by Watson Davis
“How do you misplace a girl with horns on her head?”
Ka-bes squeezed out of the doorway, pushing Ja’ast out of her way. She tiptoed down the hall toward the source of those voices.
Ja’ast touched her shoulder and whispered, “I think it’s back this other way.”
Ka-bes motioned for him to shut up, and she knelt at an opening to the main worship section of the church. Ja’ast darted to the other side of the door.
Men and women in singed clothing with disheveled hair and bruised faces huddled in the basilica on their hands and knees, most with their foreheads on the floor in poses of penitence, begging for mercy. A few lay sprawled out at random places unmoving, dead. Children sat sniffling and hugging themselves on the steps before the altar, their faces smudged with tears.
Dyuh Mon stood before the townsfolk, his right hand pressing against the small of his back, the fingertips of his left hand tapping on his cheek. Lunan waited at Dyuh Mon’s side, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bowed.
Ka-bes sprang to her feet, but Ja’ast leapt across and caught her, shoving her back into the hall.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Ja’ast whispered.
“Dyuh Mon has Lunan,” she said, trying to free herself from his grip. “I have to save him. It’s my fault!”
“Calm down,” Ja’ast said. “You’re going to get us killed. Even if we could overpower the Librarian, we couldn’t do it quietly enough not to bring the army outside down on our heads.”
“I never took you for a coward,” Ka-bes snapped.
Ja’ast grinned. “When I’m the voice of reason, something is very wrong. If there was any chance we could pull it off, I’d be right there. We can’t. And your brother doesn’t appear to be mind-controlled or like he’s being coerced to do something against his will.”
The sound of Dyuh Mon chanting reverberated down the hall.
Ja’ast wrinkled his nose. “What kind of spell is that?”
Ka-bes shrugged and the two of them returned to the opening, peeking around the side, watching.
Dyuh Mon moved in an intricate pattern, his feet shifting, turning, his hands waving. Magic swirled around him as he danced around the charred remnants of something on the floor. The very stone around it cracked and burned. A head popped up, gasping for breath—an orcan face. Its thick chest and shoulders pushed up and it growled at Dyuh Mon, “Why do you bring me back to this hell?”
“When you were slain, you were traveling with a young girl,” Dyuh Mon said, his hands weaving a pattern above the creature’s head.
“Sifa?”
Ka-bes wrapped her fingers around Ja’ast’s arm, squeezing as hard as she could to keep from screaming.
Ja’ast whispered, “Ouch.”
Dyuh Mon asked, “Why did you come here?”
“Looking for someone to heal Shiyk’yath, Che-su, and me,” the corpse growled.
Ka-bes released Ja’ast’s arm and tapped his chest with her palm before putting her hands over her mouth.
Dyuh Mon grimaced, the movements of his hands slowed, growing jerky and shaky. Beads of sweat glittered on his forehead. “Where is she going?”
Ka-bes leaned forward, turning her ear toward the orc, straining to hear his response.
The orc’s face changed into something almost human, his tusks shrinking, his thick face thinning, a spiky beard growing on his jaw. The face grinned. “Leave the orcan boy alone. He has earned his peace.”
“Even you, Maegrith, must answer me!” Dyuh Mon yelled, his entire body quivering, struggling to maintain the integrity of the spell with the power of a god bound inside.
With a howl like a hurricane, this new face said, “She goes where she was told to go, where she was told to meet when separated.” Thunder rumbled, shaking the temple, and then lightning flashed outside, smashing down into the temple’s magical defenses, the runes flaring to blazing life on the columns and arches. “But I warn you, you brazen, sour-faced pig’s testicle, to stay away from my daughter.”
“Begone, blowhard,” Dyuh Mon bellowed, casting the magic aside.
The corpse sank back, its laughter growing fainter until it gasped and toppled to the ground.
Dyuh Mon leaned over, his hands on his knees, panting for breath.
Lunan approached Dyuh Mon, bending over and checking on the man. He asked, “What are we going to do?”
“First things first, we must re-consecrate the altar.” Dyuh Mon rose and took a deep breath. “Then we ask Her if She can decipher the Thunderer’s rantings.”
Lunan glanced at the children assembled on the stairs and grew pale. “Do we have to sacrifice all of them?”
One of the townsfolk wailed, several moaned, one fainted.
Ka-bes retreated, pulling Ja’ast back toward the door to the rector’s bedroom.
Ja’ast pointed down the hall. “The dungeon should be this way.”
“She’s not there,” Ka-bes said, slipping back into the room and yanking Ja’ast in behind her. She eased the door shut.
“Where is she, then?”
“I don’t know where she is,” Ka-bes said. “But Maegrith himself just told me where she’s going to be.”
“WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT?” Sifa sat on her knees in the driver’s bench next to Wu Cheen, resting her forearms on the back of the seat, facing back toward the bed of the cart.
Lonyo knelt in the bed of the cart between Shiyk’yath and Che-su, murmuring a chant, a box of herbs and minerals behind her, a brazier shimmering with a green flame before her. Magic swirled up from the brazier to whirl around her hands. She positioned her hands in ways Sifa had never seen before.
Lonyo finished her chant and studied the crusty brown cloth wrapped around the stub on the end of Shiyk’yath’s left hand. She murmured, “Living creatures that are too small to see must be removed from the healer’s hands or they may get into the wound and cause infection and decay.”
“Too small to see?” Sifa grimaced, her stomach feeling not so good. She leaned forward and tried to see them anyway, then she raised her hand and contemplated it.
Lonyo picked at the bandage on Shiyk’yath’s forearm, prying the stiff layers of cloth apart with her fingernails. Shiyk’yath grunted.
Lonyo whispered commands in an ancient language, and tapped Shiyk’yath’s forearm, her fingers shifting positions and directing a flow of a particular kind of magic into the chi running through his arm, tapping a sequence of nodes.
Sifa leaned forward, listening to the phrases, watching the flows, mesmerized.
“Ah, that feels better already.” Shiyk’yath relaxed, his head dropping back to rest on the side of the cart, his eyes closing.
“It is not better yet, so stay still or I will turn your pain back on,” Lonyo said, yanking the bandage free, revealing the damage beneath—the bubbled skin, the white of the bone protruding from the black and red char of muscle.
Shiyk’yath’s eyes flew open, and he watched as she jerked plates of hardened flesh from his forearm. He turned his head away, his skin growing pale with a greenish cast. “I have no intention of moving.”
Sifa reached down and patted his head. He pursed his lips.
Lonyo’s hands moved, the magic flowing from her into his tissues, removing the decay, pushing blood and nutrients into the wound, coaxing bits of flesh together, joining vessels and arteries, redirecting blood flows, all while the cart bumped and jostled.
Sifa blinked. “How do you know where everything is supposed to go?”
“Years of study,” Lonyo said, her hand joining nerves and Shiyk’yath’s flows of energy.
“Why are you joining those?”
Lonyo glared at Sifa for a moment before returning her attention to her work. “You can see what I’m doing?”
Che-su whispered, “She has magesight without having to cast a spell for it.”
“I see,” Lonyo said, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her forearm. She moved her attention fr
om Shiyk’yath’s arm to his torso.
“So why did you join those, then?” Sifa asked, extracting a bit of cloth from her pocket.
“Sometimes those who lose a limb continue to feel it even though it is not there,” Lonyo said, her hands moving over the wound in his side, removing dead tissue, removing the little creatures that cause infection. “I joined those to prevent that.”
Sifa dabbed the cloth against Lonyo’s forehead, wiping away the perspiration.
“You were a priestess,” Che-su said, staring at the woman. “You have skill.”
Lonyo’s hands slid down to Shiyk’yath’s lower leg and recoiled. “A river spirit had her claws in you?”
“Liked to have had me for lunch, she did,” Shiyk’yath said, grinning up at Sifa. “Would have were it not for my little angel here.”
Sifa averted her face, grinning, her cheeks growing warm.
“There’s a drow curse in here as well.” Lonyo grunted and began to chant, a singsong chant unlike the other spells she’d cast. Sifa listened, reciting the syllables back to herself, feeling their rhythm and their power, and she watched Lonyo’s movements, mimicking them.
Lonyo opened a jar from her box of supplies and sprinkled a powder that smelled of ginger over the gashes in his leg. She finished her chant with a final dusting of powder and twisted away from Shiyk’yath.
A mist of tiny demons flew up from the man’s leg, screaming in a faint chorus of pain and anger. They whirled in the air over the cart.
“What in the Nine Hells?” Wu Cheen ducked.
A breeze blew in and the demons disappeared, their cries fading away.
Che-su crossed her arms beneath her chest. “You were stationed in Basaliyasta while I was enslaved there?”
“Yes,” Lonyo said. She tapped Wu Cheen on the elbow and pointed past him. “There’s a trail there between the bushes.”
Wu Cheen nodded and directed the cart toward it.
Lonyo settled down beside Che-su, her hands hovering over Che-su’s injured shoulder.
Che-su stared into the woman’s face. “You were a priestess then, but you are not a priestess now?”
Lonyo said, “Yes. I believed in the Empress so much that I ignored my disgust at what we did in Her name, thinking it had to be for the best, thinking that the ends would justify the horrors of our acts, thinking that everything was for a greater good.”
“Ah, of course,” Che-su said. She leaned back and presented her ravaged shoulder to Lonyo, looking away from the younger woman. “A healer. An idealist who rediscovered her ideals. Always a danger.”
Lonyo touched Che-su’s shoulder and Che-su gasped, her body tensing. Lonyo said, “You say that like a smug parent who believes they have a more nuanced understanding of life than a silly child, but I’m not the one who has the Empress actively hunting for her, am I?”
“I will grant you that point,” Che-su said, nodding, her eyebrows raised. “How did you get away? We don’t just let healers leave the priesthood, especially those that can cast illusions.”
Lonyo moved her hand and a fine, white cream descended onto Che-su’s shoulder. She glared at Che-su. “We?”
Che-su’s brow furrowed and she blinked. Then her eyebrows rose in understanding. “Wow.”
Lonyo sat back onto her heels, letting her hands drop into her lap. “You still think of yourself as part of Her church after all you’ve been through? That could be a problem.”
“I have spent all my life as part of Her mission, one way or another,” Che-su said, her gaze going to the trees along the side of the trail.
“We are all slaves, all the priests and priestesses, all the soldiers and guards, all the nobles and all the peasants,” Lonyo said. “Most of us don’t figure that out until we pass on.”
Wu Cheen stopped the wagon and coughed. “Trail has stopped.”
Che-su said, “You haven’t answered my question. How did you get away?”
“As far as anyone remembers, I died in the plague.” Lonyo climbed out of the back of the wagon. “How are you going to get away? That’s the question. The Empress has eyes and ears everywhere. There have been many times She could have found me had She been looking the right way at the right time.” She put her hand on her chest. “I was beneath Her notice. You and the girl won’t be.”
Sifa jumped down from the driver’s seat and peered around at the bushes and trees surrounding them. “So are we here? I see a hint of magic.”
“Yes, we’re here.” Lonyo pulled her box out of the back of the cart and hauled it around to the front.
Wu Cheen slid out of the driver’s seat. He stood by Sifa’s side, his fingertips on her shoulder.
Che-su scrabbled out the back of the wagon and then stood there, rotating her arms around, moving her legs, bending over and testing herself.
“I haven’t felt this good since Sifa freed me from the river spirit’s clutches.” Shiyk’yath stood and stretched, a smile growing on his lips until he looked at the stub of his left forearm. He looked away and climbed over the back of the seat onto the driver’s bench, looking away from everyone. “Maybe I’ll just stay here.”
“Shiyk’yath?” Sifa said, staring up at him. “You are healed, right?”
He nodded, setting his palm on his stub. “I’m fine. I... I have to think about some things.”
“Where are we going?” Wu Cheen asked, his tone unnatural and quiet.
Sifa pointed to a place in the bushes that sparkled with magic. “This way.”
“Wait!” Lonyo rushed past Sifa and barred her from dashing forward. “I have to turn off the wards.” She moved her hand across a bush and spoke a string of words.
The illusion of thick bushes evaporated, revealing a rocky clearing before the mouth of a cave. A man and a woman stood before them, the points of their pikes trained on Wu Cheen. Behind them, half hidden in the shadow of the cave entrance, two more men sat waiting with slumped shoulders and vacant eyes. All the men and women had imperial collars around their necks.
The man gestured with his pike and said, “Who are these people?”
“Better if you never know their names,” Lonyo said, lugging her box past them. She pointed at the two with pikes. “Everybody, this is Bej’a and Fol-eh.” She gestured toward the mouth of the cave. “That’s Yeh-bok and Drat; they don’t really communicate anymore, but I’m trying to figure out a remedy for that.”
“A remedy?” Che-su said.
“I can’t remove the collars, but as long as they were created by a priest of a certain rank or lower, I’ve learned to re-program them,” she said. “I can sometimes give them back control of their bodies as long as their souls aren’t too far gone and the demons not too entrenched.”
“I can teach you how to reprogram them,” Che-su said. “All the rectors and bishops are taught that, but once they turn, they’re lost.”
Sifa walked by Lonyo’s side but stopped next to Bej’a, the man with the pike. She reached up toward his neck. He set the butt of his pike down on the rock, pulling his head away from Sifa’s hand.
“Be still,” Lonyo whispered to Bej’a. “Let her work her magic.”
Sifa’s fingers entered the dark glimmering strands of magic attached to his collar. She ran her finger down the strand until she found the right kind of node and she pinched it off. The strand fell apart and the collar around his neck shattered, the pieces transforming into black worms that exploded out from him, squealing, and disappeared into the air.
The man dropped his pike and fell to his knees, raised his hands to the skies, laughing with tears running down his cheeks.
Sifa strode toward the woman, Fol-eh, staring at the collar around her neck and smiling. “You’re next.”
Fol-eh dropped her pike, but her whole body tensed. She stumbled backward, her arms and legs quivering. Her eyes rolled back into her head, the whites turning black, and the thin strand of dark magic attached to her collar expanded, enveloping the woman.
The two men i
n the cave leapt to their feet, screaming in mindless rage, and they charged toward Che-su.
“They’ve found us!” Lonyo screamed, throwing her box to the ground and trying to grab Fol-eh’s wrists.
Sifa jumped to the woman’s side, grabbed the thick cable of magic attached to Fol-eh’s collar, and shredded it, revealing the node at the core of it. She slammed her hands into it and ripped it apart.
Che-su summoned her magic, but before she could complete a spell, one of the men leapt onto her, battering her to the ground. His hands tore at her forearms while the other man grabbed her ankle and raised it to his mouth. The man on top of Che-su snapped at her and she raised her forearms to block him. He bit her, sinking his teeth into her arm. She hit him in the nose with her fist, but it did no good.
“Get back!” Wu Cheen yanked on Lonyo’s shoulder with one hand, hurling her aside, even as he flung a dagger underhanded with his other. Lonyo sprawled to the ground behind him. The man on Che-su stiffened and fell across her, face-first onto the rock with the dagger in his forehead.
The collar around Fol-eh’s neck erupted, spewing chittering black worms in all directions, and Fol-eh dropped to the dirt, her eyes wide, her hands shaking. She said, “They’re coming!”
The last man sank his teeth into Che-su’s ankle, ripping her shoe from her foot. Che-su threw her head back and howled as he sucked on her wound.
Sifa ran toward her. “No!”
Strands of sinister magic wove themselves around Che-su’s attacker like a suit of gleaming black armor, and now those strands attached themselves to Che-su, wrapping themselves around her calf and plunging into her wound.
Wu Cheen shot past Sifa, launching himself in the air feet-first at the man, striking him with both feet in the chest and knocking him backward. The man released Che-su and she scrabbled backward away from him.
Wu Cheen landed on the ground and rolled to his feet while the man, who had only been staggered, lunged toward him with his mouth wide and his eyes blank. Wu Cheen wrapped his hands around the man’s throat, fighting to keep the man’s teeth away from his face as the two of them pitched to the ground.
Sifa pounced on the man’s back and she dug through the strands of infernal corruption, ripping away handfuls of ectoplasmic slush until she revealed the spell’s nodal point hidden within it. She grabbed it and crushed it.