Compleat Traveller in Black (6 page)

“The proposal is rational,” conceded the margrave. “As I said, however, the days of rational thought here may be numbered. … However, if there is no better idea –?”

None was forthcoming. Accordingly the company betook themselves to the newly converted temple, formerly the great hall of the margrave’s palace.

There they found Bernard Brown – to judge by his expression, less than delighted with his situation – seated on an ebony-and-silver throne above an enormous improvised altar. Before this throne the townsfolk were coming and going with gifts. Their most prized possessions were heaped about his feet, from their inherited table-plate to their newest garments. On the altar itself were piled luscious fruits and choice cuts of meat, together with bottles of delicious wine. Sucking at one of the fruits, Bernard was attempting to question the people as they came and went. However, they would not answer him; they merely listened respectfully, then went away and wrote down what he said, with a view to creating a canon of mystical precepts.

At the entry to the hall the nobility paused to survey the scene, and Eadwil spoke privily to the margrave.

“Has not Tyllwin been here?” he said under his breath.

“You’re right!” confirmed the margrave after a deep inhalation. “I can scent his power. Now what snare has that devious personage laid in our path?”

He advanced towards the altar. Taking his stand three paces distant – because of the heaped-offerings – he raised his voice and addressed the putative god.

“Sir! We, the lords of Ryovora, are here to determine whether or no you are a god, as the populace maintain!”

Bernard Brown gave a cautious nod. “I was advised about your intention,” he confided. “And I have been warned not to deny the possibility. Since meeting with Jorkas on my way here, I have acquired a healthy respect for the advice I am given hereabouts, no matter how irrelevant it may seem. Contrariwise, however, in all honesty I must state that prior to my arrival in your city the notion that I
might
be a god had never crossed my mind.”

Was it possible for a god not to be aware that he was one? That paradox was not addressed in any of the books the margrave had studied. He exchanged frustrated glances first with Eadwil and then with Ruman, who snorted characteristically and called to Bernard Brown.

“Are we, then, to take it that you believe it possible you may be a god?”

“I don’t know what to believe,” said Bernard unhappily. “Until yesterday I had always pictured myself as a perfectly ordinary person. But certainly I am not ordinary in your world, wherever and whatever it may be.”

“Come now!” said Ruman, bridling. “This is a reputable and well-regarded city! Or was, until you chose to intrude on its traditionally sober existence.”

“If you will forgive my contradicting you,” Bernard sighed, “I chose nothing of the sort. All I want is to be allowed to go home. Have I not already said as much?”

“This does not sound like the utterance of a god,” the margrave muttered to Eadwil, who nodded.

“Sir,” he said to Bernard, “we wish to establish the extent of your powers. To what knowledge lay you claim?”

“I am competent,” said Bernard cautiously, “in matters touching roads, drains and bridges and similar practical undertakings. Is that the sort of thing you want to hear about?”

“Indeed it’s not! But are you acquainted with the Book of Universal Shame, and can you conjure from it?”

By now the townspeople had ceased their going and coming before the altar, and were gathering in silence to listen to this discussion. It was plain that a few of them were unconvinced, propitiating Bernard only by way of insurance, as it were.

“I never heard of it,” said Bernard, swallowing.

“Then of the Book of Three Red Elephants? Perhaps of the Casket of Disbelief?”

To each name Bernard shook his head.

Eadwil turned smiling to the margrave. “It is most unlikely that this fellow is a god!”

Then in their turn Petrovic, Gostala, and Ruman questioned Bernard about the most esoteric wisdom known to them – which implied the most esoteric known to anyone. Some few individuals surpassed the enchanters of Ryovora, such as Manuus, but those persons were far beyond the commerce of everyday life and chose to exist alone with their powers, seldom intruding on mundane affairs.

To each inquiry Bernard was constrained to reply in the negative, and in the watching crowd some began to stare significantly at Brim. The locksmith grew more and more flustered and annoyed, until at last, when Ruman had completed his interrogation, he strode forward and faced the altar challengingly, hands on hips.

“Let’s have it straight!” he bellowed. “Are you a god, or have you come here under false pretenses?”

“I – I was advised not to deny it,” said Bernard helplessly, and the margrave clapped his hand to his forehead.

“Fool that I am, after Eadwil gave me the clue!” he cried, and thrust Brim to one side, ignoring his complaint. “It was Tyllwin who advised you thus, was it not?”

“I don’t suppose it can do any harm to say who it was,” Bernard decided reflectively. “Uh … whether it was Tyllwin or not, I’m unsure, for he gave no name. But I can describe him: a very charming elderly gentleman, with a wisp of grey beard clinging at his chin.”

“Manuus!” exclaimed several of the lords together, and the margrave whirled to face his colleagues.

“How many of you had seen Tyllwin before yesterday?” he demanded.

“Why –” began three or four, and as one fell silent with expressions of amazement.

“You have it!” snapped the margrave. “He was there, and by some enchantment persuaded us he was seated by right and custom. But I for one now realize that I have no other knowledge of Tyllwin. Well, then! So Manuus is behind the matter! We must go to him and tell him we will not tolerate his meddling in Ryovora’s affairs. If he chose to live among us as a responsible citizen, that would be a different cauldron of spells. But as things are, we can only respect his privacy so long as he respects ours.”

There was much shuffling of feet. With juvenile dignity Eadwil spoke up. “Margrave, I regret that I dare not face Manuus in this connection. My powers are inadequate as yet. I hate to shelter behind my youth –
but!
”

And he took his leave.

One by one, shamefaced, the others of the council copied his example, until the margrave was left by himself, whereupon the townsfolk, having garnered from these events only that the nobles had failed to disprove Bernard’s divinity, made haste to resume their self-imposed tasks.

“A fine lot we breed in Ryovora!” exclaimed the margrave scornfully. The scorn, though, was a mask for his own forebodings; he was less of an adept than many who served under him, having attained his eminence by administrative skills. Nonetheless he was a resolute man, and accordingly he summoned his train and set forth to beard Manuus in his castle.

The mists parted in such fashion as to imply that this call was not unexpected, and having left his attendants huddled together in the great yard he ascended to Manuus’s sanctum with determined steps. There the enchanter greeted him with warm professions of respect.

But the margrave was ill at ease in this place of discomfortable forces, and came to the point as swiftly as manners would permit. He said firmly, when he had the chance, “Sir, since you are Tyllwin’s master you know the purpose of my errand.”

“Correction,” the enchanter parried blandly
“I
am
Tyllwin. I have certain other natures besides my own – a trait I share with all persons save one alone.”

The margrave made an appropriate sign at the mention of him who has many names but one nature, and pressed on with what he had to say.

“We will not tolerate interference, sir,” he declared. “Since time immemorial we in Ryovora have striven to create a tradition of calm rationality, and to rely upon hard sense. This petty trick of intruding a so-called god like a gaming piece into our affairs is hardly worthy of a personage of your distinction.”

“I agree,” said Manuus. “You may therefrom deduce that the act is not of my choosing.”

“What?” the margrave blurted.

“In this matter,” the enchanter continued, ignoring the exclamation, “you and I are on the same side: so to say, the
outside.
It will perhaps interest you to learn that he of whom we were speaking a moment ago – whose nature is single – was sitting in that same chair only two days ago.”

Wondering what he had stumbled into, the margrave shivered. He said respectfully, “Manuus, your powers are beyond imagining!”

“Oh, he did not come at my bidding!” – with a thin chuckle. “Rather the reverse!”

“However that may be, I shall take leave of you,” said the margrave, rising and bowing. “For if this matter is
his
concern, I dare do nothing to intervene.”

Eyes twinkling, Manuus shook his head. “I’m afraid you have no choice. Like it or not, both you and I have been concatenated in this web.”

At which the margrave departed, his heart so heavy he could barely lift his boots, and when he was gone Manuus fell to ceremonies of a kind that had not been performed in living memory, which strange phenomena attended. There was a storm on peaceful Lake Taxhling; in Barbizond three madmen ran screaming through the streets; on a hill near Acromel dust devils ceased their whirling. Last, but not least, certain persons in Ryovora itself saw visions of a disturbing nature, and hastened to the new-designated temple to place yet more offerings at the feet of Bernard Brown and to consult the already sizable record of his sayings.

Studying them, they found no comfort.

VII

And thus the matter was to remain for another day. The margrave, making as was his custom the best of a bad job, called up an obliging spirit and had a pavilion erected in the Moth Garden to serve as a temporary surrogate for his palace; there he sat, swearing mightily, far into the night, while he pondered the information Manuus had divulged.

Those other nobles of Ryovora who were best skilled in the art of magic met to discuss in low tones over their wine the riddle of how to distinguish divinity from humanity. They remained unswayed by both the clamor of the populace, led by Brim, and the scant evidence furnished by their interrogation of Bernard Brown. It seemed implausible, they allowed, that a person who claimed to know merely about matters as base as roads and bridges should be a god; nonetheless, one must respect the powers of Manuus, and perhaps in a mood to make a jest of Ryovora he
could
have conjured up an authentic deity and disguised him. … Did he not have the power to disguise himself, even from them?

The common folk, likewise, found themselves impaled by a dilemma. However, they had been longing for a god of whatever sort for a considerable while; indisputably someone strange had come among them, preceded by complex indecipherable omens, and it was generally deemed advisable to act as though Bernard were a genuine god until some incontestable argument to the contrary should be advanced.

So the night passed; and of those who spent it restlessly, not the least fervent seeker of repose was Bernard Brown, for all that his couch was a vast stack of gorgeous offerings in velvet and satin.

Then came the dawn.

It had been centuries since another city marched against Ryovora. The citizens had long ago deduced that their best protection was their reputation; who after all would dare attack that city where pre-eminently the populace enjoyed the gift to plan and reason? No general, for sure, who depended on ordinary and obedient soldiers, deprived by systematic training of imagination and initiative!

Perennially cautious, though, in a world where even yet an army might be raised of elemental spirits, they financed the wages of a team of watchmen … and next day, as the sun was rising, the current incumbent of the watchman’s post en route to his customary breakfast cast a casual glance across the country separating Acromel from Ryovora.

And saw with astonishment – not to mention disbelief – that a red idol a hundred feet high was striding with enormous yells towards him.

Such an idol, the watchman realized, could be none other than the Quadruple God of Acromel.

Around the monstrous crimson feet were fetters of riveted steel; before and behind, men went with blazing torches on long poles, prodding and driving it in a desired direction. Sometimes the thing’s yelling howled into a ridiculous falsetto when a torch made contact with its blood-colored limbs, and the drovers had to scatter and flee from the blows of eight gigantic fists. But they returned, and it became plain that they now well understood the reactions of the idol, and could drive it like a maddened bull because its rage made it unthinking.

The watchman sounded an alarm, and panic spread through the streets of Ryovora like floodwaters through a burst levee. Men, women, even children, roused from sleep to dash hither and thither in confusion.

One by one the nobles were summoned, and assembled on the ramparts with their retinues: an impressive band. Calmed by an enchantment that they spoke in unison, thousand by thousand the common folk acquired makeshift weapons – knives, axes, scythes – and numbered off into centuries to prepare for battle.