'Earl, you-' She blinked as he gestured her to be silent. 'What is it? Earl?'
'A message,' he said. 'I am receiving a message.'
'From Earth? Earl, I am tired of you playing that silly game. There is no such world.'
'There is if I say so.'
'No, there is only if I say so.' Her face, suddenly, was ugly. 'And I say that you will never mention that place again.'
'Earth,' he said.
'Earl!'
'Earth! Earth! Earth!'
'You're horrible!' Her face wrinkled as her eyes filled with tears. 'Everything was so nice and now you've spoiled it all. I hate you!'
'Earth!' he said again. 'Earth! Earth! Earth!'
A boy playing a childish game, obtaining a childish revenge by demonstrating his infantile defiance. Dragging her down to his depicted level, keeping her off balance with adult calculation.
'Stop it!' Her voice rose in a raucous scream. 'Stop it, I tell you! Stop it at once!''
'Earth! Earth! Earth!'
The word a bullet fired again and again at her defenses. An irritation which grew until it dominated her being. Dumarest saw her face change, become young, spiteful, twisted with angry passion.
Then it was gone with the sky, the heather, the sea and glittering sand. The sun and breeze and the scent of flowers. All vanished in a flash to be replaced by a writhing mist in which something screamed.
And the thing which screamed was himself.
Dumarest turned, feeling agony sear every nerve, and together with the physical pain came a mental torment which sent him to double and keen and stare as he threshed and spun in the clammy mist. A vapor which burned like acid and held torments unseen but real and things which lived in his body and mind and increased his agony so that he became something less than human in a blind, primitive, mewing, screaming parody of a man.
The dungeon to which all who offended Iduna were sent.
The place he had seen with himself contained in it-the product of a vagrant thought which had anticipated later events or perhaps Iduna had always carried its concept in the back of her mind and his incarceration would be his punishment had he not played her game.
He had been warned and had ignored the warning and now must pay.
But he was free of her domination.
The pain was bad but he could live with agony which did not kill and it would only take a thought to escape. A little concentration and the mist would vanish and the pain and he would be his own master and able to plan and… and…
The pain! Dear God, the pain!
The screaming went on and he made no effort to stop it.
Made no effort either to halt his weaving and turning in the stinging mist. To have done either would rob his mind of the power to concentrate on a single, overwhelming thought. To escape. To move from this dungeon and Iduna's vengeance and go somewhere else. To escape… escape…
And it happened.
The screaming stopped and the mist vanished and he was, suddenly, in limbo. In a region without shape or form but one filled with the aura of lurking horror. A place-no, The Place. Hell.
He had been naughty and Mommy had punished him and locked him in the dark place where things waited to pounce and eat his eyes and drink their moisture and burrow into his body and there lay their eggs which would hatch and turn into maggots which would gnaw at the living flesh and all the time he wouldn't be able to do anything about it. And there would be ghosts which would come and gibber in his ears and suck at his mind so that when they came for him he would be a shambling idiot And the dark would press close and crush him. And he was blind and would never see again. And there was no sound. And they would forget him and he would die of thirst and starve and have to eat his own hands and be unable to stand even if they did come for, him and would grow into horrible shapes and people would laugh and he would be miserable forever and he hated her… he hated her… he hated her…
The dark place of punishment for a willful child which he had entered. The one filled with the terror of the unknown. A terror he was now sharing and which held all the ghastly fantasies of an imaginative child. Had Iduna ever been locked away in a dark place? Was that why she hated her mother?
Dumarest forced himself to think of Kathryn, to see her face limned before his eyes. A hard face and one which knew little of compassion. The face of a woman who had learned to rule and who would tolerate no weakness in the one she intended should follow her. Spoiled, cossetted, yet Iduna would have felt the weight of the Matriarch's displeasure if she stepped over the line.
And so The Place.
A child's conception of hell-but Dumarest was not a child.
He straightened and rose, feeling solid ground beneath his boots. Overhead the sky began to lighten with a blaze of stars, winking points set in remembered constellations; the Scales, the Archer, the Heavenly Twins. Signs of the zodiac which circled Earth. And the moon. He must not forget the moon.
It glowed in silver luminescence, dark mottlings giving it the appearance of a skull, wisps of brightness haloing it and adding an extra dimension of enchantment. The air which touched his face was soft with summer warmth and carried the odor of growing things. Earth. His world. Earth!
He could create it and be with it and rule it like a god. The hills which rolled endlessly beneath the sky and all covered with woods and forests in which creatures lived and bred. Fields of crops ripening as he watched, rich ears of swollen grain culled from the bounty of the soil. Fruits and seeds and nuts and streams filled with water like wine-all the things of paradise. He could do it. He could make his own world. Why continue the search when there was no need?
'It wouldn't be the same, boy.' The captain, sitting on a rock to one side, his head gently shaking in negation. 'It just wouldn't be the same.'
'It would be as good.'
'No. Think about it for a minute and you'll realize why. You thought of fields and forests and streams and warm breezes-was that the Earth you knew? The one you risked death to escape?'
'It could be. It was once.'
'Maybe, but you can't be sure of that. Oh, you have clues and they tend to give that impression, but how genuine is it? A world cultivated from pole to pole. Every coast inhabited, every island, every scrap of terrain owned and worked and occupied. Can you even begin to imagine how many people there must have been to achieve that?'
Dumarest glanced at the sky and thought of dawn. The stars paled as the sun warmed the horizon, the moon seeming to gain a transparent unreality as it climbed to cast an orange-ruby-amber sheen over the terrain. In the distance mountains soared, their summits graced with snow. From a copse birds began to greet the new day.
'People,' said the captain. Despite the sun his face remained in shadow, the features now growing indistinct. 'So many people. How could they ever manage to get along with each other? Not that it matters. You can't create Earth and you know it.'
'I can!'
'No. You haven't the skill it would take. You haven't the knowledge and you haven't the time. How long did it take to make the real Earth? Millions of years-it doesn't matter just how many. Ages in which each little scrap of living matter learned to live with other scraps and to become dependent on them and to achieve a balanced harmony. To create a thing which cannot be duplicated anywhere. Earth is unique. You belong to it and you have to find it. Find it, Earl, not construct a replica. Find it… find it… find it…'
'How?' The figure was becoming as indistinct as the face. 'How?' demanded Dumarest again. 'How?'
'You know.' The voice was a sigh. 'You know.'
'Tell me!'
But he had left it too late. The figure slumped as he touched it to dissolve in a cloud of drifting sparkles which spun and spread and became a patch of cloud.
