Chapter 4 - The City of Heresy
Thou shalt not take God's name,
shan't take it in vain.
With a knife in my side
I cried out my dolor and his name:
but maybe he was tired, maybe too busy
and didn't listen to my pain,
but maybe he was tired, maybe too far away
really, I called him in vain.
Fabrizio De André - 'Tito's Will'
A few hours earlier...
"Liar!" A voice cried. The crowd split in two to let Esther trough. "The alchemists are the unbelievers who seek to rise above God, but they are bound to fall!"
"Are those your words or Father Anderson's?" Asked Ed.
"My words just tell the truth: no alchemist will ever be able to match the power of God. This is demonstrated by the fact that my Dietrich came back to me."
From the roof of a building just above the crossroads, Oriel and Alphonse watched over Edward, dealing with the citizens of Istvàn, with a perfect but silent replica of Al's armour by his side.
"I wasn't expecting Esther to appear" Oriel whispered. At that moment, discretion was crucially important.
"Me neither. However, everything is going according to plan, isn't it? " Alphonse said, still softly.
Just then, the earth shook, and the statues of moving trees appeared.
Oriel glared at Alphonse.
"Please, next time, don't say anything..."
If he could do it, the suit of armor would have blushed.
"But that can't be alchemy... Is it magic?" Al changed the subject, pointing to the statue-plant. "I heard that some Travelers can use it."
Oriel shook his head, and Al noticed that the girl's face was painted with an enthusiastic smile.
"That's organic alchemy. It's the reason why I wanted to come to Istvàn on the first place. "
"Organic Alchemy? But of course... "Alphonse muttered. "As the one you use to perform human transmutation..."
"And speaking of human transmutation," Oriel said shooting a glance at the boy in armor. "Is what Edward said earlier true?"
Alphonse didn't know how to react. "Mh." He just said with a small movement of his head. Oriel stared at his friend for a few seconds.
Just then, the statue-plant destroyed the fake Al with a simple gesture, and Alphonse could not help but wince. The other hand clutched Ed.
"Ah, brother!" Exclaimed Alphonse, concerned, while the statue-plant took the boy away. "We have to help him!"
"I guess we will have to split up again..." Oriel chewed on her lower lip. "This I had not expected..."
The crowd dispersed. Oriel and Alphonse waited a few more minutes to make sure that no one could see them. When they got up, intending to get off the roof, though, a figure appeared in the now deserted square, forcing them to crouch again: it was Father Anderson. The man closely examined the destroyed copy of Al's armor and, apparently satisfied, he left the square in silence. When the priest had gone away, Oriel finally stood up and stirred.
"We need all the help they can get," the girl said. "And we must free Edward. We may combine the two... "
"How?"
Oriel grinned mischievously.
"I have got half of an idea..."
Now
"I thought you had... you had..." Esther could not complete the sentence, as she ran out of the building with Alphonse.
"That was what we wanted everyone to believe," Al explained without stopping. "The one that the statue destroyed was nothing more than a copy Ed created with alchemy. This way, I was free to act overnight. I'll show you the results. "
He and Esther climbed the bell tower, where Al had placed a speaker transmuted from a bell. He linked it to some wires that Oriel had provided him, then he turned it on.
"What are you going to do with me?" Edward's voice, amplified by the bell, rang out throughout the city.
"But that is your brother!" Exclaimed Esther.
"Simply making you disappear now would raise doubt in the Istvàn people: they are still immature, weak, ignorant, they need something to enkindle their faith. Only this way they can be saved. "
"And this... is Father Anderson!" Esther recognized the voice.
"This speaker is connected to the cell where brother is detained" Alphonse explained.
Edward had been locked in a cell and had both hands chained over his head, so that he could neither move nor use alchemy.
"May I ask why are you so against the military?" Edward asked, staring into the priest's eyes.
The man, completely unaware of the fact that the whole town was listening, looked at him coldly.
"You bastards, especially you State Alchemists, take away precious servants from the Church. These idiots will follow you, amazed by your superhuman abilities: a simple mind might begin to think that the power of an alchemist is similar to that of God. And you, with the promise of base money, buy the faith of others. Dagger and poison, thirty pieces of silver and a rough rope! "His eyes flashed with anger. "You declare to be at the service of the population, while in reality only exercise power and violence. Don't you think I know that? It is only thanks to me that the Istvàn people were not reduced as the Ishbal infidels. "
Edward narrowed his eyes.
"Are you in favor of policies against Ishbal?"
"Violence against a people is never justified, but the arrogance of Ishbalians in naming God was rightly punished," the man replied. "If the people suffered, that's also for His will."
"Doesn't all this seem a little hypocritical to you? You complain about the power of the army, but you self-proclaimed yourself leader and guide for these people and pretend to control them through your religion! "
"You're wrong!" Anderson cried, raising his voice and towering menacingly over the boy. "This role, this power, they have been legitimately assigned by an Emissary of God!"
"An Emissary of God, eh?" Ed muttered, lowering his arm to grab a piece of bread from the tray he had been brought for breakfast. "Interesting... Are you absolutely certain that they are not an impostor?" He wondered, biting into the loaf.
Anderson didn't appear fazed by this question.
"I will not deny that I've thought about it, especially at the beginning, when I was full of doubts: why was I chosen, why did the Emissary sent me to an insignificant town as Istvàn, why could the power they had given me only manifest through this ring? "he said, raising his hand, on which glittered the ring with a red stone. "But God's ways are infinite, and as long as the Istvàn people will think that they have an all-powerful God who raises the dead watching over them, they will not be frightened by nothing but the eternal agony of their immortal soul, and I will show them the way to salvation. Because salvation is in the one, true God, and... " Father Anderson fell silent: finally he realized that Edward was free from the chains and was munching his breakfast. "What the..."
"Why did you stop? It was getting interesting!" The boy grinned. "And I guess all the people you have called 'weak' and 'ignorant' and living in one, according to you, 'insignificant town' think so as well..."
With a sly smile, Ed stepped aside to show the man the hole in the wall inside which sat the microphone connected to the bell-speaker, that he had kept hidden for the whole time sitting in front of it.
Anderson growled, and transmuted bayonets from the dust on the floor, with which he attacked Edward. With one of them he severed the microphone cable, but it was too late: all the inhabitants of Istvàn had heard his words. Edward dodged to avoid the priest's bayonets, then clapped his hands and transmuted his automail arm into a blade, with which he parried the second attack on Father Anderson. The two exchanged several shots without anyone of them prevailing. The priest, however, was much older than the alchemist, and after several minutes of confrontation, seeing himself in trouble, he could not help but flee. He passed sister Heinkel and other clerics, confused and frightened, but he ignored them and ran out of the church. Arrived in the square, he was forced to stop: all Istvàn crowded outside the building shaking their fists and shouting. In the crowd there was also Oriel, again posing as a nun and with big round glasses.
"Father Anderson, do you really think what you said of your faithful loved ones?" she cried in an emotional tone. She had returned to play the role of Sister Yumiko. "How can you be so cruel?"
The crowd shouted and advanced towards the priest, and Oriel-Yumiko was swallowed up by the flow of people that was pouring in the churchyard. Seeing himself surrounded, Anderson was unable to maintain his self-control.
"You are nothing! You are ashes! You are dust!" He yelled at the crowd. "It is only by God's grace that I decided to stay in this city to protect you, you that share with the Ishbalian infidels your skin color! Thank God's mercy and fear his wrath! "
With a wave of his hand and a flash of the ring, he made the trees that surrounded the square grow, to the point that the stones of the floor burst under the pressure of the roots. Brambles sharp as steel chased Edward, who had followed the priest up to the church square. The alchemist cut them mercilessly with the blade on his right arm.
"I'm really fed up with your blusters, old man" the boy growled. "Now enjoy my show!"
He clapped his hands and placed them on the ground. Behind him a roar was heard, and the enormous statue that sat on the throne behind the altar of the church stood up and, breaking through the roof of the building and part of the wall, he came out on the square.
Alphonse watched the scene complacently from bell tower. Esther was beside him. The girl was crying silently, sharing with her fellow citizens the feeling of fear and disgust that had caught them when Father Anderson was revealed as a religious fanatic that he considered them scum.
"Anderson will never be able to move such a large object," the armor said. "My brother is, because he's a genius."
The statue of God lowered his arm and pinned Father Anderson the ground. The priest grabbed the statue's hand to destroy it and free himself, but when he used the power of the ring with the red stone, this instead transmuted his arm into a hideous pile of flesh and stone. The man cried out in pain and shock, and clutched his arm to his chest. Ed ran up to him and grabbed his hand to better observe the ring. Its light faded, then the red stone cracked and broke.
"But what..." he stammered, shocked. "This is not the Philosopher's Stone!" Soon the astonishment turned into anger. "We have done this much ruckus... and we lost all this time... for a phony?!" He shouted.
Anger soon left the place to depression. In silence, the boy turned and walked away from the churchyard. The crowd parted as he passed. He passed Oriel, who walked beside him.
"I'm sorry that was not the real Stone, Ed," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "But look at the bright side: you freed the city from a fanatic megalomaniac!" Edward ignored her words, and she knew there was nothing more to say.
At the outskirts of the city, Alphonse and Esther catched up to them. The girl's face was streaked with tears, but she wore a resolute and angry expression.
"Why have you done this to us?!" he attacked them the girl. "Father Anderson's miracles represented our only hope!"
"Are you saying it would have been better to leave everything as it was?" Ed replied, gravely.
Esther pretended not to hear him.
"Now what will I do? What will be my reason for life from this point onwards? Come on, tell me!" She cried, looking at them one at a time.
Ed stared at her for a moment, then he turned away.
"You have to discover it on your own," he said without looking at her. "Get up and walk. If nothing else, you still have both your true legs..."
That said, he started walking, heading for his next destination. After a few seconds, Oriel followed him, and then Al, while Esther slumped to the ground in tears.
Sister Heinkel had appeared at the right time and had helped Father Anderson escape the lynching, dragging him with her inside the church, blocking the doors and bringing him into his private room, where someone was already waiting for them.
"Emissary of God, why have you lied to me?" Father Anderson asked the angel with dark hair and violet eyes. "That object contained no divine power, but filthy alchemy! I believed I was been chosen to become an instrument of God! "
Sister Heinkel stood at the door, an unreadable expression on her face.
"Of course it was alchemy" the emissary said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "To be precise, it was an incomplete Philosopher's Stone. This town was nothing more than a simple bait to attract those interested in that object... "
"What ?!" shouted Anderson.
From the shadows the fat and bald man who had tried to eat Esther appeared.
"Lust, you say, now can I eat him, the man?" He asked with foaming at the mouth.
"What is this creature?" Anderson asked, stepping back. "Why did it call you Lust?"
The woman smiled.
"Because it is my name."
She unbuttoned her white gown neck and Anderson realized with horror that on the woman's chest it was tattooed with a little red snake biting its tail.
"You... are not an angel... you're a demon!" He shouted.
"So, Lust?" interjected the fat man. "Can I eat him?" He pulled out his tongue, and Anderson saw that on it there was the same snake tattoo.
The woman's smile became cruel. Behind him, Sister Heinkel laughed, as her eyes behind sunglasses, were tinged with purple. Father Anderson turned to her, shocked.
"Sister Heinkel..." he murmured. "You too..."
"Sorry, Father, but if you had paid more attention you would have realized that there were two Sister Heinkels out of the churchyard."
"You are... demons!" Father Anderson cried in anguish.
The Emissary of God made a gesture with her hand.
"Eat him, Gluttony."
The rest of priests and clergymen of the Istvàn Church had gathered around the altar of the church, as confused as the people of Istvàn by the recent events. Sister Heinkel had tried to calm the crowd, but in vain, and had had to fall back in turn inside the church. Suddenly, Father Anderson appeared from behind the apse, frowning and with the injured arm bandaged.
"Father! Please, tell us what to do? People are out of control! " Sister Heinkel exclaimed as soon as she saw him.
The man took a deep breath before speaking.
"Open the gates I'll talk to them," he ordered. The priests obeyed and helped the injured man to climb the pulpit, while the angry and confused people poured into the nave. "Istvàn people, I owe you an apology." Anderson spoke into the microphone as he saw that the church was beginning to fill up: his voice resounded throughout the building and outside. "I have committed the sin of arrogance, I let the anger of my past take over and I used the power of God for my purposes and aims, instead of using it to spread His word and help you... and consequently, I lost it, "he regretfully told. "I'm but a man," he sighed, slowly climbing down the steps of the pulpit to walk through the crowd. "And now I can only come down to your level to ask you to help me walk a purer way. Please, accompany me on a revolution of our church, a church that'll serve the people, a church where all are truly equal and no one is discriminated against because of his sex, his level of culture, or the color of his skin. "
The crowd looked around, no one knew how to answer, the man looked really regretful. A little girl came forward and grabbed the man's hand, who smiled warmly, picking her up and lifting her off the ground. The little one gave out a small cry of joy, and Father Anderson gently stroked her head. The spontaneous gesture of the man warmed the hearts of those present, who approached Anderson with more confidence.
From one of the upper arches, along with the fat man who was still finishing to devour the priest's arm, the woman called Lust was watching the scene.
"I'm sorry Envy, but apparently you'll have to keep that role for some time..." she said flatly.
As if he heard her, 'Anderson' looked up and smiled.