Unsong

by Scott Alexander

  He fell so far and long that there was no point in waiting any further. He said a prayer. He visualized a structure in his mind’s eye, a complex kabbalistic structure of interlocking aspects of divinity and mortality beyond the power of any human but him to imagine. And then, his voice trembling only a little, he spoke the Explicit Name of God.

  It went like this:

  A tav.

  A resh.

  A fearsome joy.

  A fervent wish.

  The Comet King incanted HaMephorash.

  Nothing happened.

  A slight whirling of the smoke? Another hint of those flickering flames? Or were those just illusions? The Shem HaMephorash didn’t touch them. The Comet King frowned.

  He spoke the Name a second time, vocalizing every letter clearly and precisely, like the notes of a song. Somewhere high above him, dogs started barking. Babies began to cry. Clouds shattered like glass, huge waves appeared from nowhere and lashed against every coast. The archangel Uriel screamed and clutched his forehead, then started frantically drawing symbols in the air to calm storms that only he could see.

  But if the smoky realm below the pit was affected at all, it was only the tiniest perturbation, too minute for the Comet King to even be sure it had happened.

  Jalaketu’s eyes narrowed. He started tracing glyphs around him, arcane geometries to magnify his words and purify their impact. He wrote manically, and symbols in a hundred languages living and dead gleamed through the darkness and added their powers to his. He stood surrounded by a living web of power. Then, a third time, he spoke the Name of God.

  The sky turned red. The seas turned red. The sunlight became fractured and schizophrenic, like it was shining through stained glass. Trees exploded. Every religious building in the world, be it church or mosque or temple, caught fire at the same time.

  But the Comet King saw only little eddies in the darkness, like when a child blows a puff of air into the smoke of a bonfire.

  Now he was really angry. He spread himself across all the worlds and sephirot, drew all of their power into himself. The web of glyphs crackled and burned with the strain, pulsed from color to color at epileptic speed, shot off sparks like a volcano. The Comet King opened his mouth –

  “STOP”, said a voice. A bolt of lightning flashed through the smoke, and the archangel Uriel appeared beside him, flaming sword held high. “STOP, LEST THE ENERGIES YOU INVOKE DESTROY THE WORLD.”

  “Not going to destroy the world!” said the Comet King. He didn’t look remotely human at this point. His skin had gone night-black, his hair was starlight-silver, no one could have counted how many limbs he had. “Going to destroy Hell! Don’t deny me this, Uriel! You know it has to be done!”

  “YOU ARE NOT ENTIRELY IN HELL. YOU ARE ONLY SORT OF IN HELL. YOU ARE UNLEASHING THE ENERGY OF THE SHEM HAMEPHORASH PARTLY INTO THE ORDINARY WORLD. THERE ARE ALREADY TOO MANY CRACKS. SING AGAIN AND THE SKY WILL SHATTER.”

  “I’m trying to aim at Hell,” said the Comet King. “Not sure where I am…but it’s close. If I can get enough power…”

  “THEN YOU WILL SHATTER THE SKY,” said Uriel. “THIS IS NOT A MATTER OF POWER. WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS FUNDAMENTALLY ILL-ADVISED. STOP.”

  “This is the gate, Uriel! I passed through the gate! You saw me, they all saw me.”

  “THERE ARE MANY GATES. NOT ALL OF THEM ARE OPEN. YOU HAVE PASSED THROUGH ONE. YOU ARE STILL OUTSIDE OTHERS. IF YOU SAY THE SHEM HAMEPHORASH AGAIN YOU WILL DESTROY THE WORLD.”

  “Many gates? Uriel, we talked about this. We spent years researching. We both agreed that if we could get through the hole in Lake Baikal, we could break into Hell.”

  “YES. IT MADE SENSE AT THE TIME. NOW WE ARE HERE OBSERVING FIRST-HAND. I AM TELLING YOU THERE ARE MORE GATES THAN WE THOUGHT. SOME OF THEM ARE CLOSED. YOU CANNOT GET THROUGH THEM.”

  “If I just give it more power…”

  “THAMIEL IS A FACET OF GOD. BRUTE STRENGTH WILL NOT SUFFICE AGAINST HIM.”

  “This is the Shem HaMephorash! It’s literally the power of God Himself! There’s nothing that can stand up to it.”

  “YES. THAT IS WHY YOU ARE DESTROYING THE WORLD.”

  “Give me something to work with, Uriel!”

  “UM.”

  “Give me something to work with!”

  “GATES ARE VERY COMPLICATED.”

  “For the love of God, give me something to work with, Uriel!”

  “UM.”

  “Are you saying there is literally no way to destroy Hell even with the Explicit Name of God?”

  “UM.”

  “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “UM.”

  “Why would God do that? Why would He make a universe where the one thing it is absolutely one hundred percent morally obligatory to do is totally impossible, even if you do everything right, even if you get a weapon capable of destroying worlds themselves, who does that sort of thing?”

  “GOD,” said Uriel. “HE DOES MANY THINGS THAT ARE HARD TO EXPLAIN. I AM SURPRISED YOU HAVE NOT REALIZED THIS BY NOW.”

  “Who creates suffering that can never end? Who makes people, tells them to do the right thing, then pulls the rug out from under them when they try? I was supposed to be His sword, Uriel! I was Moshiach! He forged me, He and my father, put me through all of those trials so I could be worthy to be here today. Who forges a weapon like that and then keeps it sheathed? Why would God do that?”

  “STOP TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE WILL OF GOD,” said Uriel. “IT NEVER HELPS.”

  “So,” said the Comet King. His voice was icy calm now. “What do you propose I do?”

  “LET ME TAKE YOU HOME,” said Uriel.

  “No,” said the Comet King.

  “YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO LEAVE THIS PLACE ALONE,” said Uriel. “YOU HAVE CROSSED THROUGH TOO MANY GATES. NOT ALL OF THEM ARE AS EASY TO PASS IN THE OTHER DIRECTION.”

  “I’m not going, Uriel.”

  “PLEASE,” said Uriel. “SOME OF THE GATES MAY SHUT AGAIN, IN TIME. YOU WOULD BE TRAPPED DOWN HERE.”

  “So what? So you want me to give up? Lead a million men all the way to Siberia and let however many of them die and then just give up? Just because…”

  “IF YOU RETURN TO THE LIVING WORLD PERHAPS WE CAN FIGURE OUT A SOLUTION.”

  “You’ve already said! There’s no solution! Even the Explicit Name of God isn’t enough!”

  “I DO NOT THINK THERE IS A VERY GOOD CHANCE OF US FINDING A SOLUTION, BUT IT IS PROBABLY HIGHER IF YOU ARE WORKING HARD ON LOOKING FOR IT THAN IF YOU ARE TRAPPED FOREVER IN THE ANTECHAMBER OF HELL.”

  “Uriel. Give me something to work with.”

  “I AM GOING TO TAKE YOU OUT OF HERE NOW. I AM SURE YOU CAN FIGHT ME OFF IF YOU WANTED TO BUT I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT IF YOU DID NOT TRY.”

  The archangel reached out a gigantic hand and grabbed the Comet King. Then he rocketed upwards, fiery sword outstretched above him, clearing the smoke from their path. The darkness began to thin. A sense of orientation returned. At last a rush of information hit all of Jalaketu’s senses at once and he realized he was out of the pit, back above the earthly Lake Baikal.

  His men started to cheer. Some of them blew horns. A few started singing verses from the Battle Hymn. His heart sank. They think I succeeded, he thought to himself. Of course they think I succeeded. I’m the Comet King, here I am shooting out of the Abyss alive, being carried by an archangel, of course they think I succeeded. “No!” he shouted at the armies. “Stop! I failed! I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t destroy Hell! You brought me all this way, you trusted me, and I couldn’t do it! It’s all gone wrong! Stop singing! Stop singing! Stop!”

  Most of them couldn’t hear him, but a few caught the gist of his message. One by one, the songs wavered, but they didn’t die, his men still singing, sure that there must be something worth singing about. A few cried out, or raised banners, or started cheering on general principle.

  “Don’t bring me back to them,” the Comet King said, almost sobbing. “Tak
e me somewhere else…can’t face them, just now.” Uriel looked down at him, tilted his colossal head in a gesture of confusion. “Just for now,” he said. “Just for a few hours. Somewhere I can think. Give me time to think, Uriel.”

  The archangel deposited Jalaketu on a hill a few miles outside of camp. Then he gave a long sigh.

  “I’M SORRY,” he said.

  “No,” said the Comet King. He looked mostly human again now. “You did the right thing. Prevented me from destroying the world.”

  “YES,” said Uriel. “ARE YOU OKAY?”

  “Sort of. I need to think. It’s not a total loss. We still have the army. The military action went well. Better than expected. We can hold onto Baikal while we try to figure out where to go from here. I can convince people to…wait…oh no. Oh no.”

  “WHAT?” asked Uriel.

  “I just realized,” said the Comet King. “What am I going to tell my wife?”

  Interlude ר: The Shrouded Constitution

  It was February 2002, and America tottered above a precipice.

  The Comet King was dead. The Other King was busy mopping up the shreds of resistance in the American West. Singer riots had several cities aflame. BOOJUM’s reign of terror continued unabated. And President Bush had been assassinated by his own teleprompter.

  Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Rumors swirled around newly-sworn-in president Dick Cheney. They said that he was literally heartless, that his blood was pumped by a strange contraption connected to a battery pack strapped around his chest. They said that he carried the Sword of Chang, a Bush family heirloom that made its wielder invincible in political battles at the cost of a portion of his soul. They said he had a ranch down in Texas where he hunted the most dangerous game of all: man. They said that one day when he sat for Sunday services at St. John’s Church, the pastor had read from the Gospel of Matthew -“Who among you, if a child asks for bread, would give him a stone?” – and Cheney had stood up immediately and raised his hand until they informed him it was a rhetorical question.

  Cheney declared martial law. He smoked out the various nests of Singers and terrorists one by one the same methodical way he hunted quail. When people started protesting his heavy-handed tactics, he smoked them out too. He threw Colorado to the wolves for the sake of peace with the Other King, and peace with the Other King he got. His armies marched against the bandits haunting the Midwest – Paulus the Lawless, the Witch-King of Wichita – until one by one they lay down their arms in abject surrender to spend the rest of their lives in Guantanamo Bay.

  In 2004, he informed the country that there would be no need to trouble themselves with an election. When he was sworn in for a second term, he was observed to very carefully hold his hand hovering just above the Bible without touching it. The traditional medical examination was done, and he was declared fully human, apart from the thing with his heart. As far as anyone knew, he avoided touching Bibles just in case.

  Some accused him of desecrating the Constitution. President Cheney would have none of it. Nobody, he declared, respected the Constitution more than he did, and he would prove it. He decreed that out of respect for the Constitution, all copies of the document must henceforth be covered with a silken shroud and removed from human gaze, lest its sanctity be polluted by human sight, human touch, or human interpretation. Old pieces of parchment and modern civics textbooks alike were sealed away in places of honor, where they might be viewed only by those who had performed the necessary purification rituals. The image of Cheney reverently placing a pure white drape over the original Constitution in the National Archives became such a symbol of national unity that people started calling the federal government “Shroudies” by association.

  There were a lot of people who thought that America would never go for martial law. They were wrong. It was the mid-2000s, and America was exhausted. The libertarians had made freedom unbearable, the evangelicals had made faith unbearable, the social justice movement had made equality unbearable, the lawyers had made justice unbearable, loud people in Uncle Sam hats had made patriotism unbearable, and the entirety of capitalism over the last two centuries had made industry unbearable. Americans were sick of all the virtues and ready for a straightforward, no-nonsense villain. Cheney and all the other servants of the Shrouded Constitution were only too happy to provide.

  Chapter 56: Agony In The Garden

  Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,

  Do you know what I know?

  In your palace warm, mighty king,

  Do you know what I know?

  A child, a child shivers in the cold

  Let us bring him silver and gold

  — Noël Regney, Do You Hear What I Hear?

  August 1, 1999

  Colorado Springs

  Given the need to keep up spirits, Robin decided the people needed whatever holidays they could get. August 1, the anniversary of Colorado’s statehood, was as good an opportunity as anything else. So she stood on a rock spire in the Garden of the Gods as crowds – disproportionately female since a million men were marching in Siberia – listened for the words of their Queen Regent.

  The difference between a speech and a sermon had grown kind of thin ever since the state had become the seat of the Messiah in his war against Hell, so she began with a Bible verse. Psalm 84:

  “How lovely is your dwelling place,

  Lord Almighty!

  My soul yearns, even faints,

  for the courts of the Lord;

  my heart and my flesh cry out

  for the living God.

  Even the bird has found a home,

  and a nest for herself.

  “This place has always been so beautiful. That’s what I’ve always wanted. Everywhere to be as beautiful as here. Someday, I want everywhere in Colorado to be a garden and everywhere to be holy. The song spoke of ‘purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain’ and ‘alabaster cities undimmed by human tears’. I want that. I want to make the deserts bloom, and the forests rich and wild. I want new heights of art and science. I want new symphonies and new folk songs. I want new infrastructure, new parks, new buildings and monuments that are the envy of the world. I want everybody to be able to live the life they want, whether in the cities or in the wilderness. I want to cure disease, end poverty, create a new and better kind of civilization. You all want the same. And it’s not just that the Comet King can do it, though he can. It’s that all of us can do it. We’re the right people. At the right time.

  “But we haven’t been doing any of this. And we’re not going to for a long time. Because it’s not the most important thing.”

  She continued from the Psalm:

  “Blessed are those whose strength is in you,

  whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.

  As they pass through the Valley of Weeping,

  they make it a place of springs

  “William Blake said that what we do in time echoes in Eternity, but he was being metaphorical. I’m not. What we do here now echoes in Eternity. The past twenty years, instead of building new roads and cities and better lives for our children, we’ve been building a war machine. A really, really good war machine. Not because we’re bad people who don’t love peace. Because some wars are important. Every other war has been fought over land or money or religion or something earthly. Something that disappears. This war we’re fighting now echoes in Eternity. If we win, we end eternal suffering. We save your mothers and fathers, your grandparents, all your ancestors back to Adam, from eternal suffering. And not just them. In a hundred years, we’re saving our friends, our families, our children, and maybe ourselves. There are so many things we want, so many things we need to do, but as soon as we realized the enormity of the evil below our feet, we realized there wasn’t anything else we could do. Not really. Against such horrors, everything else must be put to the side as we join a fight which we could not avoid and stay fully human.

  “This is an apology and a call to arms. It’s an apology for
all the beautiful and wonderful things we could have been doing the past twenty years, that we could be doing now, that will go undone because we are on a crusade. And it’s a call to arms to keep working, to keep Colorado running while our friends and family are away, because we’re in the crusade too, crusading on the home front, and nothing we could possibly do is more important than this.

  “The Comet King has given us so much. But not as much as he’s asked us to sacrifice. We’re sacrificing everything right now, our dreams, our hopes of a better life – because we trust him. And because we trust ourselves to know what’s right. If we succeed, then literally through all Eternity people will remember our names. Ten million years from now, when the world is so different that no other memories remain, people will still know that there was once eternal suffering, but now their suffering is ended. Because of us.

  “Hear my prayer, Lord God Almighty;

  listen to me, God of Jacob.

  Look on our shield, O God;

  look with favor on your Anointed One.”

  She climbed down the pillar to rapturous applause, posed for the necessary photo ops, made her way through the crowd towards where Father Ellis and Nathanda were waiting for her.

  Jalaketu was with them. He was hidden under a dark cloak, but she recognized him immediately.

  “A word alone?” he asked, when he saw her.

  Robin almost shouted with delight, then jumped in to hug him. “I thought you weren’t going to come back until the crusade was over!” she said. “I thought it cost you too much energy to keep teleporting back and forth!” She worried her smile was so broad she looked like an idiot, but she didn’t care. “This is such a surprise! We need – ”

  The look on his face shut her up. This was not a personal visit, and whatever the news was, it wasn’t good.

  She took his hand, and the two of them turned to lightning and then were atop a different spire, on the other side of the Garden, far from everyone else.

  “Bad news?” she asked. “We heard…we heard you destroyed Yakutsk. We got the pictures and everything. What’s wrong?”

  Jala nodded. “The other part,” he said. “Seems to be…ah…seems to be…”