Lilith: A Snake in the Grass

Chapter Fourteen Savages and Amazons

I just stood there dumbstruck, staring at him. Finally I managed, “You were expecting me?”

He looked around. “Why else would I stay in such a wondrous natural hotel?” he grumbled sarcastically. “Come on over and sit. I’ll put on some tea.”

I walked toward him, then stopped. “I’ve forgotten Ti!” I exclaimed, mostly to myself.

“I have tea here,” he responded, sounding confused.

“No, no. Ti. The girl.”

He laughed. “Well, well! So you did take her! There was some question as to what happened.”

I decided to fetch her before getting the details. At least I was no longer alone, and I hadn’t been incinerated or otherwise molested, so whatever game Bronz was playing was in my favor.

I carried her back to Bronx’s camp and he rose and walked over to her immediately, doing a fairly good imitation of Dr. Pohn but with far more compassion and concern. “That bastard,” he muttered. “May he rot in hell forever.” He closed his eyes and placed his hand on her forehead.

“Can you do anything for her?” I asked, genuinely concerned. “She’s nothing more than a living robot right now.”

He sighed and thought for a moment. “If I were a doctor, yes, I could. If I knew my biology a little better, maybe. I can see where he’s meddled, all right, but I don’t dare risk doing anything myself. I might cause permanent brain damage or even kill her. No, we’ll have to find help for her, that’s all.”

“Not at a Keep,” I responded hesitatingly. “All they’d do is give her back to Dr. Pohn.”

“No, not at a Keep,” he agreed, thinking. “Not you, either. We have to get you someplace safe where you can get some help and Ti can get some expert care, though. I did anticipate the problems we’d have finding friends and allies and a hideout, although I didn’t realize I’d have this kind of difficulty.” He sighed again and went back over to the rekindled small fire, taking the gourd of water from the flame and adding some ground leaves from a pouch on his belt—one of several, I noted.

“Come on over and sit down,” he invited. “It’ll be ready in a few minutes and we have some time to kill anyway.”

I did as instructed, already feeling a little better. I wanted to know a little more about Father Bronz, though.

“You said that you anticipated our needing a hide-out, that you were waiting for me,” I noted. “Maybe you better explain a little.”

He chuckled. “Son, I was late getting out of Zeis. They had all the bigwigs coming for a party and it was decided that I should attend. Besides, the Duke and I are old Mends—I occasionally do him some favors.”

“I remember the night,” I told him. “It was the night I killed Kronlon and graduated, you might say. I thought you were long gone, though.”

“I’d intended to be,” he responded, pouring tea into two smaller, nicely carved gourd cups. “Politics is everything around here, though. Well, that got me a couple of days late into Shemlon, and I was still there when couriers from Zeis arrived with the news that you had been condemned to death but had escaped and were now a wanted fugitive. You are really hot, as they say, my son. Any pawn that even helps them get you won’t ever have to work or feel a supervisor’s wrath again.”

I nodded: Just what I expected, but it eased my conscience a little about killing the old man.

“Anyway,” Bronz continued, “it didn’t take much in the way of brains to figure that you’d need a friend and I was the, only friend outside the Keep you had. So I was very noisy in spreading word around where I was going next. I didn’t want you to try finding me in Shemlon, considering how much of a single entity the whole village setup is, so I traveled down the road about halfway to Mola, then camped here some time yesterday. I was willing to wait until somebody asked questions or until you showed up, whichever came first. But I do have to put in at Mola, if only for appearance’s sake, you know.”

“You figured out my movements so easily,” I pointed out, “I wonder why Artur hasn’t?”

“Oh, I’m sure the thought crossed his mind,” Bronz replied cheerily. “I’ve been getting a careful inspection from some of those flyers, and a fellow by here earlier gave me your description and told me how to report you. I wouldn’t worry, though. I’m one of them, son! To them I’m an old friend of the Duke’s, a familiar old face. It might occur to them that you’d seek me out, but it would never occur to them that I wouldn’t immediately fry your gizzard or turn you in.”

I sipped the tea. “But you’re not?”

“Of course not,” he replied, sounding a bit miffed.

“Would I have gone to all this trouble if I were? No, my son, in this bastion of the most primitive age of man on old Earth I’m reviving a two-thousand-year-old church custom for you! It’s called sanctuary. Back in ancient times, on our ancestral planet, the church was a power unto itself, a political power with a lot of force and clout, yet separate from the temporal powers because we owed our allegiance not to kings but to God. Political criminals in particular, but really anybody who was being chased, could run into a church or cathedral and claim sanctuary, and the church, would protect that person from temporal retribution. Well, you’re asking for sanctuary, and how can I, as a Christian, turn you down? I’ve had it up to here with this godless tyranny anyway. And besides,” he added with a wink and a smile, “I’ve been bored to tears for ten years.”

I laughed and finished my tea, whereupon he poured me more.

“Now, then,” he said, settling back once more, “just what do you want to do?”

“I want to restore Ti, of course,” I responded, “but beyond that, I want to complete my treatments and training. They said I was at least Master class, and I want to reach that level badly. I want the opportunity to go as far as I can with the Warden power.”

He nodded. “That’s reasonable. And the fact that you put Ti first—that in fact you vastly complicated your escape to get her out—is a real mark in your favor. But suppose I can get you to Moab Keep, to that crazy group down there, and you get all the power you can. Suppose you become a Master plus —Knight level, maybe. Then what?”

“Well …” I thought about his question, which was a fan- one. Just what did I want to do? “I think, one day, if I have the power, I’d like to go back to Zeis Keep and take it for my own. Then—well, we’ll see.”

He chuckled. “So you have designs on a knighthood, huh? Well, maybe you’ll make it, Cal. Maybe you will… Still, first things first we have to get you to help, we have to get Ti to help, and then somehow we have to get you down to Moab.”

I nodded, looking serious and feeling worse. It was all well and good to spout dreams, but the reality was a naked and mud-caked man sipping tea beside a small fire.

’Til have to put in my appearance ahead, as I mentioned,” Father Bronz said. “I’ve got a little extra here and you should be fairly comfortable for a couple of days. I figure if you can avoid all the traps and patrols to get this far, you certainly can just lie low.”

“And then what?” I pressed, not liking to be so out of control of things and feeling a little helpless.

He grinned. “Once I reach the Keep I can pull a favor or two, send a little message to certain parties. I’ll work out a rendezvous and we can take it from there.”

“Certain parties? I thought this bound-up world wouldn’t stand a resistance.”

“Oh, they’re not anything of the kind,” he replied. “No, indeed. They’re savages.”