Operation Chaos

by Poul Anderson

  After a while they were drowned out by the one was tracing. Wolves have stronger stomachs than people, but I began to gag. When finally I reached the source, I held my breath while looking in.

  The dull blue glow from the fingers over the entrance picked out little more than highlights in the cubicle. Marmiadon was asleep on a straw pallet. He wore his robe for warmth; it was grubby as his skin. Otherwise he had some hardtack, a ferry can of water, a cup, a Johannine Bible, and a candle to read it by. He must only have been leaving his cell to visit an oubliette down the tunnel. Not that it would have made any large difference if he didn't. Phew!

  I backed off and humanized. The effluvium didn't strike me too hard in that shape, especially after my restored reasoning powers took charge. No doubt Marmiadon wasn't even noticing it any more.

  I entered his quarters, hunkered, and shook him. My free hand drew the knife. "Wake up, you."

  He floundered to awareness, saw me, and as did. I must have been a pretty grim sight, black-clothed where I wasn't nude and with no mercy in my face. He looked as bad, hollow-eyed in that corpse-light. Before he could yell, I clapped my palm over his mouth. The bristles of unshavenness felt scratchy, the flesh doughlike. "Be quiet," I said without emphasis, "or I'll cut your guts out."

  He gestured agreement and I let go. "M-m-mister Matuchek," he whispered, huddling away from me till the wall stopped him.

  I nodded. "Want to talk with you."

  "I?How?In God's name, what about?"

  "Getting my daughter home unharmed."

  Marmiadon traced crosses and other symbols in the air. "Are you possessed?" He became able to look at me and answer his own question. "No. I could tell?"

  "I'm not being puppeted by a demon," I grunted, "and I haven't got a psychosis. Talk."

  "Bu?bu?but I haven't anything to say. Your daughter? What's wrong? I didn't know you had one."

  That rocked me back. He wasn't lying, not in his state. "Huh?" I could only say. He grew a trifle calmer, fumbled around after his glasses and put them on, settled down on the pallet and watched me.

  "It's holy truth," he insisted. "Why should I have information about your family? Why should anyone here?"

  "Because you've appointed yourselves my enemies," I said in renewed rage.

  He shook his head. "We're no man's foe. How can we be? We hold to the Gospel of Love." I sneered. His glance dropped from mine. "Well," he faltered, "we're sons of Adam. We can sin like everybody else. I admit I was furious when you pulled that . . . that trick on us . . . on those innocents?"

  My blade gleamed through an arc. "Stow the crap, Marmiadon. The solitary innocent in this whole miserable business is a three-year-old girl, and she's been snatched into hell."

  His mouth fell wide. His eyes frogged.

  "Start blabbing," I said. w

  For a while he couldn't get words out. Then, in complete horror: "No. Impossible. I would never, never?"

  "How about your fellow priests? Which of them?"

  "None. I swear it. Can't be." I pricked his throat with the knife point. He shuddered. "Please. Let me know what happened. Let me help."

  I lowered the blade, shifted to a sitting position,, rubbed my brow, and scowled. This wasn't according, to formula. "See here," I accused him, "you did your best to disrupt my livelihood. When my life itself is busted apart, what am I supposed to think? If you're not responsible, you'd better give me a lot of convincing."

  The initiate gulped. "I . . . yes, surely. I meant no harm. What you were doing, are doing?it's sinful. You're damning yourselves and aiding others to do likewise. The Church can't stand idle. More of its ministers volunteer to help than don't."

  "Skip the sermon," I ordered. Apart from everything else, I didn't want him working up enough to stop being dominated by me. "Stick to events. You were sent to abet that mob."

  "No. Not- Well, I was on the list of volunteers. When this occasion arose, I was the one allowed to go. But not to . . . do what you say . . . instead to give aid, counsel, spiritual guidance?and, well, yes, defend against possible spells?Nothing else! You were the ones who attacked."

  "Sure, sure. We began by picketing, and when that didn't work. We started on trespass, vandalism, blockade, terrorizing?Uh-huh. And you were so strictly acting as a private citizen that when you failed, your superiors comforted you and you're back at your regular work already."

  "My penance is for the sin of anger," he said.

  A tiny thrill ran along my spine. We'd reached a significant item. "You aren't down here simply because you got irritated with us," I said. "What'd you actually do?'

  Fear seized him afresh. He raised strengthless hands. "Please. I can't have?No." I brought my knife close again. He shut his eyes and said fast: "In my wrath when you were so obdurate, I laid a curse on your group. The Curse of Mabon. My reverend superiors?I don't know how they knew what I'd done, but adepts have abilities?When I returned here, I was taxed with my sin. They told me the consequences could be grave. No more. I wasn't told there . . . there'd been any. Were there really?"

  "Depends," I said. "What is this curse?"

  "No spell. You do understand the distinction, don't you? A spell brings paranatural forces to, to bear, by using the laws of goetics. Or it summons nonhuman beings or?It's the same principle as using a gun, any tool, or whistling up a dog, Mr. Matuchek. A prayer is different. It's an appeal to the Highest or His cohorts. A curse is nothing except a formula for asking Them to, well, punish somebody. They do it if They see fit?it's Them alone?"

  "Recite it."

  "Absit omen! The danger!"

  "You just got through saying it's harmless in itself."

  "Don't you know? Johannine prayers are different from Petrine. We're the new dispensation, we've been given special knowledge and divine favor, the words we use have a potency of their own. I can't tell what would happen if I said them, even without intent, under uncontrolled conditions like these."

  That was very possibly right, I thought. The essence y of Gnosticism in the ancient world had been a search for power through hidden knowledge, ultimately power, over God Himself. Doubtless Marmiadon was sincere in denying his church had revived that particular concept. But he hadn't progressed to adept status; the, final secrets had not been revealed to him. I thought reluctantly, that he wasn't likely to make it, either, being at heart not a bad little guy.

  My mind leaped forward. Let's carry on that idea, I thought in the space of half a second. Let's assume the founders of modern Gnosticism did make so discoveries that gave them capabilities not known before, results that convinced them they were exert direct influence on the Divine. Let's further suppose they were mistaken?deceived?because, hang it, the notion that mortals can budge Omnipotence is unreasonable. What conclusion do these premises lead us to? This: that whether they, know it or not, the blessings and curses of the Johannines are in fact not prayers, but peculiarly subtle and powerful spells.

  "I can show you the text," Marmiadon chattered, "you can read for yourself. It's not among the forbidden chapters."

  "Okay." I agreed.

  He lit his candle and opened the book. I'd glanced at Johannine Bibles but never gotten up the steam to get through one. They replaced the Old Testament with something that even a gentile like me considered blasphemous, and followed the standard parts of the New with a lot of the Apocrypha, plus other stuff whose source never has been identified by reputable scholars. Marmiadon's shaky finger touched a passage in that last section. I squinted, trying to make out the fine print. The Greek was paralleled with an English translation, and itself purported to render the meaning of a string of words like those in the canticles upstairs.

  Holy, holy, holy. In the name of the seven thunders. O Mabon of righteousness, exceeding great, angel of the Spirit, who watcheth over the vials of wrath and the mystery of the bottomless pit, come thou to mine aid, wreak sorrow upon them that have done evil to me, that they may know contrition and afflict no longer the servants of the hidden t
ruth and the Reign that is to come. By these words be thou summoned, Heliphomar Mabon Saruth Gefutha Enunnas Sacinos. Amen. Amen. Amen.

  I closed the book. "I don't go for that kind of invocation," I said slowly.

  "Oh, you could recite it aloud," Marmiadon blurted. "In fact, an ordinary communicant of the Church could, and get no response. But I'm a toiler. A summoner, you'd call it. Not too high-ranking or skillful; nevertheless, certain masteries have been conferred."

  "Ah, s-s-so!" The sickening explanation grew upon me. "You raise and control demons in your regular line of work?"

  "Not demons. No, no, no. Ordinary paranatural beings for the most part. Occasionally a minor angel."

  "You mean a thing that tells you it's an angel."

  "But it is!"

  "Never mind. Here's what happened. You say you got mad and spoke this curse, a black prayer, against us. I say that knowingly or not, you were casting a spell. Since nothing registered on detectors, it must've been a kind of spell unknown to science. A summons to something from out of this universe. Well, you Johnnies do seem to 've acquired a pipeline to another world. You believe, most of you, that world is Heaven. I'm convinced you're fooled; it's actually hell."

  "No," he groaned.

  "I've got reason, remember. That's where my kid was taken."

  "She couldn't have been."

  "The demon answered your call. It happened that of the Nornwell people around, my wife and I had the?one household exposed that night to his action. So the revenge was worked on us."

  Marmiadon squared his puny shoulders. "Sir, I don't deny your child is missing. But if she was taken . . . as an unintended result of my action . . . well, you needn't fear."

  "When she's in hell? Supposing I got her back this minute, what'll that place have done to her?"

  "No, honestly, don't be afraid." Marmiadon ventured to pat my hand where it clenched white-knuckled around the knife. "If she were in the Low Continuum, retrieval operations would involve temporal phasing. Do you know what I mean? I'm not learned in such matters myself, but our adepts are, and a portion of their findings is taught to initiates, beginning at the fourth degree. The mathematics is beyond me. But as I recall, the hell universe has a peculiar, complex space-time geometry. It would be as easy to recover your daughter from the exact instant when she arrived; there as from any other moment."

  The weapon clattered out of my grasp. A roar went through my head. "Is that the truth?"

  "Yes. More than I'm canonically allowed to tell you?"

  I covered my face. The tears ran out between my fingers.

  "?but I want to help you, Mr. Matuchek. I repent my anger." Looking up, I saw him cry too.

  After a while we were able to get to business. "Of course, I must not mislead you," he declared. "When I said it would be as easy to enter hell at one point of time as another, I did not mean it would not be difficult. Insuperably so, indeed, except for our highest adepts. No geometers are alive with the genius to find their way independently through those dimensions.

  "Fortunately, however, the question doesn't arise. I just wanted to reassure you enough so you'd listen to the real case. It may be that your daughter was removed in answer to my curse. That would account for the displeasure of my superiors with me. But if so, she's under angelic care."

  "Prove it," I challenged.

  "I can try. Again, I'm breaking the rules, especially since I'm under penance and you're an unbeliever. Still, I can try to summon an angel." He smiled timidly at me. "Who knows? If you recant, your girl could be restored to you on the spot. A man of your gifts and energy would make a wonderful convert. Conceivably that's been God's purpose right along." '

  I didn't like the idea of a Calling. In fact, I was bloody well chilled by it. Marmiadon might think the creature that arrived was from Heaven. I didn't. But I was prepared to dace worse than devils on this trip. "Go ahead."

  He turned his Bible to another passage I didn't recognize. Kneeling, he started to chant, a high-pitched rise and fall which sawed at my nerves.

  A wind blew down the tunnel. The lights didn't go out, but a dimness came over my eyes, deepening each second, as if I were dying, until I stood alone in a whistling dark. And the night was infinite and eternal; and the fear left me, but in its place there fell the suddenly remembered absolute despair. Yet never had I known a grief like this-not the three times before, not when Valeria was taken, not when my mother died-for now I had reached in the body the final end of every hope and looked upon the ultimate emptiness of all things; love, joy, honor were less than as they had never been, and I stood hollow as the only existence in hollow creation.

  Far, far away a light was kindled. It moved toward. me, a spark, a star, a sun. I looked upon the vast mask of a face, into the lifeless eyes; and the measured voice beat through me:

  "The hour is here. Despite the afreet, the salamander, the incubus, and mortal man, your destiny has endured, Steven. It was not my will or my planning. I foresaw you would be among my keenest enemies in this cycle of the world, the danger that you would wreck my newest great enterprise. But I could not know what would bring you to confront my works: the thoughtless call of one fool, the rash obedience of another. Now you would seek to storm my inner keep.

  "Be afraid, Steven. I may not touch you myself, buts I have mightier agents to send than those you met before. If you go further against me, you go to your destruction. Return home; accept your loss as humbly as befits a son of Adam; beget other children, cease meddling in public matters, attend solely to what is your own. Then you shall have pleasure and wealth, and success in abundance, and your days shall be long in the land. But this is if you make your peace with me. If not, you will be brought down, and likewise those you care for. Fear me."

  The sight, the sound, the blindness ended. I sagged, wet and a-reek with sweat looking stupidly at Marmiadon in the candlelight. He beamed and rubbed his hands. I could scarcely comprehend him:

  "There! Wasn't I right? Aren't you glad? Wasn't he glorious? I'd be down on my knees if I were you, praising God for His mercy."

  "Hu-u-uh?" dragged out of me.

  "The angel, the angel!"

  I shook myself, as if I'd come from wild waters that nearly drowned me. My heart was still drained. The world felt remote, fragile. But my brain functioned, in a mechanical fashion. It made my lips move. "I could have seen a different aspect of the being. What happened to you?"

  "The crowned head, the shining wings," he crooned. "Your child is safe. She will be given back to you when your penitence is complete. And because of having been among the blessed in her mortal life, she will become a saint of the true Church."

  Well, trickled through my head this doubtless isn't the first time the Adversary's made an instrument of people who honestly believe they're serving God. What about Jonathan Edwards, back in old New England? "The floors of hell are paved with the skulls of unbaptized children." Who really was the Jehovah he called upon?

  "What did you experience?" Marmiadon asked.

  I might or might not have told him my revelation. Probably not; what good would that have done? A sound distracted us both?nearing footsteps, words.

  "What if he hasn't been here?"

  "We'll wait for some hours."

  "In this thin garb?"

  "The cause of the Lord, brother."

  I stiffened. Two men coming: monks, from the noise of their sandals; big, from its volume on the stone. The adept I met upstairs must have grown suspicious; or Marmiadon's invocation and its effect had registered elsewhere; or both. If I got caught?I'd been warned. And my existence was beyond price, until I could get home the information that might help rescue Val.

  I turned the flash on myself. Marmiadon whimpered as I changed shape. It's well I was in a hurry. Wolf, with wolf passions, I'd have torn his throat apart for what he'd done if there'd been time. Instead, I went out in a single gray streak.

  The pair of monks didn't see me through the gloom until I was almost on them
. They were beefy for sure. One carried a stick, the other a forty-five automatic. I darted between the legs of the latter, bowling him over. His buddy got a crack across my ribs with his cudgel. Pain slowed me for a moment. A bone may have been broken. It knitted with the speed of the were condition and I dashed on. The pistol barked. Slugs whanged nastily past. If they included argent rounds, a hit would stop me. I had to move!

  Up the stairs I fled. The friars dropped from sight. But an alarm started ahead of me, bells crashing through the hymns. Did my pursuers have a walkie-talkie ball with them? Produced at Nornwell? I burst into the first-floor hallway. There must be other exits than the main door, but I didn't know them. A wolf can travel like bad news. I was through the curtain which screened off the choir vestry before any nightshifter had glanced out of an office or any sleepy monk arrived from another section.

  The church was in a boil. I cracked the door to the aisle sufficiently for a look. The chant went on. But folk ran about in the nave, shouting. More to the point, a couple of them were closing doors to the vestibule. I couldn't get out.

  Feet slapped floor in the corridor. The Johnnies weren't certain which way I'd skited, and were confused anyhow by this sudden unexplained emergency. Nevertheless, I'd scant time until someone thought to check here.

  A possible tactic occurred to me. I didn't consider the wherefores of it, which a wolf isn't equipped to do. Trusting instinct, I slapped the switch on my flash with a forepaw. The blue entry-room lights didn't interfere with my reverting to human. Darting back to the vestry, I grabbed a surplice and threw it over my head. It fell nearly to my feet. They stayed bare, but maybe no one would notice.