Debris of Shadows_Book II_The Forgotten Cathedral Read online

  “What’s an ‘Abomination’?” Matthew asked as he stared at the boy’s neck flaps and flesh–cloak. “Do you mean a Cyleb?” He tried to bring back the memory of the woman and the way that her eyes had glowed. It made sense.

  “She said that you are wearing a NorMec combat uniform. Were you in this city when the Shadows fell? Who are you?”

  Matthew bit the inside of his cheek. Whoever this woman was, she seemed to know more about this Sage than this anorexic boy. And if she were one of the few second generation survivors… “My name is Matthew,” he said. “I really want to hear more about your improvements.”

  “No,” the young man said, his voice sharp. “Someone in the Church planted you here, and I want to know why. How do I know that you’re not here to sabotage my city, my resurrection?”

  “Very well,” said Matthew, “then the loss is mine.” He sat cross–legged on the floor. The muck seeped into the bottom of his pants.

  “What are you doing?”

  He closed his eyes to slits. The strobe lights and screaming noise filled the cell once more.

  “Stop that.”

  Matthew ignored him. The boy slapped his hands to his ears. “I said to stop it!”

  He opened his eyes. The light and noise stopped. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “I’m guessing that your city is a failure. I’m guessing that your resurrection has become the same chaos and corruption that I saw in Phoenix.”

  “Liar!” the naked man shouted, his voice hoarse. He erupted into a coughing fit. His cloudy eyes were wet with tears. “San Domenico is a paradise unlike any WesMec has ever seen.”

  Matthew forced every muscle in his face to be still. Had he finally found it? He did not know how much objective time had passed since he had left NorMec, but for him, his search had taken at least a decade. It could not be mere coincidence that the Cathedral and this city were named for the same saint. He half–closed his eyes again, and the sensory assault resumed.

  The boy screamed curses at him, his rage gurgling in the back of his throat. One of the swollen rents on his neck opened, and a line of wasps streamed forth. Matthew’s hand instinctively shot to his shoulder, but he was not the target. Instead, the swarm covered the door, and dissolved it. A bucketful of sand fell to the ground, and the creatures returned to their master.

  The boy ran in, and slapped him in the face. It would be so easy, Matthew mused, to snap this annoying freak’s neck. But he needed information, he needed the Cathedral. Besides, he thought, what if he hasn’t “resurrected” it yet? He opened his eyes, and was rewarded with silence.

  “Get up,” the boy said. “You want to see, before you die? Fine, I’ll show you. Get up.”

  “I am not your enemy,” Matthew said. “I want to see, I want to learn. What is your name?”

  The boy’s scrawny chest heaved. “I am Brother Asher,” he said, “of the Holy Church of the Blessed Ophanim.”

  Matthew nodded as if he understood, though the words were meaningless to him. Was that the religion of the Cathedral? He had always assumed that it would belong to some Christian denomination or other. He pulled himself to his feet.

  The corridor beyond his cell was immaculate. He walked alongside Asher, the bald monk shooting him dirty looks from the corners of his eyes. He considered asking his captor about the Cathedral, but his intuition warned him to keep his cards to his chest, at least for now.

  “This is the cold wing,” Asher said as they reached the end of the hall. “I keep the air conditioners here going full blast. Upstairs is the hot wing. The walls are made of iron, and rotate so that they always face the sun. These are all just holding cells, of course. This is only a precinct house.”

  Matthew nodded again as they entered an elevator. The air inside was much more comfortable. Its walls were of polished, stained oak. He could see their reflections in its mocha–colored grain. This was not the elevator of a police station, it belonged in a five–star hotel.

  The elevator brought them to a spacious lobby that was illuminated by eggshell–toned cove lighting. Plush carpet the color of the ocean spread from marble wall to marble wall. A motorized revolving door spun amidst a facade of spotless, tinted glass. Asher strode through, and Matthew followed.

  What lay beyond was a metropolis of excess and luxury. Not a single smudge marred the sidewalks. Skyscrapers of steel and glass shone like jewels in the afternoon sun. Maples and oaks, their branches lush, lined streets of uniform asphalt.

  “Not one scrap of litter,” said Asher. “No cigarette butts, no flaking paint, no soot, no roaches, and no grime.”

  No people either, thought Matthew. He looked at the sun, its color diffused through the fractal pattern of the shield dome. “Your cells have a centipede problem, but I’m assuming that’s deliberate.”

  “Of course. Their population is controlled, down to the last egg.”

  They walked through a plaza. A fountain of sculpted emerald volleyed water against what Matthew assumed was an energy field, cascading its spray into a midair waterfall. “Is the entire city this beautiful?”

  Asher’s eyes glinted as a thin smile came to his chapped lips. “The parts that deserve to be,” he said. “It’s taken me weeks just to perfect these few streets. She said that I was in a stupor at first, like a trance. I haven’t eaten or slept in so long. They’re all inside of me, begging to get out. But I had to make every brick, every light switch, every drinking glass and toaster over and over again, to fix things, to make them just right.” The muscle under his right eye twitched. “She thinks that she’s so much better than me, so pious. At first, I thought so too. I trusted her.” He sniffed, and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “But she’s a hypocrite, a Pharisee. She’s an Abomination, and a liar.”

  There’s the woman again, Matthew thought. Perhaps she’s the main pin in his tumbler. “Girls lie, my friend,” he said, as if imparting the facts of life upon a younger brother. His shoulders performed a tiny shrug that was calculated down to the last millimeter. “That’s what they do.”

  The skinny boy’s head jiggled in agreement, like a toy with a bent spring. “She kept ordering me to put it back the way it was,” he said, “to make it dirty and in pain, like it was before the Shadows. I didn’t want to hurt her, you know what I mean? But I had to stop her from interfering. My city depends on me.”

  Matthew’s heart sank. He could not pretend that he did not understand the implication, but his mission was the Cathedral. Anything else would have to wait. “So it’s just the two of you, then?”

  “And you.” Asher stopped walking, and grabbed him by the elbow. “You said that you were in Phoenix, so how did your Sands get here? Did Brother Jacob or the abbot put them here? Were they on the transport? Why are you here?” His bloodshot eyes bulged from their sockets. “Tell me!”

  Paranoia, thought Matthew, coupled with a Christ complex. What a mess. He glanced about him at the extravagant splendor, and then stared into Asher’s eyes.

  “They don’t understand,” he said, his voice soft. “Violence erupts on a street corner, and a baby, sleeping in his crib, gets hit by a stray bullet. His parents hear the breaking of glass, and rush in to find his once possible future spread out upon the wall. A girl struggles to wake after a night of drinking with some boys from school. She’s terrified and confused, especially because there’s a horrible, stabbing ache in her pelvis, and spots of blood on her thigh. Her formerly carefree life will never be the same. A man stands on a subway platform. He wishes that there were some great cause to his suffering — something he could pin down, so that it could be fixed — but there isn’t. His life doesn’t have the luxury of being dramatically shattered, it’s simply been eroded. He jumps, thinking that the impact will kill him instantly, but it doesn’t. The cars roll and twist him like a balloon animal. His pelvis is crushed, but the wheel that he’s pinned under keeps him alive, trapping blood inside his vital organs. He’ll stay that way, screaming in agony, until some poor adminis
trator makes the decision to move the train. You can see all this and more, but they can’t. They want you to keep all the suffering, but you want to make it better. You know that you can do more than just resurrect, you can heal. And they don’t want you to.”

  The hand that gripped his arm became a claw of desperation. “Holy Ophanim,” Asher whispered, blinking back tears, “you do understand.”

  Matthew held his gaze and nodded, his face severe. “Then we’ll work together,” he said. “We’ll help each other.” He clasped the boy’s emaciated shoulder. “You don’t have to do it alone.”

  Asher sniffed. “Thank you,” he said. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am. But why should you help me? What do you want in return?”

  Matthew considered how to respond, and decided that honesty was the best policy. Better the truth now than accusations of deception later. “I’m looking for something,” he said, “a church, or rather, a cathedral. The Cathedral of Saint Domenic of Silos. Have you resurrected that yet? Can you tell me where it is?”

  The boy’s face went slack for a moment. Then he smiled sadly, and shrugged. “No,” he said, “I’ve never heard of it.”

  Chapter 9

  Asher strode down Crescent Avenue. The New City Gallery stood on the outskirts of the area he had resurrected, its main entrance facing the desert of Sands. He unlocked the back door, and descended the stairs to the curator’s basement office.

  He felt uneasy. He had taken great pains to remake the art museum and everything inside exactly as the scrolls had dictated, and its imperfections grated his nerves. Brother Leo’s message was here, somewhere, and perhaps there were other clues hidden on its walls as well. He had to be sure that whatever that message was, he could decipher it without any interference from his id, ego, or whatever the psychologists called it.

  A computer sat in the corner, surrounded by stacks of paper, empty coffee cups, and other such office clutter. He booted it up. It was an ancient, sluggish thing. He tapped his fingers on the desk while he waited, and whistled.

  Whoever Matthew was, he did not trust him. Obviously, the man knew something about the painting. He had not called it by its exact title, but the coincidence was too great to miss. Asher shrugged. When the time was right, he would figure out a way to tap the soldier’s knowledge.

  One of his charges had been a drug mule, a prostitute forced to transport Tangerine in swallowed condoms. Every smuggling excursion had been a game of Russian Roulette. The latex might withstand its passage through her guts, or it might rupture and kill her. Having Matthew and the Abomination in his mind had been like that. The risk of their deviant psyches seeping their poisons into the well of his mind had been dangerously high. Perhaps he would show Matthew the original church that Leo had painted, the way he had shown Theresa. That was another flawed structure he had taken pains to leave exactly as it was.

  Had he, though? His memories of the place were blurred, and it troubled him. Sister Theresa had been much stronger than he had assumed, and getting her out of his mind had been… difficult. She was amongst the roots and worms now, where liars like her belonged. His brittle subconscious warned him not to think about it, and he yielded to its wisdom. Perhaps he had accidentally buried pieces of that back there as well.

  Anything was possible.

  A bead of sweat dripped into his eye. It stung. He grabbed a napkin that had been stuffed beneath one of the stained cups, and wiped it away. The air in the room was stifling. Why had the builders not installed air conditioning? There was a small window by the ceiling, which sat at ground level. He unlatched it, and pushed it open.

  The computer let out a half–hearted ding. Its interface was archaic, but easy to understand. All the items on display or in storage had been categorized therein. He searched for the available works of Leonard Dvorkin, and only found one: The Forgotten Cathedral.

  He sighed, shut down the machine, and walked to the main lobby.

  The museum had been built in a giant counterclockwise spiral that ascended six floors. At its center was a garden, presided over by a massive oak. Asher pressed himself to the outer walls, brushing against the paintings and sketches as he slid by. He dared not touch its leaves, not after the way he had disposed of Theresa. The flora of San Domenico had grown abnormally thick and lush ever since. He would raze every blade of grass in the city if he could. Burn them down, and start over from scratch.

  Why hadn’t he simply killed her? Why had he felt the need to be vindictive?

  He bit his lip, and continued to climb. She was an Abomination who wanted to harm your city, he told himself, and you did what was necessary to protect it, what traitors like her deserve. Trust your instincts, and the solution will eventually present itself.

  He reached the third floor, and exited to the surrealism wing. The carpet upon its floor was rough, and irritated his bare feet. This stuff belongs in the monastery, he thought, Abbot Dinah would love it.

  He stopped in front of Brother Leo’s painting, and gazed at it for what felt like the thousandth time. Its brush strokes followed the form of each individual stone in its church’s crumbling walls, and the insects hidden therein. Its broken stained–glass window held no pattern that he could decipher. He examined its tombstone, the one with a cross within a circle on its top. He had unearthed the grave’s real–life occupant, and found nothing except a worm–eaten, rotten box full of pitted bones. The skull had been abnormally large, but as far as birth defects went, that was not too uncommon. The stone’s epitaph, if it held any clues, was too worn to read. Leo’s secret message, or rather, his brother’s, could be hidden anywhere.

  According to his data pad’s translation of what few records remained in the church’s sacristy, La Iglesia de Santo Domingo, built in 1831, had been the center of a reduction, whatever that meant. While the city had eventually been renamed to honor the saint, the mission itself had been left to fall apart after —

  — until we heard birds. You are good, and I’m thankful that you were in my life. Please just know that even if we never speak again, I will always be your friend. I will always love you in my own way, and pray that you and yours are well and happy. I am sorry for —

  Asher jolted, as if woken from a dream. The cream–colored walls of the gallery spun around him. He had been riding on a train, a ballpoint pen in his hand, writing on lined paper torn from a spiral notebook. Its edge had been jagged.

  He tried to focus on the painting in front of him. He sucked in a sharp breath, and waited for his vertigo to pass. The souls of his charges were leaking more and more frequently, especially since these days, he slept less and less.

  He bit the inside of his cheek, and ran his fingers across the painted swirls of the stones. Whatever secrets Leo had hidden would have to remain undiscovered for now. His charges needed to breathe, to live, and to feel. He descended the spiral ramp, giving the mammoth tree a wide berth, and walked out into the city.

  Neither he nor they could wait any longer.

  Helen turned in a circle.

  The living room she stood in seemed like hers, but in many ways, it felt wrong and unfamiliar. The couch… shouldn’t that have a stain in its corner — beer, or soup, or something? Maybe Tish’s diaper had leaked on it, years ago. Maybe, but it did not have a stain now.

  Had it ever?

  She scratched her arm, raking her skin. What was going on? She blinked, and scratched deeper.

  “Helen?”

  She looked to her right. Roger was standing beside her. Had he been there all along, in this living room that was not her living room? She was not sure.

  Something was wrong with her husband. It took her a few seconds to figure out what. He did not have a huge belly, that was the first thing. His hair was not streaked with gray, that was the second. He looked young. His shining skin was not cratered with acne scars. But strangest of all, he was standing. He was not sitting in a chair (that was not threadbare, and did not have a quilt covering the spot where the wooden frame
no longer poked through its arm). Moreover, he did not have his oxygen mask on. His chest rose and fell without incident, as if that was what God had intended it to do.

  “Roger?” she asked. She scratched her arms again. She looked down at them. They did not feel right. Their skin was soft, not dry and flaky. It did not have any scars.

  Or tracks.

  She forced her hands to her sides. These arms, even if they were not really hers, were too nice to scratch.

  This house was too nice to live in.

  She swallowed. “What the hell?” she asked. “What’s happening?”

  Roger shook his head. “Just be quiet for a second,” he said. He took a deep breath, and exhaled. He did it again, sucking the air deep into his lungs. He laughed, and thumped his chest with his fist. He looked her up and down, his eyes wide and appreciative in a way he had not looked at her for years. “Damn,” he said, “you’re beautiful.”

  She looked around the room again. The pristine paint on its walls was not marred by cracks or bubbles, not even along the ceiling where the goddamn pipes in the upstairs bathroom had leaked, running down her —

  The sunlight from the window jumped. The shadow of the lamp had been pointing to her left, like an arrow. In an instant, it had moved a foot to the right. She forgot herself, and dug her nails into her arms again.

  “Oh God,” she said, “what’s —”

  And then she saw Tish.

  Her daughter stood before them in a white sundress that gleamed as if fresh out of a laundry commercial. The girl was not quite her daughter, but she had to be. She was Tish, but she was also not Tish. She was Tish as she would have looked like without rolls of fat doubled under her chin and waist. She was a Tish that had the face of a normal nine year old girl, rather than two dark eyes peeking out from a scrunched–up wad of dough.

  This Tish — this slender, beautiful Tish — had eyes that were wide and gleaming, like two saucers.