God of Tarot Page 11

  The Swami faced him. "What exactly did you do to overcome the Breaker?"

  "I used a judo throw, or tried to," Brother Paul explained. "Ippon seoi nage and an armlock."

  "Ippon seoi nage should not be effective against such a creature; the dynamics are wrong." The Swami looked at him with a glint of curiosity in his eye. "I wonder—" He hesitated. "Would you show me exactly what you did?"

  "Oh, I would not care to throw you on this ground," Brother Paul demurred.

  "I meant the armlock—gently." There was no question that the Swami was familiar with martial arts.

  Brother Paul shrugged. "As you will." They got down on the ground and he applied the armlock, without pressure. "Nothing special about it," Brother Paul said. "On the Breaker, it was really a leglock. I had not expected it to work, owing to the peculiar anatomy of the—"

  "Bear down," the Swami said. "Do not be concerned; my arm is strong."

  He was right about that; Brother Paul could feel surprisingly formidable muscular tension in the Swami's light frame. This man was like another aspect of the ghost in the machine; he seemed fanatical because he was improperly understood, but he was merely giving his allegiance to other than the usual imperatives. Brother Paul slowly increased the force of the hold to the point where the Breaker had screamed.

  "More," the Swami said.

  "There is danger."

  "Precisely."

  Well, pain should make the man tap out before his elbow actually broke, Brother Paul thought as he put an additional surge of effort into it.

  "There!" the Swami cried.

  Brother Paul eased up in alarm.

  The Swami smiled, obviously unhurt.

  "It is what I suspected. You used ki!"

  Brother Paul shook his head. "I have no—"

  "You have a powerful aura," the Swami insisted. "I was uncertain until you focused it. You are a gentle man, so you never willingly invoke it, but were you otherwise, you would be a monster. Never have I encountered such power."

  Brother Paul sat bemused. "Once another person said something of the kind to me, but I dismissed it as fancy," he said, thinking again of Antares.

  "Only those who have mastered their own auras can perceive them in others," the Swami assured him. "My own mastery is imperfect, so your aura was not immediately apparent to me. But now I am certain, it was your ki, the focused application of your aura, that terrified the Breaker. Surely it was this aura that selected you for this mission too, though others might have rationalized it into other reasons. I had hoped this would not be the case."

  Brother Paul shook his head. "If this... this aura protects me against threats, surely—"

  "The threat of which I speak is much greater than merely a physical one. You see—"

  "Hello."

  Both men looked up, startled. It was the girl of the wheatfield, the Empress of Tarot. Amaranth field, he corrected himself. This time she was not fleeing him, and for that he was grateful. Now he could discover whom she was.

  She wore a one-piece outfit, really a belted tunic embroidered with a landscape reminiscent of the local geography. Every colonist's apparel was distinctive, reflecting his religious bias, but this was something special. There were hills and valleys in color, and two volcanic mounts in front: a veritable contour map. Brother Paul tried not to stare. They were extremely lofty and well-formed volcanoes.

  "We merely pass by," the Swami informed her.

  "Wrestling on the ground, flattening the crop, and crying out?" she demanded. "Swami, I always knew you were a nut, but—"

  "My fault," Brother Paul interposed. "I was trying to demonstrate how I discouraged the Breaker."

  Her lovely eyes narrowed appraisingly. "Then I must speak with you," she said firmly. Indeed, everything about her was firm; she was a strikingly handsome young woman, with golden hair and eyes and skin, and features that were, as the narrators of the Arabian Nights would have put it, marvels of symmetry. Brother Paul might have seen a fairer female at some time in his life, but at the moment it was difficult to call any such creature to mind.

  "I have undertaken to guide this man about the premises," the Swami said gruffly, as he rose and dusted himself off. "We must arrive at Northole in due course."

  "Then I shall accompany you," she said. "It is essential that I talk with our visitor from Earth."

  "You cannot leave your station!"

  "My station is the Breaker—who is absent today," she said with finality.

  Brother Paul remained silent. It seemed that the Swami was being served as he himself had served Reverend Siltz; also, it would be wickedly pleasant having this scenic creature along. He had feared he would not see her again, but here she was, virtually forcing her company on him. Obviously she accepted no inferior status; maybe women were, after all, equal to men here. That would be nice.

  The Swami shrugged, evidently suppressing his irritation. "This female is the understudy to the Breaker," he said, by way of introduction. "She alone has no fear of the monster. It is apparent in her manner."

  "The Swami prefers his docile daughter," she responded, "who has few illusions of individuality."

  Thrust and counterthrust! "What is your name, Breaker Lady?" Brother Paul asked. "Why did you flee from me before, if you have so little to fear?"

  "I thought you were an Animation," she said. "The only way to handle an Animation is to get the hell away from it."

  Hm. A candid, colloquial answer that did much to debilitate his prior conception of her as the Empress. "But your name?"

  "Call her anything you like," the Swami said. "Subtlety is wasted on the unsubtle."

  The girl only smiled, not at all discommoded by the Swami's taciturnity. If she had intended to give her name, that intention was gone now. Somehow he had to defuse this minor social crisis, since he wanted to get along with both of them, though for different reasons.

  "Then I shall call you Amaranth, in honor of this beautiful field where we met," Brother Paul decided that physical compliments were seldom in error, when relating to the distaff.

  "Oh, I like that!" she exclaimed, melting. "Amaranth! May I keep it?"

  "It is yours," Brother Paul said benignly. He liked her mode of game-playing, and he liked her. "You thought I was an Animation of the Devil, and I thought you were an Animation of the Empress. No doubt we were both correct."

  She laughed, causing the volcanoes to quiver hazardously. "And I thought members of the Order of Vision were humorless!"

  "Some are," Brother Paul said. "Let me hear out the Swami; then I shall be free to talk with you at leisure." Delightful prospect!

  "My warning can wait upon a more propitious occasion," the Swami said sourly. "It concerns Northole."

  "That's an odd name," Brother Paul observed, hoping to relieve the tension again.

  "We have simplistic nomenclature," Amaranth said. "That's Southmount you came from; this is Westfield; the Animation pit is Northole; and the water to the east of the village is—"

  "Eastlake," Brother Paul finished. "Yes, it does make sense. What did you want to ask me?"

  "Nothing," she said.

  "Perhaps I misunderstood. I thought you said—"

  "Never pay too much attention to what a woman says," the Swami said.

  She ignored him elegantly. "I said I wished to speak with you. I am doing that."

  Brother Paul smiled with bafflement. "Assuredly. Yet—"

  "You overcame my Breaker with your bare hands, without hurting him or yourself. I need to study you, as I study the Breaker. This is my job: to comprehend the full nature of my subject."

  "Ah. So you must comprehend the type of person who balks the animal, by whatever freak of circumstance," Brother Paul said. He had had the impression that her interest was in him personally, but this was really more realistic. What real interest would a girl of her attractions have in a sedate stranger? "Yet I remain confused," he went on.

  "That's all right," she said brightly.


  The Swami mellowed enough to put in an explanation. "Survival is a narrow thing here," he said. "We must labor diligently to gather wood for the arduous winter, and anything that interferes with this acquisition of fuel is a community concern. The Breaker interferes, forcing us to travel from the village in armed parties—a ruinously wasteful expenditure of manpower. Therefore we study the Breaker, hoping to neutralize it."

  "Wouldn't it be simpler to kill it?" Brother Paul asked.

  "Kill it?" the Swami echoed, as if baffled.

  Now it was the girl's turn to make the explanation. "Many of our sects object to taking the lives of natural creatures. It is a moral matter, and a practical one. It is impossible to know what the ramifications of unnecessary killing may be. If we killed this local Breaker, another might merely move into its place. A smarter or more vicious one. If we killed them all, we could wreak ecological havoc that would in turn destroy us. Back on Earth the environment was ravaged by the unthinking war against pests, and we don't want to make that mistake here. Also, we need beasts of burden, and the Breaker, if it could be tamed and harnessed, might be an excellent one. So we protect ourselves with the tridents, not trying to kill the Breaker or any other predator. We are studying our problems before acting."

  "That is what I am here to do with the problem of Animation," Brother Paul pointed out.

  "Which is why you must be apprised of the danger first," the Swami said. "The Breaker is a minor menace; Animation is a major one."

  "I am willing to listen," Brother Paul reminded him.

  The Swami was silent, so Brother Paul addressed Amaranth. "How is it you have this dangerous job of observation? You do not carry any trident."

  "Not a tangible one," the Swami muttered. "She has barbs enough."

  "He sees his late wife in all young women," Amaranth said to Brother Paul. "She had a savage wit. But about me: it was the lot. No one volunteered, so we drew cards from the Tarot, and I was low. As a matter of fact, I was the Empress, Key Three; you were right about that. So they built me a protective box shaped like the throne and appropriately marked—we propitiate the God of Tarot in any little way we can—and I set out to study the Breaker. And watch the amaranth, since the Breaker associates most frequently with this area. He sure keeps the grain-eaters off the field! I keep track of the temperature extremes, rainfall, and such, and measure the growth of the plants. And when an MT shipment comes, I notify the village, although the noise of arrival usually makes that superfluous. Sorry I lost my head yesterday; I had forgotten they were sending a man this time."

  "But the danger—a mere girl—"

  The Swami snorted. "Let the Breaker beware!"

  "I had some concern myself," she admitted, again successfully ignoring the jibe. "I wanted to indulge my artistic proclivities, carving pseudo-icons and totems from Tree of Life wood and igneous stone. But that slot was filled by another, so I had to accept assignment elsewhere. When the lot put me in this dangerous and unsuitable position, I rebelled."

  "She is good at that," the Swami said.

  "Which is one reason I remain unmarried," she continued. "I had a prospect, but he rejected me because of my lack of community spirit. Of course, he didn't have to face the Breaker. Finally I had to come around, because on this planet you contribute or you don't eat; that's one of the few things our scattered cults agree on."

  "An excellent policy," the Swami said.

  "But do you know," she continued without even a poisonous glance at him, "I discovered that there really is a lot more to be known about amaranth than I had thought, as well as about the Breaker. Each plant is a separate individual, proceeding in its own fashion toward the harvest, requiring its own special attention. Sometimes I sneak a little volcanic ash to a plant that is ailing, though I'm not supposed to. There are creatures beneath the plants, insects and even serpents sheltered by the low canopy. That makes me feel right at home."

  "Most girls of Earth do not appreciate snakes, beneficial as these reptiles may be," Brother Paul observed.

  "Most girls of Earth do not worship Abraxas, the serpent-footed God," she replied. "Actually, the fear of snakes is comparatively recent, historically. In the Bible, the Serpent was the source of wisdom that transformed—"

  "Caution," the Swami said. "Remember the Covenant."

  "Sorry," she said. "We are not permitted to go into our private beliefs, in the interest of your continuing objectivity. It's a nuisance. Anyway, I discovered unsurpassed artistry in the mountains and sunsets and storms of this unspoiled planet. Have you noticed how the Tarot Bubbles get blown by the wind? We must have the prettiest storms in this section of the Galaxy! I translated this beauty into the weaving I do in the off-hours."

  "You weave also?" Brother Paul asked.

  "Oh, yes, we all weave the Tree of Life fibers, especially in winter, for we must have clothing and blankets against the cold. You haven't experienced winter until you've survived it here! But even in summer I must sit still for long periods, alone, so the weaving and embroidery help distract me. This dress I designed and shaped myself," she said with pride, taking a breath that made the twin volcanoes threaten to erupt. "It is an accurate contour map of the region as seen from my station." She shrugged, causing another siege of earthquakes around the mountains. "Of course, I have to be facing the right way. Strictly speaking, I should be lying down with my legs to the north—"

  "Shameless!" the Swami hissed.

  "Oh, come on, Swami," she said. "Doesn't Kundalini link prana to the sexual force, just as my God Abraxas does? There should be no shame in drawing a parallel between woman and nature. Woman is nature."

  "I didn't realize there were two volcanoes," Brother Paul said, thinking it best to interrupt this debate. He had not believed religion could ever play too great a part in the daily lives of people, but he was developing a doubt. In every personal interaction, here on Planet Tarot, the animosities of religious intolerance were barely veiled.

  "Oh, yes," she said. "Actually it is one volcano with twin cones. They normally erupt together. From the village, one cone obscures the other, and often in the mornings the haze conceals both, but from here..." She turned, walking briskly backward so as not to impede their progress toward Northole. "Yes, you can see them both now. Southmount Left and Southmount Right." She tapped the map appropriately, making momentary indentations in the resilient mounts.

  Brother Paul yanked his eyes away from the indents and looked back. Sure enough, now two cones were apparent, and they did resemble those of the contour map: full and rounded, rather than truly conical. "Where is the mountain garden?" he inquired.

  "Here in the cleft," she said, indicating a spot on the map between the cones. "The village access comes up on the east slope, here." She traced a course up the right side. "It's steep, but most direct." It certainly was! "Now we're about here—" She touched the general region of her navel. "Heading for the—"

  "Enough!" the Swami cried.

  "Northole," she concluded. "The passion pit."

  "You are an accursed slut!" the Swami said. His face was red. Whatever control he exerted over his intellectual and spiritual powers did not seem to extend to his emotions. This was a deeply divided man, with sizable unresolved conflicts.

  "Nothing wrong with me that a good man can't cure," Amaranth said blithely. Well, the Swami had started this engagement; now she was finishing it.

  "You never explained about the Breaker," Brother Paul reminded her.

  "Um, yes. When I studied the Breaker, I came to realize that this was the most interesting phenomenon of all. I was afraid of it at first, and I really barricaded my throne as a fortress, but after a while it got used to me. Little by little I won its respect, taming it, and now it will not attack me because it knows me. He knows me; I think of the Breaker as male."

  "You would," the Swami muttered.

  "We are friends, in our fashion," she continued. "I am closer to success than others suspect. The Breaker will come when I whistle, and I
can touch him. I think he might fight for me if I were threatened. That may have been why he went after you; he thought you were chasing me."

  "I was," Brother Paul said.

  "I certainly would not want to see him killed. I do think that in time I will be able to harness his power for our benefit. It is a tremendous project, and I'm glad now that the lot fell to me. I'm sorry you drove the Breaker away."

  "I was ignorant of—"

  "Oh, no blame attaches to you, sir! You had to defend yourself, and you did that without actually hurting the Breaker. He will return in a day or so. Meanwhile, you can show me how you did it."

  "I utilized the principles of judo," Brother Paul began, but caught the warning glance of the Swami. Yes, probably it was better not to mention the matter of ki or aura, yet. "Sieroku zenyo, maximum efficiency—"

  She stopped. "Pretend I'm the Breaker, charging you. How do you react?"

  Déjà vu! "It would require physical contact to demonstrate, and I have already been through this with the Swami. I'm not sure—"

  "The vamp means to seduce you!" the Swami expostulated.

  Brother Paul was not at all certain this was an empty warning. A forward woman who spoke appreciatively of serpents and sexual knowledge and showed off her breasts in so obvious a fashion... "Perhaps another time," he said. "I gather, then, that you do not feel that your assignment was a mistake." She had already said as much, but he was somewhat at a loss for suitable responses.

  "It has been a revelation," she said sincerely, resuming her forward progress. She adapted to circumstances readily, whether physical or conversational. An intriguing woman to know! "The lot chose my career better than I ever could have. I believe it was the will of Abraxas."

  "A heathen demon!" the Swami muttered.

  "Observe the intemperate yogi," she said. "Other Indian-derived religions are supremely tolerant, but he—"

  "Perhaps it was the God of Tarot who guided the lot," Brother Paul said. "Whichever god that may be." Then, before the hostilities could resume: "I see people ahead. Swami, it may be time for you to tell me of the danger, before we are interrupted."