“ASMODEUS says we’re stepping up the pressure, Drick. Tonight the wolves come to Megatheopolis. Just sniff around the outskirts at first, but they’ll get bolder afterward. Beginning at midnight, telesolidographs in all key cities will be working twenty-four hours a day. We should have our second one set up here by then. You boys can operate it in shifts. Fun. But watch out for eyestrain. Meanwhile, all covens are to put everyone they’ve got on second-stage persecutions of priests of the top four circles. Here are the tapes listing the basic individual fears of susceptible priests holding key positions. You can attend to distribution.”
The Black Man shoved across the desk a box packed with tiny wheel-shaped containers. The other young man-short, burly, shrewd-faced, and wearing a similar black tunic-glanced at the identifications on them and snapped the box shut.
“I’d like to know where Asmodeus gets such detailed information,” added the Black Man, rubbing his darkcircled eyes. “If I were religious, I’d say he was the Great God-he knows so much about the Hierarchy.”
Drick leaned forward. “Maybe he’s in the Hierarchy.”
The Black Man nodded, frowning thoughtfully. “Maybe.
Maybe.”
Drick looked at him queerly.
“I’m not Asmodeus, Drick. I’m not even sure that I’m top man in Megatheopolis, though I do seem to be the first to get instructions.”
“From where?” Drick put his hand on the box. “A thing like this. It’s a physical link. You had to get if from someone.”
“Surely.” The Black Man smiled, a little wearily. “It’s logical to assume, if I walk into this room and find a box on ray desk, that I got it from someone. But whom?”
“That’s how it came?”
The Black Man nodded.
Drick shook his head, dubiously. “We sure do a lot on trust.”
The Black Man chuckled. “Still, there are advantages to the arrangement. If any one of us is caught, he won’t be able to give the whole show away, even if he’s-persuaded to.”
“They haven’t caught any of us yet.” Drick sounded a trifle cocky. The Black Man looked up at him slowly, his impish face suddenly dead serious. “You’re not, by any chance, thinking that’s because they can’t? You’re not doubting that they haven’t spotted some of us, and are just waiting to get an angle on the higher-ups before they pull in the net?”
Drick looked a trifle taken aback. He frowned. “No, I’m not.” He picked up the box and stood up. Then he remembered something. “I’ve been with Sharlson Naurya. She’s getting restive. Doesn’t like being cooped up here.”
“Asmodeus” orders again. He’s got something up his sleeve-a special job for her when the right moment comes. Spend some tune with her, Drick, if you get the chance. Entertain her.”
“Now those,” said Drick, “are pleasant instructions.” “Better not set your hopes too high, though. I fancy we’ll have a certain renegade priest back with us shortly.”
“Mother Jujy’s patient? He’s changed his mind?”
“Changing, I think.”
Drick nodded. “Not a bad fellow. And I guess Naurya does favor him.” In the doorway he looked back suddenly. The Black Man had slumped a little and was rubbing his eyes. “Oh, say,” Drick suggested casually, “if things are going to be much tougher from tonight on, why not take yourself a six-hour vacation while you’ve got the chance?”
The Black Man nodded. “Not a bad idea.”
After Drick was gone, he sat looking at the wall.
“Not a bad idea,” he repeated.
Somewhere far off a mighty bell began to toll. A mischievous smile slowly crept into his lips. He frowned and shook his head, as if putting away a temptation. The bell continued to toll. The smile forced its way back. He shrugged his shoulders and jumped up. He seemed all energy now. From a closet in the wall he took a rather thick, black sheath, that suggested in part a coil or network of wires, and bound it to his right forearm. On a cabinet across the room was a shallow brass bowl, with some flowers floating in it. He pointed his right hand at it, experimentally, seeming to feel for some kind of contact. The bowl rocked slightly, rose an inch or two off the table, and suddenly upset, spilling water and flowers. He smiled satisfiedly. To his left arm he bound a different sort of sheath, one with keys which he could touch by bending his fingers across his palm. He fiddled with the cabinet, setting some music going-a solemn melody. Then he backed away, moved his left arm as if again feeling for some sort of contact, and began to finger the keys. The solemn music squawked, became discordant, changed into something raucous.
From a rack in the closet he took down the costume of a commoner-coarse, long-sleeved smock, leggings, boots, hood.
A thin, muffled, piping voice, without apparent source, commented, “Up to tricks again! I suppose I’ll have to do all the hard work!”
“For that, Dickon, my little familiar, I think I’ll leave you at home,” said the Black Man. The great bell had ceased to toll, but its reverberations seemed to linger on unchanging, like some mysterious message from eternity. Hushed and reverent commoners almost filled the Cathedral-a place of vast and pleasant gloom, aglow with soft rosy lights and the glitter of gold and jewels, the air swimming with sweet incense. Priests hurried softly up and down the aisles, slack robes swishing silkily, bound on mystic errands.
The Black Man made the customary ritualistic obeisances and hunched himself into an aisle seat on one of the rear benches, just opposite the gleaming wonder of the organ, from whose golden throats soft music had begun to breathe, blending itself with the fancied reverberations of the bell. He seemed half stupefied, sunk in an ignorantly groping meditation, chewing his tongue as if it were an animal’s cud, piously brooding on his sins.
There descended upon him a feeling of peace and wellbeing, greater than could be accounted for by the warm gloom, the misty lights, the soothing music and incense. But since he knew it was due to radiations which depressed his sympathetic, and stimulated his parasympathetic nervous system, he could disregard the influence-indeed, enjoy it. If he had any lingerings of nervousness, the radiations nullified them. Covertly he noted their effect on the others-the loosening of work-taut muscles, the smoothing of worried frowns, the stupid dropping of jaws.
“Great God, master of Heaven and Earth, priest of priests, whose servant is the Hierarchy-“
A devout, half-chanting voice pulsed through the lustrous dimness. From behind the altar, lights blared upward like muted trumpets, revealing the image of the Great God, which seemed a diminished reflection of the vaster image atop the Cathedral. The commoners bowed their heads. From them rose, like a tired sigh, a mumbled response. The service had begun. The pious atmosphere deepened, as response followed droning response. There was only one suggestion of a hitch-when a number of older commoners automatically responded to the “Hasten your New Golden Age” line, which had been recently cut from the service. The priest on the rostrum was replaced by an older one, who began to preach. His voice was marvelously flexible, one moment stern as wrath itself, as sweetly soporific as dugged honey the next. His words were admirably suited to the mentality of his audience. Not one could fail to hit its mark.
He spoke, as usual, of the hard lot of commoners and of the never-ceasing endeavors of the priesthood to alleviate their sin-begotten misery. He painted a simple, compelling picture of a universe in which only endless toil could expiate the evil taint inherited from the Golden Age and so keep damnation at bay.
Then all the honey went out of his voice, as he began to speak of a matter more pressing and closer at hand-the increasing boldness of Sathanas and his imps. There was a subdued scraping of feet and friction of homespun on benches, as the commoners shifted around to listen more intently. He told them that the boldness of Sathanas was entirely due to their own increasing sinfulness, warned them of the dire fate in store for those who did not repent and improve, and commanded each man to keep close watch upon his neighbor.
“… for none may say from where sinfulness will next spring. Its seeds are everywhere, and Sathanas waters and manures them daily. Beyond all else he loves that crop. The Hierarchy can smite down Sathanas when it wills. But there is no merit for you in such a victory, unless each of you tears Sathanas from his heart and keeps the seeds of sin dry and sterile.”
On this note of stern and ominous warning, the sermon ended. First Circle priests appeared at the head of the aisles, bearing gleaming plates, and yet another priest entered the rostrum to exhort the people to contribute as much as they felt able to the coffers of the Hierarchy. Such free gifts had a special virtue.
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 redheaded 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 earsplitting 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 Sathanas 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, higharched 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 clubs.
This mysterious brawl, and the fact that a way of escape now lay open, was enough for the fearskittish crowd. In a great ragged wave it poured out of the Cathedral.