by Watson Davis
“The priests separated you and Thas Noj because you kept remembering,” Shiyk’yath said. “He reminded you of your daughter.”
Thas Noj stared at Shiyk’yath, his mouth open. Yath Yi moved to Thas Noj’s side, staring at his face, tears streaming down her cheeks. She reached up and touched Thas Noj’s lips. He jumped, moving away from her, his face white.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” Yath Yi asked. She fell to her knees and vomited a sticky black goo. “Where is she? Where is my baby?”
The crowd moved away from her.
Shiyk’yath pointed at a man holding a colorful vase. “Ja-bab!”
The man jerked and backed away, his skin growing pale. “No!”
“Your wife cheated on you,” Shiyk’ath said.
Ja-bab dropped the vase, shaking his head. “No, you’re wrong!”
“You killed her lover, your best friend,” Shiyk’yath shouted.
“Staluf!” Ja-bab collapsed, heaving black bile.
“Why you?” Thas Noj glared up at Shiyk’yath, pointed at him. “How is it you know these secret things?”
“Because I was injured and then I was healed,” Shiyk’yath said, his head swiveling, his eyes running across the people before him. His hand shot up, indicating where Sifa stood in the shadows. “She removed the spell from me. She showed me the truth, the truth the priests and priestesses want us all to forget.”
All the people in the crowd turned to look at her.
Sifa looked into the faces of these people, smudged with dirt, with disheveled hair, their clothes frayed at the edges, and tears filled her eyes and a lump grew in her throat. She smiled and waved. “Hi.”
“This girl, this Summoned child, lifted the veil from my eyes,” Shiyk’yath said.
“I am not Summoned,” Sifa said, raising her left hand to the people. They edged away from her, shrinking away from the merest threat of her touch, preparing to run from her.
“At first, I thought she was a demon-spawn come from some infernal realm of fire and brimstone to torture me and devour my soul,” Shiyk’yath continued, and the people’s eyes widened; many gasped and their hands rose to their mouths. He said, “But then I realized she is an angel of some sort from a divine realm.”
Sifa’s mouth dropped open and she shook her head. “No, I am not an angel.”
But no one was listening to her.
Shiyk’yath said, “She taught me the painful truth, a truth I did not want to know, and this seemed like her tormenting me, but no, it was not. She was setting me free. The pain I felt was like the pain of rebirth, a rebirth from the darkness into the light, from the night into the day.”
The crowd murmured, Yath Yi moving to the side of the wagon on which Shiyk’yath stood, staring up at him as though his every word was a drop of pure water quenching her thirst.
“We live our lives,” Shiyk’yath said, spreading his hands, using them to punctuate his sentences, “and they are hard lives. We give our bounty to the temple, to the priests and priestesses there, and they live like lords while we live in the dirt and mud, scraping together what we can to feed our children. We die of plagues, we die of diseases the temple could heal and will heal if we give them more of our produce.”
“Plague?” one man asked, laughing, turning to the rest of the people there. He shook his head, smirking. “We’ve been blessed by the Gods and the Empress! We have never had plague here.”
“Look and try to remember,” Shiyk’yath said. He pointed to an empty shop a building down from where Sifa stood. “Thath’ai and her husband, Drol’bong had a refreshments stand there and they made a great lemon liqueur. Remember them and their two children. Remember Strik-Beh and Stol Ehng. I had a wife and a baby.” He pointed to a man standing across the street. “You had a baby girl named Yehtste. All these people died from the plague three years ago.”
The man across the street raised his hand to his lips, a horrified expression spreading across his face.
“No!” a woman yelled out. “Don’t listen to him or you risk your souls.” She whirled with wild eyes, and she pointed at Sifa. “She has cast a spell on Shiyk’yath. She has befuddled him, and she is trying to confuse us, to distract us from the true path, the path of the Empress.”
Shiyk’yath shouted over her, “Almost everything we produce goes to feed the priests and priestesses and their armies, to clothe them, to make them wealthy, to wage wars that mean nothing.”
“Come here, girl,” a man said, grabbing Sifa’s arm and pulling her toward the wagon.
“Leave her alone,” Shiyk’yath said. “This has nothing to do with her; this is about us and about remembering who we are and what has been done to us.”
The man yanked on Sifa’s arm, but she twisted in his grip, swinging her shepherd’s crook up and hitting him between the legs. He released her arm and grabbed his crotch, falling to his knees in the street.
“I’ve got her!” another man shouted from behind Sifa.
Sifa spun around, hoping to run, but a crowd had gathered behind her. She froze. Three men tackled her, picked her up, and carried her squirming to the cart where Shiyk’yath stood.
“Shiyk’yath?” a woman’s voice asked, a voice of command and power, a voice that cut through the crowd, and everyone turned to look.
“Rector Tolyo?” Shiyk’yath whispered, his skin growing pale.
“Why do you disturb the peace and love of the Empress, Shiyk’yath?” A priestess in a severe black dress with red touches, marched forward, her skin a medium brown, her hair cut short, her lips a severe line. Six priests followed behind her, a mixture of short and tall, skinny and fat, but none of them appearing happy. “I am sad to see how little respect you have.”
“I do not fear you and your lies anymore,” Shiyk’yath said, hopping to the far end of the cart away from the rector, the wagon creaking with each of his steps.
“Of course you don’t,” Rector Tolyo said in a smooth voice while smiling a chilling smile. “Why should you fear me? I am here only to help you all, to serve you all, to make your lives better and easier. There is no reason to fear me.”
She motioned with her hands and the priests behind her walked through the crowd, surrounding the cart. “But I fear for your sanity, my dear boy. I fear that your injury has created some sort of mental break with reality. You’re hallucinating, seeing conspiracies and threats where none exist. It’s in your own best interest that our healers examine you to see if they can fix this lapse of judgment.”
Four priests leapt up onto the cart, grabbing at Shiyk’yath’s arms. He slipped away, punching one of the priests in the face and knocking him backward over the side of the wagon. He ducked one priest who tried to tackle him, but Shiyk’yath’s injured leg gave way and he fell to his knees. The priests jumped on him, pinning him down. Shiyk’yath roared in anger and pain.
“It is not Shiyk’yath’s fault!” a woman from the crowd cried.
“Oh?” Priestess Tolyo peered at the woman with her eyebrows arched. “How so, Yad’ka?”
Yad’ka gestured to Sifa. “That foreign witch has cast a spell of bewilderment on him, clouding his mind, and tried to mislead us all as well.”
Sifa squirmed trying to pull away from the men holding her arms, kicking at their shins. The priests pulled Shiyk’yath out of the wagon with his arms and legs bound, and two of them dragged him off toward the temple.
“I do not know you.” Rector Tolyo ambled toward Sifa, her eyes narrowed, studying her, moving toward her slowly. “And you do not know the love and grace of the Empress. How is that possible?”
“Are you the source of the vile spell that was on Shiyk’yath and is still on these poor people?” Sifa asked, her stomach flipping inside her.
“Poor people?” Rector Tolyo laughed and spread her hands toward the crowd that had been listening to Shiyk’yath. “Where are these poor people of which you speak?” She spoke to the crowd, asking, “Are you all not rich?”
“Yes!” the crowd sh
outed, save for Yath’yi with her hand over her mouth and tears streaming down her cheeks, Thas Noj with his arm around her shoulders, rubbing her upper arm, and the man whose child had died in the plague who stood on the sidewalk staring down at his shaking hands.
The crowd laughed, shouting, “We are rich in the love of the Empress!”
“As Yad’ka has said, this foreign girl has cast a spell on our poor Shiyk’yath, bending his mind,” Rector Tolyo said, putting her left hand on Sifa’s cheek. “She may have worked her magic on your minds as well. No one can be safe from such devious machinations. So please, everyone follow us down to the temple, come in and pray to the Empress, and you will be enlightened and her evil spell broken.”
The crowd nodded. “Yes.”
“Oh, yes, little one.” The rector leaned in toward Sifa, patting her cheek. “We must have words, you and I.”
Ofo
“PLEASE, LET ME GO,” Sifa said, twisting and trying to free her arms from the two priests carrying her toward the temple’s open bronze doors. The tips of her toes swept along the ground as her legs swung back and forth.
The priests didn’t respond to her pleas, and marched behind Rector Tolyo toward the temple. The crowd from the wagon followed along behind them, murmuring among themselves, more citizens of Ofo falling in with them, asking what was going on.
Statues of a beautiful woman, the Empress, knelt on short pedestals ringing the breathtaking temple, each of them leaning forward, their heads tilted to one side, eyes closed, presenting their ear.
Yath Yi stood on the tips of her toes with drying tears glittering on her cheeks beside one of the statues, cupping her hand over the side of her mouth, speaking a prayer into that ear and Sifa wondered what the woman could be saying.
“I’ll be a good girl,” Sifa said, her voice quivering. “I’ll go back home and I’ll go to a temple in every town we go by. I’ll pray to the Empress every day. Really. Just let me go.”
The priests carried her past those statues, up the granite steps, and through the bronze doors molded into panels depicting scenes from the heroic stories and fables Sifa had grown up loving, stories Ka-bes read to her every night to help her sleep.
Three barrel-vaulted aisles ran the length of the basilica of the temple, ending in golden domes, with colonnades on either side of the central aisle, thirty-six columns holding up arches, and set back from the side aisles, small chapels. The black and white granite of the floor mirrored the designs inlaid into the ceiling.
A stained-glass window soared up at the end of the central aisle, behind a pulpit and an altar, the glass sparkling in the sunlight. In the glass, the Empress stood over evil Lord Sissola in his magical plate mail armor with his flaming spear in hand and the despicable Lady Gal-nya with her venomous daggers. The evil-doers cowered in terror before the truth and the power of the Empress, who stood with Her hand raised and glowing with magic.
Sunlight trickled through the colored glass, and motes of dust hovered in the stagnant air. Sifa choked on the smoke of centuries of incense. Her eyes burning, she batted her eyelids and tears streamed down her face.
Rector Tolyo reached the end of the left-hand aisle and opened a bronze door inlaid with symbols and runes Sifa could not read. The door shimmered with magic.
The priests carried Sifa through the door and down narrow stairs into a dark dungeon, leaving the incense-laden air above and descending into a miasma of stagnant air reeking of excrement, decay and suffering. Sifa gagged at the stench.
Rector Tolyo murmured the words of a spell and magelights sprang to life in sconces running down a corridor of rough-hewn rocks shaped into bricks. Sifa squinted, turning her head away from the sudden light. Straw covered the stone floor.
“What have you done to Shiyk’yath?” Sifa asked, her bottom lip quivering. She hated herself for that sign of weakness. “He’s very badly injured.”
“Shiyk’yath will be fine. He is none of your concern,” Rector Tolyo said, tapping Sifa on her nose. A priest scurried forward and opened a wooden door. The rector glanced sidelong at Sifa, her eyes sliding up and down Sifa’s body, a wry smile playing upon her lips. “Or is he your concern? Are you and Shiyk’yath sex partners? I didn’t realize he liked them quite so young.”
Sifa’s head jerked back, horrified, and she stared at the rector as they carried her past. She said, “Sex partners? You have a foul mind.”
The priests carried Sifa through the door. Once through, they grabbed her forearms and snapped manacles around her wrists, connected to the wall by chains. One priest yanked at the clasp of her cloak.
“No, don’t,” Sifa said.
But the priest pulled her cloak off.
Rector Tolyo gasped and drifted forward, her hips loose and graceful, each step like a cat approaching its prey. “What do we have here?”
“Please, I just want to go home,” Sifa pleaded.
Tolyo stretched her hand out slowly and touched Sifa’s left horn.
Sifa jerked her head away, the contact doing nothing good to her queasy stomach. “Please, don’t do that.”
“Be still or I will have the priests hold you down,” Tolyo whispered. She reached out once more, caressing Sifa’s left horn, sliding the back of her fingers over it, rubbing her fingertips on it.
An impotent tear trickled down Sifa’s cheek.
Tolyo spoke words of a spell, summoning magic to her, the words appearing in the air before her lips, ghostly symbols like the ones on the door to the dungeon. Tolyo pressed her fingers against Sifa’s forehead, each finger searing into Sifa’s head like a branding iron.
Sifa yelped, and pulled her head away, smacking the back of her skull on the stone wall.
Tolyo grabbed Sifa’s horns, holding Sifa’s head still, and she whispered in Sifa’s ear, “You must tell me the truth now, you have no choice. Who are your parents?”
Sifa blinked, considering the question.
Tolyo stepped back and studied Sifa’s face.
Sifa shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Tolyo reached out and plucked at Sifa’s necklace, pulling the string out and holding it up. “What is the significance of this string? There’s residual magic associated with it.”
Sifa peered down at the string, expecting to see the jewel, surprised it was not glowing, not burning with an inner fire, but more surprised to not see it at all, as though it was not there and had never been there. Only the loops in the string around the corners hinted it was there. Sifa swallowed. “It’s nothing special. Just a charm a friend made for me.”
“You are lying,” Rector Tolyo said, chuckling.
Sifa pursed her lips and arched her eyebrow. “I thought you said you’d put a spell on me and I couldn’t lie.”
Rector Tolyo slapped Sifa, knocking her head to the side. Sifa’s cheek stung, but her anger drove back her tears along with her desire to bash this woman’s face in.
“You are just a child.” Rector Tolyo pointed at Sifa, her finger almost touching Sifa’s nose. “You are a mewling baby.”
“And you are old,” Sifa said. “You have wrinkles around your mouth.”
Rector Tolyo’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me where you came from, how you cut off the spell, and tell me where you think you were going. Tell me or you will pay dearly.”
Sifa spat at Tolyo, and said, “I’m not going to tell you anything, ever.”
“You think not,” Tolyo said, grabbing the side of Sifa’s face, digging her nails into Sifa’s skin. “Have you forgotten that we have your lover boy, Shiyk’yath?”
“What?” Sifa pulled her head away from those painful nails, but they followed her. “Leave him out of this!”
Rector Tolyo released her grip on Sifa’s face and turned, motioning to one of the priests. The door opened and Shiyk’yath stumbled in, his face a mass of bruises and scrapes, a priest at each elbow helping him maintain his feet.
“Sifa?” He looked at her as he swayed to either side, his breathing ragged, blood pouri
ng from his nose and the corners of his lips. “Have they harmed you?”
“As you can see,” Rector Tolyo said, gesturing toward him but keeping her eyes on Sifa, “our guards have worked wonders with his injuries.”
“Why are you doing this?” Sifa asked. “What have we ever done to you?”
Rector Tolyo breathed out, her breath quivering with anger, her nostrils flaring. “You do not understand your position, little girl.” She raised her right hand, making a motion. Black motes swirled around it. Then she clenched her fist, speaking an ancient word. The black motes coalesced into black strands, the black strands merging into one thick tendril surging up behind Shiyk’yath like a horrible serpent, and it struck down into his head. The tendril wrapped itself around Shiyk’yath. His eyes turned up into his head, the whites turning black for a heartbeat before fading back into white. His jaw dropped open and drool trickled down out of the corner of his mouth.
Rector Tolyo shrugged, her hands spread before her. “And just like that, all your damage has been undone. He is back in the Empress’s embrace now, back under our control. I can return him to his old life, and he will have no memory of you or this ever happening.” Rector Tolyo smiled and pointed toward Sifa. “What happens next is up to you. He can be happy and blissful for the rest of his life, or I can always use him as a village idiot.” She crossed her arms over her chest and smirked. “Many towns benefit from a village idiot. It provides the common folk someone worse off on which to concentrate their anger and hate, which lessens the stress on the system overall.”
Sifa’s eyes widened, and she shook her head. “When the Empress finds out how rotten-evil you are, She’s going to put you in your place.”
“I am doing Her bidding,” Tolyo said, patting Sifa’s cheek. “True evil is chaos; evil is a life lived to no purpose and wasted with no benefit to anyone. I represent law. I turn the brutes and savages that inhabit this filthy shithole into model citizens, into productive people contributing to improve the lives of everyone in the empire. There is no evil in that.”
