The Preacher Man

"Well, only if you let it get out of hand. Abby felt the same way about Sheffie once. I feel as if I've had this whole conversation already, but with Abby."

"Really?" A couple of deep breaths. "She did?"

"Yes, and she got over it." A sharp memory came back to me and I laughed. "And for a brief time, Sheffie struggled to adjust to you. Honestly Chanah, I think you're very sweet. And I trust you. I know your character." I kissed her affectionately. "I'm sure you were polite to Dodi, right?"

"Oh yes, of course. And I will try to love her, truly love her, just as I love all of you. It's just that..." She gave a soft wail and said no more.

I held her. We kept rocking together, the friction of my groin against her pubis keeping me stiff. Eventually Chanah hiccupped a few times and settled down. My hands caressed her sides, her ribs, sometimes holding her head as we kissed. I felt a hot, slick moisture coating my penis. I started to pant in my desire. "I'm wet for you now, if you still want me," Chanah whispered.

We locked our mouths together, our tongues exploring each other's mouths. Chanah's breasts were pressing into me, and I could feel the hard points of her nipples against my chest. As her tongue penetrated to the roof of my mouth, I penetrated her, one long slide into a hot, tight muscle that gripped my penis fiercely.

Both of us were awash with a sense of sexual urgency. After riding me for a brief time, Chanah grunted and rolled over, transferring the mount position to me. Our mouths stayed locked together as we turned, our thrusting sliding in and out of synch. Several times I almost lost my coupling to her vagina with all the frantic motion.

Chanah finally wrapped her legs tightly around the back of my butt and locked me into her body. I took the hint and stopped thrusting, letting Chanah do all the work as she rapidly worked her hip muscles back and forth, pumping me, squeezing me, driving me as deeply into the core of her body as she could. Then she froze and let out a strange choking sound seconds before I started spurting my seed inside her. I was dimly aware how strongly she was orgasming.

The room was cool, certainly below 20C, but we both lay there sweaty and uncovered, not cold at all. Chanah still had her legs wrapped tightly around me, enjoying the feel of my gradually softening penis inside her vagina. She started covering my face with small, affectionate kisses.

I finally rolled off to lie by her side, curling around her back. Chanah took my hand and kissed it, and then pressed it against her pubis and purred. I knew what she wanted. After vigorous sex, Chanah likes me to press against her vagina and lower womb with my palm. Slow and rhythmic pulses of pressure, she says it makes her feel as if she's still having intercourse. I held her in one arm and pushed against her pubis with the other, pumping my semen out of her vagina and down her thigh. The bed was getting a bit sticky but neither of us cared. Cooing softly in her pleasure, Chanah whispered the word love once and drifted off to sleep. I soon followed.

Two months later...

Time: March 15, 8240 10:07 AM

I walked into the bright sunlight a few minutes after the end of morning Prayers. It was a fine late-summer day at Qataban, beginning with a misty dawn just a few minutes before the start of the Prayer of Ascension at 6 AM. Now it was four hours later and 25C with brilliant blue skies, though the usual afternoon showers were expected to return later in the day.

About a month after we arrived at Qataban, Abigail smiled at me and asked if I liked rain. As a native, she knew the winter months here are only slightly cooler but much drier, and she prefers the weather then. I've been coming around to her opinion, and the northern hemisphere winter at Dakar does have its own beauty in its deep coldness. Perhaps next year I'll change my schedule.

At my first Domine at Karbala, I adopted the habit of leading three morning services and three evening services each month in the township's main cathedral, usually spaced five days apart. After my long secluded stay at the capital last year, it felt nice to start the practice again at Qataban. The local population certainly seems appreciative. The services are always announced in advance and are packed to overflowing.

I'm a little surprised how few other Domines have followed my example, but only those Royals who have grown up through the Priesthood seem interested in leading congregations as well as ruling cathedrals. And I'm absolutely the only Domine who makes my services optional. All the other Domines who lead will pick local township churches and order them to attend the grand cathedral services, guaranteeing a packed audience.

I had invited Ammar to be my lay assistant this morning, the mining Guild's station chief at Qataban. He was my good friend when I was here as a Security commander, and this morning I let him make the selection of wrestling for the Prayer of Purification. I was pleased to learn he made CL-14 last year on his third attempt. As part the investigations I asked Abigail to do, I also knew that Ammar made CL-13 at the Judgment of 8229. It was his fifth and final attempt at that gate, and he was 276 years old at the time. That was interesting, and another piece to the puzzle.

After morning Prayers, Ammar and I and my Royal deputies and his sub-commanders had an intense two-hour meeting laying out the agenda for the township after my departure for Dalma at the end of the month. Afterwards I invited Ammar to have a private lunch with me at my quarters. He was moderately surprised by the honor and gratefully accepted. We had a very pleasant lunch being served by my wives, during which I made it clear I wanted Ammar to regard me as his friend as well as his Domine.

After lunch we stretched out and relaxed, Abby, Shephie and Chanah sitting obediently along a nearby wall waiting for instructions while Dodi and Michal did cleanup in the kitchen. My wives and I, particularly the three with me now, had spent many hours debating how to handle this moment. Should we wait a year or more while we still had so little to offer, or should we accept the unbounded risk of revelation? After much discussion, I finally decided to throw the Holy's dice in the air again. All of them...

I thought it appropriate to begin the dice throw with a gesture of friendship, smiling at my old friend. "Ammar, I'll never forget how you saved the life of my first wife. You were so creative in delaying her execution."

"Oh, it was my pleasure Ilias. You have chosen well, five lovely wives."

"I told Abigail of your efforts the morning of our marriage. She requested that I write of your efforts in her marriage book, seconds before her first purge cycle took her, so that she would always know that her life is indebted to you."

Ammar nodded, and then took a social risk by turning to look directly at Abigail. He gave her a kind smile. Abby smiled and bowed back, her look one of pure gratitude.

I continued. "Ammar, I want you to remember that our conversation now is completely unrecorded. The shields are fully powered and harmonically locked, and the rooms thoroughly swept for listening devices."

Ammar blinked at me and nodded very slowly. "Okay," he said quietly and then settled back into his chair. He decided to nibble at the bait I had offered him. "You know Ilias, this is the one thing I really envy about Ruling Royalty, your ability to turn off the monitors anytime you wish."

I nodded. "Ever dream of doing it yourself someday?"

He chuckled. "I know you too well Ilias, to think that you don't know my history. I did not make the top 1% as a boy. Therefore I did not ride the Lion."

The point Ammar was making was obvious. CL-15 was as far as he could possibly advance. He had chosen very well in extending his adult life, being promoted five times at the fifth gate, five times at the fourth, and twice at the third. He was well on his way to becoming one of the very few men who would die of old age without becoming a Royal.

The swing of chance had begun. It was now time to let go of the dice.

"Well, yes," I said, "but that's not what I meant. I mean turning off the monitors anyway."

Ammar frowned. "Well sir, outside of the hours of low impurity, that would be illegal." He looked at me with concern, wondering where I was going with this conversation.

I gave a carefree smile. "Still, it has happened occasionally. The mining issue of 8235, for example."

"Oh yes, I remember that well. You did an excellent job in tracking the problem down." Ammar took a deep breath, paused, and then decided not to say anything further.

I kept smiling. "Another example would be a fire, such as Qataban's monastery fire of 8224." At last! The dice were in the air. There was no turning back.

Ammar exhaled his breath in an explosive gasp. "What?" he whispered.

"The woman you so kindly saved is a brilliant investigator Ammar, truly brilliant."

"Grand Mufeto, I do not understand." His voice was trembling.

"Then let's work to create some understanding. Accept as fact that the girl's monastery fire was deliberately set. Accept as fact that the thousand girls believed to have been killed by that fire were in fact secretly evacuated during the blaze. Accept as fact the remaining survivors of that evacuation are now at or near Gold Mining Outpost #37, at the ancient site of Boddington, Australia."

Ammar gasped as I spoke. There were two final points to make, in order to remove all possibility of denial. "Accept as fact that a super-continuum entangled white-laser was beamed upon my cathedral two months ago, to spy on me while there was a hole in my shields. Accept as fact that you are the principal architect for all of these events."

The point about the laser was Sheffie's latest hypothesis, based on two months of intense and focused theoretical development. And the last point? Too many subtle clues to ignore, and yet, there was still a great deal of guesswork in all this. I let none of the uncertainty show in my face however. Fateen had drilled us boys in bluffing, honing our skills until bluffing became a fine art. The only question in my mind was how the dice would fall.

Ammar's look of one shock after another morphed into a grimace as he stared at me. I must have seemed like Shaitan himself, come to reveal all the secrets of his soul and then deliver my Dark Judgment. Ammar winced as he felt his hip and remembered he had been forced to check his sidearm with my guards. I felt I could almost read his mind.

"Don't try to kill me Ammar, or yourself. It would be a pointless exercise."

Ammar paused and then answered with a shrug, a deep sigh pulling all the tension from his body. "Agreed Ilias. I'm no match for you. And yet, will you forgive me if I make the attempt? I'd much rather die by your hands than an execution council's." I could see a look of great resignation in his face as he began to rise from his chair and prepare to attack me, his eyes glancing sideways rapidly, searching for a weapon.

"Ammar, sit down! Your life is in my hands. I now place my life in yours! I have found a way to fake the medical part of a marriage ceremony. My three wives before you are all undamaged, not eternal virgins."

Ammar froze, stared at me and hissed, "What trickery is this?!"

His head snapped to Abigail as she stood up and replied, "It's true, good and kind Ammar. Ilias has saved me. My gratitude for you has grown throughout the years, not diminished at all by the horror of the drugs. I thank you for my life from the bottom of my heart, and Ilias and I and my sister-wives are all thrilled to think of you as a kindred spirit. We all hope you will be an ally in our quest."

The sight of Abigail speaking without permission and entering the conversation as an equal convinced Ammar in a way I never could. He collapsed back into his chair and began to weep.

Chapter 43. Conversation

Time: March 15, 8240 1:39 PM

Ammar and I both knew enough about each other's heresies to get us all slowly executed. Still, our situations were far from equal. I was in a position of relative power, and hence I thought I had the greater responsibility to be considerate. My wives and I were all intensely curious to hear Ammar's tale, but we spent the first half hour after our revelations describing our own activities. Ammar listened with rapt attention. His need for knowledge finally satisfied, he took pity on us and began telling his side of the story.

"I'm absolutely astonished," he said. "You know so much about me, yet have kept your discoveries hidden from the rest of the world. Your guard Ilias, and your security teams, they know nothing of us?"

"Completely without suspicion. We have to be careful though. They're sharp people with excellent resources. We slip up just once, our world will come crashing down around us. Once suspicions are aroused, the game is over."

Ammar nodded thoughtfully. "I'll take my own life before I'd reveal any of this Ilias. I'm still a danger to you though..." He didn't have to complete the thought. The truth drugs of an Inquisition Council were well known. "Ilias, I promise, no one else in my organization will know of this. You have my Holy word."

Abigail spoke up. "That might not be possible Ammar, if we're to work together. My marriage has debated this point quite a bit. Some limited form of revelation between our two groups will be essential."

Ammar nodded at her and then smiled. "I've often wondered what it would be like to have a face-to-face conversation with a woman where we're treating each other as true equals. Thank you for the pleasure Abigail. I've talked with Dalis through secure quantum channels, but it's not the same."

A tear came to Abigail's eye. "My friend Dalis? I was hoping she was alive!"

"I spoke with her just three days ago" said Ammar, turning back to me. "Ilias! Before I begin my explanations, I have to know! How did we fail to keep ourselves hidden from you?"

"Your skills at concealment were superb Ammar. It was only our predisposition to investigate your Brotherhood that let us to you."

There was a moment of silence. "Still," he said at last, "why investigate the Brotherhood? Something must have provided the first clue."

Michal and Dodi were sitting with us quietly. Abby, Sheffie, and Chanah, were giving each other bright smiles. "This was all your brilliance Abby," said Sheffie. "Why don't you tell him?"

"Okay. Ammar, it was the name of your Brotherhood which first drew me to you."

Ammar looked perplexed. "A horticultural name sounds sinister?"

"It was the particular flower that you chose."

"The Brotherhood of the Rose? I don't understand. It's a genuine botanical preservation society, officially sanctioned by the home Guild at Bel'darstan." Ammar frowned. "It's a common enough flower. How could it possibly..."

Chanah spoke up. "A long time ago, it was a flower associated with courtship between men and women. From before the war, I mean. Remember us telling you of the crystals? The rose was also a flower associated with secrecy. Did you ever hear of the ancient phrase sub Rosa?" For the last two words, Chanah tried to guess what the ancient Latin might have sounded like.

Ammar slowly shook his head.

"Well, it means under the rose. Ancient, ancient history, thousands of years before the war, secret societies in the lands of northwestern Europe would place a rose on the table when they met. The rose was their symbol that the conversations were sub Rosa, were sealed under the rose."

"I had no idea," whispered Ammar. And then he looked at me. "But Ilias!"

"Yes?"

"You would know I had no idea. So why was this a red flag for you?"

"Well..." I said smiling.

Ammar's eyes went wide. "The Holy! It was all a bluff, wasn't it?!"

I laughed. "Oh, the clues were there, and too numerous to be dismissed. But yes, they were very subtle, with plausible alternatives. The gold mining outpost was our best guess. We kept asking ourselves what we would have done, to hide a thousand young girls from the world."

"Ammar," asking Abby in a pleading voice. "I must know. Qeturah, Pascha, Yadira, are they all still alive?"

Ammar smiled and nodded. "Yes, your old team, the flowers of the monastery. They're all still alive." He paused and then frowned. "Orzora died last year though, a swift but painful death. Before that, we were beginning to hope that the absolute need for the anti-aging drugs was a myth."

I shook my head. "It's no myth. The triggers are not as swift as with the males. Females aren't considered as big a threat. But the human body can no longer age gracefully. There's too much embedded code in the genome. I'm speaking of ancient first-millennium history, Bel'dar and his son."

Ammar blinked. "His son?"

I nodded. "Abdul Wahid Sami."

Ammar gasped and whispered, "You're not joking?"

"No. From what we've been able to piece together, the foundation for the genetic manipulations were laid much earlier than is publicly taught. We think that's how Bel'dar exterminated the remaining humans outside his control."

Understanding came to Ammar's expression. "So, all the dark science was already in place. It just needed the chaos of global warfare to be unleashed."

"It was a kind of super-virus," said Chanah, "one that opened up the DNA for reprogramming. They inoculated their own citizens and female slaves, and then unleashed plagues in the year 36 against the few remaining organized outposts. That was the end of the crystal data. From what we can piece together from the restricted archives, a decade later the government at the capital had the human genome addicted to the anti-aging drugs, and also had pushed the birth ratio to three girls to one boy. They then spread a very specialized sterilization virus all over the world. It attacked all the remaining unmodified humans."

Ammar nodded, looking at Chanah in sorrow.

Chanah shrugged her shoulders. "When you can breed and your enemy can not, time becomes an absolute and invincible weapon. The Wild Times continued for another two and a half centuries, but it was all internal strife. It took that long for the government to settle into its present form."

Ammar addressed his next question to me. "So how long do the girls have?"

"For a male missing the anti-aging drugs when he's thirteen, it's very specific. The DNA becomes unable to replicate in ten years. Death soon follows as dying cells fail to be replaced."

"And for females?"

"You've read our minds Ammar," piped up Abigail. "We researched this very issue a month ago. About the year 60, government geneticists realized that the push to raise the girl/boy birth ratio to 3 to 1 had also weakened the self-destruct code for the female half of the population. But by then, there were no more external enemies, and the adult women were all eternal virgins. There was no imminent threat, and in the chaos of the times, the matter was never researched."

"Twenty years, we think," added Shephatiah, "after the girls turned thirteen. They probably have another five years before..." She turned silent.

Ammar turned again to me. "You're the Domine of Dalma. If anyone could pull together the resources for a cure, it's you."

"In secret?! The thought has actually crossed our minds Ammar, but I have no allies among the geneticists, not for this. Even hinting at such research would raise a million red flags."

Ammar nodded, accepting the fact for the moment. "Death... I envy you Ilias, not your position, but your youth. You haven't had adult classmates age out of the CL competitions, watch them go into the lottery and then die..."

"Well, the childhood gates are just as gruesome."

"True, but not as slow. Childhood Judgment is swift. The Book of Bel'dar even uses the term merciful. The adult lottery offers the opportunity for a decade of sorrow and depression. The idea of the Brotherhood of the Rose occurred to me more than two hundred years ago, when I was sixty years old. It was then that so many of my old classmates began to die."