“What we’ve come here to do is very important,” he told her. His voice was soft and carefully controlled and he was choosing his words with obvious care. “If we don’t succeed, a lot of people will be hurt. Like your father. Remember? We came here to stop that kind of thing from happening again, so no one else is ever hurt like that again. And sometimes, to do this . . . sometimes we have to do things we don’t like. Things we wouldn’t do at any other time.”
“Isn’t it still wrong?” she asked.
For a long, long moment he didn’t answer her. She could feel Hesseth’s eyes upon them both, the long ears pricked forward to catch his answer. Had she asked something bad? She just wanted to understand.
“My Church thinks it’s wrong,” he said at last. “Sometimes I’m not so sure.” He stood up slowly, one knee popping as he did so. “In the name of this quest we’ve done a lot of things we didn’t want to do, Jenseny, and I guess we’ll do a lot more. That’s how it goes, sometimes. You make the best choice you can.”
“Tarrant would be proud of that argument,” Hesseth said softly.
The priest looked over at her—and something passed between them that Jenseny couldn’t interpret, but it was sharp and was hot and it was filled with pain.
“Yeah,” the priest muttered. Turning away from them both. “Who the vulk do you think it was taught it to me?”
They were going to leave her here.
They didn’t say it. They didn’t have to. It had been clear enough on the journey here that they weren’t going to take her past the cities, and that didn’t leave a whole lot of options. Oh, they would try to provide for her, they would try to prepare her for it, maybe they would even try to find a home that would take her in . . . but it all meant the same thing, in the end. They would leave her here. In this place. With the voices. Surrounded by buildings and people that virtually screamed with pain, abandoned to a life of such unremitting fear that they couldn’t begin to guess at it.
The rakhene children would be gone then. So would Hesseth. And so would Damien, and with him the last vestige of that fragile Peace which she had experienced in the forest. A Peace so sweet and so warm that she would give her very life to feel it again. Part of it was still here, inside him. She sensed it when he held her. And if he went away . . . then she would lose that Peace. Forever.
Alone. She had been so alone before, so full of pain. Then these people had rescued her. She still mourned her father’s death, still woke in the night quaking from terrible nightmares of loss and desolation—but the priest and the rakh-woman had eased her suffering, and the Peace had numbed her grief. Now she would lose all that. It was more than she could stand to think about.
Sometimes when she thought about her father she got angry, and that frightened her. Why? she demanded of him. Why did you leave me? Even as the words came, she was shamed by them, but they flowed from the heart of her too fast and too hard to stop. Why didn’t you protect me better? Why did you go and die and leave me alone? What am I supposed to do now that you’re gone? She felt that by blaming him she was somehow betraying him, but the anger was too real and too intense for her to stop it. Where are you, now that I need you? Didn’t you know this would happen?
Tears pouring down her cheeks—body trembling with fear and shame—Jenseny gazed out through the grimy window at the crowds and the sunlight and tried hard not to think about her future.
30
The Church was small, and the strip of land that surrounded it was narrow and muddy. Houses and storefronts crowded close about its walls on all four sides, casting its thin strip of lawn into shadow, robbing it of vitality. If not for a low wrought-iron fence—more show than substance as its height was easily scaled by any thief—and that narrow band of green and brown, the church might well have shared its very walls with the businesses that clustered claustrophobically in the city’s low-rent district, so well did its facade of faded brick and mildewed mortar match their own.
No doubt there were finer churches in the better neighborhoods, and perhaps a great cathedral or two in the city’s center. Perhaps, as in Mercia, city life revolved around a central cathedral, and rich lawns and costly ornaments framed a building whose gilded arches gleamed in the Corelight, drawing the faithful like flies. Such a building would be beautiful, breathtaking in both its scope and its upkeep. It would also—Damien was willing to bet—be heavily guarded.
A wagon rattled to the left of him as he approached the rusted iron fence, drawn by the short, stocky animals that this region used as beasts of burden. There was a sharp cry off to his right, followed by the crash of glass; a domestic dispute, he guessed, spawned by the humid closeness of this district. He took advantage of the double light—a rosy mauve from the early sunset, Core-gold from the galaxy overhead—to study the sanctified building. A modest church to start with, it had clearly seen better days. Its few stained-glass windows were protected by thick wire mesh, and bars reinforced those on the lower floors. But despite its humble design and defensive hardware, the small church was clearly used, and used often. The steps were well-worn, the brass-fitted doors polished to a bright finish by the press of a thousand passing hands. Even as Damien watched, more than a dozen men and women traversed the broad stone stairs, some in pairs or chatting groups, one or two alone. And their faith would have left its mark. The prayers of thousands, day after day, would have seeped into the ancient stonework and the deeply carved wood, leaving their mark upon the building’s substance as clear and as readable as any bars or iron deadbolts. The faith of these people, and all that it implied. Which meant that whatever corruption the Matrias had engendered here, that, too, would would cling to this building. Easy to read, for one who had the Sight. Or at least so he hoped.
He braced himself to Work . . . and then hesitated. It wasn’t that he was afraid of being found out. He had come to this dismal corner of the city precisely for that reason, afraid that if the servants of the local Matria were watching for his arrival they might well have staked out the better-known cathedrals. There was anonymity in these garbage-strewn streets, and with his travel-stained and clumsily repaired clothing he was perfectly suited to take advantage of it. No, no one would notice him here. And in this land, so utterly bereft of human sorcery, it was unlikely that the Matrias or their servants would think to focus in on his Working to locate him, or would even know how to do so.
He was as safe here as he was going to get in this warped and corrupted land, and it wasn’t the thought of capture which made him tremble in the church’s dusky shadow. Not exactly. It was more like . . . like . . . I’m afraid to Know, he thought. Fear wrapped cold tendrils around his heart. Afraid to See. Afraid to know the corruption for what it truly is, and to witness how far it’s progressed.
He hadn’t been near a church since their flight from Mercia. Which meant that up until now he’d had no chance to See for himself what changes had been worked among these people, to analyze what effects the secret rakhene matriarchy had had upon their faith. Not yet. And as he stood beyond the gates of the modest church, as the inhabitants of the city shuffled and clattered past him, he realized that he didn’t want to see. Didn’t want to know. Not ever. His hands closed tightly about the cast-iron bars, squeezing them until his knuckles went white. Knowledge is power, he told himself. You need it. You can’t fight the enemy without it. Doubts assailed him, made doubly powerful by the force of his fear. He had thought that if he Worked his sight near a church he might see the corruption here for what it was, might be able to read some pattern into the degradation of his faith, some purpose . . . but what if he couldn’t? And what if he succeeded in conjuring such a vision, only to find that he couldn’t bear to absorb its message? The corruption of this region struck at the very heart of who and what he was; did he dare experience it directly?