by Jon Kiln
“The Menaali,” Talon said with a sneer. “The barbarian Horde. I’ve fought them before.”
Meghan tried to think of how a boy of his age could ever come to say that but shook her head when she realized that she had no time, or no care, to know. “Will they help us?”
“Never.” Aldameda was adamant. “They serve their own Dal Grehb, a vicious warlord, and they don’t feel an ounce of charity or honor. Look!” She indicated the first, most visible ranks of them, who were shuffling or marching, jerking or sliding as if something else rode their skins.
“Devils,” Aldameda said. “Khoulash may be dead, but it seems his plan has come to fruition anyway. Hell finally has its army, and its city.”
36
“Devils,” Suriyen said again. “That is what they are, Vharn.”
“What nonsense is this?” The chief snatched at the viewing telescope that his slave had been holding, and used it to look down onto the docks, thronging with both the strange pirates, and his own people.
Vharn scanned the crowds of Menaali warriors first. He saw many named warriors, proud men and women whom he knew personally. Most of the chiefs who had been ordered alongside him to set up camp in Fuldoon where there, but they appeared different somehow.
“They move funny,” Vharn said. “Like they have the ague, or a fever.” He looked at one knot of the large warriors as they stood implacably, and saw their shoulders, necks and heads twitch and shiver as if they were in the midst of a snowstorm. In others, this twitching and shivering had subsided, becoming just random and sporadic jerks or shrugs that only seemed to calm when their great bodies were in motion.
“If the devil is exerting its will to make them do something, then they are like a driver on a cart, managing a horse,” Suriyen explained beside him. “Everything works together in motion, but as soon as they stop, the horse starts trying to throw off the reins, yet the cart wishes to remain still.” She knew precisely what her captor was seeing.
“Huh, you reckon?” Vharn muttered. He didn’t want her to be right. He didn’t want to think of his beloved people as mere tools for the devils of this world.
“It’s true, dammit. Look at them!” Suriyen snapped at him, her sudden devotion to her cause overwhelming any pretense at being servile. Devils, here in Fuldoon. Hundreds and thousands of devils. “Ask yourself why they are here? Now?”
“Maybe you’re right, slave.” Vharn was frowning through the telescope. “Because look…” He pointed to where there was a tighter knot of warriors making their way through the possessed Menaali Horde; all the largest men and women and the most hardened warriors.
Dal Grehb’s personal honor guard.
There, in the center of them like a giant bull marched the great warlord himself. He did not jerk, twitch, or stumble, but those at his sides did. And leading him, as a child might lead her favorite puppy, was the thin and braided form of Aisa Desai.
“Witch!” Vharn hissed, his hand immediately moving to his axe.
“Devil, more like,” Suriyen murmured. Even without the telescope, she could see clearly the diorama that was playing out below them. The witch moved and staggered, and the other devils fell from around her in obeisance. She is the one who has mastered this, Suriyen thought. Or the thing now inside her has.
“Bring her to me!” the devil-Aisa roared once more at one of the devil galleons that stood beside the docks. “Or I will crush you, Khoulash! Look at the army I have!”
Vharn stood up suddenly, aghast. “That is not for her to command. Why doesn’t the Dal command? What has she done to him?”
“Bewitched him? Threatened him? Held him captive?” Suriyen guessed. “Any number of things – but know this – she is no longer the witch that you knew. And none of those down there are your comrades. They are all devils from hell, I swear it.”
The devil-Aisa waited for a long pause, before she suddenly snarled, and clapped her hands. The first two ranks of the devil-Menaali drew their weapons and stalked forward, just as the pirate-devils growled and drew their own.
“They’re engaged in some kind of power-play,” Suriyen surmised. “With any luck they’ll kill each other…”
“Who are they after?” Vharn seized the telescope, sweeping across the boat. “Nobody there. No, wait. There’s someone standing up.” Suriyen saw the man’s face twist between cruel anticipation of the hunt, and anxiety over what it might mean. “An old woman. On her own. Poor bugger doesn’t look like such a great prize.”
But then the words of the Mother Aldameda reached Suriyen’s ears across the waters, making her heart thud and her blood run cold.
“You will never have her, Marzu! You and your kind will fail, as they always fail! I am the Guardian of this city, and I command you, in the name of the Heavens, to go back to your foul pit from whence you came!”
“Mother!?” Suriyen clutched at the window ledge.
37
“What is she doing?” Talon was aghast, trying to squirm out of Vekal’s grasp.
“She’s buying us time, boy! Time for us to escape!” Vekal said, as he held the rope with one hand and tried to control the squirming Talon in the other. The rope led over the far side of the Red Hand, down to where Meghan with Kariss on her back were lowering themselves into a small boat – one of the abandoned devil boats of the pirate horde.
“But they’re going to kill her!” Talon turned and tried to fight.
“She knows a few tricks yet.” Vekal cursed, lifting Talon bodily with an inhuman strength and lowering him over the side as he kicked and flailed, until he caught a hold of the rope.
As if in answer to Vekal’s assertion, the shouted words of the Mother Aldameda reached them over his cloaked shoulder.
“I call the powers of Heaven! I renounce you and cast you down! Your reign of terror is at an end!” Vekal turned at the last moment, to see Mother Aldameda jump down from the gunwale and pull at something blocky and large at her side.
There was a sudden flash of light and a sound like a crackle of thunder as one of the deck cannons rocked backward on its stand.
She must have primed it after telling us to run, Vekal thought, half admiring the woman’s courage.
Her small, hunched form raced from cannon to cannon along her side of the deck, pulling and lighting the cord that she had already prepared. At such close range, the shots were deadly, exploding into the crowds of devils and through the docks below in great gouts of water, wood, and bodies.
The shots continued, but Vekal also knew that she would not be able to hold them off for long. Not on her own.
‘Is it time?’ Ikrit asked. The devil’s voice was cold inside him.
Vekal’s eyes flickered to the longboat below him, where Talon was already reaching safety beside Meghan and Kariss. He wished that he had more time with all of them, more time to say sorry to Talon for all of the wrongs that he had done to him. And time, of course, with Meghan and Kariss.
But I came back to save them. And this is how I do that. He nodded. “Yes, it is time.”
“Vekal? Vekal!” Meghan was calling up to him. “Quick, climb down the rope!”
“No,” Vekal murmured softly, and then raising his voice louder, so that they could all hear. “Flee! Meghan, know this: I could have had a good life with you. Talon? I charge you with looking after this woman and babe! Kariss? Listen to your mother, and never listen to devils and you should do fine,” he said with a reckless grin.
‘Well, you’re probably right,’ Ikrit seemed to agree with his assessment.
“Vekal, no! We can still have a good life together!”
“No. We cannot,” Vekal informed her, as Talon seized the oars and dark waters started to separate the long boat from the Red Hand vessel. “But I know that we will meet again, one day,” Vekal said with shining eyes, as Meghan fell into silent sobbing, holding her strange child at her side.
Behind him, another cannon shot rocked the galleon.
How many guns were there on o
ne side? Vekal thought as he stepped back. Four or six? Already, he could hear the sounds of fighting and snarling as the two groups of devils clashed, and the possessed barbarian horde under Aisa-Desai sought to gain control of the boat.
‘You know that the angels might still get them, right?’ Ikrit said sadly.
“Not if I can still help it,” Vekal replied. He hoped that there were six guns, and he hoped that he still had time before all the devils of Hell caught up with him. He turned back to the decks, and dove down the stairs.
38
‘Where are you going? What are you doing?’ Ikrit was near incensed with worry. ‘You said that it was time. That now was our chance at salvation. You know what you have to do, priest!’
“I do know, but there is one thing that I have to do, while I am still me,” Vekal gasped as he ran, skidding on the blood of the pirate-devil that he had killed, turning around the corner and racing down the corridor to the next level of stairs, and charging once more to the only set of doors on this level.
Captain Oberra’s State Rooms.
‘What are you doing? What do you think that this cripple can help you with?’
“You forget, imp, that I am a Sin Eater, and with you at my side, my prayers can heal.” Vekal kicked down the door to where the prone form of the Pirate Lord was still on his bunk bed, and where he still moaned and fidgeted after the angel had been cast out of him, and broken his mind.
“I want us to heal him, Ikrit.” Vekal stopped at the side of the demented, pained man who had once been a handsome and capable pirate.
‘You what?’
“He was possessed by the angel Ruthiel, right? And we cast that angel out of him.”
‘Well, I did – don’t take all the credit, human,’ Ikrit corrected dryly.
Vekal ignored him. “So, I’m thinking that there must be some reason why the angel had access to his mind. Like an open conduit to Heaven, or a door, a gateway. Something that we can use to communicate with Heaven through Oberra’s mind.”
‘You’re insane,’ Ikrit informed him.
“But you haven’t told me that it’s impossible, right?” Vekal said desperately. “Am I right? That if you are possessed by an angel, then it leaves some kind of a trail – a communication?”
‘You’re right. Of sorts. I can heal him and bring the angel back into him, and then you can try to convince it to talk to Heaven for you,’ Ikrit said. ‘But it won’t work. You know the angels will kill us as soon as they see us.’
“We have to have hope, Ikrit,” Vekal said, not realizing the irony of his words. He took a deep breath, cleared his mind as he had always been taught, and laid his hand on the top of the pirate captain’s head.
“I am the dead. The Unliving. I do not belong to the world but to those that live beyond it. I am made of this world but are not owned by it,” he intoned the familiar Creed of the Sin Eaters.
“I will cast no shadow, for the dead have nothing to hide. My feet will leave no tracks in the sand, for there is no way back. Death shall come for me and I will welcome it, because I know its halls.
“Only the dead can grant life; for the living can only give themselves away.”
Vekal felt a surge of power pass through him, spearing down through the top of his head and into his shoulders, his arms, his hands–
Suddenly, Captain Oberra sat bolt upright, his eyes glazed white. A power that was strong enough to knock Vekal back emanated from him.
“Demon!” The angel-Oberra said, all of his previous fevers and infirmities apparently dispelled as the angel that had been inside of him filled him with its celestial intelligence.
“Wait! Ruthiel!” Vekal said from where he had fallen against the opposite wall. “You must listen to me – the fate of Heaven depends on it!”
“All demons lie.” Ruthiel-Oberra swung his legs over the side of the bed and raised a fist, which started to glow with a strange and shining fire.
“The Angel Saphiel intends to sacrifice the Saint of this Age to close the Lockless Gate forever! She intends to rule earth and excommunicate the gods,” Vekal said quickly, praying that he had got this right.
This angel was banished back to heaven by Ikrit. Back to the abode and counsel of the Gods. If this angel was in league was Saphiel, then the gods would have seen that, right? They’re gods! He gritted his teeth.
Ruthiel-Oberra’s hand froze, mid strike. “What?”
“I heard them, on their flying platforms.”
“The same flying platforms that are almost overhead?” Ruthiel-Oberra scowled.
‘They are? Oh crap,’ Ikrit snapped. ‘We’re running out of time, priest…’
“It was an angel called Saphiel-Oulia, and Alorel, they said that their orders were to conquer Earth. The Garden,” Vekal pleaded.
“Wait here,” Ruthiel intoned, before his eyes abuptly faded, and the look of a startled and amazed Oberra returned.
“I, uh – you’re Vekal, right?” the pirate captain said, earning a nod from the Sin Eater. “This angel was told to look out for you. When he was sent to me from heaven, he said that Iliya herself had ordained you?” He looked puzzled, before suddenly his body shook, and the angel Ruthiel reappeared through him.
“You speak correctly. But we will deal with it. Heaven is angry with Saphiel.”
“But please – the Saint of this Age is traveling in a small boat even now. I healed you to ask you to look over her. To not let her die,” Vekal said desperately.
Ruthiel-Oberra was silent for a moment, before standing up. “I will protect her. The child has never needed to be sacrificed. A single drop of her blood will suffice to close the Gate. I will guard the child myself, until she has performed this holy task.”
“Thank you…” Vekal managed to mutter, but Ruthiel-Oberra had already stalked out of the room, leaving him behind.
It was done, Vekal thought. With an angel to guard her, Kariss and Meghan will be safe.
‘You have done well. You have fulfilled your mission that Iliya sent you back to do,’ Ikrit said.
“Almost,” the priest muttered.
‘Yes, almost. Will you let me fulfill mine, now?’
“Yes,” Vekal said and lowered all of his mental and spiritual walls that separated his part of his mind and the devil within.
The priest and devil fused and became one.
39
The sounds of an entire marching band, or perhaps a thunderstorm to end all thunderstorms, met Vekal-Ikrit as he raced up on deck. The world was afire and alive to his new senses. He felt no pain, no exhaustion, not even the stretch and ache of his muscles at all. Instead, he was filled with a dark glory that permeated all of his limbs and colored the night with vivid, subsensible colors.
Vekal had agreed to the demon Ikrit’s possession. There had been times when he had given his body over to its care (when defending Meghan and Kariss, when drowning) but those times had been instances of a limited possession. This was a full unification of spirit and man.
Vekal-Ikrit was unlike the weak and haphazard things that faced him. These Menaali warriors and pirates were but newly possessed, and, as much as they might share some of the same goals and sensibilities – their human souls still fought the invasion. They were not as he was.
Unliving. Undying. Unstoppable.
Ikrit had taught the Sin Eater that there were three potential results of a possession. The first is what he faced as he spun on his heel and slashed outwards with his sword, cleaving the head off of one roaring Menaali warrior. They fought the devils inside of them. They might have moments of quickness–
A possessed Menaali ran to his side, spear raised–
–but Vekal-Ikrit was quicker.
The priest dodged the spear, pulled it towards him and sunk his sword into the thing’s belly.
And then there was the gebbeth, if a true unification cannot be achieved, then the host becomes just a mere puppet to the devil’s will. But the devil has to work all the time to move its
limbs and beat its heart.
Another Menaali staggered forward, one arm already blown off by cannon shot, but still raising its shield to strike Vekal.
But the gebbeth quickly becomes little more than a shambling zombie, as the devil has to work harder and harder to manipulate its meat. Eventually, the devil jumps host and tries somewhere else.
Vekal-Ikrit swung the sword out of the previous assailant’s belly and chopped off the zombie-gebbeth thing’s other arm, causing it to collapse and flail uselessly on the ground.
But then, there was the final and only ‘true’ goal of a possession, according to Ikrit. A true unification of spirits, so that no one can tell where the human soul ended, and the demon began. The host and the invader become one thing: a new breed of monster. This type of possession was rare, very rare – and Vekal had achieved it.
The priest-devil flung his attackers off him as he ploughed through to the gunwale of the edge of the boat, heading in only one direction – straight to Aisa-Marzu.
The devil that had planned this all from the start, Vekal-Ikrit knew. We will kill them, and their coalition of hell will falter.
More of those concussive blasts sounded, and Vekal saw that something else was attacking the hellish hordes, as well as attacking each other. Not only did the Menaali-demons fight the pirate demons (whom they thought were betraying them) but something was ripping into the hordes from above, a rotating series of bangs and flashes like cannon-shot – but many cannon shots!
Vekal kicked one of the pirate-devils back from the gunwales and stamped on another’s face before raising his head to see that these blasts were coming from a squat tower at the edge of the docks. Flashes of cannon shot at a faster rate than either Ikrit or Vekal had ever seen, and when their shots hit, they exploded in washes of flame.
“I don’t know who you are, friend, but good luck to you.” Vekal-Ikrit shouted in terrible joy as he leapt from the railings, somersaulted in the air, to land on the pile of bodies left behind by the melee.
