Harlan Ellison: Ellison Wonderland

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 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 had lived with it all his life. He knew it more familiarly than Krane—he could not cancel it, certainly, but he could utilize it more easily than the other.

Here was where he killed Krane. He pulled himself tightly to the wall, sweating palms flat to the glass, the valley of his backbone against the cool surface. “I’m right! The Theorem as I stated it i-is c-correct!” He said it triumphantly, though the note of terror quavered undisguised in his voice.

The spider-thing paused in its march, swung its clicking, ghastly head about as though confused, and altered direction by an inch. Away from Marmorth. It descended on Krane.

The black-bearded man looked up, saw it coming toward him, heard Marmorth’s words. Even on the floor, half-sunk in shock, he shouted, pounding his fists against the floor of glass, “Wrong, wrong, wrong! You’re wrong! I can prove my Theorem is correct! The basic formation of the Judiciary should be planned in an ever-decreasing system of—”

Marmorth didn’t even listen. He knew it was drivel! He knew the man was wrong! But the spider-thing had stopped once more. Now it paused between the two of them, its bulk shivering as though caught in a draft. Krane saw the hesitation on the monster’s part, and rose, the old confidence and impudence regained. He wiped his balled fists across his eyes, clearing them of tears. He continued speaking, steadily, and to Marmorth’s ears, in the voice of a fanatic. The man just could not recognize that he was wrong.

“You’re insane, man!” Marmorth interjected, waving his hands with fervor. “The setup must be balanced between a code of fair practices with a Guild system blocking efforts on the part of the Genres to rise into control of the gross planetary product!” He went on and on, outlining the Theorem.

Krane, too, shouted and gesticulated, both of them suddenly oblivious to the monstrous, black spider-thing which had stopped completely between them, vacillating.

When Marmorth stopped for an instant to regain his breath, the beast twisted its neckless head toward him. Marmorth then speeded up his speech, spewing out detail upon detail, and the beast slowly sank back into uncertainty.

It was obviously a battle of belief. Whichever combatant had more conviction—that one would win. They stood and shouted, screamed, outlined, explained and delineated for what seemed hours. Finally, as though in exasperation, the spider-thing began to turn. They both watched it, their mouths working, words pouring forth in twin streams of absolute sincere belief.

They watched even though…

…the starships fired at each other mercilessly. Blast after blast exploded soundlessly into the vault of space. Marmorth found his fingers twisted in the epaulet at his right shoulder.

As he watched Krane’s Magnificent-class destroyer wheel in the control-room screens, a half-naked, blood- soaked and perspiring crewman burst into the cabin’s entrance-well.