Astounding British Edition, Vol. 6, No. 8 — page 30: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

28 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION of the Snake, a thousand lokspans over the burning Plains of Istak.” “How about the Diamond?” “The Diamond—?” Evidently, he’d run so»far ahead of him- ~ self getting me fixed into the landscape that he’d forgotten all about the Diamond ‘that could kill the Snake. I didn’t remind him. However, a thousand lokspans over the burning plains sounded a little too far for walking, whatever aa lokspan might be. I said: “Why do you make things tough for yourself, Craswell?” “The name,” he said with tremendous dignity, “is Multan.” ° “Multan, Sultan, Shashlik, Dikkidam, Hammaneggs or whatever polysyllabic pooh- bah you wish to call yourself—TI still ask, why make things tough for yourself when there’s plenty of cabs around? Just whistle.” I whistled. The Purple Cab swung in, perfect to the last detail, including a hulking-backed, unshaven driver, dead ringer for the impolite gorilla who’d brought me out to Pentagon that evening. There is nothing on earth quite so un- utterably prosaic as a New York Purple Cab with that sort of driver. The sight upset Craswell, and the green plains wavered again while he struggled to fit the cab into his dream. “What new magic is this! You are in- deed mighty, Nelpar!” He got in. But he was trembling with the effort to maintain the structure of this world into which he had escaped, against my deliberate attempts to bring it crashing round his ears and restore him to colorless —but sane—normality. At this stage, I felt curiously sorry for him; but I realized that it might only be by permitting him to reach the heights of creative imagery before dousing him with the sponge from the cold bucket that I could jerk his drifting ego back out of dreamland. It was dangerous thinking. Dangerous— for me. Craswell’s thousand lokspans appeared to be the equivalent of ten blocks. Or perhaps he wanted to gloss over the mundane near- reality of a cab ride. He pointed forward, past the driver’s shoulder: “The Citadel of the Snake!” To me, it looked remarkably like a wedding cake designed by Dali in red plastic:—ten stories high, each story a platter half a mile thick, each platter diminishing in size and offset on the one beneath so that the edifice spiraled towards the brassy sky. : The cab rolled into its vast shadow, stopped beneath the sheer, blank precipice of the. base platter, which might have been two miles in diameter. Or three. Or four. What’s a mile or two among dreamers? Craswell hopped out quickly. I got out on the driver’s side. The driver said: “Dollar-fifty.” Square, unshaven jaw, low forehead, dirty-red hair straggling under his cap. I said: “Comes high, for a short trip.” “Lookit the clock,” he growled, squirming his shoulders. “Do I come out and get it?” I said sweetly: “Go to hell.” Cab and driver shot downwards through the green sand with the speed of an express elevator. The hole closed up. The times I’ve wanted to do just that— Craswell was regarding me open-mouthed. I said: “Sorry. Now I'm being escapist, too. Get on with the plot.” He muttered something I didn’t catch, strode across to the red wall in which a crack, meeting place of mighty gates, had appeared, and raised his sword. “Open, Garor! Your doom is nigh. Multan and Nelpar are here to brave the terrors of this Citadel and free the world from the tyranny of the Snake!” He ham- mered at the crack with the sword-hilt. “Not so loud,” I murmured. “You'll wake the neighbors. Why not use the bell-push?” I put my thumb-on the button and pressed. The towering. gates swung slowly open. “You ... you have been here before—” “Yes—after my last Icbster supper.” I bowed. “After you.” I followed him into a great, echoing tunnel with fluorescent walls. The gates closed behind us. He paused and looked at me with an odd gleam in his eyes. A gleam of—sanity. And there was anger in the set of his lips. Anger for me, not Garor or the Snake. : It’s not nice to have someone trampling all over your ego. Pride is a tiger—even in dreams. The subconscious, as Steve had ex- plained to me, is a function or state of the brain, not a small part of it. In thwarting Craswell, I was disparaging not merely his dream, but his very brain, sneering at his intellectual integrity, at his abilities as an imaginative writer. In a brief moment of rationality, I believe he was strangely aware of this. He said quietly: “You have limitations, Nelpar. Your outward-turning eyes are blind to the pain of creation; to you the crystal stars are spangles on the dress of a scarlet woman, and you mock the God- blessed unreason that would make life more than the crawling of an animal from womb to grave. In tearing the veil from mystery, you destroy not mystery—for there are many mysteries, ag million veils, world within and beyond worlds—but beauty. And in ee beauty, you destroy your soul.” ws These last words, quiet as they sounded, were caught up by the curving walls of the huge tunnel, amplified then diminished in eomichooks.co &