by Chris Walley
On cue, the enormous screen came alive with two lines of text:
We praise you, O God: we acknowledge you to be the Lord.
All the worlds worship you, the Father everlasting.
Luke turned to it. “. . . the Te Deum. And may we sing and play with all that we have.”
With a great clatter of sound, everyone rose, mist eddying around their feet. The silence returned. Then the music director raised her baton and brought it down sharply.
There was a vast crescendo of music as above the organ’s thunder and the awesome rumble of drums, trumpets blazed, horns clamored, and strings and woodwind sang together. And then, just as it seemed the deafening roar of sound could get no louder, every voice sang, “We praise you, O God! We acknowledge you to be the Lord!”
And Merral sang with them, giving all he had to the ancient words, aware of a defiant and exuberant joy cascading into every space in that vast hall. His thoughts were with the words and their meaning, but beyond that he sensed that what he was participating in was more than music—it was a united act of defiance against evil.
Perhaps too, it was more than that. The accounts of those who were there were never in total agreement, but there were many who claimed that at the words “To you, all angels cry aloud: the heavens and all the powers therein; to you, cherubim and seraphim continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy: Lord God of the armies of heaven,” other voices—not of flesh and blood—could be heard singing too. Indeed, there were those who claimed to have seen flames of fire dancing with high-spirited joy among the vast vaulted expanse of the roof.
But what was undeniable—for the whole of Farholme saw it—was that as the congregation sang the words “You are the King of Glory, O Christ” an extraordinary thing happened, so extraordinary that even in the midst of singing with all they had, men and women gasped with joy.
The mist parted and through the great south windows, bathing all in a glorious dazzling golden light, shone the sun.
As soon as he could after the end of the service, Merral broke away from the animated crowds and found the access doorway at the side of the hall. He left Lloyd sitting in a seat nearby and climbed up the long spiral stairway to the service balcony. He felt lighthearted, as if a heavy burden had been lifted off him and he could hardly now remember the gloom he had experienced minutes earlier.
He expected to find no one in the balcony and was not surprised to find that it was empty. He stood there, gazing down at the floor of the hall far below.
Suddenly he knew he was not alone and turned to see, on the very edge of his vision, a tall dark form. He didn’t even bother to try to focus on the figure; he knew it was the envoy and that the effort would be worthless.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Thank him who sent me,” came the reply. Here in this vast echoing chamber the absence of any resonance in the envoy’s voice seemed even more striking.
“You altered the order of service.”
“I make no apology. The enemy loathes praise and joy.”
“What happened?”
“For long centuries, the Lord’s Assembly has been spared the worst attentions of the enemy. But now, in his wisdom, the Highest has lifted his hand of protection and for an allotted time, the enemy is unchained. From now on the power of the enemy will be felt both here and across the Assembly. Today, the great serpent chose to move against you. He saw an opportunity to crush your spirits, but in his haste and hate, he overstepped the bounds set for him by the Most High. And, as he breached such limits, I was allowed to intervene. I can only do what is permitted.”
“The enemy is affecting the rest of the Assembly?”
“From now on, yes. Those who have so far only known the summer of God’s grace must now stand and face the bitter winds of winter. They will feel the enemy’s hatred and power in many ways.”
“But why?”
“Why?” There was a sting of rebuke in the word. “All must be tested. That is why. And your duty, Man, lies not in guessing your Lord’s purposes but in doing his will. Now listen.” Here his voice seemed gentler. “For the appointed time, the enemy is moving against the Assembly. He finds much that will serve him: wind and mist, sea and air, bird and beast, and increasingly, men and women. Yet even now, his authority is limited.”
“I see. What would have happened if you had not intervened?”
“You would have been defeated before war came. Remember, the enemy doesn’t seek to destroy you utterly.”
“I thought he did.”
“No, he prefers your corruption. He seeks to win men and women to himself, to have them yield to his power and will. His goal is the entire Assembly turned to his ends and the creation of a dark empire whose emblem would not be the Slain Lamb among the Stars but the serpent triumphant over them. Now, return to your work. I have already been sent to counsel you to watch, stand firm, and hope. I now add to it a new command: fight.”
“Thank you.” Seeing that the envoy was about to leave, he asked on impulse, “Do you like music?” As the words came out, he marveled at his folly.
“Do I like music?” For the first time, Merral sensed bemusement in the envoy’s tone. There was a pause. “Yes.”
Merral turned to the figure, seeing the vague, out-of-focus image of a long black coat and a head half hidden under a strange black broad-brimmed hat. Yet somehow in the face Merral sensed delight. “Where I come from,” the envoy said in his bloodless voice, “there is always music and joy, as you know.”
“So we read,” Merral said, his heart seized with a wild longing.
“Indeed and it is so. And, remember this: in eternity, neither music, nor joy, nor anything else of worth can exist outside the presence of the Most High. That is the awesome choice that all of your race must make: whether to sing the music of the Lord that will never end or to scream in the clamor that can never be silenced.”
A gloved hand rose to the brim of the hat as if in a salute; then, in a silent moment, reality seemed to flicker and the figure was gone.
Merral descended the stairs in high spirits. He opened the door at the bottom and found Delastro waiting for him, with an irritated tilt to his head.
“Commander, what were you doing up there?”
Merral sighed. “I met with the envoy. I saw him there. He organized everything.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Merral saw Lloyd lean forward, his posture perhaps suggestive of a man in prayer, but his sharp blue eyes watched Delastro.
“I see. And you had nothing to do with what happened? Nothing?” There was barely suppressed exasperation in Delastro’s voice.
“You credit me with too much power, Prebendant.”
“I saw you order Tenerelt over to the platform.”
“Someone had to take charge.”
Merral sensed a strange expression on the prebendant’s face. Of course. He feels that task should have fallen to him.
“And what did this envoy say about what happened?”
“That the enemy tried to crush us, but overstepped the limits set for him.”
“And did you try and bind this envoy of our Lord? bind him to your will?”
“Bind him?”
“Order him to aid us by the Lamb, by the shed blood, by the eternal covenant.”
“I’m not at all sure that would have been a good idea.” Merral paused, and vaguely aware that his euphoria made him reckless, smiled. “But I did ask him about music.”
The prebendant gave an impatient tap on the ground with his staff. “Commander, your attitude borders on folly.”
“I’m sorry. My question to the envoy was an innocent one.”
As the dry colorless face turned toward him, Merral read anger in the eyes. “If it was all so innocent, then why did you lock this door?”
Merral quickly swung the door open. “You must be mistaken. There is no lock.”
As the prebendant bent to peer at the door, Merral made a hasty apology and began to leave.
&n
bsp; “Commander,” Delastro called after him, “beware that you are not out of your depth.”
We all are out of our depth. But he said nothing.
As he walked through the lofty doors to the sunlit plaza where the crowds mingled, he was aware of a large form striding beside him. “So, Lloyd, did the prebendant try the door?”
“Funny that, sir. He did, several times. But it wouldn’t open.”
“And if he had opened it and gone up, what would you have done?”
“I’d have followed and taken any appropriate action. I have orders to protect you.”
“You are no respecter of persons, are you, Sergeant?”
There was a pause. “It’s my job, sir. That takes priority.”
“But he’s a leader of a congregation—a cleric.”
Lloyd shrugged. “Sir, as I’ve said before, this is getting to be one very strange world.”
12
On Ancient Earth shortly afterward, Chairman Ethan Malunal met once more with Eliza Majweske and Andreas Hmong, this time in the southern part of the land that had once been known as France not far from the ancient city of Avignon.
They sat around a plain table of time-darkened oak in a small, bare, and ancient stonewalled room. It was midafternoon on a blazing hot summer’s day and rather than have the air conditioning on, Ethan had thrown open the shuttered windows and the door to the balcony.
Through the open doorway Ethan could see red-tiled roofs, the heavy silver coils of the Rhône, and beyond them both the dusty green roughness of the vineyards on the slopes beyond the river.
Despite the open shutters, the room was still warm. But there was a heaviness in the air that seemed to lower his spirits.
Over a long lunch and coffee they discussed the state of the Assembly’s preparations for war. Nearly two months had passed since the Assembly had been put on a war footing, Although it had taken weeks for the vast manufacturing potential of the Assembly to switch to military demands, it had now done so. On a thousand worlds weapons were in production and ships of war were assembled in a dozen orbiting factories. Across the vast height and breadth of the Assembly the recruitment and training of armies were under way. Encouragement for the new military programs had been given by the preliminary—and still unofficial—results of the deep space observation satellite at Bannermene that had identified a cluster of apparently modified and industrialized worlds far beyond Farholme.
Finally, Ethan steered them to the matter that most troubled him. He tapped the thin red-covered booklet before him. “You’ve read this?”
Andreas and Eliza looked at each other, and then nodded. “Were you surprised, Eeth?” Eliza asked.
Ethan saw sympathy in her rich brown eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I am bemused and alarmed by this development. We have a common enemy and a common crisis. I had assumed that we would all pull together.” He gestured at the document. “But now, on world after world, we find some form of dissent.”
He opened the booklet and began reading aloud. “‘With this strategy of the Stewards we don’t need intruders to destroy us—we will do it ourselves.’ Another quote: ‘We do not know whether the new weapons will destroy the enemy, but we do know that they have destroyed our dreams.’ And still another: ‘We gave all we had to build worlds; we now find we must throw away all we have in the name of defense.’” He put the booklet down, took a sip of water, and waited for comments.
“Have a sense of perspective, Eeth. These are a handful of voices in a trillion.”
“Perhaps. But they hurt, Eliza. . . . Andreas, what do you think?”
The senior elder of the Custodians of the Faith ran his fingers through his beard and frowned. “Well, it is rare for me to dissent from Eliza’s judgment, but I do so here. Friend Ethan, these voices, these samples, are a sign of something. And although few, they are growing. It is naive to believe that stress automatically brings people together. It can also push them apart.” He paused and his green eyes seem to focus on the distance. He shook his head. “No, you are right to be worried.”
From outside the room, Ethan heard the manic screams of the swifts as they darted above the roofs. For a moment he envied their ignorance and freedom. “Please continue, Andreas,” he said.
“Very well. At the moment, these voices you quote are merely a nuisance. No one actively opposes what we are doing in creating ships and armies. Yet there is concern among the Custodians of the Faith.”
“In what way?”
“They feel it is a sign that evil is once more among us in power. Didn’t the message we were sent speak of ‘a corrupting spiritual evil’? And isn’t this what we are seeing? Today we see dissent. But will not tomorrow bring disagreement? And will not the day after division?”
Eliza nodded, looking unhappy.
“I see it within the Custodians of the Faith,” Andreas continued. “We are all drifting apart. We were a convoy of ships sailing together; now we are vessels that go in different directions. There are new views and antagonistic views, but there is no certainty and no direction. And underneath it all is a tension, even a bitterness, that there never was before. And, Friend Ethan, it grows.” He flicked through the booklet. “There is a warning here for us.”
“Perhaps so,” murmured Eliza.
“So, Andreas, what do you suggest I do about it? We can’t stop people saying these things.”
Andreas tilted his head. “No, but we should create an environment where such things aren’t said.”
“How?”
“I think this sort of dissent reflects the confusion of the moment. People are pulling in different directions.”
“There is something in that, Andreas,” Eliza said. “But please, what should Ethan do about it?”
Andreas bit his lip. “This may sound a criticism, but I need to say it. Ethan, we need strong, affirmative leadership. Our people need direction.”
“So, you want me to be a stronger leader?”
“You need to steer a course. You need to challenge the critics to support you or stay silent. Point out the issues at stake. Remind them that we are in a spiritual battle for the very heart and soul of the Assembly. They must submit to authority.”
“But Andreas, that’s not my style.”
Andreas’s shrug suggested irritation. “Ethan, let me urge you to make it your style. You’re too gentle, too much of a committeeman.”
“Also, there is the constitution. I am merely a chairman. And these people—” Ethan tapped the booklet—“have a right to speak.”
Andreas shook his head vigorously. “The chair’s role is flexible. In a crisis the constitution allows for emergency actions.”
Ethan made no answer, but instead stared out beyond the balcony, wrestling with his thoughts. “No,” he said, his voice ringing with determination. “I will lead as chairman, not as anything else. And I will let there be dissent.”
Andreas shook his head again. “Ethan, old friend, consider the matter again soon. Swift action may head these matters off, but any delay . . .” He let the words hang menacingly in the air.
Somewhere a bell chimed. Andreas gave a start, checked the time, and then with an apology and an explanation that he had another meeting, he quickly left.
After the door closed behind him, there was a long silence.
Ethan walked across the warm stone floor to the balcony and watched as Andreas strode away energetically down the shadowed canyons of the streets.
“Is he right?” he asked when Eliza joined him at the balcony.
“He may be, Eeth. Or at least he has a point, even if he is too blunt.” She sighed. “We have seen and heard what he reports. There is an unprecedented turbulence in Assembly society. And I, too, worry about the leadership issue.”
“But I don’t wish to be a leader in that sense.”
“I know. But I have a greater concern.”
“Which is?”
“The lack of harmony between the three of us. I worry that we are a mirror
of the Assembly.” Her voice held immeasurable sadness.
Ethan stared out across the shimmering landscape. “Eliza, if we are, then we are in the very deepest of troubles.”
A hundred light-years away from Farholme, Fleet-Commander Lezaroth rubbed his eyes and stared wearily at the shapeless gray thing like a dirty cloth that was sliding across the command console of the Triumph of Sarata. Another ghost slug. He used a pen to flick it into a vacuum bin. We’ve never had so many of them on a trip.
Lezaroth glanced around the bridge, seeing the all-gray world of a ship in the Nether-Realms. The screens, the seats, the decking, even Hanax’s red hair all were a colorless gray.
He gazed at the man foisted on him as his second-in-command. Hanax, a mere twenty-eight, his face still unlined, slumped in his seat staring at the screen ahead of him.
I hate him. The thought was a matter of routine.
More extra-physical phenomena soon caught his attention. A ghostly tendril snaked disrespectfully around the lord-emperor’s image while a blob like a large jellyfish slithered across the floor between the vacant weapons officer’s couch and the shrine to Hatathaz-Thal, the god of dangerous travel.
The lord-emperor had—of course—been right. The baziliarch, even while dormant, had deterred the really nasty and more striking extra-physical manifestations of deep Nether-Realms flight. There had been nothing like the giant man-sized crab forms or the twisted human corpses that Lezaroth had seen on other trips. Instead though, there had been a vast number of the smaller creatures such as those that were currently present on the bridge. Lezaroth knew that these creatures, the lower forms of the largely uncatalogued and mostly appalling beings that dwelt in the Nether-Realms, were merely nuisances. But the baziliarch’s presence had caused another and more serious problem.
There had been psychological disturbances, the worst that Lezaroth, or any of the human crew, had ever known. The most drastic effect was that proper sleep had become almost impossible. Whenever you lay down and drifted toward sleep, you always sensed a dread, clawed something ready to slip into your mind—something that, if you managed to glimpse its form, had great black wings and huge, yellow iridescent eyes. And when you felt that circling hungrily on the edge of your mind, you fought to stay awake.
