A thousand years ago that would have made his a dyed-in-the-wool, hair-shirt-wearing, pillar-sitting holy man. These days it probably meant he scared the crap out of everybody and they wanted to buy him off with baubles.

I asked, "Would Grand Inquisitor and Malevechea fit in there somewhere?"

"I have been called those things."

"I'm getting a fix on you." That Peridont was one scary son-of-a-bitch. Luckily, we live in a world where the Church is always one gasp short of being a dead issue. It claims maybe ten percent of Karenta's human population and none of the nonhuman. It says only humans have souls and other races are just clever an­imals capable of aping human speech and manners. That makes the Church real popular with the clever animals.

"You're dismayed," he said.

"Not exactly. Say I have philosophical problems with some of the Church's tenets." Elfish civilization antedates ours by millennia. "I didn't know Mr. Wei-der was a member."

"Not in good standing. Call him lapsed. He was born to the faith. He spoke to me as a favor to his wife. She's one of our lay sisters."

I remembered her, a fat old woman with a mustache, always in black, with a face like she had a mouth full of lemons. "I see."

Now that I knew who he was, we were on equal ground. Now he needed leading around to the point. "You're out of uniform."

"I'm not making an official representation."

"Under the table? Or personal?"

'' Some of both. With permission."

Permission? Him? I waited.

"My reputation is greatly exaggerated, Mr. Garrett. I've encouraged that for its psychological impact."

I grunted and waited. He didn't look old enough to have done all the evil laid at his doorstep.

He said, "Are you aware of the tribulations beset­ting our Orthodox cousins?"