The priest had already finished closing up the central areas of the temple. He was now in a little alcove tending to his own spiritual needs. Incense burned on a nearby salver filling the air with it lightly sharp aroma. The old priest inhaled deeply, times like this when the temple was quiet and he'd finished seeing to his congregation's needs were one of the reasons why he entered the Goddess' priesthood so many cycles ago. Not that he minded serving the spiritual needs of her people, it was just that he looked forward to the chance for some private time to meditate and commune with the deity herself. He approached the low alter in the alcove and lit the single candle there. His ancient knees popped as he lowered himself to the cushion he brought with him when his ordered decided to reopen the temple in the small farming community.
He remembered a time in his youth where he didn't need the padding to kneel and meditate. Age and over a hundred and fifty cycles of doing her work have worn his body to the point where the cushion was essential if he wanted to be able to able to practice his devotions or raise afterwards. He made it into position facing the small altar. He reached down and momentary shook a tiny bell that was placed beside him. The diminutive chiming was supposed to clear the mind of any negative emotions and energies.
The priest was well into his meditate when he sensed it. The time he knew was coming had arrived.
The Goddess in her wisdom had shown him long ago where his path would lead and how it would end.
"So... you've finally come," he said without alarm. The holy man didn't bother to turn or look up from his kneeling position. There was no reason to be afraid of what was meant to be.
The only response he received from his enquiry was the light footstep that sounded directly behind him. The priest finished silently reciting the mantra that he had started and then turned to look at the being at his back. He found a black-cloaked humanoid. The Shrike had his hood down and he could see that he was of a Sebacean-type race... just as he knew he would be.
"Are you the one who will free me from my earthly bounds?" he calmly asked the blue-eyed man.
"I am to be your executioner," replied the Enforcer in a low toneless voice.
The elderly priest smiled. "You are simply a part of the road to providence. A tool of the Goddess's will," he told the assassin. "My time here on this plane is at an end. It is time to move on with the journey and you are but a door, my son."
The Shrike cocked his head. "I am not your son," he said with no anger or malice.
"We are all children of the Goddess," answered the priest.
"If that is what you believe," dismissed the assassin. "You knew the Syndicate would send someone, why did you not desist?"
The holy man shook his head in answer. "What is happening here is wrong," he said. "Growing the Tannot Root for what your Syndicate wants it for is an affront to the sanctity of life and the Goddess herself. I could not in good conscious continue to let my congregation grow and harvest the plant when they should be growing food to feed themselves in its place."
"Then you will not stop speaking out against the Syndicate and urge the workers to return to the fields?" asked the Enforcer.
"I cannot. You will use the root to make weapons," the priest replied.
To the old man's dismay, the assassin seemed to hesitate.
"Priest..." the Shrike then said, "If you refuse this last time... you know what will have happened when I leave here. You will leave me with no other option."
The cleric sighed lightly. "I already told you... the Goddess has shown me that my time here is finished regardless. I will not change my mind, my son."
Shrike 457 was perplexed. The Syndicate wanted the field workers back harvesting the Tannot Root crop, but Arckatius didn't want to make a martyr out of the old priest if it could be avoided. In order to try and reason with the holy man, Shrike 457 had been sent. His control collar had been set to a lower management level then usual to allow him the freedom to converse with the priest. The collar would still force him to carry out his orders but it now allowed him ask and answer questions and with the collar's computer's help, try to come to some resolution with the elderly cleric if possible. Simply killing the man might cause more problems with the villagers and result in the organization having to use more valuable resources to pacify the situation and get the harvest back on schedule. The Enforcer had been dispatch with this final offer to cooperate or be eradicated.
"If you die tonight, there will be no one left to minister to your people," the Shrike tried.
"If I die tonight," the priest countered, "My order will send another to take my place. And if my replacement dies following me... there will be another, and another."
The collar's computer was ticking off the chances and coming to the conclusion that the old man would have to be removed in any event.
"The Goddess and my brethren will not forsake this world and it's people," the priest said.
"Your faith in a being you've never seen is that strong?" asked the Shrike, "That you would lay down your life for it?"
The old man smiled again at the assassin. "I may have never physically seen the Goddess," he replied, "But I have heard her here and here." The cleric first touched one hand to his temple and then laid it over his heart in a gesture of explanation. The collar took another step closer to making its final decision as the old man continued speaking.
"To answer your question," he said, "Yes, I would lay my life down for my faith. Faith is a funny thing, my son. It has a way of sneaking up on you and making you its own when you least expected it."
The Enforcer tilted his head. The collar could be appeased for a while yet if the old man kept talking. Part of his directive should the priest need to be removed was to gather as much information from him as the Shrike was able. "How so?" the assassin probed.
The elderly holy man looked up at him.
"Were you aware that one hundred and seventy-some cycles ago... I was a Peacekeeper?" he asked.
"No, I was not," the Shrike responded. The collar filed the data away for later retrieval.
"You're wondering what happened to change that," the priest said. The Enforcer inclined his head in agreement. "I was born into the Peacekeepers... born and raised to fight and die for the corp. When I received my corporal rank I was assigned to serve on the Zelbinion under Captain Durka. This was during the Delvian Upraise Campaign; I was a gunnery officer on an attack-marauder then. We were called to execute a strike mission on a group of rebels hiding on one of Delvia's moons. The mission was successful but my marauder sustained damage in the fighting and went down not far from the rebel encampment.
"All of the crew except for me were killed on impact but I was severely wounded. Some of the surviving rebels found me in the wreckage and I thought for sure they would kill me. Instead, they took me with them.
"I expected at any moment to be interrogated and tortured, instead a Pa'u healed me. None of these rebels tried to harm me. When I asked why? I was told that none of these people wanted to hurt anyone, they just wanted to be left in peace by themselves to worship the Goddess in their own way. I later found out that they didn't even have any weapons; my marauder... had been hit by friendly fire.
"There were indeed rebels on Delvia causing trouble. But it seemed that some religious leader in the government took exception to this group's way of worship. So they were turned into Peacekeeper Command and identified as being a rebel base."
A single tear fell down the old man's cheek as he recalled that time in his life.
"Do you know what amazed me throughout the entire time I was with them, Shrike?" he asked.
"No," the Enforcer answered tonelessly.
The priest waved one hand around as he became emotional.
"We killed almost all of them that day," he said, "Men, women, children...nearly wiped them out. They should have wanted vengeance. But not once in all that time... did I look in a single eye... and see hatred for what I did. Their faith in the Goddess was so strong that they could look passed the here and now and cared for a man who had tried to kill them all. After all this time... I'd like to think I understand the why now." The old man got a faraway look in his eyes.
"Mercy... compassion... forgiveness, all qualities alien to a young Peacekeeper. When I was well enough, I decided to stay with them. We eventually ended up at a monastery where the monks hid us.
I couldn't bring myself to go back to the Peacekeepers after what I've seen... and what I had done.
I entered the priesthood and have been serving the Goddess ever since then."
The Shrike tilted his head as he analyzed the story. The tale did not hold much in the way of tactical data, or a logical reason for the man to keep defying the Syndicate.
"And this Goddess, this deity you worship commands that you interfere with the Tannot harvest?"
The priest nodded, "She demands that I do all within my power to prevent the destruction of life. All life is scared to the Goddess, my son. Even yours."
"My life belongs to the Syndicate and my master," answered the Enforcer.
The old man chuckled lightly. "The Syndicate would like to believe they could own life," explained the cleric. "All life is a gift from the Goddess. She has shown me the path she wished me to walk. That is why I turned my back on the Peacekeepers and entered into her service."
The Enforcer seemed to be listening to an inner voice for a microt. Strangely his lips pursed together in thought. Up till then, the man's face had betrayed little in the way of emotion or what he was thinking.
"What you claim is highly illogical. A being who cannot be proven to exist cannot show you the course your life will take," stated the Shrike.
"Is that so?" asked the priest. "She showed me that our paths would cross and that mine would end when they did. I have seen where you have been... and where you will go. Whither you realize it or not, you stride a course chosen for you by the Goddess also. And nothing in the Syndicate's power can change that."
"I do not understand your statement?" said the Shrike, looking truly confused for the first time.
"You yourself, my son... are a tool of the Goddess' will. Your appearance here tonight is her will. What you will be in the future is also her will," continued the elderly cleric. "You travel the path she lays for you as surely as I do."
"Priest... I am trying to reach a compromise with you that will spare your life," the Shrike said slowly. "The Syndicate does not want your death if it can be avoid. If you keep speaking in riddles steeped in mysticism... I will have no other choice but to carry out the eradication order. I am an Enforcer for House Arckatius of the Black Syndicate, not a tool of your Goddess."
The priest shook his head in disagreement. "She has shown me what has been. Your time with the Syndicate will end when she sees fit for it to end. You have already walked her path and met the wan child who will become the pallid lady in your future... she who will be the key to new life. Your ways will cross and part, and then cross again. Possibly many times... possibly only once more before they join."
"More riddles?" asked the Enforcer. "I have met neither child or woman in my time here. No one but you has observed me. Of that I am certain."
The old man smiled. "I was speaking figuratively, just as the Goddess revealed it to me. She doesn't often come out and say things plainly to her congregation. She speaks of the soul that is twin to yours. Of the spirit that calls to your inner self... of that which you will have to seek before you are made whole again."
The Shrike watched the old man for a moment... and blinked his eyes in bewilderment.
"Perhaps you are mad?" he said, his eyebrows knitted together in thought.
"Perhaps I am," agreed the priest in good humor. "But you have already met her."
"Met whom?" asked the Shrike.
"The pale woman who is to be your deliverance."
If the Enforcer ever looked it, he looked flustered now. He got a faraway look in his eyes for a few microts and then looked back at the priest.
"I cannot recall meeting a female that fits that description," he replied.
"Your paths have already touched," assured the ecclesiastic.
The Shrike's eyes seemed to deaden again.
"If our paths have crossed in my service to the Syndicate, then your pale woman is most likely dead," answered the Shrike. "Just as you soon will be if we cannot come to an accord."
"There can be no accord with what the Syndicate seeks here," the old man said with a shake of his head.
With those words, the collar sealed the old priest's fate. The gauntlet brace on Shrike 457's right forearm slowly extended its lethal blades. Candlelight flickered off the sharp bright metal. Unlike the chiming ring that accompanied a fast combat deployment of the weapon, it opened slower with a metallic hiss. The metal against metal sound filling the alcove seemed to be made more ominous by the holy surroundings of the temple. It was a resonance that didn't belong there.
"I am required to ask of you; who have you told about this?" the collar made the Shrike inquire.
The elderly man shrugged his thin shoulders.
"Who is there to tell, my son?" he responded. "Neither the Peacekeepers nor the Scarren Imperium care about small farming communities like this one. Only my order and the Goddess care enough."
The Enforcer's orders had been should he fail to secure the priest's cooperation that he was to extract all information from the holy man as to whom he might have spoken to about the conditions on the farming world. Such extraction usually meant using torture to gain the data. The Shrike believed the old cleric was telling the truth. The community here wasn't large enough to produce enough Tannot Root to interest either the Peacekeepers or the Imperium... so there was no reason for either side to expend resources in protecting the planet or its inhabitants. However, what they were able to produce made enough on the black markets that the Syndicate was very interested. The collar's computer seemed to make the same conclusion, as it didn't order the Enforcer to proceed with the interrogation by torture. However, it ordered the priest's death.
The old man looked up at the Sebacean-looking assassin.
"The arn grows late, my son. And destiny calls to us both," he said. "I am wary and I look forward to resting in the Goddess' loving care this night. Please, carry on and do what you must."
The Shrike appeared to be hesitating.
"Old man... I do not want this," the assassin said tightly, "Reconsider!"
The cleric was momentary surprised to hear the slightest hint of emotion in the Shrike's tone. There was abruptly a look of stubbornness in those unSebecean-like eyes and the Enforcer's brow had broken out in a light sweat. It appeared to the old man that the Enforcer was struggling against something within himself.
The old priest again refused. "I am in the Goddess' hands now," he told the cloaked man.
The Shrike took a step forward, he was breathing heavier then normal and he seemed to be in some pain.
"You believe that deeply?" he asked. The Shrike's eyes seemed more alive then ever... but filling more with agony by the moment.
The cleric nodded. "She is my salvation as well as yours, my friend," he said in a kind voice.
The Shrike blinked his eyes and took a staggering step. His hand went to his throat and for the first time the priest noticed the electronic device locked around his neck.
"No!" denied the assassin in a voice racked with pain. "There can be no salvation for such as I."
The old man had seen enough control collars in his time as a Peacekeeper to know what the Shrike was going through.
"There is salvation for all in her arms," he gently said, "There was for me and there can be for you."
The Shrike's eyes turned desperate for just an instant. The Priest knew that some deep part of his inner self wanted to believe his words. But the collar was increasing its control over the assassin.
"We have talked enough. Now it is time for you to send me home." The Enforcer's pain seemed to lessen for the moment as the old man spoke. He managed to stand back up straight and face the priest. "I bare you no ill will for what you are here to do," the old ecclesiastic continued. "I do believe I have finally learned the lesson I was being taught on the Delvia moon." The priest managed an ancient smile for the assassin. "Come, my son... let us walk her path together for the short time we have."
Shrike 457 moved reluctantly forward as the collar lessened its punishment protocol. The device content now that it seemed the assassin would carry out the eradication verdict. The problem with having the collar's management level turned down so low was that it allowed more of the slave's free will to surface.
The collar unable to clamp down on the slave's mind had to use pain and threat of death for compliance if the slave chose to fight the collar's limited control of them. Unfortunately, the collar at full control made questioning or bargaining with another being almost impossible.
The priest could see that the Shrike was losing whatever battle he was fighting with his inner demon as his face began to slide back into its usual emotionless condition. The assassin moved up to next to where he was kneeling. The old man looked one last time at the Enforcer; he caught the trailing edges of life leaving his eyes. What ever had fueled the sudden spark slowly fading away. He lowered his head to expose his neck to the assassin's blades and faced the altar one last time.
"I'm ready," he told the Shrike.
Shrike 457 raised his right arm to strike, the blades gleaming cold and deadly from their armored brace.
"Forgive me..." whispered a human voice.
In his mind... the old man had already forgive him, but he did so again and offered a quick prayer for the tortured soul of the Shrike. The Priest's heart leaped for joy as he heard the Goddess call to him.
The blades fell.
He remembered a time in his youth where he didn't need the padding to kneel and meditate. Age and over a hundred and fifty cycles of doing her work have worn his body to the point where the cushion was essential if he wanted to be able to able to practice his devotions or raise afterwards. He made it into position facing the small altar. He reached down and momentary shook a tiny bell that was placed beside him. The diminutive chiming was supposed to clear the mind of any negative emotions and energies.
The priest was well into his meditate when he sensed it. The time he knew was coming had arrived.
The Goddess in her wisdom had shown him long ago where his path would lead and how it would end.
"So... you've finally come," he said without alarm. The holy man didn't bother to turn or look up from his kneeling position. There was no reason to be afraid of what was meant to be.
The only response he received from his enquiry was the light footstep that sounded directly behind him. The priest finished silently reciting the mantra that he had started and then turned to look at the being at his back. He found a black-cloaked humanoid. The Shrike had his hood down and he could see that he was of a Sebacean-type race... just as he knew he would be.
"Are you the one who will free me from my earthly bounds?" he calmly asked the blue-eyed man.
"I am to be your executioner," replied the Enforcer in a low toneless voice.
The elderly priest smiled. "You are simply a part of the road to providence. A tool of the Goddess's will," he told the assassin. "My time here on this plane is at an end. It is time to move on with the journey and you are but a door, my son."
The Shrike cocked his head. "I am not your son," he said with no anger or malice.
"We are all children of the Goddess," answered the priest.
"If that is what you believe," dismissed the assassin. "You knew the Syndicate would send someone, why did you not desist?"
The holy man shook his head in answer. "What is happening here is wrong," he said. "Growing the Tannot Root for what your Syndicate wants it for is an affront to the sanctity of life and the Goddess herself. I could not in good conscious continue to let my congregation grow and harvest the plant when they should be growing food to feed themselves in its place."
"Then you will not stop speaking out against the Syndicate and urge the workers to return to the fields?" asked the Enforcer.
"I cannot. You will use the root to make weapons," the priest replied.
To the old man's dismay, the assassin seemed to hesitate.
"Priest..." the Shrike then said, "If you refuse this last time... you know what will have happened when I leave here. You will leave me with no other option."
The cleric sighed lightly. "I already told you... the Goddess has shown me that my time here is finished regardless. I will not change my mind, my son."
Shrike 457 was perplexed. The Syndicate wanted the field workers back harvesting the Tannot Root crop, but Arckatius didn't want to make a martyr out of the old priest if it could be avoided. In order to try and reason with the holy man, Shrike 457 had been sent. His control collar had been set to a lower management level then usual to allow him the freedom to converse with the priest. The collar would still force him to carry out his orders but it now allowed him ask and answer questions and with the collar's computer's help, try to come to some resolution with the elderly cleric if possible. Simply killing the man might cause more problems with the villagers and result in the organization having to use more valuable resources to pacify the situation and get the harvest back on schedule. The Enforcer had been dispatch with this final offer to cooperate or be eradicated.
"If you die tonight, there will be no one left to minister to your people," the Shrike tried.
"If I die tonight," the priest countered, "My order will send another to take my place. And if my replacement dies following me... there will be another, and another."
The collar's computer was ticking off the chances and coming to the conclusion that the old man would have to be removed in any event.
"The Goddess and my brethren will not forsake this world and it's people," the priest said.
"Your faith in a being you've never seen is that strong?" asked the Shrike, "That you would lay down your life for it?"
The old man smiled again at the assassin. "I may have never physically seen the Goddess," he replied, "But I have heard her here and here." The cleric first touched one hand to his temple and then laid it over his heart in a gesture of explanation. The collar took another step closer to making its final decision as the old man continued speaking.
"To answer your question," he said, "Yes, I would lay my life down for my faith. Faith is a funny thing, my son. It has a way of sneaking up on you and making you its own when you least expected it."
The Enforcer tilted his head. The collar could be appeased for a while yet if the old man kept talking. Part of his directive should the priest need to be removed was to gather as much information from him as the Shrike was able. "How so?" the assassin probed.
The elderly holy man looked up at him.
"Were you aware that one hundred and seventy-some cycles ago... I was a Peacekeeper?" he asked.
"No, I was not," the Shrike responded. The collar filed the data away for later retrieval.
"You're wondering what happened to change that," the priest said. The Enforcer inclined his head in agreement. "I was born into the Peacekeepers... born and raised to fight and die for the corp. When I received my corporal rank I was assigned to serve on the Zelbinion under Captain Durka. This was during the Delvian Upraise Campaign; I was a gunnery officer on an attack-marauder then. We were called to execute a strike mission on a group of rebels hiding on one of Delvia's moons. The mission was successful but my marauder sustained damage in the fighting and went down not far from the rebel encampment.
"All of the crew except for me were killed on impact but I was severely wounded. Some of the surviving rebels found me in the wreckage and I thought for sure they would kill me. Instead, they took me with them.
"I expected at any moment to be interrogated and tortured, instead a Pa'u healed me. None of these rebels tried to harm me. When I asked why? I was told that none of these people wanted to hurt anyone, they just wanted to be left in peace by themselves to worship the Goddess in their own way. I later found out that they didn't even have any weapons; my marauder... had been hit by friendly fire.
"There were indeed rebels on Delvia causing trouble. But it seemed that some religious leader in the government took exception to this group's way of worship. So they were turned into Peacekeeper Command and identified as being a rebel base."
A single tear fell down the old man's cheek as he recalled that time in his life.
"Do you know what amazed me throughout the entire time I was with them, Shrike?" he asked.
"No," the Enforcer answered tonelessly.
The priest waved one hand around as he became emotional.
"We killed almost all of them that day," he said, "Men, women, children...nearly wiped them out. They should have wanted vengeance. But not once in all that time... did I look in a single eye... and see hatred for what I did. Their faith in the Goddess was so strong that they could look passed the here and now and cared for a man who had tried to kill them all. After all this time... I'd like to think I understand the why now." The old man got a faraway look in his eyes.
"Mercy... compassion... forgiveness, all qualities alien to a young Peacekeeper. When I was well enough, I decided to stay with them. We eventually ended up at a monastery where the monks hid us.
I couldn't bring myself to go back to the Peacekeepers after what I've seen... and what I had done.
I entered the priesthood and have been serving the Goddess ever since then."
The Shrike tilted his head as he analyzed the story. The tale did not hold much in the way of tactical data, or a logical reason for the man to keep defying the Syndicate.
"And this Goddess, this deity you worship commands that you interfere with the Tannot harvest?"
The priest nodded, "She demands that I do all within my power to prevent the destruction of life. All life is scared to the Goddess, my son. Even yours."
"My life belongs to the Syndicate and my master," answered the Enforcer.
The old man chuckled lightly. "The Syndicate would like to believe they could own life," explained the cleric. "All life is a gift from the Goddess. She has shown me the path she wished me to walk. That is why I turned my back on the Peacekeepers and entered into her service."
The Enforcer seemed to be listening to an inner voice for a microt. Strangely his lips pursed together in thought. Up till then, the man's face had betrayed little in the way of emotion or what he was thinking.
"What you claim is highly illogical. A being who cannot be proven to exist cannot show you the course your life will take," stated the Shrike.
"Is that so?" asked the priest. "She showed me that our paths would cross and that mine would end when they did. I have seen where you have been... and where you will go. Whither you realize it or not, you stride a course chosen for you by the Goddess also. And nothing in the Syndicate's power can change that."
"I do not understand your statement?" said the Shrike, looking truly confused for the first time.
"You yourself, my son... are a tool of the Goddess' will. Your appearance here tonight is her will. What you will be in the future is also her will," continued the elderly cleric. "You travel the path she lays for you as surely as I do."
"Priest... I am trying to reach a compromise with you that will spare your life," the Shrike said slowly. "The Syndicate does not want your death if it can be avoid. If you keep speaking in riddles steeped in mysticism... I will have no other choice but to carry out the eradication order. I am an Enforcer for House Arckatius of the Black Syndicate, not a tool of your Goddess."
The priest shook his head in disagreement. "She has shown me what has been. Your time with the Syndicate will end when she sees fit for it to end. You have already walked her path and met the wan child who will become the pallid lady in your future... she who will be the key to new life. Your ways will cross and part, and then cross again. Possibly many times... possibly only once more before they join."
"More riddles?" asked the Enforcer. "I have met neither child or woman in my time here. No one but you has observed me. Of that I am certain."
The old man smiled. "I was speaking figuratively, just as the Goddess revealed it to me. She doesn't often come out and say things plainly to her congregation. She speaks of the soul that is twin to yours. Of the spirit that calls to your inner self... of that which you will have to seek before you are made whole again."
The Shrike watched the old man for a moment... and blinked his eyes in bewilderment.
"Perhaps you are mad?" he said, his eyebrows knitted together in thought.
"Perhaps I am," agreed the priest in good humor. "But you have already met her."
"Met whom?" asked the Shrike.
"The pale woman who is to be your deliverance."
If the Enforcer ever looked it, he looked flustered now. He got a faraway look in his eyes for a few microts and then looked back at the priest.
"I cannot recall meeting a female that fits that description," he replied.
"Your paths have already touched," assured the ecclesiastic.
The Shrike's eyes seemed to deaden again.
"If our paths have crossed in my service to the Syndicate, then your pale woman is most likely dead," answered the Shrike. "Just as you soon will be if we cannot come to an accord."
"There can be no accord with what the Syndicate seeks here," the old man said with a shake of his head.
With those words, the collar sealed the old priest's fate. The gauntlet brace on Shrike 457's right forearm slowly extended its lethal blades. Candlelight flickered off the sharp bright metal. Unlike the chiming ring that accompanied a fast combat deployment of the weapon, it opened slower with a metallic hiss. The metal against metal sound filling the alcove seemed to be made more ominous by the holy surroundings of the temple. It was a resonance that didn't belong there.
"I am required to ask of you; who have you told about this?" the collar made the Shrike inquire.
The elderly man shrugged his thin shoulders.
"Who is there to tell, my son?" he responded. "Neither the Peacekeepers nor the Scarren Imperium care about small farming communities like this one. Only my order and the Goddess care enough."
The Enforcer's orders had been should he fail to secure the priest's cooperation that he was to extract all information from the holy man as to whom he might have spoken to about the conditions on the farming world. Such extraction usually meant using torture to gain the data. The Shrike believed the old cleric was telling the truth. The community here wasn't large enough to produce enough Tannot Root to interest either the Peacekeepers or the Imperium... so there was no reason for either side to expend resources in protecting the planet or its inhabitants. However, what they were able to produce made enough on the black markets that the Syndicate was very interested. The collar's computer seemed to make the same conclusion, as it didn't order the Enforcer to proceed with the interrogation by torture. However, it ordered the priest's death.
The old man looked up at the Sebacean-looking assassin.
"The arn grows late, my son. And destiny calls to us both," he said. "I am wary and I look forward to resting in the Goddess' loving care this night. Please, carry on and do what you must."
The Shrike appeared to be hesitating.
"Old man... I do not want this," the assassin said tightly, "Reconsider!"
The cleric was momentary surprised to hear the slightest hint of emotion in the Shrike's tone. There was abruptly a look of stubbornness in those unSebecean-like eyes and the Enforcer's brow had broken out in a light sweat. It appeared to the old man that the Enforcer was struggling against something within himself.
The old priest again refused. "I am in the Goddess' hands now," he told the cloaked man.
The Shrike took a step forward, he was breathing heavier then normal and he seemed to be in some pain.
"You believe that deeply?" he asked. The Shrike's eyes seemed more alive then ever... but filling more with agony by the moment.
The cleric nodded. "She is my salvation as well as yours, my friend," he said in a kind voice.
The Shrike blinked his eyes and took a staggering step. His hand went to his throat and for the first time the priest noticed the electronic device locked around his neck.
"No!" denied the assassin in a voice racked with pain. "There can be no salvation for such as I."
The old man had seen enough control collars in his time as a Peacekeeper to know what the Shrike was going through.
"There is salvation for all in her arms," he gently said, "There was for me and there can be for you."
The Shrike's eyes turned desperate for just an instant. The Priest knew that some deep part of his inner self wanted to believe his words. But the collar was increasing its control over the assassin.
"We have talked enough. Now it is time for you to send me home." The Enforcer's pain seemed to lessen for the moment as the old man spoke. He managed to stand back up straight and face the priest. "I bare you no ill will for what you are here to do," the old ecclesiastic continued. "I do believe I have finally learned the lesson I was being taught on the Delvia moon." The priest managed an ancient smile for the assassin. "Come, my son... let us walk her path together for the short time we have."
Shrike 457 moved reluctantly forward as the collar lessened its punishment protocol. The device content now that it seemed the assassin would carry out the eradication verdict. The problem with having the collar's management level turned down so low was that it allowed more of the slave's free will to surface.
The collar unable to clamp down on the slave's mind had to use pain and threat of death for compliance if the slave chose to fight the collar's limited control of them. Unfortunately, the collar at full control made questioning or bargaining with another being almost impossible.
The priest could see that the Shrike was losing whatever battle he was fighting with his inner demon as his face began to slide back into its usual emotionless condition. The assassin moved up to next to where he was kneeling. The old man looked one last time at the Enforcer; he caught the trailing edges of life leaving his eyes. What ever had fueled the sudden spark slowly fading away. He lowered his head to expose his neck to the assassin's blades and faced the altar one last time.
"I'm ready," he told the Shrike.
Shrike 457 raised his right arm to strike, the blades gleaming cold and deadly from their armored brace.
"Forgive me..." whispered a human voice.
In his mind... the old man had already forgive him, but he did so again and offered a quick prayer for the tortured soul of the Shrike. The Priest's heart leaped for joy as he heard the Goddess call to him.
The blades fell.