Bloodstone Read online

  The Deacon stood on the wide balcony, his silver-white beard rippling in the morning breeze. From that high vantage point he gazed affectionately out over the high walls and down on the busy streets of Unity. Overhead a biplane lumbered across the blue sky, heading east toward the mining settlements, carrying letters and possibly the new Barta notes that were slowly replacing the large silver coins used to pay the miners.

  The city was prospering. Crime was low, and women could walk without risk, even at night, along the well-lit thoroughfares.

  “I’ve done the best I could,” whispered the old man.

  “What’s that, Deacon?” asked a slender, round-shouldered man with wispy white hair.

  “Talking to myself, Geoffrey. Not a good sign.” Turning from the balcony, he reentered the study. “Where were we?”

  The thin man lifted a sheet of paper and peered at it. “There is a petition here asking for mercy for Cameron Sikes. You may recall he’s the man who found his wife in bed with a neighbor. He shot them both to death. He is due to hang tomorrow.”

  The old man shook his head. “I feel for him, Geoffrey, but you cannot make exceptions. Those who murder must die. What else?”

  “The Apostle Saul would like to see you before setting off for Pilgrim’s Valley.”

  “Am I free this afternoon?”

  Geoffrey consulted a black leather-bound diary. “Four-thirty to five is clear. Shall I arrange it?”

  “Yes. I still don’t know why he asked for that assignment. Perhaps he is tired of the city. Or perhaps the city is tired of him. What else?”

  For half an hour the two men worked through the details of the day, until finally the Deacon called a halt and strolled through to the vast library beyond the study. There were armed guards at the doors, and the Deacon remembered with sadness the young man who had hidden there two years before. The shot had sounded like thunder within the domed building, striking the Deacon just above the right hip and spinning him to the floor. The assailant had screamed and charged across the huge room, firing as he ran. Bullets had ricocheted from the stone floor. The Deacon had rolled over and drawn the small, two-shot pistol from his pocket. As the young man had come closer, the old man had fired, the bullet striking the assassin just above the bridge of the nose. The youngster had stood for a moment, his own pistol dropping to the floor. Then he had fallen to his knees and toppled onto his face.

  The Deacon sighed at the memory. The boy’s father had been hanged the day before, after shooting a man following an argument over a card game.

  Now the library and the municipal buildings were patrolled by armed guards.

  The Deacon sat at a long oak table and stared at the banks of shelves while he waited for the woman. Sixty-eight thousand books, or fragments of books, cross-indexed, the last remnants of the history of mankind, contained in novels, textbooks, philosophical tomes, instruction manuals, diaries, and volumes of poetry. And what have we come to? he thought. A ruined world, bastardized by science and haunted by magic. His thoughts were dark and somber, his mind weary. No one is right all the time, he told himself; you can only follow your heart. A guard ushered the woman in. Despite her great age, she still walked with a straight back, her face showing more than a trace of the beauty she had possessed as a younger woman.

  “Welcome, Frey Masters,” said the Deacon, rising. “God’s blessing to you and to your family.”

  Her hair was silver, the lights from the ornate arched and stained-glass windows creating soft highlights of gold and red. Her eyes were blue and startlingly clear. She smiled thinly and accepted his hand, then sat opposite him.

  “God’s greeting to you also, Deacon,” she said. “And I trust He will allow you to learn compassion before much longer.”

  “Let us hope so,” said the Deacon. “Now, what is the news?”

  “The dreams remain the same, only they are more powerful,” she said. “Betsy saw a man with crimson skin and black veins. His eyes were red. Thousands of corpses lay around him, and he was bathing in the blood of children. Samantha also dreamed of a demon from another world. She was hysterical upon wakening and claimed that the Devil was about to be loosed upon us. What does it mean, Deacon? Are the visions symbolic?”

  “No,” he said sadly. “The Beast exists.”

  The woman sighed. “I, too, have been dreaming more of late. I saw a great wolf, walking upright. Its hands held hollow talons, and I watched as it sank them into a man, saw the blood drawn out of him. The Beast and the wolf are linked, aren’t they?” He nodded but did not answer. “And you know far more than you are telling me.”

  “Has anyone else dreamed of wolves?” he asked, ignoring the comment.

  “Alice has seen visions of them, Deacon,” said Frey Masters. “She says she saw a crimson light bathing a camp of Wolvers. The little creatures began to writhe and scream; then they changed, becoming beasts like those in my dream.”

  “I need to know when,” said the Deacon. “And where.” From his pocket he took a small golden stone, which he twirled against his fingertips.

  “You should use the power on yourself,” said the woman sternly. “You know that your heart is failing.”

  “I’ve lived too long, anyway. No, I’ll save its power for the Beast. This is the last of them, you know. My little hoard. Soon the world will have to forget magic and concentrate once more on science and discovery.” His expression changed. “If it survives.”

  “It’ll survive, Deacon,” she said. “God must be stronger than any demon.”

  “If He wants it to survive. We humans have hardly made the earth a garden, now, have we?”

  She shook her head and gave a weary smile. “Yet there are still good people, even though we know that the path of evil offers many rewards. Don’t give in to despair, Deacon. If the Beast comes, there will be those who will battle against it. Another Jerusalem Man, perhaps. Or a Daniel Cade.”

  “Come the moment, come the man,” said the Deacon with a dry chuckle.

  Frey Masters rose. “I’ll go back to my dreamers. What would you have me tell them?”

  “Get them to memorize landscapes, seasons. When it comes, I need to be there to fight it. And I will need help.” Standing, he held out his hand, and she shook it briefly. “You have said nothing of your own dreams, Frey.”

  “My powers have faded over the years. But yes, I have seen the Beast. I fear you will not be strong enough to withstand it.”

  He shrugged. “I have fought many battles in my life. I’m still here.”

  “But you’re old now. We are old. Strength fails, Deacon. All things pass away … even legends.”

  He sighed. “You have done a wonderful job here,” he said. “All these fragments of a lost civilization. I would like to think that after I am dead men and women will come here and learn from the best of what the old ones left us.”

  “Don’t change the subject,” she admonished him.

  “You want me to spare the man who killed his wife and her lover?”

  “Of course—and you are still changing the subject.”

  “Why should I spare him?”

  “Because I ask it, Deacon,” she said simply.

  “I see. No moral arguments, no scriptural examples, no appeal to my better nature?”

  She shook her head, and he smiled. “Very well, he will live.”

  “You’re a strange man. Deacon. And you are still avoiding the point. Once you could have stood against the Beast. Not any longer.”

  He grinned and winked at her. “I may just surprise you yet,” he said.

  “I’ll grant you that. You are a surprising man.”

  Shannow dreamed of the sea, the groaning of the ship’s timbers almost human, the waves like moving mountains, beating against the hull. He awoke and saw the lantern above his bed gently swaying on its hook. For a moment the dream and the reality seemed to blend. Then he realized he was in the cabin of a prairie wagon, and he remembered the man … Jeremiah?… ancient and white-
bearded, with but a single long tooth in his upper mouth. Shannow took a deep, slow breath, and the pounding pain in his temples eased slightly. With a groan he sat up. His left forearm and shoulder were bandaged, and he could feel the tightness of the burned skin beneath.

  A fire? He searched his memory but could find nothing. It doesn’t matter, he told himself; the memory will come back. What is important is that I know who I am.

  Jon Shannow. The Jerusalem Man.

  And yet … Even as the thought struck him, he felt uneasy, as if the name were … what? Wrong? No. His guns were hanging from the headboard of the bed. Reaching out, he drew a pistol. It felt both familiar and strange in his hand. Flicking the release, he broke open the pistol. Two shells had been fired.

  Instantly, momentarily, he saw a man fall back from his horse, his throat erupting in a crimson spray. Then the memory vanished.

  A fight with brigands? Yes, that must have been it, he thought. There was a small hand mirror on a shelf to his right. He took it down and examined the wound in his temple. The bruising was yellow, fading fast, and the groove in his skull was covered by a thick scab. His hair had been trimmed close to his head, but he could still see where the fire had scorched the scalp.

  Fire.

  Another flash of memory! Planks ablaze and Shannow hurling his body at the timbers time and again until they gave. A man beyond with pistol raised. The shot hitting his head like a hammer. Then that vision also faded.

  He had been in a church. Why? Listening to a sermon, perhaps.

  Easing himself from the bed, he saw that his clothes were folded neatly on a chair by a small window, the burned coat having been cleaned and patched with black cloth. As he dressed, he looked around the cabin of the wagon. The bed was narrow but well made of polished pine, and there were two pine chairs and a small table by the window. The walls were painted green, there were elaborate carvings around the window in the shape of vine leaves, and a strange motif had been carved above the door: two overlapping triangles making a star. A bookshelf sat on two brackets above the bed. Buckling his gun scabbards to his hips, Shannow scanned the books. There was a Bible, of course, and several fictions, but at the end was a tall, thin volume with dry, yellowed pages. Shannow pulled it clear and carried it to the window. The sun was setting, and he could just make out the title in faded gold leaf. The Chronicle of Western Costume by John Peacock. With great care he turned the pages. Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Tudor, Stuart, Cromwellian … Every page showed men and women dressed in different clothing, and each page carried dates. It was fascinating. Until the coming of the planes many men had believed that only three hundred years had passed since the death of Christ. But the men and women traveling in those great ships of the sky had changed all that, consigning the previous theories to the dust of history. Shannow paused. How do I know that? He replaced the book, then moved to the rear of the cabin, opening the door and climbing unsteadily down the three steps to the ground.

  A young woman with short blond hair was walking toward him, carrying a dish of stew. “You should still be in bed,” she admonished him. In truth he felt weak and breathless and sat back on the wagon steps, accepting the stew.

  “Thank you, lady.” She was extraordinarily pretty, her eyes blue-green, her skin pale tan.

  “Is your memory returning, Mr. Shannow?”

  “No,” he said, then began to eat.

  “It will in time,” she assured him. The outside of the wagon was painted in shades of green and red, and from where he sat Shannow could see ten other wagons similarly decorated.

  “Where are you all going?” he asked.

  “Where we like,” said the girl. “My name is Isis.” She held out her hand, and Shannow took it. Her handshake was firm and strong.

  “You are a good cook, Isis. The stew is very fine.”

  Ignoring the compliment, she sat down beside him. “Doctor Meredith thinks you may have a cracked skull. Do you remember nothing at all?”

  “Nothing I wish to talk about,” he said. “Tell me about you.”

  “There is little to tell,” she told him. “We are what you see, Wanderers. We follow the sun and the wind. In summer we dance, in winter we freeze. It is a good way to be.”

  “It has a certain charm,” said Shannow. “Yet is there no destination?”

  She looked at him in silence for a moment, her large blue eyes holding his gaze. “Life is a journey with only one destination, Mr. Shannow. Or do you see it otherwise?”

  “It doesn’t pay to argue with Isis,” said Jeremiah, moving into sight.

  Shannow looked up into the old man’s grizzled face. “I think that is true,” he said, rising from the step. He felt unsteady and weak and reached out to grasp the edge of the wagon. Taking a deep breath, Shannow moved into the open. Jeremiah stepped alongside, taking his arm.

  “You are a tough man, Mr. Shannow, but your wounds were severe.”

  “Wounds heal, Jeremiah.” Shannow gazed at the mountains. The nearest were speckled with stands of timber, but farther away, stretching into an infinite distance, were other peaks, blue and indistinct. “It is a beautiful land.” The sun was slowly sinking behind the western peaks, bathing them in golden light. Off to the right Shannow focused on a rearing butte, the sandstone seeming to glow from within.

  “It is called Temple Mount,” said Jeremiah. “Some say it is a holy place where the old gods live. For myself I believe it to be a resting place for eagles, nothing more.”

  “I have not heard the name,” Shannow told him.

  “The loss of memory must cause you some anguish,” said Jeremiah.

  “Not tonight,” Shannow answered. “I feel at peace. The memories you speak of hold only death and pain. They will come back all too soon; I know this. But for now I can look at the sunset with great joy.”

  The two men walked toward the riverbank. “I thank you for saving my life, Jeremiah. You are a good man. How long have you lived like this?”

  “About twelve years. I was a tailor, but I longed for the freedom of the big sky. Then came the Unifier Wars, and city life became even more grotesque. So I made a wagon and journeyed out into the wilderness.”

  There were ducks and geese on the river, and Shannow saw the tracks of a fox. “How long have you nursed me?”

  “Twelve days. For a while the others thought you were going to die. I told them you wouldn’t; you have too many scars. You’ve been shot three times in your life: once over the hip, once in the upper chest, and once in the back. There are also two knife wounds, one in the leg and a second in the shoulder. As I said, you are a tough man. You won’t die easy.”

  Shannow smiled. “That is a comforting thought. And I remember the hip wound.” He had been riding close to the lands of the Wall and had seen a group of raiders dragging two women into the open. He had ridden in and killed the raiders, but one of them had managed a shot that had clipped Shannow’s hipbone and ripped through his lower back. He would have died but for the help of the man-beast Shir-ran, who had found him in the blizzard.

  “You are miles away, Mr. Shannow. What are you thinking?”

  “I was thinking of a lion, Jeremiah.”

  They strolled back up the riverbank and toward the camp-fires in the circle of wagons. Shannow was weary and asked Jeremiah to lend him some blankets so that he could sleep under the stars.

  “I’ll not hear of it, man. You’ll stay in that bed for another day or two, then we’ll see.”

  Too tired to argue, Shannow pulled himself up into the wagon. Jeremiah followed him.

  Fully clothed, Shannow stretched out on the narrow bed. The old man gathered some books and made to leave, but Shannow called out to him. “Why did you say I had an infamous name?”

  Jeremiah turned. “The same name as the Jerusalem Man. He rode these parts some twenty years ago. Surely you have heard of him?”

  Shannow closed his eyes.

  Twenty years?

  He heard the cabin door click shut and lay f
or a while staring through the tiny window at the distant stars.

  “How are you feeling, and do not lie to me!” said Dr. Meredith. Isis smiled but said nothing. If only, she thought, Meredith could be as assertive in his life as he was with his patients. Reaching up, she stroked his face. The young man blushed. “I am still waiting for an answer,” he said, his voice softening.

  “It is a beautiful night,” observed Isis, “and I feel at peace.”

  “That is no answer,” he scolded.

  “It will have to suffice,” she said. “I do not want to concentrate on my … debility. We both know where my journey will end. And there is nothing we can do to prevent it.”

  Meredith sighed, his head dropping forward, a sandy lock of hair falling across his brow.

  Isis pushed it back. “You are a gentle man,” she told him.

  “A powerless man,” he said sadly. “I know the name of your condition, as I know the names of the drugs that could overcome it. Hydrocortisone and fludrocortisone. I even know the amounts to be taken. What I do not know is how these steroids were constructed or from what.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she assured him. “The sky is beautiful, and I am alive. Let’s talk about something else. I want to ask you about our … guest.”

  Meredith’s face darkened. “What about him? He is no farmer, that is for sure.”

  “I know that,” she said. “But why has his memory failed?”

  Meredith shrugged. “The blow to the head is the most likely cause, but there are many reasons for amnesia, Isis. To tell you more I would need to know the exact cause of the injury and the events leading up to it.”

  She nodded and considered telling him all she had learned. “First,” she said, “tell me about the Jerusalem Man.”

  He laughed, the sound harsh, his face hardening. “I thank God that I never met him. He was a butchering savage who achieved some measure of fame vastly greater than he deserved. And this only because we are ruled by another merciless savage who reveres violence. Jon Shannow was a killer. Putting aside the ludicrous quasi-religious texts that are now being published, he was a wandering man who was drawn to violence as a fly is drawn to ox droppings. He built nothing, wrote nothing, sired nothing. He was like a wind blowing across a desert.”