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Someone had just squeezed my shoulder, the hand brushing against my neck.
"Merle, you okay? Want a drink?" a familiar voice was, asking.
I took a deep breath and sighed it out. I blinked several times. The light was blue, the world a field
of lines and angles. A dipper of water appeared before my mouth.
"Here." It was Luke's voice.
I drank it all.
"Want another?"
"Yes."
"Just a minute."
I felt his weight shift, heard his footsteps recede. I regarded the diffusely illuminated wall six or seven
feet before me.
I ran my hand along the floor. It seemed to be of the same material.
Shortly, Luke returned, smiling, and passed me the dipper. I drained it and handed it back.
"Want more?" he asked.
"No. Where are we?"
"In a cave - a big, pretty place."
"Where'd you get the water?"
"In a side cavern, up that way." He gestured. "Several barrels of it in there. Also lots of food. Want
something to eat?"
"Not yet. Are you okay?"
"Kind of beat," he replied, "but intact. You don't seem to have any broken bones, and that cut on
your face has stopped bleeding."
"That's something, anyway," I said.
I climbed slowly to my feet; the final strands of dreams withdrawing slowly as I rose. I saw then that
Luke had turned and was walking away. I followed him for several paces before I thought to inquire,
"Where are you going?"
"In there," he answered, pointing with the dipper.
I followed him through an opening in the wall and into a cold cavern about the size of my old
apartment's living room. Four large wooden barrels stood along the wall to my left, and Luke proceeded
to hang the dipper upon the upper edge of the nearest. Against the far wall were great stacks of cartons
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and piles of sacks.
"Canned goods," he announced. "Fruit; vegetables, ham, salmon, biscuits, sweets. Several cases of
wine. A Coleman stove. Plenty of Stereo. Even a bottle or two of cognac."
He turned and brushed quickly past me, headed on up the hall again.
"Now where?" I asked.
But he was moving fast and did not reply. I had to hurry to catch up. We passed several branches
and openings before he halted at another, nodding.
"Latrine in there. Just a hole with some boards over it. Good idea to keep it covered, I'd say."
"What the hell is this?" I asked.
He raised his hand. "It will all become clear in a minute. This way."
He swung around a sapphire corner and vanished. Almost completely disoriented, I moved in that
direction. After several turns and one cutback, I felt totally lost. Luke was nowhere in sight.
I halted and listened. Not a sound except for my own breathing.
"Luke! Where are you?" I called.
"Up here," he answered.
The voice seemed to be coming from overhead and somewhere off to my right. I ducked beneath a
low arch and came into a bright blue chamber of the same crystalline substance as the rest of the place. I
saw a sleeping bag and a pillow in one comer. Light streamed in from a small opening about eight feet
overhead.
"Luke?" I asked again.
"Here," came his reply.
I moved to position myself beneath the hole, squinting against the brightness as I stared upward.
Finally, I shaded my eyes. Luke's head and shoulders was limned above me, his hair a crown of coppery
flame in what could be the light of early morning or of evening. He was smiling again.
"That, I take it, is the way out," I said.
"For me," he answered.
"What do you mean?"
There followed a grating noise and the view was partly occluded by the edge of a large boulder.
"What are you doing?"
"Moving this stone into a position where I can block the opening quickly," he replied, "and stick in a
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few wedges afterward."
"Why?"
"There are sufficient tiny openings for air so that you shan't suffocate," he went on.
"Great. Why am I here, anyway?"
"Let's not get existential just now," he said. "This isn't a philosophy seminar."
"Luke! Damn it! What's going on?"
"It should be obvious that I'm making you a prisoner," he said. "The blue crystal, by the way, will
block any Trump sendings and negate your magical abilities that rely on things beyond the walls. I need
you alive and fangless for now, in a place where I can get to you in a hurry."
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| Cytat |
Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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