A part of Chari wanted to ask that he not speak to her so casually, that someone so duplicitous had no such right. But she thought better of it, knowing she could find a way to be rid of him soon, to be rid of all three of them. Until a way came to her or presented itself, though, she needed a distraction. Curiosity presented itself easily enough, although she would have to take anything he told her with a grain of salt.
“What is that device?” she asked. Flynn stopped what he was doing and looked down at it for a moment, no doubt contemplating what lie to tell.
“It was a gift for a girl I used to know,” he replied, apparently having picked his story. He resumed his work as though she hadn’t interrupted him, but continued talking. “I bartered for it, over a year back.”
“But what function does it serve?”
Flynn looked up at her, his inhuman eyes sending a shiver through her that cut straight down her spine. There was an otherness to him that made her afraid, more terrifying than the savage beastmen that Raddius Tehmbao had described; she began to believe that the damage he could do was more than her frail body could take, if she wasn’t careful.
“It’s a rifle. A weapon.” She kept the surprise from raising her eyes. He looked down at the pieces on the table. “I put it in a girl’s hands and she’s dead now.”
A chance might have come sooner than she realized. She shook her head incredulously. “You cannot really have me think that dull thing—”
Flynn gave a sorry smile, tossing the rag aside. He began snapping pieces together, leaving a large canister with tiny lights aside. Standing up, he held it in what she guessed was the proper way. Whatever this tool, it was more than any beastman could forge, more than even the most expert metalworkers in Cordom could make. Pieces, perhaps, but the whole of it? Reaching out, Chari took it and held it the way he had.
Her hands seemed to fall in place, supporting the length of the rifle with one hand as a finger of the other landed on a trigger like that of a crossbow. As she grasped its function, she let it drift lazily toward Flynn, inching near where she hoped his heart beat, if indeed he even had one.
“You can do a lot of damage with that,” he told her, either not noticing or not caring.
Her trigger finger itched. She wanted to pull it, to understand how a tool like this might end him. Saryu doctrines had specific claims against the killing of innocents, but crusaders and inquisitors alike found ready exceptions to these tenants, and Chariska Jerhas was daughter to both. Off her finger slid, before it could do the promised harm. If this tool for killing wasn’t so far beyond her, he wouldn’t so carelessly place it in her hands. She handed it back to Flynn, who placed it on the table, along with the bulky, cylindrical component he’d left aside. Whatever it was, it was clearly tied to the device’s functionality.
“It has some weight to it,” she commented. She’d held a crossbow once before, and it didn’t seem much worse.
He picked up the canister, cradling it in his hands. “Well, this particular make won’t work without this.” He set it down again, glancing at the sleeping Jean. “I’m still considering what to do with it. It might be better melted down as scrap.”
It was unthinkable to Chari that a device such as the one Flynn handed to her could make killing so simple. Her parents had both lived and died with blood on their hands, but that burden alone had never passed to her, and it wasn’t a practice she wished to start now.
He’s not really human, is he? It made it easier to think of him that way, for though he walked like a man and spoke like one, it was hard to believe when looking upon him that he was. It was either him or her and at least to that extent, it felt necessary.
Not like this, though.
Chari would stick to devices she knew. Better than to let something go awry. She glanced at Mack, who was stirring a homemade broth, trying to push vegetables back in that had floated to the top. She offered to help, craving distraction.
Chari had determined her way out. Her world would come back to normal before dawn.
*
Chari has been pensive all through dinner, Flynn observed. She had glanced two, maybe three times at the door near the entrance, as though there was something beyond it she wanted to get, some business to handle before the night was through. Whatever private conclusions she had come to, Flynn couldn’t know without coercing the information from her. For now, it was enough that something was different since the morning.
While dinner was being made, she’d stepped out, returning within the hour without a word. It was her home, of course, and she could come and go as she pleased, but for such an apparently decisive need, she played her return off as a casual solitary evening stroll. Not wanting to cause concern for Jean or Mack, Flynn said nothing, and the night passed much the same as the one before. The fog his senses felt indoors bothered him, but he was comforted to know that a way out lay somewhere beneath Siehron Manor, and that he only needed to get himself and his allies inside.
It was a plan for the morrow.
Sleep fell upon him easily enough this night, but it was short lived. A voice woke him. Fire stung his eyes at first; he would have needed only the moons’ light to know that Chari stood over him.
“Flynn.”
He sat up with a yawn, rubbing his eyes as they adjusted to the lantern’s dancing flames.
“I’d like you to come with me,” she said. “I have something to show you.”
Flynn protested sleepily, but he was ready to be convinced, to follow her. She turned and beckoned at the door, and in the darkness he saw a subtle weight to her robes, pulling the fabric down. It was as long as her back was wide, and she thought it better hidden than it was.
I’m going to kill you. Unspoken words, sounding more sorry than malicious. Flynn hadn’t read Chari too closely, taking what he did only by accident. He wanted to know why, to hear it from her; why she was ready to gun him down in her own living room, even when she wisely faltered. Although not wanting to chance death, he followed her regardless. Walking side by side, they made conversation about Cordom’s culture and climate—small talk to keep the real matter at bay. Flynn could cut her down at any point, if he’d wanted. She was smaller than him, and would not be able to stop him. He was more curious than concerned.
Chari only ever looked forward, not aside to Flynn or behind when attempting to steady the shifting blade concealed against her lower back. She avoided his eyes, which he left uncovered under the radiant stars, and suspected they had begun to scare her. They came soon enough to the path approaching the execution square.
“Following in your mother’s footsteps?” Flynn asked as they walked on.
He saw a shiver go through Chari’s back, just for a moment, and she cast her eyes down at the road before her. “It’s not like that.”
Flynn increased his pace, taking the lead. “This way,” was all he said. His back to her, he knew Chari would look up, that her eyes would widen. She would realize. Before she could finish reaching back, slowly and deliberately, he added, “If you try something, I’ll know.”
She stayed her hand. He couldn’t see it, but he knew. Flynn led her beyond the execution square, through shaded streets, and at last to the stepped fountain. He rested one hand on the fountain’s lowest lip; the water within reflected the night sky.
“You want it here?” Chari had found some courage along the way.
That wasn’t it at all. Flynn looked up at the top of the fountain, the way he and his friends had first arrived. He felt the pull strongest here. This close, his senses screamed.
“Why?” he asked.
“I let you know me too well.” Becoming bold, she revealed the sheathed blade, placing the sheath itself on the fountain’s edge beside her. The dagger in her hand was more ornate than was necessary for the job—a product of ceremony, no doubt. “You’ve not been unlikeable, but I’ve discerned your lies.”
“Then we’re alike. You and I.”
Chari stifled whatever gasp was pr
epared to escape her lips; quivering, they drew back, clenched teeth beneath them. While Chari charged, the dagger held with both hands as she aimed a desperate thrust for his midsection—a strike that would kill him, if he’d allowed it to—he studied her. It was only for a moment, and only just enough. Chariska was scared; she feared persecution more than death, enough to kill another rather than suffer it herself. She had lived alone for a long time. Her walls were bare of religious décor, icons of the goddess she so fervently worshiped.
She hadn’t killed before.
Even in allowing her the lead, Flynn had ample time to turn to one side and let her thrust pass harmlessly, without so much as grazing him. Her eyes locked on him with contempt and she tried to follow through, swiping right at his head with a stroke that would have likelier nicked his jawbone than cut his throat.
Craning his body back slightly, Flynn let the dagger miss again.
She wants blood, he realized. Even before she drew the blade back with both hands, readying a more immediate thrust, Flynn knew where it would land. He turned into the blade this time, just enough so the cut was shallow and his arm bled. The pain was sudden, fierce. Skin split and blood spilt and Flynn instinctively grabbed the wound with his other hand, falling to one side and tumbling into a crouch. Predictably, Chari faltered at seeing the damage she’d done to another person. Putting the pain aside, Flynn lunged quickly at her. He tore the dagger from her hands and pressed his palm to her throat.
“Scream,” he dared her.
Not even a peep. Knowing how out of her depth she was, Chari only widened her eyes. Flynn lamented momentarily the necessity of her fear. Though she’d taken care to perform this late at night while all of Cordom slept, it would only take one witness seeing their beloved High Priestess attacked to turn the entire city against him and his friends. Flynn looked up again, letting his reluctance go. He couldn’t save everyone, and he knew it. But maybe it could start with one person. Maybe that could be enough to begin.
“Follow me.”
Still holding her dagger, Flynn pulled her up to the fountain’s lip, a little roughly, but not enough to hurt her. She no longer struggled, knowing now how easily her life could be taken. Flynn waded through the water and approached the first step of the fountain, and she looked at him as though he were insane, but followed just the same. There was a terrified trust between them that she couldn’t understand but relied deeply upon.
They climbed up together. Flynn kept one hand on Chari’s wrist lest she break free and escape, or tumble and hurt herself in some grave manner. It was fortunate, in retrospect, that nothing had broken during the fall on the way in. When they were short distance from the top, the passage to Sechal ruptured open and Chari’s eyes widened in justified disbelief.
“My Goddess …” was all she could murmur, limp and dumbfounded, unable to fathom what she was seeing. Flynn pulled her up and tossed her through the portal, dropping the dagger he carried before scrambling up after her. It rattled down the fountain before settling in the waters that flowed somewhere in the middle. The price tag, still attached, blurred.
Chapter Seven: Unstable Deception
The light of a midday sun warmed Chari’s face, but it felt gentler, cooler than it should for spring. She was scraped and bruised, and realized upon opening her eyes that she was laying on the stone street and must have somehow fallen—
Sitting abruptly up, Chari remembered the dagger, the fountain. Yet she was not near either; instead, she found herself somewhere higher than she’d ever known, surveying a green valley and a mountain range she’d never seen.
“You were only out for a few minutes.”
Quick and tense, Chari turned to find Flynn leaning against the entrance of what appeared to be a temple. He clutched his arm where she’d cut him.
“I’d come closer but, well, that would open the way back. And we’re not going back. Not yet.”
“Where—?” she desperately sought a familiar sight. “You say I was out only minutes, but it’s already midday?”
“I’ve brought you to Sechal. It’s another world. Not TseTsu.”
Standing, he looked over the balcony to one side. A breeze passed through the chamber behind him, and she smelt something sickly, as though something rotted nearby.
“Another … world?” Chari strained to understand. She grasped the concept, but the reality was something wholly apart. He waited as she formulated her own conclusion, “The church—”
“Isn’t here,” Flynn confirmed. “There’s no Saryu, no Goddess Hapané. None, save what you carry within you.”
Overtaken by realization, Chari began to breathe heavily, as though something terrible was dawning on her. She blinked rapidly, trying to stifle the gathering tears.
“Chariska?”
“What if … what if I don’t have those to carry?” Her voice broke a little. “What if I don’t?”
Just like that. She had suffered for years, hiding something she’d more than grown to hate, and Flynn was now telling her it was all gone. Just like that. A throbbing swelled in her head. It was inane, too absurd to believe. She ran to the balcony’s edges, trying to find some familiar landmark anywhere in the landscape below the mountain temple. There was nothing she recognized, not a town or a sign of human life, this distant height considered. Even the sun in the sky seemed different from the one she’d known, a little larger and redder. She knew Flynn was watching, waiting for her acceptance.
Breathing harder, faster, Chari pressed her palms against her temples and screamed. It was too much. She needed to see a sign, a familiar passage, a divine carving of the Goddess. Running past Flynn, she hurried inside the temple. As quickly, Chari recoiled, clutching her sleeve to her mouth. The smell inside worsened; some dead thing with more legs than was natural lay torn on the ground, rotting. She hoped never to meet the dread creature that could tear such a predator apart.
Chari ran farther in, Flynn following casually. Through the halls, swift desperation carried her, but there was no sign of the Goddess anywhere. Whoever built this place, they had neglected to include so much as a single engraving in Her name. Chari dropped to her knees at the first sign of writing, feeling the carvings with her fingertips, yet she was stopped short in reading by a sharp pain that cut through her eyes.
“She’s not here,” Chari shivered as Flynn walked up behind her. “She’s just not here.”
“I’m sorry,” Flynn said, but it didn’t bring her reality back. Sighing, he explained, “My friends, me … we’re not from TseTsu, as you’re probably beginning to guess.”
“Then … this place?” Chari asked, rubbing her eyes.
“We’re not from here, either. We’re from another world, called Earth.” He smirked suddenly at the absurdity of what he was saying. Chari sensed a strange meaning when he said the term, something setting name apart from word. “We escaped from a prison, landed here by chance. We just … we wanted to be free.”
“Free?” Laughter and tears mingled. “Then I too am free?”
Chari saw that he knew that something was wrong with her, more than she’d ever hinted to anyone, even those she’d taken the greatest chances upon. There had been clues—perchance unintentional, but damning all the same. She had wanted to be found and saved and freed all this time, but maybe getting caught would be enough. Whether it was someone like Flynn or the Inquisitor, at long, desperate last the lies would end. At least Chariska could finally rest.
“Flynn, tell me,” she began as she wiped her running nose with her sleeve, pushed her hands into thin sand, and stood on her own, “if you were raised to worship a goddess who ordered people to death for not believing in her, for not worshiping her the right way … demanding exaltation the world over, in cultures and lands that she never once presented herself to in over three thousand years … could you?”
He gave no pause, no consideration. “I couldn’t.”
“Neither could I.”
Chari could have found her way e
ven without Flynn’s help. The foul stench of that rotting thing in the sun chamber heralded the way back to TseTsu and everything she feared. Upon returning to the balcony, they sat side by side on a carved stone step as Chari undid the damage she’d caused to Flynn’s arm, petty though it was. There was a faint scar, but it would fade.
“I’ve never believed in the Goddess,” she explained. “It’s just … I never had a choice whether or not I could.”
“Why did you become a priestess?”
“It was not for the wanting. If my parents’ legacy hadn’t damned me into it, their deaths assured it. After my mother died, the church took me in, provided what I needed. They placed the role on me, like an oversized coat. Wanting to keep my benefactors content, I played the part as best I could and grew into that coat.”
The sun did not move so fast as Chari knew it should, and this little change in the world calmed her, confirmed what Flynn told her and what she believed more and more to be true. She sat in silence for a few minutes, steadily coping with her new reality.
“I do not wish to return.”
“There’s no one else here,” Flynn told her. “You’d be alone if you stayed.”
Chari was hesitant. Solitude didn’t sound so bad for a time, but the farther ahead she looked, the more vacant she knew it would be.
“We’re trying to take another way out of TseTsu. We don’t know where it goes, but it’s somewhere below Siehron Manor.”
“Why the Manor?”
“I don’t know. I just know it’s there.” A pause, and then, “Do you know how we could get in?”
“I could walk right in. I among few have the right. But you, your friends …” Chari’s stomach turned, and she doubled over, “… what have I done?” Her voice was tiny, scared.
Flynn stood up abruptly, and she felt rightly judged. “You had plans for more than just me, didn’t you?”
“You knew too much about me,” she pleaded in desperate apology. “I couldn’t risk what you might say, but Jean, Mack …” Only in lowering her head and squeezing her eyes tight did she keep the tears in. “I gave them up to the guard. I told them to come in the later night, that I would be out and they’d be theirs for the taking.”
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