Off Armageddon Reef

by David Weber

  The Chancellor shook his head, his expression pensive, and Dynnys drew a deep, surreptitious breath.

  "Your Grace," he began, "I realize the rumors and accounts of which you've spoken have to be weighed and considered carefully. However, I've made all of Bishop Executor Zherald's and Father Paityr's reports available to the Council. And my own observations on my past pastoral visits have been that—"

  "Erayk." Trynair interrupted him, raising one hand and shaking his head with a slight, crooked smile, and the archbishop paused.

  "No one's accusing you, or Bishop Executor Zherald, of any wrongdoing or inattention to your responsibilities. I've personally read many of your reports, and I've reviewed other sources of information. I trust your intelligence and your attention to the duties of your archbishopric, and I believe your observations have been substantially accurate in the past."

  "Thank you, Your Grace," Dynnys said into the silence as Trynair paused. "I appreciate that."

  "It's no more than your due," Trynair assured him. But then the Chancellor continued gravely. "However, the reports we've been receiving over the past months are different from earlier ones. They appear to be coming from many additional sources, and too many of them agree in form and content."

  "I've fallen somewhat behind in my own correspondence over the past few five-days, Your Grace," Dynnys said slowly, cautiously. "Has there been some additional change in that time period?"

  "To some extent, there has," Trynair confirmed. Dynnys sat up straighter, wincing at the pain of his injudicious movement, and Trynair shook his head quickly. "It's more a matter of volume then changes in content, Erayk," he said. "And, to be fair, I think it's entirely possible the seasonal loss of the semaphore has all of us in the Temple paying more attention to past correspondence than we might otherwise have done. After all," he smiled ruefully, "it's not as if there's a great deal of new correspondence to distract us from our chilblains!"

  Dynnys chuckled dutifully, but his eyes remained serious, and Trynair shrugged.

  "I've also read Father Paityr's reports on all of these new 'innovations' coming out of Charis, as have Vicar Zhaspyr and several other members of the Council. While Father Paityr appears to be comporting himself in his usual conscientious and hardworking fashion, Vicar Zhaspyr isn't entirely satisfied with all of his conclusions."

  Dynnys felt genuine alarm. He tried to keep it from getting as far as his expression, but it was obvious he hadn't completely succeeded in the effort, and he cursed the befuddling effect of the poppy juice.

  "No one is arguing that we have a genuine infraction of the Proscriptions, Erayk," Trynair said soothingly. But any reassuring effect was wiped away by his next words. "Yet, at least. There's some decided concern about where your Charisians may end up if they continue along this road, however."

  "Your Grace, I assure you that as soon as I'm fit to travel, I'll—"

  "Erayk, Erayk!" Trynair shook his head. "No one expects you to leap up out of your sickbed and go galavanting off to Charis through the middle of a Haven winter! As I say, we've seen no evidence that the Proscriptions have already been violated. Our concerns are for the future, and I'm sure there's no need for you to slog off through the snow to deal with them at this time. We would like you to schedule your next pastoral visit for as early in the year as possible, but no one's suggested packing you off to your archbishopric before the ice melts in Hsing-wu's Passage in the spring."

  "Thank you, Your Grace. I . . . appreciate that, and of course I'll arrange to make the journey as soon as practical."

  "Good. In the meantime, however, you need to be aware of how the Council is thinking," Trynair said more gravely. "Just last night, Vicar Zhaspyr, Vicar Rhobair, Vicar Allayn, and I were discussing this very point at an informal little dinner."

  Despite the sitting room's warmth, Dynnys felt the marrow of his bones try to freeze. Zhaspahr Clyntahn was the Grand Inquisitor. Rhobair Duchairn was the Church's Treasurer General, Allayn Magwair was the Church's Captain General, and Trynair himself was the Council's Chancellor. Which meant Trynair's "informal little dinner" had actually been a working session of the Group of Four. All of the Group of Four.

  "The problem, Erayk," Trynair said in that same grave tone, "is that, whether Haarahld of Charis intends it that way or not, his kingdom has the potential to become a serious threat. Whatever Father Paityr may be reporting about their current innovations, the sheer pace of the changes they're introducing is dangerous. We have many reports—not all, admittedly, from impartial sources—that the danger we fear in this regard may well be closer at hand than we'd originally thought. The Writ itself teaches that change begets change, after all, and that it is in times of change that Mother Church must be most watchful.

  "Yet, even leaving that issue aside for the moment, there are other issues, issues which affect the Church's power in the secular world, as well. I realize Mother Church and we who serve her are supposed to be above the concerns of this world, but you know as well as I do that it's necessary, sometimes, for God's Church to have the power to act decisively in this world in order to protect men's souls in the next.

  "Charis has grown too wealthy. Its ships travel too broadly, and its ideas spread too widely. Other nations will be quick to adopt Charisian innovations, if they appear to offer significant advantages. If that happens, then our concerns about the possible destination to which Charis' taste for . . . new things may lead will perforce spread to all of those other nations, as well. And we must not forget Charis' social restiveness. That, too, is being exported aboard its ships. When other kingdoms see the wealth which Charis has attained, it would be strange, indeed, if they weren't tempted to follow in Charis' wake. And, as your own reports have made evident"—Trynair's gaze bored into Dynnys' eyes—"King Haarahld is a stubborn man, as witness his insistence on naming his own man Bishop of Tellesberg. A king whose stubbornness, I fear, makes him altogether too likely to rule himself and his kingdom by his own judgment . . . even if that judgment conflicts with that of Mother Church."

  Silence hovered for endless seconds, broken only by the whine of wind outside the window and the crackle of coal on the hearth.

  "Your Grace," Dynnys said finally, "I thank you for bringing the Council's concerns to my attention. I understand the reasons for them, I believe, but I beg you and the other Vicars not to rush to judgment. Whatever else Charis may be, it's only a single kingdom. Despite the size of its merchant fleet, and its navy, it's basically a small land, with only a small population. Surely any danger it may represent isn't so pressing that we can't dispel it by taking timely action against it."

  "I hope and believe you're right, Erayk," Trynair said, after a moment. "But remember, the Archangel Pasquale teaches us corruption can spread from even a tiny wound, if it isn't properly cleansed and purified. It's not the individual size and strength of Charis that gives us concern. It's what may grow and spread from it in the fullness of time. And, to be frank, from my own perspective, the possibility that the fundamental . . . defiance of Charis' attitude may combine with that of Siddarmark."

  Dynnys had begun to open his mouth once more, but he closed it abruptly. So that was it—for Trynair, at least.

  For the past five decades, the princes of the Church had been increasingly concerned over the republic of Siddarmark's growing power. The Republic dominated the eastern third of the continent of Haven, and while it was less populous than the Harchong Empire, its infantry were a terrifying force on the field of battle. And unlike the Harchongese or Desnairi, the Republic's highest offices were elective, not purely hereditary.

  The Republic was separated from the Temple Lands by the so-called Border States which stretched almost twenty-five hundred miles from Hsing-wu's Passage in the north to the Gulf of Dohlar in the south. At their southern end, the Border States provided a buffer almost thirteen hundred miles across, but in the extreme north, northeast of the Mountains of Light, along the southern edge of Hsing-wu's Passage, the Republic's
provinces of Tarikah and Iceland actually shared a common border with the Temple Lands.

  And the Republic of Siddarmark, unlike the Kingdom of Charis, had the population—and the army—to pose a genuine threat to the Temple Lands' security.

  The likelihood that the Republic would be mad enough to actually challenge Mother Church might not be very great, but it wasn't one the Church's great magnates were prepared to ignore, either. That was one reason Trynair and his predecessors as Chancellor had played the Kingdom of Dohlar and the Desnairian Empire off against the Republic for the past thirty years.

  But if Charis' wealth and naval power were to suddenly find themselves allied with the matchless pikemen of Siddarmark, the counterpoised tensions the Church had arranged in Haven might find themselves abruptly destabilized. And if the Charisian "social restiveness" Trynair had just complained of melded with the Siddarmarkian version of the same thing, the Church might find herself facing the greatest threat to her primacy of her entire history.

  "Your Grace," he said "I understand. These are grave matters, not really suited to open transmission over the semaphore, even if weather permitted it. However, I'll immediately draft new instructions to Bishop Executor Zherald and dispatch them overland by courier. I'll make him aware of your concerns and charge him to be particularly vigilant. And as soon as Hsing-wu's Passage clears in the spring, I'll personally journey to Tellesberg."

  "Good, Erayk. That's good," Trynair said, and smiled as he reached for his chocolate cup once again.

  II

  Tellesberg,

  Kingdom of Charis

  "Hold!"

  Merlin stepped back instantly, lowering his wooden training sword, and cocked his head inquiringly.

  "Yes, Your Highness? Was there a problem?"

  Crown Prince Cayleb took his left hand from his own hilt, reached up, and dragged off his fencing mask. His face was streaked with sweat, and he was breathing more than a little hard as he glowered at "Lieutenant Athrawes."

  "You," he puffed, ". . . don't sweat . . . enough."

  Merlin quirked an eyebrow politely. It was quite visible, since, unlike the prince, he wore neither a mask nor training armor.

  "Sweat," Cayleb told him severely, "is good for you. It opens the pores. Helps get rid of poisons."

  "I appreciate your concern, Your Highness." Merlin inclined his head in a small bow. "But some of us take sufficient care with what we eat that we don't find it necessary to sweat out poisons."

  "Oh, yes," Cayleb snorted. "I've noticed what a picky eater you are!" He shook his head. "You do your share at the table, Merlin."

  "One tries, Your Highness. One tries."

  Cayleb chuckled, and Merlin smiled, although the prince's observation wasn't entirely humorous as far as Merlin was concerned.

  The fact that a PICA was designed to allow its user to savor the taste of food and drink did, in fact, let him hold his own at meals. Unfortunately, a PICA's . . . waste-disposal arrangements would have been more than enough to raise Safeholdian eyebrows, since he didn't have any digestive processes in the usual sense of the word. While the mechanics were essentially identical, what was left after his nannies had scavenged whatever they needed meant Merlin had to be careful to empty any chamber pots himself. It was, perhaps, fortunate that Safehold had developed indoor plumbing, at least in royal palaces.

  Then there was another minor technical difficulty which Cayleb's humorous comment about sweating had put a finger squarely upon. PICAs could "sweat," but it wasn't exactly an ability of which most of their users had ever availed themselves, for fairly obvious reasons. Which meant producing that sweat in appropriate quantity and locations had acquired some finicky adjustments to Merlin's internal programming. And, as Cayleb had noted, he still "sweated" extraordinarily lightly for a flesh-and-blood human being. Fortunately, the fact of his supposed seijinhood and the physical and mental disciplines which attached to it gave him a degree of cover, even at times like this.

  "Actually, Your Highness," he said, "I can't escape the feeling that you're criticizing my sweat level to distract attention from your own."

  "Oh, a low blow, Merlin!" Cayleb laughed and shook his head. "A low blow, indeed."

  "With all due respect, Your Highness," Ahrnahld Falkhan observed from where he stood to one side of the training ground, "Merlin has a point. You do seem just a bit, ah, damper than he does."

  "Because I'm not a seijin, which he, obviously, is," Cayleb pointed out. "I don't see you being willing to stand out here and let him humiliate you, Ahrnahld."

  "Because I'm quite satisfied with the sword techniques I already know, Your Highness," Falkhan replied cheerfully, and this time all three of them chuckled.

  "Well, it really is just a little humiliating," Cayleb said, looking Merlin up and down. Unlike the prince's protective gear, Merlin had stripped to the waist while he instructed Cayleb in the art of kendo.

  He felt just a little bit guilty about that. Cayleb needed every bit of protection against Merlin's occasionally punishing "touches" that he could get, whereas the prince had yet to get a single stroke through Merlin's guard unless Merlin chose to let him do so. Which wasn't really all that surprising, even though he strongly suspected that Cayleb's natural aptitude considerably outclassed that of the flesh-and-blood Nimue Alban. The Crown Prince, however, wasn't up against Nimue; he was up against Merlin Athrawes, whose nervous impulses moved a hundred times faster than his own. Merlin's reaction speed was, quite literally, inhuman, and he took full advantage of it while training Cayleb.

  It wasn't simply to embarrass the prince, either, as Cayleb understood perfectly. Cayleb had expressed an interest in Merlin's fighting style almost the first day after Merlin had been officially assigned as his bodyguard, and Merlin wasn't at all averse to teaching the young man a technique no one else on the entire planet could possibly be familiar with.

  Having agreed to teach him, though, and having produced a "spare" katana for the prince from his baggage (this one made out of regular steel), Merlin had deliberately used a PICA's reactions and strength to put Cayleb up against someone faster and stronger than any possible human opponent. The prince was a highly competitive youngster. He took his complete inability to pierce Merlin's guard as a challenge, not as a discouragement, and training against someone with Merlin's abilities ought to make taking on any mortal opponent seem like a casual stroll through the park.

  Besides, Merlin thought with a mental smile, I'm a seijin. I'm supposed to be better than he is. Just a trace of his inner smile touched his lips as he recalled Pei Kau-yung teaching Nimue Alban the same moves, the same techniques. "When you can snatch the pebble out of my hand, Grasshopper," Kau-yung had said like some ritualistic phrase at the beginning of each bout, then proceeded to whack the holy living daylights out of her.

  Merlin still didn't know where he'd gotten the quotation from. He'd promised to tell Nimue the first time she outpointed him in a formal competition, and that day had never come.

  His smile faded, and he shook his head, looking at Cayleb, remembering Kau-yung and Nimue.

  "If you'd been doing this as long as I have, Grasshopper," he said, "you'd be just as good at it as I am."

  "-'Grasshopper'?" Cayleb repeated, raising both eyebrows. There was a Safeholdian insect analogue called a "grasshopper," although this one was carnivorous and about nine inches long. "Where did that come from?"

  "Ah," Merlin told him. "When you score three unanswered touches in a row, I'll tell you, Your Highness."

  "Oh, you will, will you?" Cayleb glowered at him, and Falkhan laughed.

  "You aren't helping here, Ahrnahld," Cayleb told him, and Falkhan shrugged.

  "I think it's a perfectly reasonable stipulation, Your Highness. Think of it as a . . . motivator."

  "Instead of an insurmountable challenge, you mean?"

  "Oh, I'd never call it that, Your Highness."

  Merlin's smile returned as he watched them. In experiential terms, he wasn't actuall
y all that much older than Falkhan. Nimue Alban had been only twenty-seven standard years old when the Federation mounted Operation Ark, after all. Yet, as he looked at them, he felt far, far older. Perhaps some of the centuries which had trickled past while Nimue's PICA slept had left some sort of subliminal impress upon his molycirc brain?

  "You'd better not call it that," Cayleb told Falkhan ominously, then scrubbed the back of one training gauntlet across his sweaty forehead.

  "If you don't mind, Merlin," he said, "I'm thinking I'd just as soon call it a day. In fact, I'm thinking that since Ahrnahld here is so full of himself this afternoon, we might just try a little game of rugby."

  "Are you sure you want to go there, Your Highness?" Falkhan asked, and Cayleb smiled nastily.