A Hierarch's Day
Caravans traveled through the desert at night and arrived at Sand Castle in the pre-dawn hours, or early morning if the trains were heavy. Sheltered way-stations were carefully spaced along the highways to aid the constant flow of travelers and keep them from wandering toward any Calique gardens. Gurantors lumbered through the gates after days of pulling two to four cars each, followed flagmen to their assigned berths, and rested while humans shuffled cargo in and out of cars.
Sand Castle's garden was a finite resource even in the best of times, but its current condition mandated changes to how the city did its business. The doyennes imposed severe limits on caravans. They could only stay up to four days, and overstaying triggered hefty fines. Caravans had to bring enough food for their people and animals, which they could use to feed themselves or trade to the Calique for more exotic foodstuffs. Sand Castle sent tablas to the nearest cities in all the surrounding countries, Ullidia, Gallia, Hyskos, and even Kashmar, to arrange quotas and keep the flow manageable. Calique hunters monitored the highways and turned back caravans that were too large, didn't have enough food, or had a suspiciously large security force. Armed personnel were allowed into the city during the daytime but had to sleep in tents in the mischus at night. If a caravan didn't have the same number of people check out at night as had checked in during the day, the wayward guards were tracked down with impressive speed, and penalties accrued to the merchants who employed them.
It might seem strange at first, but trade with Kashmar continued even as both sides prepared to go to war. Any trains passing through Morufu's Teeth were inspected for contraband food and war materials, while luxury items sailed through. Both sides wanted coin for the coming war, and caravans were a good excuse to insert scouts into the other's territory. The arcs belonging to Bitter Spring and the doyennes were closed to outsiders, but that didn't prevent visitors in the merchants' arcs from asking questions. Tyrants and doyennes had played this game for a long time, and Pasha Phillip received reports on which visitors were most likely working for Kashmar's Tyrant, and what kind of information they appeared to be after.
As His Holiness Phillip the Younger, Taylor held the big weekly services in the city's temple located in garden Saphir's arc. The sanctuary was typical for the Unity religion: a tall round room under a vivid blue dome, with a central altar that bore a seven-pointed star. It wasn't as grand as basilicas in the world's capitals, but it didn't need grandeur when it had a fragment of sun shining beneath the dome. Worshipers stood wherever they pleased while the officiating priest stood next to the altar. Daily services were short and several and officiated by rotating priests, while eighth-day services were more involved and included a choir and a sermon.
What Anisca could do with her face, Taylor could do with his voice. He could impart faith, fear, comfort, love, and anguish to an audience. He could draw out calls of 'Olyon Bless Us!' from the masses. He didn't write the sermons, a small team at Red Tower did that job better than he ever could, but he performed them with a talent and charisma peculiar to this body. Eighth-day services were packed whenever he gave them, and people gathered around sounding boards all across the continent instead of attending their local temples, depriving Enclave of their attention and their coin.
The first assassination attempt was surprising in its ineptitude. A wiry man with a half-back of blonde fur positioned himself nervously among the worshipers closest to the hierarch. He drew a dagger and charged at Taylor, hardly a minute into his sermon Love Across Borders. Such clumsy attacks had no hope of success against a priest who gave his sermons while protected by disciple prayers.
Taylor grasped the deadly daggered hand in a hold long drilled into him by Otavio and forced the man to his knees. The worshipers shouted and stirred, angry. Taylor quelled them with a raised hand.
"'Olyon welcomes the prayers of any whose hearts are open to
The would-be assassin grunted out his answer, unable to break away from the hierarch's implacable grip. "Because you have defiled God!"
"God is God," the hierarch answered hotly, "
To the bulwarks who took the attacker away, Taylor said, "Be gentle with him. I'd like to talk to him later." The incident was broadcast to the world.
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It wasn't lone assassins, people misguided by fiery rhetoric from their local priest, that worried Taylor. At least, not if they were after his own life. He could handle them. What scared him was the thought of attacks against the faithful, a mass of men who struck out at unarmed civilians but were willing to die themselves. It wasn't the type of terrorism usually practiced in this world, but how long would it take for someone to invent it?
Now, when Taylor climbed the steps to Sand Castle's temple in his white priest robes and gold-embroidered stole, he had to pass through a Zone of Amity. It was a new prayer that threw shadows over people with violent intent. Everyone had to pass through the zone to enter the sanctuary, and any who failed the test were firmly turned away by bulwarks. Taylor had added the new prayer to the canon, a feat that wasn't lost on the other members of Nexus. Not only was he duplicating the feats of Neuman Battani, the Chosen, who had founded the Unity religion, but Taylor was expanding the prayers.
The sanctuary was packed with pilgrims. They drew back for him as he passed through to the center, bowing slightly in the Nexus style. Eighth-day mornings were the only time he did "hierarch things," so he tried to do them well. But, today he was distracted by a familiar pair of tall leporid ears that stuck above the crowd. They followed him as he moved and spoke. It was so distracting that he missed one of his cues.
After the service came the audiences. These were held in a room much like a maul's meeting chamber: long and narrow with rows of benches along the sides, facing the center aisle. The only difference was the seven-pointed star on the wall over the hierarch's dais, and the small blue half-done over his head. Functionaries and healers took some of the bench space while Taylor stood, as pilgrims were escorted in groups, usually with whatever countrymen had arrived on the same train with them. He spoke with each group briefly, blessed them, and they were moved on to make way for the next group. A few had petitions, vetted and discussed with the temple's priests beforehand. It was a sign of the times that Taylor needed gatekeepers between himself and the people who needed his help.
But, once in a while, something slipped through or someone didn't follow procedure. In this case, a cloaked pilgrim rushed forward and prostrated herself on the floor before him.
"Please, Your Holiness, heal my son! He's the last of our family line. His father and siblings died in the civil war." Taylor stayed the bulwarks who would have taken her away. "I have nothing to pay with. But you can take him into the church as payment. He's a good boy and strong like his father."
The very first pilgrim to find Taylor had done so at Red Tower, just days after his elevation to hierarch. He'd done the exact same thing: thrown himself to the floor. Taylor had raised him up, kissed the old man's cheek, and blessed him. The fellow had come from Gallia to show gratitude for everything Nexus did for his family, and he went away in bliss. Anisca was ecstatic about the incident and declared they had finally found something useful that Taylor excelled at. For his part, Taylor's heart went out to anyone who traveled into the summer desert to find someone worthy of such obeisance, only to find his small self.
"Stand up, Sister," he said, grasping her elbow and helping her up, "let me see you." She was unsteady, and a smell of sickness lingered around her. When he lowered her hood to see her face, the rest of the room drew back, covering their faces. She looked like she hadn't eaten in weeks, and her hair was reduced to a few sad clumps on a pale bald head. Her cheekbones jutted out, and her eyes were sunk.
"What's your name, and where have you come from?"
"Nada, from Lavradio. The north part."
"You didn't come from Sesimbra?" he asked, suspicious. The Duke of Nurr, on the northern side of Lavradio, had rebelled and taken a third of his people into the canyon of Sesimbra. There was an ancient installation in the canyon, and Duke Frenzio was known to play with ancient devices. That could explain what Taylor was seeing.
"Speak honestly to Hierarch Phillip if you want his help," prompted one of the nearby healers. "You're already imposing on him."
She wrung her weakened hands. "Yes," she admitted, "we left Sesimbra. But I didn't lie! We used to live in Nurr before the duke made us move. After we escaped, I took my son to the capital so healers could treat his infections, but they kept coming back. He gets sick again and again, and he gets weaker every time."
"Give me your hand, Nada." The woman held her thinning fingers to Taylor, and he touched them. His spirit surged through her, though she couldn't feel it, probing into her flesh and bones. There was damage everywhere, but the worst of it was in her bones. He was surprised she could remain standing.
"Tell me about her son."
The healer answered, "Ali, sixteen years old. He's had a string of curable illnesses, but we haven't found an underlying cause. We arranged for them to go to Red Tower and see Dean Mataba, but it seems she wasn't content with that."
"What you have is a kind of poisoning," Taylor told Nada. "If your son has the same, then it explains why he never gets better. All the diseases he's been cured of are just symptoms. The true cause is a million little injuries that are too tiny to be seen. I've never seen it in this world, but there's no mistaking it."
Taylor turned to the healer, "Get a stretcher for her and take her to the clinic to be near Ali. I'll see them both this afternoon, and teach you the treatment."
"We know the prayers for poison, Your Holiness …"
"… but the poison is gone," he interrupted, "and only the injury is left. There's a trick to dealing with it, so don't do anything until I get there unless there's an emergency."
Nada wept and collapsed against Taylor. He spent most of his time planning to kill as many people as possible. Today, he'd get to help someone.