For a moment, he thought of using his flashlight. He might be able to detect anyone moving in on him, surprise him, get in the first blow. But, if his presence was not known, he would be a fool to give it away. No, he would move about in the darkness that had always been his ally. He was the cat; other men, the mice.
Slowly, he stepped forward, pausing every three paces to listen. The silence droned. He could hear the thrum of blood in his ears and even, he thought, the beat of his heart.
Or was it his heart?
There was a thum-thum as of drumsticks wrapped in wool tapping on a faroff drum. Yet, something about the strokes felt close, close enough to be echoes from a heart close to his.
He turned slowly, trying to locate the origin of the sound. Or was it a phantom of sound? Or could it be some type of engine turning lazily over, or a piston stroking slightly out of phase with that engine inside his own breast?
Maybe, he thought, this chamber has a resonance which detects, amplifies and reprojects the noise of the slow convulsions of my heart.
No, that was absurd.
Then, by God, what was it?
The air was creeping over him, cooling him as it passed over the sweat on his face. The temperature of the room itself was neither too warm nor too cold. But he was perspiring as if in a hot place, and at the same time he was shaking as if it were cold. Moreover, he now smelled an odor such as he had never experienced before. It was the odor of ancient stone; somehow, he knew its identity.
He swore soundlessly and forced himself to stop quivering. He succeeded, but now the air itself seemed to quiver.
Was this the physical equivalent of the physical manifestations that had taken place several times before? The times when the air had seemed to harden, to shimmer as if turning into a glassy jelly? Was Mary forming again before him? In this darkness?
He glared and opened his mouth in a snarl.
I'll kill her, he thought. Kill! There'll be nothing left of her -- nothing but bloody gobbets. I'll destroy her so thoroughly, she'll never come back again.
Not caring what might result from giving himself away, he took the flashlight from the pocket in his cloak. The beam thrust out across a vast expanse, and then its circle fell upon the wall at the other end. Stone with dark-red veins spiraling across a fleshy white.
He traveled the beam across the huge room. He stopped. A stone statue reared toward the ceiling. It was fully sixty meters high, a titanic woman, naked, with many swollen breasts. One hand was in the act of pulling a squawling baby from her womb. The other hand was clutched around a second infant. This one was squawking soundlessly with terror, for the woman's mouth was open -- her fanged mouth -- and she was about to bite down upon the head of the infant.
Other babies were sprawled about her body. Some were mouthing her nipples. Some were falling from her breasts, caught stonily in their failure to keep hold of and get nourishment from the mountain-slope teats.
The face of the goddess Boonta was a study in split personality. One eye, fixed on the baby about to be devoured, was wild and savage. The other eye was half-lidded, calm, maternal, bent upon a baby feeding contentedly on the nearest breast. One side of the face was loving, the other vicious.
"OK," John Carmody muttered. "I get the message. So this is the great Boonta. A stinking idol of a stinking bunch of stinking barbarians."
His beam swept down. Clutching each leg was a stone child, each about five years old, if their proportions as compared to Boonta's meant anything. Yess and Algul, he supposed. Both were looking up at her with expressions of hopeful fear or fearful hope.
"A lot of motherly love you'll get out of her," he said."About as much as I got from my mother -- the bitch!"
At least, he thought, his mother had not materialized out of the air. Too bad. He would have taken almost as much pleasure blowing her guts out as he had the materialization of Mary.
He continued to sweep the beam around. It stopped when it illuminated an altar of stone half-covered with a velvety wine-red cloth. On top of the altar, in the middle, was a massive golden candleholder. It had a round base and a thick pedestal with a golden snake coiled just below the space for the candle. The candle, however, was missing.
"I'm eating it," a Kareenan male said.
Carmody whirled, and almost pulled the trigger of his automatic. His flashlight spotlighted the man, who was sitting on a chair. He was large and well built. His face was, by Kareenan and even by human standards, handsome.
But he was old. The blue feathery hairs on his head were white, as were the pubic hairs. He had many wrinkles on his face and neck.
The Kareenan took another bite from the half-eaten candle. His jaws moved vigorously while his blue eyes remained fixed on Carmody. The Earthman stopped when he was a few feet from him. He said, "The great god Yess, I presume?"
"I know the reference in the phrase," the Kareenan said. "You are a cool one. To answer your question, I am Yess. But not for long."
Carmody decided the Kareenan was no immediate threat. He continued his examination of the room by flashlight. At one end was an archway with steps leading upward. Above, projecting from the wall at a height of about forty meters, was a balcony. It was capable of holding about fifty spectators on its banked array of seats. The wall at the other end had a similar archway and balcony. That was all. The room contained only the gigantic statue of Boonta, the altar and candleholder, the chair, and the man -- god? -- in it.
Yess, or a decoy?
"I am truly Yess," the Kareenan said.
Carmody was startled.
"Can you read my mind?"
"Don't get so panicky. No, I cannot read your mind. But I can perceive your intentions."
Yess swallowed the bite. After sighing, he said, "The Sleep of my people is troubled. They are having a nightmare. Monsters are thrusting upward from the depths of their beings. Otherwise, you would not be here. Who knows what this night will see? Perhaps. . . the time for Algul to triumph? He is impatient with his long exile." He made the circular sign. "If Mother so wills it."
"My curiosity will be the death of me yet," Carmody said. He laughed but cut the laugh off when the cachinnations were hurled back at him from the far-off walls.
"What do you mean by that?" Yess asked.
"Not much," Carmody replied. He was thinking that he should kill this man -- god while he had the chance. If Yess' retainers appeared, they could make it unhealthy for the man who intended to assassinate their god. On the other hand, what if this Kareenan was not Yess but only a stalking-horse or bait? It would be best to wait a while to make sure. Besides, this might be his last chance to talk with a deity.
"What is it you want?" Yess said. He bit off a small piece of the candle and began chewing.
"Can you give it to me?" Carmody said. "Not that I really care. I'm accustomed to taking what I want. Charity -- in giving or in receiving -- is not one of my vices."
"That'd be one of the few vices you don't have," Yess said. He looked calmly at the Earthman, then smiled."What do you want?"
"That reminds me of the story of the fairy prince," Carmody replied. "I want you."
Yess raised his feathery eyebrows. "Not really. It is obvious you're a disciple of Algul. It shines out from every pore of your skin, it radiates with every beat of your heart. There is evil on your breath."
Staring, Yess cocked his head. Then he closed his eyes.
"But yet. . . there's something."
He opened his eyes. "You poor devil. You miserable suffering conceited cockroach. You're dying at the same time you boast you're living as no other man dares to live. You. . ."
"Shut up!" Carmody shouted. Then he smiled and softly said, "You're very good at needling, aren't you? But you'd never have stung me if it weren't for what I've gone through, for the hellish effects of this Night. Enough to drive many men mad."
He pointed his gun at Yess."You'll not get a rise out of me again. But you can congratulate yourself on having done what few hav
e -- although those few aren't alive to brag about it."
He gestured with the gun at the candlestick in Yess' hand.
"Why in the name of insanity are you eating that? Church mice may be poor. But gods that live in temples are poor also?"
"You have never eaten such rich food," Yess replied. "This is the most expensive candle in the world. It is made from the ground-up bones of my predecessor, a flour mixed with the wax excreted by the divine trogur bird. The trogur is sacred to my Mother, as you may know. There are only twenty-one of these most beautiful of all birds living on my planet, or anywhere in the universe, and they are tended by the priestesses of the temple of the Isle of Vantrebo.
"Every seven years, just before the Night begins, a little pinch of bone dust from the Yess who died 763 years ago is worked into the trogur wax. The candle fashioned from the god's dust and the wax is set on this table, and the taper is lit. I sit here and wait while the billionfold Sleepers turn and toss and groan in their drugged Sleep. And while the nightmares howl and rave and kill on the streets of Kareen.
"When the candle has burned a little, I snuff out the flame. And, in accordance with the eons-old ritual, I eat the candle. By doing so, I commune with the dead god -- who is at the same time living -- and I partake of his divinity. I refresh myself with his godhood.
"Some time, perhaps this Night, I shall die. And my flesh will be stripped from my bones. My bones will be ground into a flour, and the flour will be mixed with trogur wax and made into a candle. Septennial by septennial, a part of me will be burned as an offering to my people and my Mother. The smoke from the burning candle will arise and drift through the ventilating system and go out into the air of the Night. And I will not only be burned, I will be eaten by the god who follows me. That is, if the god is Yess.
"For an Algul does not eat a Yess, nor a Yess eat an Algul. Evil hungers for evil, and good for good."
Carmody grinned and said, "You really believe all that nonsense?"
"I know."
"It's all primitive magic," Carmody said. "And you, a so-called civilized being, are hoodwinking your disciples, the poor, blind, superstition-staggered fools."
"Not so. If I were on Earth, your accusation might be justified. But you've gotten this far through the Night -- an ill omen for me -- and you must know by now that anything is possible."
"I'm sure it's all explainable by physical means as yet unknown. I just don't care. I'll tell you one thing. You're going to die."
Yess smiled and said, "Who isn't?"
"I mean right now!" Carmody snarled.
"I've lived 763 years. I'm getting tired, and a tired god is not good for the people. Nor does my Mother wish a feeble son. So, whether Yess or Algul triumph tonight, I must die.
"I'm ready. If you were not the instrument of my death, another would be."
Carmody shouted, "I'm no one's tool! I do what I want, and any plans I carry out are mine! Mine alone, do you hear!"
Yess smiled again. "I hear. Are you trying to drive yourself into a rage which will be strong enough to allow you to kill me?"
Carmody squeezed the trigger. Yess and the chair on which he sat slid backward from the impact of the stream of exploding bullets. Flesh and blood rose in little spurts, collected into tiny balls, drifted around him, and fell down in a shower on him. His head flew apart. His arms rose upward and over, and his legs kicked up. The motion carried him over backward, and he fell with a crash.
Carmody quit firing only when the clip was empty. Then he bent down and placed the light on the floor. By its illumination, he ejected the clip and replaced it with a fresh one.
His heart was beating savagely; his hands shook. This was the culmination of his career, his masterpiece. He liked to think of himself as an artist, a great artist in crime, if not the greatest. Sometimes he would laugh at the idea and sneer at himself. But he thought of it too often, therefore he must truly believe in it. If there were artists, he was one. No one could surpass him now. Who else had murdered a god?
It was, however, a little sad. What could he do now to top this?
He would think of something. In a universe this large, something even more superb waited for him. All he had to do was get out of this situation and look for another even more challenging.
For one thing, he could not count this as a complete success unless he got out alive and uncaptured. A true work of art had to be finished to the last and least detail. He would not be caught. He was no moth to burn himself in the flame for the beauty of the act.
Carmody took from his beltbag a small flat case. After uncapping it, he squeezed it, and its liquid contents squirted out over the body. Satisfied that the corpse was covered with a film of the fluid, he retreated from it. Another case, much smaller than the first, came out of his bag. He threw his cloak up to shield his face, aimed the case, and squeezed. The spray from a tiny nozzle at its end struck the film of liquid. Yess burst into flames. Smoke and the stench of burning flesh rose upward, then spread out.
Carmody smiled. The Kareenans would not be able to make a holy candle from the bone flour of their god. The panpyric would not stop oxidizing until the entire body was ashes.
But there was the half-eaten candle dropped by Yess when the bullets struck him. Carmody stooped and picked it up. At first, he intended to burn it, too. Then he grinned. And he ate the candle. The waxy stuff had a faintly bitter taste, not objectionable. He downed it easily, smiling at the thought that his eating of the candle was a unique event, whereas the assassination was only of historical importance. Previous Yesses had been killed, although not by an Earthman. But never, as far as he knew, had anyone but the god-son of Boonta eaten the god-candle.
While he ate, he looked for exits by the glare of the fire, through the shifting windows afforded by the curls of smoke. He saw, behind the legs of Boonta, a hole in the wall. Somehow, he had missed it before when he had passed his flashlight beam over the wall. It was no higher than his head and very narrow. In fact, on walking to it he found that he would have to turn sideways if he were to get through it.
Now, he paid for past self-indulgence. His belly was too big; it caused him to jam in the hole like a slightly oversize cork in the neck of a wine bottle.
Even as he struggled and cursed, he wondered how others got through this hole. Then it came to him that many men just would not be able to use it. Therefore, this was not the usual door to whatever lay beyond. What kind of a door, then, was it?
A trap!
He tore himself loose and ran a few steps away. When he turned, he saw that the archway, which had seemed to be of stone, like the wall in which it was set, was slowly closing.
So, part of the wall, at least, was composed of pseudosilicon. But the knowledge would do him no good. He did not have whatever key was needed to open a way for him.
Voices rose behind him. Men and women shouted. He whirled to see the door through which he had entered, and which had shut behind him, now gaping wide. A number of Kareenans had already passed through it. Behind them were others. Those in front were pointing with horror at the burning corpse.
John Carmody shouted and dashed toward them through the smoke. Some tried to stop him, but he shot them down. Those in the doorway either jumped through and hurled themselves out of his path or ran back out into the purple haze.
Carmody ran after them. He was coughing, and his eyes were burning and tearful. But he kept on running until he had gone through the outer door and his lungs were rid of the smoke and the stink. Then he slowed down to a fast walk. A quarter of a kilometer away, he stopped. Something was lying on the avenue before him. It resembled a man, but it was stiff and hard, and there was a quality about it and the rigidity of limbs that made him investigate it.
It was the life-sized statue of Ban Dremon, tumbled from its pedestal.
He looked up at the pedestal. Ban Dremon -- another one -- stood there in what should have been an empty place.
He gripped the edge of the marble base, w
hich was a foot above his head, and with one easy powerful graceful motion pulled himself up and then over. The next moment, gun in hand, he was eye to eye with the statue.
No statue. A man, a native.
He was in the same attitude as the dislodged Ban Dremon, the right arm held out in salute, the left holding a baton, the mouth open as if to give a command.
Carmody touched the skin of the face, so much darker than the normal Kareenan's, yet not so dark as the bronze of the statue.
It was hard, smooth and cold. If it was not metal, it would pass for it. As near as he could determine in the uncertain light, the eyeballs had lost their light color. He pressed his thumbs in on them and found that they resisted like bronze. But when he stuck his finger from his left hand in the open mouth, he felt the back part of the tongue give a little, as if the flesh beneath the metallic covering were still soft. The mouth, however, was dry as any statue's.
Now how, he thought, could a man turn his protoplasm, which had only a very minute trace of copper and, as far as he remembered, no tin, into a solid alloy? Even if those elements were present in large enough quantities to form bronze, what of the heat needed?
The only explanation he could think of was that the sun was furnishing the energy and the human body was furnishing the blueprints and, somehow, the machinery necessary. The psyche had free scope during the seven nights of the Chance; it utilized, however unconsciously, forces that must exist at all times around it but of which it had no knowledge.
If that were so, he thought, then man must be, potentially, a god. Or if god was a term too strong, then he must be a titan. A rather stupid titan, however, blind, a Cyclops with a cataract.
Why couldn't a man have this power at other times than the Night? This vast power to bend the universe to his will? Nothing would be impossible, nothing. A man could move from one planet to the next without a spaceship, could step from the Avenue of the Temple of Boonta on Dante's Joy some 1,500,000 light-years to Broadway in Manhattan on Earth. Could become anything, do anything, perhaps hurl suns through space as easily as a boy hurled a baseball. Space and time and matter would no longer be walls, would be doorways to step through.