The Further Adventures of Rose, Nun of the Veracian Church

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Re: The Further Adventures of Rose, Nun of the Veracian Chur

Post by Graybeard »

Chapter 10: Thaumatocycles

“Are we … finally … unobserved?” Shem asked between great gasps for air.

“Yes … finally … thank fate,” Cosmo puffed.

The two Tsuirakuans stood at the summit of Stone Man Pass, trying to regain their breath, and cursing their ill luck. They had planned to ride their bicycles just far enough out of Gervasiel to get away from the barbarians’ eyes, then engage the thaumatic drives that would propel them along at speeds no ordinary bicycle could match, even up this steep, primitive (at least by Tsuirakuan standards) road. The watchful eyes of Cosmo’s familiar Trevor, now circling overhead, would be on the lookout for approaching traffic, and a birdcall would alert the travelers that they needed to abandon the magic until the barbarians passed by and out of sight. The reports they had received on this road had described it as desolate, remote, almost abandoned, so there shouldn’t be too many such interruptions.

Unfortunately, reality had been otherwise. There had been just enough traffic on the highway to prevent the two men from going into thaumatocycle mode for anything but short stretches, and they had had to ride conventionally almost all the way to the pass. That would have been bad enough even if the road had been flat, which no road through the mountains would be. In the event, the haul up to the pass was agonizing, even for a pair of operatives who, by Tsuirakuan standards, were in good physical condition.

Anyone from Veracia, or for that matter Farrel or the Northern Confederacy or most of the rest of the world, who traveled this path would at least have consoled themselves with the fact that the view from the pass was breathtaking. Stone Man Pass was not high by the standards of the southern mountains of Veracia, but it was high enough for a traveler to see a vast expanse of verdant farmland stretching away to the east. On the other side where they’d come up, rolling hills yearned to be the high mountains the pass crossed, but contented themselves with a forested, delicate beauty of their own. Far to the west, glimpses of the Farrel Sea were even visible beyond low points on the coastal mountain range. If the lowlands were beautiful, the mountains through which the pass threaded itself were even more so. At least so a Veracian would have thought.

For travelers born and raised in the sky city of Tsuirakushiti, however, there was no such appeal to this sight. If a Tsuirakuan wanted to see the lowlands for some reason, he or she need only go to the edge of the levitating cone of land and look down – not that one Tsuirakuan in a hundred would actually do such a thing; why should they when the scenery of the city itself was so wonderful, and so much less … unsettling? Thus it was that Shem and Cosmo cast barely a glance at the beauty of southern Veracia as they recovered their breath … and they didn’t glance at the clouds mushrooming over the high peaks to the south, either.

Trevor was ranging out far ahead of them, looking for traffic on the far side of the pass, and Cosmo strained to hear the nightingale song that would alert them that they would once again have to resort to humiliating human power to get down the road. Well, at least it was almost all downhill, he thought. Even if there were barbarians on the way up, so the thaumatocycles would have to go without magical power, they should be able to coast most of the way to –

BOOM!

The force of the thunderclap, from a lightning bolt that neither Tsuirakuan saw but that struck a summit barely half a mile from the pass, came as a physical blow to the men’s extended senses. By the time their ears stopped ringing, huge drops of rain were falling around them, a bombardment made more powerful by the largest hailstones either of them had ever seen. Cosmo swore luridly as Shem was picking himself off the ground, and a flare of magic enveloped his bicycle. “Let’s get the hell out of here!” he called.

Shem wasn’t so sure. “I think I heard your nightingale right before that bang,” he said, mounting his own cycle. “We’re not supposed to let the barbarians see us –“

Screw the barbarians,” was the reply, just as another crash of thunder echoed off the cliffs above the pass. “They won’t even notice. Let’s move!” Cosmo’s newly charged thaumatocycle tore off at a speed never before seen on this road … at least by a vehicle. Shem sighed and cast, then followed a few tens of meters behind.

Mountain thunderstorms can be very intense, but they can also be very localized. The riders were a good kilometer down the winding road from the pass, with more than one harrowing hairpin turn behind them, before they realized that they were no longer being rained on at all. Thunder still crashed on the peaks above them, but it was muted now. They had passed one wagon, driven by a blond, blue-eyed man with two similarly complected women and several children, in their haste to get off the exposed ridge. It barely registered with them that the occupants of the wagon were not the least bit wet.

Trevor had circled lower toward the cyclists, partly to avoid the rain, but mainly so that his alarm call could be heard, and he now gave the nightingale’s call that would signify traffic on the road. On reflex, the Tsuirakuans dropped the spell. “Have we erred?” Shem asked. “We are supposed to conceal our transportation from the barbarians. That wagon –“

“Pfft,” Cosmo interrupted, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “They were too busy trying to get out of the rain, as we were, to notice, I think. Besides, what could a family of bumpkin farmers know of our magic?”

His compatriot nodded. “I suppose. Let us be cautious from here, though. We can still coast for a while. But you must be right: those barbarians would not have noticed.” They continued on down the road.

The driver of the wagon could have told the Tsuirakuans that their confidence was misplaced. He did no such thing, of course, but he did pull the wagon off under a canopy of trees – it still looked to be raining on up ahead – and pulled a not-so-barbaric device out from under the blanket covering the seat that he and his wives occupied. This he activated, with a touch of magic that the Tsuirakuans themselves would have appreciated, and he spoke into it, after first confirming that the cyclists were too far down the road to hear; his security sense, it was fair to say, was better than theirs. “Bindiel here. We’ve just observed something interesting…”
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Re: The Further Adventures of Rose, Nun of the Veracian Chur

Post by Graybeard »

Chapter Eleven: Kassia Karvial

A short two days later, Sister Rose was at the airship terminal, ready, if reluctant, to start the journey south.

Her parting from Argus and her family had been painful, of course, but not as bad as it could have been. Argus had been love and comfort, in his own reserved way, and he was already on the way to Kiyoka to see to the vineyard that the two of them would be re-opening soon, if all went well. Dorothy Ordial had been an absolute rock, an island of stability for the family to rally around. Could I do that if I’d just lost a daughter, even one who had been estranged from the family for years? Rose wondered. I don’t know … and I hope I never have to find out … although I also hope … There was that dull pain in the ovaries again, although this time it was at least tinged with some of that hope she was talking to herself about. She could at least take some satisfaction that Brad’s parents had been just as excited to hear that they were soon to have grandchildren as she’d imagined they might be. (Speaking of pains in the ovaries…)

The hardest leave-taking had been from her niece. Aron and Gretta’s daughter Ruth was eleven years old, and she’d looked up to her Aunt Rose almost from the day she was born. She’d clearly gotten a good dose of the Nuria genes, green eyes and all; her parents had already started to see some of the magical capabilities that went with them, showing up as a knack for balance and agility that would be the envy of many an adult gymnast. Rose had watched her climb a cliff face a year or so earlier that left her wondering if the girl was levitating … and the fact that there was a bit of magic playing around her as she did it had convinced Rose that it wasn’t an idle speculation.

Now, however, Ruth’s feet had been rooted firmly on the ground as she hugged her aunt. “So you have to go off and save the world again?” she asked plaintively. Rose had known that was coming, and she had her answer ready, although she modified it in mid-stream: “Afraid so, honey. It’s what Lu—it’s the right thing to do.” But even though she also knew what Ruth was going to say next, she wasn’t ready for it. “But Aunt Rose, the rest of the world doesn’t care whether you save it or not. Why don’t you just stay here, just settle for saving the part of the world that you love? The part that loves you?”

It was that last question that was still on Rose’s mind as she approached the airship, but it receded into the background when she saw Gisbert and some church functionaries she didn’t recognize waiting for her. “Your flight will be delayed,” the priest said, raising a hand. “Your apprentice has been delayed in her arrival.”

Uh, oh. “You didn’t tell me about an apprentice,” Rose said, as levelly as she could manage. “What’s this all about?”

“Our apologies, Sister,” one of the minions said. “It was a last-minute decision by the Patriarch himself. He felt it important to –“

Rose hadn’t got to her current position by letting her temper get the better of her, but she felt heat rising in her face. “Important to what?” she asked, an edge to her voice. “Certainly not important to the mission, I’d be vastly better off, safer, better able to get the damn thing done by myself.” If they were going to be offended by some low-grade swearing, let them. “What else ‘important’ could be going on here?” I suspect I may know the answer to that.

The satrap coughed apologetically and raised a hand. “Again, our apologies. However, there is a reason for it. Careful inquiries in the Church have found a young woman who has some – shape-shifting skills. The decision has been made that she needs a father – excuse me, mother figure to help her reach her potential in the service of Our Lord Luminosita.”

Well, that’s a surprise, I must admit. Polymorph magic was almost unknown in the Veracian Church, even among its most magically adept priests and nuns. Other than herself and the enigmatically, disturbingly deceased Father Egbert, she’d met fewer than a dozen other adepts who could do it at all, and all of the others except Egbert (where had he learned his skills? by now Rose had decided she didn’t really want to know) could only make the barest modifications to their forms, and even that only with great effort. Besides, the Church didn’t exactly encourage that kind of magic, even among those entrusted with its defense. Quite the contrary, in fact; the conservative wing of the Orthodox Church had looked distinctly askance at the things Rose did, which was one reason why they’d been glad to ship her off to the mission in Kiyoka. Could this be the beginning of a change in attitude toward magic in the Church? If so, she might have to reconsider her decision to –

She put that thought behind her, to be re-examined later. “And exactly who is this young woman?” she asked neutrally.

“You can ask her that yourself,” the satrap said. “Here she comes now.” He gestured toward the terminal.

At first Rose wondered whether this “apprentice’s” magical talents included the ability to appear as an animated, normally inanimate object – specifically a broomstick. The girl approaching them looked to be about fifteen years old; very tall, very gangling, and very awkward in her movements, with a long shock of blonde hair framing a face that could charitably be described as “homely.” She had large brown eyes (not the Nuria green, Rose noticed) hidden behind thick glasses, a typical adolescent’s unfortunate complexion, and a mild case of buck teeth. The latter were on prominent display as her mouth hung open in an expression that struck Rose as that of hero worship.

“Oooh, Sister Rose, ma’am!” the girl enthused, her voice cracking with excitement. “My father told me so much about you! I never thought I’d get to meet someone as famous as –“

Despite herself, Rose was mildly amused. “Well, I don’t think I’m all that notable. But welcome, anyway.” For certain, basically false definitions of “welcome”. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

The girl looked abashed. “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m Kassia Karvial, but everybody just calls me Cassie. Ooooh, I’m just so excited…” And suddenly Rose understood.

Karvial. The surname of the highest ranking priest of the Luminositan Scientists sect of the church.

She’d been under no illusions that this mission was going to be pleasant, and it had just taken on an undertone that was … disturbing.
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Re: The Further Adventures of Rose, Nun of the Veracian Chur

Post by Graybeard »

Chapter Twelve: Shapeshifters

By the time the airship lifted from its moorings, Rose was reasonably sure she had worked out the hidden agenda behind the addition of Kassia Karvial to this mission, and she did not like the implications any more now than when she had her first reaction.

She hadn’t yet confirmed her suspicions about Kassia being the daughter of the senior Mechanist priest, but she’d established that this girl indeed came from one of the other minor sects of the Luminositan Church that allowed its clergy to marry and have families; indeed, a sect that differed from Orthodoxy on even more matters than Rose’s own Reformed denomination. They had some beliefs about Luminosita’s Person that even Rose found unsettling, to the limited extent that she understood them. So why would a child of that sect, a child of a Very Important Person in it, be sent with another nearly-heretical nun on a mission like this?

The answer was obvious. We’re supposed to fail.

And not just have a garden-variety failure, either. They want something to happen here that will discredit at least one of our denominations, maybe both, and maybe set us at each other’s throats. That way they can declare one or both of us heterodox, and start cracking down, all in the name of preserving good relations among Luminosita’s people.


There was a corollary. At least one of us is not supposed to survive this mission. At least we won’t be mourned if we don’t.

Watch your back, girl. And watch Cassie’s.


She did her best to conceal these feelings as she went forward to join Kassia in the forward observation cabin. Apparently the girl hadn’t been on many airships before; not surprising, under the circumstances. She was staring wide-eyed out the window as Saus receded beneath them. Rose’s acrophobia gave her a mild twinge, but by now she was no stranger to airship travel, and she took two or three deep breaths to clear her head and sat down by the girl. “Enjoying the view?”

If the girl had had a tail, she’d have wagged it. “Oh, yes, Holy Mother, ma’am! I’ve never seen Saus from up here, it’s so beautiful, so exciting! I’m so fortunate to be able to do this, and with someone as important and powerful and magical as yourself, I’m just soooo excited that –“

Holy Mother? Rose wondered as the verbal excitement continued pouring forth. Well, it wasn’t that improbable; from a purely biological point of view, at least, the age difference was great enough for them to pass as mother and daughter, which might be a handy way to proceed once they got to Provatiel. (Not to mention that if her observations on the earlier trip meant anything, women in that city tended to have children at an unsettlingly young age; she wondered whether Carly Bindiel had had any success yet in that “mission” she’d mentioned.) But the “Holy” part might cause problems, and not just with their working relationship, such as it was; staying incognito and low-key seemed like a good plan, and fancy titles weren’t compatible with that. “Please, just call me Rose for right now,” she suggested. “I’m not a Holy Mother.” She chuckled. “A nun, yes, but not a mother yet, and no more holy than any other servant of Luminosita.” The “yet” had come out without thinking … Time to change the subject. “So they tell me you have a bit of shape-shifting magic?”

Cassie’s face practically glowed. “Oh, yes, Holy – Rose, Luminosita has blessed me with some small skill there, but nothing as powerful as what you have!” Her voice dropped into tones more of awe than excitement. “Is it really true what they tell me, that you can shape-change into a – a weretiger?”

Now where did they get that idea? “Sorry to disappoint you,” Rose smiled. “I can only make basic changes to my body that still leave it close to being who I am, a rather ordinary woman of age –“

“Not an ordinary woman, a beautiful woman,” Cassie interrupted.

Rose blushed and tried again. “Let’s not speak of physical beauty; if we can change the exterior with magic, the exterior must not be so important, must it? But anyway, I can only make changes that are consistent with what I am, and with what I can imagine myself being. I can no more change into something exotic like a weretiger than I could change into a rock.” She chuckled. “There are no such things as weretigers, anyway. The specific gift that Luminosita saw fit to give me –“ or at least Nuria genetics did – “was to be able to do this limited changing with unusually little effort and disruption of my body. Many spellcasters can learn the rudiments of polymorph magic. Problem is, it leaves their bodies all messed up for a while, it takes a great deal of energy, and if they’re not careful, they can hurt themselves in ways it takes a good healer to fix. It’s my good fortune, Luminosita be praised, to be able to do this without hurting myself.”

Cassie’s eyes had been widening through this exposition, and now they seemed ready to jump out of her head as she said breathlessly, “Can – can you show me then? It – you don’t have to be a weretiger, that’s okay.”

“If you wish.” Rose had been anticipating this exchange ever since the conversation with Gisbert’s minion, and she’d been trying to remember the “fashionable young explorer” persona she’d adopted the first time she saw Argus again in Veracia. (That one would linger in her memory for a long time, actually, because of the way it had been the start of … well, things with Argus.) “Just a second.”

Her green eyes got that magical glow to them, and a Detection-magic expert would have found completely inexplicable things flickering around her body as reality blurred; in fact, such experts in the Church had tried Detection and Divination spells on her, to the extent of leaving her feeling like a lab rat … all without learning a thing they could use. When the blur cleared, Rose’s usual form, that of a mid-to-late-thirties woman with long, light brown hair tinged with red, an oval face, and so on, had become something else. The woman standing in front of Cassie now looked younger and leaner, with longer and darker hair gathered into a pony tail. She was proud she’d remembered the feather in her hat; that had seemed a nice little touch at the time. Only the green eyes were unchanged, as they always were.

The girl’s mouth fell open again. “Holy – Rose! How did you do that? Are you – are you – who are you?”

“Why, I’m myself, of course,” Rose said almost playfully. “Changing the body doesn’t change who you are. The soul within is the important thing, and shape-change magic doesn’t effect that.” Although other, darker things … well, that can wait for later. “Hang on.” Reality blurred again as she resumed her normal form. “I’m just a little tired from that,” she said after taking a deep breath, “and I’d like to rest a little while. Why don’t we enjoy the scenery, and then in a bit, you can show me your own shape-shifting skills? We’ll have time, and I’m very interested in those.”

And in other things, she thought, as they settled into their seats for the journey south.
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Re: The Further Adventures of Rose, Nun of the Veracian Chur

Post by Graybeard »

Chapter Thirteen: Flat tires

Meanwhile, in southern Veracia:

A nightingale’s call sounded from above the roadway. “Finally,” groaned Cosmo, “we can get off these Weave-damned things and call it a night.” It wasn’t actually night yet; the sun was still above the horizon, although it was blocked for the moment by the clouds dissipating above Stone Man Pass. However, the two Tsuirakuans looked, and were, exhausted enough to drop in their tracks. The damnable bicycles …

“Should I get the tent?” his companion asked, preparing to open his Pocket Dimension; it wouldn’t be the first time a high-thaumato-technology tent had been set up along this road, if young Lochlear’s reports had been accurate. Of course, the match between what they’d said about this road, and what the two cyclists had experienced, had not been so good so far, or so they believed. The possibility that the problem might lie with the readers of the reports, rather than with the reporter, never entered their minds, of course.

The first Tsuirakuan shook his head. “No need. That particular call means he sees a town up ahead. We worked out the signaling back at home. We can spend tonight in decent beds, to the extent that any exist in this benighted country.”

The second Tsuirakuan shrugged. “As you wish.” He hadn’t been exactly looking forward to a night spent on a cot, either. Laboriously, they set their rides in motion again, applying aching muscles to the pedals; this close to town, they wouldn’t risk magical power.

It was only twenty or so minutes later, and the sun was still barely above the horizon when they came to the village, a small one even by the standards of rural Veracia. A blonde, blue-eyed woman pushing a baby carriage, with two similarly blond, blue-eyed children in tow, glanced at them idly, and when they asked about an inn, wordlessly pointed down a side street. A sign there announced the “Right Way Inn,” with an old man, smoking a pipe, sitting on the porch. “Kin I be helpin’ ye?” this rustic inquired as the Tsuirakuans approached; he seemed friendly enough. Minutes later, a pair of rooms were transacted.

“Kin I be parkin’ your bike things?” the proprietor (for such he was) asked. “The rooms ain’t real big, now, and there be not much space for the two o’ye an’ them things.”

Cosmo was ready for this. “No, thanks, sir,” he informed the man, politely, but with just a tiny note of condescension that a Tsuirakuan would have understood, although this barbarian obviously wouldn’t. “They will fold into nice small packages for us.” This wasn’t strictly true, unless one counted stowage in a Pocket Dimension as “folding” into a small package, but of course, they weren’t going to allow foreigners to inspect this bit of well-concealed magical technology.

The old man shrugged. “Up to ye. But ye’ll be wantin’ to be puttin’ some air inta them tires, they’s a mite flat-like. I’ll be grabbin’ a pump, you jest be waitin’ right here.” He tottered into the house.

Cosmo and Shem were chagrined. It hadn’t even occurred to them that bike tires might go flat, let alone that that might be part of the reason why their ride up and down the pass had been so tiring. Back home, their loss of face from this error would have been considerable, enough that they’d have felt required to abandon the faulty machines (the flatness of the tires had to be the bikes’ fault, after all) for new wheels. Out here, however, there would be no alternative but to continue, and besides, what would a rural Veracian know about loss of face, anyway? They waited patiently as the old man pumped up the tires, coughing and wheezing; it never occurred to them to take a turn on the pump, because he was a servant, and that was what servants were for. Polite thanks exchanged, they wheeled their now more tractable machines back to their rooms (small, as advertised, but comfortable enough under the circumstances), and made an early night of it, not that a place such as this would offer many alternatives.

The Tsuirakuans made an early night of it, but the proprietor did not.

Once he was sure his guests were well settled, he stepped back into the house, and into an office that had a most un-Veracian glow of magic about it; at least it did by the time he finished casting the Damping spell that would prevent what he was about to say from being heard back in the guest rooms. He removed from one of its shelves a small implement redolent of magic, which the Tsuirakuans would have recognized as having some of the same functionality as a crystal ball if they’d seen it; needless to say, careful steps had been taken so that they would not. He spoke into this device, the Veracian hill accent abandoned at the front porch. “Lieutenant Bindiel, please.”

“Go,” a voice came from the device.

“They’re here, sir, and the tracking runes have been installed, as you ordered.”

“Good. You were careful to keep it well hidden? They’re not going to be checking too carefully for bugs, since they don’t think we’re capable of anything like that, but we still don’t want them finding anything on their bikes that will get their suspicions up.”

The old man chuckled. “Not ‘on’ the bikes, ‘in’ them.” Really, he’d felt a little proud of the idea of introducing the runes with the air pump. (Luminosita will forgive me that hubris, he thought.) Mixed in with the obvious magical field of the bicycles – how the foreigners could expect that to pass unnoticed even out here in the wilds, he could barely imagine – even high-class Detection magic was likely to miss them. “They’ll never know.”

“Good work, Father Reginald,” the voice at the other end said. “Get some sleep, you’ve earned it. Luminosita’s Blessings be with you.”

"And wit' ye, soor," the old man replied, getting back into role. The magical connection was severed.
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Re: The Further Adventures of Rose, Nun of the Veracian Chur

Post by Graybeard »

Chapter Fourteen: Testing the magic

By the time the airship was an hour south of Saus, Sister Rose’s ears were hurting, and it wasn’t because they were still equalizing pressure as the ship gained altitude.

Did I really chatter that incessantly when I was a teenager? she groaned to herself (silently, of course) as Cassie launched into, like, another spiel on, oh wow, how awesome her church history class was, and you know, how dreamy young Brother Clive who taught it was, and how the boy two seats over, okay, had the cutest eyes, and she thought Vinnie liked her but, you know, they weren’t supposed to let it show and besides, he was Orthodox like all the others and Ruzica was a nasty old Queen Bee ifyouknowwhatImean and wanted to make sure she kept Vinnie for herself and …

Yes, I probably did chatter like that, Rose confessed as the adolescent tangle of who-was-crushing-on-whom was woven. Certainly, she’d thought that boy from the farm outside Delphiniel was cute, even though she’d forgotten his name by now. And she probably hadn’t reacted too – maturely when the Logiel girl (on whom Rose herself had affixed that same “Queen Bee” label that Cassie was using, she realized guiltily) snatched him away from their comfortable little study session to go out to the prayer garden and “meditate.” She still allowed herself a mild harrumph at that memory (meditate, my foot – I knew just what that bench in the garden was used for, I, um, used it myself…), and it broke her current companion’s train of thought. “Did I say something wrong, Holy – Rose?” Cassie inquired anxiously.

No, just lots of teenaged things, thought Rose, but of course, she didn’t say that. “Not at all,” she smiled gently. “You’re just reminding me of when I was your own age.” Her smile widened. “It was a fun time. Enjoy it.” And I mean that, although I much prefer this time to that one.

The girl looked relieved; evidently she’d been expecting Rose to lecture her sternly about how Luminosita was the only love of her life now, and how she should put away her childish things and study the Teachings of Luminosita as they flew south instead of engaging in this childish babble. Any of the Orthodox Holy Mothers would probably have done that. Of course, Rose was orthodox neither in her church affiliation nor her theology nor – in other ways, and Cassie was beginning to understand that. She was still sensitive enough to take the hint (a positive sign, Rose decided). “Sorry,” she smiled sheepishly. “I talk too much. Should I go meditate on Luminosita’s Grace for a while, do you think, to prepare for our mission?”

Now we’re getting somewhere. “Well, instead of that, do you think you could show me a little of your own polymorph magic? That’s why we – why I’m here to help you with your studies, after all. As an example, can you –“ Rose thought for a moment – “can you make yourself look a little taller, no more than an inch or two, and with short brown hair instead?”

She’d chosen that change in appearance carefully as a first test of Cassia’s capabilities. Adding height slightly, while changing nothing else, was something even the beginning student of polymorphy could do. She’d discovered that not so much from her own experiences at home and in seminary (she’d pretty well skipped all of the beginning polymorphy, since she was already a vastly more accomplished shape-shifter at age twelve than even the elderly nun who taught the class) as from some of the young students she’d met in Kiyoka. It was just a matter of injecting magic in the spaces between a few vertebrae, being careful not to put too much in any one joint lest a backache (or worse) result; the elasticity of the flesh would take care of the rest. The change in hair color and length shouldn’t be too taxing, either; hair was made of dead, not living, cells, and if the student misjudged the magic (it happened), any resulting consequences would just result in frizzly or tangled tresses, rather than anything bad for living flesh.

The girl seemed to understand. “Yes, yes, of course I can do that,” she said; Rose was pleased to hear neither pride nor condescension there, just a matter-of-fact statement. “That was my first midterm. Watch.”

Cassie raised a hand in the Sign of Luminosita and began to chant, and Rose had her first insight into what lay before her in her double role as mentor and guardian (not to mention the role of keeping them both alive through the mission). It was a standard prayer for Luminosita to bestow His Power on the supplicant so she (or he) could perform some magical task for His Glory. It was all basic enough, and Rose had used it often enough herself, either to make a point or to make sure there were plenty of magical reserves for a particularly arduous or time-sensitive(!) spell. (Luminosita knew, she’d had enough of that latter class recently.) However, for the magically adept in the Church (fewer now than there should be, she thought), it wasn’t really necessary, strictly speaking. The key thing was to rally and control the magic, which was all around them, not merely what was concentrated in Luminosita’s Essence. Even the Orthodox people were finally beginning to understand that, although too many of them didn’t have the necessary magical aptitude to tap into the non-Luminositan magical energy. Would this girl be skillful enough to do that? That would be the next test, Rose decided.

Her magical senses did confirm that something was happening, and not just with the girl’s body. Little by little, magic was rallying to the “spell.” It took five minutes or so, but eventually, Cassie stopped chanting and the magic cleared – revealing a young woman, still a girl, who had made just the changes to her body that Rose had asked for. She was breathing just slightly hard, not too bad under the circumstances, Rose thought; full-blown Polymorph magic could be incredibly taxing, and even she herself had to be careful not to exhaust herself in the process if she was making too many changes in too short a time.

“Very well done,” she smiled at her young companion (student?). “Let me look at you for a second.” Detection magic wasn’t Rose’s forte, but she knew enough to be able to check the girl out for ill effects of the spell casting. Other than the fatigue, there didn’t appear to be any. She praised the product and the process some more, as Cassie’s own smile widened and her self-confidence grew moment by moment.

Which means it’s too bad that I’m going to have to deflate that self-esteem a little bit.

“Now tell me,” Rose asked gently, “if you had been forced to make a change like that, not in five minutes, but in a fraction of a second, without any verbalization, could you do it? If it meant that your life, or the lives of others, might be in the balance?”

The girl’s face became serious, and she sagged visibly. “But how – this is the only way I – I need Luminosita’s Power to –“

“And you will have it,” Rose interrupted, “but you still have much to learn before putting your skills to work in Luminosita’s Service. Let’s get started.” They took their seats, and the training between mentor and student began.
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Re: The Further Adventures of Rose, Nun of the Veracian Chur

Post by Graybeard »

[A little short this time, but more is coming...]

Chapter Fifteen: Throwing rocks

Meanwhile, in eastern Farrel:

A tremendous roar, as of two small worlds colliding, filled the remote valley, as a boulder the size of a small house hurtled through the air and smashed into a rock formation half way up the valley’s north wall, a formation that Carson Jeromiel knew concealed the entrance to a long-defunct mine. A cascade of rock fragments tumbled to the valley floor, with a sound curiously reminiscent of a rainstorm.

Jeromiel smiled happily to himself. “All riiight. I think I’m getting the hang of this,” he told the Tsuirakuan mage prone on the ground beside him. Of course, the Tsuirakuan, being dead owing to the bullet Jeromiel had launched through his head a few hours earlier, made no reply, but that was just fine with him.

The golem looming over him made no reply either, nor had he expected one. He couldn’t have faulted the thing if it had had a look of smug satisfaction on its stone face, though. It had hurled the boulder exactly where Jeromiel had wanted it to go. Controlling the golem was proving much easier than expected; the control unit that the late Tsuirakuan had made seemed almost to have a mind-reading capability, converting the operator’s thoughts into magical signals that the golem, in its mindless way, seemed to understand perfectly. Many were the Farrelites who would have been badly unsettled by this display of thaumatic power. Carson Jeromiel, however, wasn’t just any Farrelite.

“Well, Fred,” he addressed the golem (that seemed like as good a name for it as any), “let’s see if you can do that again.” A pair of twisted knobs, and some magical concentration, later, the huge construct held another boulder from the valley floor in its enormous hand. Another burst of concentration, and the rock was on its way to its designated target. Jeromiel’s aim wasn’t quite as good as the first time (beginner’s luck, he decided), and the missile went several meters wide of the mine entrance. It would still have done a great deal of damage to any foe large enough to be worth launching it at, of course, but Jeromiel was a perfectionist; he scowled up at the golem and cursed under his breath. The golem, of course, didn’t care.

Two hours later, he’d refined his boulder-throwing technique (with smaller boulders, necessarily; the valley floor was getting depleted in the heavy stuff) to where he and Fred were hitting the target quite reliably. That was enough practice for the day, he decided; an incongruously soft rain was starting to fall, and the sun would be setting behind the mountain ridge to the west before long. It was time to set up camp, which would be done a kilometer or so up the valley, at a spot he’d picked out where he could see, and if necessary, shoot anyone coming to investigate. Not that any snoopers were expected; Jeromiel didn’t believe in any gods, Veracian or otherwise, but there seemed still to be an element of divine providence to the fact that the golem had come ashore in a particularly rugged piece of real estate far enough from a village to be generally ignored.

Before he made camp, though, there was one little detail to be taken care of.

The golem’s stride, he figured, would normally be about thirty meters or so, which would overshoot the target he had in mind for it. Was his control sensitive enough to make it take a small, almost mincing step? He stood off from its side by a safe distance and worked the controls.

All was just as he’d hoped. The golem shuffled forward just far enough for a huge foot to land squarely on the body of the Tsuirakuan. The resulting sound and sight, and soon enough, smell would have set most men to retching. Most men, however, were not Schwarzhammer mercenaries with double-digit killings under their belts.

Jeromiel smiled happily. Now, if anyone should ask him back in Isabel what had become of the Tsuirakuan he’d gone to the field with, he could report truthfully – well, truthfully enough to pass a thaumatic interrogation, he reckoned – that the man had suffered a most unfortunate mishap and been squashed under the feet of the golem they were trying to control.

One could never be too careful about such things, and besides, it just wouldn’t do to lie. Would it?
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Re: The Further Adventures of Rose, Nun of the Veracian Chur

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Chapter Sixteen: Eyes

The girl had possibilities, Rose had to admit.

The airship was not fast, and there had been time to spend most of the day evaluating and refining Kassia Karvial’s capacity for polymorph magic. That she had any such capability at all was remarkable, actually. Even among the magically adept nuns and priests of the Orthodox Veracian Church, few could do much shape-changing other than the purely cosmetic things associated with the hair, the skin, other parts of the body that were no longer living flesh. Of course, part of that, Rose realized, was the Orthodox reluctance to use magic at all, other than the Luminosita sight and sound effects (which she knew were exactly that), some healing magic, and just enough combat spellcraft to have gotten themselves in trouble back at the time of the Mage/Priest War. Even in her own Reformed Church, though, it was a rare skill, and she presumed it was no more common among Cassie’s own Luminositan Science denomination. Maybe the Church really had had her best interests, and the interests of the mission, at heart when they sent this girl south.

Right. Just like they do when they launch bands of thugs wearing priestly robes to conduct smitings of innocent bystanders like Desiree and Anfisa.

She tried to put that little incident, and too many others like it, out of her mind, and get back to the task at hand. It would have been much easier, she thought, if she’d had a good image of one of the young women from the castle in Provatiel, one who fit the disturbing Millenarian ideal of womanhood, blonde-haired and blue-eyed and beautiful, in a … well, uniform sort of way. About the best she’d been able to manage was to scrounge a picture of her cousin Brad’s first wife Annie, and that should suffice; the Millenarians had “recruited” her (to use the polite word) as … well, breeding stock (not so polite), which if nothing else would mean that she’d passed their own standards for looking Millenarian enough.

Cassie was taking a brief nap after their latest exercise, one to see how she’d do at packing weight (or at least its magical equivalent) onto her spindly body. That had gone well enough; she’d even been able to work with the magic at hand rather than summoning Luminositan energy. It had still left her fatigued, and it could hardly have been otherwise. Rose took advantage of the lull to rummage through her image collection (including, of course, several of Argus) to find the one of Annie that she would use in the next lesson … and as she found it, she realized she had a problem that she hadn’t thought of earlier.

There’s no way I’m ever going to be able to pass for one of the Chosen, or Paragons, or whatever the people at the castle call themselves. My eyes won’t let me.

It was true enough. The image of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Annie was entirely beyond the ability of Rose’s shape-shifting magic to duplicate, because her eyes simply could not be any color but green, and that wouldn’t meet the Millenarian standard. From a personal point of view, that was entirely agreeable; to say that she hadn’t been looking forward to trying to pass herself off as one of those people would be a serious understatement. However, it was a severe limitation on how she might do the mission. Unless…

Cassie was coming around, and Rose was smiling at her as she opened her eyes – her brown eyes, Rose remembered with an unspoken swear word. “Hope you had a nice nap,” she said, with more cheerfulness than she felt. “Are you ready for the next lesson?”

Brown or blue, those eyes did have plenty of enthusiasm to them. “Oh, yes, Hol—Rose!”

Well, better to find out sooner than later whether this is going to work. “A very simple exercise this time,“ Rose smiled. “I’d just like for you to practice making your eyes look blue.”

Cassie frowned. “I – I guess so. I’ve never tried to do that before. Isn’t a change like that hard? I’m still learning how to do all this polymorph magic, you know.”

“It shouldn’t be too hard for you,” Rose averred, trying to sound confident. “Blue is actually a very natural eye color. Babies’ eyes start out blue, even if they turn brown when they get older.” (This was true.) “You should be able to do it without any problems.”

Cassie wasn’t convinced. “Can you show me?”

Touche. Fortunately, Rose had anticipated that question. “Unfortunately, no, I can’t. Whatever genet—“ She caught herself; it would be better to use conventional religious framing with this girl. “Whatever gift Luminosita chose to give me, to allow me to shape-change so easily, comes with some limits, and one of them is that I am one hundred per cent unable to change the color of my eyes. Nobody knows why, the healers in Saus, the professors in Emerylon, the priests who’ve studied me, nobody.” She shrugged. “The ways of Luminosita are not all things for us humans to know.” Would that do the trick?

Apparently it did. Cassie’s eyes got big (and brown). “Praise Luminosita for His gifts,” she whispered; Rose recognized that as a line from a liturgy that the Reformed branch didn’t usually practice, so she smiled and made the Sign of Luminosita in silent reply. “Let me try…”

One little bit of progress, Rose reflected approvingly as the girl concentrated, was that she no longer needed to go through the elaborate chant to focus her magical powers. She could feel the magic taking form around them … and suddenly, without any fuss, Cassie’s face was different, in precisely the way she’d hoped it would be.

Her happiness was genuine as she beamed at her young charge. “Excellent! So now, in this thing, the student surpasses the teacher – which is just the way it should be.” The mentor-student relationship did not exclude the possibility of a happy hug, when it was justified.
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Re: The Further Adventures of Rose, Nun of the Veracian Chur

Post by Graybeard »

[Sorry for the delay; there was a death in my real-world family. :cry: Just like there was at this exact same time last year. Can we get through a year without deaths of loved ones, please? Anyway, one more character from Errant Road to get on board, and then the fun begins...]

Chapter Seventeen: Sister Gail

Sister Rose and Kassia Karvial had boarded the airship as nun (or Special Forces major) and novice, but by the time it landed in Lorenzel, they were ready to depart it as mother and daughter, at least in appearance. Most of that was simply a matter of outfits and disguise; polymorph magic took care of the rest. Rose had briefly considered giving herself an older, more … full-figured appearance, but had decided against it. Women in the Millenarians' sphere of influence, she recalled, started their families young (Carly Bindiel, or Wife Number Three or Sister Carleen or whatever, had given birth at the ripe old age of seventeen at the oldest), so there was no reason to look any older than she actually was. She’d settled for turning her hair to the blonde color that the Millenarians apparently favored. As for Cassie, she’d been able to keep her eyes blue, which would help meet the Millenarian standard, but changing her body to the more – shapely form of the women in the castle was more than she could achieve with limited effort. Well, Rose reasoned, even girls conforming to the Millenarian ideal could be a little, well, gawky as they were passing through adolescence. Couldn’t they? We’ll soon find out.

A young, short, wiry-looking nun was waiting for them as they alit. At first Rose was surprised, and truth to tell, mildly annoyed that some officer from the naval base (surely the Veracian navy, most conservative of the country’s military services, wouldn’t have allowed anything as innovative as a female officer yet, would they?) hadn’t been sent to meet them, but on thinking about it, it was for the best; the less fuss and hoopla their arrival generated, the less chance there would be of someone unwelcome taking notice. The nun introduced herself as Sister Gail and conducted them to a waiting carriage of undistinguished appearance.

”Sister Gail” she might be, thought Rose, but I have this feeling that I’ve seen her before, and not under that name. She sat in silence, rummaging her memory as Cassie chattered about how awesome it was to be meeting another young woman in a position of responsibility in the church, and how awesome Lorenzel was supposed to be, and so on. Some of the verbal torrent seemed to be directed toward Gail, but the younger nun merely grunted and concentrated on driving the hack. She wasn’t terribly good at hiding her feelings, Rose thought; the teenage babble was clearly beginning to get on her nerves, even though she didn’t look to be much out of her teens herself.

Finally, a moment came when Gail had had enough. She steered the carriage abruptly to the side of the road alongside a large park and brought it to a halt. “All right,” she said, in a voice with an edge on it. “Let’s get the chatter out of the way so I can drive this thing. When we get to the middle of town, I’m gonna be too busy dodging traffic to talk, so talk now and be done with it. Got that?” She cocked her head sharply toward Cassie … and from that gesture, Rose thought she knew whom she was talking to.

Cassie looked abashed at the nun’s bluntness, and it left just enough of a conversational opening for Rose to jump in. “I’m terribly sorry about Brother Kelso,” she said gently. Would that one short line of sympathy have the desired effect?

It did. First Gail’s eyes, and then her mouth, opened, and her shoulders sagged as she fought for something to say. Then she squared up her shoulders and scowled. “I don’t know a Brother Kelso, ma’am,” she said through clenched teeth.

Rose didn’t need her Empathy magic to interpret that. “No, you don’t,” she said as gently as before. “But you did. And I’m still sorry about his death.”

That got through to Gail, who sat unmoving for a few seconds, apart from her sagging shoulders. Finally she blinked, and in a much more subdued voice than she’d been using, muttered, “Thanks … but how … how did you know?”

I was right. “You told me,” Rose answered softly. “I looked a little different at the time.” Truthfully, she hadn’t looked that different when the group visited the temple in Nautkia, but apparently it was different enough. “Just in case you’d forgotten: semper fi back at you.”

Semper fi,” the girl, now a young, bereaved woman (and ex-Special Forces soldier) rather than a Luminositan nun, said weakly. Then she pulled herself together. “But I was a different person – then. I’ve converted back to the Orthodox Church now, and got transferred back here to serve Our Lord Luminosita." Rose noted that she carefully avoided saying where she'd been transferred from. "I – moved on.” The defiant set to her shoulders reminded Rose of the last time she had seen this girl, as the servant "Lisebeth" in Nautkia. She'd been a hard young woman then, or at least, had been trying to be, as she was trying now.

Rose smiled sadly. “Something similar happened to me, when I lost someone I loved. But I found someone else to love, and someone who loved me. One does move on.”

“As I – re-found Luminosita.” Gail was about ready to get moving again, as Cassie, who did have enough social sense to know when to stay out of a conversation, looked on.

“As you did.” I’ll come back some other time to why she called her fiancé an “idiot” right after he died; now isn’t the time. The carriage resumed its journey, toward a smaller Orthodox temple on the outskirts of town; if they were trying to keep a low profile and pass unobserved, a grand entrance to the main temple wouldn’t do.
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Re: The Further Adventures of Rose, Nun of the Veracian Chur

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Chapter Eighteen: Trespassers

“Are we still on the right track?” Cosmo puffed, more than eager to take a break from the pedaling for some less strenuous spellcasting. “This crapsack country has so many Weave-damned hills…”

Shem, of course, was feeling the strain himself, but this unnecessarily verbose outburst from his colleague gave him just enough time to draw a deep, unobtrusive breath before his brief reply. “It does.” There; he’d said it without panting, which Cosmo couldn’t help but notice (as he did). That would be useful as a small social-status victory, some time and some place ahead of them. That had its ironies, to be sure. In the very uppermost strata of Tsuirakuan society, it would have been a faux pas not to be puffing in a situation like this; failure to show discomfort at the exertion would imply that the speaker was insufficiently skilled at magic to be unfamiliar with physical effort. However, Homeland Security operatives thought of themselves as men and women of the people (the rich people, but still), and their social mores were different. “Let us pause for a moment and – ensure that we are unobserved, then cast.”

Cosmo nodded. “Very well.” A quick check with Trevor, circling overhead, showed that the coast was clear, for one of the rare times on their ride north. If the road had been straight and devoid of side routes, the men would have been tempted to take advantage and apply the thaumatic power to their bikes, to make some distance while they could and give their aching lungs and legs a break. Unfortunately, they stood at a Y intersection. The left-hand fork was obviously the main road, and a sign said that that was the way to Lorenzel (which they had heard of and wished to avoid if possible) and Provatiel, whatever that was. The right-hand fork appeared much less traveled, and no sign indicated where it led. However, Cosmo’s magic senses were tingling when he looked that way, even before they cast the same routefinding spell as they’d used earlier.

“Hmmmm … that is odd,” he mused as the spell took effect. “Those we seek appear to have traveled recently on both forks of this road. If anything, their spoor is stronger on this lesser fork.” He indicated the right-hand road.

Shem nodded. “So it is. But I don’t think it shows on our maps.” This was true, as a quick opening of the Pocket Dimension confirmed; neither the hard-copy map inside, that Maduin Lochlear had got somewhere in-country, nor their very limited Crystal-Net coverage showed a side road here. Suspicious? Indicative of a hideout for villains? Maybe.

A nightingale (which is to say, Trevor) called far in the distance to the northwest; traffic was inbound on the main road. Cosmo made a rapid decision. “Right, and fast for a mile, until we’re out of sight of this intersection.” Shem didn’t need to be told twice. Still holding the crystal ball, he and his partner engaged the thaumatic drive, and the bicycles headed east with a whoosh, at a speed no Veracian wagon could match.

None the Tsuirakuans knew of, anyway.

They’d gone rather more than their intended mile when Cosmo raised a hand to call for a stop. They’d come to a large red sign at the side of the road, with an emphatic message:
UNAUTHORIZED TRAVEL BEYOND THIS POINT STRICTLY PROHIBITED
TRESPASSERS WILL BE SEVERELY PUNISHED
BY ORDER OF HIS HOLINESS, JERAMEL, PATRIARCH OF THE CHURCH OF OUR LORD LUMINOSITA


“Well, this complicates matters,” Shem allowed; the few minutes of thaumatic high-speed travel had allowed him to regain his breath. “I’m just sure our path continues forward here.” Extending his magical senses confirmed this. “But we are under orders to avoid conflict with the barbarians’ government. Should we continue?”

“Pffft,” was Cosmo’s dismissive reply, just as it had been earlier. “A sign like this may deter the rustics who believe in that silly god, but we can take measures to avoid detection.” He chuckled. “Probably nothing more this way than the Patriarch’s charming little bungalow in the boonies for boffing big-breasted farm girls, before he goes back to his capital and tells the world how celibate and devout he is.”

“As you say,” Shem muttered, not entirely sure of himself. Captain Kitaura had been quite emphatic about the no-conflict orders, and that was definitely not a person they wanted to face after causing an incident. On the other hand, he had also been clear that the death of Rebekah Codoin needed to be investigated fully. “Well, if you’re sure it’s safe,” he continued; might as well make sure to shift the blame onto Cosmo if something went wrong. The two men cast Cloaking spells and started forward.

It might have occurred to them that Trevor, still circling above, should have been under Cloaking too, but it did not.

At least, Cosmo reflected, the warning sign did serve to keep the road free of traffic. After a careful few minutes of pedaling, with no alarm calls from Trevor, the men decided to engage the thaumatic drives. The next ten or fifteen miles passed quickly, through wheat fields, streambeds, and patches of forest. (The incongruity of these neatly maintained plots of land, in an area supposedly closed to human entry, was lost on them; of course the land would be well cared for, wasn’t it everywhere?) The grade started to angle up, toward a low range of hills in the distance, prompting both men to momentary gratitude (toward the designers of their bikes, of course, not toward nonexistent gods or fates): for once they could let the magic do the hill-climbing work instead of their legs.

With this speedy travel, as they crested the ridge, they almost failed to notice the barbed-wire fence stretched across the road until it was too late.

“Damn,” said Shem, who’d been momentarily in the lead, as he braked hard to stop in front of the fence. “Apparently they’re serious about keeping us out of their leader’s love nest. But what is a ‘Lorenzel Excavation’?” The question seemed apposite, as a sign bearing these words, plus the usual dire warnings about unauthorized entry, stood beyond the fence.

Cosmo snorted. “Probably some holy artifact of their ridiculous church. Or they dug something underground for the big kahuna to screw his farm girls in. Who knows?”

Shem wasn’t quite so sanguine about the barrier. “Let me check something,” he muttered, and cast a standard trap-detection spell. “Aha.” There was some kind of magical field in front of them, beyond the fence; the barbarians’ equivalent of a Tanglefoot spell, apparently. Well, that shouldn’t be too hard to circumvent, or simply to neutralize. They’d had to deal with similar things back in the homeland, and there were standard render-safe techniques that every Homeland Security field operative learned. They set to work with careful applications of magic.

Thus preoccupied with what was in front of them, they didn’t bother to look at what was behind them until Trevor gave a muffled alarm call … and plummeted to earth with a thump, enveloped in a magical coil of rope that had had no merely human arm to lift it to where he circled.

“Gentlemen, you will come with us,” an authoritative, and magically amplified, voice called from their rear, just as a dozen blond-haired, blue-eyed – hard-eyed -- men carrying weapons (where in the Weave had they come from?) fanned out to surround them.
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Re: The Further Adventures of Rose, Nun of the Veracian Chur

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Chapter Nineteen: Bugs

The small Orthodox temple where Sister Rose, Kassia Karvial and Sister Gail alit had seen better days. It was well out on the edge of Lorenzel, and Rose guessed, correctly, that it was once the village temple for some tiny settlement that the growing city had enveloped and absorbed. Good; a place like this wouldn’t attract much attention, nor, presumably, would a trio of nuns carrying ragtag vestments, thoughtfully provided by Gail from a compartment in the carriage, through the front door. The few passers-by indeed seemed not to notice anything amiss, as a quick application of Rose’s Empathy magic confirmed.

“We’re secure here,” Gail said as soon as the door was closed and they were settled into the beat-up sanctuary. “We can talk freely.” This confidence didn’t stop her from casting a Damping spell to be on the safe side. Rose nodded approvingly; the young woman obviously remembered some things about security from her former life. “Do you know why we’re here?” she asked Gail once the air had developed that greasy feel.

“Sister Gail does not,” the young woman replied. What a curious turn of phrase, to use third person, thought Rose, but an explanation was coming. “Sister Gail was told only to render aid to two very important visitors coming in secrecy on the Holy Father’s business. But the woman I was before becoming Sister Gail, whose name I ask you not to use … she has a pretty good idea.” She busied herself with dusting off some of the chalices and candelabras; they appeared not to have been used in quite some time.

“And that is?” Rose prompted, picking up a censer and polishing it with one of the rags.

Gail looked as though she was considering whether to answer, doing a calculation that Rose could only guess at. Finally she stepped over to the ramshackle altar, and from a drawer in it she removed a small, metallic item that looked brightly polished, in contrast to the rest of the dingy interior. “This.” She held it out as though cradling the body of a dead, but formerly highly venomous, insect.

Millenarian insignia, Rose thought. She’d seen enough of them in the castle in Provatiel when she and Argus and Brad and Lillith had spent the night there. “How did that get there? This is an Orthodox temple, isn’t it?” Something was nagging at her as she looked at the medallion, but she couldn’t put a finger on it.

“I put it there,” Gail said calmly. “And don’t worry, it’s been deactivated. I saw to that.”

“What do you mean, ‘deactivated’?” Rose and Cassie said at the same time.

For a moment, it wasn’t a young nun who was looking back at them with disapproval, but a Special Forces soldier, and from her facial expression, one who thought the two women she was talking to might have been a little slower on the uptake than she expected. “Shut off,” Gail said. “Magically dispelled. It used to be a bug.” She put the medallion back in the drawer.

Rose flushed, embarrassed now at what she’d missed, but Cassie hadn’t figured it out yet. “A bug? It doesn’t look like an insect to me. How –“

“Not a living thing,” Rose interrupted, “but a scrying device, something that lets its owner listen to things at a distance and report what is being said.” And I haven’t bothered looking for any elsewhere down here, on this trip or the earlier one. I’ll have to be more careful. “Where did you find it?”

“You don’t need to know that,” Gail (or, for the moment, Lisebeth) said coldly. “Somewhere back in the other town that we were supposed to be keeping an eye on. Turns out we weren’t the only ones keeping an eye on it.”

“But what –“ Cassie stammered, still not having any idea what was behind the listening device. “Where –“

“Nautkia,” Rose interrupted again. Gail looked like she was about to erupt at the naming of a place she didn’t want named, but Rose raised a hand. “This young woman has to know what we’re getting into, and Luminosita knows, everybody down here knows what Nautkia is about already.” She cocked an eye at the other young woman. “Your father, for one.” That seemed to settle Gail down, and Rose gave a brief accounting of what she and the others had seen at the smugglers’ haven downstream on the Lorenzel River. (Well, not quite all of it; she wasn’t telling anyone about the Father Egbert business who hadn’t already heard the story.)

“So presumably this was something the Millenarians were using to keep tabs on one of the smuggling outfits,” she summed up. Gail’s features remained flat and cold, which was sufficient evidence that she’d got it right. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask which one.” Although I’d love to know, particularly whether Lucy Kankaniel was the target. “But if there was one bug in town, I’d wager there were more.”

“There were,” Gail nodded. She reached into the compartment in the altar and extracted something else. “Bet you haven’t seen one of these in a temple of Our Lord Luminosita before.”

What she held was a small chess set, and she was right: although some of the country’s best chessplayers were priests, the Church frowned on bringing the game into their temples and abbeys, at least their public places. Rose dimly remembered a sermon by a particularly officious priest denouncing it as a “game of chance” incompatible with – well, she couldn’t remember what, but “having fun” was the basic gist of it, never mind that chess wasn’t a game of chance anyway. This set, in any case, was clearly intended as a work of art rather than something to conduct a game of chance (read: have fun) with. It was much too small to be functional, and the pieces were encrusted with semi-precious stones and silver and gold gild. Most likely it had been a gift (again, read: bribe) for some functionary in Nautkia, and she could guess from whom. “So there’s a bug here?” she asked.

“Not any more. Check the pieces out,” said Gail. It only took a moment for Rose to notice that one of the black pawns was subtly different from the other pieces, made of a different kind of wood and with different gemstones. “This was the bug?”

Gail snorted. “Of course not. The bugged pawn is at the bottom of the Lorenzel River. We made this to stand in for it.” She folded the board back up and put it away. “There were other things like this all over town. My – friend, and my father, and I found lots of them. We neutralized the ones where we were spending our time, but as far as we know, most of them are still there. And they’re still under the control of that sect I’m not supposed to know you’re investigating.”

There wasn’t much to say to that, was there? “But why?” Rose asked. “Why would they go to the trouble to –“

Gail interrupted. “This humble servant of Our Lord Luminosita would not know. But you, the high-powered combat clergy coming here with orders directly from the Patriarch to us to take care of you – I bet you know. Now let’s get you some food, and then some cover, and bed you down for the night.” The former special-forces soldier turned back into the young nun as she busied herself making arrangements for the two visitors.
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Because old is wise, does good, and above all, kicks ass.
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