She reached for her mug, but the second guard moved his hand to stop her. Jean slapped his armored hand and drank deep, leaving the man’s armor rattling painfully.
The lead guardsman studied Flynn with disgust. “What manner of beast are you?”
“I’m from the southern isles.” Flynn plucked away the spectacles, revealing his eyes. “What’s your business with my friends?”
The second guard leaned toward the first. “He’s one of those beastmen?”
The first looked to the second, bewildered, and shook his head. “I suppose? Don’t seem so feral as one’d expect.” He toughened, asking, “You’re with these two then?”
“Did you miss the part where I called them my friends, or has the creaking of your armor deafened you?”
Both Jean and Mack were taken aback by Flynn’s sudden abrasiveness, though not half so much as the guard he’d addressed. Flynn had already sized him up. He was a head taller than the rest and his silver armor rested with scant gaps on his tall frame. Yet he carried himself taller still, as though he was better than the rest. There were no markers on him that suggested this to be the case, nothing in ranking or even age that granted him authority. Flynn sat at the bar, keeping his body turned toward the guardsman. “If you want us to wait until your captain has arrived, we’re in no hurry.”
“I have this situation under control, beastman.”
“Do you?” Flynn asked condescendingly. “You still haven’t made clear why you’re harassing my friends.”
“Look at them and yourself! You all dress strange, act stranger!”
“I just got off a boat, fuck-head,” Jean piped in.
“Like me, they’re not from here but from the deserts, across the ocean,” Flynn told him. “If you hadn’t spent all your life patrolling the streets of a single city, you might know.”
His adversary shuddered ever so slightly, and Flynn knew he’d struck a chord. He took Mack’s barely touched mug of mead and drank. Flynn was averse to intoxication for all the accompanying problems, but the cavalier attitude kept the guardsman on edge.
The man averted his eyes, glancing over Mack and muttering, “A tad pale I’d wager for a desert brat …” before resting on Jean, who gave him a contemptuous glare while draining her mug. “If you’re from the desert, why’re you here then?”
“Cause I hate the desert an’ everything in it.” Jean wiped the brew from her lips with her sleeve, setting her empty mug on the counter.
Mack’s eye drifted from the conversation, and Flynn followed his gaze to see Chari, who had finally slipped away from her devotees. She had opted not to follow Flynn in, and kept out of the guards’ line of sight, watching.
“Have they committed a crime?” Flynn asked, pointedly. “Have they broken laws of Cordom about dressing in a way you don’t approve, about acting a way that you don’t approve?”
“There are codes of conduct—”
“Not one of which they’ve broken,” Flynn said with such certainty that Jean wondered just what he’d managed to learn since she and Mack had stepped out.
The lesser guard nudged his better in the side. “Maybe we should just go. Been waiting a while now for Lenker to find the high priestess and these two—erm, three—are making themselves known enough.”
Passing over Jean and Mack, the larger guard met eyes with Flynn for a moment, staring him down before losing his nerve. “I find one reason to come back, and it’s straight to Lady Thunau with the three of you,” he warned on his way out the door.
“Man,” Jean said, impressed. “You’ve been up to some shit since we stepped out.”
“Not much.” Flynn passed the mead back to Mack. “Studying.” It sounded much more impressive than the reality, so he left it at that.
Chari judged it safe to join them then. “I was watching in the wings,” she told Flynn. “I wanted to see how you’d handle yourself. That was … bold.”
“I told ‘em we knew you, Charsy,” Mack said. “They weren’t saying very nice things about my character after that.”
“Next time, I shall step in on your behalf, if need be,” Chari replied.
“Who cares?” Jean said. “Jackasses are gone and I didn’t even get to smash any of ‘em.”
Starting to notice a theme, Flynn asked, “Is that going to be your solution to everything?”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about people, it’s that they’re consistently smash-able,” came her reply. She turned to Chari, “You gonna join us?” She glanced at Flynn, then back at the priestess. “Got a head start, but I’m bettin’ I could drink ya both under the table.”
Chari waved her hands in denial. “Oh, I don’t drink,” she said, in a tone that suggested an unspoken “publicly.”
“I’ve had enough,” Flynn agreed.
“Pansy.” Jean smirked. “Worse than Mack.”
Mack looked down at his lone mug, then over at Jean’s several empty ones. He took a sip, then cautiously placed it on the counter. Jean tapped the bar and another mug came her way. She drank deep, then set it back down and shook her head in disgust.
“What a buncha prigs,” she said. “Two folks just sittin’ here, mindin’ their own business and they’ve gotta stir shit up. Just like back on—” she caught herself, “the desert. Boat.”
“They keep Cordom safe.” Chari sounded as though she were parroting something she’d been told since she was small. “They try to weed out any bad elements that could be an affront to the Goddess.”
“I’m just sittin’ here when those tin-can dumbasses came up and started harrassin’ me!” Jean protested. “I told ‘em to go the fuck away or I’d smash ‘em!”
“Oh dear.”
“Think I couldn’t take ‘em? I could smash you too, ya know.”
Flynn cut in, scolding Jean by name.
She took the hint and forcibly calmed herself, although she was still sour. “S’not the point. I’m just tryin’ to relax and enjoy a mug or—” she paused to tally her work so far, “—five, so I’m about ready to crush the motherfuckers right there when this guy—” she hit Mack softly on the arm, “—pulls me away! I was about to close negotiations!”
Chari felt she should apologize, yet was unable to decide if it was for her people as a whole or just the specific guards. Jean’s vigor had faded and she stared morosely into her mug.
“Haven’t felt like a person in a long time,” she said. “Been over a year since I could just go out and have a night, and maybe tonight’s the first that I thought I could get hung over and not worry about tomorrow mornin’.”
Part of Flynn greatly wanted to order a drink, take a seat, and distract her from the whole of what had happened minutes earlier. Fortunately, Mack patted Jean on the back, and it seemed to be all she needed. She wrapped an arm around him and said, “Thanks, buddy.”
Chari looked on, concerned, before looking Flynn in the eye. “I’d like to speak with you privately, if it pleases you.” The tone of her voice made it sound more like an order than a request—but then, she was clearly used to getting her way.
*
After entrusting Mack with both the acquired food and the key to her home, as well as enough coin to make sure Jean did not herself drink into debt, Chari and Flynn excused themselves to walk the city some more. What felt like midafternoon was marked by waning light, and served to confirm TseTsu’s shorter days.
While they walked, she asked at first of Flynn’s upbringing, and how he’d learned to speak the language of men so well. Confessing that he’d been caught young, Flynn claimed never to have known speech as the beastmen did, or at least to have forgotten if he’d ever learned.
He kept the spectacles off when he could, keeping Chari’s eyes locked on his as he drew from her every detail about Saryu culture needed to make his story more complete. Though he’d captured her attention, he had not diverted her intentions, and she gradually took the lead, guiding them both in time toward the cathedral where they’d met th
e night prior.
“Do you have some business here?” he asked as they drew close, hiding his eyes once more behind the dusky lenses.
“No. I simply feel safe in here, is all.”
For all he’d now seen of Cordom and the passion its people shared, something had been conspicuously absent, something he had previously suspected and only now sought to confirm.
“This is the only cathedral in Cordom, isn’t it?”
“I’ve never known a city to need more than one,” Chari said. “They are built sturdy and large; all the town’s people congregate every third day to hear my gospel.”
The entrance was drifting shut as they neared the cathedral.
“Run ahead. Hold the doors for me.”
It was a hollow order, yet Flynn heeded it, grasping that she had appearances to maintain. After holding the door for her entry, he followed and pulled it shut.
“Follow me to the altar. There, I will bless you.”
The church was not like it had been the night prior. It was not a full crowd, but still, many hundreds were now gathered in prayer. Some took notice of them, and unlike outside, where Chari’s celebrity had gathered the majority of the wandering eyes, Flynn felt himself the center of attention for being in her company.
When they reached the altar, she placed her hands on his shoulders, urging him to kneel. He did so, and she placed a hand on the back of his head, prompting him to bow it. Satisfied with his posture, she walked to one of the statues and caught the outpouring water from Hapané’s hands in her own, cupped tightly together. Anticipating what was to come, Flynn removed the spectacles and pocketed them. Chari returned without spilling a drop and poured the water upon Flynn’s head. Then, kneeling before him, she cupped her left knuckles in her right palm as she’d done before and spoke very softly.
“Place your hands in mine, palms up.”
Flynn did so and they knelt together in the center of the great cathedral, heads bowed only inches apart.
“Why are we here?” Flynn asked, lowering his voice to match hers.
“I feel safest here. Upon this altar, with the eyes of everyone on me.” She let a moment pass, then continued. “More, it is here I was trained to speak. Here, I know how to be heard. How not to be heard as well.”
“You wanted to ask me about my people.” Flynn recalled the lies spun to gain her trust.
“I want to know your feelings, beastman,” she said, “when my people came to yours, when they brought our ways upon you.”
Throughout the day, Flynn had caught talk around town. The people of Cordom—all Saryu—were proud of what they believed. The Goddess Hapané lay across their lives like a blanket, one that kept them warm and safe, one that they would cover all the lands with.
“Their arrival was a welcome blessing on a backwards people,” Flynn told her with gentle passion. Whether this was what Chari was looking to hear, he was unsure, but he knew how to tell the lies that would keep him alive.
“I see,” was all she said at first, her tone betraying nothing. “You might settle well in Cordom, if you see fit to stay.”
A silence lingered as Flynn wondered how long this blessing would last. He suspected the answer was as long as Chari wished it to.
“I’ve closeted my fears,” she spoke softly, “that we force a way of life on people that their hearts have not found. That we’ve merely impressed faith upon them, made them recite words until they knew no others to believe.”
Flynn, false diplomat to a people he’d never before met or known, had no response.
“Are my worries in vain?”
Though wanting to believe her genuine, Flynn knew no safe way to learn. He had baited a hundred into confidence, drawn the curtains of security and siphoned out the darkest of secrets. But he didn’t know enough about this world to chance it, and surely Chari had too much to her name to genuinely challenge the order she was part of.
“I believe they are. I’ve only seen the Saryu do good,” he answered at last.
She stood up and smiled, then bowed to him. “Welcome to Cordom and the Saryu faith, a brother in the fold.” The blessing was over, it seemed, and very much to the point, she said, “Let’s head back.”
He followed her up the path to the door, slowing to a stop as he looked to the place where he’d seen her cradling the sword the night before. Yet the sword was gone and Chari, glancing back at him first in bewilderment, then following his gaze, smiled and said, “I’ve one more thing to show you.”
*
A short distance from the cathedral grounds, Chari led Flynn to a square he hadn’t seen before. The moons had begun to rise and their surroundings were lit by torchlight. People had gathered—a distant whimper to what the cathedral could hold, yet brimming for the space. A wooden platform in the middle was elevated enough that even those stuck in the back could see. Chari, as High Priestess, did not suffer such a lowly place in the crowd, nor did Flynn in her company.
An older woman came out on the stage, dressed like Chari, though in fabric of crimson and beads of black. She wore a pair of smoke-lensed spectacles like the ones that hid Flynn’s unnatural eyes. Her hair was short, dark, and graying. “Inquisitor Carmella Thunau,” Chari told him. “She’s operated in Cordom for the last fifteen years.”
Inquisitor?
“My sisters and brothers in the eyes of the Goddess,” Carmella called out, her voice raw and impassioned, “though it always warms me inside to see so many faithful Saryu, it is warmth betrothed to pain.”
As she spoke, a burly, hooded figure escorted an emaciated woman to the stage; she had been stripped and beaten. Her hair was a tangle of filth and blood, her eyes dry and red. Her lips were pursed, but there were gaps visible between her teeth.
“I see so little of the outside and when I do, it is always with a heavy heart as it means I have found a heretic, and must flush them from this world.”
The miserable woman was set on her knees, her head bowed in exhaustion. She was not restrained, and appeared too far gone to even move without being whipped. As her escort left the stage, a handsome man in silver armor—a different cut from the guards that walked the city streets—brought Carmella a package wrapped in white cloth. She let the white cloth fall into a measured bunch in her off-hand, and was left holding the ceremonial sword Flynn had seen the night before. Predicting what was to come—he had wanted to do something better, something meaningful with his life—Flynn thought about leaping onto the stage and striking the Inquisitor down where she stood. Would the people—closing in to kill him for murdering an icon—deserve the same fate? How many would have to die before they finally overwhelmed him? Three? Five?
Flynn did nothing.
Carmella knelt next to the woman and handed her the cloth; the woman wept, not from piety but from fear. The Inquisitor regarded her coldly as the woman held the bunched cloth to her heart with both hands, spreading her fingers as apart as she could. She wanted to run, push through the crowd; Flynn could tell. If she had had a little more courage, perhaps she could have. But even though he was unable to see Carmella’s eyes through her dark lenses, he knew she had battered out what courage this woman had left.
“I consign you to death, Goddessless heathen,” Carmella declared, bringing the sword up behind the woman’s back. “Go now to death and oblivion with the false goddesses whom you so desperately preached, save Hapané’s light Herself should rescue thee.”
Carmella brought the sword down through the woman’s back, and the beaten woman lurched as it pierced her heart, as well as the cloth she clung to so dearly. She clenched it to the wound, and Flynn realized as it soaked her blood that it was there to keep the show a little cleaner for the masses. The woman sputtered on the blade, choked on her own blood, and died with terror in her eyes. Whatever goddess she had believed in had not been there in her final moments.
Flynn looked around at the many faces in the crowd, some pleased with their own self-righteousness, others praying for the wom
an despite her consignment to oblivion. It was only Chariska Jerhas who dared shed a tear for the death of the faithless. Before it could touch her cheek, she wiped it away, took Flynn’s wrist, and led him from the crowd.
Chapter Six: Necessary Sins
Chariska Jerhas was a liar. Flynn didn’t know for how long or to what depths her untruths sunk, but she was, and had been since they’d met. He felt stupid, in a way, for not recognizing a fellow wolf among sheep sooner, but he also knew in truth they could not have been more different. Flynn’s lies harmed others for his own benefit, while Chari’s only hurt herself.
Survival was their single common ground.
“Was this what you meant?” Flynn asked as they walked back. “At the cathedral?”
“It was a blessing for a brother in faith, nothing more,” was all she said, keeping her hands clasped together. She had not become colder toward him or changed in any way, save the small distance between them. He wished now he hadn’t abandoned her. Death like they’d witnessed, as many times as she’d seen it before, must have torn at her insides.
There were no more words exchanged between them as they returned to her home, but her voice stayed in his head nonetheless. I tried to reach out to you. You swatted my hand away. He had learned early never to trust lightly. Had Chari been too eager to extend hers, or he too reticent with his? Flynn knew his lies would fall under scrutiny. However he might negotiate his own way through, he couldn’t account for the well-being of Jean or Mack. Seldom had his schemes involved the long-term welfare of others. There were truths about the three of them that Chari could never have touched upon, yet still she understood something fundamental that set them apart from her own people. Knowing something was amiss, she had tried to speak with him about it, and he’d shut her out. He wondered for a time whether she’d ever opened up to another before. Was he, an outsider, the first she’d taken the chance with?
*
Chari and Flynn relied on counterfeit cheer to get them through dinner. Both were good for it, though their expressions could not have come from more different places. Neither Jean nor Mack noticed anything amiss, and neither of the late returners spoke of the day gone by. There were no telltale glances to betray a mutual secret; it was though nothing had happened at all.
Outcasts of the Worlds Page 11