THE GOD BOX

by Barry B. Longyear

  Still I couldn't budge it. "Look," I said to it, "what I need right now is to know if you are worth anything." The box shot up. It had absolutely no weight at all. "I'm glad you changed your mind."

  I took the magic box, climbed down from the wagon, and when I was certain no one was looking I tiptoed to the sidewalk and ducked between two buildings. When I glanced back, no one seemed to have noticed my going. I asked myself, why was I slinking around? I was a free man, and this object belonged to me, didn't it? "Force of habit, I imagine," I muttered to myself.

  I stepped out on the sidewalk and, with the box swinging by the handle, I walked until I was at the tavern and stopped in front of the familiar face. "Ker, you pirate," I greeted.

  "Korvas, you thief," he responded. These were terms of endearment, I might add. They were no reflection 0n our community standing.

  I pointed at the tavern. "Why are you standing here, my old friend?"

  "As usual, Korvas, waiting for opportunity. Are you my opportunity?"

  "I might be, Ker. I might be." I held up Olassar's box. "I have come into an inheritance. It is this valuable chest of drawers, each corner of it simply stuffed with magic."

  He grinned through several missing teeth. "I hear the King's Guard is after you, Korvas. Is this object the reason?"

  "No. That matter is unrelated to this. It had something to do with an angry customer."

  "Crawling carpets again, Korvas?" Ker asked with a knowing grin.

  "The box is mine, and I have a letter to prove it."

  "A little marketplace fraud isn't enough to bring out the entire guard. Whoever was your customer?"

  "The father-in-law of Captain Shadows," I answered.

  Ker laughed out loud, shook his head, slapped his thighs, made as though he was wiping tears from his eyes, and generally made an mammoth ass of himself. "Are you quite finished, Ker?"

  "Oh yes." He looked down at the case of drawers in my hand. "Now, what would you sell to me?" He pointed at it. "What is it? A jewelry case?" Several other tough-looking characters gathered around us to look at the box.

  "It is a simple chest of drawers. However, as I said, it has magical properties."

  "Like what?" He still had that smirk on his face.

  "It . . . the drawers contain whatever you need."

  "Indeed? And if there is nothing in there, you'll tell me that I need nothing."

  "In truth, Ker, it has happened to me. Just this morning, however, one of the drawers contained over two thousand gold reels." That perked up the ears of my companions. I regretted it as soon as the words left my mouth. "I'll go, then, if you're not interested."

  "Wait, please." Ker's strong hand gripped my arm. "I don't imagine you would have any objection to giving me a free sample before I buy."

  "Perhaps . . ." I looked at the ugly folk gathered around. "Perhaps not." I held out the box.

  "Which drawer?" asked Ker,

  "Any drawer," I said. "I don't think it makes a difference."

  He pulled out the lower right. He looked in and said, "A piece of paper?"

  "Sometimes that's all there is. Read it."

  Ker removed the note from the drawer, looked at it, his face growing white, then he dropped to the sidewalk like a load of wet wash.

  "Here, now," said one of the uglies. He was a chunky sort with dark clothes covering an indiscreet display of muscles. He leaned over, examined Ker, picked up the note, and looked at it. "'You die now'," He read as he screwed his face up into a semblance of confusion.

  I was stricken with horror. "Ker isn't dead, is he?"

  "Oh, yes he is," answered the tough. "I've seen dead in every great city of the world, lad, and believe me, that's genuine dead. Poor old Ker." He looked back at the note in his hand. "Now, what puzzles me is, it says 'You die now,' and Ker he up and snuffed on the spot."

  "I guess that's what he needed to know right then," I offered with a wan smile.

  "See here, fancy hat, that's my old friend and comrade Ker down there in the dust. You'd best make this right by me, or it'll go hard on you."

  I held out my hands. "Anything."

  He took Olassar's box from my hands. "Better let me take care of this, fancy hat." He held it up, looked at it, shook it as he listened, then looked at it again. "By Angh's bunion, I can't see what took out old Ker. Is there a little poison needle that pops out? Maybe rigged to a spring and a secret catch?"

  "No. There's no such thing."

  "Well, then, what's it do?"

  "It gives you whatever it is that you need," I explained.

  The ugly fellow raised his hairless eyebrows at me. "Now, did my dear friend Ker get what he needed?"

  "If you were just about to die, what would you need?" I posited.

  "Haw! Well answered, fancy hat. But I think I'll just have a go at this little thing. Any drawer, you say?"

  I nodded, my lips rather dry. "Any drawer," I croaked.

  He grinned widely and pulled open the upper right-hand drawer. He looked in and frowned. "Another message?" He glanced up at me. "Hear me, fancy hat. If I should drop dead sometime within the next few seconds, my comrades here will make short work of you. Do you hear me?"

  "I hear you," I answered. At the same time I prayed the gods this one time would water their humor with just a bit of discretion.

  "Now what I need from this box," continued the tough, "is something with soft curves." He issued a low dirty laugh which was joined by his associates. Then he opened the message. His eyes opened wide and his jaw fell open. "My wife?" he bellowed. "My wife is what?"

  He threw the case of drawers at me. "See here, fellow, fun's fun, but this here says that my wife Kokila is bedding my best friend." He pulled a long, slender, silver-bladed knife from beneath his tunic. He reached out his knife and carved an X in the face of the lower left drawer of the case, then held the blade beneath my throat. "Make the box say it isn't so."

  "My f-f-friend, if I could get the cursed thing to do my bidding, would I be trying to sell it?"

  "Then make your peace, scum."

  "Hold, Natos," interrupted one of the uglies. "Give us a chance at the box first."

  "The box lies, and this one," the one called Natos pricked my throat with the point of his blade, "is the murderer of my dear friend Ker."

  The box was pulled out of my grasp, there were shouts, and I felt the iron-strong arm of Natos beneath my chin, lifting my head far back. The blade flashed before my eyes, and I felt a scratch on my neck followed by the sensation of warm water washing down the front of my chest. I had a silly thought just then as the light drained from my head to be replaced with black fuzz: the box had been right all along. I didn't need the new boots after all.

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  There is a fleeting feeling of having experienced something or having been someplace before. Those feelings come when a wizard or a ghost treads upon the place where one is to be buried. One such time was immediately after I died.

  Leaving the rear door of the wagon open, I leaned back and watched the ocean. Early into the evening, as the red and orange light of sunset played among the clouds, I saw us pass through the gates of Fort Braw. Everything was edged with terror, for I knew that this was where my throat would be slit and Korvas would meet his ending. The caravan stopped, and in a moment I saw Iamos walk up to my door.

  "Master Korvas, has your ride been pleasant?"

  "Pleasant? What is happening here, priest? We have had this conversation before."

  Iamos shrugged in a sign of universal acceptance. "In the universe are many realities, Master Korvas. How have you been finding this one?"

  I looked around at the squalid buildings of the town and felt my throat with my hand. "Puzzling, as usual," I answered warily.

  "Puzzling?"

  "'Lonely' is what I answered to that question in another time. Now it's puzzling."

  "It surprises me to hear that you were lonely." His face crawled about until it was again carrying that loathsome smile. "It has b
een so many years, the thought never crossed my mind."

  "That anyone could find solitude lonely?" I anticipated with more than a hint of sarcasm in my voice.

  "Why, yes. You took the words right out of my mouth. You see, it is our custom to travel alone—to live alone. We find it more conducive to meetings and conversations with the gods."

  I looked at Olassar's box on the couch, then back at Iamos. "Do any of your gods have ivory handles?" The question had a significantly different meaning from the first time I had asked it.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I was a fool to ask, and twice the fool for asking again." I looked again at the ocean. "Are we going soon?"

  "We'll be here only an hour to change horses. We will travel through the night and stop at Fort Damra tomorrow morning. Would you like me to arrange a traveling companion for you?"

  "Thank you, no."

  "Will you eat in town? Of course, you are welcome to partake of our humble fare."

  "My thanks, Iamos. What are you having?"

  "It is a kind of dry grain loaf peculiar to our sect, I fear. Outsiders call it sawdust bread. It is gritty with cracked grains and quite dry, with only water to wash it down."

  "It sounds like a feast to me," I said.

  Iamos nodded and walked toward the front of the train. I saw a familiar face loitering in front of a local tavern. It was Ker. Before much time passed he would crumple and die. Maybe. In this reality I was still alive. Perhaps Ker would survive the day, as well.

  I turned and looked at the chest of drawers. The X carved in its finish stood out very clearly. The box hadn't wanted me to go into town. However, I had insisted that I needed to know whether the box was worth anything. It had provided me with an answer that I couldn't even comprehend.

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  4

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  I awakened the next morning staring at the box. I don't remember opening my eyes, only realizing that my eyes were already open. Maybe it was all a dream, a hallucination, a ghost playing tricks with my mind, or perhaps an angry magician or mischievous demon playing tricks with my eyes.

  I shook my head, for that made no sense. If Jorkis was that good a magician, he wouldn't have fallen for the crawling carpet gag. And even if he had, he wouldn't have expected to find a real one in the Iskandar Bazaar. Besides, Jorkis had his son-in-law to carry out his vengeance. And demons are not given to instruction for one's good.

  I sat up, stretched out a hand and felt the X cut into the drawer's finish for the hundredth time. My eyes are too practiced. Had that mark already existed when I was given the box, I would have noticed it. The mark was too big, fresh, and what I had experienced had been real. Somehow Olassar's box erased time for me, moved it back, and started it over again. The box had brought me back from the dead. More than that, the box had turned back the clock of the very universe to show me what it was. And just what was it?

  There seemed to be a different taste to the air, and there was a rumbling sound, different than the iron wheels of the wagons against the paving stones. I looked out of the door. This part of the King's Highway, to get around an immovable outcropping of granite, ran very close to the ocean. I settled down and let my gaze play among the waves as my thoughts played games of their own.

  Why had the box moved time for me? Why was I trying so hard not to believe what I had seen with my own eyes? It made me think of when I was a boy arguing with my father about the gods. As I had done a hundred times before, I had refused to go to the temple—we were one of the few Ihtari families in Iskandar, and that faith from my father's beloved Ahmrita was very dear to him. So dear, in fact, that he insisted I share it with him.

  We were arguing for the thousandth time on this matter, and I told him again that the only gods that exist are mean little spirits that run around causing trouble. My father said that the evidence of the gods was all about me. The wind, the sun, the flowers, birds, and so on.

  I remember throwing at him, "Then why did they take my brother? Why is my twin dead?"

  "Yes, Korvas," I rebuked myself, "win your argument by breaking again your father's heart." It had been an easy stab for me to make to win an argument. I knew it would shatter my father with a memory I didn't think affected me at all. Syndia believed I was redeemable, but it was her profession to believe in miracles.

  Below me I could see the white gulls skimming the tops of the breakers while dark, long-legged sand birds picked and plucked among the seaweed washed up on the beach, my father and the gods still in my mind.

  After the argument with my father, I had been thinking upon the subject of divine evidence. What would it take to convince me of the existence of a god or gods? My father could look at that ocean, those birds, any sunrise or sunset and be convinced. The followers of Nanteria were much like my father. They believed in goodness obtained by following a path of honesty and kindness. Obviously these people have nothing worthwhile to contribute to the real world, but they do believe in these gods.

  Now, I believe in dark magic. What fool doesn't? The streets and back alleys of Iskandar crawl with it. If one isn't salting down a witch with coppers to put a curse upon someone who deserves it, one is probably salting down the same witch with the same coppers to have an undeserved curse removed from one's own back. I have rattled my share of bones and worn my share of beads and feathers. Between the curses, spells, and mean little spirits in this world, it's enough to drive one to drink celery tonic.

  Yes, I believe in spirits: Mean, hateful little things who make noises at night to keep you awake, who put spots on clean white linen, who spoil food, split trousers, make horses go lame, dogs sick, and wreck machinery. The existence of magic and spirits I acknowledged, but only because I had seen them and their works on numerous occasions. Gods, benevolent and otherwise, were another matter altogether.

  The Nants, for example, believe in a supernatural being of great goodness named Nanteria. She is represented only in black silhouette and is said to live in smoke and shadows. She is the one who urges one's steps toward the path of goodness.

  On the opposite side is Heteris, who is always represented in red silhouette and is said to live in every coal and flame. She is the one who urges one's footsteps away from the path of good. Somehow humankind is supposed to be free to move between these spirits. Each one of these major gods had about a half-dozen lesser gods and angels to assist her.

  The Heterin faith, under the gentle auspices of Tretia the Terrible, had it all turned around. For them Heteris, the flame goddess, is the goddess of good, while Nanteria, the being of smoke and shadow, is the evil one. What of the hapless believers who picked the wrong temple?

  It seemed like so much storybook time for children. There were things in me that urged me to do good, and other, more powerful, things that usually won any contest. But both urgings were mine. In my heart it seemed as though Nanteria and Heteris were thought up long ago simply to personalize good and evil for children, or perhaps for adults of a more innocent age. But that is only my skeptical nature, as my father would have said.

  There was the old Ihtari story of Ahtma, he who would have been emperor except for his skeptical nature. I turned my head and studied the chest of drawers as the story of Ahtma came back to me. It was almost as though I could hear my father's voice with its strange singsong accent.

  Although he had reigned for more than a hundred years, Rojuna, Emperor, Chosen of the Ihtar, had died. Since he had been regarded as veritably immortal, the question of succession had never arisen. Now no one could think of anything else.

  The priests gathered from every comer of the empire to study the ancient texts, formulas, and scriptures. The stars were read and compared against the birth records of each city, town, and village. The signs seemed right, and a choice was made from the village of Akuhma. The young man, Ahtma, was brought before the ancient temple in Givida, spiritual center of Ahmrita.
/>   The priests told Ahtma that he was next in line to be the emperor of the Ahmritans. The fellow was delighted, of course, especially when he found out that with his crown would come vast lands, personal and public treasuries, the devotion of a hundred million subjects, a harem of his own choosing, fine horses, jewels, perfumes, an army of a million men at arms, and ships that commanded the oceans of the world. All he had to do would be to believe with a true heart in the existence and good will of the Ihtar, the gods peculiar to Ahmrita.

  Ahtma had been as skeptical of the gods as I, but his special place in history gave him an advantage. To aid him in his quest for faith, the gods would perform any miracle at his command. Ahtma demanded to be taken up high enough to see the entire continent that then comprised the Empire of Ahmrita. That the gods did. Then Ahtma demanded the miracle: "Here is my request. With a mighty hand, Ihtar, if you do indeed exist and have power over men, cut that continent through its center with a single, swift stroke."