(Jeff Caird said, quietly though very near, "But you forget that I am your maker.")
Zurvan yelled and fell to the floor. He rolled back and forth on the carpet crying, "No! No! No!"
When he stopped rolling and shouting, he lay for a long while on his back staring at the ceiling.
("Hell, why don't we quit prolonging this agony?" Charlie
Ohm said. "Let's turn ourselves in. They're going to catch us, anyway. And we'll be safe from the immers.")
("Too many organics are immers," Jim Dunski said. "They'll get to us, find some reason to kill us before we can talk. Anyway, I don't like to quit.")
("It's shootout time at the Psychic Corral," Wyatt Repp said. "May the best man win. Get off the floor and be a man, Zurvan. Fight! If you lose, go down trying to win! Fight! Don't listen to that loser, the lush!")
Zurvan walked to the kitchen as if he were pushing through cotton candy. He drank a tall glass of water, went to the toilet, relieved himself, and put cold water on his face. After drying off, he picked up his shoulderbag and walked to the hallway door.
("Hey, where you going?" Ohm said.)
("He's going to turn us in," Bob Tingle said. "By the time the organics get through with us, no stone will be left unturned. We'll be turned inside out and then turned to stone. Think about it, man!")
("I didn't mean it," Ohm said. "I was only kidding you, pushing you to see if you really were crazy.")
("Don't do it!" Caird said. "There may be a way out!")
Zurvan closed the door behind him and walked toward the elevator. "I'm not going to turn myself in," he said. "I'm going for a long walk. I can't stand being caged in the apartment. I need to think. I need ..
What did he need? A possibility where all was impossible.
("When the rat in the laboratory can't find the way out of the labyrinth," Caird said, "when the rat runs up against an insoluble problem, when the rat is hopelessly confused, it lies down and dies.")
"I am not a rat!" Zurvan said.
("No," Caird said, "you're not. You're not even a rat. You're a fiction! Remember, I am your maker! I, the real, made you, a fiction! ")
("Then that means the rest of us, too, are fictions," Repp said. "You made us. But so what?, You're a fiction, too, Caird. The government and the immers made you.")
("Fiction can become reality," Dunski said. "We're as real as Caird. After all, he made us from parts of him. He grew us as surely as a mother grows the embryo in the womb. And he gave birth to us. Now he wants to kill us. His children!")
("For Chrissake!" Ohm said. "We all want to kill each other! God, I need a drink!")
("I am your maker," Caird said over and over again. "The maker of all of you. What I can make, I can unmake. I am your maker and your unmaker.")
("Bullshit!" Charlie Ohm cried. "You're not Aladdin, and we're not genies you can put back into the bottle!")
("You would think of a bottle," Bob Tingle said. "Lush, loser, lessening Lazarus! Think of yourself as a hangover we all want to get rid of. You're all hangovers!")
("En garde, you son of a bitch!")
("Play your hand!")
("All fictions. I made you. I now unmake you.")
("Ohm-mani-padme-hum! ")
("Humbug, you alcoholic hummingbird! ")
("I made you. I am unmaking you. Do you think for one moment that I didn't foresee this. I made the rituals that admitted you each day into your day. I also made the reverse ritual, the undoing ritual, the no-entrance ritual. I knew that I'd need it some day. And today is the day!")
("Liar! ")
("Fictions calling the fiction-maker a liar? Living lies calling the one who made you truths, though temporary truths, a liar? I am your maker. I made you. I am unmaking you. Can't you feel everything slipping away? Go back to where you came from!")
The wind that blew across Waverly Place was not strong enough as yet to blow off a hat. But the winds howling inside
Zurvan seemed to lift him up and carry him away into the clouds. The light grew dim; the pedestrians around him were looking at him because he was staggering. When they saw him drop to his knees and lift his hands high, they backed away.
Far in the east, thunder stomped its feet in a war dance and lightning flashed its many lances.
Zurvan sped whirling through the whirling grayness. He tried to grab the dark wetness to keep himself from falling. Up? Or down?
"0 Lord," he bellowed, "I'm lost! Snatch me from this doom! Take me away from this gray world to your glory!"
The people on the sidewalk backed even farther away or hurried off as Zurvan clapped his hands to his eyes and screamed, "The light! The light!"
He fell forward on his arms and lay still for a moment.
"Call an ambulance," someone said.
He rolled over, staring and blinking, and got unsteadily to his feet. "That won't be necessary," he said. "I'm all right. Just a bit dizzy. I'll go home. It's near. Just leave me alone."
Jeff Caird, whispering, "The light! The light!" walked across the bridge over the canal. By the time that he was a block away from Washington Square, he felt steady and strong.
("He's gone?" Tingle said.)
("Like the Indian that folded his tepee and stole away into the night," Wyatt Repp said.)
("He almost took me with him," Charlie Ohm said. "God! The light!")
("It was sword-shaped," Jim Dunski said. "It came down and lifted him on its blade and tossed him up into blazing sky.")
Their voices were faint. They became a little louder when they discovered that Caird was now in control of the body.
("Oh, my God," Ohm said, "we're sunk!")
("Look at it this way," Repp said. "Zurvan's bit the dust.
Now ... it's Caird's last stand. We'll have his scalp before this is over.")
Zurvan had not been sure that he had not been making up the voices of the others. Caird was equally unsure. It did not matter that they might be imaginary. Nor did it matter that the voices might be those of personae as real as his. What mattered was that he was master. And he knew what he was going todo.
He walked against the increasing wind toward the tall yellow vertical tube on the northwest corner of the park. This was one of the entrances to the underground system of transportation belts and power and water lines. A strip by its side warned that only SCC workers could use it. There were no workers or uniformed organics in sight, and the few people who had lingered in the park were leaving it.
He stopped. Under the branches of an oak tree in the distance sat a lone figure. The man who had been playing chess with Gril was walking away, shaking his head. Apparently, Gril had asked his partner to finish the game. The man, however, would rather forfeit.
Caird stopped by the entrance to the tube.
("What now?" Ohm said faintly.)
A few leaves blown from the trees whirled by. The wind, cool with the promise of rain, lifted his hair. A bicycler, bent over, feet pumping, sped by.
Gril stood up. His red beard and long red hair were ruffled by the wind. He gathered up the pieces, put them in a case, folded the chessboard, and slid it into the case. Caird began running toward him. He shouted, but the wind carried his words over his shoulder as if they were confetti.
Gril turned and saw Caird running at him. He crouched and looked to both sides as if he wanted to find the best way to flee. Then he drew himself up and waited.