by David Beers
He couldn’t do so now, though, and this news ensured he wouldn’t be doing so for a long time to come.
“Cardinal Wen?” Yule asked.
“He didn’t survive the assault.”
Yule leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, offering a brief prayer up to the Heavenly Father. The Cardinal had been incompetent, and Yule no fan of his, but all life was sacred.
“Make sure his family is taken care of,” the Pope said, opening his eyes. “I believe he has two siblings. Send the Priests from their Churches to talk to them.”
“Yes, Most Holy Father.”
The Pope stood from his desk, his leg muscles tightening and stretching as he did. He wanted to walk to the window, but what was the point? He would just end up back here in a few minutes.
“What would you like to do as far as replacing Cardinal Nitson?”
The person before him was Cardinal Quillian Woodall, and he’d handled himself admirably up until that question.
The Pope sighed. Yule couldn’t be too harsh on the man; what did he know? Nothing. A Cardinal died while apprehending a criminal. Sure, it was odd, but Woodall couldn’t be blamed for not understanding the situation’s severity.
“We’re not going to worry about the Cardinal’s position right now. Have whoever you want fulfill his duties until there is a better time. The person that we were after, the young woman, what happened to her?”
“There’s no trace of her.”
“But the people inside the room, they’re alive?”
“Yes.”
“Surveillance? What did the Cardinal’s transport transfer back to us?”
“It’s ready whenever you would like to view it, Most Holy Father,” Woodall said.
“The Lord helps those who help themselves, so let’s go ahead and start helping one another.” Yule leaned forward to his desk and pressed his intercom.
“Yes, Most Holy Father?”
“Would you mind setting up something for Cardinal Woodall to play his surveillance on?”
“Of course, Most Holy Father.”
A few seconds passed and a Nun walked into the room. Woodall handed her a small item. Yule had no use for any kind of technology. He didn’t necessarily agree with his predecessors’ refusal to allow new technology into the Old World, but it was still foreign to him. As long as it worked, he was fine.
Yule walked over to the window at last and waited for the video to start playing.
God, he began, wanting to pray, but quickly finding he didn’t have the words. He didn’t know what to say, nor what to ask for; Yule only knew this was expanding beyond his grasp. The weapon had returned, perhaps another was loose on his soil, and he was here … unable to help. He closed his eyes for a second, but instead of seeing Jesus as he so often did—he saw the High Priest’s bald head staring back at him. His unflinching eyes and his lizard like stillness. Yule opened his own eyes quickly and murmured, “May Your will be done, not mine.”
He turned around and looked at the tarp lowering from the ceiling. A projector had descended as well, and the lights were dimming.
Yule watched the surveillance footage.
He saw the gray light.
He saw the roof surge upward twice.
He saw the explosion.
Yule watched it all until rocks blew through Cardinal Wen’s transport.
“There’s more,” Woodall said. “We’ve been able to piece together coverage from cameras in the surrounding area. It’s not as all encompassing, but it works.”
Yule said nothing, and the tarp switched to a grainy picture that took a moment to adjust to. Yule finally understood he was at ground level and looking at the destroyed motel room. The gray light that had poured from the room was gone, and Yule saw a man crossing the street. Glass and broken brick still littered the parking lot, but the gray terror appeared finished.
The man entered the building and a few seconds passed. Perhaps a minute. The Pope and the Cardinal remained quiet as they watched.
Finally, the man returned into the daylight carrying two people. Yule could just make out the girl, but only because of her bright blonde hair.
“Who’s the other person?”
“We think it’s the first man who entered the motel room. He was the only one who went in without tactical gear.”
“We think, but we’re not sure?” Yule asked
“No, Most Holy Father.”
The recording ended. The lights remained dim for a few seconds before brightening. The tarp pulled back up into the ceiling, and the Pope watched it go, wishing he could go with it. Just roll up inside of it and hide from all of this.
“Do we know who the man carrying them is, or where he took them?”
“No, Most Holy Father.”
The Cardinal didn’t turn around to look at the Pope, but kept staring at the wall in front of him. The Pope understood he was nervous, though for all the wrong reasons. Yule made the Cardinal nervous, though he was actually harmless in all this. Yes, he could end the Cardinal’s career, but what did that matter when the world faced extinction?
Blasphemous, Pope. Your Lord God’s Power will triumph against all.
Yule nodded, taking his mind’s chastisement.
“Did her father live?” the Pope asked.
“Yes. We have him in our custody.”
Thank you, my God, Yule prayed, hearing good news for the first time in … well, it felt like his entire life. “Bring him to me. How quickly can you have him here?”
The Cardinal stood and turned to the Pope. He was looking at the floor, doing quick calculations in his head. “Within two hours, I think.”
“Go then. Get him and bring him here. Be quick about it, Cardinal Woodall. More than you can imagine rests on it.”
The Cardinal turned and walked from the room, nearly fleeing and the soles of his shoes echoing off the high ceiling above.
Three
The First Priest’s hands shook and he held one in the other on his lap, trying to stop the shaking. It was no use, but what was he to do? Simply sit there with them shaking?
The black box surrounded him, the small thing that he always hated. He hated it more now, though. Worse than ever. Had he thought negatively about the High Priest the last time he came here? Yes, something about how the High Priest shouldn’t have doubts, and if he did, then he shouldn’t be the High Priest.
And did other thoughts underlie those? Thoughts that you dare not actually put into words? Yes, of course. Because if the High Priest should not be the High, then perhaps you should? Wasn’t that the basis for your blasphemous thoughts?
The First looked down at his hands, now preferring to focus on them rather than his thoughts.
He had to focus; there were things the High must know about. The First finally understood that he never wanted such a title, not now and not ever.
Because the First had seen what happened at the compound in the southern end of the True Faith’s Ministry.
He’d watched the replay today and he’d sat in front of Raylyn Brinson, heard her words.
When he usually came to the black box intent upon calling the High Priest, he hoped that the man would come quickly. Now he wished the High would take his time, would perhaps never come, if that was even possible. Though he knew it wasn’t.
His eyes started itching, and he knew his time alone was finished. He hadn’t even had five minutes by himself to get his damned hands to stop shaking.
The green holograph flowed from his eyes, filling up the dark space in front of him.
“My First Priest, how are you?”
The High sat directly in front of the First. His back wasn’t turned to him, nor did he stare into the air at something no one else could see. No, this time the High looked straight forward, his face simultaneously discerning and blank. Hairless, like the First’s, yet holding …
(Don’t think it. Don’t do it.)
Something sinister.
(I told you not to thin
k it!)
“I’m well, my Holy,” the First said.
“You don’t look well. Your hands are shaking. Tell me, what’s making them shake?”
The First swallowed. “We attacked the compound early yesterday morning.”
“And the results? Did our Disciple bring us the weapon, or at least kill him?”
“The Disciple is dead. Everyone we sent died, except for the woman in charge.”
The High Priest stared forward for a second, almost as if he saw no one in front of him. He donned no quizzical expression, no acknowledgement that anything had happened at all.
The First only looked at him, trying to press his hands deep into his lap and keep them from dancing their jig.
“So the weapon is at large? Is he still at his compound?”
“Yes. We know his name now. David Hollowborne. He wasn’t born here, in the True Faith. He’s of the Old World.”
“And so is the other one, no? The one I told you to send a Disciple to retrieve?”
“Yes, Most Holy. That’s correct.”
The High Priest blinked once. “We will deal with her in a moment. First, what are your plans with this weapon? Have we sent more soldiers to the compound?”
“Not yet, my Holy. I needed to discuss with you, and I also needed to have a conversation with the woman we sent. Brinson.”
“You’ve had your conversation with her, correct?”
The First nodded.
“I would like to see it.”
The First Priest blinked, and when his eyes opened a blue holograph overlay the green one. The green faded until nearly invisible, the same happening in front of the High Priest.
Raylyn Brinson stood in front of him again.
Her face was bloated, her eyes rimmed red with crisscrossing veins running across them. Dark circles lay beneath her eyes like weights, pulling bags down her cheeks. Her own hands were shaking and the First Priest saw it as clearly now as he had earlier in the day. Frightened didn’t begin to describe the woman’s state. Terrified wasn’t even apt.
“He … He …,” the woman tried to stammer out, but her voice caught in her throat.
The First Priest said nothing in his box, only watched the scene play out.
“I’ve seen the replays,” the First had said. “How did it happen?”
“He … He was too ….” Again, she broke down crying, unable to complete a sentence.
“I need you to hold it together until we finish here,” the First had said. “Go on.”
The woman hadn’t looked up, only sat in her chair sobbing. Sitting in the black box now, the First remembered how he’d felt—angry, disgusted, and above all … fearful. Because he had seen the holographic replays and watched how easily the man destroyed everything they brought against him.
This woman had let it happen.
“He said that our time …,” she tried again, swallowing hard and trying to stuff the tears back into her throat. “Our time is over. He said our false God’s time is no more.”
The blue faded out and the green returned, so that the High Priest was the focal point again.
“Would you like to see more?” the First asked.
“Does it continue like this?”
“Yes, my Holy. She was distraught, to say the least.”
“Where is she now?” the High Priest asked.
“She’s under surveillance.”
“Was she allowed to return home?”
The First Priest shook his head. “No. We thought it best to monitor her under our supervision at Corinth’s Shrine.”
The High Priest remained still for a few moments, that awkward silence taking hold again. Then, as if remembering the second Disciple, his eyes lit up some. “Have you heard from the Old World?”
The First nodded again. The only good news in all of this, if it could even be considered that. He didn’t know any longer, because he didn’t understand everything that was happening. What he saw, what seemed important to him, was what just occurred in their southern province. This new woman on the other side of the world? The First didn’t care about her in the slightest, nor the Disciple they had sent to gather her.
Yet, if the High wanted to talk about her, then the First would oblige. He wanted nothing to do with leading any longer. “The Disciple apprehended the woman about five hours ago.”
“He did?” A slight raise in the High’s eyebrows.
“Yes, my Holy.”
“That is good news. I would like you to put this Disciple in direct contact with me. Can you do that?”
“Of course, your Holiness. If that is your wish.”
“It is. I would like to speak with him personally.”
The First nodded, not wanting to venture his next question, but knowing he had to. This whole conversation seemed surreal, as if the High Priest wasn’t actually here—his mind somewhere else, and only a robotic shell continuing this conversation. “Your Holiness, what would you like to do about the weapon?”
“He told us our time is over … that’s what this woman relayed, right?”
The First nodded.
“Has his war started yet?”
“No, my Holy.”
“Well, after what we’ve seen the past two days, I believe it will. Perhaps it already has, while we had this conversation. Either way, a lot of death is coming. Let me speak to this Disciple, and let the weapon have his war. We will see what happens. Like I said, we were lucky before, perhaps we won’t be this time.”
The green image disappeared, leaving the First Priest alone in the black box.
Like I said, we were lucky before, perhaps we won’t be this time.
The words ran through the First’s mind again.
He’d heard the High say something similar before, but the First hadn’t understood it. He didn’t understand it now, either. What had they been lucky about? They had beaten back a warrior, a ruthless one who wasn’t afraid to walk her followers into certain death if it furthered her cause. That’s exactly what she’d done at the Nile.
Luck? What did luck have to do with any of it? Corinth had delivered them, and He would now as well.
And this business with the Disciple and this woman who might be another weapon? The First didn’t understand … and to him, the High Priest’s words near the end were what really mattered.
Emergency message, his nanotech said, interrupting his thoughts.
Maybe the High had been right. Maybe the war had already begun.
The Summoning didn’t happen at the exact same time across the entire globe. That would have been ridiculous, by any standard. It did happen, though, within a few hours from start to finish. If there was a finish, which technically, there wasn’t.
The world erupted, and it started in the One Path first.
The people of the One Path lived in the sky, similarly to how those of the True Faith lived beneath the ground. The technicalities of this were known to them, taught in schools and by families, much like the Old World taught that to make a car move, one had to pour gasoline into its tank.
Their cities were unlike any to ever be built before, just as the True Faith’s were. That was necessary, though, a function of the situation they had put themselves in. Within the True Faith, the situation had been thrust upon them through the Reformation, but the One Path chose to live in the sky.
It seemed a good decision for all involved, and if truth be told, it allowed the One Path’s people to look down (no pun intended) on all other Ministries. If the True Faith thought their cities stretching down into the earth were something to marvel at, it was only because the fools couldn’t stick their necks above ground to look at the wonders the One Path had created.
Their cities were separated by nothing but open air. The cities themselves consisted of hovering buildings. While they lacked the size of other Ministries, they made up for it in majesty. Hundreds of thousands of egg like shapes floating above the clouds, looking down on only white water drops. The One Path sat over
what was once known by all as the Indian Ocean, but each Ministry had a different name for it now. Capsules, which were a single passenger mode of transportation, took most people from one place to another—there were very few walkways connecting anything. There could have been, of course, but that always struck the One Path as a bit too easy.
The One Path’s travel involved personal capsules coming to them, and then delivering them, and only them, to wherever they desired. It was all quite personalized and technically brilliant.
The Summoning began first inside the One Path. Blood spilled first among the clouds, but quickly dripped down to Earth. A kid named Tidus started it, though given what he ended up doing, it would probably be best to call him a young man. He was 17 years old and the Blood of the Touched ran through him just as it did his father. Nineteen years previous, his father met a man, and that man told him the truth. About both what happened in the past, and what was to happen in the future.
The man’s name was Rhett Scoble. Tidus’s father—Rorse—never forgot the name. Tidus never would either, not as long as he lived. Nor would he forget David Hollowborne’s name, though Tidus wouldn’t get the chance to meet him.
Rhett Scoble had taught Rorse what to expect, and Rorse passed the information down to his son. It wasn’t much to go off, but Rorse held unshakable faith. He had met Rhett Scoble, and knew the truth in his bones.
“You’ll know it,” he’d said over and over. “You’ll know when it’s here.”
Tidus hadn’t necessarily believed his father, though. Of course, he never doubted the Blood of the Touched; no, he felt his blood itch from time to time in a way that other people simply couldn’t understand. He knew it meant the one they served—David Hollowborne—was ‘working’. What Titus doubted was that he’d know when the time arrived.
“Trust me,” his father had said. “David will make sure we all know.”
His father turned out to be right.
On the day the war began, Tidus knew before anyone else.
He woke up in the One Path Ministry—the same place he’d awoken in his entire life. He followed his normal morning ritual, having no idea things were about to change drastically for him and the rest of the world. At 17, Tidus was just beginning Seminary as was expected of all One Path males. He didn’t believe, of course, but his father taught him belief had nothing to do with the everyday structure of their life. Belief involved the future, and their day to day was just ensuring that they made it to such a future.
