by James Blish
The
grossly misshapen, semi-bestial forms of the demons had also vanished. The metropolis instead appeared to be peopled now chiefly by human beings, although their appearance could scarcely be described as normal. Male and female alike, they were strikingly beautiful; but their beauty swiftly became cloying, for except for sexual characteristics they were completely identical, as though they were all members of the same clone - one which had been genetically selected out to produce creatures modelled after the statuary fronting public buildings, or the souls in the Dante illustrations of Gustav Doré. Both sexes wore identical skirted tabards made of some grey material which looked like papier-mâché, across the breasts of which long numbers had been woven in metallically glittering script
A second and much less numerous group wore a different uniform, vaguely military in cast, an impression reinforced by the fact that these were mostly to be seen standing stiffly at street intersections. Heroic in mould though the majority were, the minority were even more statuesque and their common Face was evenly pleasant but stern, like that of an idealized father
The others wore no expression at all, unless their very expressionlessness was a reflection of acute boredom – which would not have been surprising, for no one of this class seemed to have anything to do. The work of the metropolis, which seemed to be exclusively that of producing that continual, colossal din, went on behind the blank facades apparently without need of any sentient tending or intervention They never spoke. As the four pilgrims moved onward towards the centre of the city, they passed frequent exhibitions of open, public sexuality, more often than not in groups; at first Jack Ginsberg regarded these with the liveliest interest, but it soon faded as it became apparent that even this was bored and pleasured.
There were no children; and no animals
Initially, the travellers had hesitated, when the two magicians had discovered that with the transformation they could no longer trust to Dante to show them the way, and Baines’s memory of the aerial photographs had become similarly useless. They had proceeded more or less by instinct towards the centre of the din. After a while, however. they found that they had been silently joined by four of the policing demons, though whether they were being led or herded never did become clear. The grimly ambiguous escort heightened the impression of a guided tour of some late nineteenth-century world-of-tomorrow which was to include awe-inspiring visits to the balloon works, the creches, the giant telegraph centre and the palace of folk arts, only to wind up in a corrective discipline hospital for the anti-social.
It was as though they were being given a preview of what the future of humanity would be like under demonic rule – not wholly unpredictable as a foretaste, but in content as well, as if the demons were trying to put the best possible face on the matter. In so doing, they had ingenuously embodied in their citadel nothing worse than a summary and epitomization of what pre-Apocalyptic, post-industrial Man had been systematically creating for himself. St Augustine, Goethe and Milton all had observed that the Devil, by constantly seeking evil, always did good, but here was an inversion of that happy fault: A demonstration that demons are at their worst when doing their best.
Many of Baines’s most lucrative ideas for weaponry had been stolen bodily, through the intermediary of the Mamaroneck Research Institute from the unpaid imaginations of science-fiction writers, and it was he who first gave voice to the though::
‘I always thought it’d be hell to actually have to live in a place like this,’ he shouted. ‘And now I know it.’
Nobody answered him; but it was more than possible that this was because nobody had heard him.
But only the veritable Hell is for ever. After some unknown but finite time, they found themselves passing between the Doric columns and under the golden architrave of that high capital which is called Pandemonium, and the brazen doors folded open for them.
Inside, the clamour was muffled to a veiled and hollow booming, for the vast jousting field that was this hall had been made To hold the swarming audience for a panel of a thousand, but there was no one in it now besides themselves and the demon soldiers but one solitary, distant, intolerable star:
Not that subsidiary triumvir PUT SATANACHIA the Sabbath Goat who had promised himself to them, and they to him, on Black Easter morn;
But that archetypal dropout, the Lie that knows no End, the primeval Parent-sponsored Rebel, the Eternal Enemy, the Great Nothing itself
SATAN MEKRATRIG
There was of course no more Death Valley sunlight here, and the effect of an implacably ultramodern city with its artificial gasglow glare was also gone. But the darkness was not quite complete. A few cressets hung blazing high in mid-air, so few that their light was spread evenly throughout the great arch of the ceiling, like the artificial sky of a planetarium dome simulating that moment between dusk and full night when only Lucifer is bright enough to be visible yet. Towards that glow they moved, and as they moved, it grew.
But the creature, they saw at last, was not the light, which shone instead upon him. The fallen cherub below it was still very nearly the same immense, brooding, cruelly deformed, angelic face that Dante had seen and Milton imagined: triple-faced in yellow, red and black, bat-winged, shag-pelted and so huge that the floor of the great hall cut him off at the breast – he must have measured five hundred yards from crown to hoof. Like the eyes, the wings were six, but they no longer beat frenziedly to stir the three winds that froze Cocytus; nor now did the six eyes weep. Instead, each of the faces – the Semitic Ignorance, the Japhetic Hatred, the Hamitic Impotence-was frozen in an expression of despair too absolute for further grief.
The pilgrims saw these things, but only with half an eye, for their attention was focused instead upon the light which both revealed and shadowed them:
The terrible crowned head of the Worm was surmounted by a halo.
13
The demonic guards had not followed them in, and the great Figure was motionless and uttered no orders; but in that hollowly roaring silence, the pilgrims felt compelled to speak. They looked at each other almost shyly, like School children brought to be introduced to some king or president, each wanting to be bold enough to draw attention to himself, but waiting for someone else to break the ice. Again nothing was said. but somehow agreement was arrived at: Father Domenico should speak first.
Looking aloft, but not quite into those awful countenances, the white monk said:
‘Father of Lies. I thought it was my mission to come here and compel thee to speak the truth. I arrived as if by miracle, or borne by faith; and in my journeyings saw many evidences that the rule of Hell on Earth is not complete. Nor has that Goat your prince yet come for me, or for my … colleagues here, despite his threat and promise. Then I also saw the election of your demon Pope, the very Antichrist that PUT SATANACHI A said had been dispensed with, as unnecessary to a victorious demonry. I concluded then that God was not dead after all, and someone should come into thy city to assert His continuing authority.
‘I stand before thee impotent – my very crucifix was shattered in my hands on Black Easter morning – but nevertheless I charge thee and demand that thou shalt state thy limitations, and abide the course to which they hold thee.’
There was no answer. After a long wait made it clear that there was not going to be. Theron Ware said next:
‘Master, thou knowest me well. I think; I am the last black magician in the world, and the most potent ever to practise that high art. I have seen signs and wonders much resembling those mentioned by Father Domenico, but draw from them rather different conclusion. Instead, it seems to me that the final conflict with Michael and all his host cannot be over yet – despite the obvious fact that thou hast won vast advantages already. And if this is true, then it is perhaps an error for thee to make war upon mankind, or for them to make war on thee, with the greater issue still in doubt. Since thou art still granting some of us some favours of magic, there must still exist some aid which we might
give thee. Hence I came here to find out what that aid might be and to proffer it, if it were within my powers.’
No answer. Baines said sullenly:
‘I came because I was ordered. But since I’m here, I may as well offer my opinion in the matter, which is much like Ware’s. I tried to persuade the human generals not to attack the city, but I failed. Now that they’ve seen that it can’t be attacked – and I’m sure they noticed that you didn’t wipe out all their forces when you had the chance – I might have better luck. At least I’ll try again, if it’s of any use to you.
‘I can’t imagine any way we could help you carry the war to Heaven, since we were no good against your own local fortress. And besides. I prefer to remain neutral. But getting our generals off your back might relieve you of a nuisance, if you’ve got more serious business still afoot. If that’s not good enough, don’t blame me. I didn’t come here of my own free will.’
The terrible silence persisted, until at last even Jack Ginsberg was forced to speak.
‘If you’re waiting for me, I have no suggestions.’ he said. ‘I guess I’m grateful for past favours, too, but I don’t understand what’s going on and I didn’t want to get involved. I was only doing my job, but as far as my private life goes, I’d just as soon be left to work it out for myself from now on. As far as I’m concerned, it’s nobody’s business but my own.’
Now, at last, the great wings stirred slightly; and then, the three faces spoke. There was no audible voice, but as the vast lips moved, the words formed in their minds, like sparks crawling along logs in a dying fire.
‘O yee of little faith.’ the Worm set on,
‘Yee whose coming fame had bodied forth
A hope archemic even to this Deep
That Wee should be amerced of golden Throne,
The which to Us a rack is, by thine alchymie.
Is this thy sovran Reason? this the draff.
Are these sollicitations all the surn
And sorrie Substance of thine high renoune?
Art thou accomplisht to so mean an end
After such journeyings of flame and dole
As once strook doun Heav’n’s angels? Say it so,
In prosie speach or numerous prosodie,
Wee Will not be deceav’d; so much the rather
Shall Wee see yee rased from off the bord
Twixt Hell and Heav’n, as the fearful marine,
Ingled by the wave ’mongst spume and rock,
Sees craft and hope alike go all to ruin.
Yet yields up not his soul than Wee shall yield
The last, supreame endeavour of this fearfull Jarr.
‘Yet how to body forth to thy blind eyes,
Who have not poets’ blindnesse, or the night
Shed by black suns, ‘thout which to tell the tale
Of Earth its occupation by the demon breed
Is sole remaining hearth, but to begin?
O ‘suaging Nigh?, console Mee now! and hold
My Demy-godhood but a little while
Abeyanc’d from its death in Godhood’s dawn!
‘O yee of little faith. Wee tell thee this:
Indeed our God is dead; or dead to us.
But in some depth of measure beyond grasp
Remains His principle, as doth the sight
Of drowsy horoscoper, much bemus’d
By vastnesses celestial and horrid
To his tinie system, when first he rooks
Through the optic glass at double stars,
Some residuum apprehend; so do we now.
O happie matrix! for there is naught else
That all are left with. It in this inheres.
That Good is independent, but the bad
Cannot alone survive; the evil Deed
Doth need the Holie Light to lend it Sense
And apprehension; for the Good is free
To act or not, while evill hath been will’d
Insensate and compulsive to bring Good
Still greater highths unto, as climber see’th
From toil and suff’ring to th’uttermost Alp,
Best th’unattainable islands of the skye.
‘In this yee Sinners are in harmonie,
Antient and grand, though meanlie did yee move
About your severall ends Since first this subject.
Thou, thaumaturgist Blacke, and thou,
O merchant peccant to the deaths of fellowe men,
Contrived in evill all thy predecessors human.
But save Judas I was wont to gnaw before,
T’outdo, by willingnesse to plunge
All mankinde in a nights’s Abysse
Only for perverse aesthetick Joyce
And Thrill of Masterie, there then ensu’d
That universall Warr in which the victorie
Hath faln to Hellish host, so Wee rejoyc’d;
Yet hold! for once releas’d from Paynes
Decreed to be forever, all our Band
Of demons foul, who once were angels bright
Conceiv’d in simpler time and ever since
Entomb’d amidst the horrors of the Pit.
Did find the world of men so much more foul
E’en than in the fabulous reign of witches
That all bewilder’d fell they and amazed.
Yet after hastie consult, they set to.
To preach and practise evill with all pow’r.
Adhering to grounded rules long understood.
A Greshamite oeconomium.
But eftsoons
That vacuous space where once Eternall Good
Had dwelt demanded to be filled. Though God
Be dead. His Throne remains. And so below
As ‘twas above, last shall be first, and Wee.
Who by the Essenes’ rule are qualified
Beyond all remaining others, must become –
In all protesting agonie – the chief
Of powers for Good in all the Universe
Uncircumscribed; but let yee not forget.
Already Good compared to such as thee.
Whose evill remains will’d! And as for Us.
What doth it matter what Wee most desire?
While chained in the Pit. Wee were condemn’d
To be eternall, but paroll’d to Earth
Were once more caught by Change; and how
Could Wickednesse Incorporeal grow still worse?
And so, behold! Wee are a God.
But not
Perhaps The God. Wee do not know the end.
Perhaps indeed Jehovah is not dead.
But mere retir’d, withdrawn or otherwise
Contracted hath, as Zohar subtle saith,
His Essence Infinite; and. Epicurean, waits
The outcome vast with vast indifference.
Yet natheless His universe requires
That all things changing must tend t’ward His state.
If, then, wee must proclaim His Rôle historic
Abandond in Deific suicide,
Why this felo de Se except to force
That part on Man – who fail’d it out of hand?
Now, as Wee sought to be in the Beginning,
SATAN is God; and in Mine agonie
More just a God and wrathfuller by far
Than He Who thunder’d down on Israel!
‘Yet not for ever, though our rule will seem
For ever. Man, O Man, I beg of you,
Take, O take from mee this Cup away!
I cannot bear it. You, and onely you.
You alone, alone can God become,
As always He intended. This downfall
Our mutual Armageddon here below
Is punishment dire enough, but for your Kinde
A worse awaits; for you must rear yourselves
As ready for the Resurrection. I
Have slammed that door behind; yours is to come.
On that far future Day. I shall be there,
T
he burning Keys to put into your hands.
‘I, SATAN MEKRATRIG. I can no longer bear
This deepest, last and bitterest of all
My fell damnations: That at last I know
I never wanted to be God at all;