Svetoslav Loghinov
	THE GUARD OF THE PASS
	The steps echoed on the floor tiles. Their sound was so real
that everybody knew: Lang was coming. Nonetheless, the dragons
that guarded the hall entrance gave a panting roar, "Vassal Lang
is coming to the Master of the World", and the beryllium androids
from the next hall clinked as they rotated the blue lens of their
stereo-eye:
	"Vassal Lang is coming to the Master of the World!"
	This cry passed unabated from hall to hall until finally the
echo-like voices of the ghosts came from beside the throne:
	"Vassal Lang is coming in to join the Master of the World!"
	Lang went in and stopped. The Master was sitting on a throne
made from rough black stone and pale emptiness. In his hands the
Master was holding the scepter of power, all fire and gold. The
throne was surrounded by lamias and ghosts. Without bowing, Lang
passed on to the middle of the hall and only there bent his head
abruptly, so that his helmet clanged against the protruding
breast-plate.
	"Almighty! I came to your call."
	Nothing in the Master's face changed as his voice sounded,
neither did his lips quiver.
	"I have not called you for a discussion today. I have
conceived another big march and I need you."
	How could he, who lived at the end of the World, help?
	For the first time the face of the Master came alive, his
eyes glittered. He replied:
	"I have decided to climb the Pass, seize what lies beyond it
and add it to my possessions."
	Lang felt embarrassed. He knew neither what to do nor how to
answer. He managed to remain perfectly still only by the force of
millennial habit. Then the words came:
	"Almighty! It is impossible to go through the Pass. Your
power ends at the border, you know that very well."
	"That's a lie!" The Master yelled. His face was suddenly
animated.
	Lang responded by putting up his helmet and saying in a
normal voice, without bothering about ethics:
	"This is the truth. I am a good entertainer and my home is
visited by guests from all areas; and I know that the borderline
dwellers are not afraid of you. In the south, haunted by
nightmares and ghostly mirages, nobody cares a damn for your
great power."
	"You want me to lay my wrath on the South, where it will
harmlessly disperse in the dead world, isn't that so,
open-hearted knight?" The Master asked with a smile. "I have
suppressed the unruly ghosts with fearful conjurations. The
Hermit has bent his head before me; there are no more borders to
the south. It is the North's turn now. The country there is a
wild one indeed. I know that the incantations will lose their
power there and the chariots will come to a halt, because on the
other side of the mountain lifeless machines need food and water
to run. The swords of drifting mist won't even scratch the rough
flesh of the northern savages. To deal with them one needs steel
and stone. But these are very simple things, Lang, they exist in
my world, so it is not difficult to find weapons."
	"Yes, steel does exist in this world"
	Lang drew out his sword. It had two sharp edges: there was
swelling mist along one of them and a bizarre picture running
along the other. Lang pulled out his lustrous glove and ran the
sword edge along his fingers twice. Lang was the only creature
throughout the world who had genuine red blood and at the sight
of the red drops the Master's silent and motionless bodyguards
shifted: some drew back while others made a step forward.
	"I, the Guard of the Pass," Lang uttered evenly. "Swear by
this blood that no one from the Outer World will ever penetrate
here and that no one from here will get into the Outer World! No
one, ever!"
	"I swear by the blood I don't have that in a week's time I
shall march through the Pass, and if my slave decides to stay in
my way, I shall destroy him!"
	"I am not a slave." Lang said. "Only a part of me belongs to
this world, and at the Pass I conform only to myself and to my
duty."
	"No." The Master said. "You don't quite look like a subject.
You possess more of the power that exists beyond the mountains,
that is why you are so proud; but your power can also be
broken..."
	A fiery column spilled in the hall and hit Lang in the
chest. It was not spectral magical fire but real, compact flame.
The gas steams gushed out of somewhere, swelled like bright red
ember, rose like windspouts and threw up black puffs of smoke.
Lang's armor scattered and began oozing down in big drops. Lang
stepped forward with his sword raised. He could not see the
enemy, he did not know which way to go and tried hard not to
fall, but his knees bent, and the tiles, covered with black
spots, emerged before his eyes. Lang felt his blood seethe and
evaporate!
	"This is the end." He thought. "It is a good thing Constance
can see nothing..."
	The fire vanished as unexpectedly as it had appeared. It was
raining now. The transparent drops were falling against the
warped mail-armor with a hissing noise. Big drops rolled on the
hot tiles. Lang opened his eyes. The Master's face was bent over
him. It was almost real now, the eyes sparkled with virtually
uncontrolled passion, and a rather human request sounded in his
voice.
	"I don't want to kill you, Lang, I need you, you are the
only one who has been there, you yourself almost belong there.
You know their failings and their frailties, you can easily
defeat them. I want you to head my troops, and after the victory
I shall reward Lang. You will not be the guard of the Pass any
more: you will be my deputy in those lands."
	Lang struggled to his feet, breaking up the twisted armor.
	"You can kill me." He said. "But before that you might as
well learn the truth. You call yourself the Master of the World,
but the real world is on the other side of the Pass. This is but
its dancing shadow and useless delirium. Sometimes one comes
across reality here, but that is only because the other world is
infinitely rich and cannot contain everything. Sacred laws govern
that world. You are omnipotent only here. I beg you, forget about
the Pass."
	"So you have started talking in a different way." The Master
summed up with satisfaction. "The only thing left now is to make
you say different things. For this purpose I have another
surprise in stock. According to you the invincible troops will
lose their power at the border, or perhaps the march through the
Pass will simply fail, isn't that so? We shall see!"
	The Master made a circle with his fiery scepter: a bent up
figure appeared in its center. Lang arms hanging down almost to
the knees, with their fingers thin and strong as a jeweller's.
The drooping shoulders created the impression that the standing
figure was stooped. The dishevelled fair hair fell on the
forehead, nearly hiding the gaze of astonished eyes. And the
unchanging guilty smile: so familiar and so misplaced here, by
the Master's throne. The figure in the circle was Trouddom.
	"Inventor!" The Master ordered. "Tell us about your
machine."
	"It is called an invertor." Trouddom said and fell silent.
	"Can one cross the border with its assistance?"
	"Yes, of course. The invertor destroys reality, converts it
into possibility and even decomposes it into absurdity."
	"So my warriors will safeguard their strength and the silly
laws governing the areas beyond the mountain will disintegrate
into chances and will start obeying me?"
	"If a sufficiently powerful apparatus is built, yes. But one
should not set in operation everything that can be made."
	"I shall judge this!" The Master said curtly and erased the
circle with a swoop of the scepter.
	Trouddom disappeared.
	Lang remained motionless for a whole second more, thinking
hard about what had just happened. He did not doubt Trouddom's
words. The inventor never made mistakes. So the border was no
more there, the mysterious invertors invented by Trouddom would
surmount the mountains and the wonderful real world would cease
to exist and would die in chaos. The only obstacle standing in
the troops' way was Lang with his half-real sword. He would have
to defend the Pass on his own, without Trouddom. Trouddom was a
traitor. This had to be taken into account too.
	Lang turned round and started to leave. The armor, now
black, creaked at every motion.
	"Lang!" The thunder-like voice came behind him. "In three
days' time my troops will reach the Pass and you will either head
them or they will tread over you!"
	Lang did not reply.
	"Vassal Lang is leaving the throne hall!" The dragons on
guard roared.
	The road meandered and at times vanished altogether, yet it
led slowly and languidly up into the mountain. If you turned back
you would see that the road behind you also led up into the
mountain, but that was an illusion. Lang turned round. The
southern horizon was hidden by mist. The grey shroud blurred the
outlines of the objects, which were not very steady anyway, and
only the Master's palace, always visible from everywhere, rose
high: stern and beautiful.
	The World extended from north to south, descending from the
Pass and cutting across the lands of the ever smaller
probabilities to reach the areas of absurdity. In the extreme
south the world turned into a wilderness with haunted mirages.
There was nothing beyond the wilderness. Even the unreal World
ended and ceased to exist there. But the whole truth was that the
Hermit lived there. He was a keeper of the border in the same way
as Lang was, yet he was not a guard, for there was nothing to
defend there and nobody to defend it from.
	Lang had never known how or on what the Hermit lived,
although he had often seen the Hermit himself. Sometimes the
Hermit appeared in Lang's castle, conversed with the host on
abstract topics and disappeared as incomprehensibly as ever. Lang
never asked questions about anything, he respected in his guest a
power equal to his own. That is why Lang did not believe the
Master's words. The omnipotent Master could also err by taking
the deviation for a victory. The south could open up and slip out
at any time.
	It was not so where he was. The horseshoes rattled against
the stones and gave out sparks ever more frequently. The
landscape became more distinct, though not stable. The rumble of
an erupting volcano came from beside the road, he could hear the
noise of a town a little way off, and nobody paid any attention
to the fire or to the falling stones. It was possible that on the
following day the shaking mountain would be replaced by a lake.
And the country-side could be covered by grass. Everything that
retained greater stability was grouped northwards, closer to
Lang's country. The people that lived there were almost ordinary
humans, their life was measured in years and not in minutes,
everyone had his own face and they all looked more human and
complex. Lang had taken the inhabitants of the Plateau under his
protection, he led them in battles against the hordes of savages
rushing in from the south, and he himself combated the monsters
and giants that sometimes climbed the Plateau.
	His home was quite close now, the mountains overhung the
road ever more tangibly. Yellow dust rose along the road, sweet
fragrance came from the bushes. A herd of golden-horn antelopes
shot past Lang. The animals ran with their heads vividly tossed
back, steaming lather dripping from their mouths. Soon after that
the cause of their fright appeared as well. A bug of supernatural
size crept slowly by the road. Its proboscis, resembling a
tree-trunk, contracted convulsively and sucked in everything the
bug encountered on its way: trees, people, animals. A strip of
bare land stretched behind it.
	Lang felt wholehearted hatred for such creatures, brought
about by fluctuation outbursts. Moreover, the bug was heading
northwards: hence it might reach the foothills of the mountain by
chance.
	Lang drew out his sword and rode his horse at full speed
against the dangerous brute. The sucking proboscis dangled in his
direction. He dodged aside and moving in close, thrust the
undulating edge into the chitinous armor. The bug fell on its
side, the hairy ten-meter-long legs stretched out and began
scratching against each other as if trying to remove the dirt
that clung to them in lumps.
	Lang wiped the sweat off his forehead. Only then did he
realize to what danger he had exposed himself, for he had left
the protecting armor, black and twisted, at the palace threshold.
Lang felt pain in the sword-cut hand. He had forgotten to recover
the cut with plantain in the mountain and now the wound would
heal slowly. He heard the sound of bells and voices beside him. A
caravan was passing by. The overloaded camels walked slowly,
chewing the endless gum. A red-bearded merchant separated from
the procession and approached Lang.
	"Oh, you noble and grand stranger!" He said. "You have
rescued me from this terrible beast. I want to reward you
befittingly. My daughter, the beautiful Gyulgara, will become
your wife!"
	Lang turned his horse's head round and went back to the
road. The mountains were already near. A man was walking slowly
along the road facing Lang. A thin bundle hung on a long stick.
	"How d'ye do, signor!" The traveller said.
	"Olle!" Lang exclaimed in astonishment. "What are you doing
here?"
	"I have set out on a trip." Olle answered. "It has become
dull and dangerous at home. I don't like it when it is both dull
and dangerous. That is why I have left..."
	Such things happened to the Plateau dwellers. Every now and
then some of them would climb down to the valley. They rarely
came back, and when they did, they were changed beyond
recognition. Lang took the departures and metamorphoses in his
stride, but Olle's departure pained him. Olle lived in the
immediate proximity of the castle and was simply a land-tiller,
just like those you sometimes came across on the other side of
the Pass. He used to appear in the castle and help Trouddom with
the intricate mechanisms, and in the evenings he would frequently
invite Lang and Trouddom to visit him and taste highland honey.
But Trouddom had defected to the Master, and Olle was also
leaving, or, rather, he had already left.
	"...And it became dull a long time ago, when Constance
refused to come and live with us." Olle spoke on.
	Lang shouted:
	"What?! Who told you about her?"
	"So I have left." Olle went on imperturbably. "I think I'll
go to the Hermit. It's a bit far away, but I have a chance to
reach the place, don't I? They say the Tramp made it."
	"The eyes of the beautiful Gyulgara are like two plums." The
merchant droned monotonously behind his back.
	Lang drew in a deep breath. He could have thought of it
earlier: from the moment of Olle's descent he had ceased to be
himself. And perhaps that was not Olle at all, perhaps it was
merely an echo of Lang's own thoughts, for since his armor had
been damaged Lang's thoughts had probably become as exposed to
the world as his chest was.
	The horse was climbing up the mountain now. For the first
time the footprints of Olle who had left persisted in the dust.
	Lang's castle was erected on a rock, as a castle should be.
The road ascended spirally towards the gates protected by a
drawbridge. The narrow ambrasures were lit up by warm electric
light. It was usually Trouddom who put on the lights in the
evenings and that is why he had expected to come back to a house
of gloomy emptiness. The streaks of light in the windows
bewildered him.
	At the last curve of the road Lang stopped the horse and
looked around. His land, almost real, lay before him.
	A humid ghost-like mist blurred the outlines of the trees
and houses, as well as those of the numerous windmills. Lang had
never thought about why the windmills were necessary. No one had
ever built them, yet dozens of them burnt at times of parades.
There was a Trouddom-built motor rotating at every village house.
It produced heat and light and ground flour. Only the magicians'
lairs and the gloomy bandits' dens were lit by fried lard or by
gigantic glow-worms. But all human nonentities kept to their
retreats. They dreaded Lang's reputation rather than his sword.
	A jet liner passed high in the sky with an even drone. Lang
gazed at it as it flew away. Who was flying in that plane? Where
had he come from and why? There would be no answer: The air
traveller dived into the valley. Every evening an airplane flew
over the castle. Sometimes Lang tried to imagine how the
ephemeral travellers felt as they looked down at the castle, the
mills and the thatched houses through the quartz glass. As for
Lang, he was not annoyed by the numerous medieval anachronisms.
They were part and parcel of the everyday life that had existed
for centuries. But on that day he felt resentment against the
unnecessary windmills, against the humble address "Signor", even
against the armor that had saved his life. Obviously the medieval
decorations were not there by chance. Where there was a Master
there would be decorations as well. Hence Vassal Lang took pride
in his independence to no avail. He was as much a subject as the
others were.
	Lang climbed the rock, blew his horn and stood waiting for
the bridge to be lowered.
	Below him the mountain stream warbled against the boulders.
An enormous wooden wheel, similar to that of a mill, turned in
its foamy waters. This was the only driving wheel in the land,
and in the world too. Lang's castle was perched so independently,
that even the work of the perpetual-engine machines was
unreliable there. Then Trouddom made a wheel that set these
intricate devices in operation. The noise of the brook seemed
somewhat different that day. Lang looked down into the abyss: the
wheel was not there, there were only debris of axles and broken
cogwheels. Well, that could be expected.
	The bridge came down, Lang entered the courtyard and
alighted from the horse. And only then did he wonder: who had
lowered the bridge? Lang looked round him bewildered. Trouddom
was crossing the courtyard, hurrying towards him.
	"Are you here?" Lang asked.
	"Where could I be?" Trouddom smiled. "I cannot be there." He
pointed at the mountains. "And I don't want to be there." The
inventor's thumb turned downwards. "I am always here."
	Lang sighed with relief. How could he have believed the
deceitful Master?
	"Down there I saw a big optical illusion of you." He said.
	"While I lived quietly here. I even did some work."
	"So I can see. What have you done to the wheel?"
	"I broke it. We don't need it anymore. I have installed
another machine in its stead."
	"I am coming." Lang readily said.
	The accommodation chambers on the second floor were provided
with all utilities. He had meticulously banished from there the
nonsensical attributes of the World, while in the ground-floor
halls ethic had its say. Dilapidated armors, never worn by
anyone, were lined up against the walls. Rain-corroded chains
hung from the ceiling and cast strange shadows under the dancing
candle-light.
	And the castle basement, which would normally contain the
treasures plundered by the Master's loyal vassals and a dungeon,
actually housed a veritable phantasmagoria, yet it was a
phantasmagoria that was possible only on the fringes of the
world. These were Trouddom's possessions. Incredible machines,
set in operation as if solely by their creator's genius, ran
there.
	"Here it is." Trouddom said proudly as he opened the door.
	Lang spent some time examining his friend's invention. The
machine ran at full capacity. The heavy body, made of titanic
steel, vibrated softly, the red-hot connections consisting of
zirconium tubules glowed, super-heated steam whined, and the
turbine wailed monotonously. The rods cut out of diamonds were
only half-lowered. Facing Lang was a nuclear reactor, frightful
with its incompleteness, stitched together with living threads,
in general existing only due to the confusion in the world. Yet
it was fully genuine.
	"You know." Lang said slowly. "This is a dangerous thing."
	"Not at all." Trouddom objected. "There is no fluctuation
that can destroy it. It can run without supervision even for a
hundred years if it wishes."
	"This is not the point. There is too much evil that comes
along by chance. In fact every evil is a chance one, but won't
you provide him with real power? I used to think that the
Master's whole power lay in the chimeras, but today I saw real
fire in his palace. And that nearly cost me my life. What will
happen if the Master lays his hands on this?"
	"You can say so about every machine and each of them can be
converted into evil. Don't worry, the reactor will remain in the
basement. The Master won't learn about it. Even though this is
not the most dangerous thing that can be created. For example, I
recently invented a really fearful machine, and I'll never start
building that one. I invented a mechanism that can break the
borders and destroy the real world."
	"That machine..." Lang started saying, feeling his blood run
cold.
	"It is called an invertor." They stood on the watch-tower
platform and watched the valley glimmering with night-time
reflections. Distant lightnings flashed and died out, then
reappeared elsewhere. Everything was almost as it had always
been, except for a cobweb of light that cut through the darkness
at the place occupied by the Master's palace. It visibly
increased, covering ever larger space. The reckless will was
introducing a semblance of order in chaos. The omnipotent ruler
was mustering strength to assault the Pass.
	"He will not pass." Trouddom said melodiously. "Even if he
has really found out about the invertor, nothing will come out of
it anyway."
	"I shall construct a more powerful device than his and I
shall transform the troops into an impotent ghost. I shall build
cannons that will smash the palace with their real and imaginary
power."
	"You are a good engineer." Lang said. And, as always when he
heard this word, Trouddom grasped the implication and did not ask
for a repetition. "But tell me one thing: have you thought about
fire recently?"
	Trouddom raised his head energetically.
	"I have, recently. Three days ago."
	"I suddenly realized that I knew nothing about fire and I
started thinking on what it was and how it could be produced."
	"And a day later the Master nearly burnt me to death. You
must understand, my friend, that as soon as you think of a new
weapon, it appears in the palace of the Almighty."
	"This means that we shall have to fight, relying not on
destructive apparata, but on our own selves."
	Lang descended to his chamber and wrapped his cloak tightly
round his shoulders to prevent it from fluttering. Then he went
out into the hall. Trouddom hurriedly dragged his legs down the
winding staircase.
	"You are going to the other side of the Pass, aren't you?"
He asked. "And we have only two days, and there is so much to
do..."
	"I am making use of these days to do the most important
thing."
	"Kiss Constance's hand for me, will you?" Trouddom said in
agreement.
	The transition was invisible and intangible. After a
consecutively hard step up the steep and dangerous slope, the
climb suddenly ended and one could walk on level ground. But hard
as the traveller might walk, he wouldn't be able to move further
than the edge of the abyss. The border consumed his step.
	Lang went to the end and drew out the sword from under his
cloak. The wilderness glistened with silvery light, the eye could
not discern the misty land from the land of steel. Lang turned
the sword round and delineated an entrance. A declivity opened up
before him: it was a steep landslide abounding in chasms and
gorges. But this road, which was so much like the one he had just
traversed, was on the other side of the Pass.
	Torix's house was high up in the mountains. It was a
reliable and solid dwelling, built god knows when, repeatedly
rebuilt and bearing traces of all epochs. This was the kind of
house Torix could live in. He was an old friend of Lang's who was
aware of his identity and whose attitude towards this fact was as
calm as his attitude towards his own life among the rocks. There
was no way of knowing where Lang would land after stepping across
the border. He sometimes fell in wild lands where a primitive
shepherd looked after his herd clutching a stone axe. Sometimes
the roofs and towers of a medieval town rose in the valley like
stone trees. And sometimes the concrete band of the road wound
down the slopes with humming metal beetles gliding along it. But
in whatever epoch Lang landed, he always found Torix and
Constance: hence, a friendly discussion, tranquility and a sense
of security that was inconceivable on the other side of the
mountain.
	Lang slid hurriedly down the screes, trying to guess what
lay in store for him this time. He could not get rid of the
premonition that the Master's ravings were mere repercussions of
some terrible events occurring here. Or the other way round...
Lang was aware that the worlds influenced each other, but he
could not trace all their relationships.
	Faint humming attracted Lang's attention. Following a
rumbling noise, a shiny metal globule emerged from behind the
near-by peaks. A gravity boat! These boats had appeared after the
prohibition of supersonic flights in the atmosphere, when the
orbits round the earth were freed from the flying military
contaminations. Hence, there were no more armies, no more borders
on the planet. There could be no war here. Lang stopped and sat
on a stone. He felt a sudden weakness in his legs. Thank god, his
foreboding was wrong. There was peace in Constance's world and
there was nothing that could possibly violate it.
	The house emerged before his eyes unexpectedly... thick
stone walls with inconvenient ambrasure windows, a tiled roof, an
eccentric aerial by the tall chimney. In festive evenings, when a
fire was built in the mantle-place as hundreds of years before,
the chimney let out a grayish column of smoke.
	Lang got on the porch.
	"Constance!" He shouted. "Torix! Good morning!"
	There was no answer. The house offered Lang a cool emptiness
and semi-darkness, so pleasant after the hike in the merciless
highland sun. Lang paced up and down the living-room; it occurred
to him that it would be a good idea to go for a bath while the
hosts were away, but when he imagined the ice-cold water of the
mountain lake, he made for the bathroom.
	He enjoyed his prolonged shower, expecting that any moment
Torix's melodious voice would ring out behind the wall. "Who's
gadding about the house?" But everything was as quiet as ever.
The silence became disturbing. Naturally, both Constance and
Torix had been compelled to leave the house more than once in the
past, too, but on such days Lang simply suspended his visits, for
after all it was them he came to visit.
	Lang switched on the T.V. set. All channels were
broadcasting the same written notice in blank silence... "Stay
tuned for an announcement."
	What had happened? Suddenly Lang was scared.
	He quickly moved to the desk in whose drawer, he knew, there
was a reserve background, but at that very moment the door
clicked, the sound of footsteps reached him and Constance came
into the living-room hurriedly.
	"Lang!" She sighed. "It is so nice that you are here!"
	Constance stood before him unimaginably beautiful, but the
joy in her eyes was quickly replaced by anxiety. So, after all,
there was trouble here, too.
	"What is it?" He said in a very low voice.
	"A mutiny. General Ishling, we studied about him in
school... Mutinies in the army, resistance to disarmament... I
thought he had died a long time ago. There are fifteen or sixteen
of them, and they have seized the former central warehouse for
military equipment. Initially those warehouses were guarded but
later it was decided that this was not necessary: who cared for
that antiquated junk? There are missiles and nuclear devices
there, too, and all this has been seized by a handful of crazy
old men. And you know what?" Constance was whispering now. "They
have killed three men: the engineers who worked in the
warehouse."
	"I don't understand." Lang said. "Such nonsense is possible
only in my world. What can they hope for?"
	The ancient door clicked again and Torix came into the room.
	"Well?" Constance exclaimed. "Torr, what do they want?"
	"Nothing." Torix answered spitefully. "They are suicides.
They are assembling the starter: they will need two days for
that. And after that - an attack on all cities. The only
possibility is to dismantle the warheads in the air, while the
missiles are approaching their targets."
	It was only then that Torix noticed Lang.
	"You?" He exclaimed. "Isn't that good luck! We shall try to
include you in the pilots' detachment. You are also well-versed
in nuclear devices, aren't you?"
	"I can't come with you." Lang uttered guiltily.
	... Torix listened to Lang in silence. After that he said:
	"You believe that the raging generals are offsprings of your
Master, but it seems to me it is the other way round: after all,
we are the primary ones, while your world acquires everything
that cannot exist in ours."
	"I don't know about that, but obviously my battle on the
other side of the Pass will reverberate here as a missile
fusillade produced by Ishling. And if I let the Master through,
you can't even imagine the madness that will befall you."
	"Don't think about that!" Torix ordered. "We work together.
But while I work on what should be, you work on what should not
be. We sometimes swap places, so what? You do your job, and we
shall take care of the local masters ourselves."
	*     *     *
	There was unusual confusion when Lang came back to the
castle. Armed people scurried along the corridors, there were
guards walking by the walls. There was the braying of beasts of
burden and the squeaking of carts in the courtyard. They were
unloading and contriving something there. This was definitely
Trouddom's idea. Lang smiled. One way or another, Trouddom was a
part of this world. He was obliged to act hurriedly all the time,
to gather warriors, to erect fortifications, even though he was
well aware that there was no one to defend the castle. At the
time of trial the gallant men would most certainly change. The
dare-devils would break into a run, the watchful ones would fall
asleep, and the most loyal ones would turn traitors. As a matter
of fact, everything could turn out differently. The band could
make a dauntless unit, the walls could be inaccessible. The
Plateau would seethe with a fearful battle, and then fresh
legions would come up from below...
	Lang found the inventor in the courtyard of the fortress.
Trouddom was waving his long arms, showing to his assistants how
to fix an intolerably lucent shield on an enormous mechanism that
could be linked to nothing. Lang examined Trouddom's creation
critically. Oh, god, how could one fight with this?
	Trouddom jumped down from the back of the steel giant and
ran towards Lang. His soiled face beamed.
	"I know what you are thinking!" He cried out as he ran. "You
are right. We shall need no troops, we shall need nothing but the
new machine."
	"I believe that there's no weapon more powerful than yours
in nature." Lang said. "But what will you say when the Master
throws hundreds of such mechanisms against us?"
	"Let them be thousands!"
	Trouddom rose on tiptoe and whispered in Lang's ear:
	"Let them be millions! This is not a weapon. It's a mirror.
It cannot attack, it only reflects. The Master will send monsters
against us, and they will all confront him. He'll fling fiery
walls, and the hot rain will fall on his head. It will be a war
in which he who attacks will suffer. The Master can fight, if he
wishes..."
	Around midnight the castle was ready for defense. Trouddom
had either dismantled or packed all other devices. He had left
only the gigantic mirror. Switched off it looked like an enormous
cart with a big silvery shield. But as soon as it was switched on
a very thin transparent film spread over the shield and not a
single body could rely neither on the perpetual engines, nor even
on the mill-wheel that had served them for so many years. Lang
switched on the mirror; for some time he stood by its glimmering
surface, then he entered the castle. Sitting in the hall was a
bent human figure with elbows set against the edge of the empty
table. At first it seemed to him that this was Trouddom, and only
after that did Lang recognize the guest. Lang was not afraid of
him, even though he could not understand how he had passed
through the operating defense shield. As a matter of fact, many
things became incomprehensible when one came in contact with the
Hermit. Lang sat opposite his guest and waited in silence. The
Hermit lifted up his dark dry face.
	"You've made good preparations for the war."
	"I did my best."
	"Do you believe that the mirror will stop the Master?"
	"I hope so. It would be more reliable to install the mirror
at the Pass itself, but there is no power generator there. The
reactor is here."
	"It is a powerful machine." The Hermit agreed, and
immediately after that he added. "A man called Olle came to me
today."
	"So he has survived?" Lang cried out.
	"Of course he has. Nothing has happened to him: who needs
little Olle. He has asked me to tell you that he will start back
today. For he belongs here, and go as far as he may, he has to
come back. He will continue to live here even when there will be
no trace of your castle, even when the mountains crumble down to
ashes..."
	"This will not happen!" Lang shouted. "I am a guard! I will
not let the Master erase the border."
	"I also am a guard." The Hermit whispered. "Even though I'm
not aware what I am protecting against the insanity, and you know
that on the other side of the border is everything that's good,
beautiful and truthful for you. You have seen it, you have been
happy. There is hot blood surging in your veins, and now you have
to pay for that. Or maybe you repent living as you have?"
	"No, I don't." Lang said.
	The Hermit stood up. The old cloak hung on his shoulders.
	"It will be dawn soon. We two have a lot to do. Nothing will
happen today, but it is the last day.
	*     *     *
	Lang was walking quickly down the path. The sun had not yet
shown itself between the mountain tops. There was a fragile
morning silence all around him. Lang was in a hurry to reach
Torix's house. "This is the last day." The Hermit's words rang in
his ears. Lang had no more hope of finding help there. He just
wanted to see Constance once again.
	After the sharp turn of the road he saw them: there were
four of them. Bearded faces, matted hair, battle garments made of
strong untanned fur. They had bows in their hands, as well as
hidden iron swords. A heavy arrow with a sharp bone head hit
Lang's armor and whizzed away. Lang drew out his sword from under
the cloak. The four came down on him. In a minute one of the
attackers lay motionless, while another one was rolling down the
slope with his blood spattering the stones. The other two
discarded their broken swords and ran down the path.
	Lang raised the sword to his eyes. The blade was clean
except for the steel part, which had become dark with blood. He
sheathed the sword. Until then no one had attacked him on that
side of the Pass. Naturally, he knew in advance that he would not
arrive in Torix's house at a time of peace, but could he have
enemies that far away?
	The house was surrounded. Some thirty warriors shot burning
arrows at it. The stone walls were fire-proof, the sand-covered
roof also resisted the fire, but the grass under the windows was
already burning, the doors had also caught fire. Arrows were
being shot at the attackers from the house, too. Some motionless
bodies lay on the open porch.
	Lang rushed forward. His fearful sword was effective
everywhere, cutting everything up. The door of the house opened
and Torix dashed out with a spear in one hand and a sword in the
other. They made their way towards each other, and Lang calmed
down immediately. They stood with their backs against each other,
driving back the assault. Suddenly they noticed that there were
only ten or so of their enemies left alive. The rest of them lay
motionless, while the living were running away, screaming with
fear. The clearing was deserted. And Torix, holding someone
else's bow, shot arrows after the runners.
	Then Constance came out of the door. She was beautiful and
young, though there were small wrinkles round her eyes and
silvery threads in her hair.
	Lang bent down and kissed her hand.
	"It seems that I made it just on time." He said.
	"They keep coming in flocks." Torix said in a hollow voice.
"No one knows what their number is or where they come from. You
found us here by chance. Were it not for these." Torix lifted his
head indicating the corpses. "We would have left in the morning.
We were delayed because we wanted to bury what we could not take
away."
	"Then you have to hurry up." Lang said.
	"We shall leave presently, but I have to run up to our
neighbors' house to see if they have made it. And in the meantime
you'd better see to it that nobody sneaks here." Torix lifted a
spear from the ground and disappeared behind the trees.
	Lang sat on a log.
	"So." He thought. "I am not attacking the enemy in the land
of ghosts, hence there are enemies here, attacking those I love.
I am hidden behind the magic mirror and that is why Constance is
threatened by death everywhere and in all times here."
	Constance approached Lang and put the arrows she had
gathered on the ground. She squatted down and looked up in his
face.
	"Don't worry." She said. "It has been worse than that
before. Indeed, the enemies have marched into the valley, but
look, not one of the family has died yet."
	"This is an invasion..." Lang uttered. "It is because of me.
The Master's hordes are moving towards the Pass while I am
dodging the battle. That is why it is so bad here. Constance, I
have come for the last time."
	Constance stood up, put her hand on Lang's drooping head and
ran it through his hair.
	"You know." She said. "I have made Torr a good wife. I have
borne him seven sons. The elder ones can already fight; yet, I
sometimes regret that you didn't take me with you then. The
friendship between you and Torix proved to be more important for
you."
	"You are the most important one for me." Lang said quietly.
"If I had taken you with me you would have disappeared from this
world." Lang got to his feet while Constance, discomfited, went
to collect some more arrows. Lang set about to help her.
	Torix appeared on the path with a spear in his left hand.
With his right one he was clasping a small white goat.
	"There is nobody there!" He shouted. "They have all gone,
only the little one has stayed."
	Lang thought that this somewhat naive concern for everyone
who was not an enemy was the best characteristic of the real
Torix.
	"Are you coming with us?" Torix asked.
	And Lang replied: "No, I'm not. There is an invasion in my
mountains, too, they want to get through the Pass, so I have to
go and fight there."
	"It's a pity." Torix said. "I counted on you."
	"It's a pity." Lang echoed.
	He watched them go. A friend was going away. His beloved was
going away. There was nothing to expect now. Torix's strength
would probably get him across the border, and as for Constance,
he would never see her again. He had a strange feeling for this
woman. This love could not even be qualified as hopeless. This
was the type of love one felt for an imaginary person in his
youth. But everything was reversed here: there was nothing more
real than Constance, while Lang belonged to ravings on the other
side of the Pass.
	*     *     *
	The fourth day was breaking through.
	The morning had long been there, but the sun had not yet
shown and the sky was still black. In contrast to that, there was
light enough below. Something sparkled there. A battle was going
on. For the first time the foothill dwellers fought without Lang.
	Lang stood by the castle wall and waited for the fireworks
arranged by the Master to abate. It was not necessary to wait for
the end of the battle. The decision had been taken, there was no
option, but Lang tarried on. He knew that he would not hold out
in the battle against the nether world and it was no use hiding
behind the mirror. The once inaccessible Pass could not stop the
Master now. The only thing that could be done was to destroy the
Pass together with the border, thus the troops would simply have
nowhere to go. But whatever the outcome, there would simply be no
need for a guard of the Pass on the following day.
	Lang waited breathing in the air thirstily. He was not
scared but he felt a frantic desire to live. Even here, but to
live, to see. The battle was drawing closer. The Master was
pressing the fighters, probably intending to end up the battle
under the castle walls. Soon the retreating ones came in sight.
The women walked, leading only the children and dragging the
wounded. The men stayed where the troops advanced.
	The fleeing people encountered the mirror. They were not
attacking, so the mirror simply did not let them through. Having
realized instantly that they could go no further, the doomed
creatures merely halted. The Master's army was climbing up the
slope. It was not an army, but a compact cloud of bodies. Armored
self-igniting machines, mechanisms armed with poisonous daggers,
and further - tramping invertors. They could not operate and were
just ballast here, but when turned on at the Pass they would make
any weapon useless and the aggressor's madness would acquire
deadly power. Every now and then the wave retreated, then stopped
again. Lang noticed those who were on the defensive.
	A small group of badly armed people deterred the flood. They
were led by a tall lean warrior bearing some resemblance to Lang.
There he was: shouting and throwing a self-manufactured bomb down
the throat of a black fish. Immediately after that he fell down
himself. Blood gushed out of the cut-up throat like a spout. All
of a sudden Lang realized what the rusty spots on their clothes
meant.
	"They are alive!" He shouted. "Let them through!"
	Trouddom, hidden in the entrails of his apparatus, removed
his hand from his face and struck hard at the key-board. The film
covering the mirror cracked. Lang heard the roar of the battle.
	"Draw back, all of you!" Lang cried out.
	He dashed to rescue the people who believed him and whom he
had indifferently doomed to death, but it was too late now. From
the corner of his eye he noticed that, as before, women and
children were the only ones to retreat. The warriors remained
with Lang. This saved him. Lang was wearing a highly impenetrable
armor, the sword in his hand could cut everything to pieces, but
he would have been simply buried under the dead bodies there. The
fiery wall drew back. Lang stepped forward, but then he noticed
that a giant in bright armor, whom he had not seen before, was
moving towards him. The giant had a sword in his left hand. One
side of the sword was made of mist, and the other of steel.
	Lang realized: this was death; there was no enemy there,
there was only a mirror. Trouddom had said that it was possible
to built a twisted mirror that could magnify anything. Lang
stopped indecisively. The giant also stopped. But unlike him the
rest of the army turned on Lang. He was fighting again but his
hand grew heavier and the sword turned ever more slowly. He could
go neither backwards nor forward.
	...When Lang came to his senses, he saw that he was
standing, sword in hard, by a cut-up dragon. Only his men had
remained beside him. The hardly visible surface of the mirror
separated them from the Master's army, which was gathering its
strength anew. Trouddom had managed to choose the right time to
stop the battle.
	"This way!" Lang pointed at the Pass. "Faster, there is no
time. If you are real, you will get through."
	Without a single question the group of tormented people
headed for the mountain. Would they make it? In what epoch would
they land? And how would they be received by the real world,
sometimes as cruel as that of the Almighty? Yet, they had a
chance.
	"O, grand reason, how I wish to go there!" Trouddom groaned
behind his back.
	"Go." Lang said.
	"I can't. I know your plans and I have to help you. You
won't manage on your own, while I am... a good engineer."
	The Master's hordes marched forward and hit against the
mirror noiselessly. Lang imagined how parallel with this first
pressure irreversible and dangerous events were unleashed in
Constance's world: armies belonging to different epochs and
nations were on the move, and in the remotest future, visited by
Lang, the missiles of the brutalized by impotence former general
Ishling soared up in the air. These missiles could put an end to
everything.
	"It is time." Lang said.
	There was no answer. Lang turned round and saw that Trouddom
was lying on the ground writhing. Lang rushed towards him.
	"What happened?"
	"This had to happen." The inventor whispered. "It suddenly
occurred to me how to defeat Lang: it is as simple as that. I had
to take a knife, help you out of your armor and stab you in the
back. And after your death I had to switch off the mirror. As
soon as I realized this I took a knife and started forward. Such
was the Master's order. But I deceived him, for I first stabbed
myself. I'm sorry, you'll have to manage on your own now... I
gave too much to the perpetual engines and to other impossible
absurdities. That's why I could not leave. And I helped the
Master till the last minute of my life. Go, I want to see it
happen. You need not worry about me, there is no hot blood
running in my veins and I am only imagining the pain."
	"You have a hot soul." Lang said.
	"Go..."
	*     *     *
	Nothing had changed in the castle basement. The turbines
that generated power for the mirror rumbled powerfully in the dry
stale air. The steel body of the reactor emitted heat.
	Lang stopped. He remembered Trouddom's words.
	"You won't manage on your own."
	What was he to do? It wouldn't do to simply lift the diamond
rogs. The reactor would become uncontrollable, the temperature
would run up dramatically. The zirconium tubules would be
unsoldered, the fuel would spill in the hall and the chain
reaction would be intercepted. General Ishling did not muse on
such problems. He had bombs, specially designed to kill, in his
hands. And Lang had to find something that would hold out, at
least for several seconds, against the thrust of the substance
that was heated to a temperature of millions of degrees. Had
Trouddom been with him, he would have immediately contrived some
such device. But Trouddom was lying and waiting to see if Lang
would cope.
	Lang looked up. The basement, hewed out from the rock, was
covered by a black labradorite slab on which the castle was
erected as on a foundation. Am immense column supported the
cyclopean slab. Lang looked at it critically. Blue veins could be
discerned in the black rock. The millennial slab could serve as a
press, but the column had to be removed first... Lang started
revolving the hoisting crane rapidly with one hand, the rogs
moved upwards. At that very moment the cell flashed with blinding
light. Terrible heat, in comparison with which the Master's
projectiles seemed insignificant, flooded Lang. Yet, he managed
to strike the column with the sword before the last drops of his
blood evaporated. The ceiling started falling abruptly, the
armors squeaked.
	The dying Trouddom could see nothing, but he felt the earth
split and he was overjoyed as he realized that Lang had
succeeded. A sea of fire loomed from under the ground. A
windspout rose and augmented into a deadly mushroom. The flames,
magnified a hundred times by the Master's twisted mirrors,
drifted towards the mountain. But there was no one who could
watch the tops crumble down and bury the narrow Pass. There was
no one to observe the mountains fall through themselves and the
infinite bare stretch of the wilderness open up behind them.
	*     *     *
	Lang lay half-covered with sand in the plain, contaminated
by the radioactive wave. He had neither armor nor blood now. He
was entirely in the land of the unreal; the World had played one
of its evil tricks on him: Lang had survived, even though he was
in the very center of the explosion. He could not feel his body,
he did not perceive time, but he could see in front of him the
stones of the lifeless waste. The mountains did not exist any
more. This awareness brought him bitter relief. The Pass was
gone, the border was gone, hence the madness of this world would
never get to the other world.
	Lang did not know how long he had lain like that: caught in
the stone as a gnat in a drop of amber. His attention was
attracted by a low voice.
	"How d'ye do, Signor!"
	"You have come back, Olle?" Lang said voicelessly, but Olle
heard him and understood the question.
	"Yes, Signor, I have come back. It has become uncomfortable
here. At the time of your rule it was much better. Many people
lived here. Now I'll have to live alone."
	"So, you were the real Guard of the Pass, and not I."
	"Nonsense, Signor! The Pass was yours. You were the keeper
of a bit of truth in a world of lies. But now they have drifted
apart and they share a common border."
	"That's good." Lang said.
	High up the jet liner was flying in the pale sky droning
noiselessly with its engines. It was evening. Lang saw that
nobody needed him any more. He had done everything properly. He
had not shunned the battle, that is why the people on the other
side of the damaged Pass would manage to oppose those who used
war in their eternal home. And the most important thing... Lang
swept the wilderness in a glance. Black, grey...
	"I am glad this happened here." Lang said. "So the real
world will not be converted into such a wilderness. Torix will
cope with his troubles alone and evil madness will not be able to
stab him in the back."
	Olle bent his knees, unfastened the bundle and took out a
scratched canteen.
	"Do you want to drink, Signor?" He asked. "This is the last
real water. There is nowhere to get fresh water from."
	The water trickled down. Lang swallowed and closed his eyes.
He knew that he was dying at last. Even if an armored figure ever
appeared anywhere in the World and they started calling it Lang,
that would not be him anyway.
	"There is no more water." Lang sighed and smiled. He had
remembered Constance who would exist forever.
	