Gather Darkness Read online

  He slipped into his seat and asked, although he knew the answer, "What business today?"

  "That, so please your archpriestships," came the well-modulated voice of a Second Circle clerk, "which you have asked me to refer to as the Matter of the Frightened Priests."

  Goniface sensed a reaction of annoyance ripple along the Council Table. This was one of those fantastic matters that refused to adjust themselves to established procedures, and were, therefore, exceedingly vexing to conservative mentalities. For two days running the Apex Council had postponed dealing with it.

  "What do you say, Brothers?" he proposed in easy, casual tones. "Shall we have all our country relations in together? Shame them by making them listen to each others' childish-seeming tales?"

  "That is hardly in accord with the best psychological practices," observed Brother Frejeris, his voice like the middle notes of an organ for beauty and strength. "We then encourage mass hysteria."

  Goniface nodded politely, remarking, "You dignify their condition, Brother, with a high-sounding term," and again looked up and down the table, questioningly.

  "Have them in together," urged Goniface's fellow Realist Jomald. "Else we'll be here all night."

  Goniface glanced toward the senior member, lean Brother Sercival, whose white hair, shaven perhaps yesterday, still gave a silvery tint to his parchment skull.

  "Together!" voted Brother Sercival through thin lips, ever stingy with words, the old Fanatic!

  At that there was general agreement.

  "A trifle of no importance," murmured Brother Frejeris, waving the matter aside with a sculpturesque white hand. "I merely sought to avoid a situation which may prove confusing to those of you who are not trained psychologists."

  A clerk transmitted the necessary orders.

  As they waited, Brother Frejeris glanced down into his lap. "I am informed," he said, very casually, "that there is a disturbance in the Great Square."

  Goniface did not look at him.

  "If it is of any consequence," he remarked smoothly, "our servant Cousin Deth will inform us."

  "Your servant, Brother," Frejeris corrected, with equal smoothness.

  Goniface made no reply.

  A score of priests were ushered in through the side door. Superficially they seemed identical with the priests of the Megatheopolis Sanctuary, but to the members of the Apex Council, their every mannerism and gesture, the way they wore their robes and the precise cut of those robes, spelled "country."

  They stood before the council table, an abashed and very much impressed clump of men.

  Their numbers merely emphasized the lustrous gray vastness of the Council Chamber.

  "Your reverend archpriestships," began a gnarly fellow, who seemed to have absorbed something of the earthiness of the endless tilled fields, without working in them. "I know what I'm going to say must seem very unreal here at Megatheopolis," he continued haltingly, his eyes tracing upward the vaulting of the walls until it was lost in the misty ceiling, "—here at Megatheopolis, where you can turn night into day if you want to. It's different where we come from, where night edges up and clamps down, and you feel the silence creep in from the fields and grab the town—"

  "No atmosphere, man! The story!" interjected Frejeris.

  "Story!" snapped Sercival.

  "Well, it's… it's wolves," the gnarly fellow said, with almost a touch of defiance. "I know there aren't any such things, except in the old books. But at night, we see them. Gray, smoky ones, colored like these walls, big as horses, with red eyes. They come loping, packs of them, like banks of mist, over the fields, and come skulking into town, circling around the sanctuary. And whenever a pair of us must go out at night, they follow. The Finger of Wrath can't hurt them—or the Rod! They just back away from the light it makes and skulk in the shadows. I tell you, your reverences, our commoners are crazy with fear, and the novices are almost as bad. And then, at night, in the cells, something squats on our chests!"

  "I know!" interrupted another country priest excitedly. "Cold furry things that twitch at the clothes and softly feel your face. And they squat there, light as down, while you don't know whether you're waking or dreaming, and they nuzzle you and chatter at you in their thin high voices, saying things you hardly dare repeat. But when the light's on, or when you try to clutch at them, they're never there. Yet you can feel them as they touch you and squat on you. Cold, skinny things, covered with a fine fur or hair—human hair!"

  A third country priest, a sallow, high-foreheaded fellow with the look of a schoolmaster, had grown yet more pale at this last recital. "That's exactly how it felt!" he cried out nervously, his eyes fixed on something far away. "Brother Galjwin and I had gone to search the house of a commoner whom we suspected of having concealed a portion of his weavings, on which tithes were due the Hierarchy. They were a bad lot, the daughter the worst—a shameless hussy! But I was on to their tricks, and pretty soon I spotted a loose board in the wall. I pulled it out, and stuck my arm through and felt around behind. That red-haired hussy was grinning at me in the nastiest, most disrespectful way. I felt a roll of cloth with a heavy nap, and reached in farther, so I could get my fingers around it and pull it out. And then it came alive! It moved. It wriggled! Cold, furry, but human feeling, just like he said—though the space back there wasn't four inches wide! We had that inside wall torn down, and we watched the crack all the while. Nothing came out. But we found nothing. We gave the household an extra stint of weaving, as penance. We found witchmarks on the daughter, got a special dispensation, and had her sent to the mines with the men.

  "One thing I'll never forget. When I jerked my hand out, there were two tiny hairs caught in the jag of a nail—two tiny hairs of the same angry copper shade as the girl's!

  "And now, when I sleep badly, I keep feeling the thing. Thin spidery arms against my palm—wriggling!"

  And now all tongues were unloosed, and there was a frightened babble. One voice, louder than the rest, exclaimed, "They say it's those things that make the witch-marks!"

  A gorgeously robed archpriest laughed melodiously, contemptuously. But there was something a little hollow about the laughter.

  Brother Frejeris smiled and arched his eyebrows eloqently, as if to say, "Mass hysteria. I warned you."

  "I said it would all seem very unreal here at Megatheopolis," asserted the first rural speaker, apologetically, yet still with a shade of stubborn defiance. "But there was a Fifth Circle priest sent down to investigate when we made our first reports. He saw what we saw. He didn't say anything. Next day he went away. If he found out anything, we haven't heard about it."

  "We expect the Hierarchy to protect us!"

  "We want to know what the Hierarchy's going to do!"

  "They say," broke in the fellow who had mentioned witchmarks, "that there's a Black Apex, just as there's an Apex Council, so please your reverences! And a Black Hierarchy, organized as we are, but serving Sathanas, Lord of Evil!"

  "Yes," echoed the first speaker, the gnarly one. "And I want to know this! What if our centuries of pretending that there's a real god have somehow—I don't know how—awakened a real devil? What then?"

  Goniface sat up and spoke into the shiver that followed those words. His voice lacked Frejeris' music, but it had its own stony compellingness.

  "Silence! Or you will wake a real devil. The devil of our wrath!"

  He looked up and down the table. "What to do with these fools?" he asked lightly.

  "Whip them!" snapped Sercival, lean jaw like a trap, small eyes glittering in their leathery sockets. "Whip them! For being such cowards in the face of the wiles and threats of Sathanas!"

  The country priests stirred uneasily. Frejeris rolled his eyes upward, as if such a statement were almost unbearably barbarous. But Goniface nodded politely, though not indicating agreement. He casually wondered to what degree old Sercival and the other Fanatics actually believed in the real existence of the Great God and his eternal adversary, Sathanas, Lord of Ev
il. Largely a pose, of course, but there was probably a substratum of genuineness. Not stemming from the ignorant superstitions of the commoners—those were wiped out in the First and Second Circle, or else a priest got no further—but from a kind of self-hypnosis induced by years of contemplating the stupendous powers of the Hierarchy, until those powers actually took on a supernatural tinge. Luckily, Fanatics were very rare—hardly worth calling a party. Only one on the Apex Council, and he only become one in his senility. Even at that, the old fool might some day prove useful. He was grim and bloody-minded enough, and would serve as a convenient scapegoat if it were ever necessary to employ extreme violence. The Fanatic Party, for that matter, was useful in counterbalancing the more numerous minority of Moderates, leaving Goniface's Realists in almost complete control.

  But these poor country priests were not Fanatics. Far from it. If they had even a shadow of belief in the Great God—in any god—they wouldn't be so frightened. Goniface rose to reprimand them.

  But there was an interruption. The high doors at the other end of the Chamber opened. A priest darted in. Goniface recognized one of Frejeris' Moderates.

  The newcomer's progress toward the Council Table was nothing stately. He was almost running.

  Goniface waited coolly.

  The newcomer, breathing a little hard from the unaccustomed exertion, handed something to Frejeris which the latter quickly scanned.

  Frejeris rose and spoke to Goniface directly, for the whole table to hear.

  "I am informed that a First Circle priest is blaspheming the Hierarchy before a large crowd in the Great Square. Your servant Cousin Deth has taken charge and forbids interference. I demand you instantly explain to the Council what this madness means!"

  "Who fosters mass hysteria now, Brother?" Goniface countered quickly. "Your information is incomplete. Shall I explain a subtle stratagem before those who would not understand it?" He indicated the country priests. "Or shall I finish the business before the Council?"

  And before the Council had recovered from its first surprise, he was talking.

  "Priests of the rural sanctuaries: You have said that your stories would seem unreal here. That is untrue. For the unreal is not, at Megatheopolis or anywhere else in the cosmos.

  "The supernatural is unreal, and therefore is not.

  "Have you forgotten the basic truth you learned in the First Circle? That there is only the cosmos and the electronic entities that constitute it, without soul or purpose, save so far as neuronic minds impose purpose upon it?

  "No, your stories refer to real entities—if only to the imagery of your neuronic minds.

  "There are many real entities which the Finger of Wrath cannot burn. I mention only solidographs, and remind you of the shadowiness of the wolves and other creatures you claim to fear. As for mental imagery, you cannot burn that except by turning the Finger of Wrath against your own skulls.

  "One of you mentioned the Witchcraft. Has that one forgotten that the Witchcraft is our fosterling?

  "I should not be telling you this. You should be telling it to your novices!

  "Has the Hierarchy ever failed you? Yet now do you want the Hierarchy to drop all other business and, with much outward fuss and flourishing, attend only to you, because you are frightened—not hurt, merely frightened?

  "How do you know that all this is not a test, imposed upon you by us, to determine your courage and resourcefulness? If it is a test, think how pitifully, thus far, you have failed!

  "It may be a test.

  "It may also be that some alien agency is striking at the Hierarchy, perhaps under cover of our fosterling the Witchcraft. And that we are holding our hand, to draw them out and learn all, before we strike in return. For the Hierarchy never strikes twice.

  "If that is the case, elementary strategy forbids your being told anything, for fear of scaring off the enemy.

  "This much I will tell you. The Hierarchy knew of the disturbances in your region long before you did. And it has concerned itself deeply with them.

  "That is all you need to know. And you should have known it without asking!"

  With cold gratification, Goniface noted that the last traces of panic had quite evaporated. The country priests stood straighter now, looked more like men. Still frightened—but only of their superiors. As they should be.

  "Priests of the rural sanctuaries, you have grievously failed the Hierarchy. Our reports show that, since the beginning of the disturbances—or the test—in your region, you have done little but cry to the Hierarchy for help. It has been suggested that you be whipped. I am inclined to agree. Except that I believe you have enough iron in you not to fail again.

  "The Hierarchy grips the globed earth like a hand. Will it be your eternal disgrace to be remembered as the ones who sought to loosen, infinitesimally, one fingertip? I say 'sought' advisedly, because we watch over you more closely than you think, and stand ever ready if even the least of you should fail.

  "Not to fail, is your affair!

  "Go back to your sanctuaries.

  "Do what you should have done long ago.

  "Call upon your courage and resourcefulness.

  "Fear is a weapon—for you to use, not for others to use against you.

  "You have been trained in its use.

  "Use it!

  "And as for Sathanas, also our fosterling, our Lord of Evil, our black counterpart to our Great God"—he stole an ironic sidewise glance at Sercival, to see how the old Fanatic was taking this—"use him, too. Whip him from your towns if that seems expedient. But never, never again, stoop so low—low even as commoners!—as to believe in him!"

  It was then—just as Goniface could see that the country priests had taken fire from his words and were beginning to burn with a desire to redeem themselves—that the laughter came. The walls of the Council Chamber were thick and proof against ordinary sound, yet still it came—evilly mirthful, uncanny peals.

  It seemed to laugh at the Hierarchy—and at anyone who dared decree what is and what is not.

  The country priests paled and edged closer together. The haughty faces of the archpriests more or less successfully masked shock, apprehension, and a furious thinking as to what that noise might be and what it might portend. Frejeris looked suddenly at Goniface. Old Sercival began to tremble with what seemed a queer sort of fear and a queerer satisfaction.

  But it was in Goniface's ears that the laughter thundered most shakingly and dismayingly. Thoughts flickered like wildfire across his mind. But all the while he imperturbably fought to hold the eyes of the country priests, to oppose the influence of that unnerving laughter. And he succeeded, although the eyes grew wide with doubt.

  The laughter echoed off, shudderingly.

  "Your audience is at an end," Goniface declared harshly. "Leave us!"

  The country priests hurried off. It was only the swishing of their robes, but it sounded as if they were already whispering.

  Old Sercival rose up like some ancient prophet, hand shakily extended toward Goniface. "That was the laughter of Sathanas! It is a judgment of the Great God upon you and the whole Hierarchy for centuries of hypocrisy and pretense! The Great God looses against the world his black dog Sathanas!"

  And he sank back into his seat, trembling.

  The Council shifted restlessly. Someone tittered contemptuously.

  Goniface felt throbbing through him the same strange, intoxicating pulsation he had felt years ago when the secret of his past had been within a hairbreadth of discovery.

  A fat little priest pressed through the tail end of the country delegation as it left the Chamber, and fairly scampered toward Goniface.

  Goniface stopped him. "Make your report to the assembled Apex Council, Brother Chulian!"

  The fat little priest's cherubic mouth gaped like that of a fish. "The likeness of great hands cupped round Brother Jarles and carried him off! Sathanas spoke!"

  "Your report!" Goniface commanded harshly. "The rest we can hear from others bette
r able to tell it."

  The fat little priest dodged back as if water had been thrown in his face. He seemed for the first time to realize the presence of the Council. His piping voice grew subservient, his words terse.

  "As instructed, I provoked the First Circle priest Brother Jarles to anger. I did this by ordering the Commoner Sharlson Naurya, whom Brother Jarles still regards emotionally, to serve in the Sanctuary. She, a well-known recalcitrant, with abnormal fear of the sanctuaries, refused. I then accused her of witchcraft, squeezing her shoulder to produce a witchmark. Brother Jarles struck me. We were both inviolable at the time. I was knocked down. Then I—"

  "—your report ends, Brother Chulian," Goniface finished for him.

  Across the ensuing silence Brother Frejeris' voice rang more musically than before. "If all we are to hear consists of such rash and mischievous madness as this—aimed directly against the stability of the Hierarchy—I will not need to ask for Brother Goniface's excommunication. Every archpriest will ask it for me."

  "You will hear all," Goniface told him. "Hearing, you will understand."

  But he could tell that his words fell flat. Even in the faces of his own Realists he could discern suspicion and distrust. Brother Jomald gave him a look as if to say, "The party disclaims all responsibility in this matter. You must handle it yourself—if you can."

  The fat little priest seemed to want to say more. His cherubic mouth twitched anxiously. Goniface nodded to him.

  "May I make an addition to my report, your reverence?"

  "If it concerns your part in the action."

  "It does, your resplendency. And it puzzles me. When I tore Sharlson Naurya's smock to expose the witchmark, there were three such marks where I am sure my thumb and forefinger alone had rested."

  Goniface could have kissed the fat little priest. But his voice was faraway and musing as he replied. "And to think, Brother Chulian, that you might even now be a priest of the Third Circle, if you only had joined the virtue of deduction to the virtue of observation." He shook his head regretfully. "Well, I will give you a chance to redeem yourself. After all, it was a most peculiar coincidence. Take another priest, now that you no longer have your partner Jarles, and arrest—the witch!"