Night of Light

“Whoa, John!” he muttered. “Things are going too fast!”

He steered the car to the base of a statue in the middle of the avenue. The vehicle would be hidden by the broad base from the view of anyone who might be standing before the Temple. Also, it would be concealed from anyone inside the Temple itself and looking out its windows.

He got out of the car and peered around the base. As far as he could see—a limited distance in these purplish veils—there were no living beings. Here and there a few bodies on the pavement and a few more sprawled on the ramp that led to the great portico of the Temple. But there was nothing dangerous. Not, that is, unless someone was playing possum, hoping that a careless passerby would not dream that the motionless body, apparently slain, would leap up to become the slayer.

Cautiously, he approached. Before getting close to any of the bodies, he stopped to watch them. None gave any sign of life. Indeed, most of them could not possibly be living. They were torn apart or else so mutilated or disfigured by growths or distortions, they could not have survived.

He passed the bodies and walked up to the ramp. The dark stone pillars of the portico soared, their upper parts dim in the coiling haze. The lower parts were carved into the shapes of great legs. Some were male, some female.

Beyond the vast legs was shadow—shadow and silence. Where were the priests and priestesses, the choir, the image-bearers, the screaming women red from head to foot with their own blood, shaking the knives with which they had slashed themselves? Earlier— how much earlier? -- when he had attended the rituals, he had been one man lost in thousands, in a crashing noise. Now, darkness and a singing silence.

Did the god Yess live in the Temple, as every Kareenan to whom he had talked had insisted? Was Yess even now in the Temple and waiting for another Night of Light to pass? The story was that Yess could never be sure, during this time, that his Mother would not withdraw Her grace from him. If Algul won, then Algul, or one of his followers rather, would kill Yess. Sometimes, so the myth said, a follower of Algul would be so strong—so great with evil—he would be able to kill the god Yess.

Then, when the Night ended, and the Sleepers awakened, a new god would be reigning. And the worshipers of Algul would have their way until the next Night began.

John Carmody’s heart beat even faster. What greater act than to kill a god? Deicide! Now, that was something only one man among many billions could boast of being. A deicide. And if his reputation had been high before, known throughout the Galaxy, think of what it could become. His stealing of the Starinof Shootfire was nothing compared to this! Nothing!

Up to now, he told himself, he had done nothing. He gripped his gun barrel, then relaxed his hold because it was too tight. He walked between the ankles of a stone woman. The purple thickened into black, but he walked slow step by step forward. Ahead, he could see nothing. Once, he turned to look back. There was light, or at least some illumination, a cerulean glow between the legs of the statues. Beyond this, the dark did not seem to intensify. Instead, the light wavered, like a sheet rippled by wind.

He turned around to face the darkness across the Temple face. He did not know what the wavering of light meant, but it had managed to threaten something that outweighed all the many threats he had encountered during this long Night.

Or was it something projected by someone to force him to go into the Temple?

He paused. He did not at all like the idea that something knew he was here, was waiting for him, and was eager to get hold of him.

He murmured, “Don’t be getting spooked now, John. When in hell before did you ever get so nervous? So, why now? Even if this is the Big One, don’t let it get to you. You can’t afford to let it. Besides, what the hell’s the difference, one way or the other? Either you make it or you don’t.

“Still, I’d like to do it. Show those other bastards.”

He did not know what he meant by his last remark nor did he reflect on it. Was there anything wrong in wanting to outdo all the others? Maybe. He should not care.

He thrust the idea away. The business here and now had to be taken care of. Despatched... no, dispatched. Both.

Suddenly, without any sensory indication, he knew he had passed from the portico into the Temple interior. There was neither lessening nor increasing of light or of sound. But he knew he was inside. Without being able to see it, he could visualize the floor of polished medium-red stone stretching at least half a kilometer from entrance to farther wall. The sides of the room would also be glass-smooth. They would bend imperceptibly, curving gently inward to form a sphere. Unlike the exterior architecture, stone almost drunken with image, the interior walls were bare as the shell of an egg.

Slowly, he walked forward. His knees were slightly bent; he was ready to spring away at the smallest sound or merest touch. The darkness was congealing around him. It felt thick, as if it were pouring into his ears and eyes and nostrils and making the blackness inside him even denser. When he turned so he could keep track of the direction by which he had entered, he could no longer see the outline of the archway. He was a mote of dust in a beam of unlight.

But he was not floating; he had free will. He was driven by no one but himself, and he had a goal.

Even so, he was taking a long time to get there. Step by step over half a kilometer, with frequent pauses to listen, took time. Finally, when he was wondering if he were not angling off, his toe touched something solid. He knelt to feel with his hand. It was the primary slab. He lifted his foot, stepped up on the rock, and advanced. The second slab stopped his cautious foot. He stepped upon that and shuffled on until he came to the throne.

“Let’s see,” he mumbled. “The chair faces this way, towards the entrance. So, if I go in a straight line from the back of the chair, I come to the little entrance at the wall. And beyond that...”

Beyond that wall, he had been told, was the Arga Uboonota, the Holy of Holies. To get to it, one pushed on the wall, and a door of stone swung inward. The chamber to which the door gave access was supposed to be one into which only the elect of the elect were admitted. These would be the higher priests and priestesses, the great statesmen, and, of course, the arrshkiim. This Kareenan word could be translated as “the passed”: those who had survived the Night of Light.

In that chamber the higher mysteries were celebrated. Also in this room, if he could believe the Kareenans, were born the gods Yess and Algul. In this room, the Great Goddess Boonta sometimes made Her presence known. And here she communed mystically with the Good Seven or the Evil Seven to procreate Her sons.

The door itself, so he understood, was never locked. No Kareenan who did not think himself worthy would dare to open it or even to look inside if it were accidentally opened. And the elect passed through at extreme peril.

“Boonta doesn’t care what She eats, and She is often hungry,” was a Kareenan proverb. The speaker never elaborated, perhaps because he knew no more than the saying itself and had never considered the implications. Perhaps he was afraid to consider them. But the speaker always made that circular sign during the utterance, as if he were protecting himself.

John Carmody had been convinced that the Kareenan religion was based on a fraud that used superstition to advance itself, as all religions did. Now he was not so sure there were not some genuine elements in Boontism. Too many events that would be unbelievable elsewhere had actually occurred here.