Read Online To the Land of the Living by Robert Silverberg - Free Book Online Page A

under the most primitive conditions, in the most remote forests of –
    “Hold on, H.P. That can’t be so.”
    “That one man could achieve so much? I assure you, Bob,he was quite well known in our time – perhaps not in Texas, I suppose, but nevertheless –”
    “No. Not that he could do all that. But that he’s here. In the Afterworld. If that old geezer’s everything you say, then he’s a goddamned
saint
. Unless he beat his wife when no one was looking, or something like that. What’s a saint doing in the Afterworld, H.P.?”
    “What are
we
doing in the Afterworld?” Lovecraft asked.
    Howard reddened and looked away. “Well – I suppose, there were things in our lives – things that might be considered sins, in the strictest sense –”
    “What does sin have to do with anything?” Lovecraft asked.
    “Well, isn’t this place Hell?”
    “Is it?”
    “It sure ain’t Heaven, H. P. Even if it does look a whole lot like Texas.”
    Lovecraft shook his head. “Heaven. Hell. Who knows? There are those who think that this place where we have found ourselves is Hell, I agree. But I’m not one of them. All we know is that it’s the Afterworld, a life after life. Do you see a Devil with scaly wings and a long tail presiding over the place? Do we live in constant torment?”
    “Well –”
    “No,” Lovecraft said. “There’s no reason to think of this place as Hell, though some people do. There’s no reason to think of it as anything but the Afterworld. And no one understands the rules of the Afterworld, Bob,” said Lovecraft gently. “Everything’s random here, completely unpredictable. Sin may have nothing to do with it. Gandhi is here, do you realize that? Confucius. Were
they
sinners? Was Moses? Abraham? Those who call it Hell have tried to impose their own pitiful shallow beliefs, their pathetic grade-school notions of punishment for bad behaviour, on this incredibly bizarre place where we find ourselves. By what right? We don’t begin to comprehend what the Afterworld really is. All we know is that it’s full of heroic villains and villainous heroes – and people like you and me – and it seems that Albert Schweitzer is here, too. A great mystery. But perhaps someday –”
    “Ssh,” Howard said. “Prester John’s talking to us.”
    “My lords ambassador –”
    Hastily they turned toward him. “Your majesty?” Howard said.
    “This mission that has brought you here: your king wants an alliance, I suppose? What for? Against whom? Quarreling with some pope again, is he?”
    “With his daughter, I’m afraid,” said Howard.
    Prester John looked bored. He toyed with his emerald scepter. “Mary, you mean?”
    “Elizabeth, your majesty,” Lovecraft said.
    “Your king’s a most quarrelsome man. I’d have thought there were enough popes in the Afterworld to keep him busy, though, and no need to contend with his daughters.”
    “They are the most contentious women in all the After-world,” Lovecraft said. “Blood of his blood, after all, and each of them a queen with a noisy, brawling kingdom of her own. Elizabeth, my lord, is sending a pack of her explorers to the Outback, and King Henry doesn’t like the idea.”
    “Indeed,” said Yeh-lu Ta-shih, suddenly interested again. “And neither do I. She has no business in the Outback. It’s not her territory. The rest of the Afterworld should be big enough for Elizabeth. What is she looking for here?”
    “The sorcerer John Dee has told her that the way out of the Afterworld is to be found in these parts,” said Lovecraft.
    “There is no way out of the Afterworld,” Yeh-lu Ta-shih said quietly.
    Lovecraft smiled. “I’m not any judge of that, your majesty. Queen Elizabeth, in any event, has given credence to the notion. Her Walter Ralegh directs the expedition, and the geographer Hakluyt is with him, and a force of five hundred soldiers. They move diagonally across the Outback just to the south of your domain, following some