“There he goes! Down that way!”
They were after him. He heard them breaking through the brush and trees, the curses and shouts. “Here’s his robe! I’ve got his robe!”
“Get his head!” someone screamed. “Tear his head off him!”
Orne ducked a limb, scrambled and slid down a hill, plunged across the trail and tore his way through a thicket. He felt cold and exposed in only sandals and the light shorts he had worn beneath the robe. Branches clawed at his skin. He heard the mob, a human avalanche on the hill above him—curses, tearing sounds, thumps.
Lights waved. Robed figures leaped through the night.
Again, Orne found a trail. It went downhill to his right. He turned onto it, gasping, stumbling. His legs ached. A tight band held his chest. His side ached. The trail plunged him into deeper darkness and he lost the trail. He glanced up to see trees against the stars.
The mob raised a confused clamor behind him.
Orne stopped, leaned against a tree to listen.
“Part of you go that way!” someone shouted. “The rest of you follow me!”
Orne drew in wracking breaths, gasping. Hunted like an animal because he’d momentarily abandoned caution! He recalled Bakrish’s words: “Caution is the brother of fear …”
Almost directly above Orne and no more than fifty meters away, someone shouted: “Do you hear him?”
Off to the left, an answering voice yelled: “No!”
Orne pushed himself away from the tree, crept down the hill, working his way cautiously, feeling each step. He heard someone running above him, footsteps thumping away to the right. The sound faded. Confused shouts, then silence and then more shouts came from the middle distance on the hill off to the left. These, too, faded.
Sometimes crawling, always testing each step, Orne melted his way through the darkness beneath the trees. Once, he lay flat to allow five running figures to pass below him. When they were gone, he slipped down the hill and across another loop in the trail. The wound on his arm throbbed and he saw that he had lost the bandage.
The pain reminded him of the itching sensation he had experienced while strapped in Bakrish’s chair. It had been like the itching experienced when a wound healed—but before the wound.
Orne felt that he had encountered another clue to Amel, but its meaning eluded him. He fell into a fluid rhythm of flight—under the bushes, avoid leaves, dart through the darkest places where trees blotted out the stars. But the trees thinned out, bushes came farther apart.
He felt lawn underfoot, realized he had come down to the last slopes leading into the park area. Dim lights glowed from windows to his right. There was a wall. Orne crouched, hugged himself to still his shivering.
Bakrish had said the Abbod Halmyrach was nearby.
As he thought of the Abbod, Orne felt the vacant gnawing within him ease momentarily, then throb stronger. What did that mean? he wondered. Safe ... but not safe? He experienced a driving desire to find the Abbod, to wring the truth from the recognized leader of all Amel.
Why bother with the lower echelons? Where was Bakrish when I needed him? Is this the way a field agent of the I-A operates? Orne felt he had been freed from a dream. Dogma and ceremony! What empty nonsense!
A wolfish grin came over Orne’s face. He thought: I declare myself a graduate of this ordeal! It’s over. I’ve passed the tests!
Footsteps on a path sounded to his left. Orne slid behind a tree, peered around it. Through the thin starlight filtered by scattered trees he saw a priest in white moving along a path which would take him directly in front of the concealing tree. Orne flattened himself against the trunk, waited. Birds whirred and rustled in the branches overhead.
The fragrance of night-blooming flowers crossed his nostrils. The footsteps came closer, passed.
Orne slipped from behind the tree. Four running steps on the soft grass beside the trail, one hand out and around the priest’s neck—pressure on a nerve. The priest gasped once, relaxed, slumped in Orne’s arms.
***
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Envy, desire and ambition limit a man to the Universe of Maya. And what is that Universe? It is only the projection of his envy, his desire and his ambition.
—NOAH ARKWRIGHT,
The Wisdom of Amel
“What folly!” the Abbod said. “You deliberately told your friend to set the mob on him. And after I expressly forbade it. Ahhh, Macrithy …”
Macrithy stood bent-shouldered in the Abbod’s study. The Abbod sat in the lotus posture on a low table facing the priest. Two fingers upraised in antennae position, knobby knees protruding where he bent across them, the Abbod stared fixedly at Macrithy.
“I was only thinking of you,” Macrithy protested.
“You did not think at all!” The Abbod was terrible in his quietly pained judgment. “You did not think of the human beings who were turned into a mob. Orne could have cast them into eternal hell. He might still do it when he comes into his full powers.”
“I came to warn you as soon as I knew he had escaped,” Macrithy said.
“Of what use is this warning?” the Abbod asked. “Ahhh, my dear friend, how could you have fallen into such error? You see, what is happening right now is the easily predictable consequence of your actions. I can only surmise that this situation is what you really wanted.”
“Oh, no!” Macrithy was horrified.
“When mouth and action disagree, believe action,” the Abbod said. “Why do you want to destroy us, Macrithy?”
“I don’t! I don’t!” Macrithy backed away from the Abbod, made fending motions with both hands. He stopped when his back encountered the wall.
“But you do,” the Abbod said, his voice sorrowful. “Perhaps it’s because I assigned Bakrish to Orne and not you. I know it was an assignment you wanted. But it could not be, my friend. You would have sought to destroy Orne ... and yourself. I could not permit that.”
Macrithy buried his face in his hands. “He’ll destroy us all,” he sobbed.
“Pray he doesn’t,” the Abbod said, his voice soft. “Send him your love and your concern for him. Thus, he may come to a fortunate awakening.”
“What good is love now?” Macrithy demanded. “He’s coming for you!”
“Of course,” the Abbod murmured. “Because I summoned him. Take your violence away now, Macrithy. Pray for yourself. Pray for a cleansing of your spirit. I, too, will pray for that.”
Macrithy shook his round head from side to side. “It’s too late for prayer.”
“That you should say such a thing,” the Abbod mourned.
“Forgive me, forgive me,” Macrithy pleaded.
“Take my blessing and go,” the Abbod said. “Ask the forgiveness of the God Orne, as well. You may have caused Him great hurt.”
***
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Worldly use of power can destroy an angel. This is the lesson of peace. Loving peace and pursuing peace are not enough. One must also love one’s fellows. Thus one learns the dynamic and loving conflict we call Life.
—NOAH ARKWRIGHT,
The Wisdom of Amel
Orne strode down a narrow street in the heart of the religious warren. He hugged the wall and avoided lights, but not with furtive motions. The priest’s robe hung loosely on him and a little long. He tucked a fold under his belt, hoped someone would find the priest—but not too soon. The man lay bound and gagged with strips torn from his own underclothing beneath bushes in the park.
Now, to find the Abbod, Orne thought.
Keeping his stride even and calm, he crossed an alley. A sour smell of old cooking tainted the narrow passage. The slap-slap of Orne’s sandaled feet made a double echo off stone walls.
Light poured from another alley directly ahead of him. Orne heard voices. He stopped as shadows were projected out of the alley and across the intersection. Two priests came into view. They were slender, blond and benign. Both turned toward Orne.
“May
your god grant you peace,” Orne said.
The pair stopped, faces in shadows now, the light behind them. The one on the left said: “I pray you follow the path of divine guidance.” The other said: “If you live in interesting times, I pray the fact causes you no alarm.” He coughed, then: “May we serve you?”
“I have been summoned to the Abbod,” Orne said. “I seem to have lost my way.” He waited, alert for any movement from this pair.
“These alleys are a maze,” the priest on the left said. “But you are near.” He turned, throwing a long, hooked nose into profile against the light. “Take this next turning to your right. Follow that way until the third turning on your left. That way ends at the court of the Abbod. You cannot miss it.”
“I am grateful,” Orne murmured.
The priest who had given directions turned back to Orne, said: “We feel your great power, blessed one. Pray, give us your benediction.”
“You have my blessing,” Orne said, and meant it.
The two straightened abruptly, then bowed low. Still bowing, the one on the right asked, “Will you be the new Abbod, blessed one?”
Orne put down a sense of shock, said: “Is it wise to speculate on such matters?”
The pair straightened, backed away. In unison, they said: “We meant no harm. Forgive us!”
“Of course,” Orne said. “Thank you for directing me.”
“A service to one’s fellows is a service to God,” they said.
“May you find wisdom.” There was a curious echoing quality to their voices, one slightly out of step with the other. Again, they bowed, then scurried around Orne and hurried on their way.
Orne stared after them until they were lost in darkness. Curious, he thought. What was that all about? But he knew how to find the Abbod now.
***
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It is not necessarily loving kindness to build a fence around your master. How then can he observe his servants and see that they minister to him without thought of reward? No, my son, a fence is often a work of fear and a container for dust.
—Sayings of the ABBODS
The street of the Abbod proved to be even narrower than the others. Orne strode down it, observing that he could stretch out both arms and touch the opposed walls. They were rough stone illuminated by widely spaced glowglobes of ancient design, all black plasteel curlicues around the globes. A door glowed dimly gray at the end of the alley. The area smelled of newly turned earth and fungus. The plastrete surface underfoot was dishmarked with the passage of feet.
The Abbod’s door proved to be locked.
Orne thought: A locked door? Can all be sweetness and purity on Amel? He stepped back, peered up at the wall. Dark irregularities atop it suggested spikes or a similar barrier. Orne’s thoughts turned cynical: Such civilized appointments on this peaceful planet.
There was violence in this place beyond the ravening of mobs. Narrow alleys were easy to defend. Men who knew how to give sharp orders knew how to give military orders. The trappings of psi and a constant harping on peace betrayed a concern with massive violence.
A concern with war.
Orne glanced back up the alley. It remained empty. He sensed the urgency of the fear within him. A dead-end street could live up to its label. He wanted to leave this place as fast as his feet would take him. This thought brought him no relief from the internal signal. One place was as dangerous as another on this planet. There was no way out of it except to plunge through the danger.
He took a deep breath, shed the priestly robe, swung a hemmed corner up onto the wall, pulled. The robe slipped, caught. He tested it, heard a small tearing sound, but the fabric held. Orne tried his weight on it. The robe stretched, but remained firmly caught atop the wall.
Scrabbling sounds marked his passage up the stones. He avoided sharp spikes at the top, crouched there to survey his surroundings. One window on the top floor of the two-story building opposite him glowed with a dim rose light behind loose draperies. Orne glanced down, saw a courtyard, tall pots in rows topped with flowering bushes. He glanced once more at the lighted window, felt the abrupt stab of rejection.
Danger there!
An air of tension filled the courtyard. The shadows could hold an army of guards, but an inner sense told him the danger lay in some other source.
Behind that window.
Orne freed the robe from the spike, dropped into the courtyard, crouched in shadows while he slipped back into the garment. Fastening the belt, he worked his way around the yard to the left, avoided the pots, hugged the shadows.
Vines dropped from a balcony below the lighted window. He tested one and it came away in his hands. Too fragile. He moved farther along the wall of the house. A draft fanned his left cheek. He paused, peered into darker blackness: an open doorway.
Warning fear tingled along his nerves. He put it down, slipped through the doorway into a stairwell. Light flared in the stairwell!
Orne froze, then suppressed laughter as he saw the beam switch beside the doorway. He stepped backward: darkness; forward: light.
The stairs climbed in a curve to the left. Orne moved up them, drifting silently, found a door at the top with a single golden initial: A.
The Abbod? The door handle was a simple short bar on a pivot. No palm-code lock or other device. Anyone could open it.
Orne felt the dryness of his throat as he put a hand to the short bar, depressed it. A faint click sounded. Orne threw the door open, lunged through and slammed it behind him.
“Ahhh, I have been expecting you.” It was a faintly tenor masculine voice with an edge of quavering to it.
Orne slued around, saw a wide hooded bed. Remote in the bed like a dark-skinned doll sat a man in a white nightshirt. He lay propped against a mound of pillows, the face faintly familiar. It was narrow and with a nose like a precipice over a wide mouth. The polished dark baldness of the head gleamed in the faint light of a single glowglobe beside the bed.
The wide mouth moved and the faintly quavering tenor voice said: “I am the Abbod Halmyrach. I welcome you and bless you.”
An odor of age and dust dominated the room. Orne heard an ancient timepiece ticking somewhere in the shadows.
He took two steps toward the figure in the bed. His prescient sense increased its warning pressure. He paused, placing the familiarity of the Abbod’s face. “You look like a man I know as Emolirdo.”
“My younger brother,” the Abbod said. “Does he still insist on explaining that his name stands for Agony?”
Orne nodded.
“That’s a small attempt at humor, you know,” the Abbod said. “His name is really Aggadah, which refers to the maxims and such in the Talmud. That’s a very ancient religious book.”
“You said you were expecting me,” Orne said.
“I normally expect the ones I summon,” the Abbod said. His eyes seemed to peer through Orne, searching, probing. One skeletal arm lifted, gestured toward a simple chair beside the bed. “Please be seated. Forgive me for receiving you in this fashion, but I find myself jealous of my rest in these latter years. You found my brother in good health when you last saw him?”
“Yes, he seemed healthy.”
Orne crossed to the chair, wondering about the Abbod. Something about this frail-appearing and skinny ancient spoke of powers beyond anything Orne had ever before encountered.
Deadly forces lay dormant in this room. He glanced around, saw dark hangings on the walls, weird shapes worked upon them—curves and squares, pyramids, swastikas, a repetitive symbol like an anchor fluke.
The floor felt cold and hard. Orne looked down, saw black and white tiles in large pentagonal pieces. Each was at least a meter across. Polished wood furniture stood in the shadowy corners. He identified a desk, a low table, chairs, a visorecord rack with lyre sides.
“Have you summoned your guards?” Orne asked, turning his attention back to the Abbod.
“What need have I of guards?” the Abbod asked.
“When a thing is guarded, that creates the need for guards.”
Again, the skeletal arm gestured toward the chair. “Please be seated. It disturbs me to see you so uncomfortable.”
Orne studied the chair. It was a spindly thing without arms to conceal secret bindings.
“It is just a chair,” the Abbod said.
Orne sat down like a man plunging into cold water, tensed his muscles to leap.
Nothing happened.
The Abbod smiled. “You see?”
Orne wet his lips with his tongue. The air in the room bothered him. It felt deficient to his lungs. Something extremely out of place here. It was not going as he had imagined, but as he reflected upon this, he couldn’t think how he had imagined this meeting. It just wasn’t right.
“You have had a very trying time,” the Abbod said. “It was necessary for the most part, but please share my fellow feeling. I well recall how it was for me.”
“Oh? Did you come here to find out some things, too?”
“In a sense,” the Abbod said. “In a very real sense.”
“Why’re you trying to destroy the I-A?” Orne blurted. “That’s what I want to find out.”
“A challenge does not necessarily imply the wish to destroy,” the Abbod said. “Have you deciphered the intent behind your ordeal? Do you know why you cooperated with us in this perilous testing?” The large eyes, brown and glossy, peered innocently at Orne.
“What else could I do?”
“Many things, as you’ve just demonstrated.”
“All right ... I was curious.”
“About what specifically?”
Orne felt something quicken within him, lowered his eyes. As he reacted, Orne wondered at himself. What am I hiding?
The Abbod said: “Are you being honest with yourself?”
Orne swallowed. He felt like a small boy called to account by his schoolmaster. He said: “I try to be. I ... believe I continued because I suspected you might be teaching me things about myself that ... I didn’t already know.”
“Superb,” the Abbod breathed. “But you’re a product of the Marakian civilization which …”