Dead & Godless

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Dead & Godless Page 20

by Donald J. Amodeo


  “What could be more selfish than enjoying yourself in Heaven without a care for those who didn’t make god’s cut?” Corwin fired back.

  Their argument was interrupted by the singsong tune of boyish laughter. Young Corwin bounded past and disappeared through a curtain of hanging beads into an oval chamber, a room within the room. Ransom started after him and his client followed, the beads jingling as they pushed through the doorway.

  Plopping himself down onto a cushion, young Corwin gleefully admired his peculiar gallery. An array of nine-foot-tall crystal shards stood clustered around him, and frozen inside each was a person. Like frosted glass, the foggy tint of the crystals masked the features of those trapped within, but Corwin knew them at once.

  “Mary!” he gasped, rushing to the nearest. His eyes then panned to its neighbors. “Father! Aunt Rose!”

  His family and dearest friends were all there, imprisoned in the crystal cages of his heart.

  “Here you keep them safe from harm,” said Ransom. “Your own private collection of souls!”

  “That’s not fair!” fumed Corwin. “My love isn’t really like that!”

  The angel regarded him with sympathy, but not softness.

  “Even in your best thoughts there are shades of darkness. Such are the consequences of the Fall. You recognize that to love is to wish the best for someone, but you must know that love is more than that. It is also respect for the other as other. In true love, there is a kind of letting go.”

  Corwin sank to his knees, his palm pressed against the shard.

  “And if the person you love is a drug addict or a compulsive gambler? Aren’t there times when loving someone means striving to change them, not simply accepting their decisions and letting go?”

  “And if the person you love is an atheist?” countered Ransom. “We can try to change those who choose a path of self-destruction, but we cannot force them to change. To do so would not be love.”

  “But must Hell be an end to trying? What if I don’t want to give up?”

  “You would reason with the damned? Talk sense into demons?” Ransom’s tone was incredulous. “You know not of what you speak.

  “The Father loves them still, infinitely more than you ever could. But just as Hell is less than Earth, the damned are less than the living. You will not mourn for them.”

  “I won’t even mourn for them? How can you say that?”

  “On Earth, one may love the idea of a person more than a person’s true self. A ruthless dictator may be a loving father in the eyes of his children. But in Heaven, we see the fullness of things. We rejoice in perfect justice.”

  “Love is stronger than justice!” Corwin insisted.

  “Love demands justice!” retorted Ransom. “Ask yourself which would be a worse fate for your beloved: to be killed or to live a long life as a serial killer?”

  Calming his mind, Corwin considered the meaning behind the question. By the logic of materialism, death was an ultimate end. People simply ceased to be. The loss was utter and complete. So why was the thought of a loved one turning into something vile so much worse? To think of his father as a murderer, a rapist or a child molester—it was hard even to imagine, and far more disturbing than the image of his lifeless body laid to rest in that coffin.

  That was true death, he realized. He could love the dead, but could he love a serial killer? Not in the same way. Perhaps not at all.

  “Better to die than to live as a monster,” he declared, “because to do so would be to die twice. It would mean the death of something inside, something more precious than a beating heart.”

  Light enveloped the frozen figures. With a flash, they vanished, set free from their cages. A cloud of sparks twinkled like stars in the glassy crystals. Ransom laid a hand on Corwin’s shoulder as their glow softly died.

  “A wise answer.”

  Love is not mere kindness, thought Corwin. It’s not something easy or safe . . . It’s the most dangerous thing in the world.

  22

  Wars and Rumors of Wars

  Departing the inner room, Ransom led the way up a spiral staircase that climbed one of the palace towers. Arrow slits were spaced every fifteen paces along the outer wall, and like the rearmost balcony, they overlooked a world whose clock had been turned to night. Torches crackled in sconces between them, casting light on the tower’s smooth masonry.

  “You’ve run out of paradoxes,” said Ransom. “But surely you have other arguments that were never put to paper?”

  “Why bother?” sighed Corwin. “Without proof, we could go on trading arguments until Hell freezes over. Would it change anything?”

  “You fear that we’d be running in circles, but thus far we haven’t been. You’ve agreed with much that you didn’t think you would, and found that you believed in much that you didn’t think you did.”

  It was true, Corwin had to admit. He’d lived his life taking many things for granted, things such as free will and intrinsic values, without ever giving much thought to what they implied.

  “But I’m still not the kind of believer that you want me to be,” he said. “If I had met someone like you in life, maybe things would have turned out differently. Instead of a virtuous atheist, maybe I would have been . . .”

  “A skeptical Christian?” guessed Ransom.

  “I was going to say an optimistic agnostic,” snorted Corwin with a laugh. “But who knows?”

  Outside, thick clouds veiled the starlit vista, and from above, the raucous din of drumbeats and war cries, quiet and remote at first, began to reverberate through the walls.

  “That which keeps you from believing runs deeper than the claims of Christianity,” stated Ransom.

  “Your can defend those claims philosophically, but there’s philosophy, and then there’s real life,” said Corwin. “When you witness how much violence is committed in the name of god, it’s hard to view religion as anything other than a poisonous lie. You don’t see atheists killing each other over the proper way to interpret Darwin’s Origin of Species.”

  “And if they did, would you conclude that all interpretations must be equally false?”

  “That’s not the point!”

  “I hope your point isn’t that religion is the cause of all war, or some other uninformed nonsense,” Ransom droned.

  “War has many causes. I’m not so simple-minded as to lump them all into one tidy catchphrase. But you can’t deny that religion has a history soaked in blood!”

  “Hasn’t it also united people, brought those from different tribes, races and cultures together?”

  “At what cost? Unity has never been god’s top priority. Jesus himself said that he came not to bring peace, but the sword.”

  “So he did.”

  A wooden beam barred a doorway at the top of the stairs, the stout length of oak rattling with the crashes and clamor of the world it locked away. Ransom lifted it off and laid it aside.

  “Religion is rather like a sword,” he said as he threw open the door.

  Rough-hewn bricks paved a walkway that ran atop the fortress walls. Corwin hastily ducked as a huge ball of burning pitch whooshed overhead, exploding in the courtyard below. A knight commander was barking orders and waving his blade. Archers rushed up the stairs on Corwin’s left to reinforce the walls, ring mail jangling beneath gray and crimson tunics.

  “There’s too many of them!” lamented one of the knights who huddled not far away. “We’re all going to die in this godforsaken land!”

  The longbow shook in his tremulous grasp. A veteran with a bushy beard pressed his back to the merlon beside him.

  “Fear not, brother,” said the large man. “The Lord is with us this day.”

  “As he was with those in Damascus? The Lord isn’t going to hold these walls.”

  “By God’s grace, we will. And if we should fall, His Holiness has already seen to our souls. Death has no claim on us!”

  War horns sounded with a doleful tone that echoed off the f
ortifications. The young knight tried to steady his bow by clasping it with both hands. His breath came in spasms, and sweat drenched his unsullied tunic.

  “I don’t want to die,” he whimpered.

  Seizing him by the collar, the veteran throttled the fear out of him.

  “Then fight!” he growled.

  Corwin gazed over the ramparts. The sky was bleached. Bone-white clouds domed a battlefield on which a staggering army had amassed, their forces clad in turbans and conical helms. Scimitars flashed as the front lines charged, the regiments behind them marching inexorably onward. Catapults loosed their fiery bombs, and siege towers rolled towards the walls.

  Nocking arrows, the two knights spun from behind the merlon and fired. The twang of a hundred bowstrings struck a discordant melody.

  Many an onrushing warrior fell, yet the vanguard surged on, anguished screams drowned beneath trampling boots, and the disciplined soldiers that followed were not easily hindered. Raising a wall of shields, they covered their advancing archers, the wall lowering briefly for the Moors to return fire.

  Corwin scuttled after Ransom, keeping an eye to the horizon as it darkened with a volley of arrows. Shades might be able to pass through the living, but how they fared against pointy projectiles wasn’t a topic he was eager to explore.

  The trenchant darts pelted the battlements, some whizzing through the crenels to punish unwary knights. One such knight collapsed right at Corwin’s feet—the same young man who had deemed the battle hopeless. Blood spurted from his neck and Corwin averted his gaze as he gingerly sidestepped the corpse.

  “I hope that indulgence did the trick,” he murmured sincerely.

  An arrow streaked towards Ransom’s skull, and without even a glance, the angel caught it out of the air, snapping the shaft in his fist.

  “The mortal realm is under siege,” he proclaimed. “Or perhaps it would be better to say that all men are born into enemy territory. The Father has not abandoned you. He has sent his Word so that you might arm yourselves, given you a means by which to prevail, but few there are who ready themselves for battle.”

  Corwin hopped back as a grappling hook flew between them. A quick tug pulled it out of its arc and the hook caught hold of the ramparts. Hefting a battle hammer, the bushy-bearded knight swung it like a golf club and knocked the prongs loose. But no sooner had it fallen away than a dozen more hurtled over the wall, long ladders thunking against the bricks.

  A high-flying hook sailed over the knight’s head. Yanked back suddenly, it snagged on his ring mail, and before he could twist free, he was dragged down hollering into the bloodthirsty throng.

  “Those who handle a sword carelessly are liable to cut themselves,” continued Ransom. “And a blade that isn’t well forged will break when it meets adversity.”

  Arrows, boulders and boiling oil rained down on the Moorish warriors scaling the walls, but the crusaders couldn’t stop them all.

  “Allahu Akbar!” yelled the first of the Moors to gain the top of the battlements.

  His scimitar leapt to his hand and the nearest archer drew his broadsword.

  “For God and King Richard!” the knight bellowed.

  Their blades met, the crusader deftly turning the Moor’s scimitar aside. He brought his pommel up hard against the man’s jaw, laying him low, and lifted his broadsword for the finishing blow. But the Moor also carried a mace. The knight’s sword shattered upon blunt steel and a rising scimitar slid between his ribs.

  “If one wields it poorly, a sword may even cut down those whom it was meant to save,” spoke Ransom as he picked a path through the carnage.

  Springing atop the wall, a black-cloaked Moor spotted a crusader whose back was turned. He unsheathed his dagger, smiling wickedly. The knight was already engaged in battle, but as the man darted in for the kill, he swung his foe full-around. The Moor’s dagger sank into the back of his comrade, and with a mighty kick, the knight sent them both tumbling to their deaths.

  “I’d prefer a world with no swords at all,” said Corwin. “Organized religion moves armies. It provides the incentive for holy wars, for witch hunts and suicide bombers.”

  “As opposed to unorganized religion?”

  “One can have spirituality without religion. It would at least be a step in the right direction.”

  “Only if the ‘right direction’ is atheism,” replied Ransom. “Imagine that you had some ideas about God and wrote them down. Now you’ve got a bible. But suppose someone misinterprets your words and you correct them. You’ve just given yourself authority to interpret your scriptures. Congratulations, you’re now the pope! It’s as simple as that. An organized religion is any religion that can be communicated.”

  Maybe that’s why so much New Age talk sounds like mumbo jumbo, considered Corwin. To talk a lot without actually saying anything was an art that spiritualist gurus had honed to perfection.

  “I was trying to compromise, but fine, then let it all rot! Unlike religion, there’s nothing in atheism to compel a person to violence.”

  “Was the atheism of Stalin or Moa Tse-tung without violence?” Ransom paused as a line of spearmen sprinted up the stairs to join the fray. “Theism begins with ‘God is,’ atheism with ‘God is not.’ Go beyond that, and either viewpoint can be twisted to serve a dark end.”

  “Going beyond that is what every religion does! I’m not about to defend atheistic dictators, but the blood on their hands is irrelevant. It doesn’t change the fact that religion is dangerous.”

  “Of course religion is dangerous!” Ransom’s voice boomed irritably. “The yearning for God lies close to the heart of what it means to be human. Anything rooted so deeply within you is bound to arouse strong passions, even violent ones.”

  The next Moor to come over the wall was greeted by a dozen thrusting spears. His scimitar proved no match for the seven-foot-long polearms. Skewered and tossed back, he fell with a dying shriek that caused many of those climbing to freeze a fearful second on their ropes and rungs.

  “Maybe Buddha had the right idea,” said Corwin. “A little detachment would do the world good.”

  “Siddhartha understood that with passion comes pain, but he failed to see that some passions are worth the price.”

  “Even if the price is war?”

  “Wars are always fought in the name of something good, be it God, freedom, justice or what have you. It’s difficult to rally an army with the battle cry: ‘Let us go forth and slaughter in the name of evil!’”

  Bolstered by the range of their spears, the crusaders strengthened their hold on the walls, but the siege towers were drawing ever closer.

  “Light up those towers!” shouted the knight commander.

  Archers swapped their arrows for ones wrapped in oil-soaked rags, and Corwin realized that the braziers set along the wall weren’t there merely to help guardsmen see in the dark. Setting arrows aflame, the knights focused their fire on the towers, the nearest of which was soon smoking like a rolling funeral pyre.

  “Would you do away with every ideal that men fight over?” asked Ransom.

  Corwin was about to say that, unlike God, ideals such as freedom and justice were universal concepts that people could agree upon, but his inner skeptic silenced the words before they came to his lips. One had only to look at political parties to see how bitterly divided men were, even over the most basic of ideals. And many of his fellow atheists would argue that notions such as justice were no more real than God.

  Hearing the whip-thoom of another catapult, he turned and saw a fire-ringed shadow blotting out the sky. The pitch exploded against the ramparts. Black smoke smothered him, then cleared, a blustery breeze sweeping away the soot. And Corwin wasn’t on the wall anymore.

  He and Ransom stood on a hilltop, the fortress a gray promontory across the plain. Besieged on all sides, it seemed destined to fall before the might of the Moorish hoard.

  So many men, he thought, so eager to hack each other apart.

  A line
several hundred prisoners long trailed down the side of the hill—Christian knights whom the Moors had overtaken outside the walls. They’d been stripped of their armor, ropes binding their wrists.

  “I can accept men fighting and dying for a cause,” said Corwin. “But not when that cause is a ticket to god’s wonderland in the next life. Religion preys on the suicidal. It gives those who long for a release from life’s pain an excuse to go out in a bloody blaze of martyrdom.”

  “No true martyr is eager for death,” replied Ransom. “To lay down a life that you don't cherish . . . Where is the sacrifice in that?”

  Prodded by the tip of a sword, Sir Willehad strode forward. The dire view from the hilltop wounded him deeper than any archer’s arrow ever could. Such an overwhelming host! They must’ve come to sack one of the great cities, and this siege was but a stop along the way.

  Lord, I ask not for a miracle, he silently prayed.

  His brothers had long walked with death by their sides, but what of the villagers? Most of the men would be butchered, and those who didn’t lose their lives would lose all dignity, forced to grovel and feign thanks to their conquerors while their wives and daughters were enslaved in the troops’ pleasure houses. Their sons would be taken and indoctrinated, forged into the fanatic warriors that made up the disposable front lines of the Mohammedan fighting force.

  I ask not for victory this day.

  Perhaps there was justice in this. He had heard talk of crusaders in other lands, boasts that made his stomach turn. But those men were not his brothers. Those men were not facing the axe. Hopefully some of the villagers who had fled at the attack’s onset had escaped. They might even bring word to the king, though by then, this fortress would be flying a different flag.

  I ask only for the courage to do your will.

  “See how the infidels are brought to their knees!” trumpeted Khalid, commander of the caliph’s Eighth Battalion. “But Allah is merciful.” Khalid threw down a Bible, one of the spoils from the monastery they had sacked the day before. He kicked it open. “Submit to your rightful Lord, spit on this book of lies, and your life will be spared.”

 

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