“What!? How did that happen?” Aoibhe asked sharply, thankfully retaining the presence of mind to keep her voice to a whisper.

“How should I know!?” Miliam hissed back.

“Could it just be a doppleganger? What is it they say- every person has a dozen identical strangers?” Aoibhe suggested.

“I don’t think that’s how the saying goes,” Miliam denied, though she couldn’t call to mind the correct wording either. “That seems like an even crazier coincidence though if you ask me…”

“So, does that change anything? I mean, you’re technically the long-lost sister of the prophet, right?” There was a glint in Aoibhe’s eye that Miliam did not like the look of.

“Considering the other option is execution for heresy I’m not looking to find out!” she snapped before the fay could get too greedy.

“Mayhaps we should continue this conversation on the ship, then, assuming it does not materially affect the mission?” Abigail whispered before they could continue.

“…you’re right,” Miliam replied, taking a deep breath. “Just give me a moment to refocus.”

That was easier said than done, though. Miliam found her mind cast back to the 21st century, going over everything she knew about her brother. What made him go from a meek missionary preacher to a demagogue? She didn’t exactly know what he’d been through after her disappearance, but that only made it easier to assume the change was brought on by her disappearance. They’d never been particularly close, but…maybe that was only how Miliam saw it from her side. Zachary may have felt differently.

She forced the roiling emotions in her chest down and re-centered herself, once again immersing herself in the role. Once she let the mask fall back over her face Miliam felt much more comfortable. Years of experience allowed her to let her feelings fade into the background and soon only her most pressing worry remained: namely, survival.

“Let’s go,” she told Abigail and Aoibhe as she headed to meet Brother Sal. Once he had confirmed she was ready to continue he led them further inside the building through hallways with floors inlaid with gold. While the entryway had been empty, there were more signs of habitation further in. Their little group passed a small number of nuns in ones and twos as they cleaned the interior, as well as a priest that seemed to be doing the rounds checking on their progress. Brother Sal gave a nod as each of them greeted him, but otherwise ignored the women, leaving them to their work.

A short time later they reached an ornate door guarded by several men in blue, yellow, orange, and red uniforms under black cuirasses and matching black helmets. Each was equipped with a halberd that shone a polished silver which they held leaned against their right shoulder with one hand while the other hand rested on the butt of a holstered pistol. Long removed from their origins on Earth, Miliam recognized them as Swiss Guard, the traditional guardsman of the Vatican, though she doubted there was any sort of continuity involved.

Years of dismantling religious propaganda told Miliam that the resemblance was superficial, merely a method of establishing a subconscious sense of legitimacy in the followers of Isaiaism. While it might have simply be a detail Abigail left out, she didn’t recall hearing anything about the Catholic Church endorsing Isaiaism, and the pope converting certainly would have been noteworthy. It wasn’t like anyone was going to come all the way out here to rebuke them for it, so the Isaiaites had nothing to lose.

“This way, please,” Brother Sal bade them while motioning to an unassuming door nearby. “I will be back shortly with some of my sisters who will handle your inspection.”

Miliam led the way into a plainly adorned waiting room that contrasted heavily with the opulence of the building containing it. A part of her worried that they’d somehow been seen through and this was a ruse to corner them, but leading them into the waiting arms of the guards outside probably would have sufficed. Still, she remained cautious enough to stay quiet just in case the room was bugged. She’d lost her composure earlier and broken character in the entry hall, but that room was cavernous and would be difficult to monitor that closely- hopefully their words had gone unheard.

“Excuse us,” a woman said as she opened the door, entering at the head of two other women. All three were adorned in habits and wimples, and the expressions they wore were perfectly unreadable poker faces. Once all three had entered, one shut the door behind them. “Please undress so that we can conduct our inspection. Underwear is fine.”

Aoibhe and Abigail looked at each other and Miliam before complying; seeing them begin to undress, Miliam followed suit. Although the other two seemed unbothered, Miliam struggled to figure out where to point her eyes, ultimately settling on staring at the ground just in front of the lead nun. Having grown up as women this probably wasn’t all that unusual for the others in the room, but for Miliam it was the first time, so for her it was anything but mundane. Belatedly, it occurred to her that the room could have hidden cameras in it. She barely managed to keep her face from flushing at the thought.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Once Miliam and the others had placed their clothes in neat stacks on the coffee table, she watched nervously as the nuns searched through them. Her biggest worry had been that they might spot the runes on Abigail’s robes- she’d been expecting a pat-down rather than this more thorough search- but the woman going through them either failed to notice or didn’t know the significance of what her fingers brushed over. Other than that, though, Miliam knew there was nothing illicit hidden within anyone’s clothes, so while it was a relief when they were allowed to retrieve them, it wasn’t a surprise.

“I will let Brother Sal know the inspection is complete,” the lead nun informed them once they’d finished getting dressed again. The nuns filed out of the room, leaving Miliam and the others alone for a brief time before Brother Sal returned.

“I apologize for the inconvenience, ladies. I will now show you to the prophet’s resting place,” he told them, waving for them to follow him. He led them out and to the ornate door from before, pushing it open after briefly confirming with the guards. Inside was a room smaller than Miliam had expected given the scale of the Sepulcher as a whole, but quite large all the same- at least the same size as the main room of an average church. Columns lined the walls, and a red and gold carpet stretched from the door to the altar in the back.

More than a tomb, it looked like a throne room. Like the outside, the interior was manned by guards in ceremonial uniforms. Atop the altar at the back was a sarcophagus- or perhaps a cenotaph, depending on one bought into the claim that the prophet Isaiah was truly interred there. Despite the gaudy nature of the room it occupied, the box itself was surprisingly subdued in design. It looked to be made of fine, lacquered wood, but other than a golden rim between the lid and bottom it was completely bereft of ornamentation like every other surface in the chamber.

“Please, take your time. I’ll be right here when you’ve finished paying your respects,” Brother Sal told Miliam. She nodded gravely and opened her eyes just a little too wide in that way unique to the deeply religious. Then Miliam turned and strode towards the altar, her thoughts returning to the revelation from earlier.

Did that box truly contain her brother? Was it simply empty? Or did it hide the body of a lookalike, completely unrelated to Miliam herself? If it were really him, this might be the most awkward reunion of all time. There probably wasn’t a single person in the galaxy who had previously bumped into a deceased younger brother multiple lifetimes after their death and over a hundred light-years away from the place they died, much less one who’d gone on to found a movement denying the very existence of their sibling. It was a very specific situation.

As Miliam knelt before the potentially empty coffin, she realized the one emotion she didn’t seem to be feeling right now was grief. What was difficult to discern was if that was because it didn’t feel real or because she didn’t care. Even from her own perspective it had been nearly a year since she’d seen Zachary. He’d been off in Africa somewhere, preaching to people that didn’t have enough food or medical care that what they really needed was Jesus.

Maybe that wasn’t fair, she reflected as she clasped her hands before her and pretended to pray. To make a show of honoring her fictional late husband. And wasn’t that ironic? If she’d married a man before this all began, her brother would have never spoken to her again, but the very event that reversed the propriety of such a thing would have sparked the same reaction. In the midst of such a paradox Miliam thought that maybe that sort of conditional love was why she wasn’t sad about being permanently parted from her family.

At any rate…perhaps it was unfair to paint Zachary’s mission work as so out of touch, Miliam reflected, her thought a jumble. He’d truly believed he was doing good work, and he’d been doing things like digging wells and teaching. Yet, on the other hand, what good did it do for the people he helped if he was just going to leave in the end, abandoning the bonds he’d built and depriving them of whatever services he’d actually provided?

Having heard all the arguments for and against trips like Zachary’s, Miliam had never quite been able to make up her mind about them. She’d kept her inner turmoil to herself back then and probably would have regardless of what she decided in the end. That was just another way in which she had distanced herself from her family- she couldn’t trust them enough to allow herself to be vulnerable, to let them even suspect what she truly believed.

It no longer mattered, though, did it? They were dead and Miliam was alive. She could choose to see that as a loss or she could instead view it as a gift of freedom. There was no sense in beating herself up over a separation she hardly felt. But that left the elephant in the room. If Isaiah were really Zachary…was it a mere coincidence that he had gone to such extremes after her disappearance? Did he somehow…know? Was he under the impression Miliam had been spirited away by witches or something when he went on a crusade that resulted in wars across the planet?

And if he was, did that make it her fault or his?

That thought is what truly got to Miliam, even bringing tears to her eyes. It was hard to imagine the scale of the suffering she’d caused if she was correct. But even after several minutes of turning the question over in her mind, Miliam was no closer to an answer to that question. The only thing she could be certain of was that there’d really been no way of knowing it would come to this.

At least the wetness on her cheeks helped sell her story.

“I think I’m done here. Let’s go,” Miliam whispered to her companions as she stood. She wasn’t sure how long they’d been there now, but it had to have been at least half an hour by now, and that was surely enough to convince their audience of her piety. Aoibhe laid a hand on her shoulder as Miliam turned and walked back to Brother Sal, indicating her silent support. The priest gave an understanding nod at her approach.

“It’s a powerful feeling, being so close to the prophet himself. Take solace in the knowledge that your husband is with him and our holy father now, looking down upon you from above.”

“…thank you for the kind words.”