The Book of Fire (56 page)

“Why can’t I talk to anyone?” she rails at Luco as he ushers her toward the High Priestess’ lonely seat of honor at the banquet. This particular town is wealthy enough to provide her with a table all of her own, on a raised dais and everything. They’re so proud of the dais, a sordid little box with only one step, that they’ve even painted it the God’s sacred red.

Luco’s broad shoulders sag, then resettle with new resolution. “You know how the God feels about the importance of maintaining the Temple’s image.”

“It’ll hurt our image if we talk to the people? The God is the Caretaker of the Faithful. What kind of caretaking is that?”

“It lowers you to their level, instead of elevating them to yours.”

“Which they can only manage by prayer, which is inhibited
by any sort of
normal
conversation?” Paia balls her hands into fists and vibrates them in frustration. “I came to walk among them! To preach to them! To inspire them with my love of the God!”

In fact, Paia isn’t loving the God very much right now. She’s angry with him for destroying her painting. But she can’t explain any of this to Luco.

“Inspire them?” he growls. “You’ll be lucky if they don’t eat you alive.”

“What?”

“I mean, of course, that they’re desperate. They need sustenance, not talk!”

“Faith
is
sustenance, First Son! If you aren’t careful, it will be me advising you to hold your tongue. Won’t that be a novelty!”

Luco’s eyes clench shut briefly. “Your pardon, my priestess.”

Paia sighs and forces her hands to relax. No more arguing. She must apply her flagging energy to the task of surviving the heat and boredom. She points out the clouds to Luco, to change the subject.

“Hunh. Look at that.” He finds them more interesting than she does. “In the direction of the Citadel.”

“Are they rain clouds?”

“He’d never allow that.”

“Who?”

“The God. He’d as soon it never rained.”

“No, Luco, surely . . .” Paia peered at him closely. Was the heat getting to him, too?

“In the Chapter House, they’ll be saying it’s a sign.”

“Of what?”

“Of whatever they need it to be a sign of.”

He flicks her a sidelong glance as he seats her at the table. Paia would like to laugh. When officiating, the High Priestess is barely allowed a smile, never mind the belly laugh she’d like to let go of. A great big laugh of pure abandon. It would be so freeing. But the First Son’s joke was not very funny. He’s too distracted by . . . whatever he’s distracted by. With a warning frown, he leaves her struggling. He has not used this trip to ease his insistence on proper Temple protocol, and the subject of her father still shuts him up like a box. But in the brief times they’ve
been apart from listening ears, a progressive change has been evident. The more miles put between them and the Temple, the more relaxed is Luco’s tongue. When they do speak together, it is almost a conversation.

And this has taught Paia something: Son Luco does not see her as a religious icon with God-given mystical power, as would any lesser devout of the Temple. To Luco, she is simply the God’s designate, the Temple figurehead, chosen not as Luco would choose, but for the god’s own inhuman reasons—which the priest is loath to question.

Happily, Paia agrees with him. She’s glad she’s never pretended with Luco to be something she isn’t. What’s more, she’s always assumed his boundless patience with her tantrums and impulses to be due to his devotion to the God. But new insight suggests that Luco has forgiven her a lot simply because she is her father’s daughter. Someday, she will convince him to tell her the story.

The ceremonial feast is over early that evening, before the sun has completely set. Perhaps the dull-eyed inhabitants of this village have squandered too many of their scant resources on their silly dais. Nearly stir-crazy with sitting, Paia begs Luco for a walk outside the village, across the fields perhaps, even up that hill on the far side. She would like a better look at the odd pink cloud towers. He agrees to allow it, if proper security precautions are observed. But he begs off accompanying her, claiming Temple business, as he has every evening so far. In a town so meager, Paia wonders how much business there could be. Visits to the outlying homesteads, perhaps, where the Faithful are in need of spiritual advice or even renewal. Though he shines in the formal recitation, it is hard to imagine Son Luco delivering a sermon. Still, Paia has overheard his admiring acolytes tell of his great oratorical prowess during the Wars of Conversion. But there are no sermons in the Temple of the Apocalypse. Only endless litany.

Before he disappears off to who knows where, Luco gives Paia into the hands of the head of the local Chapter House, a dour, crop-haired woman twice her age. Paia’s heart sinks. Being a full priestess, the woman need not go veiled, which means there is nothing to disguise her reluctance.

“Mother Gayle.” Impatient to be off on his business, Luco puts on his voice of polite coercion. “Supreme
Mother Paia has a need for some exercise before retiring. Would you be willing to oblige her? A viewing of the local geography, perhaps?”

Paia settles the God’s little gun more firmly against her ribs. She notes the look that passes between Son Luco and the local priestess, but she cannot interpret it. Probably he is begging the woman to take her off his hands, or simply warning Mother Gayle to make sure the High Priestess disports herself in a manner becoming to the Temple.

Mother Gayle bows. “The God’s servant in all things, my priest.”

Luco goes briskly off, and Mother Gayle gathers her entire staff, plus the Temple Honor Guard, in the event of a surprise raid by bandits from the hills. She guides Paia onto the main road out of the village, where they walk in silence through the dusk, with half the village trailing after them. Paia notes how her sandaled feet leave little pouch marks in the deep dust. Suddenly it seems sad that no one even talks about it anymore, this drying up of the world. One just acts as if it has always been this way, even though the worst of it has occurred within her own short lifetime. Accept what is. It’s the God’s sort of thinking.

The procession crosses the arid field in silence, then climbs in silence as well, first within the shadow of the hill, then with the sun’s red ball straight ahead of them, brilliant and blinding, exploding into their eyes. Paia cannot see her feet. Even the ground ahead of her is lost in the dazzle, as if it has fallen away and left her floating. She was already disoriented in her mind, now she is disoriented in her senses as well. She puts out both arms, feeling unbalanced but rather enjoying the novelty.

“It’s like walking in light!” she exclaims.

The sober stride of the priestess falters beside her. “I beg your pardon?”

“The sun . . . it’s so bright.” Paia opens her arms to the bloody glare.

“Ah, yes. The sun. Of course.” Mother Gayle nods, then immediately withdraws into her walking silence. She looks, Paia thinks, oddly relieved.

The top of the hill is a series of barren stone ledges with brittle mats of dry moss between. The farthest ledge protrudes over a rather steep drop, providing a perfect platform
for viewing the surrounding peaks. But its corners are suspiciously square, and Paia sees it’s actually a poured concrete slab, much weathered, probably an old foundation for a house. Mother Gayle points out this mountain and that, identifying them as Tall Mount or Red Face, generic names that are new even since Paia’s childhood geography classes. The more colorful names, such as Vanderwacher or Goodnow, have been erased in the God’s campaign against history, as if his coming has made the past irrelevant.

But people remember, Paia tells herself. Luco remembered.
Cauldwell’s Clove.

Then Mother Gayle takes her arm and gently draws her to the very edge of the platform, to point straight down. A hundred, two hundred feet below are the remains of a town. Quite a large town, judging from the length of the main street. Its crumbling chimneys and collapsed roofs are touched by the sun’s dying rays as if with fire.

“Oh, my! Oh, my.” Paia squints to make out faded letters on tumbled-down signs, to take in the rich variety of the buildings, even in their state of ruin. The language of the architecture is so much more complex—dare she say it?—so much more
human
than the blocky, unadorned style favored by the God for current domestic structures. Even the odd crooks and curves of the streets tell an interesting story. She can see where the trees might have been, shading the sidewalks and houses. Paia stares down at the town for a long time, while Mother Gayle waits patiently beside her.

Finally she takes a chance. “Has it a name?”

“Oh, no, Mother Paia.”

“I mean,
did
it, at one time? Or has it been forgotten?”

The older priestess clears her throat, then murmurs so that only Paia could possibly hear. “It was called Carlisle. Of course, I only know this because . . . well, I was born there.”

As the Temple’s highest representative, Paia should deliver a stern reproof. History is forbidden, after all. But she herself has asked, and what escapes her is a sympathetic nod.

Mother Gayle looks mistrustful but again relieved.

“There is a heresy, you know, that claims it can all be made green again.” She laughs harshly to show her contempt. “Imagine that!”

“Indeed,” replies Paia, wondering why the woman is saying this, to the High Priestess of the God’s Temple. Everyone around her seems to be losing their grip on propriety. Including herself.

Mother Gayle sighs. “I’ve thought of petitioning Him to burn it to the ground, like He has so many others. It would be easier. The God is right about the pain our useless old memories can bring.”

But why, Paia asks herself, if the town was still standing, could the people not just live there? She’s sure the God has told her there were no towns left after the Wars. That his great building spree was undertaken for the good of the homeless Faithful.

Gazing downward, she is suddenly racked with vertigo. Disorientation made physical. She hardly knows what to believe anymore. Thoroughly depressed, Paia backs away from the edge. “It will be dark soon. Perhaps we should be getting back.”

The God visits her again that night, only this time she is sure she is not asleep. She would never dream him in this grotesque a rage.

Besides, she has been dreaming of something else. A man. A blond man with a sword, like she has seen in her father’s ancient tomes. A rather pleasant dream, for a change.

When she wakes, the God’s golden eyes are inches from her own, as hot and bright as twin blast furnaces. There is not a hint of the tragic mask of his most recent visitation. He is nothing but eyes and a long screech of fury, like knives in both her ears. “The picture! The picture! Where is it?”

“The picture? You mean, the painting?” Paia is groggy, confused. “The landscape? You haven’t destroyed it?”

“WHERE IS IT? Where have you hidden it?”

“I haven’t hidden it. It’s in my room.”

“LIAR! LIAR!”

“My lord, I am not!” She shoves herself up on her elbows. The painting. He hasn’t destroyed it. She struggles to clear her head. Again, she is bedded down in the local Chapter House, and again, the servants and priestesses bedded down with her snore through the God’s tirade. Only
the High Priestess must endure the heat of his wrath. “I had the painting brought down to my room! It was there when I left! Surely you saw it yourself when you came for me!”

“Then your confederates have stolen it to safety! Where? I can forgive your being an unwitting pawn, but conspire against me at your direst peril! Where is it?” His cry shrills against her eardrums and behind his eyes looms the shadow of horns. “TELL ME!”

“I don’t know! I have no confederates!” Her grogginess dulls her fear. She is tired of his tantrums. “How could I have confederates? You allow me no friends! Besides, you know I can conceal nothing from you. You invade even my dreams!”

“After others have already done so! Your dreams are not your own! Have I not said they will destroy us both?”

“Then I will not listen to them!” Paia slumps back on one elbow. How can she prove anything to him? She so much wants him to believe her just because he believes her, as she believes herself. Indeed, she would like to know herself where the painting has gone, this mutable vista that someone else has made her paint. She thinks of the House Comp’s tale of tampering, and worries for its safety. “Is it truly not there?”

The shadow behind the hot glow of his eyes resolves into something more manlike. Her concern has rung true, and unsettled him. Paia judges that the worst is over.

“Would I waste my time here if it was?”

“Surely, my lord, the person who left those notes has taken it.”

“Ha! Ha!” He fumes inarticulately, but his twin fires withdraw a bit as the focus of his rage shifts to the note-writer. “I have questioned the entire population of the Citadel, yet cannot rout out this traitor!” The light dims as he turns away to begin his habitual pacing. “They have human agents working for them, even as I do. Here, there, and everywhere. I should expect nothing less!”