“Oh, I don’t know,” said An-Shai, intrigued in spite of himself. “If the girls were as carefully indoctrinated as boys destined for the priesthood are, I don’t think it would be risky. Women have a lot more potential than any of us ever
suspected.”,
“Which is not the least of the dangers of the plan,” pointed out Tsu-Linn. “Who knows what they would be getting up to if they were given a chance? Imagine, if you can, a female hierarch.” There was a short silence while the two men contemplated the unthinkable. “I see I’ve recruited an initiate who will find himself in sympathy with the opposing party. They also feel, as you do, that the more malevolent kinds of supernaturals ought not to be employed against our own peasants. I think myself that constant thinning is good for them. Weeds out the unfit and keeps the survivors grateful to us.”
An-Shai, feeling that he had tempted fate quite far enough by arguing with the initiate as much as he had, forebore to contest this statement, but he kept some very severe reservations to himself. Instead, he turned the conversation to the technique Tsu-Linn had mentioned for bringing Adelinda under control.
“It isn’t easy to learn, and it isn’t exactly safe for the operator, either, but it will work if you’ve read your victim right. You’d better get a healer to deal with those scratches of yours and get a bath and a change before supper. Then I’ll teach it to you this evening. Does the woman Adelinda eat with us? Good. It’ll give me a chance to estimate her potential to resist.”
Chapter 8
Adelinda slipped down the hall in the darkness. There was a murmur of voices and a light under the door of An-Shai’s library. She moved as silently as a ghost past the hall that led to it, carrying her boots in her hand. The guest rooms were in the same wing as the dining room, and the Bishop’s quarters were off a hall that led directly past the dining room and out the main entrance, so there was no way that Adelinda knew to get out except past her enemy’s rooms. The halls that led to the other wings all radiated out of the dining room, and though Adelinda was sure that there were other ways to get,out of the building, given the labyrinthine design of the place and the near surety of meeting someone, she preferred the main entrance.
An-Shai’s balcony opened into the dining room, too, and she stepped out on it and peered out over the darkened grounds. There was no movement. Still in stocking feet, she hastened down the vast entrance hall. The main door, though wide enough for several men to walk through abreast, was so cleverly hung and carefully maintained that Adelinda pushed it open as easily as any cottage door. Leaving it a little ajar—she had no desire to have to climb back in through a window—she took a deep breath of the sweet-scented heavy air and sat on the bottom step to pull on her boots.
She was bone-tired, and the moist, syrupy air seemed to clog her nose and throat and make drawing each breath an effort. Still moving quietly and keeping to the shadows as much as possible, she made for the grove of featherleaf trees
at the bottom of the slope. Orvet was not there yet, and she settled herself on a low limb, bracing her back against the trunk of the tree.
The night was warm and moist, like a soothing bath. Adelinda fell into a half-dozing state, listening to the shrill J insect cries and the ever-present murmur of the waters, her mind drifting as aimlessly as a leaf caught in the current of the placid little stream that ran nearby. Orvet could have told L
her that it was a dangerous state of mind, here where the supernatural lay so very near to the surface of reality, and so could the spirit of the tree in which she rested. But the dryads were little concerned with human folk, unless the safety of their beloved tree homes was concerned, and this one shrugged unfeelingly as it directed the roots of the tree far down to the mineral-rich water.
Adelinda felt the presence first. It didn’t seem strange to her that Dep had followed her to this far land. She was tranquilly happy to see him again; the only contentment she had ever known had been in the little times she had spent with him, and peace filled her unquiet soul to know that he stood behind her, leaning over the branch to kiss her on the cheek as he had often done when she waited for him.
How different Dep had been from the supercilious and austere young men of her own class! He had been warm and loving, often hugging, patting, or snuggling, as her equals would have thought it beneath their dignity to do. Being j with him had satisfied a deep hunger for affection that she had not even known she had, a hunger that none of her other lovers had even touched.
She turned without rising to find him standing in a dap-pled spot of moonlight, the familiar warm smile lighting his brown eyes. “Dep!” she said. “It’s so nice to see you.” How much handsomer he had grown since she had seen him last and taller, too, and how she yearned to have him take her ] in his arms and just hold her close as he had always done whenever they met after some little separation. He had never kissed her or caressed her upon these occasions; that was for later and the passion that followed, but only held her as if he could never get enough of nearness, and Adelinda treasured those moments of closeness as if they had teen precious jewels. She drew her legs over the branch and rose, holding her arms out to him, bemused by the moonlight and the nearness of her lover.
“Get out of here! Begone, incubus!” There was a crash as Orvet leaped between them, and Dep shrank back.
“Orvet...” protested Adelinda. Dep held his hand out to her, pleadingly, as he had done when she sent him away, and she tried to crowd past Orvet to reach him. The exorcist thrust her back and flung a pinch of some white dust at him; Adelinda gasped as he turned, and changed, and shadowlike withered and fled.
With the departure of the incubus and the fading of its spell, Adelinda sank back down on the limb, cold with horror and yet bereft again. All the pain and loneliness of the original loss flooded back over her, as it had not done for years, and she found that she was having to bite her lip hard to force back the stringing tears. Orvet glanced at her and then turned away and subjected the peaceful grove to an intense scrutiny.
At length Adelinda regained her composure. “Thanks, Orvet. Would it have killed me?”
The exorcist turned back. “I don’t think so, although I don’t know much about them. I think it would have just drained some of your vitality, your life force, and compelled you to keep on meeting it until you cared about nothing but it.”
“It looked like... like someone I used to know. How did it do that?”
Orvet glanced at the naked pain in her face and then away, hastily. “It must pick the picture out of your mind, or perhaps it lets you shape it to match your own heart’s desire.”
“Did you see who it looked like?” she asked, averting her face.
“No,” lied Orvet. “I was digging for the antidote powder. I’ll give you some in case it comes back when I’m not around. Do you think you can withstand it now that you know what it is?”
“I don’t know. It casts a sort of spell. If I had been able to think, I would have realized that—that he—the person it
was supposed to be couldn’t be here, thousands of miles and an ocean away from home.”
“Then you mustn’t let yourself be caught out at night and alone.”
“Do you think An-Shai could have sent it?”
Orvet considered. “I’ve never heard of them being controlled by any human agency. They have only one interest in humankind, and that’s as prey; they aren’t, strictly speaking, material creatures at all. They can’t be bribed or forced to do anything. When you were under the spell, was there a feeling of An-Shai’s presence? A sort of flavor you can’t taste, but that still gives a sense of his personality?”
“No, there wasn’t. I knew right away that he had something to do with the other one.”
“That’s one of the things you wanted to tell me about.” Adelinda quickly told the exorcist of the disgusting specter she had seen, and what happened when she faced An-Shai with her accusation. He laughed. “I would have liked to have seen his face. It sounds
to me as if he was just trying to scare you. But why? Do you have any ideas?”
“I was hoping you would. And also some idea of what I can do about it if he tries it again. It could get to be a nuisance.”
Orvet sobered. “It could get to be a lot worse than a nuisance. There are supernatural manifestations that are considerably more dangerous than a spook. He doesn’t seem to want to hurt you, though I don’t understand how it could be to his advantage to frighten you.”
“Maybe it’s foreigners in general. Have any of you been bothered by such things?”
“No, but we are being paid a little special attention by Li-Mun and some of his friends. He’s been trying to alienate Len, and Ina has found herself the object of attention of a very handsome and very sophisticated gentleman. The medicine they’ve given Karel puts him put of action, besides helping the pain. I wish I knew more about medicines; I know that aome painkillers are dangerous to give because the patient can become addicted to them, but I don’t know what they are or how they work.”
“What about you and Tobin?”
“So far they aren’t bothering us. I think Len and Ina can hold out; neither one of them is as stupid as An-Shai and Li-Mun seem to assume they are.”
“I hate to ask Karel to quit taking the medicine. You don’t know how much pain he’s in sometimes.”
“He’s quit of his own accord.”
Adelinda mused for a moment. “An-Shai’s trying to lure Len and Ina away from the rest of us; he’s seen to it that Karel is given a medicine that may be dangerous; and he’s trying to scare me. We know what he’s up to, but not why.” “What do you think he’s up to?”
“He’s trying to split us up so we can be handled more easily. For some reason, we scare him, or bother him, and he wants to get control of us just like he has control of every soul in his Vale. But why? None of us has ever done him any harm.”
“He must have his reasons. We really don’t need to know them, though. As long as we know that he really is deliberately trying to manipulate us, we can guard against him.” “Know what? If it weren’t for the horses, I’d say let’s saddle up'and get out of here tonight.”
“What do the horses have to do with it?”
“These people don’t know how to take care of them. They’d suffer, certainly, and they might die. I agreed to teach the peasants how to take care of them and I intend to do it. But I sure do wish the bishop weren’t sneaking around behind my back; it’s going to be a very long year.”
“Maybe our best bet is to pull in our horns and act more like the local peasants. None of them would say boo to a mouse. I used to think of myself as a peaceful man, but I’m positively adventurous compared to them. Whatever it is that An-Shai doesn’t like about us, it no doubt has something to do with that.”
“I’ll treat him with more deference. He likes that. But I can’t grovel.”
“No, I don’t suppose you can. Tobin tells me you learned how to read the local script.”
“Yes, on the ship. I didn’t know he’d noticed.”
“He says you went around reading all the labels out loud.
Try to get at the account books and daily journals, if the bishop keeps them.”
“Whatever for?”
“Len says that the best way to find out what’s really going on is to look at accounts and business letters. What people say is likely to be lies. If you went to the bishop and demanded to know why he was trying to split up our group, he’d just fob you off with some story. But if you find written in the accounts, ‘Five gold pennies to bribe Orvet,’ you’d know something was going on.”
“Len says that?”
“You keep on underestimating that young man. I wish you’d talk to him.”
“Maybe you’re right. I will talk to him. I’ll try to get a look at the bishop’s papers, but I’m not sure I would know what to look for.”
“We could smuggle Len in and he could help you.”
“Or I could demand to have him with me. No, I’m going to be more deferential. All right; if he’s willing, we’ll try it tomorrow, very late. An-Shai works until all hours. We’ll meet here.”
They went their ways, and Adelinda got back into the palace and to her room without incident. The light in the library was still shining and the voices were still murmuring. She paused at the junction of the corridor, but couldn’t make out any words.
By that time even the hard, narrow stone bench seemed attractive. Adelinda went straight to bed, but tired as she was, she didn’t sleep immediately. The incubus was to blame. It had brought back with painful poignancy the sadness and loneliness she had felt when she had had to send Dep away from her. It was the only thing she could have done, for Dep’s sake as well as her own. There had been no possibility of a future for them, as she had known from the very beginning. They had had nothing in common, neither interests nor social class nor intellectual equality. For a short time they had needed each other, and then they had passed out of each other’s lives to pursue their very separate destinies. She couldn’t even have guessed where Dep was or what he was doing, though she would have speculated that he had married and was the father of a large family by now. He would be, she knew, a good father, warm and caring, if not the disciplinarian he ought to be. She hoped he had found a wife that deserved and appreciated him, and that his farm was flourishing so that poverty and care was not spoiling his sweet and merry nature. She hoped he thought of her fondly once in a while.
In the close, dark privacy of her narrow bed, a lonely tear welled out of the comer of her eye and trickled down her temple into her hair.
An-Shai was fascinated by the insights he was gaining into the lives of the initiates. “It’s a constant straggle for supremacy,” Tsu-Linn told him. “There’s never any truce. You’ll be the last and youngest of the initiates, the thirty-eighth in rank out of thirty-eight, and before you’ve wiped the wine of consecration off your hands, number thirty-seven will be eyeing you with fear and loathing, wondering when you’re going to challenge him for his position. And you’ll have to soon, too, or number thirty-nine will be snapping at your heels, wanting your position. You’ll have to keep moving up, because there are only two ways to go: up the scale or down it, and the higher you go the harder you’ll be pressed. When you’re not worrying about challenging the next higher initiate or when the next lower one is going to challenge you, you’ll be scrabbling to learn as much as you can to get ready for the next challenge. Besides all this, you’ll be fighting to get your views and aims recognized and put into action by the Convocation, the meeting of all the initiates. Do you see why your choice of wives is so important? At the Initiates’ Hall, they’re the only ones who’re on your side, the only ones you know you can trust.”
“Yes, I see. Of what do these challenges consist?”
“Anything the man who’s challenged wishes. The junior initiate makes the challenge, the ranking initiate chooses the nature of the contest. Usually they choose duels of magic or will, but I’ve known there to be trials of strength and courage, and occasionally even a gambling game. By the time a man has worked his way into the highest ranks, he’s been severely tested for every quality a man might have.”
An-Shai tented his fingers, elbows supported on the arms of his chair. “I assume that this information isn’t usually given to hierarchs.”
“No. I wanted you to understand the uses of the technique I’m teaching you. You’ll be going into the brotherhood with a tremendous advantage over other new initiates. You’ll know about this technique and you will have had a chance to practice it on a person of formidable strength of will, but still with very little risk, since she won’t know what’s happening. I shall look to see you rise fast, An-Shai.”
“I’ll try not to disappoint you, sir.”
“I’m afraid you won’t—I’ll be facing you myself someday, if you don’t. This is how you use the overmind in a battle of wills. As you know, the stuff of the overmind can be shaped by a strong mind
, but what you probably don’t know is that you can draw another into the overmind with you and confront him there. If you are the aggressor, the shaping of the battlefield is yours, and the victim can only try to master the scenario you have designed. It’s difficult even if you know that it can be done, but I should say that to someone who doesn’t even know of the existence of the overmind it would require an enormous strength of character to withstand the aggressor’s will for even a moment. You’ll have to be careful not to kill your victim outright or drive her mad. You’ll have to design your scenario so that there are some familiar elements in it, to give her some traces of reality to hold on to. You can be sure that the first time you face an initiate, he’ll not be so solicitous of your mental health!”
“How should I design the scenario?”
“Ah, well, that’s where your experience and judgment of the woman come in. I don’t know her well enough to know what experience will crush her spirit without destroying her mind.”
“I’m not sure I do, either, but I would guess that having to turn to me for help would do it.”
“Then design your scenario so that she must beg you for help. The nice thing about this technique is that if you find that one thing doesn’t work, you can always switch strategies—sometimes just the inconsistency will, have the desired effect.”
The two men worked far into the night, practicing and polishing the technique. To the unaided eye, there were only two clerics, resting peacefully upon the benches of the library, but there were mighty stirring in the ether that night, and supematurals for many miles around, sensitive to the tremendous forces that the men handled, slunk cowed to their lairs or haunts or dens.
In the morning, Orvet continued his lessons for the budding stablehands. He was giving a demonstration of grooming techniques to an attentive audience when Li-Mun came strolling up. The hierarch watched quietly as Orvet finished his explanations and put his pupils to practicing on patient greathorses. Then he joined the teacher.
Claudia J Edwards - [Forest King 02] Page 11