by Jack Conner
Organ music enveloped him, throbbing his bones. It was at once soothing, eerie and overwhelming. The sound was huge, a wall of saturating, almost hypnotic noise. He’d initially thought it produced by a thousand pipes, but now he upped that number to ten thousand.
He reached the head of the steps and entered a wide colonnade, where many pilgrims threw themselves on the aged marble flagstones and kissed them. Others took pictures or showed their children fantastic details of the architecture and bas-reliefs. It was all quite impressive, of course, and under normal circumstances Avery would have stopped to investigate and contemplate each nook and cranny, but his heart was beating fast and his legs trembled.
He passed directly through the marvelous doors and into the cathedral. A great statue erupted out of a marble fountain in the first room, a naked giant with a long, leonine beard, holding a trident out before him—the Trident—as if offering it to the viewer. The ceiling stretched high overhead, terminating in a beautiful dome. Avery was vaguely aware of pulsing lights and the tinkling of water. Many stopped to pray before the fountain. Others, gasping and murmuring, explored side halls.
Avery marched directly through without pausing and into a great, high hall lined with statues of the various Collossum. Pilgrims and worshippers had set up individual shrines before each one, and Avery saw flowers, faded photographs, and half-melted figures of wax before rearing naked men and women in graceful yet commanding poses. Different sects of the Collossum faith worshipped different patron deities, meaning one of the Collossum, with the High Elder of the Collossum being their arch-god. There was a whole sect that had worshipped Layanna, and her statue too had once stood in this hall. That sect had been disbanded, some of its members having becoming worshippers of the Black Sect, others executed for that offense, and the statue had been removed. Avery wasn’t sure where it had been exactly; there were vacant spaces in number of the alcoves, and he knew they all must have contained effigies of Black Sect members. There was a sect that worshipped Uthua, too, Layanna had told him. It was a particularly dark sect with strange, bloody rites and motifs. They had worshipped him from afar for centuries, as he’d been in the Borghese Mountains directing the ngvandi, and his absence had dwindled his sect into a small but notorious cult. Avery didn’t take the time to find his statue.
He pushed on. Organ music pounded louder now. Almost as loud as his heart. It flooded from a set of great doors ahead, doors through which blue-purple light shone enticingly, and Avery knew that beyond that portal would be the main room of worship. He steeled himself and entered.
Layanna had prepared him for what he would see, but even so shock knocked him backward. For one thing, it was massive. Fifty thousand parishioners could sit here comfortably. And they did. It was a well-organized mass of humanity, all save the children (and even a few of them) infected, and most kneeling or sitting in their pews. Others packed the aisles and sides.
The ceiling of the nave stretched high, so high Avery marveled that it could support itself, but of course this was the great dome, the very heart of the cathedral. Stars winked and shone through the exquisitely-wrought glass overhead, and it was quite a feat of engineering or alchemy that they were so clearly visible despite the lightning arcing and crackling overhead and the other illuminations in the room—though, to be fair, the lights inside were suitably dimmed, and even the lightning strikes were muted both audibly and visually. A sort of bluish shadow draped the bulk of the nave and all the worshippers there, as the audience of a play would sit in darkness, directing the focus to the stage.
The focus was not to the sides, Avery saw, which were nonetheless awesome. The great pipes, a thousand or ten thousand, rose up in a glory of silver stalks, curling and thrusting and booming, all of them nestled into the glittering, crystal wall—which, Avery saw in surprise, was like the inside of a geode. Countless crystals glimmered and shone from the soaring, curving walls, and they reflected the subtle lights of the room like millions of winking eyes.
The focus was forward. The main room had been divided cunningly so that the one nave branched off into three about two-thirds of the way down, the three naves representing the tines of the trident Vilgest, to create a sort of semi-circular shape at the end. And at the head of every nave, beyond the steps that led up to the curving apse that connected their fronts, was a massive aquarium. Each of the three aquariums stretched side to side and from floor to ceiling of the apse they were set in, a huge wall of water which churned and bubbled violently. And in each aquarium floated one of the Collossum with its otherworldly self pulled around it. Great, amoeba-like beings with thrusting pseudopods and tentacles hovered in the waters, and otherworldly lights pulsed from within them, filled the aquariums and seeped through the glass to reflect off the faces of the worshippers and glitter off the geode-like crystals in the walls, undulating like the reflection of light off water, which it was. The three Collossum pulsed and swelled, then contracted, then swelled again, in time to the susurrus booming of the pipes, or perhaps vice versa.
The worshippers bowed, wept, sang and prayed.
In the apse before the central aquarium, where presumably the highest-ranking of the three Collossum floated, a great black altar stood. No victim was stretched out on it at the moment, but Avery supposed that many, many people had been sacrificed on that block of stone over the centuries. He could see the wide, curling brass pipes, fifteen feet in diameter at least, that jutted out from the aquariums’ bases and knew those were the chambers by which the Collossum could pass into the dry air of the cathedral and accept the sacrifices personally. They had other openings in the bottoms and rear of their aquariums by which they could pass out of the cathedral whenever they desired, perhaps even into the river, though the river was not charged strongly enough with extra-dimensional energies to support their other-selves for long, Layanna had told him; the energies of the aquariums were augmented by unseen machinery.
Several black-robed priests stood around the altar, chanting and leading the congregation in worship. The resultant sound of the singing and the booming of pipes was deafening, hypnotizing, transcendent ...
Avery blinked and shook himself, then took a more careful look at the walls of the room. Just as Layanna had told him, there were small, curtained-off booths set into the walls, nestled between the curling organ pipes, where a worshipper could speak privately with one of the priests, whether to ask questions in order to renew his faith or volunteer a sacrifice of blood—or more than blood.
Avery marched over to the nearest communal alcove. To his dismay, a line had formed among the worshippers, each waiting to confer with the priest in the privacy of the communal. Avery tried the next one, and the next, all with the same results. Reluctantly, hating every moment he spent in this unholy room—bathed by the strange energies of the Collossum, shaken by the throbbing of the organs, and breathing in the sea-like stink of over fifty-thousand fellow mutants (Do I stink now, too?)—he took a place in line.
The queue moved slowly, each person having their own private time with a priest, and Avery squirmed in impatience. He wished he’d been clever enough to have brought a flask with him. He had less need to drink these days, as he had purpose again, but he could have certainly used a stiff one at the moment.
Time and again his gaze strayed to the Collossum, pulsing and floating horribly, and he had to look away. They can’t know, he thought. They can’t know who I am.
Yet he could feel their eyes on him. Crawling over him. Devouring him.
He ached to be out of this room.
At last it was his turn. With a grateful intake of breath, he shoved his way through the black curtain and paused for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the dimness. There was a sort of pad for his knees, then a silver bowl, and beyond, draped in shadow and sitting on a cushioned wooden bench, the priest. Avery could just barely see him, a plain man with the suggestion of scales on his face, but kindness in it, too.
Avery sank to his knees.
“Father, I bid you glad tidings on this Deep Night,” he said. Layanna had coached him in what to say.
“And you, my child,” said the priest from the shadows. “May the Lords of the Deep light your path. Please, why have you sought audience with Their servant tonight?”
“First, let me give offering.”
“Ah! Good!” There was a smile in the priest’s voice and Avery heard a rustle of silk. The priest leaned forward and offered an object to Avery. “We’ve had many of the devout tonight. Truly it has been a blessed time. Would you like me to wield the instrument, my child?”
“I’ll do it,” Avery assured him.
He accepted the object, which was a long, ceremonial knife, and placed his left hand over the silver bowl. Its bottom was filled with fluid that would be a mixture of the amber de-coagulant and blood already given. With only a small wince, he sliced his palm and let a trickle of blood drip down. The fluid rippled as the drops struck it, like a pool of bloody brass.
Careful not to give too much, he drew his hand back and returned the knife to the priest, who quickly wiped it in a ritualistic manner, using a clear fluid, then offered a bandage to Avery. Avery dutifully wrapped his hand.
Before the priest could speak, Avery said, “Father, I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I’ve reached a decision.”
“Yes, my child?”
“I would like to walk the Holy Road.”
The priest speared him with a sharp glance. Avery could feel himself being scrutinized.
“Are you sure, my child? The Road is not for everyone.”
“I’m sure. I wish to dwell in the House of Joy.”
“Do you know the rites? Only the holy may pass.”
“I’ve been studying them with ardor,” Avery assured him. It had amused and saddened him when Layanna had told him how the Collossum required their willing sacrifices to learn complicated rites before being allowed to become food. The idea was to make offering oneself a noble and exalted thing, something that not any ordinary man or woman of the faith could accomplish but which one might, if they studied and said their prayers, someday aspire to be. This seemed to conflict with the Black Sect’s policy of eating anyone, even the unwilling.
The priest nodded slowly. “Very well, my child.” In a lower voice, he added, “Few know this, but there is a great gathering of the Revered in the City tonight—for what purpose, no one knows—but there will be considerable demand for you Journeyers. Fortunately you have taken up the challenge. It’s shocked me how many have already volunteered. The Deep Night inspires the most awesome acts of faith, I’ve always found. But there are never enough people to walk the Road, to sate the appetites of the Revered.”
“They are demanding gods,” Avery agreed.
In a conspiratorial whisper, the priest said, “Yes, and most people are too unworthy to offer themselves.” He cleared his throat. “Here. I will summon brothers to escort you from this point on. They will take you to the House of Spirits.”
The priest sounded a chime, and in minutes an answering chime sounded from outside the communal. The priest, who had been leading Avery in prayers, stopped chanting and said, “It’s time, my child. Sing for me in the House of Joy, and perhaps one day you will see me there, if only I can summon the courage.”
“I’m sure of it,” Avery told him.
The lights pained his eyes when he emerged, even though he knew they were very low, and he blinked up at the two priests who stood to receive him.
“You are the one who’s pledged himself to the Revered?”
“I am he,” Avery said.
The other worshippers and pilgrims nearby murmured in awe. “You are blessed, brother,” one woman said. And another: “Praise you!”
“Then come with us,” the priest said.
They assumed positions to either side of him and led him away from the communal, then from the room of worship altogether, away from the gaze of the Collossum, the monstrous booming of the pipes and the singing of the faithful. He could not remember ever being so grateful. The priests ushered him down a series of narrow, high-ceilinged halls and finally into a medium-sized room with a bowed center and high-backed chairs encircling it, facing in.
“Please kneel,” said one priest, indicating the depression.
Avery obliged. The priests sat facing him. With them staring down at him, he began to feel uncomfortable. He supposed that was the idea.
“If you are to walk the Holy Road, my child, you must recite the Chapter of Passage,” said the second priest.
Avery nodded. “I’m ready.”
“Then begin.”
Avery felt sweat beading his brow. If he botched this, the world was as good as served on a silver platter to Octung and its filthy puppeteers.
He began to speak, repeating the words Layanna had taught him all through the night. If it hadn’t been fresh on his mind, he wouldn’t have been able to do it, but with the combination of timing, fear and the fact that he was speaking Ancient L’ohen, he was able to plod forward. The priests conducted all of their inner rites in Ancient L’ohen, which made sense because the Collossum had first learned L’ohen in order to seduce the emperor of L’oh long ago, and after the fall of the empire (caused by their meddling), the language and the widespread discontinuance of L’ohen, it made for an excellent secret tongue for their new priests in Octung. Fortunately it was a language Avery spoke, if only rudimentarily, having had a lifelong obsession with the Empire of L’oh—at least, until he’d actually met a L’ohen Emperor.
When he’d finished, he glanced up at the priests, bowed, kissed the floor, and said, “I am ready to place my feet on the Road, if you will grant me leave.”
They were silent a long moment, and he began to grow hot.
“Did I ... did I pass?”
Slowly they bowed their heads to him.
“You did excellent, my child,” one said.
He sagged with relief.
Perhaps seeing this, the other priest said, “You are as eager to walk the Road as any I’ve ever seen. Tell us, have you always been this faithful?”
Avery sensed a trap. “No,” he said. “I’ve strayed from the path of the righteous more than I’ve kept to it, I’m afraid. And I’m all too aware that the Revered must have turned their cheeks from me more than once. Maybe it’s because of this that I feel so compelled to walk the Road now.”
That seemed to please them. “Then come,” one said. “We will take you to the House of Spirits.”
Avery realized he was about to be taken to the middle ring, the Sphere of Reflection. He must not have concealed his thoughts well enough, as the first priest chuckled and said, “So eager!”
“We need more like him,” the other agreed.
They led him from the room, which was obviously a place of judgment, and through more high halls toward the rear of the cathedral. At last they passed through a long, dark tunnel, and Avery was aware they must be transitioning through the outer wall. I’m going in. He was now closer than he’d ever imagined to being in the lair of the Collossum.
Emerging from the tunnel, they stepped into a verdant garden, which was sultry and dripping in moisture in the warm night. Ornate trees festooned with creeping vines rose up all around, with elaborate hedges and resplendent foliage. Fruits of the most delicate scent teased Avery’s nose, pears and berries and oranges. Petals of shocking color snared his eyes. The garden was lit mainly by the light of the stars and by the two visible moons at opposite corners of the horizon, as if serving to counterbalance each other, but the illumination was more than sufficient.
“It’s amazing,” Avery said, in honest wonder. He saw fruits and vegetation he’d never seen before.
“Yes, we tend to our garden often,” said one of the priests. “It gives us time to meditate on the glory of the Great Ones.”
Avery spied what looked like a turquoise apple, mottled like marble, and he longed to reach out, pluck it off its green-thorned tree and sink his tee
th into it—what would it taste like? Mint? Almond?—but he grudgingly resisted.
Seconds later he passed a strange vine that curled up a low stone wall, and from the vines bloomed the reddest and most lovely flowers—or they would have been lovely had they not emitted an eerie, insectile hum. Further on, a cloud of red spores danced about a copse of man-high fungi spiderwebbed with thick veins. Avery decided it would be best not to touch any food grown here.
The priests picked their way down a cobbled path, past stone buildings and over several bridges that spanned crackling streamlets complete with unnatural fish and fringed by strange growths, and at last toward a white, graceful cottage set amid trees and covered in lush vines. Lights shine from the windows and music drifted from the open door on the porch. This must be the House of the Spirits, so-called because all who dwelt within were the living dead. Only those who’d pledged themselves to walk the Road stayed here, and their residence was of course temporary. When Layanna had described it to him, Avery had imagined a dark, somber abode of the damned, a shadowy place where zealots wept and prayed in the corners.
Thus he was quite surprised when the priests bustled him into a bright living area where what looked like a college debauch was taking place. Popular, jazzy music streamed from a gramophone and revelers in various stages of undress danced with each other while bottles of beer and wine floated almost sorcerously about the room. Beautiful young women led men from the room by hand, or the reverse, and Avery didn’t have to imagine what they went to do; the sound of it echoed throughout the cottage, as loud as the radio.
A lovely young woman, giggling and flushed, pressed herself against him and planted her lips on his neck. Her firm full breasts pressed against him. Despite himself, a particular heat rose inside him.