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interior of the volcano.
The sounds hit them, bounced across the stone walls, reverberated again. The
fury had been built to a peak and pitch they both knew could not be exceeded.
They had strained every last vestige of belief and conviction in their minds.
As Marmorth realized he was at the pinnacle of his belief, he saw the same
conviction come over
Krane s face. He knew that from here on in, it would be a physical thing, with
both of them stalemated in illusory power.
Then the woman-thing appeared.
She grazed into being between them. She wasn t human. There was no question
about that.
Marmorth took a halting step backward. Krane remained rooted, though his pale
face had blanched an even more deadly shade. A strangled, My God, what it?
slipped past Marmorth s lips.
is
It was less than human, yet more than mortal; it was a travesty of a human
being. A mad nightmare of a vision! Like some fearsome god of an ancient cult,
it paused with long legs apart, hands on hips.
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The woman s body was lush. Full, high breasts, trim stomach, exciting legs.
Gorgeously proportioned and exciting, the torso and legs, the chest and arms,
were normal-even exaggeratedly normal.
But there all resemblance to a woman ceased.
The head was a strangely lizardlike thing, with elongated snout, wattles, huge
glowing eyes set atop the skull. Looking out through flesh-sockets thick and
deep-little hummocks atop the face-the eyes were small, crimson and cruel.
The nose was almost nonexistent. Two breather-spaces pulsed, one on either
side of a small rise in the yellowed, pocked flesh of the head.
The mouth was a wide, gaping, triangular orifice, with triple rows of shark
teeth in the upper and lower jaws. The woman-thing looked like a gorgeous
female-with the wierdly altered head of a crocodile.
The ebony, leathery, bat s wings rising from the shoulder
blades-quivering-completed the frightening picture.
Wisps of smoky, filmy garments were draped over the woman-thing s shoulders,
around her waist.
She stood unmoving.
Then she spoke to them. It was not mental.
It actually sounded; but not from the body before them. They knew it
was-her?-but it did not come from her at all. The fearful mouth remained
almost shut, propped slightly open on the sharp tiers of teeth.
The voice issued from the walls, from the tips of the stalagmites, from the
high, arching roof of the volcano; it boomed from the rocky floor-it even
floated down the length of the infinitely-stretching
Corridor.
The voice spoke in thunder, yet softly.
Well, Gentlemen?
Krane stared for a second at the woman-thing; then he looked about wildly,
trying to find the source of the voice. His head swung back and forth as
though it was manipulated by strings from above.
Well, what?
he shouted to no one.
Have you realized the truth yet?
What truth? What are you talking about? Who is that? Is it you? chimed in
Marmorth, bathed in sudden fear. He pointed an accusing finger at the
woman-thing.
The Corridor shimmered oddly. It lived just behind the stone walls of the
volcano.
I m a voice, Gentlemen. A voice and an illusion. Just an illusion, that s all,
Gentlemen. Just an illusion from both of your minds. Made of equal portions of
your minds. For you are one as strong as the other.
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There was a pause. Then:
But tell me, have you realized what you should have known before you were
foolish enough to enter the Corridor?
Krane looked at Marmorth with suspicion. For the first time it occurred to him
that perhaps this was a trick on the other s part. Marmorth, recognizing the
glance, shrugged his shoulders eloquently. No!
Tell us, then!
What should we have known?
The only real answer as to who is right; which Theorem is the correct one!
Tell me, tell me! they shouted, almost together.
There was silence for a moment. The woman-thing ran a scarlet-tipped hand
across the hideous lizard snout, as though searching for a way to phrase what
was coming. Then the single word sounded in the heart of the volcano.
Neither.
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