Christopher Stasheff - The Warlock Unlocked

“So there’s only that one large island with humans; the rest of the planet is carboniferous.” Father Al shook his head. “Well, if we needed anything to assure us that we’re dealing with a colony instead of native sentients, we’ve found it. Could you call up the recordings of that island, Brother Chard?”

The monk pushed buttons, and a large island appeared in the main viewscreen, a huge, uncut emerald floating in a blue sea. “Close in on that one large town, if you please,” Father Al murmured. A tiny hole in the greenery, a little north and west of the center of the island, began to grow; the shorelines disappeared beyond the edges of the screen. The dot swelled into an irregular, circular clearing, and other dots began to appear around it.

“Really the only settlement large enough to be called a town,” Father Al mused.

The roofs filled the screen now, with the spire of a church and the turrets of a castle reaching up toward them, from the crest of a hill off to the eastern edge of the town.

“It’s medieval architecture, Father—early Tudor, I’d guess.”

“Yes, but the castle’s got to be Thirteenth Century; I’d swear it was almost a reproduction of Château Gaillard. And the church is late Gothic; Fourteenth Century at the earliest.”

“Church! It’s a cathedral! Why does it look so familiar?”

“Possibly because you’ve seen pictures of the cathedral of Chartes. The original colonists don’t seem to have been terribly original; do they?”

Brother Chard frowned. “But if they were going to copy famous buildings from Terra, why didn’t they make them all from the same period?”

Father Al shrugged. “Why should they? Each century had its own beauties. No doubt some liked the Fifteenth Century, some the Fourteenth, some the Thirteenth… If we kept looking, Brother, I’m sure we’d find something Romanesque.”

Brother Chard peered at the screen as the camera zoomed in to fill it with an overhead view of a single street. “Apparently they applied the same principle to their clothing; there’s a bell-sleeved tunic next to a doublet!”

“And there’s a doublet with bell-sleeves.” Father Al shook his head. “I can almost hear their ancestors saying, ‘It’s my world, and I’ll do what I want with it!’ ”

Brother Chard turned to him with a sympathetic smile. “You’re going to have a bit of a problem with transportation, aren’t you?”

“I never did learn to ride a horse.” Father Al felt his stomach sink. “Appalling great brutes, aren’t they?”

Brother Chard turned back to the viewscreen. “Are you searching for just one man down there, Father? Or a community? ”

“One lone individual,” Father Al said grimly. “I can’t just punch up a directory and scan for his name, can I?” He thought of Yorick and had to fight down a slow swell of anger; the grinning jester could’ve prepared him for this!

“Under the circumstances,” Brother Chard said slowly, “I don’t really suppose there’s much point in following the usual protocol about landing.”

“Better try it, anyway, Brother,” Father Al sighed. “You wouldn’t want to be imprisoned on a technicality, now would you?”

“Especially not by all the King’s horses and all the King’s men.” Brother Chard shrugged. “Well, it can’t do any harm. Who could hear our transmission down there, anyway?” He set the communicator to “broadband” and keyed the microphone. “This is Spacecraft H394P02173 Beta Cass 19, the Diocese of Beta Casseiopeia’s St. lago , calling Gramarye Control. Come in, Gramarye Control.”

“We hear you, St. lago ,” a resonant voice answered. “What is your destination?”

Father Al almost fell through his webbing.

“Did I hear that correctly?” Brother Chard stared at the communicator, goggle-eyed. He noted the frequency readout and reached forward to adjust the video to match it. An intent face replaced the overhead view of the town street, a thin face with troubled eyes and a dark fringe of hair cut straight across the forehead. But Father Al scarcely noticed the face; he was staring at the little yellow screwdriver handle in the breast pocket of the monk’s robe.

“What is your destination, St. la… Ah!” The face lit up, and the man’s gaze turned directly toward them as they came into sight on his screen. Then he stared. “ St. lago , you are men of the cloth!”

“And your own cloth, too.” Father Al straightened up in his couch. “Father Aloysius Uwell, of the order of St. Vidicon of Cathode, at your service. My companion is Brother Chard, of the Order of St. Francis Assisi.”

“Father Cotterson, Order of St. Vidicon,” the monk returned, reluctantly. “What is your destination, Father?”

“Gramarye, Father Cotterson. I’ve been dispatched to find a man named Rod Gallowglass.”

“The High Warlock?” Father Cotterson’s voice turned somber.

“You’ll pardon my surprise, Father, but how is it you’ve retained knowledge of technology?” asked Father Al. “I was told your ancestors had fled here to escape it.”

“How would you have known that?”

“Through a prophet, of a sort,” Father Al said slowly. “He left a message to be opened a thousand years after he wrote it, and we’ve just read it.”

“A prophecy?” Father Cotterson murmured, his eyes glazing. “About Gramarye ?”

He was in shock; one of his prime myths had just focused on himself. The pause was fortunate; Father Al needed a little time to reflect, too.

High Warlock? Rod Gallowglass?

Already?

As to the rest of it, it was perfectly logical—there had been a Cathodean priest among the original colonists; and where there was one Cathodean, science and technology would be kept alive, somehow.

How? Well, that was nit-picking; it had any number of answers. The question could wait. Father Al cleared his throat. “I think we have a great deal to discuss, Father Cotterson—but could it wait till we’re face-to-face? I’d like to make planetfall first.”

Father Cotterson came back to life. He hesitated, clearly poised on the horns of a dilemma. Father Al could almost hear the monk’s thoughts—which was the worst danger? To allow Father Al to land? Or to send him away, and risk his return with reinforcements? Father Al sympathized; myths can be far more terrifying than the people underlying them.

Father Cotterson came to a decision. “Very well, Father, you may bring down your ship. But please land after nightfall; you could create something of a panic. After all, no one’s seen a ship land here in all our history.”

Father Al was still puzzling that one over, three hours later, when the land below them was dark and rising up to meet them. If no spaceship had landed for centuries, how had Rod Gallowglass come to be there? Yorick had said he was an off-worlder.

Well, no use theorizing when he didn’t have all the facts. He gazed up into the viewscreen. “About 200 meters away from the monastery, please, Brother Chard. That should give you time to lift off again, before they can reach us. Not that I think they would prevent you from leaving—but it never hurts to be certain.”

“Whatever you say, Father,” Brother Chard said wearily.

Father Al looked up. “You’re not still saddened at discovering they don’t need missionaries, are you?”

“Well…”

“Come, come, Brother, buck up.” Father Al patted the younger man on the shoulder. “These good monks have been out of contact with the rest of the Church for centuries; no doubt they’ll need several emissaries, to update them on advances in theology and Church history.”

Brother Chard did perk up a bit at that. Father Al was glad the young monk hadn’t realized the corollary—that those “emissaries” might find themselves having to combat heresy. Colonial theologians could come up with some very strange ideas, given five hundred years’ isolation from Rome.