Quintessence Sky

by David Walton

  "England has priests enough, but they are all English. The hearts of this country are rash and too easily captured by a pretty young woman. I wish Elizabeth to be attended only by my own countrymen. Besides, you worked with the torturers in Spain, I believe?"

  Ramos swallowed. "Briefly, Your Grace. But the sacrament of Holy Confession . . ."

  The king waved his free arm. "Still your fears. I do not want her body touched. That would only fuel the fire were it to become known, as I have no doubt it would. Somehow, it always does. You should speak with her only. Manipulate her. Learn her fears and insecurities. Gain her trust, and find out how much she knows. You are an intellectual, the sort she admires. Argue with her. Insinuate doubts about her Protestant faith into her mind. Try to discover with whom she communicates, and how.

  "There are few people I can trust to this duty. With anyone else, I would fear betrayal, that they would themselves become the means for Elizabeth to communicate with her allies. I know you are loyal to the True Church and to me."

  The king met his eye. He wasn't just talking about Ramos's faith. He was talking about Antonia. He knew that Ramos's dedication to the Church was strong, but more than that, he knew that Ramos could silenced by any threat to Antonia. He was an exotic pet, but a safe one. A tiger with his claws clipped.

  Head bowed, Ramos accepted the king's other hand and trimmed and filed the nails, troubled by his thoughts, but knowing he would obey.

  CHAPTER 17

  IT was the largest gathering of manticores in the memory of Rinchirith's family, and his family went back hundreds of years. There was unrest in the deep places, and the tribes were afraid. Rinchirith was not afraid: he knew that marvelous things were happening, which was why, at long last, the tribes were looking to him to lead them.

  They gathered at Judgment Gorge, the largest of the great rifts in the mountains, where the deep places sometimes glowed red, and steam rose from vents in the rocks. Cracks like this had been opening more frequently as of late, emitting foul odors and sometimes gouts of hot water. One of the fountains of forgetting had actually boiled.

  All of these things increased fear among the families, and more memory bonds had been traded than Rinchirith could remember. The tribes were becoming one unified nation, and he—he, Rinchirith!—was at its head, finally earning the loyalty and respect of them all. Even the reds, those weak advocates of the humans, had sent a delegation. Soon, the manticores would rid themselves of the human plague and become the powerful people they were meant to be.

  Perhaps they would even travel across the sea to the human land. It must be a small place, compared to the vastness of Horizon. The manticores would build their own ships and, in time, conquer the humans, as well as any other new lands and creatures they might discover. It was their birthright. And it would all be because of him, because of Rinchirith!

  "The earth snakes are rising!" Rinchirith yelled. The Gorge made low groaning and cracking noises from deep inside, loudly enough that it was hard to hear voices. Others relayed Rinchirith's words through the crowd, so that every time he spoke, an echo of shouts carried what he said through the gathering.

  "They have accepted the star-bird as our sacrifice," he said. "Now they urge us to finish the work. We must eradicate the human plague from our land!"

  There was a surge of noise from the manticores at that, some disagreeing, but most roaring their approval. As they should. They owed nothing to the humans, who had brought only death and destruction. Those who had joined the cult of Christ, worshipping a human god, were the worst of all. Who ever heard of a god that lived in the sky? It was ridiculous. The converts were not ridiculous, however. They were traitors to their own race, and deserved a traitor's death.

  He would not suggest that to this crowd, however. One victory at a time. First, destroy the humans and solidify his own primacy. Then he would have the power to kill whoever deserved it.

  Rinchirith lifted high a hollowed plant stalk. Behind him, the Gorge rumbled. "Witness the dance of the lords of the earth!" he screamed, and drank the contents of the stalk.

  A thick, sticky liquid filled his mouth. It was a diluted quantity of a poisonous sap, lethal in larger quantities. Rinchirith had drunk it so many times that he could handle a dose that would kill a younger manticore. When it didn't kill, it gave the drinker strong and powerful visions which, if he were wise, he could interpret and communicate to the rest of his tribe. Rinchirith drank it now in order to see the earth snakes and know, for certain, what they wanted him to do. He also did it because it was expected; without this rite, the manticores would never follow him. If he was to be their leader, he had to be in communion with the spirits of the deep.

  He choked the liquid down and coughed violently. It wasn't long before he felt its fire ripping through his bones, his tails, his skull. His head felt like it was lifting off, stretching up and away and out of his body. His limbs jerked, and he fell on his face. He stumbled up again, and his body convulsed, stiff limbs moving of their own accord. The world swirled and twisted through his vision, changing shape, stretching and smearing like sap. Somehow, he kept his balance, and began the spasmodic, involuntary dance of the earth.

  Faster and faster he danced, raising his arms and tails and shrieking as he spun. He felt vomit soaking his fur, but it was nothing to him, unimportant compared to the rush of motion. "The lords of the earth speak!" he shouted. Then the visions began.

  CATHERINE put her arms around Maasha Kaatra's neck and climbed onto his back. It was like climbing a rock face; his muscles were granite, and he barely shifted to support her weight. His black skin glowed, and he was hot to the touch.

  "Hold tightly," he said.

  "What if I can't?"

  "I will not leave you," Maasha Kaatra said, prompting another twinge of guilt on Catherine's part. It was her fault that any of this had happened to him.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "It must have been awful for you down here, all alone."

  "But I am not alone," he said.

  He raised his arms. She clung to him. His skin glowed, but the light was warm, not harsh. From above them, the swirling river of spirits suddenly dipped and flowed directly toward them. It rushed around them like a flock of birds, each one darting and veering but moving together as a group. More streams of the spirits poured in through every crack and tunnel, lighting up the cavern like the evening sun.

  The spirit lights began to alight on Maasha Kaatra's skin, and on Catherine as well, like moths touching down, soft and delicate. She could hear them all speaking like the noise of a faraway crowd, a murmur without words or meaning. Before long, they were covered in lights.

  "Now," Maasha Kaatra said, lifting his arms still higher, "we rise."

  At his words, they lifted into the air. The walls of the cave shaft glowed bright with their ascent.

  THE growling of the earth behind Rinchirith grew louder. The gathered manticore assembly started to snap their pincered hands together in steady rhythm, and the sound was like rocks breaking. Rinchirith danced and screamed, screamed and danced. Others wailed and danced, too, and the beat of their snapping pincers gradually sped up and intensified.

  The Gorge was like a great beast's mouth, rising to swallow him. As he watched, it grew eyes and claws and clambered out of the earth. It was a vision, real and yet not real, and Rinchirith faced it without fear. He danced for its delight, and it snapped at him, but he was not devoured.

  A red glow came from the mouth of the Gorge beast, like a furnace of flame. The grass under Rinchirith's feet split and formed a chorus of a million tiny voices, shrieking and biting at his ankles. He screamed and fell again, and the grass-mouths tore at his flesh as he writhed. These were the visions. If he endured them and did not quail, he would eventually gain mastery over the spirit and force it to answer a question.

  The combined tribes were with him, the relentless snapping of their pincers audible even through his anguish. The rhythm gave him strength, and he rose, crushing the
grass-mouths under his feet. The snapping raced ever faster, speeding him toward the moment when he would take control.

  He saw, in his mind's eye, the human nations far away. He saw their spirits, millions of them, covering an endless land far larger than Horizon, more land than he had ever imagined could exist. He saw the humans landing on Horizon in great numbers, ship after ship after ship, inexorable. There were so many of them. He had hoped to destroy them, but no one could destroy this multitude.

  The earth shook. At first, Rinchirith took it for part of the vision, but the pincer rhythm faltered, and many of the manticores in the assembly fell down. The ground bucked again, harder this time, and Rinchrith went sprawling, suddenly afraid. What sort of spirit had he summoned?

  He sat up and found that the human spirits were here, already surrounding him. Tiny, diffuse patches of brightness whirled everywhere, spinning and fluttering and landing on him. He leaped to his feet, trying to brush them off, but he couldn't. This was unlike any vision he had ever had before, but he couldn't show fear, not now.

  The ground shook hard enough to rattle his teeth in his skull, and the Gorge started to tear, the edge shifting back like a huge flower opening. Rinchirith tumbled down the slope, and suddenly a geyser of the spirit lights erupted out of the hole. They filled the sky and the air around him. The crowd of manticores panicked, running in every direction. And in the densest cluster of lights . . . it couldn't be.

  A human man stood on the edge of the Gorge, a man Rinchirith recognized and had thought long dead. And on his back, the star-bird, Catherine Parris. Only now did Rinchirith succumb to the fear. It bubbled up in him like boiling water, and he knew that this time, he would not be taking control.

  The lords of the earth had spoken, but they had not spoken for Rinchirith.

  CHAPTER 18

  PRINCESS ELIZABETH huddled wretchedly in a corner of her cell, her face drawn and pale. This time, she had not been allowed to bring her ladies-in-waiting into captivity with her, so she was alone. The cell, if it could be called that, was comfortable, with a large fireplace, windows looking out on the keep, a large bed, two chairs, a table, and a writing desk.

  "Why does she look like this?" Ramos asked her jailor. "I thought the king ordered that she be given food from his own table."

  "Indeed he has," replied the jailor, an old veteran soldier. "But she will not eat it. She will take only water and bread, and the meats and dainties lie spoiled on her tray."

  Ramos asked to be left alone with her, and the jailor retreated, locking and barring the door behind him.

  "Your Grace?" Ramos said.

  A pair of brown eyes peered out at him from the corner. Ramos felt awkward. This was, after all, a princess, a woman of royal blood. He didn't know how to address her in this circumstance. 'My child' seemed too intimate.

  "I'm sorry to intrude, Your Grace," he said.

  "It is no intrusion, Señor Ramos de Tavera," Elizabeth said. Her voice was soft, but clear.

  "You know my name?"

  "And your trade, Master Astrologer."

  "Then we are on even ground," Ramos said. "For your name and title is all I know of you."

  She chuckled softly. "But this is marvelous. Are you the equal, then, of a princess?"

  Ramos blushed. "You know I am not, Your Grace. I meant only—"

  "I see. You meant only that your knowledge is equal to mine."

  "Not at all. I meant only that I know little of you."

  "And you presumed that I share the same ignorance."

  Ramos shut his mouth, exasperated. Finally, he said, "My apologies, Your Grace."

  "I accept your apologies, and forgive you gladly. Why have you come?"

  Ramos took a deep breath. "To hear your confession. To allow you to unburden yourself before God."

  "Do they plan to strike off my head, then?" Her voice wavered at this, and Ramos thought she truly was afraid to die. As well she might be, since she had chosen a path of heresy and rebellion. Elizabeth must know where it could lead; her own mother had lost her head not far from where they were sitting.

  "I don't know their plans for you," Ramos said. "I'm a priest, not a politician. But should not your heart be prepared for that possibility? It is a dreadful thing to enter the presence of God with the black of sin still on your soul."

  Elizabeth's mouth curved in an almost imperceptible smile. "And who will hear your confession, Master Astrologer? Are you not the murderer of Charles Shiveley?"

  Ramos gasped. "Surely not, my Lady. Shiveley was executed by the will of the king and queen."

  "Did you not create the foul device that deceived my people and blasphemed God? There is no need to reply. I see by your face that my information is correct."

  Now it was Ramos who was afraid. How did she know these things? "My sins are not at question here," he said. "I am come to hear yours."

  "Hear mine then: I conspired to wrest the kingdom from the control of evil rulers who will drain her treasury and enslave her people in fear." Elizabeth emerged from the corner, the light catching her fiery hair as her voice grew louder and more confident. "I plotted to free my people from the abuse of wealth and power, from religious prejudice and hypocrisy. I schemed to make England independent and strong instead of vassals of the Pope and the King of Spain. Do you absolve me of these sins, my father?"

  "These are sins indeed. King Philip and Queen Mary are granted their authority by God. To defy them is to defy God."

  Her brown eyes were pitying. "Good Father," she said. "Do you not fear what Philip will do with your latest discovery? Will he not use it again to crush the people through deception and terror, the way he did with your first?"

  His latest discovery? How did she know these things? Was she truly a witch? Could she read his mind? "The king is the arm of God to dispense justice and chastisement," he said. "It is right for him to punish where necessary, and wrong for us to judge him false."

  "And Antonia?" Elizabeth almost whispered it. "How long before the chastisement of the king's justice falls on her?"

  "No more," Ramos said. The woman knew everything about him. "We are talking of you, not me."

  "But what if she is not demon-possessed, as the Roman Church would have you believe? What if there is a natural explanation for her condition?"

  "The Holy Father has already spoken on this subject. The mad are under the judgment of God for harboring secret heresies in their hearts." The words tasted like mud in his mouth, and he knew, even as he said them, that he did not believe them, and Elizabeth knew it.

  A profound look of disappointment came over Elizabeth's face. Ramos squirmed under her gaze, which seemed to see right through him to the uncertainty inside. He had come to instill doubts in her mind, but it was happening the other way around. The walls he had so carefully constructed around his misgivings were crumbling, and he was finding them grown even larger than before.

  "There is a man I trust," she said, "a mathematician and philosopher like yourself, who believes that the spirits of the mad were caught up in the novas, that they still live, and with enough knowledge about the stars and the deeper mysteries, we might return them to themselves again."

  Despite himself, Ramos was interested. It was the very hope he had harbored through all his investigation of quintessence, despite what the Pope said. He knew he should not agree to this meeting. It would be a betrayal of his allegiance to the king. It would be admitting the possibility that the Pope could be wrong, just because his heart desired it to be so. And yet, even as he argued with himself, he knew that he would meet the man, whatever the risk.

  "I will not tell you his name," Elizabeth said. "If he deems it safe, he will find you."

  THE NEXT morning, an elegantly folded and sealed note was slipped under Ramos's chamber door. The message was brief, written in red ink in a precise hand.

  Meet me in the old library. D.

  There was no time specified. Ramos could only assume he meant at once. He also had no ide
a where the "old library" was, and didn't dare ask anyone, since he didn't know what he would find when he got there. Not even counting the mysterious agent of Princess Elizabeth he was supposed to meet, an old library might contain books of a politically questionable nature, or hold a significance of which he was unaware.

  The queen had a library, mostly religious, with a handful of rare illuminated manuscripts, but it wasn't available for common use, and could hardly be the location the letter had meant. Ramos wandered through the acres of Whitehall Palace's many rooms, hesitant to ask anyone for help, but afraid of wandering through the wrong door. Whole wings of the palace were given over to be used by various of the great families, guarded by their own soldiers, and staffed with their own liveried servants. He didn't want to find himself in an awkward situation.

  What kind of a man was this he was meeting, who would send him on such a chase? An educated man, Elizabeth had made clear, and one who had the freedom of the palace. A brave man, who would swear fealty to Mary and yet consort with Elizabeth. Ramos wondered if he was being foolish, stumbling blindly into a situation that could get him executed. But his devotion to King Philip was faltering, and even—could he say it?—to the Church. He had thought the king the very definition of what was moral and just, and the Church the definition of what was true, but his doubts about both had grown too strong to be ignored. He had questions he needed answered—about the novas, about human souls, about the way the universe worked—and the answers that Church doctrine constrained him to did not satisfy.

  Perhaps the doctrine was all true, and it was his understanding that was faulty. But he couldn't live with the uncertainty. He had to know.

  Finally, with the aid of an elderly serving man, he found the room. It was more like a dusty closet with walls lined with cubby holes stacked with old scrolls. There was barely room for two people to sit down, and in any event, there were no chairs. The mysterious agent stood inside, holding a manuscript close to a candle flame, the point of his long, white beard resting on the yellowed parchment. Just as he had been when Ramos first cast the queen's horoscope, the man was wearing a long artist's gown with sleeves that hung down over his wrists, and a black cap on his head. It was John Dee, the queen's astrologer.