Zale chuckled. “That is a priest’s answer, at any rate. Would you like a scholar’s answer as well?”
“I would!” said Halla, to the surprise of no one.
Zale nodded. “So far as we can tell, the Temple of the Rat originated some eight hundred years ago, in the west. A plague was decimating the cities of the old empire there. They knew that rats carried the plague, and a cult sprang up, attempting to appease the rat spirit. From there, the faith evolved and reformed.” They grinned slyly. “Of course, our understanding of treatment for the plague certainly did not hurt.”
“A moment,” said Sarkis. “You know the origin of your faith? You can point to it like this? And yet still you worship this rat as your god?”
The priest laughed. “Why does knowing the origin of a thing make it less holy? Do you know your grandparents?”
Sarkis gave them a narrow-eyed look. “I did, yes.”
“And did you love your parents less for knowing where they came from?”
“I did not worship my parents.”
“Some parents practically expect that, though,” muttered Halla.
Sarkis started to say something, then frowned. “There are places I have been,” he admitted grudgingly, “where one’s ancestors are worshipped. One of my men came from such a place, and she swore by her grandfather’s shade.”
“There you have it.” Zale waved their hand. “We know that the Rat exists. We know He is kindly inclined toward humankind. If we forget His name, He will creep back into the walls of the world, but He will not cease to exist. A day will come when humans remember His name again. So it is, and so it has been, and so it will be.”
Halla bowed her head as if receiving a benediction.
“Decadent southern gods,” muttered Sarkis, and Zale laughed aloud.
They were barely an hour out of the city gates when they passed a tiny, nameless town on the ox-road and saw where a burning had taken place.
Zale’s thin lips curled back when they saw the smoke rising from the square. The pyre was ringed by men in indigo cloaks. The fire was out now.
“Motherhoods,” the priest muttered. “The gods be merciful.”
“All the gods?” asked Sarkis. “Not just the Rat?”
“The Rat’s mercy is a given. It’s the other gods we need to worry about.” They craned their neck. “Ah. Possessions only. Books. Not a person, thank the Rat.”
“They burn books, too?” asked Sarkis.
“Oh yes. Herbals, bestiaries…sometimes merely books in foreign tongues. In case they might be spellbooks.” They shook their head, looking pained. “The loss of knowledge alone…Those people are a menace.”
“And here comes one now,” said Halla. She wondered if she’d be able to put them off with a saga of cauliflower a second time.
An indigo-cloaked man approached them on horseback. He had a crossbow slung over his back and a sword at his side.
“I can take him,” said Sarkis softly, “but the others will be on us right away.”
Brindle gave him a look. “You think an ox can outrun horses, sword-man?”
“I’m not sure this ox could outrun a dead horse.”
“Don’t insult an ox. An ox is good at what an ox does. Like to see you pull a wagon any better.”
“Stand down,” said Zale, watching the horseman approach. “I’ll handle it.”
The Motherhood warrior halted alongside the wagon, eyes flicking over the paint job. “A Rat priest, eh?”
Zale inclined their head.
“Where are you traveling?”
“On the Rat’s business,” said Zale. Their voice was pleasant enough, but there was a hard note under it.
“And where does the Rat’s business take you?”
“Wherever the Rat sees the need,” said Zale. Halla rather admired the priest’s flat refusal to answer the question. She’d be burying the man in information, herself, with every relative she had in every town along the way, including some made up on the spot. Still, Zale had a certain authority and could get away with defiance.
The warrior’s eyes narrowed. He looked over the wagon and passengers again, gaze lingering on Sarkis.
“It might be wise to inform someone where you are going,” said the warrior. “In case of…accidents.”
Well, that wasn’t even subtle.
“I assure you, the temple of the Rat is aware of both our whereabouts and when we are expected to return.”
“The Motherhood would appreciate being extended the same courtesy.”
“I’m sure they would.”
Brindle had not slowed the ox. They were beginning to pass out of the square by this point. Halla held her breath to see if the warrior would continue pacing them.
He drew his horse up. “Be careful, priest,” he said. “The roads are dangerous for those not under the Mother’s protection.”
“I will inform my superiors of your concern.”
And that was it. The ox plodded onward. The warrior turned his horse back.
Sarkis opened his mouth to say something and Zale shook their head warningly. “Later.”
It was beginning to turn to early evening when the plume of smoke faded in the sky. Zale pulling their robes tightly around their thin shoulders. “Damnable Motherhood,” they muttered.
“We tangled with them briefly on the road,” said Halla. “But they were a lot more persistent with you.”
“There is a rivalry between the Motherhood and most other faiths,” said Zale. “A largely one-sided one. The rest of us manage to get along tolerably well, why can’t they?” They grumbled something under their breath.
The sun set early in autumn. Sarkis saw the distance they had travelled…or more accurately, failed to travel…and stifled a sigh. The ox moved at half the speed of a human walking, if that.
Still, it’s not as if you have anywhere to be. That clammy-handed fellow does not seem like the type to destroy a house he lives in. And if time were of the essence, the Rat temple would likely have provided us with a swifter transport than the great god’s slowest ox.
The wagon had two beds that folded down from the sides. Zale took one that night, and then looked helplessly at Halla and Sarkis.
“I shall guard outside,” said Sarkis firmly. Halla’s presence while asleep was already costing him rest. Lying on the floor less than a foot away from her would be entirely too much.
Zale frowned. “There are extra blankets, but are you sure? It is cold out.”
“It is no hardship. I have slept on stone with snow blowing in—”
“Don’t get him started,” said Halla. “Just make him take extra blankets.” She paused. “Err—wait, does Brindle need a bed?”
“Brindle stays with the ox,” said Zale. “I’ve traveled with him two or three times before, and he won’t leave his charge for anything less than a blizzard.”
Sarkis paused, one hand on the door. “Is he trustworthy?”
“Who, Brindle?” Zale looked surprised. “I have never had cause to doubt him. The temple employs a small group of gnoles who appear to be related, either by blood or family ties. They have a complicated caste system, and I don’t believe humans understand it as well as we think we do, but Brindle is a job-gnole, though a low-level one. The high-level job gnoles are traders and negotiators. One of them negotiates the contracts for the entire group. I suppose if one of the higher job-gnoles planned to hand us over to bandits or some other group for ransom, Brindle would likely go along with it, but they’ve never done anything like that, and we have employed them for years now. Since not long after the gnoles arrived, in fact.”
Sarkis nodded, and stepped outside.
It was a cold, clear night. He burrowed into the blankets, feeling the sharp bite of the air in his lungs. The temperature had dropped in just the few days since he and Halla had been sleeping outdoors.
The moon was cut down to a half-smile on the horizon. Sarkis could hear the ox breathing, and Brindle talking softly to it in what must have be
en his own language. From inside the wagon came the sounds of two people moving around in an enclosed space, which was mostly occasional thumps and apologies.
He felt a brief qualm about leaving Halla alone with the priest, but squelched it. Should Zale prove untrustworthy, Sarkis was less than three feet away. If Halla so much as yelped, he would be through the door and ready to skewer the Rat priest first and ask questions later.
But she did not yelp. The stars moved in the cold sky, and Sarkis slept as if he were home in the Weeping Lands and woke with frost on his beard.
Chapter 27
“Now this is traveling,” said Halla, holding a cup of hot tea between her hands to warm them. Zale had already cooked bacon, and was now frying slabs of bread in the grease. The air was still cold, but she had slept in a bed rather than on the frozen ground.
Sarkis’s lips quirked as he looked at her across the fire. “What, sleeping in hedges and ditches was not to your liking?”
Halla rolled her eyes at him, licking bacon grease off her fingers. Sarkis’s gaze locked on her mouth, and it took her a moment to think why.
Oh. Uh. Licking my fingers. Yes. Men get very interested in that.
Should I try to flirt? Or am I supposed to lick something else?
She was out of bacon and probably nobody found licking a tin cup sexy. Licking the wagon was right out.
Dammit, I’m bad at this.
“The company was excellent,” she said to Sarkis. “The hedges, not so much. I like this much better.”
“As do I,” said Sarkis. He looked as if he might say something else, but then Zale began handing out pieces of toast and the moment, if there had been one, was lost.
“So you heal inside the blade,” said Zale, after they had started down the road and the ox had lumbered into what was, for it, a good pace.
“I do.”
“How much do you heal? If we cut your hand off—not that I’m proposing that!— “
“Thank the great god. I would object.”
“—but would that heal as well? Would you have a new hand or a healed stump?”
“A new hand,” said Sarkis.
“Oh. Has it happened, then?”
“Not my hand. One of my wielders liked to cut out my tongue.”
There was a brief, horrified silence. He looked up to see both Halla and Zale staring at him. Zale had brown eyes and Halla gray, but their expressions were identical.
“It grew back.”
“Sarkis…” said Halla, eyes huge with sympathy. “That’s horrible!”
“I did not enjoy it,” Sarkis admitted. It had been a great deal of wet fumbling and gouging pain, with blood and spit pouring out of his mouth, and the knowledge that he would live through it had not been much comfort in the moment.
Zale made a gesture over their chest, whether a benediction or a warding, he did not know.
Halla reached out and took Sarkis’s hand. He looked down at it, then squeezed.
And which of us is comforting the other is anyone’s guess…
“Forgive me,” said Zale. “This is indelicate, but…what happened to your tongue?”
“What?”
“The tongue that was cut out,” said Zale. “Did it cease to exist? Did it go back in the sword?”
“I have no idea. I was not exactly paying attention!”
“Completely understandable,” said the priest in soothing tones. “Who would be? But I must wonder what happened. That might be important to understanding how the blade works.”
Sarkis exhaled. “I…can see how that would be useful. But I don’t know the answer.”
“Hmmm,” said Zale. They looked at Halla. Halla chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully.
Both of them looked at Sarkis.
He groaned, recognizing twin lights of curiosity in their eyes. “Fine. Would you like to cut off my little finger to test it?”
Zale looked genuinely shocked. “Oh dear! No, no, we shouldn’t start there! What about…oh! What happens when you urinate?”
Sarkis’s mouth fell open.
“Oh, that’s a good question,” said Halla. “We could test from there, couldn’t we?”
“Test…what are you…?”
Great god, they were both still looking at him! As if they expected an answer!
He cleared his throat. “Well, I take my cock out in the usual way and aim somewhere and try to relax…”
Zale burst out laughing. “No, not that bit!”
Halla’s shoulders were shaking. Sarkis appreciated that she wasn’t laughing in his face.
“Does the urine dematerialize? Into blue light, as you do?”
“No,” said Sarkis. “Definitely not. I’d notice.”
“Hmm,” said Zale. “And of course, by definition, you’re never around to see what happens after you dematerialize…”
Halla leaped down from the wagon. Sarkis looked after her, not sure what exactly she was planning.
And if I’m being honest, a little afraid to find out.
The wagon door creaked as she opened it. The ox never looked right or left, plodding along. Neither did Brindle.
Halla was back a moment later, holding a crockery jar. Sarkis recognized it as having held the jam they used at breakfast.
“Here!” she said, holding it up. “You can go in this!”
Sarkis stared at her, then at Zale, then back at her.
“It would be a good way to check,” the priest said. “We’ll put you back in the sword, and then we’ll know if it vanishes or not.”
Sarkis looked around for help. Brindle glanced at him, shook his head, and said, “Ask somebody else, sword-man. A gnole isn’t getting involved.”
Defeated, Sarkis took the jar. “I…uh. In front of you?”
It wasn’t that he hadn’t answered the call of nature with his men any number of times, of course, but there was a difference between simply living in close proximity to others and having two people staring at you with intense interest, waiting for…
“I’m not going to be able to do this with you staring at me.”
“You can go in the bushes, if you like,” said Halla.
Zale nodded.
Sarkis counted to seventy-two, slid off the wagon seat, and went to go further the pursuit of knowledge.
“Yay!” said Halla, when Sarkis handed her the jar.
“No one,” said Sarkis wearily, “in my entire life, has ever said, ‘yay,’ when I handed them a jar of piss.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
Zale peered into the jar and wrinkled their nose. “This should do fine. May we sheathe the sword now?”
Sarkis lifted his hands and let them drop. “Sure. Of course. Why not.”
“I don’t think he’s really getting into the spirit of this,” said Halla.
“He does seem a bit dour, doesn’t he?”
“…I’m still right here, you know.”
“Well, we’ll fix that,” said Halla cheerfully. She slung the sword off her shoulder, unpicked the cords, and sheathed the sword the final inch.
Sarkis dissolved into blue fire. At nearly the same time, so did the contents of the jar.
Zale laughed delightedly. “Look!” They flipped the jar over and nothing came out.
Halla let out a cheer. “It worked!”
“It did!”
“That’s amazing!”
“I know!”
“Now what does that mean?”
“I have absolutely no idea!”
They looked at each other for a long, long minute, then both dissolved into laughter.
“Did you see…the look…on his face…”
“And when he tried to explain how he…!”
Zale couldn’t finish. The ox flicked back an ear at the strange howling noises coming from the wagon seat, but didn’t turn. Brindle looked at both of them and shook his striped head. “Humans,” he muttered under his breath. “A gnole does not understand humans.” This only m
ade Zale laugh harder.
It took nearly five minutes for the two to get their hilarity under control. When Sarkis re-materialized, he couldn’t figure out why Zale and Halla were carefully avoiding looking at each other.
“Well?” he said.
Halla burst out laughing again. Sarkis stared at her, swung around to Zale, and saw that the priest had put their hands over their face, and was making truly bizarre noises.
“Are you both well?”
“Fine,” gasped Halla. “Wonderful.”
“Never better,” croaked Zale, through their fingers.
“What the hell did you two do with my jar of piss?”
Halla fell off the wagon seat. Sarkis had to go pick her up. She appeared unhurt, but was sitting in the dust, giggling uncontrollably, unable to stand up under her own power.
“I’m fine,” she croaked, when he set her on her feet. “Fine. Perfectly…heh…fine…”
He slapped dust off the back of her skirt. “Are you drunk?”
“No!” She leaned on him as he helped steer her back to the wagon. “Just…ah…heh…look, you had to be there.”
“I was there!”
“You had to be there and not be you?”
He handed her up into the wagon and looked over at Zale. “Are you going to fall off now?”
“I think I’m okay,” said the priest, lips twitching. “Mostly. But oh, Sarkis! This is fascinating! The jar empties itself when you go back in the sword!”
Sarkis narrowed his eyes. “Are you telling me that anything I…err…leave out here goes back in the sword with me?”
“Makes sense,” said Halla. “I bet it normally dematerializes when it gets far enough away from the sword. It’s just nobody noticed. And of course you wouldn’t notice.”
“I don’t often stay out of the sword long enough to have to eat,” he admitted. “But are you telling me that my sword is full of shit?”
Halla opened her mouth to say something, received a death glare from Sarkis and meekly closed it on whatever remark she was about to utter.
“No, no,” said Zale. “No more than it’s full of severed tongues, I imagine.”
“What a marvelous image,” said Sarkis, putting his face in his hands. Really, he didn’t know why he ever bothered to take his face out of his hands. He should just have them permanently attached to his forehead, the way his life was going.
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