by J. S. Morin
The snow-rollers grumbled and kicked up white, powdery wakes as they sped off into the security of the clanhold. When they were out of sight, the floodlights went dark and the mystery of night set in.
“So, we done here?” Carl asked, shivering.
“For tonight,” Mriy answered. “I can’t easily go back to the ship, but the rest of you can. I’m going to stay in Rikk Pa.”
“For how long?” Esper asked.
“If Hrykii vouches for my actions, perhaps forever.”
# # #
As Earth-like worlds went, Meyang was sparsely populated. Carl might have gone so far as to call it deserted. While humans had bred Earth to the brink of ruin before spilling out into the stars, the azrin people had kept their numbers down to levels of pre-industrial Earth. There was unspoiled land between cities, and even a fair amount within them. Rikk Pa was more of a patchwork collection of villages, shopping centers, and civic hubs than any city Carl had seen. As Tanny parked the hover-cruiser, he and the crew prepared to do a little local exploration.
“Remember, keep your comms handy at all times,” Tanny said, part of her standard security briefing for planetside romps. The reputation of the locals aside, Meyang ought to have been as safe as anyplace they’d been in a long time. As a protectorate, the planet warranted direct protection of the ARGO fleet. And since the azrin central government wasn’t too keen on the idea, there were ground forces aplenty on the surface.
“Not it,” Roddy called.
“Not it,” Carl quickly echoed.
“Looks like it’s your turn,” Tanny said to Esper.
“Me? My turn for what?” Esper asked.
Mort chuckled. “You ever seen me carry a comm?”
“I’m babysitting?”
“Egads, girl, I could be your—well, I was about to say grandfather, but that might be stretching it a bit. Let’s just say that I could be your father, and I don’t need babysitting. Think of it as being a caddy for me, carrying a comm around in case Mother Hen needs to check under her britches to see if we’re all still breathing and unmolested by the local constabulary.”
“Fine,” Carl said, interceding between the two. “I’ll tag along for a while. Not like I’ve got money to blow on anything fun.”
In daylight hours, Rikk Pa was brisk, not so bitterly cold as the night before had been. So while Roddy slunk away to find a bar with wide hours and Tanny flitted off on errands she wouldn’t share, Carl fell into step behind Mort and Esper, taking his amusement in watching the two of them together.
“If this is the azrin section, why do all the signs have English, too?” Esper asked as they passed the civic tram depot.
“ARGO rules with an iron clipboard,” Mort replied. “Rules with rules, so to speak. I doubt one in five can read them, but they put the signs up with both languages all the same. Next generation it might be one in four, then one in three. Sooner or later, grandparents will be teaching their children azrin so that they remember the old ways, and not the other way around.”
“Worked for Roddy, I suppose,” Esper said.
“Not hardly,” Carl piped up. “Laaku are nearly all bilingual. They didn’t give up their native languages; they just all decided to learn ours so we’d leave them alone about it. I think Roddy’s got to know at least three or four.”
“Six,” Mort said. “English, plus three from his own world, a smattering of setrine, and he’s picked up the major azrin dialect from Mriy. Ask any laaku and they’ll tell you the same: they’re smarter than us.”
“Wow,” Esper whispered. “I had no idea.”
“Well, correct him on his grammar sometime,” Mort said with a sneer. “Rotten monkey speaks better English than the lot of you when it suits him. He doesn’t like people thinking he’s stuffy, but you can egg him on until he proves it.”
“Forget that crap,” Carl interrupted. “Where we going?”
Esper looked back at him with a frown. Carl returned a sanguine grin. “I looked at the local map this morning, and there’s a cathedral nearby that—”
“Oh, come on,” Carl griped.
“That belongs to the One Church,” Esper continued. “It’s Saturday, so there won’t be Mass. I’m just going to confession.”
“Well, since you’ve been traveling with us for what, four months or something?” Carl asked. “You’ll be in there a while.”
“Very funny,” Esper replied. “I’d say you need it worse than I do, but you don’t care, and they wouldn’t listen to you anyway. You have to actually be penitent to confess. You’d just be bragging.”
Carl shrugged. She was right of course. “How about you, Mort? Anything you want to get off your chest?”
“If I’m of a mind to discuss my immortal soul, I’ll address the man in charge directly,” Mort replied with a huff.
The Cathedral of Saint Hubertus stood out amid the largely azrin architecture. Near as Carl could figure, everything around Rikk Pa was built to deal with heavy snowfall—steep roofs, elevated main floors, and underground passages to nearby buildings. The Cathedral of Saint Hubertus was Old Earth Gothic, complete with flying buttresses and gargoyles perched around the roof. If Mriy was any indication of her peers, that last detail was bound to go over well with the locals.
“Will you two wait for me?” Esper asked before heading inside.
Carl looked to Mort with a shrug, and the wizard shrugged right back. “Sure,” Carl replied. “Make us wait long enough for my feet to start hurting though, and you’re finding your own ride back to the ship.”
They waited until the oak doors closed behind Esper. “So, what do you want to do while she’s in there?”
Mort cleared his throat. “I think I’m going to see if they’ve got a washroom in there.”
Carl watched Mort with a suspicious eye, wondering what he might be up to.
# # #
Esper stepped from an alien world into an embassy of peace and infinite love. It was unfair to say that if you had been to a single One Church cathedral you had been to them all, but there was a certain consistency to them. Same stained-glass iconography, even if the images varied. Same pews, with velvet upholstered kneelers. Same hymnals and Bibles. Same confessionals.
Esper’s boots echoed on the polished floor, the marvelous acoustics carrying the sound throughout the nave. She gawked and meandered, letting a smile slip across her face as the warmth of home seeped into her. This was the real reason humans built cathedrals. They were old, solid, dependable. One cathedral was as close to the Lord as any other. He was always present, cathedral or no, but this was the reminder that He was omnipresent. You couldn’t forget or dismiss His presence from within these sanctified walls. After months adrift and conflicted, Esper Theresa Richelieu felt her feet beneath her.
She was far from alone. There were worshipers scattered among the pews—mainly human, but a surprising number of azrin mixed with them. There was a confessional with the door slightly ajar, and she headed straight for it. The inside was darker than she was accustomed to, but that quaint musty smell of old wood in tight spaces brought a twitch of a smile.
A moment later, a priest sat down on the other side of the screen. “How long has it been since your last confession?” he asked.
Esper knelt and made the sign of the cross. “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was six months ago.”
“I hope you may find an easing of so long a burden,” the priest replied.
Esper began with the gravest sin she had committed. “Father, though it was not my intent, I have killed a man.” That was where it began. From there, the dam burst. Everything she had done since joining the Mobius and even the short while before poured out of her: her use of magic, her crimes against secular law, and her brushes with temptation of the flesh. The priest made scant comment throughout, allowing her to continue until she had to pause for breath.
“Of all these sins, which do you most fear?” the priest asked.
“Fear?�
�� Esper echoed, not quite understanding this unexpected line of questioning.
“Did you find killing gave you pleasure? Did it sit easily on your conscience?”
“Of course not, Father!”
“Did you regret not acting when offered the pleasure of the flesh? Do you fear that you will succumb the next time, or the time after that?”
Esper paused. “Maybe a little. I try though, and so far trying has been enough. I pray for that strength.”
“Did you enjoy the feel of handling God’s power?”
“I… I’ve used it twice to save lives and once to take one,” Esper replied. “I felt guilt each time, but maybe not as much when I helped people. I may have also overlooked this one, but I’ve also taken to using the hunger side effect of the healing spell to burn off chocolates so I can eat more of them. That one I always feel guilty about too—more for the magic, a little less for overindulging in chocolates.”
“I will tell you something that may set your mind at ease,” the priest said. “The powers you possess are a gift from God. The misuse of them is certainly a sin, but there can never be a more proper application of them than the saving of a life. But since you have also killed by negligence, I will enjoin you to study. If you would continue to serve your fellow man in the manner of Christ, you must separate the beneficial from the malignant. It is a burden you carry and a responsibility. Find a way to control and harness the goodness that resides within you, and be not ashamed of doing the Lord’s work.”
“That’s my penance?” Esper asked.
There was a soft noise from the other side of the screen, too polite to be either a snort or a laugh, but suggestive of both. “I never said that. This goes beyond, and it will carry with you far longer. You must either give up the use of this power entirely, which would be a pity, or learn to use it with the certainty that it will do the good that you wish.”
After that, the priest gave a long overview of the prayers she would need to recite, starting right then. He left her to her Hail Marys and her rosaries with an admonition to consider her choices when it came to giving up magic.
# # #
Mort strolled out of the cathedral with a grin that threatened to split his face in two. Carl checked the chrono built into his comm. “You get lost looking for that washroom, or did you get a little sidetracked along the way?”
As he walked by on his way to a wooden park bench, Mort snickered.
“You did it, didn’t you?” Carl asked.
Mort shrugged. “I’m going to hell anyway.”
# # #
“Come home.”
That was all the note said. Mriy had waited all morning in her rented room at the Taste of Sol boarding house. It wasn’t until she checked an old comm ID that she hadn’t used in years that she finally discovered it. It was unsigned, and from a comm ID she didn’t recognize—she wasn’t the only one who had moved on in the years she’d been gone.
She considered calling Carl and letting him know where she was going, but decided against it. This was her business, not his. Besides, Carl wouldn’t be pleased that she had a recording of their encounter with the Remembrance. But as Mriy clutched the data crystal, she knew it had been a wise precaution. Without her recording of the sensor feed from the chase and stasis pod recovery, it would have been her word alone as to what happened; Hrykii had been in stasis through the whole ordeal.
Without access to the crew’s hover-cruiser, she booked a quick intra-city livery service to pick her up and take her home. It was human owned, but azrin operated. QuickRide hadn’t been operating in Rikk Pa when she’d last been there, and it felt odd being chauffeured by a handsome young azrin in a human-styled suit, complete with sleeves.
There were no floodlights when she arrived at the Yrris Clanhold, no swarm of snow-rollers. Her boots crunched the snow as she waded to the main building’s front door. How long had she lived there? How long had she lived away? Weighing her childhood against her professional travels and her exile, she had spent more of her life there than anywhere else. But those early memories were hazy. There was no warmth waiting for her, despite the chimney smoke that foretold a hearth fire.
She pounded her fist four times on the door. Four was the Yrris number, telling the door guard she was family. But Yariy was the one to open it, and Mriy wasn’t sure Yariy considered her to be family at all. “You came after all,” Yariy said, stepping aside to allow Mriy in.
“The message went to an old ID,” Mriy replied. As she stepped past, she made sure not to slouch low enough to let Yariy seem even close to her own height. Though her cousin had a reputation in her own right, it was no time to let Yariy think she could be bullied.
“You left a lot of old things behind,” Yariy replied. “Seerii didn’t wait for you. She’s out hunting for lunch.”
“I haven’t eaten,” Mriy replied, dangling the implied offer to join the hunt. It was encouraging to hear that her mother was still fit to kill her own food.
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you came,” Yariy replied, slamming the door. “We’re not here to feed you. The hunting grounds are for the family.”
“But I thought—”
“You thought wrong,” Yariy snapped, taking a step to close the gap between them. It was a bold move, considering their difference in size. Mriy had come unarmed as a sign of good faith, and Yariy had two knifes at her belt. Mriy still liked her odds. Her cousin was shouting to tempt an avalanche. “Whatever Seerii decides, she hasn’t told me anything about treating you like family.”
Mriy took a step of her own. She loomed over her cousin and had the satisfaction of watching Yariy’s ears flatten back. It was an easy thing to talk like the clan guardian when no one threatened to convert those words into actions. “A life for a life. Mother can’t deny that. She might not forget, but she will forgive. And when she does, I’ll be in my rights to challenge for your job as guardian. Think on that.” She gave Yariy a shove and knocked her cousin back a step.
Yariy was a finesse fighter and a good one. She’d obviously improved in the years Mriy had been gone, or she wouldn’t have risen to guardian. But that didn’t mean she was a threat to Mriy. Yariy wouldn’t have taken the guardian’s job from Soora. Mriy had been nearly as strong as Soora, but too quick for her brother. She suspected she was just as nimble as Yariy and could throw her around like prey.
Yariy glared at Mriy, but took another step back. “What’s wrong with you? You think you can barge in here, talking with a human accent, and buy forgiveness? You’d destroy the clan. No one would stay if you became guardian.”
Mriy had never considered that she’d picked up an English accent.
“By rights, the job is mine,” Mriy replied. She’d defeated Soora, and the unfortunate confrontation at the conclusion had earned her exile. But in that brief interim, she had owned the position. “If you don’t win it from me, it’s a hollow title.”
Yariy flashed her teeth. “We’ll see about that.” She whirled and stalked out of the room. Over her shoulder, she called back, “Yesterday’s kill is in the cold room. Stay out of the hunting grounds.”
# # #
It was another hour before the hunting party returned. Mriy had pillaged a lunch of venison after trying without success to discern by claw marks who had killed it. She used to know the habits and hand spans of every hunter in the Yrris Clanhold. Soora’s handiwork was plain by the massive deep cuts in the prey’s flesh, claws spread wider than any other Yrris. Her father had a penchant for snapping necks without leaving a scratch. Some younger cousin likely killed deer that provided her meal.
There were a lot of young cousins in the party that arrived back at the clanhold. Seerii led them. It gladdened Mriy to see Hrykii was well enough to have gone along. But aside from Meriik and Seninshee, the rest were strangers to her, grown children she no longer recognized. They walked past, ignoring her; four of them lugged a brown bear in a litter, already skinned. The four carried the animal into the
butchery for preparation, without so much as a sidelong glance in Mriy’s direction. It was Seerii who finally broke the shunning.
“You came back,” her mother said. “I thought perhaps you would not.”
Mriy stood and hung her head. Contrition was her best ally, now. “I belong here. This is home.”
Seerii hissed softly. “Home is family, not a place. Soora understood, but never you. Settle down. Take a mate. Raise your children. Then you’ll understand, too.”
Mriy felt her hackles rise. “I’m too old to find a mate.” It was a hard thing to admit with so many strange faces watching. She had wasted her best years away from Meyang, first fighting for money, then in exile. A family of her own was always a plan for later, until later became too late.
Seerii looked her over, stepping around to view her from all sides. Mriy looked much like her mother, except larger and with far more muscle beneath her fur. Watching Seerii as she was inspected was like a mirror into her own future. This is what she would look like in twelve years’ time.
“Still fighting shape,” Seerii said while she stood behind Mriy. “Carrying human guns hasn’t softened you—much.”
Mriy jerked her head toward the hunters’ kill. “Stronger than that bear you brought. Strong enough to protect the clan.”
“So that’s the trick,” Seerii said. “You want the guardian’s job again. That title sat poorly on you last time. No sooner had you won it but you betrayed the clan.”
“Soora spat at me,” Mriy snapped. “He lost; the job was mine. My blood was still hot and he spat at me. My moment of triumph, and he spat on it. If he was half the fighter he claimed to be, he should have known to defend himself if he was going to do that.”
Seerii turned away, but her claws were extended. “You broke most of his ribs and his right arm in three places—all fair, of course. But spitting was all that was left in him. I’m amazed he managed in his condition.”