“It is just you,” Schuld said, “feeling the outer darkness pressing in upon you, finally.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Pete said, straightening. “If you’re so damn gone on that dippy religion, why don’t you join it? Go bow down before the civil servant who gave the order that screwed things up! Model plaster busts of him from Tiber’s murch! Play bingo at his feet! Hold raffles and Day of Wrath benefit picnics, too, while you’re at it! You’ve still got a lot to learn, and that will all come later. But in the meantime, I just plain don’t give a shit!”
Schuld roared with laughter.
“Very good, Pete! Very good!” he said. “I’m glad the rigor mortis has left your tongue intact. And you’ve reminded me of something I must go do now myself.”
Schuld trudged off into the bushes, still chuckling.
“Damn that man!” Pete said. It is hard to keep recalling that he saved my life and that love is the name of the game. What has gotten into him that he is becoming my cross for today! That air-cooled, fuel-injection system with its absolutely balanced compression and exhaust cycle now seems aimed at running me down, backing over the remains to make it a perfect squash and leaving me there as flat and decorative as Tiber’s murch. I am just going to refuse to talk to him if he starts in again.
“Why did he get that way all of a sudden?” Pete said, half to himself.
“I think that he has something against Christianity,” Tibor said.
“I never would have guessed. Funny, though. He told me religion doesn’t mean much to him.”
“He did? That is strange, isn’t it?”
“How do you see what he was talking about, Tibor?”
“Sort of the way you do,” Tibor said. “I don’t think I give a shit either.”
Then they heard the howl, ending in a brief, intense yelp and a very faint whine. Then nothing.
“Toby!” Tibor screamed, activating the battery-powered circuit and driving his cart in the direction of the cry. “Toby!”
Pete spun about, raced to catch up with him. The cart broke through a stand of bushes, pushed past the gnarled hulk of a tree.
“Toby …” he heard Tibor say, as the cart screeched to a halt. Then, “You—killed—him—”
“Any other response would not have been personally viable,” he heard Schuld’s voice reply. “I maintain a standard reactive posture of nullification against subhuman forms which transgress. It’s a common experience with me, this challenge. They detect my—”
Flailing, the extensor lashed out like a snapped cable and caught Schuld across the face. The man stumbled back catching hold of a tree. He drew himself erect then. His helmet had been knocked to the ground. Rolling, it had come to a halt beside the body of the dog, whose neck was twisted back at an unnatural angle. As Pete struggled to push his way through the brush, he saw that Schuld’s lip had opened again and blood fell from his mouth, running down his chin, dripping. The head wound he had mentioned was also visible now, and it too began to darken moistly. Pete froze at the sight, for it was ghastly in the half-shadows and the ever-moving light from the fire. Then he realized that Schuld was looking at him. In that moment, an absolute hatred filled him, and he breathed the words, “I know you!” involuntarily. Schuld smiled and nodded, as if waiting for something.
But then Tibor, who had also been watching, wailed, “Murderer!” and the extensor snapped forward once more, knocking Schuld to the ground.
“No, Tibor!” Pete screamed, the vision broken, “Stop!”
Schuld sprang to his feet, half of his face masked with blood, the more-human half wary now, wide-eyed and twisting toward fear. He turned and began to run.
The extensor snaked after, took a turn about his feet, tightened and lifted, sending him sprawling once more.
The cart creaked several feet forward and Pete raced about it.
By the time he reached the front, Schuld had risen to his knees, his face and breast a filthy, bloody abomination.
“No!” Pete shouted again, rushing to interpose himself between Tibor and his victim.
But the extensor was faster. It fell once more, knocking Schuld over backward.
Pete rushed to straddle the fallen man and raised his arms before Tibor.
“Don’t do it, Tibor!” he cried. “You’ll kill him! Do you hear me! You can’t do it! For the love of God, Tibor! He’s a man! Like you and me! It’s murder! Don’t —”
Pete had braced himself for the blow, but it did not come. Instead, the extensor plunged in from his left and the manual gripper seized hold of his forearm. The cart creaked and swayed at the strain, but Pete was raised into the air—three, four feet above the ground. Then, suddenly, the extensor moved like a cracking whip and he was hurled toward a clump of bushes. He heard Schuld’s moaning as he fell.
He was scratched and poked, but not severely jolted, as the shrubs collapsed to cushion him. He heard the cart creaking again. Then, for several moments, he was unable to move, tangled and enmeshed as he was. As he struggled to free himself, he heard a bubbly gasp, followed by a rasping, choking sound.
Tearing at the twigs and limblets, he was finally able to sit up and behold what Tibor had done.
The extensor was projected out and up, rigid now as a steel pole. Higher above the ground than Pete himself had dangled, hung Schuld, the gripper tight about his throat. His eyes and his tongue protruded. The veins in his forehead stood out like cords. Even as Pete stared, his limbs completed their Totentanz, fell slack, hung limp.
“No,” Pete said softly, realizing that it was already too late, that there was nothing at all that he could do.
Tibor, I pray that you never realize what you have done, he thought, raising his hand to cover his eyes, for he was unable to close them or move them. It was planned, Tibor, planned down to the last detail. Except for this. Except for this… It was me. Me that he wanted. Wanted to kill him. Him. At the last moment, the very last moment, he would have shouted. Shouted out to you, Tibor. Shouted, “Ecce! Ecce! Ecce!” And you would have known, you would have felt, you would have beheld, as he desired, planned, required, the necessary death, at my hands, of Carleton Lufteufel. Hanging there, now, all blood and dirt, with eyes that look straight out, forever, across the surface of the world—he wanted me to do that for him, to him, with you to bear witness, here and forever, here and in the great murch in Charlottesville, to bear witness to all the world of the transfiguration of a twisted, tormented being who desired both adoration and punishment, worship and death—here revealed, suddenly, as I slew him, here transfigured, instantly, for you, for all the world, at the moment of his death—the Deus Irae. And God! It could have happened that way! It could have. But you are blinded now with madness and with hate, my friend. May they take this vision with them when they go, I pray. May you never know what you have done. May you never. May you never. Amen.
Seventeen
Rain ... A gray world, a chill world: Idaho. Basque country. Sheep. Jai alai. A language they say the Devil himself could not master…
Pete trudged beside the creaking cart. Thank the Lord it was not difficult, he thought, to convince Tibor that Lufteufel’s place was nowhere near the spot Schuld had said it was. Two weeks. Two weeks, and Tibor is still hurting. He must never know how close he really was. He sees Schuld now as a madman. I wish that I could, too. The most difficult thing was the burial. I should have been able to say something, but I was as dumb as that girl with the broken doll in her lap we passed the next day, seated there at the crossroads. I should have managed some sort of prayer. After all, he was a man, he had an immortal soul… Empty, though, my mouth. My lips were stuck together. We go on… A necessary errand of fools. So long as Tibor can be made to feel that Lufteufel is still somewhere ahead, we must go on. Forever, if it comes to that, looking for a man who is already dead. It was Tiber’s fault, too, to think that God’s vision could indeed be captured, to believe that a mortal artist could daub an epiphany with his colors. It was wrong, it was
presumption of the highest order. Yet… He needs me now more than ever, shaken as he is. We must go on… where? Only God knows. The destination is no longer important. I cannot leave him, and he cannot go back—He chuckled. “Empty-handed” was the wrong term.
“What’s funny?” Tibor said, up on the cart.
“Us.”
“Why?”
“We haven’t the sense to get out of the rain.”
Tibor snorted. Proper as he was, he commanded a somewhat better view than Pete.
“If that is all that concerns you, I see a building down the hill. It looks like part of a barn. We may be nearing a settlement. There seems to be something more in the distance.”
“Let’s head for the barn,” Pete said.
“We are already soaked. Can’t get any wetter.”
“This isn’t doing your cart any good.”
“That is true. All right. The barn.”
“A painter named Wyeth liked scenes like that,” Pete said when the shelter came into his view, hoping to route Tiber’s thoughts away from his brooding. “I saw some of his pictures in a book once.”
“Rainscapes?”
“No. Barns. Country stuff.”
“Was he good?”
“I think so.”
“Why?”
“His pictures looked exceptionally real.”
“Real in what way?”
“The way things actually look.”
Tibor laughed.
“Pete,” he said, “there are an infinite number of ways of showing how things actually look. They are all of them right, because they show it. Yet each artist goes about it differently. It is partly what you choose to emphasize and partly how you do it. It is plain that you have never painted.”
“True,” Pete said, ignoring the water running down his neck, pleased to have gotten Tibor talking on a subject that held more than a little of his attention. Then a peculiar thought struck him.
“Such being the case,” he said suddenly, “if—when we find Lufteufel, how will you fulfill your commission honestly, properly, if there are an infinite number of ways you might go about it? Emphasis means showing one thing at the expense of another. How will you get a true portrait that way?”
Tibor shook his head vigorously.
“You misunderstood me. There are all those ways of doing it, but only one is the best.”
“How do you know which one it is?” Pete asked.
Tibor was silent for a time. Then, “You just do,” he said. “It feels—appropriate.”
“I still don’t understand.”
Tibor was silent again.
“Neither do I,” he finally said.
Inside the barn there was straw. Pete unhitched the cow and she munched it. He closed the door. He lay back in the straw and listened to the rain.
God! I’m tired! It has been a long pair of weeks, he thought. Haven’t called Abernathy since right after it happened. Nothing new to say, though. Go on, he told me. Do not let Tibor know. Lead him through the land. Continue to search. My prayers go with you. Good night.
It was the only way. He saw that clearly now. There was a sweetish smell to the damp straw. A tangle of stiff leather hung from a nail overhead. Rain dripped from several holes in the roof. A rusted machine occupied a far corner. Pete thought of the beetles and the Great C extension, of the autofac and the twisted trail from Charlottesville; he thought of the card game that night, with Tibor, Abernathy, and Lurine; and of Tiber’s sudden grasping at the faith; he thought of Lurine; he recalled his vision of Deity above the hook, and as suddenly that of the lidless-eyed regarder of the world and all in it; Lufteufel, then, hung high, dark, hideous in his ultimate frustration; he thought of Lurine…
He realized that he had been asleep. The rain had stopped. He heard Tiber’s snores. The cow was chewing her cud. He stretched. He scratched himself and sat up.
Tibor watched the shadows among the overhead beams. If he had not taken back the arms and legs, he thought, I could never have killed that strange man, that hunter, that Jack Schuld. He was too strong. Only the manipulators could have served. Why leave me with the devices that would help me kill? For a while things seemed to be going so well… It seemed as if everything were near to completion, as if a few days more would have seen a successful end to the Pilg. It seemed as if the image might soon be captured and the job finished. I had—hope. Then, so quickly after… despair. Is that an aspect of the God of Wrath? Perhaps Pete raised a valid question. What to emphasize in such a study? Even if I am to look upon his face, is it possible that, this time, I may be unable to do a painting correctly? How can I capture the essence of such a being in surface and color? It—it passeth understanding… I miss Toby. He was a good dog. I loved him. But that poor madman—I am sorry I killed him. He could not help it that he was mad. If I had kept those arms and legs the whole thing would have been different… I might have given up and walked home. After all, I am not even certain I could paint with real hands. God, if you ever want to give them back, though… No, I do not think I will ever have them again. It—I do not understand. I was wrong in accepting this commission. I am certain of that now. I wanted to depict that which may not be shown, that which cannot be understood. It is an impossible job. Pride. There is nothing else to me other than my skill. I know that I am good. It is all that I have, though, and I have made too much of it. I had felt, somehow, that it was more than sufficient, not just to make me the equal of a whole man, but to surpass other men, to surpass even the human. I wanted all the future generations of worshipers to look at that work and to see this. It was not the God of Wrath I wanted them to look upon with awe, but the skill of Tibor McMasters. I wanted that awe, their wonder, their admiration—their worship. I wanted deification through my art, I see that now. My pride brought me the entire way. I do not know what I am going to do now. Go on, go on, of course. I must do that. This is not at all how I thought things might turn out.
The rain had stopped. He tensed and relaxed his muscles. He looked up. The cow was chewing her cud. He heard Pete’s snores. No. Pete was sitting up, looking his way.
“Tibor?” Pete said.
“Yes?”
“Where is that snoring coming from?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was you.”
Pete stood, listening. He looked about the barn, turned, and moved toward a stall. He looked within. He would have dismissed it as a bundle of rags and trash if it had not been for the snoring. He leaned nearer and was engulfed by the aura of wine fumes which surrounded it. He drew back quickly.
“What is it?” Tibor called out.
“Some bum,” Pete said, “sleeping one off, I think.”
“Oh. Maybe he could tell us about the settlement up ahead. He might even know something more…”
“I doubt that,” Pete said. Holding his breath, he returned and examined the figure more closely: an untrimmed beard stained a number of colors, ancient crumbs of food still trapped within it, a glistening line of saliva down through its strands, framing teeth which had gone beyond yellow to a brownish cast, several of them broken, many missing, the remainder worn; the heavily lined face could be seen as sallow in the light which fell upon it through the nearest hole in the roof; nose broken at least twice; heavy encrustations of pus at the corners of the eyes, dried upon the lashes; hair wiry, tangled long and gray pale as smoke. A tension of pain lay upon that face even in sleep, so that tics, twitches, and sudden tightnesses animated it unnaturally, as though swarms of insects moved beneath the skin, fighting, breeding, dying. Over-all, the form was thin, wasted, dehydrated. “An old drunk,” Pete said, turning back again. “That’s all. Can’t know too much about the settlement. They probably ran him out of it.”
The rain has stopped and there is still some light, Pete thought. Best we leave him here and get moving again. Whatever he has to tell us will hardly be worth the hearing, and we would be stuck with a hangover bum on our hands.
“Let’s just leave him and
go,” he told Tibor.
As he moved away, the man moaned and muttered, “Where are you?”
Pete was silent.
“Where are you?” came the croaking voice once more, followed by a thrashing about from within the stall.
“Maybe he is ill,” Tibor said.
“I do not doubt it.”
“Come here,” said the voice, “come here…”
Pete looked at Tibor.
“Maybe there is something we can do,” Tibor said.
Pete shook his head, moved back to the stall.
Just as he looked about the partition, the man said, “There you are,” but he was not looking at Pete. He was addressing a jug he had withdrawn from beneath a mound of straw. He uncorked it but lacked the strength to raise it to his lips. He threw his head back then and turned it to the side. He tipped the jug toward his mouth, sucked upon it. Some of the wine splashed over his face. As he uprighted the jug, he was seized with a spell of coughing. Ragged, breaking sounds emerged from his chest, his throat, his mouth. When he spat, Pete could not tell whether it was blood or wine residue that reddened the spittle so. Pete moved to withdraw.
“I see you,” the man said suddenly, his voice slightly firmer than it had been. “Don’t go away. Help old Tom.” His voice slid into a practiced whine then. “Please, mister, can you spare a—help? A help for me? M’arms don’t work so good. Must’ve slept on ‘em funny.”
“What do you want?” Pete asked.
“Hold this jug for me, please. I don’t want to spill any.”
“All right,” Pete said.
Holding his breath, he entered the stall and knelt beside the old man. He raised the frail shoulders with his right arm, gripped the jug with his left hand. “Here,” he said, and he held it tilted while the other drew a long series of swallows from it.
“Thank you,” said the man, coughing less vigorously than before, but still showering Pete’s wrist and forearm.
Pete lowered him quickly and set down the jug. He began to draw away, but a bony hand snatched his wrist.
Deus Irae Page 18
