Volka hesitates and lifts his head. “Wh-where what, my Father Kolkan?”
Kolkan continues staring around the Seat of the World. The voice sounds again: “WHERE IS THE FLAME AND THE SPARROW?”
Volka blinks and glances back at his lieutenants, who are just as dumbfounded as he is. “I … I am not sure what you mean, Father Kolkan.”
“WHEN I AM MET,” says the voice, “I AM TO BE MET WITH THE FLAME AND THE SPARROW.”
A long pause.
“WHY DO YOU NOT BEAR THEM?”
“I … had never heard of this ritual, Father Kolkan,” says Volka. He rises to a kneel, like the rest of his followers. “I read so much about you, but … but you have been gone from this world for many hundreds of years. This must have been a rite that I missed.”
“DO YOU,” asks the voice, “INSULT ME?”
“No! No, no! No, Father Kolkan, we would never do such a thing!” Volka’s followers fervently shake their heads.
“THEN WHY DO YOU NOT BEAR THEM?”
“I just … I didn’t know, Father Kolkan. I am not even sure what they—”
“IGNORANCE,” says the voice, “IS NO EXCUSE.”
Kolkan steps forward and looks at his flock. His head tilts back and forth, as if seeing many things in them.
“YOU ARE UNWORTHY.”
Volka is mute with shock.
The voice says, “YOU HAVE BATHED FRUITS IN THE WATERS OF THE OCEAN. YOU HAVE MIXED LINENS AND COTTONS WITH YOUR GARMENTS. YOU HAVE CREATED GLASS WITH MANY FLAWS. YOU HAVE TASTED THE FLESH OF SONGBIRDS. I SEE THESE WRONGS IN YOU. YOU ARE UNREPENTANT OF THEM. AND NOW, AS I EMERGE, YOU DO NOT MEET ME WITH THE FLAME AND THE SPARROW.”
Volka and his followers glance among themselves, wondering what to do. “F-Father Kolkan, please,” murmurs Volka. “Please … forgive us. We followed all your edicts that we could find, that we knew. But we freed you, Father Kolkan! Please forgive u—”
Kolkan points at him. Volka halts as if frozen.
“FORGIVENESS,” says Kolkan’s voice, “IS FOR THE WORTHY.”
Kolkan looks at Volka’s followers. “YOU ARE AS THE DUST AND THE STONE AND THE MUD.”
From what Shara can see, there is no change, no flash of light; but in one instant, they are men, and in the next, they are statues of dark stone.
Volka stands before Kolkan, still frozen, but alive: Shara can see his eyes turning in his sockets.
“AND YOU … ,” says Kolkan’s voice. “YOU THINK YOU ARE NOT AS THE DUST AND THE STONE AND THE MUD. YOU WILL BE REMINDED OF WHAT YOU ARE.”
Whatever hold Kolkan had on him is apparently lifted, and Volka falls to the ground, gasping. “I … I will,” he says. “I will, Father Kolkan. I will remem—” He gags, lurches forward, and shrieks with pain. “Ah! Ah, my stomach, it—” Shara can see his belly bulging, swelling, as if pregnant. Horrified, she turns her head back to face the ground.
Volka’s shrieks build and build until finally they are a gurgle. She hears him fall to the ground. There is a pop! as the Butterfly’s Bell around them vanishes, and Volka is silent, though she can hear him struggling.
“YOU WILL KNOW PAIN.”
There is a sound like heavy cloth being torn. Helpless to stop herself, Shara glances up. Black round stones—hundreds of them—come spilling out of Volka’s open stomach, glistening in a wash of blood, the pile growing and growing even as Shara watches.
She gags. Kolkan looks up slightly, and she turns back to face the ground.
“HM,” says Kolkan’s voice.
She and Vohannes are silent. She can hear Vohannes’s trembling breath beside her.
“THIS IS A SIGHT I KNOW WELL,” says his voice. “AND A SIGHT I WELCOME. TIME MAY HAVE PASSED, BUT THOSE OF FLESH STILL REQUIRE JUDGMENT.”
Shara feels her limbs stiffen. She wonders if Kolkan is turning them to stone, but apparently not: she is paralyzed, just as Volka was.
There is a crack, and Vohannes begins to slide toward Kolkan, as though the stone floor of the temple is a conveyor belt. Out of the side of her eye Shara can see Vohannes look back at her, terrified, shocked. Don’t leave me! he seems to say. Don’t!
“COME BEFORE ME,” says Kolkan’s voice. “AND PLEAD YOUR CASE.”
Shara cannot see, but she hears Vohannes’s voice: “M-my case?”
“YES. YOU HAVE ASSUMED THE POSE OF THE SHAMEFUL AND THE PENITENT. PLEAD YOUR CASE, AND I WILL CONSIDER MY JUDGMENT.”
It’s like his judgments before he pronounced his edicts, thinks Shara. But Vo doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.
A long silence. Then Vohannes says, “I—I am … I am not an old man, Father Kolkan, but I have seen much life. I have … I have lost my family. I have lost my friends. I have lost my home, in many ways. But … but I will not distract you with these tales.”