God of Tarot Read online

  Motion attracted his eye. People were approaching: half a dozen men. They were armed, carrying long spears—no, these were tridents, like elaborate pitchforks, excellent for stabbing an animal while holding it at bay. Effective against a man, too.

  Somewhat nervously, Brother Paul awaited the party's approach. This, too, was not precisely the welcome he had anticipated.

  As they came closer he saw that these men were being careful rather than aggressive. They looked all about, weapons ever at the ready, as though afraid something hazardous to bones might come bounding in.

  "Hello," Brother Paul called. "I'm from Earth, on a special mission."

  The men glanced at each other meaningfully. "What is your faith?" one asked.

  "I am Brother Paul of the Holy Order of Vision. However, I'm not here to join your society. I am supposed to—" But he broke off, uncertain of their reaction.

  Again, the exchange of glances. "Vision," the spokesman said approvingly. He was a heavyset, black-haired man with fairly deep frown-lines about his mouth that showed even when he was trying to smile, as now. "A good selection. But I did not know it was a warrior cult."

  Warrior cult? "The Holy Order of Vision is a pacifistic denomination, seeking always the route of least—"

  "Yet you fought the Breaker."

  The Breaker. A fitting description! "Self-preservation compelled me. I don't believe I damaged the creature."

  A third exchange of glances. "The question is, how is it that the Breaker did not damage you! We must always travel in armed parties to fend off its savagery, during that part of the day when it is present."

  Evidently they knew the routine of the Breaker, and this was its office hour. That would explain why they had not rushed up to greet him instantly; they had had to organize their troop and proceed with due caution. "I suspect I was pretty lucky," Brother Paul said. "I managed to frighten it away just when I thought I'd lost"

  "Even so," the spokesman said dubiously—his face was very good at dour expressions—"your God surely watches over you well."

  "My God is the same as your God," Brother Paul said modestly—and was amazed at the reaction this brought. Evidently he had committed a faux pas.

  "We shall introduce ourselves," the man said, gruffly easing the awkwardness. "I am the Reverend Siltz of the Second Church Communist, spokesman for this party by consent of the participants."

  Brother Paul's face never even twitched. After Antares the gelatinous alien, a living Tarot Empress, and the Breaker, what was a little anomaly like a Communist Church? "Glad to make your acquaintance, Reverend Siltz," he said. The man did not offer to shake hands, so Brother Paul merely nodded affirmatively as he spoke.

  The man to the Reverend's right spoke: "Janson, Adventist." And, in turn, the others: "Bonly, Mason." "Appermet, Yoga." "Smith, Swedenborgian." "Miller, Vegan Vegetarian."

  "We were expecting you," Reverend Siltz said gruffly. "We were not informed of your precise time of arrival, but the matter is of some concern to us." Here one of the others stifled a snort, reminding Brother Paul again of the intricate currents that flowed beneath this troubled surface. What had he gotten into?

  Reverend Siltz scowled, but continued, "Church Communist was selected by lot in accordance with the Covenant to encounter you initially and proffer hospitality for the duration of your mission. This denotes no comment on the validity of your mission, or our opinion of same. You are of course free to choose an alternate accommodation, as you please. The Order of Vision has no station here."

  Currents indeed! Had the lot chosen an enemy to host him, or was this merely excessive formality? He would have to navigate his shallow craft carefully, until he knew more of this peculiar situation. "I am pleased to accept your offer, Reverend, hoping my presence will not inconvenience you or cause you embarrassment."

  Now Siltz made an honest smile. "We know of your Order. Hosting you will be a privilege."

  So acceptance had been the right decision. Maybe the man's gruffness had been in anticipation of demurral, so that he would not lose face when Brother Paul did the expected. But it could also have stemmed from some other factor, such as this evident individuality of gods, as though each religion had its own separate deity. Brother Paul made a silent prayer that he would not make too many wrong decisions here. How fortunate that the reputation of his Order extended even to distant planets! Of course this colony, like all the others in the human sphere, could not be more than four years old, five at the most, so the colonists would have carried their knowledge of religious sects with them from Earth. So this was really no miracle.

  Reverend Siltz swung about to orient on the capsule receiver building, his motion and manner reminding Brother Paul not too subtly of the Breaker. "Now we must unload, before it mattermits out. Is it a good shipment?"

  "Sewing machines, spinning wheels, stoves," Brother Paul said as they walked toward it. "Carding tools, axes—"

  "Good, good!" Reverend Siltz said. "They have dowered you well." There was a murmur of agreement, surprising Brother Paul. He suffered a two-level thought: first, the confirmation that he was not completely welcome here, so had been "dowered," as though he were an unpretty bride requiring a monetary inducement to make him and his mission palatable; and second, the reaction to the shipment. Of course such artifacts were useful, but did these colonists have no yearnings for the more advanced products of civilization?

  The next two hours were spent unloading. It was heavy work, but no one stinted; all the men were husky, and Reverend Siltz applied himself as vigorously as any of them. Yet throughout, Brother Paul was aware of a certain diffidence, directed not at him but occurring among the colonists themselves, as though not one of them trusted the others completely. What was the problem here?

  At last the job was done. "Good, good!" Reverend Siltz said with satisfaction as he viewed the equipment piled somewhat haphazardly at the edge of the wheat-field. "Tomorrow the wagon comes." They covered each item with one of the light plastic tarpaulins provided by the shipper, and organized the return march.

  As they passed the throne, Brother Paul wanted to inquire about the girl he had seen there, but hesitated; it could be that female colonists were not permitted direct contact with strange men. That would explain why she had fled, and make any question about her presence inappropriate. In a society as cult-ridden as this one seemed to be, the status of women was open to question.

  Behind the ridge was a village, not much more than two kilometers from the capsule receiver. Brother Paul could have run it in six minutes or so, had he known where to go, but he doubted that the girl could have had time to arrive here, alert the village, and send this party back before he finished with the Breaker. Reverend Siltz must have been on the way the moment the capsule had arrived. Planet Tarot evidently had no electronic communications or motorized transportation, so foot power and observation were important here, just as they were on the better part of Earth, now.

  A sturdy stockade of wooden posts surrounded the village, each post polished and handsome. Brother Paul had learned something about the various kinds of wood during his Order tenure, but had never seen wood like this. "The heart of heart-of-pine," he murmured.

  The houses inside were of the same kind of wood, constructed of notched logs calked with mud. Their roofs were sod, in most cases, with thick grass growing on them, and even small flowers. Primitive but tight, he was sure. Here and there, in the shade, were more clusters of the colored bubbles he had noted by the compost pile. So they could not be purely a product of organic decomposition.

  "What are these?" Brother Paul asked, stooping to touch one. It did not pop, so he picked it up carefully—and then it popped. Evidently some of the bubbles were stronger than others.

  "Tarot Bubbles," Reverend Siltz responded. "They grow everywhere, especially at night. They are of no value, like mildew or weeds. Clever children can make castles of them on cloudy days. We keep them out of our houses so they will not contaminate our food." />
  How quickly a pretty novelty became a nuisance! But Brother Paul could appreciate the colonists' desire to keep proliferating growths away from their food; the residues might be harmless, but why gamble? Most germs on Earth were harmless too, but those that were not were often devastating.

  In the center of the village was a pile of wood. All around it people were working. Men were sawing planks, or rather scraping them, forming mounds of curly shavings. Children gathered these shavings by armfuls, depositing them in patterns near seated I women. The women seemed to be carding the shavings, stretching out the fibers of the wood so that they resembled cotton. This was some wood!

  Reverend Siltz halted, and the other members of the party stopped with him, bowing their heads in silent respect. "Tree of Life, God of Tarot, we thank thee," Siltz said formally, and made a genuflection to the pile of wood.

  Tree of Life? God of Tarot. Brother Paul knew the Tree of Life as the diagram of meanings associated with the Cabala, the ancient Hebrew system of number-alchemy. And the God of Tarot was what he had come to seek, but he had not expected it to be a pile of wood. What did this mean?

  Reverend Siltz turned to him as the other men departed. "We are of many faiths, here at Colony Tarot. But on one thing we agree: the Tree is the source of our well-being. We do not feel that our own gods object to the respect we pay to the Tree."

  "Does this resemble the Great World Tree of Norse legend, called Yggdrasil?" Brother Paul inquired. "Its roots extended into three realms—"

  "There are Norse sects here that make that analogy," Siltz agreed. "But the majority of us regard it as a purely planetary expression and gift of God. Indeed, we seek to ascertain which God is the Tree."

  "You see God as—as a physical object? A tree? Wood?"

  "Not precisely. We must cooperate for survival, and only through the Tree can we accomplish this. Thus the Tree of Life is the God of Tarot." He formed a rare smile. "I perceive you are confused. Come, eat, rest at my abode, and I shall explain as well as I am permitted by the Covenant."

  Brother Paul nodded, not trusting himself to speak lest he commit some additional faux pas in his ignorance. This nascent planetary culture was far stranger than he had anticipated.

  4

  Power

  Before the beginning of years

  There came to the making of man

  Time with a gift of tears;

  Grief with a glass that ran;

  Pleasure, with pain for leaven;

  Summer, with flowers that fell;

  Remembrance fallen from heaven,

  And madness risen from hell;...

  ...wrought with weeping and laughter,

  And fashioned with loathing and love,

  With life before and after

  And death beneath and above,

  His speech is a burning fire;

  With his lips he travaileth;

  In his heart is a blind desire,

  In his eyes foreknowledge of death;

  He weaves, and is clothed with derision;

  Sows, and he shall not reap;

  His life is a watch or a vision

  Between a sleep and a sleep.

  Algeron C. Swinburne

  Atalanta In Calydon

  The Reverend Siltz's hut was exactly like the others, distinguished only by the hammer-and-sickle on its hewn-timber door. It was small, but cozy and well-ordered inside. The walls and ceiling were paneled with rough-sawn wood whose grain was nevertheless quite striking: the wood of the local Tree of Life, again. A wooden ladder led up the back wall to the attic. There were no windows, only air vents, slanted to exclude rain or flowing water. In the center of the room, dominating it, was the stove.

  "Ah, an airtight side-drafter," Brother Paul commented appreciatively. "With cooking surfaces and attached oven. A most compact and efficient design."

  "You know stoves?" Reverend Siltz inquired, suddenly more friendly.

  "I get along well with mechanical things," Brother Paul said. "I would not deem myself an expert, but we do use wood at our Vision Station, and it was my task to gather the fuel from the forest I admire a good design, if only because I deem it a shame to waste what God has grown." Yet here were these people, burning the wood of the tree they worshipped. Oh, he was getting curious about the ramifications of that!

  A woman stepped forward, middle-aged and pleasant. He had not noticed her because the stove had caught his attention—which could be taken as a sign of his present confused state. Her hair was dark brown and plaited in such a way as to resemble the bark of a tree. Now Brother Paul realized that he had seen similar hairdos on several of the other women working outside. An odd effect, but not unattractive. Another salute to the Tree of Life?

  "My wife," Reverend Siltz said, and she nodded. Brother Paul had not yet seen any firm indication that the woman had equal status with the men on this planet, but knew better than to make any assumptions at this early stage. "My son is at work; we may see him this evening." There was another curious inflection; either the Reverend had a number of peculiar concerns, or Brother Paul was exaggerating the meanings of inconsequential nuances of expression.

  "Your house is small by Earth standards," Brother Paul said carefully. "I fear my presence will crowd you."

  The Reverend unfolded a bench from the wall. "We shall make do. I regret we have no better facilities. We are as yet a frontier colony."

  "I was not criticizing your facilities," Brother Paul said quickly. "I did not come here for comfort, but I would hardly call this privation. You have an admirably compact house."

  The wife climbed the ladder and disappeared into the loft. "It is her sleep-shift," Siltz explained. "She must help guard the wood by night, so she must prepare herself now. This is the reason we have space for you to stay."

  "Guard the wood?" Brother Paul asked, perplexed.

  Reverend Siltz brought out some long, limber strips of wood and set about weaving them into something like a blanket. "Brother Paul, wood is paramount. Our houses are made from it and insulated throughout by it; it provides our furniture, our weapons, our heat. In our fashion we worship wood, because our need for it is so pressing. We must obtain it from the forest far away, and haul it by hand with guards against the predators of the range. We dare not pitch our villages closer to the forest because of the Animations; they permeate that region in season, but are rare here. The other villages of this planet are similarly situated, so as to be removed from the threat. We have little commerce with the other settlements. In winter the snows come eight meters deep."

  "Eight meters deep!" Brother Paul repeated, incredulous.

  "Insulating us from the surface temperature of minus fifty degrees Celsius. Those who exhaust their supply of fuel wood before the winter abates must burn their furniture and supporting struts or perish, and if they burn so much that the weight of the snow collapses their houses, they perish."

  "Can't they tunnel through the snow to reach the next house, so as to share with their neighbors?"

  "Yes, if their neighbors happen to be of the same faith." The man frowned, and Brother Paul suspected another complication of this society. Families of differing faiths would not share their resources, even to save lives? "Those who take more than their appointed share of wood imperil the lives of others. There is no execution on this planet except for the theft or wasting of wood. The Tree of Life may not be abused!" The Reverend's face was becoming red; he caught himself and moderated his tone. "We have a difficult situation here; this is a good world, but a harsh one. We are of fragmented faiths and can hardly trust each other, let alone comprehend each other's ludicrous modes of worship. This is the reason your own mission is significant. You shall decide which God is the true God of Tarot."

  Brother Paul was beginning to accept the tie-in between God and wood. Without wood, these people would perish, and they knew it. Yet this need did not seem to account for their evident fetishism. On Earth, people needed water to survive, and fresh water was scarce,
but they did not worship it. "That is my mission, presumptuous as it may be. I gather you do not approve of it."

  Siltz glanced up from his weaving, alarmed. "Did I say that?"

  "No, it is merely an impression I have. You do not need to discuss the matter if you do not wish to."

  "I would like very much to discuss it," Siltz said. "But the Covenant forbids it. If my attitude conveys itself to you, then I am not being a proper host, and must arrange other lodging for you."

  Which surely would not be politic! "Probably I am jumping to conclusions; I apologize," Brother Paul said.

  "No, you are an intelligent and sensitive man. I shall endeavor to resolve the question without violating the Covenant. I do oppose your presence here, but this does not in any way reflect on your person or integrity. I merely believe this is a question that cannot be answered in this manner. You will necessarily discover a God that conforms to your personal precepts, but whose conformance to the actual God may be coincidental. I would rather have the issue remain in doubt, than have it decided erroneously. But I am a member of the minority. You were summoned, and the lot, in its wisdom, has brought you to my house, and I shall facilitate your mission exactly as though I supported it. This my God requires of me."

  "I do not think our concepts of God can be very far apart," Brother Paul said. "I find your attitude completely commendable. But let me qualify one aspect: it is Earth that sent me here, not Colony Tarot. We of Earth are concerned as to whether the God of Tarot is genuine, or merely someone's fancy. We too are wary lest a person committed to a single view be blind to the truth, whatever that may be. I doubt that I am worthy of this mission, but it is my intent to eliminate my personal bias as much as possible and ascertain that truth, though I may not like it. I don't see that you colonists need to accept any part of my report, or let it affect your way of life. In fact I am uncertain about your references to a number of gods. Surely there is only one God."