Jalkan began to tremble violently. Adnari Estarg was the most powerful man in the Amarite church, and he had a fearsome reputation. Church law forbade the death penalty for priests and even for novices, but it was widely known in Kaldacin that Adnari Estarg could come up with forms of punishment that made the death penalty seem almost preferable.
The Regulators dragged their violently trembling prisoner through the streets of Kaldacin to the splendid palace adjoining the huge, ornate convenium that marked the center of the Amarite faith. Then they took him up an ornate marble staircase to a splendidly furnished study on the second floor of the palace. They pushed him down onto his knees before the throne of a portly man garbed in the crimson robe of an Adnari of the church.
“The prisoner Jalkan, Your Grace,” the Regulator who’d done most of the talking announced.
“Excellent,” the chubby churchman said, rubbing his hands together. “That’ll be all, gentlemen. I’ll deal with this miscreant myself.”
“As you wish, Your Grace,” the Regulator said with a slight bow, and then the three of them left the study, closing the door behind them.
“Shameful, Hiera Jalkan,” Adnari Estarg said. “Shameful, shameful, shameful. What am I going to do with you, you naughty boy?”
The Adnari’s tone actually sounded almost amused. “You do realize that you’ve profaned a sacred convenium by turning it into a den of thieves, don’t you?”
“It’s been long abandoned, Your Grace,” Jalkan protested.
“That doesn’t mean that the sanctification’s been revoked, Jalkan,” the Adnari insisted.
“It wasn’t originally my idea, Your Grace. The old convenium had been long deserted, and the leader of a group of thieves just moved in and set up shop without anybody’s permission.”
“Why didn’t you report that to your Oran?”
“Well . . .” Jalkan desperately groped for some sort of explanation that wouldn’t get him deeper in trouble.
“I’m waiting, Jalkan.”
“I lost my head, Your Grace,” Jalkan confessed. “The thieves are making heaps of money, and . . .” Jalkan faltered.
“And you seized the chance to take most of it away from them, didn’t you?”
“Only a quarter, Your Grace,” Jalkan protested. “I thought at first that I could get more, but Rabell wouldn’t stand for it.”
“Rabell?”
“The fat man who hires the thieves. They steal and he sells what they’ve stolen. The really clever part of the business is the use of children.”
Adnari Estarg’s head came up sharply. “Children?” he exclaimed. “What part could children play in this?”
“They’re the ones who do the actual stealing, Your Grace. As I understand it, the thieves have been using children for years and years. People with valuables in their houses usually have barred windows, but the children Rabell hires are so small that they can slip right between the bars and get inside with almost no trouble at all. Rabell tells me that when he was a child, he was the best thief in all of Kaldacin.”
“And just exactly what part do you play in this grand scheme, Hiera Jalkan?”
“Ah—I’d really rather not say, Your Grace,” Jalkan replied nervously.
“I’m sure that the Regulators can come up with a way to make you change your mind, Hiera Jalkan,” the Adnari said ominously.
“Well—” Jalkan said nervously, “I sort of find houses and such with lots of valuable things inside.”
“And just exactly how do you gain entrance into these various houses?” the Adnari pressed.
“Well, they’re mostly the houses—and palaces—of the wealthier members of the clergy, Your Grace. I told them that the Church scholars had issued a rule that the exact dimensions of every piece of Church property and all Church buildings must be recorded in the Church register. That opens a lot of doors for me, and I’m able to have a look around inside every building owned by any member of the clergy. When I come across a place with a lot of valuables inside, I go tell Rabell about it, and he arranges the robbery. I get a quarter of all the money the robbery brings in. He has thieves robbing other places as well, he tells me, but I only get paid for the ones I tell him about.”
“Ah, now it’s starting to make some sense,” Adnari Estarg said. “You’re very clever, Hiera Jalkan, but you do know that you’ve committed a serious offense, don’t you?”
Jalkan began to tremble violently again.
“Don’t shake so much, dear boy,” Adnari Estarg told him. “I think I’ve come up with a way for you to expiate this naughty sin you’ve committed—for a price. Everything has a price—or had you already noticed that?”
“I’ll pay anything, Your Grace,” Jalkan vowed in a trembling voice.
“You will indeed, Jalkan. Now, then, let’s get down to business here. How many of these tiny children can this scoundrel Rabell put his hands on?”
“I’m not really sure, Your Grace. I haven’t had much contact with their handlers.”
“Handlers?”
“They’re the men who more or less own the children. They decide which house they want to rob and stand guard outside while the child is inside stealing.”
“Our business seems to be very well organized.”
“Our business?”
“You might want to advise Rabell that I’m the senior partner now. I’ll put together an order about recording dimensions of church buildings and put my seal on it. That’ll get you into some houses and palaces you probably don’t even know about. Our glorious Naos, Parok VII, is so senile now that he doesn’t know night from day. That means that the senior Adnari—me—is running the Church, so what I say is the law. I think our first step should be to put these ‘handlers’ you mentioned into the uniforms of Church Regulators. That should be very useful. Nobody argues with the Regulators. You’d better go advise your fat friend that the situation’s changed just a bit.”
“Ah, Your Grace,” Jalkan said. “I can’t really go anyplace just now. I’m all chained up, remember?”
“Why, so you are, Jalkan,” Adnari Estarg replied with feigned astonishment. “Isn’t it peculiar that I didn’t notice that myself?”
“Things have changed just a bit, Rabell,” Jalkan announced when he returned to the ancient convenium.
“Changed? How?” the fat man demanded suspiciously.
“Right after I checked out Adnari Radan’s palace, I went back to my cell to put the notes I’d taken into some kind of order, but there were three Regulators waiting for me.”
“Regulators?” Rabell exclaimed. “How is it that you’re still alive?”
“The Regulators aren’t quite that savage, Rabell. They chained me up, of course, and then they dragged me across town to the palace of Adnari Estarg.”
Rabell’s face went suddenly pale, and he started to tremble.
“The Adnari had evidently heard some rumors about what we’re doing, so he wrung the truth out of me.”
“If we hurry, we can be out of Kaldacin by sunset,” Rabell said in a squeaky kind of voice.
“Don’t get excited, Rabell. After the Adnari had heard the details of what we’ve been up to, he declared that from now on, we’ll be taking orders from him.”
“Is this all some kind of elaborate joke, Jalkan? If it is, you’ll notice that I’m not laughing very much.”
“Stay with me, Rabell. He told me that he was going to issue a proclamation to the effect that all Church property and buildings are required to be listed in official Church documents, and that the exact dimensions of every single room in all those buildings must be included. That proclamation will have his seal on it, and I’ll have it in my pocket. Whoever happens to be living there right now will be required to open the door and let me in. A week or so from now our people will be robbing houses we didn’t even know existed—and the handlers who take care of the children will be wearing the uniforms of Church Regulators, so nobody in his right mind will interfere in any way at a
ll.”
A look of astonished wonder came over Rabell’s face. “We’re going to get rich, Jalkan!” he chortled. “We’re going to go way, way past rich! If I happen to be just dreaming, please don’t wake me up!”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, my dear friend,” Jalkan promised.
And then they both howled with laughter.
The Regulator who’d arrested Jalkan a few months earlier tapped politely on Jalkan’s cell door, and he was much more civil this time. “Adnari Estarg would have a word with you, Hiera Jalkan,” he said mildly.
“I’ll come at once,” Jalkan said, rising quickly to his feet.
They moved through the streets of imperial Kaldacin to the palace of the Adnari, and Jalkan was immediately admitted to Estarg’s study.
“Ah, there you are, Jalkan,” the fat churchman said. “Things might be looking up for us.”
“Oh?”
“Holy Naos Parok VII seems to be having some serious health problems. His assorted physicians have advised me that he won’t be around too much longer.”
“I’ll pray that he recovers, Your Grace,” Jalkan declared piously.
“We all will, of course,” Estarg agreed, “but let’s not overdo it. Divine Amar’s very busy right now—changing the seasons, making sure that the sun rises and sets when she’s supposed to—all those tedious little details that take up so very much of a god’s time. Parok VII has had a full life, and he’s done very well. The Church will miss him terribly, of course, but time moves on, and as soon as the holy old fool dies, he’ll have to be replaced.”
“I’ve got a fair idea of who’s going to ascend the holy throne when dear Parok leaves us,” Jalkan declared.
3
As it turned out, however, things didn’t go exactly as Hiera Jalkan and Adnari Estarg had been most certain that they would. All right-thinking men know that mighty Kaldacin is the very center of the universe, and that Divine Amar had intended it to be so since the beginning of time.
There were heretics, however—mostly in the southern reaches of the Empire—who steadfastly refused to accept the desires of Divine Amar. Rational men knew that Divine Amar had, in his infinite wisdom, chosen Adnari Estarg to succeed Holy Parok VII as Naos of all the world, but the heretics of the south turned away and, without consultation of any kind, they elevated a little-known Oran named Udar to the holy throne of the Naos.
The churchmen of mighty Kaldacin thought that was terribly funny, and they laughed long and hard at this colossal absurdity.
The laughter faded, however, when twelve armies marched up from the south and surrounded mighty Kaldacin.
The citizens of Kaldacin didn’t think that was very appropriate, so they turned to the various armies whose compounds lay within the city walls.
The armies, however, followed the advice of the well-known Commander Narasan when he declared, “We don’t get involved in religious squabbles.”
“But what are we going to do?” the civil and religious authorities wailed.
“I’d strongly advise capitulation,” Narasan replied. “That’s entirely up to you, though.” And he turned around and walked away.
The imperial government collapsed about then, and the armies of the south met little resistance as they marched through the gates. They occupied the imperial palace and the holy convenium of the Amarite church. The heretics of the south delivered several ultimatums to the true Church hierarchy. The ultimatums were couched in formal terms, of course, but the meaning was fairly clear. “If you don’t do exactly as we tell you, we’ll kill you,” gets right to the point.
The ceremony that elevated the little-known Udar to the position of Naos took less than half an hour, and the acceptance speech of Naos Udar IV took even less time. He said, “Divine Amar has sent me here to cleanse the Church, and I will obey him. If anybody here gets in my way, I’ll trample him into the dust.”
A sudden chill came over Jalkan at that point.
“Will anyone here speak in the defense of this foul miscreant?” the ornately robed Amarite judge demanded, giving the chained prisoner Jalkan a look of profoundest contempt.
Jalkan cringed, looking hopefully at his friend, Adnari Estarg.
Estarg, however, turned his eyes away, and Jalkan’s last hope faded.
“I didn’t really think so,” the judge declared. “Unfortunately, Church law forbids a sentence of death for any member of the clergy—even one of such low rank as the accused. It is therefore the decision of this court that the accused shall be taken hence to a public square and there shall he receive fifty lashes and then be stripped of his membership in the clergy. Let it be known further that no adherent of the Amarite faith shall have any contact with this vile beast, nor will shelter or food be made available to him for so long as he lives. Now get this trash out of my sight.”
The Regulators stripped Jalkan down to his loincloth, chained him to the post in the middle of the square, and then flogged him to within an inch of his life with long whips, ignoring his screams and shrill cries for mercy.
He was blubbering and bleeding profusely when they unchained him. He snatched up his clothes and fled with the mocking laughter of the crowd of commoners who had gathered to watch his punishment following him.
He went into a secluded alley and pulled on his clothes, muttering curses all the while. Everything had been going so well, and then that cursed Udar had usurped the divine throne of the Naos, and Jalkan’s world had all gone to pieces.
Adnari Estarg had betrayed him to protect himself, but the high churchman probably hadn’t had much choice in the matter.
Right now, Jalkan had something much more important to attend to. It was absolutely essential for him to return to his cell in the Church dormitory to gather up his clothes and other belongings before word of his ejection from the Church became general knowledge. Far more important than clothes, however, was the carefully concealed purse under his cot. In his present circumstances, that money was an absolute necessity. Without the purse, he’d be a pauper with no prospects whatsoever.
As luck had it, the novice who was guarding the door of the Church dormitory was half-drunk, and he waved Jalkan through without any questions. Jalkan nodded briefly and went directly to his cell.
He heaved an enormous sigh of relief when he entered. Nothing had been disturbed—yet. He was certain that when word of his recent dismissal got out, people would be standing in line waiting for the opportunity to rummage through his cell. Wincing in pain, he crawled under his cot and retrieved the worn-out old shoe lying against the back wall. The weight of that discarded shoe brightened an otherwise gloomy day.
Jalkan discarded his clergyman’s robe and garbed himself in his best clothing. Then he took the heavy purse out of the tired old shoe and tucked it down into the top of his boot. He gave his cell a final look. All in all, his career in the Church had been quite profitable, but it was obviously time to move on.
The recent refusal of Commander Narasan to become involved in Church squabbles raised an interesting possibility. Jalkan was fairly sure that his purse filled with gold crowns would get Commander Narasan’s immediate attention, and a career as an army officer might be even more exciting than a career in the Church. “I guess it’s worth a try,” he muttered to himself as he left the dormitory. “I think I’ve just about exhausted the possibilities the Church has to offer, and I was getting more than a little tired of all the praying and groveling anyway.”
4
Jalkan had a bit of trouble adjusting to military life. There hadn’t been much physical activity involved in being a member of the clergy, so he wasn’t really in very good shape. Running five miles before breakfast every morning corrected that after a few weeks, but he still didn’t like it very much.
Then there’d been his training in swordsmanship, and after a very short time he’d come to hate the balding officer named Gunda, who was his instructor. Jalkan had assumed that his very expensive commission as an officer in Commander Nara
san’s army had bought him a certain amount of respect, but Gunda didn’t seem to understand the meaning of the word “respect,” and his vocabulary was quite colorful. Every time Jalkan made the slightest mistake, Gunda showered him with curses and ridicule.
In time, however, Jalkan became more proficient, but he still couldn’t see why it was necessary. He was an officer, after all. He was supposed to give orders, not become involved in the actual business of killing people. That was the job of the ordinary soldiers, not the officers.
It was about a month after Jalkan had bought his commission that Commander Narasan’s army had been hired to take part in a small war off to the east of the empire. The officer named Padan referred to the war as “a slight unpleasantness.” Padan, Jalkan felt, had a very warped sense of humor. To Jalkan’s way of looking at things, “unpleasantness” was a gross understatement.
After a year or so, Jalkan became better adjusted to the life of a soldier, and he even began to enjoy it. Because Commander Narasan was perhaps the finest and most skilled strategist in all the Empire, the various wars his army was hired to undertake were usually quite short, and the eventual outcome was quite predictable—so predictable, in fact, that it was not unusual for the opposing army to capitulate as soon as they realized that they’d be fighting against Narasan’s army.
Jalkan definitely approved of that. The pay was good, and there wasn’t much danger involved. It occurred to him that the time he’d spent as a clergyman had actually been wasted. He was born to be a soldier.
It was during Jalkan’s third year in Narasan’s army that the father of young Keselo purchased a commission for his son. At first, Jalkan was quite sure that he and the rather stuffy young aristocrat would become close friends, but Keselo remained aloof. Evidently, Keselo’s years as a student at the University of Kaldacin had given him an exaggerated opinion of himself. Jalkan had encountered that often during his years in the Amarite church. Some men simply could not accept the fact that their education had not really ennobled them. Jalkan turned his back on Keselo at that point. He didn’t really need friends anyway.
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