by Mike Shel
Flecks of blood dotted Bocca’s face, flung inadvertently from a devotee’s scourge, though their Candle didn’t seem to notice it. Kennah’s leg was splashed as well, but when he reached for a rag to wipe it away, disgusted, Bocca put a restraining hand on his arm.
“No, Sir Kennah, let it be. It’s thought to be a great blessing to be baptized with a flagellant’s blood. Things may go easier for you with your sin eater if you let it lie there.” He let go of the big man’s arm. Kennah frowned but put his rag away. “Anyway,” Bocca continued, “some believe that submitting to the lash promises greater insight in the caves. Myself? Well, as long as I live, I’ll be forever amazed at the lengths some human beings will go to curry the favor of their gods.”
Szaa’da’shaela trembled in its scabbard. Auric put a hand to its hilt, as if to calm a skittish mount.
Past the flagellants, they reached a rim of rock mortared in place in sloppy, rustic fashion. Bocca identified it as the Cusp. It was a cliffside respite before a broad ascending path. There was a corral for horses at the foot of the ascent and places to park wagons and carriages. Bocca instructed the Syraeic party to dismount and take with them what they would want in the caves.
“What’s to keep thieves from stealing our horses and gear if we leave them here?” asked Kennah, holding his mount’s reins warily.
“Fear of gruesome heavenly retribution,” said Bocca with a smile.
“A jest?” asked Chalca.
“It is not, sirrah. Stealing pilgrims’ belongings might hamper business. The cult of Pember considers fleecing pilgrims its sole province and guards it jealously.”
“So, this is all a great charade, then?” said Agnes, an edge in her voice. “A game to part people from their money?”
Bocca put a hand on Agnes’s cheek, a gesture of tender condescension that rankled Auric. “Some of it. A lot of it. Not all of it. There’s real power here, make no mistake. But fleecing you, alas, is a part of the sacrament.”
Auric’s mind went back to the conversation he had had with Bocca about his fee. “I see no reason to haggle with you. When all of this is at an end, Sir Auric of Pescham, you’ll pay me what you think my services are worth. I expect not a copper more, or less.”
He had marveled at the man’s easy-going attitude about his payment. “I haven’t met many who would provide service without fixing a fee. And collecting at least a portion before delivery.”
“What can I say? You have an honest face, Sir Auric.”
An honest face. A peasant’s face, like the lad’s. Auric inspected the stubble on his own cheeks with a hand as he noticed an incline to the right of the ascending path, hugging the mountainside around a corner. “What’s this then?” he asked their Candle.
“The way to Ussi’s Crag. You’ll all head down there and meet with the sin eaters. Then in the morning we’ll climb the ascending road up to Gnexes.”
“Where will we sleep?”
“Oh, there will be no sleep,” replied Bocca, wearing a look that suggested he thought Auric should know better. “You’ll all be with the sin eaters for many hours.”
Auric looked at his comrades, gathered around him and Bocca now. Who of them would need hours with a sin eater to unburden? Sira? Laughable. The woman was as near a saint as anyone he had ever met. Agnes? What could she have to confess for hours? Qeelb, perhaps; gods knew what that man had done while he was enslaved. Kennah had some ghosts to exorcise, Bocca had hinted at that. Chalca? Well, petty theft hardly seemed enough to consume an entire night.
And what about you, Auric Manteo? he thought. What would he confess? He wasn’t certain. When he groveled before that Boudun sin eater after Marta’s suicide, he had simply poured out the story of finding her, hanging from an oak beam in the fruit cellar of their cottage, after returning from two or three days of business at the Citadel. How long had her strangled corpse hung there, alone, among the cobwebs and jars of tomatoes and pickled beets?
“Well, let’s get this religious nonsense done with,” said Qeelb, breaking Auric from his morbid reverie. “I won’t be satisfied unless I make mine spit back up some of what I feed him.” He started down the narrow path, steadying himself with a hand on the stone face to the left, leery of the edge that yawned out into emptiness.
“Do be careful,” said Bocca. “More than one pilgrim has lost his footing and taken flight into Mictilin’s Parlor.”
Qeelb looked back at the man over his shoulder and smiled humorlessly. Kennah followed the sorcerer, along with Agnes and Chalca, making slow, cautious progress until all of them disappeared around the turn. Auric turned to Sira, who looked paler than usual, her lips a straight line.
“What’s the matter?” he asked her.
“I’m a bit…well, heights make me uneasy. Since the pit, beneath Saint Besh.”
“I’ll walk with you, Sira,” said Auric, taking her hand. Was this the first time he had offered aid to the earnest priest, rather than the reverse? He looked back at Bocca as they neared the steep incline. He stood, arms folded, the rakish grin on his face. “Aren’t you coming with us, Bocca? I’d assume you’d need confession as well.”
The young man waved and shook his head. “Ah! No, Sir Auric of Pescham. Ussi and I…well, we have an understanding.”
An unholy stench foretold their destination just as the narrow path turned the corner of the mountain, leading to a long plateau paved with worn slate tiles. The stink was a mixture of unwashed bodies, excrement, and rot. The face of the mountain was pocked with dark openings, none more than three feet high: all would need to bow to enter one these confessional hovels. Each entryway had an iron sconce for a torch, but only about ten of the dozens had lit torches hung in them.
“I assume the ones that are lit are open for business,” offered Chalca without enthusiasm.
There was a nasty itch in Auric’s gut. The open mouths of the cliffside filled him with loathing. It wasn’t just the terrible stink they disgorged, but the inevitable unpleasantness that lay waiting within. Without a word, Qeelb marched toward the nearest opening, its torch’s fire guttering and going out as he entered. Agnes looked back at Auric, some apprehension on her freckled face. That, combined with Qeelb’s bold disregard, reminded him of his responsibilities.
“Let’s all wait here after finishing with our individual ordeals,” he said with a casualness he didn’t feel. “We’ll ascend the incline together when we’ve all done our duty.” Then he picked another torchlit opening, crouched, and entered.
The ceiling of the tunnel remained low and he moved forward with a palm against both smooth rock walls, a greasy film coating them. The tunnel led to an ill-lit cave, no more than thirty feet across, the reek of shit and sweat intensified. There was a rickety wooden chair against one cave wall and the floor was littered with bones. Gruesome sculptures of twine, twig, and bone hung from the ceiling, which was hidden in cobwebs and shadow. A rag-clad figure with his back to Auric knelt on the dirt floor of the cave, engaged in some unseen task.
“Please take a seat,” said the sin eater in a strangely soft tenor. “I’ll be with you in a moment. Apologies for the smell.” Surprised at that last bit, Auric obeyed, sitting down on the rickety chair, though he had to adjust his Djao blade when it scraped in the dirt. The chair’s legs were uneven, so it canted at an odd, uncomfortable angle.
“So,” Auric began awkwardly, “how do I do this?”
“In a moment,” the man responded, voice calm and patient.
Auric’s eyes fixed on one dangling totem: the jawbone of a horse, teeth intact, tufts of grass and clusters of bird bones suspended from it in orderly rows, swaying slightly in the dim cave. Then another, comprised of a trio of dog skulls and sprigs of dried berries, this one motionless. He spotted a third, which made his heart flutter.
“They’re meant to be evocative,” said the man, turning around to face Auric at last. H
e had a careworn face, dark creases in his flesh from a lifetime without bathing; eyes that were mournful, but somehow kind. He was filthy, like all of his kind, his ragged vestments infested with vermin, his hair unwashed and matted. He surveyed Auric with a small frown, from head to toe, then nodded. “Which of these icons most captures your notice?”
Auric grimaced and pointed at the one that had unsettled him. “That one. With the infant’s skull, lacking a jaw.”
“And twigs from an aspen. Though you can’t tell. The filth in this place long ago stained its white bark the color of dirt. Yes, that’s a disturbing one for many. Why does it draw your attention?”
“It makes me think of life cut short,” said Auric before the thought was fully formed in his mind. “How sad it is, that some should die before they’ve truly lived.”
The sin eater nodded, scratching at the lice in his hair. “Yes. I call it The Unkind Grave. Do you come to speak to me of lives cut short then, sir?”
“I don’t know what I need to tell you. I was told I needed to speak with one of you before entering the caves of Gnexes.”
“It is required, yes. But I think of it as a blessing, sir…what is your name?”
“You don’t know it? Seems many I’ve never met of late already do.”
“I know you’re a Syraeic, from your cuirass. But I cannot practice my sacrament without a name. Please be so kind as to introduce yourself.”
“Auric Manteo. Late of Daurhim and Boudun.”
“And?”
“And what?”
The sin eater put his chin to his chest and looked up at Auric from beneath his brows.
“Pescham,” added Auric.
The sin eater nodded vigorously, sitting on his haunches on the refuse-strewn dirt floor. “Honesty, and completeness, are virtues here in my cave, Auric of Pescham. If you wish to benefit from this sacrament, both are required.”
Anger rose in Auric. This man was not like the sin eaters he had met, who seemed to revel in their polluted presence and the charge of their office. Somehow, this one’s even temper and easy tone amidst the squalor was more disquieting. He checked a dozen caustic responses, at last settling on a question. “How does one choose to become a sin eater?”
The filthy man didn’t speak for a moment, considering Auric’s words. “One doesn’t make such a choice, Auric of Pescham. He has it thrust upon him. Ussi gave me the scent for sin when I was a young boy. I could smell lies and the bad behavior of my playmates and caregivers, even when I hadn’t witnessed them. It was pungent. I complained of the odors to my mother, who had our house medicus examine me.”
“House medicus? You’re an aristocrat?”
“I was born an aristocrat, Auric of Pescham. I am one no longer. My grandfather was the Count of Dyerwy, and my father after him, I assume. I was about six when news of my gift reached the nostrils of the priests of Ussi. I was whisked away from our comfortable, perfumed manor and into their malodorous ranks. I haven’t seen the light of the sun in thirty-nine years.”
“What is your name?”
“Sin eater. I have no other name. I’ve had no other name since the god chose me. But enough of my history. What is it you consider your greatest sin?”
Auric grimaced, looking at his feet and the detritus surrounding him. “I am responsible for the deaths of my dearest comrades. To avoid my own grief, I pushed them too hard, until at last they were torn apart by the dead in a Barrowlands ruin. I barely survived myself. They found me wandering in the wilderness, carrying the head of my closest Syraeic sister. Lenda Hathspry. Apothecary’s daughter from Leatham.”
“Life cut short,” said the sin eater, adding, “in a way.”
“What do you mean, ‘in a way?’”
“It’s unimportant. Forgive me. Can you tell me of other lives you helped to cut short?”
Auric felt dizzy, his gorge rising in his throat. He spewed forth the contents of his stomach onto the already disgusting floor of the sin eater’s cave. The ragged priest stood and mopped up the vomit with a large soiled cloth he retrieved from behind him. Tossing the cloth in a corner, he sat back again on his haunches with a long exhalation. “The others,” he said.
“My wife.”
“Yes?”
Auric coughed, suppressed another eruption of vomit. “My son before her.”
“It’s as if you tied Marta’s noose?” the sin eater asked. “As if you sprung the trap that crushed Tomas?”
He could see. The priest could see it all. Why should it call these emotions forth, simply speaking their names? Tears fell down Auric’s cheeks. “I might as well have. I filled his head with tales of high adventure, filled his sister’s head with the same. And Marta…”
“Yes, Marta. Enough with this nonsense you think is your greatest sin, Auric of Pescham. We come to the real jewel in your crown of transgression. What did you do to Marta?”
“I tried to be a kind husband.”
“You didn’t beat her? Didn’t bring disease to her from the beds of other women? Provided shelter and food? Perhaps we should petition the queen for a parade in your honor.”
“Fuck you.”
“I don’t think so. Let me rephrase my question: how did you fail her as a husband?”
“I failed…”
The sin eater sat up on his haunches, put a hand to his ear as if to hear Auric more clearly. “Yes? Failed how?”
“To comfort her.”
“Weak words, Auric!” the sin eater shouted with sudden righteous fury. “Stop pussyfooting around the truth of it!”
“I failed to meet her in her grief. I fled from it. I…” Auric was close to choking on the words in his mouth, along with the overpowering stink all around him.
“By Ussi’s malodorous breath,” shouted the sin eater, “don’t stop now!”
Auric found himself sobbing, the back of his hand against his mouth, as though he could keep his guilt and the words from bursting forth. He put his other hand to Szaa’da’shaela’s hilt, as though he might find comfort there, but all he touched was cold, lifeless metal.
“I…abandoned her.”
The sin eater’s voice was soft now, comforting. “You left her behind, a fallen comrade. You feared your own grief would consume you; you couldn’t bear hers as well. But she’s not the only one you failed.”
Auric had thought it before, fleetingly, never long enough to elicit real emotion. But he thought on it now. The truth of it hit him with a perfect diamond’s clarity. But still, he tried to resist it.
“Agnes? She was deep in her novitiate! Her studies buoyed her, her own classmates and comrades! You don’t understand the comradery of the League. We become more than family. We—”
The sin eater interrupted him, though his voice was gentle. “I don’t give a fig for the comradery of the League. She was your daughter. And you chose to abandon her as well. Why?”
Auric didn’t answer. The sin eater asked again, more insistent. “Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s your greatest sin, right there, Auric of Pescham. Cowardice. You chose to hide from your own grief, first by busying yourself with the League’s business, neglecting lonely Marta. When she fell to your cowardice, you avoided the pain by rushing from one Djao ruin to another, putting your beloved comrades at risk. You abandoned your only surviving child to people who were no more than strangers to her. When Lenda and the rest were slaughtered, you hid in a bottle for a time, then in retreat from the world. All of it so that you wouldn’t have to face your failure, and the pain in which you had a hand. Coward.”
Szaa’da’shaela trembled at his hip, though Auric couldn’t read what its trembling conveyed. He leaned forward as anger washed over him, holding out a shaking fist at the sin eater, his teeth gritted. It was too much for the rickety chair. A leg snapped and pitched him into th
e dirt.
The terror gripped him then, his whole body shaking, the fear coursing through his veins with cold omnipotence. Where was his sword? Where was Szaa’da’shaela? His hand went to his hip, for the reassuring touch of its jeweled hilt, but it was gone. He gave in to the panic then, scrabbling in the dirt and filth, a scream gathering in his throat.
And then the sin eater was standing over him. Auric, his belly in the dirt, tilted his head up and saw the rag-clad priest before him, Szaa’da’shaela in its sheath held in his shit-stained hands.
“Give me back my sword!” Auric cried, his voice throaty and desperate.
“Not yet,” said the sin eater, taking a step back.
A rage enveloped Auric then. He swung a hand out, trying to grab hold of the priest’s ankle, but missed as the sin eater took another step back. The desire to strangle the sin eater, to wrap his fingers around his throat and throttle him until his face turned purple, burned in his chest. But instead he shouted, “Give it back, thief!”
“You think this weapon gives you courage, Auric of Pescham? It uses you for its own aims. You are not its wielder; you are its instrument. This sword wields you!”
“The nightmares, the shaking of my hands—Szaa’da’shaela has freed me of them. And it has served my purposes, allowed me to—”
“Kill a god,” said the sin eater, his tone sober.
