The Lantern of God

by John Dalmas

  It was a nerve-wracking night for Zeenia Hanorissia, waiting for the tide to ebb enough to send three mounted men shouting up the beach in each direction. They wouldn't be looking for Tirros, but for Juliassa.

  Juliassa never heard them calling. She was sleeping off the drug. Jonkka's party rode almost two miles south—as far as the sea allowed, wading in places—found nothing, and came back by dawnlight.

  * * *

  Filthy and bedraggled, Juliassa limped home at midday with a horrible headache and legs sore from her wild run. She told her aunt what had happened, then went to bed. Zeenia wrote a brief, inexplicit report on separate slips of delicate paper and sent them north on a pair of kiruu. Tirros, she said, had come to the compound at night, robbed her, done other serious mischief, and fled.

  No one at Sea Cliff knew what had actually happened except she and Juliassa, though there may well have been some guessing done. Certainly if Jonkka had found Tirros, the least resistance or effort to flee would have left the mirj dead, amirr's son or not.

  * * *

  The day after that, Juliassa rode to Theedalit, accompanied by Jonkka and another guard, starting after an early breakfast. She'd told her aunt she didn't want to stay at Sea Cliff anymore. It wasn't a matter of fear; somehow the place was spoiled for her now, she said.

  That was only part of the truth. The other part was that she'd gone there under duress, and now she had a reason to leave. She'd actually recovered her normal mood and tone to a surprising degree. Zeenia had assumed she was putting it on. As well as she knew Juliassa, who was one of her favorite people, she didn't realize how strong and resilient the girl was.

  Juliassa's mother had heard about Tirros's visit to Sea Cliff. The amirr had referred to it as "Tirros's raid." Both assumed that the "other serious mischief" had been vandalism. When Juliassa arrived, she did not enlighten her mother. She felt, however, that her father needed to know. He needed to know how criminal her brother had become (she wasn't aware of his other crimes), and she needed to give him a reason for having left Sea Cliff.

  So she went to the Fortress, hoping to have lunch with him. His Eminence, she was told, was closeted with Eltrienn Cadriio, and no, the amirr had not eaten lunch. She settled herself in the waiting room where Eltrienn would pass; it occurred to her that she had something to say to him too.

  She didn't wait long; Eltrienn came out and they went onto the wall together. As they stepped out, a thundershower was just beginning, the first big drops splatting, and they hurried through the quickly-thickening fell to a red and white-striped awning, where they sat down to watch slanting spears of rain shatter on the stone.

  "What is it you want, Juliassa?" he asked.

  "I wish to continue seeing Ambassador Brokols. I've had only two opportunities to talk with him since he left Sea Cliff. But my father said I wasn't to, and sent me to stay with my aunt Zeenia. I've just come back today."

  The centurion's eyebrows raised.

  "I was hoping you'd speak to my father for me, and use your influence to change his mind." She took the centurion's large left hand in both of hers. "I know I shouldn't ask you this, but I don't know who else could help."

  Eltrienn was frowning now. "And what would you have me say, namirrna?" he answered stiffly. "It would be entirely out of place for me to advise him on family matters, or even bring up such a thing. He would not appreciate it."

  Her expression was forlorn. The centurion didn't know if it was genuine or feigned.

  "Well then, could you just mention to him that you'd seen me? And that I'd asked you? Please?"

  Feigned, he decided. Even as a child, she'd known how to get the staff and the guard detail to do what she wanted. And been smart enough to use her talent sparingly.

  The shower had already passed, leaving behind the smell of ozone, and Eltrienn got up to leave. "I'll consider it," he said. "I'm to see him again this afternoon. Whether I mention it or not will depend on his mood at the time. It seems very doubtful that I will."

  She nodded soberly. "And Eltrienn . . ."

  "Yes?"

  Her gaze on the table, she didn't continue at once, then said, "Thank you for considering it. I know it's unfair to have asked. I just didn't know what . . ."

  "You're welcome, namirrna," he interrupted. "And you're right; it was unfair."

  But when he left, he was considering how he might phrase such a comment to the amirr.

  * * *

  Her father ordered lunch set for his daughter and himself on the wall, where they might eat together undisturbed. He was prepared to be upset with her for leaving Sea Cliff, but would withhold judgement until she'd told him why. And because her explanation might well anger him, he'd postpone asking till they'd finished eating. Meanwhile he'd find out what the "serious mischief" was that Tirros had done.

  "So," he said, "Zeenia messaged me that Tirros made trouble at Sea Cliff, but she didn't tell me what. Was there much damage?"

  "There was no damage," she answered. "He stole a purse of gold, but he even dropped that when he fled."

  "She wrote that he'd done other serious mischief."

  "Nothing material. Although he tried to." She looked at her father, caught and held his eyes, then told him what had happened. Before she'd finished, his face had turned nearly white. She'd expected him to be scarlet with rage.

  He's shocked by how close I was to being killed, she thought, and the realization affected her. She reached and laid her hand on his.

  "So I swam out through the surf, which was high," she went on, "swam south as long as I dared, then went ashore again and ran south along the beach. The tide was rising, and I ran in the edge of the runout so I wouldn't leave tracks. Finally I climbed up a break in the cliff and went to sleep among the rocks. I was deathly sick when I woke up, but after a while I went home. Zeenia gave me a potion and put me to bed.

  "Tirros either went up the creek onto the plateau or north up the beach. There weren't any tracks. But he has no kaabor, and he lost his belt with his belt pouch and knife, so he's out there with nothing."

  The color had returned to Leonessto's face, and there was cold doom in his eyes. Tirros's other crimes had been bad enough, but this . . .

  "Father?"

  His eyes focused on her again.

  "May I stay at home for a while? Here in Theedalit? After what happened, I—don't like Sea Cliff anymore. I think I will again, after a bit, but right now . . ."

  He nodded. "As you wish," he said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to my office. By myself. To meditate and see if I can find the peace of Hrum again." He got to his feet. "Shall I ask Allbarin to eat lunch with you? Or would you rather eat alone?"

  "Send Allbarin," she said, "if he wouldn't mind. We haven't talked much since I was a child."

  The amirr turned to the door, thinking he meditated far too seldom anymore. But even the peace of Hrum, he told himself, would not save Tirros now.

  Juliassa watched him leave without bringing up the matter of Brokols. Her father didn't need any more unpleasantness.

  * * *

  Brokols had an unusual dream that night. Unusual in its seeming reality. Only the viewpoint was unreal, shifting from place to place, mostly as if he watched from half a hundred feet above the ground.

  The invasion force was mustering, its columns clogging the roads to Larvis Harbor. His oldest brother was there, a brigadier of artillery now, giving orders. In the fields near the encampment, farm crews were harvesting lenn, stacking the cut vines to dry, piling them loosely on branched poles as high as their pitchforks could reach. It seemed he could even smell the vines.

  And the harbor was full of tall ships.

  Brokols awoke to morning birdsong, the images persisting. He felt sure that somehow what he'd seen was real. Or would be. Lenn harvest was in late summer. With a voyage of, say, sixty days, it seemed to him the fleet would arrive at the Djezian coast before mid-autumn. And it didn't seem at all that it would be autumn a year removed.

&nb
sp; He'd go to the Fortress right after breakfast, he decided, and tell Allbarin.

  * * *

  The next evening after supper, Eltrienn was leaving the officer's messroom, preoccupied with what he planned to do next, when Brokols called to him. He looked around, did a double-take; so far as he knew, the Almite had never visited the military compound before.

  "Elver! What are you doing here?" His expression was neutral, concealing a certain exasperation; he had a lot to do and was feeling rushed.

  "I've come to see you. Reeno mentioned that you were back." He gestured at Venreeno. "I presume you know each other."

  "Right." The two Hrummeans shook hands.

  "There was another public meeting in the square when we were leaving for supper," Brokols said. "There must have been fifteen hundred people there. And it seemed to me that . . ." He paused. He knew what he wanted to ask, and why, but he hadn't yet spotted what lay beneath it. "I wondered if you'd be so good as to talk with me about the sages. I mean—Panni once came to my apartment to talk with me, and I must say I felt much better afterward. While Vessto is hostile. I feel that one day I'll need to go see him again, and talk things out with him. But I still know so little about them—Vessto and Panni—and nothing at all about Tassi Vermaatio."

  Brokols stopped, feeling suddenly that he'd come there half cocked.

  It seemed to the centurion that Brokols' reason was trivial. He put a hand on the Almite's shoulder. "Elver, I'd like to help you, but I just don't have time. I leave tomorrow on a new assignment, and there are things I have to take care of this evening."

  I've been imposing, Brokols told himself, and an old discomfort flowed through him. "Of course," he said. "Eltrienn, my apologies. And every success in your new assignment. You've been a world of help to me, and a good friend." He reached out and they shook hands. Then he and Reeno turned and left.

  Eltrienn watched them go. He'd been briefed by Allbarin on what Brokols had committed to do, and had some notion of what the Almite might be going through personally. He had to be groping, looking for meanings. Perhaps I should have taken the time, done as he asked, he thought. He'd see what time it was when he came back from talking with Vessto.

  Thirty-Three

  Awakening is not the Ultimate, it is simply the fulfilled flower from which the seeker of wisdom can mature and fruit. It is the platform from which the Ultimate can be perceived.

  To let the mind be still is the first step toward perceiving the ultimate. To see one's shattras, those which control the play, is the second step, beginning with the two luminous aspects of one's self; to merge one's shattras is the third; and to merge with one's shattras, Awaken to Hrum-In-Thee and see the universe as it is, is the fourth.

  Even in Hrumma, most do not attain the first, and even in the monastery some do not attain the second. Of those who attain the second, only a few attain the third. Of those few however, most attain the fourth, and we say of them that they have Awakened, and we dub them masters.

  After having Awakened, one grows simply by living, observing life with the viewpoint of the Awakened.

  And as a master returns repeatedly to the inner Hrum, dwelling in trance on the other side, his perception sharpens on both sides. Little by little he is able to do knowingly what he could not knowingly do before. But regardless of how far one progresses in that manner, that is not the Ultimate.

  The Ultimate is the condition you began at and never left.

  —Panni Vempravvo to a crowd gathered at the Grandfather Tree at Harvest Festival in the Year of the Sullsi.

  * * *

  It was dusk when Eltrienn arrived at the hut above the firth and peered in through the open door. Only three men were there, fewer than before. Vessto was reading in front of the fireplace. Meditation hadn't gone well recently; trances eluded him.

  "Brother," said Eltrienn quietly.

  Vessto looked up, brightening. He went to the door, taking Eltrienn's arm, and led him around the outside of the hut to a bench at one end, with a view of the ridge across the firth. Eltrienn shook his head. "What I want to tell you is confidential; I can't have it overheard."

  Vessto nodded, and they hiked up the narrow path to his outcrop, where they sat down together in the twilight.

  "I'm leaving tomorrow," Eltrienn said, "on an extended assignment." He paused. "I'd like you to come with me; I need someone of your abilities. A holy man. A sage."

  Vessto's face went somber. "Brother, I am no holy man, no sage. I see that now. Though perhaps I approached it. I am no more than an adept, favored with prescience." He examined Eltrienn's face and the surface of his mind, its tone, its color. All were neutral, telling him little. Eltrienn nodded acknowledgement.

  "Such holiness as I may have had," Vessto went on, "I gave up to save Hrumma. One cannot take a banner, one cannot polarize as I have, and be close to Hrum."

  The soldier face remained neutral, and almost the voice. "Then bring your banner and come with me. To the barbarian lands." He raised a hand to deter objection. "The nearer danger is not Almeon. It's Gorrbul."

  He described then what had been learned about the emperor's plan, beyond what Vessto had read in Brokols' mind. "If Rantrelli succeeds in bringing down the amirr, it will damage what chance we have to save Hrumma and the worship of Hrum. If you leave with me, you can help, and Rantrelli's movement will wither and the."

  Vessto sat silent a thoughtful moment. A realization had come to him: When he listened to the minds of men, too often he failed to hear Hrum. And from men's minds he garnered only knowledge; it was from Hrum that wisdom came. Well, now he would listen to Eltrienn; his access to Hrum seemed inoperative these days.

  "What is your assignment?" he asked.

  Eltrienn told him how the exchange of weapons for lumber and charcoal had halted. "I'm to see it renewed," he said. "And after that, I'm to stay with Killed Many, be of whatever help he's willing to have. Get him to move as soon as I can—surely before winter—and if possible before the Gorballis move against us."

  Vessto looked long at him, feeling Eltrienn's sense of uncertainty, suspense, of no foreseeable result. "And what good will that do?" he asked.

  Eltrienn shook his head. "I don't know. The amirr doesn't know. But if we sit here and wait, the Gorballis will attack, and may very well conquer, for Gamaliiu has a general of the Almites to advise him. Probably he will have thunder weapons. And while the Gorrbian army is here, the emperor's fleet will land at Haipoor l'Djezzer and seize the Gorrbian throne.

  "Rantrelli would have us act like a yart surrounded by varks, that tears open its own belly with its claws. Suicide.

  "We have no complete plan. But if we can upset and dislocate the emperor's, perhaps a road out will present itself. You said it: If we do all that we possibly can, as if there could be no help, perhaps Hrum will provide."

  He stopped talking then, waiting for Vessto to respond. And Vessto realized that he'd ceased to believe his own prophecy. He'd really fallen from the grace of Hrum.

  "What good can I be to you?" he asked.

  "I'm to take an adept with me. I'd prefer it was you. The barbarians honor Hrum too, in their way. The clans have holy men, shamans, that they consult before battle. I don't know as much as I'd like to about them, but I believe they'd recognize you as a holy man."

  Vessto sat gazing across the firth for perhaps half a minute. "I'll go," he said. His words had no energy, no confidence, no strength. "I'll go," he repeated.

  Hearing the tone of Vessto's voice, it occurred to Eltrienn that he might have made a mistake, that perhaps Vessto wasn't the man to take. But instead of backing out, he asked, "Where shall I meet you? Can you be at the main gate of the Fortress when the morning sun reaches it?"

  "Yes. But if I'm to go, there's something important I have to do in town tonight. Wait for ten minutes and I'll ride in behind you on your kaabor."

  He went into the hut then, and Eltrienn waited outside the door, heartened a bit because Vessto seemed to have gained ene
rgy from somewhere. Ten minutes later, his few needed belongings in a packsack of woven reeds, Vessto was ready to leave. Half of that ten minutes had been spent talking to the one disciple who was not in a trance. Then the brothers went to Eltrienn's kaabor. Eltrienn swung up into the saddle, reached down, hoisted Vessto up behind him, and they rode into Theedalit together.

  * * *

  It had been a busy two days for Brokols and Venreeno. The question of a sulfur supply had been solved the first morning; it had been no problem. At the same time he'd gotten to know, and Reeno had hired, an herbalist, Amaadio Akrosstos. Akrosstos had agreed to work with them on identifying and isolating saltpeter and producing gunpowder.