Dead & Godless (19 page)

“For
example?”

“Take
adultery,” offered Ransom. “Sexual pleasure is a good thing, but not when it
means being unfaithful to one’s spouse, for the sanctity of marriage is
something greater.”

“You’re
saying that sin is a case of bad priorities.”

“Most
sin, yes. Acts of pure evil do happen, but humans usually need a little help to
pull that sort of thing off.”

A
place could be seen up ahead where the river divided. Mountainous thunderheads
narrowed the sky into canyons, their walls soaring gray and white with swaths
of lilac and opal blue. The two branches of the river were fast lost to the
cumulous billows.

“Miss,
if you would take us left at the fork,” Ransom said to their gondolier.

“As
you wish, sir.”

“You
can call me Ransom, and this is my friend Corwin.”

“Julia,”
she said in return.

“Tell
me Julia, have you ever felt inclined to strike my friend over the head with
that oar of yours?”

“Why
would I want to do such a thing?” she asked, her expression bemused.

“Imagine
that we rode your gondola a million more times. Might it ever occur?”

“What
is time to me?”

“Point
taken, but how about if we carried on in a most obnoxious manner?”

“Would
you want to carry on in such a manner?”

“Well,
no,” admitted Ransom.

Julia
giggled.

“You
ask amusing questions, sir.”

Their
gondola yawed gently as they turned starboard and followed the twisting river
into a deep cloud ravine. Lightning bolts leapt across the sliver of sky above
and the airy walls rumbled like the belly of a great beast, but the lower
reaches of the ravine were mostly calm, if a bit claustrophobic.

A
pair of torches marked a short dock that stood downriver.

“That
would be our destination,” said Ransom.

They
drew up beside it and the gondola glided to a stop.

“Shall
I await your return?” asked Julia as her passengers disembarked.

“That
won’t be necessary,” replied Ransom. “You have our thanks for the ride.”

With
a parting bow, the gondolier shoved off.

There
was no shore at the foot of the dock, only a daunting doorway set in the wall
of the thunderhead. Torchlight flickered darkly on its burnished bronze panels,
silhouetting scenes of daring hunts and kingly feasts.

“In a
place where no one is foolish enough to fall for lies, there can be no sin, for
behind every sin is a lie.” Ransom tensed his arms and pushed open the double doors.
“At the root of all evil is deception.”

From
Corwin’s agile memory, a Bible verse bubbled to mind.

“I
thought that the love of money was the root of all evil?”

“And
what does money represent?”

The
groaning doors swung wide to unveil a sea of glittering gold. Bountiful riches were
piled high, heaps of coins shining, speckled with sparkling gemstones. There
were diamonds and pearls, emeralds and sapphires, and rubies as large as
Corwin’s fist. Gilded crowns and elegant jewelry littered the cavernous chamber,
guarded by suits of armor that silently stood watch. It was a treasure trove
fit for a pirate king or a miserly dragon.

“Money
means different things to different people,” spoke Corwin as he entered the
room. “Power, prestige, freedom . . .”

“That’s
true in a sense, but we both know that power is not always bought, nor is
prestige. And freedom? What has money to do with freedom? Recall how you felt
in the winter of your eleventh year when you donated that collection of
childhood toys.”

It
might have started because his mother had threatened to throw his things out,
but when Corwin laid down that big cardboard box full of treasures at the
charity drive, he couldn’t help but feel relieved. They would bring joy to
someone else now, and letting go of that box lifted a burden off more than just
his shoulders.

“I
felt
lighter.”

“Treasure
can weigh a person down,” said Ransom. “The freest among you are often those
with the fewest possessions.”

“But
to be free from worrying about how to pay the bills! To be free from the
anxiety of not knowing where your next meal might come from!”

“You’re
getting closer, but what you speak of is not freedom. Slaves don’t fret over
paying the bills.”

“Then
what is it?” Corwin asked in frustration.

“Think!
What drives kings to hide behind castle walls, investors to diversify in case
the market falls, and pharaohs to be buried with their riches? What is only
sought harder the more men gain, but is always sought in vain?”

Voices
moaned from tombs and bluish spectres materialized before Corwin’s eyes. Their
transparent bodies were garbed in royal vestments, worn ragged by the passage
of eons. Some wandered the chamber while others sat atop thrones that jutted
from the spoils. Bony hands scooped up coins, but could hold them for only an
instant before the gold fell through their ghostly fingers.

“It’s
security!”

“Security,”
repeated Ransom. “An obsessive desire to control future uncertainties. Nothing
poisons man’s heart more than fear of the future, and for most of you, money is
seen as the surest guard against that fear. Thus you hoard the wealth of the
present world, when you should be seeking the treasures of the next.”

“Another
case of bad priorities,” Corwin concluded.

A
canal cut through the immense cavern, which they crossed by way of a
footbridge. Stray coins glinted under the water, the stream’s winding course
vanishing behind the bars of a sewer tunnel.

“By
the way,” said Corwin, “if we happen across a magic lamp with a genie inside, I
call dibs on the first wish.”

“What
would you wish for?”

“To
go to a heaven of
my
choosing. Personally, I’m leaning towards Pie Heaven
at the moment.”

Ransom
rubbed his stomach.

“Mmmm
. . . Pie . . .”

“Also,
if the way you describe sin is correct, then it seems to me that your god is
rather unfair about it.”

“How
so?”

“According
to you, it’s not a lack of free will, but a lack of stupidity that prevents sin
from occurring in Heaven. But whose fault is that? If mortal man is too dumb to
know what’s good for him, isn’t god to blame for making us that way?”

“You
see through a clouded lens, but it is not so clouded that you can’t tell light
from dark,” said Ransom.

“Why
not just give us perfect vision from the start?”

“You
ask why man should need faith. I think you already know the answer to that.”

Though
it pained him to admit it, Corwin found that the angel was right. A certain
phrase about heroes and pragmatists came to mind.

“Because
being pragmatic isn’t enough.”

“Faith
makes doing the right thing heroic, and Heaven is a place for heroes.”

“Even
atheist heroes?” pressed Corwin with a smirk.

“I
wouldn’t know,” Ransom glibly replied. “I’ve never met one.”

“What
about heroic Buddhists or Muslims or Hindus? Jesus claimed that no one goes to
the father except through him.”

“Indeed.
Without the Redeemer’s sacrifice, none would enter Heaven. What’s your point?”

Ransom’s
succinct response took the wind out of Corwin’s sails. He could handily recite
a hundred Bible verses word-for-word, but interpreting them was another matter.

“Okay,”
he gathered his thoughts, “but by that token, if Heaven can be earned by anyone,
what’s the use of Christianity?”

“Does
a lover ask what the use is of knowing his beloved better?” posed Ransom. “And
understand that Heaven is not ‘earned.’ A prize so extraordinary as that can
never be deserved. It comes always as a gift.”

A
gold ring caught Corwin’s eye and he stooped to pick it up. Its band was thick
and masculine, set with a square-cut amethyst and engraved with crooked runes.

“With
the way some preachers harp on about tithing, I’d assumed that you could buy
your way in,” he muttered, admiring the ring as he slipped it on his finger.

Upon
noticing the trinket, Ransom’s expression stiffened.

“It’s
a little late to warn you, but you really shouldn’t touch any of the treasure
here.”

“Why?”

A
malevolent shriek stood Corwin’s hair on end. One of the wraiths had halted
behind them, its arm raised, a knobby finger pointing, accusing.

“Thieves!”
it rasped. “Plunderers!”

“That’s
why,” said Ransom.

Spirits
animated the suits of armor, their limbs jerking mechanically into motion as
Corwin tugged at the ring.

“It’s
not coming off!”

He
stepped back and tripped over something protruding from the heaped coins and
gems. It was the arm of a golden sculpture, an eyeless effigy so lifelike that
Corwin could almost hear the tormented scream forever frozen on its lips. A
fresh look at the chamber revealed others like it, their poses bespeaking
horror and despair.

From
his place atop the uppermost throne, the high king of the wraiths thumped his
ethereal scepter.

“Give
our intruders the baptism of gold!”

A Heart-Shaped Cage

White-blue eyes
burned like hot coals beneath the visors of the possessed suits of armor. Two
were nearly upon them, advancing from either side, their plate mail clinking as
they descended the heaps of hoarded treasure. The first raised his halberd.
Swiftly, Ransom stepped inside the swing, caving the armor’s helm with a blow
and disarming it. He drove the halberd’s point through the second armor, lifted
it and brought it crashing down on the first.

“Succumb!”
shrieked the wraith beyond, unsheathing its phantom blade.

Ransom
freed the halberd and threw it, but like a sword through smoke, it only
disturbed the apparition briefly. The wraith reformed as the weapon speared a
ruined pillar behind it.

“That’s
a problem.”

Grabbing
Corwin, Ransom kicked up coins as he bolted away. Wraiths wailed and armors
clanged at their backs.

“You’re
an angel!” shouted Corwin. “Can’t you handle a few ghosts?”

“Spirits
can’t be stopped by physical force. Even severing body from soul with a
soulrender won’t help if your foe doesn’t have a body to begin with!”

“How
can they be stopped?”

“Normally
a prayer or two would do the trick, but ever since I broke my oath, the Father
has been putting my prayers on his back burner.”

“Then
warp us out of here!”

“There’s
nowhere they won’t follow so long as you’re wearing that ring.”

Corwin
pulled and twisted, but the ring wouldn’t budge.

“Got any
Vaseline in that suit of yours?” he asked as they clambered up another
glittering hill.

“Afraid
not,” replied Ransom, “but I’ve got a pair of scissors! Compared to the
‘baptism of gold,’ losing a finger might not be so bad.”

“Yeah,”
spat Corwin, “and I’ll be hailed as a hero when I return to the Shire!”

They
had just passed the hill’s crest when the ground shifted beneath them. There
was a jingling rumble as thousands of coins spilled, golden waves breaking
against a stony shore. Corwin caught his foot on a crown and half-slipped.

“Holy
Mother of–”

Ransom’s
fist rattled his skull and Corwin tumbled down the slope in a wild roll.

“What
was that for?” he complained at the bottom.

“Blasphemy,”
said Ransom. “We could use the Mediatrix on our side about now!”

The
mound was coming apart, a long shape rising out of it. A tail.

Corwin
paled.

“About
those scissors . . . I may just be starting to come around.”

Like
a wet dog, the scaly beast shook itself, flinging gems and medallions. Corwin
couldn’t see the rest of its body, but he heard a loud stomp, and then the tail
swung out over their heads, smashing through one of the cavern’s thick columns.

“Try
to keep up!” yelled Ransom.

Again
they were running. Corwin spotted a yellow glow between the hills ahead.
Another river divided the chamber, broader than the canal that they had crossed
before. It was a river not of water, but of liquid gold. An arching strip of
stone connected their side of the treasury to a cave in the chamber wall. Above
it were carved two crowned skulls, waterfalls pouring from their mouths, giving
rise to pillars of steam as they met the simmering current below.

A
booming roar shivered the walls. Dust sprinkled down from the ceiling and steam
shrouded Corwin as he dashed for the cave. He glimpsed a giant shadow rearing
over his shoulder and dove.

With
an earth-shaking crash, the cave’s entrance collapsed. Falling rubble threatened
to bury him alive, and would have if not for the flooding. Submerged in
bottle-green murkiness, he swam hard as boulders splashed and sank all around
him. At last he reached the shallows and came up beside Ransom.

Crawling
onto the shore, Corwin noticed a change.

The
ring! It came loose!

He
saw where it had slipped off beneath the water’s edge and stepped away, glad to
be rid of the blasted thing.

Twenty
tons of rock sealed the passage to the treasury. Through it came a wraith, its voice
a wretched moan, icy breath trembling the torches. It hovered before them with
a bluish saber in hand. Ages-old hatred burned in its eyes, but the wraith’s
lust for treasure was greater than its lust for blood. Swooping low, it seized
the jeweled ring, and like a mist vanquished by the sun, both wraith and ring
evaporated.

“Guess
we won’t be needing these,” said Ransom, stowing his pair of barber shop scissors.

Wet
and weary, Corwin trudged towards the rear of the cave, where a short flight of
stairs led to a second bronze doorway.

“Can
we please go to Pie Heaven now?”

“As
tempting as that sounds, I intend to see that you end up someplace even better.”

“There’s
a saying about things that sound too good to be true.”

“Oh,
but it’s more true, more real than all the splendor of the mortal world!”

“I
rather like the splendor of the mortal world!” retorted Corwin. “I like junk
food and violent movies and rock & roll and sex! A heaven without those
things doesn’t sound like a place I want to be.”

Ransom
eased one of the doors open.

“Perhaps
you would prefer a paradise like this one?”

Sweeping
balconies let in the sun, its heraldic light gleaming on marble tiles and
florid pillars so tall and slender that Corwin doubted whether they really
supported any weight. Tasseled cushions and richly embroidered rugs were strewn
with abandon. Roses were in bloom, their vines clinging to sculptures, and cool
water sluiced from fountains into wading pools.

The
palace held many sights, but none more striking than its occupants. Wearing
lacey garments of scarlet and spun gold, the voluptuous beauties of the harem
were enough to make Corwin’s lungs forget how to breathe. One of them sauntered
over, balancing a saucer of fresh fruit.

“You
know, I used to make fun of people who believed in this sort of thing,” Corwin
said to his attorney as he plucked a few choice grapes from the arrangement, “but
it’s actually kind of awesome.”

The
attendant whisked the fruit away and it took every ounce of Corwin’s willpower
to wrench his gaze from the sway of her red sarong.

“To
be sure, a paradise like this is a little crude, not to mention totally
pointless if biological reproduction is a thing of the past, but at least I can
see the appeal.”

“The
Father is a creator, not a destroyer,” said Ransom. “Nothing good in the mortal
world is undone in Heaven.”

“So
there
is
sex in Heaven?”

Fetching
a long-stemmed glass off a passing tray, Ransom sampled the fizzy vintage.

“The
question isn’t whether or not you can have sex in Heaven. The question is
whether you’ll care.”

“How
could I not?”

They
came upon a young boy with straw-colored hair at play on one of the rugs. A
mountain of sweets topped the saucer next to him. Gourmet chocolates and gooey
caramels and frosted cakes tempted the eye, a cocoa smear staining the boy’s
cheek, but presently his attention was focused on his toy truck. The shiny red
and blue semi had a gray trailer and long, chrome exhaust pipes. He made a
vroom
sound as he excitedly pushed it back and forth.

“That’s
me!” exclaimed Corwin, studying the child in amazement.

His
younger self, however, seemed totally uninterested in the two adult visitors.

“That
toy truck once meant the world to you,” spoke Ransom.

“That’s
not just some toy truck,” objected Corwin. “That’s Optimus Prime, fearless
leader of the Autobots!”

As
they watched, young Corwin detached the trailer and transformed the semi truck
into a formidable robot warrior. What had been
vrooms
became the
pew-pew
of a laser rifle.

“To a
five-year-old, toys and candy are the height of pleasure,” said Ransom, “but
when one becomes an adult, new pleasures present themselves. Given the choice
between a night of passionate sex and a Snickers bar, which would the adult
Corwin choose?”

“Well
I do like Snickers.”

Ransom
cast his client a withering glance.

“Maybe
not
that
much,” blurted Corwin.

“In
the journey from childhood to adulthood, man’s desires evolve. How much more
will they evolve when you come into the fullness of the next life? Once you’ve
tasted the pleasures of Heaven, I highly doubt that the act of wedging your
bodies together like sweaty Tetris blocks will still hold the same allure.”

The
analogy made sense enough to Corwin, but there was something about it that rang
hollow. Christianity didn’t paint a pretty picture of Heaven, because it didn’t
paint any picture at all.

“If Heaven
is really so great, why all the secrecy? Christians are more than happy to talk
about Hell, but on the subject of Heaven ‘eye has not seen, ear has not heard’
and so on. One might think that hope takes a back seat to fear.”

“Explaining
Heaven to mortals is like explaining color to a man born blind,” replied
Ransom. “It’s like explaining the world to an unborn child that knows only the
womb! Hell is a simpler thing, for it is less than Earth, but Heaven is more.”

“Can
nothing be said of it then?”

“I
didn’t say that.”

They
roamed out onto the rearmost balcony and Corwin had to double-check the view.
Sure enough, sunlight still poured through the other porticos, but this last
one inexplicably looked out upon a starry night. He could see that their palace
resided atop a mountain that rose high above the moonlit clouds. What’s more,
it wasn’t the only one. Other palaces crowned the far-off peaks, their lofty
towers capped with golden, onion-shaped domes.

Leaning
against the banister, Ransom stared up at the stars.

“The
Father is infinite. Our finite minds will never fully grasp him, not even in Heaven.
But in our smallness is our joy, for to learn of the Father—to discover his
ways and the glorious works of his hands—is an adventure without end.”

He
turned to Corwin.

“You
said once that you dreamed of being captain of the starship
Enterprise
.
In a way, your dream wasn’t too far off the mark. Heaven, you see, is
infinite
discovery.”

For a
time Corwin said nothing. The thrill of scientific discovery was a joy that he had
always associated with atheism, but what if that very same joy was another
clue, another foretaste of the divine?

“And
that’s only the beginning,” continued Ransom. “Just as your mind has an endless
appetite for discovery, so too does your heart have an endless appetite for
love. God alone can sate it.”

“But
how can love be perfectly satisfied in a heaven that only some people go to?” The
thought had been percolating in Corwin’s head, and now it came fiercely to a
boil. “Can a mother be blissfully happy, knowing that her children are burning
in a lake of fire? Could I be at peace if I knew that my father was being tortured
eternally?”

“Her
children?
Your
father? Listen to yourself!” snapped Ransom. “That sort of childish passion is
not love. It is a selfish desire that seeks to possess the other like a piece
of property!”

“What
could be more selfish than enjoying yourself in Heaven without a care for those
who didn’t make god’s cut?” Corwin fired back.

Their
argument was interrupted by the singsong tune of boyish laughter. Young Corwin
bounded past and disappeared through a curtain of hanging beads into an oval
chamber, a room within the room. Ransom started after him and his client followed,
the beads jingling as they pushed through the doorway.

Plopping
himself down onto a cushion, young Corwin gleefully admired his peculiar
gallery. An array of nine-foot-tall crystal shards stood clustered around him,
and frozen inside each was a person. Like frosted glass, the foggy tint of the
crystals masked the features of those trapped within, but Corwin knew them at
once.

“Mary!”
he gasped, rushing to the nearest. His eyes then panned to its neighbors. “Father!
Aunt Rose!”

His
family and dearest friends were all there, imprisoned in the crystal cages of
his heart.

“Here
you keep them safe from harm,” said Ransom. “Your own private collection of
souls!”

“That’s
not fair!” fumed Corwin. “My love isn’t really like that!”

The
angel regarded him with sympathy, but not softness.

“Even
in your best thoughts there are shades of darkness. Such are the consequences
of the Fall. You recognize that to love is to wish the best for someone, but
you must know that love is more than that. It is also respect for the other
as
other. In true love, there is a kind of letting go.”