“But we are not of their faith!” Balkis said, surprised.
“True,” Matt agreed, “but some faiths welcome visitors. Let’s see if this is one of those, shall we?”
“No matter how tolerant,” Balkis told him, “I doubt they will admit a cat—and I have no wish to assume my human shape and be stretched upon an altar again.”
“If they were Thuggee, we’d already be inside and tied up,” Matt told her, “being strangers. Still, your caution is prudent. Think you can find a way to sneak in?”
Balkis sniffed with indignation and reminded him, “I am a cat!” She stalked away, tail high and waving.
Matt waited for her to step out of sight around the curve of the temple, then joined the stream of visitors filing in, chatting with one another. As they passed the portal, though, they fell silent, and moved away from one another, each standing apart in silence. Matt glanced at rapt, intent faces and assumed they were praying.
Matt blinked, startled. At the far side of the dome where he’d expected to see an idol, there stood no brazen-bellied Baal or multiarmed deity, but a fire, tended by two white-robed priests with small white cylindrical hats and white veils over their noses and mouths. One’s beard and hair was white, the other’s was black.
A man nearby was muttering softly, apparently not able to pray in complete silence like the others. Feeling ashamed of himself, Matt strained to hear, and with enough concentration the words became clear. What he had thought were untranslatable syllables resolved themselves into a name he knew well. The man was praying to Ormuzd—to Ahura Mazda.
That meant the priests were magi.
CHAPTER 10
There was no service as such, no liturgy, no singing, only individual people facing the fire and praying. It looked as though they were worshiping the flames, but Matt’s Asian Literature courses had taught him that the flame, like the sun, was only a symbol to these people, a reminder of Ahura Mazda, and an aid to focusing their prayers. If he was up and about at dawn, he knew he’d find them out in the village common, gazing at the rising sun.
Seemed perfectly reasonable. As long as he was there, he decided to say a few prayers to his own god—or rather, his own conception of the One.
After half an hour people began to leave. In ten minutes or so the temple was almost empty, only half a dozen people still praying. Matt realized there was no set time for this worship—it was just that most of them wanted to pray when they came in from the fields. He had a notion he’d find many of them back, probably as families, after dinner.
He contrived to find a shadowed comer near the door, hoping the dark robe and tunic he’d taken from the thief would keep him from being noticed.
It almost worked.
The younger priest happened to turn his way and froze, staring at Matt, then turned back to the older priest. “The stranger is still here, Dastoor.”
So much for passing as one of the natives, Matt thought. He should have known better, in a village in which everybody no doubt knew everybody else.
“Bid him come nigh,” the older priest said. “He is the one who was foreseen.”
Matt stood very still. Foreseen? How? By whom-and what magic?
Then he remembered—the magi were excellent astrologers.
The younger priest approached him. “Come to my master,” he invited.
Matt gave him a little bow. “You are gracious.”
The younger priest returned the bow, then went back to his elder. Matt followed.
“Why have you come, stranger?” the priest asked. “Are you a follower of the teachings of Zoroaster?”
“I’m afraid not.” Matt tried another little bow. “I thank you for your hospitality in letting me pray in your temple.”
“All are welcome,” the old priest said with a smile, “but you have not answered my question.”
“Noticed that, did you?” Matt forced a smile of his own. “Well, uh … I wanted to ask some questions, but I don’t know if the temple is the right place.”
“Do they concern the Lord of Light?”
“No. His … adversary.”
Both priests stiffened, but the older one only nodded and said, “Come.”
Matt followed him out the side door, noticing that the younger priest stayed to watch the fire. He wondered if one of them was always on duty, night and day. If they were, where did they ever find time to study the stars?
They passed out a small door at the back of the temple, where the old priest turned and said, “Ask now your questions.”
“I have heard of the magi, the priests of Ahura Mazda,” Matt said slowly.
The old priest waved his hand in negation, shaking his head. “No longer. Zoroaster freed us from the reign of the magicians. You may call me ‘dastoor’ if you wish—that is my title.”
“Dastoor, then, for a priest of Ormuzd?”
“No, an ordinary priest like my young associate is a mobed. A dastoor is a high priest.”
“A bishop, in our terms, I guess.” Matt nodded slowly. “No offense, Dastoor, but I’ve never heard of a priest of Angra Mainyu.”
The old priest nodded. “There are none.”
“I met one,” Matt said.
The old priest stiffened again, his eyes flashing. “If that is so, he would be a daivayasni—a demon-worshiper—for Ahriman is the greatest of demons. I earnestly hope there is no one who would be a sincere daivayasni. He must have been a rogue and impostor.”
“I think he’s more likely a madman,” Matt said slowly. “He wore garments like yours, but of midnight-blue, and ranted at me that Angra Mainyu must triumph in the battle for control of the world so that Ahura Mazda can begin winning again.”
“We have never taught such nonsense!”
“I thought not,” Matt said. “What do you teach?”
The old priest shrugged and spread his hands. “That Ahura Mazda will win when the world ends. That is all.”
“And Angra Mainyu will never win?”
“Never fully, or forever.” The old priest smiled sadly. “Though when the Arabs conquered Persia and converted so many of the faithful, there were many who thought the Dark One had triumphed. Our ancestors, loyal to the Lord of Light, held fast. Some few were in small enclaves in the hills of Persia, and there are still some there. Most, though, took ship and sailed to the island of Hormuz. After some years, they had need to set sail again, and landed on the seacoast not far from here. We are seeds from which Ahura Mazda can begin once again to raise a forest of faith.”
“Only of faith?” Matt asked. “You’re not planning to start a holy war for him?”
The old priest shook his head, again with his sad smile. “The day of the Persian Empire is done, my friend. It is in the spirit, and in the hearts and minds of men, that Ahura Mazda will conquer.”
“Reassuring,” Matt said, “but Arjasp isn’t willing to keep the fight on so noble a plane.”
The old priest went rigid, eyes wide with anger. “Arjasp! Calls he himself that?”
“Yes, he does.” Matt frowned. “What’s wrong with the name?”
“Arjasp was the general who defeated the last emperor of old Persia,” the old priest told him. “Taking that name is as good as a declaration that he intends to conquer all the world!
Even worse, it was one of his soldiers who slew the prophet Zoroaster himself. Only that soldier’s name would have been more abhorrent to us than that of Arjasp!”
Matt stared. “You don’t think it’s the same person, do you?”
The old priest shook his head, still angry. “As a soldier, though the real Arjasp’s actions against us were evil, I have always sought to remember that he quite likely believed himself right in what he did. To us that was evil, of course, and a stroke for Ahriman, but I doubt Arjasp intended it so. Moreover, he died two thousand years ago.”
“So this renegade magus deliberately took a name that would be insulting to you?”
“Perhaps.” The priest frowned, looking
away, thinking. “It is my habit, though, to be slow in imputing evil to people’s reasons—to their actions, yes, but not to their motives. He may believe the real Arjasp‘s deeds were, as I have said, blows for Angra Mainyu, and taken the name as a way of declaring whose work he seeks to do. Where is this man, my friend?”
“I don’t know,” Matt said slowly, “but he seems to be the one who convinced a barbarian chieftain he could conquer the world, and is using his magic to help the man do just that.”
The old priest stared. “You do not mean it is this Arjasp who is the power behind the horde and its conquests!”
“I’m afraid it looks that way, yes.”
The old man looked away in horror, grasping Matt’s shoulder to support a suddenly trembling body. “Oh, my friend, then the world is in deep and deadly danger indeed, for if Arjasp‘s gur-khan conquers in the name of Ahriman, there is no end to the evil he may do!”
Matt stepped closer, putting an arm around the old man to hold him up. “I’m sorry—I didn’t realize this news would affect you so deeply.”
“How could it do aught else?” the old man asked. He lifted his eyes to Matt’s again, deeply agitated. “Is there nothing we can do to stop this man?”
“Actually,” Matt said, “I was going to ask you that.”
With a cry of despair, the old priest looked away again. “I shall pray … I shall pray to Ahura Mazda to strike stronger blows against Angra Mainyu …”
“Yes, attack the source of the trouble.” But Matt knew that if Ahura Mazda wasn’t supposed to win until the world ended, it wasn’t going to do him and his beloved much good right now. Only a bigger and stronger army would. An army, or …
The old priest lifted reddened, frightened eyes to Matt’s. “What more can I do?”
“Actually,” Matt said, “I was thinking you might teach me your magic—but if the magi are gone . ..”
“Gone, but we were careful to preserve knowledge of their ways, so they might never rise to their despotism again,” the dastoor said darkly.
Matt lifted his head slowly. “Which is what Arjasp is trying to do!”
The dastoor nodded. “I shall teach you.”
Matt stayed with the dastoor for two weeks, learning the essential spells and the basic approach to magic. It seemed to be based on astrology, on reading the future, and he was astounded at how accurate and detailed the priests were able to be. Of course, they reinforced the stargazing with some highly secret verses in an ancient and arcane language, but with his translation spell still going strong, Matt had no trouble learning them. Memorizing the sounds of the alien syllables took a bit more doing, but he managed it.
Somehow, he had a notion that the dastoors of his own universe didn’t know a thing about magic, and probably avoided the idea like the plague—but they didn’t live in a universe in which magic really worked.
He found that the priests didn’t really see the future—they saw a whole range of futures, from the disastrous to the supremely fortunate, and the events that caused each to happen.
“Can you foresee that for a single individual’s life?” Matt asked, awed by the panorama of the heavens as seen from the top of the hill near the town.
“Only the broad sweep of it,” the old priest told him, “only the major events, such as births, marriages, and deaths. We can advise overall policies that will lead to prosperity, and warn against others that will lead to ruin.”
Matt frowned. “But that’s what you can foresee for your whole people, too, and even for the world.”
“Even so,” the old priest agreed. “For nations, though, details are the whole lives of individual people. We cannot see so finely for anyone person.”
“Because he or she is the detail.” Matt nodded.
But once they knew the range of possible futures, the priests were able to see which events would lead to each, and were then able to compose verses that would strengthen Ahura Mazda’s struggle to bring those events to pass.
“Then all the congregations of Pars is include those prayers in their daily worship,” the old priest explained, “each yielding his own tiny bit of power to the Lord of Light.”
Matt knew it wouldn’t happen in his home world, of course. “But thousands of those bits of energy add up to a huge increase in strength,” he said. “And since Angra Mainyu doesn’t have such congregations giving him power, Ahura Mazda wins.”
“Now, though,” the old priest said, “Angra Mainyu has such worshipers.”
“Yes,” Matt said grimly, “thanks to Arjasp.” Then a thought struck him. “If Angra Mainyu didn’t have priests and congregations, though, where did he get the strength to fight Ahura Mazda in the first place?”
“Every evil thought, word, or action anyone commits strengthens Angra Mainyu,” the old priest said.
“And every good thought, word, and deed strengthens Ahura Mazda?”
“Exactly.” The old priest beamed. “You have understood the essence of our purpose on this earth.”
Matt thought of the number of atrocities the horde was committing, and shuddered.
He learned the Parsi rules of versification, learned how to craft a poem that would strengthen Ahura Mazda for battle in a specific event. The old priest was delighted with his progress and amused by his extra student.
He chuckled. “Your cat seems as interested in our lore as you yourself.”
“She’s a very patient one,” Matt said.
Finally the fortnight was over, and the old dastoor had taught him as much as he could in that time. The priest regretted that Matt couldn’t stay to study longer, but understood that he had to forge ahead northward to discover the horde’s Achilles’ heel, if it had one. The villagers held a farewell banquet for him, then all turned out the next morning to see him off.
As the collection of cottages receded behind them, Balkis asked, from her seat on his shoulders, “Are they cheering us on, or glad to see us go?”
“Their hearts are with us,” Matt answered, then changed the subject. “If you do try any of that Zoroastrian magic, remember to keep it simple! I don’t want you getting blasted by an advanced spell you don’t know how to control.”
“You have scant faith in me,” the cat sniffed. “Even I have seen that those spells will hasten a favorable event, no matter whether they are addressed to Ahura Mazda or to the Christian God.”
“They’d better,” Matt said, “or they won’t be any use to us.”
Privately, he was sure that the Supreme Being was the same everywhere, and would hear and understand the petitions of any people, no matter what language they spoke or in what name they prayed, or which limited image of the Limitless they envisioned. Even more, though, he was increasingly suspecting that even in this universe, magic worked by poetry itself more than by the Being to whom those spells were addressed—by symbolism and intent, not direct intervention. Good intentions resulted in good effects here, though they sometimes did not in his home universe. Surely the Source of Goodness could read what a human heart intended and respond to the symbols to which those intentions gave rise. But most of the minor spells, such as those for lighting a fire or removing a wart, seemed an imposition on such a Being, even though God must indeed have had an infinite capacity for attention to detail. Matt suspected that simple magic worked by manipulating the laws of nature, here as well as at home. But in this universe they were manipulated by poetry and song, not mathematics and exotic hardware. He had a notion that computers wouldn’t work here, and wondered if that was a good thing.
● ● ●
As the sun neared the zenith, they found some shade under a deodar and broke out the leftovers the villagers had packed for journey rations.
“Another advantage to traveling as a cat,” Matt noted. “You don’t eat as much.”
“Yes, but the tastes are as delicious and last as long as a larger meal would for my human body,” Balkis answered, then took another bite of curry. She swallowed and said, “I quite appr
ove of their cooking.”
Matt agreed, though he did leave the really hot foods to her. He was amazed that a cat could purr while she ate.
After lunch he stretched out for a nap, and Balkis curled up on his stomach. He was just dozing off when the cat squalled and sprang away. “Oof!” Matt said, and sat bolt-upright just in time to see a turbaned maniac in loincloth and bushy beard swinging a club at his sinuses.
Matt rolled to the side at the last moment, and the club thudded into the earth. He lashed out with a kick and caught the attacker in the stomach; the man doubled over, hands pressed to his belly, mouth gaping in silent agony. Matt snatched up the club and leaped to his feet just in time to see two more men charging at him out of the roadside brush.
A furry fury landed on one man’s shoulder with all claws out, yowling and spitting. The man shouted in pain and anger and swung his club at the cat, but she had already leaped to the ground. Matt gave his own shout of anger, feinting a kick at the other man, then slashing at him with the club. The mugger blocked with his own stick, and Matt slammed a real kick into his hip. The man spun away with a howl of pain, and Matt called out,
“As England the silver sea surrounds
As a moat defends a keep,
Let a barrier unseen be ‘round us,
High and thick and deep!”
The two men in front of him slammed into something invisible and reeled back, falling. He heard shouts of surprise and pain behind him and spun about to see two more attackers down. Even in that brief glimpse a pattern struck him:
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