R.W. IV - The Magic Labyrinth

by Philip José Farmer

  Hermann felt as if he were a fraud. Who was he to be instructing others, and acting, in effect, as a priest? He was not even sure that his belief in God or in the Church was sincere. No, that was not right. He was sincere – most of the time.

  "The doubts are about yourself," the bishop said. "You think you can't live up to the ideals. You think you aren't worthy. You have to get over that, Hermann. Everybody has the potentiality of being worthy, which leads to salvation. You have it; I have it; all God's children have it," and he laughed.

  "Watch two tendencies in yourself, son. Sometimes you are arrogant, thinking you are better than others. More often you are humble. Too humble. I might even say, sickeningly humble. That is another form of arrogance. True humility is knowing your true place in the cosmic scale.

  "I'm still learning. And I pray that I may live long enough to be rid of all self-deceit. Meanwhile, you and I can't spend all our time in exploring ourselves. We must also work among the people. Monasticism, retreat from the world, reclusivism, that's a lot of crap. So where would you like to go? Up-River or down?"

  "I really hate to leave this place," Hermann said. "I've been happy here. For the first time in a long time, I feel as if I'm part of a family."

  "Your family lives from one end of The River to the other," Ch'agii said. "It contains many unpleasant relatives, true. But what family doesn't? It's your job to aid them to become right-thinking. And that is the second stage. The first is getting people to admit that they are wrong-thinking."

  "That's the trouble," Hermann said. "I don't think I'm beyond the first stage myself."

  "If I believed that, I would not have permitted you to graduate. Which is it? Up or down?"

  "Down," Hermann said.

  Ch'agii raised his eyebrows. "Good. But the neophyte usually chooses to go up-River. They've heard that La Viro is somewhere in that direction. And they thirst to visit him, to walk and talk with him."

  "That is why I choose the other direction," Hermann said. "I am not worthy."

  The bishop sighed, and he said, "Sometimes I regret we are forbidden any violence whatsoever. Right now, I would like to kick you in the ass.

  "Very well, go down, my pale Moses. But I charge that you give a message to the bishop of whatever area you settle down in. Tell him or her that Bishop Ch'agii sends his love. And also tell the bishop this. Some birds think they are worms."

  "What does that mean?"

  "I hope you find out some day," Ch'agii said. He waved his right hand, three fingers extended, blessing. Then he hugged Hermann and kissed him on the lips. "Go, my son, and may your ka become an akh."

  "May our akhs fly side by side," Hermann said formally. He left the hut with tears running down his cheeks. He had always been a sentimentalist. But he told himself that he was weeping because he loved the little dark sententious man. The distinction between sentiment and love had been drilled into him in the seminary. So, this was love he felt. Or was it?

  As the bishop had said in a lecture, his students would not really know the difference between the two until they had much practice dealing with them. Even then, if they didn't have intelligence, they wouldn't be able to separate one from the other.

  The raft on which he was to travel had been built by himself and the seven who were to accompany him. One of these was Chopilotl. Hermann stopped at the hut to pick up her and his few belongings. She was outside with two neighbor women, hoisting the idol onto a wooden sled.

  "You're not thinking about taking that thing along?" he said to her.

  "Of course I am," she said. "It would be like leaving my ka behind if I did not take her. And she is not just a thing. She is Xochiquetzal."

  "She's just a symbol, need I remind you for the hundredth time," he said, scowling.

  "Then I need my symbol. It would be bad luck to abandon her. She would be very angry.

  He was frustrated and anxious. This was the first day of his mission, and he was confronted with a situation he wasn't sure he could handle properly.'

  "Consider thy latter end, my son, and be wise," the bishop had said in a lecture, quoting Ecclesiastes.

  He had to act so that the final result of this particular event would be the right one.

  "It's this way, Chopilotl," he said. "It's all right, at least, not bad, keeping this idol in this country. The people here understand. But people elsewhere won't. We're missionaries, dedicated to converting others to what we believe to be the true religion. We have authority behind us, the teachings of La Viro, who received his revelations from one of the makers of this world.

  "But how can we convince anybody if one of us is an idolater? A worshiper of a stone statue? Not a very pretty one, I might add, though that is really irrelevant.

  "People will mock us. They'll say we're ignorant heathen, superstitious. And we'd be sinning grievously because we'd give people an entirely wrong picture of the Church."

  "Tell them that she is just a symbol," Chopilotl said, sullenly.

  His voice rose. "I told you they wouldn't understand! Besides, it'd be a lie. It's obvious that this thing is much more to you than just a symbol."

  "Would you throw away your spiral bone?"

  "That's different. It's a sign of my belief, a badge of my membership. I don't worship it."

  She flashed white teeth in a sardonic dark face.

  "You throw it away, and I'll abandon my beloved."

  "Nonsense!" he said. "You know I can't do that! You're being unreasonable, you bitch."

  "Your face is getting red," she said. "Where is your loving understanding?"

  He breathed deeply and said, "Very well. Bring that thing along."

  He walked away.

  She said, "Aren't you going to help me drag it?"

  He stopped and turned. "And be an accessory to blasphemy?"

  "If you've agreed that it can come with us, then you're already an accessory."

  She wasn't stupid – except in that one respect and that was emotional stupidity. Smiling a little, he resumed walking away. On reaching the raft, he told the others what to expect.

  "Why do you allow this, brother?" Fleiskaz said. He was a huge red-haired man whose native language was primitive Germanic. This was one of the tongues of central Europe of the second millennium B.C. From it had originated twentieth-century Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, German, Dutch, and English. His nickname had been Wulfaz, meaning Wolf, because he was such a fear-inspiring warrior.

  But on the Riverworld, when he'd converted to the Church, he'd renamed himself Fleiskaz. This, in his natal language, meant "a piece of torn flesh." No one knew why he'd adopted that, but it might have been because he thought of himself as a piece of the good flesh living in an evil body. This piece, torn from the old body, had the potentiality to grow into a complete new body, spiritually speaking, a thoroughly good body.

  "Just bear with me," Hermann said to Fleiskaz. "The whole matter will be settled before we have put fifty meters, between us and the shore."

  They sat around, smoking and talking, watching Chopilotl pull the sled with its stone burden. By the time she had crossed the wide plain, she was scarlet-faced, sweating, and panting. She swore at Hermann, finished by telling him that he would be sleeping by himself for a long time.

  "This woman doesn't set a good example, brother," Fleiskaz said.

  "Be patient, brother," Hermann said quietly.

  The raft was butting into the bank, held from drifting by an anchor, a small boulder at the end of a fish-leather cable. Chopilotl asked those aboard the raft to help her haul the sled onto it. They smiled but did not move. Cursing under her breath, she got it onto the raft. Hermann surprised everybody by helping her scoot it off and rolling it to the middle of the raft.

  They up-anchored and shoved off then, waving at the crowd assembled on the bank to wish them bon voyage. A single mast was set forward. The square sail was hoisted, and the braces slanted to drive them toward the middle of The River. Here the current and the wind
speeded them, and they set the sail to get the full benefit of the breeze. Brother Fleiskaz was at the rudder.

  Chopilotl retired to the tent close to the mast to sulk.

  Hermann gently rolled the idol to the starboard edge of the raft. The others looked at him questioningly. Grinning, he held his finger to his lips. Chopilotl was not aware of what was going on, but when the idol was at the edge, its weight tipped the raft slightly. Feeling the tilt, she looked out from the tent. And she screamed.

  By then Hermann had the statue upright.

  "I am doing this for your good and for the good of the Church!" he shouted at her.

  He pushed on the monstrous head as Chopilotl, shrieking, ran toward him. The idol toppled over into the water and sank beneath the surface.

  Later, his companions told him that she had hit him on the side of the head with her grail.

  He did regain enough of his senses to see her, buoyed by her grail, swimming toward the shore. Bessa, Fleiskaz's woman, was swimming after Hermann's grail, which Chopilotl had tossed overboard.

  "Violence begets violence," Bessa said as she handed him the cylinder.

  "Thanks for rescuing it," he said. He sat down again to nurse a painful head and aching conscience. It was obvious what her remark implied. By dumping the idol, he had committed violence. He had no right to deprive Chopilotl of it. Even if he had had the right, he should not have exercised it.

  She had to be shown her error and then the example had to ferment in her mind until it boiled over onto her spirit. All he had done was to anger her so much that she became violent. And she would probably get somebody to carve another idol for her.

  He certainly had not started out well.

  That led to other thoughts of her. Why had he wooed her? She was pretty; she exuded sexuality. But she was an Indian, and he had felt a certain repugnance about coupling with a colored woman. Had he made her his woman because he wanted to prove to himself that he was not prejudiced against coloreds? Was it this unworthy motive that had compelled him?

  If she had been a black, a kinky-haired blubber-lipped African, would he have even considered mating? To be truthful, no. And now that he remembered it, he had looked for a Jewish woman. But there were only two in the area that he knew of, and these were already taken. Besides, they had lived in the times of Ahab and Augustus and were as dark as Yemenite Arabs, squat, big-nosed, superstitious, and violence-prone. Anyway, they had not been Chancers. But, come to think of it, Chopilotl was also superstitious and violence-prone.

  However, being a Church-member indicated that she had potentiality for spiritual advancement.

  He steered his mind back to something which it wanted to avoid.

  He had searched for a Jewish woman and had taken the Indian woman in order to salve his conscience. To demonstrate to himself that he had progressed spiritually.

  Had he advanced? Well, he had not loved her but he had been fond of her. Once the initial dislike of physical contact with her had been overcome, he had not experienced anything but passion during their lovemaking.

  However, during their infrequent but stormy quarrels, he had wanted to hurl racial insults at her.

  True advancement, true love, would come when he did not have to restrain himself from voicing such pejoratives. There would be no inhibitions about such because he would not think of them.

  You have a long way to go, Hermann, he told himself.

  And if he did, then why had the bishop accepted him as a missionary? Surely Ch'agii must have seen that he was far from ready.

  19

  * * *

  By the time, many years later, that Göring was near the state of Parolando, none of the original crew of people he'd set out with were with him. They'd been killed or had stopped at various areas to carry out their missionary activities there. When Göring was several thousand miles from Parolando, he began hearing rumors of the great falling star, the meteorite, that had struck down-River. It was said that its impact had killed hundreds of thousands directly or indirectly, and wrecked the valley for over sixty miles each way. As soon as the area had been safe to enter, however, many groups had moved in, eager to get the nickel-steel of the meteorite. After a savage struggle, two bands had been triumphant. These had then allied and now held the site.

  Among other rumors was that the meteorite had been mined and was being used to build a giant boat and that two famous men were directing the operations. One was the American writer, Sam Clemens. The other was King John of England, the brother of Richard the Lion-Hearted.

  Hermann did not know why, but the gossip made his heart jump. It seemed to him that the land which held the fallen star was his goal and had been all along, though he hadn't known it until now.

  At the end of a long voyage, he arrived at Parolando. The rumors were true. Sam Clemens and King John, nicknamed "Lackland," were co-rulers of the land which sat above the treasure of the meteorite. By this time, large amounts of the metal had been mined, and the area looked like a mini-Ruhr. In it were many steel furnaces, rolling mills, and nitric-acid factories, and bauxite and cryolite were being processed to make aluminum. The ores from which aluminum was made, however, were to be found in another state. And there was trouble over that.

  Soul City was a state twenty-six miles down-River from Parolando. It sat on large deposits of cryolite, bauxite, and cinnabar, and small deposits of platinum. Clemens and John needed these, but the two rulers of Soul City, Elwood Hacking and Milton Firebrass, were driving hard bargains. Moreover, it was evident that they would like to get their hands on the nickel and steel of the meteorite.

  Hermann paid little attention to the local politics. His primary mission was to convert people to the doctrines of the Church of Second Chance. His secondary mission, he decided after a while, was to stop the building of the great metal paddlewheeler. Clemens and John had become obsessed with the vessel. To build it, they were willing to turn Parolando into an industrial desolation, to strip the land of all vegetation except the invulnerable irontrees. They were polluting the air with the smoke and stink from the factories.

  Worse, they were polluting their kas, and that made their business Hermann Göring's. The Church maintained that humanity had been resurrected so that it could have another opportunity to save its kas. It had also been given youth and freedom from disease and want so that it could concentrate on salvation.

  About a week after his arrival at Parolando, Hermann and some other missionaries held a large meeting. This was in the evening just after dusk. Scores of great bonfires were arranged around a platform lit by torches. Hermann and the local bishop were on the platform with a dozen of the more distinguished members of their organization. There was a crowd of about three thousand, composed of a small minority of converts and a majority who came to be entertained. The latter brought their bottles of alcohol and a tendency to heckle.

  After the band finished playing a hymn, said to have been composed by La Viro himself, the bishop gave a short prayer. He then introduced Hermann. Boos here and there followed the mention of his name. Evidently some in the crowd had lived during his time, though it was possible they just didn't like Chancers.

  Hermann held up his hands until silence had fallen, and then he spoke in Esperanto.

  "Brothers and sisters! Hear me out with the same love with which I speak to you. The Hermann Göring before you is not the man of the same name who lived on Earth. He abhors that man, that evil being.

  "Yet, that I stand here before you today, a new man, reborn, testifies that evil can be overcome. A person can change for the better. I have paid for what I did. Paid in the only coin worth anything. Paid with guilt and shame and self-hate. Paid with a vow to kill off the old self, bury it, and go forth as a new man.

  "But I'm not here to impress you with what a wretch I was. I'm here to tell you about the Church of the Second Chance. How it came into being, what its credo is, what its tenets.

  "Now, I know that those of you who were raised in Judaeo-Chr
istian and Moslem countries, and those Orientals who encountered Christian or Moslem visitors or occupiers of their country, are expecting an appeal to faith.

  "No! By the Lord among us, I will not do that! The Church doesn't ask you to believe on faith only. The Church brings – not faith – but knowledge! Not faith, I say. Knowledge!

  "The Church does not ask you to believe in things as they should be or perhaps will be some day. The Church asks you to consider facts and then to act as the facts require. It asks you to believe only in the believable.

  "Consider this. Beyond any dispute, we were all born on Earth and we died there. Is there anyone among you who would contradict that?

  "No? Then consider this. Man is born to sorrow and evil as the sparks fly upward. Can any of you, remembering your life on Earth and here deny that?

  "Whatever the religion on Earth, it promised something that just was not true. The evidence of that is that we are not in Hell or Heaven. Nor are we going through reincarnations, except in a limited sense that we are given new bodies and new life if we die.

  "The first resurrection was a tremendous, an almost shattering, shock. No one, religionist, agnostic, or atheist, was in the state he believed he'd be in after the end of Terrestrial existence.

  "Yet, here we are, like it or not. Nor is escape from this world possible, as it was on Earth. If you are killed or kill yourself, you rise the next day. Can anyone deny this?"

  "No, but I sure as hell don't like it!" a man shouted. There was a general laugh, and Hermann looked at the man who had made the remark. He was Sam Clemens himself, standing in the middle of the crowd on a chair on a platform erected for this occasion.

  "Please, brother Clemens, do me the courtesy of not interrupting," Hermann said. "Very well. So far, facts only. Now, can anyone deny that this world is not a natural one? I do not mean by that that this planet itself, the sun, the stars, are artificial. This planet was created by God. But The River and The Valley are not natural. Nor is the resurrection a supernatural event."