Deus Irae

  “Goodbye,” Tibor said, and continued on.

  He felt melancholy. A soothing sort, a kind of inner peace. Had the runners managed that? he wondered. They were said to … the big runner Earl had radiated anything but peace, however. Very strange, he thought; the runners are like the calm eye of the storm that everyone talks about but which no one sees. Peace in the center of chaos, perhaps.

  As his cart lumbered on, pulled by his tireless cow, Tibor began to sing.

  Brighten up the corner where you are …

  He could not remember how the rest of the old hymn went, so he tried another.

  This is my father’s world. The

  rocks and trees, the wind and

  breeze …

  That didn’t sound right. So he tried the Old One Hundred, the doxology:

  Praise him from whom all blessings

  flow. Praise him ye creatures here

  below. Praise him above, ye heavenly

  host. Thank Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

  Or however it was that the hymn went.

  He felt better, now. And then all at once he realized that his wheel bearing had stopped complaining. He peered down, and saw the grim news: the wheel had entirely stopped turning. The bearings had seized up.

  Well, thus it goes, he thought as he reined the cow to a halt. This is as far as we go, you and I. He sat listening to the sounds around him, noises from the trees and shrubbery, little animals at work, even smaller ones at play: the offspring of the world, maimed and grotesque as they might be, had the right to frolic about in the warm morning sun. The owls had retired; now came the red-tailed hawks. He heard a far-off bird, and was comforted.

  The bird sang words, now. Brighten up the corner, it called. Again it sang the few words, and then trilled out, Praise him from whom the wing and trees, the rocks and thank you. Tweet, toodle. It started from the beginning again, tracing each previous outburst.

  A meta-mutant bird, he realized. A teilhard de chardin: forward oddity. Does it understand what it sings? he wondered. Or is it like a parrot? He could not tell. He could not go that way; he could only sit. Damn that wheel bearing, he said savagely to himself. If I could converse with the meta-bird maybe I could learn something. Maybe it has seen the Deus Irae and would know where he is.

  Something at his right lashed the bushes, something large. And now he saw—saw and did not believe.

  A huge worm had begun to uncurl and move toward him. It thrust the bushes aside; it dragged itself on its own oily slime, and as it came toward him it began to scream, high-pitched, strident. Not knowing what to do, he sat frozen, waiting. The rivulets of slime splashed over tarnished gray and brown and green leaves, withering both them and their branches. Dead fruit fell from the rotting trees; there arose a cloud of dry soil particles as the worm snorted and swung its way toward him. “Hi there!” the worm shrieked. It had almost reached him. “I can kill you!” the worm declared, tossing spit and dust and slime in his direction. “Get away and leave me! I guard something very precious, something you want but cannot have. Do you understand? Do you hear me?”

  Tibor said, “I can’t leave.” His voice shook; with his trembling body he engineered a quick movement; he brought forth his derringer once more and aimed it at the cranium of the worm.

  “I came out of garbage!” the worm cried. “I was spawned by the wastes of the field! I came from your war, inc. It is your fault that I am ugly like this. You can see the ugliness about me—look.” Its straining head wove and bobbed above Tibor’s, and now a shower of slime and spit rained down on him. He shut his eyes and shuddered. “Look at me!” the worm shouted.

  “Black worm,” Tibor grated; he fooled with the derringer, aimlessly. And squinched down to avoid what had to come. It would bite his head off; he would die. He shut his eyes, and felt the forked tongue of it lap at him.

  “I am poisoning you,” the worm declared shrilly. “Sniff the odor of my great eternal body. I can never die; I am the Urworm, and I will exist until the end of the Earth!” Coils of its body splashed forward, spilling over his cart, over the cow, over himself. He snapped on the electric field of his cart, a last-ditch, hopeless effort to protect himself and the cow. The field hummed and buzzed; it crackled with shimmering sparks, and, all at once, the head portion of the worm retreated.

  “Did I get you?” Tibor said, with hope. “Can’t you endure a five-amp electrical charge?” He snapped the dial to peak power; now the field sparked wildly, sending out cascading handfuls of light.

  The head of the worm drew far back, to strike. This is it, Tibor realized, and held up the derringer. The head slithered forward and the great beak of the thing crashed through the five-amp field at Tibor.

  As it revealed its fangs the electrical field made it pause; it halted its forward motion. Looking up, Tibor saw the soft underside of its throat, and he fired the derringer.

  “I want to sleep!” the worm howled. “Why do you disturb my rest?” It jerked back its head, lifted it high, saw the blood dripping down onto itself. “What have you done?” it demanded. It swooped at him once again. He reloaded the derringer, not looking up until he had swung the barrel back into place.

  Once more the head descended. Once more he saw up at the soft underside of its throat. Again he fired.

  “Let me be!” the worm cried out in pain. “Leave me to my sleep upon my possessions!” It reared up, and then, with a tremendous crash, descended to strike the ground. Its heaping coils spread out everywhere; the worm breathed hoarsely, its glazed eyes fixed on Tibor. “What has been done to you,” the worm snarled, “that has caused you to murder me? Have I done any act against you, any crime?”

  “No,” Tibor said. “None.” He could see that it had been badly hurt, and his heart stopped laboring. Again he could breathe. “I am sorry,” he said insincerely. “One of the two of us had to—” He paused to reload the derringer. “Only one of us could live,” he said, and this time shot the worm between its lidded eyes. The eyes grow and contract, he noticed. Bigger, brighter … then paling out to mere glimmers. Mere decay. “You are dead,” he said.

  The worm did not answer. Its eyes still open, it had died.

  Tibor reached with a manual extensor; he dipped his “hand” in the oily slime of the worm, an idea coming to his head. If the slime was truly oily, perhaps he could soak the wheel bearings with it, give them a shield of lubrication. But then something that the worm had said popped up within his mind, an interesting point. The worm had said, “Leave me to my sleep upon my possessions.” What did it possess?

  He cautiously navigated his cart around the side of the dead worm, prodding the cow expertly with his pseudowhips.

  Beyond the tangle of shrubbery—a cave in the side of a rocky hill. It reaked of the worm slime; Tibor got out a handkerchief and held it before his nose, trying to reduce the smell. He then snapped on his light, shone it into the cave.

  Here, the worm’s possessions. An overhead fan, totally rusted and inactive, piled up on the top of the heap. Under it, the body of an ancient surface auto, including two broken headlights and a peace sign on its side. An electric can opener. Two wartime laser rifles, their fuel supplies empty. Burned out bedsprings from what had once been a house; he saw, now, the window screens from the house, like everything else, rusting away.

  A portable transistor radio, missing its antenna.

  Junk. Nothing of worth. He rolled his cart forward, picking at the cow; the cow swished her tail, turned her heavy head back in protest, and then stumped on, closer to the foul, rotting cave.

  Like a crow, Tibor thought. The worm piled up everything shiny it could find. And all worthless. How long had it curled up here, protecting its rusting junk? Years, probably. Ever since the war.

  He perceived other trash, now. A garden hoe. A large cardboard poster of Che Guevera, tattered and dim from long neglect. A tape-recorder, without a power source and missing its tape reels. An Underwood electric typewriter, bent with excessive damage.
Kitchen utensils. A cat-carrying cage, caved in, its wire sides jabbing up like a garden of spikes. A divan, molting its Naugahide surfaces. A floor ashtray. A pile of Time magazines.

  That did it. The worm’s wealth ended there. All that plus the springs from a bed. Not even the mattress: just the grotesquely bent metal coils.

  He sighed, keenly disappointed. Well, at least the worm was dead, the great dark worm who had lived in this cave, protecting his worthless acquisitions.

  The bird who had sung hymns came fluttering over the branches of the nearby trees. It hovered, then landed, its bright eyes fixed on him. Questioningly.

  “You can see what I did,” Tibor said thickly. The corpse of the worm had already begun to stink.

  “I can see,” the bird said.

  “Now I’m able to understand you,” Tibor said. “Not just fragments repeated back—”

  “Because you dipped your hand into the excretion of the worm,” the bird said. “Now you can understand all the birds, not just me. But I can tell you everything you need to know.”

  Tibor said, “You recognize me?”

  “Yes,” the bird said, hopping down to a lower, sturdier branch. “You are McMasters Tibor.”

  “Backwards,” Tibor said. “Tibor is my first name; McMasters my second. Just turn it around.”

  “All right,” the bird agreed. “You are on a Pilg, searching for the God of Wrath, so you can paint his likeness. A noble errand, Mr. Tibor.”

  “McMasters,” Tibor said.

  “Yes,” the bird agreed. “Anything you say. Ask me if I know where you can find him.”

  “You know where he is?” Tibor said, and within his chest his heart labored once more, a fierce cold pressure that injured him by its presence. The idea of finding the Deus Irae paralyzed him, now; it seemed to be an actual presence, not a potential one.

  “I know,” the bird said calmly. “It is not far from here; I can easily lead you there, if you wish.”

  TEN

  “I—don’t know,” Tibor McMasters said. “I’ll have to—” He became silent, pondering. Maybe I should turn back, he thought. In fact maybe I’ve already gone too far. There have been several attempts to kill me … maybe I should heed the hints. Maybe reality is trying to tell me something. “Wait,” he said, still pondering to himself. Still not answering the bird.

  “Let me tell you a little more,” the bird said. “There is someone following you. Pete, his name is.”

  “Still?” Tibor said. He did not feel surprise, only a dull sense of alarm. “Why?” he demanded. “What for?”

  “I can’t determine that,” the bird said, thoughtfully. “You will find out presently, I would think. In any case he means you no harm, as the expression goes. How goes it with you, Mr. Tibor? Can you tell me now?”

  Tibor said, “Can you tell me what will happen if I come across the God of Wrath? Will he kill me, or anyhow try to kill me?”

  “He will not know at first who you are or why you have found him,” the bird declared. “Take it from me, Mr. Tibor; he no longer believes that—how shall I say it? That anyone malignly oriented is still on his trail. Too many years have gone by.”

  “I suppose so,” Tibor said. He took a deep, shuddering breath, to fortify himself. “Where is he?” he said aloud. “Take me in that direction, but very slowly.”

  “A hundred miles north of here,” the bird said. “You will either find him or someone who looks like him … I’m not sure which it is.”

  “Why can’t you tell?” Tibor asked. “I thought you’d know everything.” The bird’s poor mentality depressed him. I have sipped on the worm’s slime, he thought, and I have escaped from a series of dangers, and what did I get out of it? Almost nothing, he realized. A bird that partially talks … that partially knows something.

  Like myself, he thought. We each know a little. Maybe if I can add what this bird knows to what I know … sui generis. I can try.

  “How does he look?” he asked the bird.

  “Pretty bad,” the bird answered.

  “How?”

  The bird said, “He has bad breath. His teeth are missing and yellow. He is stoop-shouldered and he is old and fat. Thus must you draw your mural.”

  “I see,” Tibor said. Well, so it went. The God of Wrath was as much a prey to mortal decline as anyone else. All at once he had become all too human. And how would that help the mural?

  “Is there nothing exalted about him?” Tibor asked.

  “Maybe I have the wrong man,” the bird said. “No, there is nothing exalted about him. Sorry to say.”

  “Christ,” Tibor said bitterly.

  “As I say,” the bird said, “I may well have the wrong man. I suggest you take a long close look at him, yourself, and rely on what you determine, not on what I’ve said either way.”

  “Maybe so,” Tibor murmured. He still felt depressed. Too much plucked at him, and too much lay ahead. Better to turn around and go back, he decided. To get out of this while he still could. He had been lucky. But perhaps his luck had drained away; after all, he could not continue testing it forever.

  “You think your luck has run out?” the bird said perceptively. “I can assure you it hasn’t; that’s one thing I do know. You will be all right; trust me.”

  “How can I trust you if you don’t even know it’s him?”

  “Hmm,” the bird said, nodding. “I see what you mean. But I still stick with what I say: your luck has not run out, not at all. Give me credit for knowing that, at least.”

  “What kind of bird are you?” Tibor asked.

  “A blue jay.”

  “Are blue jays generally reliable?”

  “Very much so,” the bird said. “By and large.”

  Tibor said, “Are you the exception that proves the rule?”

  “No.” The bird hopped from its perch and came swooping down to land on Tibor’s shoulder. “Consider this,” the bird said. “Who else can you depend on if you can’t—or don’t—depend on me? I have waited many years for you to appear; I knew a long time ago that you would be coming this way, and when I heard your hymns I found myself overcome by joy. That was why you heard me, then, caroling your happy songs. I especially like the Old One Hundred; in point of fact that’s my favorite. So don’t you think you can trust me?”

  “Quite certainly a bird that sings hymns should be trusted,” Tibor decided aloud.

  “And I am that bird.” The jay fluttered up into the air, with impatience visible in every trembling feather. What a beautiful large blue and white bird, Tibor thought to himself as he watched it ascend. I’m positive I can trust it, and there is no real alternative. Perhaps I will have to go many places, see many men who are not the Deus Irae, before I find the overwhelming, the authentic, one. Such is a Pilg.

  “But I can’t follow you,” Tibor pointed out. “Because of my dry wheel bearing. I doubt if the mucus—”

  “It works very well,” the bird said. “You’ll be able to follow me.” It hopped off and disappeared into a nearby tree. “Come on!”

  Tibor started his cart into motion; he nudged the patient cow and off he and the cow went, rumbling north.

  Blue sky and long-shafted warm sunlight spilled down on them as they progressed. Evidently, in the light of day many of the more unusual lifeforms preferred to remain hidden; Tibor found himself encountering no one, and somehow this distressed him more than the parade of sports and freaks and ’chardins which he found himself facing during the nocturnal hours. But, he thought, anyhow I can see the bird clearly. Which was essential. This higher-stage entity: it was his lodestar, now.

  “Nobody lives along this way?” he asked as the cow paused for a moment of cropping the tall reddish weeds.

  “They just wish to survive in deserved anonymity,” the bird said.

  “Are they that dreadful?”

  “Yes,” the bird said. It added, “To conventional eyes.”

  “Worse than runners and lizards and bugs?”

 
“Even worse.” The bird did not seem to be afraid: it hopped and skipped about on the leaf-soaked ground, finding bits of nut here and there to gorge itself as well as possible. “There’s one,” the bird said, “that—”

  “Don’t tell me,” Tibor said.

  “Well, you asked.”

  “I asked,” Tibor said, “but I didn’t want or expect an answer.” He flicked the cow and, once more, the big animal lurched forward to continue their journey. Pleased, the bird spun upward into the dark blue sky; it fluttered off, and the cow, as if understanding their relationship to the bird, followed.

  “Is he evil-looking?” Tibor asked the bird.

  “The God of Wrath?” The bird dropped like a stone, landing on one edge of Tibor’s cart. “He is—how shall I say it? Not ordinary-looking; yes, one could say that. Not ordinary-looking in any respect. A large man, but, as I said, a man with bad breath. A powerfully built man but stooped by neurotic cares. An elderly man, but—”

  “And you’re not even sure it’s him.”

  “Reasonably sure,” the bird said, unruffled.

  Tibor said, “He lives in a human settlement?”

  “Right!” the bird said, pleased. “With about sixty other men and women … none of whom know who he is.”

  “How did he make himself known to you?” Tibor said. “How did you recognize him if they couldn’t? Is there a stigma of any sort?” He hoped there was; it would make the painting that much easier, once he had painted the stigma in.

  “Just the stigma of death and despair,” the bird declared carelessly as it tripped about here and there. “It’s profound, as you will see when we get there.”

  Tibor glanced up at the bird, who now hovered slightly ahead of him, and said, “And you have nothing more definite than that to go on?”

  “I saw him two years ago,” the bird said. “For the first time. Since then I have often seen him. But my tongue was tied in a knot, up till no more than an hour ago; I could speak to no one, really. And then you sipped of the worm’s slime and learned to understand my words.”