by Brian Fuller
As the days wore on, the distinction between the personalities struggling within him started to blur. At times, Gen found he couldn’t separate his memories from those of his companions. What they had done, he had done. What they felt, he felt. Gen fought to maintain his identity, force his dominance, and recapture control of himself, but Telmerran and his desires were becoming his own, though more frequently the desires of Elberen and Samian imprinted themselves more strongly upon his mind.
A fortnight gone, they traveled south, east, and west as much as north. The raging conflict of four personalities trying to merge and the lack of nourishment often dropped Gen to the ground unconscious and twitching. The sword they’d carried for untold miles came up missing after one such episode. Gen could not gather enough order or volition in his mind to search for food, and finally, after three weeks of wandering, his mind was such a riot of conflicting memories, vivid images, and powerful yearnings that he fell, only dimly recognizing that the dirt under his hand was a road before he closed his eyes and gave up the fight.
Chapter 13 - The Damned Quarter
Errin, an acolyte of the Church of the One, crinkled his nose. “Pureman Salem, he stinks, and badly.”
“That he does, Errin. That he does.”
The grizzled Salem rubbed his scraggly black and gray beard, a beard that paid no compliment to the puffy face and thinning hair of a man whose rough, pockmarked skin had been sculpted by the sun, wind, and rain.
Salem glanced back at the young man in the cart. “Reminds me of the time we was laid up deep in the Kingsblood Sea. Hot as the Blacksand Waste in the summer and about as much wind as comes out of either side of a dead man. Didn’t matter whether you was above decks or below decks, ya sweat so much you could scrape the salt off yer skin with a knife. That was stinkin’, lad. ‘Course, everyone stank, though some more than others, ye understand. You could kill fish with yer stench just by jumpin’ in the water.”
Errin sighed. “That was a delightful story, Puremen Salem. How fortunate that the Prelate chose me to be your acolyte. I may not be able to heal anyone by the time you’re done with me, but I’ll have an excellent collection of sea stories with which to sicken the heart of the already ill. ‘Either end of a dead man.’ Did you have to say that?”
“Farging piece of shmite!” Salem erupted. He held little respect for his highborn companion and his milky white skin, wavy brown hair, and unmanly aversion to everything not scrubbed by a servant. “You’d best be grateful you got any appointment at all after the circumstances of you coming into the brotherhood and all.”
“‘Farging?’ ‘Shmite?’ You made those up, didn’t you? With your background you should have better curses at your command.”
“Look here, acolyte,” Salem chastised. “Eldaloth himself taught that we shouldn’t swear or profane. Men in my former profession swear as much as they possibly can, whenever they can. I’ve worked long and hard to overcome me poor speech. You respect it or I’ll put one hand on yer collar and one foot up yer, um . . . or I’ll kick you right off this wagon and you’ll be walkin’ the rest of the way to Rhugoth!”
“I would think,” Errin opined, “that ‘farging’ is pretty much the same as saying that ‘other’ word. The feeling behind it is certainly the same. After all, if I straight out tell a woman she isn’t pretty, isn’t it just the same as if I had said she were ugly? Same feeling, same intent, same sadness caused, same sin.”
“Who is the acolyte here?” Salem asked, dander up. “I’ll be doin’ the teachin’ about sin. Now, as to the young man in the back there. If you think he stinks so bad, you can bathe him once we get to a river wider than a horse trough.”
“Then you’ll have two sick and crazy people to take care of. Do we have to take him all the way to Rhugoth? The Church runs a fine sanatorium in Khyrum, not two days from here.”
Salem snorted. “You noble types. Always scared of dirt and bodily fluids. Ya wouldn’ta lasted a minute on The Raven, not a one.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. But really, Salem. We can leave him in Khyrum, right? Tell me we can.”
“No!” Salem objected. “He’s not sanatorium sick, Errin. He’s Mikkik sick! He’s possessed. It’s the Damned Quarter for him, if he can’t be dispossessed.”
Salem and Errin both glanced back at the stray they had found lying prone on the side of the road that morning. Days, maybe weeks, of wandering had ruined his clothes, his pants and cloak a mess of rips and dark stains, some of blood. He was covered from head to toe in mud and he constantly muttered in what they figured were three different languages, Common the only familiar one. As they watched, he thrashed about and started yelling in one of the strange tongues.
“Demon possession, all right. He’s talking the tongue of the Mikkik, or I’m no Pureman at all!”
“The speech doesn’t sound foul. Quite elegant, actually. Well, it would be if he weren’t yelling it.”
“Ah, but there’s the thorn!” Salem gesticulated, taking one hand off the reins. “The words of evil are cloaked in beautiful guise to deceive us, like an ugly street prostitute who wears pretty. . .”
“Please!” Errin plead. “No more analogies!”
“As ya wish, lad,” Salem acquiesced.
“You’ll never get your own congregation if you can’t file the rough edges of your sermons.”
“True enough, but who needs a congregation when we’ve got so much good and kindness to do? Take this poor, wretched lad. Doesn’t need words. He needs food and lookin’ after. Some of those uppity Prelates and Puremen might think preachin’ best, but I ain’t yet met a man who liked the word of God on an empty stomach.
“Well, we’ll take this one direct to Prelate Shefston. If he can’t exorcise him, then I suppose he’ll be set loose with the rest of them. Damned Quarter certainly doesn’t need another crazy. Ya know the Church has it out for ye when they send ye there. A real black-eye on Mikmir, the Damned Quarter. A fine city, otherwise.”
“He keeps saying that word, ‘quaena’, over and over again,” Errin observed after a long lull in the conversation. “What do you suppose it means?”
“It’s another name for the Evil One,” Salem answered firmly.
“It is not. I’ve never heard of that one. You’re making things up again.”
A quick shove from Salem expelled Errin unceremoniously from the cart and onto the side of the road, sending him rolling in the dirt.
“Hey, Salem,” Errin yelled, standing and jogging to catch up. “That really hurt, you . . . farging bass turd!”
“Now that was real swearin’, brother Errin. You need to repent.”
“No, I don’t. I was talking about fish shmite.”
“What?”
“Never mind, Salem. Can I get back in the cart?”
“If you can catch it, you can ride it,” Salem said, whipping the reins to spur the horse forward.
Several hours and a long walk later, Errin lay to the side of the road wishing they could light a fire. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough wood in the Red Wind Breaks to fill a cart half as big as theirs. The long journey bored him, and, as much as he complained about Salem’s salty stories, they at least provided a modicum of entertainment. Fortunately, Errin prodded Salem away from his putrid sea stories and onto the more fantastic—and sometimes just as brutal—stories about a General Harband from Rhugoth. Errin couldn’t believe half of them, outrageous as they were, but the story about Harband setting squirrels on fire and letting them loose in his commander’s tent provided a welcome laugh, true or not.
Errin rolled to his side. As usual, Salem had already drifted to sleep, mumbling real obscenities in his dreams. After tossing and turning for nearly an hour, Errin stood and went to the cart, finding the possessed young man standing behind it, back straight and hands behind him as if at attention. Scars covered him from one end to the other, and Errin wondered how many were concealed beneath layers of dirt. He plugged his nose and stood in front of t
he poor fellow, looking him in the eyes to see if the young man would acknowledge his presence. He didn’t, face devoid of expression and eyes vapid.
“What is your name?” Errin repeated the question several times.
“Telmerran. Samian. Gen. Elberen. Regina. Why couldn’t I save her? Rafael! Do you see her? Quaena, do you live? Will I meet you? Where are the trees? We are going the wrong way, curse Telmerran! Always has to have his way. We must warn the Duke! Khairn is coming! Fly! He will fly before us!”
Errin shook his head. Clearly insane. Only one name of many meant anything. Errin surmised the young man was from some poor family in the south of Tolnor who had kicked him out the door because of his ailment, no longer able to care for him. By the scars, he’d had a rough life, probably on some cruel street.
Salem’s “ministry” was to travel Tolnor and care for the downtrodden, and the boy was their first find of the season. They had found no weapon with him upon the road where they encountered him, but Errin thought that even a soldier should not have so many scars upon him. If Salem hadn’t thought him possessed, they would have traveled to Khyrum and been done with it, but in Mikmir, the Church kept the possessed and others touched by Mikkik in a separate place, not wanting to kill them, but wanting them kept together, nonetheless.
As they traveled north in the following days, the Wardwall mountains slowly peeked up over the horizon, snowy tips difficult to see against the bright blue sky. They passed the turn off to Khyrum, picking up supplies from Gribb, a small trading post at the crossroads between the Lonewall and Khyrum Duchies.
The boy took to sleeping a lot in the day, rising in the evening and standing guard in a soldierly stance. Errin noted his regimental behavior, though the material of his clothes was clearly that of a peasant. They tried to coax him into bathing in the Wind River and Mirror Lake as they traveled by, but the young man resisted stubbornly and was too strong to force.
Three more days passed, and they descended the north side of the Wardwall Mountains into the beautiful Emerald Valley. Despite his indisposition, the young man stood in the wagon and gazed at the long lake, green grass, and newly bloomed wildflowers for nearly an hour, eyes bright with wonder.
As they passed through a pine stand charred from a lightning fire, their charge moved quickly to one side of the wagon bed and stared intently at something in the brush. Not until the deer concealed there sprinted away did Errin see it, and he surmised that the boy had excellent vision. He still kept his rigid vigil every night, and Errin took some time to listen to the language he spoke to himself, finding it enchanting and even inspiring at times despite his inability to understand it.
In stark contrast, Salem sang, fake-swore, and told more disgusting sea stories than Errin thought possible for one man to accumulate, and he got even louder as they neared populated areas. Salem possessed a kind heart and a willingness to help anyone despite their station, and Errin would admire him for that, if for nothing else. Salem always saw to everyone else’s needs first.
Fortunately, the brief spates of bad weather as they descended slowly down the rough road on the north side of the mountains provided something to talk about other than the time Salem’s entire crew ate a bad batch of fish, or when they came upon a giant, vomiting sea monster who retched onto the deck of their ship (a story Errin didn’t quite believe).
The Portal to Rhugoth sat on a small island in the middle of the Emerald Lake. Several small towns clumped around the pristine body of water created a living for the lords and peasants who charged fees to take travelers by barge to the Portal. As Errin, Salem, and the boy neared one such city, Mirrorvale, they found themselves behind a long caravan waiting to be taken to the island Portal.
The ever-gregarious Salem had ample opportunity to serve and disgust everyone. Errin did his best to smooth over Salem’s total lack of regard for good manners, though as an acolyte, he could only correct Salem indirectly for fear the man would grab him and do something horrible to him that he’d learned during his seafaring days—like the time he found a crewman cheating at cards, tied him to the deck, and dumped a crate full of angry lobsters on him. Errin hated that story, wondering exactly what they had done to anger the lobsters. Salem would never say exactly what had happened to the victim, always ending the story with a sad shake of his head.
The people of the caravan paid the strange boy no mind, used to the sight of the less fortunate and infirm along the road. Instead, they took their time frequenting the taverns and shops that lined the street. Half-naked boys carrying buckets of water charged a pittance to administer a drink to those who didn’t want to go into a tavern for fear of losing their place in the line. Errin had seen such jockeying for position end in brutal fights. As the line got longer, several city guards appeared from a side street, split up, and started patrolling the file.
“This is going to take for-farging-ever,” Salem complained grumpily as he climbed back into the driver’s seat and picked up the reins. “If that boy would act a little more crazy, we could probably convince the town guard to push us to the front of the line. But,” he said, casting his eyes backward to where their charge sat serenely observing the scene, “he seems to have calmed down a great deal of late.”
“I think he’s getting better,” Errin observed.
“‘Course he is!” Salem crowed proudly. “Bein’ with two Churchmen interferes with the demon’s power to use ‘im. Gives me hope he can be cured, God willin’.”
“I don’t think he’s possessed. The two different languages he’s speaking are beautiful. From what I’ve read, demon speech is coarse.”
“We done talked of this afore! The deceiver uses pretty speech to trick us. Sounds fair, but there’s a barb on every shiny, silver hook.”
“I think,” Errin said, “that when The Writ talks of ‘fair’ or ‘pretty’ speech, it’s talking about using flattery or being eloquent, not speaking in another language.”
And for the next two hours, Errin found himself subjected to a long argument about the methods and signs of possession, though Salem’s memory was such that the examples he gave were typically conglomerates of several different stories broken apart and refashioned to his purpose. Fortunately, the discussion—interspersed with diatribe—lasted long enough to pass the time until it was their turn.
Ropes, pulleys, and horses pulled two barges back and forth to the Portal Island. Salem told Errin to put blinders on the horse. Once done, they watched as the long and flat barge glided to abut against the pier. A weathered, shirtless bargemaster signaled the next three wagons forward, of which Salem’s wagon was last.
The two wagons in front of them were piled high with straw that had been kept through the winter to be sold in Rhugoth for higher prices than they could get in Tolnor. The bargemaster, voice raspy, ordered someone from each wagon to take the reins of each horse to master it in case it got the jitters on the water. With effort, he lifted a rear gate and placed thick planks behind each cart’s rear wheels to prevent them from rolling backward.
Errin found himself standing and stroking the horse soothingly as the barge got underway. It was early evening, and a beautiful blue sky reflected on the calm water. Errin breathed in the clean air, relishing the view. Behind him the Wardwall Mountains of Tolnor drifted away and in front of him the tall, ragged Ironheart Mountains of Aughmere jutted forbiddingly skyward. Errin could just make out the wall running against the opposite shore that marked the boundary of Aughmere, homeland of the Ha’Ulrich.
The Portal Island drawing steadily closer was flat and green with short grass, two large oak trees spreading their branches over the pier. While a major Portal for commerce between Tolnor and Rhugoth, the island’s size only permitted a single wooden structure, the home of the Portal Mages that administered the critical location. Due to the excessive amount of traffic to the island, Rhugoth had funded paving the road up to the Portal in white granite stones.
Movement in the corner of his vision prompted Errin to
turn. His eyes widened. The boy stood on the edge of the wagon, and it appeared he meant to jump off into the water.
“Salem!” Errin exclaimed. Salem turned about and reached backward to try to catch the boy’s cloak, but before he could grab it, the lad jumped from the wagon side to the barge railing in an incredible display of agility. As casually as if strolling down a wide avenue, he walked the length of the barge rail, which was no thicker than the length of a man’s finger. The bargemaster yelled at him to get down, but the young man continued until he stood at the front, arms crossed and staring at the island approaching before him
Salem, muttering fake curses, climbed down from the wagon and ambled forward as quickly as he could to soothe the bargemaster, explaining the boy’s condition. From the way the bargemaster backed away, Errin figured Salem let drop the word “possessed,” and from that point on the bargemaster stood as far from the boy as possible. Despite Salem’s entreaties, the young man remained perched on the rail until the barge neared the pier on the opposite side. Thankfully, he walked calmly back down the rail and jumped back into their wagon.
“Mikkik’s trick, that,” Salem judged darkly, frowning.
“I’ve seen acrobats who can do as much,” Errin countered.
“You think e’s an acrobat, do ye?” Salem replied.
“No, but extraordinary agility is hardly demonic!”
Fortunately for Errin, the need to debark and pay the bargemaster precluded another argument. Unlike their experience waiting for the barge, trips through the Portals took little time. The Portal to Rhugoth was large, framed in an arch made of the same pale stone as the road, now blushing a warm yellow in the late sun.
