Hiero's Answer

by Sterling E. Lanier, Lucy Andrews Cummin

Genres: Science Fiction

Synopsis

The world ended. People survived.

Per Hiero Desteen was a priest, a telepath-and a highly trained killer. Through his travels he has fought bloodthirsty tribes, met incredible creatures, learned unbelievable things, all for the sake of protecting the last vestiges of humanity on the remains of a planet that is regrowing after it was nearly entirely destroyed.

He has seen horrors and wonders. He has braved trials beyond belief.

And now, finally, his journey is coming to an end.

Finally completed by Sterling Lanier's goddaughter Lucy Cummin, Hiero Desteen's legend reaches its epic conclusion, more than fifty years after he was first introduced to the world.

Release date: February 5, 2026

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 352

Sample

Fleet as a gazelle, Luchare ran ahead, ducking and twisting deeper into the towering ferns and bromeliads that grew under the giant, flanged trees of the Great Forest. Shafts of sunlight dappled the landscape, making it a challenge to keep her in his sight; he tried calling out, but his voice would not make a sound. An earth-shaking noise arose and Luchare looked back at him, the expression on her heart-shaped face searing his own heart. Swiftly, in dream fashion, her visage changed and was no longer the warm chestnut skin and halo of black curly hair, but Vilah-ree’s pale green skin, delicate features, and sleek feathered head. “Help us,” their voices cried as one, “Oh, Hiero, we have need of you!” As the pounding and roaring became more insistent, the running figure melted into one of the tall “candles” of slime that had bobbed and swayed around the House he had destroyed a year and a half and a lifetime ago on his southern journey to find the machine, the “computer,” which Demero regretfully had declared useless, as he realized the machine required a vast web of interwoven cooperative services, what he called “infrastructure” to operate. Grabbing for his short knife, he encountered only skin! In horror, he looked down to see he was entirely naked …

… One reality blended into another as the dream faded and Hiero became aware that he was twisted up in a blanket while someone, urgent and timid, knocked insistently on the bolted cabin door. From the bunk above, stentorian snoring continued oblivious.

Gasping, Hiero raised himself up on one elbow and wiped the sweat from his brow. Dreams shouldn’t be so vivid or repetitive. This one always ended with Luchare running through the jungle, first becoming Vilah-ree and then, horribly, the slime candle.

Surely he would not still be dreaming of Luchare if she were dead? This appalling nightmare was his only comfort. The increasing urgency of the dreams convinced him that even if she had safely reached the Vilah-ree homeland (the leader of the Vilah-ree is the Vilah-ree) she was safe with them no longer.

Why had no news of any kind reached him about where she was? Of what use were his strengths and mental powers if the multitude of Abbey spies and scouts, the Brotherhood of the Eleventh Commandment, and their legion of agents, animal allies, and friends, had not been able to help him find her?

The irritating knocking started up again, breaking into his despairing thoughts.

“Coming!” Hiero yelled, eliciting a groan from the upper bunk as he hopped stiffly out of the lower.

He lifted the bar from across the door. Since the Glith had attacked him in the Abbey, he slept poorly inside. He cast a glance at the reassuring sight of his Thrower; he couldn’t use the weapon on the ship, but he could bash someone’s head in if need be. He opened the door.

Before him stood a youth of eighteen or so, clad in the ridiculous uniform of the infant Metz Navy and Bearing the insignia of a Metz private, as well as the acorn on his left cheek identifying the lad as a novice, an apprentice-warrior in the Abbey rank structure. The young man was obviously embarrassed and excited. Hiero Desteen was the best-known war leader in the whole of the Metz Republic and legends of his doings, no matter how garbled or twisted they had become, had been for months the subject of talk around every fireside and table in every Abbey, camp, or home of the Metz Republic.

Even Hiero could not ignore the sheer romance of his own story: his rescue of and marriage to Luchare, the mythical Princess of D’alwah; his kidnapping, escape, and surprise return to Neeyana, where with the help of an exotic race of previously unknown cat-like humanoids, the Eer’owear, he had freed the port city from Unclean control; and finally his leadership in the great battle that cleared the Blue and Red and most of the Yellow Circles of the Unclean from the region. Small wonder the young soldier gazed at him with awe in his innocent brown eyes!

Hiero kept his face an immobile bronze mask and waited. He could have broken into the young man’s mind and read his thoughts, for as yet, none of the ingrained Abbey skills were firmly in the other’s defenses and certainly not when he was staring at a man who was almost a living legend. Tiring of the youth’s dumb worship, Hiero finally said, in as gentle a voice as he could command, “Well, soldier?”

The rigid shoulders stiffened further and the young man choked out something unintelligible. Checking himself, he repeated his message slowly: “The Abbot-General requests your presence, sir. In the Captain’s Quarters, sir.”

Hiero saluted casually and smiled, although not too broadly lest the young man lose his hard-fought aplomb. “Tell the Reverend Demero I will be with him shortly.” After another salute, the stripling turned and left at a dead run, and Hiero’s smile faded.

A glance at the ancient alarm clock (a survivor of millennia of neglect found when he was searching through the Abbey storage vaults as a student, lovingly cleaned and repaired) told him the time was well past first dawn, increasing his annoyance, as he prided himself on timeliness. Hiero turned his attention to shaving. Even if he was tardy, he wouldn’t appear before the Abbot or anyone else looking anything less than his best. Taking the razor-sharp flake of obsidian he favored, the volcanic glass having an edge no metal could equal, he started in on the stubble. For a mirror he used a square of burnished copper and the light from the porthole; the mirror propped against the back of the large inert form lying on the upper bunk, his friend, former classmate, and present cabin-mate, Per Edard Maluin. Despite his annoyance at being caught sleeping late, he did not cut himself, for his nerves were as tuned as a cat’s.

Hard decisions lay ahead. The Abbot Demero had informed him he would soon be set ashore on a journey with little hope of success or survival. Maluin was to go with him whether he cared to have him or not. He would let the big oaf sleep despite the fact that he had the man to blame for his lack of sleep. It had been Maluin’s juvenile idea to stay up half the night singing, drinking, and reminiscing.

He wiped his face dry, using a rag cloth hanging on a hook set in the wall. His mirror showed a man frowning grimly, patches of soap over the lean, brown, high cheek-boned visage. Perhaps he was a mite too serious. He noticed a few strands of his hair were not jet black, which gave him pause. Anxiety about Luchare had taken a toll since the bad news of her disappearance had filtered North. Duke Amibale’s rout of D’alwah, the disappearance of the King, his daughter, and the Count Giftah Hamili, head of the Royal Guard, had been a blow.

He trimmed his black hair so the bob no more than half-covered his ears and turned away, replacing the tiny surgical scissors, courtesy of the Davids (a hidden community in the eastern mountains north of the Lantik Kingdoms) into his kit, precious marriage gift from Hamili, Luchare’s cousin and childhood friend. Maluin as yet has no idea what loving someone who is likely in mortal danger does to your soul. For him adventure is still all, he thought ruefully.

While he finished dressing he tried to concentrate on the present and what the old Abbot might want to discuss. Was there anything they hadn’t considered fifty or a hundred times over, from the whereabouts of Luchare to the nature of the enemy? Why had Kulase Demero requested that Hiero breakfast with him alone? Had there been some new tidings, news of her …? Hiero quashed the thought.

Leaving the cabin, he did not hurry as once he might have. The Abbot was his superior, but Hiero could not guess why Kulase Demero had made him wait for so long! Four months ago, when he was on the brink of departure to search for Luchare, the Abbot had informed him he would have to wait. His presence was needed more urgently here in the North. Aldo had been called away suddenly and Per Cart had gone with him. Maluin, the Mantans, and Gorm had also vanished on errands that Demero forebore to discuss with him. When he asked why he could not go immediately and alone, the Abbot froze him with his sternest look.

The slowness of collecting information and completing his duties had delayed him for too long! The trail would be cold. He would be too late! He cursed softly.

At least he was presentable. His black mustache was trim and tilted as he liked, and he was not displeased with his appearance, despite the abbreviated sleep. Hiero was not given to vanity; he wanted to make an impression of neat precision and confidence, if only to offset the growing but thankfully invisible confusion in his mind.

He climbed the steep, narrow stairs and emerged into the sweet fresh air and welcome light on deck where sailors were going about their morning chores, scrubbing and polishing already perfectly scrubbed and polished surfaces and coiling the already perfectly coiled lines. Bright banners rippled and snapped in a sprightly breeze. The Admiral of the new Metz Navy, Justus Berain, had taken some time to adjust to travel by way of wheels and cogs and steam and coal, but some things never change: Keeping sailors busy and full of pride in their ship would always be a priority.

The crew took covert peeks at Hiero as he made his way toward the stern, returning their greetings with no more than casual waves, while being careful not to slip on the wet and shining deck. The admiration was the inevitable effect of being good at his work, he had accepted this. He should worry if they stopped being respectful!

At the closed door, a sailor saluted Hiero smartly, then rapped on the varnished wooden door panels.

A gruff voice responded, “Let him in.”

When he heard the harsh-voiced summons, he entered and walked forward to stand in a submissive attitude before the map-strewn table of his superior.

There too on the table was the strange device of Demero’s, able to sense the intrusion of Unclean mind-feelers, thankfully quiescent since the end of the Battle for the North.

“Take your time getting here, don’t you?” rasped the Abbot. His high cheekbones and hawk nose contrasted with his flowing mustache and long white Beard, and irritation gleamed in his black eyes and raised brows.

“Sorry, Father,” was the calm answer. “I … I was thinking and …” Hiero gave up trying to explain. “Didn’t want to cut myself shaving. Never meant to keep you waiting, Sir! Is there something urgent?”

“Only the fate of our world. Depends what you call urgent,” grumped the old man. “Of course, I have no right to order a ruling prince around, Per Desteen, even if he is also one of my own under-disciplined, lazy priests. Oh yes, and a great general as well.” Demero leaned back in his oaken chair, grinning now, making one of his famously lightning-quick mood changes.

Hiero came out of his “meek” attention pose and grinned back. “Father Abbot, I’m sorry. I got into one of my ‘Where’s Luchare?’ moods just as you sent for me.”

Kulase lost his smile and said, his tone warm, “There is nothing so very urgent. You can come back later.” They both knew he did not mean this.

“I’m all right now, Sir. What did you want to see me about?”

Kulase’s face clouded over. “As you know Hiero, these last few months have been no more than a reprieve. I am sure the Unclean are planning something much, much worse. Something, somewhere awaits … but where? … and what? Despite all our efforts we know so little,” the Abbot said. “I am greatly troubled that for all our efforts our plan—if something so vague can be worthy of the name—is still so shapeless. I keep hoping if we talk things over enough, we’ll think of something.” He turned to the great map they had been piecing together with all the new information they had found on Manoon, the former Unclean island where Hiero had been a prisoner, and that they had captured at the conclusion of the Battle for the North.

Hiero fell silent as he considered what the Abbot had just said. What were they going to do next and when and how? The defeat of the massed forces of the Unclean seven months ago likely had started nothing more than another inexorable chain of events.

Why? Because the defeat had not been total. Certainly a great army of the murderous foe had been exterminated and the North was more clean of spies, monsters, and enemies than in years. As many as a hundred of the Unclean had been killed outright and two “bases” had been cleared out and many thousands of their mutant animal-human hybrid troops had died. While much had been learned, there was not yet enough, only tantalizing clues. What was still unknown was where the main drive and directing intelligence of the foe originated. They all suspected that unless they destroyed the Unclean at their source, they would return, stronger than ever. Powerful and exalted as they were, the Unclean who had been killed, such as S’Duna, were no more than senior staff and army commanders. Like themselves, their enemy would have learned much about the Metz and would apply their increased knowledge to the next battle.

Hiero turned and with his hands clasped behind his back stared blindly out of the south-facing porthole, through which he could see the dense green of the heavily forested shoreline. What the Abbot said was true, yet hadn’t everything been said ten times over already?

“Why have you had me messing about, organizing supplies and behaving more like a quartermaster-general than a real commander? I’ve spent the past few months worrying about replacement of supplies, weapons and defenses, allocation of troops and ships, assignments of units to defense zones,” he paused, “and I probably wasn’t even very good at what I was doing, Father Abbot.” Without being asked, he hurled himself into a small chair on his own side of the table and leaned on his elbows, looking directly into the Abbot’s eyes.

“Why have you delayed?” Hiero asked again. “Why have you not let me seek Luchare? I would have been gone in an hour had you released me.” His voice sharpened and darkened as he finished speaking. “Why did you permit me to waste my time when we face such foes?” He indicated the papers and maps on the desk.

The Abbot spoke softly but firmly. “You needed a respite. This gathering of information,” Demero waved his hand at the pile of maps, “pitiful as this collection is, has enlarged our knowledge and has given rise to … if not a plan, then at least an approach. Inadequate, yet more than what we had.” He paused and then spoke in a hushed voice, “I am sorry if our discussions appear to have been a waste of time. Your presence has made a difference to me, for you know the enemy as few, if any, others really do. And your presence among the men and women who fight for us has done more to lift morale than anyone else could do.” Hiero knew Demero well enough to know his final remark was an apology hidden in a rebuke.

“I will admit,” Hiero said, “I have occasionally found some comfort and calm in the tasks that I have performed of late and the time on Manoon while unpleasant was of use. However, permission to speak freely, Sir?”

“You will anyway,” the Abbot replied with a gleam of humour.

“Sir, while strategically we did have to regather and make new plans, maps, supply routes … Luchare’s trail is going cold while the Unclean have had time to prepare another move against us. How is more knowledge going to save us, Father? And this waiting … I fear …” His last sentence emerged reluctantly. Hiero’s eyes dropped to the floor, noting the well-fitted boards, the neat, precise work of the Metz craftsmen, wood grain glowing through varnish.

Demero Kulase dropped his voice. “As to that, while this delay feels long to you, what lies ahead is too much to ask of one man. The stakes are too high to let you go off on your own. I need to be sure you have every advantage. Your friends have not been idle.” He looked at Hiero from under his bushy eyebrows with a flash of amusement. “Clever as you undoubtedly are, my boy, even you can’t be several places at once, and I believe this is what our next venture will require. Therefore,” he said, with a fresh ring in his voice, “my young friend, you can, and will, listen to me, both for the good of your sweaty carcass and for your soul. But before we dispose of your soul, we must deal briefly with a few matters earthly … and unearthly.”

Hiero looked up blankly and saw a wide and somewhat gap-toothed smile cover the lined old face, “And no, I haven’t gone mad.” How different he would look, Hiero thought, were circumstances happier. And what does he mean by unearthly?

Demero continued, “We have no need of generals now or princes, not up here on the Inland Sea or indeed anywhere in the North.” His smile disappeared and he stared hard at Hiero. “What we must have, Hiero, is the ability to move ahead, but in ways even you cannot manage on your own. What we need is knowledge. The means to plan not a defense or even a conventional attack, but a blow that is wholly unexpected. Otherwise we can only wait for new blows to come, new horrors that may trap us; for forces of evil that may—nay, will—move against us from the dark centers of the Unclean stronghold. Do I make myself clear?”

A lesser man would have blanched and quailed at the Abbot’s bleak words.

Even though Hiero was awed at the power and the determination still flowing vigorously through the Abbot’s being, he answered casually, “Do you have new ideas about what the unexpected might be?”

“No,” the Abbot admitted, “I am depending on … improvisation.” Father Demero spoke in a tone Hiero knew well. Under the disapproval there was excitement. He was up to some mischief.

“You will go,” Demero said triumphantly, “today. And you will be the leader. But you will not go alone as you so foolishly desire. I’m going to send you southward with a small, carefully chosen team. The rest will arrive shortly. Council approved, of course.”

Hiero suppressed a grin. More likely the Abbot had bullied them into accepting his choices. However, his mind caught and hung onto one long-awaited word: Today! A thrill of joy ran through his frame. He could barely restrain himself from leaping out of his chair and crowing.

“Your first assignment, of course, will be to find Luchare,” the Abbot added with a nod.

“Yes, Sir,” Hiero said, his voice as calm and confident as if he had been discussing a meal or the weather. He was grateful Demero did not say “attempt to find”; he would find her! Despite his annoyance, he could not help but wonder who his other companions would be; one companion was bad enough! He had a horror of being hampered by adoring young scouts or anyone whose well-being would be on his conscience.

The Abbot began to speak again. “My second reason for this final private meeting today is so that I may ask before you leave … as your counselor, confessor and mentor, if you have any concerns of a spiritual nature to discuss with me.” The Abbot’s brows beetled as he raised them and waited for an answer.

Aware he was not being fully candid, Hiero lied. “I have only one hesitation, and I am sure you know what that is,” he said, “Not knowing where Luchare is, my focus is not as steady as it should be. While I am sure she is still alive, maybe even safe, she is always on my mind and I have noticed I can be distracted or angered by trivial things. Are you sure I am still the best available?”

The Abbot sighed, but did not probe him further. They both knew he had side-stepped the question. What Hiero said was true enough; his sense of Luchare being in terrible danger did distract him and did cause a constant ache he felt in his very bones, but they both knew Demero’s concerns went deeper—into his very vocation as a Metz Killman Scout.

Kulase Demero looked at Hiero and his dark eyes were sad and far away. The Abbot had chosen to accept his statement at face value. “Oh, my boy, I know you suffer.” His tone was so genuine that Hiero recalled the rumors that long before he entered the Abbey hierarchy, when he was still a Scout, Demero had once had a wife and a daughter. No one knew what had become of them and not a hint or a word had ever passed the Abbot’s lips. But the Abbot was not yet finished with him. Quietly he said, “This is why I wanted this meeting. You can tell me anything.”

Hiero said evenly, “There is no more to tell, Sir.” No hint of his deeper concerns showed behind the aquiline, bronze mask.

The Abbot waited and his own strong features and aura of wise calm almost wore down Hiero’s resolve. The silence dragged out. Finally Hiero spoke. “Whatever lies ahead for me, I will remain faithful to my mission even unto my death,” he said sincerely.

The Abbot was watching him closely and spoke softly. “I can assure you, Hiero, my fighting prince, you’ve never failed us. Take heart, son. You’re still a good priest and servant of the Church. Doubt goes hand in hand with great courage. What you have done with so much grief and loss eating at your heart is quite amazing. As God has put me in this world to do what I can for Him and the Faith, Hiero, I absolve from any sin your soul and your inner being. Be Blessed instead. In the name of the One God, I call His Blessing upon you and bid you gain and not lose strength thereby.” The Abbot gave his blessing in solemn, deep tones, and reached over the wide, map-strewn table to make the sign of the Cross on Hiero’s brow.

Even though it was only a gesture, Hiero felt a small easing of the knot that never loosened in his chest. He bowed his head to receive the blessing, closing his eyes and crossing himself over his left breast. For all he had had some dark hours of late, these faded in the presence of Father Demero, and the questioning of his faith ceased. Faith was simply there, familiar and comforting. Even if his faith failed, his belief in the integrity of this one man, mortal as he was, would not. Relief filled him; he had calmed down and could function.

The Abbot sighed and to Hiero’s dismay appeared smaller, older, and wearier, as if the effort to bolster the young man had taken a toll. When he looked up again at Hiero, the full weight of all the responsibility he bore was apparent.

“Before you go, Hiero,” Demero paused. Hiero’s full attention was caught by an uncharacteristically tentative tone. “I wish also to confide in you speculations which while possibly absurd are yet … so compelling I cannot let them go, for the ideas seem to offer a way to make sense of who and what the Unclean may be. I have no need to be proved right in this, only to find out! If we find out we may discover a way to rid ourselves of them!”

Hiero was suddenly fully alert.

“Our world is not the pre-Death world. The changes are too profound,” Demero said, waving a hand. “The Death took place so many thousands of years ago, a long time to us, yes, but in evolutionary terms, but the blink of an eye. Yet in this short time, life forms, both plant and animal, have undergone tremendous alterations: gigantism, increased intelligence, telepathy, and strange hybrid creatures to name a few. This troubles the Council greatly: None of us have any way to measure not only what those changes are but how they came about. We don’t know enough about how things were before, not even now that some of us share our knowledge with each other. Sometimes I …” He broke off. “Don’t think me mad, my boy, but sometimes I wonder if The Death wasn’t caused by enmities between nations but triggered by something else, something not of this earth. Your encounter with Solitaire, such an extreme being, gave rise to these wild speculations.”

“What do you mean by unearthly?” said Hiero. “Some new deviltry spawned in the time of The Death?”

Demero clasped his hands behind his back and turned to stare out of the porthole. “Yes and no. Nothing that humans invented or caused. Think: the one you caught on your first journey who turned to slime, who did not have proper eyes? He was not like a reptile, a mammal, amphibian, or even an insect. Not like anything. The slime sample you brought resembles nothing we know of except some kinds of fungi and even then … the properties are not quite the same. And the House! What could that be? How do the Unclean use their rods and metal contraptions to communicate? They must have a source of energy, but not one we understand. I have asked myself these questions over and over until an idea began to haunt me.

“Before The Death, humans were obsessed with the idea of space travel. Men walked on the Moon and plans were underway for missions to nearby planets and even to mine asteroids. Close studies were made of signals that entered our atmosphere, using immense ‘dishes’—receivers made for this sole purpose. Unmanned satellites were sent out past the edge of our solar system into the great void with information loaded into them about us, about Earth. A vast literature, called science fiction, was devoted to the idea of space travel and encounters with alien beings, mostly ridiculous and romantic, but some oddly prescient.”

Hiero nodded, “Edard and I went through a spell of loving to read those old books. Asimov?”

“And so I cannot help but ask myself,” Demero went on ignoring his comment, “what if something our predecessors sent out into space was found by an alien life form? What if by those noble but naive attempts to communicate, the ancients attracted not a friend but an enemy to our planet?” He turned to Hiero, his dark eyes blazing. “Am I mad to have such thoughts? And yet, ever my thoughts turn in this direction.”

For a beat Hiero had no idea how to respond. That the Abbot meant what he said in all seriousness was evident. But his idea was quite mad, even absurd. Skeptical, Hiero was nonetheless awed by the scope of Demero’s imagination and by his courage to consider every possibility no matter how outlandish.

“Wouldn’t such an enemy simply … destroy us?”

Demero said, “Maybe or maybe not. The Death came close, no? Perhaps we hardly register as life forms. Maybe …”

“Then who and what are the Unclean?” Hiero was growing impatient.

“I don’t know,” Demero sounded weary. “The Unclean can interact with us too easily and while they are not human, I don’t think they are fully alien. I would hazard they were once men, metamorphosed into something other.”

This idea engaged Hiero and he said thoughtfully, “Maybe their purpose is to destroy us for this … thing?” He shook himself. “Isn’t that … too complex an idea? You always taught us to seek the simplest, most obvious solution. What did you call it? Occam’s Razor?”

“Yes. Except, there are exceptions,” the Abbot said, with his characteristic dry humour. “I believe I said that too. In any case, I am not saying I believe this, only that I have allowed my mind to open up to wider possibilities. One day, as I sat at my desk, my notes all around me, I was thinking about your experiences with Solitaire and the intuition came to me of a potential greater explanation, so enormous and strange that our minds can’t encompass the entirety, but can only see the pieces.”

“You’ve been thinking over what I told you?” Hiero said. “Solitaire telling me that once in a great while, he had felt a mighty blast of mental power, unlike anything else, not coherent, having no message he could follow, nothing orderly. Only with enough force to frighten him.”

Demero nodded. Really! Demero had left no stone unturned!

Hiero frowned, trying to remember a conversation he’d had with Solitaire. “After I described the Unclean and their evil doings, we had many discussions about the concepts of Good and Evil. He concluded that true evil required a conscious being directing destructive force knowingly against other living creatures, not necessarily conscious, only alive. He wanted to know if I thought something that didn’t even know you existed and harmed you could be properly deemed evil? A flood would not be evil, but a flood that could have been prevented by someone who had either not bothered to make the fix or had even committed sabotage, would be. Or rather, he said, the flood would be an expression of the evil released by the person who had allowed or caused the flood. At some point, he did speculate that these thought-blasts, to him, felt like the former, not a menace directed, or even aware of our existence. Possibly it was a force of nature with no mind, but he couldn’t say. Yet his intuition was that whatever the source of these blasts, it was powerful and dangerous to our well-being and maybe our very existence.”

Demero listened frowning, “Why did you not tell me this before?

After a pause Hiero continued, “Well, I see I should have, but I didn’t imagine you would care one way or another about our rather endless philosophical discussions and I didn’t think of it until now. The only reason I bothered to note what he said is that Solitaire has such terrific mind power of his own. Anything that caused him anxiety has to be very powerful.” He cocked an eyebrow.

Demero, his face alight, said excitedly. “So you don’t think I’m a cracked old man!”

“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” Hiero said drily.

Abbot Demero chuckled, allowing this impertinence. “But you agree, anything Solitaire thinks or feels enough to share with you