"But the aspect of choice, of temptation, two roads-"

The figure was unrelenting. "This is in all simplicity the card of human love, here exhibited as part of the way, the truth, and the life. It replaces the old card of marriage, and the later follies that depicted man between vice and virtue. In a very high sense, the card is a mystery of the covenant and Sabbath."

"But-"

"The old meanings fall to pieces of necessity with the old pictures. Some of them were of the order of commonplace, and others were false in symbolism."

Brother Paul had always had a great deal of respect for Waite, but this arrogance reminded him uncomfortably of the Animated Hierophant. The Lady of Light had been complex but reasonable; Waite seemed only complex. Still, he was a leading Tarot figure. Brother Paul tried again. "According to the Brotherhood of Light, the Hebrew letter a.s.signed to this card is Vau, rather than-"

"That would be the handiwork of Eliphaz Levi. I do not think that there was ever an instance of a writer with greater gifts, after their particular kind, who put them to such indifferent uses. He insisted on placing the Fool toward the end of the Major Arcana, thereby misaligning the entire sequence of Hebrew letters.

Indeed, the t.i.tle of Fool befits him! There was never a mouth declaring such great things-"

"Uh, yes. But astrologically, Venus does seem to match the card of Love."

"Nonsense. The applicable letter is Zain, the Sword. A sword cleaves apart, as Eve was brought from the rib of Adam, flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone.

Zain, following the Vau of the Hierophant: the nail that joins things together.

Astrologically, Gemini naturally applies. The sign of the twins, of duality, male and female. There is no question."

Brother Paul sighed inwardly. He had agreed with Waite's a.n.a.lysis before he had encountered that of the Light Tarot; now both conflicting views seemed reasonable. He was in no position to debate symbolism with these experts, and that was not his present purpose anyway. Why was such a seemingly simple project becoming so complex? To choose a single expert from among six, some of whom had already been eliminated because of language or age. Too bad he couldn't evoke both Light and Waite together, and let them thrash it out themselves.

Why not? It might be worth a try.

No, they would merely argue interminably, and this was really his own decision to make.

"I do have one more card to consider," Brother Paul said, conscious of the numerical symbolism: six variants of Key Six.

Waite faded out with a grimace of resignation. He obviously felt that the mere consideration of alternative decks was frivolous. He was replaced by a portly, unhandsome man, bold and bald, whose aspect was nevertheless commanding. "I am the Master Therion, the Beast 666," he proclaimed. "I overheard your previous interview. Isn't old Arthwaite an a.s.s? It's a wonder anyone can stomach him!"

Brother Paul was taken aback once again. These Animation figures were showing a good deal more individuality than he had expected. "Arthur Waite is a scholar.

He-" He paused. "What did you call yourself?"

"The Beast 666. The living devil. The wickedest man on Earth. Is it not immediately apparent?"

"Uh, no. I-"

"Call me Master Therion, then, as you will. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law; love under will."

Brother Paul was impressed again. "Love is the law. What an excellent thought for this Key of Love!"

Therion smiled approvingly. "Indeed. Did you notice old Arthwaite's slip about Adam and Eve? He actually believes the h.o.a.ry tale about Adam's rib. Rib, h.e.l.l!

Eve was formed from the foreskin excised from Adam's pristine p.e.n.i.s when he was circ.u.mcised. Look it up in the Babylonian Talmud, from which so much of the Old Testament was pirated. And expurgated. A neat little b.l.o.o.d.y ring of skin, the original symbol of the female. G.o.d formed it into a living, breathing tube of flesh typified by circles, from the two globes perched ludicrously on her chest to the very manner in which her elliptical mind works. She was fas.h.i.+oned for one purpose only, and that was to embrace again that member from which she was so blithely cut, making it whole once more. Any man who permits her to distract his attention for any other purpose is a fool."

Brother Paul appraised Therion. It had been a long time since he had heard so concentrated and unprovoked a denunciation of woman. "You really are a beast!"

"Correct!" Therion agreed, pleased.

"I think I'd better have a look at your card."

"Do what thou wilt!" Therion gestured, and the scene formed.

It was-different. It was filled with figures, yet not crowded. A man and a woman stood centrally, each in royal robes. They stood facing a huge, headless figure whose great, dark arms stretched forward in benediction, ma.s.sive sleeves accordion-pleated like those of an old-fas.h.i.+oned robot or s.p.a.ce suit. Where the head should be, the winged Cupid flew instead, an arrow notched to his bow. A naked man and woman stood in the upper corners, two children stood in the foreground, and there were also a lion, a bird, and snake. Eleven living ent.i.ties in all-yet they were integrated so harmoniously that it all seemed normal. The whole effect was absolutely beautiful.

Still, it was not art he sought, but good advice. "Two prior versions of this card differ in certain details," Brother Paul began cautiously.

"Arthwaite is ludicrous, but in the matter of the Hebrew equivalence he is more or less correct," Therion said. "Even a stopped clock is right on occasion! This card is The Lovers, matching with Zain the Sword, and Gemini astrologically."

"More or less correct?" Brother Paul repeated questioningly.

"He transposed the cards for Adjustment and l.u.s.t. That cannot be justified rationally."

Brother Paul was perplexed. "Adjustment? l.u.s.t? These are not symbols of the Tarot."

"Formerly known as Temperance and Strength," Therion explained. "Arthwaite simply switched them on his own initiative, exactly as he garbled their symbolism. He denied the Egyptian origin of the Tarot."

"You say it is Egyptian?"

"Absolutely. I call it the Book of Thoth. Of course others have arrived at more speculative derivations. The phrase Ohev Tzarot is Hebrew for a 'lover of trouble.' That seems to relate in several ways, but I regard it as coincidence.

After all, if we start spelling the word with a 'Z', we could derive it from Tzar, or use 'Cz' for Czar, deriving it from the Roman emperor Caesar. Thus 'Czarot' could be taken to mean a device of supreme power, dominating an occult empire. That convolution of logic is almost worthy of Arthwaite! But the actual origin of the Tarot is quite irrelevant, even if it were certain. It must stand or fall as a system on its own merits. It is beyond doubt a deliberate attempt to represent, in pictorial form, the doctrines of the Qabalah."

"The Kabala?"

"Qabalah."

"Let's return to Key Six."

"Very well. Atu Six is, together with its twin Atu Fourteen, Art, the most obscure and difficult of the-"

"Please," Brother Paul interrupted. "I need a fairly simple a.n.a.lysis." He wondered whether he would receive another rebuke.

But the Master Therion smiled tolerantly. "Of course. I will start at the beginning. There is an a.s.syrian legend of Eve and the Serpent: Cain was the child of Eve and the Serpent of Wisdom, not of Adam. It was necessary that he shed his brother's blood, so that G.o.d would hear the children of Eve."

"This cannot be!" Brother Paul cried in horror. "The son of the Serpent!"

Therion glanced at him, frowning. "I took you for a seeker after truth."

"I-" Brother Paul was stung, but did not care to be the target of obscenity or blasphemy.

"Surely you realize it was not general knowledge that Adam and Eve were denied, but carnal knowledge. The Serpent is the original phallic symbol."

"I do want to be objective," Brother Paul said. "But can you give me a more specific summary of the meaning of the card? For example, do you feel it represents Choice?"

"It represents the creation of the world. a.n.a.lysis. Synthesis. The small figures behind the shrouded Hermit are Eve and Adam's first wife, Lilith."

Brother Paul realized that he was getting nowhere. However fascinating the symbolism might be, it was not helping him to make his decision. Probably the Light card was best, and therefore the pretty woman should be his guide. "I'm afraid I-"

"Do what thou wilt," Therion said. To do what he really willed, Brother Paul realized, now required the presence of the woman. He believed he could justify choosing her on the basis of what he had seen in these sample cards, and by the att.i.tudes of their presenters. Waite had been too arrogant and inflexible, while Therion was-well, a bit of a beast...

Then he noticed something else about the central figures of the scene. The female was very like the girl of the wheatfield, and the man was black. Not demon-black, but Negro-black. This was an interracial union!

Brother Paul himself was only about one-eighth black, but that eighth loomed with disproportionate importance in his home world. Suddenly he identified.

He stepped into Therion's picture, his choice made.

It was a mistake.

7.

Precession

Those who read the standard editions of the Bible may wonder why there is a gap of two or three hundred years in the record between the Old and New Testaments.

Did the old scholars, historians, philosophers, and prophets simply stop creating for a time? As it turns out, this was not the case. Material was recorded, and was known to the scholars of Jesus's time, and perhaps to Jesus himself, but it was not incorporated into the Bible. In the succeeding millennia, much of it was buried in old libraries and largely ignored. Then, in 1947, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls transformed the picture, for these doc.u.ments, dating from the time of Jesus, contained much of this same material, authenticating it. Now the story of the lost years could be unraveled: After Alexander the Great conquered the world, many Jews were scattered from Israel to all the countries of the Mediterranean. This was the Diaspora-not the first or the last Jewish dispersion, for a number of conquerors used this method to deal with these intractable people-significant because it happened to make a cutoff date of about 300 B.C. for the a.s.sorted books of the Bible. Many displaced Jews now spoke Greek rather than Hebrew, and there were actually more Jews in Alexandria than in Jerusalem. But only narrowly defined Hebrew-language texts were accepted for the Bible as it now stands. Thus much material was excluded by both Jews and Christians, although it was generally recognized to be parallel to the included books. The complete a.s.sembly consists of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, fourteen books of the Apocrypha (meaning "hidden"), about eighteen books of the Pseudepigrapha ("false writings"), and twenty-seven books of the New Testament. That makes the record continuous.

The chariot raced across the plain. Brother Paul grabbed for support, but found his hands enc.u.mbered by the monstrous cup he was carrying. There were no reins.

He braced his legs against the metallic supports of the chariot's canopy, and discovered that he was in armor. His helmet visor was open and his gauntlets were flexible; it was a good outfit For combat The chariot was solid and well made; there was no danger of its falling apart, despite the pounding of its velocity. The horses- Horses? No, these were four incredible monsters in harness! One had the head of a bull, another that of an eagle, a third that of a man, and the fourth that of a lion. The four symbols of the elements! Yet the bodies did not match. The man-head had eagle's talons; the lion-head had eagle's wings, woman's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and bull's feet. All the components of the sphinx, yet none of these was the sphinx.

"What am I doing here?" Brother Paul cried out in confusion.

The man-head turned to him, and framed by its Egyptian headdress was the face of Therion. "You are the Charioteer!" the monster cried. "I am guiding you through the Tarot, as you requested."

"But I didn't mean-" Brother Paul broke off. What had he meant? He had asked for guidance, and the Chariot was the next card, Key Seven. The symbol of victory, or of the Wheels of Ezekiel, drawn by two sphinxes representing the senses: part lion, part woman. The occult forces that had to be controlled so that they would power man's chariot. Without such control, he could not find his way out of the mora.s.s these Animations had led him into, let alone separate G.o.d from chaos.

So why were there four steeds instead of two? Because this was not the card Brother Paul knew, but the one Therion knew. No wonder this was hard to manage!

"Give me the other variant!" Brother Paul cried.

The composite creatures s.h.i.+fted and merged into two white horses. The chariot became medieval. "No, not that one!" More s.h.i.+fting, and two sphinxes appeared, one black, one white. "Yes, that one!" he cried, and the variant became fixed.

The white sphinx turned its head to face him. "How nice to see you again," she said.

"Light!" Brother Paul cried in recognition. "I mean, the apologist for the Tarot of the Brotherhood of Light! I thought this was the Waite deck."

She wrinkled her pert nose. "I hoped you had given up on that discredited innovation."

"Now you sound like Therion."

She snorted delicately. "Why choose between evils, when truth is available? Be yourself, the Conqueror; use the Sword of Zain to break through all obstacles, crush your enemies, and achieve sovereignty of spirit."

Brother Paul caught on. "You call Key Seven 'The Conqueror'!"

"Arcanum Seven, yes. This is historically justified in the Bible."

Oh-oh. Brother Paul did not want to get involved in another technical discussion, but his curiosity had been piqued. "The Bible?"

"Joseph, sold into Egypt, overcame all obstacles and rose to great power, as indicated by the sword." Brother Paul discovered that he was holding a curved blade in his right hand, not a cup. He set the sword down, afraid he would inadvertently cut the starry canopy. He remembered that the Hebrew alphabet for the Light Tarot differed from what he was used to. In that deck, Key Seven was Zain, the Sword. So the lady was correct, by her definitions. "He was tempted by Potiphar's wife, in Arcanum Six, but he triumphed over the temptation. He interpreted the dream of Pharaoh about the seven fat kine and the seven lean kine, and the seven good ears and the seven bad ears. And Pharaoh told him: 'See I have set thee over all the land of Egypt,' and made him to ride in a chariot, and made him ruler over-"

"Bulls.h.i.+t!" the black sphinx cried.

The white sphinx froze, shocked.

"Oh, Therion," Brother Paul said, trying to sound reasonable, although he too was upset by the interjection. "Now look, she didn't interfere in your presentation."

"I never uttered such nonsense! Women are such brainless things; if they didn't have wombs they'd be entirely useless."

The man was certainly contemptuous of the fair s.e.x! What was the matter with him? In other respects he seemed to be quite intelligent and open-minded.

"Still," Brother Paul admonished him, "you should not interrupt."

The lady sphinx turned her head toward the black sphinx, and then her body. The chariot veered, for they were both still galloping forward at a dismaying velocity. "No, I want to hear his objections. Does he challenge the validity of the Bible?"

"The Bible is hardly an objective account, and what there is is both incomplete and expurgated. Naturally the Hebrews and their intolerant, jealous G.o.d colored the record to suit themselves. How do you think the poor, civilized Egyptians felt about this barbaric conqueror?"

"They welcomed the Hebrews! Pharaoh raised up Joseph, put his own ring on Joseph's hand, arrayed him in fine linen, put a gold chain about his neck-"

"Bulls.h.i.+t!" Therion repeated. He seemed to enjoy uttering the scatological term in the presence of the lady. "Pharaoh gave away nothing! The Hebrew tribesmen and their cohorts came in, a ravening horde from the desert, overrunning the civilized cities, burning houses, pillaging temples and destroying monuments.

They were the nefarious Hyksos, the so-called 'shepherd kings,' who ravaged cultured Egypt like pigs in a pastry shop for two hundred years before their own barbaric mismanagement and debauchery weakened them to the point where the Egyptians could reorganize and drive them out. That is why you call this Atu 'The Conqueror.' Joseph was a rabble-sp.a.w.ned tyrant, thief, and murderer. What little civilization rubbed off on his ilk was Egyptian, such as the Qabalah-"

"Kabala?" Light inquired.

"Qabalah. This was stolen from Egyptian lore, just as the golden ornaments were stolen from Egyptian households. The ones these thieves melted down to form the Golden Calf, a better deity than they deserved, before they settled, by the fiat of Moses, on a bloodthirsty, compet.i.tive, nouveau-riche G.o.d whose name they were ashamed to utter."

"I don't have to listen to this!" Light exclaimed. The scene began to change.

"Wait!" Brother Paul cried, suffering a separate revelation. This unrelenting attack on the roots of the Judeo-Christian religion-he recognized the theme, from somewhere.

"Waite? That does it!" the white sphinx snapped. She veered away, making the chariot tilt alarmingly.

Why had he chosen Therion as a guide, instead of Light? How much better he empathized with her! Now, when he had almost gotten her back into the scene, she was going again. The chariot was rocking perilously, about to overturn, a victim of this religious debate. The sphinxes phased into two great horses again, white and black, then these animals fragmented into the composite monsters of Therion's Thoth Atu. Again Brother Paul found himself clutching the huge cup, which somehow he knew he dare not drop.

"Seven!" he cried. "I deal the Seven of Cups!"

The cup he was holding, which had given him this emergency inspiration, expanded. It was made of pure amethyst, its center a radiant, blood red. It was the Holy Grail.