Quantum Shadows

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Since no one had attempted to link Corvyn, there was no need to check for messages, not that there had ever been that many, not in recent decades, in any case. He wheeled the bike into the room, where there was a stand for it, as well as a charger that the bike didn’t need, given its energy-absorbent surface.

  After taking care of a few matters and washing up, Corvyn made his way from his room to the café, leaving the stedora on the narrow dresser. He wondered what sort of fare Jared and his partner presented, hoping more imaginative cooking than he recalled from his previous visits to Nauvoo and other Saint offshoot villages. A single electrobike—the lightweight and slender kind mostly used for local travel—was linked to a charging rail outside the café.

  When Corvyn entered the café, the piped light, simple blond-wood chairs, and plain impermite tables gave him the impression of having been specifically chosen to create a feeling best described as cheerfully nondescript and clean.

  “Any unoccupied table that suits you,” offered the man carrying a tray with two platters on it. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  Corvyn glanced around. He was almost the only one in the café besides a young man sitting alone in one corner and a dark-haired pair of men wearing the loose-fitting tunics and trousers and sandals that suggested they were likely Tianese, or possibly from Keifeng. After looking over the tables and counting them—eleven—Corvyn smiled. Some superstitions persisted, as if any of the Ten would have cared about whether a café had exactly ten tables. He walked to a circular table roughly equidistant from the other patrons and seated himself. The menu appeared, displayed by the table.

  After scanning the items, he was pleasantly surprised—three kinds of pasta entrees, beef, veal, bison, trout, and fowl, with a variety of vegetables and greens. Although the “meat” would be entirely replicated from protein bases, the vegetables, fruits, and greenery would be local, or regional. So the quality depended on what was available locally and the skill of the cook.

  Not that it’s ever otherwise.

  Corvyn looked up as the trim figure who had delivered the platters returned, carrying the empty tray.

  “Good evening, sir. I’m Jason, chef, server, and anything else that needs to be done. Might I answer any questions?”

  “Which one would you eat tonight?”

  “I had the veal in the port reduction with mushrooms, with the egg noodles. I’d still have it again. The fowl and rice with lemongrass is a bit lighter.”

  “I’ll try the veal, with the mixed greens and your dressing. Whatever light red wine you’d recommend.”

  “I’d go with the Vulcar.”

  Corvyn nodded.

  After Jason left the table, Corvyn tried to pick up the conversation of the two men across the café, but could hear nothing, although their lips were moving.

  Screened. That was more than interesting, given that no one sat close enough to overhear, suggesting that the pair had something to hide … or came from a background where everyone had something to hide, which suggested they were more likely from Tian than from Keifeng, although the Taoists could certainly be indirect. Rather than use the shadows, he sharpened his eyes and focused on the man who half faced him, trying to read his lips. Even so, he only picked up phrases.

  “… three societal nodes are unstable … animists don’t count … barbarians of the north … Valkyries … Saints … the moment it appeared they might rise again…”

  After a time, precisely when Jared returned with the salad and a goblet of a dark red wine, Corvyn suspected that the older man was Tianese and possibly a wandering Confucian scholar and the younger man his disciple rather than his paramour. Or … that could be a cover.

  The man sitting alone left the café while Corvyn ate the greens, which served their purpose, neither too substantial nor so delicate as to be fragile. Corvyn sensed the power shift as the departing diner unlinked his electrobike, suggesting to him that the link mechanism could have used cleaning.

  The veal was tender, the mushrooms a touch too earthy, and the port reduction quite good. Not outstanding, but far better than he had expected.

  The scholar was still pontificating to his disciple when Corvyn left the café wondering why the older man bothered with screening. Only those with certain capabilities would even notice. Unless the screening is to draw attention to him and away from others … or to draw attention that will soon be dismissed.

  Both could be true, or yet a third possibility that Corvyn had not considered. Even the Ten missed some possibilities.

  In the eyes of the raven

  all are unfaulted, uncraven.

  4

  For various reasons, Corvyn found that he was not ready to leave Ridgetop until the pure white sun was up enough to color the sky the full pink of day and the Pearls of Heaven had faded to near invisibility. His late awakening did not disturb him unduly, for Marcion, the Cite Christos, lay less than a full day away even along the highway of the hills, and he had no desire to enter the domain of the Paulists any sooner than necessary nor to remain within it any longer than required to discover what he must and depart. While it was likely that the so-far-unknown power had embedded the flaming trident emblem elsewhere, given the powers of each House of the Decalivre, he would need to visit each to determine whether to act or not. On the one hand, his failure to act might lead to another Fall. On the other and more disturbingly, acting might precipitate such a Fall as well.

  But Corvyn had always preferred sins of commission over sins of omission. So he departed Ridgetop on the ancient electrobike, heading northwest on the white stone highway that had never aged and never would, descending and then ascending, before descending again, each descent greater than the succeeding ascent, reversing the pattern that had taken him to Ridgetop.

  While the terrain was similar, the crops were not, since those in the Cite Christos had long since forsaken the fermented fruits of the land, as declared by the prophet of the Paulists, and the only vineyards were for grapes to be eaten or turned into raisins. There were, on the other hand, groves of olives, oranges, and lemons, and fields of other crops … and long patches of trees, including the massive cedars. The spacing of dwellings along the highway of the hills was not quite random, but certainly not so ordered as was the case in the lands surrounding other cities of the Decalivre. The one possible exception was the lands of the Skeptics, given the far lighter hand of rule by Lucian DeNoir, a style of rule quietly mocked by some, particularly the White One of Los Santos and the Disciple of the Twin Masters of Tian, as allowing chaos and disruption to flourish and to encourage the evils of disbelief.

  Just after midday, Corvyn neared Komnenos, a town whose name had lost its antecedents even though they postdated those of Marcion, but remained a comfortable place to stop. At least it had been in the past. Chestnut trees grew everywhere, along with beech and hornbeam, and more than a few oaks, but most important and famed were the sweet chestnut trees. These were made possible by Lake Sinop and the long ridge to the north of the lake, which trapped the moisture from the River Sanctus and the evaporation from the lake. Otherwise the fertile lands surrounding the town would be far, far drier and hotter, more like Marcion.

  On the outskirts of Komnenos, he passed the tannery, known for the leather produced with the tannins from the local chestnuts, and an adjoining building which housed a natural shoemaking enterprise for those who eschewed replicated footwear—and who were able and willing to pay the supradeital price. Corvyn had a pair of boots made from that leather, and while comfortable, they were not one of the two pair he had brought with him. Beyond the tannery began the stolid stone houses, all of ashlar masonry, if in occasionally differing rectangular patterns of the various kinds of local stone.

  Near the center of Komnenos was a square, around which stood a number of two-story structures, some offering forms of cuisine, others featuring other commodities suitable to Paulists. Corvyn dismounted from the electrobike in front of the same establishment where he had
eaten on a previous visit. Although the Bridge styled itself a bistro, so far as Corvyn could determine, it was a café that had long since forgotten that it once had pretensions, with dark tables so polished by time and olive oil that the chestnut wood now resembled dark impermite. Black cords tied back the red-and-white checkered curtains, and that, in a fashion, Corvyn found fitting, the black restricting the less restrained primitive that followed early sophistication in the years after the days of the First on Heaven.

  Although most of the tables were taken, for it was midday, a dark-haired, black-eyed, and honey-skinned woman greeted Corvyn. Her pale blue chiton over a darker blue sadin was cinched with a wide belt of the same darker blue. Even the leather of her soft boots matched the belt. She motioned him to a corner table for two and pointed to the menu, chalked on a slate board, with the fish and vegetarian dishes written in pale green and the few meat dishes in red. There were no beverages listed, but Corvyn knew what was available besides the grape juice and nonfermented apple cider permitted to the Paulists of Marcion.

  He removed the black stedora and set it on the other chair before seating himself and briefly studying the bill of fare. “I’ll have the lamb and lentils, with the beer.”

  “Thank you.” She nodded and slipped away, returning shortly with a tall mug, setting it on the table, and departing without another word.

  Corvyn sipped, ignoring the covert glances he sensed. The saffron-bittered honey beer, clearly provided for non-Paulists, fell somewhat on the sweet side, but was acceptable for a change, although in continuing draughts it would have been far too cloying.

  He listened intently. Most of the conversations were hushed and private, but his eyes and ears told him that both men and women were eating there, in roughly equal numbers, one of the better aspects of the Marcionic influence on Paul’s generally misogynistic approach to faith. On the other hand, he suspected that both men and women were grateful that Marcion’s views on sensuality had not taken hold, or would have been grateful had they even known those views.

  Before long, the woman who had greeted him and provided the beer returned with a large bowl set on a larger platter. Beside the bowl on the platter was the customary flatbread, topped with sprigs of rosemary. She also set a carafe of olive oil on the table in front of him. Before she withdrew, her eyes lingered on him for just a moment.

  The lamb, with lentils and yogurt, was tender, and it was lamb, and not mutton. The mixed tastes, with a hint of lemon as well, called up a memory of another meal, and another time, almost as far back, or ahead, as the days of the twisted cross, when the Pearls of Heaven had just been strung, and he had dined in the twilight with the woman who had yet to become Ishtaraath, and her laughter had been more intoxicating than the red wine of Champagne-Nouveau. He also recalled the words he did not speak, not then, words cribbed from farther in the past:

  The old becomes the new, if as in rhyme,

  cause leading to cause, each in its time …

  He did not finish that thought, for he preferred to leave the last words unthought … for the present.

  When he finished, he set aside his utensils, and took a last swallow from the mug. The beer was better with the lamb than either juice or wine would have been. Seeing his server, he gestured, and when she stopped at the table he said, “The lamb was very good.” He offered his card.

  The woman looked at the card, and the name, and frowned, if momentarily, then shook her head, if barely, as she scanned it. “We all have our secrets and reasons. Yours are more … shadowed, honored one.”

  In turn, Corvyn smiled, recognizing the woman who had been a girl on his previous visit. He did not protest the appellation, undeserved as it may have been, because the protest would have demeaned her courtesy. “Tell me what might be new of Brother Paul, Miriam.”

  “What is there to tell? He does not change. Few of power do, and few of them travel. You do not travel much, unless there is a reason. I’d rather not ask such a reason.” She returned his card.

  Corvyn smiled, this time at her words. “I’ve heard murmurings of a new trinity of power. I thought I might seek it out.” And that was true, because the trident represented a trinity of sorts.

  “The old trinity is all that Brother Paul will accept.”

  Corvyn laughed softly. “That has not changed.”

  “Have you, honored one?”

  “More than you would believe, and less than I should have, I fear.”

  “Then I will mourn for the old ways, and pray for you.”

  “Pray for my success, if you would.”

  “That, also.”

  “And keep the money. It’s real.” He smiled again as he stood. “Thank you. It is a joy to see you.” All those words he meant, and not just in the moment, for words that were honest only in the instant were little better than lies … and often worse. He lifted the black hat from the other chair as he left the table.

  When he was back on the electrobike and riding westward out of Komnenos, Corvyn considered the meal at the Bridge with an expression half thoughtful, half regretful. Miriam seemed not unhappy or displeased with her circumstances, and there were so many who were neither happy nor pleased, even in Heaven … as well as those powers and principalities, or those even greater, who would have exploited those who felt they had been deprived.

  Has it ever been otherwise?

  His eyes focused on the road ahead.

  The words of gospels set in oak

  turn to ashes at Raven’s croak.

  5

  As he entered the city proper of Marcion, where the highway of the hills became the Avenue of the Light and the Way, and the white stone turned a very light gray, Corvyn’s eyes discerned absolutely no change in the dwellings and structures he observed within the city proper, although there had been minor changes beyond. Nor had there been any new dwellings or other structures, suggesting that Miriam was correct, that nothing had changed, and that Brother Paul’s view of faith had neither increased nor decreased the number of his followers significantly—although Corvyn would have wagered on a slight decrease, if one not large enough to be easily noticed.

  In Komnenos, the houses were built of stone because the chestnut trees were too valuable for timber. In Marcion, located on the eastern side of the River Sanctus, the houses were of brick and stone because trees were rare in any close proximity to the city. The prevailing winds, almost invariably blowing from the south, were bone-dry after traversing the Sands of Time that began—or ended, depending on one’s perspective—less than three days’ travel from the southern bank of the River Jordan, its closest proximity to Marcion being another three days’ travel south of the River Sanctus.

  Rooftops glistened with solar sheets and films, as did all rooftops on Heaven, and the air was warmer than it might otherwise have been from the heat discharged by all but the very meanest of dwellings. In the distance, at the far end of the avenue stood the Basilica Vera, as it had since before the establishment of the Hegemony of the Decalivre. The basilica overlooked the river from its low hill above the river, circled by the Damascus Road. Its dome shimmered in the early midafternoon, reflecting light almost bright enough to be a second sun, albeit one of golden radiance restricted to the environs of Marcion, rather than the pure white light of the primary radiance that bathed all Heaven, an oddity of sorts, given the pink sky.

  Marcion was far smaller than Ciudad Helios, possibly, Corvyn suspected, because Hel was the sole city for Skeptics, while the other nine hegemonic cities each catered to and were supported by those inclined, at least generally, to the beliefs theoretically embodied in each hegemon. Then, he reminded himself, that might just be his rationalization, something he attempted to guard against. Such a use of logic tended to become easier with age, and he had fought that battle for longer than he wished to recall. Even so, Marcion was not small, and it took him almost another hour on the avenue to reach the basilica.

  Once close, Corvyn guided the electrobike to the row of stands
in the parking area to the south of the Great Square of the Faithful. He found a vacant stand, locked the bike in place, added a few additional protections, and then walked toward the basilica. He did not, however, head to the main steps. Instead he walked along the side of the building, occasionally melding with the shadows as he made his way to a small locked door on the north side of the building, a door actually under the side of the north staircase. He unlocked the door with the experience of age and certain other abilities and stepped inside, leaving it locked behind him. Lightpipes illuminated the corridor at a comfortable level, diffuse enough to keep normal shadows from forming. After several meters, the corridor made a right-angle turn toward the center of the basilica, ending in a small anteroom.

  Seated there at a table desk, a functionary in a tannish-brown robe looked up in surprise, if not shock. “How did you get here? This is—”

  “For the truly faithful, no doubt.”

  “Dark gray raiment. You are either an outcast or a citizen of Hel—”

  “Perhaps both, perhaps neither,” interrupted Corvyn cheerfully, once again. “I could also be a Taoist priest on a pilgrimage, or an undecided Wiccan in exile. That is not material. I’m here to see Brother Paul.”

  “The unrepentant, or those who are not believers, must first request an audience with Father Meander or Father Simon.” The functionary’s voice was politely firm.

  “Is either of them free?” asked Corvyn, already knowing the answer, given that the full name of Father Simon was Simon Magus.

  “Alas, not for some time.”

  “There wouldn’t be a Father Tertullian, would there?” Corvyn let himself appear open, almost naïve.