by David Beers
The thought ended quickly, though. There was no more going to that man for anything, ever again. Soon, Raylyn wouldn’t be able to go to any Priest for anything, ever again.
Raylyn walked around the Shrine’s hallways slowly, trying to gain some measure of understanding as to what was happening around her. People moving quickly, everyone in a rush, both Priests and Priestesses. Even the staff seemed to be in on it.
Raylyn resisted using her nanotech to try and understand; she doubted she was being monitored anymore. If a drone had been flying above her, then she’d be scheduled for execution just like Manor. Still, not being actively monitored didn’t mean she should use her nanotech to start looking into things. There most likely was a heightened watch on any commands stemming from her, at least inside the Shrine. The First Priest didn’t trust her and Raylyn understood that was her fault. She had loved Corinth, and so the disrespect she’d shown the First Priest hadn’t really mattered. In the end, the only judgment she had feared was Corinth’s.
Now, Raylyn was quickly coming to understand that the real judgment to be concerned with came from the First Priest’s mouth.
Walking the hallways, Raylyn thought the center of this movement was actually occurring at the Shrine’s bottom. She’d stepped outside and saw that the last five platforms were clear, meaning that people were prohibited from going on them. Rarely, if ever, was an entire platform free of people. Yet, those five were.
Raylyn didn’t venture down, but rather, she went upstairs. The higher she went, the less people she saw, until she ended up at the highest level she could attain—and hardly witnessed a single person.
It was there, alone and at the top of the Shrine, that she saw what had been happening.
She caught them out of the corner of her eye first; ships flying into the sky. They looked small from this distance, but Raylyn had stood on transports like them and knew they were anything but that. She moved to the large window lining the hallway and watched. At some point, another lone stranger walked into the hallway—seeing the ships for the first time—and stood 10 feet down the hall to watch as well.
“What is it?” the stranger, a woman, asked.
“It’s war,” Raylyn said without even thinking. There could be nothing else that many ships were for. No prisoner transfer, no diplomatic envoy. Those were war ships and they were heading up, toward the surface, where they would venture outside to kill.
“The war is over,” the woman said. “The weapon is dead.”
The second part was true. The first obviously wasn’t.
War.
Why? At this point? Were they attacking another Ministry, using the weakness found across the world to gain a stronger foothold?
Raylyn had no answers and the path to them was cut off from her now.
I, unfortunately, won’t be able to attend, but I do think it will show your commitment to Corinth and the True Faith to be there.
That’s what the First Priest had told her. He wouldn’t be at Manor’s execution. This was why, these ships and this new war.
Okay, she thought. This is better than what you figured. You might not die now.
Might not, but probably will, that stubborn part said.
She wouldn’t deny its truth. Now that she understood what was happening, there was a lot more to be done. Perhaps too much. Still, this was good news. The First Priest gone, and perhaps half the True Faith’s remaining armed forces. There would be an execution, but it wouldn’t be nearly as heavily guarded.
Raylyn made her way back downstairs, past her own floor, and to the one where the prisoners were being held. She didn’t go to Manor’s cell, though.
This is insane, her stubborn side said. For the last time, this is insane.
Raylyn had spent the last night arguing with this newly formed part of herself. The part that seemed to arise with Manor’s telling of his life. It wasn’t going away, and it refused to agree with anything she wanted.
Yet, it kept telling her the truth, because this was stupid. Suicidally so.
Raylyn had made up her mind, though, and it didn’t matter what her stubborn half said. She’d sat in that room yesterday and said your Holiness, and my First Priest, and we give thanks. She said these things and cast her eyes down at the proper moments, all of it making herself subservient to a … to a man. Nothing else. Not a Priest. Not a keeper of knowledge. Not a person with sacred connections to gods. She’d made herself subservient to a man, and that was for the last time.
Raylyn knew the First Priest had kept the two prisoners they brought back, both of them servants of the Black. Raylyn knew nothing about Rhett Scoble, and she knew little about Rebecca Hollowborne, but she knew that the woman had turned her brother in. Had, apparently, possessed the knowledge of how to save him at the end, and yet did nothing with it. The woman killed her brother, if not with her hand, then her mind … and yet, Raylyn knew Rebecca Hollowborne held no love for Corinth at all. It wasn’t simply odd, but paradoxical.
Raylyn might set off alarms among the Priest class by showing up at Hollowborne’s cell, but the ships outside made her think the chances were low. She wasn’t sure how much the actual Council cared about her, but was coming to think she might be a pet project for the First Priest.
And he couldn’t attend Manor’s execution, after all. He would be gone.
She’d expected a Disciple at the door, but instead, she simply saw an assistant.
Show identification, she told her nanotech.
“I need entrance,” Raylyn said aloud.
The assistant stood up, his nanotech registering Raylyn’s priority.
“This prisoner is off limits to all personnel,” the assistant said. He swallowed at the end of his sentence though, obviously not liking the position he was now in. Raylyn’s nanotech registered his quickly, immediately understanding how much higher her position was than his.
That’s what happens when you start a new war. Only the low are left to protect home.
“I’m entering whether you like it or not. Why don’t you go ahead and check the public registry about my name. I served with honor in the last war against the Black, and received Corinth’s Will because of it. You’re going to let me in, and after, you can feel free to go to the Council and see if they gave me permission.”
Raylyn stared at him as if he were a suspect the Prevention Division had chased down. She brooked neither dissent nor argument. There was only her will, ironclad, and with Corinth’s blessing.
She saw the hesitation in the man’s face, but knew she’d won. He was checking her name and seeing the public pronouncement of what she’d received. He knew her name now, recognized it as almost anyone who heard it would. Raylyn, face unknown, had become a famous name when the Council revealed the coin they gave her.
“Oh-Okay,” he stuttered.
Raylyn had access to Manor’s cell, her own nanotech able to open that door, but not here. She needed the assistant.
His eyes lit green, and the wall to her left flickered away, the sound similar to running water filling her ears as it did.
Raylyn remained still, keeping her eyes on the assistant. “This is a private conversation about things you’re not privy to. Walk away, and when we’re finished, I’ll summon you.”
The assistant was already broken, and while he looked like he might try to protest, after a second he simply nodded. Raylyn watched him walk away and then turned to the open wall.
Hollowborne stood next to a cot, her hands at her sides.
Raylyn entered and the wall flickered closed behind her.
“You remember me?” she asked.
Hollowborne nodded.
“Good. Sit down.” Raylyn waited until the woman sat and then moved to the stool in the middle of the room. She sensed her nanotech wouldn’t work in here, imagining that the First Priest had set it up so only his could operate inside. That was fine, it wasn’t nanotech she needed right now.
The insanity her stubborn half kept speaking
about began on the other side of the wall, with the assistant. But here is where it would really grow out of hand. Because now she was about to speak in a room that was being monitored, constantly, and if the First Priest heard it, there would be nowhere Raylyn could hide.
But he’s not here, she thought. He’s off starting some new war.
That doesn’t mean he won’t receive reports directly to his fucking nanotech, her stubborn side said.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Stupidity and ego were driving Raylyn, though if there were any difference between the two, she didn’t know. She had given her life to a belief that began with those silly videos—Corinth’s Love and other such nonsense—and now she was going to make a stand against it. A bold, insane stand that would most likely end in her own execution.
But the First Priest wasn’t here, and so she was going forward.
Raylyn looked at Hollowborne. She was thinner than when Raylyn apprehended her, even a mere week taking pounds off her frame. There’d been a hardness to her when Raylyn first saw her at the One Path’s Ministry, but the weight loss had turned it into an edge.
“Do you know Manor Reinheld?” Raylyn asked.
Hollowborne shook her head. No.
Raylyn doubted either of the prisoners here knew him. His rank had been low, but perhaps that wouldn’t matter.
“What made you do it?” she asked.
Hollowborne closed her eyes and took in a large breath of air, then let out a long sigh. “Why do you care? Why does that matter to any of you?”
“That’s not your concern. I want to know why you did it, and you’re going to tell me.”
Eyes still closed, Hollowborne said, “You won’t understand.”
“Doesn’t matter. Tell me.”
“Because there is truth beyond David’s. There is truth beyond the Unformed.”
“What’s that truth?”
Hollowborne opened her eyes. “It’s not something that can be told. It has to be experienced.”
“Then show me.”
“I can’t,” Hollowborne said, her face not moving, her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t have the ability.”
Raylyn didn’t think the woman was lying, but it wasn’t good enough. She needed to be sure.
“Is it because of Corinth?”
Hollowborne’s eyes grew wide and she barked out a laugh. A harsh, surprised thing. “You’re kidding?”
“Is it?”
“No. Corinth had nothing to do with it.”
Raylyn nodded. “The rest of those you served with. Rhett Scoble. What do you think about all of them?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you want them to die like you did your brother?”
“I didn’t want him to die,” Hollowborne snapped, the first true emotion she’d shown. “There wasn’t any other choice. I don’t want those that followed him to die, either, and if I could stop it, I would. You and your kind are the ones killing them. Not me.”
“What if we could save a couple?” Raylyn asked, knowing that single sentence could very possibly bring about her own death.
Hollowborne’s head snapped back, her eyes narrowing. “What are you talking about?”
“Exactly what I said. If you care about them, what if we could save them?”
“This is a trick,” Hollowborne said.
Raylyn shook her head, but remained silent.
“Why? Why would you do that?”
“Because maybe there is truth beyond Corinth, too.”
Rebecca remained in her cell after Raylyn Brinson left. She thought, with almost complete certainty, that the First Priest would return with torture instruments, ready to get to work on her—or better yet, perhaps showing her the instruments they would use on Rhett and Christine.
There simply wasn’t any way that the woman had been telling the truth.
Yet the slow minutes ticked into slow hours, and no one came to Rebecca’s room. No First Priest, nor anyone else. She was left alone, and the empty hours made her start thinking insane thoughts.
She might actually get out of here, alive. Rhett and Christine, too. She didn’t know this Manor Reinheld, but if he’d followed David, then she would do whatever she could to help him as well. He’d been tricked, just like everyone else—including David. Reinheld didn’t deserve the fate the True Faith had planned for him.
Rebecca was beginning to think they might all escape, and that was … dangerous. Because it couldn’t happen. Those in the True Faith didn’t give up their beliefs; no one in any ministry did. They all followed blindly until death, but this woman was saying it wasn’t the case for her.
All Rebecca could do was wait and hope. Brinson said she’d return when it was time, and that Rebecca would need to be ready to act.
“What about Rhett and Christine?” she’d asked.
“I’ll handle it,” Brinson had told her.
“When?”
“A little less than 48 hours.”
It was an eternity, despite the fact that Rebecca had passed so many hours in the exact same fashion. Before, she wanted to prolong the hours spent alone, because each one meant she wasn’t next to the First Priest. Now, though, there was hope on the other side of the long wait. Maybe.
The First Priest came in the night, though not like Rebecca had expected.
Her wall lit up, the one across from her cot, and the Priest’s face filled it.
“We give thanks,” his voice boomed across the small cell.
Rebecca had been drifting in and out of sleep, but she jolted up at the horrific sound.
“Too loud?” the First asked, grinning a bit. “How about now?”
His voice lowered with the second sentence, but Rebecca had already climbed into the corner of her cot and was leaning against the wall. She kept the blanket wrapped around her body, her mind racing. It was over. All the silly thoughts from earlier were nothing, mere distractions from the pain she and her former friends would now face. Because the First Priest knew, and he’d come to tell of his knowledge.
“I’m sorry that I can’t be there in person. I have some other things taking my attention, but I didn’t want that to stop the progress we’re making. I think we might have someone else joining us soon, and your brother’s story could be very helpful when she arrives.”
“What?” Rebecca asked, sure that this was a trick too. She knew who he was talking about: the woman that David had tried to kill.
“Yes. With any luck Nicki Sesam will be joining our little cabal, but I’m not going to have much time to speak with you after tonight, so I thought we could finish the weapon’s story. At least the portion that occurred when he was a child.”
“Now?” Rebecca said. Her pulse was slowing some, though her body still tingled from the adrenaline pulsing through it.
“Yes, now,” the First Priest said.
Rebecca blinked, finally coming to understand that he didn’t know. Or at least, if he did know, he wasn’t going to tell her right now. He wanted to hear about David.
Rebecca closed her eyes, partly thankful and partly hating what came next. She didn’t want to think about her brother, nor speak of him, but as usual, there was no choice in the matter.
“Where do you want me to start?” she asked, eyes still closed.
“You two escaped. I think you told me everything useful there, but I want to hear about what happened when he met the Black. So, let’s go ahead and begin at that point.” The First Priest grinned again. “You awake enough? If not, I can up the volume again.”
“I’m fine,” Rebecca said. She was seeing David’s face behind her closed eyelids. She missed her brother, and now she would have to talk about the part that changed everything. The part that put them on two courses destined to collide, though neither of them knew it at the time.
He was 14 years old.
I would have been nine.
We were basically street urchins. If the Unformed had been looking out for us when you killed
our parents, and then again when we escaped, It certainly wasn’t for the few years after we left. We rarely had a roof over our heads. Most nights, we waited until it grew late, and then we’d try curling up on the bottom platform of some building.
The days were harder, though. If we’d been above ground, it actually might have been easier. Of course, we’d have had the elements to deal with, but there would have been more places to hide. The True Faith isn’t built for the homeless, as the homeless use their feet for transportation. Where can anyone walk inside the True Faith? Sure, in major cities bridges connect buildings to buildings, but dirty, smelly kids are quickly noticed.
And a dirty, smelly kid that didn’t have any nanotech in him, like David? Well, he would be noticed even quicker.
I don’t know, maybe the Unformed was still molding David, even then. David’s rage and hate had been solidified in the True Faith’s orphanage. His time on the street, with me in tow, created a steel in him. I don’t know if it would have matched Veritros’s, but I know that he survived it all at only 14 years old, while also making sure that nothing happened to his little sister.
Maybe everything was part of the Unformed’s plan.
Days were mainly spent scurrying from building to building, looking for places to hide while constantly hunting for food. If our main focus was not getting caught, then a close second was ensuring we ate. That was it. That was our lives. Stay free, stay fed. We managed the first, but not always the second. The longest we went without food was three days, and that pushed David to a point I don’t think he would have reached otherwise.
I don’t know if it was his own hunger, or seeing mine, but whichever it was, he left our hiding place with an anger I hadn’t seen in him before. I’d come to know it well later, but that might have been the very first time I saw it.
It was as if he was mad at the world, because he saw the way it should be, yet it refused to conform. That day, he took the anger out on a fat man. I can’t remember what the fat man had been eating, but David walked across the platform as if the SkyLight wasn’t full bright and people weren’t standing all around. Shopping, talking, walking—a usual day without fear of such righteous anger.