Sondranos: The Narrative of Leon Bishop (25 page)

The barbican stood tall and
ominous over the entrance – though, that was our perception, as the
doors had been closed and that created a less-than-welcome feeling.
Bricks climbed atop one another until they reached the top, where a
man peered over and disappeared just as quickly. Davion held out
his hands, stopped us, and then surveyed his robes. A dozen patches
of dirt stained the white, and lines had formed around his waist,
setting into the fabric like wrinkles in skin. He tried to flatten
a few out before the doors latched open with loud mechanical clanks
and swung inwards.

If you asked each one of us
what we noticed in that time, our answers would have been
different. This is my best guess as to what each one thought.

Davion embraced a man wearing
similar robes as him – apparent only because Davion ignored
everything else around him. Annalise noticed the curtain wall
strung along the perimeter until it reached the Citadel in the
back, stroking the bricks and turning slowly around as she traced
it along the compound. Kayt eyed the hundreds of people huddled
together, some watching the doors, and others patrolling about the
grounds as if they had something dreadfully important to do, and
she flinched and stepped behind me when they began their approach.
Melanie scanned the crowd, and I wondered if she was looking for
her father.

All I can honestly say is that
I noticed the light. Torchlight on the outside – and along the keep
– had been useful, but it was just a show. Inside, strung along the
walls and on posts lining the walkways and homes, were bulbs the
size of my fists. Each one was lit, and blazed brightly towards the
ground. Bowls hung over the top of the bulbs, keeping them from
streaming upwards. It created a sort of domed feel over the
grounds. Though, as I write this, I can’t help but feel that I did
see a haze hovering above the wall, just barely perceptible. Like a
thousand fireflies gathered together in the grounds.

“
Welcome,
son,” the man who’d opened the doors said. “Davion, it is so good
to see you. After everything we’ve heard, we were sure you’d
perished; though, I should have trusted you would accomplish
something such as this.”

“
I was in the
right place at the right time, Father.”

“
Everyone
always is,” he replied.

“
If I had not
suffered, I would not have been at the Abbey, and thus I would not
be able to bring these into our flock,” Davion turned to us and
opened his palm. I felt like I was on the auction block. Or an
award.

“
Well, let
them come in!” Father ushered us close, and took Kayt by the hand.
He led us through the doors. Two young men pushed them shut, then
bowed their heads before returning to their duties along the wall –
doing what, I didn’t know. They didn’t look like sentries, but
could have been in training.

All attention seems hesitantly
drawn to us, masked in casual activity. A dozen people shuffled
towards us. One carried a basket of fruits, and another two had
some kind of weaving thrown over their shoulders. Overall, the
people who lived in the commune looked healthy. Only a few wore
robes, the rest wore long slacks in varying shades of brown and
black. Women’s shirts concealed the chest, and puffed out near the
midsection. The shoulders of the shirts or dresses often hung loose
and revealed clean skin. The men wore the same slacks, but wore
tight shirts, ones that hugged their arms and tucked into their
pants to create a small bunch near the waistline. The rest - those
clad in robes – wandered about the grounds like they’d been given
leadership of some plot of land within the grounds. They meant
something, but I didn’t – and wouldn’t – discover their purpose in
the hierarchy of the MacKinnon Commune.

The woman carrying the fruits
was muscular, and had a meaty build that told me she’d worked in
the gardens on a daily basis; the weavers were a man and woman,
both young, whose hands looked clean and fragile. Behind them, the
shapes and sizes of other’s could have told me their occupations as
well – a couple gardeners and farmers, a dozen or so manufacturers,
weavers, tillers, and builders.

“
What’s it
like out there?” said the first weaver.

“
Is the city
as big as the stories tell?” asked the gardener.

“
Don’t ask
questions you’ll never be able to prove, Jacey,” bit back the third
weaver.

“
I can ask
whatever I wish,” Jacey, the gardener said. She wielded something
at the two men that looked like a squash, but had been coloured
deep purple, like a potato. “You have no dominion over me. Now,
I’ve heard the spires touch the skies tall enough to greet the
lowest Gods, is that true?”

“
What are you
talking about?” Melanie asked. We’d all been taken aback, but the
answer was clear. These people had no idea what had happened. I
think we were more stunned than anything, and that is why we didn’t
respond.

“
Oh, you make
them sound weak, and unimportant!” The second weaver broke
in.

“
I only meant
those who can deal with us directly,” Jacey responded.

“
Yes, of
course you did,” said first weaver. Her tone had turned placating,
and sardonic. She was about to ask something of us, when a boy no
more than eleven came trundling up. He carried a dozen mice in his
hands; all squirmed around but didn’t try to run off.

“
Mother, I
found them! Cagney had babies!” he cried. The mother turned, and
shrieked, dropping the weave that she’d draped over her shoulder,
and the rest of the group laughed. Those who were silent, turned
away, and started back to what they’d been doing when we arrived;
the weaver turned to her boy and started ushering him away. She
muttered about cleaning his hands.

The man Davion called Father
introduced himself to us with a proffering gesture. “I am Father
Alessandro Corin. You may call me Father, or Father Corin. Either
way, I welcome you to our home. I trust you have been briefed on
the situation?”

“
Yes, we
have,” I said. Father Corin looked gentle, and aged beyond his
years. Like, Davion, wrinkles set into his skin, and pressed down
the area around his eyes into permanent bruised bags. He wasn’t
overweight, but he used to be – loose skin hung from his neck and
bunched around his waist. He wrung his hands together, not through
nerves, but through habit. I’m certain he didn’t even know when he
wrung. As a portion of the populace advanced, Father Corin pulled
Davion close, and they both stepped aside. He smiled, having taken
my answer to mean that we didn’t need any kind of
introduction.

‘
Situation’
is a dangerous word. In ignorance, it can mean many things.
Unknowingly, I’d agreed to knowing what the commune had been doing
– and more importantly, what secret was being kept from its
inhabitants. I’d assumed he meant the state of Sondranos-proper.
For a moment no longer than a blink, I considered thinking of them
as communists, as that was what the side of my English Professor’s
mind insisted they’d be called.

“
Leave us
be,” Father Corin said, waving them away. Father Corin placed a
hand behind Kayt’s back and we started forward. All around us, the
people of the MacKinnon Commune dragged tools through the soil,
acting as if it were midday; some walked about, and some admired
the scenery. There were a dozen carrying crates, two by two,
towards one of the larger buildings near the end of the path. Some
of those same wooden crates lined the walls, to all outward
appearances holding something that was needed all over the
compound.

“
Do you think
they know what’s going on?” Annalise asked before I
could.

“
The commune
is safe from treachery,” Father Corin said. “You are
safe.”

“
Excuse me,”
Annalise called to Father Corin. “You have to know what’s going on
outside. We’ve just been running for hours, and every time we come
across the Belovores, people died – they’re bound to come here
eventually.”

“
Oh, they are
on their way,” Father Corin cut across a small patch of grass and
brought us to a pathway that had been ridged with inconsistencies
in the pavement. It humped in the centre, each side greeting the
grass like a stone anthill. Ahead, the barracks stood tall and
blocky at the end of the path – that was the building I’d seen the
crates coming to and from. “But there is nothing we can do, except
move forward with what has to be done. We refuse to allow anyone
who’s been saved fall into death.”

“
What will be
done is death,” I said. The words sounded clunky, but so did the
idea of keeping the Belovores a secret. I tried to clarify.
“Sondranos is gone. This planet is gone, all the resources you use
to keep yourself running will dry up and you’ll starve to
death.”

“
If the
Belovores don’t annihilate you first,” Kayt said. We stopped just
shy of the middle of the path.

“
Look around
you. We are self-sustaining. Davion, I thought you could vouch for
these people,” Father Corin said. “Don’t

Davion bowed and blushed.

“
It’s okay,”
Melanie said quickly. “We’re just stunned. And tired. We’ve been
going since the attack began. It’s not every day someone is
accepted into salvation.”

I looked to Melanie, who walked
closer to Davion and Father Corin.

“
I could call
this place home,” she said. “I can see why Percival Nesbit would
have called this place home without a word to any of
us.”

“
That name
sounds familiar. Is he a friend of yours?”

“
He was my
father.”

“
There are
only two here that hold the title of Father,” Corin said. “The
other does not go by that name.”

“
Blood
father. Little ‘f,’ not the big one.”

“
Ah, forgive
me. His name does sound familiar, though. Do you wish for me to ask
around about him?”

This was the game, my mind
said. Feigning a delusional state and pretending not to care was
how she’d get the information. She got close to Davion using his
own passivity and religious beliefs as a way of striking deep into
the information he held back. I started to feel relieved. However,
then she said: “No. It’s not important; it’s nothing that can’t
wait.”

My spine tingled. A shiver
escaped, and Annalise looked at me quizzically. Kayt held on to my
arm, and I could see her trying to understand why Annalise and I
were so confused. She had deeper things to worry about – but then
again, maybe this was the moment Annalise mentioned about Kayt
having a moment in which she wouldn’t think about Lancaster.

“
I am proud
of you, Melanie,” Davion said. “Never have I seen you discuss your
father with such restraint. You are on your way to discovering the
path of the Primary Divinity. Our Lord provides miraculous
things.”

My first thought was that she
had meant what she’d said. It wasn’t a diversion; she had changed.
What hung around her normally - the wrinkles about her eyes, the
drop of her hair, and the weight that clung to her waist – had a
different quality to it. Anger had fled, and youth had come in.
Annalise, Kayt, and I exchanged glances next.

During all of this, do you know
how many times I looked at them?

How many times have I written
the words ‘looked,’ ‘gazed,’ ‘saw,’ or any variation thereof? I
can’t remember. So maybe I’m to blame for what I didn’t see. A
teacher: that’s what I’ve always been. I can observe and adapt. So
how had it happened that I’d missed so much?

When had this happened?

False Daniel whispered, ‘So
self-absorbed, except for the ones that don’t suit you.’

Melanie smiled. She reached off
the pavement to touch a bush that sprouted flowers that wouldn’t
open until the morning. She smelled them and closed her eyes.
Davion set his hand on her back. She turned to face him and bit her
lower lip. Somehow, in this mess, she’d found serenity. Where was
the frustration? The anger and the hatred for being given the run
around?

Where was the absolute
certainty that her father – the man who’d abandoned her and her
mother without ever saying goodbye – was alive and well within the
curtain wall of the Commune of the First Divinity?

The new Melanie smiled and
looked to the ground while Father Corin put his arm around her and
led us to the barracks.

On the way, Annalise and Kayt
leaned in close.

“
It doesn’t
make any sense,” Kayt said. “How can nobody be afraid? Amazing men
are dying out there. You’d think something like the destruction of
a major colony would be even a little bit on their
radar.”

“
One thing is
for sure. The Belovores won’t leave this place alone,” said
Annalise.

The barracks smelled of sweat
and metal. Father Corin led us there without another word while
Davion mentioned allowing us to rest before we were served a meal.
Annalise nearly mentioned the manifold meal we’d had hours earlier,
but stopped when I gave her a look that pleaded for real,
stove-cooked food.

The barracks door swung open.
It was held eagerly by a young girl who’d watched us arrive. The
walls were lined with more crates, and staggered between doors that
led into what I assumed to be bedroom or chambers. The walls
stretched for at least twelve or thirteen rooms on either side, at
seemingly impossible length. I felt like we’d entered a prison. The
stonework was smooth, and the only imperfections in the waved stone
surface came from where the doorframes had been carved into the
edifice. Strings of lights draped down the hallway, and turned down
a corridor on the far end.