Gather, Darkness!
by Fritz Leiber
Version 1.0


 Chapter 1

BROTHER JARLES, priest of the First and Outermost Cir-
cle, novice in the Hierarchy, swallowed hard against his
churning anger; bent every effort to make his face a
masknot only to the commoners, for that was something
every member of the Hierarchy was taught to do, but to
his brother priests as well.

Any priest who hated the Hierarchy as he did during
these frightening spasms of rage must be mad.

But priests could not go madat least, not without the
Hierarchy knowing of it, as it knew of everything else.

A misfit then? But a priest was fitted to his job with
infinite precision and foresight, the very outlines of his
personality measured as if with an atomic probe. A priest
could not hate his work.

No, he must be mad. And the Hierarchy must be
concealing the fact from him for its own inscrutable
purposes.

Or elseeverything to the contraryhe was right.

At the touch of that sickening thought, the Great Square
of Megatheopolis seemed to haze and bloat before his
eyes. The commoners became drab blurs; the priests here
and there, scarlet ones, topped with the healthy pink of
well-fed faces.

Fighting for composure and vision itself, he forced
himself to focus on the year-stone of a recently-built
dwelling in the commoners' section. The inscription read,
"139 G. G."

He sought to maintain calm by a calculation. The year
139 of the Great God would be the year 206 of the Golden
Age, except that Golden Age dates were not recognized. It
would also be the year 360 of the Atomic Age. And finally
the year 2305 of the Dawn Civilization andwhat was the
god called?Christ.

"Hamser Chohn, Commoner of the Fifth Ward! Stand
forward, my son."

Brother Jarles winced. In moods like this, that reedy
voice grated unendurably on him. Why had he been paired
with Brother Chulian! Why, for that matter, must priests
never work alone, but always by twos!

But he knew the reason. It was so they might spy on
each other, make detailed reports on each other. So that
the Hierarchy would know of everything.

Fighting every instant to maintain the mask, he turned
back. His eyes automatically dodged the fourth face in the
queue of commoners lined up before himself and Brother
Chulian.

That fat, blue-eyed, soft-cheeked, shaven priest was
consulting the work lists, which were printed in primitive
style for the benefit of the commoners, who did not know
and were not supposed to knowanything of reading
tapes. Really, there was no reason to hate Brother Chulian
especially. Just a rank-and-file priest of the Second Cir-
cle. Just a bloated baby.

But you could hate a bloated baby when he exercised
over adult commoners the powers of schoolmaster, minis-
ter, and parent.

Only one good thingthis particular job, so distasteful
to Jarles, tickled Brother Chulian's sense of self-importance
so much that he was willing to do it all by himself.

The little fat priest looked up from the work lists at the
stalwart young commoner nervously twisting a shapeless
hat in big, horny hands, pausing every second to wipe one
of them against a home-woven smock.

"My son," he piped benignly, "you are to work for the
next three months in the mines. That will reduce your
contribution to the Hierarchy to a mere half of your
private earnings. You will report here to the appropriate
deacon at dawn tomorrow. Hamser Dom!"

The young commoner gulped, nodded twice, and quickly
stepped aside.

Jarles' anger flared anew. The mines! Worse than the
fields, or even the roads! Surely the man must know. And
yet, when he had heard, he had looked gratefulthat same
fawning look the old books were always attributing to a
faithful domestic animal of the genus Canis, now extinct.

Jarles wrenched his gaze away, again skipping the same
face, now third in line. It was that of a woman.

The sinking sun sent rich shadows across the Great
Square. The crowd was thinning. Only the tail-ends of a
few wards were still waiting to hear what the work lists

held in store. Here and there smocked or bloused common-
ersthe men in clumsy leggings, the women in heavy
skirtswere gathering up the leftovers of homemade
goods they had brought to barter or sell, loading them onto
their own backs or those of small, burly mules, then trail-
ing off into the narrow, cobbled streets of the commoners'
section. Some wore broad-brimmed hats of a coarse felt.
Others had already pulled up their hoods, although the
chill of evening had not yet arrived.

Looking toward the commoners' section of Megatheo-
polis, Jarles was reminded of pictures he had seen of the
cities of the Black Ages, or Middle Agesor whatever
that period of the Dawn Civilization had been called.
Except that the houses here were mostly one-story and
windowless, and everything was very neat and clean. Al-
though he was only a priest of the First Circle, he knew
that the resemblance was no coincidence. The Hierarchy
did not tolerate coincidence. It had a reason for every-
thing.

 An old crone in ragged garments and a peaked hat
hobbled past. The other commoners drew away from her.
A small boy yelled, "Mother Jujy! Witch! Witch!" shied a
stone at her and raced off. But Jarles smiled at her faintly.
And she smiled backan unpleasant grimacing of wrin-
kled lips over toothless gums during which her hooked nose
and jutting chin seemed about to meet. Then she was on
her way again, feeling with her cane for secure places
between the cobbles.

In the other direction, Megatheopolis was magically
different. For there rose the gleaming buildings of the
Sanctuary, topped by the incredible structure of the Cathe-
dral, which fronted the Great Square.

Jarles looked up at the Great God, and for a moment
felt fingering through his anger a touch of the same pious
fear that vast idol had awakened in him when he was only
a commoner's childlong before he had passed the tests
and begun to learn the secrets of the priests. Could the
Great God see his blasphemous rage, with those huge,
searching, slightly frowning eyes? But such a superstitious
fancy was unworthy even of a novice in the Hierarchy.

Without the Great God, the Cathedral was still a mighty
structure of soaring columns and peaked windows tall as
pine trees. But where one might expect a steeple or a pair
of towers, began the figure of the Great Godthe upper
half of a gigantic human form, terrible in its dignity and

serenity. It did not clash with the structure below. The
heavy folds of its drapery became the columns of the
Cathedral, and it was built of the same gray plastic.

It dominated all Megatheopolis, like some unbelievable
centaur. There was hardly an alley from which one could
not glimpse the stern yet benignant face with the glowing
nimbus of blue light.

One felt that the Great God was minutely studying every
pygmy creature that crossed the Great Square, as if he
could at any moment reach down and pick one up for a
closer scrutiny.

As if? Every commoner knew there was no "as if" about
it!

But that massive figure did not rouse in Jarles one atom
of pride at the glory and grandeur of the Hierarchy and his
great good fortune in having been chosen to become part
of it. Instead, his anger thickened and tightened, becoming
an intolerable shell about his emotionsas red and oppres-
sive as the scarlet robe he wore.

"Sharlson Naurya!"

Jarles flinched at the name chirruped by Brother Chuli-
an. But now the moment had arrived; he realized he would
have to look at her. Not to, would be cowardly. Every
novice priest experienced great difficulties before he finally
succeeded in breaking all emotional ties that linked him to
the commonersto family and friends, and more than
friends. Face the fact: Naurya could never mean anything
to him.

Nor he to her, he realized with something of a shock as
he quickly slewed his head around so that he was looking
up into her face. For she did not seem to recognize him or
take note of him, although, save for his robe and shaven
pate, he was the same as ever. She stood there quietly,
showing none of the cringing nervousness of the men. Her
hands, calloused by the loom, were folded at her waist.
Her face, paler for the masses of dark hair, was without
emotionor else a better mask than his own.

Somethingthe way she threw her shoulders backthe
air of hidden purpose sunk deep, deep in her green eyes-
thrust through the shell of his anger and prodded his
heart.

"My little daughter, Naurya," Chulian cooed important-
ly, "I have good news for you. A great honor is yours. For
the next six months you are to serve in the Sanctuary."

There was no change in her expression, no outward

indication of her reaction, but it was a few seconds before
she replied.

"It is too great an honor. I am unworthy. Such holy
work is not for the likes of a simple weaver."

"That is true," said Chulian judiciously, bobbing his
chubby hairless head up and down within the stiff funnel of
his collar. "But the Hierarchy may lift up whom it will,
even from the ranks of the most humble. It has deemed
you worthy for the holy work. Rejoice, my daughter.
Rejoice."

Her voice was as quiet and grave as when she first
replied. "But I am still unworthy. I know it in my heart. I
cannot do it."

"Cannot, my daughter?" Abruptly Chulian's voice be-
came querulously stern. "Do you mean 'will not'?"

Almost imperceptibly, Naurya nodded. The eyes of the
commoners behind her grew wide, and they stopped their
nervous fumblings.

Brother Chulian's soft little mouth set in an implacable
pout. The work lists crackled loudly as he clenched them
in his red-gloved hand.

"You understand what you are doing, daughter? You
understand that you are disobeying a command of the
Hierarchy, and of the Great God the Hierarchy serves?"

"I know in my heart that I am unworthy. I cannot."

But this time the nod was very definite. Again Jarles felt
something thrusting at his ribs.

Chulian bounced up from the bench he shared with
Jarles. "No commoner may question the judgments of the
Hierarchy, for they are right! I sense more here than
simple stubbornness, more even than sinful obstinacy.
There is only one sort of commoner who would fear to
enter the Sanctuary when bidden. I sensewitchcraft," he
announced dramatically, and struck his chest with the flat
of his hand. Instantly his scarlet robe ballooned out tautly,
until it stood a handbreadth away from his body at every
point. The effect was frighteningly grotesque, like a scarlet
pouter pigeon. And above his shaven head a violet halo
glowed.

The faces of the commoners grew more pale. But
Naurya only smiled very faintly, and her green eyes
seemed to bore into Chulian.

"And that, once sensed, is easily discovered!" the swollen
little priest continued triumphantly.

He stepped quickly forward. His puffy scarlet glove
clutched at her shoulder without seeming quite to touch it,
yet Jarles saw her bite her lips against sudden hurt. Then
the scarlet glove flirted downward, ripping the heavy
smock, so that the shoulder was uncovered.

There were three circular marks on the white skin. One
burned angry red. The others were rapidly becoming so.

Jarles thought that Chulian hesitated a moment and
stared puzzledly at them, before gathering himself and
shrilling out, "Witchmarks! Proof !"

Unsteadily Jarles got to his feet. His anger made him
retch, a nauseating force. He slapped his own chest, felt
the uniform inward pressure of the field at every point of
his body, like a bath of warm wax; saw from the corner of
his eye the gleam of his halo. Then he launched his fist at
Chulian's neck.

The slow-looking blow did not seem to reach its mark,
but Chulian tumbled down and rolled over twice. Even as
he rolled, his robe stood out between him and the ground,
as if he were inside a red rubber ball.

Again Jarles slapped his own chest. His robe went limp
and his halo vanished. And in that instant his anger ex-
ploded hotly, burning the mask of hypocrisy from his face.

Let them blast him! Let them blind and deafen him with
excommunication! Let them drag him screaming to the
crypts below the Sanctuary! The Hierarchy had seen fit to
let him go mad without interfering. Very well, then! They
would have a taste of his madness!

He sprang onto the bench and held up his hands for
attention.

"Commoners of Megatheopolis!"

That checked the beginnings of a panicky flight. Eyes
turned to stare at him stupidly. They had not yet begun to
comprehend what had happened. But when a priest spoke,
one listened.

"You have been taught that ignorance is good. I tell you
it is evil!

"You have been taught that to think is evil. I tell you it
is good!

"You have been told that it is your destiny to toil night
and day, until your backs ache to breaking and your hands
blister under the calluses. I tell you it is the destiny of all
men to look for easier ways!

"You have let the priests rule your lives. I tell you that
you must rule yourselves!

"You believe that the priests have supernatural powers. I
tell you they have no powers you could not wield your-
selves!

"You believe that the priests are chosen to serve the
Great God and transmit his commands. Butif there is a
god anywhereeach one of you, in his ignorant heart,
knows more of him than the mightiest archpriest.

"You have been told that the Great God rules the
universeearth and sky. I tell you the Great God is a
fake!"

Like whiplashes, the short, sharp sentences flicked into
the corners of the Great Square, turned all eyes toward
him. The words were not understood, except that they
were very different from what the priests ever said. They
frightened. They almost hurt. But they tugged irresistibly.
Everywhereeven in the work queuescommoners
looked at the nearest priest, and getting no contradictory
order, trotted over toward Jarles.

And Jarles now looked around him in bewilderment. He
had expected to be silenced almost at once. His sole object
had been to say as much as he could, or rather to let his
anger say whatever it wanted to in its brief moment of
freedom.

But the blow did not fall. No priest made a move
toward him, or acted as if anything out of the ordinary
were happening. And his unquenched anger continued to
speak for him.

"Commoners of Megatheopolis, what I am going to ask
you to do is hard. Harder than work in the mines, though I
won't ask you to lift a finger. I want you to listen to what I
say, to weigh my words for truth, to make a judgment as
to the worth of what I tell you, and then to act on that
judgment. You hardly know what all that means, but you
must try to do it, nevertheless! To weigh my words for
truth? That's to see how they square with what you've seen
happen in your private livesnot what you've been told.
To make a judgment? That's to decide whether or not you
want something, after you've learned what it is. I know the
priests have told you all that is wrong. Forget the priests!
Forget I wear the scarlet robe. And listen, listen!"

Now surely the blow must fall! They wouldn't let him
say any more! Involuntarily he looked up at the form of
the Great God. But that serene idol was taking no more
notice of what was happening in the square than a human

being might take of a swarming of ants around a bit of
sugar.

"You all know the story of the Golden Age," he was
already saying, his voice now richly vibrant with secrets to
unfold. "You hear it every time you go to the Cathedral.
How the Great God gave divine powers to all men, so that
they lived as in paradise, without toil or sorrow. How men
grew restless and dissatisfied, wanting still more, and sinned
in all manner of ways, and lived in vice and lechery. How
the Great God in mercy restrained his anger, hoping that
they would reform. How, in their evil pride, they finally
sought to storm heaven itself and all its stars. Then, as the
priests never weary of telling you, the Great God rose up
in his wisdom and wrath, and winnowed out the few men
who had not sinned against him and were still obedient to
his holy laws. Them he made into his Hierarchy and gave
them supernatural powers even greater than before. The
restthe sinful oneshe cast down and ground into the
dust, and gave his Hierarchy power over them, so that
those who had not of their own free wills lived virtuously
would be made to do so by force! Then he further decreed
that his Hierarchy select from each generation of men the
naturally virtuous to be priests, and reject the rest, to toil
in blissful ignorance under the gentle but inflexible guid-
ance of the priests, who are the Hierarchy."

He paused, looked searchingly into the staring faces.

"That much, all of you know by heart. But not one of
you dreams of the truth behind the story!"

Without anger whipping him on, Jarles might have
stopped then and there and walked into the Sanctuary and
down into the crypts, so stupid and uncomprehending were
the commoners' reactions, so obviously did they misinter-
pret every word. At first they had seemed only shocked
and bewildered, though attentive as always. Thenwhen
he had called upon them to think and judgethey had
looked vaguely apprehensive, as if all this rigmarole were
merely the introduction to some assignment of physical
labor, literally harder than work in the mines. The story of
the Golden Age had lulled them. It was something famil-
iar. His last sentence had shattered the lull and brought
them again into that state of stupid, anxious gawking.

But what else could he expect? If he could only manage
to plant the seeds of questioning in just one commoner!

"There was a Golden Age. That much is true. Though as
far as I know there was plenty of toil and sorrow in it. But

at least all men had a little freedom and were getting
more. The getting of it meant troublelots of itand at
one point the scientists became frightened and ... but you
don't even know what a scientist is, do you? Any more
than you know what a doctor is, or a lawyer, or a judge, or
a teacher, or a scholar, or a statesman, or an executive, or,
so help me, an artist. Because the priests are all of those
things. They've rolled all the professions, all the privileged
classes into one. You don't rightly know even what a priest
is! There were religions in those days, you see, and worship
of a godin the Golden Age and the long ages before it,
ever since man fought his way up, with hands and brain, to
mastery of this planet. But the priests of those religions
dealt only in spiritual and moral mattersat least at such
times as they were wise and good. Other work they left for
other professions. And they didn't use force.

"But that's getting ahead of my story. I want to tell you
about the scientists, and how the Golden Age ended. A
scientist is a thinker. He's a thinker about how things
happen. He watches things happen. Then if he knows a
thing can happen, and if it's a thing men want, maybe he
can figure outby thinking and hard workhow to help it
happen. No magic, see? No supernatural powers. Just
watching, and thinking, and working."

He had forgotten to wonder why he had not been
silenced. He thought only of how to choose the right
words, how to hammer or ease them homeanything to
get a flicker out of those faces!

"The scientists of the Golden Age became afraid that
mankind was slipping back into barbarism and ignorance.
Their position as members of a privileged profession was
threatened. They decided that, for a time, they must take
control of the world. They were not strong enough to do it
directly. They weren't fighters. So they got the idea of
establishing a new religion, modeled on the old religions,
but powered by science. In the old religions, blessings and
cursings worked through men's minds. In the religion the
scientists established, blessings and cursings worked direct-
ly, by force!

"You want proof? You should want proof. Here it is!" -

His hand whipped downward from collar to hem of his
heavy, scarlet robe. A metal-edged slit appeared. He quick-
ly stepped through it, bare except for a pair of scarlet
trunks. Many of the commoners shuddered and shrank
back, wincing. To see a priest unrobed was blasphemous.

True, the priest had done it himself. But somehow they
might be to blame.

"You have been taught that inviolability proceeds from
the priest, a divine aura projected by his holy flesh and
controlled by his will power. Watch!"

He slapped the breast of the empty robe smartly. In-
stantly it mushroomed outward. He pushed it away from
him. It floated out and down from the bench. Commoners
shoved wildly and clawed at each other, in their desire to
avoid being touched by it.

It came to rest about two feet from the ground, jogging
up and down gently, for all the world like a recumbent
priest, complete even to the puffed scarlet glovesexcept
that there was no gleaming shaven head under the eerily
glowing violet halo which all men knew to be an outward
sign of the priest's holy thoughts.

The panic-stricken ones regathered in a circle around it,
at what they hoped was a safe and reverent distance.

Jarles' voice was bitter as medicine. "Maybe you can get
to the Hierarchy's heaven the way that robe's trying to. I
know of no other. Can't you see it's a trick? Rip open that
robe"a commoner gaped horrifiedly at him for a mo-
ment, thinking the words a command"and you'll find a
network of fine wires. What does the Great God need with
wires? They make what's called a bilateral, short-range,
multi-purpose repulsor field. Something that pushes, see?
Something very useful for protecting a priest from injury
and powering his flabby fingers so that they're stronger
than those of a smith's. And it props up his halo! Stop
gawking at it, you fools! It's just a trick, I tell you!

"How do I know all this?" he fairly bellowed at them.
"You ought to ask that question. Wellthe priests told
me! Yes, the priests! Do you know what happens to a
young man when he passes the tests and is admitted to the
Hierarchy as a novice?" That got them, he could tell. It
took a racy question like that to whet their dull curiosity.
"A lot of things happen to him you don't know about. I'm
just going to tell you one. He's told, gradually, in small
dosesbut unmistakablythat there is no Great God.
That there are no supernatural powers. That the priests are
scientists ruling the world for its own good. That it's his
duty to help them and his good fortune to share in the
benefits.

"Don't you see? The scheme of the Golden Age scien-
tists worked. Their new religion swept the world. And as

soon as they got the world firmly by the throat, they were
able to mold it just the way they wanted. For themselves,
they made a regimented, monastic paradise. To find a
model for the commoners' world, they went back to a time
called the Middle Ages and dug up a nice little thing called
serfdom. Oh, they cleaned it up a bit, made it orderly and
healthy, and added a few touches of downright slavery.
But otherwise they didn't change it one jot. It was just the
thing to keep a whole world in a state of frightened,
ignorant, back-broken, grateful servitude.

"Surely, they averted barbarism. By establishing it!
"There was one very special wrinkle about the Middle
Ages that you got a taste of today. My priestly educators
haven't got around to telling me about it, but I can see the
why and wherefore of it all right. Witchcraft! Don't
cringe, you idiots! It's just another of their tricks, we can
be sure. Some of the old religions had witchcraft mixed up
with them, catering to the cheapest superstitions and fears.
The scientists decided their religion ought to have a witch-
craft, too. So they let scatterbrained old women like Moth-
er Jujy go around pretending to tell fortunes, cast spells,
and brew love potions. Just the thing to strengthen super-
stition and give commoners a bit of an outlet. And a mar-
velous straw man to knock down with their scientific
exorcisms. Besides providing a neat excuse for getting at
people they don't like, such as that girl you saw accused
today."

He looked around for Sharlson Naurya, but could not
find her in the crowd. Or Brother Chulian. It was getting
dim. The small white sea of faces was beginning to smudge
a little. He realized, with a start, that the sun had set. A
chill breeze was trickling down from the hillside farmlands,
making him shiver in his nakedness.

And still the Hierarchy held its hand. Round about the
Square priests stood by twos, watching, doing nothing
wine-dark shadows.

But he fancied he saw a trace of something more than
ignorant curiosity and bewildered awe in two or three of
the white faces spread out before him. And, as a man in
polar snows nurses the tiny flame that is all that stands
between him and death by coldcupping his hands around
it, breathing upon it with infinite gentleness, shredding
upon it tiny crumbs of tinderso Jarles nursed that trace
of genuine understanding he fancied he saw, but which
might be only a trick of the shadows.

"Some of you heard why Sharlson Naurya was accused
of witchcraft. She was ordered to serve in the Sanctuary
and refused. Refused with courage and simple decency. So
a priest of the Great God reached forward those chubby,
uncalloused fingers stronger than a smith's and made
witchmarks on her shoulder before he ripped down her
smock.

"All of you must guess why Sharlson Naurya refused.
All of you know who lives there." He pointed down a dark
little street next to the Sanctuary. Eyes followed his ringer.
"Fallen sisters, they're called. Girls chosen by the Hierarchy
for the holy sisterhoods, who then so sinned against the
Great God that they could neither be suffered to remain in
the Sanctuary nor permitted to return home to infect the
innocent. So the Great God in his infinite mercy gives them
a place where they may live apart." His voice was thick
with irony. "You know! Some of you have been there
yourselves, when the priests would tolerate it."

At that, the faintest of murmurings came from the
crowd.

"Who takes your sweetest daughters for the sisterhoods,
Commoners of Megatheopolis?

"Who sends you to the fields, the roads, the mines, to
waste your years and break your backs?

"Who gives you fake thrills to deaden the pain?"

And now the muttering had become an angry murmur-
ing. Stone-blind resentment, except perhaps in two or three
cases, but dangerous. Around the edges of the square,
violet will-o'-the-wisps began to glow, and there was a
slight bulging of the wine-dark shadows. Jarles instantly
caught at it.

"See them switch on their inviolability! Puff themselves
up for safety. They're afraid of you, Commoners of Mega-
theopolis. Deadly afraid.

"With their holy gadgets the priests could farm the
whole world, web it with perfect roads, honeycomb it with
mines. And not one man lift pick or spade.

"There's another story you're told. How, when the Hi-
erarchy has finally purified all mankind, the Great God
will usher in another Golden Age, the New Golden Age,
the Golden Age without Dross.

"I ask youand especially the old ones among you
doesn't the New Golden Age get further and further away
every year? Don't the priests keep pushing it further and
further into the future? Until now it's only a hazy dream,

something to lull your little children to sleep with when
they're half dead from their first day's work and crying?

"Maybe those Golden Age scientists did intend to
restore mankind, when the threat of barbarism was finally
past. I guess they did.

"But now the priests think only one thing. How to hold
on to their power as long as mankind lastsuntil the sun
darkens and the earth freezes!"

Then he realized that the muttering had died and that
the commoners were no longer looking at him, but up-
ward. An eerie, leaden blue light was illuminating their
faces, until they looked like a crowd of drowned men. And
this time his eyes followed theirs.

The Great God had leaned forward, blotting out the
first, faint evening stars, until his gigantic face was peering
straight down at them, his blue nimbus blazing in all its
deathly glory.

"Behold their greatest trick!" Jarles shouted. "The Incar-
nate God! The Almighty Automaton!"

But they were not listening to him, and now that he had
stopped speaking, his teeth were chattering from the cold.
He hugged his arms to stop the shivering, alone on his lit-
tle bench that now seemed very low.

"It has come," the commoners were thinking. "It was all
a test, as we might have known. Unfairexcept the priests
are never, never unfair. We should not have listened. We
should not have been moved. And now we are to be
blasted for our sin, for the greatest sinto think a thought
against the Hierarchy."

The hand of the Great God thrust downward, like a
falling steeple checked in mid-air. The extended index
finger, thick as a tree trunk, pointed at the puffed robe
Jarles had cast aside, and which still hung two feet above
the ground.

Crackling, coruscating blue light snaked from nimbus to
mountainous shoulder and down the arm, spat like light-
ning from the fingertip. The empty robe glowed, frizzled,
puffed a little more, then burst with a hollow pop, like a
seaweed bladder in a fire.

That sound, and the spatter of red-hot fragments,
thawed the frozen panic. The crowd broke, began to race
toward the narrow, dark mouths of the streetsany street,
it made no difference, so long as they got out of the
square.

The crackling beam moved slowly toward the bench on

which Jarles still stood, fusing the cobblestones, leaving a
red-hot trough in its wakea sign and mark for all times
to come of the Great God's divine wrath.

He waited for it.

There was a swooping of blackness, a beat as of gigantic
shadowy wings. And then around the renegade priest had
closed an irregular spheremottled with blackness, inkily
smeared, so that through it his naked body was still vaguely
visible.

And the irregular sphere had the form of two great
clawed hands, cupped together.

The blue beam from the Great God's finger moved
swiftly then, impinged upon the sphere, crackled against it,
showering blue sparks.

The sphere drank the beam and grew not one whit less
black.

The beam thickened to a writhing pillar of blue light,
turning the square to day and driving back the air in hot
waves.

And still it only spattered harmlessly against the black-
streaked, irregular sphere of the cupped hands.

It was still possible to glimpse the form of the renegade
priest inside them, like an insect miraculously alive in the
heart of a flame.

Then a great, evilly mirthful voice that seemed to blow
the hot air from the square in one breath, that stopped
every fleeing commoner in his tracks and turned him
around to stare in paralyzed terror at the black and flam-
ing spectacle.

"The Lord of Evil defies the Great God!

"The Lord of Evil takes this man for his own."

The cupped hands jerked away, upward, off and out of
sight.

Then gales of satanic laughter that seemed to rock the
Sanctuary itself.

 Chapter 2

"BROTHER JARLES has begun to harangue the crowd in
the Great Square, your resplendent archpriestship."

"Good! Send the reports in to me at the Apex Council as
soon as he is finished."

Brother Goniface, priest of the Seventh Circle, arch-
priest, chief voice of the Realists in the Apex Council,
smiledbut the smile was not apparent in the pale, lion-
like mask of his face. He had touched off a bomb that
would blast the Apex Council out of its complacency
both the Moderates, with their flabby compromises, and his
own Realists, with their mulish conservatism.

His dangerous little experiment was running now and
couldn't very well be stopped. Let Brother Frejeris and the
rest of the Moderates yelp as much as they wanted to
afterwards.

For afterwards everything would be neatly rounded off.
Brother Jarles would be dead, frizzled by the Great God's
wrathan instructive example for the commoners and any
other dissatisfied young priests. And Goniface would be
able to explain at leisure to the Apex Council just how
much vital information had been gained by study of the
artificial crisis he had fomented.

Only at times like this did a man really live! To have
power was good. To use it dangerously was better.

But to use it in fighting an enemy perhaps as strong as
yourself was best of all.

He adjusted his gold-worked scarlet robe, commanded
the great doors to open, and strode into the Council
Chamber.

At the far end of the vast, pearly room, on an extensive
dais, was a long table, with every seat behind it occupied
by a gorgeously robed archpriestevery seat save one.

Goniface relished that long walk the length of the
Council Chamber, with all the rest of them already in
place. He liked to know that they were watching him every

step of the way, hoping he would stumble slightly or scuff
the floor, just once. Liked to think how they would spring
on him like famished cats if they had the slightest inkling
of the secret of his past, that darkest of dark jests.

Liked to know it, and then forget it!

For that long walk across the Council Chamber under
those critical eyes gave Goniface something that no other
archpriest seemed quite to understand. Something that he
would not have allowed excitement over a dozen Jarleses
to rob him of. An opportunity to drink in, at its richest and
most tense, the power and glory of the Hierarchystablest
government the world had ever known. The only govern-
ment fully worth a strong man's effort to maintain and to
dominate it. Built on a thousand lieslike all govern-
ments, thought Gonifaceyet perfectly adapted to solve
the intricate problems of human society. And so consti-
tuted, by virtue of its rigid social stratification, that the
more a member of the priestly elite struggled for power in
it, the more closely did he identify himself with the aims
and welfare of that elite.

At times like these Brother Goniface became a vision-
ary. He could look through the soaring, softly pearl-gray
walls of the Council Chamber, and watch the busy, effi-
cient working of the Sanctuarysense its uninterrupted
hum of intellectual and executive activity, its subtle plea-
sures. Then outward, past the limits of the Sanctuary,
across the checkerboard of neatly tilled fields, around the
curve of the earth, to the gleaming walls of other sanc-
tuariesthe rural ones simple and modest hermitages, the
urban ones each with its cathedral and Almighty Autom-
aton brooding over a great square. And still farther than
that, across blue oceans, to other continents and gorgeous
tropical islands. And everywhere to see in vision and sense
with a pleasure-beyond-pleasure the workings of the scar-
let robefrom the lamaseries clinging unshakably to the
titan Himalaya, to the snug stations buried deep in Ant-
arctica. Everywhere the sanctuaries, webbing the whole
world, like the ganglia of some globular marine orga-
nism, floating in the sea of space.

And then even beyond thatto heaven itself!

After he had walked a little more than halfway, his
imagination began its return journey. And now it followed
the lines of the social pyramid, or cone. First the broad
base of commonersthat necessary, bestial, almost mind-
less substratum. Then a thin layer of deaconsinsulation.

Then the novices and rank and file of the first two circles
of the priesthood, accounting for more than seven-eighths
of the scarlet robes. Then, the cone swiftly narrowing, the
various higher circles, each with its special domain of
interest and endeavor, until the small Seventh Circle of
major executives was reached.

And, on top of all, the archpriests and the Apex Coun-
cil.

And, whether or not they knew it, whether or not they
unconsciously feared or desired it, himself on top of
that!

He slipped into his seat and asked, although he knew the
answer, "What business today?"

"That, so please your archpriestships," came the well-
modulated voice of a Second Circle clerk, "which you have
asked me to refer to as the Matter of the Frightened
Priests."

Goniface sensed a reaction of annoyance ripple along
the Council Table. This was one of those fantastic matters
that refused to adjust themselves to established procedures,
and were, therefore, exceedingly vexing to conservative
mentalities. For two days running the Apex Council had
postponed dealing with it.

"What do you say, Brothers?" he proposed in easy,
casual tones. "Shall we have all our country relations in
together? Shame them by making them listen to each
others' childish-seeming tales?"

"That is hardly in accord with the best psychological
practices," observed Brother Frejeris, his voice like the
middle notes of an organ for beauty and strength. "We
then encourage mass hysteria."

Goniface nodded politely, remarking, "You dignify their
condition, Brother, with a high-sounding term," and again
looked up and down the table, questioningly.

"Have them in together," urged Goniface's fellow Real-
ist Jomald. "Else we'll be here all night."

Goniface glanced toward the senior member, lean
Brother Sercival, whose white hair, shaven perhaps yester-
day, still gave a silvery tint to his parchment skull.

"Together!" voted Brother Sercival through thin lips,
ever stingy with words, the old Fanatic!

At that there was general agreement.

"A trifle of no importance," murmured Brother Frejeris,
waving the matter aside with a sculpturesque white hand.
"I merely sought to avoid a situation which may prove

confusing to those of you who are not trained psycholo-
gists."

A clerk transmitted the necessary orders.

As they waited, Brother Frejeris glanced down into his
lap. "I am informed," he said, very casually, "that there is
a disturbance in the Great Square."

Goniface did not look at him.

"If it is of any consequence," he remarked smoothly,
"our servant Cousin Deth will inform us."

"Your servant, Brother," Frejeris corrected, with equal
smoothness.

Goniface made no reply.

A score of priests were ushered in through the side door.
Superficially they seemed identical with the priests of the
Megatheopolis Sanctuary, but to the members of the Apex
Council, their every mannerism and gesture, the way they
wore their robes and the precise cut of those robes, spelled
"country."

They stood before the council table, an abashed and
very much impressed clump of men.

Their numbers merely emphasized the lustrous gray
vastness of the Council Chamber.

"Your reverend archpriestships," began a gnarly fellow,
who seemed to have absorbed something of the earthiness
of the endless tilled fields, without working in them. "I
know what I'm going to say must seem very unreal here at
Megatheopolis," he continued haltingly, his eyes tracing
upward the vaulting of the walls until it was lost in the
misty ceiling, "here at Megatheopolis, where you can
turn night into day if you want to. It's different where we
come from, where night edges up and clamps down, and
you feel the silence creep in from the fields and grab the
town"

"No atmosphere, man! The story!" interjected Fre-
jeris.

"Story!" snapped Sercival.

"Well, it's . . . it's wolves," the gnarly fellow said, with
almost a touch of defiance. "I know there aren't any such
things, except in the old books. But at night, we see them.
Gray, smoky ones, colored like these walls, big as horses,
with red eyes. They come loping, packs of them, like banks
of mist, over the fields, and come skulking into town,
circling around the sanctuary. And whenever a pair of us
must go out at night, they follow. The Finger of Wrath
can't hurt themor the Rod! They just back away from

the light it makes and skulk in the shadows. I tell you, your
reverences, our commoners are crazy with fear, and the
novices are almost as bad. And then, at night, in the cells,
something squats on our chests!"

"I know!" interrupted another country priest excitedly.
"Cold furry things that twitch at the clothes and softly feel
your face. And they squat there, light as down, while you
don't know whether you're waking or dreaming, and they
nuzzle you and chatter at you in their thin high voices,
saying things you hardly dare repeat. But when the light's
on, or when you try to clutch at them, they're never there.
Yet you can feel them as they touch you and squat on
you. Cold, skinny things, covered with a fine fur or hair
human hair!"

A third country priest, a sallow, high-foreheaded fellow
with the look of a schoolmaster, had grown yet more pale
at this last recital. "That's exactly how it felt!" he cried out
nervously, his eyes fixed on something far away. "Brother
Galjwin and I had gone to search the house of a common-
er whom we suspected of having concealed a portion of his
weavings, on which tithes were due the Hierarchy. They
were a bad lot, the daughter the worsta shameless hussy!
But I was on to their tricks, and pretty soon I spotted a
loose board in the wall. I pulled it out, and stuck my arm
through and felt around behind. That red-haired hussy was
grinning at me in the nastiest, most disrespectful way. I felt
a roll of cloth with a heavy nap, and reached in farther, so
I could get my fingers around it and pull it out. And then it
came alive! It moved. It wriggled! Cold, furry, but human
feeling, just like he saidthough the space back there
wasn't four inches wide! We had that inside wall torn
down, and we watched the crack all the while. Nothing
came out. But we found nothing. We gave the household
an extra stint of weaving, as penance. We found witch-
marks on the daughter, got a special dispensation, and had
her sent to the mines with the men.

"One thing I'll never forget. When I jerked my hand
out, there were two tiny hairs caught in the jag of a
nailtwo tiny hairs of the same angry copper shade as the
girl's!

"And now, when I sleep badly, I keep feeling the thing.
Thin spidery arms against my palmwriggling!"

And now all tongues were unloosed, and there was a
frightened babble. One voice, louder than the rest, ex-

claimed, "They say it's those things that make the witch-
marks!"

A gorgeously robed archpriest laughed melodiously, con-
temptuously. But there was something a little hollow about
the laughter.

Brother Frejeris smiled and arched his eyebrows el-
oquently, as if to say, "Mass hysteria. I warned you."

"I said it would all seem very unreal here at Megatheo-
polis," asserted the first rural speaker, apologetically, yet
still with a shade of stubborn defiance. "But there was a
Fifth Circle priest sent down to investigate when we made
our first reports. He saw what we saw. He didn't say
anything. Next day he went away. If he found out any-
thing, we haven't heard about it."

"We expect the Hierarchy to protect us!"

"We want to know what the Hierarchy's going to do!"

"They say," broke in the fellow who had mentioned
witchmarks, "that there's a Black Apex, just as there's an
Apex Council, so please your reverences! And a Black
Hierarchy, organized as we are, but serving Sathanas, Lord
of Evil!"

"Yes," echoed the first speaker, the gnarly one. "And I
want to know this! What if our centuries of pretending that
there's a real god have somehowI don't know how
awakened a real devil? What then?"

Goniface sat up and spoke into the shiver that followed
those words. His voice lacked Frejeris' music, but it had its
own stony compellingness.

"Silence! Or you will wake a real devil. The devil of our
wrath!"

He looked up and down the table. "What to do with
these fools?" he asked lightly.

"Whip them!" snapped Sercival, lean jaw like a trap,
small eyes glittering in their leathery sockets. "Whip them!
For being such cowards in the face of the wiles and threats
of Sathanas!"

The country priests stirred uneasily. Frejeris rolled his
eyes upward, as if such a statement were almost unbeara-
bly barbarous. But Goniface nodded politely, though not
indicating agreement. He casually wondered to what de-
gree old Sercival and the other Fanatics actually believed
in the real existence of the Great God and his eternal
adversary, Sathanas, Lord of Evil. Largely a pose, of
course, but there was probably a substratum of genu-
ineness. Not stemming from the ignorant superstitions of

the commonersthose were wiped out in the First and
Second Circle, or else a priest got no furtherbut from a
kind of self-hypnosis induced by years of contemplating the
stupendous powers of the Hierarchy, until those powers
actually took on a supernatural tinge. Luckily, Fanatics
were very rarehardly worth calling a party. Only one on
the Apex Council, and he only became one in his senility.
Even at that, the old fool might some day prove useful. He
was grim and bloody-minded enough, and would serve as a
convenient scapegoat if it were ever necessary to employ
extreme violence. The Fanatic Party, for that matter, was
useful in counterbalancing the more numerous minority of
Moderates, leaving Goniface's Realists in almost complete
control.

But these poor country priests were not Fanatics. Far
from it. If they had even a shadow of belief in the Great
Godin any godthey wouldn't be so frightened. Goni-
face rose to reprimand them.

But there was an interruption. The high doors at the
other end of the Chamber opened. A priest darted in.
Goniface recognized one of Frejeris' Moderates.

The newcomer's progress toward the Council Table was
nothing stately. He was almost running.

Goniface waited coolly.

The newcomer, breathing a little hard from the unaccus-
tomed exertion, handed something to Frejeris which the
latter quickly scanned.

Frejeris rose and spoke to Goniface directly, for the
whole table to hear.

"I am informed that a First Circle priest is blaspheming
the Hierarchy before a large crowd in the Great Square.
Your servant Cousin Deth has taken charge and forbids
interference. I demand you instantly explain to the Council
what this madness means!"

"Who fosters mass hysteria now, Brother?" Goniface
countered quickly. "Your information is incomplete. Shall
I explain a subtle stratagem before those who would not
understand it?" He indicated the country priests. "Or shall
I finish the business before the Council?"

And before the Council had recovered from its first
surprise, he was talking.

"Priests of the rural sanctuaries: You have said that
your stories would seem unreal here. That is untrue. For
the unreal is not, at Megatheopolis or anywhere else in the
cosmos.

"The supernatural is unreal, and therefore is not.

"Have you forgotten the basic truth you learned in the
First Circle? That there is only the cosmos and the elec-
tronic entities that constitute it, without soul or purpose,
save so far as neuronic minds impose purpose upon it?

"No, your stories refer to real entitiesif only to the
imagery of your neuronic minds.

"There are many real entities which the Finger of Wrath
cannot burn. I mention only solidographs, and remind you
of the shadowiness of the wolves and other creatures you
claim to fear. As for mental imagery, you cannot burn that
except by turning the Finger of Wrath against your own
skulls.

"One of you mentioned the Witchcraft. Has that one
forgotten that the Witchcraft is our fosterling?

"I should not be telling you this. You should be telling
it to your novices!

"Has the Hierarchy ever failed you? Yet now do you
want the Hierarchy to drop all other business and, with
much outward fuss and flourishing, attend only to you,
because you are frightenednot hurt, merely fright-
ened?

"How do you know that all this is not a test, imposed
upon you by us, to determine your courage and resource-
fulness? If it is a test, think how pitifully, thus far, you
have failed!

"It may be a test.

"It may also be that some alien agency is striking at the
Hierarchy, perhaps under cover of our fosterling the
Witchcraft. And that we are holding our hand, to draw
them out and learn all, before we strike in return. For the
Hierarchy never strikes twice.

"If that is the case, elementary strategy forbids your
being told anything, for fear of scaring off the enemy.

"This much I will tell you. The Hierarchy knew of the
disturbances in your region long before you did. And it
has concerned itself deeply with them.

"That is all you need to know. And you should have
known it without asking!"

With cold gratification, Goniface noted that the last
traces of panic had quite evaporated. The country priests
stood straighter now, looked more like men. Still fright-
enedbut only of their superiors. As they should be.

"Priests of the rural sanctuaries, you have grievously
failed the Hierarchy. Our reports show that, since the

beginning of the disturbancesor the testin your region,
you have done little but cry to the Hierarchy for help. It
has been suggested that you be whipped. I am inclined to
agree. Except that I believe you have enough iron in you
not to fail again.

"The Hierarchy grips the globed earth like a hand. Will
it be your eternal disgrace to be remembered as the ones
who sought to loosen, infinitesimally, one fingertip? I say
'sought' advisedly, because we watch over you more closely
than you think, and stand ever ready if even the least of
you should fail.

"Not to fail, is your affair!

"Go back to your sanctuaries.

"Do what you should have done long ago.

"Call upon your courage and resourcefulness.

"Fear is a weaponfor you to use, not for others to use
against you.

"You have been trained in its use.

"Use it!

"And as for Sathanas, also our fosterling, our Lord of
Evil, our black counterpart to our Great God"he stole
an ironic sidewise glance at Sercival, to see how the old
Fanatic was taking this"use him, too. Whip him from
your towns if that seems expedient. But never, never again,
stoop so lowlow even as commoners!as to believe in
him!"

It was thenjust as Goniface could see that the country
priests had taken fire from his words and were beginning to
burn with a desire to redeem themselvesthat the laughter
came. The walls of the Council Chamber were thick and
proof against ordinary sound, yet still it cameevilly
mirthful, uncanny peals.

It seemed to laugh at the Hierarchyand at anyone
who dared decree what is and what is not.

The country priests paled and edged closer together. The
haughty faces of the archpriests more or less successfully
masked shock, apprehension, and a furious thinking as to
what that noise might be and what it might portend.
Frejeris looked suddenly at Goniface. Old Sercival began
to tremble with what seemed a queer sort of fear and a
queerer satisfaction.

But it was in Goniface's ears that the laughter thundered
most shakingly and dismayingly. Thoughts flickered like
wildfire across his mind.

But all the while he imperturbably fought to hold the

eyes of the country priests, to oppose the influence of that
unnerving laughter. And he succeeded, although the eyes
grew wide with doubt.

The laughter echoed off, shudderingly.

"Your audience is at an end," Goniface declared harsh-
ly. "Leave us!"

The country priests hurried off. It was only the swishing
of their robes, but it sounded as if they were already
whispering.

Old Sercival rose up like some ancient prophet, hand
shakily extended toward Goniface. "That was the laughter
of Sathanas! It is a judgment of the Great God upon you
and the whole Hierarchy for centuries of hypocrisy and
pretense! The Great God looses against the world his black
dog Sathanas!"

And he sank back into his seat, trembling.

The Council shifted restlessly. Someone tittered con-
temptuously.

Goniface felt throbbing through him the same strange,
intoxicating pulsation he had felt years ago when the secret
of his past had been within a hairbreadth of discovery.

A fat little priest pressed through the tail end of the
country delegation as it left the Chamber, and fairly
scampered toward Goniface.

Goniface stopped him. "Make your report to the assem-
bled Apex Council, Brother Chulian!"

The fat little priest's cherubic mouth gaped like that of a
fish. "The likeness of great hands cupped round Brother
Jarles and carried him off! Sathanas spoke!"

"Your report!" Goniface commanded harshly. "The rest
we can hear from others better able to tell it."

The fat little priest dodged back as if water had been
thrown in his face. He seemed for the first time to realize
the presence of the Council. His piping voice grew subser-
vient, his words terse.

"As instructed, I provoked the First Circle priest Broth-
er Jarles to anger. I did this by ordering the Commoner
Sharlson Naurya, whom Brother Jarles still regards emo-
tionally, to serve in the Sanctuary. She, a well-known
recalcitrant, with abnormal fear of the sanctuaries, re-
fused. I then accused her of witchcraft, squeezing her
shoulder to produce a witchmark. Brother Jarles struck
me. We were both inviolable at the time. I was knocked
down. Then I"

"your report ends, Brother Chulian," Goniface fin-
ished for him.

Across the ensuing silence Brother Frejeris' voice rang
more musically than before. "If all we are to hear consists
of such rash and mischievous madness as thisaimed
directly against the stability of the HierarchyI will not
need to ask for Brother Goniface's excommunication. Ev-
ery archpriest will ask it for me."

"You will hear all," Goniface told him. "Hearing, you
will understand."

But he could tell that his words fell flat. Even in the
faces of his own Realists he could discern suspicion and
distrust. Brother Jomald gave him a look as if to say, "The
party disclaims all responsibility in this matter. You must
handle it yourselfif you can."

The fat little priest seemed to want to say more. His
cherubic mouth twitched anxiously. Goniface nodded to
him.

"May I make an addition to my report, your rever-
ence?"

"If it concerns your part in the action."
"It does, your resplendency. And it puzzles me. When I
tore Sharlson Naurya's smock to expose the witchmark,
there were three such marks where I am sure my thumb
and forefinger alone had rested."

Goniface could have kissed the fat little priest. But his
voice was faraway and musing as he replied. "And to
think, Brother Chulian, that you might even now be a
priest of the Third Circle, if you only had joined the virtue
of deduction to the virtue of observation." He shook his
head regretfully. "Well, I will give you a chance to redeem
yourself. After all, it was a most peculiar coincidence.
Take another priest, now that you no longer have your
partner Jarles, and arrestthe witch!"

The fat little priest goggled at him. "What witch, your
dread resplendency?"

"Sharlson Naurya. And you had best be quick about it if
you hope to catch her."

Realization dawned in Brother Chulian's baby-blue eyes.
He goggled for a moment longer. Then he spun around
and scurried for the door.

But this time he had to stand aside for others. A meager
spindly man in the black robe of a deacon strode with
brassy self-assurance into the Council Chamber, followed

by several priests bearing oddly shaped rolls and canis-
ters.

He planted himself before the Council Table with his
entourage of priests. He was a paragon of sallow ugliness,
with bulging forehead and jutting ears like three-quarter
saucers. Nevertheless, the inscrutable mask he preserved
was a painstaking copy of that which confined the coldly
handsome features of Goniface. He seemed to enjoy the
animosity which greeted his appearance, as if he were well
aware that though his birth prevented him from ever
entering the priesthood, he was nevertheless more feared
than many an archpriest.

"And what has your servant Cousin Deth to tell us?"
demanded one of the Moderatesnot Frejeris.

The sallow man bowed low. "Your awful, august, ex-
alted unimpeachabilities," he began with acid fawning. "I
need make no verbal report. These unprejudiced witnesses
will report for me." He indicated the rolls and canisters.
"A moving solidograph of all that transpired in the Great
Square. A transcription of each word spoken by Brother
Jarles, and, synchronized with both, a visigraphic record
of the major neuro-emotional waves emitted by the crowd
during his harangue. A graphic analysis, made at Cathe-
dral Control Center, of the apparent physical nature of the
shell which closed around Brother Jarles and carried him
off. A transcription of the words and laughter that came
at the end. With the usual supplements." And he bowed
again, so low that his black sleeves swept the floor.

"We care not for your pretty pictures!" cried the same
Moderate who had spoken before, face red with anger.
"We want your story of what finally happened,
Deacon!"

Goniface noted that Frejeris was unsuccessfully signing
the man to keep quiet and not waste their advantage in
petty outbursts. Cousin Deth, quite unabashed, looked
inquiringly at Goniface, who nodded to him.

"All went as planned, as the records show," Deth began,
the ghost of a cynical smile playing around his slitlike
mouth. "At the end a mottled sphere, suggestive of hands,
cupped around the priest. It sustained for an appreciable
time the full power of the Great God's wrath. We were
able to study it. Then it shot off, escaping us by a hair-
breadth. For we had angels held in readiness to pursue, as
you commanded." And he bowed toward Goniface, with-

oat mockery. "We know the quarter in which it vanished,
and a search is now in progress."

Instantly Goniface rose, motioning Deth to approach the
table and prepare the records for viewing.

Now was the proper moment, felt Goniface. Deth's
words had angered all of them, but the Moderates most,
while the Realists had been impressed in spite of them-
selves. He addressed the Council.

"Archpriests of Earth, it had been said: 'As Megatheop-
olis goes, so goes the planet.' But to turn that aphorism to
practical use, we must know in what direction Megatheop-
olis is going before it goes!

"No government that calls itself realistic can neglect to
answer that question.

"What archpriest here, saving perhaps you, Brother
Sercival, believed that an enemy would openly strike at
Megatheopolis itself?

"I did not so believe. But I wanted to find out. That was
one of the reasons for the experiment in the Great
Square.

"Brothers, you have the answer. Sathanas came.

"No longer can we deny that our fosterling, the Witch-
craft, conceals an enemyan enemy daring and danger-
ous.

"No longer can we deny that, within the debased Witch-
craft which we tolerate, there is another Witchcraft, which
seeks to use the weapon of fear, not only against common-
ers, but against priests. There is reason to believe that the
members of this Inner Witchcraft may be identified by
certain marks on their bodies. They show themselves cun-
ning and resourceful.

"No longer can we dismiss as some trifling case of mass
hysteria the Matter of the Frightened Priests. To give them
courage, I told them it might be merely a test we had
imposed upon them. But all of you know that three of our
Fifth Circle scientists have admitted themselves baffled by
those manifestations in the rural sanctuaries."

Goniface paused. The Moderates seemed angrier than
ever. Plain talk of danger always angered them. But the
Realists were listening. The look in Brother Jomald's face
had become one of grudging admiration.

"To return to the question: 'How goes Megatheopo-
lis?'

"Brothers, there is only one way to find out. Only one
way to discover the true temper of the commoners. The

closest observation of them in their normal round of life is
insufficient. So are psychological tests. The one sure way,
the only sure way, is to foment a sizable minor crisis and
study it intensively."

The angriest Moderate started to get up. Frejeris fore-
stalled himwith a certain unhappiness, as if he realized
that they could no longer defeat Goniface by a straight-
forward attack.

"One does not fight fire by throwing oil on it," he began.

"One does!" Goniface countered. "Oil is more penetrat-
ing than water. There is a kind of hidden, smoldering fire
which only oil can reach and which lacks sufficient
oxygen to ignite the oil. Such a fire, Brothers, smolders in
the hearts of our commoners. And the force operating
against us from under cover of the witchcraft is another
such fire, hidden but dangerous.

"To discover the secret temper of our commoners, to
provide them with the instructive example of a priest
blasted for blasphemyor, in lieu of that, as actually
happened, to lure the enemy into the openI fomented a
crisis.

"And now, archpriests of Megatheopolis, I give you a
faithful recording of that crisis, for your contemplation
and study, with a view to preventing the truly serious ones
to come.

"After you have seen it, excommunicate me, if you still
want to."

While Goniface spoke, Cousin Deth's assistants had
worked a change in the seemingly fleckless surface of the
Council table. A circular depression about six feet across
had appeared in the center. To one side were grouped
smaller depressions, and certain slots had become appar-
ent. The rolls and canisters had all disappearedbeen
inserted in the appropriate orifices.

Deth had touched a control and, while Goniface had
been speaking, the pearly Council Chamber had slowly
darkened, through an imperceptible series of grays. Now
came utter blackness.

With the suddenness of creation a miniature scene
sprang into being in the center of the table. Only an occa-
sional mistiness, and a slight blurring when many figures
were grouped together, testified that it was only a projec-
tiona focusing of the patterns recorded on multiple tapes
whirling noiselessly.

Pygmy figures in home-woven drab, scarlet-robed dolls

of priests, tiny horses, carts, and wares, all completea
sizable portion of the Great Square, without the surround-
ing architecture.

Only now, instead of the Great God, the archpriests of
the Apex Council brooded over it.

Up from the smaller depressions rose stubby columns of
lightyellow, green, blue, violetfluctuating slightly but
incessantly in height and saturation of colorindicative of
the massed changes in the major neuro-emotional responses
of the crowd.

There rose the hum and babble of pygmy voices, the
clatter of tiny hoofs, the squeak of wooden wheels.

The scene in the Great Square was repeating itself.

Cousin Deth thrust his now-giant arm into the moving
solidograph, momentarily intensifying, then shattering the
illusion. His fingers negligently poked at and into two tiny
red-robed figures.

"Jarles and Chulian," he explained. "In a few moments
we'll give you their voices in full intensity."

Goniface leaned back with satisfaction. He was studying
the expressions on the faces of the peering archpriests
eerily lit masks seeming to hang against the distanceless
blackness beyond the table. But now and then he looked at
the solidograph.

It was at the moment of the first accusation of witch-
craftthe violet column concerned with fear, repulsion,
and similar emotions had jumped abruptly and gone wan
that he chanced to note her face.

Almost, he jerked forward and grabbed at it.

But he caught himself in time and only leaned forward
idly, as if it were his momentary fancy to take a closer
look.

It couldn't be.

But there it was. That little coldly purposeful face, more
perfect than any cameo, with its dark, fine-spun doll's hair.
Not identically the same, of course, as the one printed in
his memory. But if you allowed for the years and the
maturing the years would have brought

Geryl. Knowles Geryl.

But Chulian had referred to her by another name
Sharlson Naurya.

A long-locked door in Goniface's mind groaned and
reverberated, straining against the hinges with a formless
pressure from the other side.

He looked across the table toward the yellowish carica-

ture that was Deth's face in the darkness, caught the beady
black eyes. Deth melted backward, was gone.

Goniface stood up quietly and walked behind the chairs,
as though he were tired of sitting. Then he moved away
from the table.

He sensed Deth's presence beside him, caught the thin,
bony wrist in his hand, and whispered very faintly into
Deth's ear:

"The woman I sent Chulian to arrest. Sharlson Naurya.
Find her. Take her from Chulian if he has her. But find
her. Make her my secret prisoner."

And then, like an afterthought. "Unharmed, mind you,
at least until I have seen and spoken with her."

In the darkness Cousin Deth smiled crookedly.

 Chapter 3

FOR a moment Brother Chulian thought a shadow was
scuttling toward him in the deep grooves between the
cobbles. He jerked away so that his halo reeled tipsily
across the lightless street and his inviolability field bumped
that of his companion.

"I slipped," he gasped unconvincingly. "Some nasty
commoner must have thrown out greasy slops."

The other priest did not reply. Fervently Chulian hoped
that he would not mind turning right at the next corner. It
was a little longer that way, but you didn't have to pass the
haunted house.

To his relief the fellow turned right without being
asked.

Of course, the house wasn't really haunted, Chulian
reminded himself quickly. That would be the sheerest
nonsense. But it was such an ugly old relic of the Golden
Age and the commoners told such unpleasantly grotesque
stories about it at confession.

Why did the commoners have to have such narrow,
twisty streets and why was there such a strict curfew,
Chulian complained to himself, as if it were somehow the
commoners' fault. Like a city of the dead. Not a person
stirring, hot a light showing, not a sound. Of course, all
those rules were the laws of the Hierarchy, he remembered
unwillingly. Still, there ought to be some provision for
cases like thissay a law that the commoners ought to
listen for priests coming at night and be ready to set out
lighted torches. A halo hardly gave you enough light to
keep from tripping over things!

Like twin will-o'-the-wisps the two circular violet glows
bobbed through the crazily curving trenches in darkness
that were the streets of Megatheopolis.

Behind rose the glow of the Sanctuary. To Chulian it
seemed like a warm hearth from which he had been un-
fairly pushed out into the cold. Why did they have to

pick on Mm for jobs like this? He was just an innocent
clerk, bothering no one. All he asked from life was peace
and comfort, a decent supply of his favorite goodies, a
chance to lie in bedat this moment he could almost feel
its cushiony softnessand watch his favorite solidographic
books read themselves, and now and again a bit of special
fun with a Fallen Sister.

Who in the world could be so cruel as to object to
that?

It all came from his miserable luck -at having been
paired off with Jarles, he told himself. That sullen fellow!
If he hadn't been paired with Jarles, he wouldn't have been
forced into this wild plot, which he didn't understand and
which seemed to have been designed solely to bring trouble
and danger into a world that would go so smoothly if
everyone were more like Brother Chulian!

Even then it would have been all right if he hadn't been
so foolish as to mention those extra marks to Goniface.
But if he hadn't told, they'd probably have found out and
he'd have been punished.

Witchmarks! Chulian shivered. Almost he could see
them burning in the white flesh of that nasty girl .Why did
some commoner girls have to be brazen and sulky? Why
couldn't they all be gentle and docile?

Witchmarks! He wished he could stop thinking about
them. As part of his priestly education he had read a book
about the Middle Ages of the Dawn Civilization and its
primitive Witchcraft. A witchmark was supposed to be
where a witch suckled her familiar. A familiar was sup-
posed to be a little helper given her by SatanSathanas.

Of course, it had all been nonsense then and was non-
sense now.

But why had Goniface called the girl a witch when he
had heard of the extra marks, and sent Chulian to arrest
her?

Chulian didn't really want to know the answer. He didn't
want to be a Third Circle priest. He just wanted to be left
in peace. If he could only make them understand that!

His companion nudged him into attentiveness, pointing
at a rectangle of deeper blackness in the irregular rubble-
and-plaster wall. They had arrived.

Chulian rapped loudly against the rough wooden door.
When your fingers wore the Gloves of Inviolability you
could hardly hurt them.

"Open in the name of the Great God and his Hierar-

chy!" he commanded, his reedy voice amplified by the
silence.

"The door is not barred. Open it yourself," came the
quiet, muffled, gently mocking answer.

Chulian bristled. Such insolence! But then they had
come to arrest the girl, not to teach her manners. He
jerked the latchstring and pushed.

The room was dimly and unevenly lit by the flickering of
a thrifty fire. Faint coils of smoke, escaping from the
fireplace, writhed about lazily, some of them eventually
finding their way through the tiny square air hole in the
low ceiling. Chulian's companion coughed.

Before the fireplace a shuttle was moving busily through
the threads of a large loom, weaving some darkly figured
fabric.	*

Its uninterrupted, snake's-head rhythm made Chulian
uneasy. He hesitated and shot a quick glance at his com-
panion. Side by side, close together, they moved forward
until they could see the other side of the loom and Sharl-
son Naurya.

She was wearing a close-fitting dress of gray homespun.
Her rapt eyes seemed to be looking not so much at her
work as through it, though her busy fingers never hesi-
tated. Was it only cloth she was weaving, Chulian won-
dered, or something elsesomething bigger?

With almost a guilty start, he realized of whom she
reminded him. Only a suggestion, of course Still, there
was in her face the same dark strength, the same sense of
hidden yet limitless purpose, as he had just seen, and
cringed before, in the archpriest Goniface.

After a moment she turned her head and looked at
them. But there was no change in her expressionas if
they were merely part of that bigger, invisible fabric.
Without haste she tucked the shuttle into the warp and
stood facing them, folding her hands at her waist.

"Sharlson Naurya," Chulian intoned solemnly, but a
trifle jerkily, "we come, inviolable emissaries of the Hierar-
chy, to do the bidding of the Great God."

Her green eyes smiled at that, if eyes can smile. But
what Chulian wondered was what those eyes saw when
they looked past him. Brazen girl! What right had she to
take this so calmly!

He drew himself up.

"Sharlson Naurya, in the name of the Great God and his
Hierarchy, I arrest you!"

She bent her head. And now there was something
twisted and evil about the way her eyes smiled. She
suddenly spread her hands outward from her waist.

"Run, Puss!" she cried with an almost mischievous ur-
gency. "Tell the Black Man!"

A glittering talon ripped at the waist the gray homespun
of her dressfrom within. There was a rapid disturbance
of the cloth. Then through the slit something wriggled and
sprang.

Something furry, big as a cat, but more like a monkey,
and incredibly lean.

Like a swift-scuttling spider it was up the wall and
across the ceiling, clinging effortlessly.

Chulian's muscles froze. With a throaty gasp his com-
panion lunged out an arm. From the pointing finger
crackled a needle of violet light, scorching a zigzag track in
the crude plaster of wall and ceiling.

The thing paused for a moment in the air hole, looking
back. Then it was gone, and the violet beam spat futilely
through the air hole toward the black heavens, where one
star glittered.

But Chulian continued to stare upward, his slack jaw
trembling. He had got one look at the tiny face. Not when
the thing had moved, for then it had been only a rippling
blur, but when it had paused to glance back.

Not all the features of a face had been there. Some had
been missing and others had seemed telescoped into each
other. And the fine fur had encroached on them.

Nevertheless, where the features had showed through
the fur, they had been white, and, in spite of all distortions,
they had been a peering, chinless, noseless, hellish, but
terribly convincing caricature of the features of Sharlson
Naurya.

And the fur had been of exactly the same shade as her
dark hair.

Finally, Chulian looked back at her. She had not moved.
Still stood there smiling with her eyes.

"What was that thing?" he cried. It was much more a
frightened appeal than a demand.

"Don't you know?" she asked gravely.
She reached for a shawl hanging from the end of the
loom. "I am ready," she said. "Aren't you going to take me
to the Sanctuary?"

And pulling her shawl around her, she walked toward
the door.

It seemed darker than ever outside, and dead still. If any
commoners had heard the disturbance, they had not come
out to investigate. Of course, that was the law, but Chulian
wished that some commoner would break itjust this
once. Or if only they would meet up with a patrol of
deacons!

Through the narrow, uneven streets hurriedly bobbed
the two violet halos, straining toward the beacon-glow of
the Sanctuary.

If only the girl wouldn't walk so slowly! Of course, they
could hurry her upeach had an elbow in one of his
puffed handsbut somehow Chulian didn't like the idea of
hurting her, especially since she was otherwise so docile.
After all, that thing of hers was somewhere on the roofs,
perhaps following them. At any moment he might look up
and see a tiny anthropoid muzzle poked over an edge,
outlined against the stars.

When they got to the Sanctuary, things would be differ-
ent!

Lightless doorways, lightless mouths of other streets,
marched past them. At the next corner they must turn to
the left to avoid the haunted house, Chulian reminded
himself.

But when they got to the turn, the street to the left was
walledstuffed solidwith blackness.

Not the star-hazed blackness through which they had
been passing, but blackness utter and complete, making the
rest seem gray.

Nothing more.

Chulian looked sideways past the girl at Brother Arolj's
face, sickly under the glowing halo, and caught an answer-
ing panicky glance.

In a rush, so they wouldn't be able to flinch, they
plunged into the blackness, the girl between them.

Their halos were extinguished. There was no light what-
ever.

As if out of a wall of ink, they scrambled back again,
gasping. For one horrid moment Chulian feared they
would be trapped in the blackness forever.

They turned to the right. Blackness filled that street
mouth to brimming, too.

Yet Sharlson Naurya still stood obediently between
them. She could have escaped merely by staying in the
blacknessthey had both let go of her. Of course, she

might be afraid of the blackness, too. But Chulian did not
think so.

From the corner of his eye he darted a backward
glance. It was as he feared. The blackness had followed
them down the street by which they had come.

The only way open was directly ahead, past the haunted
house. Something wanted them to pass the haunted house.
But it was that or nothingbefore the blackness should
decide to encroach still farther and swallow them up.

That last fear must have occurred simultaneously to
Brother Arolj, for they started forward at a panicky trot,
fairly dragging their prisoner between them.

Behind them steadily flowed the wall of blackness, lap-
ping round their heels when they faltered. By the time they
reached the little neglected square and the haunted house,
they were running.

Much taller than the other houses it stood, a landmark
of desolation. But Chulian only caught a glimpse of its
entirety of crazily sagging, strangely slack walls and
drooping circular windows, like pouched and leering eyes.
For the blackness suddenly closed in from several direc-
tions, like a huge sack, cutting off the way ahead, blacking
out the stars, driving them across the rubbly ground
toward the mouth of the sack and the wrinkled, oval
doorway of the house itself.

There Chulian had his one burst of desperate, fear-in-
spired courage. He pointed his finger at Naurya.

"In the name of the Great God, if you don't make it go
away, I'll blast you!" he threatened through trembling
lips.

Instantly the blackness swooped inward, closing about
them like an envelope, bare inches away, half blotting out
their view of each other.

"I won't! I won't!" Chulian cried out, dropping his hand.

The blackness retreated somewhat.

And now Sharlson Naurya finally smiled at him with her
lips. She reached out, and before he realized what she was
going to do, slapped his chest smartly at a certain spot.

His inviolability field went limp. His halo winked out.
His scarlet robe hung loosely.

She patted his cheek, as one pats the cheek of a child.
His flesh crawled at the gentle touch.

"Good-by, Little Brother Chulian," she said, and slipped
through the sagging doorway into the haunted house.

The blackness shot back, was not.

And up from the street Cousin Deth came running.

"Your prisoner! Where is she?" he demanded curtly of
Chulian.

"Didn't you see it? That awful blackness?" Chulian
countered unsteadily.

Cousin Deth drew back from him. "I wasn't aware you
priests were afraid of the dark."

For a moment Chulian was conscious only that he had
been insulted by a mere deacon.

"She went in there!" he retorted angrily. "And if you're
so eager to get her, why don't you go in after her your-
self?"

Cousin Deth turned toward the street.

"Rouse commoners!" he shouted to someone. "Set a
cordon round the house!"

Then he turned back to Chulian.

"I shall probably be asked to enter this place tomorrow
to cleanse it of evil," he said. "Since you are so desirous of
seeing me enter it, your reverence, I will petition that you
be made my priestly director, to guide me."

 Chapter 4

THE hands left Jarles' elbows after a slight, momentary
tightening of their grip, which seemed to mean, "Stay
there!" He felt the edge of a box or bench against the
calves of his legs, but he did not sit down.

Gradually the faintest suggestion of his surroundings was
revealed, like a midnight picture deftly painted by a master
artist in brief phosphorescent strokes against a black sur-
face tinged with violet.

He was in an extensive, very low-ceilinged room. Air
currents and the way his footsteps sounded told him
that.

At what seemed the far end of the room, on a low dais,
was a kind of chair or throne, faintly glowing, with a squat
table in front of it, and on the table something that might
have been a huge, old-fashioned book, open. Little crea-
tures of some sort seemed to be playing around the throne,
for he could discern a scampering movement close to the
floor and hear an indistinct scratching and scuffingand
once or twice a faint plop, as if something suctorial had
been pulled away from a flat surface.

Then one of the creatures sprang up on the throne,
squatting there impishlya tiny, very lean, vaguely mon-
keylike silhouette.

What came next sent a dry shiver up Jarles' back and
started his scalp pricking. For the creature spoke. Or at
least whispers came from the direction of the throne in
voices too threadlike and shrill and oddly mumbling to be
humanand yet human nevertheless. He could only make
out a little here and there.

"... been tonight, Mysie?"

"... inside his robe ... a Fourth Circle priest... scared
... wits."

"Jill?"

"... on a visit far away, to tell...."

"Meg?"

"... on his chest, as he slept...."

"And Puss? But I know...."

"Yes, Dickon."

The one perched on the throne seemed to be asking, the
others to be answering the questions, as if in parody of
human beings making reports to a leader or chairman. The
last voice had a disturbing familiarity which set Jarles
quivering.

"Who are you?" he called loudlyand with more confi-
dence than he felt. "What do you want of me? Why this
mystery?"

The echoes died hollowly. There was no replyonly a
sudden scurrying. In a moment the dais was empty.

Jarles sat down. If they chose to play this sort of game
with him, there was nothing he could do about itsave
refuse to be impressed, or at least refuse to show it.

But what could be the purpose of their game? In an
effort to find some clue to his rescuersand captorshe
rehearsed in his mind what had happened since he had
stood awaiting death in the Great Square.

The first section of his memories was clouded by shock.
The impression of something solid, semi-transparent, and
blackly streaked closing around him. Blinding blue light
and a crackling, howling, laughing pandemonium of sound.
A nauseating swoop upward and then down again into a
black hole that suddenly yawned.

After that, a brief period of waiting in absolute
darkness. Then hands. Hands which eluded him when he
sought to catch hold of them. Hands which guided him for
an indeterminate distance and then left him in what cau-
tious exploration showed to be a small cell. A long period
of waiting. Again hands, bringing him here.

For a long time he peered toward the ghostly dais and
throne, until he began to think he could make out other
silhouettes, much fainter even than those of the small
scampering creatures, so faint that they vanished when he
looked at them directly. Larger silhouettes of figures seated
midway between him and the violet-tinted blackness of the
far wall, though none directly between him and the
throne.

Suddenly his eye was caught by a fleeting smudge of
phosphorescence on one of the silhouetteswhere the
teeth should be. Then brief yellowish tracks in the air, as if
made by the waving of fingertips dipped in phosphores-
cence.

He looked at his own hand. Each fingernail glowed
yellow. The room must be bathed in ultraviolet light.
Perhaps the others were wearing some sort of transformer
goggles.

"The Black Man is delayed, Sisters."
He started violently. Not because the voicea woman's
was the first undeniably human one he had heard. Not
because the words were mysterious and darkly suggestive.
But because it was so devilishly akin to one of the shrill,
subhuman voices he had heard mumbling earlier. As if this
were the voice which the weaker one had been mimick-
ing.

"Dickon is here. The Black Man cannot be far away."
Another woman's voice. Another impression of shudder-
ing similarity.

The first woman: "What work did you do tonight,
Sister?"

The second woman: "I sent Mysie to trouble a Fourth
Circle priestmay Sathanas torment him eternally! She
crept in his robe and scared him into white fitsif I can
believe her. She's such a sweet little liar when her mind is
away from mine. Whatever happened, Mysie was famished
when she came back. She'd drain me green if I let her. The
little glutton!"

Abruptly his mind grasped the thread linking together
all this shivery confusion.
The Witchcraft of the Dawn Civilization.
This would be a meeting of witches to report their
exploitsa coven meeting. The Black Manthat would be
the chief of this group or coven. And those little servant-
creatures  supposedly suckled  on  witch's  blood,  drawn
through the witchmark. What were they called? Familiars!
But he had told the commoners, and he believed it, that
there was no Witchcraft, save the debased and harmless
remnant which the Hierarchy preserved for its own pur-
poses.

This seemed debased enough, in a sense, with those
bestial little manikinsphantasms of retrograde evolution.
But harmless? He did not get that impression.

He turned again toward the dais, intending to address
further demands to the darkness and seek to force an
answer.

But the throne was no longer empty. A dead-black,
manlike shape was sitting in it.

And then a voice from the shapea silky, steely voice,
bubbling with malefic mirth.

"Your pardon for my delay, Sisters. But tonight I was as
busy as a priest. First must I guide the Hands of Sathanas
to snatch a renegade priestling from under the very nose of
the Great God. He almost sneezed in surprise, Sisters!
Next Puss came scampering to tell me that the Hierarchy
had seized our Sister Persephone and was conveying her to
the Sanctuary. So Dickon and I must float over the roofs
and drop down the Black Veil to fuddle her captors and
persuade them to escort her to a safe place of refuge."

The voice was at once attractive and repellent to Jarles.
He felt that he would like the manand hate him!

"It tickles me, Sisters, now and then to use the priests'
science against them. And no doubt our master is grateful
to be relieved of a bit of extra work. Do you know the
Black Veil, Sisters? One of the little tricks we have de-
veloped from the Hierarchy's solidograph. Two lights can
make a darkness, Sisters, if they're of the same frequency
interference, it's called. The projector of the Black Veil
sends out multiple frequencies which automatically adjust
to neutralize all light in the focal region. That's the only
real darkness for you, Sistersone that is born of two
conflicting lights!

"But I monopolize the conversation, while all of you
have doubtless as amusing tales to tell. First, though, our
reverences to our masters!"

The Black Man rose, stretching his arms outward and
upward in invocationa batlike shadow against cloudy
phosphorescence.

"To Black Sathanas, Lord of Evil, our eternal alle-
giance!"

"To Sathanas, our allegiance," echoed the shadowy ring
of witchesa dozen voices at least.

And with those voices, like a parody of a boys' choir, the
shrill falsetto parrotings of the familiars.

"To Asmodeus, King of the Demons, on earth our
master, our lifelong obedience!"

"To Asmodeus, our obedience." Again that half-chanted
response with its piping overtones.

"To the covens and the Witchcraft, to our sister witches
and brother warlocks, both here on Earth and secretly
dwelling in heaven, to the little ones, and to the common-
ers sweating under the Hierarchy's yoke, our loyalty and
love!"

"To the covens, our love."

"For the Great God, self-styled ruler of the universe, fat
and impotent phantom, our laughter and hate!"

"For the Great God, our hate."

"For the Hierarchy, his underlings, puffed red parasites,
our devices and doom!"

"For the Hierarchy, our doom!"

Then the Black Man's voice went low and ominousa
far-carrying, shivery half-whisper.

"Creep, night, and enshroud the earth! Come, fear, and
shake the world!"

"Gather, darkness!"

The next moment the Black Man was again reclining in
the throne. And now his sardonic voice was more lei-
surely.

"Before we proceed to our regular business, there is the
matter of new members. Persephone?"

From just beside him in the darkness, Jarles heard
Sharlson Naurya answer.

He was triply confoundedby her unsuspected close
presence, by a realization of what had made the voice of
the creature called Puss disturbingly familiar, and by what
she went on to say.

"I propose for membership the former First Circle
priest, Armon Jarles! He has proved himself by publicly
blaspheming the Great God and daring the Great God's
wrath. He should make a cunning and potent warlock."

"Bring him forward," commanded the Black Man, "first
taking from him that which must be taken!"

A pair of hands gripped each of Jarles' arms. He felt
something needle-sharp prick his back deeply. He gasped
and floundered forward, struggling.

"Be not alarmed," called the Black Man, mockingly.
"We have what we wantthe seed for that which must be
grown. Bring him to the altar, Sisters, that he may bow his
head to the Book and be baptized by me with his new
namehis witch-nameDis!"

At that Jarles found his voice.

"Why should I join with you?"

A startled silence. Then, close to his ear, Sharlson
Naurya's whisper, "Be quiet!" And a sharp pressure from
the fingers on that side.

The warning only stung him on. "What makes you so
sure I'll enter your Witchcraft?"

Again Naurya's whisper, "Where else do you think you
can find refuge, you fool!"

There was a flurry of murmurings, human and subhu-
man.

But the Black Man had risen. "Softly, Persephone," he
called. "Remember, no one may become witch or warlock
save of his own uninfluenced free will. It seems that your
recruit has certain reluctances. Let him tell us about
them."

"First tell me what you would expect of me," Jarles
replied.

The Black Man's voice was faintly edged with derision.
"I thought you had guessed. To abjure the Great God. To
give yourself, body and soul, into the service of Sathanas.
To sign your name in his book by touching your forehead
to it, so that it will receive the individual and unique
pattern of your thought waves, which cannot be counter-
feited. To submit to certain other formalities."

"Not enough!" retorted Jarles. "I might be entering the
Hierarchy, in view of all this supernatural mummery!
What are the aims of this organization, whose slave you
ask me to become?"

"Not ask, Armon Jarles," said the Black Man. "And not
a slaveonly a free man who has contracted certain
obligations. As for our aimsyou heard our ritual. Over-
throw of the Great God and his Hierarchy!"

Jarles' bitter reply started another flurry of murmurs.

"In order that you may raise up your own degraded
superstitions to be the decalogue of a new Hierarchy, and
tyrannize over the world in your turn? The scientists of the
Golden Age had good aims, too, but they forgot them as
soon as they tasted power. For that matter, how do you
know that you yourselves are not the dupes of the Hierar-
chy? True, you rescued me. But the methods of the Hier-
archy are devious. They let me speak to the commoners
when they could easily have silenced me. Perhaps they
also let me be rescued, for some indecipherable purpose."

"I do not quite know how to satisfy you, Armon Jarles
if you can be satisfied," replied the Black Man with
amused perplexity. "Regarding the ultimate intentions of
the Witchcraft, when and if the Hierarchy is overthrown
that involves matters of high policy which I may not
discuss.

"But, Armon Jarles, if there is anything within reason
which I can do to satisfy you of our purposes, name it!"

"There is!" Jarles declared hotly, disregarding the im-
perative pressure of Naurya's fingers. "If you are sincere
in your opposition to the Hierarchy and your love of the
commoners, drop all this mummery and deception! Don't
add to the commoners' superstitions. Can't you see that
their ignorance is at the root of everything? Tell them the
truth! Rouse them against the Hierarchy!"

"And suffer the consequences?" the Black Man mocked.
"Have you forgotten what almost happened to you in the
Great Squareand how the commoners took your
words?"

"I ask a favor," interjected Sharlson Naurya hurriedly.
"This man is a thick-headed idealist. He is suspicious and
fault-finding by nature. Make him a warlock by force!
He'll come around to our way of seeing as soon as he's had
time to think things over."

"No, Persephone. I am afraid we cannot make an
exceptioneven for a thick-headed idealist."

"Lock him up safely, then, until he sees the light!"

"Nor, Persephone, may we use forcewhether compul-
sion or restraint. Though I confess there are times when I
itch to!" And he laughed.

His voice immediately became serious thenin so far as
such a bubblingly mirthful voice ever could.

"I'm afraid it's now or never, Armon Jarles. What do
you say to joining the Witchcraft? Yes or no?"

Jarles hesitated, looking around at the circle of black,
phosphorus-touched forms that were now very close. They
would probably kill him if he refused. He knew too much.

And then there was Naurya, whom he had thought lost
to him forever. If he went through with this, he would be
near her. And she seemed to want him. Weren't Dis and
Persephone king and queen of Hell?

And then all these peoplethe Black Man and the rest
of them. His feelings toward them were mixed. He might
dislike what they did, but he couldn't hate them personally.
They had saved his life.

He was terribly tired, he realized suddenly. He couldn't
be expected to dare death, of his own free will, twice in
one day.

And Naurya's fingers were conveying an insistent, anx-
ious message. "Say yes! Say yes!"

When he opened his lips, it was to say "Yes."

Butjust as had happened in the Great Squarehis
idealist's white-hot anger at all shams and supernatural

mummery, like some possessing demon, seized control of
him.

"No! What I said I meant! I will not compromise with
hypocrisy! I will have no part in your Black Hierarchy!"

"Very well, Armon Jarles! You have made your
choice!" rang the Black Man's answer.

The hands let go his arms. The Black Man seemed to
spring at him. He flailed out wildly. The picture that had
been painted indistinctly in blackness and phosphorescence
now whirled with movement, became a formless chaos.

He was seized by other handssmooth, rubbery-hided,
and very strong. He sensed in them the pressure of some
kind of field, though different in texture from the inviola-
bility fields of the scarlet robes. He struggled futilely.

Something small and furry, but with claws, grabbed his
bare leg. He kicked out convulsively. He heard the Black
Man order, "Back, Dickon! Back!" His leg was free.

He had time to cry out, "It's all shams and lies, Naurya!
All shams and lies!" And to hear from the darkness her
angry laughter and her scathing cry, "Idiot! Idealist!"

Then he was being rushed along by a power he could
not resist. Out of the room, down some narrow corridor
that turned and turned again, and then reversed, like a
maze. Staggering, stumbling, his shoulders buffeted by
unseen walls. Then upstairs. A blindfold quickly whipped
over his eyes. Another corridor. More stairs. His thoughts
whirling as dizzily as he.

Finally, cold night air thrusting up his nostrils and
chilling his sweaty skin. The feel of cobbles under his
feet.

And, in his ear, the mocking voice of the Black Man.

"I know idealists never change their minds, Brother
Jarles. But if you should prove the exception to the rule,
come back to the spot at which I shall release you, and
wait. We might contact you. We might give you a second
chance."

A few more steps and they halted.

"And now, Brother Jarles," said the Black Man, "go
practice what you preach!"

A shrewd push sent Jarles spinning, so that he stumbled
and fell painfully on the cobbles. He jerked himself up,
whipping off the blindfold.

But the Black Man was nowhere in sight.

He was in the mouth of one of the streets that opened
on the Great Square.

In the sky was the first faint suggestion of dawn, magni-
fying the empty immensity of the square, touching with
lovely shades of opalescence the towering domes and spires
of the Sanctuary, paling a little the blue nimbus of the
Great God.

And from the hillside farmlands, gathering power in its
sweep across the Great Square, came a bitter wind that cut
Ms naked flesh to the bone.

 Chapter 5

THE silver clashing of unseen cymbals and a mighty choir
of invisible voices, stirring yet heavenly sweet, heralded the
approach of the exercisers to the haunted house. The
commoners blocking their way drew back to let them pass.
But since the streets enclosing the square were wedged tight
with commoners, and since other commoners crowded in to
get a closer view of the procession, and since none of the
commoners were willing to encroach on the unkempt and
accursed grounds surrounding the haunted house, and fran-
tically resisted being shoved in that direction, there were
several of them gently cuffed aside by inviolable, red-gloved
priestly hands, and one or two children knocked down,
before the exercisers issued into the square.

An excited murmur greeted them. Megatheopolis was
astir with rumor of mighty doings in the supernatural world
and the close presence of dread Sathanas, who had once
again risen from Hell to challenge the omnipotence of his
master.

Early this morning had come word that the Hierarchy
would cleanse the haunted house of evil. This seemed an
exceedingly wise and logical procedure, since the haunted
house was a relic of the Golden Age and therefore a likely
lair of Sathanas and his friends, who dearly loved those
ancient, overweening, star-storming sinners. No matter how
hard and wearisome an age this might be, it was certainly a
very exciting one with regard to manifestations of the
supernatural. That couldn't be denied.

The music and the pomp of the procession of exercisers
were well designed to whip up the mob's anticipations to a
high pitch.

First came four young priests, handsome and tall as
angels, each bearing before him, like a truncheon, a gleam-
ing rod of wrath.

Then two deacons bearing censers from which a sweet
incense dispersed.

Next a priest who walked alone, apparently the one in
charge. Rather short and dumpy he seemed, but well puffed
out and carrying his head high. The Fifth Ward goggled to
see their ghostly counselor, Brother Chulian, in such a
position of authority.

After him, almost a score of priests, some with the
lightning-and-coil insignia of the Fourth Circle emblazoned
on their chests, bearing all manner of awe-inspiring imple-
mentsglobes that glowed even in the bright sunlight,
tubes, canisters, and oddly shaped metal boxesall of
them ornately decorated and bejeweled, and decked with
religious emblems.

Last of this group, four grim-faced priests, easing along
something that resembled a gigantic metallic snailshell. It
floated unwieldily at shoulder height. They guided it to the
top of a tiny knoll on the desolate grounds and stepped
away. Then, while the crowd gaped, one of them made
mystic passes in the air, whereupon it slowly sank, crushing
the weeds and bushes beneath, until it came to rest with its
flaring muzzle pointing toward the haunted house.

But the rear guard of the procession rather distracted
from this exhibition. The excited babbling of the crowd
dropped momentarily into a whispering, as those in front
told those behind about the presence of the little man in
black. Cousin Deth had quite a reputation.

And at sight of the object borne behind him, several
children set up a wail. It looked like a large, deep bowl,
tightly covered. From it trailed downward a white mist, and
it was dripping slowly, leaving a trail of little white pellets,
which melted to nothingness but were bad to step on with
bare feet, because they stuck and burned. The commoners
in the front ranks felt an icy wave pass.

Such containers of holy water normally flanked the door-
way of the Cathedral, chilling the entry. More than one
child had had skin torn from his fingers, when he had
inquisitively touched one of them and then been jerked
away by a screeching mother. No wonder the priests carry-
ing it exerted their inviolability to the fullest!

The invisible music rose to an exalting climax, then
broke off. The murmuring of the crowd was hushed. For a
moment there was silence. Then one of the young priests
strode with great dignity toward the house, bearing his rod
of wrath above his head like a gleaming sword. Heads
turned as, breathlessly, every commoner watched his ap-
proach.

"This place is evil!" he cried suddenly in a great voice.
"It is offensive to the nostrils of the Great God. Tremble,
Sathanas! Cower, ye fiends! For, lo, I inscribe here the
brand of the Hierarchy!"

He stopped directly in front of the oddly wrinkled door-
way. There gushed from the extended rod a violet brilliance
of the same hue as his halo, which was almost invisible in
the sunlight. Slowly he traced a burning circle above the
doorway.

What happened next did not seem to be part of the
program. He leaned forward suddenly to peer through the
irregular orifice of the doorway, leaving the fiery circle
unclosed. He must have seen something of exceptional
interest, for he thrust in his head. Instantly the doorway
puckered and snapped tight around his neck, leaving him
frantically kicking and plunging, while his rod, still gushing
violet light, set the green weeds smoking.

There were gasps and scattered screams and a few
shrieks of hysterical laughter from the crowd. The three
other young priests dashed forward to help their compan-
ion, one of them snatching up the fallen rod, which
instantly ceased to flame. They tugged and pushed at him
violently and pried at the doorway. The wall gave a little,
as if semi-elastic. That was all.

Then the door opened wide of its own accord and they
all sprawled backward in the smoking weeds. The young
priest who had been trapped sprang up and darted into the
house before the others could stop him. The door clenched
shut behind him.

The house began to shake.

Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples
and waves of movement. Its windows all squeezed shut.
One wall stretched perceptibly, another contracted. There
were other distortions.

An upper window dilated and through it the young
priest was ejected, as if the house had tasted him and then
spat him out. Halfway down he exerted his inviolability, so
that his fall was slowed and cushioned. He bounced
gently.

This time the laughter of the crowd did not sound en-
tirely hysterical.

The house became quiescent.

There was a flurry of activity among the priests tending
the instruments. Hurried consultations. Two of them

darted over toward Cousin Deth. Those tending the great
coiled tube atop the knoll looked inquiringly toward him.

But of all the exorcisers, none felt so futile and confused
as Brother Chulian. Why must things like this happen to
him? Thrust into a position of seeming importance by
Deth's malicious whim, he knew less of what was going on
than any of the others. If only he hadn't forgotten himself
last night and insulted the cruel little deacon!

The four young priests,  retreating  at  last  from the

haunted house, stopped near him. Made careless of dignity

by excitement, they argued together. The one who had

been tossed from the upper window was being questioned

by the others.

"Who wouldn't have looked inside?" he asserted, heated-
ly. "Two bare feet scampering, that's what I saw, I tell
you! Just those two little bare feet, with nothing on top of
them. When they danced off, I just had to see where they
were going! Then, when I was caught in the door, a lot of
ratty little commoners came in from somewhere and began
making the most insulting remarks about my head. As if it
were something stuffed and hanging on the wall! You'd
have lost your temper, too! I wanted to chastise them.
That's why I ran inside."

"But what made you jump out the window?"

"The house, I tell you! I didn't see the commoners
anywhere. But it all began to heave and shake. The floor
lifted under my feet and knocked me against a wall. The
wall bounced me to another. Then the floor got me again.
Before I knew it I was upstairs, I got a last bang, and a
window opened in the wall just before I hit it. I couldn't
help myself!"

Chulian did not want to listen. It was all too disturbing
and confusing. Why did the Hierarchy want to do things
like this? Why, the commoners had laughed! The deacons
in the crowd had shut them up pretty quickly. But they had
laughed.

Cousin Deth strolled up, followed by priests.

"And now that your reverences have edified the mob
with this little display," he was saying, "perhaps we can
carry through the original instructions given us by the
archpriest Goniface."

"Given you, you mean!" one of the young priests re-
torted hotly. "We all had our orders from Sanctuary
Control Center and the Apex Council. We were told to
proceed in the usual manner."

Deth surveyed him coolly. "But you see, your reverence,
this is not the usual haunted house, set up for you to knock
down. This, I fear, is a kind of war, your reverences. And
perhaps war is something that only a contemptible and
misbegotten deacon knows how to dirty his hands with.
Unlimber the zero-entropy spray, Brother Sawl!"

A long, light, slim projector was attached to the con-
tamer which had originally been carried behind Deth.
Brother Chulian felt the chill strike through his inviolability
field, and he edged away, shivering.

"A brief medium spray over the whole building," Deth
was directing. "Enough to stiffen the outer walls. Then full
intensity straight ahead. We'll make our own doorway.
Ready? Very well. Brother Jafid, speak your piece!"

Brother Jafid's voice, mightily amplified, was unpleasant-
ly sweet.

"Let the Waters of Perfect Peace infold this place. Let
them lull its unrest. Let them draw from it all motion and
all evil."

With a faint screaming sound of almost inaudibly high
pitch, suggestive of ice scraping ice, the zero-entropy pro-
jector opened up. Snowflakes and flakes of frozen air
traced the widening path of its spray. The haunted house
was engulfed in a swirling miniature snowstorm. Back
from it rebounded a blast of arctic cold. The crowd, tight-
packed as it was, seemed to draw back still farther, hud-
dling.

The path of the spray narrowed, concentrated around
the doorway, crusted it frostily. Then the faint screaming
ceased.

A priest walked up to that gleaming, icily opalescent
patch and rapped it smartly with his rod of wrath. The
hyperfrozen materials shattered, leaving a large, jagged-
edged hole. The priest ran his rod around the edge, knock-
ing down splinters, which tinkled like icicles as they fell.

"Now we can proceed," said Deth sharply. "Projector
and rods first. Keep together. Watch for traps. Wary of
doors. Listen for my orders. If the young witch is found,
inform me at once."

Then, just as they were starting, he noticed Brother
Chulian standing to one side.

"Oh, your reverence, I had almost forgotten! This was
the very thing you wanted so much to see. You shall have
the place of honor. Lead the way, Brother Chulian!"

"But"

"We are waiting for you, Brother Chulian. All Megathe-
opolis is waiting."

Reluctantly Chulian picked his way through the frostbit-
ten weeds. Cold pushed upward around his ankles through
the lower orifice in his inviolability field, urging his knees
to tremble.

Unwillingly he studied the house, whose frosted walls
were already beginning to steam in the hot sunlight. Even
in its present dilapidated state, the haunted house had a
certain beauty of proportion. But its potential fluidity was
very repugnant to one used to the ponderous, rigid plas-
tics of Hierarchic architecture.

Somewhere he had read of the adjustable houses of the
Golden Age, with elastic walls made tense by force fields,
akin in structure and motivation to the mobile figure of the
Great God on the Cathedral.

But the idea did not appeal to Brother Chulian. To a
considerable degree he shared the commoners' fear and
awe of the Golden Age and its proud inhabitants. They
must have been as unpredictable and self-willed as their
housesrebellious and critical like Brother Jarles, brazen
and mocking like that witch woman.

Chulian believed that it would have been extremely
unpleasant to have lived in the Golden Age, with your own
free individuality continually threatened by that of every-
one else and with no Hierarchy to plan your life and
guarantee your security.

He was very close to the ice-rimmed opening. What if
the ancient dwellers had come alive with the house? Silly
thought. And yet

"If the interior shows signs of movement, we'll be giving
it a light entropy spray to freeze it, your reverence," he
heard Deth call to him. "You'd better step lively if you
don't want your inviolability field to go into stasis, your
reverence."

Hurriedly Chulian entered the haunted house and
ducked through the first interior doorway he caught sight
of. It would be just like the mean little deacon to carry out
his threat and the thought of being held helpless in a rigid
field in this place, even temporarily, was distinctly disturb-
ing.

The feeble glow of his halo partly revealed a domed
chamber of moderate size, with furnishings whose colors
had faded with the centuries, but whose general lines still
conveyed an impression of graciousness and comfort. Chu-

lian coughed. Dust, churned up by the recent commotions,
was everywhere resettling thickly. The floor gave slightly
under his feet.

Despite his general revulsion, the room exercised an odd
fascination on Brother Chulian. Some features seemed
almost attractive. Particularly a certain couch, which
looked rather like the bed in his luxurious little cell in the
Sanctuary.

A chilling sound, as if someone had grated his teeth just
behind him, made him whirl around. There was no one
there.

But the door had vanished. He was cut off from the
others.

His first thought was, "What if the walls should close in,
and in, and in."

The couch which had first attracted his attention began
to creep toward him, oozing across the dusty floor like a
gigantic snail.

With a little gasp of choking, panic-inspired laughter
Chulian dodged past it. It changed its course to follow
Mm. Faster.

There were no doors. He tried to get solider pieces of
furniture between him and the thing. It shoved them aside.
He darted past it again. It swerved toward him quickly, as
if it were a very intelligent, evil slug. He tripped, fell
awkwardly, managed to scramble up, dart blindly for-
ward.

It had him trapped in a corner. Very slowly now, as if
gloating over his terror, the couch writhed closer, suddenly
reared up, quaking obscenely, and thrust out stubby arms
toward hima vile personification of the fleshly comforts
so dear to Chulian. Then it embraced him.

Its pressure against his chest activated the controls of his
inviolability field, switching it off. His halo, carried by the
funnellike extension of the field above his head, was auto-
matically extinguished.

Darkness, then,  and the suffocating,  obscene endear-
ments of the  thing.   Desperately he  fought  against it,
straining his head backward, pushing out wildly.
If it touched his face he would go mad. He knew it.
But it did touch his face. Gently at first, recalling the
feel of Sharlson Naurya's fingers. "Good-by, Little Brother
Chulian."

Then tighter and tighter, stranglingly, crawling over his
mouth. And Brother Chulian wished he would go mad.

One useless thought insisted on staying in his mind. If he
ever escaped, he would never again be able to sleep easily
on his little bed in the Sanctuary.

Abruptly the pressure receded. A door appeared in the
wall ahead, letting in wan light. He stared at it stupidly,
swaying, feeling as weak as water. Then the realization
that escape was possible penetrated his fear-numbed mind.
He staggered forward.

Just outside the door he was bowled over by a scarlet
tide of fleeing priests. Cousin Deth was in their midst
From the floor Chulian caught one glimpse of Deth's
distorted, sallow face, white showing all around the irises
of the eyes.

Cousin Deth was screaming, "The thing! The thing in the
hole!"

Painfully Chulian half-scrambled, half-crawled after
them, out through the chilly, ragged doorway.

In his ears thundered the uncontrollable, crazy laughter
of the crowd.

Nimbly, the fingers of the Black Man rippled over the
banks of close-set controls. His glistening eyes scanned the
tenuous solidographic miniature of the haunted house set
in front of him. Through the faintly projected walls he
watched the tiny scarlet-robed manikins flee from the
place, disappearing abruptly as they got outside the visual
field of the mechanism. Watched Brother Chulian hobble
after.

His intense concentration took the form of a very
gleeful, but rather taut smile. Snub nose and short, bris-
tling, red hair emphasized the impression of impishness.

He murmured a swift aside to his companion: "I am
becoming very fond of that tubby little man. He scares so
beautifully." He jerked backward. The little scene had
erupted with blinding light.

"At last they blast the place," he cried. "But Sathanas
always laughs last!"

And lifting a microphone to his lips, he howled mani-
acally.

It was as if a volcano had erupted. The haunted house
glowed, flared, writhed, melted. The four priests on the
knoll had finally received orders to get their warblast into
action. But its smoky red flare was more suggestive of hell
than heaven, and from the crowd beyond came screams of

agony, where a momentary puff of its carelessly handled
heat had inflicted serious burns. Each narrow street was
jammed by fear-crazy, fleeing commoners. Others were
seeking to scramble onto the roofs of surrounding
houses.

The haunted house collapsed, ceased to be.

But from the flaming, heat-blasted ruins rose a shudder-
ing, triumphant laughter.

The Black Man switched off the master controls and
stood up, eying the great keyboard with regret.

"Too bad its usefulness is over. It was a lot of fun to
operate. I shall miss it, Naurya."

"But it was certainly worth it." She was looking at him
seriously.

"By Sathanas, yes! Commoners laughing at priests
that's a major achievement. Though the poor devils will be
sorry they laughed, when the Hierarchy doubles the tithes.
But it was a very neat little instrument, just the same, and I
have a right to mourn its passing. See, that top bank
controlled the walls; the next one below it, floors and
ceilings. You mightn't believe me if I told you how many
hours of practice I put in before I developed the technique
required for such stunts as bouncing that first chap upstairs
and out again. Quite a problem in timing.

"Third bankwindows and doors. Fourthventilators,
and such furniture as we decided to animate. Including
Brother Chulian's overaffectionate couch." He patted a
half dozen keys tenderly.

"Tell me," asked Sharlson Naurya, leaning forward curi-
ously, "did the people of the Golden Age usually have
houses that played such tricks?"

"Asmodeus, no! They were just a fad, I imagine, and a
very expensive one. The idea was to have a house whose
shape you could change to suit your fancy. Say you had a
big crowd in for a party and needed a larger ballroom.
You just activated the proper controls andpresto!the
walls would recede. And why not make it an oval or
octagonal room while you were at it? Just as easy!"

He laughed happily.

"Of course, it all worked in slow motion. But when our
investigations showed that the old equipment was still
pretty much in order, it was very simple to shove in more
power and speed up the tempo, so that the old place could
dance a jig if we wanted it to. Then we hitched up our

remote controls, and there we were!"

Sharlson Naurya shook her head. "I can't get over
thinking that there's something disgusting about the luxury
of a house like that. Imagine summoning a chair across the
room because you were too lazy to walk! Or changing the
shape of a couch to ease a crick in your back! Sounds too
voluptuous." She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Looking like some ancient jester, in his black tunic
which left arms and legs bare, the Black Man spun around
and pointed a mocking finger at her.

"You've been bitten by the toil-for-its-own-sake morality
that the Hierarchy dredged out of the dirty past!" he
accused laughingly. "But for that matter, none of us can
escape it. I'm glad that in my case it took the form of an
urge to play exceedingly laborious and complicated practi-
cal jokes."

Naurya studied him intently, leaning her arm lightly on
the edge of the control panel that occupied much of the
tiny, bare-walled, windowless room. He lolled back across
the padded seat in front of the controlsthe only piece of
furniture in the roomeying her humorously. She seemed
much wiser and more experienced than he, with her coldly
purposeful features and enigmatic eyes.

"Are practical jokes your life's goal?" she asked finally.
"I watched you all the time you were operating this thing.
As you peered down at those scuttling scarlet little images,
you kept smiling as if your sole ambition in life were to
play at being a malefic demigod."

"You've touched my weakness there! But the telesol-
idograph always gives you that godlike feeling. You must
have felt if yourself. Confess!"

She nodded soberly. "I did. How does it operate? That
was the first time I ever saw one."

"So? I would have thought otherwise, since you are so
close to Asmodeus."

She shook her head. "I know nothing of Asmodeus."

He looked at her sharply. "He takes a very special
interest in you, as if you were one of the most important of
us." She did not answer. "But you know the job he's saving
for you, Naurya. Do you mean to say that Asmodeus
informed you of that job in the same manner that he
informed meby indirect communications?" He watched
her for a moment longer, then shrugged his shoulders
carelessly. "I can believe you don't know him. I've never
met witch or warlock who did, myself includedand in

one sense I'm his second in command. Just orders from
above, that's all he is to any of us. An invisible fountain-
head of instructions. The great mystery." His voice had a
jealous tinge. He changed position, snapping his fingers
restlessly. "But if Asmodeus gives you the run of our
headquarters here and asks me to look out for you, I
suppose it's quite proper for me to tell you about the
telesolidograph. It's simple, really. The Hierarchy's sol-
idograph is a three-dimensional motion picture. The telesol-
idograph is the same sort of thing, except that the primary
multiple-beam is invisible, long-range, and highly penetrat-
ing, only erupting into a visible, three-dimensional image
when it reaches the focus. Slightly analogous to a needle-
point spray. So, for instance, if we want bare feet scamper-
ing around, or what not, we just fake a solidograph of
them and feed the tapes into the projector. Phantoms to
order! Vocal manifestations work in about the same
way.

"The instrument I used is a bit more complicated, of
course. Two-way. Viewer and projector. So I'd have a
miniature image of the general focal region to guide me in
operating my life-size phantoms and manipulating the re-
mote controls of the house.

"All our tricks are like that, Naurya. Relatively slight
improvements on Hierarchic science. As soon as the priests
get on the right track, it'll only be a matter of time before
they find the answers. They've started already. Zero-
entropy to put the walls in stasis wasn't a bad dodge.

"That's why, in handling the haunted house, I went light
on telesolidographone of our real trumps, worth holding
upand heavy on house controls, which we couldn't have
hoped to keep a mystery. Only used telesolidograph on the
first chapand on Deth." He smiled reminiscently. "Odd
that such a trivial thing should scare our dear deacon. But
when Asmodeus sends you a detailed fear-biography of a
man, it isn't difficult to put your finger on the weak
spoteven of such a cruel crook as the deacon. What's the
matter, Naurya? He one of your pet hates?"

She shook her head, but her eyes stayed as stonily
hating.

"The man behind him," she said softly.

"Goniface? Why? I know, of course, that the special job
for which you're being saved involves Goniface. Something
personal about it? Maybe revenge?"

She did not answer. He stood up.

"A little while ago you asked me about my aims. What
are yours, Sharlson Naurya? Why are you a witch, Per-
sephone?"

She took no notice of the questions. A few moments,
and her expression changed.

"I wonder what is happening to Armon Jarles."

He looked at her quickly. "Does he figure in your aims?
You were hurt when he balked last night. Are you in love
with him?"

"Perhaps. At least, he has a deeper motivation than the
urge to play practical jokes. There's something firm-rooted
about him, solid as a rock!"

The Black Man chuckled. "Too solid. Though I was
sorry we lost him. Sathanas, but we need men! Men of
ability. And it's just those that the Hierarchy grabs."

"I wonder what is happening to him," she persisted.

"Unpleasant things, I fear."

 Chapter 6

ARMON JARLES crouched where the shadows were
darkest, trying to force himself to make a plan. But the
deep wrath-ray burn on his shoulder had already started a
fever, so that the throbbing dance music and squealing
laughter from the house behind him became an evil thing,
weaving nightmarish visions in his pain-racked mind.

This was the only part of Megatheopolis where curfew
violations were tolerated. This district sacred to the minis-
trations of the Fallen Sisters. This place of slinking forms,
priests without halos, cracks of light, doors that swiftly
opened and closed, whistles, whisperings, throaty greetings,
and invisible merriment with overtones of a desperate
melancholy. A wanly beautiful, flimsily clad girl, standing
in a lighted doorway, had seen him pass. There must have
been something hunted about his manner, for her eyes had ,
gone wide with terror and she had screamed, once again
bringing pursuit down upon him.

For a moment -they were off on a false scent, beating up
another street. But they would be back. They would be
back.

He must think of a plan.

Fever dulled hunger, but his throat was dry. Ill-made
sandals cut his swollen feet. He had not realized how two
years in the Sanctuary had softened him.

But other pains were nothing to the rasping of the
coarse, stolen tunic against his unbandaged shoulder.

He must make a plan.

He had thought of leaving Megatheopolis. But neatly
cultivated fields offered poor concealment, and if the farm-
ers proved themselves half as hostile to him as the com-
moners of Megatheopolis had

He must

But an agonized swell in the sultry music conjured up an
evil vision of his mother's work-worn face. Even now it
was hard for him to realize that she had betrayed him.

That his father and brother had done the same. Home. The
one place where he had been sure he could find refuge.
Even their obviously cold, unfriendly, panicky reaction to
his sudden appearance had not put him on guard. But
sidewise glancesand that matter of sending his brother
off on an unexplained errandhad finally forced him to
recognize the truth. Almost too late. He had barely out-
sped the deacons his brother had brought. That was when
he had got the wrath-ray burn. It was then, too, that he
had learned there was a price on his head, a price which
every commoner lusted to earn.

He had had to grapple with his father and knock him
down, when the old man had tried to hold him.

His mother's shadowy face, like something seen through
heat waves, seemed to leer at him in the darkness. He
reached out his hand to brush it away.

Perhaps, he told himself, feeling all the while that the
universe was crazily tipping, he ought to be glad they had
acted as they did. It showed that deep in their beings the
commoners nursed for the Hierarchy a hate almost beyond
belief. A priest backed by the Hierarchy was something to
fear, to fawn upon, almost to worship. But a priest whom
the Hierarchy cast outtheir one chance to give expres-
sion to their hatred ! It was commoners who were pursuing
him now. Commoners led by deacons. But commoners.

Two years ago he had passed his examinations and set
out, his head crammed with determinations to improve the
morality and living conditions of the commoners and to do
his part in hastening the New Golden Age. He had thought
of himself as helping his family.

But on that same day his family had looked upon him as
someone lost to them forever, as having become something
more and less than a mana priestinhuman.

"Look! There he is!"

He shrank, blinking, from the searchbeam. Pain lashed
through his stiff muscles as he lunged into a run and darted
up the alley across the street. A wrath ray sizzled against
the far wall.

Cobbles. Bite of the sandal thongs. Rasp of the tunic.
His hurt arm dangling. Darkness. Rectangle of light. A
woman's painted face. Screams.

Running. Running. Running.

Sudden swell in the shouts behind him, as they reached
the mouth of the alley. Violet needle of a wrath ray over
his head.

But before it chopped down into him, he had swerved
into the next street, crossed it, and plunged into the ruined
area toward which he unconsciously had been heading.

Rubble. Matted weeds. Feeling his way. Great blocks of
stone and fractured plastic. Ragged wall that might have
been erected before the Golden Age. Narrow, twisting
spaces. Blind alleys. A maze built by the dilapidation of
mighty structures.

Shouts from behind. Circle of light just above his head,
against a vast, jagged block. Ducking. Wriggling. Crawling.

More shouts, very close. Panicky rush for cover. Flood
of pain, like blinding light, as his burnt shoulder rammed
rock. Biting his cheek to hold back the scream. Salt taste
of blood.

From that point onward he had no object but to burrow
deeper and deeper into the ruins. Always to take the
darkest and narrowest turning available. Sometimes the
shouts moved away. Sometimes they drew close. That in the
course of his aimless progress he would eventually crawl
into the hands of his pursuers, was a fact depending on a
kind of reasoning that no longer held significance for
him.

It seemed to him he could still hear the dance music,
throbbing in rhythm with his shoulder, screeching obscene-
ly, wailing raucous despair. And the whole universe was
dizzily swaying to the tune. He wanted to dance, too, but it
hurt too much. He was someone else. He was Armon
Jarles, but Armon Jarles was someone else. His fatherhis
father was an archpriest. Those grim old arms were hug-
ging him and would not let him go. His brother was a
chubby, cooing little baby, named Brother Chulian. His
mother

A beautiful girl stood in a doorway, smiling at him,
beckoning. Closer and closer he edged, his suspicions melt-
ing. Then she reached suddenly forward, and caught his
hurt shoulder, and wrenched it, and from behind her
poured a tide of scarlet robes. And her features grew old
and work-worn, and his mother, dressed in a tawdry tunic,
leered at him.

But her features were getting too old, much too old even
for his mother. Cheeks were sinking, lips puckering, nose
growing to a thin beak, chin becoming a brown knob.

"Wake up, Brother Jarles!" A cracked whisper.

Something was wrong with the face. It was real, and he
did not want to look at reality now. But the hand kept

hurting him. He tried to push it away, looked up, saw, in
the glow of a searchbeam striking above the narrow pas-
sageway, the same crone-face, recognized it.

"Come with me, Brother Jarles! Come with Mother
Jujy!"

Almost, he smiled.

"I'd sooner you had the reward than my father," he
murmured.

A bony palm was clapped over his mouth.

"You'll bring them down on us! Get up, Brother Jarles!
It's not far, but we must hurry, hurry!"

It was less painful to get up than to lie there and be
rugged at. After a little while he managed it, though the
effort made the darkness reel dizzily and brought back the
visions. As he staggered along beside her, leaning on the
skinny shoulder, it seemed to him that she kept changing.
First his mother. Then Sharlson Naurya. Then Mother
Jujy. Then the girl in the doorway. Then his mother

"Let me call them," he said, smirking foolishly. "No
need to look for them. Just let me call them and they'll
come. Thenjust thinkyou'll have the reward all to
yourself. Or are you afraid they'll cheat you out of it?"

For answer, he was rapped across the mouth with a
cane.

"There he goes! There he goes! Someone with him!"

Sudden turn into a side passageway. Eager voices baying
from all directions. Another sharp turn. Then he saw
Mother Jujy tugging at the weeds, tilting up a whole
section of them.

"In! In!"

The blow had given him a little sense. He let himself
down into the black hole she had uncovered. He half-
climbed, half-slipped down a short ladder, rolled away
from the bottom of it, lay there.

The shouting was cut off. Pitch darkness. Silence.

After a while a light was struck, and he saw the ancient
face grinning toothlessly at him over a candle flame.

"So you see how Mother Jujy claims her reward, Broth-
er Jarles!" she cackled.

She hobbled over to him and poked at his shoulder,
lifting the cloth. He gritted bis teeth.

"I must fix that," she mumbled. "Fever, too. But we
must go a ways first. Drink this."

She put a little bottle to his lips. The fiery liquid made
him gag and gasp.

"Burns, doesn't it?" she observed gleefully. "Not like the
wines of the Hierarchy, is it? Mother Jujy makes her own
nectar. Mother Jujy has a still."

He looked around.

"Where are we?"

"In one of the runnels of the Golden Age," she replied.
"Don't ask me what they were for. I don't know. But I
know what they're for now." She giggled slyly, bobbing her
head. "Just ignorant old witches! The priests know all
about us! Oh, yes!"

He stared at her, puzzledly.

"Ah, don't bother your addled wits, Brother Jarles. Just
come with Mother Jujy."

He followed her. In places the tunnel was almost whole
a circular tube of dull metal, big enough to stand in.
More often it was cracked, and floored with dirt. Once or
twice they passed crude shorings, obviously recent.

The trip seemed endless. Before it was over, he was very
sick. His fever had gone up, fanned by exertion and per-
haps by Mother Jujy's flaming nectar.

He began to stumble. The visions came back. Only now
Sharlson Naurya walked at his side, nibbling a pome-
granate. They were King and Queen of Hell, making a
tour of the Underworld, conducted by their prime minis-
ter, Mother Jujy, whose cane had become a staff coiled
with living serpents. Behind them walked a man who was
all blackness. And around their feet gamboled half-human
little apes.

Another ladder. Mother Jujy driving him up it. A nar-
row bed like a box with one side open. Short for him, but
wonderfully soft. Against his tortured shoulder the blissful
coolness of a bandage soaked with a dark, aromatic liquid.
Momentary twitch of fear because he had never been
doctored by anyone but a priest. The priests doctored
everyone. Something warm trickling down his throat.
Softness. Sleep.

His next conscious moment, omitting feverish visions
with perhaps bits of reality jumbled in, began when he saw
a black, blurred something squatting on the bedclothes
over his feet. He concentrated on it patiently until it came
into focus.

It was a large black cat, washing her paws and regarding
him with a stony judiciousness.

That didn't seem right. It oughtn't to be a cat. Mother

Jujy ought to have something small and furry and alive
but not a cat.

For an interminable period, he vaguely pondered the
problem. All the while he watched the cat, half expecting it
would speak to him. But it only went on washing its paws
and judging him dispassionately.

Gradually he became aware of his surroundings. His bed
was a box, after all. A box built into the wall of a room.
His view of the lower part of the room was cut off by a
solid side which held in the bedclothes.

The ceiling of the room was low, with all sorts of things
hanging from the rafters. He could hear a little fire singing
and something bubbling in a pot. It smelled good.

He tried to look over the side. That brought twinges of
pain, not very bad but enough to make him catch his
breath.

The old crone hobbled into sight.

"So you're back with us again, eh? For a while Mother
Jujy thought she was going to lose her little boy."

He was still obsessed by his problem.

"Is that just a cat?" he asked weakly.

The witch's eyes, bright in their leathery sockets, re-
garding him narrowly. "Course! Though she gives herself
awful airs!"

"She doesn't suck your blood?"

Mother Jujy made a contemptuous sound with her gums
and tongue. "Maybe she'd like to. But just let her try!"

"But. . . then . . . are you a witch, Mother Jujy?"

"Do you think I make myself unpopular for fun?"

"But ... I thought ... I mean, the other witches I
met"

"Oh, them! So you've met some of them, eh?"

He nodded feebly. "Who are they?"

She glared at him. "You've asked too many questions
already. Besides, it's time for soup!"

While she was spooning hot broth into him, with the cat
come up to sniff the bowl and follow the movements of the
spoon, there was a knock at the door. Mother Jujy hissed,
"Not a peep out of you, now!" She slid a section of the
wall across the front of his box, leaving him completely in
the dark. He heard a muffled flop, as if a hanging of some
sort had been dropped down.

The cat stood up on his chest. He could feel the pressure
of the four paws, like a little table.

From the room came the sounds of talk, but he could
not make out what was being said.

Presently the cat lay down on his good shoulder and
began to purr. Jarles fell asleep.

During the next few days, the section of boarding was
slid in front of Jarles' bed many times. After a while
Mother Jujy omitted to drop the hanging, so he could hear
fairly well what went on. He listened to the old witch
dispense dubious-sounding magic and hard-headed advice
to all sorts of commoners, especially girls of the Fallen
Sisterhood, who couldn't have their fortunes told often
enough. He made the acquaintance, in this indirect way, of
Megatheopolis' scanty and indigent criminal class, with
whom Mother Jujy seemed on suspiciously good terms.
Apparently she acted as a fence.

But those were not all her visitors. Twice, deacons
came. The first time, Jarles was tight with apprehension.
But, strangely enough, the fellow turned out to be genuine-
ly desirous of obtaining Mother Jujy's sorcerous aid in
winning back a girl who had been stolen from him by a
priest. The second time was worse. The deacon sniffed
around suspiciously, spoke meaningfully of the penalties
for illicit distilling and other illegal activities, and rapped
the wall in one or two places. But apparently that was
merely an attempt to get services for nothing, for he finally
got around to telling a story somewhat similar to that of
the first deacon. Jarles was vaguely glad when he heard
Mother Jujy sell him a piece of magic the performance of
which would involve several toilsome and degrading ac-
tions.

And he sometimes thought of the Black Man and
Sharlson Naurya, though the coven meeting now seemed
almost a part of the hallucinations of his fever. But he
thought about it a great deal. And he plagued Mother Jujy
with questions about them, until he had wormed consider-
able information out of her, although he had the impres-
sion that she knew a little more about them than she would
admit.

According to Mother Jujy, it was only a very few years
ago that the "new witches" had first cropped up. At first
she had thought that they were directly inspired by the
Hierarchy, and that the priests had decided to "run us old
women out of business."

After a while she had changed her opinion of the new
witches, until now she seemed to regard them as not

altogether unfriendly business rivals. She admitted to cer-
tain sketchy dealings with them, though of what sort she
would never tell Jarles.

As his burned shoulder healed, with a white-ridged pit in
it, and his fever abatedslowly, since the marvelous restor-
atives of the Hierarchic physicians were lackingJarles
mulled this information and one day he asked Mother Jujy
straight out, "Why did you rescue me?"

She seemed perplexed. Then she leered at him and said,
"Maybe I'm in love with you! There's many a pretty boy
Jujy helped out of scrapes and hid away when she was the
sweetest little dickens in the whole sisterhood."

After a moment she added gruffly, "Besides, you were
halfway decent to me when you wore the robe."

"But how did you ever find me? How did you happen to
be there in the ruins, when they were tracking me
down?"

It was merely chance, Mother Jujy told him. She had
just happened to be coming out of the tunnel. Later she
amended this by claiming to have had a "vision" of his pre-
dicament. He knew she was not telling the whole truth.

Late one evening he felt restless and insisted on getting
out of bed and walking up and down the room, ducking
and weaving around the stuff hanging from the rafters,
impatient to grapple with reality. There came a knocking
at the door, quite different from any of those he had
learned to recognize. A lilting tattoo of rippling fingers.
Grimalkin, the cat, snarled menacingly. Mother Jujy drove
Jarles back into the wallbed. Then she went to the door,
unbarred it, slipped outside, and closed it behind her.

It was very dark, but confronting her was a deeper
darkness, man-shaped.

"I see you," she said tartly, though a little nervously,
pulling her ragged shawl a little tighter against the cold.
"And you needn't go pulling tricks to show off. You can't
faze me."

"Grimalkin knew my knock," answered a laughing
voice. "Shall I send Dickon in to play with her?"

"She'd scratch his eyes out! Creepy, crawly, snuggly,
dirty-minded little brute! What do you want?"

"How is our patient?"

"Wants to get up and set the world on fire! I have to tie
him down."

"And hiseducation?"

"Oh, I think he's getting a little sense. Hard knocks have

a way with them. He's tough, though. Got a slam-bang,
drag-out mind, for all he's a gentle boy. Still, I think he's
softening toward you peopleworse luck for him!"

"Good! You are too modest, though. You underestimate
the influence of your companionship on him. We are much
beholden to you, Mother Jujy."

"Beholden pudding!" The old crone drew herself up, and
stuck out her shriveled chin. "Listen, I'm willing to help
you people now and then, because I know you're out to get
the priests. But there's one thing I always want you to
understand: I saw through you from the first. In spite of
all your tricks and stunts and gibbering little monkeys,
you're not real witches!"

There was a half-pleased chuckle from the darkness.
"Let us pray that the Hierarchy never achieves your pene-
tration, Mother Jujy."

She ignored the compliment. "You're just fakes," she
persisted. "I'm the real witch!"

The darkness bowed. "We will not dispute the honor
with you."

"That's right!" said Mother Jujy.

 Chapter 7

"ASMODEUS says we're stepping up the pressure, Drick.
Tonight the wolves come to Megatheopolis. Just sniff
around the outskirts at first, but they'll get bolder after-
ward. Beginning at midnight, telesolidographs in all key
cities will be working twenty-four hours a day. We should
have our second one set up here by then. You boys can
operate it in shifts. Fun. But watch out for eyestrain.
Meanwhile, all covens are to put everyone they've got on
second-stage persecutions of priests of the top four circles.
Here are the tapes listing the basic individual fears of
susceptible priests holding key positions. You can attend to
distribution."

The Black Man shoved across the desk a box packed
with tiny wheel-shaped containers. The other young man
short, burly, shrewd-faced, and wearing a similar black
tunicglanced at the identifications on them and snapped
the box shut.

"I'd like to know where Asmodeus gets such detailed
information," added the Black Man, rubbing his dark-
circled eyes. "If I were religious, I'd say he was the Great
Godhe knows so much about the Hierarchy."

Drick leaned forward. "Maybe he's in the Hierarchy."

The Black Man nodded, frowning thoughtfully. "Maybe.
Maybe."

Drick looked at him queerly.

"I'm not Asmodeus, Drick. I'm not even sure that I'm
top man in Megatheopolis, though I do seem to be the first
to get instructions."

"From where?" Drick put his hand on the box. "A thing
like this. It's a physical link. You had to get if from
someone."

"Surely." The Black Man smiled, a little wearily. "It's
logical to assume, if I walk into this room and find a box
on ray desk, that I got it from someone. But whom?"

"That's how it came?"

The Black Man nodded.

Drick shook his head, dubiously. "We sure do a lot on
trust."

The Black Man chuckled. "Still, there are advantages to
the arrangement. If any one of us is caught, he won't be
able to give the whole show away, even if he'spersuaded
to."

"They haven't caught any of us yet." Drick sounded a
trifle cocky.

The Black Man looked up at him slowly, his impish face
suddenly dead serious. "You're not, by any chance, think-
ing that's because they can't? You're not doubting that
they haven't spotted some of us, and are just waiting to get
an angle on the higher-ups before they pull in the net?"

Drick looked a trifle taken aback. He frowned. "No, I'm
not." He picked up the box and stood up. Then he remem-
bered something. "I've been with Sharlson Naurya. She's
getting restive. Doesn't like being cooped up here."

"Asmodeus" orders again. He's got something up his
sleevea special job for her when the right moment
comes. Spend some tune with her, Drick, if you get the
chance. Entertain her."

"Now those," said Drick, "are pleasant instructions."
"Better not set your hopes too high, though. I fancy
we'll   have   a   certain   renegade   priest   back   with   us
shortly."

"Mother Jujy's patient? He's changed his mind?"
"Changing, I think."

Drick nodded. "Not a bad fellow. And I guess Naurya
does favor him." In the doorway he looked back suddenly.
The Black Man had slumped a little and was rubbing his
eyes. "Oh, say," Drick suggested casually, "if things are
going to be much tougher from tonight on, why not take
yourself a six-hour vacation while you've got the
chance?"

The Black Man nodded. "Not a bad idea."
After Drick was gone, he sat looking at the wall.
"Not a bad idea," he repeated.

Somewhere far off a mighty bell began to toll. A mis-
chievous smile  slowly crept into his lips.  He frowned
and shook his head, as if putting away a temptation. The
bell continued to toll. The smile forced its way back. He
shrugged his shoulders and jumped up.
He seemed all energy now.
From a closet in the wall he took a rather thick, black

sheath, that suggested in part a coil or network of wires,
and bound it to his right forearm. On a cabinet across the
room was a shallow brass bowl, with some flowers floating
in it. He pointed his right hand at it, experimentally,
seeming to feel for some kind of contact. The bowl rocked
slightly, rose an inch or two off the table, and suddenly
upset, spilling water and flowers. He smiled satisfiedly.

To his left arm he bound a different sort of sheath, one
with keys which he could touch by bending his fingers
across his palm. He fiddled with the cabinet, setting some
music goinga solemn melody. Then he backed away,
moved his left arm as if again feeling for some sort of
contact, and began to finger the keys. The solemn music
squawked, became discordant, changed into something
raucous.

From a rack in the closet he took down the costume of
a commonercoarse, long-sleeved smock, leggings, boots,
hood.

A thin, muffled, piping voice, without apparent source,
commented, "Up to tricks again! I suppose I'll have to do
all the hard work!"

"For that, Dickon, my little familiar, I think I'll leave
you at home," said the Black Man.

The great bell had ceased to toll, but its reverberations
seemed to linger on unchanging, like some mysterious
message from eternity. Hushed and reverent commoners
almost filled the Cathedrala place of vast and pleasant
gloom, aglow with soft rosy lights and the glitter of gold
and jewels, the air swimming with sweet incense. Priests
hurried softly up and down the aisles, slack robes swishing
silkily, bound on mystic errands.

The Black Man made the customary ritualistic obei-
sances and hunched himself into an aisle seat on one of
the rear benches, just opposite the gleaming wonder of the
organ, from whose golden throats soft music had begun to
breathe, blending itself with the fancied reverberations of
the bell. He seemed half stupefied, sunk in an ignorantly
groping meditation, chewing his tongue as if it were an
animal's cud, piously brooding on his sins.

There descended upon him a feeling of peace and
well-being, greater than could be accounted for by the
warm gloom, the misty lights, the soothing music and
incense. But since he knew it was due to radiations which
depressed his sympathetic, and stimulated his parasympa-
thetic nervous system, he could disregard the influence

indeed, enjoy it. If he had any lingerings of nervousness,
the radiations nullified them. Covertly he noted their effect
on the othersthe loosening of work-taut muscles, the
smoothing of worried frowns, the stupid dropping of
jaws.

"Great God, master of Heaven and Earth, priest of
priests, whose servant is the Hierarchy"

A devout, half-chanting voice pulsed through the lus-
trous dimness. From behind the altar, lights blared upward
like muted trumpets, revealing the image of the Great
God, which seemed a diminished reflection of the vaster
image atop the Cathedral. The commoners bowed their
heads. From them rose, like a tired sigh, a mumbled
response. The service had begun.

The pious atmosphere deepened, as response followed
droning response. There was only one suggestion of a
hitchwhen a number of older commoners automatically
responded to the "Hasten your New Golden Age" line,
which had been recently cut from the service.

The priest on the rostrum was replaced by an older one,
who began to preach. His voice was marvelously flexible,
one moment stern as wrath itself, as sweetly soporific as
dugged honey the next. His words were admirably suited to
the mentality of his audience. Not one could fail to hit its
mark.

He spoke, as usual, of the hard lot of commoners and of
the never-ceasing endeavors of the priesthood to alleviate
their sin-begotten misery. He painted a simple, compelling
picture of a universe in which only endless toil could
expiate the evil taint inherited from the Golden Age and so
keep damnation at bay.

Then all the honey went out of his voice, as he began to
speak of a matter more pressing and closer at handthe
increasing boldness of Sathanas and his imps. There was a
subdued scraping of feet and friction of homespun on
benches, as the commoners shifted around to listen more
intently. He told them that the boldness of Sathanas was
entirely due to their own increasing sinfulness, warned
them of the dire fate in store for those who did not repent
and improve, and commanded each man to keep close
watch upon his neighbor.

". . . for none may say from where sinfulness will next
spring. Its seeds are everywhere, and Sathanas waters and
manures them daily. Beyond all else he loves that crop.
The Hierarchy can smite down Sathanas when it wills. But

there is no merit for you in such a victory, unless each of
you tears Sathanas from his heart and keeps the seeds of
sin dry and sterile."

On this note of stern and ominous warning, the sermon
ended. First Circle priests appeared at the head of the
aisles, bearing gleaming plates, and yet another priest
entered the rostrum to exhort the people to contribute as
much as they felt able to the coffers of the Hierarchy. Such
free gifts had a special virtue.

Hands fumbled in pouches. The plates passed up and
down. Metal clinked in.

The priest on the center aisle had worked back almost to
the end. As he reached once again for the plate, now
grown heavy, the commoner holding it seemed to pull it
away from him a little. The priest reached out farther,
grasped it, andbecause he was glaring suspiciously at the
commoner who had been so awkwardhanded it without
looking toward the row across the aisle. He felt it taken
from him and dropped his hand. Then he noted something
queer in the expression of those around himperhaps he
heard the faint initial gasp of surpriseand he turned
around.

The first commoner across the aisle had indeed reached
out to take the plate, but before he could quite get his
hand on it, another force had taken it from the priest. The
commoner shrank back, goggling.

The plate hung unsupported in the air.

The priest quickly grabbed for it. It eluded his fingers,
moving higher.

He grabbed again, standing on tiptoes. The plate kept
just out of reach.

Suddenly conscious of dignity, he stopped grabbing and
stared around at the gawking faces, including a red-headed
fellow four rows back, who seemed if anything more
oaflshly dumfounded than the rest.

His attention instantly returned to the hanging plate,
when it jogged up and down sharply, so that the coins
jangled and one or two dropped out.

More and more commoners were staring at it.

Abruptly it shot off and upward, describing a gleaming
curve in the gloom, and overturned, spilling a shower of
coins on the commoners below. It fell a distance with the
coins, then righted itself, and again hung quietly.

With admirably quick wit, perhaps thinking this a
demonstration of which his superiors had neglected to

inform him, the priest cried, "Lo! A miracle! The Great
God gives of his infinite bounty! To each he gives as each
deserves!"

Instantly,  in   response   to   his   last   words,   the   plate
swooped toward him, intent on braining him. He ducked,
then quickly looked up. The plate reversed its course and
made, another swoop. Again he ducked, and this time he
did not look up. The plate came to a sudden stop over his
bowed head, like a halo of brass, and then dropped down-
ward, thumping his shaven pate twice with audible clanks.
The priest bellowed with pain and surprise, and remem-
bered at last to switch on his inviolability.
The plate retreated upward and hung.
There were already the beginnings of a panicor riot.
One whole section of commoners was grubbing around
under the benches for fallen coins. Others were crowding
in fear toward the entrance.  While the  majority were
staring upward, excitedly nudging each other.

In response to a hurried order, the organist started a
loud, solemnly booming melody. That would have been a
good idea, except that it did not stay solemn. With a
discordant bray, its rhythm changed and quickened, until
as the organist stared horrifiedly at the score and continued
to press the keys in frantic bafflementthere squawked
from the golden throats the seductive swing of something
that all of the priests and many of the commoners recog-
nized as the latest ditty to find popularity in the houses of
the sisterhood.

Radiations stimulating the parasympathetic nervous sys-
tem are tricky things, encouraging instinctive, animal re-
sponses. Only a few at first, but swiftly morethe com-
moners began to sway, to writhe, to whirl and dance in
quasi-religious ecstasy, yelping, screaming, panting, grunt-
ing like animals, as if this were one of the mammoth
revivals and not an ordinary religious service.

In a side aisle, a group of them careened into a priest,
upsetting the collection plate he was still holding, sending
coins spinning in all directions. There was more scrambling
and crawling under benches. Many of those on the floor
forgot to look for coins and began to roll, groaning and
howling with devout fervor. Some embraced.

Then the organ began to laugh insanely, mechanically,
and the hanging collection plate began to swoop about,
skimming heads, like a brass bat, finally darting toward the

altar and dashing itself with a clang against the image of
the Great God. At that, a sizable portion of the crowd
broke in panic and rushed toward the door.

There was an ear-splitting roarnot from the organ.
Those in flight came to a dead stop. The less intoxicated
dancers looked around frightenedly. Everywhere people
cringed from the sound.

Then a stern voice filled the Cathedral:

"Move not a step! There is an imp of Sathanas in this
place. Each commoner must be examined to see if he be the
sinful onethe one possessed. Return to the benches. He
who moves toward the door will feel the Great God's
wrath!"

Substantiating this statement, a dozen black-robed
deacons filed in to block the wide, high-arched doorway,
each bearing a rod of wrath.

The Black Man, in the van of the fleeing crowd, felt a
sudden change in his emotions, indicating that the
parasympathetic radiations had been replaced by the sym-
pathetics. That was not altogether a wise move. Although
the remaining dancers and rollers stopped almost instantly,
the sympathetics were favorable to fear. The crowd surged
forward unevenly, like animals about to stampede. The
rods were lifted. The crowd came to a nervous halt.

The Black Man's right arm, bent at his side, moved a
little, feeling for contact. He leaned a little to the left to
balance the weight of the force pencil.

A deacon toward the center of the line turned suddenly
on the man beside him, rubbing his elbow. His whisper was
audible: "Watch out, you clumsy fool!" The other deacon
turned on him as suddenly. "You bumped me!"

A similar altercation started toward the end of the line.
There were more angry words. Others joined in. Then
actual pushes, shoves, raised fists, threatsfor deacons
were not trained to be as gentlemanly as priests.

And still the imp of discord moved among them, setting
them against each other. The sympathetics, as favorable to
anger as to fear, played their part. Fists struck out. The
line of deacons tied itself into a struggling knot of men,
each enraged against the rest. Some dropped their rods.
Others used them as clubs.

This mysterious brawl, and the fact that a way of escape
now lay open, was enough for the fear-skittish crowd. In a
great ragged wave it poured out of the Cathedral.

 Chapter 8

UP from the black infinite abyss of sleep shot the arch-
priest Goniface.

First a dream. A dream so deep, so primal, that it
lacked vision and sound. Horror. A writhing in darkness
that was himself. Restraint. Himself struggling futilely
against it. Deep, pricking pain. Something essential being
cut from him, to be used against him. It was his secret, his
one and only weakness. It could destroy him. A spasm of
convulsive, futile and horror-stricken writhing.

Then a more definite dream. He wandered among the
corpses of those he had killed because they knew his
secret. Very white and stiff and still they seemed, each laid
out on its table under a glaring light, and he felt very safe.
Then, three tables away, one sat up suddenly. An imma-
ture girl with dark hair streaming over her marble shoul-
ders. She pointed at him and her mouth opened and she
said, "Your name is Knowles Satrick. You are the son of a
priest. Your mother was a Fallen Sister. You have trans-
gressed the most jealously enforced law of the Hierarchy.
You are an impostor." He ran toward her, to force her
down again and shut her mouth. But just as his fingers
touched her, she slipped away from him. Around and
between the tables he pursued her. Some were overturned.
He   stumbled   over  his   mother's   corpse.   Around   and
around. Staggering. Gasping. And still she eluded him,
crying all the while in a loud voice, "Drag down the
archpriest Goniface! His name is Knowles Satrick! His
father was a priest!" And the mouths of all the corpses
opened and they began to cry loudly, "Knowles Satrick!
Priest's son!" until the whole world was screaming it at him
and there were a thousand hands upon him. And suddenly
he was a boy again, and his mother was bitterly muttering,
"Priest's son!" to shame him.

Then memories, close to the surface of awakening. The
white, upturned face of his half sister, Geryl, with the dark

hair streaming upward around it, as she fell from the
bridge into the dark, distant torrent below. His secret
wholly safe at last. Then the Apex Council Chamber and
the solidographic miniature of a mature woman, whose
face wore that same expression of hate and implacable
purpose as he had glimpsed on the face of that immature
girl, as she fell toward the torrent. The same face. Geryl.
Sharlson Naurya. His secret come alive.

Then illusion. He was where he should be, in his cham-
ber at the Sanctuary. Gray darkness let him see the outlines
of the room and silhouetted, at the foot of his bed, a gro-
tesque anthropoid shape, skinnier than any monkey, but
furry-seeming. Only for a moment was it visible. It
dropped out of sight, and there came the faintest pattering
of tiny paws.

Then complete wakefulness. He sat up, breathing a little
heavily, his eyes refamiliarizing themselves with the shape
of his room, putting every object in its right place in the
semidarkness. Odd, how that last brief dream had repro-
duced the outlines of his room almost as they were in
reality. But there were dreams like that. Perhaps the rural
priests, with their talk of furry things which squatted on
their chests, had been responsible for that last dream-
imagining.

He fancied a slight pain in his backanother dream
echo.

Unpleasant, that memories of his past deeds should
sometimes pry their way into his dreams. But that was the
way the human mind was constituted. Nothing could ever
be wholly forgotten.

And what difference did it make? The secret of his birth
was no longer of great importance. It had been, when he
was a First Circle priest. But now he was too powerful to
be dragged down, or even seriously endangered, by any
such accusation.

Still, if Geryl had actually escaped, and if Geryl were
Sharlson Naurya, and if the Moderates got their hands on
her, they could make it embarrassing for him. Best thai
Deth should find her and put her out of the way.

It seemed she was in the Witchcraft. Did the Witchcraft,
then, know of her relationship to him and plan to use her
against him? If that were true, why had she been spirited
away? What good was she, except to accuse him openly of
being a priest's son and having entered the Hierarchy
illegitimately?

As Goniface pondered, the range of his thinking
widened, until, almost before he was aware of it, he was
surveying in imagination the vast empire of the Hierar-
chy.

Out there in the darknessand on the day-side of
Earth, toosomething was gnawing at that empire, as
mice might gnaw at the strands of some vast net. The New
Witchcraft, every day growing bolder. Creeping from
farmland to town and from town to city. Only yesterday
striking in the Cathedral itself.

Most of all, his thoughts were concerned with the
problem of the Witchcraft's leadership. Out there, some-
where, was a mind daring enough to challenge the Hierar-
chy. Beyond all else, the identity of that mind fascinated
Goniface. Did it come from beyond Earth? That was
barely conceivable. Or should he look for it closer at
home?

One of the televisor panels beside his bed flashed on and
there appeared the face of one of the Fourth Circle priests
on duty at Web Center.

"I am sorry to disturb your archpriestship" the priest
began.

"What is it?"

"It began approximately an hour ago. A sudden, sharp
increase in all manifestations of the Witchcraft. Commu-
nications have been coming in from all over the planet.
There have been panics in several rural sanctuaries and at
least two have been deserted by their occupant priests.
There is a confused and ambiguous message from Neode-
los. Beasts of some sort, or phantasms of beasts, have been
reported in and about our own city. Many local priests
report hallucinationsor persecutions of some sortand
clamor for treatment. There has been a riot or panic in the
dormitory of the novices."

"Can you inform me," inquired Goniface, "if the coun-
termeasures covering this type of emergency have been put
into action?"

The face in the televisor nodded. "To the best of my
knowledge, they have. But the Chief of Communications
desires to consult with you. Shall I flash him on?"
"No," said Goniface. "I'll come down."
The televisor flicked off. Goniface touched a switch and
soft light flooded his spacious cell, with its Spartan lux-
ury.

He rose quickly from the couch, thenmoved by a
sudden impulselooked back.

He immediately remembered the stinging pain he had
felt momentarily in his dream.

For near the center of the couch, on which he had lain,
was another echo from his dreaman echo of a very
different sort.

A small spot of blood.

 Chapter 9

THE second night of fear had settled on Megatheopolis,
imparting a shuddering menace to the curfew-darkness and
the curfew-silence. That day special prayers had been
addressed to the Great God, both in the Cathedral and the
chapels, for protection against the forces of evil. Tales of
strange phantasms, which last night had defied even
priests, were whispered everywhere. More commoners had
clamored to confess their sins than the priests could take
care of. Before being dispersed, an hysterical mob had torn
to pieces two old crones, known to be witches. Each man
looked with suspicion on his neighbor, wondering if he
might not be in league with Sathanas. An hour before
curfew, the streets were almost deserted.

Along those mazy streets, staying close to the squat
rooftops, the Black Man floated, relishing the atmosphere
of terror and suspense, just as an actor enjoys knowing that
the play in which he has a part is going well. Over the
Cathedral, the halo of the Great God glowed with a double
brilliance, and the whole Sanctuary was ablaze with lights.
A few streets away the search beam of a patrol of deacons
moved about restlessly. But in between all was darkness.

As a swimmer in darkness, the Black Man moved,
poling himself along by varying the direction and intensity
of the pencils of force emanating from his forearms. The
repulsor field generated by the garment he wore, skintight
over his whole body, was sufficient to counteract gravity at
this slight elevation. The field also had the propertysave
at points over sense organsof absorbing all radiant ener-
gy that impinged upon it. This radiant energy in turn
helped power the field.

Technically he was off duty. An hour ago he had finally
been relieved at the telesolidograph by another operator
there was a shortage of operators now that they had two
projectors workingand had satisfied himself that as much
of the general plan as he knew was progressing satisfactory

ly. But after that, like an actor who is off stage for a time,
he had been unable to resist the temptation to sneak out in
front and see how the play was going.

He had an excuse of sorts. Word had come from Mother
Jujy that Armon Jarles intended this night to attempt to
recontact the New Witchcraft. Meanwhile, Mother Jujy
was retiring into her tunnels "until the mob gets a little less
frisky."

Of course, he could have sent someone to pick up
Armon Jarles at Mother Jujy's. But with a man as pecu-
liarly stubborn as Armon Jarles, it was well to let him take
the initiative. And it was dramatically more pleasing that
Armon Jarles should go to the appointed rendezvous on
the edge of the Great Square, the spot where he had been
cast out by the Witchcraft.

Meanwhile, he trailed him, to make sure he didn't get
into trouble, hovering noiselessly above while Armon
Jarles, clad as a lowly commoner, stole furtively through
the narrowest streets and alleys, seeking the deepest
shadows, stepping carefully to avoid the mouths of
drains, stopping at intervals to spy warily for patrols,
frequently glancing over his shoulder, but quite unaware of
his guardian demon overhead.

They were nearing the Great Square. The Black Man
was tempted to put an end to this rather purposeless
pilgrimage, but was held back by his love of dramatic
denouements. The fun would be over soon enough.

Bobbing violet rings warned of the approach of two
priests bound on some nocturnal mission. Jarles hesitated,
then shrank back into a narrow passageway between two
buildings. The Black Man sank gently to the edge of the
roof above, alert for emergencies.

But the two priests hurried unconcernedly on. As they
neared the passageway, the Black Man felt a start of
pleasure. He had recognized the smaller, dumpier priest as
the little fellow whom he had so thoroughly scared, in
front of the haunted house, with the Black Veil, and later,
inside the place, with a nastily animated couch. His feeling
toward Brother Chulian was one almost of affection. It
would be too bad to miss this opportunity. Naurya said the
little priest had been inordinately frightened by Puss, her
familiar. It would only take a moment to switch off his
repulsor field, set Dickon riding on the end of his force
pencilDickon would like thatand dangle him in front
of Chulian's face.

Almost before he had decided to, it was done. A tiny
anthropoid shape was slanting down through the darkness
toward the bobbing halos. The Black Man's mind was all
mischief.

Thenominous windy rushing in the darkness overhead
and the emptiness of dismay at the pit of his stomach
before he had time to reason why.

Wrench of his neck, as he slewed around to look behind
and above, from where he rested on the edge of the roof.
Thenone frozen instant.

One frozen instant to damn himself as an adolescent
prankster who would walk into any trap so long as it was
baited with an opportunity for a practical joke, to think,
with poignant intensity, of what a swift blotting out was in
store for the Witchcraft, if it were all manned by as reck-
less and negligent fools as himself.

One frozen instant to comprehend the thing swooping
toward him. Its rigid, manlike formbut twice as long as
a man. Legs stiffly extended, like a diver's. Arms threaten-
ingly outstretched, fingers spread like talons. Huge sculp-
turesque face, framed by great golden curls, handsome
with the superhuman, unearthly beauty of some heroic
painting, visible in a faint glow from the stern, staring
eyes, which could flash forth death if they willed.
An angel.

Thenone whirling instant.

One whirling instant to repower his repulsor field,
launching himself simultaneously down into the street
the angel was too close to permit a try over the roofs.

One whirling instant to swerve frantically from side to
side of the street, like a low-lurking hawk pounced upon in
turn by an eagle; to see the two priests ahead stop, but not
time enough to see them turn around; to see slim Dickon,
hurled from the force pencil, drop lightly near the mouth
of a drain; to dart suddenly and swiftly upward toward the
rooftopsbut not suddenly or swiftly enough; to sense the
angel banking upward with him and just above him; to feel
its impactstunning even though almost parallel to his
own upward course; to feel, through his repulsor field, the
cruel clutch of its mechanical arms, that were its grap-
ples.

One whirling instant to think a command, with all the
intensity he could summon, "The drain, Dickon, the drain!
Make for the Sanctuary! Keep in contactunconscious
minds!" to sense in a dark corner of his mind the begin-

ning of a ghostly answer, to see loom suddenly ahead a
roof edge which the angel did not wholly avoid.

Thenone  crashing,  lasting,  final instant  of  uncon-
sciousness and darkness.

 Chapter 10

DOWN a gray corridor in the crypts beneath the Sanc-
tuary, two deacons escorted Jarles. This was a region
shrouded in mystery, a region from which lower-ranking
priests were normally barred. All elevator shafts save one
stopped two levels above. It was said that a great research
of some sort, involving human beings, was conducted here.
It was said that a new batch of commoners was sent down
here every day, and that each batch contained a high
percentage of mentally defective and psychotic individuals.
It was also said that most of them came up madder than
when they descended.

That more than research might be involved was hinted
by the rumor that recalcitrant and criminal priests were
sometimes sent here, too.

Jarles tried to keep his mind from dwelling on the
cruelly tantalizing mischance of his recapture by the Hi-
erarchy at the very moment when he had become recon-
ciled to the Witchcraft and was eagerly setting out to seek
to join forces with it.

Had the Hierarchy known all along that he was hidden
at Mother Jujy's, and waited all that tune before it
struck?

Or had Mother Jujy betrayed him? Or someone in the
New Witchcraft, perhaps the Black Man? He must not
even think of such a possibility! He had decided once and
for all that the new witches were on the side of good, that
they represented the forces with which he had resolved to
ally himself. He must not, dare not, suspect them.

One of the deacons pacing beside him spoke. Both men
he knew to be underlings of Cousin Deth.

"I wonder how this one will be when he comes out?" the
deacon asked speculatively.

His companion was not much interested. "Who knows?
I've seen them all ways and every one a bit different. Only
one thing I'm sure ofBrother Dhomas will be glad to see

this one. Brother Dhomas is always happy when we bring
him a new mind."

"Yes, the old putterer!"

They approached an open door. Emanating from it, as
chemical odors from a chemist's laboratory, Jarles sensed
traces of various radiations affecting the human nervous
system. Like tiny ghostly hands they tugged at his emo-
tionsalarming, reassuring, angering, soothing.

Nervously his eyes swept the room. They were first
drawn, as to a focus, to a padded chair, provided with
clamps. That was bad. But the mechanisms and instru-
ments around about were -those of a psychological labora-
tory. That was good.

"That's right. You needn't be alarmed. We won't torture
you physically. And as for mental torture, there's no such
thing! There is onlyexperience."

It was the strangest voice, rapid yet deep, and lacking
individuality. Humanbut generalized. As if many people
were speaking the same words in perfect rhythm with each
other.

The eyes of Jarles went to the speaker. A quakingly fat
priest whose baggy, dirty robe was emblazoned with the
human brain and arabesque of equations in psycho-
sociology that distinguished the Sixth Circle.

From the emblazonment he looked up at the face.
Strangely, the face was like the voicegeneralized, despite
the seemingly sharp individuality of double chins, thick,
mobile lips, and scanty eyebrows. As if the solidographs of
a dozen facially similar priestsbut each a distinct person
had been projected into the same space, with a resultant
canceling out of much of their individuality.

If any feature had more individuality than the rest, it
was the eyes. They dwelt on Jarles engulfingly, thirstily,
almost lovingly, as if he were the most interesting thing in
the world. But not exactly because he was Armon Jarles,
not exactly because he was an individual.

Those eyes held Jarles, so that it was with an effort that
he looked away from them to the small man in black. Odd,
that he had been able to look at the Sixth Circle priest
without first noticing that Cousin Deth stood beside him.

"There he is, all ready for you, Brother Dhomas," said
Cousin Deth. "And his archpriestship Goniface requests me
to warn you that this one must not be botched. He was too
hard to get. There will be unpleasant consequences if you
turn up a gibbering failure."

Without taking his eyes off Jarles, Brother Dhomas
answered swiftly.

"You can't scare me, little man. You know as well as I
that my methods are still empirical, the results unpredict-
able. If a man is botched, he's botched! That is the agree-
ment. I guarantee nothing."

"I have warned you," said Deth.

Brother Dhomas approached Jarles, moving rather easi-
ly for one so abnormally fat.

"I have been studying your unabridged dossier and
listening to the speech you made in the Great Square." He
indicated the solidograph projector in front of the central
chair, but his eyes never left Jarles. "You have a very
interesting idealismvery interesting."

His tone was that of a surgeon commenting on an
unusual tumor.

"I will leave you now," said Deth. "And I will inform his
archpriestship of your intention to treat this case merely as
an experiment."

Brother Dhomas looked back at him. "Spiteful little
reptile, aren't you? Your tight, self-infatuated mind inter-
ests me. I would like to get my fingers into it. Or your
master, Goniface. There's a mind for you! What wouldn't
I give to work on a mind like that!"

Cousin Deth's face froze.

"Masks! Masks!" rumbled Brother Dhomas, with a hint
of laughter. "Don't you know I like best of all men who
can mask their thoughts? It gives me something to work
against."

Cousin Deth walked out, followed by the two deacons
who had come with Jarles.

Instantly the eyes were back on Jarles. And now they
studied him with such intensity, seeming wholly to lose
themselves in him, that they appeared almost vacuous.

"A great sincerity, too," continued Brother Dhomas,
nodding his head, as if he saw it through the pupils of
Jarles' eyes. "Oh, yes, and negativism. Very well developed
negativism."

With a sharp effort Jarles looked away.

"No, I'm not trying to hypnotize you," said Brother
Dhomas, without interrupting his inspection. "Hypnotism
would hinder my work, like a bad anaestheticdeaden the
reactions which I need to guide me."

His silent inspection of Jarles eventually ended.

"And nowif you will seat yourself." He indicated the
central chair.

Jarles noticed then that several priests had unobtrusively
drawn close to him after the departure of the deacons.
Emblems intertwining diagrams of the nervous and circula-
tory systems proclaimed them to be priests of the Third
Circle, the circle of doctors and lesser psychiatrists.

Two of them grasped his elbows and turned him toward
the chair. Wildly, violently, he began to strugglebut
more to convince himself that he was still a man than
because he had any hope of escape. His flailing fists
knocked down one priest, but two others seized the arm
and bore it down. Inexorably he was drawn to the central
chair, forced down in it, the clamps fastened.

And all the while Brother Dhomas kept calling to him,
"That's right! That's right! Struggle now. Get it over with.
It will make it easier for me afterward."

The Third Circle priests stepped back. The chair was
luxuriously comfortable. But Jarles could not even turn his
head.

Electrical and pneumatic recording instruments were
attached to his body. Something was injected into his arm.
Again Brother Dhomas read his suspicions.

"No, it's not a truth serum. Extracting the information
you possess is merely a side issue. We want much more
than the truth from you."

Brother Dhomas moved to a position directly in front of
him, beyond the control bank of the solidograph.

"What is personality?" he said, in a new tone. "Merely a
viewpoint, or a system of viewpoints. Nothing more.

"Viewpoints change. Why does not personality then
change? The answer, of course, is that it doesbut usually
so gradually that the change is not sensed. Your viewpoints
have changed. Your dossier shows that they have changed
more often, and to a much greater degree, than those of
the average. Yet you think of yourself as essentially the
same person. That raises a perplexing question."

He might have been speaking in a schoolroom of the
novices.

"For the thoughtful person, there is no more baffling
sensation than that called up by memory of viewpoints he
has discarded. He remembers, perhaps in great detail, how
he entertained those discarded viewpoints. But the old
arguments no longer appeal to himhe has a new view-
point which perhaps completely contradicts the old. And

yet memory and a kind of intuition tell him that he was the
same person then as now. And so we come back to the
perplexing question.

"The answer is rather obvious. Memory is the only link
between past and present viewpoints.

"But memory can linkanything. Memory is cold and
dispassionate. Memory is without morality. Think of the
person that you most admire and the person you most
detest. Imagine them as two stages in the life of one
person. Imagine memory as Unking those two stages. You
see, even that is possible.

"Yes, personality changes. The problem isto acceler-
ate the change.

"You begin to see what we intend with regard to your-
self? That's right! That's right!"

Any mental barrier Jarles might have managed to set up
Was insufficient to prevent Brother Dhomas from reading
or guessinghis fear.

"No, no, your present consciousness won't be snuffed out
and replaced by another. That would be like killing you.
You forget what I told you about memory. Personality will
change, but memoryindividual consciousnesswill con-
tinue unbroken."

Almost, Jarles felt relief. At last he knew where the
attack was coming and could marshal his forces. His
hatred of the Hierarchy. His new-found loyalty to the
Witchcraftonly it gave him a queer shiver to think
that he could call it "new-found." His love of Naurya. His
detestation of creatures like Cousin Deth. But, much more
important than any of those, his firm belief in the right of
every commoner to freedom, equality, and a fair share in
the world's richesand his unswerving enmity to any
group or individual who sought to tyrannize over the
commoners. Surely beliefs like that couldn't be changed.
Other beliefsabout particular organizations or individu-
alsmight change, according to what one knew about
them. But a belief in human freedom was basic. It couldn't
be changed. Brother Dhomas was bluffing.

"That's right," said Brother Dhomas, "it does seem
impossible. But look at my face. Is it not that of a man
who has transformed his own personality many times?
Didn't you sense that as soon as you looked at me? As soon
as you heard my voice? How else could I have gained the
needful direct experience and skill, amounting in fanciful
terms to a sixth sense, except by experimenting on myself?

I haven't discovered telepathy, you know. My knowledge
of the human mindof your mindis based on deductive
skill and vast empirical knowledge, gained from
experience.

"I did not shrink from experimenting on my own mind.
My sole regret is that I dare not change my personality
sufficiently to interfere with my basic orientation as a
research psychologist, that I can enjoy only the fringes of
insanity"

Those ceaselessly probing eyes had become, for Jarles,
infinite abysses in which anything might lurk. But whatever
Brother Dhomas said, he was bluffing. He admittedly
hadn't changed his own basic personality. He couldn't
change that of Jarles.

"That's right," said Brother Dhomas. "Be overconfident.
It will make you more vulnerable when you begin to won-
der. And nowaction!"

Slowly, one by one at first, then more swiftly and many
together, the various instruments in the room revealed
their functions. Jarles was assaulted by sights, sounds,
tastes, smells, touches, inward tensions. And by emotions.
Emotions far more specific and intense than those pro-
duced by the sympathetics and parasympathetics with
which he was familiar. Perhaps the injection accounted for
his greater susceptibility. He fought against them all.
Locked his jaw, compressed his lips, to hold back a laugh-
ter that bore no relation to his thoughts. But it broke all
barriers and burst forth in convulsive peels. Steeled himself
against the reasonless tears that next began to flow. But
still they flowed, and still he sobbed like one broken-
hearted by some great grief. Fought the anger that tight-
ened to a sickening knot beneath his chest, fought the fear
that made his flesh prickle and teeth chatter, fought them
all, but vainly. It was as if he had been dispossessed from
his body and must impotently look on, tormented by a
wholly mental desperation and a kind of mental shame,
while Brother Dhomas elicited from his body all the
responses of which it was capable, like an expert musician
testing the range and capacities of an unfamiliar instru-
ment.

For now the room was in semidarkness, and from a
panel beside Brother Dhomas rose more than a dozen,
stubby pillars of different colored light, constantly fluctu-
ating in rhythm with Jarles' physiological and neurophysio-
logical reactions. Ceaselessly Brother Dhomas' eyes went

from the pillars to Jarles and back again, while his pudgy
fingers squirmed like white worms over the control panel,
slowly, tentatively.

From emotion to thought, from body to mind, the
invasion progressed. Jarles felt that his mind was like a
planet, with consciousness the illuminated side, and an
inexorable force was rotating it. Ideas he tried to grasp, to
hold firm, abruptly slid into darkness and were gone,
beyond thought's reach, like a word that is on the tip of the
tongue yet cannot be remembered. And from the other
side of his mindthe night sideemerged a host of things
forgotten and undreamed of. Petty hates and envies that
had once flickered for an instant in his mind and then been
repressed. And memories. Memories of childhood. His first
confession. Sharlson Nauryaa stranger girl who had just
come to Megatheopolis from another city. Fear of a bully.
Fight with a bully. Work in the fields. Chores. Memories
that went too far back into childhood. Himself lying in
some box and goggling up at a world of giants. His
mother's facea young woman's facebending over him.
Then a fearful twilight realm, in which all inanimate things
had life and were symbols of unseen powers, and words
were magical formulas to control them. And then there
were no words, and the unseen powers became sentient
writhings, and there was no distinction between himself
and the rest of the cosmos.

Slowly the dark memories retreated. Slowly the alien
emotions ebbed from his flesh. For a while he was aware
only of exhaustion, limpness. Then a growing jubilant
relief. He was still Armon Jarles. He still believed as
before. Brother Dhomas had failed.

"No," said Brother Dhomas, "that was merely explora-
tory. A random groping for weak points in the armor of
your personality. The stimulus tapes are now being auto-
matically correlated with the tapes recording your
reactions. The results will be illuminating. Though, to be
honest with you, I work more by feel.

"Also, it was necessary that you gain experience. A
knowledge of your mind's hidden potentialities. Then you'll
be able to work with me better. Against your own will, of
courseresistance can be very helpful.

"The radiations, you see, change your neuronic gradients
and potentials over neural areas whose limits and extent I
can know only empirically. As a result, certain thoughts

and memories are raised above, or depressed below, the
threshold of consciousness, as the case may be.

"Your experience has shown you that any human mind
has the wherewithalif only in minutest tracesfrom
which any kind of personality can be fabricated. Every
person has experienced at one time or another fugitive
flashes of hate and cruelty, which, if only sufficiently
magnified and strengthened, would make him a monster.
Every person has, at least for one split second in his life,
wanted to destroy the whole world. You see?

"It is only necessary to maneuver your mind into the
desired statethat's where my maximum judgment and
penetration are requiredand then freeze your mind by a
sudden intensification of the radiations, sufficient to change
the neuronic gradients and potentials permanently. If I
misjudge and freeze your mind while it is in a state of
temporary insanity, that is unfortunate.

"Our next exploration will be as purposive as the first
was random. Action!"

Again the sensory bombardment, the emotional wrench-
ing, the mental rotation. But because they were not so
chaotic as the first time, they were not so instantly unnerv-
ing. In particular, the induced emotion was hardly trou-
blesome at allan odd mixture of fear and pleasure,
promoting a watchful self-regard, so that for a moment he
could smile with guarded contempt at Brother Dhomas.

But the sensations rapidly acquired a very specific and
disturbing quality, though the induced emotions tended to
make that disturbance chiefly mental. Where they had got
that moving solidograph of himself, he could not say, but
it was talking to himhimself to himselfand he heard
his own voice repeating:

"Armon Jarles, there is only the cosmos and the elec-
tronic entities that constitute it, without soul or purpose,
save so far as neuronic mind impose purpose upon it.

"Armon Jarles, the Hierarchy embodies the highest form
of such purpose.

"Armon Jarles, the supernatural and the idealized have
one trait in common. They are not. There is only real-
ity."

Endlessly. Such statements, though, might have been
patched up from recordings of his classroom recitations,
his oral examinations. But then it droppedstill his own
voice and imageinto a more intimate key:

"Look at me, Armon Jarles. I am yourself as you will be
when you have learned to see reality squarely and to
disregard sentimental dreams. Look at me! I, Armon
Jarles, laugh at you, Armon Jarles, for what you are now."

They must somehow have patched up even that, taking a
word here and a phrase there, blending them with diabolic
skill. He could never have said that! Or could he?

And now the solidographic Armon Jarles began to grim-
ace at him with cruel cynicism. It must becould only
bea prolonging of some fleeting expression they had
searched out in some moving solidograph of him. But he
hated it. He closed his eyes against it.

Swiftly an instrument was adjusted around his head. He
felt a moderate, adhesive pressure on his eyelids. They
were gently forced open. At regular intervals the instru-
ment imposed upon his eyelids a slow mechanical wink.

"We have no desire to torture you," came Brother
Dhomas' voice across a lull in the auditory sensations.
"Pain would provide a core round which you could con-
centrate your personality. We desire to disperse it."

Jarles could still look away from the hated portrait of
himself, but that did not keep him from seeing it dimly in
the periphery of the retinalaughing, grimacing at him,
and always talking.

And then once again repressed thoughts and memories
began to slide from the inner darkness. And now they were
all of a sortanti-idealistic. They seemed to be marshaled
like an army. The thoughts he clutched at, to use against
them, melted away. Until he found the master thought
his belief in freedom and equal sharing, his hatred of all
tyranny. And that thought, though its particular form of
expression kept changing, did not vanish. It held the others
at bay.

Again a lull in the sensory barrage, and Brother Dhomas
speaking over it.

"What is idealism? It is distortion. A giving of false
values to things which in reality do not possess those
values. Personalities differ chiefly in their pattern of values.
When the values are largely false, the personality is un-
stable."

Back then, into the churning inward darkness. Back
once again, to the struggle against the forces of anti-
idealism. Freedom and equality were right! But why? Why
did man deserve them more than any other animal? Be-
cause man was a higher form of life? But to be higher only

meant to be more complex, and what virtue was there in
complexity? Why should all men deserve freedom and
equality? Why not just a few? It was wholly arbitrary. The
whole concept of deserving was an idealistic fiction. One
either had something or hadn't it. One either wanted
something or didn't want it. There was no such thing as
deserving something.

Frantically Jarles strove to reanimate the concepts in
which he had always believed. When this type of reasoning
bad perplexed him before, he had always sought refuge in
angerin hatred of oppression. But now his emotions
were no longer his own. The cleansing flood of anger
would not come. And a dry, dead world of facts and forces
confronted him.

With an effort he called to mind individual commoners
whom he had seen suffer, whom he had sympathized with,
whom he had yearned to help. But now they seemed
merely grotesque physiological machines. They did not
move him.

Like a retreating soldier, then, he dashed from point of
cover to point of cover, only to see each protection dis-
solve as he reached it.

His mother and father. They were heartless beasts who
had betrayed him. It would be pleasant to watch them
die.

Cousin Deth. He hated Cousin Deth desperately. But
why? Cousin Deth was a sensible man, ever obedient to
reality, ever solicitous about his own appetites. True, Cous-
in Deth did not like you. But no one liked you. There was
no such thing as disinterested affection. Only hungry self-
interest.

The New Witchcraft. Yes, it would be well to be in with
themif they won out. But they were warped with ideal-
ism. They wouldn't win out.

Sharlson Naurya. He loved her. That love couldn't be
destroyed. It was something he could cling to. Almost he
could see her. He loved her. He wanted her. And if she
could be persuaded, or forced, to enter the sisterhood, he'd
be able to have her.

The Hierarchy. There, at last, was real security. But for
some reason he should consider it the wrong sort of
security. What was the reason? He couldn't remember.

The Hierarchy. Like some great golden sun it rose in his
mind, dazzling him.

Then that golden light become a blinding, searing flame.

There was an ear-splitting, deafening roar of sound. As if
he had become the center of an explosion that shook the
whole cosmos. An explosion that roared down every chan-
nel of sensation in his body, ripping his nerves with its
awful intensity, destroying him.

Then, utter darkness of all senses.

Then, return from darkness.

He was still in the same room. Still in the same padded
chair. Brother Dhomas was still staring at him.

Nothing had changed.

What had Brother Dhomas been going to do? Change
his personality? But he hadn't! He was still Brother Jarles.
The old fool had failed!

Of course he was Brother Jarles, priest of the First
Circlebut he wouldn't stay there long! Let's see, the
Fourth Circle was the one to aim atthe circle of promo-
tion. The Third and Fifth were largely blind alleys.

Of course he was Brother Jarles. Faithful servant of the
Hierarchy, because any fool knew that was the best way to
feather your own nest. Cousin Deth was his friendthat
is, Cousin Deth was willing to favor him. And anyone
whom Deth favored would go far.

Then came memory, like a blow. Incredulously, painful-
ly, he remembered.

So Brother Dhomas hadn't really failed. His personality
had been changed.

Unwillingly, with the acutest shame and embarrassment,
he recalled that other, former Armon Jarles.

What an utterwhat a contemptible, namby-pamby,
sugary fool that other Armon Jarles had been!

 Chapter 11

BROTHER CHULIAN was afraid of the man on the bed.
He watched him with an almost painful intensity.

True, the man was presumably unconscious, had been
since his capture. And so badly injured that an artificial
heart was needed to supplement his own. Chulian could
watch the blood coursing through the transparent tubes.

Hierarchic medical science was able to accelerate the
process of healing to an amazing degree, but not by any
stretch of sane possibility could that man move from his
couch for many hours.

Still Chulian was afraid of him. For the man was a
witchor should one say warlock? At all events, a potent
somebody in the Inner Witchcraft. And Chulian had had
too many recent experiences with the powers of the Witch-
craft. That abominable couch! He still couldn't sleep de-
cently.

Those powers were outside the bounds of sane possibil-
ity.

Of course, the higher priests said they weren't. The
majority of the higher priests maintained that those powers
were just clever scientific trickery, engineered by an enemy
of the Hierarchy. That point of view was being constantly
dinned into the lesser priests these days. There were special
meetings devoted to the subject. The higher priests
promised that the Hierarchy would soon destroy the ene-
my. It only delayed to study the enemy and perfect prepa-
rations. Meanwhile the lesser priests should look on all
phantasms with complete skepticismand turn in detailed
reports of them.

How much more helpful, wistfully mused Chulian, if the
Hierarchy could announce that the Great God, in his
supernatural omnipotence, had decided to smite the hosts
of Sathanas. Only there wasn't any Great God. But how
comforting it would be if there were!

A priest of the Third Circle came in, examined the man

on the bed, took readings from indicators attached to the
artificial extension of his circulatory system, and left with-
out speaking to Chulian.

How mean of Cousin Deth to have given him this job!

But what could Brother Chulian do? By gradual stages,
quite against his will, he had become a member of the
entourage of Cousin Deth. And behind Cousin Deth
loomed the awesomely powerful archpriest Goniface. Af-
ter always having tried to avoid it, Chulian had become
enmeshed in Hierarchic politics.

Temperamentally Chulian was with the Moderates. He
once had heard the archpriest Frejeris speak, and he had
never forgotten the experience. A large handsome man,
calm as a statue. He had given Chulian a very comfortable
and safe feeling.

Still, Chulian had to admit he didn't find the present
policy of the Moderates very satisfying, with its minimizing
of the danger represented by the Witchcraft. If they'd gone
through what he had, they wouldn't minimize that danger!
The Realists had the right idea there!

There was a faint sound, as if someone were clearing his
throat. The man on the bed had opened his eyes, and was
watching Chulian.

As consciousness ebbed back into the Black Man, his
first thought was one that eddied up on the tide of con-
sciousness from the depths of the subconsciousanxiety
for Dickon. Without fresh blood, his little brother could
survive for three days at the most.

Anxiously, he thought a message: "Are you there, Dick-
on?" Then he blanked his mind and waited.

Slowly, on the blank, a reply etched itself.

"Dickon is in the wind tubes. Dickon is very weak.
Poor Dickon. But Dickon can see you."

Wind tubes? Ventilators! There must be an outlet in this
room.

He thought: "Why can't you come to me?"

Hesitatinglyhe could tell that his little brother's brain
was dizzy with fatigue poisonsthe reply came through.

"Dickon would like to come. He is in the mouth of a
wind tube leading into your room. But there is always a
priest in the room. It would be wrong for Dickon to take
the slightest chance of a priest seeing him. You know that,
brother.

''Dickon has been waiting here for a whole day. Poor,
poor Dickon. He had a hard time getting here. He lost

touch with his brother's mind more than once. Dickon
wants you to tell nun what to do, brother."

The Black Man thought: "Where is the priest?"

"If you turn a little to the left, you will see him. He is
not looking at Dickon's brother now."

Carefully, very carefully, and noiselessly, the Black Man
rotated his head until he could see Brother Chulian. The
fat priest seemed lost in some worried, mournful medita-
tion.

He thought: "Have you enough energy to move swiftly
for a little while, Dickon?"

"Dickon has still a few suppets of fresh blood in his sac.
By sitting very quietly, Dickon has husbanded them."

"Good! This priest is an easy one to scare. Without
showing yourself, scare him so that he runs out of the
room. I will hold his attention while you slip in."

"Afterward may Dickon come to his brother?"

"Yes."

The Black Man cleared his throat. He did not know yet
if he could speak. One lung seemed wholly out of commis-
sion.

With a start, Brother Chulian looked up at him.

"I am a servant of Sathanas," said the Black Man. He
spoke in a feeble, wheezy whisper.

"You are an enemy of the Great God," Chulian finally
replied, with a kind of uneasy diplomacy.

The Black Man twisted his numb lips into what he
hoped was a wicked smile.

"Who fears the Great God?" he whispered. "The Great
God is without authority. He was created by Sathanas in
order that men might have hope and so struggle more
amusingly against evil and terror and death."

"Nevertheless, you are a prisoner of the Hierarchy,"
Chulian finally asserted, unconsciously flicking his robe, as
if something had lightly touched his thigh.

"Yes," whispered the Black Man ominously. "And I am
amazed that you have dared to offer me indignity. Release
me at once, or I will do you an injury."

Again Chulian flicked unconsciously at his robe, all his
attention momentarily concentrated on the Black Man.

"You can't move from that bed," he said, with an
uneasy insistence. "You can't leave this room. And you
can't possibly hurt me."

"So?" whispered the Black Man, smiling, for the first
smile had seemed to bother Chulian. "Even now I stretch

forth invisible hands toward you. Even now they are upon
you."

With a squeal, Chulian shot up from the stool.

Chulian rubbed his thigh, staring with a frightened
suspiciousness first at the Black Man and then at the stool.
Abruptly, as though he knew he would lose his nerve if he
hesitated, he picked up the stool and turned it over.

Reassured in one sense, Chulian replaced the stool and
seated himself.

Instantly the pinch was repeated.

With a squeal that was now one of terror, Chulian
sprang up, crazily waving his arms about to fend off the
invisible hands. Darting one last terrified glance at the
Black Man, he fled from the room.

The Black Man heard Dickon pattering toward the bed.
Over the edge appeared a red-furred paw, the fingers
clawed, the palm suctorial. (It was those palms which had
enabled Dickon to cling always to the opposite side when
Chulian had turned over the stool.)

Slowly and laboriously now, for the familiar had sudden-
ly come to the end of its strengththe Black Man could
sense dazed exhaustion in the quality of the vague telepath-
ic impulsesthe little creature pulled itself up into view.

It was like a spider monkey, but with a much smaller
torso and far skinnier. Downy, reddish fur covered what
seemed the merest outline or sketch of an animala
tracery of pipestem bones and ribbonlike muscles. The
incarnation of fragile nimbleness, though at the moment
sluggish with exhaustion. The head was more like a le-
mur's, with large, peering eyes, now filmed and groggy.

A wraithlike, elfish thing.

But for the Black Man, the sight of it woke a pang of
deep affection and kinship. He knew why its reddish fur
was the same shade as his own hair, why its high-
foreheaded, noseless face looked like a caricature of his
own.

He knew it, loved it, as his brother. More than his
brother. Flesh of his flesh.

He welcomed it as it crept feebly to his side and applied
its strange mouth to his skin. And as he felt the suction and
faint pricking, and knew it was drawing fresh blood from
him and simultaneously discharging vitiated blood into his
venous capillaries, he experienced a dreamy gratification.

"Drink deep, little brother," he thought. "This is on the
Hierarchy, little brother. They must have transfused a lot

of blood into me to maintain that artificial heart. So drink
especially deep."

He felt suddenly very sleepy and weak. The discharge of
deoxygenated blood from Dickon aggravated his faint-
ness.

As in a dream he sensed Dickon's thought: "Dickon
grows strong now, brother. Dickon feels strong enough to
take a message to the end of the world, if Dickon's brother
desires him to."

Good Dickon.

There were hurrying footsteps outside. But before the
Black Man could think the warning thought, Dickon
sprang swiftly away and out of sight.

"Dickon returns to the wind tubes, brother. Think out
the message you want Dickon to take. Dickon will listen
for it."

Through a haze of weariness, the Black Man heard the
sneering voice of Cousin Deth inquire, "And just where are
the hands that clutched you so irreverently, your rever-
ence? Would you take the trouble to show them to me?
Oh, but I was forgettingyou said they were invisible. Are
they still pinching you, your reverence? I am all solici-
tude."

Then Brother Chulian's shrill reply. "I tell you, he
touched me! He looked at me, he spoke to me, and then
invisibly touched me!"

"How rude of him!" observed the sarcastic voice. "I fear
I shall have to give the job of watching him to a less
sensitive person. Oh, I believe he touched you invisibly all
right. He touched your mindwith suggestion, hypnotism.
The witches are very clever with such things."

The voice grew louder, until the Black Man, in his
semiconscious daze, realized that Cousin Deth must be
looking down at him.

"But I wonder how much his cleverness will count when
he is well enough to go to Brother Dhomas."

 Chapter 12

IT had been market day in Megatheopolis, and usually on
market day the Great Square did not empty until almost
curfew. But now the commoners were packing up and
hurrying home before sunset. Business had gone halfheart-
edly. Thought of the coming night had taken the zest out
of trading.

There had been an invisible merchant moving among
them, who gave away his wares free. His name was Ter-
ror.

Who dared go home by twilight and risk meeting one of
those great, gray, red-eyed beasts which last night had
prowled and snuffed through all the alleyways? Or chance
having his way home cut off by such a creeping darkness as
had driven a patrol of deacons to seek refuge in the dwell-
ing of a commoner? Umder Chohn the Smith, at whose
home it had happened, said the deacons had been more
frightened than himself.

Everyone had some horror or wonder to tell and whis-
pers had passed more swiftly than trade goods. Several
swore they had seen angels"great winged ones with
glowing faces"indicating that the Great God was at last
taking some interest in the trials and tribulations of his
creatures. But this reassurance was more than counterbal-
anced by a set of ugly and disturbing rumors which hinted
that the priests themselves were not immune to the general
terror.

These latter rumors penetrated everywhere, though
whispered with sidewise glances to make sure no priest or
deacon was in earshot. How a priest had fled screaming
from a service in one of the lesser chapels because some-
thing invisible had clutched his throat as he preached. How
a group of commoners, returning at night from their work
in the fields, had been deserted by the priest who was
supposed to escort them and protect them from the forces

of evil. How a child had died of the Choking Sickness
before dawn, because no Third Circle priest would come
from the Sanctuary.

There were other indications that the Hierarchy itself
was afraid. For two days now bands of rural priests had
been trickling into Megatheopolis. Some said they were
come for a religious festival. But others maintained in
guarded whispers that they were seeking the protection
afforded by the Grand Sanctuary. This was confirmed by
the farmers who came to market. The farmers asserted
they were a little more outspoken than townsfolkthat
many of the rural sanctuaries were deserted and that work
in the fields was coming to a standstill.

Traders come by muleback or cart from the nearer
cities said that the minions of Sathanas were at work in
those cities, too. They were not a little disconcerted to find
Megatheopolis similarly besieged.

Sathanas laughed. Earth shook. And the Great God took
no heed.

So it came that an argument circulated with the tales of
priestly cowardice.

It ran this way: "Why don't the priests protect us? We
have confessed our sins twice over. We have reformed. We
have been good. Then why don't they protect us from
further terror? They tell us it's a test, but surely the test
has lasted long enough. They've always said they could
smite down Sathanas whenever they wanted to. Then why
don't they?"

So Sharlson Naurya, slipping into the Great Square,
sensed surliness as well as fear in the commoners leaving
it. To her it was apparent in the readiness with which they
quarreled over right of way and other trifles, exchanged
accusations of pilfering, and cuffed their children for
loitering.

For her purposes, the bickering confusion was an ad-
vantage, since it occupied the attention of the few priests
and deacons on hand.

She knew she was taking chances and disobeying the
instructions of Asmodeus. But the disappearance of the
Black Man and Jarles had altered circumstances. Jarles
had been on his way to recontact the Witchcraft. The
Black Man had gone to meet him. That was all Drick had
been able to discover.

So, garbed as a commoner, with shawl drawn close to
her cheeks, Sharlson Naurya threaded through the sullen

crowd in the Great Square, like a young mother searching
for lost children.

And she felt rather like one. True, she might love one of
the two men. But they seemed more like her children. The
Black Man the slightly spoiled darlingclever and good-
natured, but impudent and mischievous and harum-
scarum, too. Jarles the serious one, stubborn, beset by
moral problems.

There was a commoner about Jarles' build slouching at
the next corner. Instinctively she hurried her pace. He had
a stubbly growth of beard, and wore a hoodperhaps to
conceal a recent priestly tonsure?

She came closer. It looked like Jarles. It was Jarles. The
emotion she felt was mixed with a certain tart self-
satisfaction. So Drick had said it would be futile to keep
the rendezvous? For that she'd take Jarles direct to the
Coven meeting tonight. Drick would find out soon enough
that she had gained a very able convert for the Witch-
craft.

She caught his eye. With the barest nod in his direction,
she turned into the side street. After a moment he followed
her.

The elation Jarles felt was not unmixed with apprehen-
sion. He had hardly hoped to contact the Witchcraft so
smoothly and so soon, but he knew that ahead lay many
perilsthreats to his bodily welfare. And recently Jarles
had come to have a great respect for that bag of flesh and
bones which contained his ego. Once let that bag be
seriously ruptured and you could whistle through all eterni-
ty for another.

Why he had ever before taken such desperate risksand
not for personal gain!was mixed up with the greater
mystery of why he had ever been such an idealistic weak-
ling as he remembered. He disliked thinking about it. It
was all too cheap and puerile.

Of course, to achieve personal gain and ego-satisfaction,
it was necessary to run risks. You never got anything for
nothing. Obviously, Goniface wouldn't make him a Fourth
Circle priestthe reward he had dangled before Jarles
unless there was something in it for Goniface. So it was
necessary that Jarles embark on the ticklish job of betray-
ing the Witchcraft.

Goniface! There was a man for you! Jarles never
remembered envying anyone so acutely or admiring any-

one so utterly, though grudgingly. Not even Cousin Deth.
For the archpriest had the breadth of vision and capacity
for powerand enjoyment of itthat the deacon
lacked.

Elevation to the Fourth Circleand all that went with
it, and even a little more besideswas a reward that
justified taking risks. Anything was better than to grub
along with the timid little minds down in the first two
circles. But it was only common sense to minimize risks
and stretch margins of safety as wide as possible.

So it was with alert senses and active mind that Jarles
followed Sharlson Naurya into the commoners' section.
With a certain pleasure he noted the rich tones the sunset
glow elicited from the crude masonry. Life had opened up
for him in these last days and become infinitely more satis-
fying. Tasting, sniffing, touchingand all the other sensa-
tionsbrought a keener delight. For now he clearly under-
stood that he was nothing but an independent ego, free for
a term to savor the pleasures of the world and impose his
will upon it. Once you understood that, everything was
clear as day and every moment was precious.

Foggy idealism had blinded that other Jarles to the
possibilities of enjoyment right under his nose. But that
other Jarles could no longer bother him nowexcept when
he slept.

Now that they had left the Great Square behind, Jarles
caught up with Sharlson Naurya and walked beside her. He
judged it wise to say, in a low voice, "I'm with you people
to the finish now. I thought it all through at Mother Ju-
jy's."

For answer there came the warm, friendly pressure of
her hand, bringing to his mind the special problem that had
been nagging it ever since he had spoken with Goniface.

Goniface had given very explicit directions about
Sharlson Naurya, to Cousin Deth as well as to Jarles. If she
chanced to be caught in the coming raid, she must instantly
be killed.

Of course, if it came to an issue, he would have to
sacrifice hereven destroy her himself if it were absolutely
unavoidable. But if, without drawing too much suspicion to
himself, he could manage to spirit her away, that would be
the ideal solution.

After all, why was Goniface so interested in her? She
must know a secret or two that would be very helpful in

speeding up Jarles' promotion. So he had a double reason
for preserving her life, if opportunity offered.

Sunset had paled to twilight. His guide turned suddenly
into a tiny shrine where commoners might come to pray.
In the gloom he could make out the image of the Great
God, the altar, and the few small benches. The place was
empty. Sharlson Naurya advanced to the wall at one side
of the altar and felt along the ornate plastic molding.

A heavy panel slid aside. She stepped through. Jarles
paused for a moment in the doorway, so that the bulb of
radioactive tracers strapped to his left forearm would leave
a heavier spoor at this point to guide Cousin Deth. Impa-
tiently, she motioned him in.

The panel closed. They were in the interior twilight of a
narrow passageway, lit by infrequent, tiny lamps. Again
she felt along the moldingplain herebeside the door-
way. Evidently reactivating an alarm system that had been
turned off while they entered. As she started down the
passageway he took a chance, felt for the button, found it,
depressed it, then quickly followed her.

At the end of the corridor they descended a flight of
stairs. Another corridor. More stairs. Jarles' senses were
strainingly alert.

"These passages date back to the Golden Age," Naurya
explained to him.

She stopped.

"The entrance to the Coven Chamber is just ahead,
beyond a zigzag," she said. "I'm going to take you in and
immediately propose you for membership. They are meet-
ing now. Here"her hand touched the wall"is one of
the extra entrances. We use them only in emergencies."

Her finger touched a spot and a panel slid open.

Jarles' new personality thought and acted swiftly. Adjust-
ing the controls on the wrath ray strapped to his right
forearm to paralyzer quality, he directed its now-invisible,
faintly hissing beam at her waist. She stiffened. There was
a convulsive retraction of the diaphragm. Her mouth
opened spasmodically, but she made no sound.

Catching her arm, he let her fall gently into the side
passageway she had just uncovered. Then, counting sec-
onds, he coolly played the ray against her skull. When he
was satisfied that she would remain unconscious for a
sufficient period, he shut the panel, and proceeded toward
the Coven Chamber.

Purple-tinged darkness, and a voice speaking masterfully
through it. Silhouetted against the lesser darkness of the
far wall, a crowded ring of human forms, listening to the
voice. A phosphorescent throne against the far wall, and in
it a dead-black manlike shape, and the voice coming from
the shape.

Vividly the remembrance came to Jarles of the first time
he had been in this chamber. So vividly that for a moment
the two experiences were mixed, although then he had
been a different person. Memory could bridge any gap.

Silently he donned the ultraviolet transformer goggles,
which Cousin Deth had provided for him at his own
suggestion. It was as if a sickly yellow light had suddenly
illuminated the whole room. Instantly mysteriousness van-
ished from the scene. With two exceptions it became very
ordinary. Just a long, low room and a group of people
listening absorbedly to a speaker who sat in an unadorned
and unimpressive throne. Jarles experienced a pleasant
feeling of superiority.

The two exceptions were the speaker and a tall some-
thing beside the throne.

The speaker was still only a manlike shape, not one whit
less black than before. The field he wore drank all radia-
tions.

The tall something so puzzled Jarles and distracted his
attention that he still had not time to catch the drift of
what the speaker was saying. Certainly the object had not
been in the room on that other occasion. It was very like
an angel, of about the same height and general conforma-
tion. But the broad, dusky, lifeless face was incredibly
ugly, with wicked horns sprouting from the forehead, and
the forearms were reptilian and clawed. A demon mono-
lith, it stood there rigidly, twice as tall as a man and a little
taller than the room, so that its horns extended upward
into a large circular recess or orifice in the ceiling.

Some piece of ritual sculpture, Jarles decided. These
people were very imaginative, yes, and very clever
perhaps. But they were children in true craft, giants in
carelessness. How else could they permit him to penetrate
so easily their secret councils!

Oddly the speaker was now expressing much the same
thought. Jarles listened to the masterful voice.

"Thus far you have only played at being witches. It has
been a hard and dangerous game, but, to most of you, only
a game. Most of you were drawn into the Witchcraft by a

rebellious and mischievous desire to exercise secret power
in a world where the Hierarchy has a monopoly of
power.

"I and my co-workers recognized this when we devised
the Witchcraft. We knew that a great cause and a worthy
purpose would be insufficient to attract a following. We
knew that you would obey our instructions only so long as
they were sufficiently amusing. And when you embarked
on private pranks, we did not interfere."

The voice paused. One of the circle of listeners eagerly
interjected a question.

"What you say is true. But what would you have us do
now, O Asmodeus?"

Jarles' heart pounded. Asmodeus! He had heard that
name given to the leader of the Witchcraft. The coming
captures would be of vast importance. Elevation to the
Fourth Circle was no longer sufficient compensation. The
Seventh Circle, at the least! Lucky he had Sharlson Naurya
to use against Goniface, if the archpriest balked.

"Now," continued the masterful voice, "the game is
over. Or rather, it enters a more serious stage. Thus far
you have been amazingly successful despite frequent fool-
hardiness and carelessness. Most important, the Hierarchy
has been slow to act. A conservative organization, it has
never since its establishment faced any opposition worth
the name. And it is at present troubled by internal dissen-
sions. So, partly from conservativism, partly from cunning,
partly as a compromise, it has adopted a waiting policy.

"But do not underestimate the Hierarchy! It is awaken-
inghas almost awakenedto its danger. More and
more, its vast spy system is being devoted to the work of
tracking us down. In a thousand sanctuaries, research
priests of the Fifth Circle are close to discovering and
duplicating the scientific secrets of the Witchcraft. And
there are signs that the internal dissension in the Hierarchy
will soon be healed-by drastic surgery.

"Do not underestimate the Hierarchy! It is so powerful
that it can afford delay. It is no empty priestly boast, when
they threaten to call down help from heaven!"

Soon now, thought Jarles, Cousin Deth must strike.
According to his calculations, the deacon must already be
past the panel in the shrine. And still no alarm. That was
good. Yet he felt a sudden pang of fear. Not fear for his
own safetyhe felt that to be sure, constantly, and it kept
him painfully alert. But that fear was clear and sharp. The

other was vague, formless. He tried in vain to grasp its
nature.

"In warfare, time is all-essential," came the voice from
the throne. It was a voice that gave the impression of
wickedly bright eyes, not without humor and compassion.
"How much more, then, is time essential in the psychologi-
cal warfare we are waging! Fear is our only weapon, and it
has one great limitationit swiftly loses its effectiveness.
By a carefully plotted rising tide of terror we have badly
shaken the lesser priesthood and planted the seeds of
supernatural panic in the higher circles. But if we pause
now, our advantage evaporates. We must create a
stampede.

"It is for that reason that I have summoned you leaders
and taken the unprecedented step of appearing before you
in person."

Better and better, thought Jarles. All their leaders
bagged at once. And Asmodeus! But the murky, undefin-
able fear still oppressed him. If only Deth would strike !

"I have come to discuss with you the plans for our final
operations. Instructions conveyed on reading tapes are no
longer sufficient or safe. I will handle those matters with
you individually, after this meeting.

"But first I must warn you of a vast responsibility that
may fall to your lot. It concerns myself and my co-
workers. We, your leaders, are in a peculiarly vulnerable
position. It may very well happen that, before the crisis
comes, we will be found out and destroyed. In that case,
you chief agents of the Witchcraft in the key city of
Megatheopolis will have to take over."

Jarles clenched his fists in nervous impatience. His
murky fear had now become something strange and un-
pleasant. He had the feeling that something was going to
happen to thwart him, and that he could easily prevent
itif only he knew what it was. It made his head feel
heavy and hot, as if he had a fever.

"Plans for such an eventuality have long been in exis-
tence. But they were intrusted to one of you who has since
disappearedpresumably dead or the Hierarchy's prison-
er. Therefore, it will be necessary to make new arrange-
ments."

This reference to the Black Man ought to have inter-
ested Jarles, but he had almost ceased to listen to As-
modeus, the strange fear was affecting him so. It was

making his throat dry and numb. When he raised his hand
to his lips they were no longer sensitive to touch.

And yet, if he only knew what it was that was coming,
he could prevent it. Maddening. If it got any worse, he
would have to activate his tracers and summon Deth,
though he was not supposed to do that unless he was
apprehended.

"critical moment approaches." He was only vaguely
aware of Asmodeus' words. "every move you make
from now on ... freighted with significance Not only
your own safety . . . fate of the world This city ...
crucial Future of mankind"

At that instant a painfully convulsive spasm seized Jarles'
vocal organs, and, to his intensest horror and dismay, he
heard himself cry out, "You are betrayed! This is the Hier-
archy's trap! Escape while you can!"

Then control over his muscles came back to him. With
a snarl of rage and shame-for the moment he was beside
himself with hatred of that other Jarles who had spoken
he activated the tracers strapped to his left arm to a
maximum intensity which would jolt Deth's instruments if
he were anywhere near.

And Deth must have been very near, for before the
semi-circle of witches and warlocks could more than rise to
their feet, deacons bearing wrath rods and other weapons
poured into the room.

Out from the semi-circle of witches and warlocks, a
shadowy scurrying went along the floor, like rats running
for their holes. Before Jarles could get his own wrath ray
into action, they had vanished.

Asmodeus was the only human being who had reacted
swiftly to the warning. He sprang for the demonlike sculp-
ture beside the throne. The thick violet gout of a wrath rod
cut down a witch and impinged upon him. For a moment
his blackness glowed eerily, as the absorbent field strained
to drink the power. But before the field collapsed, he was
behind the sculpture, which seemed resistant to the ray.

Jarles circled forward, hoping to get a shot at him from
the side. Asmodeus was too greatly outnumbered. He had
managed to reach a point of cover, but he couldn't hold
out long.

Not behind the sculpture, though. In it.

A solid blowfringe of a repulsor fieldsent Jarles
reeling. The demon figure moved, lifted, and, the focus of

a dozen tongues of violet incandescence, shot upward
through the orifice in the ceiling.

Sprawled on the floor, Jarles realized bitterly that his
first impression had been right. The thing was like an
angelmobile. And the shaft into which it had vanished
must lead to the surface. It was probably disguised as a
chimney.

Deth had said there would be angels patrolling over-
head. They were the last, slim hope of catching Asmodeus.

 Chapter 13

IN the pearly gray chamber of the Apex Council Goniface
watched Brother Frejeris rise to accuse him, The Moder-
ate's voice had a silky note. "Do I rightly understand your
purpose in having your servant Cousin Deth bring those
instruments here?"

With a wave of his hand, he indicated an arrangement
of gleaming apparatus before the Council table. A chair,
with attachments for confining the sitter, was a chief
feature. Engaged in testing the apparatus was a group of
Fourth Circle technicians, under the direction of Cousin
Deth.

Goniface nodded.

"Torture!" Frejeris enunciated the word with indigna-
tion. "Have we become barbarians, as threatened in the
Golden Age, that we stoop to such brutality?"

The idea of brutality actually shocks him, thought Goni-
face amusedly. I wonder what name he has for the toil we
exact of the commoners, and the penances we impose on
them?

Frejeris continued, "Our Brother Goniface all of a
sudden informs us that his agents have apprehended a
group of individuals who, he tells us, are dangerous to the
Hierarchy. His agents have done this without the knowl-
edge or consent of the Apex Council, in direct violation of
all procedures. Now he tells us that these private captives
of his are members of the New Witchcraft. On top of all
that, disregarding the scientific methods we have at hand
for extracting truth, he proposes that they be questioned
under physical torture andagain secretlymakes ar-
rangements for it. Why, I ask the Council, this reversion to
barbarism?

"I will tell you why," Frejeris continued after a dramatic
pause. His magnificent voice deepened in timbre and grew
more vibrant. "And in so doing I will reveal Goniface as a

ruthless upstart, seeking to seize absolute power. I will
show you that he has organized a hierarchy within the
Hierarchy, a clique of deacons and priests loyal only to
himself. I will prove to you that he is taking advantage of
this matter of the Witchcraft and exaggerating the danger
it represents, in order to foment a world-wide crisis and
seize power in defiance of precedent, with the excuse that
he does it to save the Hierarchy!"

With a sweeping glance up and down the table, Frejeris
prepared to launch into a detailed accusation.

He never began it. The archpriest Jomald, bellwether of
the Realists, rose and said simply, as if it were a very
ordinary matter, "The archpriest Frejeris has placed the
Hierarchy in grave danger by obstructing and delaying
action against the Witchcraft. If left free to his own
devices, he will continue to do so. His motives are highly
suspect. I ask for his immediate excommunication for the
space of a year. I further ask that the matter be brought at
once to a vote."

Frejeris glared at him with a cold and supercilious
disdain, as if outraged merely by the unprecedented dis-
courtesy of the interruption.

"I second that!" lean Brother Sercival snapped unexpect-
edly, from where he sat beside Goniface.

Even the old Fanatic plays along with us, thought
Goniface.

And still Frejeris stood there uncomprehending, as if
waiting for the rude interruptions to come to an end, so he
could get on with his oration. He was a magnificently
stately man.

His own Moderates understood what was happening
before he did. Ominously for him, they looked more
frightened than indignant.

"Are there any objections to bringing the matter to a
vote?" asked Jomald. His voice was like the rap of a
gavel.

Very slowly, very hesitatingly, one of the Moderates
started to rise to his feet, glancing uneasily up and down
the table. What he saw there caused him to change his
mind. He sank back, avoiding Frejeris' eyes.

Only then did Frejeris understand. To his credit, it did
not break his calm. His large, handsome face lost nothing
of its statuesque quality.

One after another, clenched fists were laid on the gleam-
ing table. Frejeris glanced haughtily at the archpriests who

thus voted against him, but more with the air of a man
who rebukes discourtesy than that of a priest facing ex-
communication.

At the end, not one hand had been laid palm downward
to indicate a negative vote, and only two Moderates had
abstainedand they looked acutely uncomfortable.

"Execute the sentence!" cried Jomald to the group of
Fourth Circle technicians.

Several archpriests betrayed surprise, only now realizing
how closely everything had been planned.

But still Frejeris preserved his calm. The Moderates to
either side of him shrank away, but he did not flinch. Like
a marble statue he stood there.

And like a marble statue he was toppled down. Invisible
emanations played upon him, establishing blocks in his
sensory nerves. The optical nerves were the first to be
affected. Gropingly, he raised his hands to his blinded eyes,
but before they could reach them, his tactual sense was
gone. Equilibrium went with the rest. He swayed forward
and fell heavily across the tablea table he could no
longer feel.

More helpless than a baby he sprawled there, an in-
sensate ruin, excommunicated from the universe as well as
from the Hierarchy, shut off from all sensory contact,
doomed for a year to the private hell of his own thoughts
a year that would be an eternity, for there would be in it
no way to measure time.

And even as lesser priests were stepping forward to
remove the fallen leader, Brother Jomald spoke again.

"I further ask that power to use all our resources against
the common enemy be vested in the archpriest Goniface,
that he be declared World Hierarch, until the Witchcraft is
no longer a menace to us. During this period the Apex
Council will function as his chief advisory board."

That motion, too, was passed without a single dissenting
vote. Even old Sercival, who might have been expected to
cling grimly to independence, went with the rest. Goniface,
who had not spoken a word all this time, made no com-
ment. He simply rose and said: "Bring in our prisoners.
Let the questioning begin."

This brought an unanticipated objection from the Fanat-
ic Sercival. His parchment face was the incarnation of
zealous hatred.

"I beg you, your supreme eminence, let us have no
traffic of any sort with the agents of Sathanas! If you

certify that they are witches, let them instantly be slain!
They are too foul a blemish on creation to let exist.

"I voted to give you supreme power," continued Ser-
cival, "because I consider you a strong man, willing and
able to fight ruthlessly against the Lord of Evil. No quarter
to his witches, I say!"

"I have heard you," Goniface told Sercival coolly. "You
will not find me sparing the enemy. But it is necessary to
question them."

Reluctantly Sercival sat down. "I still say they should be
slain," he muttered doggedly.

But attention shifted away from him to the captured
witches being escorted into the Chamber under a heavy
guard of deacons. With feigned casualness the archpriests
made the most of their first opportunity to study the enemy
face to face.

The first impression was reassuring. The prisoners were
all dressed alike in coarse-woven, scanty tunics. And they
actually seemed dirty! Moreover, the fact that they did
not struggle at all or resist in any way the ungentle and
unnecessary shoving and jerking to which the deacons
subjected them, had the appearance of servility. There
could be nothing to fear from such a ragamuffin crew as
these! Why, they looked like a road gangexcept that
most of them were women. A few of the women seemed
moderately prettymight even be rather fetching if de-
cently groomed and clothed in the appealing garb of the
sisterhood. But as they were now, these supposedly potent
enemies resembled nothing so much as a crew of the
humblest menials.

The second impression was not so reassuring. The indi-
vidual faces were obviously more sensitive and intelligent
than those of the average run of commoners. What had
passed at first glance for oafishness became on closer
inspection a brooding thoughtfulness. And there was a
subtle air of solidarity, of mutual loyalty, about them, so
that they seemed to stand firmly together as a groupand
this impression was only heightened by their garb. Like-
wise, it became apparent that they did not so much submit
frightenedly to the rough handling they were getting, as
ignore it because their minds were concentrated on other
matters.

That impression of brooding thoughtfulness was the
most intangibly disturbing. One got the feeling that they

were communing with powers outside the Council Cham-
ber.

On the whole, however, it was the first impression that
predominated. The other was only a lurking after-
thought.

With a toss of his dwarfishly large head, Cousin Deth
signed to a Second Circle clerk to begin the proceedings.
From the very instant that Goniface had been granted
dictatorial powers, the little deacon had dropped the mask
from his features, so that all his emotions registered there
in naked ugliness. His bold glances toward the Apex
Council said more plainly than words, "I am the second
man in the Hierarchy now."

From the luminous face of a reading-tape projector, the
clerk recited to the prisoners a brief indictment that was
also a conviction.

"You have been apprehended while conspiring against
the Hierarchy, under the guise and pretense of witchcraft.
If any one of you will stand forward now and make a full
confession of guilt, holding back nothing, that one will be
spared the torture."

Abruptly one of the women began to tremble and shake
spasmodically, her head thrown sharply back, her eyes
closed. Swiftly her movements became more violent. Her
neck muscles stood out sharply, and her knees were bent as
if she were bracing herself with a great effort. It was as if
something invisible were shaking her. Suddenly she fell
down and frothed at the mouth like an epileptic.

"Lord, protect us!" she screamed, writhing convulsively
on the floor. "Sathanas, aid thy servants!"

A vast wolfish shape materialized from the misty gray of
the walls at the other end of the Chamber. Its eyes were
like two sooty hearths filled with dying embers. Toward the
Council table it stalked, big as a house, the very incarna-
tion of skulking, slavering destruction.

The archpriests had risen. Several of them could not
conceal their emotions. The lesser priests also shrank back
involuntarily.

"Dissolve it!" Goniface called sharply to Cousin Deth.
Then he rose, too. "The thing is only a telesolidographic
projectionas all of you must realize!" The last phrase
was directed bitingly at his fellow archpriests. Almost he
wished Frejeris were still among them. The pompous Mod-
erate at least knew how to put up a front.

Partially reassured, the archpriests noted that there was

indeed a certain transparency to the advancing monster, so
you could dimly see through it to the wall beyond; and it
was a ghostly slaver that dripped in ropes from the gigantic
jaws. Moreover, the great paws with their foot-long nails
seemed sometimes to step a little above the floor and
sometimes a little below.

Then Deth's technicians got the range of it and it began
swiftly to melt away. Whole sections of the body disap-
peared instantaneously, leaving only a few remnants which
their instruments had not caught at the first focusing. True,
there was something hellishly suggestive, almost worse than
the original, about those remnantsan ear tuft here, a
paw there, a patch of dirty fur coarser than grass, and the
smoky hellhole of an eye. But in the main the results were
very helpful to priestly morale.

"There was, of course, no need to dissolve it," said
Goniface coldly. "I merely wished to demonstrate conclu-
sively its solidographic nature. Our Fourth Circle brethren
were able to dissipate it with the recently invented polyfre-
quency neutralizer. The thing was purely photonic in
nature and yielded quickly to an application of the princi-
ple of interference. All phantasms employed by the so-
called New Witchcraft are of a similar sort. To put a
complete stop to them, it will only be necessary to discover
and destroy the hidden projectorsmerely a matter of
time, even without the information that will soon be at our
disposal." He glanced significantly at the group of witches.
"We could with the greatest ease insulate this chamberor
the whole Sanctuaryfrom such projections. But there is
no need. Our research scientists are sure that it is impos-
sible to transmit physically injurious frequencies and inten-
sities. Should we insulate the Sanctuary, it would give the
false impression that we are afraid." His next words were
very definite. "I command every priest and deacon here to
take no notice whatever of any projections directed into
this chamber."

And he sat downinstantly to become aware of a slight
sultriness and of the fact that everything in the Chamber
had turned bright-red and become exceedingly foggy and
indistinct.

Disobeying the command they had just been given, most
of the archpriests sprang up and crowded to either end of
the table, away from Goniface. For where their World
Hierarch had been sitting, there .now sat a huge red devil,
whose shaggy red legs seemed poked through the table

itself, and whose great horned head swung from side to
side, grinning down at them with fiendish mirth. Coiled up
monkeylike over his shoulder was a thick red tail ending in
a vicious barb.

In the interior of the redness, the figure of Goniface
could be made out hazily, like an insect embedded in
cloudy amber.

He stood up and for a moment his head emerged from
the redness. Then the devil stood up, too.

There was a commotion among the witches. They had
dropped to their knees and many of them were calling out
adoringly, "Master! Master!"

Old Sercival raised a shaky hand. His glittering eyes
rolled confusedly. He seemed not so much frightened as
indignant.

"What does this mean?" he cried. "Have we voted for
Sathanas himself?"

Deth's technicians also disobeyed the command. Swing-
ing their projector around, they stripped the solidographic
projection from Goniface. First his head emerged, then the
rest of his body. He looked very grim.

But even as that happened, there came a startled cry
from the deacons. An inky cloud of darkness had suddenly
engulfed the kneeling witches, billowing ever wider, threat-
ening to fill the whole chamber. From the cloud emerged
deacon guards, hands stretched ahead of them, hastily
groping their way.

"Wrath rods!" called Goniface, even as the black cloud
lapped dangerously close to the technicians and their in-
struments. "Swing them into the darkness at waist level. If
it doesn't dissipate, keep going all the way through. No
neutralizer can counteract their energy!"

Beams of violet flame spattered against the gray walls of
the Chamber, swinging in toward the darkness. The cloud
seemed to make a last despairing effort, thrusting out an
inky pseudopod toward the door of the chamber. But the
wrath rays touched it, cut into it. Abruptly the cloud
vanished and the wrath rays halted.

"If any further solidographic projections are introduced
into the Chamber, witches will be slain!" Goniface an-
nounced harshly. "For every such projection, five
witches!"

"Are you not going to slay them all, immediately?"
demanded old Sercival. "I only now heard you order that

they be slain with rods of wrath, as I advised from the
first."

"It was merely a device on my part, your reverence,"
Goniface answered curtly. "These are worldly matters
which it is doubtless difficult for your saintly nature to
comprehend!"

At this rebuke, Sercival subsided, though muttering and
shaking his head. It was apparent that several other arch-
priests would have been relieved to see the Fanatic's
advice followed.

"Begin the questioning!" ordered Goniface.

Two deacons singled out one of the witches and led her
toward the chair by which Cousin Deth was standing. She
was a fair young woman, but very frailly built for a
commoner. Her skin had a waxy quality and her features
were peaked.

She went quietly until they reached the chair. Then she
struggled like a wild animal, biting and scratching. But as
soon as she had been secured, this spasm left her.

The clerk read out: "Mewdon Chemmyfor that, al-
though you deny it, is the name by which you have been
identifiedit is my duty to advise you to answer all
questions truthfully and satisfactorily. Otherwise you will
put us to the unpleasant necessity of influencing you to
make an answer. Past cultures have used all manner of
devices to induce painthe rack, the wheel, the boot, the
dental drill and a host of others. But the Hierarchy is
merciful and is not pleased by mutilation. Therefore its
priests have devised a means of producing all the same
sensations of those varied tortures by direct stimulation of
the nerves that transmit the sensation of pain. Thus the
same results are achieved without any injury to the bodily
organism, save it come through shock or convulsion. There
is this further advantagethe torture need not be inter-
rupted for fear that injury to the tissues will result in
death."

The clerk sat down.

Leisurely Cousin Deth walked forward a few paces, then
suddenly turned on the witch.

"What is your name?" he asked.

There was a pause. Then, faintly, the voice of the witch,
"The servants of Sathanas are nameless."

Cousin Deth laughed. It was unpleasant to think that he
had been repressing such laughter for many years. He said,
"You have been identified as Mewdon Chemmy, common-

er of the Eleventh Ward, trained in the coloring of pot-
tery, wife of Mewdon Rijard. Do you deny this?"

No answer.

"Very well, Mewdon Chemmy. You are accused of
conspiring to overthrow the Hierarchy."

"Your clerk said more than that." The voice was faint,
but very clear. "He said that Iall of usalready stood
convicted."

"True, Mewdon Chemmy. But if your answers are satis-
factory, it will save you pain. Precisely in what ways have
you conspired against the Hierarchy?"

"I have followed the instructions of Sathanas."

Deth laughed. "What instructions?"

"To make myself a vehicle for his supernatural volitions.
To practice the lore taught me. To curse and cast spells.
To vex and torment those whom Sathanas points out to
me."

For a third time Cousin Deth made the sound that
passed with him for laughter. "It may be that you are
accustomed to use a nonsensical jargon to describe your
activities. Understand, then, that it does not interest us. We
want only material facts. What scientific procedures have
you been taught?"

"I know nothing of such procedures. Being omnipotent,
Sathanas has no need of them."

Deth looked up from her to his chief technician. "Are
you ready?" he asked.

The priest nodded. A thick metallic canopy had been
moved forward behind the chair. It fitted around the
witch's head like a cowl. Curving flanges followed the lines
of her body.

Deth looked again at the witch. "Thus far, in view of
your tenderness and sex, we have been lenient with you,
Mewdon Chemmy. That leniency will be cut short if you
persist in childish evasions. Understand once and for all,
we will waste no further time listening to meaningless
babbling of Sathanas and other supernatural unrealities. I
hardly need remind you that you are not dealing with
credulous commoners."

There was a stir at the Council Table. Such blunt,
unsubtle talk was highly irregular. Old Sercival muttered
indignantly. Several archpriests glanced questioningly at
Goniface, but failed to catch his eye.

"However, Mewdon Chemmy, you still have a chance,"
Deth continued. "If you will give us the material facts, and

if they are subsequently verified, we will deal mercifully
with you."

The witch's face, shadowed by the metal hood, looked
small as a child's, pale as a ghost's.

"How can you deal mercifully with me? You have
admitted that the Hierarchy has no faith in the Great God.
Could you loose me to tell that to commoners? Could you
take the slightest risk of any of us revealing your
shams?"

Deth triumphantly whipped his reply at her. "Now we
are getting somewhere! At last you admit that all is
scientific mummery?"

The silence in the Council Chamber was such that her
whisper was plainly audible.

"Not so. For more than a century Sathanas has let you
believe that, in order that your downfall may be the more
complete and your torment the more tantalizing. Sathanas
is! He rules supreme in the hell you call the cosmos!"

There was a stir at the Council Table. Goniface ignored
it. He motioned to Deth.

"Mewdon Chemmy, we want facts!" cried the deacon
harshly. "First, who is your real leader?"

"Sathanas."

"Evasive babble! Let the pain enter the fingers of the
left hand."

With the words came an increase in the tension pervad-
ing the gray chamber. Rods of wrath were lifted warningly
against the witches. But, eyes closed, they seemed to be
repeating inaudible prayers to their dark divinity.

Then, from the metal shroud, came the faint sound of
air sucked suddenly between teeth and tongue.

But Goniface, World Hierarch, did not hear it, although
he was listening intently. For, at the same instant, he felt
that the fingers of his left hand, hanging at his side, had
been dipped in molten metal.

With a sudden and supreme effort of will he checked the
impulse to jerk his hand upward, to writhe and cry out.
With a continuation of the effort that was only less than
the first effort itself, he glanced up and down the table. If
he had made a betraying movement, none of the arch-
priests had noticed it.

"Mewdon Chemmy, who is your real leader?"

"Sathanas. Sathanas." Rapid, breathy whispers.

Goniface let his glance slip downward. There was noth-
ing unnatural about his hand, except the white knuckles

and taut tendons. Slowly he moved it until it rested on the
table. The searing pain was unabated.

"Let the pain creep into the wrist. Who, leaving aside
the one you call Sathanas, is your leader?"

"He is Give me strength, Sathanas!" A whimpering
gasp. "He is Asmodeus!"

To Goniface, it was as if he had drawn on a red-hot
gauntlet.

"Who is Asmodeus?"

"Sathanas, aid me! He is King of the Demons."

"Into the arm! Who is Asmodeus?"

"King ... of the Demons."

"We know that Asmodeus is a man. What is his real
name?"

"King" A choked scream. "May Sathanas burn you
forever! I don't know. I don't know."

"Then Asmodeus is a man?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. I don't know! Sathanas, burn
them as they burn your servant!"

Goniface felt beads of sweat pricking his forehead, as
the invisible incandescence lapped higher, and higher
still.

He must think. Think!

"Mewdon Chemmy, who is Asmodeus? What is his
name?"

"Don't know... don't know!"

"Have you ever seen him?"

"Yes. No! Yes! Mewdon Chemmy, Sathanas! Your
faithful servant."

"What did he look like?"

"I don't know. A blackness! A blackness . . . and a
voice."

The beads of sweat were trickling down Goniface's
forehead in nervous little rushes. Only a little longer and
the witch would break. And this impossible pain must have
a source. Think!

"Very well, Mewdon Chemmy. We will leave Asmodeus
for the moment. Where in Megatheopolis are the head-
quarters of the Witchcraft?"

"I don't Where you captured us."

"That was only a meeting place. You know I don't mean
that. Where are the real headquarters?"

"I don't There are none."

"A lie! You know something, for you twice started to

conceal it. Where are the real headquarters? Where is the
scientific armament kept?"

"In the There is no such armament. Sathanas does not
need"

"Into the shoulder!"

Agony groping upward, scalding. Think! Think! A com-
motion of some sort at the far end of the chamber. The
high doors opening. And from the kneeling witches, a low,
murmuring supplication, rhythmic, intense, like the beat of
a muffled drum. "Sathanas, aid us. Sathanas, aid us."

"Mewdon Chemmy, where are the headquarters? You
are in the Great Square. You are going to the headquar-
ters. You are walking toward a street. You are entering it.
What street is it?"

"Of the Wea No! No!" A whimpering scream.

"You are walking along the Street of the Weavers,
Mewdon Chemmy. You smell wool. You hear the sound of
the shuttle. You are walking. Now you are no longer in the
Street of the Weavers. You have turned. Where?"

"No! No! It's Mewdon Chemmy calling you, Sa-
thanas!"

A group of priests were hurrying from the great door
toward the council table, their scarlet robes flapping. Slow-
ly, effortfully, Goniface rose, his left arm rigid at his side,
the left shoulder stooped, as if he lifted a great weight.

"From the shoulder then"

"Stop questioning!" ordered Goniface loudly, and with
such a strained, mechanical enunciation that all stared at
him.

Deth waited a moment, then shrugged his shoulders and
motioned to the technicians.

Relief came to Goniface with dizzying suddenness. An
invisible torrent of ice water took his breath away. The
whole chamber seemed to rock, and he gripped the table to
keep from staggering.

"What is the matter?" he asked the newcomers, the
laboriousness fading from his enunciation as he spoke.
"Only the most urgent reason could justify your interrup-
tion."

"The commoners are marching on the Sanctuary!" cried
one. "They have left their work. All attempts to halt them
have failed. Two deacons opened up with wrath rods in the
Street of the Smithies, but were overwhelmed and torn to
pieces. A priest of the First Circle who ordered them back
was captured and mistreated. He is still in their power.

Already they fill the Great Square. They demand to know
why we do not smite down Sathanas and end the reign of
terror. They cry, 'What about the Witchcraft? What about
the Witchcraft?' They shout down any priest who seeks to
reason with them."

An alarmed murmuring flurried along the Council Ta-
ble. Goniface heard an archpriest mutter, "Warblasts!
Sweep the Square!" He recognized one of the newcomers
as being from Web Center and bid him speak.

"News of similar rioting is pouring in from half Earth's
cities. It looks like prearrangement. A mob broke into the
Sanctuary of Neodelos. They were driven out, leaving
many dead behind. From everywhere come pleas for in-
structions."

Goniface spoke rapidly. "Unship the parasympathetics in
the Cathedral and play them on the Square. By amplifier,
proclaim tomorrow a holiday and announce that a Grand
Revival will be held. There will be solemn supplications to
the Great God, miracles will occur, and the Great God
will vouchsafe a sure and infallible sign of the coming
victory over Sathanas."

To the priest from Web Center: "Relay the same in-
structions to all sanctuaries. Tell them to use all available
parasympathetics, including the hand models in the confes-
sional booths. If the crowds do not disperse after the
announcement, deluge them with music. In no event must
force be employed! If any sanctuary is mobbed, I will
count it as a black mark against the incumbent priesthood.
Instruct Neodelos, on pain of general excommunication, to
hold solemn funeral for all slain commoners and convey
home their bodies with the greatest pomp. Contact all
sanctuaries, even those not asking instructions, and as-
certain conditions. Inform them that detailed instructions
for conducting the Grand Revival will be on their way by
nightfall, Megatheopolis time. In two hours return me here
a complete survey of the general situation."

To a clerk: "Fetch me the records of all previous Grand
Revivals, including moving solidographs of the last two."

To another clerk: "Summon the Sixth Circle Faculty of
Social Control. The Apex Council desires their advice.
Send to the crypts and ask Brother Dhomas to attend me
at his earliest convenience."

To a third: "Inform the Fifth Circle Faculty of Physi-
cists that a telesolidograph shield must be set up around
the Great Square. All technical resources are placed at

their command. They may requisition any and all apparat-
us. But the shield must be complete by dawn tomorrow."
To a fourth: "Make further effort to contact the ship
bringing reinforcements from Luciferopolis. If successful,
inform it to make full speed."

To Cousin Deth: "Return our prisoners to their cells.
Confine them individually. Each must be watched con-
tinuously by at least two guards, and the guards watched in
turn. Be prepared for the most fantastic attempts at rescue
you can conceive. I hold you solely responsible.

"There will be a private session of the Apex Council.
Clear the Chamber!"

"Can you still intend not to slay the witches, your
supreme eminence?" There was a fierce, though quavering
note in the harsh voice of old Sercival. "The testimony of
that wicked woman proved conclusively that they are
agents of Sathanas. It is dangerous and foolhardyand an
offense against the Great Godto let them live longer."

"It is essential that we obtain information from them,"
Goniface answered sharply. "I only interrupted the ques-
tioning because there are weightier matters at hand. We
must plan the Grand Revival."

Sercival shook his head. A mador propheticglint
seemed to enter his hawklike eyes. "It were better that we
fall on our knees and ask pardon of the Great God for our
long years of unbelief, and beg his mercy. Else I see
darkness loom before us and doom for all!"

There was grim finality in Goniface's reply^Your rev-
erence's mind is tired and confused. But I shall excommu-
nicate the next priest who talks of failure or implies that
there is any supernatural reality in Sathanas."

From the witches departing under their doubled guards
came a monotonous, murmurous chanting, faint yet seem-
ing to fill the whole chamber.

"Thanks be to Sathanas. Thanks be to Sathanas. Thanks
be to Sathanas."

 Chapter 14

As Jarles activated the door of his private apartment in the
crypts, he frowned at the Fourth Circle emblazonment
mistily reflected in its gleaming surface. Goniface had
rewarded him insufficiently, considering the importance of
the service he had rendered. Still, Asmodeus had escaped.
As always, it caused him a bitter pang to remember that
Asmodeus would not have escaped had not that other,
puerile Jarles managed to seize control of his body and
bleat out a warning. But he should consider himself lucky
that his hideous slip had not been brought to light.

Having entered the apartment, his first concern was to
reactivate the lock. It irked him somewhat that Cousin
Deth had been given sole credit, in public, for capturing
the witches. However, as Goniface had told him, it was
undoubtedly best that he work in secret for the present.
Save for Goniface's private following, no priest had any
inkling of his return to the Hierarchy, let alone the awak-
ening of his true personality.

In any case he had some compensations for this tem-
porary obscurity, he decided, glancing around him. He
passed through a second room, as sumptuously furnished as
the first, and entered a third, reactivating all locks behind
him.

On a couch, pale face upturned, eyes closed, hands
folded as in death, lay Sharlson Naurya.

He looked at her for a while. Then, with a mild, stimu-
lative beam of antiparalysis quality he dispelled her uncon-
sciousness. Her eyes opened. He read in them a hate that
he interpreted half as a compliment.

She sensed the interpretation. She said, slowly and dis-
tinctly, "You incredible, disgusting egotist."

He smiled. "Not egotist. Realist."

"Realist!" Contempt gave strength to her utterance.
"You're no more a realist now than when you were a blind

and stubborn idealist. You're a fiction villain! I suppose
that every blundering idealist who hasn't been brought face
to face with the hard facts of life carries, at the back of his
mind, a sneaking suspicion that villainy is a very dashing
and romantic thing. When your mind turned turtle, or
when they turned it for you, your new personality was
necessarily fabricated out of all your fragmentary romantic
notions of villainyunlimited ambition and conceit, abso-
lute lack of emotion, and all the rest of the supervillain
ideology!"

She paused. Her eyes opened wider, in incredulous
loathing. "You like me to talk about you that way, don't
you?"

He nodded. "Certainly. Because I'm a realist. Experi-
ence has taught me how close hate is to love."

"Another cheap romantic fallacy!" Anger made her
tremble. "Realist! Can't you understand that you're behav-
ing like a book? Have you no conception of the risks you
are running in this game you're trying to play, according to
some romantic code of villainy, with men like Goniface?
Realist! Look at your insane recklessness in bringing me
here. What will happen to you when Goniface finds
out?"

He smiled. "It was necessary to bring you here. There
was no one to whom I could intrust you. And who would
think of looking for you here? Moreover, Goniface trusts
me. He doesn't dream that, while serving him, I plot
against him."

She glared at him. "What if I should reveal myself?"

"You won't be able to. And even if you could, you
wouldn't. Because you'd know it meant instant death for
you, by order of the World Hierarch. That's the beauty of
the arrangement.

"Speaking of Goniface," he continued, "why don't you
tell me why he wants you killed? You must know some-
thing about him that would endanger his position if re-
vealed. Why not tell me what it is? Then we'll be able to
drag him down together, after the present emergency is
past."

She looked away from him.

"Come now, you're being very unrealistic," he contin-
ued, persuasively. "Don't you realize what I'm offering
you? In any case, you should be a little grateful to me for
saving you from so many unpleasantnesses. This morning
your former associates were put to the torture."

He nodded confirmingly. "Oh, yes, and you may expect
a bit of a change in your friend the Black Man if you ever
happen to see him again. Today he was well enough to be
taken to Brother Dhomas."

"You mean they intend to" She tried to push herself
up.

"To awaken him to a state of realistic self-interest? Yes.
So you see, Naurya, the Witchcraft is done for. Just a
matter of time. And that means there's no longer any point
in your remaining loyal to it. Surely that must be obvious
to you."

For a long time she just looked at him. Then she asked
him, in a strange voice, "Do you ever dream now?"

For once he did not smile. "No," he said flatly.

Slowly she shook her head, keeping her eyes fixed on
him. "Oh, yes, you do."

"Dreams mean nothing," he said coldly. "They are
unreal."

"They're as real as anything else," she shot back at him.
"And they merely mean conscience."

For a fraction of a second her gaze slipped past him.
Suspiciously he turned. Nothing there but the locked
door.

"Conscience is only social pressure," he told her, tense
without quite knowing why, "the impulse to submerge your
ego in that of the herd, and do what other people want you
to because you're afraid of their censure. Realistic self-
interest frees a person from the childish restrictions of
conscience."

"Are you sure of that, Jarles? What about your dreams?
Conscience may be partly what you say it is, but it's more
than that. It's hearkening to the wisest thoughts that have
occurred to minds of the human race."

"Do you seek to persuade me to that shadowy unreality
called virtue? Next you'll be talking of ideals!"

"Certainly I'll talk about ideals! For it's ideals that
torment you when you dream. I saw you grow, Jarles. I
saw your ideals grow. Maybe they grew too fast for their
roots. But though they've been toppled and broken up and
shoved down into the depths of your subconscious mind,
they're still there, Jarlesa private hell in your own mind,
and just a door between it and your consciousness. And at
night the door opens."

In the nick of time, an involuntary sideways wavering of
her vision warned him. He dodged and struck out as the

little furred horror struck suddenly at himfrom
nowhere, it seemed. The razor claws slashed his cheek
instead of the throat beneath the ear. His flailing arm
chanced to catch the thing and hurl it across the room. In
the moment before it recovered itself, his wrath ray blasted
out and almost cut it in two. There was a great splatter of
blood, much more than could have been expected from
such a creature.

He darted over to it, then recoiled from the incredibly
frail monster whose big eyes, glazed by death, goggled up
at him. For a moment he had the incredible conviction
that he had somehow killed Sharlson Naurya.

He looked back at her. She had struggled up into a
sitting position, but there further strength failed her. She
was not crying, but her shoulders were racked by an
emotion that seemed mingled of unappeasable hate and a
dry, anguished grief.

"This creature meant that much to you?" he asked
sharply. He glanced quickly back at it. A look of sudden,
almost incredulous understanding tightened his features.
"I think I've got it," he said slowly, more to himself than
to her. "Although I'm no biologist, I think I've realized
the secret of the familiars. And that will be very welcome
news to the World Hierarch."

"You've killed Puss," he heard her say. The words were
like little stones.

"Your sister, in a sense, I believe?" He smiled. "Well,
she tried to kill me, while you held my attention, so that's
all square. Don't think I harbor resentment. This discovery
will put a new emblazonment on my robeand another
shovel of earth from the grave we're digging for the Witch-
craft."

He looked at her, blood dripping from his cheek. "I
rather like your nerve and your ruthlessness," he said.
"We'll get along very well together after you've been fixed.
Oh, haven't I mentioned that? Well, after the present
emergency is passed and we've attended to Goniface one
way or another, I'll have Brother Dhomas turn your mind
right side up."

She made one more attempt to rise, and failed. She
could only say, each word seeming to choke her, "You
dirty, little storybook villain."

He nodded, smiling. "That's right," he said, and turned
the paralysis beam on her.

 Chapter 15

DICKON had been gone four days. Wearily, again and
again, the Black Man blanked his mind for the message
that never came. It was laborious work, for the recent
session with Brother Dhomas had made his mind a quasi-
chaos, like a planet riven by catastrophic volcanic activity,
so that new continents and archipelagoes rise everywhere
from the steamy sea, and all the coastlines are changed.

In a way, his session in the crypts had been a hunt, with
Brother Dhomas the hunter and his personality the quarry.
And he had won out. His still-weakened physical condition
had necessitated a return to his cell to recuperate, before
Brother Dhomas had achieved his purpose. But soon the
hunt would begin again.

And if he somehow managed to win out a second time,
the hunt would begin a third time.

And thenwell, he had seen what had happened to
Jarles. The renegade priest now seemed to be in high favor
with the Hierarchy and to enjoy the confidence of Cousin
Deth, for he had twice come to visit the Black Man in his
cell.

Doggedly, each time with greater difficulty, he blanked
his mind for Dickon's questing thoughts. No question here
of the familiar reaching him through the ventilators. This
was no hospital chamber but a metallic cell under the
constant surveillance of two guards. Nothing but telepathy
could get through. Moreover, Dickon did not know its
location. He would have to cast around for it at random
and in great peril.

Once again the Black Man blanked his mind. Once again
no answer came. Once again his own fantastic thoughts,
distorted by the session with Dhomas, scribbled themselves
on the blank.

Through the narrow, circular darkness Dickon quested,
guided only by the vivid tactual sense that edged his suc-
torial paws when his claws were retracted.

Dickon was not worried. Such emotions were much too
elaborate for his clear-cut, highly simplified mind. Even his
frequent self-pity was matter-of-fact. But he knew that his
fresh blood was running low, and waste blood piling up,
even under the slight demands of his ribbonlike muscles.
He had gorged himself at the Breeding Place, but it
wouldn't last forever. Eventually he would have to stop
moving.

But before that happened he would be able to explore a
few more branches of the huge inside-out tree which was
Dickon's mental diagram of the ventilation system of the
crypts.

It was very windy in the tunnels. He had to buck a
constant gale. If he ever let go all four suctorial paws at
once, he would be whisked like a bit of waste for an
indeterminate distance before he managed to bring himself
to a stop with his clawsif he could. For Dickon, as he
often told himself, was a mere diagram of a man. His
bones were lighter than a monkey's, his body had not a
genuine fat cell in it, and his internal organs were reduced
to a single compartmentalized cavity which served both as
blood pump and blood-storage chamber. All physiological
substances for the production or conditioning of which
other organs were necessary, he sucked in along with the
blood he drew from his symbiotic partner through his
wizened little mouth. He neither digested nor eliminated.
He did not breathe, although he could make feeble sounds
and even talk sketchily by drawing air into his mouth
cavity and expelling it between taut lips. His bones were
hollow, since he needed no marrow for producing blood
corpuscles. He was without ductless glands and had no sex.
His fine, short fur insulated him against loss of body
heat.

Just a skeleton, muscles, tendons, skin, fur, heart, sim-
plified circulatory system, nervous system, twitching ears,
peering eyesand a personality as queerly simple as his
physiology.

One of the aims of the original makers of his artificial
species had been to devise an extremely swift and nimble
organism by eliminating as much weight and as many
functions as possible. This aim they had achieved, but at
the inescapable cost of making the creature absolutely
dependent on its symbiotic partner or some other blood
supply, and strictly limiting the extent of its activity before
return to such blood supply became imperative.

These various limitations and his general fragileness did
not bother Dickon in the least. Like all his kind, Dickon
took a fatalistic and gently stoical view of things.

So it was without fear that Dickon negotiated the windy
tubes. If there had been light, and anyone to see him, he
might have been mistaken for a huge, reddish, furry
spider, scuttling rapidlyfor Dickon's most efficient speed
was considerably higher proportionately than that of a
man.

"Must find brother. Must find brother." The words
repeated themselves in his mind with an unemotional,
almost soothing insistence. Not only did he long for the
warmth of his brother's side, flatly curled against which he
had spent most of his days. He also wished to unburden his
mind of certain facts, which he knew would greatly inter-
est his brother, and which now filled his mind to bursting,
like a box stuffed very full. That was very much how
Dickon thought of his mindas a little room behind his
eyes, lined with boxes of memories, and in the middle of it
a very little Dickon, who was his real self and peered out
through the eye windows, and listened through the
trumpets of his ears. In the room were two blackboards,
one of them headed "Rules" and closely rilled with writing;
the other was blank. It was for his brother's thoughts.

Dickon's brother was the cardinal fact of his life. He
was so close to him that at times Dickon felt himself to be
nothing more than an extension of his brother's personali-
ty. There was good reason for this. Dickon absorbed his
brother's emotions with the hormones of his brother's
bloodindeed, the familiars spoke to one another of
"frightened blood," "angry blood," "loving blood," and the
like. Though such emotions were on the whole fleeting and
did not greatly disturb the even tenor of Dickon's
thoughts.

More important, Dickon was in every part of him a
simplified version of his brother. In short, his brother's
identical twin, developed from a cell of his brother's body
that had undergone a process known as chromosome-
stripping, a technique of microbiology discovered in the
Golden Age and then supposedly lost. The stripping tech-
nique removed from his brother's chromosomes the deter-
minants of sex, alimentation, and many other functions.
But in all that remained, Dickon was his brother's identical
twin. And this accounted for their telepathic contact.

When brain waves were first discovered by the Dawn

Civilization, it was realized that, if telepathy did ever
occur, it would most likely be between identical twins,
since similarity of brain structure would mean similarity of
brain wavesputting the two minds in tune. But this idea
had lain dormant until almost the end of the Golden Age,
when it had been discovered that telepathy could only
occur in such cases where one of the two stations was of a
much simpler pattern than the other, thus doing away with
otherwise unsurmountable interferences.

Production of simplified, symbiotic identical twins by the
stripped-chromosome process had provided the solution.
Briefly, the Golden Age had dreamed of extending the
personality of every individual by furnishing him with such
a symbiotic partner. Then, in swift succession, had come
darkened times, cessation of the research, more than
world-wide chaos, establishment of the Hierarchy. Until,
when the New Witchcraft first began, vastly detailed in-
structions had come from Asmodeus for the setting up of a
breeding place and the creation of symbiotic identical
twins, in imitation of the familiars of the ancient witch-
craft.

From his birth, from his first conscious moment after
being taken from the breeding tank, Dickon's thoughts had
been immersed in those of his brotherso that in a sense
he had had no babyhood or childhood, but had thought
adult thoughts from the start. Direct contact with his
brother's mind had enabled him to reach full mental
maturity within a few hours, and had also made it possible
for him to achieve insights and understandings beyond the
unaided capacities of his simplified nervous system. The
chief other influence on his development was provided by
his fellow familiars, his social equals, with whose minds he
had telepathic contact of lesser degree and shorter
range.

But his brother was much closer to him than any of
them. So, as Dickon scuttled through the black branches of
the wind tunnels seeking his brother, he came as close as
he could, lacking a glandular system, to experiencing an
emotion of his own.

Five more branches at the most, he told himself, before
he would have to stop and be still. Then suddenly there
appeared the dimmest trace of a picture on the blank
blackboard of his mind.

He stopped. It began to fade. He moved forward. It
faded all away. Back again then, and wait. After a while

another picture started to appear, like a photograph de-
velopinga photograph that moved and changed even as
it developed. A feeling that, had Dickon possessed emo-
tion, would have been akin to fear, filled the familiar's
mind. He had never seen quite that sort of mental land-
scape before. And yet he was certain it was his brother's.

Without warning the picture disappeared. Rapidly the
tiny Dickon behind his eyes ran to the blackboard and
wrote a message.

"Dickon is here, brother. Dickon writes on your
mind."

His message vanished and instantly the blackboard be-
came choked with such a hurly-burly of thoughts that
Dickon knew his brother must be very startled and excited.
And most of the thoughts had that odd alien tinge. Quick-
ly, they were wiped away, as if his brother had realized
they were too confused to be helpful, and a concise ques-
tion replaced them.

"Can you understand me clearly, Dickon? Is contact
sufficient?"

"Yes, but your thoughts are strange. And some of them
seem hurt. Has someone injured your thoughts,
brother?"

"A little, but I haven't time to explain." Here, Dickon
got a fragmentary glimpse of Brother Dhomas and his
laboratory in the crypts. "Except for the strangeness,
present contact is sufficient?" the Black Man continued.

"Yes. But Dickon would like to come to you. Will you
help Dickon find the way?"

"Sorry, Dickon, but it can't be done. They've got your
brother locked up tight. Did you deliver my message?"

"No. Dickon could not. He found things very different
from what they should be. He has much news for you."

"Tell it."

At that the little Dickon behind his eyes began to yank
open the memory boxes.

"After Dickon left you in the room of sicknessdo you
still have that queer outside heart, brother?"

"No, I'm better now. You've been gone four days. Go
on."

"Dickon went by the tunnels. First the little, then by a
narrow burrowing into the big, then into the little again.
But he did not find Drick or Drick's familiar at the place
where Drick should be. So Dickon started for the Coven
Chamber. But in the tunnels below the chamber he found

many familiars, Drick's among themJock, Meg, Mysie,
Jill, Seth, and many more. Those familiars told Dickon he
must not go to the Chamber for there were priests in it.
There had been a meeting, they said, and all their Big
People had been betrayed. Deacons had burst into the
Chamber and captured their Big People. They were in bad
shape, those familiars. They had lost contact with their Big
People, and they did not know what to do. Many of them
stood in need of blood.

"Dickon remembered that stores of blood for the em-
bryonic familiars are kept at the Breeding Place. So he
gathered the lost familiars into a band, bidding the stron-
ger help the weaker, and led them down, down through the
tunnel to the Breeding Place. It was a hard trip. Toward
the end many had to be carried. And if they had not
known they were returning to their birthplace, I do not
believe they would have made it.

"When Dickon and the other familiars finally arrived,
they found there were no Big People in the Breeding Place
either. It was deserted. The other familiars would have
drunk the first ampules of blood they found, for they were
famished. But Dickon held them back and would let none
drink, until he found the case where is kept the blood-that-
all-may-drink-in-safety.

"So Dickon left them gorging themselves with blood and
sporting in the breeding tanks to warm themselves, and
returned by the way he had come, for he knew his
brother would want news of all these happenings, and he
wished to know what his brother would want him to do
now. But when he had retraced his path, he found that his
brother was no longer where he had left him. He searched,
but could not find his brother or his brother's thoughts. So
he returned to the Breeding Place for fresh blood and
came back to search again. This happened many times.
Until at last he decided he must return no more, but find
his brother or else stop moving. So he searched farther
than ever before. And here he is."

Then Dickon wiped clean the blackboard in his mind,
but no answer cameonly a confusion of thoughts which
told him that his brother was much disheartened by the
news he had broughta jerky, wordless, mental landscape,
tinged more than ever by the mood Dickon found so
alien.

Suddenly the tiny Dickon behind his eyes caught sight of
a small memory box that had not been opened.

'There is one thing I have not told you, brother.

"Dickon said that the Breeding Place was deserted when
we reached it. That is true, so far as Big People are
concerned. But there were two newborn familiars there,
whom the Breeders must have left behind. They were two
strange familiarsnot of witches or warlocks."

"What do you mean?"

"You must know the one of them, brother. The familiar
of that priest who was to be one of us, and who stayed at
Mother Jujy's and who"

"What does he look like?"

Rapidly, Dickon sketched on his mental blackboard the
portrait of a dark-furred familiar.

"And the other one?"

Dickon sketched a mental portrait of a sallow-skinned
familiar, whose black fur had a blue-steel tone to it.

For a time then there came no further message, but
Dickon sensed that his brother's mind was furiously plot-
ting in the old way he knew so well. When words finally
came, they were sharp and clear.

"Listen, Dickon. Those two newborn familiars. Did you
touch minds with them?"

"Yes, a little. They are very stupid, since they have
never been with their big twins. But some of the other
familiars have been communing with them, seeking half in
sport to teach them. They are making some progress."

"Do you think, if they were with you now, I could touch
minds with them, through yours?"

"I think so, brother."

"Good. Listen carefully now. I want you to return to the
Breeding Place and bring back those two newborn famil-
iars. Each of you can carry an ampule of blood, so you
will have a reserve supply"

"Dickon never thought of that. It would have made
everything so much easier. Poor, stupid Dickon!"

"No, no. You've done more than I ever hoped. But to
continue, you are to bring the two others to the place
where you are now, and seek to contact my mind. Do you
understand?"

"Yes," Dickon answered gravely.

"Can you do it?" came the anxious message. "Return to
the Breeding Place, I mean? Have you enough blood left
for that?"

"I do not know," replied Dickon simply. "I came farther

this time, hoping to draw blood from my brother when I
found him."

"Sathanas!" Dickon sensed his brother's dismay. "Listen,
Dickon, it is essential that you carry out my orders.
Therefore I release you from the rule that forbids you to
take blood from any other person but your brother. Take
blood when and where you can get it!"

Dickon caught the afterthought and remarked quietly.
"Dickon understands the peril to which his brother is
referring. That was why he insisted the other familiars wait
until he found the case of blood-that-all-may-drmk-in-
safety. He knows that if he takes a stranger's blood there
is a chance he will die in swift convulsions. But life is a
little thingas little as Dickonand Dickon does not
mind."

He could not wholly comprehend the emotion that rose
up then in his brother's mind, but it heartened him.

"You'd better be starting, Dickon," came the final words
from his brother. "It's a small hope that you're carrying
as small as you are. But it may be the only one for the
whole world of Big People."

"Dickon will do what he can. Good-by, brother."

 Chapter 16

SINCE the dawn the mighty carillon of the Cathedral had
been deluging Megatheopolis at intervals with an excited
and joyous pealing of bells, and before the first burst had
ended the Great Square had begun to fill. If the darkness
had not been so full of the terrors of Sathanas, the com-
moners would have started coming at midnight.

"Awake! Awake!" the bells seemed to ring out. "Won-
ders. Wonders untold. Hurry! Hurry!"

Many had come fasting and brought no food. For was
not this to be a Grand Revival? It was the Great God's
turn to provide.

From every corner of Megatheopolis they came, and
from miles out in the surrounding countryside. By an hour
after midmorning, the Square was packed up to the double
line of deacons, who kept clear a considerable space in
front of the Cathedral steps. The surrounding rooftops
were thronged, boys had climbed the chimneys. A little
earlier a small, overcrowded balcony had collapsed, injur-
ing several and creating a minor panic that was quickly
hushed by the deacons scattered throughout the crowd.
The surrounding streets were crowded with late comers.
Everywhere were jostlings, elbowings, disputes as to who
had first claim to the best places, shouting for lost children,
and a ceaseless hum of conversation which the clangor of
the bells periodically drowned out.

It was not exactly a happy crowd or even a pleasant
one. It was the same crowd that yesterday had stormed
halfway up the Cathedral steps, screaming insults at the
Hierarchy because it could not defend them from Sa-
thanas. The same crowd that had killed two deacons,
manhandled a priest of the First Circle, and flatly demand-
ed that the Hierarchy prove itself. But now the commoners
were observing a kind of truce. Yesterday the priests had
promised them that the Great God would give them a sign

of his favor and of his mastery over Sathanas by perform-
ing miracles at the Grand Revival. And last night, as if in
token of this, there had seemed to be a decrease in haunt-
ings and other satanic eeriness.

Moreover, it was hard to maintain anger in the face of
the soothing effect of the parasympathetic emanations
which drenched the Square.

The parasympathetics had one other effect. They stimu-
lated the nerves controlling the digestive tract and thereby
greatly increased the hunger of a crowd which had for the
most part not yet eaten today. A hundred thousand mouths
filled with saliva. A hundred thousand throats swallowed,
swallowed, swallowed.

Finally, at high noon, the carillon broke off in the
middle of the loudest and most clangorous burst it had yet
pealed forth. For a moment there was silence, and a
sensation of tremendous pressure as a hundred thousand
commoners held their breath. Then, from the Sanctuary,
came the deep organ notes of a solemn march, somber and
rolling, yet full of mystery and majesty and power, like
distant thunder become harmonioussuch a music as must
have sounded when the Great God first imposed his will
upon black chaos and created the Earth.

Slowly, in step with this titan melody, the reviewing
stand which had been raised overnight beside the Cathe-
dral door, began to fill with priests whose scarlet robes
were agleam with gold; The nearest commoners could
make out the emblazonment on their breastsa triangle at
whose vertex glittered a great jeweland word was
breathlessly whispered back that no less than the Apex
Council itself would preside over the Grand Revival. There
were few enough commoners who could boast of ever
having seen an archpriest. To glimpse the whole Council
was like getting a peek at Heaven.

Wonder began to crowd out surliness. The music quick-
ened. The high doors of the Cathedral swung outward,
and there issued forth, four abreast, a procession which
incarnated the pomp and power of the Hierarchy. Priests
of all circlesmagnificent men, handsome as demigods.
They circled the space the deacons had kept clear before
drawing up in ranks around the reviewing stand.

And as the priests marched, as the music grew ever
more rich and warm and dazzlingas it climbed like the
sun to the top of the skythey seemed to tread under their

feet all evil, all darkness, all rebellion, any and everything
that presumed to lift its head against the Hierarchy.

On the reviewing stand, Goniface wrinkled his nostrils
and turned to one of the lesser priests standing in atten-
dance behind him.

"Whence comes that odor?" he inquired.

There was no longer any disregarding it. Mingled with
the cloying sweetness that was diffusing through the
Square, came ever stronger and stronger whiffs of a pun-
gent, goaty stench.

The attendant priest indicated that he would find out.
Leaning forward, Goniface glanced thoughtfully at the two
priests bearing censers. But he recognized them both. One
was a stanch Realist, the other a stern-faced Fanatic.

He touched a switch on the portable televisor set up in
front of him, and there sprang into view the features of
the chief technician at Cathedral Control Center.

"No, your supreme eminence, there is no possibility of
the Witchcraft hocussing any of our apparatus," he ex-
plained in answer to Goniface's question. "We have a
comprehensive warning system set up, which will instantly
inform us if force pencils or any similar manipulatory
fields are introduced into the Square, and we have counter-
measures ready. The telesolidograph shield is, as you
know, completely adequate. In short, the Great Square and
the Cathedral, and a considerable region around them, are
isolated. You can rest assured of that.

"The odor? Oh, we know about that already. A most
unfortunate, though unavoidable accident in the mecha-
nism of one of the odor projectors. It has been rectified."

As Goniface reprimanded him, he scanned the faces of
the other priests in the control center. All loyal Realists,
except two of the Fifth Circle physicists. And they were
Fanatics. Good.

"Yes, your supreme eminence," the chief technician
assured him in answer to a final question, "we can at an
instant's notice throw up a repulsor dome over the re-
viewing stand. And the squadron of angels you desired us
to hold in readiness can get into the air almost as
quickly."

Satisfied in the main, Goniface switched off the televi-
sor. True to what the chief technician had told him, the
goaty odor had almost faded out, though a few wrinkled
noses were to be seen here and there. He would have liked

to have Cousin Deth beside him at the moment, but the
little deacon couldn't be spared from the witch hunt.
Jarles, however, made a fair substitute.

The march had finished in a great, triumphal burst of
sound that seemed to signify the Great God's final and
most important act of creation, when, after the catastroph-
ic experiment of the Golden Age, he had brought into
being the crowning glory of the Hierarchy.

The crowd, eager with hours of waiting, but soothed by
the parasympathetics, fell easy prey to the revivalistic
preachers, whose mightily amplified voices thundered one
after another through the Square. Strains of a softer music
than the march subtly emphasized the rhythm of the
preachers' fervent chanting, while the parasympathetic
emanations were artfully varied to increase the effects of
their exhortations, with sympathetics occasionally mixed
in.

The emotional resistances of the crowd gave way. Whole
sections began to sway from side to side, until the move-
ment had spread through the whole Square, and all the
commoners, including those on the rooftops, were swaying
like a single organism. And from a hundred thousand
throats came a wordless sound that intensified the preach-
ers' rhythmic emphasesa profoundly stirring yet disgust-
ing animal sound midway between a grunt of pleasure and
a sob.

Here and there were symptoms of even more violent
emotional releaseecstatic wails, screams, wildly flailing
arms, tiny holes in the crowd where someone had dropped
to his knees. It would have been easy to throw them all
into a state of crazy and utter abandon, but that was not
the intention. As it was, deviations to a wilder behavior
could make no progress against the general chanting sway,
and were quickly re-engulfed in it.

"Great God, hurl down Sathanas, hurl down the Lord of
Evil!" Grunt and sway. "He caught us in snares, but we
struggled against them!" Grunt and sway. "He raised ter-
rors by darkness, but we called upon you!" Grunt and
sway. "He sent horrors against us, but we clung to our
faith!" Grunt and sway. "Send him back to Hell, send him
back to his sinners!" Grunt and sway. "Let him root in
filth, let him swill with the damned!" Grunt and sway.

Then, with a thrilling display of mob-mastery, the last
and ablest of the preachers stilled the swaying and hushed

the soundnot by coming it, but by transforming it into
motionless tension, an almost unbearably poignant antici-
pation.

All eyes turned toward the preacher, who stood alone on
a rostrum in front of the reviewing stand. He dropped to
his knees then, and cried out, in a voice vibrant with
compassion. "Great God, your people ache for your loving
kindness. Long have they gone without the milk of your
infinite mercy, the food of your infinite strength. They
thirst. They hunger."

This was no more than literally true. Kept waiting until
midafternoon, ceaselessly bombarded by parasympathetics,
the crowd was ravenous.

Turning on his knees, the preacher lifted his hands in
supplication to the massive, all-dominating image that
formed the upper half of the Cathedral.

"Great God," he cried, "your people have passed the
test! In terror and suffering, they have maintained their
faith. They have torn out Sathanas from their hearts. Be
good to them, Great God. Tilt for them your horn of
plenty. Animate with your divine presence the cold, lifeless
stone and let ambrosia drop from your hands and nectar
stream from your fingertips. They have hungered long
enough, Great God. Give them food and drink!"

Mentally stupefied and emotionally taut as they were,
the crowd realized what must be coming and prepared for
it. The older knew from experience, and the younger had
been told, what wondrous dainties would soon come spill-
ing down. Wooden bowls and copper pitchers appeared
suddenly. Other commoners stretched small sheets between
them to catch the miraculous cakes. Tubs and buckets
showed up on the rooftops, while a few frantic souls
climbed on their neighbors' shoulders and teetered there
precariously, holding containers of one sort or another.

But the majority just stood with heads thrown back,
mouths open, and hands upstretched.

There was a faint shudder of movement in the gigantic
image, sudden silence in the Square. Slowly then the vast,
awesome face looked down. Slowly the harsh lines
softened, to be replaced by an indulgent and benignant
smilelike a stern and preoccupied but withal loving
father who finally remembers the obedient children crowd-
ing around his feet.

Slowly the gargantuan hands stretched out over the
Square in a gesture of titan generosity. Then, from the

right hand, ten thousand tiny fountains suddenly sprayed,
while from the left cascaded down, blossoming outward like
an inverted flower, a rain of crusty flakes and tiny cubes.

A greedy cry rose from the crowd, as the food and drink
began to sprinkle them.

One second. Two. Three. And then the cry changed
abruptly to a strangled spewing, and there swept through
the massed ranks of the priests and across the reviewing
stand a hideous stench that seemed compounded equally of
putrid meat, rancid butter, moldy bread, and embalming
fluid.

As from one giant throat, the crowd gargled, retched
and spat. And still the noisome nectar and noxious ambro-
sia continued irrevocably to fall, drenching them, plaster-
ing them. Heads were ducked, hoods pulled up. Those who
had spread sheets crowded under them, while a few of
those who had held up bowls now inverted them and
clapped them on their heads. And still the dreadful stuff
rained down, so thickly that the farther side of the Square
was murkily obscured.

Snarls then, and angry cries. First a few, then more.
Here and there the fringes of the crowd surged forward
against the double line of deacons.

The preacher on the rostrum rose to the emergency.
Stepped-up amplification enabled him to outroar the
crowd.

"The Great God is only testing you!" he bellowed.
"Some of you must lack faith! That is why the miracle-
food does not taste like ambrosia and nectar!

"But the Great God is now satisfied of your faith!" he
continued, not caring how illogical he sounded so long as
he got to his main point, which was, "The Great God will
now perform the true miracle! Behold how he rewards
you!"

The stinking rain ceased.

On the reviewing stand Goniface thundered at the televi-
sor, "Stop that second miracle!"

From the panel the chief technician stared back blankly
at him. He gave no sign that he had heard the order. He
seemed stunned, bemused. "But we're isolated," he was
repeating dully. "We haven't got a quiver out of any of the
warning systems."

"And someone has turned on the sympathetics!" Goni-
face continued rapidly. "Attend to it! And stop that second
miracle!"

The chief technician came to life with a jerk and quickly
signed to one of his assistants, who almost immediately
answered with frantic gestures of impotence.

For the first moment it seemed that Goniface's fears
were groundless. From the Great God's outstretched hands
there began to sprinkle a shower of tiny golden coins.

The forward movement of the crowd checked. Again
they looked upward. The ingrained habits of a lifetime were
not easily overcome. It was second nature to believe what
a priest said. And the descending shower did have a true
golden glint.

But after the first sprinkle, it changed from gold to
redtoo bright a red. Screams and yells of sudden pain
mingled with the renewed snarls as tiny red-hot disks
spattered against tender flesh, or were greedily caught out
of the air and as quickly hurled away, or chanced to drop
inside clothing or were trodden by bare feet.

With a roar that muffled the cries of pain, the crowd
surged ponderously forward in a ragged wave, partly to
escape the red-hot shower, which stopped just short of the
double line of deacons. But that was not the main reason,
for the shower stopped and the forward surging continued,
strengthened, and the roar became louder and uglier. Fists
were raised. Deacons went down. Here and there the
double line bent backward, broke.

To avoid any chance of such a stupid tragedy as had
occurred yesterday at Neodelos, Goniface had forbid the
cordon of deacons to carry wrath rods. Now at his rapidly
transmitted command, the First and Second Circle priests
in front of the reviewing stand marched forward to sup-
port the deacons, hurrying in either direction to form a
long-enough line, and switching on the repulsor field of
their inviolability as they went, so that their robes puffed
out tautly. Across the dissolving line of deacons, the crowd
hurled filthily smeared pots and pitchers at the advancing
priests, but they rebounded harmlessly from the individual
repulsor fields.

Something was wrong with their halos, though. They
were flashing on and off.

Suddenly there was confusion in their ranks. The first
impression was that those in the center had simultaneously
hurled themselves at each other and then neglected to
break apart. Swiftly others catapulted themselves at the
original group and stuck to it. The ends of the hurrying

line were jerked suddenly backward, some of the priests
falling, yet still skidding along, until all of them were
jammed together in one helpless, roughly circular, scarlet
clump.

To Goniface, it was apparent almost immediately that
some unaccountable influence had changed their repulsor
fields to attractors, with a simultaneous increase in range
and power.

But most of the archpriests could only stare helplessly at
the ever-mounting chaos around the reviewing stand. Long
habit had taught them to preserve inscrutable expressions,
but now their facial masks concealed nothing but empty
stupefaction. It was not physical fear that froze them.
They felt that the whole materialistic world on which they
based their security was going to pieces before their eyes.
Physical science, which had been their obedient servant,
had suddenly become a toy in the hands of a dark power
that could make or break scientific laws at pleasure. Some-
thing had scratched out the first principle of their thinking:
"There is only the cosmos and the electronic entities that
constitute it, without soul or purpose" and scribbled over
it, in broad black strokes, "The whim of Sathanas."

The high-ranking priests massed around the reviewing
stand were in no better shape. They stood there, doing
nothing, as the stinking wave of the garbage-drenched
crowd surged forward, engulfing the struggling deacons
like a row of black pebbles, breaking around the helpless
clump of the lower-ranking priests as around a red rock
and roaring up the steps of the Cathedral.

A stone, its momentum almost spent, lobbed into the
reviewing stand. It brought no reaction. With three excep-
tions, the archpriests and their attendants were like scarlet-
gowned dolls.

The three exceptions were Goniface, Jarles and the old
Fanatic Sercival.

Goniface had at last managed to get an order through
the minor chaos of Cathedral Control Center. Down over
the Cathedral, swerving around the still-forward-bending
image of the Great God, swooping a bare few yards above
the reviewing stand, dove a squadron of angelsa sight
fantastically grotesque, as if a score of flaxen-haired demi-
gods had swan-dived from the cloudless sky.

They flattened out where the forward edge of the crowd
was hurling itself on the ranks of the higher priesthood,

and skimmed across the Squareso low that they brained
a few unfortunates.

The attractor field of the clumped lower-ranking priests
interfered catastrophically with the course of the center
angel. It nosed downward and crashed, crushing priests
and commoners alike. It crumpled, revealing its metallic
construction. Through a gaping rent there showed the body
of its priestly pilot, killed in the crash.

But the other angels banked sharply upward, just missing
the rooftops across the Square, and looped back for anoth-
er dive.

There were ghastly screams from those who had felt the
mangling force of the downward-directed propulsion
jets.

Insane terror began to replace the insane anger of the
crowd. Like some helpless beast, it floundered senselessly.
Some in the forward fringe still grappled with the higher-
ranking priests. Others, attempting to flee, only added to
the confusion of the trapped, milling central mass. All
street mouths were hopelessly choked.

Then, when the angels had momentarily become tiny
shapes against the blue of the zenith, there came hurtling
from the commoners' section, over the horizon of roofs, six
black forms trailing like cuttlefishes a dense, inky smoke
behind them. Straight for the Cathedral they came, like
bats out of hell. And that hell was their most likely source,
was soon apparent, for as they hurled closer well above the
mob, they were seen to have misshapen and taloned arms,
furry nether limbs rigidly extended, and short black tails.
While horned black fiend-faces grew, grew, grew.

The first went whipping in close circles around the
rostrum on which the preacher cowered, wreathing him
with black fumes until he was completely obscured.

The next two banked upward and executed intricate
loops around the head, body and arms of the Great God,
festooning him inkily. His vast face still wore the original
indulgent smile, now imbecile. Then, from the mightiest
amplifier of them all, that located behind his own idiot-
grinning mouth, the Great God began to bleat thunderous-
ly, "Mercy! Mercy, master! Do not hurt me! I will tell
everyone the truth! I am the slave of Sathanas! My priests
have lied! The Lord of Evil rules us all!"

The last three devils shot straight at the reviewing stand.
White-faced archpriests, at last springing up, stared at
them horrifiedly. Then, when they were hardly yards away,

there was a cutting-off of sound and a wavering in the
scene before the archpriests. In response to Goniface's
frantically repeated commands, Cathedral Control Center
had finally thrown up the heavy repulsor dome to shield
the Apex Council. The three approaching devils careened
away wildly.

In that pocket of sudden silence in the midst of visible
chaos, it was startling how clearly the doomful voice of old
Sercival rang out. All through the Grand Revival, the lean
and aged Fanatic had not spoken a word, only gazed
before him with a somber displeasure, occasionally shaking
his head and seeming to mutter to himself.

Now he cried, in a voice that smote like an icy dagger,
"Who, I ask, has performed the miracles today? At long
last the Great God sickens of our unbelief. He deserts us.
He leaves us to Hell's mercy. Prayer aloneand faith
absolutecan save us, if it be not too late even for prayer."

The other archpriests did not look at him, but the
impression they gave was that someone was speaking their
inmost thoughts. They stood motionlesslonely men com-
muning with terror. Even Goniface's exasperation and
contempt were sullied with the faintest trace of the poison-
ing corruption of doubt and fear.

But into the hard, watchful eyes of Jarles, standing
sideways behind Sercival, there crept a look of incredulous
realization. Today was the first time he had ever seen the
leader of the Fanatics. Now, for the first time, he heard
him speak.

Memory and the unerring sense of recognition that
came with memory, fought with incredulity and con-
quered. Instantly his new personality made one of those
hairline decisions which were its chiefest pride.

Conscience smote him as he did the deed. Black, agoniz-
ing waves of guilt washed through his mind, telling him this
was a crime beyond forgiveness, a nefandous action from
which the universe turned aside in loathing. Yet he choked
down conscience, as a sick man subdues his retching.

He pointed the Finger of Wrath, full power, at the back
of the gorgeously gold-worked robe, a foot below the
silver-touched parchment skull, until a tiny patch of day-
light showed raggedly through.

As Goniface wheeled toward him, as the other arch-
priests cringed dazedly from this new menace, as the
grimly erect form of the mortally wounded Fanatic swayed
before it fell, Jarles cried out, "His was the voice I heard in

the Coven Chamber! He is Asmodeus, leader of the Witch-
craft!"

And springing forward, he caught the toppling body, let
it down smoothly, and slitted open the scarlet-stained,
scarlet-robe, with its ray-charred hole. Clinging in death to
the skinny, rib-ridged torso, slain by the same blast that
had mangled the Fanatic, its age-silvered fur drenched in
its own blood, was a gaunt familiar whose wizened face
was a grim travesty of the pain-racked features of his
twin.

The archpriests stared as if at the impossible, their
masks of inscrutability torn away at last.

Goniface looked down at the two. It was as if the
dome-sealed reviewing stand had become for a space of
time the silent center of the universe, where all secrets are
laid bare, the tense and motionless core round which all
action wheels and swirls. Outside the dome, a mad conflict
was progressing through momently altering phases. The
crowd, saved from a second onslaught by the angels,
heartened as well as dumbfounded by the appearance of its
demon allies, had once again come to grips with the
higher-ranking priesthood, who were withdrawing into the
Cathedral. The angels had swooped back into the fight,
violet wrath rays blazing from their eyes, three or four to
each devil, and there resulted a giddy, whirling combat, in
which black fumes were employed as smoke screens.

But, for the moment, that wild, silent commotion
seemed no more to Goniface than a strange, savage mural
on the repulsor domea painting of a battlea back-
ground for true crisis.

So overpowering was his urge to question the dying
Fanatic, that he grudged the moment he had to spare in
contacting Cathedral Control Center and making the chief
technician understand his command: "Seize the two Fifth
Circle Fanatics! They are the ones who confused and
interfered with your controls! Slay them if need be!" He
did not pause to watch the outcome of the struggle be-
tween the outnumbered traitors and his loyal Realists.

He grudged, too, the moments lost in ordering his
lieutenants: "Descend at once into the Sanctuary. Organize
raiding groups. Seize all Fanatics. Slay them if they resist.
Close the Sanctuary, both to prevent their escape and to
stand off the crowd. Inform Cousin Deth in the crypts of
the new situation. Have Web Center transmit similar in-

structions to all sanctuaries. Take all obvious auxiliary
measures. Move!"

Then, stony-faced, yet terribly eager, he turned to the
old Fanatic.

Sercival smiled with pain-drawn lips through which shal-
low breaths went quickly.

"You sat beside me when they put the witches to the
torture," Goniface beganit was not the question he had
intended. "You used a short-range pain gun on me, I
believe?"

With difficulty Sercival smiled again. His voice was like
something from the tombwindy, faint, labored.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. The stratagems of Sathanas . . .
are varied." The eyes of the archpriests widened. Almost a
shudder went through their crowded, scarlet-and-gold
ranks.

"Sathanas? Rot!" Goniface contradicted. "You wanted
power, just like all of us. The Witchcraft was your trick to
get it. You"

But Sercival did not seem to hear. Feebly he moved his
hand until it touched the blood-matted, silvery fur of the
stiffening familiar.

"Dead, too, Tobit, oldest of your short-lived brethren?"
He breathed. "I shall be with you ... in Hell. We will wear
fine new forms ... and be true brothers."

"The curtain's down. No need to keep on acting," Goni-
face interrupted harshly.

Old Sercival lifted his head a little and thick sounds
came from his throat, as if he sought to speak. The fingers
of his left hand moved feebly, tracing the beginnings of
some ritual gesture.

"Sathanas," he whispered, "receive ... my ... spirit"

The archpriests were like so many scarlet images. Out-
side a scene of continued tumult was illumined by a red sun
already close to the western horizon. From the east, dark-
ness was creeping.

"You were very clever," Goniface continued, bending
even nearer to the dying leader of the Witchcraft, driven
against his will to ask a final question, "but you made one
strange mistake. Why did you always support me in the
Apex Council? Why were you so quick to vote for the
excommunication of Frejeris? Why did you offer no oppo-
sition when the most realistic of the priests, the one most
dangerous to the Witchcraftmyselfwas made World
Hierarch?"

There was silence in the isolated hemisphere under the
repulsor dome. The archpriests leaned forward, bent close
to catch the answer. But it never came.

Asmodeus was dead.

 Chapter 17

CANE in one shriveled hand, candle in the other, Mother
Jujy hobbled through the ancient tunnel. Occasionally she
muttered to herself venomously.

"Won't let an old witch spend her dying years in peace!
Won't even let her live under the ground like a mole! Oh,
no! The deacons must come down and muck up her tunnels
and chevy her deeper and deeper. Not that it's Mother Jujy
they're after. Oh, no! Brain Mother Jujy and leave her in
the corner! We don't want her. It's the new witches they
want. The young witches. The pretty witches. Mother Jujy
was pretty once. These new ones wouldn't have had a
chance with her! But now they've gone and jiggered the
whole world with their craziness, turned it topsy-turvy, so
there's no place left for an old witch! May they prance on
red plates in Hell for it!"

In her vehemence, she had stopped and was shaking her
cane at the low, rounded ceiling. A black cat, which had
been scouting ahead by the wavering candlelight, came
back and mewed at Mother Jujy inquiringly.

"No, Grimalkin, it's not a mouse, and I've got no food
for you! But never mind, Mother Jujy'll starve down here,
and you'll be able to pick her bonesunless she picks
yours first! And you may thank the new witches for it, who
ruined the trade!"

Grimalkin resumed her scouting. Hobbling along, Moth-
er Jujy continued her savage grumbling. Then from ahead
came a terrific spitting and squalling. Mother Jujy hurried
forward, the long shadows limping and reeling wildly with
her as the candle bobbed and nickered.

"What have you found, Grimalkina rat, a roach or a
dead deacon? Whichever it is, it's not worth the rumpus
you're making."

Grimalkin, a black arch of swollen cat, had retreated
from a little copper-touched huddle of shadows and was
hissing dreadfully at it.

Mother Jujy advanced toward it, bending and squinting.
"What is it? A red rat? No, a red monkey. No, by the
stench of Sathanas! A familiar! A dirty, dead familiar!"
And she raised her cane to hit it.

From the huddle of shadows came a feeble, piping
voice.

"Aye, kill me. Slay Dickon. Dickon is weary of waiting
for death in the chilly dark."

Mother Jujy paused with uplifted cane.

"What's that? Be quiet, Grimalkin! I can't hear what this
morsel of foulness is lisping at me."

"Slay Dickon, I said. Shatter his brittle bones with your
huge stick, Mother Jujy. Give your manslaying cat leave to
rend him with her claws and drink his cold, worn-out
blood. Dickon's ghost will thank you for it."

"What makes you think we'll do you any favors, snivel-
ing puppet?" Mother Jujy inquired acidly. "I know your
voice. You are the foul pet of that jigging trickster, the
Black Man."

"Aye, but now Dickon's big brother languishes in the
cells of the Sanctuary, where cruel priests torture his very
thoughts. He cannot protect Dickon now. You can slay
Dickon in safety."

"It's useless to beg, filthy manikin, for we won't oblige
you. Back, Grimalkin!" The cat had pranced forward
stiff-legged and was making threatening swipes at Dickon
with rigid forepaw. "So your cocky master finally fell off
the fence he capered atop, eh?"

"Aye, Mother Jujy, and the whole New Witchcraft goes
swiftly to ruin with him. Many others have been captured
and imprisoned. There was one slender hope. If Dickon
had been able to run an errand his brother sent him on,
something might have been accomplished. But now Dickon
lies helpless in subterranean darkness. Slay Dickon before
his misery slays him."

"Speak louder, filthy manikin, I can't half hear you!"
said Mother Jujy, bending closer. "Why, ungrateful,
disobedient skin-and-bones, can't you run the errand? Why
have you stopped here like a lazy apprentice to snivel and
whine?" and she prodded the familiar with her cane.

"Dickon's blood has given out. The little suppet he has
left would not carry him a hundred paces, and it grows
swiftly cold. If Dickon had fresh blood, he would go
skipping like the wind. But there is no fresh blood here."

"Insult us, filthy manikin?" cried Mother Jujy angrily,

raising her cane. "Grimalkin and I have blood, and with-
ered though we be, I'll have you know it's fresh enough!"

"Your pardon, Mother Jujy. Dickon meant no insult.
Dickon was referring only to blood that he might drink."

"Conceited tatter of fur! What makes you think you
have the right to decide what blood you'll drink and what
you won't?"

The familiar looked up at her with big, reproachful
eyes. "Do not tease Dickon so cruelly. You hate Dickon.
As soon as you have finished tormenting him, you and
your fierce cat will slay him."

"Cluttering little know-it-all!" hissed Mother Jujy, so
furiously that the familiar shrank from the sound. "Do you
presume to dictate the actions of your betters? You'll drink
Grimalkin's blood and like it!"

And she snatched up the almost weightless familiar by
the scruff of the neck. Grimalkin, however, as if sensing
that her mistress intended to involve her in something
unpleasant, retreated along the tunnel. And at the same
time the familiar piped shrilly, "A cat's blood would slay
Dickon as surely as a cat's claws. Even your blood, Mother
Jujy, might slay him."

For a moment it appeared that Mother Jujy was going
to use her cane to bat the limp familiar down the tunnel
after the cat.

"Not good enough for you? Not good enough for you?"
she screamed in a voice strangled by indignation. "Mother
Jujy's blood not good enough for a filthy, shriveled mani-
kin? Here quickly now, before Mother Jujy beats you to a
pulp and makes Grimalkin a red jacket of your fur!"

And she jerked at her neck, exposing a sallow, bony
shoulder.

"Mother Jujy means it?" asked the familiar faintly,
peering at her from where he dangled helpless in her hand.
"She is not deceiving Dickon?"

"Call me a liar now?" screeched the old witch. "One
more such question, and I will deceive you! I'll deceive
your head in with my cane! Feed, filthy manikin!"

And she applied the familiar to her bare shoulder.

For a few seconds there was silence. Then Mother Jujy
jerked nervously. "You tickle," she said.

"Your skin is tough, Mother Jujy," the familiar paused
to explain apologetically.

Again it appeared that Mother Jujy was going to hurl
him down the tunnel. She almost danced with rage.

"Tough? Tough? When she was a girl, Mother Jujy had
the softest skin in all Megatheopolis! Obscene, sexless
puppet! Merely to touch it honors your degraded mouth!"

Her furiously scathing comments died to a muttering,
which stopped. For a long time the chill, dank silence was
broken only by the low, jealous mews of Grimalkin, who
paced in the shadows, lashing her tail, murderously eying
her mistress' new pet.

At last the familiar lifted his head. Now all his motions
were rapid and curiously sprightly.

"Dickon feels light as air," he chattered shrilly. "No task
is too difficult for him." His tone grew respectful. "It was
very, very good blood, though seething with strange emo-
tions. It did not hurt Dickon at all. Oh, Mother Jujy, how
will Dickon ever repay you? How will his brother and his
brother's companions ever discharge their debt? It is far
beyond Dickon's calculating what your kindness may have
accomplished. Dickon has no words to describe"

"What? Wasting time on palaver and flattery while the
world waits on your errand?" interrupted Mother Jujy.
"Begone!" And she brushed at him, albeit a little weakly
now, with her free hand.

One puckering smile he gave her. Then, with a gust of
motion that set Grimalkin rearing back on her hind legs,
hissing and clawing at the empty air, he was gone down the
tunnel in the direction from which they had come.

Long after his wraithlike shadow had sped into the
darkness, Mother Jujy stood there watching after him,
leaning heavily on her cane, droplets of wax dripping from
the slackly held candle to harden and whiten instantly as
they hit the cold floor.

"They might be able to do it," she muttered to herself,
her voice heavy with an emotion she would have repudi-
ated before anyone but Grimalkin. "Sathanas help them,
but they just might be able to."

 Chapter 18

SLOWLY and with leaden steps, as if the very air had
thickened to impede him, Jarles made his way toward his
private apartment in the crypts. His mind was fogged by a
black guilt which was all the more intolerable because he
loathed and detested himself for feeling it.

In every corridor he was met or overtaken by hurrying,
panic-eyed priests. One stopped and tried to engage him in
speech, a fat and ineffectual little priest of the Second
Circle.

"I wish to congratulate you on your elevation to the
Fourth Circle," he said swiftly, twisting his chubby hands
in a nervous and apologetic way. "Surely you remember
me, your eminence. I am Brother Chulianyour old
guide"

The fellow sounded as if he were screwing up courage to
ask some favor. Or, perhaps, in the general flood of in-
security and fear, he was merely trying to assure himself
of as many points of support as possible.

Jarles glared unpleasantly at his former companion and
pushed past him without answering.

The crypts were almost deserted. The raiding parties,
which had combed the entire Sanctuary in search of Fanat-
ics, had now departed with their captives, to lock them
away in the general prison of the Sanctuaryunconnected
with the subsidiary prison used by Goniface for his cap-
tives before he had become World Hierarch.

As Jarles neared his apartment, his wretchedness abrupt-
ly increased, becoming stingingly acute. To his horror, the
black fog of guilt oppressing his thoughts suddenly came
alive, whispering into his earcloser even than that
"Do you hear me, Armon Jarles? Do you hear me? I am
yourself. Run. Shut your ears. It will do no good. You
cannot lock me out. You cannot keep from listening to
me. For I am yourself. I am the Armon Jarles you have

maimed and imprisoned, the Armon Jarles you have tram-
pled and denied. Yet, in the end, I am stronger than you
are."

Andcrowning horrorit was not his own voice,
though much like it. He was denied even the resource
horrible enough in itselfof explaining it away as an
hallucination, a projection from his own subconscious. It
was too real, too individual, for that. It was like the voice
of some close kin, the voice of some brother who had
never been born.

As if all Hell were at his heels, he dashed into his
apartment and, with hands that fumbled in their haste,
reactivated the lock.

But inside it was worse.

"You cannot escape me, Armon Jarles. Where you are,
there I am also. You will hear me until you die, and not
even the cremator's flame will end your hearing."

Never had he hated anything like that sourceless voice.
Never had he so desired to crush, to tear apart, utterly to
destroy something. Yet never had he felt so helpless to
accomplish an aim.

Pictures began to form in his mind. He was stumbling
through the ruins, Mother Jujy's bony hand clasping his
wrist. He wanted to cry out to the pursuers, to strangle
her, to beat in her skull with her own cane. But he could
not.

He was sitting at a rudely hewn table, sharing a humble
dinner with his family. He had poisoned their food. Inter-
minably he waited for them to take the first mouthful, but
they were dawdling unaccountably.

He was in the laboratory of Brother Dhomas, but now
everything was reversed. A man-shaped blackness sat in
Brother Dhomas' seat. Evilly grinning witches and chatter-
ing familiars manned the various instruments.

Suddenly then he was looking into a mirror, but instead
of himself he saw the reanimated corpse of Asmodeus
standing there. And Asmodeus was explaining something
by gestures, first pointing at Jarles, then at the charred,
gaping hole in his robe, over and over again. And when
Jarles felt he could bear it no longer. Asmodeus stopped
but then the tiny head of a bloodstained, gaunt, and grayed
familiar thrust itself out of the charred hole and began to
repeat his master's gestures.

Jarles' hatred of life, of everything, rose to a peak. It
occurred to him that it would be possible for a single man,

if he worked subtly enough and unswervingly, to destroy
the whole human race except for himself. It could be done.
There were ways.

With a tremendous effort he looked around the room. For
a moment he thought it was empty. Then he saw, squatting
on the gleaming desk, between the projector and the
scattered spools of reading tape, a loathsome beast, a
dark-furred, peering familiar, whose face was a tiny, taper-
ing, noseless copy of his own.

Instantly he sensed that this was the creature who was
thinking the thoughts that were torturing him, whose tele-
pathically transmitted words were resounding unstoppably
in his skull.

And instantly he determined to slay it. Not by wrath
rayhis mental processes had already reached too prime-
val a level for that. He would strangle it with his bare
hands.

It did not stir as he walked toward the table. But his
progress was nightmarishly slow, as if the air had become
gelatinous. And as he walked, step by labored step, a final
vision formed in his mind.

He was utterly alone, his ringers on the controls of a
mighty war blast, at the summit of a little hill in the midst
of a flat, gray wasteland. There was no life whatsoever,
save his own. As far as eye could seeand it seemed he
could see around the curve of the Earthwere the graves
of the species he had annihilated, or perhaps the graves of
all men and women, of all ages, who had suffered and
fought and died seeking freedom, seeking something more
than a jealous, conservative, senselessly ordered society
could provide for them.

And he was very much afraid, although there was
nothing left to threaten him. And he kept wondering if his
war blast were sufficiently powerful.

Only a few steps separated him from the desk. His hands
were outstretched like talons of marble. The hateful thing
was peering at him. But the vision kept coming between
them.

Suddenly the wasteland began to ripple and shake. Like
an earthquake, except the motion was more general and
less violent. As if a million moles were tunneling. Then,
here and there, the gray earth cracked and parted and
there rose up skeletal forms, clad in moldering flesh and
tattered cerements. More and more of them until, like an
army, they marshaled themselves and advanced from all

sides upon the hillock, shaking gray earth from them as
they came.

Round and round he slewed his ravening war blast.
Down they went, by scores, by hundreds, like rotten grain,
collapsing into a second death. But over them, through the
smoke of their burning, stepped hundreds more. And he
knew that thousands of miles away still others had risen
and were marching toward him up around the Earth.

One step more now and he could lean forward. His
hands would close around the scrawny throat. Only one
step.

Still they came, marching in perfect order, and the
stench of their burning obscured the leaden sky and choked
him. Now their fallen made a great ring higher than the
hillock, and he had to swivel his war blast upward to cut
down the figures who came lightly stepping over the
crestexcept when he must sweep it briefly downward to
finish off a charred skeleton crawling or hitching itself
toward him from the heap.

He was at the desk. His marble hands were closing in on
the black caricature of himself.

But on him the others were closing. Waves and waves of
them. He was sweating, panting, choking. Each time he
frantically slewed round his war blast, the ranks he mowed
down were a little closer. And one blackened skeleton had
got inside his range and was weakly clawing at his ankle
with charred phalanges.

His hands closed around the throat of the furry abomi-
nation. But it was as if it wore a collar of transparent
plastic. He could not quite touch the black fur. One
supreme effort

Then, even as a skeletal phalanx dissolved at the muzzle
of his war blast, hands of bone seized him from behind. In
a paroxysm of terror, surrender, and ultimate guilt, he
screamed, "I give up! I give up!"

At that instant a shock more profound than any electri-
cal one tortured his nerves. In his mind there was a
pounding and wrenching and shaking, as of machines
broken loose from their moorings. With sickening sudden-
ness his mind spun, then came to rest with the impact of a
concussion.

Consciousness darkened, but did not quite fade. Memory
strands were strained to the breaking point, but held. His
eyes, screwed shut at the final moment, opened.

He was Jarles. He was the old Jarles. The Jarles who
had defied the Hierarchy singlehanded.

But that realization brought no relief. On the contrary, it
was the beginning of a new agony, less endurable even
than that which he had just undergone. For memory
was intact. He remembered every action of the secondary
personalitythe betrayal of the Witchcraft, the kidnap-
ping of Sharlson Naurya, the taunting of the Black Man,
and, above all, the murder of Asmodeus. Those were his
actions. He was responsible for them.

With a tortured, incredulous gasp he snatched away his
hands from the familiar's throat and slitted open his robe,
preparing to turn the Finger of Wrath upon himself.

But that release was denied him.

"Expiation, Armon Jarles! Expiation!" sternly resounded
the inner -voice. "You must first make atonement for your
guilt."

At the same moment there scrambled lightly up from
behind the desk a second familiar. Coppery fur and a
distorted facial resemblance proclaimed him the Black
Man's. Even his voice was a squeaky echo of the Black
Man's. "I am Dickon, Armon Jarles. It is I who have
spoken to you through the mind of your little brother, just
as my big brother instructed me. But my words were
shaped in your little brother's brain to a resemblance of
your own. All three of us have touched minds.

"There is no time to lose. You must rescue my big
brother. You must release him from his cell."

A third familiar sprang up from behind the desk. Jarles'
dumbfoundment was complete. The inky creature bore an
unmistakable, eerily hideous resemblance to the World
Hierarch Goniface.

For a moment he felt that by some incredible sorcery
every human being in the whole world had been trans-
formed into a chattering puppet, and that he, the only man
left, was their prisoner and slave, a giant constrained to do
their bidding.

"Haste! Haste!" cried Dickon, tugging at his robe.

Jarles obeyed. Soon he was striding hurriedly through
the gloomy gray corridors of the crypts. The superstitious
of an earlier age might have believed him to be a zombie,
so white was his face, so set was his expression, so stiff and
mechanical his strides.

Through the ponderous metallic doorway of the subsidi-

ary prison, the turnkey viewed him, satisfying himself that
this was one of Goniface's principal agents.

The doorway slid aside, then swiftly closed behind Jarles.
He turned toward the booth. The turnkey started to ques-
tion him about his business. Jarles' hand came up and he
directed at the turnkey and his assistant a paralysis beam.

Then he reached forward and withdrew the activator of
the locks from the little square box at the turnkey's waist.

Like a figure of wax the turnkey stood there, his open
lips forming a question that was never uttered. While
behind him sat his assistant, one eyebrow raised in an
unchanging expression of casual curiosity.

Down the prison corridor Jarles strode to the single cell
in view of the booth. The two deacons guarding it had
noticed, but had misinterpreted, the action which had
taken place at the booth. They recognized the Fourth
Circle priest who was approaching. More than once he had
come here to conduct ironic and rather unpleasant conver-
sations with their prisoner. So with looks of obsequious and
respectful recognition on their faces, they were frozen by
the paralysis beam.

Then the electrical emanations from the activator in
Jarles' hand played on the lock.

Slowly the cell door slid aside. At first only a hand could
be seena hand that groped unsteadily at the wall of the
cell, as if its owner were steeling himself to face and
endure a terrible disappointment. Then the entire figure
came into view.

Physical injury and psychological strain had taken their
toll of the Black Man. He appeared pale and dwarfed in
his gray prison tunic.

And his thoughts were dwarfed and pale. Jarles, he
decided, had only come to taunt him once more. The cold,
wooden look in Jarles' eyes seemed to confirm this. Be-
sides, the guards were sitting there as if nothing had hap-
pened.

"I have murdered Asmodeus," he heard Jarles say, and
it was to the Black Man a final confirmation of his worst
fears. Despairingly, he gathered himself for a lunge into
the corridor. Knock down Jarlestry to seize a wrath
rod.

Thenrush of a coppery shadow, and before he knew
how it had happened, Dickon was clinging to the breast of
bis tunic and plucking gently at his face.

"Brother, oh brother," the tiny voice piped. "Dickon has

done what you commanded.  Dickon's brother is free,
free!"

And even as he sought to grasp the simple meaning of
those words, he heard Jarles repeat, in the same formal
tone as if he were making a statement before a Hierarchic
court of law, "I have murdered Asmodeus"

The Black Man could not understand. For a moment he
wondered crazily if this were some stratagem of Brother
Dhomas to unseat his reason. Then Jarles added"who, as
you know, was the Fanatic archpriest Sercival."

As if at some stupid, pointless, yet unbearably ludicrous
joke, the Black Man began to laugh. Then suddenly he
clapped his hand to his mouth, hardly realizing that Dick-
on's had already been laid there, warning him to be silent.
Incredulously, he stared at Jarles.

"The other captive witches" he asked.

"are still imprisoned here," Jarles answered.

A few moments more and Jarles was again striding
down the prison corridor. Beside him walked a figure
draped in a deacon's robe, face shadowed by black hood,
hands gripping a wrath rod.

The corridor made a right-angle turn. Before them
stretched a block of cells, two deacons stationed at each
door. Down that corridor they paced, and the almost
inaudible hissing of a paralysis beam accompanied them.
The last three pairs sensed danger, but too late. They were
frozen in the act of reaching for their wrath rods, stacked
against the wall. The last pair were actually lifting theirs to
take aim, but in that position they remained.

The Black Man threw back his hood.

A door across the corridor opened and through it
stepped Cousin Deth. With a swiftness almost incredible
for a man he directed his wrath rod at the Black Man and
Jarles.

But a familiar's reactions are swifter than a man's. In a
blur of movement Dickon scuttled at him across the floor.

Deth's sallow face was contorted suddenly with a fear
that had only been there once beforewhen he fled panic-
stricken from the haunted house.

"The thing in the hole!" he cried hollowly. "The spi-
der!"

A moment more and he had realized his misapprehen-
sion, and the violet needle of his wrath ray was swinging
down at Dickon.

But the Black Man had gained time to act. His own

wrath ray lashed out, swished into that of Cousin Deth's.
Since the two rays were mutually impenetrable, unable to
cut through each other, Deth's was fended off from
Dickon.

Like two ancient swordsmen, then, the warlock and the
deacon dueled together. Their weapons were two endless
blades of violet incandescence, but their tactics were those
of sabreursfeint, cut, parry, swift riposte. Ceiling, walls,
and floor were traced with redly glowing curlicues. Par-
alyzed deacons, seeming like spectators frozen in amaze-
ment, were burned down where they stood or stooped or
sat.

The end came swiftly. On a whirling disengagement,
Deth's blade ripped burningly through the slack of the
Black Man's robe, under his arm. But he parried in time.
Instantly he feinted one riposte, made another, and the
sallow face and swollen forehead of Cousin Deth ceased to
exist.

Fending off the beam of the wrath rod that slipped
from Deth's fingers, the Black Man hurried forward and
switched off both weapons.

Then he turned to Jarles, who had stood motionless
against the wall all through the fight, inviting destruction.
He ordered Jarles to activate the locks.

But he wasted not a word on his captive fellow witches,
as they emerged wonderingly from their cells, like ghosts
summoned from the Underworld. Even Drick he turned
away with a quick headshake. His every effort was concen-
trated on drawing from the seemingly hypnotized Jarles a
terse account of the recent events which had shaken
Megatheopolis.

Jarles was activating the last lock. The Black Man noted
that the hitherto set expression on the face of the twice-
renegade priest was beginning to cloud a little, like a man
recovering from the actions of a narcotic drug.

Haltingly, with the effortfulness of a man who begins to
realize what enormous crimes he must make amends for,
Jarles said, "I can take you to where the Fanatic priests
are imprisoned. We can attempt to release them and to
seize the Sanctuary."

Almost, the Black Man was tempted. His duel with Deth
had put him in the mood for such a venture.

But wrath rods were not witches' weapons, he reminded
himself. Asmodeus had wagered everything on fear. And,
so, it was by fear alone that the wager could be won.

Again Jarles spoke. He seemed to the Black Man to be
groping for the solution of some profound inward prob-
lem. "If you desire it," he said, "I will attempt to assas-
sinate the World Hierarch Goniface."

"By no means!" the Black Man answered, hardly certain
yet whether or not he should treat Jarles as a sane man.
"Operations of a very different sort are intended against
Goniface. If only I knew what has happened to Sharlson
Naurya"

"She lies in my apartment," said Jarles dully, "under the
influence of a paralysis beam."

The Black Man stared at him. He was only now begin-
ning to realize what an utterly incredible accomplice he
had in Jarles. Then he laughed, the brief laugh of a man
who suddenly understands that the incredible and the
-inevitable are sometimes the same thing. He had to trust
Jarles, for tonight Jarles was blind destiny personified.

"Return to your apartment," he ordered Jarles. "Rouse
Sharlson Naurya. Tell her we proceed with the operations
against Goniface as planned. Aid her in reaching the
vicinity of his apartment without being detected. Take with
you Goniface's familiar and your own."

Then he turned and motioned to his witches and war-
locks to follow him.

 Chapter 19

WITH a small escort, Goniface was returning to Web
Center, having completed a hurried tour of the principal
control points in the Sanctuary. Tonight the Apex Council
was sitting at Web Center. His place was there. But to
maintain some direct touch with local developments was
one of the World Hierarch's cardinal principles of ac-
tion.

From Chief Observation Post, high above the other
structures of the Sanctuary, he had watched a small black
shapeapparently one of those devil constructions which
had appeared at the Grand Revivaldart waspishly
around the image of the Great God above the Cathedral,
like a tiny, frail aircraft attacking a giant. Again and again
he had watched it evade, by unexpected twists and turns,
the blue warblast beam projected from the Great God's
hand.

That flitting shadow was a black flag of revolt for the
commoners, who tonight were defying the age-old curfew
regulations. The great mob which had rioted at the Grand
Revival had broken up into gangs which roamed the
narrow streets, attacking Hierarchic patrols or setting traps
for them. Their peasant brutality, repressed for gener-
ations, had a peculiar ghastliness, which was only aug-
mented by their belief that they had joined forces with the
Lord of Evil and were thereby released from all restraint.
The few priests or deacons they caught died hideously. One
of their unsuccessful stratagems was an attempt to lure a
patrol into a house packed with combustibles and to shut
them in and burn them. Showing surprising ingenuity,
another gang, composed of members of the mechanical
trades, had managed to construct and set up a catapult in
the Street of the Smithies. They actually succeeded in
lobbing a few paving stones into the Sanctuary, one of
which brained a First Circle priest, before an angel discov-
ered and destroyed their crude artillery.

A little later Goniface had seen the devil construction
attempt too close a turn, fail to escape the blue beam, flare
into incandescence, and crash in the Square. But as he was
leaving Chief Observation Post he noted that another
bat-flitting shape had taken its place.

Power Center reported all well. The atomic batteries
which served the whole Sanctuary were easily handling the
increasing energy demands of the emergency. The morale
of the Fourth Circle priests on duty there, and of their
Seventh Circle supervisor, seemed good.

Cathedral Control Center, where the Fanatics had
sabotaged the Grand Revival a few hours earlier, also
seemed to be functioning adequately.

At Sanctuary Control Center, adjoining Web Center, an
unpleasant incident occurred. In a queer mental seizure
that was all the more disturbing because at first it had no
outward symptoms, the Master of Locks and Guards
began to activate open all main gateways leading to the
Sanctuary. His action might readily have escaped detec-
tion. It was Goniface himself who first noticed the telltale
configuration of lights on the Locks-and-Guards control
panel. When the priest realized that he had been detected,
he babbled wildly of some hideous doom with which
Sathanas had threatened him if he did not obey certain
commands. Apparently he was in no sense a real traitor.
As far as could be made out from his confused story, he
had been terrorized for weeks by strange manifestations
which appeared to him when he was alone. He claimed
that since childhood he had been vaguely haunted by a
fantastic fearthat floating globes of fire would burn his
skull and destroy his brain. This fear had been a shadowy
thing, and in later years he had forgotten itbut then
small floating globes of fire had manifested themselves to
him, moving purposefully through the air and speaking to
him in human voices, threatening to burn his brain if he
did not perform certain actions.

Goniface saw his place taken by a competent-looking
substitute, but the incident left an unpleasant taste. It
typified all too well the intimate and insidious strategy of
the Witchcraft. The Fanatics had moved freely among the
loyal priesthood, and had had access to the dossiers of
practically all members of the Hierarchytwo of the
clerks in Personnel Control had been Fanatics. As a result
they had been in a position to discover the secret, deep-
buried fears of individual priests. And the telesolidograph

and similar instruments gave them the means to manifest
those fears.

Yes, thought Goniface, fear was the Witchcraft's secret
weapon, and the only one spelling real danger. All other
threats were distinctly subordinate. Direct attack on the
Sanctuaries would fail, since the Hierarchy held more than
the balance of military power. Rousing the commoners to
revolt had achieved considerable confusion; but the com-
moners could no more overrun the Sanctuaries than a band
of apes could take a walled city.

But fearthat was a different matter. Goniface conned
the faces around him for signs of it. It was impossible that
the Witchcraft could be victimizing all members of the
Hierarchy with individual terrorsto do that would take
an organization as large as the Hierarchy itself. If there
were only some swift and sure way of determining which
priests had been specially victimized. It could be done,
given time. Tomorrow But first the Hierarchy must
survive tonight.

Dismissing his escort, Goniface entered Web Center by
way of the gallery. He did not at once take his seat, but
tarried just inside the gallery door, watching. In the ab-
sorbing and ceaseless surge of activity, his return was not
immediately noticed.

Web Center was like a brain. The floor space was
occupied by communication panels, at each of which sat a
priest. One section of these co-ordinated and verified the
information pouring in from the world network of Sanc-
tuaries. This information then appeared on the world map
which took up the entire wall, slightly concave, opposite
the gallery. From the gallery the members of the Apex
Council conned the world map, received additional in-
formation through secretaries and runners and individual
televisor panels, and made their decisions. Each archpriest
was responsible for a definite sector of the Earth. Their
orders were handed down to the priests of the Web Center
Staff, who sat directly in front of the gallery. They checked
the orders and passed them on to the section of priests
handling outgoing messages.

Apex Council and Web Center Staff co-operated admi-
rably. There was a minimum of friction. Some of the
archpriests were serving on the Staff. Tonight Brother
Jomald was Chief of Communications and, in Goniface's
absence, exercised supreme authority.

There was almost no noise or bustle. This was made

possible by an elaborate code of gestures, amounting al-
most to a language, and the general use of earphones,
whisper transmitters, and old-style written messages flashed
by televisor.

At either end of the room were grouped large televisor
panels, one for each key city.

But it was the huge world map that dominated Web
Center and gave it its special character. Projected in
glowing colors from the other side of the translucent wall,
it seemed almost a live thing. And, indeed, if one closely
watched the region of faint shadow covering half the map,
one could discern its very slow movement. That region of
shadow represented night. Slowly its forward margin crept
across ocean and land, engulfing the dots representing
Sanctuaries. Slowly its rearward margin withdrew from
others. Megatheopolis, at the center of the map, was also
at the present moment approximately at the center of the
creeping blanket of shadow.

Most of the dots on which the shadow encroached were
scarlet. Many of those from which it withdrew were black.
The change indicated that those Sanctuaries had stopped
communicating, had presumably been deserted or fallen to
the Witchcraft.

Fully half the tinier dots, which represented rural Sanc-
tuaries, were black. All of the largest dots were still scar-
let.

Goniface studied the map more closely, noting the dis-
position of the tiny blue-wing symbols representing
squadrons of angels, the black batwing symbols that had
been improvised to indicate devil constructions, the gray,
wolflike diagrams marking regions troubled by enemy so-
lidographs, and all the other meaningful pictorial hiero-
glyphs of the map.

As he studied it, he frowned. Indubitably the Witchcraft
had been making progressswifter progress. He sensed a
better co-ordination of enemy forces, a more unified plan
of campaign. They were taking clever advantage of the
fact that the Hierarchy lacked sufficient angel squadrons to
patrol all key cities.

Tomorrow the ship from Luciferopolis should land,
carrying fifty angel squadrons, besides a number of archan-
gels and seraphim, of which there were none here. But that
was tomorrow.

He walked to the center of the gallery and took his
place, annoyed rather than flattered at the stir created by

his arrival. They were all too conscious of him. They
should be more completely absorbed in their work.

From the station of the Chief of Communications di-
rectly below the World Hierarch's box in the gallery,
Brother Jomald started to recount recent developments.
But Goniface, having discerned most of them from the
map, signed Jomald to wait. He put a question to one of
his secretaries.

"I sent for Deth. He should be here."

"We have been unable to contact him. We are checking
all likely points."

"The Fourth Circle priest Jarles?" he continued. "I sent
for him, too."

"We are checking."

But he had to dismiss the matter from his mind. Now
that his return had been noticed, the archpriest and staff
members were shunting over to Goniface reports on criti-
cal sectors with requests for advice. It kept his secretaries'
hands full sorting them out and presenting them to him.

"Mesodelphi invaded by blackness. Shall detach half
squadron angels from Archeodelphia to render assis-
tance?"

"Eleusis reports telesolidograph discovered and seized.
Do you want details on construction?"

"Hieropolisatomic batteries failing. Can spare power
from elsewhere? Or send trained technicians to supervise
repairs?"

"Sixth Circle Faculty of Olympia sends urgent message
over private communication channel, warning that Olym-
pia Control Staff is being mentally influenced by Witch-
craft. Instructions?"

"Rural Sanctuary 127, East Asian Sector, reports mys-
terious crash of two angels. Glimpses of vast, batlike form.
Shall warn all angels from sector?"

"Relief ship from Luciferopolis contacted. Will arrive
approximately dawn, Megatheopolis Time. Shall land at
usual port?"

Too many reports. Too many requests for advice. Time
and again Goniface made, across the room or into the
televisor, the curt palm-upward gesture which signified,
"Handle at your own discretion. Use your own judgment."
They ought to know better than to ask for advice on such
matters. His being World Hierarch made them overanxious
for his approval. Even with highly capable men like

Jomald it made a difference. They were taking too slavish
an attitude toward Goniface and his judgments.

He did reply, however, to the last request.

"Instruct relief ship from Luciferopolis to land openly
behind Megatheopotis Sanctuary on Blasted Heath,
prepared to give instant assistance."

Was the Hierarchy growing old, Goniface wondered
while another part of his mind was immersed in the
business of the moment. Was the priesthood losing its
vigor, its stern strength of purpose, its cold joy in ruler-
ship? Everywhere he fancied he could detect an undercur-
rent of laxity, of weakness, of escapismas if most of his
companions were flogged on only by habit and social
pressure.

Perversely, it irked him that he no longer sensed jealousy
and bitter rivalry in those around him. The Apex Council
was not as it had been in the old days, when every
archpriest was grasping at prestige and increased authori-
ty, and when each session was a brilliant duel of wits. Gone
was the keen yet realistic competition for personal power,
which had been one of the chief driving forces of the
Hierarchy. His chief rival, Frejeris, was out of the picture,
as good as dead, and he knew that even the strongest of
the Realist leaders besides himself had given up any plans
they might have had for supplanting him. They were
content to accept him as master. He sat alone on the
World Hierarch's throne and no one wanted to push him
out of it.

Oddly, it was in his traitorous agent Jarles that Goniface
had last sensed a rapacity and driving force akin to his
ownthough cruder and more naive. He wished Jarles
would come. It would give him an obscure exhilaration to
know that the cold, treacherous little cockerel was standing
beside him, envying him. Perhaps, after the present crisis,
Brother Dhomas could fabricate a few more such person-
alities to supply the animal vitality and ruthless self-interest
which the Hierarchy had lost.

Morbid fancies! Ridiculous and suicidal, too, in the
present crisis, when discipline and obedience were essen-
tial. Yet they kept troubling the under surface of his mind.

He noticed that the booth to his left, the one Sercival
had always occupied, was empty, and he impatiently mo-
tioned the next archpriest to transfer to it. Bad for morale
to have that reminder of the enemy who had so recently
been discovered in their midst.

Yet as soon as the archpriest had obeyed his order, he
wondered if he ought to have given it. Something in his
mind kept wanting to transform the man's thickish face
into Sercival's lean, hawklike one. And there was still an
empty seat

What had SercivalAsmodeusbeen after, really?
Goniface would have given a great deal to have heard him
answer that last question. Why had he wanted Goniface to
achieve supreme authority? Had he foreseen the feeling of
purposelessness that would trouble Goniface once his per-
sonal aims were achievedthe dry rot of slavish obedience
that would begin to eat at every other member of the
Hierarchy?

Above all, why had Sercival died keeping up a silly
pretense of believing in the supernatural? Could he have
been a senile dodderer after all? Impossible! The leader of
the Witchcraft had proven himself a man of astonishing
energy, daring, and resourcefulness. It must be assumed
that Sercival had acted as he had in order to maintain the
prestige of the Witchcraft, devoting his dying moments to
a final effort to shake the skepticism of the Apex Council.
But, according to Goniface's experience, dying men didn't
do that sort of thingor at least didn't do it so well.

The man had been so diabolically sincere! "Sathanas,
receive ... my ... spirit," and all that! Was it possible that
Sercival had believed his own words, had had reason to
believe them? After all, to the truly skeptical mind, diabol-
ic forces are just as reasonable building blocks for the
cosmos as mindless electrons. No possibility, however
seemingly fantastic, should revolt the truly skeptical mind.
It all depends on the evidence. The evidence decides ev-
erything.

Suppose Sercival had had access to avenues of evidence
which are denied most men? Suppose that, under the
scientific mummery of the Witchcraftseemingly identical
with the scientific mummery of the Hierarchythere was
really something else? The mummery proved nothing. No
reason why diabolic forces shouldn't sometimes make use
of mummery to achieve their ends.

These dubious underthoughts were swept from Goni-
face's mind by the reports coming in from Neodelos. The
situation there had reached a crisis. Half the priesthood of
Neodelos was incapacitated by panic or by subtler
manifestations of fear. Horrible phantoms stalked its cor-
ridors. Invisible voices made frightful threats.

Neodelos was the first of the key cities to come to final
grips with the Witchcraft. It was also the first city where
the countermeasures devised by Goniface would receive a
thorough test. All the priests at Web Center, over and
above their own work, were conscious of the messages
flashing at frequent intervals on the Neodelos televisor at
the end of the room. Depending on the import of those
messages, their feelings rose and fell.

"Neodelos Control Center calling Web Center. Power
Center here reports a disturbance. Two technicians in-
capacitated. Will ask for details.

"Report by runnerCathedral Control Center here in-
vaded by manifestations of some sort. Have no description
except that manlike shapes accompany phantoms. Techni-
cians have fled.

"Have ordered limited counterattack, in accordance
with your instructions. Cannot contact Power Center.
Deacons seeking to recharge wrath rods cannot reach
armory.

"Power failing. Have switched to reserves. Report by
runnerdevil constructions landing at Chief Observation
Post.

"Still cannot contact Power Center. Uneasiness at Con-
trol Center. Three seizures.

"Lights failing. Anticipate general failure of power.
Control Center crowded by priests fleeing something in
corridor outside.

"Darkness complete. Are working by pocket illumina-
tors. Have ordered general counterattack. Doors of Con-
trol Center opening. Gray shapes"

The Neodelos panel went dead.

The gloom that last message brought to Web Center was
something tangible. Goniface could sense a wave of fatalis-
tic resignation. Though operations continued without inter-
ruption, there was a certain frantic haste apparent in
theman air of desperation.

"Neodelos Control Center calling Web Center! Counter-
attacks at Control Center and Power Center successful!
Numerous witches slain. Others have retreated. Power
Center reports sabotage by witches, but one atomic battery
still in order. No word as yet from Cathedral Control
Center or Chief Observation Post. Skirmishing continues.
Will send further reports as they come in."

At Web Center that message had the effect of a reprieve
from a death sentence. It was as if parasympathetics were

suddenly flooding the room. The large black dot which
represented Neodelos on the world map blinked rapidly
back to scarlet

To a certain extent, Goniface was gratified. His counter-
measures were proving satisfactory. They were very sim-
ple, being based on one hard fact. So long as the Hierarchy
held the principal control points in the important sanc-
tuaries, particularly the power sources, it could not be
beaten. Likewise the Witchcraft, no matter how complete-
ly it depended on psychological weapons, must eventually
attempt to take physical possession of those control points,
after having terrorized the defending priests. At that mo-
ment the personnel of the Witchcraft became vulnerable to
counterattacks or ambuscades by unsuspected secondary
defenders, for whom the Witchcraft had no terrors
prepared.

The plan seemed to be working at Neodelos.

And yet, looking around him, conning the work-
absorbed faces of the priests at Web Center, Goniface had
the feeling that something was lacking. Despite their obvi-
ous enheartenment at the outcome of the struggle at
Neodelos, he had the feeling that deep in their minds was
something that was disappointed, something that had
wanted Neodelos to fall, something that wanted the whole
Hierarchy to falla frightened, tired something.

Dimlyagain in the under levels of his thinking
Goniface felt that he had just witnessed the last truly great
triumph of the Hierarchy.

Everything seemed with them nowcomplete victory
within their graspbut that made no difference. After a
hesitating and inauspicious beginning, the Hierarchy had
finally risen to and met the challenge of the Witchcraft
but that made no difference either. Win or lose, the last
great moment was past. Hereafter everything would be
trifling. The Hierarchy, the most perfect form of govern-
ment the world had ever known, had entered its old age.
Ambitious men might come again, the rivalry for personal
power revive. But they would be second-rate ambitions, a
second-rate rivalry.

He had seen the last great moment fade, and even about
that there had been something desperate and spasmodic,
something that became unreal as soon as it was over, like
the last rush of a dying carnivore or the last full exertion
of physical strength a man makes before he becomes rec-

onciled to old age and a thrifty husbanding of resources.

Irresistiblythough still in the under levels of his think-
ingGoniface was driven to a realization of the parallel-
ism between his own career and the recent destiny of the
Hierarchy. For his own career had surely been a spasmodic
and desperate thing. And now, looking back, it began to
seem fantastically unreal. A wretched boy, son of a Fallen
Sister and a priest, forced to take his mother's family name
of Knowles, forever barred from the Hierarchy, most
despised of the despised. Knowles Satricka seeming
weakling, who shut himself up from the world as much as
a commoner's child could, hating with a terrible hate his
family and especially the mother who had betrayed him by
the very act of bringing him into the world, but getting
only their contempt in return. Yet in that miserable boy
had burned an ambition and a resentment so tremendous
that they had worked like destiny. Again and again he had
murdered to cover up his past, but they had been no
ordinary crimesit was rather as if fate itself had mixed
the poison or wielded the knife. For his ambition had held
true. Becoming a Hierarchic novice at Megatheopolis, he
had climbed with phenomenal rapidity up the complacent
ranks, from First to Second Circle, from Second to
Fourth, from Fourth to Seventh, and thence to the Coun-
cil. And with every upward step his flaming resentment and
ambition had been eased a little, though in no way dimin-
ished.

That was not the way a man rose to power in a healthy,
vigorous state. It was rather like the fulfillment of some
dark prophecy, like the stealthy, fatalistic march of an
assassin.

And now that he had reached the top, now that he had
created a single peak for himself where none had existed
beforethe World Hierarchshiphe still felt the undimin-
ished impulse to climb upward; yet, where the next rung of
the ladder should be, was only emptiness. He looked down
and there were none who grasped upward at him, no
ambitious successors to struggle with. Even the Witchcraft
was being beaten.

Inevitablystill in that under level of thought, which
was rising now to challenge his surface thoughts
Goniface was being turned back on himself, he was being
driven back toward his own beginnings, as if to complete
some mysterious circle. Irresistibly, his memories began to
trend backward in time toward the carefully blotted-out

period of his youth. He thought of the spiteful, irrespon-
sible, grandiosely dreaming creature who had been his
mother. Of his doltish half brother But most of all of his
younger sister Geryl. She had been the only one of them
who had at all resembled himin purposefulness and a
certain somberness of character. And she might very well
be aliveit had been a very convincing resemblance he
had noted in the solidograph of the witch Sharlson Naurya.
He gained a certain obscure satisfaction from thinking that
she might miraculously have escaped from his murder
trap and have devoted her life to accomplishing his down-
fallthe same sort of satisfaction he got from Jarles'
jealousy and envy.

Knowles Satrick. Knowles Satrick. The name Was re-
peating itself in his mind like a voice out of time's abyss.
Come back, Knowles Satrick. You've gone as far as you
can. Come back. Complete the cycle.

There was something very real about that voice. And
something hypnotic about the name itself, like a winking
point of light in utter darkness. It seemed to print itself on
his mind in archaic black letters, over and over again. With
a confused start, like a dozing man, he realized that his
chief secretary was speaking to him.

"Sanctuary Control Center here desires to contact you.
There are two separate communications. I believe you will
want to attend to them personally. Shall I put them on
your televisor?"

Goniface nodded. The familiar face of the Sanctuary
Control Chief flashed into view. He looked grim, shaken.

"We have contacted Cousin Deth. His body was discov-
ered at the subsidiary prison. The face had been burned
away, but identification is certain. Some of the guards
there had also been slain by wrath ray. The rest were
paralyzed. The cells are empty. There is no sign of the
prisoners."

For a moment Goniface felt only a kind of weariness, as
if he had known about this long before. Deth's gone,
Knowles Satrick, the voice seemed to say. The little deacon
will smile no more on your enemies. But that's all right, he
served his purpose. You don't need his help any more.
You've got where you wanted and you can't go any
further. It only remains to come back, Knowles Satrick.
To come back.

The voice had the strangest effect, as if it were pulling
at him, as if it were drawing him off in some undetermined

directionperhaps back across time. With an effort he half
roused himself. So the prisoners had escaped from the
Sanctuary? That would account for the better co-ordinated
plan of attack the Witchcraft had shown this last hour.
They had got back a part of their leadership. But what did
it matter? The Hierarchy was winning out at Neodelos.
They were beating the Witchcraft despite its improved
leadership.

He realized he was putting a question to the Sanctuary
Control Chief. "Any news of the Fourth Circle priest
Jarles?"

The face in the televisor grew more troubled. "Yes, your
reverence, and in an unexpected connection. One of the
guards has been revived. He asserts that it was none other
than Jarles who engineered the escape! I will let you know
what story the others tell."

The panel went blank as Goniface terminated the inter-
view. He felt no resentment toward Jarles for his treach-
ery, nor even toward himself for having trusted Brother
Dhomas' handiwork too muchonly a mild disappoint-
ment.

Jarles is gone, too, the voice was saying. But what's the
difference? All of them are gone, or have ceased to matter.
Nothing matters any longer. Come back, Knowles Satrick.
Complete the cycle.

The under thoughts had engulfed all except the most
superficial portions of his mind, though he was still listen-
ing to reports, studying the world map, issuing orders,
giving or refusing advice. The affairs of the Hierarchy
seemed very far awaytrivial, as though the Hierarchy
were jog-trotting down some unimportant bypath in time.
Only the mystery of his personal destiny seemed to have
significance. Knowles SatrickKnowles Satrick. He would
eagerly follow that voice if he could ever discover in what
direction it was calling himand if it proved to be a direc-
tion a man could follow.

The face of a minor priest appeared in his televisor.
Vaguely he remembered that his secretary had mentioned
a second communication from Sanctuary Control Center.
At sight of Goniface, the minor priest drew back startled-
ly. Then, apparently fearing that this might be interpreted
as an affront, he grew haltingly apologetic.

"Your pardon, your supreme eminence. But I was sure,
in spite of what they told me, that your supreme eminence
could not be at Web Center. I handle communications for

the portion of the Sanctuary which contains your apart-
ments, and for the past few minutes I have been receiving
messages from them. I have previously had the honor of
hearing your supreme eminence speak, and I was sure
that I recognized your voice, although the connection was
not wholly satisfactory"

"What messages?" asked Goniface.

"That's the strangest part of it, your reverence. Just a
name. Repeated over and over again. A commoner's
name. Knowles Satrick."

To Goniface, in his present trancelike, visionary state of
mind, this frightening coincidence seemed neither a coinci-
dence nor frightening. It was something that, it seemed
now, he had known would happen. So the voice was only
calling him to his own apartments? He had expected a
much longer journey.

What did surprise him a little was the casual sound of his
own voice asking a question.

"You say you heard my voice coming from my apart-
ments? You didn't see my face in the televisor panel
there?"

"No, your supreme eminence, but I did see something
elsesomething that perplexes me. I'll flash it on to you if
it's still there."

The face of the minor priest disappeared. For a moment
the panel was blank. Then Goniface was looking across his
desk in his own apartment. Propped up so that its image
filled the televisor panel, was a shadowy oblong of grayish
paper, of the sort that commoners used. On it he could
make out the same archaic black letters that he had al-
ready seen printed in his mind. Knowles Satrick.

Goniface stood up, signing to Brother Jomald to take
control temporarily. He felt very calm. It seemed to him
the most natural thing in the world that he should go to his
apartments to see what was written on the other side of the
paper. More than natural. Inevitable. Preordained.

Outside the gallery door his escort rose to accompany
him, but he shook his head. This was his journeyno one
else's. As he walked the corridors unaccompanied, he felt
that he was in an altogether different time-stream from
that of the hurrying, taut-faced priests around him. A
retrograde time-stream.

You're coming back, Knowles Satrick. You're complet-
ing the cycle. It's been a long journey, Knowles Satrick,
but now you're coming home.

He entered his apartments. They were in semi-darkness.
He picked up the oblong of gray paper in front of the
televisor. The other side was blank.

He looked up. Standing in the doorway of the inner
rooms was a woman clad in the drab homespun of a
commoner. Despite the darkness he could see her plainly,
as if she faintly glowed. It was the witch Sharlson Naurya.
Andfor now the conclusiveness of the resemblance could
not be deniedit was also his sister Geryl.

For the moment his trancelike state vanished entirely,
being replaced by an icy alertness. What, in the name of
reason, had he been doing? He had walked into the
Witchcraft's trap.

His old nature reasserted itself. Almost he smiled. So
this was how the Witchcraft hoped to frighten and coerce
him? A trap, indeed, a psychological trap, but not quite
good enough.

Violet energy lashed from his outstretched hand. For a
frightful moment it did not seem to affect the figure at all.
Then the homespun flared, the face blackened. A disfig-
ured, dissolving thing, it collapsed back into the inner
room, out of his range of vision. In his nostrils was the
odor of burned flesh.

For a moment he felt the surge of a great personal
triumph. It was as if he had defeated his own past, come to
engulf him. He had reaccomplished his last murder, tardily
but once and for all. His past was dead forever. The voice
which still seemed to be calling him back no longer had
any hold over him.

But, almost in the same moment, he realized that this
seeming victory was an unreal thing. That it was his
Neodelosthe last great flare-up of his old energy; and
from there the way went all downhill.

For out of the inner door, unsinged by the flames that
had destroyed her, softly walked Geryl in the same drab
homespun.

And behind her followed a queer procession. A gaunt
old woman who limped on a crutch. A very old priest
whose jowls, once fat, had now grown loose and flabby. A
dull-faced, surly commoner a little older than himself.
Another priest and several more commoners, most of them
very old.

You've completed the cycle, Knowles Satrick. You're
through with it. It's all over. It might as well never have
happened.

For that silent procession was made up of the people he
had murdered. But they were not as he last remembered
them, not as they were when they had died. Had they
been, he might have suspected some guileful deception
and have had the strength to act on that suspicion.

Like Geryl, they were as they would have been had they
lived until today, aging in normal fashion. These were no
thin ghosts, but the solid phantoms of a materialist's
hellthe hell of an alternate time-stream which had
swirled out to engulf him. He had not killed them at all.
Everything had been canceled out. Or he had killed them
and they had continued to liveelsewhere.

Asmodeus had been right. There was more to it than
mummery. And the more was horrible.

They circled him where he stood at the desk, eying him
coldly, without hate.

He noted that the dark outlines of the room had
changed. The shadow masses were different.

One last despairing flicker of skepticismthey might be
telesolidographic projections of a diabolically artful sort.
With an effort that he knew could not be repeated, he
blindly groped outward, touched the nearest one
Geryl.

He touched substantial, living flesh.
Then Hell closed round him, like the clang of a prison
door.

It was not so much terror he felt, or guiltthough in a
sense he was enduring the extremes of both emotionsbut
an all-encompassing realization of doomful predestination,
a complete surrender of will power because he was faced
with forces which could nullify all the achievements of will
power.

In front of him a little square of light leaped into being.
It was a moment before he recognized Brother Jomald's
face in the televisor panel, another moment before he
remembered who Brother Jomald was. Even then it was as
if he were looking at a picture which chanced to resemble
someone he had known a long, long time ago, in another
life.

"Your eminence. We have been deeply concerned for
your safety. No one knew your whereabouts. You will
return at once to Web Center? There is an emergency."

"I will remain where I am," answered Goniface, almost
with a touch of impatience. What a futile, chattery crea-
ture was this ghost! "Ask your questions."

"Very well, your eminence. The situation at Neodelos
has again grown grave. It was not the clear victory it
seemed at first. After the first successes there its priesthood
has had no more. Power Center there is again threatened.
Meanwhile, Mesodelphi and Neotheopolis are both in-
vaded. In view of what has happened at Neodelos, shall we
order similar counterattacks at both those Sanctuaries?"

With difficulty Goniface recalled some of the problems
of that ghostly time-stream in which the Hierarchy was
dying. They seemed as remote as the affairs of another
cosmos.

He lifted his eyes to the circle of old faces around him.
They spoke no word, but one and all shook their heads. He
particularly noted the little toss, jerky now with age, of his
mother's haggard features. He knew it so well.

They were right. The Hierarchy was fading from that
other time-stream, even as he had faded. And it was best
that it fade swiftly.

"Cancel all counterattacks," he said, the words forming
themselves effortlessly. "Suspend all such operationsuntil
tomorrow."

For that dying time-stream, tomorrow would never
come.

There followed what seemed to Goniface a pointless and
tedious argument with the ghost of Brother Jomald. Yet
Goniface persisted, for he felt that the fading of the
Hierarchy was a necessary and essential consequence of his
own fading. It, too, had a cycle to complete. It, too, must
return to its beginnings.

And  all the while,  beneath  Jomald's  objections  and

oppositions,  Goniface  senseddimly,   as  if  it were  an

emotion remembered from another incarnationa fright-

ened and tired willingness to terminate all struggles and

tensions, a thankfulness that the end was at last in sight.

Finally, Jomald said, "I will obey your commands, but I
cannot take sole responsibility. You must speak to the
Apex Council and the Staff."

And now a little picture of Web Center filled the square
of light. Those pygmy ghosts seemed to be looking at
him.

"Cancel all counterattacks," he repeated. "Suspend all
such operationsuntil tomorrow."

It was strange to think that that ghost world still had a
dun existence, stranger still to think that the ghost name of
Goniface should mean so much in it.

More words with Jomald then. With monotonous regu-
larity, messages of Hierarchic defeat. Ever-deepening
gloom. Tragedy of a time-stream dying.

Finally a note of frightened yet futile urgency.

"Cannot contact Cathedral Control Center here at
Megatheopolis. Chief Observation Post reports that Ca-
thedral war blast no longer flares. Chief Observation Post
cut off. Shall order counterattack?"

For a last time Goniface raised his eyes. But he knew
Beforehand that the answer would be "No," and that he
would give that answer to the frantic yet hopeless question.
This time he particularly noted the senile, pendulum-like
headshake of the old priest, his first confessor.

"Disturbance at Sanctuary Control Center. Light failing.
Priests fleeing into Web Center report a blackness, with
eyes, flowing down the corridors, engulfing them. No word
from Power Center. Counterattack?"

But Goniface was thinking how like his own was the
destiny of the whole Hierarchy and of every priest in it.
Whether they murdered their familiesand their own
youthactually or only in spirit, it amounted to the same
thing. They betrayed and deserted them, left them for
dead, to enjoy the power and pleasures of a sterile tyrant
class.

"Doors burst open. Blackness. Shall order"

Goniface made no answer. As the panel went black
but not because it had gone deadas, to his seeming, the
time-stream died, his feeling of resignation became com-
plete.

He did not know that, in the under levels of his think-
ing, he was holding tight to one last defense against the
forces which had engulfed him.

 Chapter 20

DAYLIGHT had come back to Megatheopolis, bathing the
terraces of the Sanctuary with a white splendor. There was
a general feeling of emptiness and of dazed relief, as when,
after a great hurricane, fisherfolk come out on the beach
to talk in hushed voices of the might of the storm and of
the damage it has wrought, to peer curiously at the wreck-
age washed ashore and incredulously at the high-water
marks of last night's waves.

Such a feeling was apparent in the faces of the common-
ers who wandered about the terraces in small groupsand
not too many of those, for the victors in last night's
struggle were determined to keep matters well in hand.
Later on the commoners would begin to talk in loud voices
and poke at things and pry, but for the present they
touched nothing, said little. Their eyes and their minds
were too busy.

.They kept meeting priests who were wandering about
even more aimlessly than themselves. At such times they
merely stepped aside to avoid each other, without com-
ment. Most of the priests wore ragged black armbands,
perhaps torn from the robe of a dead deacon, to indicate
that they had changed sides, although no one as yet had
asked them to.

Occasionally the terraces were crossed by a man or
woman who walked briskly and obviously knew what he or
she was doing. Most of these wore a simple black tunic,
but a few were still clothed as commoners or even as
priests. On the shoulders of some peering familiars
perched, like trained monkeys.

Necks were craned as a faint hissing broke the silence.
Looming over the intervening structures, the Great God's
head was visible. A light scaffolding had been set up on the
shoulders, and pygmy figures were setting to work in a
businesslike way. There was the flicker of tiny blue
flames.

Onto the topmost terrace four figures issuedone in the
scarlet and gold of an archpriest; two in black tunics;
onea womanin drab homespun.

"Yes, it was very simple," Sharlson Naurya was saying,
and the after-the-storm emptiness was apparent in her
words. "No alternate time-stream, no dead come alive,
Nothing like that. But it was what Asmodeus had devised
for you long ago, and so it workedthough the emergency
forced us to make some changes. It was your familiar who
influenced your thoughts by telepathy. Likewise it was he
who called your name from your apartments. With one
exception, the ghostly figures that appeared to you were
telesolidographic projections, reconstructed on the basis of
old duplicate solidographs preserved in the Hierarchic
Dossiers of Commoners, the effect of normal aging being
achieved by painstaking retouching. Telesolidographic pro-
jections also accounted for the seeming change in your
room.

"You would have known that they were solidographs,
except that you touched me and found me real. I placed
myself in such a way that it would be me you touched. My
clothes were impregnated and my skin filmed with a faintly
glowing preparation, so that I would resemble the oth-
ers.

"You found I was realand yet you knew I could not
be real, for you had just destroyed me with your wrath
beam. There lay Asmodeus' clinching subtlety. When you
first saw me in your apartments, you saw a telesolido-
graphic projection. That was what you destroyed. A se-
quence showing its blackening and dissolving had been
faked and was switched on by the operator as soon as you
activated your wrath ray. You may remember the time lag.

"Had the scheme failed, as by some error in timing, you
would instantly have been killed and an alternate plan
adopted. But it was better to let you live and make use of
your power over the Hierarchy, to defeat it, than to kill
you and by that action perhaps jar your overawed subordi-
nates into taking over your responsibilities and the supreme
command. Asmodeus died, but the Witchcraft triumphed,
because there were those who could and did succeed him.
With you it was just the other way."

Goniface did not reply. Once again his face was a
maskto hide his bitter, nauseous self-contempt. But he
was not altogether without consolation. For he knew that
the Hierarchy would still win out, although with no credit

to himself. Almost slyly, he turned his head and looked
beyond the Sanctuary walls. On this side, away from the
commoners' section, lay the Blasted Heath, an arid gray
expanse of many acres, on which no vegetation grew. His
gaze lingered there knowingly.

"All my life I have looked forward to this moment," he
heard Sharlson Naurya say, and there was a weariness
apparent in her voice. "As if all my life I had been falling
from the bridge and looking up at your face and willing
the miraculous moment to come when I would be able to
reach up and pull you after me. Now the moment has
come and it means very little."

The oddly distorted shadow of a man entered her field
of vision. She looked up. The Black Man raised his hand in
greeting. Dickon was responsible for the distortion. From
his shoulder-perch he imitated his brother's greeting. His
fur was a gorgeous golden red in the sunlight.

"I have just come from Web Center," the Black Man
explained. "We have established contact with our forces in
most of the key cities. There only remains the mopping-up
of a few small towns and rural sanctuaries."

Without any animosity, but with frank curiosity, he
looked at Goniface, who slowly turned back from his
contemplation of the Blasted Heath. The glances of the
two leaders met.

At that instant there came a distant roaring that grew
momently louder, a curiously profound throbbing and
drumming that seemed to shake the ground. Those wan-
dering on the terrace gazed quickly toward the head of the
Great God and the workmen who were still busy around
the neck. But the new sound was too big for that.

Its thundering filled the sky. Something was coming
from the sun, darkening it.

There was a sluggish triumph in Goniface's eyes, as he
held those of the Black Man. "You've won," he said, "but
now you've lost. Late but not too late comes the aid we
summoned from Heaven, bringing enough military ma-
chines to turn the tide and win back the scantily armored
Earth."

The thunder rose to a shattering climax. A great shadow
darkened the Sanctuary. A vast ellipsoid construction ap-
peared overhead from the direction of the sun and came to
rest above the Blasted Heath, its mighty repulsor beams
plowing like huge pillars into the gray soil, digging great

pits. While it still rocked there aloft, circular ports began
to open in its dully gleaming surface.

Goniface waited for the look of dismay to come over his
adversary's face. But it never came.

As the thunder died the Black Man smiled in a friendly
way and said casually, "Oh, I know all about the relief ship
from Luciferopolis. I came out to see it land. What you say
about it is largely true. I also know that Lucifer is the
name of the Morning StarVenus. Unfortunately for the
Hierarchy, it's also one of the names of Satan. Of course,
it's understandable that you wouldn't know about the
recent turn of events there. Communications with Venus
have been very bad, haven't they? And not altogether
because she's moving toward opposition, I fancy. Still, I
would have thought that you'd have guessed that the
Witchcraft was operating on Venus, tooand that it
would work a little faster in the colonies than on the
mother planet. I imagine it's been all over on Mars, too,
for some time, but since Mars is on the other side of the
Sun, it will be a couple of months before we find out for
sure."

He turned and looked up. From the open ports of the
spaceship, black squadrons were darting, to the amazement
and awe of the wanderers on the terrace, who looked as if
they might start a panicky flight.

"They'll be all angels, I imagine," he commented. "Just
refinished in black and touched up a bit. Except the bigger
ones. You call those archangels and seraphim, I believe?

"You see, it was really our relief ship," he went on
reflectively. "I imagine that Asmodeus understood from
the beginning that any revolt against the Hierarchy must
be multi-planetary. Besides, the Hierarchy was always a bit
more shaky in the two colonies. The colonies are supposed
to have been a bit more in the right, I'm told, in the
interplanetary war that paved the way for the Hierarchy.
It would have taken a big war like the interplanetary one
to have shattered the Golden Age, wouldn't it now? The
Blasted Heath itself is one of the scars of that war, isn't it?
Devilish weapons they used in those days. Ours would seem
very puny to them by comparison."

He looked sideways at Goniface. With a certain mali-
cious humor, he remarked, "Must have been rather com-
forting for you priests to know that you could always call
for aid from Heaven, or escape there if need beand an
ironic pleasure in knowing that the myth of mankind

storming Heaven was no more than literally true. Well,
now we'll have a bit of Heaven on earth for a change."

Goniface no longer sought to conceal his sick self-
contempt.

"I hardly need remind you," he said coldly, "that it
would be just as wellindeed, very wiseto order my
immediate execution. Unless you desire to enjoy further
crude jibes at my expense."

The Black Man laughed heartily. "I do enjoy them," he
said. "I seem to be one of the few who can enjoy that sort
of thing." This with a quick glance at Sharlson Naurya.
Then he looked at Goniface and his voice grew somewhat
more serious. "No, I'm afraid we can't enjoy the luxury of
that kind of revenge. We're too shorthanded to spare
material. The Hierarchy had its hands full managing the
commoners, so our difficulties must be very obvious to
you. We can't spare a mind like yours. It occurs to me that
Brother Dhomas would as soon remake personalities in one
direction as anotherall he cares about is the changing.
Of course, it might not work. Jarles was rather a costly
success, wasn't he? Still, with suitable precautions, it's
worth a try."

After the former World Hierarch had been led away,
the Black Man and Sharlson Naurya watched the jittery
excitement of the crowd as some of the black devil
squadrons landed on the lower terraces and their Venusi-
an-colonist pilots emerged. Then they turned toward the
Cathedral and noted that the workmen had almost com-
pleted their circuit of the Great God's neck.

He confided to her in an undertone. "I'm a lot more
eager than I even admitted to put the best Hierarchic
minds to work on our side. It's no joke about us being
shorthanded -- especially considering what we want to do.
And Asmodeus deadoblivion be good to him! When I
think of what's coming! Things will be quiet for a few
days, but after that First of all, the commoners will
want to kill off all the priests. There's a little of that sort of
thing going on right now. We're their only protection.
Next, the commoners are still thoroughly steeped in super-
naturalism. They take it as a matter of course that the
Witchcraft will be set up as a religion. They fully expect to
go to church and find an image of Sathanas over the altar.
They're probably already disappointed that there aren't a
lot more satanic miracles going on. When they find that we
consider the Witchcraft finished, some of them will want to

revive it against us. Others, a little later, will decide to
revive the cult of the Great God. On top of all that,
Hierarchic counterrevolutions will be attempted! I fear
that all of us will spend very busy old agesif we live that
long. When you think of the work that's going to be
involved in educating the commoners and remaking their
social system and gradually shifting them over to Hierar-
chicI mean scientificeconomy! For, of course, at the
beginning we'll have to maintain both economiesfeudal
and Hierarchicwhich will inevitably suggest to some of
our none-too-well-balanced co-workers that it would be
very convenient to revive the Hierarchy under a new
name, with black robes instead of scarlet. Oh, things will
be lively, never fear!"

As he broke off he noticed that a fat little priest with a
black armband was peering at him and at Sharlson Naurya
from a distancetimidly and nervously, as if debating
whether to attempt to introduce himself and perhaps ask a
favor. Apparently the looks he got in return frightened
rather than encouraged him, for he turned and walked off
rapidly.

"I know that priest," said Naurya. "He was the one
who"

"I know him even better," the Black Man interrupted.
"Brother Chulian. Dear little Brother Chulian. Mild, soft,
quite well-intentioned, but utterly selfishand completely
typical of the vast majority of them. When you think that
we've got to integrate chaps like that back into their
families, or at least back into the society of commoners,
rememberingas you know wellthat commoners are no
paragons of loving kindness, but have been turned hard
and cold by generations of useless, back-breaking toil
Oh, well, we've been over that before. But doesn't it
suggest to you that I'll need someone to comfort me during
the years of exasperation and thankless labor ahead?"

And he looked very frankly at Sharlson Naurya.

And she looked back at him as frankly. For a moment
the grave, tired lines of her face softened into a smile.
Then she slowly shook her head and looked away. The
Black Man followed the direction of her gaze.

He was standing at the far end of the uppermost ter-
race, his back to them, looking out into space. He still
wore the scarlet robe of a Fourth Circle priest.

"Oh, I suppose you're right," the Black Man admitted
rather unwillingly after a moment. "I suppose he deserves

something, too, after the rough time he's had. And I don't
suppose the provisional government will want to execute
him for the murder of Asmodeus. Yes, I see your point, all
right!" he finished rather sourly.

She nodded. "I've lived for a thing like revenge," she
said softly. "I've gone through something of the kind of
hell he's going through. When it was over, this morning, he
tried to kill himself. I made him promise"

As he turned to go, she added, "After all, you at least
have a sense of humor to comfort you."

"Yes," he admitted. "But there are some situations in
which a sense of humor isn't very amusing."

And with that he turned to walk away. But a crooked
figure in rags and a peaked hat, accompanied by a black
cat and hurriedly hobbling up the terraces, waved her cane
at him to wait. To either side the commoners made way
for her, bowing low and making awed reverences. They
seemed rather relieved to see someone who was obviously
and undeniably a witch. It satisfied their sense of what was
fitting in the situation.

"Silly ninnikins!" was the contemptuous term that Moth-
er Jujy applied to them when she arrived, somewhat out of
breath, on the topmost terrace. "Everywhere bobbing and
scraping to me, as if I were an archpriest or some other
monstrosity! A few days ago they wanted to burn Mother
July, but we don't hear any talk of that now!"

"Greetings, ancient and honorable one," said the Black
Man. "Do you dislike the homage that is your due? Is there
anything that you desire? You have only to ask."

"Maybe I've come for my pint of blood," she suggested
darkly.

"Oh, Mother Jujy," replied the Black Man, cutting short
Dickon's floridly piped gratitude, "that pint of blood is the
most precious in the world. If we were going to put the
Cathedral to its former use, I would have that pint of
blood enshrined as the most sacred relic of them all."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Mother Jujy. "I'm a wicked
old woman and I like vile sensations. That's the only
reason I let him play the vampire." She leered at Dickon.
"No, I didn't come here to be buttered with praise. I want
to know what's going to happen to me."

"I think you can be of very great help to us," said the
Black Man thoughtfully. "We stand in need of yourer
no-nonsense point of view, and the commoners will want,
even more than before, just that sort of counsel that you

alone can give them. A kind of general liaison officer,
perhaps"

Mother Jujy emphatically shook her head. "No. A witch
I am and a witch I remain! And I want to tell you I don't
like what's going on! Why, your people are going around
telling commoners that Sathanas doesn't exist!"

"That's right, Mother Jujy. The Hierarchy and the
Witchcraft are both finished."

"I don't like it! You'll get into trouble if you start giving
away your secrets. That always happens."

"I'm afraid you're right," he said.

With a hollow reverberation, as of departing thunder,
the head of the Great God crashed in the Square.

