Chapter 87

The home he visited was shockingly plain and unadorned. It blended right in with the squalid neighborhood around it, just another house like all the others. It made him bizarrely worried—should a man of stature, one of the direct descendants of the Eleven Saints who made up the Council of Elders and the man in charge of the Church’s Preaching Department, really be living in a place like this? An ordinary residential district spreading from the middle to lower strata of this city called the “capital”—this dark gray city clinging to a slope in the heart of the mountain range. It was a district inhabited mostly by techs who maintained the city’s various functions, people who did menial work at Church headquarters, and the like; unlike the capital’s central area, which was a forest of steeples jutting up toward the heavens, here relatively small-scale buildings jumbled together willy-nilly, forming a jagged and incongruous skyline. The rail lines running into the city spread great billows of thick smoke everywhere that must be a nuisance to everyone in the neighborhood. Still, even that smoke disappeared easily into the ash-gray smog ceaselessly rising up from every point of the skyline. Fossil-fuel exhaust pipes jutted out of every single building’s walls, and if he tilted his head up even further, he could see that thick piping passed between the walls of each building like clotheslines. It covered the whole sky. It was from this sight of pipes crawling over the whole city like meshwork that the capital took its nickname “the mechanical city.” Fossil fuel–based power networks extended to every corner of the capital, with centralized control in the heart of the city, but on the periphery in particular, the pipelines were uncovered and exposed. It made him genuinely feel like a dwarf who’d been sucked into some great machine. Father Sigri’s private home sat in a corner of midtown, at an elevation where you could look down on the overpasses above the railways climbing their way to headquarters. “I was told to come to your residence…” he explained stiffly, nervous. The man of stature in the Church greeted him in friendly tones. “Right, come in. There won’t be any tea, though—I don’t have anybody working for me right now.” “That’s quite all right! P-pardon my intrusion!” A former teacher was someone owed deep respect, and technically Father Sigri was a former teacher from his seminary days. Father Sigri had only an honorary trustee position at the school, and ordinarily had no place teaching a course at all, but for just one year the man had held a special seminar, and he’d been lucky enough to snag a spot. After he’d picked up the communicator that transmitted to the capital that day the woman came, he’d abruptly changed his mind and decided to consult with Father Sigri, so instead of the Security Forces, he’d called the Preaching Department. It was good timing: Father Sigri had been in the office, so his call was transferred and he was able to speak to the man directly. He’d explained the situation and requested advice, the result of which was that he was recalled from the Church outpost in the boonies back to the capital, bringing the Undying as a thank-you gift for the invitation. Now he was scheduled to assume a new position in the capital this spring. It was like one stroke of good fortune after another after another. Or maybe this was what you called a “godsend.” “Sir, what are your plans for dealing with the…you-know-what?” he ventured timidly as Father Sigri shepherded him up the stairs. Father Sigri tilted his head slightly, looking somewhat at a loss. “A good question…I’m still thinking about it,” he answered vaguely. He’d been told that Father Sigri would personally take charge of the female Undying and deal with her, but so far he showed no signs of doing anything about the issue. Apparently Father Sigri hadn’t yet made it publicly known that he’d secured an Undying, although he couldn’t possibly fathom what the man’s reasons for that might be. Father Sigri seemed a bit different now than when he’d been taking that seminar. He’d grown mellow—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he’d grown offhanded. The Father from back in the day had been a strict priest, and he’d had an ambitious side. Housing an Undying under one’s own roof was likely to be one’s political downfall; the Father Sigri in his memory wasn’t the sort of man to cross such a dangerous bridge. Was it simply that he was getting older? Still, this great man had been the youngest person in history to join the Council of Elders. Chronologically, he wasn’t even an “old man” yet. “Father”—that title was proof of his stature, accorded only to the highest-ranking clergymen in the Church. Would you like a promotion? Two months ago he’d been asked that question, the very first time he’d visited the office after being summoned to the capital. It had come in the middle of their conversation, seemingly out of nowhere. Though he couldn’t really fathom what Father Sigri was after, he’d simply nodded. At that, the man had given him a wry smile, and muttered something that sounded like “If you say so…but you know, that might not be such a good thing.” Then the Father had arranged a new position for him that would set him on track to promotion in the capital. For some bizarre reason, that conversation continued to stick in his mind. When they reached the second floor, he began to make out a muffled voice coming from one side of the semicircular corridor. At first it seemed to be one continuous stream of cackling, but soon he noticed that it occasionally broke off on a falsetto shriek. A bewitching female voice…So bewitching he thought that if you listened to it for long, it might make your hearing go strange. When he cast a quizzical glance at Father Sigri, the Father shrugged. They reached a locked door at the very end of the hallway. Father Sigri unlocked it and opened it into a dimly lit room. There was a woman there, lying facedown on the bed in the center of the room and clutching her stomach. “Aw, now my stomach hurts! Come on, no more funny stories!” she was saying, pounding her pillow with one fist. She acted as if she were talking to someone right there in the room with her, though there was no sign of anyone there but her, of course. Wailing now with laughter, she rolled back and forth as if she couldn’t take it anymore, until she finally rolled so hard her head slid off the edge of the bed. Long golden tresses flowed like silk to the floor. Lying on her back with her head hanging backward over the edge, she glanced up, apparently finally noticing them. The light from the hallway set her white skin and ice-blue eyes aglow against the gloom, and this was worlds away from the dirty wretch he’d collected in that country town—this was exquisite beauty that momentarily took his breath away. “Oh, it’s you.” The woman pointed at him from her position upside down. “I remember you; you’re that guy, right? Hey, guy, thanks! I’m so glad you brought me to this place!” He had no idea how to respond to being thanked for her capture. As he stood there speechless, she began cackling to herself again. “The capital is a blast! It’s just full of lingering sentiments and ghosts and other weird stuff. I wonder if so much pent-up resentment’s piled up here that it just permeates the place. It’s got to be the most haunted spot on this planet…Look, there’s one behind you right now.” Her voice abruptly dropped into a lower register for the last part, and he whirled around in alarm. There wasn’t a thing there, however, but the decorated handrail out in the hallway. Should’ve seen that coming… Apparently the woman found his reaction hysterical; looking more entertained than ever, she burst into another fit of laughter and got so carried away that she slid right off the bed with a shriek. Still she kept right on laughing, prostrate on the floor. Beside him, Father Sigri sighed sourly. “You see what she’s been like. I’m a little at a loss.” Ah. Yes, I can see now why he’d be having trouble deciding what to do with her. Abominable weapon of massacre or whatever aside, on a fundamental level she was just a crazy woman. “I’ve heard all kinds of stuff from all kinds of ghoulies! Hey, do you wanna hear today’s biggest scoop? Do you? Get this: today’s biggest scoop is…” Evidently all that laughing had finally tired her out: she was crawling back up into the bed as she spoke as if it was some huge ordeal, and her voice had gone colorless, descending almost into an incoherent mumble. Still, the fatigue didn’t stop her from talking at them. She lay down and placed her cheek on the pillow. Tired, misty blue eyes flickered around the room. Then she fixed those eyes on Father Sigri’s face and said, “Let’s just say it’s about the wife and daughter you obliterated all record of.” There were a few seconds of odd silence. It took a bit for his brain to process this revelation, during which time he could only gape at her. After he finally pulled himself together enough to glance at the profile of the man standing next to him, he was left gaping once again. The Council Elder and head of the Church’s Preaching Department, the man in charge of every single priest on the planet, had gone still and pale as if he’d seen a ghost. The woman burst out laughing once again. “Aha! Ahahaha…” It was a singularly obnoxious laugh, one that grated at his ears. “I never dreamed I’d stumble across a secret this entertaining here—I’m a lucky girl! Really, thank you so much for bringing me here! Ahahahaha…” Her hoarse laughter echoed eerily in the shadowy gloom of the bedroom. Father Sigri was still frozen in place, his eyes riveted on the curious spectacle of the woman whose shoulders were shaking with the force of her cackles. Without moving a single other muscle, he managed to move his lips just barely enough to murmur, “This never leaves the room. Do you understand?” His voice was stiff, stilted, as if he’d swallowed a rock. In the Elder’s words he heard his own echoing back to him: that day, he’d told the children, “Pretend you never saw this woman.” So even the highest priest there is says the same things as my stupid, ordinary self, he thought. It almost came as a relief, and yet somehow also as a disappointment. Facedown and laughing tightly, the woman murmured deliriously, “Heyyy, Kieliiii, I’m waiting, you know…” According to the calendar spring was right around the corner, but here in the northern mountains, it was still a long way off. The young priest was scheduled to begin a new job this spring. But before he received his official appointment, he was ordered to play a wholly unexpected role.