Helix (14 page)

Sereth
said, “
This
journey?”

“In
1265,” Kahran said, “my photographic plates of the expedition to Sorny were
confiscated by the Church. They no doubt destroyed them all.”

Sereth
was wide-eyed. “But why would they do that?”

“Spoken
like a true bishop’s daughter,” Kahran said, but with a smile. “The Church is
careful with what it allows its citizens to understand of the universe out
there.”

Ehrin,
who had been watching Sereth, now saw her expression freeze as she looked
beyond Kahran to the corridor.

Velkor
Cannak stood in the doorway, staring at Kahran as he fussed about the camera,
oblivious. The Elder’s face was tight-lipped, as if he had been forced to suck
on a bitter-fruit.

“As
ever, Kahran puts his words ahead of rational thought.” His rasping tone
startled Kahran, who jumped minimally before regaining his composure and
resuming his fiddling with the lens. He muttered something to himself.

“The
Church, as you say, is careful when it comes to ensuring the well-being of its
citizens,” Cannak said. “If indeed your photographs were impounded, then it
would be for good reasons. It would not do to spread images of the barbarous
ways of the tribes of the western plains.”

Kahran
opened his mouth to reply, but bit back whatever rejoinder was on his lips and
said instead, “There, that should do it.” He looked at Cannak. “I take it that
the Church will allow me to photograph safe images of clouds and landscapes,
Elder?”

Cannak
seemed oblivious of the implied criticism. “Aesthetic images of the journey
will no doubt look well upon the walls of city mansions.”

Sereth
intervened, as if to lighten the mood. “Would you care to take a cup of tisane
with us, Elder, and admire the view?”

Ehrin
looked for the crumpled missive, where it had fetched up against the timber
panelling of the window seat, but it had vanished. He noticed the bulge in the
pocket of Sereth’s jerkin.

Cannak
inclined his head. “I think I will do just that,” he said, seating himself next
to Sereth and accepting a pot of scented water.

She
traded small-talk with the Elder for the next fifteen minutes, while Ehrin
busied himself needlessly with the controls and Kahran composed a series of
photographs.

At
length, Cannak looked up and addressed Ehrin. “I take it that you have had time
to cast an eye over the edict from Prelate Hykell?”

Ehrin
feigned a complicated adjustment of the starboard rudder, and answered
casually, “I have.”

“And
I take it that you have no objections?”

Ehrin
hesitated, wondering how to word his reply. Before he could speak, however,
Kahran interrupted. “Just what is it that you fear, Elder?”

Cannak
manufactured a wide-eyed expression of surprise. “Fear? What do you mean by
fear?”

“What
is it that the Church doesn’t want its citizens to know about the expedition?
Surely, if all is God’s creation, then all should be known?”

Cannak
replied quickly, “All is God’s creation, but God in his wisdom decreed that the
Church should act as arbiters in the welfare of the people of Agstarn. That is
why, for thousands of years, the city has prospered peacefully, while the
people of the lands beyond the mountains have lived lives little better than
wild beasts.”

Ehrin
said, “And it is the influence of these so-called wild beasts that the Church
wishes to keep from the eyes and ears of the gentlefolk of Agstarn?”

Cannak
regarded him evenly. Ehrin wondered if the Elder would recall the remark for
future censure. “The Church rules with strict principles,” Cannak said, “which
have suited us well down the centuries. There are those subversives among our
society who would stir ferment at the slightest excuse in an effort to
destabilise the status quo.”

“But
I still don’t understand,” Ehrin pressed, despite a warning glance form Sereth,
“how knowledge of the lives of so-called savages might bring about such
destabilisation.”

Kahran
eased himself upright beside his bulky camera, massaging the small of his back.
He looked at Cannak and said, “Or is it more than wild beasts that the Church
fears, eh, Elder?”

To
his credit, Cannak took the jibe evenly. “And quite what do you mean by that?”
he enquired.

Ehrin
looked at the old man, aware of a sudden tension in the control room. Kahran
hesitated, then said, “I can only assume, taking everything into account, that
the only thing the Church fears from the expedition is that we might stumble
upon something that could contradict the teachings of the Church, contravene
holy text, and sow the seed of doubt in the minds of the people of Agstarn.”

Sereth,
seated next to the Elder, raised a quick hand to her throat and slid a glance
towards Cannak.

The
Elder smiled. “I am resolute enough in my faith to know that no such findings
could contradict the word of God as handed down in the Book of Books.”

“We’re
going around in circles,” Ehrin laughed. “If the Church has nothing to fear,
then why the heavy-handed proscriptions?”

Kahran
continued, “Like I say, it is my opinion that the Church knows more than it
feels safe to vouchsafe. Perhaps the very story of Creation might turn out to
be, if we explore far and wide enough, a tissue of myth.”

Cannak
could barely control his anger. “Such blasphemy has been dealt with harshly by
the High Council.”

“Cannak,
I am an old man, near the end of my life. Do you really think that I fear
anything at this stage, especially threats from the High Council?”

Cannak
smiled. “I should have known that the years would have done nothing to temper
your cynicism.”

Kahran
waved in disgust. To Ehrin he said, “The Church fears, most of all, not so much
the possibility that its tenets will be proven to be lies, but the resulting
loss of power if the truth were to be disseminated.”

Ehrin
turned to Cannak. The Elder replied evenly, “And the truth, of which you speak
so confidently, is what?”

“Why,”
Sereth interrupted, flustered and attempting to pour balm on troubled waters by
offering more tisane, “what truth could there be, other than God’s truth, that
God created Agstarn and the mountains, and the platform on which all is based,
which floats in the limitless sea of the Grey?”

Ehrin
smiled at his fiancée, loving her all the more for her naivety.

Cannak
said, inclining his head towards Sereth, “The first sensible words addressed to
me so far on this trip. The Church would fear losing power only in so far that
it would fear the chaos that would ensue, and fear too the wrath of God for
allowing such chaos.”

Ehrin
was torn between asking Kahran what might be the truth he spoke of so
confidently, and saving Sereth’s feelings. Of the feelings of Cannak, and the
possible consequences once they returned to Agstarn, he gave little thought.

“Upon
which note,” Cannak concluded, “I will wish you good evening. And I hope that
the morning will bring good sense and temperate sentiments to all aboard this
ship.”

He
swept from the control room and pulled the communicating door shut behind him.
Into the resulting silence, Sereth said, “I honestly don’t know why you baited
the old stickler. Surely silence would have been a virtue, as well as common
sense. Who knows what he will tell the Prelate when we return!”

“Sereth,
we can’t let the sanctimonious fool dictate to us how we should conduct
ourselves on this mission.”

Kahran
turned to Sereth and said harshly, “Sereth, fifteen years ago I suffered greatly
thanks to that pious bastard. Ehrin’s father suffered even more. You will be
lucky not to see murder committed before journey’s end.”

Giving
a sharp gasp, as much at Kahran’s tone as the content of his promise, Sereth
rose and hurried from the room.

Kahran
watched her go, shaking his head. “Ehrin, I’m sorry.”

Ehrin
ignored the apology and said, “What happened, Kahran? Why did my father suffer?
And the truth you speak of?”

Kahran
stared with rheumy eyes at the younger man, but finally shook his head. He
pointed across the room at the control pedestal, and at first Ehrin thought he
was trying to divert his attention. Then Kahran said, “The freighter. They’re
sending a message. We’d better attend to it.”

The
system of mirrors, which terminated in a flashing disc on the control panel,
was relaying a message from the larger ship. Ehrin stepped across to the
pedestal and gave his attention to the series of flashes.

The
message was simple: “Building observed below. Should we land and investigate?”

Ehrin
peered through the starboard window, and seeing nothing crossed the gondola and
stared through the port panels. There, far below, dim in the gathering
twilight, was the foreshortened shape of what must have been a vast edifice
standing isolated on the snow-covered plain.

Ehrin
glanced at Kahran. “Shall we incur the wrath of Cannak even more and take the
ship down?”

Kahran
grinned. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”

Ehrin
opened the relay to the following ship and signalled: “Affirmative. Follow us
down.”

For
the next ten minutes, Ehrin worked the controls so that the
Expeditor
lost altitude and circled around the summit of the building below. As they
dropped, the edifice came into clearer view.

Ehrin
looked at Kahran, his own sense of awe reflected in the eyes of the old man.

The
building was like nothing he had ever seen before, either in terms of
architectural design, size or the stuff from which it was manufactured. It was
constructed in a series of great steps, so that it towered over the darkling
plain to a height of perhaps a thousand yards, and in the dying light of the
cloudrace it glimmered with a dull lustre as if fabricated from bronze.

Ehrin
brought the skyship to ground twenty yards from the rearing flank of the
building and cut the engines. He stared out in the ensuing silence, but even if
he pressed his face to the glass of the window he was unable to make out the
summit of the ziggurat.

There
was a sudden commotion from the corridor. Sereth hurried from her cabin,
followed by Velkor Cannak.

“What’s
happened?” Sereth asked, coming to Ehrin’s side.

“Why
have we landed?” the Elder wanted to know.

Ehrin
pointed. Cannak stared through the window, the look of shock on his features
perhaps the most animated display of emotion the Elder had shown so far.

“May
the Lord preserve us from all that is most unholy,” Cannak intoned to himself.

For the next
fifteen
minutes, Ehrin prepared the party to leave the ship. He broke out the padded
suits and four gas-lamps, while Kahran suggested they arm themselves.

Velkor
Cannak watched the proceedings in silence, until he could stand no more. “Have
you considered the wisdom of venturing out so hastily? The wisest course of
action would be to wait until morning.”

“The
building appears uninhabited,” Kahran responded. “There are no other dwellings
apparent nearby. Why waste time until morning, eh, Ehrin?”

Ehrin
stared across at the Elder. “The Church has no objections to a little
exploration, I take it?”

Cannak
bit his lip and ignored the jibe, turning instead and staring at the ziggurat
through the window.

“You
will join us, Elder?” Sereth asked.

“For
the sake of an objective record of the journey, necessity dictates that I
must,” said the Elder and struggled into a padded suit.

Five
minutes later they were ready. Ehrin broke the seal of the hatch and stepped
into the gathering darkness. A flensing wind pounced, surprising him with its
combination of noise and ferocious cold.

The
freighter had come to rest a hundred yards away across the permafrost, and even
its vast bulk was dwarfed beside the stepped monolith of the ziggurat. Two
engineers were making secure the gondola with guy ropes; Ehrin and Kahran did
the same for their ship, firing a series of spikes into the tundra from which
they affixed the hawsers that would keep the
Expeditor
steady in the
raging wind of the plain.

Ehrin
moved away from the skyship, then gestured to the others to follow him. The
personnel of the freighter were issuing from its gondola in ones and twos,
staring up at the edifice in wonder. Ehrin found Sereth, bundled in her padded
suit, grasped her hand like an excited schoolchild and hurried her across the
snow towards the ziggurat.

They
walked the length of its flank, examining the sheer wall of the base block for
any sign of a portal or entry. The bronze surface of the ziggurat appeared to
be formed from sections, but joined without bolts or rivets. The fact that the
joins were seamless, quite apart from the feat of engineering necessary to have
constructed such a tower, suggested a level of technology far superior to that
achieved in Agstarn.