Transcript – What We Did
[The Pensive Tower theme plays]
ANNOUNCER
Scroll & Dagger presents
The Pensive Tower
Episode Thirty Six: What We Did
[A click, and the strange whirring of the venoscribe begins]
PAXTON
This is the memory of Suenna Harlan. Human, aged nineteen, identified as female. Memory regards her history with, and escape from, the Church of the Ninth Sun. It was donated on the 3rd of Sunsheight, in the year 679. Inscribed by Paxton Ferox on the twenty-fifth of Riverfill, 730.
We Begin.
PAXTON (STATEMENT)
Thank you for making this happen. I know usually people come to you to make their donations but, obviously, that wasn’t really possible for me.
Then again, I don’t know how common this really is. There’s a lot of things I don’t know.
I used to think I was quite smart. I got good grades in school, and my parents and Overseer Dimeon always praised me for my reading ability.
Now I know, of course, how ignorant I actually am. I lived in a commune called Whitehearth, which was home to a few hundred people, and I thought that was the whole world. I was a thistleback that knew everything about the pond I was swimming in while completely ignorant of the ocean that lay just over the hill.
You would probably like me to start at the very beginning. How did the church… the cult get started? How did my family get involved?
The truth is, I don’t know.
I mean, I know what they taught us. They said that this land was the birthplace of humanity but that the other races came from beyond the sea to steal it and so we had to retreat to a safe place; but that one day, we would journey out to reclaim our homeland. Writing it out now, I have to stop myself cringing with embarrassment at how I once actually believed all that. But then, that was the only truth I ever knew. That was what I was raised to believe.
That’s the other important context I think I should add. I wasn’t one of the Reborn, they’re the ones who come from outside to join us. I was born into the Church. My parents were Reborn, though I don’t know where they came from or why they left. That was one of the rules of the Church. Their lives before did not exist. Their true lives began with their Rebirth.
So, I’m afraid I can’t tell you who my parents were. I only know who they became after they joined the Church of the Ninth Sun.
You might be wondering about the name. According to the Overseers, the world is destined to last for thirteen ages. Each new age is marked by a new sun appearing in the sky. They said that we now lived under the light of the eighth sun. The eighth sun, they told us, had a negative effect on humanity. It took our strength and left us weak, at the mercy of the invaders who came from beyond the sea and took what was ours. But one day, they said, the eighth sun would set for the last time and then the Ninth Sun would rise which would restore our true strength and enable us to chase the invaders back across the sea.
And so, a new age of prosperity would dawn for humanity.
That was the story. And, all through my childhood, it seemed to be the truth. Especially when we had new people come to the commune to join the Church. They came from all over, Senteria, Welauden, the Wind Islands, and all of them said similar things. They were tired of losing their jobs to Orklins and Pencori, tired of the Federal Government not listening to them, tired of seeing their home communities getting overrun with outsiders, by tauroxen and dimans who didn’t even speak the right languages.
They all spoke of earlier, better days, when they had known everyone in their home towns and villages, and they had all been human. Before all this multi-culturalism that was being encouraged by the damned government that refused to just leave them alone.
Obviously, I now know the kind of people they really were but, at the time, all I heard were people forced from their homes by encroachment of the other races.
One of the new arrivals had a daughter who was about my age called Rhiadra. She was confused by the Church at first. She said once, during school, that her best friend at home had been a taurox girl, that she thought tauroxen were nice. She had been taken away for a quiet talk after that, and her parents called in for a meeting. She never spoke in class again unless she was asked a question.
The school was where I and the other children spent much of our time. We learned how to read and write and count, of course, but we also learned that which was considered much more important by the members of the Church, and especially by the Overseers.
We learned about virtues. My father, Tucker, was an aid to Overseer Malbrecht, and he taught us these lessons. He taught us about what should and shouldn’t be valued in the new human society that was to come. And highest among the virtues, he said, was obedience.
It was right and proper, he said, to know your place in the world. A person who knew their place and was content would have a fulfilling life. It was shameful to demean yourself and act beneath yourself, of course, but it was just as shameful to seek to rise above your station.
We were the workers in the great garden of the Lord. Our job was to work and make the garden grow. And we would take pride, he said, in the fruits of our labour. And it was the role of the Overseers to ensure our work was done well. In line with the vision of the Lord.
I should perhaps also explain who the Lord is. It’s still strange to me that most people don’t know, after growing up in a place where it was common knowledge.
The Church of the Ninth Sun worships one God. A god named Balqatar.
The Book of Nira-Ortarum says that he is the one true God, the God of humanity. It says that at the dawn of the last age, evil spirits conspired to steal his power away, which is why he could not help us when the other peoples came to take our lands. But when the Ninth Sun rises, Balqatar, the Lord, will come back into his full power. And he shall shower his people with the strength to take back our place in the world from the others who took it from us.
I cannot put into words how embarrassed I am that I once believed all this stuff. I wish I could say it was just my ignorance as a child but, even after I went through adolescence, I never once doubted the words of the Overseers.
The story of how that changed begins the day the strangers arrived at Whitehearth.
It was late in the afternoon when they came. I happened to be close to the gate, working on my crop patch, so I was able to watch as they were let in.
There were two of them. One was a greasy looking man wearing what I now know was a faded Federal Army uniform. He leered at me as he walked past and made me feel very uncomfortable. But I was distracted from him almost immediately by his companion.
He was a canrian. I had never, up to that point, seen a non-human before. None were ever let into the commune. I’d heard of them, heard descriptions of them, even seen a few drawings in books. But that was the first time I’d seen one in person.
His face was long and narrow. His ears were pointed and kept flicking back and forth. He seemed to be scenting the air as he walked, like a hunting dog, and when he opened his mouth to answer something his human companion had said, I saw that his mouth was filled with pointed teeth.
A few people shouted things at him, mostly the Reborn, jeering and telling him he wasn’t welcome.
That all ended when Overseer Dimeon, flanked by Overseer Malbrecht and my father, came out to greet them.
To everyone’s surprise, including my own, the strangers were given a warm welcome. Overseer Dimeon even clasped the canrian’s hand as if they were old friends. He then turned and led them back towards his house, chatting merrily the whole way there.
They left us in rather stunned silence.
Then the muttering started. It only ended when Overseer Malbrecht snapped at us, reminding us that we should be hard at work. I hadn’t taken part in the gossiping and had gone back to work as soon as Dimeon had led the strangers away, which earned me an approving smile from my father.
Over the next few days, I started seeing the strangers more and more often. The two were always together, sometimes in the company of Overseer Dimeon. Some of the others started making comments about the Overseer taking the dog for a walk. But when Mister Harlin said this in the hearing of Overseer Maya, she clouted him about the head and told him to never say such things again.
That did stop a lot of the talking, at least the talking that was going on out in the open.
Others were talking, though, and they were a lot smarter than Mister Harlin. A friend of mine said that the arrival of these two strangers must surely mean something was about to happen. Overseer Dimeon would not have let a non-human into Whitehearth otherwise, they said, there must be a reason.
Unfortunately, it was a little hard to find out what that reason was. The strangers didn’t really speak to anyone apart from the Overseers. It was several days before anyone even learned their names.
The canrian was named Kerbas Gate, while his human companion was called Paeter DeSanna.
It was actually Rhiadra who told me. She’d been working in Dimeon’s house and had overheard the three of them having a conversation. She also said they’d been talking about going out, leaving Whitehearth.
At the time, I didn’t believe her. No one ever left the commune, not even the overseers. We all knew they talked to people outside, usually to the other communities like ours, using the apovox in the Church building. But none of us ever went beyond the outer wall.
But, at the next big service, with everyone gathered in the Church hall, Overseer Dimeon made the announcement.
The time was approaching, he said. The time of the Ninth Sun, when Balqatar would ascend and bring about the age of humanity. And to prepare for that glorious day, we were to go out into the world beyond the commune, to find those who might join us in this great new world and take the first step demanded of us by the Lord.
This created quite a stir, as you might imagine. Those like me, who’d been born and raised in Whitehearth, were nervous about going outside the safety of the walls but also a little excited to see the outside world, even if we did think it was a sinful place full of dangerous non-humans.
The Reborn were almost cheering at the news of humanity’s imminent ascendance though they were none too happy about having to go back out into the world that they had left behind.
Overseer Dimeon said then that not everyone would be going. We could not, after all, he said, leave Whitehearth deserted. So, a couple of days later, a list was put up of those selected to go outside. I had, by then, been daydreaming a lot about the sort of things I might see outside the commune. The land was going to be ours again, I wanted to see it first, see what humanity would reclaim. I was worried that I wouldn’t be chosen but I was lucky. I got to go out. And so did my father.
I thought, at first, that we would be going out together, and I was quite excited since, aside from lessons, I’d never really gotten to spend much time with him. But he told my mother and I at dinner that night, that he was being sent on an important mission, accompanying Paeter DeSanna and Kerbas Gate.
Overseer Malbrecht would be the one who would accompany me and the other younger members of the church who had been selected.
So we left. That moment when the gates closed behind us was possibly the most terrifying and thrilling of my whole life. I was out in the world. That thought alone sent a shiver of excitement through me.
We did all travel together. We went east, by carriage, to an enormous city called El-Haradan. I stared out the window the whole way, at the farms and villages, at the mountains and forests we passed by. It was all so new and fascinating.
My father saw me staring and smiled.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” he said. “I’d almost forgotten.” He rested a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “And just think, Suenna. Soon, it will all be ours.”
I smiled back at him, excitement bubbling in my stomach. Then I saw Paeter DeSanna leering at me from where he sat on my father’s other side. I went back to looking out of the window.
When I saw El-Haradan, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was enormous. With great towering buildings and a huge stone wall around it. It was the kind of place I would have imagined the Lord himself living. How could mortal people have built something like that?
Overseer Malbrecht told us that this was the capital of the Federation, where their degenerate government sat, the non-humans oppressing our people while those who were supposed to represent us just sat back and allowed it to happen.
We were going to change all that. And it would begin with spreading the word of the Lord. We got out of the carriage and my father, after giving me one last smile, left with the other two; and then Overseer Malbrecht handed me and the others a stack of pamphlets and instructed us to hand them out to as many people as we could. Only the humans, of course.
So, we split up. To cover as much ground as possible.
I thought, back then, that the humans in the city would be overjoyed to hear the message of the Lord. But when I tried talking to people, none of them seemed to want to listen. I spent hours walking the streets and was unable to talk to a single person. Any time I tried to catch a human in conversation, they just hurried past me or looked at me with expressions that ranged from confusion to actual disgust.
I was at the point of giving up. Then I walked past a strange building unlike any of the others I had seen that day.
Obviously, at that point, I did not know what a trokosh or a trinlian was. The only religious building I had ever seen was the one in Whitehearth, and that was nothing like what I now looked at. The church hall was a simple, utilitarian building without decoration of any kind, nothing like the grand building now before me, with its spires and ornate statues.
But, despite that, there was something welcoming about this building. Like it was a place of safety and peace. So, feeling in need of some peace, I went inside.
The trinlian, for that’s what it was, was beautiful. I found out later that it is called the Trinlian of the Most Loyal, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it for yourself but it was immense. The ceiling was so high, that you could have stacked the Whitehearth church hall five times, one on top of the other, and I doubt it would have come close to reaching it. The ceiling was supported by thick columns made of marble, each one carved with pictures of animals and people.
And then there were the windows. Until then, I’d never seen stained glass and the sight of those ornate pictures illuminated by the sun that shone outside was, I thought, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
I was so distracted by the majesty of the building that I hadn’t even noticed the other people in the trinlian. But then someone coughed and that caught my attention.
There were non-humans everywhere. I saw raekn and orklins sitting on the benches, their heads bowed as if in prayer. I saw a pencori lighting a candle at the base of a statue that stood in the middle of the trinlian.
It was then that I realised that this place must be a church to one of the false religions the Overseers had warned us about. I was immediately filled with panic. Not only was I in a Church of Evil, but I was surrounded by non-humans. I wanted to run. I had heard stories from some of the Reborn, about how aggressive the other races could be, especially towards humans.
If one of them saw me, I thought, I might be attacked.
But then I saw that there were humans in there too. And, what was more, they were mingling with the others; talking in hushed voices, laughing and making every appearance of being just as welcome among them as any of the others.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. All my life, I’d been taught that humanity were downtrodden by the other races and were waiting for the opportunity to throw off the oppression. But, there didn’t appear to be any oppression. Not here. Every one of them, humans and non-humans, seemed to be getting along perfectly fine.
I was startled out of my reverie by a friendly female voice asking if she could help me.
I span around to see a taurox woman looking at me, smiling in a warm and welcoming way. I knew a little about tauroxen females, like that they were kept as property by the males in their home country, Sangland. The Overseers sometimes brought this up as proof of the tauroxen’s barbarity and why they should be considered enemies of humanity.
“They enslave their own women,” they would say, “how long until they come for us?”
I knew a lot of tauroxen women did escape Sangland and seek refuge in Senteria, so I assumed then that this one was one of them.
She was dressed differently to everyone else I could see, in a well tailored grey suit, a small book hung on a chain around her neck.
She was looking at me strangely and I realised that I’d been staring.
I quickly stammered out something along the lines of ‘No, I was fine. I’d come in by accident and I should be going’ and then I turned to go. But something held me back. It took me a moment to realise that, though I knew I should go, that it was a heresy for me to even stand in that place, I didn’t want to go. I can’t think of a better way to say it, other than it just felt nice there. The woman’s smile had been so honest and welcoming, I was reluctant to leave.
Obviously seeing my hesitation, the woman in grey asked again if she could help. I turned to see that the smile had gone and had been replaced with a look of concern.
For some reason, that broke something inside of me. I felt tears well up faster than I could stop them. My throat burned so badly that I couldn’t speak and could only make a choking sort of sound.
The woman moved towards me and, for a moment I did not know what was happening. Then I realised that she was holding me in a way I had not been held since I was a little girl. The parents of Whitehearth are… encouraged not to give their children much affection, for all are the children of the Lord and none should be treated as any better than the others.
The last hug I had been given was when I was seven and I had fallen and scraped my knee. My mother had held me, cleaned my knee, wiped away my tears and kissed my cheek. She was reprimanded for it later by both my father and Overseer Kalm.
And in that warm embrace from this woman I did not know, my body shook with sobs as emotions I did not even know I had had came boiling to the surface. I realised that, though I had been taught to fear and distrust the outside world, I was not afraid here. If anything I felt safer there than I ever had in Whitehearth.
There, there was always the Overseers watching for any mistake or misstep and ready to punish any transgression they saw.
The woman, whose name I did not know, took me by the hand and began leading me further into the trinlian. I resisted at first, more out of reflex than any real desire to leave, but the martyst gently pulled me forward again and my reluctance fled away.
She said that they were in the middle of a Cha morning, something they did here every week. She brought me to a circle of people. I saw that many of them were non-humans; orklins, raekn, other tauroxen. But none of them looked aggressive or angry at my arrival. On the contrary, they smiled at me and welcomed me into their conversations.
A cup of hot Cha was pressed into my hand and it was possibly the most comforting thing I’ve ever held in my life. The conversation carried on around me while I brought the cup to my mouth and sipped the hot liquid. It was delicious.
Then the trinlian doors banged open and everyone turned to see Overseer Malbrecht, his face red with anger, his eyes fixed on me.
He strode towards me, demanding to know what I was doing in this place of false gods and iniquity. He said one of the others had seen me go in, that he hadn’t believed his ears when he’d heard, that my father would be ashamed to hear what I had done.
I couldn’t move. I was frozen with fear. Then someone stepped between us. It was the woman in grey.
All the friendliness was gone from her voice as she said that this was a place of peace and sanctuary and that if he was there to disturb that peace then she would remove him.
I could hear the sneer in Overseer Malbrecht’s voice as he said that he would be very happy to leave this damned place, but only with me. He said that he would not leave me in the care of a cursed martyst. I’ve since learned that is what the woman was, a martyst. Witness Ullia Makken, the Martyst of the Most Loyal.
Anyway, Malbrecht tried to get around Ullia to get at me.
I saw the glint of something metallic in the martyst’s hand. Then there was a bang that echoed all around the building.
I thought for a moment that she had pulled out a pistol and shot the Overseer but then I saw it was not a pistol the martyst held, but what looked like a rod of plain iron. Then I saw that the rod was shot through with a vein of copper. My breath caught in my throat. I had heard stories of the magic weapons that people out in the world used, but I had never truly believed them.
Overseer Malbrecht stood up. He looked, if possible, even angrier than he had before. He pointed at me and said that the Lord saw what I did, he saw my heresy and I would be punished.
The moment he said that, I felt… I’m not sure how to best describe it. I felt this pressure. It was like the air became suddenly heavy, too heavy for me too stand. It pressed me down, first to my knees and then I was pushed flat against the floor. There was a ringing in my ears. White and pink spots popped into my vision. I tried to scream but there was no air in my lungs so all I could do was open and shut my mouth like a fish.
Then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. I could breathe again and I gasped for air as I pushed myself back up in time to see Witness Ullia throwing Overseer Malbrecht, almost bodily, out of the trinlian, slamming the door behind him. She then turned to look at me, her expression, very worried.
The next few days are a bit of a blur. Witness Ullia took me to a secure centre in the city where I met with a psychologist who specialised in “cult deprogramming” as he put it. It’s taken a few sessions, and I still have a way to go but I think it’s helping. They ask that you don’t leave the refuge until the treatment is finished which is why I couldn’t come to the Tower to make my donation. I suppose I could have waited but the doctors said that telling the story could help me work towards closure.
I haven’t heard anything from the Ninth Sun community since that day. I’ve tried to call my mother on the apovox but I haven’t been able to get through. As far as I know, none of them, not even my parents, have tried to find me. I don’t really know how to feel about that. I know I’m better off outside of Whitehearth… but I do miss my family.
PAXTON
Final Notes; Well, there’s a name I wasn’t expecting. The Church of the Ninth Sun. I thought we’d heard the last of them after the Union Plaza Affair of 681. A group of human supremacists, identified later as Church members, attempted to assassinate several key members of the Ruling Council during a public address. As it turns out, Tucker Harlan was among the would-be assassins. No mention of a Paeter DeSanna or a Kerbas Gate though.
DeSanna… Why do I know that name?
Anyway. Fortunately, the attempt failed, all the Church’s communities were shut down and all of its members, including their leader, the Heresiarch Mobias Fletch, were arrested or rehabilitated.
From what I’ve been able to find on the Church’s activities in the years between 679 and 681, I would say Ms Harlan had a lucky escape. It was shortly after this memory was donated that the Church began its more aggressive activities, going from the simple spewing of hate speech on street corners to targeted attacks on non-human owned businesses and residences. She got out just in time by the look of it.
She ended up entering the service of the Trinlian of the Most Loyal and, in time, became a Martyst herself. She now lives in Brana and has had no further contact with the Church of the Ninth Sun, nor anyone associated with it, so I’d call that a happy ending for her.
Neither myself nor Szelia were able to find anything on the god that was the focus of this cult, this Balqatar. No copies of the Book of Nira-Ortarum were available for inspection, it seems the tome is something of a prize in the theological community, with many scholars offering ridiculously high bounties for even a page from the original book.
The best I got was from a Professor of Theology at Elalton University who said he believed it was the name of a Dark Age god, usually depicted in connection with themes of domination. But he was unable to find any evidence to support this so that can be disregarded as nothing more than general musings in my opinion.
… There is something watching us. I’m sure of it. I can feel eyes watching me when I’m working in the office, and I’m not the only one. Szelia has complained of similar feelings. And I think…
I think some of the staff have disappeared.
Inscription complete.
[The venoscribe clicks, and the whirring stops.]
[The end theme plays and the Announcer recites the credits.]