Quintessence

by David Walton

  "Someday," Joan said, and Parris knew what she meant.

  "Someday," he said.

  Eventually, when they could barely lift their heads for exhaustion, he tenderly lifted Joan to her feet and led her to the other side of the cave to sleep.

  SINCLAIR barely slept all night. He had triumphed. Catherine had been dead, and now she was alive. He had raised a human being to life. Every alchemist for a thousand years had searched for the philosopher's stone, but only he had really found it. He had nearly killed them all in the process, true, but it had worked. He had won. He had beaten God after all.

  He gave up on sleep just before dawn and went outside, buzzing with energy and excitement. He wanted to do it again. He wanted to do it a hundred times, until it was ordinary, until no one needed to fear death again. More than that— he wanted to learn how to tie the spirit to the body so that it would never leave. After all, he didn't want to rely on others to bring him back. He never wanted to die in the first place.

  A black shape moved in the darkness. Sinclair backed away and drew his knife. The soft mossy foliage on Horizon meant trees and bushes didn't rustle like they did in England. "Who's there?" he said.

  "John Marcheford," came the reply. The black shape stepped out of the trees and resolved into the dark- clad figure of a man.

  "Bishop," Sinclair said. "You gave me a start."

  "I thought I might find you here," Marcheford said.

  "Here we are. And what about you? Rumors have you doing everything from ruling the tamarins to paddling back to England in a log canoe."

  Marcheford frowned. "The first is closer, though I'm far from ruling them. They've come close to killing me several times. That's why I came. To warn you."

  "Warn me of what?"

  "The tribes are gathering. The grays haven't forgotten the reception the Spanish gave them, and after last night, it wasn't hard to convince the others."

  "What do you mean, 'after last night'? What happened last night?"

  Marcheford gave him a searching look. "The earthquake."

  Sinclair remembered how the cave had shaken the moment Catherine's spirit reentered her body, knocking them all down. "You're telling me they felt the ground shake all the way out there?"

  "It's still shaking. A wedge of cliff as big as your settlement sheared off and fell off the Edge. More has been crumbling over the side all night. Can't you hear it?"

  Sinclair listened. There was a continuous rumbling sound he hadn't noticed until now, a deep vibration in the earth he could almost feel more than hear.

  "The tamarins are in a fury, and they're coming. Not just the few dozen grays that your soldiers defeated before. Some of these tribes have been enemies for generations, but they're on the same side now. Chichirico has tried to keep the reds out of it, but a good many of them have joined anyway."

  "Good. Maybe they'll kill all the Spanish."

  "They won't differentiate. They'll kill humans, what ever their nationality. I doubt they can even tell the difference."

  "Why don't they kill you?"

  "For the time being, I'm tolerated, but it won't last. If nothing changes over the next few days, I'll be dead along with everyone else. If they knew I was here warning you, I wouldn't last the night."

  Sinclair kicked at the dirt. "Why must they blame us for an earthquake?" He was going to say more, maybe rant about savages and religions, but the look on Marcheford's face stopped him.

  "What did you do?" Marcheford said. When Sinclair didn't answer, he said, "I know you caused the first quake, the one that brought them to the settlement. This one was ten times worse, and I want to know: What did you do?"

  Sinclair couldn't help it; he started to laugh. "It's ironic," he said. "Just before you arrived, I was celebrating my victory over God. It seems he won't let me win so easily."

  "Tell me."

  "I raised Catherine Parris from the dead."

  Marcheford stared for a long moment. "You . . ."

  "Yes." Sinclair laughed again, a bitter chuckle. "I actually did it."

  Sinclair heard a metallic noise in the forest, something completely out of place in the silent predawn. "Who else is here?" He searched Marcheford's face for signs of treachery, but Marcheford looked startled, too.

  Diego de Tavera walked out of the trees, a pistol in each hand, accompanied by five soldiers, who moved to cut off any attempt at escape. Behind them came Andrew Kecilpenny.

  Sinclair couldn't believe it. Kecilpenny, who the night before had worked alongside him, controlling the void. Who had slept in the cave, but must have slipped out during the night, quietly enough that no one heard him, and betrayed them all. Sinclair had trusted him. He'd shared his secrets, and for what? Now the Spanish would know everything. Sinclair would kill him. He would wring his fat neck and hang him up for the birds to eat.

  Kecilpenny's face was pale and stricken. "They have my Elizabeth," he said. "I had to tell them. They—"

  "Quiet." Tavera hit him with a brutal backhand, sending him to the ground with a bleeding nose. He regarded Sinclair with no emotion. "Where's the girl?"

  CATHERINE heard raised voices and ran out of the cave, followed by her parents and John Gibbs. She stopped short when she saw the soldiers.

  "Ah, there she is," Tavera said. "The miracle herself." He circled, examining her. "You truly are alive. Kecilpenny told me, but I didn't believe." He brushed aside a lock of her hair and traced the skin of her forehead where she'd been shot. "No sign of any wound. Amazing."

  Father knocked Tavera's hand away. "Leave her alone."

  Tavera's jaw twitched. His pale, dead eyes shifted to Father. "I've been learning about your occult practices," he said. "It pays to be informed about the devil's work. Your friend Matthew has been quite instructive." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "You'll find I know everything about you and your cabal. I've been honing my techniques for some time, but this island opens up all kinds of new possibilities. It's incredible how much pain can be inflicted on a body that heals itself immediately. There's almost no limit to it."

  Catherine felt her throat constrict and fear boiled in her stomach. Matthew had been tortured, and she'd been here, sleeping peacefully through the night. "What have you done to him?" she said.

  "You'll find out soon enough, my dear." Tavera turned to Mother. "I thought you were on our side."

  She spat on his feet. "You killed my daughter."

  Tavera laughed. "She doesn't look dead to me." He snapped his fingers and two soldiers stepped up. "Take the girl to the ship and chain her in the brig. I'll not have her rescued."

  Two soldiers grabbed Catherine's arms.

  "No!" Father said. "She knows nothing about it. Take me instead."

  "I'll take you, too. And understand, your daughter's treatment depends on your good behavior. If you refuse to answer my questions, or escape, or even die, it will go hard on your daughter. And believe me, I can make her very uncomfortable."

  The soldiers tied their arms behind their backs. Kecilpenny sat up, his face a mess of blood. "Tie that one, too," Tavera said.

  "Please," Kecilpenny said. "I told you everything you wanted to know. You promised you would let my daughter go free."

  Tavera stood over him, arms folded. "And why would I do that? You may have more yet to tell me."

  Kecilpenny spread his hands plaintively. "I've told you everything."

  "You think this is God's work?" Marcheford said. "Holding a little girl captive to make her father betray his friends?" Catherine looked at him in surprise. She didn't like Matthew's father very much, but he was brave, she had to admit, to speak up in this situation. Even with his arms tied behind his back, he managed to look distinguished, and his voice rang as if he were preaching a sermon to the king.

  "These men are sorcerers," Tavera said. "They practice the foulest witchcraft, and everyone knows it. I've been sent here to purify the island, and I will do it."

  "Elizabeth Kecilpenny is six years old," Marcheford sai
d. "She's no sorcerer. Let her go."

  Tavera actually seemed to consider it. "You've truly told me everything?" he asked Kecilpenny.

  "I promise. Everything I know."

  Casually, Tavera lifted one of his pistols and aimed it. "You know, I believe you have." He depressed the mechanism that touched match to pan, and the small gun blasted a haze of burnt smoke into the air. Kecilpenny's body jerked backward, slumped to the ground, and lay still.

  "No!" Gibbs shouted. He tried to run to his friend, but the soldiers knocked him down. Catherine felt frozen with shock.

  "I don't want this one popping up alive again," Tavera said. "Take his body to the bay and tie a rock to it. Make sure it doesn't come back up."

  Catherine stared at Kecilpenny's ruined body and thought of Elizabeth, only six years old, and Mary, his young wife. It was all coming apart. These men were too powerful, too cruel. She started to cry. "He did what you wanted," she said. "He helped you. You didn't have to kill him."

  "He practiced the occult, like the rest of them," Tavera said, waving a hand to indicate the gathered men. A vicious smile spread across his face. "I hope they love you more than their secrets. Because if they don't, you're going in the water next."

  Father gave a cry and lunged for Tavera, but the soldiers intercepted him. The last Catherine saw of him as they carried her away was the butts of their weapons driving him to the ground.

  Chapter Thirty

  THE dawn light flared over the treetops. Sinclair trudged through the forest, tied in a chain behind Stephen Parris, Catherine, Joan, Bishop Marcheford, and John Gibbs. At the beach the soldiers separated them, taking Parris and his family into the Spanish galleon and sending Sinclair with Marcheford and Gibbs on to the settlement. Instead of the prison in the Spanish quarter, as Sinclair expected, they brought them to the church. They chained them to the heavy altar and set soldiers outside to guard the building.

  Along the way, Marcheford had passed his warning about the tamarins on to Tavera, but Tavera didn't take it seriously. "We can see them, and we can shoot them," he said. "We'll send them running again, if they're foolish enough to try."

  Once they were chained and left alone in the church, Sinclair asked, "How many tamarins are we talking about?"

  "Hundreds at least," Marcheford said. "It's hard to say."

  "The fools." Sinclair yanked at his chains, but they held fast. "We're the ones most likely to find a solution, and here we are, trapped. The tamarins will kill the Spanish first, and then come kill us, too." The thought made his heart hammer in his chest, and he rattled the chains in fury. "There has to be a way out. I won't die like this."

  "The tamarins knew," Marcheford said. "Somehow they knew what you did. They kept talking about restoring the balance of life. I thought they were just talking about getting rid of all the humans, but I think now they must have meant it literally. Somehow Catherine's resurrection is causing this quake."

  Sinclair paused to listen, willing his panicked breathing to slow. He could still hear the bass rumbling deep under their feet. If pieces of the island were breaking off , did that mean the whole island was slowly sliding over the Edge? He wondered which would kill them first, the island or the tamarins.

  "Are you afraid?" Marcheford asked.

  If anyone else had asked, Sinclair would have said no, but Marcheford knew him well enough by now. He nodded. "I'm so close. Another month of study, another week even, and every man on this island could be immortal."

  "What you're trying to do, Christ has already done. It's not just a spiritual metaphor, as you called it. For those who trust in him, it's a certainty. A new and eternal life in a better world."

  Sinclair was annoyed. The idea of another world on the far side of the void was attractive, but without any evidence to support it, it was nothing more than a pleasant fiction. Sinclair was not going to tell himself comfortable stories just to feel better about dying. "This world is all I have," he said.

  Gibbs had buried his face in his knees since they had chained him here, but now he looked up. "What about Kecilpenny?" he said. Tears tracked through the dirt on his face. He shook his head at Marcheford. "All my life I believed in God."

  "Believe in him still, as your friend did," Marcheford said.

  "How can I? The universe is a machine, composed of tiny atoms with neither mind nor will. Now we find that the 'spirit' is simply part of the universe, an intelligent spark that obeys natural laws and can be manipulated by men. What's left for the divine? I've seen Sinclair perform more miracles than God."

  Marcheford's voice was soft. "Don't think 'God' is just a word to explain what we don't understand. God isn't only in the miracles. He's in the movement of every atom, the fall of every leaf, the death of every creature."

  Gibbs scowled. "He's responsible for Kecilpenny's death, then?"

  "He controls all things. Responsibility is a different question. Diego de Tavera is the one responsible for your friend's death."

  "I would kill him if I could."

  Marcheford's eyes blazed briefly, as they had sometimes from his pulpit in England. "As would I."

  The door opened, and Sinclair feared their conversation had been overheard. "Christopher Sinclair?" a soldier said. "Come with us."

  THE brig on the Spanish ship was larger than the one on the Western Star. It was deep in the hold and felt airless and dank. They locked Parris and Joan in an otherwise empty cell that stank of fish. They took Catherine away, and refused to tell them where. No one came for them, and they were given no food or water. The cell was dark, but enough sunlight seeped through the cracks that Parris could see a dim outline of Joan's face.

  "You were right," she said. "I thought it was all foolishness, but you really did it. You brought her back to life."

  "Sinclair did."

  "I was so angry at you. I didn't care if they brought you home in chains, so long as I got my daughter back. If I had never told them about the beetle, then Tavera would never have come here, and Catherine would never . . ."

  "It's all right. She's alive. It doesn't matter." He reached out a hand to her in the darkness, and Joan moved toward him, burying her face into his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his ribs. He couldn't remember the last time she'd done that.

  "It's not all right," she said. "Tavera's got her now, and he'll . . . You haven't seen what they've been doing at home. Trials every day. Burnings at Smithfield, so that you can smell the smoke for miles. Men, women, children . . . and Tavera always asking questions about where you were going in your ship and what you expected to find. I thought if I told him . . ."

  Parris's eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness. He could see the anguish in her face. He had never understood her. He had thought what she cared about was money and comfort, lands and rank, and marriage prospects. But here she was, risking her life with dangerous men and chasing across an ocean wilderness to get her daughter back. It was Catherine she cared about, with a ferocity he was only now coming to appreciate.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I should never have taken her away from you."

  THE soldiers brought Catherine to another cell on the ship and chained her arms to a beam on the ceiling, forcing her to hold them up over her head. It wasn't until after they left, clanging the rusty metal door behind them, that she noticed another person curled in the shadows. It was Matthew.

  Matthew groaned and opened his eyes. When he saw her, he smiled. "Am I dead, too, then?"

  "You're not dead, and neither am I. If I were dead, would I be chained up like this?"

  "But I saw him shoot you." His smile faded, and he came fully awake. "Sinclair?"

  She nodded. "He succeeded this time. He brought me back to life."

  Matthew tried to get up, but his neck was chained to the floor, so he could only lift his head slightly. "Do you remember anything?"

  She shook her head. "Nothing. It was like being asleep. They've tortured you, haven't they?"

  A shadow of anguish flitted ac
ross his face, but he forced a weak smile. "I told them some great secrets to begin with, like the supernatural strength you can get from eating theramite weed."

  Her mouth dropped open. "But it's poisonous to the touch!"

  "I forgot to mention that."

  "But surely they hurt you even worse?"

  She saw a spark of fire in his eyes. "And what of it? You were dead. My plan was to fight them until they killed me, too. But then . . ."