Heartland

particular, and sipped his tea. He gave no indication that he was in a rush to talk, and-gradually, grudgingly-I became aware of how noisy I was on the inside.

The Chorus was buzzing in my spine, electric sparks of memory and energy that I couldn't quite control. I wanted to move; I wanted to lay the deck of cards on the table and put the priest's hands on them. I wanted to ask him questions, so many of them fighting for position against my tongue. And part of me still wanted to flee, wanted to run and hide from the magick storm brewing across the leys of the city.

But I sat there, instead, with a modicum of patience, and listened to the micro-ambience of this inner sanctum. I was a weary traveler, and without speaking a word, he gave me the space to find some wisdom.

VII

Eventually, the priest gave a small nod, and pushed his cup aside. The sound of the china moving across the laminate surface of the table dispersed the meditative ambience of the tiny apartment.

'It is not an easy task to quiet oneself,' he said. 'Many of us forget. Your energy is still much too quick, but I can see the impression of its orbit now. There is a lot of history bound to your light.'

'I'm impressed,' I said. 'Most can't see me at all.'

He snorted. 'Most are blinded by their own light. Too caught up with the glitter of their own thread. All they see is the surface, the forward and backward of their lives.'

'But you see deeper than that, don't you? Beneath the Weave.'

His hands moved on the table, as if he were re-arranging pieces of a game. 'We teach the new ones to call it the 'Weave,' because that is a concept they can readily understand, but it is like teaching a child to play checkers. It's a simple game, two-dimensional really. Only later are they ready to play a richer game on the same board.'

'Chess.'

He nodded. 'The Akashic Weave extends in every direction, and when I gave up my sight, I was to see it more properly. I was able to understand the true nature of how the threads bind together.'

'The big picture.'

'Yes. There is a balance to all things, and we are too small and mean to want to believe such universal hegemony exists, but that is part of what we must strive toward. An understanding of the reflections and shadows that the unconscious symbols of the Divine leave in their wake. So that we, too, may be creators.'

The Chorus caught a slice of memory, and turned it over, spinning it like a coin; it opened up. A small burst of memories exploded: the fiery eye of the glass furnace; the priest pulling and stretching a piece of red glass into a flat sheet; on a nearby table, a rack of colored sheets-green, blue, yellow, white-cooling. The priest wore a modified pair of goggles. Only the left eye was protected from the light of the forge.

'You made all the glass,' I said, answering my previous question about his vocation. 'From his designs.'

The Chorus twisted the images in my head, turning them inside out so as to see a different perspective. A different time, in the same place. The priest, now kneeling before the furnace, sweat and grime staining his naked torso. A pair of hands entered the frame-my hands-and removed his protective goggles so as to firmly grasp his head. I held his face still as he opened the blast cover of the furnace. Tears started from his eyes, droplets like molten glass streaming down his cheeks. In his right eye, the emerald shard of glass glittered; in his left, a howling whiteness devoured his cornea. I could feel the heat from the forge on my hands.

The priest was unafraid, and the expression on his face held no pain.

This was not punishment. This was a reward.

'And when you were done,' I said, slowly, the words shivering up from the snarled core of the Chorus, 'I took your other eye and gave you your new name: the Visionary.'

In speaking those words, in being Philippe for a brief second, a cascade of the Old Man's history fell into place, now anchored by my act of speaking aloud. I knew the priest's name, how Philippe recruited him, his secret training and preparation for the task of making the stained-glass panels, the title given to him by Philippe; all that and more were known to me as if I had always known them. It was a disconcerting moment of vertigo as I flickered between my identity and Philippe's before returning to my-now altered-self.

His name was David Cristobel. Once: an itinerant laborer; a student of the arts; a glass-blower. Now: parish priest, and one of the secret masters of the society. The Architect known as the Visionary.

Father Cristobel bowed his head. 'Our Father,' he whispered, 'who art in-'

I stopped him. 'No, not yet.'

He hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. 'Yes, of course.' He raised his head and looked directly at me, Seeing me. 'It is a bold binding, and he hides you well.' He wasn't speaking to me; he was talking to the spirit of the Old Man, as if he was-

'He isn't hiding,' I said. 'Philippe is dead, but some of his. . personality hasn't faded yet.'

He stared at me more, and the ever-present tear finally slipped from the corner of his right eye. 'The Lightbreaker,' he said. It was his turn to name me. 'You knew all along, didn't you?'

'Knew what?'

A small laugh jerked free of his chest. 'You are far more trusting than I, old friend. Your vision is, indeed, deep and distant.'

'Father Cristobel,' I said. 'You and the Hierarch had an understanding of the threads that defies my feeble grasp, and I'm glad you're impressed with the Old Man's plotting, but he told me very little. And he's gone. All I have left are fragments of his memory, and I can't control how and when they offer themselves to me. I am, for lack of a better word, a bit blind here.'

He smiled at that, but the motion quickly died on his face. 'Yes,' he said, staring at a point behind me. 'There are many knots in the fabric itself, and much. . that obscures the Record. It is difficult to see very far. Or very clearly.' A shake of his head wiped the rest of the humor from his face. 'The Hierarch wound tight and far, Lightbreaker, and trusted-perhaps too much-that the threads would move in the manner of his suggestion.'

'Endgame,' I said. 'All the knots, coming undone.'

'But will they unravel to his design, or someone else's?' Father Cristobel wondered. 'How strong was his Vision?'

'That's the big question, isn't it?'

Father Cristobel stood and retrieved a bottle of whisky from the cupboard. He got two more glasses and filled each with a finger of liquor, nudged one toward me, and raised the other one. 'Now is not the time for tea,' he said, raising his glass. 'To Philippe Emonet. My father, in spirit and in my heart.'

Our Father. Holy Spirit. My Son. A confusion of histories overwhelmed my tongue and I settled for tapping my glass against his. The whisky was heavy, filled with the earthy taste of peat, and it went down like a hot coal.

Father Cristobel coughed. 'Ah,' he said, after taking a second sip. 'It has been a while.'

I turned the bottle so I could see the label. 'A Lagavulin 16,' I said. 'It's a little mean when you first come back.'

'Most things are,' he said, pouring another portion for himself. 'How long have you been away from the family?'

'A while.' There was no point in denying it. I was starting to See how far back Philippe's planning went. 'A little over five years.'

'Ah, yes,' he said, nodding. 'Before the Upheaval.' He set his glass down. 'I know you. You are the rogue who left us, taking a hand and a heart with you.'

I knocked back the whisky in my glass, the peaty burn killing the words in my throat. The fire of the scotch rose up from my stomach and inflamed my lungs.

'Markham,' he said. 'Yes, that is who you are. 'Michael,' she called you, but it isn't your Christian name.'

'Landis,' I said, my tongue burning. She. Such familiarity. I exhaled, fiery exhaust from the whisky, and memory turned in my head.

A small baby, wrapped in white linen. Marielle. A nocturnal baptism, here in this church, the glass Christ hovering overhead like a watchful angel. A younger Cristobel and Philippe, their hands