Тим Пауэрс - Free Stories 2018

Then he followed it with the twenty-third Psalm, his favorite: “ Dominus reget me et nihil mihi deerit, In loco pascuae ibi me conlocavit super aquam refectionis educavit me, Animam meam convertit deduxit me super semitas iustitiae propter nomen suum, Nam et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis non timebo mala quoniam tu mecum es virga tua et baculus tuus ipsa me consolata sunt, Parasti in conspectu meo mensam adversus eos qui tribulant me inpinguasti in oleo caput meum et calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est, Et misericordia tua subsequitur me omnibus diebus vitae meae et ut inhabitem in domo Domini in longitudinem dierum.”

He didn’t know enough Latin to catch the nuances of the words, but he knew them by heart. The priests had taught him Latin, but perhaps they hadn’t been very well taught themselves, since the great teachers and great books of learning had been lost in the Sundering. His own teachers admitted that sometimes they didn’t understand a particular word. But he knew the Psalm spoke of God walking with him, as he’d walked with David, and setting a table for him in the presence of his enemies.

How many times had Father Avenir been safe where he shouldn’t be? How had he survived in hostile territory these many years? How, but for the grace of God?

The geyser field seemed cowed, or was that just his imagination?

He took heart and trudged forward, shouting, “I bring the way, the truth, and the light. I feel your evil presence here. I smell the lake of fire and eternal damnation, and I am not afraid.”

He felt the well-smoothed wooden sides of the cross press into his calloused palm. “Face me!” he yelled. “Or are you afraid?” His lips were cracked, and his dry throat burned from the caustic fumes. Water welled up within his stinging eyes, but it only purified his vision.

Mud pots bubbled like lava on either side of him, but he did not waver in his forward journey. He had remained steadfast in his faith all his life.

Back in St. Louis, he had argued with the numerous Protestants, defended himself for being a papist, for still obeying the Holy Father in Rome even though no one knew who the Pope might be now. He had been mocked and ridiculed, shunned, robbed, beaten, but he had survived. Each such incident was a trial that God inflicted upon his missionary, and if Avenir had to die while serving his mission, his Lord, then that would only assure his passage into heaven. Martyrdom might, in fact, be the only way a man like him could get to paradise.

A geyser erupted close to him, startling him. He saw powdery white crystals piled around the crater that looked like a maw in the ground. Scalding water rocketed up and rained down to drench him in a hot downpour. He felt the water steam in his tangled hair, soak his tattered black tunic, but he pressed on, blinking away the distraction. A new hole cracked open in the barren ground in front of him, sending gouts of foul-smelling steam. It was like a thunderstorm of smoke, sulphur, and blisteringly hot vapors.

Father Avenir stopped, seeing shadowy shapes, twisted inhuman forms, damned wretches cast into hell itself. They lurched up, barely taking shape, looming closer as if to attack him. The priest cried out, but uttered his prayers again in Latin, knowing there was power in the old words. He crossed himself, and the shadows backed away, hiding within the folds of noxious steam that wafted upward.

But the hideous figures were not avoiding the priest, not cowed by his prayers. Rather, they backed away as if in deference to make way for something far worse.

The silhouette in the steam and smoke approached, a towering muscular figure that towered several feet above Father Avenir’s head. Even so, its back was hunched, as if the thing felt beaten.

The priest didn’t flinch, but faced the approaching figure that pushed aside the obscuring veils as if impatient to be seen. A coal black, cloven hoof stepped forward, improbably balanced on the rough ground. Its brick red skin was covered with knobs and scabs. The creature had a wide, bare chest, like a blacksmith who worked on a forge of souls. A long, barbed tail lashed from the base of its spine, a terrible weapon. The demon lurched forward to show a monstrous head with black horns, evil slitted eyes, a face that should have been beautiful, but was instead a sculpture of diamond-hard fury.

“Lucifer,” Father Avenir gasped. “Fallen angel.”

The devil laughed out loud, a sound like a crack of thunder. The ground rumbled and boiled, and more geysers erupted, belching steam and smoke like a regal fanfare for the king of the damned. “If that is what you wish to call me. I have appeared in this form to comfort you.”

Avenir was aghast. “To comfort me?” He held his Bible up. “I take no comfort in seeing you, Satan.”

The thing laughed again. “You take comfort in the affirmation of your beliefs. You see this valley as Hell, and so you expect the devil himself. I am here exactly as you wished.”

“I wish you to be gone!” Avenir said. “In the name of the Lord God Almighty, I banish you from this arcane world. These lands are not yours.”

The looming Satan twitched, but that seemed to be the extent of Father Avenir’s effectiveness. The demon boomed out, “But I am these lands. I am the spirit of the mountains, the forests, the rivers. There is also much anger at what has been done to this land, and it manifests here, boiling to the surface. You can see it all around you, priest! With the coming of the comet, the magic was reinforced and released. It made all this possible.”

Lucifer stretched out his hands, showing fingertips adorned with long, black claws. “The magic here belongs to the land and the people. As does your magic, too. I feel the strength within you—Tatanka, the bull man, he who will not be moved.” The devil leaned closer, and the priest could smell his breath as foul as a long-abandoned abattoir. “You are part of me as well,” Satan said.

“No!” the priest yelled back.

“Can you not feel it? The simmering power in this land makes all things possible. The gods of the Native tribes have regained their strength, become real and tangible. None of their shamans can deny what he sees with his own eyes, and neither can you.” His long, barbed tail thrashed with impatience.

Father Avenir choked. The brimstone smell was suffocating. “You have no power over me. You are subject to God’s power, as am I.”

The devil back-handed him across the face, striking hard with scaled knuckles that felt like stones. The priest tumbled to his knees, felt blood oozing from a gash in his cheek, but he maintained his grip on the Bible. “Yes, evil is real. I have never doubted it. But that does not mean you can’t be defeated.”

He pulled himself to his feet again, remaining defiant. He wondered what the Shoshone shaman would have seen if he’d come out to this geyser. Surely Dosabite would not view the devil like this. What would other tribes have seen?

“I will drive you from this place,” Avenir vowed.

Lucifer huffed. “I am this place.”

The priest pulled out his aspergillum and without warning he hurled the holy water at Satan’s chest, as he muttered a prayer in the back of his throat to enhance the blessing. With a bright flash, the steam erupted white and pure, driving away the mists and curtains of steam from the fumaroles, geysers, and exhalations from the mud pots.

The devil roared, looked down at his chest in shock, as a great smoking hole ate its way through his chest, devoured his heart, dissolved his stubbly, brick-red body. Satan himself broke apart, shattering into thousands of small dwindling pieces, like a sheet of ice that broke apart and melted under the hot sun.

Striking down the devil seemed to settle the ground around Father Avenir. The earth ceased its rumbling, the geysers faded, the hot water droplets pattered all around him, and the mists cleared. A breeze whipped away the strongest rotten-egg stench, and he saw a widening slice of blue sky overhead.