Conflagration by Mick Farren Page A

senior officers in Albany who harbored no doubts about The Four. Many of those immediately under him simply wished they would go away, but the supreme commander accepted their powers as mysterious but infinitely useful. His backing had helped them on a number of occasions, the most notable being in the matter of them making contact with the aborigines. The visit by The Four to the land of the Ohio had almost never happened. Although the winter excursion had been organized by Slide and T’saya, the original suggestion had been made by the Reverend “Bearclaw” Manson. The small man, with his buckskins and unkempt hair, was credited with knowing more about the uncharted interior of the continent than any other individual in Albany, and also of being in closer touch with the aboriginal world of the invisible than perhaps any living American. It had been Manson’s idea that The Four should spend time with the shamans, wisewomen, and windwalkers of the Ohio. Despite all his unique insights, Manson was not a religious leader, and the title “Reverend” was little more than a nickname. At the same time, though, he frequently understood more, and his thoughts were more practical and precise than most, if not all, of those who held offices in the organized worship of God or Goddess. “When you find yourself dealing with the unknown, I figure it’s a real good idea to know all that you can know, before you set to messing with it.”
    At first, a majority of the Albany war cabinet had completely disagreed with him. They had objected strenuously to such a meeting, considering the capabilities of The Four a state secret that should be preserved at all cost, and, under no circumstances compromised, especially at the suggestion of a character like Manson, in their estimation a possible madman who spent far too much of his time communing with who-knew-what imagined devils in the deep and primal forests of the interior. They reasoned that it was bad enough that the existence of The Four had been inadvertently revealed at the King’s investiture. To allow the Ohio a close look at them should be unthinkable. Those who supported Manson, primarily Dunbar and Slide, countered that what Jesamine, Argo, Cordelia, and Raphael might learn from consulting with the aborigines, and letting the tribe’s advanced adepts meet with them, would totally outweigh what they might be giving away. The final decision had been taken by Prime Minister Jack Kennedy, when he sided with Dunbar, concluding that Manson was right, and gave his approval that The Four, along with Slide, T’saya, Manson, and a full military escort, should head out through the snow-blown forest, where the tall pines swayed, bending to the same Arctic north-winds that kept the Mosul shivering in the ruins of Richmond.
    Memories of their time with the Ohio inevitably set Raphael thinking about Jesamine. To say that, since the end of training, Jesamine had been acting strangely was an understatement. The winter had, of course, been hard on all of them, but especially on Argo and Jesamine, who had been expected to sacrifice what seemed to be a much-needed relationship to the greater good. This painful separation had pushed Argo’s drinking well beyond social intoxication, while Jesamine had progressively withdrawn from any interaction with the other three. That she had now rejected the ways of Albany and was traveling south with the Ohio was only a part of it. He could, to some degree, sympathize. The Mosul left scars, both physical and mental, on all who came under their power, and suddenly to adapt to not only freedom, but a new social order, was not easy. He looked over to where Jesamine was standing, inevitably by herself. Jesamine noticed Raphael was looking at her, and struck a pose; then she began to walk in his direction, actually swaying her hips like the angry and highly sexual woman he had first encountered on the Potomac. Two officers turned to watch her. Seemingly men could