Chains of the Sea Read online

  Today was the third of July, the year 101. It was a cold day and, less than a week before, snow had lain as deep as a man’s arm upon the ground. Sometimes, in other old books—in the Bible, for example—Julian had received the impression that July was not always a winter month.

  But Pope Leo hadn’t been senile then—not when he was devising the new calendar. Julian recalled how, in his advanced years, the old pope had loved to strip off his robes and go romping naked through the deep snowdrifts that stood high against the inner castle walls. Julian had been a nun then. He shivered at the memory and murmured a hasty prayer.

  Enough astrology, he thought. There were other means of getting at the future. Not for the first time, he went to the window and checked to ensure that no one could possibly see inside. For many years, he had quietly followed astrology, soothsaying, prophetic potions, and other forms of fortune-telling, but now that he was pope he thought it might be more than a little embarrassing if someone—especially a robot—were to detect him practicing such blasphemous rites.

  Confirmed in his safety, Julian returned to his workbench and proceeded to prepare the prophetic potion. He had performed this task so often since the day the old beggar had appeared at the castle gates hawking his recipes that his hands could easily work without the assistance of his conscious mind. The ingredients were simple: a hank of mongrel hair, a slice of robot skin, the rear leg from a horned toad, a cubic inch of blessed earth, a dash of lamb urine, a strand of pure white hair, the ground button of a spiny cactus. He carried the bowl containing the mixture to an empty corner of the workbench and, using a wooden spoon soaked in holy water, quickly whipped the thick, pale mixture into a foamy soup.

  Don Julian labored in a small nook located near the peak of the castle’s central turret. A dim lantern burned behind him and, through the curtained windows, a faint crimson glow penetrated from beyond the walls where the robots crouched around their fires, sleeplessly trading stories throughout the night. The chamber was equipped with a soft padded chair. At the side of the workbench was a large desk where Julian kept his personal papers and, during the days since the death of his wife, the official papal documents. The carpet was brightly colored—yellow and crimson—and woven with the twelve signs of the zodiac. He had been careful never to allow anyone access to this room but now guessed he would at least have to remove the carpet. In the darkest comer, upon the floor, was his bed, made of leaves, twigs, and thorns; after days of miserable sinning, he would sleep there as a penance. But could a pope sin too tremendously? According to Donna Maria, she never had. Not once.

  Reaching up, he clasped the thin, wispy stub of his beard. Carefully, he drew the hairs between his fingers, found one particularly long strand and gave a fierce jerk:

  “Ouch.”

  But he had it: very long and very white. He deposited the hair in the bowl and gave another brisk stir. He murmured:

  “Hail, Mary, full of grace . . .”

  Holding his nose, he drank in a single gulp.

  It would not take longer than a quarter hour; he had avoided eating beforehand. Holding his stomach, which quivered with nausea, he made his way toward the chair, then swerved at the last moment and collapsed upon the bed. Instantly, the thorns rose to pierce his heavy robes, pricking his flesh in a hundred places. He smiled. Had he sinned during the past few days, he was positive he was now absolved.

  Time passed effortlessly. The first vision to appear was Donna Maria. Julian frowned, fearing she might have been sent to deliver the prophecy. But Donna Maria said nothing. She thrust out her tongue and waggled it furiously. Julian sprang back, then giggled. She could harm him no longer. He spat at her image, struck home. He laughed joyously. Hastily, the lines of her fat, heavily jowled face receded into the air. Julian settled back, bracing his hands upon his belly. The stone walls leaped out at him. The ceiling rushed down. The woven carpet meandered in patient circles like a dammed stream.

  Ah.

  Here she came. As always, her face seemed insubstantial, uncertain in outline, glowing so purely with a fierce golden light that he could not discern any positive structure. He knew she had a mouth, eyes, ears, lips. Her body was clothed in white, her feet were bare. Spots of blood trickled between her toes. She floated in the center of the air, exuding a simple aura of benign serenity. As she approached, Julian smiled wider and wider.

  “Oh, Mother Mary,” he whispered.

  Her voice was gentle—wordless—though he sensed her meaning easily: “I have come to comfort thee, Don Julian.”

  “I am Pope Julian now.”

  “It is known.”

  He leaned forward until her shining face was only inches away. “I am in need of thy comforting hand. And thy foresight.”

  “All is well,” she proclaimed.

  “And will it remain thus?”

  “Thy journey will be long and torturous. Much suffering will follow thee. Blood must flow, though not always thine. But thy pain shall be a blessed pain, for at the end a light will burst forth, shining, and all the secrets of eternity shall be revealed to thine eye. Beware those men who are not truly men, whose skin is cold like steel and hard like stone.”

  “Robots? You mean Andrew?”

  “A creature with skin as black as night and eyes that glisten with gold, human yet also inhuman, will show thee secrets but steal thy soul. Beware, if thou can, but whichever way thine eyes turn, he shall stand before thee.”

  “Who is he?” Never before had the prophecies come so clearly; always they had been so diluted by ambiguities as to be rendered totally meaningless.

  “Beware!” cried Mary. And her image began to fade.

  “No! Wait—please! Come back!”

  He shut his eyes, hoping that might bring her back. Beneath the lids, bright, radiant patterns of ripe color whirled kaleidoscopically, sucking him down into a brilliant maelstrom. He opened his eyes again, but Mary was not there; Donna Maria had returned.

  He sprang up from the bed, his eyes filled with angry tears. He rushed to the workbench and found what he wanted. A book: The Truth in the Stars. He hurled the book hard and straight. It flew easily past Donna Maria’s image and struck the opposite wall with a blunt thud. He stood for a moment as if frozen. Then his knees cracked. He tottered. He fell to the floor.

  And slept.

  Andrew speaking:

  Far be it from me to speak excessively ill of the dead, especially when she lies swathed in the papal robes, but the fact is that Donna Maria was a monster.

  Born the only descendant of the wealthiest family of our neighboring village, she was big from the moment of birth, with arms like the hams of a horse and legs like the stumps of felled trees. Her nose swayed uncertainly like a jagged mountain crag, finally swooping into a jerking twist that enclosed nostrils resembling the gills of an old bass. Her lips flapped around black, diseased teeth. Her title—Donna—was assumed from her father who, some said, had expired of shock while witnessing her birth. The mother had died simultaneously. To care for the orphan, a squadron of robots descended from the papal castle, a gift from Pope Leo, former chess partner of the old Don. By the time of her adolescence, Maria had developed a hobby—dismantling robots not in her favor and neglecting to put them together again. (I’ll whisper this part: the word is murder.)

  Before dying, in a final fit of senility, Leo willed her the papacy. So far as I know, until that time, she had never glimpsed the interior portions of a Bible. Inspecting her nuns, she chanced upon Sister Julia, who had not yet gotten the requisite nerve to shrug off his ill-fitting habit. She burst into a fit of hysterical laughter and had to be drugged. Five years later, she married him, performing the ceremony herself, dashing back and forth between the altar and the floor, panting like an ill-ridden horse, barely squeaking, “I will.” No guests were permitted; I spied from without.

  She ruled, issuing an occasional bull, consuming six meals a day. Julian hid out in his private chambers, strug
gling to glimpse the outline of a personal future rarely destined to deviate from either past or present. During frigid winter nights, when snow toppled from the skies like an army of shooting stars, Maria chased her husband through the dark corridors of the old castle, brandishing a fire whip, carving red welts upon his naked back, shouting threats of eternal damnation, speaking often of the pain of mortal sin. It was not a happy marriage. She claimed never to have sinned in her life. I came daily to read from the Bible; she had never learned how. Her favorite chapter was the Apocalypse. In her deepest moments of black depression, she dreamed she might die before the revelations of John came true.

  And so she did.

  The night before, I came to her chamber to read. Sensing the proper moment, I dropped the book and told her a private secret.

  “You inhuman blasphemous creation of the devil,” she said, when I finished. Sitting up in bed, she clutched at me with spastic fingers, perhaps wanting—in a fit of renewed childhood—to dismantle me.

  “There’s one way of knowing for sure,” I said. “Come with me to the shrine.”

  “You monster!” she cried. “Satan!”

  But I knew she had been moved; I saw the clear presence of fear in her eyes. Dead by the following night, she found another means of seeking the truth. When Pope Julian told me, I laughed in his face.

  It was a dull, frigid day, perfectly suited for leave-taking. Within the suit of heavy armor exhumed from the castle dungeon for the occasion, Don Julian gently shivered and strained to see out through the tiny peepholes in the metal faceplate. But all he could see was the wide-eyed, staring face of a small village boy, whose pale cheeks were covered with ugly, festering red sores. Julian tried to swivel his neck to look away, but the weight of the helmet was too great.

  “Andrew!” he shouted. “Where are you?”

  “Here.” Julian felt a sudden thump upon his shoulder. “Are you ready?”

  “I guess so. You told them—I hope—why I wanted them here.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then”—whispering—”do try not to drop me. Not in front of them.”

  “I’m not sure I can lift you. In that armor, you must weigh half a ton.”

  “Well, at least help me.”

  Andrew promised he would. Another robot hurried to fetch Julian’s chosen steed, a tall white stallion, the finest beast in the papal stable. With Andrew’s assistance, Julian managed to get his foot in the stirrup but, as he did, the stallion gave a sudden snort and bolted back. With a graceless flop, Julian fell, his boot still hooked in the stirrup, his leg pointed high like an upraised sword. “Here! Help!” he shouted.

  A robot ran up and tried to steady the horse. Two more rescued Julian, lifting him to his feet. Once more, Andrew assisted. This time Julian went up quickly. He kicked out with his free leg and saw the pale, cloudless sky drifting past. Then he thought he felt the saddle beneath him. He gripped the reins tightly.

  “Fix me,” he said. “Hurry—strap me down.”

  This done, Julian turned his head as far as it would go. Andrew sat at his side upon the back of a plump gray mare. The body of Donna Maria, wrapped in splendid silks, lay huddled upon a wooden stretcher tied to the back of Andrew’s mare. An unsaddled mule was the final component of their party; the beast’s back had been piled high with food and other provisions.

  Julian surveyed the villagers, whose presence he had ordered. They numbered fewer than fifty nowadays, though he could recall—in Leo’s time—when there had been several hundred. Most of the survivors, like the boy he had seen, were visibly marked by disease. Julian guessed there had been hard times outside the castle walls recently.

  “As devout Catholics . . .” he began, in a voice unfortunately muffled by the heavy steel around him. The words were memorized; he had composed them carefully the night before. “As true believers,” he went on, though Andrew had insisted this was no longer so, “and as your new pope, it is my feeling that it is only fitting that I speak to you at this moment of my departure upon a sacred journey of peace undertaken in order to bury the earthly remains of our late pope, the blessed Maria, in ground of her own choosing.” He saw no point in mentioning the location of this ground. “She was a divine woman whom I loved myself with a private depth and devotion equal to your own. This robot, who shares my love, has eagerly consented to assist in this sacred undertaking.” He heard a subdued groan but chose to ignore Andrew’s displeasure; one couldn’t tell the whole truth to a group of men already tottering upon the brink of disbelief. “And,” he continued, warming to the occasion, “as your pope, it is my duty to mention that I may not return from this quest. Many dangers lurk within the outer world. Even a successful journey will necessitate my absence for a considerable period. Therefore—”

  “Not considerable enough!” cried a voice.

  “Eh?” said Don Julian, disbelieving his own ears. “What was that?”

  Silence.

  “Now look here,” he said. “I am the pope.”

  Someone whistled derisively.

  “I can’t put up with this,” Julian said.

  “Then tell us about Sebastian.”

  “Sure,” said another. “Tell us where she’s going to be buried. Robots talk, you know. Buried at the feet of the devil himself. You tell us, then we’ll show you a couple things of our own.”

  A rock whistled past his ear. Another smacked against the front of his armor. “What I wanted to tell you,” he shouted. “I want to appoint one of you good men to serve as bishop in my absence. Doesn’t that prove I have your best interests at heart?”

  “Go choose a robot.”

  “Well, I—” Don Julian turned to Andrew and whispered desperately: “What can I do?”

  “Run. They’ve lost their faith.”

  “Oh,” said Julian. Another rock struck his faceplate. Shutting his eyes, he hastily muttered a Hail Mary, but the Blessed Virgin was far removed from the present scene. He tried other prayers.

  With his eyes shut and lips moving, he failed to notice a boy who had slipped away from the crowd and made his way toward the back of the stallion. The robots, including Andrew, saw but gave no sign.

  Don Julian continued to mutter the sacred phrases. He walked through the valley of the shadow of death and feared no evil. Already, he could feel the demons flocking away as the mighty fist of the Lord drove them into the outer darkness.

  The boy stood directly behind the stallion. Reaching into the torn pocket of his trousers, he drew out the barbed stem of a desert cactus. One end had been smoothed down so that the boy could grip the cactus like a stick. With a mighty swing, he brought the barbed tip down upon the flank of the horse.

  The animal gave an awful shriek, reared back, then dashed ahead. Andrew, who had been waiting for this moment, sped away in pursuit of his master. The stretcher bearing the body of Donna Maria bumped and dragged behind, lifting a great cloud of gray dust, tossing it straight into the air.

  When the pounding of hooves reached the pitch of thunder, Don Julian lifted his head and waved at the approaching rider. Julian sat upon a strip of barren ground. Nearby, the white stallion was feeding upon a clump of yellow weeds.

  “He threw me,” Julian said, pointing at the horse. “I think I broke my leg.”

  “Better you than him,” Andrew said, dismounting. He went promptly to the mule and, in the top pack, uncovered a selection of substitute limbs. “Left or right?” he asked.

  “Right.”

  “Got one,” he said.

  Julian shut his eyes and bit his tongue. He felt Andrew unstrapping the armor. The process of amputating a leg or arm and replacing it with another had never been made wholly painless. When Andrew began to cut, he tried not to scream. Soon, he fainted. When he awoke, Andrew said,

  “All done.”

  “It feels fine,” said Julian. Andrew had even replaced his armor.

  “I would have come quicker, but”—indicati
ng the stretcher—“I didn’t want to spill her.”

  “That’s all right. It gave me time to think.”

  “You’re not angry?”

  “No. I understand why you felt you had to tell them about Sebastian.”

  “A man asked me. Robots cannot lie.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Still, I can’t help remembering. When I was a boy . . . you were there, too. Every Christmas—in spite of the heat—the people would flock up the hill from the village, shouting and wailing and begging to see the pope. They’d bring gifts, and finally Leo would appear on the balcony—though never before sunset—and sprinkle holy water upon the crowd and bless them all.” He choked, suddenly weeping. “Demons,” he murmured.

  “Not demons,” said Andrew. “Not devils, either. Hunger. Privation. Disease. Two years ago, a flood wiped out their entire village. You can’t go around rubbing people’s noses in their troubles. You and your pious platitudes. Why do you think Donna Maria left them alone?”

  “A flood?” Julian sighed. “I remember the year when it seemed to rain without end. The rainbows were brilliant. Remember? Wasn’t it beautiful?” He murmured, “Demons.”

  “Only men,” said Andrew. “And ignorance. You and your church.”

  “Blasphemy,” Julian said sadly, attempting to stand. But the suit of armor suddenly seemed as heavy as a mountain. He collapsed in a bright, shiny heap.

  Andrew knelt down, his knees separating with a creak. Piece by piece, he removed the armor, tossing it far away into the dry dust.

  Then he lifted Julian’s trembling body and carried him to the mare and strapped him securely to the saddle.

  Unspeaking, Julian reached forward, grasping the reins.

  Together, they rode across a landscape as flat and arid and desolate as the surface of the moon. Andrew turned them in a northeasterly direction.

  “How long?” Julian asked, after several hours of silence.