Cloister

In Mayhem 1989 I heard from Lawrence Watt-Evans, a novelist whose work I had admired in the past. I had also encountered him in the fannish press, and admired him there too; he's a liberal of my own stripe. I met him once at a convention too. This time he was turning his hand to editing: Would I contribute a story to his volume titled Newer York? Every story was to be about the city of New York.

Now I hate big cities, and New York is one of the biggest. But I try to oblige decent folk. So I agreed to do a story. As you will see, I was unable to give the city much respect.

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The Abbot heard the heavy thumping of feet long before the monk arrived in the chamber.

He set down his quill and waited with resignation, knowing the news was bound to be bad.

"The kings—the queens!" the monk exclaimed as he burst in. "They have formed an evil alliance! They—they—oh, horrors!"

The Abbot stood and walked to the embrasure, gazing out as he gave the monk time to collect his composure. "The kings and queens do have a certain recurring attraction for each other," he said. "But since they are inveterate sexists and feminists, it seldom comes to much. I really am in some doubt as to how they maintain their populations."

"But this time they have obtained financing from the rich men, and have captured and broken broncs for their mounts," the monk gasped. "They are crossing the East River, and soon will advance on this very monastery!"

"Now what would they want with our impoverished island?" the Abbot asked reasonably.

"We are the citadel of literature and learning, the last surviving outpost of civilization as we once knew it. None of them have interest in such things; their horizons are limited to material quests." Still, he peered out the stone slit, worried. The monastery was constructed like a fortress, but the monks were creatures of contemplation and piosity, not warfare. This cloister could not withstand an organized attack.

"They mean to convert it to the manufacture of male hats," the monk said. "It seems there is a profitable market."

"But the Isle of York has no materials with which to make hats," the Abbot protested. "All we have are our vellum manuscripts, our invaluable scrolls of learning—" He broke off, experiencing a surge of sheerest horror. "You don't mean—?"

"They mean to use our vellum for hats," the monk said. "They say there is enough of it to make a thousand hats, which will enable them to turn a sizable illicit profit."

This was worse than he had imagined. The priceless scrolls being sacrificed for man hats on kings and rich men! "We can not suffer this desecration!" the Abbot said firmly.

"But how can we prevent it?" the monk asked rhetorically. "There are a hundred kings under the leadership of Brook and ninety-nine queens led by Lyn, and three rich men led by Miser Staten with bags of gold on their broncs, advancing on our citadel. We have only twenty able-bodied monks, and most of them are pacifists."

How well the Abbot knew it! Now he saw the vanguard marching from the south: a phalanx of armored kings, and another of gaudily garbed queens. The sunlight flashed from their massed crowns, causing the entire line to sparkle. If the doughty monks managed to secure the ramparts against the bold kings, the sexy queens were all too apt to seduce them into capitulation, or the broncs to blow down the doors with their breaking of wind: the so-called bronc's cheer. About the only defense was to blindfold the monks—but then they would not be able to defend against the onslaught of the kings. This was a truly devastating alliance!

"I'm very much afraid the time has come for the ultimate ploy," the Abbot said.

"You don't mean—?"

"The Sphere," the Abbot said grimly.

"But that will change reality as we like to think we know it!" the monk protested.

"It will indeed. But it seems to be the only way we can prevent our enemies from turning our scrolls into hats and our plowshares into swords."

"But it's so risky!"

"Yes. That is why I have not used it in a decade. But the time has come to do what we must do, for the sake of civilization."

The monk nodded, trying to mask his unmonkly fear. "I will notify the others," he said. "We shall pray for your success, and that it will not be too bad this time."

"I appreciate that," the Abbot said. They all knew the stakes, and how great the risk was.

Then, before he could lose his nerve, he went to the locked chamber in the highest pinnacle of the cloister. He brought out the great key, unused in ten years, and wedged it into the corroding lock. He half hoped he would not be able to get the door open, but though it squeaked noisily in complaint, it finally yielded.

Within, shrouded by dust, was the dread device. It did not look threatening. It was a translucent sphere about the size of a medicine ball, set on a firm table. Above, beside and before it were three markers, each fixed on a supportive framework. Each marker could be moved with respect to the Sphere. From each extended a line that penetrated the Sphere.

One went down, another went across, and the third went deep. Where the three intersected was the vertex of reality.

Who had made this thing the Abbot had no idea. It had been at the cloister as long as anyone knew, and as long as records existed. They assumed that the first Abbot, centuries before, had somehow crafted it, with due help from the Eternal, and left it to be used only in dire necessity. Certainly it was the reason the cloister had survived so long, while literacy and civilization faded in the rest of the world. When destruction of the cloister, or degradation of its mission seemed inevitable, the Sphere had been there to save them.

There was no violence and no subterfuge; it was the ultimate pacifistic defense.

What it did was set the mortal sphere of existence. It was the device that determined which aspect of reality, of all that existed, was physical. Within it was the universe, in all its possibilities, and where the three lines crossed, the current reality was defined.

A decade before, barbarians had marched on the cloister, seeking to ravish and loot it. The Abbot had saved it by using the Sphere to shift to an aspect of reality that rendered the barbarians into horses. They had lost their intelligence, such as it was, and settled down to graze in their territory of broncs, representing no further hazard. Prior threats had shifted avaricious invaders to rich men, who had then lost their interest in the poor spoils the cloister offered. Similarly, on other occasions before the Abbot's time, the kings and queens had come about, their overweening ambitions satisfied by making them all royal.

None cared about learning, but that had been a net advantage, for they saw nothing appealing in the stored scrolls of the cloister.

But now, with this horrible notion of making a profit from the substance of the scrolls, the threat was back, and once again the mortal sphere would have to be shifted. The Abbot wished he had more time, for this was no light matter. The wrong setting could make their situation much worse. The Sphere had no effect on the cloister itself, only on the surrounding world, but that surrounding realm was treacherous. Each time reality shifted, it was necessary to go out with extreme caution to make new contacts, for the monks were not fully self-supporting and had to deal with the secular realm for sustenance. That was no pleasant effort.

But it had to be done, and without delay. Once the kings breached the walls, it would be too late, because then the shift of reality would not affect them, and they would be able to proceed without hindrance about their regressive business.

The Abbot nerved himself and touched the top marker. There was an eerie quaver in the surroundings as he did; though the immediate reality did not change, the mere touch of the Sphere shifted the external reality, and that sent a sympathetic shudder through the region.

This marker determined, as nearly as he had been able to ascertain, the political framework; by moving it, he could ensure that York would dominate the region. So he shifted it to a new York setting, that should be stronger than the old York. That should mean that the kings and queens and rich men would still be there, but would honor allegiance to York. Indeed, the glow marking the vertex expanded greatly: that suggested enormous secular power. The Abbot didn't want to be greedy, but was tired of the constant problems resulting from weakness and poverty.

But any change in reality caused other changes. He saw by the dimming of the point that the level of literacy and learning had declined. That was no good; it was time to have the very highest level. He moved the side marker until the point glowed like a miniature star.

The cloister was now the very center of the literary cosmos, as well as being politically powerful.

But the color was bad. What use to achieve power and learning, if the realm lost its soul?

So he adjusted the front marker, whose line penetrated through the very depth of the Sphere, to recover the soul: the essence of this region, its true character. In a moment the color became so intense it was almost iridescent: The character of this new York was far more evident than the old one had been.

It was done. The Abbot stepped away from the Sphere and departed the chamber, carefully locking it behind him. He hoped never to have to do this again. Because the real challenge was not in moving the markers, but in dealing with the new reality beyond. What would he find outside, now?

He went to the nearest embrasure and peered out—and was astonished. The kings and queens had become gaudily dressed but seemingly harmless men and women, wandering around, peering at the gardens and terraces like so many tourists. What were they doing?

In the course of the next few hours the monks went out to survey the world of new York, and discovered that the settings were accurate: It was the capital not only of the five local territories, but of the whole world. Most of the rich men had left their section, but it was still called Richmons, or Richmond. The broncs had returned to human form, and called their region Bronx. The kings had assumed peasant garb and called their region Brooklyn, after an evident union between King Brook and Queen Lyn, but the queens at least had hung on to the original name for their portion. Whether this retained the character of the area was problematical, but the Abbot was prepared to concede that character was measured in things other than superficial appearance. As for learning: this isle now supported the greatest assemblage of scribes the world knew, and it exported texts at a phenomenal rate.

So the vertex was true.