When the boats reached the Dyscovera and Al-Orizin, the two captains didn’t know how their crews would accept such changes in the very foundations of their history, their beliefs. The two holy brothers had sailed home, side by side. Aiden and Urec hadn’t hated each other. There had been no betrayal, no abandonment, and neither brother had remained behind in Tierra or Uraba.
Criston had brought the ancient Captains’ Log back from the frozen grotto. The Saedrans would study the pages, learn the stories that had never been told. Whenever Sikara Fyiri was found, she would also want to see it (and no doubt argue endlessly with Prester Hannes over its content).
As word spread about the discoveries inside the grotto, the crewmembers were as confused as they were jubilant. Standing together, both captains called for calm and caution, while even the most devout followers of Aiden and Urec wrestled with the contradictions.
“We have to decide what Ondun would want us to do. We need to learn more,” Criston said. “Tomorrow, we take parties ashore to explore the new continent. At last, we will see Terravitae.”
Prester Hannes could not comprehend why the two captains were so cordial with each other. After the massacre of his hometown, Captain Vora knew full well the violence and treachery that the Urecari held in their hearts.
Meanwhile, no one had found Sikara Fyiri, and the Al-Orizin sailors were growing concerned. Hannes hid his satisfaction, but he was particularly annoyed when he heard a silly rumor suggesting that Ondun Himself had translated her off to Paradise, leaving the rest of them behind as unworthy. The followers of Urec were such gullible fools! Even if the vile priestess had lived long enough to see the grotto, she would have found some way to delude herself into thinking that the two frozen brothers proved the Urecari version of the story. Lies, of course.
In his own cabin—which he had scrubbed clean of Fyiri’s blood—Hannes stared at the Book of Aiden. How had he misinterpreted the lines of scripture? What other explanation could there be? The things he had seen on the voyage—the Leviathan skeleton, the stone obelisk, a young woman who claimed to be the daughter of Ondun—challenged everything he knew to be true. The secret grotto with the preserved bodies of two demigods, side by side, was such a fundamental paradox that it could not be tolerated. Weak-willed members of the church would be confused; they might come to the wrong conclusion, or begin to doubt.
Hannes knew exactly what he had to do.
The following day, boats full of sailors—half of them Urecari—would go ashore and explore the land; other parties might return to the sacred grotto and continue to poke around, where they would probably find more lies. Hannes had to act before then.
After midnight, he came out on deck, passed a sailor on night watch. “I have come out to gaze upon Terravitae and pray.”
“Pray for us all, Prester. Our long voyage is finally at an end.” Hannes performed a perfunctory blessing, and the man went about his rounds.
He could have tried to enlist the watchman’s aid, but he had decided to take Javian instead. Safer that way. The intelligent, respectful young man had always been interested in Aidenism, and Hannes was confident that Javian would understand what needed to be done.
When Hannes roused him and led him to a quiet place at the stern, he spoke in a whisper. “I need you to go with me back to the ice cave. I have a task to do—a task for Aiden and Ondun—which cannot be done with a crowd of people looking on.” He glanced meaningfully toward the battered Al-Orizin. “And I want to be away from the eyes of those followers of Urec.”
The prester had brought two of his sturdy preaching staffs, each one tipped with a bronze fishhook. Javian’s eyes were wide and dark in the starlight. “Are we going to set up a shrine beside the preserved bodies?”
The prester smiled. That seemed a good enough explanation. “Yes, and we must do it before Sikara Fyiri tries to defile it with her Golden Fern.”
Javian looked troubled. “We should ask Captain Vora first.”
Hannes fought to contain his anger, making sure the young man couldn’t see it. “I am the captain of the church, and this is unquestionably a religious matter.” Later, he would find some way to dispose of the Captains’ Log as well.
Javian pondered this for a moment, then agreed. After the two managed to lower the boat quietly into the water, the young man began to row, while Prester Hannes sat motionless. He gripped the two preaching staffs—one for him and one for the young man—as if they were spears to fight against heretics. The prester stared ahead, listening to the night, wrapped up in his own thoughts.
The rushing waves were loud, scouring the rocks. He closed his eyes as they approached the cliffs, but he could not forget the lie of what he had seen.
He could only imagine what Prester-Marshall Baine would have said about this conundrum. The fiery church leader had picked him to live among the Urecari and study their falsehoods, to expose the enemy’s weaknesses. Hannes’s whole life had shaped him into a soldier for God, with the mission to improve the world in the name of Ondun. And now, on the far side of the world, he found himself alone again with his faith, called upon to save the Aidenist church and its sacred beliefs.
“Tonight, Javian, we will do a deed to help all future generations, whether or not they applaud us for it, or even know what we have done.”
Hannes never questioned whether the young man could maneuver them safely through the surf or thread his way to the icy grotto. He removed the two pitch-wrapped torches he had brought along and lit them to guide their way. Javian pulled the oars, taking them into the gullet-like passage, where ice crystals reflected orange gleams of torchlight in all directions.
Reaching the large grotto, the young man pulled the boat up to where the stone platform met the still water. Icicle stalactites and stalagmites formed the pillars of a mythical temple.
Stepping out of the boat and onto the stone floor of the vault, Hannes wedged the torches into cracks in the stone and handed Javian one of the heavy preaching staffs. “You have been educated in the ways of Aiden, young man. You know the truth, for I have told it to you.”
Javian looked uncertainly at the staff in his hands. “I’ve heard your sermons, Prester.”
“Then you know that the fundamental power of Aidenism is faith. No believer who hopes for salvation can question his beliefs, because that would be questioning Ondun Himself.”
Hannes was convinced that the revelations in this tomb would destroy the church. The tableau raised too many unanswerable blasphemous questions, and he could never allow that, no matter the cost. Because the prester’s faith was so strong, he was even willing to strand the two exploration ships, and himself, on this unknown shore in order to preserve the secret. It was the only safe course.
He did his best to explain the obvious to Javian, but the young man turned white, appalled. “So you’re saying our entire voyage, everything we found, every struggle we survived, was just a test for us to discover a…a trick? That none of this is real? I can’t believe that, Prester!”
“Nevertheless, you must believe it,” Hannes said. “And this is what we have to do.” He stepped toward the two frozen men seated in their petrified chairs as if positioned to be the judges of mankind. Hannes raised the Fishhook staff back over his shoulder and brought it down hard against the side of Urec’s chair, smashing away the ice. He pounded again, the blow echoing through the grotto as Javian cried out in dismay. A third swing and he smashed one of the navigational instruments.
Panting, he said, “Help me destroy the evidence and cast it into the sea.”