Infidel said, “Excellent. It looks like we’ve got it all worked out for me to join a group of men sworn to kill me so we can face off with a dragon that melts stone with his breath.” She grinned. “And Stagger used to complain that I never planned ahead.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
At dawn the harbor rang with a cacophony of sledgehammers and saws as the Wanderers salvaged useful lumber from the shattered remains of Commonground. Along the shores, river-pygmies gathered up scraps of wood too splintered to be of use and heaped them onto bonfires. Nearby, the bodies of dead brethren were stacked into muddy blue piles. I always found it odd that the river-pygmies cremate their dead; a water burial would seem more appropriate. I need only glance up the blackened slope of the mountain to understand the origins of the custom. Greatshadow could wipe out the pygmy tribes at any time for any reason. They pygmies believed that, as long as they let fire consume their bodies when they were done with them, Greatshadow would leave them alone most of the time. Whether Greatshadow was even aware of this bargain I can’t guess.
Once or twice during the night, pygmies had come poking around the trees beneath the boat. I’ve no doubt they would have climbed aboard if Aurora hadn’t stuck her head over to investigate the noise. Her big, tusked face had sent would-be scavengers scurrying back into the darkness.
Relic left at sunrise. I’d watched as he scrambled down through the branches of the trees then dashed off through the debris-threaded thickets, agile as a cat. His crippled routine was obviously just a disguise. I have to say that he’d sounded like he knew a thing or two about disguises when he spent the better part of the night explaining his ideas for how to hide Infidel’s identity. He had wanted her to wear a suit of full plate armor, including a bucket-style helmet that would conceal her features. Infidel had vetoed this; she liked her comfort and full freedom of movement, and helmets got in the way of her peripheral vision. After a few hours of circular discussions, Relic had thrown his hands into the air and announced that he’d thought of the perfect disguise, but couldn’t share it. It would be a surprise, he said, as he scurried out to gather whatever supplies he had in mind.
I still felt like they were wasting their time. With Father Ver among the king’s men, Infidel would be discovered in seconds. My upbringing in the monastery had left me keenly aware of the power of Truthspeakers, and Father Ver was a legend. He was the most powerful Truthspeaker the Church of the Book had ever produced, as I knew all too well.
To appreciate the power of Truthspeakers, you need to know a little bit about the Church of the Book. High in the mountains of Raitingu, what the Wanderers call the Isle of Storm, there’s a temple built into the bedrock of the world’s tallest mountain. Within this temple is a chamber carved from pure white quartz. Here, on a pedestal of gold, sits the One True Book. The book is roughly five feet long, three feet across, and two feet thick. It’s bound in leather black as a moonless night; it’s said that if you stare at the cover, you can see stars twinkling in the void. In contrast, the pages are snowy white, thin as onion skin. The priests calculate that the book contains 7,777 pages.
Within this book, the Divine Author has written the history of the world, from the moment of creation to the final day of judgment. My life, your life, the lives of the dead and yet to be born, are recorded in minute detail on these holy pages. The One True Book is the final authority on all that has been, all that is, and all that will be.
Having access to this document would seem to give the Church of the Book a certain advantage over everyone else, save for one tiny detaiclass="underline" the book is far too sacred to ever be sullied by human hands. All men are too corrupted by lies to risk opening the book and actually reading it. The pure light of sacred truth would melt the flesh from the bones of anyone deluded enough to think himself worthy of sullying the pages with his unworthy gaze.
It’s taught that, one day, a Golden Child will arise, a perfect being uncorrupted by lies, who will open the book and read out the final account. The world we live in is built from four fundamental and opposing forces: spirit, matter, lies, and truth. As the book is read, all falsehood will be banished; all matter will be cleansed, all spirit will be purified. The world we know will be wiped away and replaced with the world as it always should have been, with a trinity of unified forces: truth, spirit, and substance.
Until the day of that Final Account, all that we know of the contents of the Book have been learned through prayer. Truthspeakers spend years on their knees in the temple, their faces pressed to the floor, weeping, sweating, laughing, screaming as they plead with the Divine Author to reveal even a few lines of sacred truth to them. After years of effort, the Truthspeakers go out into the world to spread the received revelations.
The Truthspeakers gain certain gifts as a result of their devotion. The most powerful Truthspeakers can see the falsehoods of the world and correct them. For instance, if it’s raining, and a pious Truthspeaker understands that the One True Book foretold that the day would be sunny, he simply tells the sky it’s supposed to be blue. The clouds will part and the sun will come out. This may be hyperbole; I’ve never personally witnessed a Truthspeaker pull off such a feat. But, I have witnessed another magical gift. It’s impossible to lie to a Truthspeaker. Believe me, I’ve tried.
The monks run a vineyard where they produce the sacramental wine used in certain church rites. The wine isn’t intended to be used recreationally, but when I had my first sip at age ten, I appreciated the warmth that spread through me as I swallowed, and wanted more. By age twelve I’d sneak out at night to the pitch dark wine cellars to finish off entire bottles, luxuriating in the mellow heat that spread through my body and washed over my mind in a soothing wave. I’d lie on the frigid stone floor in the darkness and dream of using grandfather’s bone-handled knife to hack away vines from ancient statues in steaming tropical jungles.
Alas, the monks kept meticulous track of their inventory. A Truthspeaker was brought in to investigate the missing gallons. I’d heard from other orphans that you can fool a Truthspeaker if you can fool yourself. You couldn’t lie, but truth wasn’t always black and white. I was certain I’d be asked if I’d stolen the wine, and, technically, I hadn’t. The wine didn’t belong to any one person. It was property of the Church, and I was a member of the Church. It was no more a theft for me to share the wine than it was to drink water from the communal well. I trusted I could slip through this loophole if the Truthspeaker interrogated me.
I remember the moment that I’d been brought into the room where Father Ver waited. He was middle-aged then, his close-cropped dark hair speckled with gray at the temples. His skin was pale from spending most of his life in a cave. There was a large callus in the center of his forehead from decades spent rubbing it against the floor. His eyes were sunk back into his skull, hidden in shadows. The interrogation room was lit by a single candle which sat on the table between us, and the light flickered like twin stars in the void of his eyes.
Despite his stern expression, I walked into the room with a confident swagger. I sat down and faced him, unafraid to meet his gaze. I waited for him to speak to me. Seconds passed and he said nothing. I slid back in my chair, prepared to wait him out, but turned my face away. It was uncomfortable to look at someone so directly without saying anything. As the seconds passed into minutes, I’d glance at him and always find his eyes locked on my face. I began to fidget. I could feel his stare boring into me. I started sweating. My palms were clammy as I wiped away the moisture on my brow. I trembled as I worried he might mistake my discomfort for evidence of guilt. Which was absurd, I reminded myself, since I hadn’t stolen anything. I wanted to tell him this, but my tongue had grown thick in my mouth. If my rubbery limbs had possessed the strength, I would have fled the room. Instead, some horrible internal magnet kept pulling my gaze toward his. I felt as if my face wasn’t truly my own, but was instead a mask I’d all but forgotten I was wearing. The Truthspeaker’s eyes were peeling back that mask to reveal the sinner beneath.