The Priest

by Rowan McAllister

“Praise be!” the village replied as Girik stepped onto the dais.

  With his stomach attempting a somersault in his belly, Girik drew in a shaking breath, cast a quick prayer to Quanna, Moc, and Chytel as he passed by their carved likenesses on the screen, and followed the brother to the concealed stairway behind it.

  Though almost never used, the trapdoor and stone steps leading down into the earth were polished and gleaming, without a speck of dust to mar their surfaces. Enough lamps had been lit in the chamber below that the stairwell glowed warmly even in the bright morning light streaming through the windows high in the temple walls, but the sight wasn’t at all reassuring.

  This was it. The waiting and worrying was over.

  Only a few hours of pain and Mama will be taken care of for the rest of her days, he reminded himself.

  After one last deep breath, he followed the priest down into the earth.

  Chapter Five

  TAS COULDN’T look at the man behind him as he moved to the single table in the room and began arranging his implements. The trapdoor above them closed with a heavy thud, cutting off the beginnings of a new hymn that would be sung in shifts by the villagers until Tas reemerged from the chamber. Ostensibly, the hymn was a continuation of the sentiments from the procession, a chance for the entire village to contribute and “sacrifice” for the cause, not just the Offering. But in reality, the music was designed to mask the screams of the Offering. The ritual chamber was lined in stone, and heavy rugs were placed over the trapdoor for the same reason. Air holes had been bored through the earth, emerging some distance from the chamber, so fresh air could come in but sound could not escape. Even so, it behooved the brother in charge to be swift in his work, before the air became too close and the stench of fear and other things too overwhelming.

  With the noise above deadened, every breath the Offering took and every movement he made echoed in the small chamber. Tas’s hands shook as he unrolled his leather cases and placed them prominently on the table. His very first lessons in performing the ritual had stressed the need to set the mood. The Offering’s fear heightened all of his or her responses a hundredfold. Simply seeing the tools that might or might not be used did half a brother’s job for him and lessened the amount of damage the brother had to inflict to get the same result.

  The man stood silent as Tas worked, only shifting slightly from foot to foot. With little to distract him, Tas finished his display long before he really wanted to. He couldn’t put it off any longer. This was it, the point he’d been dreading for weeks, the final test.

  Closing his eyes, Tas sent a prayer to Chytel for guidance and Moc for strength before he turned to face the village’s Offering. Now that they were up close and on level ground with each other, Tas had to tip his head back to take all of the man in. He could honestly say he’d never seen a man this big in his entire life. The ceiling of the chamber was less than a foot above his head.

  Swallowing bile, Tas lifted a hand to indicate the giant stone slab in the center of the room. “Please remove your robe and kneel facing the altar.”

  As the giant of a man tugged the robe over his head, Tas had to stop himself from sucking in a loud breath. The man was built as solidly as the stone slab he moved to kneel in front of. His broad shoulders and chest were corded with muscle, and not muscle for show, like the whores he’d seen in Rassat, but solid from a lifetime of hard work.

  When the man turned his back and knelt on the stone floor, Tas couldn’t stifle the gasp this time. Crisscrossing the giant’s broad back were dozens of lash and burn scars. The Offering threw a glance over his shoulder, his tawny eyebrows raised and his deep blue eyes questioning.

  Licking suddenly dry lips, Tas asked, “You’ve been an Offering before?”

  “Aye,” the giant rumbled.

  “That’s… unusual.”

  The giant’s hard lips curved slightly. “Aye.”

  The man wasn’t what Tas would have called traditionally handsome, but when he smiled—even a humorless one—he had a certain magnetism. It was a strange thought to be having only moments before Tas needed to begin extracting pain energy from him, but these were strange times. And honestly, Tas was looking for any excuse to put the inevitable off even one more second.

  Quanna aid me and guide my hands.

  Tas turned back to his worktable and fussed with his instruments unnecessarily. The dagger beetles chittered and clicked in their box, somehow sensing their time was near. Grimacing as the sound echoed off the stone walls, Tas reached for the box, but a sudden dizziness swept over him, forcing him to grab the edges of the table to hold himself up. Digging his fingernails into the table, he righted himself and lifted his chin. Breathing heavily to quell his nausea, he picked up one of the lit candles from the instrument table and turned back to the Offering. The man had obviously been watching him, but the confused V between his eyes disappeared and his expression blanked before he turned back to face the altar.

  Tasnerek’s glow had dampened considerably as soon as they’d closed out the drone of the bowls and the villagers’ hymn, but when Tas began to sing the Offering Ritual Hymn, the stone’s glow put the light from the lamps to shame.

  I can do this. I just need to take the first steps and the rest will flow as naturally as always.

  He’d chosen one of the least damaging and least painful of his tools for his own sake as much as the Offering’s. The hymn issued from his throat, filling the chamber with sound as Tasnerek hummed in harmony. Tas attempted to center himself, to make himself the conduit through which the energy would flow into the stone around his neck, charging it. This ritual had been performed by thousands of brothers over hundreds of years. He only had to do as he’d been taught.

  He stood over the Offering. As he sang, he saw the man’s back muscles twitch and quiver beneath the patchwork of scars… and he froze.

  This is wrong! A voice screamed inside his head.

  His song faltered as bile rose in his throat. He choked on it, and waves of heat and cold rushed over his skin. His bloodred robes were suddenly stifling. Dropping the candle on the stone floor, Tas clawed at the collar of his robe, trying to ease its stranglehold on his neck.

  “Brother?”

  Tas heard the Offering’s voice, but he couldn’t respond. He rushed to a corner of the room and fell to his knees before vomiting the entirety of the meager breakfast he’d been able to stomach. Crouched on the stone floor and shaking, he heaved until nothing more came out. When he finally sat back on his heels and opened his eyes, he found a cup of water held out to him.

  “Drink.”

  Tas took the cup gratefully and downed its contents in a single gulp. Humiliation kept him rooted to the spot and unable to speak, but the Offering said nothing more as he took the cup and refilled it from the pitcher he held before handing it back to Tas.

  Tas lingered over the second cup, not wanting to face what happened next, but he couldn’t put it off forever.

  “What’s your name?” he asked the giant of a man crouched next to him on the cold stone floor.

  The man blinked at him in surprise for a moment before answering, “Girik.”

  Tas moved to stand, and Girik offered his hand, but Tas shook his head. He needed to hold on to some of his dignity. After wiping a shaking palm across the clammy sweat beaded on his forehead, Tas cleared his throat and said, “Well, Girik, it appears we have a bit of a problem.”

  “Is this your first time?” Girik asked, his voice dripping sympathy Tas didn’t want or deserve.

  Tas’s shoulders stiffened, and he was on the verge of saying something biting, but before he could form the reprimand, the wind left his sails and he slumped against the wall. “No, not my first, not even my twenty-first, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh.”

  Girik seemed surprised, but Tas really couldn’t blame him. Tas looked younger than most of the Thirty-Six, although the stones didn’t discriminate based on age. But it was most likely Tas’s mortifying perfo
rmance thus far that had given the impression he was a novice.

  “Brother, are you ill? Should I call above?”

  “No!” Struggling for calm, Tas tried again at a little more reasonable volume. “Forgive me. No, that won’t be necessary. I’m not ill in the manner you think.”

  Girik raised a skeptical eyebrow, and Tas almost smiled. The man displayed none of the usual fear and reverence Tas had come to expect from the common folk. But then, Tas hadn’t done anything yet worthy of that reverence.

  With a gusty sigh, he pushed away from the wall and moved to the far side of the room, as far as he could get from the stench of his own vomit. Otherwise, he feared a repeat performance, despite the fact that there was nothing left in his stomach to eject. With nothing to sit on beyond the altar, and being unwilling to commit any more sacrilege than he already had, Tas slid to the floor with his back propped against the wall and pulled his knees to his chest. He was fairly certain the picture he presented was neither dignified not confidence-inspiring, but he was too drained to care.

  Giving up all pretense whatsoever, he closed his eyes and said, “I’m sorry.”

  He heard bare footsteps pad across the stone floor but didn’t bother to open his eyes.

  “Sorry for what exactly?” Girik asked.

  “I can’t do it. I thought I still could. I prayed I still could. But I can’t.”

  “What does that mean? What can’t you do?”

  “This,” Tas said, waving a hand to vaguely indicate the room. “All of it. I can’t do it.”

  “You mean you can’t do the ritual? You can’t help us? Did I do something wrong?”

  When Tas finally pried his eyes open, he found Girik watching him intently, his face a study in bewilderment and some of that fear Tas had expected.

  “No. You haven’t done anything wrong. This is all my fault… or honestly, the fault of a brother who died ages ago. But I’m the one who can’t seem to do my duty anymore.”

  Girik settled cross-legged on the floor, a respectful—or wary—few feet away. “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course not. How could you?” With a defeated sigh, Tas closed his eyes again and allowed his head to drop back against the wall. Maybe if he just stayed right where he was and didn’t move, the stones would swallow him up and he’d disappear. Maybe—

  “Well, that’s not good enough.”

  Tas’s eyes shot open, and he stared at the angry face in front of him in surprise. “What?”

  “I said, that’s not good enough,” Girik practically growled. “The people in this village are depending on you, on us. I’m here willingly. I’ll do my part. Now, you have to do yours.”

  “You don’t understand. I can’t.”

  “Why not? Your arms work. You can sing the hymns, and your stone certainly appears to be working.” He stabbed an angry finger at the now quiescent rock around Tas’s neck, and Tas had to fight the urge to wrap a protective hand around it.

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what?”

  Grinding his teeth in frustration, Tas gathered what strength he had left and pushed himself to his feet. He took a few agitated strides away from Girik and his damned disapproving expression, but that only brought him closer to the smell he was trying to avoid. Unfortunately, the other directions either led to the table with his instruments, the altar, or the stairway back to the waiting brothers and village, none of which he wanted to face.

  “I can’t tell you!” he cried in frustration, tears pricking his eyes.

  “Why?” Girik threw back at him. He had stood too, and even naked as a babe, his sheer size, fisted hands, and glaring eyes made an imposing image.

  “Because if anyone in this village knew the truth, the consequences the Brotherhood would rain down on you all to silence you would make dealing with a single Riftspawn seem like a holy day picnic, that’s why!”

  Tas clapped a hand over his mouth and goggled at the man in terror. Up until that second, he hadn’t even wanted to admit it to himself. The Brotherhood was his home, his family. His entire life revolved around his vocation. But if the Brotherhood had lied about something so fundamental to their beliefs, what else had they lied about? How many of the terrible rumors he’d dismissed over the years were true? Had he known all along and simply turned a blind eye for his own selfish reasons?

  Tas’s outburst seemed to take Girik aback for a moment, but he recovered quickly and set to inundating Tas with questions of his own. “So what happens, then? You just leave us with no explanation? We face the Spawn on our own and hope it doesn’t kill too many of us or kill enough of our livestock that we can’t survive the winter? Or we hope that the Brotherhood is generous enough to send someone to replace you? What?”

  Guilt stabbed at Tas, and he clutched Tasnerek as he curled in on himself. “I don’t know,” he whined.

  He’d been wracking his brain for weeks, hoping some sort of inspiration would come. But the truth was, he’d pinned too much on the hope he could still perform the ritual. He hadn’t wanted to admit even to himself that his faith lay in ruins at his feet. He never should have left Blagos Keep. Now he’d put this entire village in danger too.

  Could he live with himself if something happened?

  Even if he could, where would he go? The Brotherhood would never let him just walk away, not with Tasnerek around his neck. And the stone wouldn’t choose anyone new until he was dead.

  The dagger beetles chittered and clicked in the box, and Tas shivered and groaned.

  “What is that?” Girik asked, apparently distracted from his interrogation.

  “One of my instruments,” Tas replied, swallowing against a renewed tightness in his throat.

  Girik licked his lips and cast his glance between Tas and the table. “I still have no idea what’s going on, since you won’t tell me, but what if I did it to myself? What if all you had to do was take the pain that I inflicted on myself?”

  Tas blinked at the man in disbelief as guilt corkscrewed even deeper into his chest.

  Dear Gods, the man was willing to torture himself to aid his village and all Tas could do was whine. What had happened to him?

  “It can’t really work like that. The ritual… it won’t work.”

  “Have you tried?”

  Clearly the gods and this man weren’t going to let him take the coward’s way out. He wouldn’t be allowed to sit and do nothing in hopes this nightmare would all go away.

  “I haven’t,” he admitted. “But you wouldn’t be able to administer the needed amount and still remain conscious, even if I could somehow make the connection work without doing the deeds myself.”

  “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I could and could not withstand.”

  Tas dragged a frustrated hand through his hair as shame twisted inside his chest. He really only had one choice, at least only one he could stand to make. Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and lifted his gaze to meet Girik’s. “A rapport has to be established between Brother and Offering. I can’t simply sit back and watch and absorb. But it’s all right. I’m not going to leave the village undefended. I will face the Spawn and destroy it. Don’t worry.”

  “Without the ritual to charge your stone? How?”

  “It doesn’t matter how, just be assured I’ll do it.”

  Girik crossed his arms over his broad chest and frowned. “Sorry, Brother, but after all this, I’m not sure I can take you at your word. This is too important.”

  Tas arched an imperious eyebrow and lifted his chin. “It isn’t for you to question me.”

  Girik was clearly unimpressed with Tas’s attempt at bravado. After the humiliating display he’d put on thus far, Tas couldn’t exactly blame him.

  “Look,” Tas sighed. “Please just let it go. The Spawn will be taken care of. I promise you.”

  Girik shook his head. “Like you said, I can’t. Plus, the village will think I haven’t done my part if I leave here in perfect health, and yo
u know it. I can’t allow that. I have too much to lose.”

  Tas groaned, strode over to the stone altar, and flopped onto it. He was so far past sacrilege at this point, what was one more? A farmer from the edge of nowhere was ruining his big moment of noble self-sacrifice, and all he could feel was petulant about it.

  “I’m trying to do the right thing here, and you’re not making it easy.”

  “So am I,” Girik threw back at him. “The right thing would be to complete the ritual and go fully armed with every weapon at your disposal to face the Spawn.”

  “I can’t.”

  “But you won’t tell me why.”

  “I can’t,” Tas repeated tiredly.

  After a brief silence, Girik sighed and crossed the room. He sat on the altar, leaving a mere foot between them. Without looking at Tas, he said in a gentler tone, “You know, it’s only the two of us down here. No one above can hear us. If, as you say, the safety of the entire village relies on my silence, don’t you think I can be trusted to keep your secrets? You don’t know me. But obviously I’m willing to give my pound of flesh to protect them. Don’t you think I’d be willing to give them my silence? Tell me what’s wrong, and maybe I can find a solution you haven’t.”

  Tas’s first reaction was to scoff at the offer. Who did this country bumpkin think he was? But he caught himself midsneer. The man was clearly not an idiot. His points were all valid, and Tas was running out of time. His problems were obviously not going to just vanish by him doing nothing. In a few hours, the village and Brother Saldus would expect him to emerge from the chamber with a fully charged stone, prepared to face the Spawn in the Hunt the next day. If that didn’t happen, would that put the village in danger from the Brotherhood as well as the Spawn anyway? Would a grand sacrifice be enough to satisfy Brother Vienas, Brother Saldus, and the Inner Circle?

  Tell.

  He was so tired. He’d carried the burden of this knowledge for weeks like an anchor around his neck, but the secret was too big. It could put the entire kingdom in turmoil, possibly even lead to civil war. If it got out, it would definitely damage the Brotherhood that had been his family for nearly as long as he could remember.