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Faith?
He found himself remembering his ordeal in the crechepod and the dream that
once had plagued him. Gods are made, not born. In the crechepod he had
rebuilt his own being, coming back from death, discarding old ways, old
nightmares.
A test of faith?
In what could he possibly have faith? 'In himself? He recalled the time of
the crechepod and his sense of questioning. He had questioned the I-A then,
awareness churning. Somewhere within himself he had sensed an ancient
function, a thing of archaic tendencies.
He remembered then his one-part definition of existence: I am one being. I
exiSt. That is enough. I give life to myself.
There was something to be taken on faith.
Again, the voice of Bakrish boomed in the cell: "Immerse your selfdom in the
mystical stream, Orne. What can you possibly fear?"
Orne sensed the psi pressures focused upon him, all of the evidences of deep
and hidden intent. He said: "I like to know where I'm going, Bakrish."
"Sometimes we go for the sake of going," Bakrish said.
"Nuts!"
"When you press the stud which turns on a room's lights you act on faith,"
Bakrish said. "You have faith that there will be light."
"I have faith in past experience," Orne said.
"What about the first time, the time of no experience?"
"I must've been surprised."
"Do you possess awareness of every experience available to humankind?"
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Bakrish asked.
"I guess not."
"Then prepare yourself for surprises. I must tell you now that no lighting
mechanism exists in your cell. The light you see exists because you desire it
and for no other reason."
"What . . ."
Darkness engulfed the room, Stygian and sense-denying. His prescient
awareness of peril clamored.
Bakrish's husky whisper filled the darkness: "Have faith, my student."
Orne fought down the urgent desire to leap up and dash toward the doorwall, to
pound on it. There had to be a doorway there! But he sensed the
matter-of-fact grimness in the priest's warning. Death lay in flight. There
was no turning back.
A smoky glow appeared high up in the cell and coiled downward toward Orne.
Light? It did not fit his definition of light, but appeared to have a life of
its own, an inward source of glowing.
Orne brought his right hand hi front of his eyes. He could see the hand only
in outline against the glowing. The radiance cast no light into the cell.
The sense of pressure increased with each heartbeat.
He thought: It became dark when I doubted.
Did the milky light that had been hi the cell represent an opposition to
darkness, a fear of darkness?
Shadowless illumination flickered into being throughout the cell, but it was
dimmer than it had been at first, and a black cloud boiled near the ceiling
where the smoky radiance had been. The cloud beckoned like the outer darkness
of deepest space.
Orne stared at the cloud, terrified by it.
The sense-denying darkness returned.
Once more, the smoky radiance glowed near the ceiling.
Prescient fear screamed hi Orne. He closed his eyes hi the effort to put down
that fear and to concentrate. As his eyes closed, the fear eased. His eyes
snapped open hi shock.
Fear!
The ghostly glowing dipped nearer.
Eyes closed!
The sense of immediate peril retreated.
He thought: Fear equals darkness. The darkness beckons even when there is
light. He calmed his breathing pattern, concentrated on the inward focus.
Faith? Did that mean blind faith?
Fear brought the darkness. What did they want of him?
I exiSt. That is enough.
He forced his eyes to open, stared upward into the cell's lightless void. The
dangerous glowing coiled toward him. Even in utter darkness there was false
light. It was not real light because he could not see by it. It was
antilight. He could detect its presence anywhere, even hi darkness.
Orne recalled a time long ago hi his Chargon childhood, a time of darkness hi
his own bedroom. Moon shadows had been translated into monsters. He had
pressed his eyes tightly closed, fearful that he would see things too horrible
to contemplate if he opened them.
False light.
Orne stared upward at the coiling radiance. Did false light equal false
faith? The radiance coiled backward onto itself. Did the utter darkness
equal utter absence of faith? The radiance winked out.
Is it enough to have faith in my own existence? Orne wondered.
The cell remained dark and dangerous. He smelled the stone dampness.
Creeping sounds infected the darkness  claw scrabbles, hisses and scratches,
slitherings and squeaks. Orne invested the sounds with every shape of terror
his imagination could produce: poisonous lizards, insane monsters, deadly
snakes, fang-toothed crawling things out of nightmares. The sense of peril
enfolded him. He lay suspended in it.
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Bakrish's hoarse whisper snaked through the darkness: "Are your eyes open,
Orne?"
Orne's lips trembled with the effort to answer: "Yes."
"What do you see?"
The question produced an image which danced on the black field in front of
Orne. He saw Bakrish hi an eerie red light, face contorted with agony, his
body leaping, capering . . .
"What do you see?" Bakrish demanded.
"I see you. I see you in Sadun's inferno."
"In the hell of Mahmud?"
"Yes. Why do I see that?"
"Do you not prefer the light, Orne?" There was terror in Bakrish's voice.
"Why do I see you in hell, Bakrish?"
"I beg of you, Orne! Choose the light. Have faith!"
"But why do I see you in . . ."
Orne broke off, caught by the sensation that something had peered inside him
with heavy deliberation. It had checked his thoughts, examined his vital
processes and every unspoken desire, weighted his soul and cataloged it.
A new kind of awareness remained. Orne knew that if he willed it, Bakrish
would be cast into the deepest torture pit of Mahmud's nightmares.
He had only to wish it.
Why not? he asked himself.
Then again: Why?
Who was he to make such a decision? Had Bakrish earned eternity of Mahmud's
hate? Was Bakrish the one who had set out to destroy the I-A? Bakrish was a
minion, a mere prieSt. The Abbod Halmyrach, however . . .
Groaning and creaking filled the cell. A tongue of flame leaped out of the
darkness above Orne, a fiery lance poised and aimed, casting a ruddy glow on
the cell's walls.
Prescient warning clawed at Orne's stomach.
Who was a proper target for Mahmud's fanatical violence? If the wish were
made, would it strike only one target? What of the one who wished this thing?
Was a backlash possible?
Would I join the Abbod in hell?
Orne possessed the certain awareness that he could hi this instant do a
dangerous and devilish thing. He could cast a fellow human into eternal
agony.
What human and why?
Was possession of an ability the license to use it? He found himself revolted
by the momentary temptation to do this thing. No human deserved that. No
human ever had deserved it.
I exist, he thought. That is enough. Do I fear myself?
The dancing flame winked out of existence. It left the darkness and its
hissings, scrabblings, slitherings.
Orne felt his own fingernails trembling against the floor. Realization swept
over him. Claws! He stilled his hands, laughed aloud as the claw sound
stopped. He felt his feet writhing with involuntary efforts at flight. He
stilled his feet. The suggestive slithering vanished.
Only the hissing remained.
He realized it was his own breath fighting its way through his clenched teeth.
Laughter convulsed him. Light!
Brilliant light flared in the cell. With sudden perversity, Orne rejected the
light and darkness returned  a warm and quiet darkness.
He knew the psi machine around him was responding to his innermost wishes, to
those wishes uncensored by doubting consciousness, to those wishes in which he
had faith. I exist.
Light was his for the wishing, but he had chosen this darkness. In the sudden [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]