The Heretic Land Read Free Page B

for special schooling very early on, and at first I was resistant. I didn’t want to hold him back, but I was also … mistrustful of some of those wanting to school him. I know what sometimes happens to people like him, and I was afraid. Of course I was. I’m his father.’
    ‘What sometimes happens?’ Leki asked, and she sounded so innocent.
    Bon looked at her in the faint light, but it was difficult to make out her expression. Besides, he did not know her at all, and doubted he could read her. ‘Have you never been to New Kotrugam?’
    Leki laughed,and a few pale faces turned her way. There was not much laughter in the holds.
    ‘Only for my sentencing,’ she said. ‘And then I was blindfolded and carried inside a prison wagon. No windows, no air. I saw nothing but the inside of a prison and a courtroom.’
    ‘An amazing city,’ Bon said. ‘I’ll tell you all about it one day.’
    ‘No need,’ Leki said lightly. ‘It’s in the past now. So, what were you afraid of for Venden?’
    ‘I was afraid they’d send him down into the depths,’ Bon said. ‘You do know the story of why New Kotrugam is new?’
    ‘Of course. The fireball from the gods. Shore and Flaze combining to punish Kotrugam for its sins, wiping it from the world, seeding New Kotrugam as a perfected model of the old, tainted city.’
    ‘Yeah, the gods,’ Bon said. He watched Leki as he did so, but there was no reaction. ‘Something fell from the sky, from the space beyond the world, and wiped out the ancient city. You can see evidence all over. What do you think the city walls are? Why is New Kotrugam so much lower than the surrounding landscape?’
    Leki only shrugged.
    ‘The city lies in an impact crater,’ Bon said, and verbalising the forbidden story gave him a thrill. He glanced at the priest across the hold, head bowed, apparently sleeping. Another man leaned close to listen, and Bon no longer cared. They were all criminals here. ‘The city walls are where the ground was rippled from the blast, rocks and dust and the smashed remains of Old Kotrugam thrown up and landing in concentric rings around the hole it made in the world. I’m certain that’s the truth, though it’s hidden. That’s what happened, though it denies the Fade. So people are scared of the truth.’
    ‘You’retalking very loudly,’ Leki said.
    ‘Does that scare you?’ Bon asked. He leaned in close enough to smell her for the first time.
    ‘Where were you afraid that they would send your son?’ she asked quietly.
    ‘Down. Beneath the city, into the catacombs. It’s said that whatever annihilated Old Kotrugam is buried down there still, and sometimes senior Fade priests choose an exceptional child from outlying communities to venture down and commune with it. The story they reveal is that they’re communicating with the gods. But they know.’
    ‘You’re suggesting that they lie,’ Leki said.
    ‘Of
course
they lie, about everything! Isn’t that why you’re here? Because you doubt the lie?’
    Leki blinked slowly. ‘You feared for Venden,’ she prompted.
    ‘They send them down, and when these people finally surface again they’re dying, skin boiling, flesh melting. The priests write down all their mad ravings and translate them as messages from the Fade. And I thought … I thought Venden might be chosen.’
    ‘But he wasn’t,’ Leki said. ‘So what
did
happen to him?’
    ‘He was accepted into the Guild of Inventors,’ Bon said.
    ‘Even
I’ve
heard of them.’ Leki sounded impressed, but her voice remained uncertain, balanced. She already knew that this tale did not end well.
    ‘He was as pleased as me. He was still a child really, even at thirteen, because he spent more time inside his own head than outside with friends or girls. A tutor was assigned him, and once every moon this man made the trip from New Kotrugam to Venden’s school in Gakota. He set Venden tasks, which he completed easily. He asked him for research contemplations on