by J. Gibson
Aramanth’s face bore no expression, her mouth tight. Her response came swift: “You have chosen to labor in the service of Korvaras, the God of Death. Not as a force of nature, but as a figure in defiance of the All-Mother. Your execution will be an honor, a consequence of your choosing, which your fellow reapers have nary extended their victims.” She paused as though to allow the words to sink in, or to await a response.
The woman looked away, toward the darkest side of her prison.
“On the day of your execution,” Aramanth went on, “you’ll be gathered for transport to the city square, in prisoner’s garb. The Vicar will detail your identities and pronounce your crimes before the common body. Nooses shall be secured around your necks. You will drop beneath the platform at the end of your ropes, until dead. Afterward, your bodies shall be collected and incinerated.”
Their confined Abbisan expressed no pleasure or relief. Her profile readjusted to view, gaze fastened to the floor. She clenched her teeth and her jaw bulged. A shuddering exhalation expelled through her nostrils. “I have not killed anyone,” she snapped.
The tension in the air shifted.
“She has not killed anyone.” The woman ran a trembling hand through her mid-length black hair, her head rested against the palm, her bangs interlaced in her fingers. “How can divergence of opinion warrant death? We have nothing to do with what is happening in the south.”
“You affiliate yourselves with a known terrorist outfit. This is not a matter of benign, passive ideas. Every reaper is a potential murderer, for to be a reaper is to endorse death and those practices from which it results.” Aramanth’s voice rose like embers. “You’ll find no sympathy here.”
Is this justice?
“However, what you say may be true.” Aramanth neared the bars. “If your companion renounces Mythos and submits to deprogramming, she might live. Your fate shall remain the same, unless you confess.”
“I have nothing to admit,” the woman replied without hesitation. She shifted her gaze to Aramanth. “Let me speak to her before you make this offer. A moment is all I ask.”
Aramanth shook her head. “She must accept the bargain without secondary persuasion.”
Mythos worshiped a heathen god, practiced foul arts prohibited under Matrian Law. Reapers had previously attempted to commit mass murder, succeeding on occasion. Even so, he pitied the Abbisan and the teen-yeared girl. He did not believe they had a hand in what he had experienced, or any killings.
There was nothing more to say. Sorrowful of expression, the Abbisan turned away, and they left.
These dungeons were dirtier than the rest of the Priory, but superior to most prisons elsewhere. The machines made rare trips below, careful as they cleaned to maintain an arm’s reach from any of the cells.
Not long after he and Aramanth departed the first captive, they were proximal to the second. She lay on the cold stone floor with her temple propped against the wall. A redness rimmed her lids, as though she had recently wept. When she heard them approach, her brown eyes opened, aimed downward, blonde locks hanging over the right side of her face in thin strands. Brow furrowed, her nostrils flared.
“What’ve you come for?” she hissed. “To rough me like your guards?” She raised her arm, revealing finger-shaped bruises down the back and side.
Aramanth folded her hands at her waist, the corner of her mouth peaked, her eyebrows lowered. “Not so.” She sounded indifferent. “Tell me, how might your high priests treat me, were I the captive, they the captors?”
The Xarakan’s glare rolled up. “You’d already be dead.” Her lips pursed. “We hold no prisoners.”
Aramanth glanced at Garron, then looked back to the girl. “You are seventeen-yeared, are you not?”
“I am.”
“Rather young to hang, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I’m not hanging myself.”
“Ah, but you are. You’ve done this wholly to yourself.”
“Justify my murder as you like.”
“You’ve such potential and strength,” Aramanth told her. “Such a fierce will.” She bent down on her haunches as though to meet the girl closer to eye level.
“Say what you mean, Archbishop.” The girl made the last word a prodding barb.
“I have an offer for you. One you ought to consider well. You may thank your partner for it.” Aramanth’s words rang with a cordial tinge. “Renounce Mythos. Submit to deprogramming—”
“Deprogramming?” The girl laughed in her face. “You mean, wash my memories of Mythos?”
“—and live another day,” Aramanth concluded.
“Do you take me for a fool?”
“The alternative is hanging along with your friend.”
“You’ll be a murderer after that day. My blood shall forever stain your spirit.”
Aramanth rose. “Pity.”
The girl stood up. “Pity,” she mocked.
“We’ll allow you a night to—”
Before Aramanth could finish, the girl spat in her face.
Aramanth removed a small cloth from a fold in her robes and wiped the thick strands of spittle from her lips and cheek. Her gaze affixed on the eyes of the girl, who looked as though she would lunge as a mountain cat might on unsuspecting prey if not for the bars between them. “You’ve thrown your life away,” Aramanth said, without inflection, pivoting toward the exit.
Even with what the Xarakan had done, Garron felt regret on her behalf. He wanted to ask the girl to reconsider so that he might work to convince Aramanth to forgive her transgressions. Yet her expression and demeanor told him that the girl would not bend. She moved to the corner of her cell, her back to him, and sat on the floor, her head leaned once more against the wall.
Not since he came to the capital had Garron witnessed this side of Aramanth. He did not disapprove entirely, but a share of him inclined to dissent. As vicious as reapers of Mythos had been in the past, and despite the danger presented by their ideology, summary execution as a response to mere membership represented far too astringent a punishment. Nothing in the Blest Writ decreed that those who praised the other gods or received their favor must die. If it were so, this would by necessity apply to peaceful sects as well, including most of the Druids of Sitix, the Monks of Vysyn, or even the Rationalists of Lahrael.
If this consequence could not extend to all, then it surely could not serve as a foundation for such punishment. And they had no evidence that these women had participated in the Undeath, or that they had killed anyone at any point. Nonetheless, the optimal moment to assert such objections had not arrived. The events beyond the Priory embattled the whole of the Church. No assemblies went without tension. The archbishops, including those not appointed to the Ennead, withdrew increasingly from public interaction.
He returned to his chamber and read of Scripture, for he could not escape his growing consternation.
In the beginning, Gohheia arose in this plane, and created the Overrealm and the underrealm, and brought forth the waters and the winds. At Her touch, life bloomed all over the world. Gohheia saw all, and saw that it was good.
In over fifty ages of life, Garron had found such strength and fortitude in the lines of this sacred text. The words did not leave him. He tightened his grip on the book. Their situation grew more dreadful by the day.
The ichor that swallows the world.
Even with the wards on his mind, these words haunted him.
She bid humanity to be fruitful and faithful, and returned to Her throne above.
Are we faithful to Her?
So long had he believed in the verses of the Writ. The leather-wrapped book, once pages, once only words, embodied the seminal text of seminal texts. His world mother had taught him of the All-Mother’s Truth in his boyhood. He had recited Scripture each day before his morning meal and each night before bed. When worry overcame him in the past, he had often spoken the words as a means of centering himself.
More call to worry arose on this day t
han ever before.
Garron stood not merely as a citizen of the Empire. He fought as a warrior of the Mother. The archbishops, too, were soldiers in Her army. In many respects, their concerns and measures made sense to him. As a matter of maintaining the pillar of order, severe punishment of deviant factions and a demand of adherence to the one true religion were reasonable practices. Mythos cultists sought to establish Korvaras as the apex god, King of the Celestia. In their fanatical worship of death, their ends would give birth to a cynical, bleak world. Tolerance for their perspectives meant an endless struggle between irreconcilable beliefs.
He had never met any reapers prior to that day, and yet he found himself swept up in the imminent executions of a pair. The Ennead, which he now served in a direct manner, had taken an approach that he agreed with as theory, but anguished over as practice.
These women, one a girl and the other near to, had once been children, just as he. They ate, drank, sang, laughed, cried, slept, and wept, just as he. Flesh and blood, nuanced beings and spirits. However astray, however estranged, they were daughters of Gohheia, as all human women and girls. If the Mother looked on in our presence when the nooses drop, would She laud us, or condemn us?
Though Garron had always been a faithful follower of the teachings of the Writ, and a loyal servant of the Church, his world mother had taught him a valuable lesson: when something feels wrong, reconsider it. When the reapers stretched at the neck, their faces vacated of life, their eyes glossed and empty, his timidity would become contrition. If he could not stand for their sake before the time came, there would be no second chance.
Despite that the prayers of humanity reached Her well and often, She felt lonely, and so She called upon Her other gods, and granted each an aspect of creation, for which She tasked them to govern and care.
If Gohheia had bestowed upon the other eight of the Celestial Nine their aspects of creation, as the Writ stated, how could it be punishable by death for one to appreciate their governance of any given aspect? Of course, this gratitude ought not to entail worship of any god before Gohheia, but he abhorred the wretched duality.
Garron remained in his chamber for much of the evening. A machine came around dusk with his supper, roasted chicken and potatoes. His stomach cursed him for it after he ate.
Renewed fretting, for a new cause, left him unsettled. Less disturbed than he had been prior to the warding; a more natural anxiety. Not even the magic of the Ennead kept him from being human.
The girl, Valhrenna Thrall, did not realize the gravity of her circumstance. Only the young and the mad do not fear death. Even those of the Matrian Truth often agonized over their mortality on their deathbeds.
When the Mother’s Eye sank behind the hills and the four sisters of the night made their presence known, he fancied a stroll through the Priory gardens. A beauty came over the yard, and a comfortable warmth for this time of the age. Leafy and leafless branches, boughs, constricting vines, the few blooms which remained, swayed in the breeze. The glow of the sisters on the stone and foliage produced an otherworldly air.
He walked until he came to a tree where flowers grew. Stopping, he reflected, watched, and listened to its song as the world moved through its arms, shoving them to and fro.
“You are afflicted, Father.” The voice of a man materialized behind him. “Marked by death.”
A shadowed figure melted into sight, adorned in unembellished black robes and a mask with a long, pointed nose. Round covers of glass obscured his eyes. Garron had seen such attire before, in houses of the dying. Healers filled the extended beak of the mask with dried flowers, herbs, and spices to stave off the stench of disease and rot, but generally did not keep these covers on beyond their duty.
“Do I know you?”
The unfamiliar man wore the lunar tear charm of a magister.
“Nay, Father,” the man answered. “You see what others cannot. Yours is a world of darkness and visions beyond seeing. Ages of authority and status have left the archbishops sightless in one eye. The reach of Eophianon creeps long, and the wealth of each spirit is as deep as the oceans to the Patron of the Undead. Those who cannot perceive the coming storm live in another sort of darkness. You, who bore witness to the red tide, exist in another sort of light. In the Vale, you observed but a sliver. A beast that was one is many. The God of Death will have his due.”
Garron stared at him. If another deception befell him, another infiltration, he hoped to meet his end right then. “Forgive me.” His legs weakened and trembled, heart thumping against his sternum. The tips of his fingers and the back of his neck tingled. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“You shall.” Unhurried, the magister turned to walk away. “The Blackened Yonder awaits.”
CHAPTER XV: MACHINATIONS
Athenne
“We care not what you have or haven’t done,” the woman mercenary had said. “It’s nothin’ personal.”
In the veil of night, they had traveled, hunted. Mercenaries from the Forgebrand Company had come for them, clamoring for the rewards on their heads, to add them to their lengthy list of felled bounties.
Their new assailants, a woman and a man, were more cautious than the man who had called himself the Red. Athenne scarcely heard the crackle of twigs and crunch of leaves in their approach.
The pair talked of fortune, the detached nature of their work. They refused to confess their hirers, but she knew.
Each one of them knew.
The woman daggerhand and Bhathric had tussled for a while, with fists at first. A sneer across his dark, scarred face, the man traveling with the woman watched, his green eyes twinkling in the pale moonlight.
Both drew knives, and the woman cut Bhathric across her forearms and neck, took the advantage. Eclih intervened before a killing blow, striking the woman across the bridge of her nose with a rock. Bhathric drove a knife into her throat repeatedly, until it resembled a heap of raw meat on a butcher’s floor.
Before the woman’s companion had time to descend on Bhathric in retaliation, Eclih met him in a bind. They scrapped. Eclih narrowly eluded a number of strokes that would have been fatal. Bhathric and Athenne joined the fray, utilizing what methods they could. The daggerhand fought, skilled and powerful, but not enough to best the three of them. Eclih drove his edge into the man’s underarm and withdrew. The mercenary dropped to one knee.
“You’ll never be free,” he laughed through ground teeth. “We’ll hunt you until the bounty is paid.”
The three of them recovered their horses and rode into the distance as the man screamed at their backs. They would treat the wounds they had suffered elsewhere, out of earshot of the ravings of a killer a shade from death. His voice grew more strained as they advanced and eventually became a far-off, guttural calling. When it had gone, lost in the silence of the world, they stopped to clean and bandage their injuries, most superficial. Bhathric had endured the worst harm for her stubbornness in demanding single combat.
“They shall feel my wrath for what’s been done to you.” Eclih sounded surer than he ever had to Athenne, who finished Bhathric’s wrappings.
Bhathric smiled at him and placed a hand on his cheek, her back against a tree. “I have no doubt.” Their lips met, but only briefly. Eclih aided her in standing. They had little time to delay.
Aitrix would expect them to arrive in Aros soon for their share of the mission. Their return would suspend by weeks the other dispatched Saints, who undoubtedly awaited their signal, likely to Aitrix’s shock or irritation, or both. Fortunately, their allies understood that complications could arise, hence the command to wait for a sign.
Athenne had surprised herself in the melee. In her younger years, she had studied combat philosophy, the arts of battle and war, under Aeyana Thelles of Orilon. Thelles fought with the grace of a dancer and the ferocity of a true warrior. In turn, Athenne had learned to understand a dancer’s grace and a warrior’s ferocity, but not well enough to perform the elegant pirouettes o
r to match the sophisticated cues.
She became more concerned with comprehending battle and war than practicing it. This had served her well as a spectator of Uldyr’s fight with the mercenary weeks prior. Had the man set his blade on her, however, she would have returned to the dirt in a knowing mass; at the least, fully cognizant of her shortcomings.
Eclih and Bhathric were more skilled than Athenne in sword fighting. Bhathric lacked the experience of an Abbisan dancer or Xarakan dualist, but she held her own. Eclih, on the other hand, clashed with a trained dexterity and quickness. He stood tall and slender, with a fair reach, swift feet, and keen eyes. They did not seem to delight in battle or express contentment in killing, but they would fight if they must.
Athenne’s long-ago instructor, Aeyana Thelles, epitomized another sort of person. She spoke often of the pleasures of winning and derived unnerving joy from violence. Had Thelles been mortal at all? Was she some changing, shifting thing meant to deceive her students in their waking hours as a dream might? Athenne could not say, and had never learned, for her teacher had vanished soon after the end of their lessons. Thelles looked to be of no importance anymore, beyond the knowledge she had imparted, boundless in effect.
On the road, since Athenne had met Uldyr, she had come to appreciate simple living, the lifestyle of their ancestors during the days of hunter-gatherers and the Sightless Era, before Ankhev and Aros came to the world and spread Gohheia’s will unto mortals. Before empires rose from the ashes of tribes and chieftesses and chiefs, the Old Earth, seldom remembered in the present, and even less frequently discussed.
Aros had seen with the eyes of the All-Mother, the stories said. Her living conduit.
