by Devin Madson
He pulled a wrapped package out of his bag. My stomach rumbled, but the food was not for me. Captain Aeneas picked up the lantern. “If you would lift the lid for me, Your Majesty.”
“Indeed. Ready, Cassandra?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
She ignored my sarcasm. “Good. On the count of three. One, two, three.”
With the strength of the carter’s limbs it took little more than a grunt of effort to lift the lid, leaving lantern light to fall upon the man in the box. He was pale and thin with knotted hair and the wisps of a beard growing long upon his chin, but it was Leo from the tip of his straight nose to the bright eyes. Everything but the expression. Septum showed by not so much as a twitch that he saw us, not even flinching when the captain swung the lantern into his face.
“Food,” the captain said, and ripped off a piece of salted beef. Septum did nothing as it was held toward his lips, but when Captain Aeneas said, “Open,” the man in the box opened his mouth. The captain dangled the beef just inside and said, “Eat.” Leo Septum closed his mouth, taking the meat and chewing. A second piece of meat was proffered once the first had been swallowed, and was eaten without further sign of life. Captain Aeneas had said he had been so all his life, like an empty shell, and watching him eat only at the captain’s command, I could imagine his mother’s horror at being presented with a silent baby that grew into a silent, empty child.
I shivered, wishing I could blame the cool gusts of wind dancing around the open field.
“Eat,” the captain repeated, this time with a small chunk of bread. A glance up at the empress in her carter-skin proved I was not the only one wishing themselves elsewhere. I adjusted my grip on the dagger.
Septum chewed. Septum blinked. On command Septum took another bite while the empress and I stood watching, stiff and tense despite the pain and fatigue in every joint.
“Eat.”
More pieces of meat and bread disappeared and my stomach gurgled. By the time the captain had finished, the cool night seemed to have frozen me in place. My grip on the dagger hurt to loosen, and I could not relax. With a nod from the captain, Empress Hana lowered the lid. A thud of finality and I could no longer see Septum, but his face seemed to be burned onto my mind, and I could not look away.
“We should eat and get moving,” the captain said, holding out the wax-paper parcel.
“And when do we rest?”
He shrugged. “You can sleep in the back of the cart if you wish. Your Majesty, how long are you able to remain in that… form?”
“Puppeteering the dead, you mean?” she said. “I think a full day and night would start pushing the limits. It got pretty uncomfortable in the—the last one. By the end.”
I stared at the box lid rather than the captain. The last body she had worn to its limits had been the hieromonk, something Captain Aeneas was better off not knowing.
I thrust the captain’s dagger into my grubby sash and opened the wax paper to reveal leftover meat and bread. Both were dry and stale, but food was food, and I shoved a chunk of meat in my mouth.
“That’s my dagger, Miss Marius.”
“I know,” I said, mouth full. “But you’ve got a sword and I don’t, so I’ll keep it.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Just for now,” I added. “Until I can find a better one. What do you think I’m going to do, kill you?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Captain,” the empress said. “Miss Marius likes you rather too much for that. Although she will no doubt stab me for saying so.”
It would have been very satisfying indeed to plunge the knife into her dead body and watch the blood pour out, but to do so would only prove her assertion and she knew it. The dead body smirked. “Thank you for that childish utterance, Your Majesty,” I said instead, aiming for awful dignity, and in her body it might just work. “But if we could focus on the task at hand, that would be good. I have my own body to be getting back to.”
I pulled the captain’s dagger from my sash and thrust its hilt into his slack hand. “Now you need have no concern over your safety; I shall just have to pray for mine.”
Refusing the empress’s assistance, I struggled onto the box seat, swearing all the way. “Your stupid body and its sore everything. Even your eyelids hurt—how is that possible?”
It was impossible to tell how late it was by the time Captain Aeneas had hitched the ox back to the cart. We were ready to go and the empress had settled on the hay beside Septum, yet still the captain fussed around at the ox’s head.
I rolled my eyes. “I thought you wanted to get moving.”
“We will in a moment.”
“You needn’t worry I am about to embarrass us both by confessing a love for you I am far from feeling, whatever Her Majesty says. You’re not a shit of a man, that’s true, but it’s far from the same thing. Now get the fuck up here so we can leave before Leo catches up with us.”
Captain Aeneas tightened the ox’s harness quite unnecessarily and cleared his throat. “My thanks,” he said. “I strive to live by God’s maxims.”
“Oh yes, must be easy with all the killing and taking orders from madmen,” I muttered to myself, and behind me the empress snorted.
Captain Aeneas, not having heard, jumped onto the box and took up the reins. But before he set the animal walking, he turned and fixed me with a serious look. “You aren’t the terrible person you think you are either, Miss Marius,” he said, temporarily taking from me all power of speech.
I dozed through the night to wake in the morning and wish myself dead. My mouth was dry and sticky and my head hurt, and I opened my eyes only to close them again. The sun was too bright, and I was leaning on Captain Aeneas’s shoulder.
Shit. I tried to sit up, and everything spun.
“Whoa, no, no,” the captain said. “Lie back down. I assure you it is not uncomfortable, and you have been very unwell.”
I set my head back on his shoulder, hating him for his easy strength in that moment as much as I hated the need for him to provide it.
“Majesty,” I managed to croak. “You can take your body back now.”
“Unfortunately I’m going to have to join you soon.” The carter’s voice crackled. “This shell hasn’t much left in it, but I will wait as long as I can. I think the strain of having both of us in there makes the illness worse.”
“Worse? Then you can piss off,” I said, accidentally drooling on the captain’s shoulder and not finding any energy to care.
“Why thank you, Miss Marius. Do continue with what you were saying before you were interrupted, Captain.”
Captain Aeneas cleared his throat. “Well, I don’t know how to tell them apart except for Unus and Septum, so for ease let’s just say Cassandra killed Sextus and the Levanti emperor killed Quin. The last I heard, one of them had replaced Quin at the Levanti court—Quator, let’s say. We just left one in Koi—Tres. Unus has not left Chiltae, as far as I know. That leaves Duos still at large and unaccounted for, which is worrying. But—” He took a deep breath. “They seem to be attempting to re-enact the six deaths of Veld from the Presage. First killed by his leader. The hieromonk paid Cassandra to do it, but it is essentially the same thing. Then cut down in a throne room. Dying in a cave with a defender shouldn’t be too difficult, but—”
“Are you telling me they are… sacrificing their lives to replicate a story in your holy book?” the empress croaked.
“They’re one soul in seven bodies; I don’t think they would see the loss of some of those bodies the same as we would see the death of brothers.”
“But why do it?”
“I’m not sure, but being seen as a reborn servant of God would grant enough influence to ensure his elevation to hieromonk, and if he can follow Veld’s footsteps all the way he could rebuild a holy empire.”
Silence fell as we each considered these words, at least as far as our minds would allow, which for me was about th
ree seconds. “But it’s a book of stories; the One True God is just a threat to keep people in line.”
Captain Aeneas’s hands tightened on the reins, and I deemed it time to sit up straight, or at least as straight as I could.
“Miss Marius,” he said stiffly, keeping his eyes on the road. “You may choose to believe or not as it suits you, but if we are to be stuck travelling together, I would request you not to mock my faith. All that’s important here is that Leo Villius most certainly believes it and is acting on it, lacking as he is in your expertise on the subject.”
I rolled my eyes, but it only made my head hurt all the more. Pulling my knees up close, I huddled into a ball on the hard bench beside him and thought of Kaysa. Chasing her was what I ought to be doing, not sitting around being lectured by a man so stubborn he could look at Leo and still have faith. What real god would allow his priesthood to become so villainous?
“I think… this… body… is almost… done…” Empress Hana said some hours later, having remained in it as long as she could. “Give me… your… hand.”
I looked at the trees and dreamed of running, but this body held me prisoner and there was no escape. Slowly I unfolded my arm, reaching over the cart wall toward her. The empress did not take it. She stared at me with the carter’s eyes, and I failed to suppress a shudder. Skin so pale and sickly, yet there was a dark patch like a bruise on her cheek where blood had pooled as she lay down. Its deep purple hue made the bloodless lips and crusted eyes look all the more terrible.
“What?” I said.
“You hesitated.”
“Moving your arm hurts.”
Those lifeless eyes narrowed. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust you, Miss Marius. We will go after your body as soon as this task is done, you have my word.”
“And you’ll forgive me if I don’t think your word is worth much right now. This body of yours could die before ever we reach Torvash and then—”
Captain Aeneas hissed. “You never know when he might be listening.”
My gaze fell to the long wooden box beside the empress, who despite her dead skin had leaned as far away from it as possible. It had an aura about it.
“Does he hear all the time?” I asked. “How does it work?”
“How the fuck do I know?” the captain said. “I’m just a soldier who takes orders from madmen, remember?”
“Yes,” I said as I held out my hand again to the empress. “You are.”
She took it. For a moment I was clutching dead flesh before I drew the largest, deepest breath I could take, expanding not only my lungs but my heart and my stomach and my hands and my feet, swelling everything to twice the size. And like a deep breath it felt so good to breathe in, to suck deep of life, but the moment I could not let it go and was forced to hold it in was agony.
I groaned, but it was the empress who swore. “This… is getting worse.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed, letting go the empty corpse’s hand. “We could go get another.”
I’m not going to keep killing people so I can walk around in their bodies.
“You wouldn’t be killing them.”
Then whose hand is this? She lifted our right hand up before our face, its skin crinkled like we had been sitting too long in the bath. And before you say we killed the carter, that was different. We needed the cart and couldn’t leave behind a witness.
“Suit yourself. Doesn’t matter to me if we end up dead.”
Captain Aeneas half turned, watching us from the corners of his eyes.
With the empress back inside the body we had been forced to share, the world was louder and brighter, warmer and harsher and tighter as though the air itself had closed in. The jolting of the cart was more painful, the stink of the ox more unbearable, and despite the fast-approaching winter there was enough warmth in the sun’s light to make my eyes droop, followed by my head. And in the darkness swarming upon us, Kaysa walked and talked and lived the life that ought to have been mine.
She groaned, rubbing her eyes so hard little shoots of pain and colour marred the darkness. “I know you’re there, Cassandra,” she said. “You’re like a… prickling in my head. If you’re trying to use our apparently impossible-to-sever connection to find me, it won’t work. I’ll just keep moving. I’d rather run forever than live imprisoned in your head again.”
I wanted to reply, but my sleeping consciousness owned no lips.
“Nothing?” she said. “How nice to have you silent for a change. Now why don’t you go away and leave me alone?”
She folded her arms, but even had I wanted to leave I didn’t know how. It wasn’t like our situation came with instructions.
A heavy sigh. “Fine. Stick around. Watch me go to prayers, you might learn something.” With a grunt of annoyance, she pulled open the door and stepped into the hallway. Blades of light sheared through the narrow windows on one side, and she walked through them past door after door, owning the quiet grace of one who didn’t want to disturb God’s nap.
“Is Empress Hana still stuck with you?” she murmured to herself after a pair of priests had passed with nods. “If so, I feel sorry for her.”
Kaysa walked to the end of the passage, carrying me with her in her mind if not her body. “Makes it easier for me if you are, because that sick body of hers can’t be long for this world. What happens when it dies, I wonder. Do you die? Or would you just live on, hanging around in the dead flesh?”
I didn’t want to think about it, but her thoughts drifted back to the days she had spent inhabiting Jonus’s body after death, after his limbs had stiffened and his blood cooled and the Kisians had carried him to Koi as a trophy.
“I’ll leave you to think about that, shall I?”
She turned at the corner and stopped.
“Hello, Cassandra.” Leo stood in the middle of the passage, faintly smiling. “Or would you prefer I call you Kaysa?”
Kaysa did not move, did not answer.
“Surely you remember me,” he said, taking a step forward. “My name is Dom Leo Villius, and you stabbed me in the heart and cut off my head.”
“No… I… I…” she stammered. “I didn’t—I…”
“Ah, of course, not you, not you,” he agreed, all smiles and calm, soothing words. “Not you, but it was those hands, was it not? Was those eyes into which I looked and begged.”
She ought to stand her ground, to assess her options while showing no fear, but with every step he took closer she retreated. “What do you want?” she said, and my lips trembled on the words. “Cassandra isn’t here. It is just me now, and I have come to seek forgiveness of God and live a life of repentance.”
“Do you trust God, Kaysa?”
A nod, yet she shivered.
“Do you believe everything happens the way God intends for a reason?”
Another nod, another step back.
“Then why are you afraid of me? I’m a true child of the faith, sent back again and again to fulfil his purpose, and yet you retreat like I’m diseased.”
A priest stepped into the passage only to halt. “I heard—Oh, Your Holiness, I did not know you were here. May I be of assistance?”
“You may escort this woman to my carriage, and if she gives you trouble you have my permission to use force.” He might have been praying over a dying man for all the solemnity the words carried, yet there was no mistaking his meaning. The priest froze in a pose of indecision, one hand hovering in the air between us.
“Holiness? Forgive me, but if the lady does not wish—”
“She is hardly a lady.”
“Your Holiness, I really—”
Leo turned to the man. “Bring. Her.”
The priest’s voice became a dead monotone and he gripped my arm. “Yes, Your Holiness.”
I slammed my foot into his instep and pulled free as he yelped. Someone shouted after me as I dashed back along the passage, but the words vanished beneath the pounding of my feet and the ragged drag of my breath.
Another door opened and a priest looked out, brow creased, but no sooner did I part my lips to beg his protection than he intoned, “Yes, Your Holiness,” and lunged. His fingers caught my cloak, but I wrenched free and ran on.
“Yes, Your Holi—” I slammed into a man at the corner, throwing him back against the wall with a crack of skull on stone.
“As Your Holiness commands.” Two priests strode toward me, their eyes glassy, and terror stole all thought, leaving me a sack of instincts. I ducked and rolled between them, the stone sending shoots of pain spreading through my skull. Cassandra had always made it look so easy, damn her.
I sped for an arch leading into the garden as another man stepped into the passage, wearing the mask of a high priest. “What is happening here?” He peered through the fabric slits, eyes darting and alive, but he would soon turn against me like all the others, so I elbowed him in the gut and ran on.
Dashing through the garden, I hunted another arch, a door, a vine I could climb, anything that would let me escape, but I was surrounded by sheer stone walls.
Dom Villius, at an easy pace, stepped into the garden, surrounded by followers as lifeless as puppets though they walked and talked like men.
“Ah, you cannot escape, my dear,” he said. He looked too big for the space, his voice overloud. “As there is no way out it really is easier, for all of us, if you just come with me. You wouldn’t like any harm to come to that body now it’s finally all yours, would you?”
I backed against the wall, the stone cold. “Why do you want me?”
“Why? Because you are far more useful than you think. And because we can’t have Cassandra going and doing anything foolish now, can we?”
He stopped and held out his hand. The priests ranged behind him, standing perfectly still in the way people didn’t.
“What’s wrong with them?”
“Nothing is wrong with them; they are just obeying. Would you like to learn too?”
Come with me.
I stepped forward before I could stop myself.
That’s it. Come closer. Take my hand.
I reached out.
