by Scott Hale
Felix swallowed all the spit in his mouth and nodded. He wiped his nose and eyes and straightened his back and became the Holy Child he was supposed to be. “What’s the boon?”
“Language is the carrier of religion. Through language, we spread our beliefs, creating our doctrines, and build our rituals. Some would call it a virus, but I am not the Green Worm, so I cannot say for sure.
“Through the power of language, I have made this Holy Order. Through inspiration and faith, I have sustained it for hundreds of years. When you speak to people, Felix, they listen to you. They trust you, because you are giving them the word of god. They don’t realize that this isn’t the real word, because they never truly heard god speak.
“After the Trauma, I spoke as a god would speak. I put fires in the hearts of those who had gone cold. When you speak as a god, you can inspire someone to fight harder than they ever thought possible. King Edgar puts the seeds of heaven in his followers, but I say we should put the seed of heaven on their tongues, so that they can share it with everyone else, not take it to their graves.
“If I give you my boon, when you speak to these people, they will be in your command completely. They will do whatever it takes to further our cause. To defeat an enemy like the Arachne, this is the only way. And if we succeed… if we succeed, then no one will able to doubt that you speak for god, and that god works through us.”
“You… want me to control their minds?” Felix said in disbelief.
“I want you to inspire them. To me, language is more of a drug than a virus; your words will only amplify what is already there. Those who want to fight will fight, but those who don’t have it in them, they will stay behind. It’s not mind control. I am not a Crossbreed.”
Felix looked up at Justine, the Mother Abbess, the White Worm of the Earth, and searched for signs of a lie. But her face was one of many; there were more behind it, and each one had probably had this same conversation with the Holy Child of the time. She said she loved him, and he did love her; he really did. He could kill her at any minute, betray her at any second. She had spared Audra, Deimos, and Lucan, and she had given him free reign of the Holy Order. He did question every decision she made, but what else could they do? It was war, and this was not a religion of peace.
“I don’t know what to say,” Felix whispered, tufts of spider web blowing off the Divide, coating the encampment like snow. “To them, I mean.”
“Yes, you do. You speak for god. You speak for us.” Justine ushered Felix behind the banner strung up between the pillars and asked, “Will you accept my boon?”
Felix looked back. Most of the conscription was in attendance, from the foot of hill, all the way back to high command. No one spoke, let alone moved. They were bound to him, tethered like prisoners to the chain of their faith. In a way, they had always been, but now he could see it, and now it truly mattered.
“Will we lose if I don’t accept your boon?” he asked.
“We may not,” Justine said. She put her finger in her mouth. “But we will not win miraculously. King Edgar has worked many miracles. It would be nice if we could, too.”
“Will it… be a good thing if a lot of our people die?”
Justine laughed, said, “That’s for them to decide,” and shoved her hand down her throat.
The White Worm of the Earth retched, and then yanked her hand out of her mouth. With it came a long piece of pearl-colored muscle that frayed at the end into tens of small, waving tendrils. At the end of each tendril were tiny balls of light, like those of an angler fish.
“Oh my god.” Felix dug his nails into the heels of his palms. If he hesitated, he wouldn’t do it. If he hesitated, someone might see something.
“What is a Worm?” he asked, stepping up to her.
“The soil it sleeps in,” she said, her voice in his head.
I’m the Holy Child. I’m the Holy Child. And she loves me.
Felix closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and tipped his head back, and let the White Worm fill him with her blessed light.
CHAPTER XVI
R’lyeh’s heart nearly stopped as a loud voice exploded in her ears from Penance’s encampment. The voice broke across the land like thunder, and sank into her mind like rain. She looked to Elizabeth and Miranda; by their surprise she saw that they heard it, too. It was the voice of a child, and it was the most beautiful voice she had ever heard. It made her weep. Without realizing it, she started drifting forward to hear it more clearly.
“I’m the Holy Child,” the voice started; it was so great, and yet at the same time, like a whisper in her ear. “I’m the Holy Child. I have a message for you from god.”
Elizabeth screwed up her face. “What the hell is this?”
“That’s some straight sorcery right there,” Miranda said. She pointed to the eastern bank of the Divide. “We have the worst timing.”
All along the eastern bank were several trebuchets that hadn’t been there the last time the Beauties passed through. Beside each of them were numerous barrels and pots; and beside them were numerous soldiers with fat, blazing torches. Not far off from there, the web across the Divide was miles long; its strands blew in blizzards across the encampment. R’lyeh couldn’t blame the soldiers; if she were them, she’d want to burn the damn thing down, too.
“God has spoken to me,” the Holy Child said, “and god has shown me what must be done. God has sacrificed much for us. Now, we must make a great sacrifice ourselves.”
R’lyeh, Elizabeth, and Miranda broke into a sprint. This side of the Divide was uneven—a lot of dunes, copses, gargling gulches. As long as Penance kept their eyes on the Holy Child, they just might not see them coming.
“We have always been a religion of tolerance and acceptance. But what god cannot tolerate and accept any longer is the cancer destroying our faith and our land. This is not about the fate of the Holy Order, but the fate of the World.”
Wait. R’lyeh stopped, the encampment a mile and a half away. She looked at the Deadly Beauties and said, “What the hell are we doing?”
“Going straight through, yeah?” Elizabeth went on, up a dune, and into a dense copse. “See them?”
R’lyeh followed after and muscled past Elizabeth. She jumped for the lowest bough and hoisted herself onto it.
“The Disciples of the Deep mean to eliminate anyone who disagrees with them. They mean to shape this world to their liking, regardless of the Trauma it will cause.”
R’lyeh glanced down; Miranda was standing at the foot of the tree, holding her paralyzed arm, rubbing her wrist where her hand had been. She looked lost, without purpose; much like R’lyeh used to look, before the Marrow Cabal took her in.
“You need only look across the Divide to see what ruin Eldrus’ ‘God’ will sow. It has filled their army with demons, and the King’s head with devils. See the western bank and the vermillion veins that choke it! The Disciples claim these growths are the gateways to heaven. But why do they kill more than they save?”
In the tree, R’lyeh could see that the entire encampment was at attention; not one of the thousands of bodies that ran up and down its length dared to turn away. Everyone appeared as if they had stopped in the middle of something. Some were half-dressed, others completely naked; a few were still wrestling with carcasses they had brought in from the morning hunt. Most were stroking their swords. There seemed to be a low drone of gibbering in the air. Everyone was speaking in their own private language, or doing their damndest to learn God’s.
Not since the pit of Geharra and the Crossbreed had R’lyeh seen such utter devotion. These soldiers weren’t paralyzed by the presence of their lord’s speaker; they were empowered; they were becoming.
“He’s amazing,” Miranda mumbled beneath the bough.
R’lyeh turned her gaze towards the stage from which the Holy Child preached. She had known he was young, but holy shit was he young. Like her age. He was small, too. Not frail, just not very intimidating. And yet here he was, writing
what would certainly be history tomorrow. R’lyeh felt a pang of jealousy, and, begrudgingly, respect.
“Let us not forget that it was from the Nameless Forest King Edgar emerged years ago,” the Holy Child boomed, his words literally rippling the air. “And since then, what deeds has he done? He murdered his family, tried to take over the Heartland; he murdered Geharra and summoned the Red Worm. He has now overrun the Heartland with his vermillion veins, and has convinced his followers to consume the debilitating growths. This is not a religion he is building, but a weapon. It is a weapon meant to strike us down, so that he may take what he wants freely and shape this world as he sees fit. Does King Edgar sound like a man to anyone, anymore?” The Holy Child shook his head, touching his Corruption while he did so. “He is a demon, and he belongs in hell. Let us send him there, before he brings it here for all of us to burn in.”
Backed up like a dam, those gathered finally burst into a deafening applause.
Shit, R’lyeh thought, squeezing her eyes shut. A sudden sensation, sour and prickling, had pressed itself against her, into her. “Guys, do you feel—”
“She’s beautiful, yeah?” Elizabeth said, tugging on R’lyeh’s heel. “Statues don’t do her justice.”
R’lyeh shook off the strange sensation; it made her feel fuzzy inside, like a slick sickness telling her everything she wanted to hear. Beautiful? Who were they talking about? Again, she looked to the stage and—Holy shit—there she was, the Mother Abbess, standing beside the Holy Child. Had she been there the whole time?
“If the Disciples of the Deep are right about anything—”
The Mother Abbess of the Holy Order of Penance was beautiful. She was slender, and her skin was almost ephemeral; her hair was the color of pearl, and though there was no wind, each strand moved, as if it had a life of its own. There was an aura about her, too, like the ghost of something.
“—it is that we all carry heaven inside of us.”
Now, the ghost was haunting the Holy Child, seeping its languid, multitudinous limbs through his back. A spasm rocked the boy’s body—the power of this holy spirit apparently almost too much for the kid to handle.
“We have carried it with us from birth,” the Holy Child said, recovering. “God gave it to us to nurture, and to share. Heaven is inside all of us, at all times. Can you feel it? Touch your chest. Can you feel it inside you, blooming like a flower?”
The Holy Child and the Mother Abbess touched their chests. Throughout the encampment, the soldiers did the same. Voices amongst those gathered began to grow louder; where once the people had stayed rooted, they now shifted, like slobbering beasts left too long in their pens. They stopped touching their chests and started beating them; like phlegm, heaven was apparently something that needed to be knocked loose.
Eyes wide, heart about to rip in half, R’lyeh looked down and said to Elizabeth, “What the hell is going on?”
Elizabeth ignored her and clambered into the tree and onto a different bough. “Get up here,” she hollered at Miranda, but Miranda wouldn’t budge; she seemed to be listening to something, the same way the Skeleton would listen to the Black Hour.
And when R’lyeh went to say something about this, she heard something, too: a cool, soothing voice that smelled of lilac and wine, speaking to her from all the dark corners of her skull.
Little girl, you hate the Holy Order of Penance for what it has done to Alluvia, but your hate is misplaced. Fight with us, so that you may truly strike back at the man responsible for your mother’s and father’s deaths.
R’lyeh’s legs locked and she fell backward off the tree, babbling, “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck?” She slammed into the ground, her mask cushioning the impact. She stumbled to her feet. Pulling out one of the Cruel Mother’s talons, she spun around, swiping at the air.
Elizabeth dropped out of the tree, landing on her hands and knees rather than her head, like R’lyeh had done. A snake of spit on her lip, she groaned and played with her nose piercing.
Little girl, you hate the Holy Order of Penance—
“Ah!” R’lyeh pounded the side of her head. “Do you hear it?” she asked, bending over Elizabeth.
“Yeah, yeah.” Elizabeth struggled to stand. “Straight sorcery, like Miranda… Hey, Miranda!”
Using her sword like a walking stick, Miranda had stab, stab, stabbed her way out of the copse and down the dune.
“Hey, lady, stop!” Elizabeth said, taking off after her.
Little girl, you hate the Holy Order—
How is he doing that? R’lyeh grabbed her mask and chased Elizabeth. How the hell does he know that about me?
Elizabeth caught Miranda before she made it down the dune. Grabbing her by her bum arm, she screamed in her face, “Stop! Those two idiots are spellweaving.”
Miranda jerked away. Misty-eyed, she thrust her sword at Elizabeth, just barely missing her. “He knows,” she said, nodding. And then she turned away and kept on towards the encampment.
Feeling vulnerable in the open, R’lyeh backed up the dune. “What did you hear?”
Elizabeth, caught between R’lyeh and Miranda, growled. “The Holy Child. He said—” she bit her lip piercing, “—god still remembers my prayers from the Orphanage. He said… Mom and Dad are waiting. It’s fucking bullshit. Miranda!”
“I heard him tell me I could help fight those who killed my village,” R’lyeh said. The pit of Geharra opened in her mind; with a lethal dose of hate, she promptly sealed it shut again. “What is she doing? I thought Miranda hated religion.”
“No, she just pretends. Miranda, stop!” Elizabeth ran her hands over her dirty face. “She’s a few bad habits away from a habit and becoming a full-blown nun. R’lyeh, please, help me bring her back.”
As R’lyeh started back down the dune, the Holy Child bellowed from the stage, “King Edgar has to grow his heaven to convince his followers it is there. You are heaven, each and every one of you. Go as god would go, and see the sinners through your gates!”
A violent tremor shot through the webs over the Divide, causing them to buck and billow. Great, silken bridges and glassy, glittering towers caved-in and collapsed. Tangled highways bulged; womb-like funnels stretched. The waters of the Divide, agitated by the unseen agitation, rippled and churned, and flooded the lower levels of the crystalline city. The boats and ships still caught in the suffocating storm groaned and capsized; as they took on water, they let loose the desiccated bodies of sailors and traders from their impacted bowels.
The turmoil went even farther back than the river itself, though; on the western bank, in the fog and the vermillion jungles, trees were felled and blood-curdling shrieks were let loose, and things were gathering into masses, great and dark.
The spiders were coming.
“I saw stables at the back of the camp,” Elizabeth said. “Miranda, we’re going to grab some horses and go home. No one will notice us, I swear.”
“I have to fight for my home,” Miranda said. “I have to, or it won’t be here tomorrow.”
“No, listen, damn it,” R’lyeh said, tugging on Miranda’s shirt. “That woman and kid are spellweavers. This is just a—”
“They’re not spellweavers,” Elizabeth said, tapping R’lyeh’s shoulder. “Oh, fuck. Spellweavers can’t do that, can they?”
R’lyeh turned around, and almost swallowed her tongue. In a matter of seconds, it looked as if a windstorm had formed over Penance’s encampment. The clouds had merged into a filthy sludge of whites and grays, like some kind of wintry runoff. Pouring from the clouds were what appeared to be tornados; numbering in the hundreds, or maybe even thousands, the segmented columns danced violently around the encampment. R’lyeh strained her eyes for signs of damage and debris, but no matter where the tornados went, everything was left untouched, as if they weren’t truly there—as if they weren’t tornados at all. Because they didn’t really look like tornados, not with how they were segmented and how they moved; they looked more like�
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Worms.
The Mother Abbess and the Holy Child were no longer on the stage, but floating above it; their heads were back and their arms outstretched. From their mouths and fingertips flowed phantasmal strands to which it appeared all the larger tornados were connected. Below them, the soldiers screamed, tore at their armor, and slammed into one another, all the while professing their faith at the top of their heaving lungs.
“For those of you who feel the presence of god in your hearts,” the Holy Child said, jellyfish-like chandeliers of light emerging from his chest and into the sky, “rejoice! For if you fight today, you and god shall be equals tomorrow.”
Wood bent. Rope snapped. There was a shout followed by raucous laughter. R’lyeh tore her gaze away from the Holy Child and saw the western bank aflame. In rapid succession, the trebuchets were loaded with pots and vases and great, leaking barrels. Worm tornados exploded out of the breasts of the soldiers there, but they went about their business all the same.
Someone shouted, “Fire!”
One by one, the trebuchets were let loose. The huge, wooden arms snapped forward, slinging their sinister payload into the web over the Divide. R’lyeh watched the pots, vases, and barrels tumble through the air, and instinctively took a step back when they started their descent onto the river.
At first, there was nothing. No explosion, no eruption of flames. The projectiles ripped through the web with their speed and weight. They broke apart somewhere inside the sparkling nest. R’lyeh reached for Elizabeth, but her grasp fell short as small, angry pricks of light began to blink from inside the web.
Elizabeth reached for R’lyeh and shouted in her face, “Run!”
At first, there was nothing. Then hell. A great, searing explosion erupted at the heart of the web and fire flooded the silken deathtrap. Like the creatures would that had created it, the web curled and hissed in the heat, losing its size and shape, meter by meter, second after second. Scorched became the highways, and immolated the towers. The silken bridges snapped; their flaming suspensions lashed across the Divide and set fire to the trees on western shore. For something so feared, to R’lyeh, it was almost a shame to see it so quickly undone.
