Sais wondered who he’d been expecting.
When Einon let him in, Sais asked, ‘How did your errand go?’
‘All is well. The girl is safely out of the City. I, ah, need to get back to my work now. You should, ah, eat - regain your strength,’ he suggested.
Sais had had only one meal in the last three days and now Einon mentioned it, he realised he was ravenous. He was just cleaning his plate when the front door opened and he came out of the kitchen to see Damaru trudging up the hall, followed by Kerin. He’d been so wrapped up in his own problems he’d hardly spared a thought for the boy. Damaru looked drained but unharmed.
Sais smiled at Kerin. ‘He did it then?’
‘Aye. He will want to rest now.’ She looked tired herself. ‘Did Einon succeed in carrying out the Cariad’s request?’ she added.
‘He says so. He wasn’t particularly informative.’
‘No, I think he has his own problems.’ Kerin closed the front door.
‘Isn’t Fychan with you?’ asked Sais.
Kerin sighed. ‘He has decided to celebrate. As the guardian of a successful skyfool, I expect he will not need to buy his own drinks all evening.’ As she passed him she said, ‘I will get Damaru settled, then can we talk?’
‘Of course. I’ll be in the parlour.’
When Kerin came back downstairs, Sais was still trying to work out what to say. For all Kerin’s open and enquiring mind, he was basically telling her that she had spent her life worshipping false gods. Though he’d got over losing his religion, that had been a gradual process; and he came from a culture where, whatever the authorities on his homeworld might wish, there was no universal faith followed unquestioningly by everyone. Here, there was, and it would be hard to overthrow a lifetime’s conditioning.
Kerin sat on the other end of the bench. ‘Sais, I am worried for Damaru. He has proved his worth this afternoon, and tomorrow he must go to the Tyr. I believe he will succeed there too. But if what you told me this morning is true - and I am not saying I believe you - then I fear Damaru may not go to Heaven when he ascends.’
He wasn’t going to lie to her. ‘I’m afraid you may be right.’
She digested this, then said, ‘His next test is with the Cariad. How does she fit into all this? You were so scared of her earlier - did you think she was one of these, what did you call them?’
‘Sidhe.’
‘Sidhe, aye. But now you are not so sure, are you? Because she did not ask Fychan about your shirt and a Sidhe would know it to be an unearthly object.’
An unearthly object
- an odd phrase, but accurate. ‘That’s right. And her request was a bit odd.’
‘I agree.’ Kerin paused. ‘Tis not a request I would expect a divine being to make. But if she is not the Beloved Daughter of Heaven, who is she?’
‘I don’t know. I assumed she was Sidhe, but I wasn’t really thinking straight.’
‘You were scared. We do foolish things when fear takes us.’ Kerin’s gaze had been focused on her lap. Now she lifted her eyes. ‘You fear the Sidhe greatly. Are they the ones who stole your memories?’
He nodded. ‘That’s right.’
‘How? And why?’
He thought for a moment. The less she knew the safer she was, but she needed some explanation. ‘Most people don’t know the Sidhe still exist. They used to rule over everyone, a long time ago.’ He didn’t add,
like they still do here
. ‘Humanity - people - overthrew their rule, and thought they’d wiped them out. They nearly did - and now the Sidhe need people to believe that they’re dead. Anyone who knows otherwise is a threat to them. In trying to find out how much I knew about them, they damaged my mind.’
‘But you escaped.’
‘Yes. I had help. They have servants - bondsmen - who work for them, and one of them helped me.’ He wondered what had happened to the poor bitch who’d unlocked his cell. Something unpleasant, probably.
‘And then you fell from the sky?’ Kerin’s tone made it obvious how absurd this sounded.
‘Yes, I was on a ship. A ship is like . . . a closed box that travels through the sky. I came down in a far smaller ship that got damaged and crashed. The fabric you found was meant to slow it down, but it got ripped. When you found me I was probably suffering from exposure, and maybe in shock - there’s stuff in the ship that cushioned me and it slows your body down. I must have opened my little ship and crawled free before it sank into the mere, but I don’t remember.’
Kerin’s expression showed how hard she was finding it to get her head round all this. Finally she said, ‘And people in the sky have no clothes?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You were naked when I found you.’
‘I’d forgotten that. No, we have clothes. The Sidhe took mine away, to make me feel more vulnerable.’
The front door opened and they heard Ebrilla come in, humming cheerfully to herself. They shut up.
They heard her grunt as she bent down to stroke the cat, who’d streaked out of the parlour when the door opened. ‘All alone, Palfau?’ she said. ‘Tis quiet as a winnowed house in here! Ah well, best get supper started anyway.’ Clattering sounds came from the kitchen.
Suddenly Sais had a new thought: the falling fire. That came from the sky - as did the cure. And the winnowing times happened approximately every twenty-five years -
the same as the interval between visits from the
Setting Sun. The falling fire was brought by the Sidhe! These people were regularly culled by a divine pestilence they were conditioned to accept: it kept the population size limited, manageable and in constant fear - perfect for a single autocratic ruler to control.
More than that: Kerin had told him priests, with their empathic abilities, rarely caught the falling fire; skyfools, with their more extreme talents, never did. Which meant it was a tailored pathogen, designed not just to keep the population down but to select for certain genetic traits. Add in the divinely sponsored sex-fest at star-season to give the genes a good mix-up, and what did you have?
A millennia-long, planet-wide, selective-breeding programme.
‘Sais? What is it?’
He looked up to see Kerin staring at him. What could he say?
Your entire world is a sick experiment administered by malicious aliens for an unknown purpose
? He felt his scalp crawl. ‘I’m just - I’m fine,’ he murmured.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, really. What else did you want to know?’
Kerin gave a tiny, stressed laugh. ‘I am not sure I
want
to know any of this. But I must. I cannot stop now, or I will spend the rest of my life wondering. So: if what you say is correct, and the world is just one of many, why has no one else come here in these sky-travelling boxes?’
A good question. ‘You’re a long way off the beaten track. Most people have no idea there’s anything out here. Also, you’ve got orbital defences up in the sky. Weapons, like the monitor’s crossbows, only larger. They shoot down anyone who comes too close.’
‘Are they what damaged your . . . little ship?’
‘Yes. They shot at my big ship too, but they missed. I’m not sure whether they’re programmed to fire warning shots or whether they’re not as efficient as they used to be. The Sidhe claimed their ship had been badly damaged before they could move it away, and the people on board were in danger. Idiot that I was, I went in to help. That’s how they caught me.’
‘I think I understand, though I cannot picture these ships and weapons. This all seems like a lot of trouble for them to go to. Why do they hide our world?’
‘I’m not sure yet.’
‘Might these Sidhe not be sky-people like yourself who have discovered our faith, which is true, and corrupted it for their own ends?’
How Kerin must want to believe that. ‘It’s possible,’ he conceded.
Kerin nodded to herself. ‘Aye, I think it must be so. Unless these Sidhe are powerful enough to have made our world, in which case they would be divine and hence worthy of our worship!’
Sais had met plenty of people who believed the universe had been created by a divine force, and though he didn’t share their belief, that didn’t mean it hadn’t been. But he had a good idea how this particular world had come to be the way it was. ‘I’m pretty certain the Sidhe did set this place up, but it was nothing divine.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re not going to like this.’
‘I imagine not. Go on.’
‘What almost certainly happened is that the Sidhe brought settlers out here a long time ago, when they were at the height of their power. Your ancestors would have come from another world, along with some of the plants and animals you need.’ Though not
everything
- he’d never seen bogwood before; and the Sidhe didn’t appear to have brought horses - presumably because that would have made travel too easy. ‘They probably made the first colonists forget they came from somewhere else. They gave them a book of rules - the Traditions - which told them what they mustn’t do, building in stuff to keep you primitive, like saying iron -
skymetal
- could only be used by the church, and that plants had to be cultivated by hand. They put in place a priesthood to control the people, and set up the Cariad in her miraculous City of Light as a reminder of their divine rule.’
‘I find this . . . hard to believe.’
Before he could work out what to say next, the door opened and Ebrilla came in. Her hand jumped to her throat when she saw the room was occupied. ‘Mother of Mercy, what are you two doing in here? Tis nearly dark. I will light the lamps.’
They sat silently until she had gone, then continued their conversation sitting in the golden glow. Kerin wanted to know more about his old life and how things worked in the universe beyond her world. She asked perceptive questions and once Sais had hit on a suitable analogy, her keen mind digested the information and moved on.
Sais suspected she was glad to be called to dinner. They were joined by the other two lodgers, who had also stopped off for a post-test celebratory drink. Meilyg reckoned Fychan was set for the night, for not only could he regale the tavern patrons with stories about Damaru, he also had his amazing night with the Beloved Daughter of Heaven to boast about.
After dinner, Kerin went up to her room. Sais joined Gorran and Meilyg, who were playing gem in the parlour. He even joined in, and was beaten soundly by the son, though he managed a draw with Meilyg. Einon sat with them for a while too, though he refused all invitations to join in the game.
Having spent so much time unconscious recently, Sais had trouble getting to sleep that night. Fychan’s late return from the tavern, announced by drunken stumbling and muted swearing, didn’t help. Eventually he fell into a dream in which he was having some sort of theological argument with Kerin, or it might have been Elarn; the argument was taking place on the barren surface of a tiny, rocky planetoid in deep space. He felt a vague yet persistent anxiety: if he did persuade his companion that science was the truth and religion a comforting illusion, then she might realise they were sitting in a vacuum, and they’d both die horrible deaths.
In his dream, he thought the sharp bang must be the air, rushing out. They were going to die!
Then he heard someone say, ‘—am Dangwern?’
The dream collapsed and he opened his eyes. In the grey pre-dawn light, he made out several figures blocking the open doorway to his room.
He heard a familiar voice, bleary with sleep and drink, say, ‘Hoo’s askin’?’
One of the figures in the doorway turned to him. He thought there was something wrong with the man’s body. ‘Are you Fychan am Dangwern?’ he asked Sais.
Sais levered himself up onto his elbows, fear rising in him. ‘No,’ he croaked.
‘Look, iv iz ’bout the girl—’ Fychan was saying from the other side of the room.
‘So, you are Fychan then?’ said the man, now ignoring Sais. There was nothing wrong with the man’s body - he was wearing armour. These were monitors - church police. What the hell was going on?
Sais heard Fychan reply, ‘Aye,’ his voice suddenly small and serious.
‘Come with us, please,’ said the monitor.
Sais tried to keep his breathing under control. He heard Fychan getting up. When the monitors shifted impatiently, he heard the creak of their leather armour and once, the jingle of metal. ‘Quickly, now,’ said one of them.
Fychan didn’t speak again and a few moments later everyone trooped out.
Sais waited until he heard the front door close behind them, then jumped out of bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Kerin was not sure what awakened her. She thought she heard a step on the stair, then decided she must have imagined it. Unable to get back to sleep, her mind returned yet again to her conversations with Sais, trying to find some inconsistency in his views, some contradiction or error in his answers. Yet she could not, no matter how many times she went over what he had said.
At least he could present no evidence to
disprove
the existence of the Skymothers. Beyond that, all was uncertain.
As dawn approached she concluded that she had two choices. Though he believed he was right, Sais might still be misguided, or insane, or Abyss-touched. If so, she should pity and help him, and pray for the forgiveness of the Mothers, because she had let doubt infect her spirit.
Or, he was correct, and everything she believed was a lie and her life was all but meaningless. She might as well give up - and yet even if he spoke the truth, her love for Damaru, and the need to survive once he was gone, remained unchanged.
All she could do was focus on the things that mattered and continue the observances that defined her life - whilst allowing for the terrible possibility that her faith was false.
She started at the sound of someone on the landing, then got up quietly, and opened the door.
Sais stood at the head of the stairs. He looked over at her, then down the stairs again. She heard the front door being re-barred and Ebrilla’s steps returning to her room.