More Than Melchisedech

by R. A. Lafferty

  “I have information already,” X said to Duffey on the second day. “There are about a hundred of those tide-water caves that are two-thirds underwater and have their entrances underwater; these are in about a seven mile stretch along the Marianao Coast. All we have to do is find the right one. How are you at underwater swimming?”

  “Good enough, Mr. Eggs,” Duffey said. “But it will be very choppy water along a shelf like that. Nobody will be very good at it. I could go down. I could enter half a dozen of the caves. But I could never enter a hundred.”

  “When did you tumble that I was Mr. X, Mr. Duffey,” X asked, for he was Carmelo Mendoza and he was also Karl Metz. X, the old friend and dealer of doubtful information.

  “You think I would not always know my own handiwork, X? I made you, or at least I evoked your clay.”

  “Then Signora Stranahan in St. Louis won her bet,” X said. “She bet that you would know me in whatever disguise I used. But I bet not one person in a million would have known me. Have you still your facility for coining gold, Mr. Duffey?”

  “I hope that I have it yet.”

  “It will go well in Cuba. Golden tips get information.”

  There was still the testiness about Americans in Cuba, but Duffey and X got in all right. An Irishman like Duffey can always pass for all Irishmen. And X was one quarter German and had but to speak in the way that his maternal grandfather had spoken.

  Then Duffey and X and Horace Pie were down along the coast, telling people that they were looking for the sea level tomb of the ‘Sleeping Man’ and that they would give one gold coin or even two for real information.

  “He is not here,” said a man full of ancient integrity. “He was there for thirty years, and no one came to see what his problem was. And just yesterday he went away. And today you come. Bad luck that.”

  “How did he go away?” Duffey asked.

  “I don't know how,” the man said, “but I'm sure that he went away. More than thirty years ago, the woman said that he was sleeping and not dead. She had him put in a tomb cave with a sea door to it. “Let him not be disturbed,” she said. “Let him be forgot. In his own time he will wake up.” And so it was. The woman, La Dorotea, she was here for about three weeks after that. Then she died. She had been wounded by gunshot and her strength never came back to her. She is buried in the San Francisco cemetery on the other side of the city. She is buried there because she had a medallion showing that she belonged to the Third Order of St. Francis. But the sleeping man has waked and gone yesterday.”

  “No, he is not gone. He is still there,” several young boys said. “Give us gold coins, and then give us half an hour, and we will take you to the ‘Sleeping Man’ in his hole under the sea shelf.”

  “Are you sure that he is the same ‘Sleeping Man’?” Horace Pie asked suspiciously.

  “Oh sure. There is only one of them,” the ringleader of the boys slid. “We call him the Long-Sleep Man and we even make a song about him.” The boy sang a little snatch of song that had words such as ‘hombre’ and ‘durmiendo’ in it. “Hell, it even has an English chorus to it,” he said then.

  Long-Sleep MAN, in sweet repose.

  Long-Sleep MANNNN, with baNAna nose!”

  “Yes, that's Finnegan,” Duffey said. He rubbed his hands together and brought forth three gold pieces and gave one to each boy.

  “We need two more of them,” the ringleader boy said. “He won't do it for less than two gold pieces. I don't think he will.”

  “Who won't do what?” Duffey asked.

  “Ah, a confederate of ours. He can find the cave better than we can. But he has to have two gold pieces.”

  Duffey rubbed his hands together and produced two more gold pieces. The ringleader boy took them and ran off, apparently to find the confederate.

  Duffey struck another gold piece and gave it to the man full of ancient integrity who still insisted that the Sleeping Man had left the burial cave the day before. And Duffey had a suspicion that he was right.

  Then the three men, Duffey and X and Horace Pie, went with the two remaining boys and entered three of the caves with underwater entrances. None of them was the right one, and the underwater swims were rather strenuous.

  After that, the ringleader boy returned. He led them into another cave by another submarine ‘set door’. They came up into a space that was slightly above the water and that had sunlight seeping down through the cracks in its rocky beech roof.

  And there was a sleeping man there. He was a portly Cuban man, lying nude on a rock shelf. And his workman's clothes were piled beside him. But he wasn't Finnegan and he hadn't been there for thirty years, nor even for thirty minutes. The sleeping opened one eye and looked at them.

  “O…?” he asked.

  “O.K. I suppose,” Duffey said, “but you're not the man we're looking for.”

  “The other, original ‘Sleeping Man’ really did go away yesterday,” the ringleader boy said. “But we will not give you back your gold. We've hidden it.”

  “All right,” Duffey said, “But take us to the cave of the real ‘Sleeping Man’.”

  “We take you there, but he himself is gone,” the ringleader boy said.

  They came to it, out of the dripping sea and into its half darkness touched with sunlight. Yes, it was Finnegan's tomb. He was not there, but things that had touched him were still there. Fragments of his aura still hung there, discernible. And there were a few carvings in low round on the walls that had unmistakably been done by Finnegan. Like a hibernating bear, he had brief moments of wakefulness during his long sleep.

  And this was clearly the cave that had been shown in that painting ‘The Resurrection of Count Finnegan’. But Finnegan was not there.

  “The old man spoke true,” Horace Pie commented. “Finnegan was here yesterday and he has left.”

  “If he was here yesterday, then I will go to yesterday and see him before he leaves,” Melchisedech said. Pie and X laughed, but Duffey cast a deep sleep on them, cutting across their laughter.

  It was yesterday in the burial cave then. Pie and X were not there, but Finnegan and Melchisedech were there. And a murderous white shark was there also, full in the sea door or underwater entrance to the cave, avid to prevent anyone leaving alive. The white shark intended to kill the awakened Count Finnegan should he attempt to leave by sea.

  And there was an unfriendly man standing on the flat shore over their heads, intending to kill Count Finnegan if he should find a way up through the fissured roof of the cave to come out to full day. The word of the Resurrection had reached the Enemies, and they would prevent it by every way possible. Count Finnegan knew that the man was there, and Melchisedech knew that he was.

  Count Finnegan seemed to have passed through extreme agony only the moment before, but now he was alive and awake and intense. He had been speaking when Duffey broke into his yesterday, and he continued to speak, or to pray.

  “My rock, be not deaf to me,” Finnegan said, but not exactly to Melchisedech, though he saw him.

  “Lest if thou hear me not, I become like unto them who go down unto the pit,” Melchisedech spoke in the same psalm prayer.

  Finnegan: “Though war should rise against me, even then will I trust.”

  Melchisedech: “One thing I ask. This do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.”

  Finnegan: “He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sharion like a young buffalo.”

  Melchisedech: “The Lord shakes the desert of Cades.”

  Finnegan: “He rises in the darkness, as a light to the upright.”

  Melchisedech: “He shall not fear bad news.”

  Finnegan: “I am shut in and cannot go out.”

  Melchisedech: “They surround me like water all day long.”

  Finnegan: “I lie down among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave.”

  Melchisedech: “Your youth is renewed like the eagle's.”

  Finnegan: “He has shak
en the earth, he has torn it apart.”

  Melchisedech: “Heal its branches, for it quakes.”

  Finnegan: “They howl like dogs and prowl about the city.” Melchisedech: “Rise up.”

  Finnegan: “My tears were kept in thy water skin.”

  Melchisedech: “Are they not recorded in thy book?”

  Finnegan: “Therefore we do not fear, though the earth be overthrown.”

  Melchisedech: “And the mountains crash into the midst of the sea.”

  Finnegan: “I lay down and slept.”

  Melchisedech: “You arose.”

  Finnegan: “He waits in ambush near the villages. He lurks in secret places like a lion in his lair. There are traps for my feet. I must find my way among them.”

  Melchisedech: “There will be light for your feet. He has called you to rise from the sea.”

  Finnegan: “Have I found out the secret of the darkness? Have I found the kindling of the light?”

  Melchisedech: “He has saved you for this latter time.”

  Finnegan: “Here are my hands, if it should pass into them. What if I should hold the crown and raise it above the teeth of the dogs?”

  Melchisedech: “Ascend into the city. There are doings that only you can do.”

  Finnegan: “The lines have failed for me in pleasant places. I am greatly pleased with my inheritance.”

  Melchisedech: “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. And now that we have prayed together, Finn of my heart, tell me what mission you go on. It's a violent one, I know, to call you out of death sleep for it.”

  Finnegan: “It's a violent one, yes. It will be a sort of spy thriller, Duffey, if you must know the category of it. And, like all good spy thrillers, the fate of the world will depend on its resolution. You cast two friends of mine into a deep sleep about this time tomorrow, did you not?”

  Melchisedech: “Yes, Finnegan, I did. And now if you will let me… or tell me what your great mission is… or at least let me see whether you escape the man and the shark. Let me see how you do it, or if you do.”

  Finnegan: “It sure will be tricky, Duffey. But I haven't been in abeyance for thirty years to blink out now. You put my friends to sleep tomorrow. I put you to sleep now.”

  Melchisedech: “Wait, Finnegan, wait — ”

  But Duffey was into deep sleep. And woke up when X and Pie woke up. It was the day that it should have been. And Finnegan had risen the day before and gone on his journey.

  “That white shark, thirty yards off the breakers there,” Duffey said after they had surfaced outside of the cave, and then they were getting onto the high shore fast. “That white shark, does he look fed?”

  “He does not,” Horace Pie said. “He is hungry. And he is frustrated and furious. I do not want any congress with that embittered shark.”

  4

  Duffey and X went to Chicago. X was complaining of time lag which is of much more effect than jet lag caused by having one's time of day disrupted by fast travel. Duffey had gone several weeks into the past, and he had taken X with him. X did not look well, but he looked more himself. He had not yet lightened his hair nor (by special process known only to himself) lightened his eyes to give himself a disguise.

  “This is awkward. It is even outrageous,” X fumed. “Why is it necessary that we traverse time contrary-wise?”

  “To avoid my own death,” Duffey said. “My death would impose a special set of conditions on my travel. I have it pretty well narrowed down when I will die, on a certain night or on the night after that, and we were coming too close to them. I like a very short leeway. I believe that it deepens my piety to know that I am always within two weeks of my death.”

  “Your set is already ordained, man,” X said. “You know in what future it will be. I brought your ashes back from that time. You will not die within two weeks.”

  “There are paradoxes about me that you know not of,” Duffey said. “I will go when I will go, but first I want to see all of my nation once more in the normal flesh.”

  “But is Casey in the normal flesh now?” X asked. “There is some doubt about that, Casey has become  —  ah  — ”

  “Casey has become a cult figure,” Mary Catherine Carruthers told them fifteen minutes later when they had gone to see her. “And as such he makes more than thirty thousand dollars a week. There is big money in being a cult figure. I don't know whether you'll be able to see him or not. Hardly anybody gets to see him now. And when you do see him, you haven't seen much. He's clear off the world, in another world of his own. There is even good physical evidence that he is clear off the world when he is in one of his raptures.

  “ ‘That fish, Prince Casimir!’ is what Bascom Bagby always called him. Well, but Casey says that he is one of the two Zodiacal Fish. Christ is the other one. Cult leaders aren't known for their modesty. I have always wondered how Casey hooked people, but he has always had me hooked worse than any of them. Take me out on the town tonight, fellows! I don't go out nearly enough. The Casey sickness is pretty awkward, and I can't shake it. He really is a total phoney, granted. Well then, that means that one of the two Zodiacal Fish is a total phoney, for Casey is indeed in the Zodiac. He has painted a remarkable painting of the curile chair on which he sits in the Zodiac. It's loaded with living and crawling symbolism. Casey is nearly, for very short spurts, as good a painter as Finnegan was, is. Sometimes Casey says that he's the Antichrist. I don't know whether he believes it or not, but countless of his followers say it and believe it. ‘It is the highest status ever attained by any human,’ they say. ‘It should be a matter of pride to every human that one of us has risen to give the highest challenge.’ His followers, ugh! But I am generally accounted as one of his leading followers, and those who so account me are the ones who say ‘That Carruthers woman, ugh!’ No. I'm sure he won't see you. But Hilary Hilton has just come in and he will be overjoyed to see you.”

  Mary Catherine Carruthers worked for Hilary Hilton, that dynamically lazy young tycoon who liked to gather in money and power.

  “The enormously spoiled brat, Rolo Danovitz, the Antichrist of a current cycle of quasi-fiction, is Casey exactly,” Hilary Hilton was saying two minutes later. Hilary was nephew to Duffey's dead best friend Sebastian Hilton, and Hilton and Duffey had become very good friends in the middle and later years. “Casey is the spoiled brat who squawled for the stars so loudly and stridently that they had to be given to him. The dark stars, that is: ah, the dark stars belong to Casey now, and they're at least half the stars. Does Casey really believe that he's Antichrist? That's a question that's often asked. Why shouldn't he believe it? That's who he is, Certainly I mean it. I spent several million dollars establishing his identity, and it has been established. Not one of the top five minds in the world doubts the identity now. But I've known who it is since we were both small boys.

  “Casey makes much ado about his sacrificing himself for humanity, and for the ‘larger humanity’, and especially for those most unfortunate and most abused creatures in all creation, the demons. But Casey misleads here. He never sacrificed in his life. He's incapable of sacrifice. But he demands sacrifice to himself by all. He gets it most of the time too. He's insatiable in his demands.

  “No, Duffey, I don't believe he's into the cultishness for the money. He's low, but he isn't that low. And I don't believe that being even a top cult figure pays all that well. Oh, maybe he clears forty or fifty thousand dollars a week. I make more money than that myself, and Casey's at least as smart as I am. He could be making more than that in some honest line of business. He would have done better to marry Mary Catherine here and prosper legitimately. So would I have done better to marry Mary Catherine here. But my wife Mary Jean preempted both Casey and myself. No, I don't think that Casey will see you. He believes that he can out-measure you, Duffey, but not without a bruising psychic battle, and he wants to avoid that. The only two persons he does not believe that he can out-measure are Finnegan and Bishop Salvator
e. He's afraid to go to the test with either of them. Casey has always insisted that Finnegan is still alive. And now my own very high priced investigators have told me that Finnegan is indeed alive, that he is wakening from his deathlike sleep right now, and that he will leave his tomb within the next ten or twelve days. He is destined for some tricky doings. Finnegan has come to look exactly like Josef Cardinal Hedayat of Antioch. Cardinal Joseph is the other person, separated off by the schizo gash from Count Finnegan, in that remarkable painting ‘The Resurrection of Count Finnegan’ which painting belongs to me and is kept by you in your Walk-In Art Bijou in New Orleans. You must know that Cardinal Josef is the best bet to be next Pope. But some of those who see into the future, imperfectly and in rough hunks though they see, say that by a contrived mix-up Count Finnegan will be the one who actually assumes the Crown, though he will be known as Josef Cardinal Hedayat until he is known as Peter the Second.”

  “That is a large order, Hilary,” Duffey said.

  “True, but I have the most penetrating investigators in the world, and many of them move easily beyond the world to gather their data. One of the (not the best of them) most outré of them is X here.”

  “You blow my cover!” X said with open exasperation.

  “Duffey, I know that Casey will refuse to see you,” Hilary said. “But he can be manipulated. We will make him want to come to you. How about my getting a hundred or so of your best remaining friends together for a little intimate party tonight? I will bet you that Casey crashes it. He hates to be left out. ‘Highest status ever attained by a human or not’, Casey doesn't like to be passed over. He will come, if he knows that I am throwing the party, and that I refused to invite him.”

  “All right,” Duffey said.