Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (23 page)

Gallica disagreed. “Ignorance is no excuse. Sister Bastille
has been warned once already. She has defied me by returning here.”

“I would know the Order’s ways,” said Bastille. “The
true
ways, which I gained the right to know when I was elevated. What is that
thing
in there? You call me Esteemed, yet I’ve been told nothing I didn’t discover on
my own. Tell me about…
him
.”

“Him,” Dominique repeated, almost to herself. “If it’s truth
you want, there’s no better source of it than him. He would tell you the truth,
and it would break you.”

“Who is he, and what is he doing in there?”

“He is fate.”

“Fate?”

“One of them.”

Bastille didn’t understand. “One of whom?”

“The fates are more than an idea of what is meant to happen.
They’re physical beings from beyond our world, each with a will and purpose of
its own.”

Bastille snorted. “That’s absurd.”

“Yet it is true. Our world was meant to be destroyed, Sister
Bastille. Not ravaged, or laid waste, or damaged, as it has become. Destroyed.
Utterly. We are not supposed to exist.”

“Why do we, then?”

“Because of the one who saved us. The Aionach was meant to be
a paradise, lush and green and full of life. This world—the world that came to
be instead, the False World—was a mistake. A failed attempt. The fates want
only one thing: to tear our world asunder and pave the way for the True World,
the paradise that was intended. They can only achieve that if they’re able to
gather in close proximity. The closer they are to one another, the more their
power grows. So he scattered them across the Aionach, buried in living tombs.
He saved us from them. Now we live on a razor’s edge.”

“How could he allow something like this to go on existing?
Why didn’t he destroy them?”

The corner of Dominique’s mouth drew upward. “Why don’t you?”

“I have no power like yours, Sister Dominique. I heard the
thing’s voice inside my head. He wouldn’t have let me harm him if I’d wanted to.”

“The moment you looked into his eyes, his will took root
inside you. That’s why you were tempted to come to him again.”

“I wasn’t tempted. I came down here on my own. To find
answers.”

“That is what he would have you believe. His purpose is to
make you think you want what he wants. He will not stop until you’ve released
him.”

“The fates can’t be killed, then…”

“The fates are as much a part of this world as the world is a
part of them. They don’t live or die like we do. They simply
are
. The
best the ancient hero could do was to keep them apart, where their power is
weakened. Their influence has by no means ceased, however. It spreads even now,
while they rot in their man-made prisons. Whether it’s possible to destroy
them… we don’t know. We’ve been searching for the answer to that question.”

“How many are there?”

“No one knows. We’ve uncovered evidence of a handful, but I
have little doubt there are more. They manifest on the mortal plane in many
ways, few of which are known to us.”

“That’s why we’ve sent Brother Mortial in search of the other
Catacombs,” Sister Gallica added. “We hope his findings will better prepare us
for the struggle ahead.”

“What struggle?”

“Just as a world cannot be knit together in moments, so we
believe it must be destroyed over time. Though the fates are separated, they
are weakening the Aionach—testing its limits. They are shaking the very pillars
on which rest the foundations of the world. Sooner or later, the pillars will
give way.”

“Then why save ourselves? If we were never meant to be, why
exist?”

“Maybe you’ve never considered this before, kind Sister… but
your life is the only thing you have.”

“I’ve considered that often. A great deal more often than any
other thing. That’s why I pledged my life to the Order.”

“As do many others whose health has fallen casualty to this
shadow war we’re fighting.”

“How do we win a war against an impossible enemy?”

“We don’t have to save the world, praise the Mouth. The
savior has come and gone. The world has been saved. What we’re here to do is
keep it that way as long as we can. We are merely guardians.”

“I’m nothing compared to you, Sister Dominique… as much as it
may disappoint you. When you touched me, I…”

“When you’ve been touched by a healer, nothing else
compares,” said Sister Gallica. The look on the woman’s ugly pockmarked face
was the fondest, most pleasant look Bastille had ever seen there.

She remembered the soldiers, the Scarred Comrades who’d come
to take Mortial and Jeanette and Adeleine to the city north. They’d spoken of a
prophet, a man in the north who could heal the sick. “You’re a healer? Why are
we breaking our backs over artificial organs and brain-stem therapeutics if you
have the power to cure our ailments yourself?”

“Long ago, I gave up using my gift in all but the direst
need. Infernal’s wrath began to take its toll on me then, and I have only
continued to diminish with time. The liniments I apply to soothe my aches and
pains can only do so much. It’s grown worse with each passing year.”

“Then perhaps a NewNexus is the solution for you,” Bastille
suggested. “You and Sister Gallica both should be next in line as inheritors.”

“I’ll never inherit,” Dominique said. “I didn’t come to the
basilica with the goal of achieving Motherhood. I became a servant of the Order
because I couldn’t sit idly by and watch the world crumble. I have an
obligation to protect it for as long as I’m able. To do that, I need all my
wits about me. I need all the humanity I have left. Without compassion for the
souls who inhabit this world, I would become like the fates, who are incapable
of seeing what is, and who see only what ought to be.”

“What will become of the Order when you’re gone?”

“I plan to be around for a long time,” Dominique said. “After
that, my hope is that another will come to take my place.”

“Another with your powers, you mean. Another healer.”

“Yes.”

“And if no one comes?”

“If the Order fails, the Aionach will be destroyed.”

“What would happen to us if the Aionach were destroyed?”

Sister Dominique spoke in the rhythmic chant of something
long-memorized. “Before the True World of paradise is made, the things of the
False World will be unmade. We are the offspring of doom. When Arcadia comes,
we are lost.”

“How do you know all this?”

“The fates themselves have spoken many of our words. There
are scriptures hidden in the basilica, disguised under the given names of
priests and priestesses, which are said to contain bits and pieces of their
collective awareness.”

“I would read these scriptures, if I may,” said Sister
Bastille.

“I’ll show them to you, on the condition that you never
remove them from their hiding place. Were you to do so, the repercussions would
be the same as if you were to revisit this place.”

“Sister Bastille is not to be admitted to the labyrinth or
the Catacombs,” said Gallica. “I’ll hold onto this for the time being, as
well.” She brandished Bastille’s iron key before tucking it into her robes.

Dominique gave the she-mutant a patient look. “I will bring
Sister Bastille there myself. I’ll see to it personally that the rules are
followed. If anything goes wrong while she’s under my supervision, I will
accept the blame.”

“I should think that an unwise promise to make, Sister
Dominique.”

“I’ll decide the wisdom of my own promises, kind Sister.”

“The Mouth absolve you both, then,” said Gallica. She stormed
down the tunnel and climbed the ladder to the gardens above.

Bastille and Dominique followed her, but they turned a
different way down the garden path. Soon they’d lost Gallica in the underbrush.
The smell of breakfast was heavy in the gardens now, and they could hear Sister
Deniau’s morning staff bustling through the kitchens.

“How did you know I was down there?” Bastille asked.

“The entrance is closely monitored,” said Dominique. “And
before you ask, that’s all I will tell you about it.”

Sister Usara and her tree-loving cadre of gardeners
,
Bastille suspected.
One would think the conservatory a place of peaceful
solitude, but one is never truly alone here
.

“I think we’d better attend the morning meal before I take
you where I promised, so as not to arouse suspicion.”

They made their way through the gardens and entered the
refectory together, parting when Sister Dominique went to take her place at the
high table along the back of the room. Sister Deniau smiled as she heaped a
formidable helping of porridge into Bastille’s bowl, then gave her a parting
wink.

No sooner had Bastille taken her seat than she couldn’t wait
for breakfast to be over. Brother Ephamar singled her out and sat next to her,
diving into one of his historical lectures about the social implications of
Ministry rule in the late pre-Heat era. While this was going on, Brother
Travers glared perniciously at her from across the refectory as he spooned
steaming porridge into his mouth.

The day Bastille had forced Travers to memorize the first
chapter of his textbook, she had remained in her preparation rooms long past
dayrise. When the tea had gone cold and the biscuits soggy, Travers had emerged
to give it his first try. He had gotten less than two paragraphs in before stumbling
and forgetting the rest. Bastille had had no choice but to dismiss him for
breakfast. In every class period since, she’d sent him to the cold storage
rooms, vowing he’d earn no respite until he’d completed his assigned task.
“You’ll roost with the cadavers every day for the rest of your life,” she’d
promised.

Bastille barely touched her porridge, too excited by the
prospect of Dominique’s coming revelations to eat. She suffered the
uncomfortable juxtaposition of her two troublesome Brothers not a second longer
than she had to; when she noticed Dominique excusing herself from the table,
she piled her dishes and sped out after her.

“Careful, Bastille. If you don’t slow down, watchful eyes
will note your enthusiasm,” Dominique said when they were alone in the hallway.

Bastille was surprised to hear the high priestess address her
in such an informal tone. She did not take the bait, however.
What is your
aim, witch-woman?
“Watchful eyes will see what they want to see, kind
Sister. Whether or not it is there.”

“And what do you see?” Dominique pointed toward the front of
the sanctuary as they entered. “Tell me everything.”

“I see the stage. The risers where the tetrarchs chant to the
Mouth. The pulpit where the word is spoken. The altar where sacrifice is made.”

“Is that all? Look closely.”

They were walking up the aisle, side by side. Stained-glass
patterns fell over the pews and shone brightly on the smooth tile floors.
Bastille studied the scene, but saw nothing she hadn’t mentioned. “That’s all,”
she said.

“Wrong.” Dominique gave the sanctuary doors a backward glance
as she ascended the stage. One of the panels along the wall, a painted mural of
some long-dead saint, swung inward at her touch. They entered a small
antechamber, and Dominique closed the panel behind them.

“I’ve known this was here,” Bastille said. “I’ve seen Brother
Liero come in and out of this room hundreds of times during vespers.”

“Then you’ve seen this, as well.” Dominique removed a candle
and striker from a low drawer in the narrow credenza. She lit the candle, then
reached into the open drawer to manipulate something inside.

The room began to spin, and it wasn’t one of Bastille’s
headaches this time; they were rotating on a disc of floor. The rear wall
flipped them around into another, darker space—a stone-walled room no bigger
than the last. A downward staircase led through an archway in the far wall.
Dominique descended, and Bastille followed.

Sister Dominique navigated the labyrinth’s twists and turns
with the ease of experience. They came to a dead-end in the corridor, where
Bastille noticed a familiar pattern of studs in the stone sidewall. Dominique
placed the Arcadian Star and turned it. A stone door glided open.

Inside lay a vast chamber where rotting shelves hung from the
walls and free-standing bookcases sagged with age and moisture. Every shelf in
the room was cobweb-empty save one. Two-thirds of the way back along the
left-hand wall, no wider than a fathom from one end to the other, sat a stretch
of books and journals on a wall-mounted shelf of new wood.

“This is everything we have on the nature of the fates,” said
Dominique. “One small collection of data, quotations, studies. The entirety of
our knowledge derives from this set of documents.”

“Did they all originate here in the basilica?”

“They’re from all over the world. Word-of-mouth histories
passed down. Discoveries made by the proprietors of Ministry research programs.
Eye-witness accounts. This is the aggregate.”

“How can you rely on any of it being true?”

“The supernatural world is fraught with inaccuracies and
misinformation. The anomalies that make it so difficult to understand are the
very things that define it. The fates speak with one voice; though they are
separated by long horizons, they each tell us their own version of the same
thing. They all predict the same calamity. We have chosen to believe them; to
do otherwise is to deny our own destruction. If they lie, their purpose in
doing so is beyond our reckoning.”

“Why are we working so hard to keep this a secret if we can’t
be sure it’s true?”

“Let me ask you this, Sister Bastille… now that you’ve been
told something better was meant for the Aionach, do you feel any differently
about our world?”

Bastille pondered briefly. “No. Not about the world. Though I
do feel somewhat differently about the Order…”