“Don’t hold with all that stuff myself,” James Banister replies. “Freud and wotnot. Not very British, to my mind.”
Shem Shem Tsien snorts. “Quite so.”
The dowager settles a little, and beckons to one of her bearers to move the table furniture so that a floral arrangement almost entirely conceals her from her son. The Opium Khan continues.
“Heirs provoke notions of succession. Replacement. You see? One must time such things appropriately.”
“Wait until you’re older, eh?”
The Opium Khan smiles.
“You mean, until the child’s majority will approximately coincide with my incapacity?”
“Somethin’ like that. Why, didn’t you?”
“In truth, I meant that the population must grow again before I can massacre enough to demonstrate the fate of those who might seek to replace me, once the idea of an eventual succession is acknowledged.”
James Banister stares back at him.
“Bit steep,” he murmurs, after a moment.
“I cannot agree,” Shem Shem Tsien replies. “I accept that it is hard. And yet, it is godly, or god-like, do you not think?”
“Pretty heathen sort of god, Khan.”
“I wonder. Indeed, I have wondered since I was a boy. The Bible says that we are like gods, because we possess knowledge of good and evil. That is part of our sin. But it seems to me that the most salient feature of God, the most commonly experienced aspect of His existence, is His silence. His great, divine indifference to our doings and affairs. Christians will tell you that God gave us free will, Commander Banister, and in the same breath they will say that they know He exists because He speaks to them constantly in their hearts, and by means of signs.
“Well, I am not content with signs, and my heart is good for pumping fluid around my body and nothing else. The day someone speaks into it, I shall have died from loss of blood. So I propose a great project, Commander Banister. I propose to find out. I seek to be close to God.”
“That’s a noble ambition.”
“It is a unique one. I alone in the world seek to be close to God by becoming more like Him. There are a thousand holy books, and ten thousand holy men and priestesses and prophets for each word of each one of them. Nothing is revealed which can be assured. Sophistries abound and circularities pervade. Mendacity is ubiquitous. Corruption is rife. I have… cut it out… of many I have met. I have made them honest, at the end. But the only thing I have discovered, in all this time, is that we know nothing of God.”
“How do we even know there is one?”
“Indeed. And yet, I believe that there is. My only article of faith.” Shem Shem Tsien smiles a self-mocking smile, a wry quirk of the lips. “My sense of the universe, the way it interacts, the coincidences and accidents, the very neatness of evolution, persuades me of this. I behold a watch and I seek knowledge and conversation of the watchmaker. It persuades some scientists, some philosophers, some theologians. It does not persuade others. I am not concerned. It is enough for me that I believe it follows. However… the nature of this God, Commander Banister, remains opaque to me. God is obscure. Absent.”
“I know a nun says he isn’t.”
Shem Shem Tsien scowls, and claps his hands again, then gestures. The lights dim, and along one wall a drape draws back to reveal a secondary chamber. It is filled with medical paraphernalia and tiled white, and in the middle of the room hangs a man, crucified.
The Opium Khan stands, and perforce also James Banister. It appears there will be a tour.
“His body is supported,” the Opium Khan says, conversationally, as they draw closer. “I will not allow him to suffocate. And as you see, he is draped to keep him warm.” Solicitously, he lifts a soft wool blanket away to reveal the victim’s body. “The impalations were done under anaesthetic. By me, personally, Commander. I require no amanuenses. No angels.”
The crucified man moans softly as they draw near. Indeed, the rods through his hands and feet are very neat. They are also apparently made of copper. Behind his moustache, James Banister quails a little in understanding: there are scorch marks around the wounds.
Shem Shem Tsien moves around behind the man and, with a conjuror’s flourish, removes a last drape from the frame on which he hangs. A huge actinic coil sits behind the cross, dull and dark. “God, surely, should not permit this. My citadel should ring with His voice in thunder. This man was a bishop once; his church sent him here as an emissary and he chose to side with the marshy underclass against me. He raised them in a rabble and brought them to my gates. Truly, Commander, it was a remarkable day. And now here he is.” Shem Shem Tsien flicks a switch with one long finger. The coil does not light immediately. There is a buzz and a hum, during which time the man seems to wake or return from whatever refuge he has found inside his mind and realise what is about to happen. He turns imploring eyes on James Banister, and opens his mouth to speak. The coil lights, and the man arches and screams. From his hands and feet comes a smell like pork crackling. James Banister swallows bile and concentrates on the details. He suspects that if he throws up or even looks queasy, he will be murdered.
The victim is middle-aged, and was once moderately fat. Now his skin hangs like wet, grey pastry from his bones. The screaming starts long and high, then drops into an awful repetitive yapping.
“For the first month he prayed,” Shem Shem Tsien says. “Then he cursed. Now he barks. I have reduced him to the level of a beast. I strongly suspect that he worships me. In time, I will make him into clay. I will grow roses in him. Perhaps I will wait until he is dead, perhaps not. Yet God remains silent; endlessly, tediously silent. I find that frustrating.”
Shem Shem Tsien waves again, and the screaming bishop is covered again, the coil hissing and spitting as the victim’s convulsions scatter sweat across it. The sound is muffled, but not blocked, by the cloth. The Opium Khan looks briefly concerned, caught in a gaffe.
“My apologies, Commander. That was rude. Please sit. Eat. What I wished to express to you was that… many people have opinions. None have knowledge. I have no interest in more of the former, only in a full and unquestionable experience of the latter.”
“I see.”
“No. But you shall. I seek to know God by becoming more like Him. Thus I have replicated the many paths of God as recorded in our many holy books. Fratricide? Yes. I have committed fratricide, patricide… I have slain generations. I have been merciful—terribly merciful. Capriciously so. My mercy has driven men insane. I have done things so dark, countenanced monstrosities so appalling, that my cruelty has inspired fear in nations great and powerful. Even your own.
“I have drowned men in their thousands. I have extinguished species, decimated populations with disease. On that frame I stopped milord bishop’s heart. It ceased to beat—for our entire history on this Earth, Commander, the very measure of death. And I reached down and clawed him back. I returned him to his body. Because I wished it. Because it was godly.
“And never, Commander, never do I explain myself—save to you, tonight, so that you can be my prophet in the court of the English King. Do you see? God is indifferent and God is silent and God is alien. And thus I shall become. I shall rise through horror and disaster, and in doing so I shall be more and more like Him. I shall be His mirror.
“I shall have words with the Silent God, Commander. I alone, of all men, shall know God as an equal. And then, we shall see.”
Behind the drape, the former bishop barks loudly. Shem Shem Tsien frowns, and flicks his glass. The drone of the actinic coil abruptly stops. There is a gulp, and then sobbing, which rapidly fades away.