ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 www.ABBYY.cobm y Piers Anthony www.ABBYY.com Tarot Book I: The Miracle Planet Discovered Dedicated to the Holy Order of Vision Author's Note: This quarter-million-word novel of Tarot is published in three segments. This is the opening portion of the larger work, establishing the situation and covering the first major vision. It has its own unity, so may be read alone, though it is hoped the reader will be interested enough to peruse Books II and III also. This novel relates to the author's Cluster series of adventures, with a number of interconnections, but is of quite a different nature; the two projects should not be confused. An appendix defines the Animation Tarot that is the basis of this novel. The complete table of contents reflects the thirty Triumphs of that deck, from Key 0 (zero) through Key 28 (twenty-eight), which are included in the appendix. The complex nature of this novel may lead to confusion in certain places, and some scenes may be offensive to certain readers. Yet there is a rationale: It is difficult to appreciate the meaning of the heights without first experiencing the depths. TABLE OF CONTENTS 0 —Folly (Fool) 1 —Skill (Magician) 2 —Memory (High Priestess) ∞ —Unknown (Ghost) 3 —Action (Empress) 4 —Power (Emperor) 5 —Intuition (Hierophant) 6 —Choice (Lovers) 7 —Precession (Chariot) 8 —Emotion (Desire) Appendix:Animation Tarot ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 www.ABBYY.com www.ABBYY.com 0 Folly In 1170 A.D.,Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant of Lyons, France, suffered a religious conversion, renounced his possessions, and wandered about the countryside in voluntary poverty. This obvious folly attracted both persecutions and followers, the latter called the "poor men of Lyons." In 1183 Pope Lucius III excommunicated the growing sect of "Waldenses," who appealed to the Scriptures instead of to papal authority, repudiated the taking of oaths, and condemned capital punishment. They never made the sign of the cross, as they refused to venerate the torture device on which Christ hung, or the painful and mocking crown of thorns. Nevertheless, the Waldenses prospered in Christian lands; many thousands of them settled in the Cottian Alps on the French-Italian border. Their dauntless missionaries covered southern France, southern Germany and northern Italy. But the Inquisition followed them, and they were savagely repressed over the course of several centuries. Their ministers had to go about in disguise, and it was hazardous for them to carry any of the literature of their faith, lest it betray them into torture and death. But it was hard to make the material clear without teaching aids, for many converts were illiterate and ignorant. Out of this impasse was to arise one of the most significant educational tools of the millennium. The setting is Earth of the near future. The pressures of increasing population and dwindling natural resources have brought the human scheme to the brink of ruin. There is not enough food and energy to support all the people. But a phenomenal technological breakthrough has occurred: matter transmission. People can now be shipped instantly to habitable wilderness planets orbiting distant stars. This seems to offer relief from the dilemma of mankind;now there is somewhere for all those people to go. This leads to the most massive exodus in the history of the species; so many people are leaving that within a decade no one will be left on Earth. Unfortunately, matter transmission requires a tremendous amount of energy. The planet's sources of power are being ravished. This has the peculiar side effect of reversing the technological level of human culture; people are forced to revert to more primitive mechanisms. Kerosene lamps replace electric lights; wood replaces oil; horses replace cars; stone tools replace metal ones. The industrial base of the world is shrinking as the most highly trained and intelligent personnel emigrate to their dream worlds. Yet the colonization program proceeds pell-mell, as such programs and movements have always done, heedless of any warnings of collapse. This is sheer folly. Mankind is like the beautiful dreamer of Tarot's Key 0—the Fool—walking northwest with his gaze lifted in search of great experience while his feet are about to carry him off a precipice. He will have a great experience, oh yes! What high expectations these new worlds represent! What a marvelous goal to reduce Earth's population painlessly to an appropriate level! But what disaster is in the making, because no reasonable controls have been placed on this adventure. Yet there are redeeming aspects. At least the Fool has dreams and noble aspirations, and perhaps the capacity to recognize and choose between good and evil. It may be better to step off the cliff, his way, than to stay at home without ambition. The folly of future Earth is a complex matter, with many very noble and frustrating elements that may after all salvage its greatest potential. This is the story of just one of those elements, a single thread of a monstrous tapestry: Brother Paul's quest for the God of Tarot. 1 Skill 252 A.D.:Emperor Decius was in power only a year, but in this time he cruelly persecuted the bothersome Christians. He seized one devout youth and coated his whole body with honey, then exposed him to the blazing sun and the stings of flies and hornets. Another Christian youth was given the opposite extreme: he was bound hand and foot by ropes entwined with flowers, naked upon a downy bed, in a place filled with the murmuring of water, the touch of soft breezes, the sight of sweet birds, and the aroma of flowers. Then a maiden of exceptionally fair form and feature approached him and bared her lovely flesh, kissing and caressing his body to arouse his manhood and enable her to envelop him in the ultimate worldly embrace. The youth had dedicated his love to God; to suffer this rapture with a mortal woman would have polluted him. He had no weapon with which to defend himself, yet his skill and courage proved equal to the occasion. He bit off his own tongue and spat it in the harlot's face. By the pain of this wound he conquered the temptation of lewdness, and won for himself the crown of spiritual victory. Paul, himself sincerely Christian, witnessed these torments. Terrified, he fled into the desert, where he remained alone in the depths of a cave for the rest of his life. He thus became the first Christian hermit, and was known as Saint Paul the ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 www.ABBYY.coHm ermit. www.ABBYY.com The great blades of the windmill were turning, but the water was not pumping. Only a trickle emerged from the pipe, and the cistern was almost empty. It was a crisis, for this was the main source of pure water for the region. Brother Paul contemplated the situation. "It's either a lowering of the water table or a defect in the pump," he said. "The water table!" Brother James exclaimed, horrified. "We haven't pumped that much!" His concern was genuine and deeply felt; the Brothers of the Holy Order of Vision believed in conservation, and practiced it rigorously. All had taken vows of poverty, and abhorred the wasting of anything as valuable as water. "But there has been a drought," Brother Paul said. Indeed, the sun was blazing down at this moment, although it caused no distress to his brown skin. "We might inadvertently have overpumped, considering this special circumstance." Brother James was a thin, nervous man who took things seriously. His long face worked in the throes of inchoate emotion. "If it be God's will..." Brother Paul noted his companion's obvious anxiety, and relented. "Nevertheless, we shall check the pump first." The pump was a turning cam that transformed the rotary motion of the mill's shaft into piston motion in a rod. The rod plunged down into the well to operate the buried cylinder that forced up the water. Brother Paul brought out plumber's tools and carefully dismantled the mechanism, disconnecting the shaft from the vanes and drawing the cylinder from the depths. His little silver cross, hanging on a chain around his neck, got in his way as he leaned forward. He tucked it into his shirt pocket with a certain absentminded reverence. He sniffed. "I trust that is not hellfire I smell," he remarked. "What?" Brother James was not much for humor. Brother Paul pried open the mechanism. Smoke puffed out. "There it is! Our wooden bearing has scorched and warped, decreasing the pump's efficiency." "Scorched?" Brother James asked, surprised. He seemed much relieved to verify that the problem was mechanical, the result of neither the subsidence of the water level nor the proximity of hellfire. "That's awater pump!" Brother Paul smiled tolerantly. The deepening creases of his face showed that this was an expression in which he indulged often—perhaps more often than was strictly politic for a man of his calling. Yet there was a complementary network of frown-lines that betrayed the serious side of his nature; some of these even hinted at considerable pain. "Not all of it is wet, Brother. This cylinder is sealed. In a high wind, when the shaft is turning rapidly—wind power varies as to the cube of wind velocity, as you know—the bearings can get so hot from friction that they actually begin to char." "We did have very good winds yesterday," Brother James agreed. "Brother Peter arranged to grind flour for a whole week's baking. But we never thought the mill would—" "No fault of yours, Brother," Brother Paul said quickly. "It is quite natural and sensible to use the mill to best effect, and a strong wind makes all its chores easy. This is just one of the problems of our declining technology. I will replace the bearing—but we would be well advised to choke down on the mill during the next gale winds. Sometimes it may be better to waste a little good wind than to lose a bad bearing." He smiled to himself as he worked, considering whether he had discovered an original maxim for life, and whether such a maxim might be worth integrating into his life's philosophy. He fetched a suitable replacement bearing and proceeded to install it. His dark hands were strong and sure. "You are a magician," Brother James remarked. "I envy you your proficiency with mechanical things." "I only wish the spiritual were as easy to attain," Brother Paul replied. Now he was sweating with the pleasant effort. He was a thickset man of moderate height, with short black hair. He was inclined to chubbiness, but his muscles showed formidable delineation as he lifted the heavy unit into place. "Wouldn't it be better to have the pump on the surface, so that it could be serviced more readily?" Brother James asked as Brother Paul struggled with the weight of the descending cylinder. Brother Paul had drawn it up without trouble, but was now occupied with easing it into its precise place. "It would—but we would have no water," Brother Paul explained. "Surface pumps employ suction, which is actually ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 www.ABBYY.cotmhe outside pressure of the atmosphere pushing up the fluid. That's about fifteen pounds per square inch, and that www.ABBYY.com cannot draw water up more than about twenty-eight feet, what with friction and certain other inefficiencies of the system. Our water table is thirty feet down. So we employ a pressure pump set down near the water; that type of device has no such limit. Itis more cumbersome—but necessary." "Yes, I see that now. It is more than harnessing the windmill to the pump; it has to be done the right way." "I suspect it is the same with the power of God," Brother Paul said musingly. "It is there, like the wind:" an immense potential, often ignored or unperceived by man. Yet it is real; we need only take the trouble to understand it. It is our job to harness that potential, to apply it more directly to the lives of men. But though we seem to have all the elements right, it will not work if they are not correctly placed and adapted to our particular situation—or if part of the mechanism is broken, even though nothing may show on the surface." "I don't regard that as an analogy," Brother James said. "It is the literal truth. The wind is God, and so is the water; we can not exist apart from Him. Not for a moment, not in the smallest way." Brother Paul paused in his labors to hold up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "You are correct, of course. Yet there must be a process of communication between the power above—" he lifted his right hand to the sky— "and the substance below." His left hand pointed toward the buried cylinder. "I would call that process 'prayer'," Brother James said. The reassembled pump worked. A full, pure flow of water emerged from the pipe, cascading into the storage tank and cistern. Brother James was ecstatic. Without further comment, Brother Paul walked back to his room, washed his hands, arms and face, and changed to his habit: the black robe with the reversed collar, the cross worn outside. He had a class to conduct, and he was overdue. When dealing with matters pertaining to the works of God on Earth, it was best to be punctual. Suddenly he brightened. "Air, Earth, Water, Fire!" he exclaimed. "Beautiful. Thank you, God, for sending me this revelation." To him there was no objection to conversing with God directly; in this case, familiarity bred respect, not contempt. The Holy Order of Vision encouraged contact with God in any fashion that seemed mutually satisfactory. The students were there before him: five young people from a nearby village. These orientation sessions were held periodically, when sufficient interest developed. As the massive energy and population depletion of Earth continued, the need for technological and social systems closer to nature intensified, so these sessions had become fairly regular. The Brothers and Sisters took turns conducting them, and this was Brother Paul's week. "Sorry I'm late," Brother Paul said, shaking hands all around. "I was delayed, if you will, by a superimposition of elements." One of the girls perked up. She was a slight, bright-eyed nymph with a rather pretty elfin face framed by loose, dark blonde tresses. She seemed to be about fifteen, although inadequate nutrition stunted the growth of youngsters these days, delaying maturity. A month of good feeding might do wonders for her, physically—and perhaps spiritually also. It was hard to be a devout individual on an empty stomach. At least it was hard for those not trained in this kind of discipline. "You mean something by that, don't you, sir?" she asked. "Call me Brother," Brother Paul said. "I am Brother Paul of the Holy Order of Vision. Yes, I had an anecdote in mind, and thank you for inquiring." It was always best to begin on a personal basis; early theology could alienate young minds. He was not trying to convert, but merely to explain; even then, it had to be done appropriately. People were more complex than windmills, but there were parallels. "Big deal," one of the boys muttered. He was a strapping lad, massive across the shoulders, but surly. He had not been stunted by hunger! Evidently he had been sent here, perhaps by parents who could not control him much longer. The Order Station was no reform school, but perhaps he would find enlightenment here. One never could anticipate the mechanisms of God, who was as much more complex in His devices as man was in relation to a windmill. "We have a windmill that we use to pump water from the ground, among other chores," Brother Paul said. "But friction caused a bearing to burn out. Does that suggest anything to any of you?" They all looked blank—three boys, two girls. "In our studies at the Order we place emphasis on the elements," Brother Paul continued. "Not the atomic elements of latter-day science—though we study those, too—but the classical ones. Air, Earth, Water, Fire: we find these manifesting again and again in new ways. They show up in personality types, in astrology, in the Tarot deck—their symbolism is universal. Just now I—" ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 www.ABBYY.co"mThe windmill!" the blonde girl said. "Wind is air! And it pumps water!" www.ABBYY.com "From the earth," one of the boys added. "And it got burned," the surly one finished. "So what?" "The four elements—all together," the first girl said, pleased. She clapped her hands together in un-selfconscious joy. There was, Brother Paul noted, something very attractive about a young girl exclaiming in pleasure; perhaps it was nature's way of getting her married before she became a burden to her parents. "I think it's neat. Like a puzzle." "Whatgood is it?" the hulking boy demanded. "It is an exercise in thinking," Brother Paul said. "As we seek parallels, coincidences, new aspects of things, we find meaning, and we grow. It is good to exercise the mind as well as the body. The ancient Greeks believed in that; hence we have the Pythagorean Theorem and the Olympic Games. We believe in it too. This, in a very real sense, is what the Holy Order of Vision is all about. 'Holy' as in 'Whole,' 'Vision' as in the vision of Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, that converted him to Christianity. He is not to be confused with Saint Paul the Hermit. We are not a church, but rather a brotherhood. We wish to bring together all people, and teach them the Universal Law of Creation, to prepare the Earth for the new age that is dawning. We try to provide for those in need, whatever that need may be, counseling them or offering material aid. We place great emphasis on practical applications—even windmills, in this day of retreating civilization." "Hey, that's great!" the girl said. "Can anybody join?" Bless her; she was doing his job for him! "Anybody who wants to, after a student apprenticeship. We do have levels through which the novice progresses according to his ability and faith, and much of the life is not easy. You really have to understand the Order before you can know whether you want to be a part of it" "Why do you wear the robes and study the Bible and all that?" one of the other boys asked. He was brown-skinned, like Brother Paul: that amalgam of races this culture still chose to term "black." "Can't you just go out and do good without all the trappings?" "An excellent question," Brother Paul said. "You are really exploring the interrelationship of idea and form. A good idea is wasted without the proper form to embody it. For example, an excellent notion for a book would be ruined by clumsy or obscure writing. Or a fine idea for drawing power for the wind comes to nothing if the design of the gearing is inadequate. Perhaps man himself is an idea that exists in the mind of the Creator—yet that idea must achieve its appropriate form. So it is with us of the Holy Order of Vision; we feel that the forms are important, in fact indistinguishable from the basic idea." "That's McLuhanism," the third boy said. He was a white-skinned, black-haired, clean-cut lad a little older than the others, and probably better educated. He had used a word few were now familiar with, testing the knowledge of the teacher. "Not exactly," Brother Paul replied, glad to rise to the challenge. He liked challenges, perhaps more than he should. "The medium may be indistinguishable from the message, but it is not the message. Perhaps other forms of expression would serve our purpose as well, but we have a system that we feel works, and we shall adhere to it until it seems best to change." He closed his eyes momentarily, giving a silent prayer of thanks that the session was proceeding so well. Sometimes he seemed to make no contact at all, but these were alert, responsive minds. "We feel that God has found no better tool than the Bible to guide us, but perhaps one day—" "Crap," the surly boy remarked. "God doesn't exist, and the Bible is irrelevant. It's all superstition." Now the gauntlet had been thrown down. They all watched Brother Paul to see how he would react. They were disappointed. "Perhaps you are right," he said, without rancor. "Skepticism is healthy. Speaking for myself alone, however, I must say that though at times I feel as you do, at other times I am absolutely certain that God is real and relevant. It is a matter for each person to decide for himself—and he is free to do so within the Order. We dictate no religion and we eschew none; we only present the material." There was a chuckle. Brother Paul noted it with dismay, for he had not been trying to score debater's points, but only to clarify the position of the Order. Somehow he had erred, for now his audience was more intrigued by his seeming cleverness than by his philosophy. Disgruntled, the hulking boy pushed forward. "I think you're a fake. You don't want to decide anything for yourself, you just want to follow the Order's line. You're an automaton." "Perhaps so," Brother Paul agreed, searching for a way to alleviate the lad's ire without compromising the purpose of ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 www.ABBYY.cotmhis session. How suddenly success had flipped over into failure! Pride before fall? "You are referring to the conceptwww.ABBYY.com of predestination, and in that sense we are all automatons with only the illusion of self-decision. If every event in the world is precisely determined by existing forces and situations, then can we be said to have free will? Yet I prefer to assume—" "You're a damned jellyfish!" the boy exclaimed. "Anything I say, you just agree! What'll you do if I push you, like this?" And he shoved violently forward with both hands. Only Brother Paul wasn't there. He had stepped nimbly aside, leaving one leg outstretched behind him. The boy stumbled headlong over that leg. Brother Paul caught him and eased him down to the floor, retaining a hold on one of the boy's arms. "Never telegraph your intention," he said mildly. "Even a jellyfish or an automaton can escape such a thrust, and you could be embarrassed." The boy started to rise, his expression murderous. He thought his fall had been an accident. But Brother Paul put just a bit of pressure on the hand he held, merely touching it with one finger, and the boy collapsed in sudden pain. He was helpless, though to the others it looked as though he were only fooling. A one-finger pain hold? Ridiculous! "A little training in the forms can be advantageous," Brother Paul explained to the others. "This happens to be a form from aikido, a Japanese martial art. As you can see, my belief in it is stronger than this young man's disbelief. But were he to practice this form, he could readily reverse the situation, for he is very strong." Never underestimate the power of a gratuitous compliment! "The idea, as I remarked before, is valueless without the form." Now, to see whether he could salvage the situation, he released the boy, who climbed quickly to his feet, his face red, but did not attack again. "Scientific application of anything can be productive," Brother Paul continued, "whether it is aikido or prayer." He faced the boy. "Now you try it on me." "What?" The youth had been caught completely by surprise—again. "Like this," Brother Paul said. "I shall come at you like this—" and he took an aggressive step forward, his right fist raised. "But you turn away from me and place your left foot back like this in the judo tai otoshi body drop—" He guided the boy around and got his feet placed. "Then catch my shirt and project your right foot before me like this, right across my shins. See how your body drops into position? That's why this throw is called the body drop." He more or less lifted the boy into position with a strength that was not evident to the others, but that the boy felt with amazement. "And because I am plunging forward, my feet trip over your leg while you haul my shirt—" It was not a shirt, but the loose front part of his habit, but the effect was the same. "And I am completely offbalanced and take a bad fall." Brother Paul flipped expertly over the leg and landed crashingly on his back and side, his left hand smacking into the straw mat the Station used in lieu of a rug. The boy stood amazed, and the other four jumped in alarm. They did not know Brother Paul was adept at taking such falls, or that the noise was mostly from his hand slapping the mat to absorb much of the shock of landing. The muscular, bony arms and hands are much better able to take blows than the torso. "And if that doesn't do the job, you use hand pressure or an arm twist to keep me quiet." Brother Paul got up, and the boy moved to help him, fearing that he had been hurt. There was no longer any animosity. "Did you studythat here?" the brown boy asked, awed. "Among other things," Brother Paul said. "Sometimes it is necessary for members of the Order to subdue someone who is temporarily, ah, indisposed. We do not approve the use of weapons, as they can hurt people severely, but the barehanded methods of self-defense or control—" He shrugged, smiling toward the formerly surly youth. "As you can see, he brought me down without hurting me." They all returned his smile, and he knew it was all right again. God had guided him correctly. "Of course you do not have to join the Holy Order of Vision to receive such instruction. All of our courses in defense, reading, hygiene, farming, mechanics, figuring, and weaving are available to anyone who has the necessary interest and aptitude." He smiled again. "We can even be persuaded to teach a class or two in the appreciation of religion." The blonde girl let out a titter of appreciation. "Do you teach that class, Brother?" Brother Paul looked down. "I regret I lack the finesse or scholarship for that particular class. I am working on it, though, and in a few years I hope to be equipped." He looked up. "I thank you all for your attention to this introductory lecture. Now I will show you around the Station." He sniffed the air. "I believe Brother Peter is completing his baking. Perhaps we can pass the kitchen and sample his wares. To my mind there is nothing quite so good as bread hot from the stone oven with a little home-churned—" But another Brother appeared. "The Reverend wishes to see you immediately," he murmured. "I will conduct the tour ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 www.ABBYY.coimn your stead." www.ABBYY.com Oh-oh. Was he in trouble again? Thank you, Brother Samuel." Brother Paul started out. "What would you like to see first?" Brother Samuel asked the group. As Brother Paul passed out through the doorway, he heard one of them answer, "The body drop." He smiled to himself, for poor Brother Samuel had a chronically stiff back and no training at all in the martial arts. But the delicious odor wafting from the bakery would rescue him, for young people were always hungry. As he made his way to the Reverend's office, his thoughts became more sober. Had he done the right thing by this group, or had he merely been clever, impressing more by his physical power and rhetorical humor than by worthwhile information? It was so hard to know! 2 Memory 705 A.D.:The daughter of an English missionary in Germany had such a genius for learning and seeming piety that she was elevated to the papal throne as John VII. Though in the guise of a male, she was—alas— female, and therefore, a vessel of iniquity. Yielding to her base female urges, she admitted a member of her household to her bed, and suffered that demonic fulfillment of her kind. In 707, during the course of a solemn Whitsun procession through the streets of Rome in the company of her clergy, at a point between the Colosseum and St. Clement's church, she who would become known as Pope Joan was delivered of a bastard son. The Popess was thus exposed as a harlot disguised as a priest. The story has, of course, been suppressed by the Church and labeled a myth, but there are those who remember it yet. This is the message of Key Two of the Tarot, entitled "The Lady Pope." Is it not, after all, a true reflection of the nature of the sex. Brother Paul walked past the luxurious vegetable gardens of the Station toward the office of the Reverend. It was a fine summer day. He hoped he had performed well, but he hummed nervously as he moved. The sight of the Reverend's countenance solidified the doubts hovering about him. Some very serious matter was afoot, and he feared he had erred again. While discipline within the Order was subtle, Brother Paul had made many mistakes and done much internal penance. The Reverend rose as he entered, and came forward to greet him. "It is good to see you, Paul. You have done well." Glad words! So it was not one of his foul-ups, this time. "I try to do as the Lord decrees, Mother Mary," he said modestly, concealing his relief. "Umph," the Reverend Mother agreed. She did not sit down, but paced nervously around the office. "Paul, a crisis of decision is upon us, and I must do a thing I do not like. Forgive me." Something serious was certainly afoot! He studied her before he answered, trying to judge the appropriate response. The Reverend Mother Mary was actually a young woman no older than himself, whose meticulous Order habit could not conceal her feminine attributes or render her sexless. She wore her dark brown hair parted down the middle, cupped to conceal her ears on either side, and pinned firmly in back—yet it framed her face like a mystical aura. Her reversed white collar clasped a very slender white neck, and her cross hung squarely on her bosom. Her robe was so long it touched the floor, concealing her feet. Occasionally it rippled and dragged behind her as she turned. Her personality, he knew, was sweet and open; she was severe only in dire necessity. It would have been all too easy to love her as a pretty girl, had it not been essential to love her as a responsible woman and a fellow human being. And, of course, as the Reverend. So it was best to allow her to unburden herself without concern for his feelings, which in any case were not easily hurt. Obviously she believed that what she had to say would cause him distress, and perhaps it would—but he was sure he could bear it. "Please speak freely, Mother." The Reverend stepped to her desk and seemed almost to pounce on something there. "Take these, if you will," she said, proffering a small box. Brother Paul accepted it. He had almost to snatch it, because her hand was shaking. Though her competence and position made her "Mother," at times she was more like a little girl, uncertain to the point of embarrassment. It had occurred to him before that an older person might have been better suited to the office of Reverend. But there were many Stations, and age was not the primary consideration. ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 www.ABBYY.coHm e looked into the box. It contained a deck of Tarot cards, in its fashion the symbolic wisdom of all the ages. www.ABBYY.com She seated herself now, as though relieved of a burden. "Please shuffle them." Brother Paul removed the deck from the box and spread several cards at the top of the deck. They were in order, beginning with the Fool, or Key Zero, and proceeding through the Magician, the High Priestess (also called the Lady Pope), the Empress, the Emperor, and so on through the twenty-two Trumps or Major Arcana and the fifty-six suit cards, or Minor Arcana. The suits were Wands, Cups, Swords, and Disks, corresponding to the conventional Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds, or to the elements Fire, Water, Air and Earth. Each was a face card, beautifully drawn and colored. He had, like all Brothers and Sisters of the Order, studied the Tarot symbolism, had high respect for it, and was well-acquainted with the cards. One of the Order's exercises was to take black-and-white originals and color them according to instructions. This was no child's game; it was surprising how much revelation was inherent in this act. Color, like numbers and images, served a substantial symbolic purpose. While he pondered, his fingers riffled the cards with an expertise that belied his ascetic calling. He had not always been a Brother, but like the Apostle Paul to whom he owed his Order name, he had set his savage prior life behind him. Only as a necessary exercise of contrition did he reflect upon the mistakes of his past. One day—when he was worthy—he hoped to seal that Pandora's box completely. He completed the shuffle and returned the deck to the Reverend. "Was the question in your mind the nature of my concern with you?" the Reverend inquired, holding the cards in her delicate fingers. Brother Paul inclined his head affirmatively. It was a small white lie, since his thoughts had ranged in their unruly fashion all around the deck. Of course he had wondered why he was here; he had not been summoned from the midst of his class merely for chitchat! Still, a white liewas a lie. "Let us try a reading," she said. How quickly he paid for his lie! Her intent had been obvious when she gave him the deck; how could he have missed it? "I'm afraid I—" "No, I am serious. The Tarot is a legitimate way to approach a problem—especially in this case. Let this define you." She dealt the first card, careful to turn it over side-wise rather than end-over-end, so as not to reverse it, while Brother Paul concealed his agitation. He had made a foolish mistake that was about to cause them both embarrassment. He tried to think of some reasonable pretext to break up this reading, but all that came into his mind was a sacrilegious anecdote about Pope Joan, personification of the Whore of Babylon, epithet for the Roman Catholic Church. Such a thought was scandalous in the presence of the Reverend Mother Mary, who was completely chaste. Unless she had summoned him here to— No, impossible! A completely unworthy concept for which he would have to impose self- penance! The card was the Ace of Wands, the image of a hand emerging from a cloud, bearing a sprouting wooden club. "Amazing," the Reverend remarked. "This signifies the beginning of a great new adventure." A great new adventure—with her? He tried hard to stifle the notion, fiendishly tempting as it was! In that moment he wished she were eighty years old, with a huge, hairy wart on her nose. Then his thoughts would behave. "Well, I must explain—" "Shall we try the second?" She dealt another card from the top of the deck. She was feeling more at ease now; the cards were helping her to express herself. "Let this cross you," she said, placing the card sideways across the first. May God have mercy! he thought fervently. She looked at the second card, startled. "The Ace of Cups!" "You see, I—I—" Brother Paul stammered. The Reverend frowned. She was one of those women who looked even sweeter in dismay than in pleasure, if such a thing were possible. Silently she laid down the third card. It was the Ace of Swords. Then the fourth: the Ace of Corns. In each case, a hand was pictured emerging from a cloud, bearing the appropriate device. Her gray-green eyes lifted to bear on him reproachfully. "I did not realize what you intended," Brother Paul explained lamely. "I—old habits—I did not intend to embarrass you." No doubt Dante's Inferno had a special circle for the likes of him! ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 www.ABBYY.coMm other Mary took a deep breath, then smiled—a burst of sunlight. "I had forgotten that you were once a cardsharp."www.ABBYY.com She glanced down at the four aces and made a moue. "Still are, it seems." "Retired," Brother Paul said quickly. "Reformed." "I should hope so." She gathered up the cards. "I'll shuffle them again, the right way," he offered. She made a minor gesture of negation. "The wrong is the teacher of the right." But the ice had been broken. "Paul, it does not matterhow you shuffled, so long as you formulated the correct question." And of course he hadnot formulated it; he had been full of idle notions about the deck, Pope Joan, and such. His face was a mere shell, papering over the disaster of his mind. "You are indeed about to embark on a remarkable new adventure—if you so choose." Suddenly he realized that his penance would be to go on this mission, no matter how onerous it might prove. Today's declining civilization provided a number of most unpleasant situations. "I go where directed," Brother Paul said. "Not this time. I cannot send you on this particular round, and neither can the Order. You must volunteer for it. Knowing you as I do, I am sure you will volunteer, and therefore I am responsible." She looked up to the ceiling of rough-hewn logs. She was, he knew, making a quick, silent prayer. "I fear for you, Paul, and my soul suffers." The eternal feminine! A mission had found its way down through the Order hierarchy, and she was upset because he might accept it. This was no mere rhetoric on her part; now one hand clutched the Tarot deck lightly, and now the other touched her cross. He had never seen her so tense before. It was as if she were the one with the guilty imagination, not he! "We all go where needed," he said. "Yet some needs are stronger than others," the Reverend murmured, her eyes lifting to meet his again, her face dead serious. What could she mean by that? "It is Hell I am sending you to, Brother." Brother Paul did not smile. He had never heard language like this from her! Of course she was not swearing; she would never do that. When she said Hell, the capitalization was audible, as it was for the Tarot; she meant the abode of the Devil. "Figurative, I trust?" "Literal, Paul. And the returning will be harder than the going." "It would be. Especially if it is necessary to die first." Was he being cute, implying that he might return to life, like Jesus? He had not meant to! She did not smile. "No. Like Dante, you will be a living visitor. Perhaps you will see Heaven too." "I don't think I'm ready for that." This time he was completely serious. Heaven awed him more than Hell did. This had to be a really extraordinary thing she was describing! The Reverend shook her head nervously, so that for an instant the lobe of one ear showed, like a bit of forbidden anatomy. "I am caught between the pillars of right and wrong, and I cannot tell them apart." She turned away from him; he had not realized that her chair could swivel. "Paul, I am required to present this to you as a prospective mission—but speaking as a Sister, as a friend, I must urge you to decline. It is not merely that it would sadden me never to see you again—though I do fear this, for no tangible reason—it is that this mission is a horror. A horror!" "Now I am intrigued," Brother Paul said, his own apprehensions fading as hers increased. "May I learn more?" "As much as we know," she said. "We have been asked to send our best qualified representative to Planet Tarot to ascertain the validity of its deity. A strong man, not too old, not too firmly committed to a single ideology, with a good mind and a fine sense of objectivity. You would seem to be that man." Brother Paul ignored the compliment, knowing it was not intended as such. "Planet Tarot?" "As you know, Earth has colonized something like a thousand habitable worlds in the current matter transport program. One of these is named Tarot, and there is a problem there." "Hell, you said. I understood they did not send colonists to inclement habitats. If this planet is so hellish—" "I did not say hellish, Paul. I said literal Hell. And the road to—" "Oh, I see. It looked habitable, in the preliminary survey." "Their surveyors must be overextended. How they managed to approve this particular planet—!"The Reverend ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 www.ABBYY.coMm other made a gesture of bafflement. "Its very name—" www.ABBYY.com "Yes, I am curious about that too. Most of the names are publicity-minded. 'Conquest,' 'Meadowland,' 'Zephyr'—how did they hit upon a name like Tarot'?" "It seems a member of the survey party had a Tarot deck along. And while he waited at the base camp for his fellows to return, he dealt himself a divination hand. And—" She paused. "And something happened." "It certainly did. He—the card—the illustration on one of his cards took form. In three-dimensional animation." Brother Paul's interest intensified. He had Had experience with both sleight-of-hand and hallucinatory phenomena. "Had he been drinking an intoxicant?" She shook her head. "They claim not. No alcohol, no drugs, no mushrooms or glue or extract of lettuce. That was why he happened to be entertaining himself with cards. And the other members of the party saw the animation." "No hallucination, then. But possibly a practical joke?" "No. No joke." "Which card was it?" "The Ten of Swords." Brother Paul refrained from whistling, contenting himself with a grave nod. "Signifying ruin! Was it a literal image?" "It was. Ten tall swords piercing a corpse. All quite solid." "That should have shaken up the party!" "It certainly did. They pulled out the swords and turned over the body. It was a man, but none they recognized. No one was missing from their crew. They buried him, saved the swords, and wrote up a report" "Tangible evidence. That was smart." "Not so smart. When they arrived on Earth, the objects they claimed were swords were merely so many slivers of stone, like stalactites from a cave. A second party, sent to verify the situation, dug up the body— and found only the carcass of a native animal." "Mass hallucination?" Brother Paul suggested. "They killed an animal and thought it was a man? Because of fatigue and guilt—or because its configuration resembled that particular card? Stalactites are a bit like swords." "That was the official conclusion." She paused, then girded herself to continue. "The second party brought Tarot cards and played many games, this time in the line of business, but there was no duplication of the effect. Apparently the first crew had been overworked and short on sleep, while the second was fresh. So they named the planet Tarot and approved it for colonization." "Just like that?" Brother Paul inquired, raising an eyebrow. "Just like that," the Reverend Mother said wryly, forgetting herself so far as to raise her own eyebrow in response. "They had a quota of planets to survey, and could not afford to waste time, as they put it, 'wild ghost chasing.'" "How much is lost through haste!" Brother Paul remarked. But he felt a growing excitement and gratitude that this mystery had come to pass. Wild ghosts? He certainly would like to see one! "Colonization proceeded in normal fashion," she continued. "One million human beings were shipped in the course of forty days, assigned to initial campsites with wilderness reduction equipment, and left to fend for themselves. Only the monthly coordination shuttle maintained contact. Colonization is," she commented with a disapproving frown, "somewhat of a sink-or-swim situation." "Without doubt," Brother Paul agreed. "Yet the great majority of emigrants have been happy to risk it—and most seem to be swimming." "Yes." She shrugged. "It is not the way I would have chosen—but the decision was hardly mine to make. At any rate, the colonists settled—and then the fun began." "More Tarot animations?" "No, not specifically. These animations were of Heaven—and of Hell. I mean the storybook Pearly Gates, with angels flying by, and harpists sitting on clouds. Or the other extreme—fiery caves with red, fork-tailed devils with