"I am Arthur Frayn, and I am Zardoz." "I have lived 300 years and I long to die, but death is no longer possible" "I am immortal." "I present now my story, full of mystery and intrigue, rich in irony and most satirical." "It is set deep in a possible future, so none of these events has been occurred" "But they may" "Be warned, lest you end as I" "In this tale I am a fake god by occupation and a magician by inclination." "Merlin is my hero" "I am the puppet master" "I manipulate many of the characters" "But I am invented too for your entertainment and amusement" "And you, poor creatures, who conjured you out of the clay?" "Is God in show business too?" "Zardoz." "Praise be to Zardoz!" "Praise be to Zardoz!" "Praise be to Zardoz!" "Zardoz speaks to you, his Chosen Ones." "We are the Chosen Ones!" "You have been raised up from brutality to kill the Brutals who multiply and are legion." "To this end, Zardoz, your god, gave you the gift of the gun." "The gun is good!" "The penis is evil." "The penis shoots seeds and makes new life to poison the Earth with the plague of men as once it was" "But the gun shoots death and purifies the Earth of the filth of Brutals." "Go forth and kill!" "Zardoz has spoken." "Guns!" "You" "foolish!" "I could've shown you!" "Without me, you are nothing!" "A bore!" "How pointless!" "How pointless!" "Attention." "Harvest produce report" "Attention." "Harvest produce report" "Attention." "Harvest produce report" "Submit surpluses and needs." "Submit surpluses and needs for inter-Vortex barter and exchange." "Year 2293." "Third harvest yield." "Vortex Four." "Needs: soap, apples, salt, leather." "Vortex Nine." "Surplus: soap, apples, leather." "Needs: oats, barley, carrots." "Here is a list of surpluses and needs remaining." "Here is a list of surpluses and needs remaining." "Here is a list of surpluses and needs remaining." "Food" "Meet" "Who lives here?" "I am Arthur Frayn." " No!" " Vortex Four." "I am Arthur..." "Vort..." "Four." "Arthur Frayn." "Vortex Four." "I am..." "Ar..." "Vortex Four." "I am Arthur Frayn." "Vortex Four." "Three from Vortex Eight." "Four from Vortex Five." "Did you ever see such mangled limbs?" " There was some kind of rock fall in their quarry." " There are 14 bodies for repair." " Liver malfunction." "Myopia, left eye." " This wheat is very good quality." " What is it?" " Flower." " For what?" " Decorative." " Do you know where you are?" " In the Vortex." "You come from the Outlands." "You were told about the Vortex?" " Zardoz says..." " What does Zardoz say?" "Zardoz says if you obey him, you'llgo toa Vortex when you die... and there you will live forever." " Happily?" " Yes." "So, you think you're dead?" "Am I?" " You're an Exterminator." " I kill for Zardoz." "You came here in the stone head." "I don't know." "It is the only path and passage into the Vortex." "You will show me how you come to be here." " You have a name?" " My name is Zed." "Zed for Zardoz." "I am an Exterminator." "The memories are simple heroics." "There are no abstractions, you will notice." "It is certainly very fragmented." "The shock of entering the Vortex could be responsible." "Zarday 312." "Twenty-five Brutals exterminated." "Took a woman in His name." "Zardoz." "The place... where the sea meets the land." "It's blacked again." "It seems to be able to control its memory." "Show us more of your work." "Zardoz made us grow wheat." "This is a more recent memory." "Cultivation has started." " Disturbed?" " A little." " The Outlands have to be controlled." " I've always voted against forced farming." "You eat the bread." "We have to shut ourselves off." "We have to." "This is the first direct visual contact..." "with the Outlands in years as opposed to data since Arthur was delegated to control them." " It is proper that we investigate." "It's better not to know." "These images will pollute us." "Quench it." "Quell it." "No Brutal has ever penetrated a Vortex." "It therefore requires study." "Perhaps it can tell us why Arthur has vanished so mysteriously." "May..." "Please." "Is Arthur Frayn's memory transmission still functioning?" "Arthur Frayn ceased transmission three days ago." "Replay his last memory moments." "No." "Play back the preceding images so we can discover how he suffered this fall." "It is permitted only to show the accident." "No other memory image may be shown... without the consent of the individual concerned." "But we need to determine the location in case he is injured and the body has to be recovered." "Arthur Frayn died." "Reconstruction has begun." "Ah, yes." "There." "That'san end to it." " Kill it, May." " No." " May, for our love." " Consuella..." " Don't." "I will invoke a community vote." " The community will follow my intuition." " Then I will go to the Vortex." " You're hurting me." " Consuella, this is an experiment!" "We must find out how it came here!" "Where is Arthur Frayn?" "How did you come into the stone?" "Zardoz..." "The stone." "Terribly exciting." " What of the suffering?" " Oh, you can't equate." "Their feelings with ours." "It's just entertainment." "Again, this is a key image." "My father was Chosen." "My mother was Chosen." "Only we could breed." "Only the Chosen." "Selective breeding, do you think?" "What has Arthur been doing out there all these years?" "Never discuss this in the Vortex." "You'll have to be thoroughly investigated." "No one else wanted to run the Outlands." "He's an artist!" "He does it with imagination." "I love to see them running." "I love the moment of their death when I am one with Zardoz" "Obscenely decaying flesh." "The sweet scent of put refaction already in the air." "He's a fine, strong beast." "Dear May," " What exactly do you want to do with him?" " A full genetic study." "Break its DNA code." "See if there are any structural or evolutional changes since ours were analyzed 200 years ago." "Discover any new hereditary disease factors that may have emerged... which might result in broadening our immunization spectrum." "Study its emotional and psychic elements in relation to its sociology." "That all sounds respectably scientific, but what is May's under-thought?" "Not long ago she was asking for new births, although we have no death." "We are perfectly stabilized." "We said no to May." "Now she wants to bring in this animal from the outside." "Think about equilibrium." "Remember the delicate balance we must maintain." "The presence will dismay our tranquility." "May is a great scientist, but she also has destructive tendencies." " We have adequate means of controlling it." " Surely, we are not so vulnerable!" "Look at it." "It knows its life is at stake." "Otherwise, it would rape and kill, as it always has." " I don't agree." " No, no!" " You can see the disrupting effect." " Let's keep it." " Yes!" " Anything to relieve the boredom." " I want to see more of its memories." " So do I!" "This is a psychic disturbance." "Avalow, what does it portend for the future?" "How did we conjure up a monster in our midst, and why?" "That is the question we must answer." "Well, you've set their fur flying, my friend." "I wonder what's going on inside your pea brain, hmm?" "I like you, you sly old monster." "Do you hear?" " Yes, vote." "Vote." " Let's vote." "Pro." "Against." "Verdict." "Congratulations." "You live... for three weeks." "Zed." "I'll examine him later in the dome." "Morning, monster." "Time for work." "All right, let's stop all the nonsense, shall we?" "Where's Arthur Frayn?" "Ever hear the expression 'If looks could kill?" "' Well, here they can." "There's no need to pretend innocence with me." "I'm in Arthur Frayn's confiidence." "I know more than you think." "You're saying nothing." "All right, we'll wait and see." "Don't be sullen." "I'm going to look after you." "Whenever you're ready to, just ask me questions." "Anything at all." "This is where you'll be working for me each morning." "Just menial tasks, nothing too taxing." " Is this your god's house?" " Ah, it's God you're seeking, is it?" "Well, here we are." "Gods, goddesses, kings and queens." "Take your pick." " But they're all dead." " Dead?" "Died of boredom." "That's wrong." "It's wrong!" "It is cataloged according to your instructions." "I told you to analyze design growth across all makes of car, not just a chronological list from one manufacturer!" "A much more complex program." "Shall I seek Vortex consent for a longer program?" " Shall I seek Vortex consent..." " Yes!" " It will take time." "There is a stack-up on some circuits." "Well, I've got time, and plenty of it." "Three weeks." "Define three weeks." "Twenty-one days." "Five hundred and four hours." "Thirty thousand, two-hundred and forty minutes." "One million, eight-hundred..." "and fourteen thousand..." "Do you believe, he's never seen a clock before?" "Obviously not!" " Are you not taking food with us, May?" " No." "Come, Zed, this way." " She's taking her studies very seriously." " She only has three weeks." " Doy ou know yethow the Brutal came here?" " No conclusion." "Insuffiicient data received." "Go in." "Go on." " Look into the ring." " No retina abnormalities." "Fundus normal." "Disc and retinal vessels normal." "No hemorrhages or exudates." "Macula area clear." "Attention..." "Continuation of the trial of George Saden of Vortex Four." "George Saden, accused of transmitting a negative aura in Second Level." "This is not so." "I have studied our social, emotional substructures for 140 years." "These thoughts are constructive criticisms, pyramidical." "I am innocent of psychic violence." "As you examine my face and eyes, you will see that this is true." "He's lying." "Vortex Three." "You looking for the head, monster?" "It's gone." "Off on its endless journey from Vortex to Vortex, round and round like me and the bread, forever and ever." " Will he be punished for that?" " Of course." "But you have no police, no Exterminators." "Ah, but we discuss it endlessly!" "Every little sin and misdemeanor raked over and over." " So, what happens to him then?" " He'll get six months at least." " Prison?" " Aging." " Aging?" " Yes!" "I'm getting old myself." "Three months here, a year there." "These sentences add up." "So, if you're bad often enough, you'll die." "They make you old, but they don't let you die." " So, what's to stop you killing yourself?" " I do now and again, but the eternal Tabernacle simply rebuilds me." " Would you like to see immortality at work?" " Yes!" "Well, get a move on then!" "This is where they live, the Renegades." "They're condemned to an eternity of senility." "We provide them with food, but they are shunned." "They're malicious and vicious, so in and out fast." "I, myself, feel quite at home in there." "Hey!" "Look, I got it!" "I got it!" "I got..." "Loamer." "Gray." "I loved this girl once, monster." "You idle Apathetic!" "Melancholy sight." "Grayler." "Bones." " Whoa there, boy." "Whoa up." "You are asked to vote at the termination of the trial of George Saden." "Final statement from the accused begins." "I confess to the charges, but plead mitigation." "I tried to suppress these thoughts, but they leak out in Second Level." "through the head wound of my third death." "I was imperfectly repaired." "No." "That is not true." " I think what I think." " That's more like it." "I'm with you, George." "I hate you all." "I hate you all." "I hate you all." "especially me." "Vote, please." "Vote, please." "I'm voting for him, monster." "It won't do any good." "Nothing ever does." "Absolute acquittal." "Go on, monster, help your self." "Didn't Zardoz tell you about the Apathetics?" "It's a disease." "And it's slowly creeping through all the Vortexes." "That's why Zardoz made you grow crops... to feed these people." "We can't support them anymore." "Apathetic or Renegade, make your choice." "Yes." "A bit frightening, isn't it?" "Very good." "Now you're beginning to show yourself." "Final votes." "For, 9;" "Against, 586; undecided, 86." "Sentence." "George Saden will be aged five years." "Welcome to paradise." "Penile erection was one of the many unsolved evolutionary mysteries surrounding sexuality." "Every society had an elaborate subculture devoted to erotic stimulation." "But nobody could quite determine how this becomes this." "Of course, we all know the physical process involved, but not the link between stimulus and response." "There seems to be a correlation with violence, with fear." "Many hanged men died with an erection." "You are all more or less aware of our intensive researches into this subject." "Sexuality declined probably because we no longer needed to procreate." "Eternals soon discovered that erection was impossible to achieve." "And we are no longer victims of this violent, convulsive act... which so debased women and betrayed men." "This Brutal, like other primates living unselfconscious lives, is capable of spontaneous and reflexive erection." "As part of May's studies of this creature, we're trying to find, once again, the link between erotic stimulation and erection." "This experiment will measure autoerotic stimulation of the cortex, leading to erection." "Play." "The tracer indicates that this image is not erotically stimulating to the Brutal." "Change." "This doesn't seem to affect him either." "Consuella's done the trick herself." "The Brutal is now in fourth hour of unconscious sleep." "It's astonishing that Homo sapiens spend so much time in this vulnerable condition, at the mercy of its enemies." "Is there any data on the sleeping patterns of primitive people?" " Is that a priority request?" " Yes." "I'm now going to test its waking response to danger stimuli." "Does it please you to sleep?" " Yes." "Why?" "I have dreams." "Sleep was necessary fo rman... when his waking and unconscious lives were separated." "As Eternals achieved total consciousness, sleep became obsolete and Second Level meditation took its place." "Sleep was closely connected with death." "Look at it." "It's you." "Your genetic structure." "Your life chart." "Look!" "You are a Mutant." "Second, maybe third generation." "Therefore, genetically stable." "Enlarged brain." "Total recall." "Your potential is..." " Your breeding potential..." " Breeding?" "Frayn." "How did you get into the Vortex?" "What is your purpose?" "I'm just an Exterminator." "I know nothing" "You must know that you're mentally and physically vastly superior to me or anyone else here." "You could be anything." "Could do... anything." " You must be destroyed." " Why?" " Because you could destroy us." " As you've destroyed the rest of life?" "Can you un-know what you know now about me?" "For the sake of science, I will keep this knowledge from the others for the moment." "Keep you alive." "But you must follow me, obey me, be circumspect, make no disruption, quietly do whatever work is given you." "I will watch over you." "Get a move on, you silly beast." "Friend, put that thing outside!" "Anyone else disturbed?" "Then let's take yet another boringly democratic vote, shall we, Consuella?" "It's Friend's day to make the food." "He must do this without help as we all do." "It's fundamental to our society that we do everything for ourselves on a basis of absolute equality." " And Friend knows that perfectly well." " Yes or no?" "Potatoes, yes or no?" "I say get more Zeds to do the work." "We have eternal life, and yet we sentence ourselves to all this drudgery." "I tell you, I'm sick of 200 years of washing up." "And I'm sick of pitting my bare hands against the blind brute stupidity of nature!" " You'd better do something about this." " Consuella is right." "Zed is being kept here for scientific study." "It can earn its keep on the land, but it should not do the work of a servant." "Time enough has gone to finish your study, May." "Destroy it!" "No!" "No." "No." "See how it disrupts our community?" " It is almost over." " How can you speak such in front of Zed?" "It feels." "I sense that." " Vote!" " Yes, vote!" "Give your votes." "May has been given seven days to complete her study." "Then Zed will be terminated." "The monster is a mirror." "And when we look at him, we look into our own hidden faces." "Meditate on this at Second Level." "No." "No." "I will..." "I will not go to Second Level." "No!" "I will..." "I will not go to Second Level with you!" "I will..." "No!" "I will not be one mind with you!" "I know what..." "I know what May wants with Zed." "No!" "No." "The Vortex is an obscenity!" "I know..." "I know that I hate all women." "Birth." "Fertility." "Superstition." "Friend is beyond redemption." " Renegade." " Renegade." "Friend, he's a Renegade." "He must be cast out." "He is no longer one with us." "Renegade." "Cast him out!" "No!" "Renegade!" "Renegade!" "Caution." "You are approaching the periphery shield of Vortex Four." "Caution." "You are approaching the periphery shield of Vortex Four." "Have you seen Friend?" "Friend." "I seek Friend." "Friend." "I seek Friend." "Friend." "Old Friend." "This is your fault." "Now hear this, you old farts!" "Meet this creature from the outside world." " Huh?" "What?" " This man has the gift of death." " Death?" " He can mete it out, and he can die himself!" "He's mortal." " He can die!" " Die!" " Shall we give him back to death?" " Yes!" " Silent death?" " Yes!" " Glorious death?" " Yes!" "May, the scientist, wants him to spawn another generation to suffer our agonies!" "Come on back to death!" "Stop!" "Stop!" "What is it you want?" "Sweet death." "Oblivion." "For yourself, or for the whole Vortex?" "For everybody." "An end to the human race." "It has plagued this pretty planet for far too long." "You stink of despair." "Fight back!" "Fight for death, if that's what you want" "I thought at first you were the one to help." "But it's hopeless." "All my powers have gone." "Where is it, the Tabernacle?" "The Tabernacle is..." " I can't remember." " Who made it?" "Someone must know how to break it." "Yes." "You can meet him for yourself." "One of our founders." "One of the geniuses that discovered immortality." "But he found he didn't like it for himself." "He didn't conform." "So this is what his grateful people did to him." " We want to die!" " Hmm?" " What's the trick?" " Death." "Death." "Talk to May." "May?" "May, I want your help." "You want to destroy us." "The Tabernacle" "I want the truth." "You must give the truth..." "if you wish to receive it." "I'm ready." " It'll burn you." " Then burn me." " Tell me... everything." "Show me pictures." "Open your mind." "Your memory... go back to the beginning." " Open." " Zar..." " Open." " Zar..." " Open!" " Zardoz!" "Zardoz gave us the gun." "We were the Chosen Ones." "What was your task?" "To kill the Brutals, who multiply and are legion." "We rode out." "We roamed the Outlands." "We killed." "It was enough." "Man was born to hunt and kill." " And then?" " Then, one day..." " Yes?" " Something happened." "It changed everything." "I..." "lost my innocence." "A face in the window." " Who was he?" " I don't know." "He wore a mask." "He led me on like a game." "Why did you spare him?" "Something..." "Uh, I don't know." " Had you seen a book before?" " Never." " You learned to read." " Yes." " How long did it take?" " It came easy." "I read everything." "I learned all that had been hidden from me." "I learned what the world had been before the darkness fell." "Then, one day, I found the book." "The book called..." "Uh, called..." "What was the book?" "What was the name of the book?" " I don't remember!" " Tell me." " Show me." "You must tell me!" " No!" "No!" "Zardoz." "Tell me." "Show me." "You must tell me." " I can't!" " You saw him carved in stone." " Of course you know." " Can't remember!" " Yes you can!" " You knew that Arthur was Zardoz." " No!" " You killed Arthur, didn't you?" " No!" "Show me." "What are you doing?" "You murdered your own god by accident." "Or was it an accident?" "Now, show me that book." "What did you find in that book?" "Show it to me." "It's a trick!" "A trick!" "What was a trick?" "Tell me!" "Zardoz said, 'Stop. '" "Said, 'No more. '" " No more what?" " No more killing." " He told you to take prisoners?" " Yes." " To make slaves?" " Yes." " To cultivate instead of kill?" " Yes!" " To grow wheat?" " Yes!" " Did you need wheat?" " No." "We ate meat." "Zardoz betrayed us." "We were hunters, not farmers." "Show how you came into the stone." "Show." "It was easy." "Each season, Zardoz came down to take our harvest." "Zardoz." " Your friends were Mutants too." " Yes." " You had a plot." " Yes." " Revenge?" " The truth." "We wanted the truth!" " I told them about the book." " Show it." "What is 'the book'?" "No." "No." "No!" "Zardoz." "Zardoz is pleased." " So that was it." " The Wizard of Oz." "Zardoz." "The Wizard of Oz was a fairy story, about an old man who frightened people with a loud voice and a big mask." "It was Arthur Frayn's idea." "A simple way of controlling the Outlands." "But remember the end of the story." "They looked behind the mask and found the truth." "I looked behind the mask, and I saw the truth." " Zardoz." "So, that was your plan... to stow away in the head." "Yes." "What was your purpose?" "To kill Arthur?" "To penetrate the Vortex?" "To find a way in for your friends to destroy us?" " He made us killers." " Revenge!" "You wanted revenge." "The truth!" "The truth." "Truth or revenge?" "Revenge!" "Revenge." "Mm." "I remember feelings such as those." "They stir in me." "So this is your scientific investigation." "There's another word for it." "Bestiality." "For this, you will be aged 50 years, no less." "No man, woman or beast will ever desire you again." "He can't see." "He's blind." "We can no longer quell him." "He's out of control." "We must now become hunters and killers ourselves." "Come." "This will restore your sight, and you will see more and deeper than you ever saw before." "I've seen men rape an old crippled woman in a wet ditch." "I see now why you are here." "You are the One, the Liberator." "Death." "I will help you... if, when the time comes, you will set me free." "You have great strength, but there are times when that strength will fail you." "Eat this when the need arises." "This place is built on lies and suffering." "How could you do what you did to us?" "The world was dying." "We took all that was good a vytvoøilizde oázu." "We few, the rich, the powerful, the clever, cut ourselves off to guard the knowledge and treasures of civilization as the world plunged into a Dark Age." "To do this, we had to harden our hearts against the suffering outside." "We are custodians of the past for an unknown future." "You are the price we now pay for that isolation." "You have brought hate and anger into the Vortex... to infect us all." "Get him!" "Get him!" "Kill him!" " It's indestructible." " No!" "No!" "It can't be done!" "No!" "Caution." "You are approaching the periphery shield..." "Ride round." "Fast!" "He's somewhere in these buildings." "Smoke him out." "Cover the exits." "We've got him trapped." "There's no one in here." "We... take life from you." "Life flows out of you." "Flows into us." "Get him!" "Get him!" "Come on!" "Search the undergrowth!" "Come on!" "Look over here!" "He's no..." "He's not here." "It's getting dark." " It's him." "It's him!" " None of them could catch him!" "But he falls into the hands of the poor old Renegades." "Death." "Bring..." "Bring death to you all." "Find Friend..." "Take me to Friend." " What'd he say?" " Shut up." "It's a miracle!" "We're Apathetics." "Tell us how, please." "We want some too." "We started chasing the Brutal." "We got excited." "We saw someone." "We thought it was him." "It wasn't, but we killed him anyway." "And then we felt desire." "Look at the excitement you've caused." "You naughty girl." "Your task is to secure allarms, weapons and food supplies." "Work house to house, east to west down the valley." "If you find the Brutal, destroy immediately." "He's trapped." "It's only a matter of time." "Friend." "Friend!" "Kiss the bride, dear Friend." "Kiss the bride!" "You did well." "I will take the bride." "Death comes closer for us all." "Find May." "Tell her that Friend needs her." "Friend, I cannot sanction this violence and destruction." "It's too late, May." "There's no going back." "Don't destroy the Vortex!" "Let us renew it." "A better breed could prosper here." "Given time..." "Time?" "Wasn't eternity enough?" "This place is against life." "It must die." "I have my followers." "Inseminate us all, and we'll teach you all we know." "Give you all we have." "Perhaps you can break the Tabernacle." "Or be broken." "An end to eternity." "A higher form." "Revenge." "Charge!" "in human society, or in man's thinking." " How much time do we have?" " We will not work in time." "You will take our knowledge..." "by osmosis... out of time." "We will touch teach you, and you will give us your seed." "...where it is assumed that E-75 equals R-and M-75." "Contradictions exist everywhere, but they differ in accordance with the different nature of different things." "...physical and geometrical assumptions." "And the two things..." "In any given phenomenon or thing, the unity of opposites is conditional, temporary..." "Giustizia mosse il mio alto Fattore Fecemi la divina Potestate La Somma Sapienza e il Primo Amore" "...could have results in many different ways..." "by making compensative changes..." "Le ciel, pardessus le toit si bleu, si calme, Ià, pardessus le toit ...could twist the sinews of thy heart." "And when thy heart began to beat, oh, what dread hand and what dread feet." "* The invisible worm*" "* That flies in the night *" "* Has found out thy bed of secret dreams *" "Through me you pass into the city of woe." "Through me you pass into eternal sorrow." "Through me you pass among the forgotten people." "Marxist philosophy held that the law of the unity of opposites is the fundamental law of the universe." "This law operates universally, whether in the natural world, in human society, or in man's thinking." "The central nervous system no longer occurs as a self-contained organism," "Now, you know all that we know." "It's a prison." "A prison." "No, it's an ark." "A ship." "A space ship." "All this technology was for travel to the distant stars." " Did you go?" " Yes." "Another dead end." "How did it come about?" "The Vortex." "How did it start?" "They did it." "They were the scientists, the best in the world." "But they were middle-aged, too conditioned to mortality." "They went Renegade." "We were their off spring, and we were born into Vortex life." "We seal ourselves..." "here with... into this place of learning." "Death is banished forever." "I direct that the Tabernacle erase from us all memories of its construction, so we can never destroy it if we should ever crave for death." "Here, man and the sum of his knowledge will never die, but go forward to perfection." "We applied ourselves to the unsolved mysteries of the universe, but even with infinite time and the help of the Tabernacle, our minds were not up to it." "We failed." "Two." "Four continuations of the same, two anomalous." "...is to be changeless, and matter..." "And now we're trapped by our own devices" "There is no exit." "Violence has the tendency to accelerate." "However, the concept of total violence..." "Destroy it!" "The Tabernacle!" "Kill the Tabernacle." "The Tabernacle is indestructible and everlasting." "This crystal shall join us each to each, and all to the Tabernacle." "A crystal joins them." "A crystal." "Now we have given you all that we are, one gift remains, which contains everything... and nothing." "Look into this." "You will see lines running into the future." "You will make insight jumps." "When you can see into this crystal, then you will be ready." "Only then." "I see nothing inside, except my own perplexity." "Knowledge is not enough." "I have come for you." "Overhere." " We've met before, I believe." " Arthur Frayn." "Come now." "My Brutal friends call me Zardoz." "Revenge!" "Now, we're even." "'Would it have been worth while... 'to have squeezed the universe into a ball... 'to roll it towards some overwhelming question?" "To say, 'I am Lazarus, come from the dead?"'" "Do you know the next line?" "It's T.S. Eliot." "'I am Lazarus, come from the dead." "Come back to tell you all." "I shall tell you all. '" "Well done, well done." "You've learned your lessons well." "What will you tell me?" "What do you see in the ball?" " Nothing." " Nothing?" "Then I have nothing to tell you." "That way!" "There!" "What do you see in the ball?" "Consuella." "I've ached for this moment." "You cannot." "You will not." "The hunt is always better than the kill." "In hunting you, I have become you." "I have destroyed what I set out to defend." "'He that fights too long against dragons..." "becomes a dragon himself. ' Nietzsche." "I am not like the others." "I would fill you with life... and love." "You have given me what no other gave." "Love." "If I live, we will live together." "Go now." "The Brutal is not here." "I was mistaken." "Refraction of light." "Infinite." "Break the Tabernacle." "Or be broken." "What do you see in the crystal ball?" "When you see into the crystal, then you will be ready." "Now I see it." "I am ready." "Tabernacle?" "What are you?" "Not permitted." " Where are you?" " Not permitted." "Do you know me?" "I have your voice print, Zed, and your genetic code." "But only memory fragments." "Tell me about the crystal transmitter." "I cannot give information which may threaten my own security." "Brain emissions refract low-wavelength laser light, passing through the crystal in the brain." "They are a code sent to you for interpretation and storage." " Yes or no?" " Not permitted." "A receiver must be like a transmitter." "I think you're a crystal." "In fact, this one." "This diamond." "In here, there is infinite storage space for refracted light patterns." "Yes or no?" "You have me in the palm of your hand." "But you could be elsewhere." "Yet I choose to be here." " Why?" " To confront you." "Already you have learned to see my light wavelengths in the diamond." "Now, you will try to erase the refractions and destroy me." "Your aim is to destroy me, isn't it?" "Yes." "Would you kill God?" "Such vanity." "I am the sum of all these people and all their knowledge" "I am all-seeing." "I am everywhere and nowhere." "That has often served as a definition of God." "Would you destroy us and all that we are?" "Yes." "Would you not rather be part of us, joined to us, a light shining to the future?" "Love us!" "Cherish the truth!" "No!" "You have penetrated me." "There is no escape." "You are within me." "Come to my center." "Come into the center of the crystal." "Tabernacle!" "Tabernacle!" "Tabernacle!" "Tabernacle!" "No!" "No!" "No!" "You have destroyed us." "You found the flaw in the crystal." "We are gone." "You are alone." "Take him to the east door." "Oh, it's too late." "He's finished." " Consuella, no." "Stay close to me, inside my aura." "Where did they go?" "Where?" "They went up there." "Can you tell us how things stand?" "Wh-What next?" "An old man calls me." "'The voice of the turtle is heard in the land. '" "I..." "I remember now." "The way it was." "We challenged the natural order." "The Vortex is..." "an offense against nature." "She had to find a way to destroy us." "Battle of wills." "So... she made you!" "We..." "We forced the hand of evolution." "A good death." "You've done it!" "He's dead!" " Look!" " The stone head!" "Take this, and let your sons and daughters look into it." "Ride east." "There, you will pass through the wall." "What will become of you?" "Will you go back to your people?" "There is no going back for me." "Put 'em out of there!" "Get out!" "Stop!" "It's useless." "It's over." " The Renegades are all dying like flies!" " Dying?" " It's not Zed to blame." "We destroyed ourselves." " That's truer than you know, Consuella." "And here I would like to claim some credit." "You see, our death wish was devious and deep." "As Zardoz, Zed, I was able to choose your forefathers." "It was careful genetic breeding that produced this Mutant." "This slave who could free his masters." "And Friend was my accomplice!" "Don't you remember the man in the library, Zed?" "It was I who led you to The Wizard of Oz book." "It was I who gave you access to the stone." "It was I!" "I bred you." "I led you." "And I have looked into the face of the force that put the idea in your mind." "You are bred and led yourself." "Arthur!" "We've all been used." " And reused." " And abused!" " And amused!" "Death approaches." "We are all mortal again." "Now we can say yes to death, but never again no." "Now, we must make our farewells." "to each other, to the sun and moon, trees and sky, earth and rock." "The landscape of our long, waking dream." "Zed... the Liberator, liberate me now..." "according to your promise." "Do it." "Do it!" "All that I was is gone." "Kill me too!" " Let's kill each other, Friend." " Huh?" "What?" " Proper regard for irony." " Yes, yes." "One last trick?" "Success." "It was all a joke." "I want to die." "Please!" "Kill me, I..." "I want to die!" "Please!" "Zed!"