Steadfast

by Michelle Hauck

  A few smaller sarcophagi had been left for seating, and the walls had been decorated with centuries of graffiti, erasing the original murals and covering the remaining carvings. Hooks in the walls let them space oil lanterns for much better lighting. Pillars covered with carvings gave them a convenient place to secure Santabe, who had eventually recovered from her overdosing. Telo even believed this location was a little less chilly than the other. A good thing, as the damp of the first location had caused severe aches in his amputated limb. A ring of broken rocks formed a place for a fire, and the flames added a cheerful glow entirely out of place with their purpose.

  Their new den hadn’t been empty when they arrived, but the transients had taken one look at Ramiro’s weaponry and the sullen captive, Santabe, and made for the door, sped along by some coins from Teresa. Taken altogether, it made for a much better living situation—while perhaps a worse interrogation chamber.

  We’ll see about that.

  “Magic or science,” Teresa mused. “Which creates these Diviners? Though isn’t science always like magic to those who don’t understand? Do we perhaps misrepresent magic of, say, the witches, because we just don’t have the tools to explore what’s really happening? Fascinating thought. Could that be the case here also with the Diviners?”

  Father Telo cleared his throat, hiding his expression, though Ramiro looked annoyed at the digression. “Yes, well, my child. Shall we stay on topic and leave the philosophy for another day?” They had enough trouble with Santabe without confusing the issues. Telo was no professional interrogator, but he understood that concept at least. Though as a priest, he found that getting people to talk meant getting them to relax, so perhaps Teresa’s off-topic asides helped with that.

  Getting people to talk.

  An idea clicked. A method that always brought people out of their shell.

  He held up his stub to his companions in a warning to stay quiet for a moment. Santabe’s eyes narrowed. “I just realized how rude we are being to you,” he said. He moved next to her long enough to place a bandage on the cut Ramiro had inflicted. “We pepper you with questions, but don’t give you the respect of offering to answer any. Perhaps you have questions about us, our goals, our people. What do you say? I will do my best to answer truthfully anything you want to know.”

  He could see her struggling against the temptation to speak. Temptation won. “Hypocrites. You preach of kindness, but how long do you intend to hold me before you kill me?”

  “A complicated question. That has yet to be decided,” he said without offense that she would jump to such a conclusion. Her response was the logical query to spring to her lips. “But you saw what happened with Ordoño. I was unable to go through with my decision to eliminate the Northern leader. If I have any influence, you will not be killed. Nor will we hold you long.” God forgive him for letting such a one loose on the world yet again, but he was guilty of that already. “I have come to hold more firmly as the best of us preach that retribution is not in my hands. But as I say, it isn’t totally up to me, and my companions might feel differently. After all, there are many levels of violence before reaching killing.”

  Ramiro cracked his knuckles.

  “See?” Telo added. “It is not entirely in my hands. Our goodwill does depend on your cooperation. Keep in mind I am only in charge for today. And as to our kindness that so disgusts you, it is not hypocrisy, as we are also a people of justice. We have only been defending what is ours, hoping to find a way to protect our people so we can return to a life of harmony.” He refrained from pointing out that her kind were the ultimate oppressors. Casting blame would not lead to good feelings. “What else would you know of us?”

  Santabe seemed to be a woman of strong opinions combined with a volatile temper. In his experience as a traveling friar, Telo had never found that a recipe for a human who kept silent when given an opportunity to express themselves. Each conversation could be brought to lead to one more, and perhaps—eventually—reveal useful information.

  The key was patience.

  Luckily, he hadn’t long to wait this time, either. “Justice. You say you value it, but your society reveals you do not. Where is your punishment for those who break the law? Again you pick kindness”—she slurred the word into sounding like an oath—“over sending criminals back to their former life to learn better ways. Kindness doesn’t help those who break the law. Punishment does. You believe your society superior, yet you don’t even allow women among your priests. You restrict half your society with some misbegotten view of inequality. Your people deserve to fall to Dal. You are the barbarians! Inferior!”

  Telo sat back on his stone seat, strangely calmed by her anger. “I do not claim we are a perfect society. We have our faults, as you have found—on the issue of women most definitely—though I disagree with what you said about our justice. But let us discuss equality first, because it’s something I’m eager to learn more about from you. Before we do, though, it might be worth mentioning that unlike Aveston and other ciudades-estado, Colina Hermosa has never had an actual law preventing women from joining the clergy. Indeed, there have always been a few female priests—six or seven added in the last year or so. Yet I know we can do better at that, and I’m curious what you might suggest. For example, what are the other roles of women among the Children of Dal?”

  “I noticed none in your army,” Teresa added when Santabe didn’t respond.

  Instead of appeasing her with his concession of fault, the red spots in her cheeks spread and grew larger. Telo stepped in swiftly. “Here women become healers, or educators, scholars and professors”—he waved at Teresa—“they work in shops and family businesses, they take their turn to sit on panels as judges and act in juries to judge their peers. They have even become leaders of our cities. But most choose traditional roles of marriage and raising families. Many give their time to the church as laypersons. They are restricted from our military as seems to be the case with your land. But again, what about you? What do women do besides working for your god?”

  She wanted to resist—he could see it—and yet she also wanted to speak.

  He could see that, too.

  “We are merchants—farmers,” Santabe finally said. “Women own the shops, the properties. Generate the money. We are not forced to stay home with children. Our children learn to take care of themselves or they perish. We are not subservient, lazy thralls as your people make them. We have power!

  “And you worry too much about the poor. Soup kitchens. Bread lines. Blasphemy! They should be left to starve as suits their worth! How else are they to learn in the next life?”

  “Fascinating,” Teresa said, her eyes glowing. “What a treasure trove of directly opposite lifestyles. I wish we could learn more from each other. Tell me more about the next life and what happens in your afterlife. I really must know.”

  “You only want to know how to stop Dal, ugly woman,” was the sharp reply. “There isn’t any way to stop him. You will die as you deserve and learn nothing from me.”

  “You mistake us,” Telo said. “We are an open people—curious. We always crave to learn more.” A great weariness sunk into his bones. He had gotten her to talk, or to cast blame more accurately, but it wasn’t leading to a better understanding. Still, he could only press on. “You don’t pay taxes or donate to support your poor—your elderly then?”

  Santabe’s eyes flashed. “Why should we?” And she proceeded to tell him exactly what she thought of that idea.

  Ramiro groaned and settled against the wall as the conversation turned to the topic of economics—the Northern version was a most bigoted and heartless system according to their prisoner’s words—while Teresa tried to redirect the talk to religion. He could see where Father Telo attempted to go with this general talk, but it wasn’t going to work and Ramiro found it hard to keep his attention where it belonged. He really didn’t care that the Northerner’s largest crop was wheat, nor that they burned half their yield rather than gi
ve the grain away—that fact didn’t matter here unless they could bury Dal under a flood of grain and be done with it. His part in this farce was over for today, though it hadn’t really been playing a part on his side. He expected to use some sort of coercion eventually, if not truly chopping off her limbs. He hadn’t been lying about what he could do with a knife and a fire. Now, boredom and the fact that he’d run on short sleep for days made his eyelids heavy.

  He blinked, jerked awake, and blinked again as the urge to sleep hit him from nowhere and everywhere. He shook himself, standing more upright. Never had he fallen asleep on duty—

  The world of gray fog floated into existence as he closed his eyes again.

  “Leviathan.”

  He jumped as gray fog surrounded his waking eyes, revealing Salvador’s form—his brother’s face—in the distance. Too far to reach without sprinting and yet too near to mistake. Experience with the gray world of fog had taught him not to try to get nearer, as he would not be allowed. He recognized the narrow, alley-like streets of Aveston. The figure who was not his brother waited at the opposite end.

  “Leviathan.”

  The word drifted to him from a dozen voices at once. Each sound coming from a tiny window gaping in the fog—each perhaps the size of a book. All showed a fresh perspective. Priests in their pulpits. Scholars sharing cheap bread and olive oil at a tavern. A monk pointing a tapestry out to a group of pilgrims. Too many windows to glimpse before they faded, covered with fog again. A single word came from every fresh window to elsewhere before they closed.

  “Leviathan.”

  “Leviathan.”

  “Leviathan.”

  “Leviathan!” Ramiro shouted as the gray fog vanished, having never existed in the first place. “Leviathan!”

  Teresa and Father Telo swung around from Santabe with concern on their faces at his shouts. Part of him filled with relief that the help from the dreams continued, while the other felt only dread for what the vision could mean. “My dream says Leviathan. I remember that vaguely from church. But it’s dead, right? I’m sure the lesson said God killed the Beast. That’s what it is—a sea beast.”

  His companions exchanged a long look. “Not exactly,” Teresa said. “A sea beast is a label that grew over time. It’s not what is recorded. ‘God smote the Leviathan with a flaming’—or in some translations shining—’sword and so defeated the darkness so He could create the worlds.’”

  “Worlds?” Ramiro asked. “There’s just one world.”

  “It translates literally to worlds,” Telo said, rubbing his bare chin absently. “This is bad. This is very bad. The name came from your dream? You saw something that can help us?”

  “Not saw, no. Heard. ‘The Leviathan.’ It’s got to be what’s behind the Northern god. What is it?”

  Father Telo looked thoughtful. “Simply put, it’s the Beast of Darkness that God fought in order to use his power of creation at the dawn of time. Fought and won, back when only two things existed: good and evil.”

  “Then the dream is wrong. It is dead and not what’s causing the massacres.”

  “Not exactly,” Teresa said. “You can’t kill the Beast. Leviathan was the first monster and the father of all the rest. It is the Darkness as God is the Light. Neither can be wholly defeated.”

  “What?” Ramiro said blankly. “That’s not what I remember from church.”

  “It wouldn’t be,” Father Telo said with a quirk of his lips. “The Church doesn’t exactly go in for reminding people that there was something out there our Lord couldn’t defeat for all time. God has no weakness. He’s all-powerful, remember? But there are hidden scriptures that say otherwise.”

  Teresa nodded. “The Heretic Scriptures. Recognized as authentic, but banned by the Church for one reason or another from public mention. You can believe the clergy talk enough about them privately, though. You have to be a full professor to even hear about them, let alone see them. They all confirm the same thing: Simply put, the flaming sword of God cut the Darkness into chunks. Each piece kept a share of the life and strength of Leviathan in proportion to their size.”

  Ramiro shook his head. “That’s hardly simple. Spell it out for a blockhead.”

  “Monsters,” Father Telo said. “It means monsters. The sword cut Leviathan into sections and the smaller pieces became manticores, sphinx, griffins, dragons, and others. The weaker sort of creatures that saints or even mortal men could take down with mortal weapons. These could die and eventually became extinct. Do you remember the legend of San Jorge and the Dragon? Well, it’s not exactly a legend. It was a smaller section of the Leviathan. San Jorge persevered, but died of his burns.”

  “And the bigger pieces?” Ramiro made himself ask.

  “What do you think?” Father Telo turned his back, looking too shaken to continue.

  “Not good,” Teresa said. “More monsters. The immortal kind. God couldn’t kill them, but He supposedly locked them away where they could only occasionally revisit the world.”

  A shiver crawled down Ramiro’s back. “Like every twenty-five hundred years.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Then we can’t kill it.”

  “No,” Teresa said. “If your dream is correct, we can’t kill it or destroy this thing we’re facing.”

  “As I told you,” Santabe said, laughing. Ramiro jumped as he had forgotten she was there. “Now maybe you will hear me. I know not this Levethorn—He is our Dal, not a thing belonging to you or from your writings—but Dal cannot be stopped.”

  Father Telo faced them again to say, “The Darkness doesn’t think—doesn’t feel. It has one purpose and that is to smother life. To kill. To wipe out existence. It always was and always will be. There before the dawn of time. The opposite of God.”

  “Dal kills.” Santabe agreed, showing her teeth. “It has been killing the Children of Dal for millennia. Now He kills all.”

  Ramiro stalked over and seized the Northerner by her robe, shaking her. “But the Children of Dal survived! How did you do it?” She only smirked at him, until he shoved her hard, smashing her against the pillar. It quivered, rocking slightly. “Tell us or I’ll knock your teeth out!” Rage swallowed him.

  When he’d cut and taunted Santabe before, he’d been the one under control, knowing that his threats weren’t going anywhere—not on this day at any rate. But this was different. Now he wanted nothing more than to end Santabe for all time.

  Teresa was quickly there, peeling his fingers from the priestess. “Ramiro. I don’t think this is the way to face down the Darkness. If that’s truly what we face, matching it with anger isn’t the answer or even possible.”

  “Let me handle her,” Father Telo said, stepping forward.

  Ramiro backed off, his reactions cooling. How had his temper slipped his control? The pseudo-Salvador from the gray fog never displayed this kind of negative emotion, not even when he had exhibited images of entire cities devastated, all the people killed. Always the figure of the gray world had been a well of compassion, exhibiting sorrow for the victims and the enemy both. He sensed that the man from his dreams loved even the Darkness.

  That was something Ramiro could never do.

  It might have been a mistake to choose me to have these dreams. I am too imperfect, unfit for the job.

  Deserter, a tiny voice reminded.

  “Fool,” he whispered to himself. “Stop that.”

  It wasn’t easy, but he knew he couldn’t simply succumb to the doubt. He might not have that sort of control over his behavior or love for all, like the figure in his dreams, but he was hardly worthless. He could at least manage not to kill Santabe if nothing else. A fair fight would be a different story, but she was tied and bound, helpless. He was better than that.

  Teresa still held his hand and he turned to her. “Thank you for restraining me. Truly we are in this together. However, some of this still doesn’t make sense. My dream is trying to tell me Dal is a piece of the Leviathan—”

>   “If your dream is right, a big piece,” Teresa agreed.

  “So Dal is the Darkness. Then why do the Northerners call him a sun god? He works his killing by day and not at night. That doesn’t fit with my vision of evil. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

  Teresa’s cheeks rounded with a smile. “I don’t think it’s a literal darkness.” She sobered and patted his hand. “Religion is full of paradox, cousin. Why did some pieces of the Leviathan become dragons and some sphinx? Each monster is different. Perhaps there’s another out there that dwells only in night.”

  “Lovely. I think one monster is enough.” He drew his hand away to rub at his face, leaning against the wall. Somehow it had been easier to accept when what they faced had been unnamed, some unfamiliar Northern god. But his dream put truth somewhere squarely here at home, though so ancient an evil as to be all but forgotten. It bothered him even more because he’d been trained to fight human enemies, not myths. “Monsters. By the saints, there are no such things as monsters. But then there are miracles again. I suppose . . . where do we get a flaming sword?” he joked.

  Swords he could understand.

  Teresa thought for a moment. “Well, Santiago mentioned the weapon from the dawn of time once during his lifetime. He said the Lord created it from a piece of flesh off his own arm and blew on the unshaped mass to give it substance and fire. He used his own flesh probably because there was only God and the Darkness available at the time. Chopping up the Leviathan apparently destroyed the sword. But I don’t think that helps. Even to look at the Sword of Creation would kill us.”

  “Good to know. I’ll remember not to ask for the flaming sword that’s the only thing that could save us.” Ramiro felt frustration building. “An immortal monster out of legend. Sure. We can tackle that with our two hands—or in Father Telo’s case just one.”