Harlan Ellison - Deathbird Stories

Harlan

Ellison

Deathbird

Blujay Books Inc.

A Bluejay Special Edition, published by arrangement with the Author.

First Bluejay Edition: December 1983

Copyright 1975, 1976, 1980 by Harlan Ellison

Copyright 1983 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation

Cover art by Barclay Shaw

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Author or the Authors agent, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a critical article or review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper, or electronically transmitted on radio or television. For information, address the Authors agent: Richard Curtis Associates, Inc., 164 East Sixty-fourth Street, New York, New York 10021

All persons, places and organizations in this book--except those clearly in the public domain--are fictitious, and any resemblance that may seem to exist to actual persons, places, or organizations living, dead, or defunct is purely coincidental. These are works of fiction.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Excerpt on page 259 from Little Gidding in Four Quartets , copyright 1943. by T. S. Eliot; copyright 1971, by Esme Valerie Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. / The Whimper of Whipped Dogs appeared in the Harper & Row anthology BAD MOON RISING (edited by Thomas M. Disch). Copyright 1973 by Harlan Ellison. / Along the Scenic Route copyright 1969 by Harlan Ellison. / On the Downhill Side appeared in UNIVERSE 2 (edited by Terry Carr). Copyright 1972 by Harlan Ellison. / O Ye of little Faith copyright 1968 by Harlan Ellison. / Neon copyright 1973 by Harlan Ellison./Basilisk appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (edited by Edward L. Ferman). Copyright 1972 by Harlan Ellison. / Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes originally appeared in Knight Magazine . Copyright 1967 by Sirkay Publishing Company. Copyright reassigned to Author 19 September 1967. Copyright 1967 by Harlan Ellison. / Corpse appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction . Copyright 1972 by Harlan Ellison. / Shattered like a Glass Goblin copyright 1968 by Harlan Ellison. Delusion for a Dragon Slayer originally appeared in Knight Magazine . Copyright 1966 by Sirkay Publishing Company. Copyright reassigned to Author 16 April 1968. Copyright 1968 by Harlan Ellison. / The Face of Helene Bournouw copyright 1960, 1967 by Harlan Ellison. / Bleeding Stones appeared in Vertex (edited by Don Pfiel). Copyright 1972 by Harlan Ellison. / At the Mouse Circus appeared in NEW DIMENSIONS 1 (edited by Robert Silverberg). Copyright 1971 by Harlan Ellison. / The Place with No Name appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction . Copyright 1969 by Mercury Press. Inc. Copyright reassigned to Author, 1979. Copyright 1979 by Harlan Ellison. / Paingod originally appeared in Fantastic . Copyright 1964 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Copyright reassigned to Author 6 January 1981. Copyright 1981 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. / Ernest and the Machine God originally appeared in Knight Magazine . Copyright 1968 by Sirkay Publishing Company. Copyright reassigned to Author. 1968. Copyright 1968 by Harlan Ellison. / Rock God copyright 1969 by Harlan Ellison. / Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 3854N. Longitude 7700 13W appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction . Copyright 1974 by Harlan Ellison. / The Deathbird appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction . Copyright 1973 by Harlan Ellison.

WITH SOME WEARINESS, BUT NOT MUCH MORE WISDOM, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO TRUE LOVE, WHATEVER LOVELY FACE IT WEARS

Introduction: Oblations at Alien Altars

The Whimper of Whipped Dogs

Along the Scenic Route

On the Downhill Side

O Ye of Little Faith

Neon

Basilisk

Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes

Corpse

Shattered Like a Glass Goblin

Delusion for a Dragon Slayer

The Face of Helene Bournouw

Bleeding Stones

At the Mouse Circus

The Place with No Name

Paingod

Ernest and the Machine God

Rock God

Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38 54 N, Longitude 77 00 13 W

The Deathbird

TO COUNT LEO TOLSTOY

14 February 1910

To me God does not yet exist; but there is a creative force constantly struggling to evolve an executive organ of godlike knowledge and power: that is, to achieve omnipotence and omniscience; and every man and woman born is a fresh attempt to achieve this object....

The current theory that God already exists in perfection involves the believe that God deliberately created something lower than Himself when He might just as easily have created something equally perfect. That is a horrible believe

You said that my manner in [Man and superman] was not serious enough, that I made people laugh in my most earnest moments. But why should I not? Why should humor and laughter be excommunicated? Suppose the world were only one of Gods jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?

--GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

--VOLTAIR: Eptre M. Saurin, 10 Novembre 1770

It is expedient there should be gods, and, since it is expedient, let us believe that gods exist.

--OVID: Ars Amatoria I

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

--ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, 1973

CAVEAT LECTOR

It is suggested that the reader not attempt to read this book at one sitting. The emotional content of these stories, taken without break, may be extremely upsetting. This note is intended most sincerely, and not as hyperbole.

H.E.

Gods can do anything. They fear nothing: they are gods. But there is one rule, one Seal of Solomon that can confound a god, and to which all gods pay service, to the letter:

When belief in a god dies, the god dies.

When the last acolyte renounces his faith and turns to another deity, the god ceases to be.

They know the terrible simplicity of that truth, the mightiest and the mingiest of gods. They have seen their fellow gods go down to obscurity and banishment for lack of believers. They saw Achelous wither when the cornucopia was ripped from his head by Heracles; they saw the twelve Aesir and their Asgardian heaven-home turned to mist when the Vikings took up the cross; they saw Ahriman dwindle and die when the ancient Persian empire was overrun; they saw Alaghom Naom, the Mother of Mind, lost to men when the Conquistadores brutalized the Mayan religion; they saw Ama-Terasu, the Japanese sun goddess, go up in a nova of light brighter than the sun from which she took her name, on a special day in Hiroshima; and Amen-Ra, and Anaitis, and Anath, and Anshar (and Kishar), and Anu, and Anubis, and Apollo...all of them shimmered and became insubstantial as their temples were reduced to rubble.

Volume after volume of sacred books of gods.

And thats only into the As.

As the time passes for men and women, so does it pass for gods, for they are made viable and substantial only through the massed beliefs of masses of men and women. And when puny mortals no longer worship at their altars, the gods die.

To be replaced by newer, more relevant gods.

Perhaps one day soon the time will pass for Jehovah and Buddha and Zoroaster and Brahma. Then the Earth will know other gods.

Already we begin to worship these other, newer gods. Already the Church fights to hold its own. The young grow away from the old religions, the world seems to swing between the old and the new; more and more each day interest in the occult, in the magical, in the phantasmagorical surges to the fore--leaving priests and rabbis and ministers concerned where their next god will come from.