It was long past time to pull the plug.

Marlon Bishop, 288th Lassedite of the Church Angelical stepped out onto the Lassedite’s Balcony. He stood with the Melted Palace at his back, and the Grand Basilica spreading out down in front of him—the great arena at the Holy Land’s beating heart. Tiled pavement quilted the Basilica’s grounds, in between walls of colonnaded galleries. The friezes up on the walls there depicted the Church’s glorious history.

The Lassedite wished he could enjoy it. Unfortunately, the time for joy had long passed.

Bishop was ill, terribly ill. The sickness was as much an ailment of the soul as it was one of the flesh. Every breath was agony. Every heartbeat was a struggle. He shivered within the Hummingbird Robe’s holy iridescence, feeling hot and cold at the same time. Even pushing open the sculpted metal doors that led out onto the Lassedite’s Balcony had been an ordeal—but he accepted that ordeal wholeheartedly.

For too long, the Church had been silent where it should have been loud. There was so much damage. It boggled the mind. Bishop was painfully aware that there was no way the Church could pay back the debts it had incurred, but that was no reason not to try. He’d rather be damned than keep silent—and he was probably going to be damned, all the same.

But at least the silence would be broken. At least the world would hear the words it had been so long denied.

Holy Angel, he prayed, give me the strength to do this. For once, help me act in good faith.

Opening his eyes, Bishop breathed in, shuddering from the effort. His Frail fingers trembled against the balcony’s cold, stone balustrade.

The view was glorious and terrible. The Melted Palace and its Grand Basilica was a meadow in a grove of glass, steel, and stone. The Imperial Promenade ran beyond them like a temple roofed with the high noon sky. The Promenade was the nave; the palatial high-rises lining it formed the walls.

Bishop could hardly see the Angelic College, the High Mausoleum, or the waters of the Bay. Smoke billowed up from fires that burned in the skyscrapers’ chrome, reeking of an acrid sweetness instead of the heady, pungent smell of sacred sage and rosemary. The stink made the Bishop’s tired eyes water and sting. But, even if it hadn’t, he would have wept.

On a good day, the street’s broad median strip—as wide as a house—would have rivaled Cascaton Park in color and greenery. Its coral trees’ blossoms would have seemed like petals of fire and sunlight.

But today was not a good day, nor would there be any good days ever again.

The trees weren’t just dead, they were infected. Shriveled petals covered the bleached grass in ochres and reds. Fungal roots threaded the soil.

The Imperial Promenade was a graveyard.

Skyscrapers and luxury hotels kept watch over the unmarked tombs. Abandoned cars had been pushed to the sides of the street, likely by passing military vehicles.

Bishop had never seen it so lifeless. The military had erected a pair of fences in front of the entrance to the Grand Basilica, where the Promenade forked off to the various points of Elpeck’s Civic center—the Imperial Palace, the Melted Palace, the Central Library, and so many others. The fences formed a checkpoint to hold the plague and its monsters at bay.

And for once, there was something worth protecting. Unlike its surroundings, the Basilica was thick with people. Ordinarily, the whole world came to a standstill when a reigning Lassedite spoke. Everyone wished to hear. On those momentous occasions, the Grand Basilica would be a sea of people. They’d be waving their flags and banners, and their home-made posters, hanging on the Lassedite’s every word. A sense of God would come to dwell within that assemblage, beckoned by its unity.

But the people down below were not there to listen, least of all to Lassedite Bishop. None of them were there to hear Bishop speak. No one was. The Lassedite hadn’t announced his speech beforehand. It was going to be an impromptu, unscheduled and unadvertised—and Bishop wouldn’t have had it any other way.

They’d try to stop me, he thought.

Part of him wanted to see them try.

People had been flocking to the Basilica for days. They weren’t coming there to listen; they were coming to speak. They came for hours at a time; some, even days.

They’d come to pray. They were pilgrims, brought here by their fear of the Green Death, and their hope in the Angel and the Bond of Light. They wanted to dwell in the Melted Palace’s shadow as they made their demands of their silent god.

It was a mass of wretched humanity.

Lassedite Bishop wept for them. He wept for them all.

Bishop winced as the balustrade’s cold stone touched one of the that had cracked open on his palm. Moving his hand, he saw the patches of black, fetid blood he’d smeared on the centuries-old balustrade.

He wondered if anyone had even noticed he’d stepped out onto the Balcony.

With a ragged sigh, Bishop swept his trembling hand over the console built into the frame mounted onto the balustrade’s inner edge. It was a miracle he even remembered how to activate the broadcasting equipment. He couldn’t remember his childhood anymore, nor his parents’ faces, nor the smile of his first love. As is, he barely remembered how to activate the broadcasting equipment; he was mostly riding on muscle memory.

He gave the console screen a series of taps, and then the device let out a soft humming sound as it and the cameras lit up and came to life.

Slender robotic arms reached up from the front of the balusters, and out from the walls on either side of the double door behind him. When not in use, the arms would be folded against the wall, pleating their modern machinery against the old stone. The arms had cameras and spotlights and microphones and more, like the tails of peacocks of plastic, glass, and light. The display on the balustrade console changed as the recording went live.

All that remained were the indicator lights, and Bishop cleared his throat while he waited for them to change. There was one red bulb for every major network, both in Trenton and Mu, as well as the International Lassedile Channel and several others—the Polovian Broadcasting Network, Maiko 12, Arraka International Media, to name a few.

Why he remembered them instead of his mother’s maiden name, he didn’t know.

A gust of wind blew across the Balcony, making the microphones shriek with feedback. The noise echoed through the Basilica and made the praying crowds fall silent. Haggard voices called out as wretched hands pointed at the Lassedite’s Balcony.

All eyes rose.

Marlon Bishop had never wanted to be Lassedite. Even now, after over a decade on the throne, it still didn’t feel real. No one had been more surprised to discover that the College of Archluminers had elected him Lassedite than Bishop himself. He figured it was probably a political decision by one of the Curia’s power players, or maybe dark money at work—perhaps Margaret Revenel had had a hand in it, or maybe Vincent Zoster, or one of the members of DAISHU’s Board of Directors.

Power and wealth were far stronger gods than God could ever be. Their devotees were the truest of true believers, and it sickened Bishop to death, and it sickened him even more that he was powerless to stop it. Umberridge had told him, point-blank, that if he ever tried to go public, he would die of a heart attack before he was halfway to the microphone, just like Umberridge had made it clear that nothing was to be done about the Engoliss’ scandal, no matter how many good people it destroyed.

Though Bishop had always struggled with his faith, he never would have guessed that becoming Lassedite would have been the final blow, from which he would never recover.

Red turned to green as the indicator lights came on one by one. The crowds below looked up at him, waiting for him to speak.

With an agonizing snort, Bishop pulled his personal console out from Hummingbird Robe’s pocket. He’d once gotten into an argument with Reed that it was an act of desecration to put a PortaCon in that pocket.

“It’s sacrilege!” Reed had huffed.

He loved how Halder got when he was frustrated.

“They’re both marvels, Halder,” he’d told him. “It’s only proper that they be together.”

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Grasping his PortaCon in his trembling hands, Bishop woke the technological marvel with a tap of his finger. The fungus might have robbed him of what he’d wanted to say, but it couldn’t touch the records his past self had left. Bishop’s PortaCon was filled to bursting with secret words he’d typed into it year after year in the wee hours of the Night when everyone was asleep or having sex. Bit by bit, the little machine had become a phylactery for his tormented soul.

But he’d never dreamed he’d get to share it with the world

“The world is cruel, filled with darkness and wonder.”

Murmurs struck through the crowd. Coughs shot off like gunfire.

“To the people of the world,” he said, “however many there are left… please, forgive me. Forgive us, for we have failed you. I have failed you. In recent days, our eyes have become unclouded. This has happened before. The story of the world is a tale of successive uncloudings. I only hope this unclouding will not be my last.”

Bishop fought back tears.

“The world is silent. From silence we come, and to silence we go. There was silence before life first took breath, and there will be silence long after the last soul dissolves into the abyss. The silence is our constant companion and our dearest torturer, and though we beg and weep, it does not desist. ‘Who is responsible?’ we cry. ‘What are we to do?’ ‘When will we know?’ ‘Where do we belong?’ ‘How can this be?’”

Bishop looked up toward the Sun.

“‘Why have you forsaken us?’”

“We ask these questions of the silence, and it responds with itself, trickling into all the darkness of the world. Fear. Hate. Hunger. Pain. Misfortune. Betrayal. Doubt. Indifference. Horror. Calamity. Isolation. Iniquity. Emptiness. Confusion. Disability. Disorder. Sorrow. Callous cruelty.”

“Death…”

The word hung in the air, among the distant sirens and the rising smoke.

“What does such a silence say, other than: you are unwanted; you do not belong?”

Bishop wiped away tears.

Was there a god? Bishop did not know. He doubted anyone could ever know.

But, of one thing, he was certain: mankind had suffered too much for that question.

Emotions flashed in him as he continued to read. He wished he remembered where the feelings had come from, but his memories had fallen silent.

“We are the world’s unhappy children,” he said. “Our loves betray us, our parents misunderstand us, our peers surpass us, strangers reject us, the bullies abuse us, authorities condemn us, our friends forget us, our children leave us, purpose escapes us, belonging evades us, doubts plague us, hopes tempt us. We even fail ourselves, and that failure is the most reliable of all. Yet, still, we aspire.”

Bishop trembled.

“We dare to believe…”

His body sang a feeling like joy, only softer, somewhere between being and enlightenment.

“Long, long ago,” he said, in hushed tones, “a radiance arose, born from a moment of miracle. It came with a promise. I remember the promise. I shall not forget it; I cannot. I will not.”

“It promised us belonging. It promised us forgiveness. It promised us compassion, purpose, comfort, stewardship, salvation. It even promised us eternity, in all its golden splendor.”

“It told us to uphold the Law which the ancients spurred. It showed us our immortal souls were tainted, and that our sins needed cleansing. It taught us obedience, humility, and submission. We bowed at the feet of our Holy Redeemer. All nations would, and when they did… the lamb would lie down beside the wolf; swords would be beaten into plowshares.”

“I think I finally know what faith is,” he said. “It is the dream of a sunrise that may never come.”

Bishop had seen the footage of what people were calling the Norm. Unlike Umberridge and many of the other Archluminers, the footage had not rekindled his faith.

He looked over the crowd, adding new words to his old ones. “Tell me, friends, is this that sunrise?” He voice nearly broke.

Closing his eyes, Bishop shook his head, trying not to swoon from fever. He turned his burning eyes back to his console’s screen.

“We were supposed to have bound pride, and banished it from our house. That was what the promise was for. Instead, we took it as our mistress. For the sake of the One, we devoured billions.”

All the world over, religions agreed: the greatest sin was Pride. Wherever Man thought himself above ethics and law, disaster would surely follow. And they were right.

To the Church, the great truth of the world was the powerlessness of human beings.

We cannot save ourselves, Bishop thought. That is the truth.

But it wasn’t the greatest truth.

“When Mu took hold of this land, centuries ago, they saw our fields of struggling grain—so much like the rice they knew—yet so very different. In their obstinance, they flooded the fields, to make them grow like proper rice paddies should. To no one’s surprise but theirs, the crops rotted. Vermin bubbled up from the mud. The air grew thick enough with flies to blot out the Sun.”

“Why?” he asked.

Bishop flicked his finger across the screen. His scrivenings were in pieces, just like his life.

Maybe that’s how it was meant to be, he wondered.

He looked up, above the burning buildings and the motes of spores that glistened in the sun, toward the all-embracing sky.

“No matter the horizon, beyond the clouds, the sky is forever blue. We live on one world, we plant our feet on the same earth. Everywhere, the waters intermingle; they know no clime or creed. What difference does it make by the pains we take to seek the Truth? Such secrets are too great—too wondrous—to be found at the end of only one road.”

Bishop’s expression contorted in anger. Half-remembered stories filled across his thoughts, tales of suffering and loss and unbridled arrogance.

“But, in our arrogance, we persist. We think ourselves fit to seek the final word, yet we are so foolish that we presume to speak for those we do not know. We presume we are relevant. We look up at the firmament, and say it hears our words and cares.”

He looked over the crowd. So many of the faces looking up at him were at death’s door, yet not even that was enough to stem their shock and horror.

Let them be shocked, Bishop thought. They are too complacent. We all are.

He raised his voice a little. “I cannot bear it any longer. I do not want to be part of a lie. So… let me speak truth.”

Even though Bishop had long since passed the point of no return, he felt himself pass it again as the next four words left his mouth.

“I am a homosexual. I have lain with men as if they were women, even after I became Lassedite.”

The crowd rippled with myriad sounds: gasps of horrors, whistles of praise.

Bishop kept going.

“I would wish I was not, but,” his voice cracked, “who am I to question God? We say the holiest gift of all is to have a child to nurture and love. All my life, I dreamed of being a father, but I cannot wed a woman. That would be a lie, and I do not want to be part of that. I am already party to so many falsehoods.

“Kind fools speak of churches like bodies, as if cruelty and corruption are tumors. We tell ourselves, a little medicine, a little surgery, and we can fix it. We can save it. Yet, we also say that a tree ought to be judged by its fruits. Which is it? Every day, we dishonor the promise of our faith by denying the evidence before our very eyes. We say the gates of Hell will not prevail over the Church, yet they already have, and we choose not to see.”

He trembled.

“Only a madman would make himself blind.”

Some people in the crowd turned and left. Others applauded, or fell to their knees and wept.

Try and stop me now, Umberridge, Bishop thought.

He scrolled down to some of the real zingers.

“I am the head of a Church I no longer believe in. I wonder if I ever did, and, if I had, how much of it was even mine. Faith cannot be taught. It must be discovered. But I never had my discovery. I only had what I was told, and it was not enough. So, I say: enough! Let the legend stay a legend. It makes for poor truth. It has not set me free.”

From where he stood, high above the crowd, Bishop could hear a cry rise up from the masses below.

“You lie!”

“He says I lie,” Bishop said, his words magnified across the air. “He’s right. The Church knows far more than it shares. We keep secret annals where none may look.”

The Lassedite set his console down on the balustrade.

Some truths were too dangerous for print.

“The Sword did not disappear after Athelmarch’s sin,” Bishop said. “We hid it! When Lassedite Verune disappeared, the Sword disappeared with him.”

The crowd fell dead silent.

“The purpose of the Church is not to bring the people salvation, it is to keep the Godhead from striking us down! It was meant to justify us. Instead we let our fear of damnation become the damnation we feared!”

Bishop felt fire in his veins as he spread his arms over the balcony’s edge.

“These streets are paved in blood! I have seen our truth in all its fullness, and it is intolerance and despair. It is children torn from their mothers’ arms and slit at the throat. It is bodies thrown to the beasts of the field. The Heartshorne Riots brought us the Prelatory, and we blamed it on the victims we locked away and burned alive. We have cut out eyes and tongues and severed hands to force our will on those who dissented, and we called it good. We have built monuments to madmen and murderers; our hymns resound with the names of destroyers. We make Lucents out of pagan kings who massacred their disbelieving people. If that isn’t pride, I don’t know what is.”

Riding his own wave, Bishop picked up and scrolled through his notes, looking for a passage he could no longer remember.

He wept when he found it. He spoke with his trembling gaze raised to the sky. “The great truth of this world is that we are irrelevant. Irrelevant, arrogant, and alone. We call God the greatest thing that can be conceived, yet presume that we can know that greatness, and discern its will. This is hypocrisy, and I can bear it no longer.”

Bishop wept openly. His legs trembled beneath the sacred robe.

“We may never meet our maker. He might not be there at all. We can only wait, and in waiting, we suffer. That is what unites us.” Bishop’s voice breaking. “Suffering has no hierarchy. Sorrow is not a sport. There is no monopoly on moral wisdom. There are no noble lies. There are no holy lies. There are only lies. Coward though I am, I will live not by lies any longer. I—”

—Another wind blew, making Bishop look over the Basilica. He gasped at what he saw.

Gunfire broke out at the military’s checkpoint, only to fall silent as the metal fencing was ripped apart.

Bishop thought he saw bodies getting flung through the air.

Screams shot out from the back of the crowd. People turned in waves. Some ran, some staggered back, others fell to their knees and prayed. The crowd split apart in a jagged zigzag as a monstrous posse stepped through.

Shouts of “Demons!” and “Monsters!” echoed off the basilica’s stone.

The interlopers moved in a V-shaped formation, led by a line of the transforming and the transformed. And at the formation’s head, hovering off the ground, was a figure clad in a Hummingbird robe, iridescent, despite its tattered misery.

Ripples traced through the air as the figure magnified his voice to megaphone intensity. “Rejoice, ye faithful,” he boomed, “for Lassedite Verune has returned!”

The people scattered as the figure landed on the ground. His frail legs were tipped in bright red shoes beneath his billowing robe.

The same as Lassedite Bishop’s.

In his shock, Bishop lost his grip on his console. It clattered to the floor, cracking open on the balcony’s thick stone.

“The world is dark and full of wonder…” he muttered.

Lunging forward, Bishop tapped the screen of the console mounted upon the balustrade and flicked his fingers across the screen. A couple of the robotic camera arms flexed, turning their lenses to face the crowd, away from one Lassedite and toward another.

Mordwell Verune—the Lassedite Returned—strode forward, ready to greet the world.