by Fritz Leiber
He looked around.
"Where are we?"
"In one of the tunnels of the Golden Age," she replied. "Don't ask me what they were for. I don't know. But I know what they're for now." She giggled slyly, bobbing her head. "Just ignorant old witches! The priests know all about us! Oh, yes!"
He stared at her, puzzledly.
"Ah, don't bother your addled wits, Brother Jarles. Just come with Mother Jujy."
He followed her. In places the tunnel was almost whole—a circular tube of dull metal, big enough to stand in. More often it was cracked, and floored with dirt. Once or twice they passed crude shorings, obviously recent.
The trip seemed endless. Before it was over, he was very sick. His fever had gone up, fanned by exertion and perhaps by Mother Jujy's flaming nectar.
He began to stumble. The visions came back. Only now Sharlson Naurya walked at his side, nibbling a pomegranate. They were King and Queen of Hell, making a tour of the Underworld, conducted by their prime minister, Mother Jujy, whose cane had become a staff coiled with living serpents. Behind them walked a man who was all blackness. And around their feet gamboled half-human little apes.
Another ladder. Mother Jujy driving him up it. A narrow bed like a box with one side open. Short for him, but wonderfully soft. Against his tortured shoulder the blissful coolness of a bandage soaked with a dark, aromatic liquid. Momentary twitch of fear because he had never been doctored by anyone but a priest. The priests doctored everyone. Something warm trickling down his throat. Softness. Sleep.
His next conscious moment, omitting feverish visions with perhaps bits of reality jumbled in, began when he saw a black, blurred something squatting on the bedclothes over his feet. He concentrated on it patiently until it came into focus.
It was a large black cat, washing her paws and regarding him with a stony judiciousness.
That didn't seem right. It oughtn't to be a cat. Mother Jujy ought to have something small and furry and alive—but not a cat.
For an interminable period, he vaguely pondered the problem. All the while he watched the cat, half expecting it would speak to him. But it only went on washing its paws and judging him dispassionately.
Gradually he became aware of his surroundings. His bed was a box, after all. A box built into the wall of a room. His view of the lower part of the room was cut off by a solid side which held in the bedclothes.
The ceiling of the room was low, with all sorts of things hanging from the rafters. He could hear a little fire singing and something bubbling in a pot. It smelled good.
He tried to look over the side. That brought twinges of pain, not very bad but enough to make him catch his breath.
The old crone hobbled into sight.
"So you're back with us again, eh? For a while Mother Jujy thought she was going to lose her little boy."
He was still obsessed by his problem.
"Is that just a cat?" he asked weakly.
The witch's eyes, bright in their leathery sockets, regarding him narrowly. "Course! Though she gives herself awful airs!"
"She doesn't suck your blood?"
Mother Jujy made a contemptuous sound with her gums and tongue. "Maybe she'd like to. But just let her try!"
"But… then… are you a witch, Mother Jujy?"
"Do you think I make myself unpopular for fun?"
"But… I thought… I mean, the other witches I met—"
"Oh, them! So you've met some of them, eh?"
He nodded feebly. "Who are they?"
She glared at him. "You've asked too many questions already. Besides, it's time for soup!"
While she was spooning hot broth into him, with the cat come up to sniff the bowl and follow the movements of the spoon, there was a knock at the door. Mother Jujy hissed, "Not a peep out of you, now!" She slid a section of the wall across the front of his box, leaving him completely in the dark. He heard a muffled flop, as if a hanging of some sort had been dropped down.
The cat stood up on his chest. He could feel the pressure of the four paws, like a little table.
From the room came the sounds of talk, but he could not make out what was being said.
Presently the cat lay down on his good shoulder and began to purr. Jarles fell asleep.
During the next few days, the section of boarding was slid in front of Jarles' bed many times. After a while Mother Jujy omitted to drop the hanging, so he could hear fairly well what went on. He listened to the old witch dispense dubious-sounding magic and hard-headed advice to all sorts of commoners, especially girls of the Fallen Sisterhood, who couldn't have their fortunes told often enough. He made the acquaintance, in this indirect way, of Megatheopolis' scanty and indigent criminal class, with whom Mother Jujy seemed on suspiciously good terms. Apparently she acted as a fence.
But those were not all her visitors. Twice, deacons came. The first time, Jarles was tight with apprehension. But, strangely enough, the fellow turned out to be genuinely desirous of obtaining Mother Jujy's sorcerous aid in winning back a girl who had been stolen from him by a priest. The second time was worse. The deacon sniffed around suspiciously, spoke meaningfully of the penalties for illicit distilling and other illegal activities, and rapped the wall in one or two places. But apparently that was merely an attempt to get services for nothing, for he finally got around to telling a story somewhat similar to that of the first deacon. Jarles was vaguely glad when he heard Mother July sell him a piece of magic the performance of which would involve several toilsome and degrading actions.
And he sometimes thought of the Black Man and Sharlson Naurya, though the coven meeting now seemed almost a part of the hallucinations of his fever. But he thought about it a great deal. And he plagued Mother Jujy with questions about them, until he had wormed considerable information out of her, although he had the impression that she knew a little more about them than she would admit.
According to Mother Jujy, it was only a very few years ago that the "new witches" had first cropped up. At first she had thought that they were directly inspired by the Hierarchy, and that the priests had decided to "run us old women out of business."
After a while she had changed her opinion of the new witches, until now she seemed to regard them as not altogether unfriendly business rivals. She admitted to certain sketchy dealings with them, though of what sort she would never tell Jarles.
As his burned shoulder healed, with a white-ridged pit in it, and his fever abated—slowly, since the marvelous restoratives of the Hierarchic physicians were lacking—Jarles mulled this information and one day he asked Mother Jujy straight out, "Why did you rescue me?"
She seemed perplexed. Then she leered at him and said, "Maybe I'm in love with you! There's many a pretty boy Jujy helped out of scrapes and hid away when she was the sweetest little dickens in the whole sisterhood."
After a moment she added gruffly, "Besides, you were halfway decent to me when you wore the robe."
"But how did you ever find me? How did you happen to be there in the ruins, when they were tracking me down?"
It was merely chance, Mother Jujy told him. She had just happened to be coming out of the tunnel. Later she amended this by claiming to have had a "vision" of his predicament. He knew she was not telling the whole truth.
Late one evening he felt restless and insisted on getting out of bed and walking up and down the room, ducking and weaving around the stuff hanging from the rafters, impatient to grapple with reality. There came a knocking at the door, quite different from any of those he had learned to recognize. A lilting tattoo of tippling fingers. Grimalkin, the cat, snarled menacingly. Mother Jujy drove Jarles back into the wallbed. Then she went to the door, unbarred it, slipped outside, and closed it behind her.
It was very dark, but confronting her was a deeper darkness, man-shaped.
"I see you," she said tartly, though a little nervously, pulling her ragged shawl a little tighter against the cold. "And you needn't go pulling tricks to show off. You can't faze me."
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"Grimalkin knew my knock," answered a laughing voice. "Shall I send Dickon in to play with her?"
"She'd scratch his eyes out! Creepy, crawly, snuggly, dirty-minded little brute! What do you want?"
"How is our patient?"
"Wants to get up and set the world on fire! I have to tie him down."
"And his—education?"
"Oh, I think he's getting a little sense. Hard knocks have a way with them. He's tough, though. Got a slam-bang, drag-out mind, for all he's a gentle boy. Still, I think he's softening toward you people—worse luck for him!"
"Good! You are too modest, though. You underestimate the influence of your companionship on him. We are much beholden to you, Mother Jujy."
"Beholden pudding!" The old crone drew herself up, and stuck out her shriveled chin. "Listen, I'm willing to help you people now and then, because I know you're out to get the priests. But there's one thing I always want you to understand: I saw through you from the first. In spite of all your tricks and stunts and gibbering little monkeys, you're not real witches!"
There was a half-pleased chuckle from the darkness. "Let us pray that the Hierarchy never achieves your penetration, Mother Jujy."
She ignored the compliment. "You're just fakes," she persisted. "I'm the real witch!"
The darkness bowed. "We will not dispute the honor with you."
"That's right!" said Mother Jujy.
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Chapter 7
"Asmodeus says we're stepping up the pressure, Drick. Tonight the wolves come to Megatheopolis. Just sniff around the outskirts at first, but they'll get bolder afterward. Beginning at midnight, telesolidographs in all key cities will be working twenty-four hours a day. We should have our second one set up here by then. You boys can operate it in shifts. Fun. But watch out for eyestrain. Meanwhile, all covens are to put everyone they've got on second-stage persecutions of priests of the top four circles. Here are the tapes listing the basic individual fears of susceptible priests holding key positions. You can attend to distribution."
The Black Man shoved across the desk a box packed with tiny wheel-shaped containers. The other young man —short, burly, shrewd-faced, and wearing a similar black tunic—glanced at the identifications on them and snapped the box shut.
"I'd like to know where Asmodeus gets such detailed information," added the Black Man, rubbing his dark-circled eyes. "If I were religious, I'd say he was the Great God—he knows so much about the Hierarchy."
Drick leaned forward. "Maybe he's in the Hierarchy."
The Black Man nodded, frowning thoughtfully. "Maybe. Maybe."
Drick looked at him queerly.
"I'm not Asmodeus, Drick. I'm not even sure that I'm top man in Megatheopolis, though I do seem to be the first to get instructions."
"From where?" Drick put his hand on the box. "A thing like this. It's a physical link. You had to get it from someone."
"Surely." The Black Man smiled, a little wearily. "It's logical to assume, if I walk into this room and find a box on my desk, that I got it from someone. But whom?"
"That's how it came?"
The Black Man nodded.
Drick shook his head, dubiously. "We sure do a lot on trust."
The Black Man chuckled. "Still, there are advantages to the arrangement. If any one of us is caught, he won't be able to give the whole show away, even if he's—persuaded to."
"They haven't caught any of us yet." Drick sounded a trifle cocky.
The Black Man looked up at him slowly, his impish face suddenly dead serious. "You're not, by any chance, thinking that's because they can't? You're not doubting that they haven't spotted some of us, and are just waiting to get an angle on the higher-ups before they pull in the net?"
Drick looked a trifle taken aback. He frowned. "No, I'm not." He picked up the box and stood up. Then he remembered something. "I've been with Sharlson Naurya. She's getting restive. Doesn't like being cooped up here."
"Asmodeus' orders again. He's got something up his sleeve—a special job for her when the right moment comes. Spend some time with her, Drick, if you get the chance. Entertain her."
"Now those," said Drick, "are pleasant instructions."
"Better not set your hopes too high, though. I fancy we'll have a certain renegade priest back with us shortly."
"Mother Jujy's patient? He's changed his mind?"
"Changing, I think."
Drick nodded. "Not a bad fellow. And I guess Naurya does favor him." In the doorway he looked back suddenly. The Black Man had slumped a little and was rubbing his eyes. "Oh, say," Drick suggested casually, "if things are going to be much tougher from tonight on, why not take yourself a six-hour vacation while you've got the chance?"
The Black Man nodded. "Not a bad idea."
After Drick was gone, he sat looking at the wall.
"Not a bad idea," he repeated.
Somewhere far off a mighty bell began to toll. A mischievous smile slowly crept into his lips. He frowned and shook his head, as if putting away a temptation. The bell continued to toll. The smile forced its way back. He shrugged his shoulders and jumped up.
He seemed all energy now.
From a closet in the wall he took a rather thick, black sheath, that suggested in part a coil or network of wires, and bound it to his right forearm. On a cabinet across the room was a shallow brass bowl, with some flowers floating in it. He pointed his right hand at it, experimentally, seeming to feel for some kind of contact. The bowl rocked slightly, rose an inch or two off the table, and suddenly upset, spilling water and flowers. He smiled satisfiedly.
To his left arm he bound a different sort of sheath, one with keys which he could touch by bending his fingers across his palm. He fiddled with the cabinet, setting some music going—a solemn melody. Then he backed away, moved his left arm as if again feeling for some sort of contact, and began to finger the keys. The solemn music squawked, became discordant, changed into something raucous.
From a rack in the closet he took down the costume of a commoner—coarse, long-sleeved smock, leggings, boots, hood.
A thin, muffled, piping voice, without apparent source, commented, "Up to tricks again! I suppose I'll have to do all the hard work!"
"For that, Dickon, my little familiar, I think I'll leave you at home," said the Black Man.
The great bell had ceased to toll, but its reverberations seemed to linger on unchanging, like some mysterious message from eternity. Hushed and reverent commoners almost filled the Cathedral—a place of vast and pleasant gloom, aglow with soft rosy lights and the glitter of gold and jewels, the air swimming with sweet incense. Priests hurried softly up and down the aisles, slack robes swishing silkily, bound on mystic errands.
The Black Man made the customary ritualistic obeisances and hunched himself into an aisle seat on one of the rear benches, just opposite the gleaming wonder of the organ, from whose golden throats soft music had begun to breathe, blending itself with the fancied reverberations of the bell. He seemed half stupefied, sunk in an ignorantly groping meditation, chewing his tongue as if it were an animal's cud, piously brooding on his sins.
There descended upon him a feeling of peace and well-being, greater than could be accounted for by the warm gloom, the misty lights, the soothing music and incense. But since he knew it was due to radiations which depressed his sympathetic, and stimulated his parasympathetic nervous system, he could disregard the influence—indeed, enjoy it. If he had any lingerings of nervousness, the radiations nullified them. Covertly he noted their effect on the others—the loosening of work-taut muscles, the smoothing of worried frowns, the stupid dropping of jaws.
"Great God, master of Heaven and Earth, priest of priests, whose servant is the Hierarchy—"
A devout, half-chanting voice pulsed through the lustrous dimness. From behind the altar, lights blared upward like muted trumpets, revealing the image of the Great God, which seemed a diminished reflection of the vaster image atop the Cath
edral. The commoners bowed their heads. From them rose, like a tired sigh, a mumbled response. The service had begun.
The pious atmosphere deepened, as response followed droning response. There was only one suggestion of a hitch—when a number of older commoners automatically responded to the "Hasten your New Golden Age" line, which had been recently cut from the service.
The priest on the rostrum was replaced by an older one, who began to preach. His voice was marvelously flexible, one moment stern as wrath itself, as sweetly soporific as dugged honey the next. His words were admirably suited to the mentality of his audience. Not one could fail to hit its mark.
He spoke, as usual, of the hard lot of commoners and of the never-ceasing endeavors of the priesthood to alleviate their sin-begotten misery. He painted a simple, compelling picture of a universe in which only endless toil could expiate the evil taint inherited from the Golden Age and so keep damnation at bay.
Then all the honey went out of his voice, as he began to speak of a matter more pressing and closer at hand—the increasing boldness of Sathanas and his imps. There was a subdued scraping of feet and friction of homespun on benches, as the commoners shifted around to listen more intently. He told them that the boldness of Sathanas was entirely due to their own increasing sinfulness, warned them of the dire fate in store for those who did not repent and improve, and commanded each man to keep close watch upon his neighbor.
"… for none may say from where sinfulness will next spring. Its seeds are everywhere, and Sathanas waters and manures them daily. Beyond all else he loves that crop. The Hierarchy can smite down Sathanas when it wills. But there is no merit for you in such a victory, unless each of you tears Sathanas from his heart and keeps the seeds of sin dry and sterile."
On this note of stern and ominous warning, the sermon ended. First Circle priests appeared at the head of the aisles, bearing gleaming plates, and yet another priest entered the rostrum to exhort the people to contribute as much as they felt able to the coffers of the Hierarchy. Such free gifts had a special virtue.
