Black Easter (16 page)
‘Back to Hell, devil! In the name of Christ our Lord!’
The ivory cross exploded like a Prince Rupert’s Drop, strewing Father Domenico’s robe with dust. He looked down at his horribly empty hands.
T
OO LATE, MAGICIAN
. E
VEN THE BEST EFFORTS OF YOUR WHITE COLLEGE ALSO HAVE FAILED – AND AS THE
H
EAVENLY
H
OSTS ALSO WILL FAIL. WE ARE ABROAD AND LOOSE, AND WILL NOT BE PUT BACK
.
The great head bent to look down upon Theron Ware.
A
ND YOU ARE MY DEARLY BELOVED SON, IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED
. I
GO TO JOIN MY BROTHERS AND LOVERS IN THE REST OF
YOUR WORK. B
UT I SHALL BE BACK FOR YOU
. I
SHALL BE BACK FOR YOU ALL
. T
HE WAR IS ALREADY OVER
.
‘Impossible!’ Father Domenico cried, though choking with the dust of the exploded crucifix. ‘It is written that in that war you will at last be conquered and chained!’
O
F COURSE, BUT WHAT DOES THAT PROVE
? E
ACH OF THE OPPOSING SIDES IN ANY WAR ALWAYS PREDICTS VICTORY. THEY CANNOT BOTH BE RIGHT
. I
T IS THE FINAL BATTLE THAT COUNTS, NOT THE PROPAGANDA
. Y
OU MADE A MISTAKE – AND AH, HOW YOU WILL PAY
!
‘One moment … please,’ Father Domenico said. ‘If you would be so kind … I see that we have failed. … Would you tell us,
where
did we fail?’
The Goat laughed, spoke three words, and vanished.
The dawn grew, red, streaked, dull, endless. From Ware’s window the sleeping town slumped down in rivers of cold lava towards the sea – but there was no sea; as Father Domenico had seen hours ago, the sea had withdrawn, and would not be back again except as a tsunami after the Corinth earthquake.
Circles of desolation spread away from the ritual circles. Inside them, the last magicians waited for the now Greatest Powers to come back for them.
It would not be long now. In all their minds and hearts echoed those last three words. World without end. End without world.
God is dead
.
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A Case Of Conscience
A Torrent Of Faces (with Norman L. Knight)
And All The Stars A Stage
Black Easter
Doctor Mirabilis
Cities in Flight
, comprising:
∼ They Shall Have Stars
∼ A Life For The Stars
∼ Earthman, Come Home
∼ A Clash Of Cymbals (The Triumph Of Time)
Fallen Star (The Frozen Year)
Jack Of Eagles
Midsummer Century
Mission To The Heart Stars
More Issues At Hand
The Day After Judgement
The Duplicated Man (with Robert A. W. Lowndes)
The Issue At Hand
The Night Shapes
The Quincunx Of Time
The Seedling Stars
The Star Dwellers
The Tale That Wags The God
The Warriors Of Day
Titan’s Daughter
Vor
Welcome To Mars!
In memoriam C. S. Lewis
James Blish (1921-75) studied microbiology at Rutgers and then served as a medical laboratory technician in the US army during
the Second World War. Among his best known books are
A Case of Conscience
, for which he won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1959, and the Cities in Flight sequence:
They Shall Have Stars
,
A Life for the Stars
,
Earthman Come Home
and
A Clash of Cymbals
(published in the US as
The Triumph of Time
). He also wrote almost a dozen books adapting episodes of the
Star Trek
television series, and the first original spin-off novel,
Spock Must Die!
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © James Blish 1968
All rights reserved.
The right of James Blish to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2011 by Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 10401 3
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.