The warlock unlocked (16 page)

“So there’s only that one large island with humans; the rest of the planet is carboniferous.” Father Al shook his head. “Well, if we needed anything to assure us that we’re dealing with a colony instead of native sentients, we’ve found it. Could you call up the recordings of that island, Brother Chard?”

The monk pushed buttons, and a large island appeared in the main viewscreen, a huge, uncut emerald floating in a blue sea. “Close in on that one large town, if you please,” Father Al murmured. A tiny hole in the greenery, a little north and west of the center of the island, began to grow; the shorelines disappeared beyond the edges of the screen. The dot swelled into an irregular, circular clearing, and other dots began to appear around it.

“Really the only settlement large enough to be called a town,” Father Al mused. The roofs filled the screen now, with the spire of a church and the turrets of a castle reaching up toward them, from the crest of a hill off to the eastern edge of the town.

“It’s medieval architecture, Father—early Tudor, I’d guess.”

“Yes, but the castle’s got to be Thirteenth Century; I’d swear it was almost a reproduction of Château Gaillard. And the church is late Gothic; Fourteenth Century at the earliest.”

“Church! It’s a cathedral! Why does it look so familiar?”

“Possibly because you’ve seen pictures of the cathedral of Chartes. The original colonists don’t seem to have been terribly original; do they?”

Brother Chard frowned. “But if they were going to copy famous buildings from Terra, why didn’t they make them all from the same period?”

Father Al shrugged. “Why should they? Each century had its own beauties. No doubt some liked the Fifteenth Century, some the Fourteenth, some the Thirteenth… If we kept looking, Brother, I’m sure we’d find something Romanesque.”

Brother Chard peered at the screen as the camera zoomed in to fill it with an overhead view of a single street. “Apparently they applied the same principle to their clothing; there’s a bell-sleeved tunic next to a doublet!”

“And there’s a doublet withbell-sleeves.” Father Al shook his head. “I can almost hear their ancestors saying, ‘It’s my world, and I’ll do what I want with it!’ ”

Brother Chard turned to him with a sympathetic smile. “You’re going to have a bit of a problem with transportation, aren’t you?”

“I never did learn to ride a horse.” Father Al felt his stomach sink. “Appalling great brutes, aren’t they?”

Brother Chard turned back to the viewscreen. “Are you searching for just one man down there, Father?

Or a community? ”

“One lone individual,” Father Al said grimly. “I can’t just punch up a directory and scan for his name,
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can I?” He thought of Yorick and had to fight down a slow swell of anger; the grinning jester could’ve prepared him for this!

“Under the circumstances,” Brother Chard said slowly, “I don’t really suppose there’s much point in following the usual protocol about landing.”

“Better try it, anyway, Brother,” Father Al sighed. “You wouldn’t want to be imprisoned on a technicality, now would you?”

“Especially not by all the King’s horses and all the King’s men.” Brother Chard shrugged. “Well, it can’t do any harm. Who could hear our transmission down there, anyway?” He set the communicator to

“broadband” and keyed the microphone. “This is Spacecraft H394P02173 Beta Cass 19, the Diocese of Beta Casseiopeia’s St. lago, calling Gramarye Control. Come in, Gramarye Control.”

“We hear you, St. lago,” a resonant voice answered. “What is your destination?”

Father Al almost fell through his webbing.

“Did I hear that correctly?” Brother Chard stared at the communicator, goggle-eyed. He noted the frequency readout and reached forward to adjust the video to match it. An intent face replaced the overhead view of the town street, a thin face with troubled eyes and a dark fringe of hair cut straight across the forehead. But Father Al scarcely noticed the face; he was staring at the little yellow screwdriver handle in the breast pocket of the monk’s robe.

“What is your destination, St. la… Ah!” The face lit up, and the man’s gaze turned directly toward them as they came into sight on his screen. Then he stared. “ St. lago, you are men of the cloth!”

“And your own cloth, too.” Father Al straightened up in his couch. “Father Aloysius Uwell, of the order of St. Vidicon of Cathode, at your service. My companion is Brother Chard, of the Order of St. FrancisAssisi .”

“Father Cotterson, Order of St. Vidicon,” the monk returned, reluctantly. “What is your destination, Father?”

“Gramarye, Father Cotterson. I’ve been dispatched to find a man named Rod Gallowglass.”

“The High Warlock?” Father Cotterson’s voice turned somber.

“You’ll pardon my surprise, Father, but how is it you’ve retained knowledge of technology?” asked Father Al. “I was told your ancestors had fled here to escape it.”

“How would you have known that?”

“Through a prophet, of a sort,” Father Al said slowly. “He left a message to be opened a thousand years after he wrote it, and we’ve just read it.”

“A prophecy?” Father Cotterson murmured, his eyes glazing. “About Gramarye?”

He was in shock; one of his prime myths had just focused on himself. The pause was fortunate; Father Al needed a little time to reflect, too.

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High Warlock? Rod Gallowglass?

Already?

As to the rest of it, it was perfectly logical—there had been a Cathodean priest among the original colonists; and where there was one Cathodean, science and technology would be kept alive, somehow. How? Well, that was nit-picking; it had any number of answers. The question could wait. Father Al cleared his throat. “I think we have a great deal to discuss, Father Cotterson—but could it wait till we’re face-to-face? I’d like to make planetfall first.”

Father Cotterson came back to life. He hesitated, clearly poised on the horns of a dilemma. Father Al could almost hear the monk’s thoughts—which was the worst danger? To allow Father Al to land? Or to send him away, and risk his return with reinforcements? Father Al sympathized; myths can be far more terrifying than the people underlying them.

Father Cotterson came to a decision. “Very well, Father, you may bring down your ship. But please land after nightfall; you could create something of a panic. After all, no one’s seen a ship land here in all our history.”

Father Al was still puzzling that one over, three hours later, when the land below them was dark and rising up to meet them. If no spaceship had landed for centuries, how had Rod Gallowglass come to be there? Yorick had said he was an off-worlder.

Well, no use theorizing when he didn’t have all the facts. He gazed up into the viewscreen. “About 200

meters away from the monastery, please, Brother Chard. That should give you time to lift off again, before they can reach us. Not that I think they wouldprevent you from leaving—but it never hurts to be certain.”

“Whatever you say, Father,” Brother Chard said wearily.

Father Al looked up. “You’re not still saddened at discovering they don’t need missionaries, are you?”

“Well…”

“Come, come, Brother, buck up.” Father Al patted the younger man on the shoulder. “These good monks have been out of contact with the rest of the Church for centuries; no doubt they’ll need several emissaries, to update them on advances in theology and Church history.”

Brother Chard did perk up a bit at that. Father Al was glad the young monk hadn’t realized the corollary—that those “emissaries” might find themselves having to combat heresy. Colonial theologians could come up with some very strange ideas, given five hundred years’ isolation fromRome . And Rod Gallowglass could spark the grandaddy of them all, if he weren’t properly guided. The pinnace landed, barely touching the grass, and Father Al clambered out of the miniature airlock. He hauled his travelling case down behind him, watched the airlock close, then went around to the nose, moving back fifty feet or so, and waved at the nose camera. Lights blinked in answering farewell, and the St. lagolifted off again. It was only a speck against dark clouds by the time the local monks came puffing up.

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“Why… did you let him… take off again?” Father Cotterson panted.

“Why, because this is my mission, not his,” Father Al answered in feigned surprise. “Brother Chard was only assigned to bring me here, Father, not to aid me in my mission.”

Father Cotterson glared upward at the receding dot, like a spider trying to glare down a fly that gained wisdom at the last second. The monk didn’t look quite so imposing in the flesh; he was scarcely taller than Father Al, and lean to the point of skinniness. Father Al’s respect for him rose a notch; no doubt Father Cotterson fasted frequently.

Either that, or he had a tapeworm.

Father Cotterson turned back to Father Al, glaring. “Have you considered, Father, how you are to leave Gramarye once your mission is completed?”

“Why…” said Father Al slowly, “I’m not certain that I will, Father Cotterson.” As he said it, the fact sank in upon him—this might indeed be his final mission, though it might last decades. If it didn’t, and if the Lord had uses for him elsewhere, no doubt He would contrive the transportation. Father Cotterson didn’t look too happy about the idea of Father Al’s becoming a resident. “I can see we’ll have to discuss this at some length. Shall we return to the monastery, Father?”

“Yes, by all means,” Father Al murmured, and fell into step beside the lean monk as he turned back toward the walled enclosure in the distance. A dozen other brown-robes fell in behind them.

“A word as to local ways,” Father Cotterson said. “We speak modern English within our own walls; but without, we speak the vernacular. There are quite a few archaic words and phrases, but the greatest difference is the use of the second person singular, in place of the second person plural. You might wish to begin practice with us, Father.”

“And call thee ‘thee’ and ‘thou?’ Well, that should be easy enough.” After all, Father Al had read the King James Version.

“A beginning, at least. Now tell me, Father—why dost thou seek Rod Gallowglass?”

Father Al hesitated. “Is not that a matter I should discuss with the head of thine Order, Father Cotterson?”

“The Abbot is absent at this time; he is inRunnymede , in conference with Their Majesties. I am his Chancellor, Father, and the monastery is in my care while he is gone. Anything that thou wouldst say to him, thou mayst discuss with me.”

A not entirely pleasant development, Father Al decided. He didn’t quite trust Father Cotterson; the man had the look of the fanatic about him, and Father Al wasn’t quite certain which Cause he served. On the other hand, maybe it was just the tapeworm.

“The prophecy I told thee of,” Father Al began—and paused. Decidedly, he didn’t trust Father Cotterson. If the man was the religious fanatic he appeared to be, how would he react to the idea that the High Warlock would become even more powerful?

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So he changed the emphasis a little. “Our prophecy told us that Rod Gallowglass would be the most powerful wizard ever known. Thou dost see the theological implications of this, of course.”

“Aye, certes.” Father Cotterson smiled without mirth—and also without batting an eye. “Wrongly guided, such an one could inspire a Devil’s Cult.”

“Aye, so it is.” Father Al fell into the monk’s speech style, and frowned up at him. “How is it this doth not disconcert thee, Father?”

“We know it of old,” the monk replied wearily. “We have striven to hold our witchfolk from Satan for years. Rest assured, Father—if no Devil’s Cult hath yet arisen on Gramarye, ‘tis not like to rise up now.”

“ ‘Witchfolk?’ ” Suddenly, Father Al fairly quivered with attention to the monk’s words. “What witchfolk are these, Father?”

“Why, the warlocks and witches in the mountains and fens, and in the King’s Castle,” Father Cotterson answered. “Did not thy prophecy speak of them, Father?”

“Not in any detail. And thou dost not see thy High Warlock as any greater threat to thy flock?”

“Nay; he ha’ been known nigh onto ten years, Father, and, if aught, hath brought the witchfolk closer to God.” Father Cotterson smiled with a certain smugness, relaxing a little. “Thy prophet seems to have spake somewhat tardily.”

“Indeed he doth.” But Father Al wondered; the lean monk didn’t seem to have noticed anything unusual about Rod Gallowglass. Perhaps there was a big change due in the High Warlock’s life-style.

“At all odds, if thou hast come to guide our High Warlock, I fear thou hast wasted time and effort,”

Father Cotterson said firmly. “I assure thee, Father, we are equal to that task.” They came to a halt at the monastery gates. Father Cotterson pounded on them with a fist, shouting, “Ho, porter!”

“I am sure that thou art,” Father Al murmured as the huge leaves swung open. “Yet the prime task given me, Father, is to seek out the truth regarding our prophecy. If nought else, my mission is well-spent simply in the learning so much of a flock we had thought lost—and better spent in finding that they are not lost at all, but exceedingly well cared for.”

Father Cotterson fairly beamed at the compliment. “We do what we can, Father—though we are sorely tried by too little gold, and too few vocations.”

“I assure thee, Father, ‘tis the case on every world where humanity doth bide.” Father Al looked about him as they came into a wide, walled yard. “A fair House you hold, Father, and exceedingly well-kept.”

“Why, I thank thee, Father Uwell. Wilt thou taste our wines?”

“Aye, with a right good will. I would fane see summat of this goodly land of thine, Father, and thy folk. Canst thou provide me with means of transport, and one to guide me?”