Piers Anthony - Tarot 3 - Faith of Tarot

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Faith of Tarot by Piers AnthonyPiers Anthony
Faith of Tarot
Book III: The Miracle Planet Revealed
Dedicated to the Holy Order of Vision
Acknowledgments
A HISTORY OF THE BIBLE, copyright © 1959 by Fred Gladstone Bratton. Published by
Beacon Press. Used by permission of the publisher.
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL AND THE IDEA OF EVIL, copyright © 1974 by Paul Cams.
Published by Crown Publishers. Used by permission of the publisher.
NO LAUGHING MATTER: RATIONALE OF THE DIRTY JOKE (Second Series), copyright ©
1975 by G. Legman. Distributed by Breaking Point, Inc. Used by permission of the
author.
The author wishes to thank J. W. Drought for the passage reproduced here from
his novel, THE SECRET, published by Skylight Press, Norwalk, Connecticut, 1963.
Author's Note:
This is the concluding volume in the three-part novel of Tarot. The first
volume, God of Tarot, presented the challenge of finding God, and developed the
character of the protagonist, Brother Paul of the Holy Order of Vision. The
second volume, Vision of Tarot, explained the religious background of the quest,
including the graphic reenactment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Though the
present volume is a unified tour of Hell, the novel should be more intelligible
and meaningful if the reader goes through the prior two volumes. For those who
are unable or unwilling to do so, here is a summary of the salient aspects:
Brother Paul is sent to Planet Tarot by his superior, the Reverend Mother Mary,
to discover whether the Deity manifesting there is or is not God. He finds
numerous schismatic religions there who also need to know the truth, so that
they can unite and survive the rigors of colony life. He is the guest of the
Reverend Siltz of the Second Church Communist, whose son wishes to marry
Jeanette, a Scientologist; Siltz is strongly opposed. Brother Paul encounters
the lovely woman Amaranth, who worships the snake-footed god Abraxas and seeks
constantly to seduce Brother Paul. He is befriended by the Mormon Lee and the
devil-worshiper Therion, who become his Good and Bad Companions in the visions,
leading him respectively toward improvement or mischief. He discovers he has a
daughter, Carolyn, as yet unborn but whom he loves deeply. All parts are played
by Planet Tarot colonists. They encounter the monster Bigfoot, and participate
in a series of playlike scenes, seeking truth yet failing to resolve the issue.
Brother Paul concludes that only by knowing himself, putting himself to the
ultimate test, can he find God. He decides to visit his own, personal Hell—and
his companions elect to accompany him, even there.
Volume III, Faith of Tarot, commences with the group's descent. Portions of this
narrative may be objectionable to some readers. Hell is not a nice place.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Violence: Triumph 20
II. Revelation: Triumph 21
III. Hope/Fear: Triumph 22
IV. Deception: Triumph 23
V. Triumph: Triumph 24
VI. Reason: Triumph 25
VII. Decision: Triumph 26
VIII. Wisdom: Triumph 27
IX. Completion: Triumph 28
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Appendix: Animation Tarot
I
Violence: 20
When Jesus Christ was crucified, Governor Pontius Pilate assigned Roman soldiers
to stand guard. One of these soldiers, named Longinus, had a malady of the eyes.
When Jesus died, Longinus took a spear and pierced his side, verifying his
death. Blood ran down the shaft of the spear, and a drop of it got on the
soldier's eyes. Immediately they were healed. This, combined with certain other
signs occurring at the time of Jesus' death—the darkening of the sun and quaking
of the earth—caused Longinus to be convinced that Jesus was indeed the Son of
God, and the soldier was converted to the Christian faith. He gave up the
military life, studied with the Apostles, and became a monk. Many years later he
was brought before the Governor because he refused to sacrifice to idols. He was
subjected to torture; his tongue was cut off and his teeth torn out. But
Longinus took an axe and smashed the idols, his brazen act calculated, as though
to say "If these be gods, let them show themselves!" Demons came out of the
idols and took over the bodies of the Governor and his aids, and the Governor
became blind. He then had Longinus beheaded. But after, he fell down before the
corpse, and wept, and did penance. His sight returned. Thereafter, he did good
works.
They stood in a hollow in the ground ringed by hugely twisted oaks. The full
moon illuminated the tops but hardly penetrated to the ground. It was a
beautiful but hauntingly evil setting.
"There were these two devils," Therion remarked. "And the little one said 'I'm
tired of being the lesser of two evils!' " No one laughed.
Slowly an opacity formed from the shadow, and this shaped into the walls of a
building—a single large room with bench pews at one end and an ornate stone
altar at the other. A church.
But what a church! The cross on the altar was upside down, and crooked at that,
with a crack traversing it. The stained glass windows seemed to be smeared with
drying blood and formed pictures of obscene sexual acts involving satyrs, plump
women, and pigs. Beyond the altar was a sculpture of the Virgin Mary, one breast
dangling tubularly, masturbating the infant Jesus. A monstrous pentacle enclosed
the altar and a goodly portion of the floor, including several of the pews. It
was a five pointed star, the extremities symbolizing the five projections of the
human body, the five senses of man, and the five elements of nature. Everything
was wrong, profane, or disgusting—calculated to be the reverse of normal
religious procedure. As it had to be. For this was to be the Black Mass, the
infernal ceremony through which they would summon Satan.
Brother Paul felt a shiver go down the outsides of his arms. Did he really want
to go through with this? No question about it: he did not! He had known what he
thought was ultimate horror in his first Animation, the horror of personal
degradation—only to suffer worse horror in the second. This was the third, and
it would surely be the worst if he survived it at all. Yet—he had to do it not
only for the sake of his mission, but, ironically, for his personal
satisfaction. He had to know himself—whatever that self might be. Only then
could he hope to know God.
He wore a black cape embroidered with Satanic symbols and serpents, hanging open
in front to expose his genitals, for he wore no underclothing. The congregation
was grotesquely masked with some individuals being in complete animal costumes.
The acolytes were naked young men whose lingering glances tended to rest on each
other's posteriors: blatant sodomists. They swung censers that reeked of
marijuana, opium, and worse.
The high priest stepped up to the altar. His robe, like Brother Paul's was open;
unlike Brother Paul, he had an erection augmented by Animation to inhuman
magnitude. It was of course Therion. Under his direction, members of the
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congregation lifted a mattress to the top of the altar, covering it with a dirty
black drape.
"Let the ceremony begin," Priest Therion said sonorously. "Virgin—dispose
thyself."
Amaranth came forward, diffidently. The animal congregation began a chant whose
words were indistinguishable—because the litany was being recited backward. She
wore a fetching gown similar in respects to the nightgown she had used as Sister
Beth: the material was sheer and tended to fall open at key locations, exposing
portions of her lush anatomy. Brother Paul was no longer so naive as to suppose
such offerings were accidental; she liked to put her torso on display. And he,
male that he was, liked to see it thus. Now she did a little dance, removing
films of material from here and there and flinging them away in the manner of a
cheap strip-tease artist. Slowly her bouncing breasts came into full view and
her flexing thighs.
"I would rather have made a try for Heaven," Lee muttered beside him.
Brother Paul knew what he meant. But imperfect man had no chance to achieve
Heaven directly; first he had to settle with Hell. On this they more or less
agreed. Brother Paul had gone to Lee's Hell to fetch him out; now Lee was coming
to Brother Paul's Hell to help in whatever way he could. This was the nature of
friendship.
Amaranth disposed of the last item of apparel and danced naked. She was such a
splendid figure of a woman with her generally slender body blessed by full
breasts and buttocks that Brother Paul had trouble with his posture. If only he
had more concealment for his crotch!
"Marvelously protean flesh," Lee said, and Brother Paul realized that this was
Antares' thought. The amoebic alien naturally appreciated flexibility, tubular
elongations, and jellylike quiverings of anatomy.
The congregation acknowledged her beauty with a medley of snorts, growls,
grunts, groans, and animalistic howls. Several males rubbed their crotches
suggestively, making bucking motions with their hips, while the females tittered
rudely.
Brother Paul felt his temper rising. How was he to stand here and tolerate this
indignity to the woman he loved? (Loved! How had that term entered his mind! He
might be tempted by her, but not...) Yet she was doing it voluntarily—and doing
it to assist his own mission. For this was the way, according to Therion, to
find Satan most swiftly and surely—and Therion was the expert in such matters.
If this were the worst of the indignities he, Brother Paul, had to suffer here,
he was well off.
Amaranth walked languorously to the altar and picked up two burning candles
there. Brother Paul knew they were made from human fat. Holding one candle in
each hand, she carefully seated herself up on the altar, then leaned slowly back
to lie upon it, face up. Her head rested on a pillow inscribed with Satanic
designs, and her arms spread wide to either side to support the guttering
candles. They gave off an odor like cooking meat, making Brother Paul's stomach
roil unpleasantly. Her legs spread wide, dangling off the edge of mattress and
altar so that her vagina lay open to public view. Brother Paul tried to keep his
eyes away from the moist aperture, but they strayed back. He bit his tongue,
fighting off the reaction that his open robe would advertise to the entire
congregation.
The acolytes brought sacramental wafers stolen from a legitimate church, and
sour wine that looked distressingly like diluted blood. The Priest held the
wafers above Amaranth's body and pronounced a ringingly profane curse upon them.
He handed them back for distribution to the congregation, then bent down and
kissed the girl resoundingly between her legs.
Brother Paul started forward, but Lee restrained him. "It is the ritual," he
cautioned. "It is an abomination—yet the road to Hell is paved with
abominations, as we well knew before we made this compact."
"And the angel of Hell enjoys every one of them!" Brother Paul pronounced
through gritted teeth. But his friend was right: this had to be suffered. Had he
expected an easy route to the Infernal Region?
The congregation accepted the wafers and wine, but neither ate nor drank. They
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threw the wafers down on the floor, trampled on them, and poured the wine on
top. "Jesus Christ eats shit!" someone yelled, and Brother Paul flinched,
remembering the terrible crucifixions of the Savior. "Fuck the Virgin Mary!"
"Words mean little—either of worship or condemnation," Lee murmured. "The
Satanists overrate the significance of external expressions. Neither Jesus nor
his mother can be touched by the likes of these."
And that of course was correct. This infernal ceremony was valid only to the
extent Brother Paul allowed it to touch him, like Voodoo magic. Let the demons
curse; they were only advertising their own powerlessness.
Priest Therion raised a benign right hand, very like the Hierophant he once had
been. His left hand fingered his penis. Brother Paul was reminded of the Spanish
obscenity: "You irritate my penis!" in lieu of the English "You are a pain in
the ass!" Evidently Therion irritated his own penis. "All in good time," Therion
said, responding to the cries of the congregation.
"They shall pay—in good time," Lee murmured in a deadly low tone. It was evident
that despite his encouragement to Brother Paul, he could not avoid being moved
himself.
Now the members of the congregation opened their costumes and urinated on the
mash of wafers and wine. "Piss in the mouth of God!" one bawled, then jumped as
the woman behind him gave him a playful one-fingered goose in the rectum.
The Priest bestowed another juicy kiss on the Virgin's vagina, then rose,
smacking his lips. "Fill the Grail," he said.
The acolytes scraped up a mound of urine-wafer mash and dumped it into a huge
dirty chalice. Therion took this chamber pot of a Grail, gestured obscenely over
it, and lo! it was a human baby. "Celebrant, come forward," he cried.
"That's me," Brother Paul said glumly. "Last time I traveled his road, I
regretted it..."
"It is only ritual," Lee reminded him. "Profanity, nudity, urine—these can harm
you only if you yield to them. Keep your mind pure, your intent honorable, and
all the fiendish powers of Satan are futile."
Good advice! Brother Paul stepped forward.
Therion held the baby out to him. "Place this innocent infant on the belly of
the Virgin, slit its throat, and catch the blood in the chalice," he instructed.
"Here is the sacrificial knife; here is the cup. You must do it well, or Satan
will not come." And he gave his standing penis another jerk with one hand
momentarily freed for the purpose to show that there was also a sexual
connotation to his statement. When Satan came, he came.
Brother Paul froze, appalled despite his preparation. "I can't do that!" he
cried. "I can't kill—"
Therion frowned, looking truly demoniac. "Oh, come on, Paul," he said under his
breath. "It's not really a baby, you know; it's a puppy. An animal. A living
sacrifice for Satan. See?" And for a moment Brother Paul glimpsed the little
beast, its tail curled tightly between its legs. "Don't be a fool. Go along with
the gag."
The shape of the baby reappeared. So it was illusion! He should have anticipated
that. After all, he had seen it change from chalice to infant. But was it right
to kill a dog?
"Come on," Therion urged. "You're holding up the show. Do you think it's any
worse than butchering a swine for bacon?"
Was it any worse? How many times had Brother Paul eaten of the flesh of animals?
A thousand? Ten thousand? For each such meal, some animal, somewhere, had had to
die. He would be a hypocrite to balk now.
He took the baby and set it on the soft white tummy of the Virgin. Virgin? How
could she be after his liaison with her in the Castle of the Seven Cups two
Animations ago? Yet he could not be sure about that, since Therion had—
He shook off the ugly thought, as he always did, and accepted the knife and
chalice. This was horrible, but it represented his rite of passage. If he could
eat the flesh of an animal killed for him, he should be able to kill an animal
himself.
"Daddy." Brother Paul paused, thinking he had heard someone speak. But the
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screaming encouragement of the congregation drowned out all else. He must have
imagined it. He hefted the knife, seeing a shaft of pale moonlight glint from
its cruel blade.
The baby opened its eyes and looked at him. And abruptly Brother Paul recognized
it. "Carolyn!" he breathed.
No—that was impossible. She was at least ten years old by this time, assuming
the Animations progressed chronologically. No baby! And as a colonist she was
twelve, verging on nubility. So this had to be a false identification, perhaps a
figment of his own balking mind.
He gripped the knife with sweaty fingers and raised it to the tiny throat. It
wasn't really her throat, but that of a puppydog. Merely illusion—
He froze again. Illusion? If Therion could make a puppy resemble a human baby,
why couldn't he make a baby resemble a puppy? Or a young girl resemble a baby?
Whose throat was he cutting?
Again he remembered that episode at the Castle when he had grabbed the naked
Amaranth—and later looked in the window and seen Therion standing where the girl
had supposedly been. Had Therion made himself resemble Amaranth, and—
"Get on with it!" Therion said through gritted teeth. "The natives are getting
restive. Do you want to ruin everything?"
Brother Paul had gone along before—and regretted it profoundly ever since. Was
he so much the fool that he could be destroyed twice by the same magic? How much
worse a deed was he being guided to this time by the Evil Companion?
"Now! Therion cried, his desperation such that even his penis lost elevation.
Now Brother Paul was sure. He dropped the knife and lifted his daughter from the
stomach of the Virgin. "What in Hell are you trying to do?" he demanded with no
profanity.
"Fool!" Therion cried. "It is too late to stop it now. Satan is coming!" He
snatched at the baby, but Brother Paul drew aside, using his judo balance, and
stepped out of the way with her in his arms.
Now the congregation, balked of its expectation, became a ravening mob. With an
animal roar it charged forward.
Brother Paul set the child down behind him and braced himself for devastating
action. He had in his hands the skill to maim and kill, rapidly, and if that was
what this horde really wanted—
"No, Paul!" Lee cried.
And Brother Paul understood. Lee was not concerned for the welfare of the mob;
he was cautioning Brother Paul. Once before he had yielded to Temptation—by
doing its will in the name of opposing it. That had been the path to ruin.
Instead, his model had to be Jesus Christ: to preserve his own values regardless
of the threat.
He stood firm, his arm about the child—and it was as if an aura surrounded him,
a shining light, impervious. The rabble broke against this shield and was
rebuffed.
"Damnation!" Therion cried. "Satan is coming; He must have His blood! There is
only one chance remaining—and I'll have to do it myself!" He grimaced as though
contemplating an act so horrible that even he had to nerve himself for it.
Therion stalked up to the altar, a hand on his phallus. The Virgin still lay
there, holding the two burning candles. Therion positioned himself between her
legs and lowered his boom, orienting on her exposed vagina. "I hate this," he
said. "I'd rather crap on her face. But this has to be according to form."
Brother Paul started forward—but again Lee cautioned him. "You have won—don't
throw it away now! What means most to you?"
And Brother Paul realized: the life of his daughter was more important than the
virginity of his girlfriend. He stood firm.
Therion closed his eyes, bared his teeth as though before a firing squad, then
steeled himself with a hearty oath and rammed his member home. Amaranth gave out
a gasp of amazement and dropped the candles; evidently she had anticipated only
another genital kiss. But it was too late for any meaningful protest on her
part; she had already been speared. There was a spray of blood: her maidenhead,
its rupture augmented by Animation.
The mob went wild again. It dissolved into a swearing scramble of bodies.
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Clothing was ripped off. Men fornicated frantically with women, genitally,
orally and anally, and those who could not get hold of female anatomy rapidly
enough plunged with equal fervor into the orifices of whatever was within range.
It was an incredible orgy of lust, imperative and insatiable. One woman came up
from the heap with something bloody dangling from her mouth: a bitten-off penis.
Some of the congregation, it now developed, really were animals; a billy goat
was mounting a sprawled woman while two men attempted to penetrate the animal's
rectum simultaneously.
The whole demoniac church shuddered. Smoke issued from vents around the
perimeter of the pentacle. But the mob paid no attention. Every person was too
busy slaking his, her, or its drug-loosed, beastly passion. All except Brother
Paul, Lee, and Carolyn.
Therion was still performing his sacrifice at the altar, shoving ex-Virgin and
mattress askew in his grim determination to complete the ritual properly.
"Disgusting!" he muttered. "But I can't let it faze me! I must ejaculate the
Offering though the Gorgon petrify me!" And he strove ever harder against the
impotence that threatened him.
Amaranth was trying to scramble to her feet, but could not get them under her
before he left off his efforts. "What the Hell are you talking about?" she
demanded, her surprise, confusion, and pain turning to anger as she began to
comprehend exactly what he was talking about.
Therion stiffened with a climactic effort, then slowly relaxed in place. Then,
in an amazed afterthought: "I did it! I really did it! I conquered the gaping
monster! I prevailed over Manifest Castration itself! Only Satan could have
brought me through that horror!"
"That horror!" Amaranth exclaimed, furious. "Get away from me, you fairy!"
And Brother Paul understood also. To certain homosexuals, the female genital
region was the terrifying proof of the reality of castration, for where there
should be a penis and testicles was only a slash like that left by a knife. The
awful Sword had removed everything! Such people had constantly to reassure
themselves by dealing only with those who remained unmutilated: other males.
Homosexuality was Hell.
"But do you know," Therion added with even greater amazement, "I think I liked
it!" The man had, in his fashion, just been tested as crucially as Lee had been
in Dante's Hell—and profited as much. He had discovered heterosexuality.
The smoke gave way to thin fire, jetting up like blowtorch flames on each of the
ten sides of the pentacle, outlining the five points of the star in flame. The
entire congregation was within this outline. The fire rose up in sheets, forming
a new enclosure, shutting out the obscene church. The floor shuddered again as
though subject to an earthquake.
"Satan approaches," Lee said tersely. "The Priest's act summoned—"
"No—I suspect we are going to the Inferno," Brother Paul said. "The Priest only
greased the channel, as it were. The mountain seldom comes to Mahomet."
"Daddy, put me down," Carolyn said. Brother Paul discovered that he was holding
her so close her feet were off the floor. She was no infant any more; she had
swiftly and subtly grown to her colonist size. If he wielded the knife, catering
to Therion's supposed hate for all the distaff sex—no! He eased up so as to let
her slide to the floor. He had already come far closer to Hell than he liked!
The whole surface of the pentacle jumped with a rending clang like that of metal
on concrete. Steam hissed up in great clouds, stifling the fire. Ozone fumes
suffused the air. The ex-Virgin fell off the altar, carrying the Priest with
her; in a tangle of limbs they were separated at last.
"Daddy, pick me up!" Carolyn cried.
Instead, he squeezed her thin shoulders gently but firmly, holding her steady.
"We're going to Hell, honey," he told her. "Don't be frightened."
She turned her startled gaze upon him. Suddenly he realized the incongruity of
what he had said. They both burst out laughing.
Lee looked at them disapprovingly. "Mirth—hallmark of the Devil," he muttered.
The air became close as the steam-vapor surrounded them. The rampaging
congregation at last become aware of the changing situation. There were sounds
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of coughing and hacking as the smog coalesced into soot that coated everything.
Brother Paul found a handkerchief and gave it to Carolyn to breathe through. She
insisted on sharing it with him, so he stooped down to put his mouth to one end.
It did seem to help filter out the choking gas and dust.
The bottom dropped out. The entire pentacle plummeted into a bottomless hole in
the earth like an elevator whose cable and safety brakes were broken. Down,
down, in free fall, stomachs floating. "Even so did I plunge into the abyss!"
Therion said from somewhere, reviewing his recent performance, his supreme act
of courage.
There was wretching among the congregation. But Brother Paul, Carolyn, and Lee
stood firm. Therion slid free of Amaranth's legs, and she scrambled to her feet,
virtually floating free of the blood-spattered altar mattress. Brother Paul
tried again to keep his eyes averted from her and from Therion's now-dangling
member, but was not entirely successful. Somehow he felt she had betrayed him,
though obviously she had neither anticipated nor cooperated in—what had
happened. And of course he shared responsibility, for he had balked at
sacrificing the baby, necessitating Therion's alternate procedure. So Amaranth
had been sacrificed instead of Carolyn—and therein lay the key to his basic
values. Now, looking at the naked woman, with his arm about the child, he could
not second guess his decision. He did love his daughter more.
Air screamed past the plummeting platform. Air—another hallmark of the Devil!
The mixed vapors shot upward, their discolorations seeming to writhe like
serpents. The velocity of the pentacle was now so great that the wind actually
whistled. Strange creatures, all fang and wing, passed by, peering momentarily
into the pentacle as though it were a feeding dish. But after the first
gut-wrenching shock of falling, equilibrium was returning, making the platform
seem stationary. The congregation, some in tatters and some naked, stood in
frightened huddles looking out. The approaching Animation of Hell was evidently
more than these people had bargained for!
Even in this awful descent, Brother Paul found himself musing on the technical
aspects of the production. The Animations could make things appear to be other
than they were and convert mirages to reality—but these were matters of
perception. The actual mind was not affected directly. So how could there be a
sensation of falling and of violent motion? But the answer came as he phrased
the mental question: there were many more senses than the proverbial five, and
the perceptions of balance, motion, and muscle tension were part of the
Animation whole. The most intense Animations covered the full spate of senses;
there was no way other than pure reasoning and memory to know any part of the
objective situation. And even memory was subject in part to Animation as he knew
from his vivid flashbacks.
The fact was that the greater part of what made up individual awareness was
controlled by the Animation effect. Perhaps forty percent of Brother Paul's
faculties affirmed that reality was a visit to a colony planet by a novice of a
minor Order whose purpose was to ascertain whether Deity sponsored any part of
the Animation effect. Sixty per cent of him said he was going to Hell.
"We are going to Hell," he repeated softly, and this time he was not laughing at
all.
With a jolt that sent people sprawling, the platform changed course. Brother
Paul staggered, trying to prevent Carolyn from falling. Lee reached out and
caught her arm, stabilizing her and, through her, Brother Paul. "Thanks,"
Brother Paul gasped.
"You steadied me," Lee said. "You showed me the error of my philosophy and
brought me to unity with Jesus Christ." Now Lee was a tower of strength, able to
contemplate Hell itself with an approximation of equanimity because his soul was
pure.
"But what of mine?" Brother Paul asked himself. "My soul is a nest of scorpions
that I thought had been safely buried—and now they will surely be loosed!"
The platform was now traveling to the side. The congregation scrambled for the
pews, seating themselves and holding on tightly. Therion held on to the altar
which was near the front point of the pentacle. "Get over here!" he called.
"Want to get knocked off?"
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Lee looked out at the slanting colors beyond the rim. The mists were thinning,
showing an awesome chasm below, through which bright tongues of fire leaped.
"And where would we fall to," he asked, "that we are not already bound for?"
Good point! Except for one qualification. "If we stay on the platform," Brother
Paul said, "we visit Hell alive and perhaps return from it. If we fall off the
platform, we may die and never return."
Carolyn looked too. The maelstrom of fire seemed to intensify, forming an
amorphous demon face glaring up hungrily. "Oooh, I feel dizzy!" she exclaimed,
teetering. Brother Paul jumped to fetch her in again, but Lee's hand was already
on her arm, securing her.
Yet with the angling, lurching, and acceleration of the pentacle, all of them
were being nudged toward the dread abyss. The congregation was secure because
the pews seemed to be well anchored to the floor; some people even lay on the
tapering points of the star and hooked their fingers over the forward edges so
they could peer down raptly into Hell. But here at the front section there was
nothing to cling to except the altar.
Brother Paul was loath to touch that altar whose cover and mattress had been
dislodged and now rested on the floor near the rim. But he felt increasingly
nervous at their precarious footholds. This was like standing on the wing of an
airplane—and the intentions of the pilot were uncertain. Condensed slime coated
the floor, making the footing treacherous. Any sudden shift—
It happened. The pentacle lurched, sending the three of them sliding. The
mattress fell off the edge. There was a spurt of flame from below as it ignited.
Now it was Therion who extended a hand. He caught hold of Brother Paul's
flailing arm and with demoniac strength hauled him and Carolyn and Lee in a
human chain to the altar. "We are going home," Therion said with grisly
satisfaction. "I shall see that you don't get lost on the way. My Master would
be angry."
And he was the agent of Satan. Well, what had they expected? In the Infernal
Region, the truly evil man was lord.
They stood by the altar, fingers hooked over its stone edges, and peered
forward. There were rails ahead, resembling railroad tracks—shining ribs of
steel curving into darkness. So that was how this platform was being guided!
"A roller-coaster ride!" Carolyn exclaimed.
Brother Paul exchanged glances with Lee. "Out of the mouths of babes..." the
latter murmured. Could Hell itself be no more than a scary ride?
A tunnel appeared ahead: a black hole in a boundless wall. The tracks led
straight into it.
The pentacle whipped straight into the hole—but abruptly it became apparent that
the vehicle was too large for the aperture. At the last moment there was a
scream of terror as the people at the star points on either side realized the
threat. Then a crash—and those two points were sheered off cleanly by the tunnel
walls. The people on them—were gone.
Brother Paul suffered a mental picture of bodies flattened against the wall like
squashed flies, sticking there for a while before dropping into the flames
below. Hell was cruel—but again, what had he expected? He hoped Carolyn did not
realize the implications.
"Daddy, they weren't very nice people," she said. "But still—"
He drew her close against him again, and she laid her head against his shoulder
and cried silently. She had a way of doing that when her sensitivities were
hurt, in contrast to her more open crying for normal problems.
The platform was no longer a full pentacle. It was an arrowhead, arrowing
through the blackness along its track.
Suddenly a monster loomed at one side. It had glaring yellow eyes, bloody red
teeth, and talons fifteen centimeters long. "HOO-HAH-HAH-HAH!" it laughed with
horrendous volume, keeping pace with the platform.
"It's a horror-house image," Brother Paul told Carolyn reassuringly as she
cringed. If only she could have been spared this journey to Hell; he had thought
she was safely out of this Animation... until Therion brought her in for the
sacrifice. Damn Therion! At times the man had seemed decent, but always some new
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door opened on his character that made him seem worse than before. That
sacrifice—could any but a truly evil mind have organized that? Tricking a man
into slitting the throat of his daughter-figure? "It's meant to be scary—but it
isn't real."
"It sure looks real," she said, taking heart.
The monster reached down with its two awful arms and caught up two people. They
screamed—and so did Carolyn. Brother Paul started back toward the action, but
both Lee and Therion restrained him. An odd situation when these two natural
antagonists acted in accord! "They are already damned," Lee said. "No one can
help them or change the manner of their departure from this frame."
The monster carried the victims up toward its gaping mouth. Carolyn hid her
face. Therion laughed. But the monster drifted back and out of sight before
consuming its prey. The fading sound of the screams of the two unfortunates were
all that remained of them.
The remaining members of the congregation, once so violently eager to summon
Satan, cowered in their places. But the next apparition was a tremendous octopus
with a cruel, gnarled beak who blithely wrapped eight tentacles around eight
more people and hauled them screaming and kicking into obscurity.
"Do not be concerned," Therion said in an offhand manner. "All who touch the
sacred altar are safe from bestial molestation."
Because they were being saved for a worse fate? Brother Paul's misgivings
mounted.
Amaranth looked up. "I wasn't saved!" she cried. "I was right on the altar
when—" But she didn't bother to finish.
The remaining congregation hid itself under the benches. There was an
internecine struggle for position, and two people were shoved off one edge to
disappear with the usual screams—that cut off abruptly in a great crunching
sound. What lay below?
Lights appeared, each like a gleaming eye—a line along the sides like the lamps
of a subway tunnel. If these images were drawn from his subconscious mind, that
mind's imagination lacked a really original thrust. But Therion seemed to be the
dominant character in this Animation so far. Hell was his province; it could be
as unoriginal as he wished.
The vehicle accelerated. The lights became a blur. Then the tracks curved, and
they were flung to the right as it swept into a tightening spiral. Down, down,
in a whirlpool vortex, tighter and tighter—and now the platform spun like a
gyroscope, adding torque to revolution. They clung to the altar for dear
life—and what was so dear about it now?—their fingers sliding across the slimy
stone.
The marker lights funneled into an aperture too narrow for the remaining
platform. The points snagged on projections and tore off. Again the despairing
screams of the congregation were heard as people were hurled into the darkness
outside the spiral, and under the wheels of the platform inside the spiral, to
be sliced into pieces. Sections of arms and legs flew up, bounced off the
platform, and skidded back into the gloom. One whole head glared momentarily as
it rolled, leaving a dotted line of blood splotches. "They took no heed for
their souls," Therion remarked without pity. "They were unprepared to meet their
Master."
"And are we prepared?" Brother Paul inquired, holding his fingers over Carolyn's
eyes in a futile effort to conceal the horror from her. "To meet their Master—or
our own?" He knew that the congregation was composed of phantasms rather than
real people; throwaways being thrown away. That was why they had not been able
to touch him when they had attacked him earlier; they were merely part of the
scenery. The nucleus of five real people was here about the altar. Why hadn't he
thought to explain that to Carolyn?
The platform was now a pentagon—five sides, no star points. A dozen Devil
worshipers clung to the sole remaining pew. The pentagon spun down through the
nether eye of the vortex and plumped with a loud smacking splash into dark
water.
Lee looked disapprovingly about. "This is Hell?" he inquired.
"Merely the sticks," Brother Paul murmured.
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"Oh, the River Styx," Lee repeated, not catching the pun.
"Hell has not yet begun to manifest," Therion assured them with gusto.
So all this had been but the prelude. The warm-up show. Brother Paul felt an
ugly chill. What would Hell produce when Hell got serious?
The pentagon bobbled on the gentle swell, moving with unseen power and guidance
across the river. There was a moderately stiff headwind that carried the stench
of rot, and it chilled them despite its warmth. Other boats were afloat, more
conveniently shaped; this one was really a raft. Oddly, as many boats were going
back as forward and were fully loaded. People leaving Hell?
Therion looked forward, baring his irregular teeth in a savage smile. Amaranth
kept her head down upon the altar; her hell had begun at the outset of this
descent. She had been so eager to give her samples; had that all been pretense?
Or was it simply that Therion was the wrong man? The fact that she had actually
been a virgin argued for the pretense theory. There were women like that,
Brother Paul knew. All show and no substance. Well, she had substance now!
Carolyn's horror had abated, for she was young; now she glanced about, intrigued
by the scene. Lee stood with eyes closed in seeming meditation. Brother Paul
decided not to attempt to engage any of them in conversation. Actually, this was
probably about as peaceful as Hell could get.
"Shall I tell a joke to pass the time?" Therion inquired. "There was this time
when God got horny and went to Earth and knocked up this Jewish girl, and as a
result—"
"Christianity," Lee said. "Why don't you try to be original for a change?"
A boat cruised by on a parallel course but traveling faster. Ripples rocked the
raft. Therion frowned. "Watch where you're slogging, duffer!" he yelled.
"Go soak your snout!" someone yelled from the boat.
Therion swelled up with delighted indignation. "Osculate my posterior!" he
cried. "Your waves are slopping my gunwales."
"Yeah? Try these waves, peckerhead!" the other bawled. The boat looped about,
accelerating to an unholy velocity. Now the ripples became rolling waves. They
overlapped the raft's rim, sliding across to soak the feet of the five standing
people and the bodies of those still lying under the benches. The latter got up
hastily, cursing, for the water was not crystal clear; it was gray with
pollution and it stank. Brother Paul observed that there were objects in it that
resembled—yes, they were fecal matter.
Therion reached down, scooped up a dripping chunk, and hurled it at the boat.
His aim and force were excellent; the turd scored a direct hit on the shoulder
of one of the passengers.
There was an undecipherable roar of rage from the boat. The passengers stooped
to scoop out their own ammunition. In a moment a small barrage of feces scored
on the raft.
"Of course you realize this means war," Therion said, grinning with the sheer
joy of battle. He squatted beside the altar, not hiding but rather straining to
produce fresh ammunition. Brother Paul turned away in disgust; Therion was very
much the fecal personality, and this was manifesting more openly as Hell drew
near.
Others on both crafts were quick to follow Therion's example. Why should they
seine the murky water for used shot, when superior grade and personalized
material was so readily available? Soon the air was filled with stinking blobs.
One person after another was hopelessly spattered in brown.
Amaranth straightened up, becoming interested in the proceedings. "Oh, shit!"
she said. She spoke the truth: a mass of the stuff had scored directly between
her breasts, breaking up and dribbling down her white torso.
Carolyn went around the altar to her. "I'll help you," the child said.
Surprised, Amaranth just looked at her, neither moving nor speaking. Carolyn
scraped off the main mass with her fingers. She turned half about, holding it,
looking across to the boat.
"Uh-uh!" Brother Paul warned her.
Reluctantly, Carolyn dropped the mass into the water, then stooped to rinse her
hands. Then she scooped up a double handful of water and held it up for Amaranth
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摘要：

file:///F|/rah/Piers%20Anthony/Anthony,%20Piers%20-%20Tarot%203%20-%20Faith%20of%20Tarot.txtFaithofTarotbyPiersAnthonyPiersAnthonyFaithofTarotBookIII:TheMiraclePlanetRevealedDedicatedtotheHolyOrderofVisionAcknowledgmentsAHISTORYOFTHEBIBLE,copyright©1959byFredGladstoneBratton.PublishedbyBeaconPress...

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