Sissy didn’t pause. She’d found her momentum and conquered her fears. She set the aspergillum in motion again, singing small prayers and invoking each of the seven gods to bless the asylum and the people who dwelled and worked here. From the hall they progressed upward and outward to dormitory wings. All empty now. All freshly scrubbed with bleach and disinfectant.
But the scent of the seven candles still burning at the doorway overrode the sharp reminders of the physical cleansing. This was a spiritual cleansing. Any ghosts that might have lingered fled before Sissy’s holy water and her songs.
They fled from Jake as well. When they’d made full rounds and returned to their starting point, Jake felt lighter, cleaner, taller with the weight of seven worlds lifted from his shoulders.
“You’ve made this place into a Temple,” he said quietly as he packed Sissy’s kit.
“As it should be. All places are sacred. Our own acts defile them. Mr. Director.” She turned her attention to the weaselly little man.
“What now?”
Immediately Jake was in front of him with hands ready to wrap around his throat. “How dare you show such disrespect for High Priestess Laudae Estella?” he snarled.
“L... Laud . . . Laudae Estella?”
“Who do you think came all the way out here to clean up your mess?” Jake’s mess, too. The Military’s mess. Harmony’s mess.
“We presumed she was an acolyte. That’s all this place, those Loods deserve.”
“They are people, not logs of wood,” Jake yelled. “Flesh and blood, and I was forced to murder some of them!”
“Jake.” Sissy’s delicate hand on his shoulder brought his mind out of the red swirl of anger. He stepped back. His fists remained clenched.
“Mr. Director, your staff may begin moving their patients back to their home,” she said quietly.
“Patients? That’s an awful fancy name for mindless mutants.”
Jake’s fist connected with the man’s jaw. He staggered back, blood streaming from his nose.
“I’ll have your rank and your job for this, Lieutenant.”
Jake merely raised an eyebrow.
The director turned and ran to a small dark green car parked halfway down the block.
“I don’t want to lose you, Jake. I trust you,” Sissy said. Behind her crystal veil she gnawed her lip.
“Not to worry, My Laudae. You preside over the High Council. All you have to do is suggest he was impertinent to you and he’s out of work.”
“Can I truly do that?”
“There’s a lot of things you can do. Including making this place a hospice instead of a prison. You’ve already started the work with your ritual. I don’t know what magic you worked, but it truly is a miracle, the difference in how the place welcomes you now rather than repels you.”
“It wasn’t me. It was Harmony. It was the gods at work.”
“And you are truly their avatar. They chose you to correct some terrible wrongs and bring your people back to the path of Harmony.” Now where did that nonsense come from? He wasn’t here to make Harmony stronger. He was here to bring them down by stealing the Badger Metal formula.
Or was he? Maybe. . . .
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
"I DO NOT NEED YOU following me to a meeting of the High Council, Lieutenant Jacob da Jacob,” Sissy insisted as she walked rapidly through the maze of corridors. Interesting that they followed a very similar pattern to the circuitry of a nav unit.
“Call me Jake, Laudae Estella. I am charged with protecting you,” the lieutenant replied.
“From the High Council?” She stopped in her tracks. He bumped into her, apologized, and backed off three steps. Barely enough space to maintain politeness.
“I saw the car in the park, Laudae. How many people outside the Noble caste can afford a large, dark blue vehicle?” He paused for emphasis, looking grim and dangerous in his daily black uniform.
“Have you found the owner of the car?”
He snorted something derisive. “No central registry of vehicles. Fifteen vehicles of similar make, model, and color in the capital. Who knows how many in the outlying areas.”
“If I gave you the authority to question the owners of the vehicles . . . No. Not yet. I think such inquiries should come from Laud Gregor’s office. Give your information and a list of questions to Guilliam. He’ll see that it’s done. Diplomatically.” She proceeded toward the Council Chamber, in the most ancient portion of Crystal Temple where it joined the State Palace.
“Laudae Estella, you are about to enter a closed room with five Nobles. The only person on the High Council I trust with your safety is Laud Gregor. And then only because he has an agenda. I don’t know what it is. Frankly, I don’t care as long as he has more to gain by keeping you alive than seeing you dead. Please allow me to accompany you and protect you as I am charged.”
Sissy had to think about that a moment. “Very well. Come if you must, but stay by the door where you are out of the way and can watch everyone. I’m interested in their reactions. I’ve never attended a meeting before. Now I, too, have an agenda. The first item of which is to fire the director of the asylum.” She donned the heavy headdress she’d carried the entire length of the sprawling complex, then took a deep breath and faced the double doorway to the Council Chamber.
“I’ll call you Jake if you’ll call me Sissy,” she said just as she thrust the doors open and blew into the chamber with as much aplomb as she could muster.
And came to an abrupt halt three steps inside the chamber. A long empty table with seven tall chairs around it sat abandoned and dusty in the center beneath an equally neglected stained glass skylight. Bright summer sunshine glinted and fractured into many colors on the table. The dust particles stirred by her entry sparkled and danced in streams of red, blue, green, yellow, and purple light.
The crystals in her veil picked up the many colors and fractured them again, creating the image of ghosts seated around the table. Long-dead ancestors of the current HC.
She blinked away the illusion and shifted her attention to the knot of people gathered around a smaller round table in the corner. Harsh electric lights banished shadows there.
Sissy’s crystals continued to work their magic separating the light into a full rainbow. She saw flares of life energy shimmering around each of the six High Council members. Instantly, she recognized patterns of emotions reflected in the auras.
Laud Gregor, green with envy and ambition. Lady Marissa, calm and confident in blue, Lord Chauncey, cold and resentful in alternating layers of orange and white. She didn’t know the others by name, only that each had secrets and desires that had nothing to do with the good of all Harmony.
“The Council table is over here, beneath Empathy’s beneficial and natural light,” Sissy said coldly. “There are no drafts here, and we need not waste energy with artificial light. Now if you will join me, I shall open the gathering with the proper ritual. She produced a crystal and a wand from her sleeve and set them before her place at the head of the table, right in the middle of a shaft of purple light.
Then she marched to the side of the oldest and most frail gentleman and offered him an arm of escort. “My Lord, you will be warmer and more comfortable over here, where you belong.”
“My thanks, Laudae,” he replied shakily as he rose beside her. “I can walk on my own. ’Bout time we returned to tradition. Something importantabout ceremony and order.” He grabbed an ornately carved cane from beside his chair and hobbled over to the big table. “I’m Nathaniel, by the way. Nice to finally meet you in person.”
Off to the side Sissy heard Jake chuckle as he took a protective stance beside the door.
Gregor bit back a sharp retort. Instead he pasted on a smile and said, “Lord Nathaniel, we moved to this isolated corner because the light through the skylight bothered your eyes.”
“Well, that unshielded electric light bothers me more,” the old man countered. He plunked down into his assigned c
hair right next to the end where the HPS presided.
Gregor grabbed the chair opposite Nathaniel, on Sissy’s other side. He couldn’t allow her to totally take control. Not when he’d finally maneuvered some benefits to the five Nobles so that their greed would overtake their caution.
Lady Marissa pushed Lady Sarah aside to sit next to Gregor. “Whatever you two are up to, you won’t get away with it,” she hissed.
“Laudae Estella’s presence is as much a surprise to me as to you,” he snarled back at her.
She raised her eyebrows. “Interesting. And what of the grim and handsome Military by the door?”
“A precaution.”
Sissy interrupted Lady Marissa’s next comment by snapping her wand against the single crystal. A light tone, sweet. It reverberated against the skylight just enough to draw everyone’s attention to her where she stood, face upturned, bathed in glorious sunlight. She followed the note with a prayer sung in perfect pitch starting with the crystal note and soaring outward.
For a brief moment Gregor relived his own early days as a priest, full of faith. Wasted time spent searching for the elusive ideal until he realized that faith lay in the prosperity of Harmony. He could unleash his ambition in good conscience because he knew how to expand and strengthen the empire while honoring the seven gods at the same time.
The larger and stronger the empire, the more glory for Harmony, and the more power he controlled. A nice circle of opportunity.
Just before Lord Nathaniel started fidgeting in impatience, Sissy concluded her prayer on a lingering high note that seemed to drift into the heavens of its own accord.
Impressive, indeed. She’d learned a lot in the last four months.
“As I was saying when we were interrupted,” Gregor jumped in before anyone else could take control of the meeting. “Our frontiers are under heavy assault from two alien races. We have to increase defenses before our borders crumble and foreign ways begin to corrupt our empire.”
“Two alien races?” Lady Marissa asked. “Last I heard we had only the Marils to fear.”
“The Marils are an awesome force, avian, but akin to we humans. Two arms, two legs, they stand upright. The others,” he allowed himself a shudder to mask his lie. “The others are hideous snake creatures. Totally alien. Bent on our complete submission. They call themselves Css.” He drew out the sibilant into a serpent’s hiss.
Sissy shot a glance over her shoulder to where her guard stood. Did she know something? Or had the man made a gesture betraying Gregor’s lie.
He had to proceed, push for results. If they challenged his information, he’d just plow forward, right over the top of them.
“We have lost a lot of Spacer personnel in the past month. Not enough reserves in their caste to fill all the gaps.”
“What can we do?” Lord Chauncey asked. He leaned forward, eager for a solution.
“I propose that we allow the Military to join forces with the Spacers. They serve similar functions, keeping order and defense. They both know how to fight and quell violence.”
Daniel nodded. The others looked a little puzzled.
“If we shift more Military to planetary defenses among the colonies under attack, that will free Spacers to man the fleet.”
“And who shall fill the empty dockets among the Military?” Lady Marissa asked, too blandly. She was up to something.
“Worker caste can do administrative and clerical jobs for them, drive vehicles, clean things. We have a surplus of Workers here in Harmony City. Shifting some of them to Military bases will ease the housing shortage as well as remove stress on the sewage, water, and energy systems. If necessary, we can even bring some of the able-bodied Poor back into the Worker caste.”
“If we eliminate the Poor entirely,” mused Lady Marissa, “we would have a place to separate the media from the Professionals. Make them an ally to the HC.”
“No.” Sissy stood up, fists planted on the tabletop. In her padded robes and jangling headdress she seemed taller, more formidable, and powerful than he’d ever seen her. Cloaked in mystery, she commanded the absolute attention of every member of the HC.
“Mixing of castes is strictly forbidden by all seven gods. Spacers and Military take care of their own, much as we . . . the Workers do. The elderly, the infirm, parents on maternity leave, can be put back into service in noncombat positions. As they have always done in time of war. As for making the media a caste of their own . . . that requires much thought and examination of old records for a precedent.”
“Agreed,” Lord Nathaniel shouted. He pounded his feeble fist on the tabletop. “We have drifted away from Harmony’s path. Look at us! We, the Guardians of Harmony, have pushed aside our opening ritual in our designated places in favor of speed.” He pounded the table again. “No mixing of castes. Ever. This young lady has brought us back to Harmony. What she says, I say.”
Gregor gritted his teeth. “These are extraordinary times, My Lords and Ladies. I do not ask for this lightly. Do we dare risk invasion by monsters when a small, temporary compromise will save us all?”
“When you put it like that . . .” Lady Sarah murmured.
“We’d have a lot more Spacer troops if we could establish contact with the Lost Colony,” Lady Marissa said. “That was one of your schemes, too, Lord Gregor. Starting up a seventh colony. Thirty ships and crews, each with one thousand people. But we lost contact with them one day into hyperspace.”
“I regret my misjudgment daily, My Lady. That has nothing to do with aliens invading our empire.” Gregor pulled himself into stiff indignation.
Did she know that he planned to send the Spacers to the Lost Colony that wasn’t as lost as they claimed? Had she found a reference to the single communication from the new planet when the ships landed?
The colony had no right to declare itself independent of Harmony and abolish the caste system.
No right whatsoever.
And now his secret listening post had intercepted communications between the Lost Colony and the CSS. He had to put a stop to that right now. If the Lost Colony allied itself with the enemy . . . He didn’t even want to think about the repercussions.
He had to reestablish his authority over them. Soon. Before some of the other colonies developed similar ideas.
That accomplished, he’d send Spacers and Military to the frontier. Certainly, the Marils and the CSS had been making more frequent forays against the borders over the last few months, but they hadn’t reached invasion force yet.
Yet.
“Show me the communications from the frontier and the battle reports. I want to know the name of every person lost in this war so that I may make memorial to them at the burial caves,” Sissy said. She tapped the wand against the tabletop in agitation.
What was she thinking? He couldn’t tell with the veil masking her expression.
He knew from experience that she could see from behind the strands of crystals and beads perfectly well.
He’d cobble together some fake reports, making sure he enshrouded them in so much verbiage she’d never understand them. He could easily substitute the names of the crews from the Lost Colony for Spacers killed in battle.
“Speaking of memorials,” Sissy continued, hardly pausing for breath. “I propose a scientific expedition to the burial caves.”
Gregor reared his head up, shocked out of his musings.
“It has come to my attention that after thousands of generations, the caves are full and that members of the Temple caste have been burying our ancestors in unmarked plots nearby.” She paused just long enough for that outrage to sink in.
Before Gregor could form a reply, Sissy continued.
“Surely after all these thousands of years that we have been burying our dead in caves, the bones will have turned to dust. Graves can be consolidated and remarked, making room for the newly dead.”
“What?” Nathaniel spouted. “What perversion is this?”
Did he mean the expedition or
the change in funeral rites?
“I shall, of course, lead the expedition to make sure all of our ancestors are handled with respect and that they are returned to the womb of Harmony with proper prayers,” Sissy continued.
“Agreed!” Lady Sarah chimed in.
“Agreed,” the others added.
“Done,” Lady Marissa had the last word. She fixed Gregor with a gloating glare.
“I call for an end to this meeting so that I may prepare reports from the frontier for each of you to peruse and determine that my suggestions are the only course of action left to us.” Gregor stood, bowed, and retreated with as much dignity as he could muster.
This nonsense of Sissy attending HC meetings had to stop. If she couldn’t agree with him, she shouldn’t be there at all.
Once more he regretted bringing her to Temple.
Maybe letting her muck about in the caves for the next few years was the answer.
“Laud Gregor, one more thing,” Sissy’s mild address stopped him short, frightening him more than anger.
“Yes, My Laudae?”
“Two things, actually. I will take the ashes of the fallen inmates of the asylum with me, for proper burial. But before I go, I will appoint a new director of the asylum. If you have any recommendations, I will entertain them. At the moment I am considering the senior physician of the facility. He showed admirable compassion in the cleanup and actually attended the blessing and rededication.”
“Whatever.” He dismissed the notion with a wave as unimportant.
“The old director will need new employment. He is available to any of you lords and ladies. Something in the Serim Desert or possibly the Southern Continent?” she asked mildly. But there was a touch of Badger Metal hardness beneath her words.
Discord! Gregor decided right then and there he did not want to be on the receiving end of Sissy’s ill will. What kind of monster had he created?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“UM . . . LAUDAE ESTELLA,” JAKE said as he followed the HPS back to her quarters.
“What did I say about calling me by that artificial name?” She rounded on him, hands on hips, beaded veil flashing and clacking.
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