Gather Darkness

by Fritz Leiber

  "I will tell you why," Frejeris continued after a dramatic pause. His magnificent voice deepened in timbre and grew more vibrant. "And in so doing I will reveal Goniface as a ruthless upstart, seeking to seize absolute power. I will show you that he has organized a hierarchy within the Hierarchy, a clique of deacons and priests loyal only to himself. I will prove to you that he is taking advantage of this matter of the Witchcraft and exaggerating the danger it represents, in order to foment a world-wide crisis and seize power in defiance of precedent, with the excuse that he does it to save the Hierarchy!"

  With a sweeping glance up and down the table, Frejeris prepared to launch into a detailed accusation.

  He never began it. The archpriest Jomald, bellwether of the Realists, rose and said simply, as if it were a very ordinary matter, "The archpriest Frejeris has placed the Hierarchy in grave danger by obstructing and delaying action against the Witchcraft. If left free to his own devices, he will continue to do so. His motives are highly suspect. I ask for his immediate excommunication for the space of a year. I further ask that the matter be brought at once to a vote."

  Frejeris glared at him with a cold and supercilious disdain, as if outraged merely by the unprecedented discourtesy of the interruption.

  "I second that!" lean Brother Sercival snapped unexpectedly, from where he sat beside Goniface.

  Even the old Fanatic plays along with us, thought Goniface.

  And still Frejeris stood there uncomprehending, as if waiting for the rude interruptions to come to an end, so he could get on with his oration. He was a magnificently stately man.

  His own Moderates understood what was happening before he did. Ominously for him, they looked more frightened than indignant.

  "Are there any objections to bringing the matter to a vote?" asked Jomald. His voice was like the rap of a gavel.

  Very slowly, very hesitatingly, one of the Moderates started to rise to his feet, glancing uneasily up and down the table. What he saw there caused him to change his mind. He sank back, avoiding Frejeris' eyes.

  Only then did Frejeris understand. To his credit, it did not break his calm. His large, handsome face lost nothing of its statuesque quality.

  One after another, clenched fists were laid on the gleaming table. Frejeris glanced haughtily at the archpriests who thus voted against him, but more with the air of a man who rebukes discourtesy than that of a priest facing excommunication.

  At the end, not one hand had been laid palm downward to indicate a negative vote, and only two Moderates had abstained—and they looked acutely uncomfortable.

  "Execute the sentence!" cried Jomald to the group of Fourth Circle technicians.

  Several archpriests betrayed surprise, only now realizing how closely everything had been planned.

  But still Frejeris preserved his calm. The Moderates to either side of him shrank away, but he did not flinch. Like a marble statue he stood there.

  And like a marble statue he was toppled down. Invisible emanations played upon him, establishing blocks in his sensory nerves. The optical nerves were the first to be affected. Gropingly, he raised his hands to his blinded eyes, but before they could reach them, his tactual sense was gone. Equilibrium went with the rest. He swayed forward and fell heavily across the table—a table he could no longer feel.

  More helpless than a baby he sprawled there, an insensate ruin, excommunicated from the universe as well as from the Hierarchy, shut off from all sensory contact, doomed for a year to the private hell of his own thoughts—a year that would be an eternity, for there would be in it no way to measure time.

  And even as lesser priests were stepping forward to remove the fallen leader, Brother Jomald spoke again.

  "I further ask that power to use all our resources against the common enemy be vested in the archpriest Goniface, that he be declared World Hierarch, until the Witchcraft is no longer a menace to us. During this period the Apex Council will function as his chief advisory board."

  That motion, too, was passed without a single dissenting vote. Even old Sercival, who might have been expected to cling grimly to independence, went with the rest. Goniface, who had not spoken a word all this time, made no comment. He simply rose and said: "Bring in our prisoners. Let the questioning begin."

  This brought an unanticipated objection from the Fanatic Sercival. His parchment face was the incarnation of zealous hatred.

  "I beg you, your supreme eminence, let us have no traffic of any sort with the agents of Sathanas! If you certify that they are witches, let them instantly be slain! They are too foul a blemish on creation to let exist.

  "I voted to give you supreme power," continued Sercival, "because I consider you a strong man, willing and able to fight ruthlessly against the Lord of Evil. No quarter to his witches, I say!"

  "I have heard you," Goniface told Sercival coolly. "You will not find me sparing the enemy. But it is necessary to question them."

  Reluctantly Sercival sat down. "I still say they should be slain," he muttered doggedly.

  But attention shifted away from him to the captured witches being escorted into the Chamber under a heavy guard of deacons. With feigned casualness the archpriests made the most of their first opportunity to study the enemy face to face.

  The first impression was reassuring. The prisoners were all dressed alike in coarse-woven, scanty tunics. And they actually seemed dirty! Moreover, the fact that they did not struggle at all or resist in any way the ungentle and unnecessary shoving and jerking to which the deacons subjected them, had the appearance of servility. There could be nothing to fear from such a ragamuffin crew as these! Why, they looked like a road gang—except that most of them were women. A few of the women seemed moderately pretty—might even be rather fetching if decently groomed and clothed in the appealing garb of the sisterhood. But as they were now, these supposedly potent enemies resembled nothing so much as a crew of the humblest menials.

  The second impression was not so reassuring. The individual faces were obviously more sensitive and intelligent than those of the average run of commoners. What had passed at first glance for oafishness became on closer inspection a brooding thoughtfulness. And there was a subtle air of solidarity, of mutual loyalty, about them, so that they seemed to stand firmly together as a group—and this impression was only heightened by their garb. Likewise, it became apparent that they did not so much submit frightenedly to the rough handling they were getting, as ignore it because their minds were concentrated on other matters.

  That impression of brooding thoughtfulness was the most intangibly disturbing. One got the feeling that they were communing with powers outside the Council Chamber.

  On the whole, however, it was the first impression that predominated. The other was only a lurking afterthought.

  With a toss of his dwarfishly large head, Cousin Deth signed to a Second Circle clerk to begin the proceedings. From the very instant that Goniface had been granted dictatorial powers, the little deacon had dropped the mask from his features, so that all his emotions registered there in naked ugliness. His bold glances toward the Apex Council said more plainly than words, "I am the second man in the Hierarchy now."

  From the luminous face of a reading-tape projector, the clerk recited to the prisoners a brief indictment that was also a conviction.

  "You have been apprehended while conspiring against the Hierarchy, under the guise and pretense of witchcraft. If any one of you will stand forward now and make a full confession of guilt, holding back nothing, that one will be spared the torture."

  Abruptly one of the women began to tremble and shake spasmodically, her head thrown sharply back, her eyes closed. Swiftly her movements became more violent. Her neck muscles stood out sharply, and her knees were bent as if she were bracing herself with a great effort. It was as if something invisible were shaking her. Suddenly she fell down and frothed at the mouth like an epileptic.

  "Lord, protect us!" she screamed, writhing convulsively on the floor. "Sathanas, aid thy
servants!"

  A vast wolfish shape materialized from the misty gray of the walls at the other end of the Chamber. Its eyes were like two sooty hearths filled with dying embers. Toward the Council table it stalked, big as a house, the very incarnation of skulking, slavering destruction.

  The archpriests had risen. Several of them could not conceal their emotions. The lesser priests also shrank back involuntarily.

  "Dissolve it!" Goniface called sharply to Cousin Deth. Then he rose, too. "The thing is only a telesolidographic projection—as all of you must realize!" The last phrase was directed bitingly at his fellow archpriests. Almost he wished Frejeris were still among them. The pompous Moderate at least knew how to put up a front.

  Partially reassured, the archpriests noted that there was indeed a certain transparency to the advancing monster, so you could dimly see through it to the wall beyond; and it was a ghostly slaver that dripped in ropes from the gigantic jaws. Moreover, the great paws with their foot-long nails seemed sometimes to step a little above the floor and sometimes a little below.

  Then Deth's technicians got the range of it and it began swiftly to melt away. Whole sections of the body disappeared instantaneously, leaving only a few remnants which their instruments had not caught at the first focusing. True, there was something hellishly suggestive, almost worse than the original, about those remnants—an ear tuft here, a paw there, a patch of dirty fur coarser than grass, and the smoky hellhole of an eye. But in the main the results were very helpful to priestly morale.

  "There was, of course, no need to dissolve it," said Goniface coldly. "I merely wished to demonstrate conclusively its solidographic nature. Our Fourth Circle brethren were able to dissipate it with the recently invented polyfrequency neutralizer. The thing was purely photonic in nature and yielded quickly to an application of the principle of interference. All phantasms employed by the so-called New Witchcraft are of a similar sort. To put a complete stop to them, it will only be necessary to discover and destroy the hidden projectors—merely a matter of time, even without the information that will soon be at our disposal." He glanced significantly at the group of witches. "We could with the greatest ease insulate this chamber—or the whole Sanctuary—from such projections. But there is no need. Our research scientists are sure that it is impossible to transmit physically injurious frequencies and intensities. Should we insulate the Sanctuary, it would give the false impression that we are afraid." His next words were very definite. "I command every priest and deacon here to take no notice whatever of any projections directed into this chamber."

  And he sat down—instantly to become aware of a slight sultriness and of the fact that everything in the Chamber had turned bright-red and become exceedingly foggy and indistinct.

  Disobeying the command they had just been given, most of the archpriests sprang up and crowded to either end of the table, away from Goniface. For where their World Hierarch had been sitting, there now sat a huge red devil, whose shaggy red legs seemed poked through the table itself, and whose great horned head swung from side to side, grinning down at them with fiendish mirth. Coiled up monkeylike over his shoulder was a thick red tail ending in a vicious barb.

  In the interior of the redness, the figure of Goniface could be made out hazily, like an insect embedded in cloudy amber.

  He stood up and for a moment his head emerged from the redness. Then the devil stood up, too.

  There was a commotion among the witches. They had dropped to their knees and many of them were calling out adoringly, "Master! Master!"

  Old Sercival raised a shaky hand. His glittering eyes rolled confusedly. He seemed not so much frightened as indignant.

  "What does this mean?" he cried. "Have we voted for Sathanas himself?"

  Deth's technicians also disobeyed the command. Swinging their projector around, they stripped the solidographic projection from Goniface. First his head emerged, then the rest of his body. He looked very grim.

  But even as that happened, there came a startled cry from the deacons. An inky cloud of darkness had suddenly engulfed the kneeling witches, billowing ever wider, threatening to fill the whole chamber. From the cloud emerged deacon guards, hands stretched ahead of them, hastily groping their way.

  "Wrath rods!" called Goniface, even as the black cloud lapped dangerously close to the technicians and their instruments. "Swing them into the darkness at waist level. If it doesn't dissipate, keep going all the way through. No neutralizer can counteract their energy!"

  Beams of violet flame spattered against the gray walls of the Chamber, swinging in toward the darkness. The cloud seemed to make a last despairing effort, thrusting out an inky pseudopod toward the door of the chamber. But the wrath rays touched it, cut into it. Abruptly the cloud vanished and the wrath rays halted.

  "If any further solidographic projections are introduced into the Chamber, witches will be slain!" Goniface announced harshly. "For every such projection, five witches!"

  "Are you not going to slay them all, immediately?" demanded old Sercival. "I only now heard you order that they be slain with rods of wrath, as I advised from the first."

  "It was merely a device on my part, your reverence," Goniface answered curtly. "These are worldly matters which it is doubtless difficult for your saintly nature to comprehend!"

  At this rebuke, Sercival subsided, though muttering and shaking his head. It was apparent that several other archpriests would have been relieved to see the Fanatic's advice followed.

  "Begin the questioning!" ordered Goniface.

  Two deacons singled out one of the witches and led her toward the chair by which Cousin Deth was standing. She was a fair young woman, but very frailly built for a commoner. Her skin had a waxy quality and her features were peaked.

  She went quietly until they reached the chair. Then she struggled like a wild animal, biting and scratching. But as soon as she had been secured, this spasm left her.

  The clerk read out: "Mewdon Chemmy—for that, although you deny it, is the name by which you have been identified—it is my duty to advise you to answer all questions truthfully and satisfactorily. Otherwise you will put us to the unpleasant necessity of influencing you to make an answer. Past cultures have used all manner of devices to induce pain—the rack, the wheel, the boot, the dental drill and a host of others. But the Hierarchy is merciful and is not pleased by mutilation. Therefore its priests have devised a means of producing all the same sensations of those varied tortures by direct stimulation of the nerves that transmit the sensation of pain. Thus the same results are achieved without any injury to the bodily organism, save it come through shock or convulsion. There is this further advantage—the torture need not be interrupted for fear that injury to the tissues will result in death."

  The clerk sat down.

  Leisurely Cousin Deth walked forward a few paces, then suddenly turned on the witch.

  "What is your name?" he asked.

  There was a pause. Then, faintly, the voice of the witch, "The servants of Sathanas are nameless."

  Cousin Deth laughed. It was unpleasant to think that he had been repressing such laughter for many years. He said, "You have been identified as Mewdon Chemmy, commoner of the Eleventh Ward, trained in the coloring of pottery, wife of Mewdon Rijard. Do you deny this?"

  No answer.

  "Very well, Mewdon Chemmy. You are accused of conspiring to overthrow the Hierarchy."

  "Your clerk said more than that." The voice was faint, but very clear. "He said that I—all of us—already stood convicted."

  "True, Mewdon Chemmy. But if your answers are satisfactory, it will save you pain. Precisely in what ways have you conspired against the Hierarchy?"

  "I have followed the instructions of Sathanas."

  Deth laughed. "What instructions?"

  "To make myself a vehicle for his supernatural volitions. To practice the lore taught me. To curse and cast spells. To vex and torment those whom Sathanas points out to me."

  For a third tim
e Cousin Deth made the sound that passed with him for laughter. "It may be that you are accustomed to use a nonsensical jargon to describe your activities. Understand, then, that it does not interest us. We want only material facts. What scientific procedures have you been taught?"

  "I know nothing of such procedures. Being omnipotent, Sathanas has no need of them."

  Deth looked up from her to his chief technician. "Are you ready?" he asked.

  The priest nodded. A thick metallic canopy had been moved forward behind the chair. It fitted around the witch's head like a cowl. Curving flanges followed the lines of her body.

  Deth looked again at the witch. "Thus far, in view of your tenderness and sex, we have been lenient with you, Mewdon Chemmy. That leniency will be cut short if you persist in childish evasions. Understand once and for all, we will waste no further time listening to meaningless babbling of Sathanas and other supernatural unrealities. I hardly need remind you that you are not dealing with credulous commoners."

  There was a stir at the Council Table. Such blunt, unsubtle talk was highly irregular. Old Sercival muttered indignantly. Several archpriests glanced questioningly at Goniface, but failed to catch his eye.

  "However, Mewdon Chemmy, you still have a chance," Deth continued. "If you will give us the material facts, and if they are subsequently verified, we will deal mercifully with you."

  The witch's face, shadowed by the metal hood, looked small as a child's, pale as a ghost's.

  "How can you deal mercifully with me? You have admitted that the Hierarchy has no faith in the Great God. Could you loose me to tell that to commoners? Could you take the slightest risk of any of us revealing your shams?"

  Deth triumphantly whipped his reply at her. "Now we are getting somewhere! At last you admit that all is scientific mummery?"

  The silence in the Council Chamber was such that her whisper was plainly audible.

  "Not so. For more than a century Sathanas has let you believe that, in order that your downfall may be the more complete and your torment the more tantalizing. Sathanas is! He rules supreme in the hell you call the cosmos!"