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BLACK EASTER -- THE LAST CONJURATION |
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XIV Father Domenico found getting north to Monte Albano a relatively easy journey despite all the snow; he was able to take the rapido most of the way. Absurdly, he found himself worrying about the snow; if it lasted, there would be devastating floods in the spring. But that was not the only affliction the spring had in store. After the journey, nothing seemed to go right. Only about half of the world's white magicians, a small number in any case, who had been summoned to the convocation had been able to make it, or had thought it worth the trip. One of the greatest, the aged archivist Father Bonfiglioli, had come all the way from Cambridge only to find the rigors of being portaged up the Mount too much for him. He was now in the hospital at the base of the Mount with a coronary infarct, and the prognosis was said to be poor. Luckily, Father Uccello had been able to come. So had Father Monteith, a venerable master of a great horde of creative (though often ineffectual) spirits of the cislunar sphere; Father Boucher, who had commerce with some intellect of the recent past that was neither a mortal nor a Power, a commerce bearing all the earmarks of necromancy and yet was not; Father Vance, in whose mind floated visions of magics that would not be comprehensible, let alone practicable, for millions of years to come; Father Anson, a brusque engineer type who specialized in unclouding the minds of politicians; Father Selahny, a terrifying kabbalist who spoke in parables and of whom it was said that no one since Leviathan had understood his counsel; Father Rosenblum, a dour, bear-like man who tersely predicted disasters and was always right about them; Father Atheling, a wall-eyed grimoiran who saw portents in parts of speech and lectured everyone in a tense nasal voice until the Director had to exile him to the library except when business was being conducted; and a gaggle of lesser men, and their apprentices. These and the Brothers of the Order gathered in the chapel of the monastery to discuss what might be done. There was no agreement from the outset. Father Boucher was of the firm opinion that Ware would not be permitted to work any such conjuration on Easter, and that hence only minor precautions were necessary. Father Domenico had to point out that Ware's previous sending -- a comparatively minor one to be sure, but what was that saying about the fall of the sparrow? -- had been made without a sign of Divine intervention upon Christmas Eve. Then there was the problem of whether or not to try to mobilize the Celestial Princes and their subordinates. Father Atheling would have it that merely putting these Princes on notice might provoke action against Ware, since there was no predicting what They might do, and hence would be in violation of the Covenant. He was finally outshouted by Fathers Anson and Vance, with the obvious but not necessarily valid argument that the Princes must know all about the matter anyhow. How shaky that assumption was was revealed that night, when those bright angels were summoned one by one before the convocation for a council of war. Bright, terrible and enigmatic They were at any time, but at this calling They were in a state of spirit beyond the understanding of any of the masters present in the chapel. ARATRON, chiefest of Them all, appeared to be indeed unaware of the forthcoming unleashing, and disappeared with a roar when it was described. PHALEG, most military of spirits, seemed to know of Ware's plans, but would not discuss them, and also vanished when pressed. OPHEIL the mercurial, too, was preoccupied, as though Ware's plotting were only a negligible distraction from some immensely greater thought; His answers grew shorter and shorter, and He finally lapsed into what, in a mortal, Father Domenico would have unhesitatingly called surliness. Finally -- although not intended as final, for the convocation had meant to consult all seven of the Olympians -- the Water-spirit PHUL when called up appeared fearsomely without a head, rendering converse impossible and throwing the chapel into a perilous uproar. "These are not good omens," Father Atheling said; and for the first time in his life, everyone agreed with him. It was agreed, also, that everyone except Father Domenico would remain at the Mount through the target day, to take whatever steps then appeared to be necessary; but there was precious little hope that they would be effective. Whatever was going on in Heaven, it appeared to leave small concern to spare for pleas from Monte Albano. Father Domenico went south again far earlier than he had planned, unable to think of anything but the mystery of that final, decapitate apparition. The leaden skies returned him no answer. XV On that penultimate morning, Theron Ware faced the final choice of which demons to call up, and for this he needed to repair to his laboratory, to check the book of pacts. Otherwise his preparations were all made. He had performed the blood sacrifices the previous evening, and then had completely rearranged the furniture in the workroom to accommodate the Grand Circle -- the first time he had had need of it in twenty years -- the Lesser Circles and the Gateway. There were even special preparations for Father Domenico who had returned early and with a gratifyingly troubled countenance -- should it become necessary to ask the monk to call for Divine intervention; but Ware was tolerably sure it would not be. Though he had never attempted anything of this magnitude before, he felt the work in his fingertips, like a well-practiced sonata. He was, however, both astonished and disquieted to find Dr. Hess already in the laboratory -- not only because of the potentialities for contamination, but at the inevitable conclusion that Hess had worked out how to placate the Guardian of the door. This man evidently was even more dangerous than Ware had guessed. "Do you want to ruin us all?" Ware demanded. Hess turned away from the circle he had been inspecting and looked at Ware
frankly. He was pale and hollow-eyed; not only had the fasting been hard
on his spare frame -- that was a hazard every neophyte had to come to terms with
-- but apparently he had not been sleeping much either. He "No indeed. My apologies, Dr. Ware. My curiosity overcame me, I'm afraid." "You didn't touch anything, I hope?" "Certainly not. I took your warnings about that with great seriousness, I assure you." "Well ... probably no harm done then. I can sympathize with your interest, and even approve it, in part. But I'll be instructing you all in detail a little later in the day, and then you'll have ample time to inspect the arrangements. I do want you to know them intimately. But right now I still have some additional work to do, so if you don't mind ..." "Quite." Hess moved obediently toward the door. As he was about to touch the handle, Ware added: "By the way, Dr. Hess, how did you deceive the Guardian?" Hess made no pretense of being puzzled by the question. "With a white pigeon, and a pocket mirror I got from Jack." "Hmm. Do you know, that would never have occurred to me. These pagan survivals are mostly a waste of effort. Let's talk about it more, later. You may have something to teach me." Hess made a small bow and finished his departure. Forgetting him instantly, Ware stared at the Grand Circle for a moment:, and then walked around it clockwise to the lectern and unlocked the book of pacts. The stiff pages bent reassuringly in his hands. Each leaf was headed by the character or sign of a demon; below, in the special ink reserved for such high matters -- gall, copperas, gum arabic -- was the text of Theron Ware's agreement with that entity, signed at the bottom by Ware in his own blood, and by the character of the demon repeated in its own hand. Leading all the rest was the seal, and also the characters, of LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE, which also appeared on the book's cover:
There then followed eighty-nine others. It was Ware's sober belief, backed by infernal assurances he had reason to trust, that no previous magician had held so many spirits in thrall. After forty years, true, all the names would change, and Ware would have to force the re-execution of each pact, and so, again and again through the five hundred years of life he had bought from HAGITH in his salad days as a white magician. Nevertheless it could be said that, in the possession of this book, Ware was at least potentially the wealthiest mortal in all of history, though to anyone else in the world the book would be worth nothing except as a curiosum. These spirits, not counting LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE, comprised the seventeen infernal archangels of the Grand Grimoire, and the seventy-two demons of the Descending Hierarchy once confined in the brazen vessel of Solomon the King: a fabulous haul indeed, and each captive commanding troops and armies of lesser spirits, and damned souls by the thousands of millions, more of them every minute. (For these days, virtually everyone was damned; it had been this discovery that had first convinced Ware that the Rebellion was in fact going to succeed, probably by the year A.D. 2000; the many plain symptoms of chiliastic panic already being manifested amongst the laity were almost certainly due to be vindicated, for everyone was rushing incontinently into Hell-mouth without even the excuse of an Antichrist to mislead him. As matters stood now, Christ Himself would have to creep stealthily, hoping to be ignored, even into a cathedral to conduct a Mass, as in that panel of Hieronymus Bosch; the number of people who could not pronounce the Divine Name without a betraying stammer -- or their own names, for that matter -- had grown from a torrent to a deluge, and, ridiculously, hardly any of them were claiming any fraction of the possible profits in this world. They did not even know that they were on the winning side, or even that there was more than one side. No wonder that Ware had found so much fat in the cauldron, waiting to be skimmed.) But as Ware had already warned Baines, not all of the spirits in the book were suitable for the experiment at hand. There were some, like MARCHOSIAS, who hoped after an interval to be returned to the Celestial choirs. In this hope, Ware was grimly certain, they were mistaken, and the only reward they would receive would be from the Emperor of the Pit, that kind of reward customarily given to fair-weather friends and summer soldiers. In the meantime, the evils they could be persuaded or compelled to do were minor and hardly worth the effort of invoking them. One, whom Ware had already mentioned to Baines, VASSAGO, was even said in the Lesser Key and elsewhere to be "good by nature" -- not too trustworthy an ascription -- and indeed was sometimes called upon by white magicians. Others in the hierarchy, like PHOENIX, controlled aspects of reality that were of little relevance to Baines' commission. Taking up the pen of the Art, Ware made a list. When he was finished, he had written down forty-eight names. Considering the number of the Fallen, that was not a large rnuster; but he thought it would serve the purpose. He closed and locked the book, and after a pause to rebuke and torment the Guardian of his door, went out into the Easter morning to rehearse his Tanists. No day, it seemed, had ever gone so slowly for Baines as this Easter, despite the diversion of the rehearsal; but at last it was night and over, and Ware pronounced himself ready to begin. The Grand Circle now on the parquetry of the refectory bore a generic resemblance to the circle Ware had composed on Christmas Eve, but it was a great deal bigger, and much different in detail. The circle proper was made of strips of the skin of the sacrificial kid, with the hair still on it, fastened to the floor at the cardinal points with four nails that, Ware explained, had been drawn from the coffin of a child. On the northeast arc, under the word BERKAIAL, there rested on the strips the body of a male bat that had been drowned in blood; on the northeast, under the word AMASARAC, the skull of a parricide; on the southwest, under the word ASARADEL, the horns of a goat; and on the southwest, under the word ARIBECL, sat Ware's cat, to the secret of whose diet they were now all privy. (Indeed, there had not been much of moment to the rehearsal, and Baines had inferred that its chief object had been to impart to the rest of them such items of unpleasant knowledge as this.) The triangle had been drawn inside the circle with a lump of haematite or lodestone. Under its base was drawn a figure consisting of a chi and a rho superimposed, resting on the line, with a cross to each side of it. Flanking the other two sides were the great candles of virgin wax, each stick sitting in the center of a crown of vervain. Three circles for the operators -- Ware, Baines and Hess (Jack Ginsberg and Father Domenico would stand outside, in separate pentacles) -- were inside the triangle, connected by a cross; the northern circle had horns drawn on it. At the pinnacle of the triangle sat a new brazier, loaded with newly consecrated charcoal. To the left side of the horned circle, which was to be Ware's, of course, was the lectern and the book of pacts, within easy reach. At the rear of the room, before the curtained door to the kitchen, was another circle, quite as big as the first, in the center of which was a covered altar. That had been empty this afternoon; but there now lay upon it the nude body of the girl Ware had used to address as Gretchen. Her skin was paper-white except for its markings, and to Baines gave every appearance of being dead. A small twist of violet silk, nearly transparent and with some crumpled thing like a wad of tissue or a broken matzoh inside it, rested upon her navel. Her body appeared to have been extensively written upon with red and yellow grease paint; some of the characters might have been astrological, others more like ideograms or cartouches. In default of knowing their meaning or even their provenance, they simply made her look more naked. The main door closed. Everyone was now in place. Ware lit the candles, and then the fire in the brazier. It was a task of Baines and Hess to feed the fire periodically, as the time wore on, the one with brandy, the other with camphor, taking care not to stumble over their swords or leave their circles in the process. As before, they had been enjoined to the strictest silence, especially should any spirit speak to them or threaten them. Ware now reached out to the lectern and opened his book. This time there were no preliminary gestures, and no portents; he simply began to recite in a gravid voice: "I conjure and command thee, LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE, by all the names wherewith thou mayst be constrained and bound, SATAN, RANTAN, PALLANTRE, LUTIAS, CORlCACOEM, SEMCIGREUR, per sedem Baldarey et per gratiam et diligentiam tuam babuisti ab eo banc nalatimanamilam, as I command thee, usor, dilapidatore, tentatore, semmatore, soignatore, devoratore, concitore, et seductore, where art thou? Thou who imposeth hatred and propagateth enmities, I conjure thee by Him who hath created thee for this ministry, to fulfill my work! I cite thee, COLRIZIANA, OFFINA, ALTA, NESTERA, FUARD, MENUET, LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE, arise, arise, arise!" There was no sound; but suddenly there was standing in the other circle a dim, steaming figure, perhaps eight or nine feet tall. It was difficult to be sure what it looked like, partly because some of the altar could still be seen through it. To Baines it resembled a man with a shaven head bearing three long, twisted horns, eyes like a spectral tarsier's, a gaping mouth, a pointed chin. It was wearing a sort of jerkin, coppery in color, with a tattered ruff and a fringed skirt; below the skirt protruded two bandy, hooved legs, and a fat, hairy tail, which twitched restlessly. "What now?" this creature said in an astonishingly pleasant voice. The words, however, were blurred. "I have not seen my son in many moons." Unexpectedly, it giggled, as though pleased by the pun. "I adjure thee, speak more clearly," Ware said. "And what I wish, thou knowst full well." "Nothing may be known until it is spoken." The voice seemed no less blurred to Baines, but Ware nodded. "I desire then to release, as did the Babylonian from under the seal of the King of Israel, blessed be he, from Hellmouth into the mortal world all those demons of the False Monarchy whose names I shall subsequently call, and whose characters and signs I shall exhibit in my book, providing only that they harm not me and mine, and that they shall return whence they came at dawn, as it is always decreed." "Providing no more than that?" the figure said. "No prescriptions? No desires? You were not always so easily satisfied." "None," Ware said firmly. "They shall do as they will for this their period of freedom, except that they harm none here in my circles, and obey me when recalled, by rod and pact." The demon glanced over its transparent shoulder. "I see that you have the
appropriate fumigant to cense so many great lords, and my servants and
satraps will have their several rewards in their deeds. So interesting a
commission is new to me. Well. What have you for my hostage, to Ware reached into his vestments. Baines half expected to see produced another tear vase, but instead Ware brought out by the tail a live mouse, which he threw over the brazier as he had the vase, except not so far. The mouse ran directly toward the demon, circled it frantically three times outside the markings, and disappeared in the direction of the rear door, cheeping like a sparrow. Baines looked toward Ahktoi, but the cat did not even lick its chops. "You are skilled and punctilious, my son. Call then when 1 have left, and I will send my ministers. Let nothing remain undone, and much will be done before the black cock crows." "It is well. By and under this promise I discharge thee. OMGROM, EPYN, SEYOK, SATANY, DEGONY, EPARYGON, GALLIGANON, ZOGOGEN, FERSTIGON, LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE, begone, begone, begone!" "I shall see you at dawn." The prime minister of LUCIFER wavered like a flame, and, like a flame, went out. Hess promptly cast camphor into the brazier. Recovering with a start from a near paralysis of fascination, Baines sprinkled brandy after it. The fire puffed. Without looking around, Ware brought out his lodestone, which he held in his left hand; with his right, he dipped the iron-headed point of his wand into the coals. Little licking points of blue light ran up it almost to his hand, as though the rod, too, had been coated with brandy. Holding the tonguing wand out before him like a dowsing rod, Ware strode ceremoniously out of the Grand Circle toward the altar. As he walked, the air around him began to grumble, as though a storm were gathering about his shaven head, but he paid the noise no attention. He marched on directly to the locus spiritus, and into it. Silence fell at once. Ware said clearly: "I, Theron Ware, master of masters, Karcist of Karcists, hereby undertake to open the book, and the seals thereof, which were forbidden to be broken until the breaking of the Seven Seals before the Seventh Throne. I have beheld SATAN as a bolt falling from heaven. I have crushed the dragons of the pit beneath my heel. I have commanded angels and devils. I undertake and command that all shall be accomplished as I bid, and that from beginning to end, alpha to omega, world without. end, none shall harm us who abide here in this temple of the Art of Arts. Aglan, TETRAGRAM, vaycheon stimulamaton ezpbares retragrammaton olyaram irion esytion existion eryona onera orasym mozm messias soter EMANUEL SABAOTH ADONAY, te adoro, et te invoco. Amen." He took another step forward, and touched the flaming tip of the rod to the veil of silk on the belly of the still girl. A little curl of blue-gray smoke began to arise from it, like ignited incense. Ware now retreated, walking backward, toward the Grand Circle. And as he did so, the fire on the wand died; but in the mortuary silence there now intruded a faint hissing, much like the first ignition of a squib. And there were indeed fireworks in inception. As Baines stared in gluttonous hypnosis, a small fountain of many-colored sparks began to rise from the fuse-like tissue on the abdomen of the body on the altar. More smoke poured forth. The air was becoming distinctly hazy. The body itself seemed to be burning now, the skin peeling back like segments of an orange. Baines heard behind him an aborted retching noise in Jack Ginsberg's voice, but could not himself understand what the occasion for nausea could be. The body -- whatever it had once been -- was now only like a simulacrum made of pith or papier-mache, and charged with some equivalent of Greek fire. Indeed, there was already a strong taint of gunpowder overriding the previous odors of incense and camphor. Baines rather welcomed it -- not that it was familiar, for it had been centuries since black powder had been used in his trade, but because he had begun to find the accumulation of less business-like perfumes a little cloying. Gradually, everything melted away into the smoke except an underlay of architectural outline, against which stood a few statues lit more along one side than the other by one of the two sources of fire. Hess coughed. briefly; otherwise there was silence except for the hissing of the pyre. Sparks continued to fly upward, and sometimes, for an instant, they seemed to form scribbled, incomprehensible words in the frame of the unreal wall. Ware's voice sounded remotely from one of the statues: "BAAL, great king and commander in the East, of the Order of the Fly, obey me!" Something began to form in the distance. Baines had the clear impression that it was behind the altar, behind the curtained door, indeed outside the palazzo altogether, but he could see it nevertheless. It came forward, growing, until he could also see that it was a wing like a man, in a neat surcoat and snow-white linen, but with two supernumerary heads, the one on the left like a toad's, the other like a cat's. It swelled soundlessly until at some moment it was inarguably in the refectory; and then, still silently, had grown past them and was gone. "AGARES, duke in the East, of the Order of the Virtues, obey me!" Again, a distant transparency, and silent. It came on very slowly, manifesting like a comely old man carrying a goshawk upon his wrist. Its slowness was necessitous, for it was riding astride an ambling crocodile. Its eyes were closed and its lips moved incessantly. Gradually, it too swelled past. "GAMYGYN, marquis and president in Cartagra, obey me!" This grew to be something like a small horse, or perhaps an ass, modest and unassuming. It dragged behind it ten naked men in chains. "VALEFOR, powerful duke, obey me!" A black-maned lion, again with three heads, the other two human, one wearing the cap of a hunter, the other the wary smile of a thief. It passed in a rush, without even a wind to mark its going. "BARBATOS, great count and minister of SATANACHIA, obey me!" But this was not one figure; it was four, like four crowned kings. With it and past it poured three companies of soldiers, their heads bowed and their expressions shuttered and still under steel caps. When all this troop had vanished, it was impossible to guess which among them had been the demon, or if the demon had ever appeared. "PAIMON, great king, of the Order of the Dominions, obey me!" Suddenly after all the hissing silence there was a blast of sound, and the room was full of capering things carrying contorted tubes and bladders, which might have been intended as musical instruments. The noise, however, resembled most closely a drove of pigs being driven down the chute of a slaughterhouse. Among the bawling, squealing dancers a crowned man rode upon a dromedary, bawling wordlessly in a great hoarse voice. The beast it rode on chewed grimly on some bitter cud, its eyes squeezed shut as if in pain. "SYTRY!" Ware shouted. Instantly there was darkness and quiet, except for the hissing, which now had a faint overtone as of children's voices. "Jussus secreta libenter detegit feminarum, eas ridens ludificansque ut se luxorise nudent, great prince, obey me!" This sweet and lissome thing was no less monstrous than the rest; it had a glowing human body, but was winged, and had the ridiculously small, smirking head of a leopard. At the same time, it was beautiful, in some way that made Baines feel both sick and eager at the same time. As it passed, Ware seemed to be pressing a ring against his lips. "LERAJIE, powerful marquis, ELlGOR, ZEPAR, great dukes, obey me!" As they were called together, so these three appeared together: the first an archer clad in green, with quiver and a nocked bow whose arrow dripped venom; the second, a knight with a scepter and a pennon-bearing lance; the third, an armed soldier clad in red. In contrast to their predecessor, there was nothing in the least monstrous about their appearance, nor any clue as to their spheres and offices, but Baines found them no less alarming for all that. "AYPOROS, mighty earl and prince, obey me!" Baines felt himself turning sick even before this creature appeared, and from the sounds around him, so did the others, even including Ware. There was no special reason for this apparent in its aspect, which was so grotesque as to have been comic under other circumstances: it had the body of an angel, with a lion's head, the webbed feet of a goose and the scut of a deer. "Transform, transform!" Ware cried, thrusting his wand into the brazier. The visitant promptly took on the total appearance of an angel, crown to toe, but the effect of the presence of something filthy and obscene remained. "HABORYM, strong duke, obey me!" This was another man-thing of the three-headed race -- though the apparent relationship, Baines realized, must be pure accident -- the human one bearing two stars on its forehead; the others were of a serpent and a cat. In its right hand it carried a blazing firebrand, which it shook at them as it passed. "NABERIUS, valiant marquis, obey me!" At first it seemed to Baines that there had been no response to this call. Then he saw movement near the floor. A black cock with bleeding, empty eye sockets was fluttering around the outside of the Grand Circle. Ware menaced it with the wand, and it crowed hoarsely and was gone. "GLASYALABOLAS, mighty president, obey me!" This appeared to be simply a winged man until it smiled, when it could be seen to have the teeth of a dog. There were flecks of foam at the corners of its mouth. It passed soundlessly. In the silence, Baines could hear Ware turning a page in his book of pacts, and remembered to cast more brandy into the brazier. The body on the altar had apparently long since been consumed; Baines could not remember how long it had been since he had seen the last of the word-forming sparks. The thick gray haze persisted, however. "BUNE, thou strong duke, obey me!" This apparition was the most marvelous yet, for it approached them borne on a galleon, which sank into the floor as it came nearer until they were able to look down through the floor onto its deck. Coiled there was a dragon with the familiar three heads, these being of dog, griffin and man. Shadowy figures, vaguely human, toiled around it. It continued to sink until it was behind them, and presumably thereafter. Its passage left Baines aware that he was trembling -- not from fright, exactly, for he seemed to have passed beyond that, but from the very exhaustion of this and other emotions, and possibly also from the sheer weariness of having stood in one spot for so long. Inadvertently, he sighed. "Silence," Ware said in a low voice. "And let nobody weaken or falter at this point. We are but half done with our calling -- and of those remaining to be invoked, many are far more powerful than any we've yet seen. I warned you before, this Art takes physical strength as well as courage." He turned another page. "ASTAROTH, grand treasurer, great and powerful duke, obey me!" Even Baines had heard of this demon, though he could not remember where, and he watched it materialize with a stirring of curiosity. Yet it was nothing remarkable in the light of what he had seen already: an angelic figure, at once beautiful and foul seated astride a dragon; it carried a viper in its right hand. He remembered belatedly that these spirits, never having been matter in the first place, had to borrow a body to make appearances like this, and would not necessarily pick the same one each time; the previous description of ASTAROTH that he had read, he now recalled, had been that of a piebald Negro woman riding on an ass. As the creature passed him, it smiled into his face, and the Stench of its breath nearly knocked him down. "ASMODAY, strong and powerful king, chief of the power of Amaymon, angel of chance, obey me!" As he called, Ware swept off his hat with his left hand, taking care, Baines noted, not to drop the lodestone as he did so. This king also rode a dragon, and also had three heads -- bull man and ram. All three heads breathed fire. The creature's feet were webbed, as were its hands, in which it carried a lance and pennon; and it had a serpent's tail. Fearsome enough; but Baines was beginning to note a certain narrowness of invention among these infernal artisans. It also occurred to him to wonder, fortunately, whether this very repetitiveness was not deliberate, intended to tire him into inattentiveness, or lure him into the carelessness of contempt. This thing might kill me if I even closed my eyes, he reminded himself. "FURFUR, great earl, obey me!" This angel appeared as a hart and was past them in a single bound, its tail streaming fire like a comet. "HALPAS, great earl, obey me!" There was nothing to this apparition but a stock dove, also quickly gone. Ware was calling the names now as rapidly as he could manage to turn the pages, perhaps in recognition of the growing weariness of his Tanists, perhaps even of his own. The demons flashed by in nightmare parade: RAYM, earl of the Order of the Thrones, a man with a crow's head; SEPAR, a mermaid wearing a ducal crown; SABURAC, a lionheaded soldier upon a pale horse; BIFRONS, a great earl in the shape of a gigantic flea; ZAGAN, a griffin-winged bull; ANDRAS, a raven-headed angel with a bright sword astride a black wolf; ANDREALPHUS, a peacock appearing amid the noise of many unseen birds; AMDUSCIAS, a unicorn among many musicians; DANTALIAN, a mighty duke in the form of a man but showing many faces both of men and women, with a book in his right hand; and at long last, that mighty king created next after LUCIFER and first to fall in battle before MICHAEL, formerly of the Order of the Virtues, BELIAL himself, beautiful and deadly in a chariot of fire as he had been worshiped in Babylon. "Now, great spirits," Ware said, "because ye have diligently answered me and shown yourselves to my demands, I do hereby license ye to depart, without injury to any here. Depart, I say, yet be ye willing and ready to come at the appointed hour, when I shall duly exorcise and conjure you by your rites and seals. Until then, ye abide free. Amen." He snuffed out the fire in the brazier with a closely fitting lid on which was graven the Third or Secret Seal of Solomon. The murk in the refectory began to lift. "All right," Ware said in a matter-of-fact voice. Strangely, he seemed much less tired than he had after the conjuration of MARCHOSIAS. "It's over -- or rather, it's begun. Mr. Ginsberg, you can safely leave your circle now, and turn on the lights." When Ginsberg had done so, Ware also snuffed the candles. In the light of the shaded electrics the hall seemed in the throes of a cheerless dawn, although in fact the time was not much past midnight. There was nothing on the altar now but a small heap of fine gray ash. "Do we really have to wait it out in here?" Baines said, feeling himself sagging. "I should think we'd be a lot more comfortable in your office -- and in a better position to find out what's going on, too." "We must remain here," Ware said firmly. "That, Mr. Baines, is why I asked you to bring in your transistor radio to keep track of both the world and the time. For approximately the next eight hours, the area inside these immediate walls will be the only safe place on all the Earth." XVI Trappings, litter and all, the refectory now reminded Baines incongruously of an initiation room in a college fraternity house just after the last night of Hell Week. Hess was asleep on the long table that earlier had borne Ware's consecrated instruments. Jack Ginsberg lay on the floor near the main door, napping fitfully, mumbling and sweating. Theron Ware, after again warning everyone not to touch anything, had dusted off the altar and gone to sleep -- apparently quite soundly -- upon it, still robed and gowned. Only Baines and Father Domenico remained awake. The monk, having prowled once around the margins of the room, had found an unsuspected low window behind a curtain, and now stood, with his back to them all, looking out at the black world, hands locked behind his back. Baines sat on the floor with his own back propped against the wall next to the electric furnace, the transistor radio pressed to his ear. He was brutally uncomfortable, but he had found by experiment that this was the best place in the hall for radio reception -- barring, of course, his actually entering one of the circles. Even here, the reception was not very good. It wavered in and out maddeningly, even on powerful stations like Radio Luxembourg, and was liable to tearing blasts of static. These were usually followed, at intervals of a few seconds to several minutes, by bursts or rolls of thunder in the sky outside. Much of the time, too, as was usual, the clear spaces were occupied by nothing except music and commercials. And thus far, what little news he had been able to pick up had been vaguely disappointing. There had been a major train wreck in Colorado; a freighter was foundering in a blizzard in the North Sea; in Guatemala, a small dam had burst, burying a town in an enormous mud slide; an earthquake was reported in Corinth -- the usual budget of natural or near-natural disasters for any day. In addition, the Chinese had detonated another hydrogen device; there had been another raiding incident on the Israeli Jordanian border; black tribesmen had staged a rape and massacre on a government hospital in Rhodesia; the poor were marching on Washington again; the Soviet Union had announced that it would not be able to recover three dogs and a monkey it had put in orbit a week ago; the U.S. gained another bloody inch in Vietnam, and Premier Ky put his foot in it; and ... All perfectly ordinary, all going to prove what everyone of good sense already knew, that there was no safe place on the Earth either inside this room or without it, and probably never had been. What, Baines began to wonder, was the profit in turning loose so many demons, at so enormous an expenditure of time, effort and money, if the only result was to be just like reading any morning's newspaper? Of course, it might be that interesting private outrages were also being committed, but many newspaper and other publishers made fortunes on those in ordinary times, and in any event he could never hear of more than a fraction of them over this idiot machine. Probably he would just have to wait until days or weeks later, when the full record and history of this night had been assembled and digested, when no doubt its full enormity might duly appear. He should have expected nothing else; after all, the full impact of a work of art is never visible in the sketches. All the same, he was obstinately disappointed to be deprived of the artist's excitement of watching the work growing on the canvas. Was there anything that Ware could do about that? Almost surely not, or he would have done it already; it was clear that he had understood the motive behind the commission as well as he had understood its nature. Besides, it would be dangerous to wake him -- he would need all his strength for the latter half of the experiment, when the demons began to return. Resentfully, but with some resignation too, Baines realized that he himself had never been the artist here. He was only the patron, who could watch the colors being applied and the cartoon being filled, and could own the finished board or ceiling, but had never even in principle been capable of handling the brushes. But there -- what was that? The BBC was reporting:
"A third contingent of apparatus has been dispatched along the Thames to
combat the Tate Gallery fire. Expert observers
believe there is no hope of saving the gallery's great collection
of Blake paintings, which include most of his illustrations for the
Inferno and Purgatorio of Dante. Hope also appears to be lost for what
amount to almost all the world's paintings by Turner, including his
watercolors of the burning of the Houses of Parliament. The intense and
sudden nature of the Baines sat up alertly, feeling an even more acute stab of hope, though all his joints protested painfully. There was a crime with real style, a crime with symbolism, a crime with meaning. Excitedly he remembered HABORYM, the demon with the dripping firebrand. Now if there were to be more acts that imaginative ... The reception was getting steadily worse; it was extraordinarily tiring to be continuously straining to filter meaning out of it. Radio Luxembourg appeared to have gone off the air, or to have been shut out by some atmospheric disturbance. He tried Radio Milan, and got it just in time to hear it announce itself about to play all eleven of the symphonies of Gustav Mahler, one right after the other, an insane project for any station and particularly for an Italian one. Was that some demon's idea of a joke? Whatever the answer, it was going to take Radio Milan out of the newscasting business for well over twenty-four hours to come. He cast further about the dial. There seemed to be an extraordinary number of broadcasts going out in languages he did not know or could even recognize, though he could get around passably in seventeen standard tongues and in any given year was fluent in a different set of three, depending on business requirements. It was almost as though someone had jammed an antenna on the crown of Babel.
Briefly, he caught a strong outburst of English; but it was only the Voice
of America making piously pejorative sermonettes about the Chinese fusion
explosion. Baines had known that that was coming for months now. Then the
multilingual mumbling and chuntering resumed, interspersed Another segment of English shouted, " ... with Cyano-tabs! Yes, friends, one dose cures all ills! Guaranteed chockfull of crisp, crunchy atoms ... " and was replaced by a large boys' choir singing the "Hallelujah Chorus," the words for which, however, seemed to go, "Bison, bison! Rattus, rattus! Cardinalis! Cardinalis!" Then more gabble, marvelously static-free and sometimes hovering just on the edge of intelligibility. The room stank abominably of an amazing mixture of reeks: brandy, camphor, charcoal, vervain, gunpowder, flesh, sweat, perfume, incense, candle wicks, musk, singed hair. Baines' head ached dully; it was like trying to breathe inside the mouth of a vulture. He longed to take a pull at the brandy bottle under his rumpled alb, but he did not know how much of what was left would be needed when Ware resumed operations. Across from him, something moved: Father Domenico had unlocked his hands and turned away from the small window. He was now taking a few prim steps toward Baines. The slight stir of human life seemed to disturb Jack Ginsberg, who thrashed himself into an even more uncomfortable-looking position, shouted hoarsely, and then began to snore. Father Domenico shot a glance at him, and, stopping just short of his side of the Grand Circle, beckoned. "Me?" Baines said. Father Domenico nodded patiently. Putting aside the overheated little radio with less reluctance than he would have imagined possible only an hour ago, Baines heaved himself arthritically to his knees, and then to his feet. As he started to stumble toward the monk, something furry hurtled in front of him and nearly made him fall: Ware's cat. It was darting toward the altar; and in a soaring arc incredible in an animal of its shameless obesity, leapt up there and settled down on the rump of its sleeping master. It looked greenly at Baines and went itself to sleep, or appeared to. Father Domenico beckoned again, and went back to the window. Baines limped after him, wishing that he had taken off his shoes; his feet felt as though they had turned into solid blocks of horn. "What's the matter?" he whispered. Look out there, Mr. Baines." Confused and aching, Baines peered past his uninvited and unimpressive Virgil. At first he could see nothing but the streaked steam on the inside of the glass, with a spume of fat snowflakes slurrying beyond it. Then he saw that the night was in fact not wholly dark. Somehow he could sense the undersides of turbulent clouds. Below, the window, like the one in Ware's office, looked down the side of the cliff and out over the sea, which was largely invisible in the snow whorls; so should the town have been, but it was in fact faintly luminous. Overhead, from frame to frame of the window, the clouds were overstitched with continuous streaks of dim fire, like phosphorescent contrails, long-lasting and taking no part in the weather. "Well?" Baines said. "Yon don't see anything?" "I see the meteor tracks or whatever they are. And the light is odd-sheet lightning, I suppose, and maybe a fire somewhere in town." "That's all?" "That's all," Baines said, irritated. '''What are you trying to do, panic me into waking Dr. Ware and calling it all quits? Nothing doing. We'll wait it out." "All right," Father Domenico said, resuming his vigil. Baines stumped back to his comer and picked up the radio. It said: "... now established that the supposed Chinese fusion test was actually a missile warhead explosion of at least thirty megatons, centered on Taiwan. Western capitals, already in an uproar because of the napalm murder of the U. S. President's widow in a jammed New York discotheque, are moving quickly to a full war footing and we expect a series of security blackouts on the news at any moment. Until that happens we will keep you informed of whatever important events come through. We pause for station identification. Owoo. Eeg. Oh, piggly baby, I caught you -- cheatin' on me -- owoo ..." Baines twisted the dial savagely, but the howling only became more bestial. Down the wall to his right, Hess twisted his long body on the table and suddenly sat upright, swinging his stockinged feet to the floor. "Jesus Christ," he said huskily. "Did I hear what I thought I heard?" "Dead right you did," Baines said quietly, and not without joy; but he, too, was worried. "Slide over here and sit down. Something's coming to a head, and it's nothing like we'd expected -- or Ware either." "Hadn't we better call a halt, then?" "No. Sit down, goddamn it. I don't think we can call a halt -- and even if we could, I don't want to give our clerical friend over there the satisfaction." "You'd rather have World War Three?" Hess said, sitting down obediently. "I don't know that that's what's going to happen. We contracted for this. Let's give it the benefit of the doubt. Either Ware's in control, or he should be. Let's wait and see." "All right," Hess said. He began to knead his fingers together. Baines tried the radio once more, but nothing was coming through except a mixture of The Messiah, Mahler and The Supremes. Jack Ginsberg whined in his pseudo-sleep. After a while, Hess said neutrally: "Baines?" "What is it?" "What kind of a thing do you think this is?" "Well, it's either World War Three or it isn't. How can I know yet?" "I didn't ask you that ... not what you think it is. I asked you, what kind of a thing do you think it is? You ought to have some sort of notion. After all, you contracted for it." "Oh. Hmm. Father Domenico said it might turn out to be Armageddon. Ware didn't think so, but he hasn't turned out to be very right up to now. I can't guess myself. I haven't been thinking in these terms very long." "Nor have I," Hess said, watching his fingers weave themselves in and out. "I'm still trying to make sense of it in the old terms, the ones that used to make sense of the universe to me. It isn't easy. But you'll remember I told you I was interested in the history of science. That involves trying to understand why there wasn't any science for so long, and why it went into eclipse almost every time it was rediscovered. I think I know why now. I think the human mind goes through a sort of cycle of fear. It can only take so much accumulated knowledge, and then it panics, and starts inventing reasons to throw everything over and go back to a Dark Age ... every time with a new, invented mystical reason." "You're not making very much sense," Baines said. He was still also trying to listen to the radio. "I didn't expect you to think so. But it happens. It happens about every thousand years. People start out happy with their gods, even though they're frightened of them. Then, increasingly, the world becomes secularized, and the gods seem less and less relevant. The temples are deserted. People feel guilty about that, but not much. Then, suddenly, they've had all the secularization they can take, they throw their wooden shoes into the machines, they take to worshiping Satan or the Great Mother, they go into a Hellenistic period or take up Christianity, in hoc signa vinces -- I've got those all out of order but it happens, Baines, it happens like clockwork, every thousand years. The last time was the chiliastic panics just before the year A.D. 1000, when everyone expected the Second Coming of Christ and realized that they didn't dare face up to Him. That was the heart, the center, the whole reason of the Dark Ages. Well, we've got another millennium coming to a close now, and people are terrified of our secularization, our nuclear and biological weapons, our computers, our overprotective medicine, everything, and they're turning back to the worship of unreason. Just as you've done -- and I've helped you. Some people these days worship flying saucers because they don't dare face up to Christ. You've turned to black magic. Where's the difference?" "I'll tell you where," Baines said. "Nobody in the whole of time has ever seen a saucer, and the reasons for believing that anybody has are utterly pitiable. Probably they can be explained just as you've explained them, and never mind about Jung and his thump-headed crowd. But, Adolph, you and I have seen a demon." "Do you think so? I don't deny it. I think it very possible. But Baines, are you sure? How do you know what you think you know? We're on the eve of World War Three, which we engineered. Couldn't all this be a hallucination we conjured up to remove some of our guilt? Or is it possible that it isn't happening at all, and that we're as much victims of a chiliastic panic as more formally religious people are? That makes more sense to me than all this medieval mumbo-jumbo about demons. I don't mean to deny the evidence of my senses, Baines. I only mean to ask you, what is it worth?" "I'll tell you what I know," Baines said equably, "though I can't tell you how I know it and I won't bother to try. First, something is happening, and that something is real. Second, you and I and Ware and everyone else who wanted to make it happen, therefore did make it happen. Third, we're turning out to be wrong about the outcome -- but no matter what it is, it's our outcome. We contracted for it. Demons, saucers, fallout -- what's the difference? Those are just signs in the equation, parameters we can fill any way that makes the most intermediate sense to us. Are you happier with electrons than with demons? Okay, good for you. But what I like, Adolph, what I like is the result. I don't give a damn about the means. I invented it, I called it into being, I'm paying for it -- and no matter how else you describe it, I made it, and it's mine. Is that clear? It's mine. Every other possible fact about it, no matter what that fact might turn out to be, is a stupid footling technicality that I hire people like you and Ware not to bother me with." "It seems to me," Hess said in a leaden monotone, "that we are all insane." At that same moment, the small window burst into an intense white glare, turning Father Domenico into the most intense of inky silhouettes. "You may be right," Baines said. "There goes Rome." Father Domenico, his eyes streaming, turned away from the dimming frame and picked his way slowly to the altar. After a long moment of distaste, he took Theron Ware by the shoulder and shook him. The cat hissed and jumped sidewise. "Wake up, Theron Ware," Father Domenico said formally. "I charge you, awake. Your experiment may now wholly and contractually be said to have gone astray, and the Covenant therefore satisfied. Ware! Ware! Wake up, damn you!" XVII Baines looked at his watch. It was 3:00 A.M. Ware awoke instantly, swung to his feet with a spring and without a word started for the window. At the same instant, the agony that had been Rome swept over the building. The shock wave had been attenuated by distance and the jolt was not heavy, but the window Father Domenico had uncurtained sprang inward in a spray of flying glass needles. More glass fell out from behind the drapes which hung below the ceiling, like an orchestra of celestas. As far as Baines could see, nobody was more than slightly cut. Not that a serious wound could have made any difference now, with the Last Death already riding on the winds. Ware was not visibly shaken. He simply nodded once and wheeled toward the Grand Circle, stooping to pick up his dented paper hat. No, he was moved -- his lips were pinched white. He beckoned to them all. Baines took a step toward Jack Ginsberg, to kick him awake if necessary. But the special executive assistant was already on his feet, trembling and wild-eyed. He seemed, however, totally unaware of where he was; Baines had to push him bodily into his minor circle. "And stay there," Baines added, in a voice that should have been able to scar diamonds. But Jack gave no sign of having heard it. Baines went hastily to his Tanist's place, checking for the bottle of brandy. Everyone else was already in position, even the cat, which in fact had vaulted to its post promptly upon having been dumped off Ware's rear. The sorcerer lit the brazier, and began to address the dead air. He was hardly more than a sentence into this invocation before Baines realized for the first time, in his freezing heart, that this was indeed the last effort -- and that indeed they might all still be saved. Ware was making his renunciation, in his own black and twisted way -- the only way his fatally proud soul could ever be brought to make it. He said: "I invoke and conjure thee, LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE, and fortified with the Power and the Supreme Majesty, I strongly command thee by BARALEMENSIS, BALDACHIENSIS, PAUMACHIE, APOLORESEDES and the most potent princes GENIO, LIACHIDE, ministers of the Tartarean seat, chief princes of the seat of APOLOGIA in the ninth region, I exorcise and command thee, LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE, by Him Who spake and it was done, by the Most Holy and glorious Names ADONAI, EL, ELOHIM, ELOHE, ZEBAOTH, ELION,ESCHERCE, JAH, TETRAGRAMMATON, SADAI, do thou and thine forthwith appear and show thyself unto me, regardless of how thou art previously charged, from whatever part of the world, without tarrying! "I conjure thee by Him to Whom all creatures are obedient, by this ineffable Name, TETRAGRAMMATON JEHOVAH, by which the elements are overthrown, the air is shaken, the sea turns back, the fire is generated, the earth moves and all the hosts of things celestial, of things terrestrial, of things infernal, do tremble and are confounded together, come. ADONAI, King of kings, commands thee!" There was no answer, except an exterior grumble of thunder. "Now I invoke, conjure and command thee, LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE, to appear and show thyself before this circle, by the Name of ON ... by the Name Y and V, which Adam heard and spake by the Name of JOTH, which Jacob learned from the angel on the night of his wrestling and was delivered from the hands of his brother ... by the Name of AGLA, which Lot heard and was saved with his family ... by the Name ANEHEXETON, which Aaron spake and was made wise ... by the Name SCHEMES AMATHIA, which Joshua invoked and the Sun stayed upon his course ... by the Name EMMANUEL, by which the three children were delivered from the fiery furnace ... by the Name ALPHAOMEGA, which Daniel uttered, and destroyed Bel and the dragon ... by the Name ZEBAOTH, which Moses named, and all the rivers and the waters in the land of Egypt were turned into blood ... by the Name HAGIOS, by the Seal of ADONAI, by those others, which are JETROS, ATHENOROS, PARACLETUS ... by the dreadful Day of Judgment ... by the changing sea of glass which is before the face of the Divine Majesty ... by the four beasts before the Throne ... by all these Holy and most potent words, come thou, and come thou quickly. Come, come! ADONAI, King of kings, commands thee!" Now, at last, there was a sound: a sound of laughter. It was the laughter of Something incapable of joy, laughing only because It was compelled by Its nature to terrify. As the laughter grew, that Something formed. It was not standing in the Lesser Circle or appearing from the Gateway, but instead was sitting on the altar, swinging Its cloven feet negligently. It had a goat's head, with immense horns, a crown that flamed like a torch, level human eyes, and a Star of David on Its forehead. Its haunches, too, were caprine. Between, the body was human, though hairy and with dragging black pinions like a crow's growing from Its shoulder blades. It had women's breasts and an enormous erection, which it nursed alternately with hands folded into the gesture of benediction. On one shaggy forearm was tattooed Solve; on the other, Coagula. Ware fell slowly to one knee. "Adoramus te, PUT SATANACHIA," he said, laying his wand on the ground before him. "And again ... ave, ave." AVE, BUT WHY DO YOU HAIL ME? the monster said in a petulant bass voice, at once deep and mannered, like a homosexual actor's. IT WAS NOT I YOU CALLED. "No, Baphomet, master and guest. Never for an instant. It is everywhere said that you can never be called, and would never appear." YOU CALLED ON THE GOD, WHO DOTH NOT APPEAR. I AM NOT MOCKED. Ware bowed his head lower. "I was wrong." AH! BUT THERE IS A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING. YOU MIGHT HAVE SEEN THE GOD AFTER ALL. BUT NOW INSTEAD YOU HAVE SEEN ME. AND THERE IS ALSO A LAST TIME FOR EVERYTHING. I OWE YOU A MOMENT OF THANKS. WORM THOUGH YOU ARE, YOU ARE THE AGENT OF ARMAGEDDON. LET THAT BE WRITTEN, BEFORE ALL WRITINGS, LIKE ALL ELSE, GO INTO THE EVERLASTING FIRE. "No!" Ware cried out. "Oh living God, no! This cannot be the Time! You break the Law! Where is the Antichrist --" WE WILL DO WITHOUT THE ANTICHRIST. HE WAS NEVER NECESSARY. MEN HAVE ALWAYS LED THEMSELVES UNTO ME. ''But -- master and guest -- the Law --" WE SHALL ALSO DO WITHOUT THE LAW. HAVE YOU NOT HEARD? THOSE TABLETS HAVE BEEN BROKEN. There was a hiss of indrawn breath from both Ware and Father Domenico; but if Ware had intended some further argument, he was forestalled. To Baines' right, Dr. Hess said in a voice of high ultraviolet hysteria. "I don't see you, Goat." "Shut up!" Ware shouted, almost turning away from the vision. "I don't see you," Hess said doggedly. "You're nothing but a silly zoological mixture. A mushroom stream. You're not real, Goat. Go away. Poof!" Ware turned in his Karcist's circle and lifted his magician's sword against Hess in both hands; but, at the last minute, he seemed to be afraid to step out against the wobbling figure of the scientist. HOW GRACIOUS OF YOU TO SPEAK TO ME, AGAINST THE RULES. WE UNDERSTAND, YOU AND I, THAT RULES WERE MADE TO BE BROKEN. BUT YOUR FORM OF ADDRESS DOES NOT QUITE PLEASE ME. LET US PROLONG THE CONVERSATION, AND I WILL EDUCATE YOU ETERNALLY, FOR A BEGINNING. Hess did not answer. Instead, he howled like a wolf and charged blindly out of the Grand Circle, his head down, toward the altar. The Sabbath Goat opened its great mouth and gulped him down like a fly. THANK YOU FOR THE SACRIFICE, It said thickly. ANYONE ELSE? THEN IT IS TIME I LEFT. "Stand to, stupid and disobedient!" Father Domenico's voice rang out from Baines' right side. A cloth fluttered out of the monk's circle onto the floor. "Behold thy confusion, if thou be disobedient! Behold the Pentacle of Solomon which I have brought into thy presence!" FUNNY LITTLE MONK, I WAS NEVER IN THAT BOTTLE! "Hush and be still, fallen star. Behold in me the person of the Exorcist, who is called OCTINIMOES, in the midst of delusion armed by the Lord God and fearless. I am thy master, in the name of the Lord BATHAL, rushing upon ABRAC, ABEOR, coming upon BEROR!" The Sabbath Goat looked down upon Father Domenico almost kindly. His face red, Father Domenico reached into his robes and brought out a crucifix, which he thrust toward the altar like a sword. "Back to Hell, devil! In the name of Christ our Lord!" The ivory cross exploded like a Prince Rupert's Drop, strewing Father Domenico's robe with dust. He looked down at his horribly empty hands. TOO LATE, MAGICIAN. EVEN THE BEST EFFORTS OF YOUR WHITE COLLEGE ALSO HAVE FAILED -- AND AS THE HEAVENLY HOSTS ALSO WILL FAIL. WE ARE ABROAD AND ALOOSE, AND WILL NOT BE PUT BACK. The great head bent to look down upon Theron Ware. AND YOU ARE MY DEARLY BELOVED SON, IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED. I GO TO JOIN MY BROTHERS AND LOVERS IN THE REST OF YOUR WORK. BUT I SHALL BE BACK FOR YOU. I SHALL BE BACK FOR YOU ALL. THE WAR IS ALREADY OVER. "Impossible!" Father Domenico cried, though choking with the dust of the exploded crucifix. "It is written that in that war you will at last be conquered and chained!" OF COURSE, BUT WHAT DOES THAT PROVE? EACH OF THE OPPOSING SIDES IN ANY WAR ALWAYS PREDICTS VICTORY. THEY CANNOT BOTH BE RIGHT. IT IS THE FINAL BATTLE THAT COUNTS, NOT THE PROPAGANDA. YOU MADE A MISTAKE -- AND AH, HOW YOU WILL PAY! "One moment ... please," Father Domenico said. "If you would be so kind ... I see that we have failed.... Would you tell us, where did we fail?" The Goat laughed, spoke three words, and vanished. The dawn grew, red, streaked, dull, endless. From Ware's window the sleeping town slumped down in rivers of cold lava toward the sea -- but there was no sea; as Father Domenico had seen hours ago, the sea had withdrawn, and would not be back again except as a tsunami after the Corinth earthquake. Circles of desolation spread away from the ritual circles. Inside them, the last magicians waited for the now Greatest Powers to come back for them. It would not be long now. In all their minds and hearts echoed those last three words. World without end. End without world. God is dead.
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