Hugh Cook: The Worshippers and the Way

Hatch's elder brother Oboro Bakendra was at that meeting.

So was Son'sholoma Gezira, the apostate Frangoni who had once offended Hatch by accosting him on the Frangoni rock, and by asking him to assist in teaching the doctrines of Nu-chala-nuth.

Hatch at the time had been shocked. Hatch had thought the preaching of the doctrines of Nu-chala-nuth would be a disaster for his city, his people and the empire he served. But here he was! Asodo Hatch! Masquerading as the deputy of the Nu-chala of Borboth! Here he was, Asodo Hatch, seeking to secure the city of Dalar ken Halvar for the Nu-chala-nuth, to unleash the forces of an intolerant militant religion, and to use that religion as a weapon against his enemies.

And, as Hatch waited for the Frangoni at the meeting to settle to order, he found himself appalled at the future which was opening in front of him. But what else could he do? Surrender Dalar ken Halvar to Lupus Lon Oliver and the Free Corps? Let Manfred Gan Oliver and his son Lupus gather the strength they needed to launch a pogrom against the Frangoni?

"Well?" said Oboro Bakendra, looking hard at his younger brother. "Are you ready to enlighten us? To tell us what's really going on here?"

"Ah, what do you think's going on here?" said Hatch.

"I don't know," said Oboro Bakendra. "But the very fact that this meeting is taking place suggests something foul afoot. You and me, what have we got to say to each other? You need something from me, brother, but I can't see that you'd need anything at all from me if the Chasm Gates really had opened. If the Nexus really had reclaimed us. If you had suddenly been bounced to sainthood, a saint beloved of the Nu, a saint in his purple graces – well, is a poor and barbarous Frangoni worshipper of the Great God Mokaragash to sit at table with the Nu-chala's deputy?"

Hatch forced himself not to flinch from the whiplash in his brother's voice.

"Brother mine," said Hatch, "I had to make a choice. The Frangoni under the Nu-chala-nuth or the Frangoni under the Free Corps. There was no third way."

With that said, Hatch looked around at the assembled Frangoni. Some were slow on the uptake, but it was obvious that most were absorbing the implications of his words.

"So," said Son'sholoma slowly, "you've – you've – what have you done, Hatch? You've schemed up – well, Senk must be in on it.

And the whole thing, this – this – it's a charade, is it? The Chasm Gates, the – oh, Hatch, I really believed! How could you – this whole – is this but a ploy to win a war with the Free Corps?"

"I have at stake the lives of my people," said Hatch stolidly. "All of my people, not excepting my wife and my daughter."

Then Hatch detailed the truth of their situation for his fellow Frangoni, ending by saying:

"So, it being now about midnight, the Free Corps is held prisoner by Paraban Senk. Senk will hold the Free Corps for long enough for me to consolidate my rule in Dalar ken Halvar. I will consolidate that rule by uniting the city under the banner of Nuchala-nuth."

"That," said his brother Oboro Bakendra, "still leaves the fate of the Frangoni undecided."

"I will give my people what protection I can," said Hatch.

"But if we are to unite Dalar ken Halvar as a city of the Nuchala-nuth, then it follows that the Frangoni must necessarily take that religion as their own."

"I'd rather die," said Oboro Bakendra.

"Then you will die," said Hatch flatly. And, as his brother half-rose from the table: "And if you kill me here, then you and all Frangoni will die of a certainty. The Yara are using the night to arm themselves against any possible change in their political fortunes. The Unreal are organizing themselves, my brother. I am their head for the moment, but whether I can remain so is something that remains to be seen."

Oboro Bakendra seated himself, but glowered, and said:

"You really are riding a tiger. What happens if you fall off?

You persuaded Paraban Senk to your cause. But what if Lupus Lon Oliver unpersuades him? What you have done against Lupus, Lupus can do against you. You tell me that Senk won't let out the Free Corps troopers until they're ready to swear their loyalty to you, but who could trust oaths given under such duress? And as for the Frangoni, our own people – how long will we last? The Yara hate us, the Yara are of the Pang, the Pang are the Pang, Real and Unreal alike, they're one people and we're another. Once this Chasm Gate illusion is a thing of the past, Hatch, the Pang will push you off your throne in a few days or less, they're the majority, they'll want one of their own to rule."

All this said Oboro Bakendra, and more. Hatch listened, then said, heavily:

"Everything you have said is true. The Frangoni are a minority. At the moment I rule by illusion, but we will need more than that in the future. I cannot trust the Free Corps so I must destroy the Free Corps. The Pang have no reason to like or trust the Frangoni, so we must give them a reason. We must destroy the Free Corps in the name of Nu-chala-nuth. We the Frangoni."

"Nu-chala-nuth!" said Oboro Bakendra.

He used the word just as Lupus Lon Oliver had used it earlier – as an obscenity.

"By so destroying the Free Corps," said Hatch, pursuing the ruthless logic of his politics to its conclusion, "we the Frangoni write ourselves into the religious history of this planet. We the Frangoni become the people who destroyed the enemies of Nu-chalanuth at a time when that religion was weak.

"We.

"Not the Pang.

"The people Pang, the Yara, the Unreal, they made a revolution in the name of Nu-chala-nuth, but they failed, they failed absolutely. They failed the god to whom they gave nothing but a fleeting lipservice backed up by no more than a transitory spasm of rioting. But we, we the Frangoni, we through our armed discipline smash the enemies of Nu-chala-nuth, install the True God, and thus write ourselves into history forever. We write ourselves into history in blood."

So spoke Asodo Hatch, giving way to that love of rhetoric and speeches which ever characterizes the Frangoni. Then Asodo Hatch looked on his brother Oboro Bakendra and said:

"Brother mine, we the Frangoni, in Dalar ken Halvar our fate is fragile. We are few, the Pang are many. We are not of this place, we are not of this city. We must consecrate our relationship with the Pang with the blood of battle. We must write ourselves into the holy history of Nu-chala-nuth to make our people inviolate. We must become the holy ones, the beloved of god, or else – well, you were the one who said it. Unless we can secure our position, our fate is to be destroyed. Make your choice, my brother."

Oboro Bakendra sat. Glowering. He saw the dreadful necessity of choice which was upon them. But. He had made his commitments to the Great God Mokaragash. He had made his commitments to the priesthood. He had won status there – of a kind. A position there – of a kind. A place there – of a kind. If he threw in his lot with the Nu-chala-nuth, then he would have to give up that position, that place, that status.

Still, he had made such a change once. Three years earlier, Oboro Bakendra had left the Combat College, automatically excluded from its corridors when he reached the end of his years of training. At first he had been very despondent, but then he had got religion, and had found in religion a consolation for what he had lost.

Which raised an obvious question. Oboro Bakendra had known for years that his life in the Combat College would automatically end when he was 34 years of age. So why hadn't he started laying the groundwork of an alternative career earlier? Paraban Senk, the Teacher of Control who ruled the Combat College, thought for some bizarre reason that Asodo Hatch had murdered Hiji Hanojo, the previous Combat College instructor.