Read Hiero Desteen (Omnibus) for Free Online Page A

blow. So I say, we'll call that number two." He paused and looked at Hiero,
    "Any comment?"
    "Not yet, Father," Hiero said placidly. Those who did not know him sometimes thought him phlegmatic, but the abbot had watched his man for years and knew better. He grunted and turned back to his blackboard.
    "That was about eighteen months ago. Next, which I'll call number three, was the affair of the ship. Damned few members of the Council know about that, so I'll assume you don't. About two months after we lost the Abbey colony, which would have become Abbey Saint Joan," and another look of pain crossed his face, "a great ship was reported to us by certain trusted persons on the Beesee coast to the west, well to the north of Vank and the great Dead Zone there, in a nest of rocky, wooded islands called the Bellas. These people are not Metz, but older still, in fact—"
    "In fact, purebred Inyans," Hiero agreed. "And there are quite a few of them scattered about here and there, but they live in small hunting groups and won't come in and amalgamate. Some are good people, others trade with the Unclean and maybe worse. Now let's stop the baby stuff, Father. I'm not a first-year student, you know."
    For a second, the Father Abbot looked perfectly furious, then he laughed.
    "Sorry, but I'm so used to explaining things in this manner to the average village councilman or even some of my more elevated colleagues on the Grand Council that it gets to be a habit. Now, where were we? Oh, yes, the ship.
    "This ship, a big, odd-looking one, much bigger than any fishing boat we have, was reported wrecked on one of the outer islands of the Bella group. And there were people aboard from somewhere else, probably the other side of the Pacific! The ship was breaking up on the rocks, and the weather was bad. Our Inyan friends tried to get the people, who were yellow-skinned, just as the records say the East Pacific people should be, and just as the few rare fishermen who get wrecked here are, off in their small boats. We were already sending a cavalry squadron from the east, at Abbey St. Mark, as fast as we could. There are fairly good roads to that part of the coast.
    "Well, when our people got there, nothing was left. The wreck was utterly gone, not a trace of it left. Three small Inyan camps on the coast, gathered for the salmon fishing, were gone too, with only a few traces that they had been there. But we found an old man in the woods, or he found us, an ancient cripple who had been taking a sweat bath and thus had been missed when the attack came. A horde of Leemutes, some sort of Hairy Howlers, I gather, had appeared from out of the water. They were riding great animals which looked something like the really big seals we see once in a while on that coast. They stormed the shore camps, killing everything that moved and hurling the dead and all their possessions into the sea. The old man did not know what had happened to the ship, which he had only heard of and not seen, but it must have met the same treatment. Who knows what new knowledge from the Lost Years we missed that time? Are you beginning to see a pattern?"
    "I think so," Hiero answered. "We are being physically penned in, you feel, but more than that, we are being blocked off from knowledge, especially any knowledge which might prove dangerous to the Unclean, to the Leemutes. And the plan is concerted, is organized, so that when we do hear of any new knowledge, it is instantly snatched from our grasp."
    "Exactly," the abbot said. "That's exactly what I think. And so do others. But there's more yet. Listen a moment.
    "A year ago, twenty of our best young scientists, men. and women both, who were working on problems of mental control, in a number of new and fascinating aspects, decided to have a joint meeting. They came here to Sask City from all over the Republic. Parment wasn't in session, but the Abbey Council, as the Upper House, was, and we received word of the meeting, and our permanent