Man is a predator—even to his kind, even to himself. Madness is deadly for it removes the strictures and restraints that civilization has placed there for its own protection. The beast moves within us.
Madness is a condition where dreams overflow into life—or life flows into a dream state.
In the land of the insane, the sane man is destined for extinction.
None of us are absolutely certain of our sanity. We perch on precarious ledges, crouch on frayed strings stretched across the abyss of certainty. We race barefoot along dark passages filled with tacks, certain we will not stumble, with the beast slavering behind us. Those who believe they are free of any contamination of lunacy are lying, to themselves or others.
You define your own sanity. The insane always act rationally, always. They proceed quite logically and ruthlessly and with great certainty upon the path they know is true—but their truth is a sham; their foundation is sand.
Nevertheless, every man has a sane spot somewhere.
Fear . . .
“Fear is the mother of morality,” said Nietzsche.
“Fear is the proof of a degenerate mind,” wrote Virgil.
Fear has an unusual power. Stephen Strange burst free, sending Nightmare staggering back, flaming colors and dripping stench, and blasted him with a bolt of icy flame.
Fear means you can lose something.
Fear whispers the worst to you and scampers away.
Fear corrupts.
But panic is fear on fire and Stephen Strange was not panicking. He sent flame bolt after flame bolt at Nightmare, keeping him off guard while he thought.
Could he defeat Nightmare in his own realm? Or could he hurt him somehow, seal him off forever within the dream dimension, and let the forces that were here, the ones that were pressing Nightmare out, destroy him? Or could he aid those forces and destroy him now?
There seemed to be no plan because it was all plan; there seemed no center because it was all center.
Stephen Strange floated in a windless sea—no transition from the confrontation with Nightmare. Dreams have sudden and unexplained twists, abrupt changes of scenery, linked only in the most inaccessible depths of the subconscious.
There was unlimited grayness and he was neck deep in smoky waters. What had Chekhov said? When a man is born he can choose one of three roads. There are no others. If he takes the road to the right, the wolves will eat him up. If he talks the road to the left, he will eat up the wolves. And if he takes the road straight ahead of him, he’ll eat himself up.
“Pu-sarrumas, son of Tudhaliyas!” cried Strange, calling upon the wizard ruler of the Hittite empire. The waters drained away and odd black things flopped savagely in the receding waters. The darkness overhead lightened. It was dawn on the edge of the world. The sea was smoke blue, the rocks rough and new, the sand coarse and speckled. There was a footprint; it was not a human footprint. It pointed along the shore. Strange heard a plaintive cry. Perhaps a child, or a woman? Someone in pain . . .
But there is absolutely no inevitability as long as you are willing to contemplate what is happening, thought Strange.
It’s all a dream . . . but a reality, too.
Kismet is: what is written is written, and our destinies are graven on stone long before our birth. Protest is useless, anxiety is blasphemy.
Strange saw the stone higher up, partially covered by sand. It had his name, his birthdate, and another date: today . . . now . . . But Strange refused it.
“There’s a Samarra at the end of every road,” he said, “but this is not the end of the road.”
The beach, the swelling sea, the stone, the lowering sky vanished. Strange shouted out into the darkness that encroached. “By the serenity of the Seraphim—give me a world!”
The featureless plain returned, only the sun was setting. A red-crusted sunset colored the distant clouds. He was alone.
Everything has its own destiny, Mencius had written, and it is not for us to accept our destiny in true form. Thus, one who understands what destiny means will not stand under a tottering wall. One who meets his death pursuing the path of duty has achieved his true destiny, but not so one who dies as a malefactor.
“I accept nothing!” Strange shouted, standing on the solid plane with his legs spread for stability. “There is no fate that I cannot surmount by the power of my will!”
“The arrogance again,” someone said. It was the other Strange, recaped and in his blue tunic, his head covered in the skintight blue mask he had affected in those days. “You feel it, too, then? You remember?” The other Strange smiled seductively. “Join me. You are me. I am you. You remember the exaltation of power . . .”
And Stephen Strange did remember. Unlimited power, the energy of the universe, had flowed through his mind. He had been a god among men. Power became more addicting than any drug.
But weakness, too, corrupted. Power corrupted the few and weakness corrupted the many.
Responsibility without power is useless . . . and power without responsibility is madness . . .
. . . madness.
The other Strange laughed and gestured. There was a shimmering, a streak that split the air, opening to an unbearably bright pod of light. From it stepped Michele Hartley. At first glance she seemed nude. Her long hair was piled and yet hung long and thick. There were bright pearls in her hair and spots of softly shining light.
Her skin was smooth, flawless, warm. She smiled at Stephen with the knowing smile of a beautiful woman certain of her effect on men. Her presence was an assault on his senses—all of them.
Her perfume was still subtle, yet all pervasive, impossible to ignore. Her flesh was the memory of all women loved, all women who pleased. She moved with consummate grace, unembarrassed and unashamed. He realized she was not nude, but rather clothed in scented air, hidden by swirls of sparkling fog. When she spoke to him her voice was literally a caress. His skin tingled as she said, “Stephen?
“Stephen? I’m here. Stephen. Don’t you want me? You can have me, Stephen—just you. Am I not beautiful, Stephen?” Her arms raised toward him and she floated closer, pink and tawny, gleamingly perfect.
It was an attack, not on his magical powers, but a base attack on his humanity, his manhood. For that he did not need a protective spell, only determination.
“No.” He said it with such force of will that Michele started.
“No, please, Stephen! Don’t send me away! Please?”
She began to fade almost at once. The other Strange snarled and stepped back. Michele was transparent now, her expression frightened. “No, please, Stephen! He’ll . . . I’ll . . . Stephen, I’ll never be able to sleep again! Please, Stephen, he said . . . he said . . .”
She was gone.
The other Strange laughed bitterly and his shape shimmered. He became Nightmare in a second, and continued the laughter. “You cannot defeat me, Strange. I toy with you.”
His words gave Strange sudden strength. “Oh, but you lie,” Strange said. He moved forward on the featureless plain. “If you could destroy me you would do so, and be on with your plan.”
“You cannot stop my plan, fool. The sunset brings sleep around the world and thousands—no, millions—will go to sleep thinking of the message Jacks has given them.” He laughed again, the image of confidence. “It doesn’t even matter what message, Strange. It is only in the unity of it! That unity will give me the openings I need. A sieve through the wall of reality! And I shall enter—and conquer!”
“Not unless you defeat me,” Strange said softly.
Nightmare glared at him. “Worm! Speck of filth upon the bathroom of lepers! Man! You are nothing, an amusement while I wait!”
“No,” Stephen Strange said very softly. “I am your enemy, the one you must destroy to enter my dimension. We must battle.”
Nightmare sneered and a thousand women screamed in anguish beyond the horizon of the plain. “You are here, now, Strange. In my world. I rule here.” With a gesture, the pearl-colored sky turned crimson, then became a wet pulsing cross section of a human body. The plain rippled into organic life, sprouting odd vegetation and alien artifacts. Only in a circle around Strange did the plain remain smooth and white. Strange waited.
With a snarl Nightmare returned the bloody landscape to featureless serenity. “I rule,” he said.
“No, you control. You do not rule. Given the chance, this dimension would cast you out. It is casting you out!”
Nightmare’s eyes flared into exploding novas. The universe around Strange frayed, and broke up. He was tumbling through the starry void. Pyramids and pygmies capered there, too, turning endlessly. Puppies and puritans, startled lovers and frightened insects swirled around him. The elements of a complex world battered him, but Strange cried out: “Samsu-iluna, vizier of Babylon!”
He stood on the featureless plain opposing Nightmare. “It is casting you out,” he repeated.
“I rule here!”
“You did.”
“I rule!” Nightmare screamed. A volcano of light erupted from the plain, lifting Nightmare into the pearly sky. Fractures spread across the plain and pieces dropped into the lava just below. The green figure hovered over the topmost fountain of spurting molten rock and everything froze. Little droplets stayed where they were. The racing fractures ceased. The bubbling lava stopped.
“I rule!”
Strange smiled thinly. “Methinks you protest too much,” he said softly. “I am more certain than ever. The dream dimension is casting you out, Nightmare. You are becoming too real for this spectrum of existence. It rejects you.”
“Nooo—!” Nightmare’s drawn-out cry whipped up a wind that tore at Strange’s crimson cape. The green-clad figure of the ruler of the dream dimension melted into a bubbling puddle, but Strange sensed there had been no victory, and he was right. From the green puddle rose a monster, red eyed, fang jawed, dripping corrosive saliva and screaming madly.
The stench from the beast was overpowering and Strange clenched his mind to the sensation. The thing grew, scaly and powerful, to become a sort of tyrannosaurus rex, but spine backed and with more muscle in the forelegs. It roared defiance at Strange and lumbered toward him, its tail switching and its breath hissing.
“Oshtur and Hoggoth! Defend thy master!”
The smooth featureless plain before him puckered and a droplet was ejected from a little pinched peak. The droplet grew swiftly and became transparent. Within it, an armored warrior sat upon a great charger. The knight punched the droplet with his lance and stood upon the plain, grown to full size in a blinking of the eye. The horse snorted and pawed the air, the lance came down, and the battle was joined.
The lance tip sank into the soft belly of the dragon dinosaur, but the long clawed feet tore at the horse, which went down screaming. The knight fell heavily, the lance twisting away, still stuck into the flesh of the monster. The great scaly thing stomped on the knight and the armor collapsed. A smoke arose from the empty armor and the knight was no more.
Trumpeting victory, the dinosaur ran heavily at Strange, who wove a spell into the air with his hands. The plain cracked and the snorting beast fell into it. The plain closed over it and was seamless again.
“Nightmare!” Strange called. “This is foolish! Let us meet, you and I, not our surrogates!”
“You ask for death,” Nightmare said, appearing. He stood on a floating disk of gleaming metal high in the sky. He flew straight at Strange, the metal edge as sharp as an ax blade.
“Illusion,” Strange said and banished the floating disk.
“Illusion,” Nightmare answered and they were falling into a sun.
“Illusion,” Strange responded, putting them back into the featureless plain. But now the area had dimension; it had edges. The sky went up and there was a roof. Shadowless light illuminated all. They were within a pale-gray box.
“Illusion,” Nightmare laughed and they were face to face on a tightrope over a bottomless pit ringed with human skulls.
“Illusion,” Strange smiled and the skulls spoke.
“Leave us,” they chanted. “Leave us! You are not of us now!”
“Illusion,” Nightmare snarled and transported them to the plain box. The walls shrank until they had to bend their backs to stay erect. Knives were plunged into the box by giants and blood ran from the wounds.
“Illusion,” Strange said, and the box grew again, the wounds healed, the skies lightened. The six sides, floor, and top of the box became like motion-picture screens. On each surface appeared the two-dimensional reenactment of the various battles Strange had fought with Nightmare—battles in which Nightmare had lost and had retreated to his domain.
The green-clad figure eyed the moving images wild-eyed. “The past does not exist, Strange. Only the present—!”
“And the future!” Strange added. The moving pictures on the wall of the box changed. They became reflections of that very moment, of the two opposing enemies. Then the reflections battled and in each battle Nightmare lost. One by one, the sides of the box went black as Nightmare was defeated and forced to retreat into the fragile safety of the dream dimension, pushing Strange safely out.
“No!” Nightmare screamed. They were alone in limitless black, with only the echo of all of Nightmare’s final cries.
“Yes!” Strange said. “You are not wanted in our world and your own world rejects you!”
“No, it does not!”
A flash, a soundless explosion in the Stygian darkness, and Strange was drenched in pain. The Eye of Agamotto glowed; an ankh appeared on his forehead, softly glowing with radiance. The pain abandoned him and descended upon Nightmare, who cried out.
“Your world rejects you!” Strange insisted. “My world resists you!”
Nightmare uttered a savage cry and disappeared. There was a sudden stillness. Strange could hear his blood pumping and the air moving through his lungs; it was that quiet. Complete absence of sound. Nightmare was gone.
Warily Strange probed the dimension of blackness around him. Nothing . . . nothing at all . . . complete and total absence of life . . . It was the dream dimension, but it had no content.
All over the world, people slept dreamlessly that night. For the first time in the history of man, for the first time since the spark of intelligence separated man from ape, there were no dreams.
Strange sensed the wrongness of it. People needed dreams. Their dreams told them things. Dreams were the unconscious mind, that part of everyone that is primitive and simple and always totally aware; and that submerged part of the mind tells us things when our conscious mind is asleep.
“By Oshtur, I command the dream dimension to be created again! By the eternal Vishanti, I order the dimension of dreams to exist—but without the rule of Nightmare!”
The blackness lessened. A thin light suffused the whole area. A flower appeared—a face . . . a baby . . . a mountain . . . a glowing sword . . . a beautiful woman, then another and another. Gold . . . silver . . . the crimson glow of lust, the copper glare of ambition, the silver gleam of pride . . . a ladder, a cross, a star of David, an ankh . . .
Suddenly there was a bustling, busy, almost frantic activity. Stars glowed, sins warmed pearly flesh, hands stroked smooth skin, mountains rose, wide seas heaved. Phosphorescent dots swam like schools of fish through the chaos—and Stephen Strange smiled.
People dreamed.
But they dreamed their own dreams.
