All these years had been about preservation for Archbishop Sandeus Pager. This wasn’t as simple as a bright yellow stripe down his back. There was a reason he didn’t perform the Heralding or go out on the hunt for the Heart. For one, he was too important to be bothered with all that sweating and grunting, and for two, he wanted to live to see the Old Domain. People like Cole Szerszen wouldn’t last long in a unified world. Szerszen had too much invested in the Church of Midnight and his scale would tip, heavily. Call him forgetful, scatterbrained maybe, but Sandeus knew how to prepare.
While the others chased after the Heart of the Harvest, he tackled a bigger question. On October 31st, just where did Chaplain Cloth draw his power from? It took research, meditation and intense practice every year to even begin to understand the answer to such a question. When the worlds opened to one another, Sandeus would spend his time searching. And he had learned more than he’d ever thought possible. But he still felt he’d fallen behind. When the final union of worlds occurred, and he believed it could be this year or next, he’d possess the ability to harness both worlds, just as Cloth did. There was a special test Sandeus had planned for just the occasion, and waiting until then would be difficult.
His limousine and sentinels rolled into the gas-station town. Sandeus now trailed the exodus by a significant margin. His driver lowered the window. “Archbishop, she approaches.”
“Thank you, Lex.” Sandeus opened the door and made sure his lace was tucked into his suit. Four sentries slid out of their ebony Vipers and touched their side arms. He glanced to them and shook his head. They stood at ease then, but kept ready. A year wasn’t enough to build trust between the two churches. A shame.
The young woman stepped lightly through the rising dust. She wore a wonderful tangerine dress and ambrosia hair spilled down both shoulders. Her servant, an aberration in otherwise pleasant sight, resembled the Brawny Man. The two didn’t exactly look from another world, but they had been here for a year now. Perhaps Earthliness was an unavoidable sickness.
They stopped before Sandeus and he grinned. “So what name did you choose?”
“Mabel—I heard it on the television.” She gestured to her bearded companion. “And this is my faithful father.”
“Of course he is.” Sandeus hoped he hadn’t overdone it with the perfume this morning. It put some people off. “Please, let’s have a sit. I have refreshments. After you.”
The servant helped the Priestess of Morning inside the limo.
She was a striking woman. No question. A striking woman with a wonderful figure. But really, more than anything else, Sandeus wanted a face as flawless as hers. She wasn’t even wearing makeup. In a better life he would have worn this woman’s tender skin. With all her beauty and grace, it was easy for Sandeus to worship her, and he had little doubt now why she’d brought a guard from the other world.
“Addressing our last correspondence, I sent some Flagstaff acolytes over to the old lady’s house. She was a bust—no Heart of the Harvest.”
The Priestess’s pretty amber eyes went to slits. “I told you not to bother Celeste’s mother. I have the Nomads in my sight. They left the old woman’s house empty-handed. I thought I was specific about that.”
“It never hurts to be certain, Priestess.” Sandeus took up a wine glass from the bar. The syrah slopped a bit on his sleeve. He pressed the drops to his lips, prospecting for a little color. “So tell me how it went. I never had the chance to ask you, and I am fascinated. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke: two Nomads walked into the bar—”
“They were somewhat early. But we were ready.” The Priestess sunk her full lips into the bloody-looking juice in her own glass. “Destiny often takes other routes. The Archbishop Kennen had seen many different versions of the outcome.”
Sandeus swallowed a larger gulp than intended and breathed in; the wine burnt his nostrils.
“They came into the bar wearing the same clothing and talking about the same things Kennen described. The woman even asked for clove cigarettes.” The Priestess brought one leg over the other. Her peach stockings had the loveliest floral lace Sandeus’d ever seen.
He grounded his thoughts in a hurry. “I understand Kennen paid dearly for this prediction. His wife of many years offered herself to the feast. Dear me. To build the foundation of the future, you must tear down something permanent from your past. So the Tomes read.”
Eggert and the Priestess bowed their heads a moment to acknowledge the words. It was a gesture too few in Sandeus’s own church observed.
“Archbishop Kennen should be praised. To have given over his beloved only proves how anxious he is to cross over. Do you know any of his plans for the unification? How he envisions the Church structure?”
“I don’t spread rumors,” said the Priestess, “especially not about the Archbishop of Morning.”
Sandeus’s patience ran dry with these outworlders’ constant reverence of her Archbishop, as though he were not an equal. He took his wine, sipped and chuckled a bit. “So what are you willing to spread, Priestess?”
The bodyguard’s eyes flared.
The Priestess of Morning, not as affected, set down her glass and folded her slender hands on her lap. Sandeus found his eyes sliding over the deep crevasse between her breasts. The Priestess eyed his interest coolly. He could see the soft tip of her tongue just behind her teeth. “It’s hardly fair—the woman’s flesh in this world is devoured constantly with the eye and yet the male’s flesh is always obscured. Has your kind purposely tried to starve us?”
Sandeus touched his makeup accidentally and cringed. “I’m afraid my fascination can’t be helped, Priestess. After all, you know midnight always seeks the morning.” The bodyguard Eggert’s gaze cut through him. Sandeus cleared his throat. “So you put the Nomads in your sight then, Priestess? You can see them in your mind. Well then, where are they now?”
“Driving their big, horseless wagon—van.”
“You can see everything happening to them. Clearly? How does your sight work? It has been a constant fascination of mine.”
The Priestess bit into a chocolate cherry. After a moment, she dabbed her lips with a bar napkin. “I share the same ability as the Interloper, although not as superior. It is said that I share bloodlines with the Messenger, the Interloper, or whatever you may call him, or her.”
“Interesting. So how many people are in your sight?”
“I see the Nomads now, but I can also see my own church, out there. I put them in my sight before I left last year. There.” She pointed to the passing waves of brown desert and Joshua tree. “The Church of Morning gathers on Ekki fields, singing for the gateway to open, sharpening their staves, offering the feast. Anything I put into my sight fills my mind, until I look away.”
“Sounds overwhelming, Priestess.”
“I like taking more than I can handle. It exposes my limits.”
Sandeus finished his wine and set it on the wet bar. He crossed his legs almost as well as she had and he felt childishly proud about it. “I let your Church operate in its own fashion, but I must ask this. I still don’t understand why we couldn’t just kill the Nomads at the bar.”
“Cloth needs them to lead us to the Heart. There can be no delay.”
“Cloth and his children track down the Heart of the Harvest, every year.”
“Perhaps,” she remarked, “but Cloth wishes to go at this new Heart with speed and precision, not an extra breath of effort spent. The opening will be taxing on him once it comes.”
“Cloth speaks to you?”
“Through Archbishop Kennen’s offerings.”
Sandeus suddenly felt empty; he’d hoped to put all the worrying aside this year, but to learn Chaplain Cloth wanted to go cautious made him fear the worst. These Nomads worked well together. It was a miracle how well. Most Nomads lasted one October, maybe two. Not Martin and Teresa. It had been two decades now. They won some, lost some and always came back for another go. Sandeus heard that the woman, Teresa, had been protecting Hearts for thirty years. That was longer than his tenure as Archbishop.
This conversation started to depress him, so Sandeus wheeled around the subject yet again. “Anyhow, I want to speak of a new Bishop, Paul Quintana. I believe you met briefly at the Celebration last year.”
A satisfied expression crossed the Priestess’s face. “He is the winner of the gauntlet? He wasn’t allowed in the celebration ballroom with the envoys and other Bishops. The blonde, who looks like a film actor?”
“Very good looking, yes.”
“I would like to meet him, formally of course, now that he has ascended. He might be of use to me.”
“Forgive me, but wasn’t there just a new Bishop recently?” Eggert the bodyguard asked, beard bouncing with worry. “Jason? Or somebody?”
“Justin Margrave. Yes, he’s no longer with the Church.”
“Something happened?”
Sandeus shrugged. “Some of us fight against the wind, and some of us are taken with the dust. We are too strong to embrace the departed.”
They bowed their heads again. The Priestess finished her wine but held onto the empty glass as her eyes roamed the desert. Those eyes saw everything great and small, everything near and far. Those eyes saw their destination ahead, for better or worse. There was equal parts pain and pleasure languishing in their brilliance.
Sandeus Pager gazed at her in breathless admiration, despite Eggert’s stare. The Priestess of Morning was too lovely to ignore. So unbelievably superb. If only Sandeus could steal such perfection and make it his own.