‘I disagree,’ said Revelation. ‘Tell me, Uriah, have you seen the great cliff sculptures of the Mariana Canyon?’
‘No,’ said Uriah, ‘though I have heard they are incredibly beautiful.’
‘They are indeed. Thousand-metre-high representations of their kings, carved in stone that no weapon can mark or drill can cut. They are at least as incredible as this fresco, somehow worked into a cliff that had not seen sunlight in ten thousand years, yet a godless people carved them in a forgotten age. True art needs no divine explanation, it is just art.’
‘You have your opinion,’ said Uriah politely. ‘I have mine.’
‘Isandula was a genius and a magnificent artist, that much is beyond question,’ continued Revelation, ‘but she also had to make a living, and even magnificent artists must take commissions where they are to be found. I have no doubt this undertaking paid very well, for the churches of her time were obscenely wealthy organisations, but had she been asked to paint a ceiling for a palace of secular governance, might she not have painted something just as wondrous?’
‘It’s possible, but we shall never know.’
‘No, we won’t,’ agreed Revelation, moving past Uriah towards the altar. ‘And I am tempted to believe there is an element of jealousy whenever people invoke the divine to explain away such wonderful creations.’
‘Jealousy?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Revelation. ‘They cannot believe another human being can produce such sublime works of art when they cannot. Therefore some deity reached into the artist’s brain and inspired it.’
‘That is a very cynical view of humanity,’ said Uriah.
‘Elements of it, yes,’ said Revelation.
Uriah shrugged and said, ‘This has been an interesting discussion, but you must excuse me, friend Revelation. I have to prepare for my congregation.’
‘No one is coming,’ said Revelation. ‘It is just you and I.’
Uriah sighed. ‘Why are you really here?’
‘This is the last church on Terra,’ said Revelation. ‘History will soon be done with places like this and I want a memory of it before it’s gone.’
‘I knew this was going to be an unusual evening,’ said Uriah.
Uriah and Revelation repaired to the vestry and sat opposite one another at a grand mahogany desk carved with intertwining serpents. The chair creaked under the weight of his guest as Uriah reached into the desk and removed a tall bottle of dusty blue glass and a pair of pewter tumblers.
He poured dark red wine for the pair of them and sat back in his chair.
‘Your good health,’ said Uriah, raising his tumbler.
‘And yours,’ replied Revelation.
Uriah’s guest took a sip of the wine and nodded his head appreciatively.
‘This is very good wine. It’s old.’
‘You have a fine appreciation of wine, Revelation,’ said Uriah. ‘My father gave it to me on my fifteenth birthday and said I should drink it on my wedding night.’
‘And you never married?’
‘Never found anyone willing to put up with me. I was a devilish rogue back then.’
‘A devilish rogue who became a priest,’ said Revelation. ‘That sounds like a tale.’
‘It is,’ said Uriah, ‘But some wounds run deep and it does no good to reopen them.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Revelation, taking another drink of wine.
Uriah regarded his visitor over the top of his tumbler. Now that Revelation had sat down, he had removed his scarlet cloak and draped it over the back of his chair. His guest wore utilitarian clothes, identical to those worn by virtually every inhabitant of Terra, save that his were immaculately clean. He wore a silver ring on his right index finger, which bore a seal of some kind, but Uriah couldn’t make out what device was worked upon it.
‘Tell me, Revelation, what did you mean when you said this place would soon be gone?’
‘Exactly what I said,’ replied Revelation. ‘Even perched all the way up here, you must surely have heard of the Emperor and his crusade to stamp out all forms of religion and belief in the supernatural. Soon his forces will come here and tear this place down.’
‘I know,’ said Uriah sadly. ‘But it makes no difference to me. I believe what I believe and no amount of hectoring from some warmongering despot will alter my beliefs.’
‘That is an obstinate point of view,’ said Revelation.
‘It is faith,’ pointed out Uriah.
‘Faith,’ snorted Revelation. ‘A willing belief in the unbelievable without proof…’
‘What makes faith so powerful is that it requires no proof. Belief is enough.’
Revelation laughed. ‘I see now why the Emperor wants rid of it then. You call faith powerful, I call it dangerous. Think of what people in the grip of faith have done in the past, all the atrocities committed down the centuries by people of faith. Politics has slain its thousands, yes, but religion has slain its millions.’
Uriah finished his wine and said, ‘Have you come here just to provoke me? I am no longer a violent man, but I do take kindly to being insulted in my own home. If this is all you are here for, then I wish you to go now.’
Revelation placed his tumbler back down on the desk and held up his hands.
‘You are right, of course,’ he said. ‘I am being discourteous, and I apologise. I came here to learn of this place, not to antagonise its guardian.’
Uriah nodded graciously. ‘I accept your apology, Revelation. You wish to see the church?’
‘I do.’
‘Then come with me,’ said Uriah, rising painfully from behind his desk, ‘and I will show you the Lightning Stone.’
Uriah led Revelation from the vestry back into the nave of the church, once again looking up at the beautiful fresco on the ceiling. Shards of firelight danced beyond the stained glass of the windows, and Uriah knew that a sizeable group of men waited beyond the walls of his church.
Who was this Revelation and why was he so interested in his church?
Was he one of the Emperor’s warlords, here to earn his master’s favour by demolishing the last church on Terra? Perhaps he was a mercenary chief who sought to earn the new master of Terra’s gratitude by destroying icons of a faith that had endured since the earliest days of mankind’s struggle towards civilisation?
Either way, Uriah needed to know more of this Revelation, to keep him talking and learn what he could of his motives.
‘This way,’ said Uriah, shuffling towards the chancel, an area behind the altar that was curtained off from the rest of the church by a rich emerald drape the size of a theatre curtain. He pulled a silken cord and the drape slid aside to reveal a high, vaulted chamber of pale stone in which stood a tall megalith that rose from the centre of a circular pit in the ground.
The stone was napped like flint and had a distinct, glassy and metallic texture to its surface. The mighty stone was around six metres tall and tapered towards the top, such that it resembled an enormous speartip. The stone reared up from the ground, the tiled floor of the pit laid around it. Patches of wiry, rust-coloured bracken clustered at its base.
‘The Lightning Stone,’ said Uriah proudly, descending a set of stairs built into the ceramic-tiled walls of the pit to place a hand on the stone. He smiled, feeling the moist warmth of it.
Revelation followed Uriah into the pit, his gaze travelling the length of the stone as he circled it appreciatively. He too reached out to touch it and said, ‘So this is a holy stone?’
‘It is, yes,’ said Uriah.
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean? Why what?’
‘I mean why is it holy? Was it deposited on the ground by your god? Was a holy man martyred here, or did a young girl receive some revelation while praying at its base?’