Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra (25 page)

What impressed Treet most of all was the diligence and industry with which the Bolbe worked. Both men and women went about their tasks with quick precision; nowhere did he see any slackers or dawdlers. No one lingered over a job; no one sat with idle hands. “Everyone is so busy,” he remarked to Calin when at last they headed back toward the boat. It was long past time to eat, and Treet was hungry. “It's remarkable. What keeps them at it?”

“The priests record transgressions against the Directives. Anyone who deviates from the Clear Way will be punished at allotment.”

“His shares are cut, in other words?” Treet nodded to himself. Yes, very tidy. Keep them at it with incentives and threats. Reward the good workers, punish the bad. “The priests watch everyone all the time, I suppose? They know who's been naughty and nice.”

Calin agreed solemnly. “The priests watch everyone.”

They arrived at the waterfront in time to board for the return trip. As the boat pulled away, this time under the tug of a chattering engine, Treet turned for a last look at Bolbe Hage. “You know, we still didn't see where they make the really fine stuff.” Treet gestured toward the glowing array of fabric spread on the hillside.

“That is Hage cloth, made in deep Hage. No one is allowed to go there.”

“Never?”

Calin lifted a palm in that equivocal gesture which Treet understood to say, it all depends. She said, “The Bolbe guard deep Hage jealously. They allow no one from another Hage to enter. They don't want the secret of their craft revealed. It is the same with the Tanais and Rumon, but the Hyrgo and Jamuna allow anyone to come and go in deep Hage; they don't care. Of course, their craft has no art.”

All the way back to Saecaraz and to his kraam Treet remained silent, digesting all he had seen and heard. Calin did not intrude on his reverie, and after seeing that food was brought for a late afternoon meal, she left saying, “I will come tomorrow the same as today, unless—”

Her listener glanced up distractedly. “Yes … come tomorrow, same time. Fine …”

Treet ate and lay back on his mount of cushions. Not bad for the first day, he thought. Innocent tourist—no surprises, no pointed questions, nothing to upset anyone. The Supreme Director will get a glowing report—he's probably getting it right now.

Treet knew that Rohee would be fully informed of his moods and movements, knew that he would be carefully monitored at all times. That was all right with him—let them watch until they got tired of watching. Then he'd make his move. Somewhere out there Pizzle, Crocker, and Talazac waited, and he meant to find them. One way or another he
would
find them.

The
priest rubbed his long nose and gazed at Yarden doubtfully. Bela stood beside her, his hand around her waist. Coming to see the Hage priest had been his idea. He'd said that perhaps her memory would come back more quickly if she bought a benefice.

Together they'd walked through Chryse Hage, not to the temple, but to the Quarter—the place where the priests lived and held commerce with the populace. They waited in line for several hours as one by one the petitioners were admitted into a large mound-shaped structure built on a rise with steps leading up to a wide arched doorway.

“The priests will know what to do,” he explained. “Very likely there is astral interference with your aura. If so, they will see it and recommend a suitable treatment.”

Yarden thought about this, not understanding it completely. “Will I have to pay them?” she wondered, thinking that she did not have many shares in her poak.

“Of course.”

“Is it… expensive?”

Bela had laughed. “Never more than you have. But don't worry. The priests understand. They will help if they can.”

The room to which they were finally admitted was big and dark and sour smelling. Sweat, smoke, urine, and other unwholesome odors mingled together in a fetid perfume—as if whole generations of priests had lived and died in the room without ever cleaning or opening it to the light of day. The darkness and rank aroma were almost suffocating. Yarden gagged upon entering and would have turned back if Bela had not gripped her very tightly by the arm and urged her forward.

The priest, a bloated, rheumy fellow with drooping eyelids and a chin that rested on his swelling belly, sniffed loudly when they entered the room. He was sitting on a high-backed stool, his voluminous yos spread out around him so that he appeared to be floating in the air. A dirty medallion hung around his neck, shining dully in the light from two candletrees of smudgy candles.

“Step forward,” he said tiredly. “Let me see you. What do you want?”

“Go on,” Bela whispered as Yarden glanced at him. “Just tell him what you want.”

“Well?” The priest cast a baleful eye at her, sniffed again, and sneezed into his hand.

“Tell him,” Bela whispered. “Just say what I told you.”

“If it please you, Hage Priest,” she began in a tremulous voice, “I would like a benefice.”

“A benefice,” he had repeated flatly. “Of course. And what is the nature of this benefice?”

“My—my memory. I cannot remember things clearly. We—I thought a benefice …”

When the priest said nothing, Bela had stepped up, put his arm around Yarden, and explained, “She has been in reorientation, Hage Priest. Her memory is unfortunately—ah, displaced.”

“Hmmph!” the priest snorted. He put a thumb in his nostril and blew. “Reorientation.”

“Is there anything you can do?” Bela had inquired, thus plunging the priest into a period of deep contemplation during which he stared at Yarden as if she were the carrier of a dread disease.

Finally the priest shifted his bulk and yawned. “How much do you have?”

“Not much,” Yarden replied shakily.

“How much?”

“Ten shares.”

“It's not enough,” he said dryly. “You may go.”

“Wait,” interposed Bela. “Perhaps you can think of something. Hage priests supervise the allotment, do they not?”

“You know well that we do.”

“Then perhaps at the next allotment you could arrange to give her extra shares. She could pay you then.” In essence Bela was inviting the priest to name his fee and pay himself.

“It would be expensive,” the priest observed. He shook his head slowly, already calculating how much he could get away with.

“Of course.” Bela gave Yarden a little squeeze.

“Reorientation.” The priest's porcine eyes narrowed. “As much as a hundred shares. Maybe more.”

“Maybe two hundred?” inquired Bela.

“Yes. Two hundred.”

“You'll do a benefice for two hundred?”

“Very well.” He withdrew a short, ball-tipped wand from his clothing and struck a bell hanging from a stand next to him. Another priest came forward with a tripod on which a brazier full of burning coals smoldered. He placed the brazier in front of his fellow priest, then retreated, only to reappear a moment later with a tray. On the tray were bowls of powder in various colors.

“Prepare a healing benefice,” said the Hage priest, stifling another yawn.

“Mind or body?” asked his assistant.

“Mind. Make it twice strong. She has been in reorientation and has lost her memory.”

The second priest lay down the tray and picked up an empty bowl. He began dipping into the various powders with his fingers. “I will add a sarcotic too, to be sure.” He tossed powder into the bowl and stirred it with his fingers before handing it to Yarden.

She looked into the bowl, and the assistant priest smiled, revealing brown teeth. He inclined his head and pantomimed dumping the bowl into the brazier. Bela nodded in encouragement.

Yarden stepped up to the brazier and lifted the bowl, tipped it, and carefully emptied its contents onto the coals. There was a sputtering flash, and foul vaporous fumes arose from the coals. Resinous smoke rolled up into the darkness. Yarden stepped from the brazier, convulsed with coughing.

“Benito, benitu, beniti,”
intoned the Hage Priest in a bored voice. He raised his hand in the air above Yarden's head. “In the name of Trabant, I cleanse the aura of all astral interference … and so forth. Let the Seraphic Spheres be content with the offering thus poured out. Restore—ah, what is your name, woman?”

“Yarden.”

“Restore Yarden's memory to her in good time,” continued the priest, “that she might serve her Hage and follow the Clear Way faithfully. Trabant Animus be praised.”

They were dismissed then and left by a side door as the brazier was removed and the next petitioner ushered in quickly. On the way back to Bela's kraam, Yarden remained silent, reeling from the experience with the priest. She could not explain it, but felt dirty, as if she had wallowed in filth and now bore the stains on her face and hands. Waves of revulsion churned inside her. She gulped deep breaths and fought to keep from vomiting.

Bela watched her curiously, but said nothing until they were almost to the kraam. “Do you feel any different?” he asked.

Yarden shook her head, lips pressed tightly together.

“Oh well,” said Bela sympathetically, “it often takes a little time. We may have to ask for another benefice if this one doesn't work.”

“No!” Yarden turned horror-filled eyes on him. “No more.”

Bela laughed. “All right. It doesn't matter. Let me know if you change your mind, though. I'd be glad to take you again.”

Yarden turned away. I never want to go back there, she thought. Anger flared. This was Bela's doing. He insisted I go. He knew what would take place. But no, Bela is my friend; he stood by me the whole time. It wasn't his fault, and nothing bad happened.

Still, if nothing bad happened, then why do I feel so unclean?

The next day for
Orion Treet, and the next, was much the same as the day before. In fact, for the next several days in a row he played the tourist, dutifully tagging along beside his guide, visiting each Hage in turn, viewing the life in each of Empyrion's spheres.

By day he was the sponge, soaking up all he could see and all he was told. By night he examined what he had absorbed. He paced the confines of his kraam, sifting facts and observations, trying to create, as with the tiny colored tiles of a mosaic, a single, sweeping picture of Empyrion.

The emerging portrait was that of a civilization in decline: old, decrepit, timeworn. The signs of advanced age were everywhere apparent—stone steps worn hollow by the tread of feet over the centuries; once-straight walls now sliding, tilting, wrapped in thick moss; towers whose shifting foundations bore the marks of decade upon decade of attempted repair; dwelling blocks in whose peeling facades one could trace the histories of whole generations of inhabitants, layer on layer; fetid catacombs where water-stained walls bore ancient graffiti. Empyrion wore a thick patina of time.

Treet sensed a primordial heaviness, the all-pervading lethargy of decay.

The untold years had witnessed the evolution of an extremely stratified society—not only distinct classes, each separate from the other, but classes within classes—and each stratum fiercely protective of its station and function while at the same time aggressively seeking to improve its position in relation to the others through a subtle ongoing competition, the rules of which Treet had not yet discovered, much less understood.

For the citizenry of Empyrion, the Hages were everything: home, family, country—all in one. A Hage was a political entity as well as a gear in a complex economic machine; it was both social matrix and utilitarian construct; it was a rigid caste system which created for its members a sense of place and purpose and belonging in return for work.

Each Hage was governed by a Director who, through his staff of Subdirectors, ruled his fief with despotic power, answering only to the Supreme Director, chief dictator among dictators. The power of the Director seeped downward through a bewildering hierarchy of priests and magicians. Hage priests supervised the allotment, paying out shares for work; they conducted the regular Astral Services and presided over the occasional feast day celebrations.

Calin had even taken him inside an Astral Temple. It was a big, black pyramid, empty but for rows of seats placed round a small stage. At a Service the priest read from the Sacred Directives—a body of writings that had come down from the earliest times—and exhorted their congregations to follow the Clear Way, a path of obedience leading to enlightenment.

The dome dwellers worshiped a god called Trabant Animus, Lord of the Astral Planes. It was Trabant who bestowed immortality on a soul and, if sufficient progress had been made during its lifetime, joined it with one of the many oversouls or spirits of the highly enlightened departed. Once joined to an oversoul, a soul journeyed through two realms or existences: Shikroth and Ekante. One, Shikroth, was called the House of Darkness; the other, Ekante, the House of Light. The journey through both was accomplished under the direction of sexless astral bodies known as Seraphic Spheres—entities of pure psychic energy.

The religion made no sense to Treet. Rather, it made about as much sense as any other religion he'd ever encountered. Treet had little use for religion, tending to see it merely as something to keep the dim, cold unknown from becoming too frightening. He wasn't easily frightened, so relegated religion to the dustbin of outmoded ideas.