Haze and the Hammer of Darkness

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Sister Artemis Dian is his guide through the entire tour, even to the front steps of the temple.

  “No farther,” she says in her controlled contralto.

  “Mind if I pan up the steps and to the mountain behind?”

  “That would be acceptable.”

  The stroll back to the flitter is absolutely quiet, and the stillness seems to accentuate the weight of the fax unit on Martel’s shoulders. Only the pad of feet and the swish of robes intrude. The Sister, like Father G’Iobo, is mind-shielded.

  Her apparent young age, her young step, bother Martel, do not fit. She seems totally at ease with him, but as if he is really not present.

  As he stows the used fax cube and reloads, as he resets the unit for aerial shots, she waits, far closer than the Apollonites had. Martel uses his extended perceptions to scan the flitter even before starting to climb back in.

  An aura of danger clings to the power cells. But why?

  Martel scans superficially, then deeply, before realizing that both original sets have been replaced with a new set, blocked somehow.

  If you touch the starter, all that power will turn on itself, fuse the cells … and boom. No more flitter, no more Martel, and no more Sister Artemis Dian.

  Ergo … Sister Artemis Dian wasn’t. Rather some poor flunky mind-washed into being a victim. Or …

  Martel doesn’t like the second possibility. The “Sister” might be the goddess herself, able to shield herself from the fiery blast and point the finger at someone. Or claim that Martel had tried to defile the community.

  Martel was either a victim or a pawn. He didn’t like the possibilities, and adjusted another strap, stalling and trying to think his way out of the situation.

  If he announced the problem, it would reveal abilities he really hadn’t had the chance to develop fully and might open him to more scrutiny.

  Slowly, carefully, he lets his thoughts disconnect the leads to the power cells, and allows the power to bleed off into the field through a “channel” he opens, until the cells are totally inert.

  He finishes adjusting his harness, shifts his weight, and closes the canopy. Then, and only then, Martel touches the starter stud, and watches the “Sister” for a reaction. There is none, none that he can detect, either physically or mentally, as the flitter rises into the sky.

  He shivers, partly from the effort in supplying the current needed for the start through mental ability, and partly from the strain of the undercurrents he does not understand.

  He shakes his head. If everyone is so secretive about their religious communities, why haven’t they all taken the stance of the Taurists and merely refused him permission to visit? He might have complained or even woven it into a faxcast, but nothing would have changed.

  The Thoradian mission would be the last stop, but before landing there, he wants to complete as much of his aerial flyby and faxshot pass as he can of the Taurist community.

  Every sense would have to be alert, with his mental perceptions spread as far as possible. If those who had welcomed him are trying to destroy him, what can he expect from those who declared themselves off limits from the beginning?

  Nothing.

  Where the Apollonite community was circular, and the Ethene a fan-shaped grid, the Taurist is rectangular, with black buildings, black-paved roads, and a central black square, in the center of which burns a strange black flame. No temple.

  And no interference.

  Martel rechecks the fax unit as he swings the flitter back toward the Thoradian mission.

  Where the other three communities had appeared regular from the air, and orderly, the Thoradians built wherever they pleased. Some of the buildings appear to have fallen roofs, and the outlying streets are grass-choked.

  No one waits at the landing stage.

  Martel dons the unit, seals the flitter, not that such a precaution has been helpful before, and starts out.

  Sunrams they have, unkempt and grazing around the outbuildings, but with normal, unstarburst pupils.

  The scent of fire and hot metal draw him to a plain, unpainted wooden building, in good trim, but obviously old, and weathered planking that has been replaced over the years, lending the walls a patchwork impression.

  Inside, two burly men, sweat pouring from foreheads into full red beards, beat out blades on the wide black anvils, totally oblivious to Martel and his fax unit.

  Neither wears robes, but rather a short kiltlike battle skirt, with alternating leather and metal strips. Their upper bodies, outside of a reddish tan, leather aprons, and copper armbands and wristbands, are bare.

  Martel focuses in on their concentration, then onto the compact and unvarying flame over which they labor.

  He departs, apparently unnoticed.

  More shots of abandoned structures follow.

  Across the red stone lane from the log temple, distinguished from the other buildings by the symbol of the crossed graystone hammers, Martel finds a tall figure waiting for him.

  Like the others, the man is burly, muscular, tall, and dressed in battle kilt. In addition, a wolfskin cloak is thrown back over his shoulders, and hair curls from under a metal helmet decorated with twin ramhorns. From the leather loop circling his right wrist hangs the heavy graystone hammer.

  “So you’re the one! Upstart they all question.”

  “Your pardon?” asks Martel.

  “Say they question. Fear what you may become. Nonsense. All of it. Thor fears none of it. Nor you. Nor what you become. Do you challenge the hammer and might?”

  Martel steps back.

  Thor? The so-called god himself? This barbarian rumbling gutturals?

  The hammer swings and is released skyward.

  A blaze of lightning follows, slashes into the suddenly dark sky.

  “Doubt not Thor! Unbeliever!” The voice bellows like thunder.

  Martel steps back another step, still faxing the entire incredible scene.

  “That’ll do. Teach them all,” rumbles the old warrior, and Martel can sense the age in the god, even though the figure and the voice are those of a man in his prime.

  The hammer screams back to the upraised arm, and yet another lightning bolt flares.

  Martel retreats another step, aware his hands are damp, but still recording.

  He stumbles, looks down to keep from letting the unit overbalance him, and when he looks up, Thor is gone. The red rock lanes are again deserted.

  Martel brings the fax unit to bear on the temple, zooms in the focus, and discovers that the doors which were open are now barred.

  No one stops him on his way back to the flitter, which is as he left it. Untouched.

  Martel is still shaking his head as he pilots the light craft back toward Sybernal, toward the CastCenter, hoping the scenes with the thunder-god are indeed in the cube.

  A small part of his mind hopes they are not, for if they are, he will use them. Must use them.

  xviii

  Martel tenses.

  The quartered image stands out in front of the single flat wall of the CastCenter lounge—four separate scenes, and each with its own message.

  On the upper left graze a flock of sunrams, their fleeces glittering with lights of their own. On the upper right stretch long rows of golden vines, leaves half covering the ripening grapes. On the lower left extends a grass-choked pavement. Finally, on the lower right, an aerial shot of a black-walled, black-laned community.

  The music wells up, subsides. A selection from Winds of Summer.

  “The postulant communities of Aurore, as they present themselves to visitors, and to the universe … postulants to gods who are real, and who demonstrate their powers on an everyday basis.

  “Now … a first-time-ever look at the worshipers of the living gods of Aurore…”

  The four images fade into one—the sunspire of the temple of Apollo, which fades into the white marble of the Ethene temple, which fades into an aerial shot of the black flame in the black square of the Tauris
t community, and then to the closed and hammer-barred front view of the Thoradian mission under sullen clouds.

  “Not a bad intro, Martel,” says Marta Farell.

  Gates Devero nods in agreement, while Hollie makes no statement or gesture.

  Martel realizes his palms are damp, rubs them on his trousers as the cube continues running through the apparently innocuous activities of the Apollonite community, and then through a similar routine in the Ethene community.

  “Good shot of his expression … really wrapped up in what he’s doing.”

  What’s he playing for? Martel picks up the thought from Marta.

  “Oohhh … the eyes on that sunram…”

  “Lot of contentment showing…”

  “… nice view of the reflection off the marwood chest…”

  Martel swallows, waiting for the transition from the light of the Ethenes to the aerial shots of the Thoradian mission.

  Apollo!

  “… so deserted … old…”

  The cut from the desolation focuses down a grass-choked lane and into the blacksmith shop, with the bearded barbarians pounding, pounding out blades, the metal glowing, the heat welling out.

  “… looks like a Darian view of Hades…”

  Don’t like where this is going. That thought came from Marta Farell.

  From the focus on the blades the view shifts to the blank, concentrating faces of the smiths, oblivious to the watchers, robotic in their duties, and then cuts back away to the grassy pavement and what Martel had seen as he had walked through the nearly deserted community, ending up before the temple, its rough doors gaping.

  The god Thor looms in the center of the scene, as if he had appeared from nowhere.

  “Doubt not Thor!”

  The fifth time through, Martel still marvels a bit at the swing of the magnificent graystone hammer, and the lightnings that follow, the clouds that roil in on cue from the thunder-god.

  “… don’t believe it…”

  “… how … how did you do it?”

  Fry Martel, fry us all, if this screens.

  From the lightnings the fax zeroes back in on the empty square, then on the barred and closed temple, with its crossed graystone hammers.

  “The Taurist community, unlike the other three,” Martel’s narrative rolls onward, “is closed to outsiders.”

  With only the low thunder of the March of the Directorate by Pavenne as accompaniment, the aerial view of the Taurist community unrolls, concluding with the square of the black flame.

  “The postulant communities of the living gods, from light—”

  The fax shows the Apollonite sunram, golden spire in the backdrop, cuts to the golden iris of the ram’s eye with the dark starburst pupil. That dark star grows and grows until the entire screen is black.

  “—to light—”

  The scene mists from black through gray to the open Ethene square and the steps leading up to the white marble temple of the goddess.

  “No farther.” The words of Sister Artemis Dian roll up over the track music, and the view pans up the temple and to the dark-shadowed point of the sacred mountain. Again … the darkness expands to encompass the entire holo image.

  “—to light—”

  With a quick slash view of the thunder-god’s face, his lips caught twisted, the scene follows not the hammer but the lightning, on the upward stroke and the downward return. As the last lightning flash fades, the image fills with the dark clouds, which gray out and thin.

  “—to dark.”

  From the thinning gray of the clouds the view switches to the aerial vista of the Taurist community, laid out in black, the blackness of the lanes, the blackness of the buildings, emphasized by the filters Martel has overlaid. Steadily the focus narrows until the only identifiable object is the black flame, within its black square and centered in the middle of the holo.

  The last measures of the March of the Directorate die away as the image blanks to black.

  “Flame!” mutters Marta Farell.

  “You trying a fancy form of suicide, Martel?” That from Gates.

  Hollie Devero shakes her head, slowly. Knew he was crazy.

  “But do you like it?” Martel asks, knowing the question is expected. He gets out of the narrow chair and stretches.

  Silence.

  “You know,” says Hollie quietly, “faxers have lost their minds for less than that.”

  “For what? Showing a few scenes of the communities?”

  “You’re missing the point on purpose, Martel!” snaps Marta Farell. “Without a single negative word, without a single disparaging musical note, without a single scene of a suffering human being, you’ve painted the four prime gods of Aurore as petty and almost evil. And I don’t want any part of it.”

  “How good is it?” counters Martel.

  “Good enough to have the entire CastCenter leveled if we run it,” retorts Hollie.

  “What if you credit me with exclusive production?”

  “Not good enough.”

  “All right. I’ll can it.”

  “No.”

  Marta stretches. In her hand is a stunner.

  “Unload that cube. Now. Put it on the counter.”

  Martel steps toward the holojector, one step at a time, narrowing his thoughts, concentrating as he does.

  Hollie and Gates back away, trying to get to the side, as far from the line of fire as possible.

  Martel’s thoughts touch Farell’s, catch the low block there, and vault into her mind.

  … got to stop him … say so … so glorious … do what HE wants …

  Martel reaches the nexus he needs, touches the nerves. Marta Farell’s knees crumple. Her eyes roll up and close, and she collapses in a heap.

  Martel lets himself go in the same way, unaffected as he is. His thoughts reach out to seize Hollie and Gates Devero.

  Once all three are safely unconscious, Martel climbs to his feet, fingers the bruise on his forearm where it had collided with the leg of the lounger. He unloads the cube from the holojector and carries it into the control center, where a full-stan documentary on the wind dolphins of Faldarin is concluding.

  Martel keys the back-feed for Karnak, bringing the tie transmitter up full and alerting the Regency network that a new outprogram would be coming. He’d already done the attributions, foreseeing the reaction he has gotten.

  As soon as the documentary finishes and the I.D. spot plugs through, he will run Postulants of Aurore straight through.

  With the off-planet net, once the title line alone has run there is no way that Apollo and crew will dare to stop his cube. Not before the fact.

  Martel has his perceptions fully spread, but detects nothing out of the ordinary. He is banking on the fact that even the so-called gods of Aurore can handle only so many things at once, and that they do not expect him to take matters into his own hands so quickly.

  Just in case anyone thinks about mechanical niceties, he wipes the cube clean of fingerprints, as well as the feeding equipment. He makes most of the adjustments by thought alone.

  Once the cube runs through, without further instructions the console will pick up the KarNews feed.

  The details taken care of, once the cube begins he returns to the recording studio, drains the power from Marta’s stunner and from the laser knife she also carries, and resumes the position the others had seen him fall into.

  He blocks off his conscious physical control and waits.

  Waits until he feels someone shake him, slap him across the face. Hard. Flamed hard.

  Marta, of course.

  “Damn you! Damn, damn! Damn!”

  “Wha … stop … you … why … stun me…” He lets the words stumble out.

  “Because I want to live. Because I want to get off this planet. Because you and your cutesy idea have ruined everything. Everything!”

  Martel snakes his head, realizes he is swallowing something. His blood. Marta’s slap has apparently caused him to bite his che
ek.

  He looks around. Gates, white-faced, is leaning over the counter. Hollie, leaning forward in her chair, is holding her head in her hands.

  “What happened? I went to get you the cube, just like you asked. Hollie and Gates saw me. You saw me. And you stunned me, even before I got there. Now you’re slapping me, and screaming that it’s all my fault. You’re the one who’s crazy! Flamed crazy!”

  “I didn’t stun you. Someone else did, and they ran the cube. Ran it right out to all Aurore and back-fed to Karnak. There’ll be flame to pay. And it’s all on your head.”

  “You’re crazy! You said I could try the idea. I did. You said no. I agreed, and now it’s on my head. Why me? I didn’t do anything.”

  “You made the damned cube. You made a mockery out of the Taurists, and their unnamed god can’t be pleased. If he doesn’t get you, then Thor will, unless the others get to you first.”

  “But why? It isn’t our fault somebody ran the cube.”

  Gates says nothing, but glares at Martel, and staggers out of the studio lounge, dragging Hollie by the arm.

  Marta Farell’s eyes smoke. “You just might be right. And you might not. But I won’t risk anyone else’s life because of your stupidity. For the sake of everyone else, Martel, when you’re on duty here, no one else is going to be here. Ever! You’re perm night shift. Until you pack up and quit. Or until your brains, or whatever passes for brains, rot.”

  Martel lets a puzzled expression cross his face, as if he can’t understand her hysteria. In fact, he has difficulty, although he can sense the emotional desperation welling from her.

  “That’s starting right now! And while you’re off duty, I’ll do my best to see that no one comes close to you, especially no one from any faxcast center. But don’t worry. You’ll get full credit for this one. Every last credit from that docuslot is yours. Even the station’s cut. It should make you wealthy. If you live to enjoy it.”

  Martel stands there.

  Marta marches toward the portal, then half turns.

  “You’ve got about a quarter-stan before we go local. Program’s on the up sheet. If I ever talk to you again, other than by fax, and that’s only when necessary, count yourself flamed lucky.”