The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

Author:Vajra Chandrasekera
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

* * *

The pavilion has been assembled in a children’s playground, attached to a school at the north end of the city. North, not south like he would have guessed: further away from the direction of the Perfect and Kind’s approach. Fetter supposes this is out of an excess of caution. He wonders if it was Pipra’s idea.

He too approaches with care, like he’d imagined his father doing: he takes a tuktuk, which he can control better than the light rail; he tells the driver to drive slowly, and constantly interrogates his body for signs of discomfort, of which he finds none except the varieties that come from the interrogation itself. Is his throat closing up, or is it just a prickle from exhaust and pollution? Is his body temperature rising, or is it just hot and sunny? Is his belly clenching? Are his balls tightening up? And so on.

In the end, despite having told himself he wouldn’t do it and that he’s still as safe today as he was yesterday, he gets off the tuktuk early and walks the last few miles. He’s hypersensitive, hypochondriac, and paranoid, but the walk is uneventful. He doesn’t even see a single devil. In his own body, apart from a slight and not unpleasant tiredness in his feet and shins from the walk, and mild dehydration from being out in the sun, he feels no ill effects. Or perhaps those are the attenuated effects of the relic, he thinks uneasily, whatever fraction of its effect might act on Fetter as his father’s son. But it’s not the feeling of unmistakable illness from when he found the papers about Relic a and brought them to his apartment. That sensation is entirely absent. This is worrying and confusing, but at least it doesn’t prevent him from going ahead. He keeps moving.

He finds the school: it’s been closed to students and its premises commandeered by Ministry of Health staff. There is a military escort, but it’s small. A couple of armed soldiers at the gate, barely paying attention except to check his identity card. Fetter shows his borrowed card with a smile and walks past as Peroe without being troubled further. There are people all over the playground itself, setting up equipment behind and between the swings and slide. He still doesn’t feel any symptoms at all—he feels fine, he tells himself, dismissing the bubbling sense of panic. He feels a little stupid for approaching so cautiously, and a lot more stupid for approaching at all. But this is too good an opportunity. He’ll never get this chance again after the Path Above takes possession of the relic.

The pavilion is already complete. It’s a large eight-sided hut, built on the only open patch of ground, whose frame is a metal and plastic scaffold that is clearly prefabricated and must have taken only a few minutes to assemble. Long white cloth covers seven of the eight sides and stretches overhead as canopy, with wide gaps left open for cooling breezes.

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