“I am pleased to meet you Sir Pentecost,” Annika began but abandoned it immediately as too formal, “Orion that is.” They moved down the cobbled street away from the cathedral. Lamps of some kind of photo luminescent crystal cast a soft illumination over the nearly empty streets. Once they had been much brighter but since the fall of the Second Republic the technology to replace the bulbs had been lost and, like the stars, they were slowly fading. In the distance there was the occasional yell of anger and crack of gunfire as the aggrieved party of the Judgment sought to redress themselves by one method or another. 

“As for my order, I fear the Orthodox and the Avestites enjoy painting us with a fanciful brush. We are simply clergy who believe that one can save one's soul through individual effort as well as the Pancreator’s grace. We also believe that the Pancreator can be found in exploring the mysteries of the universe rather than on our knees in prayer,” she explained. She doubted that Orion was deeply interested in theology so she kept the explanation simple. Truthfully she too found the theological debates somewhat tedious, it had always been obvious to her that the Pancreator’s miracles were to be revealed through the miraculous rather than staring at the mundane. The fact that there were horrors as well only made the search more important, with no risk came no reward. Out of politeness she kept her psychic senses shut off, unwilling to pry into the thoughts of her new charge.

They turned a corner into a small plaza where a body lay sprawled across a fountain depicting a man on horseback in a martial pose. Blood gleamed in the moonlight from a cut which had spilled grey ropes of intestines from the man’s belly. A few onlookers watched carefully from restaurants and taverns but this was far from an unusual occurrence on the Night of Judgement. She considered her next words carefully, unwilling to give Orion the wrong idea.

“Where are we being sent, and why if I may ask. From what I can put together the bishop expects you to get into some kind of trouble, maybe even intends that you do. He must have been instructed to provide you with a confessor and seized me so he didn’t have to entangle one of his own people in what he expects to be a scandal.” That was speculation, but it wasn’t a huge leap from what she had seen and sensed in the bishops chamber. Pentecost’s cybernetic eyes marked him as a radical among a fairly conservative group. If your eye causes you to sin, better that you pluck it out and all that. Cranmer probably hoped that her addition would not only spare one of his own acolytes, but possibly push Orion over the edge into something that might be considered heretical.
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