Sondranos: The Narrative of Leon Bishop

by Patrick Stephens

  “That’s the spirit I’ve been waiting for!” Davion clapped me on the shoulder, tearing False Daniel away from my mind. “I cannot speak of how I felt. Annalise had her own brand of spirit and Melanie had a piece of mine. Kayt and Lancaster shared one, but you were always the doubt in my mind. I am proud of you.”

  “Don’t be proud of me yet, we still have to make sure the Belovores survive this,” I said. It was what he wanted to hear, I hoped. I’d gotten good at lying. I imagine, given more time, I could have even convinced myself I really was on vacation.

  Davion didn’t react badly, or second guess what I’d said – my words only bolstered his frame. Taking the chance, I spoke up again while two freshly armed Forgiven rushed past, heading towards the eastern section of the wall. I glanced after them, and saw that most – if not all – of those ready to defend the commune had taken up their posts either on the top of the wall, at the ladders, or at various points alongside buildings.

  Since Davion found me, I took action. “I need to talk to you in private. I am having doubts about the others.”

  “How so?”

  I pointed to Kayt and Melanie, who had stuck beside each other and were talking to a group of six Forgiven. They watched, one laughed, while the others listened. Kayt was speaking. She leaned forward as she spoke.

  “I don’t think this plan will work,” I said. The idea was to make him believe I had thoughts that would best remain private. I’d hoped he would see that; maybe he would call me to somewhere secret to discuss it so that I could attempt to sway him.

  Davion looked over each of his shoulders and hushed me. “Quiet,” he said. “Do you truly believe this?”

  I nodded. Acting like I was following the edict of the commune seemed to be working.

  “Then explain this to me. Here is good enough,” he said.

  “No, I’d feel safer some place private.”

  “Anything you say in private can be said here. This is a peaceful place,” he said. His eyes implored me to speak. Something hovered between his will to speak and what he said. I could feel it, like anticipating bad news.

  “You doubt what’s going on here,” I said. “You know – deep down – that this is a terrible idea. You know that convincing the Forgiven to protect the Belovores will only result in more loss of life.”

  Davion’s eyes widened, and he swallowed hard. He grimaced and frowned. “You don’t understand what goes on in a man’s heart. Bringing you few here, saving your lives gave me more of a purpose than my own God had allowed me. I was not supposed to survive the destruction.”

  “You just learned that, didn’t you? Through Father Corin.”

  Davion said nothing.

  “The Belovores are dying,” I said. I raised my voice. “They have been ever since they landed. They know there aren’t enough of them left to rebuild, so they’re taking out every last one of us. Father Corin knows this, and he’s been helping.”

  Davion struck me – right on the chin. His fist was loose, and the knuckles popped as they my neck wrenched.

  “Lies,” he said.

  “Look around you, Davion. Count the Forgiven. Could the MacKinnon Commune of the First Divinity survive with this many people? Without recruiting, with only a small portion of births?” I assumed. My pleas felt like the addendum to something larger I was supposed to be saying, or would say later.

  Davion scanned the crowd. He did so with a hatred furrowing his brow. After he’d looked around, and after more Forgiven walked past us – we hadn’t been loud enough, or violent enough, I thought, to garner attention – he winced. “No,” he said.

  “Now count the Belovores,” I said. “All the ones you can see. Count how many there are, because you know that all of the ones who’ve survived this massacre are here right now.”

  “You’ve lied,” Davion’s expression changed. The hatred was directed at me. “You do not wish to support this, do you? You’ve been perpetrating a falsehood.”

  “I’m giving you reasons, Davion. I know you’re doubting yourself, and your part in all this. I know you expected Sondranos to stand down, and all the Belovores to come in peace. I know why you kept Melanie’s father a secret.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said.

  “I do, Davion. I want to see the survival of everyone in the commune, as well as the troops coming to the front door. I’m telling you that I know why you’re doubting – and I want to help you. I want to help everyone here.”

  “No, you couldn’t understand. Sometimes you have to lie. You have to tell yourself that what you are doing is best, because not everything you do will be forgiven. You have to hurt people; you have to crush their minds because they threaten you with damnation,” Davion turned around, set his hands against his forehead and pushed back his hair. Sweat slicked it back. “You can’t allow your secrets to come to light. Once one is out, the rest will follow.”

  Davion looked at me, and then sprinted away. The oddly spry older man headed towards the Hall, and I had to beat my heels into the ground to catch him. My hand slipped onto his robe and caught the fringe. Davion tripped as I yanked it towards me. Thankfully, all attention was drawn towards the outer wall and elsewhere, otherwise I wouldn’t have made it any further at that moment. He stumbled to the ground. I took the moment to power on my rifle. I’d almost forgotten it was there. The switch sent a shiver of energy through the barrel, vibrating in the handle, and making the trigger warm against my finger.

  “Stand,” I told him. “Do as I say, or I will tell Velric personally what you’ve said. I’m sure he would love to hear from you.”

  “You would be killed too,” he said. He pushed his hands behind him and shuffled himself into a sitting position. He struggled to get up. I didn’t offer a hand. “Didn’t Velric tell you about our purpose, and about why Father Corin must provide our salvation?”

  “No. Velric told us we were all damned,” I said. “Take me to Annalise.”

  Davion wiped his hands and clapped any excess pre-morning dew away.

  More and more Forgiven arrived, and more were being armed, while crates kept piling up. I don’t know where all of them had come from, but as we walked, I slowly realized the intent behind the Belovore’s sweeping for weapons in Covenant Street. A man bearing Amos’ weapon trundled by. I knew it was his, as it looked homemade, and I could never forget the way that gun looked – it was set in my mind alongside the memory of watching Amos die.

  The Belovores weren’t rounding up people – they were collecting weapons for the commune. All the weapons that had been fried, all the ones created by gunsmiths, each and every one must have been under scrutiny to see which ones could be used, and which ones had to be scrapped after the dead man’s switch activated. I didn’t want to think of what happened to all the people who were rounded up.

  Melanie told a very strange story.

  As I was busy with Davion, after their initial attempt at convincing some of the Forgiven to holster heir weapons, she and Kayt parted ways. But before that, Kayt listened carefully, as she would repeat Melanie’s story verbatim. It was clear that the fiction of the moment would have to suffice, as preservation had been so deeply ingrained with the Forgiven that holding their guns looked natural.

  “The city was destroyed by a race hunting the Belovores down,” she began. “They ran across a colony that lives out there amongst the stars, and somehow angered them. Must have been a cultural thing. We saw their ship arrive, but they’ve been in hiding. These aliens called themselves Helioloid. They heard the distress signals from the encampments all over the crater, and have been wiping them out one by one.”

  “It’s true – you can’t contact the city. It was wiped out by a Helioloid device,” Kayt added.

  “Then they heard the International Aeronautics defence ship – the Cooper - was coming, and decided to hide, to let us tear each other apart out of fear. The Belovores are hiding too, but they don’t know that the Helioloids are hiding. They know what’s going
on. You won’t be attacking your enemy, you will be attacking your friends. And if you do, they will be forced to return fire. The Helioloids will have one less enemy to fight. The Belovores will die anyway.”

  “Trust her,” Kayt said. “If not, then trust me. Look at me. I lost my best friend to those things,” she said. Her eyes locked on the one in the centre of their crowd – which had begun to slowly grow - and started detailing what the Helioloids did to Lancaster. She spoke with the same passion she would later use to detail the Belovore’s massacre. It was easy for the Forgiven to believe that she spoke with the utmost conviction. She wept as she spoke.

  “Lancaster was a great man, and he just needed to grow up before he could realize what kind of man he was supposed to be,” she concluded.

  “We cannot simply lay down our weapons,” the Forgiven man said. “If we do, then this other menace will attack.”

  “Then stay armed. But don’t shoot. Let the troops come in; let them secure this base. I promise, you will not regret it. If you fire,” Melanie said, “You will never sleep soundly again.”

  The Forgiven man turned to the others. “We will spread the word not to fire unless fired upon,” the Forgiven man said. He ordered the two by his side to spread out and start telling the story. Kayt nodded, and watched as the crowd dispersed.

  When they were out of earshot, Kayt leaned in close to Melanie. “What was that?”

  “A story my Dad once told me,” she said. “Give or take a few details.”

  “He was a good man,” Kayt said. “No matter what Velric said.”

  “A good man does not always make a good father,” she said.

  “I wish you’d have gotten the chance to remember him the way you would have liked,” Kayt set her hand on Melanie’s shoulder as they walked towards another crowd. Along the way, they continued their private discussion.

  “I don’t. Then I’d be dead in Sondranos proper, working a meaningless job in a place nobody will remember in twenty years’ time, save for the memorial they might put up. And even then, they’d charge,” Melanie smiled. It was a false smile, but Kayt returned it nonetheless. “Because, as you can see, I would have been important enough to require a cover charge.”

  “Preaching to the choir,” Kayt said.

  Melanie pulled Kayt’s chin up to meet her eyes. “How are you doing?”

  “It wasn’t just Lancaster that needed to grow up. I did too.”

  “Have you?”

  “We’ll see. Next time I fall in love with someone, we’ll see if it’s for the right reasons – lust and change isn’t what I should have been looking for,” she said. “Lancaster kept trying to tell me that. I never loved him the way he did me, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t right about me deserving better.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Melanie cupped Kayt’s jaw in the palm of her hand. She took a deep breath, arched her eyebrows, and looked over her shoulder. “That story isn’t going to spread itself. You want to go left, and I’ll go right?”

  Kayt turned to the left, saw a handful of Belovores trundling down the pavement towards the Hall, and shook her head. “Better the other way around,” she said. “I’ll meet you back here once we start hearing the story told to us. Oh, and Melanie?”

  Melanie staggered, and looked back. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry we didn’t get to know you.”

  At the time, they operated under the hopes that the Belovores wouldn’t hear the story because most of the Forgiven – save for Father Corin and Davion – seemed compelled to silence around the Belovores. I’m certain the Belovores would have neglected to listen anyway, as they seemed infinitely more concerned with their own internal processes.

  That is how stories travel; whomever you tell them to, they will only reach the ears of those who listen. In addition to Father Corin’s meaning and the associations of the MacKinnon Commune of the Primary Divinity, the Forgiven believed that they were never, and would never, be saved. Their name was how they hoped to be classified in the afterlife. Since they believed they were to never be saved in a religious manner, then they would act without the same expectations of commandments and requirements, and only through their inherent morality.

  The barracks buzzed with noise. The Forgiven had left some of the crates against the empty door while they piled on their robes inside their rooms and holstered the contents of the crates over their shoulders. The rifles all looked the same. They might as well have been right from a few of the gun shops down-town – mass produced.

  Davion, still reluctant, slowed his steps as we got closer to the end of the hall. We’d passed the spot where the rifle had fired and left an indentation. Davion stopped just outside a familiar door which had been barred shut. A thick wooden beam had been nailed to the outer frame, holding the door in place. Davion touched it and shrugged his shoulders.

  “She is not in an enviable position,” Davion said. “You would do well to leave her be. She is not part of us.”

  “I’m not part of you,” I said. “Now help me pry it open.”

  “You are feeling conflicted. I know this,” he started. He placed his hands on the board but didn’t pull. A Forgiven woman rushed past, knocking into me. Davion was trying to convince me of his side, and would so long as I listened; Ironic, considering I planned on doing the same thing.

  I nudged him closer to the board. I set the rifle against my chest – the strap stung my neck with coarse threads – and started pulling. Davion sighed and did the same. The nail that had secured the door to the frame to the board squealed as it came out.

  “Can you tell me honestly that the Belovores will survive this?” Davion asked.

  “No, keep pulling.”

  “I am,” Davion grunted, a second nail came loose. “I need to know. I have been walking blindly all my life, between decision and indecision for years, all because I know that the Belovores are simply hurting. They are a dying breed, and will continue to die until there are no more. How can I allow a creature merely blink out of existence?”

  “It’s us or them. We made it that way,” I said.

  A third nail popped out. Two more and the board would be free of the door, although, the door was already starting to tremble beneath the force of my foot.

  “The human race will go on far beyond this,” Davion said. “Sondranos will be nothing more than a footnote. The Belovores only wish to survive.”

  I pulled harder, straining my shoulder. A surge of red hot pain told me to stop, but I kept pulling. I jerked again, and it popped loose. The board knocked Davion back, hitting him in the chest, and sprawling him against a crate sitting empty in the hallway. I dropped the board, fingered the rifle and extended a hand to help him up. He eyed me with a distant look: “Velric hoped his people would survive. He never thought he was the last of his kind; he was just the last of his kind on Sondranos. He knew what would happen if he stayed. Unfortunately, the human race never gave them a realistic chance.”

  “You’re talking about Perry?”

  “Who else?”

  Since we were in a safe spot, I pointed the rifle at Davion. “Tell me about him.”

  Davion raised his voice and pushed out his chest. The barrel of my rifle pressed into his skin. “He was separated from his natural hive mind. For years he suffered, and I couldn’t imagine doing the same. Mentally attached to my own species, and then suddenly severed? Never.”

  “He’s degraded,” I said.

  “He wept as Belovores do, and then channelled that sadness into nostalgia for the past,” Davion said. “Like most of us. Except he holds more dominion over the Belovores than we do over our own history.”

  I took his words at face value, and resolved that he didn’t know much more than that. What he’d given, at least, was Davion’s side of Velric. The rest would come.

  I pushed open the door, which clacked as the handle brokenly came apart from the frame. Inside, Annalise sat on the bed. She’d been strapped to it. I was surprised not to see a gag,
but I was awed to see two large welts on the side of her face. They’d beaten her.

  “Go away,” Annalise said.

  “Are you…?” I rushed over and inspected the strap on her wrists.

  “It’s nothing I haven’t been part of before,” she tightened the strap by pulling her arm up. She slid to the side to make sure I was watching. I paused. I’d nearly forgotten that Annalise had taken the blow for her. Kayt surely would have been killed if it had been her. The strap was tied to the bedframe, with a lock preventing me from getting at it. We were running out of time, so I pulled out the rifle, told Annalise to turn around, and fired at the strap where it let up from the bedframe. It severed, but not before the bolt cut the leg of the bed in half, and sent the reverberating sound of impact throughout the barracks. Annalise jumped to her feet, wrapped the rest of the strap around her arm, and headed for the door. Davion watched us. I would have expected him to leave.

  A Forgiven woman stopped just shy of Davion, “I heard gunfire, is everything well? Isn’t this room supposed to blockaded?”

  “It is,” Davion began.

  I brandished the rifle as I jumped to the doorway, “But we have to bring the prisoner to Velric. He’s asked us since time is running short.”

  The Forgiven woman gave me no attention, but looked to Davion for reassurance instead. He watched me, noticed me perk the rifle at him, and nodded. The Forgiven woman crossed herself and fled the opposite direction.

  “You shouldn’t have bothered. The Belovores are fleeing underground. I came to just as their lackeys were dragging me out, so I feigned sleep as they held on to me. I waited and watched as maybe a dozen Belovore disappeared down this little alleyway outside the Hall.”

  “Why didn’t you fight back?”

  “Would you?”

  “That’s what I’m doing now,” I raised the rifle.

  “Good, then you can get people killed,” she said.