The Rampart Plea
November
4th, 4997 (Holy Terra calendar)
I humbly thank the Pancreator for allowing
me life and mind and a sound soul with which to continue my journals.
Such a harrowing event did I experience that only the whiff of
Empyrean's grace blew me from an ill course. I shake even now
to think back upon it, even though I am safely ensconced in a
noble estate in the Imperial City itself, on Byzantium Secundus
where no enemy can approach unseen.
The events began simply, with a flitter
journey over the Tepest Desert of the Ghast continent. I was with
Canon Jophree, a respected member of our Order, who had invited
me to witness the Ur ruins discovered there. With Lady Erian's
permission, I set forth with my fellow priest in his own flitter
(Jophree was born to House Cameton, a powerful family on Byzantium
Secundus, and has access to many things most priests do not -
a boon for our Order). He had learned how to fly such crafts before
he took vows, and he and I greatly enjoyed our trip together.
It had been a long time since I had been able to talk so deeply
with a fellow priest, and he shed some light on my own strange
experiences since I joined with Erian.
The ruins were eerie. It is the only
word to describe them. We did not land, but only flew over them,
circling around to see them from all sides. It seems that we both
had a strange sense of foreboding, and agreed not to walk among
them.
After getting our fill of the strange
landmarks, we turned back. I still do not understand just what
happened or why, but Jophree lost control of the flitter. We spun
maniacally in the sky, up and down and in circles. He fought the
controls but some greater force seemed in control. I remember
him yelling something about an "electromagnetic grid disturbance"
and something about terraforming anomalies. But I was too hurried,
fetching safety bubbles from the back and strapping them on to
both of us. I had just latched the belt around him when the engine
blew up.
The force must have thrown us both
out the windshield. This would explain the gashes on my face and
hands. I was knocked unconscious immediately. I came to on the
desert floor, the plastic liquid of the safety bubble splattered
over me; it had ruptured prematurely, leaving me with more bruises
than I deserved and a broken survival kit. There was no sign of
Canon Jophree. I prayed that his bubble had activated correctly,
and would cushion his fall before bursting.
I began searching for him, but my own
transmitter was broken. I feared the worst, for both of us. Without
a transmitter, no one would find me in this wasteland. If I could
not find Jophree and his transmitter, I was doomed.
My search took me in an ever-widening
circle. By the time the sun set, I still had seen no sign of Jophree
or our downed flitter. I knew my robes would do me little good
against the chill desert night, and began to look for an outcrop
or gully where I could light a fire safe from the winds. That
is when I saw the lights.
At first, I thought it must be my friend,
so I began calling. Two fusion torches came toward me. Had Jophree
called a rescue party so soon? Two men approached, one wearing
the uniform of a Charioteer spacepilot, although somewhat torn
and dusty, made of old-style synthsilk, the kind usually inherited
over generations from a wealthy family. The other was even better
attired, for he wore a short cape and brooch with the crest of
House Cameton.
"Greetings," I said as they
came near. "I am glad you found me. Is Canon Jophree alright?"
They looked at each other quizzically
and then the pilot replied. "You're a priest?"
"Yes. I am Novitiate Alustro of
the Eskatonic Order."
They both smiled. The pilot reached
his hand out to me. "I am so glad to see you, father. We've
needed a priest for a long time now."
"I don't understand," I said,
shaking his hand.
"Come on over to the ship. We
have food." They both began moving back the way they had
come, and I followed.
"Are you not the rescue party?
Did Canon Jophree call you?"
"We don't have a squawker,"
the pilot said. "It broke when we crashed."
"Crashed? You ran into the electromagnetic
interference also? How long have you been here?"
This time the noble spoke: "It
seems like years. I am Baron Arbuck Cameton, by the way. I apologize
for not introducing myself earlier. We have been in the desert
too long."
"Well, surely then you have people
looking for you? Your family?"
"Of course they're looking for
me. But this is the Tepest Desert! It's huge. Whatever caused
the crash is foiling all our equipment. It is surely doing the
same to our searchers' equipment."
As he spoke, we came over the rise
and I saw a starship, perhaps an Explorer class vessel. It was
half buried in the ground, obviously from a crash landing. Although
the nose was buried deep, the rear hatch still allowed access
in and out of the craft. It was to this door that they walked.
"We've got a lot of supplies,"
the pilot said. "So don't worry. Eat all you want. You have
to be hungry after a day like you've had."
"Thank you," I replied, following
him into the hatch. "I'm famished. By the way, what do I
call you?"
I couldn't see his face as he walked
ahead of me in the tight passage, but he mumbled his reply.
"I'm sorry. Was that Captain Kamen?"
"Kariman."
We came out of the engine area and
into a common room. It was lit by an everlight clasped to a ceiling
pipe. Captain Kariman began opening tins and scooping their contents
onto a plate for me. I embarrassingly wolfed it down. I hadn't
eaten since well before our flitter accident.
Baron Arbuck disappeared into the forward
cabin. After a few minutes, power came on, flooding the cabin
with light. In the rear, where we had passed through, I heard
the slight whine of an engine or generator. Kariman looked around
and flicked some switches on and off, cutting some of the lights.
"Alustro," the baron yelled
from foreship. "I want to show you this."
I got up and walked carefully down
the passage. The ship rested at a slant, so I walked a downward
incline to reach the cockpit from where the baron called.
He was sitting in a navigator's couch,
moving dials and switches on and off. "I need to ask a favor
of you, father. Would you bless this ship?"
"I can certainly perform a blessing,
but why?"
Kariman came in and closed the door
behind him, sitting in the pilot's couch.
"Because we're going to try and
get this thing off the ground again," the baron replied.
"Well, I suppose I could perform
a small litany, if you think it would help."
Captain Kariman spoke: "It would,
father. It would, indeed."
I prepared my robes and polished my
jumpgate pendant, filthy from the day's sweat and sand, and read
a short litany from the Epistles of Horace. "It is done.
I hope it helps."
"Hmm," the baron said. "I
was thinking of something well, more powerful. Could you perform
this one instead?" He handed me a small think machine with
a gospel displayed upon it.
"But this is the Rampart Plea!
From the Cardano Apocrypha. Where did you get it?"
The baron shrugged. "It's always
been one of my favorites, father."
"Favorites! This was deemed heretical
in 4672 by the Orthodoxy. Even my Order bans it."
"I'm sorry to hear that, father,"
the baron said, as he swiveled around in his seat to face me,
a laser pistol aimed at my chest. "But I don't condone the
censure of great works. We cannot begin our voyage without it.
Now, I need you to read it for me. And put some heart into it."
I was speechless. I could not even
begin to understand what was going on. But faced with a deadly
weapon and a threat, I complied with the baron's request. What
harm could it bring? I had read the forbidden gospel before. It
had been banned on doctrinal grounds only, and so was not considered
harmful, just false. Once attributed to Saint Amano of Rampart,
it was later deemed a forgery. I began to read:
"O Invisible Intelligences, hear
my plea. Open the path to the stars and guide my feet upon it.
In my travels, let me not shun the unknown regions. Show to me
creations yet to be birthed. Let mine eyes scry thy true foundations,
the secret thread which binds your creatures, so that I may proudly
perform my duty to thee."
The baron lowered his pistol. "Thank
you. Maybe now we can finally leave."
The engine sound grew louder as Kariman
worked his controls. The ship shook and rattled, and a horrible
grinding commenced. The baron looked up at the ceiling. "I
think she's breaking apart."
"You're tearing your own ship
up!" I yelled.
"Yes," Captain Kariman said.
"Yes, we are." The grinding could now be heard in the
rear of the ship also. I turned and fumbled the door open, expecting
to feel the searing heat of a laser on by back. But as I slipped
into the hall, I glanced back to see the baron staring listlessly
at his readouts.
"A captain must go down with his
ship, father," Captain Kariman said, flicking on every switch
he could reach. "Isn't that right? Isn't that proper?"
I turned and ran, convinced that they
had been driven mad by their stay in the desert. The ship rocked
back and forth, the engines pushing it deeper into the earth.
I had to get out the rear hatch before we were buried.
As I ran through the common room, lockers
flung open with the stress and stretch of the hull. A body fell
from one and smacked onto the floor in front of me. I think I
screamed. It was obviously a priest. His robes and vestments showed
that. But he was desiccated like an ancient mummy, and a terrible
knife wound could be seen across his throat.
I leapt over it and kept moving. As
I sped through the final passage in the engine room, I heard moaning
sounds around me. Fearing that the two madmen had tried to kill
another of their crew as they did the priest, I stopped to see
where the sounds came from.
Then the flux cache hatch flung open
and raw fusion energy and radiation spewed forth. Shadows lengthened
across the walls and ceiling, as if something large approached
from a distance, blocking the light. I dared not stay to see the
source of the shapes wriggling on the walls, and threw myself
against the rear hatch, now locked and bolted. I struggled with
the bolt, finally throwing it off as the moaning sound grew louder.
"Ssstaayy" a voice said from
somewhere in the room.
I kicked the door and only the shifting
of the ship -- the hull struggling against the force of its own
engines -- allowed it to burst open. I jumped from the ship, which
now dug a deep furrow into the ground, and struggled against the
crumbling sand to reach the lip of the deepening pit. Something
cold touched my ankle and I cried, making a last leap up. I grasped
the edge of the hole and pulled myself out, running as fast as
I could back to the rise over which we had come earlier, back
to the place they had found me.
I never looked back. I myself was now
mad, delirious with fear and exposure to the cold night. Two days
later, the rescue team found me. Canon Jophree had landed fine
and immediately called for help. Julia herself came to find me,
showing more worry for my welfare than I had thought her capable
of. I recovered over a number of days in a Church hospital, in
the care of Amalthean healers.
I explained the incident with the two
madmen and their ship, but Canon Jophree could find no such ship
when he went back to investigate. And he knew no Cameton named
Arbuck, certainly not a Baron by such name, but said he would
inquire nonetheless.
He believed the men were Ur artifact
thieves who had disguised themselves as noble and guildsman to
gain access to the ruins. Obviously, their ship went down, perhaps
carrying Ur artifacts of a psychic nature, which would explain
my hallucinations.
But I do not believe they were hallucinations.
I sufferered radiation poisoning from somewhere and there is the
wound on my ankle -- a black, putrid bruise which required mercifal
technals to heal.
November 27th
I am writing from my cabin in the Resurgent,
our new starship. I have just spoken with Canon Jophree by radio.
He has new information concerning my "adventure" which
puzzles him just as much as it does me.
A distant cousin of his in House Cameton
approached him soon after we departed and inquired as to why Jophree
was interested in Baron Arbuck. It seems that a certain Baron
Arbuck was this woman's ancestor. He and his crew were lost when
his ship crashed in the Tepest Desert -- in the year 4562. The
accident was blamed on his pilot, a Captain Kamen, a suspected
Antinomist. Only years after the crash did evidence come forward
about Kamen's atrocities on Rampart. He is apparently a folk legend
on that world, equated with evil.
After hearing this, Jophree initiated
another search of the desert, near to where I had been found.
He uncovered the remains of a starship, buried deep in the sand
and scoured by years, perhaps centuries, of exposure. While little
is left of the remains, enough is there to confirm its name: the
Rampart Plea.