Abel stood back now, and Golitsin took the lead as they approached.
The hermit turned his head once and gave them a long look, then turned his gaze away and back down the bank’s slope to the River.
“Brother,” Golitsin called as they drew near. “I am a priest of Treville. I was told I might find you here.”
The hermit didn’t answer.
Then they reached the square of lighted lamps, and Golitsin halted.
“Brother?” he said. “May we talk? We have come along an…interesting…path to see you.”
Still the hermit did not reply. But after a moment, he released a deep sigh and turned toward them.
Abel had expected an old man, but he was not old at all. Weatherbeaten, yes, and with hair that had not seen a comb or cutting knife for many a three-moon. But the eyes were not watery and yellowed, but quick and alert. And the face was not lined with age, but only spattered with dirt. In fact, the hermit appeared to be younger than Golitsin.
“Brother, we have some questions for you,” Golitsin continued. “And we have brought food to share, if you want. May we sit with you?”
At the sound of the word “food,” the hermit shuddered, as a dont might that has caught the scent of barn and bedding. He rocked back and forth and had to hold his knees to his chest to stop himself.
Abel handed Golitsin the bread and cheese they’d brought along, and Golitsin handed them both to the hermit.
The man stared at them for a moment, then quickly reached out and snatched the offered gifts. He attacked the bread immediately, biting off and swallowing huge chunks until the entire loaf was gone. The dak cheese he turned in his hand and considered. Then he drew his hand back and threw it as far as he could down the bank to the River below. It landed not far from the shore.
Immediately there came a series of roars and the shuffle of scaled flesh as the carnadons moved in on the suddenly available delicacy. Abel couldn’t see what was happening there, but he was quite sure he did not want to be anywhere near whatever it was.
“Too smelly,” the hermit said. “Never get away with it.”
Golitsin took these words as an invitation, and he stepped within the square formed by the four stones with lamps upon them and motioned Abel to follow. They sat cross-legged near the hermit. The ground had been flattened here, but there was still a slight slope downward, toward the River. Enough to cause Abel the feeling he was sliding, or the ground sliding under him, and that he might soon be, like the cheese, among the hungry carnadons himself. He held even more tightly to his musket, which he had rested over his knees.
“What is your name, brother?” Golitsin asked.
The hermit bobbed a couple of times, and, not looking directly at them, but below toward the dark River, answered. “Friedman,” he said.
“Friedman?” Golitsin replied. “You are…military liaison, are you not?”
The hermit-Friedman-laughed. It was an ugly snort, with no real mirth in it. “Military liaison,” he pronounced, as if chewing the words and finding them bitter. “Yes. Doing it now. Liaising.”
“Brother, what has happened to you? Why are you here?”
“My retreat,” he said. “Prelate ordered me to take one. A long one. So I did.”
“He surely didn’t mean this.”
“Very specific,” Friedman replied. “‘Get your ass where the sun doesn’t shine, you meddlesome bastard,’ he said.” Friedman shook his head sadly. “True, too, the bastard part. Mother couldn’t help it. Father ran a shipping house, she told me once, and had his own family to look after.”
Golitsin reached out, touched Friedman’s knee, but the other flinched back.
“We came to see about Treville’s powder shipment,” Golitsin said gently.
Another snorting laugh from the hermit. “Ah,” he said. “Good luck with that.”
“You don’t think we’ll find it.”
“Isn’t lost,” Friedman said. “Never was.”
“What do you mean?” Abel spoke for the first time, which caused the hermit to jerk his head in Abel’s direction. He stared hard, but his gaze did not seem unkind to Abel.
“Soldier,” he said.
“Yes,” Abel replied. “What do you mean, it isn’t lost? Where is it?”
“The Redlands,” said Friedman. “Traded for…peace, I guess you could call it. Being let alone.”
“Traded to the Blaskoye? Or to the eastern barbarians?” Abel asked.
“East, west-it’s all Blaskoye now,” replied Friedman.
“They’ve established ties across the Valley?” Abel asked incredulously.
Friedman nodded.
“How?”
“Cascade,” said the hermit.
“And what do they…pay in return for passage, for the powder?”
“Protection. Women. Some male slaves, though all are sure not to call them that, lest Zentrum smite them down.” The snort again. “Lest Zentrum smite them down.” He nodded, as if he were in on a joke only he understood.
“Have you reported this to Lindron, Brother?” Golitsin gently inquired. “Sure this will bring down the wrath of the Tabernacle upon these people.”
“Verdrick tried,” the hermit said with a sad shake of his head.
“Damion Verdrick, the Temple Chief of Staff?”
“Left one day for Lindron. Found him the next day outside the Cascade temple gate. Thought he was sleeping. Then I turned him over and saw he couldn’t be, with his dick cut off and stuffed in his mouth, and his eyes gouged out like that.”
“Ah,” said Golitsin.
The three of them sat in silence for a while. Oddly, it was the hermit who broke the quiet.
“Show you another way up,” he said. “Not so dangerous. Better.”
“But we want to take you with us,” Golitsin said. “They aren’t going to kill us. We’d be missed in Treville. You can come with us. Escape.”
Friedman firmly shook his head. “No,” he said.
“But Brother Friedman-”
“Not afraid,” he said. “Not anymore. All part of Zentrum’s plan. I know that now.” He turned back toward the darkness, the sound of the River below. “That’s the thrice-damned thing. I know.”
“Surely not,” said Golitsin.
“Oh yes,” said Friedman. “Seen it. Took the disk from the priest’s mouth while he was in his cups. Put it in mine.”
“The…what are you talking about?”
“You don’t know about it. Only the prelates know. When he’s raised up. The disk for his mouth, the one that speaks the Presence to his mind.”
Can this be? Abel thought. Is he telling the truth?
Working, said Center. And then a moment later: Confirmed. A waferlike communication device fitted to the palate. Matches known parameters for period-appropriate quantum communication device.
The hermit turned back toward them, and there was wildness in his eyes. “I saw the mind of Zentrum. The Blood Winds. The death. The horror that is coming. I saw it all. I saw that it doesn’t matter what I do, what anyone does. I saw the Plan. The bright and shining Plan. And I knew all I could do was hide. Hide here. And wait for the Plan to become the Act. For Zentrum does not lie. Zentrum is all that is true. And now I know. Now I know. He hates us for our unbalance, for His own holy requirement always to maintain the scales of Law and Stasis. We are despised of Zentrum, and we deserve it. I deserve it.” Friedman began to rock back and forth in his muddy spot between the lamps. “I deserve it, I deserve it,” he chanted.
“By the Law and the Land, brother,” muttered Golitsin. He reached to touch the shoulder of the hermit, but Friedman flung his hand away. He continued his rocking and moaning.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to Abel. Before he could question it, turn over his decision, he acted. Rising up, he stepped past Golitsin and launched himself at the hermit priest. He landed on top of Friedman and with a quick shove, threw the hermit on his back. The man was stronger than he looked, and he began to struggle. Abel found his musket still in his hand, and he brought it down horizontally across the hermit’s neck, pinning him down against the mud, crushing his windpipe, choking the priest.