Sondranos: The Narrative of Leon Bishop

by Patrick Stephens

  Kayt jumped out of her seat. “You aren’t convincing anyone about your cause.”

  “My presence is the only reason for my cause,” Velric answered, turned around and stepped onto the platform. He set his hands on his seat, and twisted into it. His lips had twisted into a smirk. “The man you call Father assumes I am here to try and convince you, but I know that is a fruitless gesture. Instead, I am wasting time, building the Father’s confidence, and waiting for the slaughter to begin.”

  Kayt stood. Melanie held her back. The fork was evident in her hand - the prongs poked outside of her fist, the handle jutting out like a pike. I doubt Velric saw it. Velric watched, and if he could have, he’d be wearing a smile.

  “Stupid girl,” she said. Velric leaned forward. “You stupid, stupid girl. You keep talking and talking, but you aren’t doing anything worth your skin.”

  I suddenly had the feeling that Annalise wasn’t talking to Kayt so much as herself.

  Kayt stepped back. She knocked into the seating for the table behind us as Annalise advanced. “Give me that fork,” she said. Kayt wiped away a couple of tears that had begun to fall. Annalise grabbed Kayt by the wrist, twisted Kayt’s fingers, and jerked the fork out of her hand. She then pushed Kayt down into her seat. Annalise, brandishing the utensil, looked at me. I saw nothing in her eyes. No spark, no light – if I could claim to have seen even the faintest hope in her eyes then, I would say it with full confidence. However, all I could truly see was a woman who was ready to end her life.

  “Don’t,” I whispered.

  Annalise scowled, rotated the fork, and held it out like a knife. Annalise threw herself at Velric. Velric opened his arms. He welcomed her attack. She stabbed the fork in between his chest plates, hitting the grey area.

  As I’d expected, dust crumbled to the ground – or was it flakes of Velric’s skin? The fork busted, and the prongs bent in all directions. Annalise pulled back, expecting something else. Velric backhanded her, and she flew across the stage. Her body thumped, and crumbled as it hit a pillar just after tumbling down the edge of the stage. She still breathed, but her eyes were rolled back in her head.

  The two servants who’d come and moved the table burst in as if they’d expected this to happen. They both picked Annalise up, slinging her between their shoulders.

  “Take her to the questions chamber and fasten her into the cell-room. She can only cause harm to herself. I will see to her execution when the attack is underway,” Velric said to the servants. Then he turned to us and continued, “In the meantime, I have no urge to continue Father Corin’s games. Leave. I won’t take part in his urge to convince you.”

  I didn’t realize that the comment was more for us than them, when one of the servants looked up and waited. Velric shooed them away with his hand, and the servant nodded. I wanted to go after Annalise, but Velric stood watch. Kayt and Melanie watched in horror. The moment was quiet and tense.

  “Leave now,” he said. “I do not like repeating myself.”

  I stood, and Melanie whispered for Kayt to hurry. We walked through the aisle that Father Corin had insisted we go down. It was as if we’d never been there. Melanie pushed open the door, Kayt went out first, and I let it shut behind me.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s ready to die,” I said. “She thought Velric would have killed her like the people back on Covenant. I bet when she wakes up, she’s going to be very disappointed.”

  “Do you ever get the feeling like you’re just being used?” Kayt asked. “Or completely useless?”

  “We’ll get her,” I responded. My words caught in my throat, even though I hadn’t had time to conceal them. “In the meantime, if Velric thinks he can just go through the motions, we have to prove him wrong.”

  The morning wind was cold, and the lights streaming down the pathway was sudden and intense. The warmth of the night had fled, leaving a sudden sting of discomforting cold in its wake. Father Corin and Davion waited outside for us.

  “We trust that Velric explained to you what we are attempting to do - that we must preserve this land from those who would wish to see the Belovores extinct?” Father Corin asked.

  “No,” I said. I wanted to tell them what Velric had said, and that it had been nothing more than his way of telling us we would all die.

  This time, Melanie stopped me. She said: “We will serve the people the way we know how. As Davion has taught us.”

  This took Davion off guard. His entire demeanour had been previously slumped, and when he heard Melanie, he smiled. He stuck his chest out and flattened his robes down like he had so many hours ago, back when the Abbey was just in our sights. Father Corin looked happy.

  “We must be off,” Father Corin said. “There is much to do before the assailants arrive.”

  “What about the city?” I asked.

  “My son. Have faith,” Father Corin interrupted. I was being stonewalled. “Once the troops see that we are serious about preserving the Belovores, they dare not advance. There will be so little bloodshed that you will doubt this event ever happened. The ones that change history rarely do.”

  Father Corin and Davion left, Davion keeping beside the Father instead of following. With Annalise taken prisoner, hundreds of Forgiven starting to fortify the walls, and just as many Belovores hunkered inside the commune, we waited. We’d lost track of time, but we were all certain the Cooper would arrive very soon.

  “I don’t understand,” Kayt started. We’d walked to a spot fairly avoided by the Forgiven, on a patch of unkempt grass out of the way of anything. “Davion and Father Corin made it sound like Velric was supposed to indoctrinate, or sell us on the commune. All he told us was how badly he wanted us dead.”

  “When the troops from the Cooper come in,” I started, “They’re going to start shooting at any Belovore they see – especially if they’ve been getting reports from the surface. However, when the troops land close enough, the commune’s going to open fire to protect themselves. They won’t try and hit the troopers. But the troopers won’t know that. They’ll fire indiscriminately. No matter who wins or who dies, nobody will ever look at this place as home again. Scorched earth. I can only imagine that when the troops arrive, the Belovores will slaughter them as well, since the troopers will expect easy targets – or at least be using stun weapons.”

  “What do we do?” Kayt asked.

  “We can’t take this many Belovores on directly. Annalise proved that. But Davion might be a good place to start. I’m willing to bet he doubts what’s best anymore,” I said.

  The Cooper broke orbit and streaked into the morning sky like a comet. Dozens of smaller ships converged on a point in the west and led the Cooper like a runway. On board, I imagined the same ship I’d come from – only, this one was capable of emergency landings, since it wasn’t built strictly for transport.

  Inside, thousands of soldiers were gearing up. They strapped on their weapons and looked out on giant screens for where they’d be landing. Some vomited when they saw what remained of the city. They wanted nothing more than to be inside the Cooper, safe, without the fear of what would come after they left. Or they wanted to destroy whoever was responsible.

  I could understand that. I mentioned the first hours on the Korsikov, and how regular they’d seemed. Stepping into military action was regular for the soldiers. Did any of them know if their life would change, as mine had? In that moment, I would have given anything to slip back into the Korsikov. I wanted to feel the thrust of everything taking off, and leave Sondranos behind. Just like the Korsikov, the Cooper must have been warm and inviting. I felt completely helpless – the Cooper had sent a message of hope and rescue to us hours ago. Now that they were nearly here, nobody could warn them that their rescue would become a bloodbath.

  Chapter Twelve:

  The Second Coming

  A handful of Forgiven burst out of the barracks across the way, carrying crates to the entrance of the commune. Some wore smiles wh
ile others were stoic – or maybe depressed. I could hardly believe that they walked to the wall of their compound knowing they might be firing at fellow humans. Then again, they had protection on the brain. I’m sure the consequences never crossed their mind. To those in a world filled with guns, warheads, and knives, the idea of violence begetting more violence was commonplace. But to people who studied only peace?

  I’m sure Father Corin had no trouble convincing them that warning shots would be all they needed. And when the Forgiven started hitting the floor, dissent would strike, and then so would the Belovores. As such, the Belovores watched from the spot along the wall. The main doors had been closed, so we could safely assume no more were coming. Enough had come and gone for me to lose track of even a guess regarding how many there were.

  “We have to get Annalise,” I said. “We have to stop this before it starts.”

  “It can only go one of three ways,” Melanie said. “Either the Forgiven are angry enough when they start dying, or defensive enough to open fire on the Cooper’s soldiers, or the soldiers will come in and the Belovores will start the slaughter.”

  “Velric seems to be banking on the first,” Kayt added.

  “Both will happen,” I said. “It’s just a matter of how many die in the interim. Which is why we have to find a way to convince them that firing would be a bad idea. Even if the shots are warning shots. The Cooper’s troops don’t know what’s been going on behind these walls. How many bullets or energy pulses come with a giant neon sign that says ‘don’t come any closer or next time we’ll miss’? One shot could destabilize everything.”

  Melanie looked over Kayt’s shoulder, back to the barracks. More crates, more Forgiven. Half of the commune must have shown up; where the other half was, we didn’t know. We wanted to keep it that way – the less potential to fire, the better our odds.

  “What do you think?” Melanie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It just all seems so convoluted; how do you convince people of something when their only belief is in convincing themselves?”

  “Except for Davion,” Kayt added.

  “I’m going to be the one to find him,” I started. The idea came as a sudden jolt down my back. I could have sworn I’d just been hit square in the spine. “I’ll go after him, use him to find Annalise before Velric gets to her.”

  “She wasn’t fighting back,” Melanie said.

  “She wanted to die,” Kayt finished the thought.

  “I know. But we can’t think of that now. We can only stop one thing at a time, and Annalise isn’t going to hurt herself until she’s face to face with a Belovore,” I said. “We have time. We can stop this.”

  “Are you insane?”

  Technically, through lack of sleep and how I’d come here – running, running, running, and always expecting to be safe – I could have been declared legally insane. It may have been the haze over my brain talking, but I felt like I was capable of rational thought even more than when I was well rested and in front of the classroom.

  “Maybe that’s what we have to be, in order to survive,” I said. Then, I spoke more to Melanie than Kayt, and looked into her eyes. “Back at Covenant, when Annalise, Kayt and I were being held captive, we met this woman. Abilene. Annalise wanted to use her to spread a story that would have helped us overtake the situation, but the story she spread moved too quickly. By the time Lancaster came out, the word had spread that many hands could kill a Belovore, even though we’d been exaggerating. We hoped to come up with a plan, but there just wasn’t any time left.”

  Kayt sighed and looked to the ground. It was apparent to me that the mention of Lancaster had hurt, but she did her best to conceal the pain.

  “What if we start spreading our own stories?” I continued.

  “You mean find a way to convince the Forgiven not to shoot?”

  “That would be impossible,” Kayt said.

  “When you’re faced with something terrible, when you have the sinking suspicion that what you are about to do is wrong, anything is possible. Especially when it comes to rash decisions,” I said. “I need you both to make something up. Tell them the troops are coming to rescue the Belovores; say that the city was destroyed by an accident – if they know about the city being destroyed – and imply that the Cooper is here to quarantine us until they know we aren’t poisoned by the explosion. Whatever you have to tell them, tell them. Just convince them that firing is a bad idea, and that the Cooper has no intention of firing first.”

  “We need to hurry,” Melanie pointed to the far wall, closest to the entryway. A dozen more Forgiven had arrived, and were opening the crates. One by one, the rifles were pulled out and handed down into the large group of people. The Belovores slowly scattered, heading towards the barracks or the Hall. They eyed the Forgiven with nothing behind their looks – they watched, but didn’t help.

  Above them all, sitting in a crow’s nest situated near the front of the tower, a man cried out. “Troops, to the south!”

  We watched as rifles moved faster through the crowd. Everyone – men, women, and teenagers - grabbed at weapons, holstered them or grabbed ammunition packs, and started towards rally points along the wall. At each rally point, a ladder reached to the walkway above. Two men from each point climbed up and pointed their weapons outward. Adding to the scene, the sun began to rise far off in the distance. It revealed a clear sky reaching towards us like it wanted to stifle the violence about to erupt. Beams of yellow light cascaded down the crater’s edge on the other end of Sondranos, and even though we couldn’t see anything past the commune walls, Kayt, Melanie, and I used the sudden sunburst as inspiration. If it was going to be a new day, we might as well start it better than the last one ended.

  Melanie and Kayt looked at me, and nodded.

  We all headed towards the crowd and refused to make eye contact. It was odd being welcomed into the fold. A man wearing long, sleek red robes handed me a rifle. He looked to Melanie and Kayt, and handed Melanie a smaller pistol. He handed a similar one to Kayt.

  I met their eyes as we took the guns and walked off towards a secluded area. A Belovore walked patrol close by. We all smelled his armour, cold and bitter. Like battery acid. He sneered as we inspected our weapons. I wondered if the expression was perpetual. Kayt fingered the trigger and unlocked the safety. I stepped in front of her as the Belovores passed by, and she scowled at me. I doubt she would have fired.

  Once the Belovores had passed, I said: “Tell your stories. If the Cooper’s troops can reach the front, or better yet, walk right in without firing a shot, then the Belovores will panic and start attacking. Then we’ll have an entire regiment on our side, plus a group of confused Forgiven realizing how they’ve been played.”

  It was good to have hope. Even though I tried to believe what I said, I found that I couldn’t fathom what was happening around me. To have come from Earth and two weeks later be ready to fire on an enemy I never knew existed still caused doubts in my mind. I pulled the rifle close to my chest, turned away from Melanie and Kayt, and headed towards the centre of the compound. The idea was to look for one of two familiar faces, or robes.

  As much as I hate to admit it, I can’t avoid the fact that when I left Melanie and Kayt, I believed I should fail.

  In proper spirit, False Daniel took the chance to remind me of why I should die that day. He may not have been the one I saw out by the car, but by then I knew he didn’t have to be. He was the inner voice that I needed in the moment. Mean, confident, supportive, or degrading, False Daniel only accentuated what I glimpsed in consciousness.

  ‘Think about Julien.’ He said, reminding me of a boy I knew long before I met Daniel. ‘Gorgeous. The kind of person you could never deserve. You were friends, and not once could you stand up and say what you wanted. He was with that tool. You couldn’t tell him that he deserved better, or that the guy he was with would cheat on him if only he met someone better looking.

  ‘Do you remember the daydrea
ms? You sincerely believed you could provide him with such a wonderful life that he would forget all that came before. Long brown hair, the kind of eyes you got lost in once or twice – so, naturally, you never made eye contact. He was thin, and his sisters weren’t so bad either. You contemplated moving to where he did, and even though you knew he would let you in, you couldn’t. You stayed at home and settled for what was safe. How did that turn out for you?’

  “You know it was never like that. Life continues after you meet other people,” I mumbled. Even now I wonder if I’d had to mumble, because I felt the blush rushing to my cheeks as I passed two Forgiven attempting to tie the cords around their waists tighter.

  ‘Julien – you are too perfect for words. You deserve more than to be stuck with someone who looks at you like you’re just a person. I want to sit at home with you; I want to argue with you; I want to go out to so many places that we’ll never remember them, and laugh at how much money we wasted going out, only to stare at each other and smile. We belong together, and while I understand that you have found your happiness, I just wish I could have the chance to show you that ours could be the kind of happiness that surpasses stories.’

  Anger flushed the blush away, and it took all I had to compose myself.

  ‘You are indecisive. You may believe the words, but you’ll never commit to the actions so long as you can use the words again. You hide behind the narrative, and hope it will act for you. Just like with Julien, and just like you did with me.’

  “I’m going to save this place,” I said. I knew the person of my words, and I believed them. I’d been speaking, and writing and acting in passive voice for so long that I’d lost track of what it was to be myself. Nobody should be forced, or tricked, into playing that game. I acted. I stood up and spoke. I moved the commune with the strength of my words, and this time, someone did hear me.