— I am eternal. I am the Eater of Worlds.
Yeah? That so? Well, you've had your last meal, sister.
— you have no power; here is the power; feel the power, brat, and then speak again of
how you come to kill the Eternal. You think you see Me? You see only what your mind will
allow. Would you see Me? Come, then! Come, brat! Come!
Thrown —
(he).
No, not thrown, fired, fired like a living bullet, like the Human Cannonball at the Shrine Circus that came to Derry each May. He was picked up and heaved across the Spider's chamber. It's only in my mind! he screamed at himself. My body's still standing right there, eye to eye with It, be brave, it's only a mind-trick, be brave, be true, stand, stand —
(thrusts)
Roaring forward, slamming into a black and dripping tunnel lined with decaying, crumbling tiles that were fifty years old, a hundred, a thousand, a million-billion, who knew, rushing in deadly silence past intersections, some lit by that twisting green-yellow fire, some by glowing balloons full of a ghastly white skull-light, others dead black; he was thrown at a speed of a thousand miles an hour past piles of bones, some human, some not, speeding like a rocket-powered dart in a wind-tunnel, now angling upward, but not toward light but toward dark, some titanic dark
(his fists)
and exploding outward into utter blackness, the blackness was everything, the blackness was the cosmos and the universe, and the floor of the blackness was hard, hard, it was like polished ebonite and he was skidding along on his chest and belly and thighs like a weight on a shuffleboard. He was on the ballroom floor of eternity, and eternity was black.
(against the posts)
— stop that why do you say that? that won't help you, stupid boy and still insists he sees
the ghosts!
— stop it.' he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts!
— stop it! stop it! I demand, I command, that you stop it! Don't like that, do you? And thinking: If I could only say it out loud, say it without stuttering, I could break this
illusion —
— this is no illusion, you foolish little boy — this is eternity, My eternity, and you are lost
in it, lost forever, never to find your way back; you are eternal now, and condemned to
wander in the black . . . after you meet Me face to face, that is
But there was something else here. Bill sensed it, felt it, in a crazy way smelled it: some large presence ahead in the dark. A Shape. He felt not fear but a sense of overmastering awe; here was a power which dwarfed Its power, and Bill had only time to think incoherently: Please, please, whatever You are, remember that I am very small —
He rushed toward it and saw it was a great Turtle, its shell plated with many blazing colors. Its ancient reptilian head slowly poked out of its shell, and Bill thought he felt a vague contemptuous surprise from the thing that had cast him out here. The eyes of the Turtle were kind. Bill thought it must be the oldest thing anyone could imagine, older by far than It, which had claimed to be eternal.
What are you? —
I'm the Turtle, son. I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it; I had a bellyache.
Help me! Please help me!
— I take no stand in these matters. My brother —
— has his own place in the macroverse; energy is eternal, as even a child such as yourself must understand
He was flying past the Turtle now, and even at his tremendous skidding speed, the Turtle's plated side seemed to go on and on to his right. He thought dimly of riding in a train and passing one going in the other direction, a train that was so long it seemed eventually to stand still or even move backward. He could still hear It, yammering and buzzing, Its voice high and angry, not human, full of mad hate. But when the Turtle spoke, Its voice was blanked out utterly. The Turtle spoke in Bill's head, and Bill understood somehow that there was yet Another, and that Final Other dwelt in a void beyond this one. This Final Other was, perhaps, the creator of the Turtle, which only watched, and It, which only ate. This Other was a force beyond the universe, a power beyond all other power, the author of all there was.
Suddenly he thought he understood: It meant to thrust him through some wall at the end of the universe and into some other place
(what that old Turtle called the macroverse)
where It really lived; where It existed as a titanic, glowing core which might be no more than the smallest mote in that Other's mind; he would see It naked, a thing of unshaped destroying light, and there he would either be mercifully annihilated or live forever, insane and yet conscious inside Its homicidal endless formless hungry being.
Please help me! For the others —
— you must help yourself, son
But how? Please tell me! How? How? HOW?
He had reached the Turtle's heavily scaled back legs now; there was time enough to
observe its titanic yet ancient flesh, time to be struck with the wonder of its heavy toenails — they were an odd bluish-yellow color, and he could see galaxies swimming in each one.
Please, you are good, I sense and believe that you are good, and I am begging you . . . won't you please help me?
— you already know, there is only Chüd. and your friends.
Please oh please —
son, you've got to thrust your fists against the posts and still insist you see the ghosts . . .
that's all I can tell you. once you get into cosmological shit like this, you got to throw away the instruction manual
He realized the voice of the Turtle was fading. He was beyond it now, bulleting into a darkness that was deeper than deep. The Turtle's voice was being overcome, overmastered,
by the gleeful, gibbering voice of the Thing that had thrust him out an d into this black void — the voice of the Spider, of It.
— how do you like it out here, Little Friend? do you like it? do you love it? do you give it
ninety-eight points because it has a good beat and you can dance to it? can you catch it on
your tonsils and heave it left and right? did you enjoy meeting my friend the Turtle? I thought
that stupid old fuck died years ago, and for all the good he could do you, he might as well
have, did you think he could help you?
no no no no he thrusts no he thuh-thuh-huh-huh-rusts no
— stop babbling! the time is short; let us talk while we still can. tell me about yourself,
Little Friend . . . tell me, do you love all the cold dark out here? are you enjoying your grand
tour of the nothingness that lies Outside? wait until you break through, Little Friend! wait
until you break through to where I am! wait for that! wait for the deadlights! you'll look and
you'll go mad . . . but you'll live . . . and live . . . and live . . . inside them . . . inside Me . . .
It screamed noxious laughter, and Bill became aware that Its voice was beginning both to fade and to swell, as if he was simultaneously drawing out of Its range . . . and hurtling into it. And wasn't that just what was happening? Yes. He thought it was. Because while the voices were in perfect sync, the one he was now rushing toward was totally alien, speaking syllables no human tongue or throat could reproduce. That's the voice of the deadlights, he thought.
— the time is short; let us talk while we still can