Her Majesty's Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  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 s
tern 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!"

  "Alone," the devil mocked him. "That, at the bottom, is the nature of Hell. Farewell, penultimate skeptic! Farewe-e-e-e-e-lll!"

  Its voice faded as it shrank down to a dot, receding, going, going...

  Gone.

  Matt was surrounded by darkness, total, impenetrable, without a single iota of light. Not even the pinpoints of distant, other hells were visible any longer. Despair plunged down on him, flattening the soul. He looked about frantically for a dagger, a razor, anything to end life!

  Then he remembered-life was ended.

  And the loneliness bit in through the despair, till Matt could have sworn there was nothing left of him but a consciousness that felt its isolation as a burning pain, worse than fire in each cubic millimeter. His whole being pleaded for madness.

  A low growling sounded, swelling to fill the void.

  Matt whirled about, panic clutching his throat.

  It shot toward him-black, with curly fur and a blunted muzzle that opened to show long, pointed teeth, sharper than any dog ever had.

  "No!" Matt shrieked, dropping into a crouch, arms up to hide his face. "No! I loved you! You were my friend!"

  But the dog came on, its growl rising to rage, eyes reddening.

  It was the pet dog from his boyhood, the dog who had died while he was at summer camp.

  The growling modulated into words. "I died without you:"

  "It wasn't my fault, Malemute! I was a kid, I couldn't get back! They didn't tell me!" And his brain knew the truth of the words, but his subconscious didn't believe it.

  So neither did Malemute. Knife-teeth flashed down. Matt screamed as they ripped furrows in his leg. He jackknifed over, clawing at the muzzle, trying to pry the jaws apart. But the dog bit down harder; teeth crunched on Matt's bone, and he shrieked. The dog chewed, ripping the leg into shreds.

  "Give him to me!"

  Jaws snapped open; the dog's head jerked up, looking back over its shoulder.

  Long, golden hair, round face, huge, long-lashed eyes, impossibly full, ruby lips, long, tapering legs, swelling hips, and huge pillow-breasts-she advanced, smiling lazily.

  But Matt didn't feel the slightest bit of sexual interest; he felt terror. He knew her; she'd filled his dreams, day and night, in earliest puberty. In his daydreams, she'd been very willing, extremely cooperative-after all, there hadn't teen that much asked. But at night ...

  He plastered himself back against the yielding wall, sweat starting from his brow.

  "Yes," she murmured sleepily, "this is a woman. Touching you here ...touching you here..."

  Matt's scream turned into a shuddering gasp. Her touch was like pliers drawing hot wire, drawing it out of the depths of his body. Fire lanced him from knees up to chest.

  "The pain is the preacher's," she breathed, "but -the lust is yours." Her face slipped up, and huge breasts descended, covering, enfolding his face, pressing down, cutting off sight and sound, isolating him, smothering. He fought for air, gasping, struggling; but nothing could move that huge, sodden weight ...

  "Stand aside! Let me through!"

  Bolster-weight rolled off him. Matt jerked up, gasping for breath...

  A knight in full armor advanced, broadsword in hand. He glanced at the fertility symbol, then averted his eyes. "Clothe yourself! Do you not know the law?"

  "Law!" Matt grasped at the straw. "Here? What law?"

  "The law of your mind," the knight intoned sternly. "The law buried there, in the depths, the prudish ethic-that nothing unclothed can be good."

  A friend, Matt thought, with a surge of hope. "Yes! Show me some clothes!"

  "I am they." The knight clanked up closer, three feet away. Matt realized, with a shock, that the slits in the visor showed blackness only. "I am clothes, or what you saw clothing to be, only armor, only a shield. You ever went clothed, for you feared other people."

  Matt realized that the voice was echoing hollowly, and the fear of the nameless surged though him as the broadsword lifted. "Defense mechanism," the knight boomed. "So you thought clothes to be, thought them armor; but you forgot what accompanies armor and shields." His own shield swept up. Five razor-edged knife blades were welded to it, pointing at Matt. "Your defense gave offense. Those who sought to touch you, befriend you, you pushed away with your shield-and, in pushing, gave wounds." The shield slammed out, stabbing through Matt's chest and stomach in five places. He tried to scream, but only burbling came through the blood in his throat.

  The scene reeled about him-dog, knight, and fertility symbol, clothed now in a high, pointed cap with a gossamer veil hanging down to the back of her velvet gown.

  The sword! Matt tried to twist away, but the knife-points held him in place. His mouth stretched wide in a burbling shriek as he watched the guillotine-edge swooping down, biting into his neck. Pain shot through him; the scene jolted, then reeled crazily about him. He felt his head turning and falling. Then he bounced, rolled, and looked up at his own headless body, held up by the shield, neck fountaining blood.

  The knight leaned into his field of view, sword, dropping from his fingers, steel gauntlet reaching down at Matt's head. He felt himself lifted, saw the steel helmet zooming up as the left hand let go of the shield, letting the body crumple, to swing the visor up. "Look now at the truth of a soul that seeks to hide from all others," the voice boomed. And Matt felt himself jerked up to look down into the helmet. It was empty-hollow to the depths.

  Matt's lips writhed back in a shriek, but no sound came.

  How could a man of reason face the knowledge that all was illusion-and the corollary that reason forced upon him: that he, himself, did not exist?

  Then a thought w
afted through his mind like a life preserver. There was an answer that had saved the sanity of countless others. And the answer was-faith!

  At the thought, a pencil-thin ray of light lanced down through the void, striking his ear and filling his head with a pure, bell-like tone that became words: Thou wast stolen here before thy true tame was come. Hell cannot hold thee, if thou dost call upon God.

  "Cut off his lips!" the girl screamed as the beam of light winked out. The knight dropped his visor to catch up his sword.

  But Matt's lips twitched into old Latin words:

  De profundis clamo ad Te, Domine! Domine! Out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord!

  And breath came where there were no lungs, hissing the words. Hell had bound the name of God from his tongue, but it had not locked out the word "Lord". His voice croaked and swelled:

  "Audi vocem meam, Fiant aures Tuae intentae Ad vacem obse creationis meae ..."

  The woman screamed, and the knight howled; then their voices faded into distance, their owners sinking into vastness, receding, shrinking down to pinpoints ...

  And they were gone.

  Matt was whole again, his head on his shoulders, skin intact and unblemished; but he shook, his whole body trembling. He shivered in the cold of the void. He stood, frozen and paralyzed. The hymn had banished illusions, but left him frozen forever in a lightless block, bereft of words.

  But emotion was left; and his whole being surged up into one burning, silent, wordless plea, a pathetic, despairing cry for help. In the moment of extinction, the spirit wailed for its God.

  And a pinpoint of infrared answered, a pinpoint growing into a dim, ruby glow of blessed light! Other small glows appeared near it. Their glowing grew, seeming too illuminate all of the darkness, to show him... Ashes, charred stick ends, and the embers of a campfire.

  Feeble, pale light breathed a cold benediction throughout the dome overhead. Looking up, Matt saw stars and realized he lay on his back.

  Lowering his eyes slowly, he made out dim shapes in the darkness. A cloaked mound with a sword lying near a steel hand was Sir Guy. Beyond it, in a shroud of brown riding-cloak, lay Alisande. Stegoman's huge bulk blotted out stars across the fire from Matt. And the still, homespun mound at the left was Sayeesa, her sobs quieted now.