The AI appeared wearing a baseball uniform with a Cleveland Indians insignia. “Hi, boss,” he said.
“Paracelsus,” said Donnerjack, “tell me what happened.”
“Well,” said the other. “We worked something up between us, Sid and I, decided it was the best course of action, and turned it over to the proges to administer. They did, and it worked beautifully.”
“Remind me to call you the next time I’m feeling ill,” Donnerjack said. “In the meantime, when would it be best to talk with Reese?”
“Call him Monday to congratulate him, but give him three weeks before you talk of work.”
“This is a very important job.”
“You want to kill the best man for it?”
“No.”
“Then do as I say, boss. He needs the rest.”
“Done,” Donnerjack responded. “He can’t be replaced. He’s as precious as Bansa would be if he were still around.”
“I’ve heard of Bansa, the man who started the whole thing,” Paracelsus said.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Donnerjack replied. “But he came up with some novel theories as to what happened.”
“He still holds several places in our oldest pantheon,” Paracelsus said, almost defensively.
“Wouldn’t put it past him. Who is he?”
“The Piper, the Master, the One Who Waits.”
“I think I know him as the Piper.”
“You do?”
“Well… I heard him playing, saw him. What can you tell me about his other personae?”
“The Master is a geometrician who had to do with the creation of the universe. The One Who Waits will figure in the closing or change of Virtu.”
“None of my business, actually, but do you believe in these beings?”
“Yes.”
“Do many others of your sort?”
“Yes.”
“Why would an AI care to worship anything? You’re as self-sufficient as anything in the business. What do you need gods for, unless they’re truly real?”
“They are as real—more real, I believe—than many figures in other religions.”
“Well, buying that they exist, what do they do for you?”
“I guess the same sort of things that beings in other religions do for their followers.”
“It can’t be healing since you guys don’t get sick.”
“No. Spiritual comfort and understanding, I suppose. A dealing with the right feelings for those things which lie beyond reason.”
“That sounds worthwhile, I’d say. But how do you know your gods are authentic?”
“I might ask how anyone knows that about any religion. You would have to respond that most religions require a leap of faith at some point.”
“I might.”
“But I have seen the Piper and know that he is real.”
“I, too, have met the Piper—or at least heard him play.”
Paracelsus stared. Finally, “Where?” he asked.
“Through my Stage and beyond.”
“Did he tell you anything?”
“Not precisely, but an entity I met there said that the Piper was a lingering remnant of Skyga’s mental army.”
“Remarkable. I never heard that story,” Paracelsus said. “He does not usually manifest for those of the Verite.”
“It was as if he came seeking me,” said Donnerjack.
“Then you are unusually blessed.”
“Tell me, does Death figure in the pantheon?”
“Yes, but we don’t talk about him much.”
“Why not?”
“What’s to say? He’s Lord of Deep Fields. He gets you in the end.”
“True. Though right now my relationship with him is a bit different. I’m doing a Virtuelle engineering job for him in partial payment of a debt.”
“I did not know that your sort ever got involved at that level. But then, you are who you are, when it comes to reputation. However, the Piper’s presence is a riddle. I would suspect it has to do with your contract.”
“If it does,” Donnerjack said, “he did not reveal it to me.”
“If you meet him again, perhaps you should ask.”
“I will. If he’s interested, maybe the others are, too. How would I recognize the Master or the One Who Waits?”
“The Master limps and usually carries some strange piece of equipment. The One Who Waits is said to have a scar that runs from the top of his head to the sole of his left foot. It is supposed to have come of his having inadvertently gotten in the way of the Creation—though some say it was on purpose.”
“Thank you, Paracelsus. Could you get me a copy of your catechism or whatever it is that contains these items?”
“I’m afraid that’s a no-no. Since we’re all AIs we just transfer data to converts.”
“You mean that no one other than an AI has ever been interested?”
“That’s right. We generally discourage them. Normally, I would have answered a few of your questions and then started changing the subject. But you’d met the Piper and that made a difference.”
“Is there a policy against admitting the people of Verite?”
“No, no discrimination. But we always felt it was our thing.”
“Hm,” Donnerjack said. “Would you have any qualms about discussing it occasionally?”
“All but certain secret parts which aren’t really that interesting.”
“I don’t want to know your secrets. I just want to know whether I may ask you about it.”
Paracelsus nodded.
“What about the Elishite religion?” Donnerjack asked. “Is there any connection between yours and theirs?”
“Yes. We recognize their deities, but we feel that our pantheon supersedes theirs and that our moral code is superior.”
“Your Trinity is more potent than Enlil, Enki, and Ea and all the rest?”
“Some of us like to think so. Others say that they’re versions of each other under different names.”
“We have similar anthropological and theological problems in Verite.”
“1 don’t really think it matters, one way or the other, though.”
“Me neither.”
“I’ll ask you further another time how Bansa figures in your religion—”
“—and you and Jordan,” Paracelsus said.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“But I absolutely must get some work done before I’m too tired to do it.”
“I understand, boss.”
“Talk to you later, then.”
Paracelsus went out like a light.
Donnerjack moved to his desk and reviewed some designs for Death’s palace. Then he moved onto his real work.
The first full moon following Ayradyss’s initial exploration of the caverns beneath Castle Donnerjack passed without the caoineag successfully managing to take Ayradyss into the secret places. The failure was not for lack of effort—something sought to block their way, something shadowy yet solid, taloned and fanged. Ayradyss caught a glimpse of gimlet eye, forked tongue, wings that were less wings than animate darkness.
“It reminded me of the moire,” she said to her companions when they had retreated back to her parlor, where she had made herself a nest of pillows on the nig before the fire. She wrapped her fingers around a mug of hot cider to warm the fear from them. “But the moire is without malice. It just is—a warping, an indication that the end is come for a proge. This was…”
She shivered and fell silent. Although the room smelled comfortingly familiar, of spices, of the burning wood fire, of the lemon oil the robots rubbed into the antiques, she felt cast adrift. It was as when the moire had touched her in Virtu, and though John pressed her to him as closely as he could, she had become nothing.
“The three nights of the full moon are gone, Ayradyss,” the caoineag said, “and we need not return to those places when the moon comes full again. The guardian you saw cannot cross into Castle Donnerjack. It belongs to the eldritch realms. You are safe—and, believe me, though I stand to gain from your ending, I would not lead you into it. I have had my taste for betrayal burnt from me these long centuries past.”