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Hardly with thought, Marmorth was off his throne and down the stepped dais,
his sword free from its scabbard, and arcing viciously.
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A hideously warted alien face rose before him and he thrust with all his
might! The blade pierced between the double-lidded eyes, and thick ochre blood
spurted across his tunic. He yanked the blade free, kicking the dead but still
quivering alien from its length. He leaped into the horde, howling a battlecry
from his youth.
Even as he leaped, he saw Krane s slash-mouthed smile, and the Lord s sword
swinging toward him!
So it hadn t been his illusion! It had been Krane s! He hadn t chosen the
proper course. Krane s belief at the moment was stronger than his own.
He fended off a double-handed smash from the black-bearded noble and fell
back. They parried and countered, thrust and slashed all around the dais. The
other nobles were too deeply involved fighting off the screaming aliens to
witness this battle between their King and his Lord.
Krane beat Marmorth back, back!
Why did I choose as I did?
Marmorth wailed mentally, berating himself.
Suddenly he slipped, toppling backward onto the steps. The sword flew from his
hand as it cracked against the edge of a step. He saw Krane bearing down on
him, the sword double-fisted as his opponent raised it like a stake above his
head.
In desperation, Marmorth summed up all his belief.
 ]t was the right decision!
screamed Marmorth with the conviction of a man about to die. He saw the sword
plunge toward his breast as...
...he gathered the light about him, sweeping his hands through the dripping
colors, making them shift and flow for him. He saw the figure of Krane,
standing haughtily in the bank of yellow, and he gathered the blue to himself
in a coruscating ball.
Fearsomely he bellowed his challenge,  This is my illusion, Krane, and watch
as I kill you!
He balled the blue in his hand and sent it flying, dripping spark and color as
it shot toward the black-
bearded man.
They both stood tall and spraddle-legged in the immensity of they
knew-not-where. The colors dripped from the air, making weird patterns as they
mixed and ran.
The blue ball struck in front of Krane and exploded, cascading a rich flood of
chromatic brilliance into the air. Krane laughed at the failure.
He gathered the black to him, wadding it in strong and supple fingers. He
wound up, almost as though it was a sport, and flung the wadded black at
Marmorth.
The older man knew he had not enough belief yet built to withstand this
onslaught. Marmorth knew if the black enfolded him he would die in the
never-ending limbo of nothingness.
He thrust hands up before his face to stop the onrush of the black, but it
struck him and he fell, clutching feebly at a washy stringer of white.
He fell into the black as it surrounded him, and in a moment knew he was in
the limbo.
This was not his illusion! It could not be, for he was vanquished! Yet he was
not dead, as he had felt sure he would be. He lay there, thinking.
He remembered all the effort he had put in on the Political Theorem. The
Theorem he had proposed in the
Council. It had represented years of work--the culmination of all his adult
thought and effort; and, he had to admit it, the Theorem was soundly based on
his own view of the Universe.
Then the presumptuous Krane had offended him by restating the Theorem. Before
the very faces of the
Council!
Krane had, of course, twisted it to his own evil and malicious ends--basing it
anew on his conception of the
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All.
Oh, there had been a verbal battle. There had been the accusations, the
clanging of the electric gavel, the remonstrances of the Compjudge, the
shocked expressions of the other Councilors! Till finally Marmorth had been
goaded by the younger man into the Duel. Then into the Silver Corridor.
From which only one of them would emerge. The one who did would force his
Theorem on the Council.
To be accepted, of course. The Theorem was so basic, the view would be
recognized and accepted.
It all revolved, then, around whose view of the Universe, whose Theorem, was
the right one. It could be either Krane s or Marmorth s.
Marmorth struck out at the black!
Mine, mine, mine
! He shouted soundlessly. He lashed into the nothingness.
My Theorem is the proper one! I believe it! I do!
Then he saw the stringer of white in his hand. So this was Krane in the
ascendant, was it! Now came the moment of retaliation.
He whipped the stringer around his invisible head, swaying as he was, there in
the depthless black. The stringer thickened. He cupped it to him, washing it
with his hands, strengthening it, shaping and molding it.
In a moment it had grown. In a moment more the white had burst forth like a
ripe blossom and flooded all.
Revealing Krane standing there, in his breechclout, massaging the plae pink
between his fingers.
 Mine, Krane, mine!
 he screamed, flinging the orange-green!
Krane blanched and tried to duck. The orange-green came on like a sliver of
Forever, streaking and burning as it rode currents that did not exist. Then
the light shattered, and fired, and spat. As Marmorth realized they had
nullified each other again, that the illusion was dissolving around them, he
heard Krane bellow, even as loud as he had,  Mine, Marmorth, mine!
Then the colors ran. They flowed, they merged, they sucked at his body, while
he...
...shrank up against the glass wall next to Krane. They both stared in
fascinated horror as the huge, ichor-
dripping spider-thing advanced on them, mandibles clicking.
 My God in Heaven! Marmorth heard Krane bellow.  What is it? Krane scrabbled
at the glass wall behind them, trying to get out. They were trapped.
The glass walls circled them, wide; just the spider-thing and each other,
trapped in the tiny tomb!
Marmorth was petrified. He could neither move nor speak --he could hardly
sense anything but terror.
Spiders were his personal fear. He found his legs were quivering at the knees,
though he had not sensed it a moment before. The very sight of the hairy
beasts had always sent shudders through him. Now he knew this was his
illusion.
He was in the ascendant!
But how hideously in the ascendant.
The spider-thing advanced on them, the soft plush pads of its hundred feet
leaving dampness where it stopped.
Krane fell to his knees, moaning and scratching at the glass floor.  Out, out,
out, out.., he mumbled, froth dripping from his lips.
Marmorth knew this was his chance. This fear was a product of his own mind; he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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