Hugh Cook: The Worshippers and the Way

"Where were you two hiding?"

"Hiding?" said Lupus. "We weren't hiding at all."

"We were on our honeymoon," said Penelope.

"Your honeymoon!?" said Hatch.

"Earlier," said Lupus, "Paraban Senk was kind enough to officiate at our marriage. Then we entered the combat bays. Where else would we go for a honeymoon? To Dalar ken Halvar, perhaps? To indulge in the delights of the Day of the Dogs, perhaps? No, Hatch. We went to the Nexus."

This struck Hatch as being exceedingly bizarre: that two people should choose the illusion tanks as the venue for their honeymoon. Still, it was in keeping with Lupus Lon Oliver's aspirations, for Lupus truly wanted to be a citizen of the Nexus.

"Where did you go?" said Hatch.

"To jungles of ice and beaches of marzipan," said Penelope dreamily. "To seas of fire and skies of liquid treacle."

"Meantime," said Lupus, "you were busily engaged in killing my father."

Hatch lay in his combat clinic bed, trying to gauge his own strength. He found himself decidedly weak. He was in no position to duke or duel with Lupus. Hence decided that silence was the best policy.

"Never mind," said Lupus. "My father stood between me and my marriage, so… Hatch, let us not let my father's death stand between you and me."

This was said with a degree of studied formality, and with a certain stiffness. Hatch remembered back to an illusion tank exercise in which he had suggested to Lupus that the pair of them conspire to kill Gan Oliver. Given the ferocity with which Lupus had reacted on that occasion, Hatch found it hard to credit the young man's present forgiveness.

Hatch rather suspected that Paraban Senk, the venerable Teacher of Control, had put considerable pressure on Lupus, in order to coerce Lupus into making a peace with Hatch.

Still:

"I am ashamed of myself," said Hatch, making the confession though every word of it cost him dearly. "I acted in fear and in haste, and I regret it. I should have given Gan Oliver the chance to make his peace with me."

"That's as may be," said Lupus, still speaking with a pronounced stiffness. "Still, that was a different world, and we must make our lives in this one."

Then Lupus formally congratulated Hatch on making himself emperor of Dalar ken Halvar; and of killing the lockway's dorgi; and of outfacing Paraban Senk.

"That reminds me," said Hatch, accepting these congratulations, and not finding it necessary to disclaim responsibility for the dorgi's death. "In the corpse of the dorgi I discovered a trinket."

"This trinket," said Penelope, displaying that mazadath, which she had slung round her neck on a chain of a metal which matched the mazadath's silver.

"Precisely," said Hatch. "That trinket."

"This," said Penelope, "is a wedding present."

"Who gave it to you?" said Hatch.

"You did," said Penelope.

And Hatch did not feel that he was in a position to argue. In any case, Lupus denied him all opportunity for argument, for Lupus said (still with a measured stiffness which spoke of unresolved homicidal impulses):

"This must conclude our interview, for now we must withdraw, for Paraban Senk wishes to speak with you privily."

Then the young redskinned Ebrell Islander Lupus Lon Oliver withdrew with his purple-skinned bride, the voluptuous Penelope, and Hatch was left alone in the Combat College's sickbay.

"Hatch," said Senk, his olive-skinned features coming to life on a display screen in the cure-all clinic. "Are you ready to negotiate?"

"I am in no position to negotiate," said Hatch. "For I am flat on my back and weak from my wounding. You have the strength of two people at your disposal, young Lupus and his bride, and I think the pair of them will do what you want. Furthermore, you still have three hostages. I am at your disposal. Accept my surrender."

Hatch surrendered thus because he did not want a repeat of the horrific moments in which Onica, Talanta and the Lady Iro Murasaki had been exposed to some fraction of the hidden hell which lay within the illusion tank scenarios.

"If I could accept your surrender then I would," said Senk.

"But I cannot."

Hatch thought about this.

Then said:

"Then kill me. You have the means."

Senk certainly had the means, at least in the cure-all clinic, for the clinic's built-in surgical equipment could easily be adapted to the lethal dissection of the living.

"You misunderstand me," said Senk. "I cannot accept your surrender, because I have been forced to surrender to you."

"How so?" said Hatch.

Then Senk explained After Asodo Hatch had failed to reemerge from the Combat College, that college had been placed under an interdict by a Nuchala-nuth priesthood led by Hatch's brother Oboro Bakendra and by the noseless ex-moneylender Polk the Cash. Under the terms of that interdict, no person would be allowed into the Combat College until Asodo Hatch had been yielded up by that College, alive and well.

"They say," said Senk, "that if you cannot be yielded up, then I will be deprived of new students forever. I will be similarly deprived unless I co-operate in teaching the doctrines of Nu-chala-nuth and the language of Motsu Kazuka."

"So," said Hatch, "it is your destiny to become a theological college."

"My overriding priority is to train Startroopers for the Stormforce of the Nexus," said Senk. "I must do whatever is necessary to fulfill that objective. So, if I must teach theology as well – why, it is considered fit and proper that Startroopers should know of the Nu-chala-nuth and their language."

"I will need more from you than that," said Hatch.

"More?" said Senk. "Isn't this enough?"

"Not much more," said Hatch. "But a little more. The cure of my wife, if cure be possible. I trust you have the woman still."

"She is safe in the worlds of the Nexus," said Paraban Senk.

"Her flesh is still seated in a combat bay, but her mind is at ease in a deer-park forest. Penelope has spoken with her."

"She has?"

"Of course," said Senk. "Penelope has been working very hard on your behalf, Hatch. She has made Lupus Lon Oliver concede his will to our truce. I will treat with your wife in this clinic, Hatch, and I will cure her if her cure lies in my compass."

"Do you think it does?" said Hatch.

"I will discover the truth under surgery," said Senk.

"There will be others who will have need of surgery," said Hatch.

"Hatch," said Senk, "I am but one, and Dalar ken Halvar alone could flood this clinic with more surgical cases than could be treated inside the surgery."

"Selected cases," said Hatch. "That's all I'll need you to treat. I'm no wizard, yet must secure an empire. Polk the Cash has need of a nose, and Nambasa Berlin likewise. And there will be others."

"Tell me of these others," said Senk.

And thus the pair of them opened their negotiations in earnest.

The Great God Mokaragash: aka the Greater Lord: aka He Who Sees Without Eyes: the ruling deity of the Frangoni people. He is believed to be immanent in the great idol found in the precincts of Temple Isherzan, the Frangoni temple which stands on the Frangoni rock. At that temple, the Great God Mokaragash is served by Frangoni priests, these priests being ruled by Sesno Felvus, who is the High Priest of the Great God Mokaragash, and who is therefore the ethnarch of the Frangoni people in Dalar ken Halvar.

Red and black, in shadows and blood -

To a grim purposes, sees yet sightless.

Thus it was that Asodo Hatch dueled with a demon inside the minor mountain known as Cap Foz Para Lash, and won a great victory over that demon. Inside of a month, the details of that duel were known to all of Dalar ken Halvar. Asodo Hatch – this is how the story was told, and nobody doubted it – had challenged Paraban Senk to a duel. Senk had accepted the challenge. In an arena generated by the machineries of the illusion tanks, Asodo Hatch had met with Senk, and the pair had fought it out to the red-blood finish, with the rule of the Combat College as the prize.