The Miocene Arrow

by Sean McMullen

  “Might I inquire as to the nature of your studies here?” he asked, rubbing his hands together. “We have several libraries and archives, including one of the finest collections of pre-Call books in Mounthaven.”

  “I had arranged to meet an itinerant here, a man not of your order. His name is Brother Glasken.”

  “Ah, Brother Glasken, everyone knows Brother Glasken,” Brother James replied, beaming. “What a brash and naughty soul he is. Why in the six weeks since he arrived he has told us gossip of all the courts of Hildago and the Andean Callhavens, and even of the coronation at Condelor. Did you know he has actually been flying in a sailwing? What a man!”

  “Indeed, quite a man,” Laurelene agreed.

  “He has been teaching some of us the arts of defense without injuring one’s opponent, and the use of simple sticks as weapons—they can be more deadly than swords, you know. Ah, but he likes the wines in our cellars, too, and has shown us some very fine ways to mull them with herbs and spices that would never have crossed my mind. Ah, such a wag that Brother Glasken.”

  “Can I see him now?”

  “Well, not precisely now. The Sisters of the Divine Codex have been inviting him across to their nunnery for, ah, well, he seems to walk over there every second or third evening and returns in the morning. I believe that he is reciting certain Andean prayers and hymns while the nuns transcribe, and he is also conducting tutorials in denial theology and practice. It is nearly noon, so he should not be long.” The little monk gave Laurelene a wink. “He gets along very, very well with the sisters, Semme Laurelene.”

  “He stays there overnight? The Reverend Mother Superior actually allows it?”

  “Oh yes, he has been instructing Mother Virginia in Gentheist denial theology. You see, Gentheists believe that self-denial can be made all the more worthy if whoever is practicing that self-denial actually has experience of what is being denied!”

  Laurelene swallowed, and clasped her hands behind her back so that Brother James could not see that they were shaking.

  “Mother Virginia,” said Laurelene flatly.

  “I used to find her quite formidable, but Brother Glasken sees the good in every person. He calls her a fine, strapping, and generous woman. He likes big women.”

  “That sounds like Brother Glasken,” she muttered.

  “Ah, your pardon?”

  “He … is known to be a diligent teacher in such matters, Brother James. Have you ever, ah, participated in Glasken’s denial tutorials?”

  “Oh no, Semme, but Brother Glasken’s teachings are being studied by the theological committee of our order. A ruling is expected by the end of the year, but it is December, you know.”

  Laurelene sat down, quite overcome by what she had been hearing. Another monk entered and announced that her room was now ready. She stood up and set off, with Brother James carrying her bags.

  Glasken returned soon after noon. Laurelene watched him returning over the fields, wearing a cassock of the monastery’s order and trudging through the snow as if quite weary. He paused to speak to two monks working in the vegetable greenhouse, then continued to the library Laurelene sought out Brother James.

  “I see on the slateboard that Brother Glasken is to give a talk tonight,” she said.

  “Ah yes, and a talk of great importance, he says.”

  “It’s upon denial and the virtues of learning the foundations of temptation, I suppose?”

  “He did not say that, Semme.”

  Laurelene considered for some moments, then nodded as she composed a plan in her mind.

  “If you please, Brother, do not mention to Brother Glasken that I am here. Oh, and could you allow me to listen to the talk from some secluded place where he cannot see me?”

  “I can do all that, Semme, but why?”

  “Brother Glasken likes surprises, and I am certainly about to surprise him.”

  That evening Glasken arrived at the refectory after dinner to give his lecture to the monks, along with a dozen nuns who had journeyed over and were to stay the night in the guesthouse. To Laurelene’s surprise she discovered that it was not to be on sexual experimentation for celibates, but natural philosophy. She sat in the shadows at the back, but had a clear view of Glasken.

  The monastery’s expert on physical sciences, Brother Alex, had died four years earlier. The circumstances had been suspicious, yet there was no proof of murder. Brother Alex had had a laboratory where he experimented with electrical essence. He had been doing it for decades, and using a passive system of coils, crystals, and metal plates that were powered by the signals that they received. He could listen to the sounds of thunderstorms beyond the horizon, and he had hoped to develop tools that would determine a storm’s direction, distance, and speed.

  Brother James used to clean out the scraps in his workshop, and the researcher had taught him a little of his electrical essence techniques. He had fragments of books that dated back two thousand years and more, and these had strange codes of numerals and symbols in Archaic Anglian.

  “Electrical devices grow unusable from a buildup of reiterative humors after a few hours,” said Brother Lariac, another researcher in the ancient physical sciences. “The buildup is theorized to come from the wandering stars we call the Sentinels. Perhaps it is an ancient weapon, designed to destroy earthly weapons of electrical essence, but now it destroys all electrical devices. How did he cope with that?”

  “Twenty years ago the Sentinels were destroyed in a celestial war,” Glasken replied. “Their mechanisms were burned by Mirrorsun, and now only their shells remain.”

  “But, but large or fast gunwings get burned out of the sky,” protested the monk.

  “And who would bother to build a large gunwing, or dare to fly one?” Glasken asked in turn. “Brother James, would you tell us what you know?”

  Brother James explained that two decades earlier the scholar and researcher had discovered that the Sentinels were no longer active. In May 3939 one of his receivers detected signals from beyond the Callscour lands and the legendary oceans. Brother Alex built a transmitting device from clues in one of his ancient texts, studied the old languages and transmission protocols, and made contact.

  “But, but why did he not tell anyone?” spluttered the incredulous abbot.

  “At first he intended to. He certainly told me, his unofficial apprentice. There was a war going on in that continent, whose name is Australica. It was on a scale that staggered Brother Alex, in fact he could scarcely believe that the people at the other end were telling him the truth. He told them about our ritualized wars, fought between wardens in gunwings. They showed great interest in our type of limited conflict, but it soon became clear that they were seeking details of reaction guns, compression engines, and gunwings. They wanted them in order to fight even more destructive wars. Brother Alex was horrified. He dismantled his induction transmitter machine and burned his notebooks, lest Mounthaven’s dominions be contaminated by such terrible evils. I made copies of some notes from memory, though. It seemed such a pity to waste such incredible discoveries.”

  The monk held up a sheet of paper and began writing on the slateboard:

  MIRRORSUN & WANDERERS WAR—FEBRUARY 3939

  MILDERELLEN INVASION—FEBRUARY 3939

  MIRRORSUN VICTORY—MAY 3939

  MILDERELLEN INVASION DEFEATED—JUNE 3939

  “This here, MIRRORSUN & WANDERERS WAR—FEBRUARY 3939, this is nearly twenty-two years ago. It was about the time that Mirrorsun broke asunder in the sky and we all thought that the end of the world was upon us. Then here, three months later, mention of a victory. We know that Mirrorsun had healed itself by then, and that there were odd lights about the Sentinels. They seemed to be surrounded by twinkling starlets for a time.”

  At the end of the evening Laurelene’s head was in a whirl from what had come to light in the hours past. As she lay on her bed, she watched the stars through the window. The universe had not merely changed that night, it had bee
n changed for two decades without anyone in Mounthaven realizing it.

  The universe had changed. The Sentinels were dead. Anything with an engine could now be longer or broader than 29 feet 6 inches, and there was no speed limit on any powered vehicle. Gunwings could be of unlimited size, power, and speed, and steam trams could be coupled to a long string of unpowered trolleys and called trains.

  When she was fairly sure that the monastery was quiet, she left her room and padded down to the men’s level of the guesthouse. Glasken was in the only occupied room. His door was open as she approached, and she rounded the doorway to find him flat on his back in his bunk with his eyes closed.

  “The night’s compliments to you, Mother Virginia,” he said as Laurelene stood in the doorway.

  “You dirty, lecherous old man,” said Laurelene slowly, every word perfectly enunciated and spat out with venom.

  Glasken sat bolt upright, and for nearly a minute they stared at each other in the weak light from the coals in his room’s grate.

  “I wash thrice daily, and fifty is not old,” he replied at last. “Lecherous is a little harder to defend, but give me time.”

  “You deceive and pervert these poor, holy folk.”

  Glasken lay back.

  “Nothing of the sort, I am a monk and there is a Gentheist order that practices the knowledge of pleasure followed by denial. I may not be a member of that particular order, but—”

  “How surprising.”

  “—but I’ve studied their rules in great detail.”

  “How predictable.”

  Glasken closed his eyes.

  “Did you attend my talk?”

  “Yes, but just now we have other business unfinished.”

  “Ah, I see. So, how did you fare once we parted?” he asked wearily, the words a little slurred.

  “I walked one hundred and thirty miles through to snow to get here!” Laurelene burst out as she marched into the room and stood over Glasken’s bunk with her hands on her hips. “I slept in open fields while you lay abed with some fat, religious tart and relieved her of that which she was named after.”

  “Well?”

  “What do you mean, well? Are you not ashamed?” demanded Laurelene.

  “No. It was your choice.”

  “I’ll reveal your background to the monks.”

  “They know all that you do, and quite a lot more.”

  Laurelene considered storming off to her room, then returning to Denver in the morning and shouting at the envoy, but there was nothing in that but empty distraction. She turned her back on Glasken and glared at the coals in the fire, her arms folded.

  Glasken slipped a Winsworth 9mm pistol from his robes and silently eased the safety catch free. He raised the barrel to point at her back, which was so close that he did not even have to take proper aim.

  Laurelene swayed, then leaned against the wall and slowly sank to the floor, still facing away from Glasken. For a moment he looked at his gun, wondering if he had somehow shot her with a silent phantom of a bullet. She began to sob, not angry flamboyant sobs or hysterical sobs, but the sobs of one who has reached a goal after immense distance and suffering, only to find it a mirage. Glasken eased back the safety catch and put the gun away.

  “I’m so lonely,” she said after some minutes.

  “That is a good admission, Semme, but I doubt that I could help.”

  “And I’m pregnant!”

  Glasken jerked up in the bunk, pulling the covers up to his neck. “It wasn’t me!” he blurted out by reflex.

  Laurelene turned slowly to stare at him for a moment, then both of them burst out laughing. Glasken got out of the bunk and lifted her to sit on the edge, then he hunkered by the grate and began feeding in blocks of wood.

  “I thought I was too old, I was careless,” she confessed.

  “Anyone I know?” he asked sympathetically.

  “Jeb.”

  “A good man. I approve.”

  “You seemed such a transparent, slippery toad at first, Glasken, yet somehow people love you and care for you.”

  “And you wanted me for a pawn. Well, it’s not the first time I’ve been a pawn.”

  A chant began in the distant chapel. Glasken got up and sat beside her on the edge of the bunk. He ran a hand over her stomach.

  “Pregnant or not, you lost weight,” he said, his words slurring again. “It suits you.”

  Laurelene took his hand and placed it squarely over her right breast. “I’ve maintained it in all the right places,” she pointed out.

  “That suits you too,” he replied with a squeeze.

  Laurelene hunched over, shivering a little. The distant chanting continued, and she found herself humming along with it.

  “You need people to depend on you, Semme Laurelene,” Glasken pointed out, draping an arm over her shoulders. “A bit less shouting might help them turn to you.”

  “I shout to keep the horrors away, Sair Glasken, but now I have grown tired of facing them alone and they are never far away.” She stood up slowly. “Sleep well now, Juan. You look terrible: one nun too many, I’d wager. We can talk tomorrow, you old devil.”

  She leaned over Glasken and kissed him on the forehead.

  “Jeb Feydamor is alone, except for his stepson,” said Glasken, sitting with his hands clasped between his knees.

  “He is a fine gentleman, Sair Glasken. But I’m a married woman.”

  “A married woman, three months pregnant, who last bedded her husband …”

  “Before the coronation. All right, Glasken, you win. As usual, you leave me with something to think about.”

  The following day Laurelene and Glasken went walking in the snow-covered monastery garden. Nearby a mixed brass band of nuns and monks was practicing for the first time, while the axes of monks cutting wood in the distance echoed like gunshots.

  “Tell me a secret,” said Laurelene teasingly.

  “My name is Johnny Glasken.”

  “I like just Glasken better. It has the ring of a lover about it, it’s silky with romance.”

  Glasken stopped to look up at the overcast sky, as if it reminded him of something.

  “Two decades ago I was seduced by a fine and lovely woman. Like you she had a husband at a convenient distance.”

  Laurelene flinched, then took his hand.

  “And what came after that?”

  “We married.”

  “I see. Is she now at a convenient distance as well?”

  “She betrayed me to the constables. I was charged, tried, and condemned to die. I escaped and hid. Certain … certain powers required the use of an able fugitive, so here I am.

  Laurelene thought about the story for a time, and Glasken honored the silence. Snow crunched beneath their feet as they walked, both with their hands behind their backs. Laurelene reached across and took Glasken’s arm.

  “You visit the convent every two days,” she pointed out. “So tonight you are staying here?”

  “Yes. Maybe tomorrow night too.”

  “Because I am here?”

  Glasken shrugged, but did not reply.

  “Three months is not very pregnant,” Laurelene suggested.

  Glasken began a shrug, but it turned into a cringe.

  “You think that I’ll betray you as well, Glasken, I can tell that,” Laurelene burst out, pulling his arm tightly against her. “Well I’m not about to betray you.”

  “Words are cheap, Semme, and there is a scar on my ribs with your compliments.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, if I could change the past I would and you know it.”

  Laurelene was long out of practice at being tender, as Glasken discovered as she hugged him amid the seclusion of the snow-shrouded evergreens in the garden.

  “What was the Milderellen Invasion?” she asked as they began walking again.

  “It was terrible—and without need, just cause, or good result. In a sense I caused it, and it badly shook the mayorates of my part of the w
orld. Other forces moved in to seek power. Some of those forces turned rogue, and forged plans to dominate the entire world.”

  “Oh surely not, Glasken,” said Laurelene, leaning against him. “It is hard enough to even travel the world, let alone conquer it.”

  “Laurelene, these people are real Callwalkers.”

  She raised her head and stared at him, eyes wide and smile gone.

  “Sair Glasken, have you been at the monks’ wine so early in the day? Next you will say that they walk on water too.”

  “They are part bird, the product of ancient experiments on my continent. I can do it too, although I am not a true … aviad is their name for themselves. The Call is based in desire, you see, and that is also its weakness.”

  “I know that, Glasken. The Call is punishment sent by heaven for excesses of desire, all churches and faiths teach that.”

  “Not from heaven, Semme. As for desire, in me it burned far brighter than in practically any other human, and an aviad woman conducted certain experiments with me. Slowly I learned to resist the Call through the denial of what I would otherwise do as readily as breathe.”

  “So … Yes, it makes a little sense. During Calls you could go where you would to spy.”

  “Yes, most surely.”

  Laurelene looked up at the sky, facing south. “This day must be late spring in your homeland.”

  “Why yes, and in December there is the summer solstice. We have many carnivals, fairs, and religious festivities. Ah, but here it is autumn. Where I come from autumn is celebrated at the March equinox. Log fires are lit in every hearth, and mulled mead and other wines are drunk to celebrate the long nights indoors during winter. Whole towns are decked out for festivals. Half a year later children set off fireworks to frighten old man winter away and houses are covered in greenery and bunting to welcome summer back. In Mounthaven the equinox is little more than an equality of day and night.”