The Parafaith War

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Each man is called in his own way, Brother,” Trystin temporized, not wanting to reveal too much until he was actually inside the Temple, where he doubted that the Revenants would try to drag him away.

  “Perhaps, but few of the returned are called again.” Orr’s eyes glanced to the right, and Trystin followed them, catching a glimpse of nearly a dozen white-clad men standing at the edge of the swirling flow of worshipers.

  Trystin repressed a grin, then didn’t have to make the effort. Even before he walked up to the Temple gates, the gates that pulsed with forces and the hidden systems that most Revenants never knew existed, Trystin knew that all the effort of the Eco-Tech science, false identity and all, even his basically Revenant gene patterns, would not be enough. Behind the shimmering white walls lay a system powerful enough to reveal him as the fraud he was … unless his risky scheme worked.

  He’d been warned about the chance of being incinerated on the spot, but somehow it seemed more immediate, much more immediate, especially with Orr at his elbow. If he broke and ran, he didn’t have much hope either—not that weapons were that much in evidence, even with the white-clad Soldiers of the Lord. But Carson Orr had his forces out and deployed, and even with full augmentation, Trystin wasn’t going to win any contests of force—not for long. Besides, the fact that Orr was accompanying him and that the reinforcements were standing back might give him opportunity enough.

  “I have returned.” That was enough, and ambiguous enough. But he was sweating, despite the breeze that kept those around him cool.

  Orr glanced sideways at him. “You look disturbed.”

  Trystin definitely needed a key to the Temple. He swallowed. At this point, he could only hope he had the actual protocol. Otherwise he was dead, far sooner than he needed to be.

  “What must be must be.” Trystin looked at Orr. “Do not deny me what must be.” He hoped he had the rhetoric close enough. If he were right, every word he said in the Temple would be recalled and studied.

  Orr’s brow crinkled, and his eyes darted back toward his troops—associates, whatever they might be, then back to Trystin.

  As they approached the gates, Trystin stumbled and brushed the wall, staggering.

  “Are you all right, Brother Hyriss?”

  “I think I tripped on something.” Trystin stopped and massaged his leg, casting his implant toward the net that began a few meters before him. The mass of data was enormous, and he staggered, again, wiping his forehead as he straightened. What part of the key?

  His father’s explanation surfaced—“just like a Service protocol”—and he projected the key toward the net.

  “WELCOME, SON OF THE PROPHET!”

  The unseen and unheard greeting rolled through him, and he picked up the response, lying behind the greeting as if in plain view, and projected it back, both vocally and through the implant. “I greet the Souls of the Eternal and the Revelations of the Book.”

  Beside him, Orr swallowed, hard and visibly. “Seems like I said, maybe, just maybe, you’re not what you seem. At times … it sure is hard to figure how the Lord works.”

  Trystin stepped into the stone arch of the gate and the energies that swirled around and through it, using his key to the huge open-weave system to override the weapons and energy detectors. His thoughts raced along the command paths, trying to analyze the checkpoints as he kept walking … and sweating.

  Orr kept close beside him.

  “As you may behold,” Trystin replied. “The Lord is the Lord, and none may deny Him or His works.” Now was not the time to be cautious, because, one way or the other, he was committed.

  He could sense the confusion from the main system network as a series of interrogatories flooded the system, but, with the override control he and his father had developed, he shunted them aside, touching the short-range improvised laser grip in his pocket. A slug thrower or a standard laser would have been far easier—he could have just bought a hunting weapon—but it wouldn’t do what he had in mind.

  A crooked smile crossed his face as he recalled the mission profile—the idea of keeping it simple. He almost laughed. Despite all the rhetoric about the need to keep things simple, simplicity usually didn’t get the job done, hot in complex societies.

  Of course, there would be hell to pay, whether he succeeded or failed, but he only had to worry about it if he succeeded. And, as Brother Orr’s presence had shown, he couldn’t have succeeded with the Coalition’s straight assassination—not and had any chance to escape.

  Then, as he had come to realize over the past few days, he doubted that he’d ever been intended to escape. Officers who looked like Revenants were getting to be embarrassments in the Coalition, unless they died gloriously. He’d see what he could do about that.

  The next set of arches contained the ultrasonic cleaners that vibrated dust and dirt loose from clothes, as well as the gentle suction that whisked away all remnants of uncleanliness.

  From what Trystin recalled, in the old days of Deseretism, all entrants to the Temple actually changed all their clothes, and the neo-Mahmets had left their shoes outside the mosques. Technology had simplified those aspects, at least.

  “ … what will be will be …” subvocalized Orr.

  “And it will be the will of the Lord,” Trystin added, as he picked up Orr’s words.

  “You are a surprising fellow,” Orr said after a quick swallow.

  “Surely you do not doubt the Lord and the sanctity of the Temple?” Trystin asked, as they continued past the second arch and into the vaulting antechamber to the Temple proper. His words were both for Orr and the recorders that monitored the Temple.

  “ … not His will, but yours …” Orr said subvocally

  Trystin would have agreed, but his plans didn’t include admitting frailty at the moment, only planting more seeds for what he had planned, for his efforts to shake the entire faith of the Revenants. “His will be done.”

  Orr’s eyes glanced toward the right portal.

  “Through the left portal, Brother Orr.” Trystin kept his head high, as would any returnee, proud to be able to bring thanks to his Lord.

  “Many returnees would prefer the right.”

  “I stand on the left hand of the Lord.” Especially since your statement tells me that you have some support arrangements on the right, Trystin reflected.

  They slipped through another curtain of unseen energies and into the Temple proper, the white stone columns rising into an arch nearly fifty meters above the rows of straight-backed white pews.

  Trystin’s eyes flicked across the Temple interior, and he jumped his reflexes and reactions a notch, as he tried to determine the location of the admirals and the bishops and archbishops and caliphs.

  The information clicked into place as his eyes scanned the front of the Temple.

  Trystin headed toward the left side of the center section, stopping beside a place almost on the wide side aisle. He stepped back. “After you, Brother Orr.”

  Orr looked at the aisle seat. “I was thinking I’d defer to you, Brother Hyriss, seeing as how you’re more recently returned.”

  Trystin smiled. “After you, Brother. For you are honored and should sit on the right hand. Remember that in times to come.” He didn’t think that Orr would see the implied command exactly as an honor.

  As he spoke, Trystin’s commands, through his pilot implant, finally managed to unravel the open-weave channels enough to reach the control center. He ignored the sweat running down his back.

  The older man paled for the first time. “ … Lord help me …”

  “He will. For is it not written that the work of the Lord is the work of all faithful souls?”

  “I’m having a mite bit of trouble determining who’s a faithful soul at the moment.” Orr’s folksiness seemed forced.

  “Do not presume to know me, or the ways of the Lord,” Trystin said quietly, but not quietly enough, for a sister in the pew in front glanced back at them.

  Th
e whispers died away, to be replaced with music.

  Trystin didn’t know if he were really ready, but he kept his implant merged with the Temple’s open-weave system, ready to override the system, even as he continued to trace out the basic controls for lighting and the decorative lasers and sparklebeams.

  The music swelled from the organ, augmented by underlying subsonics, designed to instill the feeling of awe.

  Orr shifted his weight, and Trystin tried not to, even as his efforts with his implant sent another round of prickling and burning through his system. He had the feeling he was operating at the edge of his capabilities, as if he had much choice with Orr standing beside him and presumably knowing Trystin was a Coalition agent, albeit a strange one.

  As the organ died away, a figure in white, enhanced by the sparklebeam that enshrouded him, stepped into the podium on the right front side of the Temple. He raised his hands, then lowered them as he began to speak. “We are gathered here in the name of the Lord, and of His Prophet, to celebrate and commemorate the sacrifice and the accomplishments of His missionaries, to consecrate ourselves, our souls and bodies, to the end that His work and the teachings of His Prophet shall not perish but ring through all the mansions of the Lord’s domain … .”

  Trystin let the bioimplants do their work, letting his eyes scan the row of archbishops to the side and below the Revelator’s podium, until the pictures matched, and he identified Archbishop Jynckla.

  “Let us pray … O Eternal Father, creator of bountiful worlds and endless heavens, maker of all things visible and invisible …”

  Trystin’s mind continued to work, running through the Temple’s net system until he had the overrides well in hand, including the locks on the control systems—someone had designed the system to be able to lock out the technicians in the upper booths … and Trystin was going to use that ability.

  Orr shifted his weight as he stood beside Trystin, head bowed.

  “ … determiner of all that can be determined … knower of all that can be known … . Grant us Thy peace.”

  “Amen.”

  After the prayer, the Revenants sat down, and Trystin followed their example.

  “The Revelator of the Prophet!”

  A series of trumpet notes, cascading from nowhere, filled the Temple, and the unheard subsonics rumbled and created more awe.

  Just as the Revelator rose, so did Trystin, setting his hand on Orr’s shoulder, and whispering. “Be of good courage, and deny me not, for what will be is the will of the Lord.”

  Orr clutched at Trystin, but Trystin slipped from the older man’s grasp with the speed of enhanced reflexes and metabolism.

  Calling on the laser sparklelight to surround him, to give him the aura of a saint, he walked up the aisle. He also locked out the speaker to the podium where the Revelator stood.

  “ … oh …”

  “ … not in the program …”

  Forcing himself to carry himself as a stately figure, not quite ponderously, he walked the ten meters to the base of what he would have termed a sanctuary, then ascended the two steps. A faint murmur ran through the faithful as he turned, ignoring the Revelator at the podium.

  “You have called upon the Lord, knower of all that can be known. Do you not think that He knows those among you who have profaned His will? You have called upon the Lord the creator. Do you not think that if they cast down this Temple, the Lord would rebuild it, almost before your eyes?” Trystin wasn’t above using the hidden amplifiers to boost his voice, or jacking up the subsonic overtones. He just hoped his memory would hold all that he had planned and memorized. He was also, belatedly, very glad he had reread Chaplain Matsugi’s handout after Commander Folsom’s long-ago tongue-lashing … and that he had been required to bring a Book of Toren with him—necessary for the details behind his speeches.

  A whispering began to fill the Temple, and Trystin boosted his voice to almost booming power.

  “Once was a son of God betrayed, and once was a prophet betrayed, and yet in the years in which we live another has been betrayed … betrayed by hatred and betrayed by another false god. Our God is a God of love, and He has stood by us while we have followed hatred and destruction, for He is a God of love. He has stood by us while we have hunted down our fellows …”

  “ … heresy …”

  “ … get the controls …”

  “ … they’re locked …”

  Trystin kept a straight face even as he could hear the priests muttering, then he turned and pointed at the two behind the Revelator.

  “You have betrayed the Prophet, and the son of God and man, who sits at the right hand of the Father.” As he spoke, he tweaked the controls, and the red-light laser flared across the two, illuminating them, but not harming either. “For lo, another will come to sit at the left hand of the Father.”

  Luckily, juggling the multiple controls mentally was not nearly so difficult as juggling the inputs on a translation ship, but how the results of his juggling would impact the Revenant beliefs—that would be another question.

  Trystin turned toward Archbishop Jynckla, and another cone of sparklelight surrounded the white-haired archbishop with the tanned face and kindly smile. “You have been guilty of hatred and hypocrisy—even so, the Lord will take you unto Him.”

  The desperate mutterings and adjustments from the control booth simmered through him, and he tried to put them out of mind, even as he held to the control locks.

  “ … madman …”

  “ … Kersowin and Jynckla … have your heads …”

  Trystin, under the cover of the sparklelight, removed and powered the laser handpiece and grip, then raised his hands, directing the sparklelaser focus around him so that he shimmered and shone.

  “The Lord has offered you love, and you have rejected that love. The Lord has asked you to love thy neighbor as thyself, and you have not. How can you bring the word of the Lord to your neighbor when you kill that neighbor before you come close enough to speak? How can you kill and speak of love in the name of your Lord? Yet, in the name of the Lord will I love you as I love myself—so I can do no less for me than for you.”

  As he spoke, he pointed the small, comparatively widefocused laser on Jynckla, and with a precision only possible through the implant and enhanced reflexes, swept it down the white-clothed figure, raising a shower of sparks and ashes. In little more than instants, the flames rose from the antique wooden box where the archbishop had been sitting.

  Trystin didn’t let himself feel any relief. The trickiest part was yet to come—portraying himself as prophet and sacrifice … and escaping it.

  Trystin turned back to the stunned congregation, continuing with his prepared text and boosted speech.

  “You know the Lord, and the Lord knows you in your hearts. Judge not, lest you be judged, and yet, I say unto you, even as He will raise this Temple in less than three days, yes, even in the quickness of time, will He also give me for you, for someone must speak for you. You who would not speak for love. For you, someone must speak. For you, someone must offer forgiveness. Someone must atone for you—both now and in the fullness of time.”

  Someone had to do something—that he knew, but he still fought the sense of hypocrisy all the way through the words. With the last syllable, Trystin triggered his reflexes into high speed and called in both the light cloak, and the projections. He stepped back behind the cloak of blinding light, and pointed the laser at the golden carpet, letting the smoke and fire grow, while the projections showed only flame.

  Light flared through the Temple, light so brilliant that all the Revenants blinked, and their eyes watered. As they blinked and as they wept in spite of themselves, a figure in white blazed into smoke right on the steps between the podiums. That tall figure seemed to grow, to glimmer with golden light. Then it crumpled and vanished into trails of smoke, leaving only a burned circular space and ashes drifting through the air.

  At the same time, Trystin filled the Temple with the deep
est of the subsonics, then slipped through the back door into a sort of robing room, even as the lights dimmed, and those in the Temple rubbed their eyes again.

  His hands were reddened, lightly burned, because the sparklelaser generated heat when it hit metal, and they hurt. Still … unless someone had smuggled high-tech recording equipment into the Temple, the Revenant worshipers should have been left with the lasting impression that one Brother Hyriss had offered himself as a sacrifice for them. With luck, Orr and the others would not be looking for a dead man.

  With luck … but Trystin wasn’t sure he could count on that, and he still had to get out of the Temple and off Orum, plus make some appearances as he departed—safe appearances ahead of the desperate dragnet that would be after him.

  He dropped his reflexes down to one notch above normal, ignoring the pounding headache he already had developed, and used the Temple system to scan the area. No one was around, although he could sense the continuing efforts of the system technicians to unlock the Temple system.

  He ran along the empty corridor and around two corners, to the staircase the system said was there. He bounded down three flights, moving as fast as he could to exceed the expectations of normal human ability. He’d pay later, but for now, he needed speed.

  He made it to the ventilation and power-access tunnel that led under the square of the Ark of Healing even before the system registered the opening of the doors to the Temple.

  He nodded and began to run along the catwalk. Unfortunately, the easy part was over, he feared, trying to breathe deeply and easily to force more oxygen into his system.

  The access tunnel led into the maintenance room in the base of the Ark of Healing—an empty room, although he could sense voices in the adjoining area, presumably support staff of some sort.

  “ … just another ceremony …”

  “ … not so loud …”

  Trystin smiled, but even that gesture hurt. He wiped his steaming forehead with the big handkerchief and eased his way to the maintenance staircase. Three flights up he broke the lock and stepped out onto the grounds. He was on the far side of the Ark of Healing, not all that far from the edge of the square.