Death's Heretic

by James L. Sutter

  One of the unmarked priests found his courage. Clutching at the silver spiral of Pharasma hanging from a chain around his neck, he raised his free hand and pointed it toward Salim, the fingers closing partway as if grasping an invisible ball.

  Salim felt his body stiffen, his limbs going numb and rigid under the assault of the spell, unable to so much as turn his head to follow the spellcaster’s movements. His chest constricted, the numbness spreading up his arms and legs and into his torso.

  And then he was free again. Across the room, the priest casting the spell yowled and clutched at his arm, his robes darkening with blood where the suddenly visible Neila had snicked through tendons with the point of her sword. She menaced them with the bloodstained blade, and all four fell back, allowing her to herd them into a tight knot in the corner.

  In Salim’s painful hold, Khoyar had ceased his screaming, and now only moaned through gritted teeth, staying as still as possible to avoid jostling his ravaged arm. When he could draw a full, ragged breath, he spoke, his words aimed at Salim.

  “So you’re here,” he said, voice wavering. “Now what?”

  Salim gave the arm a little jiggle, and Khoyar hissed in pain.

  “Now,” Salim said, raising his voice so that the priests huddled in the corner could hear it clearly, “we’re going to tell these people the truth. About how you lost your faith and betrayed the church, murdering Faldus Anvanory for his dose of sun orchid elixir. How you attempted to pin the crime on his grieving daughter.”

  “I—” Khoyar began, but the word cut off in a howl as Salim tugged on the arm, making a tutting noise with his tongue.

  “No,” Salim said, “don’t start yet. It’s important that we do this properly, don’t you agree?” He lifted his head and looked toward the priests. “You. As there’s only one dose of the elixir, I can’t imagine that any of you are in on Khoyar’s heresy. At least one of you must be capable of using magic to tell lies from truth. Who is it?”

  There was some staring and shuffling of feet, and then the sad-eyed priest of prophecy stepped forward, careful not to get too close to the point of Neila’s threatening sword. “I am capable of such divinations,” he said.

  “Good. Use them.” Salim looked to Neila, whose sword had shifted to point at the speaking priest. “It’s okay, Neila. I suspect these people will want to know the truth about their former leader as much as we want them to hear it.”

  Beyond her, the two attendant priests looked awkward, but the young birth-priest’s face was hard and determined. She inclined her head slightly.

  The man who’d stepped forward lifted the sign of Pharasma in both hands, whispering to the smooth silver of the spiral as one thumb traced its curve from the outside in. He kissed it and pressed it to his forehead, then let it drop. “I am ready.”

  “Ready to hear how Khoyar summoned a monster of pure chaos to murder an innocent man and hold his soul for ransom? How he forsook the church in an attempt to cheat his own goddess of her due? It’s a hell of a story, really.”

  But of course that was enough. The prophetic priest’s face went slack as Pharasma’s own magic confirmed Salim’s accusations. He turned those wet hound’s eyes on his former compatriot. “Khoyar,” he said. “Oh, Khoyar—how could you?”

  But Khoyar wasn’t paying the old man any attention. He squirmed around in an attempt to face Salim, and Salim allowed him the motion, releasing his grip and rising from his own crouch only to put a boot in Khoyar’s chest, driving him to the floor. Salim’s sword pricked the hollow of the man’s chin, but Khoyar ignored it, sprawled back on his good elbow and glaring up at Salim.

  “What do you know of it?” he spat. “How could you possibly understand what it is to grow old, to face death as not just a possibility, but an inevitability?”

  Some of Salim’s surprise must have registered on his face, for Khoyar laughed hoarsely, baring his teeth.

  “Oh yes, Salim Ghadafar—I know all about you. I know that you already sold out your own faith—or lack of it—once in exchange for immortality. And to do what?” He attempted to gesture at Neila with his broken arm and grimaced, settling for a shrug. “To hunt skeletons and seduce stupid girls? I would have led this church for a thousand years—risen in the ranks, brought Pharasma’s worship to countless souls—but you’ve wasted your time. The goddess’s greatest gift, and you’ve wasted it. You who believe in nothing.” He gave a laugh that was half cough. “Who are you to speak of heresy?”

  “Khoyar,” the old priest said again, sadly, but no one was listening to him.

  Without moving his sword, Salim reached down to Khoyar’s good hand and slid the ring—the silver circle that the gem had revealed as Faldus Anvanory’s prison—off the priest’s finger. Khoyar made no move to stop him. Salim palmed the ring but stayed bent, looking deep into the man’s eyes.

  “You truly know nothing,” Salim said, his voice not angry now, but quiet. “Only someone who’s never tasted immortality could think my life is a gift. You of all people should know this.”

  Then he cut Khoyar’s throat.

  Neila flinched and looked away as the blood sprayed and gradually slowed, but the other priests had no such compunctions. They watched, faces set, as their former leader kicked once and was still.

  Suddenly very tired, Salim went to one knee in the spreading pool and closed Khoyar’s eyes for the last time. Then he bent further and whispered in the man’s ear.

  From somewhere far below them came the crashing of glass, and Salim became aware once again of the sounds of rampant destruction drifting up from lower floors. He wiped his sword clean on the priest’s robes, then sheathed it and drew the stained stole of office from around Khoyar’s neck. He stood and addressed the room.

  “I have carried out the goddess’s judgment,” he intoned, “as I was sent to. If you doubt me, cast your own auguries, but I have no further business here. I trust that you will set things right with Lady Anvanory and the Lamasaran authorities.” He held up the ring. “I also expect that you will work to free Faldus Anvanory’s soul from this object, so that he may be properly resurrected, as per his original contract with your church. Am I understood?”

  The two high priests nodded, and the other clerics followed their lead.

  “Then in the name of Pharasma, the Lady of Graves, I leave this church in your care.” He tossed the bloody stole to the priest who’d cast the divinatory magic, and the man caught it easily.

  “Fly that from one of the eastern windows, and the fey will cease their attack.” Salim looked hard at each of the high priests in turn. “You will not allow retaliation against the fey. They may have damaged your church, but they’ve saved its soul. I advise you to view its repairs as penance.”

  “Of course,” the young birth-priest said, bowing.

  “Then go.”

  They left, filing out down the tower’s narrow stairway. When they were gone, Salim moved over to the wide eastern windows and looked out, past the flickering lights of the fey torches and the steadier lights of the city’s first evening lanterns, toward the distant river.

  Still holding her bloodied sword, Neila moved up beside him and took his hand. She was quiet for a moment, taking in the skyline. Then she spoke.

  “What did you say to him?” she asked. “At the end.”

  Salim didn’t turn. Outside, the sun had almost set behind them, bathing the world in blood and gold.

  “I told him that death was the goddess’s only true gift,” he said. “And that he should make the most of it.”

  Then they were quiet again, and stood and watched as the long shadows of the cathedral reached out to swallow the city.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Everything Forever

  Salim leaned back in his chair and sipped at the cold tea. At his side, the scabbard of his sword—his sword, its disfigured hilt gleaming in the sun—clanked against the thin metal struts of the chair, its familiar weight as comforting as a child’s stuffed toy. It was
matched by the unnaturally cold circle of the amulet against his bare chest, beneath his robes.

  Across the long yard and gardens of Anvanory Manor, Olar—now dressed in the official robes of the Anvanorys’ new majordomo—shouted good-naturedly at several men attempting to muscle an enormous trunk on top of a stack that was already threatening to overwhelm the flatbed cart. Near them, the kitchen door swung in an unending oscillation as a constant stream of serving women ran back and forth, calling requests to the porters. In the distance, empty fields waved with the breeze, bereft of men and plows.

  Despite all the commotion, the little paved veranda where they sat was quiet, its round table and two chairs positioned to give the best view of the greenery down at the river’s edge. Neila held her own teacup in both hands, sipping slowly as they watched the trees shiver and whisper, their leaves quaking against the cloudless blue sky.

  “I still would have thought he’d come back,” she said.

  Salim nodded his agreement.

  “I mean, after all that—to spend your life working toward a goal, and achieve it, only to let it go so casually.” She took a drink. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does if you realize your goal wasn’t worth having,” Salim said. In truth, he’d been equally surprised by Faldus’s reaction. Upon being released from his imprisonment by the Pharasmin priests, the late Lord Anvanory had been overjoyed, effusive in his thanks—and then promptly refused resurrection, offering only a few loving words for his daughter before departing for the Boneyard and points beyond.

  “What most people fear about death,” Salim continued, “isn’t really death. It’s the unknown, the uncertainty. While Faldus was alive, those things terrified him. Once he was dead, there was nothing left to be afraid of. Faldus has seen what death has to offer, swum through the astral void and seen Pharasma’s Spire twist up from the heart of everything.” He paused. “He understands that it’s a reward, not a punishment.”

  Neila said nothing, but the set of her lips still held a twist of uncertainty. Salim changed the subject. “Where will you go?”

  She shrugged. “The paperwork is complete. Once I leave, the land is Delini’s. With my inheritance—unquestioned, this time—I’m a very rich woman. I suppose I could go back to Taldor and renew our old acquaintances there. Perhaps find someone to teach me a little magic of my own.” She smirked and wiggled her fingers. “Wizard magic. No churches.”

  “A sound decision.” Salim tried to smile back at her, but must have made a poor show of it, for her own wavered and dropped. Her eyes flicked to the object they’d both been ignoring. In the center of the table, a squared-off glass vial no bigger than an inkwell squatted, its transparent core filled with amber liquid. There was no label. Only the lead seal on the stopper bore any markings at all: an impression, as from a signet ring, in the delicate shape of a sun orchid blossom.

  “And that?” Salim asked, gently.

  Neila refused to look at the bottle again. Instead she reached across the table, removing Salim’s teacup and taking his hand. “We’ve been a good team, haven’t we, Salim?”

  Please, his mind whispered. Please don’t. But he said only, “We have.”

  “I’ve been useful. I’ve saved your life twice now, and held my own against things no one else in this whole city has imagined, let alone seen.”

  Salim’s chest was tight, tighter than it had been when the priest had held him with magic in Khoyar’s tower. “You’ve done wonderfully, Neila. Truly. There’s fire in you, girl. You’ll do well.”

  She gripped his hand hard. “This doesn’t have to end here, Salim.” Her eyes were bright with tears, but also with excitement. “It doesn’t have to end at all. The elixir is mine now.” She smiled, the expression so warm and radiant that he might have wept.

  “You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

  As she said it, he realized that it was true. All of it. She would come with him, eagerly, readily, wherever his burden carried him. She would stand beside him, would laugh with him, would watch his back when things got ugly. And when she grew too old for their adventures, she would drink the elixir and return to the flower of her youth, using her investments here to purchase another potion. An unending cycle.

  She saw his recognition and drove the dagger home.

  “We can be together, Salim. Always.”

  In response, he stood and moved around the table to where she sat, still holding her hand. He looked down at her, at the incongruous blue eyes wet with emotion.

  He loved her. There was no question. In just a few days, she’d gotten under his skin, made him alternately furious and protective—made him feel what no one since Jannat, his wife from a lifetime ago, had been able to. And just like with Jannat, he had to make a choice.

  He leaned down and kissed her hard, her mouth soft against his, the fingers of his free hand wrapping themselves in the long, dark hair.

  Once he had been offered a choice, and he had taken it, robbing the woman he loved of the death that was hers by right. Now he was offered another: to take this girl—this beautiful, firebrand young woman—from the life that was hers, and make her a part of his own strange existence.

  He broke the kiss and tilted her chin up with two fingers, caressing her cheek.

  “The fact that you can say that,” he said gently, “is proof that you don’t yet understand.”

  Then he straightened, turned, and walked away.

  Behind him, the girl said nothing, only stared at his retreating form and then, long after he had turned onto the road and disappeared, at the little vial on the table.

  Considering.

  Epilogue

  Salim followed the road. At his feet, the desert wind kicked up little flurries of dust, turning the black of his robes a dirty beige. Eventually the dust would cover the road completely, and men would have to come to carve its route anew. And then, one day, the men would be gone, and the desert would reclaim the road as if it had never been. It was the way of things.

  He felt the blood, half-expected, and made no effort to wipe at it, only stopped and turned.

  The angel hung in the air behind him, its black wings sharp against the distant dunes.

  “Hello, Salim.” Its smile was beatific. “I’ve come with commendations. You’ve done a marvelous job.”

  In response, Salim spat, the blood and saliva barely missing the angel’s pointed toes. It landed in the road and disappeared beneath the shifting dust. When he spoke, his words were dry and cracked.

  “I’d prefer some answers.”

  “Oh?” The angel arched an eyebrow in polite interest, and Salim’s grip tightened on his sword hilt until his fingers were half numb.

  “This was a setup from the beginning, wasn’t it?” It took all the self-control in Salim’s body to keep his voice from shaking. “You knew from the beginning who was responsible, and why. Yet you sent me anyway.”

  The angel’s expression was less saintly now, dangerously close to smug. “And what makes you say that?”

  “It’s obvious!” Salim roared, then wrestled himself back to a more conversational volume. “Pharasma kept answering Khoyar’s prayers, giving him the spells he needed, all while he was performing the greatest heresy in her church. Don’t tell me she didn’t know what he was doing. She granted his requests. She knew. So why didn’t her other priests’ divinations about the murder expose him? Why didn’t you do anything?”

  “But Salim,” the angel said, folding its hands patiently. “We did do something. We sent you.”

  As quickly as it had come, the anger in Salim collapsed, giving way to exhaustion. He let go of his sword, arms hanging at his sides like lead weights. “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you do,” the angel chided. “Who better to hunt a priest? But that’s not what you mean. You want to know why Pharasma didn’t simply kill Khoyar where he stood as soon as he turned from her. And the answer is faith.”

  “Faith?”

  Ce
yanan reached out a hand and brushed a lock of hair back from Salim’s forehead.

  “Faith, Salim. Khoyar always had a choice, right up until the end. At any point, he could have repented, rediscovered his faith, and been—if not absolved—at least part of the natural order once again. By letting things play out to the very end, the goddess gave him every possible chance at redemption. And as her agent, you represented that freedom, that choice.”

  The angel withdrew its hand. “It’s a shame, really. Free will is the greatest gift of the gods. Yet give mortals enough rope, and most will eventually hang themselves.”

  Salim grimaced. “Myself included?”

  The angel laughed.

  “Oh no, Salim,” it said. “You’re the rope.”

  Then the angel faded away and was gone, leaving only another flurry of dust in the rapidly building storm. Salim was alone once more.

  Sighing, he turned and continued down the road.

  James Lafond Sutter is an award-winning game designer, author, and musician, as well as the Fiction Editor for Paizo Publishing. In addition to Death’s Heretic, he has written extensively for the Pathfinder’s Journal in Pathfinder Adventure Path, and his short fiction has also appeared in such venues as Black Gate, Apex Magazine, Catastrophia (PS Publishing) and the #1 Amazon best-seller Machine of Death. His RPG credits include such books as City of Strangers, Misfit Monsters Redeemed, The Inner Sea World Guide, and the Pathfinder RPG GameMastery Guide, and his Planet Stories anthology Before They Were Giants pairs the first published stories of science fiction and fantasy greats such as Larry Niven, Cory Doctorow, China Miéville, and William Gibson with new interviews and writing advice from the authors themselves.

  James lives in the Ministry of Awesome, a house in Seattle consisting of five roommates and a fully functional death ray. For more information, visit jameslsutter.com.