It Was Your Mistake — 9
The weather has turned chilly even in the daytime now — chilly enough that the robes of the faithful going about their business have grown a good deal longer and thicker. And with so much time gone by, this world has changed considerably as well.
First, more than two hundred people have received the blessing. Which is to say that I now have two hundred channels I can watch. And of course, I am watching every one of them.
I had wondered whether some limit might show itself once I passed a hundred, but there was none at all. I can look at all of them at once without a headache or any slipping of my focus, and I don't feel my power dwindling either.
If I'm honest, I have been giving power away for free.
It's strange.
I said once that I would take all of that power back someday. Until then, I ought to be portioning out my own capital. And yet no matter how freely I give it, there is no sign of the power growing less.
So I formed a new hypothesis.
Perhaps I am not spending power at all — only making a connection. The power itself may be drawn up out of the person and put to use. I may be doing nothing more than waking a strength they already possessed. If that is the case, then I can understand why the power that manifests is different in every person.
Only, in a case like this, the stories I know would have one's lifespan worn away, or something precious lost. I see no such symptoms. Then again, I have not been in this world a full year, and whether any life has grown shorter is difficult to confirm. So at this point, I still cannot grasp it.
I was an immense sea lying beneath the surface. Is that why I can give myself to every person and still not come up short?
A day will come when I know.
And the second change.
Andrew's subordinates have begun slipping in, one at a time.
Regrettably, there has been no additional warmth ceremony. Three people a day, plus one — I hinted at a single extra portion, but perhaps they still consider two hundred too few. They have not prepared a separate Sacrifice and brought one to me. It is only that one of those three happened to be Andrew's man.
When I bestow a blessing and dye the light black, I copy the whole of that person's memory and take it. So whatever they intend, once they receive my blessing, they are transparent to me.
Of course, if the memories were tampered with, or the person hypnotized, or their recollections scrambled by some other means, I have no idea how that would look! That could become a weakness of mine. I ought to keep it carefully in mind, and look into it.
Now, the third change.
The Kingdom of Rasbe, which lies to the west of where I am, attacked the Church of Future Hope.
But Hieronymus was a move ahead. He drew the army on and led it into the villages of the Kingdom of Cogni, to the east. Half of those villages, naturally, were ones the Church of Future Hope had already swallowed — places where the people were converted, where those who refused were forced to be killed by their own neighbors, where each was set to watch the other. The remaining half were ordinary villages of Cogni, where the preaching had only just begun, or had not begun at all.
The soldiers of Rasbe raided without caring which was which.
Why?
Let something like terrorism break out in the villages a few times, and you can no longer trust any village at all, can you?
So the Kingdom of Rasbe slaughtered the people of every village. And in the end, they collided with the Kingdom of Cogni.
Anyone with sense would have joined forces and dealt first with the cult called the Church of Future Hope. That would have been the correct choice. But among those who carry my blessing, there are people who can use something very like brainwashing. If the one seated at the head is a single person, steering them is simple.
Just once.
Once the fighting begins, it can no longer be stopped. Too much blood has already been spilled — whether it splashed onto a body in the act of killing, or ran out of a body in the act of dying.
Yes.
The Kingdom of Rasbe and the Kingdom of Cogni have entered the countdown to war.
The reason I know this is simple. More than half of the people who received my blessing were on the move in this operation.
Only, the one commanding them was not Hieronymus.
The man directing those who received my blessing is none other than a man called Witga. I had taken him for a mere instructor — in the terms of a state, something along the lines of a minister of education. He was the one who taught martial arts, and tactics, and strategy besides. But a person who can teach such things, it seems, can put them to work as well.
So he goes about with the people who hold my blessing and gives them their orders. He has been using them like generals.
Any single command, taken by itself, is hard to understand. But I can see and hear nearly every one of them, and once I have confirmed what they go on to do, I can tell what Witga has accomplished.
Hieronymus's people are extraordinary.
The four who stood directly beneath him then. One of them is Andrew, so I wondered whether this one, too, was dreaming of betrayal. He is not.
He is working in earnest. Hieronymus has excellent subordinates of his own.
So far it has all run smoothly, and the Kingdom of Rasbe and the Kingdom of Cogni are going to make war on each other. If war comes, the two countries will be too busy watching one another. Then the time will come when he can turn his strength upon the Kingdom of Anselus, the one presumed to be Hieronymus's mortal enemy.
Those are the three great changes.
There are smaller ones besides.
This, for example.
"Whoa! It's the Apostle!"
"Bless me too! A blessing, please!"
"The Apostle is the best!"
Just now, beyond a sort of wooden fence some ten feet in front of me, children I would put at under ten are looking at me and waving. Behind them, adults who appear to be their parents stand with their hands pressed together in prayer.
Yes.
I have debuted as a zoo animal.
About fifteen minutes. The business of showing my face.
Hieronymus invented it out of nowhere last week. He said it was a simple thing — go and let the faithful see my face — but if I am honest about how it feels, I am a beast shut in a zoo cage.
I am glad the wariness toward me has faded so much. Life here has grown easier because of it.
But even so, isn't it too much, dropping me in a place this thick with warmth? Set beside the baby offered up as a Sacrifice last time, the light here is larger, and the warmth seems to match the size of the light.
No. I can see it only because there are so many examples now. Too young, and the warmth falls short of the light. Seven, perhaps, or eight — only around then is there as much warmth as the light held in the chest.
So, does warmth grow together with intellect?
I wish there were a very great deal of it. And still I do not know what it truly is.
But warmth is such a good thing. Without my even thinking of all that, it can thin, if only a little, this cold that keeps growing colder without end.
I was passing the time that way when it happened.
One child climbed the fence.
The adults who had been praying behind them begin to scream.
Really, now — why is this precisely the reaction of people watching a child climb over a zoo fence?
The child is over the palisade in a flash, and comes running at me, calling for the Apostle. But I stay where I am. Joanna, who had been quite far off, is closing the distance at tremendous speed, and she has the child in her arms before they can reach me. The child squirms and strains to get free of her hold.
Do they want to see me that badly?
Hmm.
I consider what Hieronymus intends.
He called me an apostle of God and put me on display. Most likely he sent me out to do something along the lines of playing the saint. He said I only had to come and wave, or offer a nod of greeting, but if I am committing to an air of mystery, every single day is rather too often.
Or else he is testing me.
Right.
Then I will have to pass the test.
I rise and go to the child. Still struggling to escape Joanna's arms, the child looks at me and breaks into a bright smile.
Joanna, in the middle of tightening her grip, catches the child's expression, lifts her head, and looks at me — an expressionless girl, coming closer. Strength fills her arms again. She clutches the child as if to hide them from me, and starts to draw back.
So I point at the child.
No. Joanna's response is the correct one, of course. But I had thought she felt me to be something like a child myself, and if she is trying to hide a child behind her, perhaps that is not true after all.
Well. I am a beast that eats people.
Joanna stops.
Even so, her arms are rigid with strength, the child gripped tight. She means to refuse my coming any nearer. Does she think the child must not touch me?
But I pointed. Joanna can do neither one thing nor the other, and in that pause I come right up in front of them.
I lay my hand on the child's cheek. Soft. If I reach out only a little further, the warmth can be mine. A light of considerable size — and a warmth just slightly smaller than that light.
I want to take it.
But I hold myself back.
"It's dangerous, so you mustn't climb over the fence whenever you please. Do you understand?"
A chill comes over the child's face. Trembling eyes go to the hand resting on their cheek. Oh? Does the child sense the danger?
And, very slightly, the child nods.
I stroke the child's head, and I speak to Joanna, whose gaze is moving back and forth between the child and me.
"Please send the child back."
"Yes, Lady Rebecca."
Joanna carries the child to the fence and returns them to a woman stamping her feet there in distress. The moment the woman — the mother, by the look of her — has the child, she raps a knuckle against the top of their head and pulls them into her arms. The child bursts into sobs.
Of the eyes turned on them from all around, half are envy and half are jealousy.
But no one looks at me with fear.
Hehe.
This is what Hieronymus wanted, isn't it?
I wave to the people of the church who are watching me, and I go back inside. At my fingertips, the warmth I could have had still shimmers.
Ah. What a terrible waste.
But with this, one step.
The wariness toward me will loosen.
I hope Hieronymus will go on thinking me harmless, just like this. And I hope he will accept my blessing.
I want the knowledge that called me into this world.