by Jon Kiln
No, I mean Suriyen and Talon, he thought, as they ate in companionable silence.
“Those ingrates who wanted to kill us? After everything that we had done for them?” Ikrit purred. It was clear to the priest that the devil was far less forgiving than he himself was. Not that I am forgiving them anything, Vekal considered. They were just mistaken, that is all. He had overheard Suriyen being convinced by her ‘lodge mother’ Aldameda that the devil needed to be exorcised, or them both killed, and that had started this perilous venture.
But I still miss them, he admitted to himself, finishing the last of his fish and odd bits of salad herbs that Meghan had managed to gather. The priest knew that in other more peaceful times he might have been able to convince them of his innocence. They didn’t hate him after all, they feared him. And then only at the insistence of the old woman. He missed the fact that they had seemed to work well together, after a fashion.
“Ah, my poor little holy man,” Ikrit sighed inside, beginning to regain some of its previous snark in the tone of its voice. “You look at everything through the eyes of a child, and remember summers when really they were winter.”
Vekal frowned, about to make his objection, before he realized that the others too, had finished and were looking at him almost expectantly. “I am sorry,” the Sin Eater said. “I was deep in thought.”
“I am sure that you were. One such as you must have a lot to think about,” Meghan said slowly, as she damped the fire. It was getting towards midday, and the air was becoming humid and hot, even this close to the coast. “So, now we have to decide what direction it is that we will take.”
Vekal had been almost dreading this decision, knowing that it would be asking them to either cast themselves into danger, or to wander the world without him. The events of last night had forged a strange bond between them, as he felt oddly protective of the little family, the strange herbalist woman and her mute little girl. Distantly, he wondered if this was how it was for warriors and knights and soldiers in the army. Did warfare and fighting forge them stronger together, eventually soldering their hearts into one indivisible chain?
“So. I take it that you are set on traveling through Telset?” Meghan said a little sadly.
“Yes!” said the devil.
“I am,” said the priest.
“And it wouldn’t help to tell you that I have… acquaintances who come to the trading post every so often, and, if you’re fit and able that you could work your passage north?” Meghan frowned and looked away, her eyes growing cloudy as they mirrored the distant grey and blue seas.
“It wouldn’t,” Vekal admitted.
“We tried the sailor’s life before, and from what I recall it didn’t quite go according to plan, did it?” the devil inside him joked.
“Life on the coast alone…” the woman’s voice went soft for a moment. “It can be very difficult here. There are many dangers to face.”
Vekal got the impression that the herbalist might actually be referring to herself and her passage north with Kariss, so he reached out and just touched her gently on the arm, causing her to jump. “I know. And thank you for everything that you have done.”
Meghan blushed. “It should be I thanking you, after last night.” She coughed, and moved away imperceptibly from him, out of reach. “And Kariss seems to like you. So there is that. You have proven yourself strong, and brave, and would be welcome to accompany us north.”
There was something there between them that Vekal could detect, a sort of tension that he had never known before, not even amongst the gypsies or with Suriyen and certainly not whilst he trained at the Tower of Records in Tir’an’fal. Something unformed and new, like a seed under the ground, awaiting to sprout.
“I don’t know what to say…” Vekal felt his cheeks blush, and for once was thankful that his face was as scarred as it was, white lines obscuring the darker skin underneath and making it impossible for the woman to read his emotions. But she didn’t have to, she just nodded, looking down at her hands.
“I know. Of course. You have something about you, priest—a sin or a burden or perhaps a curse that has laid your road already before you. I just hope that you know where it leads, and are able to change paths one day, if not today.”
Inside, the devil was curiously silent during this entire exchange, and Vekal wondered what had changed about their relationship that now it didn’t take the advantage to ridicule and reject her silently inside his mind.
“Thank you,” Vekal said, and for just the briefest of moments he too wished that life could be different for him, for them, for everyone that he had met so far.
Suddenly, up above them broke the harsh, mournful cry of one of the albino desert crows, pure white and flashing like the sun itself as it flew across the sky, winging its way eastwards.
I know, my lord Annwn, I know, the priest prayed silently. The albino desert crows were sacred to the crow-headed god of judgement, and Vekal had always been taught that to see them was to hear the voice of the gods themselves.
At last, Ikrit the devil inside spoke. “The world is a harsh, broken place, designed to grind off our sins,” it said, almost as if reciting a piece of scripture.
I never would have thought you would come out with something so pious, imp, Vekal thought.
“Pious? Who could be more pious than a devil? We know just what forces are arrayed against us and in league with us. And anyway, it was just a little doggerel from a long time ago.” The devil subsided once more, and Vekal could feel it pulling a shroud of silence about its crooked little soul, making it almost invisible to his consciousness. When he shook his head and looked up, the moment between him and the herbalist was gone, and she was wrapping her few rescued belongings from the fire into her shawls.
“Well. The trading post is a day’s walk away at best, and then we might have a week or more before a ship comes in.” She sighed.
“What about those men from last night?” Vekal asked. “Won’t others come looking for them?”
“From that spit of land called Fisheye?” Meghan laughed. “They’re terrified of the Shattering Coasts, which is why they exiled me and my girl out here. They’ll just think that those brutes got themselves killed or drowned. That is how callous a life at sea makes you, I’m afraid. Not that I think any will miss them after they’re gone.” She shrugged, and Vekal had to agree. Men capable of that much violence and viciousness usually had few friends, he knew in his long years of hearing confessions.
I wonder what that says of me? he wondered a little sadly, remembering flashes of screaming faces from last night, of popping bones and blood in his mouth.
“We’ll be fine,” Meghan said, gathering Kariss’s things. “The ruins are due east. You won’t be able to miss them.”
As Vekal nodded, watching how Meghan made hand gestures to indicate to the girl that they were leaving and that they had to wave goodbye to him, he suddenly had an idea. After consulting with Ikrit, who thought it a crazy idea but was willing to give it a go, he looked up and called out.
“Wait. If you will, I would like to see if I can help.” He nodded towards Kariss.
“You’ve already been about as much help as a man could be,” the woman laughed. “And I doubt that you have any greater knowledge of healing than I do. But, you never know what they teach you strange sorts out there in the Sand Seas.” She released Kariss’s hand, who ran to the priest and folded her arms around his middle in a juvenile hug.
“And just what sins do you think that a little child is going to have? Stealing some piece of overly-yeasty bread from the larder?” Ikrit, seemingly energized by the idea of actually directing their magic, appeared back to his normal acerbic self.
Vekal ignored him, as he sighed out through his nose, and lay both hands on the child’s hair as if in blessing. His lips startled to mumble as he cleared his mind, sinking into the same old proscribed routines and habits of thought that unlocked whatever power that he had been reborn with when he
had become first possessed by Ikrit. It was the litany of the Undying, the creed of the Sin Eaters, and what he always said before hearing or extracting a confession from the sinners of the City of Gods.
“You are the dead. The Unliving. You do not belong to the world but to those that live beyond it. You are made of this world but are not owned by it. I will cast no shadow, for the dead have nothing to hide. My feet will leave no tracks in the sand, for there is no way back. Death shall come for me and I will welcome it, because I know its halls. Only the dead can grant life, for the living can only give themselves away.”
Vekal felt himself start to float away from all of the pains and worries of his current life and relax into an endless state of being. He had been trained to enter these meditative states that would help him in his selected tasks, whether it was hunting down sinners or just hearing the woes of a shepherd. Recently, he found that he now had an entirely new power—that of healing.
All that mattered was the soul of the girl before him and his own. What the girl needed to learn and to let go of before she could progress on her journey through life, before eventually looking into the eyes of the gods with a clear conscience. That was what being a Sin Eater was all about, making people’s lives easier. Making their passage to the heavens smoother.
“Kariss, child of Meghan,” Vekal heard himself say, although he wasn’t sure what it was that guided his lips or where the words even came from. “Your life here, and your mother’s struggles are not your fault, Kariss, daughter of Meghan. You were born blameless before the eyes of the gods, and to the gods you will one day return in that same state.”
He felt movement as the girl looked up into him, her eyes piercing his with tears as he knew that some part of him had correctly identified her ‘sin’—the weight of presumed guilt that she carried for their exile.
“It’s not your fault, Kariss,” he said again, and something like lightning passed through them.
15
“It’s not far, I promise,” Vekal was saying, pulling on his mother’s hand as he tugged her through the desert, away from their home of wood and rock.
“Vekal! Really, enough of your games. You know that I have to get back to the hut, back to our flock.” His mother was scolding him, but he could feel that she was letting herself be dragged by her only child. Even at this young age, out in the desert, Vekal knew that she would gladly flee her life with the man whom she called husband, and the older son Elak whom the husband had brought with him.
Vekal knew a lot for his young years, although he just thought that this melancholy and desperation were the way of the world. Mothers were always sad and cried when no one was looking, and step-fathers and step-brothers were always cruel with hard corners to their fists.
Vekal lived with his mother and their new family out in the deserts, where they herded the goats and took them to the markets every summer to trade.
“But this is really important,” Vekal said again, pointing over to the rise of sand dunes where he wanted to take her.
“Oh Vekal, I know. I am sure that it is, but you know how your father gets. He gets very angry if the herd hasn’t been brought in for the night. The desert coyotes come and—”
“No desert coyotes near here,” Vekal pointed out. “We would see their sign.” He pointed at the sands. It was true, and one such as he, one of the southern nomadic desert people, knew how to read the signs of passing animals almost as soon as they knew how to talk their own tongue. Surely his mother knew that as well.
A sigh from above him, and Vekal cringed. It was the sigh that his mother gave when there was no point. No arguing. She stopped, and he found that all of his efforts could not budge her forward.
“No, little one. We must go back now,” she said heavily.
“But Elak can bring the herd in. And step-father can heat his own stew!” Vekal shouted angrily. He had planned this intimately, every detail of this day. It had to work, it just had to.
“Vekal…” his mother said warningly, and he knew that he had lost. So he used the only trick that he had left to play. Vekal had always been quick, and he wriggled from her grasp and sprinted across the final rise in the desert.
“Vekal! Beloved! Oh, you little—” His mother gasped, at first in panic and then in anger, and raced after him. She was of course much larger than he was, and much quicker, but he only had to get to the rise to show her what he had found below, and then she would see, and then everything would all be different.
“Come here!” He heard her shout as he raced up the last bit of sand and tufty grass, his eyes still careful to scan the ground for the holes of spiders or snakes. He was so busy looking that, when he got to the edge and stopped, panting, he at first didn’t see the figure sitting down there.
Elak.
His stepbrother was older and bigger than him by a handful of years, and he grinned up at him cruelly when he saw his little brother collapse in dismay. “I found your little stash, brother. What will father think?” he said, as Vekal’s mother caught up, panting, and seized Vekal by the arm.
“Don’t you ever run away like that! What if there had been scorpion or snake? Spider or lizard under the sand?” She looked past her worry to see what it was that her little boy had brought her here to see.
One of the bull-goats, much taller and rangier than the smaller mares, kids and nannies, casually chewing on the bits of stringy grass that Elak, her step-son, held in one fat, chubby little hand.
“Elak. What are you doing out here? Vekal?” She shook her head in confusion before understanding dawned on her face. The bull-goats were as large as a pony, and Vekal had saddled it with a stolen blanket, and had draped simple cloth bags holding skins of water that he had painstakingly siphoned from the well, along with half a dozen other bits of food, seed, grain, and bread that he had spent weeks smuggling out here to bury. The bull-goat had come last, which Vekal had led out just earlier this morning, when he had led the herd out to pasture.
“Oh, Vekal…” his mother shook her head. He had meant for them to run away. To ride the goat and head off into the deep desert, go to one of the other nomad families perhaps, or just keep on riding until they traveled to the city of Tir, or past the end of any map of the south.
Past where his cruel step-father and step-brother could hurt them anymore.
“I’m sorry, mother,” he whispered, as Elak, below, started to laugh.
“Look what I found, mother,” he said in a noxious tone. “Your Vekal was going to run away! Wait until father hears that he was stealing one of the prize goats as well.”
“We shouldn’t tell your father,” the woman said quickly, tightening her hand around Vekal’s own defensively. “You know how he gets. He’ll only get upset.”
“And why shouldn’t I tell him? Vekal was doing something bad. When I do something bad, you always punish me.”
Vekal knew that wasn’t true at all. His mother lived almost in fear of telling Elak off, as he was her step-father’s beloved and only son, and the brute only ever took Elak’s side over even his own wife’s.
“Look, Elak,” began Vekal’s mother. Vekal felt his heart break as he knew what his mother was going to do next, to plead with her own stepson for mercy. “Please don’t say anything to your father. I’ll make sure you get a whole bag of those cinnamon candy and raisins you like when we next go to market,” she said desperately.
“Really? Hmmm…” Elak strung the little play along, but Vekal knew what would happen anyway.
When they had gotten back to the hut, Elak tattled on them almost as soon as their father returned from his deep hunting with some of the other men of the nearby nomads, and beat his new wife until she could no longer even cry.
“It’s not your fault, little Vekal,” he heard his mother whisper to him, again and again even as the blows were raining down. “It is not your fault.”
16
“Vekal? Vekal, are you alright?” It was Meghan, her face looking worriedly over
at him.
“Did I fall over again?” He looked down at his prostrate body on the grass.
“More sort of crumpled than fell. Kariss had time to run over to me anyway,” Meghan said, once again frowning as she nodded.
“She seems to do a lot of that. Frowning, I mean,” Ikrit said happily. “And don’t you worry, the girl has been healed of her mutism, although she might not even be able to speak just yet. Well done you, forcing a child to re-learn language and sounds and everything that she has ever known about the world all over again.”
Hurrah for me, Vekal thought, wondering why his head throbbed so much. He could still hear his mother’s words echoing in the back of his head, a perfect accompaniment to what he had heard himself say to the girl herself when deep in the trance. Why were all these memories flooding back now? What good did they do? Before the possession he only had dim, hazy recollections of events that might have been made up or might have been real events of his childhood out on the deserts, before the Tower of Records. He had been glad to forget them and leave the past behind, become as blank a slate as every other orphan who had ever grown up under the tutelage of the Masters of the Tower to become Sin Eaters.
“But you walked out of the desert, you know. You came from somewhere. We all come from somewhere,” Ikrit pointed out rather unhelpfully.
I suppose, and just while we’re on that subject—where do you come from, spirit? Vekal returned, but Ikrit only remained silent.
“So uh, what was that? Some sort of blessing?” Meghan asked.
Vekal nodded, pushing himself up to his feet and looking at Kariss, who was looking at him oddly, as if she could sense the difference in her body but didn’t quite know what it was yet. He gave her slow smile, and nodded at Meghan. “Yes. A traditional blessing on behalf of the Morshanti of Tir’an’fal.”