Land of Unreason Page 5
He took it from Gosh and handed it to Barber. It did not look in the least as it had when Titania used it on Sneckett the evening before, but like an ivory walking stick. The handle end came round in a crook with a carved snake’s-head terminal.
“Watch it well,” warned Titania. “This wand has an enchantment in it; if it be lost, all concerned including your sweet self will come on some misadventured piteous overthrow. Go, then, and good luck with you.”
CHAPTER V
Nothing was easy. The park, with its fantastic potted trees and eight-foot blossoms, stretched farther from the tower than Barber had imagined; and his mind ran round and round the idea Imponens had thrown out, as though at once seeking some escape and happy at not finding it. In midnight arguments that flowered over the third scotch and soda he was used to describing himself as a rational materialist. Like many intelligent people for whom the gospel of St. Einstein had replaced that according to St. John, he read the newspaper science columns and suspected even Jeans and Millikan of transcendentalism. Evidence that could be perceived by the physical senses—everything depended on that. Extrapolation from such evidence was dangerous. It resulted in theory which demanded experimental proof.
It was like reassembling a clock and having it run perfectly with six cogwheels left out to find the evidence on which he had always relied supporting the theory he had always despised. Every physical sense assured him that he was not insane. So did experimental proof, so far as he had been able to make it. And—final piece of conviction!—insane people never considered the possibility that their senses were playing them false.
Yet Fred Barber’s senses were assuring him in the most decided fashion that he had been born—that was the only word for it—into another world. Imponens had made the only and obvious deduction . . . as he strode along, the picture of that brownie philosopher turning cartwheels came to him and he smiled. It was the last sight he had seen as he left the palace, Imponens cartwheeling through the trees.
His logic cartwheeled too, but always about that only possible deduction. Other worlds stretched beyond this one into the personal future of Fred Barber, which he would enter when he had accomplished his unknown task. But if the future, then the past—he must have come into his own world, the “real” world, from some other still, with a wiping out of memory during the process. Or would memory be wiped out? Barber tried to recall something from the past that might lie behind his conscious past. Was there not something vaguely familiar about the court and its ceremonial?
Hold hard. This was reincarnation. Buddhism. Bahai. Theosophy, and goofy cults presided over by fat ladies with faint mustaches. Barber looked round and found that the tower of the royal palace, which he had been using as a point of departure, was no longer visible. Nobody there had been able to give him any sensible directions to the Kobold Hills. “Take the path and ask as you go,” they had said. “The wand will help you.”
What path? There were a dozen or a million winding away through the trees to a region of hedges, where the tracks were marked only by a brighter green in the short lawn grass. All curved, rapidly or imperceptibly, and the only comfort was that none of them led to blind alleys. Whenever the hedges seemed about to close him in, there was always a sudden turn, another rank of giant flowers and a new vista. But none of these vistas led to any sign of habitation; down none of them was there visible any life other than botanical. Ask whom as you go?
Yet at this point it looked as though he would have to ask somebody soon. The path, narrowed to an alley by parallel hedges, flowed into an opening filled with a round bed of the huge flowers. Beyond hedges closed in again, smoothly green, joining the flower bed at its back, so that he must definitely choose between turning right or left. The grass gave no clue; both directions showed the high color that had hitherto been his guide. Everything was still as the moon itself, flooding the scene with cold light, not a sound, not a motion, not a sign of breeze.
“Hey!” said Fred Barber.
No answer. Not an echo either; the foliage seemed to muffle his shout.
The indifference of this landscape had become nerve-racking. He addressed a zinnia the size of a cabbage on a stalk towering over his head: “I wish you could tell me which way to the Kobold Hills,” he said aloud.
The blossoms showed no intention of doing so. Damn this whole business! Unfair. His mind abruptly vaulted back to the incident at college when somebody had blown sneeze powder through the old-fashioned hot-air inlet into the room where the faculty dinner was being held. Very funny, but not for Fred Barber, who was student president, and knew that the priceless young fool who did it would get the whole college confined to campus in Junior Week if he didn’t own up. He swung the ivory wand up and pointed accusingly at the zinnia:
“Confound it, can’t you see you’re just making it tough for all of us without helping yourself? Which of these paths goes to the Kobold Hills?”
The zinnia courteously bowed its head toward the path on the right. Barber gazed at the other flowers in the bed; there was still no wind, not a leaf had rustled, not another flowerhead changed. He pointed the stick at a bachelor-button the size of a ten-gallon hat: “Do you agree?” he demanded.
The huge flower returned his stare, immobile and impassive. Experimental proof was wanting; and though he turned down the right-hand curve (since there was nothing better to do) the dismaying thought occurred to him that it might always be wanting from the set of circumstances or form of life in which he inexplicably found himself. What was it Oberon had said about shapings? “The very rules of life change—” But if they changed, then there were no rules; life was chaotic. No, wait, life here didn’t abandon rules, it shifted unreasonably from one set to another. . . . His shoulder blades itched in unscratchable places. He stopped and reached around with the crook of the walking-stick wand, and could plainly feel the bumps that Angus had informed him were incipient wings. Fred Barber with wings. He tried to picture to himself the commotion at the Embassy if he walked in on them with a pair of great feathered appendages springing from his shoulders. He could imagine old Layton babbling at the sight, with his smug face of a satisfied sheep. And would an authentic winged man have precedence at dinner over a Yugoslav military attaché? If he knew his embassies, the question ought to be good for at least eight hours of argument.
Well, he was out of that now, perhaps permanently, and just ahead of him the hedges were falling away to side and side from another crotch in the road. Between the two forks were flowers, mingled with a perfect forest of the potted trees, and in front of them a man, or at least an individual, was standing on his head. The head was a large one, and the individual seemed perfectly comfortable, with arms and legs folded. At the sound of Barber’s footfall he opened a large green eye.
“Beg pardon,” said Barber, “but could you direct me to the Kobold Hills?”
The individual said: “What do you want to go there for?”
“Public business,” said Barber, trying to make it sound important.
The individual yawned—it looked extremely odd in his position—and opened a second eye. “Not an original remark, my friend. You’re the—let’s see—forty-ninth mortal to go through here. They’re always on public business. Forty-nine is seven times nine. I wouldn’t go any farther.”
“Your arithmetic’s wrong and whether I go or not is my business. How do I get there?”
The individual opened a third eye in the middle of his forehead. “No it isn’t. It’s only mortal affection for exact systems that makes you say that. I know all about Oberon’s monkey business with the kobolds. It’s a waste of time. And you’re mistaken about those colors. They call them greengrocers because they feel blue.”
Barber had a sensation of trying to wade through mud, but clung manfully to the main issue. “Why is it a waste of time to do anything about the kobolds? They’ll make trouble if they’re not stopped, won’t they?”
The individual closed two of his eyes. “Lots of trou
ble,” he said cheerfully. “They’ll lay the country waste. Your development is incomplete. You can’t follow more than one line of reasoning at a time. That makes for errors.”
“Then what’s the objection to thwarting them?”
“It’s an inevitable transition stage before we can have anything better. If your development were complete you’d see that the kobolds were destined to sweep away the old corrupt order.”
“What’s corrupt about it?”
“So that’s your line, is it? Very well, do you admit that perfection exists?”
“We—ell,” said Barber doubtfully, “there’s a word for it, so I suppose that in a sense—”
“Either a thing exists or it doesn’t. If it exists in sense it exists in all senses. Just as you’re made not less a man by being an outsize, humpbacked mortal man.”
“Go on,” said Barber.
“Now, if it exists it is patently worth striving for, isn’t it?”
“I’ll concede that for the moment.”
“Fine. Now I’m sure you’ll admit that Oberon is not perfect. He quarrels with his wife and keeps winged fairies in the bedroom while she’s away.”
“I suppose you could hardly call that perfection.”
“Aha! Then since perfection is worth striving for, Oberon, being imperfect, is not worth striving for. He is corrupt and should be swept away. Q.E.D.”
“But will the kobolds produce perfection?”
“Far more of it than Oberon. They outnumber him, a thousand to one, d’you see? Even if the unit quantity of perfection per individual were far lower, the total mass would work out higher.”
“Listen,” said Barber, in some exasperation. “I’d like to stand here and split hairs with you all night, but I’ve got a job to do. Which way to the Kobold Hills?”
“Then you admit I’m right?”
“I’ll admit anything if I can be on my way.”
“Then,” said the inverted person calmly, “by admitting I’m right you admit implicitly that you are wrong. Therefore you don’t want to go to the Kobold Hills.”
“All the same I’m going. Which way?”
The remaining eye closed wearily, and the voice sank to a mumble. “Either one you like—or—perhaps both—yes, I think—you’d better take—both.”
Barber turned away and trudged resolutely down the left-hand fork, reflecting that he had taken the right at the last choice. Since there seemed no rules of sequence in this experience, he would probably come out nearest correct by doing exactly the opposite of what had been successful before. The way seemed clear enough in this direction, though a little beyond Three-eyes and his fork hedges closed in from both sides again and it wound round in the familiar involutions. Barber followed it around a sweeping curve, up a slope—and found himself approaching a fork whose center was occupied by a flower bed with trees behind. In front of the flowers an individual was standing on his head.
“I told you it was no use,” he remarked as Barber came up to him. “You don’t really want to go to the Kobold Hills.”
“Oh, yes, I do. I took the wrong fork last time, no thanks to you, but I’m going to take the other one this time.” Barber stepped resolutely to the right.
Two of the green eyes came open. “Just a minute. It’s only fair to warn you, my friend, that if you turn to the right, you’ll come back here just the same. The way’s longer and more fatiguing though. Better go to the left again; you’ll get here quicker.”
Barber ignored him and strode resolutely down the right-hand path. After a little distance, however, he was obliged to admit that Three-eyes had been right about one thing, at least. The path here was certainly more fatiguing. It climbed sharply; his foot struck an outcrop of rock. He looked down; instead of the lawnlike carpet on which he had been able to give him any sensible directions to the Kobold Hills. “Take the path and ask as you go,” they had said. “The wand will help you.”
What path? There were a dozen or a million winding away through the trees to a region of hedges, where the tracks were marked only by a brighter green in the short lawn grass. All curved, rapidly or imperceptibly, and the only comfort was that none of them led to blind alleys. Whenever the hedges seemed about to close him in, there was always a sudden turn, another rank of giant flowers and a new vista. But none of these vistas led to any sign of habitation; down none of them was there visible any life other than botanical. Ask whom as you go?
Yet at this point it looked as though he would have to ask somebody soon. The path, narrowed to an alley by parallel hedges, flowed into an opening filled with a round bed of the huge flowers. Beyond hedges closed in again, smoothly green, joining the flower bed at its back, so that he must definitely choose between turning right or left. The grass gave no clue; both directions showed the high color that had hitherto been his guide. Everything was still as the moon itself, flooding the scene with cold light, not a sound, not a motion, not a sign of breeze.
“Hey!” said Fred Barber.
No answer. Not an echo either; the foliage seemed to muffle his shout.
The indifference of this landscape had become nerve-racking. He addressed a zinnia the size of a cabbage on a stalk towering over his head: “I wish you could tell me which way to the Kobold Hills,” he said aloud.
The blossoms showed no intention of doing so. Damn this whole business! Unfair. His mind abruptly vaulted back to the incident at college when somebody had blown sneeze powder through the old-fashioned hot-air inlet into the room where the faculty dinner was being held. Very funny, but not for Fred Barber, who was student president, and knew that the priceless young fool who did it would get the whole college confined to campus in Junior Week if he didn’t own up. He swung the ivory wand up and pointed accusingly at the zinnia:
“Confound it, can’t you see you’re just making it tough for all of us without helping yourself? Which of these paths goes to the Kobold Hills?”
The zinnia courteously bowed its head toward the path on the right. Barber gazed at the other flowers in the bed; there was still no wind, not a leaf had rustled, not another flowerhead changed. He pointed the stick at a bachelor-button the size of a ten-gallon hat: “Do you agree?” he demanded.
The huge flower returned his stare, immobile and impassive. Experimental proof was wanting; and though he turned down the right-hand curve (since there was nothing better to do) the dismaying thought occurred to him that it might always be wanting from the set of circumstances or form of life in which he inexplicably found himself. What was it Oberon had said about shapings? “The very rules of life change—” But if they changed, then there were no rules; life was chaotic. No, wait, life here didn’t abandon rules, it shifted unreasonably from one set to another. . . . His shoulder blades itched in unscratchable places. He stopped and reached around with the crook of the walking stick-wand, and could plainly feel the bumps that Angus had informed him were incipient wings. Fred Barber with wings. He tried to picture to himself the commotion at the Embassy if he walked in on them with a pair of great feathered appendages springing from his shoulders. He could imagine old Layton babbling at the sight, with his smug face of a satisfied sheep. And would an authentic winged man have precedence at dinner over a Yugoslav military attaché? If he knew his embassies, the question ought to be good for at least eight hours of argument.
Well, he was out of that now, perhaps permanently, and just ahead of him the hedges were falling away to side and side from another crotch in the road. Between the two forks were flowers, mingled with a perfect forest of the potted trees, and in front of them a man, or at least an individual, was standing on his head. The head was a large one, and the individual seemed perfectly comfortable, with arms and legs folded. At the sound of Barber’s footfall he opened a large green eye.
“Beg pardon,” said Barber, “but could you direct me to the Kobold Hills?”
The individual said: “What do you want to go there for?”
“Public business,” said Barbe
r, trying to make it sound important.
The individual yawned—it looked extremely odd in his position—and opened a second eye. “Not an original remark, my friend. You’re the—let’s see—forty-ninth mortal to go through here. They’re always on public business. Forty-nine is seven times nine. I wouldn’t go any farther.”
“Your arithmetic’s wrong and whether I go or not is my business. How do I get there?”
The individual opened a third eye in the middle of his forehead. “No it isn’t. It’s only mortal affection for exact systems that makes you say that. I know all about Oberon’s monkey business with the kobolds. It’s a waste of time. And you’re mistaken about those colors. They call them greengrocers because they feel blue.”
Barber had a sensation of trying to wade through mud, but clung manfully to the main issue. “Why is it a waste of time to do anything about the kobolds? They’ll make trouble if they’re not stopped, won’t they?”
The individual closed two of his eyes. “Lots of trouble,” he said cheerfully. “They’ll lay the country waste. Your development is incomplete. You can’t follow more than one line of reasoning at a time. That makes for errors.”
“Then what’s the objection to thwarting them?”
“It’s an inevitable transition stage before we can have anything better. If your development were complete you’d see that the kobolds were destined to sweep away the old corrupt order.”
“What’s corrupt about it?”
“So that’s your line, is it? Very well, do you admit that perfection exists?”
“We—ell,” said Barber doubtfully, “there’s a word for it, so I suppose that in a sense—”
“Either a thing exists or it doesn’t. If it exists in a sense it exists in all senses. Just as you’re made not less a man by being an outsize, humpbacked mortal man.”
“Go on,” said Barber.
“Now, if it exists it is patently worth striving for, isn’t it?”