The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 8 by Jonathan Strahan

Author:Jonathan Strahan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

PAINT FUMES, I told myself when I opened my eyes. They’d only just painted my room a couple of days before, and the place reeked of whatever that foul stuff is that they use as a base. Paint fumes and a ticklish conscience, and I’d been talking to the interior designer about mosaics for the ceiling, and there was a long list of beatitudes in the phoney gospel we’d cooked up. Nothing to worry about. Tomorrow night, sleep with the window open and you’ll be fine.

THEY FOUND IT about four feet down, in the trench they were digging to connect the latrine (we may have been men of God but we were practical) to the brook. The first I knew of it was when a crowd started to gather; a silent crowd, which is always the most ominous sort. My first thought was that some poor devil had had an accident, and I hurried over to see if anyone had thought to send for a doctor.

They’d uncovered a box. So far, they’d cleared the dirt away from the lid. It was about three feet by one, and it shone like gold.

It took me about half a second to think; it’s been buried in the ground God knows how long, and it shines like gold. Therefore –

I found that I’d shoved my way to the front of the crowd. Naturally, people made way for the high priest. Some workman looked up at me, as if asking what he should do. “Don’t just stand there,” I yelled at him. “Get it out.”

Once they’d scrabbled away the rest of the dirt, they tried to lift it. Too heavy. I jumped down into the trench, cassock-tails flying. The bloody thing was solid gold. At times like this, there’s a part of my brain that works independently, regardless of context or propriety. It reported; a thousand stamina, and that’s just the box. “Open it,” I said.

There was no lock, and gold hinges don’t seize. They swung open the lid.

My first reaction, I’m sorry to have to tell you, was, shit, it’s just old parchment. Then the better part of me thought to inquire as to what sort of document you’d bother burying in an airtight solid gold box. I shoved someone out of the way. They were rolled up, in scrolls. I grabbed one and pulled down. Miraculously, it didn’t tear, disintegrate, come apart in my hands. It was just writing, no pictures, in a script I didn’t recognise.

But I knew a man who knew about this sort of thing. “Where’s Accila?” I called out. Blank faces. Then I remembered. “Father Chrysostomus,” I translated. “Go and find him, now.”

The scrolls – there were nine of them – were in Old Middle Therian, a language that hasn’t been spoken for a thousand years. Only about six people in the world can read it. Fortuitously, Accila was one of them. “It’s some sort of religious text,” he told us, as we gathered in secret session in some storage hut, with the door wedged shut with a pickaxe handle.

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