~ IAN ~
Footfall out of the valley had been limited up to now; a couple of small fortifications had been chartered on the bordering hills, tiny garrisons of a dozen men or fewer, and there was a larger fort some way to the north. One or two farmsteads spread beyond the valley, too. In lieu of formal roads, they’d carved desire paths to their sundry holdings. The cartographers had marked these paths on their maps, giving them names: the Northern Road, the Mettywood Road, the Brokewheel Road—the latter apparently in reference to a quarrier’s wagon that had thrown an axle along the track. These few trails, in theory at least, were the only trodden routes out of the valley.
But there was a trail not included on the maps. It was easily missed. Sergeant Pratley had been the one to bring it to Ian’s attention. At the northern edge of the town, half a mile downstream of the Clearwater from Goodwife Sara’s Tavern, a stable had been hurriedly put up. This was shunned by most people—being right out of the way, apparently not owned by any of Hultry, Speke and Cendemecan, and smelling strongly of horse shit. To get there, one had to cross the river by the trunk of a felled tree. Even then, the stable itself was hidden by the cluster of woodland that encompassed much of the river’s northern banks. Behind the stable was a little pond, rippling azure, hedged by thick leafy trees and berry-filled bushes.
The trail was hidden by these bushes.
Even knowing exactly where it was, it didn’t look like much. The thin grass had been covered over by a fine layer of crumbled dirt, patchy and uneven. Small mounds of soil, recently wetted, bordered either side of the path. Something had been planted, by somebody.
A couple of white garrons watched them curiously from the stables. The creatures were well-attended with plenty of hay, but there was no sign of people about.
Ian looked at Sergeant Pratley. “Where does this go? Is there a fort?”
“No forts up this way. Closest is Robison’s place on the eastern ridge. This one’s a church.”
“A church? I wasn’t aware there was one in the plans. Why have they decided to go all the way out here? The valley’s big enough to accommodate them, surely.”
Pratley shrugged. “You’d have to ask them about that, sir,” he said. “All I know is that the place exists.”
“Do I want to know how you came about that information?”
“No.”
He stifled a sigh. Having Sergeant Pratley available at his beck and call wasn’t without its advantages, but the man was frustratingly aloof. Whenever he tried to ask questions, he was met with evasive answers. So far, he’d learned that Pratley spent a period of time on Malindei, but that he didn’t grow up there. No word on whether the Sergeant might be the sort of man to prioritise answers over ethics.
Would it be bad for his conscience if it was somebody else doing the dirty work on his behalf? I’m trying to be good, he thought. Hadn’t he always?
“Let me guess. Goodwife Sara.”
“What? Oh, the tavern lady. No, she was useless,” said Pratley. “Told me which direction her husband tended to go, and not much else.”
“Then how? Tell me you didn’t hurt anybody.”
Sergeant Pratley laughed. “Don’t be absurd, sir. I wouldn’t do that. It’s surprising what you can hear if you keep your ear to the ground. The Constabulary’s already been up there for a little chat, so I hear.”
“So when you said I didn’t want to know—”
“It takes the magic out of it. Isn’t it more fun to leave some wonders?”
Ian shook his head resoundingly. “There’s plenty in this universe that I don’t know. The peace of mind that my soldiers aren’t torturing people won’t kill me.”
“Am I your soldier now?” Pratley asked. “I thought you didn’t want security.”
“That doesn’t sound like me.”
“I distinctly remember you saying I was a waste of your time,” said Pratley.
Ian shook his head. “I don’t recall saying that.”
“You did.”
He shot Sergeant Pratley a rude gesture. “Let’s go, then. If you like, I’ll apologise on the way.”
Pratley held back. “If it’s all the same with you, sir, I’d rather not. Churches have never agreed with me.”
“They don’t agree with me either, Sergeant, but the job is what it is.” He mulled it. “Still, I can handle myself. Churches aren’t normally violent places. You’re sure I’ll find it up here?”
“That or the valley’s best dogging spot.”
Despite his assurances that the church would be there, Sergeant Pratley could not be persuaded to head up the hill. Ian left him sat on the trunk of a fallen tree, a dozen feet from the stables, with instructions to sound the alarm if he wasn’t back by nightfall. He planned to be far quicker than that. There was a night in the company of top-quality erotica awaiting him. His next book had over a hundred depraved pictures that he was eager to properly examine.
The valley was lined with an arboretum’s worth of strange trees, but at the top of the hill these became sparse. Here the terrain was primarily grass. A man in a pale grey smock was crouched down over a patch of raked brown dirt, hands soiled by the earth. He glanced Ian’s way, then returned focus to his dirt.
Beyond, a whitewashed titan had loomed into view. The building was tall, and it stood as resolute contrast to the bright blue sky. Wooden scaffolding enveloped it. No workmen were to be seen. An old lady, overdressed in vintage attire with all the trappings, was sat on the dust, her back against the wall of the building, basking in the shade.
“There’s a handsome lad,” she said, catching sight of Ian.
He shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m neither. See these grey hairs?” By way of demonstration, he pinched a tuft of hair from his fringe and held it out to show her. She laughed.
“A bit of grey is nothing to be ashamed of. We all age.” As he approached, he could see that she wasn’t as old as he’d assumed. There were some wrinkles, yes, but they were gentle ones. Her eyes had a youthful sparkle. It was the clothes that had confused him. People who looked like they’d stepped out of a history book didn’t often turn out to be in the prime of their lives. “Are you here for the sermon?”
“Sermon?” Ian wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Sergeant Pratley had mentioned a church. It followed that they would be engaged in churchey activities, he supposed.
“Everyone should listen to the Testimonies,” said the woman. “And there’s nobody who reads them quite like the Lightness.”
“Well, I suppose it couldn’t hurt to have a listen,” said Ian.
The woman clapped her hands together. “That’s the spirit! Now, I don’t suppose you passed a girl on your way up the hill? Small and blonde. She wandered off chasing after a wild cat she wanted, and I’m afraid I quite lost track of her.”
Ian shook his head. “I’m afraid not.” The old lady was the first woman he’d seen since he’d passed Áine carrying a barrel into the Tavern way on the outskirts of town.
“A pity. If you see her, tell her Mabeth’s worried about her.”
“How will I know I’ve seen her?”
Mabeth tilted back her head and laughed. “She’s pale as milk and she’s always blushing. Her name’s Eva. If she looks like she’s about to cry, she’s the one.”
“I’ll be sure to keep an eye open.” Not that he’d find the girl. Give it five minutes and he’d have forgotten every detail about her.
Mabeth gathered her skirts and rose unsteadily. “You’d better hurry, if you want to catch the sermon. Lightness Skerrett is very prompt.” She pointed left towards a gleaming clockface, embedded into a jutting wall. It was ticking desperately close to the hour mark.
Beneath the clock was a wooden door, unpainted and unvarnished. A few stragglers were trickling in. Mabeth hurried off with them, leaving Ian alone. He stopped for a few seconds to examine his surroundings—the day was clear, so most of the valley was visible, but looking west there were only trees in great plenty, and in the distance a looming mountain.
He shrugged his shoulders and reached for the church’s door.
Time for a sermon.
The inside was thick with incense. A bearded man stood atop a raised platform at the far wall, projecting his voice out to a silent congregation with bowed heads. Lightness Skerrett, this must have been. The man’s hair was thick and speckled with grey. He wore a smock of unadorned fabric, a grey-white weave; the only hint of extravagance was a golden pendant on a chain around his neck.
“In ancient times in the Old Land,” the preacher recited, “there lived a woman of uncertain origins. A slave she was, the chattel of a lord, enchained in perpetual bondage in the lowest reaches of an opulent palace. She came to Narvīm in the company of a passing trader.” Narvīm was a city of great import in the early days of civilisation. Ian had read the histories often enough. Any event from the Era of Treasures, the so-called Gods’ Days, seemed somehow to link back to Narvīm. What made it stand out was that it had not survived into the Era of Kings. When scholarly chronicles took the place of oral tradition, Narvīm disappeared. To Ian’s knowledge, nobody had ever quite worked out whereabouts it was.
He walked forward a bit, standing beneath an archway. A doe-eyed woman glanced his way, then hurriedly looked back at her feet. Lightness Skerrett didn’t seem to notice him. “The trader brought with his goods a plague, and for his sins was put to death. Before the King they were paraded, the trader and the girl child, and in the sunlit court of Narvīm one was parted from his head. The woman alone survived. The King was struck by the rose of her cheeks and the jewels in her eyes, and so he spared her life. She came to his chambers that night, prostituted by his decree—and every night thereafter she would be brought there, to please the King until he fell asleep.”
The story continued for some time. It had the metre of a passage that should drive a man to tears, out of nothing but desperation for it to end. Somehow this preacher gave it life. His voice was a magic touch. It lifted the words up, made them into something more than they were, something almost ghostly. Ian found himself engrossed in the story of the lone woman. Huddled there in the corner of a smelly church, he shed a tear.
She died, after all. In the end. She didn’t deserve to die.
Ian began to tune out of the story. The building itself had captured his attention. All of the congregation were huddled onto long wooden benches, beneath a low ceiling. But above Lightness Skerrett’s dais, the ceiling was far higher. He craned his neck, but he couldn’t tell exactly how high it went. It looked like it went a fair whack higher than the gallery—not quite finished—above Ian’s head. To the heavens it stretched. To the stars themselves.
The Lightness broke from his story. “My friends, we have a visitor.”
Heads turned in sync to look at Ian. His cheeks were still damp from the sad story. He hung his head so they wouldn’t see.
But Lightness Skerrett saw. “Lift your head, friend,” he said, stepping down from the dais. “Let the lightness in.”
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Ian steeled himself. So what if these people saw him cry? Where was the crime? He lifted up his head, at once cast in a bright glow. Lightness Skerrett approached him slowly, meandering through the pathway which partitioned his congregation.
“Did you enjoy the story?”
Ian nodded. “I did. It was sad, though. Why did it need to be so sad?”
“All the best stories are sad,” said Lightness Skerrett. “The sad ones remind us of the world we’re in. There are no happy endings. And as it happens, this particular story is true. It’s sad because the reality was sad.” He spoke with some hint of longing, like he’d known the Maid of Narvīm personally.
“Who was she?”
The priest smiled. “A friend. A daughter, a mother. A woman, no different from any other. What matters is that the Gods chose her.”
If the Gods chose her, why didn’t they intervene? The powers of Gods had no limits, Ian knew that—they need not have let her die. They could have saved her, when the time came. Instead they stood by. Indifferent spectres, they watched—watched as their champion was accused of heresy, and sentenced to death in the view of all Narvīm. She’d been pierced by the blades of seven, and left to bleed on the ground. That was a suffering that the Gods’ chosen didn’t deserve. “I wouldn’t like to have been her,” he said.
“Few would,” agreed Skerrett. “But we cannot choose who we are born to be. Some are fated to enjoy the most bounteous luxuries of life, while others must die destitute. It’s a cruelty.”
“I don’t believe in fate,” said Ian.
Lightness Skerrett looked him over. “Fate doesn’t care whether you believe in it or not.” When he’d got close enough, he reached out a hand, and placed it on Ian’s shoulder. “Come. I would very much like to show you around.”
Ian shrugged. Who was he to turn down a free tour? The crowd was beginning to disperse; many of them were making for the doorway, causing a backlog. He’d be fighting his way through that lot for some time before he could hope to get outside. Might as well learn something.
Skerrett led him to the back of the church. An archway had been carved into the stone behind the preacher’s platform. The man responsible for measuring it had done a poor job; they had to duck to walk through, else they would have hit their heads.
On the other side of the archway, there was a narrow corridor, bisecting the church. To Ian’s right, several oaken doors lined the path. There was only the one door on the left side; at the far end, a spiralling staircase wended up and down. “The stairs will ascend to the very top of the tower,” Skerrett explained. “It can be a very transcendent experience to come so close to the Gods’ home. Unfortunately, man cannot live on experiences alone, and perishable goods don’t share humanity’s proclivity for godliness. They live in the cellars.”
They didn’t go left. Skerrett walked briskly to the very end of the right-hand pathway, to the furthest door, and entered. The room on the other side was an architect’s wet dream. Amidst a cluster of half-empty bookshelves and heavy tables, diminutive windows bathed every corner in glorious sunlight. The ceiling was pyramidal. Each tier had been adorned with elaborate carvings, of fair maidens and snarling grotesques. A man could stare up at that ceiling for days and still not take in every detail.
Skerrett didn’t so much as glance up. He took a book from a shelf as he passed and dropped it casually onto the large table in the middle of the room. It was a hefty volume, bound in wine-shaded leather. Gold lettering filled the cover: ‘EMERGENCE’.
“Sit,” said Skerrett. “Have a drink, if you’d like. Brandy, or rum. There’s a bottle of my own special somewhere.” He started fiddling around in various cabinets, none of which appeared to contain anything at all. A crystal decanter was on a side-table, with a golden brown residue at the very bottom. Skerrett noticed it and grabbed it, unscrewing the cap and pouring a few dribbles into a nondescript cup. He offered the cup to Ian.
“Not for me,” said Ian. Skerrett shrugged and downed the lot in one mouthful.
“I’ve been waiting for your visit for some time, Master Fitzhenry,” said Skerrett. Ian stopped dead for a second. He didn’t recall telling Skerrett his name. “You, or another of the council,” Skerrett continued. “It’s good to have support from the high offices.”
“The high offices?”
“The faith has a long history of being disallowed. Having the peace of mind that myself and all those who come to listen to me won’t be rounded up and killed on the orders of the government of the day allows me to focus on my prayer.” Skerrett smiled. “Are you a holy man, Master Fitzhenry?”
Ian shook his head. “Not as much as I should be, perhaps. My parents told me some of the stories. I’ve always been more interested in the sciences.”
“I understand,” said Skerrett. “The sciences have much to teach us on the nature of the universe and all within it. That said, they lack the personal touch of the scripture. The tribulations of the shepherd Mordant capture the imagination moreso than the boiling points of obscure compounds.”
Ian wasn’t familiar with the shepherd Mordant, and had no idea what his tribulations might have been. He nodded in mute agreement with Skerrett.
The priest slid the purple book across the table. It would have fallen off the far end were it not for Ian being in the way. “You will find this a fascinating read, no doubt. The first of the Testimonies. It’s Eia’s story.”
Eia’s story was one Ian had heard of. Everyone knew Eia’s story. She was the most famous character of the old mythologies, the woman for whom the ship had been named. More often, people called her the Mother. She’d appeared in the midst of a savage world and brought civilisation. For that she’d been revered as a god. “I know the story,” he said.
“Ah, but have you read the book?”
“No.”
“I thought as much,” said Skerrett. “Please, take it. Read it. It will enlighten you, no doubt.”
Ian smiled wryly. “I’m sure it will. Now, if you’ll oblige me, I have a question or two for you.”
“Of course,” said Skerrett. “The mind is a curious thing, ever hungry. I am a vessel of the Gods themselves. I must feed.”
Off-putting choice of words, Ian thought. Probably a quotation from one of his holy texts, though. Priests liked quoting their holy texts. “This church,” said Ian, “why build it so far out of the way? Why not keep it in the valley? It would be easier for people to come to you, surely.”
“Many reasons,” Skerrett said. “To build high is to converse with the Gods. The valley might bring larger congregations for a time, but eventually the day would come when we were drowned. Here we can rise above. Plus, we’re on the shores of a great lake, so fresh water is easy to come by, and there’s plenty of flat land on which to build.”
“And why hide yourself? All the way up here, at the end of a road that the maps don’t show.”
“Is that not obvious, Master Fitzhenry?” Skerrett was openly scowling. “The Church of Lightness has been moulded by millennia of persecution. To build beneath the nose of the Governor would be to invite our demise. I walk this world so the church might endure.”
“Forgive me,” said Ian—glancing skyward, in case the phantom Gods might be watching from the ceiling—”but we’ve travelled the breadth of space. Where were the Gods? They must live somewhere.”
Skerrett rubbed his beard. “Do you trust in something only so long as you can see it? Even a small child understands that existence is more than merely what’s in the line of sight. I was born and raised on a world called Ressenin—a quiet, dreary place.”
“I know it,” said Ian. “My wife and I once talked of visiting.”
“The Eia did not pass by Ressenin on its journey. Would you deny its existence?”
Ian shook his head. “Of course not.”
“Then do not deny the existence of the Gods, on the same evidence. Even unseen, their influence never wavers. Have you ever seen a ghost?”
He thought of Dani, and screwed shut his eyes to drive her image from his mind. And yet she lingered, on the edge of shadow in the corner of his vision. A ghost. “A ghost is not a God,” he said.
“And what is a ghost? Everything that is physical dies with the body—and yet a ghost lives on. How?”
For that, Ian had no answer.
Skerrett only seemed to have wanted a chat. He spoke for nearly an hour about various obscure bits of scripture, and platitudes passed through the generations. The actual tour—an afterthought which only happened because Ian reminded him about it—lasted barely four minutes. It mainly consisted of Skerrett walking Ian to the door, stopping occasionally to point at various bits of architecture and say what they were. The viewing gallery Ian had worked out, the pulpit too. The fresco on the wall of the rear transept had barely been started, and there Skerrett actually had to explain.
“In time, this wall will show the Gods themselves, in the bodies of mortal men and women. It’s said that they’ve all walked among us, from time to time.”
Ian raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
Skerrett offered no elaboration. The echo of nearby footsteps told them somebody was approaching, and sure enough a shadow appeared on the floor. A tall woman in a cotton smock walked by them, her hands gloved. She smiled at Ian. Her eyes had the glimmer of a sparkle—just a hint, mostly concealed by grey. Her cheeks were so pale they seemed almost to glow white, and her hair hung like shafts of dried straw from beneath a plain caul. One bare leg had been devastated by a wound behind the shin; beneath a flap of skin, a deep hole bored into the flesh. That flap wobbled awfully with every step she took. Her walk gave no hint of pain from the wound.
“Good morning, madam,” he said, with the gentlest suggestion of a bow. The woman looked at him.
“Jen doesn’t speak,” said Skerrett. “She’s not said a word in many years now.”
As if to prove Skerrett’s point, Jen smiled a bit broader, her mouth fully open. Inside, the teeth were blackened at the tips; the rotting remnants of a tongue hung in the middle of her mouth, the tiniest suggestion of pink flesh.
Ian looked away.
When silent Jen had gone, Ian realised that he’d not seen her blink.
About the church, they came upon more of Skerrett’s acolytes. There was Tim Fawley, who spoke with a dull, droning voice; Melemir with the knotted red beard; Tarvis with the clubfoot. Boneskin Bets, who they passed on the spiralling staircase up to the higher gallery, was gaunt and emaciated. Ian almost offered to give her a couple of copperheads to buy a proper meal.
There were a few of the day congregants still hanging about, too. Old Goodwife Mabeth and a blonde girl who Ian assumed was Eva curtsied demurely as they passed him. Across from the front entrance, they came upon a young woman in a satin smock, reading from a copy of the Creation while a sandy-haired acolyte poured water over her head. “It’s said in the Books that there were those who came before man,” explained Skerrett, “and that the Gods chose to wipe them away in a sundering flood—to leave the world clean and pure for mankind to be born. The water serves as a reminder that we are not the masters of our own destiny—and of the fleeting nature of reality. Soon, Jael here will return to the valley, to the family for whom she serves. In an hour or so the sun will have dried away the last vestiges of the water. And yet if she were careless, that same water might drown her.”
“Would it be the water that drowned her, or the man holding the bucket?”
Skerrett nodded, with a smile of approval. “Some of the greatest minds have pondered that very question. If I roll a stone down a mountain, eventually it may grow into a great boulder. Am I to blame, if that boulder should crush somebody?”
“You should make sure there’s nobody below, if you’re rolling boulders.”
“And yet it’s often impossible to see the road ahead. The mountainside is dotted with trees, and unpredictable terrain. How can I know what path my humble stone will take?”
Ian frowned. “So don’t roll a stone down a mountain.” He was getting a bit tired of Skerrett, truth be told. The riddles and evasive talk were getting on his nerves.
Skerrett shook his head. “Whenever we walk, we shift stones. Often we don’t even see them, tumbling beneath our feet. It’s the boulder that’s to blame, just as it’s the water that drowns or the blade that cuts. Man is but a vessel passing through.”
“You speak well, Lightness, but I’m not sure any of what you said means anything.” Ian was keenly aware of that old ghost behind him, Dani there as Dani was always there. It wasn’t the water that drowned her. The water hadn’t held her head down.
Skerrett regarded Ian coolly. “Just because you don’t see the meaning doesn’t mean the meaning isn’t there. It merely means you’re blinded to it.”
“My eyes work just fine.”
“We’ll see.”
At the very end of the tour, as Ian was about to leave, a woman had entered the church. She was a stick thin being, her long dark hair worn straight and her dress silk in an elaborate pattern of florals. One arm was badly scarred. She’d pushed by Ian, ignoring him as his eyes wandered to her rear, and fallen to her knees before Skerrett. “Lightness, I wish to join your flock,” she said, holding a hand out.
Skerrett had kissed her hand. “You are quite welcome, my dear,” he’d said, “but first I must show my friend out.”
Ian had made his own way, not wishing to interfere with church business. It was only when he’d left the building and began down the hill that he realised who the young woman had been. There was no mistaking the face of Molly Bradshaw. For a time, the General had brought his eldest daughter along to every event he could, to get her face known and to find her a husband. On the first account he’d had roaring success. Judging by the fact that Molly was in the process of pledging herself to a religious order, the second ambition had failed.
Most of the walk down was pleasant. Ian enjoyed a good chuckle at the idea of General Bradshaw’s face when he found out that his daughter was no longer his to sell. The General was a dick with an inflated sense of his own family’s worth. Molly deserting him would be the thing to crush him completely.
Chris would love it.
He was nearly back in town when he heard footsteps. He stopped, and so did the footsteps. Still, he was convinced that there was somebody. He turned to look behind him, but he couldn’t see shit. It was the early hours of dusk; in the midst of these tall trees, impenetrable shadows were king.
Unable to see a thing, he had no choice but to assume that he was going insane. But the very moment he started walking again, so the footsteps started up again. And once again, they stopped when he stopped.
A plan came to mind. He started walking for the third time, and right on cue the footsteps following him resumed. This time, he gave no indication that he’d heard anything. Instead, he walked three or four paces, then slapped his pockets. “Damn keys,” he said, loud enough that anybody nearby might hear. And he turned around, and began to ascend the hill again.
One of the trees encroaching on the makeshift path was twice as thick as the others, with a deep canopy and a tangle of twisted branches. If somebody was following him, they’d want a hiding place, and the tree was the most likely candidate. He deliberately aimed his path to walk right past the tree, so close he brushed its leaves with his fingers.
As he did so, somebody squeaked. A figure dashed out from behind the tree, haring towards town. Ian pivoted to get a good look. It was a woman, her long mousy hair blowing all askew as she ran. The girl from the plaza, the one who’d been following him around.
“Hey,” he called. She didn’t stop to look his way. “Come back here.”
The woman went out of sight behind a tree, and never reappeared again. Ian sighed. It was too dark, and this planet too big, for him to obsess over finding her now. But having a stalker sounded like a pain in the arse.
I’ll have a word with Sergeant Pratley, he thought. Pratley will have her in no time at all.