Song of the Sea.
“I’ve known you can read for some time—Latin as well,” he says, setting the folio on the desk behind him. Then he leans in close. “I know many of the secrets you and Caplain Amita shared. But the big one—I only just sussed that out a few years ago.”
“You knew?” I lick my lips. An arc of fire. I taste dried blood.
“He didn’t tell me—Caplain Amita. I figured it out on my own. I heard it in your voice, eventually. There’s a… unique quality to the castrati voice. Beautiful, yes. But a shade away from natural. Not yours, though.”
“And why have you kept me alive, then? So long after Caplain Amita’s death.”
“Because of your voice, child. Faith needs nurturing… our little flame, here in the darkness, in need of stoking,” he says, peering up, to an unknown height. “You have lifted us up for so long. That is why Caplain kept your secret, no doubt. He knew your… utility.
“My, my, but you have kept your own confidences and kept them well.” He looks down at the key hanging about his neck. “This, I did not know about. That Amita had kept the real key hidden all this time. That he gave the real one to you.”
“He didn’t trust you…” I say, throat dry.
“He was the one not to be trusted, Remy,” Marston says, standing now. So very tall from this position. Crooked. “He knew all along the missile would not fire. He had no intention of delivering the Last Judgment.”
“There is a world out there…”
“Sinners.”
“People. Good people…”
“People like this woman. Adolphine. She who lied to you, who took advantage of you to serve her own whims? She’s told me everything. About your plan for escape, for rescue. The message you sent.” He shakes his head.
“What happened to her?”
“You care? After all she has done? After her betrayal?”
Survive, she whispered to me.
“I do,” I say.
“She finished repairing the Last Judgment. Then she was returned to the sea. Where she belongs. God will decide the fate of her soul. Whether she redeemed herself.”
I close my eyes.
“She reprogrammed the missile,” I say. “It won’t strike where you want it to. It isn’t even targeted at Sydney any longer. Without her, you won’t be able to reprogram it.”
Marston laughs gently to himself, oddly.
“You think it matters where the missile strikes? It is the last. Blessed by God. It will usher in the end of days regardless.”
These words. I once believed them. How, now, is it that they sound so unfamiliar?
“There will be no rescue, dear Remy,” he says with a mock sympathy. “Even the closest Coalition ships are days away. And the Liánméng submarine that attacked has not followed us into these waters.”
I fight the urge to cry, even though a heat is building. A stinging.
“I see in you the same weakness as our beloved Caplain,” Marston says, staring down at me fixedly. Disappointed. “The same I saw in Brother Calvert’s eyes. Yes, I know he was the one who turned on us. Divulged the secrets of our order to the Topsiders. Oh, how you’ve been seduced… how easily, by his lies. The lies of your friend, Adolphine. You were ready to leave us… to abandon our order, after we have given you everything.”
“You’ve starved us… beaten us… mutilated us. Lied to us,” I say. I know now these are words I’ve wanted to speak out loud, to utter, for longer than I even knew.
“To try and purify you… but I can see that has not worked. Not for you or for Lazlo.”
“Caplain Amita gave me the key for a reason,” I say. “He wanted me… me to decide. To be able to say that no… the time is not right. Perhaps it would never be right. He knew that.”
“And he was a fool who had lost his faith in the end. Thank God I am here to enact His plan for the world. And we must ready ourselves,” Marston says, nodding, reveling in his own righteousness. “Your heart is corrupted, but you are too important to be rid of here… in these final hours.”
“Utility,” I say.
He nods.
“You should ask St. John to sing your hymn. He is very eager.”
Caplain Marston gives a short, dry laugh. “He is that. But even if he was in a place to sing, after you unleashed your… fury upon him, he does not have your gift. No, I wrote this for you.”
“But why would I sing now?” I say, trying to sit up. “Sing for you?”
“Not for me… for your brothers. For Lazlo. Don’t you want to give them some comfort before we descend… an exaltation of the spirit?”
I don’t answer.
He frowns.
“Sing the Cantio,” he says, “and I will let you see Lazlo again. I will bring him back from Engineering. You will spend your last hours with him.”
I search Marston’s face for sincerity. Indeed, he has said these words with the same intense conviction in which he has said everything else.
Lazlo. If he is with me, then perhaps we could still flee together. Find a way to escape. Like Adolphine said.
“But… I don’t believe anymore,” I say, honest as I can. Strong as I can. “I don’t know if I ever really did.”
“Ah, but you don’t have to believe in order to be a vessel for the Holy Spirit. Your dear Adolphine is proof of that. Look what she did for us—repaired the Last Judgment. Like Solomon, like Paul—a tool of God.”
He believes it. Everything he is saying, he believes.
“And when you were done with her, you killed her,” I say.
“We could not have an interloper on board during our final hours.”
“But you’ll have a woman aboard,” I say. “You haven’t told them, have you? The brothers? They don’t know.”
Marston pauses. Stands straighter. I’ve caught him out. The only time I’ve seen him flinch. “No,” he says, steely.
“All the lies you’ve built this place upon… you and Caplain Amita both—you know that if they knew about me, it would cause people to doubt. That I was conspiring with a Topsider, that I was going to escape.” The words keep coming. They won’t stop. “St. John knows. I saw the confusion when he discovered my secret.”
Marston bends down, pinches my chin, tight. Leans in. I couldn’t turn away from his narrow, yellowed face if I wanted. “St. John knows how important our mission is. He’ll be dutiful to the order. And if you will not—if you attempt to say a word—then I will take Lazlo’s life with my own hands. While you watch. I promise you that.”
Beady eyes, dark. Almost dead with resolve.
I swallow. My throat, thick.
Agreeing means that I will be let free. Agreeing means that Lazlo will be with me and that we still might possibly find a way out.
I nod once, silently.
“Tomorrow, then,” he says, releasing his grip, standing straight, smoothing out his robes. “Tomorrow will be our grand day. Our salvation. I suggest you pray, dear Remy. Pray that you might be forgiven your trespasses. He might just listen.”
The deck had been at an upward tilt. Now it levels.
The hammer throngs against the hull. Three resonant blows.
Call to Compline.
The final office in the liturgy of the hours.
We brothers were often asked, in this hour, to contemplate our actions and thoughts in the day. An examination of conscience.
This was common when Caplain Amita was still alive.
Have our actions and thoughts aligned with our moral code? The order by which we have all promised to live our lives?
Sometimes, I felt I had strayed. My thoughts had often bent toward those scant memories of my life Topside. Of sunlight. Of bright-tasting limes. Even though I knew I should not let them stray. To dwell on such memories was the same as wishing to live amongst the Forsaken. Amongst the sinners.