Aching God

by Mike Shel

  “I don’t recall stabbing Eubrin, Belech,” he answered. “I wanted the man dead, true. I even envisioned a blade in his guts. But it’s as though the sword acted on its own. When I saw it was in his belly, I wasn’t even holding the grip—my fingers were just touching the gem on its pommel.”

  A worried Belech looked at the Djao sword, sheathed at Auric’s side.

  “Bane God’s Whim,” he whispered. “Or the Will of God’s Bane. Isn’t that what the research from the Counting House said your sword’s name meant?”

  “What are you saying?” asked Auric, feeling a tremble in his heart.

  “If you are ‘god’s bane,’ Eubrin dead, stabbed in the belly was your will. You said you envisioned the man stabbed in the gut, yes?”

  “He bled out so quickly,” Sira said softly, looking at the floor. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “You’re saying the sword killed the man of its own volition?” asked Auric.

  “Or on your volition. You understand the artifacts of the Djao better than me. Is such a thing possible?”

  Auric looked to Sira, then back at Belech. “I’ve never heard of such a thing, but no one understands the Djao. At least no one with an ounce of wisdom makes the claim.”

  “Expeditions have recovered tales from Djao sites,” said Sira. “Codices made of tin, etched in Lesser Djao script. Fables of talking weapons, imbued with powerful Netherworld spirits, some capricious, some obliging.”

  “Fables only,” whispered Auric, touching the pommel of the sword at his side.

  They reached Sira’s cubicle. The priest grabbed hold of both men before they could depart. She looked in their eyes, solemn, reddened from crying, kindness radiating from her. “Sir Auric, you are an honorable man. I do not think you would assault anyone in that fashion, no matter the provocation. I think the blade you now wield holds power we don’t comprehend. Whether it hosts a spirit, we cannot know. But we must keep this in mind in the future, and you must guard your thoughts. Also…” She trailed off.

  “What is it, Sira?” asked Belech.

  “Something you told me Gower Morz said when you spoke with him on Kenes.”

  “Yes?” asked Auric.

  “Myself, you, Sir Auric, Belech, Lumari, and Gnaeus. Gower Morz said that Ariellum Brisk’s shade came to him and told him only five of us would descend into the temple beneath St. Besh.”

  Auric and Belech exchanged glances.

  “Well,” said the priest, “now we are five.”

  26

  Sin Eater

  Auric forced himself to eat dinner with his companions, knowing his absence would affect morale and cause concern, something he couldn’t afford with the party already reeling from the hammer blow of Del’s death. The mortician-priest of Mictilin resident at St. Besh, a somber young man named Oslen, spoke with him briefly, assuring he was well versed in the rituals of a sorcerer’s funeral. He would see to Del’s preparation with reverence, the funeral pyre and requisite accoutrements for the ceremony readied before the sun rose. Lumari supplied the priest with a sealed flask containing an accelerant that would ensure Del’s body was reduced to ash quickly, its color easily distinguished from the remains of the wood on which her body would be burned. This way, they might collect all of her for the journey to the Royal College in Boudun.

  The meal passed in relative quiet, a flavorless stew and unsalted bread to sop up the gummy sauce, if one were so inclined. A morose Gnaeus wolfed down the stew and then sat in silence, sharpening his rapier with a whetstone. All of them had taken to wearing their arms, save Sira, who would carry a weapon under no circumstances.

  “Will you not even defend yourself, Sira?” asked Gnaeus absently, dragging the stone along the sword’s edge for the hundredth time.

  “I’ll bear a shield,” Sira answered. “I’ll ward off the blows of hostiles if I must, but I’ll be far more occupied with rituals to repel malign spirits and call blessings down upon us. A sword in my hand would add little to our strength, Gnaeus. My prayers are far more potent.”

  He nodded without enthusiasm and returned to his own low thoughts.

  Auric could empathize with the lad. He also felt a great weight on his heart. His mind conjured images of Del’s infectious smile, memories of her heroics on the Duke Yaryx, her daughterly confession the night before. Yes, they would sorely miss her skills in what lay ahead, but Auric was grieving her sweet spirit, gentle humor, and grace.

  A fine, noble woman, he thought. Her father surely would have been proud of what she had made of herself, had he seen her in action. The parallel with his own life, his own daughter, was obvious. It filled him with shame for the time he had spent slowing down her career. But he also felt a duty to survive the approaching ordeal, if only to share his own pride with Agnes, alive and healthy.

  “Auric,” said Sira, touching his arm. “We must fetch the sin eater and speak with Benlau now.”

  He nodded, resigned. Priests of Ussi—sin eaters—were an unsettling breed and he looked forward to being in one’s company no more than he relished speaking with fanatic penitent Wallach Bessemer. But having a sin eater present might push the man to the truth. For this reason alone, the unpleasantness must be endured.

  “Vanic’s sweaty balls,” said Gnaeus, who had been listening. “I can’t stand those creepy bastards. Hiding from the sun, never bathing—gods! Confession? Bah! Never had use for one myself.”

  “You may wish to re-think that at some point, lad,” quipped Belech. “We all need to unburden ourselves from time to time.” Gnaeus looked at Belech with a retort in his eyes, but after a moment returned to sharpening his blade.

  “No telling how long this will take us,” said Auric, getting up from the table without enthusiasm. “The rest of you, relax, prepare yourselves for tomorrow. Sira and I will see if Wallach Bessemer will unmask himself and offer some aid.”

  They left the others in the dining hall and walked to the rear of the priory, seeing the landscape behind the place for the first time. There were few enticing vistas in the Barrowlands, but the coarse hills behind St. Besh were especially repellent, covered with unnaturally twisted, leafless trees and grass the color of bile vomited from an empty stomach. Situated a hundred feet from the priory’s back door was a ramshackle thatch hut, squat and lumpen, thin wisps of smoke escaping between haphazard branches and straw that formed its roof. The two of them stood at its entrance, which was covered by a ratty, soiled towel.

  “Priest of Ussi,” Sira called, “we have need of your sacrament.”

  “Enter,” came a decrepit voice from within.

  Auric and Sira looked at one another and steeled themselves. Auric pulled the filthy cloth aside for Sira and followed her into the dimly lit interior. A fire of glowing logs lay at the center of the dirt-floor hut, bones of indeterminate pedigree scattered all around. A dozen complex sculptures made of twigs lashed together with twine hung from the ceiling on grimy string with tiny bones and clusters of dried Barrowlands grass knotted in their lengths. The fetid place reeked of unwashed bodies and human waste. Against the far wall of the hut sat the priest, dirty forearms resting on her knees, head lowered. She was clad in a garment fashioned from dirty rags of every color, strips hanging from the hood and hiding her face. She lifted her left arm, pointed a grubby finger with a long, broken nail at them, and spoke.

  “From the conclave,” she grated, “the Syraeics who intend to descend into the ruins beneath us.”

  “We did not see you there, sister. At the conclave, I mean,” said Sira, hands folded neatly as though she sat at Captain Hraea’s dining table. “Yet a vote was tallied for you.”

  “I stood at the rear of the apse, in the shadows, away from the others. My odor offends most. The death priest has my proxy. Servants of Mictilin and Ussi are intimately intertwined. They prepare the body for what lies hidden behind the Veil. We prepare t
he soul.”

  “Of course,” Sira replied, smiling.

  “Have you need of confession before your descent into the earth?”

  “Not at this time,” answered Auric, willing himself not to flee the squalid place. “We must question Venerable Benlau. Your sacrament might be necessary. He has committed—”

  “I needn’t hear his sins from another,” the filthy priest rasped, interrupting him. “I will consume whatever pollution is retched forth and require no prelude.”

  She stood slowly and began walking for the hut’s doorway, barefooted, the many tails of her ragged vestments trailing in the dirt. Her stench as she passed them was revolting, piercing the other foul odors in the hut. But they followed behind her all the same. She stooped to gather a few bones from the floor of her hut, then headed outside in the direction of St. Besh.

  Venerable Benlau’s cubicle was at the opposite end of the priory, far removed from the rooms the Syraeic party occupied. When Auric, Sira, and the sin eater arrived, they found the old man sitting on the stone floor, head down, quietly chanting war hymns to Vanic by the feeble light of a small oil lamp.

  “Brother,” said the priest of Ussi in her raspy voice.

  “Sister Sin Eater,” responded the old man in his own gruff tone. “Your odor heralded your approach well before you arrived.”

  The rag-clad cleric ignored the insult, rattling the bones she had collected from the floor of her hut, now contained in a soiled drawstring pouch. “These two sinners tell me you require my sacrament.”

  Benlau looked up slowly. His aged face was haggard, frailer than before. He looked from the sin eater, to Sira, and then to Auric. “You live still,” he said, without emotion.

  “Then you admit your culpability?” asked Auric, feeling a strange sympathy for this tired old man.

  “I do, Sir Auric Manteo,” he answered, unconcerned. “Sever the serpent’s head and the body dies. Narlen is in shackles, then?”

  “Brother Narlen is dead,” said Sira, devoid of her characteristic compassion. “He was killed while acting the cutthroat for you.”

  “Hmm,” he responded, unmoved.

  “You feel no remorse?” Sira asked, her fists clenched and her voice intense. Auric realized he had not before witnessed anger from this young woman.

  “For attempting to forestall apocalypse? No, I do not. I only regret the failure.”

  “Will you at last admit that you are Wallach Bessemer?” Auric queried.

  “I am Conal Benlau,” he retorted. “I have been Conal Benlau for thirty years. Wallach Bessemer perished in the cursed temple beneath this house long ago. His chainmail shirt and battle flail lie on Vanic’s altar as testament to his failure and demise, not a hundred feet from here. Go and look. There is all the evidence of his death you should require. This devastation before you isn’t enough to constitute his shade. I am merely rubble left after the earthquake topples a once-proud edifice.”

  “You become the poet now?” said Sira irritably. “Where’s the bile? The venom you spat in our faces yesterday?”

  The man looked at the stone floor, released a long, exhausted sigh. “Spent. I am utterly spent. An impotent old man, left to wallow in the epic fiasco of his life.”

  “What can you tell us of the place below the priory?” asked Auric, anxious for the man to leave this morbid reverie that felt so uncomfortably familiar.

  “That you will all perish there, horribly, whimpering or screaming, stripped of your dignity and every pretty conceit you harbor about this crumbling world.”

  “So even now you will do nothing to aid us,” said Sira, disgust in her normally soothing voice. Auric wouldn’t have been surprised if the gentle priest spat on the floor before the old man before her.

  “What aid can I provide? I can tell you no more than what Gower Morz told you in his retreat. We descended into that Djao sewer, three of us died, three more should have. You think returning the relic we took will put to sleep what was awoken beneath us? It does not sleep, and its appetite cannot be sated.”

  “Enough of this useless talk!” cried Sira, raising her voice for the first time since Auric met her on the journey to Boudun. “If you refuse to help, say so plainly, with no more cryptic threats of doom!”

  Bessemer-Benlau looked up at her with an expression mixed with anger and incredulity. “You still don’t understand me, do you, naïve priest of Belu?” he replied, some of his old hostility returning. “You think I try to frighten you off with fables and exaggerations? If you are not killed, you’ll wish to all gods fair and foul that you had been! You’ll emerge from below covered in a pollution so vile you’ll never wash it away, no matter how hard and long you scour!”

  “What say you of the Aching God?” interjected Auric with cold calculation.

  The words seemed to paralyze the man for a moment, as though they were a knife held beneath his chin. His eyes grew wild and his lip trembled. Suddenly, he scuttled backward like a wounded spider, knocking over the hickory cudgel that leaned against the far wall. “Speak to me no more!” he howled.

  “What was the god’s true name? Did you find it carved in the idol’s pedestal or painted on the walls of its shrine? What did it do to you?”

  “It has no name!” the old priest hissed. “It needs no name! We called it the Aching God because of its belly, distended, threatening to burst. All you need to know is that it hungers and will suck you dry as though you were a wineskin! Now leave me! Give me the solitude and oblivion I crave!”

  Auric sighed, putting a hand on Sira’s shoulder. “Nothing more can be gained speaking with this wretch, Sira. Let’s leave him to wallow in his shame.”

  Sira shook off his hand. “The Sister of Ussi is here, ruins of Wallach Bessemer,” she said to the old man, head buried in his hands. “Will you not avail yourself of her sacrament, at least try for some measure of redemption?”

  “Redemption?” shouted Bessemer-Benlau. “For my sins?”

  “He thinks his transgressions beyond your capacity, sister,” said Sira, like a challenge.

  Auric thought he detected hints of a toothless smile behind the dangling rags that concealed the sin eater’s face. “I have not beheld the sun for thirty-six years,” she rasped. “Such putrescence have I swallowed in my days, whatever he should cough forth would be as a speck of dust cast upon a mountain of dung.”

  Everyone in the cubicle was silent for several minutes, the reek of the sin eater enveloping all. At last, the sullen, spent old man spoke, words muffled by his hands that still hid his face. “I would speak with Sister Sin Eater,” he said. “We have much to…discuss.”

  “Aye, brother,” replied the filthy priest, rattling the bones in her soiled purse. “We do indeed.”

  An hour before the sun rose, the five surviving members of the Syraeic party were gathered about the pyre the mortician-priest of Mictilin had constructed for their comrade. All bore torches. Del’s body lay on a pallet made of sailcloth, sigils painted in black on its surface. The gray-robed priest had done an admirable job preparing poor Del. There was no sign of the violence done to her throat, covered as it was by the high-necked collar of a silk robe of soft yellow. Her face was pale and placid, the opal in her forehead polished so that it reflected the torchlight.

  Though it was customary for a priest of Ussi to attend the ceremony, St. Besh’s sin eater was nowhere in evidence. Auric found himself relieved.

  “Apparently Venerable Benlau has much to say to her,” Sira said in a whisper to Auric. He nodded in agreement, feeling a strange renewed pity for the broken man.

  The young cleric of Mictilin raised his arms, revealing the wing-like black cloth attached to his gray sleeves, as though he was some great bat. “Who comes to bid farewell to this person lying here?” intoned Oslen, his own voice as soothing and soft as Sira’s.

  “Her friends and colleagues,”
answered Auric, feeling tears well up in his eyes.

  “Do any have a grievance they wish to share before her shell is consigned to the flames?”

  Each member of the party responded alike. “None.”

  “Then we ask sweet Belu, Blue Mother of us all, to accept this woman’s spirit beyond the Final Veil, to hold her unto her bosom in the promised reward of a life well lived.”

  The cleric walked to the pallet, and with his fingers touched the jewel in Del’s forehead, her eyelids, her lips. Then he traced one of the tattoos on her chin and whispered something in her left ear. It took a long while for him to say all he had to say to the sorcerer’s corpse. Finally, he turned to Auric and nodded. Auric stepped forward and stood before the body on the bier, allowing his tears to fall.

  “Goodbye, Del Ogara,” he said. “Syraeic sister, sorcerer of extraordinary skill, human being of kind and loving character. We shall not see you again in this world, but hope for reunion in the next.”

  Auric lowered his torch into the bundle of dry branches beneath the pallet, stepping back quickly as the accelerant-soaked tinder caught fire. Golden flames engulfed the figure on the pyre. The others cast their torches into the fire, which consumed the branches and body with startling speed, reducing even her bones to powder. Only half an hour later the five of them were gathering up Del’s ashes, snowy white in contrast to the gray of the branches and pallet. They were placed in a black lacquered cylinder. Gnaeus located the opal once set in Del’s forehead, dusted the ash off with his tunic and handed the gem to the priest of Mictilin. The cleric pressed the jewel to the seam where the cylinder’s lid closed the container, and they all watched as the opal fused, sealing the reliquary shut. He handed the container to Auric, who received it with respect.

  “Del Ogara,” said the priest.

  “Del Ogara,” whispered Auric.

  Oslen left them. In a short time, the priest of Mictilin would conduct the funeral ceremony for Prior Quintus, which they would also attend. But for now, the five of them sat in silence, Auric cradling Del’s ashes as though the container was a newborn babe. The sun rose, slow and reluctant, above the horizon.