THE MAGIC LABYRINTH by Philip Jose Farmer

“I’m still learning. And I pray that I may live long enough to be rid of all self-deceit. Meanwhile, you and I can’t spend all our time in exploring ourselves. We must also work among the people. Monasticism, retreat from the world, reclusivism, that’s a lot of crap. So where would you like to go? Up-River or down?”

“I really hate to leave this place,” Hermann said. “I’ve been happy here. For the first time in a long time, I feel as if I’m part of a family.”

“Your family lives from one end of The River to the other,” Ch’agii said. “It contains many unpleasant relatives, true. But what family doesn’t? It’s your job to aid them to become right-thinking. And that is the second stage. The first is getting people to admit that they are wrong-thinking.”

“That’s the trouble,” Hermann said. “I don’t think I’m beyond the first stage myself.”

“If I believed that, I would not have permitted you to graduate. Which is it? Up or down?”

“Down,” Hermann said.

Ch’agii raised his eyebrows. “Good. But the neophyte usually chooses to go up-River. They’ve heard that La Viro is somewhere in that direction. And they thirst to visit him, to walk and talk with him.”

“That is why I choose the other direction,” Hermann said. “I am not worthy.”

The bishop sighed, and he said, “Sometimes I regret we are forbidden any violence whatsoever. Right now, I would like to kick you in the ass.

“Very well, go down, my pale Moses. But I charge that you give a message to the bishop of whatever area you settle down in. Tell him or her that Bishop Ch’agii sends his love. And also tell the bishop this. Some birds think they are worms.”

“What does that mean?”

“I hope you find out some day,” Ch’agii said. He waved his right hand, three fingers extended, blessing. Then he hugged Hermann and kissed him on the lips. “Go, my son, and may your ka become an akh.”

“May our akhs fly side by side,” Hermann said formally. He left the hut with tears running down his cheeks. He had always been a sentimentalist. But he told himself that he was weeping because he loved the little dark sententious man. The distinction between sentiment and love had been drilled into him in the seminary. So, this was love he felt. Or was it?

As the bishop had said in a lecture, his students would not really know the difference between the two until they had much practice dealing with them. Even then, if they didn’t have intelligence, they wouldn’t be able to separate one from the other.

The raft on which he was to travel had been built by himself and the seven who were to accompany him. One of these was Chopilotl. Hermann stopped at the hut to pick up her and his few belongings. She was outside with two neighbor women, hoisting the idol onto a wooden sled.

“You’re not thinking about taking that thing along?” he said to her.

“Of course I am,” she said. “It would be like leaving my ka behind if I did not take her. And she is not just a thing. She is Xochiquetal.”

“She’s just a symbol, need I remind you for the hundredth time,” he said, scowling.

“Then I need my symbol. It would be bad luck to abandon her. She would be very angry.

He was frustrated and anxious. This was the first day of his mission, and he was confronted with a situation he wasn’t sure he could handle properly. ‘

“Consider thy latter end, my son, and be wise,” the bishop had said in a lecture, quoting Ecclesiastes.

He had to act so that the final result of this particular event would be the right one.

“It’s this way, Chopilotl,” he said. “It’s all right, at least, not bad, keeping this idol in this country. The people here understand. But people elsewhere won’t. We’re missionaries, dedicated to converting others to what we believe to be the true religion. We have authority behind us, the teachings of La Viro, who received his revelations from one of the makers of this world.