by Daniel Casey
A better part of the day trotting over the foothills and galloping through the flat fields before the highlands began to rise up before them was spent in silence. None of the four spoke much to each other; Roth had said nothing the whole time.
Finally, as dusk approached Roth pulled his horse up short and waited for the others to come up to him, “Reg should just be over the next ridge,” he pointed.
“You made camp in one of the dead villages?” Wynne asked.
“Seemed appropriate.” Roth’s tone was humoring.
“We just assumed that those were…I don’t know, too hazardous.”
“Well, they definitely seem a windstorm away from collapse, but some of them are a lot heartier than they look.”
“I thought there were still hill folk that lived there.” Fery asked.
“‘Hill folk,’” Roth said derisively, “live elsewhere, the dead villages are too…conspicuous…”
“Conspicuous?” Kira asked.
Roth looked at Kira, “The Cathedral has been hunting highlanders for generations.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Kira winced.
“When they say ‘hill folk,’” Roth said curtly nodding at Fery and Wynne, “they mean Athingani.”
Kira blushed; Fery looked between then both, “You’re?”
“Athingani.” Roth said assertively, “A bit, I just was raised among them.”
“Since when do they take in strangers?” Wynne asked.
“They don’t,” Roth replied through his teeth.
“I didn’t realize that…that the Light did such things.” Kira’s voice broke.
“They do. They make it a point to.”
Wynne looked at Kira, “Your great-grandfather, Arsene Parmentier, was the Patriarch then and was bullied to issue the first edict against the Athingani.”
“What was that? 60 years ago? How can that still be going on?” Fery asked.
“Arius pushed Parmentier out after he schemed to have the edicts issued. Many say the current Patriarch wrote them all and imprisoned Parmentier until he signed them all.” Wynne added.
“Edicts by the Cathedral are never rescinded,” Roth was full of contempt, “The Zealots file them away and follow them at their whim.”
“That’s not fair. That’s not how it works.” Kira was red-faced, a mixture of shame and anger.
“Don’t tell me how it works.” Roth snapped, “‘Whosoever kills an Athingani will be guilty of no murder,’ that was the edict. Cassubian, Silvincian, and, yes, Essian cities all realized they had an open invitation to kill off the Athingani, to make their land part of their own kingdom. All of these hills, those highlands,” Roth pointed, “Taken and divvied up between the three, that’s how those nations got their land, made their borders. Genocide.”
“So the dead villages…” Fery whispered.
“There were other edicts as well. Anyone aiding the Athingani was sentenced to labor for five years. The dead villages were a mix of cleared out Athingani towns and labor camps.” Wynne said.
“Usually both.” Roth sneered.
There was silence as the four stood looking at the Siracenes. Roth tugged at this reins and continued on, he called behind him, “What’s done is done. We need a fire.” After a beat, the others followed.
Kira rode up beside Roth, “I didn’t know.”
“They wouldn’t have told you or taught you that.” He dismissed her apology.
“Still, it’s my family that codified it.” She asserted.
Roth raised a hand to stop her talking, “If it hadn’t been yours, then it would have been some other Spire clan. Arius didn’t become Patriarch through faith alone. He had sway in all the capitals.”
“I didn’t realize.” Kira shook her head, her eyes lowered.
“The Cathedral has had its fingers in everything for nearly a century. Don’t expect that to change.” Roth spurred his horse and rode on ahead.
“I can’t believe that…” Kira stuttered but then found herself calling after him, “I can’t believe that any true believer would do that, would allow it to happen.”
“True believers didn’t,” Wynne’s voice surprised Kira, as he seemed to be at her side as if by magic, but his tone was conspiratorial manner, “but The Cathedral isn’t run by true believers.”
Wynne moved on to catch up with Roth. Kira hesitated and waited for Fery. “Your friend seems quite angry,” she said as she approached Kira.
“He seems to have reason.” Kira sounded weary.
Bandra
This would be the part where someone pushes a stone aside to reveal a secret passage, Goshen thought of Kira’s illuminated manuscripts. Stories of heroes rescuing imprisoned prophets and blessed women, their romances as they founded holy armies to bring the true Light to the heatheners. She devoured those tales—The Wace of Gersui, Yvor and Nolan, The Canon Brotherhood, the seemingly endless Devotions of Lampard, and the Crystal Chapel. He had read them to her when she was a girl, and as a young woman, she read at least one a day on top of her proper studies. So this was too perfect, an imprisoned paladin in need of grace.
Only he wasn’t a paladin any more. The Light had abandoned him. Quite literally, he thought, since he had been thrown down into this black penitentiary. His only light came in dream or when the guards randomly came to throw him a bowl of cold, snot-like porridge. This wasn’t imprisonment; rather this was punishment, his penitence. He dreamt of Kira being alive, he hoped for it but he couldn’t say. The last time he saw her face, that last moment before he blacked out, she was standing bow in hand defiant. After that, his memory was all fevered snippets. There was another voice, a face with grey eyes and Kira’s voice accusing, cajoling, and protesting. He had blurred visions of being dragged over bogs, of being surrounded by the tumult of a marketplace, and of being in a dark, silent room reeking of liniments.
Had Kira been with him that whole time? Had she been killed after he was wounded? Was she out there, waiting for him, in need, surrounded by outlaws and heatheners? Early on, he tormented himself with these kind of questions. He created scenarios where she was beaten bloodied, broken, or a flesh slave; where she was filthy, hiding in the alleyways of Anhra fending off rats for spoiled food; where she stumbled through the marsh, lost and confused letting the earth take her life from her. Goshen’s failure needled him, his “coarse failure” as the legate who had sentenced him had said.
The cold stone was not going to give way. There would be no rescue; there could be no rescue. Goshen had to atone for his deficiency, for the offense of weakness. He wasn’t a paladin any longer, he was a shamed warden and the shame would plague him for the rest of his sad life. In this hole, he thought, I will not rot, I will petrify, a nameless gravestone.
They healed him, raised him to fitness, tried him, and then threw him down into this darkness. What had it been since the lowlands? Maybe a month, maybe more. He was losing his sense of time. Losing. No, he had lost it already. The cell was a rough cut deep into stone; he suspected that they had just thrown him into a hole they had carved in a mountainside. He remembered when they had pulled him out of his cell after his sham of a trial. That cell was a luxury compared to this—a full high window that let sunlight flood the room, a bed with a thick straw cot, and even a desk. They had pulled him out of that cell and put a canvas hood over his head when they brought him to this cell. It was dark and then it was darker and then they pulled off the hood and all he saw was the deepest black.
At first, he had felt his way around this new cell. It was jagged, there were odd slashes marked in the stone. He found the door, he could tell it was wooden by the texture but it felt just as hard and cold as the walls around him. No light came from the seams or hinges; he had nothing in the cell. He wore a thin, hemp tunic, no pants only his underclothes, and scratchy slippers. At night, he curled up into a fetal position and used his slippers as pillow. He slept, woke, and then slept again. There was nothing else for him to do. His eyes winced when th
e guards came with his food. They held torches that blinded him at first but then gave him just enough to see his cell in a gray shadow. It had gone like this for hours, days, weeks; he had no idea really. He only knew that it felt like forever yet seemed like only a moment ago.
He slept, he woke, and then he slept again. This was his routine. When he did eat, the mucus-like porridge tasted bitter. He ate it all yet never felt full. He’d put the bowl between his slippers and had the semblance of a firmer pillow. It did little for him. His back was knotted, his neck stiff with a crick in it, his thighs sore, and his shoulders burning from how he had to lay. One of his limbs was always tingling asleep leaving him with no sense of touch. It was becoming more and more difficult to stand and as such, he was becoming less and less interested in trying to do so.
What day it was he didn’t know but he heard in the distance the sound of hard boot heels, the clatter and creak of iron, and hard voices. Goshen realized he was lying on his side, and he pushed himself up to a sitting position with his back against a wall. He had no idea how near or far he was from the door to his cell; it was too dark. The guards were getting closer, then he heard the locks and the sliding of the heavy wooden door as torch light flooded his cell. Goshen was entirely blind; he saw only a glaring white beacon with no definition. Suddenly there was a yank on his manacle chain, “Up with ya.” Goshen fell forward, his legs too numb to move.
“C’mon, I’ve not time for this.” The guard reached down grabbing Goshen at the armpit and wrist practically dragging him toward the door.
“Wait…what…” Goshen’s eyes were beginning to focus, the guard’s riveted brigandine was wet and he wore no sword but rather two degens. He pulled Goshen along more roughly, mumbling. The light of the torch illuminated the hall from the cell, which turned out to be little more than a poorly carved tunnel. With no flat floor, Goshen had a difficult time staying on his feet. The tunnel seemed to go on forever and although he had already fallen down a dozen times Goshen was beginning to stabilize.
“Where are we going?”
“What do you care? Rather’ve stayed in the pit?” The guard guffawed. The tunnel rose up and then opened to a proper cellblock hall. The pair stood still for a moment, and then the guard pushed Goshen back against the wall.
“Hold this,” he shoved the torch in his hand, stepped back and drew his degens. Goshen’s body tensed and he held his breath, why kill him out here and like this? The guard then turned and disappeared down the hall.
Goshen listened for any sound, he heard boot steps, he heard talking, quarreling really, then a clash of metal. There was a deep silence. Looking around, he saw there were bodies pushed against the far wall, stacked upon each other lengthwise. Goshen squinted as he tried to keep himself up right against the wall and saw that the bodies were other guards. There was a black looking pool beneath the bodies slowly making its way towards the opening of the tunnel towards his former cell. These guards were freshly dead. His mind raced as Goshen tried to piece this scene together but he kept coming up short, losing his train of thought. His grip on the torch tightened, the only weapon he had, but it gave him away. He turned around and looked down the tunnel, when he spied a sconce a few feet in. Goshen set the torch, and then stepped back into the hall near the stacked bodies, well shadowed. He waited.
This wasn’t right; this guard was doing something queer. The thought flashed across his mind, you can escape.
“How?” he mouthed, he thought he caught a faint echo of movement. “I can’t follow after him…I have no idea where this all leads.”
You have to do something, you can’t just squat here. He thought.
You can’t just walk out, I need a weapon, I need to break these binders…fuck…I need shoes
You can get them on your way.
I’m too weak to beat the guardsmen.
You’re not so weak. What else are you going to do?
Wait here.
For that guard to come back and drag you to the headsman?
They wouldn’t kill me.
You’re not a paladin anymore.
“I am.”
“What the hell are you muttering?” the guard came out of the darkness behind him startling Goshen.
“Damn it.” Goshen thought to strike out at the guard but he realized he didn’t have the balance or strength.
“Smart with the torch. Almost thought to go look for you in there,” the guard nodded and then thrust into Goshen’s arms a jack of plates, boots, and a single sleeve pauldron. He grabbed the manacle chain and pulled it up toward his face, “Hold your hands up.”
The guard was fumbling through a key ring trying one, then another, then another, he cursed, and then found one that worked, “Fucking finally. Now get dressed, double quick.”
“What’s going on here?” Goshen dressed as best and fast as he could.
“For a hero, you’re pretty fucking stupid.” The guard scoffed, “I’m getting you out of here.”
“Who are you?”
“Declan.” He slapped him on the back and it almost landed Goshen on the floor.
“Goshen.”
“Yeah,” Declan shook his head, “I know who you are, ya dolt.”
“Sorry…I’m not quite…”
“Again, I know.” Declan pushed a flanged mace into Goshen’s hand, it was lighter than he was use to—maybe just under three marks—but it hardly mattered he was too out of sorts to really be effective with it, “Just stay close to me.”
“You cleared the cell block?”
Declan nodded, “Not really a cellblock. You’re the only prisoner here. At least, far as I know. Might be some more Hopeless squirreled away but they’re not our concern, eh?” Declan gave him a playful slap on the cheek. “There’s a stairway up to a garth,” he reached down and pulled a thin mail hood off one of the guard bodies, then held it out to Goshen, “I don’t think anyone will recognize you but all the same, put this on.”
They moved up the stairs, Declan gestured for Goshen to harness the mace, “We walk out of here and to the left, no rush and no worry. Once out of the courtyard, we follow the hall to the guard kiosk, a chokepoint that I’ve already cleared for us but we havta ‘urry.”
Goshen nodded but he was sweating like a madman. It was taking all of his focus to stay standing. Declan continued, “Then we’ll be in a huge quadrangle,” he put out his hand to calm Goshen, “we just follow the path and it’ll take us to the bazaar.”
“We just disappear into the crowd then.”
“Something like that.”
Goshen grabbed Declan’s arm as tightly as he could, “I need to know what’s going on.”
Declan smirked, “I’ll tell you once we’re out of here. I’ll tell you what’s happened to Kira.”
It was enough. He felt a surge go through him, just enough conviction to keep him moving. Goshen let go and followed. There were other guards milling about but none of them seemed pressed to any particular task, he figured they must have been in some kind of barracks. The two moved quickly but without panic, casually and no one seemed to pay them much heed. Goshen was seeing stars and it mystified him how he was still on his feet. The lawn was empty and it seemed that Declan picked up his pace a bit, uncomfortable with being so exposed. Coming down a wide and long stone stair they found themselves in the midst of a bustling market. Before stepping down to street level, Goshen could see that the multicolored tarps and overhangs of the bazaar stretched for blocks.
Declan came back up the stairs and slapped Goshen’s chest with the back of his hand hard, “Wake up. We’re not done yet.”
The two joined the throng of people moving, browsing, trading, and hawking. Declan stayed tight to Goshen’s side shepherding him along. It was nearly too much all at once for Goshen, he didn’t know how long he had been down in the cell but it was long enough to ruin his stamina. His joints were burning, his feet were sore, and it felt like his skin was burning.
“I’m not going to make it.”
Goshen muttered.
“Don’t worry, we’re here.” Declan lead them down a narrow alley, about halfway down they were in front of a tall thin green door.
“I can’t keep…” Goshen’s knees gave way, but Declan had a firm hold of him. Declan threw open the door and dumped Goshen inside. On all fours, Goshen dry heaved and coughed.
“That’s the gruel working its magic on you.” Declan closed the door and barred it. He crossed the room and began to remove the leather guard armor.
“The gruel?” Goshen choked out.
“They feed it to all Hopeless, the porridge. Keeps them barely alive and weak.” This was a different voice; Goshen looked up and saw the woman. He tried to stand but staggered and went back down to one knee.
“You’re gonna be sick for a while, yer body is working the poison out of your system.” Declan spoke, then threw down a bota, “Drink that, it’s an amber and will get that bile taste out of your mouth. Put some energy back in ya too.”
Goshen took the bota up, twisted it open and drank. The beer was welcome; as he drank, he sat back against the door. He watched Declan tossing the guard armor away with his back to him and the woman sitting at table staring at Goshen.
Goshen raised a finger, “You.”
“Jena.” She sighed, “Good to see you’re not dead.”
“Where’s Kira?”
“The girl I thought was Kira was a whore and she’s dead now.”