God of Tarot (17 page)

“Brother Paul,” the small voice repeated, “do you perceive me?”

He knew he had to work this out very carefully. He believed in God, and this was a most powerful and pervasive belief, the realization of which had transformed his life eight years ago. Yet he had never presumed to define that God too specifically. It was essential that he keep his mind objective, and not create any deity here, as it were, in his own image. That had been Reverend Siltz’s caution, and a proper one. For this mission, as in life, his God was Truth: the most specific, objective, explicable truth he was capable of mustering.

If God Himself should manifest via the medium of Animation, surely He would make Himself known in His own fashion, indisputably, as someone had already suggested. Brother Paul merely had to hold himself in readiness for that transcendent revelation, that supreme intuition.

“Lord,” he murmured, “let me not make a fool of myself, in my quest for Thee.” But he had to reprove himself: it was a selfish prayer. If it were necessary to make a fool of himself to discover God, then it would be well worth it. In fact, was this not the nature of the Fool of Tarot?

His hour was passing; if he were to progress beyond yesterday’s point, he had to do it soon. He brought out the deck again and riffled through it, seeking inspiration. The Minor Arcana were not sufficient; should he Animate a Court Card? Perhaps a King or a Queen?

A figure showed. Female, coming toward him. But he hadn’t attempted another Animation! Unless—

That was it. He was going through the Suit of Swords, and there was the Eight: a woman bound and hoodwinked among a forest of standing swords. It meant bad news, crisis, interference. He had unconsciously Animated it. He would have to watch that; he was in the depths of the Animation region now, and with practice was developing such ready facility that any card he glimpsed could become physical, even without his conscious intent.

Well, time for the big one. He would see if he could make the Tarot deck itself respond to his queries. Brother Paul brought out the deck again, sorted through the Major Arcana, and selected the Hierophant. This was Key Five of this deck, the great educator and religious figure known in other decks as the High Priest or the Pope, counterpart to the High Priestess. It all depended on the religion and purpose of the person who conceived the particular variant. The title of the card hardly mattered anyway; some decks used no titles. The pictures carried the symbolism. Surely this august figure of Key Five would know the meaning of Animation, if there were a meaning to be known.

Brother Paul concentrated, and the figure materialized. He sat upon a throne, both hands upraised, the right palm out, two fingers elevated in benediction, the left hand holding a scepter topped with a triple cross. He wore a great red robe and an ornate golden headdress. Before him knelt two tonsured monks; behind him rose two ornate columns.

Brother Paul found himself shaking. He had conjured the leading figure of the Roman Catholic Church, by whatever name a Protestant deck might bestow. Had he the right?

Yes, he decided. This was not the real Pope, but a representation drawn from a card. Probably a mindless thing, a mere statue. That mindlessness needed to be verified, so Brother Paul could be assured that there was no intellect behind the Animation effect.

“Your Excellency,” he murmured, inclining his head with the respect he gave to dignitaries of any faith. One did not need to share a person’s philosophy to respect his dedication to that philosophy. “May I have an audience?”

The figure’s head tilted. The left arm lowered. The eyes focused on Brother Paul. The lips moved. “You may,” the Hierophant said.

It had spoken
!

Well, his recorder-bracelet would verify later whether or not this was true. Voice analysis might reveal that Brother Paul was talking to himself. That did not matter; it was his mission to make the observations, evoking whatever effects could be evoked, so that the record was complete. He could not afford to hold back merely because he personally might not like what manifested. He was already sorry he had Animated the Hierophant; now he had to
talk
with the apparition, and that seemed to commit him intellectually, legitimizing a creation he felt to be illegitimate. Well, onward.

“I seek information,” he said, meekly enough.

The holy head inclined. “Ask, and it shall be given.”

Brother Paul thought of asking whether God was behind the Animation effect, and if so, what was His true nature? But he remembered an event of his college days, when a friend had teased the three-year-old child of a married student by asking her, “Little girl, what is the nature of ultimate reality?” The child had promptly replied, “Lollipops.” That answer had been the talk of the campus for days; the consensus of opinion had been that it was accurate. But Brother Paul was not eager for that sort of reply from this figure. First he had to verify the Hierophant’s nature. So he asked it a challenging but not really critical question, a test question. “What is the purpose of religion?”

“The purpose of religion is to pacify men’s minds and make them socially and politically docile,” the Hierophant replied.

This caught Brother Paul by surprise. It was certainly no reflection of his own view of religion! Did this mean the figure did possess a mind of its own? “But what of the progress of man’s spirit?” he asked. “What happens to it after it passes from this world?”

“Spirit? Another world? Superstitions fostered by the political authorities,” the Hierophant said. “No one in his right mind would put up with the corruption and cruelty of those in power, if he believed this were the only world he would experience. So they promise him a mythical life hereafter, where the wrongs of
this
life will be compensated. Only a fool would believe
that
, which shows how many fools there are. Barnum was wrong; a fool is not born every minute. A fool is born every second.”

“Lord have mercy on me, a fool,” Brother Paul murmured.

“Eh?” the Hierophant demanded querulously.

“I merely thought there was more to religion than this,” Brother Paul clarified. “A person needs some solace in the face of the inevitable death of the body.”

“Without death, there would be no religion!” the Hierophant asserted, waving his scepter for emphasis, It almost struck the pate of one of the monks. The Hierophant frowned in annoyance, and both monks disappeared. “Religion started with the nature spirits—the forest fire, flood, thunder, earthquake and the like. Primitive savages tried to use magic to pacify the demons of the environment, and made blood sacrifices to the elements of fire, water, air, and earth, hoping to flatter these savage powers into benign behavior. Read the Good Book of Tarot and you will find these spooks lurking yet, in the form of the four suits. Formal religion is but an amplification of these concepts.”

Brother Paul’s amazement was giving way to ire. “This is an idiot’s view of religion,” he said. “You can’t claim—”

“You have been brainwashed into conformity with intellectual nonsense,” the Hierophant said with paternal regret. “Your whole existence has been steeped in religious propaganda. Your memory is imprinted with the face of Caesar and the message ‘In God We Trust.’ Your pledge of allegiance to your totemic flag says ‘One nation under God indivisible.’ Why not say ‘In Satan We Trust,’ for Satan has far more constancy than God. Or ‘One nation, embracing a crackpot occult spook, indivisible except by lust for power—’”

“Stop!” Brother Paul cried. “I cannot listen to this sacrilege!”

The Hierophant nodded knowingly. “So you admit to being the dupe of the organized worldwide conspiracy of religion. Your objectivity exists only so long as the truth does not conflict with the tenets of your cult.”

Brother Paul was angry, but not so angry that he missed the kernel of truth within the religious mockery. This cardboard entity was baiting him, pushing his buttons, forcing him to react as it chose. The Animation was in control, not he himself. He had to recover his objectivity, to observe rather than proselytize, or his mission was doomed.

Brother Paul calmed himself by an effort of will that became minimal once he realized what was happening. “I apologize, Hierophant,” he said, with a fair semblance of calmness. “Maybe I have been misinformed. I will hear you out.” After all, freedom of speech applied to everyone, even those with cardboard minds.

The figure smiled. “Excellent. Ask what you will.”

This was now more difficult than before. Instead of a question, Brother Paul decided to try a statement. Maybe he could gain the initiative and make the Animation react instead; that should be more productive. Obviously there was a mind of some kind behind the facade; the question was,
what
mind?

“You say I can tolerate only that truth which does not conflict with the tenets of my personal religion,” he said carefully. “I’m sure that is correct. But I regard my religion as Truth, and I do my best to ascertain the truth of every situation. I support freedom of speech for every person, including those who disagree with me, and I endorse every man’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is part of what I mean when I salute my country’s flag, and when I invoke God’s name in routine matters.”

“Few nations support these things,” the Hierophant said. “Certainly not the monolithic Church. A heretic is entitled to neither life nor liberty, and no one is entitled to happiness.”

“But happiness is the natural goal of man!” Brother Paul protested, privately intrigued. Now he was baiting the figure! He considered happiness only a part of the natural goal of man; he himself did not crave selfish happiness. Once, perhaps, he had; but he had matured. Or so he hoped.

“The salvation of his immortal soul is the proper goal of man,” the Hierophant said firmly. “Happiness has no part of it.”

“But you said man’s immortal soul was superstition, a mere invention spawned by political—”

“Precisely,” the figure agreed, smiling.

“But then it is all for nothing! All man’s deeds, man’s suffering, unrewarded.”

“You are an apt student.”

Brother Paul shook his head, clearing it. This thing was not going to mousetrap him! “So the destiny of man is—”

“Man must eschew joy, in favor of perpetual mortification.”

“But all basic instincts of man are tied to pleasure. The satisfaction of abating hunger, the comfort of rest after hard labor, the acute rapture of sexual union—”

“These are temptations sponsored by Satan! The ascetic way of life is the only way. The way of least pleasure. A man should feed on bread and water, sleep on a hard cot, and have contact with the inferior sex only for the limited purpose of propagating the species, if at all.”

“Oh, come now!” Brother Paul protested, laughing. “Sex has been recognized as a dual-function drive. Not only does it foster reproduction, it enhances the pleasure of a continuing interpersonal relationship that solidifies a family.”

“Absolutely not!” the Hierophant insisted. “The pleasures of fornication are the handiwork of Satan, and the begetting of a child is God’s punishment for that sin, a lifelong penance.”

“Punishment!” Brother Paul exclaimed incredulously. “If I had a child, I would cherish it forever!” But he wondered whether this were mere rhetoric; he had no experience with children.

The Hierophant frowned. “You are well on the way to eternal damnation!”

“But you said there was no afterlife! How can there be eternal damnation?”

“Repent! Mortify yourself, throw yourself upon the tender mercy of the Lord in the hope that He will not torture you too long. Perhaps after suitably horrendous chastisement, your soul will be purged of its abysmal burden of guilt.”

Brother Paul shook his head. “I am trying very hard to be open and objective, but I find I just can’t take you seriously. And so you are wasting my time. Begone!” He turned away, knowing the figure would dissipate. Maybe he had lost this engagement by calling it off, but he didn’t regret it.

These Animations were fascinating. There was a tremendous potential for physical, intellectual, and spiritual good here, if only it could be properly understood. So far he had not succeeded in doing that. The Hierophant Animation had spoken only a pseudo-philosophy, as shallow as that of a cardboard figure might be expected to be. If he had Animated a lovely woman, would she have been as bad?

A lovely woman. That intrigued him on another plane. Some men considered intellect a liability in a woman, and indeed some supposedly stupid women I had made excellent careers for themselves by keeping their legs open and their mouths closed. This was not really what Brother Paul was looking for, yet the interest was there. Would an Animation woman be touchable, kissable, seducible?—a construct of air, like a demon, a succubus?

He wrenched his speculation away. It was
too
intriguing; maybe he
was
too far on the road to damnation! To utilize a phenomenon like Animation merely to gratify a passing lust! Of course there was nothing wrong with lust; it was God’s way of reminding man that the species needed to be replicated, and it provided women of lesser physical strength with a means to manage otherwise unmanageable men. But lust directed at a construct of air and imagination could hardly serve those purposes. “Get thee behind me, Satan,” he murmured. But even that prayer was useless, for Satan was also the master of buggery: not the type of entity a man would care to have standing near his posterior.

Brother Paul looked at his watch. His time was up; in fact he was already overdue. Why hadn’t the watchers notified him? He must return to the non-Animation area.

But which way was out? Clouds were swirling close; a storm was in the neighborhood. Why hadn’t he noticed it coming? This too should have caused the watchers to—

Suddenly he remembered. They
had
called him— and he had been too preoccupied to notice it consciously. The pastor must have assumed that the signal wasn’t getting through. Still, he might have sent someone in…