Deus Irae (16 page)

“You,” Tibor gasped, “are Carleton Lufteufel.” Only the God of Wrath could do what had just been achieved.

“Pray!” the face instructed.

Tibor said, mumbling his words, “I have never mocked the
greatest entity in the universe. I beg not for forgiveness, but for understanding. If you knew me better—”

“I know you, Tibor,” the face declared.

“Not really. Not completely. I am a complex person, and theology itself is complex, these days. I have done no worse than anyone else; in fact much better than most. Do you understand that I am on a Pilg, searching for your physical identity, so that I can paint—”

“I know,” the God of Wrath interrupted. “I know what you know and a great many more things besides. I
sent the bird
. I caused you to travel close enough to the worm so that he would come out and try to gnaw on you. Do you understand that? It was I who made your right front wheel bearings go out. You have been in my power all this time. Throughout your Pilg.”

Tibor, using his new hands, reached into the storage compartment of the cart and whipped out an instant Color-Pack Polaroid Land camera; he took a quick shot of the moaning face above him, then waited impatiently for the ring to sound.

“You did what?” the mouth demanded. “You took a photograph of me?”

“Yes,” Tibor said. “To see if you’re real.” And for other very real reasons.

“I am real.” The mouth spat out its rebuttal.

“Why have you done all these things?” Tibor asked. “What is there so important about me?”

“You are not important. But your Pilg is. You intend to find me and kill me.”

“No!” Tibor shot back. “Just to photograph you!” He grabbed the edge of the print and dragged it out of the protesting camera.

The picture showed the wild, frenzied face absolutely clearly. Beyond any possibility of doubt.

It was Carleton Lufteufel. The man he had searched for. The man who lay at the far end of his god-knew-how-long Pilg.

The Pilg was over.

“You are going to use that?” the Deus Irae inquired. “That snapshot? No, I do not like it.” A quiver of his chin … and, in Tibor’s right hand, the print shriveled up, let loose a plume of smoke, and fell quietly to the ground in the form of ashes.

“And my arms and legs?” Tibor said, panting.

“Mine, too.” The God of Wrath studied him, and, as he did so, Tibor found himself rising like a rag doll. He landed on his ass in the driver’s seat of the cart. And, at the same moment, his legs, his feet, his arms, his hands—all vanished. Once again he was limbless; he sat there in his seat, panting in frenzy. For a few seconds he had been like everyone else. It was the ultimate moment for Tibor: restitution for an entire life led in this useless condition.

“God,” he managed to say, presently.

“Do you see?” the God of Wrath demanded. “Do you understand what I can do?”

Tibor grated, “Yes.”

“Will you terminate your Pilg?”

“I—” He hesitated. “No,” he said after a pause. “Not yet. The bird said—”

“I was that bird. I know what I said.” The God’s anger softened, momentarily anyhow. “The bird led you closer to me; close enough for me to greet you myself, as I wanted to. As I
had
to do. I have two bodies. One you are seeing now; it is eternal, uncorruptible, like the body Christ appeared in after the resurrection. When Timothy met him and pushed his hand into Christ’s womb.”

“Side,” Tibor said. “Into his side. And it was Thomas.”

The God of Wrath darkened, cloudily; his features began to become transparent. “You have seen this guise,” the God of Wrath declared. “This body. But there is also another body, a physical body which grows old and decays … a corruptible body, as Paul put it.
You must not find that.
”

“Do you think I’ll destroy it?” Tibor said.

“Yes.” The face disappeared, barely speaking its last word. The sky, once again blue, formed a hollow bowl vault erected by giants—or by gods. From some deep-seated, early period on the Earth, perhaps back in the Cambrian period.

After a moment Tibor let go of his derringer; sitting in his cart, he had held it out of sight. What would have happened, he conjectured, if I had tried to kill him? Nothing, he decided. The body I saw him in was, undoubtedly, what he claimed it to be: a manifestation of something incorruptible.

I never could have tried, he realized. It was a bluff. But the God of Wrath didn’t know that; unless of course he was omnipotent, as the Christians believe their God to be.

What in the name of god would it be if I had killed him? he asked himself. How the world would feel without him … there is so damn little to cling to, these days.

Anyhow, the bastard left, he said to himself. So I didn’t have to. At least not this time. I would kill him under certain circumstances, he realized suddenly. But what circumstances? He shut his eyes, rubbed them with his manual extensor, scratched his nose. If he were trying to destroy me? Not necessarily. It had to do more with the complexities of Lufteufel’s mind, rather than with outside circumstances. The God of Wrath had personality; he was not a force. Sometimes he labored for the good of man, and back in the war days, he had virtually annihilated mankind. He had to be propitiated.

That was the key. Sometimes the God of Wrath descended to do good; at other times, evil. I could kill him if he was acting out of malice … but if he was doing good, even if it cost me my life I’d do it.

Grandiose, he ruminated. The pride, hubris. The “all puffed up” syndrome. It’s not for me, he decided. I have always lain low. Somebody else, a Lee Harvey Oswald type, can go in for the big kills. The ones that really mattered.

He sighed. Well, so it went. But this was special. In all his years as a Servant of Wrath he had never possessed a mystical event, had never found God by any means, really. It’s like finding out that Haydn was a woman; it just isn’t possible to lay it aside, after it’s happened.

And also, true mystical experiences changed the beholder. As William James pointed out in another world at another time.

He gave me my missing parts, he thought. Legs, arms—and then he took them back. How can a deity do that? It was, put very simply, sadistic. To have arms, to look like everyone else. Not to be an upright trunk in a cow cart. I could run, he thought. Through sea water, at the ocean beaches. And with my hands I would fashion a variety of objects … think how well I could paint. Most of my creative limitations come from the damn
apparatus I have to use.
I could be so much more
, he told himself.

Will the ’
chardin
blue jay come back? he wondered. If it was a manifestation of the Deus Irae then probably it won’t.

In that case, he asked himself, what should I do?

Nothing. Well, he could shout in his bullhorn. Experimentally, he fished out the bullhorn, snapped the switch on, and said boomingly, “Now hear this! Now hear this! Tibor McMasters is caught in the hills and expects to die. Can you help me? Does anybody hear this?”

He clicked off the bullhorn, sat for a moment. Nothing else he could do. Nothing at all.

He sat slumped over in his cart, waiting.

Pete Sands said to the children, “Think back. Did you see a partial person riding in a cart pulled by a cow? You’d remember that, wouldn’t you? Yesterday, late in the afternoon. Remember?” He scanned their faces, trying to learn something. Something which they did not want him to know about.

Maybe they killed him, Pete said to himself.

“I’ll give you a reward if you tell me,” he said, reaching into his coat pocket. “Here—hard rock candy made only from pure white sugar.” He held the candy out to the gang of kids surrounding him, but no one accepted it. Their dark faces turned upward, they silently watched him, as if curious to know what he intended to do.

At last a very small child reached up for the candy. Pete gave it to him; the boy accepted it wordlessly, then pushed his way backward out of the ring. Gone—and with him the candy.

“I’m his friend,” Pete said, gesturing. “I’m trying to find him so I can help him. There’s rough terrain around here; he could get hired down or his cow could fall … he may be lying by the side of the path, dead or dying.”

Several of the children grinned. “We know who you are,” they piped. “You’re a puppet of old Dr. Abernathy; you believe in the Old God. An’ the inc, he refreshed us in our catechism.”

“To the God of Wrath?” Pete said.

“You better believe it,” two older boys squawked. “This is where
he
live, not that Old Man on the cross.”

“That’s your opinion,” Pete said. “I differ. I’ve known the Old God, as you put it, for many years.”

“But he didn’t bring the war.” The boys continued to grin.

“He did more,” Pete said. “He created the universe and everything in it. We all owe our existences to him. And from time to
time he intervenes in our lives, to help us. He can save any of us and all of us … or if he feels like it, he can let us all remain in a graceless state, the condition of sin. Is that your preference? I hope not, for the sake of your eternal souls.” He felt irritable about it; the children annoyed him. On the other hand, they were the only people who could tell him if Tibor had passed this way.

“We worship he who can do anything he wants,” a boy shrilled. The others at once took up the utterance. “Yeah, we worship he who can do
anything
, anything at all he wants.”

“You’re philothanes,” Pete said.

“What’s that, Mr. Man?”

“Lovers of death. You worship one who tried to end our lives. The great heresy of the modern world. Thanks anyhow.” He stormed off, weighed down by the pack on his shoulders; he put as much distance between the children and himself as possible.

The jeers of the children dimmed behind him, then died entirely.

Good. He was alone.

Squatting down, he opened his pack, rummaged about in it until he came upon his battery-operated radio gear; he lifted it out, set it up on its stiltlike legs, pushed the earphone into place, and cranked up the transmitter. “Dr. Abernathy,” he said into the microphone. “This is Pete Sands reporting.”

“Go ahead, Pete,” Dr. Abernathy’s voice sounded in his ear.

Pete said, “I’m pretty certain I’ve picked up his trail.” He told Dr. Abernathy about the SOWer children. “If they hadn’t seen him,” he pointed out, “then there would be nothing for them to protect. And they were protecting. I’m going to continue on this path.”

“Good luck to you,” Dr. Abernathy said, dryly. “Listen, Pete; if you do find him, don’t do anything to him.”

“Why not?” Pete said. “In our conversation a day or so ago, when you and I—”

“I never told you to follow McMasters. And I never told you to stop him or harm him.”

“No, you didn’t,” Pete admitted. “But you did say, ‘When the inc returns with a photograph of the Deus Irae and begins on his murch, it will constitute a decided gain for the SOWers and for
Father Handy in particular.’ It’s not difficult to deduce from that what you really want, and what would be best for the Old Church.”

“It is the greatest sin,” Dr. Abernathy said, “to kill. The commandment reads, ‘Do not kill.”’

“It reads, ‘Do not murder,”’ Pete answered. “There are three Hebrew verbs that mean kill or something like kill; in this case the word meaning murder is ‘employed.’ I checked the Hebrew source myself. And I know what I’m talking about.”

“Nevertheless—”

Pete interrupted, “I won’t hurt him. I have no intention of doing him any harm.” But, he thought, if Tibor McMasters does lead me to the God of Wrath—so-called—I will … what will I do? he asked himself. We’ll see, he decided. “How’s Lurine?” he said, changing the subject.

“Fine.”

“I know what it is I’m doing,” Pete said. “Just let me do what I have to, Father. It’s my own responsibility, not yours, if you don’t mind my speaking so directly.”

“And you,” Dr. Abernathy said, “are my responsibility.”

A short silence.

“I’ll report to you twice a day,” Pete said. “I’m sure we can come to an agreement. And of course Tibor McMasters may never find Carl Lufteufel, so probably what we’re saying is academic.”

“I will pray for you,” Dr. Abernathy said.

The circuit fell apart; Dr. Abernathy had hung up. Pete, shaking his head and grunting, placed the radio gear back in his shoulder-pack. He sat crouched down for a time, then got out a pack of Pall Malls and lit up one of his few precious cigarettes.

Why am I here? he asked himself. Have I been sent here by my superior? Was I supposed to derive this assertion from the conversation he and I had back in town … or did I read something into what the doctor was saying? Hard to be sure, he thought. If I do commit a crime, or a sin, Dr. Abernathy can disavow it. He “won’t know,” the way the old-time gangsters used to say about a rubout. Churches and the Cosa Nostra have something in common: a sort of pristine indifference at the very top levels. All the malignant chores fall to the smallfries down at the bottom.

Of which I am one, he informed himself.

He did not like such thoughts; he sought to thrust them away. However, they refused to go.

“Father in Heaven,” he prayed as he carefully smoked his cigarette, “let me know what to do. Should I continue to follow Tibor McMasters or should I give up on moral grounds? But there’s another point: I can help Tibor—he shouldn’t be going so far in his cow cart. I would of course help him, were he to get stuck or damaged or injured; that goes without saying. So my trip is not patently malign; it could be in a good cause, a humanitarian search to find an inc who, in point of fact, may be already dead. Aw, the hell with it.” He abandoned his prayer and sat brooding.

The day had become warm. In a thousand thickets around him, insects and birds scuttled, and on the ground itself several small animals could be seen, each following the sacred drive within that Jehovah had instilled in it to cherish and protect it. He finished his cigarette, tossed the butt into a tangled growth of bindweed and wild oats.

Now, where would he have gone from here? Pete asked himself. He got out his map and studied it. I’m about here, he told himself as he marked a spot. Close to the Great C … I don’t want to get near that damn thing. But suppose it snatched up Tibor McMasters? I may have to go there after all.