Faith of Tarot by Piers Anthony

  "And now you Christians are eager to stone your own kind, calling them heretics when they protest the manifest corruption in your ranks."

  "The Holy Office does not stone Christians," Brother Thomas said stiffly.

  "No. The Holy Office merely strings dissenters up by the thumbs like so many carcasses of venison with a scribe meticulously recording every scream. How your Jesus must appreciate those screams!"

  This was getting dirty. The Dominican blanched. Brother Paul knew Lee was remembering his role of Jesus in the other Animation and his own objection to the very evil Therion now pointed out. Oh, telling thrust!

  This also suggested why a Jew might help a Christian heretic. The Jews had known centuries of persecution at the hands of righteous Christians, many of whom were hypocrites with little inkling of the original precepts of their religion. Now the Waldenses, like other sects before them, were advocating a return to those original precepts—and were suffering similar persecution. Therion, as a member of another persecuted sect, could play this role with gusto. For who had been more vilified by Christianity than the Horned God?

  Brother Thomas had recovered somewhat. Lee, as a Mormon, also knew the meaning of persecution. The Mormons had had to migrate more than once from hostile country to preserve their freedom of worship only to have that country, in the form of the expanding United States of America, annex their new territory and outlaw their style of marriage. Yet he had a role to play here, and he would play it well. "The Holy Office takes no joy in suffering. But it is not always easy to salvage the immortal soul of a hardened heretic. Surely the momentary discomfort he may feel during interrogation is an infinitesimal price to pay for his release from the eternal fires of Hell. The boil must be lanced, though it hurt for an instant, lest it poison the whole."

  That was a good statement, Brother Paul thought. Lee was coming through well in this very difficult role.

  But the Jew was pressing for the kill. It was The Dozens, again. "I think Hell might well be a better place to spend eternity than among hypocrites."

  "No, the hypocrites are relegated to the infernal regions," Brother Thomas said evenly. "There they suffer the eternal torment they so richly deserve."

  Abraham affected surprise. "With no reprieve?"

  "With no reprieve. They had their chance in life."

  "No rehabilitation?"

  "No rehabilitation after death."

  "Not even if the hypocrite sincerely repents his hypocrisy?"

  "No, once he is damned, he is damned forever."

  "Is this what your Jesus Christ said? That there be no forgiveness when the prodigal son returned?"

  "Forgiveness in life," the Dominican said grimly. "There must be a point of no return," and that point is at the terminus of life. At death the decision is final. This is the reason we labor so diligently to save a person's soul in time by whatever means we possess. We do not wish any immortal soul to suffer indefinitely." He glanced piercingly at Abraham. "There may still be time even for you, Jew."

  Abraham laughed. "I do not fear Satan! I'd prefer to live as Jacob did, money-grubbing and lusty, cheating and being cheated—and human throughout. When the time comes, I will wrestle with God as he did, and we shall see what we shall see. Yahveh will understand."

  This was Therion's interpretation, Brother Paul thought. He doubted a genuine Jew would have put it that way. Therion, like Lee, was limited by his own religious background. Thus God was cast in a Satanic mold.

  But strait-laced Lee could not accept such a statement and neither could the Dominican Friar. "God accepts no money-grubbers, no cheaters, no lust! You blaspheme!"

  "God seems to accept the Holy Office," Abraham remarked.

  But Brother Thomas was too worked up to grasp the full nature of that insult. "No culture could justify such things. They are abominations before God!" This too matched what Brother Paul knew of Mormon tenets; the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden was sexual intercourse. But because God had commanded man to be fruitful and multiply, Adam and Eve had chosen the lesser of evils and indulged in the fruit of sex. This really was not too different from medieval Church doctrine to Brother Paul's mind.

  The problem was that Lee was far better versed in The Book of Mormon than in the Bible. A number of names overlapped, but they stood for different people. The Jacob of the Mormons was not the Jacob of the Jews.

  "Your God accepted a man who sent his own firstborn son out into the wilderness with his mother!" Abraham said. "Abraham's firstborn was Ishmael—and he cast him out in favor of his second son Isaac. From Isaac and his cheating second-born son Jacob are the Jews descended, and from them came the Jew called Jesus, whom you—"

  He broke off, for Brother Thomas was staring at him. Oops—the Baal-worshiper Therion had allowed his personal feelings to carry him away, forgetting that in this part he was the Jew. As Therion, it was natural that he resent the exclusion of his philosophic ancestor Ishmael—but as the Jew, he had fluffed his part.

  That fluff could give the advantage to the Dominican—and undermine Brother Paul's own position. His own role was at stake; Abraham knew his Waldens association and Brother Thomas suspected it. Discovery or betrayal would probably finish him. Would Therion sell him out to protect himself? Therion certainly would! He had to step in.

  "There may be misunderstanding," Brother Paul said carefully. "Abraham was the father, according to the Bible, of Ishmael by his wife's maid Hagar. Abraham's wife Sarah was barren, so she gave him her Egyptian maid for the purpose of siring an heir. This was standard practice in those days, for to the nomads children were vitally important. The custom seems to derive from the Hurrians. Plural marriages were permitted, and no blame attaches to Abraham for this. He would have been remiss had he not taken steps to provide offspring, to continue the tribe."

  The Friar might have objected—but the player Lee, sensitive about the furor over the former Mormon practice of polygamy, could not bring himself to do it. The Jew was happy to have his namesake Abraham defended, and the player Abraham eager to have his fluff covered. So Brother Paul had the floor—for now.

  "The problem came because, though Ishmael was the first son, Isaac was the legitimate son. God made Sarah fertile at the age of ninety, and Abraham was a hundred when Isaac was born. So it was a remarkable circumstance, unanticipated. There was fierce rivalry between the two women, and in the end the only way Abraham could settle it was by sending away Hagar and Ishmael. But Yahveh looked after them, and their descendents became the Arabs—actually more numerous and prosperous than the descendents of Isaac, the Jews. So it was a difficult situation, and an unkind compromise had to be made, but I don't think blame should attach to either the Arabs or the Jews for that."

  "Attach the blame to the Hurrians," Abraham said, relieved.

  Brother Thomas was not so eager to let it go. "Yet I believe the Jew said something about Jacob, cheating and lusting and fighting with God? This sounds heretical to me."

  Meaning that if Brother Paul tried to defend such actions by Jacob, instead of denying them, he might be accused of heresy himself-the very thing he was trying to avoid. Once the Inquisition put him to the torture on this pretext, the torturers would quickly extract from him the rest of his information. Therion, obviously unsympathetic to the children of Isaac despite his present role, was ill-equipped to reverse himself there. So it was Brother Paul's problem again. Had this been engineered by Satan? Regardless, it was hellish.

  "Those were hard times," Brother Paul said carefully. He felt as if he were treading a thin sheet of ice covering the rumbling maw of a volcano. One misstep, a single mischance—doom. Satan charged a high price for the wish He granted! "Abraham had many problems and very difficult decisions. His son Isaac had his own problems; it was all he could do to protect his pretty wife Rebekah from the attentions of other tribesmen. Isaac's twin sons Esau and Jacob were rivals for his favor; Isaac tended to favor the strong hunter Esau, while Rebekah liked the more moderate Jacob. So th
ere was a very human dissension in that family too. It might be taken as an analogy to the contrasting pulls of the rugged country life of the nomads, and the more comfortable, settled life of city peoples." And there was his own crisis: country vs. city! "In which direction would this tribe go? Thus the strife was subtle but intense. Jacob, as boys will, made a deal with Esau to obtain his brother's birthright and followed it up by tricking their father Isaac into granting his blessing to Jacob. This was a form of cheating. But the point is, the men of Biblical times were human with human stresses and failings, and they did make errors of judgment and passion. They were a great trial to Yahveh."

  "Yes," Abraham agreed, and Brother Thomas nodded. So far, so good. But he wasn't out of trouble yet.

  "Jacob was cheated in his turn, perhaps in retribution," Brother Paul continued. His hands were sweating; surreptitiously he wiped them on the blanket. "When he worked for seven years to marry the fair Rachel, he discovered after the consummation that her father had substituted her older sister Leah. Now he had to work another seven years for Rachel. He was actually allowed to marry Rachel within a week, however, so he did not have to wait; he had two wives while he worked off the debt. And perhaps the hand of God was in this too, for as it turned out, Rachel was barren. So it was Leah who provided him with a number of fine sons. Then Rachel, to preserve her status, gave him her maid for procreative purposes in order to have at least a surrogate son. So Leah gave him her pretty maid for another son, and—well, you could call this lust, but I don't think that's quite fair. All of it was for the purpose of increasing the size of the tribe, and since underpopulation was the main problem of that day—"

  Brother Thomas the Dominican Friar spread his hands. "Brother, I thought you were practicing deceit, but you evidently have a fine knowledge of the Bible."

  "It was Jacob who practiced deceit," Brother Paul agreed, weak with relief. "And his father-in-law. Each had his motives—"

  "In fact, your knowledge of the Bible is so specific that I suspect you must have been reading it yourself."

  Oh, no! Now Brother Paul remembered: in medieval times the Church frowned on common reading of the Bible. It was deemed too important to be left to the run-of-the-mill believer, and instead had to be read and interpreted by the hierarchy. He had marched into another trap.

  "In my country, the study of the Bible reaches further toward the layman than it does here." he Said. Understatement of the mission! "And as a traveling minstrel I am accustomed to remembering stories. It is easy to remember the greatest story ever told." Would that pass?

  "I must accept your credits as a Christian scholar," Brother Thomas continued. "I apologize for questioning you during your infirmity."

  Victory! Brother Paul had so phrased his commentary as to defend the Mormons along with the Biblical Jews, and this had paid off. Multiple wives, for a good cause...

  "Ah, but this matter of wrestling with God—" Abraham said, unable to resist the gibe.

  Brother Paul saw disaster looming again. If Brother Thomas resumed the fray—

  "We all wrestle with God at times," the Dominican said. "We call it conscience. The human flesh is weak, while God is strong; we must listen to God always."

  "Yes," Brother Paul agreed, relaxing again. So the dogs really had been called off!

  Brother Thomas faced the door. "I apologize again for the intrusion. Farewell." He crossed himself.

  "Farewell," Brother Paul echoed, making the sign of the cross with his own hand. A true barba would never have done that.

  It was a mistake. His hand knocked the table at his bedside, and the Tarot deck fell to the floor. It landed face up with a sound like thunder, the cards splaying apart.

  Brother Thomas whirled and stepped back in and stooped with dismaying alacrity. "What is this?" he inquired, picking up the cards.

  "A tool of the Juggler's trade," Abraham said quickly. "He performs magic tricks with them for the entertainment of peasants."

  "Magic is heresy," the Dominican said with an abrupt return of grimness.

  "Stage magic," Brother Paul said. Why had this had to happen now? The worst possible break! Satan's work, of course. "Sleight of hand. I can demonstrate."

  But the Friar was looking through the cards. "Many of these seem to be conventional images such as are used by riff-raff for gaming. But some are more complicated representations." He held up the card for Deception with its sinister Lunar theme. "What is the meaning of this?"

  "That seems to be an astrological motif," Abraham said quickly. "I have made some considerable study of astrology and other types of magic—" He smiled at the Dominican's expression. "Do not look so shocked, Friar! Magic is not forbidden to us Jews! In fact we often have need of it to hold our own in this Christian country."

  Brother Paul knew what he meant. The Jews had some of the most authoritative magic in the form of the Qabala, Cabala, Kabbalah or however it was transcribed. They had guarded that knowledge so well that it was unknown to the Christians of this period. Thus the Qabala had no connection with the Tarot although later "experts" had done their best to merge the two.

  "This is astrology?" Brother Thomas inquired dubiously. Astrology, if Brother Paul remembered correctly, was regarded as more of a science than magic in medieval times. Thus it was not heretical by Church definitions; indeed, some Church scholars were astrologers. "Where is the horoscope?"

  "The entire deck would be the horoscope," Abraham explained glibly. "The symbols would not be arranged on charts, but on individual cards, and the fall of the cards must determine the reading. This is obviously the planet of the Moon."

  Again, the Dominican's piercing glance stabbed Brother Paul. "Brother, do you practice divination for your audience?"

  "No," Brother Paul answered honestly. "What these pictures evoke is in the mind of the beholders. If you see an astrological symbol in an ordinary Lunar landscape, and wish to pay me a coin for that encouragement, you are a fool and I am richer by that coin."

  Brother Thomas hesitated, then smiled. "There are many fools in this world." he said. He turned again, setting down the cards. "Methinks you are not above preying on foolishness on occasion, Brother, when you are hungry. And the biggest fool of all is the Jew who believes in magic." He crossed himself again and marched out.

  "The hypocrite!" Abraham muttered. "His whole Church is built on magic! The reason they burn heretics is that those people practice magic that is outside Church control. They can't tolerate competition! Jesus Christ was a magician; he made water into wine, and a few crumbs of bread sufficient to feed a multitude. I seek magic openly—and someday I shall find it!"

  Brother Paul found he agreed with him. "There is a lot of hypocrisy in religion. But why have you helped me, knowing that I practice no genuine magic?"

  "Well, I didn't know that," Abraham said candidly. "I was sure that most of your tricks were innocuous. But I have heard of the Waldenses and their cards, and I suspected there could be magic in it. So—" He broke off, his face twisting into alarm. "The Friar crossed himself. Twice."

  "Friars do," Brother Paul agreed.

  "When there is a challenge or a threat, they do. But Brother Thomas was departing. Why should he cross himself before leaving the presence of a Jew?"

  Brother Paul was getting tired and wanted to sleep again. "Maybe he was warding off heresy."

  Abraham shook his head in grim affirmation. "He crossed himself because he believed he had confirmation of the presence of evil. By his twisted definition, I am a known evil, but you—"

  "If he really suspects me, why didn't he just take me in when he had the chance? I am weak from my illness; I could not have offered much resistance."

  Abraham paced the floor nervously. "That is what I would like to know. I would not have dared to interfere, had he declared you heretic; any little pretext will do for a new pogrom! Soft-heartedness can only go so far! I would have had to renounce you, and he knew it. So why should he practice such deception? He surely has great
mischief in mind."

  The more Brother Paul considered that, the more concerned he became. Suppose the Dominican had decided he had a live heretic on the line—and thought he might reel in more heretics with a little cunning patience? He might indeed pretend to be satisfied so as to reassure the quarry—then watch that suspect. "I fear I must be on my way," Brother Paul said regretfully. Rest seemed wonderful, but not if a conspiracy was building against him and the Waldenses. He had to lose himself quickly.

  "I think our minds are moving in similar channels," Abraham said. "The Dominican is unconvinced—rather, he is convinced! He smells heresy! I saw his eyes glint when he saw your Tarot. He has seen such cards before, I'll warrant, or heard them described! I believe he has returned to consult the other demons of his Order, and if they don't arrest you they will spy on you, trying to discover your contacts and methods of identification so that they can burn many heretics instead of one. I believe you should escape this city in haste. I shall have to denounce you as soon as you are gone to save my own skin. Are you able to travel?"

  "I'm not sure," Brother Paul said. "Your attentions have helped, but the black plague is nothing to fool with; I remain weak."

  "No doubt the Friar is certain you can not move about today, therefore is not casting his net quite yet. But tomorrow—" He paused, grimacing. "It will have to be risked," he decided. "I am a Jew; my situation is precarious. I have money, so they deal with me carefully, but it is not wise to push them too far. I will give you directions how to escape, but I cannot provide any material assistance. It must seem that you fled while I was preparing to turn you in."

  Brother Paul agreed. He had to move on today, now—for the Jew's sake, his own, and the Waldenses'.

  "What was that other name the missionary gave you?" Abraham asked suddenly.

  "Name? Oh—Abra-Melim, the Mage of Egypt."

  "Abra-Melim, the Mage of Egypt," the Jew memorizing it. "They have outstanding lore in Egypt. This may be the magician I am looking for. Surely the Waldenses believe the Mage has what I seek."