20
Lilah inched forward so she could hear better.
“Sanctuary is a myth,” declared one of the reapers.
“No, it’s not,” said another reaper. “I heard that the monks there are really scientists.”
“I heard that too,” said another. “They used to work for the government. Some kind of bioweapons thing.”
“No,” a female reaper chimed in, “the monks there are supposed to be trying to cure the disease so people can repopulate the world.”
“Sinners!” growled a few.
“Before I joined the Night Church,” said a man with a Navajo face, “I heard that there are two Sanctuaries. It’s supposed to be split down the middle, with the monks on one side and the scientists on the other side. The monks are just taking care of people — like hospice workers used to — and the scientists are trying to cure the plague. The monks are well intentioned but misguided. The scientists are the ones we shouldn’t trust.”
“That’s right,” said another of the reapers. “I heard that they had cures for stuff like cancer and all those other diseases, but they kept it all secret because they had deals with pharmaceutical companies. It was all a big moneymaking scam.”
Several of the reapers growled agreement with that. Even Lilah had heard some of these rumors. Mostly pre — First Night stuff she’d read in old books and newspapers she had salvaged, but in Mountainside everyone had one kind of conspiracy theory or another. Wriggly Sputters, the town’s eccentric mailman, was a walking encyclopedia of such stories, and he frequently said that there was a bunker or lab somewhere out in the Ruin where the government still existed. And in that bunker, the government maintained their power over the other survivors because they had control over cures to every known disease. No one really believed it, but few of the townsfolk stepped up to say that this was total nonsense. Lilah had no opinion on the subject — she cared very little for rumors.
What she heard now, however, was fascinating.
One reaper, a big man with a thick dark beard, laughed at the others. “Oh, please… you really think that the government would keep the cure to a doomsday plague to themselves after all that’s happened? Why would they let so many people die?”
“Because it’s easier to rule a small population than try and control seven billion people,” insisted Brother Simon. “C’mon, Eric, that’s basic math. They took the best and the brightest and hid them away in these big caves and tunnels, and then they released the Gray Plague. You watch, one of these days they’re going to come out and announce a ‘cure,’ and then everyone who’s left will flock to them and hail them as the saviors of mankind. You watch.”
“God won’t allow that to happen,” said Brother Eric.
That quieted the reapers for a moment. It was a hard argument for any of them to knock down.
Brother Simon shook his head. “Sure, that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing. Rather die in glory and join the darkness than live as slaves.”
The rebuttal stalled Brother Eric for a moment, and he cut a look to Mother Rose. She gave him a bland smile.
To Simon, Brother Eric said, “Don’t believe the myth of Sanctuary. It’s a lie told by refugees and heretics to give them false hope and to confuse us.”
Before Brother Simon could reply, Mother Rose said, “Sanctuary is not a myth.”
They all looked at her in surprise.
“It is a very real place,” she continued, “and it is the most dangerous place on earth. Dangerous to everyone living, and dangerous to our own holy purpose.”
Eric and Simon and the others shuffled in uncomfortable silence.
“It is a weapon,” she said. “A great sword, if you will. A sword by itself is not evil. A sword can be used to slay an enemy, or release a suffering friend into the darkness. A sword can cut ropes that bind the helpless. A raised sword can be a threat or it can be a symbol of leadership.” She paused. “Consider our own war with the heretics. Many of them fight us with axes and knives and swords, and we know that in their hands these are tools of evil. And yet, behold the holy weapons you carry. They are sanctified and made pure by the purpose to which they are put. A weapon, my children, is good or evil depending on the intention of whoever holds it.”
Lilah surprised herself by agreeing — at least in part — with what this woman said.
The reapers milled around, murmuring and debating this with one another.
Then Mother Rose raised her hand, and every tongue fell silent. “In the actions of heretics the schemes of evil are revealed. We know — we have been told — by the prophet Saint John that in these End Times the struggle to conquer evil will be hard fought. We know this. You, my warrior reapers, have endured fire and blood to send heretics into the darkness. You know, as I know, as Saint John knows, that at the end of our struggles the darkness waits for us. Once we have accomplished our holy purpose on earth, the darkness will embrace us and grant us everlasting peace. There will be no more hunger, no more sickness, no more fear. The darkness is eternal.”
“Praise be to the darkness,” they intoned.
“But we are all sinners. Everyone who remains clothed in flesh and who pollutes the earth by walking upon it is a sinner. God commanded that all human life should end. He made the dead rise and he opened the pathway to darkness for all who accept this truth.”
They stared at her, totally rapt.
“Only two kinds of people are left here in this hell of flesh and pain. The heretics who refuse to accept the truth and the will of our god,” said Mother Rose, her voice strident and powerful, “and us — the sanctified soldiers of God. We are the reapers sent among the wayward fields to cut down the infection that is life.”
“Praise be to the darkness!” they cried.
“And together we have sent thousands of heretics into the darkness. Thousands.”
Lilah could see that most of the reapers were openly weeping, nodding in absolute agreement with everything this woman said.
“And yet we are mortals, we are of the flesh, even if we are filled with the glory of God,” she said. “While we remain steadfast to our purpose, we must never forget that we can only glimpse the will of the lord of darkness. We are not arrogant enough to say that we know all of his will.”
The reapers said nothing, though Lilah saw some of them frown, as if they were uncertain where this was going.
“We must also be prepared for our holy war to last as long as our god needs it to last,” continued Mother Rose, “even if that means that some of us must remain in the flesh.”
“But for how long?” begged Brother Simon. “How long until we are all released from the flesh?”
Mother Rose turned fully toward him, and even from her place of concealment Lilah could feel the impact of that woman’s stare. It was as hard as a fist and as riveting as a sudden thunderclap.
“As long as God wills it,” she said very slowly, spacing each word and filing each syllable to a dagger point. “If he calls us home this minute, we should be ready to open red mouths in our own flesh.”
“Praise be the darkness,” cried the reapers.
“And if the lord of darkness ordains that we must wither with old age before we are called home, then is that too costly a price for the faithful to pay?”
There was such powerful challenge in her words that every tongue was stilled, and even Lilah held her breath. Mother Rose stepped close to Brother Simon.
“Answer me, my brother,” she said in that cold, cold voice. “If God wills that our holy war last a hundred years, would you spit in God’s eye and defy such a request?”
Brother Simon dropped to his knees, weeping and shaking with terror. He struck his own face and tore at his clothes before finally collapsing facedown in the dirt.
“I am the humblest of God’s servants,” he wailed. “My life is his unto the end of time.”
Mother Rose smiled and nodded.
“Thus speak all who truly love the Lord Thanatos,” she said, and then turned away.
“Praise be to the darkness!” shrieked the reapers.
Mother Rose raised her hand, and they all fell silent.
