Gather Darkness

by Fritz Leiber

  He pointed the Finger of Wrath, full power, at the back of the gorgeously gold-worked robe, a foot below the silver-touched parchment skull, until a tiny patch of daylight showed raggedly through.

  As Goniface wheeled toward him, as the other archpriests cringed dazedly from this new menace, as the grimly erect form of the mortally wounded Fanatic swayed before it fell, Jarles cried out, "His was the voice I heard in the Coven Chamber! He is Asmodeus, leader of the Witchcraft!"

  And springing forward, he caught the toppling body, let it down smoothly, and slitted open the scarlet-stained, scarlet robe, with its ray-charred hole. Clinging in death to the skinny, rib-ridged torso, slain by the same blast that had mangled the Fanatic, its age-silvered fur drenched in its own blood, was a gaunt familiar whose wizened face was a grim travesty of the pain-racked features of his twin.

  The archpriests stared as if at the impossible, their masks of inscrutability torn away at last.

  Goniface looked down at the two. It was as if the dome-sealed reviewing stand had become for a space of time the silent center of the universe, where all secrets are laid bare, the tense and motionless core round which all action wheels and swirls. Outside the dome, a mad conflict was progressing through momently altering phases. The crowd, saved from a second onslaught by the angels, heartened as well as dumfounded by the appearance of its demon allies, had once again come to grips with the higher-ranking priesthood, who were withdrawing into the Cathedral. The angels had swooped back into the fight, violet wrath rays blazing from their eyes, three or four to each devil, and there resulted a giddy, whirling combat, in which black fumes were employed as smoke screens.

  But, for the moment, that wild, silent commotion seemed no more to Goniface than a strange, savage mural on the repulsor dome—a painting of a battle—a background for true crisis.

  So overpowering was his urge to question the dying Fanatic, that he grudged the moment he had to spare in contacting Cathedral Control Center and making the chief technician understand his command: "Seize the two Fifth Circle Fanatics! They are the ones who confused and interfered with your controls! Slay them if need be!" He did not pause to watch the outcome of the struggle between the outnumbered traitors and his loyal Realists.

  He grudged, too, the moments lost in ordering his lieutenants: "Descend at once into the Sanctuary. Organize raiding groups. Seize all Fanatics. Slay them if they resist. Close the Sanctuary, both to prevent their escape and to stand off the crowd. Inform Cousin Deth in the crypts of the new situation. Have Web Center transmit similar instructions to all sanctuaries. Take all obvious auxiliary measures. Move!"

  Then, stony-faced, yet terribly eager, he turned to the old Fanatic.

  Sercival smiled with pain-drawn lips through which shallow breaths went quickly.

  "You sat beside me when they put the witches to the torture," Goniface began—it was not the question he had intended. "You used a short-range pain gun on me, I believe?"

  With difficulty Sercival smiled again. His voice was like a something from the tomb—windy, faint, labored.

  "Perhaps. Perhaps not. The stratagems of Sathanas… are varied." The eyes of the archpriests widened. Almost a shudder went through their crowded, scarlet-and-gold ranks.

  "Sathanas? Rot!" Goniface contradicted. "You wanted power, just like all of us. The Witchcraft was your trick to get it. You—"

  But Sercival did not seem to hear. Feebly he moved his hand until it touched the blood-matted, silvery fur of the stiffening familiar.

  "Dead, too, Tobit, oldest of your short-lived brethren?" He breathed. "I shall be with you… in Hell. We will wear fine new forms… and be true brothers."

  "The curtain's down. No need to keep on acting," Goniface interrupted harshly.

  Old Sercival lifted his head a little and thick sounds came from his throat, as if he sought to speak. The fingers of his left hand moved feebly, tracing the beginnings of some ritual gesture.

  "Sathanas," he whispered, "receive… my… spirit—"

  The archpriests were like so many scarlet images. Outside a scene of continued tumult was illumined by a red sun already close to the western horizon. From the east, darkness was creeping.

  "You were very clever," Goniface continued, bending even nearer to the dying leader of the Witchcraft, driven against his will to ask a final question, "but you made one strange mistake. Why did you always support me in the Apex Council? Why were you so quick to vote for the excommunication of Frejeris? Why did you offer no opposition when the most realistic of the priests, the one most dangerous to the Witchcraft—myself—was made World Hierarch?"

  There was silence in the isolated hemisphere under the repulsor dome. The archpriests leaned forward, bent close to catch the answer. But it never came.

  Asmodeus was dead.

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  Chapter 17

  Cane in one shriveled hand, candle in the other, Mother Jujy hobbled through the ancient tunnel. Occasionally she muttered to herself venomously.

  "Won't let an old witch spend her dying years in peace! Won't even let her live under the ground like a mole! Oh, no! The deacons must come down and muck up her tunnels and chevy her deeper and deeper. Not that it's Mother Jujy they're after. Oh, no! Brain Mother Jujy and leave her in the corner! We don't want her. It's the new witches they want. The young witches. The pretty witches. Mother Jujy was pretty once. These new ones wouldn't have had a chance with her! But now they've gone and jiggered the whole world with their craziness, turned it topsy-turvy, so there's no place left for an old witch! May they prance on red plates in Hell for it!"

  In her vehemence, she had stopped and was shaking her cane at the low, rounded ceiling. A black cat, which had been scouting ahead by the wavering candlelight, came back and mewed at Mother Jujy inquiringly.

  "No, Grimalkin, it's not a mouse, and I've got no food for you! But never mind, Mother Jujy'll starve down here, and you'll be able to pick her bones—unless she picks yours first! And you may thank the new witches for it, who ruined the trade!"

  Grimalkin resumed her scouting. Hobbling along, Mother Jujy continued her savage grumbling. Then from ahead came a terrific spitting and squalling. Mother Jujy hurried forward, the long shadows limping and reeling wildly with her as the candle bobbed and flickered.

  "What have you found, Grimalkin—a rat, a roach or a dead deacon? Whichever it is, it's not worth the rumpus you're making."

  Grimalkin, a black arch of swollen cat, had retreated from a little copper-touched huddle of shadows and was hissing dreadfully at it.

  Mother Jujy advanced toward it, bending and squinting. "What is it? A red rat? No, a red monkey. No, by the stench of Sathanas! A familiar! A dirty, dead familiar!" And she raised her cane to hit it.

  From the huddle of shadows came a feeble, piping voice.

  "Aye, kill me. Slay Dickon. Dickon is weary of waiting for death in the chilly dark."

  Mother Jujy paused with uplifted cane.

  "What's that? Be quiet, Grimalkin! I can't hear what this morsel of foulness is lisping at me."

  "Slay Dickon, I said. Shatter his brittle bones with your huge stick, Mother Jujy. Give your manslaying cat leave to rend him with her claws and drink his cold, worn-out blood. Dickon's ghost will thank you for it."

  "What makes you think we'll do you any favors, sniveling puppet?" Mother Jujy inquired acidly. "I know your voice. You are the foul pet of that jigging trickster, the Black Man."

  "Aye, but now Dickon's big brother languishes in the cells of the Sanctuary, where cruel priests torture his very thoughts. He cannot protect Dickon now. You can slay Dickon in safety."

  "It's useless to beg, filthy manikin, for we won't oblige you. Back, Grimalkin!" The cat had pranced forward stiff-legged and was making threatening swipes at Dickon with rigid forepaw. "So your cocky master finally fell off the fence he capered atop, eh?"

  "Aye, Mother Jujy, and the whole New Witchcraft goes swiftly to ruin with him. Many others have been
captured and imprisoned. There was one slender hope. If Dickon had been able to run an errand his brother sent him on, something might have been accomplished. But now Dickon lies helpless in subterranean darkness. Slay Dickon before his misery slays him."

  "Speak louder, filthy manikin, I can't half hear you!" said Mother Jujy, bending closer. "Why, ungrateful, disobedient skin-and-bones, can't you run the errand? Why have you stopped here like a lazy apprentice to snivel and whine?" and she prodded the familiar with her cane.

  "Dickon's blood has given out. The little suppet he has left would not carry him a hundred paces, and it grows swiftly cold. If Dickon had fresh blood, he would go skipping like the wind. But there is no fresh blood here."

  "Insult us, filthy manikin?" cried Mother Jujiya angrily, raising her cane. "Grimalkin and I have blood, and withered though we be, I'll have you know it's fresh enough!"

  "Your pardon, Mother Jujy. Dickon meant no insult. Dickon was referring only to blood that he might drink."

  "Conceited tatter of fur! What makes you think you have the right to decide what blood you'll drink and what you won't?"

  The familiar looked up at her with big, reproachful eyes. "Do not tease Dickon so cruelly. You hate Dickon. As soon as you have finished tormenting him, you and your fierce cat will slay him."

  "Chittering little know-it-all!" hissed Mother Jujy, so furiously that the familiar shrank from the sound. "Do you presume to dictate the actions of your betters? You'll drink Grimalkin's blood and like it!"

  And she snatched up the almost weightless familiar by the scruff of the neck. Grimalkin, however, as if sensing that her mistress intended to involve her in something unpleasant, retreated along the tunnel. And at the same time the familiar piped shrilly, "A cat's blood would slay Dickon as surely as a cat's claws. Even your blood, Mother Jujy, might slay him."

  For a moment it appeared that Mother Jujy was going to use her cane to bat the limp familiar down the tunnel after the cat.

  "Not good enough for you? Not good enough for you?" she screamed in a voice strangled by indignation. "Mother Jujy's blood not good enough for a filthy, shriveled manikin? Here quickly now, before Mother Jujy beats you to a pulp and makes Grimalkin a red jacket of your fur!"

  And she jerked at her neck, exposing a sallow, bony shoulder.

  "Mother Jujy means it?" asked the familiar faintly, peering at her from where he dangled helpless in her hand. "She is not deceiving Dickon?"

  "Call me a liar now?" sceeched the old witch. "One more such question, and I will deceive you! I'll deceive your head in with my cane! Feed, filthy manikin!"

  And she applied the familiar to her bare shoulder.

  For a few seconds there was silence. Then Mother Jujy jerked nervously. "You tickle," she said.

  "Your skin is tough, Mother Jujy," the familiar paused to explain apologetically.

  Again it appeared that Mother Jujy was going to hurl him down the tunnel. She almost danced with rage.

  "Tough? Tough? When she was a girl, Mother Jujy had the softest skin in all Megatheopolis! Obscene, sexless puppet! Merely to touch it honors your degraded mouth!"

  Her furiously scathing comments died to a muttering, which stopped. For a long time the chill, dank silence was broken only by the low, jealous mews of Grimalkin, who paced in the shadows, lashing her tail, murderously eying her mistress' new pet.

  At last the familiar lifted his head. Now all his motions were rapid and curiously sprightly.

  "Dickon feels light as air," he chattered shrilly. "No task is too difficult for him." His tone grew respectful. "It was very, very good blood, though seething with strange emotions. It did not hurt Dickon at all. Oh, Mother Jujy, how will Dickon ever repay you? How will his brother and his brother's companions ever discharge their debt? It is far beyond Dickon's calculating what your kindness may have accomplished. Dickon has no words to describe—"

  "What? Wasting time on palaver and flattery while the world waits on your errand?" interrupted Mother Jujy. "Begone!" And she brushed at him, albeit a little weakly now, with her free hand.

  One puckering smile he gave her. Then, with a gust of motion that set Grimalkin rearing back on her hind legs, hissing and clawing at the empty air, he was gone down the tunnel in the direction from which they had come.

  Long after his wraithlike shadow had sped into the darkness, Mother Jujy stood there watching after him, leaning heavily on her cane, droplets of wax dripping from the slackly held candle to harden and whiten instantly as they hit the cold floor.

  "They might be able to do it," she muttered to herself, her voice heavy with an emotion she would have repudiated before anyone but Grimalkin. "Sathanas help them, but they just might be able to."

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  Chapter 18

  Slowly and with leaden steps, as if the very air had thickened to impede him, Jarles made his way toward his private apartment in the crypts. His mind was fogged by a black guilt which was all the more intolerable because he loathed and detested himself for feeling it.

  In every corridor he was met or overtaken by hurrying, panic-eyed priests. One stopped and tried to engage him in speech, a fat and ineffectual little priest of the Second Circle.

  "I wish to congratulate you on your elevation to the Fourth Circle," he said swiftly, twisting his chubby hands in a nervous and apologetic way. "Surely you remember me, your eminence. I am Brother Chulian—your old guide—"

  The fellow sounded as if he were screwing up courage to ask some favor. Or, perhaps, in the general flood of insecurity and fear, he was merely trying to assure himself of as many points of support as possible.

  Jarles glared unpleasantly at his former companion and pushed past him without answering.

  The crypts were almost deserted. The raiding parties, which had combed the entire Sanctuary in search of Fanatics, had now departed with their captives, to lock them away in the general prison of the Sanctuary—unconnected with the subsidiary prison used by Goniface for his captives before he had become World Hierarch.

  As Jarles neared his apartment, his wretchedness abruptly increased, becoming stingingly acute. To his horror, the black fog of guilt oppressing his thoughts suddenly came alive, whispering into his ear—closer even than that—"Do you hear me, Armon Jarles? Do you hear me? I am yourself. Run. Shut your ears. It will do no good. You cannot lock me out. You cannot keep from listening to me. For I am yourself. I am the Armon Jarles you have maimed and imprisoned, the Armon Jarles you have trampled and denied. Yet, in the end, I am stronger than you are."

  And—crowning horror—it was not his own voice, though much like it. He was denied even the resource—horrible enough in itself—of explaining it away as an hallucination, a projection from his own subconscious. It was too real, too individual, for that. It was like the voice of some close kin, the voice of some brother who had never been born.

  As if all Hell were at his heels, he dashed into his apartment and, with hands that fumbled in their haste, reactivated the lock.

  But inside it was worse.

  "You cannot escape me, Armon Jarles. Where you are, there I am also. You will hear me until you die, and not even the cremator's flame will end your hearing."

  Never had he hated anything like that sourceless voice. Never had he so desired to crush, to tear apart, utterly to destroy something. Yet never had he felt so helpless to accomplish an aim.

  Pictures began to form in his mind. He was stumbling through the ruins, Mother Jujy's bony hand clasping his wrist. He wanted to cry out to the pursuers, to strangle her, to beat in her skull with her own cane. But he could not.

  He was sitting at a rudely hewn table, sharing a humble dinner with his family. He had poisoned their food. Interminably he waited for them to take the first mouthful, but they were dawdling unaccountably.

  He was in the laboratory of Brother Dhomas, but now everything was reversed. A man-shaped blackness sat in Brother Dhomas' seat. Evilly grinning witches and chattering familiars man
ned the various instruments.

  Suddenly then he was looking into a mirror, but instead of himself he saw the reanimated corpse of Asmodeus standing there. And Asmodeus was explaining something by gestures, first pointing at Jarles, then at the charred, gaping hole in his robe, over and over again. And when Jarles felt he could bear it no longer, Asmodeus stopped—but then the tiny head of a bloodstained, gaunt, and grayed familiar thrust itself out of the charred hole and began to repeat his master's gestures.

  Jarles' hatred of life, of everything, rose to a peak. It occurred to him that it would be possible for a single man, if he worked subtly enough and unswervingly, to destroy the whole human race except for himself. It could be done. There were ways.

  With a tremendous effort he looked around the room. For a moment he thought it was empty. Then he saw, squatting on the gleaming desk, between the projector and the scattered spools of reading tape, a loathsome beast, a dark-furred, peering familiar, whose face was a tiny, tapering, noseless copy of his own.

  Instantly he sensed that this was the creature who was thinking the thoughts that were torturing him, whose telepathically transmitted words were resounding unstoppably in his skull.

  And instantly he determined to slay it. Not by wrath ray—his mental processes had already reached too primeval a level for that. He would strangle it with his bare hands.

  It did not stir as he walked toward the table. But his progress was nightmarishly slow, as if the air had become gelatinous. And as he walked, step by labored step, a final vision formed in his mind.

  He was utterly alone, his fingers on the controls of a mighty war blast, at the summit of a little hill in the midst of a flat, gray wasteland. There was no life whatsoever, save his own. As far as eye could see—and it seemed he could see around the curve of the Earth—were the graves of the species he had annihilated, or perhaps the graves of all men and women, of all ages, who had suffered and fought and died seeking freedom, seeking something more than a jealous, conservative, senselessly ordered society could provide for them.