Heretic Part Four, Chapter 3

Heretic

Part Four

Chapter 3

The cloaked Lector walked towards them in utter silence, dagger lifted to the side. As he pressed forward the very air seemed to part and split against his body, dark filaments tearing away and drifting on the wind behind him. The motion distorted his appearance, making his arms and legs seem to grow longer and oddly bent, his features obscured into an indistinct blur.

Run away and I’ll hold him—

Isaand tried to shout, to tell Ratha to escape, but realized that the Lector’s miracle was rendering him silent. As he breathed in, he felt a thickness in his lungs, as though the air was contaminated with something foul. He’d have to escape, quickly—

The Lector sprinted towards him without warning, swinging the dagger. Isaand panicked and stabbed straight forward with his staff, hoping to keep the man at bay. The Lector turned sideways, seeming to move with practiced grace, and grabbed hold of the staff’s other end with his free hand. He pulled forward. Isaand planted his boots on the street and pulled back with all his strength. He started to slide forward, then a pair of warm arms enveloped him and Ratha began pulling him back.

The Lector gave up trying to pull the staff away and instead held onto it as he charged forward, swinging the knife at Isaand’s fingers. He had no choice but to let go. With Ratha pulling on him he stumbled backwards and his heel hit an uneven stone, sending him and Ratha down to the street in a tangle.

Szet, help me! Isaand started shouting, chanting a miracle as swiftly as he could. His voice made no sound, but he could feel the power of his god warming him from within his chest. Szet did not need to hear his words to know them.

The Lector swung Isaand’s staff down hard. Isaand lifted an arm and felt the shock of intense pain as it collided with his forearm. His arm went limp and twisted to the side as he bit his tongue at the shock. Hairline fracture, he thought automatically.

He lost track of what was happening, his vision blurred, the pain overwhelming his senses. A few seconds later, he blinked and saw two blurry forms struggling just ahead of him. Ratha was on her knees, holding up against the Lector’s arm with both hands. The man was pushing down, his dagger inching closer and closer to Ratha’s neck. She twisted to the side, and the dagger plunged forward six inches, biting into the meat of her clavicle. Isaand heard nothing, but her whole body shook as she cried out in pain.

Szet nah ko teriz nau. Isaand finished his chant, and there was an instant of clarity as gold-white light poured off his body water, pushing the dark miasma the Lector had summoned away. He lunged forward onto Ratha’s back and grappled for the dagger. He felt it slip free from her flesh. The razor-sharp blade pulled at his skin and he felt three fingers slice open with shallow cuts. His power flared as the light all surged into the dagger.

Isaand grabbed Ratha and pulled her down under him, turning his back. He couldn’t hear it, but he felt it as the dagger detonated, spraying bits of sharp metal all over his cloaked back.

Together, Isaand and Ratha got to their feet and stumbled away. He shot a glance behind him to see the Lector gripping his hand to his chest, hunched over in pain. Isaand’s staff lay forgotten on the ground beside him.

Ratha grabbed onto a wall and pressed herself up against it. Though silent, she seemed to be drawing in deep breaths and gasping in pain. Isaand touched her cheek tenderly and left three streaks of blood across it. Only then did he remember his own injury. He decided to ignore it. Szet would heal such a superficial injury in a few minutes. Ratha’s looked far more serious. Carefully, he pried the blood-soaked fabric of her tunic away from her collarbone. It exposed a deep puncture still spurting out blood in steady pulses. Keep pressure, he said by habit, then gritted his teeth when he realized he couldn’t speak. Instead he took hold of Ratha’s right hand, which was trembling, and forced it up against the wound, pushing in hard. He put his face close to hers so she could see his eyes clearly. She stared in utter panic for a moment, then nodded. He sighed in relief and turned back around. The Lector wouldn’t just let them walk away.

His enemy was already moving towards them. He had the hem of his cloak wrapped tightly around his injured hand. Isaand’s staff was gripped in his other. Isaand couldn’t make out the details of his face, but he was moving forward aggressively, angrily.

With no other options at hand, Isaand drew his belt knife. It was no dagger, just a simple tool for cutting meat and other daily tasks. How do I keep ending up in fights? Isaand wondered. I’m a godsdamned healer. For a moment, he wished he hadn’t been so quick to send Vehx away. Then he realized he would hardly have been able to release him in the middle of the city. That would have just called down the attention of all three of Kelylla’s gods on him.

He could use his quickening blessing to speed his movements and perception, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t help much against his enemy’s clear training and the effects of his miracle. Isaand could still hear nothing, could barely see the man moving closer, and his lungs were starting to burn with the effort of drawing in shallow breath after breath.

Backpedaling away, Isaand began chanting the words to his pacification miracle. If it worked, any murderous intent from the enemy Lector would be suppressed, rendering him unable to attack. Small chance of that, Isaand thought. The miracle rarely succeeded against those protected by the power of a god, as it affected the target’s soul directly, if only temporarily. A soul already claimed by a god was very difficult to reach.

Isaand felt his eyes stinging, and realized he couldn’t see the other Lector anymore. He must have moved off to the side, and with the murk blocking out everything around him Isaand hadn’t noticed. He could be anywhere now. Desperate, Isaand let loose the miracle, sending it bursting out around him in all directions like a gust of wind.

He felt it shatter against the walls of the buildings to either side, against the cobbles beneath his feet, against the barrels and crates stacked up against the corner of the shop they’d come to find. And he felt it hit the Lector, coming in from his left side, moving fast. The staff cracked hard against Isaand’s head, and he fell to one knee painfully at the impact. But it hadn’t hit with killing force. The miracle’s shock had distracted the attacker, weakening his blow.

Isaand couldn’t see, but he visualized his miracle—Szet’s miracle—as chains of silver light coiling around the man, trying to bind his soul and suppress any hostility that radiated out from it. It drew tighter, but there was something there to stop it, a glimmering shield of some holy power woven directly into the Lector’s soul. The pacification fizzled out, useless.

Isaand blinked, whipping his head from side to side, panic rising. He couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t hear anything, and he couldn’t feel anything but the pain of his wounds and the itching sensation of Szet’s blessing starting to heal them. He had no idea where he was, where Ratha was, where danger was coming from. Any second now a knife could plant itself between his ribs or his skull crack open from the strike of his own staff.

Then something shone through the darkness, a white, iridescent strand. It glowed with a comforting soft light, illuminating the smoke-like murky substance filling the air. It seemed to move with slow grace, but between one second and the next it reached from across the alley to within inches of Isaand’s chest. And it did come from across the alley. He realized he could see, the light of that strand cutting through the darkness. He couldn’t see the Lector, but following the light, he could see a thin figure standing back at the mouth of the alley, reaching out and letting the light flow from his fingers.

Desperate, Isaand grabbed hold of the light, let it surge into him. He gasped as energy flooded through him. The light burst around him, showing him the wary figure of the enemy Lector only a few feet away, staff held at the ready. Isaand dove to the side, prompting a swing of the staff, and it landed a harsh glancing blow off his thigh.

I’m here to help. The voice spoke through the light, directly into Isaand’s mind. It was male, but high and soothing. Despite the circumstanced, he didn’t sound worried. Try your miracle again. I’ll support you.

Isaand didn’t have time to argue. The Lector was coming closer. Isaand rushed through the words and threw out the pacification miracle again.

Power surged into him. The strand of light between him and the figure at intensified, white-hot and twisting like a bolt of lightning. The sheer power flowing through his body was overwhelming. Isaand felt the power of the miracle hit the Lector again. Once more the coils of it struggled against the power surrounding his soul. It didn’t take long. With so much force behind it the miracle crushed through the Lector’s defenses and tightened around his soul.

The next thing Isaand new the murky darkness was evaporating, leaving him blinking in the dark—but not black—alley. The Lector stood in front of him, staff held overhead in preparation for a killing blow. His eyes widened in shock, unable to bring the staff down. Isaand saw the understanding in his eyes as he made a decision. The Lector tossed the staff to the cobbles and took off at a sprint down the alley, disappearing onto the next street.

Isaand reeled. He could feel the vague itching sensation across the side of his head, Szet’s divine power healing him. It made him feel light-headed and confused. When he looked up again, he saw the figure from the mouth of the alley striding over to him, hands held up in a non-threatening manner. It was too dark to make out much of his appearance, but he was short and slender, like a teenager still in the midst of their growth spurt. He wore a cloak that covered most of his body, some color that blended into the darkness. The thread of light he’d released was gone.

“Don’t be concerned. My name is Josun. I was warned you would be in danger, and I got here as soon as I could. I apologize I wasn’t able to get here fast enough. Are you hurt? Do you need help?”

“I- Ratha!” Isaand forced himself up to his feet and turned around.

Ratha was slumped against the side of the alley, legs splayed out. One of her hands was still held tight to her collarbone. The other lay limply at her side.

Josun moved faster than Isaand, reaching her side in a few quick strides. He knelt down and Isaand saw his shoulders tense up at the sight.

“She needs a doctor. I… I dont—”

“I’m a healer.” Isaand stepped over to them, bent down to check Ratha’s face. Her eyes were closed tight, teeth gritted in pain, but she seemed to be consious. “Get her off the street!”

“Ok, I—” Josun’s calm attitude was gone. He uncertain, glancing back and forth down either side of the alley. “I’m not sure where we can go at this hour.”

“In the shop,” Isaand ordered. The Lector—mugger, assassin, whatever he was—had received no reinforcements from within the shop. Isaand hoped that meant it was empty.

“Okay. I’ve got her. You go get set up.” Now that he had a clear goal, Josun moved with confidence. He put one arm behind Ratha’s back and another behind her knees and lifted her off the ground. Though small, he seemed strong, carrying her with ease.

Isaand paused to gather up his staff. Holding it at the ready, he pushed his way into the shop the attacker had come from. The front room was a large workshop with a furnace in the corner and a variety of instruments set out for glasswork. A large candle in a glass cylinder sat on a table in front of the stain-glass window, lighting half the room and leaving the rest in shadow. Isaand took hold of it with his free hand and did a quick circuit of the ground floor, looking in on a small kitchen, a storeroom, and a tiny office. No one was found in any of them, but he found a staircase between workshop and kitchen. Moving carefully, he skulked up the stairs to find a small home above the shop, divided between a bedroom and a living area. Blessedly, it was devoid of life.

“Up here!” Isaand called. The stairs creaked as Josun carried Ratha up. Isaand pointed to the bed, and he laid her gently across it. “More light,” Isaand said, distracted, and shoved the candle at his helper.

Moving over to Ratha, he pulled the sticky cloth of her tunic away from her skin, causing her to groan in pain. With his belt-knife, he cut the tunic away and dropped it on the floor. Light filled the room as Josun brought more candles over. Gingerly, Isaand pried Ratha’s fingers away from her wound.

The blade had pierced deep into the muscle of her chest, angled down at a sharp angle. It probably hadn’t reached the lung, but there was the possibility. Isaand took in a deep breath and placed his palm over the wound, then his other hand over it. He began to implore Szet—

He paused. In the flickering candle-light, Ratha’s scars stood out starkly across her side, remnants from her last healing. Unbidden, the image came to Isaand’s mind: silvery-gray chains of holy power, wrapped around Ratha’s soul. Her’s, and the souls of everyone else he’d healed since he’d been blessed by his god. When he’d fought against the heretic Hahmn back at the lake, he’d been forced to draw on more power than he’d ever needed before. It had come from those he’d healed, drawn to him through those chains. Ratha’s wound had torn open again, though it had healed swiftly when the battle was over.

What would happen if he healed her again? Szet had mentioned nothing about the chains when he’d granted him his miracles. He had only spoken of rules, and of a price. Do not heal those who do not give their consent, no matter the situation. Those who agree to the terms will be saved. But no pain should ever be fully forgotten, no damage restored without effort, lest the lessons it teaches be undone. Isaand hadn’t questioned him. He’d lived with the bleaching plague still upon his skin, grateful that he’d been spared death. A bit of numbness and a freakish appearance was small price to pay for life, freedom, and the power to do good.

But why chains? Szet had shown Isaand only charity and goodwill, but the sight of those chains still filled him with unease. If he healed Ratha now, would the chains grow tighter around her heart?

“Do you need help?” Isaand turned to see Josun staring in concern. He’d almost forgotten about him. The man was young, a few years Isaand’s junior. His face was round and boyish, with close-cropped curly dark hair and light-brown skin that hinted at northern ancestry. His left eye was an ordinary brown. His right was blue.

“No. Everything is fine,” Isaand said. He took a deep breath. He really had no choice. He would trust Szet, as he had before. If he didn’t, Ratha might die. Even if she survived she’d lose mobility of her arm, or worse complications. Isaand began chanting, a prayer to Szet to lend his kindness and wisdom. Warmth and light poured from his hands.

Heretic Part Four: Chapter 2

Heretic

Part Four

Chapter 2

Isaand breathed a sigh of relief as he settled into the inn’s room, dropping his pack in the corner. He sat down on the large bed that dominated half of the room, sinking into its plush mattress. He marveled at the room’s walls, all built of smooth gray stone with half-circle depressions placed at regular intervals. The surface of the depressions were stained by years of candle-wax melting on them. Where did the city get so much stone? Nearly all of the buildings he’d seen on his way through Kelylla—on both sides of the river—had been built of it.

The inn’s room was large, with a small table and pair of chairs set off to one side and an empty space where a bath basin could be set out. The room was on the fourth floor of a stone building, and it wasn’t even the highest floor. There must have been room for over a hundred patrons, but that obviously wasn’t nearly enough for the city’s visitors, as the street it was on had three other inns within walking distance.

A large open window, with a tight curtain to bind across it and a wooden awning outside of it to keep the rain off, looked out to the east, where the bend of the Kelylla river was just visible through a labyrinth of other buildings. Isaand always had a good sense of direction, but walking for five minutes in Bantua’s cramped, crooked streets had him thoroughly lost.

“This can’t be cheap,” Isaand said, rubbing his hand across the bed’s thick soft blanket. “How can we afford to stay here? I don’t have any money left. I thought you were low as well?”

“I am, and we can’t,” Ratha said. She walked past him to drop her own pack on the floor and pulled off her cloak, leaving her arms bare. The day was warm enough that it would be a relief to go without it. Isaand, of course, would keep his.

“Then what are we doing here?”

“We need somewhere to stay while we look for the Free. They’ll give us a place to stay once we find them. For now, we’ll have to go off credit.” Ratha turned around, stretching, then plopped onto the bed beside him, making it shake with the impact. She let out a long sigh of relief and dropped her arm across her eyes. Her thigh brushed up against Isaand’s side. Without thinking, Isaand realized his gaze was crawling up and down her body, across her light-brown skin to the lighter patch of scars on her side where she’d been bitten by the Lsendra. Her long braid of hair fell across the slight rise of her chest. Her eyes were closed, expression hidden, but her light full lips seemed to be smiling.

Isaand turned away, shuffling so that they were no longer touching. He realized he was clenching his teeth and made himself let up. All the way across the grasslands, Ratha had been exceedingly friendly with him, and he often wondered what she would do if the next time she leaned up against him he moved in for a kiss. He was all but certain she wouldn’t mind, but whether or not her reaction would be genuine he was less sure. This was the same woman who’d conspired with a murderer to kill a god and destroy a whole region’s way of life. The woman who’d strung him along for days, claiming to want to help him stop that same maniac. And in the end she’d betrayed Hahmn, showing him no more loyalty than she had to Isaand. He couldn’t trust her. He found it hard not to like her carefree attitude, he couldn’t help but harbor resentment for her actions.

“Credit? They’ll just let us stay here for free?”

“Not exactly. We still have to pay, and there will be an additional charge for the courtesy, but my friends will take care of that once we find them, no problem. And we have to leave them collateral, so they know we aren’t going to sneak off,” Ratha said.

“What collateral do we have? A few packs full of travel supplies, my staff, this useless rodent…” Isaand poked at Vehx, curled up on the bed beside him as he spoke the last line. Annoyingly, the sendra didn’t even respond.

“Well, officially we’re slavers so…”

“Ylla?” Isaand shot his glance to the window, where Ylla was standing with her back to them. The wind ruffled her hair, and he could hear her humming some soft melody as she stared out the window. She was up on her toes, leaning forward, giving every indication of excitement.

“It’s the only thing that will get us a room, I’m afraid. Ylla will just have to stay here until we find the Cousinhood. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find them today, and we’ll be out of here by tonight.” The arm over her face fell away, and Ratha turned a concerned look up at Isaand. Laying there with the sharp line of sunlight from the window falling across her, bisecting her into light and darkness, she was truly beautiful. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t like it. I don’t either. But it’s the only way we can get a place of safety to use as a base while we look for my friends.”

“They’re not just your friends; you’re one of them. How hard can it be for you to find them?” Isaand asked.

“They may not serve an Unbound,” as she spoke, Ratha’s voice dropped to a whisper, “but many loyal clerics would still consider us all heretics. It’s dangerous to live even in so large a city as this, especially since there are thousands of clerics that make their home here. For that reason, none of the Free are allowed to know details about more than a few of the others. And they move around a lot, so that people don’t get suspicious of them. I know for a fact that the building they were using as a headquarters last time I was in Bantua is no more. So the only way I can contact them is to look for the members I know personally, and hope they can put me in contact with the leader.”

“Well it’s a damned nuisance. How long do you think it will take?” Isaand asked.

“Who knows? A day, three, a week…” Ratha shrugged while still lying on her back, sending a ripple through her body. “I’m an optimistic woman, though, so I’m going to guess a day or two.”

“We’d better get on with it quickly then. We’ve only got about four or five hours of daylight left.”

“Life in the city doesn’t shut down as soon as the sun goes down. But you’re right, we should hurry. Let me change out of these clothes and we’ll head out.” Ratha lifted her long legs upward, then swung down and propelled herself off the bed, heading over to her pack across the room.

Isaand stood and walked to Ylla’s side, taking in the view of the city. Bantua was as different from Odonu as an anthill from a badger’s mound. Instead of Odonu’s utilitarian buildings, spaced deliberately according to a clear plan, Bantua seemed to have grown like a fungus to spread across the hill. The buildings were mostly tall and spindly, with a single room making up each story, each crowded by more towers pressed up against them on all sides, the roofs leaning one way or another. The roofs were mostly flat, and looking out he could see hundreds of people lounging or traveling across the rooftops, leaping across the small gaps or crossing planks of wood that had been placed across them. Tiny alleys, some so tight that he would have to turn sideways to pass through them, ran between the buildings like a maze.

And everywhere were the threads. Every building in sight, without exception, had lines of thin rope or cloth stretched from windows, doors, or roof to those of every other building nearby. They were made of every color, knotted and looped, frayed and drooping or taut and thick. The colorful lines crossed his vision a thousand times wherever he looked, giving the impression of gigantic spiderwebs covering the entire city.

Ylla was still humming quietly to herself, her voice oddly deep. Hesitantly, Isaand put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up with too-wide eyes, unblinking, a vacant smile across her face.

“Ylla, Ratha and I are going out to look for the men we came seeking. You’re going to have to stay here at the inn for now, did you hear about that?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m ‘collateral.’ I understand,” Ylla said.

“No, that’s… it’s not for real, remember? We’re not here to sell you. It’s just a trick.”

“I know.” Ylla spoke slow and deliberately, as if explaining something to a small child. “It’s called a ‘con.’ A way to get the inn to let us stay for free. I’ve done it before, lots of times.”

“You… have?”

“Some of us.” Ylla’s smile changed. One of her eyes narrowed slightly, while the other raised just a bit, giving her a strange asymmetrical look that Isaand couldn’t parse. She tapped herself on her chest twice, meaningfully. “Remember, there’s more of us in here, now. I’m a child, and you want to take care of me. I’m grateful, thank you. But I’m not just a child. I know a lot of things, now.”

Isaand couldn’t hold back his sigh. Talking with Ylla made him tired lately. He couldn’t help feeling like, somewhere along the way, he’d made a mistake. But if he hadn’t done things the same way, she would be dead, wouldn’t she?

“Well, as long as you understand. How do you like the big city?”

“Oh, it’s wonderful!” Ylla’s face transformed into an expression of pure delight, and again she looked like a normal girl. “It’s amazing, I can feel so much energy here. I don’t even have to open my Eye to feel them all. So many people in one place, so many coming and going. It means that there are always people dying here, and more being born. It feels so fresh!”

“Fresh? How can people dying make it feel fresh?”

“It’s like… good farm soil. The crops grow, and you pick them, but the waste dies and goes back into the earth. It makes it richer, so better crops can grow. That’s what it’s like here. Oh, there goes on now.” Ylla turned her attention back to the window. Isaand could follow her gaze, but to which of the dozens of building facing them she was focusing on he couldn’t say.

“A birth?” he asked, hoping that was what she meant.

“No, a death. The soul is returning to the Churn. But it’s coming here first, to say hi.” With pure childish innocence Ylla stood up on her toes and waved cheerily out the window.

Isaand went back to the bed.

“Ratha,” he called out, pointedly not looking at the corner where she was changing. They’d been traveling together and there wasn’t a great deal of privacy out on the plains, plus he’d seen her naked when he’d healed her wounds back on the lake. But still, he could at least be courteous. “I’ve never been in a city before. Is it very dangerous, with all these people around?”

“You mean just to walk around?” Ratha’s voice was muffled as she pulled a short sky-blue tunic over her head. “There are some rough places you want to avoid, but generally its quite safe. There are watchmen who patrol to catch criminals, and plenty of golems brought over from Odonu too. Why?”

“I’m thinking of a back up plan.” Isaand poked at Vehx again. The long, winged rodent was curled up in a ball on the soft bed, breathing softly. Isaand poked again, hard, and one golden eye shot open. Vehx growled.

“It seems likely we won’t be in much danger, and Ylla should be safe here at the inn. So I want you to head out into the city on your own,” Isaand commanded.

“Whatever for?” Vehx asked.

“You’re a sendra. You’ve a strong connection to the godsrealm, and you can see things I can’t, at least not without difficulty. And you can come and go anywhere you want. I want you to explore, look for anything that seems significant to our mission, or any signs of activity from gods or clerics. Use your judgment, but don’t slack off. I want you to see whatever there is to see. Be back by midnight. If we’re not here, come find us.”

“I obey, oh glorious master. Surely it will be a simple task for me to find what you want with such clear and unambiguous orders. ‘See whatever there is to see.’ I hope you’re ready for me to talk your ear off when I get back,” Vehx complained.

Without waiting, the sendra shifted into his golden gas-like form, then flitted out of the open window to disappear into the sunlight.

“How do I look?” Ratha asked. Isaand turned to see that she had donned a loose yellow vest over the sky-blue tunic. She wore long white trousers that were tight at the waist, but loosened out at the knees. They were tucked into her high soft-leather boots. Isaand had never seen the clothes during their travels. “City clothes,” Ratha declared. “It always helps to look like you belong. Come, lets go find my friends.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Four hours later and Isaand was beginning to feel like the air in this city was too thick, sticking in his throat and pushing down on him from above. He’d left his pack back at the inn, so walking all day without it should have been easier by comparison to the long travels across the grasslands between villages they’d been on for the past weeks. Instead, he felt tired and short-of-breath, and very ready to get back to the inn with its comfortable large bed. Part of it was great hill the city was built on. With such cramped and haphazardly placed buildings everywhere they were constantly having to climb up and down sloping roads. If they were out on the plain all they would have to do was pick a direction and keep walking, moving every so often towards easier terrain and avoiding lakes or thickets. In Bantua they had to stop every five minutes to find out where they were and how to get where Ratha was trying to take them. No one had the foresight to post maps on any of the walls of the maze they were trapped in, so they had to ask people on the street. Fortunately, Ratha was charming enough that most of those she approached were eager to help. That was a bit of a surprise. Isaand had expected the people of the big city to be cold and distant, focused on themselves and their own busy lives.

Mostly though, it was the oppressive atmosphere that kept pressing in on Isaand. Everywhere they went they were surrounded by noise and people. The roads were narrow and busy, so he was regularly jostled and brushed past. After Ratha had pulled him away from a group of children who had almost run obliviously right into him, she’d warned him to keep an eye out for pickpockets out to cut his purse. At least he didn’t have to worry about losing much; he was down to a few small coins, kept more out of nostalgia than for their meager value.

The city itself was full of life and activity, though much the same could be said for a swarming anthill. Isaand was surprised to see more of the heavy clay golems from Odonu, carrying their twinblades and painted in unique patterns or shapes. Most of them were standing guard outside wealthy homes or prosperous shops. Teraandis, master-bard of the Aislin tribe, had taught Isaand many stories of the mercenary god Tumut and his interference in wars all over the region. But he hadn’t realized Tumut was so cavalier that he allowed his clerics to craft and sell his golems to the highest bidder.

Twice, they’d come across a procession of golems and armored clerics, walking the streets and calling out for all decent men to present themselves to Odonu for war. Talk of the coming Ethkan army was on everyone’s lips, and Odonu was apparently raising an army to defend the city. The Tumut clerics were loud and forceful, grabbing passing men and shaking them as they called on them to prove their mettle and defend their god and home. How Gwadi—god of Bantua—felt the same, Isaand couldn’t say. He saw no clerics of Bantua.

When he’d heard stories about the big city, Isaand had thought that it would be convenient, having everything you needed right there within easy reach. The truth was less idyllic. It took them over two hours to find and reach each of the shops that Ratha was looking for, and Isaand felt worse than if he’d spent the whole day walking in the wilderness. Once they arrived, neither shop had news of the men Ratha sought. Both of them had moved on to elsewhere sometime in the years since she’d been to Kelylla.

Now, the sun was hugging the horizon to the east, but Isaand rarely caught any glimpse of it. With the tall buildings leaning into each other all around, it was already nearly as dark as full night. Torches were brought out and lit on street-corners, and in front of shops that remained open, but otherwise the city was shadowy. Each time he passed a pool of torchlight he saw a web of shadows from the dozens of colorful lines overhead. Once or twice, he felt certain he’d seen some large, furry creature with too many legs skitter across the street in front of them or into some alley, but no one around seemed to notice.

“These lines everywhere, they’re because of the god Gwadi, aren’t they?” Isaand said, trying to fill the time with conversation on their way to yet another shop.

“Are they? I never really knew. When I was here, I mostly talked with my friends about their ideas. Didn’t really learn much about the local god,” Ratha said. In contrast to Isaand, she seemed energetic and relaxed.

“Gwadi is known as the Multitudinous Spider. A god of connections and agreements,” Isaand said. “It’s because of him these three cities co-exist, and that the Market Isle is such a center of trade.”

“Really? How’s that?”

“According to tale, Gwadi prefers cooperation to competition. The god Tumut came to conquer, building a military camp on the other side of the river, but Gwadi negotiated with him and the two of them came to an agreement, forming a pair of allied cities with an island between them for trade. Later, the goddess Melkarwa began to be worshiped on the other side of the river, in the shanty town called Delkaraka. She was accepted by Gwadi and Tumut as well, and Delkaraka grew into a city, of sorts. So now people come from all over to visit the Market Isle.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad, as far as gods go. Come to think of it, my friends did tell me a bit about him when I was here. The patron said that Bantua was probably the only place they could exist. Well, Delkaraka would work too, but who would want to live there?”

“Are you certain they’ll still be here? Perhaps they were driven out of the city. They might be hiding somewhere out in the hills…”

“No, they’re more careful than that. We just have to keep looking. There’s a shop up ahead, near the big well. It’s low-priority but its close by. The couple I told you about, the ones who met me in Marasca, one of them worked there.”

“Why wouldn’t we go there first then?”

“Well the last letter I got from them mentioned they’d moved on, so I don’t expect to find anything there. But maybe someone who works there will remember them, and give us some information to go on. It’s worth a look, at least.”

The shop turned out to be a glaziers shop set on a city square dominated by a large well. A few torches were lit around the well but several had already gone out. The shop was located a few spaces down a narrow street little more than an alley, and had no torches lit outside it, so the whole street was shrouded in darkness. Light glowed from within the stained-glass windows, so Isaand followed Ratha up to knock on the door.

A nondescript young man wearing a thick, workman’s tunic answered the door. He had lighter skin than most of the people of Bantua, and when he asked they’re business he had a hint of a foreign accent, but Isaand had seen many others that fit those peculiarities in the city thus far.

“I don’t mean to be a bother, but I’m in the city for business and I remembered an old friend who used to work here for a time,” Ratha told the man, her voice light with friendly enthusiasm. “I was hoping there might be a chance he was still here, or that someone would know him. His name was Homa, he was an assistant glazier-”

“Homa, yes, I know him,” the man said, smiling. “He’s here. You said you’re a friend, right? Can I get your name?”

“It’s Ratha. He’s really here?” Ratha sounded surprised.

Isaand was distracted. He turned away from the conversation, following a swift movement he’d caught from down the street, a shadow flitting behind a barrel set out in front of a store. That wasn’t my imagination, I’m sure of it, he thought. Leaving Ratha to her conversation, he moved cautiously towards the barrel, holding his bonewood staff at the ready. The way the creature moved gave him the creeps.

“If you’ll wait just a moment, I’ll get him. He’s just finishing up a piece, so it shouldn’t be long.” The young man spoke a few more words with Ratha, then returned into the shop.

“Did you hear that? He’s actually here!” Ratha called out. “Isaand, what are you doing…?”

Isaand moved quickly around the barrel, to the side he’d seen the creature skitter into. At first he saw nothing. Then he realized there was a small object, barely visible, hanging from a nail sticking out of the barrel, near ground level. “Isaand?”

“Just a moment.”

Isaand knelt down and gingerly took hold of the thread. It was a woven bit of white string, shaped in a complex shape of knots and loops. Lifting it, he held it up to the fading sky. The sight made him gasp. The cords formed a word, written in the runic language of the Aislin tribe.

It read “danger.”

Isaand whirled around at the same time as the shop’s door swung open. The young man stepped out smoothly into the side-street, the lower half of his face covered by a dark gray cloth. A long hooked dagger was held low in his right hand, beneath the hang of a gray cloak he’d donned. His other hand reached for Ratha, who was turned in Isaand’s direction.

“Ratha run!” Isaand shouted, throwing himself forward and lifting up his staff.

Ratha’s eyes widened and she dropped low, the man’s fingers brushing past her hair as she dashed forward. She almost barreled into Isaand, and he caught her and help her turn around to face their enemy.

“Who are you?” Isaand demanded.

The man answered, but not in a language Isaand knew. The pronunciation was foreign, thick, but Isaand recognized the steady chant of a lector when he heard it.

The air around them turned thick, cloying, and everything took on a blurry and indistinct look. The darkness seemed to grow, the distant torch light no brighter than stars, and looking past the lector Isaand couldn’t see anything but a shadowy tunnel. Ratha pulled at his arm, but when he turned to look at her he could barely see her. She was moving her mouth repeatedly in a strange manner.

What? He tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth no words came out. He realized she was shouting at him, but all he could hear was a vague and distant roar like a waterfall on the edge of his hearing.

Ahead, the man with the dagger began to walk steadily towards them.

Part Four: Chapter 3

Heretic Part Four, Chapter 1

Heretic

Part Four

Chapter 1

“There it is, Kelylla,” Isaand said. He turned back to smile down at Ylla, who stood looking over the rise towards the distant city. “Just like your name, but there are three rivers here.”

“There’s only one river,” Ylla said. She spoke with certainty, as she usually did these days. Her eyes were wide, staring in a manner that made Isaand feel as though she were seeing something no one else could. Her expression was placid. Her hair blew back freely in the wind, having grown out on the side that was previously shaved.

“There’s actually two rivers, that flow together, to make a third,” Isaand said. He frowned. The rivers were right there in plain sight, arranged in a Y shape with the three cities of Kelylla arranged on their banks, a large island set in the middle. Vehx shuffled on his shoulder, and he started to slide off, forcing Isaand to push him back into place.

“People call it two rivers, or three, but they’re all connected, so it’s really just one. People always want to separate everything out. To make it simple,” Ylla said. She held her gaze on the city the whole time, never blinking. Isaand turned away, not letting his irritation show on his face. Since her change, Ylla was always contradicting, always making certain statements. It was starting to irritate him.

“Well how ever many rivers it is, there’s our destination. Three cities, three gods who rule them,” Isaand said. He pointed out the two tall hills, and then the lower, sunken area beneath them, swampy with runoff from the river. The settlement in the lower area was easy to overlook compared to the tall, proud cities on the hills, looking more like a stain on the land than a mark of civilization.

“Bantua is our destination,” Ratha said. She came up beside them, yawning in the early morning light. They’d camped on the hill the night before, though a few more hours’ walk would have let them reach the city. Isaand had wanted to arrive in the morning so as to avoid arousing suspicion, and so they would have the whole day to find Ratha’s Cousinhood of the Free. Secretly, Isaand wondered if it was just cowardice that had kept him back. These past few weeks had been easy, traveling, doing Szet’s work, with the idea of their destination a distant thought.

“Which one is that?” Ylla asked, sounding like a curious child again.

“Right there,” Ratha pointed, kneeling down beside Ylla and putting a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t seem to find her quite as unnerving as Isaand did. He could hardly look at the girl without seeing the blood splattered across her face from the man she’d killed. “The one on the tiers. Do you know what tiers means?”

“I do,” Ylla said wistfully. Isaand regarded the city himself, impressed. It was built on various flattened cliffs that climbed higher and higher like an asymmetrical stair. Thousands of buildings crowded in on one another, piled like a heap, cramped together and covering the whole surface of the hill. Even from miles and miles away he could see the riot of color throughout the city. Brightly colored cloths and pennants hung everywhere, swaying in the wind. They made the city look alive, like an anthill swarming with insects. Isaand couldn’t help but feel intimidated. He’d traveled far and wide with his tribe, visited many settlements across Hratha, but he’d never been to a city before. So many people in one place… how could they all stand it? Were they ever alone, to have a quiet moment to rest, to think? Could they even hear themselves think, with so much noise?

“Why Bantua?” Isaand asked. “You said you don’t know where the headquarters is, didn’t you? How is that, if you joined them here before?”

“I know where it was,” Ratha said. She stood back up, reaching towards the sky and stretching to loosen her muscles, as she did every morning. The movement pulled the hem of her shirt higher, exposing more of her flat stomach, and the scar along it. Isaand eyed her, wishing he could make up his mind exactly how he felt about her. “But the organization is heretic. It’s always in danger, and it doesn’t stay in one place for long, nor does it ever let all of its members know each other. It’s for safety. But it’ll be in Bantua, I’m sure of it. It’s the only place that fits. You’ll see why.”

“Fine. Hopefully we can find it before nightfall. Otherwise we’ll likely end up sleeping in an alley,” Isaand muttered. The last of their money had run out a few days ago, and they were down to a few scraps of food. Isaand had healed many people on their way north. That had made them conspicuous, and though some of his patients had rewarded them as they could, the others in the community hadn’t been so kind.

“Let’s get going, then.” Vehx spoke up from his spot draped across Isaand’s shoulders. He sounded almost cheerful. “A city of such size ought to be full of vermin. Shouldn’t be too hard to find a good meal.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Bantua might be their destination, but it was on the wrong side of the river. To reach it, they had to pass through the city built on the opposite hill, Odonu. The city grew before them over the hours of travel, becoming bathed in the bright light of the rising sun. It was immediately distinct from Bantua’s cramped and chaotic environments. Its streets were wide and arrow-straight. The buildings were built in clusters of identical structures, each the same precise size and shape as the ones next to them. Isaand expected the wealthy to claim the high ground, to look down on those beneath them. Here it seemed to be the opposite. The largest individual homes appeared lower, while the higher the hill climbed the smaller the buildings got, with one-room shacks filling the summit.

The city was surrounded by a great stone wall, ten feet high, with stone towers set every few hundred feet. They joined a crowd of people queuing up at the main gate. A pair of men with ragged, dirty clothing turned around to look at them with suspicion. Each of them carried a thick tree-branch with makeshift grips of leather, cudgels likely cobbled together on the road, and they held them in a way that declared their willingness to use them. Isaand gave the two of them a bright smile. One of the men turned away immediately, and the other spit on the ground and continued to eye them.

Their hostility washed over Isaand as he smiled. The days had grown cooler, with a soft breeze wafting from the west, and the day was clear and beautiful. His condition seemed to be behaving itself today, and he felt warm and comfortable. He’d heard so much about the great city. He didn’t think he could ever stand to live in a place of such chaos, but he’d always wanted to visit it.

The line moved slowly forward, until he could see the guards waving through people one at a time. A pair of men stood at the gate, wearing iron-studded jerkins with leather skirts and plumed-brass helmets, holding spears at their sides. But they were only supervising the true defenders.

Six towering figures stood, three on either side of the road. Eight feet tall, with wide round shoulders and thick, elephantine legs, they looked almost like statues. But these statues moved, ever so slightly, shifting their weight with regular, synchronized motions. They were made of hard-baked clay, humanoid, but with thicker arms and legs and only the vaguest approximation of a head. Each had a wide hole in the middle of its head. The space within their heads shimmered slightly, as though a great heat was pouring off of them. These six wore long cloaks of forest-green, and the trunks of their bodies were painted the same color. Each of them carried a weapon in the hand opposite the road, staffs six-foot long topped with slightly curved blades that added another two-feet to either side.

The men ahead of Isaand’s group were shrinking back from the clay warriors apprehensively. Ylla stared at them wide-eyed, a wondrous smile spreading across her face. “They’re alive,” she whispered.

“No, they’re just puppets. Controlled by the god, Tumut,” Isaand explained.

Ylla turned back toward him, brow furrowing in confusion, and shook her head pointedly. She started to speak, then shot a glance at the guards and held her tongue. Instead, she turned around so her back was to the gate, and caught Isaand’s eye. She raised a finger and tapped herself on the forehead, twice.

Open your Eye. Isaand understood what she meant, but he wasn’t about to do that here. He’d be overwhelmed, and would certainly draw attention to himself.

“The girl is right.” Vehx’s voice, coming from his shoulder, startled Isaand. “They’ve a god’s power in them, certainly, but there’s something more. Bits of souls… yes, I suppose that would make it convenient.”

“Next in line!” one of the guards shouted, and the men with the cudgels stepped forward. They clutched their weapons fearfully, and as they approached two of the clay soldiers turned towards them, lifting their twin-blades slightly off the ground. The men tossed their clubs to the side of the road.

“Refugees?” the guard asked. He spoke with a bored tone, suppressing a wide yawn.

“Yes, sir.”

“What is the status of your god?”

“We belong to Ouranda, sir. We’re… I suppose we’re apostates.”

“Fine. You’ll go through the gate there, take a right at the first building, enter the door with the red hangings. The red. They’ll have questions for you, and decide where to sort you out. Don’t go any further into the city than that. The golems are watching you.”

The refugees moved forward, and the guard turned to Isaand’s group, his eyes peering over each of them in turn. They made a strange group. Ratha and Ylla looked similar enough that it wasn’t out of the question that they might be related, but Isaand couldn’t claim the same. With his height and his white hair and skin, he drew the most curious looks. Isaand took a deep breath and stepped forward.

“Refugees?” the guard asked.

“No, sir, thankfully not.” Isaand gave him an amiable smile, and received only a dull look in response. He pressed on. “We’re here to visit the Market Isle, actually. We have business there.”

“Business? You don’t look like merchants. I see no wares on you.”

“Our wares are right here,” Ratha said, stepping forward with a confidence. She had her hands on Ylla’s shoulders, steering her forward to look up at the man. Isaand’s breath caught in his throat. They’d discussed this, decided it was their best bet at being allowed in, but he didn’t like it.

“A slave?” The man raised an eyebrow. Slaves were a rare commodity, as no living person could be bought or sold by another under ordinary circumstances. After all, how could a man own another man when they were already claimed by a god?

“She was exiled, you see, by her goddess—”

“That’s all above my concern,” the guard said, waving away Ratha’s words before she could continue. “They’ll get you sorted out, inside. Go to the first door on the left, with the blue curtains. You try to pull something, Lord Tumut will see that you are punished. You don’t want that, trust me. Go on through.”

The gate was a dark tunnel, and when they emerged from it the squared towers of Odonu rose up on either side, giving the impression of imperious figures staring down in judgment. The buildings here were large, impressive, like manor houses of the wealthy. But there were no walls or gates to ward off the unwanted. The wide open street, paved with square sandstone, pressed right up to the doors of the buildings. Windows and doors were square and cut straight out of the stone, leaving holes covered only by light curtains. It gave the strong impression that no matter where you went in the city, there was nowhere to hide, nowhere outside of the sight of Tumut.

Isaand lifted the blue curtains covering the doorway and led his party through. The space inside was square as well, about a hundred square-feet with an open door way in each wall. None of them had any doors or curtains to block line of sight. Another towering clay golem stood in the center with its twin-blade planted on the floor before it, both hands gripping the edge. This one was painted blue, with heavy robes covering it. It made no move, standing as still as a statue, but Isaand could feel the heat pouring off of it like a brazier.

“Through here!” a voice called out from behind the golem. Past the entryway was a large rectangular room with several desks set out in the middle. Shelves filled with square-shaped holes lined the walls behind them, filled with canvas scrolls bound in differently colored ribbons. Scribes sat behind most of the desks, and another soldier sat on a stool in the corner, plumed-helmet pulled down over his eyes. On the floor in front of each desk was a large symbol embossed into the floor, a small square in the center of a larger one.

The scribe who ushered them forward had wrinkled dark skin and thinning white hair. Neat paperwork was set out on the desk in separate piles. He had a blank sheet ready before him, a quill ready in his hand to write. Isaand, Ratha, and Ylla came to stand before him on the large square and he held up a finger, beginning to write with a quick, spidery hand. He shot a glance up at them each in turn. Isaand assumed he was recording their appearances. A shiver of unease ran through him.

“Names,” the scribe demanded. Isaand took a breath. Ratha had argued that they ought to have pseudonyms, but Isaand didn’t see much point. There wasn’t a lot of traffic or commerce between the backwoods villages they’d been spending visiting and the city, as most of them had gods that forbade travel. And if anyone was on the lookout for them, surely they’d be focusing their efforts on finding someone with Isaand’s unique appearance. Besides, they weren’t planning to spend any more time in Odonu than necessary.

“Isaand Aislin Laeson, at your service. My lovely companion is Ratha Maesenna Merasca.” He gestured, and Ratha flashed a sultry smile and bowed with her hands clasped over her hips. “The child is Ylla.”

The scratching from the man’s pen ceased. “Just Ylla? What tribe?”

“She has none, now. Tell him, Ylla.”

“I was from the Maurado tribe, sir,” Ylla said, holding herself with awkward solemnity. Her eyes were dull, empty, her shoulders sagged, every inch of her radiating a sense of resigned sorrow. Isaand stared. If he hadn’t known better, he could never have guessed that only moments ago she’d been smiling and excited. Ratha and he had told her to act the part, but he was still shocked at how good she was at completely changing her attitude, as if she were a life-long professional actor. Sometimes he wondered if the way she acted around him was just another act. Since her transformation in the Godspool, he never knew what to think of her.

“Who was your ruler?”

“The goddess Amauro. Only… I got sick. A curse-plague. I don’t know what I did to deserve it. But she marked me. My parents said I wasn’t part of the tribe anymore. The elders were going to have me killed, but they sold me instead.” Her voice wavered slightly, as though holding back emotions that would only get her punished.

“To this man and woman?”

“No, sir. To another. They bought me in Merasca.”

“Will you swear to it, that you are godless?”

“I swear it, sir. On Amauro’s name.”

“That’s good, but you’re in Odonu now. Swear on our god, Tumut the Great. It’s his symbol you stand on, and if you lie, you will be punished based on the severity of your lie. Pain, and if it’s bad enough, he’ll break your bones, make you a beggar.” Isaand jerked at that unexpected information. Was it true, or just a story to intimidate newcomers? He thought back, and nothing he’d said so far was untrue.

“I swear it, sir.” Ylla’s voice cracked a bit. “I’m no one now, I’m a slave.” She dropped down to her knees and bent forward, prostrating herself on the double-square, and pressed her lips briefly to its surface. “I swear, great Tumut, that I am godless.”

There was silence for several seconds, and the scribe watched her intently, as if expecting her to scream out in agony. Then he shrugged. “Very well, Ylla. Stand up. I have no further questions for you. You can go ahead and sit down over on the wall there.” He gave her a brief smile as he gestured to a row of benches running along the wall, but he didn’t quite meet her eyes.

“So does that mean we are admitted into the city?” Ratha asked. Her tone was light, but Isaand could see from the way she stood very straight that she was nervous. She’d stepped back a bit, as if wanting to move off of the double-square of Tumut.

“Not quite. I’ll need to perform an interview, to learn all of the pertinent information. Odonu has standards, unlike Bantua and Delkaraka. This will take some time.”

The scribe was true to his word. He asked a great many questions, and Isaand was very careful not to speak anything that could be considered an outright falsehood. The questions mostly revolved around his travels, right up until he asked the question Isaand was most dreading.

“Name your god.”

Isaand’s stomach clenched tight, but hesitating would only look more suspicious, so he answered immediately. “I am of the Aislin tribe. We worship all gods of man, as all gods are responsible for our life on this world.”

Isaand felt a strange tingling in his skin. Was it his imagination, or was there a subtle vibration coming from the floor beneath his feet? Lord Szet, please guard me, he prayed silently.

“An apostate, then?”

“We don’t consider ourselves such, no. Our gods are all gods. We live to serve those who created us, and given us their blessings.” The old words stuck in Isaand’s throat, and he had to spit them out. It was hard to believe there was a time when he’d spoken them in good faith. We loved you all, and you spat on us.

“You have no problem swearing fealty to our god then?” the scribe asked. There was a look of consternation on him, as though he was expecting to have to call the guards.

“Not at all. In my tribe, we had a wise bard, who told us stories of all the gods of the world. The three gods of Kelylla were foremost in his lessons. I have great respect for Tumut that conqueror, the dominator, protector of order and bastion of strength. Do I have that correct?”

“Most travelers know that much. Swear your oath, please.”

“Of course.” Following Ylla’s lead, Isaand knelt on the floor and pushed his lips to the ground. The floor tasted oddly warm. He was definitely feeling something now. Szet knows my heart. He will not be offended. Hoping he was correct, Isaand spoke the words required of him. “I swear tribute to you, oh Tumut, and pledge myself to honor your will and your laws as I do all the gods of whose lands I cross. My respect and obedience is yours.”

He felt it as a sharp, hot spike in his heart. He almost gasped, but found that his body was paralyzed. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The pain grew, until a scream began to rise in his mind, but he couldn’t let it free. He felt Szet’s power descend on him, holding him still, and the pain vanished as peace settled on his mind. A moment later, he could move again. Shakily, he got to his feet and tried to look amiable. The scribe stared at him with his eyes narrowed.

“Very well, it seems Tumut accepts your reverence.”
“Thank you, sir.”

“A few more questions. That beast on your shoulders: give its species, sex, and name, please.”

“You… want to know his name?”

“As I said, we are thorough here at Odonu. Please answer.”

Isaand gave him Vehx’s name as Vehx laughed, his voice heard only by Isaand. “It’s about time some of these idiot apes took notice of the god among them,” he stated, pleased.

“That’s all in order, then. I have no further questions for you. Please join your slave,” the scribe said. Isaand nodded, and started to turn when he saw it: a flash of motion across the floor, just outside of Tumut’s square. He jolted at the sight of some hideous creature, and the scribe followed his motions with confusion.

“Excuse me a moment,” Isaand said. He knelt down and looked under the desk. He could see the scribe’s sandaled feet, but there was no sign of the creature he’d seen scuttle underneath.

“Are you looking for something?” the scribe asked uneasily.

“I thought I saw a huge… spider.” But that wasn’t quite right. It had been the size of a grown rat, with far too many legs.

“We don’t have any vermin in here. Please take a seat.”

Isaand joined Ylla at the bench. She looked so crestfallen, sitting with her hands in her lap, her face downturned, hunched in on herself. Isaand wanted to give her a hug, but that probably wasn’t a very slave-trader sort of thing to do, so he ignored her as best he could. She’s just acting the part, he reminded himself.

“What happened there, Vehx?” Isaand whispered. His voice came out in barely a breath, too quiet even for Ylla to hear him. Vehx had no such trouble.

“With you acting like a child and crawling under the table? I have no idea.”

“No, with the oath. I felt it, just as he said, a horrible pain. It still aches a little.”

“Ah, yes, that’d be Tumut. Don’t worry though. It’s just a miracle set in the floor by one of his clerics. No chance of the oaf god taking notice of it himself. I suppose Szet must have protected you from it.”

“I hope Ratha doesn’t have any trouble with it,” Isaand said. She was answering questions alone in front of the scribe now, standing in the middle of the square.

“She’s a good liar,” Vehx said. “She’ll be fine.”

Isaand had no faith in Vehx’s words, but he proved to be right. After Ratha was finished with her interview, the scribe called them back over and handed each of them a tiny scroll bound in blue ribbon.

“These are your admittance papers. If a guard asks you any questions, show them these. They may require you to accompany them to a cleric’s waystation for confirmation. If a golem—that’s those big clay soldiers you see right there—approaches you, show them the papers immediately. If you don’t, you’ll probably be crippled. Tumut doesn’t like to kill.”

“A dead man is wasted. A defeated man is an asset,” Isaand quoted. The scribe raised an eyebrow. “As I said, Aislin bards taught us all about Kelyllan gods. Tumut is well-known among my people.”

“Well good. Hopefully you won’t cause any trouble then. Keep those papers after you cross over onto the island. You’ll want them if you’re coming back this way. Welcome to Kelylla.”

Part Four: Chapter 2

Heretic Part Two Chapter Twenty

Heretic

Part Two

Chapter 20

Soft rain fell softly from the grayness overhead, but in the east the sky was clear. Sunlight rose in narrow beams from the horizon, glittering off the wet black stones of the basalt islands and the surface of the clear lake. Isaand knelt on the edge of the island, tying the last of the cloth around Hahmn’s body. His bulk had made the matter difficult. Isaand had had to use every last blanket and piece of clothing in the cave, as well as offering up a few of his spare clothes to follow cover the man.

The Aislin tribe Isaand had been raised in had refrained from burying their dead. They were a nomadic people, a practice seen as blasphemous by other tribes who were held to the singular lands of their gods. Leaving their honored dead behind in the dirt meant they would have no opportunity to visit them until they returned to those lands. And it meant they were open to vandalism from those who disapproved of their ways. Instead, the Aislin burned corpses and kept their ashes in containers that they carried with them, passed down from father and mother to daughter and son until no one who’d known the fallen still lived. At that point, they were scattered into the grass.

That wasn’t possible here. There was barely any wood on the island, and even less on the stony pillars closest by. There wasn’t even much in the way of brush, and what there was was now soaked. Isaand wasn’t sure why he cared. Hahmn had been a liar, a murderer, and an enemy. Isaand blamed the goddess Awlta most for his actions, but Hahmn had still made his choice to obey her. Even so, if he left his body behind it would be found by the lake-men when they worked up the courage to investigate the island. He could imagine what sort of dishonors would be done to the corpse of a hated heretic. The same that would happen to him if he were to die. He could at least keep that from happening.

“What do they do for funereal rites in Merasca?” Isaand asked. Ratha was standing a little ways behind him. She’d come close when he’d begun his work, and made a move to help at first, but when he hadn’t reacted she’d pulled away. She obviously wasn’t sure how he felt about her. He sympathized. She was a liar too, and an accomplice to Hahmn’s actions, at least by virtue of non-intervention. Everyone I meet turns out to be rotten, he thought. Even Ylla, the innocent little girl he’d saved from death, was unrecognizable to him now. She sat nearby on the edge of the cliff, swinging with her feet over the edge. She showed no discomfort or remorse after having plunged a spear through a man’s throat. Isaand didn’t like to look at her.

“I believe they keep graveyards. Plenty of space to use, out on the shore. But here on the lake, the dead are entrusted to Maesa. He’d understand that,” Ratha said.

“It’s the best he could hope for, I suppose,” Isaand said. He rose stiffly, his back aching and popping. He wavered on numb legs, his body shivering in the wet cold. The glorious sensation of power and vibrant health he’d felt during the fight was long gone. His injuries were mostly healed, leaving behind scrapes and bruises, but the few hours of sleep he’d gotten had left him more tired than ever. “Can you help me lift him?”

“Of course.” Ratha moved to the other side of Hahmn’s body. Her lips twisted into a familiar wry smile. It was as warm and clever as ever, but Isaand couldn’t help but read some mockery in it now. “Is this where we say how he was a good man?”

“No,” Isaand said. As a bard apprentice, he’d learned the rituals and prayers to be proscribed over the dead, dozens of them suitable for honoring whatever the gods of whatever lands the Aislin were in at the time of the funeral. None seemed appropriate now. “He wasn’t a good man. He was weak and stupid. He let a lying goddess trick him into dedicating his life to her, and when she proved herself to be evil, he was too stubborn and ignorant to admit his wrong. He cared about people, he wanted to do good, but he didn’t act on it.”

Together, they lifted Hahmn’s body and unceremoniously dumped it over the side of the cliff. Isaand watched it sink slowly, weighed down by the rocks he’d stuffed into the cloth. It sent up a puff of sand when it hit the bottom, and soon attracted the attention of a curious eel.

Isaand strode away, to the other end of the island. He found Vehx where he’d left him, lying on the edge of the godspool, sticking his nose out over it as though he could smell the divinity within. Vehx turned and twitched his ear at Isaand’s approach, tilting his head questioningly.

“You know there’s nothing left in that body, don’t you? The soul clings to the corpse for a time, attached as long as there is still some activity in the brain, but in this case-”

“His goddess claimed his as soon as he died. I know, I felt it. Funerals are for the living, not the dead. Even for people we don’t like very much. It makes us feel better about our eventuality I guess. We can hope that when we die we’ll be treated with respect,” Isaand said.

“I wonder how respectful the people will be when Ulm-etha dies,” Vehx said, staring off towards the village and its sacrificial altar. Now that Hahmn was dead, there was no one who could remove the stain he’d placed on Ulm-etha’s altar. The god was starved, and would soon vanish.

“How is it that a god can die so easily? Your kind created us, didn’t you? Why would you need sacrifices from your own offspring?” Isaand asked. Vehx stared at him, blinking, then finally answered.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t? How could you not?”

“I remind you, I am bound to obey you,” Vehx said with a bit of a snarl. “I can’t lie to you, not when you order me to answer. That’s the truth of it. I don’t know. It wasn’t always that way. Before humans existed, there was no need for the worship and sacrifices that are common now. Even as recently as The Fourth World, things were different. The Pact changed things, but only those who were present during its creation know all the details. I was a wild god, living in a place pleasantly devoid of humans, and I survived just fine on my own. When I grew hungry, I possessed a beast and hunted, not for meat, but for the experience of the hunt itself. That was enough to sustain me… but not all gods are equal.”

“I am but a player on the stage, acting out the script that has been handed to me,” Isaand said.

“What is this? Poetry?” Vehx grumbled.

“Awlta said it, when I asked why she was doing this.” Look to your own god, puppet. Does the world he created not please you? All that this existence has to offer comes at his design. Awlta had said implied that Szet was somehow responsible for her actions. Mere lies, an attempt to pass off her crimes on another, to make Isaand doubt his god? It certainly did not seem plausible. Her own cruelty was self-evident, while Szet had done nothing but good. And yet, Hahmn must have felt the same, Isaand thought. He refused to believe me, clinging to his certainty that his goddess was misunderstood. He wouldn’t look any closer, for fear of what he might learn.

“In truth, I remember little of my life before I was made Sendra,” Vehx said, oblivious to Isaand’s thoughts. “The whole period seems oddly blurry to me. I think that this mortal form is too small and weak to hold the entirety of my divine being, and so I’ve been scaled down accordingly. Well, if you have questions, you could always go for another dip.”

“No thank you. Szet saved me, but I have no way of knowing if Awlta has reclaimed the pool. I’ll be quite happy never meeting her again.”

Isaand turned away again, restless, limping back towards the others. Ratha was sitting with Ylla, talking quietly. She’d reclaimed her spear from the child, and was holding it against her hip on the other side of her body, he noticed. Ylla turned back to him, her eyes shifting from gray to blue like the lightening sky.

“Are we going to travel again, Isaand?”

“Yes. There’s no reason to stay here. The clerics will have turned everyone against us now, and we can’t do anything about Ulm-etha’s poisoning. We’ll leave today.” And where should we go?

“Do you think I could say goodbye to Taram before we go?” Ylla asked. Before he could think of what to say, a strange stillness came over her face. She looked like a mask, devoid of life, and her eyes seemed too full, as those multiple people were looking out from behind them. Then she shook her head and answered herself. “No, that wouldn’t make sense. It would be dangerous to go back there. And besides, Taram would hate us now, wouldn’t he?”

“Maybe not,” Ratha said quietly. “Most of them will blame you for Ulm-etha’s death, even with what you’ve done for them, Isaand. But someone out there, when they think back to all that’s happened these past few days, will remember that you healed Tokaa and saved his life. His children will remember that.”

Isaand looked to her hip, where a fresh bandage had been placed over her wound after he’d forced it open again with his miracle. It had healed again swiftly, without his aid, but he thought the scars looked a bit larger, uglier now. Did she still feel grateful for his help?

“Your task here is done,” Isaand told her. “Your people told you to come and observe what happened with the Lectors of the Unbound. Will you report back to them now?”

“I should. It’s a long way to Kelylla though, and I won’t move fast on this leg. It will take weeks to travel there.”

Isaand took a deep breath. “Then, if you will permit, we will accompany you there.”

“You will?” Ratha met his eyes with a guarded look. “I’m happy to hear it, but what’s changed? You seemed quite opposed last we discussed it. If you’re thinking of the Cousinhood as your enemies…”

“No. Szet teaches peace and cooperation. I won’t name a neutral party ‘enemy,’ even if their idleness amounts to an acceptance of injustice.”

“Then why come?”

“You told me that the Free have gathered knowledge about the gods. That they study them without faith and worship clouding the issue. You even said that they might be able to tell me more about my own god.”

“I did. I don’t know anything of substance myself. Szet is barely spoken of, except in ancient legends, because he’s so inactive. But I know for a fact that some of the elders have gathered a vast library of gods-lore about the Unbound. Writings that would have us labeled heretics just for possessing them. But what makes you interested now? You’ve spoken with Szet personally. I doubt anyone else can claim as much.”

“Hahmn met Awlta, and she charmed him into thinking that evil was charity and cruelty was kindness. I do not believe that Szet has lied to me, nor do I feel any shame in the tasks he’s given to me… but doubtless Hahmn felt the same way, until I arrived to confuse matters. Hahmn died a fool. I’d prefer not to do the same.”

“Then I’ll be proud to introduce you to my people,” Ratha said. She stood, helping Ylla to her feet. Behind her, the sun was fully risen now. “And Isaand, I’m truly sorry. When you first came here, I thought you were just another fanatic, like Hahmn. If I could go back, I’d tell you everything right away.”

“You’ll have time,” Isaand said. “On the way, I want you to tell me everything you know.”

End of Part Two

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Heretic Part Two Chapter Nineteen

Heretic

Part Two

Chapter 19

Hahmn raised his arm towards the sky, the tendril of blood lifting and shaping into a scythe-like blade. It fell like a guillotine as Isaand rushed forward to meet it. Holding his staff at either end Isaand held it up before him and the scythe bit into its center.

“What are you doing? You shouldn’t be able to stop this with just a staff,” Hahmn shouted in frustration. Isaand’s arms ached as he held onto the staff, and from where the blade met it a bright white geyser of sparks sprayed out along with a harsh grinding sound.

Isaand felt Szet’s power draw his awareness inward, down into the wood of the staff, letting him see closer and closer till the individual grains of wood stretched out like thick ropes bounded together by the thousands. The blood-blade sliced through them, but Szet’s power repaired and tied them back together almost as fast as they were cut.

Isaand spun in a half-circle, letting the weight of Hahmn’s weapon slip past him to slash deep into the ground. At the same time, he lashed out with the end of the staff closest to Hahmn, stabbing it towards his stomach. He heard a grunt and Hahmn bent double from the blow, his head lowered and his left shoulder blocking Isaand from the rest of his body. Isaand grabbed out with his hand, reaching for Hahmn’s right arm where the blood flowed from.

Hahmn barreled into him with his greater bulk, shoving Isaand backwards, and swung his arm. The blood-scythe tore across the sandy surface, sending a spray of grit into the air. Tapping into Szet’s power Isaand dove to the side, and time seemed to slow as his awareness quickened. The blade swept by slowly, missing him by inches, and Isaand rolled up to his feet. Hahmn started to swing around again, but the weight of his blade overwhelmed him and he stumbled back, just as Isaand fell back to one knee.

The righteous anger Isaand felt was still there, but fear, and a wild panicky realization that he was out of his depth was threatening to take over. A warrior, a trained fighter of any kind, would probably have managed to follow up on that blow. Isaand was no warrior, and he didn’t have any weapon other than his blunt staff with which to fight. Now that he’d gotten so close, he realized how stupid it had been to charge in at Hahmn while the man had a superior weapon with greater range. I should have made him come to me, Isaand though, I should have gotten my knife off my belt, I should have had a plan.

His one advantage was that he was hardly the only one so inexperienced. Hahmn had been a small-town cleric, a speaker and a mediator. Isaand doubted he’d ever been in a fight before today. Though Awlta had given him a great weapon, he did not have any knowledge in its use, or he would have easily bypassed the flimsy protection of Isaand’s staff and slaughtered him by now. He’s worried, Isaand reminded himself, thinking back to the man’s visual anxiety at the start of their conversation. He doesn’t know how to do this. I have to use that.

“Sendra!” Hahmn’s voice cut through Isaand’s thoughts, as he began to back away towards the cave, his weapon held high and ready to defend. “Kill him!”

A jolt of fear ran through Isaand as he cursed. Of course, if Hahmn didn’t have the desire to kill him, he’d take the easier option.

Vehx roared in warning and Isaand turned towards him just in time to see the massive golden-light serpent darting towards him with his jaw gaping open. All thought that the Sendra was sworn to him vanished under that terrifying sight, and Isaand tried to run. Vehx was much too fast. The golden fangs snapped shut around him, tearing through the ground to either side. Isaand huddled there, realizing he was suspended inside of Vehx’s translucent mouth. A second impact shook the ground immediately after, and Vehx whimpered as a piece of his neck the size of an elephant was torn and crushed, sending a spray of golden light bursting out like blood, to float slowly away in the air as little globes of illumination. A multicolored shimmer hung in the air, and the single massive eye of the Lsetha became briefly visible, staring mockingly at Isaand from the other side of Vehx.

Instinctively, Isaand reached out and touched Vehx, willing him to heal. He felt the spark as the energy pooled inside of him began to flow out. It was no good. The power Szet had given him was limited by the size of Isaand’s soul, and he could see at once that he could empty every drop of it into Vehx and not be able to heal the wounds he’d taken so far. The Sendra had too much mass, made of the ephemeral substance of the soul.

Vehx pulled away, rearing up and slamming down into the lake a hundred yards away, sending a huge spray of water up into the air and leaving Isaand behind. Hahmn was edging closer, and lashed out with his blade the moment the Sendra was gone. Isaand batted it aside with his staff clumsily, feeling more of his power drain away as the staff was kept from being destroyed. Eyes no more than slits of red light, Hahmn advanced upon him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dozens of voices warred for dominance in Ylla’s head. Scared minds cried out to run, to hide, to beg for mercy. Angry voices wanted her to shout and stamp and waste her energy lashing out at everyone around her. Clever thoughts urged strategy, practical ones watchfulness, and madness suggested the impossible.

Letting it all bounce around inside of her, Ylla stood and smiled and calmly considered it all.

The little-girl soul that the rest of her was bound to was frightened, ignorant, useless, so she pushed it down and drew out a few that might be worth considering. The soul of a proud soldier looked out of her eyes, judging the tactical situation, noting the positions of higher ground and poor footing and places that could be easily defended. He was of little use though. What was left of him saw his commander in Isaand, and thought only to follow his orders and stay out of the way. Ylla dismissed him, slipping the thread of his thoughts back into the intricate weave of her mind. The next was a cruel and vicious street-killer, hands stained with the blood of the innocent and pockets stuffed with stolen wealth. That one saw her enemy and sized him up, and gave her the ideas she needed.

Ylla’s head ached at all the thoughts filling it, so she pushed them back down, having learned what she needed. She felt at her belt, but the curved knife Isaand had given her was gone. Taken by someone after she’d collapsed, or lost somewhere along the way, she didn’t know. She’d have to get a weapon somewhere else. Her eyes swept over the shore and locked on the figure of the slim, fit woman crouching at the other side of the godspool. She held a short spear in her hand, small enough that it would fill Ylla’s hands well. Good, she thought.

The woman turned towards with a jump, holding her spear defensively as Ylla stepped up beside her without speaking.

“Ylla!” the woman said. “This is very dangerous, you need to come with me. We’ll… get over on the edge of the island, as far out of the way as we can get-”

You know her, a voice in Ylla’s head said, and she considered. Memories flashed. The woman who’d thrown the rope on the ferry, helping Isaand back aboard. She’d talked to the others as well. Ylla hadn’t known what was going on, but now she realized she’d been discouraging them from asking any questions about Isaand’s healing powers. Protecting them. The thought made Ylla tired. It felt like something that had happened months ago, not just a few days.

“Give me the spear,” Ylla said, trying to grab it. The woman pulled it away instinctively, confused.

“What? Why? Come on, let’s get further away-”

“I need the spear. Isaand can’t win by himself. No one will expect me to do anything, I’ll take him by surprise.” A memory flashed, of creeping up behind a drunken man and sticking a cloth over his mouth while she stabbed a dirk up into his kidneys. Her hands felt sticky, but she blinked it away and held out her hand again. “Give it.”

The woman objected, and Ylla opened her thoughts to suggestions. One of the men’s souls attached to hers gave a vivid mental image of wrapping his hand around her throat, squeezing while he kept the other on the spear, pushing her to the ground until she ran out of breath. No, that won’t work. I’m much too small. There was an idea, though. Another soul, a mother of young children, supplied an idea, and Ylla seized on it at once.

“Please, I have to help him!” Ylla shouted, her voice wavering as she faked a sob. She flung herself into the surprised woman, grabbing her hard around the stomach and shaking as though terrified. The woman hesitantly put her arms around Ylla, murmuring words of encouragement. Ylla slipped one of her feet under the woman’s leg and hooked it around her ankle, then pulled back as she pushed forward, throwing her off-balance. They both went down in a tangle, and Ylla leaped up with the spear in her hands.

Not that way. Both hands, towards the back end of the spear. Angle it forward, and turn your body sideways to make a smaller target. The words were delivered gruffly, the remembered training of some old soldier. Ylla adjusted her grip as necessary and began to jog across the sandy island, hunched low. She ignored the shout of the woman behind her, and smiled once more.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Isaand started chanting under his breath as Hahmn came forward. The miracles he had available were limited, but maybe one of them would be of use. Hahmn flicked out his hand and the blood retracted, shaping from a great scythe into a smaller, narrow pointed blade, wrapped around his arm many times like a coiled rope. Isaand took the opportunity to rush in, swinging his staff.

Hahmn grimaced and thrust forward with an open hand. The blood flew outward like an arrow loosed from a bow, crossing a dozen feet in an instant. A gurgling cough escaped Isaand’s lips as the weapon pierced his chest. With the same awareness he’d had before, time slowed as Isaand felt the point slip between two of his ribs and penetrate muscle and lung. His breathing wheezed as the lung deflated, and the point carried through to stab out his back.

Isaand tasted blood in his mouth, but he managed to wrap his fingers around the slick bloody spear protruding from his chest and finish his chant. Szet’s power flowed into the spear, the same miracle he’d used to shatter the weapons used by the warrior of Amauro. The blood bubbled and roiled as though boiling, then lost its solidity all at once, splashing down into the ground. While Hahmn stared in shock Isaand staggered forward. His chest was healing, lung filled with air and the muscles knitting back together, but the skin remained broken and his own blood was leaking in a thick line down his bare chest.

“AWLTA UHN TARMA!” Hahmn shouted, raising his hand again. The blood soaked into the soil hardened and sprang up in hundreds of thorns an inch or so long, stabbing into Isaand’s naked feet. The miracle took him completely by surprise and he fell sideways. Hahmn stabbed his dagger into his hand again, down into the wrist, and blood spurted upward again, shaping into a new weapon. This one was axe-like, only a few feet past his fist, with a fat blade two-feet wide. He’d learned, Isaand realized. His earlier weapon had been intimidating, but its length and size unnecessary. Hahmn had a heavy weight and strength advantage, and Isaand had no lethal weapon on him. All Hahmn had to do was get close and not let up, and he’d win.

Isaand struggled upwards as Hahmn came forward, slamming his axe-hand down on Isaand’s staff over and over. Szet’s power kept the staff from breaking, but as always, it did not repair the total damage, and splinters rained with every blow. The staff cracked, splitting in a thick crack down the middle. Desperate, Isaand swung it in an attack, slamming it sideways into Hahmn’s leg. It was like hitting a tree-trunk, and the staff snapped in two at the impact. Hahmn ignored it and slashed, opening a deep cut on Isaand’s thigh. He felt the bone crack and fell forward, unable to support his weight. His hand flicked out.

Hahmn struggled as Isaand managed to grab hold of his bloody, slashed arm. With a familiar glow, Isaand poured Szet’s miracle into him. Not one of the defensive powers Szet had given him to protect himself, but a standard healing. Hahmn flinched, shocked, as the miracle closed his wound, the blood flowing back into his arm, his weapon lost.

Isaand had no time to celebrate. Hahmn shoved him, and he fell back onto his back, helpless, his staff falling away to the side. Hahmn loomed overhead, holding his triangular dagger with both hands and raising it to thrust it down on Isaand.

Quickened, Isaand slid aside and the blade only scratched his shoulder as it past, but Hahmn fell hard on him, holding him down on the ground. Isaand struggled, dropping his staff and grabbing Hahmn’s head with his free hand, gripping his hair and pulling. Hahmn’s wide face fell forward and Isaand’s saw a starburst as his head bounced back into the dirt. He tasted more blood, and his nose felt squashed and cracked. He made a fist and swung it again and again against the side of Hahmn’s head. How did it come to this? The thought came to him as if from another person, and he felt as though he could look down and see himself struggling not to die, to kill another man. He’d never have believed this was his future. I was supposed to be a bard, a teacher, a healer. I wasn’t made to kill.

Then don’t, the voice said.

“Szet et era no kuur-” Isaand stammered out. Hahmn head-butted him again, and he felt something crack. He spat out blood and kept speaking.

“-et ko vamma-”

Pain flared as Hahmn drew the dagger across his arm, a shallow cut at a bad angle, but enough to make him bleed once more. He felt Szet’s power in a dozen places across his body, the strangely prickling itch of regeneration, and he knew the well of power he’d been giving was swiftly draining.

He didn’t have enough. Too many miracles, too much healing, too much exhaustion after two days of struggle. Szet had given him what he could, but he didn’t have the reserves to hold it all. Isaand reached out, trying to find something more, and realized he could feel something outside of himself, a connection, through the air, like distant fires seen through fog. Two of them were here, on this island, another to the south where the ruined village stood. He had a brief image of ghostly chains coiling through the air. With no time for questions, Isaand seized on one and pulled out all the power it could give him.

Across the island, Ratha gasped, writhing in pain and collapsing to the ground. A gray ethereal chain stretched from Isaand’s hand to her hip, where Isaand’s bandages covered the bite she’d received from the Lsetha. Blood spread across it, and red light spread up through the chain and into Isaand. He felt it invigorating him, along with a brief shocking connection to Ratha’s mind. An image flashed in his mind of himself, a cadaverous white-skinned figure with limp hanging white hair crouching overhead, chanting the words of a prayer as he healed her.

Power filled him. Isaand used it, channeling it into the miracle he was continuing.

“-istana pes-”

Understanding, he avoided the closer chain, fearing what would happen if he drew upon it, and reached for the one that led south. He took its power as well, an image appearing in his mind of the fisherman Tokaa, lying bleeding on the deck of the ferry as he healed him. He felt him in the south, cold and scared, holding his son and speaking words of encouragement. He cried out in sudden pain, and his wound began to bleed.

“–istanna Szet-”

With a wordless cry of rage, Hahmn pulled back and raised the dagger once more.

“-isa Szet… ettarra kau!” Isaand stammered out the last words, and pain flared in all his wounds as the miracle burst into being. Thunder boomed overhead along with a flash of lightning, and the water of the lake rippled out from the island in every direction. Hahmn’s face twisted, a hideous mask of warring emotions. Isaand felt the miracle within him, struggling to burrow through and reach his brain, but he could feel the insidious red substance of Awlta’s miracle within him, holding it back. The miracle was a pacification, meant to shut down any hostility and render its target unable to harm another. It wasn’t going to work, Isaand realized. Awlta’s power kept it from affecting her Lector.

But Hahmn could tell what it was meant to do, and Isaand saw the doubt within him. He hesitated.

“Look at us,” Isaand said, chest heaving. He was covered in blood across most of his body, aching, weak. Hahmn was likewise splattered with gore, his arm red from shoulder to fingers, the bloody stripes of Awlta’s power grown larger across his body as though it was straining to burst open. “All I want, all either of us want, is to help people. Why, Hahmn, why do you want to kill me? Not her. You.”

“I have to,” Hahmn said, as though speaking some terrible certainty. A divine proclamation, unstoppable. “I have to.” There was pain clear on his face, the beginnings of tears wetting his cheeks.

A voice cut through their stalemate, the Lsetha’s mental speech like a knife scraping across glass, leaving cracks in its surface.

“Kill him. Without Awlta you’re nothing. You can never go back to Merasca. Your followers will burn on the shore for The Child. The lake-folk will hate you as soon as they know it was you who poisoned their god and ordered their fishermen killed. They’ll blame you for the village’s destruction as well. Without Awlta, you’re nothing but a pauper. But she’ll make it better. There is a place for you still. A place prepared for you, her greatest servant. Kill him, and we’ll leave this blighted lake and you’ll go to a new place, a place worth living.”

“Why does he have to die? We can just leave. He can’t stop what’s done with Ulm-etha. We’ll leave, and Awlta’s work will be done, it’ll just be slower-”

“No, you sniveling idiot,” the Lsetha interrupted. “He serves SZET. Awlta’s greatest enemy, OUR enemy. Kill him, or he’ll hunt you down and never let you live in peace. Do it-”

The Lsetha’s words cut out as a massive crash rang out to the north where Vehx slammed the other Sendra down into another island, sending the stones spinning through the air. Isaand saw a brief, confused image of the two Sendra wrapped around each other like two snakes, fighting and tearing. Hahmn paused, looking down at the knife in his hand as if he wasn’t sure where it had come from.

“I have-”

He was interrupted by a wet, sickening sound. Isaand’s eyes widened as he saw the point of a short wooden spear protrude from the center of Hahmn’s throat, coated red with blood. Ylla stood behind Hahmn, a wide grin on her face, hair swirling in the wind. She held the haft of the spear with both hands, and twisted it hard, wrenching it back and forth.

“You’ll be okay, Isaand,” the girl told him with an eerily calm voice. “I won’t let anyone kill you.”

Hahmn slumped forward, his throat working to suck in air and failing to do so. Isaand pushed his way out from under him and rolled him over, pushing both hands to his throat to slow the bleeding. His hands shook as the blood welled up between his fingers.

“Don’t die,” he told the Lector. “You fool, don’t die. I’ll heal you, and you can come with me. You can make up for all of this.”

He started a healing miracle, but he felt the numbness spreading throughout his body. He concentrated, and more chains appeared in his mind, spreading out far into the world, to the dozens of people he’d healed since Szet had saved him, all across Hrana. He called on them, feeling a connection as each of their old wounds began to flare up and ache. The power within him swelled like a bright sun within his chest.

His hands glowed with the light of Szet’s healing, but it would not go into Hahmn’s wound. Cracked, manic laughter sounded in Isaand’s mind. Awlta’s power was still within Hahmn, and it would not let him be touched.

Isaand felt it when Hahmn’s soul was gripped in Awlta’s talons and dragged away into the darkness.

Isaand felt a light weight hit his back, and then a dozen more. Rain began to fall all around him, light and cool. As it began, a trumpeting sound burst out across the lake, where Vehx still struggled in the air with the Lsetha. Pain and panic mingled as the Lsetha screamed and pulled down, dragging Vehx under the surface of the lake.

“It doesn’t like the rain,” Ylla observed, staring off into the distance with a blank look. Isaand knew what it meant. She’d opened her Godseye. “It’s… burning it? But it’s just water.”

“The bane,” Isaand said. “All Sendra… have a bane. Rainwater. That’s why it fled, when it had us before.”

The spot where the Sendra fought was hundreds of yards away, but through the clear water Isaand could see Vehx’s massive form glowing underneath. It was shredded, whole chunks torn away and left to float in the water, slowly disintegrating. The Lsetha didn’t seem to be harmed by the rain so long as it stayed under the surface of the lake. Isaand took a deep breath, and stretched his hand out towards Vehx, reaching for the chain that connected him as well.

Using his connections to all the people he’d healed, Isaand poured all of their power, everything he’d wanted to use to heal Hahmn, everything he had left, into Vehx. Vehx’s body flared with new golden light, shining twice as bright, and his roar swelled in exultation. He turned and flew upward, cresting the surface of the lake and leaping a thousand feet into the air.

Where the rain hit the Lsetha its invisibility was torn away, leaving its long thin body clearly visible in the night sky, pieces of it tearing away as the rain pierced it like arrows. It roared and screamed in pain, growing higher and higher pitched until it sounded almost like a scared child. Suspended high in the air, Vehx gripped its throat in his fangs and bit down, severing its head.

Isaand slumped and slowly lay down on his back, letting the rain wash over him and his wounds slowly heal. Ylla stared down at him, smile fading in confusion, then she knelt down beside him and took his hand, waiting.

Heretic Part Two Chapter Eighteen

Heretic

Part Two

Chapter 18

Isaand emerged from the godspool to find clouds overhead with the scent of rain in the air. Bright golden light shone down from overhead, illuminating the island and over-saturating everything so that colors became faded and shadows became black as pitch. A deep rolling roar like thunder echoed across the glassy lake, the familiar growl of Vehx’s released form. The white-and-gold giant serpent floated overhead, his long body coiled protectively around the godspool, translucent enough that Isaand could see through it.

Two figures stood on the shore. Ratha was the first to draw Isaand’s eye. She stood with her shoulders slumped, a short hunting spear held in one fist, her eyes lost in shadow. She was turned half-towards Vehx, muscles coiled as though ready to dodge, and half towards the other figure.

Hahmn stood as tall and wide and solid as he had when Isaand had first seen him, here on this island. His eyes were open no more than a slit, his hands were clasped peacefully behind him. He’d lost his vest, and stood with his chest bare, but ugly red lines stood out across trunk and arms, like deep cuts at the start of infection. Awlta’s red energy glowed within them, staining the sand around him in a bright pattern. When he opened his eyes wide at Isaand’s arrival, they too glowed scarlet.

“Is the Lsetha here?” Isaand asked, quietly, tilting his head to direct his attention to Ylla. The girl stared, eyes trailing across the island, and she nodded.

“Yes. It’s here, all around the island, coiled many times. Its head is sticking up right there, ready to strike.” She pointed a finger at the space about twenty feet above Hahmn, never breaking her eerie smile, as her eyes shifted from blue to green. Isaand quietly cursed himself again for not having the skill to utilize his Godseye. He would have to rely on her, regardless of his wishes.

“I could have told you that,” Vehx growled, his voice booming in Isaand’s head. “If you look, you’ll notice he’s already taken a few bites out of me. The bastard is strong. Something tells me his goddess didn’t take quite so much care to ensure that his power was limited.”

“Stronger than you?” Isaand asked.

“Of course not. I’d have had this all cleared up by now if you hadn’t ordered me not to kill. Still… some assistance would not go unappreciated.”

That gave Isaand a chill. If Vehx, as arrogant as he was, needed help it certainly meant that he was concerned he couldn’t defeat the Lsetha himself.

“I still hope that won’t be necessary. Hold for a moment, unless one of them attacks.”

Isaand walked forward, taking a breath as he passed through the shimmering form of Vehx’s body, its energy crackling against his. Hahmn stood about twenty feet away, the small fire Ratha had built crackling behind him, his shadow flickering on the walls of the little cave.

Hahmn’s eyes blinked repeatedly as he met Isaand’s gaze. Though he stood as still as ever, there was a distinct tension in his posture that hadn’t been there before. If that meant what Isaand hoped, then maybe this wouldn’t come to bloodshed. If it didn’t… maybe it meant he would have more of a chance.

“So you’ve gone from telling horror stories to creating them, is that the way of it?” Isaand asked, his voice ringing out across the distance between them.

“Only in service of the greater good.” Hahmn’s voice did not betray him, and in fact as soon as he began to speak his body relaxed, his eyes slipping into his usual half-lidded look. Something about that bothered Isaand. He realized he’d seen that look before, on the faces of the sick and injured, when the effects of the medicine given to them took hold, the cessation of pain a powerful drug all its own. “I told you before that Awlta strives to free us from bondage and tear away lies. Our gods hold us to their lands, corralled like cattle waiting to be milked. The gods lie to us with every breath, through their cowardly clerics. I should know. I was a cleric for many years, and spoke the meaningless platitudes and assurances the Child of the Shore passed my way, when they bothered to do so. More often, I made my own lies, whatever I felt would serve the community, would make them happy. Never did I pause to consider that they might desire the truth.”

“How does death and torment serve these people, Hahmn? What greater good does Awlta claim to be planting here?”

“The people of this lake have lived here for centuries, living quiet, dull lives with no purpose or stimulation. Any who choose to leave are harshly punished by the outside world, apostates without the protection of a god. Ratha made it out in the world, and returned, and now she is shunned and spat on by her own family and friends who remained loyal to their own gods.” Hahmn raised an arm in Ratha’s direction. Isaand saw a harsh nod as she confirmed his words. “Ulm-etha provides nothing for them except the stones on which they build their huts, and yet has the temerity to demand they give up their own lifeblood to fill his gluttonous gullet. Mother Maesa cares only for her lake. She tolerates the men and women who fish in it, but otherwise pays them no heed. I think she’d prefer if they were gone entirely. Awlta says she never did agree with the need for us.

A life lost to sickness or violence is a tragedy, but a life lost at the end of a long, empty existence is worse. A waste. This entire community is a dead limb, slowly rotting away to nothing. Alwta would give them a purpose, and in doing so, chip away at the tyranny of the Hranis gods. You yourself stood against Amauro and Tzamet, so do not claim to find their like faultless.”

“So you’d have me believe that when the stones fall they’ll be better off? What of the ones who won’t survive the chaos, the ones who’ve already been killed by your Sendra?”

The certainty in Hahmn’s eyes faltered, and he looked away. “I don’t enjoy any killings. But some sacrifice is always necessary to make a change. And the number here will be tiny, compared to the great shift that is coming. You don’t know Awlta’s plans, what she’s told me… I’m only a part of this… I need only to do as she tells me, and the others will do their part-” Hahmn shook his head, pulling himself together. “I told the Lsetha we should only hurt a few people, perhaps a killing here and there, just enough to put the fear into them. Awlta said that if we drive them away from Ulm-etha they’ll only run into Maesa’s arms, so we must also destroy their faith in her as well. But the Lsetha has done this before. He knows what needs to be done. I told him to handle it as he sees fit. I did not know how many had been killed… but I cannot change that now. If I stop here, then would good have I done?”

“What good have you done?” Isaand asked. “It sounds like you’re only doing what she orders you to do because you don’t want to admit you’re being used. You’ve heard all the stories of Awlta, Lady of Lies, Mother of Genocide, you admitted it. You’ve seen firsthand that at least some of what is said is true, you’ve helped to make it happen. What have you seen to make you think there will be any good to come of this? Did Awlta even tell you what the ultimate goal of all of this is?”

“She’s told me enough. She’s told me how to do what I need to do. That’s more than the Child ever taught me, more than Ulm-Etha or Maesa bothers to impart to their clerics. Awlta speaks to me, values me. She cares, she’s made that clear,” Hahmn said.

“As an executioner cares for his blade. You told me before that you had no clear plans for the future, that you hoped you might journey with me from this place. Awlta has given you no idea of your future because she has none for you. You’re a disposal tool. Open your damn eyes Hahmn, think!”

The uncertainty grew clearer on Hahmn’s face… until the red light of his wounds and eyes began to shine brighter. Then once more he became the image of satisfaction, a manic smile spreading across his face, too wide, like a rictus grin.

“I’ve always had weak faith. Worries have eaten away at my mind since I was a boy, but Awlta helped me put a stop to that. Her power… you have no idea how it feels. She’s made it all clear, yes, I can hear her now. Yes, Lady, I do. I know-”

He’s raving, Isaand thought, saddened. It was not only Awlta’s godly power within him, granting him miracles. She’d given him all the things he’d never had before in his life: purpose, certainty, validation, the bone-deep feeling that he was someone special, that he could change the world. I felt the same, when Szet gave me my mission. What good was logic against such gifts? He’d have a better chance arguing with a mirror. Once more, Isaand felt the heaviness of exhaustion pulling at him from within, and all he wanted to do was turn away and let Hamhn get on with his misdeeds. The people of this lake had treated him no better. They didn’t want his help, would not care if he gave his life to save them.

Isaand felt as though he were teetering on the edge of a deep pit, but something swelled up from within his heart, saving him from despair. He felt his hands curl into fists, his teeth bared as he gritted them together. Anger filled up the empty spaces within him.

“I don’t really care why you’re doing this,” Isaand spat at Hahmn. “Your excuses are worse than your goddess’ and she didn’t even try to justify herself. Szet was right about just how broken this world is, but he’s sent me to do something about it. Are you going to get out of my way, or are you going to keep being part of the problem?”

Hahmn’s eyes widened at his change in tone. “Well, it seems the healer has some backbone after all. What are you going to do? Szet the Indolent is a known coward and bystander, not one with the spine needed to arm his servant with the power truly needed in this world, the power to defend or destroy. You yourself confessed to me that if we faced the Lsetha, you would leave the combat to me.”

“You gave me a message, when you came out of the godspool this morning. ‘ The wound cannot heal until the bad blood has been drained,’ that’s what you said,” Isaand answered, leveling a finger at the Lector. “The fool I was, I read wisdom into it, thinking she was advising me to put aside my anger so that I could accept the world for what it was. But there is truth to it. You and your goddess and your Sendra are a sickness in this land. And I’m the one to cure it.”

Taking one more step forward, he slipped his foot under the bonewood staff he’d left on the edge of the godspool and flipped it up into his hands, leveling it like a spear at Hahmn’s heart. The Lector only laughed, but Ratha rushed towards him, breaking her silence.

“Don’t do this, Isaand! You’re throwing your life away, you’ve seen the things he can do.” Her expression was twisted with myriad emotions. Isaand glared at her.

“Afraid for the life of your conspirator? You’ve been in on this all along, haven’t you?”

“It’s not like that,” Ratha said, stomping at the sand. “The Free sent me, since I knew the area, because they knew one of the Unbound was active here. But my goal was to observe. There are still people here I care about, but I serve a higher purpose now. When you arrived, and talked with Hahmn, I hoped…”

“That everything would end peacefully? Why help us hunt the Lsetha then? Why try to convince me to come with you? You said it before, right here, that it was easier to trick a man than to trust him with the truth. You’ve just been using me… and Hahmn is well. I think I see now. Your Free wanted to know what happened when two Unbound crash up against each other. Well you’re about to find out.”

“A trick is not a lie,” Ratha insisted. “There was plenty of truth in what I said. I want you to come with me to Kelylla still. There are people there you should meet, so many things you could learn. Things about your god, things you’ll never hear from his divine lips. We can still go. Leave now, Hahmn will let you go if you don’t try to stop him. What happens here… if you’d chosen to go somewhere else, you’d never know about any of this. It wouldn’t be your responsibility. It’s not your responsibility. Just walk away, and you don’t have to die.”

“Listen to the woman, Isaand,” Hahmn said evenly. “I like you. I’d rather not murder you. That’s the truth.”

“What about Ylla?” Ratha asked, pointing past Isaand to where the girl waited. Against his judgment, Isaand glanced back. The girl stood on the edge of the godspool, bathed in the golden light of Vehx, a meaningless smile wide on her face. She looked entirely calm, nothing like the swirling vortex of emotion roiling in Isaand’s gut. “If you die here, what happens to here? You saved her life, twice now. Don’t throw it away for nothing.”

“Shut up,” Isaand snarled. The energy Szet had given him still filled him, electric, urging him to act. He took a deep breath, felt it flow through his body, violence uncoiling and ready to act. It felt good, like how powerful he’d felt when he’d unleashed Vehx on Ulm-kanet and watched that sanctimonious cleric’s face turn to horror at what her stubbornness had wrought. It made him feel certain. This was not his end. “You say you’re here to observe, nothing more. If you aren’t going to pick a side, stand back and make sure you don’t get caught in the fire. And when you get back to your ignorant ‘Free,’ tell them that Isaand Laeson, the Lector of Szet the Peaceful, does not stand by and let others die in his sight.”

“It’s coming!” Ylla’s shrill voice cried out, and Vehx roared overhead. Isaand saw a flash of light on the invisible scales of the Lsetha, and then light blinded him as Vehx leaped forward.

The two massive Sendra collided with a sound like an avalanche, and sand erupted in a geyser from the spot five feet in front of Isaand, almost throwing him off his feet. He teetered, then felt the energy Szet had given him rush through his body and turned his momentum into a sideways dash, rushing around the body of Vehx towards Hahmn on the opposite side of the island, shouting a command as he went.

“Keep the Lsetha off me!” Isaand knew if Vehx struck at the Lector and was disabled by the Lsetha in the process, Isaand would have no chance facing them both. All he could hope for is that he would be able to stop Hahmn on his own. No, not on my own, he told himself. My god is with me.

Across the short beach, Hahmn had a knife in one hand, and he swiftly sliced it across his forearm, baring it open from elbow to wrist. Blood spurted out, and began to shape in the air around his arm, a massive bladed tendril that could slice Isaand in two with one blow.

Part Two: Chapter Nineteen

Heretic Part 2 Chapter 15

Heretic

Part Two

Chapter 15

The boat-ride towards the deserted island was a long, quiet one.

Sometime during Vehx’s rampage the storm had lessened, as though the sky above had blown out all of its fury along with that of the sendra. Rain still fell, but now it was a soft and steady shower instead of a downpour. The rain seemed to surround their little boat like a wall, shrinking the world to the intimacy of four silent travelers, lost in their own heads.

Isaand shivered. By Ratha’s insistence, he had his cloak back, and had it huddled close around him, shaking while she handled the oars herself. Isaand would have felt guilty about that, but such a pedestrian insecurity vanished like a raindrop into the vast gulf of his anxiety.

As Vehx had roared and shone and smashes stone huts like anthills Isaand had powerful and untouchable, unafraid for the first time since he’d revived Ylla, if not longer. For an instant, he thought he could understand what Ratha had meant, how a god could look down on the tiny mortals beneath them and feel only easy superiority, knowing that their lives were in his hands, to comfort or to crush as he pleased. The feeling hadn’t lasted. As he and Ratha left Ulm-kannet, unconscious Ylla slung over her shoulder while he leaned on his staff like an invalid, Isaand had seen the aftermath. Those who fled before them with their faces masked with terror, blood congealed all over their bodies. Men and women digging among their smashed homes, searching. But for what? Was it their meager belongings they were hoping to retrieve, or the bodies of their loved ones? Vehx had struck to terrorize and demoralize, not to harm, or else he’d have left nothing but a pile of corpses behind. But the sendra had made it clear time over how little concerned he was with holding back his power. Isaand had seen no corpses on his way out of the village. That did not mean there were none.

I only came here to help them, he told himself. If I hadn’t, they’ve have killed me, and Ylla as well. I did nothing wrong.

And yet he wondered if there were some words he could have used, some argument that could have swayed Iettaw and ended things peacefully. He remembered his first boat ride across this lake, how beautiful and calm it had seemed. A good place to rest for a while, to help Ylla come to terms with her strange new existence. All a lie. Even the peaceful stillness of the lake was no more, its clear surface marred by the churning of the storm.

Ylla lay in the middle of the boat, covered head-to-toe with thick blankets they’d pillaged from one of the houses near the bottom of the cliff. Vehx was curled up on top of her, unconcerned by the rain. Isaand looked past her to where Ratha was rowing. He found her staring at him with half-lidded eyes, her lips a tight line across her face. As their eyes met she blinked and quickly looked aside.

“What is it?” he asked. His voice rasped as he spoke, throat filled with some thick phlegm. Now that he’d healed from the wounds back in the village, his body was weakened, and sickness was always quick to swoop in.

“I thought I had you figured out, is all,” Ratha said, not meeting his gaze. “And seeing a sendra go all out like that… it’s just, impressive.” Was that displeasure in her tone, or a hint of admiration? He couldn’t tell, and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

“That wasn’t all out. Vehx is under standing orders not to cause more damage than necessary, and to avoid killing if possible.”

“Oh, well… I’m glad.”

“I’m sorry it went down that way. This is still your home. You probably knew everyone in that village.”

“More or less. But I don’t blame you. When it’s kill-or-be-killed, there’s only one real choice, right?” Ratha flashed him a tired smile, but Isaand only felt colder. No, there’s always a choice.

“This sendra of yours, it’s bound to you right? So it has to do whatever you say?” Ratha went on. Isaand nodded. “That’s amazing. Think of all you could do with that power. How did you manage to bind such a powerful spirit?”

“I… I wasn’t me. My god granted him to me,” Isaand said, uncomfortably aware that Vehx could hear them discussing his servitude. “And it’s not for forever. Vehx is serving for an agreed upon time, in exchange for a favor from Szet.”

“I see. I was just thinking, wondering if perhaps this Lsetha was a wild one. It claimed not to have a master, so maybe it broke free and went wild on its own?”

“I think not. A sendra is not incapable of lying. And they are fully bound to their master. If the master dies, they are no longer a sendra. There’s a master out there, somewhere.” Somewhere close.

“You’d be the one to know, I guess. It’s a shame-” Ratha cut herself off, biting her lip as she rowed onward.

“What is it?”

“It’s just… what I said before, about the Cousinhood? I know, you don’t agree with our ideals. You think we’re not used to that? But this knowledge you have of sendra, it proves you know more about the Unbound than anyone. The Cousinhood turned away from the gods because we’ve seen the way their world failed us. But it wasn’t your god that made this world, was it? Maybe we need someone to show us the other side,” Ratha said, letting the oars stop as she almost pleaded with him.

“Szet sent me on this journey to change minds…”

“To change minds you need to find ones that aren’t already set against you. The Cousinhood has already turned away from the Pact. I’m sure they’d be interested to hear what you have to say. I’ve talked with some of the leaders, and they say there is so much about the world we don’t know, things humans are forbidden from learning about. The Free appreciate knowledge. So, if we can fix things here and move on, tell me you’ll think about coming with me, okay?”

Isaand hesitated. “It is tempting, to have a place I would be appreciated. I will think about it, Ratha.” He lowered his hood, not trusting his face to keep his thoughts hidden as they raced inside his head. He thought again of the idea that had come to him back in Ulm-kannet. When he laid out all the facts, it made for a dangerous theory. The Lsetha was a sendra, and a sendra had to have a mortal master. But a mortal couldn’t bind a sendra themselves. Only a god could do that, and those of the Pact were forbidden from doing so. Vehx’s attack on the lake village, the center of worship for both local gods, hadn’t prompted the Lsetha to appear in its defense. He was fairly certain that neither cleric Iettaw or Guadan controlled the beast.

After this day is done, you may not want me to come with you, Isaand thought. Though that might be the least of his worries, if he decided to push things.

The rest of the trip passed quietly, with sporadic conversations that died off after a few sentences. By the time Hahmn’s deserted island came into view the rain had stopped and the moon was beginning to make an appearance, half-hidden by the clouds that had dissolved into narrow strips across the sky. No firelight shown from the cave or shore.

Isaand climbed up first, dragging his numbed body up slowly but surely, and collapsed into the brush topside as soon as he was out of sight, breathing heavily. A flash of golden light announced Vehx’s presence as he flew up and landed beside Isaand’s head.

“From the look of you, you’d think you were the one to ravage a village,” Vehx said with a smug look. Isaand batted at him but he easily evaded it, and Isaand was too tired to care.

Together, Isaand and Ratha got Ylla up on the island, wrapped tight in her blankets. He carried her to the covered cave and shouldered the hide aside. With a pang of disappointment, he observed the empty space, slightly damp and dark, a far cry from the snug homey hole where Hahmn had regaled him with his life’s story. It looked smaller and meaner somehow.

“I’ll get a fire going,” Ratha said. “What are… what are we going to do?”

“I have an idea,” Isaand said, looking back to where the moon was reflected in the round pool. “But it can wait. First I need to see if there’s anything I can do for Ylla.”

Ratha set to work trying to get the fire lit. Isaand unwrapped the now soaked blankets and set them aside, laying out Ylla on one of Hahmn’s dry mats. Her breathing was ragged, eyes rolling and flitting underneath her eyelids, muscles twitching. Not sleeping peacefully, her body was in an active state, fighting against the symptoms plaguing her. Isaand peeled off a wet glove and put his hand to her forehead, then realized in annoyance that it was too numb to feel her temperature.

“I already told you, there’s nothing you can do,” Vehx said, flicking his tail. “Her body is only reacting to stress. It’s her soul that’s in turmoil. Unless you can heal that, you’re out of luck.”

“You’re absolutely certain about that? That there’s nothing I can do to help her? Keep in mind, I require you to tell me the truth in this.” Isaand kept his voice low, more of a mutter. If Ratha heard him from behind, she’d think he was just talking to himself, he hoped.

“Errr, yes,” Vehx growled. “The miracles Szet grants you are powerful, but they can only heal the mundane. Her brain is overacting, flooded with substances produced by acute trauma. That affects the body. Your powers can’t affect, just as you can’t reach into someone’s brain and make them happy, or scared, or frightened. She’s on her own.”

“But Szet could help her, couldn’t he.”

“Of course. He’s an Unbound, unlike me. Given the opportunity, he could peel her soul apart and rearrange it however he wished.”

Vehx’s description was far more grim than Isaand would have liked, but it was good news nonetheless. That was the last bit of information he needed. A path now lay ahead of him, one that might could save Ylla, help him discover the Lsetha’s master, and perhaps even give him the means to slay the sendra itself. But walking it… it would invite danger like nothing he’d ever faced. Sendra and paladins were nothing compared to the adversary he’d be up against, and all the powers he’d been granted would be useless. He couldn’t even know if the salvation he hoped for was possible, not without the answers to questions he couldn’t ask anyone here. All I can do is have faith in Szet. He took a deep breath, left Ylla alone.

“I’m going to try something,” he said, quieter still, barely breathing. Vehx could still hear him. “You are ordered to protect me and Ylla with whatever power is necessary. You may transform if it is needed. Whatever you do though, don’t kill anyone. I’ll give more orders when I return.”

“Don’t kill anyone? Those have always been your orders. Why reiterate them now?”

Isaand ignored him, standing. He began to strip off his wet outer cloak, then his tunic. Ratha had a few embers burning on the firepit, blowing across them to get them going, and looked up in confusion.

“I thought you were going to help Ylla?”

“I am,” Isaand said. “I’m going to take her to the godspool. Hahmn used it to talk to his goddess Awlta. If I call, maybe she’ll hear me as well.”

Ratha’s eyes went wide with shock. “Isn’t that dangerous? She’s one of the Unbound too, and the stories about her-”

“Hahmn insisted they were slanders. You trust him, don’t you?”

“O-of course. But it’s not as if we can know… she’s a goddess, Isaand. Maybe you can wait, if she starts to get worse-”

“It’s not just about Ylla. Someone is commanding the Lsetha. Some god chained it. Awlta will know something.”

“If she did, she’d have told Hahmn! Maybe he’s still alive, and like you said, if he’s okay he’ll meet us here! You’re dead on your feet, I can see it. You need to sit down and rest for a bit. Here, blow on the fire, and I’ll get you something to drink. Hahmn still has some things around her-”

“Sorry Ratha, but I’ve made up my mind.” Isaand kicked off his boots, dressed only in his trousers. Kneeling, he ignored Ratha’s protests as he slipped his arms under Ylla and lifted her tiny form. His back ached with the weight, but he assured himself it wouldn’t be for long. He walked out into the night air.

The water of the pool was surprisingly warm, running seductively up his legs. He made it three strides out and the ground dropped away, a bottomless abyss beyond it. Sighing, he turned back to Ratha, who was watching with a nervous energy, as though she longed to rush forward and pull him back. Isaand felt his face contort into a smile.

“If I don’t come back, I want to say… well. Thank you, Ratha.”

He wrapped his arms tighter around Ylla, tilted back and hit the water with a splash. The moon shone overhead as he sank like a stone.

The moonlight soon vanished as darkness coiled around him. The water grew warmer the further he sank, with bubbles rising up and sliding around his body. The water had a coppery smell, rank and violent. He could see nothing, hear nothing. After a moment he was no longer sure which was was up. His weak lungs soon failed him, and he felt the last of his air slip away. He held his breath until they began to burn, then opened his mouth in a gasp and the water rushed in, tasting of blood.

He did not drown. He found himself standing upright, still in the water. There was nothing beneath him, but he did not sink, as though held tight in the claws of some invisible creature. A presence filled the space, vast and towering, and he felt his spine quiver as he longed to shrink away from it.

An eye opened before him, dark red, oddly lumpy and misshapen. It was enormous, large enough that he couldn’t have spread his arms wide enough to reach either side. His vision began to improve, and he realized the eye was made of bodies… human forms, piled and cunningly fitted together to build a picture. The whites were pale, bloodless corpses, featureless except for their own empty eyes. The iris was dark red, the bodies there coated in thick, congealed blood, torn and shredded with pulpy organs ripped out. The black pupil was nothing, an absence from which he sensed some terrifyingly cold presence.

Isaand Aislin Laeson.

Awlta’s voice came from below, rising up as pressure that made him cringe and seemed to press against his brain so hard he thought it would flatten against his skull. He gasped as it echoed past him.

Szet’s little pet. I never dreamed you would put yourself in my power. How very brave, and very, very foolish.

Heretic Part Two: Chapter Sixteen

Heretic Part 2 Chapter 14

Heretic

Part Two

Chapter 14

Isaand had been raised to be a bard, an educator to children and a teller of tales, half-a-cleric and half-a-historian, preserving knowledge to pass down to the younger generations. Then holy Szet had made a miracle doctor of him. Neither course had given him training to face down multiple foes intent on gutting him on the ends of their spears. Yet it would seem this is to be a recurring hazard of my career, he thought. Would that Hahmn were with me now.

“I can see you’re serious,” Isaand said, while the men continued to hold their spears aloft, ready to throw. “If I might have a moment to confer with my companions? Before I decide whether or not to go along quietly with you?” Somewhere inside Isaand wondered how he was managing to act so casual about the threat of death. It was not as though he thought he could fight these men and live. They were fishermen, not soldiers, but neither was he, and there were over a dozen them. While fishing spears may not be the most impressive of weapons, they would nonetheless punch through his flesh and organs as easily as they did the fish of the lake. And yet, after having faced a gigantic, intelligent, invisible lake monster only hours before, Isaand could hardly work up a sense of fear when faced with this threat. Instead, he mostly felt tired. Why am I even trying to help these people? They don’t want it.

The spokesman fisherman’s face screwed up in uncertainty. He looked at Ratha as if seeing her for the first time, squinting down as though he could see more clearly through the rain. “Who’s that?”

“Just a woman I hired to convey me around the lake,” Isaand said quickly, before Ratha could announce herself. Heretic or not, she lived in this land, at least for the moment, and he had no desire to have her own people turn against her. Hopefully with one obvious heretic at hand they would overlook her if she kept quiet.

“If we let you talk to her, you’ll come with us? You won’t fight?” the man said, more and more uncertain.

“I promise that I will absolutely refrain from resisting so long as it remains the auspicious approach,” Isaand said. As the fisherman seemed to have nothing to say to that, he smiled and turned to Ratha. She was wearing his cloak, which he’d insisted on back at the island where he’d cured her, and had the hood up, making her indistinguishable in the storm. At some point, Vehx had clambered up her and was now draped across her shoulder’s like a noblewoman’s ermine scarf.

“You know these clerics, do you not?” Isaand asked her. “Should I fear them?”

“Guadan is no threat, not personally. He’s earnest and faithful, but he’s not violent. The sacrifices he performs are always voluntary. I think if anyone resisted, he wouldn’t be able to do it,” Ratha said, then shrugged. “Iettaw on the other hand… she’s no Lector, so you don’t have to worry about that. But she’s hard as iron, that one, and she has a way of bending people. These men may be uncertain now, but with Iettaw behind them, they won’t dare refuse her orders. The rest of the village too. If the fisherman don’t succeed, you may find yourself fending off wives and sons next. Iettaw will raise the whole lake against you if she’s certain you’re her enemy. She’d only back down if she knew for certain there was no chance of success.”

“I believe I know the type. Best not give her any extra kindling for her bonfire, then. I’ll surrender, for now. Trying to fight them out here would be a terrible idea anyway, even if I were some swashbuckling bravo. Vehx, you know where Ylla is, correct?”

Vehx opened one eye lazily and lightly flicked his tail. “The cripple’s hut, right across from the altar. The big one with the fancy stones hung all over the door-flap. Unless he’s murdered her already, of course.”

Isaand grimaced at Vehx’s dark humor, but looked back to Ratha. “If I keep them busy, can you get her out? Take her somewhere safe?”

“Well, Iettaw isn’t the sort to hold back, so I doubt she left any men guarding an unconscious girl. Guadan will try to stop me if he’s there though. I’d… rather not hurt him. He’s a fool, but he’s sincere,” Ratha said.

“I know it’s asking a lot, but-”

“No, it’s not.” Ratha sighed. “I was fine helping you try to kill a sendra, I shouldn’t balk at one man with a club-foot. I’ll figure something out. If I can get her free, what then? How are you going to get away?”

“Vehx is well-fed. I avoid releasing his power because it draws attention, but well, they’re already calling me a heretic. They can hardly condemn me doubly. Hopefully it won’t come to that. If you get free, meet me at Hahmn’s island. There won’t be anyone else to endanger there.”

“And then?” Ratha asked. Her offer from before hung between them, palpable. A place where I’d be welcome. I place I wouldn’t have to hide, people who would call me friend. All I have to do is turn my back on my God.

“We made a plan earlier, didn’t we?” He said with a smile. “To stop the Lsetha and save these godsforsaken little rocks. If we’re lucky, maybe Hahmn will meet us there.”

“I hope so,” Ratha said, turning away.

For the look of it, Isaand made as if to press some coins into Ratha’s palms, her hands warm between his fingers. He watched as she climbed back into her boat. None of the fisherman moved forward to stop her, but Isaand watched until she cast off and disappeared around the side of the cliff. He felt a tugging on his tunic as Vehx clambered up his back onto his shoulder.

“So I get to have some fun this time, did I hear that right?” the sendra asked.

“Maybe. I’ll talk it out, first. Don’t act unless I tell you too,” Isaand said as he turned and started slowly up the slick path towards his enemies.

“What if you’re dead?”

“Then you’ll be free. Would you honor a final request?”

“What’s that? You want me to scour this whole ugly island down to the bare stones? I would be honored,” Vehx said, with relish in his voice. Isaand swatted his muzzle.

“I’ll come along,” Isaand told the fisherman. “I have no weapons to surrender, only this staff and my belt-knife. I’m no violent man, whatever your cleric might have told you. I’m a healer, only here to help,” Isaand said, arms spread wide.

“Blessed Iettaw will decide what you are,” the man said gruffly. He conferred quickly with two younger men, little more than boys, and sent them down. Isaand’s staff was snatched away and his knife stolen. Then they roughly patted down the rest of him, looking for any hidden weapons and searching his pouches. Vehx hissed as they neared him, and they pulled away nervously.

“Hold still,” one of the men said, drawing out a thickly woven net. Isaand stood still as the net went around his head, scattering Vehx to vanish across the stones. The webbing was sheer enough for him to see through it, but between its obfuscation, the darkness, and the rain, he was effectively blind. Next they bound his wrists roughly behind his back with wet rope that cut tight against his skin.

The path up was slippery and uneven. Isaand’s feet were numbing badly, and he didn’t make it ten feet before he slipped and fell forward. A jolt of panic ran through him, and he cried out as he realized he couldn’t put his arms out to catch himself. The ground rose up and smacked him in the face. He bit his tongue and tasted blood, his forehead throbbing as if it had grown twice its size. An order was given, and he was pulled to his feet, but no sooner was he standing than his helper pulled away again, as though afraid heresy would rub off on him. Panting, Isaand started forward again, slowly.

He fell twice more, and soon his legs and arms were aching too. After the third fall, he heard feet slapping on the wet ground as someone rushed close, then the men began to shout amongst themselves. Someone grabbed him gently, and slowly helped him back up.

“I have you, don’t worry. Here, I’ll guide you.” The voice echoed in Isaand’s ears, and he realized it was Tokaa, the man he’d healed. Some good has come of this visit, he reminded himself.

“Blessed Iettaw told you to go home!” one of the fisherman shouted.

“I live at the top of the hill. Until we get there, why don’t I help you with your burden, since no one else wants to help the man walk?”

There were no more objections, and Isaand leaned on Tokaa as he climbed the hill, gratefully. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I’m taking you to the cleric. I wish there were something I could do, but…”

Isaand could hear the anguish in his voice. “I understand. You have a family. I did too.”

There was no more sound but footsteps and rainfalls. Wet grass squished under Isaand’s boots, and he found Tokaa pushing lightly down on his head to get him to lower his head as they entered a dwelling. It felt good to get out of the rain. Through the net, Isaand could see the warm glow of a fire, and many moving shadows as people piled into the corners.

“Unmask him,” a woman said.

The net was pulled roughly away, and for a moment Isaand was blinded by the light. A heavy hand pushed down at his shoulder, and he was forced down on his knees. Across the crackling flames, a woman came into view, old but straight-backed and proud, with wrinkled cheeks and a long braid of gray hair hanging over her shoulder. She was dressed in blue and white, her robes festooned with fishbones. Her eyes were pale, nearly as colorless as the lake of the goddess she served.

The fishermen still surrounded Isaand, with half-a-dozen spears leveled at him from every side. Some of the points were only inches away from his skin, and he could almost feel the sharpness of them leaning in. Since he could do nothing about them, Isaand decided to ignore them.

“Cleric Iettaw, I presume. I’ve heard about you,” Isaand said.

“And you are Isaand Laeson, or so you claim. More like it is some lie.” Iettaw’s voice was rough, like the sharpening of a knife on a whetstone. “I ask you in the name of Maesa the Mother of the Lake: are you a heretic?”

The fall of rain was the only sound as the men in the hut held their breaths to hear his response. Isaand took a deep breath, then sighed. “I think I will hold off on answering that for the moment. I have a feeling it would bring this conversation to an end, and we have a few other things to discuss.”

“You are in no position-”

“A few miles east of here, on a rock containing three huts and a small circle of stones, the Lsetha attacked. Everyone who lived there was killed, so far as I can tell, probably eight to ten people. Did your goddess tell you that?” Isaand cut in, snapping his voice like a whip. Iettaw drew back slightly.

“A lie. A poor one. The Lsetha kills sparingly, never more than once in an attack. It is a hunter, it has no need to slaughter wholesale.”

“It has no need to kill men at all, with such a bounty available in the lake, and all clear for the taking. What beast ignores an easy buffet to strike at armed men in boats instead? You know the monster is no natural thing. It kills for sport, not food. The lake is your domain, surely you are not so ignorant as to think this ordinary?”

Fire snapped and popped while Iettaw considered her response, her face a blank mask. “You swear these people are dead? You saw them with your own eyes?”

“I did, and I swear. I swear by Ulm-Etha and Maesa, and by mine own god. May my soul be churned a thousand years if I lie. I saw only five bodies myself, but their homes were empty. If they survived, they may have fled to their neighbors.”

“And why would you have come across this scene? For what purpose do you explore Maesa’s lake?” Iettaw asked. Isaand took a deep breath.

“I have been told of the troubles the Lsetha has brought your people. I had hoped that I could put it to an end,” he said.

“Why? We are not your people. You have no obligation.”

“We were all one people, once, before the gods divided them up.”

“You dare to criticize the gods?”

“Do you not?” Isaand pleaded. He had seen something in her eyes, when he spoke of the dead. She cared for her people, he thought. Somewhere within the shell of her pride, a heart still beat. “Maesa is the goddess of the lake, with full authority of all its waters. Ulm-etha may be weakened, but I have seen no evidence of the same for her. She could stop the Lsetha, end your people’s suffering in an instant! Have you not prayed to her for help?”

“You presume,” Iettaw said defensively. “Mother Maesa is goddess of the lake, not its people. The lake has always held its dangers. I have called upon her for aid, yes but she has not answered. I will accept her divine purpose. That is loyalty. Our people would not exist were it not for her blessings. A mother does what she can for her children, but when they grow they must help themselves. Perhaps this Lsetha is a test, to make us stronger.”

“Fine, then, if your goddess will not help then why not let someone else? I ask for nothing in return. Let me free, and I will remove the Lsetha, then be on my way. I have no desire to test your people’s faith. I’m not some mummer’s-tale villain sowing discord where I go. I only want to help.”

“So you say. Words bear less weight than air,” Iettaw said. She was falling back on old habits, he thought, protecting herself from sense with stalwart faith. Isaand clenched his fists, and couldn’t feel them.

“Then let me show you. I can do nothing from here,” he said.

“What of the girl you brought among us?” Iettaw asked, surprising him with the change of focus. “I suppose you would claim you have no idea what she’s done.”

“I-” Isaand paused. He did know, but only because Vehx had explained it to him, less than an hour ago. “It isn’t what you think. She’s just a child, she did not know-”

“So you admit she interfered with the sacrifice? The very sacrifice that was meant to restore our god to us? You said earlier that Ulm-etha was weakened. How would you know such a thing, unless you were a part of it? Gods do not suffer so for nothing, and no faithful cleric has the power to spread such trouble. Only an Unbound has the power to challenge the gods.”

Iettaw’s words resonated with Isaand, and mixed with what Vehx had told him. A stain on the altar, stealing the power of the sacrifice… and perhaps twisting for some other purpose? A poison, instead of a balm? He shook his head; the cleric would not listen to his half-formed theories. “That is not true. A lector could do it, even if he served those of the Pact. Another god, perhaps a mad spirit… I know not, but-”

“Your feet may be still, but your tongue dances as lively as a festival maiden,” Iettaw said. “Excuses are all I hear, yet you dodge the truth with every word. The girl did nothing, you claim, yet a hundred people watched as she disturbed the sacrifice. She lies in stupor even now, perhaps struck down for her infamy by Father Ulm-etha. And you would have us think you can slay this Lsetha, though you carry no weapon and are clearly no warrior. How? Through miracles, as a lector? Very well then. Tell me what god you serve. I ask again, Isaand Laeson, tell me true: are you a heretic?”

Isaand felt the sharpness of all those spear-points, a web of death surrounding him from all sides. Words of warning ran through his head, memory’s he could only wish he’d heeded sooner. His wrists strained at the ropes, blood slick on his skin, and he could feel a fire burning within him, warming him against Iettaw’s cold. He laughed, a harsh, sharp sound in the close confines of the stone hut, a sound that made one of the spearman draw back as though he’d bared a knife. He fixed his eyes on Iettaw’s and smiled.

“I am Isaand Aislin Laeson, Lector and Cleric of the Great One Szet, one who would save this world from the mess your gods have made of it. He has entrusted me with his mission, and no shrunken old backwater cleric is going to stop me from answering the trust he put in me. Aye, I am a heretic, and proud of it.”

Fear shone on Iettaw’s face, as though she hadn’t truly believed it until now. She began to get to her feet, clumsily, swatting away one of the fisherman’s attempts to help her.

“You all heard his confession. Blind him again, and take him to Guadan’s hut. Ulm-etha will surely be happy with such a sacrifice,” she said.

“I think not, cleric,” Isaand said. “Your gods seem to have abandoned you. Mine has not.” He took a deep breath, and let it out in a shout. “Vehx!”

“Stop him-”

“RELEASE!”

Too late, the spears came forward, but Isaand threw himself backwards, buying a few seconds. One of the spears scratched across his cheek, just beneath his eye, and another on his upper arm. He could feel a hot itch as Szet’s miracle began to seep into his wounds to bind them up. Iettaw was shouting, snatching a spear from one of the men.

Then thunder split the air, and golden lightning flashed.

The stone hut exploded in a spray of rock chips and wood, bodies flying with it. The rain rushed in, washing the blood away from his cuts. Isaand looked up, and saw Vehx hanging in the air above the village, a massive golden serpent of light with long arms and claws, a mane of tangled fur shining around his throat like the sun. Men were screaming, running, lying on the ground clutching their wounds. Another loud crack rang out, the hut beside Iettaw’s exploding with a swipe of Vehx’s tail.

Isaand rolled onto his stomach and began trying to get to his knees, slipping in the rubble. A man was lying a few feet away from him, cringing with his hands clapped over his eyes as if too terrified to look upon the sendra in the sky above. Isaand could see blood leaking from dozens of small injuries where chips of stone had studded his skin. Dully, he could feel the itch of Szet’s healing all over his own body where he had been hit as well. Vehx needs to learn some damn subtlety.

Isaand managed to get to his feet, shakily, though he was still bound. A spear lay abandoned on the ground in front of him, so he lifted it and carefully sawed away at the bonds behind his back. As they snapped open, a burst of pain returned with the feeling of his hands.

A shout drew his attention, though he he could barely hear it over everything else going on. One of the fisherman was hefting a spear at him, bleeding and shaky. He threw it, and Isaand stepped easily to the side. Noticing his bonewood staff lying in the wreckage of the hut, he took it up and leveled it at the spearman, who fled immediately as though it were a loaded crossbow.

Isaand turned back and began to limp, leaning heavily on the staff. Men and women were running in every direction, fleeing the center of the village for the safety of the lake. He saw more than one couple leap straight off of the cliffs to the lake below. Dazed, he stared around at the wreckage, bodies lying under fallen stones, homes destroyed, children crying. Shame flooded in, followed by hot anger. I never wanted this. All you had to do was let me go. I was going to help you stubborn fools!

He found Iettaw crawling across the village green, to the sacrificial altar of Ulm-etha. She leaned against it, eyes wide with terror as he strode up.

“You show your true colors,” she muttered.

“I’ve done only what you forced me to do,” Isaand answered. He raised his eyes to the sky, feeling the rain wash down his face. “That will be enough Vehx. I think we’ve made our point.”

With a frustrated roar, Vehx’s glowing form began to shrink, the night becoming shockingly dark again as his light faded away, until his wet and bedraggled kettha form was perched atop the altar, hissing at cleric Iettaw.

“What are you going to do?” she asked shakily. Isaand ignored her for the moment, looking across the green to the hut where a women had stepped out with a sleeping girl thrown over her shoulder. Ratha met his eyes and nodded, and Isaand nodded back. Only then did he turn back to Iettaw.

“I already told you what I’m going to do. I’m going to do what your gods can’t. I’m going to protect this lake, and all the ungrateful fools on it. Direct your prayers of thanks to Szet.”

Part Two: Chapter Fifteen

Heretic Part 2 Chapter 13

Heretic

Part Two

Chapter 13

The rain that had started a few hours after noon had grown to a swelling downpour. The wet air and the sound of the drops splattering on the stones of the island woke some memory of the rainforest in the kettha beast that Vehx occupied, and it wanted to crawl out from beneath the piled blankets where he hid, to go out under the cover of rain and hunt for undefended eggs and shrews in their dens. Nevermind that there wasn’t a tree around for miles. Not for the first time Vehx marveled at the stupidity of beasts that kept their wits in unreliable bags of wet meat. And humans were no better.

“Why do you hesitate? It is obvious what needs to be done. Methatt’s life was squandered by this creature’s meddling, but her life should be enough to make up the difference.” The voice of the woman came slightly muffled to Vehx’s hiding space, though she was no more than five feet away, sitting straight-backed around the firepit across from the young cleric dressed in black. The woman was older, past her young-raising years, and the young man had a crippled foot. That was probably why the villagers had made him a cleric, Vehx guessed, as he would be of less use in a hunt. He did not particularly care who they were, but he’d heard the other children tell Ylla the woman’s name was Iettaw, the man Guadan.

Iettaw seemed to be the superior one, looming over Guadan with a cold expression, while the club-footed cleric kept his gaze down on the fire, shoulders slumped as though cringing before a blow. Still, he was not ready to roll over and show his belly.

“We do not know this. If only Ulm-etha would speak to me, let me know what he desires,” Guadan said.

“Ulm-etha does not parley with his servants, no more than Maesa does. They gifted us this land, with everything we need to survive, and asked for only one thing in return. I say again, the girl must have done something, some heresy, to stop the sacrifice from completing. Ulm-etha has weakened. Maesa feels it too. She does not speak, but I know her moods,” Iettaw argued.

“How can the girl be responsible alone? This is not the first time a sacrifice has failed to revitalize the stone. Four times, now, I have performed the ritual, as my teacher taught me. Something has been stopping them, long before this grasslander came to our lake! Putting all the blame on her will change nothing!”

Grimacing, Guadan turned to the side, where Ylla lay unconscious on a sleeping mat, blankets piled on her so that only her face emerged. Her skin was wan, coated in a droplets of sweat, and her eyes were clenched shut tight. Every few seconds, her body would convulse, too softly for the humans to notice, but Vehx could feel it through his link to her. Isaand should bloody well be here, he thought, not for the first time. Healing was his business. What did Vehx know about taking care of a sick pup? Hiding here listening to clerics bicker was accomplishing nothing. He’d have been better off leaving to find Isaand and bring him back. But when he’d tried, he’d felt a sharp pain and a convulsion of his own, paralyzing his limbs until he decided to stay. Isaand had commanded him to protect the girl, and so he had no choice but to stay, by the godsdamned rules Szet had placed on him.

“The reason doesn’t matter. You know what will happen if Ulm-etha is not appeased. It has already begun, in case you hadn’t noticed. Some of the smaller islands, the ones with no standing stones, have already fallen a dozen feet. Some are beneath the surface already. Something has to be done. Instead of sitting around sniveling, you should be doing what you can to help.”

“Even if she’s innocent? She’s just a girl.”

“Hundreds of girls will die if nothing is done, and hundreds of boys too. Men and women, babes and elders. The path is clear.”

Guadan had no answer, and for a few moments the hut was blessedly quiet, with only the crackling of the fire and the falling rain to break the silence. Then came a quiet scratching at the door flap. Vehx twitched an ear, and was able to hear the movement of a large male human outside the door.

Guadan leapt up quickly, most of his weight on his good foot, and hobbled over to open the door. The man Tokaa, the one Isaand had healed after he’d been bit by the Sendra, stood outside. He was soaked by the rain, shivering slightly. His eyes shifted past the cleric to where Ylla was lying on her mat, and his expression twisted. Vehx could smell fear on him, though he did not know or care what precisely it meant.

“Honored ones,” Tokaa muttered, and Guadan ushered him inside to the fire, muttering platitudes about the rain. Iettaw did not rise, but turned her hawk-like gaze on him.

“The task is done?” she asked.

“Yes, blessed. The men you’ve asked for have gathered, across the circle. They are ready to perform as ordered. But I- that is-” Tokaa began to stutter. “I do not think this is necessary, blessed. This man, Isaand, he seemed a good person. He- helped me, when I was-”

“Have no fear, more than one loyal worshiper has already brought the tale to me. You allowed this heathen to heal you with some apostate’s spell. No doubt you feel some gratitude towards him, misguided though it may be. Maesa is merciful, and I will not require you to return his assistance with betrayal, if that’s how you see it. You will remain in your home for the rest of this night. The others will see to this Isaand,” Iettaw said. As she spoke, she rose, her old bones creaking, and wiped at her skirts before straightening up to her full height. “I’d best go and speak to them directly.”

“Yes, blessed, but…” Tokaa couldn’t stop his gaze from turning to Ylla again. “If I may ask, what will you do with the child?”

“If it were up to me, I know what I would do. But that which occurs on the Father’s stones is the purview of his cleric.” She shot Guadan another look that he failed to meet. “Ask Guadan, and hope that he comes to a wise decision. And soon, I should think.” The woman cleric left without another word, sweeping out into the rain.

“You have five children, Tokaa, is that so?” Guadan asked.

“Yes blessed. And a grandchild on the way.”

“What if I told you that to save their lives, this little girl must die. If I gave you the knife, would you kill her?”

Tokaa hesitated, eyes widening, and Guadan let out a despairing laugh. “No, don’t answer. It is a hypothetical, nothing more. Go, stay in your home tonight, as Iettaw said. We will settle things here, by Ulm-etha’s will.”

Tokaa left, and things were calm for awhile. Vehx yawned, and considered crawling out to get closer to the fire. It was warm enough there, in the folds of the blankets he’d snuggled under out of sight, but the rain had soaked into his fur and he’d have loved the chance to dry it out. And he supposed he could get a closer look at Ylla as well, though he didn’t know what good it would do. He knew what the problem was. She’d abused her connection to the Churn, reaching out to the dying Metthat, and somehow taken his soul into her own, adding it to the mixed and matched pieces she’d brought back from her own death. The soul was attached to her own, not a few shredded remnants like those she’d already borne, but a whole, much larger and older than her own, and as their souls combined into one it put much strain on her mind and body. She would have to be strong to keep it from overwhelming her, and honestly, Vehx did not expect her to survive it. He knew nothing that could be done to help her. Perhaps a true god, one with the power to manipulate the souls of the dead, could cut it away or ease the transition, but the only god in these parts who might could help would be this Ulm-etha, and he didn’t seem capable. That one seemed to have a foot in the grave already. And when he’s gone, all the stones he rose and shaped from the earth will sink back into the mud they came from, and all his people with them. Those that swim to shore will be apostates, with no place to go to take them in, Vehx thought. They should have tried harder to keep Ulm-etha fed.

Cleric Guadan paced around the hut a few times, dragging his club foot, then knelt on the bare stones and pressed his forehead and palms to the floor. Vehx could just hear his lips moving, uttering a private prayer to Ulm-etha through the basalt. As always when a mortal prayed, Vehx felt a vibration of faith pouring off of him, resonating through the True World behind the vale of the mundane, rocking him as it passed. The kettha’s mouth began to water, and his muzzle opened to pant without him meaning for it too, the stupid beast interpreting the prayer as food close at hand. Vehx felt a longing, wishing he could slip free of his bonds for just a moment and soak in that genuine faith, which would sustain him far more than the fresh meat he ate to fulfill his sendra ban. But it would seem the prayer would go wasted. Ulm-etha did not stir. Whatever has locked him away from his followers did a damn fine job of it.

After a time, Guadan rose, looking no better than before. He went and knelt at Ylla’s side, checking her temperature, then stood and went forth into the rain, following after Tokaa.

As soon as he was sure Guadan wasn’t coming right back, Vehx moved. First he called upon his power and uncoupled himself from his physical aspect, transforming the kettha’s body into a glimmering golden ghost of drifting particles. Insubstantial, he floated out of the his nest of blankets without disturbing it, and alighted on Ylla’s softly rising chest. Returning to his regular form, he crouched and hissed at her face, digging his claws into the blanket so she would feel them. The unconscious girl paid no attention to his sudden weight, nor his hisses and clawing. As he tried to think of what to do, the idiot kettha decided to turn itself in a number of circles, as though smoothing down the tall grass, then wrap up in a ball on top of her. At least I’ll be comfortable.

This was the first time Vehx had been alone with Ylla since her foolish capturing of Metthat’s soul during the sacrifice ritual. When Ylla had absorbed the sacrifice, it had strained the material membrane, the True Realm scraping across its surface. Thunder had boomed and light intensified, and afterward the ignorant villagers had even attributed the sudden storm to the fainted girl. Though none of the villagers had a godseye to see what she’d done, it had been obvious something had happened, and cleric Iettaw had taken charge, placing the child under watch, with orders given out to find her guardian and take him into custody as well. Within an hour, it had become obvious that Isaand Laeson was not anywhere within the village, and the people had begun to mutter their fears and suspicions, believing the strangers somehow responsible for all their troubles. There is nothing these fishermen can do to threaten us, but Isaand may not be able to bring himself to unleash me upon them, Vehx thought. Though he was quick enough to leap into a querulous argument, Isaand had a squeamishness when it came to true conflict, and he’d always kept Vehx’s power held in reserve. A waste. He has to know I will not be his slave forever.

Frustrated, Vehx climbed back to his feet and stepped closer to Ylla’s face, where her shallow breaths brushed his whiskers. Using his path, he batted at her cheeks and lips, trying to provoke a response.

“Wake up, girl. I am bored from all this lying about. Get up, and we’ll go find Isaand and leave this place before that cleric works up the courage to gut you.”

Ylla did not respond, any more than she had from the cleric’s poking and prodding. Her soul is in flux. Maybe I can do something about that.

Vehx spread his paws wide, digging his weight into her as though preparing for a pounce, and with all his might willed his power down, into her body. He could feel his True self straining against the chains of Szet, a sensation like pins and needles boring into his soul. Her soul was right there, inches away, and yet he could not reach her, bound as he was.

The pins and needles grew sharper, and were soon replaced by knives and spear-heads. The kettha began to shriek, a shrill animal sound of distress, but Vehx gritted his teeth and ignored the pain. He was a timeless being; he’d lived more pain and suffering than a million humans. He would not be held back by a little agony. He could feel the kettha’s heart beating wildly, the blood rushing through his veins, adrenaline and fear flooding into his muscles, driving him to run, to hide, to bare his fangs and claws. He shut off that pointless impulse, straining harder. His true power, a boundless core of burning energy like an inner sun, was expanding, stretching the curse of Szet wrapped around it. He felt eyes on him, drawn from all over the world, gods and goddesses perking up like beasts at the sound of a predator’s howl. The water on his fur began to turn to steam, and his legs gave out, dropping him in a heap on Ylla’s chest.

Szet’s chains held strong.

“What does it matter?” Vehx asked aloud, though only Ylla could hear him. “You’re not worth the bother. It’d be better for us all if you just died. Get yourself churned up and be born some happier place.”

The kettha was exhausted. In its limited mind, it did not know what had happened, though it seemed to think some kind of battle had been won. After all, such a lowly creature counted any battle it survived as a victory, knowing nothing of pride or principle. Vehx lay still, letting the beast’s mind become quiescent as its body slept. Vehx himself was always conscious, though the sensation of sleep was not unpleasant. With his senses shut away, he was left drifting in an empty void, with only his own thoughts for company. At times, he found it relaxing.

A sharp sensation interrupted his rest, and he perked up. A connection, gone slight by the distance between them, had flickered back into place, somewhere to the southwest. Isaand was coming back. Finally.

Vehx willed his body to wake, and ran across the floor to the flap of hide at the entrance. As he tried to cross it, he once more felt the sharp pain from before, and his muscles ceased to move, leaving him lying limp on the smooth stones. Damn it, I’m going to Isaand. He’s right over there. He’s my master and I’m going to see if he needs anything.

There was a bit of a twinge in his muscles, as if Szet’s miracle was considering his point. Then he found himself able to move again, though there was still a bit of discomfort and sluggishness. Sighing, he sprinted out into the rain.

With the fires all extinguished and the stars and moon obscured by dark clouds, the village was all black stone and shadows, shiny and sleek with water. The lake that swept out in every direction was as clear as ever, but where the rain hit the surface it was churning, turned murky with the constant influx of unblessed water. Fortunately kettha could see quite well in the dimness, so Vehx dashed down the main path, shivering from the cold. Even if he couldn’t see, he could feel Isaand’s proximity.

Down at the docks, a boat was pulling up with two figures bundled onto it. Isaand’s tall form bounded out, slipping immediately on the wet stone and going down hard on one knee. Shakily, he got back to his feet and offered a hand down to the woman in the boat, rather a silly gesture considering how he’d just fallen. The woman took it anyway and he pulled her up.

“It’s about time you got back,” Vehx snarled. Isaand jumped, though the woman did not respond at all, except at his reaction. Isaand scanned around, and Vehx shifted momentarily into his insubstantial form, letting its golden glow illuminate him on the ground.

“Vehx! It’s good that you’re here, we need your help,” Isaand said. He knelt lower and began emphatically explaining what had happened, how he’d joined up with another heretical lector and fought with the other sendra and blah blah blah. He acts as though he needs me to understand, to consent to his orders. Even now, he hates to think of himself as a slaver.

“Where’s Ylla?” he finally asked, blinking around at the darkness as though the girl might be lurking behind him.

“Unconscious. Possibly dying,” Vehx said, relishing the way Isaand’s eyes went wide at his words. “Though I suppose if she does you can always just raise her again, though she might be a bit worse for wear-”

“You were supposed to be watching her,” Isaand said. His words hit Vehx like a physical force, the link between them transforming his anger into a mental strike that knocked all the thoughts out of Vehx’s head. He felt as though a heavy weight were pushing down on him, slowly grinding his bones together, but he did his best to show no discomfort.

“I cannot protect the pup from herself. She did something very stupid.”

Isaand got the story out of him quickly enough, though he had to pause to explain things to the woman Ratha. With a casual order, Vehx was given the requirement to speak to her as well.

“Isaand, Guadan is a kind man… but he is obedient as well,” Ratha said. “If we leave Ylla here, he’ll sacrifice her for sure.”

“Then we’ll take her,” Isaand said, looking uncertain. “Though… I’m not sure where would be safe. If the Lsetha attacks while we’re in the boat…”

“That’s why we came back for Vehx, right?” Ratha said, eyeing him with interest. Vehx sensed none of Isaand’s trepidation from her. She looked at him like a useful tool.

“Yes, of course. Let’s get her and go then. It would seem we’ve overstayed our welcome in this village already,” Isaand said. Vehx wasn’t listening to him. The kettha’s ears had perked up, the sound of bare feet slapping on wet rock-

“Traveler Isaand Laeson!” a voice boomed out from the rock above. Vehx turned, and lightning flashed, showing the silhouttes of a dozen fishermen blocking the path to the village, about fifty feet back. Each one of them had a long spear or several small spears to hand, and they were brandishing them in what they seemed to think was a war-like fashion. Of course, they’d have someone watching.

“That is I,” Isaand said cheerily. “Who asks?”

“Cleric Iettaw has sent us to confront you about your suspicious activity. You’re to surrender your belongings and consent to have your hands bound and your mouth gagged, to be brought before the cleric,” the fisherman shouted.

“That sounds unpleasant. Should I refuse?”

“Then your body will be given to mother Maesa,” the fisherman answered, and each of them hefted their spears.

Part Two: Chapter Fourteen

Heretic Part Two Chapter 12

Heretic

Part Two

Chapter 12

The sound of the rain on the surface of the lake was a churning cacophony, constant and droning. Every so often thunder roared overhead, still distant but getting closer, and the flash of lightning would fill the little hut through spaces between the stone walls.

Ratha lay back on a pile of blankets Isaand had gathered from this hut and the one next to it. The quickening miracle and a rush of adrenaline had kept Ratha from feeling much pain during the fight, but once it was over her expression turned to agony and she was clearly having trouble staying conscious, her body trembling and covered in a light coating of sweat. Isaand spoke soothing words, telling her she would be fine and that she could lie back and relax or sleep. Szet’s miracle flowed through his hands and into her body, numbing the area around the wound, and when the pain vanished Ratha’s eyes rolled back in her head and she passed out.

The Lsetha’s fangs had driven the fabric of Ratha’s clothes into her wound, so Isaand found a pair of shears and cut the skirt and short-trousers away. With the storm come upon them the hut was dark except for flashes of lightning, so he worked by feel more than sight. The bite was wider than a human’s head, stretching from high on her thigh to just above her hip. Blood was flowing in steady pulses, so he balled up a blanket and pushed it down hard over the wound. Ratha moaned in pain at that, and he shook her with one hand, trying to wake her.

“You have to tell me to heal you, Ratha,” Isaand hissed, speaking in whisper as if the Lsetha didn’t know where they were. “I can’t help unless you agree… I… it’s Szet, my god’s, rules, I want to help you, please agree, I don’t want you to die.”

“Heal…” Ratha muttered, barely audible above the rain. “Please… Isaand…”

“I will. Go to sleep now.”

The golden-green glow of Szet’s miracles filled the hut, shining wetly off the stones of the walls, the fish-bone charms hanging from the ceiling, the little round obelisk set in the middle of the floor, amongst the ashes of the fire-pit. Isaand tried to focus on the healing, but he kept feeling his eye drawn back to the door of the hut, imagining that at any moment the Lsetha would burst through it and drag them both into the lake. The tension made his spine feel like a bar of iron, strained and about to break. But Ratha’s wound stopped bleeding and began to knit back together. The rain kept falling, and the serpent made no appearance.

Afterward, he managed to get a fire started. He found clothes in a wicker basket beside the door, so he tore a skirt into strips and boiled them in water to use as bandages. Ratha muttered and groaned as he dressed her wounds, but did not wake. Finally he let out a sigh of relief and exhaustion as he covered her in blankets.

He huddled close to the fire, shivering, his hands and feet half-numb. Despite the fight and all the energy spent healing Ratha, he didn’t feel as tired as he had the day before, after he’d healed Tokaa. He could feel a slow and steady pulse within his chest, beating in time with his heart, as strength flowed into him from outside. Szet told me true, then, he thought. When he focused, he thought he could detect where the strength was coming from, to the west in the direction of the village where he’d left Ylla.

Too nervous to sit still, he went to the hide covering of the hut and lifted a few inches, to peer outside. The rain was falling steadily, so all he could see was a grim gray curtain of falling water and a couple of distant shadows, islands across the lake. He lifted his hood and rushed out briefly, snatching up the large spear Ratha had been using. It made him feel better to have a weapon at hand, even if he wasn’t practiced at using it.

Time seemed to drag as he paced around the hut, fourteen small steps in a short circle, over and over. Each time he passed the door he peered outside, but there was nothing to see. The Lsetha could be twenty feet past, just beneath that cliff, feasting on Hahmn’s corpse.

He wasn’t sure whether he should harbor any hope for the brave heretic. Hahmn had seemed somewhat meek, perhaps a bit dim, if affable, but his impression of the man had changed when he’d put himself forward as a shield to Isaand and Ratha. He’d faced the monstrous Sendra with courage and conviction, and paid for it dearly. Isaand wanted to believe that his goddess’ miracles would give him some protection, some way to survive, but last he’d seen the Lsetha’s fangs had been driven deep into his flesh, his whole head within its gullet. And he’d been pulled underwater. In his holy pool back on his hermit’s island Awla may have been able to fill Hahmn’s lungs with air, but Isaand did not expect she could do the same here, in a lake claimed by another goddess.

All the pacing was tiring him out, so Isaand went back to sit by Ratha’s side. He flicked the blankets aside to check on her wound, making sure it wasn’t bleeding anymore. The scar on her stomach caught his eye, white and faded, but with a slight rise of scar-tissue still showing, he guessed it was perhaps three or four years old. Seen up close, the scar looked suspiciously like a knife wound. He replaced the blankets, hiding her scars from sight, but he couldn’t help but think on it.

Her hair pooled halfway out of the blankets, and the wooden medallion she wore was tangled in it, pushed up against her ear. He plucked it out and laid it over the top of the blankets, out of the way. The wood was roughly carved, a flat circle inscribed with a rune of sharp sweeping lines. The writing was familiar. As a bard, he’d learned tales and legends of dozens of people, and had dabbled in many languages. Memories turned in his head as he inspected it, and it fell into place all at once.

The language of the First World. Sometimes called the God-tongue, it was a dead language, no longer spoken by any people on the earth. From time to time though a god would let slip a word or phrase to their clerics, who would dutifully make note of them. There were scholars who gathered the words from all around the world, but only a few thousand words were known, not enough for a true language. The tongue had been spoken by the first men, people of the world built by the gods when the idea of a mortal race created to worship them was fresh.

“It mean’s Sixth World.” Isaand jumped, Ratha’s weary voice startling him.

“You’re awake- how are you feeling?”

“Kinda… weak. Like I’ve been sick for a few days. Doesn’t hurt much though. Just kind of aches a bit.” Ratha blinked slowly, turning her head to look towards the hut’s door. “How come the Lsetha hasn’t killed us all yet?”

“I don’t know. It took Hahmn, but maybe he’s still fighting it. His goddess grant him strength.” The prayer felt strange on Isaand’s tongue. It had been a long time since he’d had the desire to call on any god’s blessing but his own.

“Maybe. Tougher than he looks. You too. A lot tougher.”

“All I did was get knocked down and pull you inside.”

“You healed me, like Tokaa. I’d be dead otherwise. Thanks.” Her smile lit up the room.

“Thank Szet.” Isaand said it lightly, but the name of his god seemed to cast a shadow across her. She turned away, her smile vanishing.

“No, Isaand. Your god may have supplied the power, but he doesn’t care about me. You chose to heal me. You’re the one who gets my thanks.”

Being Szet’s chosen representative, Isaand felt he had to defend him. “I know how you feel, I really do. After I caught the plague, I hated all the gods, for letting the world be this way. But Szet is truly different. He-”

“He doesn’t care, Isaand. Maybe he cares a little about you, maybe he’d feel the same for me if I served him. But only a little, for as short a time as we last, but in five hundred years will he even remember we ever lived? I don’t blame him. How can any of them care about us? We’re so small, we die so easily, and if they choose to, they can wipe us all away and make new ones, just like that. Maybe if you keep a dog for a few years you can grow fond of it, but sooner or later it’ll die, you’ll be sad, and then you’ll move on. We’re less than dogs to them. I don’t hate the gods, Isaand, but I’ll never love them, and I’ll never serve them either. This world was a mistake. They should have left it be, let us get by on our own. At least then we’d have a chance to make something of it.”

“Is that what it means on that pendant? The Sixth World?”

“It’s an idea. Not a new world, made by gods for their own amusement. A world made by men and women, not through miracles but from thought, from belief. A world for us. The idea is to let the gods be gods and people be people. We take what they give us, and we give back what is required of us, enough to keep them satisfied so they don’t turn their wrath on us. But worship? Deference? Respect? What god deserves such a thing?” Ratha blew out a breath and leaned her head back, eyes closed. She seemed weary from her speech. “I told you Isaand. You’re not the only heretic in this parts.”

“I take it you didn’t come up with this idea on your own?” Isaand asked.

“I met them in Merasca, back when I was working with my uncle, learning the merchant’s trade. A couple passing through, husband and wife. Apostates, mistrusted by the local townsfolk, but my uncle liked them well enough. Merchants don’t make a fortune by buying and selling in one place. Travelers are necessary for trade, even if it means traveling out of the lands of your god. Merchants learn not to judge apostates too hard, if they want to do business. I was fascinated by them. There was something different about them. They seemed like they were lighter, unbound, more free. Happy. The people of the lake are happy, because life is easy and the land is beautiful, but there’s only so many times you can swim or fish in the lake. Boredom sets in. There is a whole world out there, but how can they ever see it? Their gods are here.

These two seemed happy though. People spat at them or closed their doors on them, and they just smiled and kept walking, looking at everything with bright eyes, because what they were seeing was new. You… you reminded me of them, a bit. When I first saw you.”

“I did?” Isaand was startled. He thought back to his arrival to the lake, riding the ferry with Ylla and Vehx, teaching her about gods and the world at large. The sun had been warm, he remembered, the lake clean and beautiful. He supposed he had been happy, for a moment. But then the Lsetha had come and nearly killed a man. Always beneath the beauty, death and horror awaits. Gods, why did you make this world so?

“I talked with them all night, drinking. They must have sensed something in me, because after a few hours they started letting things slip. Little heresies, things that would frighten any god-fearing soul away or provoke a curse. When I only responded in kind, they confessed all. They were part of a movement out of Kelylla. The Cousinhood of Free Souls, a fellowship that dared to say what we all know. That the world is broken, and the gods are in no rush to fix it. So they’d do it themselves. Little by little.”

“You went to Kelylla? Joined up?”

“Yeah. I’d never been farther from the lake than Merasca, but they helped me. I used to be angry all the time, and I didn’t know why, but they taught me there was another way to look at things. To see the flaws and accept them, rather than rage impotently against them. There’s a kind of grace in understanding just how fucked up life really is, y’know?”

Isaand thought of his tribesman dying slowly, one-by-one, alone and abandoned. He thought of the little girl being marched at spear-point to a stream, to murder her so that her sickly blood would flow downstream and kill a lot of other people their god told them they should hate. He thought of the bloodstained altar back in the lake village, surrounded by smiling people going about their lives, eyes averted to what it meant. Most of all, he thought of Szet’s words in a dark cave, curling around him, confirming everything he’d come to believe. Promising change.

“I know.”

“You should come with me, when this is all over, back to Kelylla. I can introduce you to them. You serve a god, I know, but we all do. That’s not a choice. It’s a shackle, that’s all. The Free have learned how to bear its weight. They can help you too. I know they’d want to meet you.” There was a pleading in Ratha’s eyes, worse than the pain he’d seen earlier, when she was bleeding out on the rocky floor. Isaand wanted to wipe it away, to tell her yes. But-

“You will see it,” Szet had told him, speaking of the new world he longed for, the same one Ratha longed for. “You will make it.”

“I’m not sure that would be wise, Ratha. I understand your feelings. I sympathize. But I’ve found a different path. A different way to bear that weight.”

The pleading in her eyes vanished, just as he’d wished, but anger flashed there instead. “Bear it? It looks to me as if you’ve merely resigned yourself to it. You wear your slave’s collar with pride. How can you live that way?”

Isaand’s bones creaked as he stood slowly, muscles stretching with a pleasant pain. His feet were numb now, so he used the spear as a crutch as he moved towards the door. “One day at a time. Until my task is done.” Until Szet’s will is done.

“This day is not over yet,” Ratha muttered, fatigue slurring her words.

“No, and we still have work to do as well. Rest. When you’re stronger, we’ll go back to the village. I’ll retrieve my Sendra. Without Hahmn, we’ll need him to face the Lsetha.”

The rain soaked into Isaand’s clothes and skin when he stepped outside, and he began to shiver.

Part Two: Chapter Thirteen