Pokemon Special: Brick Bronze

by 2b2tEternalLegend

After two thousand years, the Dark Lord has escaped his prison, amassing evil forces to destroy the world. His parents kidnapped, Bronze Tercano sets out on a journey to defeat Team Eclipse, a sinister organization with demonic backing. Only Bronze, his friends, and the Pokedex Holders can stop this threat by applying age-old wisdom to a modern world dominated by science. (IN-DEV)

3. The Council in the North

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The Council in the North

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Visitors to Mitis Town

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The Rorian Chairman belonged to the Association. Certain politicians have a peculiar physiognomy, which is complicated with an air of baseness mingled with an air of authority. The Chairman possessed this physiognomy minus the baseness.

The Chairman had been born in prison, of a fortune-teller, whose husband was in the asylum. As he grew up, he thought that he was outside the pale of society, and he despaired of ever re-entering it. He observed that society unpardoningly excludes two classes of men: those who attack it and those who guard it; he had no choice except between these two classes; at the same time, he was conscious of an indescribable foundation of rigidity, regularity, and probity, complicated with an inexpressible hatred for the race of bohemians whence he was sprung. He entered the administration; he succeeded there. At forty years of age he was a regional Chairman.

The human face of this Chairman consisted of a flat nose, with two deep nostrils, towards which enormous whiskers ascended on his cheeks. One felt ill at ease when he saw these two forests and these two caverns for the first time. The Chairman, serious, was a penitent; when he laughed, he was a tiger. As for the rest, he had very little skull and a great deal of jaw; his hair concealed his forehead and fell over his eyebrows; between his eyes there was a permanent, central frown, like an imprint of wrath; his gaze was obscure; his mouth pursed up and terrible; his air that of ferocious command.

In his leisure moments, which were far from frequent, he read, although he hated books; this caused him to be not wholly illiterate. This could be recognized by some emphasis in his speech. He had no vices. When he was pleased with himself, he permitted himself a smoke of a cigarette. Therein lay his connection with humanity.

He had divined, with that curiosity and foreboding that certain men possess in times of trouble, that his satrapy was under great threat. Certainly this Chairman was the only one who could stop it. His predecessor had been weak and blind, without so much as a shred of instinct or will to preserve the stability of Roria for posterity. This previous Chairman was in disgrace. The current one was more proud and kingly, of a nobler lineage than anyone who had come before him. He was subtle and scornful, and could perceive the thoughts of those around him, if he so wished. So far he had proved a masterful ruler and had been given many powers to order all things, large and small, under his command.

But it is not possible for any human to be wholly flawless. If the Chairman had been free from his high station and wholly unambitious, (it could not have been so,) his education had had the curious effect of making things that he read and wrote more real to him than things he saw. Statistics about agricultural laborers were the substance; any real ditcher, plowman, or farmer's boy, was the shadow. Though he had never noticed it himself, he had a great reluctance, in his work, ever to use such words as "man" or "woman," He preferred to write about "vocational groups," "elements," "classes" and "populations": for, in his own way, he believed as firmly as any mystic in the superior reality of the things that are not seen.

This Chairman was seated at the end of a long table. It had a glass surface that allowed him to see the nervous tappings and fidgetings of the lower extremities of those who sat around it, like a patient old hunter. There were seven others in that somber room. They had not been summoned. Too many enemy eyes and ears for that! But the Chairman had said covert words, and they gleaned that certain information in a certain place was to be had on a certain day. So one by one they all came within an hour of each other. The peculiarity of this all noticed. The exact location of their secret counsel is not worth mentioning, save that it was not in Roria.

Samuel Oak was there. He was still hale, but he was fading; not from age, but he was becoming weary of grief. Yet he was not easily to fool or dominate, and harder to kill, for there was still a pensive toughness within him. The threads of control he once had over the world were now broken, still, he went on. Oak would not show his pleasant side during this meeting. As an aide to him was Bill, who long past developed the Storage System, that quantum field where the souls of Pokemon were boiled in a cauldron of cleansing digital flame. By now, it must be said, that Storage System had fallen into the hands of the Eclipse Alliance.

For the Aether Foundation, to hell with them, was Wicke. She really was a remarkable woman, before she tried to kill me; but that was much later and our mutual animosity does not come into this tale. Seating beside her, somewhat disconcerting the others with his perfect naturalness and tranquility, was Pokedex Holder Ruby. This nippy little number was in his early twenties, and decidedly frisky-looking. He was wearing something horrid, which I won't mention, but certainly the Eclipse Alliance's meddlings in the clothing industry had made the fashions turn feral. On his face was an ill-suppressed smirk, though he could be serious. The fragrant personality was an act. Ruby could be valiant if the need drove him.

Steven Stone was in a suit and trying his best to look blameless for the corporate mischief that the Chairman had accused him of. I never got along with him, as far as that could go, but we respected each other. Across from him was Rowan, casting a chary eye on the others. He cut a good figure, and since he had some of the old Hisuian blood he might live over a hundred in full health and vigor. His mustache was fearsome, his head like some great and proud beast, and he bore an odd likeness to certain ancient imagery depicting a one High Elder Kamado, renowned be his name.

Last of all was Yanase Berlitz, heir to Old Hisui and among the last of the full-blooded Hisuians of the North. Very tall she was, in the manner of the ancient days, no less tall than her husband; and her face was grave and beautiful. Around her neck was the clasp and emblem of House Berlitz, among the last flicker-fires of Elder Days. Her hair was of deep gold, a maiden crowned with a radiant garland, but no sign of age was upon her, unless it was in the depths of her eyes; for these were as keen as lances of starlight, and yet profound, wells of deep memory. There was wisdom and long thought in her glance, as one who has known the things that the years bring. But she seemed like all Hisuians do in later days: solid yet far-away, a shadow and memory of which has already been long passed in the flowing streams of Time and Space.

"You have been summoned here to answer the threat that is falling upon our heads," began the Chairman. "I hope you've all gotten some spirits to drink, though we don't want to muck around here too long."

"I would say that on a fine morning there is something rather attractive about a place like this, in spite of all its obvious absurdities," said Oak.

"Yes, it is a fine morning," said Wicke. "Makes a real difference to one's health, a bit of sunlight."

"I was thinking of the place," said Oak.

"You mean this?" said Wicke glancing around the room. "I should have thought it was just the sort of thing we wanted to get rid of. No sunlight, no ventilation. Haven't much use for alcohol myself (read a few reports) but if people have got to have their stimulants, I'd like to see them administered in a more hygienic way." This particular location served various inebriating drinks.

"I don't know that the stimulant is quite the whole point," said the Chairman, looking at his wine. The whole scene was reminding him of drinks and talks long ago; of laughter and arguments in his undergraduate days. Somehow one had made friends more easily then. He wondered what had become of all that set: of Carey and Wadsden and Denniston, who had now gone on their own careers.

"Don't know, I'm sure," said Wicke, in answer to his last remark. "Nutrition isn't my subject. You'd want to ask Bill about that."

"What I'm really thinking about," said the Chairman, "is not this bar, but the whole Association's architecture. Of course, you're quite right: that sort of thing has to go. But it had its pleasant side. We'll have to be careful that whatever we're building up in its place will really be able to beat it on all levels: not merely in efficiency."

"Oh, architecture and all that," said Wicke. "Well, that's hardly my line, you know. That's more for someone like Steven. Have you nearly finished?"

All at once it came over Oak what a terrible bore this little woman was, and in the same moment he felt utterly sick of the Aether Foundation. But he reminded himself that one could not expect to be in the interesting set at once; there would be better things later on in the talk. Anyway, he had not burnt his boats. Perhaps he would chuck up the whole thing and go back to Kanto in a day or two. But not at once. It would be only sensible to hang on for a bit and see how things shaped.

"I was saying," the Chairman answered, "that you have already done us the greatest possible service by coming here. We knew that one of the most dangerous attacks ever made upon the human race is coming very soon and because of the organization called the Eclipse Alliance. We have an idea that Roria might be connected with it. But we are not certain. We certainly do not know that Roria could be so important. That is why your presence is so valuable. But in another way, it presents us with a difficulty. I mean a difficulty as far as you are concerned. We had hoped you and your friends and allies would be able to join us: to become one of our army."

"I am too old for conscription," said Oak. "Steven is too rich. Wicke is a woman. You do not have many options for fine soldiery here."

"Not warfare that comes to point or edge," said the Chairman. "Though we have a few fine trainers here, they are not enough. I will explain, and now at this council, before it is too hard for you all to come unguessed into my company. Things might come to such a point that you would be justified in coming here, even wholly against another's will, even secretly. It depends on how close the danger is, the danger to us all, caused by the Eclipse Alliance."

"But you said the danger was right on top of us now," said Bill. "Could you not send in the military?"

"That is just the question," said the Chairman, with a smile. "I am not allowed to be too prudent. I am not allowed to use desperate remedies until desperate diseases are really apparent. Otherwise we become just like our enemies: breaking all the rules whenever we imagine that it might possibly do some vague good to humanity in the remote future. We cannot shoot our way out of this, not yet."

"Team Eclipse!" said Ruby. "But what's the issue with them? Surely you don't mean those charity workers that drain swamps and give donatives to non-profit organizations, giving their little lectures of decent living and treating Pokemon properly and honoring the common man?"

"They got you too, it seems," said the Chairman. "Or if you really believed that then you would be another one of their stooges. Their real goals, I suspect, are far more sinister. Regardless of their end goals, the present danger they pose lies in their control of Roria. I have curbed it as much as I may, within the limits of my authority. But they are strong. They have sympathizers at every level of government. Money from their organizations funds the campaigns for city judges they want put in power. The schools are filled with their ideology and tutors."

"Then what are they teaching?" said Steven. "The Devon Corporation has had business with them, but nothing illegal, of course. They have paid for resources and we have given them. But what do you think, Chairman, that they really believe in what they preach?"

"They would have us throw away our Pokemon, as Team Plasma before them," said the Chairman. "They have dragged from its shallow and loose grave the corpse of Pokemon liberation. A successor philosophy of sorts, though they don't steal Purrlions from little children, at least not openly. But they are publically opposed to the leadership of the Association; they would have it torn down. This attracts our enemies into their ranks and the Eclipse leadership knows it. I would say they have two million members, fools that bought the given narratives like brook trout being lured to a hook. Their ideology is very effective. You will have to listen to one of them speak to understand the real idea. As for what the controllers of this movement believe, Steven, I cannot tell. But I judge that what they desire is power, pure power, and what they see as an easy way to get it comes as the Eclipse Alliance."

"I, for one, do not care," said Ruby. "You go on and stop them. I've done enough outside the service of the state to know when I'm not needed. We've fought other organizations and we've crushed them. What makes them different?"

"Child," said Yanase, "it is not a question of how you or I look on them but how my Masters look on them.

"Your Masters?" said Rowan. "I heard from Platinum that they were very old-fashioned."

"My daughter was making a joke. They are not old-fashioned, but they are very, very old."

"They would never think of finding out first whether Team Eclipse and we need to have animosity?"

"Well, no," said Yanase with a curious smile. "No. Quite definitely they wouldn't think of doing that."

"Whatever she means," said Ruby, "the only value I really care about is equality, and Team Eclipse seems to like that." He got up to leave.

"Ah, equality!" said Yanase. "Wait, Ruby! We must talk about that some other time. Yes, we must all be guarded by equal rights from one another's greed, because we are fallen. Just as we must all wear clothes for the same reason. But the naked body should be there underneath the clothes, ripening for the day when we shall need them no longer. Equality is not the deepest thing, you know."

"I always thought that was just what it was," said Bill. "I thought it was in their souls that people were equal."

"You were mistaken," said she gravely. "That is the last place where they are equal. Equality before the law, equality of incomes: that is very well. Equality guards life; it doesn't make it. It is medicine, not food. You might as well try to warm yourself with a law-book. It is not your fault. They never warned you. You are putting equality just where it ought not to be. And Ruby, as to your coming here, that may admit of some doubt. For the present, you can go wherever you wish. You can come out and see us later: till the darkness that is spreading over the Earth reaches you. In the meantime, talk to the other Pokedex Holders. I will talk to my authorities."

"I will as I please," said Ruby. "But we've been talking too solemnly about equality all this time. I'd like to show you some of your drolleries. And if Team Eclipse does something foul, call me." He left and did not return.

"You scared him away, Yanase," said Rowan.

"One so proud as him does not think me frightening," said Yanase, "or at least, at least...ah! At least not in the way that a hound fears the wolves."

"So you are not huge to him?" said Wicke. Hugeness was what she was thinking of and for one moment it had seemed she was thinking of her own hugeness in comparison with Yanase, But almost at once this identification collapsed. She was really thinking simply of hugeness. Or rather, she was not thinking of it. She was, in some strange fashion, experiencing it. Something intolerably big, something from antiquity was pressing on her, was approaching, was almost in the room. She felt herself shrinking, suffocated, emptied of all power and virtue. She darted a glance at the Chairman which was really a cry for help, and that glance, in some inexplicable way, revealed him as being, like herself, a very small object. The whole room was a tiny place, a mouse's hole, and it seemed to her to be tilted aslant; as though the insupportable mass and splendor of this formless hugeness, in approaching, had knocked it askew.

"Stop it!" said Yanase, sharply, to something in the room.

Wicke stared at her, open-mouthed. There were a few moments of silence during which the exotic sensation faded away.

"You were saying, friend?" said Yanase.

"Oh, nothing," said Wicke. "Being around you is no place for the unprepared. But I suppose Rowan is inured in your presence."

Originally the Hisuians were very strong and lived to four hundred with ease. As time went on their magical element faded, and the gifts of Arceus had been slowly withdrawn over the flowing years, and their bloodlines had been mingled with those of other Men. Now among the remaining Hisuians only a few lived to three hundred, and those very truly the very few. Yet it became revealed that as the diminishment of their kindred went on, the power inherent to them because of Arceus's ancient gifts of longevity and wisdom had become increasingly concentrated in a few. Yanase was one of those late-era Hisuians who were as noble as the lost Elders of yore, similar to Rei and Cyllene the Great as they stood in marble likenesses in museums and pavilions over Sinnoh.

Know, reader, that while the Hisuians do indeed still have a part to play, with valor undiminished since ancient times and past evils redressed, the plan of Arceus has moved beyond one people to all. Uxie told me that it was all in Romans and Saint Paul. During the times told of in the Legends of Arceus the Hisuians were still the focus of the Great Dance, or the main focus, and now the Story had moved beyond them to encompass in Love the Logarians and other peoples. It is now the Rorians that have taken the previous height of glory that the Hisuians had, though in assuming a lowness and dimness the Hisuians have not become less beloved to Arceus; rather sorrow and wisdom have enriched them and have found an ever greater significance than in the attention and right that was removed from their people. That concerns the Hisuians in the time before the End.

"If we were to return to our original purpose," said the Chairman, "I will now describe the activities of the Eclipse Alliance in every region, and every occurrence that I consider of note. Sinnoh: whispers around Spear Pillar. Eclipse operatives lurking about libraries in Veilstone. Kalos: a nocturnal suicide in Lumoise, when a sleeper leaped out of his window with a shocking cry. A Rorian mystic called the Sura rambled about a dire vision of the future he has seen. A despatch from Kanto described a theosophist colony as donning white robes en masse for some "glorious fulfillment" that never arrived, whilst items from Alola spoke guardedly of serious unrest among the Tapu toward the end of March. Voodoo orgies multiplied in eastern Roria, while outposts in the Frostveil Mountains reported ominous murmurings. Our officers in Unova found certain Eclipse-aligned groups bothersome about this time, and Rustboro City policemen were mobbed by hysterical Eclipse protestors on the night of March 20. The west of Roria, too, is full of wild rumor and legendry. And so numerous are the recorded troubles in insane asylums, that only a miracle stopped the medical fraternity from noting parellisms and conclusions.

"There have also been material gains by the Eclipse Alliance that suggest expansionism. Acres of woodtracks and farmers' former property are being purchased by Eclipse frontispiece corporations. The sons of certain recalcitrant wealthy citizens who proved lacking in their support of Team Eclipse fell strangely ill. The grandmother of a wealthy and rebellious Unovan billionaire was found floating dead in the harbor of Undella. A fire broke out on another rich man's private ranch, killing some of his prized horses. The Rapidash were in the thick of the blaze, but they should have been alright. But they were all found hobbled. Mercenaries in great numbers are being drawn to bases and bunkers owned by the Alliance out in the sticks. They said this is for security and the mutual benefit of the free world. I do not think they will openly defy us with arms. They are not strong enough for a war, or one that they can win, and why should they? The victories their minions have wona re many and they are already making great gains as things are set."

"The enemy is moving," said Oak. "Or is he? An odd bunch of cuttings, you say. But until the Eclipse Alliance does something really prohibited, I cannot act, nor can you. If you were to remove them from the streets, then you would, er, also lose your credibility as a defender of free speech. No doubt there would be more strange disappearances, and sudden deaths, and certain government officials would be exposed to be liars and perverts. There is nothing that is in my power, for the present time, that I can possibly do to hamper this organization, other than speaking against it."

"And that is why I have brought you here," said the Chairman. "How do we answer this threat? We do not know. Only He knows who has seen the whole of the evil behind the shadow. Yanase would call Him Arceus. I call Him Providence. We cannot judge any differently than how we have always judged, and we must do it rightly. There is no power that we here, or that anyone else may possess which can destroy the Eclipse Alliance. If we do it now then they will cry martyr and become undefeatable, a huge looming menace. The shadow of one dark claw is stretching over the whole Earth."

"We are in Arceus's hands," said Yanase. "The doings of a war against the Alliance may unmake us all. There is no promise, that either you or I will save our lives or our reason. I do not know how we can dare to look upon their faces; but I know we cannot dare to look upon Arceus's if we refuse this enterprise."

Suddenly Steven smote his hand upon his knee. "My God!" he cried. "Are we not going too fast? If you are Yanase Berlitz and are of the last of the Hisuians, I am among those who have power in this world and I will counsel you. If the Powers must tear us in pieces to break our enemies, Arceus's will be done, you say. But is it yet come to that? This House Berlitz of yours, so very wealthy and wise: can you not help us?"

"We have no power in the matter. There are only three thousand Hisuians of the old race left on Earth, and we are fading fast. All that is left of Hisui is too weak to overthrow the power of Team Eclipse and its evil contriviers. And we also have no wish to. For if we united and went against the power and industry of the Alliance, that we would be destroyed. In the order of old, I might be a Hisuian, but in the order of the world I am not very strong."

"But if worst comes," said Steven, "then can we not meet them in plain battle? They should not yet control the military. What can they do? Little strength does Old Hisui have, but what of the Association? Surely we are secure, and even if it means death and ruin to fight with weapons of war, that course would only be taken when it would be the same or worse not to."

"We are less strong than you think," said the Chairman. "This I dread: that the Alliance, delaying us with power, their strength against our strength, should come across some weapon or power that would destroy the whole world. What is moving them? Is it a wicked man? A Pokemon? A spirit? We cannot conquer."

"But Chairman, you have a weapon called the News and the Press," said Rowan. "By it, the people can be deceived. Surely you could break the Alliance and the deaths of their leaders would not even be heard of."

"They have that same weapon no less than we," said the Chairman, "if not more so."

"What of the religious?" said Oak. "Yanase, what of the clerks, the preachers of the Arcean faith? The religion of the Eclipse Alliance is opposed to that of Arceus. Is there no help in the Church, then, if they see this threat? Can it be that they are all corrupted?"

"The Faith itself is torn in pieces since our younger days and speaks with a divided voice," said Yanase. "Even if it were made whole, the Arcenas are but a tenth part of the people. There is no help there."

"Then let us seek help from the friendly Pokemon," said Steven. "Is there no great god, Rayquaza or Dialga or Palkia, that would come in and cleanse our world of evil if they were called?"

"There are no more powerful gods left," said Yanase, "and we cannot summon even the weak ones, save upon Arceus's consent. The other Pokemon are even as demons, or else sunk deeply into corruption and decay."

"Then we must go higher," said Steven. "We must go to him whose office it is to put down tyrants and give life to dying lands. We must call on the World Chairman."

"He is heedless and unmanned," said the Chairman. "Rather he should be in the hands of the enemy than an ally of we. From all about our strong places are hard beset. Here, in this room, we are in a fortified outpost. Outside it is getting dark. There is only one other righteous regional Chairman, and he is in Sinnoh. I am all that is left of the Arceus-friends in the South. There is no hope in the Gym Leaders or the Champions. Some have fallen already to evil and the rest have been gelded. Soon the jaws of the Alliance will shut, in some form or another."

Presently Oak said, "A thought comes into my mind and I do not know whether it is good or evil. But because I am at this council I will not hide it from you. This is a dark age in which we live, but no darker than before, when other evil men tried to set up their principalities and dominions over regions, or the whole Earth. And every time they did so the Pokedex Holders, by many or few, defeated them. If all this part of the world is apostate, might it not be lawful, in our great need, to look farther? Does not the Eclipse Alliance have the strongest grip upon Roria? What of Bronze Tercano? He is a new Pokedex Holder, the one from Roria. Is he the opposition to evil this time? Is not our problem a cyclical one?"

"We cannot know," said Yanase, shaking her head. "Only Arceus knows that. But certainly there is no power within Bronze alone, though he seems valiant, and he is an Arcean, to defeat the Alliance alone. Strange are the courses of the world, and perhaps Arceus will work good out of them. But Oak, when you speak of groups akin to Team Rocket or Flare, those enemies were less subtle and less numerous than what poisonous tyranny faces us now. It is the fault of the World Chairman and his predecessors that it was allowed to spread and fester. You do not understand. The evil that nurtured Team Eclipse was spat from Roria and has entrenched itself everywhere now. However far you went you would find the machines, the crowded cities, the empty thrones, the false writings, the barren beds: men maddened with evil promises and soured with true miseries, worshipping the iron works of their own hands, cut off from Earth their mother and from the Father in Heaven. You might go East so far that East became West and you returned to here across the great Ocean, but even so you would not have come out anywhere into the light. The blackness of one dark wing is over all the world."

"Is this then the end?" said Rowan.

"And this," said the Chairman, ignoring the question, "is why we have no way left at all save the one I told you. The Eclipse Alliance holds all this Earth in its fist to squeeze as it wishes. But for their one mistake, there would be no hope left. If of their evil will they had not allowed a Pokedex Holder to be created in Roria by Cypress, this would be their moment of victory. Their own strength has betrayed them. They have attacked Arceus and now Arceus is fighting back against them. Therefore, they will die. For though you search every cranny to escape, now that you see all crannies closed, you will not disobey me."

"If I may," said Bill. "This power we fight; you speak of it rather demonically. But we are fighting humans."

"No," said Yanase. "At least I do not think so. The Chairman does not know, as he has said, but I guess that one that we cannot name has returned from the darkness of many centuries. This entity is a demon. Like the bacteria on the microscopic level, so these co-inhabiting pests on the macroscopic permeate our whole life invisibly and are the real explanation of that fatal bent which is the main lesson of history. Why has evil become so strong, so very smothering, in the past twenty years? The Enemy is moving again. Now, none of you may have heard anything beyond a faint rumor of this name, but I dwell on it often. It would not be very surprising if the leader behind the human marionettes that operate the Alliance is the Dark Lord: the Mighty, the Accursed, the Elder King, the Power of Hate and Terror: the Evil Djinn. He is back and rebuilding his strength."

"And I thought that Red jumped to conclusions!" said Oak. "It will suffice my fancies, for now, to know that we fight evil men, and men only. Whatever spirits accompany them will be dealt with piecemeal. And if the legendary Mbelekoro, the Evil Djinn, has indeed come back as you say, then what of the old legends? Is it not said that the Dark Lord was bound in the Prison Bottle and cast into the depths of the Earth? He cannot return. There let him lie till the sun grows cold and the moon falls from the sky."

"You speak of things that I do not think you understand," said Yanase. "But that is for another time. Our plan, as it seems to be, is to watch and wait. We must be on the trail of their deeds like a hound. Our spies can only beat their spies. And we must keep Bronze in our control. He is the power that we have and they do not. All of Fate has wrapped itself around him."

"There is another thing about Bronze," said Rowan. "I don't even know if he knows. Perhaps his father has told him."

"Well, get on with it!" cried Wicke.

"He is to become the Emperor," hissed Rowan. "Yanase, if you are among the last Hisuians and have no power to act, then you or any other being the High Elder, the fabled chief and lord of Hisui in ancient times will avail nothing. But the Rorians are the only race, the only inhabitants of any region, that have not utterly given themselves to the Darkness, or otherwise declined over the years. They are asleep now, yet they are a powerful and fierce people when roused. They will look toward the Emperor, if he is rightful, as a man to respect and follow. For they are a very loreful people and have memories of the time of the Logarians."

"That rousing is what I fear," said the Chairman. "It is why I have tried to keep them tired. If uncontrolled, the fire of the Rorians could make as much ruin as they would stay. And the line of Logaria perished long ago. If we were to bring Bronze before them, even rightfully, they would call him a pretender."

"But Bronze, or the office he holds, could restrain them," said Rowan, "because he is now the heir to the Kingship of Logaria! He is the last of the line of Southernesse. Does not our lore and learning say so, that a son of Tar-Castamir the Last Emperor escaped the downfall of the South-kingdom? I have judged that Bronze is now the heir to this line. Making him Emperor over Roria would increase our power at the expense of the enemy. The people would follow him, a scion of Logaria. Of course, he must stay under our control, to be a little finger on our hand. Whether he will suffer being a servant we do not know. It would be hard to make him fully ripe to our desires, yes, though he might have given some thought to it, and the doing might be less burdensome than we have already reckoned. We must support him with all our power that can be spared. He might yet do great deeds. Of course, this would be but a small part of our plans, and other methods for victory or making the time before defeat longer we might find that have not been spoken or thought of."

"I will consider it," said the Chairman. "This council is dismissed. Go where you wish, but be ready for another summons."

"Now!" said Oak. "Since this is over, I can take a long nap."

"Do not!" said the Chairman. "I have been a very light sleeper ever since I learned of our enemy's strength."

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Mitis Town

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It was Lily who spied them as they went purposefully along the front lane, striding alone as if they knew exactly where they were going. She was standing on the first floor, behind the tall, arched window there. What caught her attention were the black uniforms the six men wore. Their atmosphere seemed serious and rigid. "Oh!" she cried and ran for Robert. "They're here!"

Immediately Unfezant was sent to the back of the house while Robert opened an upstairs window. He was carrying a hunting rifle. Lily had a kitchen knife. No doubt it was too late to escape; they would have already encircled the house. Bronze was already gone, miles north of town to purchase a few provisions. While waiting Lily said nothing, partly because she could not speak, and partly because she now knew beyond all doubt that these were the enemies of the human race whom they were fighting and against them one must either kill them or be silent.

There was a blast from the upstairs window and the sound of sudden violence. One of the dark-clothed men fell down and did not get up again. The rest fled for cover and brandished pellet stunners which they fired wildly at the house. The darts made a sound like hail during a rainstorm. Somewhere from the back Lily heard a high scream after a squawk, and the crumpling of bones. Something fell with a heavy thud and she heard a pecking against wood. Robert fired again and there were more shouts. Now Lily was becoming desperate. Because no foe saw her, and because the house was poorly lit, she made a bolt for it.

They caught her. In the space before the back door she saw Unfezant's unconscious body with two dead soldiers around it. She screamed suddenly, overcome with a sensation of nightmare, and made a dash for the door. Of course she never reached it. A rough hand had appeared in the door-frame suddenly and shot her with a single stun-pellet. That was how she found herself woken up in their living room along with a hostage Robert, tied to chairs, and questioned by a uniformed man with pointy red hair, a cruel face, and an unlighted cigarette.

"Lily Tercano," said Eric. "I know all about you, honey. You'll be the wife of my friend Robert." While he spoke he was writing something on a green form. "We've lost four of our men, two to that illegal rifle and two to that Unfezant. Damn shame. They were loyal. That's all right, you'll be able to see Hubby again now. We'll take you out to our headquarters tonight. Now just one question, dear. Where is your son?"

"He just left for Silvent City," said Lily.

"And why?"

She said nothing.

"He hasn't been getting up to mischief while mommy and daddy are away, has he? You best speak. We're the police and this is an arrest, honey," said Eric, holding out the piece of green paper on which he had been writing. It appeared to Lily as an official forms always appeared; a mass of compartments, some empty, some full of small print, some scrawled with signatures in pencil, and one bearing her own name; all meaningless.

"You bastard," said Robert.

"What a naughty temper!" said Eric. "But we'll put the nasty man in another place, shall we?" He said something and the other men removed themselves, carrying Robert in tow, and shut the door behind them. As soon as Robert was gone Lily felt that a protection had been withdrawn from her.

"Now, what sorts of things have you found at the dig lately?" asked Eric.

Lily did not speak. She did not feel heroic in making this decision. The whole scene was becoming unreal to her; and it was as if between sleeping and waking that she heard Eric say, "I think, Jacobs, you and Jaque had better bring her round here." And it was still only half real when the two men forced her round to the other side of the room, and she saw Eric sitting with his legs wide apart and settling himself in the chair as if in the saddle; long jackboot-clad legs projecting from an iron belt with a strange clasp, like an orange moon being covered by a growing oval of darkness. The men forced her on, with a skilled, quiet increase of pressure whenever she resisted, until she stood between Eric's feet, whereupon Eric brought his feet together so that he had Lily's ankles pinioned between his own. This proximity to the demon affected Lily with such horror that she had no fears left for what they might be going to do with her. And for what seemed an endless time Eric stared at her, smiling a little and blowing smoke in her face.

"Do you know," said Eric at last, "you're rather a pretty little thing in your way."

There was another silence.

"What have you found at the dig?" he asked.

And Lily stared as if her eyes would start out of her head and said nothing. Then suddenly Eric leant forward and, after very carefully turning down the edge of Lily's dress, thrust the lighted end of the cigarrete against her shoulder. After that there was another pause and another silence.

"What have you found at the dig?"

How many times this happened Lily could never remember. But somehow or other there came a time when Eric was talking not to her but to one of the men. "What are you worrying about, Jacobs?" he kept on saying.

"I was only saying, sir, that we've been here an awful long time."

"How time flies, doesn't it, Jacobs? But what if it is? Aren't you comfortable, man? You're not getting tired, holding a little bit of a thing like her?"

"No sir, thank you. But you did say, sir, you'd give her to Emrett for processing at five sharp."

"Emrett?" said Eric dreamily at first, and then louder, like one waking from a dream. Next moment he had jumped up and Lily was withdrawn. "Bless Jacobs!" he said. "What a pair of blockheads you are! Why didn't you remind me before?"

"Well, sir, we didn't exactly want to."

"Want to! What did you think you're here for?"

"You don't like us to interrupt, sir, sometimes, when you're examining," said Jacobs sulkily.

"Don't argue!" shouted Eric, wheeling round and hitting Jacob's cheek with a resounding blow with the palm of his hand. "Look sharp. Get the prisoners into the car. Take the bodies and clean this place up. Remember the Unfezant. Don't wait to button up her dress, idiots. I'll be after you the moment I've dipped my face in cold water!"

A few seconds later, pinioned between Jacobs and Eric, and still close to Robert (there seemed to be room for five in the back of the car), Lily found herself gliding through the darkness. "Better go through the town as little as possible, Simon," said Eric's voice. "It'll be pretty lively by now once the noise once the gunshots were heard about. Go on to the Center and work down those little streets at the back of the close." There seemed to be all sorts of strange noises and lights about. At places, too, there seemed to be a great many people. Then there came a moment when Lily found that the car had drawn up.

"What the hell are you stopping for?" said Eric. For a second or two there was no answer from the driver except grunts and the noise of unsuccessful attempts to start up the engine.

"What's the matter?" repeated Eric sharply.

"Don't know, sir," said the driver, still working away.

"God!" said Eric. "Can't you even look after a car? Some of you people want a little humane remedial treatment yourselves."

The street in which they were was empty but, to judge by the noise, it was near some other street which was very full and very angry. The man got out, swearing under his breath, and opened the bonnet of the car. "Here," said Eric. "You two hop out. Look round for another car, anywhere within five minutes' walk, commandeer it. If you don't find one, be back here in ten minutes whatever happens. Sharp."

The two other operatives alighted, and disappeared at the double. Eric continued pouring abuse on the driver and the driver continued working at the engine. The noise grew louder. Suddenly the driver straightened himself and turned his face (Lily saw the sweat shining on it in the sunlight) towards Eric. "Look here, sir," he said, "that's about enough, see? You keep a civil tongue in your head, or else come and mend the bloody car yourself if you're so bloody clever."

"Don't you try taking that line with me, Simon," said Eric, "or you'll find me saying a little word about you to the ordinary police."

"Well, suppose you do?" said Simons, "I'm beginning to think I might as well be in the clink as in your bucking tea-party. I've been in the military police and I've been in the Jihad Forces and International Police and I've been in the Special Missions, but they were all ruddy picnics to this lot. A man got some decent treatment there. And he had men over him, not a bloody lot of lusty stallions."

"Yes, Simons," said Eric, "but it wouldn't be jail for you this time if I passed the word to the ordinary cops."

"Oh, it wouldn't, wouldn't it? I might have a story or two to tell about yourself if it came to that."

"For the lord's sake, speak to him nicely, sir," wailed Jacobs. "They're coming. We'll catch it proper." And in fact men running, by twos and threes, had begun to trickle into the street.

"Then foot it!" said Eric. "Quick's the word. This way."

Lily found herself hustled out of the car and hurried along between Jacbos and Jaque. Eric moved in front. The little party darted across the street and up an alley on the far side.

"Any of you know the way here?" asked Eric when they had walked a few steps.

"Don't know, I'm sure, sir," said Jacobs.

"I'm a stranger here myself, sir," said Jaque. "We only got the address, remember?"

"Nice useful squad I've got here," said Eric. "Is there anything you do know?"

"It doesn't seem to go no further, sir," said Jacobs.

The alley had turned out to be a dead end. The shouting in the street they had left had grown louder and they could see a confused mass of humanity surging vaguely in a westward direction. Suddenly it became much louder and and angrier. "They've caught Simon," said Eric. "If he can make himself heard he'll send them up here. Blast! This means losing the prisoners if we aren't careful. Stop blubbering Jaque, you little fool. Quick. We must go down into the crowd separately. We have a very good chance of getting through. Keep your heads. Don't shoot, whatever you do. Try to get to the crossroads. The quieter you keep the less likely we are to meet again. If only we had an Abra!"

"Emrett's coming soon," said Jacobs dully.

"He better!" Eric roared, setting off at once. Lily saw him stand for a few seconds on the fringes of the crowd and then disappear into it. The other mem hesitated and then followed. Lily sat down on a doorstep with Robert. The burns were painful where her dress had rubbed against them, but what chiefly troubled her was extreme weariness. She was also deadly cold and a little sick. But above all tired; so tired she could drop asleep almost...

...

"Are you hurt?" Robert said.

She shook herself. There was complete silence all about her: she was colder than she had ever been before and her limbs ached. "I believe I have been asleep," she said to Robert. She rose, stretched herself, and walked down the desolate lamp-lit alley into the larger street. It was quite empty except for one man in a postal uniform who said, "Good morning, Miss," as he walked smartly past. She stood for a moment, undecided and then began to walk slowly to her right. She put her hand in the pocket of the coat which Jocbos and Jaque had flung round her before leaving the house and found three-quarters of a large slab of chocolate. She was ravenous and began munching it. Just as she finished she was overtaken by a car which drew up shortly after it had passed her.

"Are you two all right?" said a man, poking his head out. "Were you both hurt in the riot?"

"Not much," said Lily stupidly. "I...I don't know. What was all the shouting about?"

"We heard gunshots," said the man. "You know how it is around here. Rorians take care of their own. The police got everyone together for the chase. Don;t worry, we've arrested the men in dark uniforms, if that's what you were wondering about." The man stared at her and then got out. "I say," he said, "you don't look too good. Are you sure you're quite well?"

It seemed so long to Jane since she had heard kind, or even sane, voices apart from Robert's that she felt like crying. The unknown man made her sit in the car and gave her some water and after that sandwiches. Finally he asked Robert if they could give them a ride home. Where was home? And Lily, somewhat to her surprise, heard her own voice very sleepily answering, "Down Diggersby Drive."

"That's fine," said the man, "I'm making for out of town and will have to pass it."

Robert got in and sat beside his wife. The car left the alley opening but did not go back to the house. It turned and was going out of town in the direction that Eric and his goons had been headed. "What's this?" Robert said. "Do you know the way?"

"Shortcut," said the man.

"I have lived in this town my whole life," said Robert. "This way is not a shortcut."

Suddenly a dreadful crackling sensation started in Robert's chest and worked its way to his limbs. He could not move from the shock. Lily gave a gasp and slumped forward along with him. Very vaguely, in a sort of quick and desperate way of noticing, he perceived that there was a Pokemon in the space behind their seats. It was a Beheeyem and its hand was upraised in a gesture of psychic power. He heard the driver saying something over a radio. "I've got her. She wasn't that far away from me, Eric. It was well worth trying, and look!"

"They got you too!" Robert whispered.

"They got me a long time ago," said Emrett with a mild, almost regretful irony. "You knew it, Robert. You always knew it. Don't deceive yourself."

...

Beheeyem put Robert to sleep but not Lily. "Without a doubt," she thought, "this is the Emrett they were speaking of." At the very moment when she had first seen him, the threadbare clothes and clumsy boots, the frayed clerical collar, the dark, lean, tragic face, sharp and shaven and seamed, and the bitter sincerity of his manner, had struck a discordant note. It was not a type Lily had expected to meet among her captors.

"I am Emrett, the Sorcerer Supreme and the Mad Parson," said Emrett. "I am your worst nightmare. Do not imagine that I indulge in any dreams of carrying out our interrogation without violence. There will be resistance. You two will gnaw your tongues and not repent. We are not to be deterred. We face these disorders with a firmness which will lead traducers to say that we have desired them. Let them say so. In a sense we have. It is no part of our witness to preserve that organization of ordered sin which is called Society. To that organization, the message which we have to deliver is a message of absolute despair."

"You're wrong," Lily said. "Your view and mine can't work together. I am told that society needs to be preserved because Arceus wants it to."

"With every thought and vibration of my heart, with every drop of my blood," said Emrett, "I repudiate that damnable doctrine. That is precisely the subterfuge by which the world, the organization and body of Death, has sidetracked and emasculated the teaching of the Spirit-Force, and turned into priest-craft and mysticism the plain demand of the Lord God for righteousness and judgment here and now. The Kingdom of Arceus is to be realized here: in this world. And it will be. At the name of Arceus every knee shall bow. In that name I dissociate myself completely from all the organized religion that has yet been seen in the world.

"It's not theology I'm talking about, young woman, but the Lord Arceus, the Great Djinn. In another world you would call it...have you heard of Jesus? I thought not. That's not the proper name for the Spirit-Force in this world. Theology is talk, eyewash, a smoke screen, a game for rich men. It wasn't in lecture rooms I found the Lord Arceus. It was in the coal pits, and beside the coffin of my daughter. If they think that Theology is a sort of cotton wool which will keep them safe on the great and terrible day, they'll find their mistake. For, mark my words, this thing is going to happen. The Kingdom is going to arrive: in this world: in this region. The powers of science and magic are an instrument. An irresistible instrument, as all of us in the Eclipse Alliance know. And why are they an irresistible instrument?"

"Because science is observation?" Lily guessed.

"They are an irresistible instrument," shouted Emrett, "because they are an instrument in His hand. An instrument of judgment as well as of healing. That is what I couldn't get any of the churches and monasteries to see. That is why they kicked me out. They are blinded. Blinded by their filthy rags of humanism, their culture and humanitarianism and liberalism, as well as by their sins, or what they think their sins, though they are really the least sinful thing about them. That is why I have come to stand alone: a poor, weak, unworthy man, but the only prophet left. I knew that He was coming in power. And therefore, where we see power, we see the sign of His coming. And that is why I find myself joining with atheists and materialists and anyone else who is really ready to expedite the coming. The feeblest of these people here has the tragic sense of life, the ruthlessness, the total commitment, the readiness to sacrifice all merely human values, which I could not find amid all the nauseating cant of the organized religions."

"So there are no limits to how far you will go?" said Lily.

"Sweep away all idea of co-operation!" said the other. "Does clay co-operate with the potter? Are we cooperating with the Spirit-Force? These people will be used. I shall be used too. Instruments. Vehicles. But here comes the point that concerns you, young woman. You have no choice whether you will be used or not. There is no turning back once you have set your hand to the plow. No one goes out of the power of the Great Djinn. Those who try to turn back will perish in the wilderness. But the question is, whether you are content to be one of the instruments which is thrown aside when it has served His turn, one which having executed judgment on others, is reserved for judgment itself or will you be among those who enter on the inheritance? For it's all true, you know. It is the Saints who are going to inherit the Earth: here in Roria, perhaps within the next twelve months, the Saints and no one else. Know you not that we shall judge angels?" Then, suddenly lowering his voice, Emrett added: "The real resurrection is even now taking place. The real life everlasting. Here in this world. You will see it."

It was particularly vile to Lily that this corrupted man should equate Arces with his own Great Djinn. But it did confirm that these were servants of the Enemy that worshipped him personally and that he had revealed himself to the elect among humankind. He was trying to find his Prison: for what? To reclaim the more significant part of his lost power? Lily was too terrified to think about it.

Emrett laughed long and horribly. "I am not taking the trouble to interrogate you now because my Beheeyem is tired. But you know something that we need to know That is what has brought you here. You are here because you have failed in humility, in obedience. You would not make the act of submission which is the price of sanity in the world that we are slowly controlling. You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Lily. You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Lily, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the race, of the Great Djinn, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Great Djinn holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of God. That is the fact that you have got to learn, Lily. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane. That is why the leadership of Team Eclipse has no common dogma: we can believe whatever we like as long as we will serve the Spirit-Force, the Great Djinn. Anything goes in the brass."

"In fact," Emrett continued, with a very nasty sort of playful tone, "I don't believe in Arceus. I don't believe in anything but the Spirit-Force. The Spirit-Force is Arceus and the Great Djinn. The Great Djinn was chased away two thousand years ago but he is rebuilding his nest. We cannot lose because we have no weaknesses. The Hisuians are spent. The Logarians are broken apart. The Arceans cannot stand. The gods are weary and faded. The false and enemy Arceus has grown senile and will not try to save this creation that He has neglected. We do not want to merely kill you. We want to change you."

The car stopped and the door to Lily's side opened. A needle slid into Lily's arm. Almost in the same instant a blissful, healing warmth spread all through her body. The pain and terror was already half-forgotten. She opened her eyes and looked up gratefully at Emrett. At sight of the thin, skull-like face, so evil and so intelligent, her heart seemed to turn over. If she could have moved she would have stretched out a hand and laid it on Emrett's arm. The feeling, that at bottom it did not matter whether Emrett was a friend or an enemy, had come. Emrett was a person who could be talked to.

"For the sake of your son, I hope you will cooperate," said Emrett, and Lily noticed that he was putting on latex gloves. "You do not know where you are and that will remain so. I will most enjoy our long talks. Mostly I am curious to see how your husband will hold up and for how long. You will be easy enough to get what I want from."