The Voice Of God

With our love,
We could save the world.

George Harrison

'Oh Peter!' I ran over to the bed and sat on it, took Peter in my arms and hugged him.The lights in the room were very bright and they seemed to be making my eyes water. 'Were they awful to you? Did they hurt you very badly? I should have come before. I'm so sorry!' My heart was aching with remorse. Why had I forgotten about him for so long?

And what had they done to Peter to make him say something as crazy as that? How had they damaged his mind? Was it the effect of the drugs that were dripping constantly into his veins? I had heard that they could bring visions of paradise, but also a terrible, reality-obscuring cloud of fear and suspicion. I turned to look at Gerry. His face was perfectly calm.

'Gerry, what's going on?'

'Nothing, sis, nothing.

'But what does Peter mean? Why does he say your name's Martin James? Who is this Martin James, anyway?'

Gerry shook his head. 'I don't know. Maybe he knows somebody by that name in Oxford. I've no idea why he should think that person is me.'

'Because you are him.' Peter struggled to an upright position in the bed. 'You are my old master's brother, who tried to steal his business from me, even though you'd already nearly ruined it by mortgaging it to the moneylenders. You are the man who tried to separate Viola from me. You killed my friend Jim.' Peter looked at me. 'You like stories, don't you? You like writing them down. You told me.'

So I had. I nodded.

'How would you feel if you were writing a story and it was cut short half-way through? Would you be happy? Unhappy?'

I shrugged. 'Unhappy, I suppose.'

'Jim was a writer too. He never finished his book. Think, Sunny. His life was a story and that wasn't properly finished either.'

'Yes, but Peter... This is my brother Gerry. Look at him! You've seen his photo.'

'He may look like your brother, but he isn't him. Believe me.'

I shook my head. 'I'm sorry, Gerry. Mister Joyce has been a real friend to me. The very best. He's brave and he's decent and he's steadfast. I'm very fond of him and I think he likes me. But... they must have done some awful things to him in the cells. Look! They're pumping poppy or something into him now. Peter... Shall I take the tube out of your arm? Could you bear it? You might see things more clearly then.'

Peter's face worked strangely. 'I am seeing things clearly. Very clearly. Never more so. But yes, pull it out. I can do without it.'

I leaned over him and removed the poppy-drip from his arm as gently as I could. Even so, he flinched and a quick gasp of pain escaped his lips. I kissed him on the cheek. 'We'll get you out of here as soon as we can,' I said and slowly, deliberately, ran my hand down Viola's back, allowing the soft grey fur of her bushy tail to loop around my fingers. Peter sighed deeply and I, just for a moment, found myself inhabiting his ruined body once more.

'Thank you,' he said.

Oh, Peter. What was I going to do with you? What were any of us going to do? I felt so confused.

- 0 -

Alfie spoke out aloud. 'Gerry,' he said. 'There's something you mentioned just now that puzzled me.'

'Yes, Alfie? What was it?'

'You said that Mister Joyce might have known this Martin James in Oxford. Why there? Why Oxford?'

'Well, because...'

'Because nobody so far as I know has said anything about Oxford. I haven't. Sunny hasn't. Mister Joyce certainly hasn't. So why do you think they might have met, or whatever it was, in Oxford?'

Gerry laughed. 'Because, little Alpharintus, James, Cholmondley, Joyce and Joyce are one of the foremost makers of clocks in the Brytish Isles. Their head office is in Shoe Lane, in Oxford. That's why I guessed this mythical Martin James might have lived there.'

'I see. That's perfectly clear, except for one thing. Why do you think this Peter Joyce is Master Joyce the famous clockmaker, rather than some other Peter Joyce? It's not such an unusual name, after all. Neither Sunny nor I mentioned him last night. You weren't the slightest bit interested in what we'd been doing. Why was that? If you really were Gerry, you'd want to know all about everything Sunny and I have been up to since you last left home. If you're somebody else you'd probably not care.'

'Alfie! Don't be so horrible!'

'No,' said Gerry. 'He's got a point. You know how wrapped up in myself I can be sometimes. It's a bad fault. I'm sorry about it. Anyway, if you don't believe I am who I say I am, why don't you quiz me? Ask me some questions only the real Gerry Moon could answer. I'd better remind you, though, that I got a nasty bump on the head when my ship went down. There are some things I don't remember at all, and lots of stuff that's still pretty vague.'

'What a surprise,' said Peter with a scowl. 'Very convenient, I must say.'

'That's a nice get-out for you, isn't it?' said Alfie, much to my disgust.

Gerry smiled and shook his head again. 'Go on. Ask away.' I had a quick think.

'All right, then,' I said. 'What's my pony's name?'

Gerry thought for a moment. 'Regulus.'

'Regulus? You're sure?'

'Yes, of course.' Was he really? That changed matters. I stood up.

'I think you may be right,' I said to Peter. 'He's not my brother. You see,' turning to the figure who stood by the door, 'the only pony of mine you could possibly have remembered was Scipio. But Scipio had an accident not long after your ship went down and Daddy bought Regulus for me instead. It was too unfair, you see, to lose my brother and my pony so soon after one another. But you couldn't have known that, could you? You weren't there. Well?' I drew my sword and waited for his admission of guilt.

'Sunny, Sunny.' Gerry shook his head and smiled. 'Did they ever tell you about Ockham's Razor at school? No? Well, let me educate you now. It's a well-established theological principle and it states, to put it at its simplest, that when faced with two or more explanations for something you should always go for the less or least complicated one. Now consider: which is more unlikely; that I am an impostor who has somehow managed to impersonate your long-lost brother and discovered, by some means involving various acts of derring-do and espionage, all kinds of information about you; or that I'm who I say I am and that I wrote to our father and asked him for news of you, my darling sister?'

'Oh.' Put that way my doubts seemed ridiculous. 'You mean that you and Daddy have been writing to each other, but nobody's told me anything about it? Do you know something? I wrote to you all the time. Nearly every day, sometimes. I told you everything that was going on. All my secrets. Everything.'

'I never got any of them.'

'You silly sod!' I thumped Gerry's chest. 'Of course you didn't get them. I didn't post them! What do you think I am - mad?'

I had wondered about that, said Alfie.

You never said anything to me.

Gerry put his hand on my shoulder. 'I'm sorry, sis. We both decided it was better if you didn't know. Security, you see. Need-to-know, and all that.'

'You're saying I didn't need to know that you were alive?'

'You might have inadvertently let something slip at school. We couldn't risk it. My work was too important.'

I sat down on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands. I didn't know what to think. 'Peter,' I said after a minute or so. 'Why are you so sure that Gerry is Martin James? Where did you get that idea from?'

'I can tell by looking at him. If you focussed your eyes in the right way, you could too. It's something Arthur taught me.'

'Oh, him. Funny he's not here now, isn't it?'

'I wish he were.' Peter sighed again and fell back against the pillows. We were getting nowhere.

- 0 -

'Do you think you could put that deadly weapon of yours down now?' Gerry said.

'Oh yes. I'm sorry.' I put the sword back in my belt. It glinted in the intense artificial light from the overhead tubes.

'Are we done? Only I've got to get back to my work and I'm a little uneasy about leaving you and Alfie here by yourself.'

'Uneasy? Why? Don't you think I'm safe?'

'Frankly, no. He's delusional, can't you see?'

'Don't be so horrible!' I could sense the colour rising in my cheeks. 'He's been hurt. Look at him!' I caught my breath. 'I have to say you're not talking or behaving very much like my brother. Since when did you become so beggaring pompous? Is that what working for the Church does for you?' I looked at Peter again. 'How did Martin James speak?'

Peter's mouth twisted in a half-smile. 'It's ironic, you know, this man calling me delusional because I never met anyone so deluded in my life as Martin James. Yes, he was pompous. It came from an extraordinarily inflated sense of his own importance. He truly believed he had carte-blanche from the Authority to do anything he wanted. And why? Because he thought he spoke with God's voice. God cannot lie, so neither could he, just as he thought that the deeds he performed - and he did something to Viola and me that was truly abominable - were God's acts, with him as God's agent. In other words, he could do no evil act, no sin, because everything he did was of God. You couldn't argue with him, because God spoke through him. He spoke the word of God and that cannot be wrong, by definition. And... he had a daemon who could take any form, despite his being an adult.'

'Including human form?' What was I saying?

'I never saw his Lilith take the form of a succubus, but I have no reason to believe she couldn't.' My expression must have given me away, because Peter's voice, which had been harsh with remembered anger, became softer. 'Sunny, I know all about you and Alfie. Arthur told me in London.'

'What? You knew all along?'

'Yes. It was why I... couldn't get on with you very well to begin with.'

'Oh... I was going to tell you. There in our attic. I would have, really I would.'

'I know. Don't worry about it. You've done nothing wrong.'

Had I done nothing wrong? I was beginning to wonder.

Gerry had been silent while Peter and I were talking. Now he spoke, and what he said came as a complete surprise to me.

'Sunny, do you know I saved your life?'

What did he mean? I put Alfie down on the bed. 'Yes, I remember. I was five and I decided I would go swimming in the duck-pond even though I 'd never been in any water deeper than a bath before and...'

'No,' Gerry interrupted me. 'Not then. A week or so ago.'

'What? A week ago? How?'

'I'm going to have to tell you a story first.'

'Or a lie,' said Peter.

'Shut up, you!' It was very nearly a shout and there was a strange, unfamiliar edge to Gerry's voice. I put my hand to my sword.

'Sunny - don't pay any attention to him,' said Gerry. 'He's upset. Listen to me instead. You're a good churchgoing girl, aren't you?'

'Yes, of course.'

'And you want the Church to prosper? You want it to grow and live?'

'Yes, but not as it is now. Not sealed away in a horrible concrete cocoon like this and not hoarding all the world's knowledge the way it does. That's wrong. I can't agree with that.' I glared at him.

'I'm going to surprise you - I agree with you. It's totally wrong and an abuse of the Church's power. It's a symptom of something that's gone very astray and if you listen to me I'll tell you how and why.'

I held the sword steady. 'Go on, then.'

Don't let him trick you! said Alfie. He had his doubts then, too.

'I'll begin with a question. Who or what is the Magdelena?'

'The daemon of the Holy Spirit, of course.'

'Yes, that's what we're told. Now - why would a spirit need a daemon? Do animals have daemons? No they don't, not even intelligent talking animals like the Armoured Bears of the north. Do angels have daemons?'

'I don't know. I've never met one.'

'But you've seen pictures of them. Every oratory and chapel has one. Do the angels in those pictures have daemons?'

'Er... no.'

'Quite right, they do not. Now, what about spirits or ghasts? Do they have daemons?'

'Ugh! I... I don't know.'

'Ask Alpharintus, then.'

No, they don't.

'So it looks as if the only creatures - Created lives, I mean - who have daemons are human beings.'

'And the Holy Spirit.'

'So we've been told for longer than you've been alive. But what about Jesus Christ?'

'You mean the Blasphemer?'

'That's what he's called now. But in an older tradition - and it's not so old, at that - the Magdelena was known to be the daemon of Christ, who was a man. A real human being. Now what makes more sense - that the Magdelena should belong to an incorporeal spirit, or to a man?'

'Well...'

'What do you think?' He looked at Peter.

'You know what I think. The Magdelena was Christ's daemon. This Holy Spirit nonsense was only dreamed up forty or so years ago in the Great Fear. But what point are you trying to make?'

'It is this. Holy Church has gone astray, just as Sunny says. It's lost its way. It's tried to hold on to its power by monopolising God's Word, and the result has been war, suffering and bloodshed. We need something new, or the return of something old. We need the Christ.'

I looked at Peter. Surely he didn't believe all this? 'Peter, this is rubbish isn't it? It's blasphemy - false teaching.'

'No...,' said Peter slowly. 'Not altogether.'

'What?'

'This man, whoever he is, has a point. We humans need a link between the mundane and the world of the transcendent. It's too big a gap for the human spirit to leap by itself. We need an Intercessor. Sunny, do you remember that story you read in my book, about the world that lost touch with God?'

I shook my head. 'Yes I do. I liked it... I can see what you're getting at. Oh, I don't know. Maybe you're right. But what has all this got to do with me?'

'That's what I was coming to. Jesus - the original Jesus who died two thousand years ago - was born of a virgin. We are told that His daemon was settled at birth. You and I are both virgins. Our unsettled daemons are the exact opposite of the Magdelena, but their union - the lying together of a succubus and an incubus, as the vulgar call them - has the potential, like the opposing poles of a lodestone, to bring forth something very wonderful. Something very wonderful indeed.'

The sword shook wildly in my hand. 'You mean... last night... you...'

Peter sat up. 'Last night?' His voice was unusually high and tinged with panic. 'Last night? Sunny, no! What happened?'

I stammered the words. 'Alfie and Eugenie... they did it. You know. They... slept together. It was... lovely. It felt lovely...'

'It was lovely, my Sunshine. It was a brave and noble act you and Alfie did. An act of sharing. An act of creation. A holy act.'

Peter swore violently.

'And as for you, Mister Joyce. You invoked the name of the Christ not ten minutes ago. Can you really claim that you don't want to see His return?'

'Not like this, you piece of filth.' I was trembling with the anger that vibrated in the air. The anger and the fear. How had we come to this? My mind was more confused than ever. What was Gerry trying to say?

'Gerry, you told me you'd saved my life. How was that?'

Gerry folded his arms. He was still standing with his back to the door. 'I was coming on to that. You know that I've been working as a Church Agent. I told you I've been travelling all over the world in the service of the Magisterium. Well, the more I saw of life, the more I realised that there was something missing in the world. Yes, the Church's guiding hand was present everywhere. Yes, the Word of God was being safeguarded in the Archives of Geneva. But there was an unease abroad, a feeling of... disconnection. And there was another thing. Jesus Christ had been officially denounced as a heretic in the fiat dei of 2012, but he hadn't disappeared. Everywhere I went, there were old bibles, crucifixes and icons that should have been surrendered to the Magisterium to be expunged but hadn't. The Jesus story simply wouldn't go away, because we humans needed it.

'I tried to persuade the authorities here, but I was brushed off and told in private that I was putting myself in mortal danger by raising such matters. The Church's teaching was the Church's teaching, and final. Past errors of doctrine would not be repeated. So I confined myself to speaking to my colleagues and, over the course of a year, managed to raise some support. But this was all going nowhere because, however desirable the restoration of the Christ might be, there was no focus. It wasn't going to be enough to bring back the legend. We needed the man.

'I was stuck. Until... one day, I found an old book in the Condemned section of the Agents' library. Yes, not every heretical book is destroyed and Agents like myself need knowledge of the more common heresies in order to combat them. In an appendix to this book was an account of the different kinds of what it described as daemon deviancy and in there... In there was an alternative version of the story of the nativity of Christ. It took my breath away, because I knew that I had, at last, been given the key that would unlock the conundrum I faced - how to restore the Intercessor to mankind.

'I can still remember how it was - the flickering candle, the musty smell of the ancient tomes with which the library was stocked. I was entranced and exhilarated by my discovery and I snipped the appendix from the book and took it back to my quarters. From then on I concentrated my mind on only one thing - how I could bring us together.'

My heart was beating fast. 'But what happened then? How did you save my life?'

'I thought that my mission would be achieved in London. We very nearly met in Chelsea, that Sunday night when you allowed yourself to be lured to the headquarters of the King's Guard. I was all set to rescue you when events took a different turn from the one I had anticipated. I lost you again. But then, by the greatest good fortune, you absconded to Frankland. From that point it was comparatively easy to steer your path here.'

'You? You arranged for me to meet Peter and Capitaine Fourneaux and find the tunnel into Geneva? Were you the young man on the train, or was he one of your agents?'

'Your path was guided for you.'

'He's lying,' said Peter. 'You and I only reached the city because of the hard, dangerous work of the gyptian underground. They got me to you. It was a gyptian boat - the Marie-Louise - that was struck down, and her captain who was killed.'

'Yes - but not by me. I have told you that my ideas were regarded as heretical by my superiors. Somehow - even now I don't know who betrayed me, or what torments he was made to suffer - my opponents learned of my plan to bring you here. It was they who ordered the cosmic weapon to be used against you. But it was I who warned Mister Joyce through the use of his oracle and saved your lives. And it was I who disabled the orbiter so that another attempt could not be made on your life. That weapon is now fully functional again and it is I who controls it. There has been, you might say, a slight rearrangement of the power structure of the Magisterium in the past week. A revolution. Soon the forces of the Alliance will sweep away the Pagan Horde and Geneva will be liberated. With that liberation will come a new hope and a new peace. The world will be set free by the New Christ and all will be harmonious once more between God and Men.'

The conviction in Gerry's voice was unmistakable, his fervour utterly compelling. I was completely convinced by him. 'There, Peter,' I said. 'Now do you believe that this is my brother? We Moons really know how to make things happen, don't we?'

Peter's voice was grey with despair. 'Yes, you do. You know how to kill. You know how to destroy. You know how to plot and connive. And especially, you know how to lie. Don't you, Miss Moon? Don't you?'

'I used to... I don't now. I haven't lied to you. I know I haven't always told you the whole truth about myself, but I never told you a lie.'

'No, Lady Gresham?' Peter spat the words out.

I put my knuckles in my eyes and pressed hard. 'Stop it! Stop it! Don't be so horrible!'

Gerry took my arm. 'Come on now, Sunny. Leave him. He's... hurt, like you said. I'll get the doctors to come and see to him after we've gone.'

'Oh, yes. I'm sure you will. They'll see to me all right. What you mean is they'll see to it that I never leave this room alive.'

'I'll come again tomorrow,' I said. 'I promise. I can do that, can't I?'

'Of course you can, sweetheart,' said Gerry. 'Come along now. Let's go.'

'Yes, off you go.' Peter's voice was charged with bitterness. ' Off you go back to your lair, you bastard. Off you go to lie once more with this innocent young girl. Off you go to commit grievous fornication with her. Off you go to paw at her beauty with your foul, disgusting hands. Go on - go and wreck her life as you have ruined mine.'

Gerry's face was distorted with anger. 'I know what you're thinking. You have a very nasty mind, Mister Joyce. You have the kind of sick, twisted mentality that cannot bear to see something fine and wonderful without sniffing around to find something wrong with it to fuel its jealousy. Because it is jealousy you're suffering from, isn't it? You wanted her, didn't you? You wanted to have her for yourself, but she didn't want you. She turned you down, didn't she? Look at her. She's beautiful. Why would she want you? Why on earth would any girl, let alone one as lovely as she, want to lie with a dirty, pus-infected cripple like you?' And he pushed past me. His meerkat-daemon's claw scratched my face.

I'll never know what he intended to do; whether he was going to strike Peter, or - as I now believe - plug the poppy-drip back into his arm to sedate and silence him. But as he pushed me aside the hilt of my sword caught against the iron rail at the bottom of Peter's bed. The blade swivelled up into the air.

He never saw it move. He was too intent on getting to Peter and doing him harm. So he never realised that the the tip of the sword was pointing directly at his abdomen and in his haste to do harm to my friend he was unable to stop himself before it penetrated his clothes and slid, deadly-sharp, into his flesh.

'No!,' he cried, but he was moving far too quickly to stop himself and he fell forward onto the sword and drove it hard into his body. It entered his torso in the region of his stomach and left it just below his shoulderblade, piercing his heart and killing him instantly. He slumped to the floor and his weight levered on the blade and pulled me down with him. The sword's point narrowly missed my right eye.

- 0 -

There was a girl crying in the dormitory - I wished she'd shut up. The silly little bint was screaming fit to burst. She kept howling the same word over and over again and it was getting to be the most terrible bore. Why didn't somebody give her a damn good slap? 'Shut up,' I told her, but it did no good. The trollop was bawling and shouting more than ever. 'For heaven's sake, give it a rest!' I hissed, but she continued to ignore me. If this carried on we'd have the Head of House round and the next thing you knew the teachers would be involved and we'd be up in front of Miss Selborne or Miss Alton and there's be merry hell to pay. What was the shrieking ninny's name? I'd have to move fast or we'd lose all our Sixth Form privileges. What was it - ah yes, Moon. Sonya Moon. 'Sonya,' I hissed. 'Stop it! The prefects'll hear us. We'll be put on reports. Come on, calm down or we'll all get into the most awful stew. What's up? What's wrong?' The girl looked at me and I could see that her eyes were red-raw with corrosive tears. 'Can't you tell me?'

She drew a deep breath. 'Gerry... my brother. He's been killed. Stabbed to death. Look!' and she started crying again, while great sobs shook her body.

'Your brother? Oh that's terrible. But you must stop crying so loud or there'll be ructions. Where's your daemon?'

'Here,' she sniffed.

'Hold on to him - that's right. Tell him your troubles. It'll be all right. But please - keep it down!'

The girl clutched her mink-daemon to her chest. 'Thank you. You're very kind. You're a real friend.'

'That's all right.'

- 0 -

I picked myself up from the side of Peter's bed and held on to the rail. I was still breathing great shivering, shuddering breaths and I felt more than a little unsteady. I looked down. A pool of crimson blood was spreading across the freshly polished tiled floor, pouring from the open wound in the daemonless man's back. I was just beginning to wonder - where was my sword? Why wasn't it still caught up in my belt? - when there was a clang and the hilt fell to the ground. I bent down to pick it up. To my wonder only the brass and leather of which it was made remained. Of its polished steel blade there was no sign - only a wisp of smoke and a brown stain on the back of a navy blue jacket.

Alfie was clinging to my arm. Let's look at him, he said. Turn him over. So I got down on my knees and with a great heave lifted the prone figure, turned him over and looked at his face.

He no longer looked like my brother. He was a grey-haired, middle-aged man, older than Peter, and his face was twisted in pain and hatred. I looked in astonishment, still holding the empty sword-hilt in my right hand..

I had killed Gerry - but I had not killed him. My brother was dead, but it was not by my sword, not by my hand. This man was not my brother but he was dead just the same, and it was as if Gerry had died again. I slumped onto the bed and put my hands over my face. I lay next to Peter - although sheets and blankets separated us - and tried again to cry away my broken heart. Peter let his hand rest upon my arm.

'Sunny, dearest Sunny, it's all right. It's over now. He's gone. Don't cry; please don't. I don't think I can bear it.'

But all I could say while I lay on my side and gasped for breath to soothe my aching lungs was, 'Gerry, Gerry...' I put my arm around Peter and dragged myself onto him, letting my head fall next to his on the pillows.

'He's gone away. I thought I'd got him back, I thought I'd found him again, but he's gone for ever. I'll never see him again. Never, never...'

Peter ran his arm down my back. 'Darling Sunny, sweet child, I know how hard this is for you.'

I shook my head and sobbed, 'No you don't. You're not me. Nobody knows how I feel. They can't!'

'But I do. I was hardly any older than you when...' And he told me again about the time he found Lyra Silvertongue dead in her Jordan College study.

'We've both lost the ones we loved most dearly. Oh Sunny, let us be as kind to one another as we possibly can in the time that's left to us.'

I sniffed and dabbed my eyes on the pillow. 'You were always kind to me.'

'No, I wasn't. You know that. But we know each other now. We really know each other at last, so how could we...'

'...Ever be cruel to one another again? Oh, Peter!' I hugged him as hard as I could and rocked myself against him to and fro, to and fro. He wrapped his right arm around me and held me tightly in return.

- 0 -

We were still lying in each other's arms when we were disturbed by a knock at the door.