The Reforged Trilogy: Book 1 — Crucible of Stars
Chapter 16
Pillars of Light
“The faces of God are as many as the faces of his children scattered among the stars. But the demons of the hells, too, wear a multitude of faces. Open your heart to your fellow children of God, but be wary of a smile that seems too sweet.”
– The Books of Light (23 PA)
Compared to the vast megatropolises of the other Alliance worlds, Gharib was barely worthy of notice. It was a small city, without a single starscraper or even any buildings over twelve stories tall. Seen from the air, Gharib stretched out in a rough sandy circle, a great blemish against the uniform yellow-brown of the surrounding desert.
A dusty highway encircled the central marketplace, alive with vehicles whose individual styles and builds were invisible from Maeve’s altitude. The road was spanned by several footbridges, all constructed of the dun-colored siltstone that seemed to make up most of Stray. The stone was cheap and plentiful here, found all over the planet. It was the perfect building material for the often poor beings who came to Stray for a new start.
The dark cathedral of the Nihilists shimmered on the eastern horizon, wavering and dancing in the hot air like a sickly black flame. Maeve curled her wings into the wind and swooped down to land in front of the church.
A Mirran woman of middling years met Maeve at the door and led her inside the cathedral. She was tall, with dark skin and curly green-brown hair that fell in tangles down around her cheeks. A hood and veil of the same rough black cloth as her robes concealed most of the woman’s olive-striped face — except for her downcast eyes. She asked Maeve to wait and then vanished off into the gray shadows.
It was swelteringly hot inside the dark Nihilist cathedral. Maeve heard some hushed conversation and several fits of racking coughs. There was even the thick, wet sound of someone being noisily sick, but no hum of a cooling system. Sunlight filtered down through the windows of the spires and holes in the roof, creating amber pillars of light out of the dusty air.
The church was a single vast room, as far as Maeve could tell. Rusted ladders hung from the uneven ceiling like bones thrust out from the softened flesh of a rotting corpse, leading up into each of the four steeples. Old ropes dangled from chipped and cracked bells, barely within arm’s reach of the ladders. For anyone without wings, simply ringing the bells was a dangerous task.
Not that the Church of Nihil had any lack of wings… The huge room was filled with people. Maeve wasn’t able to make an accurate count where she stood, but she could take a guess. There must have been nearly two hundred beings huddled around makeshift tables constructed from stones and sheets of metal, sharing small meals or sitting against piles of fallen masonry, sleeping or perhaps simply too weary to move. Most wore the coarse black robes that seemed to be the cathedral’s uniform. Maeve caught sight of a Nihilist whose robes had been dyed a brilliant, ember red, but the man vanished into the crowd before Maeve could study him further.
At least half of those sprawled around the church were Arcadians, their pale skins muddy with sweat and dirt. Many of the gathered fairies dragging wings too injured to fly. They were scabrous and sickly-looking, great patches of feathers fallen out from malnutrition. A few of the other Arcadians raised their hands or wings to Maeve in greeting, but none made any further effort to welcome her.
A human of indeterminate lineage approached Maeve. He was quiet, perhaps out of respect for those sleeping inside the Nihilist cathedral, but more likely out of habit. None of them seemed very excitable. They all lay quietly, simply waiting for their deaths.
The man couldn’t have been much past thirty years old, but his brown hair was retreating across his scalp and his face was prematurely lined. He moved with a drunken, dreamy sway to his step, weaving between piles of refuse and sleeping bodies. His eyes had a distinct glaze to them and Maeve guessed that the Nihilist could barely even see her.
“Welcome to the godless house,” he said. “How may we serve you, child?”
“I am looking for the man who leads this church. Is that you?” Maeve asked.
This man’s voice, age and posture didn’t match what Maeve had seen the night before, but she wanted to be sure. The Nihilist shook his head.
“No. That was Lord Gavriel,” he answered. “He’s taught so many of us the true emptiness of being.”
“Who is he?” Maeve asked.
The man smiled at her. He was missing several of his teeth and the empty gaps stared like the blank eye-holes of some dead thing lying beside the road, left to rot in the sun.
“Gavriel is the founder and master of the Church of Nihil. His wisdom has brought comfort to many. He travels across all of Stray to spread his message.”
“His words have opened my eyes,” Maeve said. Convincingly, she hoped. “I would thank him myself.”
“Unfortunately, Gavriel left early this morning for Kharnig,” the Nihilist told her. “He won’t return for a several days.”
Maeve swore inwardly. She had already missed him. Whatever this church’s agenda was, it was surely the plan of their master, Gavriel. But Maeve made herself smile brightly back at the gap-toothed man.
“No matter,” she said. “It is not for pleasant company that I have come. I will thank Gavriel when he returns.”
“You’re welcome to join the Arcadians here. You and your kind have known so much pain. We can help you find your death.”
“I long for such an ending,” Maeve said.
The words came easily and naturally.
The Nihilist — who introduced himself as Bren — found Maeve a corner where a piece of siding was propped up against a heap of trash and sand. Bren left her there, pleading some other errand, but assured her that he would return.
Maeve folded her wings along her back to protect her from the heat and leaned against the sand. She needed time to gather her thoughts. Did she need to wait for Gavriel or could Bren tell her if the Church of Nihil was a danger to Kessa? Maeve wasn’t sure… Bren’s glazed eyes and drunken stagger didn’t inspire much confidence. Even if the man had been trusted with important knowledge, there was no guarantee that he could recall it.
Gavriel was already gone, but with only a few hours’ head start. Maeve contemplated flying after the Nihilist leader, chasing the man down and wresting his secrets from him. But she discarded the idea. Maeve was not a skilled tracker. Even a century ago, when she was still an honored knight of a flourishing kingdom, her brother had led their hunts. Caith’s eyes had been just as sharp as his mind. There was almost nothing clever, sweet Caith couldn’t do.
Almost.
Maeve’s eyes were dry in the cloying, close heat of the cathedral. She was certain they would shrivel up in their sockets like raisins before long. Maeve rubbed her face. She had to think, figure out what to do next, but memories — more than a century in their graves — wouldn’t leave her alone.
“Highness, please. Listen to me!” Orthain said.
He took Maeve by the shoulder and spun her to face him. They were on one of the broad green tourney fields, Aes’ brilliant light glowing off their glass armor. Maeve’s plate mail was as intricately wrought as lace, covered in delicate scrollwork of deep red and glittering gold. She clasped her spear in white-knuckled fingers.
“Your words are treason, Sir Fyre!” the princess said. Her cheeks were pricked with a dark flush and her voice was shaking.
“Treason? Maeve, I only want to protect you and your brother!”
Orthain’s beautiful golden hair was unbound, falling in wild curls that hearkened back to the Arcadians’ ancient days as free creatures of the skies. His eyes blazed and his fine fingers tightened on Maeve’s shoulders. The glass of his armor clinked against hers.
“Highness, Erris sings a unique song for each of us. Your song — and mine — is that of a knight. But not Caith. He has a keen mind and a sharp eye, but no talent for the spear. He is a danger to himself and anyone around him. Caith is not meant to be a knight and tries only for you!”
“Enough!” Maeve said. “Caith will be a knight. You just want to take my brother away from me!”
She raised her hand to hit Orthain and he caught her wrist. He held it firmly, but gently as a bird that he worried would injure itself with its panicked thrashing. Maeve dropped her spear and tried to lash out again, but the older knight easily deflected the punch again. It was not for his beauty that Orthain had been knighted.
“You are a skilled knight, princess,” Orthain told her. His voice was thick. “You have not been my squire for years, yet you return to me for teaching and I… would be lying if I said that I do not eagerly anticipate every lesson. It has been my privilege and joy to serve you, Highness.”
Orthain pulled her against him. Their crystalline breastplates rang at the contact and Orthain wrapped his wings around Maeve. She was furious, but there was more to her racing heart than that. Maeve had adored Orthain since she was a little girl, watching the handsome young knight in training with her father. Her decades learning under Orthain had sometimes been more than she could bear.
“I would never take your brother away, Highness,” Orthain said. “But I fear that is exactly what will happen if his love for you forces him into knighthood. Caith cannot survive on the battlefield, princess, and I would not see him taken from you.”
Maeve sagged against Orthain and she rested her cheek on the cool glass of his armor. Orthain was right, of course. She could not make Caith become a knight just for her, and she couldn’t be angry at Orthain for telling her so.
“Thank you for your honesty, Sir Fyre,” Maeve said. “I am sorry that I did not listen better, but I will speak to Caith. As knights, we might have been able to serve together, but it seems that our paths must part…”
Orthain released Maeve and smiled down at her.
“If you are feeling a little more receptive to my advice, Highness,” he said, “I have an idea to let you remain with your brother.”
“What is it?” Maeve asked.
Orthain trailed the glass fingertips of his gauntlet along her jaw and Maeve’s breath caught.
“I will tell you… if you will please call me by my given name,” he said.
The princess blinked. Knights did not call each other by their first names, not unless their relationship was one other than that of professional peers. Did he mean…?
“I will call you Orthain,” Maeve said, “if you will call me yours.”
Orthain smiled and hooked his finger under Maeve’s chin, lifting her face to his. He kissed her.
“Until the Nameless takes me, Maeve,” he whispered against her lips.
By that afternoon, Maeve still hadn’t decided what to do. When it grew too hot, she rose from her resting spot and wandered aimlessly around the church, pondering her next step.
Bren didn’t seem to be the only priest in the black cathedral. Half a dozen other men and women moved about the church with a purposeful stride and spent most of their time with the sickest of their congregation, but didn’t administer any kind of treatment that Maeve could see. Instead, they sat beside the dying, giving smiling encouragement as though illness were some great achievement and offering their congratulations.
The Nihilists were friendly… in their way. When Maeve asked, they shared stories of misery, abuse and hopelessness with the heedless, tired cheer of the terminally ill. Most were sick, racked by disease or chemical use. Many of them were dying. A group of other Arcadians invited Maeve to join them around a dented metal bowl. Something inside was burning, filling and overflowing the dish with sweet-smelling smoke. Maeve considered for a moment, then declined and moved on.
As the day wore on, more converts trickled through the cathedral doors. Each was greeted by one of the priests and shown to a squalid patch of their own. Some of them left once they realized that last night’s persuasive speaker wasn’t there, but most remained and joined the sickly congregation, like Maeve had. Bren visited each who stayed, chatting with the newcomers for a minute or two before wandering away again.
Maeve watched and listened. The priest’s eyes weren’t quite as glassy and distant as she had first thought. Bren didn’t seem wholly devoted to the task of welcoming the new Nihilists, but the princess suspected that his mind was not gone — just elsewhere. Bren was looking at the Nihilist converts with bright eyes, inspecting each of them closely.
Hours passed and the dusty pillars of light began their slanting westward march. Maeve perched on a pile of crumbled siltstone, studying Bren.
The priest spent mere moments with a plump Lyran woman who held a bundle of torn puppy clothes to her breast, but lingered beside a gaunt Dailon with a blood-stained bandage tangled in his ragged black hair. A Hyzaari man with wide, sad green eyes merited scarcely a glance, while Bren stared at a jittery skeleton of an Arcadian woman for almost an hour. Bren eyed the open red sores on her exposed skin with frank admiration.
Bren was gauging their health, separating those who were dying from the ones who were merely ill. Those closest to their final breath were guided to places in the middle of the cathedral floor, laid down on dirty beds and pillows in plain view of the congregation. Was it some kind of… worship? Gavriel had spoken so lovingly of death. It followed, then, that his church would put it on reverent display.
Maeve didn’t know how to feel. She had longed for death since the fall of the White Kingdom. Why should the practices of the Church of Nihil bother her? The Arcadian waved her question away for the moment. She was here to perform a duty, one of vital importance to Kessa and her unborn child. Maeve returned her attentions to Bren.
He knelt beside a reclining woman, an Ixthian whose silver skin was so fragile that it bruised and bled at the priest’s lightest touch. Radiation sickness? Her eyes burned with a feverish ember light. The Nihilist priest brandished his bloody fingers to the small crowd gathered around the dying woman. He was saying something, but his voice didn’t carry to Maeve’s pointed ears. The circle of watchers seemed to agree, though, nodding to one another and murmuring.
Maeve turned toward the sound of footsteps. It was the same Mirran woman who had brought her into the cathedral earlier that day. She had removed her black hood and veil to reveal dry lips and a crooked nose, broken at some point in the past. She held a basin covered by a relatively clean towel and carried it with painstaking care across the church’s uneven dirt floor. Maeve beckoned to her.
The woman approached slowly, not raising her gaze up from the floor.
“Do you need something?” she asked.
“Only conversation and perhaps answers to some small questions,” Maeve said. “May I ask your name?”
“Elsa,” the Mirran answered quietly.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence and then Maeve realized that she was expecting a name in return. No one else in the cathedral had asked.
“I am… Shae,” Maeve told Elsa.
It was a common name in the White Kingdom. Translated into Aver, one of its meanings was night — though it had many other translations. Shae was the reverent form of the word, usually used when demurring to use Cavain’s true name. He was said to have carried divine blood, born of Aes Sky-Dancer herself. Stories said that early courtiers were so awed by the half-divine Cavain that they couldn’t bring themselves to call their king by his birth name. So for his midnight hair, they called him Shae. In the millennia since those days, the title had become a popular name among the noble houses of Arcadia and was supposed to grant good luck.
“Shae?” Elsa asked. Her gaze crept up Maeve’s green silk dress. To judge by the covetous hunger in her brown eyes, it was probably the single most expensive thing she had ever seen. “Isn’t that name from the rich fairy families?”
“You are very well versed in Arcadian culture,” Maeve said with sincere surprise. “Most in the core have difficulty telling us apart, much less remembering our naming traditions.”
“Lots of fairies come here,” the other woman answered. “And I like them.”
“You… do?” Maeve asked, even more shocked.
No one in the core liked Arcadians. But there was something strange and sincere about how Elsa said it, slowly and almost childishly… The Mirran woman nodded.
“They have such sad stories to tell. Your kingdom was beautiful, but now it’s all gone. Eaten.” Elsa looked curiously at Maeve. “Some of them let us sleep under their wings when it gets cold at night. There aren’t enough blankets for everyone, not unless a lot more people die. Some fairies came here with pretty clothes like yours, but I think your world was very warm because the cloth is quite thin. They had to get robes and some of the nice ones gave me their dresses. Lord Gavriel says I’m not allowed to wear them here, but I like looking at them.”
“I hoped to ask you about that priest there,” Maeve said, trying to get Elsa back on track. She pointed across the cathedral floor to Bren.
The Mirran nodded. “That’s Doctor Bren. He’s very smart. Bren runs things when Lord Gavriel is gone. He watches the sick and hurt ones, reminds them that the end is good and helps them die.”
“How exactly does Bren help? Does he administer medicine to ease their pain?”
Elsa’s eyes went wide and she shook her head emphatically, as though Maeve suggested something terrible. “Oh, no. Nothing like that! Death is a release and pain is the gateway, Lord Gavriel says. We don’t drug the dying ones here. We honor them.”
Elsa paused, visibly rewinding the conversation in her mind to recall Maeve’s original question. She smiled when she finally remembered.
“Bren helps us die if we’re impatient,” Elsa said, setting down her covered bowl and gesturing around the church.
“You mean suicide?” Maeve asked.
“Yes. It’s hard to let go of living. I’m not ready yet… But when I am, Doctor Bren will help. It takes time, but when we’re ready, Bren is very good at helping us die. He was a doctor in one of the big colonies on Quarrus until he came here.”
“But Quarrus is on the other side of the Alliance, far from Stray. How did he end up here?”
Elsa shrugged. “I think Lord Gavriel knows. Maybe Bren is sick, too… His teeth fall out sometimes. I don’t ask. I just carry things. I should probably be doing that again.”
The green-haired woman picked up her covered bowl with a shy, sheepish expression. She held it carefully in her hands and moved to leave. Maeve hesitated, then called out Elsa’s name. The Mirran turned back.
“Elsa, why are you in this place?” Maeve asked.
Timid and kind as she was, Elsa didn’t seem much like a death worshiper. There were still joys in her life, if only sad stories and pretty clothes. Elsa thought for a long, ponderous moment before answering.
“I lived on Giadeen most of my life,” she said at last. “I grew up there and met a man. He was a traveler and he was beautiful, so we were married. He brought me with him on his ship and we flew away from Giadeen together. But I found out that he wasn’t as nice as I thought.”
Elsa pushed back her thick, curly hair. There was a terrible scar on her temple, the mark of a blow so violent that it had left an indentation in the skull beneath.
“My husband didn’t love me very much. He hit me when he was angry,” Elsa said. There was no anger in her voice, just the regret of one remembering something she lost long ago. “Sometimes with his hands, but once with a welder and everything went all red. It took months to heal and… things were harder after that. Bren says he damaged my brain.”
Maeve swallowed hard. “I am sorry for what was done to you.”
“We flew here, to Stray. When my husband landed and went into the city to buy some things, I ran away. I didn’t know where to go, but I thought that sleeping in the sand was better than being hit again. Some fairies helped me. They didn’t grant wishes like the stories about the Fair Ones that my mama told me, but they were kind. They gave me food and a warm place to sleep, then they brought me here. They’re dead now. Bren helped them die. I miss them sometimes.”
“Did your husband ever come in search of you?” Maeve asked.
“Yes, I think so,” Elsa said. “I heard him at the door once, late at night, yelling to see me. I was hiding, but then I heard Lord Gavriel talking to him. Gavriel said some strange things in words I didn’t know. Arcadian words. There was more shouting, and then nothing. Lord Gavriel came back inside with a pretty silver knife, but it was all bloody. He looked very angry, but he promised that my husband would never hurt me again.”
“Gavriel killed him?”
Elsa shrugged again and fiddled with the corner of the towel draped over her bowl. “I… I think so. Now I really need to get back to work.”
“I beg your pardon and thank you for your time, Elsa,” Maeve apologized.
The Mirran smiled and left with the bowl. Stray’s ancient red sun was setting again, turning the slanting pillars of light a ruby color that faded quickly as the holes in the cathedral’s ceiling went dim. Maeve pulled her wings around her shoulders against the cold creeping into the Nihilist church and shivered. The remote silver specks of stars were beginning to show themselves through gaps in the roof. They were dimmer and fewer than above Axis. Almost like the deep black skies of her home in Arcadia, so far away from the billions of suns in the galactic core.
What now? Elsa’s comment about clothing concerned Maeve. Not because she was worried about the skittish Mirran trying to steal from her, but because Gavriel had forbidden Elsa to wear her gifts. If the Nihilist renounced luxuries like fine clothes, then what good was Maeve’s deception? They clearly had no need for money and probably not for anything Maeve could tempt them with.
She spread her wings and flew to an outcropping of corrugated metal. What was there to spend Alliance color on here, anyway? The cathedral seemed to be built from cast-off blocks of stone and ship siding. It was rough and unfinished, but the Nihilists didn’t seem to care. And why should they? Death was the only thing of importance in this place. The Nihilists could die on the side of the road just as well as in a lavish citadel. Maeve’s façade as a wealthy but morose Arcadian philanthropist would get her nowhere.
But Maeve had no intention of leaving empty handed. If Stray wasn’t a safe world for Kessa, it would take time and effort to find another. Maeve wasn’t convinced that most of the Nihilists cared enough about anything to pose a danger to Kessa, but what about their shadowy and eloquent leader, Gavriel?
That chapter of Elsa’s story didn’t sit well with Maeve, either. Gavriel was clearly willing to kill, at least when a problem came shouting to his doorstep. And Elsa said that she had heard Gavriel speaking in Arcadian. But Elsa’s husband wasn’t a fairy and their language was not widely known. After a century in the Alliance, even Maeve used Arcadian infrequently. She only spoke her native tongue when the Aver word simply would not do. Or when singing a spell, of course.
And why did Gavriel use a knife? Even the endlessly machine-honed nanoblades were fairly archaic weapons by Alliance standards. So why not a gun? Avoiding noise, perhaps? But null-inertia projectiles made almost no sound except a small snapping from the ignition of the powder, and a muffled thump of displaced air as the bullet left the gun and the null-field.
Lasers were silent, though Alliance law required manufacturers to install sound generators. Most models, like Logan’s Talon-9, used a high-pitched whine or pulse. Tiberius had told Maeve once that the sound was a silly choice. Lasers had made such noises in their ancient stories and shows, long before the weapons’ actual invention. So those were the sound effects the makers gave them.
But the generators could be programmed with other sounds, sometimes intended to make the weapon seem either more or less frightening. Maeve had heard gossip of pirates or bounty hunters remodeling their lasers to emit anything from the mew of a kitten to agonized screams.
But Gavriel had engaged Elsa’s mate in a shouting fight. Clearly, noise wasn’t a concern. Maeve would have liked to ask Bren about the incident with Elsa’s husband, but she didn’t want to arouse any suspicion. A devout Nihilist would never question death, only celebrate another life passed into unbeing. But Maeve recalled the scar hidden under Elsa’s curly hair and admitted to herself that she was not weeping for the loss of her husband.
The evening was as sharp and chilly as the silver blade in Elsa’s story. Sounds of coughing and chattering teeth filled the Church of Nihil. How many Nihilists would die here tonight, of starvation and illness hastened by the cold? Their icy corpses were the altars of the Nihilist’s twisted faith and would be celebrated in the morning.
Could Maeve help them…? But she quickly dismissed the idea. These people came here to die, and Maeve was supposed to be one of them. She pulled her wings around her and fell into uneasy sleep.
