Future Indefinite (2 page)

“Not much changed.” Feeling as if he had been counting every hour in three long years for this moment, Prat’han fell to his knees. “Liberator, I would kneel to no other man. I would not plead with any other, either, but I swear that if you leave me behind, then I shall die of shame and despair. Take me, Liberator! I am yours to command, as I always was. I will follow you wherever you lead.”

“Don’t you even want to know what I’m planning?”

“You are going to bring death to Death, as is foretold in the
Filoby Testament
?”

“Well, yes. If I can.”

“I wish to help. And all the others will, too! Gopaenum Butcher, Tielan Trader, Doggan…”

D’ward grimaced. “I let them all get flogged today. I dared not intercede for them, Prat’han, because I wasn’t sure I had enough…had enough power to rescue you. It was a damned close thing, there, you know! A couple of times I really thought you and I would be gracing adjoining fence posts. How long until they’ll be well enough to travel?”

“They are well now! I’ve had those beatings. Nagians shrug them off. We have thick skins.”

“You have thick heads, certainly.” D’ward ran his fingers through his hair—curly, bushy, shiny black. He pulled a face. “What is your wife going to say? I warn you, this will be bloody. Many who go with me will not return. Perhaps none of us will.”

Prat’han rose. He put his heels together and laid his spear against his shoulder, as D’ward himself had taught him, long ago. Staring fixedly at the far wall, he said, “Lead and I follow.”

D’ward rose also. They were of a height, the two of them, both tall men, although Prat’han was thicker.

“I can’t dissuade you, can I? Never thought I would, actually.” He took Prat’han’s shoulder in the grip that brother gave to brother in the group. “You have been a shaper of clay, Prat’han Potter. Follow me, and I will make you a shaper of men.”

Ripples raised by that encounter in Sonalby were to spread throughout the Vales in the fortnights that followed and give rise to major waves. Before the green moon had eclipsed twice, they disturbed the normal calm of a certain small side valley between Narshvale, Randorvale, and Thovale, whose only claim to distinction was that the little settlement near its north end was home to the largest assembly of strangers on Nextdoor. They called it Olympus.

The Pinkney Residence was not as grand as the palaces of the monarchs or high priests of the vales, but it was spacious and luxurious by local standards, having recently been rebuilt from the ground up. In design it more closely resembled the sort of bungalow favored by white men in certain tropical regions of Earth than anything a native of the Vales would have conceived. Within the oversized and overfurnished drawing room, lit by a multitude of candles in silver candlesticks, a man with a fair baritone voice was singing “Jerusalem” accompanied by a lady playing a harp, because the Service’s efforts to instruct their local craftsmen in the construction of a grand piano had so far failed to meet with success. The audience consisted of eight ladies in evening gowns and six gentlemen in white tie and tails.

“
‘I shall not ‘cease,’
” the singer asserted, “
‘from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand….’
”

Two more men had slipped out to the veranda to smoke cigars and contemplate the peace of the evening. The warmth of the day lingered amid scents of late-season flowers and lush shrubbery, although the sky was long dark. Amid an escort of stars, red Eltiana and blue Astina peered over jagged peaks already dusted with the first snows of fall.

“It is a rum do.” The taller man was spare, distinguished by an unusually long nose. He had grace and confidence and—on appropriate occasions—a wry, deprecating grin. Like most strangers, he did not discuss his age or past. Although he appeared to be in his middle twenties, he was rumored to have participated in a cavalry charge at the battle of Waterloo, more than a hundred years ago. “Never expected him to start that way.”

“Never expected him to start at all,” his companion complained. “Thought we’d heard the last of him. Thought Zath had got him, or he’d gone native.”

“Oh, no. I always expected Mr. Exeter to surface again. I just didn’t expect him to cock a snoot at the Chamber quite so blatantly or quite so soon.” The taller man drew on the cigar so it glowed red in the gloom. Then he murmured, “Very rum! I wonder how he went about it.”

“I wonder how he’s managing to stay alive at all.” The other man was shorter and plump, although he appeared to be no older. He parted his hair in the middle and tended to close his eyes when he smiled.

“That’s what I meant. Zath should have bowled him out in the first over. Think we ought to stop him, do you?”

“Stop who?” demanded another voice. “What are you two plotting out here? Arranging a little something behind the Committee’s backs?” Ursula Newton came striding out and peered suspiciously at the two men, one after the other. She was below average height, but her evening gown revealed very muscular arms and unusually broad shoulders for a woman. She was loud and had never been compared to shrinking violets.

“Certainly not!” said the shorter man.

“Jumbo?”

“Of course we were,” said the man with the long nose, unabashed. “Pinky was just about to ask me to name the most efficient assassin on our staff at the moment, weren’t you, Pinky?”

His companion muttered, “I say!” disapprovingly. “Nothing like that.”

“The fact is,” Jumbo explained, “that young Edward Exeter has surfaced up in Joalvale, preaching to the unwashed, openly proclaiming himself to be the Liberator foretold.”

“Great Scot!” Ursula frowned. “You’re sure?”

“Quite sure,” Pinky said fussily. “Agent Seventy-seven. He’s a very sound chap, knows Exeter quite well. Very well, actually.”

“And how long has this been going on?”

“He’d been at it about three days when Seventy-seven saw him. Seventy-seven scampered back here right away to let us know. Very sound thinking. I commended him on his initiative. It did take him four days to get here, though, so the situation may have undergone modification.”

“Exeter may be dead, you mean. But if we’ve heard, then the Chamber’s heard, sure as little apples.”

“Oh, quite, quite.”

The patter of applause having died away, the baritone had unleashed his next song.

“‘And this is the law I will maintain,

Until my dying day, sir….’”

The men smoked in silence, and Ursula leaned on the rail between them, scowling at the night.

“Could be serious,” she said.

“‘That whatsoever king shall

reign…’”

“Absolutely,” Pinky agreed.

“‘I will be the vicar of Bray, sir….’”

“You’re going to send someone to bring him in?”

“That was what we were debating when you arrived.”

Jumbo remarked, sounding amused.

“It’s a matter for the Committee,” Ursula said, “but of course you haven’t told Foghorn yet, have you? Want to get it all settled beforehand, don’t you? You two and your cronies.”

“Not settled,” Pinky protested. “Dear me, no. Not settled. Didn’t want to spoil a delightful evening by bringing up business. But I knew Jumbo would be interested. Thought he might have a few ideas. And you, too, my dear. You agree we ought to send someone to have a word with Exeter?”

“Just to have a word with him?”

“The emissary’s terms of reference would have to be very carefully drawn,” Pinky said cautiously. “A certain amount of discretion might be permitted.”

Jumbo coughed as if he had swallowed more smoke than he intended. “Spoken like a true gentleman—Cesare Borgia, say, or Machiavelli. Well, he certainly won’t let me near him. Not after what happened the last time.”

“If he has any brains at all,” Ursula said, “he won’t let any of us near him. Except Smedley, perhaps. Old school chum? Yes, he’d listen to Julian.”

Pinky closed his eyes and smiled beneficently. “Captain Smedley is an excellent young man. But he is rather new here. Do you think he could comprehend all the ramifications of the situation? I am sure he would deliver a message, but would he plead our case with conviction?” He peered at her inquiringly.

“He certainly won’t do the dirty work you’ve got in mind. But remember he has no mana. I think you need to send two emissaries to Exeter—his friend Smedley and someone else, someone who can help the captain out if there is need for a little muscle.”

“Ah! Brilliant! I expect we should have seen that solution in time, Jumbo, what? Two emissaries, of course! And who should the other one be? What do you think?”

Jumbo sighed. “I don’t like this. Not one bit. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. We need someone with damned good judgment.”

“And very few scruples?” Ursula inquired scathingly.

“Now, now,” Pinky said soothingly. “Don’t go jumping to conclusions. I am quite hopeful that Mr. Exeter will see reason.”

“It’s a matter for the Committee. Let them decide. Now come on back inside, both of you, and stop this inner-circle intriguing.” She spun on her heel and strode off into the drawing room, a surprisingly abrupt departure.

Two cigar ends glowed simultaneously. Two smoke clouds wafted into the night air.

“Obvious!” said Pinky. “We’d have thought of her on our own, wouldn’t we? Eventually?”

Jumbo sighed again. “Truly it is written that the female of the species is more deadly than the male.”

“Oh, quite,” said Pinky, smiling with his eyes closed. “Quite.”

Seven Stones in Randorvale had only four stones—one vertical, two leaning, and one fallen. The missing three were either buried in undergrowth or had been carted away in past ages. The remaining four were set in a grassy glade walled around by enormous trees like terrestrial cedars that crowned the level summit of the knoll. It was a spooky place, dim and pungent with leafy odors, stuffy as a Turkish bath on this breathless autumn afternoon. Staying well back from the crowd, hidden behind shrubbery, Julian Smedley could feel his skin tingling from the virtuality.

Using the fallen stone as a pulpit, Kinulusim Spicemerchant was thundering the gospel of the Undivided at a flock of forty or so people sitting cross-legged on the grass. Men and women, even some children, they were a fair sampling of the local peasantry from Losby and other nearby hamlets. Forty was a good turnout at Seven Stones. Julian had already identified a few familiar faces, the faithful. Others were here for the first time, investigating this strange new religion their friends now professed. Soon it would be his turn to try to convert them.

Meanwhile he was changing into his work clothes. Standard Randorian dress was a single voluminous swath of flimsy cotton, apparently designed to keep off insects, as Randorvale was well supplied with bugs, but its main attraction for Julian was that it had no tricky buttons or hooks. Feeling like a human Christmas present, he unwrapped yards and yards of gauze, enough bunting to decorate a battleship. When the silkworm finally emerged from its cocoon, Purlopat’r solemnly held up his priest’s robe for him to step into—hood, long sleeves, girdle. He thought of it as his Friar Tuck costume. It was a drab gray, because the Pentatheon had already appropriated all the better colors.

Purlopat’r Woodcutter was a nephew of the spice merchant, somewhat more than life-size. He had the face of a boy of twelve, but from the neck down he was about seven feet of solid muscle, which gave him a certain air of authority, and he wore a gold circle in the lobe of his left ear, the sign of a convert to the Church of the Undivided, so Kinulusim must regard him as an adult. Purlopat’r was serving no real purpose at Julian’s side. He had probably volunteered to wait on the saintly guest so that he need not suffer through another of his uncle’s interminable sermons.

Kinulusim was a convincing lay preacher, one of the best the church had. His faith was strong; he proclaimed it in rolling, sonorous torrents of words, waving his fists in the air as he denounced the evil demons of the established sects of the Vales. If he became any more heated, his beard would burst into flames. The old boy was always a tough act to follow. Julian was neither a natural orator nor truly proficient in the Randorian dialect, and he lacked Kinulusim’s faith. He also considered the Church of the Undivided to be a load of guff.

“Holiness?” Purlopat’r spoke in a high-pitched whisper unsuited to his size. He was one of those people who can rarely remain silent for two breaths at a time. “Did my uncle tell you about the troopers he saw?”

“Yes, brother.” Julian smiled up at the worried young face. He wanted to run over his sermon notes again, but apostles were expected to demonstrate both patience and faith. Troopers were worrisome news.

“Do you suppose King Gudjapate has been misled by the demon Eltiana?”

“Undoubtedly. The demons will mislead anyone who listens to them.”

Purlopat’r nodded, rolling his eyes. “If the troopers come against us here today, the Undivided will defend us, Holiness?”

Julian sighed and adjusted the tie on his gown, mostly to give himself time to think. The young woodcutter had just thrown him the worst paradox in monotheism: Why does an all-powerful god tolerate evil in the world? That was not something to be answered off the cuff, even if Julian had had a cuff handy.

“I do not know the answer to that, brother. We must do our duty and have faith that the One will prevail in the end, even if sometimes our limited vision does not reveal all the details to us.”

“Oh, yes, Your Holiness. Amen!”

Julian thumped the kid’s shoulder, curious to know if it was as solid as it looked. It was. “We are both humble servants of the Undivided, brother. We are in this together.”

And in this case, laddie, you can be confident that your apostle will not vanish in a flash of magic and leave you in the lurch, as slimy Pedro Garcia did down in Thovale. This apostle hasn’t got any mana.

He took a quick look through the greenery to see how Kinulusim was doing. The audience seemed suitably impressed.

Julian liked Randorians, who were mostly simple peasants, working the land in the ways of their ancestors. Their dialect was more tuneful than those of vales closer to Tharg, whose harsh, guttural tongue seemed to have infected all their neighbors. They were taller than most Valians and laughed a lot when they were not engaged in solemn activities like worship, and they had wonderful folk music.

Having been allowed to choose between Randorvale, Thovale, Narshvale, and Lappinvale for his missionary work, Julian had selected Randorvale and proceeded to specialize in its dialect. He was happy with his choice, perhaps because most of the natives had faces a tone darker than his. Preaching to them, he could almost convince himself that he was back Home, in some remote colony of the Empire, enlightening the heathen, bearing the White Man’s Burden. With people the same pale pink he was, he would lose that illusion. Then he might wonder about historical accidents, the possibility that some flip of a divine coin might have gone otherwise and resulted in Narshians and Randorians saving souls in England—a discomfiting thought.

Like most of the Service, he had little faith in souls anyway. He did not promote the Church of the Undivided for theological reasons, but because it was the only possible way to undermine the tyranny of the Pentatheon. Only when the Five had been overthrown would the Vales ever progress to true civilization. It was the worldly lot of the natives he sought to promote, just as the European powers bettered the economies of their colonies. Here in Randorvale, Julian Smedley would preach with a clear conscience, doing what he did for the good of the natives,
the lesser breeds without the law
.

Already he could feel mana flowing. As the spice merchant worked up to his thunderous peroration, his listeners’ veneration for the Undivided god was becoming infectious, magnified by the virtuality of the node like organ music reverberating in a church.

Purlopat’r had been silent for thirty or forty seconds. The strain must have become unbearable, for again his whisper came from somewhere above Julian’s head. “Was it not most wonderful what miracle the most holy Saint Djumbo performed in Flaxby two fortnights ago?”

Julian craned his neck. “I don’t think I heard about that. Flaxby, in Lappinvale? What happened?”

The boy’s eyes widened. “It was a mighty miracle, Holiness! The laws in Lappinland now proclaim that all the faithful are to be rounded up and punished most barbarously.”

“Yes, I know. That, too, is the work of the demons. But what about Saint Djumbo?”

“A magistrate sought to arrest him, Holiness! He had two soldiers with him, and he accosted the holy apostle as he was leaving a prayer meeting like this one. But Saint Djumbo called upon him to repent and instructed him, and lo! the magistrate and his companions fell upon their knees and heard the word of the True Gospel. Then all present departed in peace, singing the praises of the Undivided!”

The devil they did! “Saint Djumbo has true modesty, brother. He has never reported this to us, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

Purlopat’r beamed. He was no more pleased than Julian was, although Julian interpreted the story differently. Obviously Jumbo had used his stranger’s charisma—and perhaps a shot of mana as well, because even for Jumbo, those three together would have been a tough egg to crack. He had not abandoned his flock, a bloody sight better performance than Pedro’s craven desertion! But to hear of persecution in Lappinland was bad news. The Pentatheon’s pogrom against the Undivided heresy had begun in Thargland half a year ago, then spread to Tholand and Marshland. Today Kinulusim had reported troopers in the vicinity. Had the poison now reached Randorvale, too?

Ah, the old windbag had run out of steam at last. He wiped his hairy face with a corner of his wrappings and drew breath.

“We are most blessed today, brothers and sisters! Come among us to honor us is one who can speak to you with true authority. I am but a humble merchant, no better than any of you, perhaps worse than some. Most of you have known me all your lives. How can this man have wisdom of holy things? you ask, and you are right to ask. But now I give you one of the blessed apostles themselves, one chosen by him whose name may never be uttered, chosen to lead the rest of us into righteousness and save us from damnation. He is already one of the saved. He can speak to you with authority. He can teach you holy matters with the voice of perfect truth. Brothers and sisters, hearken unto the words of the most holy Saint Kaptaan.” He raised his hands overhead to form the circle. Then he stepped down from the pulpit rock.

Julian straightened his shoulders, confirmed that his long sleeves hung straight, and walked out from behind his tree. As he came into the worshippers’ view, he felt the rush of mana like a tingle of electricity, a surge of exaltation. He sprang up on the stone and smiled benevolently at all the earnest faces.

This was always the moment when he wondered what his father would say if he could see him now—bearded, dolled up in a long robe like an illustration from a children’s Bible, a Moses from Hyde Park Corner. Actually, he had a fair idea what his father would say. Sergeant-Major Gillespie of His Majesty’s Royal Artillery would be even more explicit. What of himself? What did he say? Did he really want to spend the next few centuries like a horoscope huckster, touting nostrums and panaceas like a monkey up a stick?

No time for doubts; he was here to do good. He raised his arms briefly to make the circle. The congregation bowed their heads for that blessing, so the chances of his maimed hand being noticed were slight. He had already settled on sermon six, but before he got into that, he would have to correct Kinulusim’s minor theological error.

Standard opening first: “Brothers and sisters in the true faith! To be here with you all today gives me wondrous pleasure and a great sense of humility. The first time I visited Seven Stones, there were only three of you….” He droned his way through that, and yet his stump was already aching by the time he had done.

Then to Kinulusim’s slip. He slowed down, wrestling his thoughts into singsong Randorian. “Our virtuous brother Kinulusim spoke well, revealing many great truths to you. Carry them with you in your hearts when you leave this place. He is a worthy servant of the Undivided. In his humility, he may have given you the impression that I am in some way more worthy than he is. Do not let his modesty deceive you into believing so. I am one of the apostles, yes, but this does not make me any better than Kinulusim—or any of you—in the eyes of God. The Undivided chose me to bear his word to the world, but not because of any great virtue of mine. I am a sinner, too. I am only a man as Kinulusim is.” And so on.

Having spread that little fiction, he began the sermon. He had rehearsed it many times and the dialect came readily. Number six was his favorite, straight plagiarism of the Sermon on the Mount. The Service’s synthetic theology always made him feel hypocritical, but the ethics were fine. He had believed in these ethics all his life.

Blessed are the poor…. Blessed are the meek…. It worked. Of course it worked! Fascinated bright eyes stared at him out of brown faces.

Soon the mana was pouring in. His stump burned as if it were dangling in molten lead. He could feel the fingers of his right hand, which had rotted away in the Belgian mud, back in 1917. At least the pain reminded him to keep his arms at his sides. He need not draw his audience’s attention to the fact that he wore gloves, and hopefully few of them would notice or guess why. There was nothing in doctrine to say that apostles must be perfect human specimens, although in practice their steady diet of mana kept them ageless and healthy. He would not create theological paradoxes if he displayed his mutilation. He would if he cured it.

Many of these worshippers had seen him before, and he hoped most of them would see him again in future. A visible miracle of regeneration would not fit the Service’s definition of sainthood. If such a miracle became known, Julian Smedley would be promoted in the eyes of the people into a supersaint or even acquire godhood, and the Service was very much on guard against that. It had lost too many missionaries to the opposition already, most recently the mealy-mouthed Doris Fletcher, who was now the divine Oris, avatar of Eltiana and patron goddess of the newfangled art of printing.

He was hitting his stride. “Murdering chickens in a temple will not save you from the wrath of the Undivided, brothers and sisters! He does not judge you by what you sacrifice to the demons but rather by every moment of your daily lives. Virtue and kindness are the offerings he demands of you….”

It was hackneyed stuff to a man raised as a Christian, but to many of his listeners it must be startlingly new and unexpected. They had been brought up to respect the rich and powerful, not to pity them. The Pentatheon did not teach compassion or humility. The Five demanded only obedience, for that brought them mana.

“Not great temples!” Julian thundered. He liked this bit. “Pouring your alms into stones and gilt does not honor the Undivided! Rather use that money to feed a starving child or ease the lot of a cripple. This is the road you must take to find your place among the stars….”

That was pure bunkum, but for centuries the Pentatheon had bribed their victims with a promise that the obedient would dwell evermore amid the constellations. To remain competitive, the One True God must offer nothing less, and it had seemed safer to adopt the local faith than invent a new afterlife. Potential converts might hesitate to accept an unfamiliar heaven.