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Show demanding, remorseless, the voice of the GreatMother coming from the southeastern part of BauerWorlde, on the other side of the relatively mild southern Tartars. "I feel Her, sisters, I feel Her," Bettina whispered, eyes shut, head thrown back. Bettina and her Sisters had but that yesternight received the message that a complement of Techs were to arrive the next SevenDay to wire in their IonFlares and clean the smoke-stained rosestone walls of the Chapel-Of-The-GreatMother. And the Sisters had lived their own lives there in Rasher Commendium for all those TwelveMonths by then, having naught to do with the technology forced upon the Commendiums! In faith, the unfairness of it shook the Sisters to their very bones. Marry, but they had fought this invasion, though for naught, since the battle had needs be waged against the insistent benevolence of the good Isaac and Ida Needlesmith, elders by then, and looked upon by even Bettina and her Sisters as most holy- Indeed it had been the kindly and elderly Saint Ida herself who had pointed out to Bettina that, in faith, a little cleanliness on their part would not so much put out the GreatMother. "Aye, child," she'd said, "for aught that She wishes all her creatures to be part of the blessed soil of BauerWorlde, a little cleanliness be no bad thing at all. And marry." she'd gone on, "it might even ward off some of the blight that's already rendered a half dozen of thy number bald by way of head lice-the poor young wights !" Nay, fight such as the good Needlesmiths they could never do and so it was leave the Sisters must. Bettina, a rough orange shawl over her head, 96 |
