Half Discovered Wings (40 page)

‘
I don’t care. I can’t stand by and let them lead us all
through such a dangerous place. Not all of us, not the young ones
as well. What good would it do to give us this directive and only
have a few dying survivors left to carry it out to the finish? The
young and old would be dead after two weeks on the Sinh-ha Plains
and you know it, Paul.’

‘
Sister Verlaine…’

‘
What?’

She turned now, and glared at the man. Teague could now see
her face: beautifully oval, soft in features and fair of skin. She
had long eyelashes above brown eyes, a thin pair of lips and
sun-bleached hair that was hurriedly cut. Her eyes shot daggers at
the one named Paul, who was gangly and red-headed.

‘
What?’ she said again. ‘Are you going to stop me? Are you
going to tell the Ministrati I’m a rogue, like Brother Michael
calls me? Tell me!’

‘
I’ll say nothing,’ Paul said, shifting his gaze to his
sandaled feet, ‘but my concern is for you. I don’t want you
banished from our Sect.’

‘
I’d join another.’

‘
They’ve all been summoned west,’ said Paul. ‘You would only be
sent—’

At this point
he caught Teague out of the corner of his eye, and turned to face
him. ‘You. Boy! What do you mean by listening in on us?’

‘
Don’t call me “boy”,’ Teague said, striding forward. ‘This
body’s not mine.’

‘
On loan, is it?’ Brother Paul sneered. ‘Get lost.’

Teague turned
to the girl. She was staggeringly beautiful up close. He said,
‘What goes on to the west? Why have the Sects been summoned
there?’

‘
A letter was delivered to Sister Caroll here, penned by the
Regent of São Jantuo. It says the ones we’ve been looking for are
heading west to face the enemy.’

‘
Which “ones”? Which enemy?’

‘
I don’t know,’ she said, giving an apologetic smile. ‘I’m only
an acolyte, like Sister Caroll. We aren’t told such
things.’

Teague looked over Paul’s shoulder to Verlaine. ‘Is Brother
Michael one of the ones in charge?’

‘
He is one of the Four of the Ministrati.’

‘
Where can I find him?’

‘
I shouldn’t say,’ she said, giving a small bow.

‘
It’s okay, Verlaine,’ Paul said quietly. ‘You’ll find him in
the Hall of Prayers.’

‘
I think I’ve just been to that place,’ Teague said. ‘He wasn’t
there.’

‘
Then do you know the passageway under this
plateau?’

‘
No.’

‘
Through the pool room is a door to a passageway that leads
through the cliff. It will take you to the Hall of Eating and to
the Ministrati’s place. It’s not secret, you should be allowed
through.’

‘
Thank you.’ He turned to leave.

‘
Wait!’ Verlaine called. ‘What’s your name?’

‘
For now, you can call me Brother William,’ Teague said, and
skidded his way down the slope.

~

Finding the
passageway wasn’t difficult. He remembered the way to the pool
room, and stayed there a short while hoping that Brother Michael
would pass through. The monks around the pool sat and prayed in
silence, ignoring his presence. He opened a door and passed through
a low-ceilinged corridor dug straight through the dusty earth. It
was supported by heavy-set wooden girders. The gas-powered torches
that lined its walls made it uncomfortably hot.

The door at the end opened into a kind of foyer that led off
in three directions, each of which was labelled. The left path led
to the Hall of Eating, the right to Den of Recreation, which
sounded suspiciously sordid to Teague, and the centre path was
simply labelled “Ministrati”. Teague walked down the centre
path.

The four members of the Ministrati sat in a loose square,
cross-legged, eyes closed, turned inward to face each other. None
of them were speaking. The room – small, and bare as the rest – was
completely still in their silence.

Teague made a
polite cough.

‘
Henrique,’ Brother Michael said, not moving or opening his
eyes. ‘Welcome.’

‘
Can I have a word?’

‘
Go ahead.’

‘
In private?’

‘
They won’t listen if I ask them not to,’ said Michael, eyes
still closed.

‘
First, my name is not Henrique. Please stop calling me
that.’

‘
Yes, I know. There is another spirit inside Henrique’s body
now. William Teague. You were in Hadentes and you managed to find a
way out. That was very fortunate of you; I’ve never heard of such a
thing. Astonishing.’

‘
Are you afraid?’

‘
No, I don’t think that will be necessary. You’re different now
to what you once were.’

‘
Really.’

‘
Really. Do you remember how you escaped?’

‘
I only remember the taste of blood in my mouth.’

‘
You swapped your spirit with that of a sanguilac. Henrique had
been attacked by one of those creatures, and their blood had mixed,
angering the demon spirit. It meant to destroy Henrique’s soul for
the heresy, but you took its place, and inhabited his
body.’

‘
Am I a sanguilac then?’

‘
No, no. You’ve been outside, haven’t you? In the sunlight? And
as far as I know, you haven’t killed anybody.’

‘
Not recently,’ he said.

‘
What do you remember of Hadentes?’

‘
Only what I’ve seen in my dreams. My memories are … vague. Did
you say I was in a fever?’

‘
For the last month. I can help you remember what happened, if
you wish.’

‘
I don’t want to remember,’ he said. Such thoughts were not
pleasant, and the few misty outlines of recollection he could
dredge up were unpleasant. They tasted sour, bringing a metallic
taste to his mouth. No, he didn’t want to remember at
all.

‘
Are you sure?’ asked the monk. ‘There might be things you
didn’t even know you knew.’

‘
Like what?’ asked Teague

Brother
Michael opened one eye, and the smile on his lips widened. ‘Come to
the pool and I’ll show you.’

~

The pool room
was empty, the water still and lit from beneath. The bare stone
walls were cast with a serene glow.

‘
There are salts in the water that cause that sense of calm
you’re feeling,’ Brother Michael said quietly, closing the door
behind him. ‘Help you to relax.’

‘
I didn’t think monks needed stuff like that to
relax.’

‘
We’re all under a lot of pressure, even the
Ministrati.’

‘
How did you know all that about me in there?’

‘
The Ministrati could sense the change. Brother Elkin knew
Henrique but didn’t recognise his presence within you. How he
mourns for his death.’

‘
I imagine my own body is rot by now.’

‘
Quite possibly. I doubt there would be any way to restore you,
even if you wished it.’

‘
What makes you think I don’t?’ Teague asked, looking into the
pool as they sat beside it.

‘
Because that body had something you didn’t want.’

They held each
other’s gaze for a second until Teague turned uncomfortably away,
looking down into the pool. ‘So what’s this for?’

‘
Just relax and submerge yourself.’

Teague did as he was told, lying flat in the water. It was
just deep enough for him to submerge completely. He opened his eyes
underwater and found that they didn’t sting, and after a short
while of lying in the deep silence realised that he no longer
needed to breathe.

He watched the
playing of the light on the undulations of the surface, the unrest
caused by his intrusion. The lines of blue and green washed over
one another, criss-crossing to make webs of luminescence that
rotated above him.

The minerals in the
water were doing their job. He suddenly felt intensely tired, and
fought to stay awake, but it took him regardless and he slipped
into a dream state.

He saw something he didn’t understand. A darkness loomed far
in front of him, sprinkled with tiny dots of colour: red, brown and
grey, all encased in a ring of white fire that he realised he was
tumbling through. It was a tunnel of blazing ice, freezing flame,
casting him down toward some unknown place. He saw a square of
black on the clay-coloured ground, and realised it was the walls of
a castle, and within it the courtyard.

He hit the
ground in a tumult of pain, and made a crater. He stood up in his
self-created basin and looked around at the Courtyard of Hadentes,
which was filled with people and creatures, bodies suspended on
pikes and balls of flame tumbling from the sky. There were black
clouds spinning above him. Looking down at his own body, he saw it
was burned and scarred. He had no nails, and when he checked found
that he also had no teeth. His eyeballs were gone.

Teague screamed and surged up out of the water, sending
shining droplets flying over the boundaries of the pool. Michael
looked at him, from his crouched position at the pool’s
edge.

‘
Try again,’ the monk said softly.

‘
It’s frightful.’

‘
Are you a man or not?’

Teague emitted a growl he hadn’t heard in a long time, the
vulpine snarl he had given the hunter Joseph Gabel the night he’d
been shot through the skull with a silver bullet. Yes, he
remembered that. He lay back down in the water, and watched the
colours.

A whirlwind of smoke rushed around him, and he stood before a
creature with cracked black skin, clawed hands and feet, dark wings
and eyes of infinite blackness, sweeping away into infinity. He
knew what it was, this demon. It was his guide through Hell:
Charos.

He saw the thing in a different light now.
Before, he had been shredded with pain as the thing had torn him
into five versions of himself. It had turned to smoky vapour that
covered him like a cloud and drifted into his lungs and heart. He
was a spectator now. He felt his original charred body around him,
not the weak vessel that lay in a pool of water in the monastery.
This body was wracked with pain, but strong. It was also saturated
with the stink of the theriope.

Charos had eyes that looked like pits, and they smoked a
little. A wind from somewhere cast the smoke to the side, where it
dissipated quickly. It had no mouth, just a face like insect’s
armour, smooth and reflective, but always black, and rough and
split. Except for the folded wings on its back, its shape was
vaguely human. Teague gestured with his hand, and, as if the thing
was his puppet, it opened the huge flaps of skin, and on it
were—

A single eye on each wing. Swivelling and unblinking, they
were just like the innumerable eyes fixed within the wings of
Erebis. The thing with the filthy matted hair and black face,
horned and fanged, had endless eyes filled with nothing but
blackness and that tiny star of light in the centre, like a single
snowflake in an entire ocean of darkness.

Teague burst up once more from the water.

‘
What are you putting me through?’ he panted. He could taste
the smoke and char at the back of his throat, hot and
foul.

‘
Did you see the Guide? The Charos?’

‘
Yes!’

‘
You must follow it! Relive the eternal moment you shared with
the Daemon when its eyes met yours. You once looked into those
eyes, and you came back to tell us what you saw in its soul.
So
tell us,
Brother William, what did Erebis communicate to you before
you escaped its realm?’

‘
It said nothing to me!’

‘
Its eyes. Were they like black holes, with stars in the
centre?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
You’ve seen into its black Soul, Brother William. You know
everything.’

‘
I know
nothing
!’ he cried, splashing the water
like a child.

‘
Go back into the water and listen to what it says,’ Michael
ordered. He watched Teague lie slowly back in the pool, completely
submerged once more.

The three
members of the Ministrati entered the room silently and stood by
Michael. The twice-folded hems of their robes touched the tile and
stone, silently absorbing moisture like a sponge. Darkness welled
up the fabric as if it had a life of its own.

‘
Has he told you anything?’ Brother Elkin asked
quietly.

‘
Has he seen into the Soul of Erebis?’ asked Brother Lius.
‘What has he learned from it?’

‘
Nothing,’ said Michael, surveying the still body of Teague,
who lay with his eyes closed in the pool. He was stirring slightly,
making the light dance on the surface. ‘He’s still searching for
answers.’

‘
Maybe he won’t be able to find them. Maybe he’ll refuse to
recall.’

‘
Perhaps,’ said Sister Latily. ‘What happens when he
remembers?’

‘
He was talking to two of the acolytes today. Sister Verlaine
and Brother Paul. They told him of the journey.’