Bakrish said: “I merely follow orders here, Orne. I beg of you not to hate me, nor to hate anyone. Do not harbor hate during this test.”
“Why do those two stand in awe of me and prepared to reverence me?” Orne asked, his gaze still on the door where the acolytes had gone.
“Word of you has gone forth,” Bakrish said. “They know this test. The fabric of our universe is woven into it. Many things hang in the balance here when a potential psi focus is concerned. The possibilities are infinite.”
Orne probed for Bakrish’s motives. The priest obviously sensed the probe. He said: “I am terrified. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“Why?”
“In my ordeal, this test almost proved fatal. I had sequestered a core of hate. This place clutches at me even now.” He shivered.
Orne found the priest’s fear unsteadying.
Bakrish said: “I would deem it a favor if you would pray with me now.”
“To whom?” Orne asked.
“To any force in which we have faith,” Bakrish said. “To ourselves, to the One God, to each other. It does not matter; only it helps if we pray.”
Bakrish clasped his hands, bowed his head.
After a moment’s hesitation, Orne imitated him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Which is the better: a good friend, a good heart, a good eye, a good neighbor, a good wife, or the understanding of consequences? It is none of these. A warm and sensitive soul which knows the worth of fellowship and the price of the individual dignity—this is best.
“Why did you choose Bakrish to guide him in the ordeal?” Macrithy asked the Abbod.
They stood in the Abbod’s study, Macrithy having returned to report that Orne had passed the first test. A smell of sulfur dominated the room and it seemed oppressively hot to Macrithy, although the fire had died in the fireplace.
The Abbod bowed his head over the standing easel, spoke without turning and without observing that Macrithy had coveted this honor for himself.
“I chose Bakrish because of something he said when he was my student,” the Abbod murmured. “There are times, you know, when even a god needs a friend.”
“What’s that smell in here?” Macrithy asked. “Have you been burning something odd in the fireplace, Reverend Abbod?”
“I have tested my own soul in hellfire,” the Abbod said, knowing that his tone betrayed his dissatisfaction with Macrithy. To soften this, he added: “Pray for me, my dear friend. Pray for me.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The teacher who does not learn from his students does not teach. The student who sneers at his teacher’s true knowledge is like one who chooses unripe grapes and scorns the sweet fruit of the vine which has been allowed to ripen in its own time.
“You must sit in that chair,” Bakrish said when they had finished praying. He indicated the squat, ugly shape facing the barrier wall.
Orne looked at the chair, noted an inverted metallic bowl fitted to swing over the seat. There was prescient tension in that chair. Orne felt his heartbeats pumping pressure into this moment.
“Sometimes we go for the sake of going.” The words rang in his memory and he wondered who had said them. The great wheel was turning.
Orne crossed to the chair, sat down. In the act of sitting, he felt the sense of peril come to full surge within him. Metal bands leaped from concealed openings in the chair, pinned his arms, circled his chest and legs. He surged against them, twisting.
“Do not struggle,” Bakrish warned. “You cannot escape.”
“Why didn’t you warn me I’d be pinned here?” Orne demanded.
“I did not know. Truly. The chair is part of the psi machine and, through you, has a life of its own. Please, Orne, I beg of you as a friend: do not struggle, do not hate us. Hate magnifies your danger manyfold. It could cause you to fail.”
“Dragging you down with me?”
“Quite likely,” Bakrish said. “One cannot escape the consequences of his hate.” He glanced around the enormous room. “And I once hated in this place.” He sighed, moved behind the chair and shifted the inverted bowl until it could be lowered over Orne’s head. “Do not move suddenly or try to jerk away. The microfilament probes within this bowl will cause you great pain if you do.” Bakrish lowered the bowl.
Orne felt something touch his scalp in many places, a crawling and tickling sensation. “What is this thing?” he asked, his voice echoing oddly in his ears. And he wondered suddenly: Why am I going through with this? Why do I take their word for everything?
“This is one of the great psi machines,” Bakrish said. He adjusted something on the back of the chair. Metal clicked. “Can you see the wall in front of you?”
Orne stared straight ahead under the lip of the bowl. “Yes.”
“Observe that wall,” Bakrish said. “It can manifest your most latent urges. With this machine, you can bring about miracles. You can call forth the dead, do many wonders. You may be on the brink of a profound mystical experience.”
Orne tried to swallow in a dry throat. “If I wanted my father to appear here he would?”
“He is deceased?”
“Yes.”
“Then it could happen.”
“It would really be my father, alive… himself?”
“Yes. But let me caution you. The things you see here will not be hallucinations. If you are successful in calling forth the dead, what you call forth will be that dead person and… something more.”
The back of Orne’s right arm tingled and itched. He longed to scratch it. “What do you mean more?”
“It is a living paradox,” Bakrish said. “Any creature manifested here through your will must be invested with your psyche as well as its own. Its matter will impinge upon your matter in ways which cannot be predicted. All of your memories will be available to whatever living flesh you call forth.”
“My memories? But… "
“Hear me, Orne. This is important. In some cases, your creations may fully understand their duality. Others will reject your half of the creation out of hand. They may not have the capacity to straddle this dependence. Some of them may even lack sentience.”
Orne felt the fear driving Bakrish’s words, sensed the sincerity, and thought: He believes this.
That didn’t make all of this true, but it added a peculiar weight to the priest’s words.
“Why have I been trapped in this chair?” Orne asked.
“I am not sure. Perhaps it was important that you not run away from yourself.” Bakrish put a hand on Orne’s shoulder, pressed gently. “I must leave now, but I will pray for you. May grace and faith guide you.”
Orne heard a swishing of robes as the priest strode away. A door banged with a hollow sharpness which lost itself in the giant room. Infinite loneliness penetrated Orne.
Presently, a faint humming like a distant bee sound grew audible. The psi amplifier in Orne’s neck tugged painfully, and he felt the flare of psi forces around him. The barrier wall blinked alive, became a rich and glassy green. It began to crawl with iridescent purple lines. They squirmed and writhed like countless glowing worms trapped in a viscid green aquarium.
Orne drew in a shuddering breath. Fear hammered at him.
The crawling purple lines held a hypnotic fascination. Some appeared to waft out of the wall toward him. The shape of Diana’s face glowed momentarily among the lines. He tried to hold the image, saw it melt away.
I don’t want her here in this dangerous place, he thought.