Bear, Greg - Petra

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PETRA

By Greg Bear

"God is dead, God is dead .

. . . Perdition! When God dies, you'll know it."

-Confessions of St. Argentine

As near as I can discover, Mortdieu occurred seventy-seven years ago. Learned sons of pure flesh

deny that magic was set loose, or even that the Alternate had gained supreme power. But few people

could deny that God, as such, had died.

All the hinges of our once-great universe fell apart, the axis tilted, cosmic doors swung

shut, and the rules of existence lost their foundations. I have heard wise men speak of the slow

decline, have heard them speculate on the reasons, the process. Where human thought was strong,

reality's sudden quaking was reduced to a tremor. Where human thought was weak, reality

disappeared completely, swallowed by chaos.

With the passing of God's watchful gaze, humankind had to reach out and grab hold of the

unraveling fabric of the world. Those conscious beings left alive those who had had the wits to

keep their bodies from falling apart with the end of the useful constants became the only cohesive

force in the chaos. Imagine that time, if you will:

When every delusion became as real as solid matter. Blinding pain, flaming blood, bones breaking,

flesh powdering, steel flowing like liquid, the sky raining amber. Crowds in the shifting streets,

gathering at intersections, not knowing what to do, trapped by their own ignorance. Their weak

minds could not grab hold. And where human thought gave way, gradually the ancient order of nature

returned, with its own logic, its own way of adapting. People watched, horrified, as city blocks

became forests. When they tried to stop the metamorphosis, their unorganized mentality only

confused things further. With the first faint suspicion that they had all gone mad, the first

crack in their all-too-weak reserves of will, they projected their nightmares. Prodigal crows

perched atop the trees that had once been buildings. Pigs ran through the streets on their hind

legs, pavement rushing to become soil behind them. The forest prevailed over most of the city.

Legend has it that it was the arch existentialist Jansard crucifier of the beloved St. Argentine-

who, realizing his error, discovered that mind and thought could calm the foaming sea of reality.

Most humans were entirely too irrational to begin with. Whole nations vanished or were turned into

incomprehensible whirlpools of misery and depravity.

It is said that certain universities, libraries, and museums survived, but to this day we have

little contact with them.

Our Cathedral survived. Rationality in this neighborhood, however, had weakened some centuries

before Mortdieu, replaced only by a kind of rote. The Cathedral suffered. Survivors-clergy and

staff, worshipers seeking sanctuary-had wretched visions, dreamed wretched dreams. They saw the

stone ornaments of the great church come alive. With someone to see and believe, in a universe

lacking any other foundation, my ancestors shook off stone and became flesh. Centuries of rock

celibacy weighed upon them. Forty-nine nuns who had sought shelter in the Cathedral were

discovered and were not entirely loath, for (so the coarser versions of the tale go) Mortdieu had

had a surprising aphrodisiacal effect on the faithful. Conjugation took place. No definite

gestation period has been established, because at that time the great stone wheel had not been set

twisting back and forth to count the days. Nor had Kronos been appointed to the chair, to watch

over the wheel and provide a baseline for everyday activities. But flesh did not reject stone, and

there came into being the sons and daughters of flesh and stone, including me. Those who had

fornicated with the gargoyles and animals were cast out to raise their

monstrous young in the highest hidden recesses. Those who had accepted the embraces of the stone

saints and other human figures were less abused but were still banished to the upper reaches. A

wooden scaffold was erected, dividing the great nave into two levels. A canvas drop cloth was

fastened over the scaffold, to prevent offal from raining down, and on the second level of the

Cathedral the more human sons of stone and flesh set about creating a new life.

I'm an ugly son of stone and flesh; there's no denying it. I don't remember my mother.

It's possible she abandoned me shortly after my birth. More than likely she is dead. My father-

ugly, beaked, half-winged thing, if he resembles his son-I have never seen.

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