The Gods Look Down Read online

  They had tried to fool him once before and he wouldn’t buy it. I can see through solid black rock, he told himself, so I can certainly see through you. I can certainly see through you. He liked the sound it made, the cadence of it, and repeated, I can certainly see through you. There is, he thought, or should be, a song entitled I Can Certainly See Through You. If there wasn’t he would write one. (Something pricked his arm.) Ouch he wanted to say but couldn’t locate his mouth. He thought, My memory has gone and now my mouth. They’re taking everything away, bit by bit. Soon there won’t be anything left except the bright light. It was very bright, blood-red, full in his face. She had told him to watch out for the bright light but he guessed (he knew!) this wasn’t the one. This isn’t the one, he told himself, and liked the sound of that too. He repeated it and thought, If there isn’t a song called This Isn’t The One I’ll sit down and write it. But he couldn’t find any part of his anatomy on which to sit. They’ve taken that as well, he thought morosely. The rotten bastards. They’ve stolen my arse.

  It was peculiar being disembodied but not unpleasant. It was similar to what he imagined lying in a bath of warm syrup would be like, a complete absence of tactile sensation. He couldn’t feel or control the various parts of his body and yet this didn’t alarm him; no doubt they had their reasons. Just as long as they didn’t take his identity. He had put it away safely somewhere, though he couldn’t remember where, saving it for a rainy day. Button up your overcoat, he thought, when a storm is due, take good care of yourself I belong to you. He needed his identity in case someone asked him who he was. Then he could answer proudly, I am Queghan ben Shem Tov. I have lived throughout all the ages of mankind and I will create a Saviour in my own likeness. He will walk upon the earth, a god among men, and they will worship Him and build temples to His glory. They will button up His overcoat when a storm is due, He will belong to them. Just as long as they don’t steal my identity, he thought, because without it I am lost. Without it I could be anybody, and probably am. This problem of being practically anybody disturbed him, for if he was anybody it meant he was nobody: neither the Son, the Father, nor the Holy Ghost. In any case, he told himself, I can’t be all three. It isn’t feasible to be in three different places at once. If it was I could meet myself coming back from where I was going. The Eternal Paradox. How would Karve reconcile that? He would have an answer for it, as sure as boots is boots.

  What did he say?

  The Son, the Father and the Holy Ghost.

  How’s the metabolic rate?

  Steady and holding.

  Fluid temperature?

  Thirty-nine degrees.

  He had found a better analogy than being dead: he was in the womb.

  His nose and mouth were enclosed by something hot and tasteless, he couldn’t breathe, even his lungs were filled with fluid, and yet he was alive. They are keeping me alive for a purpose, he thought. Probably in order to preserve my identity. They know very well that if I lose my identity I will be adrift for all time. Dr Francis Queghan drifting hopelessly between the stars with his overcoat buttoned up to the neck. He was happy that his identity was intact but felt vaguely uneasy that he didn’t know the purpose they had in mind for him. Everything exists for a reason, he told himself, and I have been placed in the womb with some ultimate objective in view. There is a Purpose in all this which I have yet to discover. It was on the tip of his tongue, on the edge of his mind, but he couldn’t for the life of him bring it into focus. To argue it through logically the ultimate purpose of being in the womb was eventually to be born, and he thought with a small shock of excitement: I haven’t been born yet! I’m still a foetus waiting to see the light of day. (Wait for the light, his wife Karla had said, and then you’ll know you’re there.) But as yet there was only the blood-red glimmer in front of his unformed eyes. He hadn’t reached his destination. And when he did reach it, what then? What was expected of him? Had he been genetically processed to perform a special function? It was really most annoying that he wasn’t able to feel his own body because he had no idea what they had done to him or what form he might take. Suppose he was deformed? They might wilfully, gleefully, have tampered with his genetic structure, a cruel practical joke that would make him the laughing stock of infinite spacetime curvature. What do I care, though, if a storm is due—

  That was strange. That was most odd. He had liquid gold in his veins. He thought, I am being calcified into a golden idol. They will bow down and worship me, the god Dagon with emerods of gold, sitting in the temple at Ashdod, wearing my golden overcoat buttoned up to my identity. And then the liquid gold started seeping into his head.

  He’s reacting. We registered the first spasm.

  His flesh is transparent. I can see the bones inside.

  Normal psycho-motor activity. He’s into Phase One.

  Can we communicate?

  You can but he won’t understand. He’s in stasis. Metabolic rate?

  Down and fluctuating.

  Watch it very closely.

  Yes Dr Ritblat.

  How much longer?

  For the tiniest fraction of time he thought he had seen the light. It was as though something gold had glinted in the far distance and sent a speck of light into his eyes. But he was mistaken. The glint of gold had been inside his head. My brain is solid gold, he thought. They have filled my head to the brim with molten gold. I have the richest head in the universe. But for all his riches he still didn’t know where he was going or what purpose they had planned for him. He felt like crying but he knew the tears would be golden and they would solidify on his cheeks: a golden idol weeping golden tears.

  He thought in anguish, What have they done to me? Why won’t they let me be born? I was promised the light and there is no light. I am encased in a cocoon of liquid gold, swaying gently, lost to the universe, with only my overcoat for company. What would I do without my golden overcoat? It protects me from the galactic darkness and the interstellar cold, the black dead spaces between the stars which is my dwelling-place. They have cast me out, set me adrift without an identity. They are heartless and cruel, stealing my identity and filling me up with gold. And there is no light in all the heavens.

  Not long.

  Spasms timed at nine per minute.

  Give me the temporal lobe calibration.

  Hyper-erratic. He’s about one minute away from injection.

  When the fit begins increase the voltage to the sensory cortex.

  Are we monitoring?

  Never mind that, watch the metabolic rate.

  It’s almost down to zero. Minor fluctuations.

  Less than forty seconds from epileptic onset. Does anyone have a problem?

  He was surrounded by a golden twilight which bathed his eyes. It was inexpressibly soothing. He felt like going to sleep. But the difficulty was that he couldn’t go to sleep because he hadn’t been born. But as soon as he saw the light he would go to sleep. He was very, very weary. The womb of gold shimmered around him sending sluggish waves in slow-motion which rippled against his skin. He thought sleepily, If this is dying I’m all for it. And then thought, I’m not dying, I’m being born. That’s the point of the exercise. That’s why I’ve been given a golden overcoat. Then he saw – it. Distantly. A flash of light. It came quickly, blinding him, and went away. This is going to be awful, he thought, and started screaming with his eyes.

  What is it?

  First psycho-motor shock. Medium intensity.

  Wait while the big one hits him. Stand by with the voltage.

  He didn’t want to be born. It was too painful. His wife had said, Watch for the light, then you’ll know you’re there, but he wanted to stay here in the kindly golden warmth for ever and ever. He didn’t like the light, it was too bright, too shocking, and extremely painful, like a pair of open scissors entering the eyes, probing the soft tissue of the brain. I’m only a little angel, he wanted to say meekly, not a big important one. Why pick on me? There are lots of other angels, far b
igger, gigantic, with huge golden wings. Why pick on … me?

  Ten seconds.

  Here it came again. The light. This time it was brighter than before. Much brighter. More painful. He was shocked into life. The womb of gold shivered and shattered into huge golden fragments and he was naked before the light. And the light was outside him, blinding bright, and inside him, searing his brain. I cannot live, he thought, I cannot endure life. The light grew to white heat and fury inside him until he was separated from his body and became pure light.

  Epileptic condition at optimum.

  Increase the voltage.

  He’s gone. We’ve lost him.

  11

  Angel of the Lord

  At sunrise the city began to stir. Thin streamers of smoke rose languidly into the cool still air as the cooking fires were kindled, and the tinny rattle of sheep bells could be heard as the flocks were driven from their pens and taken in search of the sparse pasture which sprouted like brown stubble along the course of what had been a river-bed. The spring which bubbled up from the lava-rock served the needs of the people and watered the crops but there wasn’t enough to irrigate pastureland; the flocks had to nibble on whatever scrub and dry thorn they could find.

  To all outward appearances it was a day like any other. The market-place was soon busy with traders setting up their stalls and greeting the sleepy-eyed early shoppers; groups of women were taking their wrapped bundles to the communal washhouse with its central groove cut in the stone where the water ran; in the main square, as the sun gained ascendency and the shadows crept closer to the houses, the old men came out to spit in the dust and squat on their haunches against the pink and yellow walls, having nothing better to do than watch the day get under way. Pariah dogs sniffed the morning air and skulked along alleyways, gathering in whining snapping packs on street corners until the children emerged to throw stones and chase them away.

  It seemed on the face of it a normal day: but it was a city preparing for war.

  At each boundary, several leagues into the desert on every side, men had been posted to watch for the invasion of the Dagonites. The High Priest had told the people of their demands and they had answered as with one mighty voice – that the Ark of the Lord should not be taken from the holy temple of Shiloh. It was their benefactor and protector and had fed them during all those years in the wilderness; and it was the symbol of God. But even so Eli was afraid. He knew the fearsome strength of the Dagonites and had seen in years past a vast multitude of them on the plain. They were spawned of the devil because not one differed from another: their ranks comprised row upon row of faces shaped by the same hand and their stooping bodies formed in the same mould. He had seen them and known them to be unnatural, not the handiwork of the one true God, and when Uzza had described to him the emissary of the Dagonites he had recalled in vivid detail those ranks of faces which were as alike as if reflected in a pool.

  He was afraid too because his sons had departed the Tribe and gone with the emissary to the city of Ashdod. He had disowned them and would no longer acknowledge them as his sons, but they knew the city and its defences, the number of men it could call to arms, its strong and its weak points, and those places where a determined force could break through and attack the temple. Eli had done all he could and he knew that the people would defend the city to the last man, yet he felt a great foreboding that nothing on earth could stand against the might of the Dagonites. They were warriors who seemed impervious to pain, who could march for days in the blazing sun without food or drink, and who had no fear for their own lives. No natural force could overcome them because they were without emotion, without fear, inhuman.

  With his sons gone and Uzza dead Eli was alone in the temple. He couldn’t manage on his own, being old and infirm and almost totally blind, and so a young boy (a waif whose mother had borne him out of wedlock and been driven into the desert) was sent to administer to his needs and to guide him in the rituals he had to perform in the service of the temple. The boy was called Samuel, a good-hearted child who went cheerfully and willingly about his duties (he was fed three times a day) and whom Eli permitted to sleep in the temple. It was about this time, not long after Hophni and Phinehas had gone, that a strange power became manifest and made itself known to the boy. It happened in this way:

  In the early hours of the morning, when Eli and Samuel were still asleep, the boy was woken by a voice calling to him. Assuming it to be the High Priest he went directly to his chamber, but Eli, on waking, said that he hadn’t called him and that he should return to his bed. Samuel did as he was bidden and again he heard a voice calling to him and went to the High Priest, who said that he hadn’t called him and that he should go back to bed. For the third time Samuel heard the voice calling him and ran to Eli, asking what was required of him. Then Eli perceived that the child had been visited by the Word of God and said they must go at once to the silent inner chamber. Samuel took the old man there, leading him by the hand, and they entered the silent inner chamber where the boy had never been before. Eli said, ‘You have been called by the Lord, Samuel, and you must say, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth”.’

  The boy spoke as he had been instructed, gazing up fearfully at the sphere of light which illuminated the walls of rock rising to the roughly-hewn dome high above. Hne had never before seen any natural or man-made thing with which to compare this strange object whose separate parts were so shiny and unblemished that they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass. Neither could he understand how the globe of light could burn so steadily and unremittingly.

  ‘Do you see anything, Samuel?’ asked the High Priest, raising his head in that blind searching attitude of someone whose ears have taken over the function of their eyes.

  ‘There is nothing to see – except the light.’

  ‘Say again what I told you,’ Eli said, and Samuel repeated it.

  ‘Is there still nothing?’

  ‘What am I supposed to see? What am I looking for?’

  Eli didn’t answer; he knew that Samuel had heard the Voice of the Lord; this was surely in answer to his prayer that the Tribe be delivered from the hands of the Dagonites. The Lord had heard and the Lord had answered: He would not forsake them.

  Samuel said, very quietly, as if in a dream, ‘I do see something. I see it now.’

  ‘What is it? What do you see?’

  Samuel answered dreamily, ‘A giant covered in light: like a burning flame: light comes out of him, from within his body. He glows like the sphere.’

  ‘Kneel,’ Eli whispered. ‘We must pay homage before Him.’

  As he said this he could vaguely see through the grey fog which circumscribed his world a faint radiance, penetrating the enclosed darkness, and he thought, Why did the Lord call to Samuel and not to me? Am I dishonoured in the sight of God?

  Samuel was saying in the same faraway voice, ‘He’s made of water. His body is like a clear pool through which the light shines. Is it a spirit? Is He the Lord?’

  The figure of light stepped forward, exceedingly tall. The High Priest and the boy shrank away and became like statues in their genuflection.

  ‘Hear me, Son of man. You call me Lord but I am not the Lord. My name in your language is Qābal and I come to deliver you from the Dagonites.’

  *

  The news of his coming spread quickly throughout the city and there was great excitement and rejoicing. The boy Samuel was revered as a prophet because it was he who had been chosen as the first of the Tribe to receive the word of the messenger of the Lord. Eli held a service of praise and thanksgiving and preached that now they need have no fear, for the Angel of the Lord was with them and would protect them; though secretly, in his heart, he was dismayed. He sensed that something was wrong and the seed of doubt grew until it plagued him at all hours of the day and night, and he wasn’t able to rest or sleep. He couldn’t understand why it was that Samuel had been called: it seemed to be an omen, a presentiment of ill fortune that he, as H
igh Priest, should have been spurned in this way. He felt that the end of his life was very near, the threat of death like a black shadow looming larger day by day.

  The people, when they saw him, were astonished at the sight of the Angel of the Lord. ‘His flesh is like alabaster,’ they said, ‘and he glows from within; the workings of his body are visible, the function of each part and organ clearly to be seen.’

  Both the old man and the boy spent many hours in the silent inner chamber conversing with the Lord’s messenger who, to Eli’s surprise and mystification, asked question after question about the Ark. He wanted to know where it had come from and the High Priest told him the story which had been handed down through the generations from the time of Kish, First of the Prophets.

  ‘Then it was inside the rock when Kish first discovered it?’ Qābal said. It was evidently very important for him to know the exact details. ‘And no one knows how it got there.’

  ‘It was placed there by the hand of God,’ Eli answered gravely.

  ‘Yes of course. The hand of God.’ Qābal smiled at Samuel. ‘Kish was about your age when he found the Ark, wasn’t he? Perhaps in years to come you will be regarded as a prophet too, Samuel.’

  The boy gazed up at the figure which to him seemed gigantic and awe-inspiring. He had never seen anyone so tall before, nor with flesh that seemed to glow – but then he had never seen an angel. He was frightened and dumbfounded by the vision. He didn’t want to be a prophet, he wanted to remain a normal boy who threw stones at the pariah dogs and chased them down alleyways. It was wrong that people expected so much of him when inside he felt just like all the others; he didn’t want to be different, he wanted to be like everyone else.

  ‘The Ark provided food for your people,’ Qābal said to Eli.

  ‘When our Tribe was in the wilderness. For forty years it sustained us. Without the Ark we should have perished.’

  ‘And all this happened before you were born.’

  ‘Eight, perhaps nine generations before my lifetime. But the account is written in full in the Scriptures: we have a record which shall be preserved for future generations to see.’