Sam awoke to the gentle whisper of someone praying.
He tried to sit up, but the sudden flash of pain in his head doomed his effort. His return to the horizontal wasn’t fast enough to satisfy his stomach; it lurched and heaved. Sam rolled onto his side just in time to spew the contents mostly onto the floor rather than himself.
He groaned.
“Ah, you are awake.”
A man in dark clothing appeared at Sam’s side. The man had a ceramic bowl in one hand and some towels in the other. Without asking, he started to help Sam clean himself off.
Sam let the man take over the job. His head still hurt, almost as bad as after a long session in the Matrix. That was an old familiar pain. It would pass. His belly felt acid-scorched and his muscles ached. He felt like drek. Through the wool that seemed impacted around his teeth and tongue, he asked, “What happened?”
“That I cannot tell you. My first sight of you was when the servants brought you here. From your condition, I’d say you had been drugged.”
Hart. In his memory, Sam could see her saddened face hovering over the muzzle of her Crusader. He saw the muzzle flash and felt the slug hit. But it couldn’t have been a slug. If it had, he would have been dead. She must have loaded her weapon with tranquillizer bullets. Why? What was going on?
Sam looked around. There wasn’t much to see. Rough stone walls defined a circular chamber about three meters in diameter. A small alcove held a pool of water. The walls were beaded with moisture and spotted with patches of luminous lichen. Puzzled that he couldn’t feel the humidity or smell the mold, Sam shifted briefly to astral senses. The change in sensory input disoriented him; there seemed to be a severe fuzziness to his perceptions, but he learned that the walls’ appearance was an illusion. He and the stranger were being held in a modern cell. The illusory lichens hid lighting panels; the real walls were concrete and embedded with some kind of high-tech circuitry which frustrated his attempts to penetrate with his astral vision. He felt too weak to press the issue, and returned to his mundane senses. If the man with the cloths had noticed Sam’s absence, he gave no sign.
“Where are we?” Sam asked.
“In general, somewhere south and west of Dublin. In specific, a holding cell in the stronghold of the Seelie Court.”
“Dublin?” Sam was stunned. His mind didn’t want to work. “Dublin, Ireland?”
“Yes.” The man tossed the dirty cloths into the bowl. “You seem surprised.”
“‘Confused’ would be a better word. You’d be, too. I was shot in London.”
“Shot?” The man’s eyes grew concerned as he began to search Sam for a wound. Sam was too spaced to do anything. “Ah, the drug. You were shot with a tranquilizer gun, then.”
Sam thought he nodded in the affirmative.
“It would seem you have not slept too long, judging from the condition of your last meal. Who shot you and why?”
He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to think about it. Hart had shot him down. Why? Without a word of explanation, she had shot him. Then, he had awoken a captive. Had the bitch sold him to his enemies? They had been lovers; he hadn’t thought she could be so cold. He had loved her. He really didn’t want to think about it. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then we shall not speak of it. Perhaps though, it would not trouble your memories to recall when you were shot. I no longer have a timepiece, and I have lost track of the days here. The light, you see, doesn’t change and the meals are irregular. There is no way to measure the passage of time here.”
Time? Sam realized he had lost track of time himself. The long days of tracking down the Hidden Circle had all blended into one another. He had barely noted the passage of Christmas and the coming of the new year. The last date he recalled clearly was the Solstice; the Man of Light’s words had burned the date into his mind.
“It was late January, the twenty-ninth, I think.”
“The twenty-ninth.” The man sighed. “It’s been over a week and the others have not found me. If the elves’ magics are so strong that I have not heard from them by now, I fear I never will. These elves do the devil’s work.”
Sam’s head was slowly clearing. He listened to the man’s words, but they only made partial sense. “Who are you?”
“I? I am a sinner who answers to the name Pietro Rinaldi. I am also a priest of the Order of St. Sylvester and, for the sin of inattention, a captive like yourself.”
“You’re a priest? But this is Ireland. I thought all the priests had been kicked out when the Shidhe took over.”
“I am but lately come to these shores.”
“Not a very good start for your missionary work.”
“Missionary work is not my calling. Although it is the task of all priests to aid souls toward salvation, the Order of St. Sylvester has another mandate. I am part of an investigative team. While my fellows concentrated on England, I came to Ireland seeking information. I had assumed the diplomatic pass from His Holiness would have been better respected. Alas, the arrogant leaders of this state seem to have no concept of any authority higher than their own.”
“So, you showed up at the airport, and they took one look at your Vatican passport and chucked you in this hole.”
“Quite the contrary. I was admitted without any trouble at all. It was not until after I had begun my inquiries that I attracted the attention of the Lady Deign.”
“Who?”
“Lady Brane Deigh, a very rich and powerful elven woman who styles herself queen of the Seelie Court.”
“Whoa, father. You’re not telling me you’re here because you got involved with a woman, are you?”
“Involved with?” Rinaldi blinked in brief confusion, then smiled wryly. “Ah. Yes, involved indeed, but not in the way you think. Since the Reunification, celibacy is no longer required of priests, but my Order still takes the vow for ritual reasons. I have not broken that vow. My fall came not from the temptations of the flesh; my involvement with the Lady, as they call her, was one of matters more arcane than carnal.”
“Arcane? Are you going to tell me that you’re a magician, too?”
Rinaldi chuckled. “Would it matter if I did?”
“It might.”
“Then I hope it is not too much of a disappointment, but I am not. I am a sensitive, however, and so know that you are one, yourself.” Rinaldi paused, offering Sam a chance to say something. When he did not, the priest tried another tack. “My limited gifts do not tell me your name.”
Sam was embarrassed. Here he had been grilling Rinaldi and had never even introduced himself. He started to give his name, but sudden suspicion stopped his tongue. Names were important, both magically and in the world of the shadows. How did Sam know if this priest—if he was a priest—was who he said he was? Rinaldi had admitted to being involved with this elf queen, Deigh. Maybe his involvement hadn’t ended. He might be one of Deigh’s flunkies and the whole friendly approach some kind of trap. The suspicion gnawed at Sam, and he hated himself for it.
It had been bad enough when Dodger manipulated him, but what Hart had done…her perfidy was shattering. It made him want to believe the Man of Light’s implication that their affair had been induced by magic. But magic wasn’t causing his feelings now. The anger and pain made mock of any attempt to accept that his feelings for Hart had not been real.
First Dodger, then Hart. Too many betrayals. Could he trust anyone?
“They call me Twist, father,” he said softly into the silence. He could see that he hadn’t hidden his inner struggle from Rinaldi, but the priest politely ignored it.
“Ah. A street name?”
Sam nodded.
“I understand that the current circumstances do not inspire trust. However, we are both in the same cell and I believe that you might have the power to get us out. Perhaps if I tell you more about myself, you will trust me. Read my aura, if you wish. I have nothing to hide.”
Getting out was a top priority, but Sam still felt too weak to do more than sit up and breathe deeply. He didn’t feel ready to read anyone’s aura, but he didn’t have to tell Rinaldi that. Until he was stronger and had a better idea of what was going on, he could at least listen to the priest’s words. “Sure. Why not?”
Rinaldi’s idea of filling Sam in began far too early to be of any real interest. Sam had no desire to hear about the priest’s rough childhood in Awakening-torn Italy. What relevance could it have? Sam let his mind drift, occasionally dropping back to the real world to pick up snatches of Rinaldi’s early tribulations with his vocation and final selection of the rule under which he had chosen to live. It was only when Rinaldi revealed the nature of the Order of St. Sylvester that the priest recaptured Sam’s full attention.
“You’re part of an order of magicians?” Sam asked incredulously.
“I said that the Sylvestrines gather the cream of the Church’s magical talent, but not all members are magically active and most of the rest are adepts or students. I myself have but a small gift.”
“Which is?”
“I have astral senses.” Rinaldi looked embarrassed, or perhaps, troubled. Sam felt sympathy for him. Any magical talent set a person apart from ordinary folk. But to see the magic and not be able to use it? What frustration! Sam didn’t think he would be able to deal with that kind of limitation.
“That’s a valuable talent,” he said.
Rinaldi shrugged, giving Sam a weak smile. “I am primarily a scholar. My specialty is totemic shamanism, but I have studied several hermetic traditions as well. While I have done some investigations of other more esoteric traditions, I would hesitate to claim any particular expertise. There is so much knowledge, and so little time to acquire it.
“I have spoken long enough about myself and fear I shall have to confess my prideful indulgence. You seem more relaxed now. Perhaps you feel secure enough to tell me what tradition you follow.”
“Can’t you tell?”
“Without you actively using your magic? Of course not.”
Sam felt stupid. With his limited experience, he already knew that a person’s aura only showed strength. While those with strong auras were often magically capable, it didn’t show unless they were actively manipulating mana. Even then, the tradition they followed might not be clear unless the nature of the magic was strongly allied in the form of manipulation.
“I appear to be a shaman.”
Rinaldi looked surprised. “Appear to be? I should think that someone with your level of power would be quite aware of his orientation.”
“It’s what people tell me I am,” Sam said sheepishly. “Honestly, father, I find the idea uncomfortable. I’m a Christian. All the business about totems is very disturbing to me. I mean, didn’t primitive people worship totems as gods? I can’t do that. It just doesn’t seem right that my magic is hedged around with such pagan symbolism.”
Sam’s breathless admission seemed to shift Rinaldi’s mood. His expression became more serious.
“Do you believe in angels?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Do you?” Rinaldi insisted.
“They are in the Bible,” Sam snapped.
“Some people do not believe the Bible is literal truth,” Rinaldi said calmly. “Do you believe that angels are real?”
Sam hesitated. “Yes.”
“And what are they?”
“How should I know? I’m not a theologian.”
Rinaldi smiled. “If it makes you feel any better, theologians argue over angels, too. Most agree that an angel is a being, a spiritual entity of a different order than man. I believe that true knowledge of these beings is something that is denied to us as long as we wear flesh.
“In our mortal state, we cannot know the mind of God. Though we each have a sliver of him within ourselves, we are hampered by our physical nature from seeing the truth as it is. For all the wonder and glory of God’s creation, we perceive only a part. You, as a magician, are able to perceive more than the vast majority of mankind. You used your astral senses earlier. Didn’t you see more than your mundane senses revealed? Of course you did. A small proof that what is available to mundane senses is not all there is to the universe. You have assensed spirits that have no physical presence, haven’t you? Aren’t they real?”
“They’re just energy forms,” Sam protested. “It’s not the same thing.”
“E=mc2. Energy is as real as matter.”
Rinaldi’s answer was smug, and troubling. “Are you telling me that totems are angels?”
The priest shook his head. “No. Yet I know of no shaman who does not believe in their existence.”
So, was Sam supposed to believe that totems had independent existence? “Then totems are not just psychological constructs, tricks to let a brain do magic?”
“I didn’t say that either.”
“You’re making me crazy, father,” Sam said exasperatedly. “What are totems? Are they real or not?”
“I wish I could give you the answer you want, Twist. I’m not a shaman, so I can never experience a totemic contact or visit the realms where shamans learn the secrets of their magic. The ability to experience such has not been given to me, and the shamanic magic is so very experiential. While in this flesh, I shall never personally know the answer, but all those I have spoken to agree that whether totems are real or not, the effects of totems are real. A shaman must conform to the attitudes and strictures of his totem or lose power.”
“You’re telling me that I must follow my totem’s decrees. What about God’s commandments? What about false gods, priest?”
“A totem is suited to your nature, or your nature to it. The order is unclear. Like the very ability to do magic, or the type of magic of which a person is capable, totems are not something that is chosen. A person is as God has made him, gifted or burdened as He wills. We must use our gifts and shoulder our burdens as we attempt to find our way nearer to Him. He has given us free will that we may choose, and He has given us His love to guide us in choosing wisely. Accepting your shamanic nature will not drive you from Him. Your gift comes from Him. How could He make you so that you are unacceptable to Him?”
Sam felt the wisdom in the priest’s words. He said thoughtfully, “I should have spoken to you sooner, father.”
Rinaldi smiled warmly. “Regrets gain nothing, son. You must look to the future.”
“Easy to say,” Sam said with a wave of his hand taking in their cell. He shrugged and said, “So when Dog speaks to me, it’s not a betrayal of God.”
“Your totem is a link with…” Rinaldi quick answer died abruptly. “Did you say your totem speaks to you?”
“Yeah. He doesn’t always make sense and sometimes he talks too much.”
Rinaldi put a hand on Sam’s shoulder and stared earnestly into his face. “But he talks directly to you? In words?”
“How else does anybody talk? Other than dragons, that is.”
“I don’t know; I’ve never spoken to a dragon.”
“Try to avoid it. They’re accomplished liars,” Sam said. Bitterly, he added, “Like elves.”
Rinaldi, intent with his own thoughts, had paid no attention to Sam’s sour tone. “Twist, how many times have you spoken with…was it ‘Dog’?”
Sam forced thoughts of Hart’s lies away and tried to answer Rinaldi civilly. “Dog sure enough; he kind of looked like a mutt I once befriended. I guess we’ve had three or four conversations now. He teaches me songs. Crazy, isn’t it?”
“No, not at all,” Rinaldi said. He thought for a moment, then said, “When was the last time?”
“Just before she…just before I got shot.”
“You were facing death?”
“That was later.” Sam laughed nervously. “I guess I’m a little confused, and I’m confusing you. Must be the aftereffects of the drug. When I talked to Dog, Herzog had been helping me break through to the spirit planes. He wouldn’t help us against the Circle, but he was willing to take me through the ritual so I could get the power I needed to face the Circle’s abominations.”
“The Circle? What circle?”
“A bunch of renegade druids who call themselves the Hidden Circle. They’re homicidal maniacs. My…” Sam paused, “…friends and I were trying to stop them.”
“Twist,” Rinaldi said softly. “Tell me about this Hidden Circle.”
Why not? Sam thought. If he and Rinaldi were really captives of elves, nothing would get back to the Circle. Sam knew how much the druids hated metahumans; these elves wouldn’t be allied with the Circle. If Rinaldi’s presence and the “elven captivity” were some kind of subtle ploy, what did it matter? Sam was on his own now, and even Dog’s songs wouldn’t be enough if he were in the Circle’s hands.
Sam recounted his involvement with the Circle’s machinations, beginning with the bungled extraction of Raoul Sanchez and ending with the disastrous raid in the East End of London. The priest’s questions were sharp and probing. Sam’s answers seemed to disturb Rinaldi. Throughout the tale, Sam observed the priest’s growing agitation. If he was an actor, he was very, very good.
Rinaldi listened to Sam’s recounting of the runners’ speculations as to the druids’ plans, then said, “Twist, we’ve got to get you out of here.”
Sam could see the intensity in the priest’s face. Sam revised his opinion. Rinaldi had spoken freely and offered aid without asking a reward. If Sam rejected that kind of selflessness, he would never be able to trust anyone again. But then, was trust important to a shadowrunner? Sam was surprised that he didn’t need to think about it long.
“Call me Sam, father.”