The Vistor

by Sheri S. Tepper

  "This is funny?" whispered Michael.

  "This is the maze of Caigo Faience," she said. "More or less. Though, seeing the size of it, I suppose one would have to say more. Either way will get us there, but decisions can come later. Night draws on, the army will move in it, but if we work our way inside a little, they won't find us."

  "Dezmai says that?"

  "No. I say that. I'm speaking from experience."

  They turned to the right and rode to the nearest opening in the wall. Dismé spent some time consulting the huge figure beside this gate, then remounted and gestured them forward.

  "They'll be able to follow our tracks," complained Bobly.

  "No tracks," said Dismé. "We have a following wind. The maze at Caigo Faience had a following wind too."

  They turned to look behind them, seeing the little whirlwind that came after them, stirring the dust, straightening the grasses, erasing their passing.

  "This one," Dismé said, when they came to the second gate. "Inside and to the left."

  "Listen," said the doctor.

  They stopped. From a great distance came the sound of howling, like an enormous beast.

  Arnole said, "The ogre. Will it be able to scent us?"

  Dismé shook her head. "Actually, it's nowhere near here. The maze tunnels sound from outside. If it should come inside, the following wind will carry our scent past each turning and on to another gate."

  "How do you know that?" asked Nell.

  "I just know," she replied.

  By the time they had made two more turns, it was getting too dark to see their way.

  "Here," said Dismé, indicating the nearest statue, set in a half-domed recess the size of an apse in some mighty, pre-Happening cathedral. "Let's park the wagon here and get behind and under the statue. We'll be out of the weather, if any. The horses can graze in the open. The grass is low, but plentiful."

  "And Gowl's creature can't find us here?"

  "I think not," said Dismé. "We were told to come here. Something here is awaiting our arrival. Seeing the place, I don't think Gowl or the thing that runs him can do anything at all to prevent our meeting it."

  They went behind the giant statue and made camp between its heels and under the hem of its long robe, a cave into which they settled with sighs of exhaustion.

  "Fire?" asked Arnole.

  Dismé shrugged. "If we put it well under the statue, I doubt it can be seen. I, for one, would relish something hot."

  The others felt the same, and the fire was lit, the smoke rising up inside the stone robes of the mighty figure and seeping upward through invisible channels to emerge far above them. They brought their blankets from the wagon and huddled near the blaze. From far, far away they heard a great cacophony of roaring, yelling, and screaming. Dismé turned, listening to the dobsi.

  "That's Gowl," she murmured. "One of the demon spies is lying hidden in one of the army's supply wagons, and he's sending information my dobsi can pick up. The ogre's there, along with some new horror. Whatever the new thing is, it's eating soldiers. That's what the yelling is about. Gowl's given up trying to find victims, so he's letting it eat his army."

  "He's still far away," said Nell, in a voice of chilly certainty. "They haven't even seen this place yet."

  "Given the size of these walls, how long will it take us to get ... where? To the center?" Bab asked, shaking his head.

  "It's not far," said Dismé. "Not if you know the way."

  "And you do?"

  "The statues point the way. You just have to read them. The Great Maze at Faience was the same."

  When the fire burned down, they curled into their blankets and slept. They were in an east-west aisle, which let the morning light in to wake them. They heated water for tea and to wash sleep from their faces. During the night, a copse of trees had grown up in front of the statue, surrounding the horses. There were no horse droppings on the ground.

  "It's meant as a latrine," said the doctor. "Whoever lives here doesn't want us fouling up the place."

  When they left, shortly thereafter, they looked back to see the trees disappearing into the earth, leaving only the grassy expanse that had been there before, utterly unmarred.

  Dismé guided them throughout the morning. The walls grew shorter as they went, admitting the slanting rays of the sun. By noon, she said they were only a turn from the center of the maze, so they kept on, coming at last into a square enclosure. The floor was paved in marble set in eye-bending patterns. It was centered upon a staircase leading down. There was also a black figure upon a plinth. Dismé went to it at once, for it was much like the figure in the maze at Caigo Faience. This one pointed inexorably downward.

  "Let's have lunch," she said. "We have to go down. The horses and wagon will have to stay here."

  "There's nothing for them to eat here," Michael objected.

  "We can leave them in the grassy aisle," Dismé said. "Water them well before we go."

  "What about the stone?" asked Arnole, again.

  Dismé shook her head. "We can't take it with us, Arnole. We leave it here. Either someone will come along and find it, or we'll find someone and bring them here."

  "I brought three stones," he said stubbornly. "Evidently so much was intended. I don't want to leave one of them here for any part of that army to capture while we are elsewhere. Let's at least get it out of the wagon and hide it."

  "We can try," said Michael. "The statues in these lanes aren't as huge as the one we slept under last night, but there's still room behind them to hide the stone."

  Dismé waited for objections but heard none. She shrugged. "Drive the wagon to the nearest niche, and we'll see if we can move it, then."

  They did so, retracing their way, though not far. The statue in the nearest recess was leaning on a sword looking rather pensive, which meant, Dismé said, that the goal had been achieved. When they explored behind it, they found a sufficient space.

  "It's heavy," said Arnole. "But all of us should be able to lift it."

  They got into the wagon bed to do so. The wrapped stone was neither as wide nor as tall as the others they had seen. They were able to lift it and move it toward the rear of the wagon, where both Dismé and the doctor lost their grip at once, and the thing slid from their hands, landing right side up, with the sacking torn from one side of it.

  "Why was this one wrapped up?" Bab asked. "None of the others were."

  "Probably to make it easier to handle," said the doctor, examining his abraded hands with annoyance as he climbed down from the wagon. "It's the same as the others, except for that."

  Bobly and Bab lifted the torn edge away from the stone and looked at it. "It got dirty," said Bab, as he and his sister reached out to dust off the splinters from the wagon bed.

  The aisle erupted in two great fountains of fire, and giants stood at either side of the stone, growing taller with each spark. One great fur-clad figure carried an anvil on her shoulder. The other wore a leather apron and carried a hammer in his hand. The anvil was set down, the hammer fell upon it, the sound fled away, in one direction only, and in that direction, far from the place they stood, something happened. All of them perceived that a consequence had occurred. Their presence had been announced. Something had wakened to greet them.

  When they blinked, the giants were gone. Only Bobly and Bab stood where the stone had been, their faces blank with wonder.

  Arnole heaved a deep breath. "Ialond and Aarond. I told you we shouldn't leave it here."

  "Yes, Arnole," said Dismé. "And you were right, as always."

  "My," said Bobly. "Oh, gracious, goodness me."

  "One does hope so," said the doctor, thoughtfully. "Goodness being the operative word."

  "I'm still the same size," said Bab, looking down at himself. "You'd think I could have kept a little of it."

  Nell laid her hand on his shoulder. "Though I've known you only a little time, I think you've always been sizeable. It just doesn't show all the time."

/>   The group returned to the center, each of them casting wondering glances at the little people until Bobly said, "Don't look at me like that. I don't feel any different. Except I know a lot of things I didn't know before, but even that is..."

  "Remote," suggested Dismé. "It comes and goes."

  "And is often unhelpful," said the doctor.

  The little people nodded. Arnole cleared his throat and said, "We have somewhere to go, don't we?"

  "How far?" asked the doctor.

  Dismé shook her head. "From here on it's uncharted country. I know what's under the maze at Faience, but I don't know what underlies this one. We'll have to go down there and see."

  Leaving the wagon and horses behind, they went down into darkness, lit only by the two wagon lanterns they had carried with them. Here and there, patches of fungus gleamed with phosphorescence that led them sometimes in narrow ways, sometimes in caverns that reverberated distantly like the footsteps of passing armies. Hours seemed to pass before Dismé stopped.

  "Are we lost," breathed Arnole.

  "No," she said in a perplexed voice. "Just confused."

  They had come to a hub from which tunnels radiated to all sides. In addition, there was a hole before them into which a stair descended and another in the ceiling through which another stair rose. Dismé concentrated on the half dozen statues that were within sight. The way to the left was signalled, as well as the way to the right. The other ways were frowned upon with tight lips and closed eyes.

  "Two ways," she murmured.

  "Which?" asked Arnole.

  "Either," said Dismé. "As you used to tell me, Arnole, there are more ways than one to reach the truth. We will go right."

  They went to the right, past abysses and through more caverns, past tunnels that seemed to lead upward toward faint light, in every case forbidden by the tutelary images that stood at their entrances, coming at last to a circular tunnel that turned and turned leftward, always leftward, always downward, like a corkscrew descending, with no way out until they came to a flat dead end.

  "Well, that was interesting," said Michael. "Now what?"

  "Shhh," said Dismé, raising the lantern and making a circuit of the space they were in. At one side a figure was carved into the dark stone of the wall, a figure with its arms flung up, eyes wide open, mouth either singing or laughing. At its feet lay a fragment of color, and Dismé knelt to pick it up. She showed it to them: the wing feather of a mountain bluebird.

  "Here," she said. "I gave one of these to the image in the maze at ' Faience. This is the place."

  "There's no way," said Michael, taking the lantern and shining it on the sides of the statue. Nell ran her hands across it, as did Dismé.

  "Put the lantern closer," said Dismé, looking into the stone. "There are lights in this stone. Like the other stones..."

  They looked at one another, then at Michael, who shook his head. "I don't think so." Then, directly to Dismé. "I don't want to be..."

  "Nor did any of us," said Dismé in a sorrowful voice. Oh, she had not wanted Michael to be her brother. "If it isn't meant for you..." She shut her eyes, not wanting to see.

  He took a deep breath and laid his hands upon it. The stone did not emit light, but Michael did. He shone like a faceted gem, brilliance darting away from him to light the space in which they stood. He looked at Dismé's sorrowing face and smiled, then he laughed, and laughed again, every gust of laughter thinning the stone before him, light shining through, then brighter and more until brilliance gleamed through the pane of thin ice that stood between them and what lay beyond.

  "I am Jiralk," said Michael. "Jiralk the Joyous," and he struck the remaining ice into shards.

  The scent of a garden flowed around them.

  "Sandalwood and roses," Nell murmured, as though entranced. "A coral-pink smell..."

  They stepped through into a garden beneath a sky of shifting color, as though they looked upward through an opal sea. The land was cupped; the horizon hung above them. Exotic trees surrounded them, strange flowers and stretches of green led their eyes to a vision of upturned oceans and far mountains that bowed toward them. Behind them was the door they had come through, an upright plane of darkness, and upon a pedestal before them sat a being, multi-armed, multi-winged, shape-shifting, light-reflecting, dark as space is dark, glistening with galaxies.

  "You were in the maze at Caigo Faience," Dismé murmured.

  A moment's silence, then the distant reply.

  "I have been near each of you to give you birthing gifts. To Dismé I gave a garden; to Arnole, old manuscripts; to Camwar, a craftsman's skill; to Jens Ladislav, medical books; to Michael, the grace and joy of horses. And to Abobalee and Ababidio, years of learning to be small without letting it matter, to be large without letting it show."

  Nell heaved an aching sigh. "You called me, and I'm here. These are the ones we believe are my children."

  The voice came nearer. "I sought you out as suitable for my purpose, Nell Latimer, an ironic choice, knowing who your husband was, but a pleasant break from the usual melodrama of mid-level planets. These an your children, even those older than you are now, and there are still others whom you have not met."

  Dismé started to cry, "Why Michael..." but instead bit her cheek to keep from whining at the unfairness of learning to care for someone she was not allowed to love! She breathed deeply and demanded, "Who are you? Why are you here?"

  The voice said quietly, "Nell knows. She smelled the prayer as I did, the lush purple waves of it, inviting me..."

  "But that was because of the Happening!" cried Nell.

  "I was on my way long before that, Nell Latimer. Humans are unique in holding their gods so cheap they peck at them like pigeons, constantly intruding upon them with prayer! Prayer from all sides of every conflict, prayer before each contest, during every issue. Private prayer, public prayer, shepherded prayer baa-ed from congregation, sports prayer before games, prayer parroted and prayer spontaneous, endless instructions to god, endless ... plockutta."

  " 'Intercede for me and solve my problems; give me; grant us; hear the words I'm saying; suspend the laws of nature in this instance; cure her; save him; don't let them; listen to me; do this!'" The Visitor sighed. "Beneath it, one hears devils' laughter."

  Nell looked up, saying sharply, "Devils?"

  The voice was slightly louder, slightly warmer, as though it had come from a distance and was now beside them. "Each race creates its own devils. You had so many that they specialized. Devils of racial hatred, devils of greed and violence. Devils who killed their own people in orgies of blood. Devils who bombed clinics, devils who bombed school buses, devils who bombed other devils. I got to know every one of them by name. As soon as I arrived, I sent my monsters out to kill them all. They had tarnished my reputation, and though I have lavished much care on mankind, vengeance is mine."

  The being shifted, only slightly, as though to take a more comfortable position as the doctor asked, "What are you?"

  "This place is a godland, you may call me god. Small g, for I am not proud. We are a race evolving in this Creation to serve the Maker of it. We act as temporary deities during the childhood of individual peoples and planets. I was the midwife who brought forth this world, who stirred the primordial ooze, and noted the life that crawled up from the sea. Our race is not unlike yours, but I am very old, and you are still very young.

  "We come and go. I came to teach your people language. I raised up oracles, whispered to soothsayers, wove bright visions for sorcerers, and spoke marvels to your alchemists. I came again to raise up prophets in the Real One's name: Bruno, Galileo, Newton, Fermi..."

  The doctor interrupted, "The Real One? Who?"

  "The Being whom I worship. The Ultimate who stands apart from time. The Deity some men think they are addressing when they pray with words. The Real One doesn't even perceive words. If IT did, imagine what IT would have to listen to! The Real One sees only the pattern of what is, where it begins and wher
e it comes to rest. The only prayer IT perceives is action."

  "I don't understand that," said Nell, stubbornly.

  "An example from your old world, Nell. A child being shot and everyone weeping. What does the Real One see? IT sees the maker and making of a device that kills, the device itself, the selling of the device that kills, the buying of the device that kills, the placement of it near the child, the occurrence, the death. Only actions enter the pattern the Real One sees. What is. What was done. IT perceives neither intentions nor remorse."

  Nell said angrily, "What do you mean, what is?"

  The small god seemed to shift impatiently on its pedestal, "What is, is! Reality. Nature. The laws of a Universe that contains all things. Expansion and contraction, matter and anti-matter, light and dark, joy and sorrow, ecstacy and horror, supernovas and black holes, euphoria and pain, governing and politics, life and death. All the goads and all the stumbling blocks that force intelligence to grow by conquering."

  "Conquering what?" asked Arnole, his hand on Nell's arm.

  "Anything. Stink, or disease, or hatred. Pain, bugs, or brambles. The shortness of life or the frailty of age."

  "Why not just leave those things out," Dismé protested.

  "It's been tried. If you give a being only feelgood-joy-life, nothing happens. Dinosaurs lived here for hundreds of millions of years in feelgood-joy-life, and at the end of it they had conquered nothing. Sixty-five million years ago, I judged they'd had long enough, so I brought an asteroid to start things over, just as I have done this time."

  A long silence. Then Arnole said, "You did that?"

  "It's part of what we're for. That asteroid yielded several intelligent races. Three of them, including yours, are still living here. Now if any one of the three gets to the point of honoring the Real One, I can pack up my gear and go home."

  "But we got to that point," cried Nell. "Many of us worshipped ... truth! And still you camel"

  The voice was remote once more. "There weren't that many of you, Nell. Even when you went to the moon, you didn't go in search of truth. Oh, you said it was to learn about the universe, but you really went because you were playing a dominance game with another country. Once the other side no longer played the game, you only pretended to go on while actually you started the long slide back into magic and miracles."