The Gods Look Down Page 3

  ‘Why should the Prophet have selected you of all the Tribe?’ Merari said.

  ‘I don’t know if it was a miracle. I never claimed—’

  ‘Did you not say it was miraculous? Have you not said that the spirit within the instrument of God made you unafraid and you were able to approach it in complete serenity?’

  ‘Did the spirit say why you had been chosen above all others? Did it speak your name and instruct you to inform the Tribe of its miraculous appearance?’

  ‘It did not speak,’ I asserted. ‘It was exactly as you saw it, glowing with light and making the same sound.’

  ‘And what of its purpose?’ Ocran said, his eyes hard and unyielding. ‘Did this miraculous apparition inform you why it had been delivered into our midst?’

  ‘I don’t know how it came to be locked inside the cavern or why it should fall to us to discover it there. Perhaps in time these things will be revealed, by a sign or an omen we can understand.’

  ‘It told you to expect a sign?’ Merari said.

  ‘Did the spirit tell you what this sign would be?’ Pagiel asked. ‘Or where we should look for it?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No—’ The frustration of this was wearing my tolerance to a fine edge. They were wilfully misunderstanding every word I uttered. They had it fixed in their minds that the presence of the Ark was due solely to my finding it there; nothing, it seemed, would dislodge the notion. And then I thought I understood: it was envy that drove them, for they were the elders, and divine manifestations had to come through them and no one else. They had not been ‘chosen’ to discover the instrument of God and therefore it was necessary to discredit me in the eyes of the Tribe. They were jealous.

  Pagiel said, ‘This object – is it a power for good or evil?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You seem to know that we should await a sign,’ Merari said dryly. ‘This glowing droning object, whatever it is, has warned you to expect a further revelation. Are its powers infinite? Has it been sent to serve our people or to harm them?’

  ‘It has not harmed us so far.’

  ‘That is not an answer to the question,’ Ocran said impassively. His eyes were cold and dead from within.

  ‘What other answer can I give?’ Something occurred to me. ‘The legend written on the hard shiny surface – doesn’t that tell us something?’

  ‘Does it?’ Merari said silkily. ‘As you seem to possess the greater knowledge perhaps you will decipher it for us.’

  ‘I haven’t been taught to read.’

  ‘Yet you knew it was writing of some kind.’

  ‘That was obvious.’

  Merari twisted his mouth downwards. ‘But not its meaning.’ He glanced at the others.

  I looked from Merari to Pagiel and from him to Ocran. ‘Is it not written in our tongue?’

  ‘Such innocence,’ Pagiel said. ‘It is not written in any language known to any tribe of the desert. The object comes from some distant place, far beyond the desert lands.’

  ‘And you do not understand what is written,’ Merari said, his voice softly insinuating.

  I looked at each of them in turn. ‘Your minds are closed to the truth. In your hearts you believe that the object is the true instrument of God but your ignorance makes you afraid. The Tribe looks to you for wisdom and guidance and you cannot fulfil that responsibility.’

  Ocran said, ‘You speak rashly, even for a youth.’ There was a note of warning in his voice. ‘We have been patient with you, because of your age, but there is a limit to our forebearance and understanding.’

  ‘I have seen neither forebearance nor understanding. I had hoped to respect you as the leaders of our people but you are merely old tired men looking backwards into the past. The future is a blank wall to you, one that you will never scale. You tell the people to expect the coming of the Prophet and yet the words are like dead thorns in your mouths, signifying nothing but your own lack of faith. Nothing on this earth will shift you from your cringing bigotry.’

  The words flowed out of me even as I recognized the folly of them and knew they would invoke the wrath of those who sat in judgment. The desire to outrage them was perverse – I knew full well – but I could not stop myself from saying what I truly felt. My father had warned me what the consequences might be but this had only strengthened my resolve and filled me with obstinate determination. We could not continue to be ruled by those whose vision had failed: this was a new beginning, a new era, and it could not be founded on cowardly deception and craven lies.

  Hannah and I stood side by side, calmly awaiting our fate. There was a curious sense of detachment as though the decision, whatever it was, would not affect us. We felt strangely free of their influence (I speak for Hannah as confidently as I speak for myself) and it didn’t seem to matter that they had, quite literally, the power of life or death over us. There was a greater arbiter in the land, one whose judgment would be final and binding, ultimate and eternal.

  ‘We are not a cruel people,’ Ocran began, his eyes hooded and dead above the flared nostrils. ‘We do not seek to chastise out of malice; but it is our duty as elders to protect the Tribe and ensure its survival from generation to generation. Anything or anyone which threatens that survival must be dealt with swiftly and surely, and you, by your deeds and words, have shown yourselves to be unworthy of our trust and protection.’

  ‘By which you mean that you’re afraid for your position as head of the Tribe,’ I said.

  ‘Childish bravado is out of place here,’ Ocran continued blandly. ‘It will not deter us from our loyalty to duty. The elders, without exception, commit you, Kish, son of Nethan, and you, Hannah, daughter of Elud, to be cast out into the wasteland without food or drink and to be gone from our sight. The elders of the Tribe, and all its people, disown you of your birthright and henceforth your names will not be recounted in the annals of our history, neither will any memory of you outlive your passing. This is the judgment of our Tribe, agreed by the elders in your presence and delivered to you by Ocran, son of Raphu.’

  The final word had barely left his lips when there was a sudden commotion outside the tent – the sound of many voices raised in alarm – and one of the men set to guard the entrance rushed in and started babbling and waving his arms about. Some of the elders had risen and were looking uncertainly from the man to the chief elder and then at each other, bewildered and not a little alarmed by the unexpected intrusion.

  Ocran remained in his seat and told the man to calm himself, asking him to explain in a coherent fashion. The man stammered and began:

  ‘A sign from heaven’ – pointing upwards as though we could see through the roof of the tent – ‘In the sky to the east … a pillar of smoke and fire. It falls slowly to the ground, billowing forth in clouds, a column of flame taller than a mountain. It’s a sign, a sign from heaven!’

  Ocran stood up. His eyes moved slowly from the man and came to rest on Hannah and me. The elders waited, fixed in position like wax images.

  ‘Come and see, come and see!’ the man cried. ‘The spirit within the Ark has commanded the sign to appear – see for yourselves!’

  Ocran said, ‘Bind them securely,’ and our arms and legs were tied with leather thongs and we were placed side by side on the floor. When they had gone, led by the chief elder, I said to Hannah, ‘Don’t be afraid. They won’t dare cast us out now that a sign has appeared. The people won’t allow it.’

  ‘I am not afraid,’ Hannah said quietly, and I knew that she spoke honestly.

  From the noise I judged that the people were in a frenzy of excitement mingled with fear. Some were praying at the tops of their voices, begging mercy and forgiveness for their sins, and through the tumult, faintly at first but becoming louder we could hear the sound of a great rushing wind which quickly grew to a tremendous roaring and the walls of the tent strained and whipped wildly as under the onslaught of a violent sandstorm. At this the people cried out with one voice, women screaming and ch
ildren wailing, and we heard them running past the tent, away from the source of the turmoil and whatever was causing it.

  ‘They’re leaving us,’ Hannah said. ‘They’re running away.’

  I struggled to sit up so that I could see through the madly flapping awning across the entrance but I was bound too tightly to move. Sand flew about, stinging our faces and legs, and the roaring noise reached a crescendo, so loud that it was impossible to think.

  Lying on my back and staring at the roof of the tent I could see the blurred orb of an intense white light, bright as a miniature sun, advancing across the sky. From it came a single beam of light which swept in an arc as though searching the landscape, and in my imagination I thought I felt the heat of a great searing flame: a tongue of fire licking out across the desert. Hannah saw it too and her body went rigid.

  I said, ‘Have faith. We will not be harmed if we truly believe.’

  From outside there came a universal cry … and then, in an instant, the deepest and most profound silence. Deeper than any other silence because it seemed to contain the dying echo of a thousand voices. The beam disappeared and the orb of light moved away. We could hear nothing: not a human voice, not the cry of a child, not the faintest coughing bray of a camel. The desert was perfectly silent.

  *

  The Tribe had been turned to stone.

  It was several hours before Hannah and I managed to break free, and when we emerged from the tent we found a landscape littered with the solidified remains of our people. They had fallen as they ran, every man, woman and child, struck down instantaneously and transformed into grey effigies which lay stiffly in the sand. Their limbs had the appearance of lava-rock and yet when we touched them they crumbled away to grey powder beneath our fingers, leaving their robes like empty sacks billowing gently in the desert breeze. Flesh to rock and rock to dust, trickling away to be lost forever in the wastes of sand. In time nothing would remain except for a few tattered rags caught in the thorn bushes, and perhaps the odd trinket of amber or bronze plucked from the sand by nomadic tribes on their ceaseless wanderings.

  The sun was almost on the horizon. Distantly I heard the sound of the rushing wind and looking towards the east I saw the pillar of fire and cloud ascending to the sky, the hard brilliance of light so intense that it was hurtful to behold. We watched it disappear into the heavens: a vivid moving star which grew fainter until it merged with the starry constellations and was lost in the deepening twilight.

  Hannah looked at me, her eyes strangely luminous. She said, ‘We have been spared. Is it the will of God?’

  I said, ‘There is a purpose. I don’t know what is expected of us but one day it will be revealed. Trust in the Lord.’

  She sought my hand and held it tightly. ‘Kish, are you the Prophet? Did the spirit within the Ark speak to you as the elders believed? I must ask these questions because I am frightened and confused; the gift of divine inspiration has not been given to me. Inside I am still Hannah, daughter of Elud, not chosen or blessed in the sight of the Lord.’

  ‘I sense a greater glory,’ I told her, ‘but I am unsure, like you. The ways of God are not made plain to mortal men. But I’m not afraid: we have been spared the vengeance of the Lord for a reason, Hannah, and one day it will be shown to us.’

  We looked towards the jagged heap of lava-rock fringed by palms where the Tribe had sought shelter from the storm; it was an inky black silhouette against the fading sunset. Hannah pulled at my arm and said:

  ‘Do you see it – the globe of light? Do you see?’

  As we got nearer we could see that a vast fissure had been opened up, directly into the heart of the rock, and the Ark was visible, its light now glowing steadily and evenly, shining out into the desert.

  ‘This is a holy place,’ I said to Hannah. ‘It has been chosen by God for the new beginning.’

  ‘Our Tribe have always been wanderers,’ Hannah said. ‘We have never stayed in any one place.’

  ‘We have been seeking a home for many generations. My father Nethan said that one day we would find it. God has built a temple to house the Ark and we must stay here and attend to it. It is in our keeping for future generations. There is water here. We can cultivate the land and raise animals. We have been led to this place; God has found a home for us.’

  Standing before the Ark and gazing up at it all doubt was swept out of my heart. I had been given a sacred mission to prepare the way of the Lord. Hannah and I together would bring forth a new tribe and it would prosper and grow strong and spread the Word throughout the land …

  She said, ‘How can this be? I have cohabited with no man and yet I know I am with child.’ She held my hand firmly. ‘How can this be?’

  I said, ‘It is the will of God. His spirit has entered into your womb through His Holy Instrument.’

  The Ark continued to shine into the darkness with a steady serene light.

  3

  Deciphering Ancient Dreams

  It was more in the nature of a sabbatical than anything else; that was how the mythographer thought of it. The Director of MyTT had remarked that participating in a neuron processing experiment was the nearest Queghan would ever come to allowing himself a vacation – and a busman’s holiday at that.

  The communication from Professor Milton Blake had certainly been intriguing, and Queghan had been duly intrigued. In part it had read‘… the history books call it alchemy but Dr Francis Dagon (familiar to you?) has a different theory. Together we’re working on a program of research to decipher some ancient texts which purport to show that high energy physics was alive and well in the 13th century Pre-Col. I can’t decide, quite frankly, whether the whole thing is spurious and not worth investigating or if there’s some truth in the claim. Specifically, Chris, I’d like to take advantage of your knowledge of Old Earth. We could use your help if you fancy the idea … and can spare the time. No pun intended!’

  Queghan was by no means an expert on the Middle Ages Pre-Colonization but reading between the lines he surmised that Milton Blake had more need of his gift for mythic projection than his knowledge of history. It was an ambivalent talent – one that many people regarded as more of an affliction than a positive asset – and he had never succeeded in explaining precisely how it worked, even to his wife Oria. The fact that the human mind, under certain optimum conditions, was independent of space and time and could operate in a nebulous region ‘beyond the spatio-temporal continuum’ as the jargon had it, was a concept not easily grasped by scientist and layman alike. Everyday notions of causality, of time moving along in a smooth uninterrupted ever-flowing stream, had to be suspended and replaced by a cosmic view which disregarded the irrelevances of earthbound physical laws and the existence of man – ‘an accident of creation’ – at large in the Metagalaxy.

  Once when lecturing to a group of post-graduate students Johann Karve had made a remark to the effect that the universe as an objective reality didn’t exist: ‘It only begins to take shape and assume order as we take cognizance of it through our sense-perceptions. The universe is as we see it, not as it wishes to be seen.’

  Someone had said that this was a fine point of distinction and Karve had replied that those were the only points worth bothering about, and if the student doubted the truth of that he wouldn’t be well suited to working at MyTT. ‘You’d be better off as a hardliner, tinkering with the nuts and bolts of high energy physics or researching the time dilation effects of neutrinos. Myth Technology isn’t classified as a metaphysical science for the fun of it – we’re into the realm of abstract philosophy as it pertains to the cosmos.’

  On other occasions Queghan had heard the Director make reference to ‘the celestial clockwork of the Metagalaxy’ and for him it always conjured up a vision of Karve as an ancient master watchmaker peering into the heart of a delicate mechanism, his body hunched forward over a littered workbench, the long grey hair falling across his eyes. Queghan wasn’t even sure how old the Director was; certainly very old
, though he gave the impression of being ageless.

  Without his inspiration and leadership and driving determination it was unlikely that Myth Technology would have emerged into the light; it had been something of an esoteric backwater until Karve came along and laid down the principles by which the early researchers could begin to formulate their theories. In those days the technique known as mythic projection was pure speculation and it was only when the series of experiments under the title Project Tempus was started that it was found to be a practical and invaluable means of exploring alternative scenarios of the past and future. Queghan had been selected as the first man to be injected through the event horizon into Temporal Flux: a region of infinite spacetime curvature where the laws of physics which obtained on Earth IVn were totally annihilated. There the rules of causality and those governing the metabolism of the universe underwent changes so violent that ordinary concepts of time and space were rendered meaningless.

  It still wasn’t properly understood – even by a Myth Technologist such as Christian Queghan – how such cataclysmic events could give access to an infinite number of mythical futures and alternative pasts. Karve theorized that the key to the matter lay in probability: that these hypothetical time zones might and might not exist at one and the same time: they were ‘waves of probability’ in much the same way that subatomic particles inhabit a vague shadowy region and can never, by their very nature, be precisely defined as inhabiting a specific world point. For people brought up to believe that a thing either existed or didn’t exist, that an event either happened or didn’t happen, this explanation was unacceptable; but of course their outlook was conditioned by the world they saw around them and not by the distortion of spacetime resulting from the flux of matter at infinite density and pressure which had been crushed to a point of singularity.

  Queghan had the ability to project himself into these mythical zones of probability (‘in which we find certain intuitive and elemental truths about the nature of human consciousness and its relation to the Metagalaxy’ – Karve) and he was under no illusion that his gift was what had inspired Professor Milton Blake’s fraternal invitation.