The Book of the Created: The One Book, #3

By Robert Boyczuk

AND SO THEY DEPARTED, BOUND FOR THE REALMS OF HELL, WHILE BEHIND THEM ROME BURNT.

 

In The Book of the Created, the third volume of The One Book series, David continues his journey to the lowest Spheres of Man to heal the world. Accompanying him are three companions: Sister Angelina, an Advocatus Dei for his canonization; the created man, an artificial being who serves as a catharist; and the lieutenant, an unbeliever and David's reluctant protector. Descent has become precarious, and many of the still-functioning Assumptions that link the Spheres, once under the stewardship of the Jesuits, are derelict or have been seized by warring factions who impose their ideologies on any wishing to pass. Amidst this tumult, and torn between his love for his companions and his vow to the Angels, David is forced to confront the unquestioned assumptions he holds about his world - and to make a series of gut-wrenching decisions that affect not only their fate, but the fate of every living soul in the Spheres of the Apostles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Choleric Press
• Release date: Feb 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781777554224

Robert Boyczuk

Robert Boyczuk is the author of Horror Story and Other Horror Stories (2009), a collection of his short work, and three novels: Nexus: Ascension, The Book of Thomas, and The Book of David. More fascinating detail on Bob, and free downloads of his published work, are available at http://boyczuk.com.

Book preview

Down is Up

DOZENS OF RAGGED HOLES scarred the firmament. Or so it seemed, when we emerged from beneath the canopy of the forest. But as our small party—myself, Sister Angelina, the lieutenant, and the created man who still bore the cloak of Jotham’s flesh—drew closer, it became apparent that we witnessed something far more remarkable: these were not holes, but chunks of black stone, unaccountably suspended above the Assumption at various heights, like monstrous carrion birds, frozen in flight. My heart fell, for I knew those fuligin pieces were the remains of the plate on which I’d hoped to descend to my boyhood home in the Sphere of Andrew.

We crossed the meadow, then worked our way around blocks of white stone tumbled from the Assumption’s parapets. No one emerged to challenge us. A log had been jammed diagonally across the Assumption’s entrance, preventing the iron grating of the portcullis from descending; on the stones above, someone had scrawled, ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE.

The map in your head, said the lieutenant, resheathing the sword she’d drawn on our approach. You said it marked all working Assumptions.

Her quibble was disingenuous. I’d told her no such thing—in fact, I’d made it clear that the maps I’d committed to memory were fixed at an indeterminate point in the past, and that time and circumstance might have altered their details. Only I’d not expected the calamity that had befallen this Assumption to be one of those details. But such caviling had been her propensity since we’d departed Rome: despite having taken an oath to follow my commands, she did so in a mechanical way and with little enthusiasm. I didn’t blame her for this, no more than I blamed Sister Angelina for her blind faith in me. Both women played the roles to which they’d consigned themselves. This, I think, is the way of most people: nothing we might witness or hear, no matter how damning the evidence, will shake the view of the world we’ve constructed. Rather, we bend and twist obstinate facts that refuse to conform to our worldview. Having observed such behaviour over and over again, I’d come to the conclusion we’re willing captives (me as much as any other person) of our own beliefs, no less than a prisoner locked in a cell—perhaps more, for a prisoner, at least, can dream of freedom. Engaging the lieutenant about what I had or had not said would be pointless, so I pushed past her and clambered over the log.

Behind me, I heard the created man and Sister Angelina do likewise.

You’re wasting your time, the lieutenant called after us.

All Assumptions I’d been in had been laid out identically—at least the parts through which I’d moved to reach the plate—and this one seemed no different. A few metres past the inner portcullis, I stepped into an antechamber the Garde would have normally occupied. There were no longer any furnishings, only ghostly imprints on the wall where rough benches and weapon racks had once been bolted. Opposite was a narrow doorway that led to the weighing chamber; its door lay on the floor, ripped from its hinges. Stepping over it, I passed into the next room and found myself in complete darkness. I stopped abruptly, and Sister Angelina bumped into me, exhaling so sharply I felt her breath on my neck.

Of course, the sensible thing would have been to go back outside and find a piece of wood to serve as a brand, but I was irked at the lieutenant and her contrariety. Instead, I used my cane to tap the floor like a blind man, trusting the layout of this Assumption to be the same as the others. When I rapped against something, causing it to topple with an unnerving clatter, the lieutenant’s disembodied voice floated towards us. Wait.

I felt her brush past me and heard her shuffling around the periphery of the room, the pat of her hands on the stone wall. Then a snick and a spark, a pale yellow light sundering the darkness. The lieutenant rose from her crouch, gripping the torch she’d pulled from its sconce, and handed it to me without comment.

A random, thoughtless violence had been visited upon the second room. Remnants of furnishings remained, broken or battered or burned until rendered useless; in the corner lay a portrait of the recently deceased Pope, bearing numerous slashes, and the few bits of upholstery that were not ashes had been likewise shredded, some bearing the wine-coloured stains I’d come to recognize as blood. The ceiling was black with soot. Picking my way around the debris, I entered the short corridor that led to the heart of the Assumption. The door at its end was slightly ajar, and, when I pulled, swung open easily. Daylight flooded the corridor.

Where the plate would have normally resided was wreckage, featureless splinters of undifferentiated black, like rips in the air itself. Far below, I saw that whatever disaster had befallen this place had also taken its toll on the Assumption beneath, portions of its inner chamber scarred with deep gouges, its floor staved in, punched through, rubble spilling down onto the ground two levels below in the Sphere of James. Amongst the debris, and littering the roof of the Assumption below, were what I first took to be piles of rags, until I spotted, here and there, something white poking out—and realized it was the sheen of bone.

What . . . what could have happened?

Despite all she must have witnessed during the siege of the Vatican, Sister Angelina seemed shaken. This made me wonder why, with such a distressing scene before me, I felt as calm as I did. I can’t be sure, I said, but I think the plate tipped over.

The Church teaches it is the Hand of God that lifts the plate, the lieutenant said. Is God’s hand so unsteady? She made no attempt to disguise her scorn.

The laws of Nature, as God has designed them, govern the plates, I said. Not an invisible hand.

Then how did the plate flip?

I think it tipped because too many people tried to climb on it at once. Assumptions can lift only a limited number of people, and everyone is required to stand in the middle of the plate. The Jesuits are adamant about this because the plate must be balanced. I pointed. But I count far more dead down there than could be accommodated on one lift. And most aren’t Jesuits, as you can see by their garb. This Assumption was overrun, and in their panic to escape, those poor souls flung themselves onto the edges of the plate, until their weight was enough to tip it.

The lieutenant, who stood next to me in the doorway, looked skeptical. How would that have shattered the plate?

It’s like a magnet. At least that’s how a Jesuit once explained it to me. What I said was only a half-truth. A Jesuit had, indeed, tried to explain to me a while ago the principles governing the Assumptions, but hadn’t used that example. Rather, I’d read the analogy months later in The One Book, during the long days we hid in Meussin’s apartment. But I had no desire to explain to the lieutenant that The Bible he’d seen me reading was actually a book that contained all the books in the world. So I conflated the two explanations. The Jesuit told me to imagine fixing a magnet vertically to a table, then holding a second over the first, so they repelled one another. This, he said, was similar to the manner in which the plate above and the mechanism below repel one another. By extension, if you flip the upper magnet, you would be hard pressed to keep them from snapping together with great force—but the gravitic forces the Assumption manipulates are far greater than any magnetic ones, powerful enough, I’d warrant, to cause this.

Flesh isn’t drawn to magnets, the lieutenant said, looking up.

I followed her gaze. A metre or so above the doorway was a mummified corpse in the robes of a Jesuit. At first, I’d thought the Jesuit was suspended there by some hidden means—wires beneath his robes, perhaps—but matted strands of his hair as well as the folds of his cassock, even the stains of his putrefaction, had spread onto the fragment of the plate on which he lay, as if he were on the ground and we were upside down. I leaned forward for a better look, and that is all I remember.

Seven Seals

IN THE RIGHT HAND OF the One sitting on the throne was a scroll, written on back and front, and sealed with seven seals. An Angel called with a loud voice, 'Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?' But there was no one, in heaven or on the earth, or under the earth, able to open the scroll. I wept.

My son, now a young man, embraced me. From his eyes shone the light of Heaven.

He went forward to take the scroll from the Hand of the One sitting on the throne, and when he took it, I heard all the living things in creation—everything that lives in Heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and in the sea, crying: To the One seated on the throne and to the child unborn, be all praise, honour, glory and power, for ever and ever.

I saw my son break one of the seven seals.

Immediately, a white horse appeared, and its rider was given a bow and a quiver of poison arrows, and with them this duty: to spread the germs of all disease.

When my son broke the second seal, out came another horse, bright red, and its rider was given a huge sword and this duty: to take away peace from the earth and set people killing each other.

When my son broke the third seal, I saw a black horse appear, and its rider given a pair of scales to weigh scarce bread and this duty: to bring drought and famine.

When my son broke the fourth seal, I saw another horse appear, deathly pale, and upon it sat a rider named Death, and Hades followed at its heels, along with the carrion-eaters of all the wild beasts.

When my son broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the throne upon which the One sits the souls of all the people who had been killed on account of the Word of God, for witnessing to it. They shouted in a loud voice, 'Holy, true Master, how much longer will you wait before you pass sentence and take vengeance for our death on the inhabitants of the earth?' Each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to be patient a little longer, until the roll was completed of their fellow-servants and brothers who were still to be killed as they had been.

When my son broke the sixth seal, there was a violent earthquake and the suns went as black as coarse sackcloth and the firmament turned red as blood all over and split into ten thousand times a thousand pieces, falling onto the earth like figs dropping from a fig tree when a high wind shakes it; and all the hills and islands were shaken from their places. Then all the rulers of the spheres, the rich people and the men of influence, the whole population, slaves and citizens, hid in caverns and among the rocks of the hills. They cried to the hills and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us away from the One who sits on the throne and from the retribution of the unborn son. For the Great Day of his retribution has come, and who can face it?'

Falling to my knees in the muck, I begged my son not to break the seventh seal.

He drew me to my feet. Soon, all men will die. Though the nations are in uproar the time has not yet come for the dead to be judged, or the saints, who fear His name, small and great alike, to be rewarded. It is the beginning of an end, the time to destroy those who are destroying the spheres.

I did not understand.

My son whispered in my ear, No one knows the hour of the second coming, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

I knew these words. I had read them in The Bible. I begged that he speak his own.

In my vision, the light of Heaven flowing from his eyes diminished, and a confusion fell upon him. Father?

From his hand I took the seventh scroll and, tearing it asunder, I threw it in the River of Life.

God weeps, he said, remembering himself. He looked at me. His tears are our life’s blood. Will you staunch the flow?

Finding myself unable to answer, I bowed my head in shame.

Enough Rope

I FOUND MYSELF SITTING on a patch of bare earth, propped against one of the stones that had been dislodged from the Assumption’s parapet. Sister Angelina crouched before me, the lieutenant standing to her side, arms crossed. The created man stood behind them, his features vacillating between studied concern and child-like confusion—an expression I’d come to recognize as a commingling of the two personalities that inhabited him. I attempted a smile, hoping to comfort him.

The sister lifted a wineskin to my lips. Drink, she said.

When the odour of crushed grape curled into my nostrils, I batted the skin away. Turning my head, I vomited. After a few gasped breaths, I vomited again, emptying the contents of my stomach until I was reduced to dry heaves. Bile burned my throat and tears blurred my vision. As I wiped my eyes, the world seemed to judder around me, so I pressed my lids shut, letting the tears stream down my cheeks unchecked.

I felt a damp cloth against my forehead, Sister Angelina’s comforting hand on the back of my neck.

I . . . I am stupid, I croaked, opening my eyes. I should have known better.

Sister Angelina removed her hand from my neck, allowing me to sit back. She used the cloth to clean my face. You were exhausted. We all are.

I gently pushed her hand away. I shouldn’t have leaned out. That’s why I fainted. Because of the difference in gravitational fields. The same thing happened when Ali and I crossed into— At the recollection, something caught in my throat. I looked away.

The lieutenant grabbed you, Sister Angelina said, always seeking the good in others. She saved your life.

No, the created man said.

The three of us stared at him, but, as was his custom, he didn’t elaborate. So I asked him, Why not?

Because, he answered, you would have fallen a relatively short distance to the fragment above you, just as your cane fell up when it slipped from your hand. Although it’s possible you would have been injured, it’s unlikely you would have been killed.

If I can’t thank the lieutenant for saving my life, I said, then I can at least thank her for preventing me from falling onto the Jesuit’s remains. I looked at her directly for the first time. Thank you.

She gave a curt nod.

I pushed myself onto wobbly legs and the ground rocked beneath me like the deck of a ship. Sister Angelina held my elbow to steady me. For a time, we stood in silence.

The lieutenant shouldered her backpack. We must return to Rome. She grabbed the straps of my pack and lifted it from where it lay amongst the other gear on the ground. She held it out.

The world had settled enough for me to free my arm from Sister Angelina’s grip. Not Rome. I found myself less inclined to leave the Assumption than I had been before, not just because I thought it might still provide us a quick way to descend, but because of the vision I’d had—the first since the Gift of Waters had run out. So I was assailed by the uneasy feeling that, in departing this Assumption, I would be leaving behind a chance to see my son again.

The lieutenant frowned. She lowered her arm until my backpack rested on the ground but did not let go of the straps. Then what would you have us do?

If we had a length of rope great enough, I said, we could descend.

The longest lengths of rope I’ve ever seen were those used in the rigging of ships. And I see no ships moored nearby. This Assumption, like all its counterparts, sat on a rise, and the lieutenant turned slowly, scanning the grid of farm fields surrounding us as if hoping to spy a vessel.

There are ropes for the bells in Church towers.

We’d need half a dozen or more. She shook her head. I doubt there’s a length great enough to be found in this Parish, or any Parish hereabouts.

She was right, of course. The upper and lower structures were at least two hundred metres apart, requiring an impossibly long rope. After a three-week voyage, I’d thought us far enough from Rome to be insulated from its travails. But here it was clear the authority of the Church had collapsed. All of the villages through which we’d passed had been abandoned, afflicted by the same strife that had swept over the Assumption. In the more sizeable town on the coast where we’d weighed anchor, every building had been torched, the jetty reduced to a parallel row of singed piles that supported nothing. And, despite the unassuming appearance of our party, the few remaining inhabitants we’d encountered had fled at our approach, leaving us no one with whom we might bargain. Perhaps we could have scavenged shorter lengths of rope from the wreckage of the farms and hamlets, but there was no guarantee we would be able to splice together an extent long enough to span the gap to the Sphere below.

Even if we were to find a viable rope, the lieutenant said, how are we to descend if we faint as soon as we move past the door?

A person need not be conscious to be lowered.

The lieutenant chewed on this, then said, Except for the last person.

True, I said, unless we obtain twice the length of rope we need. Then we can use an anchor at the top and double the rope so those already below can lower the last person.

Before you wished for a rope long enough, and now you wish for twice that.

There is another Assumption further inland. Perhaps four weeks march. Not every village will have been razed. Especially those further inland. Which means if we travel towards that Assumption, and acquire the necessary rope in short order, we can return here. If we find it later—or don’t find it at all—we’ll still be moving in the right direction for the next Assumption.

Can you say for certain it won’t be derelict too? At least we know the Assumption in Rome functions.

No, I can’t. But I have hope.

Hope is a good breakfast, but a poor supper. The lieutenant nodded in the direction from which we’d come. If we march along the coast until we reach a town or village that hasn’t been sacked, we’d have both options: to hire a vessel or purchase rope long enough to reach the Sphere below. At least then we’d know with certainty we’d be able to descend.

I chose this Assumption because it is on a route that would minimize the distances we must travel. Doubling back to Rome would take us further away from that route, while going towards the next Assumption means only a small deviation - a loss of days, as opposed to months. Yes, it’s a gamble. But if it pays off, we’ll save a considerable amount of time.

The lieutenant looked skeptical.

Now that David has put it that way, Sister Angelina said, it seems to me acquiring a rope should be our priority. Not only would it be useful here, but we’d be foolish not to have one at hand should we need it again.

I agree, I said. There’s a good chance my map may be wrong again about the state of an Assumption, and each time it is, we will have to make a detour, costing us dearly in time. It is also possible we might find ourselves in a Sphere with no working Assumptions, in which case we’d be forced to find a rope anyway.

Even more reason to return to Rome, the lieutenant said, where we can procure anything we might need.

Perhaps. But I am still loathe to return on at least two other counts: the first is that I chose this route because I thought it would thwart pursuit; the second is that there are those in Rome who are inimical to the Angels.

And to those who would insert themselves into the politics of the Curia. The lieutenant was, of course, saying what I hadn’t: that in having a hand in the ascension of Cardinal Singleton to the Papacy, I’d created a dangerous enemy in Cardinal Arrupe.

We’re getting ahead of ourselves, I said. Before we decide on our next destination, we might be best served by searching this Assumption. I saw good lengths of rope in the others. This was true enough, except the only sizeable lengths I’d seen had been in the lower Assumption, where I guessed they’d been used by the Jesuits to control the large moving pieces of the mechanisms I’d glimpsed beneath the plate. Still, I thought it was worth a try, leastways before we wasted more time arguing over a course of action which might or might not be necessary.

David is beloved of the Angels, Sister Angelina said, looking at the lieutenant as if that settled the matter, though I suspected it might have the opposite effect.

You know I’ve no love for the Angels, the lieutenant said, and less for the Church. But I pledged to Sam I’d follow David’s orders—and a woman’s nothing if she’s not as good as her word. She dropped my backpack on the ground, then slipped hers off, rifling through it for her flint and steel. She walked to the Assumption, pausing just outside to retrieve something in the grass: the torch we’d used earlier. Crouching beneath the words scrawled over the portcullis, she sparked the torch to life and held it high, the flame seeming a meagre thing in the mid-day light. If you wish to hasten our journey to Hell, she said, who am I to stand in your way?

An Unexpected Turn

AT THE FOOT OF THE stairs, I held aloft a second brand we had fashioned. Jotham and I can take the upper floor, the lieutenant and Sister Angelina the ground floor. Once we’re finished, we’ll meet back here.

What about the other floors? the lieutenant asked.

There are only two.

The building is tall enough to accommodate many more floors.

It is, I said. "But the space above the second level holds a kind of matter that keeps the plate in the column it traverses." I didn’t want to confuse the issue by adding that the matter served a second vital purpose: to tether the Spheres. In reading The One Book, I’d learned the Spheres are in constant rotation, though we couldn’t feel it. Because of their different masses, each Sphere would have a different rotational inertia and period, and thus the upper structure of an Assumption would drift away from the structure in the Sphere below. But the forces at work acted, in part, like giant springs, connecting adjacent Spheres and synchronizing their rotations. When I’d read this, I’d wondered why the Assumptions were not built high enough to reach the Sphere above—like spokes on a wheel spanning the distance from hub to rim—thus obviating the need for the plates. It was only later I learned, as slight as the difference in rotational velocity between two Spheres might be, the immense masses would generate a shear force greater than any physical structure could withstand. A connecting tower would twist and crack—and fail catastrophically. I know it was only my imagination, but as the created man and I mounted the stairs, I found myself hunched over, as if a scintilla of the unimaginable forces surrounding us had somehow seeped through floor and wall and ceiling to press in on us.

The second level was in the same state as the first, and it took less than a quarter of an hour to do a circuit and see that there was not even a short length of rope to be found. Empty-handed, we made our way back to the main floor, reuniting with Sister Angelina and the lieutenant who’d finished as well. Their luck had been a bit better, the lieutenant bearing a coil of thick rope over her shoulder. Although she had looped it many times, and its weight was such that it bowed her, I was still dubious it was anywhere near long enough to reach the Sphere below. I suggested we lower it to test its length—and to determine what additional lengths we might need to splice. When the lieutenant pointed out that we wouldn’t be able to see the bottom of the rope because we couldn’t lean out past the threshold, I suggested tying something to the end, and then swinging it so that it would move into view.

The lieutenant acceded and led us back to the heart of the Assumption. Not until she dropped the coil on the floor next to me did the foolishness of what we were doing struck me. I was wrong, I said, picking up a finger-sized chunk of mortar that had fallen from the wall and tossing it out the door. It fell upwards, breaking apart against the fragment of the plate above, bits of white sprinkling the dead Jesuit’s black robe. We can’t lower the rope at all.

The created man stepped past the lieutenant and lifted the coil effortlessly; grabbing one end, he slung the rest through the door. The rope swerved upwards, but there was enough force in his throw to carry the unwinding coil past the edge of the fragment, where it arced down and plummeted from sight. The created man handed me the end of the rope, and my hand rose slightly with its upward tug. Do not let it go, he said, and hurled himself out the door.

I watched him spin as he fell upwards, landing upside down on the fragment, graceful as a cat. Walking half a dozen paces to the edge, where the rope dropped from sight, he craned his head down—or up, I should say, if I were to imagine it from