Veil of the Goddess

by Rob Preece

  "I thought it possible that there would be some trace of the veil's power in the last place where it was positively known to have been,” she admitted. “But I'm not seeing anything."

  Zack looked concerned. “Do you need to connect to the Cross again? We haven't touched it in twenty-four hours. Could you be losing the sight?"

  She couldn't help laughing. “Trust me, that isn't the problem. All of the power in this city has nearly blinded me to ordinary sight. But I'm not seeing anything here."

  "What color are you looking for?"

  "It would be red, wouldn't it? That's the color of Christianity and Islam."

  He nodded. “But Mary's traditional color in church art is blue."

  Blue was also the color of the temple of Aphrodite she'd unlocked. “You know, Zack, I think you've hit on something. Let's get going."

  She bought a tourist map, then flagged down a taxi and ordered the driver on a long trip through the alleys of old Constantinople.

  As she'd told Zack, the city was a mosaic of power. Colors radiated from mosques, churches, city parks, scattered ruins, and, in one case, an apparently empty spot in the sky fifty feet above the nearest building.

  Most of the power gleamed red—the heritage of nearly two thousand years of rule by Christian and then Islamic empires.

  But there were other colors. Yellow glowed sullenly from doorways leading down into subterranean hiding places. Orange brightened the rooftops of truly ancient buildings that still bore telltale marks of the Bull's horns. Green glistened from grottos and treed parks. And blue tantalized and teased from a few churches, from ruined temples, and from behind the walls of the Topkapi Palace complex.

  Zack marked up the map with Ivy's descriptions and also kept up a running description of the numerous sailors and accompanying black-suited Foundation types wandering through the city.

  After an hour, he slapped his forehead. “I can't believe I just noticed this."

  "What?"

  "Wherever you spot a blue power source, there seems to be a group of sailors and SP forces nearby. That hasn't been universally true of the other power colors, although there are plenty of sailors around some of those, too."

  Which meant the Foundation had set a trap for them.

  "Let's go meet the guys for lunch,” Ivy said. “There's something going on here we haven't figured out yet."

  * * * *

  "They're guarding the sites while they bring in their detectors,” Father Galen said when he'd finished putting down most of a side of beef and an entire chocolate cake. “They must have followed the same logic you did, decided that the veil would be hidden in a place sacred to the Queen of Heaven, and identified those spots. But they wouldn't dare just start digging. Our Turkish government may roll over for the Americans, but this would be too much, even for them. I would have heard if they'd started digging and I haven't heard anything. This can only mean they haven't found anything."

  He punctuated his speech with a long draught of beer.

  "If we can guess which of the ten spots Ivy found is the right one,” Zack said, “we might be able to get there before the Foundation's diggers. Even so, they'd be on us before we could recover the veil."

  A sense of unease had been percolating through Ivy since Zack had recognized the Foundation men scattered near the blue power sites. The priest's words finally gave her the missing pieces.

  "We aren't ahead of them. They're ahead of us. They aren't waiting for permission to dig, they're waiting for us to walk into their arms."

  Father Galen smiled and shook his head, then waved to the waiter for the desert tray. “How could they be waiting? And why? If they know how to find the veil, they would take it. What could be more holy? What could be more important than the very veil of the Mother of God?"

  Zack shook his head slowly. “I think Ivy has a point. Has the Patriarch learned anything more about the Foundation?"

  Father Galen gave another of his massive shrugs. “He contacted one of his fellow students from the old days, a Russian Bishop. The Russians have more experience with the radical Protestants because some groups of them have been trying to convert the Orthodox of Russia since the fall of the Soviet Empire. Anyway, his friend says The Foundation is an offshoot of one of those radical Protestant groups. The Russian spy agency, the SVR, says the Foundation has gained influence in U.S. government circles. But no one seems to know what their beliefs are, what they seek, or whom they proselytize. Indeed, they seem only to approach those who are already believers and already secure in their power. It is a mystery."

  "Extreme Protestant groups deny the special position of Mary and hold it blasphemous that we Catholics and you Orthodox call her Queen of Heaven,” Zack pointed out. “So, why would they be looking for the veil?"

  "But she was selected for the most holy—"

  "I'm not arguing with you,” Zack interrupted. “I'm just telling you what they believe. And if they don't believe in Mary, why would they care about her relics?"

  "Power is power,” Ivy said. “I don't believe in the hawk-headed god we ran into in Kurdistan, but I wouldn't want to see him again, either."

  Zack nodded. “Good point, and I wasn't thinking that way. But think about this. The veil has been here for hundreds of years, right?"

  Ivy started to see where this was going. “Right. What are the odds that they decide to come looking for it exactly the day we arrive in Istanbul? They aren't looking for the relic. They're still looking for the Cross. By tracking us, they could tell we were heading toward Byzantium and guessed we'd try for the veil. They've set a trap for us."

  "Cross? You have the Cross?” Father Galen's fat jowls quivered. “The True Cross is found after all these centuries? Truly this is a miracle, a sign that we may be entering the last days."

  He heaved himself out of his chair, shoved the table out of his way, and embraced first Zack, then Ivy. “You must show it to me. The Patriarch himself will wish to see this.” Tears ran down his cheeks and he pulled a green handkerchief from a hidden pocket and blew his nose with it. “Where is it hidden? Is it quite safe? Do you truly believe these men would use force to seize the holy symbol of our Lord's suffering? Surely they are Christians, even if Protestants."

  "That's a lot of questions,” Ivy said. “And the short answer is, yes, it's hidden. And yes, they would kill, have killed, to get it."

  "I must tell the Patriarch. Every priest in Constantinople will wish to see it. Every lay Christian. This may be the new beginning for our Church.” He blew his nose on the handkerchief, then waved the rag in the air. “The Turks have not been kind to we Christians who stayed after the forced repatriation of Greeks. Although the treaty between Greece and Turkey expressly called for protection of Greeks living in Constantinople, we have been reduced by pogroms and violence. Now, only a few thousand of us remain. But the recovered Cross justifies our faith. We shall have new converts. Whatever the oppression, Greeks will return to the land of their parents when they hear that the Cross is found, was returned to Constantinople."

  He reached to pull Ivy into another slobbering hug, but she stepped back in time to get away from him.

  "If we put the Cross on display, the Foundation will find it and take it."

  Father Galen laughed. “How could they, if it was guarded by priests and preserved in the sanctuary of the Cathedral?"

  "They bombed an ancient mosque in Mosul and killed an American soldier to take it before,” Zack answered. “I doubt your aging priests would offer it much protection."

  "Perhaps I can offer a suggestion,” Cejno put in.

  Ivy had almost forgotten the young Kurd was still with them but she had a lot of faith in his political instincts. “Yes?"

  "Each of you has a problem. Your problem is, you want to take the veil, but it is guarded. Father Galen's problem is, he wants to touch the Cross and show it to the Patriarch. Perhaps the solution to each problem lies in the other."

  "How, exactly?” Ivy asked.

/>   "What could distract this Foundation of you Americans? What could give you and Mr. Zack the time you need to snatch the veil without being disturbed? I tell you truly, a parade, a procession, with enough people that it would push the Foundation men out of position. And who could make such a parade? Only the Patriarch himself."

  "So, we let the Patriarch see the Cross and he gives us a noisy and pushy parade,” Zack repeated.

  "There are only a few thousand of us remaining in Constantinople,” Father Galen said. “Most are old, too old for a parade.” He gave a longing look toward the kitchen, then shook his head. “I cannot eat now, I must work. We will need more Christians, but it could work,” Father Galen said. “If we promised a viewing of the long-lost veil, we could get pilgrims from Thrace and beyond."

  Ivy's first reaction was an emphatic no. She'd been in school with fanatical Protestants who viewed everyone who disagreed with them as scum. She didn't think the Foundation would have any particular moral qualms about killing Orthodox pilgrims. Even if they did have time to bring in pilgrims from the Orthodox world.

  "Sounds dangerous,” Zack said.

  Father Galen smiled. “I insist that we make this parade happen. How could it be dangerous to join our fellow Christians in worship?"

  Ivy had an uneasy feeling they'd soon discover the answer to Father Galen's question, and they wouldn't like what they found.

  * * * *

  It took six hours to gather thousands of pilgrims.

  The Patriarch made calls to his fellow church leaders in Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria as well as a few of the nearby Greek islands nominally under his direct control. All of those neighboring nations had large Orthodox populations and a traditional relationship with the Patriarch of Constantinople.

  After making the phone calls, the Patriarch joined Zack, Cejno, Ivy, and Father Galen outside the apartment they'd been given by the imam.

  The Patriarch wasn't as old as Ivy had guessed he would be—maybe because her expectations had been created by the ancient Pope—but he looked serious and worried. He would be embarrassed if Ivy and Zack were pulling a hoax.

  The Patriarch shook hands with everyone, gave Cejno a stern look that indicated he knew more about the hashish-smuggler's business than anyone was admitting, then demanded to be shown the Cross.

  The imam was not happy to see the Orthodox leader show up at his mosque. “This is a house of prayer, not a hotbed of conspiracy."

  The Patriarch replied to him in Turkish, finally quieting his objections before actually entering the mosque.

  Ivy was relieved to see the Cross, safe in a storage room, shoved against the wall as if it were a couple of hunks of timber left over from a reproofing. Although Zack had been wrong about her need to touch the Cross to see the colors of power, seeing it, touching it, always provided her a sense of healing and strength.

  The Patriarch must have felt a taste of the magic himself, because he immediately knelt before the object and prayed silently for nearly an hour before finally reaching out a tentative hand and touching the longer section, searching for the spot where the head of Jesus would have rested.

  "It is truly a miracle,” he announced. “The discovery of the Veil will be another miracle. The world is filled with change. Sometimes I wish I had been born at an easier age, but life has never been easy for the Orthodox, standing as we do at the fulcrum between east and west, between Christianity and Islam. Between Europe and Asia."

  He tracked down the imam who was stomping around outside his own mosque, and rattled at him in Turkish for another ten minutes.

  "Good,” the Patriarch said in English. He turned to Ivy and Zack. “Ugur will see that our parade is not disturbed by an Islamic mob. In fact, Ugur will speak to some of the hotheads and encourage them to march beside us, adding to the confusion for your Foundation men."

  "How did you talk him into that?” Ivy demanded. The imam hadn't seemed especially positive to her.

  The Patriarch shrugged. “I told him about the Foundation and the bombed mosque in Mosul."

  Chapter 13

  A couple of days of research and more taxi reconnaissance narrowed down the possible locations for the veil.

  There was an ancient spring that completely glowed with the blue power of the female, and there was a spot about thirty feet above the ruins of the Hippodrome that shined with a similar magic. One was the spot of an ancient church. The other had once been occupied by an enormous statue of Hera, that other Queen of Heaven.

  They'd have to try both spots.

  Meanwhile, pilgrims poured into Istanbul.

  The patriarch led the procession himself. It would end, somewhat provocatively, at the enormous doors to the Hagia Sophia Cathedral. Provocatively because the Hagia Sophia had spent five hundred years as a mosque and still carried the Crescent on its highest spire rather than the Cross, which had been put there in a time when the world was still Roman and first becoming Christian.

  Zack and Ivy joined an American tourist group being shown around the ancient Hippodrome an hour before the parade was due to arrive.

  "There's the truck,” Zack observed, barely flicking his gaze toward their first target.

  Cejno parked the Turk Telekom truck on the side of the road, about twenty feet from a small group of uniformed U.S. Navy SPs and three black-suited, pale-faced men who glistened with the red glow of their certainty in the Christian faith. The young Kurd hopped out and placed orange construction cones around the truck, closing one lane to traffic, then returned to his truck and lit a cigarette and opened his newspaper. He looked so exactly like the stereotype of a government employee earning his paycheck by sitting on his rear that Ivy had to suppress her laughter.

  After another twenty minutes of fascinating lectures on the history of the hippodrome, a hubbub went through the tourists. Everywhere Ivy looked, tour guides were on their phones, or trying to hustle their charges out of the area.

  Ivy simply ignored her guide's efforts, until he shrugged his shoulders and left, taking the rest of the tourists with him.

  A few moments later, the Patriarch marched in, leading thousands of the faithful and surrounded by jeering Moslems.

  The Orthodox Christians carried relics on elaborate palanquins. Several lifted huge Crosses that looked superficially even more impressive than the True Cross in the Telekom truck. Robed and bearded priests mixed with jean-clad teens. Dark-haired mothers herded young children along the parade route.

  Ivy shook her head. Children! She hadn't thought things through. She and Zack were soldiers. They'd signed up for danger when they'd agreed to take the government's paycheck. But those young mothers thought they were just here to celebrate their faith. Instead, they'd walked into the lion's den without even realizing it.

  And the only things they could do about it was find the veil and then get out of Turkey before things got even worse.

  Taking advantage of the distraction, Ivy and Zack slid into the back of the Telekom truck and Ivy stepped into orange Telekom coveralls, finally plastering a yellow hardhat over her hair.

  Loud shouts from outside the truck distracted her from the next step, which was to climb on top of the truck and ascend to the mysterious blue glow that hung above the ruins of the ancient Hippodrome.

  For a moment, Ivy wondered if the imam had broken his promise. The Turkish youths who surrounded the parade seemed angry and, although she couldn't understand the words, they definitely didn't sound polite. But then she recognized the imam in the crowd and saw he was directing the jeers—and making sure only his trusted and designated few went close to the parading Christians.

  The Moslem Turks weren't especially friendly toward the Greek and Slavic marchers but, as the Patriarch had predicted, the long-warring factions could reach agreement when they faced an even greater common threat—the Foundation.

  The Foundation agents and SPs tried to stand their ground as the procession filled the streets, but the relic boxes, cross replicas, and palanquins took u
p too much room.

  The Orthodox shoved their way forward, using the boxes as tools to clear their way, pushing the Americans away from their post and dispersing them.

  The Moslems took over from there, knocking radios away as Foundation men attempted to call for backup and shoving them further from the blue glow.

  "Here goes nothing.” Ivy lifted her Cross section through the roof of the Telekom truck, climbed into the cherrypicker, and hammered the control lever to raise her up. She hoped the Cross section would look like a piece of a telephone pole to anyone glancing her way, although someone looking closely would notice a peculiar lack of phone lines overhead.

  The cherrypicker seemed to move in slow motion as it lofted her upward. Her skin crawled and she felt the weight of dozens of Foundation killers’ eyes on her body. Now that she was lifted above the crowd, any Foundation sniper could take her down.

  Over the sound of the praying mob and the shouts of Turkish youths, she made out a few words of English. The sailors and Foundation agents might not be able to reach her, but they'd certainly recognized her: they'd be calling for backup. The young Turks might distract some of them, but Ivy knew that others would get through on their radios or cells no matter what obstacles they faced.

  The cherrypicker finally lifted her to the blue area and she forced herself to ignore the danger below—and pay attention to what could be an even greater danger here. The Foundation agents and sailors could only endanger her body—messing with strange religions could endanger her soul.

  Unlike the temple to the hawk-headed god, the blue glow didn't push Ivy away. Nor did it welcome her. It simply parted like a fog around her.

  She crossed her fingers and brought the Cross section up until its red glare touched the blue, sending a purple sheen as far as she could see.

  She directed her cherrypicker through the portal she'd opened. And looked.

  Her mouth dropped open.

  Hera was enormous. Her head alone was taller than Ivy. The goddess reclined comfortably as she surveyed her realm. Although Ivy knew there was no physical statue of Hera here, the goddess's body seemed more solid than the misty vision of the parade or the road below.