The Heretic

That did kill her.

It had only been a toothache.

Only a stupid toothache the week before. And then she left me.

Lad, I’m sorry.

“Not fair,” he whispered. “It was just a bad tooth. She had it out. That was supposed to cure her.”

Bacterial sepsis, no doubt.

I know it’s not fair, lad. It’s not. But there’s your answer. Nothing stays the same.

Zentrum has fallen into a logical trap of his own creation.

“Not. Fair.”

Something heavy in his hands. Abel glanced down. It was the rock, the door stop. He was still clutching it. He’d been clutching it all along.

See there in the corner? See the cone-shaped thing?

Abel looked around. He had to step past the upturned flyer to see what Raj was talking about. It was indeed a cone shape, white with black markings upon it, as if it had survived a terrible fire.

“I see it,” Abel said. “What is it?”

Another laugh, this one not so unsettling.

Why, it’s the spaceship we came in, lad, Center and me.

And Abel understood-because he was made to understand. The capsule speeding through hyperspace in a tunnel of stars, their light extended into lines about the spaceship. This capsule. Hundreds of others on their way to different worlds, other fallen human worlds.

Like puffer-rod seeds, when you blew them, flying every which direction.

“I don’t get it,” Abel said. “I mean, I know what a spaceship is, you just showed me. But why? Why’d you come here?”

Change, replied Center. Change will occur, and if all upward change is blocked, what eventually occurs will be downward. Another Collapse. And this one longer and more complete than any other. Maybe final. This world must be readied to rejoin the awakened Republic. Those ships will come. And when they do, if they find nothing but primitives crawling among the ruins, they will pass by. There is much else to do.

“So what?”

Things can get worse, Raj said. Like they got worse for your mother.

“Leave my mother alone!”

If this society had the most basic antibiotics, your mother would still be alive, said Center. We could have helped her.

“You’re gods from the heavens! If you want to help me, bring her back!”

We can’t do that, Abel. We’re not gods.

“But you are. I know what you say, but you have to be to show me all this. I’ll do whatever you say. Whatever it is you want.” Tears were streaming down Abel’s face. “Just bring Mamma back.”

You don’t understand, Abel Dashian, Center calmly replied. It is we who need you.

He gripped the rock tighter. “Then what good are you?” With all his might, Abel raised the rock over his head. He stepped toward the capsule. “Get out.”

You can’t harm the capsule, said Center. Not with a simple stone, Abel.

“Get out of me.”

A moment of silence. Then Raj’s deep voice, now tight with concern. His plan isn’t to hurt the capsule, Raj said. Abel, lad-

“You don’t scare me,” said Abel. Despite himself, he found himself laughing through his tears. “You don’t scare me, I’m the Carnadon Man.”

Then Abel brought the stone down hard upon his own head and fell into darkness.

3

When Abel awoke, he was looking at his reflection in still water. His head ached.

Not still water. Probably blood, he thought. My blood. I’m seeing my reflection in my own blood. Must be a lot of it.

He reached for the blood to see if it was still warm. Maybe this was what it was like to be dead.

His hand stopped against the shiny surface. He pushed harder. The water was solid, and it wasn’t water at all. More like stone. Smooth stone.

Abel sat up. He was surrounded by himself. He moved. Many other Abels moved with him.

Reflections. But there were dozens. It was as if he were inside a gem.

Where am I?

Abel stood up. He walked forward. One step, two. He ran into himself, nose to nose. Reached for his face. More smoothness.

Not blood, not reflecting water. This was a room made of looking glass. Mirrors. He’d only seen one once before. His mother’s friend Dagmar in Garangipore had a small glass she used to apply the kohl liner to her eyes. That she could do this without poking her eyes with the liner pencil had fascinated and scared Abel, and he’d liked to watch.

Yet this glass was different. Brighter. Completely reflective. Where did the light come from, anyway?

Suddenly Abel lashed out, swung at a wall as hard as he could with his fist.

Pain shot through his hand.

Ow!

Nothing, not the slightest effect on the wall. A smarting hand. Abel nursed it to his side while considering his next move.

It might help your plans for escape if you had some idea where you are, wouldn’t it, lad? And just who and what you are dealing with. The gruff voice had returned again. He hadn’t managed to smash it out of his skull after all.

Then, as a man might step through a waterfall at the Second Cataract (Abel had seen it happen once; there were caves behind the falls), a tall man with pale skin, dark hair, and a curly black beard stepped out of one of the mirrored walls and came to stand beside Abel. The man wore strange garb. Abel had never seen fabric so uniformly smooth. His own trousers and tunic were made from beaten flax fiber and always felt scratchy.

In addition to a shirt that covered his arms down to just below the elbow, the man wore not a well-bred man’s muslin trousers but the kind of baggy-legged pants that only beggars and wastelanders wore in the Land. These pants were stuffed into black boots of what looked like the finest herbidak leather Abel had ever seen. He wanted to touch those boots just to see if they were as supple as they looked.

“Hello, lad, I’m Raj Whitehall,” the man said. He gestured at the surrounding mirrored walls. “And this, all around us? This is Center.”

Greetings, Abel. The voice came from everywhere and nowhere in the mirrored room. We were concerned, but the danger has now passed. I am effecting repairs on the trauma your actions have cause to your brain. My efforts will allow you to avoid a convalescent period and, in fact, keep you from experiencing any ill effects at all, to a ninety-three percent probability.

“This is like the flying, isn’t it?” Abel said to Raj-mostly because he knew where to look when speaking to him. “It’s not really a…a simulation. This is a”-he searched for the new terminology, found it implanted-“mind- space.”