Kaschar's Quarter Read Online Free

planets were quite literally thought to be gods; all that had changed with the rise of the Global Church of the Ineffable God was that they were now believed to be the domains of the angels, circumambulating the fiery throne of the one true God in a procession ordained since before the world began. Even then, many still believed their earth to be the heaviest point in the universe, a spherical center around which the rest of creation proceeded in infinite order. Despite the old superstitions in flying deities having died out centuries before, every child learned their names: Venera, Jexa, Prixa, Ferra, Emyra, and Simora. In the place of these capricious gods was the Ineffable God, void of names as it was of passions and even gender. It seemed quite the curiosity to Matthieu that visible beings with human wills and faults had been supplanted by One that none could ever see or know.
    “But father, you cannot reject his ideas simply because they are new. They only need to be tested.”
    “It is not new knowledge I reject, but that which contradicts the truth. Besides, your mother and I did not go to such great expense to send you to university, all so that you could dabble in these ideas. You are to study law, so that you may one day serve the nation.”
    “Why are you suddenly so concerned for my spiritual well-being? You hardly even attend services yourself.”
    “And that is none of your concern. Heaven knows I am a busy man, and you should as well. All of this you see around you is more than I ever had when I was your age. I worked for every cop-”
    “Yes, father, I know, you worked for every copper star you have, and your father left you in the care of his landlady, whose own daughter nursed you with her own child. I know.”
    “Have you no respect for all that I sacrificed to bring us what we have? All those years, following in Master Feine's footsteps, managing his accounts, counting all those damned velvets...”
    “You hardly starved living off Mother's inheritance.”
    “Has university taught you to be this disrespectful to your father? You certainly did not inherit it from your mother or me.”
    “It has not taught me disrespect, only the need to open my eyes.”
    “And yet we have never forced you to close them, son. After all, it is our money that allows you a luxury that few in this city can claim. Do not forget how much it has cost us to send you to university in the first place, much less to Leganne.”
    “It is not you who has tried to close my eyes to the truth, but there are many who do.”
    “For instance?”
    “The Church, for one. Honestly, I wonder sometimes who believes in those old stories anymore: the fires of cleansing, the dividing of the peoples, and all the rest. Some of the monks at least are willing to accept the conclusions of modern science, but others are too-”
    “Matthieu! I will not permit such heresies to be spoken in this house. You have spoken ill against your mother and I, which I have ignored, but you go too far to question doctrines known for centuries.”
    “Known?! You have said it yourself that the priests themselves can hardly read Old Corastic, and yet they claim the right to interpret it for us! If the shepherd is lost, what chance do the sheep have?”
    “You would talk of rights to me, yet you have neglected to tell me from whence your rights to speak to your own father in such a way have come. Get out, and do not come back until you can speak to me again as a son should.” Matthieu straightened so quickly that his chair tipped back behind him, clattering roughly on the stone floor.
    “Hopefully,” he spat back, “it will be when you are prepared to hear reason.”
    Matthieu fled to the only place he had ever known where he could be alone with his thoughts: the ancient wine cellar underneath the kitchen. It was stuffy and slightly damp, but his parents had understood since his early youth that if he was nowhere to be found, he was most likely brooding down