Debris of Shadows_Book II_The Forgotten Cathedral

by Tony LaRocca

  “You just think we’re all children.” Helen’s voice carried in the evening air. “You just want us all to be happy, good little soldiers, to swallow whatever dark feelings we might have inside.”

  Roger squeezed her arm. “Come on, Helen, that’s enough.”

  “No it’s not.” She pointed at Tish. “Can’t you see that she’s starting to get pudgy again? He said that he cured her. He lied.”

  Every muscle within Asher’s body tensed into knots. It would be so, so easy to let his children fly, to have them sew her flapping lips shut. He could sew her nostrils shut too, just to watch her green eyes pop out of their sockets. He imagined himself laughing while her cheeks sucked inward as she desperately tried to breathe. Then, just maybe, she might stop her childish nonsense. He turned back around.

  “I explained before,” he said softly, “that I could cure her disabilities, and the imbalances of her depression and metabolism. I gave her another chance, but I can’t change who she is.”

  “So what happens when she gets too porky? Your vampire flies are just going to keep eating her up and spitting her out until they get it right?”

  He looked at the poor, humiliated girl. She shrunk down, looking as if she wanted to die. Yeah, he thought, she has put back on a few pounds. But how?

  “You know that you’re not making any sense,” he said. “If I’ve been toying with your memories, then why do you remember this book differently? Wouldn’t I have forced you to remember it my way? If I were such a manipulative, whitewashing, puppet–master, then you wouldn’t even be angry at me right now. You would be thankful that I made it less upsetting for you.” He turned to survey the crowd. He knew that he had to be careful. “You were right, and I was wrong. I apologize, and will take the time and effort to rectify the problem when I can. I’m even asking you to oversee me on it. So tell me, Helen, what more do you want?”

  She sniffed, and choked out a sob. Her face turned purple. She dug her fingers into her arms, and began to scratch. “I want my mother,” she shouted as tears brimmed in her eyes. “I want my mother in Utah. I want to call up my sister in Arizona, and ask her how things are with her kids.” A murmur of agreement spread through the crowd. “I want to turn on the virts and see what’s happening, or just laugh at something stupid. Everything keeps changing, and there’s nothing stable left to hang on to.”

  So that was it. Asher looked in her eyes, and lowered his voice to what he approximated was the correct amount of sadness. “You can’t call your mother, or your sister.”

  “Why not?” she snapped as her nails raked her skin. “Is it because she’s not happy enough, or that she might tell me that you’re lying?”

  The monk let out a long sigh. “Because no cities in those states survived.”

  She let out a low moan, and buried her face in her hands as Roger wrapped his arms around her. Tish stared at him with a strange look of shock mixed with curiosity, as if he were some sort of fascinating insect. The crowd talked and argued amongst themselves. Asher held his arms high above his head as their voices grew louder.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “I was going to explain to everyone once San Domenico was finished. We were able to save most of the cities, but some were too far gone. Maybe I should have told each of you upon your resurrection. I didn’t think of it, because it’s a fact of life for me.”

  “You should have!” yelled someone in the crowd, followed by shouts of agreement.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “All I can say is that I never intended to hide anything from you. I’ve lived my entire life in a monastery. I’m not like you. I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

  “That’s not good enough,” said Helen. “We want the Ophanim. Where is She? The scriptures promised Her to us, not you.”

  Fresh voices and arguments rose from the crowd. Some agreed with her, while others called her a blasphemer. Those who agreed began to chant for the Ophanim, enunciating each syllable with a clap. Bolstered by solidarity, their voices grew into a roar.

  “Enough!” Asher shouted. The word echoed from the sides of the buildings as the crowd instantly fell silent. As if one organism, they seemed to shrink away. Tish still held his gaze with her blank stare, but even Roger’s eyes glinted with fear.

  “I have been honest with you,” he said. “This is the world as it is right now. Would you prefer that it was nothing but sand? Would you prefer the Agents of Chaos beyond the dome, grinding everything to dust in their wake? Is that what you want?”

  No one answered him. He looked into the crowd. He knew each of them, more intimately than they knew themselves. “Throughout history, people have whined and moaned about how the world was falling apart. Pollution, famine, war, disease, mental illness, prejudice, homelessness, lack of education, the list goes on and on. Now, you’ve been given a second chance. I’m sorry that it’s not perfect, but it’s the best it can be. Be happy that you have each other, be happy that you have your lives and your children.”

  “Be happy that you gave them to us?” a man shouted.

  “Be happy that through me, the Ophanim gave you what only She can.”

  There were some uneasy mutters at this, but it seemed to do the trick. The crowd began to disperse, chattering amongst themselves. He looked up at Helen, shielded in Roger’s arms while she shielded Tish in her own. He shook his head, and walked back into the streets.

  He strode through his city, looking up at the monoliths of steel and glass that he had perfected. He could feel the millions of unresurrected souls that still trawled the depths of his mind. How many of them had looked up in the same way at the disgusting filth that WesMec had become during the final years of the war? All the boys over fifteen had been drafted into combat, the girls into logistics. Those left behind had barely subsisted on the thinnest of rations. But none of it had mattered when darkness fell over the cities, Shadows that drank their lives and devoured the light. How long had his charges huddled in shelters, cold, sick and hungry, while they waited in fear for the inevitable?

  I wanted to heal, but you wouldn’t let me.

  Someone fell into step behind him, but he did not turn around. Instead, he entered one of the public plazas. He gave its overgrown maples and oaks a wide berth. At its center was a fountain. Water shot into the air, splashing against a stone bowl before running off into a reservoir below. He sat on its cool marble, and patted the spot beside him.

  “Hello, Roger,” he said. “You’re always welcome, but you should probably be with Helen right now.”

  The man sat next to him. “I just wanted to apologize,” he said. “She had no right to get everyone riled up like that.”

  Asher pushed his annoyance down to the pit of his stomach. “Tell me something,” he said. “What did you want from the world?”

  Roger shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Brother,” he said, “I don’t know what they taught you in your monastery, but you’ve got it all wrong.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  A young couple walked down the street, holding hands. They caught sight of Asher, and stopped. The girl leaned towards the boy, and whispered in his ear. They both grinned and waved. Then they turned, and walked back the way they had come.

  “Man, a lot of us, we learned to stop wanting a long time ago,” said Roger. “Some of us learned when we were five, some when we were fifty. Those of us who took the longest, we felt the worst. We learned that being who we wanted to be or doing what we wanted to do didn’t matter if our families needed food, or rent needed to be paid.”

  “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think? Before the war, not everyone was miserable, or just scraping by.”

  “No,” said Roger, “but a lot of them didn’t know what they wanted either. They tried filling that hole with virts, games, politics, booze, drugs, sex, you name it. But now you come along, and you take away what drinking did to some of us, and what expense accounts did to others. You took away what years of abuse from bullies and
pigging out did to my daughter. You took away the soot and grime that we had gotten ourselves smothered in, and then you say to us, ‘Here’s paradise, do whatever you want.’ But none of us know what we want.”

  Asher looked up at the shield dome. A crescent moon and a handful of constellations shone through. “When were you happiest?”

  Roger turned, and pointed through the dense line of maples. “Over that way, there used to be a bowling alley called The Mighty Pin. Every other Saturday, my father would take me there.” He looked at Asher out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t say that you’ll bring it back, or my father for that matter. Being there with him made me happy. But it wasn’t just because I wanted to spend time with him, it was also because he needed to spend that time with me. It refueled him after slaving away all week in his little restaurant.” He shrugged. “Now it’s your turn. What makes you happy? And don’t say making us happy, because I’ve never believed that load of crap in my life.”

  Asher mulled it over. “Well it’s true, whether you believe it or not, but I don’t mean it altruistically. I want you to be happy because it will make my city better.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. He bolted to his feet. “Roger, I — excuse me.”

  “Oh stop it,” said Roger, “sit down. You gave the answer you can’t help but give, the honest one.” Asher lowered himself back to the edge of the fountain. “Why does that make you happy?”

  “I don’t know,” Asher said. “It’s just that this is something, maybe the only thing, that I can do really well. And yes, I know that pride is supposed to be a sin.”

  “You don’t believe that any more than I do. My mother used to say that my father was too prideful of his good cooking. He said that that was one thing the Good Book got wrong, that pride was the Ophanim’s sign of a job well done. The problem is, you can’t feel prideful about whether others are happy or not. Trust me, I’ve seen a lot of relationships torn to pieces that way. The guy gets it in his head that it’s his job to keep his wife or girlfriend happy. You can’t blame him, that’s what every single movie, sitcom, and chat show taught us. ‘Happy wife, happy life.’ Bullshit. You know what happens next? Then her job becomes being happy for his sake, and that’s downright impossible. Then the guy starts trying harder, and the woman starts feeling guilty… and then she starts hating her job. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Asher’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. “Good,” said Roger. “You have to understand. You’ve given us a beautiful city, you’ve given us health, you’ve given us what you think is right. I’ll be honest, something in the way you act tells me that the Church doesn’t agree with that, and I couldn’t give two shits. To hell with them, because thanks to you, I can breathe again. But Helen was right about one thing. We’re people. We’re not just paints on your canvas. We’re men and women, and we look around, and we look at ourselves, and we say, ‘Wow, everything’s better, I’m so happy.’ But then days and weeks go by, and the next question becomes, ‘What will happen to me if I don’t stay happy?’”

  The boy said nothing. Roger leaned back and stretched. “Now, you tell me something. What would you do if the Church told you that you couldn’t do this anymore?”

  Asher snorted. “That day may come sooner than you think.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. What if the Church put you in a big palace with all the comforts you can imagine, but with none of the Life Sands or scrolls? Pretend they said, ‘Here you go, Brother Asher, job well done. Now it’s your turn for paradise. Do what you want, because you’ll never have to work again.’”

  The monk looked over his shoulder into the fountain. One of the tiny nozzles had sprung a leak, fizzling a faint spray into the bottom of the marble bowl. Was it the water pressure, or a fault in the rubber or metal? His eyes whipped to the trees, and the dancing patterns of shadows created by their rustling leaves.

  Were they laughing at him?

  “I’d go insane,” he said.

  Roger nodded. “Some people are happy doing nothing, and that’s fine. There are also a few who have something to do, and they feel necessary. But most of us don’t. So instead of new buildings, make some raw materials. Whip up some steel girders and glass, even a factory or two. Face it, there are a lot of structural faults that need to be fixed. Let us fix them. Make up some paperwork for the pencil pushers to play with, clay for the artists, fields for the athletes, and instruments for the musicians. All of your books are probably wrong, so destroy them. Make one proof at a time, give them to Helen or some other book nut for approval, and then resurrect a printing house to make the rest. Even better, let us build our own printing house. Let the techies help you make new computers that don’t burn out. Give us some kind of purpose, because if there’s nothing to do in Heaven, then I think it must be one big loony bin.”

  Asher let out a chuckle. “You are one eloquent engineer,” he said.

  Roger pointed at him. “Don’t pigeonhole people, Brother. You’ve been inside our heads, you should know better. I knew a priest who always said that people aren’t black or white, they’re different shades of…” His voice trailed off. He blinked, lost in memory.

  “What?” Asher asked.

  Roger looked at his olive–skinned hands. “Just a weird feeling. Speaking of priests, you should really start holding services. It’s been a long time since any of us went to church. It would do us good. I miss it, I know Helen does.” He put a hand on Asher’s scrawny arm, his face serious. “Thank you for being so understanding about her. She just lets her mouth go, sometimes. But she and Tish mean everything to me.”

  The monk grinned. “Of course,” he said, “what are friends for? And you’re right. There are a few perfectly good churches in the neighborhood, I think I’ll pick that one, over there.” He pointed at a steeple to the west. “If we all go to the same one, it will give us a sense of community.”

  “Saint Ezequiel’s?” Roger asked. He laughed. “I had my first communion there, old Father Heerema officiated. Damn, did that man have a deep voice. The wafer tasted like cardboard that got all soggy in my mouth, and I felt gypped that I didn’t get any wine.”

  Asher swallowed, and stared at him. “Tell me more about communion,” he said.

  “Um,” said Roger, “well, the Ophanim…” His eyes glazed over. “She gave of Herself, Her body and blood, so that we would have everlasting life. And that’s… that’s why our own blood does not matter. That’s why sacrifice for Her is an honor.” A change came over his face. His eyes narrowed. The cords in his neck began to throb. “That’s why we have to stand shoulder to shoulder against the tyranny of NorMec.” He snarled. “What color is WesMec Blood? Red, sir! What color is Cyleb blood? Yellow, sir! What makes the green grass grow? Cyleb blood!”

  He stood at attention, his face a red mask of fury, and punched at the sky. “God save the West!” he shouted, “God save the West! Her deserts and plains —”

  Asher jumped to his feet, and sang the litany of his children. After a few moments, Roger’s expression went slack.

  “Roger,” the monk asked in a singsong voice, “why did you say that? Where did you hear it?”

  “I’m so, so hungry,” Roger whispered. “We have to charge, but their machine guns will rip us open the moment we leave cover. A few of us will get through, though, that’s all that matters, but please, don’t let me die. God save the West.”

  “Stop it,” said Asher, his voice a monotone. “I want you to listen to me. You are safe. You are in San Domenico. You are safe.”

  “Starving, like there’s a hole in my belly. They’re coming, the Abominations are coming, and there won’t be any —”

  Asher sang again as he opened his sacs. A pair of wasps flew from his neck, and down Roger’s throat. The man stood still, his shoulders slumped as if he were a lost child. “Roger?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Roger, where are you?”

  “I’m…” He blinked. “I’m here in this pla
za, I guess.”

  Asher breathed a sigh of relief. “I want you to go home to your family, and rest. Please. You’ve had a long day.”

  “Yeah,” said Roger, nodding. He rubbed his forehead. “Wow. I felt dizzy for a moment.”

  “Get some rest.”

  “Yeah.” He patted the monk on his filthy shoulder. “Take care.”

  Asher watched his only friend walk in the direction of his home. He bit the inside of his cheek. What had just happened? The man had never served, but he had just suffered a horrible flashback, as if he had once lived through the nightmare of combat. Also, what were the chances that two different cities had had churches with the same name and pastor? Had his charges’ minds bled into one another without his knowledge?

  He opened the rents along his neck. A small swarm spilled forth. They were not lethargic, but they could not be called energetic either. They took to the metal and rubber components of the fountain, devouring and regurgitating them until all the nozzles sprayed in unison. He shook his head. There were more failures like this every day, and it was his responsibility to fix them.

  A flash of light winked by amongst the stars. His heart raced. Was it the Church, come at last? His first task after Theresa’s failed insurrection had been to devour and rebuild the shield generator to his own specifications. The Church could try all they liked, they would not stop him from doing the Ophanim’s true work.

  He squinted at the light, but he did not see any attempt to breach the dome. It flickered for a moment, then zipped away. Just a surveillance drone, perhaps.

  He walked towards the nearest maple. It bowed in his direction, millimeter by millimeter, until its lavish branches were inches from his lips. It seemed to struggle against the limits of its rigidity, as if debating whether to splinter itself just to scratch him.

  “They’ll never get in,” he whispered. “Never.”