Kirlian Quest

by Piers Anthony

  "I can appreciate that. But it does make it a bit more difficult for me to interpret the cards."

  Herald considered the first card of the satellite, and its figure moved into full animation, hovering in the air between them as if floating—or swimming. It had a diffuse, bubbly torso with projecting flippers and eye-stalks. /This is a Spican Impact,/ he explained. /A creature of a water world in a Sphere adjacent to Sphere Sol, Galaxy Milky Way. As the Cluster Tarot found acceptance among other species, they identified with it in appropriate ways. The Spicans are sapient water creatures, so of course—/

  "Ah, I see. The King of Cups—a male water-sapient. Most appropriate."

  /Actually, the Spicans are triple-sexed, though their sexual roles are somewhat interchangeable depending on the circumstance of their encounters. But the generally more forceful nature of the Impact sex led to this identification as a basically male image./

  "But what have Spicans, regardless of sex or circumstance, to do with your situation?"

  Herald flashed with humor. /I thought you understood, Brother. This card is you./

  Brother Paul did a human doubletake. "Me? I am no Spican water-sapient creature with eye-stalks!"

  /But you are the King of Cups. Therefore this is your Significator in the Cluster deck. The image is merely a convenience for identification of the particular card; its inherent meaning is quite apart from this. You, as the founder of the Cluster Tarot the discoverer of the phenomenon of animation, as the first of the great Cluster-historical auras, are very much a part of my situation, as your presence here demonstrates. There is no other figure this card could represent in this context./

  Brother Paul shook his head. "It must be so, if that is the way you see it. But it is something of a shock for me. I never thought of myself as a submerged sapient."

  /Oh, I find the likeness excellent./

  Brother Paul accepted the jibe with singular grace. "I suppose in the sense that I was submerged in your subconscious, manifesting only in this your hour of need, and will return to that watery limbo when your problem is liquidated—"

  /You tease me, Patriarch!/

  "Well, some levity befits the occasion, if we are to maintain equilibrium." He considered the spread again. "I might have been inclined to suspect this next card, the King of Swords. This is after all a human figure. Except that the man is naked and muscular and green, while I am clothed and a bit fat and brown." The big green savage strode out from the card to achieve his full stature in animation, glancing at them warily.

  /The Swords are the suit of Solarians, the violent troublesome, yet intelligent species. That is Flint of Outworld, whose aura was about two hundred. Their measurements were comparatively imprecise in those years. He founded the nucleus of Segment Etamin, the larger cluster of Spheres that now embraces Sol./

  "You seem to know all about me," the Flint figure said. As he spoke, his background filled in about him: giant vinetrees, juiceberry flowers, primitive huts, dinosaur creatures whose faces resembled those of the dominant sapients of Segment Qaval. "But I don't know about you. I see one brown-surface Solarian and one Slash monster. Speak fast." And he raised one beautifully muscled green arm, whose hand now held an efficient-looking rock-barbed spear.

  "A pleasure to meet a genuine Stone Age savage," Brother Paul said. "Most of us are savages inside, so to that extent the veneer of civilization makes us hypocrites. I am Brother Paul of the Holy Order of Vision. I am harmless, I assure you."

  "You work for the Tarotist Temple?" the savage demanded.

  "This creature, Herald the Healer of circa A.D. 4500, suggests that I founded it," Brother Paul said with a tolerant smile. "But that is plainly beyond my intent or means. I am loyal to my own modest order, with no need to dabble in politics or religion. I am just a humble seeker."

  "I recognize you now," Flint said. "Harmless? Like a carnosaur! You're a martial artist, aren't you?"

  "I... dabble on occasion."

  Flint made a snort of humor. "You are a hypocrite, just as you claim! I'd like to try your strength, but I think I would lose, barehanded. You did found the Temple; that is historical. And that is no bad thing. The Temple helped me in Sphere Polaris. The Tarot showed me what I had not known I knew, before I progressed into complete disaster." He turned to Herald, his smile fading. "But you, Slash—did Andromeda win the war despite my efforts?"

  /Andromeda lost—twice,/ Herald flashed. /Now we are part of the Cluster culture—Andromeda, Milky Way, Pinwheel, and assorted lesser formations—without war, except for the present threat of alien invasion by the Amoeba. The Tarot has animated you, my distant ancestor via your aural family, to illustrate part of the background of this problem. Have you any advice?/

  "Recover the Ancient science," Flint said simply.

  /Yes, we are trying to do that. But we have not learned how, and we have very little time./

  "So he, too, is fundamental to your situation," Brother Paul remarked to Herald. "And the third figure?"

  It emerged from the card via animation: a tripart construction of wires and diaphragms and tubing. It had nine little clapper-feet, three to each segment. "I am Melody of Mintaka," it played, its meaning conveyed musically. Herald knew he would not have comprehended this language, had this not been his own animation scene. "I saved the Milky Way from Andromeda in the Second War of Energy. But you have animated me with all my feet!"

  /Mintakans mate at the expense of their feet,/ Herald flashed privately to the others. /Their sex changes as the number of their feet decreases. The card portrays her in her female stage./

  "Isn't it enough that I have lived my full life," Melody played tersely, "without being brought back—incorrectly!—long after it is over?"

  "Well..." Brother Paul began.

  "Such might be expected of an Andromedan," she continued. "Or even of my barbarian green-giant Solarian ancestor. But you, Paul of Tarot, how can you be part of such impertinence?"

  "You're a descendant of mine?" Flint inquired, surprised but not dismayed.

  "Practically the whole sapient Galaxy is descended from your free-flowing seed," she said. "It is a wonder you had time to save the Milky Way from Andromeda."

  "It needs saving again," Flint said, flattered.

  "This is why you creatures are animating the Tarot? It happens I know something of this subject, and now that I'm here I suppose I should assist. I note you are employing the newfangled spread, really inadequate for the occasion. However—"

  /It is the secret of the Ancients we require, Mistress of Tarot,/ Herald flashed. /Only by utilizing their full technology can we hope to save our Cluster./

  Melody made a negative clangor of her instruments.

  "Slash, you would not want to know the secret of the Ancients."

  All three males oriented abruptly on her. "You know their secret?" Flint demanded.

  "Enough of it."

  /Tell us!/ Herald flashed in wild hope.

  She issued a sharp, single, final note. "No."

  Brother Paul shook his head. "Surely you have some reason?"

  "I do. If you knew their secret, you would do what they did. Therefore I will not tell you."

  /We would... die out?/

  "Or allow yourselves to regress into harmless barbarism." She glanced meaningfully at Flint. "You certainly have the potential for that. No—you are better off rising to the challenge of the Amoeba and conquering it yourselves. Forget the Ancients."

  /I can't do that. We cannot match the Amoeba alone./

  "I think he's right," Flint said. "A flint-tipped spear can't take a laser, except in special circumstances. If the Amoeba technology is clearly beyond that of the Cluster—"

  /It is./

  "I also concur," Brother Paul said slowly. "I should hope that a better understanding of the nature of the Amoeba would make peace possible, but I concede that there are some demonic forces with which peace cannot be made. I do not like violence, yet I do not pretend that there are no circumstances w
here certain measures of self-defense may not be required. If the Ancient technology enabled the Cluster to become strong enough to stalemate the invasion, perhaps the Amoeba fleet would depart, averting further bloodshed."

  But Melody would not yield. "Victory gained at the expense of the loss of cherished ideals is not worthwhile. With Tarot I will help; the Ancients I shall not discuss further." And Herald knew she would be inflexible.

  Still he admired her tremendously, even though he knew she was at this stage no more than a figment of his imagination. /What a creature you were!/ he flashed. /Had I lived in your time, or you in mine—/ But again he remembered Psyche, and suffered.

  "Now I think I have the background straight," Brother Paul said. "These three figures of aura, among whose number I am included, center on the Temperance concept of Transfer, and are all contributary to your vision of your past. They are your foundation. One must understand aura to understand you."

  /True./

  "Yet it does not seem to clarify your destiny. The Ghost remains opaque."

  /There is something/ Herald flashed. But as he focused his internal beam on it, it evanesced. /No, I cannot yet place it,/ he finished, frustrated.

  "Perhaps if we subdefined another card?" Brother Paul suggested.

  /We must not do it indiscriminately,/ Herald warned. /The Tarot is not to be trifled with./

  Melody played a chord of emphatic agreement.

  Brother Paul smiled. "How well I know! But since there are only twenty cards in the pile, there would seem to be a natural limit, in case someone became too wild. A solution that cannot be achieved within twenty cards probably is not worth having; it would be too complex to comprehend."

  /Let's check the Two of Aura, there in the Present Influences,/ Herald suggested. /We know aura relates to me; it hardly needs to be stressed. There may be more behind that entry./

  Flint and Melody and the Spican Impact began to fade. /No, stay with me!/ Herald flashed. /You are my Past; I need you with me in my Present if I am to achieve my Future! I want your advice and participation, or I will surely repeat mistakes you could have warned me of./

  "This plea is well put," Melody played. "Green Giant and Clapperfoot will remain."

  "But let my swimming incarnation submerge," Brother Paul said. "I prefer my role as mentor to that of memory." And the Spican dissipated like a lost memory.

  Brother Paul dealt another card, placing it across the Nine. "The Princess of Swords," he announced. "Another human figure."

  "All the Swords are human," Melody played.

  /The Princess of Swords!/ Herald flashed, electrified. /That's—/

  "Your wife!" Brother Paul said, catching on. "Except—wouldn't she be the Queen of Swords? A married woman...."

  /She was barely grown. To me she will always be the child bride. She is the aura that brings me here!/

  The figure expanded from the card. She was nude and lovely, a delicately nubile, blue-skinned, orange-eyed human girl.

  "Oh, she is exquisite!" Brother Paul exclaimed. "Much better than that other vision you showed. Remember her always like this!"

  "There is Outworld blood in her," Flint said. "And Capellan. A good combination."

  But their approval stirred up a bitter counterforce of emotion. /And do you also want to see what they did to her?/ Herald demanded savagely. A knot of love and pain formed within him. Psyche! Psyche!

  He concentrated—and orange flame leaped up about her. Psyche writhed in silent agony, trying to draw her slender legs out of it, then giving up.

  "No—I forbid this!" Brother Paul cried. "I have felt the fires of hell myself; do not do this to her again!"

  "That lovely child!" Melody played with a strong background discordance of shock. "Spare her! Go to the Ancient site on Planet £ of Sphere Dash instead, mate there with a creature of high aura, go in and learn the secret of the Ancients yourself. But stop this fire!"

  There was only one creature of sufficiently high aura that he could enlist quickly and privately for such a mission: his pseudo-fiancée, Flame of Furnace. If he did that, Psyche would surely burn in a new kind of hell!

  /You cannot unmake the past!/ Herald flashed. /Suffer as I suffered! She burns, she burns!/ It was himself he was torturing, not these reflections of his prior imagination. Like the Duke of Kade at the end, he did not want to live.

  But the figment-animations had strange persistence. "I subdefine!" Brother Paul cried, slapping down a satellite card. "The Eight of Aura—Conscience!"

  But Psyche did not fade. Her anguished mouth opened, and she cried: "Herald, forgive them—they know not what they do!"

  /I can't!/ Herald flashed. And her golden hair puffed into ignition, shriveling with horrible speed into a black mass.

  Herald charged the fire but was hampered by his Slash body. Suddenly Flint of Outworld was beside him, swinging a great, flashing, beautifully deadly sword. The King of Swords indeed! Pieces of creature flew wide with every stroke: arms, heads, tails, wheels, tentacles. It was wonderful, it was a kind of catharsis!

  Brother Paul slammed down another card, trying to stave off further torture and violence. "Tower!"

  And the scene exploded into a giant mushroom-cloud, a roiling fireball that blew everything apart, producing chaos again.

  /Where are we?/ Herald flashed foolishly. /In the fireball?/

  "In the midst of revelation," Brother Paul explained, bodiless, beside him. "The confines of the contemporary situation have been burst asunder, freeing us for new understandings. This is the nature of the Lightning-Struck Tower of the Tarot—"

  /Yes. The Amoeba bombed Kastle Kade./

  "...on the physical level But the card is also known as the House of God, or the House of the Devil. That is interesting in this context, because Psyche, tormented by fires as of hell, quoted the Son of God. Jesus Christ, as he was crucified and reviled by his tormentors, cried 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!' That's from the Bible, Luke twenty-three, Verse thirty-four. In that moment, Christ forgave his enemies, exemplifying in his death the philosophy of his life."

  /She may have forgiven them; I cannot!/

  "But you must! She asked you to. She said 'Herald, forgive them,' and you must honor her dying plea if you wish to be worthy of her love."

  /I'm glad the castle was destroyed. That is the single favor the Amoeba did me. Circlet of Crown and all his minions were wiped out!/

  "Don't you understand! Jesus pleaded for God to forgive them—and they are us—and so we all—Psyche must have known...."

  Herald considered. To be worthy of her love—that struck deep indeed! How could he deny her this, the last thing she had asked of him? /They're dead anyway. I forgive them,/ he flashed with meager graciousness. And, oddly, he felt a kind of relief, and realized that his own hate had blocked his healing power. That was why he had been unable to help the Jet female, Sixteen. Had Psyche known it would be this way?

  "I am glad, Herald. For you see, after that forgiveness—I'm stating this very badly, it is hard to concentrate here in chaos—Jesus was restored to life. For a while. He—"

  /He died—yet lived again? His aura must have animated another host. You indicated he had a strong aura?/

  "The strongest, I'm sure. I disagree with certain of your interpretations, but in this respect we agree. An extremely potent aura would account for much that he accomplished. But the point is—"

  /But how could Psyche live again? Her body is nothing but particles in a radioactive cloud./

  "But through her aura she could animate another body, if—"

  /She would still die. All bodies in that castle were vaporized. Even if one escaped, the aura inevitably fades when it is away from its natural host. Even enhanced as she was, with an aura of two hundred seventy-five, she—/ He broke off, amazed as the revelation burst upon him. /Enhancement! It was her aura—enhanced. Not a cycle, but as association with the Ancient site, that built her up. If it could do that.../

  "Th
ere would be no need for her aura to fade away from her natural host as long as that equipment operated."

  /Ancient equipment operates forever! That site is gone, but there are others..../ Herald paused again. /Immortality! The Ancients can give us immortality!/

  "That too, I suppose, if you want it. But I was thinking—"

  /Psyche! She could live again! Her aura would not fade!/

  "Yes, that was my thought."

  /The Ancient site enhanced her. There was a connection when she died. This happened to Flint of Outworld. He survived death by Transferring to another host. The site could have transported her aura to another host, another site..../

  "That may have been what she was trying to tell you. That her aura would live, though her body died. Now that your power has been restored by your act of forgiveness you have only to find her."

  /She could be in a new host anywhere in the Cluster! But she would have to remain associated with an Ancient site, because she would require constant further enhancement./

  "Would she—I am largely ignorant about the technicalities of Transfer—would she be able to remain within a site itself, enhanced?"

  /I—/ Herald's imagination stalled. /If the sites can enhance and can Transfer, why can't they hold—/ It was almost too much to assimilate. /She must be... with the Ancients! This is my revelation of the Tower. I should have realized it all along, but it is so great a jump of concept! Let me go through this slowly: Flint of Outworld died in the Hyades, but the ancient site Transferred his aura to Mintaka, and he lived again to sire the line of Melody. Melody of Mintaka activated the £ site in Andromeda and abolished hostaging. Her aura unlocked the Secret of the Ancients, and she Transferred directly to System Etamin in Milky Way. I knew all along that such powers were in the sites, and the presence of Flint and Melody evoked by the Tarot should have reminded me—had I only been able to put it all together! /

  "Precisely. That is why you came here, and why the Tarot placed your Significator in the THINK pile instead of in the FEEL pile. Now at last you know what you seek."