Night of Light

His outstretched right hand, the free one, touched the wall. The stone felt warm, too warm. It was as if there were a fire on the other side.

He pushed, and the wall gave. The door was swinging in. No light streamed through. It was as dark within as without.

For a long time he stood with his hand on the wall door, unwilling to go in and unwilling to stay. If he entered and let the door swing shut, he might be trapped.

“What the hell!” he murmured. “All or nothing.”

He pushed harder as he entered, and the door moved without a sound. Although he kept his hand close to it, or tried to do so, he could not feel a displacement of air as it closed. But closed it was, with no way he knew to open it. He tried, but it did not budge.

For a moment, he thought of using his flashlight. He might be able to detect anyone moving in on him, surprise him, get in the first blow. But, if his presence was not known, he would be a fool to give it away. No, he would move about in the darkness that had always been his ally. He was the cat; other men, the mice.

Slowly, he stepped forward, pausing every three paces to listen. The silence droned. He could hear the thrum of blood in his ears and even, he thought, the beat of his heart.

Or was it his heart?

There was a thum-thum as of drumsticks wrapped in wool tapping on a faroff drum. Yet, something about the strokes felt close, close enough to be echoes from a heart close to his.

He turned slowly, trying to locate the origin of the sound. Or was it a phantom of sound? Or could it be some type of engine turning lazily over, or a piston stroking slightly out of phase with that engine inside his own breast?

Maybe, he thought, this chamber has a resonance which detects, amplifies and reprojects the noise of the slow convulsions of my heart.

No, that was absurd.

Then, by God, what was it?

The air was creeping over him, cooling him as it passed over the sweat on his face. The temperature of the room itself was neither too warm nor too cold. But he was perspiring as if in a hot place, and at the same time he was shaking as if it were cold. Moreover, he now smelled an odor such as he had never experienced before. It was the odor of ancient stone; somehow, he knew its identity.

He swore soundlessly and forced himself to stop quivering. He succeeded, but now the air itself seemed to quiver.

Was this the physical equivalent of the physical manifestations that had taken place several times before? The times when the air had seemed to harden, to shimmer as if turning into a glassy jelly? Was Mary forming again before him? In this darkness?

He glared and opened his mouth in a snarl.

I’ll kill her, he thought. Kill! There’ll be nothing left of her—nothing but bloody gobbets. I’ll destroy her so thoroughly, she’ll never come back again.

Not caring what might result from giving himself away, he took the flashlight from the pocket in his cloak. The beam thrust out across a vast expanse, and then its circle fell upon the wall at the other end. Stone with dark-red veins spiraling across a fleshy white.

He traveled the beam across the huge room. He stopped. A stone statue reared toward the ceiling. It was fully sixty meters high, a titanic woman, naked, with many swollen breasts. One hand was in the act of pulling a squawling baby from her womb. The other hand was clutched around a second infant. This one was squawking soundlessly with terror, for the woman’s mouth was open—her fanged mouth—and she was about to bite down upon the head of the infant.

Other babies were sprawled about her body. Some were mouthing her nipples. Some were falling from her breasts, caught stonily in their failure to keep hold of and get nourishment from the mountain-slope teats.

The face of the goddess Boonta was a study in split personality. One eye, fixed on the baby about to be devoured, was wild and savage. The other eye was half-lidded, calm, maternal, bent upon a baby feeding contentedly on the nearest breast. One side of the face was loving, the other vicious.

“OK,” John Carmody muttered. “I get the message. So this is the great Boonta. A stinking idol of a stinking bunch of stinking barbarians.”

His beam swept down. Clutching each leg was a stone child, each about five years old, if their proportions as compared to Boonta’s meant anything. Yess and Algul, he supposed. Both were looking up at her with expressions of hopeful fear or fearful hope.

“A lot of motherly love you’ll get out of her,” he said.”About as much as I got from my mother—the bitch!”

At least, he thought, his mother had not materialized out of the air. Too bad. He would have taken almost as much pleasure blowing her guts out as he had the materialization of Mary.

He continued to sweep the beam around. It stopped when it illuminated an altar of stone half-covered with a velvety wine-red cloth. On top of the altar, in the middle, was a massive golden candleholder. It had a round base and a thick pedestal with a golden snake coiled just below the space for the candle. The candle, however, was missing.

“I’m eating it,” a Kareenan male said.

Carmody whirled, and almost pulled the trigger of his automatic. His flashlight spotlighted the man, who was sitting on a chair. He was large and well built. His face was, by Kareenan and even by human standards, handsome.

But he was old. The blue feathery hairs on his head were white, as were the pubic hairs. He had many wrinkles on his face and neck.

The Kareenan took another bite from the half-eaten candle. His jaws moved vigorously while his blue eyes remained fixed on Carmody. The Earthman stopped when he was a few feet from him. He said, “The great god Yess, I presume?”

“I know the reference in the phrase,” the Kareenan said. “You are a cool one. To answer your question, I am Yess. But not for long.”

Carmody decided the Kareenan was no immediate threat. He continued his examination of the room by flashlight. At one end was an archway with steps leading upward. Above, projecting from the wall at a height of about forty meters, was a balcony. It was capable of holding about fifty spectators on its banked array of seats. The wall at the other end had a similar archway and balcony. That was all. The room contained only the gigantic statue of Boonta, the altar and candleholder, the chair, and the man—god? -- in it.

Yess, or a decoy?

“I am truly Yess,” the Kareenan said.

Carmody was startled.

“Can you read my mind?”

“Don’t get so panicky. No, I ca

Yess swallowed the bite. After sighing, he said, “The Sleep of my people is troubled. They are having a nightmare. Monsters are thrusting upward from the depths of their beings. Otherwise, you would not be here. Who knows what this night will see? Perhaps. . . the time for Algul to triumph? He is impatient with his long exile.” He made the circular sign. “If Mother so wills it.”

“My curiosity will be the death of me yet,” Carmody said. He laughed but cut the laugh off when the cachi

“What do you mean by that?” Yess asked.

“Not much,” Carmody replied. He was thinking that he should kill this man—god while he had the chance. If Yess’ retainers appeared, they could make it unhealthy for the man who intended to assassinate their god. On the other hand, what if this Kareenan was not Yess but only a stalking-horse or bait? It would be best to wait a while to make sure. Besides, this might be his last chance to talk with a deity.

“What is it you want?” Yess said. He bit off a small piece of the candle and began chewing.

“Can you give it to me?” Carmody said. “Not that I really care. I’m accustomed to taking what I want. Charity—in giving or in receiving—is not one of my vices.”