Part 28 (2/2)
”I am nothing now,” Esk said. ”But I can make a difference, and I'm going to try. If I succeed, I will be something. That's all I can do-all any person can do. To make an honest try. If that's not enough, then nothing's enough, and it's not worth having any bad dreams about.”
The pictures s.h.i.+mmered. Then something wriggled on the one that had his image. A river that was almost straight on the other map was a.s.suming curvature here.
That was all. It was only a dream, but it gave Esk tremendous satisfaction. He knew what he had to do to abolish his deepest fear. To guarantee that his life had some bit of meaning. His life was not necessarily empty until he failed to accomplish that mission.
The vision dissipated. Esk found himself standing on the other side of the gate.
Only Marrow remained on the original side. ”It is my turn,” the skeleton said. ”But I hesitate.”
”That is understandable,” Chex said. ”We have all had very difficult experiences.”
”I have no concern about a bad dream,” Marrow said. ”I do not dream, because I am not alive. My concern is that either there will be no reaction, because there is nothing in me to generate it-no fear, no shame, no guilty secret-or that my attempt to cross will trigger an error that will blow the program.”
”Do what?” Esk asked.
”This trial is geared to living folk, with dreams,” Marrow explained. ”If one without dreams enters it, the mechanism could clash, unable to orient, and the entire setting could be compromised or destroyed. I am uncertain whether this should be risked.”
”He has a point,” Chex murmured. ”He is a creature of the bad dreams; how can he have one of his own?”
”What happens,” Esk asked, ”if the program, ah, blows?”
”This entrance to the framework of the gourd would be closed off,” Marrow said. ”You might be trapped here, with no route of escape. Or there could be emotional or physical damage to the three of you.”
”Marrow iv a good guide,” Volney said. ”We may not complete the quevt without hiv advive.”
”Then maybe we should risk it,” Esk said.
Chex nodded. ”Maybe we should. There is after all no indication of trouble; there is a skeletal zombie ready. Come on through, Marrow.”
The skeleton shrugged. ”It is, as the saying goes, no skin off my sinus cavity.” He marched into the gate. The zombie skeleton met him, and the two merged.
A picture started to form. It showed Marrow, standing in the pa.s.sage, exactly as he was. Then it dissipated, and Marrow was standing back where he had started.
”It tried to make a dream for him!” Esk exclaimed.
”And found nothing on which to fasten,” Marrow said.
”I'm not sure of that,” Chex said. ”There had to be something even to start it, and I think we should understand what it is. It could be significant.”
”He was bounced without a dream,” Esk said. ”It thought there was going to be a dream, so it started it, but then it found out there wasn't, so it ended.”
”But there was a dream,” she insisted. ”A simple one, but nevertheless a dream. That suggests that Marrow does possess some reality on our terms.”
Now Volney was interested. ”What could vuch a reality be? He hav no life.”
”The picture was just of him, unchanged,” Esk said. ”For a moment I thought it was him, until it faded.”
”Indeed it was me,” Marrow said. ”Since I have no life, I have no dream. It was just a picture of me as I am.”
”Yes, it was,” Chex agreed. ”Therefore, that must represent your deepest fear or shame.”
”I have no fear or shame,” Marrow repeated.
”That may be why you were rejected,” Chex said.
”Because it accepts only those who can reconcile their dreams, and I had none to reconcile,” Marrow said, nodding his skull.
”No. Because you refused to come to terms with it.”
That amused Esk. ”Why should he come to terms with what doesn't exist?”
”Because it does exist,” she said firmly. ”Had it not existed, he would have pa.s.sed through without challenge. But there is a zombie doppelganger waiting for him, and he can't pa.s.s until he overcomes that deepest spectre within him.”
”There is nothing within me,” Marrow protested. ”My skull and rib cage are completely hollow, as you can see.” He knocked on his skull with a knucklebone, and the sound was hollow.
”So was the skeleton in the dream,” she agreed.
”You mean he's afraid of himself?” Esk asked incredulously.
”Perhaps.” She gazed at Marrow. ”Are you?”
”What could there possibly be to fear in that?” Marrow asked, irritated.
”You are avoiding an answer.”
”But there is nothing in me to fear by me,” the skeleton said. ”I exist only to generate fear in living human folk. I have no other reality.”
”So your dream suggests,” Chex said. ”Does that please you?”
”Why should it? I have no right to be pleased or displeased. It is merely my situation.”
”Again, you avoid an answer.”
”How do you think I feel?” Marrow demanded.
”I'd be pretty upset,” Esk said. ”Here my deepest fear was that I counted for nothing in Xanth, so my life may have no meaning. You aren't even alive. That's one step below me, even.”
”It would be foolish of me to wish for life,” Marrow said curtly. ”It involves messiness.”
”How can a creature who isn't alive be foolish?” Chex asked.
”Life is just a ma.s.s of awkwardnesses about consuming substance and eliminating substance,” Marrow said. ”Of discomfort and pain and shame. The end is exactly what I already am: dead. It is pointless.”
”But life has feeling,” Chex said. ”And you have feeling. Is your deepest fear that you can never be any more than you are now?”
”But I can never be more!”
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