Page 85 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

The Wind God’s Last Altar

power and influence. As for a protagonist, the simplest and most
credible would be a child, one whose inborn curiosity had not yet
been stifled by orthodoxy. A sort of emperor’s-new-clothes
scenario, if you will.”
“Ah, but how would such an iconoclastic outburst be triggered,
and what would be its effect?” asked Perversity Tinderstack. “Let us
suppose the young innocent sees the turbine blades turn slightly
one day when no one else is looking and no priestly intervention
has been reverberated up the wind god’s private line. Would anyone
believe him? His—presumably you have a male in mind, Brad—
disillusionment, no matter how vociferously expressed, could be
easily stifled by the elders. Soon he would become aware of two
choices: leave the tribe and its security, or keep quiet and not rock
the boat. The latter response, indeed, may be the counsel of his
parents, if not his peers. A rebellion, in this harsh environment,
should it lead to internecine warfare, would be disastrous for all.
Few would be willing to start up against the priests. So, given the
predilection of the ignorant for unscientific accretion of myth upon
myth, this could work like the Middle Ages when some naïf would
have a vision and the ecclesiastical authorities could only respond
by folding it into existing dogma. Is that a big enough twist for
you?”
“Ah, well,” mumbled Razeberry. “It has the ring of
verisimilitude and the sour note of satire—as well as a whiff of
familiarity. Anyone else?”
“It seems to me,” said Leith Mauker, “that such cults, at least in
the imagination of we moderns, aren’t worth their salt unless they
demand a human sacrifice on occasion to slake the thirst and satisfy
the appetite of their hungry gods. The kid is doomed the minute he
opens his mouth to tell what he saw. The shamans are always alert
to the signs of the Chosen One, as such hero-victims are known
nowadays. The wind god cannot be permitted to talk to just any
Tom, Dick or Harry. It seems like win-win for the priests: eliminate
competition and make a larger offering than usual to the only
power in town worth placating. Or the youth could be accused of
serious apostasy or possession by the malevolent earth demons; or

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