Turner Chronicles

Crusade

By Mark Eller





Chapter 1



Amanda groaned. She lay belly down naked upon the padded table. Experienced hands pressed into her flesh, kneading and manipulating muscles that seemed perpetually sore despite that fact that she never physically did anything. She was not a physical person, for the God’s Sake. The most strenuous thing she did all day was to walk between appointments and carry the occasional folder.

Hell, she seldom did even that much anymore. For the most part, she had more than enough lackeys who were willing to lift any burden that she pointed at. They were so willing that they went out of their way to jump in and do anything they thought might, by some remote and unforeseen chance, be a burden to her. She seldom had to do more than lift her own pages and move her own pencil on any given day.

It was a situation, she admitted, that she enjoyed. In only a few short years she had risen from a poor farm girl into someone that the heads of governments wanted to court. Her star had risen. She was so rich that she now had an office of accountants who did nothing but deal with her personal finances.

Her power had been built upon the shoulders of Aaron Turner. Indeed, his interests still accounted for the majority of her work, but she was proud of the fact that her many firms now dealt in many other facets of the business world other than those things that dealt with Aaron. She now had more than two hundred firms of various sizes in more than fifty countries. She had turned hundreds of normal people into millionaires. Heidi Bronson, who had once been her secretary, was the Chair of one entire division of Amanda’s law firms. From a near destitute, her fortunes had risen until she was worth tens of millions of golds.

Amanda smiled, thinking back on the times when working for her had not been a winning situation. More than a few lawyers and accountants and secretaries now wished they had climbed on the wagon. Those who had hired on and then quit were most likely gnashing their teeth with envy.

Well fie on them. They had their chance. It wasn’t her fault that they flubbed it.

She groaned with pained relief as skilled thumbs worked out a knot in the small of her back.

“It’s the stress,” Karen Dandledge, her lover, said reasonably. Also undressed, she lay upon a massage table next to Amanda‘s. “Personally, I think you need to take a vacation so you can learn to relax again.”

Amanda smiled on the older woman, feeling warm and secure and wondering how she could ever have become so lucky. Karen was not beautiful. She was an academic over fifty and her body showed it. Her body was loose and fleshed, sagging in every place time insisted it should sag. She had rolls in her belly. It had been a very long time since her breasts could have been called pert and the hair over her heavy features was streaked with gray. If Karen did not pay strict attention to her growing double chin it was very likely to grow a few gray whiskers of its own.

None of that mattered to Amanda because there was one thing true about Karen Dandledge that was not true of any other not related to Amanda by blood. Karen Dandledge loved Amanda with every fiber of her being. Karen loved totally and when Amanda saw that love shining from Karen’s face everything and everyone else disappeared from her world because Amanda loved the other woman just as much.

Karen, Amanda reflected as she looked upon the woman now, was a woman of substance. A poorly paid Professor at the N’Ark University, Karen had one of the finest minds Amanda had ever encountered. Amanda knew herself to be an unusually bright woman, but the strength of her intellect paled beside that of the woman she loved. Karen gloried in the use of her mind and in the development of those minds that came to her for instruction. She was a woman complete within herself, a woman of character and loyalty and strength. A simple example of her character, Amanda thought, was the fact that, despite her intimate association with someone who was gloriously wealthy, Karen Dandledge had very little life savings of her own. She lived on her stingy University salary while refusing any offers of gifts or money that Amanda held out.

Karen had pride within herself and she was not a user.

“Hold still.” Donna, the masseuse, had her thumbs buried knuckle deep into Amanda’s back.

“Holding,” Amanda said obediently. Donna was another who was not impressed by money or position. She was one of the best in her profession, knew it, and so felt no need to toady up to those who were her supposed social superiors. Amanda appreciated the woman’s attitude. She was surrounded by too many “yes” people during her business day. The last thing she wanted was to bring any of those people into her home.

“Karen is right,” Donna said in her almost mannishly gruff voice as she re-oiled her hands and shifted them to Amanda’s upper back once again. “You are too tense. I do all that I can but it’s never enough. Every day you are as bad, or worse, than the day before. You need time away from your duties, time to enjoy yourself.”

“But I love what I’m doing,” Amanda protested. The massage was now more sensual than painful. This was Donna’s fifth visit to her upper back so its muscles were very much loose.

“Love it or not,” Donna said, “it’s a job and its stress will make you old before your time if you don’t take an occasional break from its demands. You need a vacation, one that lasts for longer than a week.” Her hands gave one final rub before they lifted from Amanda’s body. “Roll over.”

Amanda obediently shifted her body until she lay on her back. The air felt delightfully cool against her front and she wanted to arch teasingly for Karen, but Bob, Karen’s masseuse, was working to ease the strained thigh muscles around a poorly set once broken leg. The discomfort of the experience had forced Karen’s eyes closed.

“A woman is trying to find you,” Donna said as she carefully adjusted Amanda’s body to exactly the right position, loose with her arms straight by her side. “She gave up on trying to reach you in person so she gave her message to me. I put her letter on the table.”

“How many does that make?” Amanda asked carefully as Donna moved to stand at the head of the massage table.

“Six this week,” Donna said. “Bob was approached by only two. I never bothered to give you the message from most of them. Loosen your neck.”

“I’ve been unavailable,” Bob protested. “I was at my cousin’s funeral.

“Admit it,” Donna demanded. “They just like me more than they like you.”

Bob’s sudden grin was almost infectious. “That’s not hard to admit. I certainly like you.”

“You better more than like me, buster. You married me.”

“I don’t recall you leaving me much choice in the matter.”

Donna carefully lifted and manipulated Amanda’s head for a brief moment. “Remain loose,” she ordered and then Amanda’s head was given a sudden twist that strained her neck. A loud cracking sound reverberated through her vertebrae and up into her skull.

“That was a good one. Once more.”

This time her effort was answered by just a few faint cracklings. That was fine by Amanda. That first one had not hurt but it had certainly been disconcerting.

“Are you complaining?” Donna asked curiously.

Bob gave Karen’s thigh one last rub down and shook his head no. “Finished, Miss Dandledge. You might as well get dressed. No, Hon, I ain’t complaining. Hasn’t been anything but pure bliss since you latched onto me.”

“He’s such a good man,” Donna said approvingly to the air. “So well trained.”

“Woof,” Bob answered. “Do you want me to roll over?”

“Later dear. I have to crack Miss Bivin’s back first. So Amanda, darling, I’ll make you a deal. If you tell me what particular stock purchase you prefer right now I’ll tell you where some of my vacation spots are.”

Without being asked, Amanda rolled onto her side and threw one arm behind her back. She had been through this too many times before. It was a sad thing to know the state of disrepair her body had reached in only thirty nine years.

“There are plans in motion to open a series of plants that will be making something called a battery,” Amanda said as her body was carefully adjusted. “I think you will get a good return if you invest in that. You can forget about the vacation though. I have a son who is not yet three. I’m not going anywhere with him.”

“Then it’s settled,” Karen said airily. “Semester is ending in another week so I’ll be at loose ends until the fall. You can take your vacation and young Mr. Chase Bivins can stay with me.”

“But I don’t know that I can safely get away.”

“Why not,” Karen demanded. “The Balandice problem has been taken care of for more than a year and the others are all well in hand.”

“I’ll think about it,” Amanda promised, knowing she had already dismissed the idea. The Bivin’s Group could not afford to have her leave its helm unattended. There was only one person in her entire organization who was truly indispensable and that person was her. Besides, some aspects of her revenge against the Hargraves and the other power names who had tried to ruin her and Aaron early in their union was not yet complete. She really hated the thought of not being here when the last of them realized that all their influence and power had washed down the drain.





Poing Thunk Thud Poing Thunk

Panting, he bent over the pain in his stomach, his arm hanging heavy at his side, his grip tight against the racquet handle. The small blue ball rolled tauntingly past him, daring him to straighten up and go after it one more time.

“Age catching up to you, Mr. Crowley?” he was asked mockingly. “I remember a time when you could run circles around me on a court.”

“I remember a time when you didn’t know which end of a racquet to hang onto,” he panted. “Age ain’t go nothing to do with it, don’t ya know. Just you wait, woman. As soon as I can pick myself up off this floor, I’ll have my way with you for the rest of the day.”

Her guffaw echoed off the court’s walls. “Promises, promises. Your only problem is that you spend too much time behind a desk and not enough in the field. Get up, sir, and prepare to do battle. The score stands at thirteen six.”

Armand slowly straightened, wishing he had not taken that water break after all. The cold water had combined with his exhausted body to create an ache in his belly that was not willing to go away. If he were dedicated enough he could probably continue manfully on with the game for the next few points. He would lose, naturally, but nothing about that would be different from the norm. These days, he always lost. He was outclassed and he was not afraid to admit it. He wasn’t ashamed about it, either. A man liked to be proud of his wife. He might have the size and the brawn but she was no slouch when it came to speed and agility and endurance.

“The score,” he said, “ends at thirteen six an’ Faith, there’s more places I can have my way with you than on the court.”

“Purr,” she said playfully. “Why don’t you come closer then. I have my claws out.”

Armand winced involuntarily because Faith really did have claws. Her fingernails were artificially long and red and they were very tough as well as being sharpened along their edge. Though now a Major in IFBIS, Faith Crowley had not relaxed her discipline. A person never knew, she said, when she might need to go back out in the field. The fact that neither of them had risen from their desks to do more than visit the restroom for the last three years did not mean that she was not ready to return to the field at a moment’s notice.

She missed the work, the adrenaline, Armand knew. Truth be told, he missed some of it too. Mind you, there were some parts of field work that he was quite happy to have put aside. He was more than pleased that it had been over five years since somebody had punched him in the nose. The not having sharp pointy objects stuck through his skin part was okay too. Still and all, he did miss seeing the looks on peoples faces when it finally dawned on them that they were not quite so intelligent or so sly as they thought. It had sometimes seemed like every criminal out there thought that they were the mastermind of some great and all encompassing secret of lawbreaking that only they were aware of, when the truth of the matter was that very few of them ever came up with something the agents of IFBIS had not seen two dozen times before.

Well those days were done. She was now a Major, a rank too high for her to ever work in the field again, even if she was only forty, and he, five years her senior, was now a paper pushing analyst for the Isabellan Intelligence Agency, otherwise known as the IIA.

“Too tired to tussle,” he told her, playfully wincing back from her outstretched claws. “I’m an old man. I just plumb done run out of energy.” He headed for the door that would take him off the court. “You coming?”

Faith tossed her head, flinging her long hair over her left shoulder. Armand was glad to see that she was not exactly fresh herself. Her hair was damp from perspiration and so was her face. They stood several feet apart, but even so, love her as he did, he had to admit she was more than a little whiff. She cocked her head slightly to the side and studied him with eyes that had suddenly gone soft.

“I don’t think so, Dear One. I’m not burned out yet. I’ll run through a few drills while you take your leisure.”

“It’s unfair to practice.”

“I know. Now run along.”

He was beaten and run ignominiously from the field of battle but Armand did not mind in the least because she gave him a kiss as he left. A kiss from his wife, Armand reflected, was worth any kind of beating she chose to give him.

“Is the court free?”

The woman suddenly standing in front of him eyed him with sympathy. She had longishly brown hair and doe-like sultry brown eyed. She was perky and energetic and probably on the sunny side of thirty. Good health and vigor seemed to ooze from her pores. If he wasn’t such a fair minded sort of man Armand would have been tempted to dislike her on sight because she was young and, at this moment, he felt very old.

Then again, he noticed with malicious delight, she was dressed to play and she did have a racquet gripped in her right hand.

He gave her his most winning smile and a wink. “Lovely gal,” he said in his most flirtatious voice, “there’s a lady on the court who isn’t likely to leave anytime soon. However, I think she will be more than willing to take you on for a game or two if I ask her nicely.”

She eyed him dubiously. “Are you sure or are you just looking for an excuse to flirt?”

“Am I flirting?”

“Terribly so,” she answered.

“I suppose I am and I do,” Armand admitted, “though you are the first to bring me up on it and I looked to see if you wore a ring first. Well, tell you what, the woman inside there is my one and only wife. Why don’t I tell her you want to play her a game or two and then you can both have a good time complaining about me.”

The brown haired woman idly tapped her racquet against her leg. “Does she mind your flirting?

“Nope. Fact is, she hopes it pays off and I hook myself up with a second wife. Been married for close to thirteen years now and my refusing to find somebody else is irking her something terrible cause she’s been looking for an excuse to just plain murder me for the last several years. You should see the life insurance she’s piled up on my head. I tell you, I’ve been treading careful, that I have.”

“She sounds like a formidable person.”

“That she is,” Armand Crowley said knowingly. “Very formidable, like a she bear with cubs. She’s the only woman I’ve met who knows what jealousy over a man is. I‘ve tried to run away from her but the woman is too fast. She just wears me out and then drags me back.”

“Well then, maybe you had best allow me in there? It might just happen that I can tire her. You might be able to make your escape tonight.” Her voice was low and filled with wry amusement. Her eyes almost twinkled.

And Armand could feel his eyes twinkling back. Damn that Faith Crowley and damn her again. Maybe this once he could get back at her just a little bit.

“Would you do that for me?” he asked.

“Of course,” she answered. “It’s a woman’s job to protect the men around us.

Armand felt his smile grow larger. He helpfully reached for the handle on the court’s door. “Enjoy.”



Having nothing better to do, Armand spent a few minutes walking around the indoor track while half a dozen others lapped him time and again. The look of sly amusement several joggers gave him as they effortlessly breezed past brought a slight flush to his cheeks and gave him ideas of speeding up his own pace so he could show the young sprats what a real workout looked like.

Sound judgment soon washed those ideas out of his head. His legs were shaky and fatigue filled from three hours of racquetball. It was doubtful he could maintain even a light jog for more than a third of a mile, and it was positive that he would be unable to maintain the same pace of any of the other runners even if he were fresh. He was a middle aged desk jockey while their young bodies contained more energy than human flesh should hold. Besides, even in his youth he had never been able to run much. His was a body that could easily pack on muscle but, for some reason beyond his understanding, he could never train himself to run further than a mile.

So, though he could not run with the young pups, he could show them they had a ways to go in other areas. He had joined this club on Felicity Stromburg’s recommendation because she said that this place boasted one of the better weightlifting workout areas in the entire area.

An hour later he wearily set down a set of free weights when he saw his wife peer through the weight room door before she wearily made her way toward him. He was wringing sweat and just plain tuckered but he had to smile at the sight of her because she looked like what the cat drug in and the owner threw out. The woman looked like a rag.

“Hope you’re satisfied.” Her voice was quiet and low, almost lifeless.

“Did you win?”

“The first two points. I used to think I was good. The young lady tells me you flirted with her.”

Armand smiled and studied the aqua green painted cinderblock wall in front of him. He noted that the paint was chipped away in a few areas, showing that the wall had once been painted red.

“Armand.”

“I might have flirted with her a little bit,” he finally admitted.

“You flirt with every unmarried female a little bit,” Faith said archly, “but seldom so openly that they feel the need to make note of it. So why her?”

Armand thought about her question, mulling it over. Something about the woman had captured his attention. A certain quality had drawn his eye. She was not beautiful. Common pretty would have been his kindest description. She was trim but not skinny and there was nothing about her figure that most other women did not have. Still...he had noticed a quality in her eyes that spoke of steadfastness and resolve and there was something about the cast of her features...

Faith bent to pick his workout towel from off the floor. They were alone in the smaller free weight room so Armand used the opportunity stare down the open v-neck of her shirt. He didn’t see much since she wore a bra but a man had to stay in practice.

“Letch.” She wiped the moisture from her face while simultaneously mock glaring at him.

“Always.”

“Personally,” Faith added, “I think there is something familiar about the woman.” She tossed him the towel. He used it to wipe his sweaty face. Armand thought about moving back to the bench press to impress his wife with his rippling muscles...then dismissed the idea. Faith was more likely to laugh at his vanity than admire.

Faith had a point. Something about the brown haired woman had seemed familiar.

“I don’t think I’ve met her personally,” Faith said. “I might have seen her composite or I might know one of her family.”

“Does it matter.”

“I’m just curious, is all. I think I would like to know just who Brenda Montpass really is. I would also like to know why she looked us up so she could ask me if I knew where Aaron Turner is.”

Armand stilled. He turned his entire attention toward his wife.

“Everyone who has read the papers knows where Turner is. He’s the bloody Emperor of Chin, for the Gods sake.”

“But its been a while since anything has mentioned that Emperor Turner just happens to have come from N’Ark. There are a lot of Turners in the world, you know.”

“True,” Armand said slowly. “Still, the fact that our Mister Turner is that Mr. Turner was pretty well covered by the papers for a year or so, up until they got tired of printing his name.”

Faith’s eyes were hard, captured by an idea or suspicion her detective’s mind refused to release.

“I am well aware of that,” she said in a dangerously even voice. “I find myself wondering why our Miss Montpass is not.”



Armand sighed wearily, rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. Every passing year made him wonder more and more if it might be time to get glasses. His public persona insisted his eyesight was every bit as acute as it had been twenty years earlier, but his private experience forced him to admit he just might need a little help every now and again.

He looked out his window, taking in the N’Ark skyline, enjoying the sensation of living in one of the fastest growing cities in the world. By no means did N’Ark rival many of the other great cities of the world. It did not have the sweeping history, the statuary and the graceful columns of Parsee. N’Ark lacked the sheer size of Constanpolis and it had nothing to rival the pure elegance of the canalled, age old mercantile city of Vinnie with its gondolier propelled boats and its aging yet magnificent warehouses and homes that had belonged to the Merchant Kings of old.

No, N’Ark had none of those things because it was a new city, a practical and energetic one. N’Ark was filled with life and new hope. It was not the home to which he had been born but it was certainly the one he had grown to love. It had given him a career and a wife and challenges that had taxed his mind and his body.

He looked upon the panorama and he was glad to see that the skyline, covered with buildings ten stories tall, was sharp and clear. It was good to know that he had no difficulty seeing things out there. Unfortunately, the ability to see things that were far off was a skill he no longer had any use for. What he needed now was the ability to read the damn reports that kept piling up on his desk. His vision had reached the point where he constantly felt the need to adjust the distance between his nose and the paper. He could live with that, though. The real difficulty was constant headaches and burning eyes.

I, Armand Crowley admitted to himself, really do need glasses. Unfortunately, nothing was more pathetic than a balding, middle-aged man wearing glasses. Faith would never stop laughing.

A light knock at his open door interrupted his train of thought. He swung his chair around. His boss, Tap Angowski, leaned against the doorframe, watching him curiously.

“Another headache?” she asked as she straightened up and strode into his office. The ankle length old-fashioned dress she wore curled around her ankles as she walked. She wore her hair in a tight bun, giving her a severe appearance because she refrained from earrings or lipstick or any other type of personal adornment that might soften her contours and make her look approachable. For a woman barely into her fifties, Tap looked sixty five, but her emotionless blue eyes said she was tougher than an old bullwhip.

Armand held up his hand, thumb and finger spread about a quarter inch apart. “That big,” he said.

She nodded and sat in his spare chair. Armand once again found it interesting how she could sit in his “submissive” chair, and still dominate the space around her. She had a presence he would have been more than happy to acquire. Not that he was any wallflower. It was just that Tap’s aura was so all inclusive that it drowned out the influence of everybody else.

“Personally,” she said, “I think you spend too much time in the office. You should get out more, live in the open air and maybe take in a sea breeze. You were never a man for such cramped quarters.”

Armand raised one eyelid and wondered exactly where she was going.

“This happens to be my job. I seem to recall you giving it to me.”

She nodded. “Forty-five though you look older. Half bald and eyes that usually appear slightly unfocused. Not really tall and certainly not short. You have a more than adequate supply of muscles and agility, but most of that is buried beneath the excess flesh you have allowed to build up during these last five years. All in all, Mr. Crowley, you present the perfect picture of a lackluster private citizen.”

There was a slight smile about her mouth but her eyes were nothing but serious. If it were not for the fact that he knew he was one of her best analysts, Armand would have worried about the longevity of his job. Instead, he waited for her to continue.

“You will do perfectly,” she continued, “though I have to admit that I’m not so happy with your wife. She is far too pretty and her appearance is far too athletic for my peace of mind. Loose clothing and a pair of fake glasses might help. Yes, I think you will do.” She paused, looking thoughtful for a moment while her eyes continued to calmly study him. “I suppose I should find out if Mrs. Crowley is willing to take a temporary leave of absence from her job...and if her department is willing to release her.”

“Maybe you should tell me what you are considering.” Armand was glad to hear not once trace of emotion in his voice. Gratifying. since his heart had suddenly started thundering. It sounded like she was thinking of putting him out in the field again! Gods, he was more than ready to get out from behind this desk.

She reached into a loose pocket sewn into her flower patterned dress, pulling out a pamphlet. She tossed it to him. “These have been showing up all over. They have had almost no effect at all. People who read them tend to instantly classify it as propagandist trash.”

Armand looked at the pamphlet carefully. There was a picture of an evening sun dressed in its hues of orange and reds bursting apart on the front cover. Knowing his boss, he opened the pamphlet up and read the diatribe that was printed inside. The printing was small with a fancy sort of font so he was forced to push it farther from his nose before his eyes could focus on the letters. He read all four pages before he set it down and leaned back in his seat. Tap waited patiently while he thought.

“It seems to me,” he finally said, “that somebody out there does not like seeing the fracturing of their religious doctrine, which is surprising because I have seen very little sign of any doctrine being fractured. As best I am aware, the One God cult is still very small. For the most part, only the fringes of society, the Clans, and a few pseudo intellectuals are paying it much attention.” He carefully refrained from mentioning his own leanings. He was no One God freak but he had seen a few things in his time that had made him reorganize his own faith not so very long before Faith had said “I do.” That time was far in the past and many of those events had been delegated into the back of his mental filing cabinet, but they had happened and he was not entirely able to forget them.

“It’s gained attention from a few more people than that,” Tap said wryly. “Still and all, you are mostly correct. The cult of the One God has made very little progress anywhere in the world. As far as we know, outside of the Clans, it only has one priestess and she hasn’t been heard of for years. No, I’m not concerned with the cult, nor even with these pathetic pamphlets. The thing that worries me is the man behind these pamphlets. He might not be able to write well but he seems to be a very good speaker. He is gathering a personal following that grows larger with every personal appearance he gives. Our sources say he has even gained the ear of a few Heads of State. He seems to be building a coalition in opposition to any mention or official recognition of The One God.”

“Why haven’t I heard anything about this?” Armand demanded. “Nothing has been in the papers.”

“Because he does not actually operate in Isabella. He is based overseas, mostly staying around Halimut and Nefra when he isn’t out persuading other people to his point of view.”

“So how does this concern Isabella?”

Tap’s frown was thin and unhappy. “Because Isabella’s future is still very dependant on Aaron Turner, and because the Chins have no formally recognized universal religion. The Chins are beginning to lean heavily toward The One God. This man has declared Aaron Turner and his Empire to be anathema. He is calling on all true believers in the Lord and His Lady to fall upon the Empire and destroy it totally. I want you and Faith to pose as a married couple. I want you to join this man’s cause, to infiltrate his inner circle and to discover exactly what his true goals are.”

“No problem,” Armand told her. He kept his expression noncommittal but his insides quivered with anticipation. Faith would leap at this chance. The task would not be tedious and would most likely be dangerous.

By the One God, he wanted it. He needed a challenge and, more importantly, he needed to discover who was trying to tear down not only his God, but also his friend.

Tap waited patiently, but there was no need for her to do so. She already knew his answer.

“I’ve arranged working passage for the two of you on a ship,” she said.

Armand was not surprised. Have you ever heard of a woman named Brenda Montpass?”

Tap Angowski’s frown grew deeper, cutting new lines into her already seamed face. Her eyes grew distant for a moment before they focused on him once more. She rose to her feet and headed toward the door, pausing when she reached its opening, tuning her head so it faced him.

“The name is familiar. I can’t tell you anything more. Mr. Crowley, I think you better look into getting glasses for yourself and your wife.”

“They will make me harmless,” he admitted.

Tap shook her head. “Not that. I watched you read that pamphlet. You’re blind as a bat, Mr. Crowley. Get some glasses. They will help rid you of those headaches.”



Faith was two hour late getting home. Armand was not unduly concerned. Neither of them ever kept strictly to schedule. Still, he was impatient to tell her they had a mission if she could pull free of IFBIS. He really needed fieldwork to remind him why he hated his desk, and he knew Faith ached for it too.

He stretched out on the couch, a congratulatory bottle of wine set on the coffee table, two empty glasses waiting to be filled.

Faith walked through the front door, her key dangling from her mouth, packages filling her arms. She saw him laying on the couch and spit out the key. It struck the hardwood floor with a faint chime.

“Why are you laying around? You should be working on our cover and arranging your wardrobe.”

Armand reached out to grab the wine bottle by its base. He raised it a few inches, canting it slightly so the last rays of the day’s sunlight flickering through the slats of their mostly closed blinds speared through the light amber liquid.

Faith’s frown grew deeper. “We don’t have time for that. Our ship is leaving in only a week. We have a lot to get finished.” She click heeled over the floor to the dining room table. She set her packages down and turned her gaze back on him. One eyebrow cocked slightly.

Armand sighed and set the wine bottle down. The bottle had been one of two they had received at their wedding. Neither bottle had been touched yet. They were reserved fore a very special occasion since Runeburg Gold was a very rare and very expensive wine.

He had really wanted to open one of those bottles tonight.

Faith walked past him and entered their bedroom. He heard rustling as she changed out of her everyday work suit and into the looser and more comfortable cotton clothing she preferred.

“By the way,” she called.

“Hmmm.”

“I went through the IFBIS files and found out a little more about our mysterious friend from the other day. Miss Montpass is less than three months out of prison. You might remember her better as The Black Widow.”

Armand searched his memory but came up with very little. “Vaguely.”

“She was arrested and convicted of poisoning her husband for his insurance money. There was no direct evidence against her and it turned out he had no insurance, but all four of her co-wives testified that her husband was tremendously frightened of her. They said she had threatened his life and was so far out of cohesion with the family that she refused to care for any of the children. She even refused to live with them or use her husband’s last name.”

Armand felt gears click in his head. “Something does not sound right.”

“Apparently somebody else didn’t think so either,” Faith called out. “She got twenty to life but only spent a few years behind bars before her conviction was overturned. Surprisingly, her lawyer is now married to all the other widows.”

“So they killed the man, not her?”

“We don’t know who killed him.” Faith’s voice was slightly muffled, probably by clothing that she was pulling over her head. “All we know is that her representation was flawed and that there is reason to doubt the circumstantial testimony. She is free, if not clear, and she is looking for our Mr. Turner.”

Faith appeared in the doorway, leaning casually on one arm, her hand resting on the doorframe. She was not wearing her regular street clothing. Instead, she wore a negligee.

“Open the wine, Darling,” she said in a voice so low it barely carried. “It’s time you had a bit of Faith.”



There was something unsettling pathetic about a woman incapable eating alone at night without getting maudlin about her lover.

It must be love, Amanda admitted for the ten thousandth time. She smiled as she idly stirred her green beans with her fork. She hated finals week at the University. Karen was seldom home at a decent hour because she always stayed in her office until she finished grading the day’s papers. That made for a lonely house. Amanda supposed matters would improve once Chase got some size and some years on him. He would provide her with conversation then, even if the conversation seldom contained words with more than two syllables. Truthfully, he should have reached that point now, only he seemed to be one of those children who did not see the use for words when he had so many other ways to indicate exactly what he wanted.

Or maybe the kid was just lazy. Chase was the sleepingist and most energetic kid she had ever seen. He would run on full tilt for an hour or three and then keel over in a dead sleep. He was in one of those sleeps now, and the only reason she did not wake him to counter her ennui was because the kid was nothing but a grouch if he woke-up before he was ready to wake. Chase was an obstinate, stubborn little snit, but that wasn’t surprising because his father was much the same. If there was one overriding truth about Aaron Turner, it was that he was a stubborn man. She had never heard of a man who was so unwilling to jump into a willing bed. Fortunately, she had won out, and Chase was the result.

She quit pointlessly moving her green beans around and dutifully shoved a forkful into her mouth. They were overcooked. Karen was the real cook so that was another way Amanda was forced to suffer when she was gone. The woman was endlessly accomplished...and she was just as endlessly bossy. Karen was also, Amanda admitted, Chase’s real mother. Motherhood was a game Amanda liked to play only every now and again. Her training and nature did not make her the world’s most compassionate woman. She was a lioness who liked raw meat after a long battle. She liked to gnaw and rip and control.

Her smile turned wry. Okay, so call it a character flaw. The truth was that she did love her child. She took joy in him and was proud of him. She just did not feel comfortable around him yet. Maybe that would change once he reached the age of reason in another ten or fifteen years.

She really did need a vacation. Chase and Karen would get along fine for a few months.

Amanda swallowed and shifted her attention from her food, shifting her gaze to the envelope resting on the edge of the table. It was heavy white paper, almost cardboard in its consistency. A gold border ran around its edges. Four tickets rested inside. Karen’s gift. She had made all the arrangements. She had even bought the tickets with her own money, buying four so Amanda could have the entire suite to herself, a situation Amanda was sure would drive her crazy. She was a woman with an active mind. She was used to being constantly on the go, of making deals and plans. A month’s forced idleness with few distractions was more than her disposition could take. She was just lucky Karen had put her on one of the newer ships, a steamer. When the wind was low or in the wrong direction, it would still continue on its path.

Now that was progress.

Well, she had tickets. Refusing to use them would hurt Karen, and that Amanda refused to do, so it looked like she was going on vacation. She would visit her favorite client.

The thought of Aaron made her eyes wander to the other envelope on the table. It sat by itself, a remnant of debris she had not yet seen the need to rid herself of. The letter was not remarkable. She received at least half a dozen just like it in her office mail every day. Aaron represented a lot of money. That meant there were an awful lot of people who wanted access to him. A number of those people thought she was foolish enough to introduce them to Aaron Turner and his seemingly limitless funds.

Think again. It had been more than two years since she even bothered to open one of those begging letters. A simple rip and toss and they were gone forever.

It was all the attention this one merited too, but the silence surrounding her was louder than an entire set of drums. Karen was gone and Chase was asleep and she was entirely too bored.

So she set down her fork, picked up the letter, and then she opened it. At first the letter held as much interest for her as did the green beans on her plate. Then she read the second page, and the third. Before she finished the seventh page her decision was made.

This woman intrigued her. Amanda would arrange a meeting with Miss Brenda Montpass.





Chapter 2





“Get that stringer up now! Team Two is riding right up your behinds people. Get it up!”

“Hey now, that’s a likely looking fellow over there. Look at the pair of shoulders on him.”

“Mmm hmmm. Laura honey, you can look all you want but I think you are looking the wrong way. Now if you crane your head about twenty degrees to your left you’ll see what I’m talkin’ about.”

“Gods, Adonis is walking the earth and I almost missed him. That man ain‘t got no droopy butt. Tight.”

“Saw him first, sweetheart. He’s mine.”

“Battle’s on girl.”

Creee Creee

“Stringer’s rising. Lorn, get yourself in position. This here is going to be tricky.”

“Not the easiest thing in the world, this building a university and city from scratch.”

“No,” Aaron Turner answered his foreman as he watched the stringer being hoisted into position, “it isn’t.” He looked around. So far there wasn’t much to show for the money he had laid out. His capital city presently consisted of a ten block grid-work of roads, a handful of houses, three business buildings, the framework for the Chin Higher University of Learning, and the unrealized plans for a series of dorms. He liked the name he had chosen. The name made a person think of scurrying students and solemn professors and long held traditions. The only problem was that there were no professors or students and the only tradition it had yet formed was to cost him massive amounts of money.

Then again, that was not unusual. This entire project had cost six times more than it would have almost anywhere else in the world. Aaron smiled wryly. Large price tags were just about the only thing a person could expect when every scrap of material that wasn’t a rock had to be imported. Then there was the problem with his workers. Not one was native to this land. His Chin Empire claimed a great deal of land and cattle, but so far he had not found a single native who was a skilled builder, and he had not found one tree within a hundred miles that was straight enough to form a decent two-by four. As best he could tell, his Empire claimed six different tree species. Not one rose higher than twelve feet. Though the trunks on some of the older trees were thick and strong, they absolutely refused to grow straight for more than three feet before they veered to the right or left.

So, having no recourse, he imported all his materials that were not rocks. He imported the materials and he imported the labor and he paid through the nose for all of it. Before this year was complete he would have one of the most expensive small towns in the history of the world. It would be neat and clean and bursting with designed character. Now all he had to do was figure out how to fill the place with people. Enough money would bring him teachers and municipal workers, but it wouldn’t do diddly squat to convince his subjects to move here. Money meant nothing to the Chins. All they wanted out of life was their cattle, their weapons and the approval of their clans and septs. After ruling the rapidly disintegrating Chin Empire for three years, he still did not know much about the people he ruled. Hell, it hadn’t been until the last year that he finally learned to speak their language well enough to be understood.

“Set in place an’ here comes Team Two just in time. Let’s get a move on before they end up waiting on us.”

“Having everything precut to size sure helps to speed things along,” Mr Halifax, his site overseer and a personal friend, said quietly. “It takes time to cement the stone together, but once the walls are up it’s a simple matter to do the interiors and roofs.

“It’s a cheaper method,” Aaron explained. His inner eye looked down the future, seeing throngs of people walking the carefully maintained streets of New Beginning, the name he had chosen for his capital city. “I’d rather pay people in Efra to make the rough cuts to measure have the people on site do it when I’m paying them three or four times more for their labor.”

Halifax grinned. “There’s going to be a lot of people who don’t have to work for a long time once they get home.”

“More than a few,” Aaron grumped. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Nails,” Halifax answered. “We can always use more nails. Roofing and framing. Another twenty or so all-terrain runabouts would come in handy too. You know the ones I mean. The multiple geared things with the knobbed tires; the ones that don’t care if they are running over unpaved roads.”

“Runabouts,” Aaron replied in confusion. He ran his eyes over the grounds again. Though he was building a town, it was not all that large. Walking was extremely practical.

“For the races,” Halifax explained. He waved a hand, generally indicating the rolling hills surrounding them. “These people have to have entertainment on their days off. They built themselves a race course over the hills. Made up some teams and designed a trophy to be passed to the weekly winners.”

“Nails and runabouts,” Aaron muttered. “I understand the nails, but I never guessed that in order to build a city I would have to provide runabouts.”

“Life is tough all over,” Halifax observed.

Aaron nodded agreement. “Yes it is. Is there anything else?”

“Not that I can think of. You brought enough over these last couple days to keep us busy for the rest of the week.”

“Then I’ll drop the nails and the runabouts off in the warehouse and see you again in a few days.”

“Good enough,” Halifax said. The corner of his eyes crinkled with understandable humor. At the moment and for the foreseeable future, the warehouse consisted of four stakes driven into the ground. The walls and a roof were not scheduled to go up until the middle of fall. “See you later.”

Aaron gave him a brief nod and transferred..

Flicker



“I’ll never get used to you doing that,” Melna complained after Aaron gave her a dutiful hello kiss.

“Me neither,” Harvest Patton agreed. “Hello Sir, how are things going out to the town?”

“Slower than I want and faster than I expected,” Aaron replied. He sighed as he released Melna and gazed around his Royal Chambers. They occupied the most lavish tent in the entire Empire. By tribal standards it was huge, large enough for Aaron and ten others to comfortably sleep inside. The tent did not boast much else. Six inflatable mattresses lay on the floor with a sleeping bag on each. Beside each bed was a duffel bag holding clothes and a few other personal items. The tent boasted three rifles and a shotgun. Each person in the tent wore a pistol inside some type of holster.

The walls of his home were made from dyed spider thread so they were thin and cool and colorful. They were also easily taken down and packed away into two backpacks Aaron’s entourage could carry with them while they followed the tribe’s cattle whenever the cattle decided to roam to new pastures. Unlike the cattle Aaron was familiar with on his birth world, these cattle did not tend to break away into small groups that fended for themselves. They liked to gather and feed in large herds of two or three thousand, dividing into smaller herds only during times of drought when food was in short supply. Those droughts usually ran for two or three years on a fairly predictable twenty year cycle. Since a two year drought had ended only this last summer the herds were once more reforming and splintered tribes were rediscovering one another.

Aaron hated to be a pessimist but the drought these last few years had threatened to give him a serious case of modified depression. Anything resembling a central Chin Government had pretty much disappeared, but that was okay by him because the breakup of the cattle and tribes had made anything resembling organized warfare almost impossible. Bill Clack and his breakaway tribes had been too impotent to cause Aaron trouble. Then again, Aaron’s inability to provide any central government had caused other problems. Due to tribal rivalries and internal conflicts, at least a quarter of his the Chins had decided they no longer needed to be a part of the Empire so they had just gone their own way. Most of the representatives Aaron tried to place with them had been politely asked to leave. Three of those representatives had been asked politely. They had been killed When the breakaway tribes were added to those Clack had taken with him, Aaron found himself in control of an Empire that boasted barely half the people it had held when it was given to him. He probably would not have had that many if it were not for Heralda. His favorite God-Touched priestess spent most of her time going from tribe to tribe, healing those she could while preaching the benefits of The One God.

She had more success at her job than Aaron had at his. Her preaching and healing had given her new converts, so her personal following had grown while his shrank. Heralda was not only gaining converts, she was getting people who were willing to step forward to declare themselves priests and priestesses.

And now, since the drought was finished, Clack and his followers were once again a force to be considered. They might or might not decide they wanted to increase the size of their lands by declaring war. War had never been something Aaron desired, but he had originally been optimistic about his chances of winning if one were forced on him. He had assumed he would have a good supply of empty brass shells he could reload so his people would be well supplied with ammunition for their guns while Clack’s people would not. That supposition had been more than correct. He had a huge surplus of brass. Unfortunately, his Chins had kept very few of their weapons once their original ammunition ran out. As best Aaron could figure, he held suzerainty over a couple million people spread over an area fifteen or twenty times larger than smallish Isabella. Less that a hundred still held firearms. Something like twenty thousand had been abandoned to rust on the ground. His lands consisted mostly of undeveloped plains and hills and low mountains. Most of his subjects did not know who he was and many of those who did know of him did not care all that much. Klein had been their leader, their king. Aaron Turner was…well…not all that important.

All in all, Aaron found running his Empire a bit depressing. He had hopes things would get better once he finished building a Capital, but only time would tell if he were correct.

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair while he studied his bodyguard and his wife. He was tired and his body ached and he felt frustrated and his mind hummed with a hundred incomplete plans. Most of those plans would never see fruition, but they spent enough time racing through his head to keep him awake at night.

“What did I miss?” he finally asked.

“Well, let’s see,” Melna said as she raised a finger and thumb to caress her chin thoughtfully. “Several cattle have started dropping calves since this morning. I’m told that this is a great omen for good year. The Tribal Elders have declared that there will be a T‘chung in seven days. They have also given their permission for the recommencement of the Ferbog so litters are being built and champions are being chosen. As I understand it, the T’chung and Ferbog are things of great importance and excitement.” She lowered her hand and leaned forward slightly. “Aaron, husband, have I ever mentioned that I never wanted to be an Empress? Could we quit this job and do something a little more exciting...like watching grass grow. I never realized politics could be so boring.”

Aaron released a sigh without knowing exactly what bothered him. Melna’s mocking complaints were only half in earnest. They were part of a ribbing session that had been going on for the last year. She was not happy, Aaron knew, but she was not unhappy either. A large part of her craved excitement, but Melna was guided by more than just the shallow forces of her nature. She was a contradiction and a puzzle but she was also driven by a desire to succeed at whatever task she assumed. Being the Empress of Chin was one of those tasks so her complaints were never entirely serious.

No, Aaron decided, the thing bothering him the most was that he was the leader of a people he did not understand. He did not understand their psychology or their motives, and he certainly had no idea exactly what a T’chung or a Ferbog was supposed to be.

Patton took pity on him. “Ritual combat with sticks,” he said. “I asked. All the different tribal septs will put forward all their Chorai. The Chorai fight one another until a referee decides one is clearly the winner. As I understand it, the final winner gains a great deal of respect and privilege for her family. She is considered a hero and is sought after for her wisdom and training. Any unmarried winner is usually married by the end of the week.”

“She?” Aaron asked. He mentally ran through the classifications of a Chin lifespan. As he understood it, there were four basic phases. A Bolg was a child, a condition that lasted until certain tests of mental acuity and cognition were passed. Next were the Glorai, or youths. Once the youths sufficiently proved their courage and physical skills they were promoted to Chorai, warriors. Warriors were permitted full rights within the tribe. They could speak in council, set up their own households, and they could marry. After a Chorai showed sufficient wisdom and maturity they became a Yermod, or Elder, one of those who made the final decisions for the tribe. It was a simple system with no guarantees for promotion. It was not unheard of for some to remain a Bolg well into their prime. Not a few never became Chorai.

Patton shrugged. “A linguistic courtesy. Nobody can remember the last time a man won the contest. I asked about that too. I also asked about this Ferbog thing but I got nowhere with that one. All I can tell you is that I saw travois being built.”

“Travios,” Aaron said absently, not really caring all that much. The Chin life was filled with rituals and traditions. Given time, he might discover what most of those were but, for the most part, he did not care. His position as Emperor exempted him from almost everything except the duty of trying to figure out how to hold this thing together. The One God knew, it was an almost impossible job. He did not have enough time to concentrate on anything else. “It’s dinner time. I suppose I had best get out there and play Imperial Majesty.”

“There’s more.” Melna’s tone was even, without inflection, but her body suddenly appeared tense. This, then, was the real news.

Aaron pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows and waited. He began to grow angry because he had a very good idea what his wife was going to tell him..

“There’s a celebration and mourning,” Melna said. “They brought in four heads.”





The camp was in turmoil. Voices raised in jubilation and ire. The Bolg were everywhere, making up the largest segment of the Tribe. Chins, Aaron had discovered, were not long lived but they were prolific. Fully half of the Tremouve Tribe were Bolg. Traditionally, fewer than a quarter of the Bolg lived to become Glorai, and only half of those lived long enough to be recognized as fully adult Chorai. New medicines and the new standards of sanitation that Helmet Klein forced on his people had changed some of those statistics, but not enough to suit Aaron. While it was true that more Bolg lived long enough to graduate to the Glorai, it was also true that the life expectancy of a Glorai was no better than it had ever been. By the time they were old enough to become a Glorai a Chin female’s system was strong enough to survive most of the disease’s the Chin were subject to, and even the males were much stronger. Unfortunately the Glorai were frequently mangled and killed by the cattle they were sent out to tend. This was entirely the duty of the Glorai since the Chorai protected the herd from raiders, though they often became raiders themselves. It was a hard life and it was brutal and Aaron had vowed to see an end to it, especially the raiding and the taking of heads.

He made his way through the camp, Melna by his side. Patton changed his position according to where he thought the greatest threat to Aaron might lie. Everywhere his eye fell it landed on mostly naked Bolg. Clothing was seldom wasted on the very young. It was not unusual to see Glorai running around without loin cloths. Only when a person became a Chorai did they begin wearing a full set of clothing, and only when it suited them to do so. On a hot day a Chorai often refrained from wearing their leather shirts and vests. At one time this almost constant display of flesh would have made Aaron nervous while simultaneously drawing his eye to the females. That was no longer the case. The sight of bare flesh no longer had any effect on him, a fact he was publicly pleased with but privately mourned because he could not allow his daughter, Autumn, to live in these conditions. She was not even allowed to visit the tribes. Instead, she was safely encased in his Jutland Manor, watched by the untrusting eye of Missy Bayne.

One group of seven young women did catch his eye. They sat in a circle, mumbling ritualistic phrases as they passed a largish clay jar among themselves. Red stained their lips and chins, streaked down across their breasts and bellies. Aaron swallowed hard against a suddenly queasy stomach and continued on his way.

“Tell me that isn’t,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth.

“Mixed blood and milk,” Melna supplied nonchalantly. “I’m told that you will see a lot of that. It’s all the contestants for the T’chung will eat. It’s supposed to build up their strength.”

“Makes me weak every time I see it,” Aaron told her. These people used entirely too much blood in their diets. They even made an alcoholic drink out of it. Once, after drinking down a skin of fermented blood and milk, Aaron had challenged the man who had once accosted and assaulted Melna. The man had more than deserved to die but the beverage caused Aaron to make a terrible mistake. He had challenged the wrong man. He would have and should have challenged Bill Clack. Clack was by far the more dangerous man. He was also the one who had influenced a number of Chins to break away from the Empire. As matters turned out, Clack’s own daughter had challenged him. Though good, she had only been good enough to cause the amputation of Clack’s right hand a few inches above the wrist. Aaron could not blame her for her shaky aim. Clack had shot her to rags by the time she managed to pull the trigger and hit his wrist.

Raised voices cut through the cooling air. Two women argued with a man working on a travois. It appeared, Aaron noted, to be a darn good travois. It was wide and long and solid and looked like it would be well padded. It also had a twelve inch wheel attached to the back end of each pole. Technologically backward as his people were, Aaron had to admit that once they saw a useful purpose for something they were more than willing to adopt it. The Chins had been quick to learn how to build wheeled carts and wagons once Klein demonstrated their usefulness. Every family now had at least one wagon pulled by domesticated stock.

And that was part of what bothered Aaron. A travois, though useful in some instances, was no longer needed to carry goods or injured people. Why were they being built?

Patton touched his arm and gestured. “Over that way.

Aaron followed the gesture and nodded. Four heads were elevated spear high into the air.

A rifle was thrust into his face.

“No good,” an older man, Choin How, exclaimed. The rifle was so close to Aaron’s eyes that he could not make out any details, but he could see Choin’s finger curling again and again around the trigger. “No good,” Choin insisted as he was suddenly pushed back from Aaron by Patton. Choin did not seem to notice the indignity. He held the rifle out more insistently.

“I gave you a hundred rounds two weeks ago,” Aaron said sternly. Choin had only a part of his attention. The severed heads drew him with a sick fascination. They were too far away to make out the details, but they were not so far away that he could not see the dark cloud of flies surrounding them.

“Not enough,” Choin said. His eyes flashed insistence.

“Too many,” Aaron replied. “What did you do with them?”

Choin gestured vaguely toward the clouds and Aaron groaned. Never a mental giant, Choin, like too many other Chin, was positive he could bring a cloud down if he shot it enough times.

Aaron shook his head. “Where is the brass?”

Choin shrugged noncommittally. He removed one hand from his rifle to gesture toward their back trail. “Three days back.”

Aaron tightened his lips and wanted to hit the man. As best he could figure, the herd had traveled more than ten miles these last three days. His brass could be absolutely anywhere, anywhere at all. Damn!

Aaron drew in a deep breath, slowly let it out. Screaming would accomplish nothing.

“No,” he said flatly.

Choin’s face fell and his rifle slowly lowered.

“But...”

“Bring me my brass,” Aaron said. “You bring me my brass and I’ll fill it for you. Otherwise...no.”

Choin once again, half hopefully, lifted his rifle. Aaron controlled his jangling nerves with a force of will. He firmly shook his head once more and then deliberately turned away, dismissing Choin by ignoring him.

“They don’t seem to understand,” Melna commented as they made their way toward the mounted heads. “Most of them seem to think that you can magically make ammunition appear from nothing.”

“It’s handing explosives to children,” Aaron replied. He grimaced, honesty making him correct himself. “They aren’t children. The One God knows they’ve lived through enough to prove that. It’s only that they are enthusiastic and they don’t understand that I can reload the things but I can’t make the brass.”

“AARON! HEY, HOLD UP!”

Aaron started. “Gods, what now?”

“It’s Aybarra,” Patton supplied. “He’s been looking for you.”

“And I just want to get a look at four heads stuck on the end of some spears. Is it possible anyone else can interrupt me?”

“Very possible,” Melna said. She shook her head slightly, moving an overlong, needing to be trimmed, front bang from her eyes as she watched the aging black man’s progress. “Still and all, you want to talk to Mr. Aybarra since he knows more of what is going on than I do. He told me the little I know only minutes before you showed up.” She raised her voice, filling it with warmth she did not feel. The two of them had reached an understanding of friendship and respect very early in their relationship, but somehow, liking each other had never become part of the equation. “Samuel, Aaron was just telling me he wanted to talk to you.”

“No more than I want to talk to him,” Aybarra rejoined as he neared. His breathing was slightly heavy. Still a large and powerful man, there was no denying that he was much closer to sixty than he was to fifty. Three years earlier his hair had contained shades of salt and pepper. It was now salt without pepper. “Aaron, we have problems.” He nodded toward the mounted heads. “I want you to get a look at these.”

Aaron closed his eyes and ground his teeth. He slowly opened his eyes, mentally reminding himself that none of this was Aybarra’s fault. He had no reason to snap at the man...but damn if he didn’t feel like snapping at somebody.

“I,” he said pointedly, “have been trying to do just that for some while now. It’s becoming a rather prolonged endeavor. Do you know who killed them?”

Aybarra nodded silently.

“I want you to arrest the killers and bring them up on charges.” Aaron looked toward the heads and felt irritable because his reaction to seeing four severed heads, three of them female, was mild to what he would have experienced only a few years earlier. He did not like knowing he had become inured to the sight of death. He frowned and focused on Aybarra.

“I’ve made it very clear that I will not tolerate raiding other tribes.” He pushed his way toward the people hanging around the severed heads. Most were young Bolg.

When he finally stood by the heads he could see that flies crawled ravenously over the dead flesh. The flies were not thick enough to hide that three of the heads had belonged to women who could not have been Chorai for more than a year or two. He doubted the oldest one was more than sixteen, but all three of the faces were already disfigured by scars and broken bone. A small cuneiform tattoo rested above the right eye of each. He looked into the dead, sightless, eyes while nausea built, but he fought the sickness away just as ruthlessly as he refused to speculate on the wasted lives.

Three of the dead were women but the fourth was male and its owner had been old for a Chin. His skin was darkly tanned and sun wrinkled. Most of the head’s scars were white and faded. The man was dark haired and dark eyed and there was something about his face that, even dead, spoke of barely restrained violence and cruelty. Aaron found it difficult to place an age on his damaged people, but he thought the man had lived into the middle of his third decade.

“It might be a little awkward,” Aybarra said. His hand was rested reassuringly on Aaron’s shoulder. Aaron fought an urge to shrug the hand off. Aybarra had taken it upon himself to act as Aaron’s older mentor...a part Aaron strongly felt Aybarra had no need to take. Still, the man was a friend and loyal and when he looked at Aaron he saw a man who might be twenty seven instead of forty two in half a year.

“I don’t care how awkward it is. This is a civilization of laws, not a composite of nomadic cavemen who only know tradition and self interest. Damn it Samuel, I want those people arrested!”

Aybarra’s hand left his shoulder and went to the back of his neck. Aybarra ruefully massaged a set of habitually sore muscles.

“I’ll have to arrest myself then,” he said regretfully, “since I killed two of them.”

Aaron felt himself still. “You don’t go on raids.”

“Haven’t yet.”

“Then they were the raiders. Samuel, you know I won’t continence lethal force in defense of a few cows.”

He studied the man’s face, taking in the almost self-mocking features, but those features and the flip attitude Aybarra showed were masks for something going on deep inside.

“We didn’t kill them for the cattle,” Aybarra said quietly. “We killed them for the Glorai. We have six dead and another three wounded. Lost a Chorai too. She was the first one there. They speared her three or four times before I had a chance to shoot two of the bastards. Our people got the other two, but more than three dozen got away. Some were limping.”

“Gods no,” Aaron whispered.

“See the tattoos? Right there above their eyes?”

“I noticed.”

“Them tattoos say that these folk belong to the Sherram. Now I may not know everything about these plains but I do know the Sherram are not supposed to be anywhere near here. Their special bit of grass is several hundred miles east.”

Aaron stayed silent, taking in the awful truth, refusing to believe. Having no choice but to believe.

“Something else I know,” Aybarra added. “Those Sherram, they answer to Bill Clack. They was one of the first to follow him.”

“Yeah,” Aaron answered. “I hoped he would be satisfied with his lot..”

“He’s not,” Aybarra said simply. “Clack wants it all.”

Aaron nodded, once more taking in the heads. They had not changed in these last moments but they suddenly seemed to have a more sinister appearance. Their slack features spoke of gray clouds and dark times. They filled him with a dread.

“Show me the wounded.”

“I hoped you would ask that.”

“I’m not Heralda,” Aaron told his friend, “but He resides in me too. I can help them a little.”

He sighed and sensed within. The pure soul cleansed by The One God was gone. He had taken too many harsh and unforgiving stands during his years of rule, had ordered too many punishments and more than one death. The pure clarity he had once known was now sullied and gray, but beneath the muddiness that was his soul, there was a still place where a tiny bit of The One God rested...waited.

“He loves you as his own,” Aybarra said simply. Not a trace of irony showed in his voice. Alarmed, Aaron studied the man and saw more than the simple respect Aybarra owed his Emperor.

“You too?” he asked sadly but he asked in a whisper too low for Aybarra to hear. He did not want to know the answer.



Gondala was a girl who was not much older than eleven. Aaron had never spent much time with her, but he did remember that she was bright and curious. She was known as a dancer and her singing was more mature than her years. She had been an anomaly within the tribe for her body had been almost completely unmarked by scars or pocks or the signs of badly healed bones. Aaron remembered thinking that she actually had the chance to grow into a beautiful woman.

Sadly, that was no longer true. Her long tresses had been cut away from her head so the two inch across, circular indentation of shattered bone could be seen on the upper left side of her skull. Her eyelids were half-open. Her normally expressive eyes were rolled up into her head. Her breathing was short and shallow and uneven.

She was dying.

Aaron pursed his lips and fought the knot forming in the back of his throat. He was a harder man than he had once been, but his callousness had not reached the point where he was unaffected by the dying breaths of a child.

Looking impassive, her two mothers silently watched. Their faces were slightly sad as they looked upon the end of yet another of their children. Chins lived a hard and chancy life. Parents seldom became attached to a child while it was still a Glorai since so few of them lived to reach the next stage. It was only when a child became a Chorai that a Chin showed any attachment for their young. Less than one in three Glorai lived past the trials of disease and cattle and accident. Chorai were safe to love because only the cautious, the lucky, and the smart lived to gain that promotion.

The practice was intended to save the Chin tribes-people unavoidable heartache as they watched so many of their children die. Aaron supposed that, though self-serving, the idea was self-preserving.

“She will be dead before night,” Macine, one of the better healers Aaron had seen, said. “The One God will take her to his bosom. She will cling to him and she will look down on us and she will be momentarily sad because our time on this earth is not yet finished.”

“No,” Aaron found himself saying. He looked to Aybarra and Patton and spoke Chin everyone would understand him. “Clear the tent. Clear them all out of here.”

“It is our duty to watch her die,” Lo Mun, the elder mother, said.

Aaron knew his face was still and calm because he was reaching within himself, gathering resources that were both new and far too familiar. “She won’t die. I won’t allow it.”

The mother’s nodded shortly. With Patton’s urging, they were gone in only a few brief steps. Macine stayed behind, eyeing Aaron doubtfully as she ran one hand gently across the child’s cheek.

“You have to leave,” Aybarra told her.

Macine ignored him, her gaze fastened demandingly on Aaron’s face.

“She will live,” Macine demanded.

“I will not allow her to die,” Aaron assured her. He remembered her earlier words on The One God. She was obviously one of Heralda‘s converts, one of a quickly growing number among the Tribes. “The One God does not want her to die,” he added.

Her guarded expression eased. Satisfied, she allowed Aybarra to take her by her arm.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” Aybarra asked.

“Alone,” Aaron insisted. He shuddered slightly. “Don’t let anyone or anything into the tent until I come out.” He paused. “Except Zisst. When Zisst comes by you have to let it in. Don’t do anything else.”

Unsatisfied but obedient, Aybarra gave one short nod. He took the healer with him when he left.

Alone with the child, Aaron sighed deeply and lay the palm of his right hand against the child’s chin and right cheek. He was not Heralda. There was no glory or joy using the power of the One God. There was no joy and there was no pain...indeed...there was no physical sensation at all. There was nothing...only there was.

Forcing his will, Aaron lay his other hand across her wound and opened the interior barriers that were a natural and permanent part of his defense. It took no effort to release the Power. The Power constantly sought freedom. No, it was the effort needed to constrain the force that was a constant tax on him.

He allowed the Power to flow down his arm and out his hand. It flowed into the girl, flowed through her head, back into her other hand, and circled through him until it was entered her once more. Time after time that circuit was made, each time losing a little more of its force until the damaged spongy skull firmed beneath Aaron’s hand; the power circled until it was depleted. The girl’s breathing grew calm. The world wavered before Aaron. He felt empty. Depleted. Hollow. His drug was gone. Used. Its lack made his knees weak. They trembled, folded, and he fell weakly across the child’s body. His thoughts swirled. His vision wavered, He used his little remaining strength to push himself off Gondala so his weight would not smother her. He fell to the ground, belly first, too weak to roll over. His eyes stared at granite and dirt.

He lay there, weak and drained and silent. It might be hours before Zisst came nosing his way into the tent. Zisst would then walk up to Aaron. He would sink his front fangs into the back of Aaron’s left hand and then Aaron would be complete. The substance those fangs injected would fill all Aaron’s newly formed hollows and the empty spaces within his soul. He would be refilled, bursting with the Strength and Power of the One God because Zisst was the One God’s Servant and Avatar on Earth while Aaron was The One God’s Receptacle and Voice. Though he could not embrace it, Aaron no longer denied that he was the One God’s Chosen. He was Bringer and he was Death.

If he listened closely, he could almost hear Demac laugh.