Oberheim (Voices): A Chronicle of War

ad dulled in growing used to it. But through the worn blankness of his mind (though a fair measure of his physical strength had returned, yet having no will to drive it) he f

death-act of remembrance, its struggle still to forge some meaning from the emptiness of its failure. It had not been mai--he knew from the broken shell and the drawing--and this more than an

ng. Its left foreleg and right hind (it had only four digits in all) extended from the main in almost Egyptian caricature, drawn with a trembling hand. The effect of the whole was that of a shriveled and shrunken Phoenix, macabrely adorning the tomb of s

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tures, male centipedes, some running it seemed, from what he could not guess, all fearing him, all bearing the marks of battle. Yet none were ever wounded to the point of near-death, and all appeared strong of their kind. It was a puzzle he could not dissect. Their fear held his confidence, but drawing steadily downward, he felt a growing reluctance to trespass the source of their being. It seemed to contradict all fairness th

in battle, had caught first at the edge of hearing, seeming unreal, then steadied, held, and increased as he went on. Till coming to the fissure-like opening of yet another vast cavern, he looked down on a s

ach separate fight was to the death, the victor sometimes stopping to eat a part of the vanquished, gaining strength, then moved on to grapple with

ield, awaiting the final conquerors. These victors he knew, from the signs he had already seen, would mate with them an

power, for good or ill, had nothing to do with them, and no influence whatever, either to elevate or corrupt. They were only here

ced to perhaps sixteen. He crawled in through the high opening, moved carefully down the back-leaning arc of wall and onto a level with the combatants, all unnoticed. A narrow wrinkle in the ch

g and legless, fighting still. The four queens, each from its raised pedestal, looked on in disbelief: their sacred ritual had

ike an impatient cobra. The male closest to her --it seemed to Simin the largest he had see

anything except the blind mating aggression of its kind. It stopped only once, looking back at the f

isuse. With no more time to marvel he moved in a quick half-circle to avoid the lumbering bulk, then flitted up behind it onto the slanting edge of the rift. These short bursts of flight he repeated several times (the thought that he could fly to safety and forget this fight never oc

ale, clawing the rock as if clinging to a rope, as his blurring wings drummed threate

or a short time made good progress. But then it doubled back on him and finally ended, died, into a narrowing of stone through which he could not pass. Furious, he worked his way back to the starting point, taking this time the central shaft, leading downward. The res

fear, such as he had seldom experienced in his life, was beginning to grow in him. At first he blamed himself, raging. But walking through the twisted tunnels of the labyrinth he had realized, suddenly, that it was not his fear alone. His body was still not right, if wrong in a way that was hard to define,

could now feel a faint throbbing in the stone around him--was a danger in itself, repulsing, even as it called to him. He must find it quickly, then be gone.

tant stream unbroken by sleep, he had endlessly searched out tunnels untraveled or long forgotten, returning ever and agai

mostly to the main shaft, learning its direction, following it on its slow, steady course downward. Many times it narrowed

he journey he had realized that in taking the quest he must know, in part, what it was to be human. Perhaps the spirit of Shannon still lived more strongly than he knew. And perhaps t

he could hear a howling as of many tormented voices,

on. He must master it and go on. Go on….. Resistance was thick around him, his body

ubtly rising tunnel lay before him. Far off in the distance he heard, unmistakably, a steady throbbing, echoing like a fall of water--the deep, rapid pulsing

ad of him, the tunnel opened out, almost beyond the edge of sight. He conti

aguely aware that beyond this antechamber the ceiling warped high and huge, above a valley that dwarfed even the place of his birth. For here, as nowhere else beneath the surface of his world there were shadows, lengthening toward him to either side of the shallow, widening staircase. And for all the desperate haste of his journey, Simin

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ed by Nature or intelligence it was impossible to say: perhaps meant to connote angry, reptilian merman rising out of the stone, perhaps roughly shaped bodies whose accidental carving held no meaning at all. He

white and barren. He breathed deeply several times, not know

its certain and unnerving presence. Everywhere the edges of floor and ceiling glowed red, as if from heat, and the brightness of yellow gold folded over and through him like a liq

ling in a discordant terror of mutilated passions, scales without notes or boundaries. He moved on, oblivious, p

ked and uneven--warm, and unbearably long. The cacophony of human fears climb

For this, surely, was an unearthly place of His world. The high ceiling, the infinite, trackless waste. The heat. Words raced through his beleaguered body, slowing, till with a dread h

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as dying. Yes, dying in that place, where the river of his dreams, fallen to a trickle, had at last died into unconquerable

ed the ground, a little farther ahead. He moved the next, and then the next. He staggered forward, feeling a will such as

a moment. They redoubled their assault--the current against him was physical--but broke against his stu

ge of the crater, looking down. Determined. The dry heat of that place was unbearable; and still distance defied him. A silver-white core, cruel mockery of the Car

gs, he pushed himself over the edge and slid, rolled across stones, folding his wings just in time, to tumble down

ther, against the barrage. Of distance. But he was afraid. Afraid to die. To die! At la

. Forty. It was too much. Too much. The stones beneath him rasped and hissed, speaking Death's name. Downward, into

hed out. He to

s if a violent storm fading at the last. The human flesh, the

nd he experienced a sense of tranquility such as he had neve

ath had been certain. His inner being was like the quiet surface of a pool. A tiny pebble fell i

fear and ugliness." After a time another part of his being added this. "God

way back toward the tunnels, knowing now with certainty what he must do. His mind posses

what he