Quintessence Sky

by David Walton

  With this power, could he help her reach the surface again? The idea gave her pause. As much as she wanted to return to the colony and her family, she wasn't sure if she should talk Maasha Kaatra into taking her there. Once he reached the surface, with the power of lightning and more at his command, what would he do? Whose side would he be on?

  CHAPTER 15

  NEWS of the miraculous burning of Charles Shiveley spread through London like fire through a wooden shantytown. The effect was more dramatic than Ramos would have imagined. It divided Englishmen into two camps: those who fanatically worshipped Philip and Mary as God's representatives on Earth, and those who called them devils and plotted to overthrow them and put Elizabeth on the throne. Some of the lords of questionable loyalty had already disappeared from London, and there was some possibility that, like the rebellion by Thomas Wyatt of a year before, they were gathering a force to march on the city.

  The unrest only increased when the second nova appeared in the sky. Hundreds more joined the ranks of the mad. The country was in chaos. Ramos quickly determined that all of the newly mad had been born in a five day span under the constellation Aquarius. He told King Philip, but if the intelligence interested him, he didn't show it. Philip continued to use the madness for his own purposes, making proclamations about God's judgment on the faithless and the need for heretics to submit to the Roman Church.

  The missives sent from Rome were more or less the same, denouncing the madness as the judgment of God. Those who remained should repent and return to God lest the same judgment fall upon them. It shook Ramos more than he wanted to admit. How could it be true that everyone born at a certain time of year had earned God's judgment? Of course, all had sinned, and so all were deserving of God's wrath. Perhaps it was a sign to the rest of them not to be complacent. Perhaps God would continue to bring random judgments until the Church was reunited and the apostates returned to the fold. He clung to that explanation, but it didn't sit comfortably in his mind.

  It didn't sit comfortably with the rest of the population, either. Demonstrations for Elizabeth sprang up throughout the country, despite Philip and Mary's attempts to suppress them. Finally, Philip commanded that Princess Elizabeth be brought back to London from her house arrest in the royal residence at Woodstock. After a rebellion the previous year, Elizabeth had been imprisoned in the Tower. Philip had originally argued for her release, suggesting that her power was better neutralized by taking her away from public view and finding her a Catholic husband. In the fervor after Shiveley's execution, however, the chance that she would be rescued from Woodstock and assault London at the head of a Protestant army was just too great.

  At first, Elizabeth said she was too sick to come, until Philip insisted she be brought even if she die on the way. When she finally did leave, she turned a four-day journey into six with frequent stops and requests for rest. Common people thronged her way, giving her flowers and sweets and prompting Mary's jealousy.

  Ramos woke on Palm Sunday to the news that Elizabeth had finally arrived. Ramos had been born on el Domingo de Ramos—Palm Sunday—making it his birthday of sorts, though of course the date of the holiday was different every year. He went out with the crowds, wanting to get a glimpse of this young woman who inspired such hatred and such love.

  It became clear that the holiday had been at least partly the reason behind Elizabeth's delay. The symbolism of her entering the city on Palm Sunday was lost on no one: she was the savior of her people, coming to be killed by evil men. It was a religious analogy in which she played the part of Christ, and Philip and Mary the parts of the wicked Roman and Jewish leaders, and the people ate it up. Her carriage windows were open wide, and she waved at the massive crowd that gathered.

  It was the first time Ramos had seen the young princess. She was pretty after a fashion, with a strong chin and striking red hair, but her cheeks were drawn and her skin was unnaturally pale. Either she had genuinely been sick, as she claimed, or she had powdered her face to give that impression.

  In fact, prisoner or no, Ramos realized Elizabeth had thoroughly orchestrated this whole affair to turn public opinion in her favor. Her arrival was supposed to be a secret; Philip had wanted her safely stowed in the Tower before anyone knew she was there, but somehow the word had spread. Her claims of illness, her plain dress, her appearance now as a weak and suffering maiden with no one to protect her: all were calculated to stir the hearts of young patriots to rush to her aid. Ramos could see why she was so dangerous.

  The crowd lined the road all the way to the Tower. When they reached it, Elizabeth drew back in fear at the sight of the fortress prison she had only so recently left, and Ramos thought the terror on her face was genuine. She certainly had good reason to think she might not leave the Tower grounds alive, as her cousin, the Lady Jane, had not. Or was she that shrewd, to play to the crowd even now?

  As they took her inside, the crowd pressed forward, crying out comfort to her, until the yeoman warders standing guard fired their matchlocks in the air. Mounted soldiers rode through, forcing the people to disperse.

  Despite the king's desire for secrecy, everyone in the city now knew that the Princess Elizabeth had arrived. If anything, it only heightened revolutionary feeling. Every day, more rumors came to London of this or that lord calling his people to arms, of the Queen's tax collectors attacked by mobs, of rotting vegetables hurled at Catholic priests in the street. Every day, Ramos feared he would look beyond the wall to see an army of peasants marching on the city.

  It was hard to respect a people that could be so fickle. Less than two years before, it had been Mary who was washed into London on a tide of popular approval, to throw down a pretender to the throne without a shot fired. Had she lost their love, simply because she had married a Spaniard? Or had this country been so thoroughly corrupted by Protestantism that they now hated anyone of the True Faith? Somehow the miracle of the burning of Charles Shiveley had galvanized them. The story was on everyone's lips, and even at court, three times as many people claimed to have witnessed the event than could actually have been there.

  Ramos had to admit that King Philip's plan had misfired. He had intended to use the miracle to claim divine sanction for his rule and thus earn submission and awe from the people. In Spain, it would have worked. But most Englishmen had been raised in the age of Henry VIII. They had learned from their youth that Popes could be defied, that sacred laws could be rewritten, and that if you wanted something badly enough, you could simply take it, and ask for forgiveness later. It was a totally godless country, degenerate in ways Ramos had never dreamed of before coming here. King Henry's blasphemy ran deep, and now his sins were being visited on the next generation. At this rate, the Church would be ousted from England once again, and another generation of sinners would be lost to the devil.

  To combat this threat, Philip and Mary needed power. The king dreamed of establishing the True Church permanently, not just in England, but across the world. To do that, he needed military might and vast quantities of gold, enough to quell heresy not just in the cities, but in a thousand towns and hamlets. And he was looking to Ramos de Tavera to give him that power. Ramos had failed the first time, but he would not do so again.

  He returned to the cellar and determined not to leave it until he had succeeded in producing a weapon worthy of the king's vision. For the Church to prevail, it had to fight against wickedness in any way it could. This was why God had brought him to England: so that the armies of the True Church could overrun the Protestants and Musselmen and put an end to war and heresy forever. So they would all finally see whose side God was truly on. The fact that Ramos himself had been tempted to doubt the Church as of late was all the more reason to focus his energies.

  When he was a boy, Ramos had admired the brightly clad soldiers who battled the infidels and drove them from the land, but he had never had the strength or courage to be a soldier. He was an intellectual. But now, God had called him to fight in a different way, a way that
could ultimately make a greater difference to the spread of the Church through heathen lands. He would use this divine gift to create an army of God, devout and invincible.

  From now on, he would not doubt. No more following his own ideas of right and wrong; no more secret investigations to satisfy his own curiosity. From this day forward, he would live a life of service and obedience as he had always known he should: first to God, then to the pope, then to the king. Fortunately, all three were in agreement. It made his path clear.

  Perhaps if he was faithful for long enough, then someday God would see fit to give Antonia back to him again.

  MATTHEW saw the second nova appear just before the storm blackened the sky, an event that a few days ago would have seemed crucially important. The salt would now be leached out of the soil at double the rate. For all he knew, there might be no salt left anywhere on the island in a few days time. But it hardly seemed to matter. With the loss of the settlement, their needs were more immediate. They needed shelter, food, water. They couldn't stay at the farms. There wasn't enough room for all of them, nor enough supplies. They would have to leave in the morning and find somewhere else to go. Only there wasn't anywhere else to go.

  The dark clouds opened and rain pelted the landscape. In a flash of lightning, Matthew saw a few gray shapes outside the barrier. Manticores. It was dark, and besides, he had no skink tears, so he had no way of telling how many of them were out there. They must have seen the burning of the settlement and come to investigate. Now they knew the colonists were vulnerable and were only waiting for them to venture out.

  The colonists crowded into the largest room, arguing about what to do. There were no good solutions, and tempers flared. Some favored running for the bay and surrendering to the Spanish. With no settlement left, they argued, they couldn't survive on the island anyway, and the only way off was on those Spanish ships, in chains. Perhaps the Spanish would give lenient treatment in return for knowledge about quintessence or the island.

  Others considered that option nothing less than treason. They favored running for the woods, or the mountains, or the cliffs. If they moved quickly, perhaps they could be gone before the manticores gathered in large numbers. They could go into hiding, live outdoors. The island was huge; they could travel for days until they found another spot to build again. By the time the manticores or Spanish found them, they would be strong again, and ready.

  "Remember, you are Englishmen!" Ferguson said. He was a coward, but he could talk big when he wanted to. "Englishmen do not surrender. Our nation suffers under the rule of her enemies, but it will not be so forever. Sometimes I wish we had stayed at home. Surely by now good men are rising up to fight the oppression of Rome and Spain and raise the Princess Elizabeth to her rightful throne! We are far from that war, but the war has come to us. We must do our part. We must not give in!"

  He was cheered by some, but others shouted him down, protesting that they had no weapons and no food. Matthew brooded in the back, not participating in the argument. What right did he have to offer an opinion? In former days, he would have done so readily, and many would have listened to him. They might still. But what made him think his ideas had any merit? He might just get them all killed.

  Finally, he tired of listening to them and slipped outside to be by himself. The thunderheads had rushed down from the north like a blanket thrown over their heads, completely obscuring the sky. He wondered how it was for Catherine. If she could see the same clouds. If she was even alive.

  A gentle hand touched his cheek. He looked down to see Blanca, her face a picture of compassion. She melted against him, fitting perfectly in his arms, and he held on to her like a life raft. He should not be touching her, he knew, should not even be alone with her, but he was losing everything, including any sense of who he was or what mattered. He could no longer think of himself as the capable young miracle worker who commanded the respect of everyone who knew him. He was a fraud. Just a child who had fooled everyone into thinking they could trust him. Only now his secret was out.

  He needed Catherine, but Catherine wasn't here. Blanca tilted her head back and looked up at him with wide, dark eyes filled with concern. "You did the best you could."

  He grunted angrily. It was just what he wanted to believe, but he knew it wasn't true. "I experimented with something when I had no idea what it would do, without any help or advice. It's exactly how Sinclair killed his servant and nearly destroyed the island. And it's only by the slimmest of luck that I didn't kill you."

  She pressed closer to him. "Hush. I'm all right. Besides, I was there, too. I'm just as much to blame."

  He shook his head dismissively. "I was the one who—"

  She laid a finger against his mouth. "We had no way of knowing what was on the other side of that connection. We'd never seen or heard of anything like that miasma. Catherine hadn't either, or she wouldn't have gone into it."

  "You think—"

  Her finger against his lips again. "Hush."

  He shouldn't be here, alone in the dark with this young and beautiful woman while his fiancée was missing. She was telling him everything he desperately wanted to believe: that this crisis wasn't his fault, that he was worthy of admiration, that the future was bright with promise. Holding her, he could almost feel that everything was all right. But none of it was true, and he knew it.

  He pulled away. "Catherine is still alive," he said.

  There were tears in her eyes. "I want that to be true as much as you," she said. "She was my only friend."

  He felt exhausted, too overcome with sadness to speak anymore. He shook his head. "I can't," he said. He left her and circled to the other side of the building, where he dropped down and sat in the dirt, ashamed and overwhelmed. What if Catherine really was dead? What if they never even knew for sure?

  A memory surfaced, down at the shore of the bay with Catherine, unchaparoned. In England, it would have been impossible to spend time with her like that, at least not without a great scandal, but on Horizon it was easier. The two of them were so often exploring in the forest that their absence caused little notice.

  It had been before the storms started, and the bay was still, the weather cool. They sat together on some of the soft moss that was more common than leaves in Horizon forests, and watched the sand tortoises lumbering along in the surf. When they used their tongues to kiss—something he was sure his father had never done and would denounce as lewd behavior—they traded enough quintessence-infused saliva that the principle of substitution came into play. For a few minutes, he could feel what she felt, and vice versa. If he brushed his own arm, he felt nothing, but she could feel it clearly. If she licked her lips, she felt nothing, but he could feel the sensation on his own mouth. It didn't last long, but it was deliciously intimate, and the thought made him flush with guilty pleasure. He missed her so much.

  A hand clasped his shoulder, too large and strong to be Blanca's. It was his father. Bishop Marcheford didn't say anything, just sat down in the dirt next to him and squeezed his shoulders in a tight, one-handed embrace. At first, Matthew felt a flare of anger—he didn't want to deal with his father right now—but then it left him in a rush and he found that he was crying. He had felt so superior to his father, so certain that he knew what was best.

  "I'm afraid she's dead," Matthew said. "I was just trying to find her. I was supposed to rescue her, and instead, I destroyed everything."

  The anger came back again, as fast as it had gone. Why was he saying this? His father would just tell him that he shouldn't have messed with quintessence in the first place, that if Matthew had just listened to him, it never would have happened. He would spout platitudes about Catherine being in a better place and about submitting to the perfect will of God.

  "We have to kill them," his father said.

  Matthew gaped at him. "What?"

  "The Spanish. At the very least, we have to force them off the island. If quintessence gets into the hands of King Philip, then the Papists will
sweep across the world and the fledgling Protestant churches scattered throughout Europe will perish. Another thousand years may go by before someone else has the courage and conviction to stand against them again."

  Matthew hardly knew how to answer. "Father? There are maybe sixty of us left alive. The Spanish will have hundreds of armed soldiers and heavy weaponry. With the colony intact, with a large store of salt at our disposal, we might be able to do it. But now? We have no homes, no salt, no store of weapons. We couldn't take twenty paces away from this spot without being killed by a manticore sentry. How do you expect us to drive off the Spanish? We should be begging them for mercy."

  "Mercy? You saw the kind of mercy the Spanish showed the last time they were here."

  "And what do you want me to do about it? Don't look to me for a miracle."

  "I've seen what you can do. If Catherine were here, you wouldn't be sitting in the dirt licking your wounds. You'd be mobilizing for war."

  "She's not here. She's either turned into a statue in a pool of miasma, or she's lying dead at the bottom of a cave shaft." Matthew let all his bitterness show, all his frustration and helplessness. "And there's nothing I can do about it."

  His father released his shoulders and turned to meet his eyes. His voice was hard. "You don't know that. You're giving in to the devil's lies. You're believing that there's no hope, that you're a failure, and it's just not true. Wake up! Your enemies are out there, not in here."

  "You don't know what I did. This whole disaster, it was—"

  "I don't care what you did. It was the gray manticores who took Catherine. It wasn't me, and it certainly wasn't you. And it's the Spanish who are going to kill anyone the grays leave behind, and then use all your inventions to enslave the world. Take all your anger and pour it where it belongs—not into feeling sorry for yourself and reliving your mistakes, but in destroying the evil that's all around us."