by Nick Kyme
The man smiled and shook his hand. A moment of sublime recognition threatened to surface within Uriah’s mind, but it was gone before he could grasp it.
‘My name is not important,’ said the man. ‘But if you wish to call me something, you may call me Revelation.’
‘An unusual name for one who professes a dislike of priests.’
‘Perhaps, but one that suits my purposes for the time being.’
‘And what purpose might that be?’ asked Uriah.
‘I wish to talk to you,’ said Revelation. ‘I wish to learn what keeps you here when the world is abandoning beliefs in gods and divinity in the face of the advances of science and reason.’
The man looked up, past the banners to the incredible ceiling of the church, and Uriah felt the unease that crawled over his flesh recede as the man’s features softened at the sight of the images painted there.
‘The great fresco of Isandula,’ said Uriah. ‘A divine work, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘It is quite magnificent,’ agreed the man, ‘but divine? I don’t think so.’
‘Then you have not looked closely enough,’ answered Uriah, looking up and feeling his heartbeat quicken as it always did when he saw the wondrous fresco completed over a thousand years ago, by the legendary Isandula Verona. ‘Open your heart to its beauty and you will feel the spirit of god move within you.’
The ceiling was entirely covered in a series of wide panels, each one depicting a different scene; nude figures disporting in a magical garden; an explosion of stars; a battle between a golden knight and a silver dragon; and myriad other scenes of a similarly fantastical nature.
Despite the passage of centuries and the fitful lighting, the vibrancy of hues, the Active architecture, the muscular anatomy of the figures, the dynamic motion, the luminous colouration and the haunting expressions of the subjects were as awe-inspiring as they had been on the day Isandula had set down her brush and allowed herself to die.
‘And the whole world came running when the fresco was revealed,’ quoted Revelation, his gaze lingering on the panel depicting the knight and the dragon. ‘And the sight of it was enough to reduce all who saw it to stunned silence.’
‘You have read your Vastari,’ said Uriah.
‘I have,’ agreed Revelation, only reluctantly tearing his gaze from the ceiling. ‘His works are often given to hyperbole, but in this case he was, if anything, understating the impact.’
‘You are a student of art?’ asked Uriah.
‘I have studied a great many things in my life,’ said Revelation. ‘Art is but one of them.’
Uriah pointed to the central image of the fresco, that of a wondrous being of light surrounded by a halo of golden machinery.
‘Then you cannot argue that this is not a work truly inspired by a higher power.’
‘Of course I can,’ said Revelation. ‘This is a sublime work whether any higher power exists or not. It does not prove the existence of anything. No gods ever created art.’
‘In an earlier age, some might have considered such a sentiment blasphemy.’
‘Blasphemy,’ said Revelation with a wry smile, ‘is a victimless crime.’
Despite himself, Uriah laughed. ‘Touché, but surely only an artist moved by the divine could create such beauty?’
‘I disagree,’ said Revelation. ‘Tell me, Uriah, have you seen the great cliff sculptures of the Mariana Canyon?’
‘No,’ said Uriah, ‘though I have heard they are incredibly beautiful.’
‘They are indeed. Thousand-metre-high representations of their kings, carved in stone that no weapon can mark or drill can cut. They are at least as incredible as this fresco, somehow worked into a cliff that had not seen sunlight in ten thousand years, yet a godless people carved them in a forgotten age. True art needs no divine explanation, it is just art.’
‘You have your opinion,’ said Uriah politely. ‘I have mine.’
‘Isandula was a genius and a magnificent artist, that much is beyond question,’ continued Revelation, ‘but she also had to make a living, and even magnificent artists must take commissions where they are to be found. I have no doubt this undertaking paid very well, for the churches of her time were obscenely wealthy organisations, but had she been asked to paint a ceiling for a palace of secular governance, might she not have painted something just as wondrous?’
‘It’s possible, but we shall never know.’
‘No, we won’t,’ agreed Revelation, moving past Uriah towards the altar. ‘And I am tempted to believe there is an element of jealousy whenever people invoke the divine to explain away such wonderful creations.’
‘Jealousy?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Revelation. ‘They cannot believe another human being can produce such sublime works of art when they cannot. Therefore some deity reached into the artist’s brain and inspired it.’
‘That is a very cynical view of humanity,’ said Uriah.
‘Elements of it, yes,’ said Revelation.
Uriah shrugged and said, ‘This has been an interesting discussion, but you must excuse me, friend Revelation. I have to prepare for my congregation.’
‘No one is coming,’ said Revelation. ‘It is just you and I.’
Uriah sighed. ‘Why are you really here?’
‘This is the last church on Terra,’ said Revelation. ‘History will soon be done with places like this and I want a memory of it before it’s gone.’
‘I knew this was going to be an unusual evening,’ said Uriah.
URIAH AND REVELATION repaired to the vestry and sat opposite one another at a grand mahogany desk carved with intertwining serpents. The chair creaked under the weight of his guest as Uriah reached into the desk and removed a tall bottle of dusty blue glass and a pair of pewter tumblers.
He poured dark red wine for the pair of them and sat back in his chair.
‘Your good health,’ said Uriah, raising his tumbler.
‘And yours,’ replied Revelation.
Uriah’s guest took a sip of the wine and nodded his head appreciatively.
‘This is very good wine. It’s old.’
‘You have a fine appreciation of wine, Revelation,’ said Uriah. ‘My father gave it to me on my fifteenth birthday and said I should drink it on my wedding night.’
‘And you never married?’
‘Never found anyone willing to put up with me. I was a devilish rogue back then.’
‘A devilish rogue who became a priest,’ said Revelation. ‘That sounds like a tale.’
‘It is,’ said Uriah, ‘But some wounds run deep and it does no good to reopen them.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Revelation, taking another drink of wine.
Uriah regarded his visitor over the top of his tumbler. Now that Revelation had sat down, he had removed his scarlet cloak and draped it over the back of his chair. His guest wore utilitarian clothes, identical to those worn by virtually every inhabitant of Terra, save that his were immaculately clean. He wore a silver ring on his right index finger, which bore a seal of some kind, but Uriah couldn’t make out what device was worked upon it.
‘Tell me, Revelation, what did you mean when you said this place would soon be gone?’
‘Exactly what I said,’ replied Revelation. ‘Even perched all the way up here, you must surely have heard of the Emperor and his crusade to stamp out all forms of religion and belief in the supernatural. Soon his forces will come here and tear this place down.’
‘I know,’ said Uriah sadly. ‘But it makes no difference to me. I believe what I believe and no amount of hectoring from some warmongering despot will alter my beliefs.’
‘That is an obstinate point of view,’ said Revelation.
‘It is faith,’ pointed out Uriah.
‘Faith,’ snorted Revelation. ‘A willing belief in the unbelievable without proof…’
‘What makes faith so powerful is that it requires no proof. Belief is enough.’
Revelation laughed. ‘
I see now why the Emperor wants rid of it then. You call faith powerful, I call it dangerous. Think of what people in the grip of faith have done in the past, all the atrocities committed down the centuries by people of faith. Politics has slain its thousands, yes, but religion has slain its millions.’
Uriah finished his wine and said, ‘Have you come here just to provoke me? I am no longer a violent man, but I do take kindly to being insulted in my own home. If this is all you are here for, then I wish you to go now.’
Revelation placed his tumbler back down on the desk and held up his hands.
‘You are right, of course,’ he said. ‘I am being discourteous, and I apologise. I came here to learn of this place, not to antagonise its guardian.’
Uriah nodded graciously. ‘I accept your apology, Revelation. You wish to see the church?’
‘I do.’
‘Then come with me,’ said Uriah, rising painfully from behind his desk, ‘and I will show you the Lightning Stone.’
URIAH LED REVELATION from the vestry back into the nave of the church, once again looking up at the beautiful fresco on the ceiling.
Shards of firelight danced beyond the stained glass of the windows, and Uriah knew that a sizeable group of men waited beyond the walls of his church.
Who was this Revelation and why was he so interested in his church?
Was he one of the Emperor’s warlords, here to earn his master’s favour by demolishing the last church on Terra? Perhaps he was a mercenary chief who sought to earn the new master of Terra’s gratitude by destroying icons of a faith that had endured since the earliest days of mankind’s struggle towards civilisation?
Either way, Uriah needed to know more of this Revelation, to keep him talking and learn what he could of his motives.
‘This way,’ said Uriah, shuffling towards the chancel, an area behind the altar that was curtained off from the rest of the church by a rich emerald drape the size of a theatre curtain. He pulled a silken cord and the drape slid aside to reveal a high, vaulted chamber of pale stone in which stood a tall megalith that rose from the centre of a circular pit in the ground.
The stone was napped like flint and had a distinct, glassy and metallic texture to its surface. The mighty stone was around six metres tall and tapered towards the top, such that it resembled an enormous speartip. The stone reared up from the ground, the tiled floor of the pit laid around it. Patches of wiry, rust-coloured bracken clustered at its base.
‘The Lightning Stone,’ said Uriah proudly, descending a set of stairs built into the ceramic-tiled walls of the pit to place a hand on the stone. He smiled, feeling the moist warmth of it.
Revelation followed Uriah into the pit, his gaze travelling the length of the stone as he circled it appreciatively. He too reached out to touch it and said, ‘So this is a holy stone?’
‘It is, yes,’ said Uriah.
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean? Why what?’
‘I mean why is it holy? Was it deposited on the ground by your god? Was a holy man martyred here, or did a young girl receive some revelation while praying at its base?’
‘Nothing like that,’ said Uriah, trying to keep the irritation from his voice. ‘Thousands of years ago, a local holy man who was deaf and blind was walking in the hills hereabouts when a sudden storm came in over the western ocean. He hurried back down to the village below, but it was a long way and the storm broke before he could reach safety. The holy man took shelter from the storm in the lee of the stone and at the height of the storm it was struck by a bolt of lightning from the heavens. He was lifted up and saw the stone wreathed in a blue fire in which he saw the face of the Creator and heard His voice.’
‘Didn’t you say this holy man was deaf and blind?’ said Revelation.
‘He was, but the power of god cured him of his afflictions,’ said Uriah. ‘He immediately ran back to the village and told the people there of the miracle.’
‘And then what happened?’
‘The holy man returned to the Lightning Stone and instructed the townspeople to build a church around it. The story of his healing soon spread and within a few years, thousands were crossing the silver bridge to visit the shrine, for a spring had begun to flow from the base of the stone and its waters were said to be imbued with healing properties.’
‘Healing properties?’ asked Revelation. ‘It could cure diseases? Mend broken limbs?’
‘So the church records say,’ said Uriah. ‘This bathing chamber was built around the stone and people came from across the lands to bathe in the sacred waters while they still flowed.’
‘I knew of a similar place far to the east of this land,’ said Revelation. ‘A young girl claimed to have seen a holy vision of a woman, a holy woman that bore a conspicuous similarity to a religious order of which her aunt was a member. Bathing houses were set up there too, but the men that ran the site were afraid the output of their holy spring would be insufficient, so they only changed the water in the pools twice a day. Hundreds of dying and diseased pilgrims passed through the same water every day, so you can imagine what a horrible slop it was at the end: threads of blood, sloughed-off skin, scabs, bits of cloth and bandage, an abominable soup of ills. The miracle was that anyone emerged alive from this human slime at all, let alone was cured of anything.’
Revelation reached out to touch the stone once more, and Uriah saw him close his eyes as he laid his palm flat on the glistening stone.
‘Haematite from a banded ironstone formation,’ said Revelation. ‘Exposed by a landslip most likely. That would explain the lightning strike. And I have heard of lightning curing people of blindness and deafness, but mostly in those whose suffering was a result of hysterical complaints brought on by earlier traumas rather than any physiological effect.’
‘Are you trying to debunk the miracle this church was founded upon?’ snapped Uriah. ‘There is a malicious streak to you, if you would seek to destroy another’s faith.’
Revelation came around the Lightning Stone and shook his head. ‘I am not being malicious; I am explaining to you how such a thing could have happened without the intervention of any godly power.’
Revelation tapped a finger to the side of his head and said, ‘You think that the way you perceive the world is the way it actually is, but you cannot perceive the external world directly, none of us can. Instead, we know only our ideas or interpretations of objects in the world. The human brain is a marvellously evolved organ, my friend, and it is especially good at constructing images of faces and voices from limited information.’
‘What has that to do with anything?’ asked Uriah.
‘Imagine your holy man sheltering from the storm in the cover of this great stone when the lightning bolt hit, the fire and the noise, the pounding surge of elemental energy pouring through him. Isn’t it possible that an already-religious man might, in such desperate circumstances, perceive sights and sounds of a divine nature? After all, humans do it all the time. When you wake with dread in the dead of night, is that darkness in the corner not an intruder instead of just a simple shadow, the creak of a floorboard the tread of a murderer instead of the house settling in the cold night?’
‘So you’re saying that he imagined it all?’
‘Something like that,’ agreed Revelation. ‘I don’t mean to suggest he did so consciously or deliberately, but given the origins and evolution of religions in the human species, it seems a far more likely and convincing explanation. Don’t you agree?’
‘No,’ said Uriah. ‘I don’t.’
‘You don’t?’ said Revelation. ‘You strike me as a not unintelligent man, Uriah Olathaire. Why can you not concede at least the possibility of such an explanation?’
‘Because I too have seen a vision of my god and heard His voice. Nothing can compare with knowing personally and completely that the divine exists.’
‘Ah, personal experience,’ said Revelation. ‘An experience utterly convincing to you and which cannot be proved or di
sproved. Tell me, where did you receive this vision?’
‘On a battlefield in the lands of the Franc,’ said Uriah. ‘Many years ago.’
‘The Franc were long ago brought to Unity,’ said Revelation. ‘The last battle was fought nearly half a century ago. You must have been a young man back then.’
‘I was,’ agreed Uriah. ‘Young and foolish.’
‘Hardly a prime candidate for divine attention,’ said Revelation. ‘But then I’ve found that many of the men who appear in the pages of your holy books are far from ideal role models, so perhaps it’s not surprising at all.’
Uriah fought down his anger at Revelation’s mocking tone, turning away from the Lightning Stone and climbing from the pit. He made his way back towards the candlelit altar, taking a few seconds to calm his breathing and slow his racing heartbeat. He lifted the leather-bound book from beside the candle and took a seat on one of the pews facing the altar.
He heard Revelation’s footsteps and said, ‘You come in an adversarial mood, Revelation. You say you wish to learn of me and this church? Well come, let us joust with words, thrust and parry one another’s certainties with argument and counterargument. Say what you will and we will spar all night if you desire. But come sunrise, you will leave and never return.’
Revelation descended the steps of the altar, pausing to admire the doomsday clock. He saw the book in Uriah’s hands and folded his arms.
‘That is my intention. I have other matters to attend to, but I have this night to talk with you,’ said Revelation, pointing to the book Uriah clutched to his thin chest. ‘And if I am adversarial, it is because it infuriates me to see the blinkered wilfulness of those who live their lives enslaved to such fantastical notions as are contained in that book and others like it – that damnable piece of thunder in your hands.’
‘So now you mock my holy book too?’
‘Why not?’ said Revelation. ‘That book is nine centuries worth of agglomerated texts assembled, rewritten, translated and twisted to fit the needs of hundreds of mostly anonymous and unknown authors. What basis is that to take guidance for your life?’
