Imperial Night (Ashes of Empire, #3)

by Imperial Night (epub)

She put on an air of mock exasperation. “I probably shouldn’t mention them. Vow to serve the Order for the rest of your life, and all shall be revealed.”

  He snorted.

  “Bull. You say nothing you don’t mean. You and every other member of the Order. I’ve never met more self-aware people in my life.”

  “And that is one thing we teach postulants. One of many. Join us and become a man who makes a difference.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think about it, Stearn. Surely you know by now we’re an extended family. We take care of each other, and you’re almost one of us. The Almighty gave you this gift for a purpose. It would be a shame to waste it.”

  — 27 —

  ––––––––

  One evening a few days later, after more counseling sessions in Supermax with Amelia during which Roget practiced raising and lowering his mental shields, he found himself hesitating at the foot of the staircase leading to Sister Mirjam’s office. He was considering an irrevocable step, one which would commit the rest of his life to a cause he didn’t quite understand yet. However, the idea he could do so much more with this strange sixth sense was irresistible, not least because Amelia continued to tease him with glimpses of unvoiced possibilities. Roget knew some of the sisters could do and see things beyond his imagination, such as Marta and her rumored gift of precognition. Why not find out?

  “You might as well come up.” Mirjam’s amused voice wafted down from the upper landing, and Roget snapped out of his reverie.

  “How did you know that was my intent?” He took the steps two at a time with uncharacteristic energy, as if he feared his newfound resolve might falter.

  “Your mind isn’t quite leak proof yet, at least not to a prioress. Follow me.” She turned on her heels and walked back to her office.

  “You can read thoughts?”

  “Thoughts? No. Not even Marta can do that. But with our training, we sisters can infer many things from another’s emotions, which is why we make such good counselors and healers.” She sat and gestured at a chair in front of her desk. “Tell me why you’re here.”

  “I want to enlist.”

  A smile briefly lit up Mirjam’s face. “The nearest Defense Force recruiting office is half a world away.”

  “Not in the military but the Order.”

  “Ah. In that case, welcome to the nearest recruiting office. What finally convinced you?”

  He shrugged.

  “I can’t exactly pinpoint it. Now that I’m in control of my sixth sense and can shut myself in and others out, curiosity about what else is achievable overwhelms me. Besides, among the Brethren, I’m at peace for the first time in my life. I’d rather not give that up for a secular life. Especially one among people I don’t know on a world that is not my own.”

  “You would certainly be an asset to the Order. Both Amelia and Rikkard speak well of your efforts to learn and your Brethren-like demeanor. But before we make you a postulant, I must speak with Gwenneth. She has the final say on recruits.” Mirjam glanced at the antique clock ticking away in solitary splendor on a sideboard. “In fact, why don’t I do that immediately. She should be in her office by now.”

  Roget climbed to his feet. “I’ll leave you then.”

  Mirjam stopped him with a hand gesture.

  “No. Stay. Gwenneth will probably wish to speak with you.” She touched the controls embedded in the desktop, and the wall display lit up with the image of a Void Orb. It faded moments later, replaced by Friar Landry’s smiling face.

  “Mirjam! How are the Windies these days?”

  “Still as hot as Hades and filled with tortured souls.”

  “I guess nothing’s changed. What can I do for you?”

  “There’s a man in my office who wants to join the Order, and I need Gwenneth’s approval.”

  “Let me guess — Stearn Roget.”

  She nodded. “The very same.”

  “One moment, please.”

  Landry’s face vanished, and the Void Orb returned, but not for long. When Gwenneth replaced it, Mirjam and Roget bowed their heads.

  “Abbess. Thank you for accepting my call.”

  “I would never refuse it, Mirjam. Now, what’s this Landry tells me? Stearn is applying to join the Order?” Gwenneth speared Roget with her eyes.

  “Yes, Abbess.” He inclined his head again.

  “Are you sure? When you left the abbey for your stint with Mirjam, you didn’t seem interested.”

  “The Brethren here opened my eyes while they taught me to shield my mind. I want to continue training so that I can unlock my full potential. Besides, I’m a stranger in a strange land, and the Brethren feel like family. I’d rather take vows and stay.”

  Gwenneth nodded slowly. “I’ve heard worse reasons. Do you believe in the Almighty?”

  “I suppose so, though, in truth, I’m not asking to join because of my faith, which isn’t particularly strong.”

  “Many of the Brethren took vows for reasons other than their faith, so you’d be in good company. The Order was first created so those with the talent could withdraw from the mainstream population and live in a place where they could harness and control their abilities and, at the same time, preserve their sanity. Our founder determined monasticism was the most appropriate means of imposing discipline on restless minds and avoiding scrutiny by outsiders. Emphasis on the Almighty of the Infinite Void came later, though our Rule has always been a variation of the Rule of Saint Benedict, who most certainly believed in God.”

  “So I understand. I’ve been studying with the priory’s postulants when I’m not sitting in on Sister Amelia’s counseling sessions.”

  “Stearn is quite advanced,” Mirjam said. “Now that we tamed his talent, he could sit for the entrance examinations and skip the formal postulant period.”

  Roget gave the prioress a look of surprise but remained silent.

  “Marta figured that might be the case when she read your last progress report. Very well.” Gwenneth turned to him again. “Stearn, you will return to the abbey at the earliest opportunity where you will take the examinations for entry into the Order of the Void. If you pass them, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t at this point, I will allow you to take vows and become a friar. Then, you will undergo further training with Marta or any sister she might name while we decide what your specialization will be. As we unlock your abilities, we will discover what would suit you best. Since we’ve not seen a male with such a powerful sixth sense in living memory if ever, I’d say the possibilities could be endless.”

  “Thank you, Abbess.”

  “Don’t thank me. Thank Mirjam and Amelia by becoming a model friar who will use what the Almighty gave him and do good in a fallen universe.”

  “I’ll see he gets on tomorrow’s Clipper,” Mirjam said. “There’s no point in keeping him here any longer than necessary.”

  “Was there anything else while we’re at it?”

  “Yes.” Mirjam glanced at Roget. “You may announce your upcoming departure.”

  He stood and bowed his head, first at Gwenneth, then at the prioress before leaving her office. The door closed silently behind him.

  “We’ve identified three more candidates for engram wiping, including one woman who’s been under Amelia’s care. I studied her from the observation room during several counseling sessions this week and think if she accepts the procedure, she might be suitable.”

  “Send me their files. Should Marta and I agree, I’ll give you my authorization to approach the candidates.”

  “You’ll get them within the hour.”

  “How are the first three doing?”

  “Well. None of them show a shred of antisocial behavior, nor do their minds reveal any chaotic tendencies. They’re as normal as could be. Too normal. I’d hoped the cure would uncover a hidden talent, helping prove the theory it might be
one cause of personality disorders. Still, so far, only Erasmus’ mind has the usual markers, and they’re weak. Once the postulants pass their examinations and take vows, I’ll work with them myself and see what we can do. And that is all I have for now.”

  “Then, I’ll wish you a good night.”

  “And you a good day.”

  The display turned dark as Gwenneth cut the link. Mirjam busied herself with the candidate files, then turned her chair and stared out the window at the dark lagoon whose surface shimmered with the reflected light of Scilly and Gwaelod, two of Lyonesse’s three moons.

  **

  “I’m so happy for you.” Amelia beamed at Roget when he told her the news. “When are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow evening.” He gave her a crooked smile. “It’s your fault, you silver-tongued witch.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “If you weren’t ready, you wouldn’t have asked.”

  “I won’t miss this place.” He gestured at the refectory’s empty tables. “Or the sociopaths you’re treating, But I will miss you.”

  “Ditto. It’s been interesting working with a man whose talent is at least as strong, if not stronger than mine. I can’t wait to see what you become when your full potential is unleashed. You could be the Order’s first abbot when you’re a little more seasoned.”

  Roget raised both hands, palms facing outward. “Whoa. Let’s not make grandiose plans just yet. First, I sit for the examinations—”

  “Which you’ll pass with ease.”

  “Then, I take vows and become Marta’s student once more. What I might be in the end, nobody knows. I could become a total flop, fit only for sweeping floors.”

  “Never.”

  “At least I won’t see the dreadful Seled again, though she’ll probably haunt my dreams for a long time.”

  “That’s one thing you learn after taking vows — how to keep bad memories from giving you nightmares. The talent never sleeps.”

  “Sounds handy. What else can I look forward to?”

  She gave him a wink. “You’ll find out after becoming Friar Stearn, not before.”

  “Right. First, I learn the Order’s secret handshake. Tell you what, give Seled my love and tell her I flew away to a better place.”

  **

  “This is good news.” Friar Loxias sat across from Sister Keleos, tea mug in hand, in the latter’s monastic cell, one no different from that of any other sister or friar. “I trust you congratulated Amelia for convincing Stearn he belongs with us?”

  “The only thing he’s done so far is postulate,” she replied. “We don’t know that he believes in the Order as such, let alone our vision of it.”

  “We will soon make him one of ours. Stearn isn’t burdened by fifteen centuries of dogma like many. If you teachers can make him an equal to any sister, he will see the same future as the rest of us.”

  “Gwenneth charged Marta with his further development.”

  “So? She’s a mystic, divorced from the secular universe.”

  “And uninterested in our goals. A teacher imprints her views on her students, no matter how neutral she strives to be. That is reality.”

  Loxias shrugged, visibly unconcerned. “Then it falls to us. In other news, on Friday, I’m firing the opening salvo in our campaign to force Gwenneth’s hand.”

  Keleos cocked a questioning eyebrow at him. “Oh?”

  “Lunch with Gerson Hecht. I let him know our becoming the motherhouse creates opportunities for cooperation in areas beyond health and academia. Gerson still holds a grudge against the republic for the way Morane and Yakin pushed his father Rorik out of government. He blames it for Rorik’s later ill health and premature death. I intend to convince him by working together, we can rehabilitate his father’s memory and steer the republic on the path Rorik wanted.”

  “Aren’t the Hechts making a lot of money from defense contracts?”

  “Holding a grudge doesn’t mean eschewing lucrative business deals. But they pretty much prevent anyone in the immediate family from running for public office or working within the administration.” A sly smile crossed Loxias’ lips. “If only the Hechts could call on friends with access to the powerful of the land, the sort whose interests are not the pursuit of filthy lucre but the welfare of the republic and its citizens.”

  Keleos nodded. “Us.”

  “Yes, and with Gerson’s help, we’ll befriend others, those capable of convincing President Morane our Order should join the Estates-General and be given standing on the various councils formed from it. Gwenneth can hardly refuse if the president formally invites us. She believes in cooperating with the republic’s elected officials and bureaucrats. Besides, we’ll have a Council of Elders up and running by then.”

  “When will you raise the matter of the council with Gwenneth?”

  “You mean when will we raise it?” Loxias’ smile returned. “As soon as we speak with the elders who should sit on that council. I can think of a few suitable candidates.”

  — 28 —

  ––––––––

  “Rise, Friar Stearn, and be welcomed among the Brethren.”

  Sister Gwenneth, Abbess of Lyonesse and Summus Abbatissa, held her hand out to a kneeling Roget who’d just publicly made the vows of obedience, stability, and conversion of life in the abbey’s chapter house, as per the Order’s ancient Rule, witnessed by hundreds of sisters and friars. He gripped her hand, marveling once again at its unexpected strength, and stood with the elegance of an athlete.

  Marta, Roget’s principal teacher, stepped up and draped a hooded cloak over his shoulders, completing his transformation from postulant to servant of the Almighty in his Infinite Void. Then, as he’d been taught, the newly minted Friar Stearn turned and faced the Brethren, then bowed deeply, a gesture those present, save for the abbess, returned with equal solemnity. And with that, the simple rite dating back to a time well before the first humans left Earth ended. Roget’s training to unlock his mind’s full potential would now begin.

  As they filed out of the chapter house, Loxias caught up with Roget and gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder.

  “Friar Stearn! How do you feel now that you’re one of us?”

  “Like I’ve found my family at last.”

  “Well said. I’ll be monitoring your further development. As chief administrator, making sure friars enter a proper line of work is part of my duties. Once Marta’s training makes that impressive talent of yours bloom, we must use it for the Almighty’s greater glory and the Order’s future.”

  Roget inclined his head politely.

  “Without a doubt.”

  “And we should discuss that future at some point, my friend. Perhaps around a cup of tea one evening. You might play an important part in ensuring it unfolds properly.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  “Excellent!”

  Loxias peeled off and headed for the abbey’s motor pool where a car waited while Roget made his way to the teaching complex and his first session with Marta as a consecrated friar.

  **

  “Loxias. How are you?”

  Gerson Hecht, looking more and more the spitting image of his late father, fierce eyebrows and gray beard included, stood and came around his marble-topped desk, hand outstretched to greet the friar.

  “Hale, hearty, and hungry,” he boomed as they shook hands. “And you, my friend?”

  “Prospering, though with the latest plague ship scare, I expect Hecht Industries will prosper even more.” He waved at an open connecting door. “The executive dining room awaits us. A light lunch from Tristan’s Table.”

  “Nothing but the best.” Loxias’ smile broadened at hearing the name of Lannion’s most elegant restaurant.

  “For you? Always.”

  The two men first met years ago when Rorik Hecht still lived and Gerson ran the Lyonesse Mercantile Co
nsortium, an umbrella organization speaking on behalf of the planet’s primary commercial interests. Loxias, not yet chief administrator, but widely seen as an inevitable candidate for the top friar job, oversaw the abbey’s procurement office and spent a lot of time hobnobbing with business executives as he sought deals for supplies, construction material, and more. He and Gerson discovered quickly they were kindred spirits looking for a more significant say in the republic’s future but hampered by their roles. Hecht headed the largest government supplier, one whose dealings with the Defense Force were extensive, making him subject to conflict of interest regulations while Gwenneth’s strictures restrained Loxias.

  Hecht ushered Loxias into the dining room and pointed at one of the three place settings.

  “Please sit. My assistant called Tristan’s Table the moment the front desk announced you. Our meal should be here at any moment.”

  The Hecht Industries corporate headquarters occupied a newish six-story building in downtown Lannion, within walking distance of Government House, the legislature, and the Defense Force headquarters among other departments. And only a block away from the famous restaurant.

  “Who is joining us?” Loxias settled in across from the panoramic windows overlooking the Haven River.

  “Severin Downes,” Gerson replied, naming Hecht Industries’ chairman of the board, a former imperial count who’d ended up on Lyonesse with a few hundred of his peers, brought there in the same ship as Erasmus and his two comrades. But unlike the violent criminals sentenced to exile, he and the nobles were condemned by the late Empress Dendera for plotting against her at court. Or at least she suspected them of doing so, which in her deranged state made them guilty, nonetheless. “Considering what we’ll discuss, I thought his insight might be valuable.”

  “Indeed.”

  Downes was another man with a longstanding and unshakable grudge against the republic’s government, and Jonas Morane and Sister Gwenneth in particular. He was a practiced schemer who spent time in the Windy Isles long ago and was therefore barred from government appointments. After serving his sentence, Downes turned to the private sector and ingratiated himself with Gerson Hecht after Rorik Hecht’s death, becoming in due course chairman of the board. Loxias wasn’t sure he liked the man, but he couldn’t argue his effectiveness at glad-handing and recruiting allies in the halls of power.