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I knew then that I'd been lucky, and that if I'd seenthe person who was following me the other Anne I'd have become like her, a mere follower.The third time I heard the footsteps behind me, I didn't turn round.I knew they'd never catch me up.Even so, I realised then that I was hiding something from myself.I realised that the emptiness of thecorridors and the length of the journey were just evasions.I realised that I wasn't being wholehearted inmy exploration, that there were things inside myself that I was still incapable of facing.I realised that therewere nasty surprises lurking behind the corners of the labyrinth, awful spectres sealed in by the walls.Irealised how necessary it was that I should now prepare the way for my second journey: a journey whichwould be more difficult and more dangerous.I realised that I'd have to arm myself with something morethan a wooden stake.For the time being, I was only pretending to be brave.I wasn't quite ready yet tolook myself in the eye and see into my heart.In the end, though, I came to the heart of the maze.I'd always felt morally certain that I could andwould, in spite of my failings.I knew that I could come to the threshold of my fears, and get a clearersight of them.That, for the time being, would have to be enough.Like the first doorway, this one had no door in it, but there was still a barrier separating me from thechamber where Maldureve and perhaps many others lay asleep.There was a multilayered curtain,made of half a hundred cobwebs strung from jamb to jamb and from lintel to floor.And within the folds of that complex curtain, huge spiders lurked.Only one or two were moving, with painstaking slowness, across the delicate bridges they had spun.Therest waited patiently in the shadowy corners.They weren't as monstrous as they might have been.Notone that I could see was more than a handspan across in the body, and their hairy, many-jointed feetweren't much longer than pencils or kitchen knives.They were large by the standards of spider-kind, butonly by those standards.It seemed that the constraints of nature applied here as they applied on Earth,save for the fact that such webs as these could serve no ordinary predatory purpose.These webs werenot cast to catch unwary flies or beetles; these webs existed in order to form a maze within the greatermaze, all the more treacherous for being more delicate.I didn't doubt for a moment that the spiders could bite, and that their bite would be poisonous.Nor did Idoubt that the moment I touched one of the dust-sprinkled webs, however lightly, the spinner of thatparticular web would come hurtling from its station, eager to claim its prize.I had the same fear of spiders which most people have: an anxiety leavened by repulsion, unreasoningGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmland yet profound.I wasn't hysterically arachnophobic; the spiders hadn't anyparticular terror for me.But that didn't mean that I could simply take myself in hand and walk towards the doorway.No onecould have done that, except perhaps for a professional arachnologist who hadn't merely taken thetrouble to desensitise herself by constantly handling such creatures, but had also learned to hold them inthat purified, academic affection which is reserved for the platonic affairs of the wisest among us.Perversely, I'd expected to find something worse.I'd expected something much more particular to myown anxieties, much more precisely geared to my own individuality: an Orwellian Room 101, whosecontents would affirm by terrorism the uniqueness of my most intimate soul.This was almost an insult,almost a joke.But I had the beginnings of the wisdom of the owls, and I could recognize in the legend101 a mere symbol of the female genitalia labia and vagina and I had the common sense to recognizethat even in our most intimate souls we're not, after all, so very different from one another.We're morealike than we sometimes like to pretend.Anyone would have had difficulty in going through that doorway.Anyone, no matter what courage theycarried with them, or what foolhardiness, would have hesitated.Anyone could have found themselvesrooted to the spot, unable to proceed.Anyone at all.I was brave; I knew that.But I couldn't step into that arched doorway.Maldureve didn't need anythingextra-special, anything so very extraordinary, to keep me at bay.He only needed to play, casually, upona commonplace fear that everyone has.Perhaps the most difficult thing of all to imagine, and to accept, isthat when we come to the innermost core of our being, we will find nothing but a clich�.I didn't despair.I knew what I had to do.I had at least tolook through the doorway into the shadowsbeyond.I had to stand still and familiarize myself with it.I had to fix it in my mind, so that when I cameback into the waking world I'd be able to remember it, think about it and come to terms with it.I had towork out a strategy for getting through it.I had to work out a plan.It didn't matter if the task proveddifficult, because I could come back.I could come back time and time again, if I had to, until the timecame when I could do what I had to do.So I looked into the darkness.I looked through the maze of spider webs, into the core of my being, thesecret fundament of my soul.I looked, trying my hardest to see, to be brave and to understand.I looked,knowing how useless it was to ask  Who am I? or even  Whatam I? and expect an easy answer.I wasstill in the process of becoming, still en route towards the enlightenment of the owls.Maldureve was inthere somewhere, but he was in hiding, like so much else.'You can't win, I said to him, very softly. This ismy house, and no one can live in it, except on myterms.You tried to make me into a seed of evil, a monster and maker of monsters, but I'm going my ownway now.I don't want to be your instrument, I want to be me.I will be me.I can do it.Even my ownanxieties can't stop me.They're not strong enough.They're just ordinary, everyday fears.I can face them.And in the end, the house will be mine again entirely mine.I'll build it better than it ever was before.I'llmake it into a palace.I'm a Charet: a witch-finder and demon-hunter.I'm Anne Charet, and I don't needa disguise to walk about in my own world.All kinds of things can hurt me, injure me, destroy me butyou aren't one of them.I have the beginnings of the wisdom of the owls, and I'm in charge of my owndestiny.It doesn't matter what you do or where you hide;you can't win.I'm going now, but I'll be back.'Depend on it, Maldureve:I'll be back.'11Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlI was hard at work when Cynthia knocked at my door.There were open books all over my desk andhalf a dozen odd bits of paper on which I'd scribbled notes scattered hither and yon; but the sheet onwhich I intended to start my essay was still virgin, because the issues and the arguments hadn't yetcoalesced into a proper beginning.I wasn't pleased to be interrupted, because it was already lateafternoon and the December twilight had begun to fade.I knew only too well that I didn't really haveenough time to get the essay done, but there was nothing I could do.Cynthia was far too obviously indistress to be turned away [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]