The Fourth Circle (6 page)

But no such thing happened, may the Lord be eternally praised. The horrible, eerie laughter changed to a painful, choking rattle, as if the vrag had suddenly left my Master to put an end to the inhuman sound with his own weak, paltry throat.

The sudden silence that reigned, ancient and deathlike, rather than allaying my fear only made it grow. Turning and seeing that I was alone in the middle of the courtyard, I hastened after the others to see the new miracle in the church, thankful to God that no other ears than mine had heard that sepulchral, mocking roar hideously issuing from the jaws of the Unclean, for if they had, they could no longer doubt that my Master was entirely in his power.

All my poor hopes that the Master might yet be saved from a relentless, abominable fate withered as soon as I stepped under the cursed ceiling, joining the monachs who stood mute and trembling, their gaze directed upward or askance as they crossed themselves and mouthed barely audible prayers. I looked up and I saw. A miracle, in truth, not of God but of the Devil.

For there where the God-fearing monachs had with industry born of terror concealed with all-whitening lime those scenes of supreme offense and pain to the eye of the believer—there was now no concealment! The hideous images of Sotona, endowed by some supernatural power, had cast off the pall of the just and showed themselves once more in all their baneful nakedness, with the dread signs of the Unclean One, which now seemed to burn with some accursed, fiery brilliance of their own. The three pustulant suns of repulsive color, like three rotting teeth of Sotona, shone out presumptuously from the vault of the ceiling, while the terrible demonic circle, the very throne of the nether kingdom, seemed
to tremble agitatedly, starting to turn like a mindless wheel on the chariot that carries doomed souls into the land of shadows.

It seemed that this was not enough for the dark, fallen angel, hungry to settle some unsettleable score with the Almighty, whose justness is infinite. Hardly had my eyes, unused to satanic wonders, filled with icy dread before the sight of the vault coming horribly to life, when a rumble sounded outside, distant at first, then louder, rising to a thunderous roar that resounded deafeningly from the stout marble walls of this ancient, godly building, causing the robed ones to flee in panic, probably thinking that this thunder of God's rightful anger, unheard by any living ear since the times of ancient Yerichon, would bring the haunted ceiling of Sotona down on their sinful heads.

Although the true faith teaches that they should accept with grace, uncom-plainingly, like Job of old, this and any other fate that God in His infinite justice might prepare for them in punishment for sins known only to Him, the monachs succumbed to fear, rushing out of the church into the courtyard in great confusion, crossing themselves, throwing up their hands and pushing each other, devoid of all dignity, while uttering hoarse, meaningless exclamations.

I too hurried out, again bringing up the rear, driven by a fear even greater than theirs, because I thought I knew from whence the thunder came. This thunder was no expression of the wrath of God, but laughter from below ground, the earth-shaking laughter of the Unclean One, who had howled hideously from the iguman's cellar a few moments before I stepped into the church. That laughter that had been intended for my ears alone was now amplified a hundredfold to fill all ears and put the final, ghastly, satanic seal on my Master's sad fate.

Firm in this belief, I at once turned my fearful gaze on the small slit in the wall of the cellar—but, lo, a new miracle! Neither the flames of hell nor guffaws of diabolical glee issued from it. No, a very different sight lay before me: a clear, white, angelic light, which could not but announce the grace of God and eternal bliss of the Garden of Eden, poured forth from my Master's prison; but to what good, when all eyes except my loyal ones were looking in another direction?

Everyone else was looking up at the sky, barely flushed with the coming dawn.

I looked up also, and—I saw: all at once, clearly.

I saw the finger of God descend in a blaze of strong, white light from the sky to the earth. The terrible rumbling was not his righteous anger, but the sweet music of the pipes of Heaven, music that had seemed like a roar from Hades only to my sinful, frightened ears. The monachs all fell to their knees, in profound humility before this vision of Him, this all-powerful sign that His triumph over the powers of the underworld, of the Devil, is everlasting.
That they might not sully this holiest of visions, this Epiphany, with their unworthy eyes that had been filled only moments earlier by a hideous ugliness, the robed ones looked humbly downward at the dust, as befitted them. But not I, may God pardon me my overweening pride. I continued to look up, though not so much for my own sake, for who am I but the Lord's poor servant, but rather for my Master's, seeing at once that this salvation from Heaven came for him. The Almighty, in his boundless righteousness, had finally taken pity on him who sang His praises in his paintings, forgiven him his wretched pact with Sotona, hastened to his salvation at the fateful moment when the Prince of Darkness had already stretched out his terrible claws to seize my Master's suffering, sinful soul.

For if it were not so, how could the earlier darkness and hellish din have been replaced by angelic, celestial light pouring through the narrow opening in the iguman's cellar? And even that, it was not hard to see, was but a tiny gleam of the divine blaze now accompanying the apparition of the finger of God.

And the finger of God, our righteous and merciful Lord, continued to descend mightily to earth, bringing a new day even before the full dawn, beheld by only my joyful gaze, until in ineffable splendor it gently touched the tops of the dark eastern hills, just at the spot where a moment later the morning sun peeped over the rosy horizon in powerful, final affirmation of this divine revelation.

9.
DESCENDANT OF THE RING

HE HAD NO name, but was not nameless either.

The few worlds that knew of his existence gave him various names, none of which suited him, however accurately they all described him. On Threesun they called him Gatherer; he did not feel like one, although it was true that he occasionally, for amusement, collected small forms composed of hardened energy when they happened to swim into his net. Because of the net, stretched between seven large stars near the galactic center from which he originated, on the Blue Sphere they named him Spider; the significance of that name eluded him. He did not understand the name "Being," either, which those on the Outer Edge con-ferred on him, but because he sensed anxiety and disquiet underlying it, he tended to avoid them, since any distress he might create would quickly pass to him, and he did not like unpleasant experiences.

Of all his nicknames he liked Player best. He received it from the fishlike inhabitants of the Great Arm, a world enveloped in soft, slushy energy, under the dense sun of the nearby globular cluster; these creatures seldom rose to the surface of their world but were nevertheless aware of him; they sensed his probing, yet delicate, vibrations originating from the very edge of the Black Star to which he was connected by the powerful threads of living force. In the vibrations they discerned a closeness, even a kinship with their own mental structure, albeit at the level of a newborn who innocently takes everything around him as a game.

This perception of his childlike, naive nature, although inaccurate, inspired them with affection, so that they indulged and understood his prankishness and whims, which, occurring on an astral scale, disturbed other races and sometimes even drove them to despair. But the fishlike individuals soon grew up and stopped playing, while Player appeared to remain unchanged, with the same simple, open nature, though it only seemed so to the swimmers in the vast ga-seous ocean of the Great Arm because of their brief life cycle.

Although he had already been in existence for inconceivably longer than their species and would probably still be after they had died out, he envied them, just as he envied all other creatures, short-or long-lived, similar to him or dissimilar.

He envied them all because of the one thing he lacked, or thought he lacked. All others knew their origin, and many had some inkling of their purpose in the
overall scheme of things, trifling though it might be, while he, as far as both were concerned, was filled only with a dark void.

He knew the place in which he had first become aware of himself quite well, for he maintained contact with it. This awakening, however, could not have been his birth: nobody was born near the Black Star. The Black Star was the end of everything. All that came into its proximity vanished forever into that colossal, black whirling funnel, whose hunger for all forms of energy only grew the more it devoured.

Nobody knew where the maw of that insatiable Leviathan was located. It had already gulped down half the suns from the galactic center with their accompanying worlds and all the creatures who had lived on them. But the bottom of the mighty funnel, responding with infinite blackness to even the most insistent poking by inquisitive fingers from outside, remained impenetrable.

And yet, not everything succumbed to the irresistible attraction of the black abyss. A ring of energy of extremely high frequency maintained itself at the upper edge of the funnel, thanks to the constant inflow of fresh material on which the Black Star fed. As long as the inflow continued, the ring would not spiral down the cone-shaped gullet toward the annihilation that lay at the bottom. If food became scarce, however, the ring would be unable to move in the opposite direction, away from this tenuous limbo.

The energies of which the ring consisted changed their structure to the beat of the Black Star's pulse. Countless combinations of force and frequency were created and demolished at inconceivable speed, exhausting a spectrum that was, after all, not infinite. Finally, in a twinkling of the rotating ring's inconceivably long existence, that unique combination was achieved such that a mere inarticulate snarl of physical effect and interaction was elevated to a state that is usually described on sedate cosmic islands far from the dark funnel as electronic awareness.

The state of electronic awareness lasted only a few moments before being replaced by a new combination, but those few moments accommodated an entire cycle of rise and decline, befitting any awareness. An insight into its own doom—its unbreakable connection with the Black Star and probable short life expectancy—accompanied the rise. Before its decline began, the ring's awareness made a decision. Although it could not tear the ring away from the powerful embrace of the diabolical funnel, it could induce disturbances just outside the funnel's reach. The awareness tensed its will, raising the energy potential of the ring to the very edge of disintegration, and started to shape the raw forces that had not yet passed the critical limit.
There was, however, too little time for the work to be completed. The ring's awareness conceived a descendant beyond the reach of the Black Star but did not live long enough to see him wake from non-being, dissipating into a new combination of forces empty of consciousness before it could transfer its experience to him, determine his purpose, or give him a name.

And so, he was Gatherer, Spider, Being, and Player—and at the same time none of these: a nameless entity with a plethora of nicknames but lacking knowledge of his origin or parents. Curious and simple of soul, he set out, like a child, to explore the world around him, to discover his own identity. It was not a pleasant experience because the creatures he met differed greatly from him. Very few shared his ability to flow from star to star and even those who did were only in apparent kinship, because they were not aware of him at all, although Player did all he could to announce himself, thereby inadvertently snuffing out several suns and causing severe gravitational disturbances in one arm of the Galaxy.

Awareness of his existence occurred only in the tiny inhabitants of worlds built from solidified energy—creatures so peculiar and different from himself that they certainly could not be his relatives. Besides, these midgets beheld him mainly with mixed feelings that he did not differentiate very well, although he did distinguish the nuances between anxiety, disquiet, fear, and horror. Whenever he sensed these disagreeable states of mind, he would withdraw quickly; otherwise he himself would succumb to them, which he did not at all wish to do.

Only one race of these creatures, the one that called him Player, did not shrink from him, but rather accepted him with an affinity that pleased him immensely, because their acceptance hinted at a relationship he had never had but that seemed, for some reason, very precious. Still, these were not the parents for whom he was searching. Beyond the warmth with which they accepted him, they could give him nothing—least of all a purpose, which was what he lacked most.

He was beginning to think he might find a purpose lying concealed in the only place in the vast spaces he had visited that he shrank from: in the ever-growing Black Star, from the expansion of which all the creatures he ever met had fled in panic, but from the rim of which he alone drew boundless energy. He could not play with the Black Star as he did with ordinary suns. His yearning to grasp the elusive purpose was becoming stronger than the vague disquiet, induced by other creatures' fears of that gaping black funnel. He would, it seemed, have set off down the spiraling slope toward the black center had he not, at the last moment, received a signal.