Soundtrack
Jamelia steps slowly and hesitantly onto the loam of the old graveyard.
She's being watched by armed soldiers, of course. Even the fragile truce holding Moscow's hidden factions together wouldn't cause the Celestial Choristers of the Russian Orthodox Church to let a heathen Technocrat onto the burial grounds of their elders, yet Patriarch had prepared for even this eventuality. Ivan had received a simple note from the old priest's effects sent to the Technocrats' stronghold, addressed to Jamelia with his grave's location and the word "Please."
So here Jamelia stands one mat-trans later, shivering in the bitter wind and cursing under her breath at the stormclouds above, her eyes darting between the obvious watchers and the snipers who aren't hidden well enough. She steps hesitantly onto the sacred ground, feeling the weight of ages press down on her as she does. Patriarch's official and unofficial funerals have already been held, the Masses allowed a look at their revered bishop, and now the Chantry's grounds are quiet and still.
Father Ioannes, the tombstone reads. It's a simple block of granite, hiding a man who was anyone but simple, and Jamelia automatically sinks to her knees as she gazes at it. She knew 'Patriarkhat' well, a necessity of her mission to kill him, and she'd grown to respect him in her time spent pretending to be an Iranian Christian convert. He was tolerant of new people and new ideas, a rarity among many of the Choristers even before 1999. He'd aged well with the times, though the antiquities he surrounded himself with might fool an outsider.
"He respected you," a voice rasps from behind her, and Jamelia twists in surprise to see another leathery old priest leaning on a cane. "Many assassins tried to kill the old goat, but you were the one who got through," he continues in Russian, pointing his cane at the tombstone. "'God spared us both for His own purposes,' he would always say, 'for if it were up to my skill alone, I'd be worm food.'"
"I should have killed him," Jamelia murmurs, to herself more than to the Chorister. "I had the shot lined up, from ten meters away. I don't miss, not like that."
"Yet you did," the old Orthodox priests responds, dropping to a cross-legged position and stroking his long, wispy beard. "Rather strange, don't you think?"
"Just bad luck," Jamelia responds automatically.
"Luck? Silly Technocrat," the man with a face seemingly made of boot leather chuckles to himself. "You have so many answers for so many things, yet you can't see the simple truths staring you in the face?" Jamelia doesn't deign to respond to that.
They sit in silence for a minute or two, before the old priest reaches into his robes to pull out a sealed envelope. He hands the bulging package to the Technocratic agent with a grimace. "Your possessions, by the way. The old goat was very emphatic about making sure these were returned to you." Jamelia rips open the envelope, and three 9mm bullets tumble into her lap with a muted clink of steel.
"He kept the bullets?" she wonders out loud, holding one of them up to the light. Something within her is utterly, absolutely sure that this was the same bullet meant for Patriarch's heart.
The priest dips his head, his salt-and-pepper beard curling in his lap. "The same. They're naught but simple steel, but Father Ioannes always saw something in them. Perhaps he was simply being maudlin; then again, perhaps not."
Even lost in thought, Jamelia doesn't miss the slip of paper hidden in the envelope, and her hand shoots out to catch it before it's blown away in the wind. The priest sees her act and grimaces again: "Whatever he wrote there is also for you. Patriarkhat had many plans in motion."
"
Had," Jamelia muses out loud. "What will you do, now that he's gone?"
The old man chuckles. "The same thing we've always done, child. We have lived through one Union already, and we do not fear yours. Many match themselves against God's grace, but even in their heathen ways they often serve His purposes." Jamelia snorts at the sincerity in the Reality Deviant's voice, which only makes him laugh again. "You think yourself master of your own fate, child? Do you call yourself captain of your own soul? Look around you, at the city and people you've saved from the legions of Hell itself. Do you think you
aren't an agent of the Lord?"
The Technocratic agent shakes her head and quickly gets up, brushing the dirt off her knees. She was here to pay respects, not for a sermon. Yet as she turns and starts walking, the priest calls out, "Wait!"
She turns to see the old man pull out a tiny
lestovka prayer rope, unmarked and unadorned. He hobbles over to the Persian woman, his cane slipping in the snow and mud, and unceremoniously presses the looped twine into her left hand. "This is for you," he chokes out.
Jamelia inspects it curiously, her right hand slowly unclenching from around her holdout pistol. "Why? Whose were they before?"
For once, the priest is at a loss for words. "My...my protege. He was at St. Basil's Cathedral when the monsters came."
Jamelia twitches, but holds on to the tiny prayer rope. "Then why give them to me? What have I ever given you, except for bullets?"
"No," the Orthodox elder whispers tearfully. "No, child. You've given us this." He points out behind her, and Jamelia turns to see the city of Moscow glittering below, as the clouds are whisked away by the wind. It's a flawed gem in the sight of her Genius, full of hate and love and beauty and horror, and she drinks in the sight.
"Go back to your war, child," the old man whispers, and Jamelia is off again. She leaves the priest and his guards, strolls out of the Chantry and down the road to Moscow. The bullets jingle merrily in her pocket, and the knots of the
lestovka loop themselves together in her hand as she strides past defenses both obvious and hidden.
It's a strange time indeed, the Technocratic agent thinks to herself, as she leaves the Chorister stronghold. Allies had become hated enemies, foes were friends; it was a world turned upside down. She'd fought Control and its agents to save Reality Deviants who'd have happily shot her on any other day, compromised on her ideals more times than she could count, broken every rule and protocol that she could remember - some, she'd even written herself.
If Patriarkhat could see me now, he'd laugh himself silly, she thinks to herself.
Yet here she stands, unbowed and unbroken. Despite her burdens, Jamelia feels a spring in her step. "Godspeed, you old bastard," she whispers to the wind.
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