It was human and male in form. The almost ugly face was Roman-nosed, with thinning white hair, and deep laugh lines around a mouth that at this moment was neither laughing nor smiling. The figure wore a loose, faded tee-shirt on which the slogan “Ginger Rogers Did Everything Fred Astaire Did, But She Did It Backwards And In High Heels” was printed in black.
For those members of the Council of Elders who had their origins in Verite, it took an effort of will to recall that those from Virtu chose their forms—that this man in baggy shorts and puzzling tee-shirt could indeed be the Hierophant, the one who spoke to the Gods on High, the conduit of Truth.
The Hierophant looked at each Elder, at each assistant. His pale eyes seemed to pierce into the heart of each person seated before him, seemed to read doubts and ambitions as if they had been printed on their foreheads in the same square black letters as adorned his tee-shirt.
Randall Kelsey, once of the Elect, now merely a trusted adjunct to Ben Kwinan who himself was an assistant to Elder Arlette Papastrati, flinched beneath that pale gaze, but it passed him by and continued its round of the long conference table. By the time the Hierophant had finished his silent inspection, the gathered Elders were reduced to the status of quivering schoolchildren awaiting the slap of the ruler.
“And so I suppose you think that this was all one great big joke,” the Hierophant said. His voice was deep, gruff, like that of a bear awakened from a long hibernation.
Arlette Papastrati, to her credit, found the courage to speak. In Verite, she was a short, dark woman, her attractiveness marred by a faint mustache. In Virtu, her hair was the color of flame and her beauty left men without any doubt that the universe contained divinity.
“Great Hierophant, do you refer to the events in Central Park?”
“You know I do, sister.”
“Of course we do not view them as a joke. We simply underestimated the… playfulness of the lesser deities.”
“It was a pisser, wasn’t it?”
The Hierophant’s laugh was coarse, his accents more and more those of old Brooklyn. None of the Elders present could step down from their dignity to laugh with him, but a few assistants, more accustomed to following their senior’s lead, tittered compliantly. When the laughter (such as it was) faded, the Hierophant spoke again.
“I suppose you think that the riot that accompanied our little show with Bel Marduk means that we’re going to step back from the timetable that has been divinely set for us?”
“Well, Great Hierophant,” said Aoud Araf, “our analysis shows that this would be the wisest course of action. The Church of Elish faces lawsuits from the city of New York as well as from several of those injured in the riot. A class action suit is being joined on behalf of—”
“Shut up.”
Aoud did so, blinking a few times, surprised at being questioned. Although he lacked the seniority of many present, his proven ability in his department had granted him a measure of authority on issues of security.
“You folks don’t know how to play to a crowd,” the Hierophant said, scratching his belly. “If we retreat now, we’re acknowledging guilt—guilt, I remind you, that is not ours to accept. What did these yahoos think would happen when a deity manifested—doves and white roses? We’ve been honest about the gods of Ancient Babylon. These are the gods of Flood and Fire, the gods who whipped Order out of Chaos and barely kept Order going. We aren’t preaching to any milk-and-water aesthetes! When Marduk flew over their heads, they were damn lucky that all they got was a little cat piss and a few fireworks.”
Despite himself, Randall Kelsey found himself nodding. The Hierophant was voicing—admittedly with a new emphasis—some of his own concerns. The difference was that the Hierophant made the power and potential destructiveness of the gods sound right, even entrancing. From the shifting postures of those around him, Kelsey could tell that others felt the same thing.
“So what would you have us do, sir?” Arlette Papastrati asked.
“Go out there with your shoulders squared. Get your legal advisors to note that the Church plans to sue the city of New York and all those who attended the celebration for behaving in a fashion that ruined our carefully planned, very expensive festival.”
Someone guffawed. “That will make them think twice.”
“Exactly. Find a new location—buy private land if you need to—and plan a second celebration. Tell them you’ll be bringing through Bel Marduk again and perhaps another of the great powers.”
“What if they try to stop us?”
“Use land in the U.S. of A. They still have provisions for freedom of religion in their Constitution. Plant a rumor that the attempts to clamp down on our celebrations are only the beginning of widespread restriction of religious freedom. Lots of religions claim to manifest their gods— Catholics through the Eucharist, voudon through the loas. There are others. Make them our allies in this.”
An excited babble broke loose as the implications of the Hierophant’s words sunk in. New suggestions were made for turning the seeming disaster into a coup of unimagined proportions.
In the excitement, no one noticed when the Hierophant faded away, leaving only the slogan from his tee-shirt scrawled on the wall behind his chair in black crayon.
* * *
Jay Donnerjack stood with the crusader ghost, skipping stones into the still inlet of the sea. The grey-blue vista of the ocean was interrupted only by occasional glimpses of a red sail far out on the water. Dubhe clung to Jay’s shoulders, head swiveling as he looked for Death. The caoineag stood mute nearby.
“Fi’ times, that, laddie,” the crusader ghost chortled. “Dinna ken that you can beat that.”
Jay hefted his stone and skipped it thrice. The crusader chuckled.
“Hey!” Jay protested. “Let’s see how well you do with a monkey on your back! Dubhe, climb down. You’re ruining my game.”
Reluctantly, the monkey climbed down and then clambered onto a boulder nearby. Jay skipped another stone.
“Four that time!” he crowed.
The crusader skipped another. “Six!”
Jay scooped up another flat stone. “Want to try, Dubhe?”
“I’m not sure that my arms are made for that.”
“Try.”
“I’d rather watch.”
“Dubhe, the Lord of the Lost will come or he won’t. There isn’t much we can do now. Relax.”
“You might not feel so confident if you’d ever met the Lord of Deep Fields in person. He’s a… difficult person.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Jay said, thoughtfully. “Come on. Here’s a really good stone… Hold it like this. Now pitch it.”
The stone flew from Dubhe’s hand, bounced once, twice, three times before sinking.
“Hey! That was neat!”
The monkey scrabbled down from the boulder and collected another flat stone. For a long stretch, the only sound was the plop of rocks into the water and the players’ cheers and groans.
“Ma’am,” Jay said, turning to the caoineag, “won’t you join us?”
“I do not think so.” She gestured so that her draperies flowed. “I am not dressed for free movement.”
“Yeah, I noticed that.” Jay frowned. “Is there some reason you don’t want me to see what you look like?”
The crusader ghost dropped his skipping stone, completely negating the caoineag’s calm “Of course not, John.”
Jay pretended not to notice the crusader ghost’s discomfort.
“I was just wondering, ma’am. You see, my bracelet thought that there was something familiar about you. I’ve had a bit of trouble with people posing as my friends who were actually agents of the Lord of Deep Fields.”
Dubhe skipped his stone with such violence that it skipped nine times and landed on the opposite bank. Again, Jay did not comment, but he did place a comforting hand on the monkey’s shoulder.
“Yes, I know that.”
“So then you won’t mind if I as
k you to remove your veil and show me what you look like. I don’t mean to be rude, ma’am, not when you seem to be helping me, but I think you can see my point.”
The caoineag fluttered her hands indecisively.
“And what will you do if I refuse? I do not believe that you can catch me if I try to evade you.”
“Maybe not, but I could just turn around and head back through the moon portal. Maybe the Lord of Deep Fields has given up his siege, but he may still be at it.”
“Ah.” Again the hands fluttered. “How do you know that my appearance will mean anything to you?”
“I don’t, but I don’t think you would have worn a veil if your appearance was not significant in some way.”
“And if I told you that the veil was part of the traditional costume of my type of ghost?”
“Then I’d wonder why you didn’t say so in the first place.”
“I see. You are a clever boy. Analytical. You remind me of your father.”
“You knew my father?”
“Quite well.” Slender hands rose and pushed the veil away from her face, slid it off her ebon hair. “You see, I was his wife.”
Jay stood, dumbfounded, staring. There before him was the face he had studied so often in the projections Dack had given him, the pouting lips, the elegant cheekbones, the dark, somehow sad, eyes.
“Mother?” he said, and his voice broke.
“Yes, John.” She opened her arms to him. “I’m your mother. I’m Ayradyss.”
She wept then, and nearly grown man that he was, he wept as well. After a time, she released him enough to look into his lace.
“Tell, me, John, what did you mean when you said that your bracelet thought that there was something familiar about me?”
Jay touched the bracelet. “My father programmed an aion with much of his memory and personality and then installed it in a bracelet that he put on my wrist when I was just a baby. It has always been with me.”
Ayradyss reached out and touched the bracelet, a tentative motion, almost a caress.
“How very strange,” she said. “We both found ways to watch over you, even after we were gone.”
“Bracelet, aren’t you going to say anything to her?” Jay asked.
The bracelet spoke in the voice of John D’Arcy Donnerjack, Senior. “I don’t know what to say. I can identify this woman, but I feel nothing more than a wash of generalized emotions. I suspect that my creator could not bear to preserve his torment or his passion—both of which must have existed for him to do what he did in an effort to regain and preserve her.”
“Oh, John.” Ayradyss sighed. “You always did have trouble expressing what you felt.”
Jay fidgeted. “Hey, folks. Now that I have both of you here—in some form, at least—I have some questions I hope you’ll answer. And bracelet, none of this, ‘not permitted to answer at this time’ stuff.”
“Very well, John,” Ayradyss said.
“Please call me Jay, ma’am. Too many Johns could get confusing.”
“Very well, Jay. Could you call me Ayradyss if Mother is difficult at this late a date?”
He grinned. “Sure, Mom.”
She blushed with pleasure. Jay seated himself on the boulder Dubhe had lately abandoned; the monkey climbed onto his knee.
“First of all,” Jay said, “was there a deal made with the Lord of Deep Fields concerning me?”
“Yes,” the bracelet replied. “I made my way to Deep Fields to regain Ayradyss. I brought music to soften his heart and promised him a construction of my design as payment for her return. The Lord of Deep Fields required our firstborn as part of the price. Since I believed this an impossible condition to fulfill, I agreed.”
“Why did you think it impossible? Hadn’t he already done something impossible by agreeing to return her in Verite rather than Virtu?”
“I had yet to see that she would be returned to me in Verite. I was also—as difficult as this may be for you to believe—in a state of emotional turmoil. I wanted Ayra back and no price seemed too great. I had invoked legend and fairy tale in my coming for her. I thought he was merely continuing the theme.”
“So you loved her.”
“As I have loved no one or nothing in all my life.” The bracelet paused. “Although I cannot feel those emotions as my maker did, his memories are recorded and those words are true.”
Jay nodded. Ayradyss was weeping, wiping away the tears with the corner of her veil. Looking at her, Jay realized that in appearance she was not much older than he was. He wondered what her real age might be. Collecting himself, he continued his interrogation.
“When you both realized that I was going to be born, you set out to foil the Lord of Deep Fields, to keep me from him.”
“That’s right,” Ayradyss said. “My first knowledge of you came from the howling of the former caoineag. The crusader ghost told me that she wailed for me—and for you and John.”
The bracelet added, “We did not wish to lose you. After your birth and Ayradyss’s death I journeyed to Deep Fields and there battled the Lord of Deep Fields. I could not win Ayra back, nor could I convince him to relinquish his claim to you, but I did gain his promise to give you some years among the living.”
“Did you then believe that he wished me dead?” Jay asked, proud of how steady he kept his voice.
Ayradyss glanced at the bracelet, spread her hands.
“Actually, Jay,” she said, “we didn’t know what he wanted you for. It was enough that he would take our son from us.”
The bracelet added, “It seems unlikely that he wanted your death, in the sense of complete termination of existence. One of the conditions of Ayradyss’s freedom was that I design a palace for him. In the plans for that palace, the Lord of the Lost included a nursery.”
“So he meant to raise me there. Dubhe, can you add anything to this?”
The monkey cracked his knuckles. “Yes, I can, in fact. Death sent me and some of the others to watch over you when your father set you to play on the Great Stage. I had the impression that, in addition to being kept informed about your development, he did not wish any harm to come to you.”
“So, indirectly, he was my protector.”
Ayradyss, not liking at all what she saw of the direction of Jay’s thoughts, interrupted.
“‘Protector’ may be too kind a word, son. Shepherds protect sheep and eat mutton all the same. The Lord of Entropy may not have meant you any kindness.”
“True, but apparently no one ever asked him what he intended for me.”
Dubhe added, “I always had the impression that Phecda knew more than she was saying. Mizar’s brain was scrambled and Alioth—well, Alioth was something else.”
“Alioth, the black butterfly?” Ayradyss said, her tones those of suppressed astonishment.
“Yes, ma’am,” Dubhe replied.
“Alioth played with me from times when I was so small that I could hardly say his name,” Jay said. “Did you know him?”
“I have heard the name,” Ayradyss answered.
“Jay, what are you contemplating?” the bracelet asked. “I have analyzed the trend of your questions and I am not at all reassured by the implications.”
Jay stood, set Dubhe on the boulder, looked down at the bracelet, then over at his mother. Both Dubhe and the crusader ghost sat very, very still, feeling the tingle of a coming storm in the air.
“I think I will go and ask Death what it was he wanted me for,” Jay said.
“No!” Ayradyss cried.
“I forbid it,” the bracelet ordered.
Dubhe merely squeaked.
“I’m going,” Jay repeated. “And I’m going on my own terms. Tranto the phant mentioned a train called the Brass Babboon that my father took into Deep Fields. If I can find that train, I can confront the Lord of Deep Fields from a position of—if not power—at least of something other than captivity.”
The bracelet vibrated and glowed slightly violet. “I can generate a fi
eld that will force you from Virtu and restrict you to Verite.”
“For how long?” Jay asked. “And can you keep me from chopping off my arm? It’s a drastic measure, but it’s one that I’ll take if I must.”
“Jay!” The shocked gasp came from several throats. Only the crusader ghost grinned, a sardonic, bitter expression.
“Aye, th’ laddie will do as he says. He’s nae more a wee thing to be pushed aboot.”
Jay nodded. “I appreciate all that you have tried to do for me. But I can’t live the rest of my life running from Death. My father made an agreement with the Lord of Deep Fields. I will fulfill that agreement.”
“Jay, you don’t know what you’re doing!” Ayradyss cried. “He is a terrible creature.”
“Is he?” Jay said. “He can be wooed by music, admires the art of constructions, and apparently did not desire my extinction. In fact, he sent me guardians when my father left me to play on the fringes of Virtu.”
The bracelet said softly, “I did not know that you would learn to cross over so easily, or that I would not be there to protect you.”
“Maybe so, but after taking you, Death provided that protection.” Jay squared his shoulders. “Do you assist me in this, or will you try to prevent me?”
Ayradyss touched his face with her fingers. “I have no power to prevent, only to advise. Although I would prefer that you do not go, I promise you that when you return to Castle Donnerjack I will be here to assist you.”
The bracelet took longer to answer. Gradually, however, the violet glow subsided.
“I cannot prevent you without forcing you to take an action that would only make it more difficult to achieve what you would do in any case. Therefore, I shall not protest further.”
“Will you advise?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Jay turned to Dubhe. “Are you coming with me, or would you like me to try and draw you back into the Verite?”
Dubhe shrugged and cackled with a trace of the cheerful villainy that he had lost when he had fled Death into Verite.
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