ot long after most of the nation's major newspapers announced that science had verified the existence of God -- a story that very nearly bumped from their front pages the news that his latest Bluewater book had just been published -- Jules Kincaid was sharing his body, mind and at least a piece of his soul with Buddha, Gaia, White Buffalo Warrier and Miral, the beautiful princess of Bluewater, while fighting off a dragon. Drop!
Miral’s voice in his mind was so imperative that he instantly sank to the desert sands and thus was barely missed by a blast of flame that shot thru the spot where he'd been standing. The blast missed him, but it still left his clothing singed.
Summoning a white shield, Kincaid got to his feet just in time to hold it up to ward off another blistering shot of flame. He risked a peek around the shield, saw another furious spear of fire launched in his direction by the dragon he had seen, and barely had time to drop to the ground again, legs pulled up, the impervious white shield over him.
A dragon, he thought. What now? He rolled over, shield still between himself and the dragon, as Buddha instilled much-needed calm while White Buffalo Warrier threw his spear. Even tho it was big as well as magical, it only glanced off the dragon's green scales. Then the warrier provided him with the thot of the weapon he would need to fight the dragon. Jules rose to his feet in a fluid motion without coming out from behind his shield and reached out his right hand to snatch a diamond-bladed sword from the air.
St. George would be envious of that!, Miral’s voice said within him.
A moment, Gaia said. Let me try something. Her next words were verbal and directed to the dragon. “All animals are friends of mine,” she said. “Please calm down and accept us as friends, dear dragon.”
The dragon did pause for a second -- but then Jules saw it shake its head and inhale.
Thanks for trying, Gaia, but it didn’t work!, Jules said, running forward with his sword raised, which he used to slash at the dragon’s leg as another flame roared above him.
The sword bit empty air, however, as the dragon soared into the sky.
Now what? Jules thought. He gave brief consideration to recreating Snoopy’s Red Baron airplane and using it to have a dogfight (dragonfight?) with the dragon in the sky, then quickly discarded the notion; the Sopwith Camel was a fine flying machine but it would be susceptible to fire. Then the dragon dove for him again, obviously with more fiery intentions.
In the nick of time, Jules created an igloo with six-foot thick walls to cover himself. The flame turned the igloo to steam but not before the ice absorbed most of the heat – and that gave Jules an idea.
He stood, as the dragon swooped away, and beat his sword not into a plow share but a fire hose. As the returning mythical beast opened its mouth to spout more flame, an icy stream of water met it. The dragon tried to close its mouth but it was too late: When the freezing water hit the dragon’s interior fiery furnace, the inevitable happened and Jules again dropped to the ground with the shield up to protect himself from the steamy pieces of exploded dragon that shortly fell from the sky.
Well, that was certainly . . . interesting, Kincaid said to the others within himself.
He felt he would have been hard pressed to say just where this had all begun. Well, maybe not that hard pressed . . . .
A dark, smoky bar somewhere in New York City. Jules Kincaid, the well-known best-selling science-fantasy writer, was nursing his third drink, tottering between exhilaration and depression, sitting in front of a glass-polishing bartender who very well could have been named Jake. Jules realized he was starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges and so found himself wondering if perhaps he could get Ross Chamberlain, the artist who'd done the covers on all his books, to drop by to draw a heavy dark outline around him.
Yeah, his books. The last book in his Bluewater series was due out tomorrow and he knew that it -- just like the others in the series -- would receive both critical and popular acclaim by achieving record sales. What he didn't know, and what had led him to this bar, was whether it was merely the last one he'd done so far -- or the last he would ever do.
At that point, of course, he didn't realize that while the announcement of its publication would remain on the front pages of most of the following day's major newspapers, it would be overshadowed by a feature story under banner headlines -- variations on SCIENCE PROVES THERE IS A GOD. The young woman stood beside his barstool -- blonde, well endowed and several car-lengths ahead of him on the road to intoxication.And making a point of looking available. "Hi," she said in a sultry voice. "You're Jules Kincaid, aren't you?"
Don't know if I'm high yet, he found himself thinking in response to her remarks, but I am Jules Kincaid, aren't I?
He'd been slagged with the name 'Julius' by his parents but as a kid he'd abhorred it. He'd begun going by 'Jules' long before his full name became a household word. That was one more thing he'd loved about his former wife Eve -- she'd known his original name but, unlike his parents, had never criticized his decision to change it.
“Have a seat," he said, indicating the empty barstool beside him with a nod of his head. It was his surrender to the inevitable as well as an invitation. He signaled the barkeep. "Two coffees, Jake." She wiggled onto the stool, but shook her head. "No coffee." “Humor me," he said. "Call it the eccentricity of the somewhat rich and perhaps undeservedly famous." She paused, eyes on Kincaid, trying to be sure through her intoxication that she fully understood what he was saying. Still not certain, she shrugged, gave him a cutesy-pie smile and told Jake, "Black, please." Looking back at Jules, she went on, with a giggle, "I remember reading your first story, Miral, Princess of Bluewater. Well, I ought to remember that one -- after all, I had to slip it away from my dad without him knowing about it. I'm sure he would've screamed bloody murder if he'd known I was running off with his girly pictures!" Kincaid decided she was probably authentic, rather than an awfully well-studied actress -- it would have been hard in most households for any teenaged girl to get her hands on her father's Playboy, which had been where he'd sold his first three novellas. They do have more than just pictures of nekked ladies in their magazine, he thought I'm living proof of that. But he also reflected, contrasting his own point, that the accompanying illustrations were usually of Miral and tended to show her at least semi-nude. In the case of this young beauty, he'd inferred the teenage part, since his first story had been published eleven years ago and she was somewhere in her mid twenties. She couldn't possibly be thirty -- Kincaid wasn't drunk enough and not even the most fantastic makeup could have hidden that from him. Why'm I wondering about her sincerity?, he asked himself, and immediately answered, Because I've been dealing with these young women for years. In Jules Kincaid's now well-worn experience, his groupies tended to come in two flavors -- the real fans, who loved Bluewater, and the ones he called " the pros" who, though enthralled with fitting into a popular group, actually knew little or nothing about the subject and took their thrill from simply belonging. Not that he was wild about either category, but of the two he preferred honesty. It was clear, in any case, that this relatively attractive young woman hoped to be able to brag that she'd bedded him, and he was fairly certain that while she would probably prefer to be honest about it, she was (he felt) not above ignoring or even fudging the truth if it came to that. Groupies, he had not been entirely sad to discover, considered it a high mark if they managed to score with their idols and frequently bragged (he was sad to discover) that they actually had when they actually hadn't. (Prior to encountering his first groupie, he'd always assumed that particular behavior pattern was limited to teenaged boys talking about their girlfriends to their peers.) “You're really great," she went on. "Oh, my name, by the way, is Melanie. Melanie O'Connell." She held out a slender hand, her left. Perhaps she was left-handed, but to Jules it seemed equally probable that she hoped he would note that she wasn't wearing a wedding ring. There was none on his finger, either -- hadn't been for close to eight years now. His former wife, with whom he was still in love, had been unable to handle Kincaid’s popularity. Not that Eve ever begrudged his success -- that, after all, brought in lots of money which, while it couldn't buy happiness, could still purchase plenty of toys for both of them. No, Eve just didn't like having to share him with his public. And it wasn't just girls like Melanie that she objected to, which would have been perfectly understandable -- Eve didn't want to share Jules with anyone, and the sad fact was that, once his books became runaway best sellers and he'd been on a few dozen television talk shows to promote those sales, he couldn't even go rock climbing without drawing a crowd. He'd never resented that about Eve; he didn't want to share her with anyone else, either, as far as that went. Thus, altho a number of reasonably attractive young women had been available, he'd never bedded any of them while he and Eve had been together. (He freely acknowledged that he'd made plenty of mistakes in the course of their marriage -- but that, fortunately, had never been one of them.) In fact, if he could have given up the fame, he would have done so in a shot. He didn't despise the money, but the fame was downright bothersome; what things he enjoyed that it didn't prevent absolutely, like his rock climbing, it made considerably more expensive. He couldn't go to a public pool, a public gym, a public firing range or a public dojo; he had to spend a great deal to continue these things in his own home. But the thing of it was, Jules was a writer. He wrote, he breathed -- and he couldn't of his own volition give up either without giving up life. He really had no choice in that. It brought in the money, which was okay, but it also brought in the fame that made much of the money necessary. As the bartender put mugs of hot coffee down on the counter in front them, Jules shook Melanie's proffered hand. "Pleased," he said, mostly but not entirely untruthfully. “I was glad when your publishers later put the first three stories into a single book," she went on, since he hadn't really given her any other conversational openings, "but I did miss the next two. Still, by the time your first full-length novel was published, I had a job and could buy them on my own. Altho I had to wait 'til they came out in paperback," she added shamefully before smiling brightly and adding, "But then I got a better-paying job and bought all the rest as soon as they came out. Some of them pre-publication!" Jules Kincaid nodded and smiled, as if to say, "That's nice," and after a pause she went on: "Oh, one thing that I've always wondered about--" Oh, come on, Melanie -- come on, he thought. You've done well, establishing that you've actually paid attention to and possibly even read my books -- please do us both a favor and don't ask me where I get my ideas! “--where do you get your names? I mean, Miral; Rittle; Scurch. They all fit so well!" Score one for Melanie; he was seldom asked that. “Sometimes the characters just suggest a name to me," he said, taking a sip of coffee. "I don't mean to say they 'talk' to me or anything -- it's just that, as they develop, from the things they do, it's hard for me to determine whether a certain name seems to fit them or they seem to fit a certain name. And I'm not always sure which comes first -- definitely a chicken-or-the-egg thing going on there. Anyway, that's how I do it, most of the time -- altho, at other times, I've made up a name first and then designed the character to fit it." Kincaid began to feel that perhaps meeting and spending some time with Melanie O'Connell might be a Good Thing, after all. Clearly, he thought, I need someone or something to pull me away from the edge of that deep dark pit of despair that seems to be beckoning to me. If I can no longer write-- “'Scurch' was just another way of saying 'scorch'," he went on, backing away from his thots. "The 'u' in it made him seem a bit … sneaky -- to me, that is, tho I can't tell you just why. So, anyway, that made him a fiery kind of guy who was also sly and tricky. I mean, to me, it just seemed obvious. I sometimes felt that if I tried to write him any other way, he'd jump off the page and stalk off in disgust and outrage." Melanie chuckled at this. Jules continued, "Miral's name, on the other hand, came to me full-blown, complete with her character. Mostly, I didn't want to use common English names like John or Jane or anything of that sort, because then they'd have to act like a John or a Jane or something of the sort, and that wouldn't work for the story. Some authors, including a few I've been friendly with, pick names from a certain language, current or historical, and work with them -- but I've never been able to do it that way, myself. That's just too . . . inorganic. Know what I mean?" Melanie smiled and nodded, as if to say she indeed knew just what he meant. In some crazy way, his rambling discourse had now brought him full circle -- away from the pit to begin with, but now back and teetering on the edge again. What had drawn him back was the sudden realization of how much the naming of his characters had been an integral part of his plotting . . . which in turn, forced him to once again consider the fact that he had no new names, no new plot. Kincaid had long ago promised himself that he'd never to pull a Horatio Alger – use the same plot to write a hundred books. Or even two. Jules had no illusions about what he did: What he wrote was popular escapist fiction, not Art -- but at the same time it was a craft and if he couldn't turn corners, come up with a new twist, something that seemed original to him, something that would take a risk or point him in a new direction, then he might as well give it up. He'd have to call it quits. But his latest book had been in the pipeline for several months now -- and in the interim he'd found no new roads to travel. He was spinning his wheels. Type a few lines, throw them out, start over, type a few lines, throw them out, start over. He'd been so blocked that he couldn't even force himself to read the galleys of his fellow writer and sometime drinking buddy Joseph Philo Planter's much-hyped Bluewater pastiche/takeoff, preparatory to writing the introduction he'd promised for the mass market paperback edition. (Joseph's series was nowhere near as popular as Bluewater, of course, but it was nonetheless successful enough that his publishers had him grinding them out at a rate of one per year over the past decade or so.) Not that there would be more than a modest fee paid for writing that intro, but money hadn't been the reason he'd promised to do it; Jules just wanted to tell his fans and prove to Allen Sundry that he harbored no resentment toward Joseph's book. Money was not a problem anyway -- nor was it likely to become one. While honing his writing skills, Jules had lived a life of what he chose to call genteel poverty; true, that first six-figure advance had led to a considerable spending spree, likewise the first seven-figure movie sale. But he and Eve had settled down after that, living well but within his considerable and growing means, his only vice being his sometimes obsession of staying in good physical condition despite his sedate chosen profession, and he’d invested a good deal not just wisely but widely; stocks, bonds, property, commodities, precious metals. Barring total collapse of the world economy, Jules could live comfortably with all the amenities for the rest of his life -- for several lifetimes, should someone discover a Santa Clara drug -- on his investments alone, even in the unlikely event that his already published books should plummet in popularity and cease to be reprinted and sold in new editions. On the other hand, Kincaid felt that living without effort like that was certain to be almost terminally unfulfilling -- and in fact it seemed to him, just thinking about it, kind of like cheating. Like his search for a new plot, his life must have, should have, needed to explore new pathways. He had to keep active -- both physically and creatively. Retiring and living on the proceeds of what he'd already done would be like giving up on life itself. It was at this point that Melanie again took him away from his brooding introspection by asking, "Has it ever occurred to you that you could always quit while you're ahead?" “What?" Jules exclaimed, doing a double take. "Melanie, you're not, by any chance, telepathic are you?" Her startled and puzzled look was answer enough. But he noticed that she took a sip of coffee to give herself a moment to think -- since she'd obviously known she'd been a bit provocative but (it now seemed apparent) had had no intention of upsetting him with her remarks (nor, Jules realized, any real idea just why they had upset him). Lifted the cup with her right hand, he noted. “I just thought," she said after a bit, "that you must've already made tons of money, if that's what you wanted to do. I mean, with five books, a smash TV series, two movies that've grossed close to a billion dollars each, spin-offs, games, dolls -- anyone would say you've got it made! Not that," she added quickly, the idea of how Kincaid might have interpreted her question finally occurring to her, "I really want you to quit -- as a fan and reader, no, I definitely want more, I didn't mean it that way!" Oh. Yes. 'More,' Jules Kincaid thought. That's my problem. Do I have any 'more' to give? Isn't that what, at base, went wrong between Eve and me? Wasn't it that I couldn't give my public what they wanted and still have enough 'more' left over for Eve? Or did I want 'more' just for myself alone? Was I truly selfish and shallow and unwilling to give to others? Or was it just that I wanted to share 'more' than I had? Or what? Kincaid got to his feet quickly and Melanie started to rise beside him. "No," he said, giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Melanie, this has nothing to do with what you said, I'm really not in the least offended by it, but I really must apologize -- I just don't feel good and am just this moment realizing it. I'm sorry, but I've got to be alone, to think." She touched his arm, trying to quickly establish both warmth and intimacy. "But I could--" “I know. You could do a lot, Melanie. You're lovely. And make no mistake, I am attracted. Right now, however, the best thing you can do for me is leave me to my miseries." “You shouldn’t--" she began. But again he gently pushed her away. “Thanks for the help. Really. Believe me when I say it's best for you as well." He very nearly told her she wasn't really ready for his pain -- but realized, before those words could tumble out, that it would only encourage her to try to ease his pain anyway. Nonetheless, she still tried to insist but, gently putting his hand on her shoulder, he eased her back down onto her barstool. “Maybe later." He didn’t mean it and she knew it, but something that was neither wounded pride nor a feeling of rejection penetrated her alcoholic haze, and although she opened her mouth as if to speak, nothing came out and her _expression underwent a slow but noticeable change. The initial hurt faded from her features as she realized what Jules had known all along -- that this was not the version of reality she would later present to her friends and acquaintances. For once Jules Kincaid didn't mind; he'd acknowledged her help, even thanked her for it -- and this, after all, was small change, not even anything like full payment. Just short of drowning in his own misery, Jules Kincaid went home, not knowing what the next day’s newspaper would bring. When they came out with their astonishing announcement the following day, Jules was stunned -- until he realized that what had happened could be seen as verification of his theistic stand. And that was something which both amazed and amused him. With respect to how and why things work in our universe, Jules was of the opinion that scientists had hit the proverbial stone wall after logic and theory had carried them about as far as they could go. Over the centuries, explanations had piled on top of explanations as science uncovered the secrets of the workings of everything from galaxies to atoms and quarks, until science had explained just about everything. But not quite. Not just yet. Science kept up its continuing search for the definitive answer to the ultimate philosophical question: "Why?" With increasing pride, scientists had trotted out theory after theory as if they were answer after answer, until they were down to the most important why of all: "Why does all this work the way it does?" And the final answer which now seemed to be falling into place was a tweaking of all their noses to the extent that it implied that we humans have less to do with it and are less likely to be able to control it than we would like. In the entire course of human history, Jules Kincaid felt, it had not been love but curiosity and self-promotion that had made our world go around. The questions of pure theoretical inquisitiveness -- "What's on the other side?" and "What causes this to happen?" -- were all too quickly followed by much more self-aggrandizing questions: "How can I use this knowledge to my advantage?" and "How can I use this to gain control?" That's why the discovery of fire started out as a means to achieve comfort and wound up a weapon. And led from sharpened stones to much sharper knives and swords and then on to bullets and gunpowder, etc. So what were the answers to these questions actually providing to the human race? As a child, Jules had attended the local Baptist church -- and pretty much believed everything he was told. (Why, he asked himself, would they lie?) But by high school he was beginning to question his old beliefs; he bounced back and forth from each new belief to another, from certainty to uncertainty, and then from belief to disbelief. Final outcome? He wound up calling himself a theist -- not an atheist, but a theist. Atheists say there is no god, while a theist says there must be at least one. He shaved with Occam's Razor, however, and so felt that one was quite enough. Not just that, but Jules had read something once that described a theist as ‘one who believes there is a ruler of ultimate reality’ and he liked that well enough that it became what he meant when he described himself as a theist. He believed there was something behind the origin of everything, but could put no specific name to it. Altho he felt it had to be a single entity, he could neither claim to be a monotheist nor a polytheist. Polytheist believe there are many gods; Jules could accept that as a possibility, but only because he believed that an infinite but single being could manifest itself with a multiplicity of different faces, so he couldn't really call himself a polytheist. But he couldn't call himself a monotheist, either, because he tended to reserve that label for those who believed in one specific god (or goddess), whereas he believed only that some ultimate force -- unspecified, non-humanized, not to be named -- existed. At any rate, from his teens onward, Kincaid had been his own particular brand of theist -- driven there by the probably well-meaning Christians around him and what he saw as the inherent contradictions in their almost comic-book ideas. To his mind, one of the most irksome of those contradictions -- the one which had come closest to driving him to atheism -- had been the assertion that God has given humankind free will, followed by the whimpering question, "Why does God let these [terrible] things happen?" Jules simply couldn't understand people who failed to see that the two needed to be reversed, that the assertion was in fact an elegant answer to the question. In Jules mind, it went: Why does God let sometimes-terrible things happen? Because we're endowed with free will. Since we have (and presumably want) the ability to make moral choices, how can we reasonably expect a God to Run Everything? Several times he'd tottered on the brink of atheism. But while he'd never particularly worshiped at the altar of science, it had nonetheless saved him from falling off that particular precipice. As Kincaid delved into natural law, he saw the magnificent interlocking pattern of everything from quarks to galaxies, but unlike some, he began to find it harder and harder to believe that It Just Happened. Coincidence and random chance certainly occur in our universe, he freely admitted, but the order of magnitude needed to believe them to be the Prime Cause was so great that one might as well try to take seriously the notion that the Mona Lisa had painted itself. So Jules felt he was forced to believe there had to be more behind it all, which in turn nudged him into his little corner of theism. He was convinced that there was something greater than humankind -- he just wasn't yet sure what it was, beyond the certainty that it was an infinite power which was beyond human control.
“I've read all your Bluewater books and I think they're completely wonderful," the young woman who belonged to the sultry voice gushed, leaning perilously forward so that he could smell her perfume and feel her bottle-blonde hair brushing against his face. Another drink, he realized, even another deep breath of fumes, and there was little doubt that she would fall. She moved closer yet, however -- and, despite the effects of alcohol, this move was well-controlled; one generous breast brushed against his shoulder, a tactic much older than his forty-two years.
He wasn't at home, so couldn't begin the day with a workout. Well, maybe the touch of a hangover had something to do with that, too. In any event, he was sitting in the hotel coffee shop, reading the Tribune, the local daily paper. Altho the announcement of the publication of his latest Bluewater novel was on the front page, he wasn't reading it -- after all, that wasn't precisely news to him. Instead, he was reading the story which had crowded most everything else off that page.
The waitress, coming to refill his coffee cup, said with a cheerful smile, "Isn't it wonderful? Did you ever think you'd see the day when science would have to admit that God exists?"
“Without saying or even implying which God," Jules pointed out. "It could be the God of Abraham -- the one Judaism calls Yahweh, Islam calls Allah and Christianity calls Jehovah. Altho they're supposedly the same God, they can seem like three different gods since they've been filtered thru different holy writs. Not to mention that the Muslims and Jews view the Christian 'trinity' as three gods, anyway. But then too, on the other hand, it could always be some other god or any number of other gods that this scientific finding is referring to -- Ra, Vishnu, Zeus, Brahma, Hathor, Ishtar, Bran, The Dagda, Simbi, Balder or. . . ." He shrugged, smiled and let the sentence trail off.
“What do you mean?" his waitress asked defensively. A singularly hurt _expression crossed her face, like that of a child who's been given a large candy bar but had it snatched out of her hand after taking just one small delicious bite.
“It's just that, well, most scientists scoff at believing anything simply on the basis of faith, for all that they're interested in finding answers to the questions posed by philosophers -- and have been for many years. That's one of the reasons they continued to build bigger and better computers."
The newspaper story reported that most of the public appeared more than willing to accept the findings. In turn, it seemed likely to Jules Kincaid that many of them probably did so because they credited computers with nearly the same omniscience as their fabled God.
(Later, that thought would come back to haunt him.)
“Uh-huh. Right," the waitress said, resuming her smile now that she thought she understood Kincaid better, "and the biggest, best and most flawless computer ever built has now proven that God exists!"
“Actually, as I read about it here, that computer was programmed to sift thru what we know or at least think we've been able to prove about the universe and come up with a brief, direct and logical answer to the question of why things happen the way they do," Jules told her. "And the answer it came up with was that 'an infinite power' lies at the base of everyting."
“Of course -- God!" she responded. "That's the answer."
He shook his head. "An 'infinite power' means just that -- and no more. An infinite power underlies everything that happens in our universe including but not limited to our human existence -- that's all that's been proven, at least to the extent that we can prove anything."
“And that infinite power has to be God!" she insisted again.
Jules Kincaid sighed. “Yeah, that's how the newspapers are breaking it down for popular consumption. I guess you can call it that, if you really want to. But, personally, I don't think it matters. What did Shakespeare say? 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet'? What I think this discovery really means is that mankind may have suffered a blow to its collective tender ego, even tho perhaps we're all still in too much shock to feel it yet. Our search for knowledge was conducted in the belief that we could eventually control anything in the universe we happened across -- but while we can obviously tap parts of it, an infinite power is, on its face, something that's beyond our ability to control completely."
Even as a famous fantasy author, it didn't occur to him what a basic error in judgment he was making.
As a famous fantasy author, Jules Kincaid knew that storytelling was largely the art of getting out of the way while conveying What Happens Next.
What happened next was this:
At first, church attendance boomed; revival tents seemed to mushroom on every vacant lot and virtually every other television program was religion-oriented. Miracles were reported which the scions of science could not and/or did not dare contest. Jesus Is Coming! was painted on barns, cliff sides and tenement buildings. Visions of Jesus and Mary were reported worldwide.
Other religions, too. Gaia, the Earth Mother, appeared over Niagara Falls.
And then:
Shiva the Destroyer appeared, throwing lightning bolts. On a Lakota Indian reservation, a white buffalo appeared, and then turned into an Indian spirit more than twenty feet tall. Vishnu, Brahma and Siva dropped into a coffee shop in Van Nuys for a salad. 
Frodo Baggins, wearing a mithril shirt and toting Sting, walked thru Disney World in Orlando, Florida, a puzzled expression on his face. Peter Rabbit hopped thru New York City's Central Park -- fortunately unhindered by any would-be muggers. King Arthur, in full armor -- albeit sans Excalibur, which he'd given back to the Lady of the Lake -- wandered around rural England looking for Camelot. The starship Enterprise hovered over Manhattan; a shuttlecraft emerged and flew, at more than four times the speed of sound, to Reagan International in Washington, D.C., where it landed. James Tiberius Kirk stepped out, a wriggling tribble in each hand. However, none of them stayed in Jules Kincaid's plane of existence for very long -- it seemed probable to him that they'd been able to switch over from some alternate parallel universe but were not able to stay for any extended period of time. Why they were unable to stay remained a mystery, but there was probably a good reason that might even eventually present itself to him. But it was clear that even their brief appearances caused havoc; many people were frightened and didn’t report for work the next day. Those who did go to work spent hours talking about the appearances. Whether they were amused or intrigued, the discussions greatly interfered with their productivity. The appearances themselves were frequently highly disruptive. For example, one of the worst was when King Midas appeared on Wall Street with tons of gold and bought all outstanding shares of stocks and bonds, skewing prices enormously and setting off a panic. As stockholders offered their stocks, businesses had to print more. That drastically altered the relative value of each business. Brokers, of course, were initially pleased; their commissions vastly increased. But when Midas disappeared, so did his gold, which had a negative impact on his earlier popularity. Many brokers claimed they had been leery of selling Midas stock, but admitted that his gold finally broke their resistance. After Midas vanished, a new Wall Street rule was established -- "Never traffic with a mythical being, regardless of his wealth!" Then -- for another case -- Loki, god of mischief, appeared. He thought it would be hilarious to scramble languages on all radios and TVs worldwide, as well as anything electronic. In ten minutes, he went away and so did the effect, but during that time there was global havoc. Computers didn’t work right; even emergency radios spat out garbage. Airlines were badly disrupted. Two fighter jets crashed into each other. To Jules, however, the most amazing thing was that Rittle had been spotted walking, in his bouncy way, down Madison Avenue, joining in as part of a parade. Of course it would be Rittle, Kincaid thought. Rittle was the adventurous one, the one unafraid of doing new things and, most important, the one with a sense of humor. While on Madison Avenue, Rittle had bounced along under a Snoopy balloon, throwing bubbles above the pedestrians on the sidelines -- bubbles that burst, only to shower hundred-dollar bills on their heads. Hundred dollar bills with Miral's picture on them. The news media, of course, had a heyday with all this, partly because they love reporting strange events, but also because they love even more trying to explain and dismiss them. Hah! MASS HALLUCINATIONS! blared one headline. Sure. And all flying saucers were swamp gas. And that didn't explain Kirk and the tribbles. Later, it seemed that Stephen King had come closest to actually getting what was going on. King speculated that these happenings were all in response to the computer's revelation that there was, truly, an infinite power. Jules agreed. But no one got it all, to Kincaid’s way of thinking. While willing to believe that he could be wrong, Jules saw it as a validation of his own primary belief -- that, regardless of the name or names people had assigned to it and/or chosen to worship, there is only one infinite power. Those who preferred to do so could call that infinite power God; being infinite, it could of course manifest itself as a singularity or a multiplicity -- that was really not a vital concern. If no one had it all completely right, no one had it entirely wrong either. Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, Druids, nature worshipers, anyone who believed in anything one might regard as religion -- even the ancient form of Satanism (since, after all, Good and Evil are opposite sides of the same coin) -- worshipped their own version of the infinite power and called it something different. The least important thing in that statement, to Kincaid's way of thinking, was what they choose to call it. And then:
Even before Rittle's appearance, the entire phenomenon amazed and, in a twisted way, amused Jules Kincaid.
He felt he knew what had happened: Belief, for the first time in a very long time, was becoming a power, which could have a considerable and potent effect on the physical world.
A little history, if you'll pardon it.
Monotheism seemed to have been introduced successfully for the first time to the world in ancient Egypt, when Amenhotep IV instituted the worship of the sun god, Aton-Ra, as the One True God. Egyptian polytheism made a comeback after the pharaoh died, but he still gets the credit for having introduced the idea -- an idea that didn't die with him.
Belief in the Greek/Roman/Norse pantheon of gods had been shaken long before Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion (despite the fact that practicing Christians were a minority in his empire). The old polytheistic religion by that time showed up only in the form of superstition, magic and divination; the world was ripe for monotheism, which offered itself in varied guises, including forms of various Oriental religions: in the worship of the sun, in the veneration of Mithras, in Judaism and in the relatively new sect that was eventually to be known as the separate religion called Christianity.
But Moses -- way back when he delivered his people from slavery in Egypt -- came down the mountain after they reached the Promised Land with a couple of tablets of instructions from Yahweh, one of which enjoined, Thou shalt have no other gods before me! Since Christianity (and later Islam) essentially also worshiped the God of Abraham, their practitioners eventually came to feel that this admonition applied to them as well.
The key was 'no other gods'. Note the plural, indicating no multiple gods. Jules believed that this, working from the subconscious, is what doomed -- or at least helped to doom -- the Greek/Roman/Norse gods to extinction. Being called upon to reject other "gods," the newly converted would naturally focus on rejecting the multiple gods of the area of the world they lived in. Worse, they came to actively, strongly and continually disbelieve in and reject those other gods. Unlike the people who idly had no belief in any deity, theirs was forcibly directed at the source of the infinite power, like a prayer asking that these particular other gods (whose Roman followers had, after all, persecuted them) be denied existence.
That was just an overview; Jules realized many details needed to be filled in.
Jules Kincaid had yearned to be able to discuss all this with Miral -- she was not only beautiful but also wise in the ways of both men and gods. However, since she was only fiction, a person he had dreamed up in the fiction he wrote, he didn't really suppose there was any way he could actually consult with her, so it had been an idle wish at best.
Until Rittle's appearance. That changed his mind. It seemed that enough people had believed in (or wanted to believe in) Bluewater to make him real enough to stroll down Madison Avenue. If they believed enough to make Rittle real, then it stood to reason they would believe in Miral enough to make her real as well.
Great!
But he paced the floor of his hotel room, trying to figure out how to get to her. How, as a possible first step, could he find Rittle? . . .Or did he really need to do anything? Was it possible that Rittle was a messenger, sent to find him, Jules Kincaid? Would it be wiser to go looking for Rittle -- or to stay here and wait?
Even as he asked himself these questions, there was a quick rap at the door of his room. Jules opened it -- and saw Rittle's head and shoulders, upside down, at the top of the doorframe.
“Hi!" he said in the tenor voice Jules had heard many times in his head but which had never quite matched the tenor voice of Dick Brandeis, who'd made a name for himself playing Rittle in the movies.
Doing a back flip, Rittle landed on the floor of the hall and stood there before Jules, still grinning. The tips of Rittle's ears leaned away from his head and above them his hair, the color of old pennies, stood out like firm-packed clumps of straw. He was wearing a brown leather vest over an orange shirt that had full sleeves -- sleeves which, Kincaid knew, held many tricks. The shirttail bulged out over brown suede pants that were held up by knotted thongs. The pants legs were tucked into soft-soled boots, the tops of which almost reached his knees. His elbows were tucked in but his hands were held up and out, palms back, contributing to the shrug in his shoulders that seemed to ask Was that impressive, or what?
He was slightly bowlegged, which put his cheerful eyes about ten inches below those of Jules Kincaid. Jules stood six-four, in his stocking feet, and as it happened he had been pacing and therefore was then standing in his stocking feet. At the moment he was also wearing a silk dragon-embossed dressing gown made by a quilting club fan group of his; the tail of the dragon came around Kincaid's waist and became the sash.
“You'd be Jules Kincaid, then." It was a statement, not a question. Jules could detect the strange, semi-Irish accent he'd assigned to Rittle that went with his tenor voice.
Nodding, Jules said, "Yes. And you're Rittle, son of Lluni. Come in." Kincaid bowed a little and gave Rittle an invitational sweep of his hand as he stepped aside, then closed the door behind them after Rittle entered and Jules followed his bouncing gait further into the room.
“Take a seat," Jules said, indicating a comfortable chair before adding, "I have no mead, but I can offer you something else I think you might enjoy. If, that is, you're thirsty."
“You, of all people, Jules Kincaid, should know that Rittle is always thirsty," he said with a broad grin on his face.
Yes.
“I'll be right back," Kincaid said and went to the bar. He selected two glasses and opened a bottle of Irish whiskey. Pouring out generous dollops, amounting to a bit more than a double shot, he took both glasses and offered one of them to Rittle, who looked at his glass doubtfully, sniffed it, then smiled at Jules.
“We have an _expression here," Kincaid said, touching the rim of his glass to Rittle's, "Cheers!"
“Cheers!" Rittle responded, and they both drank.
There is a distinct way people eventually learn to swallow whiskey, not at all like swallowing a mouthful of any other kind of liquor, so Jules watched Rittle and noted, as the whiskey went down his throat, that there was a momentary _expression of shock on his face. Then Rittle smiled once again, broadly; he seemed to be having a little trouble breathing, but he beamed and winked and downed the rest of the whiskey with a flourish that indicated he was a quick and intuitive learner.
“Woooo!" he exclaimed, leaning back. "Woooo!"
He slapped himself on the chest, gasped for breath, and said, again, "Woooo!" in case Jules hadn't understood him the first two times.
“Mead," Rittle gasped, shaking his head, "will never be the same! More?" He held out his glass eagerly.
Kincaid had so enjoyed watching him that he hadn't done more than take a sip of his own drink. "Just a little more of mine," Jules said, tilting his glass over Rittle's. "Not much, because I think we have much to do."
Rittle looked at his glass, swirled the half-inch of whiskey which had been poured into, looked at Jules and then -- regretfully -- put the glass down without drinking.
“What you say is true, Jules Kincaid," he replied, nodding, a rueful _expression passing over his face. "An addled Rittle would be no good for you nor what we need to do. But you have great magic in what is surely the drink of the Gods!" His smile returned.
“No magic," Kincaid said, shaking his head. "It's just the result of a technology and a process which your kind has never had. And altho it's true that some of us refer to it as God's water, we generally do so with humorous intent. Now. What is our business -- what brings you here?"
"There is trouble," Rittle said somberly. "Miral needs you."
It would be Miral. No surprise there -- no one else in Bluewater would have realized that somehow a door had opened.
“What's the trouble?" Jules asked.
“Our old enemies, the Idge, now have magic boats that travel beneath the water -- which means, of course, that they resist all spells!"
Submarines!