by Jon Kiln
“I have to warn them. I have to save them.” Vekal turned so that he was staring north over the dark waters of the Inner Sea. His friends had to be out there, right now, and they were being ferried to the angels – and their dooms.
‘Well, unless you’ve managed to grow some fins and a tail in all of that sploshing around, I don’t see quite how you’re going to get that done,’ Ikrit opined.
“Stop joking around, imp!” Vekal burst out, his voice croaking and scratchy from his drowning. If there had been anyone watching, then all they would have seen would be a freezing, shivering human loudly arguing with himself (which was probably not even the strangest thing that might be seen on these shores).
“This isn’t funny. My life isn’t your amusement,” Vekal snarled, kicking the wet sand before him. “In case you hadn’t noticed, devil, my life is your life now. So I would suggest you help me find a way to get to them.”
The devil recoiled into his mind a little, like a smacked puppy, before it came slithering, sloping back to his consciousness. ‘Listen, priest. There is nothing that I can do while we stand here on the shore, with your body trying to collapse every moment it doesn’t have warmth, food or shelter. Do you know how hard it is to stop a human body from dying? It’s all that they ever want to do, apparently!’
Vekal growled in return.
‘And what is more – the more we stay here, the more chances there are that the angels really will find us again, and this time I am sure that Saphiel and the others won’t stop to heal you.”
Well, at least that much was true, the priest thought, but still, he hated to walk away from the sea, and the direction in which his friends must be in. How long did the angel captain say they had – a night and a day? Or was it just a night?
‘Walk, human,’ Ikrit was growling in his ear, using his infernal powers to wrestle Vekal’s body away from the shoreline and to trudge, foot after weary foot, back up the beach. ‘Food, warmth, and shelter first. And then I’ll get your woman and her brat back for you.’
Vekal bared his teeth at the insult, but he was too tired to argue, as he climbed the beach, and pushed past the first outliers of scrubby bushes.
***
‘You see? What did I tell you – we’re already halfway there!’ Ikrit sounded a lot more cheerful than Vekal felt, when they rounded the last corner of the track and found themselves looking down into a small, ramshackle settlement.
The priest and the devil had been climbing out of the gorges by the coast for the best part of the morning, having to climb from tree branch to boulder as much as scramble on the wet and mossy ground – until they happened upon a trail that wound its way along the top of the gorge, and between two hills. This track did not appear to be frequented often, as briars and flame-weed had sprung across it in places, but it at least made for easy walking, and after a little while, it led here.
“But where is here?” Vekal muttered, stepping down from the treeline to follow the path as it wound straight through the small village. It was a bare T-Junction of a town, with wooden buildings on either side of the street, as well as storehouses and mills further back. The buildings looked like they had seen better times, and could do with a lick of paint. On the far side of the village were cattle pens, where a small crowd of goats and sheep stood chewing the cud morosely. “No walls,” he noticed, which seemed unusual for a town out in the wilds.
‘Maybe they are a very trusting people, which is all the well for you.’ Ikrit steered his steps towards the only place with a bit of life in it – a white-walled building with doors open, and the distant sound of music. The sign above the wooden boards above displayed its name.
“The Skull’s Rest?” Vekal frowned. “That’s a bit of a creepy name for a tavern, don’t you think?”
‘I wouldn’t know, Vekal. The last time that I was interested in tavern names, they were called the Sacred Temples of the Wine God.’
The priest paused for a moment, a shadow of his old feelings of anxiety and hesitancy coming back. The Sin Eaters were hated everywhere they went. Which was why, Vekal knew, that they never went anywhere very often.
‘Well, you’re the only one left now, right? So, I think that means that you can do whatever you want,’ Ikrit insisted, making his feet stumble forward into the sounds of laughter and music.
All of which stopped, as soon as the stranger stood in the doorway, and all eyes turned to stare at him in disbelief.
Vekal swallowed nervously. “Er… Greetings?”
16
“Came up from the coast, did ya?” said the innkeeper, echoing almost to the word what the young man with the hat and the large mustache had said to Vekal a moment earlier.
“Aye,” the priest nodded. “Our boat capsized. I was wondering if any of my fellows have made it back to shore.”
“Hasn’t been any traveler through those doors since summer,” the young man in front of him said. He was shorter that Vekal, wearing stained leathers and canvas clothes, but he looked to Vekal to be some sort of ringleader in these parts. He leaned his head back and put his gloved hands to his hips, sweeping the canvas work-cloak back to reveal the pommel of a saber clearly visible.
“Now, Eremund, mind your manners,” the innkeeper, as tall as Ermund was short, growled, popping a cork on a bottle of something and thumping it on the table. “Here you go, traveler. A slug on the house, seeing as you’ve come a long way.”
‘Now that’s more like it!’ the devil piped up, and Vekal found himself taking a deep draught of whatever it was, causing his mouth and throat to burn with sudden fire.
“Gah! What is that?” Vekal coughed and spluttered, earning a chuckle from the man named Eremund in front of him.
“Premium grade rot-gut, is what that is.” Eremund cast a glance back to his friends, all men who were dressed in heavy work clothes like he was. Besides this ribald rabble, there were only a few other patrons of The Skull’s Rest here: an older gentleman whittling away at a piece of wood, an older couple by the fire, and a three-legged dog.
“Where did you say you came up from again?” Eremund turned back just as quickly to question him. “And what brings you to Stonewatch?”
“Fuldoon,” he said, almost truthfully.
“Ah.” The innkeeper nodded and stepped back, apparently content with the status of this alien in his hometown. “That explains it. Everyone knows that the Menaali are kicking seven bales of cow crap out of that place.”
They are? Vekal thought, his heart hammering.
“I’ve been telling these boys to go and fight the good fight for weeks, but they’re too feckless,” the innkeeper growled at them.
“Hey! Keep the drinks coming old man, that’s all you need to know about!” Eremund snorted derisively, turning back to nod at Vekal. “So, I take it that you’re looking for a job then, seeing as your last one went belly up in the sea?”
Vekal stammered. Am I? No, I’m looking for a way to get to Meghan and Kariss.
‘Shut up, fool priest! This might lead us to her,’ Ikrit snapped inside of his mind.
“Yeah, I guess,” the priest said.
“And you can sail, I take it, considering you were on a boat.” An appraising look from Eremund over the priest’s bedraggled form. “Although you don’t look like any sailor that I’ve ever met.”
“I can sail,” Vekal said, to the devil’s insistence. If it meant getting on a boat and heading towards my goal, I can bloody well sail!
“All right then. We’ve got some boats down in Stonewatch harbor. Be there in the morning, and you can be a rower until we figure out what you’re good at,” Eremund told him. “You get food, and money is paid when we get paid. Got that?”
Morning? Meghan and Kariss might be dead by then! Vekal quailed, but still he nodded.
‘Ask if there is a witch here,’ Ikrit hissed into his ears.
What? Are you crazy, imp?
‘Highly likely, yes. But just do it. Or a fortune-teller. Tell them that i
t’s a good luck ritual. God knows that sailors are more superstitious even than devils,’ Ikrit urged him, and, reluctantly, Vekal asked.
“Huh,” Eremund shrugged, casting an eye over at the older couple sitting by the fire. “Daeni over there used to do some, didn’t she?” Another scornful look from his new employer. “Looks like you need all the luck you can get, my friend,” he said, followed by some drunken laughter from his crew.
I do, actually, Vekal thought, letting the insults and laughter fall off his shoulders like rain. He was Morshanti. He could take that level of scorn, the young man knew, as he threaded his way past the tables and to the fire, where the older couple sat at a side table. Instantly, the warmth of the fireplace started to seep into Vekal’s bones as he slumped on a nearby bench, and massaged feeling back into his hands.
‘Don’t collapse on me now – the fortune teller!’ Ikrit snapped, raising the priest’s head to regard the couple, who were also looking at him in alarm.
They appeared no wealthier than the other patrons of The Skull’s Rest, but they seemed to take great pride in their appearance. The man; short-cropped white hair, a face that was deeply lined, wore his canvas matched with tight-cut woolen garments, once dyed strongly, but now faded to a ruddy ochre. In his hands he held an ebony cane with some sort of carved ivory handpiece, which he twirled and tapped constantly on the flagstones.
The woman at his side, was much smaller, and had that hunched-over, almost gnomic appearance that many older people get. She wore deep blue gowns, with a cloak of trimmed white fur.
“Dear heavens – the boy is half starved!” the woman said in a croak of a voice that was almost as bad as Vekal’s was currently. She blinked at him with bright, shining eyes, and poked the man beside her with a bony finger. “Gustav, get this young man a meal. Otherwise he’ll keel over right in front of us!”
As Vekal started to protest that it wasn’t necessary, the older man groaned as he used his stick to get upright, saying in a deep growl of a voice, “No arguing now.” The man lumbered away, to rap at the bar with his cane.
“Sit here, boy,” the woman tapped on the table, and the bench opposite them. “I heard you say you were shipwrecked. A terrible shame. My first husband was shipwrecked. Never did find his body.”
‘She’s a witch!’ Ikrit crowed with delight.
How do you know? Vekal flinched visibly in the seat.
‘Don’t ask. It’s just a gift I have. She’s a witch – and there’s something odd about her latest husband too, if you ask me…’ Ikrit seemed to be cackling with delight.
“Anyway. What’s your name, son? I overheard you talking about fortunes, and so I guess that is why you stumbled over here to see old Daeni, right?” the woman asked.
“Er… Yes, I do. But I don’t have any money to pay you with…” Vekal confessed, much to the annoyance of the devil inside.
‘Hell’s Spit, priest! Could you not at least pretend to lie a bit while you have a demon lodged within you?’
I don’t even know why I’m talking with a fortune teller? Vekal argued in his mind.
‘Trust me. If she can read fortunes, then she has a touch of the Sight. If she can do that…’
Ikrit never got to finish his thought, as there internal monologue was suddenly disrupted by the creak and scrape of chairs and benches as Eremund and his crew lumbered to their feet.
“Oi – fishguts!” Eremund barked in his direction, which Vekal assumed must mean him. “Follow the western road to the harbor in the morning, and you’ll find us there after sunbreak.”
Vekal nodded, as several of the thuggish men laughed and swaggered their way after their fellows. The priest thought he heard an audible sigh of relief from the innkeeper behind the bar.
“Hm. Well, at least we get some quiet now.” The old woman frowned, as a steaming bowl of stew, a hunk of bread, a corner of cheese and a flagon of ale were placed beside him by Daeni’s current husband.
“Really, thank you,” Vekal said. “This is too kind.”
Gustav the husband shrugged, and turned immediately back to stare at the fire as if Vekal wasn’t even there at all.
“I, uh, I still have to pay you,” Vekal said, his hands hovering over the wooden spoon as his stomach grumbled.
“Pay me in words, Sin Eater,” Daeni whispered under her breath, making Vekal jump.
“You– you know?” he muttered in shock.
“Well, anyone with a scrap of learning can spot one of your kind. You’re the stuff of bogeymen for most people,” Daeni laughed, gesturing to the plate. “But not for me. I’m too old to fear being judged anymore.”
You’d be surprised, the priest thought for a moment.
“But I can tell you’re no sailor, and so that means that you’re on a mission. A mission of the gods, huh? Who’s been naughty and is deserving punishment?” Daeni’s voice turned into a whisper, and all trace of the simple old woman vanished. “Not the innkeeper, is it? He’s a good man.” A sudden worried look. “Me?”
“No,” Vekal heard the devil say through his own mouth.
Stop that! The priest railed against him.
‘Trust me, scribe. Let a master do his work…’
“Eremund,” Vekal once more heard his own lips say. “I have been sent by the gods themselves to deliver justice to Eremund.”
Vekal felt sick. This was sacrilege. This was heresy.
“Good. That piece of slime deserves it,” Daeni nodded. “He’s been smuggling up and down the Fuldoon coast for years, bribing the Fuldoonian navy here and there, earning a tidy profit for himself, not that he shares it with anyone – not even his home village!”
No wonder he was so cagey about a stranger in town, Vekal thought.
“I’ll do what I can to help you, priest. But not until after you’ve eaten. You may be chosen by the gods, but you still look like you’re the most unluckiest chosen by the gods I could ever imagine!” Daeni cackle-laughed once more. “After that, I’ll help you if I can.”
“I was hoping you might,” the devil said in Vekal’s voice, making the priest’s skin crawl.
17
“I can tell you where Eremund’s hide-out is,” Daeni the fortune-teller whispered seriously. “And I know that there are others here in Stonewatch who would be willing to help.”
“I don’t need to know that,” Ikrit said through Vekal’s voice, causing a look of puzzlement over the woman’s features. “I wasn’t lying when I said that I needed my fortune read.”
You weren’t? Vekal wondered. What is this all about, imp?
‘Sit back and watch a master at work!’
“Really? I didn’t think that Sin Eaters were allowed to practice magic?” the fortune-teller said.
“You’d be surprised,” Ikrit-Vekal laughed. “This is more… a ritual that we have to perform, you know, before we judge people. We have to reach out for the God’s favor.”
The priest knew that this was wrong, but he was surprised at how quickly the fortune-teller believed it. Was his sacred Order really that mysterious to the outside world?
“Okay, well – give me your palm, then,” Daeni said. “And of course, I will not ask one of your holiness for payment.”
“I should think not!” the devil laughed through him. “And not palm-reading. We need to do this properly. The Orb.”
“The Crystal Ball? That is…” Daeni stuttered, saw the look on the priest’s face, and then nodded, turning to her strange, monosyllabic companion. “Gustav? Get my things, will you?”
The old man with the cane stood up immediately, retiring to the back of the inn where he disappeared through the wooden door, to return only a few moments later with a large, black felt bag. “Here,” he murmured, although Vekal couldn’t be sure if it was in respect or resentment.
The priest watched (as did the devil) as the fortune teller took out a small brass stand, and then a large crystal ball, smooth, which caught his reflection oddly. Next came two fat white candles and hol
ders, placed on either side of the table.
“You practicing your mumbo-jumbo, woman?” the innkeeper grunted from the bar, but Daeni only pulled a face and ignored him.
“Now, concentrate on your question, priest…” the fortune teller intoned, as she lit the candles and started to hum tunelessly under her breath.
‘Concentrate on Kariss and Meghan,” Vekal heard the creature inside of him hiss quickly. ‘And only on them. Concentrate on finding them, with all your willpower.’
What are you intending to do? Vekal asked the devil inside his mind.
‘I didn’t spend a few hundred years as a Greater Abomination without learning a few tricks, you know,’ the devil hissed. ‘Only on Kariss and Meghan, you understand? Nothing else!’
Sure, the priest, puzzled, began to recall his brief time with them, and was instantly aware of how worried he was for them. How the words of the angelic captain Saphiel had upset him, and terrified him.
But where were they? he thought. Racing towards the Isle of Gaunt, right now. Racing towards their doom at the hands of the angels.
‘Concentrate, Vekal!’ the imp demanded, as the woman looked at him, frowning. The priest wondered if she had seen the war of emotions on his face. Did she suspect that she wasn’t talking to the real him, but someone else?
“Do you have the question?”
“I do, witch,” Vekal could sense the excitement exuding itself out of the creature, like heat from an open fire. And in that instant, it flared.
Vekal felt his hands shoot forward, seizing the old fortune-teller’s own flat on the table, as arcane words started to pour out of his mouth. “Destrir-vkjal. Malonis Eleiel…”
“What are you doing? What…?” Daeni hissed, her voice rising in alarm – before her eyes suddenly flushed white, and her own lips started syncing with the priests.
“Meliel. Jkal-pharid’ol. Kurata…”
Devil! What are you doing? Vekal railed against the creature, but the grip of the devil was too strong. It pushed him back inside his own mind, filling his limbs with an unholy energy, as Daeni’s eyes turned to the crystal ball as she kept mumbling, and Vekal started to see shapes swirling in the recesses of the globe…