by Jon Kiln
For the second time in just a few minutes, Vekal felt his cheeks burn with shame.
“I don’t think it was bad, what you did,” Talon whispered at his side. “The baker had it coming.”
“He will have it coming to him, trust me,” Ikrit hissed again inside of Vekal, with a cold certainty that churned his stomach. The Sin Eater wondered, briefly, just how many foul and evil things the creature lodged inside of him had seen and even had performed.
“Enough for many lifetimes’ worth of punishment,” Ikrit said, with a tone that Vekal could not decide was gloating or exaggeration. Either way, it made him shudder.
“We’re here.” Suriyen broke their uneasy talk, pointing to a small doorway in a yellow sandstone brick wall. The door was wooden and painted blue, and from its lintel there emerged a small curve of fabric, attached to two small trees in pots. At the foot of the door there was a small metal icon of a deity that Vekal, for once, did not recognize. It looked like a sort of bull or a goat, but with a rounded wheel upon its back.
The devil hissed inside of him.
What is it? Do you know of the deity? Vekal asked, but found that Ikrit was withdrawing more and more into himself, vanishing behind layers of mind and memories and cementing itself deep inside like a bug in a rotten tree.
“Get in, quickly now!” Suriyen knocked on the door a complicated staccato burst, before pushing the door open and hurrying them inside ahead of her, and closing the blue door behind. They stood for a moment in almost pitch darkness as their eyes became accustomed to the low light filtering through heavy curtains over the skylight. It was a dark room smelling vaguely of incense and pipe smoke, and appeared to have lounges and small stoves scattered in a central space, whilst around its edges there were wooden cabinets, racks, and desks, on which there hung assorted robes and clothes, as well as walking staffs, bags, slings, and weapons.
“Who comes to my house?” demanded someone from the doorway. A strong and loud voice, although the owner was still in shadow.
Suriyen straightened up and answered immediately. “A friend comes to your house.”
“And how do I know you, friend?” The voice resolved itself into a small woman with wiry grey hair, stepping forward with a strung crossbow between her hands. Vekal studied her face. It was older than any of theirs, but not as old as the gypsy matriarch they had left in the dirt. Grey wavy hair, deep wrinkle lines, and dark skin. Simple clothes and few adornments. The clothes of a woman who liked to get things done. In one ear she had a tiny medallion of the same motif as outside: the bull carrying the wheel.
“A friend brings with them three things,” Suriyen said in a tone that sounded as though this were a well-rehearsed ritual. “Their humility, their honesty, and their courage.”
“And of these three, which is the most important?” the woman asked.
“Honesty,” Suriyen said without a doubt.
“Good. Welcome back, sister,” said the woman, laying her crossbow to one side. “You know, for a moment I thought I might actually have to use that old thing when I saw the walking dead guy here.” She nodded at Vekal as she busied herself around the space, pushing cushions and chairs back into place, and proceeding to accept them seemingly completely.
“He’s not dead,” Talon said immediately.
“Are you sure?” The woman paused and looked up at Vekal. There was something in the sharpness of her gaze that seemed as though it would uncover more than he might want to give. “He looks as though he should be dead. Or was dead quite recently.”
“Hey—” Talon started, but Suriyen laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. She said nothing at first, but then spoke.
“You have quick eyes, Aldameda.”
“Hmph. And a foolish heart, it seems. You can stay. Friends and all that.” She turned back to her chores about the house. “Travel clothes should you need them. Food in the larder. I’m going to draw some hot water for your baths. Come, make yourself at home, I won’t bring food to your lips.”
“Thank you, Aldameda.” Suriyen gestured for them all to take off their dusty and dirt-stained outer clothes, storing them in one of the large cabinets by the door, before Suriyen selected a second set for each of them, laying them on the table to wear. Afterwards, she started to look through the chests and the cupboards, finding cheese, breads, crackers, jars of preserves, pickled fish, olives, fruits, and rashers of some unidentifiable meat.
“This should see us until later. And hopefully the Council will look after us when they hear what we have to say.” Suriyen looked at Vekal seriously.
The Sin Eater nodded, not saying anything as he sat down to eat.
“All this is… free?” Talon asked, looking at the food a little more suspiciously than the Sin Eater beside him.
Suriyen nodded. “Yes. For us, it is free. For now. Me and the woman Aldameda knew each other before I became a desert guard.” She tapped the plates. “Eat. You never know when you might get another chance.”
Talon nodded, accepting the guard’s reasoning with a practicality that Vekal was saddened by. He wondered what happened now, frowning at the food, at Suriyen, at the room. Inside of him, the devil was silent. After they had eaten a very filling meal, Suriyen cleaned their plates and indicated that they should carry their new clothes with them out of the only door in the room. It led to a narrow corridor that, in Vekal’s mind, couldn’t fit the external confines of the house. Had they gone downstairs? Was the passageway sloped, or had the internal layout of the house been changed so much by their occupiers that the inside bore no relation to what one might expect of such a house?
Doors led off one side of the corridor, and the corridor turned at the far end. Suriyen indicated that each of them were to go through one of the three doors, from which emanated a smell like roses and lavender.
Vekal stepped through into a wall of steam, and instantly tensed up, fists rising in front of him. He expected blows, but in seconds the steam started to clear, and he saw instead two large metal bins, one full of hot water and the other cool, and a stand for his clothes. The Sin Eater felt a shudder go through him. Even at the Tower he had never felt hospitality like this. It made him feel edgy and sharp.
Gingerly, he unwound his straps and took off his clothes, and lowered himself into the hot tub with a groan.
The air smelled of the subtle scents and fragrances of essential oils, flowers, and sweet perfumes. It wasn’t something that Vekal had ever been expecting in his life, used to as he was either the freezing cold fresh water from the deep aquifers below Tir, or the blazing heat and dried out skin thanks to the eternal sun.
Aches and pains that he did not know that he had were awakened, but eased with the water. After a while he started to scrub and bathe, and eventually plunged into the colder water, causing a delightful fresh zinging feeling all over. When the Sin Eater had finally put on his new robes of cream, with a soft leather jerkin of faded green, he felt brand new.
Were it not for the wraps and the bandages that he re-wrapped over his arms, neck, calves and feet, he would look like a new person. The robes also had a wide-brimmed hood, which he could draw deep over his face. Although his fingers twitched to do so, he refused the urge though, forcing himself to run fingers over the scars and welts that covered his face and all of his body.
To him, they were just another fact of his skin, as forgotten and as necessary as his nose or his eyebrows. Vekal couldn’t remember how they had got there, or what had put them there, only that he was told that he had walked out of the Bone Sands with them.
But now, for the briefest moment, Vekal did not feel like a monster. As a matter of fact, he did not quite feel like a Sin Eater at all. He took a deep breath, feeling relaxed, and walked out of the room and into the corridor beyond.
He heard murmured voices from the area he considered the lounge. He took a well-practiced, silent step to the edge of the doorway.
“…know it. It has to be done. There is no other way,” Suriyen was sayi
ng. She was engaged in a whispered argument with the other, older woman over something which was obviously important, and obviously terribly secret.
Like any good Sin Eater, Vekal held his breath, and bore witness.
“It is wrong. How could you bring that thing here, into a friend’s house,” Aldameda bit back as the hidden Sin Eater heard the thump and thud of them both moving around the room.
“We have to take it before the Council. That is what I intend to do,” Suriyen said.
A moment of silence then, from the older woman. “Have you forgotten your vows? With all of this nonsense, you have forgotten who you are and where you came from. I dragged you out of that pirate ship. I put you back together again. I helped you find your true name.”
Another silence, and this time when Suriyen answered it was with a heavy voice, full of woe. “I know.”
Vekal wondered what they were arguing about. It must be me, surely. Suriyen thinks that I am cruel and evil just like all of the others out there. She will deliver me to this Council as one would deliver a criminal, or a dog. He felt trapped suddenly, and scared, a feeling which he was not used to.
But I am one of the Unliving. It does not matter what happens to my body, just my spirit. He considered attacking them both then and there. He would be able to take the old woman, with his training and years of practice. But Suriyen was good. He had seen her fight in the tunnels and later, at the oasis shrine. She had been silent and unblinking. She didn’t hesitate when she killed, and she made no loud noises or grunts to let her opponent judge her move.
“But I have to do it. We cannot keep it here. The Council needs what information it can provide,” Suriyen said.
“I won’t allow you to keep it here. If it stays one more night, I will destroy it myself.” Aldameda sighed, clearly giving in to Suriyen’s argument. “Fine. Take it before the Council. See what good it will do you, but I can only hope that they destroy it just as swiftly as I would.”
“Agreed,” Suriyen said finally.
They mean to kill me. Vekal felt a strange feeling to him, like vindication or relief. He knew what he had to do now. He was, after all, a Sin Eater. Nothing more and nothing less. He would die eventually, and the prospect of his death was a welcome thing as it would return him to the gates of Annwn. He turned and crept back down the hallway, not pausing at the baths where he could hear Talon still splashing, but crept beyond the room to the turn in the corridor.
Here he found himself before an arched door. Setting his hand to it, and knowing that he did not have the time to waste, the man pushed at the door, finding it unlocked.
Warm southern sunlight almost blinded him. It was a balm to his senses as he stepped out into a courtyard filled with weapon stands and wooden target boards. Some were cut into the rough shape of a human, with well notched areas showing the heart, the liver, the abdomen, neck, and other dangerous areas to be struck.
This is some sort of weapons academy, Vekal thought with horror. No, he corrected himself. It is too small. This is a private home, where the house has been so extensively remodeled that no one on the outside would know what happens on the inside.
On the other side stood the rear wall, and beyond that the gurgle and splash of one of the many irrigation canals that went into the city. Tall, leafy trees stood outside, with some of their waxy hot-weather fronds splaying over the wall. This, at last, was the sort of activity that Vekal had been trained for. Not intrigue and crossing deserts. He would rather work in the night, but he had no choice as he picked up a selection of throwing knives from the rack, a heavy wooden short bar, and two long daggers. After having secured them, he started to scale the rear sandstone wall, using the thick fronds to aid his escape, before dropping to the narrow overgrown embankment beside the canal, and ran.
17
“Vekal?” Suriyen repeated once more at the door of the bathing room. She didn’t want to enter as it would be improper, but the sound of splashing water had stopped a long time ago, and still the Sin Eater had not emerged.
“Is he okay?” the boy Talon said at her side. His eyes were much brighter and healthier than they had been before, but were now pinched with worry. He almost looked normal again, and not the young, trapped worker that she had rescued from the gypsies.
But still, this is no place for a child… she thought as she looked down at him. Over his head she saw the shape of her mentor and friend, Aldameda, scowling. She could see what the woman was thinking, clearly. The older haired woman was standing, carefully composed, but Suriyen was almost certain that behind her back she would be holding a long knife or a dagger, something quick and deadly.
“He is no older than you were,” Suriyen said, causing Talon to look around, startled to see her there.
The boy said nothing, but questioned wordlessly.
Suriyen sighed, her hands squeezing on the hilt of the long blade that she kept under a fold in her robe. She nodded, bowing to the older woman’s decision as she turned back to Vekal’s door. Perhaps I was that age when I first started learning how to do this. And perhaps he has already seen bloodshed… But I had no choice. She gritted her teeth, before pushing the bathroom door open quickly and stepping inside. She didn’t pull the dagger yet, just in case, but kept her stance low.
If the fiend has taken over, it will look to attack… Her eyes scanned the room, waiting for it to appear.
“Where’s Vekal?” Talon was the first to ask, walking calmly into the room beside her, even as both Suriyen and Aldameda moved to stop him. He wasn’t attacked. None of them were.
“He’s gone,” Aldameda said, stunned.
It was an obvious statement, as far as Suriyen saw. The bathing room was entirely empty, the water cooling or tepid, and a pile of rags in the corner which had been his clothes. There were also no windows, no cabinets, no cupboards nor chests for him to hide within.
“Why did he leave us?” Talon said, as Suriyen glanced in horror at Aldameda.
“I thought you said that it wouldn’t emerge. That it couldn’t emerge here?” Suriyen hissed at the older woman.
“What are you talking about?” Talon was alarmed.
“Shhh. Not now.” Aldameda was already striding to the door. “The Training Yard. It is all that there is, other than the back of the house.” She made no attempt to hide the long, slightly curved blade that she clutched in one hand as she hurried ahead of them.
“What?” Talon shrieked. “What are you going to do to Vekal? He saved me!”
Suriyen paused at the door, taking out the long handled dagger that she too had been hiding from the boy’s eyes. “Hopefully, nothing. This is for our protection, child. You must stay in here,” she said sharply. “Vekal isn’t Vekal. He is… he has something inside of him, which is trying to control him. It will make him say things, and it will give him the power to do terrible things.”
“No. That’s not true!” Talon’s voice quavered. Even he did not fully believe his own voice. Talon had seen the thing coiled at the back of the Sin Eater’s eyes. There had been something, coming and going, a slack-jawed but calculating look that did not seem to be coming from the man who had worked so hard to save him at all, but something else.
“You know it is, boy, even you have seen it,” the guard said sadly. “Here.” She withdrew a shorter knife from the depths of her robes somewhere, and pressed it into his hands. “It is going to be okay, I am going to do the best that I can to protect you.” At that the woman stood up, frowning as she saw how thin and gangly the boy still looked, before she shut the door to the bathing house, and hurried down the hallway after Aldameda.
The older woman was banging though the other rooms of the house on the sides of the courtyard. Suriyen heard the thumps and clatters of cots being overturned, cabinets being opened, but she already knew what was going to be said. When Aldameda returned to the courtyard looking crestfallen, the guard sighed.
“He’s long gone, isn’t he?” she asked, looking at the high wall and th
e overhanging tree outside.
“Yes. And that means only one thing. The devil managed to find a way to overcome the spirit wards we have on this place.” Aldameda groaned. “They will have to be re-consecrated. Do you know how much that costs?”
“Not as much as a war, sister,” Suriyen answered. “There is more though. It also tells us that Vekal is quiet, and quick. With the devil’s help perhaps, but he is going to be hard to track down in a city the size of Fuldoon.”
“His face and wrappings will give him away. I still have my friends and networks. A gang of street kids over by the docks, a few guards I keep on my payroll in the residential area, a crooked priest, a gate guard. They will tell me as soon as he surfaces.” Aldameda started walking to one of the disturbed rooms and brought forth a cage with a grey and blue desert pigeon inside. “I will send the word out immediately. Hopefully, we may have him by nightfall again.”
Suriyen nodded, distracted. “But what then? What do we do with the most dangerous thing in all the kingdoms this side of the Frozen Wastes? We cannot kill the man. He does not deserve that fate.”
“He is one of the Undying, isn’t he? He will relish the idea of dying for a greater cause,” Aldameda said unsympathetically.
“No. He may be, but we are not,” Suriyen said, her forehead in her hands.
“What do you mean?” Aldameda looked at her as if she had sprouted wings. “Are you placing limits on what we friends can do?”
“No, of course not. But we preserve life. That is what we do. How can we condemn an innocent man to die for something that is holding him hostage?”
“All men die,” Aldameda said heavily. “And how do we know that he is innocent? What do we know of what really happened back there in Tir? Who took the devil, who gave it, and why? This Vekal of yours might be a willing participant. He might relish the power that the devil bestows upon him. The gods alone know just how he is still walking, given the state of his body’s injuries. It would be reasonable to suggest that he knows that the devil is keeping his body alive, and is grateful for that.”