Sunset over Shalereef: the amber light of the sun's final
moments warming a sky of pale, jade green, catching striations of cirrus clouds
strung across the roof of the world like ethereal bunting, turning the smoky
waters of the ocean into an obsidian mirror and sending a cooling breeze across
its ruffled surface, to lap waves at Ellis' feet and tousle his hair as he
stood on the debris-strewn shoreline. In
the nine months since they had defeated Lakhma such moments had never ceased to
fill him with elation, yet also melancholy.
There was a subtle sorrow to such beauty, to the chiaroscuro of an
evening shore and the oceans seemingly infinite expanse - the horizon only a
relative limitation, a matter of Ellis' own perspective.
Somewhere
out there, he thought, Siren sails through crystal shoals, over shadowy depths
and amidst schools of glasswhales, whilst I linger here. Her freedom is my imprisonment. Would it have been so bad the other way
around?
The
salty breeze began to sting his eyes as the evening chilled around him, a sign
that he should turn back, return to the colony.
There would be yet more work to do before bed.
As
always, the first sight to greet his eyes as he turned away from the ocean was
the terrible extent of the ruin before him.
Even after all these months, Shalereef was still a dead zone. Razed to the ground in most places by the bombardment
from Tiberius' fleet, little stood of the old district but the sheltered haven
of Templeshade and the region on the opposite hill near the Grand Chateau von
Spektr, number seven Tentacle Lane, the area they had begun to call the Colony.
The
Colony was where the rebuilding effort had begun, creating a small, makeshift
settlement in the midst of a wilderness of rubble. It had been populated and constructed by some
of the remnants of the crew of the Absolution, by the few survivors of
Shalereef's destruction and by those who had come from other districts, excited
by what they had heard.
And
excited they should be, Ellis thought, as he began to walk up the partially
cleared street towards the top of the hill, where the Colony stood proud. In a city as old and ubiquitous as Shadow
there was rarely the possibility for a clean start such as this. You could move districts, of course, find
yourself somewhere completely new, but always you would become part of an
existing society and all the old rules, however unfamiliar, would become yours. The Colony was a rare chance to start from
scratch, to make the rules up as you went and that appealed to many in the
surrounding districts. They came in ones
and twos to begin with, then in small groups and, finally, in crowds. As a consequence the population of the
Colony, and the Colony itself, was now growing daily.
Ellis
was proud of his part in the work. He
did not lead - it had been a long time since he thought that was his role in
life - but he worked hard to carry out the orders of those who did, whose
talents lay in making plans and organisation, more than in carrying out the
labour, although few hands remained unsullied by dust, unsplintered by wood,
uncalloused by work.
The
ultimate leader of this project was, of course, the Former Baron. There were some, even, who wanted to restore
his title to its fullness, declaring him the Baron of the Colony, but Von
Spektr always demurred, reminding them that, however much he might dislike it,
Tiberius Von Spektr was still the current Baron and as long as he resided in
the true Grand Chateau Von Spektr in the village estate of Mistsrise in the
Borough, that was not going to change.
Ellis suspected he had become rather proud of the more unique title
anyway.
As he
drew nearer to the Colony its unusual skyline became more clear - a network of
scaffolding and wooden gangways linking half-finished buildings to those
already established, seeming to spiral out from the sagging rooftop of the
'Grand Chateau'. And towards the summit
of that part of the hill, the steadily growing steeple, wooden and patchwork
though it was, of their tiny little church.
That brought a smile all of its own.
It was
Sarah's idea initially, and one which was not without its fair share of
opposition. The religion which she now
espoused was not a familiar one on Shadow, though Ellis was surprised and
intrigued to discover that it was not totally unheard of. Still it was agreed that there should be some
sort of place of peace and contemplation, somewhere people could go to talk through
their problems and seek something beyond the day-to-day, material aspects of
their lives and, gradually, as Sarah began to fulfil a kind of pastoral role
amongst the colonists, they rallied to her cause over the few other competing
suggestions.
And of
course she had help now, too. Just over
a month after word starting getting out that people were rebuilding the
district of Shalereef, Theophilus had turned up with a collection of other
unusual creatures needing homes. Ellis
had befriended the rare six-winged serpent
during his short captivity as part of Valter Kerring's circus and he had
been delighted to see him again, but not as delighted as Theophilus had been to
discover that he shared his esoteric (for Shadow) belief system with another in
the Colony. He had Sarah became
practically inseparable, until a few weeks ago when he, and a few of his other
non-human friends, had left the Colony to go searching for something. Sarah had been sad, but also eager. Ellis could only wonder what it was the
serpent sought.
Yes,
seeing the church definitely raised a smile, but not because Ellis had any
belief himself - he didn't really know what he believed, although his time in
Shadow had certainly opened his eyes to myriad possibilities, perhaps too many. No, the reason he found himself smiling every
time he saw the patchwork spire rising up
above the Colony was because it reminded him of how strong, capable and
yet also nurturing Sarah had become in her new role. He was proud of her, even if he didn't fully
understand it all. Perhaps he didn't
have to, although he imagined she would say differently.
The
pathway between rubble which had once been a street, and hopefully would be
once again, stretched on up the hill away from him and Ellis took his time,
lost in his thoughts.
Sarah
sat in the candle-lit sanctuary of the church and, with a soft 'amen' lifted
her head from her silent prayers. The
room, simply decorated and furnished with mismatched chairs and benches taken
from the ruins, was starting to grow cold with the onset of night and neither
the candle flames, nor the worn jacket Sarah had pulled over her shoulders,
were doing much to make it any more comfortable. Still, she sat where she was, unmoving, just
gazing at the tiny lights all around her.
They were soothing, somehow.
The
Former Baron had offered to rig the new church up with hypostatick lighting,
but Sarah had declined. She wanted the
sanctuary to be just that, a place of quiet reflection and escape from the rest
of the Colony, without the hum of powered lights. Besides, the candles were so wonderfully
mundane - as useful and plausible on Earth as they were on Shadow - and yet
also mysterious. She imagined that Jen's
friend Maria could have told her all about the physics of fire, but she doubted
that it would take away any of a flame's hypnotic fascination.
"Aren't
you cold?"
Sarah
turned to see Theophilus slithering in through the doorway.
"Oh,"
she said, smiling, "I hadn't expected you back so soon. I thought you'd be away for months!"
The
serpent made his way up the aisle towards her, curling himself around the end
of the bench she sat on and leaning forward, to peer into her eyes in that
hypnotic way of his.
"So
did I," he said, "but it turned out to be a simpler journey than I
had imagined."
She
could barely contain her excitement as she too leaned forward and asked,
"You found it then? You found
another copy of the book?"
Theophilus
nodded. "I followed the clues
Barnabas had left in his notebook and they led me to the district of
Meadowrise. From there is was quite easy
to find his old house. He had been quite
well known and, even now it seems, is sadly missed."
"And
everything was still there?"
"Well,
mostly. He had a niece who idolised him
and, well, after he didn't come home from his mission to Mistvale, that only
intensified. As soon as she came of age
she took possession of the house and turned it into... into a museum of sorts,
I suppose."
"Did
she let you take it then?"
"Yes,
actually. She was eager to finally learn
what had become of her beloved uncle and, despite my unfortunate connection to
his death, she understood that I had been a friend and she was keen to help. In fact, she didn't just give me permission
to take the book, she's planning to visit herself, and she's going to bring an
awful lot more copies with her. She's
involved in a church herself, you see, in Meadowrise, the one Barnabas went
to!"
Sarah
nearly wept. It was almost
overwhelming. She took a few deep
breaths and then said, "Oh, this is perfect," after she had managed
to contain her emotions just a little.
"Do you have it with you?" she asked. "Can I see it?"
Theophilus
grinned, then uncoiled part of his long, slender body to reveal a sort of
basket he had made of himself, inside of which was a small, read, leather-bound
book. Sarah could just make out the
faded letters embossed into its surface which read, 'Holy Bible'.
She
reached out a tentative hand, let it touch the cover, then, more boldly, picked
it up and opened it at random. She found
herself staring at a section of the book of Psalms.
"You
know, I never thought I'd see one of these again," Theophilus was
saying. "I lost the copy Barnabas
had on him when died during my capture and in the years since..."
Sarah
skimmed backwards through the book.
There was so much of it, so much she realised now that she desperately
wanted to read and understand. The last
time she had seen one had been just a few days before she had gone to the lab
that final time. She had been reading it
with Thomas beside her, his warmth a constant physical comfort even as she
dealt with the mental discomfort of realigning her thoughts about so many
things. Seeing the bible in her hands
brought back so many similar memories that, for the first time in months, she
ached to see him again, to be home once more.
But
the words on the page were more than mere nostalgia. They had meaning, of that she was sure and
she hoped they were what she needed for her strange, fledgling faith – all the
stranger still now she was leading a small church of enquirers who were even
more unchurched than she. A verse leapt
out at her. ‘The heavens are Yours, the earth also is Yours; You have founded the world
and its fullness.’ And yet here I am on another world.
Did you found this one too?
She flicked back a few more pages, then a few more, and again, until
suddenly she realised she was staring at the publishing information at the
front. Her mouth dropped open.
“What’s wrong?”
Theophilus asked, leaning in to see what had got her looking so confused.
“Just how long
have these Bibles been around, do you think?”
“I have no idea,
but the church in Meadowrise was founded about forty years ago, I think. Why?”
“Because
apparently this was published in Lafayette, Indiana.”
The
Former Baron was frantic. He was pacing
around his library, now transferred into a new, purpose built, if somewhat
amateurish edifice for all in the Colony to access and use, tugging at the
wisps of hair escaping from his impossibly tall hat and muttering the sort of
obscenities usually only found in the margins of ancient texts on the arcane
and eldritch cults of bygone eras.
"By
Yuk-Natath's teeth," he complained, "by Horg'khenevvv's beady eyes,
by Lakhma's... well, perhaps we'll skip that one... by the pernicious,
whip-like appendages of the nameless devil of the tribes of Howlingheath - the
function of which is obscene - what the ancient, unutterable terror has
happened to my copy of Howard's Lesser Almanack!"
"Perhaps
you left it by your bathtub, again?" Annabella suggested from her place at
the reading table. She looked up only
very briefly from the illustrated copy of Curyious Beastes which had had her
attention for most of the afternoon.
"No,
no, no, no!" the old Philosopher fumed, "I never leave anything by
the bathtub - at least not since my copy of Slime Moulds and Other Lower Forms
acquired somewhat more graphic depictions of its subject matter than the author
had intended sitting next to my flannel and Scrubby Duck."
Annabella's
lips twitched at the mention of the bathtime toy, which the Former Baron had
produced, ostensibly for her benefit, but which, she was sure, he had put to
use far more often.
"No,
it absolutely must be here somewhere," he proclaimed, "unless,"
he tapped his chin, "unless I loaned it to Miss Featherwhite. It has a very good recipe for cheese scones
in it, if I recall correctly."
"Miss
Featherwhite passed away three weeks ago," Annabella replied, no longer
bothering to look up from the artfully gilded and coloured pages.
"Oh
yes, of course. Nothing to do with the
scones I'm sure... Might it have been
passed on to an heir?"
"She
gave it back. Don't you ever check the
lending book?"
"The
lending book..." Franck pondered quietly.
"The lending book... the lending book!" His eyes lit up. "My girl, that's it! Did you know you really are a genius!"
"It's
just over there," she said, pointing towards the Library's cluttered main
desk, "where it always is."
"Of
course, of course!" He scurried
over to the desk, but paused very suddenly midway, hunching over slightly as if
he was in pain. A slight groan escaped
his mouth.
"Are
you okay?" Annabella asked, poised to drop her book and run over to him,
but the old man was already straightening up.
"Of
course I'm okay, my dear!" he said, sounding as if he were cross she had
considered any alternative, "I think I just undercooked an egg this
morning, or something like that."
"I
cooked your eggs this morning."
"Yes,
well. As I said, something like
that!"
He
found the book he had been looking for underneath a pile of badly printed
pamphlets (their printing press, recovered from the ruins of an old bookshop,
had occasional difficulties with the letters Q and V - inconvenient when
publicising an educational event on language of the lost district of Qr'vaqq'ts
Vasqs, even if the only one who was in anyway likely to attend was the Former
Baron himself) and immediately began skimming through the pages to find what he
wanted.
"Ah,
yes, here it is," he began pulling a heavily creased piece of paper out
from between two greenish, stained pages, "wedged just where I left it
between the lunar algae calendar and the guide to white-washing a shed."
"What
were you looking for?" Annabella asked out of politeness.
"It's
a to-do list from two months ago. I just
remembered I hadn't crossed everything off it!" He skimmed the list with a finger, tutting as
he went.
"Oh
my," he said, a look of sudden horror crossing his face, "I forgot to
feed the slow-wyrms, they'll be ravenous!"
"I
didn't even know we had any, but, if it was a couple of months ago, won't they
be dead? "
"Oh, goodness no, not slow-wyrms. They'll just be sleepy, and then tremendously
grumpy. Perhaps I could ask someone else
to do it..."
There
was a creak as the front door opened.
Annabella turned away from the panicking former noble to see Ellis
stepping in from the gloaming.
"Ah,
Allspice!" the Former Baron cried out at once, "what perfect
timing!"
Ellis
cocked his head in a question, then turned it on Annabella, always knowing that
it would be she would be most likely to make sense. She merely giggled, however, so the look
returned to the Former Baron, grinning as he was by the desk.
"Quick, go fetch some protective clothing; I have a job
for you, my boy!"
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