Bloodbound

by F. Wesley Schneider

  The crash of the door against the wall pealed through my silent prison. I had no idea how long it had been. The heat on my body might have cooled, or perhaps my skin had blackened to nothing but blisters. Even if I could bring myself to dare the light, I couldn’t force my paralyzed arm from my face.

  Footsteps. The whisper of clothing, too, brushing the floor. My visitor returned.

  “I tasted the oil myself once, when I was young and careless,” came the familiar voice. “It was only a drop, but it felt like my muscles were going to crush my bones. I pitched for hours, broke two ribs in the process.”

  A prodding boot rocked my hip, releasing a burst of frozen pain.

  “Making sure you’re not asleep. Can’t have you missing anything.”

  Metal struck near my head. I flinched, the jerk like a stab to the neck. A breath locked in my throat. My lungs strained, but my gasp was utterly silent.

  I could feel the inquisitor close, kneeling down.

  “I want you to know, I thought about having more conversations with you,” he said. “I’ve interrogated several of your kind.”

  A cord loosened only inches from my ear. Muffled metal clattered and squealed, sounding like a sack full of silverware. Leather slapped upon the stone floor.

  “They’re always as arrogant as you—but they’re usually more charming.”

  Metal slid across a soft surface, then delicately touched to stone.

  “I spoke with your friend earlier today, and you know what I think?” He hardly paused. “I think you’re a liar.”

  The soft clinking took up a slow, regular beat.

  “It’s a pity, because that makes your friend a heretic—but we know how to deal with traitors to the faith.”

  Jadain a heretic? She was certainly softer than most Pharasmins I’d met, definitely less dour and more concerned with the living. Could being too sympathetic, too alive, be a sin against the goddess of death?

  “You, however, are a more unusual case.” He let something heavier clatter to the stone. “The entire climb here I was wondering if I was wasting my time. I half expected to get up here and find nothing but a pile of ash. I should have known better. You’re a stubborn one.”

  Another metallic clatter.

  “And that’s good for me.”

  Disgust rose simultaneously in my mind and the pit of my stomach.

  “I’ve been afforded broad discretion in dealing with you,” he went on, sounding increasingly self-important. “You being what you are, we don’t have to make any show of a trial, you see. Your fate lies totally in the hands of the inquisition—and I suspect you can guess how the inquisition deals with things like you.”

  So I was being condemned for having one foot in the grave, while Jadain was being condemned for not. If this was going the way I expected, at least I’d soon have my chance to smack Pharasma for breeding a church full of hypocrites.

  “I have to admit, though, I’m somewhat out of practice with things like this. I can’t travel like I used to, and now I have a whole troop of zealous youngsters ready to leap at even the rumor of a sunken grave.”

  The clinking ceased.

  “But the goddess smiles on the truly faithful. See how she brought you? You practically knocked on our door.”

  A frail hand lightly patted my shoulder. I tried to recoil, but my body was like wood. Fortunately, his touch didn’t linger.

  His voice turned wistful. “I remember what it was like. We were heroes—crusaders for the goddess. ‘You’ll find worms under every hearth,’ they said, and we proved them right.”

  Was this his punishment—his “broad discretion”? A has-been’s rambling?

  “How many kept idols hidden in the shadows? How many signed bargains in blood? We tore their roots from the mud and dragged them to cathedral marble. That was always that. A warning to the people, a victory for the church … but don’t you wonder what the inquisitor takes away?”

  He paused, too long to just mock my inability to answer. Was he reliving his memories?

  “The priests would say our reward was in the deed, in spreading the goddess’s justice—but eventually the rhetoric wears thin. We’re not man-hunters or sellswords; the church never paid a bounty on sinners. So we had to find our own rewards.”

  He dropped something by my ear, something hard that clattered but wasn’t metal. A rosary perhaps.

  “We went back into the mud for them. We called it purifying—it sounded good to the priests—but we all knew what it was. Sometimes we’d actually find something, a mark to scour clean or a fetish to hand over to the clerics. We were all looking for something different, though. It was never about gold—though Brother Markave did keep a chain of coins. It was about proof, evidence of victories, standing amid our ranks. We were champions of the goddess and her work was done, but we were soldiers, and every soldier takes trophies.”

  I had expected some kind of torture, or even outright murder, but I was realizing that this was something else.

  “Our only rule was it had to be something different. If Teym was collecting locks of hair and Lorrimor had a pouch of bent spoons, you had to take something else.”

  The heap of pieces clicked together, the inquisitor fondling them.

  “I was always proud of my collection, even if they were a pain to take. Got me reprimanded more than once. They were even confiscated—Old Rollenthol probably died thinking they were lost in his desk drawer. But they’ve been worth it. Even taught me a skill that made me handy at the barber.” His chuckle was a dry stutter.

  Collection? Trophies? I wasn’t some rabbit to slice up for good-luck charms.

  Barely perceptibly, metal whispered against stone. He’d selected something from whatever he’d arranged. Were they knives?

  Suddenly all the cuts across my body cried out, the thousands of scars making themselves known. I was back in the Old City, frozen with fear, knowing something ancient, ugly, and old planned to make a meal of me. I tried to struggle, but was no more effective now than when I was a girl. Grandfather’s voice was in my head: If you must blame someone, blame your father.

  Rivascis. The curse I’d spat untold times felt empty now, tinged with regret. If this was the end, if this was my execution, then every night that I’d soothed my pain with vows to destroy the one who’d left me in the dark had been a lie.

  The inquisitor’s arrogant voice was even closer now. “We’re taught the dead don’t feel pain, but I’ve always wondered.”

  Without warning, a thin, dry thumb invaded my mouth, snaring me between my cheek and upper row of teeth. It tasted like dust. He wrenched upward. A spasm shot through my face. I screamed in my mind. I dared the pain, commanding my jaw to snap shut.

  It amounted to nothing more than a quiver.

  “I’d like to ask if that’s true, but the calotropis oil will hold you well through the morning—and you’ve got a strict schedule to keep.” His voice was above me, leaning in. “They’re out there building your pyre right now, readying it for dawn. You’ll have to burn fast if you’re going to have your ashes scattered by noon.”

  Something metal forced its way into my mouth. His grip on it trembled. The scraping of steel on bone clawed through my head.

  “But then, your kind always seem to go up like tinder.” His voice remained infuriatingly calm.

  The instrument split in my mouth, wresting my jaw open farther. It felt like a pry bar forcing apart a cracked log. The muscles of my jaw tore, the pain pounding a blood-red drumbeat in my skull.

  Shuddering metal slipped deeper, grating my tongue. My throat quivered but couldn’t even tighten enough to gag. A long thumbnail scraped my dry gum, gaining a better hold.

  I could hear myself screaming. They weren’t even words. Images exploded through my blindness, searing white and fierce. I was struggling, clawing, biting. I was back in the dark beneath Caliphas. Loose flesh split under my nails, and I tore and tore. Shrieking images burst one after another. Through pain and fear and
desperation I screamed against my body’s prison.

  The instrument in my mouth adjusted, his hand on the handles brushing my cheek. Some rational reflex twitched amid my panic, an image of unassuming metal grips. I realized what he was after.

  Pliers bit my canine and pulled.

  22

  HERESY

  JADAIN

  Tashan prowled the cell like exactly the sort of criminal you’d be a fool to let out. After his face stopped bleeding he’d looped his crusty scarf around his belt. It gave him the look of a fighting dog, blood on his muzzle and haunches.

  I’d been ignoring him since Brother Abelard left. He’d said my name several times, asked if I was all right, put a hand over mine, but I couldn’t accept his worry. At some point I’d wrapped my hands around my amulet, letting the rough wood of Pharasma’s cometlike spiral dig into my hands. All I felt was wood, though, rough and warm from my grip.

  Usually the goddess’s icon was cool to the touch. Not a biting cold, but the chill of a night under the stars, of the dark beyond bedsheets, of bones in a stone crypt. When I touched my symbol I felt the mystery of the world and worlds beyond, and I knew I knew nothing. The goddess was there, though, and she knew, she would be my guide. Or that’s what I’d always thought.

  It had been one thing to disregard the accusations of a joyless termagant like Mardhalas, but a fatherly old man a half a nation away? They might have been of the same order within the church, but otherwise they couldn’t have seemed more different—and I’d somehow convinced both I was unfit.

  Excommunication. Spiritual execution. And what after that? What sort of life is there after the goddess of creation deems you unfit? And even beyond. Most souls are judged only once, but if I’d been found lacking in life, what did that herald for my ultimate judgment after death? Excommunication? What he’d really meant was damnation.

  I squeezed my amulet, feeling only my pulse in the wood.

  Tashan had halted. He was looking down at me. I continued to ignore him.

  “Many worship your goddess in my country as well,” he said. “In Sothis, the dead are honored, their lives celebrated. In death, they’re sent to rest with treasures of a life well lived. The priests there pray to remind the Lady of Mysteries of the departed’s deeds and virtues. Their temples are grand and bright, decorated with gold and the faces of the old gods of Osirion.”

  He crouched in front of me. “And Pharasma smiles on them all the same. If their path pleases the goddess, then certainly that inquisitor’s way is not the only one.”

  I kept studying the stone floor before me, staring through him. I didn’t bother to acknowledge him, but I couldn’t say he was wrong. Tashan might be an outsider, unfamiliar with many of our nation’s customs and ways, but he certainly wasn’t a fool. I’d caught myself discounting some of his suggestions based on his ignorance, but in truth he’d traveled farther than I ever had in my life. It would be easy to dismiss his words as baseless optimism, but he probably knew more of the world than me.

  I raised my head enough to look him in the face.

  Keys rattled in the cell door.

  Tashan was up, his back to me. His left hand reflexively grasped at the place where his absent sword would have hung. Disappointed, he clenched it into a fist.

  The shadowy figure of a guardsman stood in the door, outlined by torchlight from behind. Possibilities—most frightening—flooded my mind. Were we being released, interrogated, separated, executed? I pushed myself up the wall, regaining my feet.

  The guard just stood, bearing a lumpy bundle. Tashan rushed him.

  I snapped my mouth shut on a cry, startled by his impulsiveness but dreading our options more. Tashan was on the man, yanking away the guard’s load and at once drawing something from it. Metal caught the weak light and Tashan’s sword made a familiar wheel, coming between its wielder and the soldier.

  The room froze.

  In fact, the guard didn’t even twitch in surprise. He stood petrified, his arms still crooked, presenting his load.

  A long moment passed before Tashan took a cautious step, waving his blade under the guard’s chin. The jailer didn’t move.

  “What is this?” Tashan gave me a quizzical look.

  I didn’t answer. The same moment he’d turned away, a silhouette had congealed behind the guard. It hadn’t come from either of the hall’s directions. Instead, it rose as though the jailer’s own shadow were defying its owner. Fingers coalesced upon the soldier’s helmet.

  Seeing my widening stare, Tashan whipped back. The guard’s head jerked with the crack of a splitting branch. Dead flesh didn’t muffle the sound of falling armor. The shadow remained standing.

  I’d barely gasped when Tashan’s bronze blade slashed for the door. The shadow vanished into the cell’s gloom, shifting into something pale that moved with obscene speed. Slender white fingers locked around Tashan’s wrist, jerking his arm and blade awkwardly across his chest.

  “Stray cats always get into the strangest trouble.” The bemused voice came from lips at Tashan’s neck, those of a slim, dark-haired figure locked against the Osirian. The two froze like posing dancers, Tashan’s sword folded between him and the stranger.

  “Master!” Tashan sounded shocked—but only half as shocked as I was at hearing the word. Sensing my reaction, he twisted my way. The stranger intercepted his glance, though, locking Tashan’s face forward with a rigid cheek. Green eyes narrowed over Tashan’s shoulder, examining me.

  “Landed yourself in prison.” The stranger clicked his tongue. “I knew you’d find no end of trouble without me watching over you.” The young man pulled back a step, freeing Tashan, but his eyes never left me. He smiled.

  I’d seen that tight smile dozens of times before. It typically creased the faces of young nobles struggling to humor the lowborn—those that they couldn’t command outright. Tousled hair gave him the look of some sheltered squire, but that innocence died in his mossy eyes. I could practically feel their cold. They didn’t match with a face that made Tashan look experienced.

  “I though you might have returned to the city,” Tashan said, a soft twinge in his voice.

  One of the stranger’s thin eyebrows angled as he looked to Tashan. “Did that worry you?”

  Tashan looked down, remembering the bundle that had clattered to the floor. It was our traveling cloaks wrapped around Tashan’s pack. From one side jutted the lavender-wrapped hilt of my dagger. He unrolled the collection.

  It wasn’t all ours. Tashan held up a bulbous flask holding some tarry concoction, clearly marked with a tiny flame symbol.

  Considine shrugged. “A few souvenirs I picked up in the armory with the rest of your junk. What’s your little Pathfinder motto? ‘Prepare, prepare, prepare,’ or some such?”

  It seemed to be good enough for Tashan. He stashed the bottle in his pack. Moving on to my possessions, he handed me my cloak and coin purse then extended my weapon.

  “Just a moment there.” With an upward sweep the stranger intercepted my blade, like a mother plucking a butcher’s knife out of an infant’s hand. “We’re all friends here. There won’t be any need for that.”

  He jammed the sheath into his belt, somehow finding space between the tight fabric and his narrow waist. He parried my frown with a charmless smirk. “Considine of Caliphas, the capital’s foremost guide and garbage collector. And you,” he wagged a finger at me, “are awfully popular for a priestess. All my best friends speak very highly of Sister Jadain.”

  He looked around the cell, pointing at opposite corners with an arc of his chin. “It looks like you’ve wooed your church fellows here as well.” He toed the guard’s corpse lying at his side. “This one took endless convincing before he agreed to introduce us.”

  If pointlessly murdering a man hadn’t already left me disgusted, his disrespect for the dead would have.

  “I doubt we have any mutual friends,” I said.

  “Oh, there’s that famous Pharasmin charm!” He smil
ed, wrinkling his nose. “I bet you can make all the corpses blush. That’s how you and Larsa became such fast friends, isn’t it?”

  “You know Larsa?” I gave him a second look. He had the arrogance I expected from agents of the crown. Could he be another accuser?

  His closed-mouth smile stretched even farther. “Closer than blood for longer than years. And of course, our boy here as well. I’m Tashan’s oldest friend.”

  The two shared a look, Considine looking very pleased with himself. Tashan shook his head.

  “And now we’re all friends!” The fop spoke quickly. “But alas, it’s time to leave. So you should hand me your pretty little amulet and we should gather up Larsa and all be off before anyone notices the mess. Yes? Yes.”

  He extended his hand. The wooden spiral hanging against my chest made a single weak pulse.

  “What? No.” I couldn’t imagine why he wanted my holy symbol. I’d whittled it myself, and I had no illusions about my skill with a knife. More than once I’d had my purse taken from me in Caliphas. At knifepoint I’d been asked for my boots and belt, but never my amulet.

  “I don’t know you and I don’t know why you’d want—” I choked.

  Considine smiled wider. Even in the low light his white teeth glistened, his canines like snake fangs. Not the subtle points of Larsa’s teeth, nothing that could be explained as a quirk of birth, they were scalpels cast in bone.

  I grabbed the goddess’s symbol. I might have offended the Lady of Graves. I might have been a poor student of her word. I might have brought shame to her church. Yet for all of my flaws, when faced with evil, it was for her I reached. I prayed that was something the goddesses valued.

  I presented the twist of wood before me, a tiny shield against the undead.

  “See, this is why,” Considine said. “If you don’t want to be friendly, I’m sure I can convince you.” He nodded at the corpse. “Like I did him.”