by Mike Shel
“It’s Djao,” she answered simply, turning herself back in the direction she had last seen her father. “An artifact recovered from the Barrowlands.”
The actor’s voice trembled. “Gods save us from that unholy thing.”
Which gods? thought Agnes as she leapt over another eviscerated corpse left in her father’s wake. The impious nature of their mission filled her awareness in that moment. Indeed, the task that lay ahead seemed somehow synchronous with the terrible weapon her father gripped with both hands. She watched him swing it again at another unfortunate boarder, who fell before him like a stalk of wheat before a scythe. She thought on Chalca’s words: unholy thing. Their aptness in that moment brought sudden tears to her eyes, which she shed with an angry shake of her head.
They were near the cabin of the water witches now. Yarbo struck a man in the head with the pommel of his sword, over and over, the man’s skull banging against the cabin wall repeatedly until he fell insensible to the deck. “Bloody river eel!” he screamed, giving the prone man a vicious kick to the ribs. Agnes saw then that one of the deckhands lay next to him, his shirt red with blood, three terrible punctures in the cloth from some attacker’s blade. Next to him, another body, with one milky eye staring up at the night sky, unseeing. The female water witch was dead.
Near the cabin, Agnes’s father had driven three other intruders toward the port railing. They backed away, terror in their eyes, slack jawed in the green-hued light of the glowrod. One dropped the cutlass he wielded and held his hands up in surrender. Her father and Szaa’da’shaela ignored his attempt at submission: the rune-etched steel of the Djao blade severed his hands at the wrist and took off the top of his skull with a casual swipe. Another intruder’s retreat backward was so quick that he slammed into the railing and spilled over the side with an unceremonious splash. The third man dropped to his knees, tossing his curved blade so that it went skittering across the deck.
“Your prisoner!” he yelled, spittle spraying from his quivering lips.
Agnes stood near her father now, aghast at the bloodlust in his eyes. She had witnessed Syraeic colleagues in such a bloody martial trance before, fighting evil dead things stirred up in a Busker tomb, but never in a fight against flesh-and-blood men, and never on the face of her own father. She reached out a hand to touch his right arm, an attempt to restrain him from killing the now helpless wretch cowering before him on the deck. Her father swung around at her and she saw the supernaturally sharp edge of Szaa’da’shaela swing with him.
And then she was stumbling back, a wet warmth washing down her legs. A coldness came next, as though something important was being sucked from her. Agnes dropped her glowrod and fell back, her rapier slipping from her fingers. She sat on the slick deck, dazed. For a moment she wasn’t certain if she was still there on the barge, until the feel of the wet wooden boards of the deck on her palm convinced her. She looked down—her lap was a crimson ruin. Spilling from a long rent in her white cotton shirt was what looked like a disordered coil of bloody sausages.
And Agnes thought: those are my insides.
It seemed strange to her that such a thought held no urgency, no alarm. Instead she was enveloped by a casual tranquility. She made a single attempt to push her intestines back inside her body, but they spilled back out again. Her eyelids fluttered. She was very tired. She wanted to sleep, if only for a few moments. Someone was beside her now, speaking words into her ear, but it sounded as though they came from a distance, the speaker at the bottom of a deep well. Or perhaps she was the one in the well. She sensed several people gathered near her now, felt their concern. One of them was her father.
She said, “Don’t worry, Papa,” and tried to smile.
And then Agnes Manteo collapsed to the blood-soaked deck of the Aretha Dell.
25
A Fever in Ironwound
The nightmare was precisely cruel. He was in the niche-lined chamber in the Barrowlands, where Meric and Ursula had been killed by the hungry corpses they had awoken. Meric’s headless body stumbled about, hands probing the air around him as though trying to locate what had been torn from his shoulders. Ursula stood with her abdomen ripped open, entrails hanging down obscenely, but then he saw it wasn’t Ursula—it was Agnes, eyes wide and pleading, her trembling lips forming a single word, over and over: Papa, Papa, Papa.
Auric went to her, weeping, fell on his knees before her, trying vainly, frantically to stuff the gore dangling from the terrible rent in her flesh back into her body. Then a hand on his shoulder. He turned around and found Belech standing behind him, skin deathly white save for the great mottled bruises around his neck where the Aching God’s tentacled horror had throttled the life out of him. The old soldier’s bloodless lips formed his name—Auric—and Auric cried out, “What? What, Belech? What?”
And then the man said, Lady Hannah will be angry.
With that simple statement he was startled awake, in an unfamiliar room with cold stone walls. But then Agnes appeared from the shadows, pale and haggard, her grievous wound gaping bloody before him. And she whispered, Papa, Papa, you’ve killed me.
Auric’s heart threatened to burst forth from his chest, pounding against his breastbone like an insistent visitor at the door. His hands reached next to his bed, attempting to locate the jeweled hilt of Szaa’da’shaela, but it wasn’t there. He stumbled from beneath his blankets, seeking the weapon, banging into a desk and chair near the canopied bed. On his hands and knees now, he crawled across the floor to the Djao blade. He had set it against a bureau on the other side of the room, not wanting the weapon near him after what it had done to his daughter three nights before.
What we did, Auric Manteo, said Szaa’da shaela, correcting him.
“What we did,” Auric echoed when he discovered the sheathed sword, embracing it with both arms like a lost brother found.
She mends, the sword continued. Sira attends her, controls the fever. We have not lost her. Auric wept, sitting on the floor in the darkened bedchamber, back against the bureau, holding Szaa’da’shaela to him as if for comfort. She is precious, to you and to me both, Auric. Soon she’ll be well enough to accompany us to the Oracle at Gnexes. We will confront Timilis there. He was the author of the attack that night. He drove the river bandits to assault us as they did. We will make him pay.
Vengeance. He had seen others in his day consumed by the pursuit of it. Some were destroyed by it before carrying out that vengeance. Others found their revenge, and to a man, were left empty husks afterwards. Was that what drove him now? The hunt for revenge on this god for the pain he had caused him? And not just the grievous injury caused Agnes, but the death of Del Ogara last year in the Barrowlands and the gruesome deaths at the Citadel just before they left.
Justice, Auric, answered Szaa’da’shaela. It is justice we seek, and not just for the wrongs Timilis has done to you and those you love. He has caused untold suffering throughout the ages, fed from it. We serve Justice, you and I, and Justice has a very long memory.
Auric closed his eyes tightly, his lips a thin, straight line. He thought back to that terrible night on the Aretha Dell, remembered the fighting frenzy that had possessed him: bright exhilaration, shining like the sun, a holy certainty that he was invincible; he cut down one river bandit after another as though they were helpless children rather than armed boarders with murder on their minds. Then, in the midst of his blood-spattered trance, a hand on his arm, to impede him in his righteous reaping of damned souls. Who dared do such a thing? Who would stand before the might he wielded?
Agnes. Agnes would. Her belly was opened the instant he swung around, before he could utter the indignant rebuke on his lips: Let no man bar my path! He had never experienced anything like it, that divine fury. Perhaps it was the same as the force that enveloped priests of Vanic when they called out to be imbued by the god’s power. It was only a few heartbeats before the frenzy vanished, but it
seemed an eternity. He felt horror and shame anew, the same as when he truly saw his daughter, mortally wounded. And by my hand, he thought, a sickness in his gut.
No, Auric, said Szaa’da’shaela, the masculine voice in his mind firm. It was an accident.
“I am absolved of this dreadful act?” he responded, angry.
You did not wish her harm, Auric, no more than I did. In the midst of a fight, comrades are sometimes injured without intent. Intent matters, surely. We are responsible, but you did not try to murder your daughter.
“That strikes me as rather sorry absolution. And yet I do not think I deserve even that.”
Your shame serves no purpose for us, Auric. We are at war. Terrible accidents occur in wartime. We must learn from our errors and move forward.
“And what should I learn from this, Djao thing?”
Szaa’da’shaela was silent. Auric held the weapon before him, gripping the sheath midway down the length of the blade, shaking it as though he chastised a comrade. “No quick answers for me now? What should I learn? That my cohorts can’t trust me in a fight? That I’ll just as likely gut one of them as I would an enemy? Including my only daughter?”
You are being fatuous.
“Fatuous?” he erupted, casting the weapon and its scabbard across the stone floor of the bedchamber, where it skidded until it struck the nightstand beside his bed. “My daughter is in the next room, fighting off a fever of infection, a scar across her belly the length of her forearm! Tell me, O wise weapon of the Djao, what for fuck’s sake should I learn from nearly cutting my Agnes in half?”
For several minutes there was silence, in the room and in his head. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness—he could make out a faint glint of the fat emerald set in the ancient blade’s hilt. But just as he started feeling he was mad, that he only imagined this conversation with the sword, it spoke again.
Caution. We must learn caution.
“We?”
Yes, we, Auric Manteo, both of us. I, too, can be carried off by the joy of battle. We must guard against indulging ourselves too deeply in its degenerate pleasures. It is a hazard for the truly righteous.
At first Auric was disgusted by the suggestion he would derive any pleasure from killing. Then he thought on it, with as clear a mind as he could muster. He hung his head, sitting against the bureau in the darkened room, as tears welled up in his eyes.
The city of Ironwound, capital of the earldom, seemed carved from the mountains that filled its northeastern horizon. In fact, nearly every structure in the city was made of stone—granite, basalt, gneiss, slate—all mined from the surrounding rocky foothills of the Ironspur Range. The riverside docks of Ironwound, outfitted with a veritable forest of cranes and lifts, were endlessly loading cargos of ore onto hungry barges, much of it iron, some of it copper, tin, zinc, lead, even precious metals. The wealth of the earldom came from the bounty provided by the mountains.
The city planners called its neighborhoods tiers, with those of higher elevation boasting greater prestige and wealth. Auric hadn’t worried about expense, waving his queen’s script in the face of the innkeeper where they were now lodged. He wanted to make sure Agnes was comfortable and would want for nothing while she convalesced. Saint Tayma’s Aerie, it was called, with artfully carved balconies that looked down on the lower tiers as much as a hundred and fifty feet below. Auric was standing on the balcony of his own room later that morning when Sira came to report on his daughter.
“She’s on the mend, Sir Auric,” she said. It was not lost on him that her words echoed those spoken by Szaa’da’shaela earlier, in the dark hour before dawn.
“And the fever?” he asked, leaning on the stone balustrade, staring at the slate rooftops below.
“Better.”
“Why is it taking so long?”
Sira frowned. “I’m not sure. I don’t know if wounds caused by your blade resist Belu’s bounty, or if another force intervenes.
“When will we be able to continue on our way?”
Sira removed her priestly cap and took a seat on a bench of carved granite, its legs mimicking those of a lion. “Three days, probably four. Provided we get a wagon for her when we head north. And how are you?”
Auric’s upper lip curled and he touched a hand to it, as though it was a stray hair that needed smoothing. There was stubble there—he hadn’t shaved since Agnes’s wounding—but he also noticed that his hand trembled. Uncertain if Sira had observed this, he put both of his hands in the pockets of his trousers and turned around.
“Well. The beds here are soft as any I’ve slept in.”
Auric saw the pity in Sira’s lopsided smile. He waited for her to say something, all the while fighting to hide his agitation. But the priest only ran a hand through her mousy brown hair. “Yes, they’re very fine.”
A bell resounded from below, a rich tone climbing up the tiers of the city like a runner ascending a hillside. A flurry of white birds sprang from the bell tower, circling the sonorous echo before it at last fell silent after the tenth chime. Auric watched the members of that flock resume their perches within the tower until all vanished from sight.
“Where is your sword?” asked Sira.
A trembling hand shot to his hip. Szaa’da’shaela was still lying on the floor where he had thrown it. He wondered then at his anxiety. He had not been troubled unduly by that emotion, he realized, if the Djao blade was beside him. But the foreboding that crept into his heart was interrupted by a knock on his bedchamber door.
He walked to the door and cracked it open, expecting Kennah with a report of the transportation arrangements he had made. Auric had assigned him to secure a wagon for Agnes to lie in, mounts for the wagon and for those who would be riding, in addition to the necessary gear. He didn’t want to be away from Agnes for long and thought it was time for the big man to serve as target for disgruntled merchant grumbling when shown the queen’s script.
But instead a housemaid stood there, a little woman with olive skin, her dark blond locks hidden by a green patterned kerchief she wore. “Your pard’n, milord,” she began, tapping a knuckle to her forehead in salute. “But y’have visitors downstairs.”
“Visitors?”
The woman nodded slowly. She had an unease in her eyes that felt contagious. “Yessir. Priests, sir.”
“Priests? What priests wish to see me?”
And now the woman looked genuinely frightened. “The bishop, sir. Of Timilis.”
Saint Tayma’s Aerie did not have a common room, per se. Instead, there was a series of connected chambers that could each accommodate a dozen or more revelers. Every room was named for a species of bird. The housemaid led Auric and Sira, who insisted on accompanying him, through one chamber after another, taxidermied specimens of their namesakes mounted on the stone walls. As they neared the final chamber an unpleasant odor assailed Auric’s nostrils: the pungent stink of rotten eggs. The housemaid stopped in the penultimate room, and from the next chamber came a pair of twins, barely three feet tall, legs and arms stunted, wearing clothing made of patchwork rags, along with incongruous conical hats in rich fabric of shimmering gold.
“You come for an audience with the Most Reverend Bishop?” asked one with a theatrical sweep of his hands, his voice surprisingly rich and deep.
Auric hesitated a bit before answering. “We were told he wished to see us. We did not request an audience.”
The other little man smiled. “Then you are doubly blessed.” Both gestured to the door in unison, an invitation for them to enter. Auric gave Sira a sour glance. She signaled her assent with a shrug and tilt of her head.
The smell of rotten eggs grew stronger. The chamber beyond was adorned with taxidermied mountain bluebirds, plumage vivid, posed on lacquered branches that seemed to sprout from the walls. Sitting in front of the only table in the room was their visitor. He wore the capaci
ous vestments of a priest of Timilis, made of burgundy velvet, dusted with a yellow powder. His sacerdotal hat was shaped like a pyramid and tilted forward at a jaunty angle, beaded lengths dangling from its four corners. The man was exceptionally pale, with a devilish black moustache and forked beard, like an actor made up to perform the villain. A few tongues of his oiled, coal-black hair protruded from beneath his hat, plastered to his forehead, and the same yellowy powder on his robes surrounded his mouth as well. He sat with his legs spread wide, a black gloved hand on each knee. Another stunted figure in patchwork clothing attended him, a pair of tiny cymbals on thumb and forefinger of both hands. An ingratiating smile appeared on the cleric’s lips as Auric and Sira crossed the threshold of his makeshift audience chamber.
“Vilmoch Derra, Sir Auric Manteo,” he began with a bob of his chin, voice as oily as his hair. “I am bishop of Timilis in Ironwound. Thank you for seeing me.”
Auric sucked at his teeth, said nothing.
“Thank you, Bobo, Paolo,” said Derra. “Please see that we are not interrupted.” He waved a gloved hand in dismissal, and their two escorts walked out, closing the door behind them.
“What is it you wish to speak with me about, priest?”
Derra frowned, raising his eyebrows. “So hostile already? My, my, Sir Auric, I have done nothing to warrant your animosity, have I?”
“Your vestments alone earn our scorn, sir,” said Sira.
“Ah, blessed of Belu, you’re always adorned in frightful hues of pastel righteousness, are you not? Blameless and ready to pass judgment on others. I assume you are the priest of the Blue Mother assigned to Sir Auric’s little expedition. Our spies in Boudun weren’t certain, but they believed you are the same who accompanied him to the Barrowlands last year. Sira Edjani is your name?”
“Of the Blue Cathedral,” she answered. Auric thought how queer it was to hear Sira’s voice so absent of its gentle kindness.
