A Town Called Dust: The Territory 1 (15 page)

The Administrator walked swiftly along the corridor toward the small sitting room that received most of the afternoon sun. This was where the High Priestess would be waiting for him. It was where she always waited for him. He had been Administrator for forty-four years; why should he have to drop whatever stately matters he was attending to so that he, the leader of this land, could bend a knee to this ragged old scarecrow and beg permission from long dead ancestors to raise an army to defend the Territory’s borders? Of course, he knew the answer to this question: it was the law and he had sworn an oath to uphold the law. But in fairness, he had only been eight years old at the time. Whether the Administrator liked it or not, the Church of Glorious God the Redeemer, as ancient and secretive as they were, held sway over this land in a way that he could only dream of.

The Administrator approached the door of the sitting room. It was closed. He ran his hands over his shirt, flattening out any creases; first impressions always seemed to matter to Patricia. He took hold of the thin door handle and turned it, pushing the door inward. The room was hot and stuffy. She hadn’t opened the windows. The High Priestess sat in profile, silhouetted against the bright sun in the window. She turned to look at him, taking her time, deliberately, the Administrator thought, to rise from her chair. It would be easy to assume that this was due to her advanced years—she was well into her seventies—but the Administrator knew better. She was old, but she was far from frail. She stood slowly to prove a point. The Administrator closed the door behind him and bowed his head, a little too shallowly. The tall and crooked woman smiled and bent her knees into an equally shallow curtsy.

“Your Honor,” High Priestess Patricia said in a voice like steel wool, “lovely to see you again.” She ran her fingertips through her wiry gray hair, stiff as a horse’s mane. Her fingernails moved over her scalp with a disturbing scrape.

“And you, Your Holiness,” the Administrator replied. So they were just going to pretend she hadn’t interrupted a sitting of the council, it seemed.

“Please take a seat.” High Priestess Patricia indicated the seat opposite her as she sat back down.

“I’m sorry to come and drag you away from your important duties at such short notice,” the High Priestess continued, “but I’m afraid now was the only time I could fit you in.”

The Administrator clenched his teeth. High Priestess Patricia made no response, but it was unlikely that anything escaped detection by those ancient eyes. They were a blue so light as to be gray, and a stare from them was felt physically, like being jabbed in the eyes with the end of a quill.

“Thank you,” said the Administrator, “for making the time.”

“Anything for you, Your Honor. How was your council?”

“Fine.”

“Is there any business that requires my attention?”

“Well,” said the Administrator, “as a matter of fact there is.”

“Oh,” said the High Priestess knowingly, “please go on.”

“I intend to send the Diggers against the horde.”

“Indeed,” the High Priestess said, “but have we not already discussed this? I have given the Church’s blessing to your plan to erect a fall-back fence.”

“Yes, you have.”

“Then should this not be under way?”

“The Diggers will be marching shortly, Your Holiness,” the Administrator said. “Though I intend to change their orders.”

“Do you?”

The Administrator ground his teeth together and squeezed his hands into fists. “Yes, we have received updated information that the horde is smaller than we were first informed. I believe that sending the full force of the Diggers against the ghouls will defeat them without us giving up land and losing towns in the east.”

“That does not sound like a strategy the Diggers would agree with.”

“On the contrary, based on our new information Colonel Woomera believes it to be a viable plan. Do not concern yourself, Your Holiness. I have been Administrator for long enough to be well aware of what we must do in order to protect the Territory.”

“Yes, and I have given my life to the Church, ever since your grandfather had my father exiled.”

“Come, High Priestess,” said the Administrator, “I would not think a woman of faith such as yourself would hold a grudge so long.”

“The sins of the father are visited upon the son, Your Honor.”

The Administrator stared across the small, ornamental sitting table between them. He looked at the High Priestess, the embodiment of the Ancestors and the word of God, and faced down the quills stabbing into his eyes with all the strength of the Rock Throne. It was like two great, thrashing storms colliding and annihilating one another.

“We will march the entire army to battle,” the Administrator said.

“With the blessing of the Church, you mean,” said the High Priestess.

“You are here, High Priestess, and I believe I am asking.”

“That was not a question.”

The Administrator sucked in a long, deep breath and exhaled loudly to ensure that the High Priestess would hear.

“High Priestess, embodiment of the Ancestors and the word of God, the Council of the Central Territory has met and agreed that to face—”

The Administrator was interrupted by the High Priestess clearing her throat suggestively. She was pointing at the ground. The Administrator ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth and tried in vain to glare in the way that she could. He stood, brushed down his clothes and knelt before her.

“High Priestess, embodiment of the Ancestors and the word of God, the Council of the Central Territory has met and agreed that to face the coming horde we must raise an army and go to war. The threat we face is unprecedented but smaller than we first suspected. The council believes we can save the outer towns if we march the entire army against our enemy. Will the Ancestors bless the Territory in this endeavor?”

“Absolutely not,” the High Priestess said, almost before the Administrator had even finished his sentence.

The Administrator stood. “The council has agreed to this.”

The High Priestess stood to match him. “The Church cannot give you this blessing. You would take every Digger to war. Who would defend the Territory with them gone?”

“They
would
be defending the Territory, and the soldiers of the Holy Order will be here if defense is needed closer to home.”

“They serve only the Church.”

“And does the Church not serve the Territory?”

“You are not taking the entirety of the Diggers to war. It is a risk I am not willing to take.”

The Administrator’s voice rose and was now edged with anger. “I thought you spoke on behalf of God. This sounds like your own opinion, and it is not welcome in the strategies of war.”

“You do not have my blessing.”

“When has a High Priestess ever not given their blessing to the council on matters such as this? Do not presume that your role in the decision to go to war is anything but entirely ceremonial!”

The High Priestess didn’t reply. The Administrator felt anger boiling within his chest. “This land does not need your blessings, it needs the swords of the Diggers ready to march. Not only will we save the Territory but we could crush this horde and continue east to retake much land!”

“Your Honor,” the High Priestess said, in a way that still made the fifty-two year old Administrator feel eight. “As every High Priestess before me, I traveled into the east, past the Black Stump and out into the badlands.”

“Yes,” said the Administrator, “I know about this ridiculous Trial of Sarah you perform. What has that got to do with destroying the ghouls?”

The High Priestess continued as if the Administrator had not spoken. “I have been beyond where even the Diggers dare to tread. I defended myself against ghouls until I reached the Temple of Sarah among the buildings of the Ancestors, long abandoned and left to rot. As you know, this is a most holy place where the first High Priestess Sarah lived to bring God back to the ghouls. I cannot speak of what I found in this place but it reveals much about the Reckoning and about the world of the Ancestors.”

“Why does your order keep its secrets like this?” asked the Administrator. “Your knowledge could help us defeat our greatest enemy.”

“You cannot defeat them,” said the High Priestess. “I have seen the truth. You cannot defeat them no matter how many Diggers you throw in their path. You must repel the ghouls to save our people, but you will never defeat them. Leave some of the force behind. Be content with keeping the ghouls at bay and protecting the citizens of the Territory.”

“The Ancestors declared that one day we would regain the world we have lost. I can destroy our enemy and help retake some of that world!” the Administrator roared.

The High Priestess leaned forward and pointed at him. Yelling in a way he had never seen before, her usually calm exterior was suddenly torn asunder by a fiery demon within. “I have seen the truth of the world of the Ancestors and I can assure you that we will not, while I am High Priestess, regain that world!”

The Administrator was silent. As they stood with words of anger still floating in the air in front of their eyes the storm began to settle, debris dropping around them without sound.

“What?” the Administrator said. “The Sisters of the Church of Glorious God the Redeemer exist so that we will keep our faith and one day regain the lost world, and yet you say that you do not wish this.”

High Priestess Patricia took her time. She composed herself, sutured together the great tear down her usual persona, and then spoke. “I wish only for the pure of the Territory to be protected. You will not send the entire force of the Diggers to war. Leave at least one-quarter behind, then you may march. This is the word of the Ancestors and the word of God. Do not disobey the Church; even you are not above its law.”

The High Priestess turned and with her regained grace she walked out of the sunroom which, with the dying of the afternoon sun, had begun to grow darker.

The Administrator walked back into the Council Room. The ministers’ chairs were empty. He took long strides toward the Rock Throne, needing to feel powerful. He spoke to the shadows beside the throne; to the man he knew would be there.

“Summon the council again.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” said Knox Soilwork. “Should I inform them of the matter?”

“We go to war,” the Administrator said, “with all the Diggers behind us.”

“There were no problems intercepting the message from the boundary riders then?” the High Priestess asked.

“No, Your Holiness
.
 
We changed the message to report the horde at less than half its actual size. The Administrator also believes they are moving more slowly than they really are. As with withholding news of the fence breach, no one suspects.”

“Good. The Administrator seemed quite assured the threat was much smaller. I understand he reconvened the council shortly after meeting with me.”

“Yes, Your Holiness. He has ordered the Diggers to march against the ghouls in full force. He even informed the council that the Church gave its blessing.”

High Priestess Patricia stared out the high window of her office. Hearing of the Administrator’s blatant lie made her almost smile as she spoke. She had expected no less from him. “The ambitions of men make them easily malleable,” she said. “A little pull here, a little poke there, and they are ever so easy to manipulate. Even the Administrator doesn’t feel the strings when we steer him in the right direction.”

“Yes, Your Holiness,” said Colonel Woomera, standing stiff and straight in his green uniform. Ordinarily the High Priestess had little to do with the Diggers but from time to time she had to reach into their ranks and call upon those she knew to be loyal to the Church. It was good to have finally positioned one of the true within the council itself. It would make things simpler moving forward—not that she expected the council to exist for much longer.

If questioned by the Holy Order everyone within the Central Territory would say they were among the faithful and that their loyalty lay foremost with the Church, but the High Priestess wasn’t naïve enough to believe it to be true. While she was content to let the general population keep up appearances, it was she who was responsible for upholding the will of God, and that often demanded taking an active role in the Territory’s affairs. It was necessary to have puritans spread widely in the government, the Diggers, the bio-fuel plants, mines, and anywhere else they were needed to act on behalf of the Church. Where the Holy Order was hammer-like in beating the unholy from the Territory, these agents were a sharper instrument, a scalpel useful for influencing events when a finer hand was needed.

The High Priestess turned to face the colonel, berating herself for ruminating in front of him. He was in a very useful position, but he had played his part in setting things in motion and she did not need to share too much with him.

“Thank you, Colonel,” the High Priestess said in a dismissive tone. “When the time comes your part in this will not be forgotten. Know that you are helping ensure the future of the Territory and the safety of all those faithful to God.”

“Thank you, Your Holiness,” Colonel Woomera said. “Praise be to the Pure.”

High Priestess Patricia nodded. “Praise be to the Pure.”

Colonel Woomera turned, a snappy military about face, and strode toward the door of the High Priestess’s office.

“Oh, and Colonel,” the High Priestess called just as Colonel Woomera was reaching the door, “of course I do not need to remind you how important it is that my instructions and your actions remain between us.”

“Of course not, Your Holiness.”

She heard the honesty in his voice, highlighted as it was by a background of fear. They both understood what she was implying. If the hammer were deployed against the scalpel, Colonel Woomera would find himself remembered as just another heathen dragged away by the Holy Order and exiled beyond the fence. She watched him exit the room. He would do nothing, though. No one would betray her, she felt confident of that. There was no one within the Central Territory who would oppose her. Even those who thought they stood in defiance to her had their part to play.