Read Online The Dark Symphony by Dean Koontz - Free Book Online

steadiness, a thousand submelodies intertwined among a million syncopated rhythms playing against one another in near cacophony, he knew without a doubt that the Pillar of the Ultimate Sound was worse than the tests in the arena. He tried to argue himself out of that viewpoint by reminding himself that he had stuck his head into the pillar that day he had been with his father, had experienced the eerie world that the pillar was a gateway to. There should be nothing frightening now about the pillar, should there? Yes. Yes there should. When he had been a child and had looked into the realm beyond, he had been too young to understand what it was, what it meant. Now, older and with the benefit of stories about researchers who had ventured beyond and had never returned, he knew that the land beyond the pillar was Death. Knowing made a great deal of difference. His stomach churned madly, anxious to empty itself.
    The pillar played hymns.
    But black and malevolent were their themes…
    The order of challenge was settled on by the drawing of lots. Guil was to be last, Tisha just before him. He felt his ice hands contracting, cracking the bones of his fingers as his flesh tried to crawl in on itself. The people in the stands felt the terror too. They were quiet, solemn, perhaps a bit nervous. An invisible graveyard breeze swept through the place, rattling the spectators like ten thousand teeth in the jaws of the Great Hall.
    The judges peered over the bench, watching intently.
    The doctor came onto the floor, followed by two assistants. He was a psychiatrist; the assistants were medical doctors. The chief doctor's function would be to examine each boy—or girl—after he—or she—had come out of the pillar, then pass judgment on his emotional stability. Some of the contestants would be broken by the experience. Others would pass it without much trouble. It depended on whether one was still a child, holding onto the beliefs of his immortality.
    The first boy stepped forward at the direction of the doctor and entered the pillar. He was inside for only moments, and came out looking chipper enough. The psychiatrist attached the sensitive bands of his scanner to the wrists of the boy, slipped the mesh cap over his head. In seconds, the scan had been completed, and the psychiatrist announced that this one had passed the test, had not built up an undue amount of pattern instability in his thought waves.
    A second one followed the first, entered the pillar hesitantly. When three minutes had passed and the boy did not emerge, the psychiatrist went forward and stepped partially into the pillar, found him and brought him out. His lips were loose, slimed with drool, and his eyes were vacant The boy had slipped into a schizophrenic state so deep that there would be no getting him out, ever. Another body for the disposal furnaces.
    Then, after several more tests, it was Tisha's turn. She stepped forward without a moment's pause, slid into the humming brown wall of sound. Guil wanted to reach out for her, to stop her, but he could not. This was her fight A minute later, she came out, smiling, and approached the psychiatrist It was obvious that the experience had not deranged her, that her mind was capable of accepting the atmosphere beyond the pillar without losing control of itself. She was able to die for a short moment and come back with us living and not lose her sanity.
    But the psychiatrist proclaimed her disturbed.
    She protested, turned to the judges and demanded to be cross-checked by another psychiatrist with another scanning machine.
    The judges only nodded.
    The psychiatrist stated that it would not be necessary for her to be relegated to the disposal furnaces, for the instability was not that serious.
    "Why, then, is it serious enough to keep me from gaining a Class?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips and facing him with all the determination she could muster.
    "I have made my statement," the doctor said. He turned away from