Free Veil of the Goddess by Rob Preece Page B

church. One thing for sure, they aren't Catholics. I don't even think they're supposed to be allowed here."
    She didn't care if they were Snake Charming Pentecostals, as long as they weren't part of the Foundation. If she and Zack didn't get help, they weren't going to make it much further.
    They waited for a break in the chanting and then Ivy knocked on the wooden door to what she guessed was a sanctuary.
    The bearded man who opened the door frowned at her and muttered something in a language that wasn't English, Arabic, or anything else she recognized.
    "Do you speak English?” she asked.
    "?Usted habla Español?” Zack added.
    "English,” the man grated. “Some.” He wore what looked like an old poncho over his shoulders except it draped all the way to the ground and was tied at his waist by a rope. From the oversized crucifix around his neck, Ivy realized her guess had been right. They had stumbled upon a group of Christians in the middle of Moslem Turkey.
    "We were lost in the mountains,” Ivy explained. “When we saw your Church, we hoped you'd let us take shelter here, just for the night."
    His blue eyes widened. “This is a monastery,” he said. “No women."
    He started to shut the door but Zack put in a boot before the monk could slam it closed.
    "Look, we're not asking for anyone to violate their vows or anything. We just need a place to sleep. If you've got a shed or a barn, that would do."
    The monk's face darkened and he looked like he was going to try to take Zack's foot off with the door, but another monk, this one wearing something similar to the robes old-fashioned priests had worn in Ivy's church years ago, stopped him.
    "Let me handle this, Brother Eudor."
    Brother Eudor wanted to argue, but a stern look from the priest stopped him. “Yes, Father Stefan."
    The priest looked at Zack and Ivy, his glare only slightly more welcoming than Eudor's.
    "The Monastery is available only to those seeking the truth through prayer.” He paused, shaking his head slowly. “Years ago, before the Greeks were forced from Anatolia and the slaughter of the Armenians, we had more visitors. The visitor buildings are old and crumbling, but they should provide better shelter than the mountains themselves. Let me take you there, then we'll see about getting you some food."
    Stefan's crucifix bobbed on his chest as he led them away from the church toward what Ivy had thought was only part of the mountain.
    "You must be lost indeed to end up in our mountains,” Father Stefan told them in practically accent-free English. “We get a trickle of visitors from Russia and Serbia, but I don't remember ever hearing of an English."
    "We're quite lost, and a long way from Istanbul,” Ivy admitted. Stefan would probably guess they were Americans and that they'd come across the nearby border from occupied Iraq, but she didn't want to get into a discussion of whether they had deserted. Or why.
    "It would be harder to get much further from Constantinople than you are now,” Stefan agreed using the traditional Greek name for that ancient city. Not the ancient word Byzantium that the priestess had used, but the name that under which it had been the center of the civilized world for a thousand years after the fall of Rome.
    "I will have one of the brothers bring you food and blankets.” He looked at the Cross sections that Ivy and Zack had been unsuccessful in carrying inconspicuously. “Are you on some sort of pilgrimage? Although our monastery is very old, it is largely contemplative and we don't have the type of relics that bring many worshipers. Certainly not those who follow the Western rites. You do follow those rites, don't you?"
    "Yes, we're Catholic. And we are on a sort of pilgrimage,” Zack said, stretching but not quite breaking the truth.
    "I see.” Stefan clearly didn't see, but Ivy wasn't going to enlighten him.
    The priest nodded and turned to go, then stopped. “Oh, there is one thing. As you may have picked up