by AB Bradley
The aqueduct disappeared within the barrier. She stepped onto the wide wall and peered into the noble district. A dizzying drop greeted her, ending in a labyrinth of thorny bushes and ponds brimming with lanterns floating on crystal lilies.
She peered to the side along the long curve of the structure. Far from where she stood, a few estates dared to grow to the height of the wall. Their tiled roofs rested at gentle angles against the barrier’s smooth stone side. If she could make it to one of the estates unseen, she could perhaps leap to the roof and descend without breaking both her legs.
Mara glanced behind her. In the distance, bobbing lanterns slowly worked their way around the top of the wall. No doubt a patrol followed behind those lights, searching for any sign of the ashwalk pilgrim.
She darted in the opposite direction, but her legs wobbled and protested, so she slowed her pace. The arm supporting her son ached and trembled. Her shin throbbed from the bloody scrape the aqueduct stairs gifted her. Her vision lost some of its clarity, a sign Olessa’s glimmer faded from her blood. The deep blue of the night paled against the horizon. Her climb had gobbled much of her time. Dawn waited in the wings, ready to seal her fate.
Mara reached the first tower and crouched within its shadow. Dark windows spanned the side facing the lower city. The tower was capped with a flagpole proudly waving the flapping banner of Good King Sol like a feather in a cap. Rolling her eyes at his crest, she ducked beneath the windows and darted across the wall’s walkway. Voices from within drifted to her ears, grumbling guards complaining about missing Harvest Festival’s boisterous parties and smiling women.
With the tower behind her, she strode quietly along the wall’s curve. As she approached the high roofs, her excitement brought new energy to her weary eyes. She was so close. Once inside Hightable, the temple would only be a walk through manicured gardens. Soon, the long night and her ashwalk would end, and her son’s spirit would fly to the Six to be received by the Burning Mother’s open arms.
Mara came to the section of the wall near the high roofs. She stared at their ruddy tiles, the excitement and hope bubbling in her heart cooling as she grimaced at the gap she must leap to make it to across.
A crumbling stairwell on a thin aqueduct pillar was one thing. The space between her and the estate was another. The breach laughed at her. It mocked her. It told her she’d come so far, but now it would turn her back because the treasures of Hightable were never meant for her filthy feet to trample.
“Maybe a tower is empty,” she mused, giving up on her plan to leap like a grasshopper from wall to roof.
She turned to the tower she passed moments before. A bobbing lantern wandered into view around it. Behind the lantern light, a line of guards marched like insects following a flame.
Cursing, Mara whipped around and scanned the next tower. Another patrol melted from its walls, led by the ominous, bobbing lantern. There she stood, cloaked in burlap and ash and stained by her blood and the blood of others. The two patrols closed around her like a hare with a broken leg between two wolves.
“No, no, no!”
She ran toward one patrol, searching for a way down the wall. Seeing nothing, she turned and ran a short distance the other direction. Unfortunately for her, the city kept the wall clear.
Mara crouched, trying desperately to shrink as small as possible. In a few moments, not even that would save her. She gripped her son and shivered under the piercing whistle of a chill wind.
“I’ve come so far,” Mara said as she closed her eyes. “I can’t fail now. Not now.”
A shadow slid over her. Mara clenched her jaw and lurched blindly toward what she had no doubt was a soldier with his sword drawn, her nails ready to rake the man’s face before he ran her through.
A weight hit her body. Mara twisted and spun toward the edge.
She tumbled forward. She opened her mouth to scream, but a hand clapped over her lips before her wail could pierce the night.
“Are you trying to get us both killed?” a man asked. “Scream and my ass will be the rug for one of those serpent priest’s bedrooms. That’s if I’m lucky. I hear our king’s little pet likes dining on the Six’s holy men and women. I swear, you common thieves make the more talented among us look like fools with your bumbling about like a—wait, are you wearing burlap?”
The man’s hand left her mouth and spun her around. He wore tight black garments and boots trimmed in black that came to his knees. His fingers wagged like peachy caterpillars from his fingerless black gloves. His face lay mostly hidden within a loose hood, but his hooked nose defied the shadows and framed thin lips that wore the constant, faintest grin despite the thin scar running alongside his smile.
He leapt back farther than any normal human and considered her from a distance. “An ashwalk pilgrim, then? Are you the sorceress Good King Sol is tearing the lower city apart for and sending his soldiers into Hightable to stop?”
“I am, but I’m no sorceress.”
The man smirked. “And he is certainly no good king. I have to admit, you don’t help your case with all that blood staining your arms and legs. You look like you clawed your way out of some child’s nightmare.”
“I doubt you would look any better after what I’ve gone through tonight. Are you—are you going to call the soldiers?”
His lips split into a full grin that framed his long teeth. “I’d be a fool with a death wish if I did.”
“So you won’t turn me in?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t have any plans on it. Don’t know why I didn’t see you balled up on the wall, either. It was like you weren’t there until I was on top of you. You practically had both of us falling over the side. Here I was just minding my own business, off to Hightable on this happiest of nights to cut the purse strings of Sollan’s wealthiest when I come upon an ashwalk pilgrim. The ashwalk pilgrim, more precisely. The sorceress from the Second Sun with a thirst for Good King Sol’s blood, if you would believe his pompous little criers and those masked heretics of his.”
Mara glanced behind her. How the guards did not see them, she had no idea. “Please, show me where you cross. They will recognize me. They will kill me and take my child. I—I don’t know why they haven’t said something already. I can almost see their faces in their helmets!”
“It is oh so very dark outside,” he said slyly.
She charged toward him, halting barely an arm’s length from the man. She peered into his hood, locking stares with the eyes glittering from within its shadow. “You are a thief?”
“Uh, yes, I believe that is the term. Now good evening, oh mighty sorceress of the Second Sun. I leave you to your ashwalk and pray to the Slippery Sinner that we never meet again.”
The thief flashed a mischievous grin and clicked his heels. His body burst into wisps of inky smoke and drifted over the gap. He reformed on the estate’s roof and stretched like a cat freshly woken from its nap.
“Wait!” Mara hissed.
He glanced over his shoulder and pinched his hood. “I’m kind of busy. The nobles should be good and drunk by now. Easiest pickings of the year, you know.”
“You can’t just leave me here. The patrols…they’ll see me!”
“That’s my problem because…?”
Mara looked frantically to either side. The shadows keeping Mara hidden would flee beneath the light of the lanterns, and the lanterns drew closer in a terrifyingly steady beat. “Please, sir. I’ve got nowhere to go. I’ve come so far. I can see the temples. I just—I just want my son’s soul to reach the Mother. It’s trapped inside him.”
Her lips trembled while the thief’s pressed into a flat line. “I’m a man of the Slippery Sinner, not the Burning Mother. I’ve got to pay respects to my god tonight, and he demands the coin of the pigs in Hightable. If the Mother is truly on your side, she’ll see you out of this mess.”
“Maybe she brought you to me.” The footsteps of the patrol echoed on the stones. Mara inched to the edge of the wall. “Maybe
the Sinner helps her. The silent sons helped me. They died to save me.”
“Their bodies outside the wall…you witnessed their murder?”
“Yes, and now the Sinner brought you here to play your part to save us. Please. In the name of all the Six, have mercy on me!”
She heard the low voices of the soldiers as they exchanged words. The thief clenched and unclenched his fists. “Damnable woman, tossing my soul in a vat of guilt like shrimp in hot oil.”
He snapped his fingers, and his body disbursed into a dark cloud. The smoke raced across the gap and swelled around Mara. The man reappeared, but a veil of grey mist surrounded him. He wrapped an arm around her and placed a finger to his mouth. “Not a word from those sad little lips of yours, my lady, unless you’d like a soldier’s sword through those perky melons.”
Mara stood still and silent as if she was carved from the wall itself. The bobbing lanterns came within a stone’s throw, their light illuminating the line of marching soldiers behind them.
She squirmed, but the thief’s strong arm held her still. He clapped his hand over her mouth, and together they watched as the patrols crossed paths not more than an arm’s length from where Mara and her companion stood within the mist.
The captain of one patrol nodded at the other. “Captain Balthel,” he said.
Balthel adjusted the tall lantern pole and mirrored the first captain’s nod. “Captain Isseus. No sign of the sorceress?”
The two patrols came to a halt with both captains dead center before Mara and the thief. Captain Balthel shook his head. “None at all, but best keep your eyes sharp. I’ve got word the witch murdered a bunch of silent sons in Blooming Ring. Pretty gruesome scene, they say.”
An angry pit burned in Mara’s chest. She clenched her teeth to keep her tongue behind them.
“Really?” Captain Isseus shook his head. “I thought the Six’s priestly dogs were suckling from her breasts. Why would she murder them?”
“Sister Ialane said those priests were heretics among their order, that they tried saving the king from the woman. Don’t let their deaths fool you on the other silent sons. Every priest of the Six has a little taint inside them, especially the ones holed up in their temples.”
Isseus puckered his lips. He tightened his grip on the lantern pole and straightened. “Best keep at it then. Signal if you see anything.”
Captain Balthel saluted. He adjusted the lantern pole on his shoulder and led his patrol down the curve of the wall while Captain Isseus led his in the opposite direction. Mara and the thief waited silently until the boots of both patrols faded into the night.
Mara pulled the man’s hand from her mouth. “I didn’t kill those silent sons. A man in white named Caspran did, and he is friends with that Ialane Donra of the Serpent Sun. He has a blade that needs no hand to find flesh. He ripped the priests apart. I watched as he slaughtered them!”
“Shhh…” The thief looked with concern to either side of the wall. “Let’s get off this thing to somewhere where we can talk.”
He turned to the estate roof and gently wrapped his arm around Mara’s waist. She stepped back, but his arm kept her from going far.
“I can’t cross that. I barely made it up the aqueduct stairs.”
The thief laughed and looked at Mara with wide, glittering eyes. “You climbed the Waterstair? I doubt I’d even make it up that thing without some of the Sinner’s magic in my fingers. There’s a running joke among thieving circles that if a fellow rogue’s gone missing, check the Waterstair for their bones. More than one cocky vagabond has met a grisly fate from a fall from those steps. You really are a sorceress, aren’t you?”
“I’m not—no!”
The thief laughed as he tightened his grip around Mara’s waist and leapt in a graceful arc over the gap. She watched in horror as the solid safety of the wall slipped away, replaced by the empty, churning air. The wind strengthened and sent her cloak flapping like moth’s wings around her waist. The wind pushed her, prodded her farther than she ever should have been able to jump.
They landed light as feathers on the manor’s clay tiles. Mara’s stomach lurched, but she swallowed the burning bile and let her world steady.
“Easy there,” the thief said. He pointed to a chimney poking above the roof. “Let’s have a chat in the chimney’s shadow. It’ll keep us out of sight. There are a few questions I’d like to ask a very peculiar ashwalk pilgrim I met tonight.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Shadow Play
“Sander Hale, Priest of the Slippery Sinner, Collector of Gold Curiosities and Patron of Pious Reminders.” The thief took a deep bow.
Mara leaned against the chimney. She adjusted her son against her neck and smiled weakly. “Mara, moon maiden of the House of Sin and Silk.”
“A moon maiden?” Sander smirked. His eyes glittered beneath his hood, the only feature illuminated by light his hooked nose and scarred, impish smile. “Everyone in Sollan knows about the House of Sin and Silk. How is old Olessa? She still using that same awful wig everybody knows is fake, but nobody has the balls to tell her? I was just a boy when I saw her last and snuck aboard the barge, but I’ll never forget the whooping she could give with that damnable silk glove.”
Mara’s head dipped, her gaze drifting to the filthy body of her son. “I pray she still lives, but Caspran knew my son was a boy. Only she and two others knew I had a son and not a daughter. One of those died before me. I fear the same fate has met the other two. They…they were my family.”
“Chin up, Mara.” Sander gently lifted her chin until her eyes meet his eyes. He gripped her shoulder and squeezed. “The priests of the Serpent Sun have a way of knowing secrets. That doesn’t mean your friends are dead. You’ve met Sister Ialane Donra and that hound of hers, Brother Caspran Bilshabel. They’re both priests of the Serpent Sun, and they serve Good King Sol faithfully. The evil they stain this world with, it is a reflection of the darkness festering in our monarch’s soul.”
“Why does he hate the Six? Why does he hunt me?”
Sander shrugged. He crossed his arms and stared toward the king’s palace and the great temples surrounding it. “I’ve only just returned to Sollan from that frozen shit hole affectionately called Skaard. When my parents took me from the warm fields of Eloia, Sol’s father sat on the throne and called the city Thean. Imagine my surprise when I return to the place of my birth only to discover the Six who have protected our kingdom since man clawed his way from the mud are now spit and cursed like tyrants and murderers. The fools turn their back to the gods and walk willingly into a serpent’s maw.”
“Then this cult of the Serpent Sun is as much a mystery to you as me.”
“Somewhat.” He cradled his chin and pursed his thin lips. “I have a few theories, but I won’t burden you with them because theories are all they are and you clearly have enough on your mind.”
“This great serpent god they serve, it has power.” Mara kissed her son’s head. “Ialane’s serpent is no ordinary snake, and the way Caspran commands that razor…”
She shuddered, closing her eyes as the murders she witnessed flared in her mind. Magic came from the gods. All people on Urum knew that much. If the priests of the Serpent Sun did not worship one of the Six, then they must bend a knee to some undiscovered—or forgotten—god.
“The Six are still the true gods,” Sander said. “Don’t forget that. Whatever power it is this serpent brings, it can’t defeat the power of the Six.”
“But their power fades, Sander. The silent sons, they could barely help me, and when Caspran attacked them, they fell like wheat to a scythe’s blade.”
Sander grunted. He lowered his hand from his chin and squeezed his fist. His fingerless glove cracked as his knuckles whitened. “I feel it too. It’s like someone soaked a rag in pepper oil and shoved it so far down my throat it’s doused the fire of my soul. Those silent sons, they were men of Sollan. The corruption here has extinguished their flame. The Serpent Sun chokes
the light of the Six. It is here the sickness started. It is here it will spread through all Urum if it’s not stopped.”
He raised his fist. He opened his palm, and within it held a swirling flame made of shifting cobalt smoke. “It won’t be long before I’m the wheat staring down a sharpened scythe. It seems not even the Slippery Sinner can escape every judgment. That’s rather a disappointing thought. It’s why I joined up in the first place.”
“What do you plan to do then? You can’t stay in Sollan. This city isn’t safe for a priest of the Six. They’ve imprisoned them in their temples. The serpents—they’ll kill you if they find you wandering Hightable.”
“Says the ashwalk pilgrim every soldier and loyal convert of the Serpent Sun hunts tonight,” he said with a chuckle. “You’re some kind of brave and many kinds of foolish for undertaking this journey. Let’s hope your son’s soul is worth the trouble.”
“There’s not enough gold to weight a scale large enough to tempt me. The Six protect me. They brought me to you, didn’t they?” she gently touched the crook of his arm, her finger running down his forearm until it lingered lightly on his knuckles. “They brought you here to guide me to the Mother’s temple, to help me complete my ashwalk.”
Sander yanked his arm from her. He slipped on a tile and nearly tumbled down the roof but bent and caught his balance before he could topple over. Clearing his throat, he stood and wiped his fingers on his dark tunic.
“Oh, no, no, no. You really are a moon maiden, trying to rile my blood with that gentle touch of yours. Listen, Mara, I helped you get into Hightable. I know you’re on a dangerous journey. But I, ah…” he shook his head. “…I don’t do things like that. Men of the Slippery Sinner don’t skip like happy fools into a shit storm like the one you’re about to find yourself drowning in. We’re survivors. We keep the histories. We sing the tales as we travel long roads. We tithe for the rich that are too selfish to do it themselves. None of that we would successfully accomplish if we went parading into some heretic’s arms or farted around the battlefield with a bunch of soldiers.”