Wave Without A Shore

XXI

He stopped, when his shoulders had stiffened and his arms ached from the extension and his hands hurt from working the clay. He looked at it; he had not the strength to work to completion at one sitting. That would take days and months to do as he had done the other, but the concept wanted out of him, refusing patience, promising months of effort if he lacked the stamina to go on now, in hours, to finish what vision he had. It sat rough and half-born, the essence of it there. He touched the wet clay, brushed at it tentatively and finally surrendered, dropped his hand and folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them and slept where he sat, fitfully, until he gained the strength to walk over and fall into the unmade bed—to waken finally with hands and arms painfully dry and caked thick with clay, to open his eyes and stare across the room at the creature on the table as if it were some new lover that had come into the room last night and stayed for morning. He had feared it was a dream which might fade out of reach; but it was there, and demanded, unfinished as it was, an attention he presently could not give it.

He washed, stiff-muscled and shivering in the unheated studio; dressed, because he had not taken all his clothes away to the Residency, against some time that he would want this place. He paused time and time again to stare at what he had done in the fit of last night, and it no more let him go than before, except that he had spent all his vision and was drained for the time. He knew better than to lay hands on it now, when nothing would come out true, when his hands and his eye would betray him and warp what he remembered. The vision was retreated into the distance and hands alone could not produce it or impatience force it. It was waiting. It would come back and gather force and break out in him again when he had rested. He had only to think about it and wait.

Never—he was sure—never exactly as it had been last night; those impulses, once faded, could not be recovered. He mourned over that, and paused in his intention to go downstairs to breakfast, just to look toward that disturbing face.

He laughed then at his own doubt. It had more in it than the work he had just finished, more of potential. It could be greater than what was in Jenks Square. It could become . . . far greater. He suffered another impulse to work on it, which was not an impulse he ought to follow. After breakfast; after rest; then.

People approached the door; classes were starting, he reckoned. It was daybreak; maybe someone was starting early.

The door opened. It was Waden.

"Well," Herrin said, because Waden's visits to University were normally limited to the dining hall. Outsiders were with him. Evidently that was going to be a permanent attachment. "I was headed downstairs."

"You've been working." Waden walked to the table, touched the clay, walked around it. Frowned and touched it again. "That's what you're doing next."

"It's far from finished."

"McWilliams. He's not like that. He's a narrow, narrow man. You make him a god."

"I've only borrowed his features. It's not McWilliams; just the shell of him."

"This is good."

"Of course it is."

"Did you have this in mind all along?"

"Started it last night . . . . Do you have a point, Waden? Come down to breakfast with me."

"I don't want you to do any more statues."

Herrin stood still and looked at him. "Am I to take you seriously?"

"Absolutely."

"First Citizen, you're given to bizarre humor, but this—whatever it demonstrates—is not for discussion at breakfast."

"It has rational explanation, Herrin. I'm sure you even understand it."

He thought about it. The best thing to do, he thought, was to walk out the door on the spot and give Waden's absurdity the treatment it deserved; but the doorway was occupied: invisibles stood there, Waden's escort, large men with foreign weapons. And he did see them and Waden knew that he saw them.

"You were useful," Waden said, "in creating what you did. Art's the more valuable while it's unique. If you go on creating such things, you'll eventually overshadow it. I'm telling you . . . there'll not be another. You've created something unique. Protect it, you said; time is your enemy, you said; and I believe you, Herrin."

He was cold inside and out. It was very difficult to relax and laugh, but he did so. "I recall what your art is; but do you fancy years of Keye alone? You need me more than ever, First Citizen. Look at your allies and imagine dialogue with them."

"I know," Waden said. "I agree with you on all of that. I don't want to lose you. You've accomplished a great deal. You're a powerful force; you've swallowed up Kierkegaard itself; you have people doing strange things and Kierkegaard will never be the same. But, Herrin, you've done as much as I want you to do. As much as I want you to do. Enjoy everything you have. Bask in your success. Know that you've warped a great many things about your influence, and that you'll have your duration. Look, they'll say for ages to come, look at the work of Herrin Law; he only made one, and laid down his tools and stopped, because it was a masterwork, and it was perfect Quit while your reputation is whole. Stop at this apex of your career, and you'll challenge ages to come with what you've done; you'll have accomplished everything you ever said you wanted. Paint, if it suits you. Painting's not the same kind of art; your sketches are brilliant. Be rich. Teach others. Continue here as a Master. Do anything in the World you like. You want comfort—have it. You want influence—I'll give you control of the whole University. Just don't do another sculpture."

"At your asking."

"I ask this," Waden said quietly, "I plead with you—which I have never done with anyone and never shall again."

"Meaning that you're threatened; meaning that my art has to give way to yours, and you mean I should admit that."

"Mine is the more important, Herrin. My art guides and governs, but yours is Dionysian and dangerous. It provokes emotion; it gathers irrational responses about it; it touches and it moves, like energy itself. While your energy serves me I use it, but you've done enough. It's time to stop, Herrin, because if you go further you put yourself in conflict with me. You threaten order. And you threaten other things. I asked you to lend me duration; and now I have to be sure you don't lend it to anyone else. Like that—" He gestured toward the sculpture. "That, a man hunted by agencies friendly to us—"

"Your reality's becoming bent indeed if you care in the least what they think. If you had power you'd tell them what to think. But aren't you losing your grip on it—that the best you can do is come here and tell me not to create, that your reality can't withstand me and what I do? Are you that fragile, Waden Jenks? I never thought so until now."

"You misunderstand. The power is not illusory. It is real, Artist, and it can be used. I've told you what I want and don't want, and the fact that I can tell you is at issue here, do you see that? All you have to do is admit that I can. And think about it. And take the rational course. Leave off making statues. That's all I ask."

Herrin shook his head. "Really an excellent piece of your art, Waden. Consummate skill. I am intimidated. But I exist, I do what I do, and it's not to be changed."

"I understand. You won't give in, reckoning this is a bluff, that at any moment I'll let you know you've been taken." Waden reached to the table beside him, took up dried clay in his fingers and crumbled it. Suddenly he grasped the table edge and upended it

Herrin exclaimed in shock and grabbed for it; but it fell; the head hit the floor and distorted itself and he grabbed for Waden, seized up a handful of impeccable suit and headed Waden for the wall.

The Outsiders grabbed him from behind, hauled him back while he was still too shocked at the touch itself; and at the destruction; and at Waden Jenks.

"I'm very serious," Waden said. "Believe me that you won't go on working as you please, and I know what it is to you—admit it, admit that after all, you don't control what happens, and ask me, just ask me for what I've offered you, on my terms . . . because those are the terms you'll get Those are the terms you have to live with. It's my world. I can make it comfortable for you—or harsh; and all you have to do to save yourself a great deal of grief is to admit that truth, and follow orders, which is all you've ever really done. Only now you have to see it and to deal with that fact. Admit it. When you can—you're quite safe."

"I'm not about to." Herrin tried to shake himself loose. It was going to take losing the rest of his composure and still he entertained the suspicion it was all farce. "We'll talk about this later. Rationally."

"No. There's no talk left. I just ask you whether you're willing to be reasonable in this. That's all"

"Oh, well, I agree."

"You're lying of course, I know. Humor me, you think, try eventually to move me. No. I'm leaving now, Herrin. I've borrowed these troops from the port; they don't have the reluctance in some regards anyone else in Kierkegaard would have. Others wouldn't lay a hand on you, but they will. They'll see to it that you can't use that talent of yours again. You see, I also deal with the material as well as the mind; and by the material—on the mind. I don't want him killed— understand me well—I just want it assured he won't make any more statues. Physically. Herrin, I don't want it this way."

"Then you've already lost control."

"It's not a game, Herrin; not a debate: I'm leaving. And if you ask me and I know you've come to my Reality, Herrin, you can get out of this." Waden walked to the door, waited, looked back. "Herrin?"

He shook his head, suddenly made up his mind and jerked loose, headed for Waden in the intent of getting to him, the head, the center of it; a hand grasped his arm, dragging at him and he spun, elbowed for a belly and rammed his free hand for a throat, but they hauled at his arms again. There was no one in the doorway; the door closed, in fact leaving him with them, and a blow slammed into his midsection in the instant he looked.

He threw his whole body into it, rammed his feet into one of them, twisted with manic force and threw one of them over, came down on that one and rammed a freed forearm into his face. A blow dazed him, sent his vision red and black, and he tried to heave himself for his feet, met a body and heaved his weight into it. The body and a table went over, and they went on hitting him, over and over again, until his balance left him and he hit the floor on hip and shoulder. "Don't kill him," one reminded the others. "Don't risk killing him." One trod on his arm, and a boot came down on his hand, smashed down on it repeatedly. He tried to protect himself, but they had him, rolled him on his face and smashed the other hand. He had not, to his knowledge, made a sound—did then, cried out from the pain and lost all his organization to resist the blows that came at him and the blurred figures which swarmed over him. He curled up when they had let him go. Even that instinctual move came hard, muscles twitching without coordination, some paralyzed. One of them kicked him in the belly and he could not prevent it.

They walked away then. He lay aching on the concrete floor and heard the door open and close. He moved his arms and tried to move his legs and to lift his head. His stomach started heaving, dry heaves that racked torn muscles from chest to groin. He tried to push his right hand against the floor and there was both pain and numbness. He saw the hand in front of him distorted beyond human form, hauled the left arm from under his ribs and went sick with the pain as wrist and fingers ground under him, that hand distorted like the other. He moaned to himself, tried again and again to roll onto his elbow to get an arm under him while his stomach spasmed. He collapsed, tried it again, finally sat up and tucked his wounded hands under his arms, rocking and grimacing against the pain that washed over him in blurring waves.

He saw himself finally. He saw himself sitting in a room where enemies could come back and find him, to hurt him further or simply to stare. He saw himself faced with the need to go outside, a Master of the University, who had to go maimed into public view and face the people who had feared him and the people who had relied on him for their own realities, and the students he had taught and most of all Waden Jenks and Keye Lynn. He shuddered, swallowed down another spasm and could not stop shivering. He tried to get up, finally made it, still doubled over, and reached the wall to lean on.

Had to go out. There was nowhere to go and nowhere to stay. He hurt, and he could not straighten, could not even change the clothes which were smeared with clay and dust and blood. He tried, ineffectually, to straighten the studio . . . gathered up the sketchbook which had been stepped on, clenching his teeth against the waves of sickness. Tried. There was no saving the clay; it was ruined, and he did not want to look at it. He managed finally to stand with his back against the wall, though it hurt, managed to catch his breath.

Waden's reality. They came now, the Outsiders, whenever they would; and wherever they would . . . Waden's doing. Waden had meant this—always meant this.

His eyes stung; he wept, and pushed from the wall to the doorway, managed finally with his ruined hand to reach the latch and to open it.

No one saw him, down the hall and down the stairs. They looked at first, but he flinched and they flinched from seeing him.

He fell on the steps outside. It was a moment before he could recover from the impact, and some had started toward him, but when he looked up at them and they looked at him, they pretended they had been going somewhere else, because he had fallen from more than the height of the steps, and he knew it and they knew it. It was a matter outside their realities. He gathered himself up finally, and leaned against the wall for a time until he could walk.

He did so, then, because he ached and walking seemed to make the ache less, or it distracted him, or it was the only reality he had left, simple motion to evidence life. He was no longer sure.