“Skat Mandu spoke to me,” Biggar said, huffy himself now.
“There is no Skat Mandu!” Horris shrieked.
“Yes, there is.”
Horris’s broad ears flamed and his even broader nostrils dilated. “Think about what you’re saying, Biggar,” he hissed. “Skat Mandu is a twenty-thousand-year-old wise man that you and I made up in order to convince a bunch of fools to part with their money. Remember? Remember the plan? We thought it up, you and I. Skat Mandu—a twenty-thousand-year-old wise man who had counseled philosophers and leaders throughout time. And now he was back to share his wisdom with us. That was the plan. We bought this land and restored this house and created this retreat for the faithful—the poor, disillusioned faithful—the pathetic, desperate, but well-heeled faithful who just wanted to hear somebody tell them what they already knew! That’s what Skat Mandu did! Through you, Biggar. You were the channeler, a simple bird. I was the handler, the manager of Skat Mandu’s holdings in the temporal world.”
He caught his breath. “But, Biggar, there is no Skat Mandu! Not really, not now, not ever! There’s just you and me!”
“I spoke to him,” Biggar insisted.
“You spoke to him?”
Biggar gave him an impatient look. “You are repeating me. Who is the bird here, Horris?”
Horris gritted his teeth. “You spoke to him? You spoke to Skat Mandu? You spoke to someone who doesn’t exist? Mind telling me what he had to say? Mind sharing his wisdom with me?”
“Don’t be snide.” Biggar’s claws dug into the banister’s polished wood.
“Biggar, just tell me what he had to say.” Horris’s voice sounded like fingernails scratching on a chalkboard.
“He told me to tell the truth. He told me to admit that you had made it all up about him and me, but that now I really was in contact with him.”
Horris’s fingers locked in front of him. “Let me get this straight. Skat Mandu told you to confess?”
“He said that the faithful would understand.”
“And you believed him?”
“I had to do what Skat Mandu required of me. I don’t expect you to understand, Horris. It was a matter of conscience. Sometimes you’ve simply got to respond on an emotional level.”
“You’ve short-circuited, Biggar,” Horris declared. “You’ve burnt out all your wiring.”
“And you simply don’t want to face reality,” Biggar snapped. “So save your caustic comments, Horris, for those who need them.”
“Skat Mandu was the perfect scam!” Horris screamed the words so loudly that Biggar jumped in spite of himself. “Look around you, you idiot! We landed in a world where people are convinced they’ve lost control of their lives, where there’s so much happening that it’s overwhelming, where beliefs are the hardest things to come by and money’s the easiest! It’s a world tailor-made for someone like us, just packed full of opportunities to get rich, to live well, to have everything we ever wanted and a few we didn’t! All we had to do was keep the illusion of Skat Mandu alive. And that meant keeping the faithful convinced that the illusion was real! How many followers do we have, Biggar? Excuse me, how many did we have? Several hundred thousand, at least? Scattered all over the world, but making regular pilgrimages to visit the retreat, to listen to a few precious words of wisdom, to pay good money for the experience?”
He took a deep breath. “Did you think for one minute that telling these people that we tricked them into giving money to hear what a bird would tell them—never mind who the bird said he was getting the words from—would be something they would be quick to forgive? Did you imagine that they would say, ‘Oh, that’s all right, Biggar, we understand,’ and go back to wherever they came from in the first place? What a joke! Skat Mandu must be laughing pretty hard just about now, don’t you think?”
Biggar shook his white-crested head. “He is displeased at the lack of respect he is being accorded, is what he is.”
Horris’s mouth tightened. “Please tell him for me, Biggar, that I could care less!”
“Why don’t you tell him yourself, Horris?”