The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty

by R. A. Lafferty

  So the Conclave began at dawn on a pleasant note. It didn't take much furniture or equipment for the Conclave. A straw-man, soaked in lamb's blood, was prepared. This was important, but it was not elaborate. The straw-man was called the Master of the Conclave. Very broad based offerings were made so that no cult might be neglected. Incense was burned to the Media Mega-Net, the only thing holy remaining in the world. Goats were sacrificed to the Left Lectionary League. Money offering was made to the Unilateral Workers' League, and their Mammon statue was enthroned there. A kilo of hash was given to every person in Babylonia Bagascia (‘Hash and Circuses’ had always been big in that town). Nine men and nine women came up voluntarily to offer their near-spent lives for the Euthanasian Demonstration Agency under the big agency flag (with the motto ‘See How Easy It Is’) flying there. A dozen children, babes, infants, and quick foetuses from three years old on down were brought there and cast into the Moloch Furnace in offering to Moloch and his Molochites. One of the quick foetuses spoke in a small but clear voice from the blasting-hot furnace, and said that he was Little Hugh of Lincoln. And everybody laughed. And hot-rock harpers were playing their traditional music there around the portals of Conclave Hall.

  Then the crowd was put out, and only the six hundred and sixty-six Princes of the Ekklesia (the Gates, and the Stones, as most of them called themselves) were left in the hall: and one other person, the mysterious old Monsignor X was there to serve them. Only thirteen of the Princes, from all of those in the world, were missing.

  But these high delegates were not really walled up in the hall. Only one course of bricks was laid along the bottom of the big door to the Conclave Hall, and that was only for token. The Top Gates and Stones had said that they would be out again in a very few minutes, just as soon as they had had a roll call, burned the effigy, and made the avowals and denials. Then, as soon as they were out, the Conclave Hall would be taken down.

  “I will lead the ceremonies,” said Conrad Stone Hackenschmidt of Weinsburg in the Germanies. “There are six hundred and sixty-six of us Princes of the Ekklesia present, and one curator, Monsignor X. He is our servant. You know, X, that the quality of a good servitor can be gauged by his ability to anticipate a need. I have need now for a submachine gun. Have you anticipated my need in this?” “No, I have not, Eminent Prince and Stone,” Monsignor X said.

  “Then you are an inefficient servitor, Monsignor X, and I will have to do away with you.”

  “No I am not,” said Monsignor X, “and no you will not. For several reasons, this is better.” And Monsignor X produced from his multi-trapped and multi-pocketed cassock a fire-weapon called the Browning Automatic Rifle or the BAR. And he handed this to Conrad Stone Hackenschmidt.

  The BAR is a curious weapon. It fires so rapid a burst that it can cut a man in half, but it tends to rise straight up when a burst is fired. For this reason, a practical man will let out the leather sling to its greatest length and will stand on that sling with his right foot. Conrad Stone Hackenschmidt did so. He had the whole company covered by the weapon, and he addressed that whole company in his tough and bright German-silver voice.

  “There is only one way to vote. When I call your name, you will say ‘Ego eligo effigiem’ or ‘I vote for the effigy or straw-man’. So we will elect the straw-man to be Cap-Stone or Top-Peter of the Ekklesia. Then we will burn the straw-man in the stove, and the red smoke will pour out of the chimney for all the people to see. By that, they will know for certain that the only Papist is the StrawPeter or Struwwelpeter. So it will be finished.

  “Casper Stone Aaron,” Hackenschmidt began the roll call of the Princes.

  “Ego eligo effigiem,” Casper Stone Aaron spoke, but a bit surly as though he were under compulsion. “I elect for the Straw-Man.”

  “Catherine Stone Abbott.”

  “Ego eligo effigiem.”

  “James Gate Abdo.”

  “Ego eligo effigiem.”

  So the roll call went for a while. Then—

  “Stockton Stone Crocker.”

  “Ego eligo Joseph Cardinalem Hedayat ab Antiochia.” “I elect for Joseph Cardinal Hedayat of Antioch.” There was some very quick scurrying around there, and Stockton Stone Crocker found himself standing alone with all the other Princes of the congregation drawn back from him on either side like Red Sea waters. Hackenschmidt fired an eviscerating blast with the BAR, and Stockton Stone Crocker lay dead on the flagstone floor.

  “Sic simper zannionibus,” (thus ever to buffoons or zanies), Hackenschmidt quipped. “Next. Rosemary Gate Cruikshank.”

  “Ego eligo effigiem,” said Gate Cruikshank. So it went on through the whole roll. Six hundred and sixty of the Princes, Stones, and Gates voted for the Straw-Man, and six of them voted for Joseph Cardinal Hedayat of Antioch. The six zany votes were rectified to count all for the Straw-Man.

  “The Straw-Man is the Cap-Stone of the Ekklesia, the Peter of the Church,” Conrad Stone Hackenschmidt said. “But the Straw-Man is made of temporal straw, and he is gone with one blast of the stove-fire. Monsignor X, servitor, put the effigy into the stove.”

  And Monsignor X did so, and immediately there was a profusion of red smoke in the Conclave Hall, and there was ten times as much of that red smoke going up the chimney. Blood-red rain began to fall inside the building, and much more of it could be heard rattling against the roof and into the streets outside. And a veritable stream of blood ran out of the stove and began to flood the floor of the hall. The Straw-Man had been soaked in the blood of a lamb yes, but ten thousand lambs would not have had this much blood in them.

  “This fetish-ritual gets a little bit out of hand,” Stone Hackenschmidt said. “That is a weakness of fetishes. So much blood is almost awkward. Well, pitch the six bodies into the stove, Monsignor X, servitor. Their blood and flesh and smoke won't add much more to what we already have.”

  Monsignor X pitched the six bodies into the stove, and the blood and smoke were not noticeably increased.

  “Now, all of you present,” said Hackenschmidt, “make your avowals and denials.”

  All persons present did so with a sincere mumbling. This was a formula thing, a ritual thing, but it was no less necessary.

  “Several other small things ere we part,” Hackenschmidt said then. “We are princes no longer. There is nothing left for us to be princes of. The Thing is Dead: but let me give you a small caution about its deadness. Every bell in the world must now be broken and melted. The thing is dead. But the horoscopist of the Conclave has quoted an old saying about bells pealing until they wake up the dead. This must not happen. The thing is dead. The bells everywhere must be made dead so that they will not call or awaken anyone ever again. And the horoscopist, I am glad to say, is dead.

  “ ‘He was only doing his duty,’ you say. Very well. He has done it. And now his duty is to be dead.”

  The ex-princes, taken by a sort of unease, were shuffling and getting ready to get out of that place and have it all ended.

  “One other thing,” Hackenschmidt said then. “There are thirteen princes who are not with us, and one of them is Joseph Cardinal Hedayat. There are prophecies about him. We declare all these prophecies to be void. We declare the thirteen princes to be no longer princes. We declare them to be dead men. But this latter part will take a little bit of physical effecting. Some of you are more experienced than I am in this. Has anyone any favorite firm we might give the contract to?”

  “ ‘Track and Total’ is a dependable firm,” one new-made common man there said. “They will track down any person whatsoever, and they will total that person. And they will do it quickly and neatly. ‘Dog and Destroy’ is another good firm. They have dogged down some of the most difficult cases. But I believe that ‘Track and Total’ is the best.”

  “Very well,” said Hackenschmidt. “We will give ‘Track and Total’ the contract to hound down and kill the thirteen men. And we will pay a bonus for quick dispatch in this matter.

  “And there is still
one more thing. One does not leave the Servitor of the Final Conclave alive behind one. Monsignor X, stand over by the stove to save us a little trouble in disposing of you.”

  “No, man,” said X. “I have you covered. And you will find that you can not turn fast enough with a BAR, not when you are standing on the sling.”

  “Why did you lie to me, Monsignor X, and say that you did not have a submachine gun?” Hackenschmidt asked, and he was deeply hurt by what he believed was a deception. “I see that you do have one.”

  “I did not lie,” said X. “I said that I hadn't anticipated your need for this weapon. But I had anticipated my own need for it. I go now, and do not follow me. I will follow you whenever I wish. I will work for you sometimes. Sometimes I will work for the thirteen princes who are not here. And sometimes I will work for ‘Track and Total’. Could anything less than a triple agent be worthy of my talents?

  “Ah, when I have lived and adventured through it all, it will make a wonderful tale. In times to come, when I tell this tale, that is to say, in times past when I have told this tale, I'll make it good even if part of it has to be made up. That is to say, I have will have had (pardon me, people, the tense is a difficult one in my case) — in the past time when I someday will have told it, I will have told it with fine ornamentation.”

  X went out with the submachine gun somewhere in his many-trapped and many-pocketed cassock. It was really a magician's cloak, that cassock. Did you know that, when he used to be in vaudeville, Mr. X had been billed as the Great Ex-Capo?

  X escaped from Babylonia Bagascia or Whore Babylon in an old oak-wood sail-ship that had once been named the Brunhilde, that had once been named Navicula Petri, and had several times been named the Argo.

  4

  It was an All-Universe Congratulation by the Unbelievers' Angry League For Style In The Universe: “Perfect, perfect were all the terminations in Babylonia Bagascia, total style, with never a hint of grossness or corn. May the Ungodly Oaf sitting on his three-legged stool in the Sign of the Fish swallow his beard in frustration.” That's telling them, Angry League. One termination that was hardly noticed was the ancient grass with the incredibly long roots and the trace of red in its green that had always grown on Vatican Hill and nowhere else in the world. It had yielded to men with blow-torches, as it had never yielded to them before. And now it would never grow on Vatican Hill again. It was named Herba Cruor Martyrum or Blood-of-Martyrs Grass, and it was finished there.

  X made contact with the ‘Track and Total’ Mogul. The Mogul had passed three of his own always-alert guards on the way it. Then he entered his own impregnable apartment, turned on the lights in the inner room (this was at two o'clock in the morning), and he saw X sitting there, smoking one of the Mogul's cigars and drinking the Mogul's claret.

  “Be at ease,” said X. “I am looking for employment. You have, this week, received a contract for thirteen items or persons to be demolished and terminated. I know all about it. I believe you should sub-contract it to me. I am a hungry hunter and I will not let any prey escape me.”

  (This was in Marseille in France. It was several days after X had left Babylonia Bagascia in Italy.)

  “Who are you?” the Mogul asked.

  “X.”

  “So I half-suspected. But, X, you have the name of being a butterfly, long on talk, and short on blood.”

  “I say that if a man sheds one more drop than is necessary, then he hasn't the fine edge for such work.”

  “I, I'm a little partial to blood myself, X. And a little partial to all excesses. But I haven't any place for you. I have several showy tricksters in my organization already. They are amusing, but I am a grown man who doesn't need to be amused all the time. You do not have me here, X. I have you. Did you believe that I had only static guards? No, I also have fast-moving slammers. In fifteen minutes, one of them will come through that door, and I will give you to him to do as he will. You have meddled here, X. That costs you your life.”

  “This will be close, Mogul. But I believe that I can bring it about that another man will come through that door before your slammer comes. And the first man who comes will be one of the thirteen men you wish. Choose the least likely, the least possible one. Pick any one of those thirteen men who are scattered so widely through the world. Name the one you want me to bring here, and I will cause him to walk through that door within ten minute's time. Which one do you want to see, Mogul?”

  “Why, in these last few minutes of your life, are you fishing in that rain barrel, X? You do not know the names of any of the thirteen. It is only by some accident that you know there are thirteen men put under death contract. What good will it do to your butterfly ego to learn even one of the names? You're an odd little one, X, but I have plenty of odd ones now.”

  “The thirteen men on whom you have kill-contracts are these,” X said:

  “Joseph Cardinal Hedayat of Antioch.

  “Terrance Cardinal of Cork

  “Edward Cardinal Leviathan of Edinburgh

  “Carlos Cardinal Artemis of Santa Cruz

  “David Cardinal Lloyd-Spencer of Cardiff

  “Henri Cardinal Salvatore of New Orleans

  “Nicholas Cardinal Gregorio of Messina

  “Xavier Cardinal Runosake of Kobe, Japan

  “Kirol Cardinal Gabrailovitch of Zagreb

  “Joseph Cardinal Doki of Douala

  “Martino Cardinal Erculo of Milan. These are the thirteen, Mogul. Name me the one of them you wish and I will have him here within, ah, nine minutes now.”

  “You are called on that, X. As if any of them would come to this door when the word is already out (it must be out if even a butterfly like you has heard it) that I have the contract! There are several of these that we haven't quite pin-pointed as to location yet, and several of them have gone into panic travel, but we watch them closely. But I do know where Xavier Runosake is. At the moment he is billeted with a group of Buddhists in his own Kobe. We will kill him there, of course, but we intend to wait a day or two until implanted rumor has cut him down a little further. I hate to kill a public man when he is still partly in the public favor. But there is no need to kill him in favor since any man can so easily be turned out of that favor. X, I pick Xavier Cardinal Runosake of Kobe, Japan. And you will bring him to my very door in a little less than nine minutes, will you, X? Or will you prefer to be killed by my slammer here two or three minutes after that.”

  “I prefer to bring Runosake here. But he isn't in that little Buddhist compound of Kobe, not right now. He has just escaped. I tell you this to be fair with you.”

  The Mogul (that sounded like a nickname for the head of ‘Track and Total’ but the man was really named John Mogul and was usually called ‘The Mogul’) picked up a phone and finger-tapped a call. Calls from Europe go through quickly at that time of the night. The Mogul spoke a few words and listened to a few words. Then he replaced the phone.

  “Yes, he escaped the compound not more than ten minutes ago,” The Mogul said, “but he can't have escaped from Kobe yet. And you will have him at my door in another eight minutes? X, if he were in Marseille, he could not get here from the airport in less than one hour. But my Japanese operative said that he had already given me the news of the temporary escape, X. He said that he had given it to me about seven minutes ago.”

  “It was about that, Mogul, yes.”

  “So you had already entered my apartment then. You took the call in my name and voice. But that wouldn't get the Cardinal a third of the way around the world in almost no time at all. And why, of all the doors in the world, should he come to my door?”

  “We will see. Will you know Cardinal Runosake if you see him, Mogul?”

  “I know him, yes. Whenever or wherever I see him I will know him. How does it feel when you come right up to the edge of your life, little meddler? You will end not with a bang but with a riddle, eh? But does it not make you a little giddy when you come to the edge of it and look over?”

&nbs
p; “It does, Mogul. I have looked over that life brink many times and been giddy every time. If I do bring the Japanese Cardinal to your door in just these couple of minutes, then will you sub-contract the thirteen-part job to me?”

  “Not quite. But I'll take you in on it. I will pay you the first princely fee if you do deliver this prince of the congregation to my door. No, I have put the thirteen out on separate contracts, but I can pull any contract when I wish. If you deliver this Cardinal (I'm talking here almost as if it were possible) then I would put out one other contract to you. And, if you were successful on it, I would put out another to you. After all, you can't kill more than one of them at a time, can you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can't figure out just what your angle is, X. Unsatisfied curiosity eats me up sometimes. Be a good fellow, X, and tell me what your angle is, before you die.”

  “Yes. I'll probably tell it to you before I die. Maybe I'll tell it to you, someday, just before you die. But I won't die today.”

  “I believe that you will die today, X,” .John Mogul said. “I'm a man who is not known to the public. I am a quiet and effacing man. Really, I do efface a lot of people in the course of a year. And I fill a necessary niche. I am a trashman and I do my trashman's part to keep our world and society cleansed. I am a knacker, a dealer in carcasses. We turn their corruptible material, whenever such disposition is possible, into quality soap and essential oils and bone-meal for the farmer. I am a euthanasiast who removes unwanted persons from a world where everyone should be wanted. In each case, there is someone who does not want these persons they put out to contract, so I am doing my part to make this a completely wanted world. But I do not like passionate killers, and I seldom keep more than two or three of them in my stables. They are useful tools sometimes, but I use them with distaste. Coolness and dedication are the things I most like, and the personal satisfaction in jobs well done.”