The Rituals of Infinity

by Michael Moorcock

  A wordless, ululating song began to come from the lips of the group and another dance began; this time it seemed to symbolise exaltation of some kind.

  Faustaff turned away. 'That is nothing but magic, Steifflomeis -primitive superstition. What kind of perverse minds have your principals if they can produce scientific miracles and—permit thatV

  'Permit? They encourage it. It is necessary to every simulation.'

  'How can ritual sacrifice be necessary to a modern society?'

  'You ask that, after your own simulation has just destroyed itself? There was little difference, you know-only the scale and the complexity. The woman died quickly. She might have died more slowly of radiation sickness on E-l if that was where she came from.'

  'But what purpose does a thing like that serve?'

  Steifflomeis shrugged. 'Ah, purpose, Faustaff. You think there is purpose?'

  T must think so, Steifflomeis.'

  'It is supposed to serve a limited purpose, that sort of ritual. Even in your terms, it should be obvious that primitive peoples symbolise their fears and wishes in ritual. The cowardly dog, the malevolent woman—both were destroyed in that rite you witnessed.'

  'Yet in reality, they continue to exist. That kind of ritual achieves nothing.'

  'Only a temporary feeling of security. You are right. You are a rational man, Faustaff. I still fail to understand why you would not join forces with me- for I am also a rational man. You cling to primitive instincts, naive ideals. You refuse to let your reason have full reign over you. Then you are shocked by what you have just seen. It is within the

  power of neither of us to change those people, but we could have taken advantage of their weaknesses and at least benefited ourselves.'

  Faustaff could think of no reply, but he remained deeply unconvinced by Steifflomeis's argument. He shook his head slowly.

  Steifflomeis made an impatient movement. 'Still? I had hoped that you would join me in defeat!' He laughed.

  They left the park and walked along a street. On lawns, in the streets, on vacant lots and in gardens, the ritualistic revels of E-Zero were taking place. Steifflomeis and Faustaff were unnoticed and undisturbed. It was more than a reversion to the primitive, Faustaff thought as they wandered through the scenes of dark carnival, it was a total adoption of the identities of psychological-mythical archetypes. As Steifflomeis had said, every man and woman had their role. These roles fell into a few definite categories. The more outstanding ones dominated the rest. He saw men and women in cowled cloaks, their faces hidden, driving dozens of naked acolytes before them with flails or tree-branches; he saw a man copulating with a woman dressed as an ape, another woman, taking no part herself, seemed to be ordering an orgy. Everywhere were scenes of bloodshed and bestiality. It reminded Faustaff of the Roman Games, of the Dark Ages, of the Nazis. But there were other rituals that did not seem to fit in; they were quieter, less frenetic rituals that reminded Faustaff strongly of the few church services he had attended as a child.

  Some kind of attitude was beginning to dawn in his confused mind, some realisation of why he had refused to agree with Steifflomeis in spite of everything he had discovered since their first meeting.

  If he were witnessing magical ceremonies, then they were of two distinct kinds. He knew little about anthropology or superstition, mistrusted Jung and found mysticism boring— yet he had heard of Black Magic and White Magic, without

  understanding the differences that people claimed for them. Perhaps what had horrified him was the black variety. Were the other scenes he had noticed the manifestations of white magic?

  The very idea of thinking in terms of magic or superstition appalled him. He was a scientist and to him magic meant ignorance and the encouragement of ignorance. It meant senseless murder, fatalism, suicide, hysteria. Suddenly the idea came to him that it also meant the Hydrogen Bomb and World War. It meant in short, the rejection of the human factor in one's nature—the total acceptance of the beast. But what was white magic? Ignorance, also probably. The black variety encouraged the bestial side of Man's nature, so perhaps the white variety encouraged—what?—the 'godly' side? The will to evil and the will to good. Nothing wrong with that as an idea. But Man was not a beast and he was not a god; he was Man. Intellect was what distinguished him from other species of animal. Magic, as far as Faustaff knew, rejected reason. Religion accepted it, of course, but hardly encouraged it. Only science accepted it and encouraged it. Faustaff suddenly saw mankind's social and psychological evolution in a clear,, simple light. Science alone accepted Man as he was and sought to exploit his full potential.

  Yet this planet he stood on was the creation of a superb understanding of science—and at the same time these dreadful magical rituals were allowed to take place.

  For the first time Faustaff felt that the creators of the simulations had gone wrong somewhere—gone wrong in their own terms.

  With a shock he acknowledged the possibility that not even they understood what they were doing.

  He turned to suggest this to Steifflomeis, whom he had assumed was following just behind him.

  But Steifflomeis had gone.

  16

  The Black Ritual

  Then Faustaff glimpsed Steifflomeis just before the man turned a corner of the street. He began to run after him, pushing through the revellers who did not see him.

  Steifflomeis was climbing into a car when Faustaff next saw him. Faustaff shouted but Steifflomeis did not reply. He started the car and was soon speeding away.

  Another car was parked nearby. Faustaff climbed into it and gave chase.

  More than once he was forced to swerve to avoid groups of people who were, like the others, completely oblivious of him, but he kept on Steifflomeis's trail without too much difficulty.

  Steifflomeis was on the Long Beach road. S oon the sea was visible ahead. Steifflomeis began to follow the coast and Faustaff noticed that even the sea-shore was not free of its rituals. There was a big, old hacienda-style house visible ahead and Faustaff saw Steifflomeis turn his car into its drive.

  Faustaff wasn't sure that Steifflomeis had realised he was being followed. Out of caution he stopped his own car a short distance before he reached the house. He got out and began to walk towards it.

  By the time Faustaff had walked warily up the drive, he found Steifflomeis's car empty. Evidently the man had gone inside.

  The front door of the house was locked. He walked around it until he came to a window. He looked in. The window opened into a large room that seemed to take up most of the ground floor.

  Steifflomeis was in there and so were a great many others. Faustaff saw Maggy White there. She was glowering at Steifflomeis who wore his familiar mocking grin. Maggy White was dressed in a loose black robe. Its hood was thrown back over her shoulders. Apart from her, only Steifflomeis wore any kind of conventional clothing.

  The others all wore black hoods and nothing else. The women knelt in the centre, their bowed heads towards Maggy White. The men stood around the walls. Some of them held large, black candles. One of them gripped a huge mediaeval sword.

  Maggy White seated herself in a throne-like chair at one end of the room. She was speaking to Steifflomeis who gestured at her and left the room for a moment to reappear wearing a similar robe to the one she wore.

  Maggy White disapproved but seemed to be able to do nothing to stop Steifflomeis.

  Faustaff wondered why she should be involving herself in a ritual. It was, even to him, evidently a black magic ritual, with Maggy representing the Queen of Darkness or whatever it was. Steifflomeis now seated himself at the other end of the room and arranged his robe, smiling at Maggy and saying something which caused her to frown even more heavily.

  From what he knew of such things, Faustaff supposed that Steifflomeis was representing the Prince of Darkness. He seemed to remember that the woman usually had a male lieutenant.

  Two of the men went out and came back with a very

  beautif
ul girl. She was certainly under twenty and probably much younger. She seemed totally dazed, but not in the same trancelike state as the others. Faustaff got the impression that she had not undergone the psychological reversal that the rest had suffered. Her blonde hair was piled on her head and her body looked as if it had been oiled.

  The kneeling women rose as she entered and they stepped back towards the wall to line it like the men.

  Rather reluctantly, Maggy signed to Steifflomeis who rose and walked jauntily towards the girl, parodying the ritualistic movements of the people. The two men forced the girl down so that she was lying on her back in front of Steifflomeis who stared smilingly down at her. He half-turned to Maggy and spoke. The woman pursed her lips and her eyes were angry.

  To Faustaff it seemed that Maggy White might be going through with something she did not like, but doing it conscientiously. Steifflomeis, on the other hand, was enjoying himself, plainly taking a delight in his power over the others.

  He knelt in front of the girl and began to caress her body. Faustaff saw the girl's head jerk suddenly and her eyes flare into awareness. He saw her begin to struggle. The two men stepped forward and held her.

  Faustaff looked down and saw a large flat stone, used as part of the garden's decoration. He picked it up and flung it through the window.

  He had expected the people to be startled by his action, but as he clambered through the window he saw that only Maggy White and Steifflomeis were staring at him.

  'Leave her alone, Steifflomeis,' Faustaff said.

  'Someone has to do it, professor,' Steifflomeis said calmly. 'Besides which, we are the best people for the job, Miss White and myself. We do not act from any kind of instinct. There is no lust in us—is there, Miss White?'

  Maggy White simply shook her head, her lips tight.

  'We have no instincts whatsoever, professor,' Steifflomeis went on. 'It is a source of regret to Miss White, I think, but not to me. After all, you are an example of how certain instincts can be harmful to a man.'

  'I've seen you angry and frightened,' Faustaff reminded him.

  'Certainly I might have expressed anger and fear—but these were mental states, not emotional ones, or is there no difference in your terms, professor?'

  'Why are you taking part in these things?' Faustaff ignored Steifflomeis's question and addressed them both.

  'For amusement in my case,' Steifflomeis said. 'I am equipped to experience sensual pleasure, also—though I do not spend a lifetime seeking it as you seem to.'

  'There could be more to it,' Maggy White said quietly. 'I've already said this to you—maybe they can experience more pleasure.'

  'I'm aware of your obsession, Miss White,' Steifflomeis smiled. 'But I am sure you're wrong. Everything they do is on a puny scale.' He looked at Faustaff. 'You see, professor, Miss White feels that by taking part in these rites it will somehow confirm on her a mysterious ecstasy. She thinks you have something we do not.'

  'Perhaps we have,' Faustaff said.

  'Perhaps it is not worth having,' Steifflomeis suggested.

  'I'm not sure,' Faustaff looked at the people around him. The two men were still holding the girl, though now she seemed to have lapsed into a similar state to their own. 'It doesn't have to be this.'

  'No indeed.' Steifflomeis's tone was sardonic, it could be something else. I think your friends Nancy Hunt and Gordon Ogg are involved in something you would prefer.'

  'Are they all right?'

  'Perfectly at this stage. They have come to no physical harm.' Steifflomeis grinned. 'Where are they?'

  'They ought to be somewhere nearby.' 'Hollywood,' Maggy White said. 'One of the film company lots.' 'Which one?'

  'Simone-Dane-Keene, I think. It's almost an hour's drive.'

  Faustaff pushed the two men aside and picked up the girl.

  'Where do you think you're taking her?' Steifflomeis mocked. 'She won't know anything after the activation.'

  'Call me a dog in the manger,' Faustaff said as he carried the girl towards the front door and unlatched it.

  He walked out to the street, reached his car, dumped the girl in the back seat and began the drive towards Hollywood.

  17

  The White Ritual

  The car was fast and the freeways clear. As he drove, Faustaff wondered about the pair he had left. From what Steifflomeis had said, it was fairly obvious that they weren't human; were probably, as he'd suspected, near-human androids, more advanced versions of the robot D-squaders.

  He hadn't asked the nature of the ritual in which, he assumed, Nancy and Gordon had become involved. He simply wanted to reach them as soon as possible so that he could be of help to them if they heeded it.

  He knew the S-D-K lot. S-D-K had been the biggest of the old-style motion picture makers on E-l. He had once visited the lot from curiosity on one of his occasional trips to E-l Los Angeles.

  Every so often he found it necessary to slow the car and steer through or around a throng of people performing what were to him obscure rites. They were not all obscene or violent, but the sight of the blank faces was sufficient to disturb him.

  He had noticed a change, however. The buildings seemed in slightly sharper focus than when he had first arrived on E-Zero. The impression of newness, too, was beginning to wear off a little. Evidently these pre-activation rites had

  some link with the altering nature of the new planet. From his own experience he knew that it was this world's influence which produced the inability to associate properly, the quite rapid loss of personal identity, the slip-back into the role of whatever psychological archetype was strongest in the particular psyche of the individual; but there also seemed to be a kind of feed-back where the people somehow helped to give the planet a more positive atmosphere of reality. Faustaff found the idea hard to grasp in any terms familiar to him.

  He was nearing Hollywood now. He could see the big illuminated S-D-K sign ahead. Soon, he was turning into the lot. It was silent, apparently empty. He got out of the car, leaving the girl where she was. He locked the doors and began to walk in the direction of a notice which said No. 1 STAGE.

  A door was set in the concrete wall. It was covered with cautionary signs. Faustaff pushed it open and looked inside. The jungle of cameras and electronic equipment partially hid a set. It looked like a set for an historical film. There was nobody in sight.

  Faustaff tried the next stage. He walked in. There were no cameras about and all the equipment seemed neatly stowed. A set was up, however. It was probably being used for the same film. It showed the interior of a mediaeval castle. For a moment Faustaff wondered at the craftsmen who had built the set so that it looked so convincing.

  There was a ritual being enacted on the set. Nancy Hunt was wearing a white, diaphanous shift and her red hair had been combed out and arranged to flow over her back and shoulders. Beside her was a man dressed in black armour that looked real. Either the costume was from the film, or else it had come from the same source as all the other costumes that Faustaff had seen. The man in black armour was drawing down his visor. He had a huge broadsword in his right hand.

  With a measured tread another figure came clumping from the wings. It was Gordon Ogg, also in full armour of bright steel with a plain white surcoat over it. He held a large sword in his right hand.

  Faustaff shouted: 'Nancy! Gordon! What are you doing?'

  They didn't hear. Evidently they were as much in a dreamlike state as the rest.

  With peculiar movements which resembled, to Faustaff, the highly mannered motions of a traditional Japanese mime-play, Ogg approached Nancy and the black-armoured man. His lips moved in speech, but Faustaff could tell that no words sounded.

  In an equally formal way the black-armoured man gripped Nancy's arm and pulled her back, away from Ogg. Ogg now lowered his visor and seemed to challenge the other man with a movement of his sword.

  Faustaff didn't think that Ogg was in any danger. He watched as Nancy stepped to one side and Ogg
and his opponent touched swords. Shortly the black-armoured man dropped his sword and knelt in front of Gordon Ogg. Ogg then threw away his sword. The man rose and began to strip off his armour. Nancy came forward and also knelt before Ogg. Then she got up and left the set, returning with a large golden cup which she offered to Ogg. He took it and drank from it—or pretended to, since Faustaff could see it was actually empty. Ogg picked up his sword and sheathed it.

  Faustaff realised that he had only witnessed a small part of the ceremony and it now seemed over. What would Nancy and Gordon do?

  There was a little more mime, with Nancy appearing to offer herself to Ogg and being sympathetically rejected. Then Ogg turned and began to move off the set, followed by everyone else. He held the golden cup high. It was obviously a symbol that meant something to him and the others.

  Faustaff wondered if it represented the Holy Grail, and then wondered what the Holy Grail represented in Christian

  mythology and mysticism. Didn't it have a much older origin? Hadn't he read about a similar bowl appearing in Celtic mythology? He couldn't be sure.

  Ogg, Nancy and the rest were now walking past him. He decided to follow them. At least he would be able to keep a watchful eye on his friends to make sure they didn't come to harm. It was, he reflected, like trying to deal with a somnambulist. It was probably even more dangerous to attempt to wake them up. Sleep-walkers, he now remembered, were said to perform rituals of this kind sometimes—usually simpler, but occasionally quite complex. There must surely be a link.

  The procession left the set and walked out into the arenalike compound. Tall concrete walls rose on every side.

  They paused here and turned their faces to the sun, Gordon raising the bowl towards it, as if to catch its rays. A subdued chanting could now be heard from them all. It was a wordless chant—or at least in a language completely unfamiliar to Faustaff. It had vague affinities, with Greek, but it was more like the Voice of Tongues which Faustaff had heard on television once. How had it been described by a psychologist? The language of the unconscious. It was the kind of sound people used in their sleep sometimes, Faustaff found it slightly unnerving as he listened to the chant.