Lord of Penance

by Unknown

  Most manors had a great hall, and that was where the gatekeeper appeared to be leading them. As they crossed the foyer with its imposing staircase and lesser doorways, Olhas glanced around. The action looked casual, but Sefu assumed his friend was taking in every detail like the expert scout he was.

  Sefu peered around, too, but saw nothing that seemed particularly revelatory. The space just looked like the entryway of any rich man’s home. It sounded different, though. Somewhere on one of the upper floors, someone was weeping, and leather slapped flesh with a steady smack-smack-smack. Sefu told himself Leyli was still out begging. It wasn’t her crying or taking the beating, either.

  The great hall smelled of sandalwood incense, and there were votive candles burning. A pair of half-orc toughs flanked a high-backed, ornately carved wooden chair on a pedestal, and on this throne lounged an exceptionally handsome, muscular man with shoulder-length white-blond hair, vivid blue eyes, and a silver goblet in his hand. He was naked except for a red silk robe loosely tied with a sash of the same material.

  To that extent, the place was pretty much what Sefu had expected. But the two worshipers who’d apparently been receiving their fledgling deity’s personal attention constituted more of a surprise, and not a pleasant one.

  A pretty, middle-aged woman sat cross-legged on the tile floor with a pair of pliers in her hand and several teeth lying in front of her. Bloody drool streaked her chin.

  Across from her, a man even skinnier than Domitian’s average worshiper slumped twitching and trembling at a little table set with a cup and a plate laden with apples, figs, grapes, and pears. He clearly yearned—and needed—to drink and eat, but wasn’t doing either.

  The acts of self-mortification brought an insult to Sefu’s lips. But when he looked Domitian in the eye, the obscenity faded away unspoken, along with the spasm of outrage that had drawn it forth.

  He’d noticed before that Domitian had the kind of good looks and commanding presence that no doubt helped a fraud dupe the vulnerable. But now, as though his eyes had just finished adjusting after coming into this shadowy place from the summer sunlight, Sefu felt like he was truly seeing the man for the first time. And what he beheld was a piercing kind of perfection. A flawless face radiating compassion and wisdom so profound that they might well partake of the divine.

  Suddenly Sefu wondered what right he, a simple fighting man, had to barge into a holy place with malice in his heart and judge this noble spirit and his teachings. Maybe Domitian would pass the test of the Starstone someday. Maybe the path he offered, stringent though it seemed, was the way to peace and clarity for some. Maybe Leyli—

  But the thought of his sister walking that path, going dirty and hungry, whoring, submitting to beatings and maybe doing even worse things to herself, brought him up short. Prompted by sheer instinct, he reached down through the confusion that had overtaken him to the anger still seething underneath and sought to feel it in full measure. Afterward, he realized he was breathing as heavily as he had after brawling with the half-orcs. But his thoughts were clear, and his resolve restored.

  Domitian smiled sardonically, like a fencer might if an inferior but lucky opponent avoided an attack that by all rights should have scored. Or maybe he didn’t. The expression, if had been there at all, came and went in an instant, and then his face was grave and kind.

  “Sefu and Olhas,” he said.

  “Someone ran home and told you to expect us,” Sefu said.

  “No,” the cult leader replied. “Nobody had to. I’m only a shadow of what I will one day become, but already I’m more than a man. I don’t mean it to sound arrogant, but it’s a fact. I have ways of knowing what others lack. Even you, sorcerer, with your magic poking and prying at me. Is it telling you anything you can understand?”

  Olhas smiled. “I take it that despite our attempt at misdirection, someone spotted me casting a spell in the garden.”

  “No, but I don’t blame you for assuming that. Darkness is false comfort, but until we’re ready to face the light, it can be the only comfort we have.”

  “We didn’t come here to listen to your gibberish,” Sefu said.

  “No,” Domitian said. “You came to take Leyli away from the only source of comfort she’s found since her life turned to grief and despair.”

  Once again, there was something in Domitian’s gaze, and in his deep, rich tones, that eroded Sefu’s certainty like waves washing away a drawing in the sand. What if—

  No, curse it! No, no, no! He closed his eyes for a moment, shutting out the sight of Domitian’s magisterial face with its expanse of forehead and long, narrow nose, and that made it easier to think.

  “Her family can comfort her,” he said.

  “Clearly not,” Domitian said, “or she would never have sought me out in the first place, and if you did somehow succeed in taking her away, she would only return at the first opportunity. Such being the case, surely it’s better to leave her to the life she’s freely chosen. That way, you won’t poison the love she feels for you.”

  It made an ugly kind of sense. Sefu hated admitting it, but it did. He might even have said so, except that just then, with a sudden, spastic flailing, the man seated at the table overturned it. The cup clanked and spilled the water inside, and fruit tumbled across the floor. The cultist buried his face in his hands and sobbed.

  Domitian turned to one of the half-orcs. “I believe Ioseph has tested his willpower sufficiently for one day. Help him back to his room, and give him his usual supper at sundown.” He looked back at Sefu and Olhas. “Where were we?”

  The interruption had startled some of the unaccustomed defeatism out of Sefu’s head. He took a breath and exhaled the rest of it. “You were saying that if I took Leyli away, she’d just run back. But she couldn’t if you refused to take her back.”

  “Why would I do that?” Domitian asked.

  “Because I’ll pay you. I have some savings, and my mother does, too. It won’t be a fortune, but it will be more than Leyli brings in begging and… doing whatever else on the street.”

  Once again, if Domitian smiled a mocking smile, it was the merest flicker of an expression, too ephemeral for Sefu to be sure of it. “But I don’t care about money.”

  “Then why send your followers out to get it?”

  “Supporting the faith is a part of their purification.”

  “I don’t believe you. You don’t want to shut Leyli out because it might cause the rest of your victims to doubt you. Or because it gives you too much sick enjoyment to mistreat her.”

  “Domitian may call himself a god, but nobody crosses a Wave Rider and gets away clean.”

  “I suggest, my friend, that it is you who have found joy in hurting others—first your opponents in the Irorium, and then the pirates you’ve hunted across the Inner Sea. I hope you understand that just because the latter task is necessary doesn’t mean your motives for performing it are pure.”

  Sefu faltered, uncertain, but this time only for an instant. “Maybe you’re right. Because I’d certainly like to tear out that lying tongue of yours and—”

  “Enough!” Olhas said.

  Sefu blinked. “What?”

  “This conversation isn’t serving any purpose,” the gillman said. “The man is scum, but the Graycloaks have apparently decided he isn’t breaking the law, and you evidently can’t bribe him to force Leyli out. So she’ll have to decide for herself that she wants to come home.”

  “Indeed,” Domitian said, “and I promise she will when the time is right.”

  Sefu glared at him. “You—”

  “We should go,” Olhas said, and though he hadn’t raised his voice, there was an insistence in it that made Sefu heed him and keep walking even when he thought he heard Domitian chuckle at his back.

  “What was that all about?” he demanded once they were away from the manor. “Were you worried I was going to attack him and bring every ruffian and cultist in the place down on our heads?”

&nbs
p; “A little,” Olhas replied, “but I mainly wanted to get you out of there because of the notion that would inevitably have occurred to you after that one.”

  Sefu cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

  “Domitian asked if my magic was telling me anything, and actually, I did perceive arcane forces at play around him. But I already knew something unnatural was going on because I could feel him trying to tamper with my mind. Couldn’t you?”

  “I… think so. There were moments when I couldn’t help being impressed, and feeling half persuaded, even though I had those two poor, suffering fools right in front of me to show what kind of bastard he really is.”

  “Fortunately, your anger armored you, and a sorcerer’s will shielded me. But Domitian wasn’t just trying to manipulate us. He was reading our thoughts. It’s the only way he could have known my name. It was never spoken during our altercation on the avenue, and Leyli has never heard of me, has she?”

  “No.” Much as Sefu loved his family, he’d never been much for writing home.

  “There you are, then. I needed to get you out of there before you hit on the idea that I knew would come to you. Your anger might have kept Domitian from seeing it in your head, but we couldn’t count on it.”

  “The idea that you knew would come to me.” Sefu shook his head. “Which would be… if Domitian uses magic to control his followers, then Leyli really isn’t there of her own free will! And if we carry her off, you can use your own powers to restore her to herself!”

  The gillman nodded. “It’s at least worth a try.”

  Chapter Three: The Temple By Night

  The waning moon had passed its zenith and was slipping westward, and although a city like Absalom never entirely slept, only a few scattered lights glowed amid the darkness, while the perpetual background drone had subsided to the faintest of hums.

  Olhas peered down the silent street that led to Domitian’s manor, rolled tension out of his shoulders, and said, “Ready?”

  “If you are.” Sefu hesitated. “You know, you don’t have to do this.”

  Olhas raised his eyebrows. “Are you planning to work the magic yourself? That should be interesting.”

  “I mean, maybe I can bring her out just by being stealthy.”

  “And then what? Look, I understand all the ways this can go wrong. We could get killed breaking in or end up with the Graycloaks hunting us afterward. But if we stick together, we should be all right.”

  “All right, then. I owe you.”

  The gillman grinned. “You certainly do.” He pulled up the black scarf around his neck to mask the lower half of his face. The rest of his clothing was just as dark and thus well suited to housebreaking.

  Sefu tied on his own improvised mask. Then he and Olhas crept down the street toward Domitian’s manor.

  Olhas raised his hand for a halt, drew a vellum scroll from his sleeve, and unrolled it. Like the Wave Riders’ somber clothing, the parchment repository of magic was something they’d purchased specifically for this enterprise. Though Olhas was a competent sorcerer, his innate power had its limits, and he wanted to conserve it to cleanse Leyli of Domitian’s influence.

  Eyes that could see deep underwater could also make out a trigger phrase even in the gloom, and Olhas read it in a whisper. The ink made a tiny crackling sound as the magic bound in the words discharged, and the writing crumbled into powder.

  Meanwhile, Sefu peered at the window under the gable. He couldn’t see the lookout at all, let alone discern whether or not the half-orc had succumbed to the spell. “Is he asleep?” he asked.

  Olhas rerolled the scroll and slipped it back into his sleeve. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  They sprinted toward the wrought-iron gate. Sefu didn’t hear anyone shouting an alarm, and when they climbed over into the courtyard, it took them out of the lookout’s field of vision. He hoped that when the half-orc woke, he’d imagine he’d simply drifted off naturally.

  Keeping low, the Wave Riders crept on to the front door. Olhas squatted and whispered into the keyhole. The lock clicked, and the door swung ajar.

  Sefu peered through. The foyer was unoccupied and, with the oil lamps extinguished, even darker than the night outside.

  He and Olhas prowled up the stairs. They were proceeding on the assumption that Domitian’s followers slept in the bedrooms, although Sefu actually wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that the god-to-be kept his poor abused flock in the cellar.

  It turned out that he didn’t, although he apparently required them to lie on the floor instead of in the beds. The worshipers tossed, jerked, twitched, and moaned in their sleep. Squint as he might, Sefu often found it impossible to make out their features in the gloom, but he trusted Olhas to recognize Leyli when they came to her.

  “Olhas may not be the most attractive Wave Rider around, but he’s a good man to have on your side.”

  A floorboard creaked. Sefu pivoted. A half-orc was leading a woman—Sefu thought it was the cultist who’d been made to pull her own teeth, though he wasn’t sure—down the hall toward him, Olhas, and the room they’d just finished inspecting.

  Sefu nearly snatched out his sword before realizing the ruffian wasn’t showing any sign of agitation at the Wave Riders’ presence. Apparently, thanks to their black garments, he’s mistaken Sefu and Olhas for two of his fellows.

  Sefu gave him a little wave. Then he and Olhas stepped into the bedroom and closed the door behind them. He hoped it was an unremarkable thing for one of the half-orcs to do.

  Apparently it was, because the tough didn’t come in after them or shout for help, either. Footsteps padded by, and then, farther down the corridor, another door opened and closed. Sefu suspected it was the one that he and Olhas had decided likely led to the master bedroom.

  As they moved on, he tried not to imagine all the special degradations to which Domitian might be subjecting the woman in his private chamber in the middle of the night. Then a pair of high, perhaps inhuman voices began to yowl. The eerie cries echoed through the dark house, but if they woke any of the cult leader’s followers, Sefu couldn’t tell. Perhaps the magic that trammeled their minds kept them from hearing.

  “By the Eye,” Olhas whispered, sounding unsettled for once, “what is that? What’s he doing to her?”

  “I don’t know,” Sefu answered. “But our task is still to find Leyli and get her out of here.”

  And eventually they did find her, after climbing up to the third floor. Leyli lay sleeping beside another female cultist in a room that had evidently once belonged to a child. Ghostly in the trace of light shining through the open casement, clowns juggled, ropewalkers balanced, and bears danced in the mural on the wall.

  Whispering, Olhas cast a second spell of slumber to make sure Leyli’s roommate didn’t wake. Then Sefu picked up his sister and set her on her feet. The gillman’s magic had taken hold of her as well, and she slept on obliviously. Sefu supported her with one hand and covered her mouth with the other.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Olhas removed the preserved tongue of a serpent and a bit of honeycomb from a hidden pocket in his belt. “Go.”

  Sefu shook Leyli. Meanwhile, holding both magical foci in his left hand, Olhas swept them through an S-shaped pass and whispered sibilant words of power.

  Leyli stiffened in Sefu’s grasp, then started to squirm and struggle. Olhas reached the end of his incantation and said, “Listen! Domitian sent us. He wants you to go with us and cooperate with us in every way.”

  Leyli stopped fighting. Sefu cautiously uncovered her mouth, and she didn’t scream.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Olhas said. He smiled at Leyli. “Quietly, please. Domitian doesn’t want us to disturb the others.”

  She nodded slowly, in a dazed way that gave Sefu a pang of guilt. He’d come to restore her mind, not add yet another level of confusion and compulsion. But Olhas had assured him the effect was only temporary, and it really was the easiest way to sneak her
out.

  They all crept back down the staircase into the foyer. With the door to the outside world in view, Sefu felt himself relax at least a little.

  Then a shaggy lupine beast stalked through one of the doorways on his right.

  Sefu was more familiar with the creatures of the sea and coast than those of the forest and plain. Yet his instincts shouted that the creature was something more than a dog or even a wolf, and an instant later, it proved them correct by speaking.

  “What’s this?” it snarled.

  The beast was a worg, then, a man-eating predator of near-human intelligence. And if it was serving as Domitian’s watchdog, that was yet more evidence—not that Sefu needed any—that the god-to-be was a dastard of the vilest sort.

  What Sefu did need was a way past the brute. Maybe he and Olhas could bluff it like they’d bluffed the half-orc in the hallway.

  “Somebody wants to play with this skinny bitch,” he said, trying to sound as coarse as any half-orc ruffian. “The Reaper knows why, especially at this hour. But he sent gold, so Tsadok and me have to deliver her.”

  The worg grunted, then snuffled. Sefu realized it was taking his and Olhas’s scents. But before he could do anything about it, it lifted its head and howled.

  Sefu whipped out his sword and rushed it. The worg broke off its cry to spring back and avoid his first cut. Maybe, if the Wave Riders were lucky, that bit of ululating wailing had blended in with the yowls still issuing from Domitian’s bedchamber, and no one had noticed it.

  In any case, Sefu had to deal with the beast, and quickly. He slashed at its head, but it sidestepped the stroke, then sprang.

  Its front paws slammed into Sefu’s chest and smashed him to the floor. Slavering jaws plunged at his throat.

  Behind him, Olhas rattled off a word. Darts of green light stabbed into the worg’s muzzle and shoulders, and it faltered at the shock. Sefu let go of his sword’s hilt and grabbed it partway up the blade, so he could stab with it at close quarters. He thrust it between the creature’s ribs.