of themaze. He opened his eyes, painfully.
This time, there were tears, glistening and falling slowly, glisteninglike crystal dewdrops in sunlight, and falling in softly tinkling showerlike spilled jewels.
"Songeen!" he cried.
"Yes," murmured a tympany of glass bells, "I am here."
It was Songeen--almost, again, as he remembered her, almost human. Itwas Songeen, small, delicate, unreal, but sweetly feminine--almosthuman. It was Songeen, but with something added, changed, oddly blendedinto both form and personality.
"I tried to save you," she murmured. "I tried, but could not reach you.My knowledge is incomplete. I thought you were weak, confused, toofrightened and disturbed to be changed easily. But you were strong, andyour violence was a challenge to it. Only the Masters could understand.They saved you--not I. They intervened in time."
"The Masters!" Newlin glanced round, quickly, warily. "They are here?"
"Not here--now. But they saved you. I did not know all the dangers.They--not I--"
"Saved me from what--death?"
"No--worse. And now they say you must go back. At once. The Masters urgehaste."
* * * * *
Newlin tasted bitterness on his lips. "Orders from headquarters. Well,I've been kicked out of better places--but few more interesting. Too badI forgot my brass knuckles."
Physically, he tried to rise. Every bone and muscle ached. But it couldhave been worse. He seemed intact. Hints of vagrant color rippled overhis visible skin, but he sensed neither pain nor menace from them.
Songeen bent over him. Her arm supported him in sitting position. It wasunnecessary, but the sensation of contact was pleasant. He yielded toher ministrations and looked about. It was still the forest,crystalline, murmurous--but now muted. The same glary, unpleasant lightbeat down from the same impossible sky. Storming, eery colors flowedinfinite mutations of form through the crystal spectres of the maze. Andthe tinkle of myriad glass wind bells held a maddening overtone.
He had thought, somehow, that it would be different. That it would havechanged, subtly, as had Songeen. But from a brief survey, nothing hadchanged. The tumult had faded, become bearable--but identity remained.
Disappointed, he rose slowly, and felt her strong arm clasp about him.He felt clumsy, off-balance, but not weak. If anything, he was stronger.Stronger, and more cleanly, clearly alive than he had felt before.
"Come," urged Songeen. "I will take you back to the portal."
"Back--to that?"
Newlin struggled with the futility of words. He was not sure what hewanted, let alone what he wanted to say. That insinuating crystallineclatter got inside his brain, scattered thought.
Songeen caught a stirring of rebellion in him and sensed his mentalconfusion.
"Don't fear the hunters," she said. "There are other doorways, and youcan issue onto some other planet, if you wish. Try not to think, or evenfeel."
Her voice penetrated the uproar of his mind, stilling troubled waters,blanketing other sounds. For seconds, it seemed to elevate him to someremote, lofty plane where life was serene, uncomplicated. Detached, hedrifted with his own alien thoughts. Through senses other than visual,he watched his stumbling progress at her side as the girl threaded apathway through the maze. Through senses not normally his own, he wasaware of the utter strangeness behind this forest and its crystallinemysteries. He recognized the girl as part of the strangeness.
Dimly, he sensed some cosmic reluctance in himself, and was disturbed byhis trend of thought. Faintly, he was aware of bodily movement and thecrowding feel of shadowy aisles about him. But he was more aware of thegirl, of her physical presence, and of the unrest she inspired in him.
Songeen! He had known many women on many, strange worlds. But none likethis, none ever so strange, so wonderful, so terrifying. He had wantedher, yes. But only for an hour of passion, at first. An hour of theblinding futility of trying, in her arms, to forget the crowdingugliness of life. He had not cared if the women he knew had souls, or ifhe had. Souls were unfamiliar, vague, and he would not have known one ifhe encountered it. Soft, white bodies, glowing like pale witchlights inthe darkness. Yes, he had known many such. He had known many women,loved none.
Newlin had not spoken, not in words. But Songeen heard, by some subtlesense that was part of this abnormal forest.
Her laugh was a soft tinkle of breaking glass. She did not speak aloud,but word-symbols of thought poured from her mind. Newlin was aware ofthem, springing suddenly into his own brain, but he knew they came fromher.
"Many women, yes. But none like me. If you loved me, it would not be forthis body. It is not what you think. I hold this substance, this form,only by power of will. It is mine only for a short while more. My fleshis not like yours, subject to different laws of form and movement."
* * * * *
Newlin answered her, but now in words. His voice sounded like a note ofstrained sanity in such a place of nightmare.
"I never learned love in the sense you mean," he said. "Nor had Ithought of you again, in that way--after Monta Park. You were too alienfor me. I understood that. Too alien for any kind of love I knew. Youwere--repulsive."
In silence, then, thoughts blocked out, Songeen guided Newlin. Sheseemed aloof, withdrawn. They filed slowly amid towering masses of smokycrystal. She led, drifting like a smoke wraith, before him. Newlinpicked a cautious pathway over treacherous, unstable footing. Hefollowed, bemused, and reluctance grew into agony of mind.
What was wrong with him? He grappled with himself, and strains grew intoopen rebellion. What did he want?
Near the portal, sensing it or another like it, he balked.
"Songeen!"
At his call, she glided back, phantomlike. "Yes?"
"You're in trouble here, aren't you? Because of bringing me?"
Shoulders as translucent as thin ivory shrugged. "No matter."
"But you are?" Newlin insisted, as if it mattered suddenly to him.
"Yes," she granted softly. "But do not alarm yourself. Onlymisunderstanding. I will explain my motives. They will point out myerror. There is no punishment here."
"You're not telling everything. What is wrong?"
Her moonfire eyes were troubled. "Nothing you can help."
Newlin probed mercilessly. "Tell me. Why did you bring me here? It wasnot only to save me from the hunters. Even I guessed that. Why?"
Poised, slender, defiant as a sword, Songeen met and parried his attack."I cannot tell you that."
Newlin took her rebuff gracelessly. He was a son of Chaos, a man of thebrawling, violent Solar breeds. His temper was short, his words andactions direct. He saw challenge and answered in kind.
"Then take me to the Masters."
Fear and fury blazed in her eyes. "They have not sent for you. I cannottake you to them like this. You are mad. You will live to regret this.Why, why?"
"I'll tell you. You said I could be decontaminated. You said I could becured, that I could stay here--afterwards. I want to stay now. Is therea way. Can I be cured?"
"Of the madness, yes. But it is a fearful way. Do you know how alllunatics are treated? How they are cured, if at all? In your ownasylums, do you know how madness is treated?"
"Yes, I know," Newlin answered roughly. "By shock treatment. I suspectedsomething of the sort, all the time. Am I right? Is your treatmentsimilar?"
Songeen nodded, her movement a shimmering echo of the forest's mirroredquivering.
"Similar--but not the same. The shock used is different. More intenseand terrible than insulin or electrical shock. Could you survive suchtreatment?"
Newlin snorted. "I don't know. I'm just crazy enough to try. I won't sayI like this place--your world or the nuthouse entrance to it. But withyou, I like it better than any other place without you. I think I'm inlove with you."
Worms of pale light flared and writhed in her eyes. Something shifted,the oddments of woman-flesh shredded from her. Like a transpar
entmannequin of glass, she stood. Inside her, luminous organs squirmedvisibly. Like a dream-woman, she stood just outside the boundaries ofsanity. But like a dream-woman, she was beautiful, immortal, desirable.
"You've said it," she murmured. "Now that you see me as I am, do youstill want me? Say it again, now, Spud Newlin, say it in your newknowledge of the things as they really are."
* * * * *
Newlin hesitated, made his choice. Wandering, ill and alone, terrified,in the forests of nightmare--he chose. Madman's choice.
"I love you, Songeen. Take me to the Masters."
Nightmare wavered. A hand, oddly shaped, sought his as the witchfiresburned low and faded from the sky.
"I can take you now. It is not far, and the
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