“We wait,” she decided, still sick from the stench. “For now.”
Chapter Eight: Shedding Skin
Chariska Jerhas woke the next morning before sunrise, as though the day before had not passed. Dry from too much wine, she drank water until her throat froze and paid her subtle headache no further mind. She rose from bed naked and washed herself in cool water, cleansing her every part and drying without haste; those outside had only begun to congregate at the cathedral. She heard the procession swell while wrapping herself in her priestess’s garb, fastening cloth between red beads, strung with care. Many flowers adorned her home, left by her laity the day prior. It cut at her heart to know how the people of Cordom loved her.
The High Priestess of Cordom took little, save a satchel with a few spare wraps of cloth, a flask of water, and some bread. The rifle still rested by her couch, and she took it too. It lit in parts and made utterances cryptic to her, but it seemed better in her hands than in those of the Saryu.
Really, she thought, don’t they have enough weapons?
A shawl covered her and all she carried, and she melted into the crowd. Walking more quickly than usual, she avoided the morning greetings offered by all who saw her. When some few caught sight of her and waved, she would wave back before ducking deeper into the flood, moving to lesser-known walks and against thinning crowds, until she was no longer on course to the cathedral she had visited daily for more years than she could track.
Soldiers marched by in disciplined rhythm and she let them pass, then climbed the hill unimpeded, approaching Siehron Manor. Had a guard been standing watch, she could have entered for a glance, but the key in her robes would have to do. Aristocrats and guards alike had left for the cathedral in prayer. The heavy doors unlatched and creaked as she stepped inside, abandoning the key in its lock. She wouldn’t need it again.
There had been little enough reason for her to come to this mournful house before, and less want for it still. On any day but this, she would wish privately that Baron Cel’duran had any authority over his ancestral home, or enough at least to reign in the horrors that transpired within.
But Chari knew better. Though he lived here, it wasn’t really his home. It was the church’s, and had been since before any now living in Cordom had first drawn breath. The baron’s family had not been left bereft, certainly. Chari often saw him in town, clad in finer ivory vestments than any common folk could ever dream of owning. The church had not touched his family’s money, though she’d little doubt the tithes he paid were generous indeed. What they’d taken from him was the authority that money could buy, leaving him his hollow coins in scorn.
How any stood to live or work here, Chari couldn’t fathom. She had walked these halls when the smell of burning skin crept far and had heard the screams and cracks against flesh, and she wanted nothing to do with it.
Inquisitor Thunau, unwilling to leave the Baron’s home, tended her ministrations by a stairwell where a statue of the Goddess Hapané had been placed for her convenience. It felt out of place among the portraits of the baron’s ancestors, which had remained as a courtesy.
“Inquisitor?” Chari believed she had little to fear from her contemporary, but remained on guard. Belief was a fickle currency in Cordom. Better to confront the revered torturer than sneak by and be caught in a lie.
“Priestess?” Carmella responded in kind, turning and rising.
“I’m here for something that belongs to me,” Chari spoke at first with truth, to mask her deceit. “I left the beastman with my mother’s spectacles. I wish to take them back, before I address the assembly.”
“I thought his having them to be odd.” Carmella nodded contemplatively. “They’re below, with the other belongings appropriated for the church from those three.” She smiled warmly. “Let me show you the way—”
Thunau reached out but Chari caught her wrist, stopping her short. “Please,” she said, with a tremble in her skin. “I remember the way.”
With a gracious nod, the Inquisitor seemed to leave Chari to her own devices, yet she hadn’t made it three steps when the other woman added, “You are very fortunate, you know, to have a home as Cordom.”
“I know,” Chari lied.
“No, you don’t,” came the Inquisitor’s reply. “I worked for three decades to cleanse the streets in Teague of the faithless and the criminal. The soil is not so good there that we can simply grow our homes, you see. You have to build them yourself, by hand.”
“I’ve heard the southern homes are walled of stone, roofed with thatch,” Chari replied. “I’ve never been far beyond Cordom’s gates, I’m afraid. All I’ve had to go off are artists’ portraits.”
“I lived in one, as a young woman,” Carmella told her. “A storm came through Teague, as they more often do there than here. It tore the roof from my home, startling me from a nightmare, but I had lost all sense between the sleeping world and the waking.”
“It must have been terrifying.”
“I ran, screaming through the night, exhausting myself until I came upon the Cathedral of Teague. I saw there that the divine stood more firmly than the works of humanity.”
Or the divine has a better architect, Chari thought privately, before asking aloud, “Why are you telling me this?”
“I became Inquisitor of Teague that day,” Carmella replied. “Up to the day I left, they spoke of Carmella Thunau, Born of the Storms. I’ve ever after had a sense for them.” Carmella looked to the window, where the early morning light came through. “Not so much here, though. Save for around you.”
“Me?”
“I sense a coming storm in you, High Priestess Jerhas,” the older woman told her. “Your connection to the Goddess Hapané runs deep, and you may have a part to play in great things.”
The words filled Chari with unease. Everything she did now was in her desperation to escape the Saryu and their workings. Damn them and their empty Goddess alike.
“I’ll do my best not to disappoint,” she said with a bow.
“Now hurry along,” Thunau told her, almost dismissively. “You’ve a congregation gathering as we speak and it would be kinder not to keep them waiting.”
Eager to escape the Inquisitor, Chari hurried on her way down the staircase. The guard’s desk, and the keys resting upon it, were equally untended. Claiming her friends’ belongings, including a sack of ungainly footwear, Chari carried her haul to the cells, hoping to be greeted warmly despite what she’d done.
A growing stench prepared her; she who had walked for better years on rose petals had to suppress the sickness she felt as she approached the walk of cages, lit in dancing flame. Two voices cried out upon seeing her.
“Charsy!” came the brighter reception.
“What the fuck are you doin’ here?” came the darker.
“I’m here to help,” Chari admitted with unease.
“Are ya?” Jean replied. She placed both hands on her bars, and a shrieking sound issued from them as the door rattled and shook. Chari winced at the sound but watched, transfixed, as the bars on Jean’s cage came free and fell before her, held up at an angle by the cell opposite. Dust and dirt raged loosely down on her, but Jean didn’t seem to care.
“Oh,” was Chari’s dumbfounded reply. Jean’s mace slipped from her hand and fell to the ground, managing to land almost perfectly upright.
“Oh?” Jean climbed out of the cell, placing her bare feet carefully through the bars of the fallen door before moving into the hallway, clothed in anger and black. “Has it been a day yet? ‘Cause I ain’t so clear down here where the sun don’t shine.”
“Just … over,” Chari proffered sheepishly.
“Over, yeah? Seems to me that’s plenty of time for the High Priestess to step on in and vouch for us. Or at least say ‘hi, how ya both doin’?’”
Chari struggled some to pull the guard’s key out from among the armload of possessions she’d taken, and unlocked Mack’s cell, saying, “Look, I … I’m here now
, aren’t I?”
“She is here,” Mack confirmed, reaching out and touching Chari delicately on the face, the shoulders. “The reeking odor of this place has not yet reduced us to hallucinations.”
“Ya are that,” Jean resigned. “Ain’t much, but … look, let’s just see how Flynn’s been. Whether I smash ya or not should really come down to that.”
Jean walked past, patting Chari roughly on the shoulder—enough to knock her down a few inches. She took her barrette and coat from Chari’s loaded arms, slipping the latter on and checking the pockets, apparently relieved at something still within them. Taking up her mace and flinging it upon her shoulder, Jean exited the hall barefoot, leaving Mack and Chari behind. For her part, Chari looked back, hoping despite knowing otherwise that Flynn was just in a cell further on.
“Flynn-o ain’t here. Torture Lady took him yesterday.”
Chari knew Flynn’s health was in greater danger than his life. She took Mack’s hand and led him out after Jean. A greater part of her worried more because of what Flynn had shown her—her one way out—and she felt worse for realizing it.
*
Through the end of the day prior and into the night, no one had checked on Flynn, nor brought him any food or water. Starving and dehydrated, he’d had to resist the basin used for drowning, unwilling to risk sickness from water that had appeared discolored when the room was still lit.
There were footsteps coming.
Night had passed—the light beneath the door told him that much. As the steps drew close, his hands strained, gripping the rope that was supposed to be suspending him. The only reason something inside Flynn hadn’t ripped and torn, he suspected, was because TseTsu’s people were not so hardy as Earth’s. He would not give them the chance to find that out. The weight of the ball hanging from his ankles would crush Thunau’s bones, but not before he buried his talons inside her two toadies.
Flynn gritted his teeth as he ached, sweated. A girl’s voice outside spoke—“It’s in here”—and his hands loosened, just a little. A key unlocked the door to the torture chamber and it creaked open, letting the light in, diffused by three familiar silhouettes.
“Oh, thank god,” Flynn gasped, dropping quickly. His hands, grasping the ropes he had cut the night before with considerable effort, gave up what little strength they’d saved. The weight he’d refastened to his ankles held fast, and he crumpled atop it.
“Flynn!”
Voices cried out to him, scattered, unclear. But there were three of them, and he knew his gambit had paid off. Chari knelt over him, studying in muted horror the harm he had suffered.
“What the fuck’re ya doin’?!” Jean demanded. “Mend him!”
“I … there’s too much …” Chari was at a loss where to start.
The pain was distant as long as Flynn didn’t move.
“Water first,” he urged, his throat parched. “Then food.”
“Oh, of—of course.” Chari pulled out a flask and put it to his lips. He drank greedily, too out of his senses to stop until she pulled back. She swapped the flask for a piece of bread and beckoned Mack to take over. Flynn’s eyes rolled back and he saw Jean standing guard in the doorway. It was like Civilis all over again, except—
“There are none here, save the Inquisitor,” Chari informed him. “She will not be resuming matters with you until her subordinates have returned from prayer.”
“Why’s that?” Mack asked. “She seemed all torture happy on her own.”
Chari had moved to Flynn’s legs, and began first mending the rope burns on his ankles. He craned his head up, chewing at the bread Mack held close to his mouth. Flynn saw what he’d missed their first night—the way Chari’s face contorted in pain as she healed him. The flesh was still raw when she pulled away to grip her own ankle. There was no sign that she had taken on his wounds, but part of his pain was clearly transferred to her as the cost of easing his.
“Thunau only keeps such company by mandate, not by preference,” Chari explained, her breathing venting her pain. “The prior Inquisitor worked in solitude and died when her subject broke free.”
The priestess set back to work on Flynn, fixing his knees this time. He would need to be able to walk if they were going to get out of here. The rest could wait.
“So we should have a few hours, right?” Mack asked. “I mean, I left my stopwatch at home, but your churchy thingy doesn’t let out for a while—”
“Normally, yes,” Chari replied. “But normally, I am there. They will know soon enough I’ve not come and—when the panic quells—I’ve no doubt someone will remember seeing me venture this way. Inquisitor Thunau will figure it out quickly, provided she’s not yet given thought to why I’ve taken so long. I would hurry.”
Flynn was able to flex his knees now and the bread he’d eaten cleared his head and restored his senses. “It’s enough to start. Jean?”
Moving in, Jean helped Flynn to his feet, keeping an arm over his shoulder to help him walk. Guiding her to the table, Flynn gathered the flint and steel. It was small recompense for the torture, but useful just the same for the roads ahead.
“You said it was below this manor, didn’t you?” Chari asked, rubbing her own knees sympathetically. “That’s why you let all this happen here?”
“We coulda busted out, ya know,” Jean told him as she eyed Chari. “We didn’t have to … wait up. For her.”
“It was a matter of timing. This was the best way.” The group moved out of the chamber and back into the hallway. Chari led with a torch she’d taken, limping faintly as a result of the aid provided. “There’s no one here but us. What better way to disappear?”
“And if it had been two days’ wait, or three?” Chari asked, worried.
“I’d have done what I had to do.”
Flynn didn’t clarify if this dedication was only regarding their escape or extended to saving Chari while doing so. No one asked, perhaps not wanting to know. The High Priestess had too many uses to overlook, both now and what her healing gifts could offer in the face of dangers yet to come. Just as much, Flynn wanted to make amends with Chari, who had in her own way asked for help. Not knowing if his reasons were more noble or self-serving, he could only tell himself that he had not wanted to consign another to an unkind fate when he had the power to change it. For the sake of his burgeoning conscience, he hoped it to be true.
*
This had been the window Flynn hoped to slip through, when faith in their goddess and countrymen alike led the Saryu to abandon their charges for a time and supplicate in prayer. A mildewy odor wafted faintly from an old wooden door in a distant and untended corner of the lower levels. The wood looked so rotten that it could probably be smashed through with little force. But Chari had brought the keys, and they were trying not to leave an obvious trail.
While Chari sought the right key through trial and error, the others shoed their feet once more. The door opened, revealing that the aroma permeating it had only been a prelude; they were rushed by the reek of waterlogged rot. Before Chari finished pulling the door, Mack had slid in to ensure the coast was clear. At the bottom of the stairs, which ended in a natural wooden incline, he gave a thumbs up, and Jean helped Flynn inside. Once they were through, Chari checked behind them one last time before closing and locking the door.
Upon seeing what was below, Flynn knew that Siehron Manor had once been grown, as any other home in the city it overlooked. It must have been massive then, but what remained was in dusty shambles, crawling with insects and vermin, strewn with splinters and broken furniture. They couldn’t tread more than a few feet without more waste to kick aside. The dank smell that had wafted out above permeated below. Mold grew all around them in dissonant patches. The tree was dead, and they were marching through its carcass.
“Centuries ago, a storm raged in Cordom,” Chari explained. “On a night clear and perfect, it came without warning. Half the city was leveled and thousands died. As quickly as it came, it vanished.”
“Then this manor was bowled over as well?” Flynn asked, loosing himself from Jean to lean against the wall.
“The manor and the old cathedral,” Chari confirmed. “The southwest region of Cordom was shattered.”
She handed Flynn his vest and he slipped it back on, checking the pockets for the spectacles. His shirt shredded and abandoned in the torture chamber, Flynn zipped up for some modesty. “I need to take point before this air gets to us.”
Kneeling in the filth and decay, Chari repaired the damage to his stabbed thigh before moving up to his torso and backside.
“After the storm had passed, accounts stated foliage and earth had mingled into a hill so high, one could climb upon it and stand just above the living quarters,” she continued. “Rather than replant and wait for another home to grow, the baron’s family had their new home commissioned together with the new cathedral, and it sprang up shortly thereafter.”
“Think they coulda at least sent someone down here with a broom or a rag,” Mack commented.
“I suppose they just saw no reason to bother.” Chari’s face distorted in pain, and Flynn caught her before she fell. Her hand clasped his wrist, and he winced but said nothing of the rope burns; she’d done what was needed already.
Flynn staggered on through the halls, the others keeping close. Although the miasmic rot stung at their eyes and hurt to breathe, Flynn’s unique sixth sense was unaffected. Escape waited at the end of the decaying maze, lit by sunlight pouring through windows that provided the only breathable air. Though the twice-former prisoners had passed through unsavory places before, Chariska had never known such filth. She hiked her wraps up over every murky step, trying to keep clean while keeping pace. It did not escape Flynn’s notice that she was laboring under the weight of the rifle as well. He felt conflicted and guilty at an outcome he had wanted in spite of himself. In showing her the weapon, he had known it might well become hers. Should she offer it back, he would decline. If she wanted a teacher, he had witnessed Rebecca’s lessons and could pass them along.
Outcasts of the Worlds Page 17
