"Theodore, you are so Godly in your vestments. I could not be happier."

"But you wished a grandchild, Mother—I kn—"

"Shush, you. My son is going to walk with God into history—into Heaven. I couldn't be happier..."

The "shink" of a mass of heavy chain dragged him coldly from the warmth of his reverie, an affliction of his of late—an affliction perhaps installed with the memory of her funeral, which he could not attend as he lay in a state of post-battle augment—which he might have long ago unburdened if not for the sad fact that he were the only confessor remaining at this Holy Unction. He remerged into his agonized and sanguinely energized body, a wrecked thing, yet potent thanks be to Christ's Holy Augment.

So he stood, outwardly serene, inwardly pallid, hideous in his mechanical vestments, the Gauntlet of Augment resting on the vestige of family he secretly clung to, the son he might have had if not for his fascination with swords. Swords were what had gotten him into this, a boy's love of swords had set him on the crusading path sixty-two summers gone, and here he stood, the shredded and sewn remnants of a boy's dream, awaiting another damned soul as it dragged its sin-weighted chains toward the Holy Gate of the Womb of Unction, a gate once guarded by a squad of vectors under his stern direction, now by an animate casualty vised into a powered exoskeleton and a little boy draped in white vestments.

The clack of the iron hobnails on the glazed concrete rang throughout the hall, followed by the slinky drag of the chains.

"For those who shalt deny Christ before God his Father and his Holy Mother Church shalt know his suffering, to drag the chains that will likewise drag thy heathen heart to Hell through the half-measure stations of his own demise."

The small voice echoed with a reverent coolness next to him and it occurred, though he hid it, that perhaps he did have a son, that perhaps this boy might rise to take his place—might rise to take their awesome Dictor's place.

And there four figures emerged, shadowed below the feeble light fed by the last wind turbine, a power source so much less reliable than the cell of Christ's lion-like passion that powered his chrysalis, that even now flowed through His Holy Augment, as such as he, risen from among the maimed, were honored to be known, though the notion made him quake underneath. Something sung hollow in his soul at the honor as his peepers traced the gray outlines of the lighter realm of shadow beneath the lighting element—which he did not require but which was an ever-vexing source of worry for him as he concerned himself with the Brothers of the Unction and forever insisted on torch drill in the event of the unthinkable—that the wind turbine garrison might be overrun, or worse, that the great arms might cease of their own accord to whirl before the driving wind gusting out of the evermore frightening Hinterland.

Within the lighter shades of gray beneath the element beat four hearts, glowing red, housed in fire-lined outlines of human form. Above the broad shoulders that housed these beating hearts were heads, two the helmeted heads of vectors, which housed the red-infused blue mass of brain. Such was the Rector's view of the world, men of ghostly red aspect, powered by an expanding and contracting heart of deep red, beneath a red-infused mass of deep to sky blue. Eyes all imprinted as blue in his mind's eye, though the ones he knew as true blue appeared white. This reading aided him sternly as a confessor. For the level of red indicated a willfulness or insanity—a lack of peace unto God. The depth of blue of the neuromas was likewise indicative of the depth of contemplation. For instance, the altar boy and the vectors showed light blue neuromas, indicating receptivity to hierarchal notions, while the Dictor's neuromas was a deep, oceanic blue, indicating Holy Communion, contemplation—Unction.

The Holy Rector's insightful view of the human form caused him to recoil in shock as he saw, between the vectors and before the towering Dictor—whose head alone was visible—a figure of powerful outline as broad as both vectors—strong men all—powered by a deeply contracting mass of red and crowned with a willfully infused neuromas in turmoil. There was no deep mass of serene, dictus blue, or a light mass of compliant, vectus azure, but a mass of blue that deepened at the root of the serpent brain and lightened as the humane forefront of the brain pressed against the heavy-browed skull of this atrocity from the Hinterland, who should have been slain in the womb, for whatever bore him was assuredly as accursed as the Holy Mother Mary had been blessed. Furthermore was the hairiness of the thing, with the wild growth lending to the broad aspect as a light gray haze outlining the red form, a mane of curly hair encasing the frightful neuromas and shrouding the bestial shoulders in dusky haze. The overall impression of the neuroque was as troubling as the extreme physicality of the man was arresting. And his eyes were white—true blue. That this fiend should share the beautific eyes of his faithful altar boy was an afront before God—something rankly willful rising devilsome from the wintry Hinterland.

And it strode toward him defiantly, bullying his own weight of chains into the shins of the vectors, who, thanks be to God, wore steel grieves. He and his altar boy complied with the Reiteration At the Gate of Unction:

"For those who shalt deny Christ before God his Father and his Holy Mother Church shalt know his suffering, to drag the chains that will likewise drag thy heathen heart to Hell through the half-measure stations of his own demise."

In answer a heavy weight of saliva, propelled defiantly from the face of the man whose brain flushed with red, came to splash with the force required to swat a fly upon his peepers and cleft nose.

He instinctively reached his hand—no, the gauntlet—up to clear the peepers and was interrupted by the device itself, as it deployed spider-wipers and removed the effluvial matter coughed up by the wicked, Hinter-spawned beast.

The vectors both dug the crosspiece of their sword hilts into the man's midsection to no effect, to which the Dictor intoned, "Desist."

Having time to regain his composure, the Rector complied with his responsibility before God:

"Via the power vested in this office I hold out the hope of Redemption, in that you might come to God and see the error in your ways and emerge from this Holy Node of Unction to"—and saliva splashed across his mechanical eyes—"never again spit in my face, you rude heathen bastard! Now get you down to Hell's junction where may you rot before the eye of..."

His voice trailed off as the altar boy tapped him mindfully on the wrist, the vectors gawked dumb and open-minded, the Dictor's neuromas flushed with red, and the brute from the hinterlands roared his irreverent mirth, "Maybe I'll bring your holy head to the Afterdark and sit a Raven Girl on your face, you rough old snot!"

The altar boy drew him aside—with all the power of meek moral authority—in his humiliation as he mechanically released the gate and permitted the vectors and their charge to enter, and the Dictor remained grim and judgmental beyond the bars, his neuromas returning to a deep blue. Away behind him the chains dragged in seeming mirth until the Portal of Descent clanged open, then clanged closed. Then the Dictor said, with a tongue of unbreakable ice, "This one was a chief. The Heathen rise beyond the gate. I go. God remain with you, Rector."

"And also with you, Dictor—blessed-sure and cleanse-red be the Sword of Christ!"

The neuromas of the Dictor ghosted azure for a moment to those words and the Holy Rector of Cumberland Unction, who had once been a man, who had once been the boy, Theodore Bryce, who dreamed of swords and angels, felt like he had fulfilled a long ago given promise, as the ominous Dictor turned on his oft-red heels and marched away to vanquish the enemies of Holy Mother Church, the unkempt enemies who had never failed to fall before the guns of his men and the sword of his cleansing hand.

Inspirational Sourcing: A Hostage for Hinterland, by Arsen Darnay

I reversed Arsen's theme of a hinterland occupied by pious Christians surrounding high tech centers of secular morality with the opposite notion of moral dichotomy. I read the book in 1980 and am grateful to finally acknowledge the inspiration.