It was hard to picture Katherine as young and impetuous, and I still felt that we were missing some part of the overall picture, but I nodded. “What exactly made you change your mind about Saul?”
“I began to discover some… inconsistencies in his reports, and I observed several actions that were contrary to CHRONOS protocol. This was about the same time I learned I was pregnant. Many of our colleagues assumed that Saul studied the history of religion because he was a devout believer. He was certainly capable of giving that impression to people of a wide array of faiths. I knew him a bit better than most, and I thought he was attracted to religious history because he was a religious skeptic. Neither was true.”
Katherine looked carefully at me. “Saul is a devout believer only in himself, and he was convinced that the religious faith of others, if manipulated skillfully, was an excellent path to the power he sought. He was studying religions of the world in order to pick up tips on how to build his own.”
“How do you ‘build’ a religion?” I asked.
“Many others have done it with less,” Katherine said with a wry smile. “Saul had an excellent tool at his disposal. I think his plan was to personally go back to various places and times in history and lay a trail of appearances, miracles, and prophecy—blending a variety of religions. Just as Christianity pulled in elements of pagan religions in order to attract followers, he would incorporate elements of Christianity, Islam, and other religions, laying the path for the reign of the prophet Cyrus… who would, of course, be Saul.”
“Wait… you aren’t saying he founded the Cyrists? That’s crazy. I went to a service at one of the temples a few months back. I mean, I really didn’t get into it, but they seem okay. Charlayne goes occasionally with Joseph, her brother. He’s dating a girl who’s a Cyrist.”
I didn’t add that Charlayne’s parents were a bit nervous about how serious the relationship had become. Joseph would be required to convert if they decided to marry, and most Cyrists married pretty early. From the age of twelve, Cyrists wore a small lotus flower tattoo on their left hand as the outward symbol of chastity. Members took a vow of abstinence—total abstinence—until their twentieth birthday or marriage, whichever came first, and all marriages had to be approved by the temple elders.
I remembered a conversation with Charlayne’s mom after we’d attended the temple’s Sunday service. Her feelings were very mixed—she was suspicious of the Cyrists in general, but Joseph had always been her wild child, and after meeting Felicia he had totally straightened up his act. No alcohol, no drugs, and as far as she knew, no sex. His life revolved around work, college, and carefully supervised visits with Felicia, who at eighteen had two more years of abstinence to go. They had been dating for about six months and Joseph was ecstatic that he was finally allowed to hold her hand. Charlayne said Joseph’s transformation was creepy, in a romantic kind of way. I didn’t see how creepy and romantic could go together, but then Charlayne’s mind sometimes worked in mysterious ways.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I mean, they do have some odd beliefs, but that’s true of a lot of religions. Isn’t the vice president a Cyrist? I remember Charlayne talking about how Joseph had seen her at the temple pretty much every week in the months leading up to the election. This isn’t some new cult that just appeared. The Cyrists have been around for centuries. Why would you think—”
Katherine gave me an exasperated look. “I don’t just think this, Kate. I know it for a fact. Saul created the Cyrists. And whether they’ve been around for centuries depends on your perspective. To those—including yourself, Kate—who have not been under continuous protection of a medallion for the past two years, the Cyrists were founded in the mid-fifteenth century.”
“Fourteen seventy-eight, to be precise,” said Connor.
Katherine walked over to one of the shelves and scanned the contents for a moment, eventually pulling out a fat book. “Your textbooks probably devote pages to the history of the Cyrists and their role in various eras. Pull any book from these shelves, however, and you’ll find no mention of Cyrists, their beliefs or their history.”
She handed the book to me. It was a survey of American history written in the 1980s. I thumbed through the index and saw no mention of the Cyrist colony at Providence, which every history class I could recall studied along with the Puritans of Salem and the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock.
“This is the correct history, then?” I asked.