by A J Dalton
The slab finally slammed home and all was darkness once more.
The pain in Aspin’s shoulders was excruciating. He’d been chained and hung by his arms for hours, and now he could feel them slowly being pulled out of their sockets. His torso had also been stretched by his own body weight, so that it was harder and harder to breathe.
‘Dying,’ he croaked. ‘Help!’
‘Quiet down there!’ called a voice. ‘Or we’ll gag you again.’
‘Dying. The holy one won’t be happy. Wants to question me.’
There was no immediate response as the guards debated whether they could be bothered to leave their warm brazier to come down and check on him. Aspin prayed that their fear of the Saint was greater than the desire to keep warm. After all, the Saint was a terrifying being.
When the Saint had entered the cell earlier that day Aspin had naturally sought to read his soul. His mind had recoiled so violently from the twisted vileness he found that he’d been unable to prevent himself vomiting down his front and onto the holy one’s feet. Children murdered, sharp metal inserted into their flesh. Mothers holding newborn babes burned for crimes that were merely imagined. A boy abused by his father using a wooden rod-like doll. Old men coming to watch, becoming aroused, then wanting to take a turn. Unspeakable acts. Degradation, humiliation and then hatred. White-hot molten hatred that spilled out of his mouth, eyes, nose, ears and other parts. Becoming nothing but that hatred – a creature intent on doing whatever was necessary to see its hatred visited upon those responsible and then any who did not submit to its will. Bowing without a care to the Saviours so that it would have even greater power to visit its hatred on others. Slaughter. Raping others of their power so that its hatred could become greater than any other’s. Becoming stronger and hungrier with every horrific act. A hunger so great now that it wanted to devour the world, crunch on its bones and suck its marrow dry. It would sodomise and then destroy the Geas, singing softly in its ear all the while, as its father had sometimes done when using the wooden doll. But the boy had escaped! Jillan had escaped! He must be found before the acts of hatred could be exposed or betrayed to the Saviours. The boy had to be found so that he could be abused in the dark again. The only thing that could still terrify the hatred was the boy being free. The boy! The boy!
There was a heavy footstep on the stairs and Aspin gasped in fear.
Jillan crouched in the darkness listening to the two Heroes talking by the brazier. Their breath clouded in the cold air as they spoke.
‘… as strong as an ox, he was, but collapsed on the ground, unable to get up and as weak as a babe. Lot of his hair come out though he were young. Teeth too, rotted before my own eyes. Tears of blood. No one would go near him. Blacksmith he was, in the marketplace.’
‘Plague, then?’ whispered the other, making the pagan sign – which was forbidden but used by everyone – against the evil eye.
‘Aye, they say so. Just like in Godsend.’
‘Shh! Keep your voice down. That’s not to be spoken of. The wind and darkness will hear you.’
‘Huh! That’s just an old pagan superstition,’ replied the first, although he prudently lowered his voice.
‘Whichever, the holy one always knows, and he don’t want us talking of it.’
The first sighed in frustration. ‘All I’m saying is we pulled the short straw coming here after all. There was some of us laughing at the half-dozen that was chosen by the Captain to accompany the parents to Hyvan’s Cross, while we was all getting excited about coming to Saviours’ Paradise to see the dancing girls. And see what happens! We end up freezing our noses and burning our balls guarding some puking peasant in a town awash with plague.’
The second shrugged fatalistically. ‘As we’s always told – the blessed Saviours will find a way to punish those not thinking firstly of their proper duty and sacrifice.’
The first spat out a breath. ‘S’pose so at that. Just had a bad thought, though, entered my head. Think it’s more punishment for me, ’tis.’
‘What is it then?’ the second asked with obvious trepidation.
‘Mayhap I shouldn’t tell it, as then it’ll be punishment for you too. It’ll spread from me to you, just like a plague, see. Saviours help me, but it’s already too late.’
‘What? What is it?’
‘Don’t you see? The plague! I just told it. What if the puking peasant we’s guarding is puking precisely because he has the plague? With the unhealthy air and spirits hereabouts, the foul vapours that must cling to yonder stocks and gibbet, is it any surprise that the peasant has the contagion? By my thinking, it’s now done for us as well, Saviours protect us!’
‘Listen!’ squeaked the second in fright. ‘What’s that?’
‘Dying,’ moaned a disembodied voice. ‘Help!’
The second’s jaw moved up and down but no sound came out, so great was his terror. The first chuckled. ‘Calm down. I was just giving you a turn with all that talk. Wait till I tell the others.’ He sniffed and smiled. ‘Peed yourself too, I reckon. It’s just the puking peasant, nothing more.’ Then he raised his voice. ‘Quiet down there or we’ll gag you again.’
‘Dying. Holy one won’t be happy. Wants to question me,’ came the voice from below.
‘What think you?’ The first sighed. ‘Best one of us go down there to see he’s not puking himself to death.’
‘But the contagion.’
‘Hmm. If we were gonna get it, then I reckon we already have, coming to this cursed town and all. Tell you what, I’ll toss you for it.’
‘Don’t bother,’ replied the second. ‘My luck’s so bad I already know I’ve lost, especially when it’s you tossing the coin.’
Jillan crept away, having heard all he needed. It seemed his parents had been taken to Hyvan’s Cross, of all places, where the Saint’s main temple was located. It would be a long and dangerous journey and even harder to get inside undetected, but what other choice did he have? He wasn’t about to let his parents die in a punishment chamber like the youth, not without trying to save them. And it was completely wrong that they should be locked up for his crimes. They were innocent. It was his fault, all his fault. Even if it cost him his life, he was determined to make it up to them.
The youth was his fault too. And dying. How many people would he be responsible for killing before it was over? Despite his insistence to the taint that he wouldn’t kill anyone who was innocent, he would be doing just that if he didn’t try to set the youth free. It was of course risky, but it seemed that the Saint wanted something from the youth, just like he wanted something from Jillan. If Jillan could deny the Saint the youth, then … then what? No, he wouldn’t exchange the youth for his parents. So? He wasn’t sure. It would certainly frustrate the Saint and perhaps cause the holy one to make a mistake, just like Haal, Elder Corin’s son, would always make the mistake of rushing blindly at Jillan when teased. If the Saint made a mistake, then maybe it would be easier to free his parents. Maybe.
The wind carried another of the youth’s cries to his ears.
Freda lay in the bedrock beneath the dark place, wondering at the strangeness of her existence. What did she know of gods and old temples? What was the Geas really? Strange words and ideas, none of which had helped her when she’d needed help in her life.
Why were the Overlords chasing her? It wasn’t fair! She felt guilty as she remembered that she’d killed men, but she hadn’t meant to, and they’d forced her to do it. And they’d killed Norfred! Well, it wasn’t exactly the men she’d killed who’d done for Norfred; that had been Darus. Maybe she’d done wrong after all.
But they kept confusing her with their threats and orders. Darus had told her what to do, and now so did the rock god. Both had threatened her. She was tempted just to avoid others for the rest of her days, but they hunted her, even in her dreams. Why wouldn’t they leave her alone?
The only one who hadn’t told her what to do was Norfred. He’d told her she deserved more t
han cruel treatment. She deserved to be free of people like Darus and the frightening jade dragon of the rock god’s fabulous will. Norfred hadn’t ordered her to find Jan – he’d only asked that if she happened to see him she should tell Jan that Norfred had loved him. And so she would find Jan for Norfred and then worry about everything else.
She felt and listened to all the comings and goings above her. Heavy men marched backwards and forwards, shaking the ground with their intent and orders. The children from the wagon she’d been following were inspected by one of the heavy men. Half the children were sent to put on dead skin and become heavy, while the others, mainly the lighter females, were told to get back in the wagon.
Before putting on the dead skin, the children that were to become heavy visited a woman who asked them questions and checked that they were well. She sounded kind and reminded her of Mistress Widders. Freda moved closer.
When the woman was finally alone in her overground chamber, Freda climbed out of the ground behind her.
‘I am Freda,’ she said in her lightest tone, making her throat hurt.
The woman stifled a scream and whirled round. ‘Oh! You startled me! Where did you … Saviours preserve us, but I’ve never seen the condition so bad or advanced. Are you in pain? Would you like me to give you something for it?’
Freda blinked as she tried to decipher the woman’s sounds and questions. Her voice reminded Freda of one of the caged birds that the miners had used to check for invisible gas. Perhaps the woman had such a bird inside her now checking for gas. No, that would be silly. The feathers would tickle too much. ‘It hurt when a shining spear went in me here,’ Freda said slowly, pointing to the shoulder where Overseer Altor’s weapon had impaled her.
The woman frowned and stood on tiptoe to peer at the wound. ‘I … er … It seems to be healing well enough. But the rock blight, dear one, it must be affecting your movement and speed of thought, no? You are slow, yes?’
‘I’m no slower than anyone else, I don’t think,’ Freda rumbled after some serious thought. ‘I am looking for Jan. Have you seen him? Did he come here? I want to find Jan for Norfred. Norfred is Jan’s father.’
The woman listened carefully and nodded her understanding. ‘I see. Jan, is it? I don’t recall a Jan, but there are many that come through here and don’t spend more than a week or two. They are given some basic training with swords, pila, javelins and the like, and are then usually sent out east. They say that no amount of training can compare to the real thing, you see. I suppose they’re right, but it breaks my heart to see so many of our young people going out to face those awful barbarians. Oh, and then there are some I don’t even get to see, for they are sent straight to the Great Temple. Good-looking is he, this Jan? If so, chances are that he’ll have been lucky enough to be selected to serve in the Great Temple itself.’
Good-looking? Freda couldn’t really answer because she hadn’t seen Jan. Besides, she didn’t know how to judge such things. Had Norfred been good-looking? She didn’t know. He’d been kind, but that had to be different because it was a different word. What she did know was that she herself was ugly. Everyone said so. ‘He isn’t like me,’ Freda mumbled.
The woman nodded. ‘Look, why don’t you go and ask the Selecting Officer? He’ll know if this Jan has gone east or south. They keep records, you see, in case anyone goes missing when they shouldn’t. It’s important to know how many leave here and how many arrive somewhere, so that no one can run off without people knowing, you see. And they record names, what a body looks like and places of origin so that a person’s easier to find if they do run off. Come on, I’ll take you to the Selecting Officer if you like.’
Freda hung back.
‘Come on then. Don’t be scared. No one will hurt you when you’re under my care. Don’t worry, the men jump when I tell them to. I’ve treated nearly all of them at one time or another, when they’ve been seeing the painted women in the town and picked up some infection or other. The things I could tell you! Every now and then, one of them comes to me with hands a-wringing and crying that they’ve got some woman with child and that they need some brew to stop the child ever being born. These Heroes aren’t allowed families on any account, you see, and the punishment for disobedience terrifies them witless. They’ve all heard of the men that’s been gelded. Nothing to laugh at, eh?’ she chortled. ‘The smart ones, of course, come to me before they visit the painted women in the town. I give them a brew to make sure they never get a child on some woman in the first place. If they want to keep getting their brew, then they stay on the right side of me, you see, if they’re smart, as I’ve already said. So come along, Freda.’
For once, Freda was glad she had a stony face so that the heat and crimson embarrassment she felt at the woman’s words wouldn’t shame her. She hadn’t understood everything, but she’d understood enough to know that the woman had spoken of intimate things that went on between a man and woman when nobody else was around or when everyone knew not to notice or talk about what was happening. People weren’t meant to talk about such things! They were forbidden, wrong somehow.
The woman took Freda gently by the hand and led her out into the dark place.
Saint Goza drooled in anticipation. Saliva dribbled from the corners of his generous mouth, around his wide chin and down onto his straining tunic. It had been a long while since his personal cook had been able to buy a newborn, and the taste and exquisite experience simply could not compare. The flesh and magical potency of older children, even children just a few weeks older, was tragically bland by comparison and only served to increase his all-consuming desire for a newborn.
For the unfathomable magic of the mother and the near-miraculous energies of creation still clung to a babe several hours after its birth. Such power consumed the Saint as much as he consumed such power. It was beyond intoxication, beyond the high of the strongest narcotic, beyond insatiable appetite, beyond religious ecstasy: simply beyond. It was now essential to his being and definition. It was his every waking and sleeping thought, fantasy and motivation to act. He only moved if it was to feed or to bring him closer to his desired source of physical, emotional and spiritual food.
He consumed such volumes and was now so large that he could only move through the use of the magic he absorbed from the People he owned, bred and dined upon. He was proud of his size, though, for the bigger he was, the more he could consume at a single sitting, the closer he could get to satisfying his ever-demanding hunger and the greater his power to realise eventually the goal of the eternal, unending feast. He would consume this world and its Geas. He would gorge himself on the cosmos. He would …
His mighty nostrils twitched. Ah, the meat was roasting now and close to done. He preferred it rare, of course, although he tended to get stomach trouble when it was too bloody. The sauce the cook was preparing was intriguing too – shallots, a splash of red wine, wine from the east if his olfactory powers weren’t mistaken, and something else. It was a game Goza and the cook liked to play: seeing if the Saint could identify every ingredient. If the Saint failed to guess correctly, the cook could make any request he desired of his liege lord. However, if the Saint did guess correctly, the cook would decant a mug of blood from his puny arm and offer it to the Saint to wash his meal down with. In the thirty years or so that the cook had been with Goza, the Saint had never once been wrong. Yet today’s sauce was more of a challenge than he’d had in a while.
The Saint was about to tuck his outsized napkin under his chin when something else caught his attention. What was this? Oh, not now! The timing was dreadful. It would simply have to wait – otherwise, the meat would become overdone or cold while he attended to this irritating matter.
Yet the matter intruded and he knew that if he did not deal with it first he would not be able to enjoy his meal fully. Cursing vilely, he threw the napkin down with one hand and thumped the table with the other, cracking the wood. He snorted to herald his intention to speak. The Saint’s revolting m
anservant – a creature so thin and covered in cankers, he wasn’t worth eating – hurried inside the tent to wait on his liege lord’s wisdom and command.
‘Yes, holy one? Should I fetch buckets to catch your divine excrement?’
The Saint grunted as he summoned the power to draw enough breath to say, ‘No, you overeager lickspittle! Sell it, do you, my effluence? Or do you dine on it yourself, hoping to gain whatever meagre energies might still remain within it?’ Goza wheezed with suspicion. ‘Is that it? You hope to become as powerful as your master? You think to challenge me and become the Saint of this region?’ He drew on more of his power to unleash a gargantuan roar: ‘Well?’
The manservant grovelled low, his fright causing several of his cankers to start oozing pus at the same moment. ‘Holy one, I see to it that your largesse is freely shared with the faithful hereabouts. The local farmers joyfully spread your benevolence on their fields, for it increases the yield of their crops tenfold. Truly, it is a miracle that sees all the People rejoice and declare they only live by your grace.’
‘You are smooth-tongued,’ Goza responded accusingly. In his mind’s eye he’d seen the man do as he claimed, but he still did not believe him. Goza did not trust any who might one day be his lunch. ‘Indeed, it is probably the only worthwhile part of you. I would have it boiled and served with quails eggs if I did not need you for tedious day-to-day details. Tell the cook that he should slow the cooking by half a clock. If the roasting meat dries out too much, tell him, I’ll have his skin peeled off and his body immersed in pickling fluid.’
‘At once, holy one,’ the manservant replied as he hurried out.
With a burp and fart that extinguished a few candles, Goza heaved himself onto his wide split feet and pounded his way out of the tent, lifting his bright war hammer as he went. The weapon was far too large and heavy for any ordinary man, but it had become small in his hands of late. Perhaps it was time to have a new one forged. After all, sufficient sun-metal had been pulled from the ground recently to allow him a new weapon without the Saviours having to suffer any fall-off in their normal supply.
