Ace Books by Gordon R. Dicbon 
ALIEN ART & ARCTURUS LANDING 
THE ALIEN WAY 
COMBAT SF THE FAR CALL THE FOREVER MAN HOME FROM THE SHORE 
IN IRON YEARS JAMIE THE RED (with Roland Green) 
LOVE NOT HUMAN MASTERS OF EVERON NAKED TO THE STARS 
ON THE RUN SPACEPAW THE SPACE SWIMMERS 
SPACIAL DELIVERY TIME TO TELEPORT/DELUSION WORM 
WAY OF THE PILGRIM 
THE EARTH LORDS 
The "Childe Cycle" Series 
DORSAI! LOST DORSAI NECROMANCER SOLDIER, ASK NOT THE SPIRIT OF DORSAI TACTICS 
OF MISTAKE THE FINAL ENCYCLOPEDIA THE DORSAI COMPANION 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
THE 
CHR TRY 
GUILD 
fil AGE BOOKS, NEW YORK 



This Ace book contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition. It 
has been completely reset in a typeface designed for easy reading, and was 
printed 
from new film. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with 
the author 
PRINTING HISTORY Ace hardcover edition / October 1988 Ace mass market edition 
/ June 1989 
All rights reserved. Copyright @ 1988 by Gordon R. Dickson. 
Cover art by Jim Bums. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by 
mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: 
The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, 
New York, New York 100 16. 
ISBN: 0-441-10266-2 
Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 100 16. 
The name "ACE" and the "A" logo are trademarks belonging to Charter 
Communications, Inc. 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 
CHAPTER 
A little before dawn, Amanda Morgan woke in the front room of the tiny 
apartment rented by the family which had risked giving her shelter. A young 
girl shared the front room floor with her; but she still slumbered, as did the 
rest. 
Amanda had slept in the shapeless brown smock that had been all but forced on 
the inhabitants of this world and its sister planet of Mara by the Occupation 
Forces now ruling them. She rose now without putting on her ankle-high bush 
boots, and squatted on her heels beside her borrowed sleeping mat, and rolled 
it up. 
Stowing it in a corner of the room and picking up the boots in one hand, she 
quietly let herself out into the hall. Still carrying the boots, she went 
along it to make use of the communal bathroom at the hall's end; then 
descended the narrow wooden stairs into the street. 
Just inside the tenement's street door, she stopped to put on the boots. The 
smock had a hood, which she now pulled up over her head to hide her face. 
Silently, lifting the latch of the door, she slipped out into the mist-dimmed, 
pre-dawn light of the empty streets of Porphyry. It was a small town in the 
subtropical uplands of Hysperia, the northeastern continent of the Exotic 
planet of Kultis. 
Through those streets between the graying, unpainted wood faces of the 
tenements, she went swiftly. Most of the local 



Gordon R. Dickson Exotics, rooted out of their 
countryside homes, had been brought here and required to build these dwellings 
for their own shelter, close under the eye of authority; and the fact that the 
required design and materials of the buildings made them firetraps had not 
been entirely unintentional on the part of the designers. For the plan behind 
the Occupation was for the Exotics of Mara and Kultis to die off-as much as 
possible by their own doing. 
She thought of those sleeping within; and felt a sensation as if her heart 
moved under her breast at the thought of leaving them, as a mother might react 
at having to leave her children in the hands of brutal and antagonistic 
caretakers. But the word that had been sent her was the one message that could 
override all else; and she had no choice but to go. 
After several turnings down different streets she slipped between two 
buildings and emerged into the open yard-space behind them. Just before her 
lifted the six-meter height of the wooden fence that now enclosed the town; 
and which those who inhabited it had also been forced to build. 
At the foot of this fence she stopped and, reaching in through a slit in her 
robe, loosened something. As she gave her body a shake a coil of loose rope 
dropped about her feet. She stepped out of it and bent to pick it up by the 
running loop already worked into one end. 
She gathered up the rest of the rope and dropped it by arm-lengths back onto 
the sparse grass of the untended ground at her feet, shaking it out and 
recoiling it up again into loose loops in her left hand, to make sure there 
were no kinks in it. Then, taking the last meter or so of the other end with 
the running loop into her right hand, she shook the loop sliding through that 
eye of rope to a larger circle, swung it a few times to get the feel of its 
weight and balance, and took a step back from the foot of the wall. 
She looked up at the fence, past the flimsy walkway that allowed it to be 
patrolled by those on guard, with no more than their heads showing above the 
pointed ends of the uprightly placed logs that made it. 
Selecting one particular log-end, she swung the captive loop in her right hand 
in a couple of graceful circles and then let it fly upward. She had been 
handling a lasso since her early childhood on the distant planet of her birth, 
one of the few Younger Worlds 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 3 where a variform of horses 
had flourished. The loop flew fair and true to settle over the upper end of 
the log she had chosen. 
She pulled it tightly closed, and tried her weight on the rope. Then, with its 
aid, she walked up the inner face of the wall until she could pull herself 
onto the walkway. Loosening the loop from the log-end, she enlarged it and put 
it around her so that it formed a loop diagonally about her body from one 
shoulder and around and under her opposite hip. Doubling that loop with more 
of the rope, she threw the long end of it down the wall's far side, climbed 
over the fence and proceeded to rappel down its outside face, mountaineer 
fashion. Once solidly on the ground she pulled the rest of the rope around the 
log-end overhead and down into her hands. Recoiling it around her waist over 
her robe as she went, she headed for the darkness of the forest, only a short 
distance away. 
The forest hid her and she was gone. But she had not left unobserved. One of 
the early waking inhabitants of a building, looking out a back window, had 
seen her go. By bad luck, he was one of the few locals who tried to curry 
favor with the Occupation Forces-for there were good and bad Exotics, as there 
were people of both kinds in all cultures. His attention had been caught by a 
glimpse of a figure moving outside while the curfew of the night just passed 
was still in effect. Now he lost no time in dressing and hurrying himself to 
Military Headquarters. 
Consequently, she was almost to her destination when she became aware of being 
followed by green- uniformed, booted figures, with the glint of metal in their 
hands that could only come from power rifles or needle guns. She went on, not 
hurrying her pace. They wei-e already close enough to kill her easily with 



their weapons, if that was what they wanted. They would be waiting to see if 
she would lead them to others; and in any case their preference would be to 
take her alive; to question her and otherwise amuse themselves with her before 
killing her. However, if she could only gain a few minutes more, a small 
distance farther . . . 
She walked on unhurriedly, her resolve hardening as she went. Even if they 
tried to take her now before she reached her intended destination, still all 
might not be lost. She was Dorsai, of the Dorsai; a native of that cold, hard, 
meagerly blessed planet whose only wealth of natural resources lay in its 



Gordon R. Dickson planet-wide ocean and the scanty 
areas of arable and pasture land on its stark islands, upthrust from the waves 
like the tops of the underseas mountains. 
For generations, the Dorsai had seen their sons and daughters leave home to 
sell their military services in the wars of the other Younger Worlds; and so 
earn the interstellar credits the Dorsai needed to survive. While those behind 
her now were the sweepings of those other worlds. Not real military; and 
spoiled beyond that by the fact that the Exotics they were used to dominating 
did not know how to fight, even if they were willing to do so to save their 
lives. So that those who followed her now had come to believe that merely to 
show a weapon to any unarmed civilian produced instant obedience. 
So, at close quarters, if those behind did not first cripple her with their 
power or needle guns, she could handle up to half a dozen of them. In any 
case, it would be strange if in the process she could not get her hands on at 
least one of their weapons. If she did that, she would have no trouble dealing 
with even a full platoon group. 
But she was almost to the place toward which she had been headed; and they 
were still some meters behind her. It became more and more obvious they were 
merely following, unsuspecting that she might know they were there, and hoping 
she would lead them to others they could capture as well. She had been working 
here as an undercover agent from Old Earth for three years now; helping the 
local populace endure, and wherever possible, resist these followers of 
Others-the new overlords of the Younger Worlds. These soldiers would at least 
have heard rumors of her. Undoubtedly it was inconceivable to them that she 
could be alone and elude them that long-that she must have some organization 
helping her. 
She smiled a little, to herself'. Actually, her most active work in those 
three years had amounted to occasionally rescuing a prisoner of these same 
jack-booted imitation soldiers, when this could be done without giving away 
her true identify. Mostly, her job had been to provide reassurance to the 
local Kultans. So that they, like the other dominated peoples of' the Younger 
Worlds, would know they had not been entirely forgotten by those still holding 
out behind the phase-shield of Old Earth. Holding yet, against the 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 5 
combined strength of the Younger Worlds and the self-named, multitalented 
Others who ruled them. 
But now, her hopes lifted. Those following had delayed almost too long. She 
had at last reached the little hillock of flourishing undergrowth and young 
trees, which she had transplanted here three years before with great care and 
labor. She stopped; and, almost casually, began to tear up a strip of turf 
between two of the trees. 
That, she thought, should intrigue them enough to keep them from rushing upon 
her too swiftly. The turf came free, as it had been designed to do; being 
artificial, rather than real, like the rest of the vegetation in the hillock. 
Below it was the metal face and handle of a ship's entry port. 
At last, she moved swiftly, now. A second later the door was open and she 
was inside, closing it behind her. As she turned the handle to locking 
position, the blast from a power rifle rang ineffectively against its outer 
side. She took two strides, seated herself in the chair before the command 
panel and laid hands on the controls. 
A Dorsai courier vessel did not need time to warm its atmosphere drive before 
responding, even after three years of idleness. Almost in the same moment as 
she gripped the control rod, the ship burst from the hillock, sending an 
explosion of earth, grass and trees in all directions. On ordinary atmosphere 
drive she lifted and hedgehopped over the nearest ridge. As soon as she knew 
she was out of her pursuers' sight, she phase-shifted the craft clear of the 
planet in one jump. Her next shift was almost immediate, to two light-years 
beyond the sun just now rising, which was the star called Beta Procyon by 
those on Old Earth. 
Out at last in interstellar space, she was beyond pursuit and discovery by any 



ship of the Younger Worlds. Here in deep space, she was as unfindable as a 
minnow in a world-wide Ocean. 
She glanced around the unkempt interior of the vessel. It was hardly in 
condition for a formal visit to Old Earth, let alone to the Final 
Encyclopedia. But that was beside the point. What mattered was that she had 
got away safely past whatever ships had been on guard patrol around the Worlds 
under Beta Procyon. Ahead of her still lay the greater task, the matter of 



6 Gordon R. Dickson reaching Old Earth itself-, which would 
mean running the gauntlet of the Younger Worlds' fleet besieging that world. 
Somehow she must slip safely through a thick cordon of much better armed and 
ready battleships, to which her own small vessel would indeed be a minnow by 
comparison. 
But that was a problem to be dealt with when she came to it. 
CHAPTER 
2 
Through the library window, the cold mountain rain of early winter in the 
north temperate zone of Old Earth could be seen slanting down on the leafless 
oaks and the pines around the little lake before the estate building that was 
the earliest home he could remember, as Hal Mayne. Overhead, obscuring the 
peaks of the surrounding mountains, the sky was an unbroken, heavy, gray 
ceiling of clouds; and the gusts from time to time slanted the rain at a 
greater angle, and made the treetops bow momentarily. The darkness of the day 
and the lowering clouds made the window slightly reflective; so that he saw 
what was barely recognizable as an image of his face, looking back at him like 
the face of a ghost. 
An unusually early winter had commenced upon the Rocky Mountains of the North 
American continent. An early winter, in fact, was upon the whole northern 
hemisphere of the planet. Outside, the day was chill and dismal, sending 
forest creatures to their dens and holes. Within the library a fire burned 
brightly in the fireplace, with the good smell of birch wood, started by the 
automatic machinery of the house on a signal from a satellite overhead. The 
ceiling lighting was bright on the spines of the antique books that solidly 
filled the shelves of the bookcases covering all the walls of the room. 
This was the home where the orphan Hal had been raised by his tutors, the 
three old men he had loved-and the place where 



Gordon R. Dickson he had watched those three killed when 
he had been sixteen eleven years ago. It was an empty house now, as it had 
been ever since; but usually he could find comfort here. 
They're not dead, he reminded himself. No one you love ever dies-for you. They 
go on in you as long as you live. But the thought did not help. 
On this cold, dark day he felt the emptiness of the house inescapably around 
him. His mind reached out for consolation, as it had on so many such 
occasions, to remembered poetry. But the only lines of verse that came to him 
now did not comfort * They were no more than an echo of the dying year 
outside. They were the lines of a poem he had himself once written, here in 
this house, on just such a day of oncoming winter, when he had just turned 
thirteen. 
Now, autumn's birch, white-armed, disrobedfor sorrow, In wounded days, as that 
weak sun slips down From failing year and sodden forest mold, Pray for old 
memories like tarnished bronze; 
And when night sky and mist, like sisters, creeping, Bring on the horned owl, 
hooting at no moonMourn like a lute beneath the wotfskin winds, That on the 
hollow log sound hollow horn. 
-A chime rang its silvery note on his ear. A woman's voice spoke. "Hal," said 
the voice of Ajela, "conference in twenty minutes. " "I'll be there," he said. 
He sighed. "Clear!" he added, to the invisible technological magic that 
surrounded him. The library, the estate and the rain winked out. He was back 
in his quarters at the Final Encyclopedia, in orbit far above the surface of 
the world he had just been experiencing. The rain and the wind and the 
library, all as they would actually be at the estate in this moment, were left 
now far below him. 
He was surrounded by silence -silence, four paneled walls and three doors; one 
door leading to the corridor outside, one to his bedroom, and one to the 
carrel that was his ordinary 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 9 
workroom. About him in the main room where lie stood were the usual padded 
armchair floats and a desk, above a soft red carpeting. 
He was once again where he had spent most of the past three years, in that 
technological marvel that was an artificial satellite of the planet Earth, the 
Final Encyclopedia. Permanently in orbit about Earth. Earth, which in this 
twenty-fourth century its emigrated children now called Old Earth, to 
distinguish it from the world of New Earth, away off under the star of Sirius 
and settled three hundred years since. 
Around him again was only the silence-of his room, and of the satellite 
itself. The Final Encyclopedia floated far above the surface of Earth and just 
below the misty white phase-shield that englobed and protected both world and 
Encyclopedia. Too far off to be heard, even if there had been atmosphere 
outside to carry the sound, were the warships which patrolled beneath that 
shield, guarding both the satellite and Earth against any intrusion by the 
warships of ten of the thirteen Younger Worlds, beyond the shield. 
Hal stood for a moment longer. He had twenty minutes, he reminded himself'. 
So, for one last time, he sank into a cross-legged, seated position on the 
carpeting and let his mind relax into that state that was a form of 
concentration; although its physical and mental mechanisms were not the usual 
ones for that mental state. 
They were, in fact, a combination of the techniques taught him as a boy by 
Walter the InTeacher-one of those three who had died eleven years ago-and his 
own self-evolved creative methods for writing the poetry he had used to make. 
He had developed the synthesis while he was still young; and Walter the 
InTeacher, the Exotic among his tutors, had still been alive. Hal remembered 
how deeply and childishly disappointed he had been then, when he had not been 
able to show off the picture his mind had just generated, of the birch tree in 
the wet autumn wood. The raw image of the poem he had just written. 
But Walter, usually so mild and comforting in all things, had told him sternly 
then that instead of being unhappy he should feel lucky that he had been able 



to do it at all. The ability Walter had said, was not unknown, but rare; and 
few people ha@ ever been able to conceptualize on that level. He had explained 



Gordon R. Dickson 
that the difference between what most could manage and what Hal had evidently 
been able to do was the difference in the creation of what Walter gave the 
name of "vision, " as opposed to an "image" -quoting an ancient artist of the 
twentieth century who also had the capability. "Most people can, with 
concentration, evoke an image," Walter had told him, "and, having evoked it, 
they can draw it, paint it, or build it. But an image is never the complete 
thing, imagined. Parts of it are missing because the person evoking it takes 
for granted that they're there. While a vision is complete enough to be the 
thing, itself; if it only had solidity or life. The difference is like that 
between a historic episode, thoroughly researched and in the mind of a 
historian, ready to be written down; and the same episode in the memory of one 
who lived through it. Now, is it an actual vision you're talking about?" "Yes. 
Yes!" Hal had said eagerly. "It's all there-so much you can almost touch it, 
as if it was solid. You could even get up and walk around it and see it from 
the back! Why can't you try harder and see it?" "Because I'm not you," Walter 
had answered. 
So, now, under the pressure of his concentration, but for the last time, there 
seemed to take shape in the air before Hal a reproduction of the core image of 
the Final Encyclopedia's stored knowledge. 
Its shape resembled a very thick section of cable made of red-hot, glowing 
wires-but a cable in which the strands had loosened, so that now its thickness 
was double that it might have had originally-it appeared about a meter in 
cross section and perhaps three meters in length. 
In this mass, each individual strand was there to be seen. Not only that; but 
each strand, if anyone looked closely enough, was visibly and constantly in 
movement, stretching or turning to touch the strands about it, sometimes only 
briefly, sometimes apparently welding itself to another strand in what seemed 
a permanent connection. 
Originally it had appeared before him like this thanks to the same 
technological magic of the Encyclopedia that had seemed to place him in his 
old home, below. With the broadcast image he had formed this continually 
updated vision in his room so that he could study it. But over the years, as 
he had come to 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
I I 
learn each strand of it, he had begun to be able to envision it by 
concentration alone. 
He had begun this study after seeing Tam Olyn, then Director of the 
Encyclopedia, standing in the data control room and examining the same image 
perpetually broadcast there. For all Hal knew, at the moment that room and 
image could be next door to him now. There was no permanent location within 
the Encyclopedia to any of its parts, because it moved them around at the 
convenience of its occupants. 
Tam Olyn had been Director of the Encyclopedia for nearly a hundred years. 
Before that he had been an interstellar newsman, who had tried for his own 
personal revenge to turn the hatred of all the occupied worlds upon the 
peoples of Harmony and Association, the two self-named Friendly Worlds 
colonized by the Splinter Culture of both true faith-holders and religious 
fanatics. 
Tam had blamed them, then, for the death of his younger sister's husband-to 
avoid facing his own guilt for that death. When he had failed to make the 
Friendlies anathema to the rest of the human race, he had at last seen himself 
for what he had become. Then he had come back here, to the Encyclopedia, at 
which he had once shown a rare talent. Here, he had risen to the Directorship; 
and he alone had learned to identify the knowledge behind each apparently 
glowing strand, merely by gazing at it, without the help of the instruments 
used by the technicians who were always on duty in the core room. 
So it had been Tam's example that fired the imagination of Hal. For a moment 



even the vision before Hal now dimmed, overlaid in his mind by the gray shadow 
of the old man. Tam would be sitting alone, now, in those quarters of his; 
that had been transformed by the Encyclopedia into an illusion of a woodland 
glade with a stream running through it, its day and night always as the 
surface of Earth directly below him saw the sun or not. 
Tam would be alone now because Ajela, the Assistant Director, had left him to 
hold the conference. Alone, and waiting for death, as someone weary at the end 
of too long a day might wait for steep. Waiting, but holding death, like 
sleep, at bay; because he still hoped for a word from Hal. A word of success 
Hal had not been able to bring him. 



12 
Gordon R. Dickson 
Three years before, Hal had had no doubt he would bring that word, eventually. 
Now, after those slow years with no progress, the time had come when he must 
face the fact he never would. He must announce it at the conference of which 
Ajela had reminded him. He could not be late, after his unusual offer to 
attend, when for so long he had avoided such administrative discussions 
between Ajela and Rukh Tamani, the faith-holder and kindler of Old Earth's 
awakening. 
Now, Hal tried once more to concentrate on his vision of the knowledge store. 
He had gone beyond Tam in the reading of it. Like Tam he could know from a 
particular part of a glowing wire which specific bit of knowledge it 
represented. But, more than Tam, he had been able to reach through to 'hat 
knowledge directly; though he had failed at becoming able to read it. 
It would not have been a conscious reading in any case. What the knowledge 
was, would have simply, suddenly been available there in the back of his 
memory. A dead and buried bit of memory; but one which, with an effort, he 
would have been able to bring alive to his conscious mind. It was not that he 
lacked mental space to hold so much information. He had tried, and found that 
that same back of the human mind-though not the consciousness up front-could 
contain all the knowledge the Encyclopedia itself held; which was all the 
knowledge remembered and known on the world below. 
But so far it was still, to him, an untouchable knowledge ' To bring it 
back to life required its being put to use consciously; and this final step 
his conscious mind had proved incapable of. The human conscious could only tap 
stored wisdom along the straight-line, simple route of concrete thought-one 
piece at a time. 
For the last year and a half he had struggled to find ways to put to conscious 
use the whole of the stored knowledge. But he had found none, and in 
consequence the doorway to the Creative Universe he believed in had remained 
closed to him. Yet he knew it was there. All the art and inventions of 
recorded history attested to that fact; each piece of art and each invention 
was an existing proof that a purely Creative Universe, where anything was 
possible, could be reached and used. He had made use of it himself to create 
poems-good or bad, made no difference, as long as they had had no existence in 
the known universe until he 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
13 
made them. And they had not. But still they came only from his unconscious. 
So, the doorway was there. But he could not enter it. What he wanted was to 
physically put himself inside it, as he might put himself inside another 
physical universe. The bitter part was to know it could be entered, but not 
know how. Since he had been born as Donal Graeme, the Dorsai, he had several 
times entered it; but always without knowing how he did so. Once, had been his 
return to consciousness among the historically fixed events of the 
twenty-first century. In that instance he had made use of a dead man's body to 
move about, had heard a carved stone lion roar like the living animal; and he 
had come back from that past time to a moment eighty years later than he had 
left, physically changed from an adult man to a two-year-old boy. 
The doorway had been there for him to pass through then, seemingly simply 
because he had believed then he could do it. Why could he not find that belief 
again, now? Unless he could; and unless he could enter it at will, knowing how 
he had done it, all he had accomplished and experienced in three different 
personas had been wasted. 
He told himself grimly, now, that the goal he had set himself a hundred years 
in the past as Donal Graeme could only have been a false one. All he had 
achieved had been to prod the historic forces of humanity into giving birth to 
the Others, and the eventual certainty of Old Earth's conquest and 
destruction. 
He could not go on this way, possibly only making matters worse. But, even 



thinking this, he had weakened. Now, even with Ajela and Rukh waiting, he was 
going to try to find the doorway one more time before giving up forever. He 
sat, filling his mind with the storehouse of knowledge represented by the 
image before him, until it was all within him. 
He tried, once more, to use it, to enter the place where he could use it. 
And . . . Nothing. He sat unchanged, unenlightened. The knowledge lay like a 
dead thing within him, useless as books forgotten as soon as they had been 
read, cloaked in an eternal darkness. "Hat," said the voice of Ajela, "Rukh 
and I are already here 



Gordon R. Dickson 
in my office. Are you coming?" "Coming," he answered; and put the image of the 
knowledge core, together with all the hopes of his lifetime, away for good. 
CHAPTER 
"Sorry I'm late," Hal said. He came in and sat down in the empty float 
remaining of the three that were pulled up to Ajela's large desk, now awash 
with paper. That had never been the case up until the last year. Now, with Tam 
almost helpless physically -not because his body had been damaged, or lost any 
of its natural strength, but because the living will in him to move it was 
fading-Ajela begrudged every moment she could not be by his side. "You weren't 
tempted to change your mind about coming?" Ajela asked. Her blue eyes were 
sharp upon him. "No," said Hal. 
As usual, the controls of the Final Encyclopedia had aligned his quarters with 
the corridor that led for a short distance past the Director's office, which 
Ajeia had used since Tam had quitted it permanently, two years before, naming 
Hal to succeed him as Director. Hal had had to walk only a few meters to get 
here. "No excuse. No delays. I just forgot the time." 
Rukh Tamani, he saw, was also looking at him penetratingly. The two women had 
been talking as he came in-something about Earth, of which Ajela had, somewhat 
unwillingly, become, de facto chief executive. This, because simply as a 
practical matter, with Hal leaving everything to her in order to search for a 
way into the Creative Universe, she controlled the 



16 
Gordon R. Dickson 
Final Encyclopedia. More importantly she had defacto control of the 
Encyclopedia's contract for the services of the Dorsai. 
For the Dorsai, when they had come to the defense of Earth at Hal's urging, 
had been too wise from over two hundred years of experience not to insist that 
they would refuse to give their lives without the usual contract for their 
military use. 
Knowing history, and the minds of those on worlds that had employed them, they 
had made their contract with the Encyclopedia; ignoring all the frequently 
quarreling local governments of Earth, itself. That had meant that, in theory, 
at least, the defense of Earth took its orders from this desk of Ajela's. 
Hal knew, and the two women at the table knew, that the Dorsai would have come 
to put their lives and skills at the service of the Mother World, in any case. 
The contract they had signed called for compensation for two million trained 
men and women, warships and equipment, which represented a fully prepared 
space force only a full world with the resources of Earth could afford to pay 
for; and even that, over an extended period of time. But whether the Dorsai 
would ever actually collect their final pay or not made little difference. 
They all knew that, barring a miracle, the odds were there would be few of 
them left to collect when the time came. 
Without the breakthrough that Hal had been unable to make, these three now in 
this room, at least, were aware that the Others, with all the war resources of 
the Younger Worlds ava' lable, must, in the end, prevail. Driven by the 
remarkable intelligence and destructive intentions of their leader, Bleys 
Ahrens, eventually that fleet outside the shield would grow large enough to 
break through; and, dying in droves if they must, overwhelm the more 
skillfully crewed, but less numerous, ships that could be put up in opposition 
by the Dorsai alone. 
Thirty-one hundred and sixty-two fighting ships, operated around the clock by 
a scant two million people divided into four shifts-three of them working and 
one rotating in reserve at all t1mes-were few enough to patrol the inner 
surface of a globe lar@eenough to enclose, not only the Earth itself, but the 
orbit of the Final Encyclopedia. The day had to come when the Younger Worlds' 
fleet would phase-shift through the shield in incredible numbers; and the end 
be sealed. 
The fact that the Dorsai would be dead before the forces of 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
17 
the Others owned the skies over a helpless Earth would be little consolation 
to Earth's people when that day came. "To catch you up on what I've just been 
talking over with Rukh," said Ajela, 11 we've got unexpected good news from 
below in the shape of the latest statistics." 
The concept of "good news" jarred on Hal in the face of what he knew and had 
come here to say. But, surprisingly, he saw that Rukh was clearly in agreement 
with Ajela's assessment. Both women were looking at him with what seemed to be 
lifted spirits-and the difference was particularly noticeable on Rukh's part. 
She had been pushing her frail physical strength to the limit by adding much 
of Ajela's office work to her already excessive speaking engagements down on 
the surface, so as to free the other woman, Ajela, to have as much time as 
possible with Tam in his last days. 
The least Hal could do for them, he told himself now, was to listen first to 
what they had to tell him before delivering the bad news of his own hard 
decision. "Tell me," he said. 
Ajela picked up a paper from the desk before her. "These are statistics from 
Earth as a whole, compiled from all the areas," she said; and began to read: " 
'. . food production as a whole up eight per cent-' (in spite of all those 
wild complaints we've had that the phase-shield cuts down on needed sunlight 
over growing areas-) 'metals production up eleven per cent. Metals directly 
required in spaceship production up eighteen per cent. Production of warships, 



fullyfitted, armed, and test-flown, now up to an average of one every three 
and a half days. Enlistment in the training camps for spaceship crews by 
Earth-born applicants, up'-listen to this, Hal-'sixty-three per cent! 
Graduation of fully trained but inexperienced crew people up eleven per cent 
' ' *' " 
She continued to read. Rukh was also watching her now, Hal saw. He sat 
listening to Ajela and watching them both. Rukh's dark-olive face seemed to 
glow with an invisible but palpable inner light from under her black crown of 
neat, short hair. 
That light had always been there, since he had met her in the camp of the 
guerrillas she had led on Harmony. But it seemed to stand out more now, 
because she had never really recovered Physically from her weeks of torture at 
the hands of Amyth 



18 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
Barbage-then an officer of the Harmony Militia, and now, ironically, her most 
dedicated disciple and protector. 
It was an index of the power of her faith that, simply by being what she was, 
she had been able to turn that lean and fearless fanatic from what he had been 
to what he was now. Strangely, also, her unbelievable beauty had been 
heightened rather than lessened by that ordeal in the prison. She seemed in 
some ways to Hal-and he knew that those who flocked in their thousands to hear 
her felt it even more strongly-more spirit than flesh. 
Underneath the wine-colored shift she wore, with its long sleeves and 
collarless neck, Hal knew she now weighed only slightly more than ten pounds 
over the weight she had been reduced to when he had carried her, more dead 
than alive, out of the Militia prison on Harmony. The skin was still stretched 
taut over her meager flesh and bones. And at that moment there was a glint 
from the narrow column of her neck, as the highly polished lines of a cross 
incised in a gray-white disk of Harmony granite, hung from a steel chain-the 
only thing resembling an ornament he had ever seen her wear-caught the 
overhead lighting of the room. It flashed momentarily with a light not unlike 
the light behind her dark eyes. 
There were no circles under those eyes, no tightening of the skin over her 
cheekbones-if that were possible-to show the exhaustion that must be within 
her. But Hal knew she was tired, self-driven to the point of near-collapse; 
for she would not refuse the hosts of people down on all parts of the Earth 
who begged to see her in person. And she would not step back from the work she 
had taken to herself up here, too. 
Nor could he blame Ajela for allowing her to take over the work at this desk. 
Ajela had not asked to be the ultimate authority over a clamoring, bickering 
Old Earth that was only now beginning to wake from its illusions. At last, now 
that it was possibly too late, Earth was beginning to realize that, if not for 
those who had come to its aid unasked, it would have been as vulnerable-or 
more-than any other of the human-inhabited planets. 
Like Rukh, Ajela showed no obvious physical signs of the strain she was under; 
but the responsibility of her position, plus the gradual, inevitable slide 
toward death of the old man she loved more than anyone else on all the 
inhabited worlds, was gradually conquering her. In short, both of the people 
on which 
19 
the Encyclopedia depended for control, were closer to reaching their limit, in 
Hal's opinion, than they realized-or were ready to admit. 
It showed particularly in Ajela's case, in these last few months, that what 
she chose to wear had been different from the commonsensical clothes she had 
always worn and programmed the Final Encyclopedia to have ready for her at the 
beginning of each workday. Strangely, for someone Exotic-born, these last few 
months she had begun to dress flamboyantly-sexily, to be blunt about 
it-although Tam was almost the only person who saw her much. . . . 
His thoughts were wandering. He tried to pull them back to the statistics she 
was reciting, but they insisted on straying again . . . certainly, as she was 
costumed now, no one could appear in greater contrast to Rukh than Ajela, 
unless it might be Amanda. Hal hastily thrust the thought of Amanda from his 
mind. 
Ajela still looked almost as young as the day he had first met her here in the 
Encyclopedia, when he had been running from the killing of his tutors, on his 
estate, eleven years ago. Her skin was still as fair; and her hair around her 
bright face as literally golden and long-in fact, perhaps lately she had worn 
it even longer. She wore a brown brocade tunic over silky gold blouse and 
pantaloons that all but hid the cinnamon -colored slippers on her feet. There 
was no necklace around her neck, but earrings of a honey-colored amber; and on 
the middle finger of her right hand shone a ring with a large, irregular chunk 



of the same color of amber, containing tiny seeds encased there, looking alive 
and ready to sprout, even after the hundreds of years since the amber had been 
gathered. 
Her face was round, her skin fresh. But in her he thought he saw the tightness 
around the eyes that was not visible in Rukh. No single sign, but her whole 
self, to him who knew her so well, betrayed an inward-held but growing 
desperation; growing, he knew, from her inability to keep Tam from death. 
She had come originally to the Encyclopedia from Mara, one of the two Exotic 
worlds, where part of the philosophy had been the hope that an evolved human 
race would outgrow any need of death except by choice. Thoughts of those same 
two Exotic worlds brought Kultis and Amanda to his mind again . . . almost 
savagely, he pushed her out of his thoughts. 



20 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
21 
-Ajela had come here as a young girl of twelve, with her parents' permission; 
in love with the idea of the Encyclopedia. which Exotic funds had largely 
financed. She had stayed to rise to the position of Assistant Director, under 
Tam Olyn; and to also fall in love with Tam, himself, although already by that 
time he was old enough to be her great-grandfather. 
Now she and Rukh sat together at this desk with its load of paper piled over 
all its surface except the small rectangles of the viewing screens inset there 
before each of the three of them. All these screens right now showed a view of 
space directly above and about the Encyclopedia. 
The white opacity of the shield wall was directly overheadand it thinned off 
in every direction, as the screens' angle o@ vision began to slant, revealing 
both the inner and outer walls of the shield, until finally there were only 
the lights of the stars against the black of airless space. The sun, Hal 
thought inconsequentially, must be directly overhead, to be hidden by the 
greatest thickness of the mist-wall. It could not be they were nightside now, 
for it had been afternoon at the estate, almost directly below them-
He woke suddenly to the fact that Ajela had stopped talking and both Rukh and 
Ajela were looking at him. Like an echo half heard lingering on his ear, he 
realized that Ajela had laid down her paper and asked him something. "I'm 
sorry," he said, and his voice came out more harshly than he had intended, 
under the gaze of those waiting eyes, "I didn't catch the question. " 
The faint indentation of a frown line, if that was what it was and not an 
expression of puzzlement, appeared between Ajela's hazel eyes, followed 
immediately by an expression of concern. "Hal," she said, "tell me-do you feel 
all right?" 
Concern was showing on Rukh's face as well. Their reactions doubled the sense 
of guilt in him. "I'm fine," he said. "I just wasn't listening as I should 
hale-that's all. What was it you asked me, just now?" "I said," said Ajela, 
"that we'd thought of checking with one of the Dorsai Sector Commanders. But 
since you said you were coming today, we thought we'd rather ask the question 
in-house. You just heard that remarkable list of how the Earth is finally 
realizing it has to help defend itself, and beginning to build some muscle. Do 
you think there's a chance, now, if we 
keep on improving this way, building ships and training crews for them, that 
we can put up a fleet as big as anything the Younger Worlds can throw at us? 
And, if so, how long would it take? Can we match them before they're ready to 
try a mass breakthrough of the shield?" "I can only guess," he said. 
Ajela looked disappointed. Not so much, Rukh. "We thought . . .," Ajela said, 
"because you told us how you were really Donal Graeme to begin with . . ." 
"I'm sorry," Hal shook his head. "You two are the only people outside of 
Amanda who know about my past and my being first Donal, in the last century, 
then Paul Formain, two hundred years before that. But now Donal's only an old 
part of me and deeply buried. Much of what he was I've worked to get away 
from. But even Donal could only have guessed." "What would he have guessed, 
then?" asked Rukh. 
Her voice came at him so unexpectedly, for some reason, that Hal almost 
started. He looked at her. "He'd guess-pretty strongly I'm afraid," he 
answered slowly, --that it wouldn't matter what the answer to your questions 
would be, because it wouldn't make any difference, even if you were able to 
match the Younger Worlds' ship power. I I 
He hesitated. It was hard to dash their hopes this way, too, when he had come 
to dash them as well in another. :'Go on," said Ajela. 'It wouldn't matter," 
Hal said, "because Bleys Ahrens doesn't want victory. He wants destruction. 
He's as determined to destroy the Younger Worlds as he is to reduce Earth's 
population to just those who'll follow him. In the case of the Younger Worlds, 
he plans to depopulate and impoverish themso humanity will eventually die off 



there. Or be reduced at Iasi to a handful of people who, lacking communication 
with other civilized worlds, will degenerate into savagery and eventually die. 
Die, because they'll be moving backwards from, not forward toward 
,civilization. At the same time he and his mere handful of Others can move in 
and take control of a depopulated Earth.- "He's said that, I know," said 
Ajela, "but he's not insane. He can't really mean-" "He does," said Hal. "He 
means exactly what he says. 



22 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
23 
That's why he doesn't care how he bleeds the Younger Worlds to conquer Earth. 
All that matters is the conquest. So he'll throw his ships through the shield 
at you eventually; no matter what defensive position you're in. I think you'll 
find your Dorsai knew this and faced it from the start." "Thou art saying," 
said Rukh-and her rare use of the canting speech of her religious sect was 
evidence enough that she was deeply moved, --that there's no way Earth can 
win. " 
Hal took a deep breath. "That's right. There isn't, in any ordinary way." "I 
can never accept that," said Rukh-and with her words Hal again remembered her 
as he had first seen her, on Harmony, in all the physical strength and purpose 
of her earlier years. The power pistol she had worn strapped to her hip, then, 
had not been as strong as the sense of will and purpose that drew followers to 
her. "For Bleys to win he must extinguish God; and that he or no one else can 
ever do." "Think, Hal," said Ajela. "Earth's got as great a population still 
as all the Younger Worlds combined. It still has as massive resources of metal 
and other materials as all the Younger Worlds, combined. If we can match their 
strength, or even come close to it, why can't we fight them off even if they 
jump through in mass attack?" "Because it'll be a suicide attack," said Hal. 
"That's the measure of Bleys' control over the crews of the ships he'll be 
sending in. Each one will be a weapon of destruction, aimed at any target it 
can reach. The greatest number of them will only take out one of our ships. 
But some are going to reach the surface of the Earth. Only a few, maybe, but 
enough to kill off billions of Earth's people in the phase-explosions of their 
impacts. " 
Rukh was looking hard at him. "Hal," she said, "you're talking very strangely. 
You're not telling us to give up?" "No," he said. "That is, not you. But I'm 
afraid I came here today-I've got something rather hard to tell you both." 
"What?" said Ajela. The single word came at him like a command. "I'm trying to 
say he began. 
The words sounded suddenly clumsy in his mouth, and he felt 
heavily the effort of continuing. ". . . that maybe it's out of our hands to a 
certain extent. The phase-shield, the Dorsai coming, the contributions of 
wealth and knowledge from the Exotics, all the true faith-holders from Rukh's 
two worlds-in the end they all came here only to buy time while I found an 
answer to Bleys' plan." They were both staring at him. He went on. "That's 
been the only possible plan, ever since, as Donal, I found out that in welding 
the Younger Worlds into a political unit-and playing with the laws of history, 
as Paul Formain -I'd produced an unexpected side effect-the emergence of the 
Others, the most able of the crossbreeds between the Splinter Cultures." 
He looked at them. He had expected some response-at least a protest that it 
had not been him alone that they had all been depending upon. But neither of 
the other two said anything; only sat, watching and listening. "A group like 
the Others," he said, "has always been outside our control. Something neither 
the commercial skill of the Exotics, the Faith of the Friendlies, nor the 
fighting abilities of the Dorsai were equipped to stop. Because the Others 
attack the instinct of the human race to grow and progress in a new way. A way 
no one had foreseen." He stopped, but neither of them said anything. He went 
on. "We dreamed of superpeople and, God help us, we got them," he said, "only 
too soon and with a few things like empathy and a sense of responsibility to 
the race, missing. But they've been unstoppable from the first because their 
powers are powers of persuasion, which work on a majority of humanity. You 
know all this! Otherwise, why would the only immune ones be the true Exotics, 
the true faith-holders among the Friendlies, the Dorsai, and that majority of 
full-spectrum humans on Earth who've got that in-born cantankerous 
individualism that's always rejected any persuasion?" 
He paused a moment, then went on. "So it's been necessary from the first that 



a new answer be found for this new threat. And it's been up to me to find it. 
I thought I could lay the devils I'd raised. Well, I was wrong. That's what 
I've come here to tell YOU today. I've faced it now. I've failed." 
There was a moment's utter silence. Ajela was the first to react. 



24 
Gordon R. Dickson 
"You!" said Ajela. "You, of all people, Hal-you're not going to sit there and 
tell us there's no such answer!" "And if you tell us so," said Rukh, "I will 
not believe thee; for it cannot be." 
She spoke in a voice that was completely serene. As serene as a mountain, 
barring a pathway. 
CHAPTER 
4 
Hal gazed at Rukh, almost helplessly. "No," he said. "No, of course not. It's 
not that the Others can't be stopped; it's just that I can't stop them, in the 
way I hoped to. The rest of you haven't failed. I've failed." "Thou art 
alive," said Rukh. The mountain was as impenetrable as collapsed metal. "Thou 
canst not therefore use the word failed-yet. " "I could go on trying 
indefinitely," said Hal, "but it'll be best for everyone under the 
phase-shield if we face facts and I Stop trying. Now." "But wh 'y should you 
stop?" said Ajela. "Because for a year now, I've tried to take the final step, 
and I can't do it. Ajela, you understand how the memory of the Final 
Encyclopedia works. But Rukh-'* He turned to the other woman. --how much do 
you understand'?" "Call it nothing," said Rukh, calmly. "Some scraps of 
understanding I've picked up in my time here. But essentially I know nothing." 
"Well, I want you to understand as well as Ajela," Hal said, "because it's not 
easy to explain. Rukh, briefly, the Encyclopedia's memory is, for all 
practical purposes, bottomless. It already holds all the available knowledge 
of the human race. Theoretically, it could hold no one knows how many times 
that much more, added to what's there already. You see, like the 
25 



26 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
27 
phase-shift we use to travel between the stars in our ships, and the 
phase-shield that protects Earth, now-to say nothing of the earlier one that's 
guarded this Encyclopedia for twenty years-it's a product of phase mechanics." 
"I know nothing of phase mechanics," Rukh said. "No one else fully understands 
it, not even our own Jeamus Walters, here," said Hal. "You know him?" "The 
Head of Technical Research at the Encyclopedia," answered Rukh. "And you've 
seen the representation of that stored knowledge in the Operations Section 
down below us?" Hal said. "I've seen it, yes," said Rukh, "like a mass of iron 
wires red hot. And the people working with it made some attempt to explain it 
to me; but I still understood almost nothing." "Basically," said Hal, "what it 
represents isn't the knowledge itself, but the so-called 'tags' that identify 
each piece of information stored in the Encyclopedia. The information itsell 
can be as extensive as a book-set of encyclopedias, or larger; but the tags 
are each represented by only a tiny section of the knowledge-chains that look 
like wires in the display." "Yes," said Rukh, "Irememberthem telling 
methatmuchat least. " "And you know Tam was unusual in that, by just looking 
at the image, he could to a certain extent read it?" "Yes." Rukh frowned. 
"Wasn't there something about his finding evidence that at least two of the 
visiting scholars from Earth had been spies for Bleys? Back at a time when the 
Encyclopedia was always open to qualified scholars from all the Worlds?" 
Hal nodded. "That's right," he said. "But you have to understand something, 
The addition of any new information always causes a slight movement in one of 
the chains--the apparent wires. There were tiny differences of position that 
gave away to Tam that the knowledge store had been systematically searched 
across wide fields of knowledge, in a way no one scholar would have needed to 
do. But if you'd been there and asked him, he wouldn't have been able to tell 
you what the knowledge was they'd examined. He could read the display, but not 
what it represented, not the actual information itself, and in spite of three 
years of trying, neither can I.He 
stared hard at her. "Do you follow me? The difference is the way it would 
be between having an encyclopedia in a set of books but with each book locked 
closed, so that you couldn't get at the information in it. " "Ah," said Rukh. 
She looked back at him appraisingly. "So Tam could see, but not read? And 
you-?" "I was only able to go a little further," said Hal. "I spent two years 
at it; and I got to the point where I could hold the whole display in my mind, 
as I had last looked at it. But the information's still locked away from me, 
too." "Now I don't follow you," saidAjela, leaning forward across the table 
toward him. "Why do you need to do more than that? Or even that much?" 
He turned to her. "Because two things are needed to create anything-say, a 
great painting. The concept, which is the art of it, and the skill with colors 
and brush that's the craft behind its making. To have a great dream is one 
thing. To execute it in real elements calls for a skill with all the elements 
involved; and that requires knowledge. " 
Ajela was frowning, he thought doubtfully. "Look," he said, "you could tell 
yourself 'I'd like a castle.' But to create that castle in the real universe, 
you'd have to know many things; the architecture of its structure, all the 
crafts of building with different materials, even knowledge about the ground 
that would have to support its weight. To physically enter a creative universe 
you have to first create at least some kind of Physical place to support your 
presence there. To do that, you need to know everything about the surface 
below your feet, the atmosphere around and above you, what kind of sun you 
want in the sky overhead . . . and a long, long list of other things. " "I 
see, then,- said Rukh. "So that was why you wanted to be able to read from the 
knowledge of the core image directly?" "I'd have to be able to," said Hal. 
"It's impossible otherwise. " "In effect," Ajela said, her voice sharper than 
usual, "you were hoping to enter the Creative Universe and use there any or 



all of the information stored in the Final Encyclopedia-by ma ing some use of 
phase mechanics, using your mind, alone?" 



28 
Gordon R. Dickson 
Hal nodded, slowly. "Very well. I now understand the size of the problem. But 
why give up now?" demanded Rukh. "Why, at this particular point?" "Because I 
believe the sooner I'm gone, the sooner my quitting is likely to improve the 
odds for all the rest of you." "What makes you say that?" Ajela's voice was 
even more sharp. 
He was a little slow answering. He had been carried away by the unusual 
emotion behind his own last few words. "I'm hoping that with me gone, the 
pressure I've exerted, balancing the pressure of Bleys in the historical 
forces, will be removed; and the sudden vacuum will cause the forces to react 
against his side of the argument, rather than ours. It might even . . . be the 
cause of our winning, after all, by some different route." "What would you do, 
then?" Rukh's voice was abruptly soft. 
Hal smiled grimly. "Take a new name for the last time, perhaps," he said. 
"Go down to the surface and enlist with the real Earth-borns who'rc signing up 
for training by the Dorsai. Anything, so that as a major force I'd be 
permanently out of the picture. I could probably be useful on one of those new 
warships they're turning 
Z_ out so fast." "Thou wouldst go looking for death," said Rukh, "which is a 
sin in the Name of God. And how would doing anything like that be best for the 
rest of us?" "I think it might rectify a mistake I made, attempting to 
influence the historic forces," Hal answered. "That's no answer," said Ajela 
with an absolutely nonExotic near-approach to exasperation. It was, thought 
Hal 'a sign of the exhaustion in her finally beginning to wear her to 
the quick. "To make an excuse out of something the workings of which 
apparently only you fully understand!" "I've never claimed I fully understand 
the historic forces," Hal said. "I doubt if anyone in the human race will, for 
generations yet. There're simply too many factors operating in every case. But 
I thought you, at least, did-enough to understand why I'm doing this, Ajela." 
"I thought I did too," she replied, "but evidently I don't. You've talked 
about it many times, and explained it I don ,t 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
29 
know how often. Let me see what I remember. You've said something to the 
effect of-'the course of history is determined by the cumulative effect of all 
the decisions resulting in physical acts of the people alive in the race at 
any given time. It used to be thought that only a few people made decisions. 
We now realize that these people are influenced by the people around them, and 
those people by more people around them, until in effect every person may have 
had an influence on decisions made, and therefore on the course of history. 
Thefarther back in history we go, the slower the influence of the mass of the 
people concerned, on any decision point. ' " "That last bit's the crucial 
one," said Hal. "In earlier centuries it often took a very long time for mass 
decision to shape history; though it always did, in the end. The difference 
between then and now is communications. Present communications make it 
possible for the effect of mass attitudes and actions to have an effect almost 
immediately within the chain of human interaction. The minute I leave here 
permanently and this becomes known to the worlds in general, attitudes will 
change throughout the race and the effect of those changes be noticed very 
quickly. As I say, my going will leave a vacuum opposing Bleys; and the 
instinctive inertia of the historic forces should cause the racial momentum to 
react against him and for us." "How?" said Ajela. "You know what I've been 
after from my beginning as Donal," said Hal. "I've been trying to push 
humanity toward a greater instinctive sense of responsibility. Apparently this 
last effort, trying to access the Creative Universe, was too much force in one 
direction. The historic forces pushed back by Producing something new, that 
none of the present human social groups could fight against. The Others, with 
their ability to influence any political structure from behind the scenes. 
They Push away from responsibility, toward instinctive obedience." 



He stopped, unsure about whether he had made sense to them Or not. "And?" said 
Rukh. "And so you've got the present situation, with Bleys heading up the 
other faction, and me, until now, heading up ours." 
I'll in still waiting to hear," said Ajela-but she said it patiently' this 
time--what this has to do with your giving up and going off, as Rukh said, to 
look for death." 



30 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
31 
"It removes me as the spearhead on our side," said K.%@. "That gives Bleys and 
the Others too much of an advantage That means, as I said a few moments ago, 
he'll be the one wh(-, pushing against the balance of forces; and they'll 
react agair,t him." "What'll happen?" said Ajela. "I don't know," said Hal. 
"If you start to estimate sonic thing 
like that, you have to begin by estimating the influence of my leaving 
on people, like you, immediately around me. Then you have to figure in the 
impact of your reactions on the larger group of humans around you, and then on 
those around theiii. and so on and on-until you're into backlash reactions; 
and in the end you have to take everyone in the human race into account. " 
"Have you forgotten Tam?" interrupted Rukh. "All these years he's been like 
Simeon, in the Gospel according to Luke, in the Book of God. You know the 
story of Simeon?" "Yes," said Hal, both his memory and his work with the core 
of the Encyclopedia bringing the passage back to his mind. "I don't!" said 
Ajela. "Tell me." 
Rukh turned toward her, but Hal knew that her words were still aimed at him. " 
'. . . And behold,' '' said Rukh, as steadily as if she were reading from 
pages open before her, " 'there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; 
and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel; 
and the Hol1v Ghost was upon him. " 'And it was revealed unto him by the Holy 
Ghost that lie should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. " 
'And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in 
the child Jesus to dofor him after the custoin of the law, " 'Then he took him 
up in his arms, and blessed God and said, " 'Lord, now lettest thou thy 
servant depart in peace accordt.ng to thy word, , , 'For mine eyes have seen 
thy salvation.' 
Rukh paused, and Ajela turned her gaze unwaveringly back to Hal. "If you give 
up now, Hal," said Rukh, "what about Tarn. whose whole life has been waiting 
for you to fulfill the promise he found in you?" 
Hal felt the pain of her words as if it was a physical thing inside him. "I 
know what it'll do toTam," he said harshly. "But the race has to come first; 
and the only hope for the race I can see now is for me to step out of the 
equation. I've got to go; leaving the natural actions of the historic forces 
to guide us to what I couldn't reach by myself. Those forces have kept the 
race moving forward and upward from the beginning. It was my own good opinion 
of myself that led me to think I was necessary to moving it where it needed to 
go." "But what about him, when he learns you've quit?" said Ajela fiercely. 
"What about him, I say?" "Let him . . . " The words were painful to Hal, but 
he had to say them. "Let him go on thinking I'm still trying . . . to the end. 
It's the kindest thing; and there's no choice about my going. I have to keep 
repeating-un less I actually remove myself, the pressure on the historic 
forces won't change. Rukh-" 
He turned to her. "You understand now, don't you?" he said. "All that can be 
done is let me go; and hope . . . " 
But, surprisingly, Rukh was no longer listening to him. Instead, she was 
looking down at the screen inset in the desk-top before her. "There's someone 
outside-a very small ship dodging around outside the shield, trying to get 
inside right now," she said to Ajela, as if Hal was not only not speaking, but 
no longer there. "There is?" said Ajela. 
She looked down at the screen before her and her fingers began to fly on the 
control pad beside it, tapping out commands. "We've talked before, you'll 
remember," said Hal, hoping that if he spoke on quietly, they would give up 
whatever had fascinated them on the screens and return to the important matter 
at hand, "about how the human race is, in some ways, like a single composite 
organism-a body made up of a number of separate and individual parts, the same 
way a hive of bees or an ant colony can be considered a single individual-" 



But they were not listening. Looking into his own screens, Hal saw the focus 
there was now all on the movements of the small ship Rukh had mentioned. At 
Aiela's tvved commands 



32 Gordon R. Dickson the screens were using the capabilities 
of the Encyclopedia to cancel out the visual blocking of a direct sight at the 
phaseshield, so that the ship outside it they watched was clearly visible, 
dodging among the enemy vessels. 
Puzzled, Hal watched it, also. Its driver-no one who was familiar with 
spaceships used the ancient word "pilot" anymore -was phase-shifting in small 
jumps. His or her craft, a midge among the warships on patrol out there, was 
obviously trying to keep the gathering enemy from getting into formation 
around it. Meanwhile, it was jockeying for a position where it might be able 
to jump through the screen. 
Just at that moment, in fact, it achieved the position it wanted, and jumped 
through. It was instantly englobed by two wings of defensive ships, driven by 
Dorsai commanders much more capable than those in the enemy ships 
outside-besides having had the advantage of being able to lie in wait for the 
small craft. 
The enemy warships did not attempt to shift through in pursuit. They probably, 
thought Hal, had orders not to in any case@ but if they had they would have 
been easily destroyed by the better Dorsai-built craft and their more capable 
crews. The incoming vessel lay still in the midst of the defending vessels, 
making no effort to escape. 
There was a chime on the air of the office. "Forgive this interruption, 
Ajela," said a masculine voice. "I know you're not to be disturbed during 
conferences; but this is a ship asking to be allowed into the Encyclopedia, 
and you left orders-" "It's small enough to get into one of the locks?" Ajela 
cut in. "Yes," said the voice. 
The vessel entrances of the Encyclopedia, Hal knew, had been designed for the 
shuttles that carried people up from the surface of the Earth and back down 
again, or out to other ships. By ordinary warship standards the lock 
dimensions were impossibly small. For any regular space warship, it would have 
been like a bear trying to get into a badger hole. "Good. Permission to come 
in granted." Almost in the same breath she went on. "Hal," she said. 
He raised his head at the sound of his name. "Hal, I want you to put this 
decision about giving up on hold, for a few days at least. This ship coining 
in is one I've been 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
33 
expecting. It just may have some information that could change the way you 
think. If you don't mind, I want to talk to the driver alone. So would you 
mind leaving the office, now? Rukh, wait for a minute, will you? There's 
something more I want to say to you. " 
Hal looked back, surprised. Ajela had not merely asked if he would wait a few 
days before making his decision-a decision he had believed he had already 
made-she had, in effect, ordered him to wait. Not only was that unExotic, it 
was totally unlike her; and to top it off, she had no authority to order him 
to do, or not do, anything. Technically, she was his assistant. Though in 
justice he knew how little he had actually run the Encyclopedia; and how fully 
she had. 
She could probably force him to stay, for a while, at least, by refusing him 
transportation to the surface; but the thought of the situation coming to that 
pass was ridiculous. 
However, of course he would wait; for as long as she wanted. Or rather, for 
any reasonable length of time. Anything else was unthinkhble. But the way she 
had put it was strange. It had to be her exhaustion talking. As, come to think 
of it, was her excluding him from whatever business she had with the driver of 
this incoming ship. The driver was almost certainly one of those who had 
volunteered to go out as a spy on to one of the Younger Worlds; so that Earth 
would have some idea of how matters stood out there. Though how apything so 
learned could affect his present decision to leave . . . however, there was no 
point in worrying about it now. "Of course," he said. 
Getting up, he went out of the office, back toward his own quarters. There 



was, in fact, one more thing he was going to do in any case; though there was 
no telling if it would do any good. That was to write down and make sure it 
was stored in the Encyclopedia itself, all he knew or had learned, surmised or 
come to believe, about the Creative Universe and the possible ways into it. 
He would include an account of the ways he himself had tried and failed. It 
might save whoever took up the work someday Some time that otherwise might be 
wasted in duplicating efforts that had proved useless. 
Behind him, neither Ajela nor Rukh even looked up from their screens as the 
door closed. 



THE CHANTRY GUILD 
35 
CHAPTER 
5 
Amanda had made it to the system of Earth's Sun in five phase-shifts, where 
any non-Dorsai would have taken ten and she herself would have broken it into 
at least seven, under more leisurely conditions. The last shift brought her 
back into specific location deep enough in the gravitic shadow of Jupiter to 
hide her vessel from the instruments of the ships besieging Earth. From there, 
she paused to examine the situation. 
There were more enemy craft on patrol about the whitely gleaming sphere of the 
phase-shield than there had been when she had last had a report on the 
situation of the Home World. 
It was to be expected. But Amanda chilled as she watched. It was that strange 
part of her which occasionally saw, or felt-neither word was quite right-what 
would or might be. In this case, it was the sight of the ever-growing military 
power of ten worlds massing for invasion about the single planet that was 
their Mother World, Old Earth; and she envisioned what was coming not as clear 
pictures in her mind, but as massive shapes half seen, moving in a clammy mist 
which obscured all things. 
In this instance, what she sensed was something like a huge tidal wave, 
growing, growing, ready to smash down on sleepy small homes and other 
buildings, which would be wiped clean from the surface of the land, as if a 
giant's hand had passed. And it would come, as soon as the wave was large 
enough, ordered to its hammer-strike by that small but all-powerful 
group of highly intelligent but self-indulgent men and women who, under Bleys 
Ahrens, controlled all the Younger Worlds. 
But there was some little time before that, yet. For now, the enemy ships 
blocked entrance by any others to the sphere whose surface they dared not 
touch; and their coverage was good. She studied them in her viewer screen. 
They were divided into Wings of six ships each, and each Wing patrolled a 
curved, rectangular sector of the globe that was the phase-shield. 
Theoretically, that gave them complete coverage. But Amanda noticed that they 
cut inside the comers of their rectangles when a Wing's patrol route took them 
past one. There was a way of making a sharp corner with a spaceship in such a 
situation, but it required a minuscule space shift each time. 
It was not that there was any difficulty involved in calculating or making 
such a tiny shift. But each time, the ship making it took a one in a million 
chance of being lost in mid-shift. Phase-shift technology was based on the 
Uncertainty Principle of Werner Karl Heisenberg, which said essentially that 
either the position or velocity of a particle could be known at any time, but 
not both. 
The early twenty-first century, becoming informed on antimatter and a number 
of such things that had only been speculated about earlier, discovered that a 
particle's change of Position involved it passing through a phase of 
positionlessness -in theory, it was spread over the whole universe for a 
moment of no-time, before it came into being again at its specific new 
Position. 
From this understanding had developed a way around the limits of the speed of 
light, which until then had seemed to make travel between stars so slow as to 
be almost impractical. Humanity had once more gone around a problem, instead 
of through it. Spaceships did not actually move by phase-shifting. Rather, 
they simply abandoned one defined position, became undefined, and then 
redefined at a new position. 
The only drawback was that once in a countless number of such movements, they 
failed for some reason to redefine at their destination; and stayed instead, 
undefined. In effect, they had been disintegrated. 
SO, said the history books, Donal Graeme had met his end. Attempting to move 
in any way except by phase-shift through 



36 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
37 
a phase-shield made such a result certain. Otherwise the odds of reaching the 
desired destination were very good-but not perfect. 
Once in a million times was not bad odds; but to risk them a large number of 
times a day, every day, was enough to make more than a few spaceship 
commanders and crew uneasy. There was, consequently, sometimes a reluctance to 
move closely into the comer of a patrolled rectangle and have to make that 
extra shift. 
The patrols could of course have covered those corners or normal drive. But, 
at the velocities with which they must move to patrol their area, an abrupt, 
large change of direction would make jelly of anything as insubstantial as 
human bodies inside the turning ship. It was better to curve a little inside 
the comer, 
Accordingly, the corners of the rectangles Amanda studied were weak areas. She 
sat at her calculations for a while, then put her craft into the series of 
shifts she had precalculated* 
Her first shift was to a space just a thousand kilometers outside the shield 
above the south polar regions of Earth. This was far enough so uncertainty of 
the besieging ships as to exactly where she would be after her next shift 
would lessen her vulnerability. She quickly followed this shift, accordingly, 
with another precalculated shift to above the north polar regions. 
She paused there for the seconds required to choose which, of several 
destinations she had picked as possible for her next move. She chose, 
reappearing suddenly above the Equator in an unprotected corner area, keyed in 
her precalculated shift through the phase-shield and appeared just inside the 
open corner. 
As soon as she was inside, she brought her ship to a halt, and dropped its 
defenses. It was well she was as swift as she was in doing it; for eight 
great, slim shapes of the battle cruisers which made up a Dorsai fighting Wing 
were suddenly completely surrounding her. 
Her ship-to-ship talk light was already blinking on the panel before her. She 
thumbed the stud that opened it from her end. and the tank of her vision 
screen came alight with the face ofa Dorsai she did not know, a woman verging 
on middle age with an oriental face and high-arched eyebrows. "Amanda Morgan," 
said the other. "We were told to expect you. Hold still for a retina check . . 
. Good. You can proceed, 
I'm Li Danzhun. You've never met me, but I know you from pictures and your 
reputation." "I'm honored you'd recognize me from that little after these 
years here," said Amanda. 
Li Danzhun smiled at her. "It may be none of us will ever see our homes 
again," she said, "but we're still Dorsai. And you're still one of the Grey 
Captains. " "Nonetheless," said Amanda, "thank you." "Now I'm honored-- The 
other glanced off-screen for a second. "We just got the release signal from 
Escort Leader. Go with all luck, Amanda Morgan." "And you," said Amanda. 
As suddenly as they had surrounded her, the cruisers were gone. She turned and 
drove northeasterly across the skies of the Home World until a mist-enshrouded 
sphere, looking like a miniature of the phase-shielded Earth, as seen from 
space, appeared on her screen, seeming to grow as she approached it. She was 
close now, and the mist was evaporating over a metallic port which itself was 
dilating to let her ship inside. 
Her vessel was tiny by the standards of interstellar craft, but not so by the 
standards of the opening before her. Even for her small ship there was little 
room to spare at the entrance. Her ship could be brought in, but even with all 
her ship-handling experience it was going to be a tight fit. 
But she made it. The vessel settled with a clang into its landing cradle. 
Amanda sat back in her control chair, relaxing for the first time in some 
days. A voice spoke on the interior atmosphere of the vessel. "This is Ajela," 



it said. "Come as soon as you can. Just follow the corridor beyond the door to 
the interior of the Encyclopedia. It's being aligned with my office right now 
and You'll find the entrance at its end will let you directly in here. Just 
walk in. Rukh's with me. We're alone." 
Amanda nodded to herself. She had already changed clothes before shifting 
close to the star that lighted Old Earth, wearing the bush jacket and skirt 
she thought of as her "shore-going" wardrobe. She got to her feet, opened the 
ship's lock and stepped out into the clangor and bright lights of the port 
chamber. The ramp that led to the 



Gordon R. Dickson interior of the Final Encyclopedia was 
almost beside her ship, She had never been here before, but as an educated 
person she knew about the Encyclopedia's design and peculiarities. 
The ramp led into a suddenly quiet, narrow, blue-carpeted corridor that looked 
exceedingly short-but, she had learned, distances would be not only variable 
but sometimes illusory within the Final Encyclopedia. There was a door at the 
far end, some twenty meters from her. She went to it, opened it without 
bothering to give her name to the annunciator above it, and stepped inside. 
"Hello," she said, smiling at the two women sitting at the desk at the far end 
of the room. "It's about time we met. I'm Amanda Morgan." 
CHAPTER 
"Take a float at the desk, here," Ajela answered, looking at the tall, 
remarkably young-looking woman, whose hair was so light blond it was almost 
white. "There's one waiting for you." 
As Amanda came from the door, which had provided some measure of her size, her 
height became less apparent. The length of her arms, legs and body, and her 
breadth of shoulder, so well matched her size that only by some kind of 
contrast was it noticeable. She was, thought Ajela, like Hal in that. You did 
not realize how large he was, either, until someone you knew to be of ordinary 
size stood close to him. She was wearing serviceable, neutral-colored clothing 
that somehow did nothing to detract from her presence, 
What Ajela found herself noticing in particular was the lightness with which 
Amanda moved. She had the body balance of a dancer; and that trait was 
curiously in harmony with the otherwise difficult to believe youthfulness she 
seemed to project. She could pass, thought Ajela, for a girl in her teens-and 
yet Ajela knew her to be certainly older than Hal; and possibly older as well 
than either Rukh or herself-not that either she or Rukh were out of their 
twenties. 
The appearance of youth in the newcomer was so unbelievable it could be 
appreciated only when you were actually looking at her. After she had gone, 
memory would be doubted. That, taken together with the classical quality of 
her 



40 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
41 
from beauty-even her shoulder-length fair hair and theaptaurrtquoise eyes 
somehow fitted-seemed to set her a little veryone else. And yet, even the sum 
of all the e i erent elements failed to explain the strongest effect she ma 


on a viewer. There was a power in her. 
It was a quality which words failed as memory would. But it was like something 
Ajela had never felt before in anyone, It was curiously comparable to, though 
not the same as she fel t there to be in Hal when close to him. In his actual 
presence she had always been able to feel a concern in him for those around 
him that was like the warmth radiated by a lighted fireplace. 
With Amanda it was something different. The closest Ajela could come to 
expressing it, was that in the other woman there was something which strongly 
reminded Ajela of the strength and clean white lines of an Ionic pillar, in a 
temple of classical Greece. 
To Amanda, on the other hand, as she approached the desk, Rukh and Ajela were 
both much as she had pictured them from Hal's descriptions. She had wanted to 
see them for herself, for a long time. Not only because of what they were, but 
obviously because of what they each in their separate ways meant to Hal; and 
because it was also obvious that Hal's affection for each was deep and 
strong-running. 
It was not that she feared competition for his love of her. She was the Third 
Amanda in eight generations of Morgans ;and she had been hand-picked by the 
Second Amanda as a baby, in the other's old age, Hand-picked, and with her 
natural abilities trained until she was set apart from the mass of people 
around her, like a queen. 
In this there was more to it than the fact there had been only three Amandas 
in eight generations of the Morgans of Foralie, on the Dorsai. In a very real 
sense, there had only been three Amandas since the human race began; and it 
had fallen to her to be the last and strongest'With or without Hal, she would 
be that. But she loved him. 
However, now that she saw them in person, she knew that she would like them; 
and they would end up liking her-though Ajela would be the slower of the two 
to come to it. They were both strong women; and life had also made each of 
them the equivalent of royalty, in her own right. Moreover, Ajela had now had 
experience in the possession and exercise of great authoritv. 
She was dressed in what seemed more like leisure than working clothes. She 
wore a sleeveless tunic of medium brown, ornamented with gold brocade over a 
blouse of filmier material with balloon-shaped sleeves, above darker brown 
pantaloons. Amber bracelets were on her wrists and amber earrings in her ear. 
Still, the way she sat and the level gaze of her hazel eyes made these 
garments and even her jewelry seem to fit her like a uniform of authority. @ 
Rukh, on the other hand, had been born, as Amanda knew, with unusual strength 
of spirit in her, but plainly counted it as 
nothing in her own scale of values. Far outranking any personal power of her 
own, the quality that was in her of what she called Faith shone through the 
dark lantern of her body, even through the long, high-collared, wine-red dress 
she was now wearing, like the light of a candle through the horn windows of 
some ancient lantern, illuminating everyone around her. Also, Rukh was older 
than Ajela in her experience of life and death; and, like Amanda, had been a 
warrior. In fact she was still a warrior, for all that she lived and preached 
peace. She always would be. In that one element, if in no other, it was 
immediately recognizable to both of them as their eyes met, that they were 
alike. "I came right away, as soon as the message reached me," said Amanda, 
taking the empty float. She looked at the others sympathetically. It would not 
have been easy for either of these to admit to themselves that they were 
helpless; and that she might do what they could not. "Faster than we 
expected," said Rukh. "We didn't dare say so in the message, but it's Hal, of 



course. We knew you'd read that between the lines and come quickly." 
Amanda smiled. "It was clear enough, what you wanted to tell me," she said. 
"You'd know it would take something like that to bring me back like this. What 
is it with Hal?" "He's a case of burn-out," said Ajela bluntly. 
She checked herself, rubbing her fingers for a second over her eyes. "Would 
you explain to her, Rukh? With Tam and all . . . I think you'll do a better 
job of it than I can, right now." "He wants to go looking for death," said 
Rukh, "or tells himself that's what he wants, because, you know as well as 1, 



42 Gordon R. Dickson it's not in him to do that. He's just 
told us he wants to give up his search for the answer we all need, the search 
he's been on all his life." "What brought him to this?" said Amanda. 
"Frustration-" Ajela broke off. "Sorry, Rukh. I asked you to tell it. Go 
ahead." "But you Ire right," said Rukh. She turned her gaze back to Amanda. 
"Ever since he got the necessary people back here on Old Earth and the 
phase-shield up, he's been expecting at any moment to find the last step to 
the Creative Universe he's dreamed of reaching for so long. He's been working 
at it without a break, all that time. In the process, he's found a way to make 
all the knowledge of the Final Encyclopedia available to his mind. But even 
with that and all else that's in him, he's made no progress at all. Now he 
believes he's got to find a breakthrough, give up, 0, go insane; and, as all 
of us know, hC won't accept insanity as a way out. So he plans to quit. Leave. 
Enlist with the Earthborns under another name for Dorsai training. " "The 
first Dorsai that sees him will recognize who trained him-pick him out in two 
seconds from the rest,' I said Amanda. "Would that Officer force him to 
reveal himself as Hal Mayne?" Rukh's voice was level. 
There was a moment's silence. "No . . . Of Course not," said Amanda then. "Not 
if Hal didn't want it. That's not our way-if he had Personal reasons for not 
being recognized or promoted, no explanation from him would be necessary. But 
even at that, it's only a short matter of time until Bleys would find out who 
and where he was and then all the worlds would know." "Hal wants the Worlds to 
know," said Ajela. "He says it's a matter of the fabric of historic forces. He 
believes his going would leave a vacuum that'd work against Bleys." "He could 
be right in that," said Amanda slowly, after a moment. "But he's wrong in 
giving up. Besides, he can't quit. For him, that's impossible. He must have 
just worked himself' blind enough to make himself believe he can go hunting 
the dragon. 
JIM! CHANTRY GUILD 
43 
"Hunting the dragon?" echoed Rukh. "It's a Dorsai saying," said Amanda 
absently. "It means 
roughly . . . taking on something you know you can't handle, deliberately to 
arrange for your own end." 
She looked at them, "Because, you realize, if he did that," she went on, 
"there'd be no more cause for Bleys to hold off trying to kill him." "He'd be 
safe here," muttered Ajela. "You'd think common sense- "No place is safe, if 
Bleys really wanted to get him. Up until now he's shared Hal's point of view; 
that if either one took the simple way to a solution by killing the other, it 
wouldn't alter the confrontation of historic forces between the two halves of 
the race. " "And that's the only reason Bleys has held off, until now?" Rukh 
asked. "I thought there was something personal there." "There is, in a sense." 
Amanda looked at her, at the slim cross cut into the circle of granite at 
Rukh's neck. "We, all of us, each have something. But Bleys has nothing, and 
never has had-except in Hal." "How--in Hal?" Ajela leaned forward, intrigued. 
"They're worst enemies," said Amanda, "which is close, in a strange way, to 
being best friends. Because what makes them enemies is so much larger than 
anything personal between them, that Bleys is free to admire Hal-and he 
admires no one else in the human race, alive or dead." 
She became more brisk. "However . . . tell me when this started," she went on. 
"When did he start giving up?" "He didn't mention it until today-in fact, just 
before you got here," answered Rukh. "But in himself he must have givcn up 
some months ago, Earth time. It showed that far back-to Ajela and myself. We 
did what we could; and when nothing helped, finally we sent for you. You got 
here just in time." "How many months?" 
Ajela and Rukh exchanged glances. Ajela remained silent, so 
Rukh turned again to Amanda. "My best guess would be he started giving up 
about half a 
year ago. Ajela?" 
Aiela made a small, almost helpless gesture with one hand. 



44 Gordon R. Dickson " I only really noticed it after yo u 
brought my attention to it, three or four months ago. I've been tied up with 
trying to get the Earth-born to pull all together, for the first time in their 
history. The trouble's been for the first couple of years, most of them 
couldn't actually believe THEY could really be under attack. But what 
with that problem . . . and Tam 
She subsided. "I'd say he started thinking he wouldn't ever be able to find 
what he was looking for, roughly a half year ago," Rukh went on in a level 
voice. "At what point he actually gave up, if he really did-internally, I 
mean-I don't know. I agree with you. He hasn't, really, even now. It's just 
that he's reached the point where he feels he has to do something, and it 
looks to him as if every way's blocked but back; so he's made a conscious 
decision to go back, by giving up. What do you think?" 
Amanda looked past them. "I think you're right," she answered. "He chose as a 
child to go after it-this thing he has to find. It's far too late now for him 
to turn away from it. He can make his body and conscious mind leave it alone; 
but that won't help. His instinct's to attack a problem and keep on attacking 
it as long as he's alive and it's still there. But my guess is his trouble may 
not be quite what you've believed. I don't think he could really have gotten 
stuck in a dead-end corridor. I think he created it." "How?" said Rukh. "I'm 
not sure I follow you, Amanda Morgan. " "I'm sure," said Amanda slowly, "he 
thinks he's been trying all sorts of ways to reach through to what he wants to 
find and that he could go on trying forever and still not find it. But that 
can' t be the real case. " "What is the real case then?" Ajela leaned forward. 
"Perhaps, just that he's trying to prod himself to break out and find a new 
angle of attack," answered Amanda. "Unconsciously, I think he knows he's 
chased this problem until he's lost his perspective on it. He's become 
frustrated; and his instinct to attack's betraying him. He's gotten himself 
trapped into a circular path, making the same attack at the same no-answer 
over and over again; and telling himself it's a different route each time." 
She stopped. The other two sat looking at her, 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
45 
"If that's it," said Rukh at last, in that same level voice, "what's to be 
done with him?" "Help him to stand back and take a look at the problem from a 
wider angle." "How?" asked Ajela. 
Amanda looked hard at her. "I just walked through that door a few minutes 
ago," she said. "Up until then I hadn't heard what was wrong with him, let 
alone what the symptoms are. I'll think. The two of you might be thinking 
also." 
There was another silence, this one with a certain sharpness to it. "You're 
right," said Ajela. "I'm sorry, Amanda. I've gotten a little too much in the 
habit of snapping out questions and orders, these last few years. I'll be 
frank. I don't see any answer at the moment; and I get the feeling if there is 
one it won't be quick or easy to find." "Yes," said Rukh, "and I think 
something else. I think it's not something that's going to come calling in 
answer to puzzling over it. Whoever finds it is going to have to feet her way 
to it. And the most likely candidate to do that is you, Amanda." "Yes," said 
Ajela, "you've got the advantage. He loves you, Amanda. " "You mean, I love 
him," said Amanda evenly. "Yes," said Ajela, meeting her gaze squarely, "of 
course 
that's what I meant." 
Rukh's voice interposed itself between them. "Aside from any aspect of 
feelings," she said calmly, we've seen him every day-well, almost. Ajela and I 
may be too close to this part of the problem, ourselves. You're going to 
be looking at him for the first time in some time." "Over three years," said 
Amanda. 
Rukh looked at her shrewdly. "You're not saying you're out of touch-" "No, he 
and I have never been out of touch," answered Amanda. "Don't you both know 
people you haven't seen for a long time; and still, when you do get back 



together again, you pick up just where you left ofP That . . . only stronger. 
He can 
have changed. I can have changed. But there won't be any new 
d; fr- ---- tt- - -'t -Lp iin in fine @tpn an(] one moment. 



46 
Gordon R. Dickson 
No, the fact we've been separated's not going to be a problem. The problem 
will be getting him to accept a solution to hi@ situation besides the one he's 
come to himself. The Graemes aic a hardheaded lot; and Donal has never been 
turned aside froin his decisions by any other human being." "You think there's 
that much of Donal Graeme left in Hal?" said Ajela. "Of course there is, 
Ajela," said Rukh gently to hei. "Nobody can ever escape what they've been. 
Have you forgotten how much of you is still Exotic? And you left Mara for the 
Encyclopedia when you were twelve years old, didn't you?" 
Ajela smiled a little wanly. "Perhaps too often, I forget," she said. "No, 
you're right. Rukh. It's just that I've always just known him as Hal; and 
being an Exotic, I probably don't understand what all the rest of you know 
about violence-sorry, Amanda. I know that's the wrong word. " "No, it's not," 
said Amanda. "Is it, Rukh Tamani?" "No," said Rukh. "Whoso thinketh violence, 
knoweth violence. It was in God's name, but I knew violence." "But to get back 
to what we're talking about," said Amanda, "Rukh's right. I'll have to feel my 
way to the answer. That doesn't say I'll find it. Either one of you may be the 
one to find it. 11 
She smiled at them. "So you'll both keep after it, too?" "You know we will, 
Amanda," Rukh said. It was the first time she had used Amanda's given name 
only. Amanda smiled in acknowledgement and appreciation and got a 
3mile back that took account of the bond of experience between them. "Of 
course," Amanda said. "I shouldn't have even asked. Well, then, if you've told 
me all you want to say for the moment, can I go to Hal now?" "I'll call to say 
you're coming-" 
Ajela's hand, which had been reaching out to the control studs on her desk, 
checked as Amanda interrupted. "if you don't mind, I'd rather simply appear," 
she said. "Can you just direct me to wherever he is at the moment?" "Of 
course," said Ajela. "That's a good idea, in fact. You may well learn more 
from him, suddenly appearing without 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
47 
warning. He's in his rooms. I'll align this corridor outside with them. First 
door to your right, then, as you go out." "Thanks," said Amanda, getting up 
from her float. "We'll talk again shortly?" "As soon as you want. It may be a 
quarter or a half an hour, usually, before I can get loose, if I'm tied up 
talking to someone, or in some kind of conference with the people down on the 
surface; but just as soon as I can, I'll be available. Tell Rukh whenever you 
want us three to meet again." "You can reach me anytime using the internal 
communication system of the Encyclopedia," put in Rukh. 
Amanda was already on her way to the door. She stopped and turned back for a 
moment. "Good, I'll do that," she said, and smiled once more at them. "It's 
been very good meeting you both, at last. Don't worry. I trust in Hal-the 
inner Hal. You should, too." 
Ajela, unlike Rukh, did not return the smile. "We always have," said Ajela 
emptily, "but if after all this time he gives up and leaves us, what hope is 
there for Earth, for the race? For everyone?" 
Rukh turned and looked across the desk at her. "There is hope in God," she 
said strongly, "who never leaves us." 
Neither Amanda nor Ajela spoke. There was silence in the room. Then Amanda 
turned once more, and went, decisively, toward the door. "I'll talk to you 
both shortly," she said, and went out 
As the door clicked softly shut behind her, Amanda thought that it might not 
be all as simple as she had made it sound when she was inside talking about 
Hal. One of the other two-it might have been either or both-might have been 
putting pressure on him, all these months, without realizing it. Well, she 
would deal with that if she came across it. Ajela in particular might have 
been guilty of pressuring without knowing it. She turned right, as Ajela had 
directed. Ten meters down a somewhat longer corridor than the one she 



remembered walking in on the way to Ajela's office, she found the door the 
other woman had mentioned. Without announcing herself, she touched its latch 
button and stepped inside as it slid open before her. Hal was sitting at his 
desk and he looked up to stare at her sudden appearance. 



48 
Gordon R. Dickson 
She stopped just inside the door, which slid closed again; and stood smiling 
at his startled face some five meters away from er. "So you've forgotten what 
I look like already," she said. The humor and her lightness of tone were a 
cover for the moment; for in that second she had seen him for the first time 
in three years. What she saw was a big man-for when he had chosen to regrow 
from babyhood as Hal Mayne, he had come back not in the bone and flesh of the 
man he had been as Donal 
6raerne, but like one of his towering twin uncles Kensie and Ian. The Dorsai 
were not by any means all big-though statistically they averaged more in 
height and weight than those of the other Younger Worlds and Old Earth. But 
there were some families, like the Graemes and the ap Morgans, who tended to 
run large compared to that average; and some among these were arger yet. Even 
grown, Donal had felt like a dwarf among his own family. Therefore the 
imitation of Ian. 
It was a small vanity. Amanda, who had known Ian in his old age, had teased 
Hal gently about it. But she did not feel like teasing him now. The man before 
her no more showed obvious physical signs of stress than Ajela or Rukh had; 
but Amanda, who knew him so and could look into his soul better than anyone 
else alive, saw him there, as gaunt and sharpened by his inner struggles as a 
hermit. 
But nearly all of that was hidden within him. Outwardly, he showed only the 
familiar strong-boned face, with clear green eyes under thick black eyebrows 
and straight, coarse black hair; his large and sinewy hands dwarfing the 
control keys beside the screen inset in the top of the desk, on which he was 
composing some piece of writing. 
But the look of startlement lasted only a second. An almost imperceptible tap 
of his finger erased whatever he had been working on and he was up and around 
the desk, coming toward her. They met in the middle of the room. "I had a 
report to make-," she began; but his arms were already around her and his 
mouth on hers was cutting off the rest of the words, with a fierce hunger she 
had never felt in him before. She responded for a long moment; then pulled her 
head back forcibly and laughed up at him. "You won't even give me a chance to 
tell you how I happen to be here"" she said. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
49 
"It doesn't matter," he answered. He kissed her hungrily again, drowning 
himself in her. He had wanted her here for three years, as someone lost in a 
desert would want a drink of water; but there was now also something else. 
Something new in him this last year, that had feared her coming. For he knew 
now that he had been refusing to face the consequences as far as they two were 
concerned, of the decision he had just announced to Ajela and Rukh, his 
decision to give up. 
There was no other way it could be. His leaving the battle while she was still 
in it, must part them for good; whether either of them might want it that way 
or not. 



C P_ 
PTER 
7 
Hal woke without opening his eyes, without moving. He felt the weight of 
Amanda's upper body and head come down again on the bed beside him. He would 
see her if he opened his eyes. This was no pressure field they slept upon, 
but, at his own choice, an antique form of spring and mattress such as was 
still used on most of the poorer Younger Worlds-which included the Dorsai. In 
a pressure bed he would not have been able to feel her movements a millimeter 
distant. 
So-she had just now again lifted up to look at him as he slept, in the 
starlight and the light of the new moon shining t 
r hrough the illusion of a skylight in the room's ceiling. She had done that 
often, these last three nights. She was skillful enough to raise herself 
without waking him, but the return to a prone position was impossible without 
doing so. He wondered what she had seen in those dark moments, how much 
discovered? 
For three days and nights he had avoided talking to her about what he knew he 
must talk to her about, eventually. It had been cowardice to have held off 
from it this long, the first deliberately cowardly act in all his lives. But 
the thought of making it final, by putting it into words that they must go 
away from each other-seemed to close off his throat and make him speechless 
every time he tried to make himself speak of it. 
Or had she read it all in his face as he Jay sleeping? He did not 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
51 
underestimate her. She was capable of reading deeper into other humans, 
including him, than anyone else he had ever known. "Yes. " He rolled over on 
his back and stared up at the stars in their true positions as seen from here, 
artificial illusion though the skylight was. "We should talk." 
She rose on her elbow again and the darkness of her head and shoulder occulted 
part of the skylight. In the dimmer illumination of her own shadow, her 
features were just barely visible. Her hair, unloosed, fell over her shoulder 
and brushed with faint fingers at the left side of his face. For a moment she 
looked down at him. Then she lowered her head and kissed him gently on the 
lips. Then raised again and stayed looking down at him. "I should have told 
you the moment you got here," he said. "But . . ." "It's al I right, dear," 
she said. "I know. Rukh and Ajela told me. You think you have to stop 
searching for an answer." 
Of course. They would have told her as soon as she got here, when he had just 
before that announced it to them. "Yes," he answered. "I've been here for 
three years, Amanda; and in all that time-not one step forward." 
Her dark head nodded slowly against the stars. "I see." Her voice was 
thoughtful. "Up until a year ago," he said, "I still didn't doubt. I was still 
sure I'd find a way into the Creative Universe. I know it's there. I know if I 
could have found a way in, the advantages would have been overwhelming and 
obvious to anyone-to everyone on Old Earth, to begin with. If nothing else, 
it'd be a place to which the people could escape, if the force of the Younger 
Worlds does finally break through the phase-shield." "And at best?" "Why, at 
best-but haven't I told you all this before?" "You've told me very little. A 
bit about what you hoped to reach," said Amanda's voice softly. "A good deal 
about what made you start reaching, a lot about the past, but little about the 
future." "I guess-yes," said Hal. "You're right. I never did tell you much of 
what I hoped for. But that was because I didn't want to promise anything I 
couldn't . . ." 
He ran out of words. He was fumbling for the words he wanted. An unusual thing 
for him, and an unusual feeling. 



52 
Gordon R. Dickson 
"You didn't want even me to get my expectations up, in case you weren't able 
to do it," Amanda said. "I suppose so. Yes," he answered, 11 you're 
right. That was why- Even you." "Didn't it ever cross your mind you didn't 
have to prove yourself to me by success?" "I don't know." He hesitated. "Maybe 
I was afraid of just what's happened. I mean-not afraid that I wouldn't be 
successful; but that I'd have to decide to stop trying while there was still 
life in me to try with." 
He waited for some response. But she said nothing to help him. He turned again 
to face her dark shape. "You know this is different," he said. "No matter what 
you feel, and I feel, you know we have to go different ways; if I turn away, 
take myself out of the equation while you're still in it. And you know you'll 
stay in it. You're what you are. The Third Amanda could never turn her back on 
worlds full of people needing her, simply to follow me into nothingness, for 
my own sake. What you were born to be and all you were trained to be won't let 
you. Isn't that so?" "It would be so," she said slowly, "if you did turn away 
yourself. Yes." 
It was almost a relief to hear her say it, and know that it was at last 
stated, out in the open, final. "That's why I've delayed like this, telling 
you," he went on. "Oh, Amanda . . . Amanda . . . " 
His throat closed up on him. He could not say any more. Her hand reached out 
and stroked his forehead, gently, soothingly, as if he was a child with a 
fever. "You're not gone yet," she murmured. "But that's just it," he said, 
able to talk again, although talking was painful. "I've already delayed too 
long. There's more to it. It's not just me stepping away from an insoluble 
situation before it drives me insane. If it were that alone, I'd keep trying 
until they had to carry me off. But every day I wait, I hold back the time 
when Bleys finds out I'm gone. One day longer to the change that has to come 
when the historic forces move into the vacuum where I was." "Are you sure when 
they do move, that'll be for the good of' what we've all worked for'? What if 
it's for the worse?" "I don't know what'll happen, of course," he said. 
"There's 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
53 
only one thing I know. My quitting's going to leave an imbalance. One that the 
forces-which are the result of the reactions of all the people on all the 
worlds-won't be able to tolerate. By going I leave Bleys unopposed, too 
strong. I explained that to Rukh and Ajela. The imbalance has got to react 
against Bleys, where up until now the forces of history were working for him 
and the Others." "You're sure of that?" she said. "How can it be or have been 
any other way?" He stared through the darkness at her, wanting to see the 
expression of her face more clearly. "In all our history, no one person, one 
side, ever held the race to its own will for any length of time. Sometimes 
inside a generation-or less-all that a great conqueror took, or builder 
erected, was gone. Something else had come to replace it. You can say the 
civilizations of Egypt, the Dynasties of China, the Roman Empire, lasted for 
hundreds of years. But steadily, even while the names lasted, what they stood 
for changed. Always. Even the great religions grew, splintered, altered-until 
from one generation to another, even a hundred years later, they'd all have 
seemed very, very different to someone used to their earlier forms." 
Amanda said nothing. She continued to stroke his forehead. "You know this is 
true!" he said. "When the balance leans too far one way, it automatically 
swings back. If I go, Bleys can never have what he's fought for-a single, 
unchanging Old Earth, where all the humans alive are permanently under the 
control of him and his kind. The historic forces will make an adjustment 
-hopefully for the better. It must happen, just as a 
child grows into an adult and an adult grows into old age and death 
-inexorably. Without the constant change that brings adaptation, the race 
can't survive." 



Still she said nothing. Her hand continued to stroke him, that was all. It 
seemed she was ready to listen eternally. "I never hoped to stop that 
ceaseless back-and-forth, that oscillation," he said. "My only hope was to 
take advantage of its momentum to break through to some kind of permanent 
improvement in people; a growth, not in anything put together by men and women 
as a society, but already waiting in the very hearts and souls and natures of 
each one of them, individually. So that on the next swing each living human 
would have more be more, and choose more wisely. And this improvemen; 



54 
Gordon R. Dickson 
would have to have come inevitably, as the value of the learning and 
self-discipline acquired by each individual, as the price of being able to use 
the Creative Universe. If only I could have found the way into it for them, 
that pass through the mountains! " 
He stopped talking, out of words. They stayed as they were a little while, 
Amanda's hand still gently soothing his forehead. At last, however, she 
ceased; and took her hand away. "You've thought of what your leaving is going 
to mean to Tam, of course?" she said. "Of course," he answered, his voice 
thick with self-anger and disgust. "He had faith in me, in my finding a 
solution. I've been holding off telling him just as I held off telling you. 
But perhaps it's better to, now. But it'll be hard on him, after struggling to 
live all these years until an answer could be found. I know it. But I can't 
delay leaving any longer. Bleys is driving the Younger Worlds to produce ships 
and man them, to the point where it'll kill them. Of course, he wants them to 
die. And that makes it only a matter of time before he has what he needs for a 
massive breakthrough. As the time before that event shortens, the time in 
which my quitting can begin to cause a change in the balance of forces gets 
smaller and smaller. I have to tell Tam now, and go-now. 
He hesitated. "I'd rather do anything than face him with that news. Anything, 
but not face him with it." "You think it means only disappointment to him?" 
"What else?" he said. "He counted on me to find it. He counted on me to take 
over the Encyclopedia. I can't do either. If I stayed here, there'd be no true 
vacuum of power created, and affairs would haul me back into position again." 
"But only disappointment, that's all you think it'll mean to Tam?" 
He stared through the darkness at her, at the face he could not read. "What 
else would there be? What do you mean?" he demanded. 
She said nothing for a second. Then, when she spoke, her voice was a little 
different, almost detached. "Do you know the children's story of the Great 
Dark Place?" she asked. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
55 
His mind drew a blank, made an automatic half-effort to call up the knowledge 
center of the Encyclopedia to find it; but he was too sick a9d weary inside 
for the effort. Besides, he knew Amanda must have some reason for wanting to 
retell it herself, or she would not have mentioned it so. "No," he said. 
I 'The sun, the rain and the wind happened to meet one day," she said softly. 
"And the rain was upset-so upset that he was almost turning into sleet. 
11 'It's just terrible,' he told the sun and the wind, 'I've come from seeing 
something I wouldn't have believed if anyone had told me about it. A Great 
Dark Place. I've never seen a place so dark and terrible. I got away just as 
fast as I could. It scared me to death.' "The wind laughed. " 'Come on, now,' 
the wind said, 'no place can be that frightening. In fact, I don't believe it 
even exists. You're making it up. Isn't he, sunT " 'I certainly can't imagine 
any such place,' said the sun. 
" 'You go see for yourself then,' said the rain. 'Anyway, I know it's there 
and I'm not going anywhere near it, ever again. The very thought of it chills 
me clear through-look how my drops are freezing at the thought of it!' " 
'Poo!' said the wind. 'Where's it supposed to be-back the way you just came? 
I'll go see for myself, right now!' and off he went. "The sun went on his 
regular way, because it was important that a day always have the right number 
of minutes in it for the day it was; and he'd almost forgotten about the 
rain's fright and story, when the wind came up to him. And the wind was so 
shaken he was blowing in irregular gusts. " 'Calm down, now,' said the sun. 
'What's wrong?' " 'What's wrong?' said the wind. 'I'll tell you what's wrong! 
I went to look for that Great Dark Place the rain talked about-and it was 
there! Just as rain said! The greatest, darkest place you ever-well, there's 
just no describing how terribly great and dark it was. I'll never get over the 
fright it gave me-never!' " 'Come, come,' said the sun, for he was a very 



large and comforting person, by nature, 'it just isn't possible for any place 
to be that frightening. How about this? I'll go have a look for 



56 
Gordon R. Dickson 
myself, right now. There may have to be a few extra minutes in this day, but 
we can't go having the rain and wind all upset like that. The weather will 
turn crazy, if it's sleeting in the middle of summer and you're blowing a 
gusty gale when you ought to be cooling everybody's brow with gentle breezes. 
I'll be right back.' "Off he went. But he didn't come right back. In fact, he 
didn't come back for quite a while indeed; and when he did, he was exhausted. 
While the wind had been waiting the rain had come up to join him and they both 
watched the sun approaching. " 'WellT called the rain, as the sun got close 
enough to hear. 'Now, you see? Isn't it the most terrible and greatest Dark 
Place you ever sawT " 'It certainly is not!' replied the sun as he reached 
them. He was hot and more than a little cross, for now the day would have at 
least an extra hour in it it never should have had-unless moon could be talked 
into shortening the night by that much. 'In fact I don't believe there ever 
was any such place. The two of you made it up to send me on a wild goose 
chase. I looked high and low. I looked into everything and under 
everything-and there's no dark place at all, anywhere! If there was, I 
couldn't have missed finding it. I don't think it ever existed in the first 
place, and that's the last time I go looking for something like thad' " 
Hal had been lulled almost into drowsiness by the soft, regular voice of 
Amanda as she told the story. Besides being natural singers, the Morgans of 
Fal Morgan were gifted storytellers, and Amanda had all the family skills in 
that area. Now, the sudden stopping of her voice woke him suddenly, to the 
night and what he had himself been talking of before. "And this dark place," 
he said to her, "it has some particular application to me?" "You know why the 
sun couldn't find it, of course," said Amanda. "The dark place was there, but 
the sun saw only his own light when he looked. Tam has a dark place, even 
after all these years; but when you look at it, you see it so fully lighted by 
your own vision, you don't or won't see it as a dark place, because it echoes 
a dark place very like it, in you. The memory of your responsibility for how 
your brother Mor died." 
Hal closed his eyes reflexively -because Amanda's last words had slapped him 
like a physical blow. Yet again his mind broulzht him the sieht of William. 
the finallv defeated and now 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
57 
fully insane Prince of the great planet Ceta, as he pressed the button that 
opened double doors to reveal the tortured body of what had once been Mor-the 
image was as fresh as if it had been yesterday, instead of a century past. 
He made himself open his eyes again. "Tell me what you mean," he said. "No one 
you ever knew dies-for you," said Amanda; and the eerie near-echoing of what 
he had told himself, standing surrounded by the image of the library on the 
estate back down on Earth in the mountain rains, just a few days before, was 
part of what she always seemed able to do. "Similarly, for Tam, your uncle 
Kensie and Jamethon Black, and even David Hall his brother-in-law-will never 
have died. Tam's lived with his part in those deaths longer than you've lived 
with Mor's death. He's carried his guilt about them more than a century; and 
the only hope he's had was that your finding what you've been after would 
prove that there were other causes-that it was one of the necessary happenings 
that made possible your discovery of a way into the Creative Universe for all 
people." 
She paused. "So, that's what you're going to be taking from him, when you tell 
him you're giving up: his last hope of some forgiveness from the darkness, 
before he dies. For Ajela, for the Encyclopedia, even for you in your own 
right, he's fought to live that long. But mostly for hope of pardon for what 
happened to David and Kensie and Jamethon. Nearly a hundred years of service 
here hasn't won that pardon for him. But you might have. This one thing of all 
things you couldn't see-because his darkness echoes yours too closely. When 
you got close to seeing it, it woke your own guilt over Mor; and so you didn't 



want to look deeply into him where his trouble lay." 
Hal lay stiffly still in the bed. "You make leaving harder, only," he said. 
"No, I didn't realize that about Tam; but knowing it now makes no difference. 
What can I do that I haven't done already?" "Did it ever strike you," said 
Amanda softly, "that you've been going at the problem of entry to the Creative 
Universe in what amounts to a head-on attack-like an attempt by pure force on 
a fabric or situation, to break through it. Maybe you could back off for a 
moment; and try to find a way of 



58 
Gordon R. Dickson 
approaching the problem obliquely, in a way that wouldn't provoke so much 
resistance." 
He propped himself up on one elbow to stare at her. "By God!" he said. "Even 
in this you see more than anyone else can-" He broke off and slumped back. 
"But there is no other way. I've tried them all." "You've been too close to 
the problem even to see them all," she said. "You think so?" He was silent for 
a long moment. "No," he said, "I can't believe that. It's too easy an answer." 
She let him think in silence for a while. "If you don't mind a suggestion . . 
." she said at last. "I might have known!" He smiled grimly at her, aware that 
the moonlight showed his face to her clearly. "No-of course I want a 
suggestion!" "Then suppose I tell you that on Kultis, where I've been working 
underground, the people have found their own way of resisting the armed forces 
Bleys sent to occupy the Exotic worlds? A way that doesn't mean giving up 
their commitment to nonviolence? Would it make a difference if I could show 
you a 
small corner on that world where a new kind of Exotic is coming into being?" 
He stared through the darkness at her, letting her words resound and re-echo 
in his mind, the implications of what she had just said flying out like sound 
waves from each stroke of a clapper against the metal side of some heavy bell. 
"New?" he said. "You mean a development-upward?" "Yes. Possibly upward. But 
new-I'm sure. Totally new, unmistakably different." "And better?" "I think 
so," said Amanda, "there's a group who've revived the old name of Chantry 
Guild for themselves; the name of the organization back in the twenty-first 
century, that you were once concerned with as Paul Formain. The organization 
from which the whole Exotic culture sprang; changed as it was from its 
beginnings." "It would mean He rolled over once more on to his back, 
talking to the ceiling as much as to her, again. "It would mean one more sure 
indication the race as a whole is on the brink of a step forward. But the 
Exotics were a Splinter Culture, 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
59 
like the Friendfies and the Dorsai. More than the Friendlies and Dorsai, they 
were deliberately trying to improve all people. But to make that improvement 
now, under these conditions, when everything they have has been given away, or 
taken from them . . . it's incredible." 
He shook his head. "And even if you're right, would it work here? These are 
Old Earth people, the laggards of the laggards . . ." 
He fell silent, his own mind answering him with the memory of how for this 
last year or so Ajela had been pointing out evidence that on the world below 
its peoples, too, had been changing, giving up-more and more of their 
millennia-old sectionalism. Ajela had talked of how for the first time they 
were 
beginning to think and act as a unit. Rukh had insisted, not once but many 
times repeating what was said by those who had come 
from Harmony and Association to help her speak out against the nihilism of 
those who preached support of Bleys' and the Others' attitudes. These 
Friendlies had said that, even among those who did not flock by the hundreds 
of thousands to see 
Rukh herself in person, some still showed an openness, a 
willingness to see that it was not really the Younger Worlds, like some horde 
of enemies, that threatened them; but a destructive attitude on the part of 
Bleys and the Others that was the core and heart of their opposition, 
He had thought that by saying these things Rukh and Ajela were merely trying 
to lift his own dulled spirits. But perhaps they had been honestly reporting. 
Perhaps, even here on Old Earth, there was a new wind of thought, bringing 
together the established, self-centered, divided and often 
opposed-to-eachother peoples of a world which for some hundreds of years had 
trailed behind the rest of the race in its thinking. 



If that was true . . . then it could suddenly be important what was happening 
on Kultis. If the Exotics were indeed, even in one small spot, anywhere near 
breaking through to a new and better form of their particular Splinter-culture 
type of social human. If that was the case, he badly wanted to see such a 
thing for himself. The problem was, however, he reminded himself, that even if 
this was true and meaningful, he could see no way now that it could help him, 
personally, with the problem that had stopped him dead in his tracks these 
last three vears. 



Gordon R. Dickson 
His spark of momentary excitement had gone out. And into that void Amanda once 
more spoke as if she had been thinking his thoughts with him. "Suppose," she 
said, "you put off telling Tam-say, for the two months it would take you to go 
to Kultis, see for yourself what I'm talking about-and return?" "Yes," he said 
slowly, as he thought about her suggestion. Even though his excitement had 
cooled, he found he could cling to the thought that, in any case it was two 
more months for Tam, Ajela and the rest to hope in. Even Amanda might hope. 
She had not asked for herself, but then she would not; although she and he 
were so close that he could not avoid knowing how it would cost her to lose 
him, just as it would cost him to be parted from her. "I'd like you to go with 
me," he said to her. "I'd planned on it," she said. "I'd have to guide you to 
the people I've been talking about, anyway. They're hidden as well as they can 
be from the Others' occupying military. Once there, though, I'd have to leave 
you with them and just drop back at intervals. It's my district and I've got 
responsibilities there. Also, in this case, I better not carry you to Kultis 
by myself. We'll need a driver." "So long as you get someone who can keep a 
secret." "About the fact you're gone from the Encyclopedia?" she said. "Did 
you think I wouldn't'? Leave all that to me; and we'll get under way as soon 
as possible." 


-All right then," he said, "but two months only, including travel time." 
"Including travel time. Yes," she said. 
He nodded and smiled-for her sake. But it was no use, said the inner part of 
him. It was a false hope, only delaying the inevitable, while shortening 
vitally necessary time. Desperately, he wished he could find some way of 
estimating when the Younger Worlds would have enough properly crewed ships 
outside the phase-shield to try a breakthrough to Earth. 
But it was no use hoping for that. Even Bleys could not know. It would depend 
on how much flesh and blood could stand on the Younger Worlds; how fast the 
people there could be driven to produce what the Others needed. 
CHAPTER 
"You're leaving immediately?" said Ajela the next morning. "Hal---it's bad 
enough you're going. Don't tell me you're planning to leave in the next 
minute!" "We'd better, I'm afraid," said Hal. "I said two months, which may 
make time short enough as it is, at the Kultis end. I don't want to waste any 
more going and coming than I have to. 
He turned to Amanda. "You've got gear on board 'for me, Amanda?" he asked. 
"All you'll need," said Amanda. "Simon's been taking care of that, haven't 
you, Simon?" 
She was speaking to Simon Graeme, the great-grandson of Ian, who had been 
Donal Graerne's uncle. It was a small double miracle that Amanda had been able 
to find him to be their driver. There had been none in her being able to find 
him on such short notice, even after three years of her being away from her 
own people. The Dorsai forces' location system, if greatly less sophisticated, 
was almost as swift as the system in the Final Encyclopedia. 
But the first of the small miracles came from the fact that he had not gone 
out like Amanda to an undercover job on one of the Other-controlled worlds. 
Like her, he had had considerable contact with off-Dorsai people, which 
ideally suited him for such work. 
The second had been the fact that the patrol duty slot he 

62 
Gordon R. Dickson 
was in, here at Old Earth, was one he was willing and able to leave. "They've 
got a robe Exotics are required to wear," Simon told Hal, "something like a 
civilian uniform, all but required by the forces occupying them-you'll see. I 
duplicated the one 
Amanda's been wearing in a somew at arger sty e, t an s to the Final 
Encyclopedia here. Footwear's the real problem; but a lot of the Exotics moved 
back and forth to other worlds, including Old Earth, and some of the earlier 
stuff's still worn, since everything's hard to get for the native population 
these days. " 
His voice was a slightly deeper bass than Hal's. Otherwise, considering the 
distance in time and relationship between them, they were remarkably alike. 
Simon, of course, could have no way of knowing that Hal had once been Donal. 
As far as ordinary information went, the Dorsai could only know what all the 
worlds knew: that Hal had been rescued as a baby from an antique courier-size 
spacecraft that had drifted into the near-vicinity of Old Earth; and that 
after being rescued, Hal had been raised on that world by tutors from the 
three Splinter Cultures. But Ian had lived long enough that Simon had been ten 
years old when Ian died. Simon could not fail to see Ian's likeness in Hal. 
If nothing else, Simon must almost necessarily guess they had some kind of 
relationship. It was possible he took Hal for a 
descendant of a child on another world whom Ian had never acknowledged 
fathering. But Hal suspected that his somewhat distant and generations-younger 
cousin had actually guessed at something more than that. 
But in any case, he had never said anything of what he might have concluded. 
In person, there were obvious differences between them. Simon was shorter than 
Hal, stockier, with a more wedge-shaped face and dark brown rather than black 
hair. 
But for all that, the feeling of family was strong between them, as always 
among the Graernes of Foralie; and from their first moment of meeting three 
years earlier, Simon had shown that he felt it, as did Hal. As far as 
appearances went they might have been-not brothers perhaps, but cousins-though 
their similarity was most visible, oddly enough, when either or both were in 
motion. Simon's body movements were more fluid and 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
63 
bitlanced, as suited someone who had been born on the Dorsai and never out of 
training. Hal's were in some sense innate; and had-strange as the word might 
sound-something almost spiritual about them. But when the two men moved side 
by side, the attention of anyone watching was somehow drawn to the same 
heavy-boned leanness, and cragginess of feature, in them both. 
Amanda had located Simon in two hours, Encyclopedia time; and he had been 
delivered to them within three hours after that. In the single hour since, he 
had got Amanda's ship ready to take them to Kultis. "Thanks, Simon," Hal said 
now. A thought struck him. "Would you answer a question for me, come to think 
of it. You've had three years here. What do you think of the Old Earth people? 
I mean, the ones you've had to deal with since you've been here?" 
Simon frowned. "They're different from any of the people on the Younger Worlds 
I've met," he said, "and than I'd imagined them. It's hard to put my finger 
exactly on how." 
He still frowned. "It's as if they're all very aware of the ornamental things 
of life; I mean, the things you've got time for after you've won the daily 
struggle for existence. C&riainly, they've rebuilt Earth itself in the past 
hundred years into a green and pleasant world. But, particularly this last 
year or so, I get a feeling from them of a hunger, of sorts. As if they were 
lacking something but didn't know exactly what. Rich but unsatisfied, says it 
maybe. Perhaps that's why, in spite of belonging to a million different sects, 
groups and so forth, they all flock so to listen when Rukh, or one of her 
people, lectures them on faith and purpose. I don't know. " "I'd have said 



myself that they were in an evangelically ready state," said Ajela. "There's 
no doubt about the hunger behind their coming to listen to us. But Simon 
Graeme is right. They don't really know what it is they're hungry for." "Yes," 
said Hal. "You've noticed changes, too, then. All right. Another reason to 
take a look at Kultis. Also, come to think of it, another reason why we need 
to get moving as soon as nn,oJh1(- " 



64 
Gordon R. Dickson 
He reached out to hug Ajela, who was closest; but the golden-haired woman 
pulled back from him. "You will not-I tell you flatly," said Ajela, "you will 
not leave without seeing Tam before you go." 
Her tone was angry, but there was something more than anger in what she said. 
"I hadn't intended to, of course," said Hal softly. "I wouldn't leave the 
Encyclopedia without seeing him. Can I talk to him now, or is he resting?" 
"I'll see," said Ajela, still with an edge in her voice. She got up and went 
out of the room by another door than that by which the rest had all entered-a 
door behind her desk. 
She was back within the minute. "It's all right," she said. "You can see him 
now, Hal. Amanda, do you mind if I just take Hal in by himself9 Tam tries to 
respond to everyone who comes to see him; and he hasn't got the strength for 
more than one person at a time, really." "Of course not," said Amanda-and 
smiled. "Not that I imagine you'd let me in, even if I did." "Of course not. 
But, I'm sorry-you may have another chance later to meet him and he's not 
strong . . . these days. "
Take Hal in and don't worry about my being upset over missing a chance to 
meet him," said Amanda. "Common sense first. " "Thank you for understanding," 
said Ajela. She turned and went to the door she had just come through, and Hal 
followed her. The door opened, and shut behind them. 
Within, suddenly, Hal found himself in a dimness. No, not actually a dimness, 
he realized, but a dulling of the light after the level of illumination of 
Ajela's office and the corridors. For a moment it baffled him-as if a thin 
mist had sprung up to obscure all that was around him. 
Then he remembered that these quarters of Tam's were kept always on a lighting 
cycle matched to the day and night of the Earth directly below the 
Encyclopedia@ as Hal's illusion of his estate had been under the same rain and 
wind as the actual place itself would have been at that time. 
On the Earth's surface, directly under them now, it would now therefore be the 
ending of the day; a time of long shadows, or of no shadows at all if the 
anoroachinp evenim, was closim, in 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
65 
behind a sky obscured by clouds, as it must be. The light was going from the 
surface underneath them, and from this room alike. 
Aside from that, the room itself was as he had always remembered Tam keeping 
it-half office, half forest glade, with a small stream of water flowing 
through it. Beside that stream were the old-fashioned overstuffed armchairs, 
and Tam in one of them; though that particular chair had become elongated and 
more slantwise of back, so that it was almost as much bed as chair. In this 
Tam sat, or lay, dressed as he had been every time Hal had seen him, in shirt, 
slacks and jacket. Only this time a 
cloth of red and white, its colors garish in the lesser light, lay across his 
knees. 
As his eyes rested on it, he saw Tam's index finger make a sideways movement; 
and Ajela came hastily around Hal and went swiftly forward to take up the 
cloth and carry it away out of sight beyond the trees. It was only then that 
Hal recognized it as the Interplanetary Newsman's cloak Tam had been qualified 
to wear before he came back to the Encyclopedia for good. The cloak was still 
set on the colors of red and white Tam had programmed it for over a century 
ago, before the death of David Hall, his young brother-in-law; for whom Tam 
had considered himself responsible, and for whose death at the hands of a 
Friendly fanatic Tam had never forgiven himself. 
Hal looked into the old man's eyes, and for the first time saw the stillness 
there. A stillness that echoed like a sound, like some massive blow in a tall, 
dark, many-chambered structureso that the echoes came back, and came back 
again; bringing Hal strangely, in sudden, powerful emotion, a vision of the 
weary King Arthur Pendragon, at the end of Alfred Tennyson's poetic Idylls of 



the King. Without warning the room was overlaid in Hal's mind with even darker 
shadows from the vision built by the poet's lines about that last battle by 
the seashore. 
. . .but when the dolorous day 
Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came 
A bitter wind, clearfirom the north, and blew The mist aside, and with that 
wind the tide Rose, and the pale King glanced across the field 



66 Gordon R. Dickson 
Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon, Nor yet of heathen; only the wan wave 
Brake in among deadfaces, to andfro Swaying the helpless hands, and up and 
down Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen, And shiver'd brands that once 
hadfought with Rome, And rolling far along the gloomy shores The voice of days 
of old and days to be.... 
For a long second Hal could not think what had brought these lines and Tam 
together in his mind. Then he realized that, like Arthur then, Tam now looked 
out and saw no one but the dead. They were all dead, all those he had known as 
a child, as a young man, as a man of middle age. He had left them all behind. 
in the closed pages of history, long since. 
Hal chilled. For in the same way those he had known as Donal were now gone, 
all dead. Including Kensie, his uncle, who was one of the deaths Tam carried 
on his conscience. And as he looked at Tam now, a whisper came and went in 
Hal's mind, a question-will 1, too, come to this? 
He shook himself out of the vision, went forward and took one of Tam's hands, 
where it lay in Tam's lap. It had been an old hand when Hal had first touched 
it, years ago; and it was hardly older looking now. Except that perhaps the 
skin had sunk a little more between the tendons, and made the veins stand out 
more on the back of it. Tam looked up at Hal. "Here you are," he said. His 
voice had been hoarsened by years, long since. Now it was faint in volume as 
well. "Is she with you?" "I'm here," said Ajela. "Not you," said Tam, faintly 
still, but with a hint of his old asperity. "The other one-damn my memory-the 
Dorsai!" "You mean Amanda?" said Hal. "She just got here, but she's leaving 
right away, again. I'm going with her for two months to Kultis-if you can wait 
for me that long. She thinks she's found Exotics there who are evolving-that's 
what I came 
to tell you. " "Bring her in here," said Tam. "Tam, too many people-," Ajela 
began. "It's my life still," whispered Tam. "I have to see her. I want 
11 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
67 
Ajela went off. Tam's eyes sought Hal's. "You should go with her, yes," he 
said, his voice strengthening; so that almost, as Hal stood holding the 
ancient hand still in his, there now seemed almost no change at all between 
this moment and that when Hal had first taken it, those long years past when 
he had come here in flight. He had been running then away from Bleys and the 
murder of his tutors; and toward a maturity that would begin with more than 
three years working in the mines of metal-rich Coby. Only now, the full weight 
of the hand he held hung strengthlessly against the palm of his own larger 
one. "I knew she was here. I knew you'd be going off for a while. Got to talk 
to her," said Tam; and for the moment-for just the moment now-his eyes were 
looking no longer on the dead but on the living. "She'll be right here," said 
Hal; and in fact at that moment Ajela brought Amanda through the door behind 
him up to the chair. "Tam," said Ajela, "here she is. Amanda Morgan." 
Tam's hand pulled away and slid out of Hal's grasp. It reached for Amanda and 
she took it in her own. "Lean close," Tam said to her. "Bastard doctors! 
They're so proud of giving me eyes like a twenty-year-old in perfect health; 
and I still can't see what I want unless I have people close. There, I see you 
now." 
Their two faces, the dark, aged mask of Tam and the taut-skinned, perfect 
features of Amanda, were now only inches apart as she leaned down to him. 
"Yes," said Tam, looking into her eyes, "you'll do. I knew you were here. You 
see things, don't you?" "Yes," said Amanda softly. "So do I,- said Tam, with a 
hoarse, tiny bark of a laugh, "but that's because I'm halfway through the door 
to death. Do you believe me, Amanda Morgan?" "I believe you," she said. "Then 
believe in your seeing, always. Yes, I know you do that now; but I want to 
tell you to believe always, too; except for one time. You love him, of 
course." "Yes," said Amanda. "The time's going to come . . . one time, when 
what you'll see will be what is to be; but that one time you'll have to 



Gordon R. Dickso n 
remember not to believe it. You'll know the time I'm talking about when you 
come to it. But, do you hear me? One time, only. You'll see him then, and your 
seeing will be right; but if you believe what you see, you'll, be wrong. So, 
don't believe, that one time. Have faith. Believe in what you believe, 
instead." 
Amanda's face was very still. "What are you telling me?" she whispered. "When 
the time comes, and you see him in something that must not be, don't believe 
it. Promise me. At the hardest moment, the worst time, even though what you 
see is true, don't believe. Because he'll need to know you won't believe, 
then." "Not believe . . . " she echoed. "Promise me." "Yes," she said, and her 
hand tightened on his. "I don't understand, but I'll be ready. If it comes to 
that, I'll have faith beyond any seeing." "Good," said Tam on the exhale of 
one weary sigh. His hand slipped out of her grasp as it had slipped from 
Hal's, to lie again in his lap. He spoke without looking away from her. "Did 
you hear her, Hal?" "Yes," said Hal. "But I don't understand you, either." 
"For you, it doesn't matter. ,' Tam turned his head away. "You've got to go," 
said Ajela, moving forward. "He's worn out. He's got to rest now." 
They turned away from the old man, who was no longer looking at them, as if he 
had already forgotten their presence; and Ajela herded them out of the room. 
CHAPTER 
Amanda's ship, with Simon at the controls, hung in orbit above the night side 
of Kultis. 
Only one of the planet's moons was in the sky with them. Once, when the 
Exotics had been the richest of the Younger Worlds, this, like its sister 
world of Mara, had owned a 
space-approach warning system that would have signaled the appearance of any 
craft within a hundred thousand kilometers of its surface. Now the men and 
women who had manned that system were dead or gone, and the very system itself 
had been cannibalized of its parts or left to grow dusty in uselessness. 
Below, the planetary night side was a round shape of darkness occulting the 
stars and the smaller of the two moons beyond; but the instruments aboard the 
ship cut through the darkness and the cloud cover separating them from the 
surface and showed it as bright as if daylit. The screen showing that surface 
was already on close magnification that gave them a view of northern tropical 
uplands mounting to the foothills of successive ranges of sharply rising 
mountains, tall enough to have their peaks snow-capped even in this climate 
and season. As they continued their descent the viewer showed a road running 
upcountry past what had been homes and estates, scattered Exotic-fashion with 
plenty of land around them; through a small city and on into the mountains. 
Amanda was instructing Hal and Simon; particularly, at the moment, Simon. 



70 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
71 
"We'll be following the route of that road, approximately," she was saying to 
him. "The Chantry Guild is in the Zipaca Mountains, that range to our left 
there. The more lofty range to the right are the Grandfathers of Dawn, and the 
flat valley-floor in between them that widens as it comes toward us is the 
Mayahuel Valley. There's a more direct route to where we're going; but I want 
Hal to get the context for it all, first-I want him to see some of the rest of 
Kultis as it is now. So we'll make a couple days' walk out of it. You set us 
down, here . . . " 
Her words were precise and clean-edged on Hal's ear, so that they stood out as 
if in italics. She had changed, he thought, listening, since that moment with 
Tam just before they left. She was more authoritative, more intense. 
Without any specific alteration in her tone or her manner, her voice now 
seemed to carry the burden of a purpose that took precedence over everything 
else. As if she was now driven by something she had committed herself to carry 
through at any and all cost. 
The difference in her had become apparent to him almost immediately they had 
left Tam's quarters for the ship. His first awareness of a difference in her 
had been when they were almost to the ship; when she had fallen back from 
walking at his side, turning and stopping Ajela and Rukh who were following 
them, so that his next few steps carried him beyond the point where he could 
hear what she said to them, briefly and in a low voice, before turning to 
catch up with him once more. 
He had felt an unreasonable, but for a moment very real, flash of irritation. 
What was it she had to say to them that he could not be trusted to hear as 
well? As they had boarded the ship and all the way to where they were now 
above Kultis, he had waited for her to give him some explanation of what she 
had stopped to tell the others. But she had said nothing. In fact, she had 
acted as if that moment had never taken place; but since then he had noticed 
this driven quality in her, this difference. 
It must, he thought, have something to do with Tam's vision about which he had 
warned her. Had some sort of private spark leaped between the two of them in 
that moment, without his seeing it? He told himself it was nothing; it was 
none of his business, in any case. But the memory and the difference in her 
now gnawed at him regardless. 
She was reaching out now to touch the screen and a blue 
.circle came to outline the place she had indicated; and then 
another, smaller screen suddenly showed a magnified view of the place she had 
touched. In that screen they saw things as if they hung only four or five 
meters above the ground, over a small patch of bushes just off the road, whose 
ruts were black, the higher surfaces between them palely contrasted in the 
cloud-filtered moonlight. The road was only some ten meters away from their 
point of view. "You see this?" Amanda said to Simon, holding up a white rag of 
a cloth, grayed from many launderings and slightly longer than it was wide, 
with ragged edges forming a roughly rectangular shape. "I've made a micrograph 
of this, so your viewer can identify even an edge of it, if that's all that's 
visible. You know our general route. Search along it each night, in the area 
of where a day's walk should have taken us. I'll try to display this somewhere 
every day or night we stop. I'll put it where the viewer can sight it-tangled 
in the branches or laid on top of one of those bushes down there, for example. 
One corner should always be folded under; and that corner will point in the 
direction we're headed, in case we have to vary from the original route. You 
should be able to find it displayed every night, except if we're overnighting 
in the city. It's too likely to be suspected as a signal there; so in the city 
I may not display it. If you can't find it for one night, don't worry. After 
three nights in a row without seeing it or any sign of us you can 
investigate-if you think it's reasonably safe for you to do so. Otherwise, 



don't try. "No otherwise," said Simon. "Simon," said Amanda. "You're our 
driver on this. You take orders." "Not where it comes to any chance that doing 
nothing might cost us Hal," said Simon. He held up a hand before she could 
speak. "It's what he means to our side, not just the personal connection 
between us-or the business of never leaving one of your own behind when you 
don't know what happened to them. " 
Slowly, she nodded. Hal felt he should say something to refute such an opinion 
but there was no easy short way of doing it. In any case, it was too late. 
Amanda was already answering. "All right," she was saying, "I wouldn't be 
around to stop you, anyway, if it comes to that. Now, if you're satisfied 
you've got everything you want to know before we take off, you can 



72 
Gordon R. Dickson 
start setting us down-" She tapped the screen where the closer view now 
revealed in one comer the fire-blackened wall of some ruined homestead, rather 
than the living villa they had scerned to view from a higher point of 
inspection. "Right away, ma'am," said Simon, sitting down to the controls. 
"Hat," said Amanda. "Come on back and get dressed." "Redressed, you mean, 
don't you?" said Hal, following her into the stateroom. "I've already got 
clothes on." "Redressed by all means, if that's the phrase you prefer," said 
Amanda, handing him a brown sackcloth penitential robe, similar to the one in 
which she had left Kultis. She started to slip out of her coveralls and back 
into a robe of her own. "How about you?" she went on. "Are you satisfied you 
know everything you need to know? You aren't rusty on your short-language and 
signals after three years at a desk?" 
She was referring to what was basically a secret language built up and passed 
down from one generation of children under twelve years of age to the next. It 
gained and lost words from generation to generation, and was different from 
family to family. But the children of neighbors as close to each other as the 
Graemes and Morgans of Foralie had practically a language in common. The 
reference to signals was to the silent body language, varying from minute to 
large physical movements, which the Dorsai as a Splinter Culture had refined 
into a second tongue they could use to converse, unnoticed, even as bound 
prisoners under the noses of captors. "Not in the least," said Hal. "Be sure 
then to pay attention if I shout 'court,' whatever else you do. The people 
manning the garrisons that the Others put in here live for reprisals." 
She was specifically alluding to the effective, short, oneX 
Ilable descendant of the ancient cry of "quarter"; which the o[r D sai 
professional soldiers had early put to use to advise each other in the midst 
of combat that they should disable only, and if possible avoid killing, those 
with which they happened to be fighting at the moment. 
I'll be listening," said Hal. "Don't worry." "I never worry," said Amanda; and 
he was sensible enough not to argue the point with her. 
Dressed in their unflattering garments, and carrving bags with 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
73 
drawstring tops that held all their other possessions, they stepped out of the 
ship twenty minutes later into the spicily soft and warm night atmosphere of 
Kultis. 
Amanda had picked their landing spot well-not that Simon would have done badly 
if the decision had been left up to him. A tall stand of trees shielded them 
from the road and they had landed in the darkness of one roofless room of the 
burned villa they had seen in the vision screen. Its walls lifted above the 
spacecraft and hid it further in shadow. "Good luck," said the voice of Simon 
from the darkened port. The outer lock door of the port closed and the ship 
fell silently upward, out of sight. 
Amanda's fingers caught hold of the sleeve of Hal's robe, held and towed him 
out of the shadow into the relative illumination of the cloud-dimmed 
moonlight; and from there, on through a ruined doorway into further shadow 
again-
And suddenly they were under attack. The sounds of feet rushing across grimed 
flooring, the rustle of clothing, were adequate warning; along with the stink 
of breath and uncleaned bodies. The outburst of yells that came as their 
attackers closed around Hal and Amanda was clearly intended to be one of 
triumph; and in fact Hal found himself caught by at least three people at 
once, two aiming at his upper body and one at his legs. At the same time, 
high-pitched to carry over the other voices and noise, came the sound of 
Amanda's voice. "Court!" 
Hardly fair, thought Hal, more than a little irritated, as he spun away from 
those trying to hold him, breaking the finger of one who would not loosen his 
hold and throwing a second into a tangle with the third, leg-level attacker. 



Here he was, in almost total darkness, barely hours after the three years at 
the desk Amanda had talked about, set upon by an unknown but certainly large 
number of attackers; and within moments of landing, she was telling him not to 
hurt these people too seriously. Those who were now earnestly trying to grab 
and hold them did not smell like garrison soldiers who might be eager for an 
excuse to indulge in acts of reprisal-
His first feeling of annoyance was wiped out without warning in a sudden 
upsurge of something like joy within him. Joy at having something real and 
physical to come to grips with after 



Gordon R. Dickson 
the past years of fighting imponderables and unknowns. His reflexes from his 
training under Malachi Nasuno, the Dorsai who had been one of his tutors as 
the boy Hal Mayne; an I his far greater training as the young Donal, growing 
up and working as a professional soldier-these all but forgotten memories took 
him over. He began to whirl among his foes, tangling them up with one another 
and putting them down with throws wherever possible. 
An excruciating and sudden bang on the right side of his skull changed things 
abruptly. The lightless room seemed to spark for a moment within his own head 
and then gray out around him, abruptly chan .ging his feelings to a simple, 
instinctive yearning for survival. The only thought that stirred in his 
suddenly dulled brain was that he should have sensed coming the blow that had 
hit him, and avoided it. Reflexively, he had already dropped to the floor, 
gathering himself into a ball as he did so and rolling sideways. He came up 
against something and hastily spun away. The Exotics, he knew from experience, 
had liked homes with large rooms in them; and the houses he had seen in the 
screen of the ship from above had been empty shells. Therefore, there should 
be nothing much between the walls to impede him unless it was some other human 
being. Moreover, it only made sense that those who attacked him and Amanda 
would have let them get into the center of a room, so as to come at them from 
all sides at once. 
He did not think all this out consciously as he was spinning away from whoever 
or whatever he had touched. Rather, it was a conclusion reached just above the 
level of instinct. He needed time for his head to clear. 
It did, and with his return to clarity came the beginnings of a 
burning anger at himself, as well as a return of the unhappiness that had been 
growing in him this last year and more. The fact he had been given no more 
than part-time instruction by a 
Dorsai as a growing boy on Old Earth; and that it had been a 
hundred years since, as Donal, he had been personally in action, did not 
excuse him. His lacks were clear. 
He was no longer a Dorsai in the sense of the fighting potential of that name. 
Any adult, properly schooled Dorsai would have been moving with his ears open, 
would have built and carried in his head as he fought a lightless mental 
picture of what his opponents were doing@ and been ready for that blow. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
7S 
He did know that it had been no thrown fist that had hit him; but something 
used as a weapon-a length of wood, perhaps. 
He listened for a second longer, translating the sounds around him into that 
mental picture he now remembered being taught to form. Amanda had cleared away 
all who had come close to her and was now nearly at the farther door out of 
the room. The ones not still engaged in trying to reach her were feeling 
around, trying to find him-evidently under the assumption that whoever hit him 
had knocked him unconscious. 
Then he was on his feet again, a portion of his attention continually updating 
the picture frorn the sounds he heard and looking for a pattern in the actions 
of his attackers. There was always a pattern, made up in separate parts by 
those who were ready and willing to come to grips; followed by those who would 
become willing once the combat began; and those who only wanted to hang around 
the edges safely until the prey had been secured by the strongest of their 
group and it was safe to pile on, shouting as if they had been in the action 
from the beginning. 
Now he was ready to move through them to join Amanda. This time, he met what 
he had expected. About thirty seconds of contact were enough to satisfy him 
now that the group which had jumped them was no more than a dozen adults, of 
which only four or five were daring enough to offer real threats. 
Almost as soon as the deduction was completed in the back of his head, the 
three full-effort fighters he had encountered on his way to the door were 



either all put aside or bypassed. Amanda, his ears told him, had already gone 
through the farther exit. He followed her; and his ears told him those they 
had left behind did not follow. 
Amanda's soft whistle asked if he was all right. He whistled back, went toward 
the sound she had made, and they came together. "No problem," messaged 
Amanda's fingers, tapping his cheek. "We can go on with no more trouble now. 
Follow me." 
She led him farther through the darkness and they emerged after a bit into an 
area of no shadows at all, just as the clouds thinned slightly overhead; and 
he was able to see that they were now outside the walls of the ruined villa. 
"Some illegal farmers, I think. A family or families who came out to work 
their field at night," said Amanda in a normal voice. "They didn't have the 
slightest idea who we might be, 



76 
Gordon R. Dickson 
except that in these clothes we obviously weren't garrison soldiers and there 
might be something in our sacks that could be used by them." "So those were 
some of the native Exotics-after only two years?" Hal demanded. A sudden 
suspicion stirred in him. "Did you know they were there, when you leci me into 
that place?" "No," she said, "but it was likely we'd run into some like that 
along the way." 
She did not elaborate; and his unspoken question was answered. There had been 
a reason she had wanted him to experience that particular type of "new" 
Exotic; so different from what she had promised to show him, back at the 
Encyclopedia. He tucked the fact away. Her reasons would become apparent soon 
enough. "Now," she said, as they emerged from the shell of the building into 
the moonlight. Across a ruined level area that must once have been either a 
lawn or garden, the surrounding trees made a semicircle of darkness, with a 
gap and the hint of what might have been a road or path curving off to the 
left to be lost in them. "We go this way." 
She led into the woods to the right of the path. "A driveway, once," she said. 
"It'll connect with the road a 
few dozen meters over. But we'd better stay off the road proper. We'll just 
travel alongside it; and we ought to be within an easy day's walk of the city 
you saw on the screen -Porphyry's its name. We won't make it before sun-up. 
When daylight comes 
we'll have to be careful in our travel and avoid reaching the town at the 
wrong time of day." 
It was a not unpleasant walk by moonlight, for the cloud cover soon thinned to 
nothingness, and disappeared completely shortly after that; they moved easily 
under Sofia, the more brilliant of Kuitis's moons. 
The moonlight revealed, but also hid things. Almost it was 
possible for Hal to imagine that there had been no changes since he had been 
there last; and this illusion persisted except when they would come upon the 
shell of some sad-looking, wrecked and burned-out habitation. In the bright 
but colorless light, these remains of what had once been homes seemed almost 
magically capable of summoning up in Hal a memory of the lightness and beauty 
that the Exotics had put into their 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
77 
habitations. As if they wrapped around themselves now the ghosts of the beauty 
with which the Exotics had always seemed to try to make up for the 
abstractness of the philosophy that was their obsession as one of the three 
largest and most successful of the Younger Worlds' Splinter Cultures. 
There were the noises of night birds, and some insects, and other stirrings, 
but no sounds of large creatures. The Exotics had not imported the genetic 
starter material for variform animals of any size, beyond what was necessary 
for the ecology, except for some domestic animals. Their philosophy looked 
askance at the keeping of pets; and most of the things they couldn't do 
themselves, they were wealthy enough to buy machinery to do, or to hire 
off-planet workers-animals were not needed except for the stock of the dairy 
farms or sheep ranches. 
The total effect of the night, the different darktime sounds and the soft, 
scented air, gave Hal a feeling of dreamy unreality which was still underlaid 
with his return to unhappiness, and only partially affected by the growing 
headache from the blow to the side of his head. He had been lucky, at that, he 
thought, even as he automatically began to exert some of the physical 
self-disciplines he had been taught in both his childhoods. His efforts were 
not as much to get rid of the pain, as to put it off to one side, mentally, so 
that it could be ignored by the normal workings of his body and mind. A little 
farther forward and it would have come against his temple, where that much of 
a blow, even from a length of tree limb, could-
He woke suddenly to the potential of what he was feeling and stopped walking 



suddenly. Amanda checked herself in midstride beside him. "What is it?" she 
asked. "I took a hit on the head, back there," he said. "Something more than 
someone's fist. Maybe a staff or a club of wood. I didn't think too much of it 
until just now-" "Sit down," said Amanda. "Let me take a look." 
He dropped into a sitting position, cross-legged on the earth below him; and 
was rewarded by a new shock of pain in his head at his body's impact with the 
ground. "Right side of my head," he said. 
Amanda's fingers went among his hair, parting it as she bent over him. 



78 
Gordon R. Dickson 
"This moonlight's bright enough so I ought to be able to see . . . " 
She found something by his sudden feel of her touch-a cut, at least. "No 
noticeable swelling about the scalp," she said, "but it's the swelling inside 
the skull we've got to worry about. Did it feel as if it might be enough to 
cause a concussion? What can you tell about it from the inside? How hard were 
you hit?" "I couldn't tell you-it dazed me a bit," he said, "for maybe a dozen 
seconds, no more. It didn't knock me off my feet. I remember dropping 
deliberately and rolling away from the action. Now . . . " 
He probed his own sensations for information. It was ironic, here on this 
world, that the techniques he was using were as much Exotic as Dorsai. The two 
Splinter Cultures had been on a parallel track in these matters; and when they 
realized it, information had been freely passed back and forth between them. 
Basically, there was much the body could tell the mind that drove it, if the 
mind could discipline itself to listen along ancient pathways of nerve and 
instinct. 
He sat motionless, inwardly listening in this fashion. Amanda sat beside him. 
After a bit, he spoke. "No," he said, "I don't think fluid's going to 
accumulate in the brain, at least to any point where pressure on the brain by 
the skull is going to cause real trouble. But I think I'd better stop; and not 
try to travel any more for the rest of the night." "Absolutely," said Amanda. 
She looked around. "We're out of sight of the road. Lie back. I'll make you a 
bed of twigs and large leaves; and you can shift to that when it's ready." 
He lay back, suddenly very grateful to be able to do so; resting his head on a 
half-buried root emerging from some large native plant, a sort of tree-sized 
bush. He closed his eyes and concentrated his attention, not merely on 
isolating the pain, but on holding back the natural responses of his body that 
wanted to pour fluid into the bruised area beneath the unyielding bone of his 
skull. 
Awareness of his body, of its pressure against the naked ground, the moonlight 
on his eyelids, and all his other feelings, began to dwindle into 
nonexistence. He was relaxing. The pain was dwindling too. The forest around 
him ceased to be and time began to lose its meaning. He was only automatically 
and 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
79 
distantly aware of Amanda helping him to shift over a half meter or so to his 
right, on to a soft and springy bed a little above the surface on which he had 
been lying. 
All things moved away from him into nothingness and he slept. 
Out of that same nothingness he came into the place he had dreamed of twice 
before. He was aware that he dreamed now, but it changed nothing; because the 
dream was reality and reality was the dream. 
He was once more on the rubbled plain, the small stones underfoot long since 
grown to giant boulders. Far back, on his last visit here, he had passed the 
vine-covered gate of metal bars through which he had seen Bleys, who was 
unable to pass through and be on the same side as he was . . . of what? A made 
wall of stone? Some natural barrier of rock? He could not remember, and it did 
not matter now. 
What mattered was that he was at last coming close to the tower. Always, it 
had seemed to recede from him as he worked his way toward it; but now it was 
undeniably close-although how close that closeness was, there was no telling. 
A kilometer? Half or a quarter that distance? Double or more that distance? 
But it was close. Undeniably, no longer distant. It loomed over him, with its 
black, narrow apertures that were windows. He should be able at last, now, to 
reach it with just a little more effort. 
But that was the problem. He was close to weeping with frustration. He lay on 
the lip of a steep but short drop to the bottom of a trench perhaps twenty 
meters wide; with as steep an upward sweep on its far side. It was perhaps 



four times his height in depth; but its sides were not absolutely vertical. He 
could slide down this side and go up the other on his hands and knees. 
Only, he could not. A terrible weakness had come on him, gradually, over the 
long distance he had traveled. That was why he lay on the rocks now like a man 
half dead. Now he lacked the strength even to rise to his feet. The trench was 
nothing, easily passable ordinarily to anyone with even half his normal 
strength; but that was just what he did not have. A lack of strength like that 
of the dying Tam Olyn held him where he was. 
He concentrated, trying to drive his body with everything that he had been 
tau2ht as Donal, and as the bov Hal Mavne. bv all 



80 
Gordon R. Dickson 
of his tutors. Sheer fury alone should have been enough to move this dead 
carcass that was his body, at least down the slope before him. 
But it would not. He realized slowly that the enemy this time was within him. 
He could fight what lay outside; but it was himself who kept him from crossing 
the trench; though every fiber of his being and all his life was concentrated 
and dedicated to the effort of getting through and beyond it to the tower. 
He struggled to isolate that inner enemy, to bring it to grips; but it was 
everywhere and nowhere in him. Desperate, still fighting, he slipped at last 
back into the grayness of slumber and slept until daylight woke him to the 
reality that was Kultis. 
CHAPTER 
10 
When he woke, the sun was already well above the horizon. It was unlike him to 
sleep so heavily and long, out in the open. On the other hand, his headache 
was greatly reduced. As he came to he had not been conscious of it at all-, 
but then it began to make itself felt, growing in intensity; and he had 
expected it to mount to the sharpness he had felt the night before. Clearly, 
though, the blow on his head had done no real harm. 
However, the headache had stopped growing at a level that required hardly any 
concentration to put it aside from his attention. Still, since he wanted the 
whole of his mind free to concentrate on whatever they might run into, he made 
the mental effort to shift it out, off to the fringes of his consciousness. 
There it perched like a bird in a tree, at roost-still with him, but easily 
ignored except when a deliberate attempt was made to check on it. 
Amanda had evidently been out gathering some of the wild fruit and vegetable 
products of the forest for their breakfast. She had them piled on a large 
lime-green leaf, others of which she had used to make a covering over the 
twigs which had provided the springs for Hal's forest bed. He recognized some 
variform bananas, custard apples, and ugli fruit among the eatables she had 
gathered; but most were probably variforms, or hybrid varieties, of the native 
flora, adapted to be usable by the human digestive system. 
81 



82 
Gordon R. Dickson 
Among these were a number of thick roots of various shapes and sizes, and what 
seemed to be several varieties of fruit with thick skins bristling with 
spines. They had all the unfriendly appearance of the Old Earth cactus pear. 
And there was 
something that was neither fruit nor root, but looked like the white pith 
stripped from inside the stems of some plant. 
Cautiously, Hal sat up, prepared for his headache to explode in protest at the 
motion. But it did not. He moved forward and sat cross-legged at the edge of 
the leaf. Amanda was already seated, cross-legged herself, on its other side. 
"Breakfast," she said, waving at the scattering on the leaf. "I've been 
waiting for you. How are you?" "Much better," said Hal. "In fact, for 
practical purposes, I couldn't be much better." "Good!" she said. She pointed 
to the produce on the leaf before her. "Tuck in," she said. 
Hal looked at the food Amanda spread out. "With all this why do they need to 
come out at night to plant fields?" 
"Because they want and need a more balanced diet," she answered. "Also they 
want to store supplies for those days when the Occupation authorities won't 
let them get out into the woods to gather. Those allowed days have been set up 
so that if the local people depended on gathering alone they'd starve to 
death. Their passes simply aren't validated for enough so-called 'travel' 
days-days they're allowed outside the walls of the town. " "I see," said Hal. 
"Also, out here there're only a few variform rabbits and other small wild 
animals they can catch and kill to supplement the protein of which they don't 
get enough-they need garden 
2 ve etables to make that loss up. Plus they need the root @etables that are 
best raised in quantity in a plot. Those people who attacked us last night 
probably thought we were either there to rob their plot, or we were hunters 
who might have meat with us they could legitimately take-since legally we're 
on their ground. It'd have to be one or the other, since there's nothing left 
to scavenge out here." "You knew they were there," said Hal. "That's why you 
called 'court.' " 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
83 
"I know of that family," she said, "and when they jumped us I guessed it was 
one of the nights they stayed out. They leave town and simply don't go back 
until the evening of the next day; and either bribe one of the curfew patrol 
to report them in, or take their chances on being found out." "I forgot," said 
Hal, "this is your work district, isn't it?" "Right up to the Zipaca 
Mountains," she answered. "So that's why I had Simon set us down where he did. 
I wanted you to see something. That while they still believe in nonviolence 
and try to practice it, there's some things some of them'll fight for now; and 
one of those is survival. I don't mean all of thern'll fight, even for that; 
but more than you'd think. It's one of the changes you needed to see 
firsthand, for yourself." "Hardly a change for the better," said Hal, "from 
their point of view, I'd think." "Wait until you've had time to see some more 
of them before you make up your mind about that," she said. "For now, it's 
enough that you've seen that much change. You'd better get some food into 
you." 
Some small, sudden alteration in the tone of her voice made him look more 
closely at her. He thought he detected something nearly mischievous hiding in 
the corners of her eyes and mouth, at odds with the usual matter-of-factness 
of her appearance. 
A suspicion stirred in him. The Morgans and the Graernes, growing up as close 
as cousins, had never been above playing small tricks on each other. It was 
strange, but somehow mind-clearing, to leave the puzzle of changes in the 
Exotics and his own frustrated search to think of himself for once in that 
youthful, long-ago context. "You shouldn't have waited," Hal said, calmly 
enough. He waved at the food spread between them. "Here, you go ahead." 



She raised her eyebrows slightly, but reached out, picked up one of the 
strings of what looked like pith just before him and began eating. Evidently, 
it was more chewy than it looked. Otherwise her face told him nothing about 
its spiciness, bitterness, or any other aspect of its flavor. "By the way," he 
said, as he reached for some himself, and bit cautiously into the whitish 
cordlike length, "what kind of taste-" 
His mouth puckered instinctively, as if he had bitten into a lemon. 



84 
Gordon R. Dickson 
"Quite pleasant, actually, if a little bland," she replied cheerfully. "Of 
course, you have to be careful to eat it only when it has those pale yellow 
streaks like that-oh, that's too bad, you must have hit one that wasn't quite 
ripe yet, by mistake. Here, spit it out. There's no point trying to eat it at 
that stage. Try one of the others with the faint yellow streaks. I'm sorry! " 
He got rid of what was in his mouth. "I'm sure you are!" he said-but she was 
smiling; and then suddenly they were both laughing. "So much for the 
sensitivity and kindness of an Amanda! Playing tricks like that on someone who 
might have had a concussion." "You didn't give me a chance to warn you," she 
said. "Oh? And it was pure chance nearly all the ones without yellow streaks 
are on this side of the leaf?" "Well, what do you know!" she answered with a 
perfectly straight face. "Those on your side are, at that!" 
Hal carefully took one of the strips with pale yellow streaks -which were, in 
fact, almost invisible-and bit cautiously into it 'The pith from the ripe 
plant was as bland-tasting as Amanda had said, with a flavor like bread and a 
decided texture. It was, indeed, more like chewing a crusty home-baked loaf 
than anything else he could think of. "From now on," he told her, "I expect 
you to warn me as I go, if something's going to be flame-hot or anything 
else." "I will," she said. Her voice was suddenly serious. "I'm sorry, Hal. 
You should have known me when I was young-but I forget, you couldn't have. 
Anyway, I didn't have all that much time to play, even then. There was always 
too much to learn. You're sure your head's going to be all right?" "Positive," 
he said. An unusual softness and gentleness made itself felt in him suddenly. 
"I'll bet you didn't have much time to play, at that, when you were small." 
"You didn't either," she said, almost fiercely. 
He opened his mouth to disagree, then realized that she was right. From the 
time word had come of his uncle James's death, little of his time had gone 
into recreation, compared to that of the boys and girls his own age around 
Foralie. "That was different," he said. "I deliberately chose my life. " "Do 
you think I didn't choose mine?" she said. "The 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
85 
Second Amanda may have picked me to follow her when I was too young to have 
any say in the matter. But she picked me because of what I was when I was 
born. I was too young to know what I wanted to drive myself toward; but the 
driving was already in me, and working. But she saw it, even then, and gave it 
a goal, that was all. After that, I worked the way I did for her because it 
was what I wanted to do; not because it was something I had to do. I'd have 
been the third Amanda among the Morgans, no matter what my name or my 
training!" "Well," he said, still gently, "we are what we are now, in any 
case." 
They finished eating and took up their traveling again. The day warmed as the 
sun rose, but it did not become so much warmer as to be actively 
uncomfortable. Still, with Procyon now a white point too bright to be looked 
anywhere close to, in the greenish-blue sky overhead, Hal found himself 
grateful for the fact they could walk in the shade of the vegetation alongside 
the road. 
That vegetation was thick, but not tangled. It was undeniably tropical or 
perhaps it could be called subtropical, but if the latter, barely so. For one 
thing they were at a considerable altitude above sea level; for another, the 
angle of the planet to its orbit was something just over ten degrees less than 
that Old Earth made to its orbit, so that the tropical zone here was wider. 
Down in the steamy lowlands near sea level, the wild vegetation could honestly 
be called impenetrable jungle. Here, in spite of the fact it supported 
tropical fruits and warm-country plants, it had more of the openness of a 
forest. It would be possible to move through it at good speed without cutting 
one's way, as they would have had to do in the coastal jungle. There were even 
small, open, natural glades, as well as those areas that had been cleared for 



homes and their surrounding grounds. 
But the roadside trees were tall enough-both the natives and those variforms 
which had been imported and found a home here-that the shade was pleasantly 
thick. The brilliant sky above was cloudless; and both before and behind them 
were the two ranges of mountains-what had Amanda called them? Oh, yes, the 
Zipaca and the Grandfathers of Dawn. It was the Zipaca that held the new 
Chantry Guild, and lay before them. The Grandfathers were behind. 
Both were sharp-peaked. Geologically young ranges, clearly, 



86 
Gordon R. Dickson 
by their appearance. They seemed to diverge to the far left; though this could 
not be established certainly, for in that direction the land became lost in 
distance and a blue haze. By the same token they seemed to angle together at 
the right, though this could also be an illusion of the distance. Ahead of Hal 
and Amanda, the land lifted gradually upward toward the Zipacas. But only 
gradually. In the main, between the ranges it was tableland; flat, with only 
an occasional swell or depression. "Where's the river?" Hal asked. 
Amanda turned to smile at him. "So," she said, "you've been figuring out the 
terrain." "We're all but surrounded by watersheds in the shape of those 
ranges," Hal said. "And the general landslope is against us. There should be a 
fair number of smaller streams off the mountain slopes -particularly that of 
the Zipacas, ahead, to a large river running downward and back past where we 
landed. " , ,Right you are," said Amanda, "there is. It's called the Cold 
River; and we landed just about half a kilometer this side of it, so we've 
been angling away from it. We'll also be crossing a few small streams today, 
but that's all. The place I'm taking you to is short of the next large stream 
off the mountains that feeds into the main river." 
Hal nodded. "From what I've seen so far," he said, "this valley land ought to 
be overlaying older, sedimentary rock, younger than the ranges. I I 
"Right. The ranges are young and still growing," answered Amanda, "and you're 
right, the rock under us here is sedimentary. In fact, you'll see the lower 
reaches of the mountains, when we come to them, are mainly limestone and 
sandstone, sheathing the granites and other igneous rocks that pushed up 
inside it. That's the reason the mountains seem to rise so suddenly from the 
valley floor. What you'll be looking at are slabs of the valley rock broken 
off and upended by the mountain rock lifting beneath it. The Exotics liked the 
contrast of building the peaceful sort of homes they made, in a geologically 
dramatic area like this one." "Little good it's done them," said Hal, looking 
at the road alongside them. "They've ended up getting drama with a vengeance." 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
87 
Into the tar-black, melted-earth surface of the road, deep ruts had been 
gouged. "The garrison people drove heavy machinery along these roads 
deliberately to break them down," Amanda said. " It's part of their 
organized plan of destruction. Bleys isn't waiting for the normal effects of 
time, and the war with Earth, to manage his 'withering away' process for 
Kultis and Mara. The Exotics produce nothing he needs; and the Occupation 
troops he sent have all but explicit orders to keep trying to squeeze the 
local people until the last one's dead." "Squeeze them?" "Well, you see the 
road," said Amanda. "In addition to that kind of destruction, they've burned 
down all the country homes they didn't have a use for themselves; and made the 
people who had lived in them move into the nearest town or city. There, 
they've made them live in row house apartments they forced them to build for 
themselves, quickly and out of flimsy materials. Also, the town or city 
populace is under all sorts of rationing and restrictions. Every day the 
people there have to stand in line for hours for their chance to buy the 
barest necessities. I mean they're deliberately forced to stand in line for 
not enough of anything to go around, available from stores that can only be 
open too few hours a day to supply everyone who needs things. Then, there's a 
curfew at night and strict laws even about how and where you can move about in 
the towns during the day-that's why we're timing this little walk to get to 
the gates of Porphyry just a little before they close for the day, at sixteen 
hundred hours-not much more than midafternoon, here. " "We're catching up with 
someone," Hal said, pointing ahead. "That's right," said Amanda. "You'll see 
more and more traffic as we get close to town. All the former off-planet 
workers here-they were mainly from Ste. Marie-- Ste. Marie was a somewhat 
smaller agricultural world a little farther out from Procyon than the two 
planets of the Exotics. "-were shipped home; and most of the large farming 



areas they operated on both Mara and Kultis are deserted now, with no Exotics 
allowed to try and run them. The locals here can only get permits to go out of 
their town for about three hours a dav. on certain davs. to 



88 
Gordon R. Dickson 
farm family plots of land that're too small, or too useless otherwise, to do 
them much good anyway. That's why we ran into that bunch last night, who were 
undoubtedly staying out overnight, breaking curfew so they could get some real 
work done on an illegal extra field, by moonlight. They just hope a surprise 
housecheck doesn't turn them up missing, meantime. It's part of the game to 
quarter the soldiers on the civilian populace, to the advantage of the 
soldiers and a better surveillance of the populace." 
They had almost caught up now with the traveler ahead of them, who was a thin, 
balding man in middle age, pushing a handcart. He nodded in answer to their 
greeting as they passed but said nothing, evidently saving his breath for the 
job of maneuvering the wheels of the handcart amongst the ruts on the road-the 
cart being too wide for the more shady edge on which Hal and Amanda were 
traveling. There was nothing more than a scattering of sweet potatoes in the 
bottom of the cart; but the cart itself was obviously homemade, and clumsy as 
well as heavy. The man was streaming with sweat from pushing it in the sun. 
"He's taking the potatoes home to eat, or to sell?" Hal asked, once they were 
far enough past to be out of hearing. "Either that, or to barter with a 
neighbor," said Amanda. "He'd do better to put a bunch that smal I into a 
sack." "Against the law," said Amanda. "All produce, to be legal inside the 
city, must he brought in by cart, theoretically to let the gate guards inspect 
it for amount, which is limited, per trip; and possible plant diseases, of 
which there aren't any. " 
They went on their way, and traffic, as Amanda had predicted, increased. All 
were people headed into the city, rather than away from it. A fair share of 
those were men or women with handcarts, like the man they had seen. Others 
simply carried sacks which, Hal assumed, contained something of value that was 
not produce. More than a few had the word DESTRUCT! marked in large letters 
with black paint on the front or back of their robes. "A lot of town-to-town 
travelers," said Hal. "No, they're local, too. Anything personal has to be 
brought in by the sack that's forbidden for produce-another law. The ones 
carrying those are townspeople who're taking advantage of the regulation that 
lets them use their free hours outside the city 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
89 
to scavenge the ruins of their old country property for anything useful inside 
town-not that anything really valuable will get by the gate guards. If there 
was, it'd be taken 'for inspection' to ensure there's nothing contraband 
hidden inside it. Scavengers are what we're supposed to be, you and 1. I've 
got a fake address to give the gate guards. Theoretically, you and I have been 
out hunting through what's left of our old homestead." "I see," said Hal. They 
went on. 
A sadness that seemed always to lurk inside him lately was beginning to grow 
once more to uncomfortable strength, as it had when he had stood in his 
quarters at the Encyclopedia, surrounded by the image of the estate as it had 
been at that moment down on Old Earth. 
Now, sister birch, white-armed . . . 
Essentially, the ruined buildings, the destroyed and harassed people she 
pointed out to him, were his doing. Doubly his doing, for it was his going 
back in spirit to animate the body of Paul Formain in the twentieth century 
that had helped lead to this. If he had not done that, there would not have 
been the splitting apart of the investigative animal instinct in every human, 
one part to adventure and grow, one to hold back, to stay safe and unchan.-ed. 
He had set humanity free, for this. 
He had done it only so that the inner conflict could become an outer one. So 
that the two conflicting urges could choose up adherents of individual humans 
and resolve the eons-old argument in an open conflict-from which would come 
what he had then been sure would be an inevitable victory for the part of 
humanity that wanted to grow. 



But he had underestimated, even then, the complexity and strength in the 
balance of historic forces; the interweaving of every interaction between 
every human. That interweaving sought stability; and to get that stability, it 
had responded to his efforts by giving birth to those maverick, talented 
individuals who called themselves the Others; and whom none of the three great 
Splinter Cultures could conquer or control. Not the Exotics who had grown from 
the original Chantry Guild of Formain's time; nor the Friendlies, who had 
grown from the pureiv sectarian fanaticisms of Old Earth into the nonulations 
of 



90 
Gordon R. Dickson 
two worlds which had produced true faith-holders like Rukh: nor yet the 
Dorsai, who had evolved from brutal soldiers-forhire to a people who placed 
independence, honor and duty above all other things. 
The Others had come; and utterly conquered, in effect, all the Younger Worlds 
except those of the Dorsai, Friendlies and Exotics. So these last, they had 
done their best to ruin. And he, Hal Mayne, who had been born the Dorsai Donal 
Graeme, had compounded the damage he had done as Paul Formain, by leaving the 
remaining populations of those Splinter Cultures helpless before the Others, 
while he withdrew the best that each of the three Cultures had to the defense 
of Old Earth. An Old Earth that was only now just beginning to appreciate what 
had been done for it. 
And to what end? All this sacrifice had been made so that he, himself, should 
be free to find what no one else had ever been able to find before-a magic, 
hidden universe that would at once confound the Others and open a new stage of 
evolution for the human race. It had been a vain sacrifice. In the end, he had 
failed everyone else, after they had given the best of what they had, only to 
provide him with the chance. Worst of all . . . 
The pain mounted in him. It was the deep hurt now inside him that was the 
personal retribution the historic forces had brought upon him for the damage 
he had done; and he had not even let himself recognize it untiIlast night, 
when he had taken a blow on the head no adult combat-trained Dorsai would have 
taken, through his own ineptitude. . . . 
So now he must face it. He was no longer a Dorsai. He realized now that he had 
not been one for a long time; but for that same long time he had refused t( 
face the fact. Now, it was inescapable. There were the Dorsai, and there was 
Hal Mayne, who had been Donal. But Donal was gone, and Hal Mayne had never 
been one of them, for all that he had believcd himself to be so. He was 
separated from them as surely as Bleys had been locked away, once in a dream 
of Hal's, behind a gate of iron bars. 
He half closed his eyes at the agony of realization. But it mounted still 
inside him, until he suddenly found his elbow 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
91 
caught, and the forward motion of his walking body stopped in its tracks. He 
was turned, and looked down into the face of Amanda. "What is it?" she said. 
He opened his mouth to tell her; but he could not answer. His throat was so 
tight that no words were able to force their way out. 
Amanda flung her arms around him and pressed herself against him, pressing her 
face into his shoulder. "My dearest dear," she said. "What is it? Tell me?" 
Instinctively, his own arms went around her. He held to her, this one living 
link with humanity that he had; as if to let go would be to lose not only that 
life, itself, but all eternity before and after it. His voice came, brokenly 
and hoarsely, out of him. "I've lost my people . . . " 
It was all he could manage to say. But somehow she read through them to what 
was in him. She led him away from the road, out of sight of it. There, she 
made him sit down with his back to a tree and fitted herself to him, as if he 
was dangerously chilled and she would warm him with her body. He held her, and 
they lay together wordlessly. 
He felt a tremendous comfort in her presence and her closeness to him. But it 
brought peace only to the top level of his mind. Below that was an 
ever-widening wound; as if he was a figure cut out of cardboard in which a 
hole had been made with a pinprick, which was now being enlarged and torn 
apart into a long rip by a pressure too great for him to resist. 
But his gratitude for her comfort at this time was immeasurable. After a 
little while, still unable to speak, he lifted one hand and began to slowly 
stroke the shining curve of her hair. It seemed so wonderful to him that she 
should be this beautiful and this near to him; and so quickly understanding of 
what was breaking him apart inside. 



After a long silence, she spoke. "Now, listen to me," she said. "You've lost 
nothing." Her voice was low and soft, but very certain. "I have." His voice 
was ragged with tears he did not know how to shed. "First I sold my people 
into a death contract; then I lost them." "You did neither." she said. in the 
same soft. even tones. 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
93 
"Do you remember when you came to the Dorsai to talk about our folk coming-as 
many as could-to help defend Old Earth?" "And I met you," he said. "You met 
the Grey Captains, and I was one of them." "You arranged for the rest to meet 
me," he said, "and I sold them a contract with the Encyclopedia, to die, 
defending Earth. " "You sold nothing," she said, her voice unhurried, 
unchanged. "Have you already forgotten that the chance of death was always a 
part of any Dorsai military contract? Of those who met with you, only two 
others besides myself had never actually been in the field. Do you think, even 
not counting those three, that the men and women you talked to had not 
realized, long before, that one day they would have to face the Others? It was 
only a question of where or how." 
She paused, as if to let her words sink in. "You showed them those things, as 
you had to others, when the part of you that was Donal broke through to your 
surface," she went on, "and made it plain to all of us; as he had always made 
things plain to people. Has your opinion of the Dorsai mind fallen so low that 
you think they-the Grey Captains -thought they could forever put off an 
eventual conflict with the Others? When it was the Others who wanted 
everything humanly owned, including the Dorsai itself? Our people couldn't 
become the assassins that the Exotics asked them to be, to kill the Others one 
by one; because life isn't worth certain costs, particularly if that cost is 
the abandonment of what you believe in. But you showed them a way to fight in 
the way they knew how to fight; and they took that way. How could it havc been 
otherwise?" 
He could not answer. What she said went through and through him; and, if it 
did not heal the great rent in him, it at least stopped its growing. "And 
you've lost no one," she went on after a while, still quietly. "You've only 
gone on ahead of everyone else a little way; so that you've passed over a hill 
which blocks your view of the rest of us when you looked back. You've stared 
at that hill so long now, you've come to believe it's all space and time. But 
it's not. You've lost no one. Instead, you've joined in the whole human race, 
of which the Dorsai were always a part-but only a 
part. You've gone on from where Donal stood, alone and solitary. " 
They continued to sit for some while after that, neither of them speaking. 
Slowly, what she had just said soaked into him, as sea water slowly soaks into 
a floating length of timber, until at last it can hold no more; and so, 
water-logged, it begins to sink slowly and quietly to the far bottom. 
So, in time, what she had told him brought relief. He could not believe her, 
much as he would have liked to do so. Because, much as she was Amanda and 
understood, he thought he recognized his own life, and his own failure, in a 
way no one else could. But the very fact that she had tried to warm the chill 
of despair from him like this, as she might have warmed him back from a 
death-chill, helped him. So that in time he came back again to her and all 
other things. The pain that had come 
from the great torn place inside him was still with him; but it had at last 
become bearable, as bearable as his headache from the blow had become, when he 
had pushed it away from the center of his attention, out to the fringes of his 
consciousness. "We'd better go on," he said at last. 
They got up and went back to the edge of the road, and continued along it 
under the pale brilliant star of Procyon toward the destination she had in 
mind for him. 



CHAPTER I I 
Procyon had started to lower in the sky, but the Kultan evening was still 
quite distant when they came out of a belt of trees to sce the edge of the 
village of Porphyry before them. The last hall' mile or so, traffic on the 
road had increased heavily in comparison to what it had been earlier; but 
those they passed, or who passed them, moved at some little distance from each 
other. Enough so that any of the travelers who were moving together could talk 
privately merely by lowering their voices. 
Hal had been roused from the oppression of his own inner feelings by his 
interest in those sharing the road-and apparently their destination-with them. 
They had seen no one headed away from Porphyry. And these people were all 
Exotics. They showed it in many little ways-their calmness of feature and 
economy of movements, for instance. But Hal noticed that none of those they 
caught up with, or were passed by, seemed to be indulging in conversation 
simply for conversation's sake. In fact, none they passed seemed to feel it 
necessary to greet Hal. Amanda, or each other. At most they only acknowledged 
the presence of others with a gentle smile or nod. 
But versions of these elements had been part of the Exotic character as long 
as Hal, or Donal, had known members of this Splinter Culture. What he noticed 
now, and a startling difference it seemed to him, was that there was something 
extraordinarily self-contained about these sharing the road with them. It 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
95 
was hard to say whether it was a change in the direction of growth or not. It 
was as if each had drawn inside himself or herself, and now lived a private 
life behind the drawn curtains of their calm faces. There was an individualism 
that was new in them; an individualism noticeably different from the communal 
feeling that had always appeared to be an integral part of the Exotics he had 
known; from Padma the Outbond, when he had been Donal, to Walter the 
InTeacher, Hal Mayne's tutor. In no way did those about him seem a beaten or 
conquered people, in 
spite of their circumstances. 
But at the same time, he got a feeling from them now as if part of the warmth 
that had always characterized the Exotics was now withdrawn. Not gone; pulled 
back away inside them, coiled like a spring under tension-but, somehow, not 
gone. "We'll be at the gate in a few minutes," Amanda said, interrupting his 
thoughts; and he looked ahead to see a tall wooden wall, evidently recently 
built, surrounding what was plainly their destination. It reached to the side 
and back as far as Hal could see in either direction, and their road led to a 
wide gate as tall as the wall itself. "Let me do the talking to the guards," 
Amanda said. "You're my idiot big brother; I mean, you're literally a little 
slow-witted. The cliches that work best are the old cliches. Look stupid. " 
Hal obediently slumped his shoulders, let his face go slack and his mouth hang 
slightly open. There was a jam-up of people at the gates, of course; but those 
coming in gathered close together and waited with little talk, and without 
raising their voices when they did speak, any more than they had on the road. 
It was reasonable, Hal thought, that they should b Those he watched would have 
been brought up as child.e.. to never abandon a conversational tone and 
volume; and in spite of their present condition, that training would persist 
in them. 
And yet, thought Hal again, watching them behind the mask of his loose jaw and 
expressionless face, there was something more going on here than just 
childhood training. There was something quietly in opposition to the uniformed 
men who were checking them. It was not a quietness of fear in any sense, but 
one of strength that the uniformed men did not have, or even understand. 



96 
Gordon R. Dickson 
It was curious. At the same time, he was aware of something that was going on 
for him, personally, him alone. It had nothing to do with what he believed he 
had just seen in the people around him. It was totally unrelated to it-or was 
it? 
It was a curious sensation of having been part of just such a scene as this, 
once before. He could not say why; but he felt an element that was medieval 
about the wooden walls, the wooden gates, the swarm of people in their rough 
and unlovely clothing, waiting their turn to be passed inside by the guards. 
It triggered off a conviction that somehow, somewhere, he had lived through 
this before. Not him, but someone very like him as he now was, had stood 
almost as he was now standing, seen much what he was now seeing, and waited 
with such a crowd in such a place as this. . . . 
The guards, thought Hal, concentrating on them to get his mind back on 
ordinary channels-if these were typical of the garrison troops here, they were 
poor stuff indeed. They were neatly enough uniformed, in black, with power 
pistols bolstered on their hip and swagger sticks at their belt or under their 
arms; but they were not really soldiers. 
Hal Mayne had never seen actual soldiers on duty. Soldiers who were purely 
that; instead of half-police, like the Militia that Rukh's Command had fought 
against on Harmony. But Donal Graeme had been brought up to work with troops; 
and to anticipate that his life might depend on his ability to read their 
value at a glance. 
It was Donal's eye, therefore, that now told Hal that the eight men he saw on 
duty at this gate were not only useless; but for practical purposes 
untrainable to be anything better than the bullies of unarmed civilians they 
presently were. Ian, Donal's uncle, who had trained troops for Donal after the 
assassination of Kensie, Ian's twin, would have stripped all eight of their 
uniforms on sight. 
If the rest of the soldiers in garrison here were like these, it was likely 
that, weapons and all, they would break and run in the face of any serious 
riot; even a riot of Exotics, who, had they been any other people, would have 
risen against any such flimsy oppressors, long since. 
But he and Amanda had now reached the gate, at the head of the crowd of 
waiting people. He concentrated on looking as 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
97 
harmless as possible for one of his size and appearance. "Open up," said the 
uniformed man confronting them. lie was obviously from one of the Friendly 
worlds. Hal had learned to recognize such in any guise, after his experience 
on Harmony -though this one's appearance on his surface was completely at odds 
both with the people Hal had met around Rukh, and his present uniform. He was 
oriental, young, round-faced and innocent-looking. Nonetheless, he went 
through the contents of their two sacks with reasonable efficiency. "All 
right. Go on in. Home address?" "Sixteen, thirty-six, seven, Happiness Lane," 
answered Amanda. "Downstairs apartment." 
The gate guard repeated the address into his wrist recorder and turned away 
from them to the two bag-carrying women behind him. Hal and Amanda were free 
to go. "What about that address?" Hal asked as soon as they were far enough 
down the road within the gates that they were no longer too closely surrounded 
by others to speak without being overheatd. "It's the home of three brothers, 
none of which look at all like you," she answered. "I mean, why did he ask for 
it?" "They do an automatic check to see that people who've left for the day 
are back in their homes that night by curfew." "But what'll happen when they 
find they don't even know of us at that address?" "The one checking is going 
to figure the guard at the gate transposed a couple of numbers, or otherwise 
got the address wrong. Then he'll forget about it. They don't worry that much 
about people getting in, they worry about them getting out. " "I see," said 
Hal. "Where are we headed, then?" "There're a few serious resistance people in 



every town," said Amanda. "We're going to one named Nier. She lives alone with 
her mother and a soldier who's quartered on them. He's a sub-officer who likes 
night duty@ so he's not there after sundown, ordinarily. The result is, 
they've got room to put us up overnight; and, in addition, Nier's made someth 


ing 0" a friend of the sub-officer; which gives them a few advantages 
including freedom from a housecheck under normal conditions. I want you to 
talk to Nier. " 



98 
Gordon R. Dickson 
"Does she live anywhere near Happiness Lane?" asked Hal dryly. 
Amanda laughed. "The other side of the town," she said. "Come on." The streets 
within the walls had not beer. rutted and were in good shape. They had entered 
at what was evidently an older part of it, for the buildings were large and 
faced with white stone. Their fellow travelers went off in different 
directions among the streets of this section and there were few sackcloth 
robes to be seen after several blocks. There were, however, a number of 
uniformed soldiers who seemed to be off duty, either moving about the streets 
or going in and out of buildings that Hal thought might be either restaurants 
or drinking places. Amanda noticed Hal watching one clearly inebriated soldier 
entering one of the latter. "Alcohol's the only intoxicant ailowed-even to the 
troops," she said. "Probably because of the difficulty of enforcement. You can 
ferment almost any vegetable into a beverage with at least some alcohol in it. 
Adding a sugar of some kind helps, of course. So since they can't stop the 
making of illegal liqueurs by their own people, they let their soldiers drink 
the best the planet can produce. The civilians, of course, are officially 
Exotics who don't drink; though that's changed for a few of them in the last 
two years." "There was a joke among the troops on Ceta, a cousin who'd been on 
a contract there told the rest of us in the family once," Hal said absently, 
dropping back into Donal's memories. "That you could even make an alcoholic 
drink by fermenting dead rats. Impossible, of course, but the idea was to talk 
new recruits into drinking a home-brew, then tell them a story that'd make 
them sick . . . ... 
He was completely in Donal's persona for the moment, Amanda noticed with some 
satisfaction. She had hoped to trigger some of those older memories by what 
she would show him. That part of him that was Donal had uses he had been too 
quick to forget. 
They came finally to the new section of town, where the controlled locals 
lived. In less than two years it had become an obvious slum, its only 
redeeming feature being a cleanliness which was a result of ingrained habit in 
the older Exotics, which 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
99 
had caused the streets and building fronts to keep a relative decency of 
appearance. Here and there, a small bunch of flowers had been put in a window, 
or an attempt had been made to plant something decorative in the small strip 
of earth between the edge of the street and the front wall of a house. 
Amanda turned in at the door of one of the innumerable look-alike row houses 
and knocked. There was no response. She waited for what seemed to Hal an 
unusually long time, then knocked again. They waited. At last there was the 
sound of shoeleather on bare wooden flooring beyond the door, and the door 
itself swung back. 
It opened just enough to show a woman in her fifties with a face the sagging 
flesh of which told of recently lost weight. Her gray hair was cut relatively 
short, pulled back and tied more in a ponytail than a bun, though its bunching 
at the back had something of the characteristics of both. She stared at them 
blankly. "Mario!" said Amanda. "Don't you know me? It's me, Corrin; and 
Kaspar, one of my brothers. Is Nier here? I'd like her to meet him." "No. No, 
she's not." 
The woman Amanda had called Mario had opened the door just enough so that the 
width of her body blocked it. She raised her voice as if she wanted someone 
inside to hear her answering. "She doesn't live with me anymore. She went to 
work and live at the garrison-" 
A man's voice shouted something unintelligible from inside. "Nothing!" she 
called back over her shoulder. "Just some people asking about Nier. I told 
them to go -find her at the barracks. " 
She looked back out at Hal and Amanda, and her face contorted suddenly into a 
grimace of desperate warning. She jerked her head minutely, as if to signal 



them to move on up the street. 
But already there were the sounds of steps on the floor behind her. The door 
was pulled all the way open and a somewhat overweight man of medium height 
appeared as he pushed the old woman aside. He was wearing black military 
slacks and a white shirt, unbuttoned at the neck. His face was made up of 
small features-small eyes, small nose and small mouth. It 



100 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
101 
showed a full twenty-six hours of stubble. He was in his late thirties or 
early forties and his red hair was graying. Through the stubble, freckles 
could still be seen on the weathered skin of his face and the backs of his 
small, soft-looking hands. "well, well," he said, in a voice that had a 
bullfrog-like croak to it. He was not drunk, but there was a slight thickening 
to his words that showed he was on his way to being so. "Look at this. An 
oversize bull, and an oversize cala lily. And you used to be friends of our 
dear, departed Nier, were you?" "She barely knew Nier. This is her brother, 
who's never met Nier," said Mario quickly. "Well, well, what of it?" said the 
soldier. "I'm Corporal I an. Where's your manners, Mario? Invite these good 
friends of Nier's inside!" 
He stood back from the door. "I'm Corrin," said Amanda as they came into a 
small room that was at once kitchen, dining and living room. "My brother's 
name is Kaspar." 
The kitchen sink, cooking surface and cupboards occupied the corner to the 
right of the door as they entered. Before them was a kitchen table with one 
straight chair drawn up to it, and on it a bottle of clear glass 
three-quarters full of colorless liquid, standing beside a half-empty tumbler. 
Beyond were three more chairs like the one at the table and a porch bench with 
back, which had been furnished with cushions, obviously homemade. "Well, now, 
you're really a cala lily, Corrin," said lban. He ran his eyes over Amanda, 
grinning a little. "You don't know what a cala lily is, do you'? But I do. 
It's an Earth flower. I've 
seen a picture of one; and you're a cala lily, all right. Yes, you are. 
He gestured widely to the table. "Sit down," he said, taking his own seat in 
the one chair that was already at the table. "Pull up chairs. Let's get to 
know each other. " 
Mario hastened to help with the chairs. "I didn't say you could sit down!" 
lban's voice was abruptly ugly and his eyes were on Mario. 
Suddenly a small coal of anger glowed in the ashes of Hal's inner unhappiness 
with himself, so that for a moment the unhappiness was forgotten. Perhaps he 
could no longer think of 
himself as Dorsai; but nonetheless there was still the strength and knowledge 
in him to lay his hands on this soft-muscled bully; and by the very power and 
capability of the grip make the other aware that he could be broken like a dry 
stick. This much he could do-
Hal forced the unexpected reaction from him. That was not the way. He had 
learned it long since. "I was just going to help . . ." "Ah, that's all right, 
then. Yes, help. Help yourself to a 
drink, Lily; and you-whatever your name is. Get some glasses, woman!" 
Mario hurried to get two more tumblers. "His name's Kaspar," said Amanda. 
"Kaspar. You told me that. Kaspar-" Abruptly Than laughed and drank, and 
laughed again. Seeing the other two tumblers were now on the table, he poured 
a small amount from the bottle into each one. "Drink up." 
Amanda took a delicate sip from hers and put the tumbler back down again in 
front of her. "It's strong," she said. "Oh yes, it's strong," said lban. Hal 
was trying to place the man's origins. He was neither Exotic, Friendly, 
Dorsai, nor a mix of any of those sub-cultures. Not educated enough for 
someone from Cassida or Newton. He might be from New Earth, where there was 
still a polyglot of subcultures, or Ceta, where there was even more. Than 
suddenly turned on him. "You, Kaspar!" said Than sharply. "You drink!" 
Hal picked up his tumbler and swallowed the inch or so of liquid inside it. It 
was a high-proof distilled liquor, a little too smooth in taste to have been 
made in some backyard still; unless on the Exotics nowadays they had some very 
good backyard stills. He thought that if the other had any idea of amusing 
himself by watching as the stranger got drunk on an unaccustomed (as alcohol 



would be to most Exotics) intoxicant, he would find himself very mistaken. Hal 
had not had a drink in over three years, but he had discovered in the Coby 
mines that it took more to get him drunk than it did most people. "Kaspar," 
said lban. He poured a somewhat larger amount into Hal's tumbler. "That's a 
dog's name. Good Kaspar. Lap that up, Kaspar." 



102 
Gordon R. Dickson 
Hal picked up the glass. 


1. 1 said lap it!" snapped lban. "Not drink it, Kaspar. Lap it! " "My tongue's 
too short," said Hal mildly, sticking his tongue down into the glass to show 
it could not reach the liquid within. "You!" said Than to Mario, without 
turning his head. "Get a saucer! " 
Mario obeyed, putting the saucer without orders on the table in front of Hal. 
"Pour it into the saucer, Kaspar," said lban. "That's right. Now lap it up 
like a good dog-" 
He shoved his chair back suddenly, its legs screeching on the bare floor, and 
got up. 
--And just in case you don't know how to lap, I'm going to teach you," he said 
over his shoulder, going through an inner doorway into the unlighted room 
beyond and around a corner out of their sight. His voice came back to them 
from the empty doorway. "It's a useful trick for a dog like you to have, you 
know?" 
He came out again, carrying a power pistol, which he brought with him back to 
the table. He sat down, resting the thick, dark barrel of the pistol on the 
edge of the unvarnished tabletop, so that the large thumb-sized hole in its 
muzzle pointed directly at Hal. "Now, this is how we do it," he said. "I say 
lap, and you bend your head down and start lapping with your tongue from the 
saucer until it's all gone. Ready? Now, lap!" 
Hal bent down and began to lap. It was a clumsy way of getting the liquid into 
his mouth, but finally he got most of it swallowed. "Now I ick the plate 
clean. That's right. Lift your head up. Than poured more of the liquor into 
the saucer. "You didn't do so good, last time, so we'll try it again. That's 
the way we do things in the Occupational Troops. Now-- "Oh, don't make him 
drink another one!" said Amanda. 
Than turned his attention on her. So did Hal, in case the words were supposed 
to convey some hidden message to him. "Our brother Court drank some of that 
once," said Amanda, "and it made him awfully sick!" 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
103 
She might, thought Hal, have had a little more faith in his common sense. He 
was hardly about to take the man's gun away and break his neck, here in the 
very house where the other had been quartered; in spite of his unexpected 
earlier flare of fury. Then he realized that the message was not what he had 
assumed. What she wanted was for either one of them to put this man 
harmlessly out of action; and she was giving him a chance to do it whatever 
way he had in mind, first. "Well, he should have gone right back and tried it 
again, Lily," said lban. "That's the point. You've got to practice, practice, 
to learn things like that. Now, we don't want to make that mistake with 
Kaspar, here, do we?" 
He stared hard at her for a long moment, then let his stubbled face relax into 
another grin. "But of course, for you, Lily, if you don't want Brother here to 
lap any more, of course I don't want to make you feel bad. So I won't do it. 
How do you like that?" "Thank you. Thank you very much," said Amanda. "Of 
course. Anything to make you happy. Because I want to make you happy, you know 
that?" Than leaned forward toward her and, finding the table in the way, 
beckoned her. "Bring your chair around here, beside me." 
Amanda obeyed. Hal permitted himself a slight scowl. "You leave my sister 
alone," he said to lban. "If you don't I'll put the bad eye on you. You'll be 
sorry." "The bad eye?" echoed Than absently, not even looking at Hal, but into 
the eyes of Amanda, which were now less than a quarter of a meter from his 
own. Then the words seemed to penetrate. He turned his gaze on Hal. "The bad 
eye! What kind of stupid superstition's that?" "If I look in your eyes you'll 
be sorry. My eyes'll eat you up. " "Oh, they will, will they?" Than turned and 
stared directly into Hal's eyes, The eyes of the soldier were a muddy brown in 
color, the whites bloodshot. "All right, I'm looking in your eyes. Now, you 

better be able to eat me up or you're going to be sorry you said anything like 
that. Well, what're you waiting for? Go ahead. Eat me up!" "The aualitv of 
merev is not strained, " said Hal in a soft 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
voice, but one which carried clearly across the table to the other man, "it 
droppeth as the gentle rain from hea.ven- "What?" 
11 _upon the place beneath. That quality of mercy is strong within you, lban. 
You are greater than any normal man in that which you have inside you. You are 
large, generous, compassionate; and you have a duty to yourself to make sure 
that all other people know this and bow down before it . . . ... 
Hal went on talking, in the same soft, persuasive voice, until at last he 
stopped. When he did, Than sat still, his eyes still fixed on Hal's. His gaze 
remained fixed on the place where Hal's eyes had been even when Hal leaned 
back in his chair and looked over toward Amanda. "Oh, oh," said Hal. "I got 
Mario, too." 
Slightly off to one side, standing a couple of steps behind Iban's chair, 
Mario was also motionless, with the same, unmoving gaze. "Mario," said Hal 
sharply. "No! Not you! Come out of it!" 
The older woman blinked and stirred. She stared at the three of them. "What . 
. . ?" she said. "An Exotic and susceptible to a hypnotic trick like that?" 
said Hal. "For shame. It was an Exotic that taught it to me, and a half-Exotic 
tried it on me once." 
-I . . . I never learned," said Mario. "Was that what it 
11 
"Of course," said Hal. "You sit down now and relax." He turned back to lban. 
-Listen to me, lban," he said. "Are you listening? Look at me. 
"Yes, Kaspar," said Than quietly, quitting the fixed focus of his eyes to turn 
their gaze on Hal. "Listen to me now and remember this for a long time. Today, 
when you were having a day off-" 
Hal broke off, turning to look at Mario. "That's what it was, today, wasn't 
it?" he asked her. "A day off duty for him?" "Yes," Mario said. "He goes back 
on at eight tomorrow morning. He's on day-duty, not nights, like the other . . 
." "I thought so." He turned back to Than "IhAn vnii werp 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
105 
having this day off; and late in the day, who should come to the front door 
but a couple of lost children? It seems their parents were visiting here, by 
special permission, from another place -they were too young to tell you what 
their parents' names 
were, who the relatives were they were staying with, or anything but their 
names-which you've since forgotten. You were feeling generous, so after 
amusing yourself with making the little boy take a few drinks, you gave them 
permission to stay here overnight and their parents could be found tomorrow. 
Have you got that?" "Oh yes, every word, Kaspar," said Iban, nodding. "Good. 
Now, the children fell asleep in a corner and you forgot about them and went 
to sleep yourself. You slept clear through until the next day, except for a 
moment or two about midnight when there was a knock at the door and the 
parents showed up looking for the children. You gave them the children-you 
were too sleepy to ask them for any names or papers-and went back to bed. You 
went right back to sleep, and slept through until time to get up the next 
morning, after which everything went as usual-except for one thing." 
He got up, took the bottle of liquor and poured it out in the kitchen sink. He 
came back to stand at the table and put the empty bottle in front of lban. 
"When you got up," he said to the other man, "you found you'd drunk the whole 
bottle by yourself the evening before -and you didn't even have a hangover. 
That'll be something to tell when you get over to the garrison. A whole bottle 
and not even a trace of a hangover. It really will be something to tell them, 
won't it?" "It sure will," said lban. "Now," said Hal, "since you finished off 
the bottle, maybe you better get some sleep to be ready for duty tomorrow." 
"Y'right," said Than thickly. He got to his feet, got himself turned around 
and wavered unsteadily back toward and finally into the room from which he had 
brought out the power pistol, They heard him fall on the bed. Hal picked up 



the pistol and took it to the doorway and tossed it in to fall beside the 
man's bed. "Iban!" he said. "Iban, answer me! You can still hear me, can't 
you?" 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
"Yesss," sighed the voice thickly from within. "Remember how this shows that 
Mario's good luck for you. No hangover's just a sample of the kind of good 
luck you've had since getting quartered here. It's all due to Mario. You're 
good luck for each other. She knows that, that's why she takes such good care 
of you. You've got to remember to take good care of her if you want that good 
luck to keep going. You'll remember that, won't you, lban? You like Mario; and 
even if you didn't, she's such good luck for you, you want to keep her well 
and happy, isn't that right?" "Yesss . . ." "All right, you can go to sleep 
now." 
This time the answer was the first of a steady succession of snores. 
Hal turned back into the room. Mario burst into tears where she stood and 
Amanda moved to put her arms around the older woman. 
Mario was weeping hoarsely and deeply. Amanda led her ott" into the back of 
the house, through another door that evidently opened, from what Hal glimpsed, 
on another small bedroom. The door closed behind both women. 
Hal went up to it. "I think I'll take a bit of a walk," he said through the 
door panel. "Fine. Get back here before twenty-two hundred hours. That's 
curfew," Amanda's voice answered him. "I will." 
He went out. The streets outside were full of hurrying people in sackcloth 
robes, none of whom paid any attention to him or each other. They gave the 
impression of racing against a deadline. Hal estimated that perhaps one in ten 
had the word DESTRUCT painted on his or her robe. He wandered the streets, 
trying to get the feel of the community about him. 
It was a strange feel. The locals had all the appearance and attitudes of a 
populace so downtrodden that it lived in fear and without hope or dignity. And 
still, there was something innately independent and stubbornly survivalistic 
about the controlled voices, the courtesy with which interactions went on@ 
from the apparently welcome, if brief conversations between encounter-
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
107 
ing individuals who seemed to be friends, to the chance collisions of those 
hurrying so that they bumped into each other before they could stop. 
Much was gone, but something yet remained. The words from Alfred, Lord 
Tennyson's poem Ulysses came back to him. The question in his mind now was 
whether what remained was something upon which an Exotic structure could still 
build-or was this once-powerful Splinter Culture finished forever? 
He could not tell. It was tempting to hope, but . . . he saw it was getting 
close to eighteen hundred hours and he was still some distance from Mario's 
residence. He had automatically mapped his wanderings in the back of his head 
so that he knew he had about eight blocks to go to get back to it. 
He turned toward it. Amanda was sitting on the cushioned picnic bench in the 
front room when he got there. There was the snell of cooking in 
the air. She got up as he came in, shutting the front door behind him. 
"Where's Mario?" he asked. "Asleep," said Amanda. "I waded into the supplies 
here and cooked food for the three of us. But I think she needs sleep more 
than she needs something to eat-though she needs that badly enough. I'll leave 
her food in dishes in her room; and she can eat it cold, or warm it if she 
likes, whenever she wakes during the night. She's bound to wake sometime. 
Meanwhile, you sit down and we'll have ours." 
Hal sat. The meal Amanda dished up for them was nothing like the fare an 
Exotic house might have given a visitor once upon a time; but it was a solid 
dinner, with beans and local vegetables in a sort of curry, highly spiced, 
with local corn 
bread to go with it and water to drink. "The water's safe enough, I suppose?" 
said Hal, lifting his glass. "The water systems put in by the Exotics still 
take care of that," said Amanda. "Hal, they evidently caught Nier and the 
Groupman that was quartered here in some resistance action against the 
Occupation. Or at least, in something more than a breach of one of the smaller 



laws. They're undoubtedly both dead. All Mario knows is that a squad of 
soldiers came to the house one day when the Groupman was here and took them 
both 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
away. Mario says Nier told her that the Groupman was being transferred to a 
job for which he'd have to live in the garrison from then on; and he'd found a 
good job for Nier there, too, so she wouldn't be at home anymore. Mario knew 
she wasn't telling the truth-just trying to make Mario feel better. The squad 
went off with them; and no one's seen either of them since. " 
Hal shook his head. "So that's how it is," he said. "Yes, that's how it is," 
answered Amanda. Their eyes met. "Do you think the suggestions you gave Than 
about being kinder to Mario are going to last?" "Anything like that wears off 
in time," said Hal. "You know as well as I do how strong the powers of 
recovery are of both mind and body; and that's true even for characters like 
lban. But maybe by the time it wears off, he'll have convinced himself 'it 
pays to be decent to Mario. Or it may even have become a habit. He's going to 
have to excuse his better treatment of her to his fellow soldiers; and people 
like him tend to end up believing their own excuses, to avoid admitting they 
could be wrong about anything. But nothing lasts forever. He'll be moved out 
of this house, sooner or later; and someone else'll be quartered here. " "Yes. 
Well, we can hope for the best. Who was the half-Exotic you said tried to 
hypnotize you?" "Bleys Ahrens," said Hal, "and he almost did, I was very young 
then, and he's very persuasive. But he was hypnotizing a good-sized group at 
the time and didn't know I was one of the people he was working on." "I see," 
she said. "Well, give me a hand cleaning up-- "I can do that by myself," said 
Hal. "Why don't you see if you can't find some clean sheets and blankets for 
that bed of lban's" We'll need sleep ourselves if we want to be gone before he 
wakes up tomorrow, and there's no good reason for letting him have the bed. He 
can sleep on the floor, the way he is now, and never know the difference." 
"Where're you going to put him?" asked Amanda. "Out here, I think," said Hal, 
getting up and going back into lban's bedroom. He lifted the slack body of the 
sleeping man, carried it out into the main room and dumped it on the cushioned 
picnic bench. lban's body was a little large for the 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
109 
piece of furniture, but he did not seem in any immediate danger of rolling 
off. "You've got him programmed to believe he got up and answered the door in 
the night," said Amanda. "Won't he wonder in the morning when he wakes up in 
this room instead? And if you try to carry him back to his bed before we go, 
by that time he may be sober enough to wake up." "You're right, he probably 
would wake up. Not that I couldn't just put him back to sleep again if he did. 
But we don't need to bother with putting him back in his own bed. He'll just 
think he didn't make it any further back than the bench before folding up." 
Hal corrected himself. "No, you're right. Of course, he may wonder a bit. But 
I'm counting on his puffed-up ego over drinking a whole bottle and not having 
a hangover to knock everything else but that out of his mind. If he regularly 
drinks his way through his day off, he'll be expecting to wake feeling like a 
three-day corpse. The fact he doesn't ought to be enough by itself to keep him 
from any dangerous selfquestioning. Now, for those dishes and pots." 
He had already turned away, when a question occurred to him. He turned back in 
time to catch her before she left the room for the bedroom. "Amanda," he said, 
"what's happened to them, inside, as a 
result of all this-the Exotics here, I mean?" 
She smiled at him. "You tell me what you think," she answered. "And then I'll 
let you know if that agrees with my own ideas. Remember? I brought you here to 
see for yourself. If it'd simply been a matter of telling it, I could have 
told you back at the Encyclopedia. You tell me; and then I'll let you know how 
that agrees with what I think I've noticed." "The Exotics I've always known," 
said Hal, "were calm, intelligent, reasonable people, all of them. But nearly 
all of them also had a sort of philosophical arrogance underneath their gentle 
exteriors. It seems to me these people've had that arrogance planed off them; 
and they're almost a little surprised to find that the philosophy's still 



there. Like someone who's had a stand of large and valuable trees burned off 
land they own. Their first feeling is that they've lost everything. Then they 
reafi-ii- thAt the oArth thov owned kz @fill there And therf-',@ nti 



110 
Gordon R. Dickson 
reason the trees can't be regrown. Maybe even taller and stronger, because of 
the ashes enriching the soil." 
Amanda smiled. "I'd agree with that," she said. "Did anything about the 
occupying soldiers strike you, by the way?" "I haven't seen enough of them to 
tell," said Hal. "They're sweepings-no good military commander would figure 
thent worth having." "Sorry," said Amanda. "I put that badly. I should have 
said-does anything about the way the soldiers react to the Kultans strike 
you?" "I haven't really seen enough of that, either. But Mario seems-they all 
seem to have made some sort ofimpression on the soldiers. I can't make out yet 
just what. Nothing specifically useful to the Exotics. Just a sort of moral 
ascendancy; which the troopers seem to be acknowledging whether they're 
consciously aware of it or not." 
Amanda smiled again, and nodded. He smiled back at her and turned again to the 
kitchen as she went off to see about something clean and unused with which to 
make up lban's bed. 
When Hal came in there, after cleaning up in the kitchen, he found that she 
had covered the existing layers of bedding with extra blankets; and put down 
some more for cover, if needed. She was already asleep on the side of the bed 
against the wall when he got there. Now that he let himself feel it, a strong 
weariness was in him as well. 
He laid himself down softly beside her and closed his eyes. He was ready to 
sleep; but once his body became inactive, a tribe of unanswered questions that 
had erupted into his mind at various times of the day came back at him like a 
mob, clamoring for attention. Ruthlessly, he pushed them from his mind; but 
they crowded in again. 
The difference in the Exotics he had seen here must be onN part of what was 
obviously in process of change about this whole world. Perhaps he should have 
gone down to Earth from the Final Encyclopedia, this last year, to see for 
himself how the people there were really changing; as Ajela and Rukh had 
seemed convinced they were. The coming of the Others appeared to have had a 
much wider effect on humanity than even he had given it credit for. . . . 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
111 
He smiled to himself, harshly. Almost he had forgotten that he had given up 
trying to reach an understanding that would give him the key to the Creative 
Universe. With an effort he blanked his mind to all these questions and 
possibilities and, in the dark void that remained, the sleep that his body 
reached for came easily. 



CHAPTER 
12 
A touch woke Hal. He looked up at Amanda. "Time to leave?" he asked. ."Yes," 
she said. "The gates'll be open in about twenty minutes. There'll be a crowd 
waiting to make the most of the day outside the city by getting out as soon as 
possible. We're safest leaving with them." 
The day before had been cloudless. This one had scattered tufts of white 
moisture afloat, it seemed, just beyond arm's reach, with the mountains toward 
which they headed looming over all. The day warmed with the sun, but the road 
climbed steeply almost from the time they lost sight of the city gates in the 
vegetation behind them; and the air was thinner and drier than it had been on 
the previous day's walk. "Not many people are headed this way," commented Hal, 
after they had been on their route for about an hour. "Soil's not much worth 
farming as we get higher," said Amanda. "Look, you can notice the change in 
forestation." 
Indeed, Hal had. And over that day and into the next, he watched the changes 
in their surroundings. From the scattered stands of taller timber and the 
plenteous bush and scrub trees of the uplands, they moved into more open woods 
of variform evergreens whose ancestral seeds had been imported from Earth; 
mixed, still, with some native varieties. "By the way, I left Mario some 
inonev so she could reolace 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
113 
the food we ate without Than being any the wiser; and also so she'd have a 
little extra for her own use." "Money?" said Hal. He had had so little use for 
money, beyond the letters of interstellar credit he had carried in his younger 
years, when he was trying to stay one jump ahead of Bleys Ahrens and the 
Others, that he simply had not thought of money in connection with this trip 
to Kultis. "What sort of money do they have here?" "Scrip issued by the 
occupying authorities, now," said Amanda. "Arranged to further put the squeeze 
on the native Exotics. Theoretically, anything else-even interstellar credits 
in any form-isn't legal tender anymore on this planet and on Mara. " "Where'd 
you get scrip? I didn't see any when the guard at the gate dumped your bag to 
see what was in it." "I'd picked some up on my earlier trips, and brought it 
out with me," she said. "At the Encyclopedia your friend, Jeamus Walters, 
copied me a large stock of it. Most of it's still in the ship; but I'm 
carrying a young fortune sewn into the hem of my robe. " 
She paused. "Your friend Jeamus seems to be able to do anything." "With the 
help of the Encyclopedia," Hal said. "Also, before I went to steep," Amanda 
went on, "I stole a 
small, but useful, amount from lban. Not so much that he'll notice the loss, 
but enough to help out what I gave Mario. A man who stuffs scrip into any 
pocket that's handy doesn't usually keep an account book in his head." "That's 
true enough," said Hal. "I could have given Mario a lot more, of course," she 
continued, "but the Authority strictly limits the amount of scrip in 
circulation, to tighten up the shortages being forced on the people. If Mario 
had a lot to spend, she'd stick out like a sore thumb. I can do a lot more 
good by giving small amounts to a large number of people, spread across a wide 
area." 
Hal nodded. "How far is it to this Chantry Guild?" "An easy day's walk from 
here to the Zipacas. Though this isn't a route I've taken lately," said 
Amanda. "From there, a 
short climb to the Guild itself-" 
She broke off in midsentence. They had both halted reflexively at a faint 
sound that it was impossible to identify. 



114 
Gordon R. Dickson 
Amanda gestured with a hand toward her ear, in a signal to continue listening. 
Hal nodded. He had lost the noise and at first heard only the sound of the 
insects and the breeze in the trees around them. Then he became aware of an 
undertone that was a human voice talking steadily in a low, unvarying pitch. 
The voice was too far off for them to distinguish words; but it was undeniably 
the sound of someone speaking, steadily and without pause or change in 
emphasis. "It's up ahead," said Amanda. "Yes," said Hal. 
They went on up the road, which here curved to its left through a stand of the 
local evergreens. Mounting a small rise, they looked down a short, relatively 
open, slope into a clearing that held the ruins of one of the former Exotic 
villas. 
Vegetation had not yet encroached upon those ruins, but there was little 
enough left of the home that had been. Back some short distance from the road 
were the low remains of firedestroyed walls, partly shrouded with vines and 
weeds. Most such places, and this one was no exception, had owned white walls; 
and the fire-blackening had oddly and arbitrarily seemed to paint what was 
left standing of these, so that the impression was of an end to the home that 
had come about by age rather than by flame. 
Hal remembered that he had felt something medieval about the moment in which 
they had waited at the gates of Porphyry. Today, the ruins of the houses they 
had passed had struck him with a feeling from an even earlier period in 
history. They had made him think, for some strange reason, of how the ruins of 
Roman villas must have looked in ancient Britain, after the military power of 
that mighty but decaying Empire was withdrawn; and the barbarians flooded in 
to loot, slay and destroy what had been. 
There was no obvious reason for such a thought to arise now. Nonetheless, it 
was strong in him as the two of them started down toward what was left of the 
home in the clearing, and the man they saw there. 
He wore the ordinary penitential robe and had let his graying hair and beard 
grow. These were clotted into locks from lack of washing; and his robe, even 
from a distance, showed that it had not been cleaned for a very long time. He 
was a thin man, whose hollowed cheeks looked sucked in above the beard that 
mounted 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
115 
his face toward the cheekbones; and his arms and legs, protruding from the 
robe, were skin and bone. 
He stood before what had once perhaps been a decorative fishpond in the 
forecourt of the villa. It was a round body of water with a red-tiled edging, 
some four meters across in size and undoubtedly quite shallow, since mounds of 
something peeked here and there above the surface. The breeze blowing across 
it up the slope toward Hal and Amanda brought a smell sick with the stink of 
organic decay. 
The area around the pool itself, a circular terrace of gray stone with white 
stone benches and a stone pedestal about chest high to the man-before which he 
stood-had been meticulously restored, cleaned and cared for. Everything 
sparkled in the clear upland light, with two exceptions, besides the 
appearance of the man himself. 
One, was the dark opaque waters of the pool, which seemed to swallow all light 
falling on it; and the other was a row of decorative flowerpots all around its 
edge. Those in the flowerpots to the man's right held many-branched plants of 
some sort, that had been stripped down to bare branches and twigs, as if in 
the depths of winter. 
The contrast of these with the potted plants on the man's left was startling. 
The latter were of the same size and shape, but bore small, heart-shaped green 
leaves, and a profusion of flowers in a variety of reds and pinks, the tiny 
petals of the cup-shaped blossoms curving upward together to make a bouquet 
that in the case of each plant made it look like a Horn of Plenty made of 



fine, tinted lace. These gleamed in the sunlight, the soil at their base black 
from recent watering. 
On the pedestal in front of the man was one of the pots with the 
flower-bearing plants in it. As they approached he stood there, continuing to 
talk-apparently to it, since there was no one else in sight-in a steady stream 
of words so run together as to be individually indistinguishable and 
incomprehensible. 
As he did this he slowly, delicately and methodically, one by one, took hold 
of petals from the blossoms of the plant on the pedestal before him and tore 
them off, dropping them into the decay-smelling waters of the pond before him. 
Hal and Amanda came into the forecourt itself and walked up to him. But he 
took no notice of them; only went on methodically destroying the plant before 
him. As the final petal of the last 



116 
Gordon R. Dickson 
blossom fell to the dark water below, he began stripping and shredding the 
leaves of the plant, one by one. "Fugga, mugga, shugga . . . , " he seemed to 
be muttering. 
Understanding woke suddenly in Hal's mind and, turning to Amanda, he saw that 
the same comprehension had come to her. What the man was intoning was a litany 
of obscenities, so many times repeated that the syllables of the words had run 
together to the point where the words themselves had lost all meaning. 
"Hello," said Amanda clearly, almost in the man's ear. 
He took no notice of her. Whether he did not hear, or whether he heard but 
paid no attention, was impossible to say. His robe was so grimed and worn that 
Hal had paid little attention to it originally; but now he made out the fact 
that at some time in the past, the word DESTRUCT! had been painted on it, both 
front and back. 
As they watched, the man finished stripping the last leaves from the flower 
bush he had been denuding. He fell silent, turned from it, still ignoring Hal 
and Amanda, and went down to the end of the last of the pots with the stripped 
branches. He picked this pot up and carefully carried it back into the ruins 
of the house. 
They followed him. He went completely through what had been once the closed 
rooms of the dwelling, and came out into an open area which was filled with 
scores of plants in pots like his current burden. 
They were in all stages from utterly bare of leaves and flowers through the 
buds of new leaves and flowers to full-blooming individuals. Still ignoring 
them, he found a place to set down the pot holding the stripped plant, then 
went to another part of the area and chose a plant overflowing with blossoms. 
Carrying this as carefully as he had carried the stripped plant, he went back 
toward the front of the house, out into the forecourt, and put the blooming 
plant at the end of the line of those on the left of his pedestal. 
He dusted the palms of his hands together as he went back to the pedestal. He 
lifted on to it the nearest of the row of blooming plants, putting it side by 
side with the one he had just stripped. Leaving them there, he began moving 
over, one by one, the other pots of unharmed plants, then the row of 
bare-limbed ones. Finally, he took the plant he had just stripped 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
117 
and lifted it down into the vacant place now available just to the right of 
his pedestal. 
He straightened up and began stripping the petals from the nearest bloom of 
the fresh pot before him, dropping the petals into the thick water of the 
pond. The stream of nonsense syllables came again from his lips. All through 
the time they had been beside him he had never once shown any awareness of 
Amanda or Hal. "There's nothing we can do for him," said Amanda. "We might as 
well go." 
They turned away and went on toward the mountains. But gazing at those toward 
which they traveled it occurred to Hal for the first time that if, as Amanda 
had said, the edges of the rock forming the valley floor had been uptifted by 
the molten, interior rock rising from below, then it was very old rock that 
now essentially plated the new at the base of the mountains. As his mind 
reached out to conceive of the possible millions of years of difference 
between the two ages of rocks combined into one single entity that was the 
range, a strange and unexplainable shiver ran on spider-light feet up his 
spine. And then was gone. 
But the memory of its passing stayed in the back of his mind, even as the 
image of the man they had just left displaced it in his present thoughts and 
continued with him as they went. Hal saw the image in his mind, only. There 
was nothing interfering with his physical eyes, which took automatic note of 
his surroundings; including the road that now had dwindled to a foot trail of 
packed earth, and had begun to follow the contours of small, but fairly steep, 



hills as it continued to work its way upward. 
Their surroundings now varied from open patches to heavily forested slopes, 
both above and below their way. The open spaces were covered with knee-high 
versions of ferns; and for the first time Hal was conscious of these being 
stirred by the passage of occasional small animals. He pointed the movement 
out to Amanda. "Rabbits," said Amanda. "You remember I mentioned them'? The 
Kultans imported a variform to be fartned for meat protein, for those of the 
Exotics who weren't on purely vegetarian diets. Some got loose . . ." 
She waved her hand at the forest about them. "Yon we the readt - @hv @Aid -N(i 
witimfl nrethti)nz to keen 



118 
Gordon R. Dickson 
them in check. They spread over this whole land mass. At any rate, they've 
turned out to be a boon to the locals as the major source of meat available; 
and since protein isn't easily got by any but the military, the native 
population's become meat-eaters out of necessity, to balance their diet." 
Hat nodded, and turned his mind to other observations of their surroundings. 
Procyon was high in the sky above them and the last of the puffs of clouds 
seemed to have burned away in the heat of the air at this upper altitude. He 
saw all this, but his thoughts were not on it. He had returned to trying to 
imagine himself in the mind of the man they had just seen. 
This business of imagining himself as being someone else he had met had begun 
as a game when he had been a child, and grown from there to a practice, and 
from a practice almost to a compulsion. He had come to count it as a failure 
when he could not imagine himself seeing all things as any other person might 
see them. 
It was more difficult to put himself in the other's shoes than it would be 
with almost anyone else. The man was obviously insane. But he should be able 
to do it with sufficient effort. 
He had probably been driven into that state by whatever the Occupation 
soldiery had done when they destroyed his house; and it was because he was so 
plainly mad that they had not bothered to move him away from the ruins into 
the town, since then, as they had with the other Exotics. 
Hal focused his inner vision DOW on the thought that it was he himself 
standing there, plucking the blossoms, destroying the flowers. It was slow . . 
. but the image of the scene took shape in his mind's eye at last. 
It was always necessary to understand; and to really understand it was 
necessary to actually feel himself being somebody else. A complete empathy. 
Empathy was a good word for the process of other-being. Good . . . and 
necessary. Complete empathy produced in the end complete responsibility. 
Complete responsibility became in the end universal and instinctive-an 
automatic consideration before any action involving other human beings. 
With full and instinctive responsibility in all humans, James would not have 
died, Tam would not now be at the brink of death with three men's deaths still 
crushingly upon his conscience. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
19 
Now, to himself, he was the madman; and to him, the destruction of the plants 
was the destruction of what had destroyed his sanity. Bit by bit, he was 
trying to balance the books, to climb back to where he had once been. But the 
path he had chosen was circular. He would never get there. 
Unless, perhaps unless, Hal could unlock the Creative Universe for him, along 
with all other people. 
Somehow the mad man, lban, the Exotics, the Encyclopedia, the war, Old Earth, 
the Younger Worlds-they all came together like lines converging to a point. He 
could all but feel the convergence right now as a living thing, held in his 
hands, like the willow twig of a divining rod. Oddly, he felt it in his mind 
as if it converged toward this place he had never seen, the place toward which 
he now moved. The new Chantry Guild. 
Strange how the one person it was at once easiest and hardest for him to be 
was Bleys. 
His inner eye watched the thing of greater importance, the thin fingers 
dropping the torn petals into the dark water. His mind went far, far back into 
his childhood as Donal Graeme, a century before. "You're thinking," said 
Amanda, after some time. 
He started, broken out of his thoughts into the world about him again. "Yes," 
he said. "That man back there . . . I was like that, once. " 
They continued walking. His eyes were on the trail ahead of him, but at the 
edge of his vision he saw her head turn and her eyes look at him gravely. 
"You?" she said. "When?" "When we got the news of James's death-my youngest 



uncle. I told you, once, didn't l?" "Yes," she said. "You were eleven years 
old; and Kensie came and found you in the stable, afterward-in a cold rage. 
What would you have done, even if you'd had the man responsible there, in that 
stable? Try to kill him-at eleven years old, as you were then?" "Probably," 
said Hal, watching the mountains ahead. "Pure destruction is a circular 
action. It trapped me then, as Donal, and I've spent all my time since growing 
out of it." "I know," she said softly. "You see," he said, looking at her, 
"it's got no place to go 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
but back upon itself. It can only replace, the way that man replaces his 
plants, over and over, never adding to what's there. Creativity's the 
opposite, a straight line projecting endlessly forward. The trouble is, the 
urge to destruction is a racial instinct, useful for testing the individual's 
ability to control his environment. Children vandalizing a school are doing 
exactly the same thing as that man we passed. It's instinctive in each new 
generation, as it becomes conscious of time, to want to sweep away everything 
old and make everything new. It's instinct in them to feel that all the past 
went wrong; and now 
they're going to start the race on the right path from then on. "But the 
circularity of destruction traps everyone who does that; and they end up 
blamed, along with the rest of all history, by the generations that follow. 
That's why, even with the historic forces endlessly seeking a balance, Bleys 
and the Others have to lose eventually; because they'll be left behind while 
the creative people move forward. And evolution happens when that takes place. 
" "You're saying," said Amanda, "that Bleys is out to destroy Old Earth and 
the best products of the human Splinter and other cultures, as nothing more 
than some sort of surrogate for what he really wants to destroy'? Like the man 
with his flower petals?" "Not exactly," said Hal. "His philosophy's sensible 
enough if you accept his premises; primarily, that humanity in the past let 
technology run away with it and went too far, too fast, too soon. No, it's not 
a ritual, instinctive reaction that moves him, but faulty reasoning- because 
he lacks empathy, and therefore a sense of responsibility. It's just that he 
could have gotten started toward it from the same sort of targetless fury as I 
did, like the man back there maybe did. Bleys could have begun turning into 
what he is, out of rage at a universe that gave him everything-brilliance, 
will, mental, moral and physical strength-and then, like the uninvited witch 
at the christening in the children's story, capped it all with the fact he 
could never find any other human being to share what he made with him." "You 
think so?" said Amanda. "I don't know," answered Hal. "But it could be. And it 
might be important." 
Almost, he had become lost in his thoughts again. What brought him out of them 
this time was a glimpse he thought he 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
121 
had, momentarily, of an expression on Amanda's face. He came back to his 
surroundings and looked narrowly at her. "Were you smiling?" he asked. "Why?" 
"Was IT' said Amanda, her features now perfectly composed. She tucked an arm 
through his and squeezed it. "If I was, it was because I love you. You know, 
it's time we stopped somewhere along here to eat. Help me look for a good 
place. " 



CHAPTER 
13 
They found such a spot, shortly. A small, fern-carpeted open area where a tiny 
stream of cold, drinkable water crossed the trail, from among the bushes and 
trees on the route's upper side. Seated there, they looked down a clear space 
of hillside to a heavily treed valley a hundred or so meters below. Amanda 
unpacked dried fruit and pieces of cornbread. The other food consisted mainly 
of sandwiches, the taste of which carried the flavor of the pith Hal had eaten 
before. They went well with the icy water of the stream, which must have its 
source in the mountains above. 
They spent no more than twenty minutes at the most, eating. Procyon was 
already only an hour or less from the tops of the mountains that could be seen 
towering above the treetops ahead of them. The mountains looked only a few 
hundred meters ahead in the clear air, when they must be much more distant 
than that, Hal thought. He and Amanda went on their way. "We haven't seen 
anyone else, except the man by the pond. for hours," said Hal. "Aren't there 
any people at all up this way?" "Not as far as I know. That's why the Chantry 
Guild is back in here. There's nothing much to support a population," answered 
Amanda. "Oh, there're mountain meadows that could be used for grazing animals, 
but the Exotics were never herdsmen, even in their early years here; and of 
course the 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
123 
living's so easy, particularly here at the edge of the tropics, that they've 
never had any need to. Even before the Occupation, you'd have found it empty 
up here, except for an occasional traveler. But now the Occupation doesn't let 
natives make trips without special reason-and special permits. So from here on 
until we hit the Chantry Guild we shouldn't run into anyone." 
Hal was ready to believe her. The road had long since become a foot-track, 
which had in turn become a trail, and now was nothing at all. It was as if 
Amanda was setting her course across open country, by memory or some other 
unseen means. Hal watched the ground carefully as they covered it. Tracking 
had been one of the many skills drilled into him by his tutors, so his eye was 
skilled enough to pick up even small signs of others having passed this way. 
In fact, he did so, from time to time-things as small as a scuff mark in the 
dirt or a broken twig-though those were few and inconspicuous. 
He ceased to look, therefore, for sign and let himself simply enjoy the walk 
through the open country. 
Enjoyment was there, to anyone raised in the mountains -and Hal was doubly so. 
As Donal he had grown up in the mountains holding his home, Foralie, on 
Dorsai; and as Hal he had been raised until he was sixteen among the Rocky 
Mountains of North America, on Earth. Being among them now brought an 
exhilaration to him that no other kind of country could evoke. Unthinkingly, 
his head lifted, his eyes read the lands and heights around him, his nostrils 
sniffed the clean, clear air . . . and his stride lengthened. "You can slow 
down now," Amanda said. "We'll be following along a stream course for a little 
distance, and it's almost level." "Oh. Was I pushing the pace?" said Hal. He 
was embarrassed. "Not for me. But we've got a way to go yet and the last 
part's a literal climb. Better take it easy." 
Even as she said this, they were already among the unbroken strip of trees and 
bush, interspersed with leafy stalks of bright green fern, a meter or more in 
height, that filled the nearly even floor of earth between two steeply 
upward-sloping and wooded hillsides. 
Here, for the first time in some while, the trail they were following became 
once more visible as it wound between the 



124 
Gordon R. Dickson 
trees. Obviously it was in regular use, to have had enough traffic to keep it 
from being overgrown. What was it doing here, in a 
region that did not usually host ordinary travelers-
A faint touch on his left arm brought him back to his surroundings. He looked 
at Amanda, and she briefly brushed the outside corner of her left eyebrow with 
a forefinger, as if some small insect had landed there. 
This was one of the "signals" from the " short- language and signals" she had 
asked him if he remembered, back when they were about to leave the courier 
ship. She had just signed that something was watching them and paralleling 
their course on the side indicated. Whatever it was, was doing so 
deliberately, for it was at once keeping up with them, and keeping out of 
sight among the trees and brush off to their left. 
Without looking directly to his left, Hal set himself to seeing what he could 
pick up out of the corner of his eyes. It took a little time, but eventually 
he became aware of whatever it was, more by the faint noises and small 
movements of the ferns and branches it pushed aside in its passage-though it 
was apparently trying to move as quietly as it could-than by actual sight of 
it. 
He glanced at Amanda and questioned her with a raised eyebrow. 
Amanda shook her head in puzzlement, and her hands moved in small movements, 
quick but unobtrusive signals. "It's human-a child, or child-sized, I think," 
she said in this silent fashion. "It's interested in us for some reason. 
There's an open spot of nothing much more than bush and fern just ahead. Let's 
sit down there as if we're taking a break and try to tempt it out into the 
open." 
Hal blinked a signal of agreement at her, and a few moments later when they 
had emerged into the open area she had referred to and reached close to the 
center of it, she yawned, stretched and stopped. Hal stopped with her. "Let's 
sit down a bit, she said clearly. Whoever was shadowing them could not 
have failed to overhear. "There's no hurry. " 
She had stopped by a small bank overgrown with fern-a tiny variety rather than 
the larger growth that had been interspersed with the trees earlier. This was, 
in fact, a natural stopping place. It occurred to Hal that these would make an 
excellent bed for 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
125 
Amanda and himself to stretch out on, together. They sat down on the bank now, 
cross-legged and facing each other. "Chit!" said Amanda. "Reelin." 
She had switched now to the audible " short- language." On the Dorsai a number 
of code words were generally known by everyone, since these could come in 
useful if two Dorsai on a foreign planet wanted to exchange information within 
the hearing of others when they did not wish to be understood. In addition, 
each family tended to have its own private code of made up words; and the 
members of the Morgan and the Graeme families, growing up and playing together 
as children, knew most of each others' private codes. As youngsters, there had 
also been a particular pleasure in being able to exchange secret information 
under the noses of nonunderstanding adults. So the codes were always improved 
upon by each new generation. 
In effect, what Amanda had just said was, "Let's talk in a 
way our shadower can't understand. Maybe we can trick whoever it is into 
coming closer to try and hear better, andfigure out what we're up to." 
"Right," said Hal. There was no particular reason not to use a plainly 
understandable word in answer, and a few understandable words might increase 
the temptation of the listener to come in close and hear enough of them to 
make out what the tenor of conversation was. "Muckle minny cat," he added. 
He was pointing out that there were two of them, and since whatever or whoever 
it was that had been shadowing them was not large, one of them ought to be 
able to catch it while the other blocked its escape in this direction. Implied 



was the question of who should chase and who should block. 
Amanda smiled, slightly but firmly. "One! (I'll be the one to chase), '' she 
said. "Home snapback (you stay here and get ready in case whoever we're 
chasing doubles back this way.)" "R," he said, agreeing. She would be faster 
and more agile at broken-country running than he. "Mark!" 
The last word was to remind her that their listener had crept close enough so 
that now an effort might be made to catch him or it. "R," said Amanda. 
"One-C." 



126 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
The last code word reasserted the fact that she was in Command; and, as the 
chaser, she would pick her own moment to begin pursuit. Meanwhile, with their 
gazes apparently only upon each other, they were both using their peripheral 
vision to try and observe something about their watcher, who had indeed 
slipped closer to them to try to understand their strange conversation. 
"Whisper stonewall (I've heard some talk about this person, but I could never 
get an 'v definite information),'' said Amanda. They both had their shadower 
plainly in view out of the corners of their eyes now. " Y'un. " 
That she was a "young-one, " a half-grown girl, was inarguable, since-except 
for a length of what looked like dark green, dried vine, with half of a split 
open pod in the middle of it, knotted around her waist-she was completely 
unclothednaked was not a word that suited, since she wore her lack of clothes 
as unselfconsciously and naturally as an animal wears its pelt of fur. The 
vine seemed more an ornament than any attempt at a piece of clothing; although 
at the moment she was apparently using the split-open half of the pod as a 
sort of pocket for carrying what looked like small rocks, about half the size 
of her own fist. She was certainly under the age of twelve or thirteen, unless 
she was a case of arrested physical development. "Carry!" said Amanda-which 
broadly translated into 'we've got to get her out of here and to some place 
where she can be caredfor!" "R," said Hal. 
His agreement was automatic, while waiting for her to start the pursuit-and in 
fact he had hardly got the last codeword out before she had sprung to her feet 
and dashed off in pursuit of the little girl. 
Amanda was fast-very fast. But the child was almost literally like the wind. 
Also, plainly, she knew every foot of the ground. She zig-zagged like a hare 
in flight, leading the way through openings in the forest growth large enough 
for someone her size to slip through, but too small for one of adult size. In 
seconds they were both out of Hal's sight among the farther trees. 
The sound of their passage, however, turned once more in his direction, and he 
suddenly caught sight of the little girl backtracking at full speed. She 
looked likely to cross the trail 
127 
some twenty meters ahead of Hal. He jumped to his feet and ran to intercept 
her. 
She zigged and gained on him, zagged and made it back and across the trail 
after all. He followed her out of sheer stubbornness for perhaps fifty meters, 
and then accepted the fact that she had been gaining on him with almost every 
step and was plainly now lost beyond question. He walked slowly back to the 
trail and Amanda, catching his breath as he went. 
Amanda was standing waiting for him on the bank where they had been sitting. 
"It'd take a hunting party of a dozen, with nets, to surround that one and get 
her," Amanda said as Hal came close. She had already gotten her wind back, 
which was more than he had. "The climate's mild year 'round at this altitude. 
But still, how she's survived by herself, God knows. She couldn't have gotten 
this wild and skillful in Just one summer. She's like an animal-maybe more 
animal than human, by this time. One way or another, it's the Occupation 
that's responsible for this, too. In Exotic times, she'd have been found and 
brought in long before this." "R," said Hal, trying not to pant. He was once 
more annoyingly conscious of how unfit he was, in spite of his daily exercise 
sessions at the Final Encyclopedia; and being lashed in the face by branches 
that were just at the right height to be run under by the child, but not by 
him, had not made him any happier. "I suppose we might as well be getting 
along." "Might as well," agreed Amanda. 
They took up their way in somber silence. The streambed they had beera 
following had been inclining more and more steeply with every step they took 
these last few minutes. Suddenly, they came through a small, thick cluster of 
trees and there was the face of the mountain itself; a near-vertical brown 



limestone wall of rock looking as if it had grown up suddenly through the 
ground before them, to tower on up and back, until it was out of sight. 
The forest came almost to that wall. Amanda led Hal forward and he saw that 
the lower part of the near-vertical rock was pitted and indented with 
concavities. "This way," said Amanda, leading him to one dark opening, which 
they had to bend double to enter. Hal followed her in, thinking that they were 
moving into a cave, which made no 



128 
Gordon R. Dickson 
sense-but suddenly their way turned under the rock and he saw 
light before him. They came out, into sunlight once more, somewhat higher up, 
into a sort of gouge in the steep rock face itself. 
Hal noticed as they emerged that a large, semi-round boulder was perched to 
one side of their exit. It looked as if it-were balanced so that it could be 
rolled to fall with its bulging side into the place where they had just come 
out, like a stopper into a 
bottle. Amanda led him into the gouge, and they continued upward, now climbing 
as much as walking, working their way around bosses of the naked brown 
limestone. They stopped to rest for a while on a small level area. "How much 
farther?" asked Hal, shading his eyes to look up the rock face they were 
climbing. "I can't see any sign of anything built up there; and-- He switched 
his gaze to Procyon in the west. --the sun is going to be behind those peaks 
in a hurry-I'd guess no more than another fifteen minutes. " "You don't see 
anything because nothing's supposed to be seen," said Amanda. "But you're 
right about the fifteen minutes. We'll make it." 
Hal looked up and for the first time saw, only a dozen meters 
or so higher up, that what he had assumed to be an unbroken, steep slope above 
them, actually ended in the lip of a ledge. The ledge ran off out of sight on 
either hand around the bulge of the mountainside. Its rock had blended in 
appearance very well with a slope behind it that he now realized must be at 
some distance from the edge he saw. 
He had not noticed it before because the light of the descending sun had added 
to the illusion of a single, unbroken, upward face of rock. Now the sun was 
down enough that shadow lay on the rock face under an overhang of the upper 
slope beyond, as it lay on the two of them, here. The ledge itself must still 
be in sunlight, for what had caught his eye at last had been that its lip was 
now rimmed with light. 
Seeing it, and aware of the waiting level just above them, the reality of the 
place that was their destination became suddenly solid and undeniable in his 
mind. His thoughts moved together into an undeniable conclusion, and he knew 
that finally he must have the answers he had wanted from Amanda earlier. 
"Wait!" he said. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
129 
. He had stopped; and now, ahead of him, Amanda stopped and turned to face 
him. "What is it?" she asked. "This may be my last chance to talk to you alone 
for a while." The words seemed to sound stiff and awkward even as he said 
them-but they had to be said. "When Tam Olyn told you to have faith back at 
the Final Encyclopedia, what was he talking about? And what was it you turned 
back to say to Rukh and Ajela, just before we left?" 
She gazed down at him for a long moment with an unusual intentness, as if she 
was trying to search for something deep within him. "Tell me," she said at 
last, "are you going on up? Or are you turning back, even at this point?" "Why 
should I turn back?" "Would you-now?" 
He thought about it for a moment. "No," he said then, "I wanted to come here. 
I still do." "Good," she said, "because you had to come here of your own 
decision, your own free will. Because you wanted to come. " "I did. You know 
that." "I had to make sure," she said. She hesitated for a second. "You see," 
she said, "when I stopped to talk to Rukh and Ajela, it was to tell them it 
would be all right now, that there was hope you'd find the Creative Universe 
after all." 
He stared at her. "How could you promise them something like that?" he said. 
"I've no guarantee there's hope-you knew that. And even if I did, no one can 
know certainly, one way or another!" "Oh, Hal!" She threw her arms around him 
suddenly, pressing her head against his chest. "Don't you understand? ,You've 
worn yourself thin trying to get through a wall at a point where there was no 
way in. Back at the Final Encyclopedia, you could see how everybody else had 



been worn thin; but you wouldn't face it in yourself! You've got to step back 
from the problem and wait for another way to come to you. That's why you had 
to come here! And as for the other question: I only know what Tam saw. He was 
seeing more than I ever had, because, just as he said, he was halfway through 
the door to death. But when he told me what he'd seen, I could see it, 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
too-a time in which I'd need to believe in you, and why. Because you'd have 
won after all-but at a greater price than any of us had ever imagined. And the 
way to that's here; I can feel it! " "What price?" He was almost glaring at 
her, he knew, but he could not help himself. "I don't know!" she said, still 
holding him. "I said it was beyond imagination; for me-and I think even for 
Tam. He only knew the fact of it. But when he told me, I could feel it the way 
he did; and I understood something else-that I couldn't tell you, until you'd 
committed yourself by actually coming here." 
She stopped, as if she had suddenly run out of breath. "What else?" he 
demanded. "Your next step on the road to what Tam made me see. You've 
committed yourself now by coming to the Chantry Guild here, of your own free 
will and choice. If I'd told you before this, it might have affected what you 
keep calling the Forces of History. " 
She let go of him then, but kept a hand on his arm as if a living connection 
was necessary for the message she still had to reach him with. "Hal," she 
said, "listen to me! Tam has to die completed if you're ever to do what you 
first set out to do. You have to find the Creative Universe before he dies. 
Only that'll justify his life in his own eyes; and he must die justified. If 
he doesn't, you'll never find it!" 
He stared at her. "Don't ask me why!" she said. "I don't know why! I only know 
what Tam believes; and-I know he's right." 
Hal's mind clicked and slid, from premise, to odds, to conclusion. Now that 
his intuitive logic was given what it needed to work with, it was offering up 
answers where it could offer none before. What Amanda said made sense. 
Until the Final Encyclopedia should be put to its final, practical use, the 
shape of that use would be undefined. It had been passed on, undefined, as no 
more than a dream, from Mark Torre to Tam and from Tam to him. The chain of 
cause and effect of this unreal and as-yet- unshaped, but powerful, cause 
could break at Tam's death, if he believed he had died without it reaching at 
last to its goal. It would mean to him that all his life, and everything 
effected by it, had been a wrong 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
131 
working of the developing historical fabric; a working to a dead end, that now 
would be abandoned. 
Hal felt suddenly weak, with the weakness of shock. It had just been shown to 
him that he alone, of the three of them, had been in a position of choice. 
Neither Torre nor Tam could have turned from their work once they had taken it 
up. He could have-had to have been able to, before being given the chance to 
find the answer they all had sought-or else there was no free will. Otherwise, 
the fabric of future history was pre-determined. 
And it was not. Not fixed. Only the past was that. So he alone had had the 
power of choice-and he had almost chosen wrongly. 
No, never that.' Succeed or fail; but to give up as he had thought himself 
ready to do was unthinkable after the torch had been carried this far. Fail, 
if he must, but the only decision he could live with was to stick with it to 
the end. Otherwise, all he had ever believed was false and useless. 
He turned his face again to the ledge above them and felt Amanda's hand slip 
down his arm to take his hand. Together, they went up into sunlight. 



CHAPTER 
14 
The sunset exploded in their eyes as they came up over the rim onto the ledge, 
for a moment all but blinding Hal as his eyes struggled after the dirnness of 
the shadowed slope below. His legs felt strange and weak to be once more on 
level ground. Gradually, visual adjustment came and he began to make out what 
was around them. 
They had stepped up onto a level space that ran back a hundred meters or so 
before the mountain face resumed its upward thrust. The ledge was at least 
five times as wide as it was deep and it was a crowded, busy place. 
For a moment, still dazzled by the rays of the setting sun, Hal could not make 
out the details. Then his vision made a sharper adjustment, and all that was 
there seemed to stand out with a particular depth and clarity, as if he was 
seeing it in more than three dimensions. 
There were several openings in the mountain face at the back of the level 
space; whether to caves, or interior continuations of the ledge, it was 
impossible to tell from where he stood. He and Amanda stood only a little way 
to the right of a small pond, fed by a stream which angled across the flat 
rock of the ledge floor from a near waterfall spilling down the farther face 
of the mountain. The pond must drain from its bottom, he thought, since there 
was no other obvious exit, and the water probably 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
133 
emerged elsewhere on the mountainside or as a spring in the forest below. 
Directly ahead, on the right of the tiny stream as Hal looked toward the back 
of the ledge, were three large buildings. The one farthest in was slightly 
larger than the one next to it; and the one closest was a structure so small 
that it seemed hardly more 
than a cabin by comparison with the other two. 
All three buildings had been built of logs. The face of the mountain behind 
was in the process of being quarried for blocks of brown limestone, and some 
of these blocks had already been set up on the other side of the stream, 
marking the outline of what promised to be a greater structure that would 
eventually fill and use all the space at the back of the ledge. Away from the 
stream on both sides, and otherwise in lines about the ledge as well as 
against the upslanting rock walls of the mountain--so steep their upper 
branches touched the stone-were numerous variform pine, with a scattering of 
native evergreens. Pine needles were scattered everywhere, and made a carpet 
over all the ledge itself. 
People in robes were moving purposefully everywhere, along paths under the 
lines of trees. The only exception to this, in the sharp sunset light, was a 
ring of individuals walking in a circle, a little beyond and behind the pond. 
They walked, one behind the other, chanting; a chant that Hal now realized 
some acoustical trick of the rock below the level of the ledge had kept him 
from hearing until this moment. But now it came clearly to his ears. 
They intoned it as they walked, but it carried no clear message to him in this 
first moment. But for a reason he could not identify, something about it rang 
a deep note of certainty in him. It was right. 
The last of the sunset was disappearing with the swiftness that was to be 
expected on a world under such a tiny seeming circle of light. The star was, 
in fact, far from Kultis and MaraProcyon was a much larger, as well as 
brighter, star than Earth's Sun. At the distance from it that Earth was from 
its Sun, a world like this would have been uninhabitable. 
The evening shadow seemed to fall across all the world at once; and as it did 
so, Hal's mind finally registered the sense of what the walkers were 
repeating. That what they repeated had taken this long to become intelligible 
to him had not been 



134 
Gordon R. Dickson 
because the words had not been spoken in Basic-Basic was what everyone on all 
the human worlds normally used nowadays. Nor was it because they had run the 
words together, or in any way sounded them differently. 
it had only been because of their method of chanting. They intoned the phrase 
they used, not in chorus, but as if each one was repeating it solely to 
himself or herself. Sometimes the voices blended on the same sound at the same 
moment; and sometimes they did not. But at any rate, now he clearly heard and 
understood them. There were only eight words to what they repeated. 
The transient and the eternal are the same . . . The transient and the 
eternal are the same . . . 
So suddenly did they become understandable to him, that it was as if they had 
abruptly been translated from some language he did not know into one he had 
spoken from his earliest years. 
It was not so much the words in themselves that registered so strongly on him, 
but the burden of their meaning; which he could not identify clearly, but 
which stirred him strangely. As unfamiliar music might move him unexpectedly 
and strongly even at the first hearing. 
It was like a sound heard around a corner and out of sight, striking some 
powerful meaning in him; but exactly what and why was not immediately clear. 
Still, for the present it did not matter. The knowing would come, at its own 
pace, but in time to,be useful. All that mattered now was realizing that it 
rang a deep chime of truth in him. 
It continued . . . 
The transient and the eternal are the same . . . The transient and the eternal 
. . . 
. . .and so it went, on and on, echoing in him as if his mind was one great 
unlighted cavern and it was speaking to him with the voice of all the universe 
at once. Echoing and speaking, echoing and speaking. . . . 
His body tensed to make an instinctive step toward the circle; then checked. 
He held back, his eyes focusing for some reason 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
135 
on one walker with a long, white beard, silky on a thin, bony face beneath 
oriental eyes. The man he watched had just completed the turn of the circle, 
after having been facing away from Hal, but now came back toward him. For a 
moment his features were clear in spite of the steadily deepening shadow that 
seemed to wash the colors from the walker's patterned robe of thin, smooth 
cloth, unlike the rough garments the other walkers wore. Hal turned to Amanda. 
He saw her face looking up at him, concerned. He looked back down and smiled 
to reassure her. "You were right," he said. "I needed to come here." "Good," 
she said, the concern relaxing from her eyes. "Come along then." "Where?" he 
asked. 
The face of the ]edge was busy with people moving to and fro between its 
buildings. Some of these smiled at Amanda; but none seemed surprised to see 
her. They extended their smile in a welcome to Hal himself in a manner so like 
that of the Exotics as Hal remembered, that he felt a sudden, small pang of 
sadness. Amanda was leading the two of them toward the smallest of the 
buildings. "First you've got to meet the one in charge here," she said, "an 
old friend of yours." "Old friend?" He tried to think of Exotics who might fit 
that description. "Nonne?" 
Nonne had been the Exotic representative -theoretically to the Final 
Encyclopedia, but actually, as both the Exotics and Hal had clearly 
understood, to Hal himself, since he had been the one who had won their 
allegiance to the cause of Old Earth in a debate against Bleys, broadcast to 
both Exotic worlds. 
That had been at the time of the movement of the Dorsal people to Earth's 
defense, and it had resulted in the donation of Exotic wealth and knowledge to 
the same end. The time of the activation of the phase-shield. It was also the 



fact that Nonne had been sent with him to voice any objections the Exotics 
might have to Hal's later arrangements, as a kind of single last voice of the 
Exotic Splinter Culture. 
Norme had stayed the first year with him at the Final Encyclopedia. But it had 
become more and more obvious that Hal was concerned, not with the management 
of Earth's defense, but only with the work he pursued alone in the carrel of 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
his suite. So she had gone home, leaving the actual uses of Exotic funds and 
skill to Ajela; and the actual execution of that defense to the Dorsai. 
She had ridden out through the phase-shield with one of the Dorsai advisors, 
like Amanda, who had been returning to the Exotics after a brief, necessary 
visit to Earth. Hal, at least, had heard nothing of her since. 
She had been a waspish, angry woman by nature, very nearly the exact opposite 
of what other cultures thought of as Exotic. But Hal had appreciated the 
sincerity and single-mindedness of her point of view; and her sharp-faced, 
middle-aged image rose again in his mind now as he said her name. It had not 
struck him until this moment that she might be the one he should come to meet 
here in this place. "I'll let you find out for yourself," was all Amanda 
answered. She led him on toward the entrance of the first, and smallest, log 
building. 
However, before they reached it a figure that was not Nonne's but even more 
familiar to Hal appeared around the edge of the building. Walking beside him 
was a man as large as Hal. Both wore the penitential robes. But Hal's eyes 
fastened on the small body and wrinkled face of the smaller of the two, who 
had been his closest companion during the time when he had been struggling to 
bring the Exotics to give all they had to the cause now fought for by Earth. " 
Amid!" he said. "But you're not at the Final Encyclopedia anymore,?" 
He corrected himself. "No, of course not," he said. "Forgive me. I've been so 
out of touch with people this last year, even at the Encyclopedia, that I 
forget. That's right, about eight months ago one of the advisors from Kultis, 
here, brought word your brother was sick. You left to go to him, didn't you? 
But I didn't realize you'd stayed. " 
A smile energized all the lines in the face of the little man so that he 
seemed to shine with good humor. "Hal!" he said, hurrying forward to take 
Hal's hand with both of his own. "I'd hoped-but I didn't really think there 
was a chance Amanda could bring you here!" 
Hal smiled back. It would have been next to impossible not to. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
137 
"As you see," he answered. "But you found a job to keep you here?" "I'm sorry. 
Seeing you-" He broke off. "I suppose I ought to explain that Kanin wasn't 
actually a brother of mine, by blood-the way the word's used on other worlds. 
In my generation, we still ran to large communal families. But he was as close 
to me as if he had been, physically, my sibling. Perhaps closer. And I called 
him brother'. So of course I came back here as soon as I heard. " "And stayed, 
obviously," said Hal. "Yes." Amid let go of Hal's hand, but continued to beam 
up at him. "For one thing, he'd died by the time I got here, and I was needed. 
For another, for a long time I'd been bothered. I was sitting there, safe and 
useless behind the phase-shield, in the comfort of the Encyclopedia while my 
people were suffering." "So your brother was one of the people here?" "He was 
Guildmaster," said Amid. "Now, I am. By default, more or less." "That's not 
true," said the tall man. "No one could have filled Kanin's shoes, his 
brother's shoes, but Amid." "I'm sorry," said Amid. "I should have introduced 
Artur, here. He's Assistant Guildmaster. Artur, you know Amanda. This is Hal 
Mayne. " 
Artur extended a hand and Hal clasped it, feeling from the sudden heartiness 
of the grasp confirmation of what his instinctive perceptions of emotion in 
others had already suspected. Artur was an i mpressive- looking individual; 
nearly bald, with a 
narrow waist and massive, smooth-skinned arms and legs showing beyond the 
short sleeves and the hem of the robe he wore. But he would far rather have 
been a smaller man. 
Hal had been aware that, in the first moment of their seeing each other, Artur 
had automatically measured himself physically against Hal's size and apparent 
strength. However, it had been a reflexive, unwilling measurement. Artur was 



undoubtedly strong, even in proportion to his height and weight, but he 
apparently was one of those who found the gifts of both size and strength as 
only crosses to be borne. 
Like certain other large men Hal had met, Artur clearly had an unhappiness 
over the attitudes of those smaller, who assumed that because of his size he 
did not suffer from their fears, their sensitivities to the pains and dangers 
of life. He felt that 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
everyone expected him, because of his size, to do more, to endure more, to 
enjoy what they thought of as an unfair advantage. An advantage he, himself, 
would happily have foregone if he could only be treated as no different than 
everyone else. 
It was an unhappiness which Hal had been lucky to avoid, largely because of 
his upbringings, both as Donal and Hal. Also because with the Dorsai, just as 
physical training and skill could more than compensate for differences in 
power, they also rendered unimportant any advantages of extra size. Strength, 
there, was irrelevant, in comparison with the will and soul inside the 
person-large or small, old or young, man, woman, or child-on whom others might 
have to depend; and the Dorsai culture took for granted an understanding of 
this. "Come in. Come in and let's talk!" Amid was saying. 
He stood aside to let Amanda go before him and then followed her through the 
doorway of the small building. Hal was about to follow, when Artur spoke 
behind him. "Hal Mayne?" "Yes?" Hal turned. " I'm sorry . . . you're the Hal 
Mayne, of course. I should have recognized you at once. Amid's talked about 
you often." 
There was embarrassment, but also relief in Artur's voice; and Hal understood. 
Artur could not be expected by anyone to compete against someone with Hal's 
reputation. "Recognizing anyone right away from nothing more than verbal 
descriptions is pretty good," said Hal. 
He turned and went in, hearing Artur behind him. Inside, the building seemed 
almost entirely given over to what appeared to be a single meeting, eating, 
and working room. The last of the sunset was almost gone behind the rocky 
peaks almost directly over them, in just these few minutes. But the lingering 
brightness of the sky still glowed into one side of the large room they had 
just entered, touching it through a number of the small, square windows spaced 
evenly around the walls. Interior lighting was just beginning to supplement 
this. 
The artificial light came from a combination of candles, and three of the 
common, portable, hundred-year lamps, affixed to the rafters which openly 
crossed the space overhead under the steeply pitched roof. 
Solar-charged lamps like these would be left over from before 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
139 
the coming of the Occupation Forces to Kultis, which brought an end to what 
relatively little manufacturing the two Exotic worlds had done for themselves. 
In addition, there was an open fireplace, contained within a square of four 
knee-high walls of reddish brick. There was a hood over it of some metal which 
looked like, and well might be, copper; undoubtedly likewise salvaged from 
earlier days on this world. The hood reached up to a chimney pipe of the same 
metal. 
The fire already burning in the fireplace gave little light of its own; but 
what there was of it softened the rather harsh illumination from the 
hundred-year lamps, which were originally designed primarily for outdoor and 
commercial uses. 
In the partition wall opposite the door they had just come in were two other 
doors, both partially open at the moment. One gave a glimpse into a small bed 
area, and the other, a bathroom. Around the large room were wooden chairs, 
homemade obviously, but padded and comfortable; and one large table end-on to 
them, that had its farther end piled with papers. 
The four of them moved instinctively toward the chairs closest to the 
fireplace, for though the sun had been hidden for only a few minutes, it 
seemed that a chill was already penetrating into the building from the open 
air beyond the front door. "These are my quarters," said Amid as they sat 
down, "but I've also got another office in one of the two dormitory buildings, 
which can double as a bedroom. I'll let you two have that for the night, if 
you like, since we aren't set up for guests in the ordinary way of things. But 



sit down, sit down! You've come just at dinner time. Will you eat with me?" 
"We'd be glad to," Amanda said. Artur got up again, hastily. "I'll take care 
of it," he said, and went out. "He's a good Assistant Guildmaster," said Amid, 
as the door closed behind the big man. "If I hadn't had him to help me take 
charge here, I don't think I could have managed." "Do you mind if I ask why 
you did take over?" Hal asked. "I can see you staying, for the reasons you 
gave a moment ago. But why take on the job of Guildmaster?" "I was drafted 
into it, in a manner of speaking," said Amid. "Those who'd known Kanin wanted 
me simply because I'd been his brother. They seemed to think there was 
something in common between us that fitted the job. And, to tell you the 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
truth, I did know something of how Kanin thought in many ways. Even though we 
hadn't seen each other for fifteen years. I flattered myself my decisions 
would be his decisions. Because he made this place work. He didn't found it, 
you understand-or has Amanda told you all about the Chantry Guild already?" 
"I've told him nothing," said Amanda. "I see." Amid looked at Hal. His lined 
old face was shrewd. "Why did you come, Hal?" "Because Amanda said it was 
something I should do. She was right," said Hal. 
I I You just wanted to see it?" "Originally, it was probably more of an excuse 
than a want," said Hal. "But now, if you'll have me, I'd like to stay awhile." 
"I take it," said Amid, "you might want to walk in the circle then?" "If 
that's allowable," Hal answered. 
Amid grinned. He did not smile, he grinned. "For anyone else there'd be a 
period of observation first, a 
sort of apprenticeship; and a vote to be taken at the end of it, on him or her 
by all the members here," he said. "But I think we 
could do without that, since you're who you are." 
He sobered. "In fact, no one but Artur and I knew you might be coming. It's 
probably best to keep your real identity secret as long as we 
can-which won't be too long. I think the other members will let you walk on my 
recommendation alone, if that's necessary." "No," said Hal. "Yes," said 
Amanda. "Amid, Hal doesn't know Kultis as it is now. Hal, you'd be doing the 
people here a favor to at least give them the excuse that they were never told 
who you really were. 
Amid nodded, looking over at Hal. "She's right," he said. "Besides, it's not 
as if your coming in on the Guildmaster's recommendation alone was something 
otherwise unheard of. We've had people before this who were deserving, who've 
been let into the circle incognito. But-He 
turned back to Amanda. "It won't be more than a matter of weeks before 
they'll have guessed who he is, anyway. Secrets aren't easily hidden in a 
place as small as this ledge." "in a matter of weeks, the situation could be 
entirely 
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141 
different," said Amanda. "For now, let's do what we can to protect everybody 
concerned. Will Artur have spoken to anyone about who Hal is, when he went out 
just now to get the dinner?" "No, no. Not Artur," said Amid. "He volunteers no 
information. Besides, he's a highly intelligent individual; and even one who 
wasn't would have the sense to know the danger to Hal-and to us all, as you 
say-if it were known he was here on Kultis. " "In any case," said Hal, "I 
won't be here too long. But-Amanda, you were right. There's something here for 
me to find, in that circle. You were going to tell me about the one who 
started it?" "Yes," said Amid. "It was a Maran Exotic you'll never have heard 
of, named Jathed. He was a student of historic philosophy to begin with. He 
was ahead of his time in speculating that we 
Exotics might have gone astray from our original path. He spent twenty years, 
after he finished studying at various of our 
universities, examining our beginning-the Chantry Guild of Walter Blunt in the 
twenty-first century. How much do you know about that?" "A fair amount, as it 
happens," said Hal. "Good, then I won't have to go into too many details for 
you," Amid went on. "You know a chantry was a place, or an endowment for a 
place, where prayers could be said for a dead person, or persons; and that 
Walter Blunt chose this name for his organization back in the twenty-first 
century because by its very nature a chantry implies a relation of past, 
present, and future?" "Yes," answered Hal. "Well, it was that relationship as 
Blunt applied it that attracted Jathed. As I say, he spent his life studying 
the original Chantry Guild, You can see how the idea of a connection of past, 
present and future, now and forever, could lead to the concept of the 
transient and the eternal being the same. Jathed even went to Old Earth for a 



while. When he came back, he set himself up more or less as a hermit on the 
outskirts of a little town near here called Ichang-" 
Hal looked at Amanda. "It's about forty kilometers from Porphyry," Amanda 
said. "We could have come through it on our way here, instead of through 
Porphyry; but Ichang's not a garrison town. I mean, it doesn't have a garrison 
of Occupation troops. The Porphyry 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
troops have a contingent quartered there, but that's all. I wanted you to see 
what a garrison town on the Exotics, under the Occupation, was like." "This 
with Jathed was some years before the Occupation," said Amid mildly. "As I 
say, he became something of a hermit. You're probably already aware it's quite 
possible to live off the country in areas like the one just below us. There's 
enough insect, animal, bird, and vegetable life to keep anyone alive with just 
a couple of hours of food hunting a day. That's how Jathed lived. He 
deliberately wanted solitude to 'think through,' as he said, the proper 
direction of what should have grown from that original Chantry Guild." 
Artur came in, followed by two men and a woman, all carrying loaded trays. 
Artur directed the setting of these at the far end of the table as Amid went 
on. "Now, of course, since the Others, and particularly since the Occupation," 
he said, "every one on our two worlds has necessarily begun to rethink the 
direction we Exotics took in our attitudes and our thinking after we emigrated 
to these planets. But Jathed was considerably in advance of them all. At any 
rate, he moved farther and farther back into the woods, to get away from even 
casual contact with people; and eventually-we don't quite know when-he found 
his way up to this ledge here. 
--By that time, he'd acquired a few-disciples, let's call them. Yes, Artur?" 
"Everything's ready on the table. And hot." "We'll be right there. Wait-- For 
Artur had turned to follow those who had come in with him out the door. 
"You're to eat with us. That's an order. I want you to be a part of everything 
we decide with Hal, here. By the way, just to reassure us all, you didn't 
mention who Hal is to anyone9" "Of course not, Guildmaster!" "That's his way 
of reproving me," said Amid to Hal and Amanda, "when he calls me by my title. 
The reproof is for even 
needing to ask. We'll be at the table in a moment, Artur. Meanwhile, come and 
sit with us; and if I forget to tell Hal part of the story of Jathed, break in 
and fill the gap, will you?" "If you'd like me to," said Artur. "Thank you." 
"No thanks needed," said Amanda. "You should have taken the invitation for 
granted," "I'm sorry," said Artur, seating himself with them. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
143 
"And no apologies are needed, either," said Amanda. "Go on, Amid. " "Where was 
IT' said Amid. "Oh, yes, Jathed had started the walking down in the forest. He 
continued it up here, specifying the rules under which it was to be done; 
particularly the rule about how they were to chant. They were not to chant in 
unison, or try to walk in step, unless these things happened by accident. The 
idea was that they should be studying by themselves, even though they were in 
company. Above all, they were to utter nothing but the Law-about that last he 
was most emphatic. You'll have to remember that at all times, Hal. It's not a 
,mantra' you're hearing from those people outside. Not a prayer, hymn, or 
incantation of any kind. Jathed hated the word 'mantra' and wouldn't allow it 
used by anyone around him; and he was a violent man about getting his own 
way." "He used to drive people off with a staff," put in Artur, "though he did 
that more when they were down in the forest-or have you told them about the 
earliest Chantry Guild in the woods below us, Amid?" "No. I mentioned it, then 
went right to the ledge," said Amid. "Now you see why I wanted you here? 
Jathed's first incarnation of his Chantry Guild was, as Artur says, down in 
the wild country below us; close to these cliffs, but not overly close. He 
already had a number of disciples by that time, and he set them to walking the 
circle he, himself, had earlier worn ankle deep. Of course, there were new 
people coming every day wanting to join. But as I say he wasn't easy to get 
along with. One mistake and the would-be member was out-chased out, in fact. 
Jathed walked around with the staff Artur mentioned, and anyone who showed 
what he considered 'incomprehension'but particularly the fault of calling the 
Law a 'mantra'-got chased out, with Jathed running behind them hitting them 
with his staff to keep them going at a good pace." "He called it a Law?" asked 



Hal. "Yes." Amid looked penetratingly at him for a moment. "He called it a Law 
and he meant it to be a Law, as clearly acknowledged as the Law of Gravity. 
And he was furious with anyone who wanted him to teach them. He claimed all 
that was needed was for each of them, individually, to study the Law." " 'The 
transient and the eternal are the same,' '' said Hal. "Yes," said Amid. "I 
don't fully understand it myself, 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
either, Hal; but like many people who've come into contact with the Law, I can 
feel there's a power there; and I think Jathed was 
right, too, about the fact it can't be taught. Whatever's in it has to be 
found by individual effort to understand its meaning. You know, he said a 
strange thing. He said that in two generations everyone-and he meant everyone 
in the human race, not just those here on Kultis-would know the Law, and many 
would already have started to put it to use." 
He shrugged. "One generation of those two has already gone by; and there's few 
enough even among us Exotics who ever heard of it or Jathed; and it hardly 
looks like that'll change in the next twenty years or less. But that's what he 
said." "Now is a time of change," said Hal thoughtfully. "True. But for 
something like the Law to be accepted, let alone put to use, under present 
conditions where the human race is at civil war with itself . . . the Others 
certainly aren't going to take to the Law in any case; and wouldn't, even if 
it came from some other source than an Exotic. You realize the Others are 
literally out to kill us off-all of us on these two worlds? The only reason 
they don't simply bring in armed soldiery and shoot us down is because a 
massacre like that couldn't be kept secret from the other Younger Worlds and 
it might give rise to anti-Other attitudes out there." "I know," said Hal. "in 
fact, I had Bleys Ahrens tell me 
about his goals, once." "The only thing that's forced Bleys to try to 
accomplish his ends here by genteel starvation and casual individual murder by 
his Occupation troops," said Amid, "is the fact that there're only a handful 
of Others, a mere few thousands, to control all the Younger Worlds. We here at 
the Chantry Guild have been overlooked, rather than specifically allowed to 
survive. But, back to Jathed and the history of this present incarnation of 
the Guild-- "Amid," said Artur, "might I mention the dinner again" The food's 
getting cold, as I said. We could talk as we eat," "Of course. Of course, 
you're right!" said Amid. "I'm getting more single-minded every day. Let's 
move to the table, everybody. " 
They moved. 
CHAPTER 
15 
"At any rate," said Amid a few minutes later, when they had started to eat 
from a number of dishes of vegetables, the contents of which, cooked and 
uncooked, were in large bowls on the table before them, with chopsticks laid 
out neatly at each seating place, "as Artur reminds me, it wasn't until 
perhaps three years before the Occupation began that Jathed moved the walking 
circle up here to the ledge and shortly after that, he died. Kanin was one of 
his disciples-" 'The Master's leading disciple," said Artur. 'Well, well, 
perhaps," said Amid. "Jathed didn't assign ranks to his followers. At any 
rate, Kanin, foreseeing something like the Occupation, moved everyone 
connected with the Guild-not just the walkers-up here and started building for 
permanent occupation of this place. Then, last year, he died . . .and I've 
already told you how I came to be with him-too late; and was asked to take 
over as Guildmaster. " "The only possible choice-," began Artur, but Amid 
interrupted. 
-Perhaps, as I say. But what you need to know, Hal, if you're going to stay 
here awhile, is that we're an open democracy in this place, everybody having a 
vote on everything and the majority ruling. In practice the Guildmaster has a 
veto over anything voted, but-" "In practice," put in Artur firmly, "no one 
would think of 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
questioning the Guildmaster's veto, or an order by the Guildmaster. " "Well, 
well. The point is, Hal, you'll be moving in as one of the members of the 
Guild. That means you'll have a vote, of course, but I'd suggest you wait 
until you understand this place better before you begin using it. You'll stay 
in one of the dormitory buildings, in the singles' quarters. There are rooms 
for couples here as well, but they're all full right now and we haven't had 
time to build more; that's why I suggested you use 
my office as your room for tonight." "Thank you," said Amanda. "We appreciate 
it." "Yes, indeed," said Hal. "The office would only be empty otherwise. I 
sleep here, nights." Amid made a dismissing gesture with his chopsticks. "Now, 
about the circle itself. Every Chantry Guild member, which means everyone on 
the ledge, has a chance to walk in it, in regular rotation. He or she can pass 
up the turn when it comes, if they want. Both Artur and myself have to, most 
of the time, because of the administrative work to be done. For the rest, it's 
a matter of each one waiting for his or her turn, then joining the small group 
of waiters beside the circle-did you see 
the group of those waiting their turn as you came in?" 
Hal thought back. There had, indeed, been a handful of men and women on the 
far side of the circle of walkers, but he had thought they were simply people 
who had stopped for a moment to watch. "The rule as laid down by Jathed, you 
see," went on Amid, "is that once you begin to walk the circle you can keep 
walking as long as you wish. The circle goes twenty-four hours a day, every 
day of the year, so if it was physically possible, a single person could hold 
his or her place in it indefinitely. But in reality, exhaustion would 
eventually put an end to anything like that; and the truth is, even those 
walking normally seem to reach a point far short of exhaustion, at which they 
decide to step out and let someone replace them. I don't mean they stop as a 
matter of fair play or good manners; but simply because something in them 
feels it has accomplished, or absorbed, or whatever you want to call it-what 
it set out to do. As if a good day's work had been done and they were 
satisfied with what had been achieved after the time and effort expended." 
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147 
: "Can they tell you afterward what it was that made them decide to stop? What 
it was they'd accomplished?" Hal asked. 
Amid glanced at him suddenly. "That's an interesting question," he answered. 
"No. They can't. But they'll tell you that they feel . . . completed. In fact, 
that's the way I've felt after walking." "I see," said Hal thoughtfully. "What 
this means," said Amid, "is that while I can recommend your immediate access 
to the Guild members i you'll still have to go out there and 
join those standing by, and wait your turn when it comes. Unless someone ahead 
of you offers you his or her turn; and of course, this assumes that those 
in-between you and the one offering don't mind you going before them, too." 
"No one, I think, would object to Hal being given priority," said Artur. "In 
fact, even not knowing him, they wouldn't object if a fellow Guild member 
wanted to trade places backward. " "Well, in theory they've got a perfect 
right to object, and I Want Hal to understand that." "I do," said Hal. "In 
fact," said Amid, almost fiercely, "what you may actually find when you join 
the waiters is that they'll each offer you the chance to step ahead of them, 
so that you may be the 
rst one to take the next opening in the circle. But that's up to them. They'd 
have to do that. I can't, in conscience, even recommend it." "I understand," 
said Hal. "Guildmaster, " said Artur, "I think you may be leaning over 
backward a little in all this. Hal should also be reminded that it would only 
be showing a proper appreciation to accept if anyone offers him a chance to 
move up." "Well, yes," answered Amid. "You're right of course. I'm sorry if I 
seemed to imply that you shouldn't accept if anyone offers, Hal." "You 
didn't," said Hal. "Good, then," said Amid. He turned to Amanda. "Amanda, 



you've hardly said a word. Now what, now that You've brought Hal here? Will 
you be staying, too? If so, there'll be a question of quarters. I'd gladly let 
you have my 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
office for an indefinite number of nights, but sometimes we do need to work 
over there, when I've got a lot of our people doing some large project or 
other here; and in any case-" "In any case," said Amanda, "I'll he staying 
only a few days to see how it works out for Hal. Then I'll be getting back to 
my own work in the district below." "Whatever you want. Although," said Amid, 
"I'm oldfashioned enough not to like the idea of your teaching Exotics to 
physically fight for their rights." "Only if they ask for it," said Amanda. 
"You should have understood by this time that what I teach them mainly is 
survival-how to survive if hunted, how to survive under the noses of the 
garrison troops. Your Exotics are never going to rise and drive off these 
invaders. On the other hand their own culture, given a little help in some 
instances, arms them with ways to deflect trouble, avoid trouble or defend 
themselves, if trouble unfairly comes looking for them." "I'm relieved to hear 
that," said Amid. "As far as your staying temporarily, we won't be needing the 
office evenings and nights for several weeks, anyway; and in the case of your 
coming back for a few days unexpectedly, we can always work out something. But 
you haven't anything to say about what we're talking about? About Jathed and 
the history of our Chantry Guild here?" " I'm interested-but this is Hal's 
area, " said Amanda. " I'l I just go on listening, if you don't object." 
"Object? Certainly not. This isn't a place where people object to things. Also 
we're not discussing anything at all secret. " 
Amid turned to Hal. "And since the subject of your area's come up," he said, 
"I ought to admit to you, Hal, that we've got a selfish motive for having you 
with us; particularly since Amanda can't stay. The Occupation Forces would 
wipe us out in a moment if they suspected we were here. We avoid their finding 
out as much as possible by having contact with only three people from 
Porphyry, who come up this way every so often on the excuse of gathering 
fruits or berries from the wild plants. But there's always a danger that 
something might cause the local garrison to investigate this area. It'll be a 
relief to us to have someone with some military training on hand, even though 
the chance of their 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
149 
hearing about us up here is remote. We'll sleep a little easier until you 
leave." "I'm afraid," said Hal, in a colder tone than he had intended, "you're 
under a misapprehension. Maybe Amanda could be some real help to you, but I'm 
no Dorsai. " 
He avoided Amanda's eyes directly as he said these last words but he was aware 
her gaze was on him. She said nothing. "Oh, you aren't, we all know that," 
said Amid swiftly, "but I understand you had a Dorsai as one of your tutors 
and you're a good deal closer to one than anyone else on the ledge here 
-except Amanda, of course. But if the soldiers find us and it comes to an 
actual conflict-" "Oh, that-" Hal shrugged. "Certainly, anything an individual 
can do, since I'm your guest. Of course." 
He smiled a little, not happily. "It's a good thing you didn't ask me that a 
couple of years ago," he said. "At that time my answer would have been that 
I'd become a little like the rest of you, in that philosophically I'd moved 
away from the area of violence. But now I'm free to be useful to you up here 
in any way I can." "Ah," said Amid gently, "of course, you're entitled to live 
by your beliefs, just as much as the rest of us. If it'd be imposing on 
those-" "No!" said Hal, and was surprised by the sharpness of his own voice. 
More gently, he added, "it's perfectly all right. I'm at your disposal, body 
and mind." "We appreciate it," Amid answered. 
Amanda still said nothing, and Hal thought he was aware of an aura of 
disapproval emanating from her silence. "Tell me more about Jathed," he said, 
to change the subject "Give Amid a chance to eat, Hal," Amanda spoke finally, 
"then you can ask all the questions you want." "No, no. That's quite all 
right. I eat very little," said Amid. "About Jathed-what specifically do you 



want to know about him?" "If you don't mind, Guildmaster," said Artur, "I've 
been sitting here just eating and listening; and I've pretty well finished. 
Why don't I answer while you eat? If there's anything important, you can 
always speak up. But you should eat." "I'll eat, I'll eat!" said Amid. "You'd 
think I was a prize goat the way they're always trying to stuff more food down 
me!" 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
"I'm sorry, Guildmaster. We do overdo it, of course-" "Never mind. I'll eat. 
You talk," said Amid. "But if there's anything I want to say, I'm not going to 
let a piece of fried root keep me from it. All right. I'm sorry. You're right. 
Talk. I'll eat. " 
He began taking pieces of food from the various serving bowls and putting them 
on his plate. "If Jathed didn't believe in teaching, what did he do?" asked 
Hal. "Did he walk in the circle, himself?" "Not in the memory of anyone who 
became a disciple of his," said Artur. "Apparently he had for years, all those 
years he was alone in the jungle living like a hermit, because, as I may have 
mentioned, there was a rut-in fact, you might even want to call it a 
ditch-worn outside the hut he'd built for himself by the time he began to 
admit disciples. In fact, it was already so 
deep that they'd shortly have worn it down until they were walking around out 
of sight below ground level, if some of them hadn't started to fill it in 
surreptitiously when he wasn't around. He came and caught them at it once, but 
didn't object. So they filled it back up to ground level, and kept it that 
way. You could never tell, apparently, what he was going to approve of or 
object to.' , "But he, himself, had stopped walking by the time anyone began 
to live with him?" Hal asked. "He said he didn't need to, any longer. That the 
Law was in his mind all the time now-it had worn a rut there as well as in the 
ground. That was one of the questions he answered from someone, once, instead 
of simply shouting 'Stupid!' and chasing whoever it was off with his staff." 
"But what did he do, if he didn't teach and he didn't walk?" "In his later 
days," said Artur, "after he had acquired disciples, there were lots of times 
when he talked to them. I don't want to give the impression he was 
unreasonable all the time. In fact, most of the time he was pleasant, even 
witty, and perfectly willing to discuss things. The only problem was that if 
you made a mistake you got chased away for good." "Someone he ran off couldn't 
come back later?" Amanda asked. 
Artur shook his head. "There weren't any warning shots, any second chances," 
he 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
151 
said. "Evidently it' you asked the wrong question you were showing you didn't 
belong there, and out you went. Some of the people he chased away tried to 
form their own groups, but none of them got anywhere." "Jathed could be, and 
was," interrupted Amid suddenly, "not only informative but charming. It didn't 
take a question to get him talking. A bird, a falling leaf, anything or 
nothing at all, might bring a comment from him and he'd go from that into a 
sort of informal lecture. Theoretically, as Artur just told you ' asking 
the wrong question got you thrown out; but his disciples noticed that during 
one of these informal lectures of his, questions were a lot safer to ask. 
Then, he seemed more willing to explain than at other times. Some of these 
'lectures' were recorded by those there at the time-Jathed didn't seem to 
object to that, either, under those conditions . . . Artur, where's 
that control pad? I thought I had it on the table, right here, unless I 
knocked it off. . . . " 
He was searching around the end of the table. I 'I'll find it, Amid, " said 
Artur. "I think I saw it over by that chair you usually sit in." 
He went back to where they had all been sitting around the fireplace, lifted a 
transparent glass paperweight, showing a small, green pine cone, about the 
size of a hen's egg, and took a control pad from underneath it to set it down 
by Amid. "Thank you," said Amid. "My memory's as good as it ever was, except 
for little things like this." "You work too hard, Guildmaster." "I do what has 
to be done-never mind that, now. Ah, I've got it! " 
He had been fingering the pad. Suddenly a surprisingly resonant, pleasant, 
deep bass voice sounded in the room. ". . . different universe. My universe is 
not your universe. For example, in my universe I will now get up-watch me-walk 



across the room, up the wall and stand head down, talking to you as I am now. 
That's because in my universe it's possible for me or anyone else to do that." 
There was a long moment of silence, finally broken by a somewhat 
timid-sounding, young male voice. "Jathed?" "Yes, Imher? 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
"Pardon me ... but it seems to me ... that is, you're still sitting in your 
chair. You talked about moving but you didn't move. "Of course not-in your 
universe. But in my universe, I did exactly what I said. You didn't see it 
because you're not in my universe, you're in your own. Make an effort and step 
into my um .verse, and you'll see me standing on the ceiling talking down to 
you." 
There was another pause. "You can't do it?" said Jathed's voice. "Of course 
not. You don't believe in yourself enough to believe that you can enter 
someone else's universe. But there're people even on the inhabited worlds 
today, Imher, who have enough faith in themselves to step into someone else's 
universe. Faith and-yes, courage-which you also lack, all ofyou here. Am I 
correct that none of you see me standing on the ceiling at this moment?" 
There was yet another pause. "Well, speak up, speak up!" A chorus that was 
very close to a shamefaced mutter of "no's" answered Jathed. "But I can! I 
can, just now. ltjust happened. Jathed, I can see 
YOU UP there.'' "Do you indeed, Imher? Very well, as reward for your faith and 
courage, you may come up and join me. Come on up." "Come up?'' "Wasn't that 
what I said?'' "Yes, Jathed." 
There was a moment of absolutely soundless silence. "I ... I made it." "LIAR! 
Out! Out! Out of my sight! Out of this place and never 
let any of us see you again! Go! Go!" 
There was a thump, a scrabbling noise and the sound of shod feet running away. 
A door slammed. 
There was a further lengthy moment of silence, then the voice of Jathed again, 
now a little breathless. "Intolerable! Outrageous! Now, where was I? Oh, yes, 
on the ceiling. I'll just go back up there ... try to watch me this time and 
see me. Now, here I am again, hanging head down; though of course it's not 
head-down to me, all the rest of you are 
wrong-side up-ah, but what have we here? Someone who actually has courage 
andfaith. Well, don't sit there on the edge 
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153 
of your chair, trembling! If you think you can do it, Reho, come up and join 
me." "Should l?'' said a different voice, doubtfully -female this time. "Of 
course I think -you can, numbskull! Would I invite you up if I didn't see-you 
were i .n my universe? Come at once!" 
-A// right . . . '' Silence again. "I'm here!" said the voice, full of wonder. 
" Where did you expect to be? Now, for the benefit of all those below us who 
still lackfaith and courage, to prove to them you're actually with me, reach 
back into your own universe and break the ceiling light just to your right, 
there. " 
A hesitation. Then the smashing and tinkling impact of light fragments on a 
hard surface. "Very good. We'll go back down now. That's right.'' "I ... I,In 
afraid of heights. I didn't stop to think before I came . . . being upside 
down with nothing to hold me-'' "NOT IN MY UNIVERSE! You are not afraid of 
heights in my universe, Reho! Do you hear me?" "Yes, Jathed. '' "Good. Go 
down.'' 
Silence again. "Well?" said the voice of Jathed. "Now that Reho and I are back 
in our seats, none of you saw anything at all out of the ordinary-except the 
inexplicable breaking of the light unit, two meters above vour heads 
'9" 
"No, Jathid, " said the chorus. "Well, you all have something to hope for, 
then. Each one of you pick up a ftagment of that broken ceiling light and take 
it away with you to help you study. Ponder. Think. Do that success 


f your ./u/A and vou, too, mav one 
day become aware o own universe as distinctfirom others.- "Jathed?'' It was 
yet another female voice. " Yes, Katchen '9" 
"We didn't-I mean I didn't-see you go up the wall to the ceiling in your 



universe. But when Reho broke the light in her uni.verse, we all saw it break. 
Why could we see something that happened in her universe but not in yours?" 
"Think.' Answer 'your own question. Why? Think! Can't you think of the 
answer yourself?'' 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
"No, Jathed.- "You didn't see Reho break the light in her universe-that's the 
answer!" "But . . . " "But what?" "But the light's broken. We can all see its 
parts on the floor there. We all saw it break.'' "Where?" "Where?'' "Don't 
parrot me. I said 'where?' Now you tell me-where did you see the light break?" 
There was an extended silence. "You each saw it happen in your own universe, 
you idiots!'' snapped Jathed. "You didn't have the faith and courage to 
believe that I could walk up a wall and stand on the ceiling, in your 
universes. That's impossible. But you could believe that a 
light could be broken. Because lights break. That's poss-ee-ble! " He drew the 
last word out sarcastically. "When 1, Jathed, told you that the light would be 
broken, so that you'd all have evidence Reho had been with me on the ceiling, 
THEN you believed! Numbskulls! Reho broke the light in her own universe, only. 
You-each of you-because for a moment you believed it was possible-broke it 
yourselves in your own unt .verses, to make what I promised you actual." 
He stopped talking. No one else said anything. "All right. Understand then, 
that You have a universe, that you can do with it what you will-look at the 
piece of broken light in your hand, those of you who've already picked a piece 
up-the rest of you pick one up and look at it. Think. You did that, without 
getting upfrom your chair, without even walking up a wall and standing on the 
ceiling! Do you understand now? Do you comprehend how your universe is a place 
where you can do anything you want, ifyou've got what's needed to do it, 
thefaith, the courage-and the knowledge, which in this case is the knowledge 
that a light will break easily? If I'd said Reho would punch a hole in the 
ceiling, you might not have been as quick to believe and make it happen in 
your own universe." 
--Would you turn it off?. " said Hal. "Well, do as I sa 'v, pick up-The voice 
of Jathed broke off abruptly. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
155 
"That's curious," said Amid. "Why did you want the recording stopped, and 
stopped just there, Hal?" "Because he said something very interesting. As you 
just remarked." Hal smiled at the older man. "I'd like some time to think 
about it." "And what was it that was so interesting in particular, if I might 
ask?" Amid said. "What he said about everyone being in their own universe," 
said Hal. "Don't ask me why just now, if you don't mind. The only answer I 
could give you would be too long and complex and right now I'm not even sure 
it'd be satisfactory." "If you wish," said Amid. "This tape, and others of 
Jathed, are here any time you want to listen to them." "Thank you," said Hal. 
"Now, since dinner's over-for which, thank you-perhaps Amanda and I had better 
make our move over to that office of yours, for the use of which, also thanks. 
It's been a long day, all of it uphill." "I can imagine," said Amid. "Good 
night, then. It's very, very good to see you both. You particularly, Hal, 
since I hadn't been sure, until Amanda talked to me about bringing you, that 
I'd ever see you again after I'd left the Encyclopedia." "No meeting is ever 
impossible," said Hal. "True. Good night, then, as I say. Artur will show you 
where the office is, and make sure you're properly settled there. Won't you, 
Artur?" "Of course," said the big man. 



THE CHANTRY GUILD 
157 
CHAPTER 
16 
Amid's office-the Guildmaster's office, as Artur somewhat apologetically 
explained it should be referred to, when they spoke about it to anyone but 
Amid-was large enough for two work positions, and that was about all. It did, 
however, have enough floor space to allow the folding down of an oldfashioned 
mattress, which during work hours folded up against one of the walls. It was a 
generously sized double mattress, for which both Hal and Amanda were thankful, 
having had to do with a few ordinary-sized beds in their time. "Well," said 
Amanda, sometime later and just before they fell asleep. "Do you want to tell 
me why that recording of Jathed made you feel so good'? I could feel you 
radiating cheerfulness right across the dining table. I probably could have 
felt it clear outside that roorn.- "It was what I told Amid, what had struck 
me in what Jathed had said," Hal answered, "about there being a universe for 
every individual person. I haven't lacked for evidence. I was on the right 
track in my search for the Creative Universe. But I haven't had any new 
evidence for several years now; and, suddenly, along comes a man who agrees 
with me." "How agrees with you?" said Amanda. They were lying on their backs 
in the darkness, side by side, with all of the cloth covers with which the bed 
was furnished laid aside, since they were both rather sweaty. They were also 
holding hands. "He 
talked about a lot of universes. You've always talked about just one. " "It 
doesn't matter," said Hal. "One big universe with room in it for everybody to 
create what he or she wants, or one universe each in which to create what each 
one wants. It amounts to the same thing-" 
He broke off suddenly. "What is it?" asked Amanda. "Just hearing myself say 
that both conceptions amounted to the same thing. The transient and the 
eternal are the same. The likeness reminded me of Jathed's Law, that's all. 
Anyway, Jathed evidently had hold of a corner of the same blanket I've got a 
corner of. It does cheer you up to have your findings corroborated. " "I'm 
happy for you then." Amanda gave his hand a squeeze "But to be truthful, I 
still don't follow that business of the broken light. Would it be 'not-broken' 
to someone who hadn't been there, who just walked into the room, afterward . . 
. or what?" "I don't know," said Hal. "Maybe that's why I'm right about it 
being one large universe with room for unlimited creations to be built in it, 
rather than an unlimited number of private universes, like Jaffied said; and 
that's what's wrong with his theory, the fact that the question you just asked 
can't be answered. Or it may be that he was right in that some things done in 
the Creative Universe acquire existence in this one-for example, a painting's 
made in the mind of the artist, but it appears in what people will probably 
always call the real universe. " "But you know why it appears in the real 
universe. You can watch it being painted," "No," said Hal, "what you watch are 
materials of various colors being applied to an even, vertical surface. When 
do you see the painter put into the painting whatever it is that makes those 
colors have a profound emotional effect on you? Or take music for example-" 
"Never mind," said Amanda, "I see what you're driving at. I'm still glad you 
find him corroborating you; but the fact is I wasn't too impressed with him. 
He seemed more interested in showing off than anything else." "Still," said 
Hal, "he was using the Creative Universe 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
consciously and deliberately, which is something I can't do. He was entering 
it. All down the centuries, these artistic examples I'm always giving have 
been cases of creativity being used onk on the unconscious level. It's as if 
the artist can reach through into the Creative Universe with his arms and 
hands only in it, and has to work there by touch alone. I want to go into it 
completely-step into it as if it were another place to be stepped into. I have 
to do that, to make a battleground where the Enemy and I can finally have it 
out; and to make an opening so that other people can enter after me, wholly 
and consciously, to work with it in the future. But you're right about 
miracles being a bad way to teach anything, let alone this. I rejected that 
method of teaching its existence the first time I discovered the Creative 
Universe-but I've told you about that." "I wish," said Amanda, "you'd stop 
telling me you've told me things that you haven't told me. You've never said 
anything to me about when you discovered the Creative Universe." "I'm sorry," 
said Hal. "I do a certain amount of going over 
things in my mind, with you there in imagination-effectively bouncing problems 
off you; and unless I deliberately stop to remember when I did that on a 
specific topic, I get the imaginary talks with you mixed up with the real 
ones." 
Amanda turned her head on the pillow and kissed his cheek. "What was that 
for?" he asked. "Nothing. Go on," she said. "You're going to tell me, actually 
this time, when you first discovered the Creative Universe. " "It was back 
when I was Donal," said Hal. "You remember I showed you Sayona the Bond back 
at the Encyclopedia? It was some time before then. I'd just quit being War 
Chief for the two Friendly worlds after a rather unfriendly scene with Eldest 
Bright, who was head of the United Council of Churches for the Friendlies-in 
fact, he threatened me with summary trial and execution. I had to shoot three 
of his guards he ordered to arrest me; and remind him that his capitol city 
was full of enough of my mercenaries, who could appreciate the bloodless 
victory I'd just given them, to make it unwise for him to try doing such a 
thing. He'd accused me of being bought by the Exotics, over whose forces I'd 
just given him the victory; and it turned out he hadn't wanted it bloodless. 
He'd wanted blood and lots of it, specifically Exotic blood. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
159 
So he had to let me go; but his last words were that I should go and look for 
work with the Exotics. I'd already decided to do just that, anyway; and so I 
contacted them. That led to an inter-view with Sayona, who hired me, but also 
made the suggestion I become an Exotic. One of the things he said was that he, 
at least, believed I was the kind of person who could walk on air if I really 
wanted to. I turned him down on being an Exotic, but . . . " 
In the quiet office-turned-bedroom Hal could hear his voice echoing 
differently from the walls, now, as he remembered how it had been, being 
Donal. It was Donal's voice in his present ears; and it brought a strangeness 
over him. Telling Amanda about it, he found himself reliving that time, now 
more than eighty years in the past. . . . 
. . .deep in thought, he had returned to his own quarters in the city of 
Portsmouth, on Mara, which then held the Military Command Base for the two 
Exotic worlds. Portsmouth was in what on Old Earth would have been the 
temperate latitudes; but the nature of Procyon, the same sun that shone on 
Kultis, was such that the night which hadjust en/bIded that city as he came 
back was tropical. 
The soji illumination of his room had come on automatically as he entered; but 
it was so adjusted that itfailed to white out the overhead view of the stars. 
These shone down through the open wall of the loggia that was his bedroom. 
Standing in the center of this loggia, his mind still full of the conversation 
with Sayona, Donal frowned. He gazed up at the gently domed roof of the 
loggia, which reached its highest point at two meters above his head. He 



frowned again and turned to search through the writing desk in the room until 
he found a seff-sealing signal-tape capsule. Then, with this in one hand, he 
turned to look toward the ceiling again, and took one rather awkward step up 
off the floor. 
His foot found purchase in the air. He stepped upward, putting his weight on 
it. Slowl -v, step by step he walked up through nothingness to the high 
point of the ceiling. Opening the capsule, he pressed its self-sealing edges 
against the white surface oJ'the ceiling, where they (,lung. He stood there a 
second in the air, staring at them. "Ridiculous!'' he said suddenlv-and just 
as suddenly, he 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
wasfalling. He gathered himself with the instinct of long training in the 
second of drop and, landing on hands andfeet, rolled over and came erect like 
a gymnast against a far wall. He got up, brushing himself off, unhurt-and 
turned to look up at the ceiling. The capsule still clung there. 
Suddenly he had laughed, cheerfully and out loud. "No, no," he said to the 
empty room. "I'm a Dorsai!" 
"You rejected it," said Amanda in the darkness. "Why?" "I handled all things 
by intuitional logic, then," said Hal. "I ran the probabilities forward and 
found they went nowhere-at least as far as going where I wanted to go, which 
was to lead the human race to a time when none of them would ever do the sort 
of thing that had caused the death of my uncle James. But you do see-" 
He turned to look in her direction. Although there was some light leaking 
around the door that led to the interior of the building and the bathroom 
facilities, there was not enough to read the expression on Amanda's face. 
--how I'd entered the Creative Universe, and used it, I'd had to, to be able 
to put that message capsule on the ceiling. From that, I realized there must 
be an aspect of things I'd never taken into account before; and the concept of 
the Creative Universe grew from that." "But you turned away from it then?" she 
said. "My first thought was that it was only good for parlor magic tricks. It 
never crossed my mind it could be useful. Remember, at that time, as I say, I 
still believed in the way of getting physical control of all the worlds and 
making the people on them live by laws that would end the sort of situation 
that'd killed James. At that time I didn't see any reason it wouldn't work." 
He hesitated. "But that was the first time I'd entered the Creative Universe," 
he said more slowly, "and, like everyone else since time began, I did it 
unconsciously. I said to myself, 'let's see if I can't walk on air,' and tried 
it; and found I could. The potential of that came back to me once I got 
control of all the Younger Worlds and found laws alone wouldn't change human 
nature." 
He laughed. "Breathtaking discovery, wasn't it?" he said. "At any rate, then 
it occurred to me for the first time to go back to the 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
161 
twenty-first century and change the direction of history. My full appreciation 
of what the Creative Universe could mean for the race was born in my search 
for a way to do that. To begin with, it offered me a way to put my mind back 
into the past-and bring it back eighty years later than when it had left, in a 
two-year-old body. " 
He lay for a moment without saying anything. Amanda waited patiently. "But 
even then I was making use of the creative forces largely unconsciously, 
without really understanding them. It was only when I had to recognize the 
Others as a result of the changes in intent I made in the estab I ished 
-frozen by time-historic forces of the twenty-first century, that I began to 
see the real shape of the job I had to do. It was then I really looked at the 
Creative Universe; and saw its ultimate possibilities, and the absolute 
necessity for them." "Tell me," said Amanda thoughtfully, "you don't use 
intuitional logic anymore?" "No," said Hal. "It doesn't help what I'm doing 
now and hasn't helped much with anything I've done for a long time. It's a 
Donal-style tool, about as useful as the ability to do calculus instantly in 
your head. Idiot savants have done things comparable to it for centuries 
without giving the race a chance for improvement; let alone helping it grow, 
the way I hoped-He 
stopped, on a note in his voice that left what he had been saying 
uncompleted. "But while my mind was back in the twenty-first century," he 
said, "under the influence of Walter Blunt and what the Chantry Guild was 
then, as well as by my own will, I entered the Creative Universe deliberately. 
Earlier, I'd just passed through it to get back in time. It was because I was 
there that I could be, and was, struck at by the Enemy. Otherwise, I'd never 



have begun to see what the conscious, willing entry into that universe 
promises everybody." "But there's no way you can use intuitional logic to see 
your way to the Creative Universe?" Amanda asked. "It doesn't work for that 
sort of problem. It's essentially a tool of' the real universe, bounded by 
logic. It can't jump gaps-only go through the logical steps faster. I know 
I've been saying I have to find the way to the Creative Universe; but perhaps 
what I ought to be saying is that I have to make a way to 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
it. If there was already a way, the kind of way I need, to the Creative 
Universe, intuitional logic could find it. But there isn't one yet, and 
intuitional logic not only can't find what isn't there, It can't make anything 
on its own." "I understand then," Amanda said thoughtfully. "You're saying you 
can't see ultimate consequences to anything?" "That's right. I can't. All 
that's visible to it is what ordinary logic would predict if ordinary logic 
had all the elements of the problem and unlimited time to work them to a 
conclusion. Intuitional logic not only doesn't work in the creative area, it 
doesn't work in the personal one-for instance, I can't see my own death; 
because like all reasonably healthy persons, I can't, on the unconscious 
level, conceive of myself as dead and the universe going on without me-" 
Amanda did not move physically. The years of her upbringing, both as a Dorsai 
and as the prot6g6 of the Second Amanda, held her still'. But her profound 
emotional reaction reached out to Hal with shocking impact, through that same 
channel by which they could touch each other across light-years of space. 
Swiftly he gathered her into his arms, holding her tight against him. She lay 
still there, too, but now he could feel the trembling inside her. "Amanda!" he 
said, "what is it?" 
-I don't know. I can't tell you . . ." she said between teeth clenched tight. 
"It's as if the edge, just the edge, of some terrible sadness brushed me. Oh, 
my love-hold me"' 
-I've got you," said Hal. "Tell me you won't go away, ever!" "I'll never leave 
you," said Hal. "Oh, thank all heavens, all gods Amanda clung to 
him. He held her tight; and, in time, they slept-still close together. 
CHAPTER 
17 
Dawn through the uncurtained windows of the office woke them both. They 
dressed and found their way to the dining hall of the dormitory building they 
were in. They were seated across from each other at an end of one of the long 
picnic-style plank tables, having breakfast, when Amid joined them. "Someone 
told you we were here," said Amanda, as the old man sat down next to her. He 
looked more diminutive than ever side by side with Amanda, Hal noticed. It was 
as if the last year or so had shrunk him even further, only without harming 
him. He was a little kernel of a man, but hard and alive. "Quite right." He 
beamed at her. "I'd left word with those on kitchen duty in both buildings to 
let me know when you were up for breakfast. " 
He looked over at Hal. "I thought I'd take you out and see you started in the 
circle myself," he said. "Isn't that possibly going to mean a long wait for 
you?" asked Hal. "Ordinarily, yes," said Amid. "But it seems things are out of 
my hands. Word about a visitor here is already around; and those currently 
waiting have all volunteered to let you go first. We'll only have to wait 
until the first person to step out of the circle after we get there does so. 
Then you step in; Amanda and I go about our business." 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
165 
"Your business?" Hal looked from Amid to Amanda. 'Well, I about my business," 
said Amid. "I was merely using the expression. What Amanda's immediate plans 
are, I've no idea. I assumed you'd know." "I'm staying for a day or so," said 
Amanda, "so I can watch Hal at the start. I'll just wait around-unless you've 
got something I can do to help pay our way with you here? I know everyone on 
this ledge works at something or other." "You're our guest," said Amid. "That 
rule doesn't apply to you or Hal unless you want it to." 
I As I told you," said Hal, "I'll do my share of whatever's to be done." 
"There you are," said Amanda. "That takes care of him. Now, what have you got 
that I can be useful at?" "Thank you, then," said Amid. "All right, you can 
drop by our infirmary, if you want to. We don't have much sickness here, but 
small accidents will happen. Old Man is walking right now, so we could use 
someone who knows something about acupressure for pain relief and such-the 
sort of thing you Dorsai all know." "A place like this, on an Exotic world," 
said Hal, "and you need the skills of a Dorsai for battlefield-style medical 
handling?" "Amanda radiates the will to recover more than most, as I imagine 
you know," said Amid. "We have one person here, as I just mentioned, who calls 
himself simply 'Old Man,' he does the same thing; but even he's not as good at 
it as Amanda." 
"Oh?" said Hal. "I'd like to meet him." "You'll see him when you get out to 
the circle," said Amid. "He's got a sort of aura about him that seems to make 
people heal themselves faster and more comfortably. Actually, his name is 
Laoren, which, I gather, is Chinese in origin. But when he came here he asked 
us to simply call him by its translation in Basic, which is 'Old Man.' He's 
somewhat unusual; an Exotic from a family that had preserved their ethnic 
purity for more 
than a century and a half. You know how, on these two worlds of ours, we've 
always approved rather of mixing ethnic strains than keeping them separate." 
"I believe I saw him, as we came in," said Hal. He frowned with the memory of 
the sunlight flooding his eyes. 
"It wouldn't be surprising if you had," said Amid. "He does 
rather stand out. Also, you probably noticed he wasn't repeating the Law aloud 
as he walked. That's another thing about him. He only speaks when he has to 
and we've gathered he appreciates people not trying to draw him into 
conversation. I don't mean to suggest he's withdrawn, socially. He's probably 
one of the most genuinely merry people I've met. But he just.doesn't talk 
much. " 
Hal and Amanda finished their breakfast and they all went outside. In the 
fresh mountain air of the new day, Procyon beamed down at them out of a 
cloudless sky and the temperature was rising with that swiftness that promised 
a warm, if not hot, afternoon. "Come to think of it," said Amanda, with a 
glance at the sky, "have you had a solar radiation shot in the past three 
years, Hal? Because Procyon's not like Sol-- "I'm up to date," said Hal. He 
glanced at her exposed arms 
and legs, normally so pale, that were now a smooth, light tan. "How about 
yourself? You look as if you might be letting the local star get to you." "Oh, 
I'm up to date, too," said Amanda. "I wouldn't slip up on that. It's just that 
I'd stand out like a bright light among all these Exotics if I'd stayed my 
usual skin color. So I amended it, to help me fit in." 
Ahead of them, the circle was moving as it had been the evening before, and 
Hal now particularly took note of the small cluster of men and women off to 
one side, who were obviously the waiters. There were no more than half a dozen 
or so of them. "Do those in the circle deliberately cut their time short, if 
they see a lot of people waiting?" Hal asked. "They could, of course," said 
Amid. "But I don't think it happens very often. Once in the circle and once in 
the proper frame of mind, you see what's going on around you but it doesn't 



seem to have much, if any, importance-I can tell you that from personal 
experience. I think we've got one or two in the waiting group there, though, 
that are just out here to see you. I I 
They had been walking toward the circle as they talked. "You're sure word of 
who I am hasn't been mentioned?" "I'd be the tirst one any of the people here 
would come and tell, if they thought you were who you are," said Amid. "Some 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
may have seen a picture of you; but if so, since you haven't been announced, 
they're doing the polite thing and keeping it to themselves. " "A picture of 
me?" "Yes," said Amid. " It's been spread all over the Younger Worlds as 
part of the Others' propaganda against Earth. I don't mean they've published 
it separately. But there've been references, of course, to you, Ajela, Rukh 
and some other people, as charges against them were publicly made. Not you so 
far, Amanda, by the way." "Good," murmured Amanda. "I'd just as soon my 
picture wasn't too wel I known." "Yes. But I'm afraid, in your case, Hal," 
said Amid, "there's a whole generation of children on the Younger Worlds 
growing up who're being taught to spit after saying your name. You're supposed 
to be the evil sorcerer crouched spiderlike in your lair in the Final 
Encyclopedia, cooking up evil things for good people on all the Younger 
Worlds." 
They had joined the waiting group by the time Amid had finished saying this; 
all of the people in the group, with typical Exotic politeness, avoided 
looking directly at Hal and Amanda, or in any way appearing to attract the 
attention of the newcomers. As those walking passed, Hal had time to notice 
individuals. There was a drinking water fountain just beyond the far end of 
the circle, and three small buildings that were obviously personal 
waste-disposal units for the walkers. "Three?" Hal asked Amid, pointing at 
them. "Yes. Oh, I see what you mean," Amid laughed. "No, it's not that we've 
got three sexes around here, but you'll find when you get in the circle that 
you don't think of stopping for anything until something reminds you. Then you 
may be in a hurry. What we've found that tends to happen here is that someone 
will make a comfort stop and inadvertently set off what you might call a chain 
reaction. Jathed would have sneered at such niceties as drinking fountains and 
chemical waste-disposal units here; but my brother thought otherwise-by the 
way, there's Old Man turning the far corner, now." 
Hal looked and saw the oriental-appearing walker who had attracted his 
attention when they had first arrived, the day before. As Amid had said, Old 
Man was just now coming 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
167 
around the far end ofthe circle, on its side that was closest to the waiters, 
so that he was now walking toward Hal and the rest of the waiting group. 
True to what Hal had been told, the eyes of those in the circle-and Old Man 
was no exception -seemed to take in all that was visible before them, but show 
no particular interest in it. Old Man's eyes looked at and through Hal as he 
strode toward him. "Has he been walking all night?" Hal asked. "I believe so," 
said Amid. "You saw him in the circle when you came in?" "Yes," said Hal. 
It was hard to believe Old Man had been at this for hours. He moved with a 
particularly light and springy step, as if he was about to leap into the air 
with the next stride; and Hal guessed that for all his long white beard and 
white mustaches, the other could run like a deer if he had to. In fact, in 
spite of his skinniness and the evidence of his age, there was an impression 
of power and youth about him. It was startling, for in appearance alone, he 
was almost frail. He was hardly taller or heavier than a twelve-year-old boy, 
except for the largeness of his hands and a surprising width of shoulders 
under the robe he wore, which Hal now saw figured with white blossoms upon a 
background of a red color so dark as to almost seem black. Old Man's hair was 
as white as his beard and so sparse that the skin of his round skull under it 
was visible in the sunlight. "He's in remarkable physical condition," Amid was 
saying, beside Hal. "He has a sword of sorts he brought here with him; and he 
exercises with it when he isn't otherwise occupied. It's very graceful. It 
looks as if he's dancing, when he does it." 
They fell silent. There was something about the words, repeated and repeated 
in their ears, that not only made conversation unnecessary but drew their 
minds, if not their bodies, into the circle of those who moved before them. 



Hal found his thoughts running over the oriental schools of martial exercises 
with the sword that he could remember, He made a Mental note to watch Old Man 
at his exercises the first chance that made itself available. 
Hal was still at this when one of the walkers left the circle. He was a 
vonnPer man with (lose-cia reddish hair anti a fi]77 Of 



168 
Gordon R. Dickson 
reddish beard. He had been walking with all the appearance of normality, but 
after taking several steps away from the circle, he stumbled and his feet 
dragged, like those of someone exhausted, but still driving himself to move. 
One of those waiting was almost immediately at his side and helping him toward 
one of the nearer of the two dormitory buildings. "In you go, Hal," said Amid. 
"I'm waiting for Old Man to come around," said Hal. "I'd like to walk behind 
him." "If you like," said Amid. 
Old Man came around and Hal stepped in behind him. The next walker in the 
circle fell back a little distance to give room. Hal followed Old Man and, 
opening his mouth, began to repeat the Law: 
"The transient and the eternal are the same . 
Almost immediately the rhythm of the walking and the intoned phrase took him 
over. 
It was as if he had stepped on to the back of some powerful bird, which now 
took off with him. The words were like a living thing that lifted him and 
carried him away. The beating of his heart was in synchrony with the heartbeat 
of the bird; and a pressure he had not been conscious of feeling, but which 
had pressed down on him before, was suddenly released, so that he felt light 
and free. 
He ascended within himself on the wings of the feeling that bore him, that had 
been outside him to begin with but which was now working itself inward on him, 
staining into him. He felt the words resonating in his throat and all through 
his body. He could not say what they meant, any more than he had understood 
more than their ordinary, everyday meaning before. But he felt something 
additional in them now, even though he could not reach through to something of 
deeper import yet-like a vast mountain in the distance, somewhere beyond him. 
It was as Amid had said. He did not lose sight of, or touch with, his 
surroundings. He saw Amid and Amanda still standing, watching him for a little 
while before they turned and went off together, leaving only the small group 
of those who waited their turn in the circle. He saw and felt all that he 
ordinarilv 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
169 
would have seen and felt, but it was irrelevant to what he was experiencing 
with his own movement and the repetition of the words. 
The bird carrying him was his image and he let himself go with it. He felt the 
softness and warmth of the back feathers under him, felt the vibrations 
through them of the powerfully pumping wings, saw far distant on the horizon 
the triangular, mist-white shape of the Grandfathers of Dawn mountains that 
was his destination. The clean, thin air of the heights drew deep down into 
his lungs, searching out their very bottom crannies and corridors. And, 
without warning, he understood. 
He understood that the weight that had dropped away temporarily from him as he 
stepped into the circle had been the weight of defeat. It had accumulated, 
layer by layer, day by day this last year, surrounding him, but held off from 
closing in on and crushing him by his strength of will, which grew and 
toughened like muscle in response to the demand placed upon it. So that his 
lack of success and his strength of will had increased together-until at last 
the limits even of his will were. approached; and he had begun to give under 
the weight. 
So despondency had finally begun to touch him. He had fought well and won, 
fought and won, again and again-and again and again victory had left him with 
the decisive encounter yet to be. Fear and its stepchildren, self-doubt and 
self-hatred, still tore and destroyed in the innermost parts of all human 
beings. He had conquered one wall only to find another, and another after 
that, and after that another, with his foe still alive and protected . . . 
until there seemed no end to the walls, and he felt the beginnings of an end 
to his strength. 



He was aware that others had taken up this challenge in times before him, and 
all had failed in the end. But like each of those who had gone before, he had 
said, "we have come so far. We have won this much. Now, finally, we ought to 
be ready to reach the final battleground; and put an end to what plagues us." 
Donal had won . . . and the final battle had turned out yet to be fought. Paul 
Formain had won . . . and the final battle still awaited. Hal Mayne had saved 
what must be saved of the human race, safe for a little while until the final 
battle could be fought-and the final battle was still beyond the horizon, 
still out of reach. 



170 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
171 
There must be an end, as there must have been a beginning. For the first time 
he wondered about the moment of beginning of the historical forces that had 
brought him and the human race to this moment. He had used the Creative 
Universe for the first time, as Donal, to go back to where he thought he could 
set up the forces that would bring about a final encounter. As Paul Formain he 
had found them in the twenty-first century. But neither then nor now had he 
ever thought of trying to reach back and find the absolute beginning of that 
last battle in which he would be a solitary warrior. 
He reached out, mentally, now, to find that moment of beginning; and it led 
him to a place and a time, to a scene in which he became an Englishman in 
armor at the lowest point of his own life's long battle. It was a day of 
victory for the Black Prince of England, the battle of Poitiers; and its 
sights, its sounds, its feel came to Hal not only through this knight who had 
been his unconscious forerunner in this centuries-long contest, but also from 
a dying soldier of the other side. Hal was both men-, and looked through the 
eyes of each to see the face of the other. 
. . .Sir John Hawkwood hadfought the long day's fight, and fought well-but 
none of rank or worth on his own side had been there where he hadfought the 
best qf the other side, to note what he did. He had taken a prisoner, but it 
was a prisoner who was a Fre ch knight of small holding; and the ransom would 
not make Sir John rich. As ransoms had made rich Sir Robert Knolles, and the 
notice of the Black Prince had made famous Sir John Chandos. He was weary and 
the anesthesia of the winefront the night beft)re, and of the early morning 
before the battle, had long since worn off, leaving him weary and wasted 
inside. Aimlessly, on a battlefield on which the main acti .on was over, he 
rode up one side of a little rise; over the top of which, on the Jarther 
downslope, lay the tanner's son. 
The tanner's son lay dying in the bright September sunlight. About him was the 
odor of crushed grass and the stink of the blood and the intestines of a horse 
who had been disemboweled and la-v nearby. The tanner's son was a crossbowman 
from Lombardy. He wore leather hose and a leather smock of, sorts to which 
chain links had been sewn. He was tall and lean, with a 
swarthyface and straight black hair. He was in his early twenties and still 
had most of his teeth. His mouth was wide and mobile. He had an English arrow 
completely through his right side under the ribs; and he had worn the feathers 
completely off its shaft, since he had gone out of his head unsuccessfully tr 
'ving to draw it out the way it had entered. He had bled a great deal; but in 
spite of that he continued to lie supporting himself on one elbow with such a 
wild look on his ./ace that none of the English archers or men at arms had 
paused to cut his throat. Besides, he lay off to one side himself where there 
were no wounded French knights or such worth taking prisoner; and the battle 
had gone awayfrom him. 
His eyes no longerfocused on thefield. Occasionally he would cry out weakly in 
the dialect of his native Genoa, forgetting he was now in the foreign fields 
of France. "Help! Help for the tanner's son!" 
Beyond him, at some little distance, the bearded, blooddaubed English archers 
and other foot-soldiers hurried b -v, rooting among the d -ying 
and the deadfor a prisoner worthy Of ransom. There were slim pickings 
here, for the more adventurous of their fellows had already covered the 
ground, cutting throats with quick boarlike jerks of their knives, when a 
candidate proved worthless or too wounded to promise to live. The wild, 
calling crossbowman, with the lank black hairfialling half over his face, 
the-v had passed b -v out of a sort of instinct-two or three had even 
crossed themselves in passing. For, by a trick (if its entering angle, the 
arrow appeared to anyonefrom a distance to have driven squarel 'v through 
the crossbowman's heart. It seemed that he must already be dead; but still 



propped up and calling; whereas lie was actually only dying, like all the 
rest. 
Beyond the unfocused eyes of the crossbowman was part of the field of 
Poitiers, in the midwest of France. Up a slope behind him was a rubble of 
hedges and new-dug mounds, considerably torn about and beaten down now, which 
had been the original Position of the English. Out beyond in the other 
direction was the little vallev with the wood of St. Pierre to his left. In 
another part of thefield, at the edge of that same wood, the banner o Edward 
of England, the Black Prince, wasflyingfrom a tall tree, to serve 
as a rall 'ving signal for those English pursuing the French retreating to the 
moment of their slaughter below the prudently, 



172 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
173 
locked gates of the city of Poitiers. Below thatflag, the tent of the Black 
Prince had been pitched; and in it, the Prince, Sir John Chandos and some 
others were drinking wine. 
In afarthersection of thefield Geffroi de Charny hadjust been killed, and the 
banner of France, which he was holding, tottered to the ground. Behind him, 
King John oj'France, his dead lords about him, his fourteen-Year-old son 
Philip beside him, felt his weary arms failing at the effort to lift and 
strike with his battle axe once again. The English were crowding close, eager 
to capture a King, shouting at him to surrender. He turned to one strong young 
man, pushing toward him, who had called out to him in good and understandable 
French. The moment oj'his capture was near. 
Meanwhile, unknowing of all this, the crossbowman wept a littlefrom his 
unseeing eyes, propping himse@f on his elbow, and called out to the great pain 
in his body and the sun, like a brilliant furnace at high noon over his head 
in the cloudless sky:- "Help! Help for the tanner's son 
And so he cried-as he had criedfor a long time without am, response, but more 
weakly as time went on. Until, from somewhere he heard the approaching 
thudding oj'hooves that came to him, and stopped; and a following thud as two 
mailed feet came one after the other to earth beside him. For a moment nothing 
happened: and then a voice in all English the crossbowmail could not have 
understood even before he got all arrow through his bod -v, spoke above him. 
"Who's a tanner's son. "I 
A couple of iron-sheathed knees came to earth beside the crossbowman. The 
crosshowman felt the weight of his upper bod 'v lifted off the supporting 
elbow. Through the delirium of his pain, a feeling oj'b(,ing rescued 
penetrated to him. He stopped cr-ying out and made a great effort to focus his 
eyes. 
A circular shape peaked at the top steadied and unblurred before his eyes. He 
looked from a distance of inches up into a lean, rectangular-jawed jace, 
unshaven and surmounted by all iron skullcap with a cloth skullcap showing 
dark- blue and rather ragged edges underneath the metal edge. The jace of John 
Hawkwood had a deep-set nose, fine blue e -yes under straight brown 
eyebrows, and a straight, angular nose that had never been broken. The jace 
had the clear, even color of naturally 
blond skin tanned and dried by the sun until its surface had gone into tiny, 
premature wrinkles around the corners of the eyes and indented deeply around 
the mouth. The mouth itself was thinlipped but level of expression, the 
nostrils thin-andfirom them came a strong exhalation of breath laden with the 
odor of wine gone stale. "Who's a tanner's son?" repeated the lips, this time 
in the mixed argot of the military camps. But the crossbowman now comprehended 
nothing but the dialect of his childhood. He understood only that someone had 
come to his aid; and because the man who held him was clean-shaven he thought, 
not of a knight who might need to breathe unencumbered inside his clumsy 
headpot of a helm, but that the one who held him was a priest. He thought the 
priest was speaking to him in latin and exhorting him to confess. "Forgive me, 
Father, for I have sinned . he whispered. 
The man who held him had been able to make out the business of the tanner's 
son; but this further whisper in the Genoese dialect left him at a loss. 
Vaguely, he caught the sense of the word "sinned" but that was all ' "What 
the hell,'' he said, in the camp argot, a little thickly, 
we're all sinners. But we aren't all tanner's sons." He sat back on his heels 
and lowered the head of the crosshowman on to his knees. He lifted the cloth 
and metal skullcaps of the bassinet off his head together and wiped his 
forehead with the back of his hand. "I'm a tanner's son, myself. " 
He broke off and looked down, for the crossbowman had begun to speak again; 
and the rhythm of the phrases oj' the confessional were familiar. "Well, " he 



said in English, "I can do that much for you. One Christian to another, eh?" 
He put the bassinet back on his head and listened, though what the other said 
was all but incomprehensible. The crossbowman was trying to remember his sins; 
but he confused the pain in his body with the pain of disease, which he 
associated with the evilnesses of his relations with women. To describe these, 
he had of necessity to use words more common and understandable to the man 
whose knees he rested on-and who nodded, hearing the words. "That's it," said 
the man. "That's it. Not much like that in 



Gordon R. Dickson 
Hedingham Sibil, in Essex where I was a tanner's son-or wherever you hail 
from, I suppose. But enough ql'ii here." He listened awhile longer. He noticed 
the lips of the crosshowman were darkened and dried. "Use a little wine, 
here,'' he muttered. "None with ine though, damn it. Go on, go on . . . " 
But the crossbowman hadfinished his conftssion; and now he had begun to weep 
once more. He hail thought that, having confessed himse@f, he would find 
himself ft)rgiven and the pain taken awa -v. But it was still with him. Ile 
pluckedj@ebl-v tit the now smooth end qf the arrow. "Help!" he husked, once 
more, in a barely audible voice. ''Help, jor the tanner's son . . . " "Damn 
you."' swore the man holding him, blinking his own eyes suddenly and pulling 
the plucking hand from the unmoving arrow's nocked end. ''What do you want me 
to do for vou That's no good." 
The crossbowman wept. His mind had wandered again; and now he imagined he was 
a boY again and the pain was because he was being punishedfor something. "You 
made your peace, " growled the man holding him. ''Gel on with your dying. " He 
looked at the arrow. ''A hard wa -v out is it."" He blinked again. "Poor 
filth. A// right, then. '' 
He reached down and drew a short, heavy-hilted daggerftom a scabbard on his 
swordbelt. ,.Misericord, '' he said. ''God forgive this wretched sinner, and 
give him quick relieffirom payment for his sins, amen." 
He leaned over with his lips close to the crossbowman's right ear, thinking 
perhaps it would give the sinner the goodjeeling (?f a little pride before his 
death. "A knight kills you, man. I I 
But the crossbowman did not in an v wa v understand the words. A deeper 
understanding had come to him. He hadfinall ' understood that he was 
dying. His mind had fled back to imagining he was with a priest again; and 
when he saw the insubstantial, glittering shape ql'the misericord li ed up 
before 
ft his eyes, he thought it was the Cross being given him to kiss, and he felt 
a holy joy. "I am ready to die, Lord, " he thought he prayed. ''Only let it be 
fast. " 
It was fast. 
CHAPTER 
is 
Hal woke to find himself stumbling over the level ground, which seemed to 
heave and billow under his feet like the ocean surface. From the position of 
Procyon, overhead, it was midmorning; he was no longer in the circle. Amanda 
held him by one arm, supporting and guiding him. Old Man held and supported 
him on the other side with equal strength. As Hal turned his head to see the 
other, Old Man looked up, smiled fleetingly but warmly and then looked ahead 
again to the dormitory building containing Amid's office, to which the two 
were taking Hal. "What is it?" said Hal. "What's wrong?" 
To his own surprise his voice came out like a whisper. His throat was raw from 
repeating the words that still thrummed in his mind. "You walked for 
twenty-three hours, Hal!" said Amanda. "I think you'd have killed yourself the 
way a horse can run itself to death, if we hadn't pulled you out of the 
circle. Now, lean on us. We'll have you in bed in a minute." 
Suddenly, he felt a longing to be where she had promised. Horizontal, on a 
flat surface, in the darkness of a quiet, closed room. Consciousness of the 
exhaustion of his body flooded in on him. His knees gave at every step and his 
legs wobbled with weakness. He staggered on between Old Man and Amanda to the 
dormitory building and the outside entrance that led directly to the office, 
to the bed . . . and onto it. 



176 
Gordon R. Dickson 
"Thank you," said Amanda to Old Man. He smiled back at her, then went softly 
and swiftly out. She took a blanket from the bed and hung it over the windows 
on a rod above them that had not been there when Hal had last seen them. The 
blanket did not completely shut out Procyon's intense light, but it dimmed the 
room and Hal luxuriated in the dimness. 
Amanda went around to the other side of the bed and lay down on top of the 
bedcovers beside him. She put her arms around him. "Now, sleep!" she 
commanded. 
He closed his eyes, and sleep swooped down to carry him away. 
When he woke, the room was totally dark. Amanda slumbered beside him, now 
tucked in under the covers in ordinary fashion. She opened her eyes as he 
stirred. He laid his hand on her shoulder, lightly. "You sleep," he whispered. 
"I'll be back in a while." 
He got up, found his clothes-Amanda or someone had obviously undressed him 
while he was still too deep in sleep to notice-and let himself into the outer 
air on the other side of the office door. 
Beyond the walls and the blanket that served as a curtain over the window, he 
found the first faint light of dawn. He guessed it at about four in the 
morning. He must have slept for nearly as long as Amanda had said he had 
walked. His body worked better now than it had on its way to bed from the 
circle, but it still held a feeling of having been used and overused. He was 
not so much weak as drained of strength. 
A few lights were on in the two dormitory buildings, particularly in the part 
of each one which held kitchen and dining facilities. The mountains to the 
east were a distant darkness beyond the lip of the ledge, and a few figures 
moved about the area with the intentness of those on duty of one kind or 
another. But in the near distance, where two lights still could be seen 
burning, paled by the approaching day's illumination, the circle still turned. 
Those in it still chanted and four people stood in a small group, waiting 
their turn. 
He walked away from the building, toward the circle and those who waited. But 
he stopped back a little from joining the waiters; and stood, merely watching 
them and those in the circle for a few moments. Then he turned and went on, 
parallel with 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
177 
the stream beyond them, toward the edge of the ledge. At the point where the 
stream emptied into the pond, he found a level space of ground beside it and 
sat down; looking across it toward the end of the ledge, only some five meters 
beyond, and at the black ridge of the Grandfathers of Dawn, distant, their 
upper edges now a jagged, glowing line from the ascending sun hidden behind 
them. 
Slowly, as he sat watching that glowing line, he found himself beginning to 
understand how Tam's dying, with his guilt still unexpiated in him, could stop 
Hal from ever finding the Creative Universe. 
Amanda had been right. The way he searched for was to be found out here among 
people; rather than back there in that artificial, if valuable and special, 
atmosphere of the Encyclopedia. 
What would happen if Tam died unfulfilled, in his own mind unforgiven, for his 
responsibility for the deaths of his sister's young husband, David Hall, of 
Jamethon Black, who had sacrificed himself to stop the attack that Tam had 
mounted against the whole Friendly culture, and the assassination of Kensie by 
a political group on Ste. Marie as a direct result? Unless Hal found the 
Universe in time to prove to him that, if nothing else, these things had had a 
purpose to a good end, for all the race? Lacking that, plainly, Tam was 
determined to leave life as the legendary King Arthur had, in sadness and 
remorse. 
If Tam died that way Ajela would die with him, in spirit; and that part-death 



would make her unable to continue running the Final Encyclopedia, precious as 
it had always been to her, as to Tani. If that happened, who else was there 
who could guide and order it? Rukh had helped out to a great degree, these 
last months, but it was not herjob. 
Rukh's job was the kindling of a faith in the new future to be, in the people 
of all the worlds; and that was a larger, more important duty than steering 
the Final Encyclopedia. He, Hal, should not, because his job was also 
elsewhere, leading those who would be the pioneers into this new untouched 
infinity of potential that the Creative Universe would be-if he ever achieved 
it. But if Ajela could not, Hal must. It was a special trust, handed into his 
keeping by Tam, who had gotten it from Mark Torre in equal trust. And that 
would be an end to his search for the Creative Universe. As Amanda had now 
shown 



178 
Gordon R. Dickson 
him, the way to that was to be found not in special places but out among 
people. 
Sitting, waiting for the dawn, he was aware of the presence of Tam, keeping 
him company. It was not an unpleasant awareness. 
The sky had brightened, though the sun was not yet in sight above the 
Grandfathers of Dawn. Below, the valley was a deep lake of white mist hiding 
everything, but thinning as he watched. Slowly, as he sat with the daylight 
growing stronger all about him, he felt himself gradually enclosed by peace. 
Behind that peace came the order and reason he realized now he had needed for 
some time. 
Just as his frustration at the Final Encyclopedia had made him blind to Tam's 
completion being necessary to the completion of his own search, so he had been 
blind to the obvious fact that what had blocked him in his search at the Final 
Encyclopedia must have been implied in the historic beginnings of that search. 
He knew of the man he had envisioned while walking the circle, from his 
military studies as Donal and his readings as the young Hal. And he doubted 
that any histories held the moment he had relived while walking the circle. 
That had been a creative reconstruction of his own imaginative unconscious. He 
had not been able to enter the Creative Universe, except in his dreams; but he 
had been able to reach into it from the circle to build something that must 
fit closely with the known facts. 
Historically, therefore, his fight against the Enemy had had its roots in the 
chronicled life of a man known to history as Sir John Hawkwood, citizen of 
fourteenth century Europe, and English knight in the early years of the 
Hundred Years War between England and France. A man destined to become one of 
the earliest of the great condottieri- professional military captains of the 
fourteenth to seventeenth centuries in Italy-and the individual some later 
military historians were to call "the first of the modern generals. " The 
circle and the Creative Universe had at last led him to this man. Not to 
Hawkwood's whole life; but that special moment of it, on a field of victory, 
which paradoxically had been the lowest point of the dreams and hopes in Sir 
John's life-as the past year had been Hal's lowest. 
At Poitiers, Sir John had been entering into middle age, a knight with only a 
modest name as a military captain and no fortune to show for the scars of 
twenty years in arms and armor. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
179 
And with the final defeat now of the French, let alone the caeture of King 
John of France which Hawkwood at that moment had not yet known about, the war 
that had promised him a way to better himself was apparently over. He had 
stood empty-handed in the middle of his life and looked, it seemed, nowhere 
but downward into old age, penury and oblivion. 
IBut from the chroniclers, Hal knew, as Sir John then had not, that from here 
the knight would go over the mountains into Italy, entering not only into more 
wealth than he had ever had before, but into the pages of history. 
Unknowingly, at this moment on this battlefield where his future looked most 
bleak, ahead of him lay his marriage to Donina Visconti and the most important 
period of his life. His name would come to mean more at the English court, 
once he was in Italy, than it ever had during the long years he had been in 
France. 
The only question now might be whether Hal's case was really comparable to 
Hawkwood's, as his vision had implied. 
It must be. The parallels were too close. As the predawn light grew, Hal's 
belief strengthened with it. Even though he could no more see his own future 
than Hawkwood at Poitiers could have seen his, what he had just envisioned 
assured him, once More, that his coming here had been the way he needed to go. 
Just as going over the mountains into Italy, with the White Company of 
mercenaries, after Poitiers, had been the right way in which Sir John had 



needed to go. 
Moreover, all this fitted together with, and was reinforced by, his own strong 
reaction to the circle and the Law, from the moment he had first seen and 
heard them. 
As for Tam, the instinct in Hal that had caused him to associate the older 
man's state of mind with the lines from Tennyson's poem on the death of Arthur 
Pendragon, must be trusted as well. It fitted too well with the story and 
character of Jathed, and the Hawkwood episode. Part of Hal's error, he told 
himself now, had been to ignore Tam as still an important factor in the search 
for the Creative Universe, beyond the point of his retirement as Director of 
the Encyclopedia. 
Even as Hal thought these things, the sun broke its top edge clear of the 
Grandfathers of Dawn, on the far horizon. Procyon looked blindingly over them 
at him for the merest fraction of a second before he could lower his eyes from 
that blazing tiny circle of light; and in that same fraction of a moment he 
realized 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
what he must do. What was necessary to him here was Jathed and Jathed's 
philosophy, even though Hal instinctively felt it was not entirely correct. 
What was here, that was nowhere else to be found, was the Law. 
Hal could walk the circle and say the Law, as the others did. But it was not 
enough to use it as a tool to put himself into flights of exploration of his 
inner mind. What he must do was 
understand it-completely understand it. 
"The transient and the eternal are the same 
He knew what the words said. But what, in their completeness, did they really 
mean? 
He did not know-yet. There was an understanding needed here that must be made 
by the deeper parts of his mind, by his creative unconscious. Sudden 
excitement lifted him to his feet. It might be that in this greater 
understanding was exactly what he had sought for so long, a way into the 
Creative Universe. Certainly, it had let Jathed through; and Jathed had not 
the reason to go there that Hal had, nor the vision of what going there could 
make. 
Filled with wonder, the first direct rays of the sun already warming his back 
through his robe, he went lightly and swiftly as Old Man might have gone, back 
to the office where he and Amanda had spent the night, 
CHAPTER 
19 
He reached the office and found it empty, the blanket down from the window, 
the bed made and tilted up into its storage position against the wall. There 
was something finished and over with about the room that brought a sadness 
like the pain from the thrust of a dull knife, deep into him. He turned and 
went through the office's inner door and along a corridor to the dining area 
of the building the office was in. 
Amanda was not there. The room was all but empty of breakfasters. "Friend?" 
The server on duty behind the counter with its trays of breakfast foods called 
to him. Hal turned. "You're to go to Amid's Reception Building," said the 
server. "Amanda's waiting for you there, with another new visitor. " "Thanks," 
said Hal. 
He left and went to the small building which had been the first he had entered 
here on the evening of his arrival. Amid was there, seated with Amanda, and 
not only Artur, but Simon Graeme as well, around a fireplace that now in the 
growing warmth of day held no fire in it, only a few blackened ends of Wood 
and the ashes, cold and gray, from the previous night's blaze. The pine cone 
paperweight gleamed on the desk in the daylight. 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
"There you are," Amanda said as he came in. "Come sit by me, here." 
He went to the empty chair beside her and sat down. She put out a hand to him 
and for a second he held it and then their grasp fell apart. "How do you 
feel?" asked Amid. "A little washed out," said Hal. "Nothing another night of 
ordinary sleep won't cure." 
He looked back at Amanda, and Simon just beyond her. "Hello, Simon," he said. 
"You look a little washed out yourself. " "Hello, Hal." Simon smiled, a little 
ruefully. "Mountain climbing, even down - mountai n's, not something I'm in 
training for. " 
Hal's gaze turned on Amanda. "You're leaving?" "If I can trust you to take 
care of yourself in that circle from now on," said Amanda. "Simon can go back 
to the near vicinity of Old Earth, and fire off a millisecond message to the 
Final Encyclopedia telling them how we're settled, then immediately jump clear 
of the Solar System and come back to stand sentinel over us from orbit. I've 
got a full district I ought to be covering locally, since no one's seen me 
since I left to go back and get you. It'll take a month to cover it all, but 
I'll never be more than a couple of days' march from here. So if you need me, 
signal Simon with our cloth display system; and he'll either' go get me, or 
pass the word to me to make it back here. What about it? Do you think you 
might need to stay as long as a month?" "I could, very possibly," said Hal. He 
looked at Simon. "Where's the ship?" "In a crack up back in the mountains, out 
of sight from here or anyone below," Simon answered, his heavy-boned Graeme 
face under its dark brown, thick hair lit up with a wry smile. "Amanda put out 
the signal late yesterday and I landed last night; but I had to wait for near 
day to climb down to you if I didn't want to break my neck in the dark." "How 
much of a climb is it back up to it?" "A couple of hours, at most," Simon 
arswered. "Slower up than down." 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
183 
Hal nodded. He reached out for Amanda's hand again, and felt her fingers close 
with his. "I hate to see you go," he said. "I know," she answered softly. "But 
I'm not needed here, and I am out there." 
He nodded. "I guess that's it then," he said. "If anything changes or develops 
for me, here, I'll call you back." "And I'll not waste any time coming-oh, 
before I forget it again," said Amanda, turning to Amid, "I Ive been 
meaning to mention this. A few hours' walk from the bottom of our mountain, 
here, there's a wild little girl in the woods who came out to take a look at 
us but was too quick for us to catch. Someone ought to be looking 
after the child. Do you suppose some of the people from here could go down 
there and catch her? It'll take a dozen at least. She's fast, and woods-wise." 
"Hmm," said Amid. "Maybe I'd better let you answer that, Artur?" 
The big man shifted uneasily in his chair as the rest all looked at him. "You 
see, Amanda," said Artur slowly, "we-I know all about that girl. Her name's 
Cee. Actually, she's my niece." "Your niece?" Amanda was staring at him. "Then 
why haven't you done something about her before this?" "Artur has, and does-" 
Amid was beginning, but Artur lifted a hand. "I'd probably better explain it 
all," he said. "My sister, her husband, and Cee-Cee was only seven years old, 
then-lived fairly close to here. In fact, where you saw Cee probably wouldn't 
be too far from where their home was." 
His face clouded and he clenched one hand into a heavy fist with which he beat 
softly on the arm of the chair he sat in. "The trouble was, I was so bound up 
in the Chantry Guild-we'd just begun to use the ledge here, but we hadn't yet 
really moved up to it-that all those first seven years of her life, I hardly 
saw my sister's house, and Cee . . ." "There's no point in blaming yourself 
for what's past," said Amid. "We've discussed that a number of times." "I 
know. But if I'd just dropped by half a dozen times a year, iust enou2h so 
that the Pirl woidd realize I was one of the 



I tilt 
Gordon R. Dickson 
family . . . only I didn't; and you're right, it does no good to keep going 
over and over that fact now." 
He hesitated. "The point is," he said to Amanda, "Cee never got to know me. 
I've never been anything more than a stranger to her; and she doesn't trust 
strangers. With good reason." " 'Good reason,' have anything to do with our 
friends, the Occupation troops?" asked Amanda. 
Artur looked at her brilliantly. "I thought you might guess that," he said. 
"Yes, just after we'd hidden ourselves up here on the ledge, the Occupation 
went around killing all the relatives of people known to belong to the Guild. 
There was no warning for any of them. One day up here, we heard explosions 
and, using a scope screen, we found troops in the woods less than half a 
kilometer from here. Some of us went down to the place where my sister's home 
had been-this was before they destroyed all the country homes and moved people 
into town-but there was nothing left but a pile of rubble. We found enough of 
my sister and her husband to know they had been killed by the explosions that 
destroyed their house. We searched for Cee, found nothing there or anywhere 
near; and when she didn't show up, we checked and made sure there was no one 
alive under the rubble. The soldiers were going back and forth below us 
frequently in those days. It wasn't practical to really dig into the rubble 
without giving away the fact we'd been there. So we assumed she was dead under 
it somewhere. So we gave up temporarily; and then. some of us, slipping into 
the towns nearby for things we needed occasionally, began to hear about a wild 
little girl in the woods up this way. I 
He stopped. Beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead. "It wasn't until 
nearly a year later that I began to believe that the stories were anything 
more than that, and that the wild girl might be Cee. I went down to find out; 
and I soon found you could look forever and not locate her, because she'd be 
seeing you long before you saw her and keeping out of your way. So I started 
going down there and just sitting. I sat; and after a number of trips, when I 
was sitting, I began to catch glimpses of her, getting just close enough to 
watch-and gone at once, if I turned my head to get a square look at her." 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
185 
He beat his fist softly on the chair arm again. He was looking past Amanda 
now, at nothing unless it was his own memories of those times he had sat, 
hoping that the little girl would move into his field of vision. "I kept that 
up. It was incredible she'd survived, all by herself that way; but as you 
know, you can live off the country, here, the year around. And we've got no 
real winter. The temperature hardly varies. The only problem is rain, which 
isn't a problem unless it comes in the winter months and then it comes down 
pretty steadily. But all she'd need would be some place to get in out of it; a 
cave, or even a hollow tree. Anyway, it was true. My little niece had become 
like a wild animal." "She was old enough when her parents died to know about 
other people," said Amanda. "You'd think she'd have gone looking for, if not 
you, for someone she knew who'd been a friend of her parents." "They hadn't-my 
sister and her husband weren't hermits by any means," said Artur. "But they 
believed in being as self-sufficient as possible@ living off the land and 
making what little money they needed out of their wood carvings-they were both 
sculptors. Also, like me, my sister tended to tie into an idea and see nothing 
but that. They didn't have any close friends, they were off in the woods by 
themselves-and I really think that their deaths, the way it happened, did 
something to Cee. She's not really sane, I suppose. Still 
He fell silent. "Go on," said Amid gently, "tell them the rest of it." There 
were beads of sweat still on Artur's forehead. Aside from that, his face 
showed no particular expression. But now his hands clenched on the ends of the 
chairarms beneath them. " I sat for weeks, " he said, "and gradually she began 
to come closer to me, a little at a time. She'd stay at a certain distance for 
days; and then, one day, she'd be just a bit nearer. I'd learned by that time 



not to watch her, except out of the corners of my eyes; and I never showed in 
any way that I knew she was gradually closing the distance between us." 
He laughed, a little shortly, but his forehead was still damp and his hands 
still gripped the ends of the chairarms. "I got to be very good at pretending 
not to notice-so good I could almost convince myself I wasn't the least bit 
interested in her-and all the while, day and night, I was carrying around a 



186 
Gordon R. Dickson 
load of guilt because I hadn't searched harder for her after the explosion 
that killed my sister and her husband. I got very good at listening. I could 
hear her, quiet as she was, when she started to get very close behind me. And 
still I never moved, I didn't give her any cause to suspect that I was just 
waiting for her to get within arm's reach." 
He stopped and wiped his brow with the back of one hand. "She finally came 
right up to me," he said. His voice had acquired a strange deadness, as if 
what he was starting to tell them now was beyond emotion. "She came up right 
behind me, and I felt a touch-oh, what a light little touch it was-against the 
back of my robe. Just a moment's touch, and no more. But still I didn't move. 
I was still waiting; and, after a long while I began to see something out of 
the corner of my left eye. She was inching around to look at my face up close. 
And I let her come . . . 
He stopped. This time Amid said nothing. They merely all waited. After a long 
moment, he went on. "She came around. She was moving by twitching her heels a 
tiny distance sideways, then twitching the front ends of her feet next, in the 
same direction. I didn't move. I hardly breathed. When she came around by my 
left knee, so that she was in plain view, just inches away, I still kept 
staring straight ahead, as if she was unimportant, as if she wasn't there. And 
so she came all the way round in front of me, so that I had to look into her 
face or move my eyes. And we looked at each other . 
He broke off. "Go on, man. Tel I them!" said Amid, as the silence went on and 
on. "Wonderingly-" The word came out like a gasp. "She looked at me so . . . 
wonderingly, as if she was searching rny face for something to find that she'd 
know. I never should have tried what I did. I should have known better. From 
the beginning I should have realized it'd take someone more patient. Old Man 
could have done it. He'd have waited. He knows how to wait. I've seen him put 
the tip of one of his fingers slowly under a moth perched on a twig and pick 
it up on that finger, off the twig, so softly and easily that the moth doesn't 
fly away. But she belonged to me . . . she was my niece, all that was left of 
my sister's family." 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
187 
He stopped talking for a moment. Then brought his gaze back to focus on 
Amanda, and went on. "And so," he said, "when she finally stood there in front 
of' me, right in reach, searching my face with those eyes of' hers-hazel eyes 
they are and large-without really thinking, supposing that somehow she'd conic 
to understand later and everything would be all right once I'd brought her up 
here-I reached for her. I grabbed at her." 
He hesitated, but just long enough to draw a deep breath, this time. "She was 
fast," he said. "I can't believe how fast she was. I could have sworn no 
hurnan bein(l could come that close within my reach and not be caught. But my 
hand barely touched her. And she was "one. 
He stopped. fie breathed, another si-h that this time was so deep it seerned 
to erripty him, and his large body slumped in its chair. "And since then, she 
won't conic near you," said Amanda. 
He nodded. "I sit-I've sat for two years since then," Artur said. "And she 
comes. Sometimes I just catch a glimpse ot'her, but whether I see her or not, 
I know it' she's there. But she*s never conic within ten meters of me, since. 
And sooner or later, something'll g wrong. Something will bring soldiers by; 
and 'o one of thern-she always comes to look at anyone who goes by-some 
soldier*ll shoot her. Or she'll get sick and hide herself in some hole where 
no one can find her, and die. She's all alone down there-" 
He broke ofl'on a single, hoarse, dry sob that shook his heavy chest. "I can't 
do anything," he said. "She won't come near me." "Of course not," said Amanda 
gently. "What do you expect'? When you reached for her that way, you just 
confirmed whatever it is that makes her what she is. She'll never come close 
to anyone as long as you're around." "What can I do?" Artur looked at her. "I 



can't just forg ,et about her and leave her alone down there!" "Send a woman," 
said Amanda. -Didn't you ever think of' that? I'd guess even your Old Man 
wouldn't have a chance at her now. Also now that I know what her story is, 
it's plain my idea of a group taking her would be the last thing to try. It'd 
probably 



meiem R. Dickson 
destroy whatever chance there is of her becomin@- half\x,a@ normal again, if 
she was taken by force. But a woman, startin.., from scratch, could get close 
enough to make friends with he,. Note, I said make friends with, not grab. The 
day she'll come home to you safely will be the day she comes up to this ledge 
of her own free will, holdin- the hand of someone she trusts. 
L Amanda stopped. Artur stared almost blindly at her. "I'd do it myself," said 
Amanda, "but I've got other responsibilities@ and she's still only one life, 
while there're hundreds of lives within two days' walk of here who can use nl\ 
help. It'll take time to do, probably. time I can't spare for that alone, in 
any case. But there must be a woman member of the Guild who could help you." 
She reached out to put a hand on his arm. "The hard part for you," she added, 
"is going to be stavill(I away while the woman makes friends with her." "Yes . 
. ." Artur's face twisted, then straightened out. woman' I'd never thought of 
that.- "You should have." said Amanda. "The soldiers were probably all men, 
judging by what I've seen of the Occupation forces. And she wits well enough 
up in years to know the difference and what she is, herself. You can try it." 
"I will. Thank you, I will." His face twisted again forjust a second. -But 
it'll be hard not going down to see her, day after day, just as you say. 
He stood up. "Never mind. ThaCs what I'll do. If you'll excuse me. Amid. I 
think I'd like to Oo and look for someone to help me with Cee right now. " 
just a second, " said Amanda. " Before you go, can you te) I 
T me what the idea was of that vine around her waist, and what it is she 
carries in the pod in the middle of it?" "Rocks," said Artur. "My sister, 
Mila, and Petay, her husband, used to hunt rabbits as part of their food. 
Petay Could throw a rock accurately enough to kill a rabbit front some little 
distance. He'd wait until one sat up with its head above the ferns to look 
around and then airn at its neck. It' he was a little high he'd still get the 
head. it' he was a little low he'd still strike a shoulder area and slow the 
creature down so that he could run it down and catch it.THE 
CHANTRY GUILD 
189 
"They weren't pure vegetarians, then, your sister and brother-in-law' '` 
Amanda asked. "No," said Artur, "luckily for Cee. She's got no access to diet 
supplements. Mila preferred to use a sling-you know like the sort of sling 
they used on Old Earth in ver@ ancient times. Whether Cee learned from the two 
of them, or practice made her good at hunting since she's been on her own, I 
don't know@ but she kills rabbits regularly for her own eating, both ways. She 
can throw very hard and accurately with a sort ot'sidearni swing: or she can 
use the vine and pod, or something else as a sling, to kill from a greater 
distance. When you tried to catch her, did she make any motion to use the 
vine, or take one ofthe rock's out of' it?" "No,- said Hal. 
Artur nodded. "She wasn't too frightened ofyou, then. She must have been sure 
she could get away. But she does know what she can do with those rocks-as I 
say, whether she had lessons from Mila or Petay or not-and I've always been 
afraid that if' soldiers came up here and chased her she might try to use the 
rocks on them. Then they undoubtedly would shoot her!" 
He turned abruptly to Amid. "Forgive me. Amid," he said, unusually brusquely 
for an 
Exotic, "but the sooner I find someone as Amanda suggests . . . " "Go ahead, 
-o ahead!" said Amid. When the door had closed behind Artur's back, fie turned 
to Amanda. "I don't think you'll ever know how much of a help that suggestion 
of yours was to Artur, just now. Well, never inind that, now. HOW soon had you 
planned to leave"" 'Right awav," she answered. "Both Simon and I'll be going 
our separate ways. 
She looked at Hal and smiled a little, regretfully. "Let's step outside and 
have a word by ourselves, betore you go, " Hal said to her. "Amid, 
Simon-you'll foroive us'? We won't be more than a few minutes.'* "By all 
means," said Simon, "we've g )t all the time there is. Take what you want." 



Amid simply waved them out. Once in the open air and the sunshine beyond 
doors, Hal 



190 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
191 
began to pace toward the ledge. Amanda walked along " it[i him. Their hands 
joined automatically. They walked without speaking until they came near the 
edge and turned. so that the\ walked along it, with empty air on their left 
and the further, vertical clifr-face of rock behind the ledge some distance to 
their right. "There's everything to say, and no good way to say just part of 
it," murmured Hal finally. 
-I know. It doesn't matter." said Amanda. "You'll find what you want; and then 
I'll be back." "And Simon'll take us back to the Encyclopedia, then we'l! be 
apart again. Or will you even be coming back with me'.' There's no real need, 
if you're tied to your work here." "if I can be of use, I'll -o anywhere with 
you, my Hal,'' she said. "You know that. If I'm not really needed by you, 
though. I am needed in other places." "Yes." Hal had it sudden mental picture 
of how they InList look to the Guild members outside the buildings who 
happened to look this way. The tall man and the tall woman, holdiriL, hands, 
their heads close together in conversation as they walkcj along the edge of 
the emptiness beyond the cliff edge. "Somewhere, sornewhen, there's oot to be 
time for just being together. Time to shut ourselves away from anything else, 
without ha\,in,, to keep an eye on the need to go back to duties." 
He searched her face with his eyes. "Life ought to owe us that much for 
ourselves. shouldn*t it' "Are vou askino A mand a- who- loves- vou, or 
Amanda-\vho91 
"Both," said Hal. "Arrianda-who-loves-you promise,,, some day vx'll ha\c the 
rest of' our live,, to(,cthcr. 
-And Arnanda-who-sees' Her face -,re\,k verv still. "That's one thinL, 
Arnanda-\vho-sccs isn't able to see." She ,,topped and turned to face him. 
"Oh, hut I trust Amanda-\,\h(,lO\eS-VOLI. Don't VOL) trust her, too'? She 
trusts you." 'Always." He smiled down at her. "I always trust her. fir,,t and 
foremost. , , 
Thev went back to walking again. "Do you have any idea at all of how lorilg 
you'll he here'!" asked Amanda after a moment. 
He shook his head. "I'm at the point now where I'm beginning to pull strings 
together in my own mind." "Which strings'?" "I think, mainly, the strings to 
Western and Eastern thinking. in spite of the three hundred years the race has 
been on worlds beyond Old Earth, those two schools of human thought still need 
to be reconciled in lots of ways. Then, there're the strinps to the past, to 
the present, and the future, to be brought togcth@r: and the strings to the 
real universe and the Creative Universe. Many, many strings. Too many. 
actually, to hope I could pull them all together, here and now. All I can hope 
is to tic enough of them in with each other so I can move up the line and 
begin tying in the rest." "But you do feel I was on the right track, bringing 
you here'?" said Amanda. "Yes," he answered. "There's something necessary to 
be learned in this place, at this time. Something I need, in this whole idea 
of a second Chantry Guild and particularly in Jathed's I-aw. I've (,of to 
understand that Law, understand it absolutely. But you know, there're probably 
other things I don't recognize yet as important to everything I work for, that 
are here, too, and need takino into account. hcre was a researcher once, long 
ago. who said that whenever a source or a reference was really needed, it*(l 
manifest itself out of the continuum. And centuries auO, back in the old days 
of magazines, editors used to talk about the fact that all of I sudden a 
number of writers would sirnultancousl@ submit stories about the same 
idea-wr;ters who in many cases didn't even know each other. Then, of' course, 
there're the historical facts about important inventions, or technological 
advances, appearing at the hands Of two or more entire]\,, separate inventors 
or workers, at almost the same tinic-and aFOuirients about Who Caine LIP with 
Ahat first. "I don't see how simUltaneltv like that tics, into vour problem," 



said Amanda. "Oh, sorrv," said Hal. -You're the only person who hits to suffer 
this fi@orn me-1 oet to thinking out loud around vou. What I'm driving at is 
that I have to go on the premise that wherever I am there may be historically 
important forces at work in making me see what I see. Forces I should 
recognize-m 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
things like Old Man, Artur, or even the little girl, Cee." 
Amanda 1rowned. "I don't see any connection, myself, between any of' thoso, 
people and what you're after," she said. "But now we're in your work area. not 
mine. Anywav . . ." 
She stopped, turned to him anol reached up to put her arnis around his neck 
and kiss him. "I've got to get moving," she said. "It's a good two days' walk 
to the little town I want to go to first; and part of today has already been 
used up." "Does it make all that much difference' said Hal wistfully. 
"You, of all people, to say that!" replied Amanda, starting to lead them back 
to where Amid and Simon waited for them. "How would you like it it'you got to 
a town Just one hour too late to save sorneone's life''"' "Yes," said Hal. "Of 
course. You're right. But that can*t he something that happens often-never 
mind. You're quite right. It' it only happens once, that*s reason enough for 
not wastinp time. " 
He smiled at her. "But there's a human firnit to the amount ot'help anyone can 
give," he said. 
-You say that"" She linked arms with him and they went back in a shared 
silence that, though warm, was both deep and thoughtf'4 and still in it. 
returned to the small building that was the Guildmaster's main office. 
CHAPTER 
20 
Over the weeks that he had now been at the Chantry Guild, Hal's sitting by the 
pond to watch the sun rise when he was not walkino in the circle at that time 
had become a ritual. Seated, he unchained his rnind to its own ways of 
abstracting his thoughts; ways that produced inner thoughts and visions also. 
Although those evoked as he sat by the pond tended to be of a different 
character than those he produced lor himself' in the circle. 
One morning he had Just seated hinisell' while the world beyond the ledge was 
still lost in the grayout of predawn. when a figure materialized from the 
dimness at his back and also settled by the pond. not far frorn him and also 
facing the mountains over which the sun would rise. 
It was Old Man. He and Hal looked at each other companionably. Hal. however, 
found himself vaguely disturbed. Not by the other's presence, but by something 
about it that felt not quite right. He puzzled over this teeling for several 
moments and then understandino came to him. 
Old Man was sitting on his heels, quite conAortably but undeniably squatting, 
rather than seating himself cross-leo as Hal had: and if there was anyone on 
the ledge whom al would have expected to sit naturally in a 
cross-legged positio it would be the white-bearded older man now beside 


im. Moreover, Old Man had obviously Joined Hal and the natural 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
thing would have been for hirn to sig ,nal the fact by taking the same 
posture. 
But years had gone by since Hal's early training by the Exotics among the 
three tutors he had had as a boy@ and the occasions on which a lotus position 
might have seemed appropriate for him to assume had become fewer and fewer. He 
had become careless. His legs were almost in the half-lotus position, but his 
toes were not tucked in behind the calves of the opposim-, legs the way they 
should have been. With an old-fashioned sort of politeness, Old Man had 
evidently taken the position he had to avoid seeming to go Hal one better by 
sitting down in a proper half-lotus himself. 
Hal was out of practice, but not so much that the half-lotus was impossible to 
him. He tucked his toes in. Old Man dropped immediately into the same position 
with one fluid motion. Hal bowed gravely from the waist to him. Old Man bowed 
as gravely back. They both turned their attention to the mountains over which 
would come the sunrise. 
Hal's gaze went away beyond the cliff edge. For him. the Chantry Guild and the 
place it occupied had now effectively ceased to exist. He knew the names of 
the area that surrounded hirn as anyone would know his own, familiar 
neighborhood. 
He sat on the eastern face of' the range of the Zipac@j mountains. Behind him, 
the thickness ofthat range ran eastward until it was out of sight. But Hal now 
knew it descended at last to high, nearly perpendicular cliff,, overhanging 
the coastal forest. which was too steamy and hot to be more than sparsely 
inhabited. That forest was called the Tlalocan-the "land ofsea and mist'' in 
the ancient Mayan language of Old Earth. It reached to the shores of' the 
Zephry Ocean, which stretched some thousands of miles onward to the next large 
continental mass of Kultis. At his feet lay the Mayahuel Valley, up which 
Amanda had led him to this place; and beyond where he sat now, the Zipacas 
continued, angling in so that they, and the Grandfathers ofDawn, opposite, 
became one range to the north. after the upland forest below had given way to 
high altitude desert. It was the Grandfathers over which the star Procyon 
Would rise to bring daylight to the Chantry Guild and the people in the valley 
below. 
Watching the far dark bulk of the distant mountains, as their details began 
gradually to emerge from the mist under the 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
195 
steadily brightening overhead, he let his mind flow in whatever direction 
might attract it, as water seeks its own way down a slope. This was not his 
way in the circle. where he deliberately turned his mind over to understanding 
the Law he repeated as he walked. Here and now, he only set it free like a 
hawk to soar with the waking day. 
It had come to him some mornin-s since, seated in this place, that for the 
first time since he had been a young boy and dedicated himself to ending that 
which had killed his uncle James, he had a chance to step back and add up the 
gains and losses of his own lives. 
They were part-lives, really; for Donal Graerne had ceased to be before middle 
age, so that he could become Paul Formain. And Formain had existed only a few 
years as a shell for him who had once been Donal, before he had been 
abandoned, along with the rest of the already-dead twenty-first century. From 
there, what was essentially both Donal and now Hal had returned to the courier 
ship of the twenty-second century: and to the timeless wait of eighty years 
that had passed before he became the two-year-old child who had grown into 
what he was now. 
But all those lives had been aimed and controlled by a single mind and a 
single purpose; and they had achieved some things and failed to achieve some 
others-so far, at least. It was ironic 
11 that at the Final Encyclopedia for three years, where he had had nothing to 



do but concentrate on his goal, that he had never found time to do this sort 
of self-survey. And now, immersed in walking in the circle, watching the 
sunrise. serving food, fixing, cleanino-he had been set free to do just that. 
He had Lrown smaller in the eyes of his race and larger in dimensions7where 
the vision of other people did not penetrate. It was as it' to grow as a human 
being he had needed to give up more and more of what other humans had desired 
and admired. On all the worlds only a handful now knew him, in any real sense 
of that word; and nearly all on the Younger Worlds had known Donal, in Donal's 
later years. 
He had started out to kill a dragon, and had ended up striving to climb a 
mountain others could not even see, to a doorway they had yet to imagine. And 
yet, to him his goal had become more concrete and infinitely more worthy and 
solid as it became progressively more invisible and inconceivable to others. 
Yet it 
1-1 



196 
Gordon R. Dickson 
was the same goal-only now, sitting here, he seemed for the moment to see it 
clearly@ while in the beginning, like all the rest, he had seen only that 
false fao;ade within the real universe that was a tiny part of it. 
Now, all the universe had become his classroom: and everyone and everything in 
it, subjects of his study. 
The first isolated sparks of sunlight were beginning to find crevices in the 
top line of the mountains. He reached out to the limits of his imagination, 
now, then stretched on beyond the veil at the end of known limits, reaching 
through it metaphorically with both hands, into the Creative Universe he could 
not yet wholly enter@ and with his hands hidden from him he molded the place 
he now sat into the place of its own future. 
About him, in his mind, the ledge changed. The few heavy blocks of stone that 
had so far been hewn from the mountains and polished, multiplied and fitted 
themselves together to make the finished structure for which they were 
destined. The House of the Chantry Guild, constructed of the warm, 
green-threaded marble of the mountain that contained it, was lifted up, roofed 
itself, and sent walls and pathways forward to enclose that space of the ledge 
not covered. The little stream ran now between narrow borders of native 
grasses and flowers to the pool, which had become enclosed by a rim of stone 
terrace. On that rim he sat, now in the far future. Behind him, he heard the 
timeless chanting of those in the circle. He sat, young and waiting for a 
sunrise, centuries ahead in time. 
The surface of the pool now showed white flowers upheld on the surface of the 
waters by flat green leaves. Variform lilies. stirred only occasionally when 
their stems, reaching down underwater, were brushed by the passing of' one of 
the fish among those living in the pool; raised there, then as DOW, to be part 
of the food for the Guild members. Then, as now, the sun had just joined 
together its sparks of light into one line of illumination marking the chain 
of the mountaintops. 
He sat, in lotus position, waiting for the sunrise as he did every morning. 
Behind him the walker adults chanted and turned@ and the brightening day drew 
his attention to the clouds of the sky reflected in the pool beside hirn, and 
to a Hower on its surface, almost within arm's length. 
There was a particular spark of light from one white petal. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
197 
Procyon had climbed high enough to strike a diamond glitter off a dewdrop on 
the blossom of a flower. There was somethint, powerfully memorable about that, 
but he could not divine what it was. He looked away once more, back out to the 
crest of' mountains itself, and watched the actual breaking through of the 
sun, its upper edge reaching at last over the barrier of the mountains to look 
directly onto the ledge, at the Chantry Guild and at him. Then with one 
crescendoing upsurge of light it burst fully and directly into his eyes and 
made him blind to all about h i m. 
He blinked and looked away. His eyes met the eyes of Old Man. They exchanged a 
smile, and got to their I'cet, parting as they went their separate ways into 
the daytime activities of the ledge. 
Hal turned his mind from the sunrise just past, and back to the present 
practical requirements of life. Fie had now been here seven weeks, nearly 
double the time Amanda had asked if he intended to stay. In itselfthis should 
be no great time. but in his mind he could see the iniage offam, fighting ofF 
death, hour by hour, waiting, and he fell the urgency like a hand pressing 
always on his back. 
He was to begin a walk in the circle again early this afternoon, but first, 
this inorninu, he was scheduled to go with a foraging party to collect edible 
wild fruits and vegetables growing in the forest below. The foragino group was 
to consist of' six people and meet at Amid's reception building. He turned in 
that direction, accordingly, and the sight of it, together with the thought of 



the land below, brought back to his thoughts the matter ofCee. Ever since 
Amanda had first suggested it, Artur had let one of the fernale Chantry Guild 
members, a roundfaced, brown-haired, cheerful young woman named Onete, go down 
to sit in the forest. But not seem(,, his niecc-at least not being able to 
feel her presence there, and have direct personal evidence ofthe fact she was 
alive and well-had been painful to Artur. 
The pain had been evident; but he had borne it with a 
quietness and patience that made no lessening of his usual activities in the 
Guild. It wits behavior which had reminded Hal ol'something he had almost 
forgotten. The Exotics, for all their ori6nal aoparent softness and tendency 
to surround themselves 



198 
Gordon R. Dickson 
with what many thought of as luxuries, had proved to have the inner strength 
Hal had seen in them, that was even now makinL, 
at it hard for the Occupation to kill them off. It was a strength th ' had its 
roots in the constancy of their individual philosophies, regardless of how 
each one might and did interpret it, that was as characteristic of them, as 
unflinching faith was of the best of those on the Friendly worlds, and courage 
was of the Dorsai. 
He remembered with a sudden pang of sadness and loss, even after all these 
years, Walter the InTeacher, who had been the Exotic among his tutors. as 
Malachi Nasuno had been the Dorsai and Obadiah Testator the Friendly-until 
Bleys' thugs had gunned the three of thein down, that one warm, late summer 
afternoon in the mountains of Earth, years ago. Walter, who had ordinarily 
seemed the most persuadable of the three old men who had brought Hal up, had 
been in fact the most unyielding, once his mind was made up. So it was with 
the best of his fellow Exotics under the heel of the Occupation. 
Remembering this, Hal found he had reached Amid's reception building and that 
he was in advance of his fellow foragers. There was no one else waiting 
outside. The thought of Cee returned to his mind@ and, since he was here, he 
knocked at the door of the building, "Come in-corne in, anyone"' called Amid 
from within. Hal pushed open the door and went in, closin(I it softly behind 
him. 
Amid was seated on one side of' the fireplace, in which ;I small fire, 
probably built against the chill ofthe early hours, was now' burning doAn 
unheeded to it few glowim, coais. His chair had been pulled around to face two 
other chairs. in which Sat ArtUr and Onete. 
-Ah, it*S you.'' Said Amid. "I'd almost have bet it'd he vou. Hal. Come 


-1 _join Lis. Sit down. I Was OinO to C@Ill WLI in 
on this. anyway. 
Am I that prediadble'.' asked Hal. enterino and takim-, I chair which he 
also Pulled around. so that thev sat in a rouoh circle, he and the three 
others. "You sit out there to watch the sun come up every morning, said Amid. 
"As soon as the sun's up. you oo to whatever dutv you've got. That duty's 
foraging below, today. So you were bound to come here. weren't you'?" 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
199 
"But not necessarily to knock at your door," said Hal. "You're ahead of 
tirne-watching the sun come up makes you that way." said Amid. "What are you 
going to do, stand around alone out there'? Or am I so unapproachable'? You 
know I like talkino to you." 
Hal smiled. "When you've (,of time to spare," he answered. "But of course, I'd 
forgotten. You sit here all day doing nothing, just hoping for someone to stop 
and talk to you," he said. "As a matter of fact, I was going to ask about how 
things are progressin- with Cm and you've got the sources of information right 
with you. "It's Cee we're concerned about," said Artur. "What's aone wrong'.)" 
"Nothing, as far as my trying to win her trust is concerned," said Onete. "But 
while I was down there, yesterday, Elianone of the people from Porphyry-came 
looking for me. I've got in the habit ofsitting in the same place down there 
every day; and the local people have come to know I'm there. He wanted to pass 
on the word that there was some interest, none of the townspeople knew why. 
about the Guild aniong the soldiers in the garrison. " "You see," said Artur 
to Hal, "we thought they'd given up looking for us Ion- ago. No one knows the 
location ofthis ledge but the Guild members, Amanda and yourself'. Even the 
local people below onl@ Know that we live out there, somewhere; and even 
thev've -ot no idea how man@ of us there are or anything, else pertinent about 
LIS. The _,arrison soldiery hunted for the better part ofa year for us, after 
thc@ first moved in here. But we 
stayed Lip Oil the ledge. except in eniergcncics, and they finally gave up 
looking-for good, Ac thought. Our -Liess was they'd assumed we'd left the 



district, if not this part of Kultis. completely, and scattered." "But noA , 
according to Elian," said Onetc. ''the soldiers arc talkin(-, about some 
sort of new hunt of the arc:i here for LIS." 
-T@c trouble is," Said Amid. -if the soldiers begin making an org anized sweep 
through here, they're almost certain to catch si(yht ofCce, because she'll 
come to look at them. It'she wanted to, She could probably dance all around 
and through them and none of them would @now she was there. But she -won't 
realize 



200 
Gordon R. Dickson 
the danger of being seen. She won't realize that with enough people, acting in 
concert, there's a dan-er that she can be surrounded and caught." "And there's 
no way for us to make her understand this," said Artur. 
-Any thoughts on the matter, Hal')- Amid asked. Hal shook his head. "Short of' 
our capturing the girl first, ourselves-," he began. 
-No," said Artur and Onete simultaneouslv. "She'd never recover from that," 
Artur added. "Amanda was right." "Then I haven't anything to suggest," Hal 
said, "at the moment, at least." 
-We may just have to wait and hope," said Amid. - liowever, a little knowledge 
of what the present situation is wouldn't do any harm. You're the tactical 
expert here, Hal. I'd like you to go down with the forapers just as you were 
supposed to do. But don't stay with them. When they get down, break off by 
yourself and take a look around the area as far as you think you can in the 
time you've got to give it. You might consider delaying your normal turn at 
the circle so that you could put in the whole day down there?-
Of course," said Hal. .. Thank you," said Amid. "Thank you," said Artur, 
almost simultancousiv. ..There*s nothing needing thanks in that," said @al. 
"As far as that goes, I'm walking the circle in the back of' my mind all the 
time I'm awake anyway-and for all I know most of the time when I'm sleeping." 
"Are you?- said Amid. "That explains why we now have two ofyou, Old Man and 
yourself, who walk the circle without saying the Law aloud as they go. It's 
interesting. That's exactly what Old Man told me, when I asked him why he 
didn't repeat the Law aloud as he walked. I'd been obliged to ask him because 
others in the Guild had asked me if it was correct for him to do that. Old Man 
said the same thing-he didn't need to say the Law aloud. It repeated itself' 
in his head all the time, no matter what he was doing. Jathed would never have 
stood for either one of you walking in his circle and not repeating the proper 
words. "But you will," said Hal. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
201 
Amid smiled. "I will, because I think ruy brother Kanin would have. Kanin had 
a tremendous admiration for Jathed-as I may have said, Kanin was his chief 
disciple. But Kanin, like any true Exotic, had a mind of his own." 
Hal's car had been picking up the slight sounds of voices beyond the closed 
outer door of the building. "I'd better be going," he said. "it sounds like 
the others are ready, outside. " "I'll go too." said Onete, also rising, 
"since we'll be traveling the same way for the first part of' it. Unless 
there's some reason for me to stay awhile yet, Amid?" "No. Go ahead." 
"Thanks." 
Hal and Onete went out, joined the rest of the foragers and they all started 
down the mountainside. "Where's your gathering bag, Friend?- one of the men in 
the mixed group asked Hal. It occurred to Hal that he had become so used to 
answering to the name "Friend" that he had almost not recognized his own when 
Amid had used it during the conversation just a few mornents past. He had been 
planning to pick up a bag after speaking to Amid-but there was no point in 
doing that now. 
"I've been given a separate job," he said. "Oh. .. 
They were too polite, both its Exotics still and as Guild members, to question 
him about what the task might be. 
When thel, reached the forest below they split up, the foragers spreading out 
to the north and Hal and Onete going together southward. down toward Porphyry. 
"I never did (let to ask how you're (letting on with Cee. " Hal said once the 
two of them were alone. "I'm inakina progress." Onete smiled. "What a 
magnificent little thino she is! I used to wonder how she could survive down 
there all by herself. But she really owns that forest. She knows everv foot of 
it. I'll bet she could run throu-h it blind if she had to. @Llt what you want 
to know is have I oot her to come reallv close to me'?" "That's about it." 
said Hal. "I have," said Oncte. "Oh, I don't inean close enough to touch, 



thouoh if she'd stand still for it. she comes near enough 



202 
Gordon R. Dickson 
to me, nowadays, so that I could probably stand up, reach out and touch her. 
But that's not what I'm after. It's curiosity that brings her close, You know. 
She wants to touch my clothes, and me, as much as I'd like to touch her-, but 
she doesn't dare. She doesn't trust me enough yet. Artur grabbed at her, 
eventually--well, you know that@ and ofcourse she's expecting me to do the 
same thing. She's going to have to actually come up and touch me and walk 
away again without my moving, a number of times. before she'll begin to put me 
in a different category. Poor Arturl" 
-Yes,- said Hal. "He couldn't help it, of course. He'd wanted to hold her so 
long, that he just didn't have any patience left, when she came in reach. I 
can tell how he must have felt, by the way I feel myself@ and she's not part 
of my extended family, the only part that's left. But I'll wait. I think if I 
wait long enough, Cee'll not only initiate the touchino, she'll start to lead 
me around and sho" me 
things. Then, I can perhaps see if' she'll let rne lead her places: and so 
finally I can bring her up to the ledge and safety." "But not before these 
soldiers come," said Hal. "You think they'll really make a search through 
here?" Onete looked up at his face as they walked. "Yes," said Hal. 
He did not say to Onete what he had also not said to Am,(!. only because Artur 
and Onete had been there, which was that hc was afraid it was because of him 
that the search would come. 
CHAPTER 
21 
Yes, thought Hal, Bleys would indeed come. The Other had his own, personal 
version of intuitional logic, as he had told Hal when the two had talked 
together briefly in the cold and misty tunnel through the phase-shield, soon 
after the shield had gone up. Intuitional logic, or its counterpart, would not 
tell Bleys where Hal was, but he would be able to read from the general 
situation that Hal was up to something and probably not on Earth. Undoubtedly, 
on all the Younger Worlds, right now, the police. the military and all other 
paramilitary under the control of the Others, were looking into formerly 
closed files and commencing to examine groups and areas left unexamined for 
some time. 
Particularly on these two Exotic worlds. A little serious thought, let alone 
an intuitional logic, would rule out one by one the other worlds beyond Old 
Earth. Hal would not return to either of the Friendly worlds, where he was too 
well known. There would be no reason that was likely to take him to the mining 
world of Coby or the older worlds of Mars and Venus, which had been settled 
early and never fully developed. Newton, the scientists' world, almost alone 
among the Younger Worlds, held no groups actively resisting the Others, from 
which Hal could get aid and protection. Also, Newton and its counterpart, 
Cassida, were sterile for the purposes of Hal's aims, at this time in history. 
There were no strong historical forces among the 



204 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
205 
populations of Ceta, Ste. Marie, New Earth and Freiland; and there was no 
point in Hal's returning to the all but empty world of Dorsai. By default, 
therefore, there were left only Mara and Kultis, either one. 
There would have been a command, originating with Bleys, himself, and 
filtering down through the hierarchy of political and military authorities the 
Others controlled. It would have started the military and paramilitary forces 
on the two Exotic worlds searching for any group or people who could give 
shelter or assistance to someone like Hal. The important thing to Bleys would 
be not so much to find Hal as to find what it was that could have brought him 
out from behind the shelter of the phase-shield. Whatever Hal was after, by 
definition it would be something which Bleys would prefer he did not have. So 
the order would have gone out. 
And the military in Porphyry, like such organizations everywhere, would have 
begun by first searching what was easy to find and close at hand, going 
farther and farther afield as they found nothing, until their inquisitions 
brought them, finally, once more to this part of the valley, and possibly to 
the very foot of these cliffs. 
Hal did not think they would find the hidden entrance to the ledge. They would 
pass by, and retire at last, empty-handed, to their garrison again. But 
meanwhile, anyone like Cee would definitely be in danger. What he must do now 
was find some evidence of how far out they had gotten in their searching and 
their planning to search. . . . 
As he had been thinking these thoughts, he had been carrying on a casual 
conversation with Onete; and now they had come at last to the soft, 
vine-covered hummock of decayed wood which served as Onete's chair during the 
time she sat and waited for Cee, who was possibly watching them at this very 
moment. Hal closed his eyes briefly and tried to feel if there were eyes 
watching Onete and himself at the present moment. But he felt nothing and 
opened his eyes again quickly enough so that Onete did not remark on his 
having closed them. "Well," said Onete. "You'll be on your way, I suppose. 
I'll settle down here the way I always do. If you come back this way. you 
might be quiet and cautious approaching this spot, just in case Cee is being 
unusually daring or extending herself in some new way. We don't want to 
frighten her off." 
"I'll be careful," said Hal. 
So they parted and Hal took off through the forest, still in the direction of 
Porphyry, but now alone. As soon as he was well out of sight of Onete, he took 
off his sandals and hung them on a handy bush, leaving himself barefoot. 
Earlier, he had accommodated his pace to that of the foragers and Onete while 
he was with them, but now he would need to cover ground if he hoped to see as 
much of the local territory as he had planned, this day. He broke into an easy 
lope. 
Like most of the other Guild members, he had fallen into the habit of walking 
the circle barefoot, and the soles of his feet were hardened to travel without 
footwear. Just as the weeks of work and walking up on the ledge had put him 
back into shape, physically. The best of the gym equipment for exercise seemed 
never to give the results that actual walking, running and hard hand-labor 
did. 
He smiled to himself as he loped along, feeling the enjoyment of stretching 
his legs after . . . how long? He had done his running at the Encyclopedia on 
a hidden treadmill, with the illusion of a countryside unreeling about him at 
the pace he was traveling. It had been almost, but not quite the same thing. 
For one instance, his feet had come to know the artificial irregularities and 
bumps of the illusory path beneath them. Here, they were continuously new and 
real. 
Privately, he would have liked to go down to the valley below to do distance 



running, but it was plain the Guild members avoided leaving traces of their 
presence below as much as possible; and although he was sure Amid would have 
given him permission to go, he did not want special consideration. The members 
of the Guild had gotten used to seeing him at his various exercises about the 
ledge; and, being Exotics, would never have dreamed of anything but accepting 
whatever was his personal choice of a way of life. He smiled again, thinking 
of the Guild members. With them, during these few weeks, he had come closer to 
understanding Exotics than at any other time in his lives. Like so many 
individuals of the other Splinter Cultures, and like nearly all of the people 
on Old Earth, itself, he had taken the Exotics' nature and their philosophical 
search for an evolved human pretty much for granted. 
He had not realized what that search had meant to them in terms of an active 
pursuit, or how much it had altered them as a 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
207 
people. For the first time he saw their culture for what it was and realized 
the real change it had made in them. There was no doubt in him now that it was 
equivalent to the changes the Dorsai had made in becoming what they were, and 
the Friendlies in becoming what they had become. 
That change was not just a matter of surface manners, politeness and 
consideration. These people actually saw life from the standpoint of their 
philosophical search for an improved human race; and strove to find the 
materials for that improvement in themselves. Thinking back now, he realized 
his first actual acceptance of that fact had been in what he had seen in those 
around him on the road to and in the town of Porphyry. They had been 
subjected, but not changed. Even oppressed, all but a very few of them had 
remained the Exotics they had been before the soldiers from off-world had 
come. 
It had been a great discovery. He felt now, for the first time, that there was 
something to learn; something that-although it might be that in following it 
up he was going away from his problem-might in the long run end by bringing 
him back to it by a better route. The Exotics wanted an evolution in 
humankind, per se. What he, himself, wanted was specifically a moral, an 
ethical, evolution in humanity. Surely the two desires were close, if not 
united in purpose? 
But it was his survey of the land down here he should be thinking of now. He 
began by swinging to his left in an arc that brought him back to a path. It 
was not really a path, here, but a 
trail which could be followed by woods-wise eyes, the trail that he had taken 
with Amanda when she had first led him to the ledge. He followed this barely 
perceptible trail backward toward Porphyry, accordingly, still at a lope, and 
it was not long before it grew into what was a visibly used path. 
In this early stage it could even be a path worn by larger animals, who, like 
humans, took the easest route on their first time through unknown territory 
and then tended to repeat their steps on subsequent trips. Of course, there 
were no such wild animals on this world. He had been thinking too much as Hal, 
who had seen such game trails on Old Earth. Younger World troops would not 
think of anything but human feet having made such a trail, when they came 
across it. 
After a while the trail gave way, in small stages, to a regularly maintained 
road, even though narrow and unsurfaced. 
So far he had seen no evidence of recent passage this way by soldiers, or by 
any group of people, organized or unorganized. There was no possible way 
soldiers, particularly the poorly trained troops of the Occupation, could have 
gone up the unsurfaced trail without leaving sign of their passage in the way 
of bootprints and damaged vegetation, on either side of it. No 
leaving sign of their passage, to Hal's eyes at any rate, in its soft surface. 
The early part of it he traveled, accordingly, must also be territory to which 
they had not penetrated for some time. It was not far down the road, however, 
before he rounded a curve, descended a small slope and came upon not merely 
sign, but a deliberate announcement of their recent visit this far from 
Porphyry. 
He had reached the home of the madman who spent his days stripping blossoms 
from the rapidly growing plants he cultivated in pots around the pool before 
his house and in the space behind it. 
But the man was not plucking blossoms now-and plainly had not been for a 
couple of weeks, at least. Local scavengers had been at his body. What was 
left of it now swung in the light breeze, suspended by the noose from which he 
had been hung. 
Below him was a printed sign showing large block letters in red on white. 
DO NOT TOUCH OR REMOVE, BY ORDER OF THE COMMANDANT OF THE GARRISON. 



Hal was suddenly reminded of such executed corpses dangling from makeshift 
roadside gallows in Hawkwood's time, with similar notices. The idea then, of 
course, had been that the body of the individual who had been hung should 
serve as a warning and a deterrent to other criminals. Here, where deterrence 
was not the object, the sign was simple savagery and sadism on the part of the 
Occupation troops. 
Hal did not touch the body. There was no use; and to do so would merely serve 
as an announcement to any soldiers returning this way that others besides the 
madman existed in this area. He turned and headed back up the road at the same 
pace he had used since he had parted with Onete. 
Only the morning had gone by. He decided to use the rest of the day in 
generally surveying the terrain, not only so he would know it in the future, 
but so he could make some informed 



208 
Gordon R. Dickson 
guesses as to how the troops would spread out and move through it, when and if 
they came. 
Accordingly, he now made side excursions to right and left out from the trail. 
The soldiers, under the impression that the Chantry Guild would be in the 
forest rather than above it, would look for evidence of signs of traffic to 
and from the location of its headquarters. Not even they would expect an 
obvious connection of trails linking that headquarters with the visible 
footpath he now followed. They would be likely to simply follow the footpath 
as far as it seemed to them to exist. Only after it had disappeared would they 
then probably form a skirmish line and begin to sweep through the greenery 
area beyond; which they would have divided on their map into blocks of 
territory, running right to the foot of the cliffs. 
It was well that Onete had chosen a place to sit for Cee that was some 
distance beyond and off the line of the trail toward the cliffs. It was not so 
good that she had chosen a spot relatively close to the entrance under the 
huge boulder, leading up to the ledge. 
There were advantages in such a close position, of course, She, like the 
foragers, could literally be watched from the ledge, using a viewscope 
adjusted for distance viewing; in fact, lately, Artur spent what moments he 
had to spare during the day doing just that, to catch what glimpses he could 
of Cee. Also all Guild members, when they were below, were trained to glance 
up at regular intervals to where they knew the ledge to be. 
Although the ledge was invisible from the lower ground, to someone who knew 
where its outer edge should be, it was still easily locatable; and if whoever 
was below saw a bush growing on that edge where normally no bush grew, the 
warning to get immediately back up to safety was clear. 
Even Hal himself had been checking the position of the ledge, hourly, without 
being more than barely aware he was doing so. Reminded of the warning bush 
now, he looked for it, even though the most recent hour was not up; but there 
was no bush there. 
No, Onete's location was admirably suited from the standpoint of' Onete's own 
safety. But if the soldiers had anyone among thern who could read even the 
most obvious of sign, the marks of Onete and Cee's visits to that location 
would tell 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
209 
whoever it was that people had been there, recently. The soldiers, 
accordingly, would search more carefully in the region about that spot, 
including up to the cliffs, the boulder and the secret entrance. 
Hal did not really think that even such a tracker, if they had -one, would 
suspect that the apparently small shadowed hollow under the great boulder was 
anything more than that. The slope of loose rock just below that entrance did 
not hold the marks of the goings in and out of Guild members, who were always 
careful to move some distance on the rock, along the base of the cliff, before 
they left it individually at different points to enter the jungle. 
The chances of the soldiers finding their way to the ledge, consequently, were 
slim. But unfortunately the evidence of Onete's meetings with Cee would still 
have directed attention to ,this area; and if there were some of the Others on 
the Exotic worlds they might have the imagination the soldiers lacked-to 
direct a search closely along the cliff-front, investigating every nook and 
cranny until they crept in under the boulder and found the route to the ledge. 
To Bleys Ahrens, himself, the evidence of Cee and Onete's meeting would simply 
suggest immediately the likelihood of a secret dwelling place on the cliffs 
above. 
However, there was no quick way now to hide that evidence. There remained the 
business he was engaged in now, which was putting himself empathically in the 
boots of the soldiery; and from their point of view working out how they would 
go about covering the terrain he was now surveying. 



He had automatically -one back to his training as the young Donal, and that of 
the young Hal under the tutorship of the Dorsai, Malachi Nasuno, on Old Earth. 
For the moment everything else had been put aside and he thought and reasoned 
only according to that early training. As a result something connected with 
that way of thinking came automatically to his mind. It was a part of the 
multivolume work on tactics and strategy, which had been the lifework of 
Cletus Grahame, Donal's great great-grandfather. ". . . the importance of 
knowing the terrain where encounters with enemyforces are likel -y is 
impossible to underrate,'' Cletus had written in the volume titled FIELD USE 
OF FORCES. "The commander. whether he exnecrv to have to onerale 



210 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
211 
deftnsively or offensively over that terrain, gains a tremendous advantage by 
knowt .ng t.t personally and intimately. It is not merely enough to glance 
at a visible area and relate it to a map displayed in a viewer. Large 
elements, such as rivers, gullies, i.mpenetrable undergrowth and such, are 
obvious features to be committed to memory-but this is only the beginning of 
the advantage to be derived from the Commander's going out in person to cover 
the area. "If this is done, then a great many smaller, but infinitel.v useful 
bits of knowledge may be acquired that may well make the difference between 
success andfailure in any action. The qualit). of mud on the riverbank, the 
exact depth of a gull 'v, the character Of the impenetrable undergrowth 
-such as a tendency of part oJ' its vegetation to stick to the clothing of 
enemy passing near it or a empti .ng to penetrate it-all these are items 
oj'information that ma_ ,be turned to account; not only in helping to build a 
picture of how the enemy will be channeled and directed, delayed, or 
aided in moving through the area, but in deciding how the en-
em), forces may be led or forced into a situation where theY must surrender, 
or ma 'v be easil-v taken prisoner, giving the bloodless victory that is 
the hallmark oJ' the fully capable commander. . . . " 
Hal frowned for a second as he loped along, his eyes noting and his memory 
automatically cataloging what he saw as he wove back and forth through the 
jungle across the route the soldiers would be led, by conditions of the 
terrain, to come. 
Something was nagging at the back of his mind. There should be something more 
to the passage from the text than that. Something that was of importance, not 
to the present moment, but to his larger, lifetime search; and yet, he had the 
page of the ancient text from the Graeme library on Dorsai clearly in his mind 
Is eye and those paragraphs were the extent of what was pertinent there to 
what he was doing at the moment. He made a mental note to search his memory 
again on that subject when he had leisure and turned his whole attention back 
to the business of studying the ground he was covering. 
He was almost to the cliffs by this time. The next pass would take him past 
the foot ofthem. He broke off his traveling to and fro to make a turn back to 
where he had left his sandals on the 
bush. Since this took him close to where Onete was sitting, he swung wide in 
his approach, and covered the last hundred meters or so silently and 
cautiously so as not to disturb Cee if she were there. 
He had seen no sign of Cee, however, by the time he had retrieved the sandals. 
Instead of putting them on immediately, he gave in to the temptation to move 
with unusual care closer in to where Onete would be sitting; and after a few 
moments he came within sight of the spot and saw her. 
Cee was indeed with her, standing directly in front of Onete; and, it looked 
to Hal, well within reach of Onete if the latter had wished to reach for the 
girt. As Onete had said, however, she plainly had no intention of doing so; 
and Cee apparently now trusted her in this, because she stood relaxed before 
the grown woman, almost as if they were in casual conversation-as 
perhaps they were, in one fashion or another. 
It occurred to Hal suddenly that, if only there were the materials up on the 
ledge to fashion a quick-acting tranquilizer of the kind used to immobilize 
wild game, he could easily have delivered it at the point of a dart or arrow, 
into the little girl, from his present position or one like it. With the 
proper sort of tranquilizer, Cee would never know what had hit her until she 
woke up in the women's section of one of the dormitory buildings, with Onete 
still with her. 
She might react strongly to finding herself enclosed; but Onete's presence 
would be reassuring@ and if the worst came to the worst, it might be better 
than leaving her here for the soldiers to discover and catch. 



Of course, in argument against doing such a thing there was the fact that even 
a large contingent of soldiers might not be able to catch her-which they would 
probably try to do before they tried shooting her. If she could get away from 
Hal and Amanda, these Occupation troops were not going to find her easy to 
deal with. Then, once they had shown any sign of doing such things, she would 
make it a point to keep out of their sight. 
Hal faded back from the clearing where Onete and Cee still confronted each 
other. When he was a safe distance away, he put on his sandals and made his 
last sweep of the ground at the bottom of the cliffs. Then he returned through 
the entrance under the boulder, up to the ledge. Amid was at work in his 



Gordon R. Dickson 
office, with a tray holding some crumbs of bread and the remnants of some sort 
of vegetable stew in a bowl perched precariously on the corner of a table 
otherwise piled with papers. "I'll take that back to the kitchen when I go, 
shall P" asked Hai, nodding at the tray after knocking on the office door and 
accepting Amid's invitation to come in. "What'? Oh, that. Yes, thank you. Sit 
down," said Amid, looking up from the plans for an additional log building-one 
which would be in between the dormitories and his reception building in size. 
"What did you see'? And what did you think? You're back earlier than I 
expected." ,,It didn't take as long as I'd have thought, either," said Hal, 
sitting down. 
He told Amid about the hanged madman and about his idea for possibly 
tranquilizing Cee and bringing her up to the ledge that way. 
Amid looked uncomfortable. "I'm sure Artur and Onete won't like the idea," he 
said. "Even if we could do it. Oh, I don't doubt you could creep up close 
enough on her to get a dart or something into her; but even I don't like to 
imagine how Cee'd feel, waking up locked in one 
of our small bedrooms, even if Onete was with her." "It's just a suggestion," 
said Hal. "Then there's the problem of the tranquilizer itself. We've got a 
number of drugs in the clinic here, of course, but . . . "
I know," said Hal. "As I say, it was just a suggestion." "Well, well, I'll 
talk to our pharmacist and if anything like that's possible, maybe you'd be 
willing to make the suggestion yourself to Artur and Onete. They and we could 
sit down and discuss the chances of it working." "I'd be glad to," said Hal. 
"All right, then," said Amid, "as soon as we all have some free time at the 
same moment. I can call in Artur at any time, but Onete's still down below, 
isn't she?" "Yes," said Hal. "And you're about to take your turn at the 
circle?" "I could put that off." "No need to, particularly since we have to 
wait for Onete to get back up here." 
Amid sighed, a sigh that was more than a bit weary, pushed 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 213 
away from him the plans he had just been examining, and sat back in his chair. 
"Well," he said, "now, about the matter I wanted you to look into down there. 
When do you think the soldiers might come out here? And what might they do 
when they actually come9" 



THE CHANTRY GUILD 
215 
CHAPTER 
22 
"I can't begin to give you even guesses by way of answers," said Hal, "until I 
get some information. How many soldiers arc 
there in the garrison'? Have you any idea how many of those would be free 
enough from other duties to make up a search party large enough to comb the 
district out here'? Do they have a 
tracker among them?" "Tracker?" Amid frowned. "Someone who can tell whether 
people have been moving through wild country like that below us by reading 
sign -recognizing part of a footprint, or what a broken branch means, and so 
forth." "Ah! I see," said Amid. "I don't know if they have or not.- "There 
must have been other searches, in this district and others. Did they ever use 
anyone like that to try to locate the people they were hunting?" "Not to my 
knowledge," said Amid. "No, I'm sure they didn't. In fact I doubt they've got 
someone like that. It would be common knowledge if they did." "If it isn't, it 
only means they've got no one outstanding in that sort of ability," said Hal. 
"it doesn't necessarily rule out the fact that some of them may be a little 
more knowledgeable about the woods and quicker to notice a footprint or other 
sign. that's open and obvious. For example, there'll be no hiding the 
fact that Onete's been sitting in that little clearing for some weeks now, and 
meeting Cee there." "No. I've been worrying about that; but I don't know 
anything that could be done to erase the marks of their being there. Do you?" 
"I haven't been able to think of anything so far," said Hal. "I'm particularly 
concerned-not merely for Cee, but for the Guild as a whole," said Amid. "We've 
been safe until now up here; but there's no getting around the fact that if 
they find the entrance under the boulder and follow it up, they'd have us all 
in a trap." "No weapons up here, I suppose?" Hal asked. "Here?" Amid looked at 
him sternly, "Certainly not. We're Exotics! I suppose you could count Old 
Man's sword as a weapon, if he'd let someone else use it that way. He won't 
hurt anything or anyone, himself." "Too bad," said Hal. "The soldiers would be 
very vulnerable, climbing up here after they got past the boulder. For all 
practical purposes they'd have to come single file. With even a few weapons, 
you might be able to ambush the whole party on the way up and take them 
prisoner. Of course you'd have the problern of what to do with them, once 
you'd captured them. I take it for granted you wouldn't be able to bring 
yourselves to murder them in cold blood, even if some of them have done just 
that, effectively, to people I i ke that insane man down the road." "No, we 
wouldn't hurt them, of course,- said Amid. "And as I say, we've no weapons, 
anyway. Is there any way we could take them prisoner, if we had to, without 
weapons?" "I'd strongly advise against trying it," said Hal. "The Guild 
members probably outnumber any search party that'd be sent by at least two to 
one. But barehanded against soldiers like that-" 
He grinned. "Now, if you were all Dorsai," he said. "Or even true, 
faith-holding Friendlies . . ." "Please," said Amid, "let's be serious." 
"Serious is that you simply can't afford the search party's discovering the 
entrance under the boulder." "Yes." Amid frowned down at the drawing on his 
desk for a Moment, then raised his eyes again to meet Hal's. "Only about five 
of all the Guild members even know it," he said, "but besides the boulder 
that's there beside the opening now, we long 



216 
Gordon R. Dickson 
ago cut a second piece of rock of the right kind into the necessary 
rectangular shape and buried it just beside the boulder. The spot where it's 
buried has been grown over, since, just like the other spot near it that holds 
a block and tackle and levers for moving the block. We can fit it into the 
opening and it'll took, and feel, like part of the cliff behind the boulder. 
In fact, the block's got weight and mass enough so that even a couple of 
searchers-and there isn't room under the boulder for more than two at a 
time-couldn't push it backward and out of their way by hand, even if they 
suspected it of blocking a way through. But there's no reason they should." 
"Very good!" said Hal. "What it means, of course," said Amid worriedly, "is 
that once it's in place they can't get in, but we can't get out; except for 
those who know enough about mountain climbing to go down the open rock face. 
We've got a few who could do it. Not that we'd want to get out while there're 
soldiers down there." "You're vulnerable to being seen from above," said Hal. 
"I know the brush you've got growing on the roofs of the buildings and the 
rest of the camouflage hides the fixed elements of what you've brought to this 
ledge. But a satellite in orbit looking directly at this area on its scope, or 
even a ship in orbit, could see people moving about if they made the 
effort-the circle, for example, always has people in it; and even if it was 
empty you'd have to cover the worn area of ground with something. And with all 
that, even if you knew they might look, and hid everything and kept everybody 
inside, a close study by an expert of a picture taken of the ledge in daytime 
would find evidence of human occupation here." "You're telling me we're going 
to be found, eventually," said Amid unhappily. "Only if they look. As long as 
none of them ever think of the possibility of your being up here, you can last 
forever. That's why making sure they don't find anything below to make them 
think of it is crucial." "Yes," said Amid. The deep wrinkles of his forehead 
were even deeper than usual. "I know. We'll talk some more with Onete about 
what that Elian from Porphyry told her. He may have said something that would 
give us more information about the character of the search party, how large it 
might be, when it might come-and information about the garrison troops gener-
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
217 
Iv, their number and so on. Meanwhile I'll also try to locate anyone e se 
among t e mem ers w o s ta e to someone rom Porphyry lately; and if they've 
got anything of value to tell you, I can bring them in to talk to you. 
Meanwhile, you were going to walk in the circle today, weren't you? You might 
as well go ahead and do that. You won't mind if I interrupt your walking if I 
feel I need to talk to you before you stop of your own accord?" "Of course 
not," said Hal. "Anything I get mentally occupied with there, I can always get 
back into at a later time." "Good. " 
Hal went out, picking up the utensils of Amid's lunch as he went. These 
reminded him that he, himself, had not yet eaten today. When he got to the 
nearest of the dormitory kitchens, he found it, now in the early afternoon, 
almost empty. He ate a 
quick lunch and went on, out to the circle. There were only two people waiting 
there, a thin, tall, elderly man named Dans, with dark brown eyes that always 
seemed to give him a stare, and a small, athletic young woman with blond hair, 
known as Trekka. "I think duty took you out of your normal turn, Friend," said 
Dans. "Trekka's first, but would you care to go before me?" "Before me, as 
well, Friend," said Trekka. 
Hal grinned at them. "No, you don't," said Hal. "I can get put in your debt 
like that once, but I'm too clever to be caught twice. I'll follow Dans. " 
As it turned out, however, several of those currently walking were very close 
to the point where they wanted to stop. Hal and the other two were all walking 
the circle within five minutes of his arrival. 
As always, when he began this, Hal shed his concern with daily matters as he 
would drop a winter cloak after stepping into a building's warmth. There was 



nothing special about the circle to facilitate this, or even anything 
metaphysical about it, since he had been able to do it since childhood. It was 
no more than the extent to which anyone lets go of their pattern of directed 
thoughts, when he or she slips off into daydreams. 
But on this occasion, the urgency of the possible coming search by the troops 
and its attendant problems may have lingered a little in his consciousness and 
directed the otherwise free flight of his mind; for he found it once more 
occupied with the passage from Cletus Grahame's work on tactics and strategy 



218 
Gordon R. Dickson 
that he had called up from memory in his reconnaissance below. Once more he 
felt tugging at him the feeling that there was more to the passage than he had 
read off the printed page in his memory. 
Now, freed by the movement and voices of the circle to go seeking, he traced 
down the source of that feeling. He was a boy again, the boy Donal, back on 
Dorsai. There, in the big, shelf-walled library of Graemehouse, filled with 
old-fashioned books of printed and bound paper, there had been a number of 
large boxes on one shelf which had held the original manuscript of Cletus's 
writings. As the boy Donal, once he had mastered reading, which he had done so 
early that he could not remember when he had first started to read, anything 
written was to be gobbled wholesale. 
Those had been the days when he could so lose himself in reading that he could 
be called to dinner by someone literally standing at his side, and not hear 
the voice of whoever it was. 
During that period of his life he had ended up reading, along with everything 
else that was there to be read in Graemehouse, the manuscript version of 
Cletus's work. It had been handwritten on the grayish-white. locally made 
Dorsai paper; and here and there, there had been corrections and additions 
made in the lines. In particular, in certain spots whole passages had been 
crossed out. Notes had not been made by Cletus on the manuscript, usually, 
when such a passage was deleted; and Hal had often played with trying to 
figure out why his great great-grandfather had decided not to include it. In 
the case of the neatly exed out section of the remarks on terrain, the note in 
the margin had said--of utility only for a minority of readers. " 
Of utility only to a minority? Why? Hal had puzzled over that reason, set down 
in the time-faded, pale blue ink of Cletus's round handwriting. He remembered 
going into the office which had been Cletus's to begin with, and that of the 
head of the family ever since, and sitting down in the hard, adult-sized, 
wooden swivel chair at the desk there, to try if by imitating Cletus as Cletus 
had worked, he could divine the meaning of the note. 
Why only a minority of readers? As a boy, the phrase had seemed to threaten to 
shut Hal out. What if he would be among 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
219 
the majority who would not understand it'? He had read the deleted passage 
carefully and found nothing in it that could conceivably be useful; but there 
was, unfortunately, no way for him to test himself with its information in 
practice until he was 
grown up and an officer, himself, facing a specific terrain to be dealt with. 
He had not even asked any of his elders about the passage, afraid that their 
answer would confirm his fear that he might be among those who could not use 
what Cletus had originally planned to include in his work. 
Later on, when as Donal he had been grown up and an officer in fact, the 
deleted passage had become so deeply buried in his memory that he had almost 
forgotten it, and, in any case, by that time he had evolved intuitional logic, 
which in every way that he could see did all and more that Cletus's passage 
had promised. 
The deleted passage itself was short and simple enough. Now, walking the 
circle, Hal had left awareness of the ledge and the Chantry Guild far behind; 
and he found himself, as in the earlier case with Sir John Hawkwood, being 
both Cletus, seated at his desk and writing that passage, and someone watching 
the slim, unremarkable man with his sleeves rolled up, writing away. 
"If, having fully surveyed and understood the terrain," the deleted passage 
had read, "the officer will concentrate on it, resurveying it in memor 'v, 
and imagining enemy troops or his own moving across it, eventually he will 
find the image in his mind changing from a concept to a vision. For the 
purposes Of which I write, there is a great difference between the two-as 
any great painter can attest. A concept is the object or scene 



imagined in three dimensions and asfully as is humanly possible. But it 
remains a creature of the mind of the one imagining it. It is, in a sense, 
connected with the mind that created it. "But a completed mental picture, once 
brought into existence, has an existence entirely separatefirom the one who 
conceived it. A painter-and I speak as a failed painter, myself-can point 
anything he has conceptualized, adapting or improving it as he wishes. But 
with a completed mental picture it will have acquired a life of its own. To 
make it otherwise, even in the smallest degree, would be to destroy the truth 
of it. He has no choice but to point it as it exists, which may be greater 
than, or different 



220 
Gordon R. Dickson 
from, his original concept. I would guess that the same phenomenon occurs in 
the case of the writers offiction, when they speak of the story as taking 
control of itself, taking itself away from the author. Such situations in 
which a character, for example, in effect refuses to be, say, or do what the 
author originallY intended, and insists that he or she will be, say or do 
something else instead. "As painters and authors come to have such completed 
mental pi .ctures and learn to trust them, instead of holding to their oh 
.gi.nal conceptualizations, so a fid/.v effective field officer must learn to 
trust his own tactical or strategic visions, when the 'N, developfrom 
his best conceptualization of a military situation. In some way, more of the 
mind, spirit and capability of the human having the vision seems to be 
involved with the problem; and the vision is always therefore greater than the 
mere conceptualization. "For example: in the case of the management of 
available terrain, the officer may find the ground he has surve 
'ved apparently hanging in midair, in miniature, like a solid thing before 
him; and he will be able to watch as the enemyforces, and his own, move across 
it. Further, as he watches it, these envisioned characters may create before 
him just the tactical movements that he needs to bring about the result he 
desires. "This is an ability of almost invaluable use, but it requires 
concentration, practice and belief, to develop it. The 
crossed-out section ended. 
Now, suddenly, nearly a hundred years after he had read the handwritten 
manuscript, as he still watched and was Cletus under the influence of walking 
the circle, Hal understood what he had not, before. 
In his own time, Cletus had needed to achieve some actual successes in the 
field to prove to the experienced military that his theories were something 
more than wild dreams. Those tactical successes were a series of bloodless 
victories achieved where his superiors would have considered them impossible. 
Hal had studied these, years ago, to see if Cletus had been using an earlier 
form of intuitional logic, and had concluded that Cletus had not. He had seen 
his way to the unexpected tactical solutions he achieved by some other method. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
221 
Just what method, Hal had never been able to determine until now. Hal himself 
knew that his intuitional logic was not unique to him. Chess grandmasters had 
undoubtedly used versions of it to foresee sequences of moves that would 
achieve victory on the playing board for them. What he called intuitional 
logic was only a somewhat refined and extended activity of that same 
pattern of mind use. 
Cletus had clearly made a similar extension of the artistic function he used 
in painting. His description of the miniature battlefield hanging in midair 
and the tiny soldiers acting out a 
solution to a tactical problem, apparently on their own, could be nothing else 
than a direct application of the unconscious mind to 
the problem. In short, Cletus, as well as Walter Blunt of the original Chantry 
Guild-and Jathed, and who knew how many others whose names were lost in 
history-had been making deliberate use of the Creative Universe to achieve 
desired ends. Like Blunt. and possibly Jathed, Cletus had used the Creative 
Universe without realizing its universality, but only the small application of 
it to what at the moment he wanted to do. But it was startling and rewarding 
to find further proof of what Hal, himself, sought-and on his own doorstep, so 
to speak. 
At the same time, he realized he still lacked a sure answer to the question of 
why Cletus had deleted that passage. Hal was suddenly thoughtful. Since Cletus 
himself had set down the way, why couldn't he, Hal, use his own creative 
unconscious to try and ask him'? 
He looked hard at his own vision of the man who was seated at the desk, 
writing. Cletus was lost to time. There was no way of actually reaching the 



living man, himself. But if the transient and the eternal were indeed the 
same-even though he, Hal, had yet to feel that fact as an absolute, inward 
truth-then it ought to be possible to talk to the spirit of his great 
greatgrandfather by the same creative mechanism Cletus himself had described. 
Hal concentrated . . . and although the solid-looking, threedimensional figure 
he watched continued to sit and write, a ghostlike and transparent version of 
it turned its head out of the solid head to glance at Hal standing by the 
desk. Then the whole ghostlike body rose up out of the solid form of Cletus at 
the desk and walked around the corner of it to face Hal. It was Cletus, as 



222 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
223 
much or more than the solid figure was; and, as Cletus, it sat down on the 
edge of the desk, folded its arms on its chest and looked at Hal. "So you're 
my great great-grandson," the spirit of Cletus said. "The family's put on some 
size since my time." "In my original body as Donal Graeme," said Hal, "I was 
only a little larger than you. This was the size of my twin uncles, who were 
unusually large even for my time. But you're right. As Donal Graeme, I was the 
small one among the men in my family. " "It's flattering to hear I'll have 
descendants like that," said Cletus. "Though of course I'll never really know 
of it, since you and I are at this moment just a pair of minds outside both my 
time and yours. You understand, I'm not just a projection of your own 
self-hypnosis, as your dead tutors were when you evoked them to advise you as 
a boy in the Final Encyclopedia, when you first started to run from this man 
called Bleys Ahrens. 
11 the Cletus you're looking at now, am actually more alive than the one 
seated at that desk, writing. He's a product of your imagination. 1, since you 
brought me to life in what you call the Creative Universe, have a life of my 
own. I'm Cletus Grahame. not Hal Mayne's concept of Cletus." "I wonder," said 
Hal soberly. "Maybe I've done you a disservice. What happens to you when I go 
back to awareness of my own world and time?" "I don't know," said Cletus, "any 
more than you do. Perhaps I go out like a blown-out candle. Perhaps I wait for 
you in the Creative Universe until you find your own way there, as you should, 
eventually. I'm not worried about it. You wanted to know why I deleted those 
few paragraphs of my writing on the use of terrain?" "Yes," said Hal. "I 
deleted it because I wanted as many people as possible to read and benefit 
from my writing," said Cletus. "No one's completely without unconscious 
prejudices. If, in reading. someone runs across mention ofsomething that 
offends one of these unconscious prejudices, they tend to find faults to 
justify a rejection of the writing, whether the faults are actually there or 
not. I didn't want my work rejected in that way if it could be helped. "
Why should they find fault with your idea of a vision being 
something more than a concept?" "Because I was speaking about something that's 
supposed to be a sort of magic that takes place only in great artists-writers, 
sculptors, painters, and so forth. The majority of the race, unfortunately, 
tends far too often to have given up on the possibility of creativity in 
themselves; either without even 
having tried to make use of it, or after an early failure. Once something like 
that's been rejected by an individual, he or she tends to resent anyone who 
tries to tell them they still have it. Because of that resentment, they n or 
make some ground to reject any suggestion it still exists in them; and that 
rejection, being emotional, would probably force them to reject my writing as 
a whole; in order to get rid of the unwanted part. So, I took out the 
passage." "What about those who could have benefited from it?" said Hal. 
"Those who wouldn't be looking for an excuse to reject the idea')" "They'll 
find it eventually on their own, I'm sure," said Cletus. "But if a man puts a 
patch over one eye and goes around trying to convince not only everybody else 
but himself that he was born with only one peephole on the universe, I've not 
only got no duty, but no moral right, to pull the patch off and force him to 
face the fact he's wrong." "History could force you to do it," said Hal. 
"History hasn't required that of me, in my time," said Cletus. "if it has of 
you in your time, I sympathize with you. Brace yourself, my great 
great-grandson. You'll be hated by many of those you give a greater vision 
to." 
Hal smiled a little sadly, remembering what Amid had told him about children 
on the Younger Worlds being taught to spit after saying his name. "I already 
am,- he said-
A hand had caught Hal by the arm; and at the touch his attention returned 



suddenly to the circle, the ledge and the outside situation. It was Amid. 



CHAPTER 
23 
"I'm sorry to interrupt you, as I told you I might have to-" Amid was 
beginning, with relentless Exotic courtesy, when Hal cut him off. "It's quite 
all right, as I said it would be. Don't be concerned," said Hal. 
The sun was just disappearing behind their own cliffs; and the mountains he 
watched at sunrise were now lost in night's shadow. Below them, the jungle was 
losing itself in twilight; and the ledge itself, to its outer edge, was in the 
last rosy light of the sunset. "What is it?" asked Hal. "A search party from 
the garrison will start combing through the jungle below, tomorrow," said 
Amid. "Elian visited Onete again this afternoon to tell her, while she was 
visiting with Cee. Cee, naturally, disappeared just before Elian showed up; 
and since Onete knew the news was important, she didn't wait around to see if 
Cee would be back, but came directly up to the ledge and me. I've had them dig 
up the barrier stone to block the way in under the boulder, and it's set ready 
to be put into position at a moment's notice. Onete, Artur and Calas-you know 
Calas, of course?" "Of course," said Hal. Calas was a wiry little man who had 
been one of the original Guild Members with Artur, back when Jathed was still 
alive. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
225 
"We're gathered in my reception building, making plans. I'm afraid we need 
your advice." "Anything I can do . . . " said Hal. Amid was already leading 
him at what, for the small and aged man, was almost a trot toward the 
reception building; which now, like the two dormitories, had blackout curtains 
over its windows. 
Within the building, an evening fire had just been lit in the fireplace and 
the people Amid had mentioned were seated in three chairs on one side of it. 
Overhead, the ordinary artificial lighting that was powered by stored sunlight 
from collectors on 
the mountainside above them in the day, was on a setting so low that its 
radiants, shaped like upside-down cones, glowed no 
brighter than candles. There was an empty chair between that of Onete and the 
chair Amid always occupied. Amid led Hal to it and all but pushed him into it 
before the Guildmaster seated himself. 
Whatever the other three had been discussing, they had broken off. They sat 
silent as Hal and Amid came in and found their chairs. "Here's Hal," said Amid 
to Onete, unnecessarily. "Tell him what Elian told you." "He said . . . " 
began Onete. A product of Exotic schools, she had naturally been taught what 
the people of Mara and Kultis called Perfect Memory. In effect, this was a 
ninemonic system that, when learned, gave virtually total recall of 
information gained through any of the senses-the equivalent in ear, nose and 
sense of touch of an eidetic memory for anything visual. " 'I just found out 
at lunchtime that the garrison's definitely sending out a search party for the 
Guild, tomorrow. My cousin heard Sanderson, the corporal who's quartered on 
her and her husband, talking to the private he uses as an orderly. They were 
outside the house, but just outside the front door. She heard them through the 
doora little muffled. but clear enough.' That's the first thing Elian said 
when he reached me. He was out of breath. He'd barely made it outside the town 
before the guards would have looked suspiciously on anyone that late in the 
afternoon; and he'd come as fast as he could once he got out of sight of the 
walls." 
She paused and looked at Hal. "Did he say how many soldiers were corning?" Hal 
asked. 



226 
Gordon R. Dickson 
"No. He probably didn't know." "Did he say at what time they were leaving town 
in the morning, so we can make an estimate of when they'll get into this 
area?" "Well, no," said Onete. "Actually we talked about how terrible it was 
they'd search for us after all this time; and I thanked him for coming to tell 
us, and then I came right back up ere to tell Amid." "Did he say anything," 
asked Hal, "this time or at any time earlier, about how the soldiers might be 
armed, what rank of officer would be leading them, whether they knew their way 
around in the jungle up here or had maps of any kind? Did he mention that any 
of the soldiers would be ones who'd searched this area before?" "No. As I 
said," said Onete, "we just talked 
She looked unhappy. 
11 1 made a mess of it, didn't IT' she said. "I should have asked him useful 
questions like that, or at least anything I could think of that would let us 
know what we were up against. I'm sorry. My first thought was to thank him for 
taking the risk to come and warn us. That's us Exotics, polite and considerate 
before anything else! I might just as well have chatted with hill) about the 
weather!" 
Her voice ended on a bitter, self-accusatory note. "Don't let it bother you," 
said Hal. "Exotics aren't the only ones who wouldn't know what to ask in such 
a situation. Just about anyone without the proper experience or training 
wouldn't, " "I'll bet Cee would have asked him some of the right questions, if 
she'd talk; and if she'd trusted him enough to stick around!" said Onete, 
still bitterly. "Never mind," said Amid, "we'll all make mistakes like that 
before this thing is over, probably. Our Exotic training is exactly the wrong 
sort of training for handling situations like this Occupation." "Don't devalue 
yourselves," said Hal. "Remember, that same Exotic training of yours centers 
around making life more comfortable for those who have to deal with you. Just 
having to live with you has brought these same soldiers more peace of' mind 
and comfort than most of them have ever had in their lives 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
227 
before. Whether they admit it to themselves or not, it's hard for them to 
deprive themselves of that comfort by killing you all off; in spite of the 
fact they're aware that's essentially what they've been sent here to do. 
Almost unconsciously, you've been countering the directives under which they 
operate. Sodon't blame yourself for not asking questions only a professional 
soldier might think to ask. To each his own way of fighting. " "Well, in any 
case," said Amid to Hal, "as far as the number and equipment and so forth of 
the soldiers in Porphyry is concerned, Caeas here can answer some of the 
questions for you. That's why I have him here-" 
The door to the reception building suddenly banged open and there strode 
in-there was no other proper word for the way she moved-a Guild member whose 
name, Hal remembered, was 
R'shan. She was no taller than Onete and slim enough to look as 
if she was barely more than a girl. But as Hal had seen, she was incredibly 
strong for her size. He had seen her tossing fifty-kilo sacks of variform 
sweet potatoes around in the Guild storehouse, apparently without effort. At 
the moment she was in 
work trousers and a somewhat ragged shirt. Her short-cropped blond hair had 
dust and woodshavings clinging to it. Underneath the hair two bright blue eyes 
sparkled out of an attractive, sharp-featured face. "Sorry to be late," she 
said, coming on in and throwing herself into the empty chair just beyond 
Calas. "I was up in the crawl space just beneath the roof of Dormitory Two and 
over the third floor ceiling. Amid, I found that leak up there. All that 
repairing they did around the kitchen chimney didn't do a bit of good. The 
crack in the roof's a good half-meter off from the chimney's flashing. I could 
see sunlight coming through-" "Forgive me, R'shan," said Amid, "but we can 
talk about the leak in the Dormitory Two roof later. We've just gotten word 



the soldiers from Porphyry are sending out a search party to try and find us 
in the jungle below here. We've got to make plans." "Oh? Of course! " R'shan 
sat up in her chair. "You'll want to 
know how we're supplied-- "Yes," said Amid, "but in a moment. Hal's the only 
one here who knows anything about the military and how they might go about 
searching. He's asking the questions." 



228 
Gordon R. Dickson 
"Ah. Friend, here, you mean?" "Of course. Friend. Forgive me," said Amid, 
looking apologetically at Hal under R'shan's correction. "My name doesn't 
matter either," said Hal. "Let's stick to the situation under discussion. You, 
first, Calas. How do you happen to know more about the Occupation Troops than 
these others?" "I was one of them," said Calas. His voice was slightly hoarse, 
and it struck Hal suddenly that he had never heard the man speak before. "I 
was caught in a rock slide one day when half a dozen of us were out chasing an 
escaped prisoner. The slide buried me and those other bastards just pawed 
around a 
little and then went off and left me. Wrote me off. Some Guild members were 
out foraging and saw what happened. After my so-called mates were gone, the 
Guild people came, dug me out and carried me back here to get well, I had a 
broken arm and leg, as well as other things wrong with me. The Guild saved my 
life. So I stayed here. I'll help you fight those sons of bitches any day-" 
"Fighting them's the last thing we want to do," said Hal. "Whether the Guild 
lives or dies depends on the soldiers never finding out it still exists. You 
say the soldiers with you gave up digging for you after just a little effort 
to find you?" "Yes. It was a hot day, but that's no excuse. Excuse enough for 
them, though." "You're a Cetan, aren't you?" "Yes." Calas stared at him. "How 
did you know?" "It's too cornplicated to explain at the moment," said Hal. 
"Basically, the way you talk rules out your having grown up on any of the 
other worlds. Tell me about the garrison. How many are there in it?" "When I 
was there, counting officers, a little over two hundred. Only about thirty of 
them women and most of those worked at inside jobs like administration." "How 
large a search party do you guess'll be sent out tomorrow?" 
Calas shrugged. "Who knows? There's live Action Groups of twenty bodies each. 
The rest of the garrison people are officers or have regular iobs. The five 
Grouns rotate on dutv so that there's alwavs one 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
229 
on active duty-it's like guard duty, except you don't do anything but sit 
there and wait for something to come up, like chasing an escaped prisoner from 
the Interrogation Section cells. Then there's another Group on backup, which 
means you have to be able to report for duty within five minutes-and they come 
on duty if the duty Group goes out on some job. The rest are off duty, until 
their own duty turn comes up. Duty's twenty-six hours. A day and a night." 
"Correct me if I'm wrong on this," said Hal. "Effectively they've got a 
hundred active-duty soldiers, and the rest are support only?" "That's about 
it," said Calas. "All right, give me your best estimate of how many bodies 
might be in the search party we'll see tomorrow, how the party'd be officered, 
whether they'll have maps and how they'll be armed and equipped." 
Calas frowned. "No telling how many there'll be. If they're really serious, 
they'd use two full Groups; but that's only if they weren't searching anyplace 
else at the time or had anything else going on. More likely one Group." "What 
would two Groups add up to in numbers, rank and so forth?" asked Hal. "Two 
Groups," answered Calas. "That'd mean forty privates, four team-leaders, two 
groupmen and maybe two forceleaders-but probably just one of those, in 
command. They'd be Groups that were off duty to begin with, and they'd have 
the usual needle guns-just a few power rifles-and field equipment-helmets 
instead of caps and so on. The non-coms and officers carry power-pistols 
instead of long guns. And that's about it. " "No power slings for casting 
explosives? How about portable explosives? No power cannon that might be able 
to blast holes in the ledge here, if they found it?" 
Calas shook his head. "Hell, I don't know anyone in that whole outfit who'd 
know how to load, direct, or fire a power sling or power cannon," he said. "As 
for portable explosives, I don't think they've got anything like that, except 
for grenades and fixed charges that they can slap on the wall of a house to 
blow it down-and 



23 0 
Gordon R. Dickson 
there's only one groupman I know of who'd know how to use that without blowing 
himself up. Besides, they wouldn't bring explosives up this way. There's 
nothing they know of here to blow up, but jungle; and no profit in blowing up 
that." "Good," said Hal. "Anyone in the outfit know how to track?" "Track, 
Friend?" "Read sign. Follow people through the jungle by seeing where they'd 
stepped or the undergrowth they'd broken through. " 
Calas shook his head. "Not that I ever knew of," he said. "Even better," said 
Hal. "Any technological equipment -sniffers, for example?" "I don't know what 
sniffers are," said Calas. "Neither do any of the rest of us," said Amid. 
"What's a 
sniffer, Ha-Friend?" "Equipment that can be set to sense particular odors at a 
distance. Body odors, cooking odors." "Not that I ever heard of; and I'd have 
heard about anything like that," said Calas. "They'd have scopes?" "Scopes?" 
"Viewing scopes-for getting a close-up picture of what's distant. You might 
have called them telescopic viewers, on Ceta. " "Oh, those," said Calas. 
"Every non-coin and officer'll have one, and there might be some issued to a 
party of the bodies it' they're going off someplace to look at things by 
themselves." "Good. That ties right into what I was going to ask you next. Any 
searching that's done is likely to be either with individuals strung out in a 
skirmish line, or with small units of somethinlo like two to a dozen 
individuals, setting up a center point and working out from there, until the 
specific area assigned that unit for search has been gone over. In light 
forest like that below us. where ferns and scrub brush fill the spaces between 
trees at times, two men could lose track of each other easily within a 
short distance; they'll probably figure to use a group working out of a center 
point. If so, what's Your guess as to the size of the units the search 
party'll be broken up into?" 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
231 
"Six to ten bodies," said Calas. "Giving us two or three units from each 
group?" "That's right." "Good . . . and bad," said Hal. "Now-" "Why do you say 
both 'good' and 'bad,' Friend?" asked Amid. "Good, because it adds to the 
evidence that they're not expert trackers or searchers. It also means they're 
either lazy, or don't expect to find anyone; so for their own greater comfort 
and pleasure, they'll stick together in large units to have company and make 
easier work of the searching. It's bad, because they'll be taking longer to 
search over the same amount of ground; and that means they'll be around here 
longer. I covered most of the area that concerns us in about six hours, 
earlier today. They could take almost as many days to do it if they stay in 
large groups and loaf on the job." "That's exactly what they'll do, too," said 
Calas. "Right," said Hal, glancing out the window at the deepening gloom of 
the night. He turned to Amid. "Do you have someone 
who could climb high enough on the mountain behind us to see the road past the 
madman's place, using a scope? Whoever it is would have to be in a position 
where they could not only see the road, but also where they could be seen from 
down here. I want someone ready to signal us below here when the troops come 
in sight. That way we can leave the block out of place at the entrance under 
the boulder until the last minute." "Of course," said Amid. "There's a number 
of us who could do that. If I were twenty years younger-" "They'll have to 
climb in the dark. I want whoever goes up to be in place by dawn." "Hmm," said 
Amid. "Yes, I think we can even do that. There are some fairly easy routes up, 
ways some of us already know about. Even in the dark they should be safe to 
climb." "Fine." Hal looked at R'shan. "How about supplies? We've got water 
from the stream. How long can we live up here on 
stored food alone?" "Six months," said R'shan, staring levelly at him. "You 
see," said Amid, "we've always considered the possibility ofbeing kept from 
leaving the ledge for an extended time." 



232 
Gordon R. Dickson 
"Six months!" Hal smiled and shook his head. "You've done well in that 
department. Now-- He looked at Amid steadily. "Did you talk to your 
pharmacist; and to Artur and Onete here, about bringing Cee in the way I 
suggested?" "We can't do it," said Artur. "Really, we can't," said Onete. 
"She'd go wild once she woke up here and found herself locked in, even if I 
was with her. From what little I can gather from her, my guess is that the 
soldiers that destroyed her family home must have caught her parents outside 
and deliberately put them inside before blowing the house apart; and Cee saw 
that. She trusts me a lot now, I think, but anything that held or enclosed her 
. . . she'd go wild and hurt herself trying to get out!" "You see," said Amid 
to Hal, "otherwise, the pharmacist says it'd be perfectly possible to make 
such a tranquilizer dart." "That's good," said Hal, "because they may turn out 
to be useful in other ways. Would you have him make up about a dozen of them 
and find me people who can shoot a bow or use a sling with enough accuracy to 
deliver them?" "I can do that, yes," said Amid. "How were you planning on 
using them? Because that may make a difference in how he makes them." "I don't 
know, yet. It's just that such darts would give us a silent, nonlethal weapon. 
Maybe, on second thought, you and I had better go over and talk with him or 
her, now-" "You stay here!" R'shan was already on her feet. "I'll go get him. 
People are supposed to come to the Guildmaster, not he to them-remember, 
Guildmaster?" 
She looked sternly at Amid, who in turn looked slightly embarrassed. 
"Sometimes it's quicker-but you're right, you're right," said Amid. "I think 
he's still in the pharmacy, R'shan." "Since you're going to get him, then," 
said Hal hastily, "would you get whoever's going to climb the mountain with 
the viewscope and watch for the soldiers on the road?" "Missy and Hadnah," 
said Amid. "Bring them both, R'shan. " "Right." The door slammed behind her, 
giving a brief glimpse of the new darkness outside. "We'll also want to cover 
or camouflage the circle and anything else that's evidence of people here on 
the ledge from 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
233 
an overhead view; just in case they do take a look from above at this area," 
said Hal. "I really don't think they can," said Amid, smiling a little. "I'd 
forgotten when you first mentioned it; but of course, when all the wealth of 
our two worlds went at your request to Old Earth, we couldn't afford to keep 
on the payroll all the technicians and experts from other worlds we'd been 
used to employing. Most of the staff on the satellite system, which was 
primarily a weather-control system for whatever world the satellite was 
orbiting, were other-world meteorologists. When they left, the few Exotics who 
were there in the station left too; but before leaving they made a point of 
effectively sabotaging the equipment aboard." "Good!" muttered Calas. "Those 
the Occupation Forces sent in," continued Amid evenly, "were soldiers only. 
They might have had a few people among them who could use the equipment on the 
satellites, but they hadn't any who could repair it. The satellite system's 
gone unrepaired ever since, as the weather patterns show. I really don't think 
anyone can get an overhead view of us without actually flying a 
space-and-atmosphere ship over; and it'd be prohibitive in cost to do that for 
every little group like us they're trying to search out on both Kultis, here, 
and Mara." "There's still the possibility of the searchers sending up a 
float-kite, or balloon with a scope aboard, to relay images back to the 
ground," said Hal. "We should cover up, anyway, and keep everyone out of sight 
from above, particularly in the daytime." "Oh, we'll do that, of course. I 
didn't mean to say we wouldn't," said Amid. "It's just that it's amusing that 
they can't use the satellites because of a situation they helped bring about, 
themselves. " 
There was a moment's pause in the conversation, broken by Artur. "I don't know 
what to do about Cee," he said. 



Onete put a hand on his thick forearm. "She'll stay out of sight, I'm sure," 
she said. "It's true she's always curious; but that many people together, and 
particularly if she remembers the uniforms of the soldiers who killed her 
parents-and I'm sure she does, even if she won't talk much about it-she'll be 
frightened and hide from them. If she really 



234 
Gordon R. Dickson 
wants them not to see her or know she's there, they're about as likely to get 
a glimpse of her as they are to catch a sunbeam in a box and carry it away." 
Artur turned his head to smile at her, but his face was still troubled in the 
shadows cast by the firelight. He got to his feet. "I'll get busy right now 
organizing the camouflaging of the ledge," he said. He went out, walking 
heavily. 
Since they had a few moments on their hands in which to do so, Hal had Onete 
repeat her full conversation with Elian, word for word; but what she had said 
earlier was correct. There was nothing more Hal could learn from it. 
Amid began an explanation to Hal of how at least some weeks' supply of food 
for those in the Guild was always stored ready in precooked form, or was of 
such a nature that it could be eaten without cooking. These ready-prepared 
foods were used up in rotation as part of their regular daily diet, and 
regularly replaced. Other foods, such as root vegetables, were also used up in 
rotation, being replaced by more recently acquired supplies of the same food. 
The door opened to let in a tall, thin man with white hair and an unusual 
erectness, considering his obvious age. "Hal, you've met our pharmacist, 
Tannaheh?" said Amid. "Tanna, this is Friend, an honored visitor among us for 
a while. " "I think I'm probably the only Guild member you haven't met, 
Friend," said Tannaheh. "I'm honored, of course. I've heard all about you from 
the others." "And I've heard about you," said Hal. "Honored, in turn. 
"Tannaheh is really a research chemist-" began Amid. "Was a research chemist," 
said the thin old man. "At any rate, he's our pharmacist now. Tanna, we just 
got word through Onete that a search party from the Porphyry Garrison is on 
its way here tomorrow." "I've been told," said Tannaheh. "In fact, everyone on 
the ledge knows it." "I suppose," said Amid, with a faint sigh. "Well, the 
point is, Friend's original need for a tranquilizing drug to be delivered in 
the form of a dart isn't going to be used for Cee, as we originally thought we 
might use it. But he thinks he might have other uses for such drugged darts. 
Do you want to explain, Friend?" 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
235 
"It might be possible to use something like that against the soldiers if some 
of us have to go down to deal with them," said Hal. "What I've got in mind for 
that purpose, though, isn't just something to put a person to sleep, but 
something that would leave them physically helpless, but awake and-in 
particular -susceptible to hypnosis. Do you have the materials to give me 
something like that?" 
Tannaheh put the tips of his long, thin fingers together and pursed his lips, 
frowning slightly, above them. "You want them more or less incapable 
physically," he said, "but awake enough to be put into a hypnotic state? I 
assume 
you're able to put someone in such a state yourself; and that's what you plan 
to do after the medication's taken effect?" "That's right," said Hal. "Hmm," 
said Tannaheh. "It's a bit of a problem. You're really asking for two things, 
A muscle relaxant that would simply leave them too limp to stand up would give 
you the physical state you want them in. But you also want something that 
would leave them receptive to hypnosis but-I assume-
not in a condition to be alarmed by you or give the alarm. I suppose the idea 
is that if you have to knock one of them down with a dart, you want to use 
hypnosis to make that person forget what happened to them?" "That's it," said 
Hal. "Forgive me for interfering in the tactical area, where I'm not 
experienced," said Tannaheh, "but if you're able to hypnotize, you ought to be 
aware that a post-hypnotic command to forget something isn't likely to be 
effective for very long after the subject comes out of the state you've put 
him in." "I know it," said Hal, "that's why there's one more requirement. The 
drugs used have to be compatible with alcohol. I take it for granted you've 
got alcohol among your supplies?" "Yes. Actually, I pick up the local homemade 



rotgut the soldiers themselves drink, and redistill it for my own purposes. 
I've got a connection with one of the Porphyry people. I meet her down in the 
jungle on certain days and trade mineral supplement pills for the drink." 
"Mineral supplement pills?" echoed Hal. "Why, yes. I make a powder that can be 
mixed right into the food for us up here; but the people down below find it 
easier to 



236 
Gordon R. Dickson 
distribute and take their mineral supplements in pill form. Also, they seem to 
feel there's something special about such pills made by a professional 
chemist. It's needed in their diet, as it is in ours. You do know that these 
worlds of Mara and Kultis are naturaliv deficient in the heavier metals, being 
progeny, so to speak, of an F5 star like Procyon?" "I'm sorry," said Hal. "I 
did know. I'd forgotten." "We used to make our supplements in central 
manufactories, using metal imported from worlds like Coby," said Tannaheh. 
"But naturally there's no importation now and the Occupation trashed the 
factories. Of course, there's still plenty of the metals scattered around 
these worlds. It wouldn't be hard for anyone to find a piece of iron, say, and 
reduce it by practical methods to a 
form that could be ingested, although they'd need to know the proper amount to 
take . . . anyway, I do have alcohol." "Have you got some of the original 
rotgut, as you call it, still in its original containers?" Hal asked. 
"Certainly." "That may be particularly handy," said Hal. "My idea was 
to dart them; then, under hypnosis, get them to drink a certain amount of 
alcohol, and leave them unconscious with another drug and the post-hypnotic 
idea, that they'd drunk themselves insensible. " "Very good. I can handle the 
drug and syringe part of it for you-a syringe that drives the needle in and 
makes its injection with the force of impact, I suppose?" "That'd be fine." 
"Very good indeed. I'll take care of that as soon as I close up the pharmacy, 
which I was about to do for the night, anyway. I'll take some of the bottles 
of local drink up to your room. 
You're in Dormitory Two, aren't you? How much rotgut?" "Do you have as much as 
a dozen half-liters?" "If I haven't, I can make some up. You see, as I say, I 
normally distill the stuff to get something I can use in the pharmacy. I can 
dilute some of the high-proof alcohol I've already distilled out and mix it 
back in with the original to get the amount you need." 
Tannaheh got to his feet. "So, if either of you want me, I'll be either at the 
pharmacy or in my room. If I'm asleep, don't worry about waking me. I wake 
easily, but I can go right back to sleep again without trouble." 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
237 
He went out. "Forgive me if there's some reason it's not a good idea," Amid 
said, "but shouldn't your Dorsai with the spaceship be signaled so that he can 
take you off in case we do get found and taken, up here? Old Earth and all 
good people can't afford to lose you." "The signal to Simon is the laying out 
of a cloth," Hal answered. "We don't want to do that now, just when we're 
trying to make this ledge look uninhabited from the air. There's no need to 
worry. He was to shift in for a quick look once every twenty-four hours, in 
daytime. He's got sense enough to know something's up if he sees the ledge 
suddenly looking as if there's no one here and never has been. I'd guess he'll 
land in the mountains tomorrow night like he did once before, and climb down 
to us the morning after to see if he's needed." "You can be sure of that?" 
"Reasonably sure," said Hal with a grin. "Just as I'm reasonably sure that 
word is bound to leak to Amanda, wherever she is, and she'll know whether and 
when to come back here, herself. " "I'm pleased," said Amid. "I feel a 
responsibility, having you here." "You shouldn't," said Hal. "I came of my own 
free will, on my own decision." "It's a great advantage to us, having you with 
us when something like this happens," said Amid. "We'll be deeply indebted to 
you." "Nonsense!" said Hal. "I'm indebted to you; and I'll be more so when 
I've got what I want out of Jathed's Law." "Jathed's Law is available to 
anyone who can use it. In no way could you be considered to be indebted to us 
for that . . . however," said Amid, clearing his throat, "as far as Amanda 
Morgan's concerned, you're quite right that she'll hear about the search very 
shortly. There aren't enough soldiers to keep our people from going to and fro 
with word of anything interesting, between our small towns." 
He looked at Hal and blinked. "They never were really towns, you know, in the 



ordinary sense," he said. "Most of us preferred to live out in the countryside 
with space around each of our homes. But there were some who liked to be close 
to their neighbors, so we had 



or necessary 
04r 'towns' 
litt,cclunps of 
I t@e llowers OMI IT%L, o u r 
41 0q ly a few Pps W* tha were 
PI th@' fire, Hal 
that this was anid later when fortR-ss you've MeT41 briag the 
flo%N Und I cry 
&W t1o Amid's QIr" "@ -shoulder 
Mai lone,- he 
CHAPTER 
Hal woke at his usual time, something less than an hour before dawn. He had 
only had some five hours of sleep, but that would be sufficient for the day to 
come. He rose, showered and dressed, out of the habit ingrained in his boyhood 
as Donal, in completely clean clothes. Any morning with the chance of battle 
meant a clean body and clean clothes if that were possible. Many other things 
besides needle guns could make wounds; and soiled clothing pushed into a wound 
could carry infection deep into the body. There was little to no chance of his 
being hurt this day, but old habits had been triggered. 
They made him sad and the sadness wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak as 
he began the day. There was no respite. 
m the time word of his uncle James's death had come to im in Donal's boyhood, 
until the present moment, the birth of each day had brought a dragon to fight. 
Long since, now, he had thought he would have found the nest in the human soul 
from which such dragons came and have destroyed it, ending them all. But still 
they came. Once again he was at a morning on which he dressed with the 
possibility in mind of having to fight for the lives of himself and others. It 
was as if nothing had been accomplished from his youngest years until now. 
Perhaps there was no such thing as ending it. Perhaps the best he could settle 
for was to meet each new dragon each day, do the best he could with it, and 
count that as victory. At least he 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
241 
would have fought the breed while he could. He would have done his duty. But 
what was duty, if that was all that was done? 
Back into his mind came a book he had read when he was young. He remembered a 
verbal exchange in Conan Doyle's novel Sir Nigel, written at the beginning of 
the twentieth century and laid in the fourteenth century. The fourteenth 
century had been a time when "duty" was a common word among the upper classes, 
in its French form of "devoir. " The words he had just remembered were part of 
a passage in which there had been an 
angry exchange involving Sir Robert Knolles, the leader of the group of 
English men-at-arms and archers to which Nigel Loring, then still only a 
squire, belonged. It was a dispute between the experienced Knolles and a 
hot-headed but inexperienced young knight, Sir James Astley, concerning a 
skirmish into which Astley had gotten himself and those with him. 
" '. . . I have done my devoir as best I might,' said Astle.y. 'Alone, I had 
ten of them at my sword point. I know not how have lived to tell it.' " ' What 
is your devoir to me? Where are my thirty bowmen cried Knolles in bitter 
wrath. 'Ten lie dead upon the ground, and twenty are worse than dead in yonder 
castle . . . ' " 
No, to fight another dragon every day might make a good show, but it made no 
difference. Because as long as the nest remained, the number of dragons would 
be endless. To fight anew each day showed responsibility, but nothing else; 
and yet, responsibility was part of the whole answer he sought. Just as the 
Law of Jathed was also part of it, if only he could grasp the full depth of 
its meaning. The Law rang again in his mind now, as it had rung when he had 
first come to the ledge here and heard it; but still it rang far off and 
muffled, not with the close, clear message that would signal an understanding 
of it, within him. Not yet-for that. 
Dressed, he left his room and headed on his customary route toward the lip of 
the ledge and the sunrise to come. Not yet-the understanding. Only a dragon. 
It was still full, moonless dark outside and the air was not merely chill, but 
icy, with that greatest coldness that comes just before dawn. The soldiers 
would not be leaving Porphyry until 
after the sun was well up. They would not even be coming into view of the 
lookouts above them on the mountain for several hours yet and there was 
nothing more in the way of preparations that could be made. Meanwhile, it 
would be reassuring for the Guildmembers to see him following his normal 
pattern of activity, as if the danger now threatening was not all-important. 
The ledge had originally had its trees cut so as to provide corridors for 
people to move about, shielded from overhead observation. But there was no 
need to follow those corridors yet with the sun not yet risen. 
Like all the other Guild members, now, Hal had come to know the layout of the 
ledge in darkness the way he knew his own room with the lighting off. He went 
toward his usual position near the front edge of the ledge but chose a spot a 
little way from it, under a tree that would hide him when the sun had risen. 
He sat down in lotus position. 
In a little while the sky began to lighten; and shortly after, like a carven 
figure emerging out of darkness, he saw Old Man, already there and similarly 
seated, under a tree a few meters away. They bowed to each other and then 
directed their attention toward the sunrise that was coming. 
The day lightened the landscape around and below them; and Hal's mind once 
more slipped off into the scene of himself, seated like this in the Guildhouse 
of the far future, completed of polished stone. He sat beside a pool now 
rimmed with polished granite, in which fish swam and waterplants floated their 
white flowers. 
Once more he searched out a plant close to him, with its white blossom, on one 
petal of which was a drop of dew, that might catch the light as the sun rose. 



He found a dewdrop; and again this morning, it did. Once more, as the light 
was suddenly reflected from the speck of water, for a fraction of a second he 
felt the closeness of the understanding he sought here, but had not yet 
grasped. It was all but within his reach. . . . 
But he could not close upon it. As the sun pushed more of itself into 
visibility above the far mountains, and regretfully, he returned to the needs 
of the moment. He exchanged bows again with Old Man and, like the other, rose. 
They went their separate Ways under the shelters of the corridors of trees. 



242 
Gordon R. Dickson 
Hal's way led him by force of habit toward the kitchen of his 
dormitory-building number two. He was a good third of the way toward it, his 
mind full of how close he had come to some sort of understanding, back during 
the sunrise, when older habit caught up with him again and he turned away. 
It was old Dorsai training. Clean body and clean clothes the morning of a 
battle-and no breakfast. To miss one meal was unimportant. But to have the 
stomach empty might be helpful, in case of body wounds. Also there was the 
feel ing-possi bly an illusion, but he like others had felt it nonetheless 
-that the mind was keener and more awake on an empty stomach; just as he would 
not have thought of eating just before watching a sunrise or walking in the 
circle. 
He went instead to Amid's reception building, sure that in spite of the early 
hour, he would find the older man there. There, Amid was indeed, sitting at a 
table surface between the fireplace and the front door, set up in the space 
vacated by a 
number of the chairs that had been pushed back against the wall. Spread out on 
the table surface was a map of the immediate jungle area, from directly below 
the cliffs holding the ledge to where the road past the former madman's place 
turned into a trail. 
The map had evidently been printed up from data records in sections, and fused 
together into one large sheet, overnight. On it, at Amid's right elbow, sat a 
table-model scope with a 
permanently exposed, 30-millimeter-square screen. The sight of it made Hal 
automatically reach to his waist to check that he had his own, 
10-millimeter-square field scope folded up and hooked on there. It was. "Hal!" 
said Amid, looking up as Hal came toward the table. "I'm glad you caee 
directly here from xatching the sun conic up-but, wait, you haven't had 
breakfast yet?" " I'll have something later," said Hal. "Don't forget to 
eat-that's what they're always telling mc@ and at your age you need the fuel 
for your energies more than I do," said Amid. "Hal, look at this map. Will you 
show me the way you think the soldiers will do their searching?" 
Hal came up to the table surface beside him. "As I told you yesterday," said 
Hal, "they'll come up the road, here, to the end of the trail. There, they'll 
drop off a 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
243 
couple of soldiers to set up a post; unless the officer in charge of the 
search is lazy or for other reasons decides to set up his own 
headquarters there. Either way, there'll be some of them there, in direct 
phone contact with their headquarters back in Porphyry. "The rest . His 
right index finger traced routes on the map. ". . . will probably continue on 
as two separate, equal units, to the two center points of equal halves of the 
area to be searched. Once at those center points each unit will set up 
secondary headquarters, under the command of sub-officers, keeping at least a 
couple each of the soldiers with them. My guess is that one alternative then 
is that the soldiers of each unit will be sent out to form a skirmish line at 
the farthest extent of their part of the territory; and make a sweep through 
it until they meet the skirmish line of the other unit coming from the 
farthest extent of their territory. If by the time they meet they've found 
nothing, they'll travel back together to the head of the trail and withdraw to 
Porphyry. That's unless their plan is to break up into smaller units." "Yes. I 
see," said Amid, nodding. "Now what about them breaking up into even smaller 
units?" "It's equally possible," said Hal. "An alternative, once the secondary 
posts have been set up, is that they'll divide the soldiers not kept at the 
secondary headquarters into, say, five-person units. These units will then be 
sent out to search a 
specific piece of the territory that's to be examined by that particular 
sub-group. In short, the original search party will still divide into two 



equal units, but then the two units will each divide again into a number of 
smaller units, each with the responsibility of examining a small part of the 
total territory to be searched. Those small parts will probably be defined for 
them by specific coordinates on their maps, which we can learn by watching how 
they move." "And which way do you think they'll do it?" "I've no way of 
knowing," Hal said. "The choice'll be made on the basis of what kind of 
soldiers they are and what kind of officers they've got over them. For 
example, if the officer in command is afraid his sub-officers are going to lie 
down on the job once they're out from under his eye, he or she may prefer the 
skirmish line. On the other hand, if the commander's in good 



244 
Gordon R. Dickson 
control and/or the sub-officers are responsible and have good control of the 
soldiers under them, the commander may prefer the individual group method as 
being more likely to make a close and careful examination of the area they're 
assigned to search." "How long should it take them to get into position to 
search?" Amid asked. "Probably, judging from what I've seen and what I've 
heard about them, they'll take al I of today just to set themselves up," said 
Hal. "Yes . . ." Amid rubbed his hands together worriedly. "I suppose we've 
nothing to fear, really, until tomorrow. I was wondering whether to send word 
to block the entrance yet." "Any time. I'm a little surprised you haven't done 
it before now," Hal said. "There's none of the Guild people off the ledge, are 
there?" "No, no Guild people," said Amid. He looked up at Hal. "But Artur 
hates to see that block go into place. You understand. " 
Hal shook his head. "Cee's not going to come through that entrance of her own 
accord," said Hal. "Even if she knows-and I'd bet she does-that it's where all 
the Guild members vanish to. She's undoubtedly followed Artur, Onete, or some 
foragers back to the boulder and seen them go under it and not come back out, 
before this. I'll even bet she's actually come in through the entrance when no 
one was around, and possibly explored the way beyond, even as far as the 
ledge." "Well, there you are," said Amid. "Artur feels the way you do. That 
she knows. And he hates to give up on the thought that if she's really 
frightened by the soldiers she might prefer us to them and come in. But once 
that block's in place no single adult, let alone a child, is going to be able 
to budge itparticularly from the outside. It weighs as much as three men your 
size." "I'd close the entrance now, if I were you," said Hal. "Your first 
responsibility's to all the people up here; and Artur's feelings are only 
Artur's feelings." " Yes. " 
Amid was clearly unhappy. He pointed to the desk scope. "Did they tell 
you-Missy and Hadnah-they were going to try 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
245 
to set up a tight-beam link between their observation post and a 
repeater down here on the ledge?" 
Hal nodded. He had a great deal of confidence in Missy and Hadnah, although he 
had not known that they made a hobby of rock climbing until the present 
problem had come up. They looked enough alike to be brother and sister, 
although evidently they were not related. Both were short, well-muscled, 
blondhaired and young; and they even acted alike-being, as far as their Guild 
duties and the circle-walking allowed, always in each other's company. "Well, 
they did it." Amid touched a stud on the desk repeater and it chimed as its 
screen lit up to show a bulging mass of cliff-face. A second later Missy's 
face blocked out most of the view of the rock. "Yes, Amid?" her voice said. 
"There's no sign of soldiers yet. I I 
Amid moved aside to let Hal look into the screen and be seen above. "I just 
wanted Friend to see you'd made the connection." "Right. Good morning, Friend. 
I hope you slept well." "Very well," answered Hal. There was nothing to be 
done with Exotic manners but live with them. A polite inquiry about his last 
night's sleep was as out of place in her situation and his in the present 
moment as a tea party in the midst of an earthquake. "I had five hours. How 
much did you two have?" "Hadnah's taking a small nap now," said Missy. "After 
that he can keep watch for a while and I'll take one. Thank you for asking. 
We're not tired at all, really." "I'm glad to hear that," said Hal. They two 
must have climbed the better part of a kilometer, vertically, during the 
night. "Focus your scope on the end of the road for me, now, will you?" 
"Right." Missy vanished from the screen, and the view of the overswelling rock 
face above her was replaced by a view from what appeared to be only a dozen 
meters above the point where the road gave way to a trail. "Pull back your 
focus," Hal said. "I want to see that spot in relation to the ground around 
it." "Right. Say when," replied the voice of the now invisible Missy. The 



scene on the screen seemed to move away from Hal and Amid, taking in more and 
more ground area as it went, until 



246 
Gordon R. Dickson 
it showed not only the connection of road-end and trailbeginning but an area 
of a size that could have been occupied by four city blocks on a side. "Stop," 
said Hal. 
The withdrawal of focus halted. "Let it sit with that view," said Hal. "I'm 
going out to the edge of the ledge now and I'll be keying my belt scope into 
the circuit from your repeater down here. You've got up to half a day before 
any soldiers show up. Take another nap, yourself. If we 
really need you, we can call you with the chime on your scope." "I'm really 
quite all right," said Missy, still invisible. "You may not be five days from 
now, up there," said Hal. "Rest while you can. We'll call you if we need you." 
"All right, Friend. Thank you." "Don't thank me," said Hal. "I'm just 
protecting myself against having two overtired observers sometime later on." 
"Right." 
The last word was followed by silence from the scope on the table surface. Hal 
looked at Amid. "Where's Calas?" he asked. "I can have him found," said Amid. 
"Do that. Have him come and join me out at the edge of the ledge," said Hal. 
"Send out Old Man, too." "But Old Man never was a soldier," said Amid, 
frowning. "I didn't suppose so," said Hal. "But he's a very insightful sort. 
Tell him I'd like him to join me, if he would." 
11011, he'll be glad to, I'm sure," said Amid. "I will. And you're right. He's 
a very insightful individual." "And get some rest yourself, when you can," 
said Hal. "Remember what I just told Missy. This could last five days or 
more; and we may need to be in the best possible shape at the very end of it. 
" 
He went out, and followed the closest corridor of trees to as close to the lip 
of the ledge as he could get and still be hidden by tree branches overhead. 
There, he seated himself in the tree's shade, unfolded his scope and keyed it 
into the view he had asked Missy to set up from above. The end of the road-and 
as 
far down as he could see it before it vanished under the foliage of the 
treetops that intervened because of the angle of the view -lay alien, 
intrusive and empty in the jungle, beneath the 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
247 
rapidly warming rays of the brilliant, white pinpoint of sun 
rising ever higher in the sky overhead. 
He looked away from the scope and at the scene as his unaided vision saw it. 
It would be some time yet, as he had reminded Missy and Amid. He decided to 
follow Cletus's advice and let his conscious mind run freely over the terrain 
while waiting for his unconscious mind to produce some process for using it to 
the advantage of the people of the Guild. 
In this case, that meant his remembering the ground as he had covered it 
during the first part of the previous day. He stared at the greenery below and 
the ground, together with the growth he had passed on it, began to unreel in 
the eye of his memory, stride by stride. He was on his third survey of the 
pattern he had covered when someone dropped down beside him, breathing a 
little heavily from the hurry in which he had come. 
It was Calas. "You wanted me?" said the small, wiry ex-soldier. His black hair 
was disordered on his head. "How much sleep did you have?" Hal asked. "I 
didn't fold up until about an hour after you did. But I've slept until now," 
said Calas. "That's where they found me with the word you wanted me." 
Hal considered him. "You're from Ceta," he said. "Where, on Ceta?" "Monroe-I 
don't guess you ever heard of it," Calas said. Hal shook his head. "It's a 
tiny state, out in Czardisland Territory. " "Were you in any kind of military 
outfit there?" "Local militia," said Calas. "Hell, all we did was shoot at 
targets, parade and get drunk together. We had uniforms, though. " 
I IAnd you got picked up for military under the Others and sent here, because 
of that experience?" "Yes," said Calas. "I should have said I was a rancher 



-variform sheep. I was that more than I was a soldier. Born and raised on a 
sheep farm." "Have you any idea which officers and sub-officers might be sent 
out?" "No," said Calas. "it could be any one of the five force-leaders, any of 
the groupmen and team-leaders of the 



248 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
249 
active forces. Well now, wait, if the Commandant really wants results, he's 
most likely to send Force-leader Liu Hu Shen. Liu's the one Force there who 
really gets a job done. That means at least one of the forces would be his, 
and two of the groupmen and four team- leaders -al I of them pretty strong on 
getting things done right, simply because Liu won't have anyone who won't do 
what he tells them. But the other force-leader and his sub-officers could be 
anyone-if there is another forceleader. Commandant Essley might just add 
someone else's force to Liu's. Not that it matters. Any other force-leader 
sent out is going to be second- i n-command to Liu." 


-Is Liu just a better soldier than the others," Hal asked, "or does he happen 
to like hunting down and killing Exotics?" "Likes it, I think," said Calas. 
"But he's a good officer, too. Probably the best in the garrison-though nobody 
likes him. With him, it's always done by the numbers. Everything in line of 
duty, that's Liu." 
A faint sound on Hal's other side made them both look and see Old Man now 
sitting there. He smiled at them, and Hal smiled back. It was a contrast, he 
thought with approval. Here was Calas, wound up to the tightness of a piano 
string; while Old Man was his usual self. In fact, a sort of relaxed, almost 
grandfatherly, warmth seemed to radiate from him as he sat there; and Calas 
was already perceptibly less tense. "Thank you for joining us," said Hal, and 
suddenly realized he was talking like an Exotic. 
Old Man smiled and bowed slightly from his sitting position. "I didn't ask you 
to join us," said Hal, "for any specific reason. I'd just like the benefit of 
your opinion on anything about the situation that you think might help. If you 
don't mind staying here with us, we'll watch the soldiers as they move in and 
perhaps you'll have some suggestions to make after you've seen them and the 
way they act. Old 
Man nodded and smiled, He looked out over the jungle below in the 
direction from which the soldiers would come. Hal turned back to Calas. "You 
don't have to stay with us now, if you'd like to get breakfast, or some such 
thing," he said. "In fact, if you canic directly here after they woke you and 
haven't eaten, I'd suggest you get some food into you. It may be a long day's 
watch. I won't need you back here until after the soldiers are in view on 
the scope, close enough so that you can tell me who the important ones are and 
how they might act-or react." 
Calas nodded. It was an abrupt, rather ungraceful movement after the nod Old 
Man had given. He got to his feet. "I'll go eat," he said, "then I'll come 
back." "Take your time," said Hal. "It'll be three hours yet, anyway, before I 
expect to see the soldiers-and that's even if they left their garrison at 
dawn. They wouldn't be I ikely to leave before that, would they?" 
Calas gave a grunt of laughter. "No," he said. "Under anyone but Liu, they 
wouldn't leave even then. They might not get off until noon." 
He turned and went. Hal and Old Man sat together in a silence that held no 
need to be broken. The sun moved up into the sky. The hours passed. After a 
while Calas came back. It was nearly noon by the time a 
line of four combat vehicles made their way up the road to the end of the 
trail and stopped there, letting the search party out. "Liu," said Calas. Hal 
saw the one he meant. "Porphyry itself hasn't any at mosphere-to- space ships, 
or any other above-surface vehicle they could use overhead?" Hal asked Calas. 
"Not Porphyry," said Calas. "They could call some in from Omanton. " "Perhaps 
that's what they'll do, then," said Hal. He turned to the scope, on which the 
soldiers were now visible at close range, and pressed the chime stud. The 
voice of Hadnah spoke to him. "Yes, Friencl?" "If Missy's not awake, wake 
her," said Hal. "Both of you forget the scope for now and watch for the 
approach of any kind of atmosphere ship. Each of you take half the visible sky 
to watch. It ought to be coming here in no particular hurry, but as 

soon as you see anything in the air, even if you're not sure it's headed this 
way, let us know below here. Amid, are you listening?" "I'm I istening for 
Amid. He's lying down for a bit," said the voice- of Artur. "Good. Make him 
rest as much as you can. Have everybody make sure they're undercover, starting 
now. We may have aerial observation at any moment from now on. Calas says they 
may 



250 
Gordon R. Dickson 
get air assistance from Omanton. I don't know where that is, but it's got to 
be close as above-surface travel goes." "I'll have someone check to see 
everyone's hidden, right away, Friend. " "Good," said Hal. "I'll let you go 
now." 
Artur sounded as if he was in control of himself, Cee or no Cee, Hal thought 
as he turned back to closely examining the soldiers shown in the scope. He 
touched the controls to move his own picture to a closer view of the soldiers 
who had just got out of their vehicles and were forming up in units. "All 
right," he said to Calas, "Liu is obvious, with that force-leader's insignia 
on his lapels. Tell me about the subofficers. " ' 'Right. See that thin 
groupman in the tailored uniform, with the black, black eyebrows, right by 
Liu, there?" said Calas. "That's the Urk, Sam Durkeley. He's Liu's pet. That 
groupman just getting out of the cab of the second vehicle, and the one 
forming up the first unit of men, are new since I was there. I don't know 
them. The other groupman just beyond the Urk is Ali Diwan. The only 
team-leader I know is the one backing the first vehicle off the road to turn 
it around, so it's ready to head back. That's Jakob . . . can't remember his 
last name. He's pretty decent, compared to most of them, There's more I don't 
know than I thought. I forget how long it's been since I joined the Guild." 
"It looks as if Liu is setting up a command post just off the end of the road 
there," said Hal. "They're putting up a shelter. Do you suppose Durkeley'll 
stay with him?" "He wouldn't be wearing that tailored uniform if he'd expected 
to go slogging through the jungle," said Calas. "No, the Urk'11 be where Liu 
is, you can count on it." "And Liu is obviously staying at the end of the 
road," said Hal. "That ought to mean he's got enough confidence in his 
sub-officers to let them make the search out of his sight; since you said he 
was the most capable of the garrison's force-leaders. he wouldn't be letting 
them do it on their own simply because he was lazy or unsure of himself." 
"Right," said Calas. "He's either got them scared, like old Jakob there, or 
trained like the Urk. That doesn't mean he won't come on in, himself, if they 
find anything, or run into any 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
251 
trouble. Or he might show up when they don't expect him just to keep them 
wound up. That's the way he is." 
The search party continued to get out of their vehicles, form up and move off 
into the jungle. "Calas," Hal said abruptly, "have you any idea how many more 
scopes we have that aren't in use at the moment?" "No," said Calas, "I don't." 
He scrambled to his feet. "I'll go find out," he said. "If there's three more 
that can be spared, will you bring them out here to me?" said Hal. "From the 
way they're deploying I'd guess they're going to follow the plan ot'dividing 
up the area and putting a team in each section. We may need to keep track of 
several different parties simultaneously." "I'll be back as quick as I can," 
said Calas, and went off at a run down the corridor of trees. Hal's eyes met 
those of Old Man and Old Man smiled gently at him. The scope before Hal 
chimed. "Craft approaching by air at three o'clock," said the voice of Missy, 
off screen. 



CHAPTER 
25 
The craft was a surface-to-orbit shuttle bus, completely unsuited to 
surveillance of the sort it was being put to here. The Occupation was clearly 
hard up for space- and-atmosphere craft. since the Exotics had given away most 
of these with their spaceships to Old Earth, before yielding to control by the 
Others. 
Very probably its pilot knew that this trip was simply a waste of its time and 
his; for the craft made two explosive, supersonic passes over the area where 
the troops were, far above the speed at which any naked eye observation would 
have been possible. Pictures, of course, could have been taken; but even if 
they had been, Hal doubted that they would be subjected to the timeconsuming, 
careful examination that an expert would have to make to discover evidence of 
human occupation anywhere on them. The time-cost of such expert attention to 
all the small areas probably being searched at the same time would be 
prohibitive. 
The chance was still there, of course. But it was so small that he thought 
they could afford not to worry about that until it proved to have some 
substance. 
Having made its passes, the shuttle bus disappeared. Hal, with the other two, 
went back to watching the deployment of the soldiers below into their various 
assigned areas of search. 
It was a slow dispersal, and the soldiers were not driving 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
253 
themselves to accomplish it with anything more than casual speed. As the units 
departing the roadhead broke up into smaller and smaller units, their pace 
slowed progressively, until by the time they were down to the four individuals 
that seemed to be the team number for an individual section of territory, they 
were literally loafing along; and when at last they reached the area that was 
to be theirs alone to search, they put themselves first to the leisurely 
business of setting up temporary camps. 
Meanwhile, Procyon moved across the sky overhead and the day wore on. Hal and 
Old Man sat still, engrossed in the developing situation as shown on the 
screens of the four scopes that now sat in front of them since Calas had 
rejoined them. None of the soldiers, as yet, were close enough for naked-eye 
observation. But Calas became more and more restless as the day wore on. Hal 
could feel the tension in the wiry little man growing with the passing hours. 
"Why don't they get it done, damn it?" exploded Calas finally. "Do you know 
about the battle of Thermopylae?" asked Hal. 
Calas turned to look at him. "No," Calas said. "It' happened on Old Earth, 
nearly three thousand years ago," Hal said. "Persia, a huge empire of that 
time, set out to conquer the city-states of the Greeks on a peninsula reaching 
down from the southern part of Europe into the Mediterranean Sea. Xerxes, the 
Persian ruler, attacked the Peninsula with a vast army. His forces clashed 
with seven thousand Greeks on a narrow strip of coastline with the sea on one 
side and steep cliffs on the other. The sea was barred to the Persians by 
Greek ships. The seven thousand Greeks on land were mainly from Sparta, a city 
that produced the best hoplites in the world then-men armed with large shields 
and long spears, fighting in close formation. " 
Hal paused. Calas was, at least, listening with every sign of interest. "For 
three days of fighting Xerxes tried to get past the Spartans. But Leonidas, 
King of Sparta and their commander, with his troops, who--were mostly 
Spartans, held them. Then a Greek traitor showed the Persians a narrow 
footpath up over the cliffs. They started to go up and around the Spartans to 
take them from behind. Leonidas, learning of this, sent most ot'his 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
255 
soldiers off in retreat. He, himself, and three hundred of his Spartans with 
some of the allies from other cities, stayed and defended. They who stayed 
died fighting; but what they did allowed those sent off to get away safely." 
He paused again, this time glancing at Calas. "The place where they fought the 
Persians and died," he said, "is called Thermopylae; and after, there was an 
inscription put up there. It said 'go, stranger and tell the Spartans we lie 
here in obedience to their command. ' " 
Hal stopped; he reached out and enlarged the view on one of the scopes. "And?" 
said Calas. "What has all this three- thousand-yearold history to do with what 
we've got down there?" 
He jerked his hand at the valley below. "Just that Leonidas knew what he was 
deciding to do when he chose to stay and die-and those with him knew. " Hal 
looked directly into the eyes of Calas. "We only have one life@ and at its 
end, there's one important question only. Whether what we did praises or 
condemns us in our own eyes. And judgment cae rest on any moment's decision or 
action, from all our years. 
Old Man bowed as only he could from a seated position, toward Hal. Hal looked 
at him. "Now, why?" he said to Old Man. "I only put a truth into words. " "It 
was the truth I bowed to," said Old Man; and smiled. "All right, all right . . 
. ... muttered Calas, peering into his scanner, "you don't have to underline 
it. Maybe I know what you mean better than you think. Don't forget I figured 
myself for dead, under the rocks of that slide, when I heard those mates of 
mine taking off without digging for me." 
But from then on he watched the screen before him closely, continuously and 
without fidgeting. 
By the time the sun began to set, the soldiers below had all made their 
individual camps. A few of the separate teams had even made a brief search of 
part of their assigned area. But most had simply spent their time setting up 
shelters and building a 
fire. They sat around the fires as darkness grew, talking and drinking from 
their canteens, and when, at last, there was nothing to be seen from the ledge 
but deep shadow where forest 
foliage had been visible, the numerous firelights flickered and twinkled like 
echoes of the stars that grew into brightness overhead. "Friend?" 
Hal had heard the footsteps coming up behind them; but, still caught in his 
long day's observation of what was below, on identifying them as the footsteps 
of Artur he had merely noted them, and returned to his concentration on what 
was lit on the screen before him by the light of one of the fires below. Now 
he roused and answered. "Yes?" he said. 
He got to his feet, cramped by the long watch. Beside him, Calas and Old Man 
were also rising. "I thought I could take over for you here," said Artur. "At 
night, there's not much need for a skilled watcher; and you'll need rest." 
"True," said Hal. 
The darkness was deep enough so that the two men were standing close together. 
Hal caught the faint sour odor of nervous perspiration from the other. Fresh 
sweat raised by the body in response to physical effort did not have that 
smell. "I'll head back in, then," he added. "Calas, Old Man, come along. 
Amid's probably going to want to talk to us about what we've seen." 
He stepped around Artur, making it a point to pass so closely his elbow 
brushed lightly for a second against the shirt of the Assistant Guildmaster. 
Sure enough, Artur's shirt was soaked through with sweat. "Make sure you get 
enough sleep yourself," Hal said to Artur as he passed, "Don't worry about 
me," Artur's voice came, controlled and level behind him. "I'm wide awake." 
"Good,,, said Hal. 
He led the two with him to Amid's reception building. Within, Amid was 
talking, also by firelight, but artificial illumination as well, to Onete. ". 



--e 
came in the door. "I'll be going." 
She smiled at Hal and the others as she passed them on her way out. The door 
shut behind her. 

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Gordon R. Dickson 
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"Come and sit down," said Amid. They did so. There was a rough circle of 
chairs to one side of the table where the map was laid out, in one of which 
Amid sat. They took others facing him. "You put in an extended watch," Amid 
said. "How are you all?" "Myself," said Hal, "I'm still a little stiff from 
sitting that long. But it's something that'll work itself out." "I'm fine," 
said Calas-but there was tiredness to be heard in his voice. Old Man smiled 
and nodded. "What were you able to figure out about them, and their plans for 
searching?" Amid asked Hal. "Most of what I saw just confirmed what I told you 
earlier," said Hal. "They've clearly divided the area into small sections 
they're going to search in no great hurry, with units of four searchers to the 
section. Thanks to Calas, I understand more about some of their officers than 
I did. But before we get into that, you know that Artur's taken over as night 
guard, replacing us?" "Yes," said Amid. His wrinkled old face squeezed up in a 
frown that would have been almost comical if it had not been so concerned. "He 
knows it doesn't do any good, but he feels better out there, where he can 
watch where Cee must be, even if he doesn't know exactly where she is and 
couldn't see her down there, even if he knew. There's no great need for him to 
be doing anything else. I thought he might as well be busy at what he wanted, 
so I agreed to let him take the night watch. There's no problem with that, is 
there?" "Not from the standpoint of safety," Hal said. "How much sleep has he 
had?" "He told me he'd had over six hours last night," said Amid I'll ve only 
got his word for it. What is it? Are you afraid he might fall asleep out there 
on watch?" "No," said Hal. "But you can be wide awake on very little sleep and 
still not thinking straight-even though you think you are. I I 
"I'm not sure I believed that about the six hours, but I believe him when he 
says he couldn't sleep now if he tried," said Amid "
Why's it important? The soldiers certainly won't do anything during the 
night?" 
"No," said Hal. "They can't search in the dark; and they're 
not the type for night exercises, even if they were trained to it, which I 
doubt." "I never got any training in night exercises, when I was with them," 
said Calas. "Garrison people, that's all they are." "But what did you learn, 
then?" asked Amid. "Anything that can help?" "That surveillance craft possibly 
took pictures of the whole area," Hal said, "but as we agreed last night, it's 
doubtful they'll be studied by anyone able to pick up the small signs that'd 
show we're here, under the cover and camouflage you've set up. Chances are 
more likely some officer'll just run an eye quickly over them to see if 
there're any obvious signs of people-and that, they won't find. " "Yes, but 
the soldiers," said Amid. "How likely are they to notice some sign of our 
presence, down there in the flatland? After all, we do have foragers down 
there often; and there's the spot where Onete's been meeting Cee." "I'd hate 
to promise anything," Hal said, "but even if they do recognize some signs of 
people, from what I saw today I think we'll be fairly safe if we just sit 
tight up here. That ought to include, by the way, not making any noises that 
could be reflected down into the valley. As we sat on the edge of the ledge, I 
could hear the sounds of the Guild people moving about here, reflected off 
that cliff-face above us. Sound rises rather than falls; but we should still 
keep things quiet until the soldiers are gone," "We can do that," said Amid. 
He made a note. "I'll see to it. 1, 
"As far as the soldiers themselves go," Hal said, "they all moved clumsily 
through the forest, making harder work than they needed to of getting places 
in it. They've got the city-bred tendency to try to push their way through 
undergrowth with main strength, rather than slip through at the best place for 
it. Also, very few of them set up camp in the best places available. The few 
who did, I think, did it by accident. They're certainly not Woods-wise; and 
they're probably not too happy to be here. That attitude'll help make them 



careless when they start searching. " 
He paused. 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
"Those are the most certain points about them I picked up today; that and the 
information Calas was able to give me about certain officers. Basically, from 
what Calas says, we've got to deal with a commander who's something of a 
martinet, leading poorly trained and motivated troops. What that adds up to is 
that he'll probably be used to clubbing them-metaphorically speaking-to get 
results. Which in turn means they'll slack off the minute he's out of sight, 
no matter how much they might be afraid of him finding out about their doing 
that, later. I'd guess that unless something favors them, we're pretty secure 
up here. Cee, even, should be fairly safe down there, unless she literally 
walks into their hands." 
He stopped and looked questioningly at Old Man. "Anything to add?" he asked. 
"They'll sleep poorly tonight," said Old Man with one of his gentle smiles. 
"They're people of bad conscience trying to rest under unfamiliar conditions. 
Their sleep and their dreams will be bad; and tomorrow they'll be more tired 
than usual, and so more likely to miss seeing things they might notice 
otherwise." 
He fell silent and, with Hal, looked at Calas. Calas cleared his throat. "Me?" 
he said. "You want a report from me on thern?" "Certainly," said Hal. "Well, I 
wasn't really watching them the way I should have, earlier in the day. I 
didn't really look at them-then. Friend, I have you to thank for making me try 
to actually see them; rather than just sit up there and swear at their being 
here." "What did you see when you did look closely?" Hal said. "A lot of 
thern're new since I was there. Not that there's any really knew well; but the 
faces of the ones who were there when I was there, I'd recognize. You know? 
So, most of them are faces I never saw before, which means they're new; but 
they're going to be just like we all were. Most of therri'll have come out 
with something to drink-liquor, I mean-in their canteens or hidden in the 
equipment they're carrying; and so most of therri'll be drinking tonight. I'd 
have been drinking, even though I wasn't that much of a drinker when I was 
with them; just to help me sleep out here and make it more comfortable. More'n 
a few'll have hangovers, tomorrow. 
He paused a moment. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
259 
"Some won't drink at all, of course," he said. "We've got some Friendlies and 
others who've got individual reasons for never drinking. Anyway, that's one 
thing." 
Hal, Amid and Old Man waited. "Something else, though," said Calas. "I didn't 
think of it until you told me about decisions; but friends tend to stick 
together, and the groupmen and team-leaders usually let them. Because that 
makes it easier for the sub-officers. That means in most of those units of 
four, there's almost sure to be at least two who're side-by-siders. That means 
those two'll stick together and the other two'll have to tag along with them. 
Also it means that one of the two is the leader of the two. So you've got one 
man in each four-man unit who'll probably end up making up the minds of the 
other three, whenever there's something to make up minds about. I don't know 
just how knowing that'll help; but maybe you, Friend, can see some use in it." 
Hal nodded slowly. "It may apply," he said. "Apply to what?" Amid asked 
sharply, then immediately softened his voice to its usual gentle tone. "I'm 
sorry. Do I sound bad-tempered? I don't mean to. It's just that it's been a 
long night and a long day-- "You don't sound bad-tempered," said Hal, "and to 
answer 
your question, there's something about what I saw of their dispersal down 
there today that bothers me. There're patterns to everything that humans do, 
and there's something about the pattern of the way they've set up for their 
search that bothers me, only I can't put my finger on just what it is. I've 
got my own system for figuring out cause and effect, which generally helps 
with problems like this; but right now it doesn't seem to have enough 



information to work with. I'll be able to tell you more tomorrow, when they 
begin actively searching. " 
The door to the building banged open and Onete entered, followed by two men 
wearing the large white kitchen duty aprons everyone used on that job. All 
three were carrying trays heavy with cloth-covered dishes. Amid popped to his 
feet and whisked the map off the table as Onete led her companions to it. 
They set the trays down on the table and began unloading the dishes. "You 
haven't eaten, any of you, all day," said Amid. "I 



260 
Gordon R. Dickson 
asked Onete to go for food as soon as you got here. I may not be able to get 
Artur to eat, but I can make sure the rest of you are fed. " 
At the sight and smell of the food in the dishes, Hal became aware of how 
hungry he was. "Thank you," he said, pul I ing his chair up to the table as 
Old Man and Calas joined him. 
After they had eaten and the others had gone, Hal stayed behind at Amid's 
request. "I'm worried about Artur," said Amid. "As I said, he's not eating. I 
don't really believe he's sleeping, either. He acts just the way he does 
usually; but I know him well enough to know he's tearing himself to pieces 
over this business of Cee being down there with those soldiers. You see, he 
feels responsible." "Yes," said Hal, "that would fit his pattern." "He shares 
your belief, as we were saying," Amid went on, "that Cee's probably followed 
one of us back under the boulder and right up to the ledge. That she knows 
where we live. He's afraid that if the soldiers catch her, they may assume 
she's one of us and try to get her to tell them where we are. "Yes," said Hal, 
"that would fit their pattern, too." "So, if they threaten to hurt her to make 
her talk, she'll have no,choice but to tell them. Then, when they find the 
stone in place, they may think she's lying and doesn't really know@ and then 
they'll kill her. On the other hand we can't leave the way open; so in a way 
we-and he-will be responsible for her death; and she's just a little girl." 
"Never try to predict what an individual will do under torture," Hal said. 
"It's not a matter of will power. The individual doesn't even know himself 
until the time comes. The bravest can crack and people you wouldn't expect it 
from will die without saying a word. She might simply refuse to talk at all. " 
"But then they might torture her to death, to try to make her talk!" Amid 
seemed to shrink. "We can't let that happen!" "You can. You must-if there's no 
way to avoid it," said Hal. "It won't save her to throw away the lives of 
everyone else in the Guild-and what the Guild might mean for the rest of your 
Exotics, someday. But keep your mind filled about how horrible Cee's situation 
could be, and sooner or later you, or Artur, or somebody else'll try some 
scheme that doesn't have a 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
261 
chance of succeeding, one that'll dump all of you into the soldiers' hands." 
"Even if we could-," said Amid. "Even if we could accept sacrificing her, 
Artur never could. Never!" " Then lock him up," said Hal, "until the soldiers 
aregone." "We can't do that!" "He'd hate you for it," said Hal. "But it may be 
the kindest way of dealing with him." " I'll speak to him," said Amid. He did 
not wring his hands. They lay still in his lap, but he might as well have been 
wringing them. "If he can convince the rest he believes Cee will be safe-" 
"You know yourself that's not good enough, even if he could do it," said Hal. 
"Your fellow Guild members are almost all Exotics. They're too empathic to be 
fooled just by his pretending not to be concerned. He's actually got to face 
the chance that Cee may die; and, by his example in facing that fact, lead the 
rest of the community into facing it, too. Anything less than that won't work. 
More than that, it'd be wrong." "Wrong?" Amid sounded shocked. "Yes," said 
Hal, "because you'd be letting a situation that's out of your control upset 
your people at the very time when this community needs to keep its morale as 
high as possible, and its thoughts as clear as possible. I promise you, if I 
see any hope of doing anything at all for Cee, I'll let you all know and I'll 
do it myself, if that's what's best. But until a real chance to help her 
appears, two things need to be done; and they're very hard things, especially 
for you Exotic-born Guild members. One, the members have to accept the fact 
that whatever is going to happen to Cee will happen, and they can't do 
anything about it, as things stand now. Second, Artur has got to face that 
fact himself, and show the rest of the community that he's done so. 
There was a long moment before Amid answered. , ,It'll be hard enough for us," 
he said. "For Arturimpossible. " "Then lock him up, as I say." 



Amid did not answer. Hal got to his feet. "I'm sorry," he said gently, looking 
down on the old man who seemed to have shrunk within the confines of his chair 
until he was no bigger than child-sized himself. "Sooner or later 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
everyone reaches a day on which he or she has to face things like this. It 
does no good to pretend such a day won't ever come." 
He waited, a moment longer. "It's your decision," he said. "If you think of 
some way I can help, call me. I'm going to get some rest now, while I can." 
He went out. The following morning he watched the sunrise as usual with Old 
Man and then took his position on the ledge's lip with the scopes. Calas 
joined them shortly thereafter. But it was a good three hours after that 
before the first of the searching groups down below began to go to work; and 
at that time some of them had just wakened. 
Hal leaned forward suddenly and turned up the magnification on one of the 
scopes. "Calas," he said. "What's that they're putting on the ends of their 
needle guns? Something like an explosives thrower." 
Calas looked. "Oh, that," he said. "They're catch-nets. They use them a lot 
when chasing escaped prisoners-or taking any prisoners they'll want to 
question before they shoot them. You know how a needle gun works?" 
Hal smiled. "Yes," he said. As he had learned, growing up on Dorsai, the 
riflelike needle gun was a universal favorite as a weapon for field troops 
mainly because its magazine could hold up to four thousand of the needles that 
the weapon fired. 
Each of the needles could be lethal if it hit a vital spot; but a spray of 
them was almost certain to bring down a human target. one way or another. The 
needles were slirn little things, hardly bigger than their average namesakes 
that were used for ordinary sewing. A kick from a machine-wound spring unit or 
from a cylinder of highly compressed air flicked the needles clear of the 
muzzle of the gun and started them toward their target. But each needle was 
like a miniature rocket. A solid propellant, ignited by the needle's escape 
from the muzzle of the rifle, drove it up to three hundred meters in a 
straight line toward whatever it had been aimed at. All needles fired on the 
same trigger pull formed a spiral pattern that spread as it approached its 
target, like shot from the muzzle of an ancient shotgun. 
The advantages lay, therefore, in the amount of firepower from a relatively 
light weapon; plus the fact that the needle gun 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
263 
was almost invulnerable to disablement through misuse. You could drag it 
through the mud, or recover it from being under half a mile of water for six 
months, and it would still work. Moreover, the fact that it could be used in 
poorly trained hands to spray the general area of an enemy like a hose, made 
it extremely popular. 
It also could deliver a number of auxiliary devices, kicking them clear with 
spring or compressed gas, to be self-propelled toward a particular target. But 
this catch-net device was one Hal had never encountered before; probably 
because, as Calas had said, its design fitted it rather for police than 
military use. I "They've got seeker circuits in the noses," said Calas. "Once 
fired, the catch-net capsule homes in on the first human body it comes close 
to-combination of body heat, bodily electrical circuitry and so forth, I 
understand-and when it gets right close to them, it blows apart and spreads a 
net that drops over the body. As I say, they use them for recapturing 
prisoners and things like that. In fact, I think the catch-net was designed in 
the first place for prison guards and police crowd control. That sort of 
thing." 
Hal checked the other scopes. All the soldiers who were ready to begin 
searching had the catch-net capsules perched like blunt-nosed rockets on the 
barrel-ends of their needle guns. 
He sat back to see how the search would develop. As the sun mounted in the 
sky, this second morning, all the individual search units were finally at 
work. Hal checked the command post at the roadhead and saw that Liu was still 
there, with the sergeant Calas had called "the Urk" in attendance. Outside 



Liu's shelter an operations table with map screen in its surface and 
permanently mounted scopes stood in the daylight. One of the vehicles in which 
the searching party had come out was still there and parked by the table, 
undoubtedly generating power for the table, as well as the comforts of the 
command shelter, on tight-beam circuit. 
Old Man reached over suddenly, just before noon, and tapped with his finger on 
the screen of the scope before Hal. Hal looked, but saw nothing to explain the 
other man's drawing his attention to it. Still, the slim, yellow fingertip 
rested on the screen, which was now showing a mass of forest undergrowth just 
beyond the two soldiers they had in focus there at the moment. Hal kept his 
eyes on that area of the screen, waiting; 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
265 
and, after a moment, he too saw what had caught Old Man's eye-a flicker of 
movement. 
He watched. A small, slim, brown body was moving parallel to the searching 
soldiers, at a distance from them of perhaps ten meters. Hal continued to 
watch and for a moment she was fully in view, before the greenery hid her 
again. It was Cee, with, as before, nothing but the length of vine with its 
split-open pod shape a few inches to one side of her navel. 'I don't think 
they've seen her," said Hal. "No," answered Old Man. "Seen who?" demanded 
Calas. Once more Old Man's finger tapped and held on the screen. Calas stared 
at it. After a long moment he whistled softly and sat back. 
He looked at Hal. "What should we do?" he asked. "What would you suggest we 
do?" Hal said, meeting his eyes. Calas stared at him for a long moment and 
then looked away. Hal softened his voice. "For now," he said, "you concentrate 
on that screen. Try to keep Cee in sight, but watch particularly for any sign 
either of those soldiers've spotted her." "Yes. Yes, I will," said Calas, 
fixing his gaze tightly on the screen. 
Hal flicked the controls on another scope so that he had a v ew of the whole 
area. A few more finger-taps overlaid the picture of the land below with a 
ghostly map of that same area, but divided into sections, with small bright 
lights in each section, each representing one of the searching soldiers. 
The pattern in the process of search which he had not been able to find but 
which he had sensed was in the making there still bothered him. The troops 
below were equipped not only with their weapons but with all other ordinary 
field equipment. including helmets that would have built-in communications 
equipment, putting them in verbal contact with their fellov" searchers, their 
immediate sub-officer, and even the command base. He wished for a moment he 
could tune in on what was being said over that communications network. That 
reminded him of another, earlier, wish, which was that the Guild, in addition 
to what other equipment they had possessed, had seen fit to equip themselves 
with a long range ear-gun-a listening device that allowed the one using it to 
pick up even a faint noise 
from a specific spot no larger than an adult human hand and a kilometer or 
more distant. 
As it was, he had a view of the searchers, but no idea of what they were 
saying. With the ear-gun he could have overheard conversations even back at 
the command post where Liu waited. But to want what was not available was a 
waste of time. He put both desires from him and considered the pattern of 
ghost map and lights once more. 
With intuitional logic he should have been able to track down what he felt 
immediately. The fact he could not meant that to intuitional logic the pattern 
he sensed was not there. Either there actually was no such thing, or a 
necessary link in the logic chain that would relate it to what he saw at the 
moment was missing. A word overheard from one of the searchers might have 
filled that gap. Particularly since he had known Amanda, he trusted his 
instincts more than ever before; and now his instincts were positive that 
there was a pattern to the development of the situation below him that he 
could not yet see. 
He leaned forward sharply to peer at the screen he had been watching. "What is 
it?" asked Calas. He glanced up to see both Calas and Old Man watching him. 
"Is Cee still following those two soldiers?" Hal asked. "Yes." Calas nodded 
emphatically. "Has either one of them seen her, as far as you can tell?" "Not 
as far as I could tell." "Or I,- said Old Man unexpectedly. 
Hal looked back at the screen before him. "What is it?" said Calas again. 
"They may not be as inept as I was thinking they were," said Hal. "Perhaps 
some of them've had some field training after all. " "Some'll have had 
training rounding up prisoners before," said Calas. "That's all." "That may be 



enough," said Hal. He pointed at the screen before him with the ghost map and 
the lights. "Or they may be wearing some special equipment-heat sensors or 
such that would warn them Cee was following. Those two soldiers just began 
searching outside their own area." "Outside . . . ?" said Calas. "They're 
still moving in a straight line, and it's taken them 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
over into the territory of another search unit-as best I can judge where the 
boundaries of the territories are-" 
He broke off. "There it is," he said. "I see what they're doing now." "What 
are they doing?" asked Calas. "Those soldiers Cee's following have spotted her 
after all. They're leading her on. Take a look at the screen. The other search 
teams are changing their pattern. The team leading her is keeping on going 
forward, to lead her into position, and gain time for a good number of the 
others who're close to move into a circle around her. Then, as they move in, 
using their helmet communication, they'll draw the circle tighter around her. 
When she finally begins to suspect and makes a break for it, it'll not only be 
these two, but a lot of the others, who ought to have a good shot at her with 
those catch-nets of theirs. Unless sh,@ stops following these two now, I think 
she's virtually certain to be captured." 
There was the sound of feet on the gravel-like soil behind them. They all 
turned. Onete came up and stopped before them all. But it was to Hal she 
spoke. "Artur's gone," she said breathlessly. "Evidently, he left last night. 
Rolled the boulder aside and rolled it back in place after him. He left a note 
by the boulder. 
She paused to catch her breath. "He said he was sorry, but he had to go down 
to do what he could to protect Cee. He asked them to leave the boulder in 
place as long as they could before they felt they had to replace it with the 
rock plug. Just in case he was able to bring her back up to safety after all." 
CHAPTER 
26 
"And it's been left?" asked Hal. "It's been left," answered Onete. "Everyone 
wants it that way. " 
There was nothing they could do from the ledge but watch. Onete left them 
again. In the next three-quarters of an hour as Procyon climbed brilliantly 
into a clear sky, Cee shadowed the two soldiers and was drawn into a semi-open 
area with short but vertical, near-unclimbable cliffs on two sides of it; and 
with now more than two dozen of the following members of the Occupational 
Troops closing in behind her to shut off escape back the way she had come. 
She clearly heard them moving in on her, as they drew close; but the sounds 
must have come from all directions, so that she turned, ready to flee one way, 
then hesitated, turned to run in another, and hesitated again. 
The hesitations were what doomed her. If she had raced full tilt for their 
line at the first noise, she would have had some chance, at least, of dodging 
between two of them, twisting, ducking, evading their grasps and so getting 
away. But at her first betrayal of the fact she had heard them, they all burst 
into a run toward her, so that when she began to run, herself, they were 
already closing in on her. 
She checked and stood, legs spread apart, one in advance of the other. She had 
evidently been carrying something cupped in 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
each hand all this time; and she now threw these two things, whatever they 
were, at the men most directly before her. 
The throws were delivered with the kind of power and accuracy that could only 
come from long practice. With a sidearm motion her whole body sent the 
missiles on their way, and to the surprise of those on the ledge as well as 
that of the soldiers, the two men she had thrown at went over backwards and 
down, while she dashed forward again at the gap in their line she had now 
created. 
Almost, she made it. But the others were too close. Nets exploded into 
existence in the air above and around her, dropped and enveloped her; and a 
moment later her net-swathed body disappeared under the swarm of adult 
figures. 
From the ledge it was still plain, however, that she was not easy to subdue. 
The huddle of soldiers' backs, which was all those on the ledge could see, 
heaved and moved for some tiime@ and it was only the sudden appearance of Liu 
Hu Shen and the Urk that stopped one of the soldiers who had finally reversed 
his needle gun, raised it, and seemed about to use it as a club. 
The huddle struggled a bit more and then went still. Hu Shen clearly was 
issuing orders right and left. There were now between twenty and thirty of the 
uniformed men in the clearing, and at last the group holding her stopped its 
struggle, indicating she had finally been held and immobilized. 
In remarkably short time the power pistol which the Urk had been carrying had 
been used to cut down a number of trees, large and small, to enlarge the 
clearing; the cut-down upper parts being hauled off to one side by teams of 
the men. Left standing were two trees about ten meters apart. By this tinic 
three dome-shaped battle tents had also been erected. The moment the first of 
these were up, the huddle of men carrying Cee, invisible in their midst, moved 
into it, to come out its entrance a little later by twos and threes with every 
sign of relief'. Clearly Cee had been left, tied down or otherwise secured. 
somewhere within. "Bastards!" said Calas. 
Liu, who had been generally overseeing the work being done, now for the first 
time went into the building where Cee had been taken. He was inside for only a 
few minutes, however, before he came out again, crossed the clearing and 
entered one of the 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
269 
other structures, into which his men had been bringing various furniture, such 
as chairs, a desk and a cot. They had brought the furniture folded up in 
carrying cases; and once the furniture was inside, they reclosed the cases and 
carried them into the third dome. 
Calas's gaze, however, was all on the structure into which they had taken Cee. 
"They could be working on her in there right now!" he growled. "I don't think 
so," said Hal. "My guess is Liu just stepped inside with her long enough to 
see if she'd answer him, but not really expecting her to. When she didn't, he 
left her tied up; or however she's restrained, in there, for now. " "That's 
your guess," said Calas mutinously. "I know the kind of shithouse sweepings 
they've got in that outfit!" "I believe you do," said Hal, "but I also believe 
they won't dare do anything they aren't ordered to do by that commanding 
officer, from the way you've described him. And he won't want any of them 
touching Cee-just yet, anyway." "Another guess?" Calas said. "No. Look down 
there for yourself," said Hal. "If he'd wanted to question Cee physically, the 
obvious place for it would have been back at his base, in Porphyry. They've 
undoubtedly got the equipment for it back there-" "That's true enough," said 
Calas, under his breath. "But back there, he'd have superiors who might take 
not only control away from him," said Hal, "but whatever glory there might be 
in catching the famous little wild girl. It just might be, too, that Liu has a 
pretty low opinion of the officers over him." 
Calas nodded. "You mean, he's right in feeling that way?- asked Hal. "Unless 



they've got some brighter ones in since I was around," said Calas. "Right up 
to the Commander, the rest are all the sort that want to get to their desk at 
eleven in the morning, sign half a dozen papers, then go to lunch and take the 
rest of the day off. You're right, as long as he stays out here, he's the one 
in charge. " "Yes," said Hal, "and he stands to gain more credit; which none 
of his superiors can take away from him, if he comes in, not orily with the 
girl, but with as many more strays and outlaws 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
as he can pick up and bring back. As I say, take a look down there. Don't 
those two tents and the cut-down trees make it look like he's planning to stay 
a day or two, at least?" "Yes," said Calas, somewhat grudgingly, looking at 
them. "It's a good guess, then," said Hal, "he's been lookin@_, beyond Cee's 
capture all along. He'll be pretty sure she knows who else lives around here, 
and he'll want her help in finding them. " 
His eyes met Calas's brown ones. "You mean he knows about the Chantry Guild?" 
"Guesses, at least," said Hal. "He may have picked up bits of information from 
townspeople he's questioned, and gotten enough out of them to at least suspect 
there's some kind of' community of free Exotics up here. That's why he'll be 
in no hurry to get his men back to barracks; and that's why he won't hurt Cee, 
to begin with at least. He may even try to make friends with her." , ,Lots of 
luck!" Calas cleared his throat, and spat, deliberately, over the edge of the 
cliff before them. "If she wouldn't answer when Artur tried to talk to her and 
she'd barely answer Onete, Liu's chances of making friends with her . 
Calas ran out of figures of speech, into silence. "But it's still all just 
your guesses, all the same," he said, at last, to Hal. "Old Man," said Hal, 
turning to the silent figure beside them, "what do you think?" "I think you're 
probably right," said Old Man softly. Calas turned to stare at the 
white-bearded, thin face. "He'll need the child in good physical shape to lead 
them to whoever else is hem and if he's got any experience at all with 
managing prisoners, he'll know she'll be more willing to help him if she 
believes he doesn't plan to hurt them when he gets them. So I'd think he'll 
begin, at least, by making ier as comfortable as possible; while at the same 
time makinf, sure she doesn't run away. Also, he'll try to give the impression 
that it's just a matter of time before he finds the other people, whether she 
helps or not, and a leisurely attitude to the situation is going to help along 
that illusion." 
As usual, when Old Man talked at any length at all, the Guild members had a 
tendency to listen attentively. Calas listened. When Old Man fell silent 
again, he nodded, slowly. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
271 
"Right," he said. "it makes sense. But what happens if she still doesn't 
answer him? He's going to run out of patience sooner or later." "We'll have to 
watch, wait, and hope some kind of opportunity comes up for us to do something 
about the situation, without risking discovery of the Guild," said Hal. "I 
don't know what other option we've got. Do you?" 
After a long moment, Calas slowly shook his head again, and turned back to 
watching the screens showing where Cee was being held. Missy and Hadnah had 
followed the action of the chase closely and now held the area of the three 
buildings and the clearing in a good-sized picture. Calas sat unmoving and 
watching, but now he watched the way a wolf might, at a rabbit hole. 
It was midafternoon when he suddenly exploded into speech. "By God, they've 
got him!" It was unnecessary to ask who had been meant by "him." Artur was the 
only one down there likely to be brought in as a 
captive. By rights it should have been Missy or Hadnah who first caught sight 
of the large man and his two captors, benefiting from the higher angle of 
their post of observation. But evidently the approach had been under the cover 
of treetops, which were 
more an obstacle to those viewing high on the mountainside, than Hal and the 
other two with him. "He doesn't look very mussed up," Calas went on. "You'd 
have thought someone like him who could move that boulder at the foot of the 
path out of his way and then roll it back could have put up more of a fight 
before they took him." "He's unarmed," said Hal. "What would you do if you 
were 
faced with a needle gun-and both those soldiers bringing him in have them?" 
There was a pause. "You're right," said Calas; but he said it grudgingly. 



Artur had plainly given his clothing some thought before he dressed to leave 
the ledge. He was wearing green shorts and shirt, and boots made of rough 
leather tanned a light brown. He would not have been easy to spot among the 
growth below unless he moved. On the other hand, Hal guessed that Artur knew 
less than nothing about moving inconspicuously through the high-altitude 
forest below. 
Cee, on the other hand, could have given any one of them 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
273 
lessons. If it had not been for the heat sensors, or whatever other 
technological aids the soldiers had been carrying, Hal would have been willing 
to bet she could have moved around and between them all day long without being 
spotted. 
As the two guarding Artur brought him into the camp, one of' the dozen who had 
stayed around after the three shelters had been set up ducked into the other 
tent, the one holding Liu. A moment later the commanding officer came out and 
stood while Artur was brought face to face with him. 
They stood looking at each other. The screen showed their lips moving. Hal's 
ability to read lips had become rusty over the last few years and the angle at 
which the screen showed the two had Artur's back to him and Liu's face averted 
to the point where he could see only the left corner of his lips. He could not 
make out what either man was saying. However, they talked for no more than a 
few minutes. 
The conversation ended with Liu abruptly turning around and re-entering his 
shelter. The two escorting soldiers, apparently having been given their orders 
by their disappearing commander, took Artur to one of the two trees that had 
not been cut down. They tied him to it, in standing position with his back to 
the tree trunk, enclosing him with what seemed an excessive number of turns of 
rope around his body and the tree. He stood with his back to the tree, unable 
to move even in small ways. "Now what?" asked Calas. "I believe," said Old Man 
in his soft voice, "that the officer has decided to leave him there to think 
his situation over." "Does Artur know they've got Cee, do you think?" asked 
Calas, looking from Old Man to Hal and back again. 
Old Man said nothing. "I don't think so," answered Hal, "any more than I think 
they've let Cee know they've got him. Liu's probably planning to spring the 
news on both of them when the time's right to goet the most shock value from 
doing it." 
That may have been the commander's plan, but in any case he seemed in no hurry 
to carry it out. Procyon descended in tile west and the stars came out. The 
forest below became one dark. mysterious mass, with the exception of two small 
spots. One was where a blaze of artificial light lit up the clearing in tile 
distance where the trucks were still parked. The other, closer. was more 
directly below the watchers, where Artur stood, still 
tied to the tree, and with Liu still out of sight in his shelter. From one of 
the other domes trays with covered dishes were carried into the tent that was 
Liu's, and it was perhaps three-quarters of an hour afterward that he finally 
made an appearance. 
The Urk hurried up to him and was told something. The tall, thin underofficer 
in the tailored uniform went off to the shelter that held Cee, and re-emerged 
a few minutes later, followed by two soldiers with the little girl held 
between them, her hands tied behind her. 
She was making no effort to walk under her own power. Her knees were bent and 
the two soldiers were forced to carry her to the other tree that had been left 
uncut, where she was roped into the same upright position Artur had been tied 
into. After a few moments, she unbent her knees and took the weight of her 
body on her feet. 
Her face had that blank look of a child's which could indicate anything from 
an extreme of terror to complete incomprehension. Her eyes followed the Urk as 
he went to speak to Liu. 
Liu and the Urk came toward her. Behind the two men, in the center of the 
clearing, a large open fire was being built. It was not an unreasonable thing 
to do. At night, because of the altitude, even here at the base of the 
mountains proper, the nights were cool, for all that they were almost on the 
equator of the planet. But it did not get so cold that a fire so large had any 
real utility. Cee, herself, was obviously used to the nighttime temperatures, 



which she faced unclothed. 
She was still unclothed now; more so, in fact, because her vine-pod girdle had 
been taken from her. But, as Hal had noticed on first seeing her when he had 
been with Amanda, her nakedness was such a natural and unconscious state that, 
if anything, she made those around her in clothes look unnatural. Her 
expression remained blank as the two men came up to her, and Liu spoke to her. 
It was intensely frustrating to Hal not to be able to catch enough of the 
officer's lip movements to guess at least a word or so from him, or from one 
of the soldiers. 
In any case, she did not answer. Only, now, she stared directly at Liu, 
instead of the Urk, with that completely unfathomable, completely observant, 
open-eyed stare of which only the young are capable. 
Liu's lips moved again. The expression of his face grew stern. 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
275 
There was no movement of lips or change of appearance in the girl before him. 
He glanced at the Urk, beside him, and the Urk said something. "I think," said 
Old Man unexpectedly, "he asked for confirmation of the fact that she actually 
knows how to speak, and understands Basic." 
Hal looked suddenly at the brown eyes in the ageless face behind the white 
beard. "You read lips?" he asked, almost sharply. 
Old Man shook his head. "No," he answered, "I only guess. But I think it's a 
good guess. And I think this Urk is reminding him she was six years or older 
when her parents died." 
Liu turned away and went back past the fire to Artur. His face was now so 
averted in the picture shown on the screen before Hal that it was obviously 
useless even to try to read lips. "I'd say your guess may have been pretty 
close to the mark," he told Old Man. "What do you think he's saying to Artur 
right now' ,"' 
Old Man shook his head a little slowly. "It's guessing, only," he said. "I 
could be very wrong, but obviously this officer's deliberately waited until 
dark to let the two see each other. Plainly, the fire is to make the scene 
look 
even more threatening. He gives the impression of a man who hopes to make use 
of psychological as well as physical pressures. Watching someone else tortured 
to produce answers is one of the favorite ways of getting information since 
mankind started to use such methods. The idea, of course, is to weaken the 
will of someone who doesn't want to talk. Here he's got two prisoners. He can 
question either one with all kinds of painful means, with a double chance of 
getting answers-either from the one he questions or from the one watching and 
expecting the sarne thing. Either might break. Obviously, though, he expects 
to be able to judge the effect of his questioning better on a grown man, than 
on someone like Cee." "He'll be threatening Artur with torture now, if Artur 
doesn't tell him how to find the other people who're around here? That's what 
you're saying, isn't it?" demanded Hal. "I would guess," said Old Man simply. 
Liu continued to talk to Artur several minutes longer; but Artur's face, 
unlike Cee's, showed anger and defiance. Liu 
pointed at Cee several times and Artur shook his head. Most possibly, Hal 
thought, the big man would be denying any knowledge of the little girl; 
although it remained impossible for Hal to read the movements of his lips. 
Eventually, Liu turned away from him and went back across the lighted clearing 
into his i1helter; while the Urk, with two of the soldiers, got busy with the 
physical questioning of Artur. 
Calas began to swear in a low, monotonous tone; and his voice went on and on, 
as if he were talking to himself. 
Mercifully, the angle of vision both from the ledge and from higher up on the 
mountain with Missy and Hadnah was such that the bodies of the three men were 
in the way of any camera view of exactly what they were doing to Artur. 
However, the soldiers and their noncommissioned officer were careful not to 
block the view Cee could have had of what was going on. 
But their efforts were wasted. After watching them for a 
moment until Artur's mouth opened in what was obviously an involuntary scream 
of pain, she took her attention off them. Her eyes, in that expressionless 
face of hers, turned instead to focus on the round, white shape of the tent 
into which Liu had vanished. They kept their gaze immovable upon the tent. 
Old Man drew in an audible breath. "He's made a mistake," Old Man said. "He? 
You mean Liu?" asked Hal. "Yes," said Old Man. "Artur denied knowing her and 
Cee told him nothing. The officer has no way of knowing she loves him, or he, 
her." "She loves Artur?" Hal asked. "Amid told me she wouldn't let him get 
close to her, after that one time he tried to reach out and touch her!" "True 
enough," said Old Man, "but all the time she must have remembered who he was 



and either loved him from befoi-e or come to love him when he tried to make 
contact again with her. She was just too frightened to come close to him. Look 
at her face now." 
Hal reached forward to turn the screen's controls up to give a 
close-up picture of Cee's face. They saw it only slightly averted, staring at 
Liu's shelter off screen; but Calas's swearing broke off abruptly. "Holy 
Mother!" said Calas. 
Hal also was absorbing the shock of what he was seeing. It 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
was strange, since in no easily visible way had Cee's blank expression 
changed. Only, the steadiness of her gaze seemed to have acquired a power of 
its own. "God help that Liu if she ever gets her hands on him-, and him tied 
up, or helpless!" breathed Calas. 
Old Man nodded. "But why do you say Liu made a mistake?" Hal asked. "If she 
had not already, she has now identified him with whatever she saw done to her 
parents when they died. Liu Hu Shen thought to provoke fear in the child by 
forcing her to watch Artur being tortured. Instead he's unleashed hatred. A 
terrible hatred in her, against him." 
After a long moment of silence, Old Man added: "Who would have thought one so 
young could hate so much'? But then life has made her more than half wild 
animal; and the actions of that man have now made her wholly so. . . ." 
CHAPTER 
27 
"I can't take any more of this!" said Calas in a thick voice. He got up 
abruptly and blundered off into the darkness. They heard the sounds of him 
being sick farther back froni the lip of the ledge. 
Hal and Old Man sat in silence for a while. Eventually, Old Man spoke, raising 
his voice, but not looking back over his shoulder as he spoke. "It's over for 
now," he said. 
There was a pause, then the sound of footsteps coming back to them. Caeas 
reappeared, a shadow in the darkness, and stepped around in front of Hal. 
"We've got to do something about this," he said. "We will." Hal looked into 
the screen. Artur sagged in his ropes, apparently unconscious. The Urk and the 
two soldiers had abandoned him when Liu had stepped out of his shelter and 
spoken to them, a few minutes earlier. As the three men on the ledge watched, 
they came back now, untied Artur from the tree, eased his unconscious body to 
the ground and re-tied it with the same ropes that had held it upright. 
Cee, supple as a cat, had managed to slide downward not only herself but the 
ropes binding around her and the tree, until now she sat cross-legged on the 
ground at the foot of' the tree. She looked almost comfortable. But nothing 
else about her expres



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Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
279 
sion or the target of her eyes, which was still either Liu or his shelter when 
he was inside it, had changed. "We'll do something," said Hal. "I just had to 
know whether Liu was going to try to force the answers he wants tonight, or 
stretch the process out a day or two. Clearly, he's going to drag it out. Time 
doesn't seem to be a factm or perhaps he has at least several days to find out 
what he wants to know. I was afraid he'd need to find out tonight whatever 
Artur or Cee could tell him, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Look, 
they're even covering Artur against the night cold." 
It was true. On the screen they could see one of the soldiers throwing a 
blanket over the motionless form of Artur. Another soldier took a blanket over 
to Cee and tucked it around her shoulders so that it made a sort of small tent 
covering her body. Like the others, he ignored the fact she was now seated on 
the ground. 
She paid no attention to the blanket being put around her, but when next they 
looked, it had left her shoulders and was a pool of darkness around her lower 
legs and on the ground. A soldier got up from among a group of them who were 
seated around the fire and passing a bottle around. He tucked the blanket into 
place again about her shoulders; but a few minutes later it was once more on 
the ground. 
He started to get up once more, but the soldier next to him pulled him back 
into a sitting position. After that they ignored Cee. "Missy? Hadnah?" Hal 
said to the screen. "We're watching," the voice of Missy came back to him. 
"Good," said Hal. "We're going to leave our screens down here for a council of 
war at Amid's. If you want me, that's where I'll be. You two can keep the 
watch going?" "Count on us," chimed in the voice of Hadnah. 
Hal got to his feet a little stiffly. His legs had adjusted to the morning 
sittings to watch the sunrise; but whole days seated on the ground were 
something else again. Old Man got to his feet lightly and easily, as if he had 
been seated there for minutes rather than hours. With Calas, they went to 
Amid's office. 
He was busy dealing with a short, thick-set, and-for an Exotic-a remarkably 
pugnacious- I ook i ng man with bristly gray hair, cut short; about some 
matter having to do with the building on of extra dormitory space to provide 
larger units for 
couples, particularly couples with young children. The grayhaired man was 
named Abke-Smythe, but that was all Hal knew about him except that he had some 
sort of responsibility for the group's housing. Amid started to interrupt 
this, to talk with Hal and the others as they came in; but Hal shook his head 
at the older man. "We can sit and wait a few minutes," he said. "In fact one 
of your chairs would feel good." 
He dropped into one of the larger overstuffed chairs, and both Calas and Old 
Man followed his example, except that Old Man, with a momentary, mischievous 
smile at Hal, took his position in cross-legged fashion upon the seat cushion 
of his chair. 
Hal grinned back, momentarily, then let his mind go elsewhere. The fact was, 
as much as his body needed a rest from the position it had held all day, his 
mind now needed to switch gears from analyzing everything he had seen in the 
jungle below him since early morning and planning what was to be done with the 
night before him. 
Without intending to, he fell asleep. He blinked and woke, startled to find 
that time had gone by and things in the office had changed. A table had been 
set up with three straight chairs, and in two of them Calas and Old Man were 
already seated, eating. At another empty chair a place had been set which was 
obviously waiting for him. "Take your time, " said the voice of Amid. Hal 
looked over to see the head of the Chantry Guild still behind his desk, 
fingers busily tapping on some keys inset in his desktop. "We can keep the 



food hot," "It's all right," said Hal. "I guess I just needed a moment to sort 
my mind out. I'll be right there." 
He got up, went over and took the empty chair at the table. Calas passed him 
covered dishes, from which Hal began transferring large amounts of food to his 
plate. The fact was, he thought as he did this, that what he had just said was 
exactly the truth. The night before he had had a good night's sleep, and had 
not needed more now, but from long experience he recognized that his 
unconscious mind had wanted his consciousness out of the way while it 
addressed the problem he was facing now. It had worked. He had awakened with a 
solution clear to him. 
He opened his mouth to start talking to Amid and the others, then closed it 
again. There was eating to be done and it would be 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
281 
some time into tomorrow's daylight before he would have a chance to eat again, 
probably. Best to finish his meal now, and have his discussion later. He went 
to work on the food, accordingly; in spite of his late start, ending up at 
almost the same second as Calas, who had continued to eat for some minutes 
after Old Man had finished. "Thank you," Hal said, looking over at Amid. " 
Now," said Amid, "what have you got to thank me for? Simply a share of our 
food, which we'd give to anyone who was here, let alone someone like yourself, 
who we count on to help us solve a situation like this." " Don't count too 
much on me," said Hal. "In the first place, -something might happen to me; 
and, in the second place, there are a number of people, including you and Old 
Man, who could do a creditable job of solving it alone. And in fact, if Amanda 
was here, you'd be idiots not to use her for dealing with this, rather than 
me. She's had experience with this world, the soldiers, and a complete Dorsai 
upbringing." "No doubt," said Amid. "But I think that if she, or anyone else, 
was here, she'd join the rest of us in choosing you to suggest what we need to 
do. There's something about you that carries a banner everyone rallies to." 
"Including Bleys?" Hal smiled. "I'm being serious," said Amid. "You know what 
I mean. All right, if you've finished eating, what have you got to tell us?" 
-Not a lot that I haven't told you already," answered Hal soberly. "The 
trick's going to be to send these soldiers home thinking they've found nothing 
worth worrying about; and also to get Cee and Artur back alive, if we can. 
That's where those darts come in. By the way-" ''if you'll look on the table 
over in the corner there, under that white cloth, I think you'll find what 
you're asking about,'' interrupted Amid. "Tannaheh ought to have been here 
fiftecfl minutes ago-ah, here he is, finally!" 
It was a little difficult to see why Amid should sound so sure. since he 
completed his sentence before the door to his "office'' had swung wide enough 
to reveal who was coming in. But he was not wrong. Tannaheh was the one who 
entered, carrying a good-sized box which seemed to have been filled with long 
strands of-rass, now dried to a golden brown color. Behind hini 
was another man, a short man in his fifties or older with a long, straight 
nose and hands that were large for the rest of his body, as if spread and 
thickened by years of hard work. Under the thin, straight, gray hair the man's 
face was solemn almost to the point of sourness. He wore a jacket made of some 
material that looked like leather, over heavy, dark brown trousers and a 
checked shirt-a contrast to Tannaheh, whose slim body was dressed, as it had 
been earlier, in the gray wool sweater, white shirt, blue trousers and boots. 
"Sorry to hold everybody up," said Tannaheh cheerfully. He carried the box 
over and set it down gently on the table covered with the white cloth. "I 
thought Luke was going to wait for me 
at his workshop with the belts and bows, and when I got there and didn't find 
him, I thought he'd just stepped out for a minute; and so I spent some time 
waiting there for him, until his son 
dropped in for some tool or other. He told me Luke'd already brought the 
things over here earlier and then gone on to the dispensary to wait for me. 
Anyway, we got together finally at the dispensary and here we are. " "You know 
Luke, don't you?" Amid asked Hal. "Indeed, I do," said Hal, nodding at Luke, 
who was the Guild's chief craftsman. "Sorry about the mix-up," said Luke, in a 
surprisingly deep bass voice. "Well, well, it doesn't matter now you're here; 
and Hal and everyone's here," said Amid, getting up to come around his desk, 
rubbing his hands and holding them out to the central fireplace of the office, 
to warm them. --Poor circulation in the extremities, Age. Well, show them what 
you've got." "You go ahead, Luke," said Tannaheh. "The darts and the drugs in 
thern'll need a little explaining." "All right." 
Luke twitched the white cover to the back of the table, revealing a number of 
items on the polished surface, including several bandoleer-like belts, with 



loops for ammunition. But what took Hal's eye particularly were five short 
recurved bows, no more than four feet in length, made of a milky-colored, 
smoothly glasslike material. Luke noted the direction of his gaze. "Had the 
boys up all night, making these," he said. "The belts took hardly any time at 
all." 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
He picked up one of the bows and handed it to Hal, meanwhile reaching with his 
other hand for a rather stubbylooking arrow, apparently made of' the same 
material as & bows. 
The bow was already equipped with a string, tied tightly at one end and ending 
in a loop at the other. Hal had already placed the tied end on the floor and 
was putting his weight on the bow to bend it, as he slid the looped end up the 
shaft and into the notch prepared to hold it at the bow's far end. The bow. he 
saw, seemed to be made of a form of glass. Once strung, he held the bow up in 
one hand and ticked the string with the thumb of his other. It hummed 
musically. 
The string was a little strange. It appeared to be made ofthe same milky 
material as the arrow shafts. Also there was a feel to it that was different 
from that of any bow string Hal had handled before. He plucked the string, 
listened to the musical note ofit, hefted the bow and turned to pass it to Old 
Man. "You know swords," he said, smiling. "Am I correct in thinking you know 
something about these, too?" "Something," said Old Man, nodding as he took the 
weapon. "We used to shoot at a prayer target, blindfolded.- "Oh?" said Amid, 
interested. "Some form of divination'! Or should we ask?" "Of course you may 
ask," said Old Man. "But it wasn't divination. Hitting the target correctly 
was a test of control over the body and mind." 
He was going through the same motions with the bow as Hal a before, first 
unstringing, then restringing it-except that where Hal had placed an end of 
the bow on the floor and leaned 
s weight on it in order to bend it enough to slide the looped end up into its 
notch, Old Man merely tucked the bow under one arm and bent it against his 
body to string it. "I don't think I'd be able to do that," said Hal, watching. 
"Indeed you could," said Old Man earnestly. "It's only a matter of 
practice-and habit. Forgive me. I didn't mean to seem to be showing off." "We 
all know you don't show off," said Amid. "What was that about shooting at a 
mark, blindfolded, though? Could you show us that?" "If you'll forgive me 


Old Man looked around the room, then turned his back on it, so that he was 
facing the wall 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
283 
behind Amid's desk. "If one of you would fix a piece of paper against the far 
wall, then blindfold me and hand me an arrow-one with a sharp point, if you 
have one?" "I'm afraid," said Tannaheh, "all the points are on the darts which 
fasten to the ends of the arrows-" "That's all right," said Luke, "give me an 
arrow." 
He took the blunt-ended, feathered shaft Tannaheh gave him, reached to Amid's 
desk for a pin from a tray which held such things, along with page fasteners 
and other small clips and devices. Hitching around from the back of his belt a 
case that held a number of small instruments, he clipped off the blunt head of 
the pin with what looked like a needle-nosed set of pliers, then held the 
chopped-off point for a moment in the jaws of the pliers. Hal saw the blunt 
end of the pin glow red for a second before Luke used the pliers to sink it 
into the blunt end of the arrow shaft, which melted before it. "That ought to 
give you point enough for wooden walls like these," Luke said. "I'll go put up 
a target." 
He handed the arrow to Old Man, who received it without turning back to look 
at him. Luke tore off a sheet from the memo pad on Amid's desk, walked with it 
to the far wall and placed it against the wall at a point about level with his 
own eyes. By some means Hal could not see, he made it cling to the wall, then 
stood aside. 
Meanwhile, Amid had been busy blindfolding Old Man with one of the napkins 
that had come with the food. When he was done, he stood back. "All ready," he 
said to Old Man. "The target's up. Go ahead. " 
Old Man turned almost casually, with the arrow already notched to the bow 



string. He gave the string the merest tweak, for the other wall was at most 
ten meters away. The arrow arced into the air and almost fell against the 
target, the pin in its end sticking in the very center of the paper, and 
plainly through it to the wood, for the arrow drooped, but did not fall to the 
floor. "Now," said Old Man, "if you'll bring the arrow back to me and take 
down the paper." 
Luke did both things, stopping halfway back to use one of his tools to 
straighten out the pin, which apparently had become bent. Once more Old Man 
fitted the arrow to his bow and sent it on its way. It stuck again, this time 
in the bare wall. 



284 
Gordon R. Dickson 
Luke walked over to retrieve it, reached for the shaft, then hesitated, 
staring at the place where it was stuck in the wall. He whistled. "Just a few 
millimeters off from the first hole," he said. 
He pulled the arrow loose and brought it back, as Amid took off the blindfold 
and Old Man laid down the still strung bow on Amid's desk. "How could you do 
it?" Hal asked him. 
I 'I listened to the rustle of the paper as it was carried across the room," 
said Old Man, "and aimed at where the noise stopped. " "But you hit the center 
of the paper!" Amid said. 
Old Man smiled. "There were only two sources of paper on your desk," he 
answered. "Notepaper, and the memo pad. They would rustle differently. Besides 
the memo sheets are glued together at the top. I heard Luke tear one loose; 
and when he pressed it against the wall to make it stick, the board made a 
small creak. I aimed at w ere t at sound had been, with the memo sheet, and 
the wall, pictured in my mind." "And then you did it again, with the paper 
gone," said Amid admiringly. "Even more simply, I'm afraid," said Old Man. 
"The second time I simply used the bow exactly the way I'd done the first-, 
and the arrow went to the same place." 
He turned to Hal. "These things are unimportant in themselves," he said. "I 
just wanted you to be sure I could be useful to you with the bow. " "You've 
made your point," said Hal. He turned to Amid. "Amid, we've got a record of 
all the scopes saw today, haven't we 
"Why, yes," said Amid. "They're the usual sort of scope. They store images 
unless you set them not to; and we assumed you might want to check something 
or other." "I do," said Hal. "Would you have someone check the records for 
everything seen in them today, to see if we've got any views of even parts of 
the interiors of the three structures Liu put up down there. Particularly, I'd 
like any views we might have of the building he's in, himself." 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
285 
"I can do that right from here," said Amid. He sat back down at his desk, 
punched a few keys, and looked expectantly at the screen of the scope on the 
desk that was now showing the brightly lit scene of the soldiers' camp below. 
The uniformed men around the table had dwindled to two and the bottle had 
disappeared. The extra men were spread around on the ground in sleeping sacks, 
unmoving. "They were drinking when I last looked," said Hal. "That 
underofficer, whatever his name is-" "The Urk," supplied Calas. "Urk. Odd 
name," said Amid, "-looked out just before you came in here and they put the 
bottle away. He was in the center one of-what do you call those buildings?" 
"Hutments is the military name," said Calas. "They're a 
kind of tent." 
--The middle one of those hutments," went on Amid. "The officer's in the one 
on the right of the screen as we look at it now. I caught a glimpse of what 
looked like a cooker and various kitchen furniture in that same one the Urk's 
in. Strange, but he and the officer are the only ones under shelter. Of 
course, at this time of year night showers are unlikely-" "That's one of Liu's 
little military points," said Calas. "He never misses a chance to point up the 
fact that rank has its privileges. Making the ranks sleep on the open ground 
just drives home the difference between them and him and the Urk. "A strange 
personality," said Amid. "Not so strange, after all," said Old Man softly. 
"Here we go!" interrupted Amid, as the scene on the screen changed to a still 
picture which showed Liu's hutment, with one of the two flaps that closed its 
front entrance folded back. A camp chair, an unfolded and set up desk and the 
corner of a cot could be seen, the cot already with bedding on it. "Seventeen 
more views, the screen says. Shall we look at all of them?" "If you don't 
mind-," said Hal. "Of course not . . ." Amid tapped his desk controls and they 
went, one by one, through the various views the scopes had been able to make 
of the inner area of Liu's hutment. It was furnished with what they had 



already seen, plus a sort oftall box that could be it filing cabinet or a food 
and liquor cabinet. "All right," said Hal, when they had examined the last 
view. 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
11 iu should be in that cot now and asleep. So should the Urk, in the center 
hutment. The two guards will probably be changed at intervals. Now-He 
turned his attention back to Amid. "I'm going to go down there tonight," he 
said, "to try to get Cee and Artur back and leave those soldiers with the 
impression that they found nothing worthwhile. If I can manage the hypnosis 
properly, after disabling them with the darts, I'll hope to leave them 
believing neither Artur nor Cee had anything to tell them-that they both died 
under torture, and were buried up here-so that they'll go back thinking the 
whole thing was a wild goose chase. The question is going to be who I take 
with me. 
"Me, for one," said Calas. "Perhaps," said Hal. "We'll see. Now, Amid, who in 
the Guild knows the forest down there at night, and can move around in it in 
the dark, quietly?" "Onete, of course," said Amid. "And there are four or five 
other foragers who like to do night foraging. There're sonic p ants-some 
tubers part icu larly -that betray their presence at night more than in the 
day, by actions like opening blossoms or leaves, or-there's even a tuber that 
causes the ground above it to glow slightly, at night. But I'm wandering." 
He pressed a key and leaned over a speaker grille in his desk. "All those 
whore particularly adept at night foraging," he said into the grille, -come to 
my office right away, please." "Good," said Hal. "How many of them, do you 
know, can use a bow and arrow effectively?" 
Amid looked blank. "I haven't the slightest idea. " He appealed to Old Man. 
"Do you know"" 
Old Man shook his head. "Calas?" "I haven't any idea," said Calas. "By the 
way," Hal said to him, "you wanted to come. Call you move quietly through the 
jungle at night?" "I've been out night foraging, too, if that's what you 
mean," said Calas. Then, on a more subdued note, he added, "I may not be the 
quietest, but I know enough to look where I'm putting my feet. No one down 
there'll hear me." "And you can use a bow?" 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
287 
"No!" said Calas explosively. "But we've got to have an hour or two before we 
go down. I'll learn in that time." 
He looked at Old Man. "He can teach me." Hal turned his gaze on the quiet, 
bearded face. "What do you think?" he asked Old Man. "Could you teach him to 
use one to any good purpose, in just a few hours?" "At short range, perhaps," 
said Old Man softly. "At any rate I could try. Perhaps you'll have to let me 
try teaching others along with Calas. Perhaps several people. " "I can use a 
bow," said Luke. "Shot one for years. Made my own first real bow when I was 
thirteen. I may not be as good as this magician, here-" He nodded at Old Man. 
--but I'm good by any ordinary standards. I'll say that and stand on it!" 
"Then perhaps the two of you can do some teaching," said Hal. "When we finally 
go down, the six best shots will carry bows and darts. Old Man and I are two, 
that leaves four to be picked. " 
He turned to Amid. "You might put out a call for anyone in the Guild who does 
know how to use one, night forager or not. And Tannaheh, while we're waiting, 
you might start showing me how the darts work and telling me about them." "Of 
course!" said Tannahch, on an explosive outrush of breath that betrayed his 
chafing at the delay in getting to discussion of this particular subject. 
He led Hal to the box and reached down among the dried grass he had used as 
packing. What he came up with looked like an old-fashioned hypodermic of the 
kind used back before the human race had first settled the Younger Worlds, 
three hundred years before. There was a round, tubelike cylinder with a collar 
at one end that was threaded on the inside. At the other end was a slim needle 
of a rod, perhaps twelve millimeters in length, ending in a point that was so 
sharp Hal could not see it, except as a twinkle in the overhead light from the 
ceiling of the office. All of it was made of the same milky-appearing material 
as the arrow shaft. "You're lucky I have a library," said Tannaheh, holding up 



the dart. "You're from Earth, Friend, as I understand it; and there they've 
still got zoos and refuges with wild animals in them. Consequently, they've 
got wild animals that need to be 



288 
Gordon R. Dickson 
tranquilized so they can care for them when they're sick, or whatever. But 
Kultis hasn't any large fauna, native or introduced. The largest wild variform 
creatures we've brought in as tIrozen embryos from Earth have been some 
rabbits, and bi,-, birds, like hawks and vultures. The result was we haven't 
lia@ any need for tranquilizer darts, or means to propel them into the animal. 
I had to go back into medical history, to the time of Earth's first ventures 
into space, to find the information I needed. " 
Hal nodded. Tannaheh gave every evidence of wanting to deliver a lecture, but 
it was too early to put the brakes on him, yet. He let the Guild pharmacist go 
on. "I managed to dig up illustrations and information on what they were using 
then, and build on that; making do with substitutes, where necessary-which was 
in almost every phase of making the dart." 
He reached into the box and came up with a machine copy of what was obviously 
a page from some old book. It showed a drawing of something very much like the 
dart he had in his other hand. " You see, " he said, " I've recreated an 
artifact from the past. 
ut I had to use my imagination to duplicate almost everything about it. To 
begin with, our ancestors used metal projectiles. The body of the dart and 
even the needle itself was metal. We have some metal, but no way to machine it 
into this sort of shape. " "I understand," said Hai. "But clearly you found an 
answer to that." "Quite right. I didn't have metal I could work with; but I 
did have glass that was as strong as metal and as flexible as I wanted to make 
it, something our ancestors of that time didn't have: and ! could work with it 
more easily than they could work with their earlier version of glass. So this 
dart you see is made entirely of glass. " "Well done," said Hal. "I'm glad you 
think so," Tannaheh went on. "But actually the problem of what to make the 
dart out of was small compared to finding the drugs needed to produce the 
effect you told me you wanted. Now, when the dart hits . . ." 
He laid the drawing back in the box, fumbled around anion.p 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
289 
the packing and came up with a small square of wood about three times as thick 
as his hand. "The needle is pushed back into the body of the dart, this 
cylinder here-" He pushed on the dart and the needle shortened to perhaps four 
millimeters. --as you see, injecting the drug. I'll be giving you a chart 
showing what parts of the body you should try to shoot the needle into for 
best results. Then, once the drug has been injected, the cylinder falls off, 
again as you see-
He let go of the body of the dart and it fell to the floor, leaving the needle 
still sticking in the wood with only a length of what looked like string 
trailing from it. "The needle," he went on, "is coated with a sterilizing 
agent, which means you can pull it out without worrying about having started 
an infection. Not only that, but it's thin enough and sharp enough so that the 
person hit by the dart isn't going to feel much; and the only evidence that'll 
be left is going to be a small red mark on the skin surface. No blood, 
probably. Afterwards, the site of the needle entry is going to itch, rather 
than hurt, once the tranquilizing agent wears off; and this, together with the 
red dot, will make it seem like the person was bitten by some insect. No one 
should suspect . "Good," said Hal. "Old Man, you and Luke had better try 
out the arrows with the weight of the dart on their ends. I assume," he turned 
to Tannaheh, "you've got some practice darts there without the drug in them; 
which can be used without our worrying about blunting the needles on something 
we're going to have to use later?" "Of course," said Tannaheh. "I'll give 
them to you in just a second. But first let me tell you how I came up with 
substitutes for the drugs used in the old Earth darts." "Go ahead," said Hal 
patiently. The hours of night were short, but he could give this man, who had 
after all done something absolutely necessary for them, the courtesy of 
listening to him for a little while longer. "The original darts described in 



my books," said Tannahch, 
used several drugs which weren't difficult to obtain back on Earth, even in 
those days, but impossible for me to get here. There were several mixtures. 
One of the very good ones was ketainine hydrochloride combined with xylazine 
hydrochloride 



290 
Gordon R. Dickson 
and atropine. The atropine was there essentially to keep the subjects under, 
but breathing, after they'd been knocked down by the other two-which were very 
quick acting." 
He paused, obviously waiting. "I can see where you'd have a problem," Hal 
said. "A large problem," said Tannaheh. "I had native substances that could 
duplicate the knock-down effects of the two hydrochlorides, but they wouldn't 
mix with the closest native equivalent to atropine derived from one of our 
night-blooming plants. Mixed, they started interacting chemically, 
immediately." 
He paused again. "So what did you do?" Hal asked. "Obviously the only solution 
was to have you inject the atropinelike drug after the earlier ones were 
already in the blood streams of your targets!" said Tannaheh. "And so you made 
two kinds of darts?" "That was the first thing I thought of," Tannaheh said. 
"Then I had a better idea." 
He picked up the shaft which had fallen from the end of the dart head driven 
into the piece of wood. "You'll notice," he said, passing the detached shaft 
back to Hal, "how the shaft is marked with a circle some twelve millimeters 
back from the end where the needle comes out? Break that end off." 
Hal broke it off. It came free very easily, revealing another. somewhat 
shorter, needle projecting from what was now the new, effective end of the 
shaft. "You see?" said Tannaheh. "You can shoot it from the bow again, or use 
it by hand to inject the atropinelike drug directly. Be careful of giving 
anyone a double dose, though. It's in very dilute form, here, but still 
dangerous. In its natural state, as part of the sap of the plant you get it 
from, it's a very effective poison. "You've made whatever we can do down there 
possible," said Hal. "I think you know how grateful everyone is to you-" 
"Nothing!" said Tannaheh. He waved his hand lightly. "I'd like to tell you, 
though, what you've actually got by way of chemicals there in these darts-" 
"is this something we need to know to use them?" interrupted Hal. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
291 
"Well, no. But-- "Then, if you don't mind, you can tell us all about it 
later," said Hal. "We've only got so many hours of darkness to work in and a 
lot to do. I'm sure you understand." 
-I-well, of course," said Tannaheh. "Believe me," Hal said to him, more 
softly, "later, when there's time, we'll want to know. But right now there's a 
lot to be done. " "Of course. Of course," said Tannaheh, taking a step back 
from the desk with its open box of darts. "Forgive me." "There's nothing to 
forgive." Hal turned to the rest of the room. 
While they had been speaking, the door had been opening to 
let people in; and now there was a small crowd of them in Amid's office. They 
had lined up against the front wall of the office on either side of the door. 
"Now," said Hal, "which of you are night foragers who can move quietly down 
there among the vegetation and rocks? Put your hands up so I can identify 
you." 
Eight men and women to the right of the door as Hal faced it responded. "And 
who's the best?" "Onete," said several voices at once, with several more 
following-all, in fact, but Onete herself, who had been one of those standing 
there and holding up her arm. 
"Good," said Hal. "Which of you can use a bow and arrow?" 
There was some hesitation. Those who had their hands up lowered them and 
looked at each other, Finally, two of them raised their hands hesitantly 
again. 
Hal smiled at them, to relax them. "I take it," he said, "this means you two 
can shoot an arrow from a bow, but you haven't much faith in yourselves as far 
as being able to hit the mark?" 
The two arms went down and the heads above them nodded. "Old Man," said Hal, 
turning to him, "and you, Luke, do you suppose you could take these two and 



any other two who want to volunteer-" "Me," said Calas, quickly and 
stubbornly. 'Ikll right," said Hal, "and one other volunteer, then. Take 



292 
Gordon R. Dickson 
them to some inside space where there's light to see a target at about six to 
ten meters, and see if you can teach them something about hitting what they 
aim at." "The corridors in the dormitories'd give us the distance," said Luke 
to Old Man. 
Old Man nodded. "And there are ways of hitting the point desired, that call 
for belief in self more than practice," he said. Both men began to move toward 
the door. "Just a minute," said Hal. "In addition to the six who feel most 
sure about their ability to move in the dark quietly, we're going to need 
about six more who'll be needed to help carry. For the benefit of those of you 
who've just come in, what we're going to do is go down to that caep where 
Artur and Cee are, try to put the soldiers out of action, and bring Cee and 
her uncle back up here to the ledge. We'll need a stretcher for Artur; and 
that stretcher will need at least four people to carry it at any given time." 
He paused to let that sink in. "Bringing him up the steep slope is going to be 
the real probi m. He'll have to be roped to the stretcher, so he doesn't slide 
off, and his bearers are going to have to be changed frequently. For those of 
you whove never done this-and I think that's most, if not all, of you-I can 
tell you that carrying even an ordinary-sized man on a stretcher up a steep 
slope is a very rough task, indeed. So we'll need at least three teams, so 
that the stretcher bearers can change off frequently. That's where you other 
eight come in. You can wait for the rest of us back out of earshot of the camp 
and help carry once we reach you with Artur and Cee." _Will the girl come?" 
asked one of the men to the left of the door. "I think she'll come if you 
bring Artur," said Old Man. "You should be careful how you handle him, though. 
If he cries out or any reason, she may assume you're just more people like the 
soldiers, as far as your reason for carrying him off goes." 
I 'By the way, " put in Tannaheh, "I've made up a medical kit with 
pain-killers and other first aid supplies for use on Artur, as soon as you 
reach him." "Good," said Hal, "and thank you. I should have thought to ask You 
for that myself." 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
293 
He turned to look at Onete. "I think you better take care of the first aid," 
he said to Onete. "You may be the one person who can do things to Artur 
without Cee thinking we're simply harming him more." "I can try," said Onete. 
"She just might trust me." "Old Man's right, too, I think," said Hal, "in 
saying she'll follow if we take Artur-even all the way up here, where she's 
never come before. She won't trust him out of her sight in anyone else's 
hands." 
He turned back to the people who had just come into the office. "We've got 
until midnight to get ready," he said. "If for any reason some of you don't 
want to go, speak up now. The rest of us'll start getting ready to go down. I 
want to move into that camp there as soon as both moons are down; and be back 
behind the boulder on our way up to the ledge before it starts to get light." 
No one moved or spoke up. "Good," said Hal. "Then, you four bow-people go with 
Old Man and Luke. Onete, you and the other night foragers gather around me, 
here. I'll explain how your part of it'll work." 



CHAPTER 
28 
Making the nighttime descent of the mountain from the ledge to the boulder 
beneath which they would exit had been almost like descending in daytime, from 
Hal's point of view. He had spent most of his life as Hal with Earth's single 
moon. Here, however, both of Kultis's moons could be in the sky at once-as 
they were at the moment-and both near the full. The combination of the two 
made not only for adequate light, but a nearelimination of shadows. 
The indescribable spicy odor of the alien semi-tropical forest had risen to 
meet them as they descended, and the clean mountain breezes were left behind, 
above them. At the boulder barring the entrance to the up trail, they had left 
the backup team of eight men and women, seven of whom stayed behind the 
boulder, which had been rolled back in place, and AnnaMist -the 
eighth-followed them through, but only as far as the other side of the 
boulder. It was to be her job to keep watch and, if necessary, pass the alarm 
back to those on the other side not to open up, if she got warning of anything 
gone wrong with the expedition. 
Down in the forest, the moonlight was dimmer but still good, by the standards 
of Hal's Earth-accustomed eyes. However, the small and bright moons were 
fast-moving, and the smaller soon set. So the light dimmed, as they made their 
way toward Liu's camp. Eventually, it shut off completely, leaving them with 
only 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
295 
the starlight to help them see where to put their feet. 
There had been some stumbles, and some who held to the person in front of them 
to make sure of the way. But Hal had sent Onete and the experienced night 
foragers ahead to lead. With these up front they made steady progress, until 
the line halted-so suddenly that Hal almost ran into the last member of the 
foragers, just before him. 
A whisper came back down the line, passed from person to person for him, and 
he made his way to the head of the line. There he identified Onete by her 
general outline and body odor, as he had become acquainted with the body odors 
of most of the Guild members in the last few months. "We've found some new-dug 
soil that looks like two graves," she said in a whisper so low that no one 
else could hear it. "You don't suppose . . . " "No," he whispered back. "It'd 
make no sense for Liu to get up a couple of hours before dawn to kill the two 
of them and bury them without the answers he was after-even if he'd had time 
to do all that since we left the ledge. Wasn't someone carrying one of the 
scopes? Let's take a look at the camp. " "The light from the screen 
began Onete doubtfully. "How close to the camp are we?" "A hundred and fifty 
meters. But you warned us against any light or sound once we left the 
boulder-" "I think with a hundred and fifty meters of forest in between we can 
risk it, in this instance," said Hal. "Can you get it for me? The rest of you 
make a wall with your bodies between us and the camp." 
There were a few minutes delay and then the closed scope was placed in his 
hands. He opened it and touched the controls. A tiny view of the camp they 
were headed for appeared in the center of the screen. The figures on it were 
almost too small to be recognizable, but one was clearly still Cee, seated on 
the ground, and one was clearly Artur, still wrapped with rope and unmoving. 
Hal turned the scope off, closed it and handed it back. "Someone take this," 
he said. It was removed from his grasp. To Onete he added, "It'll be messy, 
since we've only got our hands to dig with, but we're going to have to see 
what's buried here, if anything is. Use the scope light, if you need to. 



296 
Gordon R. Dickson 
That camp's got two men on watch, but they're only watching as far as the 
nearest darkness; and with those bright lights it must be like looking into an 
endless cave all around them." 
Onete stopped him as he bent down to start digging, himself. "Not you," she 
said, "you may need clean hands later on for some reason. Also, most of us 
know how to use the plants we pass to find materials to clean ourselves up 
with." 
It was a realistic argument. Even his effectiveness in shooting the bow he 
carried might be hampered by badly grimed fingers. "All right," he said and 
stood aside. He watched as shadowy figures labored in the soft earth of both 
dug-over areas. After some minutes, Onete's outline detached itself from the 
working group and came back to him. "We've found a body," she said. "We're 
just finding out if the other grave holds a body, too." 
There was a subdued murmur from the working party, a few more motions, and 
then work ceased. "I'll come take a look," said Hal. "Have you got that scope 
handy?" "I'll get it." Onete moved away from him. He went to the group, which 
made way for him, and bent over the two half-excavated openings in the 
reworked earth. A hand pushed the scope into his grasp. He opened it, turned 
it on to show a minimum-sized picture, and directed the reflected light of the 
screen down into the opened holes. 
A boot toe, the upper part of a body and the head of a soldier had been 
roughly cleaned of covering soil in one of them, the upper body and head of a 
second in the hole alongside. 
The white, pale light of the scope, washing over the halfexposed bodies and 
their still dirt-streaked faces-eyes closed but features staring up at the 
star-filled sky-was unpleasant enough so that a murmur arose from the group 
around the two graves. "Quiet!" snapped Onete, with a tone of command Hal had 
not expected from her. "But look at their faces-," said one protesting voice. 
Hal reached down and brushed a little more of the loose dirt off the face and 
throat of the nearest body. "They strangled to death," he said. His fingers 
moved down to clear a little more dirt from the throat of the body before him: 
then pressed lightly on where the man's Adam's apple had been. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
297 
The dead flesh yielded before the pressure like a loose sack of small 
fragments and there was the faint crackling of trapped air forced into the 
surrounding tissues. "His larynx's been crushed. " 
There was silence from those around him. "Does anyone here know," he asked, 
"was Artur acquainted with any of the martial arts? I'm talking about those 
for bare-handed fighting." 
The silence continued another moment. "No," said Onete, "I don't believe he 
did." "No blow from the edge of a hand did that," said Old Man's voice behind 
Hal. "It could have been done by a kick, a very skillful kick; but it's 
unlikely. The blow of a fist, perhaps; though even Artur would have to be 
lucky as well as powerful to strike that spot with enough force." 
Hal squatted back on his heels, staring down at the nearest body. "There's no


 good reason they'd kill two of their own that way," he said, half to himself. 
He raised his voice slightly. "We'll need to cover them up again so that the 
graves look undisturbed. " 
He got to his feet and watched as the shadowy figures around him became busy, 
pushing the loose dirt back into its original place. When it was done, they 
started out once more through the forest with its root-cluttered, rock-strewn 
ground all but invisible under their feet. 
It was not long, though, before those in the lead halted, and the line of 
people bumped each into the person ahead of him or her, and stopped. Onete 
came back to Hal. "This is about a hundred meters from the soldiers' camp," 
she said. "Thank you," he answered. "All right, here's the place where we'll 
leave all of you except the six of us who are bow-and-dart people and the 



other six night foragers Onete picked out as being able to move most quietly. 
I want one forager attached to each of us who've got bows, to get us to the 
edge of the illuminated area of the camp as quietly as possible. According to 
Missy and Hadnah's count, there're sixteen of the soldiers, counting Liu and 
the Urk. Calas, I'm sorry you've got to be one of those to stay behind, but 
you can't shoot and you can't move as well as the people we're taking." 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
"It's all right," said Calas, his voice low and hoarse from the black wall of 
bodies that now stood clumped around him. "More than anything I want to see 
Cee and Artur free. Just one thing-if we hear noises from the camp that sound 
like they've woken up and may be taking you, can the rest of us rush the camp, 
and try to help?" 
Hal hesitated. "You'd be smarter, all of you, to head back for the boulder and 
the ledge." he said. "If they get their hands on six of you, anyway, they're 
going to be able to make at least one show them the way up to the ledge," said 
Calas. "Yes," said Hal. "All right, if you're sure they're all awake and 
trying to take us prisoner or whatever, come along. You can rush the camp. But 
you'll probably just be giving them that many more prisoners, or dead bodies." 
"That's all I want to hear," said Calas. 
The small forward group moved off. They were close enough to see some glimmers 
of light through the trees ahead when Onete stopped them for the second time. 
"About another twenty-five meters,- she told Hal, "and you'll be just outside 
the clearing. They were foolish to put their lights up high that way. It means 
that direct illumination stops, for all practical purposes, at the edge of the 
area cleared. Reflection off ground and tree trunks will throw light farther 
back, but the eyes of those on guard aren't likely to pick up what it 
illuminates. Their sight is going to be adjusted to the brightness of the area 
under the camp lights. It's so stupid to do things that way! Maybe there's a 
trap to it, somewhere?" "I doubt it," said Hal. "I don't think they're really 
expecting us, or anything on the order of a try to rescue the prisoners. Those 
two men awake there, from what Calas tells me about the officers, are probably 
just part of Liu's spit-and-polish attitude. The rule book says post guards in 
situations like this, so he posts guards. " "Do you want your bow-people 
spread around the camp now?" Onete asked. "I can have the foragers position 
them." "Not spread around," said Hal. "Old Man stays with me and I'd like you 
yourself to take the two of us down close to the hutments. Luke and the three 
other bow-people, take them over 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
299 
to where the soldiers are sleeping on the ground. Old Man and I will take out 
the two men on watch duty; and-Luke?" "Right here," said Luke's voice from the 
darkness. "The minute," Hal said, "you and the other bow-armed people see the 
two on guard drop, start shooting into the soldiers in the sleeping, sacks. 
Old Man and I will be going after Liu and the Urk. Meanwhile, Onete, I want 
you to do what I asked you to do up on the ledge. Use that knife you're 
carrying to cut loose Cee and Artur. Then whistle in the other toragers with 
the stretcher to put Artur on it and start carrying him out of here. 
He paused and looked around at them, so that his voice would carry to each. 
"Remember," he said, "what I told you when I briefed you before we left the 
ledge. Once things start happening, eac o 
you ignore everything going on around you and just do what you came here to 
do. This is to free Cee and Artur, get Artur on the stretcher and carried out. 
Onete, it'll be up to you to try to get Cee to understand we're not going to 
hurt him the way the soldiers did. She probably won't trust us at first sight, 
any more 
than she trusted them. 
Onete nodded. " I'l I do exactly that, " she said. " Don't worry about my part 
of it, just concentrate on your own." 
Hal smiled at her, though he knew the smile would be hidden in the darkness; 
but perhaps it would color the tone of his voice enough for her to pick it up. 
"I know you will. And we will." he said. "Let's go now. 
Onete, go around to everyone, pass the word to anyone who didn't hear or 
understand me completely, just now. Then come back and guide Old Man and me to 
our proper positions." 
She did, and a few moments later saw the three of them ghosting like morning 



fog around the outskirts of the camp to the far end where the hutments stood 
and the table at which all the enlisted men had eaten. It was now occupied 
only by the two on duty. These two, deprived of their bottle, were seated at 
one end of the table and had found themselves entertainment in the form of 
some kind of gambling that involved dice. All their attention was on the 
movement of the small, dotted cubes. 
Beyond them and close by, Artur lay silent and motionless 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
under the blanket they had thrown over him. Farther off, Cee still sat 
cross-legged at the foot of her tree. She was wide awake, but her gaze was 
finally off the hutment that held Liu. Instead it was focused as plainly on 
Onete, Hal and Old Man, as if it was broad daylight and she could see them 
clearly, in their movement around the camp. "Can she see us, do you think?" 
Hal whispered as softly as he could and still be heard by Onete. "Hears us, 
more likely," whispered Onete in answer. "It's all right as long as one of 
those two soldiers doesn't take a look at her and get interested in what there 
could be out in the dark here to make her watch it," said Hal. 
They stopped. Onete faced Cee squarely and shook her head deliberately, waving 
one hand past her face and deliberately turning her own gaze away from the 
little girl. 
Whether Cee could not actually see them, or chose to ignore Onete's signal to 
stop watching them, was impossible to tell; but in any case, her gaze remained 
brightly following the three of them. Hal shrugged. They moved on. "This will 
do," he whispered, finally, when they reached a 
point which put them at about the same distance from hutments and the two 
soldiers on watch. "Old Man?" 
Hal had already taken his bow from his back and was stringing it. Out of the 
corner of his eye he saw Old Man doing the same. They each took a shaft from 
the quivers at their belts and a dart from a loop of one of the 
bandoleer-belts that Luke and his helpers had made for them. 
In silence, together, they screwed the darts on to the ends of the arrow 
shafts. Old Man smiled, and-holding bow and arrow with one hand-held up the 
fingers of his other with the thumb and middle finger only a couple of inches 
apart to indicate the very short distance they had to shoot. 
Hal smiled back and nodded. It was true. They were less than six meters from 
the soldiers. Even Calas, probably, could not have missed, at this close 
distance. Hal pointed at the farther soldier, the one across the table from 
them and whose face was toward them. 
Old Man smiled and nodded, aiming at the other man. They shot almost together. 
The soft twang of the bowstrings was loud enough to be heard by the two 
targets. Both men looked up from their gambling, startled, as the dart points 
went 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
301 
home, Hal's in the shoulder muscle of the man he had aimed at, Old Man's in 
the back of the neck of the soldier on his side. 
Both the uniformed men reached with puzzled looks toward the points of 
irritation where the dart needles had entered; but the shafts had already 
dropped off the darts, clattering down and through the slats that made up the 
seats of the benches with which the tables were equipped. Old Man's target 
actually managed to close a couple of fingers weakly on the end of the dart 
which protruded from his neck; but Hal's never managed to touch his, before 
both men were failing backwards off the bench on to the ground. 
Both Hal and Old Man broke off the ends of two more arrow shafts and shot 
another dart into each slumped body, a dart that would inject the atropinelike 
substance Tannaheh had equipped them with. 
Now, for the first time, Hal took a second to look around the clearing. The 
soldiers in the sleeping sacks were still receiving dart-loaded arrows fired 
from the darkness beyond them. In the dazzling light from the overhead 
illumination, he saw Onete, knife in hand, on her way to cut Cee loose from 
the tree to which she had been tied. 
The twang of a bowstring close to his right ear brought his attention abruptly 
back to Old Man. He was in time to see a dart-laden arrow penetrate the wall 
of the hutment in which the sleeping Liu was housed. "I believe that lodged in 
a safe body area," Old Man said, lowering the bow and looking mildly at Hal. 
"I thought you were going to wait until I could go and open one of the door 



flaps, so you could see what you were shooting at," said Hal. "I know you made 
that offer, back up on the ledge," said Old Man, still softly, "but as it 
turned out it wasn't necessary. The still pictures on the scope were good 
enough to show us where his cot stood and how he lay on it-you remember there 
was one that showed him taking a nap with one of the flaps open, so that we 
could see him there in the shadow on the cot?" "You're right," said Hal. He 
looked at the middle hutment. "We saw the inside of the Urk's hutment too, but 
without him on the cot. That's why you didn't put a dart through the wall of 
it into him?" 



302 
Gordon R. Dickson 
"According to my memory, his cot was almost completely surrounded by equipment 
of one kind or another." "I'll take care of it, then." Hal kicked off his 
boots. "I'll open a flap to let you see what you're shooting at; and if 
there's still no way you can get a clean shot at him, wave me on. I'll go in 
and place a dart in him by hand." 
He glanced about, saw Onete busy now with the medical kit and Artur, stepped 
to the door of the middle hutment and pulled back the right-hand one of the 
two flaps that closed its entrance. Within, by the outside light of the 
clearing that was reflected inside through the open flap, it was possible to 
see a body in a sleeping sack on a cot between what looked like a 
temperaturecontrolled food storage box and a cooker. Hal was turning to check 
with Old Man when the soft twang of a bowstring was accompanied almost 
simultaneously by the passage of an arrow by him. It lodged its needle in what 
looked like the upper body of the form in the sack. 
The body lifted its head and shoulders as if to begin to get up; then fell 
back and was still. "Here," said Old Man. 
Hal turned to see the other beside him, the bow in one hand and the other 
holding Hal's boots, the top rims clutched together. Hal took the boots and 
put them on, as Old Man went forward, picked up the fallen shaft of the arrow, 
broke off its end and made the second injection into the drugged sleeper on 
the cot. "Indeed, it's the one Calas called the Urk," he said. The hand that 
was not carrying his bow now held the power pistol the Urk had worn earlier. 
"This was in its holster; on a belt with the rest of his clothes, on a chair 
beside the cot." , ,Thanks," said Hal, "you don't want to keep it yourseIP" 
"It's a machine for killing-nothing more," said Old Man. "I've never killed, 
human or animal, and never will. These drugged darts are permissible." 
Hal nodded and tucked the pistol into the waistband of his trousers. 
He led the way back outside to the clearing. There, the other bow-people were 
injecting the follow-up, atropinelike drug, mostly by hand, as they bent over 
the still forms in the sleeping sacks. Hal shook his head and smiled a little. 
For once, to 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
303 
confound practice as opposed to theory, a tactical plan had worked out as it 
had been planned. 
Hal turned to the darkness of the forest and whistled. The sound went out into 
obscurity, and another whistle distantly responded. 
A few moments later, Calas and the other Guild members they had left a hundred 
meters back ran into the clearing, carrying the various parts of the stretcher 
that had been part of their responsibility. As Hal watched they began to fit 
it together and prepare Artur, now unconscious from a drug in the medical kit 
but otherwise still alive, to be lifted on to it and secured there for 
carrying. 
The sight reminded Hal of Cee. He looked back toward the tree to which she had 
been tied and did not see her, only Onete, hastening toward him. He went to 
meet her. "Where's Cee?" he asked. "I don't know. I don't have any idea," 
answered Onete. She sounded distressed. "She can move so fast . . . I cut her 
loose and had her with me, coming to join all the rest of us, here; and 
something must have made me look away for a moment, because all at once she 
was gone. Maybe she ran off into the forest." "Is that likely')" Hal said. 
"With Artur still with us'?" "But I don't know where else she would go-Hal 
did not hear the rest of what Onete said, because his ear was suddenly 
caught by a faint, but undeniable noise, a wheep., wheep! sound. He started at 
a dead run in the direction from which the sound had come, which was either 
right beside or in Liu's hutment. The image of the two dead soldiers they had 
unearthed was starkly in his mind, @uddenly connecting itself With a memory of 
the two he had seen fall on the screen as the Soldiers rushed Cee to capture 
her. He reached the hut and burst through the flaps; but he was too late. 



Cee, holding one of Liu's socks in either hand, each sock with a heavy-looking 
lump in its toe, ducked under his arm and was out the flaps before he could 
turn around. 
He did not wait to examine what he knew would be the corpse of Liu Hu Shen, 
but ran after Cee, almost catching her as she went in between the open flaps 
of the Urk's tent and actually catching her, a moment later, as she stood just 
inside the entrance swinging in her right hand a weighted sock that gave 



304 
Gordon R. Dickson 
forth the same sort of noise that had attracted his attention a moment before. 
He grabbed her from behind, wrapping his arms around both of her arms, pinning 
them to her body and lifting her clear of the ground. 
She fought back fiercely, in utter silence and with incredible strength for 
one so young. She kicked back and up with her heels; but he had anticipated 
this, spreading his legs and holding her closely against him, so that those 
same heels, rock-hard after years of running unshod on all kinds of surfaces, 
could not reach his rom. 
She tried to swing the weighted end of the sock up to smash his face or hit 
his head; but his grip was around her elbows and she did not have the freedom 
of movement and strength to rotate the heavy end through the air and upward to 
its point of aim. Meanwhile, continuously, she struggled to twist and turn in 
his arms, to win enough freedom from his grasp so that she could twist loose 
and escape. 
But, fighting as best she could, she was a youngster pitting the strength of 
her small body against the large and powerful adult one. Hal held her fast and 
backed with her out of the hutment. "Onete! Old Man!" he shouted. 
He heard the sound of two pairs of running feet, but it was Old Man who first 
stepped around from behind him to face them. He twitched the weighted sock so 
suddenly from Cee's grasp that her fingers failed to hold their grip on it, 
and tossed it aside. Her gaze noted where it fell and returned instantly to 
glarc at him. "Child, child," he said sorrowfully to her, "don't you kno" that 
nothing is ever settled, nothing is ever gained, by killing?" 
She stared back at him with savage, unrepentant eyes. "Take her," Hal told 
him. "Hold her." Onete had now joined them and was talking rapidly and 
soothingly to Cee, who ignored the woman completely. "Old Man can hold her," 
Hal said to Onete. "You try and make her understand that we're here to rescue 
her uncle and take him to someplace where he'll be safe; but her killing Liu 
just now- "She killed the officer!" Onete said. "I'm afraid so. I should have 
realized she might." 
Onete stooped and picked up the officer's sock Cee had 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
305 
dropped, held it upside down and shook it. A short, heavy energy pack for a 
power pistol dropped out of the end of it. "She must have got them from Liu's 
uniform belt, " Hal said, -and thrown sock and pack together, the way she'd 
send a rock from her sling. Those two dead in the forest will have been her 
doing. The two we saw on the screen, who fell when they rushed in to catch 
her. But never mind that now." "What are we to do with her?" Onete said, 
distressed. "As I say, Old Man can hold her. It'll be up to you to make her 
understand that we're here to rescue her uncle; but she's already made a 
problem for us by killing Liu. If she kills anyone else, we may not be able to 
cover it up and send the soldiers away believing things that'll keep them from 
coming back. If they don't believe and do come back, they'll find and kill us 
all, including her uncle, after all." 
Onete nodded. "I'll try," she said. "Don't just try. She's got to understand 
and go along with us. You've got to get through to her, somehow. She's got to 
understand that we have to take Artur back up to the Chantry Guild to fix what 
the soldiers did to him; and she's got to help us 
do that, not hinder!" "All right," said Onete. "Take her, Old Man," said Hal, 
"but be careful. Loosen up for a second and she'l I get away; and we'l I never 
catch her. " 
With her weapon taken from her, Cee had stopped struggling in Hal's arrns; but 
he was very sure she would explode into action the moment she felt any 
loosening of the grip upon her. He waited for Old Man to take the child into 
his own arms; but instead the other merely reached up and began to stroke the 
back of Cee's neck, meanwhile crooning to her, a wordless melody that 
consisted of the same series of musical phrases repeated over and over again. 



"Artur told me about that," Onete murmured to Hal. "It was 
one of the things Cee's mother used to hum when Cee was a baby and even after, 
to put her to sleep. Artur thought he could use it to make Cee trust him; but 
maybe he just didn't hum it right. Old Man must have learned it from him." 
Hal nodded. The neck-stroking, he knew, was one of the Physical aids to 
hypnosis. 
In any case, he felt the tension gradually going from the 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
small, tight body he held, growing less and less until eventually Cee hung 
almost limply in his arms. 
Old Man stopped his crooning. "I think you can let her go now," he said to 
Hal. He took one of Cee's small, hard and dirty hands in his own. "Come with 
me," he said to the girl. 
He led her off. Onete followed. Hal turned back with a feeling of relief, 
mixed with urgency, to the matter of taking care of the soldiers, on whom the 
drug would act for only a limited amount of time. 
The first thing to be done was to get the Urk up, and bring him out under 
hypnosis to ostensibly explain things to equally drugged and to-be-hypnotized 
soldiers. Hal's original story that he had planned they would carry back to 
their headquarters was to have been given them by Liu; and would have simply 
told them that both Artur and Cee had died under torture-the last stage of 
which would have been supposed to have taken place privately at the hands of 
Liu himself in one of the hutments; that the two had thereafter been buried 
and, since Liu had learned enough from them before they died to be certain 
there were no other people around in this area of the forest, they would all 
be returning to headquarters. 
Now, his story must not only be given by the Urk, which weakened it, the Urk 
being no more than a noncommissioned officer; also it must explain Liu's 
death, which would raise a great many more questions than if Liu, himself, had 
returned with only two soldiers lost. Particularly when the loss could be 
blamed on the great strength of the adult they had captured. And it would be 
Liu's word that there was nothing more to be found up here. 
In time, of course, that hypnotic memory would wear thin; and some memory of 
what had actually happened to each of them here tonight would have surfaced @n 
the minds of all of' them, officers and men. But by that time, the subject 
would have been closed and filed away some time since, and none of them. even 
Liu, would have any good reason to make extra work and trouble for himself by 
digging back into the records and looking for the truth of what had actually 
happened. 
Hal stepped into the Urk's hut, still wrapped in thought. It was not until he 
actually opened the top flap of the Urk's sleeping sack and put his hand on 
the man's throat to both rouse 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
307 
him and begin the process of hypnosis, that the coolness of the flesh he was 
touching brought his attention back to what was before him. 
The coolness was very slight, because of the shortness of time that had passed 
since they had reached the camp. But it was noticeable enough now to alert 
Hal; and now that he looked closely at the man under his hand, he saw that the 
Urk was also dead. Almost as immediately as he registered the fact of death 
and his eyes found what had killed the man, his memory clicked back with 
something he should have remembered, but had not until this moment. 
When Cee had dodged under his arm and out of Liu's hutment before he could 
catch her, she had been swinging two of the officer's weighted socks. There 
had been one in each hand. This, in spite of the fact that Liu had died of a 
crushed throat like the two dead soldiers they had disinterred on the way 
here. Since Liu presumably had been wearing only one sock on each foot, and 
had taken those off for the night, she had been able to turn them into weapons 
after she had stolen silently into his hutment. She would have loaded them 
with energy packs from the carrying loops in the man's belt. Then she must 
have thrown, and picked up again, the one she had used to kill the 
force-leader. 
But when Hal had burst into the Urk's hut and wrapped his arms around her as 
she was just about to throw, she had been carrying only one of the socks with 
which she had left Liu's sleeping place. Somehow she must have gotten off one 
throw before Hal had caught her; and since it had been a hurried shot at the 



target, she must have been about to follow it up with a 
second cast when Hal had seized her. 
There was an ordinary battlelamp on the chair holding the Urk's clothes. Hal 
turned it up and in the wash of reddish light that spread over the form on the 
cot the face stood out clearly. The right temple was plainly indented. The Urk 
must have died instantly from the first energy-pack loaded sock; but Cee, who 
had most probably been aiming at his throat as she had in all the previous 
cases, must in the dimness of light reflected from the outside of the hutment, 
have realized only that she had missed her target. So she had tried, but 
failed, to get her second weighted sock thrown before Hal had stopped her. 
He stood, head slightly bent under the low roof of the 



308 
Gordon R. Dickson 
hut ent, which had been tall enough for people like the Urk and Liu but was 
not for him. Now, the situation was even more co@plicated. 
Briefly, what he would now need to hypnotize the soldiers into believing, must 
be an ever greater distortion of what had actually taken place here in the 
forest. 
He turned, went out of the hutment, and across to the group that was now 
strapping Artur securely onto his stretcher. A little off to one side, the 
drugged soldiers sat or lay still, watched by the other four bowmen; and a 
little beyond these were Cee, Onete and Old Man. Old Man's hand still rested 
on the back of Cee's neck. But it lay there with an appearance more like that 
of a comforting gesture, than a calming one. Onete's lips were moving steadily 
as she spoke to Cee; who in her turn was utterly unmoving and unanswering, but 
listened to the grown woman as if fascinated. 
Hal reached the group by the stretcher. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I'm going 
to have to make use of Artur before you carry him away. If he's ready to be 
moved, follow me. I want to bring him into the hutment on the far right where 
the officer in command was sleeping. Calas?" "Right here," answered Calas, 
emerging from the crowd. "Come along," said Hal. "I want to talk to you as we 
go. After Liu and the Urk, who'd be in charge of these soldiers?" "Who? 
Probably him," said Calas as they walked toward the hutment. He pointed to a 
square-bodied, middle-aged man with thin, tousled hair on a round head, 
sitting beside his sleeping sack and staring at nothing. "He's a supply 
corporal; and theoretically he wouldn't command force-soldiery. But he's the 
senior in rank; and besides, he's one of the headquarters clique, one of the 
bunch that runs things and you keep in good with, if you know what's good for 
you. His name's Harvey. He'd take command here if Liu or the Urk couldn't. 
He'd like doing that-but it's not likely-" 
He stared at Hal abruptly. "Or is it?" "Yes," said Hal bluntly. "They're both 
dead." "Dead?" Calas stopped in his tracks, then had to run to catch up with 
Hal, who had not paused. "Cee got to them," Hal said. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
309 
"She did?" Calas broke into a smile. "How?" The stretcher bearers, also close 
enough to hear this, turned their heads at Hal's blunt statement. But he did 
not answer. They continued to stare, to the point where they almost missed the 
entrance to the hutment at which they were aiming, before finally carrying the 
stretcher through it. "So, as a result, we've got a problem on our hands," Hal 
went on. They were now inside the hutment that had been Liu's. Hal stood aside 
to let the bearers set down on the floor the still unconscious Artur. "Take 
him off the stretcher," Hal directed them. "I want him laid, face down, 
sprawled out on the floor as if he'd fallen trying to reach Liu on his cot. 
When you're done with that, go to the hutment next door, dress the body of the 
Urk in his uniform, sidearm and all-find the power pistol-and carry him in 
here on the stretcher. " "Calas," said Hal, as soon as they had gone out, "how 
well could you imitate Liu's voice? I don't mean you'd have to be good enough 
to foot anyone under ordinary conditions, close up; but I need a shout or two, 
supposedly from him, to back up what I'm going to hypnotize the rest of the 
soldiers into believing. Did Liu have some particular way of speaking that was 
his alone? Everyone does; and most soldiers can imitate their officers' 
mannerisms." "He had a high voice and a snappy, snotty way of talking," said 
Calas. "I think I could come up with something like it, if I'm to be yelling 
from inside the hutment here, where they can't see me and the hutment'll 
probably mess up the way his voice'd sound, some. " "Good," said Hal, '. what 
I want you to yel I is an order from Liu to the Urk to shoot. The idea will be 
that Artur's somehow gotten loose in here." "Good," said Calas. "I can do that 
standing on my head. Anyway, I like the idea of Artur getting loose in here 
with the two of them. Or, I would if Artur would have actually done anything 
to them, even if he did get free." 



CHAPTE R 
29 
"Good," said Hal, in his turn. He moved to the cot and began propping Liu's 
head up on the pillow beneath it, so that his throat was visible. The body was 
beginning to cool further, but still had not stiffened. He took the officer's 
pistol belt from its perch over the back of the bedside chair that held the 
rest of the man's clothes, and laid it on the seat of the chair, so that the 
power pistol in its holster was lyin.@, flat, with the pistol butt next to the 
bed. 
He stretched out the man's arm and curled the dead fingers around the butt of 
the weapon, half drawing it from its holster. He chuckled, with a rueful edge 
to the chuckle. "What's the joke, Friend?" Calas's voice asked behind him 
"Only," said Hal-turning to face the former soldier--the fact I'd just been 
thinking earlier that our plans for all this had gone off perfectly this time, 
exactly as we made them, up on the ledge. That was before I found Liu and the 
Urk had been killed-and everything had to be changed." "You've got a different 
idea now?" asked Calas. 
There was no doubt in the smaller man's voice. Clearly, he had complete 
confidence that whatever might have come up, Hal could adjust their plans to 
take care of it. "I had it in mind to arrange things so that the two of them 
would take their troops home. Their report would be that both Artur and Cee 
had died under questioning. But that it was pretty 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
311 
clear from what they said that there was no one else living up here. They 
would have reported that they'd buried the bodies, the way they buried the 
soldiers that Artur'd have been blamed for killing earlier, then simply gave 
up and went back to the ga7ison. " 
And now?" prompted Calas. The stretcher bearers came in with the dressed and 
armed body of the Urk. "Put him down just inside the entrance flap to the 
left," Hal told them. "As I was just telling Calas, we've had to change plans. 
Now when I hypnotize those soldiers out there I'm going to have to convince 
them that everybody killed everybody else. A taller story by quite a bit. Two 
dead soldiers, even a dead underofficer's one thing. A dead commissioned 
officer's something 
else-at least as far as paperwork is concerned. Their headquarters is 
going to be grilling these soldiers for details -that's right; take the Urk 
off the stretcher and pull him up so 
he's not quite alongside Artur. Now turn him nearly all the way over on his 
face, so that you can't see the front part of his body. " 
They did as he said. "All right," said Hal, when they were finished. "Now, 
roll the stretcher up around its poles and lay it along the wall of the 
hutment, behind the cot, so it can't be seen. In a moment I want the rest of 
you to go out and join the others guarding the soldiers. Send someone to me at 
once if any of them show signs Of coming out of their drugged state." 
He knelt beside the unconscious form of Artur. "Oh. Also-,- he said, raising 
his head to look back over his shoulder at the stretcher bearers, "one of you 
go out and get me a length of the rope they had him tied up with. About a 
meter's length'I I do." 
The bearers looked at each other, and the one nearest the door went out. When 
he came back with the rope, Hal took it, tied Artur's hands gently together 
behind his back with one end of the rope. "Anyone got a knife?" he asked, 
still kneeling beside Artur. 
Calas and one of the stretcher bearers were the only ones with such items, Hal 
opened each of them in turn and tried the edge of the blade on his thumb. He 
chose Calas's. With it, he made various cuts all around the rope in an 
irregular circle, severing 



312 
Gordon R. Dickson 
only the top strands. He pulled these cuts apart and cut deeper, pulling on 
the rope as he did so, so that when at last it parted, it showed a ragged end. 
"There," he said, winding the rest of the rope around the central pole that 
upheld the hutment and had been mechanically driven deep into the packed earth 
under it. He left protruding about as much rope as would make one turn around 
the pole, with the ragged-looking end projecting into the air. "There," he 
said. "That should look more like someone broke the rope with sheer strength, 
rather than its being cut. I think, under hypnosis, I can make them believe 
someone as big as Artur could do that." "He probably could have," said Calas, 
accepting his knife back. 
Hal shook his head. "Have someone tie you with your hands behind you using 
ordinary string, sometime; and see if you can break it to get loose," he said. 
"if you've a length of it between you and what you Ire tied to, so you can 
snap the cord with a sudden jerk, you might be able to break it. If there's no 
play in it, I think you'll probably find you can't break even that. But it 
doesn't matter. I think under hypnotic suggestion we can make the soldiers 
believe Artur did it with this rope." 
He stood up. "Now," he said, "everybody out, except for Calas and one of you. 
Calas can use whoever stays with him as a messenger, if he needs to send me 
word of something. Come on." 
He led them back out into the night and the bright overhead lights of the 
camp. A slow, damp breeze-a herald of dawn -had begun to blow. They had 
probably less than an hour before they would be able to see each other's faces 
without the artificial lights. 
The prisoners were still either sitting or lying motionless, still under the 
effect of the drugged arrows. "Set them up," Hal told the Guild members. 
"Including the two who were on watch and sitting at the table. Add those two 
to the back line of the others. I want them all sitting up with their backs to 
the hutments. " 
The Chantry Guild people went about setting up the resistless soldiers. Most 
of those they handled stayed put in an upright 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
313 
position, once placed in it, with their legs crossed. A few were overweight 
enough or tight-jointed enough that they needed support to hold that position. 
In such cases, a Guild member sat down with his or her back against the 
soldier who could not balance himself. 
Meanwhile, Hal had been going down the line of men. There were two lines, 
since that was the way the sleeping sacks had been laid out on the ground. He 
squatted in front of each one in turn and spoke to the relaxed, apparently 
unhearing, man before him for a few minutes until he evoked an answer to the 
question "Do you hear me?" 
At a "yes," he moved on to the next one in line. It took him nearly half an 
hour to get all of them to answer him. When, however, he had gotten a response 
from the last one in the front line, he turned to the closest Chantry Guild 
member; a slim, almost fragile-looking girl of eighteen, with a sudden 
dazzling smile that came without warning and invariably seemed to change her 
completely. Her name was Kady and she was one of Onete's picked group of 
expert night foragers. "I'd like you to go to Calas now, in the hutment over 
there," Hal said to her. Her smile flashed in agreement. "Tell him that when 
you pass the signal to him, he's to call out in his best imitation of Liu's 
voice. What he's supposed to shout is "Shoot, Urk! Now! Shoot him!" 
Hal repeated the words to be shouted, slowly. "Now," he said to Kady, "you 
repeat them back to me." "Shoot, Urk!" said Kady, in a thin, clear voice. 
"Now! Shoot him!' "Good,': said Hal. "You make Calas repeat it back to you, 
that same way, to make sure he's got it correctly. Then step outside and keep 
your eyes on me. When I wave, you stick your head back inside and tell him to 
shout. You've got all that?" "When I see you wave at me I make Calas repeat 



'Shoot, Urk! Now! Shoot him!"' said Kady. "Then, what do we do?" "I'll take 
care of the rest of it," said Hal. "You two leave the hutment and back off. 
Repeat that for me." "Calas and I leave the hutment after he shouts and we 
leave the rest to you," she said. "Right," Hal replied, "you're perfect." 
She smiled again, and went toward the hutment. Hal himself 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
turned back and walked around to face the two lines of seated soldiers, who 
now all sat facing the still dark jungle beyond the clearing lights. 
His eyes picked out the man named Harvey, who was one of those able to sit 
upright, cross-legged, without any support at his back. He had a strong-boned 
face, softened by fat, and the bulge of his stomach was enough to reach 
between his crooked legs almost to the ground in front of him, leaning forward 
as he was; and probably helped counterbalance any tendency he had to fall 
backward. He would have looked pleasant and ineffective if it had not been for 
the hardness of feature under his facial fat. 
On Hal's first pass along the seated lines, asking the individual soldiers if 
they could hear him, Harvey had been the single individual to whom Hal had 
said anything more. He had suggested then that Harvey might have to take on a 
position of decision for all the rest. With the others, he had merely made 
sure that he had fixed their attention hypnotically upon him and upon what he 
was going to tell them. "Listen to me, all of you, now," he said, raising his 
voice. "You've all been asleep until just now," 
He paused to remember something. He had asked the two men who had been on 
watch duty what their names were, and for a moment he had misplaced those 
names among the thousands of others tucked into his memory. "All of you have 
been asleep," he went on, almost immediately, "even Bill Jarvis and Stocky 
Weems, who were on watch. That drink they had earlier tonight must have gotten 
to them. In any case, you were all asleep until just now. Isn't that right? 
Answer-yes! " "Yes," muttered the two lines of men. "You knew when you went to 
sleep that your force-leader, Liu, and the Urk were still at work in Liu's 
hutment questioning both the little girl and the big man you all took 
prisoncr," Hal went on. "But you paid no attention to that until just now, 
when something woke you all. What woke you?" 
He waited for a long moment of silence. "I'll tell you what woke you," he 
said. "You heard a yell from the Urk, as if he was hurt or frightened. You 
don't remember what he said, but you do remember what you heard after that 
yell had woken you. You all remember that, don't you? Say 'yes' if you 
remember." 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
315 
"Yes," said the seated men, again. "That's right," said Hal. "From that moment 
on, you all remember everything, just as it happened, or as it was told to 
you. That's so, isn't it? Say 'yes,' if you remember." "Yes. " "You won't 
remember me or any of these other unfamiliar men and women you've seen here 
tonight. You'll forget that anyone was here but your own fellow soldiers and 
officers. Say 'yes.' " "Yes," intoned the soldiers like a ragged, impromptu 
choir. 
Hal walked forward among them until he stood before Harvey, in the second 
rank. He turned to the man on Harvey's right. "You can't see me, or hear what 
I say to Harvey. You won't remember me at all, either from earlier or now. Say 
'yes., "Yes," said the soldier. 
Hal turned to the man on Harvey's left, repeated his words and got another 
"yes" for answer. Hal turned his attention back to Harvey, squatting down so 
that he was almost face to face with the fat man wearing the corporal's tabs 
on the gray collar of his uniform. He spoke to Harvey, using a voice pitched 
so low that the two soldiers on either side would have had trouble hearing him 
even if they had been listening. "Harvey," Hal said, "you hear me, don't you?" 
"Yes," answered Harvey. "You won't remember about this conversation, any more 
than you'll remember seeing me or anyone but your own people and the two 
prisoners," said Hal. "You'll do this because I tell you to, but also because 
it'll be in your own best interests to forget. If you forget you'll get all 
the credit for getting these soldiers back to headquarters, yourself." 
Harvey smiled, but the expression of the rest of his face did not change. "In 
just a minute or two," Hal said quietly, "something is going to happen. None 



of the rest of the soldiers out here know it's going to happen; but you've 
been expecting some trouble of this kind to crop up from the moment you saw 
Liu and the Urk planned to question that very large, strong man, all by 
themselves, in one of the hutments, without a couple of the armed soldiers 
standing guard. You knew he was dangerous because he killed two men with his 
bare hands while he was being captured. 



316 
Gordon R. Dickson 
But of course, it wasn't your place to say anything to the Urk or the 
force-leader, so you didn't. But that's why you've been ready to take charge 
of things if some kind of trouble does crop up. Isn't that right?" 
1, Yes. I I 
Hal paused. "That's why, not like the rest, you've been sleeping lightly; and 
so you woke up the first moment you heard anything out of the ordinary. Now, 
you're just about to hear it. I'll leave you for a moment, and then I'll be 
back beside you when you hear it, to tell you what to do; and I'll stay beside 
you until everything's under control. Understood?" "Understood," said Harvey. 
Hal got to his feet and moved swiftly and silently to Liu's hutment. He 
stepped inside to meet the inquiring gazes of Calas, Kady and the one Guild 
member who had stayed with Calas as a messenger. "All set," he said to Calas. 
"Now, when Kady passes you the signal you've got two things to do. One is 
shout what Kady told you to shout. The other is to take the power pistol from 
the Urk's holster, and use it to blow the throat out of Liu. Can you do that, 
or have you got some hesitations about shooting a corpse?" " I wouldn't shoot 
I ive people today-I hope, " said Calas. " I felt like killing Liu after what 
he'd ordered them to do to Artur. But I don't think maybe I'd kill, anymore, 
except someone like him, now I'm a Chantry member. It's not going to bother 
me, though, to blow the dead bastard's throat out. I suppose you want to hide 
the fact of how he was killed?" "That's right," said Hal. "If you hadn't 
wanted to be the one who used the power pistol, I'd have to, and I'd do the 
shout and the shot from here, before I go back to the soldiers. After you're 
done put the pistol into the Urk's hand." 
-@ight,- said Calas. "Good," said Hal. He turned to Kady. "Come with me and 
stand just outside the door, so you can see me. I'll be waving soon after I 
get back to one particular soldier. When I do, you tell Calas, and run away 
from the hutments-fast. Orban, you come away now and get out of sight with the 
rest of the Guild members. " 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
317 
. Orban was a slight man in his forties with very light-colored blond hair 
flat on his skull. He nodded. 
Hal left the hutment, went back to the soldiers, and squatted down once more 
in front of Harvey. He looked about. All Guild members, as instructed earlier, 
were out of the line of sight of the hypnotized soldiers. "Whatever happens, " 
he said, looking back at Harvey, "it'll be up to you to lead all the rest of 
the men out of here and back to headquarters. You've got rank on everybody 
else; and the others'll follow you. All you have to do is take charge. I'll be 
right beside you all the time until you leave here, even though you won't 
remember that afterward, and the rest won't see or 
hear me when I talk to you." 
He paused. Harvey watched him, listening with an attention that was so 
profound it was almost innocent. "Now, in a moment, what woke you all up is 
going to go on with more noise and trouble," Hal said. "You'll need to take 
charge of things at once, Order all the rest of them to stay put here while 
you go and investigate. Remind them you're the one 
in command, Corporal." 
He watched Harvey's eyes closely on the last word, but they did not change. 
The ranks of groupman, force-leader, and team-leader, which Cletus Grahame had 
proposed in his massive 
work on tactics and strategy, had come into being as the jealously 
guarded property of the actual fighting troops. The older ranks of corporal, 
sergeant, warrant officer and lieutenant had been kept only for those in 
support positions. Some who bore the older ranks were ashamed of them; some 
secretly pleased by the special access to privileges that went along with 
them. Harvey, it seemed, was one of the latter. 
Nonetheless, most noncommissioned officers in his position secretly yearned 



for the authority to directly order and command combat troops. What Hal was 
suggesting hypnotically to Harvey now would give him not only that, but the 
approval of his superiors back at headquarters, when he took control of a 
situation in which his officers were dead. 
Some men in his position might have found the prospect either forbidding or 
unpleasant. Harvey, however, gave no sign that this was the case with him. 
Hal stood up. 



318 
Gotdon R. Dickson 
"Now," he said to all the soldiers, "lie down. Sleep." They all, including 
Harvey, obeyed. Hal turned to face the hutment that had been Liu's and the 
slim figure of Kady standing just outside the entrance flaps. He lifted his 
arm over his head and waved it back and forth, slowly, twice. He saw her arm 
go up to wave back and she turned to speak in through the flaps. 
Turning back, she went off at a run toward one side of the hutments, where at 
the edge of the darkness, Onete stood with Cee. The girl had wrapped around 
herself another vine having a split-open pod, and the pod sagged down, heavy 
once more with what were probably more rocks of a size to fit the girl's 
closed fist. Her eyes were steady on the hutment in which were not only the 
dead Liu and Urk, but the still living Artur. 
A shout, almost high-pitched enough to be called a scream, came from the 
structure, with the words Hal had directed Kady to pass on to Calas. They were 
followed almost immediately by the coughing roar of the power pistol, and 
almost as quickly after that, the figure of Calas slipped out through the 
flaps and headed off in the direction Kady and Orban had taken. 
Hal clapped his hands together loudly. "Sit up!" he shouted. "All of You men! 
Listen! What's happening? What's going on in there?" 
They were sitting up, most of them looking around, bewildered. 
Hal leaned down swiftly and spoke in the ear of Harvey, who was also now 
sitting up, but looking toward Liu's hutment. "Now!" Hal said softly. "Now, 
you take control of them, or it'll he too late. Tell them to stay where they 
are. You'll look into it!" "Hold it! Stay put!" shouted Harvey, scrambling to 
his feet. "That's an order-from me! I'll find out what's happening." 
A few of the soldiers who had already fumblingly started to rise, sat back 
down. Still groggy from the remainder of the drugs still in their bloodstream, 
but released from the deeper stages of hypnosis by the clapping of Hal's 
hands, they swore and muttered to each other, staring at the hutment-but they 
stayed put. 
Harvey stumbled toward the hutment. His cross-legged position had evidently 
cut off the circulation of blood to his legs; and 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
319 
they were just now reawakening to normal flow. He was walking more normally by 
the time he reached the flaps of the hutment. "Corporal Magson, sir. May I 
come in?" he called, and waited. When after a moment, there was no answer, he 
pushed his way inside, closely followed by Hal. 
Under the silent interior lights of the hutment, the bodies of the obviously 
dead Urk and Liu Hu Shen and the unconscious figure of Artur lay still. 
.-They're all dead," said Hal quickly, standing behind the corporal. He spoke 
in a low voice, directly into Harvey's ear, as the fat man stopped, checked by 
the sight before him. "You can see what's happened. The prisoner must have 
been strong enough to break loose and start for the force-leader. Liu must 
have reached for his pistol, but since he'd been watching from his bed and the 
sidearm was in its holster on the chair beside the bed, he must have seen he 
couldn't get to it in time. So he shouted-we all heard him, just now-for the 
Urk to shoot. And the Urk must have-but not fast enough to save his own life. 
Look at that, his head's all crushed in. That big man must have been as strong 
as a giant! But the Urk did manage to kill him with that one shot." "Yes . . . 
" said Harvey, still staring, still under the influence of the hypnosis to the 
point where he heard Hal's words as if they were his own thoughts. "And when 
the Urk shot the big man," Hal went on in a soft, persuasive voice, "the 
charge went right through him and killed the force-leader, too. They're all 
dead." "Yes, that's it," said Harvey. "You'll really have to take charge now," 
said Hal. "They'll think a lot of you at headquarters for handling this 
properly. You'll want to bring the officers' bodies back for burial, of 
course; but you can have some of the men scrape a hole and rol I the body of 
the big man in it, next to where they buried the child, after she died from 



the questioning. As Liu himself said just an hour ago-remember? Liu said that 
there was pretty surely no one else up here to find; or either the child or 
the man would have talked by this time. But he said, remember, they might as 
well make sure by working on the man until he died?" "Yes," said Harvey, "yes, 
I remember just how it was." 
Hal paused. "Actually, you know," he said in a lower, more confidential 



320 
Gordon R. Dickson 
tone in Harvey's ear, "those two just wanted an excuse to have their fun with 
what they had left." "Right. They would," muttered Harvey. ,'Now, the first 
thing," Hal went on, "is to get a couple of the soldiers you can trust to 
remember what you say and do what you want. Get them in here with you to see 
what's happened, and then they can take the big man out and bury him. Also, 
you better record some pictures of how things were, here, while you're at it, 
to show back at headquarters." "Now!" he said, clapping his hands softly 
together behind Harvey's right ear. "Remember. None of you've seen anyone but 
the big man and the girl. Now, get things moving!" 
Harvey started, turned, and went out of the hutment. Hal followed. The fat man 
walked slowly back to the seated soldiers, an went around to stand in front of 
them. " All right, listen to me now . . . " he began . . . and paused. Hal 
whispered in his ear and he spoke up again. "We've had a blowup. Both the 
Force and the Group are dead. That leaves me in command; so all of you snap to 
and do what I tell you! We've got to bury that prisoner, strike camp, and get 
the officers' bodies back to headquarters, right away. Ranj, Wilson and Morui, 
you three come with me. Bring a recorder. I want you for witnesses and to make 
some recordings of what's happened inside the Force's hutment. The rest of you 
get busy striking camp and making ready to move out. Come on, come on now! 
Move!" 
Time was also moving, Hal noted. Dawn was very close. Both moons were long 
down; and the utter blackness just before day, at the ground level, denied the 
lightening of the sky beyond the lamps of the camp, when he looked straight 
up. 
Back on the ledge, Hal had warned the Guild people to start getting back out 
of sight the moment he first clapped his hands, to begin the process of 
bringing the soldiers partially out of their hypnosis. They had faithfully 
faded back beyond the lights into the jungle dark; and, as the morning 
lightened further, they would move farther and farther off, until even under 
daylight, the forest itself would hide them from the view of anyone in the 
camp. 
In the meantime Hal, continuing to remind the three soldiers Harvey had chosen 
and any others he dealt with, that he was not there as far as their 
perceptions were concerned, had supervised 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
321 
the picture-taking of the interior of Liu,s hutment. Then, at his prompting, 
Harvey had picked up entrenching tools and taken the same men out into the 
darkness with a single handlight, to dig a grave for the supposedly dead 
Artur. While they were involved in this task, he had the Guild bearers carry 
Artur, once more on the stretcher, with the straps securing him in place, to 
the edge of the excavation. The soldiers, digging and swearing at the hand 
labor, paid no attention to the bringers of the body they were to dispose of, 
and, having set Artur down, the Guild people melted back out of sight into the 
darkness. 
Harvey had been supervising the grave-digging under Hal's instructions. When 
the diggers had gone deep enough into the soft forest floor, half mold, half 
earth, Hal had Harvey call them out for a break in their labors and take them 
aside. There, by the limited light of the single source of illumination they 
had brought with them, he brought them momentarily back into a more profound 
state of hypnosis, and gave them a false memory of having tumbled Artur 
themselves from the graveside into the grave; then begun to cover him up, 
before Harvey had called them out for a rest. Then he signaled the stretcher 
bearers to start back to the ledge with Artur. 
As soon as they had faded into the darkness with their load, at Hal's 
prompting, Harvey sent the grave-diggers back to finish shoveling into the 
open excavation all that they had taken out. They did so; and Harvey took them 
back to camp. By now, all of the hutments and erected lights were down and 



packed, ready to move; and most of the soldiers themselves were in full kit, 
with their weapons, and ready to move out as well At 
the edge of the camp, Hal left the soldiery to complete the job of 
returning to their headquarters under Harvey's command He 
had little doubt that from this point on, military habit would take them 
back there without further prompting. The hypnotic command he had given them 
would eventually wear off; but their memories of what had actually happened 
would remain confused, and there would be nothing for any of them to gain 
later by changing their version of what had happened, as they would have 
originally given it to their superiors. 
He dropped into a lope over the now clearly visible ground, to catch up with 
the party from the Guild, who by this time would be halfway back to the 
entrance of the trail up the mountainside. 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
The day was rapidly brightening around him and his steady jog felt good. The 
ledge was small enough, and he had been deeply enough immersed in his other 
concerns, so that he had not deliberately walked, let alone covered ground at 
a run except for that one day, since he had left his exercise room at the 
Final Encyclopedia. 
He was reminded again of what he had thought during that last run, a few days 
ago-even his running treadmill at the Final Encyclopedia, surrounded with the 
images and scents of an imaginary outdoors, had not been like this. This was 
real; and it brought back old memories of his runs through the forest near the 
estate in the Rocky Mountains where he had spent his second childhood; before 
the coming of the Others had sent him scuttling for a hiding place on the 
Younger Worlds. 
For a moment, the image of the young gunmen with their long, slim-barreled 
void pistols, and Bleys Ahrens, as they had suddenly appeared at the estate, 
came back to him. Particularly Bleys, slimmer then than he was now-wherever on 
the Younger Worlds he might be at this moment, eleven years later. Slimmer, 
and seeming much taller; both because then, in that first sight, Hal had not 
himself reached his full adult height, which was to be the equal of Bleys'; 
and because of the last ten years of slight but noticeable aging and 
thickening of the other man's body. 
A cold feeling like a breath of some stray breeze seemed to pass through him. 
He had let Amanda bring him here to Kultis and the Chantry Guild with no real 
faith that here he might be helped to find the Creative Universe. The impasse 
keeping him from that goal these last two years had been like some great, 
impossibly wide, impossibly thick wall of glass, holding him out. But now, 
over the past few weeks, he had come out of the despondency that his failure 
had built in him. Hope had stirred in him once again-but with hope, now, also 
came fear. 
Time was passing. Tam's days were numbered. Even if they had not been, the 
force that Bleys was building to overwhelm even the phase-shielded Earth was 
moving to its inevitable completion. Time was on the march; and while he had 
refound hope-great hope, somehow, with this successful rescue of Artur-he had 
still not found a way past that impassable, glasslike barrier to his lifetime 
goal-
He glimpsed the figures of some of the Guild members 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
323 
through the farther trees before him and realized he had finally caught up 
with them. He checked his jog to a walk. It might worry them to see him 
running, might make them think that there was more urgency than there actually 
was now, to getting Artur up the mountainside to the ledge and proper care. 
Actually, it was only Artur's physical condition that still urged that time 
not be wasted. The soldiers of the Occupation Forces should not bother them 
for some little time to come. 
He walked, but stretched his stride to cover ground swiftly without appearing 
to race. In a moment or two he was up with them. Artur, on the stretcher, was 
at the head of the traveling group, with a man on each of the four handles of 
the stretcher. As Hal had foreseen, Artur was proving a heavy load for his 
carriers, even across this level, if somewhat cluttered, forest floor. The 
extra people beyond the rock would be very much needed to get him safety up 
the steep trail of the mountainside to the ledge. "How is he?" Hal asked 
Onete, who was walking beside the head of the stretcher, keeping an eye on 
Artur's face. "He came to," answered Onete, without taking her eyes off 
Artur's face. "Tannaheh gave me several loaded syringes to use if he did that. 
I used one; and he went back to sleep. I wish Tannaheh had told me what I was 
supposed to be giving him. I don't like doing things like that without 
knowing." "It probably didn't occur to Tannaheh," said Hal. "It occurred to 
me," Onete said, "but he shoved them into my hand just as we left the ledge, 



after running after us to give them to me. I didn't have a chance to ask him, 
in the dark and all. Anyway, Artur's back unconscious or sleeping again, one 
of the two; and that's a blessing-" 
She lowered her voice almost to a whisper, speaking out of the corner of her 
mouth, still without taking her gaze off Artur's face. "Check to my right, 
about four meters off," she said, barely using her lips, "but don't turn your 
head to look." 
He leaned over the stretcher as if to gaze more closely into the face of 
Artur, using the movement to disguise a tilt of his head to the right, so that 
out of the corner of his eyes, he could see into the forest on that side of 
them. His view picked up Cee, prowling along level with the stretcher and 
himself. 
The vine with its pod no longer was around her waist. It hung 



324 
Gordon R. Dickson 
by its vine-ends from one fist, with the weight of what was probably a single 
rock only pulling it down. Cee's other fist held a second rock ready. Her eyes 
were on him with the same steadiness they had held back at the camp when she 
had looked both at him and at Liu. "She still doesn't trust us completely," 
Onete said, still in a barely audible voice, still with her lips hardly 
moving. "But particularly, she doesn't trust you. Liu gave orders to the 
soldiers and they did what they did to Artur. You give orders to us, as far as 
she can see; so you must be another like him. If she starts to rotate or to 
raise either arm, hit the ground, or get something between you and her." 
"Thanks," said Hal, "I will. But don't worry about me. I know about slings-I 
can even use one myself. I'll be able to tell if she starts to use that." 
What he said was true enough. His knowledge of slings as well as a number of 
other primitive weapons dated back to the early training of his first 
childhood on Dorsai. What he did not tell her was that it was going to be 
impossible for him to keep an eye on Cee at all times and meanwhile do 
whatever he might do to make sure they all got up to the ledge safely. 
It was full daylight now; and they came at last to the large outcropping of 
rock under which it was possible for them to make their way to the boulder 
that had been set up to block the path beyond it on to the trail leading up 
the side of the mountain to the ledge. 
CHAPTER 
30 
Shawnee, a slightly stout, middle-aged woman, with her gray hair puLled back 
above her ankle-length blue robe and sandals, had the round, calm face of a 
typical Exotic and was on sentry duty just outside the entrance under the rock 
that led to the mountain trail. "We heard you coming," she said, as the group 
reached her, "and got you on the scopes by relay from the ledge. The blocking 
boulder's moved back and the way's clear. You can take Artur through, and 
we'll block the way again behind you. " 
There was a short period of difficulty, for the bearers had to bend double to 
pass through the entrance and this made Artur an impossible load for the four 
of them. It ended up with seven people, including Hal, crawling through with 
the stretcher essentially carried on their backs, until they reached the other 
side of the rock face and the opening beyond where the path up the 
mountainside began. The large granite boulder, as Shawnee had promised, was 
off to one side. 
They stopped to rest while the boulder was rolled back. Once in place, it cut 
off not only entrance, but any light from above. Now anyone crawling under the 
rock face would have no alternative but to believe they had come up against 
the solid mountainside and that nothing but stone was beyond. "Amid said we 
shouldn't need to bother digging up the plug 



326 
Gordon R. Dickson 
rock, if the soldiers were leaving," said Shawnee, "unless, you've got some 
reason to." "No. No reason to now," answered Hal. He felt weariness, but with 
the warm hearth-glow of success at its heart. 
But then began the labor of getting Artur up the steep slope of the 
mountainside track to the ledge. In spite of the Guild members' own experience 
with the way in, and the fact Hal had warned them, the carriers found they 
could only work in five-minute stretches before needing to be relieved. Hal 
stayed beside them all the way, on one side of the stretcher, ready to help 
catch it if one of the bearers should slip and fall. On the other side climbed 
Onete, her syringes ready, and beyond her, scrambling sometimes on all fours 
like a mountain goat, but with the sling loaded and its vine-ends caught up 
short, ready in one grimy fist, was Cee-her eyes continually on Hal. 
There was one uncomfortable moment when Artur began to come to, and moaned. 
Cee was instantly upright, the vine-ends of her sling sliding down through her 
fists to their full length; and in the same moment Onete stepped up to the 
side of the stretcher, her body directly blocking Hal from any throw by Cee. 
"He's all right! Hal's done nothing!" she snapped at Cee. "I'm going to make 
your uncle comfortable and put him back to sleep, right now. " 
The stretcher bearers had stopped. Any excuse for a moment in which to catch 
their breath. Onete turned about, still blocking any throw at Hal with her own 
body, and gave Artur another injection. He relaxed on the stretcher. 
11 et's get on," said Hal, taking his own grip on the side of the stretcher 
again; and they resumed their painful way upward. 
When they finally stepped out onto the level surface of the ledge itself, 
everybody was at the end of their strength. "We'll take him to a room in the 
clinic," Onete told Hal. "You can find him there later, if you want him. 
Tannahch has some people trained as nurses and assistants. There'll be 
somebody with him all the time." "Tell Tannaheh someone who's been through 
what Artur's been through is going to have to be brought out of it gradually," 
Hal said. "For a while at first after he comes to, he's going to think he's 
still in the hands of his torturers-but Tannaheh probably already knows that." 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
327 
"I'll tell him anyway," said Onete. "You better get some rest yourself. You've 
been up more than twenty-four hours, haven't you?" "Perhaps," said Hal. 
"Anyway, I've got a few words I want w-have with Amid before I call it done. 
I'll see you later." @ He turned away from her and the stretcher bearers, who 
were now brand new at their job, being from among those who had stayed up on 
the ledge. Some of those who had helped the stretcher up the last few meters 
of slope had simply sat down, or lain down, where they had stopped, although 
to Hal's eyes none .of them looked in need of more than an ordinary night's 
rest to put them back on their feet. He turned away and went toward Amid's 
office. 
The heat of the rising sun of midmorning struck at his face and chest through 
his sweat-soaked shirt, and the level ground felt strange under his feet. He 
slanted across the open ground, approaching Amid's office from the front and 
side. He reached it at its right corner and walked along its front toward its 
entrance. As he passed, he glanced in one of the windows that were the best 
compromise these forest-built structures could make with the former Exotic 
homes, where it had been hard to tell from one room to the next whether you 
were outdoors or indoors. It had suddenly occurred to him that the small, old 
head of the Chantry Guild might be somewhere else about the establishment, and 
the thought of a prolonged search for him on legs wobbly with weariness was 
not attractive. 
But Amid was there. Hal saw him through the window, seated in one of the 
chairs around the now fireless central fireplace. In a chair facing him was 
Amanda. 
Hal stopped for a second. Down below, he had forgotten Amanda might show up. 



He went on; but at the door, set open to the warming morning air, he paused 
and looked through its aperture at those inside. 
He was not quite sure why he had stopped. It was as if an instinct had put out 
its hand to stop him for a second, to make him stop and think, first. 
Perhaps, he thought, with sudden unnatural clarity, he did need to think 
before entering. A number of times in his life before it had been when he was 
most tired, after great and prolonged effort of mind and body, that his mind 
had taken on a strange, almost feverish clarity. The most important of those 



THE CHANTRY GUILD 329 
had been a moment there in which he had " - her with the telephoned picture of 
her 
then that he had thought to himself that I@ beautiful, but lacked something 
which rt-,MF!RP_v1"MM,fi wbich in that moment he had 
not been and was not intensity. It was something Amanda went beyond. Part of 
her extended another dimension, lived in another dimension. struck him now, 
had the potential to extend into dimension, but only particular individuals 
chose to 
only in some of these could it be seen in them by 
he saw it now, where he had never been it before. Now, remembering Rukh, he 
realized he seen it in her; and perhaps a little even in Ajela and t7mmmi 
faith-holders on Harmony, like James Child-of- "%M been, now he thought of it, 
very clearly visible in it was in Tam Olyn; and it had been there in his three 
that he now realized he had learned, partly at least, 
it from what he saw in them, without identifying was, but imitating it in his 
own life as he imitated the 
men in other ways. was in other, more unlikely people, too. It was in Cee, 
enough. And it must have been in Jathed. In fact, had co 
me here to ask Amid, tired as he was, without why he needed the answer, but 
knowing he could not ntil he had it-was whether Jathed had, in those early 
n in the forest, had some sort of contact with Cee. he had visited her 
parents? Then the sudden discovery MP- here had all but driven the questions 
from his mind, he realized, suddenly, that Amanda was connected to herself a 
part of them, in fact. tie Went in; and the other two turned at the sound of 
his boots .,;Vnthe Wooden floor. Amid, he was now able to see, had his own 
IMended element; and it came to Hal that both Amanda and 'W , low 'd as well 
as others like them, were not only part of what he 
chosen to spend his life finding but part of what he had 
for when he had let Amanda bring him to Kultis. She @'@@-VlOuld not have 
identified this specific element as one of the @:A ings he needed to discover; 
but, that strange, almost mystic 
0 of her that had always set her family apart from other Dorsai 



1 -'r 
328 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
329 
times had been some years back now, in the militia cell on Harmony, where he 
had been left burning up with fever, to die; and instead, in that moment, his 
mind had seen and worked clearly as never before. 
Something like that was on him now, although he did not seem to be able to put 
it all together. But, out of the dull hopelessness from which Amanda had 
brought him, when she had led him here, he had finally climbed-to this. 
But what was this? One thing was certain, it was not anything resembling his 
former despondency. He was alive again, and the feeling that the cause to 
which he had dedicated himself could not be lost was with him again. Also, 
there were some new bits and pieces of understanding. But they did not fit 
together. More than ever in his existence before, he felt he stood on the 
brink of the answer he searched for, but could not quite see the final step 
that would take him to it. 
Part of it was Jathed, that wild Exotic philosopher, who had preached a 
separate universe for each living individual. Part of it was Cee. Part of it 
was the fact that he had gone with the others and succeeded in rescuing both 
Cee and Artur, while sending the soldiers away harmlessly. And done it without 
harming anyone. True, Cee had killed. But Cee was no more to be held 
accountable as a murderer than a wolf who had killed in defense of itself and 
one of its cubs. 
Somehow, all these things tied together; but also, somehow his mind failed at 
the moment to connect them. Particularly, it failed to connect them with 
Amanda, who was part of the understanding. Amanda, from the moment she had met 
him on Dorsai, had made him the gift of that insight of hers. The full value 
of that gift he was yet to know, any more than he could yet appreciate the 
full implication of the connection of the other bits of discovery afloat in 
his mind. All he knew about the gift was that it had been a part of herself; 
and that it was something no one else could have given him, because no one 
else had had it to give. 
It was an awareness of that gift that had stopped him now. Stopped him, 
because it had made him more perceptive; and that added perception in him now 
rang a nameless dread of whatever she might have to tell him. 
He remembered sitting in her kitchen in the Morgan homestead, Fal Morgan, on 
the Dorsai world, that first morning after 
meeting her. There had been a moment there in which he had had a chance to 
compare her with the telephoned picture of her sister. He remembered then that 
he had thought to himself that the sister was equally beautiful, but lacked 
something which Amanda possessed-something which in that moment he had called 
"intensity." 
But it had not been and was not intensity. It was something much more. Amanda 
went beyond. Part of her extended invisibly into another dimension, lived in 
another dimension. Everyone, it struck him now, had the potential to extend 
into that further dimension, but only particular individuals chose to do so, 
and only in some of these could it be seen in them by another individual-as he 
saw it now, where he had never been able to see it before. Now, remembering 
Rukh, he realized he had always seen it in her; and perhaps a little even in 
Ajela and some of the true faith-holders on Harmony, like James Child-ofGod. 
It had been, now he thought of it, very clearly visible in Ajela, as it was in 
Tam Olyn; and it had been there in his three tutors-so that he now realized he 
had learned, partly at least, to recognize it from what he saw in them, 
without identifying what it was, but imitating it in his own life as he 
imitated the three old men in other ways. 
But it was in other, more unlikely people, too. It was in Cee, surprisingly 
enough. And it must have been in Jathed. In fact, what he had come here to ask 
Amid, tired as he was, without knowing why he needed the answer, but knowing 



he could not sleep until he had it-was whether Jathed had, in those early 
years down in the forest, had some sort of contact with Cee. Perhaps he had 
visited her parents? Then the sudden discovery of Amanda here had all but 
driven the questions from his mind, until he realized, suddenly, that Amanda 
was connected to them, herself a part of them, in fact. 
He went in; and the other two turned at the sound of his boots on the wooden 
floor. Amid, he was now able to see, had his own extended element; and it came 
to Hal that both Amanda and Amid, as well as others like them, were not only 
part of what he had chosen to spend his life finding but part of what he had 
hoped for when he had let Amanda bring him to Kultis. She would not have 
identified this specific element as one of the things he needed to discover; 
but, that strange, almost mystic part of her that had always set her family 
apart from other Dorsai 



330 
Gordon R. Dickson 
must have sensed both his need and the location of this, among what else he 
reached for. 
That sensitivity to his need and that which would answer it was part of what 
made her what she was. So that wherever she happened to be, as now in Amid's 
office, the perceived universe seemed to fall into order about her, to become 
sensible and clear of purpose. It was as if she shone with a light that, 
though invisible in itself, let those about her see more clearly. 
He reached her and they held each other for a long moment without saying 
anything. Then, still holding him with her hands, she stood back a little from 
him and turned his face to the light of the nearest window. "Better," she 
said, studying it. "Yes, you're better. But not all the way back to what you 
should be." "I'm closer," he answered. "All the more close now that you're 
here." 
She let him go, and frowned as he put out a hand to Amid's desk for support. 
He would have fallen otherwise. His legs felt as if they had no strength left 
in them. "The grapevine brought me news of the soldiers coming up here to look 
around," she said. "I came as soon as I could, but I waited for full night to 
go up to that group you had guarding the rock blocking the trail in. I've been 
here since about an hour or so after you took your party down there. It was a 
temptation to follow you down, but if you'd planned what you'd planned without 
me, there was no point in my barging in and upsetting things. I've been 
waiting for you since-but you're ready to collapse. " "You could say that," he 
told her with a weary grin. "But I had a question or two to ask Amid befQre I 
folded up." "Anything, of course," said Amid, getting spryly up from his chair 
and coming forward. "But do you have to have the answers right now? Amanda's 
right. You're exhausted." "Two quick questions," said Hal. "Was Jathed around 
down there when Cee was living with her parents? I believe he was already dead 
when she began to run wild-but could they have talked to each other, 
somehow-would they have talked to each other?" 
Amid frowned. "I'm sure he was around, for a couple of years at least," he 
said. "And as for Jathed talking to her, what I've heard of him 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
331 
is-that he would have talked to, lectured at, anyone-all in the same way, 
regardless of their age or situation. But whether he and Cee actually 
communicated-I'd have to ask some of the more longtime members of the Guild. 
I'll do that and let you know tomorrow. The question isn't going to be whether 
Jathed would talk to Cee, but whether they encountered each other -and whether 
Cee, young as she was, would be able to understand anything. But maybe she 
might. She might even 
have sensed he was no sort of threat to her, or even saw him as special 
-children can do that." "That's what I wanted to know," said Hal. 
He turned away from the desk, reeling as he lost the support of it; and being 
caught and held upright by the strong grasp of Amanda. "Sleep for you," she 
said, "this way." 



CHAPTER 
31 
Hal woke to almost complete darkness relieved only by the faint line of light 
under the door to the bathroom. This alone told him that he was not in his own 
bed in Dormitory Two, but back in Amid's second office, in which he and Amanda 
had slept on his arrival at the Chantry Guild. There was someone beside him in 
the bed; and he turned his head to make out that it was Amanda, deeply 
sleeping, her hair spread out on the pillow. 
It must be deep into the night. He Jay there, trying to remember. 
He had no recollection of getting here. He remembered nothing beyond Amanda 
catching him, holding him up, and telling him he must sleep. He had no memory 
of being brought to this bed. But now that he tried to recall anything at all 
after that'there came to him a few flashes from momentary wakings, as seeing a 
sliver of the rich daylight illumination of Procyon, that had managed to make 
its way here and there through the blanket she had once more hung over a rod 
to provide a near-perfect blackout curtain. 
In each case he had awakened long enough only to recognize the fact that he 
was safe and comfortable, then fallen immediately and heavily back to sleep 
again. He had no memory of Amanda joining him. She would have been quiet so as 
not to disturb him, of course, as only she could be quiet. But how long 


1:112 
9:1. 41wif-MWi GUILD 
333 
had it been since she had come? How long since night replaced day outside his 
curtained window? 
Some diurnal clock deep inside him told him that it had been a long time-that 
he had slept most of the night through, as well as the day; and dawn was near. 
It had been no ordinary sleep. He had put in forty-eight hours of wakefulness 
under active conditions before this, without falling into such a pit of 
unconsciousness; and while he might be a few years older since then, and 
softer, in spite of his daily exercise in the Final Encyclopedia, neither time 
nor inaction could account for such a heavy, prolonged slumber. 
There had to he another reason for it; and even as he formed the question the 
answer came. His unconscious mind had once more wanted his consciousness out 
of the way so it could work with perfect freedom, putting together all the 
things he had learned, one by one-those parts that now almost, but not quite, 
came together like the parts of a puzzle of many pieces, to give him a 
complete picture of his goal. 
He felt a yearning to stay here, where he was, and put an arm gently over 
Amanda, coaxing her gently back into wakefulness and the joining that they had 
always had so few chances for. But at the same time, there was a powerful 
feeling within him that now and only now the answer he sought, or at least 
another step toward it, was calling him outside this room. It was waiting for 
him with the dawn that would be coming; as it had waited all this time he had 
been here, but he had not yet learned enough to see it. 
Quietly, as Amanda must have come to bed quietly, he left it, found his 
clothes, dressed and let himself out of the room. The corridor was bright-lit 
and silent; but outside, when he closed the main door of the building behind 
him, the ledge was in complete darkness. The night was empty except for the 
chanting of those who walked the circle, invisible to him. Both moons were 
down and the light of the stars was not enough to let him see his hand at 
arm's length before him. 
But like the Guild members, he now knew the ledge well enough to find his way 
about it blindfolded. In addition, in this season of summer, even at this 
altitude, the wind blew toward the ledge across the land below. 
Accordingly, he turned his face into the wind and, feeling the 

334 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
335 
familiar slopes and pitches of the ground under his bare feet, went toward the 
edge. 
As he went, his eyes readjusted to the darkness from the bright glare of the 
hall lights. He was able to see the treetops overhead occulting the stars, the 
trees that had been deliberately left uncut in patches and clumps so that part 
of one of them always hid any walkway below it. Almost unthinkingly, he 
oriented himself by those shapes of the treetops against the pinpoints of 
light in the sky, and as he got close to the edge he cou see it as a line of 
demarcation where darkness gave way suddenly to deeper darkness. 
He was out here earlier than usual and he did not expect to find Old Man here 
yet; and in fact, when he got to the place by the pool where he usually sat, 
the spot the Old Man usually occupied was empty. After all, Hal reminded 
himself, his fellow watcher was no longer young, and also had just finished 
putting in much the same hours, at the same activity as had Hal. It would 
hardly be surprising if he did not show up at all. 
Hal sat, therefore, waiting for the paling of the sky that would signal the 
approaching day and the sunrise. There was a strange blend of expectation and 
excitement in him. 
In patches, where the native vegetation of the pond did not obscure its 
reflecting surface, the image of the stars overhead looked back up at him-as 
they also looked down on him through the clear, high-altitude air. He felt 
enclosed by them as an individual feels warmly enclosed by family or close 
friends at a gathering of those who were close. The sky about them was 
beginning to pale, but only beyond the line of the Grandfathers of Dawn in the 
far distance-that place from which the sunrise would come. Overhead, it was 
still dark enough for their lights to be clear and sharp against the deep 
dark. 
As far as he could tell, none of those that he could see up there were stars 
that were suns over the otlier Younger Worlds, or 
art itself. Those solar bodies were at present in the wrong position to be 
seen from Kultis-or more accurately, this part of the planet was pointed in 
the wrong direction. But those he did see stood in for those he knew, in his 
imagination; so that it was as if they had come here at this important moment 
to watch him now from both above and below at once, waiting for him to take up 
his journey once more along the path he had chosen for himself that day of his 
uncle James's death. 
It had been a ridiculously ambitious decision at the time on the part of a 
half-grown boy, to find and destroy whatever element it was in people that 
made them selfish and uncaring to the point of brutality and cruelty to each 
other. The shape of the answer he sought had emerged, little by little from 
the mists of things undiscovered as he worked his way toward it, trying one 
route after another, finding his way blocked but learning a little more each 
time, so that with each fresh start he chose his next route with more wisdom. 
So, slowly, he had progressed. Slowly, his certainty had grown that there was 
a path to humanity's becoming a race of tpeople who would voluntarily refrain 
from all harming of their fellows, by all actions, from literal killing, to 
the exercise of the little cruelties of words and sheer thoughtlessness that 
were so common in human society that they went almost without remark. But now, 
he was surer than he had ever been, that only a few thin veils-perhaps only 
one-hid it from him. 
As Donal he had found that power and law alone could not force the change he 
wanted. But the discovery pointed to the r9ad he himself must travel; and, 
after him, the race. As Paul Formain, back in the twenty-first century, he had 
found that part of the answer lay outside the known universe and its laws; but 
that this further universe-the one he had come to call the Creative 
Universe-was again, only part of the answer. 



His last attempt had been the gathering of the best of what the Younger Worlds 
had gained-from the Exotics, the Friendlies, and his own world of the 
Dorsai-into safety behind the phase-shield he had caused to be set up, 
enclosing Earth and the Final Encyclopedia. He had been confident then, that 
at last, having done this, the next and last step to his goal would be 
obvious. 
But it had not been. What he had achieved had only once more cleared the mists 
a little way, but left him with no understanding of what was to be done next. 
It had only shown yet a farther stretch of the road still to be covered. 
He had not been wrong in anything he had done so far. Faith, courage, and the 
ability to think philosophically, all faculties of the human, developed from 
its animal forebears, and their extended forms, as embodied in the Friendlies, 
the Dorsai and these Exotics, had been part of the answer. He had not been 
wrong in that much; but now he saw what was needed was 



336 
Gordon R. Dickson 
something still hidden by unknowns, still in shadow. He could only be sure now 
that it was somehow connected with the creativity in every living human. 
In his disappointment and weariness, he had become blocked; and believed 
himself burnt out-a failure. So he had continued to think until Amanda had 
come to tell him he might find a new 
point of view here, on an Exotic world now wrecked and ground down by the 
forces of an enemy point of view that was trying to kill the growth element of 
the human spirit and destroy all that had been accomplished. 
She had been right. He knew that now with a wholehearted, instinctive 
certainty, as he sat here, waiting for Procyon's rise over the mountaintops. 
Somewhere, with her and among the Chantry Guild members and with his recent 
part in the rescue of Artur and little Cee, who was of an age with the boy he 
had been when he had made his original vow, he had once more found a way to go 
forward. And now, now here, waiting for the sunrise, he felt perhaps only one 
more large step toward what he sought; perhaps even close at last to the 
doorway itself, through which he now knew he must pass to find what he sought. 
The paling of the night's black sky and the extinguishing of the stars had 
spread forward from above the distant mountains as he had been thinking, and 
the light had grown stronger. He felt the approaching dawn like a hand laid 
upon him; and although the breeze was merely cool, it seemed to blow through 
his clothing so that he felt as if he sat naked and waiting, his legs crossed, 
his hands not in prayer position but laid, palms down, one on top of the other 
in his lap; as he remembered his uncle Ian's massive hands used to lie. 
He let his mind go out to his customary imaginings of this daily exercise of 
body and mind; conjuring up the time of the far future of this Chantry Guild, 
when the ledge had been filled by a massive structure of stone blocks quarried 
from the mountain, its flat surfaces paved and gardened and this pool before 
him enclosed by a rim of pink-veined, light gray rock, with the native plants 
replaced by imported water-lilies spreading their flat, broad petals on the 
liquid surface to uphold themselves and their night-closed and sleeping white 
flowers. 
Those flowers of his imagination which would be opening with the coming light 
of day. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
337 
As with some repeated meditation, the envisioned scene 
ed the reality around him. His ears heard the chanting replac ack of the 
present and future walkers in the behind his b circle. . . . 
The transient and the eternal 
are the same . . . 
Now, the chant seemed to pick him up and possess him. So that he resonated to 
it as a tuning fork resonates to being struck, with a single pure note. In the 
pool, the white blossoms were 
beginning to open as the light flooded forward and the day brightened. 
His eyes ignored the unvarying green sweep of the highaltitude forest below 
him and focused on the distant range of -mountains, the Grandfathers of Dawn. 
Always the mountains. Always the mountains and the sunrise. These belonged as 
much to the future of his imagined scene as they did to the present second in 
which he sat here. To the mountains and the sunrise, the years or centuries in 
between were unimportant, the moment of a single drawn breath in a lifetime of 
breaths. 
The sun was not yet in sight from behind the range; but the brightness of the 
sky showed that it was close now, very close. 
His eyes were filled with light and he felt the cool air passing in and out of 
the lungs above his motionless body as he sat. e looked down at the pond and 
saw that the white flowers were now fully open, some of them showing the drops 
of the dew that had collected in their tightly closed petal tips earlier. He 
felt as 



if some essential but nonphysical part of himself was lifted out of the rest 
of him and rushed through the airy space between him and the distant mountain 
range to meet the dawn, seeing nothing else. 
At the same time his physical eyes looked down at the pond and focused once 
more on a single flower, on one white petal of which a dewdrop sat like a 
blessing. The flower filled his gaze and like a wave through him came a great 
sweep of feeling, that anything should be so wonderful as the living leaf with 
the perfect transparency of the dewdrop upon it. 
Feeling this, it was as if his flying, incorporeal self reached the upthrust 
giants of the land that waited, as they had always waited, for him in this 
moment; and, lifting, it and he saw the 



338 
Gordon R. Dickson 
first blazing edge of Procyon, which was too bright to look at with the eyes 
of his body back on the [edge, appear in the bottom of a notch in the rock 
before him and send the first ray of direct light leaping across the space 
between range and ledge to touch the pond, to touch the flower. 
It touched the dewdrop; and for one second too short for breath to draw or 
mind to do anything but hold in memory, the drop exploded, scintillating with 
light like a diamond, radiating off in all directions, including into him, 
where it shone unforgettable, from that moment on. 
He sat, blinded by the vision. Behind him, the voices of the walkers chanted 
still. . . . 
The transient and the eternal are the same . . . 
And, suddenly, moving in to replace the wonder within him came the 
understanding he had waited for. Now, the words of the walkers engulfed him. 
Suddenly, at last, he understood the truth of what they chanted, what he had 
so often chanted; that it was not a matter of faith but of actuality. 
For the transient and the eternal were the same. He looked at the petal now 
and the dewdrop was already beginning to shrink, to disappear as the heat of 
the sun's ray drew it up. In a little it would be gone. The petal would be dry 
and it would be as if the dewdrop had never been there. 
But the dewdrop was always there. Even as this one blazed for a second with 
incredible light and began to disappear, somewhere in this infinite universe 
there was another dewdrop just beginning to scintillate, and after that 
another, and another . . . 
And another dawn and another, and another mountain range and another, when 
this one should be worn down to level dust; and without a pause, another 
world, which would make another range through which a ray of light would come 
to another dewdrop on another petal-forever and forever, until time should 
end. 
The dewdrop was beyond destruction. The moment of its brilliance was eternal. 
It was transient here, but eternal everywhere. Just so, all things were 
eternal, only waiting to be found, even the doorway to something that had only 
been his dream all these years. 
The physical light of the present day was everywhere about 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
339 
and the vision of the future was gone; but the moment of the 
44@11rli6i, explosion of illumination from the dewdrop still filled 
He got to his feet and went back, past 11197117.2011k, visible circle of 
walkers toward the buildings beyond. He felt incredibly Ilight-bodied. As if 
he could, with little effort, walk up into the thin air. A figure in the 
ordinary light workshirt and trousers, vmrn by the majority of the Chantry 
Guild members when they were otherwise occupied than walking in the circle, 
stepped out from behind some tree trunks to meet him. It was Old Man and he 
smiled up at Hal as they met and Hal stopped. "You weren't there this 
morning," said Hal. "I was there. I sat behind you," said Old Man. "Some 
things are best touched alone. " 
His smile grew and became almost impish. He reached into a 
pocket of his trousers and brought out a small mirror, which he held up to 
Hal's eyes. 
Hal stared at the image of his own face. There was a difference in what he saw 
that he could not pick out at first. Then he saw it-the pupils of his eyes 
were contracted almost to pinpricks of darkness, like the eyes of someone 
under drugs. For a fraction of a second the scintillation of the dewdrop 
seemed to leap out from those pinpricks and the mirror at him, making him feel 
light-headed, but happily so. "How could you tell ahead of time, in the dark9" 
he asked, as Old Man put the mirror back into the pocket. 
Old Man passed his hand from left to right through the air at chest height 
before him, palm outward toward Hal. "I felt it," he said. 



Hal stared at him, waiting for additional explanation; but Old Man, still 
smiling, merely turned and went away from him, back through the trees from 
among which he had emerged. 



CHAPTER 
32 
He went back to their room and discovered that Amanda had already risen and 
left. He found her having breakfast by herself at a small table in the 
building's dining room and joined her. 
Actually, he wanted nothing to eat; and she, after a single wise look at him, 
said nothing, not even "good morning." Instead, she merely smiled and 
continued her own meal, leaving him to sit and do what he wanted, which was 
merely to enjoy the early day with her, along with the other breakfasters. He 
let himself be immersed in the chatter in the dining room and the sounds from 
the kitchen. The sun, shining in through the windows of the room to brighten 
all around them, wrapped him in an unusual sense of happiness. 
When she was done, she rose. He went with her. Taking her tray with its used 
utensils and dishes to the disposal slot, she pushed it through. Then, smiling 
again at him, she led him outside and parted company with him, going off 
herself in the direction of Amid's office. 
He was left to his own devices, and found himself happy to be so. Kultis, 
around him, had never seemed more bright and fresh. Its colors stood out at 
him, as if just washed by a brief summer shower, from the sky overhead to the 
gravel of the paths underfoot. 
He roamed about the ledge. There was a lightness to his body; and the sense of 
the illumination he had just received lingered 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
341 
ifi , him. For once, he felt strangely free of purpose. It was as 
consciousness had been cut loose, like a towed dory from I.".behind a small 
Miml boat, to drift at the whim of soft winds 
and gentle waves under a bright sun. 
He smiled. The image of the loose dory pleased him. The implications of what 
he had found were too massive and momentous for his mind to handle logically; 
and so that part of him had been set free temporarily by the more capacious 
mental machinery behind it, that moved in creative and other areas where the 
conscious, with its rigid patterns and logics, could not go. 
The day, accordingly, passed like a pleasant dream. Either Amanda, or Amid, or 
someone among the others must have passed the word to leave him to his own 
devices. None of the Chantry Guild members approached him or tried to draw him 
into conversation; for which he was grateful. 
His thoughts slid between wonderings at small things in his ,.surroundings 
-from the quaint shape of a pebble among the gravel at his feet to the living 
design of a variform leaf or blade of grass, or their native equivalents that 
he came upon. Architecturally, they were all beautiful; and he was a little 
surprised he had failed so utterly to appreciate them before. 
Interspersed with these were other things observed, or remembered-bits and 
flashes of scenes from his past. Images from his boyhood and manhood as Donal 
Graeme, from his brief life as Paul Formain and his present life as Hal; all 
these came and went in his head like bits of a serial recording. 
Something within him guessed, but did not struggle to verify, at the 
possibility that these things he recalled were reflections of what his deeper 
mind was fitting into the matrix of his lifelong search, from what he had come 
to understand this morning. But he did not investigate this, did not question 
it; and it did not matter. A. 74 ZL 
It was like being on a vacation. It occurred to him with a small shock of 
surprise that he had never really had a vacation, since he had been a 
schoolboy on the Dorsai. From the time he had left his home world he had never 
let go of his life's commitment for even a day. It was a strange feeling to be 
so cut loose now, even for a few hours like this; to be content with the 
distance he had come so far, when the end was still not yet reached. Though he 
could see it clearly, now. 



342 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
343 
As the morning grew into noon, he drifted toward Amid's office. When he 
stepped inside it at last, he was surprised to find it, for once, empty. Then 
it came to him that Amid, himself, might well have run short of sleep, these 
last forty-eight hours, and be in his own quarters, resting. 
In any case, he had not come here to see Amid, but because of the memory of 
the recording of Jathed to which he had listened. He began to search both his 
memory and the office, and finally came across a filing cabinet with the name 
"Jathed" on it. There was a box of recording spindles in the second drawer 
from the top. 
He took the box with him to Amid's desk and seated himself in a chair near it 
with the control pad Amid had searched for and found earlier. It was a 
standard desk unit and in a moment he had the first of the recording spindles 
in the control pad's magazine. Jathed's voice, apparently from several years 
earlier than the tape Hal had listened to before, sounded immediately in the 
room. 
As he listened, he examined the other spindles. They were dated in order over 
a period of some twelve years. He started with the most recent ones and began 
playing them in reverse order to their dates of recording. Sitting in the 
empty office, he list ned to the resonant, compelling voice of the founder of 
this reincarnation of the Chantry Guild. 
He did not need to listen to more than half a dozen, however, before 
concluding that there would be little advantage to him in hearing them all. 
With the exception of two which were histories of Jathed's early life, 
dictated in an unfamiliar, elderly voice that might have belonged to Amid's 
brother, they were essentially repetitions of what were basically two or three 
customary lectures delivered by Jathed to audiences consisting of disciples, 
or others with an interest in what the cantankerous, but remarkable, man had 
to say. 
In effect, the message of all of these was simple enough. Jathed believed that 
each person who had the necessary faith and self-discipline should be able to 
enter a personal, extra universe exactly like the physical one that surrounded 
him; except that in this other universe, the will of the person involved could 
accomplish anything wanted by merely determining it should be SO. 
Furthermore, if that will was powerful enough, Jathed 
apparently believed that the effect produced in the extra universe could be 
duplicated in the universe of reality by convincing the minds of others that 
the alteration applied to the physical universe also. 
In short, he believed in a personal, extra universe; and that the so-ca 
rea universe was no more an _agreement among the human minds 
existing in it. 
It was in this latter view, about the real universe, that Hal found himself 
disagreeing with the other man. 
It was true that when he had been Paul Formain, three hundred years before, he 
had experienced the night of madness brought upon a city by the original 
Chantry Guild of Earth, under its founder, Walter Blunt-that original Guild 
which had become the parent of Kultis and its sister world and the whole 
Exotic culture. It had been a night in which he had seen a 
monument melting down like wax, a stone lion decorating the balcony of a 
building lift its head and roar, and a hole of nothingness appear in the 
middle of a street. A nothingness of such utter blackness that his eyes 
refused to focus on it. 
That, and history was full of miracles witnessed by crowds, as well as 
smaller, so-called "magics" seen by small groups of people gathered in 
confined spaces for just that purpose. 
And, finally, there was the sound of the breaking light on the first recording 
of Jathed Hal had ever heard. 



Nonetheless, Hal held to his own view of a single, separate, creative universe 
that would be a tool, not just a box of conjuring tricks, for humankind. 
The only strong point he shared with Jathed was that the other must also have 
experienced a moment of revelation in which the absolute truth of the 
transient and the eternal being the same became undeniable. But from that 
point they had each built different ways, if with much of the same material. 
In any case, his mind would not work with the problem right now. It was a 
refusal, but a different sort of refusal than he had experienced at the Final 
Encyclopedia before coming here. 
That had been a blockage; a painful situation in which he Went over the same 
answers time and again, on each occasion finding them unworkable. This day was 
a pleasant moment of rest along a route that he now knew to be correct and to 
run 
straight to his goal. 
But his mind would not wrestle with that problem-or any 



344 
Gordon R. PJRveia 
problem, just now. He put the spindles in their box back where he had found 
them, the control pad back on Amid's desk, and went out. 
Later he was never able to remember, without a great deal of effort, how the 
rest of that day went for him. In part'he did not really want to investigate 
the memory, only recall it fondly as a sort of pleasant blur. At any rate, by 
the time night had fallen and he had at last taken something to eat and drink, 
he was back, seated in Amid's office in one of its few armless chairs, with a 
musical instrument in his hands. 
The fire was alight in the fireplace and the instrument was someone's 
reconstruction of a six-string classical Spanish guitar. It was enough like 
the instrument he had played and sung with on his trips to Port, during the 
period when he had been a 
miner on Coby, to suit him. 
The guitar had been offered to him, rather shyly, by one of the Guild members, 
who had said Amanda had suggested he might enjoy having it for a while. 
Indeed, he did. He wondered what part of the almost occult understanding in 
Amanda had prompted her to make such a suggestion. 
In any case, he had ended up here with it, seated beside the fire in the 
evening. 
The lights were turned down, so that almost the only illumination was from the 
fireplace itself. He was letting his mind and his fingers wander together, in 
whatever direction his memory took him, which for the last half hour had been 
to the ancient ballads and songs out of the past centuries of Old Earth. Songs 
he had learned there, as a boy, from books and recordings in the library of 
the estate where he had been brought up. 
Amid and Amanda were seated in chairs before him, listening; and so, too, 
surprisingly, were a number of the members of the Guild, who had slipped in 
quietly over the past hour or so. taking more distant chairs-so that they were 
all but lost in the moving shadows cast on the wall by the flames of the fire. 
Most surprisingly, among those there was Cee. He had not noticed her entering. 
He had only become gradually aware of her sitting with Onete in a couple of 
chairs against a far wall. 
Since that first moment when he had discovered her, she had moved closer and 
closer to him; until now she was seated on the floor, almost at his feet. He 
had not caught her in movement 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
345 
once. She had made each tiny shift toward him at a time when his eyes were 
briefly off her, inching toward him, until she was 
where she was now. 
He was careful not to look directly at her. But now it was not necessary. She 
was near enough so that he could examine her face out of the corner of his 
eyes. There was no more friendliness showing in it than there had been during 
the hard trek up the mountainside with Artur on the stretcher-but a great deal 
of wonder and fascination. 
He had drifted off into the singing of old English and Scottish ballads, 
learned long ago out of the collection made by Childe in the nineteenth 
century. 
How much such songs could mean to Cee, he had no way of imagining. The Basic 
tongue universally spoken nowadays on all the worlds was a descendant of the 
English language as it had been spoken during the latter part of the 
Technological Age, of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Its archaic 
word forms would be a little strange to the young girl, but most of it would 
still be understandable. Only, what she would make of the medieval Scottish 
and English accents with which he was 
pronouncing the words, and with those words which were in dialects now dead 
and forgotten, he could not guess. 
He slid into Sir Walter Scott's Scottish version of The Battle of Otterburn, 



which was a little less loaded with unfamiliar words . . . 
Itfell about the Lammas time, When the muir-men won their hay, That the 
doughty Earl Douglas went Into England to catch a prey. 
He chose the Gordons and the Graemes, With them the Lindsays, light and gay: 
But the Jardines wadna wi' him ride, And they rued it to this day. 
And he has burnt the dales 0 Tine And part of Almonshire, And three good 
towers on Roxburgh fells He has left them all on fire . . . 



346 
Gordon R. Dickson 
This time Hal saw her move. It was a small shift, to only slightly closer to 
him, but the fact that she had allowed herself to be seen moving was enough to 
show that she had ceased to care about whether or not he would catch her at 
it. A new light of interest had come into her eyes. Clearly, this one was to 
be a song about fighting and destruction. Somehow, by chance-or was it by 
chance, entirely?-he had picked a ballad that particularly woke her interest. 
She was motionless now, watching and listening. He continued to study her 
upturned features. It was a grim little face, in some ways. Again, he was 
reminded of the similarity between her protective reaction toward Artur, and 
his own reaction years before in that moment when, as Donal, he had heard of 
his uncle James's death. Perhaps his development since was an indication of 
the development to come in her. It was warming to think so. 
He wished that there was some way that he could reach her with words, to tell 
her that the road she had been forced to follow so far need no longer be the 
way she must go. That he had followed one like it, himself-, and, even though 
he had accomplished all he had set out to do in that direction, it had not 
brought him to the end he wanted. 
But he knew that, even now, though she might listen to and enjoy his singing, 
she would probably not listen if he tried to talk to her-she would probably 
not even stay close to him if he tried talking to her. If he could stay here 
at the Guild for a long enough time for her to grow into the ways of the Guild 
members, the day might come when she would listen. But he could not stay here, 
just for that, just for her, no matter how strongly in this moment he might 
want to reach her with the truth. There were larger tasks calling him away. 
But his progress with them might in some way be a pledge for hers, into the 
new human future. 
From covert glances around him, he read puzzlement and some little 
consternation on the faces of some of the older Guild members there, listening 
to this story of iron and blood in this place where both by their heritage as 
Exotics and by their own choosing, they were committed to an attitude of 
nonviolence. 
Just as it was with Cee, it was impossible to explain to them that the 
proliferating forces of history, conflicting, joining, altering each other's 
paths, had shown that the human race was 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
347 
not yet free of violence; that the laws, the authorities, the many ways that 
had tried in the past to end it, had overlooked the stark fact that it was 
something that must be dealt with inside each individual, herself or himself. 
And to deal with it, the individual had to understand it. 
So he sang on, letting the verses of the ballad recount its version of that 
dark and bitter encounter between two armies of men; whose only excuse for 
fighting each other was that they wished to fight, in a place and at a time 
where neither land, nor anything else but who should win, was at stake. 
He sang about how the Earl Douglas, son of the king of Scotland, having 
ravaged along the border, came at last to Newcastle, the home of Percy, the 
English Earl of Northumberland. It had been another Percy-called Hotspur-who 
had been immortalized as a character in one of the plays by Shakespeare. 
At Newcastle, the Scottish force had been stopped. For all their numbers, they 
had had no way to take the fortification that the castle represented. But 
there was skirmishing just outside it . . . 
. . .But 0 how pale his lady lookd, 
Frae off the castle wa, When down before the Scottish spear She saw brave 
Percy Ja! . . . 
. . .And some symbol-a pennon, a sword, something of symbolic value-was 
taken from the English to be carried back into Scotland as a trophy; something 
the Percy swore should not happen. So an appointment was made for the two 
forces to meet at Otterburn, some distance away in the Cheviot hills, where 



the Scots would wait for the English. . . . 
. . .they lighted high on Otterburn, 
Upon the bent so brown They lighted high on Otterburn, And threw their 
pallions down ... 
And settled in for the night. But during the deepest hours of darkness, an 
alarm was sounded to the young Earl Douglas. 



348 Gordon R. Dickson 
... but up then spake a little page, 
Before the break of the dawn. '0 waken ye, waken ye, my good lord, For Percy's 
hard at hand! 
'Ye lie, ye lie, ye loud liar, Sae loud I hear ye lie! The Percy hadna men 
yestereen To dight my men and me ... 
There was a small noise during a second's pause of the guitar's ringing and 
Hal's voice. The door to the office was opened from the outside as someone 
came in. But, caught up in recalling the lines of the song, Hal did not look 
to see who it was. For the next verse was one that had rung, echoed and 
re-echoed down the years, not only in his own ears but those of many other 
writers and poets . . . 
... but I have seen a dreary dream, 
Beyond the isle of Skye; I saw a dead man won the fight, And I think that man 
was I-
He broke off abruptly; and the vibrations of the guitar strings faded away 
into the silence of the room. For the person who had entered stood cloaked and 
tall inside the doorway of the room, a darker black shape against the dimness 
there; and though he could not see its face, Hal knew who it was. 
So also did Amanda, for she got up quickly, turning to face the door. "Forgive 
me, Guildmaster," said Old Man, slipping around the figure to stand in front 
of it, "but this visitor says he has come a long way to talk privately with 
Friend." "Yes," said Amid, and the tone of his voice told Hal that he, too, 
had recognized the newcomer. "I'm afraid we'll have to end the entertainment 
for the evening. I'd suggest the rest of you leave now." "No reason for me to 
interrupt things," said the deep, compelling voice of Bleys Ahrens. "I can 
wait." "No," said Amid. "If everyone else will please leave?" 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
349 
"I'll stay," said Amanda. "You might like to stay, too, Amid. " "I'd prefer 
to," said Amid. "I have a responsibility to all that happens here." He looked 
at Hal. "But I don't want to intrude?" 
There was a touch of humor in Bleys' voice as he threw back the hood of his 
cloak and stood, a head and shoulders above everyone standing around him. 
"Everyone can stay, as far as I'm concerned. " 
But the Guild members were already moving out of the open door behind the tall 
man. Only Cee stayed where she was, ignoring Onete's beckoning. Cee's eyes on 
Bleys did not hold the implacable gaze she had turned on the Occupation 
forceleader and on Hal; but they held the steady look of a wild animal ready 
to attack if it was approached. "Stay, Amid," said Hal, setting the guitar 
aside. "Come in, Bleys. Sit down." "Thank you." 
He came over and settled himself in the chair directly opposite. He threw back 
the rest of his cloak, revealing himself in dark jacket, trousers and shirt, 
in every way unremarkable except for the personality with which he somehow 
invested these clothes. Amid was still at his desk. 
Amanda had moved back, into the fire-thrown shadows over by the exit door. 
Standing there, she was nearly invisible to those nearer the flames. "You can 
come and sit with us, Amanda ap Morgan," said Bleys. "I'm not here to try to 
do any harm to Hal. He and I know that it'd make no difference to history if 
either or both of us died. The historical forces are in motion. We're only the 
aiming point of each side." "Perhaps. Perhaps not," answered Amanda's voice. 
"I'll stay here, thanks. " "It's all right, Amanda," Hal said with his eyes 
unmoving on Bleys, "I don't think he'd try to kill me, here-even if he could. 
"Come now," Bleys smiled, "do you think that if I'd come, seriously intending 
to do away with you, I'd have come at all unless I was sure I could?" "If you 
were to try," said Amanda; and her voice had a curious, remote sound, almost 
an echo to it as if she spoke from 



350 
Gordon R. Dickson 
a far distance, "you'd never leave this room, yourself, Bleys Ahrens. " "It's 
really all right, Amanda," said Hal, still without taking his eyes off the man 
opposite. "I'm safe." "Perhaps now, if you say so," said Amanda. "Five seconds 
from now, who knows? I'll stay here." 
Bleys shrugged and concentrated on Hal. "Surprised to see me?" he asked. "No," 
said Hal. "Clearly, the pictures taken by that flyover were studied after 
all." "Yes. You didn't really expect to leave the Final Encyclopedia for one 
of the Younger Worlds without my hearing about it eventually, did you?" said 
Bleys. "You can't shut off all traffic between the Final Encyclopedia and the 
surface of Old Earth; and no matter how reliable the people making the trip 
back and forth, information is going to travel with them. Information leaks; 
and the leakage reaches me, eventually; since we're always watching you there 
at Old Earth." 
Amid got up from his chair and added a fresh couple of split logs to the fire, 
which flared up more brightly as the new fuel crashed down among the 
half-burned wood below it. With the gradual addition of other bodies to the 
room while Hal had been singing, the temperature had risen in the office; and 
then, when the door had been opened to let nearly all of them out, cooler air 
outside had swept in. There was a chill about them, now; and to Hal it felt 
even as if a breath of coldness had reached out to him from the folds of the 
cloak Bleys had just flung back. 
Hal studied this man, leader of those who called themselves the Others, those 
who now controlled all that mattered of the Younger Worlds through their 
powers of persuasion -powers so effective as to seem almost supernatural, and 
which had set the people of those worlds to the task of conquering Earth. 
He had met Bleys in person only at rare intervals in his own life, beginning 
with the time of the murder of his tutors and his own near capture by Bleys 
and his gunmen. The last time had been more than three years before, when Hal 
had first gathered nearly all the people of the Dorsai world, and the wealth 
and 
dge of the two Exotic ones, safely within the phaseshield Hal had caused the 
Final Encyclopedia's engineers to set up, enclosing and protecting it, and 
Earth. 
But all those moments of confrontation were etched unforget-
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
351 
tably in his memory-and he thought likely in Bleys' as well-for the two of 
them were oddly alike in many ways; and both had felt those likenesses, as 
though they might have been close friends if they had not been predestined 
foes. 
So now, he noted the changes in the other man since their last meeting between 
the two walls of the tunnel opened in the phase-shield to let them meet. For 
either to have touched the milky whiteness of these walls, then, would have 
meant being drawn into it and destroyed, the touching body spread out evenly 
through the physical universe. 
The impression of strength and burliness Hal had noticed for the first time 
then had developed even further in Bleys-even while in appearance Bleys' 
height and slimness were still the same. He had been almost elegant in that 
slimness, when Hal had first seen him, at the killing of Hal's tutors. He 
could not be called "elegant" now. 
Instead, a force that was invisible, but very powerful, now radiated from him. 
It was strong enough that Hal could almost feel it, like the heat from the 
fire; and it challenged by its mere existence, challenged and attempted to 
dominate all those about Bleys. 
For a long moment Hal was baffled at how such a thing could grow in the man he 
faced-and then he realized. Each time before that Hal had met Bleys, it had 
been obvious that the Other possessed great personal power. But the difference 
now was that he had taken a step further, the ultimate step. He no longer 



possessed nor controlled power. He was power. 
Now most of the people of ten Younger Worlds looked and listened to him as if 
he was, in some way, superhuman. They did not merely obey his commands 
willingly. They rushed to follow the voice that would send them to die, if 
necessary, to destroy a Mother World they now believed had never given up an 
ancient desire to conquer and enslave them-an Old Earth, backed by the black 
magic of the Final Encyclopedia and ruled by the evil will of an arch-demon 
named Hal Mayne. 
Hal reached for some compensating power within himself, but did not find it. 
He was not daunted by the strength now in Bleys, and he did not doubt that his 
mind, his will and imagination, was as strong as the Other's. But he could not 
feel a similar counterforce in himself. If it was there at all, it was as 
something entirely different, for all that he stood as Bleys' 



352 
Gordon R. Dickson 
opposite number, the equal and countering chess piece on the board of History. 
At the same time he was grateful that he had not met with Bleys, robed in 
power and certainty as he was, a couple of months ago when he, Hal, had been 
at his lowest ebb in the Final Encyclopedia. Or even, that they had not had 
this meeting before this morning's sudden explosion of understanding in Hal; 
the revelation that had come as the sun had risen above the mountains and the 
dewdrop burst into its explosion of light. 
As it was, now he looked at Bleys from the viewpoint of eternity and found 
that which the other possessed to be infinitely small and transitory in that 
context. "What brings you?" Hal asked. "You can't really be expecting any 
change of attitude on my part?" "Perhaps not." Warmth now flowed from Bleys 
instead of the push of personal power. He could charm, and he knew it; even 
though everyone in the office at the moment knew that all but a fraction of 
his abilities in that respect were composed of hypnotic and other techniques 
developed by those same Exotics Bleys was now trying to destroy. "Perhaps 
not," he said again, "but I've always believed you'd listen to reason; and I 
have an offer, one you might want to consider. " "Offer?" "Yes. Let me 
establish a little background first. One of your tutors, who I most wrongly 
and mistakenly allowed to be killed-you'll never have forgiven me for that-" 
Hal shook his head. "No," he said, "it's not a matter for forgiveness. I can 
see now why it happened. At the time though, their murder triggered off the 
way I'd felt about another, earlier death. So I wanted to destroy you, then; 
as I'd wanted to destroy whoever was responsible, in that earlier time. It 
wasn't until I had to live through that sort of loss a second time, with you, 
that I started to understand retaliation's not the answer. No, forgiveness is 
beside the point, now. Which changes nothing as far as you and I are 
concerned." 
al had seen Bleys' eyes narrow ever so slightly at the mention of an earlier 
grief; and felt a touch of annoyance at possibly having betrayed himself to 
the Other's acute mind. No one could match Bleys in catching and pursuing an 
incautious 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
353 
slip. But then the annoyance evaporated. There was no way, even with Bleys' 
own self-developed equivalent of intuitional logic, that the man opposite him 
now could trace Hal back to the life of Donal Graeme. "An earlier grief?" 
echoed Bleys now, softly. "As I say, it's beside the point now," answered Hal. 
"What about my tutors?" "One was a Dorsai. He must have made sure you learned 
something about military history, as far back as civilization tells us 
anything about it?" 
Hal nodded. "Did he ever mention a man who lived in the fourteenth century, 
one of the first military captains, condottiere as the Italians named them, 
named Sir John Hawkwood-Hal 
jumped internally, though he kept his face calm. What sort of black magic 
in Bleys had made him bring up that, of all names? Then his thoughts calmed. 
Their minds of necessity ran on parallel tracks toward a mutual end. It was 
not as unlikely as it might seem that they should both have considered the 
same historical character in the same short span of time. It could mean 
nothing at all that Bleys had happened to mention him now. Moreover it was 
Bleys' way to go at things obliquely. He would hardly have brought up his main 
purpose in coming, this quickly. Best to wait and see what was behind the 
mentioning of that name. "Oh, yes," said Hal. "I'm not surprised," said Bleys. 
"A sort of medieval Cletus Grahame, wasn't he?" "I suppose you could say that. 
Why?" Hal said. "There's a story about him-a bit of poisonous gossip, 
actually; only important really because it could be repeated and believed by 
some people who didn't know better, even after hundreds of years. I just 
wondered if you knew it-about two of his soldiers he was supposed to have 
found quarreling over a nun they had caught-" 



--and he cut her in half, then said something to the effect that now there was 
part for each of them?" Hal nodded. "Nes, I know that particular bit of false 
history." "I can't understand it." Bleys' tone was close to musing. "You'd 
think the sheer physical impossibilities involved would be enough to make 
anyone see through such a story. I suppose 



354 
Gordon R. Dickson 
the reader is supposed to imagine that this man Hawkwood neatly divided the 
victim at the waist with one swipe of his sword, then delivered his single 
line of dialogue to the two soldiers and walked off, leaving them both stunned 
and deprived. None of those who repeated the story can have had the least 
experience with butchering animals for food. I had, as a half-grown boy on 
Harmony; and I boggle at the idea of hacking through that much flesh and 
backbone with one swipe of a fourteenth century broadsword. Even if the victim 
cooperated as much as possible by somehow miraculously keeping in place and on 
her feet until the operation was complete and the soldiers stood by with open 
mouths, it's humanly impossible. In real life it could have taken him 
minutes." "More than a few minutes," said Hal, "given the mild steel of the 
weapons of that time; and the probable lack of edge left on his sword after 
whatever fighting they'd all been in. Since it was only with the soldiers 
drunk and blood mad after taking a city or castle, that even the worst of them 
would have indulged themselves in such license. But that's the least of such 
an event happening in real life." 
Bleys looked at him amusedly. "The least?" he asked. "Yes," said Hal. The 
knowledge stored in the Final Encyclopedia was coming back to his mind. 
"Hawkwood isn't called the first of the modern generals for no reason. He was 
the most businesslike of the early condottiere. He knew the people he fought 
against today might be the people he'd be fighting for tomorrow. So he made 
sure his men never ruffled the sensitivities of local civilians, except under 
the conditions of outright war. That was one of the reasons for his success; 
apart from the sensitivities other elements of his life show. He kept a strict 
discipline over his hired soldiers; and hanged any one of them caught 
infringing even minor local laws." "But of course," said Bleys, "as you say 
this must have happened during the sacking and looting of a just conquered 
city. " "in which case he wouldn't have been present at such an incident at 
all," said Hal. The memory of being Hawkwood as he walked in the circle had 
come to life again in his head. "He was a man of the fourteenth century and a 
combat professional. His actions and letters don't show him as the type of man 
who'd 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
355 
do anything as ridiculous as what that story has him doing; any more than a 
present day Dorsai would slaughter or torture prisoners. I I 
The dry note in Hal's voice had not been enough to hide the emotion 
underneath. To his annoyance once more with himself, he saw Bleys had been 
quick to hear it. "Torture and slaughter were involved in that earlier grief 
of yours, you mentioned?" "No," said Hal. 
Torture had had no part in the death of James. But evoked now by Bleys' acute 
question, the memory of Donal's older brother Mor, dead after torture at the 
hands of the deranged William of Ceta, had come inevitably back to mind. It 
was a memory he, Donal, should have foreseen arising out of any discussion 
with Bleys such as he was having now. He had been too deep in the wood to 
watch out for all the trees. He would never be able to escape the knowledge 
that he had been at least partly responsible for Mor's hideous death. "In any 
case," he interrupted his own thoughts now, "Hawkwood wouldn't have been there 
in the city at that time under any circumstances." "Perhaps you'll tell me why 
not." Bleys smiled. "As you know, my own military education is limited." "I 
wouldn't have thought so," said Hal. "But, if you want me to spell out what 
might have happened-after months of besieging a city, after inaction and 
boredom, living for weeks on end in the mud and stinks of their lines, with a 
shortage of food and drink from a surrounding countryside, scoured clean of 
supplies so that they were almost as starved as the people in the city, the 
attitudes of the besiegers became as savage as the attitudes of wild animals 
toward the besieged. One hour after the city was taken, the rank and file of 
soldiers conquering it would have been roaring drunk and blood mad, on 



whatever wine or other drink they had managed to loot." "Yes." Bleys nodded. 
"That sounds like the human animal I know. What was there to say that their 
commanders weren't equally drunk and mad among them?" "The fact that when it 
was all over, in a day or two, those commanders would need to lead these 
drunken madmen again, as sober and obedient soldiers," said Hal. "But they 
waited until the drink was gone, the raping and looting was over, and 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
the hangovers had taken charge, before they tried it. Raging wild in the 
conquered city, any of the troops, even the most loyal and trustworthy, were 
as likely to turn on their commander as sharks in a feeding frenzy. One of the 
earliest things a military leader learns, even today, is never give his 
subordinates an order they might not obey. So the medieval leaders stayed well 
outside wherever the looting and such was going on after a taking. They 
couldn't change what was going on in any case-" 
He broke off suddenly. "So," he said. His eyes looked directly into Bleys'. 
"It was a possible sacking of Earth you came to talk to me about." "That's 
right," answered Bleys. "Don't tell me you haven't thought of that 
possibility; once-as it's bound to, eventually -the number of ships we can put 
into an attack is such they can make a simultaneous jump through the shield 
and smother any resistance, even that of your Dorsai. This, too, is a siege; 
and the same sort of attitude we've been talking about is developing on my 
side of the phase wall." 
He paused. "I'm willing to do whatever's necessary to put the human race back 
where it belongs, on Old Earth, for a few thousand years until it's had time 
to mature properly," he said. "But I don't like blood baths either; so I 
thought we should talk." 
And he smiled at Hal. 
CHAPTER 
33 
Hal sat looking at Bleys for a moment. "The crew and officers on your 
spaceships on patrol outside the shield," he said, "don't live in trenches or 
dugouts. They aren't sick, or starving. In fact, I'll venture to bet they eat 
better than their friends back on the home worlds they came from. If they're 
developing a siege mentality, perhaps it's because you've fed them full on the 
idea that the people living on Old Earth nowadays are something subhuman, that 
the Final Encyclopedia is an invention of the Devil, manned by devils, and I'm 
the chief devil of them all. It seems to me that an effort on your part put to 
taking those ideas out of their minds would also Prevent any chance of a blood 
bath." "Probably," said Bleys quietly, "but I'm not going to do that. And 
since I'm not-you'll admit you've considered the danger of such a blood bath?" 
Before Hal could answer, he went on. "Forgive me. That was an insulting 
question. Of course, You've considered all the possibilities, just as I have." 
"Speculations waste time," said Hal. "You came here to make me some kind of 
offer. Make it." "I'd like to call off the war," said Bleys. "I'll be damned!" 
Hal said. "Will you indeed?" answered Bleys. "In that case, try to get word 
back to me what it's like. No one's ever been able to 



Gordon R. Dickson 
send any messages back so far; but you might just be able to do it." 
Hal hardly heard him. He told himself no one but the Other man could have 
startled him to this extent. For a moment he even found himself wondering if 
he had been wrong all along and that Bleys was far superior even to him after 
all; that the Other could read minds and see around comers. How else could he 
explain this sudden offer that would concede defeat just as Hal was about to 
move closer than he ever had been to winning the contest between them? Unless 
Bleys had somehow sensed Hal's breakthrough of just that morning? 
Amid moved a little, involuntarily, in his chair; but no sound came from 
Amanda, all but invisible in the shadows by the door; and Hal did not move. In 
the fireplace a burned through log broke and fell into two halves with a soft 
crash; and the flames shot up above it suddenly, sending shadows dancing on 
the wall beyond Hal and Bleys. 
Hal pulled himself together. There was a price, of course -some impossible 
price. "In return for what?" demanded Hal bluntly. "Well, you'll take down the 
phase-shield, of course," said Bleys. "And we'd want to settle some of the 
Younger Worlds' people on presently unused areas of Old Earth." He sat back 
comfortably in his chair. "There're tundra areas at both poles and sections of 
desert that Old Earth's ignored ever since its population stabilized, 
following the wave of immigration to the Younger Worlds nearly three hundred 
years ago. You see, I'm willing to leave the dispute between us, you and 1, to 
the verdict of future history, without any use of weapons." "Are you?" said 
Hal. "You know better than to think I don't know what kind of Younger Worlds 
people you'd settle there. Their colonies would he enclaves, from which your 
colonists could work to convert as many as could be, of Earth's own people, to 
your way of thinking. The end result would be an Earth torn by a division of 
opinion-and ultimately a worldwide civil war-as much of a blood bath as the 
invasion you talk about. Why do you suppose I was instrumental in having the 
shield wall put up in the first place?" "Instrumental's hardly the word," said 
Bleys. "The shield wall was all your doing. But think about it." "There's no 
need," said Hal. "Old Earth's awakened to its 
danger now. It's building ships and training crews for them, with Dorsai help, 
in greater numbers all the time; and potential ly it's still got more 
resources in materials, manufacturing and people than all the Younger Worlds 
combined. Let alone the fact it hasn't light-years of lines of communication 
to maintain support for its fighting ships." "Yes," said Bleys, "what you 
say's all true. Earth's building faster all the time-but I think not fast 
enough. I think the Younger Worlds have too much of a head start. We'll be 
ready to come through the wall before you're ready to hold us off, let alone 
drive us away." 
He stopped talking. Hal had made no effort to interrupt him and continued to 
say nothing, now. "You disagree, of course," said Bleys, "or perhaps you 
don't. In any case, I've made the offer. You've no choice but to -consider it. 
"And I've told you," answered Hal, "what you know as well as I do. What would 
happen if Earth let you colonize like that. 
Bleys nodded. "But you know," he said, "that while you and I may ride the 
winds of history, we're not just completely helpless passengers. Of course 
what you say is right. But the result of those colonies moving in doesn't have 
to be what you suggest. Perhaps you can let them in and still bend the winds 
to your advantage. It's possible. " "Possible, not probable. What you suggest 
is a road downhill to what you want. But for we who want something else, all 
roads would be uphill if I agreed." "The alternative's invasion and the blood 
bath-very soon now. I I 
It was true, thought Hal, even if the invasion Bleys talked of was not likely 
to come quite as soon as he implied. It was also true, unfortunately, that 
there was an element of truth in what Bleys offered. It was possible Old Earth 
could absorb the enclaves Bleys suggested, without war, and the future be 
settled that way. 



But-Hal felt an echo of the same uneasiness he had told Bleys he had felt 
three years before when they had been face to face in the phase-shield. The 
feeling nagged at Hal that if Bleys got what he asked for, somehow the road to 
the Creative Universe that he now thought he saw so plainly before him 



360 
Gordon R. Dickson 
would be blocked as surely as it would be by Tam's death, unless he found the 
entrance to it before then. Should Hal reject this now-that might be the 
answer for everyone now alive-in a gamble on what he might be able to do for 
them and all generations to come? 
He knew which choice he wanted. "Maybe you're right and it would work," he 
said to Bleys slowly, "but I was never one for shaking hands with the Devil. " 
"I thought," Bleys said, "you were the Devil, the Chief Devil?" "Only 
according to your doxology," said Hal. "But in any case," Bleys smiled, 
"what'll you tell Old Earth, when the people there learn they had a chance to 
be free of the phase-shield and the warships of the Younger Worlds, but you 
turned it down?" "That'll depend on whether you actually make such an offer 
officially and publicly," said Hal. He smiled back. "There's nothing official 
about me, outside the Final Encyclopedia. You'd need to make your proposal 
formally from the United Younger Worlds to the Consortium of Old Earth 
governmentsand give them time to consider it. In the end, you may decide not 
to make the proposal, after all." "Oh?" said Bleys. He sounded genuinely 
intrigued. "You think so? Why?" 
Hal kept his own smile. "Wait and see," he said. "The pattern of the historic 
forces changes constantly. You know that as well as I do." "I do, indeed," 
said Bleys softly. He hesitated for a moment. "I think you're bluffing." "Try 
me and see," said Hal. "Yes," Bleys nodded, "I'll do that." 
He had looked away from Hal and at the fire, musingly for a second. Now he 
looked back. "Tell me," he said to Hal, "the last time we met, why didn't you 
carry through? Why didn't you move to resolve what's between us two, at our 
last meeting? I'd expected that to be the moment of our confrontation. You'd 
undeniably stolen a march on me. You'd gotten all the people you valued and 
needed safely hidden behind that phase-shield you'd had built around Old 
Earth; before I could sweep them up, one by one, or group by group, from their 
native worlds. When I met you in the wall of 


9:1: 00.511W%1, GUILD 
361 
the phase-shield, itself, we were at a moment in time when you had a definite 
advantage. Why didn't you push for a conclusion dien?" 
Hal remembered again how at that particular last meeting he had noticed how 
Bleys had become more physically powerful in appearance, how he had put on 
weight in the form of compact muscle. He and the Other had been about the same 
height since Hal had come into his growth-that had been the original height of 
Hal's uncles, Ian and Kensie. Bleys had always been an unusually tall man. But 
when Hal had first seen him, there had been none of the evidence of physical 
strength that was part of him now. 
Now, Bleys had apparently deliberately built himself up to match Hal. It 
dawned on Hal that the Other man must have put in an incredible number of 
hours physically developing and training himself for every possible kind of 
hand-to-hand conflict, with or without weapons. This, because the extra 
strength by itself would be only a part of making himself a physical match. 
for Hal. Therefore he had, for his own reasons, been looking forward even at 
that meeting in the phase-shield wall, to possible conflict on that level with 
Hal. 
But, even as he realized this, Hal also realized that what Bleys had tried was 
impossible. No adult could possibly train himself to the point of physically 
matching a Dorsai of comparable size, age, reflexes and ability, who had been 
trained from the cradle upward. 
Only then did Hal remember, once more, that he now was no match for such a 
Dorsai either. All his physical training as Hal Mayne had been some of the 
tutoring from only one of his tutors, as a child of Old Earth; and even that 
had been a long time ago. He had tried to keep himself in shape since, helped 
by an active life at times, such as when he had been a miner on Coby, or a 
member of Rukh's Resistance band on Harmony; but that didn't make him a 

Dorsai. Recognition and realization took place in his mind in barely the time 
it took him to start answering. "You come at an interesting time to ask me 
that," he answered. "Maybe it isn't so surprising though. Many of the historic 
forces that move you parallel those that move me; and it's natural that we'd 
come together under coincidental conditions. " 



362 
Gordon R. Dickson 
"But you didn't answer my question," said Bleys, his eyes steady on Hal. 
"That's why I say you come at an interesting time," said Hal. "If I'd had to 
answer you then, there in the phase-shield, I wouldn't have been able to. All 
I knew then was that I noticed that you were ready for a showdown; and 
instinct told me to back off from it. I felt-you'd have to cal I it an 
uneasiness about accepting any try to settle things there and then. Now I 
understand why. What I'd realized unconsciously was,'as I told you then, that 
you couldn't win. But, as I later realized, if I agreed to the confrontation, 
then and there, neither could 1. "I don't follow you," said Bleys. "I mean I 
believe I would've won that contest," answered Hal. "But either of us could 
have; and, I'll give you this, you might have won after all. We were at a 
point where, with one of us gone, the other would have had an advantage. 
Pressed home, that advantage might have given a seeming victory." "Seeming, 
only?" Bleys' voice was pleasantly curious. "Yes," answered Hal. "Seeming 
only; because we'd merely be once more repeating a cycle of time-worn history. 
I learned a long time ago that even having all possible power over all the 
worlds doesn't make you able to change human nature; and it's that that's been 
the point of argument between us from the beginning, whether the individual 
human's nature is going to be changed or not. If I'd won I'd have gained a 
victory; but it'd have been only a partial victory. As, if you'd won, you'd 
have had only a partial victory. And the problem with any partial victory for 
either of us was that final victory, the ultimate victory, would've been 
closed off from the survivor, forever; or at least until some later generation 
should create the confrontation once again; and in that future time be wiser 
in its decision. So I chose to leave things at stalemate so that I could try 
for the greater victory, in my own time." 
As I do again now, he thought to himself. It's the same uneasiness, the same 
decision. "Did you?" said Bleys. "And, do you see your way to it now?" 
Hal smiled. "If I've found the answer, " he said, "it's there for everyone. Go 
find it for yourself." 
Bleys looked at him for a long second. It was strange to see 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
363 
Bleys Ahrens pause like this. He must have done so only at very rare moments 
in his life. "So," he said at last, "not this time, either. But I think I'll 
do what you say and find whatever you say you've found, for myself. And I'll 
meet you at the end of the road, wherever that is. Look for me there when you 
reach it." 
His voice softened suddenly. "Stop the little girl," he said. But Amanda had 
already been in movement. Her hand closed now over Cee's just as Cee's fingers 
closed on the glass paperweight containing the miniature pine cone, on Amid's 
desk. Amanda pried it loose from Cee's grasp. Cee struggled, silently if 
fiercely, to hold on to it; but her strength was no match for an adult's. 
Amanda came away with the paperweight. "We don't kill people," Amanda told 
her. "Ever." 
Cee's eyes held Amanda's and the small face was unreadable. "She's decided 
you're dangerous," Amanda told Bleys. "Don't ask me exactly why. Smelled it in 
you, possibly; and I can't really blame her. She's right." 
She turned her attention on Cee again. "But we don't kill people," she 
repeated to the girl. "You don't kill people. Leave this man to those who know 
how to deal with him; like Friend, here." 
Bleys was frowning at Cee. "You don't actually mean," he said to Amanda, 
"she's that dangerous?" "Yes." Amanda still held Cee unwaveringly with her 
gaze. "Men sent here by you made her that way. Ask your four dead Occupation 
soldiers-if you can talk to ghosts." "Well . . . " said Bleys thoughtfully. 
He stayed for a moment where he was, facing Hal. He rose, and Hal rose across 
from him. They stood close as brothers, two tall men under the close, dark 
ceiling of Amid's office. "Well, I've made my offer." Bleys pulled his cloak 



closed again around him, and its dark folds swirled and flashed for a second 
in the firelight. "I'll leave you with it. You might be kind enough to send 
someone with me to light me down the mountainside path, so I don't go in the 
wrong direction and fall off a cliff. From the upper side of that stone at the 
bottom that closes the path, he can easily roll it back into place alone. It's 
only opening it from below that's a hard job for one man." 



364 
Gordon R. Dickson 
He looked over at Amid. "Don't worry," he said, "I'll keep the secret of this 
place of yours, here, and any of the Occupation Army that's tempted to explore 
in this direction will find orders disapproving such a move after the 
pronounced nonsuccess of the late force-leader and his equally late groupman. 
You can go on living up here in peace. I I 
He turned back to Hal. "But they're lucky they had you with them." "I didn't 
kill those soldiers," Hal said. "So you're giving me to understand." Bleys' 
eyebrows raised. "This child did it for you. I find that a little hard to 
believe. " "It's true," said Hal. 
Bleys laughed. "if you say so." "You see," Hal said, "you're making a mistake. 
Here, where you're standing, is the cradle of the new breed of Exotics. 
Exotics who'll be nowhere near as vulnerable to you as they've been in the 
past. " "If they can kill soldiers, perhaps you're right," said Bleys. "But 
I'm not particularly worried. I don't think this place and its people have 
very long to survive, even without a hand being raised against them. Now, what 
about that guide to light me on my way?" 


I 
"You must have rolled the entrance stone aside from below," said Amid 
suddenly. "How could you do it, alone?" 
Bleys glanced at Hal. "How about you?" he asked. "Are you surprised, too? No, 
you wouldn't be, would you? You could do it yourself. You know that there're 
ways of concentrating your strength. Have been ever since the first caveman 
lifted a fallen tree he shouldn't have been able to move, off a hunting 
companion in a moment of frenzy he didn't think he had in him. But you might 
not have thought of me before now as being equal to you, physically. I am, 
though. I think, in fact, we're just about equal in nearly all respects; 
though that's something neither of us will be able to check. " "If there is, 
it'll show at the end," said Hal. "Yes," said Bleys, more quietly than he had 
spoken until this moment, "at the end. Where's that guide?" 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
365 
"I have called for Onete to get someone," said Amid. "Here she comes now." 
In fact, the door was opening, and Onete came in through it, followed by Old 
Man, carrying a powerful fueled lamp, already lit. ,,Then too," said Bleys 
thoughtfully, looking at the slim, white-bearded man waiting by the open door, 
"there might be those about whom there could be a legitimate doubt if they 
could roll the stone back alone, even from the top side. 
Old Man's eyes twinkled back at him. "Then, perhaps not," said Bleys, striding 
toward the door. "Lead on, my guide." Old Man stood aside to let the Other 
pass through the door first; then went out himself, closing it behind him. 
Amanda came forward to the fireplace so that she was together with the seated 
Amid and the still standing Hal. "You frightened me," said Amid to Hal, "when 
you told him that this ledge was the cradle of the new breed of Exotics; and 
right after he'd promised to keep our being here a secret! Do you think he was 
telling the truth about leaving us in peace?" "Bleys feels himself above ever 
having to lie," answered Hal. "But I'm sorry you were frightened. I wasn't 
just being thoughtless enough to raise a doubt in his mind; I was actually 
confirming his original notion you were harmless. " 
Amid's already wrinkled brow wrinkled more deeply in a frown. "I don't 
understand," he said. "He's a fanatic," said Amanda. "You know his background, 
surely? You Exotics must have looked into his background. His mother was one 
of your people." 
Amid nodded. "It's true she was an Exotic," said Amid. "But she turned away 
from us. If we were a religious people, you might have said she was an 
apostate." "She was brilliant, and knew it," said Amanda. "But not brilliant 
enough to gain control of all the Younger Worlds, the way Donal Graeme 
effectively did, back in his time; and fate had caused her to be born into the 
one Splinter Culture whose people were best equipped to resist manipulation by 



her." "Yes," said Amid, with a sigh, "at any rate she left us and went to 
Ceta." 



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Gordon R. Dickson 
"Yes," said Amanda, "and it was on Ceta, later on, Bleys was born. He's never 
known who his father was. Actually he was from Harmony. An unhappy older man 
she seduced merely to see how easily she could do it. But I think she really 
wanted to believe she was the only one responsible for Bleys; because almost 
from the day he was born it was plain he had everything in the way of 
abilities that his mother had liked to think she had herself, but hadn't. So 
she started cramming him full of knowledge from the time he was old enough to 
talk; and he was well on his way to being what he is now at only nine years of 
age, when she suddenly died. Possibly he was responsible for that. He could 
have been. She'd left directions that if anything happened to her he was to go 
to his uncle on Harmony. Do you know that part of his history?" "Not all of 
it," said Amid. "When we looked into Bleys' background, years later, we found 
out about his mother. She had no Friendly genes in either the maternal or 
paternal lines of her ancestry. But the man-the Friendly on Harmony he was 
sent to grow up with-couldn't have been Bleys' uncle! A cousin, a number of 
times removed, at most." "Well, she called him an uncle and the boy was taught 
to call him 'uncle.' In any case he was a farmer with a large family; and a 
fanatic, rather than a true faith-holder. He raised all his children to be 
fanatics like himself. Some of what Bleys is he caught from that man. Though I 
don't suppose it was more than a week or two after he got there that the 
nine-year-old Bleys was controlling that whole family, whether they knew it or 
not. He 
t lled them; but his 'uncle,' or all of them, infected him with their 
fanaticism all the same." 
I 'It's not easy to tell the difference between a fanatic and what you call a 
true faith-holder-particularly when you call them so, Hal," said Amid, looking 
from Amanda to him. "I'd hate to think we simply use the word fanatic for 
anyone whose views we disagree with. " "There's almost no difference in any 
case," answered Hal, "between a fanatic and someone of pure faith, though what 
difference there is makes all the difference, once you get to know them. 
Basically, they differ in the fact a faith-holder puts himself below his faith 
and lets it guide his actions. The fanatic puts himself above it and uses it 
as an excuse for his actions. But 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
367 
ical purposes, the two are almost identical. The fanatic pract 'I die for what 
he believes in as readily as a man or woman of 
Ili= came back to him a memory of a man who had been a 
1@natic and tortured Rukh Tamani close to death; but who now wrved her among 
the most loyal of her followers and was a Jaith-holder. Amyth Barbage had been 
ari officer of the Militia ftt harried and tried to destroy such Resistance 
Groups as Rukh's on both Harmony and its sister Friendly world of Association. 
He and James Child-of-God, Rukh's second-in-command of the Resistance Group, 
would have seemed, to anyone who did not know them intimately, to have been 
cut from the same bolt of cloth. Both men were harsh and uncompromising both 
in attitude and appearance-except that Child-of-God was old enough to be 
Barbage's father. Both spoke an archaic, 'canting' version of Basic, full of 
"thee's" and "thou's." Both put what they thought of as their faith before all 
other things. But Barbage had been a fanatic. 
James Child-of-God had been a true faith-holder. He had spent his life 
fighting against the Militia that the Others had found so useful and put to 
their own purposes; and he died, alone, behind a small barricade in the rain, 
deliberately giving his life to slow up the Militia companies that were close 
on the @,heels of what had by then become a sick and exhausted Resistance 
Group, driven by the relentless pursuit of a Barbage who had unlimited troops 
and supplies at his disposal. 
To this day, Hal could not remember lightly his final moments alone with 
Child-of-God, before he had left the old inan to his final battle in the rain 



with the foe he had opposed so long. Always the memory tightened Hal's throat 
painfully. On the other hand, the memory of Barbage that had just come to mind 
was of an entirely different nature, but showed the same 
kind of utter dedication to a purpose. 
This other memory was of a somewhat earlier time when the Group was being 
closely pursued through a territory of dense Woods by Barbage and the Militia 
Companies stationed in one of the local Districts through which the Group had 
been fleeing; and Hal, because of his training as a boy under a Dorsai, had 
been the best choice to try and slip back quietly to spy on their 



368 
Gordon R. Dickson 
pursuers. He had silently backtracked and come upon the pursuing companies, 
temporarily halted for a meeting of their officers. He had worked his way 
close enough to hear them, co ing within earshot at a point where the superior 
officer of the Companies had gotten himself into a confrontation with the 
knife-lean, relentless-eyed Barbage, who had apparently been sent out from 
Militia Headquarters and made into what he was by Bleys' direct personal 
influence. The scene was suddenly there, now, as he thought of it, in his 
mind's eye. . @ . 
I.. . . yes, I say it to thee, " Amyth Barbage had been sayt .ng in his hard 
tenor voice to the Commandant of the Militia, who 
was a Captain, as Barbage was himsetf. Hal moved closer behind a small screen 
of slim variform willows. Barbage was on his feet. The other, junior, officers 
of the Militia had all been sitting with the Captain himself in a row on a 
fallen log, between the two men, with the other Captain seated at thefar end 
of their line. "I have been given a commission by authority far above thee, 
and beyond that by the Great Teacher, Bleys Ahrens himself; and if I say to 
thee, go-thou wilt go!" 
The other Captain had looked upward and across at Barbage with a tightly 
closed jaw. He was a man perhaps five years younger than Barbage, no more than 
midway into his thirties; but his face was square and heavy with oncoming 
middle age, and his neck was thick. "I've seen your orders," he said. His 
voice was not hoarse, but thick in his throat-a parade-ground voice. "They 
don't say anything about pursuing over district borders. " "Thou toy man!" 
said Barbage; and his voice was harsh with contempt. "What is it to me how 
such as thou read orders? I know the will of those who sent me; and I order 
thee, that thou pursuest how and where I tell thee to pursue!" 
The other captain had risen from the log, his face gone pale with anger. The 
sun glinted on theforward-facing oval end of the butt of the power pistol 
sheltered under the snapped down weather flap of the holster at his belt. 
Barbage wore no pistol. "You may have orders!" he said, even more thickly. 
"But you don't outrank me and there's nothing that says I have to take that 
sort of language from you. So watch what you say or pick yoursetf a weapon-I 
don't care either way." 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
369 
Barbage's thin upper lip curled slightly. @W 
eapon? What Baal's pride is this to think that in the Lord's "*wrk thou 
mightest be worthy of affront? Unlike thee, I have no JVch playthings as 
weapons. Only tools which the Lord has made amilable to my hand as I have 
needed them. So, thou hast 
called a weapon, then? No doubt that which I see on ,,,*mething 
ou didst not like y side, there. Make use of it, therefore, since th dw name I 
gave thee!" 
The Captain flushed. "You're unarmed," he said shortly. "Oh, let that not stop 
thee," said Barbage ironically. "For the servants of the Lord, tools are ever 
ready to hand." 
He made one long step while the other man stared at him, to end standing 
beside the most junior of the officers sitting on the log. He laid his hand on 
the snapped-down weatherflap of the young officer's power pistol and flicked 
the flap up with his thumbnail. His hand curled around the suddenly exposed 
butt of the power pistol beneath. A twist of the wrist would be all that would 
be needed to bring the gun out of its breakaway holster andflre it; while the 
other Captain would have needed to reach for and uncover his own pistol first 
before he could fire. 
From the far end of the log the Captain stared, his heavy face suddenly even 
more pale and mouth open foolishly. "I meant . . . I IThe words stumbled on 
his tongue. "Not like this. A proper meeting, with seconds-'' "Alas, " said 
Barbage, "such games are unfamiliar to me. So I will kill thee now to decide 



whether we continue or turn back from our pursuit, since thou hast not chosen 
to obey my orders-unless thou shouldst kill me first to prove thy right to do 
4s thou wishest. That is how thou wouldst do things, with thy weapons, and thy 
meetings and thy seconds, is it not9" 
He paused, but the other did not answer. "Very well then," said Barbage. He 
drew the power pistol from the holster of the junior officer and leveled it at 
his equal in rank. "In the Lord's name-," broke out the other man hoarsely. 
"Have it any way you want. We'll go on then, over the border!" "I am happy to 
hear thee decide so, " said Barbage. He replaced the pistol in the holsterfrom 
which he had withdrawn it and stepped awayfrom the young officer who owned it. 
"We will 



Gordon R. Dickson 
continue until we make contact with the pursuit unit sent outfroon the neq 
District, at which time I willjoin them and thou, with thy 
0 officers and men, mayest go back to thy small games in town. i That should 
be soon. When are the troopsfrom the next District to meet us? . . . " 
"The fact that the goal he works for is wrong won't slow Bleys down," Hal said 
now to Amid. "He'll do what's necessary to accomplish what he wants; just as I 
will. It's not the goal, but his belief that's important; and that's as strong 
as if his faith was as right as anyone's ever was." 
Amid nodded slowly. "I see," he said. "But the fact that he's found me here 
changes things for me, personally," went on Hal. "I'm afraid I'd better be 
getting back to Earth and the Final Encyclopedia pretty soon, now." "Not just 
pretty soon," said Amanda. "Immediately. Now. " 
Hal turned to her. "You've been here all this time and you're only saying it 
now?" he demanded. " She's only saying it to you," Amid said. "She told me the 
minute she arrived, but you were down in the forest busy rescuing Artur and 
Cee at the time. Since you've come back, you were first, dead for sleep, then 
sometime early this morning you seem to have had a revelation or discovery of 
some kind-and none of us wanted to disturb you until you were ready to be 
disturbed. What had touched you may have been too important for the future of 
all of us to be damaged by intrusion. " 
Hal sighed, and nodded. "Yes," he said. "Actually, the fault's mine. I should 
have asked Amanda for news, the minute I saw her, last night." "You were in no 
shape-last night," said Amanda, "to ask, or hear." 
He smiled a little. "Perhaps," he said. "What happened to me at sunrise this 
morning might have been blocked off by whatever news you've brought that makes 
it necessary I go back immediately. But I don't think so. I was deaf and dumb 
with tiredness, though; I'll 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 371 
gmnt you that. At any rate, now that sunrise and Bleys are both p4st-what is 
it?" "It's for your ears only," said Amanda, "all I've told Amid was that 
you'd have to leave right away. Actually, that's all you ought to need to know 
yourself, to get moving. I'll tell you as we 
90-" 



THE CHANTRY GUILD 
373 
CHAPTER 
34 
They were well down into the forest and headed away from the direction that 
would have taken them back to the town of Porphyry and still Amanda had not 
brought up what she had promised to tell him as they went, whatever it was 
that was "for his ears only." "No doubt," said Hal, at length, "you had a good 
reason for not letting me know up there why I had to leave in a hurry; but 
we're well away, now, and I'd still like to hear." 
I'll m sorry." She was walking along, staring at the ground ahead of them a 
little ways off, and he realized she was frowning. "The fact is, I could have 
let you know long before this. But I've had my head full of the problems 
involved." "Bad news of some kind?" asked Hal. "Yes, but . . . " Amanda 
hesitated, then her voice picked up briskly. "In a word, Tam's sent you a 
message." 
Hal stopped. She stopped also and they turned to face each other. "A message?" 
Hal repeated. "He's hardly got the strength-" 
s one word, only," said Amanda. "The word is 'tired.' Hal nodded slowly. "I 
see," he said softly. He turned and began walking on again automatically in 
the direction they had already been headed. Amanda went with him. 
'477 
"Yes," she answered. "He said it to Rukh at a moment when 
she was alone with him. Ajela had been called out of his quarters for a 
second. He knew Rukh would understand and --pass on the word to me; and I'd 
get it to you." 
Hal nodded. "It was bound to be," he said, on a long exhalation of breath. 
-14e held on as long as he could-for my sake. There's still nothing wrong with 
him physically?" "You needn't ask that," said Amanda. "Medical science using 
the Final Encyclopedia could keep his body from ever 
breaking down. It's his mind that's had too many years. That's-- "I know ,, 
said Hal, "there's more to living than a body that'll go on forever. He's 
weary of life itself. But he's been holding on . . ." "Rukh thinks, and I'm 
sure she's right," said Amanda, "that he sent the message because he can't 
last much longer; though no doubt he's going to try until you get back to see 
him one more time. If he'd had the life energy for just a few more words she's 
sure that's what he would have said." 
Hal nodded. "Yes, he would have," he said. "How'd the word reach you?" "Rukh 
sent a courier ship to orbit at a distance around this world until it could 
contact us. Its driver knew approximately how far off-surface Simon's ship 
would be orbiting, waiting for us. He found Simon, told him, and Simon 
signaled me. I've got a system of signals that involves things like you saw 
our first day here after Simon dropped us off-the white cloth I spread out on 
the tops of bushes where his viewer could spot it from orbit. In this case, 
Simon sent down a small capsule under power with the message to a spot which 
he knew I check regularly for word from him. I signaled back. We'll be at a 
point where he can pick us up in just a few minutes-he'll be tracking us right 
now from orbit. " "Good." Hal nodded. "And he should have us back to Earth in 
a couple of days, ship time." "Or less," said Amanda. "We'll make it in as few 
shifts as possible-shave right down the probability line of enough error 
to lose us among the stars on the way there-unless you've got Some reason not 
to." 



374 
Gordon R. Dickson 
.'No. I I 
Hal lifted his head and squared his shoulders. "Well, at any rate, I've got 
something to tell Tam, when I see him." He paused, then went on, "I might 
still be able to give him what he wants, in time; enough for him to let go 
with an easy conscience." "You see why I didn't dare break the news to you, 
even in front of Amid? To too many people, on too many worlds, Tam Olyn's a 
symbol of hope even bigger than the conflict between you and Bleys. " "It's 
not a personal conflict," said Hal gently. "I know. Forgive me," she said. "I 
put it badly. But there're too many people who may start to lose the one hope 
they've hung on to, ever since the Others took over completely on the Younger 
Worlds. Even there-Bleys' propaganda about you and everything else hasn't been 
able to shake their hope in Tam. If they think he's close to being gone, now, 
with nothing found, the heart could go out of a lot of them. That could have 
been a reason behind Bleys' offer, just now. As long as Tam was still alive, 
they could hope for a miracle that'd set everything right. "They can still 
hope for one," said Hal. "But who's to convince them of that?" said Amanda. 
"Bleys has done too good a job of blackening your reputation for them to 
believe in your word alone; and there's no one else of comparable stature." 
"There's Ajela. " "Who really thinks much, or even knows much of her, outside 
of Earth?" asked Amanda. "Besides, she's the second problem, not the 
solution-here we are." 
They had reached a natural opening in the forest, something that on another 
world, with a different sort of groundcover from the creeping ground vines of 
Mara at this altitude, would have been called a meadow. "Simon should be here 
inside an hour-maybe even in minutes, now," she said. 
She stopped at the edge of the open area and Hal stopped with her. He studied 
her face in profile. "Why did you say 'the second problern'T' he asked. 
She turned to face him. "Tam's going to die," Amanda said. "Don't you realize 
what that means in the case of Ajela?" 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
375 
"Oh," said Hal, "of course." "More 'of course' than I think you realize," said 
Amanda. ..,.O'With Tam's death Ajela's going to collapse; and as things 
@,stand she's the working executive head of Earth. Who's to fill in for her 
until she can take control again, and how can we handle things while keeping 
Tam's death a secret?" "You're right," Hal answered. "I thought about that a 
little while I was up on the ledge." "You've had your own search to occupy 
you. But now, I think maybe you should set that aside for a moment. Hal, you 
know everybody's done all each one of them could, to leave you free to search 
for the answer you were the only one able to find-- "Including you taking 
yourself off to risk your life daily on worlds the Others held in the palms of 
their hands, just to keep yourself out of my reach?" "Not just to keep myself 
out of your reach," she said swiftly. "This work I do is too badly needed to 
be taken on as just an excuse. But at the same time, your search is something 
you have to do on your own. We all know that. If I was around, I'd be a 
distraction to you, whether you wanted me to be or not." 
Their eyes met. "I'm one of Time's soldiers, too, Hal," she said, "and it was 
my duty to be elsewhere." "And what if it's to be we never have time for 
ourselves?" Hal asked softly. "You asked me that before. We will," she 
answered. Her eyes still held his steadily. "We will. I promise you." 
An unreasonable happiness leaped up in him; but just at that moment the air 
quivered about them like soundless thunder, felt not heard, and they both 
looked up. A dot was flashing down out of the sky toward them in jumps, 
growing with each jump more into a visible shape, and nearer. It was Simon 
Graeme doing what the Dorsai did as a matter of course, but few pilots from 
Other worlds would risk-phase-shifting down to almost the very surface of a 
world, so as to avoid any but the briefest sound of a ship coming through the 
atmosphere to a landing. "We'll talk more-later," said Hal hastily. "Yes, we 



will," she answered; as with a sudden brief explosion of displaced air and 
atmospheric motors, the courier ship landed in the open area less than fifty 
meters from where they stood. 



376 
Gordon R. Dickson 
They went forward, but the entry port swung open before they had reached it 
and Simon looked out. He gripped Hal's hand briefly as they came aboard, and 
punched the key that closed the port behind them. "We'll have to move fast," 
he said. "There're more Younger World ships in orbit than I've seen here 
before; and that courier from Earth coming out to contact me was noticed. Find 
your seats, strap in, and we'll lose ourselves outside Procyon's orbit as soon 
as possible . . . ... 
It was almost two days, after all, before they reached safely through the 
phase-shield and landed inside the Final Encyclopedia. Simon and Amanda had 
taken turns driving the ship, so that the next shift to be calculated was 
always being worked on even as they were making the current jump. So abrupt 
had been their departure that they had left with nothing but the clothes they 
had on-in Hal's case, some gray trousers and a light blue shirt that had been 
made for him at the Chantry Guild. In Amanda's case, they were her standard 
bush clothes for travel out of sight of the local military: boots, trousers 
and jacket, both of khaki twill, the shirt with a number of pockets. 
Rukh, who was waiting for them in the docking area at the entrance to an 
access corridor as they stepped out of the parked ship, showed no interest in 
how they were dressed. She herself was looking unusually, almost ominously 
formal, in a long black skirt and high-collared white blouse, with her usual 
lone adornment the steel neckchain with its pendant granite disk incised with 
a cross, showing in the collar's short opening, in front. "Hal!" she said. 
She hugged him. There was still a remarkable strength in her thin arms. She 
had seemed made of monocellular cord and steel when he had first known her as 
a commander of her Resistance Group on Harmony. Now, she felt so light as to 
be almost weightless in his arms; but he thought now that there was part of 
that original strength, which had survived the attrition of the days and 
nights of torture in the Militia cell; and the glow of her faith, which never 
failed to seem to set her aglow from within. For a second, holding her, he 
thought he touched the reason she had been so easily able to accept Barbage, 
her former torturer, as now one of her most dedicated followers. It was not as 
if she had merely forgiven him. It was something greater than that. It 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
377 


o understand how he could have ks if her faith allowed her t what he was then, 
and yet suddenly become what he was 
rgiveness on her side, or So that there was no need for fo '_ iimd to ask for 
it, on his. But she was stri 
ding ahead of them now, drawing away from 
Amanda's were so Am in spite of the fact that his legs and 
longer than hers. urry!" she said. "We've got his quarters right next to the 
area, expecting you." rideed, it was only some thirty meters down the silent, 
.'gwen-carpeted hallway between the dark-paneled walls to the tingle door at 
the corridor's end; and she led them through into ',_,the rooms of Tam Olyn. 
The mechanical magic, which could shift areas around within its shell, at 
will, had brought Tam as 
dm to their arrival point as possible. 
They stepped into the familiar main room, which had been designed long since 
at Tam's order to look like a woodland glade on Old Earth, the trees barring 
sight of the walls surrounding giving the illusion of the outdoors on the 
world below-an illusion reinforced by the small stream wandering down the 
Center of it, among the massively overstuffed easy chairs that --mere 
scattered around what seemed to be the grass of a tiny ineadow. Two people 
were already there. One was Ajela. She was seated, holding one of Tam's veined 
hands in both of hers, as he occupied the chair opposite. 
Tam sat with the utter motionlessness of extreme old age. He was dressed as if 
for the day's work, in a business suit of the sort he had worn all his life. 
If the heavy cloak, red and white on one 

side and with a dark inner lining, of an interplanetary journalist had been 
added, there would have been no difference in his dress 'now from the time 
when he had been just such a newsman, with no plan to ever set foot in the 
Final Encyclopedia again, after his single early visit to it. Like Hal, he had 
needed to leave the Encyclopedia in order to find it again. But it had been 
over a 
century now since he had been the young man who had made that single visit, at 
his sister's insistence, and heard the voices as 
Hal and Mark Torre had done. 
Only they three had heard, as they passed through the centerpoint of the globe 
that was the Encyclopedia; but in the case of each of them, that hearing had 
changed their lives. 
Now Tam sat waiting, holding on to life that had become a 



378 
Gordon R. Dickson 
burden rather than a pleasure, trying to endure just enough longer for Hal to 
reach him-and now Hal was here. For the Encyclopedia's sake, he waited for 
Hal. For Ajela's sake, he would wait as long as he could. 
It was Ajela that caught Hal's eyes now. Physically, she had not changed since 
he had seen her last, but what Tam's steady and obvious weakening was doing to 
her was made clear in her dress. Whatever the Final Encyclopedia had 
automatically laid out for her to wear this day, in the program she had set up 
in it long since to save her time in dressing, as she had come to save time 
whenever possible, could not have been what she was now wearing. Her choice 
had clearly been dictated by an unconscious desire to rouse the dying man 
through his male instincts, if nothing else. 
She had chosen to put on a sari-like garment that wound tightly around her 
waist and hips. It was a hot pink, with yellow flowers imprinted over the base 
color. Above the sari there was a space of bare midriff, and above that a 
small, short-sleeved, tight blouse of the same material; while on her arms 
were multiple slim bracelets and in her ears earrings made of multiple small 
chained pieces-all these ornaments of bronze-which chimed and jingled at her 
slightest movement. 
But the sari was carelessly draped; and the sound of the bracelets and 
earrings were lonely in the room as she turned to look, with a shadow of 
desperate appeal on her face, at Hal and Amanda as they entered. 
Clearly, on his part, Tam did not see them enter. Plainly he saw Ajela beside 
him, but equally plainly he no longer noticed what she wore. His eyes were 
fixed on something among the trees, or upon his own dreams, or perhaps upon 
nothing at all. It was not until Hal had walked up to stand almost before his 
chair, and knelt on both knees, so their faces should be on a level, that 
recognition came. 
Even then, it came slowly; as if it was a great labor for Tam to rouse himself 
to what he saw before him. But it dawned in his eyes at last and the hint of a 
smile liftcd the corners of his mouth. His lips parted and moved, but whatever 
he meant to say was not voiced loudly enough for Hal, or any of the others, to 
hear it. 
Hal reached out and took Tam's free hand between his own two, so that he held 
it as Ajela was holding the other one. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
379 
"I'm here, Tam," he said softly. "I'm back; and I've found now. Can you hold 
on just ::,@@4omethiinig I needed. The way's clear _@a matter of hours more) 
It won't be long. Not long at all." Is small smile saddened. Barely 
perceptible, but with Tam 
enough to see, his head moved twice, a few centimeters from side to side. 
"I know, Tam," said Hal "I'm not trying to hold you here. I'll only try to 
work very fast, just in case you're still with us 
when I reach what we've been after all this time. But it's a solid promise 
now. The way's clear. The end is in sight. The Final Encyclopedia's at last 
going to be what Mark dreamed of; what you dreamed of, and 1, too. Maybe it'll 
happen fast enough-" 
He broke off as the old head before him made the same minuscule side to side 
movement. Tam's hand stirred slightly between his two palms; and he was 
puzzled for a second before he realized the other was trying to return a 
pressure to his touch. 
Once more Tam's lips moved. But this time the ghost of a 
voice came from them. "Hal . . . 
But the faint exhalation of breath died, the heavy eyelids wavered and closed. 
Tam was utterly motionless and the moment of his stillness stretched out and 
out. . . . "Tam!" cried Ajela suddenly; and both Rukh and Amanda moved in on 
the chair where Tam sat. But Tam's heavy eyelids fluttered briefly and rose. 
For a second he focused on Ajela; and that small attempt at a smile once more 



turned up the corners of his lips for her. 
Hal rose and moved back out of the way, as Ajela slipped forward onto her 
knees where he had been, threw her arms around Tam and buried her face against 
the ancient body. 
Rukh bent over the gold-haired, kneeling figure. Hal felt a 
touch on his elbow and looked to see Amanda's eyes meaningfully upon his. He 
turned and followed her out of the door by which they had just come in. As the 
door closed behind them, he turned back to face her and they stood, looking at 
each other. "What can I do?" said Hal. "is there anything I can do at all 
for her?" "Not directly," said Amanda. "Leave her to Rukh and me. Both of us 
have been through this sort of experience in our own 
lives. For me, it was Ian, when I was still young. For Rukh it was 



380 
Gordon R. Dickson 
James Child-of-God. We can help her. You can't, except by getting on with your 
own work." "Which is what I intend starting immediately," he said. "With luck, 
I can still achieve something before-" 
He broke off. Rukh had just come through the door and joined them, 
11 How is she?" Hal asked. "She's best left alone with him for now," said 
Rukh. "Later it'll be a matter of getting her away from him to rest for a 
while. Let's go to her office to talk." 
With another brief use made of the Final Encyclopedia's magic, and another 
short walk down the corridor, they entered the office. It was, like the office 
of any of the others from Tam on down who worked with the Encyclopedia, merely 
one room of the personal living space of each within the massive structure 
that was the TFE. But illusion made the space chosen appear as large as was 
wished and hid all doors to more rooms beyond, to all but those who knew the 
quarters intimately. 
Sol as with Tam's forest glade, Ajela's working space was a reflection of her 
own individual identity. As his did, hers had water; but not a stream. Where 
Ajela worked was a round, shallow pool in which brightly colored fish lazily 
swam. There was indeed a desk beside the pool but the floor space about it was 
furnished in lounge fashion; except that the chairs, like the desk, were 
floats, instead of solidly floor-standing, oldfashioned furniture. 
However, the largest difference between the two personalized rooms lay in 
their general concept. Tam's was a slice of Old Earth. Ajela's was a nostalgic 
reconstruction of part of a typical Exotic countryside residence; one of those 
artfully constructed dwellings in which it was possible to move from indoors 
to outside without having realized it, so well were the two environments 
integrated in the design and furnishings. 
The inside surface of the wall through which Hal, Amanda and Rukh now entered 
was simple wood paneling. But where the wall connecting to it at an angle on 
their right would normally be was the seeming of a vertical face of roughly 
cut, warm brown granite. The wall to their left seemed a trellis overgrown 
with vine from which hundreds of varicolored sweetpea blossoms looked inward 
at them. While the wall that should have 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
381 
iven opposite the one through which they had entered appeared not to exist. 
Instead, they looked out on a vista of green treetops in a bowl-shaped valley 
lifting in the distance to bluish mountains wreathed in soft tendrils of 
moving white mist. "Let's take the desk," said Rukh. She stepped ahead, 
leading the way, and went forward and around to seat herself behind the desk. 
It was a piece of office furniture that could be expanded both lengthwise and 
in width to make a conference table seating up to fifteen people; but at the 
moment it was down to its minimal size of a meter in width and two in length. 
Rukh sat down behind it, in a float near one end, and Amanda and Hal moved, 
respectively, to the end itself and the front of the desk directly opposite 
Rukh. Two nearby floats, their sensory mechanisms triggered by the heat of the 
bodies close to them, moved forward to be used; and Hal and Amanda sat down. 
Hal looked at the desk. Its present state was the one thing in the room that 
did not resonate of Ajela. In all the time Hal had been in tfie Final 
Encyclopedia, he had seen its surface in either one of only two states. Either 
it was completely bare and clean, except for a stylus next to the screen inset 
in the desktop where Ajela usually sat; or it was high-piled and adrift with 
the flotsam of hard copies of official papers, correspondence, contracts and 
the like. 
Now, it was in neither state. It held a number of hard copies, but they were 
neatly stacked in orderly piles. Hal looked at these as the desk top opened 
before both Amanda and himself to make available to each of them a screen and 
stylus like that now in front of Rukh. 
The neatly stacked papers were not the product of Ajela's hands. The desk 



showed the touch of Rukh. Hal raised his eyes to her. "Have you taken over 
here for her completely, then?" he asked. "I'm afraid so," said Rukh. "It's 
not official, of course. @jela's authority comes from Tam-I should say, from 
you, since Tam named you Director, only you've never used the authority. She 
has. But aside from the fact she's got no right to pass it to someone else 
while you're alive, we daren't let word get out to Earth or anywhere else that 
she's not, effectively, at the helm. There're a handful of inner circle 
secretaries that 



382 
Gordon R. Dickson 
know, but they keep it to themselves. Not even most of the Encyclopedia 
personnel realize how much she's out of the picture most of the time." "You'd 
think they'd guess something like that was going on, with Tam as close to the 
end as he is," said Amanda. "They do," said Rukh. "They're just loyal enough 
not to ask embarrassing questions. But Hal-- Her brown eyes leveled on his. 
"They'll feel better now you're back." "I never did run things here," said 
Hal. "No, but they know Tam looked on you to finally succeed him, and in fact 
you were already made Director years ago, when the shield went up. They'll 
feet better with you actually in the Encyclopedia." "How are you managing on 
your own?" Amanda asked Rukh. 
The brown eyes moved to meet the turquoise ones. "It's all decision-making," 
said Rukh. "The internal problems I turn over to the heads of departments. In 
special cases, I go to Ajela if I have to. The rest of it, particularly the 
problems coming up to her from Earth, are usually just a matter of common 
sense or mediating between two unreasonable points of view In fact, nearly 
everything that comes up here for decision from the surface is something that 
could and should have been handled by the people down there. They did, in 
fact, until they woke up to the fact that we were in a war and the 
Encyclopedia was the one their defenders were contracted to. Not that I make 
any military decisions. I leave that up to the Dorsai. "But Hal," she turned 
back to him, "these things aren't imp rtant. Tam is. Is there anything, 
anything at all, you can do for him and Ajela before he has to let go 
completely? In spite of what you may think by what you saw in there, he'll 
fight it out to the last minute. It's the way he's made. If there's the 
slightest chance of you discovering anything, or doing something that would 
make him feel he was free to go . . ." "I have found something," said Hal, 
"and I'm going to try to do something. Is Jeamus Walters still with us?" 
Rukh smiled. "Does it seem that you've been gone that long, Hal?" Rukh smiled. 
"Right now you ought to find him in his office. Shall I call and find out?" 
She picked up the stylus. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
383 
"No. Never mind. I'm going there anyway, said Hal. "I'll you both later." He 
was getting up as he spoke and was already turned toward door. "Call on me if 
you need me," said Amanda. -On all of us, for anything," said Rukh. "I will," 
said Hal, already at the door. He went out. kamus Walters was in his office, 
as Rukh had guessed. It was 
_,typical of the man that his work place sported no illusions wh Iatsoever. 
Its bare metal walls were completely covered with L shelves holding hard 
copies of designs and schematic drawings. 
His desk threatened to outdo Ajela's at its worst with an 
overload of hard copies. Jeamus lived for work and work was all ,he lived for. 
He had been that way, as far as Hal knew, from long before he had become 
Research Director of the Encyclopedia; and apparently that was the way he 
always would be. 
Now, Hal, who had hardly seen the man in the preceding three years, during 
which he had been caught up entirely in his own search and work, looked at him 
clearly for the first time in a 
long while, and saw changes in him, small but unmistakable. 
There was a little less hair with more gray in it, in the circlet that 
surrounded all but the front part of his skull like an uncompleted wreath. His 
square mechanic's body and blunt mechanic's hands were the same as ever; his 
face showed no real 
signs of aging, but there was a faintly dusty air about him, as if he was a 
mechanism that had been left unused for some time. He, got to his feet with a 
sudden start as Hal entered after giving his name to the door annunciator. 
"Hal!" he said. His hard, square palm and fingers enclosed Hal's. They made up 
a smaller hand than the one Hal enclosed them with, but they were hardly less 



strong. "How are you? Is there something we can do for you?" "Yes," said Hal, 
"there is. I'm up against a time limit, Jeamus-you can guess why. I need 
something you can build without too much trouble-I think. But I don't want you 
to boggle at my plans for using it, so I won't tell you those, if you don't 
mind." 



CHAPTER 
35 
Jeamus frowned at him and hesitated for just a moment. "If you say so," he 
said; then, his frown clearing, "everyone knows Tam expected you to take over 
as Director whenever you felt you were ready. It's just that I've gotten used 
to taking orders from Ajela-" "And Rukh." 
Jeamus glanced at the door, which was slightly open. It was close enough in 
the little office, so that he could reach out without getting up. He pushed it 
closed; and it swung back against the jamb but did not latch. "And Rukh, of 
course," he said, lowering his voice, "though most, even here, don't know 
that. What I was going to say was that I've gotten used to taking orders from 
both of them; and if you say you think I might boggle at your plans, it makes 
me think that it's very likely either one of them would boggle, too. " "They 
would," said Hal. "That's why you have to do this for me without telling them 
anything about it." 
Mentally, he added Amanda to the list of those who might not like what he 
wanted to do, then backed off a bit from that thought. Amanda's perception was 
remarkable enough that she would be the most likely of the three women to take 
him on faith. 
Jeamus was distractedly ruffling what hair remained of him. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
385 
"This is a little uncomfortable for me," he said. "Technicalyou're in control 
here and should be able to order anything . but Ajela has been in charge so 
long, and in control-it's 
to think of not telling her-particularly about something might not think was a 
good idea. At the same time I hate to -bother her right now . . . ... 
He sat for a moment, frowning and ruffling his hair. Hal sat in silence, 
patiently waiting. "All right," Jeamus said at last. "You've got my word. Now, 
,:.what is it?" 
To begin with," said Hal, "is there a blind corridor xvailable in the 
Encyclopedia? I mean a short corridor with an entrance at one end but no doors 
at all leading off of it?" "Yes. There're several," said Jeamus. "They were 
set up originally to allow for overflow or changes in the personnel aboard. 
Right now they're all being used as storage areas, but %e could clear one out 
and store whatever's in it, in some other area-we've got the available space." 
"Good," said Hal. "I'll want this corridor to come to my call; no one 
else's-even by mistake. Can we be certain of that?" 
Jeamus smiled. "All right," said Hal, "I hadn't any real doubt, but I wanted 
to make sure. Would you have such a corridor cleared and call me when it's 
ready? Then I'll tell you what I want done." "Why not tell me now?" "You'll 
understand that, when I tell you what I want," said Hal. "All right? I'll be 
in my quarters. Call me when it's ready; as soon as possible, for other 
people's sakes beside my own." "Tam?" asked Jeamus, a little grimly. "Other 
people besides me," said Hal. "All right," said Jeamus. "It'll be a matter of 
a few hours, ]DO more." "Good. As fast as you can. As I say, I'll be in my 
quarters. You can call me there." 
When Hal let himself back into his own apartments, Amanda had not yet 
returned. This was as Hal had hoped. He seated himself on the carpeting of the 
carrel that was the workspace of his quarters, and summoned up with his 
imaging link to the Encyclopedia an image of the range of glowing red lines 
that was the internal map of the knowledge in that mighty body. 



386 
Gordon R. Dickson 
As he had known there would be, changes showed themselves in the lines-small 
changes, but undeniable ones that were the result of information constantly 
added, from the state of affairs on Earth, news brought by couriers from 
outside, and the readings of the many instruments that scanned and kept track 
of the wings of enemy space vessels prowling the outside of the phase-shield. 
His eyes were drawn immediately to each small change, as any change is noticed 
in a known landscape; or the face of a loved one; and he took a few moments to 
incorporate all of these in his earlier mental picture of the Encyclopedia's 
core memory. Then he dismissed the mechanical image, and replaced it with one 
evolved from his own memory and imagination, comparable now with the latest 
and most up-to-date image the Encyclopedia itself had formed for him. 
Sitting, holding it in the field of his mental vision, he could feel the 
complete knowledge of the Encyclopedia open to his mind, like some vast 
storehouse of priceless art objects, too multitudinous in number to be seen in 
one moment from any one single viewpoint. Then he let the rest of his mind go 
back, back to the chanting circle, to the first edge of the morning sun 
at was Procyon's bright pinpoint orb beginning to show above the far-off 
mountain peaks, and the single ray lancing into the dewdrop to make the 
explosion of light that signaled his sudden understanding of the full truth in 
what he and the rest had chanted . . . the transient and the eternal are the 
same. 
That great and ringing verity echoed in and through him as if e was a tuned 
piece of metal struck by an invisible padded hammer-and it was not just as if 
comprehension of all the individual bits of knowledge stored in the memory of 
the Encyclopedia shrank until they could be contained by his one human mind; 
but as if the back of his thoughts, his own unlimited unconscious 
understanding, widened and spread to take in and possess, all at once, all 
that that warehouse contained. 
He was not suddenly filled, as a vessel is brought to the brim with liquid-but 
it was as if there was nothing known here that he had not known and handled, 
understood and loved, in its own body and measure. 
He sat as if bound, as if part of the workings of the Encyclopedia itself, 
possessed of all it contained and caught up 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
387 
in the fact like someone mesmerized. For there had been more there than any 
person could hope to learn in many lifetimes; but-the transient and the 
eternal were the same. He had one lifetime only, but less than a moment of 
that could contain eternity, and in that eternity he had had time to possess 
himself of all that the Final Encyclopedia contained. 
At last, the Encyclopedia was ready to be put to its proper purpose, the one 
Mark Torre had envisioned for it, without even 
being able to see or name that vision. He could go to Tam now, and tell him 
that the search was over. 
But, there was still the problem of using what he had touched and come to own. 
All that the Encyclopedia held was no more use locked in his mind than it had 
been in the technological container that was the Encyclopedia itself. He would 
use 
it-then go to Tam. Surely, there was time for that. . . . 
He woke to the surroundings of his carrel to find Amanda standing and watching 
him. Plainly, she had caused the Encyclopedia to make fresh clothing for her. 
She was no longer in the bush clothes in which they had left Kultis together, 
but wearing a plain, fitted, knee-length dress of blue-reminiscent of the 
color of the wintry seas around the northern islands of the Dorsai that he 
remembered from his childhood as Donal. There was no way for him to tell, 
after that timelessness from which he had just returned, how long she had been 
there, waiting for him 
to respond to her presence. 



He got swiftly to his feet; and she looked up into his eyes with a steady, 
almost demanding, gaze. "Whatever it was you were doing," she said, "it 
worries me. 
Do you want to tell me?" "To tell you it all would take-I don't know how long. 
" Hal smiled at her to reassure her. "But I've won through-I've found what 
Mark Torre and Tam-and I too-have been after all these years. But there's not 
enough time to tell you now. I have to put it to use, before I go to Tam with 
the news. Will you trust me and wait a little while longer? It's your doing, 
you know. The key was that the transient and the eternal are the same. " "And 
with this," she said, "you're going to do something to 
make Tam happy before he dies?" "I think so," said Hal. "Though it's only the 
beginnings of the full answer. But it means the rest of what we need is only 



388 
Gordon R. Dickson 
waiting to be found. Let's say it'll set him free to let go, content that the 
end is in sight." 
His voice softened, unthinkingly. "Ajela's torn apart, isn't she?" he asked. 
"She can't bear to lose him, but she can't bear to let him go, either." "Yes," 
said Amanda, "and she can't help that. She'll be better off once he's gone; 
but even if she could face that now, it wouldn't make anything easier for her. 
I wish you'd give me more of an answer." "I've got to keep it a secret for 
myself, awhile longer," Hal said. He put his hands on her shoulders. "Can't 
you trust me for a little while? You and Rukh can come and see what I'm going 
to do as soon as anyone can. But if, with all this, it shouldn't work after al 


I . . . I've felt so close to the full answer so many times before, I want to 
make sure this time. I'd rather you didn't say anything, even to Rukh, let 
alone Ajela, before I'm ready to have you tell them." 
She stood still, under the grasp of his hands, her eyes now thoughtful. 
"You're going to try something that means gambling your own life, aren't you?" 
"Yes," he said. "It ,S not for me to stop you . . . ... She moved away from 
him, and his hands loosened to let her go. They fell to his sides. She turned 
back and put her arms around him. "Hold me," she said. 
He enclosed her strongly in his own arms, and she held him tightly. He felt 
the living warmth of her body against him, and for a moment an unbearable 
poignancy swept through him. "You realize," she said as they pressed together, 
"you can never leave me behind." "I know that," he said. He rested his cheek 
against the top of her bright head, "but I can't take you with me now." 
11Y " 
es, she said, "but I'll always follow. You should know that I too. Wherever 
you go." 
It was true. Of course, he knew. There was nothing to be said in answer. He 
simply held her. 
A little over two hours later, when Amanda had finally left to see if she 
could be of any use to Rukh in Ajela's office, there was the soft chime on the 
air of Hal's quarters that announced someone wanted to speak to him. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
389 
"Yes?" he said, back to the surrounding atmosphere- "The corridor's clear." it 
was Jeamus's voice. "The door at the far left end of the present corridor 
outside your rooms will 
let you into it." ,'I'll be right there," said Hal. 
He followed the directions and a moment later stepped into a 
short corridor with green metal walls, rather like Jeamus's own 
office without the shelves but stretched out in one dimension. It also smelled 
faintly of an odor something like mildewed paper, which Jeamus's office did 
not. "We haven'tdone areal cleaningjob on it yet," Jeamus said. "I guessed 
you'd be more interested in getting on with whatever 
you had in mind." "You're right," said Hal, "and now I'll tell you why I 
wanted this space to come and open only to me; and of course, you and whoever 
needs to be with you to help while you're building it. What I want you to 
build me is something that I think might be dangerous to someone who could 
just stumble across it. " "Dangerous?" "Yes. I want you to build me a 
doorway-a phase-shift doorway-that's the best I can do by way of describing 
it. Essentially, it's to be just a single phase-wall, not the complex affair 
you made for the phase-shield around Earth. I just want it to disperse 
whatever touches 'it, spread it out to universal position; and it should fill 
the corridor from ceiling to floor, wall to wall, about a third of its length 
from its blind end." "Just an out-shift wall?" said Jeamus. "Where's what 
you're sending through going to be reconstituted?" "It isn't, until it chooses 
to come back through the same wall." "Chooses?" echoed Jeamus. "There's no 
choice about that. Once dispersed, unless there's a destination at which it 
can be reconstituted, anything you send simply stays spread out until 

time ends." "That's not the point", said Hal. "Can you build it?" "Oh, it can 
be built, yes," said Jeamus. "Though I think what you're talking about 
actually would require a double 
screen, one to disperse, the other to reintegrate. That means the 
reintegrating screen would have to be in front of the dispersing one, so that 
you'd need a space here around one side of it, say, 



390 
Gordon R. Dickson 
to get at the outgoing screen. But what you're aescribing doesn't make any 
sense. You mean it's departure point would be effectively just a meter or so 
from the arrival point?" "if there have to be two screens, yes. The closer the 
better," said Hal, "and, I'm sorry, but don't ask me to try to explain, 
no@@cll, it can't be any other way." "All right. Can you build it?" "Of course 
we can build it. " Jeamus stared up at Hal. "But I can't imagine what sort of 
idea you've got in mind; and the more I hear of it, the less I like doing it 
blind. Let me see if I've got it straight. You want to be able to put 
something through the screen, reducing it to universal position. Then, 
somehow, it's going to come back by itself, and it has to come through the 
screen just a step away from it-I suppose you're thinking of what you send as 
somehow entering the return screen from the other side-and translating back 
into its original form. Actually, there is no 'other side' in the ordinary 
sense. What makes you think something like this could happen?" "I'm going to 
find out," said Hal. "The only question I have for you is, whether you'll make 
it for me." "As I say, we can build what you're asking for," Jeamus said. "But 
there's no way that'll guarantee you'll be able to reconstitute something 
already spread out through the total universe. That is, it can be built so 
that if whatever it is gathers itself for re-entry-and how that's going to 
happen baffles me-then if it does the return screen will bring it back to its 
original location, which is here. The same way a spacecraft, shifting, returns 
to its original form at the point where it wants to be. But the ship has been 
pre-programmed to come out at that specific spot; and the action is 
essentially timeless-it happens in no-time. So, in effect, if I set up a 
device to do what you say, the going and returning is going to be 
instantaneous. The second screen,11 simply cancel out the action of the first, 
so that in effect whatever you send will only have moved a meter or so, 
immediately-that is, if it ever comes out at all, which it won't. The point 
is, what you're planning to have happen is impossible. " "Not if I'm right," 
said Hal. "What I put through is going to stay awhile and come back when it's 
ready." 
Jeamus shook his head. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
391 
"It can't happen," he said. "The laws of phase-shift physics I"'A t don't 
permit it. I don't know how much you know about 
In 
t t 
s 
........... don't quite understand-" 


-"Never mind," said Hal. "You've said you could build it. That's all I need 
to hear. Now, the next question. How fast can 
you get it done?" 
Jeamus stared at him again. "You're talking about a crash prograrril" he said. 
"Like the building of the shield-wall around Earth?" "Or faster," said Hal. 
Jeamus breathed out sharply and almost angrily through his teeth. "I don't 
understand any of this," he said. "Can you at least tell me-has it got 
something to do with Tam?" "Yes," said Hal, "but it goes far beyond that." 
"All right," said Jeamus. "We'll build it for you. There's nothing tricky 
about the technics of it. Will a matter of hours suit you? A chunk more hours 
than it took to clear this corridor for you, of course. " "As soon as you 
can,' I said Hal. "For Tam's sake." 
Jeamus looked at him. I'Tam?" "Tam," said Hal. Jeamus took a deep breath. "As 
soon as it can be done, it'll be done," he said. "I'll call you. I I 
Hal got up. "I'll be in my quarters", he said. He headed back to his quarters, 
but was hardly back into the corridor containing his door when the transmitted 
voice of Rukh spoke in his ear. "Hal, could you come to the office? Amanda's 
already here, and the Dorsai Commander-in-Chief." 

Hal went. He found them as Rukh had said. Rukh herself was 
in a float behind the desk and Amanda in one of the padded 



Gordon R, DiCkSon 
armchair floats facing it. In another such overstuffed float, placed so that 
his face could see and be seen by both women was 
Rourke di Facino, wearing a blue uniform with a single gold i 
strip slantwise across each lapel of the jacket, and a gray scarf 
ti underneath, over the collar of the white shirt underneath. 
Hal had not seen the little man since he had spoken to most of 
the Grey Captains of the Dorsai, those who by local agreement spoke for their 
immediate area of that world; and that had been 
before the Dorsai had agreed to come and take Over the defense 
of Earth. Hal, in fact had not kept track of who the commandIng officer of all 
the'Dorsai in the ships patrolling inside the 
phase-shield had been. Now, Perversely, he was glad that it was 
Rourke the other Dorsai had elected to this Post.- The sharptongued, 
sharp-eyed di Facino was oddly reassuring, with his 
invariable certainty that there was a right way to do everything. 
-Good, you came right away," said Rukh, as Hal took one of 
the floats. "We've just had a disturbing incident. Fifty of the 
Younger Worlds' warships just made a simultaneous jumP through the 
phase-shield in formation. We lost two of our own 
ships and had eight crippled, knocking them out of our own space or forcing 
them down to surface, where they were captured -I I 
"The damaged ships,11 be back on patrol in a week," said.di Facino. His light 
tenor voice was incisive to the point Of abrasiveness. "But the two that were 
killed were lost with 
-yone aboard them. We can't afford losses - " 
e 111 assume," said Rukh, "there weren't any Of the newly 
trained people up from Earth among them?" 
Di Facino shook his head. "All Dorsai." "I thought," Rukh went on, "the 
program to train new crc\lv had been going faster than that. 1. keep getting 
word from below 
that the recruitment centers are Jarnmed." "They are," said di Facino, "but 
without training, the men 
and wo@ien jamming them are useless. To operate a space war vessel's one 
thing; to fight it, something else entirely. Even our own people are rusty It's 
not the way it was a hundred years ago 
when there was still war in space between the worlds and actual 
ship fighting was part of many of the contracts our people were 
drilled and have the then signing. Still, our people, at least, are 
393 THE CHANTRY GUILD hen needed - The attitude . They'll do the 
right thing N stion marks 
Earth are each one of them que all e we get from 
d in action-and in spite Of .1 they've actually been te5te only a handful axe 
on ships so in the recruitment centers, sets 
tone ready to crew the new ves for nal training, let a 
there. 
bly lines down re rolling off the asscm 
laven,t got any trained crew yet from Earth whO're you t 


any of Your Ships?" 
rot work on to take over regular Pat 'Rukh stared at him -


,From a world with 
answered di Facino. it won't Say that," iger ones, 
there 
jual to that of the thirteen You' had population ec'who have the 
right instincts and have hm to be a few we want them to 
learn. it's a _@@;!training that Is very close to what its 
regional, 
way, that Earth's hung On to @`@-_blessing, in a )nal and so-forth differences 
all these centuries; sectional, natto d-mass groups have 
maintained because a few of the larger tan d some of the 



of a personal space force; an ---the rudiments 
almost duplicate a sea-nations have underwater warships which dful have 
come 
id atmosphere-going ship of war; so a ban I say, are space an 


Some Of those, as to us already semi-trained. 


er the undergoing final training irt our ships on duty just und 
s not the matter of recruitment that shield now.At any rate, it luestion of 
what this last fifty-sh'p brings me here. It's the 'of what the other side has 
in mind, incursion means, in term'-.ncredibly wasteful. Their ships The 
jump into our territory*was 1 ing. Even if they'd been didn't have a 
chance of gaining anythi have hoped to eur equal, vessel to vessel, 
what could they ide, 
for others of their own s achieve in the way of opening a path ?11 or 
in the way of doing something to Earth, ia?" Amanda '-Could fifty 
ships destroy the Final EncyclOPed asked Rukh. [ they couldn't," answered Rukh 
-In fact, Jeamus "I'm told Walters' answer to me when I asked him that was 
that it'd almost be easier for them to destroy Earth. He tells me that they 
couldn't even pull the suicidal trick of jumping a ship through 
the Final Encyclopedia's own protective shield; to cause a 
matter explosion when it reconstituted itself inside the Encyclopedia, on the 
obvious basis that two solid objects can't occupy 
the same space at the same moment. It seems there's a shunt 
mechanism in the Encyclopedia's own phase-defenses that 



Gordon R. Dickson 
would cause a ship trying any such thing to keep shuttling forever back and 
forth between the Encyclopedia's inner and outer shield, and never 
reconstituting." "Why didn't they build that same mechanism into the Earth 
shield when they were at it?" di Facino asked. "The Earth shield is too big, 
apparently," said Rukh. "According to what Jeamus told me when I asked him 
that same question. There's a factor that keeps doubling, apparently, as the 
size of a phase-shield grows, so that only a little less than twice the size 
of the Encyclopedia is the practical limit for adding the shuttle effect." 
"Obviously, they'd have done it if they could have," said Amanda. "But suppose 
we concentrate on the important point, what this recent and apparently 
senseless attack means. Hal, you've been sitting there ever since you came in 
without saying a word, and you know Bleys Ahrens better than any of us. What's 
your opinion?" "I can't be much more sure than the rest of you," said Hal, 
"but my instinctive guess is, it's a message, that's all." "A message? To 
Earth?" said Rukh. "What would it be supposed to mean?" "I think . Hal 
hesitated. a message to me, from Bleys. " "What message?" asked the 
little Dorsai-in-Chief. "That he meant what he said," Hal answered, "when he 
talked about the siege mentality and a blood bath on Earth when his forces 
were finally so overwhelming they'd be able to jump through simultaneously and 
overwhelm any defense we had. Amanda, did you tell them about what Bleys said 
when he came to the Chantry Guild?" "I was just about to when you got here," 
Amanda put in swiftly. "Bleys came and found us where we were on Kultis-"
Found you?" broke in Rukh. "And you got away safely?" 
She was leaning forward tensely over the desk. "It wasn't like that," said 
Hal. "He came alone to a place where we were surrounded by friends. Also, I've 
told you before that Bleys is as aware as I am that either his killing me, or 
1, him, wouldn't change things, except possibly to work against the killer. 
The real opponents are two forces in the human race that have developed 
through history to this moment. He and I 
happen to be in point gg@ 
With." "That's a somewhat simplistic 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 395 
s on the forces we're 
,vay of putting it," said op. dryly, "You'll remember he did bring up the 
possibiliof his killing you." "I was in no danger," said Hal. "About the 
message-, 11 t=Cted di Facino. "You're 
he promised you a 
blood if and when he finally broke through. I can see it 


if it finally came to that. But why come to tell you, if this assault was 
supposed to send the same message?" "Because he also told me he didn't like 
blood baths; and I ,:-,;.know him well enough to know he's telling the truth." 
"Telling the truth!" said di Facino. "He was trying to frighten you into 
something. A man can't be responsible for something like that and say he 
doesn't like doing it." "Have you ever cut off the leg of someone, without 
anesthetic, and knowing-as I suppose you don't-anything about such surgery. 
"No, I haven't!" snapped di Facino. "And you're right about my not knowing 
anything about how to go about it." "But you'd do your best in spite of that, 
if it was a case of a member of your immediate family and the only way to save 
that person's life was to cut, immediately, wouldn't you?" 
Di Facino stared at him. "You know I'd do it," he said, "and I see what you 
mean. I wouldn't like it but that wouldn't stop me, if it was a matter of life 
and death for someone I loved. But you aren't trying to tell me Bleys is in 
that position in planning a blood bath for Earth?" "Not exactly," said Hal, 
"but in a position very much like it. . . . " 
He hesitated. "I think I may be the only other human alive who understands 
some aspects of Bleys," said Hal. "You have to realize how differently he 
thinks from other people. Try to appreciate, for example, what his own 
existence has been like. He must be the loneliest human being alive. No, 



lonely's the wrong word. Say instead he's the most isolated of all humans; 
because he's never experienced anything but complete separation from everyone 
else and can't conceive of any state that'd be otherwise. So 



396 
Gordon R. Dickson 
he suffers; but he isn't aware of suffering from this the way you and I would 
be, because he's never known any other state." "He could look around and see 
other humans who aren't suffering that way, and learn from them that other 
states of being exist," said di Facino. "Learning from them is just what he's 
shut himself off from," said Hal. "From the time he was old enough to notice 
such things, he had to see that the people around him had limited intelligence 
compared to his, and couldn't match him in other capabilities. Almost as soon 
as he knew himself, he must have felt alone in the universe, surrounded by 
creatures who looked and acted like him but lacked perceptions, and were 
easily controllable by him without their realizing it. All he had to do was 
put his mind to manipulating them, and they did whatever he wished. He was 
walled off by what he was from the rest of the race." 
Hal hesitated, unsure whether he was not perhaps talking too much; then he 
decided to go ahead. "There's a couple of lines in a poem by Lord Byron. He 
was a nineteenth century English poet; and one of his poems was called The 
Prisoner of Chillon-Chillon being a fortress prison in Switzerland; and the 
prisoner was in solitary confinement there. The lines come when, after at last 
managing to get a glimpse of the outside through the high, small window of his 
cell, the prisoner finds confinement has changed him. The lines go . . . 
. . .and the whole Earth would henceforth be 
A wider prison unto me . . . " 
Hal looked at them. Rourke di Facino was looking back with a int of 
puzzlement. Amanda and Rukh, by contrast, had expressions that were strangely 
sympathetic. , ,So you see," wound up Hal, "while his situation was slightly 
different, in essence it was pretty much the same, in that Bleys learned 
almost from birth that all the worlds were only a 'widerprison' for him. He 
could search in every face he met and not see an understanding of what he felt 
in himself. Fame and fortune could mean nothing to him because he knew he 
could have them by merely reaching out his hand for them. He had no 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
397 
friends. Those who thought they loved him, did so without understanding. He 
had been given a lifetime to spend and nothing to spend it on. So he decided 
to do what he didn't think anyone MWIMFIV MoMIMMITMITMIUM MoMMMI of future 
history it would never have taken if he hadn't come along. Even if the turning 
might mean doing some things he might not like, he'd do it. So, he went to 
work." "And ran into you," said Amanda. "I was there." Hal looked back at her. 
Amanda merely watched him, steadily. "But why the blood bath?" said di Facino. 
"If he finally ends up with enough ships and trained men to wipe out our 
defensive forces, there are certainly ways of taking Earth without that kind 
of action." "There are, of course," said Hal. "What's he trying to do, then, 
frighten you into promoting a 
surrender for him?" "No," said Hal. "The obvious reason for the talk of a 
blood bath and this incident to support it is to try to push me into acting 
hastily. How long, would you say, Rourke, at the rate his forces outside the 
shield are building, until he gets to the point of having enough in ships to 
try that sort of mass jump through the shield and assault this world-with some 
hope of success?" "I'm not Donal Graeme," said di Facino. He spoke as if the 
time in which Donal had been known to exist was no more than yesterday, 
instead of close on a hundred years. "It depends on how fast he can drive the 
Younger Worlds to give him ships and crews for them. Anywhere from six months 
to five years, absolute time." "Let's say six months," said Hal. "If we're 
really only six months from such an assault and blood bath, there'd be some 
reason to panic. But I don't think we are. I think, as I say, he's trying to 
prod me to moving too quickly and making a mistake. " 
They all watched him. This time even di Facino said nothing. "You see," said 
Hal, choosing the words of his explanation carefully, "he's not worried about 
being able to take over Earth. At the last minute, he can always pull a rabbit 



out of his hat and make the conquest in some unexpected way. He said as much 
three years ago when he and I met in the thickness of the 



398 
Gordon R. Dickson 
phase-shield, just after the Dorsai and the Exotics had given all they had to 
give and the shield had gone into place to keep his ships out. He's worried 
about me-the fact that I also might pull a rabbit he doesn't suspect out of my 
hat, before he can out of his. I'm the one person he knows who might do 
something he can't expect. If he can panic me into moving even a little too 
hastily, I may fumble and not have time to produce that rabbit. " "God!" said 
di Facino. "What a way to try to pressure someone-with the threat to massacre 
perhaps billions of people. " "That threat at its closest is still six months 
off," said Hal. I 1Y 
ou know, the motto of Walter Blunt, who founded the original Chantry Guild 
here on Old Earth, was destruct. What he wanted was to clear away everything 
and everybody but a few special people on a specialized Earth, that could then 
build to a special end. Note how Bleys' aim all along has echoed that. He 
wants to depopulate the Younger Worlds entirely and reduce the population of 
Old Earth to a particular group who'll mature over generations to something 
like himself." "What of it?" asked di Facino bluntly. "Just that the 
destruction Blunt preached never got off the ground. Instead the Chantry Guild 
shifted its aims toward nonviolence and an idea of philosophical evolution." 
"That was then." "Now's then, too; as the present is always made by and 
contains the elements of the past," said Hal. "Hold on a little longer; don't 
let your concern over this run away with you for six months yet." "Meanwhile, 
you'll be doing what?" "I want to have something to show you before I answer 
that," said Hal. "Right now, what I'm chasing has no more substance than a 
dream-any more than any discovery has before it's made. But I'm sure it's 
there; and if I'm right, it'll give us an escape hatch from this situation 
without any massacre and without a shooting war, long before six months are 
up. I'll let you know when I've some progress to report. Meanwhile, it's 
important that everyone on our side keep pushing ahead full speed and without 
any doubts." "On faith," said di Facino. "Exactly, on faith. There's nothing 
stronger." Hal glanced for a second at Rukh, then back at the small 
Commander-in-
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
399 
.Chief. "Remember, the difference between our camp and his. Finally, that part 
of the race that believes in going forward and adventuring outward are here, 
around us; and those who'd turn back and hide their heads from the risk of 
progress are with Bleys. Everything either side does, from building ships to 
fighting them,is part of the thrust of that side's purpose; and it's 'going to 
be needed when the final confrontation comes." 
Di Facino stared grimly at him, but sat silent for a long moment. "We'll do 
our part," he said at last, "as you know we will. For the rest-you're right. 
It's going to take faith for us to believe that you and- everyone else is 
doing theirs-lots of faith!" 
They talked for a little while longer, but nothing more of importance was 
said, and the conference broke up. 



CHAPTER 
36 
Sixteen hours had passed. 
Ajela, Rukh and Amanda had taken shifts staying with Tam, as he fought to live 
a little while longer. Hal had returned to his quarters to study the knowledge 
stored in the core of the Final Encyclopedia and now open to him. He had 
studied it awhile, then slept, then rose to seat himself again with the mental 
image of the core before him. His eyes saw it, but his mind was far distant, 
wandering the reaches of what had been stored in it over the centuries. 
It was like wandering through the corridors of an endless museum. Here were 
the artifacts of creativity. But they were strangely lacking in some invisible 
element he could not put a mental finger on. Then, it came to him, Where were 
the souls that had created each of these things? It was strange. You could 
follow the creation of a piece of art or discovery down through the levels of 
the craft that made it actual and real. But only up to a certain point. Then 
you came suddenly to a gap, a quantum jump, beyond which the work became 
wholly the product of the individual who did it-no one else could have done it 
just that way-and there was no more craft bridge there to explain the 
uniqueness of what you saw, heard, or felt. Beyond was simply incomparable, 
irreplaceable individual talent made manifest, the essence of creativity 
itself at work, as if it were magic. 
There was this gap, this vital element missing, yet. For his 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
401 
rposes in the Creative Universe, it must be touched, even if it Id not be 
grasped. As one mind could never wholly grasp the tent of another mind, but 
could touch and understand enough the other's intent to work with that. For 
some hours now, Hal had turned his unconscious loose to @search for a way to 
so touch what was needed; while his .conscious still wandered the corridors of 
the Encyclopedia's storehouse, just as his conscious mind had been left to 
wander about, that day on the ledge-and at last the answer came to him as 
something he had almost forgotten. 
Three years before, when he had asked Tam about how he, Hal, could learn to do 
what Tam did, in reading the knowledge core, he found that Tam could not 
describe how he did it in logical, verbal terms. He referred Hal to an old 
twentieth century novel, which had ended up by becoming a classic after being 
nearly forgotten, then rediscovered in the twenty-first century. The Sand 
Pebbles, written by an author named Richard McKenna, had for its lead 
character a non-commissioned officer assigned as engineer on a United States 
of America Navy river patrol boat in China, during a time of great upheaval. 
All the other enlisted crewmen aboard had yielded to the custom of hiring 
unofficial Chinese understudies for their jobs. As a result, the actual work 
in the engine room was done by Chinese. The lead character, who loved engines 
and was adamant about handling his duties himself, could not bring himself to 
do this. He was determined to do his job with his own hands. This earned him 
the enmity of the Chinese workers, since his decision kept one of their own 
people out of a job they had come to regard as theirs. 
There was a scene in thenovel, Tam told Hal-and Hal later looked it up with 
the help of the Encyclopedia's memory-in which the lead character, pacing 
around the engine room while the ship was under way, suddenly found himself 
stopped and standing over a small trap door that gave access to the steam 
piping underneath the engine room floor. He had lifted the trap and found that 
a valve that should have been open was turned down tightly, shutting off the 
steam through that pipe. An act of deliberate sabotage by one of the workers. 
He had opened the valve; and only much later discovered that by doing so he 
had earned a reputation as a magician among the Chinese workers, since 
apparently he had gone directly to the 



402 
Gordon R. Dickson 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
403 
deliberately closed valve and opened it, although there was no way he could 
have known about it. 
In a reminiscence by another author of the same period, the other author had 
told of asking McKenna directly whether, in all the noise of a steamship's 
engine room, someone could actually hear the difference made by shutting off 
one small valve. McKenna, who had worked with the engines of navy ships in 
just that same sort ofjob, had said someone could. He had noticed such changes 
and corrected them, himself, while on duty, in almost unthinking reaction, so 
used he had become to the proper sound of the engine. 
As the engine sound had been to the man in the engine room, so the stored 
knowledge of the Encyclopedia had come to be to Hal. What he needed to do was 
to be able to think with the full knowledge stored in the Encyclopedia 
available to his mind from his mental image of the lines; and, now, he had 
found the only missing note in their silent symphony. 
The individual notes of creativity, which he would need to reach out to build 
with, in the Creative Universe, were all around him here, then, and his ear 
was not yet tuned to them. So far, he had built what his own mind had already 
created, or a few sounds of creativity from the verse or making of others 
which had touched his own soul in the past. But that universe would not be 
truly open until it could hold and he could hear the sounds of others. 
But that had been enough to let him create the potentiality of a split in the 
human race-animal, so that it might-and had-grown into two separately 
developing entities; one of which embodied the desire to grow and evolve, and 
one which tried to hold back and stay as it was. 
A chime sounded suddenly on the air of his room and a voice spoke aloud in it, 
summoning him back to the real universe. It did not speak privately, as Rukh's 
voice had spoken in his ear to summon him to the conference just past. It was 
the voice of Jeamus. "We're ready, Hal Mayne," Jeamus said. "You'll find the 
entrance to the special. corr idor through the door at the left end of the one 
presently outside your quarters." "Coming," answered Hal to the empty air 
above him. He rose and went out. 
e stepped into the blind corridor, what he saw brought udden stop. The two 
phase-shift constructions Jeamus ised him were there. The nearer one extending 
i(6it. of the way across the corridor, leaving just room 
t to the second one, which, as far as the first .-st It to e lowed him to see, 
blocked the farther corridor corn-
ut waiting for him there were not only Jeamus and a men in Research dust 
smocks, but also Rukh and Rukh wore her usual long, high-collared dress, black 
@,i this time. But Amanda was also wearing a floor-length dress she ust have 
ordered the Encyclopedia to fashion for her-one he 
7,, had never seen her in before-of a dark, sea blue. The general 
effect was vaguely formal, as if they had dressed themselves in authority to 
come here. "I thought," said Hal to Jeamus, "I asked you not to say '-anything 
to anyone else about this?" "I'm sorry," said Jeamus. "It turned out there was 
a danger we hadn't expected. In the moment of powering up these two -screens, 
there's a danger of one or both of them trying to 
interface with the protective screen around the Encyclopedia itself. Once up, 
there'd be no danger. But in turning them on, there was; and none of us could 
estimate what might happen. No one had ever set up a phase-window completely 
within another window before-" "What about the Encyclopedia's screen inside 
the one enclosing Earth?" interrupted Hal. "But they're both double screens; 
loops, closed circuits within themselves. What you've got here isn't and can't 
be a closed circuit. Not if you want it to do what you asked for. So I had to 
turn the Encyclopedia's shield off for just a few seconds while we turned on 
these; and I didn't feel I could do that without warning Ajela or Rukh. Rukh 
wanted to know more about what was going on that made me ask for something 



like that. "I suggested she ask," said Amanda. "Don't jump on ariyone else, 
Hal. Something unusual like that had your fingerprints all over it; and when 
we found out what it was, Rukh and I both wanted to be here. And we've got a 
right to be." "I couldn't lie to Rukh Tamani when it was a direct question," 
said Jeamus. 



404 
Gordon R. Dickson 
"Of course not. I don't blame you, Jeamus. " Hal took a deep breath. "And 
you're right, Amanda. You and Rukh should be here if that's what you want." 
"How could we not want to, Hal?" said Rukh. 
Hal shook his head. "Of course. All right. I was wrong not to tell you from 
the start what I wanted to do. It was just I didn't-I still don't know-if it's 
going to work. It could be an utter failure." 
Jeamus had been looking slightly bewildered. "I don't understand," he said. 
"Just what is it you're planning to put through this first screen?" 
-myself," said Hal. Jeamus stared. "My God!" he said. "Do you know what you're 
talking about doing? Committing suicide! You'll end up spread out through the 
universe, with no way back." "There's that chance, of course," said Hal, "but 
I've got reason to think, in this case, it's not going to happen that way." 
"All the same," said Jeamus, "if that's what you've had in mind all along, I'm 
going to pray that nothing more goes on when you step through the back screen 
there-that you immediately step back out, facing us, through this near one!" 
"Thanks, but I hope not, myself," said Hal. 
He turned to Rukh and Amanda. "But I might be able to do what I hope to do in 
what amounts to no-time, like any phase-shift, so that I still come back here 
right away," he said. "On the other hand, it could be that time spent between 
the screens is the same as time spent here and it'll be awhile before I'll 
come back. But there's no real doubt in me I'l I be back sooner or later." 
Rukh came to him, put her arms around him and kissed hin, on the lips. "I 
should have done that long ago," she said. "We'l I wait for you I Hal." 
He held her for a moment, feeling his heart moved once again, as it had been 
when he carried her out of the prison cell on Harmony four years before, by 
the frailness of her body, even now. Then he let her go and turned to Amanda, 
who also held him and kissed him. "I love you," she said. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
405 
A "And I love you," he answered. "This could be the answer, 
last, what I'm going to do." "I know," said Amanda, and let him go. 
7-1WWWoravie from them, around the nearer screen the second, and stepped 
through it. 



CHAPTER 
37 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
407 
He was everywhere and nowhere. 
His senses were no longer working. He could not feel, smell, hear or see. 
Instead he had an awareness of his surroundings that recognized certain 
patterns, some of which were in the form of objects and some of which were 
not; but which in any case were unimportant. 
It was a place where time existed, but did not matter. A place where his now 
changed self had no desire to understand or act. In fact, his ability to do so 
was limited. He had memory, but no purpose, for he found he could not conceive 
of the future, and the present was forever. But he could remember; and, 
remembering, he recalled how he had been through something like this, once 
before. It had happened when he had been Donal going back in spirit to the 
twenty-first century, when he had worked by inhabiting the body that had 
belonged to the dead Paul Formain. Then, he now remembered, something had 
carried him through what he was presently experiencing. . . . I The memory 
part of him that was still working gave it back to him. Then he had expected 
to go beyond this to something else, to a twenty-first century Earth; and the 
momentum of that expectation had carried him through without realizing the 
concept of purpose he now lacked. 
It was a remembrance of an impossibility that had yet happened. For the 
Creative Universe he now realized he had 
406 
visioned both then and now could not, by definition, exist 
1@11Until he had created it. It did not exist now; and yet he had been 
ary part of going aware of experiencing it before, as a necess 
k to alter the implications of the past. 
-this Chaos-that was Under the limitations of this place 
logic-limited conscious mind was not capable of t to be, his n erstanding the 
contradictions. Here he could only go on 
of which were blocked by ith, philosophy and courage, none the limits of his 
logical mind. With them he could accept the fact that he had been able to 
experience the Creative Universe "once before and use it as a window to the 
past; because his unconscious had assumed a path back through time for his 
identity; and by that assumption, like the assumption that creates a poem 
never expressed before, had caused it to be. 
His logical mind had afterwards rejected what, to it, could not be, and tucked 
the memory out of sight in his unconscious. '2-There it had stayed until 
now, because the framework of understanding he needed to develop had not yet 
been there to understand how it could happen. Only now, spread out between 
time and space, did it all, at last, make sense. 
As with the making of a poem, the explanation was that here ,,t all 
mechanisms must be developed in the unconscious; for the conscious mind could 
not operate without the arbitrary concepts it had gradually imposed over 
centuries on the physical universe; to give that universe a shape the 
conscious mind could work with. 
He must now, therefore, not so much make what he wanted in the Creative 
Universe, as find it within himself; in this place where conscious logic and 
physics did not naturally apply. He must find it, as he had found poems and 
other discoveries of meaning and intent, in the past. . . . 
He let go, therefore, of his now useless and almost nonexistent upper mind. In 
effect he passed over into the realm of dreams and daydreams; and a jumble of 
memories and fancies tumbled through his imaginings, like the unchained 
thoughts that come in moments just before sleep sets the unconscious 
completely free. 
So, letting go, he passed into what would have been a dream; if it had not 
been directed by some previous, deep-held sense of purpose that had directed 
him back to the twenty-first century. He could feel, in this universe-that



was- not, not only that earlier 



408 
Gordon R. Dickson 
passage, but all the vast information of the Final Encyclopedia. The latter 
worked on the former. . . . 
-And, suddenly, he was where he wanted to be. It was a dream, made real after 
all. Real, it was, because not 
b only all his senses now reported on the reality of it; but his logical upper 
mind, that must think in the language of symbols and identities, was once more 
awake and capable. But it was also a dream, because he remembered how he had 
first dreamed it, when he had been with the Resistance Group on Harmony, under 
a younger and strong-bodied Rukh. He had dreamed it then, and at other times 
since; and now, with the knowledge r f om the Encyclopedia, he had made it 
actual. It was at the r dream's opening point now, that he, with the faith, 
belief and courage in him, had resolved the chaos around him into actuality. 
Again, he was on horseback, with others also mounted. They were traveling in a 
group through a lightly forested area of some landscape in the temperate zone 
of an Earth-like world. They rode without talking, as he had earlier dreamed 
they had; but now, for the first time, he had a chance to look closely about 
him and identify those he rode with; and there were none of them he had not 
known, and all of them were now dead. 
Obadiah the Friendly, Malachi the Dorsai and Walter the Exotic-the three who 
had been his tutors and raised him as Hal Mayne, rode not far behind him. 
Immediately beside and about him were those of his own-of Donal's-family. 
Eachan Khan Graeme, his father, now dead for nearly a hundred years, rode at 
his right side. Beside him on his left was Mary Kenwick Graeme, his mother; 
and beyond her was his brother Mor, who because of him had been tortured to 
death by the hands of the demented William of Ceta. 
Mor leaned forward in his saddle to look around their mother at him; and Hal 
braced himself for the look that would be in the other's eyes. But when those 
eyes met him the look he had expected was not there. "Welcome back, Donny," 
said Mor-and he was smiling, a 
r , happy smile. With that, Hal realized that he had indeed become Donal 
again, in body as well as in memory. 
All the other tall menfolk of the Graemes once more 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
409 
:-Overto ped him, as they sat their saddles around him; and he p was as he had 
been in his early life. ,.., "What's the matter, Brother?" Mor said. "Did you 
think I wouldn't understand?" 
He reached out a hand across the neck of the horse Mary Graeme rode; and, with 
a moment's hesitation, Hal took it and found his brother's grasp comforting 
and as warm as his smile. "I didn't think it through far enough," he said. 
"I'd never 
have let him do that to you I if I had, for anything." "I know," said Mor, as 
their grips parted and they straightened up in their saddles, "but it brought 
us to this, and this is best. Isn't it?" "Yes," said Donal-Hal, "it's a new 
road, at last." 
He looked around. In his dream he had not had time to 
identify faces. Now he saw how Ian and Kensie rode on the far side of Eachan; 
and how beyond Mor was his other uncle, James, whose death had set him on his 
life's path to this Moment. 
He looked farther back and saw, also riding near him, the . Second Amanda 
Morgan, eerily like the Amanda he had left behind him beyond the phase-screen. 
A horde of other members of the family, long since gone, rode with them, 
including even 
Cletus Grahame, his great-great-grandfather. 
But, farther back, there was also James Child-of-God, Rukh's second-in-command 
of the Resistance Group, who had died in the rain on Harmony; and the farther 
he looked, the more faces 
he recognized. Only now they were come to the edge of the forest, to the brink 



of a rubbled plain that stretched away toward the horizon, with nothing 
visible growing upon it and only one 
shape breaking the horizon line where rocky surface met the gray, unbroken 
ceiling of the clouds overhead. 
That one shape stood darkly upright, so distant that it might have been on the 
horizon itself; and it was a single tower, black, featureless and solid, with 
the shape of one of the ancient keeps of the medieval centuries of Old Earth. 
About it, there was a 
terrible sense of waiting that held them all silent; as, following his 
example, they all checked their horses and sat looking at the tower. "I go on 
alone from here," he said to the others. 
They answered nothing; but he felt their acceptance of what 



410 
Gordon R. Dickson 
he had just said. He could also feel that they would wait for him, here, no 
matter how long it took. 
He got down from his horse-as he had remembered dismounting before in his 
dream-and started out on foot across the endless distance of the plain, toward 
the tower. 
In his dream it had been vitally necessary that he go alone to it; and he felt 
the same unexplained urgency now. At some time later, he looked back and saw 
those who had been with him, still sitting their horses, small under the 
trees, which were themselves shrunken with the distance he had put between 
himself and them. Then he had turned once more and continued on toward the 
tower, to which he seemed hardly to have progressed a step since he had left 
the edge of the wood. 
Without warning, something he could not see touched him on the left shoulder. 
He whirled about, ready to defend himself, but there was nothing there. Only 
the waiting forms on horseback, now farther off than ever; though when he 
turned back toward the tower, still it seemed that he had moved hardly a step 
closer to it, in spite of all the distance covered. 
The pebbles and rocks that made up the surface of the plane were now larger 
than those onto which he had first stepped. Looking down at them, the wealth 
of the Encyclopedia's knowledge flowed into him and he identified them as the 
detritus of an old lava flow, dark igneous rock that had over centuries been 
exposed to extremes of temperatures; unti I, cracking under the 
succeeding expansions and contradictions of their composite materials, the 
solid rock had decomposed and broken into many pieces-pieces which were later 
covered by a sea, and tumbled one against the other until their sharp edges 
and corners had become rounded. 
His mind encompassed all this-or did it only create it as an explanation, out 
of the storehouse of the Encyclopedia? In any case he found himself 
understanding the geological ages that had made the surface he walked on; and 
without knowing how it could be possible, he realized that the tower toward 
which he was headed had been built on what had been an island during the 
period of the shallow sea that had rounded off the rocks. Inconceivably, it 
had been built before the waters rose to cover the lava plain of cracked and 
broken stones. Ancient it therefore 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
411 
was, as ancient as the human race itself; and what was within it, drawing him 
to it, was as ancient. 
But it was still a long way off; and he was more concerned with the discovery 
of its creation. For in fact, it was his dream made real. He had created it 
only now, but as surely as he had . . .. .1 


chaos in which he had found himself. He had created his body and those 
of his companions and their horses. He had created the thick cloud layer 
overhead that hid a sun that he had chosen to be a duplicate of the star of 
Old Earth; illuminating this world that was itself a duplicate of Old Earth; 
more so than any of the terraformed planets of the Younger Worlds. 
He had built it, here in the Creative Universe, that was only a Creative 
Universe because with the Encyclopedia's help, he had brought it finally into 
being. For without the ability of the Encyclopedia's knowledge available to 
his own creative unconsciousness, he could not have made any of this. A poem 
could not be written without a knowledge of what made poetry-the images, the 
shapes and the language. Without a knowledge of what was required to produce 
such works, no original painting could be painted, no cathedral built. 
In the creation of the very tower toward which he now made his way, a 
knowledge of the forces of gravity upon its structure, and of the materials 
that made its walls, was needed. 
Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw the tiny figures waiting behind him 
now seemed to stand somewhat above him, and in fact the plain between them now 



had dipped downward, as if he had descended onto the old sea bottom that 
stretched level until it rose again in the far distance to the higher land of 
what had been an island when the tower was young. Looking ahead once more at 
it now, he saw that the sea floor approaching it, which had earlier seemed 
level to his eyes, actually rose and fell, gradually, in swells and hollows, 
before it reached the former island of the tower, and that he was now 
gradually ascending the slope of one of the nearer rises. 
Sure enough, a little farther on, when he looked back again, the plain seemed 
to have descended toward the horizon behind him, and the group he had left 
there was indistinguishable now from the edge of forest behind them. 
He turned his face forward and went on-and an unexpected 



412 
Gordon R. Dickson 
shadow swept briefly over him, so that he looked up, startled; even as he 
heard what the Encyclopedia's knowledge now within him identified as the harsh 
cry of a raven. 
Mixed with that cry was something he could not quite be sure he heard. It was 
as if a sound that was soundless had still somehow managed to signal itself 
upon his ear. It was like the resonance of a heavy bell, struck twice. 
Something that somehow echoed back to the time when he had been Paul Formain. 
Yet it did not belong to the memory of that time, but to the future still 
before him. 
Like a warning note, it reminded him of the possible passage of real time. He 
did not know whether his time spent here was 
merely part of a moment of no-time back in the universe beyond the 
phase-screens, or whether a minute here might not be a day, or month, there. 
He stopped suddenly. The rise in the ground he had been ascending had 
steepened gradually but steadily over the last fifty meters or so, and he was 
suddenly much closer to the tower. He had adjusted unthinkingly from what was 
a walking pace to a 
climbing one; so that he had come to the top of the rise without warning and 
now he checked, looking down its short, farther, descending side. 
It dipped sharply for no more than ten paces before him. At that point it 
broke off abruptly in an edge as sharp as any cliff's. Beyond it was 
nothingness, with no sight of farther surface below. He saw only a relatively 
short distance horizontally to what looked like another cliff edge level with 
this one, that was 
visibly the edge of the one-time island with the tower upon it. 
He went forward, cautiously. For the downslope was steep and he had to lean 
back to brace his weight and not slide forward over the edge before him. But 
even when he stood on the very lip of it, he could see nothing below him; only 
what appeared to be an endless fall to eternity. He looked at the distance of 
nothingness between him and the edge of the island; it was just far enough off 
that he could not quite make out the nature of the rocks that made up the 
distant land. 
He stood, baffled. There was no reason for this space to be here, barring his 
way. He made an effort to visualize the gap filled in with the same sort of 
former sea bottom he stood upon. But nothing 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
413 
happened. It was as if here, alone, his creativity could not bring into being 
a land bridge where there was nothing. It was as if he had nothing to build 
with, as if what was needed to bridge the space was not in him. 
For a long moment he stood, unbelieving. Then his mind began to work, and up 
out of the back of it came the answer that what he looked at was his own 
doing. He had created this gap, without ever realizing it, by his own act in 
going back to be Paul Formain and changing the implications of past history. 
He had set out to split up the Enemy that had struck at him during the old 
Chantry Guild's initiation ceremony, so that it became not a semi-living 
racial force, but a part of every human living. 
It had been the only way he had known, then, of making humanity take sides, 
for either creativity or stasis; and so bring that hidden, inner conflict to 
an outer resolution. 
And he had succeeded-with the Othem as an unexpected and unwelcome by-product. 
But he had succeeded. And here was another by-product. 
The road to evolution of humankind led through the Creative Universe. But to 
enter it himself was not enough. It must be entered by at least one other 
human. The tower and what it stood on must be given relevance, as he had been 
required to find a relevance to feel the souls behind those creations of 
humankind and time stored in the Final Encyclopedia. 
He could not cross the gal) before him, because up to this point was no more 



than a plac@ he had made himself. Beyond it, on the island and in the tower, 
he must share this universe with whoever or whatever in the race would oppose 
him there; for it was there the argument would come to a head and be settled. 
This place he had created was only an arena for decision, by his own choice he 
had willed it to be so. 
There was only one other person so far alive, besides himself, with the 
background and experience to move through the phase-screen as he had and 
create a destination. After that one came here it would become progressively 
easier for those who would come after. But for now, and for that one person, 
the time was short. Perhaps, even now, too short. 
He turned about quickly and stepped backward-with intent. So it was he stepped 
not back up the stony slope away from the edge of nothingness, but out through 
the farther phase



414 
Gordon R. Dickson 
screen into the MUT11 corridor of the Final Encyclopedia, where Jeamus and 
hisieuAv, with Rukh and Amanda, still waited for him. . . . 
Thank the I M11V" said Jeamus. "How long wm. I gone?" asked Hal. "No time ai-
all," said Jeamus. "Perhaps a couple of minutes, then yeii came out of the 
other screen-" "Good," he interrupted. "Now I want this whole device moved and 
set Us in Tam's main room, right wma, "How fast?" "I-uh-" Jeamus floundered. 
"An hour-" "Five minutes," said Hal. "Five?" "Or as close to that as you can 
come," said Hal. "I want to get it there while Tam's still alive. Just the 
minimum of what you have here to make the doorway work." "But a minimum's all 
we ever had-Jeamus's 
hands fluttered, half-lifted for a moment, helplessly. Then the 
meaning of Hal's words seemed to penetrate. He threw up his hands; and his 
voice hardened. "Maybe fifteen minutes . . . or ten? Maybe even . . . five? 
But Tam's quarters ? " "Yes." As Jeamus stood uncertain, he added harshly, 
"I'm speaking as the Director. Move it. As fast as you humanly can. 
Amanda? Rukh?" 
He went out of the door. The two caught up with him just beyond it. "What is 
it?" said Amanda. He glanced at her as they went, for she had a right to ask. 
She saw deeper into him than Rukh. "Why the special hurry?" "I was in the 
Creative Universe," he answered briefly. "But someone else besides me has to 
go there; and only Tam's qualified, because he can read the Encyclopedia's 
knowledge core-not as well as 1, but well enough." "There's a problem?" she 
asked. "Yes. What I mentioned-and there's something else. A gap where there 
shouldn't be one, a gap I can't reach across. I need a bridge. " "A bridge . 
Still striding swiftly down the corridor he turned to look at her. There was a 
look on her face he knew. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
415 
-What is it?" he said. "The cloak ... I think," she said. Looking past him. "I 
177"t know why, but the cloak will make a bridge." 
But they were already at the entrance to Tam's quarters. "Yes," said Rukh, as 
they turned to go in, after him-he realize d he was back in all the size of 
his Hal-body, --all thanks to God you came when you did. I have a feeling he's 
very close to the end . . . very close." 



THE CHANTRY GUILD 


CHF,J,@"Ikk 
They went as swiftly as the Final Encyclopedia could align their blind 
corridor with the one leading to Tam Olyn's quarters; and Rukh led them in 
through the door there without waiting to ask for entrance. 
Inside, things had hardly changed. Ajela was dressed now in a Japanese kimono, 
which Hal noted was perfectly arranged, in contrast to the disheveled sari she 
had worn earlier. She was sitting upright now, but still held one of Tam's 
hands, and Tam still gazed off at something beyond their sight; he was now 
holding his interstellar newsman's cloak, that he had not worn since he had 
returned to the Final Encyclopedia, over ninety years before. It was still set 
as it had been since the death of his sister's young husband, on the white and 
red he had worn the day of David's end. 
Hal reached the side of Tam's armchair opposite Ajela in six long strides and 
knelt beside it, putting his hand on Tam's arm which lay strengthlessly along 
the top of the padded armrest. "Tam!" he said in a low voice, but urgently. 
"We've done it! I've been in the Creative Universe. Now, to make the 
Encyclopedia the tool for everyone, the way we always dreamed, and Mark Torre 
dreamed, we only need one more thing-one final effort from you. Can you make 
it?" "What're you saying?" Ajelas voice rang through the forest 
glade that was actually a room. "You aren't going to ask anything of him now?" 
Hal ignored her. Amanda and Rukh moved in to draw her aside from the chair and 
speak to her, in low, imperative voices. "But he can't do anything now! He 
can't-" 
The low-pitched but steady voices of the other two women interrupted her. Hal 
ignored her. All his attention was focused on Tam, his eyes staring into the 
faded old eyes only centimeters from his own. "Can you do it, Tam?" Hal asked 
again. "I've got Jeamus and his people on the way here with the equipment to 
make it possible. You can go into the Creative Universe and I'll go with you. 
Now, in the beginning, it has to be done by someone besides me, it has to be 
used by more than one mind; otherwise, it's just something I've created for 
myself. But if I can share it with you, we can go on to share it with everyone 
else, on all the worlds. Do you understand, Tam?" 
The ancient eyes stared into his. The head moved minimally forward and back 
again in what could have been a nod. "But he can't-he can't do anything!" From 
the sound of her voice, Ajela was crying now as she talked. "He hasn't any 
strength left! You can't ask anything more of him now. It's too late. He ought 
to be left to die in peace." "That's what I'm offering him," Hal answered her 
without taking his eyes off Tam. "That's what it is, Tam. A chance for you to 
see the end at last; a chance to see it completed." "I tell you he can't do 
anything-he couldn't if he wanted to!" Ajela protested behind Hal. "I think he 
can," said Hal. "This one last thing. This final effort, Tam. Can't you?" 
There was a change in Tam's face, so small as to be unreadable by anyone who 
did not know him like the four now with him. Again, his head moved-in a motion 
more clearly of agreement now. "Good. You remember," Hal said, "how the 
knowledge here in the Final Encyclopedia had to be a requirement. Nothing less 
would do. Whoever intended to be a creator in the Creative Universe would need 
a memory bank at least that large. " 
He paused. "Can you hear me, Tam?" he asked. "Do you understand?" 



418 
Gordon R. Dickson 
Tam gave another minuscule nod. His eyes seemed to see nothing but Hal's face. 
"I thought there had to be the way in. I thought I'd find it here," Hal went 
on. "But for three years, these last three years, I couldn't find it here. 
"Then Amanda came to suggest I take a fresh look at the problem from outside 
the Final Encyclopedia; and she was 
right. I went to a place called the Chantry Guild, on Kultis-a new 


.1in the Creative Universe without giving up the 
rules and laws of the real universe we already know. And those rules, by 
definition, were the last to apply in the Creative Universe, where the first 
principle of creativity had to apply-that anything and everything conceivable 
could be made." 
He paused; and this time Tam nodded without being asked. "There were no 
rules," said Hal, "but there were necessities. First, it was necessary for 
those who entered the Creative Universe to believe in it. Next, whoever tried 
to enter it had to believe humans could do so. Last, it could only be entered 
by a 
mind willing to put aside the laws and rules of the real universe. " 
Hal paused, but only to take breath. "That was the hardest of all, that last," 
he said. "From the first moment of life, instinct tells us the only laws are 
the laws of the place where we're born. I don't think I'd have been able to 
keep going if I hadn't already had my own private proof of a place somewhere 
with different laws. I had it with my poetry. I had it when I went back, in 
mind only, to the twenty-first century to alter a future not yet made; the 
future of the time I'd known as Donal." 
He held Tam's eyes with his own and his voice held them both. "I was ready to 
give up when Amanda came. And you know she feels what's right. She was right 
this time. At the new @@ila", 0anu she was 
ul d n Kultis_,A 
Chantry Guild, I found it-the belief of another man who'd been as close to the 
Creative Universe as I'd been. He'd come up with one insight. Only one, but it 
was enough to point me to where I could finally understand how, just as the 
physical laws of our universe can be, they can also not-be . . . and that 
they'r subject to us, not us to them!" 
He paused once more. Where were Jeamus and the doorways? "Tam, his name was 
Jathed; and his particular battlecry was: 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
419 
*the transient and the Eternal are the same.' At first it meant nothing to me, 
logically-only a contradiction in terms. And then I saw the truth of it. I 
broke through, finally, to that truth-and the whole Creative Universe opened 
out before me like a flower to the morning sun. For if the Transient and the 
Eternal could be the same, then all things could. All things were possible. It 
was only our point of view that had learned to encompass the possibility it 
wanted, using the knowledge the race already had, to make it real; and that 
knowledge was there, waiting for us, in the Final Encyclopedia! "Jeamus and 
his people are going to be here in just minutes, with the equipment we need to 
make the trip," Hal said. He dared not take his eyes from Tam's eyes, and the 
strength he could see in them that the old man was trying to gather, the 
ancient fighting spirit of a lifetime trying to rouse for one more effort. But 
he could feel time slipping away from them, like the running water of the 
stream beside Tam's armchair. "Amanda, Rukh-" he called, his gaze still locked 
with Tam's. "Isn't there some way you can call that corridor where we were? 
Find out how they're coming. Tell them we have to have it-now!" 
He concentrated on Tam once more. "We had the means of going there, all the 
time," he went on to the still face, behind which the great struggle was going 
on to rouse a dying spirit. "It was in phase-technology. The same 
ing that gave us the phase-shift and the phase-shield. But maybe even that's 
not necessary. Maybe it's just an excuse for the mind to go into the Creative 



Universe. I don't know. But we don't have time to experiment now; and I used 
it when I went this first time. So-He 
was talking without a pause, desperately, as if his words were the lifeline 
up which Tam was pulling himself to safety. There was a fear within him that 
if he stopped speaking, even for a moment, Tam would lose his hold,-would fall 
back, and be lost. "You see," he said, "you go through a phase-doorway to no 
set destination; which should end you spread out to infinity-" 
But at last now, behind him, there was a sound of the door from the corridor 
banging open with unusual noise and violence; and a moment later Jeamus 
struggled, sweating, into his field of vision, helping one other man move the 
framework of 



420 Gordon R. Dickson one of the phase-doorways. The framework 
had obviously been made weightless, but they still had to contend with its 
mass and the awkwardness of its size and rectangular shape. "There's a 
chance-" Jeamus panted, as the two of them stopped behind Tam's chair. --there 
may be a chance you can go-and come through the same doorway-so to save time 
we 
came-with just that. You want to try it'.) if so, where-where . 9do we put it. 
"Yes!" snapped Hat. "Put it right here, in front of Tam's chair! " 
He turned back to Tam, seeing them obey out of the comer of 
his eye. "Now we go," he said gently to Tam. "We go together. I know you can't 
get up and walk through the doorway-that's what I did. But when I went back to 
the time of the first Chantry Guild, I only sent my mind back. Trust me. You 
can send your mind through that doorway the way I went then." 
He looked and saw that Jeamus and the man helping him had just set up the 
doorway, less than a meter from Tam's feet; and other men he recognized as 
being from Jeamus's crew were 
connecting it to some kind of heavy cable that snaked out of sight to 
disappear among the illusion of trees to their right. "All right," he said to 
Tam, and closed his hand around the wide but bony, cold hand of Tam, "come 
with me, now. Look through that doorway as if it was an opening on wherever 
you want to go to. In your mind, stand up and step through the frame to that 
place; and I'll go with you, by your side, holding to you 
as I am now." 
He broke off, and stared then; for the doorway before him had 
suddenly become not merely a plate of silver blankness, as it had been in the 
blind corridor for him. Instead it now seemed to open on a green hillside, 
lifting beyond the doorway for only a 
few meters, before it reached a crest, beyond which was only the cloudless I 
light blue of a spring sky. It was the sky of one of the 
Younger Worlds Hat had never been on; but he had seen images 
of it. it was a spring sky over the northern hemisphere of the small, lush 
world of Sainte Marie, the world on which both Jamethon and Kensie had died. 
Hal rose to his feet, letting the dead weight of Tam's hand slip from his own. 
But-unless it was his imagination-it seemed 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
421 
he still felt it there; though Tam had not stirred and no one stood 
visibly beside Hal. 
Still, he felt that Tam was beside him, that their hands were linked. "Here we 
go," he said, without looking to his left, where the spirit of Tam should now 
be; and he stepped forward, through the phase-doorway. 
At once he stood on the sloping surface of the hillside under the warmth of 
the different sunlight. He felt the hand withdrawn from his grasp and, 
turning, now saw Tam standing with him. 
But it was a younger Tam; a Tam in no more than his thirties, wearing green 
field clothing, except for the newsman's cloak. Tam took a step forward by 
himself and stood, looking at the hilltop. 
His face showed an expression that was a strange mixture of grimness and a 
hope so painfully deep it barely escaped being a fear. He had let go of Hal. 
Now he moved away from him. Hat stood where he was and watched. 
After a moment, some little distance to their right, a head appeared above the 
brow of the hill, and lifted as the man 
bearing it approached. It was Kensie, as Hal had last seen him, riding in the 
place Hat had created in his different universe. 
Only here Kensie was wearing a Field Commander's uniform in the dark blue of 
the Exotic Mercenary Forces. But aside from that he was no different than 
ever; and the warmth of his smile, directed at Tam, went like a wave before 
him down the slope. 
Tam breathed out, a soft, deep breath; and at that same moment another man 
mounted over the crest of the hill to the left, wearing the black uniform of a 



Friendly Commandant out of the last century. He was thin and tall, but nowhere 
near the height of Kensie, and he also smiled. It was a grave, small smile in 
his narrow face; but it was there, and it, too, was directed at Tam. 
Tam stared at Jamethon as he, too, came onward down the slope. But at that 
moment two more figures came over the hilltop, this time from directly ahead. 
One was a young woman, looking hardly out of her teens, with black hair and 
the same 
sharp features as Tam himself, holding hands with a man who 
looked no older than she did, but wore the historic battle gray of the 
Cassidan Field forces. His uniform was without insignia or 



422 
Gordon R. Dickson 
mark of rank. These two, also, broke into smiles, coming down toward Tam, so 
that he suddenly ran forward toward them, the woman who had been his sister 
and the man who had been her husband, David Hall. 
So they all came together, all five of them, halfway up the slope from Hal, in 
the sun; and clustered together there like a 
family reunited. Tam was all but hidden by the others surrounding him; but 
Hal, remembering Mor reaching out his hand across the crupper of his mother's 
horse as they had ridden together in another place of this Creative Universe, 
could feel what was in the man who had been Director of the Encyclopedia so 
long. 
He turned back and stepped through where his instinct told him the 
phase-doorway must be, and was suddenly again in the room with the old man, 
beside the running stream and with the three women, all surrounded by the 
illusion of the trees. 
Below on the Earth's surface, a cloud must have slipped before the face of the 
sun, for shadow fell about them as Hal stepped forth. Amanda in her long 
formal dress of that wintry blue that was the color of the Dorsai northern 
seas; Rukh, all in black, one hand at her throat holding the circle of grarite 
on its chain, with the simple cross in its gray-white rock; and Ajela in the 
green, formal Japanese kimono of fleshy silk, embroidered with a design of 
pine branches with snow on them-these three in their colors seemed to glow 
somberly in the little dimming of the light like three queens at a state 
burial. 
Hal turned just in time to see those he had left on the hillside, Tam among 
them, moving close together over the crest of ground and disappearing beyond.The 
hill vanished then; and the face of the phase-door was once more silver 
and blank. 
Hal turned to Ajela and the others. "Did you see?" he said. "Did you see how 
they met him, smiling, and took him away with them?" "No," whispered Ajela. 
Slowly the other two shook their heads. "I did . The faint words were 
barely breathed by Tam, but they all heard. Slowly, Tam's eyelids dropped. But 
a new, faint smile on his lips remained. Ajela ran to him and hugged him; but 
it was not the desperate embrace Hal had seen her give the dying man in recent 
times before. It was an enfolding of warmth and joy. 
THE CHANTRY GUILD 
423 
Tam's eyes closed finally; and, as they watched, the tiny lift 'and fall of 
his chest stopped its movement altogether. The faint smile still remained on 
'ram's lips, but he had at last stopped b eathing. "Lord," said Rukh, "now 
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace. 
And in that same moment the cloak, like a creature released, changed back from 
the white and red it had held for so long, and shone on its basic setting, 
with all the colors of the rainbow on Old Earth. 
Hal stared at it. Amanda had been right. It was the bridge. 



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