Many Dimensions, Charles Williams [black authors fiction TXT] 📗

female being persuaded to take the Stone

and being caught in an everlasting cleaning of some stone corridor. All

wrong metaphysically, no doubt, he protested—but possible—no, not

possible: no more than sudden passage from place to place or a Stone

that divided itself and was yet unchanged.

 

Ibrahim answered, “You need but take it into your hand and will.”

 

“And you?” Arglay said. “Will you do it with me?”

 

The Hajji hesitated. “It is almost sacrilege,” he murmured,

“yet it is with a right desire. I dare not use my will, but I may sit

by you while you use your own. So much is perhaps not against my

oath…. Under the Protection.” He stretched out his hand. “Take the

Stone and let it lay in your palm, and I will put my hand over it, and

set your desire to know what Giles Tumulty does and purposes.”

 

“And for the return?” Arglay asked.

 

“That is with Allah,” Ibrahim said. “Will you dare it now?”

 

For all answer the Chief justice pulled an armchair near and parallel

to his visitor’s; then he sat down in it and laid his arm on the arm of

the chair. On his palm the Stone rested. Ibrahim laid his own hand

lightly over it and so they remained,

 

Arglay, as he leaned back, formed in his mind, out of the impulse of

distaste which grew in it, the image of Giles Tumulty. He suppressed,

as quickly as he could, the criticisms of his brother-in-law which he

was tempted to make to himself, he compelled them to define the central

idea more exactly. Then he released upon that image the anxiety which

had possessed him; he made a demand of it and sent it out to compel an

answer. The antipathy he always felt grew stronger but it was

controlled and directed by his intention; Giles’s mind should lie open

to his, he was determined. He felt, but without attending to it,

Ibrahim’s hand quiver upon his, as he was still vaguely aware of the

chair on which he was sitting. Slowly those details of sensation

vanished, and instead he became aware that he was holding, or seemed to

be holding, a living thing, a moving, pulsating something which he

hated. It was approaching him; he drove his detestation forward to meet

it. The sensation of enclosing it in his hand disappeared; physical

connection ceased, and he seemed to know as a mental experience alone.

Only that experience now existed; he was repelled, yet since nothing

but repulsion was to be felt it was that which passionately concerned

his whole being. He allowed that repulsion to enter him, but as his

spirit seemed to retire before it, so at the same time it overcame and

dominated it. There ensued a moment’s balance between those contending

forces; they swung equal and then the effort ceased. His mind was aware

of an ordered arrangement, as if in the outer world it had been

considering the plan of a great city; he concentrated his attention

even more strongly, and found himself conscious of an overpowering

desire.

 

But it was a consciousness purely intellectual; the normal confusion of

the mind by the emotions was absent. He was not concerned to excuse,

justify, or condemn the desire he felt existing; rather he observed it

merely. Nor indeed was he at first clear what he was considering, until

there shaped itself against the darkness a face, a large, youthful,

eager face which was gazing at him with a docile attention. It had red

hair, a rather squab nose, a high colour, a weak mouth slightly open,

brown and expectant eyes. His mind remarked that it was a face hitherto

unseen; it reported at the same time a hatred of the face, combined

with a desire to see it hurt and damaged -yet not in mere uselessness

but in the process of extracting some personal profit out of its

existence and its pain. The face removed itself to a little distance

and developed into the whole figure of a young man, a lower middle-class young man, who was speaking. A small, very distant voice floated

into his mind. “Yes,” it was saying, “yes, sir; and then?” He heard

another strange voice—an older, sharper voice—say, “That’s the whole

thing; you understand?” and the rest of his being underwent a sudden

spasm of delight.

 

“Christ Almighty,” Lord Arglay thought suddenly, “this is happening,”

and with the momentary distraction the form flickered and seemed to

fade. But he made a desperate effort to hold it, and at once a strength

flowed out from him. The young man’s figure no longer appeared alone;

it was in a room, a long room, with windows, instruments, books, and

there was another figure by it. A tall, lean, oldish man, with

a sharp anxious face, was standing there,playing with something in his

hand. It was one of the Stones—no, it was the Crown itself, and with

the sight his mind realized what and where it was. It was looking out,

his mind, through Giles Tumulty’s eyes; it was Giles Tumulty’s desire

that it knew; it was Giles Tumulty’s experiment that was beginning—and

Christopher Arglay’s mind that watched it.

 

But that mind was so detached that it seemed incapable of staying or

hastening the intention that flowed around it; as often as it turned

inwards to realize its own separate existence the appearances which it

beheld mingled and faded. It was suspended and observant.

 

Yet, as if on the outskirts of its own nature, it presently found

itself observing other thoughts. Much the same argument that Arglay had

already gone over flashed through it; scattered phrases-“if he just

disappears”-” time and place” -“I wonder what Arglay would say to

this”-struck it and passed. The figure of the young man put out its

hand and received something from the tall man. Lord Arglay’s mind made

an effort forward. “Stop, you fool,” it knew itself thinking, and heard

Giles’s voice say, close and loud, “Calm now, quite calm. just make as

near an image of what you were doing as you can.”

 

The alien mind that received those words shuddered with the horror. But

the mental habits of so many years befriended it then; it realized, as

it felt the pang, that it could do nothing then and there. It must act

in its own medium; on the crowd of diabolic curiosities that surged

around it, it could produce no effect. “I am here,” Lord Arglay’s mind

said to itself, “by my will and the virtue of the Stone. I can do

nothing here—nothing. I must return by virtue of the Stone.” It sought

to shut out the vision in front of it; it sought to concentrate on

itself and to will to know again the vehicle that was natural to it.

And even as it did so Lord Arglay heard a voice saying to him: “Have

you seen? have you seen?”

 

He was lying back in his own chair. Beside him Hajji Ibrahim was

looking anxiously at him. The Stone? yes, the Stone still lay quietly

enough on his palm. Lord Arglay stared at it as if his eyes would never

shift. Then very slowly he got to his feet and laid it carefully on the

table. As he did so Ibrahim repeated: “Have you seen?”

 

“Yes,” Lord Arglay said, again slowly. “Yes, I have seen. And if what I

have seen is true, and if it is as I fear it may be, I will choke Giles

Tumulty’s life out of him myself. Have you seen?”

 

“I think I slept and dreamed. And in my dream-” the Hajji said, and

described the room and the two forms. But he went on—“Also I saw a

little brownish man standing by a table, and his eyes were all alight

with curiosity and desire. Also I saw,” and he began to tremble, “that

they had again divided the Stone; for they did not give the Crown to

the youth, but only a Stone. I think they are very evil men.”

 

“I believe you care more about the division of the Stone than about the

harm they may do with it,” Arglay dispassionately said.

 

“Certainly I do,” the Hajji answered, “for the one is an offence

against the Holy One, but the other only against man. He who divides

the Unity is a greater sinner than he who makes a mock of his brother.”

 

“You may be right,” Lord Arglay said, “but of the Unity I know nothing,

and of man I know something.” He stamped suddenly with sheer rage. “Why

did I return?” he cried out.

 

“You did wisely,” the Hajji said, “for you had not gone to fight his

will but to observe it. You will not find it easy, I know now, to break

Giles Tumulty’s will, and you could not have done it in that way.

Consider that, if what you fear has happened, this young man’s mind

will not perhaps suffer so much, for in the very nature of things he

will not know that he is living but that one period of past time over

and over again, until the day when the End of Desire shall come indeed;

nay, for all we know, he may be saved from many evils so.”

 

“He may be saved from what you will,” Lord Arglay said, and his face

set as he spoke, “but no human being shall be turned into an automaton

at the will of Giles Tumulty while I am living and sane.”

 

There was a short silence, then Arglay went on. “But you are so far

right that we do not know what arrangements Giles has made, nor what

the end of this experiment of his may be. And till we know where the

Types of the Stone all are—if that is what you call them—we must move

slowly. Tomorrow I will go to the Foreign Office again, and after that

we will talk with one another further.”

 

The Hajji stood up. “The Peace be upon you,” he said.

 

“It will be a peace that passeth all understanding then,” the Chief

Justice answered, and took him to the door.