by C. L. Moore
The song rose solemnly.
A fourth time Haliaia twisted himself back and forth. He was imitating his totem. He lay still. But his feet moved a little, slowly, as if they moved through water ...
-
The bad luck began two months later. There was nothing magical about it. Just one of those things—everybody has runs of bad luck.
I kept a very close watch on Mumm and on my own safety. And on my own White President, just in case Mumm proffered charges against me. Nothing happened there. Thornvald's behavior was perfectly normal. I tried to put myself in Mumm's place and see what he would do. I couldn't figure it. What could he do? He might not be able to resist sending out a stray virus or two, just in the hope of a hit. I watched myself very carefully for that. He might even hire a thug to shoot me or arrange an accident. I watched for that, too, as much as any man can. You have to take your chances in this world, and you don't get something for nothing. I had got Haliaia's death and it was worth the risk.
Once I called Lila. She wouldn't talk to me. I let it slide. Time enough later to try again. In the meantime I got a girl with the theatrical name of Flamme to live with me, I didn't intend to marry again for a while, and I needed someone to keep my establishment operating. It has to be done on a big scale, and I need a wife for social purposes. Flamme was of the hetera class, which meant she could act as wife in everything except the spiritual link, which is part of the magical system. Like our ancestors, we have serial polygamy, so after a divorce I could marry again, but on the spiritual level the polygamy is cumulative. There can be no spiritual divorce. So in the magical world I was still married to Lila. And she wouldn't talk to me—yet.
Rabb, incidentally, had an accident about a week after Haliaia's death, and unfortunately, in the hospital, he got an overdose of sedation and died. The clan gave him a very respectable funeral.
Otherwise nothing unusual happened, at first—except for one irrational, nonsensical thing that I'd never anticipated. Everything conscious, everything controllable and rational, I knew I could handle. But what began to go wrong was the ritual dream.
I told you how it works. Herbs are burnt, there's the shot of so-called holy drug, ritual prayer, hallucination. The average magician's belief in himself is reinforced by the hallucination. Even after I lost the belief I went on with the window-dressing ritual, because I felt that if I began to vary from the conventional routine even in small matters, I might get careless and vary too much, in ways that would be noticeable.
So I went on as usual. People came to me to get spells put on their enemies in other clans, and I got their signatures on the necessary contracts and publicized the magic in the communication channels. I had no trouble until another case of soul-stealing came up.
The man was a Communications executive and his enemy was in Entertainment, the Lion Totem. My man's skill was rated high enough so he had to sign up for only nine years of service on minimum subsistence. I got his signature, sent him away, and burned the herbs. I gave myself an injection and said the Eagle Totem prayer.
The hallucination began.
I found the victim in my dream and was just about to stun him with the sacred spear when—I woke up.
I was back in my office, with the herbs smoking in their burner and my arm still tingling from the hypodermic spray. It was the first time since I'd been an acolyte this had ever happened. I sat there, wondering. Wondering and worrying.
It was idiotic, but what kept running through my head was the thought that unless I had the ritual hallucination, I couldn't visit the taboo microfilm library any more. There was no logical connection at all. And yet I couldn't get the idea out of my mind. The more I thought about it the more worried I felt, without any reason at all.
At last I realized that the drug must have been weak, or the herbs—well, not the herbs, they're part of the window-dressing. All the same. I sent them down for chemical analysis, along with the drug. I sat waiting for the results. Once, I remember, I glanced back over my shoulder at the stuffed eagle on the wall. He gave me a glassy look.
The report said the drug and the herbs were the same as usual.
Not that it mattered. I could start the soul-stealing telecast at any time, and the magic would work whether or not I had the hallucination, since the magic was in the mind of the victim, not in my mumbo jumbo. But I didn't like this. It was a symptom, and I needed to understand its meaning.
Finally I decided I'd gradually build up immunity to the drug, and what I needed was a stronger dose. Well, I was right, up to a point. When I doubled the dose I got further into the hallucination. But I still woke up before I'd completed the ritual dream. This time I woke with a sense of near panic, a feeling that something had gone very wrong indeed, and the knowledge that I had to do something about it fast.
What I did was dangerous, but I wasn't thinking clearly, and little waves of anxiety kept starting around my stomach and spreading out until—well, I tried again, with a still stronger dose, and I finished the hallucination. But I woke up with two doctors working on me, and Thornvald hovering behind them adjusting his silly totem symbols.
"Get the hell out of here, Karl," I said. "This is medical, not magical. I just got an overdose of the holy drug."
"Now, Lloyd," Thornvald said, trying to look impressive. "The medics are taking care of their business. Just let me take care of mine."
"Well, it isn't around here," I said, and fell back, gasping, my heart fluttering till I was afraid it would stop altogether. One of the doctors gave me a shot of something and told me to relax. Remembering Rabb, I was really scared as I drifted off in spite of myself into sleep. But I woke feeling better. Thornvald had gone, leaving word that while he hadn't finished his diagnosis, no magic seemed involved.
I still felt terrible, but I went back to my desk and finished the job, purely routine now, luckily. Then I went home, canceling my other appointments, and told Flamme to keep the house quiet.
The next day I still felt terrible. Flamme wanted me to stay home, but once a man gets sick it's assumed there's magic at work, and I couldn't afford to have people start wondering why a Black President should feel bad. So I started for the office, with a splitting headache and a slight temperature.
Only I didn't get there. As I stepped onto a moving way I felt dizzy and misjudged the distance when I reached for the back of a lounge chair. I fell flat. If I hadn't tried to catch myself it would have been all right. But I threw out my arms and landed at just the proper angle to break my left thumb.
That did it. The medics X-rayed and tested, and finally put my left hand in a cast that left the fingers free, but was a damned nuisance. It would take more than a month to heal, too. In a quiet rage I went home, got into bed and yelled at Flamme to bring me liquor. Finally I collapsed into happy forgetfulness, drunk as hell. So drunk I even forgot to take alcohol-neutralizing pills before I went to sleep.
So I woke up with a cold as well as a hangover.
The cold went into influenza almost immediately.
I remember medics working on me, and Flamme hovering in the background, and Thornvald, Thornvald, Thornvald eternally coming to bother me. Thornvald with his silly gadgets supposed to diagnose magic. Thornvald saying, "I'll do my best, Lloyd. You know that. I'll cure the spell if I possibly can ..."
And then suddenly silence, and waking with the fever gone and nothing to remind me of my sickness but the cast on my hand, and weakness. Silence.
I rang the bell, and no one came. The room seemed very dim. The windows had been partially opened. I lay there wondering.
I wondered if I were strong enough to get up. Apparently I'd have to. Angrily I threw back the covers and found I was pretty strong after all. I was shaping a few choice phrases in my mind about firing half a dozen servants and maybe Flamme too, when I swung my feet out of bed and saw the blue tunic stretched across my knees. I didn't have any blue nightwear. Blue is a sacred color. I looked down at my chest ...
Everything
came to a dead stop.
I was wearing the sacred blue tunic with the Eagle Totem, wings outspread, embroidered across the front. My hand, without any direction from my mind, flew up to touch my forehead. It was as if I could feel the red circle traced there by somebody's ritual spear in a hallucinatory dream. Somebody's—whose? Whose?
"Flamme!" I shouted.
No answer anywhere.
I jumped out of bed. I didn't feel weak at all. I ran out of the room and down the silently gliding escalator, feeling the blue tunic catch between my knees. I kept calling for Flamme and the servants. All I heard were echoes. I jerked open the front door and there on the threshold were the black dishes of food. A black wreath swung against the door panel.
I ripped it down. I saw people passing in the street and I shouted to them. No one looked at me. Not a head turned.
I realized what I was wearing, and very quickly stepped back and shut the door. There was a mirror in the front entry. I stepped over and looked at myself. The red ring on my forehead was fluorescent in the dim light. I scrubbed at it with both hands. I whirled and ran through the house to the nearest lavatory, and with soap and nailbrush I rubbed at the dye until my skin was almost as red as the ring. But nothing would take it off. I knew nothing would even cover it. That fluorescence shines through the heaviest makeup, and no known substance will remove it.
At least I could take off the tunic. Awkwardly, because of the cast on my hand, I pulled it over my head and left it in a heap on the tiled floor. Naked, I searched the house.
It was empty. Everything personal was gone. No clothing anywhere. My special cigarettes were gone. My books. My writing paper with my name on it was gone, and blank black-bordered sheets had replaced it. Every closet, every drawer, every shelf was empty.
Walking around naked, feeling like a ghost, I tried the visiphone. It was dead. The TV entertainment channels were dead too. The house resounded with silence and the feel of death.
I had to get out. So I had to have clothing. I tried a sheet, toga-fashion. It looked idiotic. But I wasn't going to wear the Eagle Totem tunic again. Not in public. Not even in private.
There was no money in the house.
Wrapped in the sheet, I went out. Nobody looked at me. The red ring on my forehead told everyone all they needed to know. No taxis would stop for me, so I had to take the moving way. At the first clothing store I stepped off and walked in, took what I wanted off the racks and shelves. No one interfered. I dressed in a booth and went back to the moving way, feeling a little better, but madder than I'd ever been in my life.
-
I went directly to my office. The secretaries ignored me, even when I spoke to them. I didn't waste time, I pushed past them and opened the door of my office.
Another man sat behind my desk. Above him on the wall, the Eagle Totem looked down with its glassy stare.
I said, "Who the hell are you?"
"The Black President." He was just a little defensive.
"Get out of my office," I said.
He looked at my clothes, a bit shocked at the sight of them.
"You shouldn't be wearing—" he started to say. There was a small explosion of rage and confusion in my head. I lunged across the desk and grabbed for his shirt, meaning to haul him out of his chair and—and do something, I don't know what, something violent.
But he rolled his chair backward just far enough. I sprawled across the desk, out of balance, clutching at air. And he didn't say a word. He simply watched me, with some pity on his face and some horror. I was dead, to his mind, and I ought to stay dead.
The violence went out of me. I knew what a fool I looked, sprawling there on the desk when by rights it should be I on the other side of it, perfectly safe, with people coming in afraid of me, and trying not to show it.
I straightened up and pulled down my cuffs, settled my illegal clothing around me. Quietly I said, "A Black President can be appointed only if his predecessor dies. You know that. What does it make you?"
"You're not alive," he said, and added, "holy one."
"Stop that!" I said impatiently. After a moment I added, "I suppose the publicity went out while I was unconscious. Who stole my soul? You?"
He nodded.
"Who ordered it?"
"This isn't getting us anywhere, holy one," he said. "You'd better see the White President."
I breathed out slowly. So that was it. When either President dies, the survivor appoints his successor. When either President breaks a taboo, the other one administers justice. So Thornvald had taken matters into his own hands, without a word to me, behind my back, while I was sick and unconscious ...
"I'll see him," I said, and turned away toward the door to the bridge. With my hand on the knob, I looked back. It was a strange feeling. Nothing had changed in my office except the man behind the desk. Everything was just as I'd always had it, all the things in a person's office that he gets used to, that become a part of him finally. And they were still a part of me. But they were also linked now, to the man in my chair. It was like a webwork with two centers, and sometimes one set of strands seemed real, sometimes the other.
"I'll be back," I said, and went out across the bridge.
Again, as always, it was like walking the eagle's way above the two-mile sprawl of Communications Center. At the other end of it was Thornvald, standing by a window looking down. All the anger boiled up in me at the sight of him, and perhaps there was fear with the anger now.
I slammed the door behind me as hard as I could.
He jumped and whirled.
"Does that sound like a ghost, you bastard?" I asked him.
He opened his mouth, raised his eyebrows, and let out his breath with a resigned sound. I told him what I thought of him, loud and fast. It took a couple of minutes. But when I ran out of breath his expression hadn't changed.
I walked over to his desk, yanked out the chair behind it and sat down. Thornvald watched me.
"Now, I said. "Let's get a few things straight. There's somebody in my office who thinks he's the Black President. What's the idea? How did you ever make such a mistake, Karl? When I was flat on my back and unconscious, too!"
"It's no mistake, holy one," Thornvald said.
"Don't call me that! You know my name."
His round face looked at me sadly.
"I'm sorry to see this attitude in you, holy one. It shows a lack of faith that may be dangerous to your soul. I'm afraid—"
"Never mind my soul. I'll be around for a long time yet. I want to know why you double-crossed me when I couldn't defend myself."
"There was no double cross, holy one. I take my orders from the Eagle. Surely you don't think I'd do such a thing on my own responsibility? You broke the taboo of the clan, and the Eagle has taken you."
"The Eagle has not taken me!" I yelled at him. "And what taboo did I break? Name one. Just one!"
"I felt uneasy from the first about it," Thornvald said obliquely. "About Haliaia, I mean. But even when Mumm made a formal accusation against you, I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't think any man who knew the dangers as well as you do could risk his soul for personal gain like that."
"I wouldn't. I didn't!"
Thornvald just shook his head sadly again.
"Why do you think I did?" I shouted at him, wanting to beat sense into him with my fists. He was so damned dogmatic about it. "Did you look up Rabb's papers? Did you find the least scrap of evidence that I'd break a sacred taboo? Prove it, Thornvald! Prove it!"
He pointed to my forehead where I could feel the red circle as if it were a tangible burn on the skin.
"There's proof," he said. "Would the Eagle move against you if you weren't guilty?"
I almost choked on all the things I wanted to say. But I had to keep my head.
"That's a result, not a cause, Karl," I said in a strangled voice. "The Eagle didn't move against me. You did. You accepted a lot of malicious gossip from an enemy of mine, and then you sneaked up behind me an
d stabbed me when I was too sick to defend myself. You—"
"I accepted the evidence of my own eyes," Thornvald said tartly. "I suspected the Eagle was punishing you when you had all the trouble with the sacred drug. And of course when you broke your thumb, and then the Eagle sent the influenza germs—"
"The Eagle didn't send anything! That was probably Mumm, if it was—"
"Mumm?" He looked shocked. "A President knowingly casting a spell on another President? I'm surprised at you, holy one. He wouldn't dare. His totem would strike him down in his tracks. No, it was the Eagle, holy one. And I knew when the Eagle allowed these curses to fall on you one after another what the truth must be. I knew it even before the Eagle came to me in the night and gave me my orders."
"So you appointed a new Black President, and his first job was my death sentence," I said.
Thornvald nodded.
"Karl, have you ever made a mistake?" I asked.
"Often, holy one. But never about sacred things, because I act only when the Eagle commands me. A President has to renounce his own desires. You should have remembered that."
"Have you ever mistaken the Eagle's commands?"
I think that shook him a little. Such a thought had obviously never hit him before. But he shook his head decisively.
"Never in my life. Never! How could I?"
"You could," I said grimly. "You just have." I stood up and leaned over to slam the desk hard with my fist. "I'll tell you exactly what happened, Karl. You wanted to get rid of me. You had a personal motive. Not me, but you. You know the dogma, Karl. We accuse others of the sin we most want to commit ourselves. Ask yourself, isn't it true? No, don't answer me, Karl—just ask yourself in your own mind. And listen! You heard jealous gossip against me. You watched your chance. When I had a run of bad luck you took it for magic because you wanted to believe that way. You injected a drug or inhaled hemp or hypnotized yourself, and you had a dream. Just a plain dream, not a sacred vision. But you took this dream for a fact because you wanted to. For your selfish reasons you misused your holy power against me! And you won't get away with it, Thornvald! The Eagle won't let you!"