Flesh and Bone (Benny Imura 3)

And . . . nine towns.

Towns with no organized defenses.

As she ran through the woods she could not keep the smile off her face.

60

BROTHER PETER KNELT IN THE DIRT BEFORE SAINT JOHN. HE RESTED HIS weight on his fists, his head was bowed, and he waited for the storm of the saint’s wrath to tear the world apart.

But there was silence.

After almost three excruciating minutes, Brother Peter raised his head and looked at the man who he worshipped more than the Lord Thanatos. His friend, his mentor, and in every way that mattered, his father.

Saint John stood there, hands clasped behind his back, head tilted to one side as he watched monkeys frolic in the trees. No storms of rage burned across the saint’s face. There were no tears.

There was nothing.

“Honored One?” ventured Brother Peter. “Did you hear what I—?”

Saint John spoke, his quiet voice overriding the younger man’s.

“When the world burned down,” he said, “I was alone. For many months before that, I was in a hospital, in a psychiatric ward—did you know that?” He did not wait for an answer. “They thought I was sick . . . mentally unstable . . . because I said that the god of darkness spoke to me inside my head. There are people with such sickness, you know; before the Fall and since. Some of them have joined us. Others have joined the way-station monks. After all, God speaks in so many different ways, and in the end he speaks to everyone.”

“Even heretics?”

“Even them,” agreed Saint John. “Although the heretics hear the voice of God and refuse to listen. Others—the lost ones—hear the voice and don’t, or can’t, recognize it for what it is. They are to be pitied. When we usher them into the darkness, it is always with kindness, with a gentler touch of the knife.”

The saint began walking, and Brother Peter rose and fell into step beside him.

“After the Fall, I wandered the streets of my city, watching it burn, watching the darkness grow. The Gray People never touched me. Not once.”

“A miracle, Honored One.”

“Yes. It was proof, you see. It showed others that I was indeed the first saint of this church.” They walked through the forest as casually as if the day had not been filled with screams and murder. Two scholars idly discussing a point of philosophy on a lovely afternoon. “And then I found Mother Rose. She was . . . merely ‘Rose’ then. A woman who had lost herself even before the

world fell down around her. I rescued her from savage men, heretics who saw the coming of the darkness as an invitation to hurt and humiliate those weaker than themselves.”

“I remember,” said Brother Peter faintly.

“I know you do. And you remember the years that followed, as Rose accepted the darkness into her heart and became elevated as the mother of all.”

“Yes.” Brother Peter could not keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“Those were good days. You were so young and yet so bright. So eager to learn the ways of the blade and the purity that is the darkness. Pride is a sin, but I will accept whatever rebuke is due me for the pride I felt in you. Then and now. You have been the rock on which I built the Night Church.” They walked a few paces. “You, Peter. Not her.”

Brother Peter bowed his head in humility.

“Tell me,” said Saint John, “when you look inside your head and your heart . . . at those times when you are in the depths of prayer and meditation . . . what does paradise look like?”

“Look like?” asked Peter.

“Yes. If you were to paint a picture of what waits for us—what you want to be on the other side of the doorway, what you truly believe is beyond this world—what is that picture? Describe it to me.”

They walked for half a dozen paces before Peter said, “It is the darkness.”

“And—?”

“The darkness is all. The darkness is enough. The darkness is everything.”