by Scott Hale
“Felix,” Justine said, breaking him out of his thoughts. “Do you want to know what happens to a Holy Child after another is chosen to take their place?”
“What?”
The Mother Abbess tilted her head at one of the living statues. “They are what happens.”
He laughed. His eyes started to water. “I don’t understand?”
“Those statues are the Holy Children that came before you. That’s what god does to them when their service is finished. They continue to serve the church, and keep all their secrets to themselves. Do you see why I want this terrible tradition to end?”
The waxen sheets over their star-shaped heads. He understood now why they wore them. “But why would god make them look… look like that?”
“We are nothing more than clay to be molded as god sees fit, Felix. For the Holy Children god no longer needs, their form is what god saw fit. So tell me: the Winnowers here have committed terrible crimes. What is their punishment?”
Lip quivering, Felix closed his eyes. Images tore through his mind, of his body being ripped apart and put back together, of his head being chopped up and made pointed and severe.
His eyes snapped open and he said, with absolutely no conviction whatsoever, “The punishment is death.”
Justine nodded. She rapped her fists six times upon the podium. The small, wooden courtroom door opened, the Demagogue and a crowd full of onlookers standing on the other side.
“Death,” Justine shouted to crowd funneling into the court. “These Disciples of the Deep have stripped their souls to appease their false god. They have turned on family and friend and shamed their creator to threaten the stability of our ancient order. You know them by name and face, and by involvement in the Winnowers’ Chapter. I have been patient and open to their beliefs, but tonight, I have found them brewing death, trying to recreate the events of Geharra here in Pyra. The Holy Child and I have convened, and by the grace of god, we sentence these ten heretics to death.”
The Holy Children wasted no time carrying out the judgment. They set down their fear-stricken prisoners. But before they could run away, the statues clapped their hands together. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. They clapped their hands together over the Winnowers’ heads. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Like melons, their skulls exploded, flinging pink mush and boney seeds across the courtroom audience.
And the courtroom audience accepted this new baptism with red-cheeked glee. They didn’t scream out in terror or threaten revolt. They just looked at Felix and Justine and gave them silent thanks.
CHAPTER IX
Felix couldn’t remember how he ended up back in the Ascent. He had long left his body before his body had left the Tribunal. His vision had become a tunnel of stretched smiles and marble limbs. His hearing had become a muffled cloud of small praises and whispered worries. In between the Tribunal and the Ascent, Avery, Mackenzie, and Justine had tried to get his attention and make sure that he was okay. But he hadn’t been okay. In fact, he hadn’t been anything at all. In that moment, he had been nothing more than the vessel he was supposed to be. And when he called on god to fill him, god was not there.
Back in the Ascent, seeing the door to his room, Felix thought of Audra and finally came out of it.
“I’ll be fine,” he said to the Mother Abbess and his guards. A few people skirted through the Ascent. They pointed at him and bowed. “I need to go to sleep.”
“Your holiness,” Mackenzie started.
Felix ignored her and pushed open his door.
“Your holiness, we have to check your room first,” Avery said.
“What?” He stopped, the door barely open. He peered through the crack and thought he saw something on the other side. “Oh. No, it’s fine.”
“There may be more enemies in Pyra than we realize,” Justine said. She lifted the hood attached to her gown and lowered it over her head. “Let your guards check your room. Let them do their jobs.”
Mackenzie’s face begged him to give them the chance to carry out their duties. He wanted to fight back, use god’s demands against them, but he couldn’t put Avery and Mackenzie in that situation. He didn’t know what Justine would do to them if he did.
“Sure,” he said. He peeked through the crack again, but this time, he didn’t see anything. “I’m just really tired.”
As Avery and Mackenzie went past him, Justine held out her arms. Felix waddled over to her and accepted the embrace.
“Why did you do that?” he whispered to her. He breathed in her gown, and it was like breathing in a campfire.
“Felix, you know that I have sentenced many, many prisoners to death.”
“But you made me watch.”
She touched the back of his head, pressed his face harder into her chest. “You are god’s voice. A voice cannot speak without seeing the world and its inhabitants. Things are different now. Our words must have weight, or they will be swatted away, like flies.”
Felix heard Avery mumble to Mackenzie. He craned his neck. Did they find her? Did they find Audra? Justine took his head and, again, pressed it hard against her chest.
“Those statues are really Holy Children?”
“Hush,” Justine said. “That’s our secret.”
“Why were they in Audra’s cell?”
Avery and Mackenzie stepped out of his room.
“So I could see and hear everything that was being done and said in there.” Justine patted his head and turned him around. “Off to bed. We have more work to do tomorrow morning.”
Avery and Mackenzie nodded at the Mother Abbess and took up their posts.
“See and hear everything?” Felix repeated.
“Yes. If people are going to call me the Hydra, I may as well play the part and put myself in everyone’s business. You did a good job convincing her.”
Felix froze. In that moment, he replayed every conversation he’d had with Audra. Did she know the woman was probably only a few feet away, in his bedchamber? His eyes darted back and forth, searching what he could of his room from the hall. Maybe this was the final test. Tonight, she had not only shown him what happens when someone goes against the Holy Order, but what happens to a Holy Child when god is finished with them.
Say it, he thought, hot pains twisting through his neck. Say it. Tell her. Tell her she’s in there. This has gone too far. She knows about Audra. Audra is nothing to me. Say it, say it!
But he couldn’t say it. He couldn’t say anything at all. He just turned around, looked at Justine, and smiled. And as she said, “Goodnight,” and started to walk away, god whispered: You did the right thing. Audra is innocent. We will help the Mother Abbess see this. I give you my voice, but you must listen to what it says.
Felix felt better after that. If it was good for god, it was good for him. He strolled into his room, shutting the door behind him. The door was thick, heavy, and he could lock it from the inside if he wanted. However, if Audra or her shadows said or did anything louder than a whisper, he knew Avery and Mackenzie would rip it off the hinges. But where was she?
Probably escaped while everyone was in the Tribunal, Felix thought. He lit several candles and drew back the curtain over the window. Trying to stick to routine, he sat on his bed and pretended to get undressed. Sitting there, he picked the room apart. Behind the mirror? He leaned over. No, not behind the mirror. Under the bed? He got down on all fours and hung over the edge. No, not under there, either.
He was supposed to go to the closet next, to change into his nightwear, so he jumped down and plodded across his room. There were piles of clothes on the floor. They weren’t big enough to hide a woman, but he turned them over, just in case. The closet seemed about the most obvious of hiding places, but maybe Audra found some sort of secret compartment no one else knew was there.
Felix took a deep breath and pulled the closet open. Shirts and pants. Robes and shoes. Some old toys and couple copies of Helminth’s Way. The closet was shallow, as most closets are, but in depth as well. He wal
ked in, walked around. He felt up everything, cringing as he did so, just in case he accidentally felt up something he shouldn’t. Shirts and pants. Robes and shoes. Some old toys and Helminth’s Way. And some snacks he’d snuck out of the kitchen about two months ago. But no Audra. She wasn’t here. She wasn’t anywhere.
A mixture of sadness and relief washed over him as he stripped down and put on a breezy robe. He backed out of the closet and latched it shut. What did you expect? he thought, trotting into his personal bathroom. She wasn’t in there, either. It was a sink, a toilet, and a bath. Unless she was in the floor or walls, she wasn’t hiding in here. She used you, he thought, going to the sink and splashing water over his face. It’s good she didn’t stay. He dried his face, relieved himself for a good two minutes at the toilet. I couldn’t have done anything for her, anyway.
On his way out of the bathroom, he grabbed a candle from the windowsill and did a tour of the room again. Shadows shot across the walls as he waved the candle back and forth, probing every patch of darkness for Audra.
“I don’t blame you,” he mumbled.
Again, Felix checked under the bed, behind the mirror, inside the closet. He searched the places where she couldn’t fit, like his chest of drawers and a trunk filled with trinkets from special missions. But she wasn’t there, either. He even opened his window, thinking she might have squeezed through and was hanging on for dear life on the other side. But all he got for his efforts was a blast of air that left his nose runny and his ears sore.
He sighed and shut the window. That was it. She was gone.
And then Audra whispered, “Holy Child.”
Felix bit his tongue and dropped the candle. “Au-Audra?” he cried. He snatched the candle off the ground. “What… where?” He squinted, held the candle to the corner near the window. A web of shadows like a black cocoon clung to it. “Audra?”
One by one, the tenebrous strands fell, peeling away from the black husk. As the layers were stripped, the shadows became grayer, lighter. Besides their impossible thickness, there seemed to be a compartment within them, a deepness that betrayed their shallow dimensions. Inside it, several inches past where the corner itself should have been, Audra stood, stiller than the still-life she resembled.
The shadows, now pooled around her feet, began to take form. They spiraled upward, creating two gossamer torsos on both sides of Audra. The material then eroded across the creatures, bringing them definition and shape. Semi-translucent branches broke free of the trunks and tightened into long, gangling limbs. At the top of each torso, a dark swell of gloom ballooned into a neck and head.
“It’s okay,” Audra said, stepping out of the corner.
The shadows rose. Fangs, silver and dripping, pushed out of their black gums.
Audra swallowed hard. “He is a friend.”
The creatures flexed their fingers. Each time that they did, their fingers grew longer, sharper, until they were like the blades of black scissors.
Heart pounding, Felix stumbled backward. Avery’s and Mackenzie’s names were in his throat. One shout and they would be in here, saving him, and damning him.
“Stop,” Audra hissed. “I command you to stop!”
A light flickered in the shadows’ eyeless sockets. Their shoulders slacked and their claws uncurled. Eerily, they took a step back to be at their dark mistress’ side.
“It’s okay,” Audra said. She moved in front of them. “They’re protective of me. But I promise they won’t hurt you.”
“You lied to me.” Felix was practically tripping over his feet to reach the door. “You can control them.”
She held out her hand, asking him to stop. “No, no, I can’t. It doesn’t always work. Only when I’m in dire need. And not even then. Listen, Holy Child, listen. You’re safe. We’re together. I waited. I heard you talking to the Hydra. Something bad happened. If she finds you here with me, how will you explain it? You’re safe, Holy Child. Please, please.” Tears poured down her face. “Please, don’t tell them I’m here.”
Felix sat at one end of the empty bathtub; Audra, the other. Knees to their chests, hearts in their throats, they mirrored one another not only physically, but most likely mentally. They kept quiet, kept twitching at every late-hour sound. They were like animals caught in a trap that had failed to be sprung. It was an uneasy tension that bound them, not the deeds they had done; they were their own prisoners.
It wasn’t until the shadows faded from Audra’s side that Felix finally broke the silence. Sinking down into the tub, he said, “I’m sorry I freaked out.”
Audra shrugged. “Imagine how I felt the first time they visited me.”
“How old were you?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Seven. I was in my room, making a new shadow puppet show for my twin, Auster. Out of nowhere, this strange feeling came over me. Like how you feel when you catch a cold?”
Felix nodded.
“Then the shadows started moving on their own. And I could move them, too, like they were there. I actually used a shadow to pick up a teacup next to the wall. Granted, I dropped it a few seconds later, but I wasn’t able to do that again for… years. That’s what I mean, Holy Child. I have these bursts of power, but I still don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You’re a spellweaver.” Felix sat up. He started to stretch out his legs, went all the way with them when it seemed she wouldn’t mind. “So is it any shadow? Or just those creatures?”
“Any. The shadow creatures are different. I just think about how much I could do if I could use shadows around us. There’s shadows everywhere. I could do a lot of good if I could just figure it all out. But I can’t find anyone like me. Our Archivist Amon promised to teach me a thing or two, but that never happened.”
Audra seemed to realize how much she was talking. She stopped abruptly and said, “Do you really hear the voice of god?”
“Yes, I do.” Felix didn’t hesitate to answer. It wasn’t something you could hesitate to answer.
“What’s god sound like?”
“Hard to say. Doesn’t really sound like anything. God doesn’t talk a lot. But I think it’s because god wants us to make our own decisions. I think god is changing, too.”
Audra grinned her yellow-toothed grin. “What does god think of me? The woman who spends more time with hell than anything else?”
“God told me to help you.” Felix tapped his fingers on the edge of the bathtub. “I’m sorry I thought you were a Worm.”
“I don’t blame you.” Audra nudged his legs with her toe. “I talk to the shadows. They’re right there in Victor Mors’ journal. I would have thought the same. When did you first hear god’s voice?”
“I always did, I guess. That’s what they told me. But the first thing I remember god saying to me was that I was—” Felix chewed on his lip, embarrassed, “—was that I was good. That there wasn’t anything wrong with me.”
“You thought there was something wrong with you?”
Felix’s body went tense. He had walked into something he didn’t want to talk about. But he really wanted to. Deep down. He was tired of secrets and keeping things to himself.
So he said, “I still do. Sometimes.”
“Heh, me too,” Audra said. “Funny we should meet. Wish the circumstances were different, Holy Child.”
“Felix.” He held out his hand and she shook it. “Name’s Felix.”
“Audra. Obviously. We’re an odd pair, you and I. I talk to hell. You talk to heaven.”
“I don’t think… I don’t think god is in heaven. I think god is somewhere else. I think god has big plans for the world. I think that’s why we don’t hear from god much. Are you a believer?”
“When I need to be. Don’t think badly of me, Felix, but god wasn’t there when my brother killed my family. I don’t care if it was wrong of me to expect god to intervene, but I did. And god didn’t.”
Felix tried to hide his shock. “King Edgar k-killed your family? Are you sure? How… how?
” Did Justine know? If what Audra had said were true, it may even be enough to destroy the Disciples of the Deep.
This time, it was Audra who was squirming to be out of the conversation. But like Felix, she swallowed her doubts and confessed. “He did. He came into my room that night. He stabbed me in my sleep.” She lifted her filthy slip and bared her hip. There was a scar, a deep, albino gouge. “When I woke up, he stopped and walked out of my room. I didn’t move. I didn’t know what to do. If I had… if I had known that he was going to kill my mother and father, my brothers and sister, I might have done something. But instead, I lay there. I was so shocked, so betrayed. Edgar and I had plans. We were finally getting closer. We were going to do things for Eldrus. Together. I couldn’t believe he would… It was paralyzing.”
“I know what you mean,” Felix said quietly. “It was the same way with Turov.”
“I’m sorry I rubbed that in your face earlier, him taking you. I don’t know much about it. I just wanted to hurt you.”
Felix shrugged.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Again, he shrugged. “You could tell everybody about what King Edgar did.”
Audra’s eyes went soft. It was too late. By mentioning his name alone, she had seen the hurt the exemplar had sown within him.
“I could, but what good would it do? It’s been years. He’s the king of Eldrus. If he knows I’m alive and I’m speaking out against him, all he has to say is that I’m a fake. Mmm, no. I don’t know why he did it or if something forced him to, but I can’t and won’t forgive him. I know I’m too nice, too trusting. But not anymore. He could have come and saved me at any time, but he left me to rot here for two years.
“You know, it really makes me mad, Felix, that it’s night right now. I haven’t seen the sun in so long. It’s still out there right?”
Felix grinned and said, “Yeah, it shows up, but it doesn’t do much.”
“Sounds like my father.” Audra laughed at herself. “I’m sorry I keep talking. I’m probably giving us away. It’s kind of been awhile, you know?”
