The Weapon - Oblivion  - part 16

By Diana the Valkyrie

The Holy Feather belongs to all, not to one

Update: 17/08/2003 to valkyrie05





David:



I don't know if closing her eyes would help, but I do know that my brain has

to do a very large amount of processing on the raw pixels to produce a

meaningful image, and it has to be the same with her. So, by dropping that

processing burden, maybe it would help. And people with migraines have to lie

down in a darkened room. Hell, how am I supposed to know how to treat one of

the People for headaches? I was pretty sure a couple of aspirin wouldn't help.

I put a blindfold on her, partly to remind her to keep her eyes closed, or

rather to remind her to stop doing whatever it was she did that gave her

vision, partly to tell other people that she couldn't see. "Some Weapon I am,"

she joked, "how am I supposed to aim?" "I'll point you roughly in the right

direction," I answered, "and if you like, I'll pull your trigger." "Or maybe

I'll pull yours", she joked.



I should have guessed that things are worse than she lets on. She's not the

complaining kind; when she admits she has a problem, it's going to be a big

one. She's a stoic. And she even makes jokes about her problems.



Flying was out of the question without sight, so we travelled by car. "Did you

see the newsweb this morning?" she asked. "Uh, you mean the princess and the

butler story?" "No, I meant the lawsuit, apparently, the Church of the Holy

Feather is suing the Coven of the Unholy Feather." "Suing?" "It's the modern

equivalent of a religious war," she explained. "Wendy, you've got to stop

giving people feathers." She giggled. "Like I should care about McPherson

making a fool of himself? After what he did to me?" "That's no excuse, Wendy"

I said sternly. "Right, and you punching him on the nose was cool?" Damn.

She's right. "That's different. I was angry. And you're supposed to be the

Guardian of Humanity, you're supposed to be above that sort of thing. You're

the one with the wings, try to live up to them." "They aren't real wings."

"Whatever."



We arrived at the Church of the Holy Guardian, and I started to have second

thoughts about this. What are we going to say? "Here's your goddess and she

needs your help" didn't really sound right. For a start, I didn't really want

to reinforce their stupid idea that she's a goddess. But no matter how I

looked at it, we were about to tell them that their object of worship was

imperfect. Feet of clay? Right now, she's blind and liable to forget her own

name. This is not likely to go down a bundle.



They weren't having a service, this being the middle of the week. They seemed

to be doing mundane cleaning and flower arranging jobs. I went up to the first

person I saw. "Excuse me ..." I said. He turned and looked at me, angrily.

"Have you seen this?" he demanded, waggling a paper in front of me. "Seen

what?" "This," he said, "this heap of compost." It was the Times, reporting on

the religious war. I thought that agreeing with him would be the wisest

course. "Yes, it's shameful," I agreed, "two churches getting into a fistfight

like that. Look, we've come to you about a problem ..." "Shameful? Shameful?"

he repeated, waggling a finger at me now. "It's disgusting. We're the Church

of the Holy Guardian, did we get a Holy Feather? No, we did not. We look like

fools. Fools, I tell you."



I nodded agreement with him. "Yes, you do rather. Now, about this problem ..."

"We were worshipping her before she Resurrected, and now these

Johnny-come-latelys get all the kudos? Disgusting, I call it. Downright

disgusting." "Yes, I can see you'd be upset, but look ..." "She hasn't even

been to visit us, let alone to gift us with a Holy Feather. Is that right, I

ask you? Is that just? Is that how the world ought to be?"



"Er, well, actually, she's ..." "What are we, not good enough? Are we not

worthy? Do we not sing all the hymns, chant all the chants, pray all the

prayers? Are we not sincere? Of course we're sincere, we're totally sincere."

"I'm sure you are, and you're really good at being sincere, and I mean that

most sincerely, but look, maybe you could spare a few moments for my friend

here ..." "Blind, is she? Wants a miracle? Tell her to pray to the Holy

Guardian, perhaps she'll do something, although the way she's been carrying on

lately, she doesn't seem to care very much about us."



"No, listen, ..." but he was gone, he'd bustled off to tell more people about

his grievances.



"That didn't help much," said Wendy.



I sighed.



"Is it just that we're meeting the wrong people, or are all these religious

types so wrapped up in their own fantasies that they really don't care much

about anything else?" she asked.



"I'd like to think that it's because we're not seeing the cream of the crop,

but given the history of the last couple of thousand years, I suspect you're

discovering that humans aren't angels, even when we try to be."



"Maybe I should get into costume?" she asked. "I suppose so," I answered, "at

least they'll pay some attention to you." But I wondered what their reaction

might be, since apparently they felt rejected by their adopted deity.



There was a whooshing noise, and Wendy was hovering a couple of feet in the

air, in her full white-and-gold costume. And the wings, which were beating

slowly, apparently supporting her in midair, were making all the candles in

the church flicker and gutter.



Well. You can't ignore something like that. Everyone in the church stopped

what they were doing, and stared at her. Eventually, one of them found his

voice. "It's You," he said, probably with a capital Y. "Yes, it's me," said

Wendy, very pointedly avoiding the capital M.



There was a long pause, while everyone tried to remember what they were

supposed to do. Wendy flapped her wings a bit. I scratched my nose. Someone

said "Hallelujah." Then some woman strode forth, wearing a white robe with a

gold cap and belt, and stood in front of Wendy. "Hail," she said.



Wendy stared at her, expressionlessly. "Hail, O Guardian of Humanity,"

repeated the woman. "Yeah, like, hi," said Wendy. And my PDA vibrated.



I pulled it out, and there was one word on the screen, it said "Help". And

then that cleared, and it said "What am I supposed to say here?" So I typed

in, "Ask Duncan." I mean, she should have been able to work that out. "Who?"

was what came back.



Oh no. The memory hole again. She'd forgotten about Duncan, or at least, she'd

forgotten some key information that meant that the emulation wasn't working.

"Tell you you're here to fulfil the prophecy." "What prophecy?" "Don't worry,

there's sure to be something."



"I am here in distinct fulfillment of the holy Prophecy made to you these many

moons ago." she embroidered my plain suggestion with a bit of fancy

needlework.



"O Great Goddess Guardian, will you now strike down those false and heretical

religions who are even now blaspheming your name?"



"Oh shit," said my PDA, "what now?"



"Don't take sides," I advised.



"No." said Wendy.



Good, the monosyllabic negative, that leaves no room for discussion or

argument. It also hides the fact that she hasn't a clue what they're rabbiting

on about.



Everyone stood there, looking at everyone else. How do you argue when your

goddess says no?



"And there's another thing," said Wendy, "I'm not a goddess. I'm not even an

angel. I'm just one of the People."



Uh oh. Not a wise move, love.



The priestess looked startled for a moment, but then recovered. "Modesty, our

goddess is a modest deity, full of humility, meek and mild as the lamb."



"No," she said, "you're not listening. I'm not a goddess, just one of the

People."



"Let us sing," said the priestess, ignoring any information that didn't fit

inside her current world-view.



And she led them in some hymn about travelling to the promised land, I wasn't

really listening, I was trying to keep up with my PDA. "David," it was saying,

"why won't they listen to me?" "Because you're saying something they don't

want to hear," I typed back. "So how do I get their attention?" "Tell them

something they do want to hear," I suggested, "some sort of peace offering."



Wendy sighed, reached behind her, and offered a feather. "Oh no," I thought,

"not again." The congregation were banjaxed, no-one moved. Then one guy came

forward.



"Simon!" said Wendy, "what are you doing here?"



"Well, you know. After you visited the uni, I got to thinking, I haven't

really done much with my life, but maybe I can give it some meaning. So I quit

my job, and I'm working here at the church, doing The Guardian's work, helping

people and with the food-for-vagrants program ..."



Wendy swooped on him, picked him up and gave him one of her full-body-contact

hugs, the sort of hug that surrounds you and buoys you up and makes you want

to shout hallelujah. It feels like every square inch of you is enveloped in

hug. Us ordinary folks can just wrap our arms round each other, but Wendy hugs

with arms, legs, wings, cape and hair, it's like she's all over you. "You

lovely man, you're the only one who's given me any help at all with my memory

problem." "Uh, glad I could help, uh."



She put him down, then gave him the feather. He held it like it was a red hot

soldering iron about to explode. Wendy gave him a big smile, and he grinned

back. "Uh, thanks," he said.



"Thank you, O Holy Guardian, for the graceful gift of the Holy Feather," said

the priestess, demonstrating a rather better command of the language, and

holding out her hand to Simon. Simon just stared at her, his mouth still open

from the previous thanks. The priestess beckoned to him, with a gesture that

clearly meant "Give me the Feather". Simon took a step back. The priestess

followed him, and held out her hand insistently towards the feather. Simon

shook his head. The priestess said "The Holy Feather belongs to all, not to

one." "Yes, but I'll hold it, if it's all the same to you," said Simon.



"No," said the priestess, "that is not acceptable. You must give it to me."



"Not a chance," said Simon, "she chose me to be the Feather Bearer."



"You?" said the priestess, "you aren't even ordained, you only joined the

Church a couple of weeks ago. Now conform to the will of the Holy Guardian,

and give us it here."



I closed my eyes for a moment; I could see where this was going. By now, the

whole congregation had turned their backs on Wendy, and were watching the

power struggle going on between Simon and the priestess. So no-one noticed as

I gestured to Wendy, and pointed to the door. She nodded. I started walking

out, and no-one noticed me going. Wendy just vanished, without even a puff of

orange smoke.



I met her outside. She was back in civvies, and she'd put her wings away. As

we walked to the car together, she made a key observation. "This whole

religion thing, it's all about what they want, isn't it. They don't care what

I want. And I bet the other religions don't care what their gods want, they

just make their gods say whatever the humans want them to. I mean, she claims

she knows the will of the Holy Guardian, she knows what I want?"



I looked back into the church. The scuffling had begun. Fortunately, it was

all shoving and pushing, with one or two fists being thrown. I didn't think

they'd do each other any serious damage, and anyway, what could we do about

it? I couldn't stop them, and Wendy would just inflame them more. So, we got

into my car, and drove away, my tailpipe between my back wheels.