So saying, he strode forth once more, further downward in that tunnel, wondering what other foe the Lord might send him to confront.
As Father Vidicon strode onward down the throat of Hell, he was resolved to confront whatsoever the Good Lord did oppose to him. Even as he went, the maroon of the walls did darken to purple and farther, till he did pace a corridor of indigo. Then the light itself began to dwindle and to darken, until he groped within a lightless place. Terror did well up within him, turning all his joints to water and sapping strength from every limb, yet he did resolve upon the onward march, rebuked his heart most sternly, and held the fear within its place. He did reach out to brace himself against the wall—yet it was damp and soft and yielding, and did seem to move beneath his palm. He did pull his hand away right quickly and did shudder, and was nigh to losing heart then; yet he did haul his courage up from the depths to which it had plummeted, and did force his right foot forward, and his left foot then to follow; and thus he onward moved within that Hellish tunnel.
Then as he went, the floor beneath him did soften, till he did walk upon a yielding surface; and he stumbled and did fall, and caught himself upon his hands. He did cry aloud, and backward thrust himself with a broken prayer for strength, for that floor had felt as moist and yielding as tissue living. "In truth," he muttered, "I walk indeed within the throat of Hell."
He plucked himself up and pushed himself onward, bowed against the weight of his fear, yet going.
Sudden light did glare, and did sear his eyes, so that he did clench them shut, then did slowly ope, allowing them to accustom themselves to such brightness, whereupon the glare was gone, and Father Vidicon did see a grinning death's head that did glow there—yet not if its own light, for it was of a pale and sickly green that did shine too brightly for the light to be within. Yet naught else could Father Vidicon see there about him. He did frown, and held his hand before his face; yet he could see it not. "In sooth," he breathed, "what light is this, that is itself a darkness—what light is this, that doth not thus illuminate? How can light cast darkness?"
The answer came at once within his mind, and he did pull his Roman collar from out its place and did hold it out before him, to behold it as a strip of glaring bluish-white. "It doth fluoresce!" he cried in triumph, and he knew thereby that light did truly fill the hall, but was of a color that human eyes see not. Yet his collar, in consequence of the detergent held within it, did transform that color, and did reflect it as a one that human eyes see as glowing.
Father Vidicon replaced his collar then within his shirt with hands that trembled only slightly, and he murmured, "I have, then, come within the land of the Spirit of Paradox." His heart did quail within him, for he knew that the perversities he'd faced ere now were naught indeed when set against the reversals and inverted convolutions of the Spirit that he soon would face. Yet he bowed his head in prayer and felt his heart did lighten. With a silent thought of thanks, he lifted up his head and set forth again down that gigantic throat. The death's head passed upon his left, and on his right he did behold a skeleton frozen at odd angles, as though it were running and was small, or as though the person were now distant. And onward he did pace, past skulls and crossed bones on his left, and on his right, skeletons in postures that might have been provocative, had they worn flesh—and as they must have been to the Spirit of Paradox. Father Vidicon did pray that he would not behold a being fully-fleshed, for he felt sure that it would lie as one who's dead.
The passage then did curve downward toward his left, past bones and left-hand helices inverted widdershins. A galaxy did reel upon his left; yet the spiral arms were on the rim, and darkness dwelt within its heart, a disc of emptiness. Stars did coalesce upon his right to form a globe elongate, and it did seem as though the universe entire did move backward, and invert.
The throat he paced did upward curve, still bending leftward, and he did hear above him footsteps, that did approach in front, then did recede behind. He frowned up at them, yet still did march ahead, past glowing signs of death in birth, on and on through hallways that did ever curve unto his left. Yet it did begin to once again curve downward also, down and down, a mile or more, till at least, he did behold, upon his left —
A grinning death's head.
Father Vidicon stopped and stood stock still. A chill enveloped him, beginning at the hollow of his back and spreading upward to embrace his scalp, for he was certain that this death's head was the first he had beheld within this sightless tunnel. Then did he bethink him of the footsteps he had heard above his head, and knew with certainty (though he knew not how he knew) that those had been his own footsteps going past this place. They'd seemed inverted for, at the time, he had walked upon the outside of the throat he was now within; yea, now he walked within it once again. "In truth," he whispered, "I do wander a Klein flask."
And so it was—a tube that did curve back upon itself, then curved within itself once again, so that he passed from inside to outside, then back to inside, all unawares. Aye, forever might he wander this dark hall and never win to any goal except his own point of origin. He might well press onward ageing more and more, till at last he wold stumble through this hall, a weak, enfeebled, ancient spirit. Yet, "Nay," he cried, "for here's the place of paradox—and as time goes forward, I shall grow younger!" And hard upon the heels of that realization came another: that he might wander where he would yet never find that Spirit within whose throat he wandered—the Spirit that did invest this place.
Or did the place invest the Spirit? "Aye!" he cried in triumph. " 'Tis not Hell's mouth that I did enter, but Finagle's!" and his throat was like unto a Klein flask. Therefore, Father Vidicon did set forth again, with heart renewed and fear held in abeyance, to pace onward and onward, downward to his left, then upward left gain, until the wall did fall away beneath his hand and the floor did curve away beneath him. Then he cried in triumph, "I have come without! Nay, Spirit, look upon me—for I have come from out to stand upon thy skin! Nay, behold me!"
A door thundered up scant feet away, nearly knocking him backward with the wind of its passage. He did fall back, plunging downward and crying out in fear, flailing about him, near to panic—and his hand caught upon a spoke which did grow from that surface there below. More such spikes caught him, pressing most painfully against him, for their points were sharp; yet he heeded not the pain, but did gaze upward, and did behold a great and glowing baleful eye that did fill all his field of vision.
"Indeed, I see thee now," a great voice rumbled. "May there be praise in censure! I had begun to think I would never have thee out from my system!"
"Nor wilt thou," Father Vidicon did cry in triumph, "for the outside of thy system is the inside! Indeed, thine inside is thine outside, and thine outside's inside! They are all one, conjoined in endlessness!"
"Do not carol victory yet," the huge voice rumbled, "for thou dost address Finagle, author of all that doth twist back upon itself. I am the fearsome spirit that doth invest all paradox, and doth make two aspects of any entity separate and opposed as thesis and antithesis, in Hegelian duality."
"Ah, is it Hegel's, then?" Father Vidicon did cry; but,
"Nay," Finagle rumbled, "for Hegel thus was mine."
"Thou dost afright me not," Father Vidicon did cry. "I know thee well at last! Thou art the bridge from Tomorrow to Yesterday, for Positive to Negative, from nucleus's strong force thus to weak! Thou art the bridge that doth conjoin all those that do appear opposed!"