Tarot, page 52
“That horror!” Amaranth exclaimed, furious. “Get away from me, you fairy!”
And Brother Paul understood also. To certain homosexuals, the female genital region was the terrifying proof of the reality of castration, for where there should be a penis and testicles was only a slash like that left by a knife. The awful Sword had removed everything! Such people had constantly to reassure themselves by dealing only with those who remained unmutilated: other males. Homosexuality was Hell.
“But do you know,” Therion added with even greater amazement, “I think I liked it!” The man had, in his fashion, just been tested as crucially as Lee had been in Dante’s Hell—and profited as much. He had discovered heterosexuality.
The smoke gave way to thin fire, jetting up like blowtorch flames on each of the ten sides of the pentacle, outlining the five points of the star in flame. The entire congregation was within this outline. The fire rose up in sheets, forming a new enclosure, shutting out the obscene church. The floor shuddered again as though subject to an earthquake.
“Satan approaches,” Lee said tersely. “The Priest’s act summoned—”
“No—I suspect we are going to the Inferno,” Brother Paul said. “The Priest only greased the channel, as it were. The mountain seldom comes to Mahomet.”
“Daddy, put me down,” Carolyn said. Brother Paul discovered that he was holding her so close her feet were off the floor. She was no infant anymore; she had swiftly and subtly grown to her colonist size. If he wielded the knife, catering to Therion’s supposed hate for all the distaff sex—no! He eased up so as to let her slide to the floor. He had already come far closer to Hell than he liked!
The whole surface of the pentacle jumped with a rending clang like that of metal on concrete. Steam hissed up in great clouds, stifling the fire. Ozone fumes suffused the air. The ex-Virgin fell off the altar, carrying the Priest with her; in a tangle of limbs they were separated at last.
“Daddy, pick me up!” Carolyn cried.
Instead, he squeezed her thin shoulders gently but firmly, holding her steady. “We’re going to Hell, honey,” he told her. “Don’t be frightened.”
She turned her startled gaze upon him. Suddenly he realized the incongruity of what he had said. They both burst out laughing.
Lee looked at them disapprovingly. “Mirth—hallmark of the Devil,” he muttered.
The air became close as the steam-vapor surrounded them. The rampaging congregation at last become aware of the changing situation. There were sounds of coughing and hacking as the smog coalesced into soot that coated everything. Brother Paul found a handkerchief and gave it to Carolyn to breathe through. She insisted on sharing it with him, so he stooped down to put his mouth to one end. It did seem to help filter out the choking gas and dust.
The bottom dropped out. The entire pentacle plummeted into a bottomless hole in the earth like an elevator whose cable and safety brakes were broken. Down, down, in free fall, stomachs floating. “Even so did I plunge into the abyss!” Therion said from somewhere, reviewing his recent performance, his supreme act of courage.
There was retching among the congregation. But Brother Paul, Carolyn, and Lee stood firm. Therion slid free of Amaranth’s legs, and she scrambled to her feet, virtually floating free of the blood-spattered altar mattress. Brother Paul tried again to keep his eyes averted from her and from Therion’s now-dangling member, but was not entirely successful. Somehow he felt she had betrayed him, though obviously she had neither anticipated nor cooperated in—what had happened. And of course he shared responsibility, for he had balked at sacrificing the baby, necessitating Therion’s alternate procedure. So Amaranth had been sacrificed instead of Carolyn—and therein lay the key to his basic values. Now, looking at the naked woman, with his arm about the child, he could not second guess his decision. He did love his daughter more.
Air screamed past the plummeting platform. Air—another hallmark of the Devil! The mixed vapors shot upward, their discolorations seeming to writhe like serpents. The velocity of the pentacle was now so great that the wind actually whistled. Strange creatures, all fang and wing, passed by, peering momentarily into the pentacle as though it were a feeding dish. But after the first gut-wrenching shock of falling, equilibrium was returning, making the platform seem stationary. The congregation, some in tatters and some naked, stood in frightened huddles looking out. The approaching Animation of Hell was evidently more than these people had bargained for!
Even in this awful descent, Brother Paul found himself musing on the technical aspects of the production. The Animations could make things appear to be other than they were and convert mirages to reality—but these were matters of perception. The actual mind was not affected directly. So how could there be a sensation of falling and of violent motion? But the answer came as he phrased the mental question: there were many more senses than the proverbial five, and the perceptions of balance, motion, and muscle tension were part of the Animation whole. The most intense Animations covered the full spate of senses; there was no way other than pure reasoning and memory to know any part of the objective situation. And even memory was subject in part to Animation as he knew from his vivid flashbacks.
The fact was that the greater part of what made up individual awareness was controlled by the Animation effect. Perhaps forty percent of Brother Paul’s faculties affirmed that reality was a visit to a colony planet by a novice of a minor Order whose purpose was to ascertain whether Deity sponsored any part of the Animation effect. Sixty per cent of him said he was going to Hell.
“We are going to Hell,” he repeated softly, and this time he was not laughing at all.
With a jolt that sent people sprawling, the platform changed course. Brother Paul staggered, trying to prevent Carolyn from falling. Lee reached out and caught her arm, stabilizing her and, through her, Brother Paul. “Thanks,” Brother Paul gasped.
“You steadied me,” Lee said. “You showed me the error of my philosophy and brought me to unity with Jesus Christ.” Now Lee was a tower of strength, able to contemplate Hell itself with an approximation of equanimity because his soul was pure.
“But what of mine?” Brother Paul asked himself. “My soul is a nest of scorpions that I thought had been safely buried—and now they will surely be loosed!”
The platform was now traveling to the side. The congregation scrambled for the pews, seating themselves and holding on tightly. Therion held on to the altar which was near the front point of the pentacle. “Get over here!” he called. “Want to get knocked off?”
Lee looked out at the slanting colors beyond the rim. The mists were thinning, showing an awesome chasm below, through which bright tongues of fire leaped. “And where would we fall to,” he asked, “that we are not already bound for?”
Good point! Except for one qualification. “If we stay on the platform,” Brother Paul said, “we visit Hell alive and perhaps return from it. If we fall off the platform, we may die and never return.”
Carolyn looked too. The maelstrom of fire seemed to intensify, forming an amorphous demon face glaring up hungrily. “Oooh, I feel dizzy!” she exclaimed, teetering. Brother Paul jumped to fetch her in again, but Lee’s hand was already on her arm, securing her.
Yet with the angling, lurching, and acceleration of the pentacle, all of them were being nudged toward the dread abyss. The congregation was secure because the pews seemed to be well anchored to the floor; some people even lay on the tapering points of the star and hooked their fingers over the forward edges so they could peer down raptly into Hell. But here at the front section there was nothing to cling to except the altar.
Brother Paul was loath to touch that altar whose cover and mattress had been dislodged and now rested on the floor near the rim. But he felt increasingly nervous at their precarious footholds. This was like standing on the wing of an airplane—and the intentions of the pilot were uncertain. Condensed slime coated the floor, making the footing treacherous. Any sudden shift—
It happened. The pentacle lurched, sending the three of them sliding. The mattress fell off the edge. There was a spurt of flame from below as it ignited.
Now it was Therion who extended a hand. He caught hold of Brother Paul’s flailing arm and with demoniac strength hauled him and Carolyn and Lee in a human chain to the altar. “We are going home,” Therion said with grisly satisfaction. “I shall see that you don’t get lost on the way. My Master would be angry.”
And he was the agent of Satan. Well, what had they expected? In the Infernal Region, the truly evil man was lord.
They stood by the altar, fingers hooked over its stone edges, and peered forward. There were rails ahead, resembling railroad tracks—shining ribs of steel curving into darkness. So that was how this platform was being guided!
“A roller-coaster ride!” Carolyn exclaimed.
Brother Paul exchanged glances with Lee. “Out of the mouths of babes…” the latter murmured. Could Hell itself be no more than a scary ride?
A tunnel appeared ahead: a black hole in a boundless wall. The tracks led straight into it.
The pentacle whipped straight into the hole—but abruptly it became apparent that the vehicle was too large for the aperture. At the last moment there was a scream of terror as the people at the star points on either side realized the threat. Then a crash—and those two points were sheered off cleanly by the tunnel walls. The people on them—were gone.
Brother Paul suffered a mental picture of bodies flattened against the wall like squashed flies, sticking there for a while before dropping into the flames below. Hell was cruel—but again, what had he expected? He hoped Carolyn did not realize the implications.
“Daddy, they weren’t very nice people,” she said. “But still—”
He drew her close against him again, and she laid her head against his shoulder and cried silently. She had a way of doing that when her sensitivities were hurt, in contrast to her more open crying for normal problems.
The platform was no longer a full pentacle. It was an arrowhead, arrowing through the blackness along its track.
Suddenly a monster loomed at one side. It had glaring yellow eyes, bloody red teeth, and talons fifteen centimeters long. “HOO-HAH-HAH-HAH!” it laughed with horrendous volume, keeping pace with the platform.
“It’s a horror-house image,” Brother Paul told Carolyn reassuringly as she cringed. If only she could have been spared this journey to Hell; he had thought she was safely out of this Animation… until Therion brought her in for the sacrifice. Damn Therion! At times the man had seemed decent, but always some new door opened on his character that made him seem worse than before. That sacrifice—could any but a truly evil mind have organized that? Tricking a man into slitting the throat of his daughter-figure? “It’s meant to be scary—but it isn’t real.”
“It sure looks real,” she said, taking heart.
The monster reached down with its two awful arms and caught up two people. They screamed—and so did Carolyn. Brother Paul started back toward the action, but both Lee and Therion restrained him. An odd situation when these two natural antagonists acted in accord! “They are already damned,” Lee said. “No one can help them or change the manner of their departure from this frame.”
The monster carried the victims up toward its gaping mouth. Carolyn hid her face. Therion laughed. But the monster drifted back and out of sight before consuming its prey. The fading sound of the screams of the two unfortunates were all that remained of them.
The remaining members of the congregation, once so violently eager to summon Satan, cowered in their places. But the next apparition was a tremendous octopus with a cruel, gnarled beak who blithely wrapped eight tentacles around eight more people and hauled them screaming and kicking into obscurity.
“Do not be concerned,” Therion said in an offhand manner. “All who touch the sacred altar are safe from bestial molestation.”
Because they were being saved for a worse fate? Brother Paul’s misgivings mounted.
Amaranth looked up. “I wasn’t saved!” she cried. “I was right on the altar when—” But she didn’t bother to finish.
The remaining congregation hid itself under the benches. There was an internecine struggle for position, and two people were shoved off one edge to disappear with the usual screams—that cut off abruptly in a great crunching sound. What lay below?
Lights appeared, each like a gleaming eye—a line along the sides like the lamps of a subway tunnel. If these images were drawn from his subconscious mind, that mind’s imagination lacked a really original thrust. But Therion seemed to be the dominant character in this Animation so far. Hell was his province; it could be as unoriginal as he wished.
The vehicle accelerated. The lights became a blur. Then the tracks curved, and they were flung to the right as it swept into a tightening spiral. Down, down, in a whirlpool vortex, tighter and tighter—and now the platform spun like a gyroscope, adding torque to revolution. They clung to the altar for dear life—and what was so dear about it now?—their fingers sliding across the slimy stone.
The marker lights funneled into an aperture too narrow for the remaining platform. The points snagged on projections and tore off. Again the despairing screams of the congregation were heard as people were hurled into the darkness outside the spiral, and under the wheels of the platform inside the spiral, to be sliced into pieces. Sections of arms and legs flew up, bounced off the platform, and skidded back into the gloom. One whole head glared momentarily as it rolled, leaving a dotted line of blood splotches. “They took no heed for their souls,” Therion remarked without pity. “They were unprepared to meet their Master.”
“And are we prepared?” Brother Paul inquired, holding his fingers over Carolyn’s eyes in a futile effort to conceal the horror from her. “To meet their Master—or our own?” He knew that the congregation was composed of phantasms rather than real people; throwaways being thrown away. That was why they had not been able to touch him when they had attacked him earlier; they were merely part of the scenery. The nucleus of five real people was here about the altar. Why hadn’t he thought to explain that to Carolyn?
The platform was now a pentagon—five sides, no star points. A dozen Devil worshipers clung to the sole remaining pew. The pentagon spun down through the nether eye of the vortex and plumped with a loud smacking splash into dark water.
Lee looked disapprovingly about. “This is Hell?” he inquired.
“Merely the sticks,” Brother Paul murmured.
“Oh, the River Styx,” Lee repeated, not catching the pun.
“Hell has not yet begun to manifest,” Therion assured them with gusto.
So all this had been but the prelude. The warm-up show. Brother Paul felt an ugly chill. What would Hell produce when Hell got serious?
The pentagon bobbled on the gentle swell, moving with unseen power and guidance across the river. There was a moderately stiff headwind that carried the stench of rot, and it chilled them despite its warmth. Other boats were afloat, more conveniently shaped; this one was really a raft. Oddly, as many boats were going back as forward and were fully loaded. People leaving Hell?
Therion looked forward, baring his irregular teeth in a savage smile. Amaranth kept her head down upon the altar; her hell had begun at the outset of this descent. She had been so eager to give her samples; had that all been pretense? Or was it simply that Therion was the wrong man? The fact that she had actually been a virgin argued for the pretense theory. There were women like that, Brother Paul knew. All show and no substance. Well, she had substance now!
Carolyn’s horror had abated, for she was young; now she glanced about, intrigued by the scene. Lee stood with eyes closed in seeming meditation. Brother Paul decided not to attempt to engage any of them in conversation. Actually, this was probably about as peaceful as Hell could get.
“Shall I tell a joke to pass the time?” Therion inquired. “There was this time when God got horny and went to Earth and knocked up this Jewish girl, and as a result—”
“Christianity,” Lee said. “Why don’t you try to be original for a change?”
A boat cruised by on a parallel course but traveling faster. Ripples rocked the raft. Therion frowned. “Watch where you’re slogging, duffer!” he yelled.
“Go soak your snout!” someone yelled from the boat.
Therion swelled up with delighted indignation. “Osculate my posterior!” he cried. “Your waves are slopping my gunwales.”
“Yeah? Try these waves, peckerhead!” the other bawled. The boat looped about, accelerating to an unholy velocity. Now the ripples became rolling waves. They overlapped the raft’s rim, sliding across to soak the feet of the five standing people and the bodies of those still lying under the benches. The latter got up hastily, cursing, for the water was not crystal clear; it was gray with pollution and it stank. Brother Paul observed that there were objects in it that resembled—yes, they were fecal matter.
Therion reached down, scooped up a dripping chunk, and hurled it at the boat. His aim and force were excellent; the turd scored a direct hit on the shoulder of one of the passengers.
There was an undecipherable roar of rage from the boat. The passengers stooped to scoop out their own ammunition. In a moment a small barrage of feces scored on the raft.
“Of course you realize this means war,” Therion said, grinning with the sheer joy of battle. He squatted beside the altar, not hiding but rather straining to produce fresh ammunition. Brother Paul turned away in disgust; Therion was very much the fecal personality, and this was manifesting more openly as Hell drew near.
Others on both crafts were quick to follow Therion’s example. Why should they seine the murky water for used shot, when superior grade and personalized material was so readily available? Soon the air was filled with stinking blobs. One person after another was hopelessly spattered in brown.
