Тим Пауэрс - Bugs and Known Problems

Something about the shaman’s presence changed the movement in the air, and the acrid smoke from the campfire drifted about and burned Avenir’s nose and eyes. He blinked away and gestured, made the sign of the cross, and the smoke drifted off in a different direction.

The shaman grinned as if that had been a test of wills. “My name is Dosabite. You are a priest of the white men. You bring their bible from across the great water, long before the Sundering.”

“I am a priest,” Avenir admitted. “I follow the word of God, the traditions of the apostles, and the dictates of the Holy Father from Rome.” He held up his Bible, knowing that none of the Native tribes had any written language. “God’s word is preserved here forever in these pages. It is great magic.”

“So you say,” said Dosabite. “But if your God is so strong, why hasn’t he defeated the evil spirit that drains these lands, steals our warriors, and raises revenants from the dead as his minions?”

“Perhaps the fight is just beginning,” Avenir said.

“We shall see how strong your God is.” The shaman picked up the coyote head and placed it firmly on his own, tugging it down as if it were a helmet. The sharp teeth stood out across Dosabite’s face. The flaps of fur hung over his ears with pointed canine tufts of their own. The dead eyes of the coyote were like dark holes, but the priest stared at them, undaunted. The spirits of the world had no power over the eternal.

Father Avenir had been trained by other priests in St. Louis when he was just a young man. He had learned how to read and how to preach, and he had become passionately convinced in the truth of the Word. He had been born long after the comet came and after the magic shifted. He knew that many spells and folk magic worked, and that some people exhibited great powers, most prominent of whom was probably the great wizard, Benjamin Franklin.

Father Avenir had some small ability with magic himself, though he preferred not to learn spells, because learning spells was admitting there was a magic greater than God’s power, and he would not do that. Instead, he told them about Jesus, or David and Goliath, or how Jeremiah stopped the sun in the sky, or how Moses parted the Red Sea. These were stories greater than any Native myths, and they were true.

As he faced the shaman over the campfire, Father Avenir made his case, told his impassioned tales to Dosabite, who listened to them without sign of skepticism. When he was finished, the shaman reciprocated by telling of the trickster god Coyote, a powerful spirit whose works could be seen every day in the natural world, manifested in incomprehensible coincidences, unexpected problems, but also miracles.

“Only God creates miracles,” Avenir said. “The rest is just magic, which is lesser. My mother told me all those tales when I was little.”

“Only fools insist on one explanation,” retorted the shaman.

As they both ate and talked, Dosabite spoke of the tribulations of his people, how the Shoshone had been driven from place to place by the evil spirit abroad in the land, by fire demons who burned villages, of giant river serpents infesting the waters. Then he told Father Avenir of a place in the mountains to the north where the anger and evil bubbled forth from beneath the ground, where it cracked open the land of the yellow stone, where true evil could be confronted. “But go there only if your God is strong enough,” Dosabite warned.

Something about the shaman’s words intrigued Father Avenir. “I would see this for myself. My mother spoke of it, but she told me nothing of spirits dwelling there. My God is strong enough to purge them.”

“I do not doubt your stories or your God,” said Dosabite. “In these days with magic saturating the land, and the beliefs and fears of all tribes feeding it, one would be ill-advised to doubt any god.”

With a flare, sparks swirled up from the campfire, and Father Avenir reeled back as he crossed himself. The smoke drifted in front of his eyes again, and the sparks died away to a low glow of embers. He looked across at the shaman, shocked to see that the coyote skin covering Dosabite’s head had changed. The jaws were longer, settled into place. The eyes were fire with a golden glow.

He was Coyote, and the head had become part of him. The shaman’s tongue lolled out between long, sharp teeth and he made a chuffing, feral sound before he leaped up from the log and bounded away from the campfire, leaving Avenir alone and clutching his Bible.

Now, around the steamy, smoking basin, Father Avenir saw towering evergreens, rolling hills, mountain peaks. During his long trek from the village of the Snake People, following the directions Dosabite had given him, the priest had headed into the lush wilderness, far from where even the remaining bands would go.

Avenir feared the looming evil presence that supposedly was engulfing all of the uncharted lands beyond the Mississippi and the Missouri. He fought for strength within himself, knowing in his heart and soul that he himself might be the warrior to defeat that presence, and he was an inadequate warrior for such a great battle.

He’d fasted and prayed, and he sang the old hymns he’d learned in the church in St. Louis. Now, his voice echoed strong off the landscape and rang a strange susurrus from the local magic.

Let the spirits and magics hear of the king born of a virgin, who’d shed his blood for men. Let them tremble.

As he moved through the hellish landscape of curling steam and foul-smelling smoke, he could feel the power simmering within the earth, an angry strength that was fierce, independent. He slowly silenced his voice and continued forward, his right hand wrapped around the cross. The Bible was tucked snugly between his arm and his side, giving him comfort and strength. The brimstone stench swirled around his face, but he breathed deeply, showing no fear.

When the comet had exploded and sundered America from the rest of the world, that event could have swept the remnants of Eden along with it, but perhaps this land also held the gates of Hell. Hadn’t Jesus himself said they would not stand against the Church? Even if all that remained of the Church in this desolate place was Father Avenir, he had been ordained by men who were ordained by the apostles who had broken bread with Jesus. And Avenir had sanctified himself for this battle.

The hollow breathy roar of a fumarole broke open to his left, gushing fumes and hot gases, like the laughter of a monster. The priest could feel the pull of his enemy ahead, a strength that made the ground throb. Despite the surrounding tall pines in the hills, the chemical exhalations in the basin had bleached the ground, covered it in white powder, killed off many of the trees so that they stood bent and brown from the poison within the soil. Another geyser erupted, spouting hot steam and a jet of water high overhead.

Father Avenir would not be intimidated. He trudged onward, muttering the words under his breath,

He realized that mumbling was not good enough, so he sang the words, loud and defiant,