Halls of the Dark Muse

I just read this really good story in one of my horror anthologies. I thought it was brilliant.

It is a Sci-fi story about this primitive planet with this group of creatures known as the Weskers. The Weskers live a simple, peaceful and happy life. They do not know the meaning of hate and they are non-violent and do no harm. But they are eager to learn and love knowledge. They process new things very quickly and tend to have very logical minds.

Living among them is a human trader known as Garth who has been sharing his knowledge with the Weskers.

One day a missionary arrives upon the planet to convert the Weskers, and it turns out the Garth is an atheist and he is afraid of what religion will do to the Weskers. In tries to protect them and make the priest turn away and leave them alone, and tries to convince him that the Weskers are already living the way the Bible teaches you should live and if he tries to teach them what he calls the superstition of the religion it will only confuse them.

But of course the priest does not lesson and he teaches the Weskers all about the Bible and religion. The Weskers become troubled because they discover what the priest teaches them and what they have learned from Garth is contradictory and only one can be true.

And in order for them to follow God they decide they need proof and the best way for God to prove himself to them and thus earn their worship and service is with a miracle.

Based upon everything that the priest as taught them they decide the best miracle there is to bring them to God is the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. So the Weskers decide to crucify the priest so when the priest resurrects they will know there is a God and follow him.

Garth figures out what they intend to do and he tries to save the priest but they are outnumbered and in the struggle Garth accidentally kills one of the Weskers and he is eventually knocked out and tied up.

After the crucifixion Itin, Garth's closest Wesker friend comes to untie him and tells him he has to leave or he too will likely be crucified or stoned for the killing of one of the Westers, and they learned about stoning as punishment from the Bible.

I thought the last conversation in the story between Garth and Itin was great:

"He will rise, won't he Garth?"

"No," Garth said, "he is going to stay buried right were you buried right where you put him. Nothing is going to happen because he is dead and he is going to stay dead."

"Then we will not be saved? We will not become pure?"

"You were pure, Garth said, in a voice somewhere between a sob and a laugh. "That's the horrible ugly dirty part of it. You were pure. Now you are...."

"Murderers," Itn said, and the rain ran down from his lowered head and streamed away into darkness.