MASQUES OF SATAN (46 page)

‘And philosophy,’ said Dr Loring. ‘You’re forgetting philosophy, Professor Quoist.’

‘Oh, no! Okay, so you can watch Wittgenstein arguing with Russell and taking his boyfriends to cowboy movies, but so what? That does not invalidate or forestall any of the ongoing debates about meaning, about language games, empiricism, ethical systems.’

‘On the contrary,’ said the Reverend Dr Semple, who had been looking rather glum but had suddenly become animated. ‘Once you have seen everything man has done it is only a short time before you know everything man has thought, from Primitive Man to Plato and Aristotle to Wittgenstein and Frege. Then you will see that human thought does not progress, it simply goes round in a circle, and that nothing can validate one system of thought over another. Since you philosophers have banished metaphysics in favour of logic and empiricism you have also abolished the criteria by which truth can be separated from falsehood. You have no means of escaping your prison, so all you do is endlessly argue about what Kant or Schopenhauer or Hegel meant by so and so. And when you find that out, as you will, what is left? Your only way is to begin again the search for transcendence, for the things which cannot be seen by any Chronoscope, or microscope, or any other kind of scope. I mean the things of the soul. When all other kinds of knowledge are exhausted, as they will be by this device, Theology at last will come into her own.’

‘Oh, no you don’t, Reverend!’ yelled Professor Quoist. The Vice-Chancellor winced slightly at the philosopher’s vehemence. ‘Theology is the most vulnerable of them all. Shall I tell you why? Because the competing — note that, Reverend, competing! — theologies and metaphysical systems of the world owe their extremely dubious validity entirely to so-called authority, to the myths that surround their patriarchs and prophets and saints and messiahs. Once those myths are exploded by this little engine — and they will be! They will be! — once the walkings on water, and angels dictating
Koran
s, and levitating Buddhas are exposed for the garbage they are, what have you got left? Nothing. Fancy words, no proof. Not even history.’

‘Which brings me rather neatly to my second example,’ said Dr Loring in a deliberately careful and measured tone. ‘I had rather anticipated some of these lines of argument, so I prepared a second scene to show you. I am not quite sure what it may signify, but I think it will certainly inform our debate.’

When the scene was revealed to them none of the academics needed to be told, as they were by Dr Loring, that the year was 33 AD and the place a hill outside the city of Jerusalem. The point of view was again about a hundred or so feet in the air and looking downwards but obliquely at a group of men, women, and Roman soldiers gathered around three crosses on which hung three men. The face of the central figure was turned downwards and away from the viewer, but you could see quite clearly the chaplet of thorny twigs that had been jammed down on his lank, blood-streaked locks. And above him on the cross a board had been nailed on which were scrawled in white chalk some words in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. The faces of the small crowd gathered on the hill were all concentrated upon the figure on the middle cross. Heavy grey clouds massed on the horizon.

It struck the Vice-Chancellor that the angle from which he was viewing the scene was not unlike that of Dali’s
Christ of St John of the Cross
, and resembled even more the crude but powerful drawing by John of the Cross himself which had inspired it. This began a train of thought in the Vice-Chancellor’s mind.

‘We have been trying to find evidence of the resurrection,’ said Dr Loring, ‘as yet without success. Neither proof nor disproof. I’m sure we will find something soon. It’s only a matter of time.’

‘Well, at the very least,’ said Dr Semple, ‘ what we have here proves the historicity of the gospels, much disputed by people of your ilk, Professor Quoist. It’s all there, you see: the soldiers, the women, and the disciples, Jesus crucified between two criminals, the crown of thorns. Look! There! Even Pilate’s superscription nailed to the cross, and one can just read it: HIC EST IESUS REX IUDAEORUM. Gospel Truth, my dear Professor.’

‘Show me the feeding of the five thousand, the raising of Lazarus, the water into wine,’ said Professor Quoist, ‘then I might begin to concede your point. So far all I’ve seen is a man dying in a far off place and time.’

‘Dying for you and me,’ said The Reverend Dr Semple solemnly, almost as if he believed it.

‘That’s the way you see it; it’s not the way I see it, pal.’

‘Exactly!’ shouted the Vice-Chancellor. Everyone turned to look at him. The three crosses faded from the screen and the meaningless specks of coloured light returned.

‘Robert,’ said the Vice-Chancellor, addressing Dr Loring now as his nephew, not as a junior colleague. ‘I think we can resolve this issue here and now. Can you return to Knossos one more time, same date, almost exactly the same place, except if you could move the point of vision to just off the coast of Crete and facing towards Knossos.’

‘Well, I can try,’ said Dr Loring, astonished at this sudden burst of energy from his Uncle. ‘I think I can do it. It may take a little time to recalibrate the crystals.’

‘I am sure we can wait,’ said the Vice-Chancellor.

While they waited conversation was desultory, no longer heated. The Vice-Chancellor refused to be drawn into any explanation for his outburst or his peremptory command.

For the third time the sparks cleared and the screen took them hurtling towards the past. This time they were above the sea, a deep azure beneath the sapphire sky, tiny wavelets glittering in the sun. Beyond was the green and yellow ochre of the land and, in the middle distance, the plateau on which sat the Labyrinthine palace of Knossos. The sea was unfurrowed except by a middle-sized, squat sailing vessel. It was evidently a fishing boat: men could be seen hauling in nets from its stern.

‘Are you sure this is what you want, V-C?’ murmured Professor Quoist.

The Vice-Chancellor took her hand in what he hoped would be interpreted as a fatherly way. ‘Hold on, Simone! Wait! Aha! Here we go!’

From the direction of the Palace of Minos two pale objects came flying, their white pinions flashing as they flapped slowly, rhythmically. Even from a distance they looked too large for birds. As they came closer the academics could see what they were, and all except the Vice-Chancellor shook their heads in disbelief.

A man in the prime of life and a young boy, no older than sixteen were flying towards them. Attached by leather straps to their outstretched arms were great wings of white feathers. The man was flapping slowly, gracefully. Once he looked behind him and seemed to speak to the boy who was following, his flight less even and controlled. He was swooping and soaring ecstatically. Now he was close enough to the point of vision for his expression of joy and exultation to be seen.

‘What in hell is this?’ said Professor Quoist.

The Vice-Chancellor let go of her hand. ‘You are about to witness a tragedy,’ he said.

Just then the boy flapped his wings and soared upwards so that for ten seconds or so he was lost from view. The man turned again and glanced upwards, a look of alarm on his face. Then they saw the boy falling, falling at tremendous speed in a snowfall of feathers, his wings in tatters. He hit the sea with the impact of a bullet. A scintillating plume of spray shot upwards and the boy vanished beneath the waves. The last thing they saw before the vision faded was the look of anguish on the man’s face as he swooped low over the sea, looking for signs of his son.

Turning to Professor Quoist the Vice-Chancellor said: ‘Can you tell us what we have just seen, Professor?’

Quoist shook her head and smiled, an unexpectedly charming smile. ‘You go right ahead and tell us, V-C. You’re just dying to.’

‘Daedalus was a legendary inventor, and master craftsman. He came originally from Athens, I believe, but went with his son Icarus to work for the court of King Minos at Knossos where he built the Labyrinth. There came a time when he wanted to leave Crete, but King Minos would not let him; so, to escape, Daedalus built wings out of feathers held together with wax for himself and his son Icarus. Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, as it would melt his wings. They successfully flew from Knossos, but Icarus, in his exhilaration, forgot his father’s advice. Flying too close to the sun, the wax holding his wings together melted in the heat and he fell to his death, drowning in the sea. The Icarian Sea, where he fell, was named after him.’

‘Are you telling us,’ said Jack Angleton, ‘ that we have just witnessed some sort of re-enactment of a Greek Myth?’

‘It looks very like it,’ said the Vice-Chancellor. ‘I mean we can’t deny that we saw what we saw, can we?’

‘It just doesn’t make any sense,’ said Professor Quoist.

‘On the contrary, it makes perfect sense. The myth of Icarus has one of the clearest significances of all Greek Myths. It represents the dangers of aspiration——’

‘That’s not what I mean, V-C, and you know dam’ well. The whole thing stinks. It just doesn’t add up. I mean, for example, the little fishing boat, there with all the people on board. Nobody on it seems to have noticed that there’s a man in the sky with wings and all, and a dam’ boy who suddenly crashes into the sea. Jesus, what is this?’

‘Why should they be noticing it?’ said the Vice-Chancellor ‘The ship “had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on”.’

‘I’m sorry?’ said Quoist. ‘Am I missing something here?

‘Yes. Read your Auden, baby,’ said Angleton complacently.

‘Professor Quoist to you, buster! And read
our
William Carlos Williams.’

‘More importantly,’ said Dr Loring, ‘the thing is quite out of the question from an aerodynamic point of view. A human being simply cannot fly by attaching a lot of feathers to his arms with wax of all things. It is a scientific impossibility.’

‘With science it is impossible,’ said the Vice-Chancellor, ‘but with the human imagination all things are possible.’

‘What are you getting at, Uncle Allan?’ said Dr Loring, whose manner suddenly reminded the Vice-Chancellor of a time twenty or so years ago when his favourite nephew was a boy and came to ask him questions.

‘I mean that whatever we see in past, present, or future is conditioned by our human nature. That does not make it false or true. It means it contains truth and falsity, and we have to use our judgement to separate the two. You had to use organic material in your Chronoscope, because all you would have got otherwise would have been meaningless shards of light. Something was needed to shape those fragments of former luminescence, to bind them together into patterned images, into hills and seas and bodies. There is no such thing as a perception without a perceiver.’

Dr Loring frowned and said: ‘Does that mean that everything we see through the Chronoscope is purely subjective?’

‘Neither purely subjective nor purely objective, but a very human mixture of the two,’ said the Vice-Chancellor. ‘History is not the extraction of truth from legend, it is the extraction of a truer legend from an older truth. I rather think that applies to all academic disciplines, from theology to the physical sciences. This is not the End of History after all, just the beginning of a rather interesting phase.’

Sources

‘The Children of Monte Rosa’ was first published in
Dark Horizons
(No. 51, Summer 2007).

‘Mr Poo-Poo’ was first published in
At Ease with the Dead
(Ash-Tree Press, 2007).

‘The Silver Cord’ was the winner of The Arthur Machen Short Story Competition and was first published in
Faunus: The Journal of the Friends of Arthur Machen
, No. 12 (Summer 2005).

‘Mmm-Delicious’ was first published in ‘Zencore’ (
Nemonymous 7
, June 2007).

‘Blind Man’s Box’ was first published as a limited edition chapbook in the Haunted History series, Swan River Press, June 2007.