of the sentries stepped forward and addressed my escort. “You are Merchant Koozan-Phay and this is Aiden Fleischer. Enter and stand before the Quintessence—all-seeing, all-knowing—and may you both be favoured.”
Koozan-Phay acknowledged the guard, the door faded, and we stepped through the portal into a circular chamber. I stumbled and gasped, astonished at what I saw, for the entire space was an enormous geode filled with refracting, scattering, fragmenting light, almost blinding in its brilliance, and in the centre of it there was a . . . what? A natural outcrop? A machine? An obelisk? I couldn’t tell. But however it might be classified, the object was simply breathtaking; a glinting array of facets, angles, planes, and edges; a towering monolith about thirty feet high and fifteen wide; a black crystal of incredible proportions, and faintly visible, motionless inside it like flies suspended in amber, three Mi’aata.
“They are the One, the Quintessence!” Koozan-Phay whispered to me.
Lights flickered through the translucent formation and the voice I’d endured in my cell boomed so loudly that I flinched and moved to cover my ears.
“Merchant Koozan-Phay, you have retrieved Aiden Fleischer and have thus contributed to the furtherance of the Mi’aata. We move you from Status Twenty to Status Eighteen. You may transfer your household to Zone Eighteen. We give you a gift of three additional trade routes. You will be lauded in the proclamations. You have done well. We are pleased. You are dismissed.”
“My gratitude,” Koozan-Phay replied. “My allegiance. My service always to the Mi’aata.” He touched my arm, turned, and left.
The sparks played slowly through the internal angles of the monument.
“Aiden Fleischer,” the voice thundered, “we are the Quintessence. The Absolute. The Eternal. Your companion, Clarissa Stark, was rescued from the Divergent. We have looked into her mind and have seen that you are from another world. Your species is strange to us.”
I winced. “Not so loud! You’ll split my skull!”
“Your companion is unable to describe the means by which you travelled to Ptallaya. We require that knowledge.”
“I have no more idea of it than she does. Is she all right? Let me see her.”
“Your wish will be granted or denied according to how well you serve the Mi’aata. We will look into you.”
I felt invisible fingers push through the bones of my skull. They tore it apart. Someone screamed. I had no conception that it was Aiden Fleischer making the noise or Aiden Fleischer hearing it. The agony exploded—an instant—an eternity—and was gone.
The probes partially retracted and I reassembled.
I was lying on the floor, breathing heavily.
“Curious! Clarissa Stark’s thoughts are accessible but her emotions are veiled. The reverse is true of you.”
I sat up, but that’s as far as I got. My legs were shaking too much to support me.
“This predominates,” the Quintessence continued. “What is it?”
My chest tightened. I struggled to draw breath. I saw the corpse in Buck’s Row, but it wasn’t Polly Nichols—it was Alice Tanner. Light reflected dimly from puddles of blood. The stuff oozed along the razor-edge of my blade and dripped onto the cobble-like shells. Fury blazed through me.
The Quintessence took hold of the illusion, examined it, untangled it, straightened it, gave it lucidity, and forced me to recognise the truth of it.
I wasn’t feeling anger at all. It was something entirely different, something that had been first twisted and contorted by my experiences, then infiltrated by an exterior power and made dark and impossible to face.
It was fear.
Fear!—now imbued with a sharp clarity like that of a clear winter’s day, so severe and uncompromising it was inconceivable to me that I’d ever mistaken it for anything else.
My heart throbbed wildly.
The Quintessence’s senses burrowed like termites beneath my skin. Then they withdrew and left me slumped on my side, waiting for the strength to seep back into my trembling limbs.
“One who means you harm has exploited you, Aiden Fleischer. I have undone its interference. You are corrected. However, I cannot repair the damage you do to yourself. Why have you perpetuated this other emotion?”
“What other emotion?” I whispered.
A scene unfolded from memory—my father, standing at the door of the little church in Theaston Vale, a smile on his amiable face, his eyes twinkling with intelligence and good humour.
I moaned with pain as my stomach constricted.
“Explain!” the Quintessence demanded.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
Again, the horrible infiltration of my emotions, that squeezing and adjusting, and all of a sudden I couldn’t help but talk and blurted, “I followed my father’s path and imitated his faith.”