it was better to maintain my sanity instead of losing it again and being able to return to my own body as a madman.
And, too, there was the possibility that, with my mind intact, I could search out this nightmare landscape and find some chink in the cold stone that kept me from leaving. I could explore for days on end, having nothing better to do, and perhaps discover the passage out. I knew the chances were small. Child's mental analogue was immense, as big as an entire world. It would require years and years just to investigate each corner of it. And a
