Sin Eater

by Shel, Mike

  “I broke my bonds, sheddiq,” said Qeelb with an unsettling grin. “I was forced to make a blood pact with a rogue djinn. My said-min kassir I strangled with his own entrails. No cruel Azkay taskmaster holds my leash any longer.”

  “I celebrate your freedom with you, sheddiq, truly,” said the now-wary man, blanching, making a strange flourish with one hand while still sheltering the boy with the other. “I pray you do not hold my son or me responsible for the grievous sins of necromancer satraps or sea captains.”

  “You said you come with information for us,” said Agnes to neutralize the tension.

  “Of course, yes. I make it a custom to aid others as I was once aided. Crossing the Bridge of Bats is permitted after sundown only. We all of us wait for the sun to set behind the western horizon. In the meantime, I recommend that you secure a Candle for yourself.”

  “We bring alchemical light with us, Azkayan,” growled Kennah, riding up next to Qeelb, a hand on his sword hilt.

  “Ah! You misunderstand me, ayeh? You must hire a guide, for the caves of the oracle. They are called Candles. Not true priests of your god Pember, but mystics who possess a touch of the Second Sight.”

  “And this is absolutely necessary?” asked Agnes’s father.

  “Unless you merely wish to make an offering at the entrance and have one of the lesser priests perform a simple divination. But who would take the trouble of this trip unless they sought something greater? Such illumination can only be found deeper in the temple-caves, and for that you will require a Candle. A Candle knows the rituals necessary and can warn of pitfalls that lie in the way of your goal.” The tall man repeated his odd flourish and bowed. “This is all I have to share, sirrah. Forgive me, but my son and I will return now to our own party.”

  “Where will we find these Candles, Kassam, sir?” Agnes called after him as he turned to walk back into the crowd. The man kept walking, but the boy turned around and pointed to a cluster of cottonwoods and flowering bushes west of the pilgrim crowd. Then he ran to catch up with his father.

  “Have you ever met an Azkayan before, Father?” Agnes asked, forgetting the resentment that simmered in her for the moment.

  “I saw a few paraded in the streets of Mache, before you were born. Captives. It’s a rare thing, but when an Azkay privateer gets caught wandering too close to the Warwede coast, the survivors are hung in city squares to great fanfare. No one hates the Azkayans quite like the Warwedi, as close as they are to their westernmost satrapies.”

  Sira had already checked out the cottonwoods and was trotting her horse back to them. “There’s a path through the trees, though it looks made for foot traffic.”

  “Well,” said Auric, swinging himself down from Glutton. “Sira and I will seek out one of these Candles. Agnes, see to our horses and organize a camp. Evening is still several hours off.”

  Agnes resisted the sarcastic remark that came to mind. Instead, she said, “I would like to accompany you and Sira, Sir Auric. If you don’t mind. Kennah can mind our horses, can’t you, Kennah, dear?” Kennah grunted his assent. Her father stared at her for a moment, then nodded, bidding her join them with a gesture. Agnes dismounted and handed the reins of her mare to Chalca. He took them and smiled.

  “Seems Father responds well when you address him in that manner, sheddiq,” he whispered, doing a fair copy of the Azkayan’s accent. “Perhaps it’s wise to stow ‘Papa’ for now, ayeh?”

  The path Sira had discovered twisted and turned on itself in the dense wood. Little bells dangled from branches that grew across the path like restraining arms—one couldn’t move through without sending those bells chiming. At last the path emerged into a clearing by a rocky hillside. Perched on that hillside were fifty or more small domed huts made of mortared stones, clinging to the sloping earth like lumps of porridge. Wisps of smoke escaped from several, suggesting residents within beside cookfires. A dozen elaborate totems poked out of the ground at odd angles, carved tree trunks depicting toad faces, tendrils of smoke, and disembodied eyes, intertwined with one another. An eerie quiet hung over the place.

  “Not terribly inviting if they intend on selling services,” said Auric after a moment in the silence. “The bells along the path had to alert them that potential employers were on their way.”

  His statement seemed to summon one hut’s denizen, midway up the hillside. He was a bent old man, sparse white hair on a pallid scalp, leaning on a walking stick of gnarled wood. “The bells alone did not announce your approach, seeker,” he said in a deep voice that commanded attention. “Your arrival I forecast weeks ago. I am here, to serve as Candle for your enlightenment. My name is Huor.” He wore a dark gray robe, flecked with starlight points of silver that winked in the afternoon sun.

  “Consider your options, sirrah,” came a melodious voice from another hut. The heavyset woman who emerged, voluminous dark blond hair tangled and wild, was clad in ragged animal skins and walked with great, plodding steps. As she approached, Agnes’s attention was drawn to a lurid tattoo on her forehead of an unnerving, lidless eye. “I am Ona, of the Unblinking Eye. Huor may have predicted your arrival, but he does not represent your best choice if you wish to delve deep into Pember’s gloomy, dangerous caverns.”

  “Dangerous?” asked Sira. “Is it not a temple, like any other?”

  “There are dangers for those who lack gifted illumination,” answered Huor, reaching up to tug on Ona’s animal skins. “Consider mine the brightest, given the many, many years I have served pilgrims to Gnexes.”

  “It is true that Huor is very old, my friends, even infirm,” said Ona, picking up the thread. “But know that not all wisdom arrives with age. Some are blessed with a well of foreknowledge from which they may draw. I am one such person.”

  “Yes, yes, Ona has much wisdom for one so limited in experience,” was Huor’s retort. “But to be brutally honest, more youthful Candles may leap before looking. One dismisses the wisdom of years at one’s own peril.”

  Agnes had expected some very formal process in selecting a guide, perhaps occult ritual, rather than thinly veiled bickering. She saw irritation creeping into her father’s eyes as the two faced one another down, knew he would bring a proverbial sword down to cut the knot. She had a better idea.

  “We’ve been told that Candles are mystics, touched by Pember and gifted with the Second Sight,” she began, putting on her best look of girlish wonder. “Could each of you demonstrate that gift, to help us make our decision wisely?”

  A condescending smile spread across the woman’s face and she put three fingers on Agnes’s forehead, as though bestowing a blessing on a child. “Oh, lovely girl, the gift is not some tool wielded at will like a hammer. Rather, Pember’s insight descends like a butterfly, landing where it will to—”

  “You hail from Boudun,” interrupted the old man, stepping between Agnes and Ona, holding a hand to his forehead. “You are on a mission of discovery. But you three are but a fraction of your party. There are two…no! Three more who wait at the Bridge of Bats.”

  “Really, Huor?” said Ona, a sour note in the melody of her voice. “Two of them wear armor with the Syraeic sigil bright white on the pectoral. You think that somehow qualifies as divination, do you?”

  “The two of you armored!” shouted Huor. “Father and daughter! She has followed in your footsteps, has she not, sirrah?”

  “Now you’re embarrassing yourself.” Ona gave the old man a shove. “By the bleeding knees of Saint Esha, all but the blind can see the resemblance.” She turned to Agnes’s father to make her case. “Sirrah, I will not insult you with petty tricks. Huor, as much experience as he has, is past his prime. If you plan more than making offerings with the underpriests in the vestibule cavern, you need someone capable of the challenges, and who possesses the third eye.”

  A laugh came from up the slope of huts. Leaning casually against one of the furthest ston
e hovels was a young man in simple homespun, thick blond hair to his shoulders, a wry grin on his youthful face. Agnes had seen hundreds like him presenting at the doors to the Citadel, eager to join a novitiate, cocky and silver-tongued. They were turned away by the preceptors better than nine times out of ten. “Find your career in the alleys, running crooked dice games!” was a common repulse from a preceptor’s mouth.

  “Third eyes! Second Sight!” shouted the young man. “I’ve got more of the foresight in the tip of my prick than you two old frauds do in your entire bodies!”

  “Crawl back in your hut, boy!” growled Huor, waving an arm at him dismissively.

  “We spotted them first!” cried Ona.

  The young man shook his head and trotted down the hillside, quick and sure-footed. When he came close to them, Huor and Ona scowling, Agnes was struck by his vibrant blue eyes. He was otherwise unremarkable: a plain but apparently affable young fellow, more of less her own age.

  “You look a bit young for a mystic, lad,” said Agnes’s father, the condescension in his voice grating on her. “I take it you offer yourself as a Candle as well?”

  “I do, sirrah,” he answered. “And I’m older than I look. But then, one thing Ona said is true: age doesn’t guarantee wisdom, Huor being a potent example.”

  The old man gritted his teeth and his grip tightened on his walking staff. “I ought to beat the balls off you, you cheeky little shit!”

  “Easy, Huor,” he answered. “You’ll get your piles in an uproar.”

  Agnes put a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. Despite his brashness and bravado, she found herself liking this fellow. “What’s your name, Sir Mystic?”

  “Call me Bocca, milady,” he said with his sardonic smile. “It means ‘mouth’ in an old Busker dialect. Seems my mother had a touch of the Second Sight herself, naming me so, eh?”

  “Indeed.”

  “You want to go deep into the caves? I’ve been to the foot of the Videna’s throne twice.”

  “Bollocks!” sneered Ona.

  “Kissed the heel of her right foot on the second trip, I did.” Bocca folded his arms, tilted his head at Ona as a challenge.

  “Only those Pember has truly anointed pass that far into Gnexes,” Huor said. “And then only once or twice in a lifetime of serving as Candle. You call me fraud, Bocca, you insufferable wise-ass? I call you liar. You haven’t a prophetic hair on your thick head. Just a slick tongue and sly wink. I’ll petition the guild to throw you from the Bridge of Bats as a faker and disturber of the peace!”

  “Lad,” said Agnes’s father, putting a hand on Bocca’s shoulder to draw his attention from a fuming Huor. “Is there any way you can demonstrate your suitability beyond clever words? That show you to be a true mystic?”

  Bocca turned to Auric, the slowness of that turn underlining a change in the man’s demeanor. The smile was gone; he was all seriousness now. “I can, sir.” His voice was little more than a whisper. “And my demonstration starts with the stink of piss.”

  Auric’s hand on Bocca’s shoulder gripped the young man’s tunic, balling it up in a fist and pulling the man forward so that their noses were nearly touching. “Fucking explain yourself, lad,” said Agnes’s father, his tone dangerous. “Quickly.”

  “Pescham, a little fart of a hamlet off the Wooly Coast. Drunken father had you pouring buckets of piss in the early morning, when he wasn’t sleeping one off, or beating you about the head and shoulders. A thousand unpleasant odors—the sweat of those tending the vats, the stench of rotted meat still clinging to animal skins. No matter how far you come from that place, in miles or in years, there’s still part of you that can’t entirely escape the pungent stink of piss. Oh, but you’re a long way from Pescham now, Auric Manteo…farther than you’ve ever been.”

  Auric released Bocca’s tunic, still angry, his jaw trembling. Her father rarely spoke of his childhood home, or of the father he had escaped. Part of Agnes was stunned by Bocca’s accuracy, but part of her was offended, witnessing the man shoving her father’s lowly origins in his face like that.

  “Do you think that was funny, sir?” asked Sira in a flat voice.

  “I am not laughing, Sira Edjani,” answered Bocca, still meeting Auric’s eye. “And I’m not here to poke and prod. You wish to see the Videna herself, do you not? Well, I am ready and able to guide you there. Indeed, you won’t complete the journey without me.” He turned to Agnes, those bright blue eyes immobilizing her. “You know that now, don’t you, Agnes?”

  “Bloody hells,” she muttered, feeling a stab of pain where Szaa’da’shaela had laid her open. Somehow she did know that. She was certain that this brash young man was the one whom they needed for the task. Only Bocca could guide them. She would bet her life on it.

  30

  Ussi’s Price

  The Bridge of Bats lived up to its name. As the sun set, turning the western sky a silky red-gold, an enormous flock of the flying black creatures began orbiting the span in a hypnotic corkscrew, from one end to the other. They seemed undeterred by the torches that lit the way, passing within inches of their fitful flames.

  “A simple charm, really,” Qeelb observed, speaking up to make himself heard above the chittering and squeaking. “Practiced on a rather grand scale, I’ll admit. Ten thousand or more bats, probably. Meant to awe those of us crossing over, I assume.”

  “You have it there, sirrah,” said Bocca, who had chosen to walk next to Auric mounted on Glutton rather than ride one of the spare horses. “Much of what you’ll see is for shock and to put people off their ease. Trust me. I’ll tell you what flashy or grim productions should be taken seriously.”

  Auric still had his misgivings about the blond-haired man, their hired “Candle.” But Agnes said she felt it in her gut, and had made such a persuasive, passionate case for him, he decided to trust her instincts. Sira was persuaded by Agnes’s words as well. And Szaa’da’shaela? The Djao blade had purred at his hip like a kneading kitten throughout Agnes’s soliloquy, all but announcing its enthusiastic approval.

  “What lies ahead, then?” asked Agnes, her words tinged with wary appreciation for the winged tunnel through which they moved.

  “More of the road, Miss Agnes,” said Bocca, a casual hand on Glutton’s flank. “About a mile. Then we’ll come upon the flagellants and finally reach the Cusp. It’s there you’ll need to pay Ussi’s price before continuing on to the caves.”

  “Ussi’s price?” Chalca spat the words out like a mouthful of spoiled milk.

  “Ussi’s sacrament. Each of you will need to avail yourselves of a sin eater. You can’t enter the caves unless you’ve been cleansed.”

  “Fuck.” Chalca’s single word summed up Auric’s feelings as well. The last time he had been in the presence of one of Ussi’s loathsome priests was last year in the Barrowlands, though it wasn’t to unburden his own soul. He hadn’t gone to a sin eater for himself in…what, five years? Immediately after his wife’s death. Racked with guilt, blaming himself for her suicide, feeling utterly lost, he made his way to the permanently dilapidated temple of Ussi in Boudun. Had he even thought of that shit-smeared sin eater’s words since then?

  Go away, Auric Manteo. You have greater crimes to commit before parading your filth before Ussi.

  He shuddered at the memory. Was it just a jaded dismissal from a priest, hungering to consume less pedestrian confessions of guilt? Did he crave garish tales of debauchery? Wanton slaughter? Perversion? He remembered feeling furious at the time, threatening to make a complaint to the cult’s hierarchy. The dirty man, reeking like a rotting carcass, nodded and smiled, showing teeth stained dark brown. “We all do as we must,” was his cryptic reply.

  “You’re certain we need to do that?” asked Kennah as they reached the far side of the bridge. “The sin eater, I mean.”

  “The Gatekeeper of the Gnexes will know if you’ve faile
d to cleanse your soul, Sir Kennah,” Bocca answered without turning back to the big man, bringing up the rear of their party. “They can sniff out unconfessed sin better than a hound can a roasted pig. So unless you want to give yourself a hundred stripes with the flagellants, I’d soldier up and spill your shame to a sin eater. It won’t be so bad. Time you let go of all that business about Ruben anyway, eh?”

  Another shocking demonstration of the young man’s oracular acumen. Unnerving. No one to Auric’s knowledge had said a word to Bocca about Kennah’s dead Syraeic brother. Auric glanced back at the big man, who frowned mightily and tugged at his beard rather than answer their Candle’s casual invocation of his deceased comrade’s name. Perhaps he was considering whether letting his own blood was preferable to confession.

  The flagellants announced themselves before they came into view with a chorus of whip strokes connecting with bare flesh. The grotesque scene presented itself as Auric reached the crest of the hill, punctuated by another choir of leather striking skin, all of it illuminated by firelight: about a dozen men and women, on their knees and stripped to the waist, bringing hand-held scourges made of leather strips with bits of metal woven in down on their own bloody backs. They surrounded a statue of a nude, emaciated woman, also on her knees, holding her arms up to the heavens.

  “Tears of Lalu,” Kennah muttered.

  The concrete slab around the statue was dotted with bits of jagged stone and glass jutting up. The flagellants’ knees were being brutalized while they scourged themselves. Tears coursed down Sira’s pale cheeks as she stared at the spectacle, shaking her head. “I’m unfamiliar with this practice, either in Ussi’s cult or that of Pember,” she said.

  “What is this…ritual?” asked Agnes.

  “The practice of a splinter sect of Ussi,” answered Bocca, his expression tart. “Ona mentioned it earlier. The skinny lass at the center of all that bloodshed is Saint Esha Penitent. She preached the shedding of blood and mortification of the flesh for the remission of sins. Shepherd girl, lived about a hundred and fifty years ago, in eastern Marburand. Martyred eventually, of course. You wouldn’t think such an unpleasant exercise would catch on, but it did for a time, mostly here in the east. The sect and saint have been suppressed by Ussi’s clergy—it’s considered a heretical doctrine. But out here on the fringes of the empire…well, we’re more tolerant. And besides, Ussi’s priests don’t lose much coin to those opting for Saint Esha.”