Tim Akers - Heart of Veridon

“That’s foul,” Emily said. “People worship these things?”

“They worship the pattern behind them.” I left the cog to its eternal struggle and went on to the next altar. “These things are salvaged from the river, Em. Pieces and bits, dredged up from the depths, sometimes arriving in whole parts. So the Wrights say. The fact that they fit together at all is pretty amazing.”

“The fact that the Wrights spend years piecing them together, now that’s amazing.”

“Obsession is a powerful thing.” I stopped at the next display. It seemed dead, a complicated mouth of pistons that glowed with some inner fire. Waves of heat rolled off it.

“So where’s this pillar?”

“Different room. We’re going to have to sneak through.” The hallway was fairly empty at this hour. Most supplicants paid their awe after work. “For now, just look suitably devout. And put the gun away.”

“This can’t be coincidence,” she said.

“Hm? The gun, Em.” I turned to look at her. She was across the hall, the pistol dangling from her thin hand. “Hide it.”

She grimaced at me, then folded the shawl around the revolver and tucked the bundle under her arm. She motioned me closer. I went to look.

“What is it?” I asked.

“This.” She pointed at one of the altars, a smaller display that looked like a puzzlebox. Sections of it slid and shuffled, disappearing into the box and re-emerging elsewhere. There was some iconography on the tiles, so that it looked like an animated story, but I couldn’t find any rhythm.

“What?” I asked. “It just looks obscure to me.”

“Here, right here.” She had her hand close to the box, as though waiting to pluck up one of the tiles. “No, it’s gone now. Hang on.” Her hand drifted. “There!”

A box shifted out of the central structure of the altar, sliding along the top. It was a music box, the fragile fingers of its comb dancing along a cylinder as it went. Seconds later it was gone, but the music lurked through the hallway.

“It was that song,” I said.

“The music box, that I gave you to take to Angela Tomb.” Emily turned to me, played with her lip nervously. “It’s the same song.”

“And where did you get it?”

“Some guy. He hired me to hire you. I thought it was a Family thing, but it could have been the Tombs, trying to get you up on the Heights-”

“Or it could have been someone from the Church,” I finished for her. “Same as the two who visited your office. And maybe the people who hired Pedr to toss my place, too.”

“Are we sure we want to be here?”

“Oh, I’m sure I don’t, actually. But Morgan said-”

“He’s a Wright. Or was,” Emily said. “You sure you can trust him?”

I sighed and looked nervously back at the altar. The music box made another pass, the same song, faster this time. Emily gripped the bundled mass of the pistol tighter, working her hand under the cloth to touch the grip.

“Can I help you, citizen?”

We whirled like children stealing candy. There was a Wright standing there, the guy from the door. He had his hands folded beneficently at his waist.

“It’s all… it’s just.” I gasped, trying to work up the kind of dull awe the guy expected. “It’s amazing.”

“Oh, I understand. The pattern is such a thing to behold. Do you often make the trip to the Algorithm?”

“Frequently,” Emily said. “I mean, every chance we get. In the city. Tell me, uh, Wright. We’ve heard that there are deeper chambers. Where the pattern is more… more raw.”

“Purer miracles,” I quickly added, tapping into my childhood to summon the correct wording. “The raw stuff of the pattern.”

The Wright raised his eyebrows at me, but shook his head. “The inner chambers are reserved for the glorious, my children. The Elders of the Church and the Founders of the city. Now, unless you’ve found a way onto the Council, I don’t think I can take you there.”

“I do,” Emily said. She had the pistol in hand. “We’re very serious about our enlightenment.”

I swore under my breath. Wrights like to talk about their little miracles. I felt sure we could have talked our way in. Emily’s eyes were wild.

“Now, child,” the Wright said, raising his hands and backing away. “There’s no need for violence.”

“Look, holy man. I seek the godsdamn pattern. Show it.”

He paled, glanced at me. I nodded. We got our way.

The Church of God, the Church of the Algorithm. The church of pistons and gears, angles of driving pulleys, escapements clicking, cogs cycling in holy period; a temple of clock and oil. The chamber of my youth.

We stood in the central sanctuary. The room was a geode of machinery, walls of cogs spinning, meshing, divine murals of clockwork that moved across the walls, generations of timed gears scrounged from the river and reassembled. The Wrights searched for the holy Algorithm, the hidden pattern, the divine tumble of tooth and groove that would reveal itself only to the purest, the most humble. Ages of Wrights had worked this building-engine, fitting axles and aligning screws. Always working. Devotion was measured in oily hands and callused fingers.

The room was loud and close. It had been large once, a grand hall dedicated to the study of the hidden mysteries buried under the city. Time had taken that away, layers of cogwork accreting on the walls, clenching tighter and tighter until the ceiling was close and the air was closer. The floor shook with the clashing pistons, the grinding gears.

I steadied Emily. I remembered that I had been overwhelmed myself when I first came here as a child. My father had prepared me, in his way.

“You’ve no right to be here!” The Wright yelled. His voice was a quiet roar among the machines. “This is a holy place.”

“It is,” I said. “We’re only here to show our devotion.”

“Then put the gun away,” he said, nodding to Emily. “And let me call my brothers.”

“No.” I shook my head. “We won’t need your brothers. Not today. But, my dear,” I placed a hand on Emily’s shoulder. “Maybe the gun is unnecessary.”

“What?” she asked, her neck still craned towards the ceiling. I leaned close to her, let my cheek brush hers.

“The gun.”

She stashed it sulkily, then returned to the cogwork.

“She sees the glory of it, son.” The Wright looked pale, but stern. “Not you. Where’s your awe in the presence of God?”

“I’m unable to contain it, Wright. It fled. Now. The Pillar of Deep Intentions,” I said, reciting what Morgan had told me. “Near the Tapestry of Hidden Ambition. I have a deep… fervor… to see it.”

The Wright paled even more. “That is… there is no such miracle in the house of the Algorithm.”

“There is. I believe, brother.” I grasped him by the shoulders and looked deeply into his eyes. “It was revealed to me. Prophecy, call it. Now where’s the pillar?”

“It is not… not for people. Not for the unholy. The pillar is a very peculiar gift of God.”

“Yes, it is. That’s why I must see it. You must show me. Surely you wouldn’t deny a pilgrim?”

He set his lips, looked down and shook his head. Emily hit him.

“Fair enough,” I said. “Morgan gave me an idea. Just hoped to do the easy thing.”

“We can’t stick around,” Emily said, looking down at the fallen Wright. He had crumpled at her touch, and was curled up around his chest. “Make it quick.”

I ignored her. Memory served, and I found the old family pews. Without sermons and choirs, services of the Algorithm were less structured than the older ceremonies of the Celestes. Ironic, if you thought about it. The pews were scattered around the room, facing different directions, arranged in different ways.