David Weber - How firm a foundation

“Then you’re about where everyone is at this point, Father,” Merlin told him, and smiled with a bittersweet crookedness. “And believe me, I may not have had to grapple with the knowledge that I’d been lied to all my life, but waking up in Nimue’s Cave and realizing I’d been dead for the better part of a thousand years was just a little difficult to process.”

“I can believe that,” Wylsynn said, yet even as he spoke his eyes had darkened, and his expression turned grim.

“What is it, Paityr?” Staynair asked quickly but softly, and the intendant shook his head hard.

“It’s just… ironic that Merlin should mention ‘a thousand years,’” he said. “You see, not everything about the Archangels and Mother Church was set forth in the Writ or The Testimonies after all, Your Eminence.” . III.

A Recon Skimmer, Above Carter’s Ocean

Merlin Athrawes leaned back in his flight couch, gazing up through the canopy at the distant moon. The waters of Carter’s Ocean stretched out far below him like an endless black mirror, touched with silver highlights. The stars were distant, glittering pinpricks overhead, but ahead of him lay a wall of cloud, the back edge of a massive weather front moving steadily eastward across Corisande.

It all seemed incredibly peaceful, restful even. It wasn’t, of course. The winds along the leading edge of that front were less powerful than those which had battered Cayleb further north, but they were quite powerful enough. And they were going to catch up with Dawn Star in the next few hours. The galleon and her escorts were passing through Coris Strait, about to enter South Reach Sound southeast of Corisande before looping back westward through White Horse Reach to the Corisandian capital of Manchyr, and Merlin wondered if the bad weather was going to be his ally or his comeuppance. Getting on and off a sailing ship in the middle of the ocean without being detected was a nontrivial challenge, even for a PICA. As it was, he’d officially retreated to his cabin to “meditate,” and Sharleyan and the rest of her guard detail would see to it that he wasn’t disturbed. He’d even left a rope trailing helpfully from the galleon’s sternwalk so he could shinny back aboard, hopefully unnoticed. After so long, it had become almost a well-established routine.

Except, of course, that if the weather’s as bad as it looks like being tonight, there’re going to be people keeping an anxious watch on little things like rigging and sails or rogue waves… any one of whom might just happen to notice the odd seijin climbing up a rope out of the ocean in the middle of the night.

His lips twitched at the thought, yet he wasn’t really worried about it. He’d be able to spot any lookout before the lookout could spot him, and a PICA could easily spend an hour or two submerged in the ship’s wake, clinging to a rope and waiting patiently until the coast was clear. Not only that, but he’d be back aboard several hours before local dawn, with plenty of darkness to help cover his return. In fact, that was the real reason for the timing of the conference with Father Paityr. They’d had to make sufficient allowance for Merlin’s transit, and he’d had to plan on both departing and returning under cover of night if he wanted to be certain he wasn’t observed.

And that’s exactly what you’re going to be doing, he told himself. So why don’t you stop worrying about that and start worrying about what Father Paityr just told you, instead?

His brief almost-smile disappeared, and he shook his head.

I guess fair’s fair. You’ve cheerfully torn lots of other people’s worlds apart by telling the truth about Langhorne and Bedard. It’s about time somebody returned the compliment.

He closed his eyes and his perfect PICA’s memory replayed the conversation in Maikel Staynair’s office.

“What do you mean ‘Not everything about the Archangels and Mother Church was set forth in the Writ or The Testimonies,’ my son?” Staynair asked, his eyes narrowing with concern as Paityr Wylsynn’s tone registered.

“I mean there’s more than one reason my family’s always been so deeply involved in the affairs of Mother Church, Your Eminence.”

Wylsynn’s face was tight, his voice harrowed with mingled bitterness, anger, and lingering shock at what he’d already been told. He looked around the others’ faces and drew a deep breath.

“The tradition of my family’s always been that we were directly descended from the Archangel Schueler,” he said harshly. “All my life, that’s been a source of great joy to me-and of a pride I’ve struggled against as something unbecoming in any son of Mother Church. And, of course, it was also something Mother Church and the Inquisition would flatly have denied could have been possible. That’s one of the reasons my family was always so careful to keep the tradition secret. But we were also specifically charged to keep it so-according to the tradition-when certain knowledge was left in our possession.”

Merlin’s molycirc nerves tingled with sudden apprehension, but he kept his face expressionless as he cocked his head.

“May I assume your possession of the Stone of Schueler was part of that tradition and knowledge, Father?”

“Indeed you may.” The bitterness in Wylsynn’s tone was joined by corrosive anger. “All my life I’ve believed this”-he lifted his pectoral scepter, the disguised reliquary which concealed the relic his family had treasured for so long-“had been left as a sign of God’s approval of our faithfulness.” He snorted harshly. “Except, of course, that it’s nothing of the sort!”

“I don’t know why it was left with you, Father,” Merlin said gently. “I’m pretty sure whoever handed it to your ancestors-and it may actually have been Schueler, for all we know-didn’t have any particular faith in God. From what I’ve heard about your history, though, that hasn’t kept your family from believing in Him. As for what the ‘Stone of Schueler’ actually is, it’s what was called a ‘verifier.’ Once upon a time, it might’ve been called a ‘lie detector,’ instead. And however it came into your possession, Father, it truly does do what your ancestors were told it did. It tells you whether or not someone is telling you the truth. In fact,” he smiled wryly, “it’s a full-spectrum verifier, which means it can also tell when a PICA is telling you the truth. Which required a certain… circumspection when I answered the questions you once put to me in King Haarahld’s throne room.”

“Given what you’ve just told me about Safehold’s true history, I’d say that was probably an understatement,” Wylsynn replied with the first thing like a true smile he’d produced in the last hour or two.

“Oh, it was!” Merlin nodded. “At the same time, what I told you then was the truth, exactly as it insisted.”

“I believe that,” Wylsynn said quietly. “What I’m struggling with is whether or not I should believe anything else I once thought was true.”

There was silence for a moment, then the young man in the Schuelerite cassock shook himself.

“I’m going to have to deal with that. I know that. But I also understand why you have to be leaving shortly, Merlin, so I suppose I’d better get on with it.”

He drew a deep breath, visibly bracing himself, then sat back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap.

“When I was a boy, my father and Uncle Hauwerd told me all the tales about our family’s history and the role we’d played in the vicarate and in Mother Church’s history. Or I thought they told me all the tales, at any rate. It was enough to make me realize we had a special, joyous duty, and it helped me understand why my family had stood for reform, held tight to the truth, for so many centuries. Why we’d made so many enemies as corruption set deeper and deeper into the vicarate. The voice of conscience seldom makes comfortable hearing, and never less comfortable than to those who know deep in their hearts how far short of their duties and their responsibilities they’ve fallen. All of the orders teach that, and it was enough-I thought then-to explain everything.