by Watson Davis
“You stupid little shit.” She plopped down by the fire, shaking her head and wondering at her next move. She blinked her eyes and brushed away a tear.
“YOU HAVEN’T PERFORMED the tranquility rituals since her death?” Dyuh Mon strode down the aisle, surveying the quaint village temple, with a vaulted ceiling held up by arches and a modern altar on the raised dais at the far end from the entrance. Sunlight cascaded through the circular windows in the ceiling.
“No, I feared I would botch them.” Dabeh, a waifish acolyte, bowed her head, shaking it with her shoulders quivering as they tightened, drawing in toward her as though she expected to be beaten. “They are horribly complicated.”
“We will go over them tonight, and you will execute them each night until a new rector arrives,” Dyuh Mon said, patting Dabeh’s shoulder. He walked up the steps of the dais to the altar.
Rector Idemi’s body lay there, her hands crossed over the center of her chest, her eyes closed, her lips parted. Dyuh Mon leaned over the body, sticking his fingers into the wound in her neck, following it up toward the skull, sensing the point at which the blade had severed her spinal column. He pulled his fingers back and licked the sticky blood from them. A skillful kill.
Behind him, Dabeh gagged.
He whispered the words of a necromantic spell into Idemi’s ear, drawing the spirit back to the body. Rector Idemi’s eyes flew open, her body tensed, and she gasped, struggling to breathe.
“What have you to tell me of your killer?” Dyuh Mon asked.
Her eyes flew toward Dyuh Mon’s. She said, “Save me! It burns!”
“What have you to tell me of your killer?”
“Bang’la and her summoned child killed me,” Idemi said. Her hand jerked up toward Dyuh Mon. “Please! Help me!”
Dyuh Mon spoke a word, his hands gliding over her body, up from her heart, to the top of her head, and then off her body completely. Idemi relaxed, her breath escaping in a whistle through the hole in her neck as her soul slipped back to the hell it now inhabited.
Dabeh sat on her shins on the dais floor sobbing, rocking back and forth with her palms pressed into her eyes. Dyuh Mon chuckled and placed his hand on Dabeh’s head. He said, “The dead are always complaining. You will get used to it. Do you know these people of whom she spoke?”
Dabeh sniffled and shook her head. Dyuh Mon removed his hand, leaving blood in her hair.
The doors creaked open. A villager poked his head through the crack, peering at them. He crept in, bobbing and bowing, and a rag-tag gang of villagers followed him, clutching their hats to their chests and holding each other’s hands.
“This is why it is important to maintain the rites,” Dyuh Mon said to Dabeh, grinning at her. “To keep the rabble properly respectful.”
Dabeh averted her eyes and rose to her feet, brushing out her skirt, whispering, “They are respected citizens.”
“By you, perhaps.” Dyuh Mon sighed and plodded down the stairs to the floor holding his hands out, bowing slightly, a serene smile on his lips. “How may the Empress serve you?”
A tall man in light leather armor stepped forward and touched his chest. “Her death is not our fault. Please do not hold us responsible.”
Dyuh Mon raised his eyebrows and glanced back over his shoulder at Dabeh even as he continued toward the villagers. “Has someone blamed you for Rector Idemi’s death?”
“No.” The man shook his head, then pointed at Dabeh. “If this is anyone’s fault, it’s hers. She should have been with her mistress, protecting her.”
“And your name is?” Dyuh Mon asked.
The man edged back into the crowd, his gaze dropping to the floor. He whispered, “I don’t think that’s important.”
“Thyu’fest,” Dabeh said, her voice tinged with anger, but also with a strong command that Dyuh Mon found refreshing. He had feared she lacked the spirit for her position.
“Do any of you know a person by the name of Bang’la?” Dyuh Mon asked.
The villagers all averted their eyes and shook their heads.
“Were there any strangers in town when this happened?”
Thyu’fest shook his head, but another man—a merchant of moderate means by the cut of his clothes—spoke up. “Ehseaft is a busy town. We have many people coming through here every day. Traders and travelers, herders and pilgrims; many pass through our fine town.”
A woman turned to Thyu’fest and asked, “What was the name of that slave you brought into the bar for a drink? Some deal you’d made? Some salt you’d bought from her?”
Thyu’fest shrugged, his eyes flicking from the woman to Dyuh Mon. “I don’t recall having a drink with anyone.”
“Good-looking woman, well-built, with a liar’s mark and a slave collar,” the woman said. “Was that Bang’la or Kabbes or Kahbeth or something?”
“A liar’s mark, you say?” Dyuh Mon stepped closer to Thyu’fest, marking the beads of sweat forming on the man’s brow, the way he gripped his cap in his hands.
“I didn’t do anything against the law,” Thyu’fest said, staring at Dyuh Mon with the eyes of a frightened hare.
“Yeah,” another man, with a bruise on his face and a limp to his step, wearing the rough clothes of a ranch hand and standing at the back of the group added, “that herd was just wandering around free as the heat. We didn’t know it was hers, or that damned summoned brat of hers.”
“Her name was Bang’la?” Dyuh Mon reached into his pouch and pulled out a handful of small vertebrae, letting them fall from his right hand to his left and reading the forces around them.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Thyu’fest said. He licked his lips. “But her brat called her Ka-bes or something similar.”
Dyuh Mon nodded, moving his right hand slowly over the bones. “She was a herdwoman who collected and sold salt. And she had a young Summoned girl with her?”
“That’s her, the witch,” the man in the back answered.
Thyu’fest glared at him.
“Ah.” Dyuh Mon smiled. He ran his tongue over his pointy teeth, and he slid the bones back into their pouch. “Clearer. You stole her herd and she came here to lodge a complaint to Rector Idemi. But there is something odd. From where does her salt come?”
“No,” Thyu’fest said. “I don’t know where she got her salt, but she wanders the Ohkrulon.”
Dyuh Mon looked past him to the talkative man in the back and he raised his eyebrow.
The man shrugged. “I think she gets it by the Ring of Fire.”
Thyu’fest shook his head. “That’s crazy. She wouldn’t be going anywhere near that place. No one in their right mind would go anywhere near that place.”
“Ring of Fire?” Dyuh Mon asked.
“Yes,” Thyu’fest said, wrinkling his face in disbelief. “Around the deserted monastery.”
“She goes to Arenghel?”
Seeing The Light
THE OHKRULON DESERT stopped at the Dralik-du river. Red sand dunes swept down to the river on one side with green trees and bushes on the other, a wide river with water tinged scarlet. A crumbling bridge stretched across, wide enough for three wagons, but the bridge hadn’t seen that sort of traffic in centuries.
Sifa tapped at the rocky pavement of the road before her with her shepherd’s crook, reassuring herself it wouldn’t collapse beneath her weight but praying silently to any gods who would listen to her just in case. Her left hand touched the parapet beside her, her fingertips brushing along the stones. The stone on her necklace grew brighter for a moment and then faded.
Upriver, a man wearing threadbare peasant’s clothes lay sprawled on the beach with a fishing rod tucked in the crook of his arm and three jugs scattered by his side. The straw hat covering his face muffled his snoring. Sifa tiptoed over the bridge, not wanting to disturb the man, a little afraid of him.
The tip of his fishing rod dipped once, twice. The man snorted but did not wake up. A sinuous shape moved beneath the water, long and thin, with a lazy elegance.
Sifa stopped near the end of the bridge and leaned against the parapet, staring at the shape now circling the bobber.
The fishing rod dipped once more, deeper and longer than the first two times, pulling the rod out of the man’s arm. He grunted and jerked upright, his eyes flying open, his hands grabbing at the rod now being dragged away from him.
Sifa ducked down, peeking over the parapet to watch, her fingers wrapped around the stone in her necklace.
The man scrabbled into the water. He caught the pole and yanked at the fishing line, the rod bending as the fish on the other end fought against it. The man drew the rod back, struggling against it, struggling for his balance, splashing forward to keep his feet. The fish pulled him deeper into the water until the water was up to his waist.
Then the line went slack.
“Testicles!” the man shouted. He retrieved his line and then threw it back out again. The shape in the water circled and approached him from the side.
Sifa jumped up, pointing at the shape in the water and shouted, “Watch out! It’s right there!”
The man whirled around, staring at Sifa with shock on his face, but then he looked down and saw the shape. He yelled and tried to run back to the shore.
Sifa sprinted off the bridge and charged up the bank toward the man, staring at the water. The shape darted toward him and grabbed his right leg, dragging him back. He shrieked and stabbed at the shape with his fishing rod.
Two red scaly hands with webbed fingers and long black fingernails reached up out of the water and seized the man’s hips.
The man fell, shouting, “Maegrith’s spiky beard!”
“Here!” Sifa jumped into the water, splashing toward him, reaching out with her shepherd’s crook. “Grab a hold of this! Hurry!”
He caught the crook with his right hand, and Sifa drew him toward her. He cried out in pain and kicked with his feet. The creature’s claws sliced the man’s right calf and ankle, slashing out bloody gouges until the taloned hands latched around the man’s foot.
Sifa yanked back with all her strength, grunting as she trudged back to the rocky shore, the current of the river pulling at her, tugging at her.
“Help me!” the man screamed, squeezing his eyes shut, both hands now wrapped around Sifa’s shepherd’s crook.
A hissing head emerged from the water, with a female face with black eyes and a mouthful of needle-like fangs. Its long black hair fell down its cheeks and neck and onto its chest. “He is mine.”
“No.” Sifa pulled even harder, climbing up onto the beach.
“I’m not yours!” The man kicked at the creature’s hands with his free foot. “Let me go!”
Sifa lugged the man and the creature—with a woman’s upper torso but a fish’s body starting at her belly—up onto the beach. The creature released the man’s leg and scrabbled back into the water.
The man crawled away from the river. Sifa put his arm over her shoulders and dragged him away from the water, away from that creature, deep into the shade of the trees.
Birds sang around her, bugs chirped, and the trees provided a canopy over the patches of grass and clumps of bushes. A cool breeze rustled through the leaves.
“Stop,” he said. “Put me down already.”
Sifa set him down and tugged at her hood, re-settling it over her horns. “How is your leg?”
“It hurts, you blithering idiot!” he said, grunting and rolling onto his back, pounding the ground beside him with his fists, his leg bleeding onto the leaves. “Go to Ofo and get a healer for me!”
“If I leave you here, I might never be able to find you again,” she said, putting her hand on his chest and forcing him to lie back.
“You aren’t Jon’be’s girl?” he said, trying to reposition himself with his arms, grunting with the strain, gasping at the pain and falling back to how he’d been lying. “I am Shiyk’yath. Where did you come from?”
She studied him: a young man, thin but well-muscled, wearing the loose clothing of a peasant. She tugged at her hood and whispered, “Shiyk’yath?”
His eyes turned to her. He blinked and squinted. “Who in the Nine Hells are you?”
“I am Sifa,” she said, kneeling beside him, staring at his legs and feet, her heart hammering. Ka-bes never let her talk to strangers. But Ka-bes was not here. “I’m from the Ohkrulon.”
“So now what?” His elbows rested on the ground, propping up his shoulders, and his head hung down limp between them. “I don’t think I can walk in this condition. You have to leave me here and go to Ofo for help, otherwise what good have you done? At least the rus'ka would have finished me off quick.”
“Here,” Sifa said, taking her canteen out of her pack and holding it out to him. “Water will do you good.”
“Thanks, I’m parched,” he said, taking the canteen. But then he stopped and stared at her, his mouth dropping open.
She blinked and stared back at him. “What?”
“I... I mean... you...” He nodded toward her. “You’re not human. Are those horns under there?”
“What?” Sifa sat up straighter, reaching up with her hand and touching the thick horn winding out of her head like a ram’s horn. She blinked. “Oh, no. I’m a person just like you are.”
“No,” he said, swishing the canteen in his hands, glancing down at it now as though it might contain poison. “You really are not a person like me. Where were you Summoned from? Which realm?”
Sifa shrugged and shook her head. “I’m not from any other realm. I’m from here. I was born in the Ohkrulon.”
Shiyk'yath sniffed at the canteen. “Just something a demon might say.”
“A demon?” Sifa asked, her brow furrowing. She pulled her hood more snugly over her horns. “I am not a demon.”
“Why did you pretend to help me?” he asked. He squinted at her as though trying to see through some ruse, to discern her nefarious purpose, edging away from her. “Are you working with the rus'ka, trying to gain my trust?”
“I tried to warn you that she was there.” Sifa gestured back toward the river. “I helped you get away.”
“So now what?” He licked his lips. “You’re going to poison me and make me crawl through the forest until an animal kills me and eats me? Will that make your demonic heart happy?”
“No.” She knelt and took the canteen from him. She shook her head and took a drink. “So? Are you satisfied that I’m not trying to poison you?”
“How do I know that the same things that poison me will poison you?” he asked. “So what are you going to do with me now?”
She sighed and pursed her lips. “I can’t just leave you here.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You’ve done fine by me. Really. You can go on your merry way. I’ll crawl back to the road and stop a traveler heading into town. Not that many travelers come to town from this direction.”
She stood, and smiled, thinking about it. “Would that be alright with you?”
“Hey, you got me out of the clutches of that rus’ka.” He dragged himself away from her. “You’ve done more than I would ever ask from someone from another realm, and you haven’t taken my soul in the process. So. I’m fine.”
“Damn.” Sifa lowered her head. “Maybe if I just get you close to town?”
He gulped.
KA-BES DREW A COOL wind to herself, keeping herself comfortable as Kehseho plodded along, swaying from side to side and front to back, over the sand toward the camp.
The camp formed a rectangle with one big tent on one side and two smaller tents at either end, with the pens for the animals nestled in between. One young man lounged on a camel, watching the herd and eating honey cakes, an umbrella shielding him from the sun.
Ka-bes recognized the tents, the animals, and the boy. She sighed, wishing she’d been friendlier to Dre-nanks and his family before this. A few steps closer and she called out, “Yasaustu!”
The young man yelped in surprise. He yanked on the camel’s reins, kicked at its si
des, and slapped at its rear, getting it to turn toward her and take a few lazy steps. He stood in the saddle, cupping his hands over his eyes to shield them from the sun, and said, “Bang’la? May the Empress hear you!”
“May the Empress hear you,” Ka-bes said, bowing her head to him and slowing Kehseho as she approached. “Would your father be accepting visitors?”
“How could he not?” He bowed in his seat, then jerked on his camel’s reins and brought the snorting beast around to trot to the main tent. He slid from the animal’s back and dashed through the flap.
Ka-bes dismounted and tied her camel’s reins to one of the lines of the pen’s fence. She clasped her hands and stood before the door, waiting.
Yasaustu pulled back the door flap, releasing a gust of spicy air that tickled Ka-bes’s nose. “My father will be most pleased to see you, Bang’la.”
“My thanks.” Ka-bes stepped into darkness that stank of sweat and mint tea. She blinked her eyes, and they acclimated to the loss of sunlight.
“Bang’la, I welcome you to my home.” Dre-nanks sat on a large cushion without shoes on his feet and no shirt on his back, only baggy white cotton pants tight at the waist and the ankle. His light brown skin glittered with sweat in the candlelight. His face was pinched, his brow furrowed and suspicious. “May the Empress hear you.”
His wife and daughter sat to his right, his wife holding a young child. The remains of their lunch lay on the low table before them, and two slaves stood behind them.
“From your lips to Her ears.” Ka-bes bowed low and with respect. “I thank you so much for your hospitality on such short notice.”
“Only you?” he asked, craning his neck and looking past her toward the door. “I do not believe I have ever been properly introduced to your daughter.”
“It would be my pleasure to introduce you to her,” Ka-bes said. She shrugged. “Sadly, I have left her to guard our herd, so I cannot do so now. One day, but not this day.”
Dre-nanks nodded. “My youngest son has mentioned an interest in meeting your girl, who is so mysterious that she must be wondrous beyond imagining.”