Goat Song Poul Anderson

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among the mysteries.
She laughs aloud and points to my soul bracelet, glimmering faintly in the gray-blue
thickening twilight. Need She say anything?
Will someone give me a knife and an ax? I ask.
The crowd stirs and mumbles. I smell their fear. Streethamps go on, as if they could
scatter more than this corner of the night which is roiling upon us. I fold my arms and wait. The
Dark Queen says something to me. I ignore Her.
The tools pass from hand to hand. He who brings them up the stairs conies like a flame. He
kneels at my feet and lifts what I have desired. The tools are good ones, a broad-bladed hunting
knife and a long double-bitted ax.
Before the world, I take the knife in my right hand and slash bemieath the bracelet on my
left wrist. The connections to my inner body are cut. Blood flows, impossibly brilliant under the
lamps. It does not hurt; I am too exalted.
The Dark Queen shrieks. You meamit it! Harper, Harper!
There is no life in SUM, I say. I pull my hand through the circle and cast the bracelet
dowmi so it rings.
A voice of brass: Arrest that maniac for correction. He is deadly dangerous.
The monitors who have stood on the fringes of the crowd try to push through. They are
resisted. Those who seek to help them encounter fists and fingernails.
I take the ax and smash downward. The bracelet crumples. The organic material within,
starved of my secretions, exposed to the night air, withers.
I raise the tools, ax in right hand, knife in bleeding heft. I seek eternity where it is
to be found, I call. Who goes with me?
A score or better break loose from the riot, which is already calling forth weapons and
claiming hives. They surround me with their bodies. Their eyes are the eyes of prophets. We make
haste to seek a hiding place, for one military robot has appeared and others will not be long in
coming. The tall engine strides to stand guard over Our Lady, and this is my last glimpse of Her.
My followers do not reproach me for having cost them all they were. They are mine. Imi me
is the godhead which can do no wrong.
Amid the war is opemi, between me and SUM. My friends are few, my enemies many and mighty.
I go about the world as a fugitive. But always I sing. And always I find someone who will listen,
will join us, embracing pain and death like a lover.
With the Knife and the Ax I take their souls. Afterward we hold for them the ritual of
rebirth. Some go thence to become outlaw missionaries; most put on facsimile bracelets and return
home, to whisper my word. It makes little difference to me. I have no haste, who own eternity.
For my word is of what lies beyond time. My enemies say I call forth ancient bestialities
and lunacies; that I would bring civilization down in ruin; that it matters not a madman s giggle
to me whether war, famine, amid pestilence will again scour the earth. \Vith these accusations I
am satisfied. The language of them shows me that here, too, I have reawakened anger. And that
emotion belongs to us as much as any other. More than the others, maybe, in this autumn of
mankind. We need a gale, to strike down SUM and everything It stands for. Afterward will come the
winter of barbarism.
Amid after that the springtime of a new and (perhaps) more human civilization. My friends
seem to believe this will come in their very lifetimes: peace, brotherhood, enlightenment,
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sanctity. I know otherwise. I have been in the depths. The wholeness of mankind, which I am
bringing back, has its horrors.
When one day
the Eater of the Gods returns the Wolf breaks his chain
the I-lorsemnen ride forth
the Age ends
the Beast is reborn
then SUM will be destroyed; and you, strong and fair, may go back to earth and rain.
I shall await you.
My aloneness is nearly ended, Daybright. just one task remains. The god must die, that his
followers mnay believe he is raised from the dead and hives forever. Then they will go on to
conquer the world.
There are those who say I have spurned and offended them. They too, borne on the tide
which I raised, have torn out their machine souls and seek in music
and ecstasy to find a meaning for existence. But their creed is a savage one, which has taken
theni into wildcountry, where they ambush the monitors sent against them and practice cruel rites.
They believe that the final reality is female. Nevertheless, messengers of theirs have approached
me with the suggestion of a mystic marriage. This I refused; my wedding was long ago, and will be
celebrated again when this cycle of the world has closed.
Therefore they hate me. But I have said I will come anA talk to them.
I leave the road at the bottom of the valley and walk singing up the hill. Those few I let
come this far with me have been told to abide my return. They shiver in the sunset; the vernal
equinox is three days away. I feel no cold myself. I stride exultant among briars and twisted
ancient apple trees. If my bare feet heave a little blood in the snow, that is good. The ridges
aroumid are dark with forest, which waits hike the skeleton dead for heaves to be breathed across
it again. The eastern sky is purple, where stands the evening star. Overhead, against blue,
cruises an early flight of homebound geese. Their calls drift faintly down to me. Westward, above
me and before me, smolders redness. Etched black against it are the women.
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