She fell silent as they walked hand in hand back through town, but Astrid’s mind raced in hope and stumbled in fear as Algernon explained what had happened to the train tracks and what he’d read in the register.  That dangerous anger she’d seen him try so hard to repress over the past several days returned with terrifying speed.

    A bell tolled, calling the faithful to an evening worship service.  “Maybe we should go to the church and pray,” Astrid suggested, hoping this would cool Algernon’s rage.

    He stopped, considering her words for a moment, then looked directly into her face as the final traces of daylight faded from the sky.  “All right,” he replied.  “I suppose I could use a little prayer right now.”

    She sensed he was lying, but lacked the skill to be certain and felt afraid of confronting him at that moment.  Astrid worked her fingers out of Algernon’s hand and followed him toward a tall building illuminated by oil-burning torchiers.  Four large doors opened into its vestibule, and eight priestesses sprinkled sacred oil on the heads of all who entered. 

    Astrid’s artist’s eye gazed upon lovely buttresses and graceful spires, but also upon the hideous, stone gargoyles intended to frighten away evil spirits.  The Tamarian priestess felt a sense of horror as the figures flickered grotesquely in the orange light. “This is not a holy place,” she whispered as they joined the swelling ranks of townsfolk pressing up the broad stairs and into the building.

    Algernon felt the same way.  Overhearing political talk in the crowd, he noted that much of it expressed dismay about the influence of foreigners and threats against the big landowners who owed their existence and allegiance to King Alejo and his oppressive army.  A nervous energy hummed within his soul, and in reflexive response his hands automatically tightened into a pair of two knuckled fists.

    Candlelight cast deep shadows across the stone interior and the air smelled of sweat and wax.  They took seats on a hard bench near the back of the sanctuary nave, listening to strange choral music composed in language so ancient, Algernon’s ear struggled to extract even the most basic meaning.  A procession of singing choirboys, bearing burning candles to represent the souls of the ancestors, followed.  There were readings from a large red book, whose words, like those in the opening songs, sounded strange and incomprehensible.

    Blue stone, quarried many hundreds of years earlier from the cliffs Algernon had seen onboard the Haililiah, lay in tightly fitted courses whose arch work lofted high overhead.  Windows oriented toward significant stars and the Daystar’s position on important dates in the Kamerese calendar dotted the roof line.  Among the silvered, cedar rafters the overtones of melodies mixed and lingered.  Though Algernon recognized the style of music, it didn’t match his taste and he couldn’t understand enough of it to make sense of the worship.

    On an elevated dais, three bronze cymbals suspended on velvet ropes hung from ivory crossbars.  Three baldpated priests in white breeches came out and hammered these cymbals with cloth-covered mallets, while a fourth priest in full regalia, bearing a smoking thurible crafted from brilliant metal, entered from the side of the platform.  This priest knelt at the main altar, set his censer on a horizontal mensa made of marble and prayed with a flourish of hands.  Then, down the aisles came the eight priestesses, also bearing incense.  The women chanted their unintelligible mantras in unison and gestured over the congregation in choreographed grace, praying as they moved forward.

    At first, it all seemed terribly formal, as if these people had been frozen into the same liturgical cycle for thousands of years.  As this part of the observance came to a close, however, the main priest stood and offered an elaborate prayer for ceremonial wine.  The eight priestesses stood and passed great flagons down each aisle.  Every person present, except Algernon, took a deep swig, turning the vessel ever so slightly so as not to place his or her lips on a spot used by someone else.      As the flagons reached the end of each aisle, the priestesses dipped a white cloth into pure ethanol and wiped the entire rim, then passed the containers down the next aisle.  Choral music reverberated through the sanctuary while the intoxicant made its rounds.

    Astrid blanched.  “That wasn’t just wine,” she whispered to Algernon.  “It’s too strong, and it feels like there’s something else in there too!”

    After this, the music stopped and the main priest introduced a guest speaker from the deep south, whom he said had endured many hardships in traveling to Fair Haven Fortress.  This man claimed to be an itinerant prophet with a vital message from the dead.

    That’s when the trouble began.

    The speaker, an attractive young man with flawless, milk-chocolate colored skin and the chiseled features common among people originating in the far south, had a powerful, resonant voice.  His speaking skills ranked among the best Algernon had ever heard, but the intolerant message he delivered fanned the simmering coals of widespread congregational discontent into a hot flame.

    A restlessness moved through the assemblage as the orator decried the systemic oppression wrought by the evil minds of wealthy landowners and a corrupt regime in Kameron City.  He claimed intimate knowledge of how foreigners meddled in Kamerese affairs: the Azgaril, the Islanders, the Nordans, the Tamarians and especially, the Lithians, for whom he reserved his most scathing reproach.  Spoon feeding the swooning crowd with anecdotes of foreign complicity in the social order that enslaved masses and denied them basic human rights, he called for the decent, peace-loving citizens of Kameron to revolt and throw off the yoke of oppression and destroy the social chains that bound them.

    “Your ancestors call to you from beyond!” he cried.  “Rise up my children!  Take up arms against your tyrants!  Burn their boats, their fine houses and plunder the luxuries they’ve stolen from the sweat of your labor!  This land belongs to you.  The soil of our great nation is a legacy that belongs to your children, not the foreign leeches who come here to pillage!”  He paused, staring directly at the two Tamarian monks sitting in the back of the sanctuary.

    For a moment, silence reigned and Algernon felt many eyes resting upon him.  When the speaker resumed and the congregation’s attention drifted away, Algernon pulled Astrid by her sleeve and tried to make a discreet exit.  The four back doors, however, remained shut, locked, and eight strong men with truncheons stood guard in front of them.

    “Let us out!” Algernon demanded.  “We don’t want any trouble.”

    “It’s a little late for that, fair-haired foreign boy!” one of the men spat in a threatening manner.  “You’ll get what’s coming to you right here and now.”