Gather Darkness

by Fritz Leiber

  Hands fumbled in pouches. The plates passed up and down. Metal clinked in.

  The priest on the center aisle had worked back almost to the end. As he reached once again for the plate, now grown heavy, the commoner holding it seemed to pull it away from him a little. The priest reached out farther, grasped it, and—because he was glaring suspiciously at the commoner who had been so awkward—handed it without looking toward the row across the aisle. He felt it taken from him and dropped his hand. Then he noted something queer in the expression of those around him—perhaps he heard the faint initial gasp of surprise—and he turned around.

  The first commoner across the aisle had indeed reached out to take the plate, but before he could quite get his hand on it, another force had taken it from the priest. The commoner shrank back, goggling.

  The plate hung unsupported in the air.

  The priest quickly grabbed for it. It eluded his fingers, moving higher.

  He grabbed again, standing on tiptoes. The plate kept just out of reach.

  Suddenly conscious of dignity, he stopped grabbing and stared around at the gawking faces, including a red-headed fellow four rows back, who seemed if anything more oafishly dumfounded than the rest.

  His attention instantly returned to the hanging plate, when it jogged up and down sharply, so that the coins jangled and one or two dropped out.

  More and more commoners were staring at it.

  Abruptly it shot off and upward, describing a gleaming curve in the gloom, and overturned, spilling a shower of coins on the commoners below. It fell a distance with the coins, then righted itself, and again hung quietly.

  With admirably quick wit, perhaps thinking this a demonstration of which his superiors had neglected to inform him, the priest cried, "Lo! A miracle! The Great God gives of his infinite bounty! To each he gives as each deserves!"

  Instantly, in response to his last words, the plate swooped toward him, intent on braining him. He ducked, then quickly looked up. The plate reversed its course and made another swoop. Again he ducked, and this time he did not look up. The plate came to a sudden stop over his bowed head, like a halo of brass, and then dropped downward, thumping his shaven pate twice with audible clanks.

  The priest bellowed with pain and surprise, and remembered at last to switch on his inviolability.

  The plate retreated upward and hung.

  There were already the beginnings of a panic—or riot. One whole section of commoners was grubbing around under the benches for fallen coins. Others were crowding in fear toward the entrance. While the majority were staring upward, excitedly nudging each other.

  In response to a hurried order, the organist started a loud, solemnly booming melody. That would have been a good idea, except that it did not stay solemn. With a discordant bray, its rhythm changed and quickened, until—as the organist stared horrifiedly at the score and continued to press the keys in frantic bafflement—there squawked from the golden throats the seductive swing of something that all of the priests and many of the commoners recognized as the latest ditty to find popularity in the houses of the sisterhood.

  Radiations stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system are tricky things, encouraging instinctive, animal responses. Only a few at first, but swiftly more—the commoners began to sway, to writhe, to whirl and dance in quasi-religious ecstasy, yelping, screaming, panting, grunting like animals, as if this were one of the mammoth revivals and not an ordinary religious service.

  In a side aisle, a group of them careened into a priest, upsetting the collection plate he was still holding, sending coins spinning in all directions. There was more scrambling and crawling under benches. Many of those on the floor forgot to look for coins and began to roll, groaning and howling with devout fervor. Some embraced.

  Then the organ began to laugh insanely, mechanically, and the hanging collection plate began to swoop about, skimming heads, like a brass bat, finally darting toward the altar and dashing itself with a clang against the image of the Great God. At that, a sizable portion of the crowd broke in panic and rushed toward the door.

  There was an ear-splitting roar—not from the organ. Those in flight came to a dead stop. The less intoxicated dancers looked around frightenedly. Everywhere people cringed from the sound.

  Then a stern voice filled the Cathedral:

  "Move not a step! There is an imp of Satan in this place. Each commoner must be examined to see if he be the sinful one—the one possessed. Return to the benches. He who moves toward the door will feel the Great God's wrath!"

  Substantiating this statement, a dozen black-robed deacons filed in to block the wide, high-arched doorway, each bearing a rod of wrath.

  The Black Man, in the van of the fleeing crowd, felt a sudden change in his emotions, indicating that the parasympathetic radiations had been replaced by the sympathetics. That was not altogether a wise move. Although the remaining dancers and rollers stopped almost instantly, the sympathetics were favorable to fear. The crowd surged forward unevenly, like animals about to stampede. The rods were lifted. The crowd came to a nervous halt.

  The Black Man's right arm, bent at his side, moved a little, feeling for contact. He leaned a little to the left to balance the weight of the force pencil.

  A deacon toward the center of the line turned suddenly on the man beside him, rubbing his elbow. His whisper was audible: "Watch out, you clumsy fool!" The other deacon turned on him as suddenly. "You bumped me!"

  A similar altercation started toward the end of the line. There were more angry words. Others joined in. Then actual pushes, shoves, raised fists, threats—for deacons were not trained to be as gentlemanly as priests.

  And still the imp of discord moved among them, setting them against each other. The sympathetics, as favorable to anger as to fear, played their part. Fists struck out. The line of deacons tied itself into a struggling knot of men, each enraged against the rest. Some dropped their rods. Others used them as dubs.

  This mysterious brawl, and the fact that a way of escape now lay open, was enough for the fear-skittish crowd. In a great ragged wave it poured out of the Cathedral.

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  Chapter 8

  Up from the black infinite abyss of sleep shot the archpriest Goniface.

  First a dream. A dream so deep, so primal, that it lacked vision and sound. Horror. A writhing in darkness that was himself. Restraint. Himself struggling futilely against it. Deep, pricking pain. Something essential being cut from him, to be used against him. It was his secret, his one and only weakness. It could destroy him. A spasm of convulsive, futile and horror-stricken writhing.

  Then a more definite dream. He wandered among the corpses of those he had killed because they knew his secret. Very white and stiff and still they seemed, each laid out on its table under a glaring light, and he felt very safe. Then, three tables away, one sat up suddenly. An immature girl with dark hair streaming over her marble shoulders. She pointed at him and her mouth opened and she said, "Your name is Knowles Satrick. You are the son of a priest. Your mother was a Fallen Sister. You have transgressed the most jealously enforced law of the Hierarchy. You are an impostor." He ran toward her, to force her down again and shut her mouth. But just as his fingers touched her, she slipped away from him. Around and between the tables he pursued her. Some were overturned. He stumbled over his mother's corpse. Around and around. Staggering. Gasping. And still she eluded him, crying all the while in a loud voice, "Drag down the archpriest Goniface! His name is Knowles Satrick! His father was a priest!" And the mouths of all the corpses opened and they began to cry loudly, "Knowles Satrick! Priest's son!" until the whole world was screaming it at him and there were a thousand hands upon him. And suddenly he was a boy again, and his mother was bitterly muttering, "Priest's son!" to shame him.

  Then memories, close to the surface of awakening. The white, upturned face of his half sister, Geryl, with the dark hair streaming upward around it, as she fell from the bridge into the d
ark, distant torrent below. His secret wholly safe at last. Then the Apex Council Chamber and the solidographic miniature of a mature woman, whose purpose as he had glimpsed on the face of that immature girl, as she fell toward the torrent. The same face. Geryl. Sharlson Naurya. His secret come alive.

  Then illusion. He was where he should be, in his chamber at the Sanctuary. Gray darkness let him see the outlines of the room and silhouetted, at the foot of his bed, a grotesque anthropoid shape, skinnier than any monkey, but furry-seeming. Only for a moment was it visible. It dropped out of sight, and there came the faintest pattering of tiny paws.

  Then complete wakefulness. He sat up, breathing a little heavily, his eyes refamiliarizing themselves with the shape of his room, putting every object in its right place in the semidarkness. Odd, how that last brief dream had reproduced the outlines of his room almost as they were in reality. But there were dreams like that. Perhaps the rural priests, with their talk of furry things which squatted on their chests, had been responsible for that last dream-imagining.

  He fancied a slight pain in his back—another dream echo.

  Unpleasant, that memories of his past deeds should sometimes pry their way into his dreams. But that was the way the human mind was constituted. Nothing could ever be wholly forgotten.

  And what difference did it make? The secret of his birth was no longer of great importance. It had been, when he was a First Circle priest. But now he was too powerful to be dragged down, or even seriously endangered, by any such accusation.

  Still, if Geryl had actually escaped, and if Geryl were Sharlson Naurya, and if the Moderates got their hands on her, they could make it embarrassing for him. Best that Deth should find her and put her out of the way.

  It seemed she was in the Witchcraft. Did the Witchcraft, then, know of her relationship to him and plan to use her against him? If that were true, why had she been spirited away? What good was she, except to accuse him openly of being a priest's son and having entered the Hierarchy illegitimately?

  As Goniface pondered, the range of his thinking widened, until, almost before he was aware of it, he was surveying in imagination the vast empire of the Hierarchy.

  Out there in the darkness—and on the day-side of Earth, too—something was gnawing at that empire, as mice might gnaw at the strands of some vast net. The New Witchcraft, every day growing bolder. Creeping from farmland to town and from town to city. Only yesterday striking in the Cathedral itself.

  Most of all, his thoughts were concerned with the problem of the Witchcraft's leadership. Out there, somewhere, was a mind daring enough to challenge the Hierarchy. Beyond all else, the identity of that mind fascinated Goniface. Did it come from beyond Earth? That was barely conceivable. Or should he look for it closer at home?

  One of the televisor panels beside his bed flashed on and there appeared the face of one of the Fourth Circle priests on duty at Web Center.

  "I am sorry to disturb your archpriestship—" the priest began.

  "What is it?"

  "It began approximately an hour ago. A sudden, sharp increase in all manifestations of the Witchcraft. Communications have been coming in from all over the planet. There have been panics in several rural sanctuaries and at least two have been deserted by their occupant priests. There is a confused and ambiguous message from Neodelos. Beasts of some sort, or phantasms of beasts, have been reported in and about our own city. Many local priests report hallucinations—or persecutions of some sort—and clamor for treatment. There has been a riot or panic in the dormitory of the novices."

  "Can you inform me," inquired Goniface, "if the countermeasures covering this type of emergency have been put into action?"

  The face in the televisor nodded. "To the best of my knowledge, they have. But the Chief of Communications desires to consult with you. Shall I flash him on?"

  "No," said Goniface. "I'll come down."

  The televisor flicked off. Goniface touched a switch and soft light flooded his spacious cell, with its Spartan luxury.

  He rose quickly from the couch, then—moved by a sudden impulse—looked back.

  He immediately remembered the stinging pain he had felt momentarily in his dream.

  For near the center of the couch, on which he had lain, was another echo from his dream—an echo of a very different sort.

  A small spot of blood.

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  Chapter 9

  The second night of fear had settled on Megatheopolis, imparting a shuddering menace to the curfew-darkness and the curfew-silence. That day special prayers had been addressed to the Great God, both in the Cathedral and the chapels, for protection against the forces of evil. Tales of strange phantasms, which last night had defied even priests, were whispered everywhere. More commoners had clamored to confess their sins than the priests could take care of. Before being dispersed, an hysterical mob had torn to pieces two old crones, known to be witches. Each man looked with suspicion on his neighbor, wondering if he might not be in league with Sathanas. An hour before curfew, the streets were almost deserted.

  Along those mazy streets, staying close to the squat rooftops, the Black Man floated, relishing the atmosphere of terror and suspense, just as an actor enjoys knowing that the play in which he has a part is going well. Over the Cathedral, the halo of the Great God glowed with a double brilliance, and the whole Sanctuary was ablaze with lights. A few streets away the search beam of a patrol of deacons moved about restlessly. But in between all was darkness.

  As a swimmer in darkness, the Black Man moved, poling himself along by varying the direction and intensity of the pencils of force emanating from his forearms. The repulsor field generated by the garment he wore, skintight over his whole body, was sufficient to counteract gravity at this slight elevation. The field also had the property—save at points over sense organs—of absorbing an radiant energy that impinged upon it. This radiant energy in turn helped power the field.

  Technically he was off duty. An hour ago he had finally been relieved at the telesolidograph by another operator—there was a shortage of operators now that they had two projectors working—and had satisfied himself that as much of the general plan as he knew was progressing satisfactorily. But after that, like an actor who is off stage for a time, he had been unable to resist the temptation to sneak out in front and see how the play was going.

  He had an excuse of sorts. Word had come from Mother Jujy that Armon Jarles intended this night to attempt to recontact the New Witchcraft. Meanwhile, Mother Jujy was retiring into her tunnels "until the mob gets a little less frisky."

  Of course, he could have sent someone to pick up Armon Jades at Mother Jujy's. But with a man as peculiarly stubborn as Armon Jarles, it was well to let him take the initiative. And it was dramatically more pleasing that Armon Jarles should go to the appointed rendezvous on the edge of the Great Square, the spot where he had been cast out by the Witchcraft.

  Meanwhile, he trailed him, to make sure he didn't get into trouble, hovering noiselessly above while Armon Jarles, clad as a lowly commoner, stole furtively through the narrowest streets and alleys, seeking the deepest shadows, stepping carefully to avoid the mouths of drains, stopping at intervals to spy warily for patrols, frequently glancing over his shoulder, but quite unaware of his guardian demon overhead.

  They were nearing the Great Square. The Black Man was tempted to put an end to this rather purposeless pilgrimage, but was held back by his love of dramatic denouements. The fun would be over soon enough.

  Bobbing violet rings warned of the approach of two priests bound on some nocturnal mission. Jarles hesitated, then shrank back into a narrow passageway between two buildings. The Black Man sank gently to the edge of the roof above, alert for emergencies.

  But the two priests hurried unconcernedly on. As they neared the passageway, the Black Man felt a start of pleasure. He had recognized the smaller, dumpier priest as the little fellow whom he had so thoroughly scared, in front of the haunted ho
use, with the Black Veil, and later, inside the place, with a nastily animated couch. His feeling toward Brother Chulian was one almost of affection. It would be too bad to miss this opportunity. Naurya said the little priest had been inordinately frightened by Puss, her familiar. It would only take a moment to switch off his repulsor field, set Dickon riding on the end of his force pencil—Dickon would like that—and dangle him in front of Chulian's face.

  Almost before he had decided to, it was done. A tiny anthropoid shape was slanting down through the darkness toward the bobbing halos. The Black Man's mind was all mischief.

  Then—ominous windy rushing in the darkness overhead and the emptiness of dismay at the pit of his stomach before he had time to reason why.

  Wrench of his neck, as he slewed around to look behind and above, from where he rested on the edge of the roof.

  Then—one frozen instant.

  One frozen instant to damn himself as an adolescent prankster who would walk into any trap so long as it was baited with an opportunity for a practical joke, to think, with poignant intensity, of what a swift blotting out was in store for the Witchcraft, if it were all manned by as reckless and negligent fools as himself.

  One frozen instant to comprehend the thing swooping toward him. Its rigid, manlike form—but twice as long as a man. Legs stiffly extended, like a diver's. Arms threateningly outstretched, fingers spread like talons. Huge sculpturesque face, framed by great golden curls, handsome with the superhuman, unearthly beauty of some heroic painting, visible in a faint glow from the stern, staring eyes, which could flash forth death if they willed.

  An angel.

  Then—one whirling instant.

  One whirling instant to repower his repulsor field, launching himself simultaneously down into the street—the angel was too close to permit a try over the roofs.

  One whirling instant to swerve frantically from side to side of the street, like a low-lurking hawk pounced upon in turn by an eagle; to see the two priests ahead stop, but not time enough to see them turn around; to see slim Dickon, hurled from the force pencil, drop lightly near the mouth of a drain; to dart suddenly and swiftly upward toward the rooftops—but not suddenly or swiftly enough; to sense the angel banking upward with him and just above him; to feel its impact—stunning even though almost parallel to his own upward course; to feel, through his repulsor field, the cruel clutch of its mechanical arms, that were its grapples.