by Bill Fawcett
Meiglin gasped. Released from a touch of such subtlety, she scarcely felt discomposed, she blotted her eyes, and regarded the being who addressed her with wry invitation.
"That depends on what you want." She raked tumbled hair from her face, unsettled enough to stay wary.
"Have I acted disreputable?" The old man looked chagrinned. "In strict fact, young mistress, your will binds mine. Any words we exchange depend on what you want, lastborn daughter of s'Dieneval."
Struck still, Meiglin stared. "Who are you?" she whispered. But the uncanny reach of his presence spoke for him. Without asking, she knew: this was no desert elder before her, although his brown, crinkled skin and salt hair lent him the same air of earth-chiseled dignity. His clothes were a tinker's, loomed from faded wool, and the lavender-gray mantle rolled on his back seemed to hold his scanty possessions. Nonetheless, he was no feckless wanderer. Meiglin's skin prickled before the awareness that those quiet, pale eyes looked straight through her.
Here stood living power, a force of pent stillness masked over in gentleness that could, if it moved, shift the world.
"You come from the Fellowship," Meiglin said in blanched shock.
The Sorcerer raised amused eyebrows. "Did you expect less?" His eyes surveyed her, thoughtful, their tawny depths mild as sunlight struck through the shallows of a brook. "We are our own emissaries. As you wish, you may call me Ciladis."
Meiglin measured that statement, still taken aback by his unprepossessing appearance. Fellowship Sorcerers had made the first kings, were the power behind the compact that bound the clan forefathers into Paravian service. The blood heritage she had refused to acknowledge could not be evaded before such as he.
Meiglin stood dumbstruck, scarcely able to think.
Still gentle, he broke the silence for her. "Shall I give you the truth that the witches withheld? You will give birth to the child of a prophecy. In sorrow, I must tell you, the choice upholding that burden is great. Already, your unborn daughter is fatherless."
As though the firm ground had dissolved underfoot, Meiglin trembled, the pain a bright arrow struck through her. The name of the boy she had loved had not mattered. One night, he had touched her. Now, all her days, her sorrow must endure, a grief that would never be partnered. "He's lost so soon?"
The Sorcerer's hands caught and steadied her, then guided her unbalanced steps toward the shade. "Last night, he passed over. Your dream did not lie. Beside you, my Fellowship mourns for him."
Meiglin permitted herself to be set down on the stone wall that cut the stiff breeze off the desert. "The Mistwraith will triumph," she whispered, bereft.
The Sorcerer could not change that desolate fact. "Yet even defeat does not mean we are lost. The future could hold a last chance of reprieve, one spark upon which to build hope. The royal lineage of Shand is not ended. Because of your courage, a successor remains. She's the daughter you're carrying, Meiglin."
Hands closed over the swell of her womb, Meiglin found herself desperately shaking.
Ciladis' sure fingers laced over her own. "Here." His clasp affirmed what she had known all along, that this one precious life could become the lynchpin that hung the world's destiny.
"There's more," said the Sorcerer, as though his quizzical gaze tracked her thoughts. "Your child also bears the blood of s'Dieneval, a line that has served at the right hand of kings for more than a thousand years. That's a rather hair-raising legacy. In fact, she's twice endowed with precocious talent, a fix that could drive my six colleagues to fits, and bedevil her future descendents."
His irreverent humor sparked Meiglin to laughter. "You're warning me she'll be a trial to raise?"
Ciladis still chuckled. "Very. Does that knowledge please you? It should. I have come, because as the mother of royalty, you're entitled to ask for my help."
The words, foreordained, ripped through Meiglin like storm. "I would do anything, all that you ask, to deny the Mistwraith its conquest. Under such a binding, this child was conceived. I will name her Dari when she is born. Now tell me the fate that is best for her."
The Sorcerer smiled with forthright relief. "Dari s'Ahelas she must become, if you grant your consent to acknowledge her paternal birthright. Raise her in love, Meiglin. The Fellowship will provide you the means. If, when the time comes, you are still sincere, your daughter must be offered the path her wayward father rejected."
"Exile through Westgate?"
Ciladis nodded. "For safety's sake. If she chooses to go, if she shoulders the weight of her royal heritage, she must make her way in free will."
"She will go," Meiglin whispered. The tears burned her lids and spilled over again, for a love she had held for one moment, and lost. "Had her father done the same, I would never have lain with him, and he would still be alive."
The Sorcerer raised a fingertip to her brow, testing, that light touch all he needed be reassured of her steadfast commitment. "Meiglin," he stated. "Your courage is blessed. Did you know, your true heart may yet forge the path that will hold the light for the future?"
The Afterlife of St. Vidicon of Cathode
A Warlock Story
Christopher Stasheff
With thanks to Morris McGee,
onorary Father-General, and to Laurie Patten,
honorary Mother Superior of the Order of Cassettes.
* * *
(INTRODUCTION)
The abbot waited in the convent's audience chamber, fascinated by the beauty drawn from its flat planes and minimal furniture by the glow of waxed golden paneling, the vivid color of the spray of flowers in a ceramic vase of elegant simplicity, and the two pictures adorning the walls, lighted by the windows opposite—an old woman next to a young on the wall facing the bench on which he sat, and on the wall at his left, the cowled face of a man in middle age, his brooding expression softened by the twinkle in his eye. If he was the man the abbot suspected, the artist had caught his character perfectly, leaving an elegant legacy to her successors. The whole room spoke of the care and devotion of the women of the Order, and of their dedication to their vocation.
The door opened to admit a woman of his own age, no longer slender, but with a kind though firm look to her eyes. The abbot rose in deference.
"Sit, please, my lord," the nun said with a slight frown. "Surely the abbot of the Order of St. Vidicon should not stand to a mere nun."
"Any gentleman should stand when a lady enters a room." But the abbot sat as she bade. "Certainly the abbot should show respect for the Mother Superior of the Order of Cassettes."
"I am only Sister Paterna Testa, a simple nun like all my sisters," the woman said primly. "As you know, my lord, we are not officially sanctioned nor formally an Order, so our leaders have never claimed such a title."
"If it comes to titles, I am not a lord," the abbot said with a smile of amusement. "I am a peasant, the son of peasants."
"Then you do not use the title when you speak with dukes and earls?" Sister Paterna Testa was skeptical.
"I will admit to that much of worldly vanity," the abbot said without the slightest sign of contrition. "I cannot risk their contempt when I berate them for their treatment of their peasants, after all."
"I have heard that you do just that," Sister Paterna Testa said, "when most of your predecessors rarely emerged from their monastery, and then only by royal summons."
"Or in outrage at the actions of the monarch." The abbot nodded. "It has seemed to me that if I remonstrate with the lords, or even Their Majesties, while their sins are still minor, I may be able to prevent the growth of conditions great enough that I am forced to speak in indignation."
"And so it has occurred, from what rumor tells me." Sister Paterna Testa nodded. "So are you come to remonstrate with me, and demand that my Order be brought within your jurisdiction?"
"Heaven forfend!" The abbot raised his palms as though to ward off a horror. "But it does seem to me that the only two Orders in the land should be in communication, and that your
Order should be officially recognized as being in every way the equal of mine."
"That is quite generous," Sister Paterna Testa said slowly, "but we have managed well for centuries without such recognition—indeed, without your knowledge. How did you learn of us?"
"Word of your aiding the High Warlock and the High Witch might have been kept to yourselves," the abbot said with a smile, "but not news of the battle you fought to aid him. Minstrels have spread the tale throughout the length and the breadth of the land, so it finally reached even my ears."
"Minstrels! I like not the sound of that." Sister Paterna Testa turned away, frowning. "The Queen shall no doubt summon us now to be sure we count ourselves her vassals."
"She is more likely to summon you to heal those sunk in melancholy or beset by delusions," the abbot said, "but no matter her motive, it would strengthen your position to be officially constituted, and recognized by the Pope."
"I had heard that His Holiness had finally found Gramarye." Sister Paterna Testa turned her frown back to the abbot.
"He has, but felt it sufficient to leave us to the ministrations of the Father-General of our Order," the abbot said.
"Then we stand on quicksand," Sister Paterna Testa said, "for we have no abbess or mother-general."
"Quite so," said the abbot, "since there is no Order of Cassettes anywhere but in this convent, whereas the Order of St. Vidicon has chapter houses on every Terran-colonized planet."
"We have as firm a claim to his founding as have you!"
"I do not doubt it," said the abbot, "and you thereby have as good a claim to exist as in independent Order, subject only to the Holy Father."
Sister Paterna Testa knit her brows, searching his eyes for duplicity and finding none. Slowly, then, she said, "How could we prove such a claim, though? The Vatican will scarcely accept our unsupported word."
"This picture will support your claim by itself." The abbot nodded at the painting of the monk. "If it matches photographs in the archives of our Order, few can gainsay you. It is painted from life, is it not?"
"From memory, at least." Sister Paterna Testa turned to the portrait. "It was drawn by the young woman who became our second leader, some years after the visitation of the monk who saved her, and our founder. He would not say his name, though."
"Yet he told you tales of St. Vidicon that we know not," the abbot said, "or so the minstrels have even sung—that you have knowledge of the Saint that we have not."
"So that is why you have come!" Sister Paterna Testa turned back to him, amused. "You mean to trade your support for our knowledge, is that it?"
"Our support will be freely given if you will have it." It was the abbot's turn to be prim.
"And you expect our knowledge to be freely given also?" Sister Paterna Testa asked with a trace of irony. "Well, it shall be so, for we believe that knowledge should be free to all who wish to learn it."
"I have seen your school for the peasant children, and it is elegant proof of that claim," the abbot said. "If you wish to share, I shall not refuse."
"Be skeptical," Sister Paterna Testa warned him. "This may be only tales of imagination, that some gifted nun made up to while away a winter's evening for her sisters—and if it is, I am sure it has gained episodes from other tellers as the winters have rolled."
"Or it could indeed be words left to you by that monk." The abbot nodded at the portrait. "I promise I shall not be credulous, sister, for who could know the events that befell the Saint after his death?"
"Only one inspired by St. Vidicon himself," Sister Paterna Testa sighed, "or one who delighted in imagining what befell the Foe of Perversity in the afterlife. You remember how St. Vidicon died?"
"Who does not?" the abbot asked. "Though it is hard for any of us to believe that a world so full of people as Old Earth could be so blinded by prejudice and ignorance as to seek to obliterate the Roman Catholic Church."
"Impossible though it seems, our traditions speak of it."
The abbot nodded. "We have histories of Terra that testify to it, ones brought by our ancestors when they came to this world—and not Church histories only, but also those by lay scholars, non-Catholics, agnostics, and even an atheist."
"Do you really?" Sister Paterna Testa looked up with interest. "Do they also tell that only a speech by our Holy Father the Pope was able to save the Church?
"They do indeed, for apparently he was an extremely charismatic speaker."
"But how could the whole world hear him?'
"You must promise me not to speak of this to any outside our Orders," the abbot admonished, "and swear your nuns to silence, too, for we do not wish the people of Gramarye to be contaminated by too much knowledge of advanced technology."
"Even so was the wish of our ancestors, though I sometimes question their wisdom," Sister Paterna Testa said. "Well, as you ask, I shall promise. How was it done?"
"By a magical instrument called 'television,' by which the picture of the Holy Father was projected into every living room on the planet," the abbot said, "or at least those who chose to see it—and since the issue was hotly debated, more than half the planet watched. Certainly all the Catholics did, and the fallen-away Catholics, of whom there were many, many more."
"And St. Vidicon was responsible for maintaining this magic spell?"
"This electronic miracle, let us say," the abbot answered. "It was he who was the engineer who oversaw the operation of the transmitter—but the instrument was old and faulty, and kept burning out resistors and failing."
"So he took the place of that resistor," Sister Paterna Testa said in awe.
"He did indeed, and the Pope's speech was heard through to the end," the abbot said. "Fallen-away Catholics came flooding back into the churches, and the world's governments saw that they could not rule against so very many of their citizens—so the Church was saved."
"But Father Vidicon was dead," Sister Paterna Testa whispered.
The abbot nodded. "The electrical fire that had burned out the resistors, also burned out his life. He was declared a saint within the year, for none could doubt that he was a martyr for the Faith."
"None could," Sister Paterna Testa agreed, "though by the time the Pope declared his knowledge, many miracles had already saved those who called upon the Saint for aid."
The abbot nodded. "Any who worked with magical equipment, even as Father Vidicon had."
"Of course." Sister Paterna Testa smiled. "By the time they called upon him, St. Vidicon had already bested the worst of the spirits that plague humankind with the urge to fail, and thereby turn their own devices against them."
"What spirits were those?" The abbot leaned forward, the intensity of his hunger for learning finally unveiled. "How did Father Vidicon defeat them?"
Sister Paterna Testa laughed softly, then began the tale.
* * *
(ENDING)
"So our Order was founded by one who served as the channel for Creation?" the abbot asked, his eyes alight with the glory of the tale.
"So the tales say." Sister Paterna Testa's eye twinkled. "But would it not be a victory for Finagle if we were to believe such a tale as might be made up by a nun with a wild imagination?"
"Or by a priest like our own Father Ricci, his was not above a prank or two." The abbot grinned, sharing her amusement. "Well, Sister, when I write down this account, I shall caution all who read it to take it as pure imagination—an amusing tale only, but one that illustrates Father Vidicon's essential nature."
"Which is?"
"Devout, but with a sense of humor—and a huge enjoyment of irony, and a delight in solving paradoxes." The abbot throttled back his amusement and nodded. "Have no fear, Sister—this tale may not be true, but it is an inspiration."
"Indeed—for any member of your order must be an engineer before he can become a monk, is that not so?"
"It is."
"Then how shall we claim descent from St. Vidicon?" Sister Paterna Testa demanded. "We are not engin
eers, after all, but teachers and healers."
"Healers of the human mind," the abbot pointed out, "and I cannot help but think, Sister Paterna Testa, that so complex an entity as the brain must easily be liable to as much confusion and paradox as any computer."
Now Sister Paterna Testa smiled with her full warmth, face radiant as she leaned forward and rested her hand on his. "Trust me, Father Abbot—it surpasses them all."
* * *
When that the blessed Father Vidicon did seize upon a high-voltage line and did cleave unto it, aye, even unto death, so that the words of our blessed Holy Father the Pope might reach out through the satellites to all the television transmitters of the world, for the saving of our most Holy and Catholic Church—aye, when that he did thus die for the Faith and did pass into one enduring instant of blinding pain, he was upheld and sustained by the knowledge that, dying a martyr, he would pass straightway to Heaven and be numbered among the Blest.
How great was his dismay, then, to find himself, as the pain dimmed and awareness returned, falling through darkness, amidst a cold that did sear his soul. Distantly did he espy certain suns, and knew thereby that he did pass through the Void, and that his eternal fall was not truly so, but was only the absence of gravity. Indeed, he knew the place for an absence of all, and fear bit his soul—for thus, he knew must Hell be: a place of lacking, of absence of being.
Then, in his terror, did he cry out in anger, "My God! For Thee did I give my life! Wherefore hast thou doomed me?" Yet no sooner were the words said than he did repent, and cursed himself for a faithless fool, thus to doubt even now in death, that the Christ would uphold him.
And straightway on the heels of that thought, came the shock of insight—for he saw that, if he did die to cheat the Imp of the Perverse, defeating Finagle himself by his very perversity, he must needs expect reversal of expectation—which is to say that, if he died expecting the vistas of Heaven, he would most certainly discover the hollowness of Hell.
