Koontz, Dean - Soft come the Dragons Read online

  And there were wire-cored arms to rock him . . .

  And he looked tip out of swaddling clothes . . .

  GO ON!

  . . . into a face with no nose and blank crystal eyes that reflected his reddened face. Unmoving black lips crooned, "Rock-a-biiiii bay-beeeee in theee treeeee (thriddle-thriddle) tops . . ." The thriddle-thriddle, he found, was tapes changing somewhere inside mother's head. He searched his own head for tapes. There were none.

  GO ON, GO ON!

  And he looked up out of swaddling clothes when he esped an understanding, and . . . and . . .

  DON'T HESITATE! YOU'LL BE LOST.

  I don't remember.

  YOU DO.

  No!

  YES. YESYESYES. The machine touched part of his mind with electronic fingers. I CAN MAKE THE MEMORY EVEN SHARPER.

  No! I'll tell.

  TELL.

  And he looked up out of swaddling clothes when he esped an understanding, and his first . . . words .. . . were . . .

  GO ON!

  His first words were these: "My God, my God, 1 am not human!"

  FINE. NOW RELAX AND LISTEN. YOU KNOW THAT THE "HE" IS REALLY YOU. YOU ARE SIMEON MARFLIN. HE—THE HE OF YOUR ILLUSION—IS SIMEON MARFLIN. YOUR PROBLEM IS THIS: YOU ARE OF THE ARTIFICIAL WOMB. YOU WERE CONDITIONED FROM CONCEPTION TO HAVE HUMAN MORES AND VALUES. BUT YOU CANNOT HOLD YOUR MANNER OF CREATION UP TO THE LIGHT ALONGSIDE YOUR MORES AND ACCEPT BOTH.

  YOU ARE HUMAN, BUT YOUR MORES TEACH YOU TO FEEL THAT YOU ARE STRANGELY LACKING IN HUMAN QUALITIES.

  Thank you, I am cured now. I have to leave.

  NO. The machine was firm. THIS IS THE THIRTY-THIRD TIME YOU HAVE HAD THIS SAME ILLUSION-NIGHTMARE-DREAM. YOU ARE NOT HEALED. AND THIS TIME I FEEL MORE BELOW THE SURFACE OF THE DREAM. TELL ME.

  There is no more.

  TELL ME. The bonds on the chair were tight around arms and legs.

  Nothing.

  A WOMAN. THERE IS A WOMAN. WHO?

  An author I have read.

  AND MET. TELL ME.

  Blonde. Cat's eyes. Ruby lips. I—

  SOMETHING MORE.

  Ruby lips.

  NO. SOMETHING ELSE.

  Let me the hell alone!

  TELL ME. It was the voice of a king.

  Breasts. No, I—

  I KNOW. I SEE IT NOW. YOU LOVE HER.

  No. Disgusting.

  YES, LOVE. YOU LOVE HER, BUT YOU HAVE THIS COMPLEX . . . SIMEON, DO YOU REMEMBER THE SIMU-FLESH BREASTS?

  I remember.

  THIS HAS COME TO SYMBOLIZE YOUR INHUMAN-NESS TO YOU. YOU WERE NOT SUCKLED LIKE A MANCHILD. THIS MAKES YOU AFRAID OF WOMEN. OF—

  No. I'm not afraid. She was just . . . just . . . disgusting.

  NO. NOT DISGUSTED. YOU ARE AFRAID, NOT DISGUSTED. YOU BACK AWAY FROM ALL YOU DONT UNDERSTAND IN LIFE. THIS IS JUST ONE PART. YOU BACK AWAY BECAUSE YOU CANNOT SEE WHERE YOUR PLACE COULD LIE IN IT ALL. YOU SEE NO MEANING IN LIFE AND YOU ARE AFRAID TO SEARCH FOR ONE, FEARING YOU WILL EVENTUALLY DISCOVER THERE IS NO MEANING.

  May I go?

  YES. GO AND DREAM NO MORE OF PROTEUS' MOTHER. YOU WILL DREAM NO MORE, NO MORE.

  After every session with the machine, I was drained, lifeless. I made my way to the bedroom and collapsed onto the mattress without undressing. I tried to encourage pleasant dreams of Marcus Aurelius, about soft arms and diamond eyes. But somewhere, a voice far away said, "You're the one." Chains dragged across a stone floor, ancient paper crackling . . .

  IV

  The next morning there were rumors of military disturbances along the Russian-Chinese border, and news dispatches from the scene said that Western Alliance troops had met in brushfire contact with the Orientals.

  The new Chinese horror weapon circling the planet had been named Dragonfly by the press.

  I paid no attention. Thus it had been since I could remember. And if it is still thus (I would not know), leave it alone and do not question the validity, the reason of it . . . There is darkness for an answer.

  Outside, the city crews had finished cleaning up the snow. The streets were bare, but the buildings and trees were smothered with whiteness. Fences were delicate laces. Trees and shrubs were icicle candies. It was as if Nature, via a snowstorm, had tried to reclaim what had once been hers but was now lost to her forever.

  Clouds, heavy and gray, betrayed the advent of yet another storm. I passed by the smoldering ruins of a church that had burned overnight.

  At AC the hex signs were on the walls, the lights were dim, and Child was tranced. "You're late," Morsfagen said.

  "You don't have to pay me for the first five minutes," I snapped. I slipped into the chair opposite Child.

  "You're sure you want to continue this, Sim?" Harry asked.

  "Quite," I answered and was immediately ashamed at having cut Harry short. It was the atmosphere of the place. So damned military. And Morsfagen. Like Herod—trying to destroy the Child. And I was on edge for another reason; there was a certain dinner guest . . .

  This time, I parachuted through the emptiness of his consciousness, not flailing . . .

  Labyrinth.

  The walls were hung with cobwebs, the floor with dirt and bones. Far down there, somewhere in the novalike center of the mind was the Id. It gave out the same, nearly unbearable whine that all Ids do. And somewhere above, in the blackness, was the area where the conscious mind should have been. It was clear that this mind of the super-genius was strangely unhuman. Most minds think in disconnected pictures, but Child's created an entire world of its own, a realism within his mind.

  There was a clacking of hooves, and from the source of light at the end of the tunnel, came the outline, then the form of the Minotaur, nut-brown skin and all textures of black hair, eyes gleaming.

  "Get out!"

  I mean no harm.

  "Get out, Simeon."

  There was a blue field of sparks crackling above his head, and psychic energies shot thin, sporadic flames from his nostrils.

  "Leave a monster his only privacy!"

  I too am a monster.

  "Look at your face, monster. It is not wrinkled like a dried fig; it is not old beyond its years; it is not caked with the dust of centuries. You pass for human. You pass, at least you pass."

  Child, listen, I—

  He charged and grasped at me with hoof-hands. I fashioned a sword from my own fields of thought and smashed him broadside on the head.

  And he was gone, a vapor in the darkness, a phantom.

  Holding the green glow of the weapon, I advanced slowly down the twisting corridors, toward the inner part of him where his theories would bubble, where thoughts would run rampant. I came out finally on an earthen shelf above a yawning pit. Far below, eternities away, drifting and glowing, was a circular mass, and the heat in my face was great.

  I reached out and grasped for anything, a sub-current, a cracked image, the shell of a daydream, and I caught a

  Hate River, ebbing and flowing. HATE, HATE, HATE HATEHATEHATEHATE - HA - TE - HATEHATE. Somewhere in the middle of it, a two-headed thing swam. I caught the "T" in HATE and traced it along the currents, searching. T To Thumb and a sucking . . . and The sucking suddenly To brown nipple and and moTher's breasT . . . and again The T dominated . . . and I allowed the river to carry me inevitably on toward Theorem.

  Theory ThoughTs . . . Through Thousand Times Tedious Tiring . . . Ten Times one Times Two to Sub-oughT-seven in drepshler Tubes now being used . . .

  The flood was too fast. I could see the theory, but I could not direct it fast enough toward the ocean in the distance where a waterspout whirled (taking the thoughts to the little bit of conscious mind he possessed). The thoughts that were now being spoken in dust whispers in a room far away—the thoughts being recorded while serious men with serious faces listened, seriously.

  Then the drug must have finally taken hold, or I would have been swallowed alive. The two-headed beast had swum near without my noticing, and it caught my eye as it moved swiftly, its mouth gaping, a
giant cave that drooled . . .

  I lifted my sword as it raised its huge head above me to strike. Then there was a sudden, jerky slip like an old movie reel that had been spliced, and everything went into slow motion. It was like an underwater ballet. It would have taken the beast's jaws an hour to reach me, and I slew him as his red eyes glistened, and as a strange THRIDDLE-THRIDDLE came from his throat. Or hers.

  Turning back toward the river, I directed thoughts toward the slow-moving waterspout until so much time had passed that I thought I had better get out before I lost my own character identity.

  There were steps up . . .

  V

  The candlelight gleamed in her green eyes, glinted from the hair that fell over her bare shoulders, sparkled on the sequins of her high-collared, sleeveless Oriental sheath.

  "I would want nothing held back."

  "Nothing," I assured her for the tenth time.

  We sipped the wine, but I felt giddy without it.

  "All your feelings toward Artificial Creation, toward the FBI, toward all those who have used you."

  "That could be a blunt book."

  "Anything watered down would be a flop. Believe me, sensationalism sells a book."

  I remembered some passages from Bodies in Darkness and smiled.

  She stood and walked to the plexi-glass view deck that looked out over the Atlantic. The moon was high. She was quite beautiful, flushed with its light.

  I walked over, forcing myself to be calm, and stood beside her . . .

  "I keep thinking of Dragonfly," she said, her eyes on the stars.

  I looked up into the black velvet and watched one lonely cloud drift toward the horizon, gray against the purity of the Stygian sky.

  "Why do people like the ugly?" she asked suddenly. "There is all that beauty, and they try to make it ugly. They like ugly movies and ugly books."

  "Perhaps, in reading about the worst parts of life, the darknesses, the grays, the dirt, the terrible things in reality seem more tame, more easily lived with,"

  Her lips were like cherries . . .

  "What do you think of my books—truthfully?" she asked, turning to face me.

  I was thrown off balance. "I—"

  "Truthfully."

  "You mean . . . the ugliness in them?"

  "Yes. Exactly." She turned back to the ocean. "I tried writing beautiful books about sex. I gave that up. It's the ugliness that sells." She shrugged those heavenly shoulders. "One must eat."

  I was overly aware of the tightness of her bodice.

  With the soft glow light melting over her face, I felt the urge to clutch at her, to hold on, to kiss. But I had to fight that! Kiss. No! And I began pacing the room, looking for some solid object to grasp.

  She turned and looked at me curiously for a moment. Then she crossed the room, placed a soft, dove hand upon my lips. "It's getting late," she said, suddenly withdrawing the slim hand with the red nails. "Starting tomorrow we tape all interviews." And she was gone in a whirlwind of efficiency that left me standing with my drink in my hand and my "goodbye" in my mouth like a lump of used lard. I went to bed to dream.

  I woke up needing comfort, a strange comfort I could find but one place.

  IT IS FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING, the metal headshrinker said.

  I know.

  RELAX AND TALK.

  What should I say? Tell me what it is that I should say to you.

  START WITH A DREAM IF YOU'VE HAD ONE.

  I always have one.

  THEN START.

  There are storm clouds in the sky, dark, thick, mysterious. There is no place where the sun shows. Below all this gray-ness, there is a hill, a large, rounded hill formed by nature into a grotesque, gnarled lump, a blemish upon the face of the earth. There are people . . .

  GO ON.

  There are people . . .

  . . . and there is a cross . . .

  FOCUS ON THE CROSS. WHAT DO YOU SEE?

  Me.

  YES?

  Nailed. Blood. White, festered wounds dribbling rusty blood around the edges of little holes, neat little holes like the cavities left when you rip the buttons from the faces of rag dolls. Rusty blood.

  WHO IS IN THE CROWD?

  Harry is weeping.

  WHO ELSE?

  I'm thirsty.

  THEY WILL GIVE YOU WATER SOON. NOW WHO ELSE IS IN THE CROWD?

  Morsfagen is casting dice for my cloak. And over there is a pregnant woman who . . .

  GO ON, PLEASE.

  I look at her belly . . . and . . . there ... is Child. He's weeping too. And I'm weeping. Child wants up where I am. He wants out of her womb and up there before it is too late . . .

  DO YOU SEE ANYONE ELSE?

  Oh, not Oh, my God, my Cod.

  WHAT IS IT?

  No! You'll spoil it/me! I cannot! Don't you see my station, my purpose? It must be my purpose! I have no other! Get away! No!

  WHAT IS IT!

  Melinda. Floating, naked. Floating toward the cross. Not Stay away! Stay away! My purpose!

  STOP IT.

  Help! Help me! Don't you touch me, not you. You're naked, naked, naked! Stop her!

  SNAP OUT OF IT! STOP DREAMING!

  I—

  QUIET. COMPOSE YOURSELF. I WILL INTERPRET YOUR DREAM. THOUGH I MUST SAY THAT THIS THROWS A NEW LIGHT ON YOUR PSYCHE.

  DO YOU SEE WHY YOU ARE THE ONE ON THE CROSS? NO NEED TO ANSWER. YOU SEE YOURSELF AS CHRIST—WHAT A NEW ANGLE!—MORE PRECISELY, AS THE SECOND COMING. THERE ARE PARALLELS, OF COURSE. YOUR VIRGIN BIRTH, FOR EXAMPLE. AND YOUR SUPERHUMAN POWERS. YOU WERE NOT ABLE TO SEE A PURPOSE TO YOUR LIFE, SO YOU CHOSE TO CAST YOURSELF IN THE ROLE OF A SAVIOR. IT SERVES A DOUBLE PURPOSE: FIRST, IT REINFORCES ALL YOUR CHRISTIAN MORES AND VALUES THAT YOU WERE TAUGHT AT AC FROM BIRTH; SECONDLY, IT GIVES PURPOSE AND MEANING NOT ONLY TO YOUR LIFE BUT TO THE WHOLE UNIVERSE WHICH SOMETIMES SEEMS CHAOTIC TO YOU-THE WARS AND ALL.

  I am thirsty.

  IN A MOMENT. YOU SEE MORSFAGEN CASTING DICE, FOR HE DESPISES AND ONLY USES YOU FOR HIS OWN BENEFIT. THE CLOAK SYMBOLIZES YOUR LIFE. THERE SEEMS TO BE A HINT OF THE FUTURE IN YOUR DREAM HERE, AND YOU SHOULD BEWARE THE MAN.

  Go on.

  YOU SEE CHILD AS A THREAT TO YOUR NEATLY BUILT THEORY. HE IS ANOTHER VIRGIN BIRTH. YOU REALIZE THAT HE HAS BUILT THE SAME SECOND COMING THEORY TO EXPLAIN HIS OWN LIFE PURPOSE. YOU UNDERSTAND THAT SINCE HE HAS MET YOU, HIS LIFE PURPOSE HAS BEEN SHATTERED AND HE IS HUNTING FOR ANOTHER ANSWER. YOU DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO DO THAT. YOU DON'T WANT TO HUNT.

  THE WOMAN, MELINDA, IS ALSO A THREAT TO YOUR PURPOSE (OR RATHER THE FANTASY PURPOSE YOU HAVE CREATED FOR YOURSELF). CHRIST COULD NOT FALL PHYSICALLY IN LOVE WITH A WOMAN. BUT YOU HAVE. ADMIT IT. THIS IS YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE. LISTEN AND KNOW THAT YOUR PURPOSE IS TO LOVE AND COMFORT—AND BE LOVED.

  Could that be a purpose?

  IT IS THE OLDEST PURPOSE. WASH YOURSELF CLEAN OF FALSE PURPOSES. THE REASON YOU LIVE IS TO LOVE. DON'T SEARCH FOR LARGER MEANINGS, FOR THE WHY OF THE WORLD OR THE REASON IN HATE AND WAR. BE SATISFIED THAT YOU NOW KNOW YOURSELF. IT IS A WISE MAN WHO KNOWS HIMSELF.

  VI

  I slept well, waking refreshed at about ten o'clock. My insides felt warm and free—as if a large, cold chunk of frozen emotions had been melted within. It was freedom for the first time in a lifetime. The machine was much more than the name Mechanical Psychiatrist implied. It was David with his harp, talking of dreams.

  I went to AC only for money this time, not to demonstrate my superhumanness, my wild talents. With a few more paychecks in my pocket, my Melinda and I could be vagabonds for an eternity—escaping the ugliness, the filth.

  I parachuted from the hex room down into the labyrinth, not trusting to stairs that might have been there yesterday and not today . . .

  There was a clacking of hooves on rock.

  There was an outline like a child's scrawl, not so definite, not so real as the day before.

  An indefinite form with a vague odor of musk and all textures of dark hair that fell like night m
ists.

  "Get out!"

  I mean you no harm at all.

  "And I wish not to harm you. Get out."

  Yesterday I fashioned a mighty sword from the very air itself. Do not forget that.

  "I beg of you to leave. You are in danger."

  From what?

  "I cannot say. It is in the knowing that the danger lies."

  I swung the sword, and he dissipated into an eerie blue vapor that clung to the walls until the wind whistled in to blow it away.

  Two hours into the session, as I was sprawled on the dirt shelf above the pit, grasping at thoughts and diverting, them toward the waterspout, a "G" drifted out, and with another level of my mind, I grasped at it and traced it. G to Grass . . . which is dark Green and bendinG over the hills . . . toppinG the hills to see GGGGG ... G ... G ... God God God God God God God like a whirlwind moan-inG and babblinG over the Glens, cominG, cominG, twistinG relentlessly onward toward me . . . G ... G ...

  I reached out to take a stronger hold on the thought plunging me downward toward the flaming pit below.

  Wind lifted me toward the river.

  I flew as if I were a kite.

  The river swept me toward the ocean.

  The water there was choppy and hot, and at places steam rose in spirals like smoke snakes.

  At places, ice floated, dying.

  I fought for the surface, trying to stay on top of the current, giving up thought direction, fighting only, fighting desperately for my own mind. Then I was suddenly up and splashing through the pillar of water that roared into the black, heavy sky; like a bullet out of a rifle, was I. Splashing, spinning, sputtering, I showered out of the mind of Child.

  The room was dark. The hex signs glowed on the walls, partially illuminating the serious faces set in strange grimaces.

  "He threw me out," I said in the quiet.

  Everyone turned to stare at me.

  "He just threw me out of his mind."

  VII

  Rumors of war.

  The Chinese had slaughtered the skeleton staff manning the last two embassies in Asia. Pictures smuggled out showed headless bodies.

  Headless bodies on the Tri-D screen.