Brother Paul saw a fleet of huge spaceships, each one to two kilometers in diameter, each one shaped like the symbol for one of the Tarot suits. Ships like Swords battled with ships like Scepters and Cups and Disks and Atoms. It seemed the suit of Aura was variously known as Lamps, Plasma, and Atoms; in fact the variations of Tarot among alien creatures dwarfed in number and imagination those Brother Paul had surveyed on Earth. This did not mean the medieval Tarot decks of Earth were forgotten; quite the opposite. The aliens gleefully adapted all the old cards to new purposes, filling out each deck to a hundred cards and overflowing into the Ghost. Every Tarot deck that had ever existed anywhere was, by the definition of the Temple of Tarot, valid.
Concurrently, every deity that had ever related to Tarot was also considered valid. Thus the God of Tarot was a composite of every conceived and conceivable deity in all time and space. "All Gods are valid," became a common saying.
The shortage of energy caused galaxy to war against galaxy. Only the phenomenal efforts of Tarot-inspired heroes prevented horrendous destruction. The Solarian Flint of Outworld, spying his enemy by a Tarot reading and neutralizing her; Melody of Mintaka, herself an expert Tarotist; and Herald the Healer, laboring to save the entire Cluster from the threat of alien conquest and destruction—
And this was the Tarot spread that might motivate Herald to achieve his vital mission. And Brother Paul was the guide. He shook his head, bemused again. "I have come from Hell to help you," he murmured.
I do not comprehend.
"It is not comprehendable. Perhaps the whole of my life and death has been for no other purpose than to facilitate your mission. On the other hand, this could be an incredible delusion of grandeur. Regardless, I shall do what I can." Brother Paul looked at the final card of the reading. "Here is Destiny—but it is the Ghost, the great Unknown. The reading cannot end here!"
The spread can be augmented, Herald flashed. Actually, this exchange occurred somewhere during Brother Paul's series of revelations about the future history of Tarot; everything was mixed hopelessly together, but it did not matter.
Lo, they dealt a satellite spread, modifying and clarifying the main layout. Somewhere here or elsewhere the cards augmented his knowledge of the Ancients, those creatures whose civilization had spanned the entire Cluster, three million years ago. Their technology had been well beyond anything known even in the modern, Solarian-year-4500 Cluster. Yet they had vanished completely. Now an alien invader known only as the Amoeba was attacking with technology that seemed to approach the Ancient level. The only hope of repelling the Amoeba was to discover Ancient technology—in a hurry.
How was a Tarot reading guided by a man two and a half millennia out of date to accomplish such a thing? Tarot could evoke only what was already in the mind of the querent—and Animation was much the same. Yet what could he do but go on?
Still, something nagged at his awareness. Ancients—Animation—Amoeba... there was some critical connection of such overwhelming importance that... but he could not quite get his thought around it, and the revelation escaped.
They formed a second satellite spread. This one animated—the Daughter figure again. She was in the fire as before, writhing in silent but devastatingly evocative agony, trying to draw her slender legs out of it, then resigning herself to her doom. As Jesus resigned himself to his doom on the cross—
"No—I forbid this!" Brother Paul cried. "There is no way this torture can promote the welfare of your culture! I have felt the fires of Hell myself; do not do this to her again!"
She is my wife, the Page of Swords! Herald flashed, and his agony was a terrible thing in its brilliance. His love was in the flame, and his sanity was breaking. Suffer as I suffer! She burns, she burns!
It was Herald's vision, not Brother Paul's. But it was the Page of Disks he saw more than the Page of Swords. Carolyn. His child. Or the child of his child, a hundred generations removed. One card of the Tarot for each generation. But the connection—absolute. There was no way he could tolerate the infliction of such horror on her.
Brother Paul aspired to be a peaceful man, but now he had to fight. "I sub-define!" he cried, slapping down another satellite card. "The Eight of Aura—Conscience!" Maybe in this distant future the card no longer represented this concept, but he willed it so regardless.
Carolyn did not fade. Her anguished mouth opened, and she cried: "Herald forgive them—they know not what they do!"
As Jesus had cried. Now Brother Paul's own descendant begged the same reprieve for her tormentors. In this moment her aura was like that of Christ; he could feel the gentle power of it like none other in the universe. Yet Christ's sacrifice had not purified the erring populace, had not expunged evil from the world. Instead evil had infiltrated Christ's own Church and prospered as never before. The tears of Jesus—Now another innocent was being sacrificed, as it were, progressing from the incarceration of a sealed-in chamber in a wall to the dancing flames. Her lovely hair puffed into a blaze, shriveling with horrible speed into a black mass.
Herald charged the fire, but this was useless; even in the Andromedan's own framework, this was only a memory vision. Brother Paul slammed down another card, not knowing what it was, only praying that somehow this recurring wrong could be righted.
Time froze. This card was blank, for he had not selected any, and in this Animation there was no random manifestation. He had to choose, consciously or subconsciously. What did he want?
"Oh, God, I want her safe, unburned," Brother Paul whispered.
God did not answer. And why should He? It was not God's way to interfere directly in the affairs of living species. That was Satan's business.
"Then what do You offer, Satan?" Brother Paul asked.
The response was instant: Vengeance.
God was distant, aloof; Satan was near and relevant. Suddenly it was easy to appreciate why a man like Therion would prefer to worship the Horned God. The promises of God were nebulous and often postponed until their completion became pointless; justice delayed, justice denied. Satan operated on a much more direct, responsive basis. Satan was a businessman; He set a price on what He offered—but He damn well delivered. He never cheated, not directly; He used any conceivable loophole to make His gifts more costly than any person would voluntarily pay, but He abided by His infernal rules. He had shown Brother Paul the origin and purpose of Tarot and also the evolution and future of Tarot; now He was angling for that fateful third wish.
To make that bargain would be in effect to worship Satan. Yet there was much that was worthy in Satan. Perhaps Brother Paul had spent his life seeking the wrong deity.
But he could not make this bargain. Not quite. "No! I want her alive!"
"Vengeance—and life," Satan replied, right on top of the situation. To bargain with God was an exercise in futility; Satan was the one in control.
Brother Paul looked again at the awful flame. "I'll take it!" Carolyn had prayed for forgiveness of her persecutors. Instead Brother Paul was bringing vengeance. Surely Jesus' tears were flowing yet!
The card he had chosen manifested as the Tower—the House of God—and of the Devil. It was the Tower of Truth, and the Dungeon of Wrong, and this very castle. From the sky a bolt of energy came—and everything was a blinding brilliance.
Revelation! The vision retreated, and he saw the roiling fireball of an atomic explosion. This was the vengeance sponsored by Satan: fiery destruction of the entire castle. All those who had perpetrated the atrocity of burning Carolyn had been hoist by their own petard. All had died in fire.
Now Satan guided him on a kaleidoscopic tour of the Cluster, showing him the war with the alien Amoeba. This was the Age of Aura; the soul of Carolyn, known to Herald as Psyche, was captive in the Transfer network of the Ancients. As this network was restored, that soul was freed.
Carolyn/Psyche had lost her lovely human host, but she lived eternally in other hosts. She and Herald were happy. She was no longer Brother Paul's little girl in either body
or spirit. She had found her own life. And that was the way it had to be.
Satan had granted the third wish—and Brother Paul knew he had expended it in a selfish manner. When the final test of his conscience had come, he had sacrificed his personal honor for this. It was the measure of his nature that he was not sorry.
And do you know the verdict on your soul? Satan inquired from the swirling chaos of the void.
"In the final crisis. I yielded to my baser instincts," Brother Paul said. "I am, after all, a worshipper of the Horned God."
What fate awaits you now?
"I am doomed to Hell," Brother Paul answered, knowing that his unworthiness only reflected that of mankind. Man was not yet ready to meet God—not in Brother Paul's time, not in the forty-fifth century, perhaps never. Satan had brought him at last to reason. "I am ready."
So shall it be!
Abruptly chaos vanished. Brother Paul found himself standing on the green turf of Planet Tarot. Scattered about within a half-kilometer radius were Lee, Therion, Amaranth, and Carolyn.
Brother Paul looked about, realizing that the third and final Animation was over. All five of them had survived it. He himself stood restored in health and sanity, uncastrate.
With increasing amazement and horror he grasped the reason.
VII
Decision: 26
The Devil is the father of all misunderstood geniuses. It is he who induces us to try new paths; he begets originality of thought and deed. He tempts us to venture out boldly into unknown seas for the discovery of new ways to the wealth of distant Indies. He makes us dream of and hope for more prosperity and greater happiness. He is the spirit of discontent that embitters our hearts, but in the end often leads to a better arrangement of affairs. In truth, he is a very useful servant of the Almighty, and all the heinous features of his character disappear when we consider the fact that he is necessary in the economy of nature as a wholesome stimulant to action and as the power of resistance that evokes the noblest efforts of living beings.
God, being the All in All, regarded as the ultimate authority for conduct, is neither evil itself nor goodness itself; but, nevertheless, he is in the good, and he is in the evil. He encompasses good and evil. God is in the growth and in the decay; he reveals himself in life, and he reveals himself in death. He will be found in the storm, he will be found in the calm. He lives in good aspirations and in the bliss resting upon moral endeavors; but he lives also in the visitations that follow evil actions. It is his voice that speaks in the guilty conscience, and he, too, is in the curse of sin, and in this sense he is present even in the evil itself. Even evil, temptation, and sin elicit the good: they teach man. He who has eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind to perceive, will read a lesson out of the very existence of Evil, a lesson which, in spite of the terror it inspires, is certainly not less impressive, nor less divine, than the sublimity of a holy life; and thus it becomes apparent that the existence of Satan is part and parcel of the divine dispensation. Indeed we must grant that the Devil is the most indispensable and faithful helpmate of God. To speak mystically, even the existence of the Devil is filled with the presence of God.
—Paul Carus: The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil, New York, Land's End Press, 1969 rpt. of 1900 ed.
"I can see you have the answer at last," the Reverend Siltz said.
"No, no answer. I fear it was an impossible mission," Brother Paul said, chewing on the good bread his host provided. It was not as interesting as the dishes of Charles VI's palace, but it was satisfying. "I went to Hell—but I learned about Tarot, not God."
"Tomorrow we shall see," Siltz said confidently. "I observed your face as you emerged from Animation and the faces of the others. It was as if you were of a single family, transfigured. We shall have the truth from you."
"The truth is hardly relevant," Brother Paul said. "I learned of the original Tarot, which has thirty Triumphs, each with a pseudo-meaning and a genuine meaning. Together, these Triumphs represent the life of Jesus which is also the life of Everyman, beginning in nothingness, developing through childhood and adolescence to maturity, then undergoing the vicissitudes of chance, error, trial, punishment, and transformation to another status where his real education begins. In the end he is subject to the final judgment and perhaps salvation. The minor cards offer spot guidance along the way—five suits, each covering a fundamental aspect of life, each card with two versions of the basic message. A most sophisticated deck of cards—yet so much more than that. All religious history is reflected in the Tarot!"
"So it would seem," Siltz agreed. "Perhaps you should record this special deck before it fades from your memory."
Brother Paul nodded. "Yes—I destroyed it; I must restore it. Humanity deserves the true Tarot! And I must give the world the Cluster Satellite Spread too—or would that be stealing from the future?"
"That must certainly have been a remarkable Animation," Siltz observed. "I become most curious. What were the meanings of the cards of this extra suit?"
"That would be the suit of Aura. The ace is titled BE, and the symbol is an oil lamp in the shape of a cosmic lemniscate." He made a figure with his finger in the air: ∞ . "In the future they will render it as a broken atom, a proton-neutron nucleus surrounded by a spiral electron shell. He made another figure: ∞ . "It also resembles a galaxy, by no coincidence." He smiled. "Iconographic transformation. The cultures of the Cluster draw from any variants that please them, just as they do with measurements. In Etamin they use miles instead of kilometers—" He caught himself. "I'm drifting! The deuce is illustrated by an outline of the human aura, and its interpretations are SOUL or SELF, depending on the way it falls. The trey covers PERSPECTIVE or EXPERIENCE—"
"Here, write it down, write it down!" Siltz said. "I am most intrigued by your dream deck! A symbol for each small card?"
"Yes. All symbols in a suit relate to the suit theme, and of course each suit is color coded. This is the suit of Art, coded violet—"
"I thought you termed it the suit of Aura."
"Merely alternate aspects. Aura, Art, Spirit, Plasma, Atoms—"
"All one suit?" Siltz inquired, frowning.
"Yes. Each suit has many interpretations, depending on the frame of reference. It is like the function key on a calculator. The cards look the same, but a shift of function makes them perform in a different manner. That way the usefulness of a single deck is multiplied. Instead of one hundred or two hundred aspects, there are a thousand or more, each fairly specific. When the reference is the classical elements, we call the suits FIRE, AIR, WATER, EARTH, and AURA. When it is the endeavors of man, we call them NATURE, SCIENCE, FAITH, TRADE, and ART. In medieval times that second suit was MAGIC rather than SCIENCE, but the meaning hasn't changed."
Siltz laughed. "I dare say it has not!"
"When the reference is popularized divination, the suits are WORK, TROUBLE, LOVE, MONEY, and SPIRIT. When it is the states of matter they are ENERGY, GAS, LIQUID, SOLID, and PLASMA. When—"
"Plasma?"
"In physics that is the compressed state that occurs in the hearts of superdense stars where the pressure is so great that the normal nucleus-electron structure breaks down—"
"Oh, I comprehend. The broken atom! The squashed galaxy. Write it down, write it down! You do not want to have to go into Animation for what you forget. Make a table for your titles and numbers and symbols." He drew lines on the paper, making boxes. "Now your five aces stand for—"
"DO, THINK, FEEL, HAVE, and BE," Brother Paul said, filling them in. "With symbols of Scepter, Sword, Cup, Coin, and—"
A knock on the door interrupted him. "Come in, girl," Siltz called without removing his eyes from the developing chart. Privately to Brother Paul, he muttered: "I thought she'd never relent! It has been several days and not a night at my house !"
Jeanette entered. She was almost beautiful in a surprisingly feminine dress, her hair set just so, her legs well exposed and well formed. "You—how did yo
u know—?"
"Brother Paul's hundred-proof Animation Tarot informed me that mischief was afoot. Your business has to do with work, trouble, love, money, and spirit."
"Not with money!" she snapped. Then, abruptly shy, she dropped to one knee before him. "Reverend Siltz of the Church of Communism, I beg permission to marry your son."
Siltz pointed his finger at her pert nose. "Two grandchildren!"
"The first two children shall be raised in your faith," she said grimly. "Only the first two!"
Siltz smiled with crocodilian victory. "I am a reasonable man, though at times it pains me. I grant permission."
Jeanette's reserve crumbled. "Oh, Reverend, I thank you!" she exclaimed, jumping up and flinging her arms about him.
"Please, daughter—you will scatter Brother Paul's valuable cards, flaunting your pretty skirt about like that."
"Never mind my cards," Brother Paul said quickly. "I'm sure you two have details to negotiate about the wedding and such. I'll take a walk." He moved to the door.
Neither of them seemed to hear him. "You called me 'daughter'!" Jeanette exclaimed. "How sweet!"
Anthony, Piers - Tarot 3 - Faith of Tarot Page 19
