Chapter 105

In the astonished silence that followed Kieli suddenly flying off the handle, her hitched, teary voice echoed hollowly. She’d come here to boldly settle things, but the way she was acting right now, she might as well be a little girl throwing a tantrum. Kieli knew that. Still, now that the feelings had exploded out of her, she couldn’t rein them in no matter how hard she tried. “God isn’t even real…! Harvey knows, too; he said so! But all of you go around pretending there’s a God; you should be ashamed! And it’s the people here’s fault that Harvey’s had to be on the run all this time, and gotten so beaten up, and…and I hate you all! I hate everyone here! All of you—all of you just drop dead!” At her screaming, the big, fat lady-in-waiting from before seized her and pinned her arms. She couldn’t remember very clearly later, but she probably kept right on screeching All of you drop dead as she was dragged out of the room, and that was how Kieli’s first meeting with her “father” ended up a mess of her own making. This particular story of the “Eleven Saints and Five Families” era was nothing more than an oral tradition now: Legend had it that among the Five Families whose role was to serve and aid the Eleven Saints, there was one family with what you might call mage-like powers, and its members had resolved spiritual phenomena, counseled and made prophecies for the Eleven Saints, and performed other such tasks. However, the Council of Elders harbored misgivings about how this family’s influence over the faithful had steadily increased since the pioneering era, and so they suppressed its voice in state affairs. The Council of several generations ago had made a taboo of the “spiritual phenomena” themselves, until the very existence of such phenomena could not be acknowledged. Well, it was about seventeen years ago now that Lord Sigri, who was related by blood to one of the Eleven Saints, had married a descendant of that family, Setsuri, in order to assimilate her persecuted line into his own (or perhaps Lord Sigri had intended to preserve her line by doing this), and they’d had a daughter. Happiness didn’t last long, however. One day during worship, one of the Elders fell from the tower and died, shocking everyone, and for certain reasons the blame was laid at Setsuri’s door. Setsuri wasn’t actually sentenced to any punishment, but the Council of Elders obliterated her from all records, and she vanished from the capital along with the baby, who wasn’t even a year old yet. The connection between Setsuri’s disappearance and the fact that Lord Sigri was promoted to Elder immediately afterward was…unknown, officially speaking. It all happened right before Julius was born, and so on paper, the only baby born during that time period with the blood of one of the Eleven Saints was a boy named Julius. “Dad, did you know this woman Setsuri?” Julius asked his father after he heard the story. His father stroked his chin, looking thoughtful. “I can’t say she ever talked very much, but I got the impression she had a core of strength. He took a formidable woman for his wife, I always thought…I have to say, it just amazes me that you know Lord Sigri’s daughter. It really is a small world.” Then his father straightened his hunched shoulders and grinned at him. “Do you like her?” “No, I—” The way Julius blushed beet-red and fell speechless in the middle of his answer wouldn’t have fooled anyone. But instead of pressing the issue like Julius feared, his father looked away with a conflicted expression and muttered, “Mmm, blood will tell, I suppose.” Puzzled, Julius thought over what that meant. “Dad, don’t tell me you had feelings for Setsuri…? B-but you had Mom!” “Now, now, that was a long time ago,” his father explained glibly, raising his hands as if in surrender when Julius angrily stepped toward him. “I couldn’t save Setsuri either.” After a long pause, he muttered, “I’m just as guilty as Sigri.” Apparently it was after that incident that his father and Father Sigri had drifted apart. Father Sigri was away from his office for meetings and services and whatnot, so it was the evening of the day after Julius’s conversation with his father when he finally got permission to meet with Kieli. They’d gotten word that monsters had attacked the freight train, and Julius’s father had tried to send a rescue team right away, but his men reported that by the time they arrived, a platoon of Undying Hunters had already cleaned up the scene. His father had looked highly dissatisfied with this news. So far the Undying Hunters, who were controlled directly by the Council of Elders, always stole a march on him whenever it came to incidents related to the mysterious monsters. Julius was led by a large lady-in-waiting so grumpy that even he shrank back from her a little to a room in one corner of the top floor of the Preaching Department tower. Most likely it was a night duty room, either for Father Sigri himself or for one of the high-ranking priests under him; it looked as though it was probably trimmed with all the comforts she could require, but it was locked from the outside. Julius frowned. “She got agitated and became a bit violent, you see,” the lady-in-waiting explained in a monotone. Just one room, with a bed and a desk by the wall. The lighting was rather low, with city lights shining faint beams through the arched window. Beside the window stood a girl in black clothes with long black hair. Looking at her profile as she glanced out the window with downcast eyes, Julius’s heart jumped just a little in his chest. “Juli,” the girl said calmly when she noticed him, not sounding especially surprised as she turned to face him. Her voice was hard, as if rejecting something. And yet at the same time, her black eyes were slightly misty; she looked as if she might cry any second. Julius forced a soft smile onto his face. “Are you okay, Kieli?” The girl nodded wordlessly. Instructing the lady to wait in the hallway, he entered the room alone and closed the door. Kieli was waiting by the window. He didn’t know if it was because it’d been almost six months since he’d last seen her and he’d gotten a little taller in the meantime, but when he faced her, this girl a year older than him seemed smaller than he remembered, for some reason. Still, he was sure he didn’t come close to that guy’s height. “This really surprised me. For a lot of reasons.” “Me too,” Kieli agreed, looking downward. “That big-shot Church Soldier really was your father, huh?” Big-shot Church Soldier?…Oh, she means Dad. Around the end of winter his father had been gone from the capital for more than a week; Julius had since been told that he’d gone at Father Sigri’s request, as protection for the envoy sent to meet Kieli. From what his father said, there’d been a redheaded Undying with her, but… “Where is he?” Julius asked hesitantly. “He’s coming for me later,” came the answer immediately, in the most stubborn voice he’d ever heard her use. “‘Later’? Kieli, security is tight right now. He won’t have an easy time getting into the capital without a pass.” Kieli just said, “He’s coming for me,” and shook her head. “He promised me.” She insisted so stubbornly that, without thinking, Julius grabbed her shoulder a little roughly, intent on making her see sense. “Kieli!” She flinched away and glared at him with hostility. “Oh—I-I’m sorry.” He hastily withdrew his hand. Angry with himself for frightening her, he tried to somehow change the subject. “Sorry…Um, tell me if there’s anything you need, or if you’ve run short of anything, okay? I have to go to school tomorrow, but I’ll come back again the day after.” Kieli only shook her head to show him she didn’t want anything. Then she lowered her head and said softly, “I’m sorry…” Julius didn’t know what she was apologizing for at first—not until she continued. “I know I said you were like the prince of some noble family back then…but, you know, I wasn’t jealous of you at all. I don’t need the Church’s God. ‘God’ never does anything for us. See, Juli, a little while ago I told everybody here to drop dead. And I meant it. And…that included you, too. So, I’m sorry…I can’t let you be nice to me. I don’t have the right.” Her words were a stab straight through his heart. She wasn’t to blame for that, though. It was just coming home to him how naive and thoughtless he was. The truth was, when Julius had found out there was a kid his own age with the same kind of family name he had, and that it was Kieli, he’d been overjoyed. He’d thought it was perfect, in fact. He’d wondered before whether, if Father Sigri had had a child, they could’ve been friends. And then his fantasy had come true, and as if that weren’t enough, it was Kieli of all people. So the truth was, he’d come here to see her feeling kind of on top of the world. And now he felt as though someone had pushed him off a cliff. It came home to him how he’d been thinking only of himself. From Kieli’s perspective, the truth about her birth had been shoved in her face out of the blue, and the only feelings she had about it so far were disorientation and rejection. Now she was shut up in this tiny room all alone, and she’d been trying her hardest to hide how lonely and scared she felt with that stony attitude. He finally realized that now. Painfully clearly. Ugh, I was just happy for myself. I didn’t have a clue how she felt coming here, what she must have prepared herself to risk entering enemy territory like this. He’d grown a lot taller than her by now, but he was still far from an adult; he couldn’t think of anything to say to this isolated girl. Kieli stayed obstinately silent. “I’ll come back the day after tomorrow…” he somehow managed to force out. Then he left the room. “Dammit,” he swore after he’d made it into the hallway. I’m no match for him. It stung—it was really infuriating—but he couldn’t be enough of a support for her. He was acutely, painfully aware that he just couldn’t take that guy’s place. Not that Julius could see what was so great about him, frankly. But even still…he was no match for him. He never would be, no matter how tall he got or how many years passed. Where the hell is he? From what he could tell, they’d gotten split up when the monsters attacked the miners’ train. As he pondered whether he could use his father’s connections to track the guy down, he directed his feet not toward home, but to the office of the person in charge of the entire Preaching Department. He spotted Father Sigri right outside his office, evidently just coming back from some meeting or other. At his call of “Lord Sigri,” that man far, far out of Julius’s league—a member of the Council of Elders, the highest organ of Church authority—turned to face him. Another priest whose name Julius didn’t know trailed after the Father off to one side. An aide, by the look of him. He was the same priest who’d made the arrangements for his meeting with Kieli. For a moment Father Sigri’s expression said he didn’t know who Julius was, but then he gave a friendly, if tired, smile. “Ah, Julius. That’s right, you came to check on her, didn’t you? How was she?” Julius ignored the question. “My father instructed me to come here,” he announced in a hard voice. This was the other job his father had asked him to do. Father Sigri tilted his head somewhat warily. Julius took a breath, firmed his resolve, and said it in a clear voice: “Why is the Council of Elders covering up the monster incidents that have been cropping up recently?” Instantly, all expression quietly disappeared from Father Sigri’s face. The priest hovering behind him jumped up, pale-faced and obviously about to say something along the lines of How dare this child say such a thing?! “I’m sorry, but I don’t have the time to sit down and chat with you. I have another meeting…yes, a meeting to discuss Father Gus’s funeral arrangements. I have to go.” “This is a message from my father.” Father Sigri turned on his heel to leave, keeping his composure but very obviously evading him. Julius circled around in front of him and spread both arms wide to block his path. Staring seriously up at the Elder, who was a bit taller than he was, he called his father’s lines to mind and delivered them verbatim, careful not to leave out a single word. “None of the Council geezers were long for this world in the first place, so why are you wasting your time burying them instead of dealing with what’s killing people in this city right now?” He took a deep breath. “Forget about a few senile old fools who were practically dead anyway, and do some work!” Julius left his father’s last line as a parting shot and then turned around and fled as fast as his legs could carry him while Father Sigri was still speechless with shock. Man, that felt good. “Wh-who does that boy think he is?!” “He’s my friend’s son.” The priest raised his voice harshly. “Be that as it may, the language that he used—” “No, it’s fine. Let him be,” said Father Sigri calmly enough, although his face had lost some of its color. The priest was bristling with anger at the retreating boy, but at that, he had no choice but to back down. “Would you go check on my daughter for me? I have to go back out again right away.” With that final order, Father Sigri went into his office. The priest said to his retreating back, “Y-yes, Father. I will,” bowing hurriedly and setting out for the young lady’s room, thinking, “Practically dead”…he’s got a point. He couldn’t stifle a chuckle, and although no one was watching, he quickly schooled his features. The truth was, he actually felt a strange sort of respect (just a little, of course; nothing too drastic) for the boy who’d delivered that line no one could safely say out loud in the capital and then bolted. Really, he was supposed to be starting his job as a part-time lecturer at the seminary at the beginning of the school year that began this spring; but since he’d been made Father Sigri’s envoy to his daughter, he’d just sort of become the man’s unofficial aide over the course of things, and in the end he was still trailing after the Elder everywhere he went. Most of his duties involved taking care of the Elder’s daughter, who’d just arrived in the city, and guarding the woman Undying currently imprisoned in the Elder’s house (maybe “running errands for her” would be more accurate). He was in charge of all the Elder’s personal problems, basically. Most likely serving at an Elder’s side was a far better shortcut to promotion than being some part-time lecturer. Although if the Elder were to fall from power, he’d be falling right along with him… So far this information was need-to-know only so as not to confuse the average believer, but right now the upper echelons of the capital were in chaos. The thing was, starting with the First Elder’s peaceful death last fall and continuing in the first months of this year, four (practically dead) Elders had dropped dead in rapid succession. The first two deaths had been from heart failure, and considering the Elders’ ages, there hadn’t been much of a stir beyond the usual fuss over who would replace them—but the third and fourth deaths had been abnormal. The third Elder had died suddenly after vomiting blood. And the fourth…a lady-in-waiting had discovered him one morning hanging from the ceiling fans in his private rooms. That Elder’s death hadn’t been made known yet, nor had there been a public funeral. All sorts of rumors were circulating—some said an assassin was targeting the Elders, and some even whispered about taboos like a curse by the First Elder from beyond the grave. That was when the atmosphere in the upper levels of the city had begun to grow uneasy. Aggravating the situation even further was the Council of Elders’ internal rivalry over who had the right to use the unexploded bomb brought in from Westerbury. Before he knew it, the very echo of his own footsteps in the darkened corridor spooked him. These days they might all be doing their jobs as if nothing were wrong, but beneath that veneer of normality the rumors about the Elders’ deaths and the fear hanging over them all never ended. The armed guards dispatched by the Security Forces were crawling around everywhere, even inside the Preaching Department, and the fact that the two departments didn’t exactly get along just served to strain the atmosphere even further. And add to that the spate of monster attacks in the streets…Looking back on it, he felt as though the Elders had started dying off and the monsters had started attacking right around the same time that unexploded bomb had been carried into town…Well, maybe he was overthinking things. Compared to the job in the country he’d always complained about being so bored with, he’d been living on the scene of unbelievable storms and conspiracies ever since he picked up that woman Undying. He couldn’t say whether it was good luck or bad luck that had summoned him to the capital when all this was going on… It was two days after the young lady had arrived here that the priest took her out and showed her around headquarters. She appeared to have calmed down some, and it didn’t seem fair to keep her shut up in her room all the time. “Please let me see Beatrix. Is she okay?” she’d pressed him several times, her attitude still stiff. But he didn’t have Father Sigri’s permission for that yet. “She’s so okay, she’s a little too okay,” became his answer each time. It was the honest truth, after all. At that hour, the morning worship service was being held in the cathedral (exactly as it always was, without betraying the slightest trace of the chaos in the upper levels of the capital), with the various pilgrims from distant lands in attendance. Looking down from the choir balcony a level higher up from where he usually sat, he could see that the great hall was covered from end to end with the heads of so many people dressed up in the dark hats and shawls appropriate for worship that he could imagine making some sort of game out of whacking them down. Even though this was a time of silence, with a crowd this large gathered in the cathedral there was always a hushed rustling of people. A semicircular balcony jutted out of the upper part of the tower-like pillar adorning the center of the front wall; it was from there that Father Sigri, dressed in long pure-white robes trimmed in gold, was delivering his sermon. The majestic stained glass making up one wall cast faint colored light on the Father’s back. As always, Father Sigri’s sermon filled him with admiration. Most of the time the Father wasn’t the kind of person you could exactly say exuded authority (no offense intended), but he was technically an Elder (…no offense intended), and his lectures on the holy book were very understandable and compelling even to people with no special schooling in the subject. When he stood at the lectern, Father Sigri’s voice rang low and gentle throughout the room, soaking into his audience. “What do you think?” he asked, glancing at the profile of the young lady watching the worship service with him from the shadows of the choir. “It’s a lot bigger than the chapel in Easterbury,” she answered, deliberately misunderstanding him. After some hesitation, he tried again a little more directly. “What do you think of your father’s work?” “I still don’t believe he’s my father,” she replied in a hard voice as she stared with her striking dark eyes, almost glared, really, at the central balcony. She might not lash out anymore like she had on the first day, but she still had that same old stubborn attitude. It made the priest wrinkle his nose a little. She seemed to lose interest halfway through the service, abruptly turning her eyes away and striding off. Since he couldn’t very well leave her alone, the priest caught up with her and walked beside her. Worship was still under way, so once they left the cathedral there was no one else in sight; the corridor was wreathed in tranquillity. From behind him he began to hear the voices of the choir. They didn’t especially have anything to talk about, and he knew that even if he tried to strike up a conversation he’d only get shut down with a gruff, curt reply; so the two of them walked side by side in uncomfortable silence for a while. To test us, the Lord gave to us a planet of sand and barren fields O ye children traveling the planets, plow the wilderness and grow wheat “…I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” He was casually listening to the faraway singing when the girl spoke up of her own volition for once. “Hmm? Ah yes, what is it?” he replied, faltering a little at the suddenness of it. By now he’d grown nervous of her in spite of himself. The way he saw it, she was a highly dangerous character who might attack at any time. Without preamble, she shot a glance over his shoulder and said, “Who is that behind you?” “What?!” he shrieked before he could stop himself, dodging to one side and turning to look back on where he’d been standing moments ago. Naturally there was no one there, but he remembered that woman Undying saying something similar to him, and a shiver went up his spine. The girl, on the other hand, was the very picture of calm as she continued. “Has anyone close to you passed away recently?” “N-no!” the priest cried at once. She said only, “I see,” but she was still staring intently at something behind him, tilting her head a little in thought. “Wh-what is it…?” “I don’t think you have to worry about it. You’ve just got somebody watching over you, that’s all.” That was all she said before abruptly turning her eyes away. “Hey, wait, it seriously worries me when you say that!” he wailed, all the blood draining from his face, but by then she’d already started walking indifferently away. “W-wait a second, please!” The priest scurried after her, darting frequent glances over his shoulder. Please, give me a break… It came home to him all over again that this girl was dangerous. This is not funny! Somebody watching over you— As he followed the raven-haired girl’s rapidly retreating back, turning around every few paces to look behind him, something clicked in his memory. The nice old folks in that hick town who’d brought by food for him all the time and treated him like their own sons or grandsons when he moved to its tiny old Church outpost to live by himself. In the beginning he’d had a hard time getting used to his job, and he couldn’t adjust to the country life at all, but they’d generously accepted him into the fold. Over the five years he’d worked there, he’d sat by the peaceful deathbeds of a few of those old folks, too. I’ve lived long enough. I’ve got no complaints. I’m glad you’re here at the end to see me off. I’ll be watching over you, you hear? Hang in there… All his seniors in life who had passed peacefully into the next world. He’d been bored out of his mind. All he could think about was escaping. And yet, he had to admit it had been a simple life full of peace and quiet. His dream of running away had come true, with the result that here he was on the outer fringes of elite capital society, a tangled jungle of conflicting interests. Why had he wanted so badly to get out of there back then, exactly? Had he really wanted this? Maybe he’d only been longing for the grass on the other side of the fence. Was he lucky or unlucky right now? “How was she today?” Father Sigri asked him as usual when he finally made it back to his desk that night after yet another round of annoying meetings. He could just go see how she was for himself, but ever since his daughter had rejected him so harshly on that very first day, the man hadn’t tried to meet with her again. Come to think of it, the priest’s own long-dead father had been ham-handed dealing with children, too, he remembered. “She’s a formidable young lady,” he confessed honestly, thinking of that afternoon. “She takes after her mother,” the Father said with a wry, conflicted-sounding laugh. “Um…would it be all right if I asked why your wife was banished from the capital, Father?” Father Sigri looked up from his desk. Realizing he must have been indiscreet, the priest said, a bit panicked, “Forgive me, Father!” This is something the Council of Elders erased from its records! If I ask about it, I might be obliterated, too! He tried to take back the question. “If it’s something I shouldn’t have asked…” “No, it doesn’t matter now. If you want to know, I’ll tell you.” The Father let his eyes lightly roam the empty air as if recalling something, and then, in that same penetrating low and gentle voice with which he gave his sermons, he began to speak. That girl’s a little creepy, you know. Sometimes she’ll reach her hand out when there’s nobody there to reach for and just burst out laughing. I tell, you it scares me… She heard a group of women whispering. The whole conversation had a bad vibe about it: the vibe of people trying to exclude anyone different, like when they traded mean gossip about a neighbor. It reminded her of the people in her apartment building when she lived with her grandmother—I hear that old woman on the third floor took her “granddaughter” in off the streets—and it filled her with unconditioned revulsion. The whisperers now were servants dressed in black and carrying piles of balled-up sheets and silver tea trays and such, apparently on the job. Suddenly their chatter stopped. When they all turned around at once, a woman was standing there behind them, holding a baby. A woman with her long black hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing even simpler black clothes than the servants. She subdued the gaily gossiping crowd with a mild-mannered gaze that still managed to be strong and commanding. Is that…me? “Lady Setsuri,” said one of the women, and Kieli quickly realized that no, it was her mother. Which means that baby fast asleep in her arms all wrapped up in the baby blanket is me. As the servants maintained an uncomfortable silence, Setsuri kept right on walking, looking undaunted. When she passed through the center of their group, the sleeping baby suddenly started fussing. Inky black eyes very like her mother’s flickered open. She stared off into space for a while, as if she were following something floating through the air with her eyes and then giggled happily. The images blurred away into nothing, revealing a painting hanging on the wall where they had been. It depicted in painstaking detail ten or so people praying over the bread on their table. Kieli recognized it from her textbooks back at the boarding school as a religious painting that illustrated a scene from the holy book. In the dimness of the low-lit room, the people’s eyes were dark and clouded, and their white skin stood out in sharp relief. That was… She was currently sitting on the edge of the bed in the tower room she’d been assigned for her stay, gazing at a painting on the wall. The sound of silence hung in the air of the empty room. One of the people in the painting seemed to laugh all of a sudden. Tee-hee-hee… Kieli could hear laughter coming from inside the painting. Just as she was leaning forward to give it a harder look, a sort of white shadow leapt out of it, and she quickly shrank back when it seemed about to hit her. This time the laughter came from off to Kieli’s side. When she shifted her gaze toward it, her head still lowered defensively, she saw a girl standing in the corner of the room. A raven-haired girl in filmy white robes that looked almost like underwear. She looked sort of like Kieli. “Um…” Kieli called to her, but before she could say anything, the girl whirled around and vanished into the darkness. Tee-hee-hee… Laughter again, from a different direction. When Kieli looked for the source of the voice, that same girl was standing in front of the door to her room this time. Giggling in a breathy whisper, she slid away through the door. The hem of her white slip fluttered like wings as it vanished through the crack between the door and the jamb. Kieli climbed barefoot out of the bed. She didn’t know if the lady-in-waiting had forgotten to lock the door or what, but when she tried the knob, the door opened with a creak. She tentatively craned her head out into the hallway. This late at night, there was nobody in sight there. A dull, murky light shone from the electric lamps placed at wide intervals.