DOCTOR STRANGE: NIGHTMARE "Chapter Twenty-Five"

It's a battle to the death between Doctor Strange and Nightmare...

...so jump in and start reading...if you dare!

Chapter Twenty-Five

Blackness networked with crimson filaments. The red lines grew thicker until there were black lines across the scarlet sky. A speck of throbbing light appeared . . . grew . . . and Stephen Strange exploded into the mind dream of the sleeping man.

At once he noted another speck of light. With disconcerting swiftness, the speck grew to a pulsating sphere of sparkling light. The globe of expanding light exploded with a soundless flash and from it rode the devilish form of an immense black stallion! And on his back was the green-clad Nightmare!

The green cape flowed behind and the dark baleful eyes glared at Strange. The crimson world swirled around them, the red shrinking to a scarlet net and the black expanding; then the cyclic growth returned . . . The blackness shrank to a thin network of intersecting lines across the crimson world.

Strange knew that here, in the dream dimension, Nightmare was at his strongest and he, the invader from reality, was at his weakest.

Nightmare wasted no time. The silver hooves of the ebony mount struck out at Stephen Strange. Here, in the dream dimension, his astral body was not invisible and invulnerable, but all too fragile.

Strange evaded the hooves but made no spell. He needed to find out more. “You could not keep me prisoner in the negative world,” he said to Nightmare as the creature turned his mount for another charge.

“But this is my realm, Strange!” Nightmare trumpeted. “Here you will die! You are not fighting one of my lesser creations now, Mage—you are in combat with Nightmare!” His mocking laughter filled the air as the great black stallion charged again.

Strange again evaded the stallion’s attack. It was not too difficult and the ease of it disturbed him. It was as if Nightmare and his ebony charger were only a diversion.

Nightmare had always been Doctor Strange’s most enigmatic and most ephemeral enemy. He rode the paths no waking man could measure, to be seen only in dreams, and to vanish in a blink. He struck through the weakest point—the subconscious.

Time seemed to slow. The prancing steed moved in slow motion, Nightmare’s long cape swirled in graceful settling arcs. The monster’s mouth moved slowly, the words coming as an extended, distorted echo.

The subconscious . . . that dungeon in our mind where monsters were chained . . .

. . . The rusty doors opened . . .

. . . Dark things stirred in the blackness . . .

. . . A man in a medical gown and cap walked out; he had the face of Stephen Strange . . .

. . . Me, thought Strange, the me of years ago . . .

. . . by all the gods!

. . . The medical man, arrogant and haughty, sneered at the stumbling drunk who emerged from the dungeon . . .

. . . The broken Stephen Strange, the doctor who floated on the tide of self-pity and liquor . . .

. . . The surgeon held out something in each hand . . .

. . . life and death; the ankh and the skull . . .

. . . The skull chattered; the derelict Strange cowered . . .

. . . Then the Ancient One floated from the dungeon’s mouth, sitting in the lotus position, but his face was that of a skull, for Strange’s mentor had died . . . or rather, had moved on to another dimension, one denied to Strange . . .

. . . Mordo, his most ancient of enemies, strode forth, as arrogant and as powerful as any Strange had met. He sneered at everyone . . .

. . . Other crypts opened around them and other enemies came forth, but all wore the haughty face of Stephen Strange . . .

. . . No . . .

. . . A soundless cry came as dust on the wind . . .

. . . “Magician!”

. . . Strange saw the last figure to emerge from the dungeon. It was again himself, but the blue-clad, red-caped image of himself at one of the most important and powerful points in his career . . .

. . . The master of the mystic arts, answerable only to himself, powerful and superior . . .

“It is your time, Magician!”

Strange stared at the figures, but there was really only one figure . . . himself—himself at a period when he had no doubts or fears. He knew power then and thought he knew the proper application of it.

He had seen himself as he was then and that had been the reason Strange had put sorcery aside at that time. He’d become self-righteous, which was possibly the worst sin of all.

But to face himself, the himself of that time, was not fair. They had fought once before, Strange’s more certain self and his doubting reality, during the epic battle with Eternity.

“You are confused, Magician!” the other said. “By opening yourself to many realities you have learned that nothing is as it seems! You thought you could triumph—but you cannot!”

The other Stephen Strange sent a blast of pure force against him. Rays of light exploded, dissolving all the others. Now there were only Doctor Strange and his earlier, more certain, more powerful self. Another blast threw him back, but Strange rose above it with a hoarse cry.

“I can!” he cried and sent his own blast of lightning at the other figure. They were both bathed in light, battered by the titanic forces each released. The rocky landscape upon which they stood flowed like lava beneath their feet.

They slugged it out in the most primitive of ways, blasting at each other relentlessly. Yet Strange held his ground, though only barely. The bowl of crimson sky rainbowed and grew dark. The air was hot, the rocky ground smoking and slick.

Strange uttered a spell, but the other Strange countered it before it was even completed. The other Strange wrote letters of fire in the air, encircling Strange, but he rendered them powerless with a gesture and a curse of rejection.

They stood at last, gasping and staring, facing each other. The other Strange put his hands to his face in a sudden spasm of pain and when his hands dropped away he wore another face—that of Baron Mordo.

“Madness, Strange!” he exclaimed.

The universe fell away from Strange and he toppled into a swirling gray wind. His body stretched and grew soft, his bones softened and his control was nil.

“Madness!” Mordo cried. “Madness is chaos, the world inside out! Madness is your destiny, Strange!”

The universe was an endless dropping. Colors melted around him like ribbons, flaming after him as he fell . . .

. . . and fell . . .

. . . and fell . . .

. . . Someone screamed . . .

. . . The voice was familiar . . .

. . . It was his . . .

. . . He could not stop the screaming . . .

. . . No!

. . . Clea! He reached out in his thoughts to his acolyte. She stood like a sentinel only a few inches away, through the skull bone of the sleeping evangelist . . .

. . . Clea!

. . . Stephen! Her voice was faint but it gave him a marker, a milestone, a measure of where he was. He flashed a tenuous line of intangible thought through the void . . .

. . . Clea!

. . . Stephen!

. . . Her mind was a headland against which the sea of madness broke. Yet the madness plucked at his mind like the swift outgoing tide . . .

. . . The Ancient One, dissolving away, not in age and self-determination, but in senility and madness . . .

. . . Clea, a rotting corpse on the altar of a bloated nameless god . . .

. . . Mordo standing triumphant . . .

. . . Nightmare’s gloating laughter . . .

Nightmare!

In a flash of incandescent memory, Stephen Strange remembered the ending of the titanic battle with Eternity, in which Nightmare had been but a spear carrier. The world had ended, when Baron Mordo’s insanity had gone over the brink. Strange remembered the smashing blow of feeling as the lives of four billion people were snuffed out in an explosion that had obliterated the planet. Clea, Wong, sacred relics and humble stones—gone!

Strange remembered wishing he had been destroyed, too. Only his own powers, and that of prolonged life granted him by the Ancient One, had saved him. But for what? He remembered floating in the awful emptiness, amid the molecular fragments of the shattered planet, wishing that he, too, were dead . . . regretting the death of friends, the destruction of mankind’s home, of the hopes and dreams of an entire race.

He realized then that he could not continue to go on bathing in self-pity, in self-recrimination. He lived . . . and he was the Sorcerer Supreme. He could not accept defeat.

He cursed himself for a novice then. He had remembered Nightmare’s brief appearance during the struggle. He had journeyed to the dream dimension, for it was littered with the awesome remnants of every man’s imagination and the raw material for endless dreams. He had passed through the galactic garbage and universal hopes of a race, careful not to make a misstep that would destroy him, for he was the only hope of mankind.

He remembered his resolve to hold on to sanity, for if he did not, he was lost . . . and man was lost. The creatures of Nightmare’s domain had attacked him, but he had overcome them. Nightmare loosed a horde of demons upon him; knife-edged beaks and scimitar claws had struck at him.

“The dark forces gather, then die with the dawn,” he had chanted. “By the light deep within me—begone!” Nightmare had made a mistake; he had underestimated the powers of Stephen Strange. Strange fought through Nightmare’s bastions to confront Eternity and more by logic than by the mystic arts, he had persuaded him to restore the world. From the void . . .

. . . from the atoms wandering in the nothingness . . .

. . . from the rough clots of stone and shreds of gas, planets had been created, stars set afire, worlds inhabited with one-celled creatures . . .

. . . From the primordial ooze came advancing the multicellular creatures. Lightning struck the ooze and started life and there was no stopping it: reptiles and grass, mammals and primates, then man! The recreation of the world had taken place in moments . . .

. . . with help from . . .

. . . the Ancient One, now a part of eternity itself . . .

. . . a world restored . . .

. . . a mind restored . . .

. . . from algae to lizards to man, from stone spears to rockets to mystic sorcerers . . .

. . . sanity regained . . .

“Nightmare!”

The madness vanished; the veil was lifted. Strange stood on a spotless plain of white that extended to the featureless horizon in every direction—the killing ground. No cover, no weapons save the mind and the knowledge it contained.

And Nightmare.

The gray-skinned figure stood warily, his gray hair disheveled, his green cloak hanging limp, his hands curled and fingers ready for primitive battle.

“Strange!”

The Sorcerer Supreme smiled faintly, with the thin echo of ancient haughtiness. “Using my own doubts and fears against me was a good tactic—but not good enough.”

Nightmare snarled and tentacles rose from the featureless plain in a circle around Strange, long colorless arms that sought his flesh. “By the Ethnarch of Judah!” he cried and the tentacles withered and died under his focused power.

Naked women sprang from the plain, coming up as featureless blobs that colored themselves into flesh and formed into women and broke loose from the extension. They all had the faces of a mad Clea and they attacked with shrill screeches. Strange banished the harpies with a gesture and a curse from the Book of the Tetrarchs.

He lunged toward Nightmare and the green-clad ruler of the dream dimension leaped at him. Strange grasped the other’s wrist and the wrist became a loathsome tentacle. The gray face before him became a rotting reflection of his own. The green cape swirled around Strange and tightened into a steel cocoon.

Strange fought for air as the cocoon tightened. The moment he remembered he did not need air, that this was an astral projection, the strangulation stopped and the cloak fell away. But it had confused Strange; he could be hurt, he knew that, yet he retained aspects of his astral invulnerability. He had no time to think it out, for Nightmare drew darkness around them.

Continue the Adventure Tomorrow
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Seduction of the Innocent

DOCTOR STRANGE: NIGHTMARE "Chapter Seventeen"

Chapter Sixteen is Here.

Please read before proceeding, because you'd be lost in the Multiverse if you didn't!

(And we certainly don't want that!)

Chapter Seventeen

Strange had met Clea during his great battle with the dread Dormammu. That sorcerer from a strange dimension had threatened the invasion and destruction of the dimension in which Stephen Strange dwelt, Earth. Strange had gone to that bizarre and surreal time-space dimension, a dimension so alien, so incredible, so utterly beyond human comprehension that there were no words in any earthly language to accurately describe it.

He had faced Dormammu, a powerful figure whose head was a glowing, steaming pillar of mystic force. “You must never be allowed to hurl your sinister spells against mankind,” Strange had told him, but the mystic magician had laughed at Strange’s assaults.

“Even the powerful Ancient One cannot stop me, so how can you?” With a wave of his hands the ribbons of that dimension parted, twisted, disappeared, reunited in a bizarre Mobius strip, altering space and the perception of space. But Strange had resisted, barely, the altered state of mind his opponent had created.

“I warn you to send the Ancient One to fight in your stead,” Dormammu had snarled. “You are too young.” His voice and manner were insulting, and Strange felt the sting to his pride. “Your knowledge of the mystic arts cannot begin to equal mine!”

Black, white, red, green, blue . . . The universe changed with bewildering rapidity.

“No, dreaded one,” Strange said. “It is I the Ancient One has sent . . . and it is I you must battle!”

The Mobius world flattened in a blink. Grotesque statues sat squatly, sacrificial smoke rising from their head bowls. Bizarre shapes hung from the arching black ceiling. Dormammu stood on a gleaming golden square and sneered. “Bah! All through the ages, witless creatures such as you have dared to challenge me . . . and all have met the same deadly fate.” His green-gloved hand pointed a finger at Strange and the glowing force that was his head shimmered. “I shall give you a brief period to reconsider before I summon you to your final battle!”

Dormammu raised his hand, his long fingers stretched. “For I no longer derive pleasure from defeating weak opponents The sport now bores me!” Dormammu’s hand swept down and in the blink of an eye, Stephen Strange was somewhere else.

He looked around. He was in a hall with a pool of thick green ooze, surrounded by massive pillars that rose into the darkness. The pillars were carved and inscribed, painted and covered with mosaics, arcane designs, and mystic symbols. He took off his cape and commanded it to stand while he strolled along the golden floor which edged the erratically shaped pool.

“He sounded so sure of himself,” he thought. “So totally arrogant! Can he really be so completely unbeatable?”

Every man has areas of uncertainty, especially where he has not been tested. Dormammu’s certainty struck at Strange’s own insecurity. He had to decide whether the master of this bizarre dimension was really as powerful and as knowledgeable as he appeared. David slew Goliath. Power and knowledge alone were not completely the deciding factors. There was still will, determination, righteousness, and right.

He was deep in thought when he noticed a spot glowing in the air near him. As he looked, the spot dilated to permit a woman to step out of it and stand on the floor before him. She was the nameless woman who had tried to warn him when he had first entered that dimension of the dread Dormammu. He would know her eventually as Clea, but then she was mysterious and nameless.

“Heed my words, man from another world,” she said urgently to Dr. Strange. “You must not battle Dormammu!”

“You waste your breath,” Dr. Strange said. “Nothing can stop me! I must save humanity from the dreaded one.” He turned away from her, annoyed that Dormammu had tried such a transparent and ineffectual trick. “Even though I perish in the attempt, I dare not falter. My life means nothing.”

“No!” Clea said quickly, her voice filled with concern. “It is not only of you I am thinking. If, by some unbelievable miracle, you should triumph, it could mean the end of us!”

“I do not understand,” Strange said.

“Then you must be shown!” Clea said. Her eyes burned into Strange’s. “Prepare yourself, Earth mortal . . . Prepare for sights such as no human eyes have ever before beheld!”

Her hands went out, directing her energies. Dressed in red and black, with distinctive white hair, a red radiance came from her body. In the midst of the radiance a yellow spot appeared, grew into a shimmering rectangle. Strange could see into it, floating unsupported in the air above the golden floor. Down the rectangular passage, lined with shapes that shifted and merged, was a pure whiteness. “Let the entrance appear,” Clea commanded, and the rectangle grew rapidly. “The entrance to . . . the beyond!”

She looked at Strange with a challenging expression. He nodded, but all his senses—especially his sixth sense—were on full alert.

“Follow me then,” she said, “and be prepared to witness the incredible!” They floated up from the floor, side by side, and quickly entered the yellow rectangle.

“I must be vigilant,” Strange thought. “It might be a trap. Yet, my instincts tell me she is sincere.”

They floated into the pure-white world, into a world of total madness! Tubes of protoplasm, or something like it, writhed through the endless space. There were webs and blobs, floating openings into other worlds, spiny extrusions, dangling tentacles . . .

“This is but the start of the eerie spectacle you are about to see,” Clea said. “For these are the outskirts of Dormammu’s domain, where the mindless ones dwell.”

They floated out, through traceries of smoke, past tubes and tentacles of pulsating, writhing protoplasm. “The mindless ones?” Strange inquired.

“Yes,” she said and pointed. “There they are!” Ahead, on a floating island of quivering protoplasm were two great humpbacked manlike beasts. They were fighting, with hamlike fists and with blasts of some sort of ray coming from slits in their wrinkled featureless faces. They fought with unceasing ferocity, and Strange could see reinforcements coming through, climbing out of the openings into this world, their fists clenched.

“They are primitive, savage, totally devoid of love, or kindness, or any type of intelligence,” Clea said. “They live only to fight . . . and to destroy.” One of the monsters seized another and flung him from the floating island. The defeated creature fell a great distance, caught a throbbing tube of protoplasm and at once began to climb back to begin the fight again.

“They have lived at the fringe of our dimension since the beginning of time,” Clea said, “ever waiting for a chance to attack us . . . to slay us all!”

They floated on, but they came too close. One of the gray creatures sent a bolt of energy at them. Strange thrust Clea aside, causing the mindless one’s beam to miss, and he sent back a blast of his own. They slipped past the creatures but Strange wondered why these powerful entities had not conquered all of that dimension before.

Clea explained that a powerful shield, placed by Dormammu with a great spell, kept the creatures confined. “If anything should happen to him, then all of us in this dimension are doomed,” she said.

Strange sensed that this white-haired enchantress was telling the truth. “Though he represents a menace to mankind, Dormammu is a protection to his own people,” he thought.

“That is why you must not defeat him,” Clea insisted as they swam back through the wavering rectangular passage to where she had come to Strange. “Only he can save us from the mindless ones!”

“Yet if he lives, humanity shall always be in danger,” Strange replied. “I wish to bring no harm to this fantastic world . . . and yet my first duty is to Earth . . . and the ones who inhabit it.” He felt sad, but he knew he had no choice. He had to be true to his oath.

Clea disappeared into her self-made passage and Strange shrugged into his long blue cape. He waited, thinking, but was still surprised when a white glow appeared, then grew to a silent shimmering explosion of light. A red carpet snaked out like some even-edged tongue and Dormammu’s voice boomed out.

“Come, man of flesh and blood! The time is here!”

It was Dormammu’s summons. Now, Strange knew, the die was cast! The battle was about to begin. He stepped onto the red carpet and it sucked him into the explosion of light.

The first thing Dr. Strange saw was Clea, on her knees, her hands encased in enormous metal balls, linked by a chain, her head down. “The girl! What have you done to her?”

Dormammu’s glowing head spouted more steam. “She knew the penalty for speaking to the enemy! She has betrayed me . . . So, her fate is now linked with yours!”

Strange protested. “But she merely tried to help—! To convince me not to fight!”

“Silence!” exclaimed Dormammu. “First, she shall witness your defeat . . . Then, she shall be the next to die! Dormammu has spoken!” He raised a hand. “Now, let the battle begin! The battle which shall end, as have all those in the past, with the complete victory of Dormammu, master of the dark domain!”

His hand slashed down and yellow ribbons of energy coiled out, divided, divided again, then streaked toward Strange, but the master of the mystic arts spun a spell of his own that deflected the rays of light.

I know now that I have made the right decision, he thought. No matter what the consequences, Dormammu is too powerful, too evil, to be allowed to exist!

Flames were met by a mystic shield. Arching spears of energy were deflected. No matter what the cost or consequence—he must be destroyed! Radiant force was met by impenetrable might. But, he shall see that I, too, have magical weapons. He swiftly spun a cocoon of light-force around Dormammu, but it lasted only seconds, not long enough for Strange to consolidate the advantage.

The cocoon melted away and Dormammu spoke. “So, human! You are a more capable foe than I had suspected! All the more pity that I shall be forced to vanquish you!”

The battle raged on. Spell met incantation; force met resistance. Glowing symbols were drawn in the air and erased with another powerful spell. Curse met curse; realities were shifted, the surreal became the norm. The battle raged between two completely alien foes, foes with only one thing in common—an awesome mastery of the powers of magic!

In a silent retreat in the Tibetan mountains, an aged mystic observed every detail of the fateful confrontation. He was the Ancient One.

“There is no turning back now,” he whispered. “The game must be played to the end.” He closed his eyes and prayed. “May the light of the Vishanti shine upon Stephen Strange . . . and may the omnipotent Oshtur grant him wisdom and strength!”

Dormammu’s attack grew stronger and Dr. Strange was pressed to his limits. Try as I may, I cannot break through his defenses. I cannot find a way to reach him!

In Dormammu’s mind was this thought: I am stronger than he, but never before have I seen such courage . . . such valor. But neither courage nor valor alone are enough to prevail against my superior might!

In the mind of the helpless Clea was this thought: It matters not who shall win . . . In any event I am doomed! It will soon be over. The mortal one cannot survive much longer!

The great battle raged across the length and breadth of the dark domain. But unknown to Strange at the time, the battle had weakened the shield that Dormammu had erected to confine the mindless ones. They broke through while Dormammu’s attention was elsewhere. A vast horde of the savage, ruthless creatures spilled into the domain of Dormammu.

Suddenly Strange saw Dormammu break off his attack. “I shall attend to you later, Earthling!” Dormammu said as he turned away. “I see a more pressing problem to dispose of!”

The master of the dark domain turned his back on Strange and lifted his hands high. A radiance of light grew around him, and Strange knew he could pierce it from behind, but he hesitated. It is my chance . . . but I cannot do battle in such a manner.

Then the mindless ones charged into view, their beams slashing forth from the dark slits in their heads; but Dormammu had created an emergency barrier before them. Their beams splashed off, but as their numbers increased, the beams began to penetrate, further and further, into the barrier.

“Back, creatures of the night!” Dormammu shouted. “Back, I command you, by the seven rings of Raggador!”

The creatures multiplied and Strange could see that the quickly erected shield was not going to hold. He knew that if Dormammu’s barrier was ruptured, many innocent creatures living in the dark domain would be killed. He had to help.

His fingers went to the jewel at his throat and a light shone forth from the enchanted amulet. “Stand still!” he ordered Dormammu as the light bathed him. “Let the power of my amulet seep into you, adding to your own!”

Fortified by the energy from the gleaming jewel, Dormammu’s strength increased and the barrier held. Then with an outward pulsing of light he drove the mindless ones back and back, until they were once again confined in their mystic prison.

Then instead of expressing gratitude, Dormammu turned upon Strange with rage. “Curse you, mortal! Curse the fact that I needed your help! Curse the woeful fate that has placed me in your debt! I cannot slay you now! I cannot destroy the one who has saved me!”

Strange smiled grimly. It is as I suspected, he thought. He is evil, true, but only by our human standards. According to his own lights, he has his own moral code.

Strange acknowledged that Dormammu was in his debt, but he asked only two promises to be kept and the debt was paid: that no harm must come to the female he had imprisoned for trying to help, and that Dormammu vow never to invade Earth.

The master of the dark domain agreed. “But I shall never rest until I have avenged this indignity!” Then he was gone.

Strange turned to the white-haired young woman, now freed of her metal balls of bondage. “What will become of you, now? Perhaps there could be a way to take you back with me?”

But Clea had refused, saying she preferred staying in her world—but that she would never forget Doctor Stephen Strange.

Reluctantly, Strange departed the dark domain, and returned to the Tibetan monastery of the Ancient One. There he found the old man amazingly revitalized. Strange’s defeat of Dormammu had broken a spell the master of the dark domain had put upon him. As a reward Strange was given a new cape, with great spells woven into it, and a new and more powerful amulet, the fabled Eye of Agamotto.

Strange shook his head. There was no clue there, in Clea’s origins, for her present whereabouts—or none that he could detect. She had eventually come to him, exiled from the dark dimension, and they had built a life together.

Distressed, Strange ran through the entire sequence again, quickly. The Ancient One had dispatched Strange to do battle in Dormammu’s own land. Strange had had to fight his way through foe after foe, just to be able to meet Dormammu. Reason had not worked, not against Dormammu’s determination to conquer Earth. Clea had tried to warn him, and eventually her warning had borne fruit, for in aiding Dormammu to defeat the mindless ones he had placed the mighty magician in debt to him.

But none of it, none of it, offered a clue. If Dormammu was behind Nightmare’s action, if he was in some way manipulating Nightmare, that horrendous dream master did not seem to know it.

No, the clues were obscure. Perhaps they were there, perhaps not. Strange knew of no other way to proceed than the way he had been proceeding: onward.

To Be Continued on Thursday...

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Seduction of the Innocent

DOCTOR STRANGE: NIGHTMARE "Chapters Fourteen & Fifteen"

If you missed them, Chapters Twelve and Thirteen are Here!

If you're linking from that site, disregard and keep reading...

Chapter Fourteen

“Brethren, I speak to you today from the Temple of Light!” The television screen framed Billie Joe Jacks nicely and the lighting technicians had done him justice. Strange detected the makeup, but that was hardly unusual for anyone on the tube these days.

“Brethren, this hour, this minute, this second is the first moment of the Crusade for Change! This world changes on the surface every day. The world we knew as a child is as distant today as Jupiter is from the Sun! The world of our parents has vanished! Technologically, we are changing as swiftly as some speeded-up movie. The minds of men are delving into everything: the radio waves coming from distant stars and galaxies which are unimaginably far away, the planets, the structure of metals, and the nature of time itself. There are far too many who know how to explode the heart of the atom!”

Billie Joe’s face was stern, earnest, and commanding. Strange saw what there was in this man that had brought him from a small church in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, to the worldwide network of stations and satellites that was making this broadcast one of the ten most watched programs of all time.

“Our lives are changing, rocketing into the future at speeds we cannot possibly hope to comprehend. This morning’s world is not tonight’s world and tomorrow’s world is beyond understanding or believing. Man is in danger of being made obsolete by his own headlong progress.”

Strange nodded. Jacks was taking the usual anti-technology line. If he had been a caveman he would have resisted fire—probably as a tool of the devil.

“Progress,” sneered Jacks. “Each hour that passes brings this planet, this system of planets, this galaxy forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in the constellation of Hercules . . . and yet there are misfits and malcontents who insist that there is no such thing as progress.

“Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, ‘The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.’ And by that test, has our ‘progress’ been progress?”

Jacks leaned forward into the camera lens. “Has it?” he insisted. He flung a hand into the sky. “I insist that it has not! Anything that makes the world more humane and more rational is progress, I say. That’s the only measuring stick we can apply to it.” He settled back and spoke in calm, even tones. “In a world where the two greatest powers—not even counting the others—can each destroy totally the lands and populations of the other, fifty or a hundred times over with atomic fire, I say we have not made the world more humane or rational.”

Stephen Strange found he agreed, but he kept his caution up.

“Speed is frequently confused with progress, but it is not progress. Some say progress is the substitution of a complicated nuisance for a simple nuisance. Well, my friends, I am here today to make a very progressive suggestion: let us not have any more progress!”

Jacks beamed out at his worldwide audience. “Let us instead have change. Change is not progress. Change is not our enemy. What single ability do we all have? What solitary ability do we all possess? Change.”

He took a deep breath. “The world is changing faster than people are. Our problem is that we hate change and we hate progress, and we love them at the same time. Change keeps things from becoming static and boring. But what we really want is for things to remain the same . . . but to get better.

“We have only two things to dread: changing . . . and not changing. But you don’t change the world—you change yourself. You don’t change the men who are learning about microbes or stars. You don’t change the men and women who are building machines or discovering processes. You don’t stop those who are searching our genes and chromosomes for better people. No, you change yourself.”

Jacks looked straight into the lens. “And that is the most frightening thing of all. You are the only you you know. Without that you, you do not exist. To change that you is to not be.”

Again he leaned forward. “But you must change. You cannot help it. You were once young and foolish and naïve. Today you are older, wiser and not so naïve. You know the world is complex, not simple. You have changed. The toughest sort of mountain climbing is getting out of a rut. Today, we start making those first steps . . . out of the rut!”

“Make your point,” muttered Clea.

“Each new plateau reached by the human race has been the result of some change, some maladjustment, some twisting of the silver cord of life. It is no accident that it has been the so-called ‘maladjusted’ individuals who have been responsible for the ascent of man to higher and still higher levels of comprehension and ability. And I come to you today as one of those maladjusted individuals.” Jacks’s smile took the sting from his words. He spoke on, confidentially and person to person.

“Progress is merciless. It has no purpose; it just happens. It chews up everyone in its path—and we are all in its path—then spits us out and spits out things and events we cannot understand. The only value it seems to have is to make a few people rich. Progress is manufacturing beer cans that last forever, and expensive cars that rust out in three years. Progress is getting you across the country or across an ocean faster than ever before and then losing your luggage. Progress is inventing television, the greatest teaching tool in history, and boring you to death with it. Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backward faster.

“Changing is applying your own God-given intelligence to your life and your world. Being changed is what happens to you and me when outside forces force us to be different. But only you can change yourself!

“Why should you do it? For the Lord? For me? For society? No! But we shall not survive without changing—not you, not me, not your nation nor mine, not our world! To change with change is the changeless state. All things change. This species gives way to that, to one better equipped to survive. But—!” His finger pointed again at the heavens.

“To become a different you, you must find someone you’d rather be! And there is nothing in our society that does not need changing on one level or another!”

Stephen Strange was watching with careful eyes, evaluating both method and thought, both meaning and attitude. This was an inspired Jacks, a magnetic personality, one that was certain to gather about him many people. Not just the eternal malcontents who attach themselves to any sort of possibility for change, hoping that when everything is uprooted and turned over they will be on top. No, he would attract the more stable, those who were altruistic, those who sincerely wanted justice for the oppressed and to right the wrongs of society.

“Today! Tonight! This marks the beginning of the change! The world will be different tomorrow from what it is right now! Why? Because you have listened. Some of you will turn me off, close your minds, and forget my words. But some of you will understand, some of you know that a better world lies ahead, if we work together. We are doing the Lord’s work, we are doing man’s work! Together, hand in hand, and mind in mind, we will change the future! New let us pray.”

The camera pulled back, showing the crowded Temple of Light and dissolved to the spire over it as the prayers of the faithful rose. Strange leaned forward and pressed the button; the image collapsed in upon itself, became a dot and disappeared.

“He’s magnetic,” Clea commented. “You do listen.”

Strange nodded. He had sensed something more than just the personality of the evangelist. He was not certain just what. He stared at the blank gray screen.

Gray.

The color of clouds—gray.

Nightmare was somewhere behind this, Strange knew, but at just what point did he plan to appear? If he thought to make everyone listening to Billie Joe Jacks fall asleep from boredom and invade on a broad front in that manner, he was doomed. Billie Joe seemed to electrify, not bore.

In fact, Billie Joe Jacks was far more electrifying and commanding than he had ever been—curiously powerful. Strange leaned forward and turned on the television set again, getting a curious look from Clea.

There was a newsman with a hand mike, holding it in the face of a famous Protestant minister, an evangelist who had adopted the charismatic image of a television evangelist early, and had risen to international fame. “—and I applaud the Reverend Jacks for his challenging statement. I want to say, here and now, that I support his Crusade for Change. It is time that—”

Clea spoke over the minister. “Everyone is getting on the bandwagon. They see his effect. Remarkable.”

“Indeed,” Strange added.

The network had shifted across the country to interview another famed minister. “Carl Eisenberg here with the Reverend Curtis Smith, of the United Protestant Reformed Church. Doctor Smith, what are your thoughts on the first speech in the Reverend Jacks’s Crusade for Change?”

“Well, Carl, it is a clarion call for unification, there’s no doubt about that. We here at the UPRC have long hoped and prayed for a force to unite all the Christian factions.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Now to Paul Wright, with Richard Cardinal Buttner, in Philadelphia.”

Stephen Strange snapped off the set. The silence deepened for a long moment. “They are getting on the bandwagon fast,” Clea said.

“Aided by the technology he seems to want to destroy,” Strange said softly. But what exactly was the plan?

Chapter Fifteen

“Doctor Strange, this is Alicia Jacks.”

“Yes, Mrs. Jacks, what can I do for you?”

“I hate to be calling you; I know you must have important things to do, but . . .”

“Go on, please,” he said into the telephone.

“It’s Billie Joe. He’s . . . he’s not well.”

“Is the crusade taking that much of his energy?” Strange asked. The well-televised crusade had been taking up much of the airwaves for ten days.

“He’s . . . weak, Doctor Strange. I’ve been giving him the vitamins, seeing he gets rest and all, but . . . he’s so weak in the daytime. He’s . . . he’s aged five years. I don’t know what to do.”

“Would you like me to see him again?”

“Oh, I . . . to be frank, Doctor, I don’t think he’d see you. After . . . after our visit he was, well, very much against you. He called you—no, I shouldn’t.”

“Go on, Mrs. Jacks, it’s all right.”

“Well . . . uh . . . he called you a devil, an acolyte of Satan, things like that.”

“And a charlatan, no doubt.” Strange smiled faintly. “But what can I do for you. I do not practice medicine any longer, you know, Alicia.”

“No, it isn’t . . .” She seemed very hesitant. “It’s . . . it’s not really medical. I think . . . it’s . . . oh, I don’t know how to put it.”

“Psychic?”

“Well, I . . . I just don’t know. He should be well. He’s always been very healthy. We’ve done crusades before, several of them, that were just as demanding, or almost so, anyway. It’s . . . something else, Doctor Strange.”

“I’ll come see him tonight. You are appearing at Madison Square Garden, are you not?”

“Yes. I’ll . . . I’ll have tickets for you at the box office. Or would you prefer to come backstage first?”

“I’d like to get as close as possible, yes.”

“I’ll arrange it. We are scheduled to start at five o’clock, you know? That gives the engineers time to do a bit of videotape editing before we go on the air at eight.”

“I understand. Clea and I shall be there.”

“Thank you, Doctor Strange. I just know you can help.”

Strange hung up the telephone and stood silent for a minute, thinking. Then he went into his library, hunted through the shelves, and found two thick, dusty volumes. He sat down and started searching through their thick parchment pages.

The streets were clogged with cars, taxis and charter buses for blocks in every direction. It was obvious that the Garden would be filled many times over. As Strange and Clea got closer, they could see huge projection screens had been set up beside the marquee and three more had been erected on temporary platforms down the street.

The crowd parted for Strange and his white-haired companion. No one called out in the usual rude New York manner. Their voices fell and they stared, moving aside without jostling, making a path before Strange. The Sorcerer Supreme walked confidently, in full cape and tunic, the horns of his unusual cloak rising above his head in crimson points. The crowd closed behind them and after a few moments their conversation continued. Not one person mentioned the pair that had just passed.

The doorman waved them on, an expression of silent awe on his face, an unusual attitude for someone who had seen costumed rock stars, the world’s champions, politicians, and kings come through his door.

“The Reverend Jacks is that way, sir,” the guard said.

Strange nodded and continued through the passage formed by the outgoing equipment and scenery of the rock group, The Marvelous Madmen, and the incoming movable ring of the championship fight. There was a line of dressing rooms and only one was lighted. The entire backstage was quite empty, except for a few lounging stage technicians and several quiet television cameramen. There was a muted rumble from the direction of the vast main floor, where thousands of the faithful were filing in. Strange saw in the corner a row of card tables set up, with middle-aged men and women behind them, each with a ledger, an adding machine, and a metal box.

“Doctor Strange? Oh, I’m so glad you are here!” Alicia Jacks hurried across the room. She glanced upward, at the filling auditorium. “We’re going on soon. Oh, excuse me; I’ve been with Billie Joe so long, we’ve done so much together, I still say ‘we.’ ” She twisted nervously at her wedding band. “Lately, I’m afraid it hasn’t been ‘we’ at all.”

“Is he ready to see us?” Clea asked softly.

“Well, uh . . .” Alicia glanced at the dressing room. “He’s taking a nap now. He always takes one just before, uh . . . he needs the rest, you know? He hasn’t been lookin’ well. Guess I told you that, I’m sorry.” She looked at her watch. “I better wake him. Come along.”

Strange and Clea followed Mrs. Jacks to the dressing room, where she briskly knocked twice and opened the door. Strange had a quick glimpse of Jacks lying on the single bed, his body arched with tension, his fists knotted at his side, his face contorted in an expression of terror and fear, his eyes bulging. Alicia gave a gasp and instantly Jacks collapsed. His body thumped down into the bed limply, his eyes closed, and his limbs relaxed completely. He looked asleep.

Alicia gave Strange a pleading look and went into the dressing room. “Billie Joe? Honey, it’s me, Alicia?”

The man on the cot stirred and his eyes opened, one at a time. “Oh, hello, my dear. Is it time?”

She gulped and glanced over her shoulder at Strange and Clea. “Uh, yes, it is, dear. Billie Joe, there’s someone here to see you . . .”

Jacks sat up, yawning, a hand over his mouth. “Now, Alicia, you know I don’t like to see anyone before, not even the media people, not even Barbara or Walter. After, dear, after.”

Alicia moved aside and Jacks glanced out the door and froze. “What’s he doing here?” He glared at his wife. “Alicia, I told you this man is a fake. Worse than that, he’s liable to attract the television people. Look at him! It’s a wonder he isn’t on the six o’clock news every night! Or locked away in some funny farm!”

Jacks stood up and stepped quickly to the door, reached out and grabbed it, then slammed it shut in Strange’s face. He turned to castigate his wife when he realized the door hadn’t latched and was swinging open again. Angrily, he turned and did it again, this time carefully latching the door. Again the door swung wide and Billie Joe Jacks was face to face with Dr. Stephen Strange.

“Strange—if that’s your name—I don’t want to have anything to do with you. You are the very opposite of everything I represent! I don’t like you. I don’t mean to be unChristian, you understand, but it is in us all to hate the Devil!”

“Have you been sleeping well?” Strange asked mildly.

“No, but what business is that of yours? I expect to make sacrifices for the cause! I’ll go on making sacrifices until we have triumphed! Until the Crusade for Change does something about this world we live in!”

“Oh, I’m sure the world will not be the same if you succeed,” Strange said. An expression crossed the sorcerer’s face that Clea could not define. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you before a performance,” Strange apologized.

Jacks glared at him with an icy expression. “It is not a performance—though perhaps you would not know the difference!” He glared at his wife. “Get my suit ready, I’ll change now. You’ll excuse me, I’m sure,” he said with heavy sarcasm and reentered the dressing room. This time the door stayed shut.

Strange turned away and Clea matched his pace. She looked up at him, frowning. “Stephen? You sensed something?”

“Yes, I did, Clea. There are strong forces at work here. But I cannot fully comprehend their direction. Jacks is a focal point; that much I know.”

There was a flurry of activity at the backstage door and a big Negro entered, striding like a black king, with a number of people asking for his autograph and calling out his name. The big man walked on without paying them any attention at all. Strange pulled Clea into the shadows. The black giant strode purposefully to Jacks’s dressing room and knocked, then entered without waiting.

“I know him,” Clea said. “That’s Joe Peerson, the heavyweight contender.”

Strange nodded. “And the one I saw in Billie Joe’s dream.” Clea glanced at him in concern. Strange looked around. “The other? The dark, nameless one? Where might he be?”

To Be Continued on Wednesday...

at

Seduction of the Innocent

DOCTOR STRANGE: NIGHTMARE "Chapter Five"

Catch up with Chapter Four Here...

...then continue with this long-OOP multiversal saga featuring the Master of the Mystic Arts and the malevolent Nightmare!

Chapter Five

Clea looked up from the desk littered with scrolls. She smiled at Stephen Strange and lifted her cheek for a kiss, but her eyes studied him carefully.

“What is it, Stephen?” she asked softly. The scrolls rolled back noisily as her hands left them. Incense flowered the air of the paneled room as Dr. Strange walked to a high-backed chair and sat down. The tips of his fingers touched the side of his face and he stared into the fireplace almost sightlessly.

Clea almost gave up expecting an answer and was about to return to her study of the scrolls of Amarkand when Strange spoke.

“Something is going to happen.”

Clea searched his face for a clue, but found none. He seemed thoughtful, so she did not intrude. Instead, she leaned a shapely hip against the dark oak desk and fingered the ornate medallion hung between her full breasts. The crimson robe she wore parted and a leg of great beauty and shapeliness protruded. She did not intend to distract Stephen Strange with any display of sex, and indeed, knew that no such exhibition—whether accidental or deliberate—would interfere with his thinking when he was in this mood. Stephen Strange was a man all right, with a man’s desires and feelings, but there were times when he was just above such things as physical pleasure.

“I have felt . . . something . . . for a fortnight,” he said. Clea nodded in agreement. That much had been obvious. But what?

“An old adversary . . . I feel it, yet I do not know which one.” In Clea’s mind there were a host of possibilities, each more deadly and powerful than the last.

“An old adversary?” she asked.

Stephen Strange looked up at his lovely companion. Her stark white hair framed a lovely and eternally young face. Her figure was superb and even the loose crimson folds of the casual robe could not conceal its lushness. But he saw her more as a woman personified, a female perfected, than as a sexual object at that moment. His face was creased with concern and thought.

“I feel . . . that it is someone from years ago. I don’t know why. A feeling.”

“Could it be . . . Dormammu?”

Strange shook his head. “No, your uncle, the dread Dormammu, is sealed in his dimension. Nor is it the Demon. Zota. Baron Mordo . . .”

Strange’s voice trailed off into a whisper. Baron Mordo. There was an ancient enemy all right. The memory of Mordo and his early conflicts came back to Stephen Strange, and the memory of the man that Strange had once been came with it.

It was not a memory that brought pleasure to Stephen Strange, but he forced himself to relive it. Perhaps in the memory of those times he might find a clue to the present troubles.

Dr. Stephen Strange had been a surgeon then, a brilliant and renowned surgeon, acclaimed and acknowledged as a medical man. But as a man, as a person, he was almost universally despised. Even those who acknowledged his brilliance could not stand him. He was arrogant, ruthless, cold, haughty, proud, and greedy. His fees rose as his fame rose, the arrogance feeding on the fame.

“The operation was a success, Doctor,” Dr. Ziegler had said to him after a surgical procedure that was later written up in all the medical journals. “Your patient wants to thank you.”

“I can’t be bothered,” Strange had said, pulling off his surgical gown and reaching for his cigarettes. “Just be sure he pays his bill.” He stuck an imported cigarette in his mouth and walked out, leaving Dr. Ziegler behind with a slowly mounting fury.

“To him, the problems of others mean less than nothing,” Ziegler muttered angrily.

Outside the OR was a group of doctors from an upstate research facility. “Doctor Strange, I’m Doctor Siegel, these are Doctors Patten, Mayer and Christensen—”

“Yes, yes, what is it?”

“Doctor Strange, we need your help on our new research project—”

Strange turned away with a disdainful expression. “Sorry, I am not interested in charity work.”

“But with your skill, your knowledge,” pleaded Dr. Siegel, “we might be able to find a cure for—” Strange walked toward the elevators, putting on his hat. “Wait! Come back!”

“When you are willing to pay me for my talent,” he said coldly, “I will listen. Not until then. Good day!”

Strange remembered the feeling of smug satisfaction he felt going down in the elevator. They’d find someone willing to donate enough money to pay for his services, if they wanted him badly enough. Or they’d cut costs elsewhere. It didn’t matter, as long as he received his fees and a good support in proper equipment and personnel. Good people cost money, whether they were doctors, plumbers, space scientists, or lawyers. He remembered getting into his car—a sleek new model, with special modifications, real leather upholstery and four hundred horses under the hood.

He didn’t remember much of the drive out of town—only the rain-slick street . . . the sudden corner . . . the explosive sound of the blown tire . . . the tree . . . the rending shriek of metal . . . and blackness.

He’d been lucky, they said, lucky to live. Only minor bruises and unimportant cuts—except for the hands. His hands had been badly smashed. It took thousands upon thousands of his dollars to bring in the best surgeons to repair the bones; cosmetic surgeons to repair the skin; therapists to aid him in regaining his skill.

Then there had been the visit to Dr. Noto, the eminent orthopedic surgeon. The plump, bald-headed man had studied the X rays in silence, which only irritated Strange. He knew the doctor had spent a long time on the X rays already and this was just window dressing.

“I don’t know how to tell you this . . .” Dr. Noto began.

“Speak up, man!” Strange snapped. “I can take it. What do the X rays show?”

The orthopedic surgeon spoke slowly, reluctantly. “Stephen, you’ve had a very bad accident. Although your hands seem to be all right, the nerves have been severely damaged.”

Strange stared at his hands. Nerve tissue did not repair itself very well; once severed, nerves did little to rebuild their electrical connections. Only very minor repairs were ever done and there were no sufficiently good surgical techniques developed to assist in the healing.

“You . . . you mean . . . ?” Stephen Strange’s carefully controlled exterior was marred by an expression of stunned amazement and horrified realization. He had been having a little trouble, but he accounted for that by assuming he was not yet fully healed.

“Yes,” Dr. Noto said. “You’ll never be able to perform an operation again.” They both knew the tremendous skill required to be a surgeon, and to be a great surgeon required even more. Men who considered themselves skilled with their hands—carpenters, pilots, dentists—were clumsy compared to the subtle and almost microscopic motions of a skilled surgeon.

Stephen Strange refused to believe. “No!” he said. He backed away. “No! I don’t believe you! You’re lying! You must be lying!” He held out his hands. “They’re well, I tell you.” But Noto had just shaken his head sadly.

Others tried to help him, but he was still too arrogant, too vain, and too bitter to take help of any kind. His self-pity threatened to swallow him whole.

“Even though you can’t operate, you can work as my consultant,” Dr. Ziegler had said. “As my assistant.”

“Stephen Strange assists nobody!” he had replied in a nasty voice.

He went into seclusion, spending days brooding, letting bitterness fill his soul. He had no friends, no lovers, no family, none who really cared for him—only those who depended upon him. He continued his physical therapy with an obsession that took all his time.

“I must be the best . . . the greatest! Or else—nothing!” He ground his teeth in anger and frustration. “I’ll never consent to work for anyone else!”

He lost track of time. He listlessly stopped doing his physical therapy. His money ran out. He moved from his palatial home to an apartment, then to a single room. He neglected his appearance, grew unshaven and shaggy. He stared for hours at his hands, refought battles in his mind, relived triumphs, and felt very sorry for himself.

He became little more than a human derelict, wandering the city aimlessly. He felt contemptuous for those around him, just as he always had, only now those around him were bums. These vagrants were, in his mind, stupid and witless. He and he alone had suffered the unendurable tragedy. It had been Fate herself who had singled him out. The others had just been stupid and careless and deserved their miserable condition.

One day, slouched against a scabby brick wall near the docks, drifting into a favorite dream—miraculous recovery, instant recognition, fame, fortune, the tribute of lesser beings—words penetrated his fogged brain.

“Yeah, hey, I heard of the Ancient One, also. They say he can cure anything, by some magic power, I heard.”

Strange looked up. A couple of seamen were walking along the street. The one with the heavy seabag over his shoulder said, “If you ask me, he’s just a legend.” The argument began, fading off as they walked on toward the seedy delights of the waterfront bars.

But the words clicked something in Stephen Strange’s mind. The Ancient One. Many times in the past he had heard that name mentioned, mostly in low whispers; too many times for there not to be some sort of truth to it all. Was there truth to this . . . this modern legend? History tells us there have been men with certain unusual powers, he thought. What if this Ancient One is such a man?

It took the last of his money and he spent weeks traveling to the Orient on the cheapest transportation. In India, with his money gone, he had hitchhiked the last kilometers, then walked up the mountain, staggering into the quiet of the templelike building. It reeked of time and incense. His months of searching were over. He knew it. Something told him.

Within the domed temple there was a thronelike chair with an Oriental sitting cross-legged upon it, wearing a purple robe and a strange golden headdress.

“You! Old man!” Strange’s voice cut through the silence of the temple like a dropped pan. “Are you the one I seek? Are you called ‘the Ancient One’?”

The head rose and the calm eyes looked at him. The man was old, very, very old. “I am the Ancient One,” he said.

Strange staggered closer. He was close to collapse, headachy from hunger, dry from thirst, and desperate from longing. “Then you’re the one with the magic healing power!” He held out his hands and stumbled closer, unshaven, smelly, and shabby. “I need you! You have to help me!”

“Be patient, man of the Western world.”

Strange made a sound and came toward the old man. “I heal none save those who deserve it,” the old man said, his voice creaky and weak. “The power of my magic must never be wasted on the undeserving! First you must prove you are worthy!”

Anger suffused Stange’s mind. He had come so far. It was the end of the trail for him. His string was played out. It was all or nothing. “You can’t refuse me!” he said, starting toward the old Oriental with his hands spread into claws. “I won’t let you! I’ve traveled too far . . . waited too long!”

“Stop!” the Ancient One said, gesturing with his long-nailed hand. For a microsecond, it seemed as if his hand glowed with light. Stephen Strange gasped in surprise.

“Wha—!” He was raised off the ground. His worn boots were two feet from the smooth stones of the temple floor. He gaped down in complete surprise.

“I will permit no act of violence here!” the old man said with authority. “None may lift a hand against the Ancient One!”

Strange’s desperate writhing to get free of the invisible hand that grasped him was futile. He’s holding me motionless above the ground, he thought with wonder. With just a gesture! It’s uncanny!

“And now,” the Oriental sage said, “I shall peer into your brain . . . into your memory . . . and learn the truth about you!”

Like papers fluttering past in a strong wind, Stephen Strange saw his entire life. Earliest memory. Childhood. School. Early hurts, early triumphs. The growing desire to become a doctor. The feeling of superiority, the growing sureness that he had been selected for a very special fate. Early manhood. Medical school. The first time he had put scalpel to living flesh. The antiseptic atmosphere of the hundred operating rooms in which he had created his legend. The arrogance, the haughty egotism. The accident. His hands. The plunge into despair and self-pity. The trip. Now.

“You sought me for my healing power,” the old man said, making a gesture that lowered Strange to the floor. “But I cannot help you, for your motives are still selfish!”

The anger began to grow again within Strange, but before he spoke, the Ancient One continued. “And yet . . . and yet, I seem to see a spark within you . . . a spark of decency . . . of goodness . . . which I might be able to fan into a flame.”

Strange gritted his teeth. He was not interested in decency or goodness, only in recovering the skill and power of his hands, for without their undeniable ability he was nothing—less than nothing. A godling fallen from Olympus.

“If you will stay here . . . study with me,” the old man said in his reedy voice, “perhaps you will find within yourself the cure you seek.”

Disgust rose in Stephen Strange. “I should have known.” he sneered. “It was all a waste of time! You’re nothing but an old fraud!” He turned away, determined to leave. “Your little parlor tricks don’t impress me! I’m leaving.” He stopped as he caught a glimpse out the window.

The landscape was covered with snow as far as he could see. There had been no snow at all when he had staggered into the mountainside temple. Cold, yes. but hardly snowdrifts. “Where did that snow come from?” he exclaimed. “It wasn’t there before!” He pressed close to the cold window, looking down the mountain. “I could never make it down through the pass now!”

“No,” the Ancient One said softly. “You will have to remain until it thaws.”

Strange turned suspiciously from the window. “That snow isn’t your doing, is it?” The moment he said it, he felt foolish. “Aw, what am I saying? Pretty soon, I’ll convince myself you do have magic powers!”

The old man permitted himself a faint smile. “Naturally, man of the Western world, you must not allow yourself to believe in magic! It would be unseemly.”

Strange made a face and looked again out of the window. The drifts were even higher. These Himalayas must be pretty weird, he thought. You could get killed out there. Good thing he had gotten to the temple—or whatever it was—before the storm hit.

He heard a sound and turned to see a husky man about his own age or slightly older come into the room. He was thickset, with a mane of black hair, but going bald above the temples. He wore an Oriental-style thin mustache and goatee, and a plain, dark-green Chinese robe. His dark eyes, under thick brows, glared with unconcealed hostility at the unshaven and unsavory-looking stranger.

“And now,” the Ancient One said, “inasmuch as you must remain here until the snow thaws, my pupil, Mordo, will show you to your chamber.”

Stephen Strange gave an involuntary shiver. Mordo! The very name was frightening, almost theatrically so. But he smiled inwardly, for his own name had caused his schoolmates and fellow medical students a lot of not-so-innocent fun. Yet this Mordo was a creepy-looking character.

Strange was assigned a room—bare but for a cot and a stool—as tidy and as pleasing as a monk’s cell. He wandered the temple at will, ate sparse meals of rice and soup, and was totally and completely bored. The days became weeks. He explored the place out of boredom. There were many rooms filled with ancient thick books, fragile scrolls, pots and jars—all sealed—and hundreds of talismans, amulets, chains, and symbols carved in stone and cast in metal.

Every day Strange saw Mordo studying, sitting in the Oriental lotus position—one Strange found foreign to his Western ways—but he paid little or no attention to Strange. The servants were wraiths that came and went and spoke no English. There was no one to talk to and nothing to read. The Ancient One spent days sitting motionless, eyes closed, taking no nourishment. He could die and no one would know until he started to smell, Strange thought.

He saw Mordo with a huge scroll unrolled before him. It was covered with marks meaningless to Stephen Strange. Looks like a typical doctor’s prescription, he thought with wry humor. But all that Mordo does is study those meaningless scrolls and recite his empty dirges in that boring monotone of his. What a waste of time! I never should have come here in the first place!

Strange wandered through the temple, hands deep in his pockets, glancing from time to time out the frosted windows, hoping for an early thaw. He turned a corner in the stone corridor and found he was approaching the room where the Ancient One sat on his thronelike chair.

I’ll ask the old man if he knows how long it takes the snow to melt around here, he thought to himself. He turned into the archway to the Ancient One’s room and stopped suddenly.

The Ancient One sat as before, unmoving, his head slightly bowed in meditation. Around him, in writhing tendrils of faint green, were transparent vapors. Even as Strange watched, the vapors thickened, almost obscuring the old man. Strange saw the old man’s eyes pop open and heard his whispered words.

“The vapors of Valtorr! I am being attacked by an unseen enemy!”

Strange took a step into the room, but hesitated. What could he do? How can one combat tenuous vapors?

“The vapors were spawned by black magic!” the Ancient One said, even as the green vapors thickened to opaqueness, almost as if made of something solid. “And only by black magic can they be dispelled!”

The vapors almost obscured the old man now, hiding him beneath a writhing dome of green, closing in, constricting. “I summon the powers of the Vishanti!” the old Oriental cried. “By the spell of the dread Dormammu, in the name of the all-seeing Agamotto . . . all thy powers I summon . . . Begone, forces of darkness!”

There was a blinding flash of light which staggered Stephen Strange. The vapors had dissolved into nothingness by the time Strange’s eyes had returned to normal.

The old man slumped forward, one hand holding his head, and Strange ran quickly to him. “If I hadn’t seen it, I’d never have believed it,” he said. “What was that? What did it mean? What force defeated it?” The questions boiled up in Stephen Strange’s scientific mind.

“I cannot explain to a nonbeliever, but . . .” The old man’s voice was weak and the odd encounter seemed to have drained him. “I must be always on my guard . . . The forces of evil are ever pitted against me!”

Strange brought the old man a glass of water and after a few sips he seemed recovered. “Look, I’m not a surgeon anymore, but I’m still a doctor. I can see that you’re weak . . . ill . . . You need rest.”

The Oriental waved a wrinkled hand. “Impossible! I must remain until I find a successor. The evil forces must not be allowed to run free on Earth.”

Strange tried more arguments, but nothing would nudge the old man, so he wandered away, thoughtful and apprehensive. As he stared out at the snowscape he spoke aloud. “If I stay here much longer. I’ll end up becoming a believer! I’ve got to get away before I become a part of all this madness!”

Already what he had seen was being rationalized away, discredited, and doubted. Nevertheless, he kept an eye on the old man, who at least did not seem to get any worse.

Several more weeks passed and one day Stephen Strange found the snows were at last melting. He went outside in his shabby leather jacket and looked it over. It would soon be time to leave. The knowledge both elated and depressed him. These were conflicting emotions, and he had not had much experience with emotions of any kind—except pride, envy, and greed.

He walked back in and immediately smelled something. Incense was nothing new, but this was an odor of a different sort. He followed the scent until he discovered Mordo standing over a small table. The student magician had his back to Strange and was talking in an intense voice.

“Dormammu, accept my incense offering! Let the force of your power descend upon my enemy! Let him feel your fatal touch! I beseech you, Dormammu!”

Stephen Strange could see, on the table, a ring of burning incense, which emitted an odd green smoke. The smoke parted as Mordo waved his hand and Strange saw a small effigy within the ring of smoke. It was of the Ancient One!

“Dormammu, do not fail me!” Mordo’s voice filled the chamber with an intensity that startled Strange.

“That replica, the spell . . .” muttered Strange. The one who had tried earlier to kill the Ancient One was his own student—Mordo!

Mordo turned suddenly, as if a signal had been given, and stared right at the half-hidden Strange. “Ah! The prying stranger has found me!” He gestured at the replica of the Ancient One and again the wind of his hand parted the smoke. “You wonder what it is I do . . .”

Mordo took a few steps toward Strange, a smile of evil pleasure upon his heavy face. “I’ll tell you, because you are too weak to stop me! I have learned more than the Ancient One suspects, and once he is slain, I shall be the only master of black magic!”

Strange was angered, and offended by Mordo’s arrogance. There was only a flicker of recognition—so this was the way people felt around him, when he had been arrogant and proud!

“You won’t get away with it!” he snapped, turning away toward the arch. “I’ll tell him—he’ll toss you out!”

“Fool!” roared Mordo. The furor in his voice caused Strange to glance back and that was his undoing. “You think I am helpless? You think you can defeat my plan?” Strange again started to turn, but Mordo’s hypnotic eyes held him. “Behold!” the magician said.

Light seemed to flare from Mordo’s eyes and Stephen Strange gaped in surprise. The light filled Strange’s vision until there was nothing else, only the staring, bulging eyes and the brilliance.

“See how easily I can cast a spell upon you?” Mordo sneered. “A spell which will prevent you from ever giving away my secret!”

With a mighty effort of will, Strange wrenched himself from that terrible gaze, but escape was not that simple. Wisps of green vapor seemed to come out of nowhere, swirling about his head in tenuous arms. The wisps became bands and they orbited his head, whichever way he turned. With incredible swiftness they closed around him, thickening, darkening, becoming a heavy metal clamp around his mouth. Stephen Strange tried to cry out, but he could not. The best he could manage was an inarticulate rumbling deep in his throat.

Eyes wide with fear he staggered back, then glimpsed a mirror. But the reflection did not show the gray metal band that encased his head and locked his jaw firmly in place!

Then it isn’t really there, he thought. Yet I am unable to speak. His mind was staggered by the reality that this thought revealed. So there is such a thing as a magic spell—and this is proof of it!

In the reflection. Strange could see Mordo’s triumphant glare. Swiftly, Stephen Strange conceived a plan of action. Although he could not speak, he could move. He turned quickly and leaped for Mordo’s throat.

But the green-clad magician was even swifter. With a gesture he caused flashes of light to leap from the four directions of the compass and bind Strange’s wrists together in a steely grip.

“Halt!” Mordo exclaimed. “By the powers of darkness, I command you!”

Stephen Strange was helpless. He could feel the cold hard edges of the mask covering his face and the cold bright light that bound his hands.

“Weak, unknowing western dog!” Mordo sneered. “How helpless you are before the magic of the ancients!” He gave Strange a contemptuous look. “And now I shall finish with you!”

He gestured and Strange gasped. Both steel mask and binding beams of light flickered and disappeared. “There!” Mordo said. “None can see your iron clamp, or the force that surrounds your wrists . . . but you! You know that they are there!” Mordo laughed roughly and walked away, leaving Strange confused and angry.

Strange felt his face. He could feel nothing, yet he could not free his jaw. His hands were free to move, however, and his legs. Strange tried to rationalize it.

It’s probably nothing more than simple hypnotism, he thought. I won’t let that stop me!

He started off through the cold stone corridors toward the Ancient One’s favorite room. I’ll go to the Ancient One, he thought, and—

He let out a cry of sheer agony. Bolts of light flashed out from the compass points, binding his legs. The moment he stopped moving, the light beams flickered and disappeared.

It was no bluff! Mordo does possess the power of black magic, he thought. But what can I do? I’ve got to warn the old man, got to save him—but how?

Strange found he could walk again, but the moment he thought of warning the Ancient One the beams of light flashed, binding his ankles in searing pain until he stopped trying to move.

Thinking quickly, Strange put his thoughts to other things—multiplication tables. Just how high was the Empire State Building? The compression of a deuterium pellet by laser light was 0.000,000,001 seconds. Was it Puccini or Verdi who wrote La Boheme? Ah, yes, Puccini. Cerebrovascular disease is the third biggest killer in the United States.

He was almost to the arch looking into the Ancient One’s chamber. He could hear Mordo talking to the old man. He doesn’t suspect a thing! Strange thought. Fiji, Barbados, and Iceland are the nations with the smallest number of people in their armed forces: none. Fourteen stone is 196 pounds, in the British measure. “Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there also is the love of humanity.” Hippocrates, about 400 B.C. Attila the Him, Félix Faure—president of France—and Pope Leo VIII all died having sex. The pyramid of Cheops was 146.6 meters high.

“You have shown much progress in your studies, my pupil,” the old man said as Strange shuffled into view. Mordo stood with his back to Strange. “You have mastered many of the mystic arts,” the old man added.

“That is good!” Mordo said, and Strange heard the contempt in his voice. “For I am eager to follow in your honored footsteps.”

I bet you are, Strange thought and opened his mouth. “Listen, I—” He gasped with pain as the steel clamp seized his jaws and the beams of light struck out at his wrists and ankles. He was once again helpless. This time the restriction did not go away when he stopped moving.

“Who dares intrude?” the old man asked in a quavering voice.

Mordo turned with calm confidence. “It is you,” he said, “the witless blunderer from the far Western continent.” His eyes hardened. “Well, if you have words to utter, speak!”

Strange blinked his eyes, the pain at wrists and ankles extreme. He knew the steel and the light beams were invisible, but he felt their painful reality. He saw the sneer on Mordo’s lips and his frustration increased.

The green-clad magician turned away contemptuously. “Send him back to the New World, Ancient One! There is no place for him here!”

Strange tried to catch the old man’s attention, but the hooded eyes seemed sightless. Strange managed a glare at Mordo. How smug he is, he thought angrily. He knows I cannot expose him. Never have I hated anyone so much!

There was another momentary flash across Stephen Strange’s mind. He had never loved anyone either. He had never cared for anyone enough to either love or hate them. It was sad that hatred was his first really deep emotional experience.

“Begone,” the old man said and Strange found he could walk . . . but only away.

Alone and helpless, Strange brooded, his consciousness tinged with the smoky feelings of anger. Now, at last, he thought, I see the power of sorcery! But I cannot give up! Mordo must never be allowed to defeat the Ancient One. For if he should, what would happen to the world as we know it?

Strange acknowledged the depths of his sudden conversion . . . or revelation . . . or realization. He was still confused, uncertain, and afraid, but he was determined.

A servant passed by and Strange asked for a glass of water, and then realized he could speak. I am only subject to Mordo’s spell if I try to warn the Ancient One, he thought. Yet, I am able to speak of other matters! So there is still one hope.

Stephen Strange conceived a plan. If I, too, can learn the secrets of this black magic, then I can perhaps battle Mordo with his own weapons.

He found he could walk and did so, straight to the chamber of the old Oriental, whom he found alone. The old man’s head came up slowly and he acknowledged Stephen Strange’s existence.

“Ancient One, I crave a boon. I wish to accept the terms you offered me some days ago.” He swallowed nervously before continuing. “I wish to study at your feet, to be taught your knowledge . . . to . . . prove myself worthy of the mystic arts.”

The faintest of smiles touched the withered cheeks. “Ah, at last I have reached the real Doctor Strange!” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I knew that there was good within you . . . if I could but bring it to the surface. I accept you, my son. You shall be my disciple!”

Stephen Strange swallowed, astonished at the feeling of raw emotion all this brought to him. But the old Oriental was not yet finished astonishing him. The tiny wrinkled figure made a pass with his hands through the air.

“First, I release you from Mordo’s spell . . . so!” There was a flash of light from the old man’s head, enveloping Strange for a brief moment. “Now you are free to speak, to act, even as before.”

“You . . . you knew of Mordo’s spell?”

“Of course,” the ancient Oriental mystic said. “The pupil can have no secrets from his master.” The elderly wise man raised a long-nailed finger. “But, although he is evil, I prefer to keep Mordo here, where I can control him, rather than banish him.

“One day, my son, when I am gone, it will be your task to battle Mordo . . . to the finish!” Strange gulped audibly, remembering Mordo’s casual enslavement of him. “You have been tested, and you have passed your baptism of fire!” Strange felt an elation, yet a weight of responsibility settled upon him.

“But the path ahead of you will be difficult, and fraught with danger.” The ancient mystic peered through the floating wisps of incense at the newest of his disciples. “Do you wish to continue?”

Stephen Strange took a deep breath and made a commitment. “I do, Ancient One!”

It began at once. The days turned to weeks, the weeks to months, then to years. He never noticed when Mordo was no longer seen around the mountainside castle, for he studied the mystic arts with a fervor that surprised him. Not even during examinations at the medical school had he worked so hard and for so long. Time meant nothing; he was often surprised to look out a window and find it day when he had thought it night, or spring when he had thought it still winter.

Slowly he changed, though he was not even aware of the changes. The unshaven, desperate and nearly broken husk that had been the hopeless Stephen Strange became the confident Doctor Strange. He was no longer arrogant—the rigid discipline of the Ancient One had seen to that—and his life took on a deeper meaning, one that went far deeper than a mere desire to revenge himself on Mordo, or to protect the old teacher.

Slowly he prepared himself for the battles ahead, and he had a feeling they would be epic battles—battles which could only be won by magic . . . and had to be won by Stephen Strange. His world became a world of candle flame illuminating ancient parchment, a world of canticles and spells, of learning what not to do as well as what to do—and when to do it. He found the insights into his own life, into his very existence, to be shocking and then strengthening. His contacts with beings and powers in other dimensions were frightening, but always he was guided and protected by the Ancient One. Then, on one of these forays into the unknown, he turned to the fragile wraith that was the Ancient One’s astral projection, and found he was not there.

He almost panicked. Alone in formless blackness, which was pierced by the shimmering forms of a horde of creatures of light, he thought he had been abandoned.

Then came the voice in his mind, the calm, reassuring voice of his master. “You have the strength. You have the power. Use it.”

Strange turned, his hands striking out, fingers spread, stiff, and flickering with forks of light. “By the flames of the Faltine! Begone!”

Crimson fire leaped from his fingertips, searing the very fabric of ebony space, curling it up, ripping through it to engulf the approaching darts of light, to turn them away, to banish them forever. The blackness faded to purple, to blue, to a lighter blue hung with the thick white clouds of the Himalayas. He was back, and safe.

The Ancient One sat on a nearby rock. It was a thousand-foot drop to ice and snow. The winds howled in the white canyons, yet here, on the ledge, it was calm and sunny. Doctor Strange looked at his mentor. “I . . . I . . .”

“You survived,” the Ancient One said. “You should go forth into the world.”

Strange stared at him. “No, I can’t . . . I have so much to learn here . . .”

The wrinkled hand gestured at the outer world beyond the snow-laden mountains. “There are things to learn out there. There are tests to meet. Adversaries to temper the steel within you. You should go.”

They looked at each other, student and master. Then Strange had turned and walked down the ledge and into the stone temple. He left the mountainside retreat a short time later. Eventually he did meet Baron Mordo. They battled and Strange defeated him. But the insidious Mordo returned again and again.

Stephen Strange shook his head to clear it and glanced at his beloved Clea. “I was thinking of . . .”

“The Ancient One?”

Strange nodded. Abruptly, he rose from his chair and strode to the window. “It is not Mordo . . . but . . . I do not know what it is. I sense only the faintest of . . . disturbances.”

Clea nodded. It was often difficult to put such things into words. Words were confining things, static, meaning only one or two things at once. The disturbances in the very air that had somehow alerted Doctor Strange were not things to which words would stick. It was enough to know that Stephen Strange was alerted.

To Be Continued...Sunday...

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Seduction of the Innocent