Part 9 (1/2)
The friar was of medium height and wiry build.
His appearance seemed to have little relation to his age; he might have been anywhere between twenty and forty. His scantily bearded face was tired now, and his gray robe was spotted with mud of darker gray. Here along the shoulders of the road the fields were all ankle-deep in mud, and they showed no sign of having been plowed or planted this spring or last.
”Oh, Holy One, I thank you again that I have had this pavement to follow for so much of my journey,”
the friar murmured as he started forward again. The soles of his feet looked as scarred and tough as those of well-used hiking boots.
Except for the distant spire, the only sign of any recent human presence in this unpromising landscape was a heap of low, ruined walls at roadside just ahead. Only the fact of ruin was recent; the walls themselves were old and might have been a part of a caravanserai or military post in the days of the Empire's strength. But last month or last tenday a new war had pa.s.sed this way, dissolving one more building into raw tumbled stones. What was left of the structure looked as if it might be going to sink without a trace into the mud, even before the spring gra.s.s could start to grow around the foundations.
The friar sat down on the remnant of the old wall, resting from his journey and looking with minor sadness at the minor destruction about him. After a bit, in the manner of one who cannot sit entirely still for very long, he leaned over and took one of the fallen stones in his lean strong hands. Looking at the stone with what might have been a mason's practiced eye, he fitted it deftly into a notch in the stump of wall and sat back to study the effect.
A distant hail made him raise his head and look back along the way he had come. Another lone figure, dressed in a habit much like his own, was hastening toward him, waving both arms for attention.
The first friar's thin face lighted gently at the prospect of company. He returned the wave and waited, forgetting his little game of masonry. Soon he got to his feet.
Presently the approaching figure resolved itself into a man of middle height, who was almost stout and who had recently been clean-shaven. ”Glory to the Holy One, revered Brother!” puffed this newcomer as he arrived at last within easy talking distance.
”Glory to His name.” The bearded friar's voice was warm but unremarkable.
The portly one, a man of about thirty, seated himself heavily on the low wall, wiped at his face, and inquired anxiously, ”Are you, as I think, Brother Jovann of Ernard?”
”That is my name.”
”Now may the Holy One be praised!” The heavier man made a wedge sign with his hands and rolled his eyes heavenward. ”My name is Saile, Brother. Now may the Holy One be praised, say I-”
”So be it.”
”-for He has led me in mysterious ways to reach your side! ”And many more shall follow. Brother Jovann, men will flock to you from the four corners of the world, for the fame of your heroic virtue has spread far, to the land of Mosnar, or so I have heard, and even to the lands of the infidel. And here in our own land-even at this moment, in the isolated villages of these remote hills-some of the most backward peasants are aware of your pa.s.sage.”
”I fear my many faults are also known hereabouts, for I was born not far away.”
”Ah, Brother Jovann, you are overly modest.During my arduous struggles to reach your side, I have heard again and again of your holy exploits.”
Brother Jovann, his face showing some concern, sat down on the wall again. ”Why have you struggled, as you say, to reach my side?”
”Ahh.” What a struggle it had been, said Saile's head shake. ”The flame of my determination was first kindled several months ago, when I was told by unimpeachable sources, eyewitnesses, how, when you were with the army of the Faithful in the field, you dared to leave the sheltering ranks, to cross no-man's-land into the very jaws of the infidel, there to enter the tent of the archinfidel himself and preach to him the truth of our Holy Temple!”
”And to fail to convert him.” Jovann nodded sadly. ”You do well to remind me of my failure, for I am p.r.o.ne to the sin of pride.”
”Ah.” Saile lost headway, but only for a moment. ”It was, as I say, upon hearing of that exploit, Brother Jovann, that it became my own most humble wish, my most burning and holy ambition, to seek you out, to be among the very first to join your order.” Saile's eyebrows went up questioningly. ”Ah, it is true, then, that you are on your way to Empire City even now, to pet.i.tion our most holy Vicar Nabur for permission to found a new religious order?”
The thin friar's eyes looked toward the spire in the distance. ”Once, Brother, G.o.d called me to rebuild fallen temples with stone and brick. Now, as you say, I am called to rebuild with men.” His attention came back to Brother Saile, and he was smiling. ”As for your becoming a member of the new order when it is formed, why, I can say nothing yet of that. But if you should choose to walk with me to Empire City, I will be happy for your company.”
Saile jumped to his feet, to bob up and down with bowing. ”It is I who am most happy and most honored, Brother Jovann!”
Saile prolonged his thanks as the two men walked on together. He then commented at some length on the unpleasant prospect of yet more rain falling and was discoursing on the problem of where, in this deserted-looking land, two mendicant friars might hope to obtain their next meal, when there occurred a distraction.
A speedy coach was overtaking them on the road. The vehicle was not ornate, but it was well built, looking as if it might belong to some n.o.bleman or prelate of lower-middle rank. The friars' ears gave them plenty of warning to step aside; four agile load-beasts were making the wheels clatter over the leveled stones at a good speed.
As the coach rumbled past, Brother Jovann felt his eyes drawn to the face of an occupant who rode facing forward, with his head visible in profile and one elbow extended slightly from a window. So far as could be judged, this man was of stocky build. He was well dressed, old and gray-bearded, though the short-cut hair on his head was still of ginger color. His thick mouth was twisted slightly, as if ready to spit or to dispute.
”They might have given us a lift,” Brother Saile muttered unhappily, looking after the coach as it dwindled into the distance. ”Plenty of room. There were no more than two pa.s.sengers, were there?”
Brother Jovann shook his head, not having noticed whether there had been any other pa.s.sengers. His attention had been held by the old man's eyes, which had probably never seen the friars at all. Those eyes, fixed in the direction of the Holy-City a hundred miles and more away, were clear and gray and powerful. But they were also very much afraid.
When Derron Odegard walked out on the victory celebration at Time Operations, he had no clear idea of where he was going. Only when he found himself approaching the nearby hospital complex did he realize that his feet were taking him to Lisa. Yet, it would be best to face her at once and get it over with.
At the student nurses' quarters he learned that she had moved out the day before, after having gotten permission to drop out of training there. While being tested and considered for other jobs, she was sharing a cubicle with another woman in a low-rank, uplevel corridor.
It was Lisa's new roommate who opened the door to Derron's knock; since she was in the midst of doing something to her hair, she went back inside the cubicle and pretended not to be listening.
Lisa must have seen Derron's news in his face. Her own face at once became as calm as a mask, and she remained just inside the half-open door, letting him stand in the narrow corridor to be brushed by the curious and incurious pa.s.sersby.
”It's Matt,” he said to her. When there was no reaction, he went on, ”Oh, the battle's won. The berserkers are stopped. But he sacrificed himself to do it. He's dead.”
Proud and hard as a s.h.i.+eld, her mask face lifted slightly toward him. ”Of course he is. He did the job you gave him. I knew he would.”
”Understand, Lisa-when I went to him with that sales talk I thought he was going to have a chance, a good chance.”
She was not going to be able to keep the s.h.i.+eld up, after all; with something like relief he saw her face begin to move and heard her voice begin to break. She said, ”I-knew you were going to kill him.”
”My G.o.d, Lisa, that wasn't what I meant to do!” He kept his hands from reaching out to her.
Slowly dissolving and melting into a woman's grief, she leaned against the doorjamb, her hands hidden behind her. ”And now-there's-n-nothing to be done!”
”The doctors tried-but no, nothing. And Operations can't go back to do anything for Matt in the past-it'd wreck the world if we tried to pull him out of that mess now.”
”The world's not worth it!”
He was murmuring some ba.n.a.lity and had reached out at last to try to comfort her, when the door slammed in his face.
If Lisa was the woman he needed, he would have stayed there; so he thought to himself a few days later as he sat alone in his tiny private office on the Operations Level. He would have stayed and made her open the door again or else kicked it down. It was only a door of plastic, and behind it she was still alive.
The fact was, of course, that the woman he did need had been for a year and more behind the door of death. And no man could smash through that. A man could only stand before that door and mourn, until he found that he was able to turn away.
Derron had been sitting in his office staring into s.p.a.ce for some little time before he noticed an official-looking envelope that some courier must have left on his small desk. The envelope was neat and thick, sealed and addressed to him. After looking inertly at it for a while he took it up and opened it.
Inside was the formal notice of his latest promotion, to the rank of lieutenant colonel, ”... in consideration of your recent outstanding service in Time Operations, and in the expectation that you will continue...” A set of appropriate collar insignia was enclosed.
The insignia held in his hand as if forgotten, he sat there a while longer, looking across the room at an object-it was an ancient battle helmet, ornamented with wings-that rested like a trophy atop his small bookcase. He was still doing this when the clangor of the alert signal sounded throughout Operations and pulled him reflexively to his feet. In another moment he was out the door and on his way to the briefing room.
Latecomers were still hurrying in when a general officer, Time Ops' chief of staff, mounted the dais and began to speak.
”The third a.s.sault we've been expecting has begun, gentlemen. Win or lose, this will be the last attack the berserkers can mount outside of present-time. It'll give us the final bearing we need to locate their staging area twenty-one thousand years down.”
There were a few scattered expressions of optimism.
”I suggest that you don't cheer yet. This third attack gives every indication of involving some new tactics on the enemy's part, something subtle and extremely dangerous.”