Aching God

by Mike Shel

  “Five thin sovereigns a bottle!” he said with a chuckle. “Can you believe it?”

  He and his officers chatted about the advantages of selling all they had early in Boudun, or holding on to their crates until they reached the markets of Bennybrooke or Ulstermythe in Marburand to make a real killing, or several complicated permutations of those two options. Del got her glass of Kenish red, which the captain shared with everyone at the table save Auric, who offered a courteous refusal. It seemed an afterthought over dessert when one of the Yaryx’s lieutenants inquired about the success of the Syraeic mission on the Isle of Kenes.

  “It went well, Lieutenant Polor,” answered Auric, amiable. “We were able to talk with our man and find out what we needed from him.”

  Poor Gnaeus and Sira were bursting with anticipation, waiting with bated breath for an account of the conversation with Gower Morz. Soon after dessert was finished the six of them retired to their cabin to confer. Sira and Gnaeus listened without asking questions, rapt as Lumari recounted the details of the blind man’s tale. When it was over, Sira was the first to speak.

  “I’ve never heard of this ‘Aching God.’ Are there references to it in the archives that anyone else knows of? And it’s accepted ecumenical understanding that all the Djao gods were destroyed along with their worshippers by Marcator and the rest of our pantheon ten thousand years ago. The passage in the Book of Marcator’s Glory reads, ‘And the gods did smite the cities of the Djao, so that one stone did not stand upon another, and a blight did fall upon the land, for they were exceedingly wicked.’ Later in the same chapter it continues: ‘And so too did Marcator and all good gods bring utter destruction down upon the demons and godlings that the Djao did worship, burying their foul temples in the dust.’”

  “I’ve spent more than a few hours in the archives, reading up on Djao temples and their gory religion,” said Del. “Never read anything about any Djao god making any contact with any expedition, in any way. Guardians, undead servants, beasts from the Netherworlds called up by ancient conjuring wards, but nothing like that.”

  “And what did it mean?” wondered Belech. “This Aching God croaking, ‘More?’”

  All were silent, contemplating that troubling question. Gnaeus finally spoke. “I don’t want this to come out wrong,” he began with uncharacteristic tentativeness. “This isn’t meant as sham chest-thumping or in any way minimizing the awful things that happened to them in that temple, but what was so terrifying about what they saw in that chamber? How was it any different than the things all field agents face during our work? I’ve seen some frightening things, and I’m not so great a fool to say I’ve never been afraid, but when horror descends, you confront it with steel or sorcery or science or faith. Yes? We’ve all been through the training, save Belech—no offense, sir. How could agents whose exploits were of sufficient renown to warrant a portrait in the Citadel piss themselves like that?”

  A better opportunity is unlikely to present itself, thought Auric.

  And with that, he shared the story of his last mission with the Syraeic League, sparing no shameful detail: his abject terror, homicidal urge, panicked, foolish actions, his abandonment of Brenten in the pit, carting Lenda’s severed head with him, tearfully barricading himself into the candle-strewn antechamber as the corpses tried to break down the iron door that separated them. His five companions listened with expressions of sympathy, embarrassment, or dismay until his narrative’s conclusion.

  “I had been a respected and competent field agent of the Syraeic League for twenty-seven years when we went down into that temple. I got on my horse when I emerged, left everyone else’s belongings at camp, and rode madly for Serekirk until my mount collapsed. I was found a few days later wandering in the wastes, disoriented, talking to Lenda’s head cradled under my arm. Whatever animated the corpses in those ruins was unspeakably evil. Not the unthinking evil of a storm or an avalanche that leaves death and destruction in its wake. Not evil that’s the product of greed or hunger that blinds one to the humanity in others. Not evil borne out of agony or loss. This was purified, perfect, absolute hate and malice that defies comprehension. An unholy, vigorous evil.”

  Auric felt tears well up in his eyes, his breathing labored as though from a great exertion. Sira whispered a litany. “Belu protect us, Belu save us.”

  “I don’t know what to call the thing that may lurk in the ruins beneath St. Besh. A demon. A god,” said Auric after a long silence. “But it has the power to reach across hundreds of miles and deface a mural, reduce papers to ash, unleash a plague—gods know what else, or how much further harm it can cause at such great remove. But what will this thing be capable of when we tread in its lair?”

  “Vanic shit,” cursed Gnaeus.

  “The more I hear,” said Sira, “the more I think that this relic we are returning is some kind of lock, a sorcerous means of containing this demon, godling, whatever it might be. It’s tied to the gem somehow. Perhaps it’s like an eye that it looks through, and now it’s blind—as long as it’s sealed in the Golden Egg. Our greatest peril, then, will be when we must remove it from the Egg to place it back in the idol.”

  There was a sudden bang on the door, followed by laughter and the smell of ash. Belech walked to the cabin’s door and opened it. There stood two of the Duke Yaryx’s pyromancers, the women, each with an arm hanging around the other’s neck. They swayed, stupid smiles splayed across their faces. Auric had learned earlier in the journey that their names were Asaio and Harmielle, but who was who was a mystery; they might as well have been twins.

  “Del Ogara,” called one, looking past Belech.

  “Sister, th’ captain’s given us leave,” slurred the other.

  “Come have a drink with us,” continued the first. “Sorcerers are a breed that should stick together, don’ y’think?”

  “You’ve been at your Kenish wine,” said Auric.

  “Vintage 766, true!” said the second, holding up one of the bottles, gripping it by its ebony neck. “Aged twelve long years in oak barrels before it made its way here.” She attempted, unsuccessfully, to point at her belly.

  “Alas, sisters,” said Del with patience, “I have matters to which I must attend. Perhaps another time.”

  “Oh, but all five of us are assembled! You are the sixth sorcerer aboard the Duke. You simply must join in our revelry. Captain’s in a gen’rous mood. He’s given us the night off and leave to celebrate our sweet score. Even Carrick and Mercele are free to cut loose.”

  “The aquamancer and aeromancer?” asked Lumari, her pale face gone paler.

  “Aye, aye, aye, you who monkey with powders and potions,” winked the first woman. “Perhaps you’d join us, too?”

  Auric was up from the table, pushing past the drunken pyromancers, who giggled as he passed, like some great joke had been told. The deck was lit by lantern light, the moon and stars hidden above. Not far away, the three other ship’s sorcerers stood waving at him, obviously inebriated. The aquamancer fell over, and the male pyromancer and blond-haired aeromancer, a breast exposed with her shirt partially unbuttoned, laughed as he rolled across the deck with a pitch of the ship.

  Auric looked to the north. A huge, ragged bolt of lightning fleetingly lit the sky, revealing a roiling stormfront of angry clouds barreling down upon them.

  “Oh, oh,” quipped one of the female pyromancers as she slipped a flirtatious arm around Auric’s waist with lascivious suggestion. “Looks like Marcator’s getting ready to piss on us again.”

  15

  The Manticore

  I fear no man, for no man may possess my soul. I cower before no beast, for no beast may consume my soul. I brook no doubt, for She who hath imbued me with holy ardor hath blessed my soul. While my body may be burnt and broken, the All-Mother shields my soul from the terrible might of Evil, as a roof shelters from the rain.

  From Meditations on a
Robin’s Eggshell

  Possessing no skills that would aid the sailors of the Duke Yaryx, Auric and his Syraeic companions passed the harrowing, sleepless night confined to their cabin, while the crew did its best to contend with the mighty storm. It was galling to Auric that he could be of no use in a crisis, but he could do nothing but take turns vomiting in a bucket they shared, rocking and pitching with the great waves that tossed the warship like a plaything.

  When morning dawned at last, the Duke Yaryx sat becalmed, its ravaged sails hanging in limp tatters. They got the story from Lieutenant Polor, a vivid account of the terrible trial they had endured. The pumps had been manned by valiant sailors throughout the night, preventing the hungry sea from dragging the warship to the bottom of the Cradle. Four crewmen had been lost overboard when impossible waves swamped the ship, though one—Abshaw of the Purraa tattoo—was miraculously returned from the churning sea when another wave deposited him unharmed in the mizzen’s rigging. His peers were now calling him Barf, as the sea gods had seen fit to spit him out. Several other seamen were injured, mostly bruises and lacerations earned from fighting the ferocious storm deprived of sorcerous aid. The ship’s medicus had also set half a dozen broken bones and amputated an arm by lanternlight while the ship pitched madly in the roiling waters. The survival of the vessel and most of its crew was a testament to the skilled seamanship of its exhausted sailors and the captain himself. Sira Edjani had offered the bounty of Belu to his battered crew, but Hraea had insisted that they would continue to rely on “honest Hanifaxan medicine.”

  The storm, which Polor reported had come out of nowhere, had driven them about a hundred fifty miles west and south, some sixty miles from the coast of the Duchy of Kelse and its ducal seat, Kalimander. A heavy fog lay on the calm, windless waters, though Captain Hraea assured Auric the sun would burn it off before the noon hour. Eventually, the Yaryx’s sailmaker would supervise salvaging from the brutalized shreds and replace them with spares stored in the ship’s hold. Soon enough they would again be under way.

  Now, though, the entire crew was assembled on deck. Sentences were to be carried out against the aeromancer and aquamancer, requiring the undivided attention of all aboard. Weary sailors gathered about the deck in nervous clusters, while Commandant Mastro’s contingent of marines stood at rigid attention in their black, gold-braided uniforms. The three pyromancers, who had escaped punishment only because their services weren’t required in the night, leaned with feigned indifference against the starboard railing, their normal exuberance subdued, perhaps by guilt.

  Auric felt nauseous. He had witnessed floggings two or three times before aboard Royal Navy vessels, and once in a public square in Serekirk when a hapless alchemist had violated one of that strange city’s edicts. It was a gruesome performance he had no desire to see again. But as senior guest of the captain, he was obligated to stand next to Hraea as the sentences were executed. His Syraeic colleagues stood nearby in solidarity rather than out of any morbid fascination for the imminent spectacle.

  The two sorcerers were led out on deck from cells deep in the Yaryx’s holds, manacled, clad in thin beige nightshirts of rough cotton that fell below their knees—the attire of prisoners. Both looked suitably miserable, due in part to what must be monumental hangovers, but also for the agony that lay in their immediate futures. Carrick, the pale aquamancer, had his long brown hair braided in a sloppy queue and tied with a black ribbon. His eyes were red, and his cheeks tear-stained. He looked like an icon of misery. The aeromancer, a striking woman with curly blond locks and brilliant blue eyes who went by the name Mercele, held her head high. Nostrils flared, her thin-lipped mouth sported a snarl, as though a growl of defiance lay just behind it.

  “Mr. Hobesson, please read out the charges and sentence,” called the captain in a calm, commanding tone. The two sorcerers were tied to the mainmast, hugging it from opposite sides like a shared lover. Hobesson read from parchment bearing an official wax seal and ribbon of the Royal Navy, projecting his high, nasal voice across the quarterdeck.

  “For dereliction of duty and drunkenness, subsequently placing the lives of their ship and their crewmates in jeopardy, seven lashes! Mr. Peale! Please do your duty!”

  The clustered seamen parted for a tall, burly sailor, sweaty, hairy, and shirtless, a mural of poorly-rendered nautical tattoos on his broad back. Though every sailor aboard knew the man as Ephraim Peale, by tradition he wore a black hood concealing his face, large holes cut for the eyes. He held in his hand the instrument of his office, known as the Manticore: long, corded leather ending in a bushy cluster of sharpened ivory spines. He stood eight feet behind the aquamancer, chosen by lots to suffer punishment first, and shook out the spines to disentangle them. The ivory danced and clicked like a malevolent wind chime.

  Lieutenant Hobesson looked to the captain, who gave a curt nod. “Mr. Peale!” cried Hobesson. “Carry out the first sentence!”

  The crack from the first stroke, followed by Hobesson’s shouted count (“One!”), caused Auric to jerk in surprise, though his eyes had followed every second of the whip’s cruel course. It tore the thin material of Carrick’s coarse cotton shift and bright red blood exploded from his back. Despite this injury, the man managed not to cry out, gritting his teeth tight. Some of his blood speckled the gathered sailors, who dared not recoil from their bloody baptism.

  “You understand,” said Captain Hraea in a quiet, impassive manner, “that this sentence is actually a lenient one, Sir Auric. The Naval Code of Justice allows for as many as twenty lashes for such an offense, which of course would kill some men…or women. I’ve chosen to act mercifully because I see my own small measure of culpability for what occurred: I slackened my wise restriction on the use of alcohol by my sorcerers while aboard ship. I shall not make that mistake again. Of course, it was incumbent upon these spell-sellers to see to it that they were still capable of performing their legally contracted duties. The onus falls most heavily on their shoulders.”

  Along with the scourge, thought Auric.

  The second strike shattered the aquamancer’s composure: he emitted a piercing shriek of pain, and each successive blow yielded an agonized sibling. The final stroke was delivered to a bloody, unconscious body, his back a tapestry of wicked lacerations. The cotton nightshirt was in tatters, like the sails that hung listless above, but dyed a vivid crimson. The insentient sorcerer was cut down from the mast and dragged to the medicus’s theater with sympathy by two sailors, trailing a wet red carpet in their wake.

  The broad-shouldered Mr. Peale, holding tight to the grip of the Manticore, took a few minutes to recuperate from his sweaty exertion, lifting his hood briefly to accept a long draw of grog from a ceramic jug offered by one of his crewmates. Another sailor dumped a bucket of seawater over the scourge’s bestial spines as Peale replaced his hood, to wash off the blood and bits of gore from the aquamancer. The man with the bucket retreated, and Peale, taking in a deep breath, walked to the opposite side of the mainmast to face the aeromancer’s back. There he waited, his expression hidden by the black of his hood. After a few more moments, Hobesson looked to the captain, who nodded his discreet approval.

  “Mr. Peale! Carry out the second sentence!”

  It was apparent to all that the husky sailor held back on the first blow. While her white cotton nightshirt was torn, and angry red cuts bloomed on her back, it lacked the shocking violence of the lash that struck the aquamancer’s body. Hobesson called out the count, looking sideways at Hraea to see if the man noticed Mr. Peale’s apparent lack of enthusiasm. As the man shook his whip to untangle its ivory spines for a second stroke, the captain spoke up.

  “Mr. Peale,” he said, his tone pedantic. “You will do your duty with equal vigor on all found guilty of offenses warranting the Manticore’s sting. This includes Miss Mercele, now bound before you. The target’s sex or any tender feelings you may harbor for her are irrelevant. Please proceed.”
/>
  Peale corrected himself with the second blow, which struck the aeromancer’s now-exposed back with ruby violence. A pitiful grunt escaped her, despite her brave commitment to offer no signs of distress. The third lash tore a strip of flesh from her side near the curve of her hip, and several sailors cried out with her in shared suffering. By the time the fifth stroke had fallen, her head slumped to the right. Her once-pale locks were dark and wet with blood, and hung in the raw wounds that decorated her flesh. The sixth blow tore away a chunk of meat and exposed a rib. This was enough even for the captain, who halted Mr. Peale before he could land the final stroke.

  As she was dragged away, the sorcerer lifted her head with great effort, managing a slurred remark before losing consciousness. Lips drawn back in a feral grimace, teeth bloody from having bitten her tongue, she said, “You still owe me…a seventh lash…Ephraim.”

  Hobesson dismissed the crew to their duties and they dispersed, grateful the grisly performance was at an end. Mastro dismissed his marines, who returned to their quarters in disciplined columns, their commander following close behind them after giving Auric a curt nod. The captain walked in the direction of the foredeck, his hands locked behind his back, bicorn hat sitting at a jaunty angle, as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Soon after, Sira sidled up to Auric, pale and shaken from what they had witnessed.

  “Auric, please ask Captain Hraea if I might call on Belu to give the sorcerers succor. Those wounds could fester. They’re potentially lethal.”

  “I will, Sira,” he replied, “but I think we already know what his answer will be.”

  Auric approached the captain, who was staring high above as sailors attempted to salvage pieces of the foremast’s top gallant. “Pardon me, Captain. Miss Sira has asked that I obtain your permission for her to assuage the grievous injuries the sorcerers sustained in their punishment. She’s especially concerned for the woman, Miss Mercele, as you seemed to be as well, halting that final blow.”