Nustenzia shrugged her bony shoulders. “Do not call them gods then. But, as I said, I would suggest not calling them the latter either.”
“So,” Vendurro asked slowly, the word stretching out. “Are there any gods on this side of the Veil at all, that the Des— . . . that your giant masters up there serve?”
“None that I have seen, no,” Nustenzia said.
“So what do you worship then? Them?” Vendurro pointed at the Deserters ahead.
Nustenzia said, “Why would we worship beings who are not gods?”
Crunching some dried flowers underfoot, I said, “But they might be. Gods, that is. That it depended on how you defined the term.”
She replied, “I said it depends on how you define the term. I do not presume to instruct you on religion.”
Mulldoos slapped his thigh. “See! Told you they weren’t plaguing gods! Even Runeface there can plaguing see that.”
Vendurro turned to the captain as we rounded a corner. “Huh. Well, ain’t that a kick in the crotch. This whole time, a plaguing thousand years and then some, and folks been pining for something that never existed at all. Can’t say if I’m sad or glad.”
Mulldoos gave a wet-sounding laugh. “We ever make it back, you can evangelize to every dumb plaguing bastard we come across, spread the word, see how they like hearing they been frauded since the beginning of time. Love to see that. Right before they stick a spit up your ass and roast you over a fire.”
Nustenzia said flatly, “I would not worry overmuch about leaving.”
The Matriarch led us down another long hall until we came to a stairwell with a massive Deserter on either side. As always, there were no doors.
As we approached, Vendurro said in a rough whisper, “You’re human. Why do you plaguing serve the Deserters?”
“Tsk. That word. Unhealthy word for you. Do not use it. And as to why— they have longer legs, and there is nowhere to run. Now be silent.”
The Matriarch allowed us to catch up, then she started down the spiral stairs, and Nustenzia indicated we should follow. Even though going down was easier than up, my legs were still wobbly when we finally reached the bottom. There were some scattered sconces on the walls, obviously to aid any human slaves that had to use the stairs, but fewer than in any normal human castle or tower, and I proceeded carefully to avoid slipping and twisting or breaking my ankles in the deep shadows.
But I was about to discover I had no idea what dark was.
There was a single doorway at the landing. And unlike all the others in the citadel, this one had a thick wooden door, currently open. I heard something beyond that took me a moment to place. Gently lapping water.
The Matriarch and the two attending Deserters kept walking into the chamber beyond, along with four guards. Nustenzia moved closer to the captain, lowering her voice as she said, “Your eyes will be useless beyond. Stay close to each other. And remember, whatever befalls you, she did not bring you here to kill you. You should survive this. But do not fight it. It will go easier.”
Braylar said, “Are we supposed to believe you’re suddenly looking out for our overall health and happiness?”
She gave him a chilly stare, her face mostly obscured in shadow with the torch on the wall several steps above us. “We are all still humans, are we not?”
A Deserter near us hit Azmorgon in the back with the flat of the haft of his spiked weapon. The brute nearly spun around to confront the giant, but Vendurro and Mulldoos both restrained him. Braylar said, “Well, it is rude to keep a host waiting. Let’s follow without any incidents like getting impaled or bludgeoned to death, yes?”
We walked through the doorway and into another stone hallway. I looked back, and whatever weak flickering light was showing along the bottom was quickly snuffed out as well, and the last thing I could make out at all was that the hall took a sharp left. Feeling my way along the wall, I walked blindly until the hall disappeared. We were in some underground vault or chamber, but beyond that, the blackness was now absolute, and I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. I had no idea about dimensions or what could possibly be waiting ahead. The sound of moving or splashing water was louder.
Vendurro said, quietly, “Plaguing dark, ain’t it?”
Mulldoos answered, just as quietly, “Real plaguing astute.”
The Syldoon in front of me took a few hesitant steps, and I forced myself to follow, though walking into the inky unknown was as terrifying as anything I’d ever done.
Matriarch Vrulinka called out from somewhere thirty or forty paces ahead, her voice alternating between rasping and sibilant. “Step forward. The problem with Foci is that they do sometimes overstep, but Nustenzia was absolutely correct about one thing. I did not bring you here to murder you. Intentionally at least. Step forward, step forward.”
I heard some more footsteps in front of me, small ones from the sounds of it. I moved forward slowly with my arms straight out in front of me, shuffling along until my hand hit something and I nearly yelped.
Azmorgon said, “Quit playing grab ass, you tiny fuck.”
The voices echoed wildly here, but that still did nothing to tell me about how large a space it was really. I waited until I heard Azmorgon move. Part of me wanted to stay as close to the Syldoon as possible, but my fear of the unknown in the chamber was balanced out by my fear of Azmorgon’s temper.
After a moment, I scuffled forward again, listening, straining to hear the captain and his men in front of me. There was more soft splashing ahead, rhythmic, like small waves. Was it an underground lake? A pool connected to the bizarre lake in the center of the citadel compound? Something else?
My mind started racing, one fear colliding into another—what else might be in the room besides our Deserter hosts; how deep was the water ahead and what might be lying beneath the surface; what did the Matriarch intend to do to us; if this was what Soffjian experienced; if I would live to walk back out of this room.
Vrulinka said, “There. Stop.”
There were no more footsteps in front of me, and it sounded like I had fallen a little further behind, so I took a few more steps until I closed in on the sound of someone breathing heavily and then stopped as well.
No one else was moving—there was only the breathing, and the still distant sound of water striking some unseen shore.
The Matriarch called out, “You have entered my land, uninvited, and I would know why.”
After a pause, Captain Killcoin said, “We were fleeing enemies on the other side of the Veil. We had no intention of entering your lands, being unsure if even attempting to do so would prove mortal folly, but we had no other options at the time either. So, desperate and trapped, we crossed the Veil.”
The Matriarch’s disembodied voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. “And yet you did not cross back at the first opportunity.”
Braylar said, “That is untrue. We intended to continue north until we were confident we wouldn’t encounter our enemies on the other side again. We were forced to navigate around a river. And that is when we encountered the grove. And your . . . kin. They attacked us on sight, and we defended ourselves.”
There was a laugh that was jagged with clicks not made by a human mouth. “So, a large armed band of humans, all defenseless victims. Is that what you would have me believe, fragile human? Perhaps you understand my . . . skepticism.”
Braylar said, “You do forget. We humans from the other side revered you as gods. Well, revered and hated, on account of that abandoning business that features so prominently in our theology. But gods nonetheless. Do you really suppose we armed ourselves, crossed the Veil, and went hunting for gods for sport?”
Vrulinka was still chuckling and clicking. “I am unfamiliar with the subtleties of your awful tongue, but that struck me as somewhat . . . thornier than expected.”
“You prefer straightforward and unadorned?” Braylar asked. “Very well. We did not cross the Veil to challenge, assess, or explore, and certain
ly not with intent to create more enemies. But some blood was spilled on both sides—mostly ours—and then you wiped out half our company with a much smaller group and imprisoned the rest here. So perhaps you can see why I am skeptical that you consider us any threat at all, Matriarch.”
No one spoke right away, and the sound of breathing and rippling water was magnified. With each passing moment, I began to fear the worst, when Vrulinka finally replied. “The Focus was correct. You are a pestilence. Or plague carriers. Much like the birds or vermin that on their own could not damage you, but have proven over time to carry a disease that nearly wipes you out. A simplification? Yes. Entirely accurate? No. But that is how the majority of my people view you. So you see, when an armed band crosses over for the first time in history, there is bound to be some alarm. My council has already called for your execution. Many times in fact. So, your very presence here is something of a conundrum. That is the word, is it not? Conundrum. So I must ascertain the state of things.”
Braylar asked, “You are not speaking of the plague that ravages our land from time to time, are you? What pestilence do we carry that can harm the likes of you?”
Vrulinka’s voice seemed to somehow expand, as if coming from all directions at once, and even seemed to be echoing in my skull. “Your memories, Syldoon. Your virulent, turbulent, colorful, poisonous memories . . .”
But before anyone could respond, I experienced the oddest sensation—though my eyes were still useless in the deep black of the chamber, I suddenly saw an image in my mind, or several flickering shards of images, though unlike anything I had seen before. I “saw” the outline, the texture, the contours, of a long four-fingered Deserter hand, flexing, closing, flexing, closing.
It was as if I somehow saw the hand, but bleached of all color, and with a wealth of details I could never have seen with my own eyes—the tiny individual hairs that made up the Deserter’s hide, shifting, rippling, as the muscles underneath moved to form what passed for a fist, the veins in the flesh taking on new trajectories as the flesh clenched.
I heard someone, probably Vendurro, say, “Plague. Me.” But it sounded very far away, as if it were an echo of something he said from hundreds of yards away, something distant and weak and immaterial, or possibly something I recalled from a distant time, though part of me knew that wasn’t the case.
I had the powerful feeling of being a Deserter, looking at its hand, but that was impossible too, as they had no eyes to do so. And then the sensations shifted further, and I felt utterly unmoored—the image of the hand seemed to become less substantial, ghostly, until only the faintest flicker of an outline remained, and then it shot out away from me, quicker than a bolt, quicker than anything. Not just directly in front of me, but on all sides all at once. A hundred thousand outlines of that hand, maybe more, loosed into the depth everywhere around me.
I felt my stomach churn and twist and was immediately nauseous, as my mind had difficulty making sense of what it was experiencing—it was like when you spin around as a child so many times, you can’t see anything on your final twists and it feels as if you are looking everywhere at once.
With human eyes, it was impossible, and yet the sensation remained—the outline of the phantom hand flying off in all directions, faster than anything, and suddenly returning, so forcefully I raised my hands in front of my face to protect myself.
I knew it wasn’t real, or at least wasn’t a physical thing that could harm me, but it felt as if countless wasps were flying at me from every direction at once. This happened again and again, and the nausea increased, and I gagged and dropped to one knee, closing my eyes as if that would somehow stop what was happening, though it had nothing to do with human sight.
And it kept repeating, over and over, the phantom hand flashing out and returning, absolutely disorienting, and my mind fought against the utterly foreign sensation, resisting it the same way you might try to wake yourself in the middle of a horrible nightmare and continue to fail.
But then something even stranger began to occur. It wasn’t the phantom hand flashing out and back too fast to track, but I started to sense the dimensions of the chamber we were in, about fifty yards wide, and several hundred yards long, with two rows of columns supporting the roof, and I saw the silhouette of three Deserters some distance away—it was like catching the outline of something as a lightning storm raged, and you managed to identify bits and pieces in the briefest flashes of light, to make sense of what was out there. Only there was no light at all. Just the phantom hand, flashing out and back repeatedly, and each time, I saw, or felt at least, the shape of the room, the shifting ripples in the distant water, the figures of the other Syldoon, all kneeling or bent over, save the captain, and between us and the water, the three Deserters observing us.
I still had to fight off the urge to vomit all over myself, and while it wasn’t getting easier, it had plateaued and didn’t seem to be getting any worse. There was only the disorienting dizziness, the failure to completely understand what was occurring, and the ability to somehow feel the shape and texture of everything around me.
The Matriarch’s voice again seemed to be ricocheting inside my skull. “You see. We are very different, your kind and mine. We might not be gods. But we are more than men. And still, we are susceptible. So susceptible.”
The phantom hands and the contours of the room and its inhabitants suddenly disappeared, and I was plunged back into the black, as if a thick hood had been thrown over my head, and it was a relief, as I no longer tasted bile in my throat, but it felt crippling as well. What I experienced was a sense far more precise and voluminous than sight, and having it stripped away felt like the greatest loss imaginable.
I started to rise slowly, experiencing a blindness that was even worse than having my eyes plucked out, but glad to at least be trapped in my own limited senses again, when they were ripped asunder.
It felt as if I had been torn from my body, and was devoid of any sensations at all—the queasy stomach, the sounds of breathing and gagging and the gentle water lapping at the other end of the chamber, the stench of sweat despite the cold damp, the damp itself, everything was stripped away.
The Matriarch’s voice was again everywhere and nowhere. “You. You are limited, deviant, destructive, lustful creatures. Doomed. You are doomed. We are not your gods, though if we had been, I imagine we would have destroyed you. But it was not your doomed nature that drove us away. But this. This and this and this . . .”
From nothingness, a total void of sensation at all, I was suddenly overwhelmed, oppressed, trampled under an onslaught of images, sounds, smells, feelings, so many feelings, like walking through the Veil surrounding Roxtiniak again, only tenfold more potent and devastating . . .
A woman, face pale, drenched in sweat, hair slick strands all over the pallet she lay on, reaching up, arms trembling, tired, exhausted, her body a pulsing oven of pain, and still she was driven by desperation, fear, and the sliver of hope. Eyes wide, she told herself that the silence was fine, it was normal, it didn’t mean anything at all. Every birth was different. Some babes just took longer to adjust to their new world, to work the sweet air into their lungs. That’s all it was. That’s all it could be.
She called someone over . . . the midwife? An older woman with a face like a dried up riverbed appeared above her, lips pressed tight into a white slit. The exhausted woman shook her head, mouth opening but not emitting the slightest sound, tears and sweat streaking down her trembling cheeks. “My child? Please. Where . . . bring me my child . . . please . . . don’t . . .”
The midwife slowly handed her the dead body of her blood-smeared child and the woman screamed, a wretched, searing sound as hope bled out . . .
Two men grappled in the filth and debris of an alley, rolling over each other, trying to get purchase, both fighting over a dagger. The larger man ended up on his back, losing control of the blade, smelling the sour stench of ale and garlic on his assailant’s breath. He blocked several s
lices with his forearms and hands, tried to grab the smaller man’s arm again, missed, started to flail, twisting his torso, trying to roll the other man off with his legs, his head half-submerged in a puddle as he thrashed. The man on top straddled him, trying to cut him again, cursing as he hit nothing that would end the fight, and got his elbow in on the fat man’s jowls, pushed him to the side, tried to drown the bastard if he couldn’t stab him to death.
The fat man was panicking, choking on mud and piss and unknown sludge, and stopped worrying about the dagger or the pain it was inflicting and punched blindly, hitting the smaller man in the throat. His assailant fell off, and the fat man rolled to his side, sputtering, panting, wondering if the piss he tasted was his own. He looked at his assailant struggling as well and thought about getting up and running for the broad avenue nearby, calling for the guard, but his fear gave him a surge of strength, and he crawled towards the smaller man, struck him in the shoulder with a fist, the chest, and finally the head again. His assailant was on his back, eyes fluttering, the side of his head bleeding into a puddle, but the larger man got on top of him, choked him with his fat, short fingers, turned the smaller man’s head, and drowned him in three inches of water as the rain continued to fall . . .
The grandmother had lost her son to a skirmish along the Anjurian Syldoon border. She never cared much about borders before, and had no more cause to care now. They were just lines in the dirt greedy men drew to say this is mine and that’s yours. All she knew was having her son stationed near one meant there was more chance for him to get cut down.
She tried to prepare herself for that, to steel herself for when the news arrived that her boy was dead, killed over a line in the dirt. But you just can’t. No amount of telling yourself a thing can happen over and over is ever enough when the real thing comes.
They say a parent should never have to put her child in the ground. And that’s the truth. But it happens all the time. The plague, an accident, some other disease. Children die, especially little ones. But once they reach adulthood, you hope it will be them burying you and not the other way around.
Chains of the Heretic Page 25