"Why, thou firm illusion!" the young man mocked. "How canst thou say that thou art real?"
"Because I am not organic, and cannot be influenced any more by specious arguments than by glamours of mist. I was not born, but made in a factory, and recall every second of five hundred years and more. You have existed for exactly seven minutes, thirty-four seconds… thirty-five, now. And no longer!"
The young man stared, incredulous, then laughed with a harsh and mocking sound.
Fess turned his back on the illusion. "Let us go, children! You are real, and proof against delusions—for you are of the line of d'Armand! Come! Reality awaits!"
He stepped away toward the surrounding forest, not even looking back to see if they were following.
Gregory shivered and whirled about, staring after Fess, then ran to catch up. Geoffrey marched after him, face burning with anger, but obedient to command.
"Away, hussy!" Cordelia caught Magnus's hand. "What, brother! Wilt thou be enslaved by thine own waking dream?"
Magnus shook himself, and turned away from the purple nymph, moving slowly and mechanically, but moving.
"Tis I shall be thy slave," the purple youth purred. "Only stay with me!"
Cordelia wavered, leaning toward his ready embrace.
Magnus's head snapped up as though he'd been slapped. Then his eyes narrowed, and he strode forward to catch Cordelia's wrist. "Why, what a poxy lie is this, that would seek to entrance a maiden with her own longings! Begone, foul seducer! My sister's not for thee!" And to Cordelia, "What—wilt thou not wait for a true love who's truly real? Is not a real man, however flawed, of greater worth to thee than barren dreams?"
"Mayhap not," she murmured, but fell into step with him. "I cannot tell…"
"I can!" Magnus proffered his arm, somehow managing to catch her hand around his biceps without releasing his hold on her wrist. "Come away, fair sister! Come, walk with me… so! Forever, we shall walk together… and thus shall we save one another!"
And so they did, each following the other's movements, step by step, up out of the haze of illusion, back into the light of day.
Before them, their brothers marched, following the robot, whose horse sense could pierce through dreams.
As they caught up, Gregory was saying plaintively, "Yet how can I prove it, Fess? How can I know that I am real?"
"Aye." Geoffrey was scowling. "This Bishop Berkeley that thou dost speak of—was he not right? Does nothing exist if it is not perceived?"
"That is a matter decided some years ago," Fess answered, "if ever it can be." He lashed out with a hoof, and a rock spun through the air, bounced off a tree, and fell to the forest floor—all without missing a beat. "Thus did Dr. Johnson refute Berkeley," Fess replied. "And I submit that, like Dr. Johnson, you, Geoffrey, gave as much evidence as we can have, when you batted the acid rock into the pit."
Gregory perked up. "Why, how is that proof? If 'tis our eyes that are fooled as well as our ears, did we truly see the rock fly through the air, or did we but dream it?"
"'Twas true enough for me," Geoffrey assured him. "The stone did sail through the air; I saw it do so, I felt the shock as the stick hit the rock!"
"That was Doctor Johnson's point when he kicked a cobblestone, Geoffrey."
"Yet his eyes might be deceived as easily as thine ears," Gregory objected.
"And what of his foot?" Geoffrey jeered.
"Yet that too could have been illusion! The sight of the rock flying through the air was only what mine eyes did tell me! It might be as much illusion as that purple castle—for did not mine eyes also tell me of that?"
"Yes," said Fess, "but your senses were distorted when they received that impression, distorted by the purple haze."
"Were they?" Gregory challenged. "How are we to know that?"
"Because I did not see them directly," Fess answered. "I perceived them only at second hand, through your thoughts."
Gregory stopped, eyes losing focus. "Nay, then… Assuredly, they were not there…"
"Yet, Fess, we will not always have you with us," Magnus said.
"I fear not. Remember, then, that Bishop Berkeley's main point holds—we cannot totally prove what is real and what is not; some iota of faith is necessary, even if it is only faith that what we perceive, when our senses are clear, is real."
"Yet how are we to know if it is truly real, or is not!"
"By whether or not it is there when you come out into the light again," Fess said severely, "by whether or not what you see by night is still there in the morning: by your interaction with other objects, and their interaction with you. The cobblestone might have been illusion, but if so, it created a very convincing illusion of flying away from Dr. Johnson's foot. Dr. Johnson may have been an illusion, but I suspect he had a very convincing sense of pain when his toe hit the cobble."
"But we cannot prove…" Gregory let the sentence trail off, not sounding terribly worried anymore.
"Thou dost say that whether it is real or not, it will hurt as though it was," Geoffrey amplified. "My sword may be an illusion, but it will nonetheless spill another illusion's blood."
"You approach the solution. What if you had touched the gleaming rock, even though I bade you not to?"
"Then my illusory hand would have felt illusory agony, and my illusory skin would have rotted as the illusory acid seemed to eat it away," Geoffrey answered, "and my illusory self would liefer not, thank you! Thou mayest burn thine own illusion, an thou dost wish!"
"But then… our whole frame of reference may be illusion…" Gregory ventured, his expression troubled.
"That is the point." Fess nodded. "It is real within our frame. Whether it is ultimately real or not is beside the point; it is pragmatically real. It is the reality you must live with, like it or not."
"I see." Gregory's face cleared. "It may not be ultimate, but it is the only reality we have."
"Even so."
Magnus frowned. "Then the purple lad and lavender lass, they were not real at all?"
"Certes, they were not real!" Cordelia said with a shudder, "and I thank thee for saving me from them, brother."
"As I thank thee, for saving me," Magnus returned. "Yet how can we have needed saving from them, if they were not real?"
"Because they were real illusions," Fess explained. "Be sure, children—illusions can do as much harm as anything else in this world. By clouding your perception of reality, illusions can kill."
Chapter Fifteen
Many miles away, Rod and Gwen finally began to hear the roar of surf. Coming out of the forest, they found themselves on a rocky beach with a thin strip of sand near the foaming breakers.
"How beautiful!" Gwen exclaimed.
"It is," Rod agreed, gazing at the dark green mass of water, smelling the salt air. "I keep forgetting."
They strolled toward the tide line, watching the gulls wheel about the sky. But they couldn't hear them— whenever there was a lull in the sound of the surf, all they could hear was the snarling and beating of the music of the metallic rocks.
"Here?" Gwen cried. "Even here?"
"I suppose," Rod said with resignation. "They fanned out from wherever they originated—and there's no reason why this edge of the fan should end, just because it's come to the ocean."
Something exploded, just barely heard above the roar of the surf, and they saw a rock go flying off into the waves. The other rock went…
"Duck!" Rod dove for the sand, pulling Gwen with him. The rock sailed by right where her head had been.
"Look!" Gwen pointed.