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She hesitated, then nodded. "All right." She stepped up to him but didn't take the proffered hand.
Lowering his arm smoothly, Omega nodded to Camila. "Acolyte Paynter, please take the confessors back to the temple site to continue their service. I shall send for them when I am ready."
Camila bowed and headed back toward the group by the door. With a reassuring smile, Omega gestured to Lisa and led the way through the rear curtain of the meeting room and to the door of his office. Opening it, he ushered her through and indicated the chair next to his writing desk. "Please sit down, Lisa; I'll be with you in a moment."
Omega closed the door behind them, then slipped off his stole and hung it carefully across its hooks. Turning around, he took a step toward the desk—and froze with astonishment.
Lisa was leaning toward the desk, her head cocked slightly and her gaze on the copy of the Bhagavad-Gita he'd left propped open while working on his Sunday talk. Even from the door he could see her eyes tracing a rhythmic left-right pattern.
She was reading the book!
The first word that came to mind was one he hadn't used since escaping from Ridge Harbor. Lisa jerked her eyes away from the book with guilty speed, but fortunately she didn't seem to know what the word meant. Forcing a smile, Omega continued forward, swiveling his desk chair to face Lisa and then sitting down. "You are interested in the ancient Scriptures?" he asked her, indicating the Bhagavad-Gita.
"I... was... just looking at it, sir," the preteen said. Her eyes were wide, with lines of tension around them, and she seemed to be having trouble breathing. "I—it has those shiny edges and—"
Lisa," he said sternly. "You ca
"I can't," she whispered, staring at the book as if it would attack her.
"You must," Omega said, putting all the command he could into his voice. If he could force a surrender on this point, he sensed, all other resistance could be broken with relative ease. "I want to help you, Lisa, but if you deny any of what you are, you will merely hinder the very spirit of Truth which seeks to free your friend. Come; release your fears to the wind and allow your own Truth its freedom."
Lisa swallowed hard and dropped her eyes to the desk. Slowly, haltingly, she began to read aloud.
Omega sat quietly, an eerie feeling of unreality bringing a strange numbness to his limbs. To sit and listen as an unschooled kid read to him was probably the last situation he would ever have imagined himself in... and as Lisa's initial qualms faded and her confidence grew the sense of wonder increased. She was good—damn good—stumbling over only the most uncommon words and even then sounding them out correctly half the time. This wasn't a simple case of selfteaching, he realized; this kid had had help.
Of course.
"That will do," he spoke up, cutting her off in midsentence. "Your friend taught you well. Is that why he has disappeared?"
For a second her eyes resisted, but then they dropped in defeat. "Yes," she murmured. "At least, I think so." She looked up at him again, her expression pleading. "But I didn't mean for any of this to happen—I didn't know anyone would punish Daryl for lending me his books."
"Of course not," Omega soothed. "What you are seeing is one part of the same rejection of Truth I have suffered among adults, which is why I have in turn rejected them. The Truth within you has given you the desire and ability to read, which they now seek to repress. But the Truth can yet overcome and restore things to their rightful places. And I say now: it will do so."
Lisa seemed to ponder that for a moment. "Does that mean you're going to help me?" she asked, a bit timidly.
He gave her his best smile. "Within four days I will deliver to you his location," he declared confidently. After all, chances were that Daryl had simply been reprimanded and transferred to another school somewhere. Once Lisa told him the teen's original school and last name, it should be a simple matter of having someone pry the information out of the authorities in the guise of a relative or interested friend or something.
"You mean that?" Lisa breathed.
"I am a Prophet of Truth," Omega reminded her. "My word will not come to nothing. But." He raised a finger. "Before I do this for you, you must agree to do something in return for me."
"Of course," she nodded eagerly. "Anything I can."
"Good." Omega paused, preparing his words carefully. An incredible opportunity had dropped into his lap with this girl—an incredible opportunity and an equally incredible risk. He had to be careful now not to scare her off. "The Barona police—who serve those who would stifle the Truth within you—have in their possession certain secret papers whose contents I must learn. I would like you to go into their station tonight and read them for me."
Lisa's eyes went wide. "Break into the city building? Oh, no. No, I couldn't—"
"Peace," he said, cutting her off. "There would be no need to break in; you would be accompanied by one of my acolytes, who serves also as a righthand there."
"Why can't he steal these things for you, then?" she demanded hotly.
He had a split-second decision to make on how to react, chose to go with gentle forgiveness. "My young Seeker," he said with a forbearing smile, "I do not steal from anyone. The papers are the police's, and they will keep them. But unless I learn what is in them, a young boy who has been stolen from his parents will remain lost."
"But—" She gestured helplessly. "It would still be wrong."
"Is it wrong to try and rescue a terrified child from an evil man?" Omega asked gently. "You fear for your friend Daryl, who is—at the very least—able to understand what is happening to him. Can you imagine how little Colin must feel, alone and frightened?" He shook his head. "No, the wrong is in those who could rescue him but will not do so. What I am asking you to do is the response of the Truth within me. Examine your own heart, Lisa, and you, too, will feel a yearning to see this child freed of his prison."
For a moment he was afraid he'd piled it on too thick; but it was quickly apparent he'd touched a nerve. Lisa obviously liked children, and he could see that his slightly colored version of Colin Brimmer's plight was affecting her strongly. Time, he judged, to give the screw one last quarter-turn. "Will you do this, Lisa? Not for me, but for Colin... because you are the only one who can do this."
Her surrender came in the form of a long sigh. "I... have to think about it."
"Certainly," Omega said, suppressing a triumphant smile. "We would be honored if you would spend the remainder of the day with us, sharing in our work and fellowship and perhaps learning more of the freedom Truth gives to us. Later, when the Heir Ellery arrives, I will give you both more detailed instructions." He reached over and patted her hand in a warm, Senior-like way. "The Truth will reward those of us who give unselfishly to others, Lisa. Such is the first law of the universe." Leaning back, he smiled. "And so now I give to you. Tell me all you can about Daryl, that we may free him from his bondage."
Trudging through the knee-high bristleweeds, Tirrell rounded the last conetree to find that, as usual, Tonio had gotten back to the car first. "Well?" he asked the righthand, sliding gratefully into the driver's seat as the other teeked the door open for him.
Tonio pointed northwest through the windshield. "There's a patch about three kilometers away that's thick enough to hide a cabin from the air—conetrees mixed with some kind of wide tops. No driveway I could see, but the main road's only a half kilometer or so away, and it looks like you could get a car through."