“I understand. You won’t give in, reckoning this is a bluff, that at any moment I’ll let you know you’ve been taken.” Waden reached to the table beside him, took up dried clay in his fingers and crumbled it. Suddenly he grasped the table edge and upended it.
Herrin exclaimed in shock and grabbed for it; but it fell; the head hit the floor and distorted itself and he grabbed for Waden, seized up a handful of impeccable suit and headed Waden for the wall.
The Outsiders grabbed him from behind, hauled him back while he was still too shocked at the touch itself; and at the destruction; and at Waden Jenks.
“I’m very serious,” Waden said. “Believe me that you won’tgo on working as you please, and I know what it is to you—admit it, admit that after all, you don’t control what happens, and ask me, just ask me for what I’ve offered you, on my terms ... because those are the terms you’ll get. Those are the terms you have to live with. It’s my world. I can make it comfortable for you—or harsh; and all you have to do to save yourself a great deal of grief is to admit that truth, and follow orders, which is all you’ve ever really done. Only now you have to see it and to deal with that fact. Admit it. When you can—you’re quite safe.”
“I’m not about to.” Herrin tried to shake himself loose. It was going to take losing the rest of his composure and still he entertained the suspicion it was all farce. “We’ll talk about this later. Rationally.”
“No. There’s no talk left. I just ask you whether you’re willing to be reasonable in this. That’s all.”
“Oh, well, I agree.”
“You’re lying of course, I know. Humor me, you think, try eventually to move me. No. I’m leaving now, Herrin. I’ve borrowed these troops from the port; they don’t have the reluctance in some regards anyone else in Kierkegaard would have. Others wouldn’t lay a hand on you, but they will. They’ll see to it that you can’t use that talent of yours again. You see, I also deal with the material as well as the mind; and by the material—on the mind. I don’t want him killed—understand me well—I just want it assured he won’t make any more statues. Physically. Herrin, I don’t want it this way.”
“Then you’ve already lost control.”
“It’s not a game, Herrin; not a debate: I’m leaving. And if you ask me and I know you’ve come to my Reality, Herrin, you can get out of this.” Waden walked to the door, waited, looked back. “Herrin?”
He shook his head, suddenly made up his mind and jerked loose, headed for Waden in the intent of getting to him, the head, the center of it; a hand grasped his arm, dragging at him and he spun, elbowed for a belly and rammed his free hand for a throat, but they hauled at his arms again. There was no one in the doorway; the door closed, in fact leaving him with them, and a blow slammed into his midsection in the instant he looked.
He threw his whole body into it, rammed his feet into one of them, twisted with manic force and threw one of them over, came down on that one and rammed a freed forearm into his face. A blow dazed him, sent his vision red and black, and he tried to heave himself to his feet, met a body and heaved his weight into it. The body and a table went over, and they went on hitting him, over and over again, until his balance left him and he hit the floor on hip and shoulder. “Don’t kill him,” one reminded the others. “Don’t risk killing him.” One trod on his arm, and a boot came down on his hand, smashed down on it repeatedly. He tried to protect himself, but they had him, rolled him on his face and smashed the other hand. He had not, to his knowledge, made a sound—did then, cried out from the pain and lost all his organization to resist the blows that came at him and the blurred figures which swarmed over him. He curled up when they had let him go. Even that instinctual move came hard, muscles twitching without coordination, some paralyzed. One of them kicked him in the belly and he could not prevent it.
They walked away then. He lay aching on the concrete floor and heard the door open and close. He moved his arms and tried to move his legs and to lift his head. His stomach started heaving, dry heaves that racked torn muscles from chest to groin. He tried to push his right hand against the floor and there was both pain and numbness. He saw the hand in front of him distorted beyond human form, hauled the left arm from under his ribs and went sick with the pain as wrist and fingers ground under him, that hand distorted like the other. He moaned to himself, tried again and again to roll onto his elbow to get an arm under him while his stomach spasmed. He collapsed, tried it again, finally sat up and tucked his wounded hands under his arms, rocking and grimacing against the pain that washed over him in blurring waves.
He saw himself finally. He saw himself sitting in a room where enemies could come back and find him, to hurt him further or simply to stare. He saw himself faced with the need to go outside, a Master of the University, who had to go maimed into public view and face the people who had feared him and the people who had relied on him for their own realities, and the students he had taught and most of all Waden Jenks and Keye Lynn. He shuddered, swallowed down another spasm and could not stop shivering. He tried to get up, finally made it, still doubled over, and reached the wall to lean on.
Had to go out. There was nowhere to go and nowhere to stay. He hurt, and he could not straighten, could not even change the clothes which were smeared with clay and dust and blood. He tried, ineffectually, to straighten the studio ... gathered up the sketchbook which had been stepped on, clenching his teeth against the waves of sickness. Tried. There was no saving the clay; it was ruined, and he did not want to look at it. He managed finally to stand with his back against the wall, though it hurt, managed to catch his breath.
Waden’s reality. They came now, the Outsiders, whenever they would; and wherever they would ... Waden’s doing. Waden had meant this—always meant this.
His eyes stung; he wept, and pushed from the wall to the doorway, managed finally with his ruined hand to reach the latch and to open it.
No one saw him, down the hall and down the stairs. They looked at first, but he flinched and they flinched from seeing him.
He fell on the steps outside. It was a moment before he could recover from the impact, and some had started toward him, but when he looked up at them and they looked at him, they pretended they had been going somewhere else, because he had fallen from more than the height of the steps, and he knew it and they knew it. It was a matter outside their realities. He gathered himself up finally, and leaned against the wall for a time until he could walk.
He did so, then, because he ached and walking seemed to make the ache less, or it distracted him, or it was the only reality he had left, simple motion to evidence life. He was no longer sure.
XXII
Waden Jenks: Freedom is my beginning, not my limit.
Master Law: We once talked of hubris.
Waden Jenks: And discounted it.
He kept walking, a slow, a public process ... incredible how long it took just to go the length of the building unsupported; or to try the next distance. He went the opposite way from the Residency, which was along Port Street, and necessarily toward the port, because there was no way off Port Street in this direction but that wire gate at the end. There were some students walking, three, four meetings to endure; but they passed without evidencing that they saw. He walked bent, because of the pain, and when he would reach a place where there was a surface to lean on he would rest. He was not, at present, rational, and knew it, but standing still hurt, and he was too ashamed to sit down. He had no idea where he was going, only where he refused to go, which was to Waden Jenks, or to the center of Kierkegaard where people could see him, or the University where he had to face people he had taught and people he had directed.
The port gateway was ahead; he did not want that either, but when he stopped, swaying on his feet and subconsciously reckoning how long he could stand without falling and how much strength he had ... he conceived of himself wandering mindlessly back and forth, back and forth on Port Street between the Residency and the University until he dropped, too dazed to do otherwise.