Her Majesty's Wizard #1 (16 page)

   "She is, perchance, distressed to learn that you are not." Sir Guy pursed his lips, but there was a hint of amusement in his face. "If you can be tempted to sin by a woman's body, Lord Wizard, the princess's cause is imperiled."

   Matt's brows drew down. "How do my lapses endanger the cause?"

   "Because, Lord Wizard, you and I are her only true assets in the war for her throne; and of us two, you are the more vital."

   "Seems to me wars really boil down to which side has the strongest fighters," Matt objected.

   "Not so. For at root, this is a struggle between Good and Evil. And most potent for those forces are the wizards and sorcerers. Sorcerers must remain celibate-no human feelings must possess their attention. But even more must a wizard be virtuous, since the smallest sin weakens his power for the Good. Thus our Princess Alisande must have concern for your soul."

   "Yes, I see," Matt admitted grudgingly. "But I also see that it is an invasion of privacy."

   "Indeed. She most truly invaded your privacy when she summoned you by your oath, saving you from the witch." Sir Guy smiled in gentle mockery, then sobered. "Your oath was a bond, Sir Wizard, and protection against all but the most potent magics. No matter the charms the witch used on you, it would find a way to protect you against them-for a time, at least."

   So that was why somebody had come bursting in on him and Sayeesa just when things started to get interesting. Then another thought occurred to him. "If I'm so important, could that have anything to do with Sayeesa's castle being suddenly so far south of where it's supposed to be? And could Malingo have anything to do with the sending of both witches against me?"

   Sir Guy's brows knitted in thought. "'Tis not impossible. And that would mean more traps might be set for your soul. Were I you, Lord Wizard, I should spend much time in prayer! But come, the lady is ready to depart. Summon your friend Stegoman, and I will seek my good steed where he was left after bearing our bound bodies here."

CHAPTER 8

   Matt rolled over on his bed of pine boughs, unable to sleep because of Sayeesa's heartbroken sobbing. She hadn't stopped crying since her dream castle had vanished.

   They had come back to the campsite, with the witch trussed before him on a sobered-up Stegoman, while Alisande rode behind Sir Guy on his horse. Alisande had cut a new bed of pine boughs, and they had settled into salvage what sleep they could. Now she and Sir Guy were deep in slumber.

   It must be nice, Matt thought, to have a clear conscience, though hers seemed a little too clear.

   He turned over, trying to shut out the sobbing and clear his mind of what kept gnawing at it. Again, he failed.

   Was sin real, or wasn't it? Where he came from, it was probably only a delusion, safe to ignore. But he wasn't where he came from. He was in their world. Did that mean he had to play by their rules?

   Not necessarily, he decided. He'd already figured out a few rules of magic, and everything he'd reasoned out about it had worked. None of his theories really required any mystical personality behind the power; they could all work nicely by regarding magic as an impersonal force.

   He felt better when he thought of it that way. Reason and logic did work in this universe, which meant that the whole pile of nonsense about Good and Evil were merely human constructs, and sin and Hell were just superstitious folk tales, even here.

   He'd simply let himself get shaken up by a new environment. All the fundamental things were really as they'd always been.

   With that comforting thought, he opened his eyes to gaze at the warm, glowing coals of the campfire.

   A small hole appeared in the ground between himself and the fire and widened like a yawn filled with flames. A leering devil hoisted himself out of the hole-a regulation, scarlet-skinned, horned devil, with a long, tapering face, a moustache and goatee, and a pitchfork in his hand.

   "Let me congratulate you on your skepticism," the devil said. "Rationalists make such excellent kindling."

   The pitchfork stabbed out, lancing into Matt's belly, knotting his diaphragm while it swung him up, arcing high, and sent him plunging down into the flames.

   Matt screamed, and nerve ends shrieked all over his body with the raw, pure pain of the fire. It didn't stop, but kept building. The fire grew hotter. Matt screamed himself hoarse, but the pain grew worse and worse ...

   Then the pitchfork lanced down again, tossing him into a locker of dry ice that seared his flesh with absolute cold. He was in total darkness, burning with cold, and his nerve ends doubled their anguish. But they did not grow numb.

   "Don't trouble to wonder. It doesn't get better."

   Matt looked up in mid-shriek.

   A sable, amorphous amoeba pulsed near him, shot with veins of fire. It spoke with the devil's voice. "Why, of course it is me," it chortled. "Nothing has real form or shape in this realm."

   Hell, Matt realized.

   "What did you expect from a devil? Oh, I know, it's not like your infantile conception of fire and brimstone. Don't you know what Hell is? The complete absence of... the Source."

   God, Matt thought numbly.

   The blot flinched, shrinking in on itself, and away. "I'll thank you not to use that Name here. In fact, you'll find you can't, now; I've knotted the neuron that caused me such pain."

   Matt tried to think of the Name, found he couldn't-and the craving, aching emptiness of isolation surged in. It wasn't just the loneliness he'd known when he'd been in a new town and broke. This was worse, a thousand times worse. And despair whetted the loneliness, because there was no way out, now-not even through death.

   The cold of Kipling's wind between the worlds swept through him, chilling him to his ectoplasm. The numbing emptiness of absolute loneliness sank in. Nausea bit, trying to turn the soul inside out, to fold it up, to make it fade away, to escape from loneliness into oblivion. But it couldn't cease; it was caught, embedded in total despair that had no other side.

   "Yes," the devil crooned, "Yes-forever. Forever."

   Pinpoints of warm light winked in the distance. They swelled into discs, then into spheres. The nearest zoomed toward them, filling Matt's vision. A soul flailed there in anguish, mouth sphinctering in unheard screaming, as tongues of white fire enveloped it, and bright, glowing needles pierced through it.

   "This is the hell of a hedonist," the devil crowed. "Hedonists claim the purpose of life is its pleasures. But mortals are quickly sated; the pleasures they're born to soon pall. They end by seeking sensation, any sensation, to remind them they exist; and what began as a search after pleasure ends, if they live long enough to find the extreme, in a searching for pain. They seek to come here, though they know it not. Here they gain the sensation they sought, for all time."

   The hell veered off to the right, and Matt found himself staring at more of the glowing orange bubbles. They crowded above, they jostled below, they thronged all about.

   "Yes, there are many," the devil crooned, "and there's room for a million times more. Hell is quite spacious. Each sinner's alone, in his own personal hell-for there's no companionship here. And we've no problem fitting a hell to a sinner, for each soul provides its own. You come here to the hell you've built for yourself all your life."

   Another sphere swept toward them and filled Matt's view. The air about the soul within it was filled with bright points of light that swooped at it, while its head was tilted back, its mouth open, a steady stream of its substance being drawn out into space.

   "No matter how much is pulled out, there'll always be more," the devil murmured. "The bright points of light are microscopic blades, each nicking its miniscule bit from the soul. This being claimed it wasn't guilty for the sins it committed -- they were all predestined, or due to its upbringing, or to the socio-cultural matrix in which it was born. The end of it all is that the soul disclaimed responsibility for itself and sinned to its fullest, caring not a whit what damage it did to others-yet each sin was a breach of its integrity, its wholeness. So it lived, constantly losing itself; so it lives here-forever losing."

   Another sphere hurtled up. The soul within was frozen in midstep.

   "It will stay forever frozen," the devil confided, "because it cannot decide. In life, it was a follower; when it knew not what was right, it asked its priest, or its minister-or it looked in a book, or asked its employer. It never thought for itself; it never decided. Here it stands, as it lived-but with no one about to dictate its movements. You have heard of `the agony of indecision'? Behold it."

   Matt felt a shuddering revulsion sweep through him.

   The sphere swam away; another replaced it. The soul lay at the bottom, looking upward, contorted in honor, at a huge heap of foulness plunging down toward it.

   "He knows that some day it will reach him," the devil explained. "We told him it would. Some day-tomorrow, or next year, or in a million years; no matter."

   The whole heap plunged downward. The soul gasped, stiffening; but the heap halted an inch from its nose and withdrew. Matt wondered what could terrify it so.

   "Its own words, its own thoughts. This is one who was sure he was better than his fellows-more righteous, or racially superior, or of a finer temperament. But each sneering thought, each word of insult, fell here and was stored for his coming. He waits to be buried beneath his own mental filth-and in terror, for he knows what it did to those at whom he sneered."

   The sphere swerved upward and passed overhead. Inwardly, Matt flinched.

   A new sphere swam up. The soul inside sat grinning frantically, sweat popping from its brow, clutching at a brightly-colored object in front of it. As its hands touched it, the colors faded, and the bauble evaporated. Another appeared to the side; he clutched at it, but it faded, too.

   "This is a materialist," the devil cackled in glee. "He believed nothing was real save what he could see and feel. He sees it now, but can never touch it. Illusion-all he sees is illusion. Even should he touch his own body, he will find there no substance. He has lost his reality, you see. Still he'll go on, clutching at phantoms, in ever-failing hope that he'll find something real. Each creates his own," the devil went on, as the sphere swam away. "Each damns himself. All have chosen this; none are sent here who have not chosen it."

   Matt realized, Madness. They're all going mad-but they can never get there.

   "Of course," the devil gloated. "That's part of Hell."

   The sphere disappeared, and a dark, empty one replaced it.

   "Yes," the devil murmured, "this is yours. It is empty now, but 'twill soon be peopled. You will people it, with your own ungovernable fantasies; for you are, at the bottom, a solipsist, and your subconscious is out of control. Oh, by long and stern training, a man might gain mastery of it-but you have had no taste for such lasting, disciplined effort. Small wonder in that; all Hell is for such solipsists, of one form or another: but you have not chosen your form. These sinners you saw-there is something of each of them in you; but no one form of sinning has dominance in you. You are general, amorphous. All that may definitely be said is that you're convinced you're the center of the universe, you never have grown up, have you?-and that you're lost in your own illusions.

   "Let them have you!"

   The dark, empty sphere slammed up, and Matt plunged headlong against its surface. It gave beneath him, stretching, like a film of plastic; then it gave, and he broke through and in.

   Suddenly, he could move again, of his own accord-and could speak! Screaming, he whirled about and dove at the invisible wall. It stretched beneath him, it gave-but it didn't break.

   The devil throbbed and pulsed on the other side, howling with glee. "Oh yes, fight, struggle! But you'll never escape! Hell is forever!"

   A last desperate hope touched Matt's mind. "But my hell is being the victim of my own uncontrolled illusions! If I can get them under control, it'll cease to be Hell!"

   "Hell is Hell," the devil sneered.

   "Is it?" Matt cried. "Or is it purgatory? That's supposed to be just like Hell-except that it ends! And if this might end, it might be Purgatory!"

   "It might," the devil said thoughtfully.

   "Yeah! So which is it?"

   "Hell is not knowing," the devil murmured.

   And it hit Matt, with the full weight of despair-the devil was correct in this. If you were in Purgatory, you knew it; you knew it would end. Not knowing, he knew this was Hell!

   The devil was fairly bouncing with glee. "Despair! You do it so well! Ah, hope! It's so wonderful-when it's gone!"

   Matt realized the devil had been deliberately baiting him, encouraging a last flare of hope only so that it could snatch it away. Anger kindled, plowing through the despair; Matt shot forward against the unseen wall, hands outstretched for the devil's theoretical throat.

   "Rage!" The devil howled with delight. "Delightful to watch! I wish I could stay!"

   Panic surged through Matt, burying anger. This devil was, at least, a sentient being. "No, please! Foul as you are, you're some bit of company! Don't leave me alone!"