Hugh Cook - The Worshippers and the Way

The boy Hatch had always been caught in the end, and always after his brief-lived truancies he had been forced to return to the Combat College. Always forced. Always compelled. He had never wanted to go back. The memory of that childhood unpleasantness was still very, very clear.

"So," said Sesno Felvus, "you're not one of those who welcomed your descent into the cave. And now… now you're scheduled to fight for the instructorship. You need to win that fight because you need the money. But… as for the position itself… as for the Combat College | | "

"If I could walk away from it all then I would," said Hatch.

"I'd never regret it. I'm not a – it's a playground. That's all.

That's all it is. It's only the Free Corps which thinks it's – what? A vocation. That's what they think. Stormforce. Startrooper.

Nexus talk and Nexus tongue. A life. But it's a nonsense."

"So you wouldn't regret – "

"What? Whalemeat? Green milk? The Eye of Delusions? I can see the Eye any day, in any case. No. Nothing. I'd have no regrets. If I walked away I'd – but I need the money, I can't walk away from the money. I know the Temple's poor, so I can't, I couldn't – well. You know how it is."

Dalar ken Halvar was not a rich city, even though it was the capital of the Empire of Greater Parengarenga. As for Temple Isherzan, it was not in any sense wealthy. Sesno Felvus did not have the luxury of being able to offer Hatch charity, and both of them knew it.

"Your problem," said Sesno Felvus, "is simple to state, even though it may not be quite so simple to solve. You need money desperately, and so seek to win the instructor's position at the Combat College. If you win, will that be money sufficient?"

"An instructor's pay is generous," said Hatch. "It will serve. If I can win the instructorship."

"So," said Sesno Felvus. "So you have set your heart on winning. Selection is by competition by combat. Is that not so?"

"It is so," acknowledged Hatch.

"A symbolic Season," said Sesno Felvus. "A battle in dream for a prize in the flesh."

"That," said Hatch, "describes the combat well. The Combat College was founded in the flesh of the fact – however, little remains but the dreams. That's why – it's folly, the whole thing.

I want my life in the flesh. If I can have it. The flesh of the world and the fact."

"So you'd like to renounce the Combat College," said Sesno Felvus. "But this is your secret. Nobody else knows it. Everyone rumors that it's your dearest wish to be instructor. I've heard that you're an excellent fighter. If rumor holds truth, then there's only one other seriously in contention for the instructorship. Lon Oliver, isn't it? Is that the young man's name?"

"Yes," said Hatch, registering no surprise at the High Priest's impeccable intelligence.

It was no secret that, with the just-completed competitive theoretical examinations having clarified the standing of those students who were competing for the instructorship, Hatch's only remaining serious rival for the one single instructor position was Lupus Lon Oliver. Who was good. Who was very very good. Who might yet shoot Hatch down in flames. Literally in flames – for they would be dueling not with swords and spears but with singlefighters and MegaCommand Cruisers.

"Now," said Sesno Felvus, "Lon Oliver may win, may lose. But one thing we know of a certainty. Since Lon Oliver is the son of Gan Oliver, he has been driven since childhood by his father's ambition. Lupus Lon Oliver is of the Free Corps, hence thinks like his father. You if you lose will still have a life for yourself.

But if Lon Oliver loses – for him, nothing."

"That is so," said Hatch.

Money aside, Hatch could walk away from the Combat College with no regrets. But Lupus Lon Oliver, like all members of the Free Corps, had made an emotional alliance with the Nexus, and to lose the instructorship would be a tragedy which would break his life.

"So, Asodo," said Sesno Felvus, "isn't it simple? Your friend Lon Oliver wants the job, but all you want is the money. So sell him the job. Let him bribe you. With gold to your credit, you let him defeat you in the instructorship examinations."

"Wah!" said Hatch, taken aback by the elegance of this solution. "But – but where would he get the gold? I'd want it in advance, I couldn't trust him to pay me afterwards."

"Such caution is only wise," said Sesno Felvus. "Of course you'd want cash in advance. You'd need gold sufficient to pay off your debts and a healthy surplus to bank with the Bralsh. But that's no problem. Lon Oliver's father, well – talk to the father if you can't get sense from the son. It matters to both of them intensely. The father's got the Free Corp's resources behind him, so – "

"But they might not do a deal," said Hatch.

"I think refusal unlikely," said Sesno Felvus. "From what I hear, the betting in the Combat College runs even on yourself and Lon Oliver. Only a fool would risk losing the instructorship for a point of pride when it could be bought of a certainty at an easily affordable price. Talk to the son. If he's really such a fool, go to his father. They've got the gold, it's no problem."

"I am in your debt," said Hatch.

Painfully reminded, as he said it, that he was in debt to many people, mostly for cash.

"I am a servant," said Sesno Felvus, with these words withdrawing from familiarity into the distance of ritual, and thus sealing up in secrecy the knowledge of all which had passed between them. "I am a servant not just of the Great God but of the people. As you serve your family, as you serve your people, so it is my pleasure and my privilege to be of service to you."

So spoke Sesno Felvus, and that was when Hatch – succored by a priest of his religion, succored and nourished, comforted and healed – that was when Hatch knew that he was still of the Frangoni, still truly of the Frangoni, regardless of what the Nexus had done to him. The Frangoni rock was his home, his life, his world – the place where he was accepted and protected, where he was valued and honored.

Despite the manner of his father's death.

"There is yet one thing more which I need," said Hatch, affirming his new knowledge to himself by meticulous attention to the rituals of his faith.

"Speak."

"I think that Lupus Lon Oliver will yield to me in accordance with your wisdom, but maybe he will fight. If he does, then I must fight for the instructorship. If I fight and win, then I will need a dispensation to accept the instructorship, for to take that job I needs must take an oath to value the Nexus more than my god."

"Asodo Hatch," said Sesno Felvus, becoming stern and formal, "as High Priest of the Great God Mokaragash in the city of Dalar ken Halvar I give you a dispensation to take such an oath."

Then Hatch thanked the High Priest, said formal words of parting, then went out into the dustlight of the sunheat day.

"Hatch," said Sesno Felvus.

Hatch turned. The High Priest was standing in the doorway.

"What?" said Hatch, forgetting the courtesies and using a mode of colloquial interrogation which he immediately regretted.

"To survive is victory sufficient," said Sesno Felvus.

Then nodded, then withdrew into the shadowspace of his quarters. To survive. To survive? What was the old man talking about? Life? Illusion-tank dueling? The fate of the Frangoni race?

Hatch remembered one of the old sayings from the teachings of Dith-zora-ka-mako:

"Wisdom lies but a hair from the idiot."

In Hatch's estimate, Sesno Felvus had on this occasion failed to manage that hair-fine differentiation between wisdom and… well, not idiocy, not exactly. But platitude. Felvus, Sesno, a platitudinous old Frangoni male | | But still!

Disregarding that lapse into platitudinity, Sesno Felvus had wrought a minor miracle of revelation, and Hatch felt almost lightheaded as he started off down Cap Uba, retracing his steps toward Zambuk Street.