The Invasion of the Tearling

Brother Jennings nodded and left. Tyler stared mutely at the books on his shelves. There were so many of them.

“Please,” he heard himself beg. “Please don’t. They never did you any harm.”

“These are secular books, Tyler, and you’ve been storing them in the Arvath. I’d be well within my rights to burn them.”

“They don’t hurt anyone! I’m the only one who reads them!”

Brother Jennings knocked and entered. Several other priests followed, including Wyde, who gave Tyler an apprehensive glance as he came through the door.

Anders pointed to the shelves. “Remove the books and their holders to my private apartments.”

The younger priests began to move immediately, but Wyde hesitated, staring at Tyler.

“Problem, Father Wyde?” Anders asked.

Wyde shook his head and held out his arms to accept a pile of books from the shelf. He didn’t look at Tyler again. While they worked, Anders continued to rip the pages from A Distant Mirror. One landed at Tyler’s feet, and when he looked down, he saw “Chapter 7” in bold print. Tears filled his eyes, and he had to bite his lip to keep them there. Looking up, he made the unpleasant discovery that Anders was enjoying himself enormously, his eyes sparkling with pleasure. The priests continued to march in and out of the room, until finally the shelves stood empty against the wall. The sight made Tyler want to break down and weep. Brother Jennings levered the bookshelves from the wall and tipped them horizontal, and Wyde snuck Tyler one last apologetic glance as he grabbed hold of a corner. Then they were gone. The wall was blank; only two whitened rectangles remained to show where Tyler’s books had been. He stared numbly at them, and now the tears came, beyond his power to hold back.

“Tyler?”

Tyler turned, his heart pounding, to face the Holy Father. For the first time in his adult life, he wanted to do violence to another person. His hands had clenched into fists inside the sleeves of his robe.

Anders reached inside his own robes and came out with a small vial of clear, colorless liquid. He passed it thoughtfully from one hand to another before remarking, “The Queen is not protective of her person with you. I watched you pass her the bread at dinner. Does her drink ever pass through your hands?”

Tyler nodded jerkily. His face had gone cold. “Tea.”

“The Mace can’t consider you a threat, or he would never tolerate such an arrangement.” The Holy Father held out the vial. It looked smooth in his hand, almost oily, and Tyler stared numbly, unable to accept.

“I won’t insult your intelligence, Tyler, by explaining what you’re to do with this. But I want it done within a month. If not, you will watch me douse every single one of your books in oil and strike a match. I will do it personally, on the front steps of the Arvath, and you will watch.”

Tyler cast around for answers, but there was nothing, only the pile of torn pages on the ground.

“Take it, Tyler.”

He took the vial.

“Come with me,” the Holy Father commanded, opening the door. Tyler grabbed his crutches and lurched forward to follow. Several brothers and fathers had their doors open, and they stared at Tyler as he went by, following the Holy Father down the hallway toward the staircase. Tyler sensed them, but did not see them, his mind utterly blank now. It seemed important not to think of his books, and that meant not thinking of anything at all.

At the end of the corridor, they emerged onto the staircase landing. Tyler tried to keep his eyes on the ground, but at the last moment he couldn’t help looking up. Seth was there, sitting on his stool as he had done every day for the past two weeks, his legs spread wide to display the mangled area between them. The actual wound had been cauterized and stitched up somehow, but what remained was almost worse, a charred and seamed landscape of red flesh. Pink streaks radiated outward along Seth’s inner thighs, signifying the beginnings of infection. Hung around his neck was a placard with one scrawled word:

ABOMINATION

Seth stared blankly down the hallway, his gaze so fixed that Tyler wondered if they were keeping him dulled with some sort of narcotic. But no, what killed pain would also kill the point of the lesson, wouldn’t it? For the first week, Seth’s moans of agony had been audible all the way down the hall, and none of them had slept for days.