Half Discovered Wings (41 page)

‘
The acolytes should know better.’

‘
He told them to call him “Brother William”. They have no doubt
that he considers himself one of us, for the time being at least.
He knows he has nowhere else to go, that only we can give him
answers,’

‘
Maybe he’ll stay, then ,’ said Elkin.

‘
He should be fine,’ Michael replied. ‘And – maybe – when he
sees what’s planned in Erebis’ soul, he’ll want to join
us.’

‘
Do you think that’s wise?’ asked Brother Lius.

‘
Yes,’ he replied, ‘I think he’ll be of use. He knows the ones
we are looking for.’

‘
How?’

‘
He is the factotum’s enemy.’

‘
Then he must be stopped!’ Sister Latily gasped. ‘He can’t be
allowed to—’

‘
Relax,’ Michael commanded. ‘And go. He’s about to awake
again.’

The three
members of the Ministrati vanished through the door, soundlessly
and effortlessly. It closed silently shut just as Teague shot up
from the pool a third time, gasping for breath.

‘
You’re putting me through torture! I hear nothing in its
Soul!’

‘
You will if you are fearless!’

‘
How can I not be afraid when I look that
thing
in the eye?’

Michael smiled again, this time with as much warmth as he
could muster. Even in his state of unrest, Teague noticed the
crow’s feet that were the evidence of a happy spirit, one that
often smiled and attempted to spread his contentment whenever he
could. Teague envied that talent.

‘
Remember that it’s only a memory,’ the monk said. ‘Memories
have no means of harming you. Lay back down, Brother
William.’

Teague did so and, as the cool water slowly covered his face
– his cheeks first, then filling in his eye sockets, then over his
nose and forehead until finally his entire head was submerged – he
tried to relax and picture the Daemon.

He found himself in the courtyard again, the garden of the
damned, where evil re-blooms. He tried to propel himself onwards –
he had seen all this – and the dream-vision switched to
fast-forward, zipping across the ramparts of the courtyard and
through the Tall
Tower, then over the river Achronne where his innards had
been falling out, the result of a punishment for questioning
Charos; past the Round Tower and the Square Tower to the great pit,
falling down that tunnel of stone he had seen in his dreams, then
being trapped in the prison ball that spun and speared him … All
the pain and suffering non-evident as he relived it, simply
watching instead of feeling. However he couldn’t help but recall
the agony.

The heat on his back, the cold fear running through him … He
knew this part. Turning, and seeing the black-faced Daemon, the
Devil of Hadentes … He cried and screamed, unable to help it. The
fear was too real for Teague here, but he fought against himself
when he felt like he was going to sit up again.

A minute later Brother Michael was waiting when he emerged,
and he saw the all-too-apparent fear in his eyes. Water dripped
from Teague’s face. The noise of it echoed around the room. The
pool lit him up from below, putting snaking lines of blue and green
on his suddenly pale skin.

‘
The Ministrati are planning on travelling the Plains?’ he
asked.

‘
That’s right, along with the rest of the Sects,’ Michael
nodded. ‘Why? What was it you saw?’

Without
breath, he said, ‘You should probably just pack.’

~

There are plans being made without me
, Johnmal thought.
There are
thoughts that aren’t my own
.

The walls of the booth hummed around him. This was Cleric’s
first and only gift to him, a metal alcove in a wall that burned
invisibly with old electronics. Panels lit up with displays he
couldn’t read, digital gauges showing him colours that represented
something he could never understand. That was the boss’
department.

It was for his own good. The waves of alien molecules were
rinsing his cells – deeper than that, his very genes. They excited
and scrubbed the microscopic things that made him who he was. He
pushed his shoulders back against the cold steel. For his own
good.

Rosanna always
disappeared during his sessions in the booth. Perhaps she didn’t
enjoy being in the same room as the boss’ obscure technology,
although the facility was filled with it, even made from it in
places. The rainforest would swallow them up otherwise. Invisible
energy fields kept the vegetation from flooding into the complex,
although it was perfect. The jungle was trapped between another
field generated by the facility, the thermal barrier that had
deadened a great portion of the rainforest until it had become a
desert. Since only a year after the end of the Conflict, Tan Cleric
had activated the engines that created both fields.

Maybe the
reason was that she couldn’t stand to watch Johnmal’s errant
ability being controlled, diminished by the second. It had to be
done though, he reasoned to her, and it was an important part of
his life now. It prevented his errant genes from consuming him
forever.

The lessons of
the boss drifted through his mind. It was always something to
console him during these cold minutes in the metal niche, something
to keep his mind off the not-so-surgical operation.

Things have a
place and a purpose. Sometimes things break from their given place
and expand, enhanced by nature or God. They evolve and mutate.
Their purpose changes.

The cable clipped to his skin was biting. There was nothing
he could do about it, now that the procedure was taking place. It
was almost over however, and then he could move as far away from
this cold place as possible.

Johnmal tried to remember what he had been thinking about
when he stepped into the booth a few minutes ago.

He couldn’t
recall.

*

Twenty-Three

A KNIGHT IN
THE MIST

The blank-eyed
seraph glared at Caeles and refused to answer. In the stillness of
the Goyan church, the statue stood proudly, with its six wings and
long flowing hair, and simply returned the man’s steady gaze.

‘
You’re not going to answer,’ Caeles asked, ‘are
you…?’

The seraph
gave no reply.

‘
Yeah, I know,’ Caeles said to himself. ‘I get what I have to
do.’

‘
Caeles?’

The voice of Sarai called him back. The walls of the church
vanished into mist, then the pews all around him melted to
gravestones, cold and grey, and finally the statue, the perfect
carving of the seraph, the warrior of Heaven, lost its wings and
robe and became the Scathac ninja, dressed in black with
shoulder-length hair hanging in twists over her dark face. The
blank stone eyes now became green ones, glinting in the
firelight.

His skin
registered the freezing cold of the Resting Place. Sarai stood in
front of Caeles as he sat on an icy stone plaque. Through the mist,
she looked like a ghoul.

‘
Doesn’t that bother you? Sitting on a person’s grave like
that?’

‘
Maybe he’ll be upset when he finds out,’ Caeles said quietly.
‘Until he does, I don’t much care.’

The ninja sat
on the ground beside him. ‘This fire doesn’t seem to be warming me
up,’ she said, rubbing her hands.

He asked, ‘Have you ever been to São Jantuo? On the other
side of the Lual?’

‘
No.’

‘
The Regent there has an interesting power. He can charge the
blood in his hands so they’re like branding irons.’

‘
I see. Are there a lot of other errants around? I haven’t
encountered many at all.’

‘
Not that I know of,’ Caeles said. ‘A few, I guess. Hiding
away.’

They let the fire warm them in silence for a few minutes.
They both knew of the reasons a person might not wish to be
disturbed by others. Caeles the cyborg, a solder who had allowed
the flesh and blood of his body to be augmented and corrupted to
the point of almost total conversion, knew that as well as any.
Even as the Conflict raged he had been shunned for his choice. And
here was Sarai the Scathac ninja, a woman warrior from the
mysterious dark continent that Caeles still thought of as Africa,
and an errant to boot. She had as many reasons as he did to stay
away from those who might persecute the unfamiliar. Their time in
Iilyani had proven that this wasn’t an unjustified
concern.

Somewhere on the other side, lost in the heat-haze, the magus
sat deep in thought, gazing into space. Somewhere to his right,
Rowan rested in a sleeping bag, Gabel presumably nearby. He hadn’t
left her side since Iilyani, despite her insistence that he
leave her alone
. He only
argued weakly, furrowed his brow at her altered appearance and
conceded. Around all of them, the cold wet fog of the Resting Place
soaked their clothing and made their breathing heavy.

‘
I’m glad we can have fires now,’ Caeles muttered. ‘Missed them
back there in the forest.’

‘
You’ll be missing the trees and the rivers once we get through
to the desert,’ Sarai said. ‘Though it’s odd that there’s so much
fog this close to the wilderness.’

‘
It’s only humid at night. During the day it’s just … dust. I’m
not even that sure we’re heading straight for the desert any
more.’

‘
The stars say we are.’

‘
You can see them through this?’

‘
I can make out the brighter ones,’ Sarai replied. ‘I see
without seeing, if you get me. On a slightly difference wavelength
of light.’

‘
I’ll take your word for it.’ As Caeles pulled his knees up to
his chest and hugged them, he sighed. He suspected from the tone in
her voice that her helpful ability had drawbacks. She probably
missed a lot of things that he himself took for granted.

~

‘
If you’re going to venture into the Resting Place,’ Saykaan
had said, ‘go in a straight line. Do not deviate. Rest and sleep
only when necessary. During the day, wear these breathing filters.
During the night … Well, you should keep guard, at least one person
at a time. There are things there that might make your travels more
difficult.’

‘
Like gheists?’ Gabel asked.

‘
I don’t like to say. Personally, I don’t believe all that.
I’ve travelled the Resting Place from end to end, to get to the
Plains, and I got back without encountering any problems. But
there
are
things
in that place, hiding in the fog … I simply ask you to be careful.
People have seen moving shapes in the mist. Maybe they are only
bandits or desert folk – if there are any – but … nevertheless.
Guard at night.’

Gabel remembered the words of the Mayor’s surviving heir as
he accompanied them to the border between Iilyani and the great
cemetery. Even there, right on the edge, the chill of the fog had
saturated Gabel’s clothes. Taking the face filters, he had shaken
Saykaan’s hand and given his thanks.

Now Rowan sat far to the side in the darkness, avoiding him.
Her outline could just be seen, hidden by the fog and the darkness.
She sat quietly on her knees, tracing patterns in the
dust.

Gabel’s heart sank when he saw what Turenn had done to her.
The short hair was the most obvious change. She’d agreed to change
back into her old clothes, but the garments the man had given her
were underneath. She refused to take them off. Gabel only hoped the
corset wasn’t worsening her occasional breathing
problems.

She seemed subdued now, placated. The hunter couldn’t know
what she was going through inside, But even on the outside he could
see that she was in mourning.

He remembered
how he felt when Bethany had been killed, so many months ago in the
town square.

‘
Patience,’ the magus said, sitting down beside him. ‘It’s a
virtue.’

‘
I don’t need patience, I need a miracle. Surely Irenia
wouldn’t want this for her. No god would burden her with this
during our journey.’

‘
Your god might not want a lot of things, but it doesn’t
necessarily mean they won’t happen anyway.’

Gabel examined
the man, his face almost invisible in the darkness. ‘How do you
mean?’

‘
For every god, there is a devil. Opposing forces are
everywhere. If you hold stock in such things.’

Gabel looked
over at Rowan as he recognised the first glimpses of light coming
through the mist; the arrival of their fourth morning in the
Resting Place.

‘
Yes, you’re right.’

~

The white fog turned to dusty gold clouds of sand, hanging in
the air. They each donned their masks, strapping the rudimentary
apparatus over their mouths and noses. A mono-directional polymer
allowed filtered air to be drawn in, and the coated seals around
the edges let expelled carbon dioxide back out into the atmosphere.
The masks gave the air an unpleasant sterilized taste, and left
them slightly breathless.

‘
I can’t stand this,’
Rowan said. ‘I can’t
breathe.’

‘
Just take deep breaths and don’t think about it,’ said
Caeles.