Quester amonst the flowers 20

 I awoke around dawn to discover that my arm was out of the covers and had been re-named 'Mosquito Al's diner and greasy proboscis' and was a popular take-out joint.  I hacked them up, but if I'm feverish over the next couple of days, apologies in advance.

Chapter 20

 

“How is your hand?” Quester asked Kiliana, when they got back to the school.

“Oh! A little sore, but no problem,” said Kiliana. “I think if I’d put a bit more into stopping it, I could just have picked it out of the air, but I didn’t know what it was I was stopping.”

“Another time, remember that it might just as well have been a poisoned dart,” said Quester. He took her bandaged hand, undoing the dressing, and the surge of power healed the small wound. He held her hand cradled to him, then lifted it to his mouth to kiss the light scar which was all that was left of the wound, and one by one her fingers. Kiliana gasped.

“Oh, Leo!” she said.

His hold tightened slightly.

“You know, I had wondered if I should suggest that we should have a marriage in name only, until you were older, but... but maybe you are ready?”

“I am ready, Leo. And... and I am glad that you trust me enough to leave me to Burdock to fix up whilst you took care of that poor foolish man who shot at you,” said Kiliana. “It’s about respect.”

“Yes, I don’t expect you to have hysterics over everything. Shall I see if Jessica wants to see her mother? Her mother would like to see her.”

“Oh, yes, and then she can help Burdock and me intimidate your heretics.”

“What had you in mind?” asked Quester, not sure he wanted to know.

“Sundry theatrical noises off, as you might say, before you begin the interrogations...” said Kiliana.

“I... well, maybe,” said Quester. “They will still likely be in capture shock, but I thought it was worth risking them coming out of it to have a chance to save Jessica’s mother from her callousness of incomprehension.”

“I think it worked,” said Kiliana. “I’ll call Jess; she might find her first taste of telepathy less scary from a friend.”

“I agree,” said Quester.

 

 

Jessica jumped to hear Kiliana’s voice, not having seen her friend come into the room.

“Kiliana?” she turned round.

“I’m using telepathy,” said Kiliana.

“You – you’re in my head?”

“No, I’m thinking words into your head. I’m not prying or anything. Which is what you meant, wasn’t it? Just think an answer, I’ll ‘hear’ it.”

“I... well, I wondered.”

“It’s hard work to look into people’s thoughts; I only heard that creep because he was shouting what he wanted to do.  Jess, your mother has asked to see you before beginning her sentence; she’s had a shock. Will you see her?”

“I... yes, I suppose so.”

“Good, come over to the gymnasium; and tell her to disregard any screams she hears later, it’s just to soften up the heretics, nobody’s being tortured. Not yet, anyway; I hope they won’t have to be.”

“So, who’s going to be screaming?”

“Me. And you, if you want to join in.”

“Riiiiight.  Fine, I’ll be over shortly.”

 

 

Jessica was led to her mother’s cell, where she was hugged and wept over.

“Oh, Jess! Your friend says you don’t feel you ever had any supportive parents!” cried her mother.

“Well, no, not really,” said Jessica. “Well, not since Hanna died. My nanny,” she explained to her plainly mystified mother.

“Oh, dear,” said her mother. “Hanna didn’t die, daddy sacked her, because you never would obey him, you said you would have to ask Hanna.”

“I see,” said Jessica, in a hard little voice. “I mourned her most sincerely. I am sorry that you both probably damaged her chances of getting another post; I hope she did survive.”

“Daddy doesn’t like you putting anyone above him.”

“Well, maybe he should have been someone in my life, to give me a chance to recognise as a person to be respected, rather than dumping me on a nanny and wondering why I didn’t even know who he was for years,” said Jessica. “As he never got my name right, and called me Jasmina, I felt that as I was not Jasmina, I owed him no loyalty. You? You were more interested in parties, though at least you let me watch you dress.”

“I... I may have made mistakes in not being closer to you. I truly was ill after you were born. We needed Nanny Hanna.”

“I acknowledge that. You never fought for me, though, when he was particularly vicious.”

“I... I was afraid to do so.”

“Well, at least you are honest about it.  What did Quester sentence you to?”

“Eleven years with the Poor Sisters of the Mercy of Abe.”

Jessica nodded.

“They might permit me to visit, then.  I will consider doing so.”

“Thank you. Don’t you want to know what Daddy’s sentence it?”

“I don’t really care.”

“Oh.  Well, he has eleven years’ hard labour.”

Jessica gave a harsh bark of laughter.

“That should spoil his manicure,” she said, looking up as a shrill shuddering scream rang out. “Oh, Kiliana said don’t worry about any screaming you hear, it’s only her playacting for the heretics. I thought I might join her.”

“I don’t think that’s very nice.”

“No, it isn’t, is it?  But I can face not being nice to people like Daddy with considerable equanimity,” said Jessica.

 

oOoOo

 

Quester had Lord Stayvuhsantus brought first. Burdock delivered him. He did not look much like Ambria, Quester thought, a man of dark complexion with blond hair, and green eyes.

“Prisoner Stray-vagrant, me lud,” Burdock said.

“It’s ‘Lord Stayvuhsantus,’ you idiot,” said the prisoner.

“It’s ‘Mister Burdock, sah’ to you, not ‘idiot,’” said Burdock. “I’ll jus’ go on with the other prisoners wot are recalcitrant, shall I, me lud?”

“Be careful, only soften them up,” said Quester.  “Now, Stayvuhsantus, how long have you been a heretic?”

“Are you still peddling that excuse?  Look, tell me what I’m really here for, and I’ll pay whatever fine it is. You’ve had your fun locking me in that filthy little cell, now get it over with. I am not without friends, and if you drag this out, you will... what the void?”

There was a long, shuddering scream.

“Disregard those heretics being put to the question,” said Quester, calmly. “Answer my questions fully, and we shall have no need for you to know in more detail what happens in there.” He almost jumped at the sound of a loud slap followed by a whimper. It did not sound like clapping hands... he touched Kiliana’s thoughts and managed not to laugh to discover that Burdock had slapped the leather-covered vaulting horse.

“We have many ways to make you talk,” Burdock rumbled menacingly.

“Please! Please!” warbled Kiliana, artistically. “I don’t know anything, but what my parents have taught me!”

“So you admit they deny the Blessed Abe?”

Kiliana broke down in apparent sobs. Quester was feeling her mirth as she held back giggles under sobs.

It wasn’t really funny, but if it worked on the minds of his captives to make them give up more easily, then it was worth doing.

Stayvuhsantus was looking at him in disgust.

“You would torture minors to get them to give up their parents?”

“I would use any means necessary to save the souls of those poor heathens brought up believing that... what was it you said? That the Blessed Abe was a construct to keep the masses in line.  If I believed that, I would be truly disgusting, but I know the love of the Blessed Abe, and it is His love which holds the Empire together, and keeps us strong against the Commutants.  As soon as stupid, selfish, wayward, childish fools like you decide, for your own self-indulgent purposes, that the Blessed Abe is naught but a construct, a spiritual analogue of the robotic Electric Zarr, and spread your heretical beliefs, then small acts of worship which are necessary to hold the Empire together become neglected, and then the empire falls apart. You are worse than a traitor!”

“Name me an instance,” sneered Stayvuhsantus.

“The prayers of the Highbred can boost the psionic powers of those amongst them to move their zeppelins faster,” said Quester. “It’s a treat to see, and to feel... but of course, as a non-psion, you cannot experience that. On a more mundane note; there are machines made by the technopriesthood, and the Blessed Abe has sent prayers to them to enable them to remember the correct way to make or fix them.”

Stayvuhsantus sneered.

“That’s no proof; some technical fellow worked out instructions by rote, and presented them as prayers to fool the masses,” he said.

“You haven’t tried to explain speeding up the zeppelin,” said Quester.

“Mass hallucination,” said Stayvuhsantus.

“I thank the Blessed Abe that you are wrong, or I would have been dead a few months back,” said Quester. “How long has this rot been going on? Is this something you learned at your own father’s knee?”

“I... well, yes, I don’t think my family have believed the propaganda about the so-called Blessed Abe for generations.  I still don’t see what a big deal it is, as long as we are loyal to the Empire.”

“I feel truly sorry for you, because you are a heathen more than a heretic,” said Quester, sorrowfully.  “Which being so, I am going to tell you some personal incidences of the touch of the Blessed Abe. I am, as you know, a Psion.  I was called in initially to find the deviant who has been killing girls at the school your daughter attended.”

“Yes, I demanded that they call in the best,” said Stayvuhsantus. “That damned principal was inclined to want to cover it up. Now that’s worse than telling the truth about my beliefs, surely?”

“Oddly enough I could almost agree with you, but for knowing the touch of Abe. And His aid was mine as I used the tarot, and felt the touch of Abe putting me into the mind of the killer. Unfortunately, it was as he killed one of the maids at the school, and I was too late to save her. It was why I sent my ward, who is of an age with your daughter, to the school, and she was able to identify him within a day, from our shared experience with the tarot. She was somewhat taken aback by the thoughts he was projecting, but managed to arrest him. He will become one of the Shackled.”

Stayvuhsantus shuddered.

“The worst fate anyone can have,” he said.

“I agree with you, Erman. You identify what you fear in being Shackled?”

“The loss of a sense of self, obviously.”

“And that is why I am sorry for you, because you lack some of yourself, in having cut off the connection to your spiritual self; a self-mutilation of the soul, if you wish.  Have you never felt so alone that you want to cry out to someone for comfort?”

“Yes; when my father died, and I had nobody to consult. I had been running the family business for many years, of course, but when he was gone, there was nobody to joke with, run ideas past, talk to. My wife is not highly educated, her parents were not a fortuitious product of the marriage law, and I married her because I was sorry for her. Ambria is not my child, but I have never told her that. She is a clever girl, at least, and I thought she was a good scholar, and capable of dissembling the family views.”

“I think she is going through one of the periods young people tend to do of rebelling,” said Quester. “She chose to pick on my ward as a new girl, whose devout worship made Ambria spiteful in the extreme, possibly because she was jealous that Kiliana gains pleasure from her love of the Blessed Abe, where Ambria has had nothing.”

“Void! You didn’t torture Ambria, did you?”

“No.  Actually, the screams are my ward trying to soften up those who would not talk to me to avoid me having to torture people. I don’t think it helps in many cases, to be honest,” said Quester, making a sudden decision to be upfront to a very complex man.  “Ambria sensed that Kiliana has a security and sense of purpose that she herself lacked. So, like teen girls do, she attacked what Kiliana holds dear. Kiliana called her on heresy, and imagine my shock to find that this poor child has been failed by her parents, those who should be nurturing her, in failing to show her the love of the god-hero.”

“I have never known any such comfort as you speak of, save in my father’s love,” said Stayvuhsantus.

“Erman, his love is a reflection of what the Blessed Abe feels for us all,” said Quester. “Here; take my tarot pack, and shuffle it. Then I will lay the tarot for you.”

“I don’t believe in this, either, you know.”

“Maybe not; but just because you do not believe in the Blessed Abe does not mean that He does not believe in you. And I pray that He will show you a sign in the tarot.”

Erman Stayvuhsantus shuffled the cards, and handed them back to Quester, who made the sign of the eagle before taking them. The patrician noticed that the Justiciar was almost in a trance, as he laid the first card.

“The empty man; the man who has nothing within,” he intoned. “And again, the empty man, with the joker, who is a reversal; the empty man believes himself full.  Venom, the canker within, and death... Blessed Abe! Have you not seen a doctor recently?”

“What are you saying?  The headaches... is something seriously wrong?”

Quester put his hands on the man’s head.

“Oh, god-hero, Blessed Abe, be with me to find this menace...” he reached out to Kiliana, a wordless request for her power to add to his, and to Lukas and Eusebius too.

Kiliana promptly came in, and shortly the huge figures of the Highbred turned up too.

Stayvuhsantus screamed, once, and then panted in pain, and blood flowed out of his nose. And then he fainted.

“Quester, you just did the impossible again,” said Lukas, awed. “Those deep tumours rarely respond to laser treatment; or rather, they come back. What did you do?”

“I used sonic waves to break it up,” said Quester. “Directed straight to the tumour.  Can one of you take him back to his cell? He’s more heathen than heretic, and I hope and pray for him to find the Blessed Abe. We do not have to execute mere heathens?” it was a question as well as a statement.

“No, if he is a heathen, then he needs education, not death,” said Eusebius. “It is a well-established point.”

“It seems as if many of those of the current generation are but heathens, if I may go by what he says,” said Quester. “And I’m inclined to blame the dysfunctionality of the marriage law.”

“I wouldn’t argue, little brother,” rumbled Eusebius. “I take it you are going to talk to him more when he comes to?”

“Yes, and perhaps he will understand more,” said Quester. “I was laying the cards, and saw the darkness within.”

“It is mitigation as well,” said Lukas in his deceptively quiet voice. “I suggest you turn in, Leo; you have used a lot of power today, and you look exhausted.”

“I confess, I am,” said Quester. “Burdock, will you see the girls back to the school?”

“Of course, me lud,” said Burdock.