Berkens figured his holding area had been made in the same way as the dock, since there were no seams or joints on the walls. Iron bars were fastened in the doorway, and a rusty but functioning lock kept the door shut.
“Well,” he murmured to himself. “I guess there’s one way to get out of here. Do I bother?”
He rechecked his surroundings. The only object in the room was a pot with a lid, intended for the call of nature. There was no bed or windows, and the room didn’t seem like it saw much use—he still remembered the stale air when he had first walked in. At the far end of the stone-hewn passageway outside, Berkens could hear several people standing guard. He guessed that he could defeat them, even if they were armed, but if he didn’t do the job fast enough they would certainly call for backup.
Maybe I should wait and see what happens. Resigned to continue his unexciting waiting game, Berkens carefully stretched his legs out in the cramped room. He sighed and leaned against a wall. He would save his strength for later; he was exhausted enough from the all-night interrogation as it was.
Berkens was thankful that the residents of Blasphemers’ Garden had chosen not to torture him. But they were still intensely nervous about his being an Inquisitor, and thus their questioning sessions were long, dogged, and intensive. They kept pushing him for information on the Mauserist leadership—how much the church knew about their organization, what sort of strategies they employed for eliminating heretics, and other such things.
Berkens persistently tried to tell them that current Inquisitors were nothing more than wandering drop-outs who needed work and that all that was known about the Garden was a vague rumor, according to his direct supervisor. But his captors didn’t believe him. Berkens actually started to wonder if the villagers had a secret desire to be found out.
It was true that the inhabitants of Blasphemers’ Garden lived an isolated life for the sake of attaining their goals, but Berkens also realized how lonely such a life could become. Perhaps they didn’t want to be found but were afraid of being forgotten—like a game of hide and seek that had gone on for far too long.
People are people, he thought for the thousandth time. Persecutors or persecuted, no one deserved to die for their beliefs. Berkens wished humanity would find one philosophy to agree on so everyone could stop killing each other.
He suddenly heard a new pair of footsteps. They were too light to be the guards, and it was suddenly drawing closer.
Berkens squinted into the darkness beyond his bars. “Hello?” he tried.
A small figure holding a candle slowly emerged from the darkness. Berkens was surprised to see that the figure was the medicine peddler Cuphon, the look on her face as blank as ever.
“Er… hello again,” he offered.
Cuphon stared at Berkens silently, her cold eyes as emotionless as glass spheres. Such a gaze from a face that young was particularly unsettling. She slowly approached Berkens’ cell, crouched to place a full meal tray on the ground just outside the doorway, then straightened and stared at him again.
Berkens met those cold eyes. “You know I can’t reach that. How do you expect me to eat?”
“You should just starve to death, you filthy Mauserist pig.”
Her expression remained vacant as her hard voice echoed against the stone walls. Her tone was from having hated so deeply and for so long that the hatred had become as natural as breathing.
Of course, Berkens was used to being hated. He shrugged. “It’s good to see you again, too,” he said, unbothered. “Were you the one who drugged the cows on the ship?”
Cuphon nodded, still expressionless. “I used twenty packets on you, but you’re still alive. That bothers me.”
“So you have something against Mauserist priests, do you?”
“You killed my parents.”
Berkens assumed she didn’t mean “him” in particular, but rather another priest. “During a heretic hunt?” he asked.
“Yes.” Cuphon’s voice was frozen in hatred. “I remember when you killed them. My new little brother or sister was inside my mother’s stomach. Only Quart and I lived.”
Berkens said nothing.
“There were heretics in our village,” she went on. “You found them and burnt them to ashes. My parents were friendly with the heretics, so you burned them alive, too, saying they were corrupted by evil and would spread it to others. My brother and I screamed at you to stop, but you just kicked us away.”
Berkens stayed silent. It was true that Mauserist Inquisitors had combated many atrocities committed by heretical groups in the remote areas of the kingdom; government officials were limited in their ability to pursue criminals in border regions, but Mauserist priests could cross freely into any country they needed. For this reason, the majority of people, and eventually the Inquisitors themselves, came to see the Inquisitors as the embodiment of justice. They could do no wrong— even when they killed citizens who had committed no real crimes.
“Everyone ostracized my brother and me after that.” Cuphon’s eyes bore through the darkness. “They thought that you had dealt out justice, and that you sparing us was just your mercy. Nobody would take in a pair of evil children.”
Justice, Berkens thought sarcastically. In other words, a way to feed paranoia and make the majority feel more righteous.
“We’ll never forgive you for the things you did,” Cuphon told him. “I swear I’ll kill you—I’ll burn you alive. You’ll cry out and scream for forgiveness, but I’ll roast you alive slowly.”
“That’s… nice.” Berkens voice quieted a bit. By the time he had become an Inquisitor, the rampant heretic hunting had already died down… but he knew that small detail would mean nothing to the girl.
“You realize the boatman and his assistant died because of what you did, right? And those three siblings, who aren’t even Mauserists, are probably in captivity right now.”
Cuphon’s expression showed no change. “So what?” she replied. “I won’t forgive the Mauserist believers or anyone who doesn’t stop them. I don’t care how many people die.”
Berkens sighed and settled back against the wall. This is hopeless, he thought. The girl was clearly damaged beyond hope—and he knew better than to try and rationalize with someone no longer rational.
He didn’t expect everyone on the island to be quite as angry as Cuphon, but they seemed dedicated enough to their plans to cause some severe damage. Berkens had to stop them—it was his duty as a priest and as a human being. He also knew that he might have to kill, since diplomacy seemed impossible.
Why are people so stupid? he thought in frustration as he watched Cuphon’s hateful glare.
It wasn’t just her, or the Mauserists—it was him, and everyone. So what if people were different? Was that so worthy of fear? How could people trample over others for the sake of their own righteousness and not feel any guilt?
“You shall become one,’’ he had been told long ago. “Faith will connect you in a true bond, without betrayal or treachery.”
Berkens had believed those words, once. There had been a time when he was utterly afraid of being alone.
But he knew better now. To become exactly like everyone else, to destroy those who thought differently—to him that seemed far more lonely.
“So you’re taking on all the Mauserists and everyone who accepts them?” he asked dryly. “You don’t stand much of a chance, you know.”
“That’s not true.” Cuphon, for the first time since she’d walked in, made a small expression of feeling: a very faint smile. “That’s not true at all,” she said, her voice slowing down.
The girl’s thin smile was malicious and disturbing. Berkens felt a shiver run up his spine.