“The Paragon is female?” the High-Priestess from Thaipagos asked.
“Naturally,” Ishtaraaa sniffed.
“She’s Tract Three then,” the old crone said with satisfaction.
Although silent, the High Priestess from Lyconesia looked like she had just swallowed something and wasn’t sure if she should be happy or repulsed.
“Yes,” Ishtaraaa said in a ringing voice, looking like the cat that just got the cream, “and I have a valid kill order for the heathen and heretic Jason Monta—”
“I knew it!” shouted the High Priestess and Hold-Mistress from Lyconesia, thrusting her finger out at Ishtaraaa and Elaina, “the Closed Hand will use any pretext—even that of familial bonds to slip underneath our guard—to attempt to rent asunder our way of life and strip us of our Holy Duties. Do not waste breath denying it, Sister; this is all just another plot by the Tract Leader of Three to take the God Shards!”
“—Jason Montagne,” Ishtaraaa repeated, her voice gaining in tempo and volume as she spoke, “and I request and require, under the power and authority of Paragon Clarice, that you help me fulfill this priority duty and see that heathen dead!”
“The Shards will never be yours!” raged the High-Priestess of Lyconesia and heads all around the half-circle facing them nodded.
“I am not here about the infernal Core Fragments,” Ishtaraaa shrieked, looking like she was about ready to tear out her hair. “It is the One traitor, Jason Montagne—who some say I share a Mother-Progenitor with—that has taken the life of another One and must answer for his crimes. But even before that abominable act of fratricide, his life was forfeit by order of the Paragon!”
Almost as one, the lower-ranked Priestesses swayed back while the High and Older Priestesses, made of sterner stuff, stood firm with stony expressions.
“I want to be clear,” Sapphira said into the ringing silence and speaking slowly, probably to make sure there was no mistake “you are not interested in the Shards? Your only interest is to ensure the death of your own brother?”
“I have no brother; I have only Sisters. As do all of my Tract,” Ishtaraaa all but shouted, “we shared no womb and we share little to no blood. He is not my brother.”
“Yet you share a Mother,” Sapphira retorted evenly, and when Ishtaraaa reluctantly bit her lip and nodded, heads all around the room shook damningly.
“This lack of familial bonds, to the point of eagerly embracing the roll of kin-slayer, are the precise reason we cannot allow the corrupting influence of the Closed Hand in our lands,” Lyconesia said with disgust.
“It would lead to Chaos and Anarchy, can you imagine it?” spat the High-Priestess of Pella. “Allow this sort of disrespectful example to be seen and the next thing you know we would have a dozen full-fledged rebellions on our hands.”
Akantha watched with satisfaction as Ishtaraaa looked from one face to the other in total disbelief.
“I demand you recognize the authority of the sitting Paragon and submit to her authority or declare yourselves Schismatics,” she said.
The old woman from Thaipagos huffed a laugh. “I suspect her election would go quite differently were we to demand our holy right of inclusion and a re-vote with our own candidate present,” she said, casting a haughty look at Ishtaraaa. “But be that as it may, whether or not we recognize the authority of an out-Tract Leader to dictate to us our Holy Duties is irrelevant.”
“How can you say that?” Ishtaraaa gasped. “You really are all heretics and Schismatics here on this wretched planet, aren’t you?”
“Insults will not sway us, girl,” sneered the ancient High Priestess. “Only the Holy Texts may move us, and in them it is written that the authority of a God Shard is supreme—over that of even a Paragon.”
“What does any of this have to do with—” started Ishtaraaa.
“I am not finished yet, girl,” the Crone’s voice cracked like a whip, causing Ishtaraaa’s mouth to snap shut, then she paused and turned to Elaina. “Do you share the views of your Daughter in regards to your Son?” she asked.
“I love my son and would not see him harmed,” Elaina replied into the growing silence.
“A fine answer,” the High-Priestess from Thaipagos nodded slowly, “much better than your Daughter’s…would that you had raised her better.”
“She was fostered back in the Society when it was felt my duty to my son kept me overlong away the Sisterhood,” Elaina replied stolidly.
Heads shook at this, and for a brief moment Ishtaraaa looked ready to open her mouth again and keep digging her own hole. But, to Akantha’s great disappointment, she somehow stopped herself at the last moment.
“In any case,” the old woman said drawing herself back on track with a visible effort, “it makes no difference what your Paragon says, or if we bother to recognize her authority or not. The Holy Shards have proclaimed that within her Hold, and in her person, each Hold-Mistress is a Holy, Semi-Autonomous Entity. Further, the personal household of a Hold-Mistress—including Daughters, Sons, and Protectors—are considered an extension of her physical person. Except for legal Challenge, Warfare, or in accordance with her own expressed consent, none may dictate to a Hold-Mistress without certain Holy Dictated constraints." She paused and pierced Ishtaraaa with a look, “Unless you are now suggesting that a mere Paragon has superior Holy Authority to a Piece of the Data God?”
When Ishtaraaa stood there looking flabbergasted, the old woman nodded with satisfaction.
“Then I fear your attempts at kin-slaying will not be as straightforward as you thought,” she ended with a voice full of censure.
High-Priestesses around the room nodded in solemn agreement.
“Then you will do nothing to stop the jumped-up heathen?” Ishtaraaa sounded stunned, and Akantha allowed a cold smile of vindicated satisfaction to spread across her lips. Clearly, her new sister-through-the-sword was nearly as stupid as they came. Whether or not she was too stupid to live still remained to be seen, but Akantha knew which way she was pulling for. If internecine warfare between Tracts hadn’t been firmly outlawed, she would already have taken matters into her own hands.
“We didn’t say that,” Sapphira said, and Akantha’s wasn’t the only head to turn in surprised response. But unlike Ishtaraaa, Akantha was smarter than to bring a protest before she knew what exactly was going on but she burned at the casual remark. “The processes of removing a Protector from service are quite clear,” the Hold-Mistress of Argos looked around the room receiving nods of support.
“If you desire to see him removed, there are many paths available—as there are to any woman,” the high-priestess from Lyconesia interjected.
“Such as?” Ishtaraaa demanded, her eyes lightening as she took a half step forward in her eagerness while Elaina made a half sound of protest.
Akantha’s breath hissed through her teeth.
“Have a brother or cousin challenge him,” laughed the old woman from Thaipagos.
“Or pick up a blade and make a challenge yourself,” added a younger woman from the Thaipagos contingent who had been silent until then.
“She can’t do that,” scowled the Lyconesian representative, “she has no brothers. Besides, I gather the entire thrust of the reason she is upset is because he slew his own father.”
“A patricide,” muttered the Priestesses in echoed chorus, looking collectively grim at the thought.
“Was his father yours as well, girl?” barked the old High Priestess.
“Of course he wasn’t!” exclaimed Ishtaraaa.
“Then what do you suggest, Daira?” Sapphira challenged the Lyconesian representative, “if she can’t do it herself and has no kin to carry the burden?”
“Poison, of course,” the other woman said as if it was not less unacceptable than to openly announce the desire to kill one’s own family. “Or she could always pledge his Hold-Mistress a pair of children from her body in exchange for removing Messene’s auspice from her Protector.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a Conclave has had to take corrective measures,” the Hold-Mistress of Lyconesia shrugged.
“Jean Luc, the bandit who attacked our Holds, was slain by Sky Demons on the Star-Citadel,” Akantha snapped, no longer able to take the insult of her choice being bandied about as if the women here had any say as to who she took as Protector. “All my Protector did was refuse to stand aside after being attacked and shot in the chest by his sire. Further, this manner of speaking about my Protector as I am not even here is beyond the pale and moves well past disrespect bordering on the intolerable!” “He could have spared his life!” Ishtaraaa said.
“After being shot and left for dead by his father not once, but twice, I say that my Protector owed the man no special consideration. Jean Luc the Warlord’s rise and fall was in the hands of destiny and demons—not yours, not mine, and most certainly not Jason’s,” Akantha sneered.
“It’s probably best to let the God sort such things out,” the Hold-Mistress from Lyconesia said, as if it were a decision of little moment and also as if she hadn’t just suggested destroying the most potent Protector of a generation—one who belonged to a rival polis.
“But the Paragon!” Ishtaraaa exclaimed.
“Paragon or no Paragon, enough has been said before us for this Conclave to come to a decision,” Sapphira cut in and then gestured to either side of her with lifted arms. “Sisters, how do we stand?”
There was a quiet moment of hushed conferring. Then the High Priestess of Pella stepped forward.
“If it weren’t for the Protector of Messene our world would still be free from outside influences and we would not have been assaulted by the Warlord Jean Luc,” she said, lifting her hands up in the Holy sign of Two.
“Yet our world and holy duty would be lost, “Akantha retorted, “consumed in Sky Demon bellies, with the Holy Shards abandoned to the elements if he had not come and been bound to the service of Messene.”
“His own family seeks our permission to kill him and openly declare he knows not his holy duty,” the High Priestess from Lyconesia intoned and, if Akantha was any judge, there was a hint of malice in her voice.
“Who among us has no trouble with blood-kin?” Akantha allowed the barest hint of a smile to touch her lips that failed to reach her eyes. “And are not the majority of our own men ignorant of the deeper mysteries we hold dear?”
“But to know nothing of the great task—” Ishtaraaa started only to be interrupted by Elaina in turn.
“A lack of knowledge ordered by the very same Paragon who now finds his existence inconvenient,” Jason’s mother said, looking stressed.
Akantha’s mother, Sapphira, lifted her hand again. “It is not for us here to judge another cast for the manner in which it carries out its holy duties, just as we would brook no interference in ours,” Sapphira said.
“Well put, Sister,” muttered the other Priestesses.
“Which is why, at the urging of our Sisters of Three, we will place no special dispensation upon the Protector from Messene at this Conclave,” Sapphira said, and the other Priestesses thrust out their hands one by one and extended their thumbs and pointed them up or down. When the majority had done so and their thumbs pointed up, she nodded.
“No special dispensation, as if you were about to reward him?” Ishtaraaa sneered. “This is outrageous!”
“I agree with our foreign Sister in this one thing; this is outrageous,” Akantha said coldly. “My Protector has proven himself the preeminent warlord of this generation—a warrior whose actions have not only preserved the entire Tract but have also preserved the God Shards from exposure to the demons hordes. He should be acclaimed the Aegis of our people.”
“The Aegis of Two?” several of the Priestesses looked disturbed.
“He has been the Shield of our People,” Akantha pressed her case, “as is proper we would only be acknowledging that which is already fact, not taking sides and bestowing in favor of one warrior—or Hold—over another.”
“To be acclaimed the Aegis…would require the contribution of High-Priestesses from every Hold,” the Priestess of Pella sounded equally disturbed and intrigued.
“Then the request of our Sister Ishtaraaa will have to wait until we have resolved the status of the Protector of Messene,” Sapphira said.
“We’re going to need to call a bigger Conclave,” the ancient High-Priestess from Thaipagos observed dryly.
“And here I thought you were Sisters first?” Ishtaraaa said disgustedly.
“We are Mothers first, Sister Ishtaraaa,” Sapphira said severely, “that is our first and most important Holy duty as put down by the Creator of us all. You would do well to remember that, Sister of the Closed Hand,” she said with a hint of warning as she turned to the rest of the gathered women. “All in favor of calling a Greater Conclave for the purposes of assassinating the Warlord who saved our world at the behest of the Paragon of Three, versus proclaiming as already accomplished fact Jason Montagne, the Protector of Messene, is the Aegis of Tracto, please raise your hand.”
Chapter 14: The Girls are Back In Town
“All the hyper-capable ships not intended to stay in Tracto or go to Easy Haven have already been sent or are on their way, Sir,” my Flag Captain informed out of the corner of his mouth as we waited in the shuttle bay for the shuttle carrying my family to set down and open up.
“Good work,” I muttered back, “what about the ones with broken dishes or other issues?”
“We’ve already begun the process of attaching the Lucky Clover to the Armor Prince for a haul back to Gambit Station, and now that their engines are realigned the Phoenix is preparing to take a pirate light cruiser in tow,” he replied before frowning. “Which reminds me: Captain Synthia McCruise desires to speak with you at your earliest convenience.”
“How convenient do you think things are about to get for me for the next while?” I asked pasting a smile onto my face as the shuttle ramp descended and family members started walking out.
“Per your orders, I believe the Easy Haven contingent remains unaware that you intend to send several of the more battered ships with still functional hyper-drives back with them to Wolf-9,” he reminded me. “They are understandably balking at the idea of our stripping all of their backup navigators from their ships in order to fly the remaining derelicts.”
“When did I order that?” I muttered. I mean, it sounded like something I would say to do, since I was still not entirely pleased with them but I couldn’t recall ever actually doing so. I frowned, concluding that it must have been an off-handed comment during one of our interminable meetings over that past two weeks while my wife, mother and sister were away.
“I believe—” Laurent started.
“Never mind,” I cut him off. It was my fault, if there was a fault, for not speaking with head of the Easy Haven contingent before now, “We’ll set up a conference call and I’ll speak with McCruise personally…at my earliest convenience,” I said as Akantha and Elaina, my mother, approached walking side by side.
“Jason,” the two women chorused almost as if one.
“Mother,” I smiled, bending down to kiss her on the cheek.
“My son,” she smiled at me.
Behind her my sister snorted, stiffening my smile. With a grimace I pushed aside her scorn and turned to my wife who was giving me an intent look.
Standing on my toes and going out on a proverbial limb, I reached up to kiss her cheek. But I was rewarded with a quickly hidden smile that said I’d done the right thing—for once.
“Protector, it does me good to see you,” Akantha said gravely, the smile of a fleeting moment earlier vanishing as if it had never existed. But I’d known my girl for a while now and wasn’t deceived…at least, that’s what I told myself. It could have been that I was deceiving myself, but if so…
I gave myself a minute shake. “How w
as your visit?” I asked.
“Challenging,” Akantha said with a lift of one shoulder, “but we got through it.”
“Everyone’s still alive, so I’d have to chalk that up as a win,” I said with a wry smile.
The way the three ladies all looked at me at the same time was kind of eerie, but when they didn’t say anything I pushed it aside. I could find out what actually went on down on the surface later—and I would—but at that moment the important thing was moving things along.
“Anyway, since you’ve been kind of monopolizing my mother for the past week and a half down on the surface, I was wondering if I could steal her away for a bit,” I said.
“As you wish,” Akantha said with a nod. “I have a few things I need to check out in Medical now that I have returned to the ship anyway.”
“Does anyone care what I think?” my sister asked.
“No, Crystal,” Mother said shortly.
I had to suppress a smirk at the disgruntled expression that crossed my sister’s face as I swept my mother out of the room.
I waited until several bulkheads and a pair of blast doors had been placed between me and the complete lunatic that was my sister, Crystal.
“And I thought that insanity only ran on one side of the family,” I muttered sourly, recalling the gist of several reports on my sister’s activities and general comments about me that I’d made time to read while they were done planet.
“Jason,” Mother said with disappointment in her voice, “I thought I raised you better than that.”
“Sorry, Mom,” I winced hunching my shoulders.
The sound of footsteps clomping behind us, indicated that Duncan was giving us some privacy but wasn’t that far behind.
“Your sister’s under a lot of stress,” Elaina said unhappily, “and it tears me up inside to see the two of you at odds.”
“Talk with her then,” I said urgently. “Whatever pressures the government—whichever one—is bringing to bear, if she’ll just put aside whatever feud she has I’m more than willing to let bygones be bygones.”
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