Entoverse

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

It was no good. Hunt’s mind seized up. For a fleeting, insane second he was tempted to say, “I suppose you’re all wondering why I’m standing up here like this,” but the looks on the faces below dispelled any further thought of it.

He looked down and saw that he was wearing a long, loose, togalike garment with sandals. “What’s this?” he hissed inwardly at VISAR. “I look like a part in Julius Caesar.”

“You’re not exactly in Trafalgar Square,” VISAR answered. “It’s appropriate. What did you want, something from Savile Row?”

The noble who had been in charge was backing away behind the soldiers, who were slowly recovering their wits and moving forward warily. “He’s not a god, he’s an impostor!” the noble screamed. “Kill him!”

In a passing thought, Hunt wondered how he came to understand the words. But there were more pressing things to attend to just at the moment. One of the soldiers, a bearded giant with embellished breastplate and plumed helmet, who suggested something from popular depictions of the Trojan War, drew back his arm and hurled a spear. Hunt raised a protective arm reflexively; the spear stopped in midair less than a foot away, then burst into fragments that fell to the ground.

“VISAR, do we have to cut things that close?” Hunt asked shakily.

“Sorry about that. I’m still experimenting with the dynamics of this place Things that moved got longer, Hunt remembered.

“What kind of cowards are you?” the noble shouted. “That’s just a man. One man!”

A hail of spears and darts came; all were deflected or fell harmlessly. The giant, whom Hunt had mentally dubbed Agamemnon, advanced menacingly, drawing his sword. Reassured that God was indeed on his side, Hunt stepped forward with a new feeling of confidence to meet him.

“Die, puppet of pretenders!” Agamemnon cried, swinging.

“Not today, I think, thank you,” Hunt said, and snapped his fingers. The sword turned into a vine of pink flowers, which coiled itself around Agamemnon’s arm. Agamemnon stopped, staring at the flowers in confusion, then shook them off and stamped on them.

“Getting the hang of it now,” VISAR said.

“Yes, well, do you think you could remove this chap to a safer distance?”

“No problem.” An invisible force swept Agamemnon unceremoniously across the platform and over the edge. He hit the ground with a mighty, metallic crash and sat up, dazed and bewildered.

“The others are a bit too close for comfort, too,” Hunt said. Agamemnon had just started to pick himself up when the rest of the soldiers who had been up on the platform cascaded down on top of him.

“How’s that?”

“Not bad.”

The bearded man below, who had spoken of himself in Hunt’s mind as Shingen-Hu, was pointing up at him and calling out to the crowd. “Behold the angel that was foretold! See how the servants of treachery are powerless before him!”

“How do we know what they’re saying?” Hunt asked VISAR. “You can’t be translating. You’re new here, as well.”

“Your thought patterns are coupled to an Ent-wired neural system that includes a local speech center. It’s the same as the reason why Ents can understand Jevlenese when they emerge.”

Deprived of his soldiers, the noble was cringing back among the executioner and his minions for protection. Hunt turned the knives they were holding into cucumbers and their jerkins into coats of thick molasses, then collided them all together so that they fell, writhing and adhering helplessly. Starting to enjoy himself, he turned the chains of the three unfortunates tied to the stakes into garlands of butterflies, which dispersed and fluttered away.

“So these people would be able to understand me?” he asked VISAR.

“They should.”

“How much more can you give me in the way of background data?”

“Not a lot. I’m mainly manipulating physical data patterns. It needs processing through a nervous system to interpret what they mean.”

“We need Nixie here, then.”

She appeared beside Hunt, wearing a Greek chiton turned up and held by a girdle to form a short tunic falling to just above the knee; she was shod with laced buckskin. She looked like representations of Artemis, the virgin huntress. Hunt couldn’t help smiling at VISAR’s appalling choice. A murmur went up from the crowd.

“Another angel descends! My words shall be vindicated!” Shingen-Hu cried out. The crowd was impressed, clearly; but from what Hunt could see, not as much as he would have expected. Below the platform, the main body of soldiers had shown some initial confusion, but was steadying again as the occupants of the carriage came tumbling out.

“What can you make of this?” he murmured as Nixie took in the scene. “We’ve got gentry down there with the troops, and a chain gang over there. Good guys, bad guys, which are which? What’s going on?”

“The ones getting out from the carriage are priests from the city,” Nixie said. “Their logo has a green crescent, the sign of Vandros. Eubeleus uses the same sign, so they must be his buddies here.” She surveyed the results of Hunt’s impromptu handiwork. “It looks as if you got it right."

“I don’t like the kind of party this was about to be.” So saying, Hunt turned the weapons of the remaining soldiers below into a kitchen-garden variety and the chains of the prisoners into laurel leaves. The prisoners scattered them to the ground and lifted their hands, gaping down at themselves and at each other, wondering at their sudden freedom.

“See how the angels come as instruments of retribution and justice!” Shingen-Hu bellowed.

But the priests, undeterred, raised their arms in unison and pointed up toward the platform, their eyes burning in a strange, penetrating fixation that Hunt found instantly unnerving, even at that distance. And then he realized that he was paralyzed. Bolts of fire flew up at him, but VISAR interceded and dissipated them into clouds of sparks. A shimmering curtain seemed to pass between Hunt and the priests, and he found his faculties unfrozen again.

“What the hell was that, VISAR?” he gasped inwardly.

“They got to you. More goes on in this place than is obvious.”

“Well, we can match that act.” Hunt turned and pointed a finger at one of the three piles of fagots heaped around the stakes-the intended victims had made themselves scarce. “Fire.” The pile ignited into a spectacular blaze. A murmur went up from the crowd. Hunt turned back, folded his arms grandiosely, and gazed down at the priests with what he hoped was a look of lordly contempt.

It didn’t faze them. “Pah! Is that the power of your superior gods?” one of them scoffed. “Apprentice angel!” He stepped forward, pointed at the second pile, and duplicated the act. The crowd cheered. Clearly they were rooting for the home team.

“Try this,” Hunt invited, and materialized a white dove out of nowhere, flying above the crowd.

“Puerile.” The priest shot it down with a well-aimed digit of psychic flak. Hunt turned the third pile and its stake into a rosebush surmounted by an apple tree. The priests shredded the lot with an invisible blender. Hunt collapsed the carriage that they had just climbed out of into a heap of parts. They did the same to the platform that he was standing on, and only the speedy intervention of VISAR again saved him and Nixie from joining Agamemnon and his companions, who were still sorting themselves out on the ground.

“They are demons summoned by the false prophets,” the dignitary who seemed to be in charge called to the soldiers. “Slay the heretics.” The soldiers threw aside the horticultural assortment that they were holding and grabbed staffs and clubs proffered by the crowd.

“VISAR, this isn’t working,” Hunt said in a worried voice. “We need something more spectacular.”

“I could take the whole world apart, but what would it leave you to achieve? You’re supposed to be the expert on organic psychology.”

“Bring in the technical consultant.”

Porthik Eesyan appeared alongside Hunt and Nixie, who were standing before the wreckage of the platform and the burning wood. He looked like his Thurien self, but VISAR had arrayed him in ancient Egyptian fashion, with a close-fitting, skirted costume and high, rearward-projecting headpiece that suited the elongated Ganymean skull. Hunt assumed that he would have been following the events in the same way that Hunt himself had, before his abrupt debut onstage.

“Already the demons are in need of help,” the head priest sneered.

“An interesting predicament,” Eesyan observed to Hunt.

“Save the analysis till later. What do we do about it?”

“You’re going about it the wrong way. Magic is normal here. What you’re doing is impossible, but the people haven’t realized it. To them it’s just a question of degree, not really all that different: the same kind of thing that they’re used to.”

“What would you do, then?”

Eesyan addressed VISAR. “How absolute are the constraints imposed by breakdown of dimensional invariance with velocity?”

“The underlying dynamic of the substrate is optimized to preserve form,” VISAR replied. “The algorithm uses a write-before-erase protocol to afford a redundancy check for accuracy.”

“So a local violation is possible?”

“Sure. I can change the algorithm.”

Then Hunt became aware of Danchekker’s voice speaking inside his head, observing via a coupler on Jevlen and presumably being relayed for Hunt’s benefit, courtesy of VISAR. “I, ah, believe I know just the thing. VISAR, look up your records of Earth for places like Blackpool and Coney Island, would you-you know the kinds of things I mean? I think we could use as elaborate a model as you can devise, with ample gadgetry and mechanisms. They don’t have to do anything functional.”

“You’re sure about this?” VISAR sounded dubious.

“Just do as I suggest, please.”

Hunt could have kicked himself as he realized what Danchekker was getting at. It was too obvious. “There isn’t time to dream up a whole, new, internally consistent world of experience, VISAR,” he said. “We’ll just have to work with what we’ve got.” With that, he extended an arm imperiously and pointed toward the center of the village square.

Shouts of alarm went up from the middle of the crowd as a force began pushing people out of the way to create a clear area. The area grew and became a circle, its perimeter expanding relentlessly and sweeping more jostling, protesting bodies ahead like snow before a snowplow until it was fifty feet or more across. A light came on above to illuminate the whole square, and the cleared circle became at first hazy, then took on a deepening purple hue, until it was filled with what looked like writhing purple smoke. And out of the smoke came forth a strange, jangling music of whistling organ notes, churning mechanically, while within the smoke, a procession of indistinct shapes flitted by, rising and falling in a strange, repetitive rhythm. The soldiers forgot about the prisoners and turned to stare. Even the priests seemed less sure of themselves and were glancing at each other apprehensively. The crowd drew back in hushed trepidation.

Then, the smoke dispersed to unveil VISAR’s creation. Rotating! And this time, Hunt conceded, even with his experience of the machine’s abilities, VISAR had exceeded itself. It was the most magnificent carnival carousel that he had ever seen, with horses, cockerels, swans, and tigers, all moving up and down as they passed by and around under a great, brilliantly colored canopy decked with row after row of winking lights. And in the center of it all, an enormous steam Wurlitzer pounded and thrummed, flywheel spinning, slide valves popping, with shafts and belts connected to an incredible Rube Goldberg concoction of rocking cranks, syncopating levers, undulating cams, whirling gear trains, and nodding tappets, all acting out its cycle of interlocked motions with a complexity and ingenuity that astonished even Hunt.

A hushed murmur, mixing awe, reverence, and fear, swept through the crowd. The priests were standing transfixed. Some of the soldiers fell to their knees, bowing their heads to the ground, and here and there among the crowd others followed their example. Agamemnon, who had extricated himself again, straightened up slowly and stared wide-eyed. A strange, ululating, high-toned chant went up from among the prisoners.

The carousel began slowing, though the music continued. As the turntable made its final revolution before coming to rest, it brought two figures into view, seated on a pair of the animals-the only place VISAR could find to put them. Hunt’s face split into an uncontrollable grin as he saw Danchekker stepping down from a brightly colored peacock, robed like a Roman senator, complete with crown of laurel leaves, but still, incongruously, wearing his gold-rimmed spectacles. Behind him, dismounting from a rhinoceros, was Gina, in sandals and the simple, flimsy, plain white shift of a slave girl, and, God alone-or in this case, VISAR-knew why, carrying a wine jar.

It wasn’t a time for hesitation or timidity. Mustering all his composure and holding himself regally erect, Danchekker moved to the edge of the turntable and stood surveying the scene like a god descended from Olympus. Gina moved to stand a pace behind, while in the background the music faded. “Well?” he demanded after the silence had endured for several seconds. “Can’t you do any better than just stand there wearing those infuriating, cretinous expressions?”

Several more absolutely still, endless seconds dragged by.

Then, the Examiner himself dropped down onto one knee, threw up his arms, and cried out, “Hail, Father of the Gods! This day has the magic of Hyperia descended upon Waroth. Indeed hast the Master whom we reviled spoken truly!”

“Hail! Hail!” those in the crowd immediately in front of Danchekker echoed, and threw themselves down before them.

Others took up the cry.

“Hail, Father of Gods!”

“Lighter of the heavens!”

“Master of objects that spin!”

Danchekker stepped down to the ground, moved a pace forward, and waited for Gina to hop down behind. Then, clasping his robe where his lapels would normally be and followed by his slave, he strode majestically across the square while the crowd parted and adulating figures shouted out praises and prostrated themselves as he passed. By the time he came to where Hunt, Nixie, and Eesyan were standing, and turned to look back, the whole square was down on its knees, faces to the ground.

Across the square, the carousel started up again, and the music resumed. Danchekker looked on and gave a satisfied nod. “No, Dr. Hunt. I, I rather think, am the better judge of organic psychology,” he said.