Sister Young managed to set her desk down on a table before her knees gave out and she collapsed onto the flooring of her outer room. She remained there for some time, shaking violently. The touch of the wyrm had frightened her. More than that, her complete incompetency to enact her mission frightened her. There was nothing in those animal eyes but fire.
She did not understand.
Finding the ship’s second lieutenant so compromised seemed a disturbing portent. Though perhaps it was the continuation of the emissary’s continual habit of addressing anyone else over Sister Young. But what was happening? Her order stated that she must collect his account of the experience and yet against her long dedication, Sister Young found herself chaffing. Would not the second lieutenant now spin the same yarn of ‘knowing’ and ‘truth’ that she had been trying and failing to detangle since first she spoke with the passengers?
The Theta Martian ministers would claim poisoning, and consider his testimony invalid, insane ramblings. Was she to do the same? Without definitive proof for or against the clause of the blood?
Her shaking had ebbed from fear into a chill. She picked herself off the panels, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and brewed a pot of tea. Couched uncomfortably in her hardback chair she shivered and sipped from her cup that had very quickly lost the power of its heat, unpacking the jumbled pages of her report. She thought bitterly that perhaps it was better to leave them. Perhaps in their randomness they held intelligible conclusions.
Are you a wyrm?
In part.
She gave us her promise.
A war against one man and an army of beasts.
I have reason to believe the woman and the wyrm are linked.
It gets in the psyche.
I wonder if you would say the same if they had mutilated and murdered human children.
Theta Mars is only dangerous if one assumes they know it.
He might have been the only one looking.
Ruling was never her design.
A human mind is entirely capable of comprehension.
Is the blood of significance?
You know of the disaster at Gideon?
The human colony was informed that their presence on Theta Mars was no longer tolerated.
The blood cannot lie, Sister Young.
She sat back, folded her hands around her cup. There was something almost sacrosanct in the demeanour of those who had had it. The black ichor through which the wyrm speaks.
The disaster at Gideon was a research expedition that ended in catastrophe. It was often cited as the inciting action of the ‘war.’ The first unprompted aggression against the colony that the wyrms engaged in. Though it was regularly paraded around parliament councils, the details remained the dry, sparse account drawn up by Capstone Industries private research team, only made public when allusion to the disaster was made in the Expulsion decree.
A private research team took over observations at Gideon after the untimely death of the old keeper, Master Denivou, in the same laboratory fire that claimed his last apprentice, James Haddock. The nest, named for the gold drake who served it as sire for one hundred and eight years, the equivalent of nine clutches, was occupied by the drake and his new mate, a red who had been recorded as human curious. She was the creature who had bestowed on Haddock his identifying scar.
In the careful, blanketing words of the report, a wide scale survey of wyrmling health was attempted. The planned survey was invasive, entering the active territory of the nest site and the above ground kresh of the wyrmlings. Under the current legislation, which had remained unchallenged for the colonies entire existence, such an act was illegal.
It was never completed.
The mother wyrm, in retaliation to the disruption of her nest site, hunted and killed nearly the entire research team and burned to the ground a nearby settlement. None of her hatchlings survived the botched experiment. What had killed them was listed only as ‘disruption of natural habits.’
Theta Martian occupation had been long ago delineated by a non-interaction clause. The proto-sapient wyrms were to be undisturbed, studied through observation only, until a comprehensive ruling could be made. The colony never requested universal support, and never released a report to request a ruling on. For a hundred and fifty years the colony progressed in limbo, under provisional study.
The disaster at Gideon was recorded on their monolith commemorating the fallen. The red was classified as dangerous and aggressive, and a ruling was underway in parliament to invoke a man-eater euthanasia order against her. And lo; the devil appeared. She was the Inferno That Consumes All, Empress of Theta Mars, and at her shoulder was a dead man with a wyrm name and an uncomfortable proclamation.
Sister Young rose from her seat and paced.
There was something missing. The same as she had noted when she first opened the records, before her transport had even reached the orbital, before she had listened to one word from any of the colonists. A deliberate, careful excision of detail. The voice of the wyrm.
Sister Young folded her blanket and returned it to her bunk. She put away the remnants of her tea and made right the contents of her desk. In this she did not hurry, reviewing every scrap of her materials, receiving again, anew, all that she had heard and seen. Confirming that she was not mistaken. She was not. Long hours later she was sure in her uncertainty. Something was missing.
She disrobed and performed her ablutions, cleaning body and raiment as must always precede the cleaning of the mind. She donned the underlayer of her order robes, the vestments of the acolyte, draped her head in Humility and went from her quarters into the ship.
She did not bring her desk with her, nor blank recyc, nor graphite.
Sister Young was born on the Grand Array. She was trained in the monastery of Understanding from childhood. She was ordained at majority and had so served ever since. Her duty was a holy one, her work a blessing the future would praise. As was human, she had always faced doubts. On this mission it seemed, she had more than ever.
Divine Messenger was a ship unrivaled in quality. In all aspects this was so, no less, in the outfitting of its chapel.
Sister Young exchanged bows with the monk of Right Being in the chantry, the ever singing chimes precluded speech—though between them none was needed. She had come in the Humility of a petitioner.
He led Sister Young through the dim colonnade of the Tonal Resolution to the inner vestibule. Here they parted with another exchange of bows. As the doors to the Resonance closed behind the monk, they shut out all sound.
Sister Young passed through the Vestibule, into the Crystal Array, the stones in their suspensions spiraling up and around her dwarfed form. It was dark here, but for the light as the stones oscillated to each minute vibration of her movement.
She knelt in the centre of the ship’s Cochlea, hands folded, eyes upcast, peering through Humility to the Dim Beyond. Sister Young was a Paragon of her order. She had served as the Eyes of Mozark for many diligent cycles, and as such had gained what few, even of her order, had. When doubts assailed her, when accounts became muddled and details alluded transcription, Sister Young, who was the Empress’ eyes, would whisper her fears as solemn prayers, into the Empress’ ear.
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“To she who listens,” Sister Young began, speaking softly in the temple dialect of the Heart Star, of which all language was derived. “To she who watches, to she who speaks, to she who builds, to she who governs, to she who judges. To she who is humble, to she who is patient, to she who is compassionate, to she who loves.” As the prayers tumbled from her the stones danced and gleamed. Otoliths in their plasm. Sister Young never knew if her prayers reached the Empress directly, or were first codified, catalogued, weighed and accurately filed by another monk of her order, but she knew they reached her somehow, for on occasion they were answered.
“This humble supplicant is called Sarah Young of Learning. She acts on your behalf aboard the ship Divine Messenger, who ferries to your Grand Array the emissary of Theta Mars.” Sister Young found the glittering otoliths comforting. They seemed the myriad stars to her, the happenings of all within Mozark’s domain.
“She understood that Theta Mars had meant to send one being, but… there are two aboard. A woman and a wyrm.” As the word passed her throat she thought almost that she could smell the creature, taste its dry musk on her tongue. Her eyes traced the still darkness of the chamber despite her mind’s self chastisement for foolishness. “Your servant listens and makes record, though there is much strife aboard this ship. The emissary tells her that she will speak only to your majesty, while around her Theta Martians feud and trade bile.” she paused, mistaking for a moment the sparkling of an otolith for movement in her periphery. “There is something in the past that went unrecorded, your servant believes. A voice that has been made silent, or perhaps never spoke at all. She can see it, on the margins of the histories, and in the blanks of the records. The shadow of the wyrm.”
The last phrase came louder than it should have, the chamber flooded momentarily as otoliths reacted. Their holy gleam reflecting off the iridescent scales, collecting in the widened pupils of fractal eyes.
Sister Young closed her hands over a scream that would have deafened the ear. The otoliths fell dark, the wyrm swallowed completely by the gloom of the chamber. She no longer believed she had imagined the scent of it, though her mind reeled, seeking for some explanation as to how it could be here in the inner most chambers of the chapel. Tiny sparks ignited in the lowest spirals of the Cochlea, too dim to cast any radiance, but proof that something was moving in the dark.
“Forgive your servant her transgression,” whispered Sister Young before saying aloud in trade pidgin, “emissary? Are you there?”
“We are,” came the flat voice of the woman from the darkness. Sister Young caught no reflection of scales in the flashes of light. A soft waft of sweet breath blew across her face, she shuddered, despite its warmth.
“This place is sacred, why have you come here?” Sister Young asked, a foreign trepidation making a home in her heart. It was silent, the beast moved like a ghost in the dark, a ghost of teeth and claws, crawling uninvited through the ear of the Empress. A holy outrage flickered in Sister Young, guttering out under the mortal pressure of the animal stalking in the blackness.
“You speak to the spiral,” said the woman, still Sister Young could catch neither of the pair in the otoliths gleamings. “Does it speak back?”
“No, the Voice of the Universe comes to me through other means. The—spiral—only listens.”
“We understand,” was the flat, empty reply from the heat in the dark.
“Do you?” Sister Young asked, a sharp note ringing bright. “What do you seek here?”
Silence chased around her. From the faintly sparking stones she thought the wyrm paced the circle of the chamber.
“We have meditated on your plea.” a gleam of smooth flank. “We believe you are called to a path similar to our own.” The end of a long tail flicked, perilously close to nudging a stone. “We ask, what are you, Sister Young?”
“I am… I am a monk ordained to the order of Learning. I seek the variant truths and create accurate accounts.”
“We ourself are a Seeker of Knowledge.” Why among the flickering lights was there no flash of white robe or dark burning eyes? “You follow the truth, you claim, in this we are similar.” Why did the otoliths betray no padding of bare feet, while the voice traveled around and around the chamber? “We heard your plea, Sister Young. We appreciate the dire need in the face of duty, but we do not trust you.” There the crest loomed, as the stones flared bright at the word ‘trust,’ no human form stood within the silhouette. The shadow had got free of its master.
“Trust?” said Sister Young to the now empty place where had been the wyrm. “My word is backed by my order,” she said, “an institution of the highest integrity. If that word you cannot trust, what can you?”
“Blood,” echoed the voice of the woman from behind Sister Young. It seemed in the lingering blindness of the flash that she felt the breath of the wyrm on her neck. The words of the Scholar echoed through the empty places of her mind. The blood cannot lie. Sister Young looked to the Dim Beyond, Humility sliding from her brow to pool heavy and cold around her neck.
The Empress listens, she thought, the Empress extends gentle hands to all beings. The Empress enfolds all in her universe within a compassionate embrace. But… but… I am not the Empress. I am one monk alone in the dark with a blood hungry beast!
“Ah, we see, Sister Young,” said the emissary, invisible in the dark. She must throw her voice, fool the otoliths, that is how she maintained her shroud. Sister Young trembled, a rustling lit the spiraling chains of stone, there was the wyrm! Her pale wings unfurled, cupped against the domed chamber walls, scales in their minutia glittering as though they too were cut from the quartz bed that had birthed the otoliths. “You are not ready.”
Sister Young felt her entire body clench in shock. It was the wyrm’s mouth that shaped that human voice. It had fully discarded its human puppet then, revealed itself as a free will. It needed no translator, no interpreter. It was the emissary that Theta Mars had sent, the woman only a social aid, a lure, a disguise, bait.
“We had hoped, as you act as your empress’ liaison, that you might receive as well our message to her. You are afraid, Sister Young. Bias fills your ears, you do not listen.”
“Until now you did not speak,” she said, shocked to find she could push even those quavering words past her dry mouth.
“You do not see!” hissed the wyrm, sending cascades of light tumbling through the shivering stones. “You do not understand, though with our forms we reveal in every moment the meditations of the People, the response to the wrongs of the past, and the guiding philosophy of the future. You do not Seek, clinging to the lying words of the Banished, attempting at every moment to build the illusion higher by twisting every ‘question’ to present only harmonic answers.”
“If the words and records of the colonists are lies, refute them,” Sister Young whispered.
“We try,” the voice held a faint note of sorrow. “You who would, we thought, be our kindred mind aboard this vessel are not ready. We will hope that your empress is more than you are.”
Darkness fell, and silence. Sister Young watched the otoliths flash as the shrouded creature paced to the chamber’s only entrance. The stones stilled. There was nothing there in the dark with her but her own frantic heart.
Trust. The emissary asked only for proof of trustworthiness. Could not an ordained monk, a Paragon of her order, prove she could be trusted? What a cold and hollow failure—to be less than that on this mission for her Empress. She who had Her ear, could not even be trusted by a beast that stalked in the night.
“She who sustains, hear her humble servant’s solemn prayer,” she whispered to the ear in Temple.
“I am afraid,” Sister Young said in trade pidgin to the empty dark. Her thoughts danced from the black ichor falling from the bone spur, the spots of red on the second lieutenant’s collar, the ravaging scar that twisted around DuCourt’s hand and wrist. “I am afraid. I am doubting, and I am blind.” Her voice shook, she was not sure the wyrm had even stayed to hear her. “But this is my path, I walk towards the Truth. She bowed her head, outstretched her hands in supplication to the inscrutable animal. “I am afraid, and I am ready.”
She heard nothing. A wash of heat enveloped her, the wyrm had returned, stood before her, she knew, thought she did not lift her head, or lower her reaching—giving—hands. She felt the barbed points of fine, black teeth press against her palm.
Sister Young was born on the Grand Array. She was trained in the monastery of Understanding from childhood. She was ordained at majority and had so served ever since. Her duty was a holy one, her work a blessing the future would praise. As was human, she had always faced doubts. On this mission it seemed, she had more than ever.
The human custom of knowing was limited to human faculties. To gather Truth they listened, watched, touched. To foster understanding they asked, probed, dismantled and manipulated. Sister Young’s work made sense of human doings and thinkings. She recorded actions and the reasons behind actions and the consequences that lay before them. In the limits of human faculties, words were the Sister’s sharpest tool. Words were made to bear the heavy weight of Truth, Communication, Understanding. In this they often failed. This was beyond Sister Young’s control.
Sister Young worked at this uncertain task for the betterment of the Empire, as a servant—an eye, an ear, a hand—of her Empress. Mozark VII held the Universe in her, she was a Mother Star at the Centre of All, in whose arms, whose gravity, the myriad lights and worlds were cradled.
She glowed, the Unassailable Faith in the core of Sister Young. Sarah was a Seeker born to a handicapped form. She listened to what she could hear, recorded what she could see and touch, put into crude and clumsy words that which needed none.
Sarah Young was afraid. That which she did not understand, could not codify, shook her. Fanned her doubts into leaping flames. She was human, and so had a fear of fire older even than Empire.
She did not hate that which in her limited words she called the wyrm, but in it she saw that which she did not understand, and that she hated. She doubted that a Truth could exist that was not formed of her world of words, but she would try, in her fumbling human way, to understand. She was a Seeker ordained, and if not that, then she was nothing at all.
