At least this time it doesn’t have to turn into the Styx if they can’t accept the truth, he reminded himself. At least I’ve got that much.
They entered the largish—but still much smaller than the main cavern—chamber in which Nimue Alban had first awakened on Safehold twice. In preparation for their visit, Owl had manufactured an oval conference table of polished marble—or out of an advanced synthetic that looked and felt exactly like polished marble, anyway—large enough to comfortably accommodate a dozen people. The chairs around it were made of gleaming native hardwoods, with deep, comfortable cushions, and several wine bottles and a steaming carafe of hot chocolate had been set ready to hand.
“Please, sit,” Merlin invited, and the Safeholdians obeyed. He waited until they were seated, then nodded for Nimue to sit, as well. “Wine? Or would you prefer chocolate?”
“Chocolate for me,” Aivah told him, and smiled wryly. “I don’t think I need alcohol complicating things just now.”
“Of course.” He picked up the carafe and poured into a cup. “Sandaria?”
“Chocolate will be fine for me, as well, Major.”
He nodded, handed the first cup to Aivah, and poured a second for the “maid,” then glanced at Nimue, who shook her head with a faint smile of her own.
He set the carafe back on the table, adjusting the cap rather more carefully than usual, then snorted quietly as he realized he was deliberately delaying the moment. He drew one of those deep breaths a PICA no longer required and settled into his own chair at the head of the table.
“As I’m sure both of you have realized by now,” he said, “‘Nimue’s Cave’ isn’t the seijin training camp you thought we were taking you to, Aivah.” His eyes met hers. “And, as I told you on the flight here, Captain Chwaeriau’s first name does, in fact, have quite a lot to do with the reason we call all this”—he waved one hand in a gesture that took in the entire complex—“Nimue’s Cave. But it’s not because she was named for it. Actually, it was named for her. In fact, it was created for her over a thousand of your years ago.”
Aivah’s eyes widened, and he heard Sandaria inhale sharply.
“This chamber, these caverns, were here before the Day of Creation,” he continued steadily. “They predate the Church, predate Armageddon Reef and the War Against the Fallen, predate even the first time the ‘Archangel Langhorne’ set foot on Safehold. You asked me once if I came from the same place all of the Adams and Eves had come from at the Creation, and the answer is that I did. So did Captain Chwaeriau. And so did the Archangels themselves, because they weren’t Archangels. They were mortal men and women pretending to be Archangels.”
Aivah and Sandaria were both staring at him now, their faces very pale.
“I know that’s not what you expected, despite everything in Saint Kohdy’s journal, but it’s the truth. In fact, it’s almost certainly what Kohdy had come to suspect—or to wonder about, at any rate—when he shifted to Español. And I’m positive it’s the reason he died when he took his suspicions to Schueler.”
“That’s … that’s not true!” Sandaria whispered. “It can’t be true!”
“Yes, it can.” Merlin smiled compassionately, even regretfully as he saw the shock in her eyes. “The Archangels were as mortal as you or Aivah, Sandaria. As mortal as Nimue and I used to be.”
“What?” It was Aivah this time, her eyes just as huge, just as shadowed with shock and what looked too much like fear. “What do you mean ‘used to be’?”
“I know it’s hard to believe,” Merlin said gently. “But it’s the truth. No, we’re not demons, but Nimue and I used to be the same person, you see. And that person died over a thousand years ago.”
* * *
“I’m still not sure I can wrap my mind around it,” Aivah Pahrsahn said several hours later.
The wine and chocolate had been supplemented by bowls of hot soup, accompanied by salads and thick slabs of hot, freshly buttered bread. By the time Owl’s remotes had delivered the food, Aivah and Sandaria had been past the first stunning shock, and they’d watched in fascination as the soup tureen and bowls floated to the table on a counter-grav serving unit. There’d been more than a little fear in that fascination, perhaps, but the thick, tasty soup had become a solid, thankfully familiar, and thoroughly mundane anchor to the reality they’d thought they knew.
“It does take some wrapping,” Nahrmahn Baytz told her. “You should try it from my side, though!”
The portly little prince’s hologram “sat” in a chair at the foot of the table, looking up its length at Merlin. In deference to their guests’ sensibilities, he’d walked in the door rather than simply appearing, and a hologram of Owl’s black-haired, blue-eyed avatar sat to his left. Nahrmahn had been supplied with his own equally holographic bottle of wine in order to keep them company, and now he raised his glass in ironic salute.
“Sandaria?” Nimue said quietly from her seat across the table from Aivah’s maid. “I hope you’re feeling a little more … comfortable now?”
“That’s not the word I’d choose,” Sandaria replied. Her voice was harsh, her expression deeply troubled. “It’s too much for me to even begin understanding at this point. We knew from Saint Kohdy’s journal that there was a lot more than had ever appeared in the Writ, and we knew The Testimonies had been edited. But that all of it was a lie? That there’s no truth in the Writ at all?” She shook her head, eyes dark, glistening with anguished, unshed tears. “I don’t know if I can truly believe that. I don’t even know if I want to believe it!”
“Sandaria—” Aivah began, her tone edged with alarm, but Merlin raised one hand, palm foremost, and shook his head.
“It wasn’t all a lie, Sandaria. Nor was all of it evil. A lot of its consequences have been ‘evil,’ however you want to define the term, even judged solely by the Holy Writ’s own internal commands and obligations. But there’s an enormous amount of good in the Writ, as well.
“I’ve read all of it, from end to end, and to be honest, one of the things I most hated about it, knowing what happened to Pei Shan-wei and all of my friends in the Alexandria Enclave, was that there was so much in it with which I completely and totally agreed. When someone like Sharleyan refers to the commands of the Writ today, when she says that God must weep to see us killing one another in His name, she’s not being dishonest and she’s not dissembling.
“I won’t pretend that everyone who’s learned the truth has simply gone merrily along still believing in God, because some of them haven’t.” Sandaria looked at him, her face showing how hard she found it to believe anyone could possibly think that way. “But the last thing I—or any other member of the inner circle—wants would be for you to stop believing in God simply because Langhorne and the others lied about Him. If you decide—if you decide—that God doesn’t exist, that’s your right, but do it on the basis of something besides the fact that Langhorne and Chihiro fabricated the story of what happened when human beings first came to Safehold. Make your decision based on your own reasoning, your own interpretation of the evidence and the universe, but don’t let your belief in Him be destroyed by the actions of men and women who were terrified that the threat they’d escaped might someday threaten to exterminate the entire human race once more … and succeed.”
“Merlin’s right, Sandaria,” Nimue said. “And I’m not saying that just because he and I used to be the same person!” She grinned impishly, then sobered. “But he and I both consider ourselves Christians. That’s a religion, a God, you’ve never heard of, yet a huge part of the Writ is borrowed directly from the central, most sacred teachings of Christianity, and there are other parts of it borrowed from a religion called Islam, and one called Judaism. In fact, there are parts of it from almost every way in which mankind ever attempted to know God.
“The way he and I see it, the God in whom we believe’s still there, Sandaria, still waiting for us to return to Him if we choose to. That’s what Maikel Staynair’s been saying from the
very beginning. Like him, I believe God never walks away from anyone, but we have free will. That means anyone can choose to walk away from Him … and that anyone has the right to decide for herself that He doesn’t even exist. In my opinion, they’d be wrong, but that’s because of what I believe, and I have no right to require them to share my belief or to condemn them if they don’t. That’s really what this war is all about from the inner circle’s perspective, giving human beings back the right to choose.”
“But … but if it was all a fabrication, look at all the horrible things the Book of Schueler requires. How could God let them twist things that badly just to support a lie?!”
“When people have freedom of choice, some of them will make bad choices,” Nahrmahn’s hologram said quietly. “I speak from a certain personal experience. There are things I did before Cayleb and Sharleyan were kind enough to conquer Emerald that I look back upon with enormous regret. And I feel that regret now, Mistress Ghatfryd, long after learning the truth about Langhorne and the other ‘Archangels.’ The truth is, I feel it because learning the truth about them made me re-examine what I truly believed. What I believed, not what I’d ingested unquestioningly from childhood through Mother Church’s teachings.
“Maikel believes that what we’re seeing now here on Safehold is God moving in the world to restore the true knowledge of Him which was lost when all the rest of the human race was destroyed, and perhaps he’s right. I think his brother, Baron Rock Point, is less certain God even exists, much less that He’s taking a personal interest in anything that happens here on Safehold. If the two of them—brothers who grew up together, who love each other deeply, who would die to protect one another—can fail to see eye-to-eye on every aspect of faith, God, and God’s will, certainly there’s plenty of room for the rest of us to seek our own best understanding. Some of us will make mistakes, and some of us will willfully turn away from what we secretly suspect is the right thing to do, and that, too, is our right. Our God-given right. As Maikel says, either He doesn’t exist at all, in which case whether or not we believe in Him is moot, or He’s great enough to understand us in all our fallibility. But if He does exist and He didn’t want us to exercise free will, He would never have given it to us in the first place.”
“The truth is,” Merlin said slowly, “as much as I hate to admit Langhorne might not have been a completely and totally vile human being. No one can read the Writ with an open mind and not see all of the good things it was also trying to accomplish.”
Sandaria looked at him with manifest surprise, and he grimaced.
“Don’t think it was easy for me to accept that. I knew the people—most of the people—the Writ demonizes. I know what happened to them, and I see all the lies incorporated into it. And despite that, there are whole chapters of the Book of Bédard and even the Book of Langhorne with which I find myself in complete agreement. Not just because they make internal sense, but because they represent exactly what I’ve always believed God wants of His children. Langhorne wanted to create a system, a structure, which would prevent humanity from ever developing the technology which might lead to a second encounter with the Gbaba. He was willing to do anything to accomplish that, and in the process, he robbed generation after generation of knowledge which might have prevented disease, prevented starvation, or taken millions of Harchongese and Desnairian serfs out of the worst sort of bondage. I can’t even begin to describe all the things he stole from every single person ever born on Safehold. The recon skimmers that brought you here, all the things you’ve seen in the Cave—all of that is only a tiny part of what was denied to you, to your parents, to your grandparents and great-grandparents. To every generation ever born on this planet.
“Yet even as he did that, he tried to build a society in which men and women loved other men and women. In which they were supposed to treat one another as true brothers and sisters. In which the strong were to protect the weak, not prey upon them. The societies which grew up in places like Harchong and Desnair developed despite the teachings of the Writ, not because of them. When I first met King Haarahld, I asked him why his great-grandfather had abolished serfdom in Charis, and he replied ‘Because it’s what he believed God wanted of us.’ I pointed out that serfdom and even slavery existed in other realms and that the Church tolerated it, and I asked how he could believe God didn’t agree with serfdom if some men and women were bound to the land even in the Temple Lands, and he said ‘The Writ teaches that God created every Adam and every Eve in the same instant, the same exercise of His will through the Archangel Langhorne. He didn’t create kings first, or nobles, or wealthy merchants. He breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of all men and all women. Surely that means all men and all women are brothers and sisters.’”
Merlin paused, his expression touched with the grief he still felt over Haarahld’s death. Then his sapphire eyes refocused on Sandaria’s face.
“I didn’t know then that he’d already read the Journal of Saint Zherneau. But the thing was that even though he had, everything he’d said about what the Writ taught was completely accurate. That was what it taught.
“In many ways, the Writ has what a Bédardist would call a split personality. I have a copy of it from before the Rakurai strike on Armageddon Reef, and you’re more than welcome to study it if you’d like to. But one thing you’ll discover is that it doesn’t have the Book of Schueler in it at all. In fact, much as I hated to admit it when Maikel pointed it out to me some time ago, if you read the Writ without the Book of Schueler and the Book of Chihiro, the God it speaks of is genuinely one of love and compassion. A God Whose plan for Safeholdians calls for them to love one another, to live in peace, to grow in experience and spirituality so that at the time of their mortal deaths they’re ready to meet Him face-to-face and take their places as angels and archangels themselves. They’re supposed to follow the rules set down in the Book of Langhorne and the Book of Jwo-Jeng because those rules are there for their own good and because they want to do what God wishes for them to do, want to live the lives He’s ordained for them.
“Is there mass deception in it? Yes, of course there is. And is there coercion built into even the original Writ? Yes, there is, and it explicitly establishes an authoritarian church to preserve and enforce its teachings for all time. But it’s not until after Armageddon Reef that the brutality, the iron-fist terror of the Book of Schueler, enters the Church canon. That wasn’t written by Langhorne, and so as much as I find myself hating him for the friends of mine who he killed, for taking it upon himself to create the situation in which this monstrosity ever came into being, I’ve been forced to admit that what we face today isn’t what he ever intended to bring into existence.
“Believe me, I’m about the farthest thing imaginable from an apologist for Eric Langhorne. The law of unintended consequences doesn’t absolve someone from responsibility for the results he brings about, regardless of his intentions, and I have my own suspicions about where Langhorne’s ended up. But the Church, the beliefs you and Aivah—you and Nynian—have given your lives to? Those are good things, Sandaria. No one’s asking you to turn your back on them. No one wants to come between you and God. We want—we need—your help in destroying the perversion Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s made not simply of the teachings of the God Nimue and I grew up believing in, but of the ones Langhorne wanted all of Safehold to believe in, as well.
“I don’t doubt for a moment that Langhorne would approve of the Inquisition’s effort to stamp out the ‘heretical’ knowledge and technology growing in Charis. But to do it this way? To torture and murder in God’s name? To starve millions of innocent Siddarmarkians to death? Maybe the man who was willing to steal eight million human beings’ lives, reprogram not simply their memories but their entire belief structure without their knowledge or consent, call down a kinetic strike on the Alexandria Enclave for daring to disagree with what he thought needed to be done—maybe he would agree no action was too extreme if it was the only way to pre
vent the emergence of the technology he dreaded so deeply. But the man who could approve the pre-Armageddon Reef Holy Writ would have seen that as a last resort, not a first resort. Would he have done it anyway in the end? Honestly, I can’t tell you what he might have done today, a thousand years after the Federation’s destruction. But much as I hate to admit it, I have to believe he would have tried everything else he could think of before resorting to the tactics Clyntahn embraced as his very first option.”
He stopped speaking, and silence fell in the carven stone halls of Nimue’s Cave. Sandaria Ghatfryd looked back and forth between Nimue and Merlin, as if studying the similarities between those two very different faces, looked deep into those identical sapphire eyes as if seeking the souls—or perhaps simply the soul—of a woman who’d died a thousand years before she herself was born. It was very quiet, and then, finally, she drew a deep, shuddering breath.
“I don’t know if I can live with that,” she said very, very softly. “I just don’t know. All my life, ever since the convent, I’ve been dedicated to preserving the truth, and now you want me to believe everything I thought was true is really only another layer of deception. Oh,” she waved one hand in a brushing away gesture, “I understand what you’re saying about the goodness buried inside the Writ. But the truth remains that you’re asking me to believe all of it, every single word—good or bad—is founded on falsehood. I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t even know if I want to be able to do that.”
She met the PICAs’ eyes levelly, fully aware of the consequences if she made herself a threat to the inner circle, and there was fear in her own eyes. But there was no hesitation, no readiness to lie, and Merlin looked back with equal steadiness. Then he smiled ever so slightly.
“People who abandon all they’ve believed in too easily make fragile allies, Sister Sandaria. Someone who forthrightly tells you they disagree with you is someone you can trust when they tell you anything else. There may come a time when they present a danger you have to neutralize, but they’re always people to respect.”