“Well then brother André, if that’s everything, then may God be with you.” Said the slightly distorted voice of Pontiff Luca. 

 

“May god be with you.” Parroted Cardinal Ortiz, as well as those of many other cardinals through the transceiver.

 

A few moments of silence passed as each member of the high clergy waited for the cleric to leave and for the Pontiff to speak. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to, a few more moments passed of them waiting for one of their own to do so.

 

“So, ehm, how are we going to explain all of this to the laymen?” The voice of Cardinal Aubert echoed out of the device.

 

Ortiz had met the man a few times, and had fully expected him to say something along those lines. He was the sort of man who was only concerned with the things that happened in his own neighborhood, but would fixate himself intently upon them in return. No doubt he was concerned about the rumors that must have been spreading among the general public at this very moment.

 

“Forget about that and pay attention to the damned bigger picture for a moment, Maurice.” The stern, gruff voice of Cardinal Munroe followed. “It’s not enough to just call this a sign, it must be a full bloody message.”

 

Murmurs of agreement passed from clergyman to clergyman, despite Munroe’s cursing. It was pointless to call him out on it anyway, and Ortiz doubted that he’d stop even if the angels were to descend once more.

 

“Yes, yes. Let there be no doubt. This is no mere coincidence. The spontaneous shattering of every single grand idol we know of could be nothing but a sign, and in all likelihood, it isn’t a good one.” The Pontiff said, his slightly hoarse voice further distorted by the transceivers imperfect relaying.

 

Ortiz couldn’t help but stare into the spherical device as it spoke in the slightly mangled voices of his fellow holymen and their head, even though he knew he didn’t need to. The orb, dark as a stormcloud and set in a pedestal of gold, would listen to him and send his voice to its brother orbs no matter how discourteous he was to it. Still, his manners told him that he needed to look at whoever he was talking to, and as such he would always find himself staring into the swirling grays of the transceiver whenever he had to use it.

 

“Could it mean that another descent will be upon us soon?” Cardinal Torres asked cautiously.

 

Anxious murmurs rose from the multiple parties, muddled together as they were transmitted across space through the transceiver. A few of them were cautiously glad, but most were worried.

 

“Gentlemen, I assure all of you that you must calm down.” Pontiff Luca calmly stated. “Ortiz, is that Wright still with you?”

 

A few gasps were transmitted, but all of them were quickly drowned out 

 

“WHAT?! ALPHONSE, DON’T TELL ME THAT YOU’VE LET ONE OF THOSE BLASPHEMOUS TINKERERS ACCESS TO OUR HOLIEST OF DIVINE RELICS!!” The voice of Cardinal Munroe boomed at Ortiz through the device. 

“And your Eminence, you knew about this?” He added much more politely.

 

“As a matter of fact, Munroe, I called for it.” The Pontiff said calmly. “We are not just servants of God, but protectors of men as well. Because we were unable to reach Sir Orlando or any of the other Templar on such a short notice, their duty to protect the realms of men now falls upon us. And as much as it pains me to admit it, the Colleges simply understand the inner workings of God’s tools better than we do.”

 

More protests rang out from the clouded orb, the voices all rising much louder than they had been before.

 

Ortiz looked up to check that the door to his office was still closed. 

Good, it was.

A clergyman admitting that sort of thing would be liable for excommunication if his connections weren’t enough to stop it. Such a thing coming from the Pontiff could have the masses up in riot, and yet Ortiz couldn’t say that he was surprised about it.

 

“Your Eminence…” Cardinal Munroe uttered, more aghast at this point than angered. “Are you feeling Ill? Those heathens dismantle our relics: the tools left behind on this earth by the very Angels themselves. They shatter them and sift through the pieces to try and steal a sliver of divinity for themselves! Please tell me that you remember this, right?”

 

Silence fell over the sphere as all listening parties waited for the Pontiff’s response. Alistair Munroe was known for two things: his temper and his devotion, and Ortiz knew for a fact that every listening party was waiting to see which one won out in the Pontiff’s eyes.

 

“I haven’t gone senile yet, Alexander.” He said, bluntly. “And I’ll forgive the disrespect since I don’t think that you’ve yet realized what’s at stake here.”

 

Ortiz half-expected Munroe to scoff, as he knew that he did not share many of Pontiff Luca’s ideals. Almost immediately though, he realized that such a thing wouldn’t happen.

 

“…I’m sorry, your Eminence, I may have gone out of line.” Munroe said. “I'm just frustrated. I just don’t understand how the blasted fools can be so hypocritical. They say that they’re scholars, but they don’t seem to see  the value in preserving history, holy or otherwise.”

 

“You’re forgiven, Cardinal. You’re just expressing the fear that I know many of us all have. Rapture. Descent. The birth of a divine prophet. This could be world changing, even world ending, but there’s one option from among these that would be worse than all the others.” The Pontiff spoke, his voice rasping but still holding the weight of a much younger man. 

“And that’s if we get it wrong. Imagine preparing for the rapture for a decade, only to learn that the sign was actually foretelling the coming of a child with a Divine-level gift, and that such child had been snatched up by the Gardeners while our backs were turned.”

 

A moment of silence passed as all parties thought about the potential scenario.

 

“That seems a little too hypothetical…” one of the other Cardinals; Lorenzo, said. “Not that I’m calling you such, but that sounds a bit like something a fearmongerer might say.”

 

Those words, which could have gotten a man of lower ranking imprisoned, were not even questioned by the other cardinals. Ortiz took a deep breath to settle his shock, and remembered something that Munroe had told him when he had been selected to become the new Cardinal of Perez’s Basilica. “This is another world, Alphonse. We aren’t just Pontiff’s successors, but his confidants. He wants us to have opinions of our own.”

 

This, Ortiz realized, was why Munroe and others with similar ideals were still willing to follow someone as open to new ideas as Pontiff Luca. He would listen to them, no matter their anger, and attempt to explain his reasoning to them in a calm and orderly manner. And it helped that he was older than practically all of them.

 

“I think it’s warranted that we be fearful, given the circumstances.” Cardinal Munroe said in his usual booming voice. “But you better have a good reasoning behind this… blasphemy, your Eminence.”

 

“Firstly Munroe, I want you to know that I share your grief. Those idols were some of the last surviving artifacts we know of from the fourth descent. They are irreplaceable and unfixable, and for that I mourn with you.” The Pontiff prefaced. “But the world will not stop simply because we are saddened. We need to know why this happened, and the wrights simply know more than we do about how God’s tools actually work.”

 

 “But we’ve spent centuries studying them! The colleges are just bunches of schoolboys who showed up a few decades ago!” Cardinal Lorenzo huffed. “Their mindless tampering with the divine tools teaches them nothing compared to the study of their centuries of use!”

 

“Now listen, I’m not claiming that they’re the experts here, but just that they have an edge in this specific situation.” Pontiff Luca reassured his underlings. “These grand relics have been mangled past the point of our recognition; past the point that ages of careful study could identify. Wouldn’t the butcher supplant the physician when it comes to identifying viscera?”

 

Silence fell over the transceiver as all listeners weighed the Pontiff’s reasoning against their own. Well, all except Ortiz, who had already gone over this topic with the Pontiff earlier because of the College’s close proximity to him.

 

“This is worrying, Luca.” Cardinal Lorenzo said. “Should this prove to be nothing, I don’t want to be known as someone who let the blasphemers in.”

 

“Then you won’t be.” Luca said. “There’s no rule that says I have to listen to you. If this goes poorly, then In a decade's time when you’re writing your biography you can go ahead and say that you were adamantly against this.”

 

A few other cardinals expressed their own hesitation in the matter, but Luca addressed each of their worries. He told them that their worries were warranted, that his decision to bring in outsiders was not one he made lightly, and that should he be wrong then he would personally take the blame. 

One by one, they all agree with varying degrees of enthusiasm that this was the right call.

Until there was only one left.

 

“Alistair, you’ve been awfully quiet this whole time. Don’t tell me that you’ve got no concerns of your own.” Ortiz addressed Cardinal Munroe by his first name.

 

“Hrmf. I do, but…” Munroe trailed off. “No. It’s fine by me. I think that drastic action is warranted for such an unknown.”

 

This was peculiar, Ortiz though. The raging traditionalist that Munroe was would usually still be bitter even if he had agreed to go along with something progressive. And a theory on this quickly dawned on him as to why.

Because apart from being a cardinal, Munroe held a different title. A title that no one who looked at the large, gruff man would have assumed.

Alistair Munroe was also the Trinity’s Grand Librarian, and shared the exclusive privilege with the Pontiff to read the most forbidden of the old scriptures. The chances were good that the two of them were the most well informed in the world about what the self-destruction of these relics could mean.

 

“We’re all in agreement then? At least relatively?” The Pontiff asked.

 

“I still don’t like this.” Another Cardinal: Anderson, said. “But I suppose what’s done is done.”

 

“Alright then. Ortiz, call the Collegeman in.” Pontiff Luca said.

 

Ortiz rose from his desk and walked across the stone floor to the heavy door of his office. He raised the bar and opened it, sticking his head out and laying eyes upon the single Wright he had allowed to look at the shattered relic.

Archwright Coningham was an exceptionally hairy man, with a thick gray beard that fell down to his collarbone and an equally impressive moustache. As if this wasn’t enough already, his eyebrows both looked like smaller versions of said moustache, and he wore a simple felt cap atop the overflowing mound of curly gray hair on his head.

Ortiz thought that if God had even the remotest sense of humor, the man would have a bald spot under that cap.

 

Despite only having an oil lamp for light, the man still held a pair of spectacles to his face and a book in his hand, looking more like a learned sheepdog with goggles than a proper scholar.

 

“You‘re finally ready for me then, eh? It’s awfully gloomy out here in this hallway.” The Wright said, his lips not visible under his facial hair which moved in their place. His voice reminded Ortiz of the croaking that a large toad might make.

 

“Yes, and our transceiver is still active here. Do remember that you will be speaking to a majority of the Trinity’s elites.” Ortiz said as Coningham rose from the wooden bench he was seated at; one of the few decorations that the basement hallway had.

 

“Ah, I’ve heard tell about that particular set of transceivers. Would you care to settle a dispute among my colleagues about how many devices are a part of it?” The Wright asked, his prominent brow raising with enthusiasm.

 

“Firstly, it’s not one of your cobbled-together ‘devices’. I know we use the name that you’ve come up for this particular type of work, but this series of relics is far older and more refined that anything that your stained hands have built.” Ortiz spat. “It’s a tragedy really, ever since the Colleges started linking cities with your simple ‘speaking stones’ the term ‘transceiver’ is all everyone calls it these days. For heaven's sake, I caught myself doing it earlier today.”

 

The hairy man let out a breathy chuckle as he held up his hands defensively.

“I do apologize for any slight, your Holiness. I meant no offense, I just love these artifacts as much as you do!”

 

Ortiz sighed. Perhaps it would just be quicker to indulge him and be done with it.

 

“Well since you had to ask that particular question, I take it you haven’t heard of their proper name yet. They are called The Ten Voices.” Ortiz relented. “ Although today we only have eight of them connected. They are the reason why we have exactly ten grand Basilicas and nine cardinals, the tenth user being the Pontiff of course. With that out of the way, I trust that you’ll have no more questions until the meeting is over.”

 

“Yes yes, of course!” The Wright said before muttering something further to himself. “A ten-way transceiver…”

Ortiz paid him no mind and led him into his office where they both sat down on either side of his desk, the transceiver between them.

 

“Gentlemen, your Eminence, We are now in the presence of Archwright Coningham. Does anyone have any questions before he reports his findings on the shattered idols?” Ortiz asked into the smoky orb as he looked across his desk to see his visitor inspecting it keenly.

 

“No, I do think that we’ve already gone over most of them. Let’s not rally any further and just get right into it.” The voice of the Pontiff rang out from the holy transceiver. A wise mover perhaps, to not let the apprehensive among them speak directly to the source of that feeling.

 

“Such quality sound…” the Archwright mumbled, which Ortiz interrupted with a firm ‘Ahem’.

 

“Uhm, uh, Let’s begin with a quick word about these transceivers: Ten Voices. They are all connected in a manner beyond the physical; so when one speaks into one of them all others will parrot those same words no matter the separation between them.” The Wright began. “When the cardinal briefed me this morning about all these similar artifacts having met the same fate as the one I was to inspect, I quickly hypothesized that they might have been linked in a similar manner. I thought that perhaps someone had knocked one of these idols over and the others had responded in kind, like a house collapsing once a single critical supporting beam was destroyed.”

 

Ortiz knew that the Wright’s implication that one of the clergymen’s own clumsiness being the cause of this disaster was not appreciated. Thankfully though, the Pontiff’s halfway-presence seemed to inspire enough calm to prevent that from happening.

 

“To my great surprise however, this was not the case. On no fragment did I find even a partial communication array.” The Wright continued. “The closest thing I found were pieces of some sort of both a one-way transmitter and receiver, although the two didn’t seem to be part of the same function. I relent that the latter could have also been a part of an unknown form of detection matrix. I will need further study if I am to tell you for sure.”

 

“May I as’ you to keep it simple for those not initiated in the innards of these things?” The Pontiff asked. 

 

“Er, right. If I assume that the relics are all identical, then they have all independently reacted to the same external stimulus. Whether that was another artifact or not is unknown to me at this point, but the end reaction was for them to purposely self-destruct. I think it nigh impossible that all of them could have the same simultaneous malfunction at once, especially after centuries of silence.” Coningham explained.

 

“Yes, we had already discussed the unlikelihood of such a thing. Have you yet discovered what it was that could have caused this reaction in the first place?” The Pontiff asked, Ortiz figuring that this meeting was to be largely a discussion between the two of them with the cardinals merely listening in.

 

“No, not yet anyway. It’s far too early to make any claims on the actual function of the relics. I’ve only spent an afternoon with one of them.” Coningham said. “A full report will take much more time as well as access to the debris of the other relics. Without those, all I can do is speculate.”

 

A few seconds of silence passed, so Ortiz sprung at the opportunity and asked a question of his own.

 

“I feel like this might get glossed over since they're all in pieces, but all of these relics took the form of our symbol: The Eye of Man.” Ortiz said. “You mentioned something about detection, and I feel that it would make sense that their purpose as large eyes was to watch for something. Could it be that they’ve finally seen it?”

 

“Oho! Good thinking Alphonse!” Cardinal Munroe said gleefully. “That’s the type of thing that these blasted tinkerers would never even notice.”

 

“Come now Munroe, we’re here for discussion, not discourse.” Pontiff Luca said before the tension had a chance to get any higher. “But it’s not a bad theory. The relics could indeed be so old as to predate the use of the eye as a general symbol of our faith. How do you feel about this, Archwright?”

 

“Again I think that it’s too early to make any claims like that, but I suppose I’ve found nothing to contradict that assumption.” The Wright said calmly, Luca’s attempts to de-escalate tensions apparently proving successful.

 

“Well let’s put our theorizing aside for now, gentlemen. How do we feel about letting Mister Coningham continue his investigation? Supervised of course.” The Pontiff asked. “Ortiz, you haven’t voiced any concerns yet so I trust that he’s been respectful so far?”

 

“I’ll vote for his continued presence.” Ortiz confirmed. He had been supervising the Wright himself and hadn’t yet seen anything worrying. “Coningham’s studies have mostly just amounted to close inspection with a jeweler’s loop and jotting down notes.”

 

“Alright. What’s your opinion, Aubert?” The Pontiff asked

 

“For I suppose. I don’t see too much of a problem as long as we’re keeping tabs on him.” Said Cardinal Aubert. “Although it probably wouldn’t mean much if he were to break it further anyway.”

 

“Alright. Kiess, do I even need to ask where you stand on this?” The Pontiff moved on to aske the next cardinal.

 

“Hardly. Not unless I can charge your mind when it comes to even considering this farce.” Cardinal Kiess spoke up after being mostly silent for the whole meeting. “But if you need to say it outright, then I’m against even the thought of it. It doesn’t matter how desperate we get for answers, negotiating with heathens is proof that we’ve become a shell of our former selves.”

 

“Your concerns are valid, Kiess. I’ll keep them in mind.” The Pontiff replied. “Anderson, how about you?”

 

“Against. Sorry your Eminence, but I mostly side with Kiess here. I’ll agree that Mr. Coningham helped us find a lead, but I don’t think that it’s necessary for him to continue.” Cardinal Anderson weighed in with his view. “We’ve got our own scholars and our own methods. If the Colleges are allowed a chance, then we should get at least a couple ourselves.”

 

“I agree.” Cardinal Lorenzo butted in. “This ‘consultation’ was helpful, but the rest of the work should be left for us.”

 

Ortiz stifled a chuckle. Lorenzo would speak out of turn even if he was speaking directly to God. His habits had been addressed Time and time again, and it had been proven that no man could stop his interruptions,

 

“Duly noted.” The Pontiff said. “Let’s see, that just leaves Cardinal’s Gallo and Munroe then.”

 

“I’m fine with this.” Cardinal Gallo said bluntly. “Even if we take over the research, I don’t see the harm in letting him stay to help.”

 

“Well then, Munroe. With 3 for and 3 against; and with Monty and Hatzi unavailable, that leaves you to be the tie-breaker.” Pontiff Luca said.

 

Ortiz’s brow fell slightly. Munroe would obviously vote against. While he didn’t feel too strongly about the outcome of this vote, it still felt bad to be on the losing side of it.

 

“I see.” Cardinal Munroe replied. “I’ll abstain.”

 

A few exclamations of “What?” and “Huh?” passed through the transceiver, some cardinals too surprised to hide their shock. Ortiz was one of them.

 

“Ha! I never took you for playing such games, Munroe.” The Pontiff chuckled. “But fine then. Since we’re still tied, I’ll cast a vote myself. The Wright can stay. Meeting adjourned I suppose.”

 

Ortiz’s mind flashed between possibilities. First he thought he understood, then he didn’t, and then he did again.

They were playing some sort of game, Munroe one the Pontiff. Steeping halfway over boundaries to see how the other would react.

While there was no rule that said that the Pontiff had to listen to his cardinals, Luca often would to such an extent that he wouldn’t even cast his own vote in things. Was Munroe trying to gauge how much Luca’s own code mattered to him?

 

He shook the thoughts from his head. Despite holding a halfway-political position himself, Ortiz hated politics. He had earned his position mostly through his skills in management and communication, earning enough respect to be chosen to take the place of the late Cardinal Jacob.

 

He didn’t need to delve into the politics of the Church’s upper circle beyond the surface level. It wouldn’t earn him anything.

All that mattered now was finding the cause of the broken Idols, and that was only a matter of time.

 

…

 

Kalia’s mother hadn’t been a very active factor in her early childhood. While it had been her that her real father had attempted to leave Kalia with, she had quickly passed Kalia on to be parented by another one of her children’s fathers. He was an ex-priest that her and her half-siblings called Pops, but his real name was-

 

Hm… strange…

Kalia couldn’t remember…

 

Actually, she couldn't remember her mother’s name either, or much about her actually…

Still, Kalia tried to recount as much as she could.

 

At the time she didn’t know it, but her mother had been a whore all along. Half of the time when she came to Pop’s souphouse it was to drop off another kid, and the other half was to ask Pops for money.

He’d give it to her too, eternally unable to resist a pretty face, even if it was one that kept loading him up with the responsibility of unwanted children for over a decade.

 

It had taken Kalia too long to realize that the only reason she didn’t take advantage of his kindness more often was that she didn’t particularly like visiting the place where all of her children were staying.

 

Why had she been thinking about that? Her mother had been a nonfactor in her life back then, and certainly was now that she was dead. 

But it wasn’t her mother as a person that Kalia could remember with clarity, it was her legacy; the memories that still clung to her of a woman neck-deep in money and personal pleasures.

 

Kalia didn’t loathe her mother, in fact she had no strong feelings about her at all. But still the idea of becoming like her unsettled her slightly. She didn’t want to be a nobody in the same way that Kalia had seen her.

 

The flickering of flames brought Kalia back to the present, a burning puddle of oil on the stone floor the only source of light visible.

 

She did a double take, focusing back to the light on the ground after she had briefly searched the darkness.

 

It wasn’t just a burning puddle of oil, it was a broken oil lantern, dropped and bleeding burning oil through shattered glass. 

 

Kalia’s eyes fell further, and found what had driven her thoughts to such an odd place. The tightly fitting dress the tailor had given her had split, the unmistakable bulge of pregnancy bursting through it in the shade of Kalia’s own tan skin.

 

She felt heavy and full, both physically, mentally, and spiritually. A thick liquid-like aura clung to her soul and seemed to drain into her belly, which seemed to swallow it like a caught fish gulping water.

 

She realized quite quickly that it was spirit, and a lot of it too. Far, far more than she had gotten from the blond farmhand just this morning.

 

Her mind connected the dots quickly, and she spun around from the lantern to face into her cell. There, lying down with an expression of great pleasure on his face, was the warden’s apprentice. 

 

Briefly, Kalia was relieved to see it. That face was quite a common one among the men she consorted with. This relief quickly faded once she realized that he was lying perfectly still, the expression permanently frozen on his unmoving face.