by David Beers
Pilgrimages had been made yearly for the past seven millennia, with the Constant’s subjects coming to bow and pay homage to the force they worshipped. They would kneel in the streets, millions, and bow to the blue dome, knowing that their prayers and honors would be heard by the universe. That it would keep them safe.
Rachel Veritros had done it yearly too, all the way up until her conversion. She’d prayed with the masses and offered her soul to what she’d been taught.
This Citadel, this city, was a beacon to the faithful. In the same manner as the Vatican was utilized in the Old World. It was a symbol as much as anything, reminding everyone of the hope that could come from the universe—the eternal blue positioned across the dome’s exterior reflecting the sky’s eternal blue—the eternalness of what they worshipped.
Rachel Veritros stood inside a room of the main building, but her eyes showed nothing of the blue outside. They showed only gray, and the faces looking down on them grew fearful, because they all understood what such a color meant.
The shaking didn’t begin inside Rachel Veritros’s brick room. It started along the tall, stone wall. From the base, the foundation of that 7,000 year old structure vibrated as never before. The straight tower of stone began wobbling, and anyone near it stopped whatever they were doing and looked up—none understanding what was happening. Everyone spread their legs to better stabilize themselves, taking a wider stance as the ground shook them too; many didn’t know what was more fearful, their own legs shaking or the wall that had always been there, now nearly flowing like a ribbon in the wind.
Rocks started tumbling from the top, shearing and breaking off of the ancient structure. The trembling ground moved further inside the Citadel, traveling underneath buildings without prejudice. Inside, stone and metal rattled and fell alike. Some objects caught people on the way down, maiming and killing as they did.
Rachel Veritros’s eyes grew brighter and the glow spread from them. It moved across the brick room, though the room itself still wasn’t shaking. She didn’t flinch as the light crossed the room, gray static filling empty space.
“What’s happening?” one of the giant Ministers called, though it was useless.
And finally, the shaking took hold of the Citadel’s major dome, and thus the smaller room which Rachel Veritros stood inside.
Bricks collapsed to the ground, falling through her beautiful glow like hail through moonlight. Death and beauty.
The shaking intensified and the faces in front of her faded from existence, at least one Minister running for his own life. Most likely the Constant’s, the only one actually on the premise.
Outside, looking at the city as a whole, one could see buildings beginning to collapse. Smaller ones falling in on themselves and crushing whoever was inside. Fire sparked on the north side, some sort of power source coming unhinged and unmanageable. A large part of the major dome fell in, and Rachel’s gray light flowed out, replacing the missing ceiling before spreading further. Out into the sky.
People screamed and ran. Some still stopped and stared at the buildings, not comprehending that they could in fact fall. Others only looked at the strange gray light that flickered and filled their sky.
There was no escape, nowhere anyone could run to because the gates were closed and the wall collapsing, crushing anyone who drew too close.
Rachel Veritros’s lieutenants had said that nearly everything in this Ministry except the Citadel had been overtaken. Rachel Veritros walked into the Citadel, that which housed the most faithful—the most powerful—in the Constant Ministry, and she brought it all down.
Every single brick.
Nearly half of the Constant’s Representatives were wiped out—all who hid behind its walls.
Fire raged and cries rang out into the sky.
In the end, she stood alone, mountains of rubble surrounding her. She stood in the same place in which she’d given her ultimatum, her eyes still blazing. She was the only thing still standing, and she walked from the ancient city’s rubble, now completely destroyed.
Rachel Veritros went home without being hunted, because any hunters inside the Constant Ministry were either dead or in chaos.
She went home and did not answer calls from her lieutenants.
She had gone to the Citadel without knowing the reason why, though she did now. It had been hidden from her until the job was finished, though perhaps she should have known. The reason had been simple—the whole world now saw her power, and thus the creature she served. She had conquered a Ministry, a woman alone, with nothing but her will.
And everyone now saw it, without doubt. The entire world witnessed the defeat, and those inside the Constant’s territory only need look to where that blue dome once sat, and they would understand the power coming for them.
Even with the reason revealed, and her enemies fearing for their very souls, the question came back to her. The one she hadn’t known was coming—the only one the Unformed hadn’t showed her.
What does It want?
It was an odd thing … to hear it, and yet never have thought of it before.
What does It want?
She turned the question over and over in her mind, as if there might be some trapdoor hanging on the letters, one which she would fall into and never return from.
Even studying the question, nothing was revealed to her. It was simple, something she should have been able to answer. Something that honestly should have occurred to her before, but it never had.
What does It want?
She didn’t know what It wanted, and as she thought on the question, a piece of her rose up against its very nature.
And those that asked you, what does their god want? You’re not supposed to answer what It wants. That has never been your place, nor that of any servant of something so great.
And there was truth in that. From the beginning, she served because when someone is placed before something so vast, so powerful, questions cease to matter. One simply submits, because to do anything else in the face of eternity isn’t only suicidal, it’s foolish on an unfathomable scale. One’s very existence fades to nothing.
Yet, they had asked the question, and she couldn’t put it aside.
What does It want?
Rachel Veritros sat alone in her apartment, the world burning around her—because of her—and knew that she had no idea what her God wanted.
Twenty-Nine
The moon was high and the night quiet.
David and Rebecca had both been staring out at the sky, neither saying a word. David had seen it when he was younger, before his parents moved to the True Faith—but that had been a long, long time ago. He’d forgotten the moon’s majesty. It’s simplicity. Mankind tried mimicking it beneath the ground, but for all their technical advances and conquering, they couldn’t accomplish what nature had. Not truly.
He knew Rebecca was completely amazed, her silence a tribute to the round orb glowing in the sky. It was her first time seeing the moon, having spent her entire life below ground. She hadn’t yet viewed the sun, but David knew her feelings now would be amplified a hundred fold.
They’d been flying a few hours, their departure from beneath ground unannounced and unlawful—but there were no repercussions, because no one was left to chase them.
Their transport had remained low in the beginning, beneath the continuously detonating clouds above. The transport would guard against nuclear fallout, but the explosions above would have destroyed it. David could have protected them if he wanted, but using the gray unnecessarily was a liability at the moment. He thought it might allow the woman to see him, destroying any secrecy he held.
Eventually, though, they had moved beyond the poisonous clouds.
Since the attack on the compound, David hadn’t tried connecting with the Unformed, hadn’t even considered going to the Beyond. He knew his orders and asking for more guidance might only give her more opportunity to view him.
Since he saw her on the platform, David
had thought these things—but he couldn’t be sure. Staring at the moon, though, David came to know the truth: if he used the gray—began working as his followers termed it—she would be able to see him.
He saw this truth because, all at once, he knew she was working. The last time she had used the gray, he’d collapsed; the power had been too great, too sudden.
Not this time, though, and David didn’t know what that meant exactly. It was controlled. She was using it … like him.
David looked over at Rebecca but she was only staring out her side of the transport, watching the moon.
He wouldn’t worry her, but this was happening and right now. The woman was working, using the gray, and David could go to her. Their connection was live, whatever made them who they were now allowed them to move across a direct line to one another.
David closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were gray. He turned his head to the left so that Rebecca couldn’t see him, and then he went to the woman.
He saw the burning transport, Rhett sitting in the front. The stranger was to his left. David ignored all of that, though, staring at the girl in the back. Orange flames flicked over the transport’s outer shell, but he saw her gray eyes burning inside. Her hand moved just outside the transport and David watched as gray flickering orbs surrounded the ship.
She’s doing what only I should be able to. Right now, right in front of my eyes, she’s using power that doesn’t belong to her. Power that only belongs to the Unformed, and those It chooses. She’s not one of the chosen.
David knew she saw him, hovering outside of the transport like a ghost.
He closed his eyes and when he opened them, he was back in his own transport, staring out at the night sky.
“Rebecca?”
She looked over at him.
“I saw her again,” he said without turning.
“How?”
“We’re connected now, somehow. Whatever I am, she is, too.”
“I just don’t know how that’s possible, David.”
He shook his head. “Me either, but she’s growing powerful. They’re still traveling and I think their ship had been shot. It looked like it was about to crash, but she lit up and saved the thing.”
Rebecca was quiet for a moment, and then said, “How powerful?”
“I can’t tell just on that interaction, but do you remember me in the beginning? Could I have righted a transport while it was crashing?”
Rebecca didn’t need to answer. They both knew he couldn’t have. It took time for David to grow into what he now was.
“Do you think it’s because she’s older?”
David heard the unasked portion of the question: or is she simply better than you?
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, though. The Unformed is with us. Whatever she might be, the Unformed is more.”
“Did you see Rhett?” Rebecca asked.
He nodded. “He looked okay from what I could tell, as okay as someone can be if their transport is seconds from hitting the ground.”
“That’s not funny.”
David gave a weak chuckle. “I know. Not much is funny anymore. Hasn’t been for a long time, I guess.”
The two grew silent. David watched the night sky outside and wondered what would happen when he reached the One Path. He would have to face this woman eventually, the Unformed had commanded it. Or … commanded that he kill her, but he couldn’t send anyone else to do it. No, he would have to face her, and he’d seen two examples of her power already. One an unleashing unlike anything David had ever attempted, the other a controlled, but relatively complex display.
And when had he first sensed her? Weeks ago.
She was advancing rapidly, and David didn’t understand how. His power came from the Unformed.
What was hers stemming from?
It doesn’t matter, he thought. You get to the One Path and you kill her. The whys and hows are only a distraction. Whatever she is, whatever gives her this power, none of it will matter when she’s dead.
Thirty
Raylyn thought it ridiculous, what she was about to ask. She didn’t care what the First Priest might say, or really even want. That in itself was an odd feeling, but the past week had … changed things. She didn’t know if the changes were good or bad, only that she couldn’t help them.
Her feelings about Corinth—about the True Faith in general—hadn’t morphed. She loved Corinth and knew without doubt her life’s greatest blessing was being born within His domain.
It was her feelings toward the First Priest that had changed, and more so each day.
So the question she was about to ask … well, she hadn’t at first considered what the First Priest would think of it. And, if he had a problem with it, there wasn’t too much he could do. Raylyn wasn’t considering the long term, obviously. In the long term, if anyone survived that far, there could be repercussions. The First Priest could make life very hard for Raylyn, or perhaps even excommunicate her for her wartime actions. He could, in the long term, do anything he wanted.
But, Raylyn was living for the short term.
She loved Corinth, and while she thought He would prevail, that didn’t mean she would.
The short term was all she had right now, and given that, she wanted Manor by her side.
They were in his room, though with the little time he’d spent there, it wasn’t any more his than hers. He had arrived only an hour earlier—the trip to get him and bring him back taking nearly a full day. Raylyn spent that time preparing to contact the informant, and in a state of almost constant worry about Manor’s safety.
“I might have to leave,” she told her lover.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
She scooted her chair closer to where he sat on the bed, so that their knees were almost touching. He was thinner, but that was to be expected. Not many days had passed, but Raylyn doubted there’d been many calories consumed during them. His face looked harder, though that was partly because he was leaner. Manor was scratched and banged up too. Cuts ran across his cheek and his neck, as well as a large patch of scabbed flesh on his right forearm.
Raylyn was only seeing pieces of the hardships he’d faced. She couldn’t truly know the brutality that he encountered. Deaths innumerable. Blood unimaginable. Just the faces of those monsters who turned on the people they lived with, content to throw them thousands of feet to their death in blazing fires.
Raylyn couldn’t truly know any of that.
Yet, she was going to ask anyway, because all anyone had was the short term.
“I’m chasing the weapon, Manor. Everyone knows what is happening outside the Shrine. The Black is returning and this is Its war. I’ve been chasing Its weapon since you’ve known me. We tried to ….” She felt emotion rising in her at the word we, because it was Lynda she was talking about. The drugs did a pretty good job of keeping her at an even keel, and now they helped shove the emotion down, focusing her. “ … We tried to kill him, but we couldn’t. I’m still tasked with finding him, and sooner or later, I’m going to have to leave here to do it. I … I want you to come with me, Manor.”
She laughed, tears flooding her eyes. Maybe the drugs weren’t that great, because her emotions felt scattered all over the place. She didn’t know what caused the tears, happiness, sadness, or simply exasperation.
Manor reached out and took her hands in his.
“Crazy, right?” she asked. “You just got to safety and I’m asking you to head right back into danger.” Another laugh, and she looked down at the floor. A tear fell from her eye and splashed onto the white tile.
“I …,” Manor started, but his words fell away.
Raylyn didn’t look up, didn’t want to see his face when he told her no. She was leaving this place regardless of whether he came with her, but for a few hours it had seemed that if he said yes … Everything would be infinitely better. She would have someone at her side as she chased this man with gr
ay eyes.
Manor wasn’t going to come, though.
He wouldn’t walk back out into that fire, not with his clothes still reeking of smoke.
“You’re going after the man that did all this?” he asked.
Raylyn nodded.
“Aren’t you scared?”
Again, a shocked laugh escaped her lips. “More than I can explain. I don’t want to do it, at all, but I have to. There’s no one else.”
“Why not?”
She closed her eyes, blocking out even the white tile with her single tear sitting on it. “There was an informant that led us to him in the first place. I’m the only one still alive that had contact with the informant, and so it has to be me that makes contact again. If someone else tried, they’d most likely shut down completely. Especially now, with the Ministries’ backs against the wall and the weapon gaining so much ground.”
“What would I do, Raylyn? If I went with you?”
She squeezed her eyes together, crow’s feet appearing at the corners. “You’d be with me. That’s all. It’s selfish, Manor, but if you came, I wouldn’t be alone. I mean, you look out there at the world—hell, you know. You look out and you see all of that … terror. I don’t want to be alone in it. I don’t want to chase this demon by myself. If you were there, then I wouldn’t have to. I don’t have any work to give you, no assignments. You’ll just be there, with me.”
She felt his hands squeeze hers but neither said anything. Raylyn knew they were being listened to, every word of their conversation monitored and recorded. Perhaps they had even heard the tear that fell. Raylyn didn’t know and didn’t care.
“Okay,” Manor said.
Raylyn’s head jerked up, her eyes opening. “What?”
“Okay,” he said again. “I’ll go with you.”
“You’re serious?”
He nodded. “It’s not like I know anyone, and that attendant who brought me here doesn’t seem like she’d make a great friend.”