discover your talent? They’ll fight over you. They’ll kill each other—kill you—for the right to own you.”
“Oh, but I don’t belong to anybody,” said Leonard Mark. He looked at Saul. “No. Not even you.”
Saul jerked his head. “I didn’t even think of that.”
“Didn’t you now?” Mark laughed.
“We haven’t time to argue,” answered Saul, eyes blinking, cheeks blazing. “Come on!”
“I don’t want to. I’m going to sit right here until those men show up. You’re a little too possessive. My life’s my own.”
Saul felt an ugliness in himself. His face began to twist. “You
“How very quickly you changed from a friend to an enemy, observed Mark.
Saul hit at him. It was a neat quick blow, coming down. Mark ducked aside, laughing. “No, you don’t!” They were in the center of Times Square. Cars roared, hooting, upon them. Buildings plunged up, hot, into the blue air.
“It’s a lie!” cried Saul, staggering under the visual impact. “For God’s sake, don’t, Mark! The men are coming. You’ll be killed!”
Mark sat there on the pavement, laughing at his joke. “Let them come. I can fool them all!”
New York distracted Saul. It was meant to distract—meant to keep his attention with its unholy beauty, after so many months away from it. Instead of attacking Mark he could only stand, drinking in the alien but familiar scene.
He shut his eyes. “No.” And fell forward, dragging Mark with him. Horns screamed in his ears. Brakes hissed and caught violently. He smashed at Mark’s chin.
Silence.
Mark lay on the sea bottom.
Taking the unconscious man in his arms, Saul began to run, heavily.
New York was gone. There was only the wide soundlessness of the dead sea. The men were closing in around him. He headed for the hills with his precious cargo, with New York and green country and fresh springs and old friends held in his arms. He fell once and struggled up. He did not stop running.
Night filled the cave. The wind wandered in and out, tugging at the small fire, scattering ashes.
Mark opened his eyes. He was tied with ropes and leaning against the dry wall of the cave, facing the fire.
Saul put another stick on the fire, glancing now and again with a catlike nervousness at the cave enhance.
“You’re a fool.”
Saul started.
“Yes,” said Mark, “you’re a fool. They’ll find us. If they have to hunt for six months they’ll find us. They saw New York, at a distance, like a mirage. And us in the center of it. It’s too much to think they won’t be curious and follow our trail.”
“I’ll move on with you then,” said Saul, staring into the fire.
“And they’ll come after.”
“Shut up!”
Mark smiled. “Is that the way to speak to your wife?”
“You heard me!”
“Oh, a fine marriage this is—your greed and my mental ability. What do you want to see now? Shall I show you a few more of your childhood scenes?”
Saul felt the sweat coming out on his brow. He didn’t know if the man was joking or not. “Yes,” he said.
“All right,” said Mark, “watch!”
Flame gushed out of the rocks. Sulphur choked him. Pits of brimstone exploded, concussions rocked the cave. Heaving up, Saul coughed and blundered, burned, withered by hell!
Hell went away. The cave returned.
Mark was laughing.
Saul stood over him. “You,” he said coldly, bending down.
“What else do you expect?” cried Mark. “To be tied up, toted off, made the intellectual bride of a man insane with loneliness—do you think I enjoy this?”
“I’ll untie you if you promise not to run away.”
“I couldn’t promise that. I’m a free agent. I don’t belong to anybody.”
Saul got down on his knees. “But you’ve
“My dear fellow, the more you say things like that, the more remote I am. If you’d had any sense and done things intelligently, we’d have been friends. I’d have been glad to do you these little hypnotic favors. After all, they’re no trouble for me to conjure up. Fun, really. But you’ve botched it. You wanted me all to yourself. You were afraid the others would take me away from you. Oh, how mistaken you were. I have enough power to keep them all happy. You could have shared me, like a community kitchen. I’d have felt quite like a god among children, being kind, doing favors, in return for which you might bring me little gifts, special tidbits of food.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Saul cried. “But I know those men too well.”
“Are you any different? Hardly! Go out and see if they’re coming. I thought I heard a noise.”
Saul ran. In the cave entrance he cupped his hands, peering down into the night-filled gully. Dim shapes stirred. Was it only the wind blowing the roving clumps of weeds? He began to tremble—a fine, aching tremble.
“I don’t see anything.” He came back into an empty cave.
He stared at the fireplace. “Mark!”
Mark was gone.
There was nothing but the cave, filled with boulders, stones, pebbles, the lonely fire flickering, the wind sighing. And Saul standing there, incredulous and numb.
“Mark! Mark! Come back!”
The man had worked free of his bonds, slowly, carefully, and using the ruse of imagining he heard other men approaching, had gone—where?
The cave was deep, but ended in a blank wall. And Mark could not have slipped past him into the night. How then?
Saul stepped around the fire. He drew his knife and approached a large boulder that stood against the cave wall. Smiling, he pressed the knife against the boulder. Smiling, he tapped the knife there. Then he drew his knife back to plunge it into the boulder.
“Stop!” shouted Mark.
The boulder vanished. Mark was there.
Saul suspended his knife. The fire played on his cheeks. His eyes were quite insane.
“It didn’t work,” he whispered. He reached down and put his hands on Mark’s throat and closed his fingers. Mark said nothing, but moved uneasily in the grip, his eyes ironic, telling things to Saul that Saul knew.
If you kill me, the eyes said, where will all your dreams be?
If you kill me, where will all the streams and brook trout be?
Kill me, kill Plato, kill Aristotle, kill Einstein; yes, kill all of us!
Go ahead, strangle me. I dare you.
Saul’s fingers released the throat.
Shadows moved into the cave mouth.
Both men turned their heads.
The other men were there. Five of them, haggard with travel, panting, waiting in the outer rim of light.
“Good evening,” called Mark, laughing. “Come in, come in, gentlemen!”
By dawn the arguments and ferocities still continued. Mark sat among the glaring men, rubbing his wrists, newly released from his bonds. He created a mahogany-paneled conference hall and a marble table at which they all sat, ridiculously bearded, evil-smelling, sweating and greedy men, eyes bent upon their treasure.
“The way to settle it,” said Mark at last “is for each of you to have certain hours of certain days for appointments with me. I’ll treat you all equally. I’ll be city property, free to come and go. That’s fair enough. As for Saul here, he’s on probation. When he’s proved he can be a civil person once more, I’ll give him a treatment or two. Until that time, I’ll have nothing more to do with him.”
The other exiles grinned at Saul.
