"Oh God, Dad, here!"
He struck the match.
The stampede was close!
They had come running. Now, fixed by light, they widened their eyes, as did Dad, amazed their mouths at their own ancient quakes and masquerades. Halt! the match had cried. And platoons left, squads right, had stilt-muscled themselves to fitful rest, to baleful glare, itching for the match to whiff out. Then, given lease to run next time, they'd hit this old, very old, much older, terribly old man, suffocate him with Fates in one instant.
"No!" said Charles Halloway.
No. A million dead lips moved.
Will thrust the match forward. In the mirrors, a wizened multiplication of boy-apes did likewise, posing a single rosebud of blue-yellow flame.
"No!"
Every glass threw javelins of light which invisibly pierced, sank deep, found heart, soul, lungs, to frost the veins, cut nerves, send Will to ruin, paralyze and then kick-football heart. Hamstrung, the old old man foundered to his knees, as did his suppliant images, his congregation of terrified selves one week, one month, two years, twenty, fifty, seventy, ninety years from now! every second, minute, and long-after-midnight hour of his possible survival into insanity, there all sank grayer, more yellow as the mirrors ricocheted him through, bled him lifeless, mouthed him dry, then threatened to whiff him to skeletal dusts and litter his moth ashes to the floor.
"No!"
Charles Halloway struck the match from his son's hand.
"Dad, don't!"
For in the new dark, the restive herd of old men shambled forward, hearts hammering.
"Dad, we gotta see!"
He struck his second and final match.
And in the flare saw Dad sunk down, eyes clenched, fists tight, and all those other men who would have to shunt, crawl, scramble on knees once this last light was gone. Will grabbed his father's shoulder and shook him.
"Oh, Dad, Dad, I don't care how old you are, ever! I don't care what, I don't care anything! Oh, Dad," he cried, weeping. "I love you!"
At which Charles Halloway opened his eyes and saw himself and the others like himself and his son behind holding him, the flame trembling, the tears trembling on his face, and suddenly, as before, the image of the Witch, the memory of the library, defeat for one, victory for another, swam before him, mixed with sound of rifle shot, flight of marked bullet, surge of fleeing crowd.
For only a moment longer he looked at all of him-selves, at Will. A small sound escaped his mouth. A little larger sound escaped his mouth.
And then, at last, he gave the maze, the mirrors, and all Time ahead, Beyond, Around, Above, Behind, Beneath or squandered inside himself, the only answer possible.
He opened his mouth very wide, and let the loudest sound of all free.
The Witch, if she were alive, would have known that sound, and died again.
Chapter 50
JIM NIGHTSHADE, out the back door of the maze, lost on the carnival grounds, running, stopped.
The Illustrated Man, somewhere among the black tents, running, stopped.
The Dwarf froze.
The Skeleton turned.
All had heard.
Not the sound that Charles Halloway made, no.
But the terrific sounds that followed.