turned to stare at me. The things I wanted to do to her then.
The door opened and another well-rendered icon walked in. I was surprised. The icon looked old, older even than Pagan. Again, why would someone make themself look old in here? He wore a long linen shirt and linen trousers. Over the shirt he had a kind of waistcoat decorated in brocade. The fabric skull cap on his head also had a brocade pattern running around it and he wore a simple pair of sandals. In the early-morning sun the white linen seemed to glow. He looked over at Black Annis and Pagan.
‘I think it would be better if you left,’ he said. His voice was cultured and educated. The accent was definitely from somewhere in the Middle East back on Earth. Black Annis nodded. The hag and the Druid looked so ridiculously out of place with this man.
‘We’re done anyway. You understand the rules?’ Black Annis asked through grinding stone.
‘I think so. Don’t break the circle,’ the man said. We’ll see.
Black Annis didn’t spare me a look as she practically led Pagan out. He did though. Pagan turned to stare at me and there was hate and anger but defeat also. Morag may have managed to control it in here but she was going to burst into tears as soon as she left the net.
The man pulled a chair up opposite mine. Of course he didn’t break the circle.
‘I think it’s much easier to upset the people you know and love,’ he said.
‘You know I don’t love them.’
‘You? No, but Jakob does, and that gives you insight. I find it interesting that the only power you have over them comes from your love for them and their love for you. Twisted of course but nonetheless…’
‘Really? That’s your opening salvo? Love is power?’ I couldn’t keep the scorn from my voice, not that I was trying terribly hard.
He laughed. ‘Yes, it does sound trite put that way. Easy to be cynical about, but even then it still holds true.’
‘So what are we doing here?’
‘We’re going to talk a little.’ You mean you’re going to run as many diagnostic programs and analytical routines as you can to try and get insight into me. ‘Then I am going to do some praying. I would ask you to join me but I can’t see that happening.’ Or rather you’re going to try and write code because you think the old weak Jakob is in here somewhere. He’s not. This is a fusion. I’m in the meat, not in the machine, old man, but you can find that out the hard way.
‘What should I call you? Exorcist?’ He laughed at this. ‘Would you be more comfortable if I looked like this?’ It was a simple change I made. The icon no longer looked like me. Instead I had become the beast. I saw his expression falter. Not because of the goat-headed form I took – that had long ago ceased to be frightening – but because of the control I had. Total control over my surroundings, with the exception of this fucking circle.
‘My name’s Salem,’ he said after he’d recovered quickly.
‘This your sanctum?’
‘A copy of part of it. We’re in an isolated system.’
Damn. Still I can’t pretend it’s a surprise.
‘Where’s it supposed to be?’
‘A place where I used to come to do my lessons when I was a boy in Jerusalem before the war.’
‘You really are old.’ He smiled. ‘And why are all you people so painfully sentimental?’
‘Connections, identity. I think it’s part of being comfortable with who you are.’
‘I could make you comfortable with who you are and with God.’
He just smiled. Too soon. We’d get to that later.
‘What’s this got to do with you?’ I asked.
‘It’s my duty.’
‘You are an exorcist then?’
‘I think it’s the duty of all to help when they can.’
‘Brilliant. If you could just break this circle, that would be really helpful.’
‘I am here to help Jakob.’
I leaned forward and formed the words very carefully. ‘I am Jakob. When will you people understand that? There is nothing wrong with me.’
‘You are an evil djinn who has taken over his body.’
‘That what your analysis programs are telling you?’
It was written all over his face that the answer was no.
‘You have the power of an ifreet-’
‘And you are a step away from a fucking witch doctor. Why don’t you shake some monkey bones over me?’
He flinched at the swearing. Good, I liked delicate sensibilities.
‘It’s just terminology. Do you really think that I do not know what you are?’
‘Who I am is Jakob Douglas, and no, you don’t have a clue. If you did you wouldn’t fucking be here.’
‘Is there need for swearing?’
‘Go fuck yourself.’
‘It just diminishes you.’
I would have loved to stop talking to the sanctimonious prick. His constantly calm demeanour was beginning to piss me off, but I needed an in. Some way to anger him enough that he would go for me.
‘I see refuge in Allah from the pride, poetry and touch of Shaitan, the cursed,’ Salem said to himself.
I had to laugh. It was like something out of the Middle Ages. Still there was something about his words at a very basic level that I didn’t like.
‘You’re frightened?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘You are very dangerous.’
‘It doesn’t have to be this way. There is a real god coming, not a feel-good fantasy designed to justify hatred and violence-’
‘Something that hasn’t been an issue since the Final Human Conflict. The hatred and violence is entirely of the creation of your masters as far as I can tell.’
‘You interrupted me.’
‘I apologise.’ He actually looked contrite, as if manners mattered. I on the other hand was pissed off that I had lowered myself to speak to this superstitious caveman, to offer him a chance, and all he wanted to do was hear himself talk.
‘We offer a chance, the ultimate chance to belong, to be part of what humanity will become, and we are attacked for it. Unless of course you feel that humanity is doing fine now?’
‘I think it would be reductive to lay all the troubles of humanity at the feet of the Cabal. It is much more complex than that. But they have certainly played a significant part in humanity’s current state, don’t you think?’
‘Birth is always painful.’
‘Particularly when it’s poisoned.’
‘So what then? The abortion of humanity’s rebirth? We just remain in our animalistic state?’
‘I don’t think you can force these things.’
‘The only force is the result of resistance.’
‘Because some do not wish to live the way you do.’
‘No.’ This truly angered me. ‘That is not the reason for resistance; the reason is fear. All of us have a chance at something better, something more, and the throwbacks are too frightened of the unknown to embrace that. No attempt has been made to understand, only to lash out like spoilt children who do not get their way.’
Salem sat back in his chair and smiled. ‘This at least is progress. Please, I wish to understand. Tell me what we are frightened of.’
I smiled at him. ‘Then let me out.’
‘You know I will not do that.’
‘Then this is not a free exchange of ideas.’
‘Not when you hold this man Jakob prisoner.’
This was turning into an exasperating circle jerk.
