XX

BIRD-DOG SAID, brandishing a bone:

—Look, little brother. Look. Here’s a bone for you. Good dog. It’s a very special bone. The Bone of K. Take it. Come and bury it.

—Bird-Dog, said Flapping Eagle, slowly. Is it you?

She stood mockingly upon a rock, stamping her right foot as she turned in a slow circle. She tossed him the bone. It fell unerringly into his hand; a rose grew from a crack in it. He stuffed it into his trousers.

She was lying mockingly upon the rock, pulling her raggedy skirt up to her waist and spreading her legs, arching her back.

—Come in, little brother, she said. Come and bury it.

He crawled towards her, weakly, and the nearer he came, the larger she grew. A hundred yards away and she was already as large as a horse. The hole between her legs yawned; its hairs were like ropes. Ten yards away. She was a house, a cavern lying red and palpitating before him, the curtain of hair parting. He heard her booming voice.

—Why resist, she was saying. Give up, little brother. Come in. Give up. Come in. Give up.

He crawled into the cavern. The curtain fell into place behind him, cutting off all light.

Inside … a dark reddish glow. There she was again, fleet Bird-Dog, racing away into her own depths, squealing with childish delight.

—Silly little brother, can’t catch me, she cried and vanished around a corner. He was not yet strong enough to chase. He stood up.

And heard the voice of Virgil Jones.

—The trouble with Grimus, the voice said, is he can’t control the Effect. Its field grows stronger and stronger. You’ll have to get used to it gradually. Control your thoughts. Slowly. Softlee softlee catchee monkee. The inner dimensions are lonely places. We create our own, so to speak. Frightening, that: each man his own universe. Imagine the effect. Men go mad. That’s the tragedy of K. They’re all scared of their own minds. I was, myself, once, but there’s not much of it left now. Like old Father William, eh? Small pleasantry. May I interest you in a theory? Fellow in K, You’ll meet him, calls himself a philosopher, Ignatius Gribb, Ignatius Q. Gribb. Q for Quasimodo. I. Q. Gribb, you see, never knew if it was his idea of a joke or his parents’, the initials. He used to say: —there are no human beings alive. What we all are is Shells, and hovering around in the ether are what he called Forms. Things like emotions, reasons and so forth. They occupy one of us for a while, then another one moves in. It’s pretty in its fashion. Explains the illogicality of some human actions. Shifts of character and so forth It’s completely exploded by the dimensions, of course. The one thing that stays constant in the shifts between the dimensions is one’s own consciousness. But then Mr Gribb tries very hard to ignore the dimensions. They’re a frightening thing. Cultivate your consciousness, Mr Eagle, that’s the way out. There’s always a way. Where there’s a will. Only control you have.

The voice faded away again.

Flapping Eagle took a deep breath, closed his eyes, opened his eyes and tried to establish his whereabouts. It was like standing in foam. Springy, his feet subsided into it. Soft wet reddish foam.

Red: that meant light. If there was colour, there was light, but he could see no light-source. Yet there was light, dim, diffuse, but light. He gave up the search.

He turned to look behind him, at the entrance. It was no longer there. A brief moment of claustrophobia, then calm, despite the ancient saying that grew in his head and took words for itself: Jonah in the belly of the whale.

The survival instinct lies buried deep in soft civilizations; in the peripatetic Flapping Eagle, it lay very near the surface, if somewhat weakened by his knowledge of his immortality. Now, when he was plunged into a world his senses told him could not exist, but which they also told him did exist, this instinct took him over. It did so in a very physical way. He could perceive a thing which was entirely himself but also not-himself assuming command of his faculties and gritting his teeth for him. It was a simple but overwhelming self-command to survive this. He was astonished and a little pleased at the strength of his own will. In extremis veritas.

WHERE THERE’S A WILL. The realization of his own power, of Virgil Jones’ meaning, dawned on him. Here was his way out, if his resolve was strong enough.

He began to practise. At his first attempt, a rose grew from the floor of the Place. (He could not think of it as his sister’s insides, especially as he had seen her disappearing down the fleshy corridor.) The rose died almost at once. He thought about this, and a second rose grew. It showed no signs of dying.

He looked at the floor, and it became solid. A carpet covered it, hand-woven in silk, with an Eye embroidered into the very centre. He used the eye to make windows. It glared at the red walls and they fell into order.

It was really quite an elegant room, even if the walls were a livid red. He felt almost proud of himself.

Outside the windows, Calf Mountain was beginning to form. He got as far as seeing the clearing, the forest around it, and even caught a glimpse of Virgil Jones, who seemed to come right up to one of the windows until his fleshy face filled it. There was a door in the wall, ebony-handled; all he had to do was open it and walk out and he would be well. Controlling the Dimensions was easy, if you knew what you were doing, he told himself cockily. He rather fancied he saw a look of respect in Mr Jones’ eyes.

The Gorf was feeling disappointed. He had locked himself to Flapping Eagle’s self, using the parasitic technique by which Gorfs communicated, and had fully expected a long, delectable time of Endimions-shuffling, which was the next best thing he knew to the Divine Game. But here was Flapping Eagle displaying an exceptional capacity for controlling the Endimions.

The Gorf decided to take a hand. After all, the Final Ordering of the island could wait a little longer—-Flapping Eagle found the room dissolving as he reached for the door-handle. The shock wrecked his new-found confidence. The darkness descended. He was, for a moment, blind and giddy. The world seemed to spin rapidly. When his head cleared, the Abyssinians were squatting in front of him.