Black Easter
Page 12
Now, at last, there was a sound: a sound of laughter. It was the laughter of Something incapable of joy, laughing only because It was compelled by Its nature to terrify. As the laughter grew, that Something formed.
It was not standing in the Lesser Circle or appearing from the Gateway, but instead was sitting on the altar, swinging Its cloven feet negligently. It had a goat’s head, with immense horns, a crown that flamed like a torch, level human eyes, and a Star of David on Its forehead. Its haunches, too, were caprine. Between, the body was human, though hairy and with dragging black pinions like a crow’s growing from Its shoulder blades. It had women’s breasts and an enormous erection, which it nursed alternately with hands folded into the gesture of benediction. On one shaggy forearm was tattooed Solve; on the other, Coagula.
Ware fell slowly to one knee.
‘Adoramus te, PUT SATANACHIA,’ he said laying his wand on the ground before him. ‘And again … awe, ave.’
AVE, BUT WHY DO YOU HAIL ME? the monster said in a petulant bass voice, at once deep and mannered, like a homosexual actor’s IT WAS NOT I YOU CALLED.
‘No, Baphomet, master and guest. Never for an instant. It is everywhere said that you can never be called, and would never appear.’
YOU CALLED ON THE GOD, WHO DOTH NOT APPEAR. I AM NOT MOCKED.
Ware bowed his head lower. ‘I was wrong.’
AH! BUT THERE IS A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING. YOU MIGHT HAVE SEEN THE GOD AFTER ALL. BUT NOW INSTEAD YOU HAVE SEEN ME. AND THERE IS ALSO A LAST TIME FOR EVERYTHING. I OWE YOU A MOMENT OF THANKS. WORM THOUGH YOU ARE, YOU ARE THE AGENT OF ARMAGEDDON. LET THAT BE WRITTEN, BEFORE ALL WRITINGS, LIKE ALL ELSE, GO INTO THE EVERLASTING FIRE.
‘No!’ Ware cried out. ‘Oh living God, no! This cannot be the Time! You break the Law! Where is the Antichrist –’
WE WILL DO WITHOUT THE ANTICHRIST. HE WAS NEVER NECESSARY. MEN HAVE ALWAYS LED THEMSELVES UNTO ME.
‘But – master and guest – the Law –’
WE SHALL ALSO DO WITHOUT THE LAW. HAVE YOU NOT HEARD? THOSE TABLETS HAVE BEEN BROKEN.
There was a hiss of indrawn breath from both Ware and Father Domenico; but if Ware had intended some further argument, he was forestalled. To Baines’s right, Dr Hess said in a voice of high ultraviolet hysteria:
‘I don’t see you, Goat,’
‘Shut up!’ Ware shouted, almost turning away from the vision.
‘I don’t see you,’ Hess said doggedly. ‘You’re nothing but a silly zoological mixture. A mushroom dream. You’re not real, Goat. Go away. Poof!’
Ware turned in his Karcist’s circle and lifted his magician’s sword against Hess in both hands; but, at the last minute, he seemed to be afraid to step out against the wobbling figure of the scientist.
HOW GRACIOUS OF YOU TO SPEAK TO ME, AGAINST THE RULES. WE UNDERSTAND, YOU AND I, THAT RULES WERE MADE TO BE BROKEN. BUT YOUR FORM OF ADDRESS DOES NOT QUITE PLEASE ME. LET US PROLONG THE CONVERSATION, AND I WILL EDUCATE YOU. ETERNALLY, FOR A BEGINNING.
Hess did not answer. Instead, he howled like a wolf and charged blindly out of the Grand Circle, his head down, towards the altar. The Sabbath Goat opened Its great mouth and gulped him down like a fly.
THANK YOU FOR THE SACRIFICE, It said thickly. ANYONE ELSE? THEN IT IS TIME I LEFT.
‘Stand to, stupid and disobedient!’ Father Domenico’s voice rang out from Baines’s right side. A cloth fluttered out of the monk’s circle on to the floor. ‘Behold thy confusion, if thou be disobedient! Behold the Pentacle of Solomon which I have brought into thy presence!’
FUNNY LITTLE MONK, I WAS NEVER IN THAT BOTTLE!
‘Hush and be still, fallen star. Behold in me the person of the Exorcist, who is called OCTINIMOES, in the midst of delusion armed by the Lord God and fearless. I am thy master, in the name of the Lord BATHAL, rushing upon ABRAC, ABEOR, coming upon BEROR!’
The Sabbath Goat looked down upon Father Domenico almost kindly. His face red, Father Domenico reached into his robes and brought out a crucifix, which he thrust towards the altar like a sword.
‘Back to Hell, devil! In the name of Christ our Lord!’
The ivory cross exploded like a Prince Rupert’s Drop, strewing Father Domenico’s robe with dust. He looked down at his horribly empty hands.
TOO LATE, MAGICIAN. EVEN THE BEST EFFORTS OF YOUR WHITE COLLEGE ALSO HAVE FAILED – AND AS THE HEAVENLY HOSTS ALSO WILL FAIL. WE ARE ABROAD AND LOOSE, AND WILL NOT BE PUT BACK.
The great head bent to look down upon Theron Ware.
AND YOU ARE MY DEARLY BELOVED SON, IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED. I GO TO JOIN MY BROTHERS AND LOVERS IN THE REST OF YOUR WORK. BUT I SHALL BE BACK FOR YOU. I SHALL BE BACK FOR YOU ALL. THE WAR IS ALREADY OVER.
‘Impossible!’ Father Domenico cried, though choking with the dust of the exploded crucifix. ‘It is written that in that war you will at last be conquered and chained!’
OF COURSE, BUT WHAT DOES THAT PROVE? EACH OF THE OPPOSING SIDES IN ANY WAR ALWAYS PREDICTS VICTORY. THEY CANNOT BOTH BE RIGHT. IT IS THE FINAL BATTLE THAT COUNTS, NOT THE PROPAGANDA. YOU MADE A MISTAKE – AND AH, HOW YOU WILL PAY!
‘One moment … please,’ Father Domenico said. ‘If you would be so kind … I see that we have failed. … Would you tell us, where did we fail?’
The Goat laughed, spoke three words, and vanished.
The dawn grew, red, streaked, dull, endless. From Ware’s window the sleeping town slumped down in rivers of cold lava towards the sea – but there was no sea; as Father Domenico had seen hours ago, the sea had withdrawn, and would not be back again except as a tsunami after the Corinth earthquake. Circles of desolation spread away from the ritual circles. Inside them, the last magicians waited for the now Greatest Powers to come back for them.
It would not be long now. In all their minds and hearts echoed those last three words. World without end. End without world.
God is dead.
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Also by James Blish
A Case Of Conscience
A Torrent Of Faces (with Norman L. Knight)
And All The Stars A Stage
Black Easter
Doctor Mirabilis
Cities in Flight, comprising:
∼ They Shall Have Stars
∼ A Life For The Stars
∼ Earthman, Come Home
∼ A Clash Of Cymbals (The Triumph Of Time)
Fallen Star (The Frozen Year)
Jack Of Eagles
Midsummer Century
Mission To The Heart Stars
More Issues At Hand
The Day After Judgement
The Duplicated Man (with Robert A. W. Lowndes)
The Issue At Hand
The Night Shapes
The Quincunx Of Time
The Seedling Stars
The Star Dwellers
The Tale That Wags The God
The Warriors Of Day
Titan’s Daughter
Vor
Welcome To Mars!
Dedication
In memoriam C. S. Lewis
James Blish (1921-75) studied microbiology at Rutgers and then served as a medical laboratory technician in the US army during the Second World War. Among his best known books are A Case of Conscience, for which he won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1959, and the Cities in Flight sequence: They Shall Have Stars, A Life for the Stars, Earthman Come Home and A Clash of Cymbals (published in the US as The Triumph of Time). He also wrote almost a dozen books adapting episodes of the Star Trek television series, and the first original spin-off novel, Spock Must Die!
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © James
Blish 1968
All rights reserved.
The right of James Blish to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2011 by Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 10401 3
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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