by J. C. Staudt
“What’s that?” Adeleine said. Understanding flickered into being, and she got as far as saying, “Oh… you want to know…” before Bastille cut her off.
“Who the father is, yes.” Bastille knew Sister Adeleine would take a moment to think it through before she responded, but Bastille had already arrived at the answer. It’s that grotesquery, Brother Mortial, by whom we have done a dishonor to our Order in naming. I saw it in his eyes—the lecherous, fornicating sack of skin. That was a cunning trick, faking sick so he could leave the preparation room yesterday and keep tabs on his lady love; that bewildered look on his face when he returned, stinking of fear. He was right to be afraid. They’ll both be punished for this. Oh, it will be a wondrous day when they’re brought to justice. They’ll make a fine example for the others. More feed for the Cypriests. More fodder for the hogs and more fertilizer for the crops.
“Kind Sister Bastille,” Adeleine said. “Sister Jeanette told me… not to tell.”
Bastille brushed aside her visions of retribution in favor of the façade of kindness. “You can tell me, my child.”
“I can trust you,” Adeleine said, looking Bastille in the eyes for perhaps the first time ever, searching there for some hint of truth.
“Oh, my dear girl. What a precious soul you are, to care for Sister Jeanette so much. What a loving, compassionate young woman. The Mouth bless you. It is just as you said; I was exactly the right person to come to with this.” The saccharine sweetness of it all made Bastille want to gag, but she held onto her stiff smile and squeezed the acolyte’s hand.
“The father is… Brother Soleil, kind Sister.”
There was certainty in Adeleine’s face. This was something Sister Jeanette had told her. Even an acolyte knew what an offense like this could mean for those involved. If it was the truth, the lives of Brother Soleil and Sister Jeanette might both be forfeit. Brother Soleil was Bastille’s mentor and friend, but an acolyte’s word was no proof; while Adeleine didn’t appear to be lying, Sister Jeanette might very well have been.
There came a thud and a splash from the upper courtyard. Bastille hurried past Sister Adeleine and darted up the steps. The blue bucket she’d placed next to the path lay on its side, the heel of a slipper print visible in the wash of entrails covering the walkway. She glanced up at the outer door and saw it coming to rest in its frame. Someone had been listening.
Bolting up the steps and down the walkway, she entered the outer door—the one set inside the first layer of thick, tinted glass—then the second, and finally, the third. In front of her, in a room so large it dwarfed even the sanctuary, stretched the vast gardens of the conservatory.
The gardens were humid and windless, leaves laying still along their stems and branches, revealing no hint of where anyone had passed. Sister Bastille could still hear the faint echo of the choir’s chants coming from beyond the doors on the far wall. The hogs grunted happily in their pens, no doubt because they had seen her and were expecting feed. The kitchen doors on the opposite wall were still, and whomever she had followed inside was nowhere in sight, so she was almost certain her quarry had disappeared into the foliage and was somewhere in the midst of the sprawling gardens before her.
She peered into the dim folds of undergrowth and scanned the ground for prints. She was no tracker; she’d never even been in the wilderness apart from her journey to Belmond when she first came here. When she had passed the initiation rites and become a member of the Order, they had taken her on a grand tour of the basilica. The first time she saw the conservatory and on each occasion since, she’d found its mockery of nature utterly haunting. The fabricated environment here was so rich and vibrant, beyond any other oasis or garden that existed in the natural above-world. As one moved through it, there came the smells of every delight one could wish for; the fruit trees and their sweetness; the robust, hearty aroma of the wheat field; the savory herbs; the coarse fibrous smells of tubers and roots and vegetables. It was all too perfect to believe, for so much to have grown and thrived in these scorched and barren lands.
Bastille took her first step into the brush and listened, aching that some noise would issue forth, drown out the hogs and the chants and point her in the direction of her quarry. Just then the door behind her flew open, and she heard footsteps hurtling toward her. She wheeled in place and saw, to her relief, that it was merely Sister Adeleine, rushing to her side.
Bastille put a finger to her lips and hissed. “Please. Kindly take these and clean up the mess outside,” she whispered, handing Adeleine a dingy pair of gloves. “Leave the bucket inside the door. Not to worry; I will find you later and we shall speak further.”
Wordless, Adeleine took the gloves and went back outside.
Foolish girl. Bastille turned her attention back to the matter at hand, watching and listening. Another dozen steps into the garden, she came upon a juncture where rows of tall trees met a forest of vegetables—bean vines laced through white trellises, tomatoes in their round wire cages, high corn stalks standing on their own. The field trailed into shorter and shorter varieties as it stretched toward the windows. She scanned the entire area, but saw no sign of anyone.
Before passing beneath a row of fruit trees and over the gentle arch of the footbridge spanning the narrow artificial stream, she snapped a small green apple off in each hand, tossing one and catching it to get a feel for the weight. Not much of a weapon, but with the blood pumping through her and the little she knew of her quarry’s intent, she was inclined to take whatever small advantage she might find.
Choir rehearsal must have been over by the time she was in the thick of the gardens; that, or the shroud of leaves around her had defeated the sounds of the distant songs. It was nice here in the shade; cool and dark. But it was also eerie. She would’ve been reluctant to find herself alone in these densest parts of the greenhouse at any other time.
Perhaps it’s foolhardy of me to continue this pursuit, she thought. At best, it was an acolyte who had fled after hearing the conversation—which is to say that in the worst case, it was one of the Esteemed. More likely that it was a younger person, judging by the haste with which they had eluded her. Or else they were older, but still quick on their feet. Spry, like Brother Soleil. Postulating would do her little good, she decided; she needed to know.
It wasn’t the information itself so much as what the eavesdropper would do with it that concerned her. This whole turn of events could be a boon if she were able to orchestrate the outcome in her favor. With an unknown third party involved, there was no way to ensure secrecy. That left too much hanging in the balance for her liking.
Bastille dropped her apples and took hold of a sturdy-looking tree branch, then hoisted herself into the crook between the trunk and the branch. It had been a long time since the last trees in her village had withered and become unfit for climbing. She grappled the next-highest branch, finding that though her body lacked the agility of its youth her muscles still held the memory. The Mouth, how old and soft I’ve become. As she climbed, she found that the distance to the top felt longer than it had looked from the ground. Her keenness paid off, however; she saw the crouched form of a hooded gray figure in the field of beanstalks that led toward the kitchens.
When she leaned against the branch to search for a way down, she felt it snap. Before she knew what had happened, she was dangling by one arm. Through the branches she saw the figure dart toward the kitchen doors. She made it to the ground after a frustrating climb down, then snatched up her robes and bolted after the figure.
She pushed through the swinging doors and arrived in the kitchen just in time to see a shape veer around the corner at the far end of the long galley, lined with its stainless steel tables, shelves piled high with metal bowls and utensils, and the old gas stoves that hadn’t been used for decades. What her quarry must not have known was that they were heading straight for a dead-end. Around the corner, the kitchens stretched for another twenty feet or so before reaching the larder, a wide hallway where the O
rder’s stores of foodstuffs were kept. At the end of the larder was the heavy insulated door of the walk-in freezer, which was now used as a second pantry. The eavesdropper must have been a young acolyte if his or her knowledge of the basilica grounds was so limited. If they’d turned the other way, they would’ve had access to the refectory and its many connecting hallways. Instead, they were trapped.
The door to the walk-in freezer was just coming to a close by the time Bastille rounded the corner. She smiled as she hurtled down the long pantry hallway, her robes flapping behind her. Yanking the latch, she felt the suction give way to a rush of cool air as the door came open. She pushed a slatted wooden box of potatoes into the way to keep the door from closing behind her.
Heavy plastic strips hung from the top of the doorframe. Within the freezer were rows of slaughtered carcasses, smoked and cured; jars of pickled vegetables and fruit preserves; and an assortment of other more delicate ingredients that were best kept in cooler temperatures. The freezer was the coldest room above-surface in the basilica; the chill was almost as distinct as in the basements below, though the air was fresher.
The light faded toward the back of the freezer until it became a dim gray pool where the objects were indistinguishable from one another. Bastille searched for something she could defend herself with, but everything around made a better meal than it did a weapon. There was no sound aside from her breathing; not the snap of a crouching kneecap or the shifting of some item moved by mistake. She tried to quiet herself, but she was winded, and every breath hissed louder than a waterfall. Why am I so frightened? If this person is a member of the Order, which they almost certainly are, then I have no reason to be afraid of them. “Alright, this was a fun little game. Now, out with you.” She walked toward the back of the freezer as she spoke, her words ringing against the hollows of the room. When she stopped speaking, all was quiet again.
“Hello?” she asked the darkness, her voice quivering with uncertainty.
There was no movement; no mad dash as her quarry leapt from the shadows to pummel her or shove past her toward the door. There was no other air in the room besides her own. When she came to the back wall of the freezer, she realized she was alone. The sweat on her neck went cold. Have I been seeing things? Had the wisp of a gray robe fluttering around the bend been a figment of her imagination? She thought of the labyrinth—the network of passages hidden below the basilica. She wasn’t crazy; there had to be an entrance nearby.
She took a step backward, then another, and bumped into something. She exhaled when she realized it was only one of the hanging carcasses. After a few moments, she found herself outside the freezer again, still panting. She kept an eye on the door while she found a candle and lit it with a striker from the kitchens. Entering the freezer once more, she studied every crevice in the candlelight, searching from front to back until she had determined that there was no one else inside.
She held her candle aloft and gazed at the ceiling, which was the same flat gray insulated plastic as the rest of the walls. The meat carcasses were suspended from chains connected to a latticework of bars. One of the carcasses wasn’t connected to the grid at all, though; instead, the chain ascended through a round hole in the ceiling.
Bastille wrapped her free arm around the hard glistening carcass and pulled downward, but nothing happened. She set the candle in its tin holder on an empty shelf behind her and wrapped the carcass in a great bear hug, pulling downward with all the might she had left in her aching limbs. She lifted her feet off the ground until she was hanging with her full weight on the chained carcass, and still nothing happened.
Sliding into a crouch with her face pressed against the encased muscle, she took the body of the beast in both hands and lifted with her legs. When it became too heavy, she grunted and let it fall, despondent. As she watched the carcass jerk and swing on its leash, she considered again that she might be deluding herself. But when the carcass swung wide and gave the candlelight a berth to shine past it, she saw.
In the midst of her lifting, while a hundred pounds of meat had been pressed up against her face, the door had swung upward without a sound. The gaping hole in the rear wall of the freezer was behind a tall stack of wooden crates that nearly shielded it from sight. There, a stone staircase descended into the depths of the basilica.
Her heart leapt in her chest, her pulse quickened, and her mind began to race. She was no high priest; she had no right to use the labyrinth. The figure she pursued did, apparently. She’d lost plenty of time finding the entrance, and she had no idea where the passage led, or how to get back out again. She could follow her quarry into the labyrinth and risk being expelled from the Order. Or she could let him go.
Even in her former life, Sister Bastille had always played by the rules. Perhaps it was time to start making her own.
CHAPTER 10
The Shepherds
Starlight cast the filthy streets of North Belmond in deep blue. Light from the apartments lining Harpin Avenue shed orange shadows that made the heaping piles of rubble dance and jump like living things. Figures huddled in alleys and crept across vacant lots, and Corporal Merrick Bouchard made his way down the patchwork road beneath a bottomless sky.
After spending the early part of his childhood in the city south, the streets of the north seemed clean by comparison. The buildings on Harpin Avenue were tall and stately despite their age. They must have been filled at one time with the sharp men he’d seen in pictures—the ones wealthy businessmen paid to make them wealthier. It sounded ridiculous, that men had once earned their livings increasing the number of numbers that belonged to other men, but it was true, according to the histories.
My old job was more important than that, Merrick told himself. Being reassigned to the Sentries had made him feel like he mattered little to the Scarred. Still, he spent his days keeping scum out of the city north. That had to be worth something. On cool nights like these, there was no substitute for enjoying a walk in relative safety and with little fear of harm.
As a comrade, Merrick had chosen to exercise the privilege of carrying his own personal sidearm, a silvered-steel handgun he liked to call Birch. It was tarnished and worn, but in midday it still glinted like a tin shack.
Sometimes as he daydreamed, Merrick liked to imagine how it must have been to live in the city north before the Great Heat. Belmond was the jewel that crowned the desert, they said. A paradise, shining and pristine, biggest of all the cities in the Inner East; bigger than Tristol, Southcape, and even New Kettering. The skyscrapers that punctured the clouds had been gleaming pillars of steel and glass by day; by night, silhouetted behemoths with glowing bellies. The morning streets would fill up with scurrying workers, who would race back home to nap when the light was full in the sky, only to do it all over again as the afternoon drew onward. They had cold drinks and soft beds with crisp, clean sheets. There were balms that could stop you from sweating, he’d heard—and plenty of food for everyone. The people spent their days pursuing diversions whose sole purpose was to pass the time. Those would’ve been good days to be alive, Merrick decided.
But the heaviest stones make the largest ripples. The desolated HydroPyre station in the center of the northwest district was testament to that. As soon as convenience died, so too had the majesty of the desert cities. Merrick tried to envision the wall of angry citizens bustling shoulder-to-shoulder down the pavement, the translucent shattering of glass, thieves looting from broken shops, and fires breaking out across the city. When his visions of those fierce days faded away, all that remained were the hollow, graffitied structures, the sad heaps of rubble, and the pervasive stench of piss and excrement and heat-rotted garbage. He could still see the remnants of the most recent starwinds in the night sky, wisps of sallow green and gold. Most plasma storms didn’t make him sick, but this last one had been especially strong, and had rendered hundreds of his comrades bedridden for days.
Merrick’s shifts changed from week to week; he didn’t always
get off at night and he didn’t always work during the day. Whenever he was off-shift in the evening, the Boiler Yard was his canteen of choice. The bar’s oil torches came into view as he neared the end of Harpin Avenue. He could already hear bottles clinking, music playing, and people talking in loud drunken voices. Those sounds always excited him.
The Boiler Yard’s cinderblock rambler would have been the plainest single-story building he’d ever seen if not for the patchwork of metallic roofing panels and tacky adornments that passed for decorations. He crossed the crumbling footbridge and circled the tower of debris that had gathered beneath the adjacent apartment building. Tables on the Boiler Yard’s outdoor patio were brimming with patrons in the throes of raucous conversation, trading tales, seducing each other, playing games, and complaining about the heat. Weather is one certainty that will always yield a surplus of grievances, even when nothing changes from one day to the next. It was the seediest, most disgusting pub in the city north, and Merrick loved it.
He entered the barren yard through its chainlink gates. At one time, the enclosure had been leased by an appliance company. The pub owners had started to relocate the old rusted machines, but they’d abandoned the effort as soon as they’d cleared a path. The rest of the yard was still littered with the guts of stoves, washers, and water heaters. It was like a statue garden, only the more you looked at it, the more it made you want to look at something else.
The patio’s decking was a hacked-together mosaic of corroded grates, rusty corrugated steel sheets, and greened copper plating, all riveted to the wood beneath. The inner city was more forgiving than the open desert toward man-made things, especially where the tall buildings sheltered them from the elements. The tables were big wooden utility spools turned onto their sides, or stacks of plastic crates fastened together and topped with butcher’s block, or they were made from whatever other scraps the proprietors had salvaged from around the city.