Part 1 (1/2)

G.o.d of Tarot.

Piers Anthony

Book I: The Miracle Planet Discovered

Dedicated to the Holy Order of Vision

Author's Note:

This quarter-million-word novel of Tarot is published in three segments. This is the opening portion of the larger work, establis.h.i.+ng the situation and covering the first major vision. It has its own unity, so may be read alone, though it is hoped the reader will be interested enough to peruse Books II and III also. This novel relates to the author's Cl.u.s.ter series of adventures, with a number of interconnections, but is of quite a different nature; the two projects should not be confused. An appendix defines the Animation Tarot that is the basis of this novel. The complete table of contents reflects the thirty Triumphs of that deck, from Key 0 (zero) through Key 28 (twenty-eight), which are included in the appendix. The complex nature of this novel may lead to confusion in certain places, and some scenes may be offensive to certain readers. Yet there is a rationale: It is difficult to appreciate the meaning of the heights without first experiencing the depths.

0.

Folly

In 1170 A.D., Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant of Lyons, France, suffered a religious conversion, renounced his possessions, and wandered about the countryside in voluntary poverty. This obvious folly attracted both persecutions and followers, the latter called the ”poor men of Lyons.” In 1183 Pope Lucius III excommunicated the growing sect of ”Waldenses,” who appealed to the Scriptures instead of to papal authority, repudiated the taking of oaths, and condemned capital punishment. They never made the sign of the cross, as they refused to venerate the torture device on which Christ hung, or the painful and mocking crown of thorns. Nevertheless, the Waldenses prospered in Christian lands; many thousands of them settled in the Cottian Alps on the French-Italian border. Their dauntless missionaries covered southern France, southern Germany and northern Italy. But the Inquisition followed them, and they were savagely repressed over the course of several centuries. Their ministers had to go about in disguise, and it was hazardous for them to carry any of the literature of their faith, lest it betray them into torture and death. But it was hard to make the material clear without teaching aids, for many converts were illiterate and ignorant. Out of this impa.s.se was to arise one of the most significant educational tools of the millennium.

The setting is Earth of the near future. The pressures of increasing population and dwindling natural resources have brought the human scheme to the brink of ruin. There is not enough food and energy to support all the people.

But a phenomenal technological breakthrough has occurred: matter transmission.

People can now be s.h.i.+pped instantly to habitable wilderness planets...o...b..ting distant stars. This seems to offer relief from the dilemma of mankind; now there is somewhere for all those people to go.

This leads to the most ma.s.sive exodus in the history of the species; so many people are leaving that within a decade no one will be left on Earth.

Unfortunately, matter transmission requires a tremendous amount of energy. The planet's sources of power are being ravished. This has the peculiar side effect of reversing the technological level of human culture; people are forced to revert to more primitive mechanisms. Kerosene lamps replace electric lights; wood replaces oil; horses replace cars; stone tools replace metal ones. The industrial base of the world is shrinking as the most highly trained and intelligent personnel emigrate to their dream worlds. Yet the colonization program proceeds pell-mell, as such programs and movements have always done, heedless of any warnings of collapse.

This is sheer folly. Mankind is like the beautiful dreamer of Tarot's Key 0-the Fool-walking northwest with his gaze lifted in search of great experience while his feet are about to carry him off a precipice. He will have a great experience, oh yes! What high expectations these new worlds represent! What a marvelous goal to reduce Earth's population painlessly to an appropriate level!

But what disaster is in the making, because no reasonable controls have been placed on this adventure.

Yet there are redeeming aspects. At least the Fool has dreams and n.o.ble aspirations, and perhaps the capacity to recognize and choose between good and evil. It may be better to step off the cliff, his way, than to stay at home without ambition. The folly of future Earth is a complex matter, with many very n.o.ble and frustrating elements that may after all salvage its greatest potential.

This is the story of just one of those elements, a single thread of a monstrous tapestry: Brother Paul's quest for the G.o.d of Tarot.

1.

Skill

252 A.D.: Emperor Decius was in power only a year, but in this time he cruelly persecuted the bothersome Christians. He seized one devout youth and coated his whole body with honey, then exposed him to the blazing sun and the stings of flies and hornets. Another Christian youth was given the opposite extreme: he was bound hand and foot by ropes entwined with flowers, naked upon a downy bed, in a place filled with the murmuring of water, the touch of soft breezes, the sight of sweet birds, and the aroma of flowers. Then a maiden of exceptionally fair form and feature approached him and bared her lovely flesh, kissing and caressing his body to arouse his manhood and enable her to envelop him in the ultimate worldly embrace. The youth had dedicated his love to G.o.d; to suffer this rapture with a mortal woman would have polluted him. He had no weapon with which to defend himself, yet his skill and courage proved equal to the occasion.

He bit off his own tongue and spat it in the harlot's face. By the pain of this wound he conquered the temptation of lewdness, and won for himself the crown of spiritual victory. Paul, himself sincerely Christian, witnessed these torments.

Terrified, he fled into the desert, where he remained alone in the depths of a cave for the rest of his life. He thus became the first Christian hermit, and was known as Saint Paul the Hermit.

The great blades of the windmill were turning, but the water was not pumping.

Only a trickle emerged from the pipe, and the cistern was almost empty. It was a crisis, for this was the main source of pure water for the region.

Brother Paul contemplated the situation. ”It's either a lowering of the water table or a defect in the pump,” he said.

”The water table!” Brother James exclaimed, horrified. ”We haven't pumped that much!” His concern was genuine and deeply felt; the Brothers of the Holy Order of Vision believed in conservation, and practiced it rigorously. All had taken vows of poverty, and abhorred the wasting of anything as valuable as water.

”But there has been a drought,” Brother Paul said. Indeed, the sun was blazing down at this moment, although it caused no distress to his brown skin. ”We might inadvertently have overpumped, considering this special circ.u.mstance.”

Brother James was a thin, nervous man who took things seriously. His long face worked in the throes of inchoate emotion. ”If it be G.o.d's will...”

Brother Paul noted his companion's obvious anxiety, and relented. ”Nevertheless, we shall check the pump first.”

The pump was a turning cam that transformed the rotary motion of the mill's shaft into piston motion in a rod. The rod plunged down into the well to operate the buried cylinder that forced up the water. Brother Paul brought out plumber's tools and carefully dismantled the mechanism, disconnecting the shaft from the vanes and drawing the cylinder from the depths. His little silver cross, hanging on a chain around his neck, got in his way as he leaned forward. He tucked it into his s.h.i.+rt pocket with a certain absentminded reverence.

He sniffed. ”I trust that is not h.e.l.lfire I smell,” he remarked.

”What?” Brother James was not much for humor.

Brother Paul pried open the mechanism. Smoke puffed out. ”There it is! Our wooden bearing has scorched and warped, decreasing the pump's efficiency.”

”Scorched?” Brother James asked, surprised. He seemed much relieved to verify that the problem was mechanical, the result of neither the subsidence of the water level nor the proximity of h.e.l.lfire. ”That's a water pump!”

Brother Paul smiled tolerantly. The deepening creases of his face showed that this was an expression in which he indulged often-perhaps more often than was strictly politic for a man of his calling. Yet there was a complementary network of frown-lines that betrayed the serious side of his nature; some of these even hinted at considerable pain. ”Not all of it is wet, Brother. This cylinder is sealed. In a high wind, when the shaft is turning rapidly-wind power varies as to the cube of wind velocity, as you know-the bearings can get so hot from friction that they actually begin to char.”

”We did have very good winds yesterday,” Brother James agreed. ”Brother Peter arranged to grind flour for a whole week's baking. But we never thought the mill would-”

”No fault of yours, Brother,” Brother Paul said quickly. ”It is quite natural and sensible to use the mill to best effect, and a strong wind makes all its ch.o.r.es easy. This is just one of the problems of our declining technology. I will replace the bearing-but we would be well advised to choke down on the mill during the next gale winds. Sometimes it may be better to waste a little good wind than to lose a bad bearing.” He smiled to himself as he worked, considering whether he had discovered an original maxim for life, and whether such a maxim might be worth integrating into his life's philosophy.

He fetched a suitable replacement bearing and proceeded to install it. His dark hands were strong and sure.

”You are a magician,” Brother James remarked. ”I envy you your proficiency with mechanical things.”

”I only wish the spiritual were as easy to attain,” Brother Paul replied. Now he was sweating with the pleasant effort. He was a thickset man of moderate height, with short black hair. He was inclined to chubbiness, but his muscles showed formidable delineation as he lifted the heavy unit into place.

”Wouldn't it be better to have the pump on the surface, so that it could be serviced more readily?” Brother James asked as Brother Paul struggled with the weight of the descending cylinder. Brother Paul had drawn it up without trouble, but was now occupied with easing it into its precise place.

”It would-but we would have no water,” Brother Paul explained. ”Surface pumps employ suction, which is actually the outside pressure of the atmosphere pus.h.i.+ng up the fluid. That's about fifteen pounds per square inch, and that cannot draw water up more than about twenty-eight feet, what with friction and certain other inefficiencies of the system. Our water table is thirty feet down. So we employ a pressure pump set down near the water; that type of device has no such limit.

It is more c.u.mbersome-but necessary.”

”Yes, I see that now. It is more than harnessing the windmill to the pump; it has to be done the right way.”