The Hollow Lands

7. A Conflict of Illusions

"It is certainly not very much of an advantage," said the Duke of Queens miserably. They all sat together near the spaceship while the Lat kneeled nearby, absorbed in some kind of gambling game. The Iron Orchid and My Lady Charlotina seemed to be the stakes. Only My Lady Charlotina was getting impatient.

She sighed. "I do wish they'd hurry up. They're lovable, but they're not very decisive."

"You think not?" said Bishop Castle, picking at some moss. "They seemed to have reached the decision to kidnap us pretty quickly."

Jherek was miserable. "If they take us into space I'll never see Mrs. Amelia Underwood!"

"Try a disseminator ring on their weapons again," suggested the Iron Orchid. "Mine doesn't work, Bishop, but yours might."

The Bishop concentrated, fiddling with his ring, but nothing at all happened. "They are only effective on things we create ourselves. We could get rid of the rest of the trees, I suppose…"

"There seems little point," said Jherek. He sighed.

"Well," said the Duke of Queens, an inveterate viewer of the bright side, "we might see something interesting in space."

"Our ancestors never did," the Iron Orchid reminded him. "Besides, how are we to get back?"

"Build a spaceship." The Duke of Queens was puzzled by her apparent obtuseness. "With a power ring."

"If they work in the depths of the cosmic void. Do you recall any record of the rings themselves being used away from Earth?" Bishop Castle shrugged, not expecting a reply.

"Did they have power rings all those thousands and thousands of years ago? Oh, dear, I feel very sleepy." My Lady Charlotina was unusually bored. She had gone off the whole idea of making love to the Lat, either singly or all together. "Let's create an air car and go, shall we."

Bishop Castle was grinning. "I have a more amusing notion." He waved the deceptor-gun. "It should cheer us all up and make an exciting end to this adventure. Presumably the gun is conventionally loaded, Jherek?"

"Oh, yes." Jherek nodded absently.

"Then it will fire illusions at random. I remember the craze for these toys. Two players each have a gun, not knowing which illusions will come out, but hoping that one illusion will counter another."

"That's right," said Jherek. "I couldn't find anyone interested enough to play, however."

Captain Mubbers had left his men and was swaggering towards them.

"Hujo, ri fert glex min glex viel," he barked, menacing them at musical instrument point.

They pretended to have no idea at all as to his meaning (which was fairly clear — he wanted the ladies to enter the spaceship).

"Kroofrudi!" said Captain Mubbers. "Glem min glex viel!"

My Lady Charlotina dimpled prettily. "My dear captain, we simply can't understand you. And you can't understand us now, can you?"

"Hrunt," Shifting his grip on his instrument, Captain Mubbers smiled salaciously and placed a bold hand on her elbow. "Hrunt glex, mibix?"

"Dog!" My Lady Charlotina blushed and fluttered her eyelashes at him. "I suppose we should try the gun now, Bishop."

There came a slight "pop" and everything turned to blue and white. Blue and white birds and insects, delicate, languid, flitted through equally delicate willow trees — white against blue or blue against white, depending on their particular background.

Captain Mubbers was a little surprised. Then he shook his head and pushed My Lady Charlotina towards the ship.

"Perhaps we should allow him just a brief ravishment," she said.

"Too late," said Bishop Castle, and he fired again. "Who loaded this gun, Jherek? We must hope for something a little less restrained."

The second illusion now intruded upon the first. Into the delicate blue and white scenery there lumbered a monstrous ten-legged beast which was predominantly reptilian, with huge eyes which shot flames as it turned its fierce head this way and that.

Captain Mubbers yelled and aimed his instrument. He managed to destroy a fair amount of the wood beyond the blue and white landscape and the flame-eyed monster, but they were unaffected.

"I think it's time to slip away," said Bishop Castle, pulling the trigger once more and introducing bright abstract patterns which whizzed erratically through the air, clashing horribly with the blue and white and making the reptilian beast irritable. The Lat were firing repeatedly at the monster, backing away from it as it advanced (by luck) towards them.

"Oh," said the Iron Orchid in disappointment as Jherek took her by the arm and dragged her into the forest, "can't we watch?"

"Can you remember where we left your air car, Jherek?" The Duke of Queens was panting and excited. "Isn't this fun?"

"I think it was that way," Jherek replied. "But perhaps it would be wise to stop and make another?"

"Would that be sporting, do you think?" asked the Iron Orchid.

"I suppose not."

"Come on then!" She raced off through the trees and had soon vanished in the gloom. Jherek followed her, with Bishop Castle close on his heels.

"Mother, I'm not sure it's wise to separate."

Her voice drifted back to him. "Oh, Jherek, you've become joyless, my juice!"

But soon he had lost her altogether and he stopped, exhausted, beside a particularly large old tree. Bishop Castle had kept up with him and now handed him the deceptor-gun. "Would you mind holding this for a bit, Jherek. It's quite heavy."

Jherek took it and tucked it into his clothes. He heard the sound of something large blundering through the forest. Trunks fell, branches cracked, fires started.

"It's particularly realistic, isn't it?" Bishop Castle seemed almost of the impression that he had made the monster himself. He winced as something howled past his nose and destroyed a line of trees. "The Lat seem to be catching up with us." He dived into the undergrowth, leaving Jherek still undecided as to the direction he should take.

And now, because he might be killed forever, before he could see Mrs. Amelia Underwood again, he was filled by panic. It was a new emotion and part of his mind took an objective curiosity in it. He began to run. He was careless of the branches which struck his face. He ran on and on, through darkness, away from the sounds and the destruction. Danger was a wall which seemed to surround him, in escaping one source he encountered another. Once he bumped against someone in the dark and was about to speak when they said, "Ferkit!" He moved away as quietly as possible and heard a blood-chilling shriek from somewhere else.

He ran, he fell, he crawled, got up and ran again. His chest was painful and his brain was useless. He thought that he might be sobbing and he knew that the next time he would fall and not have the will to rise.

He tripped. He lost his balance. He was reconciled to Death. He went sprawling down the sides of an old pit, bits of earth and rock falling with him, and was about to congratulate himself that he might after all have found relative safety when the bottom of the pit gave way and he was sliding down something which was smooth and plainly built for this purpose. Down and down he slid on the metal chute, feeling sick with the speed of his descent, unable to reach his power rings, unable to slow himself, until he must have been almost a mile underground. Then, at last, the chute came to an end and he landed, winded and dazed, on what appeared to be a pile of mildewed quilts.

The light was dim and it was artificial. After a while he sat up, feeling tenderly over his body for broken bones, but there were none. A peculiar sense of well-being filled him and he lay back upon the quilts with a yawn, hoping that his friends had managed to get back to the landau. He would rest and then consider the best method of joining them. A power ring would doubtless bore a tunnel upwards for him, then he could drift to the surface by means of counter-gravity. He felt extremely sleepy. He could hardly believe in the events which had just taken place. He was about to close his eyes when he heard a small, lisping voice saying:

"Welcome, sir, to Wonderland!"

He looked round. A small girl stood there. She had large blue eyes and blonde curly hair. Her expression was demure.

"You're very well made," said Jherek admiringly. "What are you, exactly?"

The small girl's expression was now one of disgust. "I'm a little girl, of course. Aren't I?"