First Ask True Questions

© 1998 Phil Boncer
All rights reserved.

Señor Torquemada contesto, "Para consequir verdadero contestatións, uno tienne que primeramente preguntar verdadero preguntas."

Carla squinted at the cramped ancient handwriting and wished that penmanship had been better valued in 15th-century Spain. Finding the diary of Friar Ximenez, an early associate of Tomas de Torquemada, had boosted her thesis on the Spanish Inquisition tremendously.

Sir Torquemada replied, "To get true answers, you must first ask true questions."

She'd always been fascinated by the dark parts of history and the minds that created them, and here were some of the darkest. She looked at her translation in surprise, for it seemed awfully familiar, and riffled through her research notes. "Aha." She had reached the early 1600s.

"To get answers of truth, one first must ask questions of truth." — Cardinal Antonio Zapata.

"Hmm." Odd coincidence. Torquemada and Zapata were two of the most feared men in the whole 335 years of the Spanish Inquisition. Torquemada was the first Inquisitor General, from 1480 to 1498, and laid the procedures and groundwork for the whole operation; Cardinal Zapata became Inquisitor General in 1632, presided over the persecution of the Portuguese, and was the last of the large-scale brutal inquisitors. After him, the Inquisition had lost steam and just piddled along for the next 150 years, banning books and burning the occasional Lutheran merchant or tourist.

She stood up, stretched, and looked around her room at the black curtains and candles, vampire posters, Gothic paraphernalia, and finally the ornate mirror. The reflection was pretty, although a little plumper than she would like, with smooth pale skin, very black hair, black clothes, silver jewelry scattered in various body piercings. She smiled, savoring again that her faculty advisor for graduate studies didn't know what to make of her, her appearance, or her chosen topic. A desiccated little man, he studied the gardens of English nobility, and quivered in fear every time she questioned him about anything.

She looked in her cup. Time for another cappuccino. Out of the apartment, down the stairs, half a block to Espresso Roma's; Tony had her cappuccino half done before she even got in the door. College is good.

"What's up, Carla?" asked Roy, as she settled into her usual seat with her usual group. "You look preoccupied."

"Dunno. There's a little thought creeping around the very crown of my brain, and my consciousness can't quite reach it."

"Study stuff?"

"Kind of. There's this quote that . . . Oh my God! SHIT!! Look, here, guard my coffee for a few hours, willya? I need . . . See ya later."

Roy watched her go. "Hey Tony, make me one of whatever you just gave her!"

Carla pulled the binder labeled "Undergraduate Papers" from her bookcase, and searched for the one she'd done on the Salem Witch Trials.

"In the inquest of witchery, ye need ask true questions to find true answers." — Magistrate John Hathorne (1663-1738)

Sixteen-sixty-three was the year Cardinal Zapata died. She felt a chill like a breath of air from a cold dank cellar. "I'll need guidance on this one." she muttered. Opening the bedroom door, she yelled, "Chaney!"

"Yeah?"

"Don't let anyone interrupt me for a couple hours, OK? I've got to do some serious research."

"Oh, all right. Don't forget to disable the smoke alarm this time, OK?"

Carla sighed. "You'll never let me forget that, will you?"

Chaney gave Carla her best grin.

Carla closed the door, pushed the bed aside, rolled the carpet out of the way, and began setting candles, herbs, and stones on the Magic Circle inlaid into the floor. Turning out the light and removing her clothes, she sat on her heels in the center of the Circle and placed before her a bottle of The Glenlivet. "Curcuriya Etun Arbemutus Reingraloth," she intoned. The candles sputtered and lit, and the herbs began to align themselves with the lines in the Circle, like metal filings around a magnet. "Branlaquemit Pleodatuc Houshijenis"

A low hum filled the room, and above this formed a voice that hissed like burning lard. "Asssk and ye ssshall ressseive."

Carla replied, "Etun, I ask you. What ties the thoughts of Torquemada, Zapata, and Hathorne?"

"They are sssame of complexssion."

Cryptic as always. The three men clearly did not actually have the same face, so the implication must be that their souls looked the same. "Etun, I ask you. Does this complexion trail through the ages?"

"Look to the dread of quessstionsss."

More informative than usual! Not only that it trails, but how to trail it! A reward was in order. "I release you of your third query."

Sssssssss... The spirit trailed away. The Glenlivet vanished in a puff of pink smoke. The smoke alarm went off. Carla looked from the battery on the desk to the open, empty smoke alarm howling on the wall. "Damn demon thinks he's funny," she muttered, and blew out the candles.

Time to seek guidance from the other ethereal network. Not bothering to dress, she sat down to her computer, clicked open her web browser and logged onto the university library. Keyword search. Now what? Oh, sure, what the hell, Etun was reliable, as long as she didn't bother him too often and paid him in good Scotch. She typed in "Dread of Questions," and waited.

"Beeep!" The screen lit up: Dread of Questions: 3 entries. Biography: Emperor Baldor Romulus; (175-243), Roman sovereign who was vigorous against the early Christians. History: Witch Hunting in the Belgian Congo. Biography: Tomas de Torquemada; (1420-1498), Dominican monk, first Inquisitor General of the Spanish Inquisition.

This didn't look terribly helpful, but it was getting very late, so she printed it out and readied for bed. Still unsure of how seriously to take all this, she fretted for a little while, but sleep was not long in coming.

In the morning, late as usual, Carla stuffed the printout in her backpack and bicycled furiously off to class, her Pop-Tarts hot in hand. She sat through her first class impatiently, wanting to get to the library. It was a small discussion class in Egyptology, and, having failed to study yesterday, she carefully remained as inconspicuous as possible. Soon she lost the train of discussion, and began instead to focus on her classmates. She noticed that she wasn't the only one afraid of being called on. There seemed to be a low, but perceptible, ambiance of fear in the room: fear of failure, of embarrassment, of success, of judgment. As the day went on, she saw an atmosphere she had never noticed before, quite at odds with what everyone said college was supposed to be about: the students who would lose their scholarships if their grades didn't measure up; the professor who lectured his discussions rather than leading them. It wasn't just on campus, either. As she ran her essential errands, she could see it in the bank teller who hid behind "policy," in the begging street person and the man avoiding him, in the woman getting out her license and registration and the cop hiding in his uniform and sunglasses. Everybody dreaded being questioned. If Etun was right, this spirit, this "complexion," had plenty of material to work with.

Finally, her classes and errands complete, she dove into the library and began the laborious task of tracing this "complexion" through the ages. Was it always here, or did it appear only at certain points of history? Did it possess others—which would make it hard to track, but limit its power—or did it manifest a series of its own material forms? She decided to start with the assumption that it had its own bodies and reincarnated continuously. She already knew that the ferocity of the Spanish Inquisition waxed and waned at fairly regular intervals.

Some checking of dates confirmed that the prime perpetrator in each resurgence was born in the same year as the death of the previous one, in a virtually unbroken line from Torquemada to Zapata. There was one five-year gap, which she guessed might be an incarnation that died in childhood. It seemed reassuring that it could be stopped, or at least interrupted.

Digging out her printout from the previous evening, she decided to skip the two biographies and dug out the History of Witch Hunting in the Belgian Congo. As harrowing as anything she had yet researched, it was full of accusations, treachery, torture and greed, hatred and —

"AAAAAHH!!" She knocked the hand from her shoulder, spun around, and stared up at the tall scruffy Hispanic behind her. "Jesus, Roy, you nearly scared the pants offa me!"

"Can I try again?"

Carla gave him the look he deserved.

"I brought you your cappuccino. Whatcha doing?"

She frowned at the stiff foam residue in the bottom of the cold mug. "You're a prince among men," she said. "I'm tracking a demon through history. Wanna help?"

"Sure." Roy folded himself into a chair. "Where are his tracks?"

"The Belgian Congo, I think. The last of the witch hunts to hunt for actual witches. Let me check the birthdate on this guy—here we go: 'Count Luc Moens (1738-1795), appointed to direct the investigation, was not a man disposed toward leniency or logic.' He's our man."

"You're serious."

"Yup. I've got him through six incarnations so far, and I want to know where he is now. I need to trace the nineteenth century, then I figure he's either Joe McCarthy, or he's involved with the Holocaust."

Roy arched his eyebrows. Carla was big-time weird, but she was also more sane than anyone he knew. "Right. What do I do?"

"This is what I've got so far." She spread out her notes. "You're geekier than I, so you can surf the Net for info, while I wade in more traditional waters."

The books had become too blurry to read by about 2:00 am, so Carla pedaled home blearily, despite having made little further progress. Roy had departed some hours before to commune with his computer and had not returned. She walked into her apartment and was immediately greeted with a barrage from Chaney: "Where have you been? Everyone's been looking for you. Why didn't you come cook dinner? It was your turn, ya know. Your faculty advisor called; he wants to know where your financial aid records are. Your ex-boyfriend wants to know where all his stuff ended up, and somebody told your Mom you were gay and she wants to know if I'm your girlfriend and how could you do this to her."

"Sorry about dinner, I'll make it up to you. Everyone else can stuff it. Good night."

Mornings were bad enough in general, without waking up to aching eyes. Carla turned off the alarm and stumbled through her ablutions. Deciding to skip classes, she booted up her computer and e-mailed Roy.

roygbiv@aol.com

Good Morning! Find anything?

Your friend and mentor, Carla.

She pressed "SEND" and was immediately rewarded with an Application Error and a frozen computer. "Hell." She rebooted, and the screen flashed red, followed by a large purple triangle containing the words, "Answer hazy, ask again later," followed by, "The virus has deleted your hard disk. Sorry," followed by blankness.

"DAMN!!" The spirit was onto her.

Thump, thump, thump. Carla froze, hoping Chaney was up to answer the door. She heard Chaney's footsteps, her voice and then a male voice, then footsteps and a light knock on her own door.

"Hey Carla," Chaney whispered, "You awake? It's the police. They want to ask you some questions. What's going on?"

"I don't know. Tell them I'm visiting relatives out of state."

"They know you're here."

"OK, OK, tell them I'm brushing my teeth and I'll be out in a minute."

Fighting panic, Carla searched through her drawers. She knew that somewhere she owned something that wasn't black. There! The bright yellow jogging suit her sister'd given her for Christmas! Nobody would recognize her in that. She put it on, climbed carefully out her window onto the carports, and jumped down to the grass behind the building. Looking around, she put her hands in her pockets and forced herself to walk away calmly.

Bing-bong. "Hi, Luis. Is Roy home?"

"No. Shit, the Border Patrol hit us this morning. They said his immigration papers weren't in order and hauled him in for questioning. Told me I'd better watch my ass too."

"Jesus."

"He left a disk, said to make sure you get it."

"Thanks. Take their advice and watch your ass."

Back in the library, Carla read Roy's file. He had found two incarnations: King Halian Minalwe (1795-1835) of Central Africa, who had bloodily purged his lands of the descendants of several other tribes, and a Hungarian known as Duke Josep Vermes (1835-1899) who went back to the old standby of persecuting Jews. He was unsure from there. McCarthy wasn't born until 1908, and the Holocaust, horrible as it was, involved little in the way of questioning.

Roy had a suspect, an early associate of Hitler's named Heinrich von Klimrod, who was born in 1899 and who believed that Jews formed an international conspiracy and should be rounded up wholesale and questioned. Klimrod, however, had died in an auto accident in 1930, before Hitler came to power, and Roy didn't think that the spirit would have let that happen. He didn't know where to look next.

Carla had learned to trust her intuition, and it said Klimrod was the one. She already figured the spirit's reincarnations could be killed. Now it only remained to find the current one, a powerful person born in 1930, who would embody the spirit of the Inquisition. Her gaze wandered up as she pondered, out the library window, and suddenly her eyes locked in horror on an election billboard. The face, ten feet tall, grinning, stared right through to her very center. Underneath it read:

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