The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Vol. 2 by George Mann

Author:George Mann
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-05-10T20:34:44+00:00

“Tisane, or would you prefer something stronger? Yail wine, perhaps?”

The face was avuncular, kindly, and the enquiring tone of voice not one Yarrek would associate with the agency of punishment.

“Tisane, thank you,” he said in a small voice. He perched on the edge of a chair opposite the Prelate, and could only stare at the old man in wonder. He was familiar with Prelate Zeremy’s features from portraits, but oils failed to do justice to the man’s warmth. The prelate wore the scarlet robes of his office, and his hair was long and silver-gray. His eyes, as he stared across at the awe-struck boy, twinkled with what Yarrek chose to interpret as kindliness.

A footman poured two small cups of perfumed tisane, then quietly withdrew.

The Prelate laid his book on a small table beside the guttering gas lamp. “My informants report that you are excelling at your studies, Yarrek Merwell.”

Yarrek stared into his tisane, at a loss for words. At last he said, “I… I try to do my best, sir.”

“We live in an age when the certainties of the past have been stripped away, Yarrek. Study, in such times, is more problematic than usual. Who to believe; indeed, what to believe? The solid shibboleths of past times, or the fashionable mores of the present?”

“We have been taught both,” Yarrek began, and cursed himself for stating something that the Prelate must obviously know. “Perhaps,” he ventured, “we could not appreciate the Church’s present enlightened position if we knew nothing of its more conservative stance in the past.”

Prelate Zeremy smiled. “Well put, my friend. My informants were not wrong in their assessment of you.”

Yarrek colored and turned his attention to his tisane.

Zeremy watched Yarrek closely. “You are by all accounts open-minded.”

Uncomfortable, Yarrek made a non-committal gesture.

“You will consider improbable notions and not dismiss them out of hand.”

He felt his heart begin a laboured thudding. What was the Prelate trying to say?

“Five cycles ago, Yarrek, we discovered certain facts pertaining to our place in the nature of existence, facts which threw into doubt the very sanctity and dominion of the Church’s teachings.” He smiled and shook his head. “I, personally, found the revelation shocking. Like you, like everyone in Sunworld, I knew with absolute certainty the provenance of our world… We lived within the shell of an embolism embedded in the substance of rock and earth which went on forever without let or termination.”

Yarrek found himself whispering, “And five cycles ago?”

“Five cycles ago a discovery was made on the outer edges of the very Edge, beside the frozen circumferential sea. A discovery which changed everything.”

Yarrek’s pulse pounded in his ears. “Why,” he said at last, “are you telling me this?”

“You are a brilliant student,” Zeremy said. “You are the future of the Church, I might also say a future arbiter of the laws that govern Sunworld. As such, it is incumbent upon you to know the truth.”

Yarrek could only nod, wondering if his fellow students would also be vouchsafed the truth.

“Five cycles ago,”

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