The narrator's distinguished voice came through the dragon statuettes, momentarily breaking the spell on Kristen:
"And so began the journey that would take young Lilith to old Jordan and the Papal Vestige..."
The sound of a motorbike, speeding along, filled the room as Science collected the empty bowls and brought them over to the sink.
The magiscope showed leaves of jungle foliage passing in a blur before the camera finally caught up behind the motorcycle which hopped roots along a worn dirt path. It dipped and cornered, the high whoop of an excited passenger coming from it.
"So, this is how you got home two days early!" yelled Lilly over the wind. Her arms were wrapped tight around her father's waist as they sped along on a hybrid powered BMW.
"It sure beats the camel!" he said with a slight turn of his head.
The bike banked through a turn where an old road had warped into a strange angle. He navigated it smartly and brought the bike slowly over the rough transition where the way turned to deeper sand.
Jesse took his helmet off and Lilly said, "Why'd we stop?"
"Go on, you can take your helmet off. I want to show you something I think you will appreciate."
They dismounted and she followed him up a sandy embankment where she could see the tops of palm trees peeking over in great number. When they made the ridge, a changed landscape stretched out before them.
"The river Jordan," he said appreciating her surprise. "Yeah! What a difference, huh? I mean, a lot has changed since the convergence but this two-hundred-and-twenty-mile oasis still stands untouched. Takes my breath away."
"Do you think Hazeus was really baptized, here?" she asked.
"You tell me! I only know what I've heard. You've read the whole story twice it seems." He gave her a little wink.
She went on standing there.
He never took his eyes off her, then finally, he nudged her. "Well?"
"I don't know," she said. "That one was written by John who basically had Hazeus repent for his sins. I don't really trust all that stuff. I prefer the gospel of Tom, his is more believable."
"Believable?" he scoffed. "Honey, nothing about what we've been through nor about what you have shown me is believable."
She smiled up at him.
As they walked back toward the motorcycle Lilly said, "I'm just saying, if it were me, I wouldn't want anyone telling me what to do."
Jesse laughed and pulled his helmet over his head. While she was letting out her chinstrap, he put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm obligated to inform you that you will always have a mother, Dear."
"Well, that's different!" She almost had her helmet over her head when she lowered it again and said, "You don't think they will try and tell me what to do, do you Dad?"
He knelt down and grabbed her other shoulder. "I promise you, Lilly. No one will ever force you to do anything." Then he helped her get her helmet on and tighten it down.
Twenty minutes later they were riding into New Vatican City and Jesse nodded toward a booth as they idled through the surrounding market.
"A newsstand!" Lilly exclaimed.
"That's right. Pretty much all your literature has come from Asher, there."
There was an elderly man behind a kiosk helping a customer with a stack of books. He didn't seem to notice them on the motorcycle.
"Can we stop?"
"Not now," said her father. "Afterward, I promise. Jackson is waiting for us at the cathedral."
Then she saw it. Among great scaffoldings and cranes, a giant white city rising up above the throng. It was like a giant inhabitable crown of porcelain, except it had a tall center spire that was topped with a cross.
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Jesse’s friend Jackson introduced them to an elderly man who formally invited them down behind one of the pulpits in the outer wings of the Vatican. The man had a beard like the illustration of Santa Clause, or the old man in the sea. Both had been in her encyclopedia of Myths.
He told them that the lesser sections of the main structure were referred to as cathedrals, as they had their own smaller spires and plenty of stained glass. Lilly had seen a marble statue of Hazeus with his head bowed from a crucified position on a cross while he had led them between pews. She wondered why people would want to see that during a sermon
Jackson shook Jesse’s hand and gave a curt bow to Lilly when they reached the door of a basement chamber. Then he took his leave of them.
The old man led Lilly and her father into the room where she was bidden to take a seat at a small table. Just a slight motion from the man’s pale hand. Now, she was looking around the room as the man and her father caught up on things. There were wooden shelves built into marble supports that housed cookie-cutter copies of candelabras and copper vessels. A stainless-steel refrigerator was here, and a brass handled pump, much like what was on their well, but this one had an ivory basin lined with copper beneath it.
"You didn't like the statue behind the podium, did you, Lilly?"
It had been the old man asking. She looked at her father, who nodded encouragingly.
"Well, I just think violence is typical of where we ended up after the rift."
He raised his eyebrow, surprised at her bold comment so early on.
"The gospel of Tom?" she asked, judging his response carefully. "You have read the gospel of Tom?"
He seemed wary, but eventually he nodded reluctantly. "I have studied it extensively," he said.
Jesse could sense some tension and chimed in, "Lilly, Anthony is the eldest of all the papal party and one of only four cupbearers to the Pope himself." She wasn't showing much enthusiasm. "He witnessed the convergence from the historic Vatican and is largely responsible for the Pope’s survival."
"Well, I—" started Anthony, flushing.
"I see," said Lilly. "Well, good then." She blushed a little, feeling diminished by her father's remark.
"It's quite alright, Jesse. I have taken your advice and prepared myself for many surprises." Then the old man sat next to Lilly and put his hands in his lap smiling pleasantly. "I only ask one thing of you if we are going to have a religious exchange. Have you the gift I sent along with your father?"
Jesse unshouldered his knapsack and handed it to her. She hugged it, sizing up Anthony as an opponent, then nodded.
"Swell then, very swell." His eyes seemed to shoot an arrow in the direction behind her and he said, "Right through there is a private space you can clean up and change. Would you do me the pleasure?"
She did. While she stuffed her dusty road clothes back into the knapsack, she could hear the two of them murmuring but could not make it out. She buckled the bag and looked in the mirror. Brushed back her dark locks and washed her face in the also copper sink. She patted her face off with the washcloth on hand, and looked into her own green eyes. "You can do this."
She thought she heard the murmuring stop and waited to see if any inquiry came. When it didn't, she took the final part of her modified habit and placed it on her head. She looked once more in the mirror and smiled. Something about a costume makes everything a bit more real.
"Now, the way I see it, is that those bound for the Globe during the closing of the rift were probably seeing all the bloody goings on like some battle between wizzards and knights, or some such rubbish." Lilly had already started her oration. She had come out of the room wearing a black cloak with a cape and a pointed black hat trailing a veil from the tip. Now, because Anthony was still trying to gather his jaw up from the floor, she just continued. "Likely the Romans saw the battle as a thing won honorably through many lives lost. I am sure you realize that I'm drawing from what I've gleaned from the Newer Testament, of course." She coughed in her hand. "On the other hand, those bound for Rootworld, like the Druids, will claim that the Romans defeated themselves through disillusion. Outsmarted by their egos and well, it's pretty clear that it wasn't entirely difficult to defeat a horde of drunk and hallucinating men dressed up in throw rugs while carrying around trash can lids and trotting around on taxidermy horseheads attached to broomsticks." She saw him giving her that look. "Um, also from the Newer Testament. It's right there."
"Young lady," said Anthony, "you have quite the imagination."
Her eyebrows raised and her mouth turned down at the corners.
He quickly reiterated. "Okay," he said, "what I mean to say is you are deeply paraphrasing."
"Well," she said, crossing her arms, "anything less would be plagiarism."
He laughed heartily. "I will say I am skeptical, but nevertheless entertained. Go on." Anthony saw Jesse drop his head in a nod of thanks and encouragement behind her.
"Rootworld history books recollect that the absence of wizzards and druids on Earth left the inhabitants throwing up their hands when trying to explain to themselves exactly how they had once turned water into wine."
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
"Wait a minute," said Anthony. "You have read these Rootworld history books?"
Lilly looked back at her dad who shrugged. No help there. "I, um..." She was going to have to make judgment call here because if she told this man that she remembered her last life then it might cut this conversation short. "I have dreamt about them," she said.
Anthony nodded.
She felt no immediate ridicule, so pressed on. "The long debates about past abilities, you know the walking on water, the multiplying food thing, well those would be the beginnings of what would come to be known as science. It took them a long time to answer such questions with no geeks left around to ask. A couple of thousand years to be exact."
Still no ridicule.
She decided to go for it. "Yes, it was going to be a long road for the inhabitants of the Globe. Depending on who you ask, it was either progress or mistakes piled atop mistakes to cover up the just past muckaroos.” Muckaroos, she thought, wasn’t very professional, but c’mon she was six! “Yet, it was a road that eventually resulted in the building of skyscrapers and Dunkin' Doughnuts, and that confounded line at Checkers where there's two drive-thru windows to get your two for two dollars, but you wait twenty-two minutes at each one."
Then Anthony actually laughed, looked over her shoulder pointedly and said to her father, "How old did you, you said six?" Jesse nodded. "Quite a memory of the post-modern era for someone who wasn't around to see it!"
She wasn't certain this was ridicule, so she took it as a handicap of belief. "I read a lot, and then, you know. The dreams." She wasn't gonna let him ruin her flow. "But then," she said raising her voice an octave, "a slumbering God awoke, thinking that the men of the Globe may have finally started to come around when Chick-fil-a came into existence and a person could get their orders in under two minutes no matter how many cars were lined up down how many side streets of traffic.
"But, lo, then came the non-denominational churches, popping up like 7-Elevens, offering free childcare and shoulders to cry on for women who couldn't bear to live with men who were just too violent for them to handle. All the ugly truths were being purged, and the more truth came into the world, the closer the re-union came.
"The church was a bigot! At least Hazeus we could nearly all agree on, but God really wanted to be a no-brainer again! Quite literally. It had only been on account of the idolatry and alcoholism that he'd had to grow a head to begin with! Before it had been quite easy for God. Everything had just come from the heart." Now she crossed her own arms. "It's no wonder God spent so much time in the temple." Then she rolled her eyes.
Anthony sat there in silence. Paraphrasing, he thought. But he had been reading the gospels for a lifetime and had indeed been alive for the post-modern era and what she was saying wasn't exactly wrong.
She was looking at him. After thirty seconds or so she started doubting herself. What she really wanted was some justification in this world. She needed someone besides her parents; to tell her she wasn't crazy. No. It wasn't that exactly. She needed someone to tell her she was right, and that she was very good at what she could do. Forty-five seconds now.
"Sweety," said her father finally.
She put her hands down in her lap.
"Show him what you showed me. You know, at the well."
This is why she was here. He had told her as much beforehand. But she desperately wanted some verbal confirmation before the theatrics. It didn't look like she would get any.
Anthony put his hand up and said, "Tell me, Lilly. Do you believe what you say? Has man and—" he looked briefly ashamed. "Eh um. The church, been hypocrites?"
"I am speaking of it as candidly as possible, but yes. Perhaps it is clearer to me because I have an unmuddled mind." She tripped up there briefly, hoping she didn't insult the man. "Sorry, what I mean is, when Hazeus came, it marked the beginning of the Druids' bout of sobriety. Yet, the religious converts, whether due to Roman influence or nay, started drinking right at the altar." She couldn't leave it there. "The truth, me thinks, is much easier to see in sobriety."
"Well then, this doesn't much defend your father's lucrative enterprises. Why then peddle the oxychana sage here in New Vatican City?"
She felt her father's hand fall on her shoulder, encouraging her onward. She breathed in and closed her eyes. He had said to her, during a fiery debate about this concern that he was not taking her to the Vatican for more riches, but to open the doors of a world richer for her in experiences. She looked at Anthony. "There are many paths to truth. But it is more important to continue our search for truth than to pretend we have already found it."
The old man's blue eyes sparkled with the wetness of recollection, and he nodded. "So, I understand that we will be needing a vessel of water?"
She took this as her much-needed confirmation and watched as he stood and went to the shelves of brass or copperware. He selected a chalice and stepped over to the electric pump. "Holy water will not skew the effects I presume?"
She was going to make a smart remark about it not being holy until after she was done with it, but Anthony saw her working things out.
"Oh," he said. "It is kept in an underground well, lined in copper and consecrated by the Pope himself." He flipped the switch which came to life with a red glow. He smiled when the water came among an electric whir, "Holy water, on tap, you might say."
She smiled warmly at the tact then listened as the sound of the cup filling became a higher pitched minor thrum. It was placed on the table before her by the Papal priest's two pale hands. She looked up at him as he spread his arms and backed away as if giving her room to work.
"You really needn't be afraid."
"I assure you. I am not intimidated, Lilly. I have seen many unexplainable workings of the lord."
"Okay," she said, and raised a sarcastic eyebrow as she took the cup in her hands. She smacked her lips with an audible pop and said, "Redrum, redrum, redrum. Nectar of the gods, blood divine, from water we're gifted the presence of wine." From the corner of her eye, she could see Anthony take an unquestionable step away. Inside she was giggling, as the water had been wine long before she was halfway through reciting her little ditty.
Then she took her hands away and looked to Anthony. She could see him stepping forward after her father had motioned with his arm to do so. She stood up and threw her cape back, giving him room.
"You needn't be frightened," he said, and she smirked. "May I?"
She waved pointedly at the cup, "It won't bite."
"Hazeus, Mother Mary, and Tom, it is just like you said." He was holding the chalice up to the light and his nose. Then he cradled the cup in the fingers of his left hand and dipped a finger of his right into the liquid. Sucked the little bit off and closed his eyes reverently. It was the driest red wine he had ever tasted. And he only ever tasted when the Pope was going to drink. And well, that ended up being quite a bit.
He put the chalice down and turned to Jesse. "The Pope is presently giving the benediction and will soon be giving the papal address; at which time I am to start my duty. But first I would like to deliver a private word of this to him."
Jesse glanced at Lilly who was biting a nail from mere habit. When she spit it away absently, he decided that she cared little in that regard.
"This is what you wanted, No?" asked Anthony.
"Then you are to present the wine to him?"
"Mhmm," an affirmative nod.
Again, Jesse looked at Lilly. She was paying attention now and turned both hands out in indifference.
"It is what we want," said Jesse.
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The scene pitched, zooming out from the subterranean room and up through the stained-glass windows of the cathedral, then it catches up with Anthony and follows above him like a bird as he hurries along the corridors towards the Pope, careful as to not spill a drop of the precious wine. While he goes, the Pope’s voice emanates from the golden dragon statuettes of the magiscope in an echoey reverie, saying, "Now what was that axiom again?"
The scene fades out and into one with the Pope sitting thoughtfully behind an ornate lectern on a dais.
The chivalrous voice of the Video Disc’s narrator resumes, “Miracles had not been so commonplace on Earth during this Pope’s time and when science ruled. Sometimes, a marble statue would be found with tears of blood running down her cheeks. Usually after a church had been empty and unguarded for a few days. People would show up with the stigmata, and everyone would fall on their knees until a doctor did a blood draw and found Coumadin or some other blood thinner in their system. Also, their amazon video history would include things like, The Exorcist, and of course, Stigmata. Then, at least ten different attempts had been made to turn water into wine.
“The nearest had been a scientist claiming that in a blind study one hundred people in a test group drank wine that had been diluted ten thousand times and then lab-verified to be pure water, while the control group drank spring water. The study revealed that seventy percent more individuals in the test group claimed to have tasted wine in their drink. Later study revealed that the test group were mostly alcoholics and started the test with an overwhelming blood alcohol content.
“But, today just felt different....”
In the magiscope, Anthony was cautiously approaching the raised dais toward the Pope, who remained still as a statue in his reverie.
"Oh yes," said the Pope, finally catching the thought and remembering the axiom from some far forgotten realm. "It was—" Smoke drifted up from a questionable herb between his fingers. "All parties must eventually come to an end..." he said absently.
"Excuse me, your grace?" asked whoever it was that had been standing there next to him.
The Pope shook his head in an effort to remain attached to this plane. Which was a unique experience, being as he believed that this was the only plane that had ever existed, besides maybe Heaven. Well, right up to this very unique moment anyhow.
"Mr. Pope?" asked Anthony again, briefly concerned.
"Yes?" said the Pope, looking at the goblet of fresh wine in Anthony's quivering hands.
"Well?" whispered Anthony, hoping not to sully the fine man's reputation by encouraging him to speak plainly in such a public place. Plus, it wouldn't have been the first time the house would have to cover up a public stroke.
"Well, what?" asked the Pope, again eyeing the wine.
Despite the hissing silence there still seemed to be an echo. The entire throng was waiting for something.
Then, as if understanding finally dawned, the Pope took the cup and had a small sip, then returned it to Anthony’s hands. The scene froze on the waiting throng and the chivalrous voice narrated again, "That's when it happened. The Pope had finally drunk himself sober."
"Magic, you say?” The Pope said, placing his cigarette down on the golden handle of his chair. The cigarette was held in one of those long sharp stick thingies to make it look elegant. He regarded it with new suspicion. “It does make the only sense.”
Anthony nodded, looking out toward the throng and lifting the chalice. Then quickly, he whispered over his shoulder to the Pope who still sat still as stoned, "This is gonna change everything."
There were hushed whispers building among the throng when Anthony turned back to them and announced, "He declares, it done by magic!"
The whole of the Vatican gasped.
Then, the Pope slowly rose, gently lifting the decorated trestle of his gowns and departed stage right. When he reached his personal hall, he grabbed up the open bottle of champagne from a silver bucket and took a sniff. His face wrinkled in disgust. Then he twisted his wrist and poured the contents out on the ground.
The Pope glances around, finally taking out an analog cellular phone and secretly dialing some numbers.
"Somewhere, along an empty hall in Vatican City,” the narrator began, as the holy man in robes spoke on his phone in hushed tones. “When a Pope is satisfied that no one is looking, he phoned his ex-girlfriend and two surviving children with the news."
Then, the scene in the magiscope pitches up and away, flying out over the Vatican city and still further above the great pyramid and into the sky, before fading out into white clouds.
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“What?” said Death from the entryway, startling Kristen and Science. “You thought the decree that magic was real, would be more elaborate? Perhaps, it should have been voted on. Perhaps, it should have been debated by a team of peers in front of a panel of new magic practitioners. Then the result could have been passed as a folded piece of paper to the man on the dais behind the gavel and the hammer who would read it in detail on national television.
“And perhaps the whole world would laugh when he opened that said paper and read what was there...”
The crystal sphere flickered, illuminating the already much darkened room and they watched a final scene together.
"I, judge Matthew Peters, second in line of World Judges appointed on the sixth year and the ninth day after the Continental Convergence, declare that Magic is Science. Furthermore, I make this known on the twenty first day of the New year of Twenty-thirty-nine, under declaration that I am in fact—" he lifts his left hand into the air and is holding a red plastic poker chip while a book is ushered in by a man with a long beard. Superimposed on the cover, instead of a simple cross, is a cross with two rays emanating from below its apex and a circle around the top. A line connects the bottom three lines of pewter and makes it a triangle with a round head.
The judge sighs. Then he places the red chip on the podium and picks up the gavel then places his left hand on the symbol. He blows a thin line of hair from out of his eyes, and says, “—Sober as a judge!"
Then he hammers the gavel on the wooden anvil.