The Heretic

but I shall do so: I believe you have what it takes to become a leader among the temple guardians, to perhaps become the military advisor of the chief priest himself.

Whatever you accomplish, I’m sure it will reflect honor upon our family name. Stick to the ways that you know are effective and follow the good instincts that run in your blood and all will be well.

Perhaps you can take the barge up for harvest festival again this year. Your room is still here, and has not changed a whit. The Prelate has allowed the rice farmers along the Canal to return to their fields, and they have been turning up bones by the thousands. They pile them on the road levee, and they are visible as a line of white the whole long distance between Garangipore and Hestinga now. It is quite a sight, although I fear some of them may be our own dead, mixed among the Redlanders.

I will understand, however, if your duties do not permit you the luxury of such a long trip. Mine do not permit me to visit you, which I long to do, as you know. In any case, I will and do expect a letter!

Whatever you decide concerning harvest time travel, I remain,

Your affectionate father

Abel rolled up the scroll and put it in the small trunk that held all of his earthly belongings here in the Tabernacle garrison. He was off duty today, which meant that he was expected to spend time studying in the Tabernacle library. It was a task Abel looked forward to.

He made his way across the eastern side of the city along the riverfront, headed toward the great earthen mounds to the south that were known as Zentrum’s Seat. The Tabernacle buildings, both administrative and those reserved for ritual, covered these mounds, built basket by basket in some ancient time by carrying mud from the River below.

At the base of Zentrum’s Seat was the one place Abel had clear memories of from his childhood in this city: the Pools of the Tabernacle. The carnadons churned in the Tabernacle pools, ripping at the vast quantities of dak flesh on which they fed daily. It was a sight that never failed to fascinate Abel, even though its macabre nature brought back memories he would, perhaps, rather forget. He couldn’t help himself. He always tried to catch the morning feedings before going in to his duties.

Bows and muskets, blood and dust. The nursery song of his mother still echoed within him whenever he beheld them. I’m the one you’ll never catch. I’m the one who catches you. Beer and barley, lead and copper. You can’t catch me. I’m the Carnadon Man.

After the feeding, it was inside and to the library, where Abel located the scroll he had begun on the previous week and sat down at a quiet table to read and take notes on his own papyrus writing pad.

The scroll was entitled The History of the Second Blood Wind. It was a history of the invasion of the Land by Redlanders-these not calling themselves Blaskoye, but Fusilites-four hundred years before.

Came they to conquer, and conquer they did, wrote Hermes the Scribe, who was thought to be the author, although the truth was no one knew who the historian was. The scroll had been written in the difficult recovery period after the Scouring, when the entire priestly and military caste had been executed.

The wind blew wet with blood, as the scribe Hermes put it. For those who had never seen their first rain, this blood wind served that purpose.

It was not merely the aristocracy, said Center. It was every man, woman, and child who held power or position within the Land, and it went on not for days but for years. Ruling families were hunted down, found where they had fled into the marshes of the Delta, into the headwaters of the River in the Schnee Mountains.

Observe:

Chambers Pass, high in the Schnees, and the River’s origin. A cluster of huts made of turf in the alpine pasture. Three of the five structures are burning. In a fourth are gathered a group of men who are being made to watch as a Fusilite warrior, dressed in a garment sewn from the skins of enemies, had his way with a woman who is thrown facedown upon the table. Nearby a man struggles to push his tongue back into his head. It has been pulled out through a slice that runs from his lower chin down to his Adam’s apple. He is not successful, and collapses.

Outside another group of Fusilites are conferring. One is festooned in the scalps of his enemies, which hang from his shoulders, attached to epaulet boards there like so much braid. He is the leader.

“Have you rounded up the git?” he asks his lieutenants.

“I believe that’s all of them, wise one,” answers one of the underlings. Abel is startled to see that it is a woman.

The Fusilites were great believers in the equality of the sexes, Center explained.

The leader with the shoulder boards of scalps turned to her and said “burn them then. And that should be the last of this line of snakes. Who was it?”

“These are first cousins to the Prelate of Progar,” the woman answers.

“Good,” said the leader. “Perhaps I’ll give Progar to you, Klopsaddle.”

“Thank you, wise one,” the woman warrior replied.

Klopsaddle? That’s the name of Mother’s family! Abel thought.

You are a linear descendant of the woman on your mother’s side, replied Center.

Great, thought Abel ruefully. I’ve got Redlander blood.

Most do, at least some portion, said Center. And all of the First Families do, by definition. They are assimilated Redlanders.

Now Abel viewed the scene from high above, as if he were flying amongst the peaks of the mountains. Below him the last two huts of the settlement burned and threw great clouds of gray smoke in the sky. Abel was thankful he was far enough away not to have to hear the screaming.

You may be sure that essentially the same scene would have played out over and over for many decades had the Blaskoye succeeded in Treville three years ago, Center said.

Checked, but not stopped, said Raj. Note the information in your father’s letter of this morning. Rostov is dead, but there is perhaps an even more dangerous leadership now in place. Three years, too! This rebuilding is remarkable, considering where they had to start from. This new leader must be considered a very serious threat.

Abel sat back from the library scroll and took a deep breath. It was not pleasant to learn that a great- grandmother, however distant, was a sworn enemy.

“Ah,” said a rich baritone of a voice nearby. “It is so good to see a young man from the Guardian Academy take such interest in his assigned texts.” It was Prestane, a religious instructor. Abel had not had a class with him yet, but he was rumored to be a stickler for rote memorization. “I am afraid many of your fellow students don’t even bother to create the appearance of having read this material.”

“I enjoy learning about the past,” Abel said, “so I can apply it to the present.” He let the scroll go, and it partially rolled itself back up under his hand. “Speaking of which, I am wondering something, Professor.”

“Yes?”

“The carnage that the Second Blood Wind produced is unbelievable. One reads of babies being roasted, women spitted. Even cannibalism,” Abel said. “And yet Zentrum permitted it. He permitted all of it. Why?”

Prestane stepped back, considered Abel. “Well, now, I don’t know if I should put myself in a position of answering such a weighted question,” he said. “After all, one can’t be too careful.”

“All I’m asking,” said Abel, “is for a little information. Nothing more.”

Prestane cleared his throat, took yet another step back. “Well, then, yes…the point is that the people of the Land had grown very wicked in those times. Horribly wicked and sinful.” The worry left Prestane’s face, and the teacher began warming to his explanation.

Or at least to the sound of his own voice, Abel thought.

“So you must not think of the Fusilites as individuals,” Prestane continued. “Think of them as instruments that Zentrum chose to punish those who had fallen from his ways.”

“I see, “Abel said. “They were the Hand of God.”