by David Beers
He said one last thing before being walled off in his new cell, his voice just managing to rise above the sucking noise.
“They never found Veritros either. Just like Nicki.”
The Pope looked at Daniel Sesam and his heart hurt. Yule had seen much suffering in his life, and he was careful about questioning God when he saw such things—but this time, he nearly did it.
The two of them were inside the Globe of One, Yule having made the trip to retrieve Daniel and the other man that had traveled with him. Yule wasn’t yet sure how he would deal with Jackson Carriage, but there would be plenty of time to worry about that later.
It had taken Yule a day to get here, first needing to ensure the Old World wasn’t affected by the gray explosion across the sky, then travel time.
He’d come, though, not sending an envoy. Daniel hated Yule, the entire Catholic Church, and if he believed in God, then surely he must hate Him too. Yet, above all of Yule’s parishioners, perhaps the Pope cared for Daniel the most.
He stood in Daniel’s room. He had requested that Jackson Carriage be detained, but that Daniel only be monitored for possible suicide. Yule didn’t understand exactly what had happened to his daughter; one moment she had been in this world, her awful powers amplified by a madman’s creation, and the next, she was gone.
Her hand neither destroying anything nor killing anyone.
She had simply disappeared, and everyone who had seen her …
They went on with their lives.
Except for Daniel—and that’s why the suicide watch was implemented. He would never just ‘go on’ with his life.
Daniel lay in a bed, one that appeared extremely technologically advanced (Everything with them is always over the top, Yule thought, not realizing his thoughts echoed another man walking their halls). Daniel was curled up with a blanket, his back facing the door and him looking at the wall. Yule couldn’t tell if he was awake or not.
“Can we be alone?” Yule whispered to Trinant One.
“Yes,” the woman answered, her voice matching his. Yule understood the unwritten rule between Ministries. One simply did not care for those in another faith. There had been no battles—not a single death from religious wars outside of the Black—but each Ministry looked at all others as beneath them.
Trinant’s voice, though—her whisper so as to not wake Daniel—said maybe she did understand his pain, and maybe she cared about it too.
She turned around and left the room, leaving Yule alone.
A chair sat next to a small table and Yule went to it. Daniel didn’t move in his bed.
Yule pulled a pocket Bible from inside his robe, and opened up to Deuteronomy.
And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee; fear not, neither be dismayed.
He read on for a while, still unsure whether Daniel was sleeping, but determined not to wake him if so. Yule would be here when he awoke.
Daniel spoke, though, startling Yule.
“Why are you here?”
Yule placed the Bible down on the table, his slight jump settling some. “To bring you home.”
“Home?” Daniel asked. “Where is that exactly? Hasn’t my house been razed?”
“You have the Church at your disposal, Daniel. Whatever you want, you can have.”
“That’s not true, and you know it. I can’t have her.”
“I’m so sorry,” Yule said. His voice was low, emotion running under the surface and threatening to break through.
“What happened to the psychopath?” Daniel said, his own voice sounding untouched. No emotion, only …
Death, Yule thought. He sounds dead.
“Who?” he asked.
“Carriage Jackson. The man that brought me here.”
“He’s being detained. I’m bringing him back as well.”
Daniel said nothing else; Yule had no idea how he felt about Jackson Carriage, the man originally sent to kill his daughter, but then turned into … a partner?
“We’re still looking for her,” Yule said. “As long as I’m alive, we’ll keep searching for Nicki. I promise you that.”
Daniel sat up quickly, his eyes wide. “The machines. I ….” He stumbled over his words, looking down at the floor before him. “I didn’t think about them. The machines. You’re putting me in them when I get back, do you understand?”
He looked up at Yule, and the Pope thought he saw a glimmer of madness in his eyes.
“Okay,” Yule said. “We can do that.”
He didn’t necessarily like agreeing to it, not with the man’s eyes looking so wild, but what was he going to tell him?
Daniel stood up. “Let’s go.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. Why would we wait?”
“There are a few other things I need to handle while I’m here,” Yule said. “It won’t take long. We should be able to leave tomorrow morning.”
For a brief moment, Yule saw murder in Daniel Sesam. A crazed look that he’d never seen inside him before.
Daniel took hold of it, though, almost visibly wrestling the madness to the ground. He sat back on his bed. “Hurry,” he said, and then lay back down, facing the wall on the opposite side.
Yule sat there, unsure whether to stand or not. He felt … shaken. He’d seen grief before, but had never seen it drive someone—
No, don’t say that. It’s not true.
It is. You know what you saw in his eyes, and just because he’s lying back down doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. His grief is driving him mad. And you’re responsible, Pope Pius XX. Because your Church sent someone to steal his daughter, and then your military operation failed to retrieve her. And now she’s gone, maybe forever, Priest. And he’s still here, all alone.
Yule stood, unable to sit any longer without crying. He left the room. Daniel Sesam made no noise as he did.
Yule had one last meeting before he could leave the One Path; the Constant’s Minister, Benten Connor, had even traveled here for it.
Yule, the First Priest, and Benten sat in Trinant’s office.
Yule was in the middle, Benten to his left, and his right flanked by the First Priest. Yule’s mind could not—would not—refer to the man as the High Priest. He imagined the Priest was angling hard for the position, but in Yule’s head there was only one High Priest, a sick, insane individual. Yule couldn’t imagine anyone ever wanting that title.
Trinant, hosting the meeting, began.
“I hope this bloody affair is behind us. There is no trace of the girl, absolutely none. The One Path’s military has searched everything, and I mean everything. We’ve scoured the ocean below, the buildings within our territory, and the sky. There is no trace of her.”
She didn’t look at Yule as she spoke, all of the softness she’d showed inside Daniel’s room now gone. She was the One Path’s Minister again, and the rest of the Ministries were only tolerated.
“We’ve also meticulously looked over the recordings,” she continued. “Our researchers … Well, they’re not sure what happened exactly. The best they can tell is, she simply winked out of existence.”
“Winked … out of existence?” Benten asked.
“There was a tremendous surge of energy,” Trinant said. “You all saw it as gray static. Using thermal scans, we can tell it originated from a single point, which when overlaid—”
“There’s no need to overlay anything,” the First Priest said. “I was there. It came from her.”
An icy silence took hold of the room, Trinant staring at the newcomer. A few seconds passed, and then she finally looked away. Yule wanted to laugh, thinking how the First Priest’s start was nearly as poor as the High Priest’s end. He managed to keep his humor inside, but only barely.
“Which when overlaid,” Trinant continued, “with where we think the woman was placed, it appears to have come from her.” She paused for a brief second and looked back at the First Priest. “We can’t tell exactly what ha
ppened, but from everything we’ve studied, the energy somehow … There’s only one way to say it, but we think it slowed time. Three hours passed while the energy flowed, but nothing happened for anything touched.”
Yule nodded. His clocks had shown just about three hours during the time the gray static ruled above, but he’d already been told that any time-telling instruments in the sky had simply stopped working. Something like five seconds passed up here.
“The energy then flowed back to its creator, though the focal point seemed to be at the other end of the building’s hallway, and with the First Priest’s input, we know that the woman had stepped out of the High Priest’s box and walked across the floor. So that makes sense.”
Yule wanted to smile again at Trinant’s snub, but he kept the Devil in him down—always trying to tempt him.
“Now, First Priest,” Trinant said. “Can you tell us what you saw at this point, when the energy flowed back to the girl?”
Like Yule, the First Priest could barely hold his emotion in check—some was even escaping out across his face. The emotions were different for the two men, though … one being humored, the other angered.
“I was unable to move, and was facing the opposite way, so no, I can’t explain to you what happened.”
Trinant nodded, not smiling, though Yule thought she wanted to. The First Priest should never have interrupted her, and Yule believed he might regret it for however long he served as the True Faith’s new Minister.
“And now we get to what I said before. The energy winked out of existence. It all collided on a point, and then simply disappeared.”
“Physically, that’s not possible,” Benten said. “Energy can’t be destroyed.”
“We don’t know that it was destroyed,” Trinant said. “We only know that it isn’t here anymore.”
Yule was careful to say nothing. He didn’t want to give anyone in this room more reason to think Nicki might still be alive. He, of course, had no idea—but if she was, if her energy had been transferred and she still lived, the people here would want her for very different reasons than he.
The room was quiet for a second, and then Trinant spoke again. Yule was coming to see that the balance of power was shifting between the four. Before, the True Faith had held the most weight, but it seemed Trinant was taking that place—giving the One Path more importance. Yule didn’t care about such things, so long as the Old World remained in peace. He didn’t need to direct other Ministries, nor appear to.
“The One Path has made an agreement with the True Faith. We’re going to try their former High Priest under our laws. They have already begun the evacuation of our territory, and no one else will face prosecution. I’d like to ask the rest of you about the future.”
She paused for a second, and Yule saw weariness almost take hold. The woman was tired; these were the leaders of the world, but Yule understood they were all growing exhausted.
“The One Path would like to move forward and put the Black behind us. We want to continue eradicating the Black’s followers, just as we had planned before. The True Faith has agreed to share with us all information received from their prisoners. We’ll work to ensure that the Black doesn’t return, but regarding this unfortunate mess with the Old World’s parishioner … the One Path would just like to move on.”
That was exactly what Yule wanted from the other three Ministries as well. Just move on from Nicki Sesam. If she was alive—something Yule highly doubted—he would do his best to find her, but he wanted nothing from these people in regards to that.
“The Constant agrees,” Benten said, “so long as we’re given regular reports from the True Faith’s prisoners.”
Trinant looked to Yule, not bothering to seek confirmation from the First Priest.
The Pope nodded. “The Old World is in agreement.”
The office door opened, a massive thing as tall as the windows to Yule’s right. He looked over and another of Trinant’s young aides walked in. Yule turned to Trinant, watching her face as the woman approached. Interrupting a meeting such as this … it had to be something important.
The aide leaned into Trinant and whispered in her ear, too low for the Pope to hear.
He watched the Minister’s eyes widen, and Yule’s stomach dropped. Trinant was a strong enough leader to keep from showing emotion, especially with mixed company. The slight slip here told him that whatever she was hearing, it wasn’t good.
The aide stepped back, looking at the floor.
Trinant was quiet for a second, sitting behind her desk and staring at her hands.
“Tell them,” she said to the aide.
“We’re under attack,” the young woman said.
“What?” the First asked. “What are you talking about?”
“The three lower levels have been taken. We’ve managed to shut them off.”
“How?” Trinant asked, her voice low, but the anger in it intense. “How did this happen?”
“I … I’m not sure, Your Grace. We didn’t know for sure until ten minutes ago.”
“Who is it?” Trinant asked.
“We think, Your Grace. That it’s the Black. Its followers.”
Tidus
Tidus had been the first person to participate in the Summoning. The Prophet’s blood somehow affecting him more quickly, though others joined rapidly.
The past month or so had been a lot for Tidus to handle. He’d been a young man when the Summoning started—still in school and with no real life experiences. A month later and he was steel. A leader. A murderer. He had made his father proud during the Summoning, and had personally killed upwards of 30 people before finally being pulled out of hand-to-hand combat.
Those in charge of the One Path’s Summoning thought Tidus had skills that could be better utilized from a strategic viewpoint. He was smart, not simply a grunt, and so he’d been shifted quickly up the ranks.
Tidus’s father wasn’t so lucky. The man had been pushed off of a building and fallen miles to the ocean below.
During the Summoning, Tidus hadn’t taken time to really process it—that his father was dead. He’d been consumed with …
And now, looking back, it felt so strange to say it. He’d been consumed with killing. His father’s death hadn’t mattered, not in any real sense of the word. It was cursory, something on the periphery.
And then the Prophet died, and the Summoning ended. Tidus was captured without even fighting. The people around him, those that had witnessed him in action over the past week or more, were shocked. He of all people would have fought the Ministry. Yet he didn’t. When they showed up to where he was hiding, he got on his knees, then lay down on the floor, spreading his arms and legs far to show that he held nothing to threaten them with.
The Prophet’s death extinguished something inside Tidus, and he went like a lamb to his own slaughter.
Everyone in the One Path knew of the pits; parents used them to frighten children whenever they were misbehaving.
“You better stop, or I’ll send you to the pits.”
“The police will come and put you in the pits.”
The police did come for Tidus, and they did put him in the pits—where he would wait an indeterminate amount of time before he was either killed or given trial. He didn’t know which. He imagined they would simply kill him. Him and everyone like him that they could find—all of the Prophet’s followers.
Tidus had heard there were different types of pits. Those for common criminals and then those for ‘special’ criminals. They took Tidus to a pit for the commoners. He flew in a large transport, his hands and legs bound. He sat shoulder to shoulder with others that carried the Blood—though Tidus knew that didn’t matter anymore. When the Prophet died, his Blood stopped being important.
The transport slowed down before coming to a complete standstill. There must have been a hundred people in that ship, plus the guards. The prisoners all sat against the walls, and the guards stood on platforms a bit further up, wea
pons pointing down at their captives.
Tidus hadn’t known what to expect, but he had ceased caring. The Prophet’s death, it had ended something inside him. His ability to give a damn about anything, apparently.
The ship’s floor turned transparent, and Tidus looked down at the pit.
A black liquid that gave off a golden shine, almost as if lights were inside it. Tidus looked across the entire structure, a mile long, and holding just that black liquid. Only sky beneath and to the sides? More pits. Tidus couldn’t see if transports floated over them or not, but this would be his new home—that dark, life sustaining liquid.
Life sustaining. It’ll sustain your life, if life could be considered never moving or speaking again.
Tidus had been on the verge of another thought, but the bottom of the transport disappeared, and the seats the prisoners sat on tilted forward.
He spilled out of the ship, his hands and feet suddenly unbound. He watched the liquid grow closer and closer, screaming as he fell through the air. Wind whipped by him, but not strong enough to carry him away from his fate. He looked to his left and right and saw everyone falling with him, and further out, he saw thousands more. Every pit being filled.
He hit the liquid with a splat, his body slowing, but also sinking.
Tidus tried to breathe, but sucked in only thick liquid. He tried forcing it out, but it pushed deeper into his throat and then gullet, until finally it passed into his stomach. It filled his nose and ears, washed over his eyes. He panicked immediately, his brain desperately searching for air, but the cool liquid somehow delivered it to him.
He didn’t suffocate.
Tidus sank deeper and deeper, terror gripping him as he realized what this meant. Forever trapped and unmoving.
And then, he stopped sinking.
Time passed and Tidus attempted counting the days. One. Two. Three. They kept going and he kept floating there, still and silent, his thoughts occupying his time. A strange madness crept in around day four, in which Tidus began contemplating how he might kill himself. Madness because it was an impossibility. He couldn’t move—this was quicksand without death. No escape.