by Unknown
Now Salim understood. “And Ceyanan sent you to me.”
Connell nodded enthusiastically. “He agreed that such a judgment would be needlessly complicated and take up the goddess’s valuable time, and that the best thing to do was remove the cursed crown and let my master’s soul cleanse itself. Then he gave me your description, and the name of a bar, and transported me to Axis.”
“Of course he did.” Salim had to admit, the eidolon’s logic was sound. And it would be just like Ceyanan to send Salim on a job that was, in essence, missionary work. Soul saving. That would tickle the angel’s sense of irony.
“So will you do it?” the eidolon asked eagerly. “Will you help me help my master?”
As if he had a choice. “Ustalav, you said?”
“Aton’s Field, a village near Kavapesta.”
Salim reached into his robes and produced an amulet of his own. The size of his thumb, the stone was a perfect, lightless black, save for an iridescent spiral that seemed to shimmer and move of its own accord. Cupping the stone in one hand, he offered the other to Connell. “Let’s go, then.”
The eidolon took it.
The world twisted.
div class="calibre2" id="calibre_pb_0">
Chapter Three: The Penitent Man
There was the usual moment of darkness and cold, the terrible feeling of being drawn through space like a fish on a line, and then the light was back and the amulet deposited them safely.
Right in the middle of an angry mob.
Salim looked quickly to Connell, but the eidolon was already holding his own pendant. Before Salim could say anything, the eidolon’s disguise as an axiomite melted into something less suspicious. The pointed ears were still there, but shorter. Gone was the inhumanly perfect skin, replaced by a moonscape of old pockmarks. The cowl of the robe he wore—now old and tattered, stained as much by the road as any dye—came up to cover the glowing forehead rune.
It was a good job. The peasant closest to the new arrivals blinked, peered at the two of them as if he trying to remember something, then visibly gave up and returned his attention to the shouting man at the front.
They were in the central green of a modest town, a ring of shops and public houses encircling a muddy patch of grass long since chewed into submission by the hooves and jaws of livestock. Beyond, Salim recognized the dark and craggy peaks of the Hungry Mountains rising ominously on all sides. Even now, at midday, the fog that shrouded their dark forests was thick, and moved in strange ways just beyond the valley’s last farmsteads.
The mob was barely worthy of the name—perhaps forty men and women in varying states of disrepair—yet Salim had seen such groups before. The deciding factor for mobs wasn’t in their muscles, or their makeshift weapons, but in their eyes. These folk were afraid. And where there was enough fear, something could break, and turn even the most timid housewife into a killer.
The man trying to catalyze that change stood at the focal point of the loose semicircle, perched precariously on an overturned wheelbarrow. He was middle-aged and almost completely bald, with only a few wisps of white hair scrambling to cling to and cover his shining pate. From beneath voluminous black robes similar to Salim’s own poked stick-thin arms, gesticulating wildly. At his throat hung a large silver spiral on a chain—the holy symbol of Pharasma.
“Too long have we suffered the monster to remain in our midst!” the priest cried. “Far too long! You, Silva,” he pointed at one of the women near the front, “was not your husband’s grave torn up, just weeks after his passing? And you, Tam”—this time a fat man in a flour-stained apron—”your uncle’s grave as well. No wolf digs so deep, or so thoroughly.”
He returned to addressing the whole crowd.
“Suffering is our lot! Yet that doesn’t mean the Goddess desires us to lie down and let monsters roam the night, taking our loved ones. As your priest, I should be leading you—yet I am old, and my hands shake with the palsy.” He raised the offending appendages high. “Thus I must pass the burden to my son, Sir Percinov. It is he who will lead you to glory.”
The crowd shifted slightly, and Salim glimpsed the figure that stood at the old priest’s knee. The plates of its armor were all in black and silver, the chest embossed with Pharasma’s spiral, and a businesslike bucket of a helm obscured the face. At the figure’s waist rested a long sword in a matching scabbard. All in all, a suitably imposing sight. Yet something about the way the warrior stood gave Salim pause.
“When?” a voice from the crowd cried.
“At dawn,” the priest said. “Mirosoy and his creatures are things of darkness. We will bring them the cleansing light.”
“That’s my master,” Connell hissed, and Salim tapped his arm to quiet him.
The crowd shouted its ragged approval, and then the church bells began chiming. In twos and threes, the people shuffled off to be about their errands, or perhaps just to rest up before the lynching.
The priest had stepped down from his wheelbarrow and was talking with the knight. Salim approached.
“Excuse me, Father. May I have a word?”
The priest turned. Above his beak of a nose, hard little rat eyes crawled up and down Salim’s length, taking in the black robes and sun-darkened skin, the short beard and strangely melted-looking sword hilt. His eyes lit upon the amulet, which Salim had left hanging prominently against his chest, and the hard mouth softened almost imperceptibly.
“A fellow clergyman?”
“Something like that.” Salim drew the spiral of Pharasma in the air between them.
“Yet not from around here.” Salim’s southern skin, so much darker than the sickly pale Ustalavs, kept the words from being a question.
“No,” Salim agreed. “My companion and I have traveled far to offer our assistance. It seems others in the church have learned of your situation.”
“Hum,” the priest said, a sound that wasn’t altogether pleased. “Very well, then. My name is Father Adibold, and this is Sir Percinov. My rectory is just over here—please, allow me to welcome you properly.” Without bothering to wait for a reply, the man turned and began stalking toward a little house attached to the church, the armored warrior just behind him. Salim and Connell followed.
“A child in armor is still a child.”
The house might better have been called a cell. Though the walls were still painted white, they’d clearly been neglected for some time. The outlines of less-faded regions suggested that, at one point, there had been more furniture in here—a bureau, a couch—yet now the room contained only a stove, a cupboard, the roughest of wooden tables, and two chairs. Salim accepted the priest’s invitation and sat in the nearer chair, then immediately wished he hadn’t. He’d interrogated men in more comfortable chairs than this.
Father Adibold took the opposite chair. Connell remained standing next to the door, while the armored figure took up a respectful position behind the priest’s left shoulder. For the first time, the metal mountain spoke.
“Da, may I—?”
“Yes, fine!” The priest waved a hand. With an audible sigh of relief, the warrior removed his gauntlets, then reached up and pulled off his helmet.
It was a boy, brown-haired and skinny. His bobbing larynx didn’t even come close to touching the steel gorget meant to protect his throat. Salim bet that if he struck the breastplate, the teenager would rattle around inside the armor like the clapper in a bell.
The old man spoke first. “You’re not a priest,” he said bluntly. “The sword tells me that much. So what are you?”
“A hunter,” Salim said. “A problem-solver for the church, specializing in the sort of thing you now face. Or have I heard wrong? It’s undead creations that your people fear, is it not?”
The priest grunted. “Indeed.” Reluctantly, he got to his feet and went to the cupboard. He returned with two cups of water and a cob of bread, which he set between them. “Please,” he said, gesturing. “Eat.”
Salim tore off a chunk of
bread and bit into it. It was hard, and old, but blessedly weevil-free.
“I’d apologize for not offering better fare,” the old man continued, not sounding the least bit apologetic, “but we of the Kavapestan branch don’t believe in southern niceties.”
Aha. Suddenly both the ostentatiously poor hospitality and the deliberately uncomfortable furniture made more sense. Salim’s eyes twitched toward the man’s sleeves, which had fallen back when he proffered the food. The priest caught the look and deliberately pulled the cloth back down, but not before Salim caught the telltale lines of dozens of thin white scars on his forearms.
“So you follow the Penitence, then.”
The old priest thrust his jaw out pugnaciously. “The Lady of Graves judges us not only on what we do, but what we endure. Those who suffer in this life are rewarded in the next. We Ustalavs have known this for generations.”
“Very admirable,” Salim said.
The priest searched for any sign that he was being mocked, and upon finding none, slowly nodded. “Yes, well. It’s rare to find a southerner who understands the value of forsaking worldly pleasures.”
“Believe me,” Salim said, “I’ve forsaken plenty. But I didn’t come here to discuss theology. Tell me of Mirosoy.”
“Bah!” the priest said, and spat on his own floor. “A magician and minor noble who lives in a manse at the far end of the valley. He’s been there for years.”
“It’s disgusting,” the armored boy put in helpfully. “Using magic to avoid honest sweat and labor.”
“Shut up, Percy,” the priest said, yet he nodded at the sentiment. “It’s true, we have no love of wizards and witches here. Yet it’s still not a crime, and his business helps keep the village alive through hard times. Of late, however, the lord has turned to darker arts. Graves have been disturbed, even within the grounds of the church.”
Now it was Salim’s turn to grunt. Grave robbing from a church of Pharasma was bold, if not outright suicidal. “And his creatures. You’ve seen them?”
“Not personally. But the villagers who cart out his provisions or used to work in his house speak of moans, and shambling forms, and the stench of death.”
Salim nodded. “And you’d send a mob of villagers to handle things?”
The priest bristled. “Not alone! I would offer what magics I have, and my son would lead them!”
“Ah yes, your son.” Salim turned to the would-be warrior. “Show me your hands, boy.”
Confused, Percinov did as he was told, holding them palms out. Salim nodded.
“That’s a fine suit of armor, boy. It’ll serve you well one day. But not yet.”
“Now wait just a minute—!” the priest began.
Salim silenced him with a raised finger. “Calluses.”
“Pardon?”
“You may know penance, Father, but I know war. And the calluses on this boy’s hands are from chopping wood, not a sword hilt. The pattern’s all wrong.” He glanced back at Percinov. “You can put your hands down now, boy.”
Percinov did. His father glowered. “The boy will be fine,” the old priest growled. “Any wounds he suffers, I’ll heal. And his pain will buy credit with the Goddess.”
As it happened, Salim knew precisely how little credit such suffering earned. Yet he set that sentiment aside and decided to test out a suspicion that had been building.
“And what would the boy’s mother think if he were killed?” he asked.
“Don’t you talk about his mother!” Tiny drops of spit flew from the priest’s lips to land halfway across the table. “Serafina is with the Lady now, assisting in the judgment of souls. We should all be so fortunate.”
“But, Da—” Percinov began.
“Shut up, Percy!”
The priest put his head in hands. For a moment, no one said anything. At last, the priest looked up, his lined face appearing older than ever.
“What do you propose?” he asked.
Chapter Four: The Greatest Gift
Salim slipped through the pools of shadow cast by branches and shrubs, trusting to his robes to break up his outline and make him invisible. Around him, the sounds of the night creatures were sporadic and tense. Expectant.
Connell slid along beside him, still wearing his peasant disguise. Salim had to give him credit—the eidolon was surprisingly graceful. Ahead, the manor house stood huge and whitewashed at the end of the drive, its windows cavernous and dark save for three in an upper corner, which glowed with dim red light.
As welcome as the shadows were in hiding their approach, Salim would have preferred to come during daylight. Yet he had wasted too much time trying to convince Father Adibold that Salim and Connell would do better alone than with his assistance.
It was utterly stupid. The priest’s little mob of peasants would likely scatter at the first sign of a walking corpse, and those who stayed would be slaughtered. Worse, if this Lord Mirosoy had advanced to making ghouls, then every farmhand who fell would rise again shortly to add to his army.
The old priest and his son might have been more useful—the man claimed to have some magic yet, and the boy’s armor was solid. Yet Salim had seen enough in the priest’s eyes to know that it wasn’t worth it. For all that Adibold talked of the Pharasmin Penitence, that hopeless splinter sect of ascetics and self-deniers, it wasn’t religious fervor that made Adibold cut himself, or so eagerly throw himself and his only son into harm’s way. It was grief for his dead wife. Perhaps even a desire to join her early.
Salim understood that all too well. But the boy still had plenty of years left, and suicidal warriors were a liability.
In frustration, Salim had even attempted telling the old priest part of the truth: that Lord Mirosoy wasn’t acting of his own accord, but rather had been enchanted by a cursed magic item.
The priest would have none of it. “I’ve seen souls corrupted by a shiny coin, or a bit of bare thigh. The nature of the temptation is unimportant.”
At last, once it became clear that even the prospect of killing a potentially innocent man wasn’t enough to dissuade the priest—”sorting good from evil is the Lady’s job, not ours”—Salim had given in and agreed to join them in their attack at dawn.
Which is why he and Connell were out here in the dark, with the sun still hours below the horizon.
Salim caught the eidolon’s eye and nodded. The eidolon had given him the layout of the house, and they’d decided on the servants’ entrance around the side rather than the grand double doors that faced the drive. It was time to break with the road and circle left.
Something shot out from the brush near Salim’s feet.
Without thinking—because in combat, acting was always faster than thinking—Salim drew his sword and slammed it down, pinning the scurrying shape to the earth. The creature squeaked once and expired.
“Mouse,” he whispered, and withdrew his blade, rodent still clinging to its tip. He started to scrape it off against his boot, then stopped.
The thing’s ribcage was hollowed out, the flesh rotted away from tiny bones. Salim’s sword had spitted it neatly, yet its back legs still kicked feebly.
Another tiny form catapulted itself from the bushes. Before Salim could move, Connell leaped, springing forward with the grace of a cat and coming up an the undead rat in his hands. The eidolon popped it into his mouth, bones crunching, then looked back at Salim and smiled.
Perhaps the eidolon would be more useful than Salim had expected. Connell swallowed and asked, “Scouts?”
Salim nodded. It seemed Mirosoy wasn’t totally without defenses. He slipped the twice-expired mouse from his blade and ground it under his boot heel before continuing on.
The servants’ entrance was unguarded. From the tree line, it was a solid hundred feet of open lawn to the steps up to the back porch, and then the door. Salim covered it at a run, body bent almost double, sword under his robes to avoid reflecting the moonlight. Connell paced him. At the door, they paused for a moment, liste
ning. When nothing revealed itself, Salim nodded to Connell and thumbed the latch.
Beyond lay a long hall, its wood-paneled walls lit only by the feeble shaft of moonlight from the open door, quickly disappearing into utter black.
Salim smelled it first—the charnel stench of putrefaction. He thrust out an arm to stop Connell, but the eager eidolon had already bounded into the corridor.
A hand reached from the darkness.
Salim moved. There was no time to let his eyes adjust, so he closed them and let his ears and nose guide him past the struggling eidolon, deeper into the dark.
Something rose up in front of him, grave-wet and stinking, and he brought his sword out and down, feeling it cleave through cheese-soft flesh. The thing gave a sigh and fell heavily into him, knocking him back into the wall and what felt like a tall table or stool. His free hand closed on a smooth, heavy object, and he brought it down hard on the thing in front of him, then spun to skewer a new attacker to his right. Back toward the entrance, Connell shouted something.
They were stuck. Salim might be able to keep this up indefinitely, but there was no telling about the eidolon, and they needed to move fast if they wanted to retain the element of surprise. Gritting his teeth, Salim reached out and touched the goddess.
It was only a second, but it was enough. The Lady of Graves flowed through him in a black rush, as grotesque and violating in its own way as the creature putrefying on his feet. The energy passed through him and into the blade of his sword, and cold steel flared with ghostly incandescence, lighting the hallway.
There were only three zombies, all dressed in the rotting finery that had probably once been the best clothes the little town could offer. Two lay at Salim’s feet, his sword having severed the fragile magic that kept them animated. Down the hall, Connell struggled with the third. The eidolon had dropped his disguise, and the long neck of his true form snaked around the back of the zombie’s futilely chomping head, wrapping it like a boa constrictor. Long jaws locked around the undead creature’s skull. There was a twist and a pop, and the last corpse dropped to the floor and lay still.